Jump #60something redux: Tsukihime

[Tsukihime redux]

Drawbacks: Dying Dream, Familiar, Shiki Syndrome, A Humble Servant, The Seed of Murder, Hunger, Trails of Blood, A Promise Forgotten, The Chair, My Word Is My Bond, Recollections of Alaya, Jumper, Lord of Jackassery, Welcome HomeX2 [spoiler]Sacchin[/spoiler] (3200)

Alchemist, age 16

Magic Circuits (Free)
Origin: Mollusk (Free)
Clear Mind (Free)
All Within My Calculations (Free)
Heir of JUMPER (3000)
Artificer (2700)
Mind of God (2400)
Brunestud (1800)
The Moon’s Shadow (Free)
Exceptional and Lucky (1200)
Living Antibody (600)
My Friends and Me (500):
-Elodie: Wandering Magus, Sensei (Free), Redshift Jumper (Free), Simple Is Best (500), I'm Gonna Kick You (300), Magic Gunner (0)
-Grail: Alchemist (Free), ALl Within My Calculations (Free), Adorkable (500), Heir of JUMPER (300), Thought Acceleration (200), Precision and Memory (0)
Canon Companions: Ciel, Akiha, Sion, Arcuied (0)
Alarm Clock (Free)
Closet of Uniforms (Free)

Everything was nice. That was the worst part, while I was cheering Elodie at the opera or even teasing Fenrir for being a huge furry. I had to look for the faults in the world, find excuses to avoid my friends. Remember some of them were still lost in the Demiplane of Dread.

The foosteps that followed me were clunky but measured. Here and there, a glimpse of red coat.

Blue dress.

The gleam of a knife.

Past the school, out to a moonlit courtyard to face an azure throne draped with chains. The moon's so bright here. Out of the shadow of the throne, comes my own desecrated corpse, like a dead seal infested by sea worms. It doesn't attack. It doesn't need to. The mere sight of Nyarlathotep stride-lurching towards me, warping the air and darkness with it's infernal keening, is enough to freeze me in my tracks.

The moon is making me an offer. The moon wants me to claim the throne. The moon is annoyed something stole the imago it was going to use, and that something else simply broke into my head. The moon asks in return that I face death.

This isn't a choice. But...I ask the moon if that's all it asks for. The moon is laughing.

I don't cry out. I promise the moon, that if it screws me on this. I'll make it regret everything.

And as I sit on the throne, I stare Death right in her rainbow eyes. But that's wrong. Red on blue isn't a rainbow. It can't be.

And then I woke up.

(Cont'd)

They told me later that Tohno Shiki flatlined eight hours before I woke. Something about his eyes rejecting his body. I wondered how much of the terror I'd felt had been mine, and my hands still trembled.

That damned throne. That SMUG piece of furniture. Irrational as it was, every time I sat down for dinner with my new sister or went to class the hatred inside of me only grew. Every day in school, I was forced to endure those four spindly legs. The grating of butt on polished surface. The hollow mockery of support for my poor back. I couldn't take it any longer, something had to be done.

It was easier than thinking about Ravenloft.

I already skipped school on the regular, without my grades dropping. I avoided everyone. I sat alone in my room and cranked the emo music up until nobody could hear the sound of my scheming. Efficieny, security and knowledge-in that order, those were my only priorities. I was more of a recluse than I ever was in my first life, and believe me-that was really saying something.

When Ciel was saying things like "Where did you learn so much about alchemy? Is that a thing that can happen to people in comas?". I was busy plundering the Avalons of alternate worlds for energy. I could still hear the moon's voice as on a gibbous or full night, or in that castle. It whispered all kinds of ideas for how I might condense that energy. Use it to give life.

When Akiha was asking "Oniichan, why do we have so many bills for particle accelerator equipment and how are we paying for them?". I was only glad she hadn't noticed the defensive nexus of threashold spells I'd evoked were impossible by the standards of Magecraft. The power of the genius loci invocation was much greater than I'd expected, sometimes it felt like a whole planet was watching over us.

When Arcuied was repeatedly smacking me the face, and dragging me out of an IKEA shop I'd wrecked while screaming about how I was going to make all those chairs GET DOWN WITH THE SICKNESS, I said absolutely nothing about how I had gradually transmuted important parts of myself into tentacular quantum computers by awakening my Origin. And that grappling me out of the house was giving me valuable data.

I tried to overlook that anyway. Arcueid was a good friend. On the day we'd met, I had broken into Arcueid's apartment and sliced all her chairs into kindling after being driven into a killing frenzy by her furniture. She was very understanding about it, and told me I could make it up to her by helping her kill vampires at night. Also she was an ancient fairy, but not the iron fearing kind. That was pretty cool but not overly relevant to my chair grudge, so I just went along with and didn't ask too many questions. You tend to be pretty good at the whole vampire killing thing when you can bottle and release sunlight, so after a while Arc had to ask me to hang back when she wanted an actual fight out of our romps.

It was Gar who eventually caught me alone in my room, singing along incorrectly to Evanescence.

"So, are you going to tell me what you're building in the basement and why the basement is...at least as big as an olympic stadium?" she asked.

Because it NEVER WAS AND NEVER WILL BE! HAVE YOU NO SHAME, DON'T YOU SEAT ME I screamed, while beating a chair with another chair until both shattered.

She stared at me, mumbled something about coping mechanisms and shut the door.

The Zero Chair Plan was proceeding as planned.














Things got complicated at the end of the year. Nightmares launched themselves at our front yard, and found themselves at the mercy of the elements. Arc kept asking why something called the Counter Force was actively defending our porch. The hell was a Counter Force? It sounded like an elite accountancy firm, I'd learned a lot about the world for the sake of my plan and I figured our insurance covered Acts of Demon God.

Then there was a smart rapping at the door, and a bedraggled alchemist flung herself in. As we treated her wounds, she said apart from the current unpleasantness her superiors' allies were looking for the property of a magus called Gray. The handsome and dashing mystery thief had left ectoplasm on the floor; a careless but inevitable error when time was of the essence.

Fortunately, nobody here seemed to know what ectoplasm was and it had evaporated.

While everyone was hunkering down and trying to decide which order to kill everything in, I made my excuses and left to the basement. There, ECLIPSE loomed menacingly above me: A cold, blue materialisation of the planet. Around it, the Millenium Castle Brunestrud hung in perpetual grandeur. Above it, the sky opened up into the Nevernever, where more than an entire planet's worth of spiritual dimensions gently sagged as it funneled magical energy into the alternate dimension. And everywhere were the tentacles. Again and again, on the hour every hour I had assumed my draconic aspect only to shed it as parasitic familiars in the style of a certain local magus family I'd discovered in my research, which had fallen on hard times.

No, not parasites. Symbiotes. Careless of me to even dream of daring so little. They-no, my new body-was so much more ambitious, endlessly evolving and growing, the larger segments covering the wall like crystalline veins or marble roots while the smaller ones burst from soul-cysts like writhing maggots. Here and there, nodules of my pseudo-spiritron flesh formed carefully calibrated portals to Avalons. Some in this world, some in others. All of whom were lending me their immense magical energy-almost too readily I thought, as if the world was eager for me to drink down my due. But that would be silly, planets didn't have opinions.

As my smallest nanites started drawing the summoning circles and necromantic energies swirled around the tentacles in the walls, I wondered what a Servant summoning system designed by Heinrich Kemmeler would look like.

Five minutes later, a blonde man in a cape poofed into existence, bound in a ring of soulfire. "You must be the nexus of eldritch fear I felt! Wait, is this the Millenium Castle Brunestud? Why is it covered in tentacles? WHAT IS HAPPENING?"

I was a bit taken aback. I was expecting absolute terror, not this pale fop. I started rambling about HERMES, and Gaia, and this kooky guy Zepia's research into the Sixth which I'd found useful.

"Well, as it happens I am the legendary alchemist Zepia" he declared. "But that means, you must have absorbed the Crimson Moon's essence AND reached an accord with the Counter Force! And that's impossible!"

While I tried to figure out how to end this nightmare, I tried to explain myself to this strange man. Dimly, I realised he looked somewhat startled by the lengths I'd striven for the complete erasure of chairs on a conceptual level. He was right, I should have felt something. Anything about the fact that after performing the right calculations and awakening my Origin, I had concluded that converting my divine biomass into a sort of siphonophore-phylactery was the optimal step to making my fantasies a law of nature.

But all I felt, was a quiet sort of pride that those dastardly chairs couldn't possibly survive what I had planned.

I started rambling about my concerns, possibly from having no social contact for almost a year. My research into the greater fairies of old. My need for a stabilising agent, to become one without the flaws inherent in them. My extrauniversal alchemic formulae for transformation into a True Ancestor; Truth hadn't said anything about /fairy/ transmutation after all.

The man looked like he didn't know whether to laugh or cry, and then asked if he could do anything to help. Somewhere above, the pounding at the boundary stopped.

The others found me with my arms wrapped around Zepia's stomach, squeezing him frantically as his spiritual presence filled the room with a red mist. Occasionally, strange women popped into existence around us.

