Other Information is already known by the thread participants.
As you land in the tundra-like landscape, the world shifts and your focus is immediately drawn to the scenery playing directly ahead of you. Frosted hills and mountains stretch as far as the horizon. The cool air tickles your skin, a gentle yet stinging embrace. The forest's green is swallowed by the chalk-white snow and ice and the frozen river you find your feet resting on gives no way to your weight. Right now, it is as solid as solid can get. Even as vast as this land feels, nothing stands in comparison to the giant structure seemingly drawing everything to it. What can only be described as a giant tree, with what seems to be an angel embedded inside of it. A creature more machine than flesh. More alive than dead, and yet all together one and the same. The hands you feel pull you back towards it, and now free of their duty, they crash back into it. As it rears its head up.
It Knows You Are Here.
And yet, now that your eyes are no longer squarely focused on what this thing is and what it can do to focus your perception so, you finally begin to take in the life present. The life you were thoroughly convinced this world was void of before. Though embedded inside this tree tower-like object, you can see two wings stretching out at equal length and distance.
At the tip of each wing are two... humans. Yes, they can only be humans, or at least something very close. You see reflected in their eyes are the same starlight as yours:
They observe, but it is not you, that they are currently paying mind. They focus on the crown atop the being's head. To something that is... not there? Why is it not there?
Pay them no heed friend. Instead, let us welcome you.
A voice or voices resound far below the tree. And your senses are torn down to it. At some sort of hybrid being. A crown over half its head. Moth-like wings on one side, and a host of butterflies on the other. Two faces conjoined, one younger, one more mature. One is life, the other is death. And their hands reach out towards you, offering up an embrace of wonder:
Caster gazes at the scenery in front of him. From the hardy snow underfoot to the frozen lakes, the split-being in front of him and then up to the tree, his eyebrows slightly creasing at the scene of the return of those he had spoken with.
"So that's what it was, huh? I see what it is you yearn for so earnestly, now." He pays no mind to the figures on the wings, after all, just like he, they had already greeted each other a thousand times over. "Be not afraid, dazzling tree that reaches for the heavens, I'll uproot you shortly."
His eyes fall back down, looking at the more immediate issue. He glances not at their outstretched hand, it would be a waste of his eye muscles. "It's quite a welcoming party for little old me, I'm feeling a little outnumbered, frankly." He laughs, looking up at the sky momentarily before they fall back down, his smile gone.
"Let's fix that."
With the slightest twitch of his finger the call is made.
"Come, Byakko, Genbu, Raiju, Suzaku, Kirin."
Fading in from the snow arrive spirits made manifest, great guardian beasts of Asia.
The tiger roars before disappearing from view, the wolf growls, lightning sparking from its body, the horse stomps its hooves against the snow, the bird's wings catch alight, and the turtle watches on without moving. And then,
"... Seiryu."
A roar pierces the heavens, and dark, screaming thunderclouds respond to the demand:
Tendou then raises his sword towards the sky and his whole body releases green light which passes through the tip of his sword. The pillar of light launched to the sky causes clouds to gather and become a hugh thundercloud that darkens the sky. Touka can tell the amount of power in the lack cloud is probably a million times of the power of her "Raikiri" and even Stella's amount of power might not compare.
Vol. 17
For the Guardian of the East has been called.
The flashes of lightning and crackles of thunder resonate with the wolf, elevating its ferocity as it impatiently awaits its signal at the same time the dragon's form shifts, shrinks, and thuds into the snow beside Caster.
"YOSHAAA! You got us quite an interesting battlefield this time, Seimei!"
Caster nods. "I'm counting on you, as usual." He says before an uncommonly large magic circle extends from his feet, surrounding himself and his Shikigami.
[Eightfold Blessings of Amaterasu (Stolen Ver.)]
A strange kind of energy falls over his Shikigami, briefly covering their forms like cloaks before they are absorbed into their bodies. Caster, finally, looks back at the split-man in front of him.
"Sorry, I get nervous talking to so many people on my own, I hope you don't mind that I brought some friends?"
