I took a moment to just take a breath of the air and take in the beautiful, calming environment around me. As I did so, gazing at the infinite fields of tall grass in all directions, I began to try to remember what had happened.
The last time I ended up here was because I had literally died and was in the process of healing. But this time, the last thing I concretely remembered was entering a final phase of my fight with Misa. We were down in the subway, where I thought the battle was over, but it was at that moment that Misa began to heal. We continued our battle, and everything after that was abruptly cut off.
The only conclusion I could come to was that I had been defeated, or maybe the challenge ended, and the injuries I sustained led me to end up here, or maybe I was just wrong in my assumption that I could only be brought into this dimension by sustaining extreme damage.
Shaking my head, I decided to just make my way towards the castle, where I had met Ariel beforehand.
Despite the fact that this place was a dimension created specifically for me, at least according to Ariel, the castle was the one place that felt unsettling to me. Its walls of paintings and sculptures, all foretelling future scenes of disasters, filled me with a gut-wrenching anxiety and fear that I couldn't dispel.
Stepping through the massive doors, I was once again shocked by the pure scale of everything. The entire thing was like if you remolded a football field to hold museum exhibits, and it was labyrinth-like in its structure, with many different halls and many different exhibits, more than I could ever hope to visit in a single day.
As soon as I stepped through, I realized that it seemed like the museum had also gotten bigger. I saw different exhibits than what I had seen last time—new paintings, new sculptures, and entire new walls.
I even saw new labels, but they fell victim to censorship. Moving through the halls I recognized, I made my way back to the large section, which contained the two paintings that scared me the most.
The first was an insanely beautiful portrait that took up the entire wall. It depicted an image of space, and in the center, a massive supernova that took up nearly the entire frame, a beautiful swirl of vibrant colors that pictured the fiery death of a star. The picture was too large and too beautiful to ever be real. But the most concerning part was what it simplified.
In the future, there would be a disaster that led to the creation of this explosion. Although beautiful, it was also a sign of disaster on the horizon.
When I took a look back down at the podium with the plate that held the piece's name, I noticed that there had been a new addition. A new plaque was added just below the other one.
Along with the piece's name:
Ad Astra et Ultra.
The new plaque at the bottom read, "To draw all the eyes in the universe."
I didn't even want to try to understand what it meant, because trying to understand what anything meant here with the limited information I had and the censorship was simply impossible.
I then turned to face the painting that gave me the most anxiety and gut-wrenching feeling. A singular hyper-realistic image, so well done it may actually have been real. It was of a butterfly hairpin, the exact same one that Kami wore in her hair. It lay on the ground, covered in blood, shining brightly.
Just under the image was a plaque that read:
Liberate tutemet ex inferis.
Save yourself from hell.
Just like all the others, I couldn't tell exactly what it meant, but just the fact that it could have involved something happening to Kami was enough for me to know it was one that I could never let come to pass.
Which meant I had to get my heart back as quickly as possible. No matter what it took.
But it was easier to say that than actually make any progress towards it, especially considering I had made no progress towards that fact. I hadn't found a single clue, nor had I even managed to come across any of the 'tragedies' that Ariel said were most likely to harbor disasters.
Just as I was about to leave, I noticed a new plaque under that painting as well.
"The Remembrance shall ■■■■■■■■■■ all, and deliver ■■■■■■■■■■."
"The Remembrance." I muttered to myself. That word itched my brain, provoking a feeling of something I should be remembering, but it just barely escaped me. That was hurting my mind more than I wanted to admit.
It just didn't make sense that I ended up here, right in the middle of my fight with Misa. Without a doubt, there had to have been something missing, but I couldn't pinpoint it at all.
Still, I tried to stay calm. Just relax, Raiden. Relax. You'll find Ariel, and she'll explain everything. She'll help you out.
I gave those words to myself to hopefully help calm down.
"Yeah, I'll get to Ariel, we'll talk, and these things will start making sense. She'll help me make a plan, and we'll finally start fighting back against those disasters."
A new weird feeling that I couldn't explain rose up inside my chest as I spoke those words, but I didn't mind it and turned into the next hall, which was a newly added one.
A grand hall, the size of a ballroom, that was eerily empty. It only had one singular painting and a flight of stairs that led to the outside.
Standing in front of the one singular exhibit in the room was a woman with beautiful white hair and a black dress. Ariel.
As soon as I stepped into the room, she slowly turned around. Seeing me, she gave a smile.
I took a step forward, stumbling, and she was right there to catch me, somehow having traversed the entire length of the massive room in a single second.
This close together, I could smell a distinct, clear, and refreshing scent, something I can only describe as sniffing the chilly air.
"I guess this is what they mean when they say, 'killer looks.'" Ariel joked as I pushed off of her and back on my feet.