A crazy Arcuied with gold on red eyes. (Zepia wept, and thrashed so hard one of his shoes flew off. The other exploded, when he kicked the ground)

A tanned woman who dressed like an Egyptian. (Zepia let out a terrific bellow, pissing himself mightily from the effort)

A blonde midget Arcuied with cat ears. (Zepia blacked out, fading between man form and smokey malignant information form until I doused him with cold water)

An albino woman carrying some sort of violin shaped shield-spear. (Zepia screeched something about that "LOATHSOME CATHOLIC MADWOMAN" being a relief to eject)

All of them looked extremely confused, while the young alchemist was making a strained choking noise.

Push! I shouted. Push, you beautiful blonde bastard! If everything you've told me is correct, then you are a bountiful treasure trove of amazing young women, and limitless fear-driven potential!

"UGH! UGGGGGH, IT HURTS!" he howled, doubling over. "It's so much harder without a source of fear! I mean, I guess the stunned surprise of all those young women and uh, wolf and snake, watching us is an acceptable substitute but it's really not quite the same nyaaaaaAAAAAARGH oh I see you're brute forcing the issue with magical energy from leylines, quite an ingenious idea if I say so mySAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH" he cried out, kicking wildly as we wrestled on the floor. Next to us, a whole platoon of robo-maids popped into existence.

No. No, don't you chicken out on me! Losers drown in their failure, WINNERS PUSH WAIFUS OUT EVERY HOLE THEY GOT. You are a shining pioneer for the light of enlightenment, and you've got to do your best with those wife-bearing fog-hips of yours if you're to get your equation while I get my revenge on all chairs!

So do it for humanity! Do it for science! And most of all, DO IT TO MAKE YOUR CAT SUCCUBUS-DAUGHTER PROUD!

"I'm trying! I'm trying, damn you, you varyingly attractive dimensional anomaly! Has anyone ever told you you look significantly more handsome when in female form? It's making me really uncomfortable, AAAAAAAAARGH!"

...okay, maybe you're right. Should we slow down? Rest for the night?

"No! No you're right, we've got to keep going! We've only got tonight, to save the world! We gotta double down! DOUBLE DOWN, I say!" he roared, biting his lip so hard blood was all over his chin.

There was a gentle thud as Ciel fainted, possibly a little startled by the fact that I was dry humping a Dead Apostle Ancestor like a furious squid wrapping itself around fatty tuna. The latest cat midget was smug and grey. Like a clam, I thought.

Hel pushed her way through the crowd. "O-okay time out, I-I-I don't quite know why you're doing those things with that man while your clothes are both on" she babbled, trying to look away. "B-but if y-you're trying to summon all these people, can I just use my god powers to extract them from the sins of humanity? This is painful to watch. Please?".

"Wait, you're a goddess?" asked Arcuied.

"Um. Yes?"

"Neat! Congratulations on not dying out!" she said, holding out a high five.

"I...didn't know we had, but I'll take the compliment!"

"Hey, I'm technically a god too. Can I get a high five too?" asked Jormy, who had taken cat-shota form out of solidarity. And he too, got a high five. Fenrir was just staring at the Eye of Magnus orbiting the world-soul to nourish it with magicka, a mix of confused hunger and caution warring within as he tried to decide whether or not it was the edible kind of moon.

After some thought I agreed that would be a good idea, if she didn't mind demolishing the house we were in. And so the Night of Wallachia's labour pains continued on and on through the night, victim after victim popping out, some of whom were men. Finally he ran out of energy and couldn't muster any more strength, and to everyone else's relief Arcuied announced she just remembered that this whole thing could be solved if she summoned a magic red moon. Or something. I had more pressing chair-related concerns on my mind, like a humboldt squid preparing to encircle it's prey.

"I've got a score to settle with this...man" declared the white haired woman. I thought to myself, Roastbeef can't be a real name. Is it her gamer handle?

"I don't mind" admitted Zepia. "I've lived a long, hopefully worthwhile life. And I see now that this...talented young man has come closer than I ever will to my goal"

I still don't understand this whole Sixth business. But it sounds like a lot of what I was going for anyway, so I'll do my best!

"Excellent! Though" he frowned "I should warn you. Something took away...call it 30% of my total power. It's inexplicable really, I took one of the strongest nightmares from you, tried to give it form and it just. Broke out of my control effortlessly! Extraordinary, not even the catholic sociopath could do that"

I froze.

I had a very, very good idea what that nightmare would have been.

It didn't make any sense, it didn't make any logic but what about it's kind ever did?

My eyes widened, my fists trembled. No. No, I had to be wrong. Just focus on the work.

"What even was your goal?" asked Sion, the alchemist.

He smiled, exhausted but proud. Like any new mother. "...ah, I sense that you are one of my descendants. Come, come closer. Just in case, would you mind carrying on my legacy as one of the Dead Apostle Ances-"

"That's heresy" said the albino woman whose name sounded like Roast Beef. My stomach rumbled, like a cuttlefish trembling in it's underwater lair.

"Actually" volunteered the Egyptian woman, "I hold the ultimate cure in all of alchemy, perhaps our...creator can pass on his essence safely with it?"

"Um" said Sion, in the tone of someone who had just seen an ancestor they hate given birth many, many times.

"Then it's settled" she declared. "Your body will safeguard the existence of TATARI, leaving me free to save humanity by destroying it"

Everyone gave her a weird look, including the midget catgirls. Arcuied cracked her knuckles. "Would you...like to explain further?". Zepia just grumbled about how he wasn't getting younger.

"I have calculated that the human race is doomed in every conceivable future. The only way it can exist is as a record in my philosopher's stone computing system, which is internal. As a regrettable side effect, the world will be sealed in fantasy". My friends and family traded confused stares, while preparing to rush her all at once.

Wait a second. I told her, that won't work. That won't work at all.

"It is natural for the living to not understand, that life is but a fleeting-"

No, no. I mean that it won't work because of the Ultimate One in South America! It'll just break your supercomputer when it's time to end the world, haven't you heard of it?

"The...what?"

I told her about the Ultimate One waiting to beckon it's bretheren to cleanse the planet of humanity's corruption. It's a funny thing, when I woke up I had a massive blank over what Dead Apostles were, yet I vaguely remembered many things about Dead Apostle Ancestors, especially those considered very isolated from human civilisation. Uncanny really, I put it down to brain damage. But the important thing was that there was an apocalyptic space monster prepared to destroy the world, and with no interest in reading anything written on a bunch of rocks.

Come to think of it, I didn't know why the moon was talking to me either. I just knew it...was.

Sion and Ciel looked surprised I knew about the thing, but confirmed what I said was true with a couple case files.

The woman opened her mouth. She closed it. She went cross eyed. She let out the beginnings of a scream that devolved into a choking noise. She very gently planted her face into her hands, and started crying. Everyone felt really awkward, and looked away.

"As defeatist and melodramatic as you're being, you also possess unparalleled knowledge of alchemy. Would you just get in your past self already?" asked Zepia. "Mmmkay" groaned the sobbing woman, wordlessly handing Sion some sort of red crystal thing.

And so, as I planted the Dawnbreaker in his chest Zepia Eltnam Oberon passed on his mantle to that strange egytophile, who in turn flowed mistily into Sion. The other entities also survived Roa. They looked as astonished as anyone else. I looked up at ECLIPSE and noted down the phenomena for future reference.

I hired them all as sub-maids, and dominion over them was given unto the existing maids. And lo, all our rooms and stuff was swept cleaner than eve-

"Wait! You've ignore me for the last time Tohno-kun!" yelled a pretty brunette girl in a schoolgirl uniform, who'd been among the last to poof into existence. "I am Satsuki Yumizuka, and I command your respect!"

I sighed. People were wandering upstairs to get hot drinks, leaving me with Hisui. Or possibly Kohaku, I never really got to tell the maids apart because we mainly interacted by them throwing sacrifical chairs into my room so I'd be calm enough to have dinner on a bad day.

I just wanted to go to my room and recalibrate the pseudo-spiritron capacitors. No, I said, you demand my attention. But if you insist, I can offer you a month's salary in advance. Don't spend it all at once, ya hear?

"What?! NO, Tohno I'm not your maid! You can't seriously expect me to...! Hey! Hey, get back here! You are walking away from a perfectly good opportunity to fight me and my friends in a sequential sequence of duels to the death! DON'T IGNORE ME AGAIN! I'll, I'll be REALLY ANNOYED!"

"Aw, forget about that" said one of the midget cat Arcuieds. "Ya know, all that nasty fear mist dissipating's made me realise there's more important things in life than blindly carrying out an impulse to drink the blood of the living"

"And what could THAT be?! I remember dying! Don't you remember dying!?"

"Really, really nice maid outfits" said the Arcuied who no longer seemed to have anger management issues.









There were many, many questions asked about my little basement project. At the end of the day, nobody knew what to do with it, only I understood all the working parts, and Sion found herself almost as fascinated by it as my gleaming abs. She later admitted it might have been the influence of the Dust of Osiris, who she also complained about staining her name by growing up to be a massive chuuni. But make no mistake, she was a godsend-the formula for that aqua vitae crystal turned out to be just the reagent I needed.