The air chills as the tree convulses. There is no change in the reaction of the two men standing atop the angel's wings. Then flesh bursts from the torso of this warped, conjoined creature. For some reason, it resembles a man you have seen before but have never met. That is because, in your eyes that reflects time as if it was the reflection in the water, you have seen these men, the Avenger known as Dracula and the Archer known as Robin Hood one thousand times before. It says something unintelligible and then at the same time, two voices resound:
Now is the time. Solomon's efforts have given us this chance. I must not let it go to waste.
Who has James Moriarty pissed off? A lot of people. Who's coming for him now? A lot of people. It may be sooner, it may be later, but payment always comes due in full.
Avenger:
Dracula uses Fantomex's misdirection to trap Oberon in an illusion where he has beaten Solomon and is on the way to achieving his goals. Misdirection is capable of doing exactly this and with sufficient efforts even for long periods of time. For a high-end, Fantomex trapped the Final Horsemen in an illusion long enough for Eva to grab them and drop them on another planet. Dracula will keep this illusion going as long as he can until the plan comes through.
Misdirection works outside the range of mental abilities, being able to affect Jean Grey and Xavier. So resisting it is impossible with mental protection
Archer:
His Master and allies have stressed how important this is/how much they really want to kill the old man, so Robin's opening move will be to use his Noble Phantasm Prince of Thieves, disregarding concerns about the penalty to take as much power (i.e. physical parameters) from the three opponents as he possibly can.
Seven Deadly Sins Chapter 144: That Man Walks the Way of Greed
In the same motion, he'll use Snatch's later-developed ability to "give" to empower his allies with those stolen parameters. In terms of how severe this is, Galand was reduced to less than half his strength at a point in the story where Ban's physical strength was rated as a 930 and his Magic 1,380 compared to Galand's 24,000 in physical strength alone. Factoring in what he would have also stolen from Melascula and the others in the area and this ability clearly reaches far beyond his own level by a dozen times or more. Practically speaking, what I am suggesting is a flat 2-rank reduction on all physical parameters, naturally excluding those which are EX rank. That in turn gives him 6 ranks to play with, but I'm not going to be all that particular about it and neither is he.
As the world seemingly shifts, the creatures attempt to draw you into their embrace and a hail of a dozen smaller creatures rush at you screaming to rattle your senses and incapacitate you and your allies.
Caster's eyes flash with a bright blue light upon the tearing of the flesh of the being in front of him. His eyes paint the path, and questions he doesn't even need to ask flash through his mind, with the answers, of course, provided. Even in a single path, he saw a plethora of steps, of answers to the problem in front of him, but when he could see a billion paths with more unfurling by the moment? It was impossible for him to not see what was coming. Manipulation? Alterations to one's memory? Cognition? It mattered none. He looked at the man in front of him, clothes stained red with blood and flesh, and then to the tree beyond. Then, his eyes closed and almost wistfully, he spoke.
"Once upon a time, there was a man who was special from the moment he was born."
"He went on to achieve enlightenment, and he and he alone stood at the peak of the mountain. But you know, humanity is a curious beast that relentlessly pursues the ordinary."
"It took man thousands of years to conquer Mount Everest, and yet even now I can see traffic jams at the top of the world."
A shallow glyph appears above Caster before slowly floating up and into the sky.
"Oh, I'm rambling, I know, but what I mean to say is this. Humanity will always claw forwards, and will always turn the extraordinary into the somewhat-special."
"That title among titles remained special for over a thousand years, but nothing remains stagnant forever."
The almost imperceptible glyph begins to grow among the storm before glowing a brilliant purple.
"Throughout all of heaven and earth there exists two honoured ones, and the one who made a title that grand into something ordinary?"
The glyph grows to the point that it seems to cover the entire sky, horizon-to-horizon, before vibrating and splitting into at least a hundred gigantic glyphs pointing down towards the Earth and everything on it. Caster whips his arms out and smiles, seeming to enjoy the situation.
"You're looking at him."
