Every fiber of Erina's body burned. Her hands shook, barely able to point in the same direction as she molded the storm to her will. There was hardly a semblance of control—only an outpour of emotion. The fire in her chest felt like it was scraping her out from the inside as the storm ripped at her surroundings. The dirt flew away, the hard surface beneath ringing as deep gashes tore across it all around her.
She opened her mouth and screamed her lungs out, and the storm answered in kind. She couldn't see the stars beyond or the rings of the battlefield anymore. Everything disappeared into the vortex of emerald.
A crimson flare cut through the emerald gales and the red spires burst out. Veins like deep blood flooded the air and joined, thousands of hexagram barriers glowing to life. Space warped, pulling apart the bottomless barrage. Eve stood in the eye of the storm as the walls receded around her. This ability belonged to the two of them.
But Erina saw her. She saw the weary spirit that had tired of this world, staring back from behind her own green eyes. She knew that she could see back—that this storm that consumed them both was Erina's truest reply, from the depths of her heart.
It didn't matter if it was pointless. It didn't matter how much it hurt. Even if it brought nothing but pain, Erina would hold on to her faith with all her might and struggle on.
There was someone she looked up to.
Someone who had seen everything the world had to offer, and tired of it as well. A person with every reason to despise the world that had wronged her.
That person continued to persist. Even if the wish she carried had never come true, and even knowing that it surely never would.
The ground tremored. Erina's body convulsed, doing everything in its power to crumple. Her hand stilled despite it all, steadfast amidst the storm, and curled. It implored, beckoned that person to answer alongside her.
Space bent again, but it was not the power of reiteration. It was the broken heart of a dead star—beautiful, terrible, all-consuming and living in spite of its own death. A spell crafted to tear down any false dimension and shatter reality itself.
Erina's reiteration of the technique of others was far from perfect. She could mimic Asayuki because ultimately, the scarlet swordmaster hardly used her Affinity at all—only pure technique and the most basic of mage enhancements. To emulate someone else's Affinity took tremendous amounts of mana, far beyond anything Erina could ever possess.
But with the endless potential of the unborn realm at her fingertips—just this once, at just this moment—it was within her reach.
Erina did not come to this point alone. This was proof of both their lives.
Akira's black hole took form, and Eve's figure vanished into the gathering light. The storm of emerald shifted and spiraled into the bottomless well. Shining emerald turned to molten gold, intense heat blazing to life and incinerating the air itself as the magnificent accretion disk formed. The wind howled around Erina as the fractal webs came undone, pulled into the immense sink with the rest of everything.
Spell circles flashed into existence, interlaid within one another around the black hole. Erina recognized them—the inscriptions of temporal reversion. It was a spell to rewind mere seconds into the past and hold it for as long. A spell that took little time to cast and bought barely enough back.
And after having had her own spells negated time and again, Erina understood how Eve had achieved it. She overwrote it at the same time, inserting herself as the 'caster' to seize control, and then went from there.
This time, it was Eve who felt her spell shatter at her fingertips.
The roar of the dissolving matter circling the depths, the clashing of her own attacks against each other as they rushed into the glowing mass, Erina could barely hear them over her own heart beating so fast she couldn't tell one pulse from the next. The emerald storm sucked into the black hole, unveiling the stars once more.
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The vast gemstone that made up the floor under her feet cracked. Then, it broke, torn asunder by the overwhelming gravity. The massive bronze rings bent and then snapped as well. The spell that made up the underpinnings of this time-reversed reality struggled to withstand the destruction in its midst. The world itself warped. All the stars and nebulae shifted like specks on a flowing curtain, the texture of the brilliant sky's dome torn away into the now-blinding point.
Finally, Erina's heart could take no more.
The black hole ruptured and her vision went white. Everything went silent, save for a high-pitched whine deep inside her ears. The raging torrent of mana that she had hijacked now dried to a trickle. She fell to her knees on a surface that no longer existed. Not a trace of strength remained in her.
When her vision returned, she was accompanied by only the last glimpses of glittering, fading light. Faltering sparks of pure mana fluttered like twinkling snowflakes—the last vestiges of the battlefield, broken down to its most base form.