Ciel said the Church would probably go ballistic if they found out about it, while Arcuied was deeply confused why the planet wasn't going ballistic about it. In the end, everyone agreed it was a better outlet for me than destroying chairs. The fools. If only they knew the glory, THE WONDER I would unleash upon this world once I finsihed seducing the last secrets of alchemy out of Sion, like a giant pacific octopus inking all over an unwary diver's face. The tentacles of my intellect quivered with cephalopodesque whimsy, as did my literal tentacles.

Oh yes, had I mentioned that by now I had transfered the majority of my soul into a pile of tentacles? Vessels with all the raw power of a top class hormunculus, each with the specialisation of a mystic code; I'd found a rather interesting idea from a magus clan called the Matou which I'd improved upon with higher order magical energy and my own divine biomass.

I was so consumed by the project, that at the time it honestly hadn't occured to me anyone would find this strange, but people seemed concerned enough about the basement I decided not to make them worry. I'd run the simulations after all. Just enough of my soul remained in my human body to go through the motions. Like the shipworm, at this point the majority of my biomass extended around and below ECLIPSE, and the numerous functions programmed into my tendrils could combine to create devices like PERUN (I briefly wondered if using Boltzman Brain-type extelligences to monitor weather patterns was a little excessive) and MAXWELL (The planet had such an interesting history, it was a shame it took siphoning the Heart of Lorkhan to get a good look at it).

(By the way, the capital letters didn't mean anything. I just found out later that for some reason important things in this world got all-caps names, and thought it looked neat)

One fine day many, many months later as I was putting the finishing touches on the True Ancestor equations, there was a hammering at the door. "I'll get it" announced Blaze, only to be knocked out down by a furious young man with a shock of white hair.

"At last!" he cackled, "After more than an entire decade I'm free! Free to take my revenge on you, Shiki Tohno, for stealing my life! I would have come here sooner you know, but SOMEONE" and I noticed he looked really, really tired then, "cursed this damned hovel so anyone coming near it with kiling intent would be turned into a pumpkin! Or spatially isolated to the local church! Or chased away by angry demon spirits screaming I HONOR MY LORD BY DESTROYING YOU!" he shrieked, staggering against the doorframe.

Something seemed to dawn on him, his expression changing to one of mounting horror as he realised how complex the spells he'd barely survived were. "And uh...if one of you is a Magician can I just say I'm really, really sorry about trespassing? I MUST TAKE VENGEANCE but I realise I have been extremely disrespectful as a guest, please excuse the interruption while I choke my imposter turncoat of a childhood friend to death"

...I'm sorry, who are you?

"Oh no, not again" groaned Akiha. "Anon, don't you dare take this strange man back to your c-creepy tentacle computer dungeon. If I have to make the maids clean up after home invaders giving birth all over the basement again, I'm going to be very disappointed in you"

"And nobody wants that to happen" said Elodie, giving me a meaningful "I know you've been performing Rayshifting experiments, Anon" look I had the grace to be embarrassed by. The man in the doorway looked confused, but started waving a whip made of blood around. It looked extremely unhygienic.

"That sounds disgust-I mean, ENOUGH! I don't, well, I'm not here to judge you! But I AM here to kill you Tohno, so prepare yourself! I have the power of a Dead Apostle Ancestor within me! Beyond that, my speed, strength, endurance and demon blood far outclass your assassin training and Mystic Eyes of Death Perception!"

My god. What kind of power is that? How can he even think he surpasses it?! This is bad!!!

Arcuied's eyes widened. "You don't mean-you think our Tohno has the legendary eyes of Balor? Anon, he thinks you can-"

-manipulate and control the concept of depths with sight alone!

He thinks I could could turn a puddle into an ocean! Or vice versa!

"What? No, who would want-"

He thinks, he thinks I could make the Sunday Funnies into the next great American novel! I threw my newspaper on the ground, just in case. Behind me I dimly heard one of the maids drop something with a clatter.

"No, that's not. How would that even. Tohno don't fuck with me!" shouted the man. "You know damn well those aren't what the eyes do! Stalling for time won't save you!". Arcueid, who was much more familiar with my brain problems, had simply gone back to reading the news while hoping the problem solved itself.

Well, what do they do?! I demanded.

"Just. STOP MAKING FUN OF ME!" he screamed, as Roasty Beefy hoisted up her cello menacingly and Sion called the police. Or the Mage Asociation. "You can't have forgotten that! You can't tell me, you don't even remember you have the power to kiARGHARGHARGHOW" he said, as Fenrir ate him alive from behind.

As he unstuck his snout from the door, Fenrir choked. "Hey, thith guy hath a really thticky soul" he complained with his just barely full. "Itth tryingth to ethcapeth!"

Oh, shit. Hey I've got an idea, there's a fairy glade about two miles east and three miles down from here, portal you over to take a drink?

"Thankth, bro". Some of the others snickered, but the Shiki household had long grown accustomed to my eccentricities. Like telling them the talking wolf, cat-snake and goddess were my siblings.

As I left, Arcuied said "Wait. He said he had the power of a Dead Apostle Ancestor, but he didn't look like any of them he knew. Unless...there was one I knew, who could reincarnate endlessly."

"Endlessly?" On reflex, Ciel suddenly held her butter knife in a killing posture. "Arc, we've had are differences but I need you to tell me everything you know about that monster as soon as you can"

Arc's eyes widened. "So you know Roa too. Do you think that other invader, was his latest...?"

We all stared at each other for a while, me feeling very confused and left out of the conversation. "Naaaaaah, what are the odds?" said Arcuied. "I'm sure we'll catch him someday but. I mean, c'mon"

The conversation stuck with me longer than everyone probably thought it did. It was true, I had freely thrown away my humanity because being a pile of wriggly deific mollusk computer parts served my best interests, then seamlessly proceded to deceive my new family about it, then ignored my existing family's pleas about how this practice was "self destructive" and "insane" and "not physically possible".

But that was no excuse for my poor manners.

I resolved to talk to Ms. Aoko about finding my feet in life. I'd met Ms. Aoko while smashing up a furniture store infested by Dead Apostles, and we'd quickly bonded over our mutual talents for destructive spellcraft. She seemed wary of telling me too much about the nature of her magic, so we mostly stuck to bitching over school, siblings and the godawful screeching that was baby metal. Right now, there was only one pressing matter of business before the Zero Chair Plan would become more or less self-sustaining until I retrieved the catalyst I needed to actually enact it.

So it was at the dead of midnight, that I snuck down to finish the True Ancestor transmutation. Steeped in lyrium, throbbing with the energy of a nascent world sustained by an endless supply of sacrificed fantasies, divine energy and further refined by Sion's research rustled, the inner world surpassing an ordinary Reality Marble growing within myself had expanded my mass of tentacles for miles in every direction under the Earth-the furthest tips even breaching into the Reverse Side of the World, where I occasionally tickled confused dragons. There was a new addition in a ritual circle: The rememnants of the holy spear Rhongomyniad, ready for it's final duty.

Sometimes, I imagined I was actively penetrating the Earth, all the time, and that explained my strange affinity for drawing on the natural world for power. Which was silly, even though my unified vital fluid was, if you looked at it a certain way, a source of life and-no. No, that's just silly. It was just math, and preserverance, and the unending partition-acceleration of my own genius. It wasn't like the planet was actually rooting for me or anything, surely.

The world-soul hummed, and deep underground the earth trembled like a heaving womb. Deep in a compartment, the remnants of Rhongomyniad flared golden and crumbled, the last vestiges of it's Mystery sacrificed in order to transmute it's status as an anchor into a superior form. The spear flashed gold, and was carried away by a flood of aqua vitae converging on my new prone form. My new body burst from the earth: Smooth, perfectly pale skin, the streamlined musculature of a Greek statue, crimson eyes and blonde hair. Still somewhat malleable, though; by my calculations my human soul would sculpt it lightly with it's own imago.

And assuming dragon form, my human shell burst into a flood of tendril-worms. As I crawled into the True Ancestor body-refining it, purifying it, connecting it to the network and subsuming it with my other forms.  Only then did I look deep inside where the voice of the moon once touched me, which looked back and said one simple word:

Now!

Dread knowledge filled me then, of what I was truly becoming. Of the horror it promised to the world. Of the triumph it would ignite in the monsters living in it's dark corners-

-and I smiled, because when it got to the part about Gaia I real I realised that for once, I wasn't the only one being shaped by forces beyond mortal ken. There would be no conquest of the Earth, all because I wanted something different so badly and because the Earth had been nudging me in this direction all along.

The moon's voice dimmed, shouting questions about what I'd done to us both.

And only then was Crimson Moon Brunestud reborn. Not as he had once been. Not as the protectorate Gaia had once intended him to be. But a system of records perfected in the image of the tower at the end of the world. An eternal terminal to paradise itself, I burst from the walls in triumph in a storm of writhing glory. Surging with golden light, my tendrils lashed out and impaled the Millennium Castle, forever tethering it to the network. Then the globe too rose, and dispersed into the castle. A storm of phantasmal images played out as conceptual worlds rose and fell, seathing from the raw mana at my disposal: The castle walls of Camelot, an garden overlooked by a crimson moon, a white wasteland cracked before the pillar of light that tethered it to the void. I could feel the crashing of waves in my very soul, threatening to sweep away all to the end of the world.