"Don't flatter yourself. I was just jump scared by the witch intruding in my castle." I fired right back.
"Oh, I'm the witch?" Ariel laughed. "And your castle? Just a few weeks ago you didn't even know this place existed, and yet you can act like you own the place?" Her eyes were vibrant with enjoyment.
"Well, you explained it yourself, didn't you? Due to some time shenanigans, I created this place, and my actions cause it to change. That's pretty much as close to ownership as you can get."
I walked past Ariel, who still had a sly smile on her face, and moved on to view the one painting in the room. I gasped as the image came into view, something I recognized.
The painting was of a man standing in the center of a dark void, a million threads of rainbow curved and connecting all around him. The man stood in the center, commanding the ensemble of threads with only a single blade.
This was the man I saw in my vision, the one I had right before Credo's test.
The plaque underneath read,
Weaver of the Cosmic Web.
"You recognize it?" Ariel asked. At some point in my wide-eyed staring, she had made her way over here.
"Before I went under Credo's illusion. I saw him. And those threads. I saw them all. It was in this weird, out-of-body experience. I couldn't feel myself... But then, suddenly, the threads latched onto me. They began to choke me out, and the man said to me, "The Threads of Fate consume us all." I then turned to Ariel. "Why weren't you there? And in Credo's illusion?"
Ariel sighed. "When you get put under illusion magic, the link between me and you gets cut."
I nodded. "You missed a lot, you know."
Ariel nodded. "Won't you tell me?"
I breathed a sigh of relief. It felt comfortable. It felt like I was safe.
It felt like I had someone to vent to.
"Only because I felt like being nice. Next time I'll leave you to figure it out on your own."
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I stood on the balcony of the castle, leaning over the railing while Ariel sat down on the balcony next to me. I blew out a puff of smoke from the cigarette Ariel had somehow managed to conjure for me.
Over the railing, I observed the beautiful and calming world of this mental domain of mind. A field of infinitely tall grass, with a warming breeze blowing through. This castle had a nice view of the endless battlefields.
I had just finished recounting the tale of everything I had been through up until the gap in my memory, which I really wanted to believe wasn't a gap.
Ariel had a moment of silence before she spoke. "Well, that sure is a lot to go over. How about we start from the beginning?"
I perked up as she adjusted on the railing, ready to give her explanation.
"That being you saw. The man who conducted those infinite rainbow threads. I'm sure the possibilities have already come to you. That entity is—"
"Some kind of higher being who controls fate." I finished for her. That was the only reasonable conclusion I could come to after everything I had seen. From the man's cryptic final message and the symbolism behind those vibrant threads, constantly splitting, there was only one thing I could get from that.
Ariel nodded. "Correct. For all your laziness, you're pretty smart. The FateWeaver is what he's called. A neutral being who oversees the infinitely diverging threads of fate of every aspect of humanity."
The scale of that was something beyond my comprehension, but the explanation connected a few dots in my head.
"He's the one behind the censorship."
"Partially, he is. He prevents you from learning anything that would drastically shift the balance of humanity's fate and your fate."
A few questions flashed through my mind, so I decided to ask one at a time. "Why couldn't you tell me about this the first time?"
"The censorship has only just been removed right now. Probably because the Fateweaver showed himself to you first. You had already learned about him at the right time, so there was no need for censorship."
What I got from that was, the more I learned about higher beings and my fate, the less censorship there would be. But that was easier said than done.
Ariel tilted her head before speaking some words. "Remembrance. Destruction. Apathy." She then smiled. "Looks like the censorship has been removed for a lot of other things as well. Which is odd, because you didn't describe meeting any of them."
She was right. If my meeting and learning about new things meant there was less censorship, then I shouldn't have been able to learn about new stuff unless I had experienced something involving it, and—
That would mean I experienced something and forgot it.
My memory had been tampered with. It was frustrating. For the second time my memory had been altered without my permission, and it was leaving a massive hole in this whole puzzle, which was confusing enough as it is.
"Calm down, Raiden." Ariel pushed herself off of the railing. She then leaned down until our faces were nearly touching. Closer. And closer.
I took a step back. "J-just what are you doing? N-now's not the time."
Ariel giggled at my flustered reaction. "Relax. It's not that." She leaned in close until both of our foreheads touched. She closed her eyes and softly hummed as she focused. She then opened her eyes and began to whisper to me.
"I can sense it. Traces of a higher being who tampered with you. I could sense it before as well, but I couldn't pinpoint which one it was. But now I have. The Remembrance. The cause for your memory loss was The Remembrance. And judging by the traces, there's been a lot of it."
