*
As sudden as how the conversation started, Yggdrasil stood on her feet from her seat. The other two looked daze, intending to decipher her thoughts.
"Sorry. I've devised a plan but I'll have to leave the rest to you.
I trust in you. Don't fall for the eyes, you need to see to fight. Resistance is futile, bleakness is what you need. Once all is done for, return to where you started." (Yggdrasil)
She carefully enunciated her words with a composed and firm tone that brook no argument. Her smile was gentle but her eyes were hiding an unbelievable fury, they possessed emotion with so much depth that they could captivate and mislead, losing themselves into the pair of jewels. No one ever mentions it, but since becoming a magical girl she had begun to look slightly more alluring. Like a forbidden fruit without knowledge, she seemed innocuous during conversations and kept to herself like a flower in a glass house.
Now, her elegance was on full display. A flower in full bloom after overcoming countless trials. Who knew what she was thinking in that brief silence when their conversation trailed off. Their discussion ended in the conclusion of their own futility, no doubt this might have lead to the silent fury subtly displayed. No words could describe the tension raging in every fibre of her body. Eventually everything must come to an end.
***
What really happened? Lastia felt like opening her eyes after awakening from a long nap. She recalled the contents of their discussion right after the Trace attack that whisked everyone away to another dimension, likely something to do with the concept of mirrors and it had attacked students with mirror images.
Death... That's right. Did she die? Is that why she can no longer see? It was a feeling so intimate, she practically experienced it when she synchronised with Lastia during the battle with The Calamity. The Calamity that took away her beloved master. Was this love? She was born in a hazy state, like an infant child was, gradually learning, gradually taking in information. One day awareness sprouted, just like a human child, she became conscious of her own actions and the world around her.
Many described the state of their infancy as moving on instinct, on auto-pilot, therefore it was reasonable not to retain anything from that time. Because nothing was internalised, nothing was being processed. If we were cameras, no videos or pictures were being taken, only viewed from the lense briefly before switching to another perspective. In that aspect, Yggdrasil was like a human child, the differences that extended beyond physicality was almost minimal. Her mental development was skewed, but it reflected a human's maturation of 17 years compressed into a couple more months.
Not even her creator's death held such an impact, so what was the impetus? Was it humanity's eventuality of an end they cannot avert? Was it the thinning sanity of those dear to her? What was conclusive rather than all these hypotheticals, were the experiences she's trudged through. What did her creator want for her? Was it to prevent the end of humanity like a magical girl should strive towards achieving? To play her role as humanity's defence mechanism against the Traces? Or a hero's role to vanquish the ultimate evil, leaving everyone behind outside of the limelight?
What did she want? Are her desires not obvious? They aren't. Unfortunately, she's taken a path similar to her creator, in that she didn't really know what she wanted. Most wouldn't even consider this state of her's as living. What if she thought outside the box? Consider that she didn't have any one singular wish, but an infinite number of wishes that all have the same priority. Perhaps understanding her own nature led to the almost imperceptible changes in her skill.
{Feed}, broadly it is the manipulation of energy. In the specifics, it has the best reaction to magic energy and even better with niche speciations of magical energy, such as The Observer's life force and The Calamity's fuel source. It has the worst conductivity or conversion rate with kinetic energy, or anything physical. Followed by heat and gravity. The natural forces can largely be considered secondary in terms of priority, she can absorb the aftershocks of an explosion but it's unlikely she can do it before it disects her into numerous pieces.
Limits are physical, and so she chose to go with a great sword as her go to weapon. All to feed the false image of being a physical type magical girl. So what has she been doing now? If she didn't cater to plugging the weaknesses of her physicality, and instead leaned completely into mysticism and the abstract...
~Magical girl Lastia~
*Title correction, true name reveal*
Abyss that seeks digital enlightenment, computational entity Yggdrasil
Back then, her body had vanished as if it was never there. She had always been possessing Lastia's body, forcing it to transform with her magical energy. What if Yggdrasil was the one that transformed this time? She was largely created and developed by Lastia, so she was compatible enough to possess the body without facing rejection, all this to say that their powers are of the same {Feed}. She's a non-corporeal being that can utilise {Feed} upon being born, similar to a Trace which is also born with the inherent ability to wield magic.
Traces evolve upon gaining intelligence, they become Remnants. They grow to B and A grade and gain a name, and further evolving into Fragments pushes them to S grades. When that happens they also become a heavenly king. Can she evolve to suit the situation? Can she spontaneously grow in power? But she was already intelligent, or was it a level of intelligence that's above a child? Was she not utilising what she had been born with?
Computational power, with it she emulated the process of transforming. She turned into a magical girl. She was no longer just a shadowy entity, she was a magical girl with an anchor on reality. Without learning to be human throughout that month and some more, without learning to perceive the reality of humans, this wouldn't have been possible. Magical girls are the self defence mechanism of humanity, by copying the magic gene and the human perspective, she has gained humanity's recognition. Her being became denser, more comprehensive, more incomprehensible and mystical.
Her body vanished from the classroom with that last word of goodbye. Once more, a tree much more enormous than last time sprouts in residential zone 2A. This time it was in the centre of the school buildings, of the entire zone. It spreads its magical roots into the ground without resistance.