And that is why I was late for class the next day. Apotheosis was like staying up all night in an Overwatch tournament.

My mind and body were limp and ragged as a beached nautilus, no matter how many times Akiha beat me with a pillow.








How do you do it? I asked Aoko, many seasons later.

She grinned, biting into an apple. "By doing it, instead of thinking about it. Not caring what other people think of you doesn't mean you should lock yourself away from the world. I'm just honest with myself, and when you can do that with a straight face? You've got all the courage you'll ever need to take on the world"

Well, I'd settle for just being myself in a crowd.

(I never came close to telling her everything I did. The glamours left me only human to multiple levels of perception. But the kind of questions she'd ask when we hung out...I always got the feeling she knew I was up to something. And that it hurt her a little she didn't know how to confront me about it, and so she tried not to think about it).

"Well, I can't say I like crowds either. Too much talking, not enough listening"

Ugh, you can say that again. I'm not even trying to be on the student council, and everyone acts like I'm already there.

"Maybe you should join, then? This might amaze you, but being a people person isn't something you can learn all alone in a room"

Yeah, because what this school needs right now is a traumatised idiot savant managing the school festivals.

"It's a leader thing. If you look like you know what you're doing, most people act like you do. Just let it happen! It's gotten me out of trouble before!"

Heh. So, kinda like magic.

"Yeah". She smiled at nothing. "Yeah, I never did tell you what the greatest magic trick I know of is, did I?"

I don't think so?

"Well, you're not even a proper magus right? Just some weird tricks in your bloodline, you said" she said carefully, eyeing me. "I guess you've come a long way. So I'll put on a little show"

She pointed the air, and an all too faimilar magical railgun appeared in her hand. But this one-it was like comparing the sun to the moon. The light had an awful, hungry quality and the World rippled around it, as if in /pain/. And the blast itself went so far up I couldn't see it end, like it was drawing on more energy than could ever exist in anyone's finger, like it was coming from...

And then, I had a revelation. I couldn't think of any other way to describe it. One minute I had no idea what I saw. The next, my records included an analysis of-

"Magic Blue" she whispered. "The Lord of Creation's legacy to us humans. That which fells order, and advances civilisation"

I said nothing, but I knew. I knew so much more about that dreadful Fifth True Magic, and I realised, if I tried I could-no. No, if it was nearly as dangerous as I thought it was Aoko would never forgive herself for revealing a secret this terrible. I made my excuses, told her I had to get back to class early. I saw something in her eyes watching me go. Not anger, or even alarm. Just resignation, like she was watching me jump off a cliff.

But...she also called out to remind me we were still on for brunch this weekend. I let out a breath I didn't even realise I was holding. It meant more than I thought.

"Tohno-kun" said Ciel at the sword gym where we kendo-fenced, "I can't help but notice I grazed you pretty good back there, but your bruise disappeared so quickly, it seemes to never have existed. Now, I know you've been doing strange things in your basement but...is there something you want to tell me, while you still can?"

Oh, there was no hiding it. Who was I kidding? I had already been put in detention for hacking every chair in my classroom to ashes with my lightsaber, I was in enough trouble already.

I shuffled my shoes. I...may have transformed into an Ultimate Lifeform last night. I still don't quite know how, the moon told me to. And then I went even further beyond. I'm sorry, sempai. It's easier to beg forgiveness than ask permission, you know how it is.

She put her hands on her hips. "Okay, and what KIND of Ultimate Lifeform are we talking about here?" she said in the tone of a stern teacher.

Um. A. A...hybrid of moon monster, earth fairy and alchemy computer with bits of Avalon? And spear?

She took a deep breath. And then her knees wobbled, as she sought somewhere to sit down. We found out the soul Fenrir ate had escaped later and tried to possess her, but there was a way to suppress it. The problem was, that method made it very hard for the poor girl to walk properly. She kept saying if she got any looser, she'd need something inside all the time to hold the spillage.

It was not a subtle come-on. There was more to the story she wasn't telling me, but there was very visible hurt on her face when she talked about it. Over the years I'd become a good friend-and a better lover-to many of the women in my household, but I was well aware I wasn't exactly the kind of shoulder you wanted to cry on for something sensitive. That didn't stop me from trying to cheer her up, I was trying to think of how to change the subject.

"Well, I! I am going to tell Arcuied about this when we get home!" she declared. "Also, please can you carry to my next period? I need to sit on a bag of ice"

On the way home, we found a greying man made of chaos beasts fighting Jormungandr. While being sat and dribbled venom on. Arcuied was yelling at him to get clear so she could get a clean shot. The Beef of Roasts and Sion were doing something complicated with their weapons. Elodie was being carried away by a chaos mud falcon.

And Ciel was swearing like a sailor, wobbling to her feet and waving around the pile bunker she'd carried everywhere ever since our first home invasion. Along with many other weapons.

The moon whispered something in my ear. I yelled for everyone to get clear and had to hold Ciel back; Arcuied must have seen something in my eye because she pulled the others aside with a gust of wind. The man himself turned and his eyes widened-but quickly narrowed, like one predator eyeing up another

"Lord Brunestud! I am Nero Chaos, a peer to your first child from after your time. So, you have finally achieved reincarnation. As a natural philosopher, I would be honored with the tale of your resurrection. Also, why did you dye a streak of your hair black?"

...because I like it that way? I self consciously fiddled with my hair, was it that noticeable?

What's all this, then? Why are you attacking my home?

"So, these chattels are yours. I warn you, my plans are too far advanced even for such as you to interfere. The chaos in my body has been transmuted into another world, beyond which even you cannot-"

Hold that thought. Hey Arc, this is one of those Dead Apostle Ancestor guys you're fighting right?

"Yep. Also, we need to talk. I'd know that blonde hair anywhere" She folded her arms, and tossed her own blonde hair behind her head.

I sighed, and said the words the moon had whispered to me that night: Alt Nagel. And a bolt of wind so powerful it knocked us all prone with a thunderclap sent the man soaring into the stratosphere like a bottle rocket, drips of chaos spattering the ground.

"...okay that was. Even more powerful than I thought, and a really big help! But you have to listen to me. That thing posessing you's a monster. It'll consume you, with a neverending desire to destroy mankind! Why would you do this to yourself, anon?"

I knew a conversation like this was coming. We'd come close, but I'd also prevaricated while trying to think of how I'd explain myself. Well here and now Aoko-sempai was right, it was time to stop thinking and start doing.

You're right about one thing, Arc. I didn't want really this, I know that much. Even if I can't feel it right now.

Sometimes I feel like I'm a soldier without an army. I don't make war, I lay waste and exterminate. When I give myself a mission, I see it through if it takes everything I've got to give and a little more. All my life, I've been haunted by forces too powerful for me to contro. I just...wanted to get some illusion of control. Some security, for all of us! Can you understand that? Having such a terrible hate inside of you it consumes you, consumes EVERYTHING until you're just a vessel for that sheer unrelenting outrage at the world.

(Letting out a gasp, I realise just how long I've been holding it all in)

And yet, you have to control it. Direct it into something useful. Something that can be MORE than the sum of everything broken in you, because....because you need something worth fighting for when the fighting is over.

"Tohno, I...you idiot" She swept me into a hug. Ciel was sniffling into a tissue.Sion openly wept into Roast's beefy sleeves. "I don't even know how this could happen, but if you were really that creature. You wouldn't have thought any of that. Felt it, even. I know you're still in there, and that means we can work through this. Together."

"Hey, I'm really glad you guys are making some of breakthrough" said Jormungand, "but I think I can see that wolf guy thing coming down. Maybe one of you guys should do something about him?"

Arcuied smiled. "Well, if Tohno-kun's really in control of that power? This...should be fun to watch. Ahem: I believe the Crimson Moon was armed with a Knight Liner called the Real of the World?"

My eyes widen. The moon echoes those words in me like a lover's heartbeat, and as the man comes screaming down I reach for the earth. Like a miracle, dirt and air flew together to form a black blade with an edge so keen as to be invisible to mortal eyes, gently fraying nearby air molecules. The air around me compresses and broils suddenly; I feel another power trying to surface, but timing is crucial.

And with one mighty cleave, the air RENDS and that man-that chaos-is splattered across the park.

The air almost howls in pain; instinctively, I raise my hand to restore it. The Marble Phantasm is like a clam shutting it's shell, guarding over the injury but fearful it let in something that could hurt it.

Around us, behind us, the beasts turned on us in a frenzy. But all of them were prepared for a fight. Jormungrand drowned a dragon in his venom. Arcuied tore a pack of wolves apart. Beefy's strange weapon created a dome some lions simply couldn't pass, while a giant robot appeared behind Sion duel wielding copies of that one gun I stole that blasted them to pieces. Even reeling from her...soreness, Ciel still had excellent aim with her Black Keys; some crocodiles died quickly. And having fashioned the falcon into a makeshift parasail, Elodie had started firing blades of light into the elk herds fleeing our assault.