I swallowed. I couldn't believe that my mind was being messed with, and not once, but multiple times, all without my knowledge. It made me feel naked, as if at any moment one of these higher beings could just hijack my mind and free will. I didn't feel like my own person.
Suppressing those feelings of dread, I handled one thing at a time. "What is the Remembrance?"
Ariel took a moment before pulling away from me and facing the blazing sun. "This is a lot. Considering some of the censorship is gone, how about I explain everything? You should take a seat."
I don't know when, but a chair had materialized behind me, so I sat down.
"First. Higher beings, like humans, have split into factions. There are many of these factions, but they all come from the same reason." Ariel held a bunch of stones in her hands, and she segregated them on the railing into different groups.
"All of the higher beings had different visions for the universe and humanity. Different wills that they wanted to oppose. Those wills conflicted, and so like-minded gods gathered together, hoping that the strength in numbers would give them the power to impose whatever will they wanted. For a few examples of the most powerful ones—"
She pointed to the first cluster of stones. "The Destruction. They believe that the birth of every entity in the universe was a mistake. They view all of it as a smite on the perfect order of the cosmos, and thus they seek to bring everything to its end in a fiery destruction that returns all to which it once came."
My eyes widen at the drastic scale of what I had just heard. "Seek to end the universe?" For some reason, that goal and the word destruction rang a faint bell in my mind, probably locked behind my hidden memories.
"The next is a faction comprised of only one higher being, but they arguably may be one of the most powerful. The Balance. They seek to maintain natural order. The balance of nature. This faction is so powerful because they exist on earth. They were born on the planet, meaning they were always at their full power, without having to limit themselves."
The breath left my body. A singular god, at full power, lying dormant somewhere on the planet? It really put into picture how little I really knew about the world.
Ariel then pointed to an empty spot on the rail. "Then there is the Remembrance. A memetic faction. Instead of being gods in the regular sense, they were born from the very moment the universe was. They were born from memories, and they catalog the memories of the entire universe. They're a mysterious faction, and I know nothing of their goals. They intervene wherever they see fit, for reasons unknown."
That sent a chill down my spine. "Memetic... That means they're formed from an idea, rather than having a physical form?"
Ariel nodded. "It's what makes them such a wild card. They cannot ever be defeated in battle nor in a test of the mind. But they are also limited in their intervention, only being able to act through memories. It means, in a way, they're stuck in the past, future, and present, all at once."
My brain stopped trying to understand what kind of temporal effect that might have.
"Next, there is the Rapture. A faction that believes anything where joy can be found should happen. They're an odd faction, and despite them being together, all of their goals are different. Their only uniting factor is that they're a bunch of nutjobs with sadistic senses of what 'joy' and 'humor' are."
Ariel finally pointed to one last stone. A singular stone, all alone. "Finally, there is the Apathy. A singular god. It finds no purpose in any existence. No purpose in death, no purpose in birth, no purpose in life. No purpose anywhere. Think of an extreme nihilist, if that could actually exist. A god with a power that rivals the one that birthed the universe. But a god that lies dormant. They don't do anything but allow their massive void to ceaselessly expand. It is the source of the supermassive black hole that every single galaxy orbits…"
A creeping sensation settled over my body. My mind was filled with the image of an endless void, something I felt deja vu looking at.
"But, if that happens—"
"Then they'll eventually devour the whole universe. That's why they're public enemy number one everywhere."
Another shiver was sent down my spine. The whole thing was complex, but I got the gist of it. Gods split into factions because of differing views on humanity. These factions want different things.
That led to my next question. "How did they complete their goals, and why had I encountered them?"
I asked that out loud, and Ariel nodded, diving into her explanation. "Simple. As for the rest of the universe, gods use their form as gods to fight wars. To complete diplomacy. To negotiate. They are a lot like humans. But when they need to interfere with humanity, they must do it in two separate ways. The first you have already seen. By descending themselves down in their godly form by lowering their power. And the second is by sharing their power with human proxies through delusion."
As soon as she said that, the pieces began to fall in my mind. The 5 enemies that I had encountered before with delusions. They all worked for the Witch of Vainglory. The witch of Vainglory was a higher being.
"So those 5 are pride, wrath, envy, aergia, and greed. They had the power of a god?" My mind was reeling from the realization. The implications. The need to share this groundbreaking info with somebody.
"Albeit very weak. There are many different stages of delusion. A delusion is simply a power given by twisting someone's fate and trauma. It requires a trade. The first just twists a person's past traumas into an ability. The next grant's them the power relating to the faction of the god that granted them that power. ■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■."
I was listening intently to the info, but that was when the censoring kicked back in. Still, I had managed to make out a lot of useful information; I just needed the time to digest it. The FateWeaver, factions, and the truth behind delusions. All of it was just so much to take in at once. And there was still more. The fact that The Remembrance was toying with my memories.