He sees a future, an event, a possibility among possibilities and the link it has, and he in an instant rearranges the name of this magecraft. Though he doesn't raise his voice, it seems to echo in the minds of all present, every flake of snow, and every blade of grass hidden underneath, as though all things capable of looking at the sky were ordained to listen to the single word that left Caster's lips.
[Starfall]
And thus they did. From each glyph in the sky, a hundred or more covering up the perfect thunderstorm above, giant stones, glowing with a jet-black sheen, formed and then shot out towards the ground, streams of fire left behind their wake through the speed of their descent. They catapulted towards the ground, the man before them, the tree, the lake, the snow, and everything else in the general area. The stars, or at least, the facsimiles of them, would threaten to upturn and bring ruin to the entire area should they connect, but Caster makes no attempt to move. He simply stands, arms outstretched like some great conductor setting the tune to the end of the world. The colour and patterns of his eyes continued to shift and morph, but they all reflected a gleeful, almost insane joy at the vision in front of him. The Slovenly Genius is one who rarely deems anything worthy of putting forth effort, but once he finds something interesting enough to catch his attention he knows not the meaning of restraint.
Catastrophe rains down upon the battlefield. Ruin and desolation batter the snow-filled landscape. The shadows of warriors gone fade as they are erased from this plane. An impaler finds himself wrested upon his blade. A hunter finds he has quickly become prey. They look up and see the conductor of their end, outstretched arms gleefully teaching them a lesson this scarred version of their souls would never forget. Their eyes are flush with the blood and bone that a spiritual body should not possess. They weakly, slowly reach up to you and proclaim, beg for one thing.
"You... you can free us."
Before they are snuffed out by the conductor of death behind them.
"Fascinating! We see you are no mere mortal. No, you are nothing mere at all. In that case..."
"Allow us to increase the tempo."
The stars continue to fall.
The stones illuminated with space dust batter the misshapen body of insect and man. And yet he stands unabated. As one of the stars would strike his face, a blue and black hand extends to catch it.
"You would bring down the stars? You shall not be alone."
Come, foul creature.
Amalgamation of the End.
The Bringer of Twilight
He Who Would Consume Wisdom.
Scion of The Arch-Deceiver
My will creates your body
Your sword shall carve out our destiny
Breaker of Black
Abomination of [XXXXXX]
The star in his hand melts, one-half azure, the other crimson. Melting the snow, then freezing it over once again. Until it forms in the shape of a man.
clank
A gear shifts, something grinds.
Clank
Once more it turns.
A star strikes the ground that does not know what state it's supposed to be in.
Clank
From the mess of the planet to the core of the realm of the fire. And ever growing rises the wolf who would devour the stars. The Giant Who Would Shatter the Sun:
Caster's head tilts as he stands still, merely watching the scene play out to completion in front of him. He wears a soft smile on his face before his eyes widen slightly before creasing into a half-frown, but the expression is gone just as quickly as it came, and Caster's face reflects that same cocky, arrogant smile as it usually does. His mouth opens and a laugh escapes his lips, one of a prankster, higher-pitched than what would usually be expected and ringing out with a series of what almost sounds like cackles.
"Ahh, it's not often that I get the wool pulled over my eyes, how novel an experience!" He wipes a tear away from his eye. "I know it's audacious for me of all people to say this, but isn't that cheating? I mean, that's not even just seeing the future, that's-"
"WOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!" The dragon screams. Not roars, but screams, like an overexcited child, drowning out the sound of Caster's words. He leaps backwards, below Caster, and his mouth widens impossibly large, the skin of his cheeks stretching as his jaw unhinges like a snake, a row of sharp teeth visible for a moment before being covered by a blinding light. A glowing ball of mana builds within his throat before it is released, a beam of raw force firing out at Fenrir, the being behind them, and the tree into the distance. The dragon laughs, rushing in after the blast, fighting while relying on his animalistic instincts alone.