"E-Enough! I must! I have to! Survive! SOIL OF GENESIS"

What we thought was a retreat formed first the shape of that man, then a hulking white monster. Maybe because we'd killed more than a hundred beasts already, it had huge gouges in it's ribs and skull. In a way, that made it scarier. And half of it turned into a black tide that whipped out, and seized my whole body.

"To think such as you would have allies!" he gasped, a dozen maws chewing at me "I won't lie, you're the worst possible opponant on this whole planet barring the spider and that dog. Even now, I can see your immortality's on a whole different level to our Curse of Restoration. HOWEVER, that also means you're just what I need to stabilise this chaos within me!"

He laughed, like the mad and the damned. Of which he was both. "My maker, come unto me! Strike me down all you like, my destiny is to bridge the heavens and earth. Before you die, tell me one thing: Why fight this? Did you not crave survival above all else? This is immortality! This is eternity!"

And as the words leave his lips, I am ripped free by a wind of my own design. A mile away, searching for my opening. Soil of Genesis...like the primordial chaos of antiquity? I enjoy the raw, overwhelming power of the Counter Force (which the moon had also briefed me on in seconds, holy shit) thundering through my body and soul, as I come to a swift conclusion. Wisely, the others have put some distance between us.

I strike so quickly, an audible thunderclap sends flattens him. And I swing Real of the World like a katana, gouging upwards, ripping the very fabric of space assunder while Nero thrashes and bays for blood. But I don't stop there. Another swing, and another, not cleaving at him anymore but the ground below. And the blackness of cleaved space gives way to the boiling magma of the primordial Earth.

And after all, a fake can never surpass the original.

What's left of his humanity burns. He tries to say something, spits out lava, then his face dissolved. The animals struggle, then go still. And with the wave of a hand, I hurled my will into the wound in the World; igneous rock, then basalt, then sediment, and finally grass so pristine it seemed somehow lusher than it used to be. Even then he fights, sluggishly, his face holding itself together through sheer force of will.

Right as the rock closed over him, I told him why.

Because I like it this way.

And then, either Nero Chaos died or he was made one with the Earth.

Whatever happened, I felt the Earth's fierce approval.

Behind me, there was a quicker struggle. Senses the humans had no words for detected another soul trying to incarnate through the remaining chaos.

A man with long, dark hair lay on the ground, Arcuied stepping on his testicles while Ciel held the bunker to his head. He seemed to be missing his ankles. "Would you like to do the honors?" she asked Arc. "Nah, your weapon is better. Give him hell, or nirvana I suppose. He deserves either"

...Ciel, this is just a wild hunch but does that guy have anything to do with what sounds a lot like the spiritual possesion I've been helping you with?

"Yes but. Tohno, please stop talking" mumbled Ciel.

"You're the one who delayed my reincarnation? Who dares stand before the Serpent of Aaaaaaaha" demanded the man, as he looked up at me. "Oh. Oh, shit"

Hey, don't make me come over there and suppress you inside of Ciel's ass again!

"TOHNO! NO!" shrieked a mortified Ciel.

"Lord Brunestud, I would never-wait. Did. You. Just. Say. You've been suppressing me inside of my host's ASS?" shrieked the vampire. "How? That's not even how it works! And WHY?! How, what, you, b-but she poops from there!"

Not right now she doesn't, I said as Ciel tried to cover my mouth.

"TOHNO YOU BULLY"

"Wait a minute" said Elodie, her eyes glazing over in horror. "I remember now, this one's the reincarnator vampire lord isn't he? Which means. When Anon was...suppressing...him, he was inside of her. Which means. He was...kind of...ahahaha..." she trailed off, trying to comprehend the sheer depravity I was willing to sink to when I was underconfident of killing a concept.

"NO! NO, NO, NO, NO, NO, NO, NO, NO, NO, NO, NO WHY, WHY, WHY, WHY, THIS CAN'T BE HAPPENING" he screamed, desperately clutching for his trousers. "Don't think about it. Don't think about it. Don't think. Don't. Just don't. No, no, it's all gone wrong, I just wanted to see Arcueid again and..."

I stared at Arc. She met my eyes. Then she started laughing. She had never laughed so hard, in all the time I'd known her.

"Unsanctioned! Unwholesome! Oh dear God in heaven please just kill me, kill me right right now. The Crimson Moon has discovered the joys of sodomy! We're all doomed. DOOMED! MY DEATH WILL BE A MERCY COMPARED TO THE HELL YOU HARLOTS ENDURE IN HIS PRESENCE!" he screamed.

And with a thump, the man crumbled to ash. Ciel shivered, and I couldn't help but notice some sort of spiritual miasma buzzing around her, completely devoid of will but somehow sustaining a concept localised to her body. I tried giving it a nudge with my moon fairy powers, and watched the bulk of it fizzle into Arc's body while the rest-some residue of the creature's prowess, it's odd immortality, and a trove of magical knowledge-slithered back into Ciel as an inert little bubble of information. Like a blue ringed octopus sliding down a drain.

What was that about?

Arc shrugged, with a big smile on her face. "Just ancient history, you wouldn't be interested. Let's go home, eat some tonkatsu and have some clam soup!"

Oh boy! I love tonkatsu and clam soup!










And so we did. It was a great meal, no matter what the increasingly petulant voice of the moon insisted. It was better than blood in every way. We drank, we celebrated our adventures and after half a dozen bottles of beer I noticed we'd been kneeling at a kotatsu. I silently vowed to thank the maids for accomodating my chair autism. When I found a maid, she seemed uneasy for some reason and told me it was the least she could do after all the trouble, and when I tried to ask what trouble she just smiled, telling me it was good to see me out of the basement for a change.

And well...it was. Technically parts of me never left it, but that was immaterial. Already I had unloaded the main energy reactors and a great mass of nonvital metabiomass into the Warehouse for safe storage, the Eye of Magnus included.

But things still felt wrong.

There was another theft from one of the older families of the Mages' Association. Although massacre might have been more accurate; the Einzberns were left decimated, save a handful of maids and the heiress who had yet to be found. Nobody was willing to discuss what was stolen, but Sion's contacts turned up a single word: Grail.

Then the day a disturbance was reported in South America, I saw something on the TV that made me switch the channel. Then Sion started talking about it with Roasty. Something had tried to attack the Spider, and by all signs actually survived. The battle had turned half the Amazon rainforest to crystal, and sunk a chunk of Peru into the sea.

The Church was next. An entire building razed to the ground, the First and Second Buriel Agencies slaughtered to a man by-and here, Ciel's contacts couldn't, or wouldn't explain further. The curving of space. Ranting about a key, and a gate. The painting over of reality by fantasy, and a man who gouged his eyes out because he claimed to have seen proof that God was either dead or a vile, petty creature. Worst of all, the Dead Apostle Ancestor they guarded had been unearthed, partially ressurected and...toyed with. Ripped apart, smeared over the face of a mountain.

As if, I thought, because someone had told it's assailent the creature's power made them invincible.

As if it had been taken as a challenge.

Cities burned. Riots broke out, led by mages with sealing designations upon them screaming about how the coming of the Outer Gods had opened a new gate to Akasha. Portents were seen in America, in Jerusalem, in the skies of Japan. And earthquakes of such magnitude that the Reverse Side of the World was revealed, shook the land.

It's releasing all the Mysteries, I said. Either they'll kill themselves with their own freedom, or it will corrupt them and seal reality in a nightmare made in it's own image.

"What is?" asked Akiha, who had been hitting the demon gym. Which was like gym, except with an exercise routine devised for people with ancient Japanese myths in their ancestry. On the plus side, we weren't blood related so it wasn't incest!

...Nyarlathotep. Even the name made me fight against flinching.

"That's a stupid name. And a mouthful" said Ciel, polishing the weapon she'd brought home from work. It looked a lot like Sion's, but older. Sleeker. And, everything in me that was of the earth and moon screamed, infinitely more terrible. "But my superiors did say it's the one killing all our people or worse, right now we're doing everything in our power to seal it"

"I can't even imagine what would make Atlas and the Clock Tower work with the Church" said Sion, as Girl I Am Pretty Sure Is Not Actually Beef polished Sion's giant golden robot, which was not a metaphor. "But I'm just glad we're in this together"

In this to---?! There were exasporated, endearing looks around the table as once again, I tried to tell everyone that /this was a fight they couldn't win/. They didn't listen. Just because we'd come out on top with a few rotting souls in degraded moon-flesh suddenly everyone I'd known and loved thought they could take on an Outer God. It wasn't even an argument, every time I tried to explain to them in no uncertain terms, why they were basically proposing to go fight an entire universe, they kept reminding me I was the one who'd broken the broken the laws of time and space in my basement.

My god, it's the mana isn't it. I encouraged Sion to make use of her future self's knowledge. I helped Ciel come to terms with inheriting Roa's legacy. And all this time, I've been sticking so much refined magical energy in EVERYONE they're big fish in little ponds, and now they're confusing thinking they can do anything, with being able to actually do it.

Is there, I said, anything I can say to convince you to come run away to another universe with me?

"No" said Arc, from her place by the fire. "You can't seriously think this is the first time something like this has happened. The Foreigners have always been watching us, from beyond all the known worlds. This is just the first time one's come this close to fully incarnating. But Tohno, maybe you should stay here? I know you've had a hard time coming back from everything, but we'll be back before you know it. Trust me!"

