Cheshire just silently watched as the goddess busied herself, obviously half way between miffed and excited with her prompt journey, waiting for her to be far enough away.

When the amphibian finally was out of ear shot - she turned away from the direction Alice walked to instead look down into her own shadow. A silent look of contemplation sat on her face (alongside that iconic smile) as she stroked her little chin for quite some time. Finally shaking her head to instead look into the sky with smiling eyes that slowly narrowed as if glaring at something in the distance.

“I wish to be alone for a while so follow that girl…”

Seemingly speaking to no one in particular yet her shadow was what actually answered. Flying out her shadow, making it ripple like inky water, was a small little corvid who hurriedly flapped her wings as if excited to get away from the cat. A sight that made the black cat snicker in amusement.

She didn’t stay on the bird for long, however, as she kept her gaze into the vastness that made up the sky above her. Stretching out a hand as if to silently grasp something ethereal - her metal nails glimmering due to the celestial light almost like it were fighting her grasp. Something that only seemed to act as more fuel for the dark fires that burned under her sleep deprived eyes.

For an extended period she did nothing else but stand there staring up into the sky. Nevertheless she eventually tilted her head back slightly (looking towards her shadow once more) with a soft smirk fluttering across her face. An expression that was far softer than her usual grin yet still held a lot of playfulness.

“Do you think it’s possible, teach~?”

Her shadow unsurprisingly remained silent howbeit didn’t remain still - like it obviously should have - slightly trembling in response to her question. The grin growing as, no matter how insignificant, she noticed the obscure reaction that the entity trapped in the darkest depths gave her. Giving her all the confirmation she needed that she wasn’t so insane that she was making no sense… At least not yet.

Closing her eyes she soon pushed her consciousness into her shadow; exploring to depths of her abyss that no one had explored before. Most would find themselves lost within the shadows - fear overcoming them as they are left with nothing but their doubts - but to her there was nothing more comfortable. Like a friend that had always been with her no matter how tragic her life was. It was an element that was often looked down upon as something malicious & disgusting nonetheless she was treated the same.

Reaching through the darkness was a time consuming process - most of those who attempt to do such tend to not be able to handle it. There were many who reached into the wicked element in hopes to pull power beyond recognition out of such malevolent power always consumed them. She did not possess such skills, though.

Unlike a lot of those who reach into the dark, she was born with the power, and even then most are born with innately malicious power.

Her power can hardly be claimed to be anything like that.

Like with all elements there is a lot that can be accomplished with the power of darkness and shadow especially when one is born with their own unique manifestation. Cheshire is also born with her own unique representation of shadows from a race that worships their ability to manifest light. Perhaps if her power was at least one that held an obviously great combat potential she would find some respect.

For Cheshire, the most hated of her kind, was born with a skill that is very simple to understand despite her complex nature… The power to communicate.

More specifically; her power was one that lets her use shadows as a conduit for which she can pass information & knowledge. An ability that is certainly useful until one realises that there already exists a vast amount of methods that accomplish similar feats. The majority not requiring one to delve into such a dangerous attribute - one which can potentially claim their life should they become too confident.

Then what makes her power special?

Well that would be the power to reach into the crevices which only the darkest shadows can sink into.

That iconic cheshire grin formed across her lips as she continued to reach through the dark - completely unaware of the abyss that was going to be formed - with excitement. How could she not be exhilarated at the thought of proving everyone wrong? She had always been told how ‘weak’ she and her powers were.

At first she even believed them. Trusting that the adults around her would know best, knew all about the world and how hopeless her situation would be, until she accidentally talked to them. Learning about how the world could have been if not for the selfishness of those who claimed to be selfless. It helped give rise to a dream she didn’t even know she had the right to have. Of a world that knew equal opportunity without the need for people to constantly be at each other's neck for a small piece of black bread.

The narrative has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the infringement.

There was little difficulty in finding those willing to join her (even if a lot of those weren’t what one would refer to as enthusiastic) once she managed to get a little bit of strength. Getting that strength wasn’t easy as she needed to make a whole new method of cultivating the wisdom of the world into power. Despite that she managed to do it; certainly far surpassing the majority of those who told her she would accomplish nothing but dying.

It was with such a desire that she went deeper until…

“Hello nyahaha!”

| Hello indeed chehehehihihi~! |

| The amount of possibilities that just opened… |

| We should create a virtual space where we can all meet up and work on projects. |

| There can never be enough so we should see about adding artificial processing. |

| What about the potential that we could see with utilising drugs to improve our body? |

| Why stop at drugs when there are so many different races we can mimic? |

| I once read a thought experiment about a cat being both alive & dead that should be useful |

| Maybe we should look into the potential of sorcery now that we have so much processing? |

| When should we discuss the fundamentals to ensure our universes are all the same? |

| Every system has errors so we should look into how to manipulate these! |

| Perhaps there is opportunity in the mindscape? |

Very quickly her once silent mind filled with the voices of hundreds of people who shared the exact same desires as she did. Those women, just like her, wasted no time in taking advantage of her new discovery in throwing out potential projects after potential projects. There was no way that she wouldn’t smile the biggest smile she can manage as those voices ended up sounding like some scientific conference.

Such a gathering needed a leader to help control things…

“We need leadership to help make things efficient.”

|||| Makes sense~. |||||

“I would like to propose that I take the lead as the one who discovered the true potential of our unique skill thus made all this possible!”

|||| Nyes nyahaha~. |||||

“Then I think it’s best we listen to no.047 and begin discussing the fundamentals of our different universes to understand the differences, there is no absolute and all, so I will begin. In my world there…”

To most she would just appear as if she was standing in a field talking to herself however there was one single entity that understood what just happened. Knowing that the little black cat would be busy they did not raise any of their thoughts… Yet even they could not help but wonder what sort of monster they had just helped make.

Or perhaps this was another thing that was fated?

Maybe it was seeing their own role in giving this monstrosity wings that led to their once allies to trapping them which in turn ended up just becoming another self-fulling prophecy.

It certainly would help to explain the betrayal.

-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

Meanwhile, quite some distance away now, a certain (not so) little goddess was walking with a hand resting upon her hat with a conflicted expression on her face.

“I don’t know that girl's location, history, name, family or even age… At least her appearance is somewhat iconic so I can hopefully get some information by asking around - from the sounds of it she was also in the territory of the Azure Dragon family. Only problem is that I’ll need to cross the ocean and if I go into the sea I’ll return back to my weak form which leaves me open to attack.”

Letting out a sigh as she hands her hand tightly around the butt of her sword.

“I’ll just have to acquire a method ohohoho~.”