"..." Caster looks at his friend with a blank expression before his gaze returns to Fenrir and the being behind them, along with his smile, where he speaks as though the people he is talking to are not currently under attack. "But I guess that doesn't matter, huh? Right now, that's all it amounts to, after all. It's a good effort, it's a reeeealllly good effort, and if it was a little more mature I could be in a bit of trouble, but my eyes are just a little bit more special than that~." They flash, and the path is repaved. It is always repaved, no matter how disordered the environment around it may be. Many people have tried to change his view of the future, or to match it themselves, and many people have failed.
"You're a cute little student yourself, and quite the fast learner, too, even if you are trying to hide that cheat sheet of yours under your desk." His smile slowly fades as he looks down upon those beneath him. "But do not patronise me. Genbu."
Caster's eyes remain locked on Fenrir's form, whether the man is able to notice or not. His eyes shift, the brilliant blue of his normal mystic eyes giving way to a deep red. "Now then, let's see if I can..."
Under Caster's gaze, the magic of his blade and mouth is halted. He tilts his head slightly. "Oya? I did know that I wouldn't be able to remove that immortality of yours with just this, but seeing it in reality really does paint a fresh picture for you." He smiles down into the darkness, as though a boy looking at a particularly interesting piece of roadkill. "Then, how about these ones?"
His eyes flash again, their colour transforming into a deep purple.
The eyes look like voids, disgusting things that absorb light from the world rather than adding to it. His gaze fixes on Fenrir's chest, and then the great Wolf feels a pull, a tugging, and then, all at once, a tearing, as he felt "himself" collapse into nothing while still standing in the snow. After all, the very "concept" of the being known as Fenrir in this World had been destroyed. Mystic eyes that tore through totality gazed down at the Wolf, and they felt "death" echo itself across an infinite number of future incarnations. Even for a being that can resurrect at will, there is no coming back from a death that continues to fell every variation of oneself. Whether Fenrir possessed one life or one billion, it would not be enough.
Caster's gaze rises, and he looks at the tree, or more specifically, at the spot on the tree that the twin spirits had entered.
"But this is a poor lesson, is it not? This isn't what you want to see. This isn't why you called me here. This is all just Bell Work, the fun side activity before we get into the real lesson, so let's start the lesson, shall we? Though it will only be a short one, I fear." His eyes flip through a dozen colours once more before settling again into the calmer blue of his original eyes. "A fun fact about me is that the pentagram is my symbol. It has been used in so many cultures over such a long time, but in my beautiful country, it is only viewed through the context of me, and me alone, no matter if annoying people try to tack their name on top of it." He smiles wistfully before refocusing. "Should this clever and particularly handsome teacher of yours demonstrate why this symbol belongs to me and me alone? I think you would quite enjoy it~."
Contrary to his lackadaisical tone, a genuinely bizarre amount of mana begins to gather within Caster's body. A servant should not be in possession of an amount of mana this high, but Caster conjures up more and more, seemingly without end. In quantified terms, the likes of which a master would see upon looking at their saint graph, the type of view his summoners see: 50, 100, 200, 300, 400, 500, 600, and yet still continuing to increase while showing no signs of slowing down. The amount of mana coursing through his body tangibly glows as every single blood vessel within the servant's form is transformed into magic circuits simultaneously, tracing out his entire circulatory system for all to see.
"Now, THIS, I believe, shall be our final lesson. Make sure you pay attention."
"Now, THIS, I believe, shall be our final lesson. Make sure you pay attention."
The black knight crashes into the beasts under Caster's thrall. Tearing at their flesh and bone. Yet he cannot seem to make true headway. Neither could they as every wrath thrown at him would be consumed like the dark gaps in the vastness of outer space. Still, the lesson continued, and Caster remained undaunted. The declaration shown behind the white of his eyes was more than enough to dictate the fate of Fenrir.
If Fenrir was the beast who embodied vengeance, then the death that the eyes of divination would bestow upon him would be the Aesir of Vengeance. The jaws of Fenrir stretched agape, further and further until the very sky was blotted out by a single hair that lined his maw. It was enough to instill terror in the hearts of man and god. Hurtling down upon them like a meteor, every friend of Caster raced to stop it.
It was to no avail.