Fenrir, help me out here!

"How? Isn't this just like Ragnarok? I'd want to fight too. In fact, I'm going just to see what the fuss is about"

DAMN IT. This isn't a war, this is an inevitability!

"You mean, like the one we escaped?" said Jormungand.

"If someone doesn't do something, the whole world will suffer" said Hel. "It's our-no, my responsibility to see that doesn't happen"

I watch them file out purposefully. Hugs are exchanged. Shoulders are clapped. I could force the issue, but...even now, I don't know if I could; they're all so much stronger than what the World can even comprehend after all our nights together. I take a big swig of whiskey, and gloomily tried to think about the Zero Chair Plan to distract myself.

It was almost finished. To be honest, I'd had everything I needed to complete it for a few years now but it just hadn't seemed as important once I'd gone back out into the world. It's like adrenaline, the chairs were such a sudden rush for me until I had time to find my center.

As I wandered the mansion in a daze, I noticed even Hisui and Kohaku had left to fight. Damned if I know how they were planning to, but they seemed to have taken the maids with them. They were all very powerful after all, they could probably survive long enough to realise the full scope of what they were fighting.

"I thought this was what all this was about. I thought you were building a weapon to use against him" said Elodie.

She'd stayed behind? "Well, yeah! It's a princess' duty to make sure her knight in shining armor doesn't overexert himself and demolish our furniture supply. Again" she joked.

I mumbled something unimportant. Then I told her the simple truth: It was always going to be a shield before a sword. Even before settling my grudge with chairs. I had a reason for everything I did, and that included my relationships. If I staked everything on a weapon alone, it would be from one where the Human Order was stronger.

"But you're the strongest thing on the planet...right? That's gotta count for something"

The moon, not here. But I was a fool, I was so focused on a single goal that to be quite honest, I still didn't fully understand what I was capable of.

"I'll stay with you, if you want. You're not...going to go spare again, right? You looked physically ill at dinner tonight"

I didn't trust myself to say anything to that. I endeavered to communicate by collapsing on the couch, that I couldn't even deal with this right now. Elodie put a blanket on me, and held my hand.

...I asked where they thought they were even going anyway. Nyarlathotep could be anywhere, in the shape of anything.

"Arc didn't tell you? It's a place in England called Aylesbury, Gar's helping set up a portkey over there. Something about a...Dark Six? It's a vampire, but not six vampires according to-"

No.

No no no, how could it know. The keystone to the Zero Chair Plan was lost. I told myself that wasn't important right now, it still hurt, but if it was going after the Dark Six.

Of course, it all made sense if it's first attempt was to awaken an Ultimate One. Arcueid was right. Righter than I dared imagine.

I told Elodie I was going. They'd need me.

"Why? What changed?" she called, trying to keep up. I told her that Nyarlathotep was coming to steal a lynchpin for all the world's mana, and her eyes widened.

A rip in the Nevernever opened up as we fell into the English countryside. It was a hellish waste, like a battlefield from the Second World War. There were dead vampires everywhere, and the World was /crying/ at the damage being rent into it. The sky was bulging and warping into terrible shapes, almost like a grotesque parody of my own experiments. Night-gaunts and Deep Ones roamed the streets. The crackle and discharge of magical energy rang out in the distance; I saw a man in a red coat surrounded by swords leaping towards the tower of burning smoke. And despite the danger all around us, I couldn't feel the Counter Force anywhere.

So much destruction in...30 minutes? It was worse than I thought, I told Elodie, the gradient of time was being skewed against us. Which meant-

My eyes widened. With sheer speed I carried her and myself away in a blink. The Counter Force flowed back into me in a rush. It was as I feared, there was a Singularity around Aylesbury.

"Then how do we stop it?". She touched me on the shoulder. "Anon, this is why you have to tell us things. If I knew what you could do, then we could organize. Figure out how to stop whatever's happening in there"

Regroup. Yes, I could do that much.

By portal and flit, I found the others in minutes. Battered and unconscious, spread out over the battlefield as if hammered by a great gale, but well alive; the battle had gone poorly, but all of them stood ready for a second round. I knew then I'd underestimated them, as much as maybe-just maybe-I underestimated myself. I didn't awaken from that death coma by being cautious, but-first things first.

"Counter Force! Saved us!!" gasped Arc, relaxing as Elodie healed her. "That thing. Interrupted the Valesti, struck, ah, my sister before she could transform, all of them taken off guard. Starting to take over. We fought it, the Ancestors helped, interrupted it's, it's own ritual. Ow. Then it sucked space into itself, and it was over. Wait, Merem. Merem and Blackmore, Ortenrosee's the kind to fight to the death and I don't think the others would have stayed but Merem and Blackmore are...friends. Sort of. You were right, we need all the friends we can get right now" she added urgently.

The voice of the moon-Brunestud, he was called-stirred within me. I'll be right back. Once again I moved like the wind, shivering at the cacophony from who knows how many heroes born of despair fought a horror beyond the stars. Merem was a quadraple amputee who was laughing as his foot-whale-demon trampled a Mi-Go. Blackmore was keeping a corrupted shoggoth pinned with his sky of crows. Both knelt to me on sight, and seemed unsurprised when I whisked us back outside the singularity's range.

"No!" Ciel said, standing despite a broken arm. "No, Tohno listen to me! Arc isn't wrong, but we could hurt that monster. We all felt it weaken. Saw it fall! It beat us, but we didn't know what it was capable of and we rushed in, and it was so concerned it erected that...Reality Marble? But now the Counter Force is here, this is our chance!"

"That's right!" said Sion, leaning on her friend from the Church. "It went after Akiha first, because the second she looked at it, it started to disperse. And it ran when Ciel and I fired our Barrels. It's not invincible!"

Hope doesn't rise in me. Not quite. The idea that even if the Crawling Chaos can be brought low, it would be beyond foolish to underestimate it. But...I accept the logic of the World is too inconsistant for even it to comprehend, and that the Human Order isn't the only force with teeth.

The Singularity is also weakening the Counter Force, isn't it Arc? "Yes, only four Guardians are being deployed. Three have powers I've never seen before, and one wields the Holy Sword but...it's not enough. Ciel, you saw that thing. It's something torn free from the Night of Wallachia, as long as it has mana it can keep going. And with the Dark Six, it can harvest all the mana of the world". Arc's hair lengthened, her teeth bared, but she shivered. "That Foreigner can kill it. It's already fighting everything Gaia and Alaya can throw at it. You should have been there, Tohno. We could have stood a chance!"

If we had run, this wouldn't be our fight!"

"It's always been our fight! You're the dread lord of the moon, how can you even think of running!?"

Because I'm smarter than that blonde airhead!

"And I resent that remark about a hair color we BOTH have!"

Bah! Walked right into that one!

"Mom? Dad? Please stop fighting" begged Merem. Blackmore-Gransurg, I thought-looked frozen, unable to decide which Crimson Moon to support.

"Fine! Fine, I didn't mean all that, I'm just trying to deal with losing so soon after pulling myself together"

And I was wrong to begin with too, I told her. It wouldn't have stopped here, if we ran. At her words I felt a surge of power running through me. Arc too shuddered.

I looked at them. For the first time this decade I felt something close to calm. It had only just sunk in: The power I'd been mindlessly amassing like a child clinging to a security blanket (...or a humboldt squid to a lost diver), it might just be enough to stand a chance against a single mask of the Black Pharoah. It wasn't merely the Counter Force, I was sure of it, my own calculations were straining to show a future where...! But the Counter Force still urged Arc and me to battle, endlessly supplying us with energy-maybe even just enough to hold onto for long enough if we broke into the Singularity quickly.

"I don't know or care what you're all talking about" said Jormungand, uncoiled to his full length, "but I'm ready for a second round". "Count me in" snorted Fenrir. "I'm fine too, 'tis but a flesh wound!" chimed in Hel.

Then we don't fight it on it's terms, I told them. It thinks itself safe in it's territories, so we'll, hah-bring it out of it's comfort zone. Irony of ironies. And as I told them how we could compensate for it's ever-growing magical energy, I showed them my Eliatrope heritage. The others gawked, some of them mistaking what I did for the Second Magic.

This time, it was only me, my brothers, Blackmore and Arc. "We've a better chance this way!" he shouted over the clamour. "With all due respect my, uh, lords, your divine power over all crushes lesser beings with a touch! Now, none of us will have to hold back!"

And there, at the center of the waste was Nyarlathotep. Wearing my form, the human body of my first life, like a festive mask as living shadows sprouted freely from it to swat the four Counter Guardians. It was bloodied, wounded, buffeted by the maelstrom of eldritch energy spinning above it and the rubbles of a tomb it had demolished. And it was laughing like a merry child, as with a single gesture it created a flood of bent colors around the guardians, blasting them into the earth.

And then, as we fell upon it. The creature looked me right in the eye. It smiled so wide, the World cracked and showed nuclear chaos around it's face.