Erina could only watch as they gathered and took form one last time. The immaterial light became a human visage. Eve stood before Erina, her figure torn and bleeding light from all over. Half her head had torn away, unable to regain its structure and conceal the mana that comprised it. Only the two of them remained in this void.
Even with infinite mana at her fingertips, it still stood beyond her power. Try as she might, giving every fiber of her being as she might, Erina could not defeat the Great Witch.
But the witch no longer saw fit to do battle.
"This is your final answer," said Eve. The words were level and neutral, with no hint of contempt.
"This is all I know of life," whispered Erina. "I can't give it up." She lowered her tired eyes, even as she remained unaware of what she wanted to look at amidst the void. "I can't allow this life I was given to amount to nothing."
"You reject your duty. You choose evil."
"My world and yours…" said Erina. "They're nothing alike. A laboratory of my mother's inventions… a warm school… a mother who was always glad to see me come home… the bustling cities and the girl who guided me when I had nowhere to turn. Those are my world. Your philosophy, those ideals you serve for all humanity—I don't understand them. I can't understand. I can't even begin to understand you."
Eve did not respond immediately.
"I don't know what path I'll take," admitted Erina. "I don't know the right way forward. I still haven't chosen. I know I'll make mistakes. I'll come to regret my actions… but they will belong to me."
She raised her head and those green eyes met emerald once again.
"I will decide how to use this life of mine."
Eve didn't respond for a long time. Erina didn't back down for even a moment.
"…You are a fool," said Eve. "Brash and headstrong. Only ignorance, unbroken by the truth of the world, could spur such words. And yet all the same, you are even more like me than I anticipated."
A cool breeze in a nonexistent air washed over Erina. An invisible hand brushed aside the stray hairs from her face.
"The path you decide for yourself will not be shaken by others. A thousand years in my grasp would never break you." Glittering light fell like snow shaken loose as Eve tilted her head. Her gaze was almost sympathetic. She said quietly, "That type of will is precisely why humanity is doomed."
Erina had said her part. A cold, silent glare was her only reply now.
"So be it," whispered Eve. "I have no need to convince you anymore." The wind shifted. Cracks spread across her skin. Her body fragmented and broke off one piece at a time, into dying glimmers of light. "Go out into the world, Emisane Erina. When you have experienced the truth for yourself… When you tire of pointless struggle. All you need do is call out, and I will answer."
Eve crumbled away and returned to the void. Her last words lingered in her wake for the lone soul that remained in the farthest reaches of this world of nothing.
"I look forward to that day, lost child of mine."
Erina's mind wavered back into consciousness. She didn't remember lapsing out.
She was on her back on a hard metal surface with a bright light overhead. She groaned softly, but the light dimmed before she could raise a hand to block it.
Her vision focused. Tired and drained, Erina was content to watch from the floor as the innumerable branches of light receded. The radiant tree that led to the end of time now faded away. Its glow shrank to a single tiny glimmer in the core of the massive gemstone floating above its dais in the heart of the laboratory depths.
The gem lowered itself through the air and slotted back into place, its towering face silently gliding down just a few paces away from where she lay. The fangs of the steel halo shifted up and locked into place with a distant echoing boom. The last arcs of electricity jumped, sparked, and stopped. The far-off whine of running engines came to end as their power fizzled out. The gate closed and the laboratory was quiet once more.
For a moment, the dark reclaimed her.
Then, light.
A gentle, soft blue flame, captured in the small lantern floating at the shoulder of the girl standing over Erina.
"Yo." Akira crouched down with a relieved, proud smile. One look into those tired green eyes was all she needed to know that the girl she saw off in the red hall was the same one before her now. "About time."
"I'm back." Erina's voice was barely more than a whisper.
"Did you meet yourself?"
"I did."
"And did you find the answers you wanted?"
"…I did."
"What will you do now?"
Erina pondered it. "For now… I want to stay by your side."
"Hah. You know how to butter me up, don'tcha?" Akira's smile became the familiar grin as she extended her hand. "C'mon. Time to go home."
Erina didn't respond immediately. She wanted to take a moment to let it all sink in—everything that had happened today, the cascade of knowledge that had yet to settle, the sight of her patriarch. Then, a faint smile crossed her face too.