One by one they fell and were consumed by the singularity that was his jaw. And yet Caster did not move. Nary a flinch. Even in the face of the Twilight that would be, all his eyes foretold were death. And so too did the prophecy he foretold come to pass. For as his maw of the beast that would swallow the stars closed shut, it was forced to a halt by a mucky, bloodstained boot.
The beast-giant froze. Startled by the splurging of blood that escaped its body. A blade smaller than a toothpick to him at this point had pierced his heart. A heart all too human, forced that way by the machinations of a warped version of his father. A heart to be pierced by his death, The Aesir of vengeance, the spawn that would overcome the Devourer of Wisdom:
The blade of Vidarr surges through Fenrir, its sword beckoning the twilight of all it would pierce, cutting through the Moth, and tearing through the Butterfly.
Magical energy surges from Caster as his eyes move past the beast, past the malevolent moth and butterfly. And towards the true thing that had called him here. Towards the two who possessed eyes like his. Towards the past, against the present, and away from the future.
And he could swear, even if only for a moment... that it looked back at him. Not with one eye, but with two. A pair of eyes that were not a pair. Each belonging to something different, yet to another perspective entirely the same. Both carried the same wish. A vision of the future that only Abe no Seimei was deemed worthy to witness.
All that remains is Caster and the Tree of Fantasy
Caster is bursting with Magical Energy
The Tree has seemingly sprouted eyes for a moment
There will be one(Main) post from every participant who intends to help (or hinder) the challenge scenario. Afterward, there will be a verdict and possibly a third phase based on the results of the second.
As the Insects of the Abyss and Shadow fade away, the ground begins to writhe and shake. Fractures spread across the icy plains, splitting the many lands in two. Mountains collapse, lakes overflow and trees fall one by one. Roots erupt from the cracked glacial earth. Stretching through the vast and empty space coiling like hungry serpents. Their stems are like fangs seeping their poison into any being they come across. Spreading into the very depths of lost souls, they are found once again in unity which is the Great Tree.
Even the dead are not free from this embrace.
It is beginning, Your Majesty.
No, Prophet, now it is ending.
----------
xxxxxxxx
Starlight twinkles in their eyes, as they finally speak. First to each other, then it becomes unclear. Perhaps to Caster, perhaps to each other once more. Or maybe even the World itself. None present may be privy to the words left at the beginning of the end and the end of the beginning.
Only those who were deemed the victors of the coming conflict would see the truth.
Past, present, and future collide and coalesce. Many events are reflected on the eyes that would reflect the celestial sphere..
“I see. Then I know what I must do. I thank you for your patience. And hope you can forgive me.”
Everything, experienced all at once. Through the eyes of every being, not only alive today but that ever existed or will exist. Not just this timeline, but all timelines. Every possibility that could ever happen or could have happened. Among all of that there is one place that stands out. An empty spot in the throne of heroes. You see yourself there an infinite number of times in the past, but never in the future.
The choice of a free man to become a prisoner once more binds the eternal once more to the fate of he would overturn the world.
"You could not see it.
...fulfill your purpose."
The choice of a vestige, overcoming the impossible, achieving the extraordinary even when subjecting themselves to the whims of the ordinary.
"I've cleared a path, the rest is up to you."
Gate, Open.
This path forges tomorrow's starlight.
Our Oath is the promise of possibility.
Even the greatest of wonders, the grandest of marvels are not above the bell that tolls.
"The dead will remain so, I am afraid. Unless, of course, that too is your wish. And, I suppose, in Genie fashion, 'you may not wish for more wishes', as it were. You may reduce the cost of the future, but not of the present, I think."
What happens when the characters of the story transcend the story itself? What sort of choices become the force that binds us together? What actions dictate the flow of time and space? What becomes of the endless possibilities?
What if the Almighty lay at the mercy of the Powerless?
He could hear them yapping away, about him, about eternity, and the things that would never be and would never have not. Of course, he could. How could he not? His brows creased. He was too far into this final lesson to turn back now, the mana too potent to change its course. What was coming would come; he had known that since before his boots felt snow, but it was still regrettable. Lamentable, even.