"So, you finally made it. Then all this is as it SHOULD BE" it whispered, it's voice carrying over the storm of magical energy it had conjured over the first of the vampires' corpse. Gransurg struck first, a hundreds crows mobbing the thousand tentacles the thing's arm exploded into, refusing to die until with a sonic boom Arc kicked hard enough to send it flying. Reaching into nullspace, I ignited and hurled a screaming midget right into it's stupid face.

"Given the way you lived, I feared you would choose an easy death" it continued, amused and relaxed, as the midget tried to burrow into it's skull. "They have coddled you, Jumper. Tempted you with mediocrity. Solace. PEACE"

And despite myself I asked what the hell THAT meant even as Jormungand let fly a jet of godslaying venom, while Hel battered it with a vortex of sin. With the Staff of Magnus in my hands, I tried to disperse the magical energy from it. Weakening it enough for the others to surround, however briefly.

"But still, you struggle. This relieves me. You're so much weaker, in this aeon. No, your fall should be like the fall of mountains!"

Dark hands the size of buildings fell from the sky, from angles we couldn't see. Dodging, weaving, keeping the Crawling Chaos in view-as like in a dream, it sprang from a shadow and tackled me through the ground.

"But I was before mountains. I was in the beginning, and shall be forever! First, and last! The Black Pharoah, who witnesses the Gate and the Key!"

Another portal, and as I flung it into the sky Real of the World left my hand, arcing around to suck it into a howling scar of void. It thrashed, broke free and I fell upon it, slicing faster than the eye could see, while Arc struck it with every thunderbolt that had ever struck the Earth.

He kept laughing. Not even with glee, but like only he understood the joke.

"So now you think to fight and slay me, like a mere god? Who the hell do you think I AM?"

A tide of squamous flesh filled the sky, and the power of Yog-Sothoth fell upon us. Perspective shifted, we all fell into the keyhole that swallowed the world. An awful whiteness around us that nauseated and compressed; desperately I reached with my will until a focus ring broke. And against the odds, a portal opened to Riesbyfe of the Shield Knights wielding the Holy Shield Gamaliel. The ruined land it deployed couldn't stand against pure chaos, but if Nyarlathotep was truly even close to mortal.

"I am no man or planet! I am the herald before which they cannot stand! I am chaos, the primal messenger! And through the chariot of your despair, I am bound for even more!"

Then perhaps. My hopes rose, watching the snarl of geometries begin to lessen. Even as the ruins crumbled and the sunset dim, I knew we would survive; We would strike the moment Riesbyfe finished getting to safety. A memory emerged in my mind: Aoko's favorite concentric Kabbalah railguns. My Marble Phantasm kicked into overdrive, and from rayshifts emerged hundreds of light bands calibrating the acceleration and convergence of the elements.

It wasn't truly Magecraft, it was an artificial Authority simulating it. All that mattered was that with the incineration of my own spirit for Soulfire, the natural disaster I bombarded my enemy with left it buffeted helplessly through the sky. Rocks burned, wind formed blades of liquid nitrogen, water thundered with electricity, fire consumed the spirit-and together, the storm of elements became something more than the sum of it's parts: An act of divine intervention rejecting the invader's very rights to continued existence.

"I was the wind in the darkness before stars, upon my father's lips. Before stories, before history and disparity. And when all's done I will be bound to blow every world across the totality to touch, as my father awakens. And that is the fate I have escaped!"

"I'll show you wind" said Arc, and when I looked at her I barely recognised her. A white dress trimmed with gold and laced with blue fit for a princess fitting her form, long hair sweeping in the wind. Also the moon. The moon above her hands was a dead giveaway, crimson and mobile. Nyarlathotep twisted, but-

-I staggered, the Staff slipping from my grasp-

- a power within me spilled forth and as he floundered I felt Arc reverse the planet's rotation for a heartbeat. And then the moon careened into him, impossibly crushing him as it sailed through the eldritch sky. Quickly I picked it up again, hurrdly stowing it when a keening screech wracked our minds.

I had no time to look back. But I felt Hel break away, giving peace to the Dark Six's remnants as my brothers watched over her, ending the Singularity around the ritual. Gransurg barely kept up as the Archetype Earth and I pressed onwards. Nyarlathotep had already destroyed most of the moon, and still beneath the inchoate storm of inky maws I could see my broken form.

"To such as we the coming and going of man is nothing, is it not? But because you chose not to live like a man, in the end. You shall never find the salvation they do"

But as it broke through the moon, I reached for the reborn power of the World's anchor, Rhongomyniad. Five tentacles converged around my outstretched hand, a swirl of golden light announcing the blinding energy that fastened fantasy to reality. The light bands converged around the shot, and behind me I heard the MIllenium Castle hurtling out of the ground as I brought all my powers to bear.

And for the first time, I saw that Nyarlathotep had no answer. It had come onto this planet a fantasy, and casually transcended men-but that same state of being left it helpless before the World's anchor. This battle had been nothing more than a delaying tactic; the Ultimate One's body bait on a string. The true me had already finished integrating my systems underground, and so simultaneously the land was being reconstructed into one devoid of Nyarlathotep's influence.

It sent him reeling, flailing, impaled him to the countryside and dragged him through a deep gouge the width of a ferry that carved the Earth like a cake. But a bolt of dark fire shot out, and struck me out of the sky. It felt like a hammer weighted with a world. I roose up bleeding and broken as Nyarlathotep hovered before me. At least it no longer looked anything close to human, and in the time it took to see that I was whole again.

The same power I felt stall it rose up once more; I felt it emanating from the trench I'd struck it into, watched it flail and flounder. And in that moment, Arcuied struck it with yet another moon like a bowling ball.

"Here, now, with me is your glory! Who else in the universe can you bear to mark your pasing?" he called, still perfectly audible and jovial.

The World whispered to me, and I opened more portals to the battlefield we'd left behind. A rain of legendary weapons appeared, impaling him even as he spilled for without regard for conservation of mass. Then there was gunfire, and shards of those same weapons ripped him from within, and still his bulbous, writhing mass lifted itself up towards the heavens. At long last, a wave of golden light-greater by far than mine-washed over and through him, and for a moment it seemed like Nyarlathotep was dust. But his laughter still echoed. And we knew he would only reform when he decided to.

"You know, you could come fight me as a peer" he offered. "Why do you limit yourself, to that miserably humanoid form? The Crimson Moon was an arrogant idiot savant, we both know this! In the end, he was even less than the cattle he fed upon because he couldn't survive this world's revulsion! WHY THEN DO YOU PERSIST!"

I blinked. For a moment, I saw dots rippling all over Nyarlathotep. Arc had later told me that the eyes of Balor could impose death with a will, but only on beings to which it applied as a concept. Nyarlathotep was surely beyond it, so what could I possibly be seeing? Entranced, I sent another midget rocketing at one of the biggest points-and Nyarlathotep whipped backwards, pulled to the ground like a hooked fish.

Where Sion and Ciel were waiting, guns in hand. One girl quad-wielding Barrel Replicas, the other with Atlas' original weapon loaded and ready. The scream Nyarlathotep let out as it tasted death was music to my ears, and once more I pinned him to reality with a bolt of golden light.

"You think this a victory?" he rasped, and for the first time his voice held true pain. Lots of it. It was wonderful. "It's true, it would have been hilarious to choke the life from this miserable planet! This impotent, self destructive crybaby" it croaked, struggling to it's feet as the astonished girls fired again, sliding between dimensions so the shot only grazed him-and stumbling as Akiha's glare siphoned the Black Pharoah's newfound mortality, bringing it to it's knees. "sowed the seeds of it's destruction trying to escape it, and doesn't even know it was always futile! It's uncanny, really. As that which humans know as Cthulhu is to mighty Azathoth, so to is doomed Gaia to the Human Order. I think that's what I like about this place, in the end. It's absurd, but it still clings to some delusion of order. The apocalypse is bearing down on it, and it still thinks what Beast S-ehehe, I mean Nero Claudius Caeser Augustus Germanicus had for breakfast is worth more of a damn than either of us are"

"Anyway, this is only one shadow of one mask, and the power of fear still lets me stand up to that DAMNABLE gun, so you must know I have no reason to lie when I say this planet never mattered! In fact, nothing matters so you may as well show everyone your true form before you die alone!"

"And what would you know about dying?" said a woman in a red coat, and a blue skirt behind him. "You who go around kicking over other people's timelines like they're made of sand. Don't wonder why you get burned if you can't resist touching everything new, alright?". A katana sank deep into a single knot of the Outer God's warped flesh, but suddenly the formless horror deflated to the heighth of a man. Scrabbling on what could pass as arms and knees, he looked as surprised as I did. It was Death, standing on booted feet, smiling like a cat with a bowl of cream.

"VOID. This. Is not. Your time" snarled the Crawling Chaos, and for the first time since the battle it moved like a cornered animal. "Humbly wait you turn for my visit, or do you really think the Counter Force will let you stand a chance without your stolen power?"

"I know. I also know what you did next decade. You lost the second you decided to look down on other acausal forces of nature. And let me tell you, he's" she pointed at me "even less amused than I am"

"Then you're here to kill my Noble Phantasms. Or this whole world, hmm? Utterly meaningless, the lot of you! I refuse to die when killed!" roared Nyarlathotep. I could see the Counter Guardians advancing in the distance. Nyarlathotep knew no fear, no scruples but there was no mistaking it's irritation. The certain knowledge it faced a fight it couldn't win.