"Yes," she said. "Akira."
Erina reached up and took her hand.
- 永 e, eternity
- 神 mi, god/divine
- 実 sa-ne, truth/reality
- 恵 e, grace
- 理 ri, logic
- 奈 na, questioning
watakushi, 貴方 anata
- Favorite color is mint green.
- Favorite season is spring.
- Favorite foods are caramel apples and chocomint ice cream.
- Plays rhythm games, Tetris, and Puyo Puyo.
- The most belligerent in the cast, despite appearances.
- Associated with the violin and related instruments (if you've been following the text-embedded soundtrack, keep an ear out!).
- Her bullets, spear, and katana set are loosely based on the bow, spear, and sword set of horseback samurai.
- Akemi Homura, Sunaookami Shiroko, Ayanami Rei, Isekaijoucho—Erina's somewhere in a ballpark like that.
- Turns her back to hide her face when she's especially nervous or embarrassed.
- Would be a student council treasurer if circumstances allowed for it.
- The Fletcher-Reeves conjugate gradient method for solving n-dimensional convex optimization problems that she does in her introduction is a real algorithm and not made-up reiteration-themed technobabble.
- Has a habit of saying なるほど naruhodo / "I see."
- Her mechanical heart is engraved with the letters IDPMV.
- Almost exclusively speaks in polite form with lots of します shimasu, でしょう deshou, ですね desu ne, but forcing polite form can come across very stilted in English, so she speaks more naturally here.
レイヴン?フリージア / Raven Freesia
Maybe we are choosing to be in a dystopia
kono saki ni shinjitsu ga nai to shite mo
Why do I have such a strong desire to still be alive?
watashi no kaku wo nasu furiijia
Even if there's no truth ahead
Why do I have such a strong desire to still be alive?
At the heart of who I am blooms this freesia
yuukei de fuantei de
nante yakkai na koto deshou
koko ni saita hanatachi wa
sore de ite shitatakasa to
yasashisa wo mochiawaseteru
nante utsukushii no deshou
How troublesome they are—
The flowers that bloomed here.
Yet they possess both
Resilience and gentleness
How beautiful they are
ganjigarame na sutorii
Night and day
hayaku koko kara nuke dashite
kitto nanbenmo
sore wo kurikaesu no
kimi tachi ni wa dou utsuru
Night and day
I want to escape from here soon
I'll surely repeat it
Over and over
How does it seem to your eyes?
Maybe we are choosing to be in a dystopia
tada hitotsu sugari tsuita kono hikari
Why do I have such a strong desire to still be alive?
ame no naka hibiku kono aria
Clinging to this one and only light
Why do I have such a strong desire to still be alive?
Echoing in the rain, my aria
tsuyoku tsuyoku ima wo ikiru
sore dake de ii
shinjiru kokoro ni sukui wo
That alone is enough!
Salvation to the believing heart
tadashisa no arikata nado
dareka ni tokaretakunai no
tsuneni atarashii watashi de itai kara ima
On the correct way to live
Because I want to live as my newest self, starting now
Like a fairy tale
uso mitai na tenkai no shiikensu
isso nani mo motazu aruite miru
puraido wa jama na dake
A sequence of developments that seem like lies
Leaving everything behind, I carry on
Pride just gets in the way
atsusa mo samusa mo watashi wa kanjinai
soko de naitereba
watashi wa iku
namida mo kokoro mo dare ni mo azukenai wa
kodoku demo tatsu
aa
Stay and cry if you must
I'll go on.
My tears, my heart, I won't entrust them to anyone
Even alone, I stand
Ah—
Maybe we are choosing to be in a dystopia
kono saki wa watashi no te de kaeteiku
Why do I have such a strong desire to still be alive?
watashi no kaku wo nasu furiijia
From here on, I'll change things with my own hands
Why do I have such a strong desire to still be alive?
At the heart of who I am blooms this freesia
kiyoku kiyoku michi wo tsukuru
sore dake de ii
amatsukaze kako ni hokori wo
That alone is enough!
Heavenly wind, pride to the past