His summons felt it before he did. Byakko, Genbu, Raiju, Suzaku, Kirin. The only fortune was that they were not granted the time to feel the pain. They vanished, snowflakes as part of a storm, the deluge kicked up from the immensity of this fight, and what crystals remained of their essence were gracelessly sucked into the forming storm beneath his feet, which started and increasingly accelerated in scale and speed by the sheer immensity of mana in the vicinity.
Seiryu would not be so fortunate. He could resist it, but a being blessed with the power and resilience of a Dragon, he might have been, even he could not withstand the command from above, a command of his very being. He pulsed with the echoes of a life no longer allowed to be lived, but he did not scream, shudder, or collapse. He tried to open his mouth,
"This was fun, Seimei!"
He would have said, had he been allowed to finish his sentence before he, too, obeyed the command of possibilities. Snow, snowflake, storm. So it goes.
Seimei's body, too, thrummed. What commanded him was not a totality of possibilities, but what they called upon. A singular possibility, a singular command that could not be refused, even for one such as him. He saw it, the unspeakable thing that it was. It wasn't a door, though some would imagine it as such. It was no gate, though some would view it as blocking off one thing from another, and it wasn't present in any tangible sense, but his eyes reflected it; that impossible geometry, that arrogance, that thing which should not be seen: The Throne of Heroes. It wanted him back, now, and his body, his very being, accepted it, even if his mind did not. He still had a lesson to conclude, he still had something to say, but his contract was void. Civilisation, the World itself, had spoken, rejected him, and a servant may only obey the commands of the one who holds the reins. He smiled, wearily, apologetically. It seemed as though this lesson would go incomplete. His mana hissed, enough to power a country, a continent, a planet in and of itself, and yet it began to dissipate as his body vanished into golden specks of essence. He opened his mouth to say goodbye, and to apologise for not saying what needed to be said, and so, to the World that no longer wished for his existence, he said-
"In a minute, I'm busy right now."
His saint graph, his spirit core, his essence, his concept, snapped back into place. Even if a being, or a concept, dictated Caster's very existence, he refused to be removed, refused to go before doing what he needed to do. The totality of the World, a billion possibilities to the power of itself, commanded him to leave. The Throne itself demanded his return, revoked his rights to exist in this World, in this time, in this place a moment longer, but Seimei denied its request, even though it was not a 'request' at all. He would not leave just yet, not when he had such a rapt audience.
The mana swelled again as Seimei put his everything into this performance, this grand showcase, this fundamental lesson of life for his clueless little pupil. His mana dropped to 0; he would go after this. There was nothing else he could do. His act of grand resistance was an impossibility among impossibilities, it would not last. His body had never ceased scattering as golden wind, flakes now drifting off his form at a crawl rather than a torrent, lending him what appeared to be a phantom cape flying at his back, made of his own dead essence. His smile, though, that crazed, eager smile belied none of this, showing only confidence and an erratic, demented joy.
"You have such magnificent roots. Does it feel good to stretch them? I bet it does, to have sunlight bathe upon them instead of burying them in the muck. You wished for freedom, did you not? A world of chaos or a world of order, it's all the same in the end to you; it's all a result of you acting as you wish. And how beautiful a thing is that?"
His mana pulsed, but not a strongly as it should. It was subtle, shallow, seeming to focus on range over potency. It spread across the landscape but touched very little. Instead, a snowflake fell from the sky, though that was normal in such weather. What was not was its shape: five-sided, equal measurements. And yet it fluttered and waved around as it fell from the clouds. It was joined by another, and another, and another, until the sky as far as the eye could see and beyond was covered in the gentle falling of a billion identical snowflakes.
"To do what you want is a wonderful thing, my student, but the World will not allow it. People seek strength to gain their freedom, but gain too much, and it slips out of their hands once more. Isn't that ironic? Isn't that upsetting? Doesn't that piss you off?"
Five-sided, perfect snowflakes rose from the ground to meet the ones falling from the sky. It was a perfect winter wonderland scene.