That would be my cue. Who said anything about doing this alone? Once again, I lifted the Staff of Magnus up high-as a beacon. Above, twilight painted the sky. Below, a ring of feathery darkness etched itself around Nyarlathotep, invisible forces caging him.

"You're late, Nerevarine. I thought you'd never call" said Azura, divine ancestor of the Dunmer, Lady of Dusk and Dawn, and my girlfriend. "Not that I minded. It's been a tiring decade"

"Perhaps this will teach him not to be so reckless with his own life. And who's this, with the sword? She seems familiar" said Nocturne, aspect of the primal void, Mistress of Mystery, and likewise.

"Ahahaha, so the gang's all here?! So what then, make these Barrels' wounds and that demon's gaze permanent, see what I care! All of this is just delaying the inevitable, YOU have no claim over me, and you Daedric ninnies can't even properly manifest on-"

I blinked.

Nyarlathotep's outline was wavering. It said something about a chariot and my fears I hadn't paid attention to very much until now, when I realised just what had happened the night TATARI had visited my household. It was also at that exact moment, that I finally understood the last and most mysterious power bequeathed by the Crimson Moon.

I had to focus for this.

(My mind, the mind of Tohno Shiki, had finally reached fruition)

"-so you can all just fall screaming into nonexistence" Nocturnal rolled her eyes at that "and-hey! Hey, are you listening? What's with all that killing intent, you finally grew a pair?"

You're wrong about them, you know.

I focused on the messenger's posture. How it was propped on four limbs at the moment.

I start walking towards him, Knight Liner in hand. As I do, I begin to fall apart at the seems, tentacles spilling out and reconnecting from below the earth-where miles and miles of spiritron capacitors were actualising the presence of Daedric existence with a memory of love

They're everything you say, but they can be more.

And the damn thing smiled. Somehow. "Yes! YES! You know for a moment there, I really was worried I'd pissed away my one chance to force your hand. But just look at you go! They won't be worth saving, not once you get the hang of. Well, you'll see. By the way, did you know who here killed you in the future?"

It's not about who killed who.

"...what are you talking about? Oh right, the brain problems. They look pretty bad this decade" it said, contriving to look confused while Nocturnal tried to fade it from existence and Azura started cursing when her worst curses just made it burn like plastic.

It's about what you believe in, you...you foldable fuck.

As I continued to unfurl, the ground around me coated in living marble. I towered, pale and luminous, like the hunting display of a vampire squid, a mass of tentacles rising up from the ground-a spear of the planet.

(It's DEPTH has finally become fully visable to me.)

"What did you just call me? You know what, it doesn't matter". Nyarlathotep stopped moving, faced me. "Do what you will, I've already won! In fact, you've already become some sort of god, haven't you? SO SMITE ME, OH MIGHTY SMITER!"

By now the core of my soul was visible, a golden pillar of light. But as Real of the World swung on the tip of a thin tendril like a bullwhip, Nyarlathotep must have only seen darkness next. And the hole I tore in the World, through Nyarlathotep, became one of endless depth, a singularity outside all existence where interaction was impossible. Brunestud, the planet, the energies of Avalon all lent their strength through me and it still wouldn't have been enough. Rhongomyniad's power turned my Soulfire gold, as I cracked a thin tendril holding the Knight Liner like a bullwhip.

And glittering upon it, the 5th Magic. That destroyer of infinities was an unforgiveable curse in the World, but here was the extention of something beyond it. An infinitely infinite time-space continuum's soul and messenger, the ideal fuel for the magic.

I still didn't understand what was going on. I realised I had been played somehow, but here was my chance to make it suck both ways. And as the cold blue light shining on my blade burned with the intensity of a gamma ray burst compressed into a monomolecular edge, Nyarlathotep's taunting dissolved into a drawn out screech of agony.

All along, my mistake had been to engage Nyarlathotep as a cosmic horror. Subconsciously restraining myself, in paralysed horror. From a certain angle it was just...another...stupid...FUCKING.../CHAIR/! AND EVEN IF IT'S A NON-EUCLIDEAN SPRAWL OF ULULATING HORROR, IF IT'S /THAT/ /FURNITURE/ THEN I CAN'T LOSE!

BECAUSE I AM THE ARCHETYPE CELL!

I AM THE LIGHT OF DESTRUCTION!

AND IN THE NAME OF THE MOON I, TOHNO SHIKI, WILL PUNISH YOU!

(With my fully realised Mystic Eyes of Depth Perception, I finally move in for the kill. There is nothing that could possibly stop me)

Dimly, I remembered my father Loki's words. There was always a way beyond all defences...and without interaction, what was chaos?

Still, it clung to the edges of that hole. Bent at impossible angles, like a giant squid in the maw of a whale.

Until my fellow Archetype Arcueid threw one final moon-image that healed the reality rent in it's wake. Before collapsing.

I stared over at my friends, and at the battlefield we had left behind. The daedra had faded outside reality, my reserves exhausted from the strain of that calculated cut. It seemed as though a dozen storms had torn through it, but it was bathed in an unearthly silence now-as though the force of our battle had slain even the destruction left by it's wake. The Counter Guardians were turning to leave, already fading. But the man in the red coat turned back once, to salute me.

We were all tired. In the distance, I could see my friends collapsing from exhaustion. There would be a time for celebration, a time for shared triumphs and healing and...consummation...but as the moonlight spilled across the land and Arc snored gently in the grass, there was one person i absolutely had to talk to.

The woman had simply turned to walk away, like she had a train to catch. Humming a tune under her breath-Singing In The Rain, i realised. As I caught up, I remembered to recall Brunestud's form from my records.

"Oh?" She cocked an eyebrow as I arrived. "Still here, then? I suppose I should be flattered you're running after me instead of your harem. I see you've taken on a new look. Perhaps that squid faced bastard would have won anyway, but for a trivial error. Or...are you here to fight, after all this?"

Wait. Hi. I think I remember you, you were in my dying dream. I'm sorry if this sounds strange but...are you death?

She peered at me. "I suppose I should have expected this. Still too early. Wait, that's it. This really is your first time here, and has always been"

What are you talking about? (My brains raced; I was dimly aware I had made a promise to somebody but couldn't remember who. Surely it wasn't Sacchin, who had taken to leaving passive aggressive notes in my bedroom after she cleaned it).

But uh, I just wanted to know you a little better. Because you...you saved my life, didn't you? You chased me all the way to consciousness, made me face Nyarlathotep long enough to hear the Crimson Moon's offer.

Her gaze lowered. "...who says I did it for you? Maybe we just have a common enemy, and I tracked him all the way here, that's all. Yeah, I was there and you weren't wrong to call me Death. I'm just a lot more too, and you've called me worse"

Well, I do get that a lot. I don't know what your deal is but I can't think you're all bad if you wanted to kill Nyarlathotep too!

"Hah! There was a future where we each both killed people we cared about because that bastard bent time and space to toy with us. It's gone now. So he came back to set things wrong again. And as you can see, it didn't work"

Words fail me.

"Yeah, welcome to the club. Anyway, let's just call it quits here? After the you from the future found out, he told me to get as far away from him as possible. He never said which him, or which direction. Sooooooo, let's just say I came back here  for payback and thought I'd have a look at what you were like when you weren't always thinking about killing someone"

Wow. I must have been disappointing to watch.

She punched me in the arm playfully. "Nah, even a little's more than the old future you ever showed! But still, I never did figure out what Nyarlathotep even hoped to achieve here. He was right on two counts, if he just wanted you gone he could have probably destroyed the planet without all this fuss"

It's a sadist. There is no meaning in what it does, and less in trying to understand it.

"Well, maybe you should. Because the past you I knew? At his point of his timeline, I don't remember him being a fraction as powerful as you are now. I don't know what that means. But I do know, that the second thing Nyarlathotep was right about was that having strayed from the Human Order this history is doomed"

But not today. I've saved who I can, and I'm at peace with that.

"That's more peace than the old you ever found. It would be presumptuous if you said it, but you really are the only thing that matters in this lonely lostbelt..." She looked like she wanted to ask me something else, but then said. "By the way, I was wondering. I know everything, except what you bring from outside these universes. The Planet agreed to help your absurd chair destruction plan, why?"

Oh, that? It's simple really. The Zero Chair Plan could only be accomplished by removing the need for humans to sit down. I needed the Dark Six as a vessel to control and redirect the planet's magical energy, but I was only going to use it by retroactively removing that need in humans. Without it, they wouldn't require chairs either, and because fewer trees would be cut down to make them it would greatly reduce the natural world's destruction. And as a result, all the chairs would be thrown into dumpster fires. Everybody wins!

"But...boats and planes..."

Two words:

Magnetised.

Feet.

The woman called Void Shiki stared at me for many, many seconds.

Then she laughed so hard she fell over. And I started laughing too. It had all seemed so sensible, at the time.

And although she had another universe to get back to, she agreed to come join the celebratory pub crawl with the girls (and bros) before she went home.

Far above us all, a gibbous moon shone. Not as brightly as it could have, but ever present after all the years.

>FIN