So instead of trying to focus on all the information I had been given, I instead decided to take it one thing at a time. Just like Ariel had said. "Okay. First things first. The Witch of Vainglory. She has to either be in the faction of The Rapture or The Destruction."
Ariel nodded.
"But at the moment, none of that matters. I'm not on a scale where I can worry about those higher things yet. I just need to focus on what I can do. Getting my heart back from her." I refocused my mind on my goal. I would return to this wealth of information when I could better understand it. Hopefully when the censoring is gone. Then I could think.
"If I could ask for help...." I considered telling anybody else about what I learned here.
"It's better you don't." I looked up at Ariel in confusion. "Once you learn of them, a person will gain the gaze of the gods. Once that happens, it's only a matter of time before their mind is corrupted, and they eventually fall into one of the paths. That is how gods grant delusions. They gaze upon someone who they think embodies their factions. So if you tell someone of the person watching—"
"Then they'll be chosen faster, being forced to suffer under the hands of a god." I clenched my fist. I was starting to get tired of having mine and everybody's fates toyed with at the hands of beings I could see. It was like trying to drive a car, but you can't move your limbs, and the person in the passenger seat does all of the work. Your fate is left in somebody else's hands, and there is nothing you can do about it.
"Then why haven't I been corrupted yet?"
Ariel smiled. "You're the Light of Heaven. It'd take much more than a gaze to corrupt you. But you aren't invincible. Remember that." I nodded and went back to trying to plan my course of action.
If I couldn't say anything to anybody else... "Then maybe I could work alone and try to wait until everybody finds out naturally? If that's the case, then their fates won't be twisted....."
Ariel nodded. "Attaboy. You're finally using that head of yours."
My brain was starting to hurt from all of the thinking that I was doing.
Then I got it.
"You said before that disaster is where I would most likely be able to find my heart, because that's where a higher being would be. Higher beings intervention is unnatural, and they usually lead to inexplicable phenomena, even if it appears normal at first....."
My mind flashed right back to that time in the hospital. When that mob had been incited by that man with the red eyes. And that white knight appeared. She must have been a higher being. Which meant she was one of the two I knew was on Earth. There could have been more, and I couldn't know who or what was a proxy for which faction, but it gave me a place to start.
"I need to trace disasters to find at least one higher being. If that's my fate, to follow disasters and get my heart back, then anyone who follows me on that journey would be naturally introduced to higher beings!"
Things began to click at that moment. I didn't need to bog myself down with all of the complex things going on above me. I just needed to focus on my current goal. Shoot straight, and get my heart back. Once the scale of the world I and my companions could comprehend increased, I could worry about everything else.
I smiled at my amazing deduction, and at some point, Ariel had begun patting me on the head.
"Amazing work. Despite everything you were told, you kept your cool, broke it down, and figured out the simple answer to things. It's like watching my son grow into a man." She began to fake cry, to which I sighed.
"If you don't mind me asking. Just, how do you know all of this?" I felt the need to ask this question. It was like something in the back of my mind was pressing me to ask this question. Something I couldn't pinpoint.
Just as she was about to respond, the sky cracked.
But unlike last time, when a horrendous being came crashing through, the only thing that was approaching was a void. An endless black void. A sudden sense of lethargy came over me.
"Take a good look, Raiden." Ariel said in absolute calm. She was unaffected by the sudden sense of hopelessness and apathy.
"Remember. This is what happens when you draw the gaze of a god. Even an unmoving, unfeeling void..."
With one more ghostly smile, everything was shattered, turning to black.
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Back in reality, I opened my eyes to see that no time had actually passed, and everyone else was just waking up from Credo's illusion as well. They all seemed to be confused, and when I talked with my teammates, I realized that they had all had a different experience with the end of the test than I had. While I couldn't remember anything, they said the match had ended with a literal 0.3 win for Masayoshi's squad.
Even more evidence that someone had intervened. Thankfully, it meant whatever interaction happened in that test I couldn't remember, and they also couldn't remember. I wasn't at risk for anything yet.
I walked into the student council meeting, getting my mind in order.
First order of business.
Seeing if I even made it into the joint training camp at all.
Ariel: I'm willing to bet you didn't.
※ ※ ※ ※ ※ ※ ※ ※ ※ ※ ※ ※ ※ ※ ※ ※ ※ ※ ※ ※ ※ ※ ※ ※
Masayoshi Shibai stood in front of the training room area, his mind racing. This was the place they had tested their wands.
He had come here because it was the only place he could find silence. To take it in.
A prismatic butterfly flew by his head.
He remembered it.
The hooded figure. The destruction. His words. The pressure, the gazes.
He remembered it. And no one else did.