"But do you know the fun part about being strong? Once you're strong enough, even if the World tells you that you can't be free, that there are rules you have to abide by and things your performance is needed for to keep things afloat, you can just tell them to go fuck themselves, and nobody can do anything about it! Oh, they'll grumble and complain alright, they'll scold you and criticise you, but if they're too weak to stop you, what does their noise matter?"
The snowflakes began to glow in a soft, white light, almost as if they were backlit by LED lighting.
"But some people don't see their own strength. They don't know what they can do, they can't see through the bars of their cages." He smiled, looking directly at the giant tree and its distinctly different eyes, both shining with the same light. Oh, he should not do this. Oh, he should not say this. It will make things more difficult for them, so much more difficult. If Alaya had a mouth to speak, she would never let him hear the end of it, not in a million years, but why should he care? What can they do about it? It had already tried and failed, so It would just have to deal with the fallout.
"If you want to be my students, little ones, you cannot be like that. You cannot stay rooted in that dirt, you cannot be passive. I only take in active students, I only take in students who want to live, who want to make their mark on the world..." his smile was as sinister as the devil himself, "...and I've already taken you in. If you won't abandon those roots on your own, this kind teacher of yours will give you the push you need."
The snowflakes glowed brighter still, soft, to gentle, to warm, to bright, to blinding, to scarring. The world burned in light too bright to witness, and Seimei's mana flowed into them. This wasn't the right way to use this Noble Phantasm. It was overboard from the start, even the strongest of Noble Phantasms would fail to withstand the mana Caster pushed into these flakes.
"Watch this, my student. This is what freedom looks like!~"
Something snapped, splintered, twisted and shattered. This Noble Phantasm would not be usable again, but that didn't matter.
Pentagrams deployed. Load, load, shatter, and collapse!
Consume the sky, consume the land, consume it all!
Leave nothing left!
Broken Phantasm: Pentagram, Great Global Annihilation!
The lights halted. A billion snowflakes grew dark. The mana flowed in reverse, collapsing in on itself. They darkened to blinding, to bright, to warm, to gentle, to soft, to still, and then further still. To blue, to purple, to brown, to black, to black, to black, and then, they couldn't be seen anymore.
The air began to whistle. The atmosphere began to howl. Space began to scream. On this land, a black hole had been created. If it were just one, it would be horrific enough, but each and every Pentagram screamed and ate in unison. Everything in view and beyond turned black all at once, a great calamity befalling the world. The sky evaporated. Everything for miles around, ground-to-sky, was devoured on an atomic level. And then all went calm.
"Hehe... hehehehahahahahahahahahahah, BEHOLD, MY STUDENT, THIS IS 'FREEDOM!'"
"So reach for the stars, you magnificent being! Strive for your goals, and let nothing hold you back! Live, do as you please, and force this World to stop you! If you can't manage even that, then don't you dare call yourself my student!"
This World, or at least this land, would never erase the scars of this day. When the smoke cleared, the entire section looked as if the greatest war of an age had taken place solely upon it, and in a way, it had. The trees were no more, the snow was no more, the ice was no more, and the clouds were no more. It was a sunny day, now, overlooking a land of dirt and an innumerable number of colossal craters dotting the landscape like a golf ball, each one kilometres wide and sloping down at least a kilometre deep, some much more than that.
And yet the Tree stood. The roots were marked, chipped, even heavily damaged in some places, and the bark in others was charred, but it stood. Caster's form began to shimmer in the aftermath. The miracle had ended, and his return was imminent. With no mana left to support his form, he began to fall out of the sky, yet still his smile remained.
"But to choose to live is not something that I can force onto you, my student. It is something you must realise on your own. Should you wish to stand on your own two feet hard enough, those roots won't be able to chain you down forever. Break them. Break them and live. That's what I would do."
He smiled at the eyes once more. Not an evil, manic smile, but a cheesy smile. The smile of a boy who had just enjoyed the best day ever. His form scattered to light and vanished just before his body could hit the ground.
And thus, Caster, Abe-no-Seimei, returned to the Throne of Heroes, having made everything in the future yet to come far more difficult and annoying for everyone involved, but that is a story for a time beyond today.
Scars. A defense mechanism for the living, and what separates them from the dead. An orchestra of life coming together to heal our wounds, a symphony that would resound against death, a reminder that here in this moment, your moment, that life prevailed against death. How ironic, then, that an indelible wound would be left upon this land, upon this tree of cosmic life that wished entropy upon its so-called "teacher". The singularity left in the wake of Abe no Seimei's power would be remembered for all time. Past, Present, and Future collided here as one, and so too would re-emerge as many:
In the far future, a golden-haired boy outstretched his hand to the man who would carry the burdens of misfortune. A hand reaching down to release the faithful from the shackles of faith.
In the distant past, a being with no face asks a simple question of the man and woman, the answer hurtling the two and their family out of their idyllic fantasy into their now cold reality. For the first time, they understand that they are without clothing, that they are without shelter, that they are without protection:
In the present, a battle raged between creatures that should never meet. A dragon bathed in the pure white rays of the sunlight, a dragon covered in crimson ichor, heralding the fangs of creation against that which would carve their destruction. Time and space collide and coalesce. Spatio-temporal shockwaves travel through the endless possibilities, at a speed beyond that which can be understood by our feeble means, they race towards their end. Only to be blasted back to the beginning. To a place outside of what would be time and space.
Here anew, birthed from the collapse in space-time, does the merging of a Tree of Fantasy and the will of the Pentragram produce a new seed. A sapling that would be time itself.
Born in a place unfamiliar to them, desperately in search of something to imprint upon. They would latch onto the eyes that see all.
The golden eyes of the King of Israel showed a past marked in strife:
"It seemed much simpler back then, easier even to watch them struggle from on high."
The silver-stained eyes of the Prophet of Lumière gazed upon a void that would be called the future, malleable:
"No gods. I'm sorry, Matthew, Alphaeus, but as the one who watches, I can confirm this much: no such beings remain in this world."
The azure eyes of the strongest reflected something unfathomable to both. A totality of emotion and logic, a paradox that would bring about a new age, for better or worse, was up to his students of the future to decide. As a tear in space, imperceivable even to the eyes that loomed over all. A lingering fragment that would remain until the time was right.
"And so it shall, for even should the wandering eyes of a predator bare its fangs at you, you shall not be taken. For I know you, and your progenitor has chosen your ilk. You have rolled your dice, placed your cards upon thine table. But even for all your skills, all your tricks, fate and destiny have a... shall we say, mischievous way of ripping even the staunchest of plans apart. Though you are hidden in plain sight, any wandering fool with decent luck could stumble upon you. And bring about a very anticlimactic end to your journey by carrying you on the wrong path. But even more so... that thing will notice you before long. And even if it doesn't, they will. I think you both knew that. Or let me speak more appropriately, you knew, you know, and you will know that. Thus, you called out to me. Not to that false prophet with one eye, and not to that lazy monarch either."
"The truth you've hidden from them both. The truth you seek to hide until you can stand on your metaphorical feet. The truth of who I am. I am the echo of a scream. I am the magpie who whispers. I am the crime that will not be forgiven. Which is why you called for me. The spider would seek to use you for his ends. Perverting you until you no longer remained what you were, but something different entirely. No, had you called for him, it would be no better than creating the world that the homunculus boy came from. So why not the moth? Ah, yes, simple answer isn't it? You do not seek the wanton destruction of everything, do you? Destruction must come with the foregone purpose of creation, mustn't it?. Then why not seek out the seeker of the True Magic?" A soft chuckle escapes his lips as his verdant irises stare into the invisible abyss. "Too much of an enigma even for one such as you? I suppose that is fair. I suppose all that remains is myself, then. Though I must admit, even I feel some offense at being stuck with the process of elimination. Which only begs one question? Why am I still alive? With all these memories intact?"
An answer. A long sigh and then...
"Damn you, damn you all. Very well then. If that is what you seek... well then you've come to the right place, I've made just these sorts of deals before. Allow me, if you will, to tell you a story. To don the mask of the storyteller, a tale for a tale."
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