Chapter 1:
"Why do we fight? This existence is too vast and foolish to provide a true answer. Worlds upon worlds are stacked in an infinite line spreading across the multiverse and yet not a single one is devoid of conflict. Do the 12 gods on high demand it? Did they give Cain the rock to hit Abel? Their paracausal arms of shining energy stretch across all that does and doesn't exist, and yet they themselves feel conflict.
And what of those outside our tiny universe? The beings that tower in the nothingness beyond space? Do they know conflict, hunger, desire, or desperation? No matter how narrow or vast your view of existence spreads there is something always beyond the edge of your vision, ceaselessly fighting a battle you could never hope to imagine. As a worm could not understand the wars of man, a man cannot understand the wars of a god, but what can the gods themselves not understand?
We stand at the brink of that understanding. This universe is ending, its branch of the multiverse falling into a swirling chaos of matter and energy as the great calamity passes. The 12 gods have abandoned us to protect the integrity of the rest of the multiverse, sealing us forever. A being from the area beyond the outer spread of space has crossed by our tiny little universe and torn it to shreds. Did it care? Did it regret? Did it even notice? All are questions we may never answer.
If there is one certain truth in conflict, it is the need to survive. The desire to live and protect. We will survive this. Our Paraversal Reactor will tear apart the walls between worlds and carve a new home for us in a new dimension. The 32 Replica Deities stand at the ready. So, I ask you, are you ready my people? Are you ready to finally escape this doomed destiny of our universe?!
With the thunderous roar of an audience spanning trillions, the speaker turned towards the reactor. 32 elaborate mechas stood proudly around it, each one reaching up for kilometers into the starry deep purple sky crossed with bright neon grid-lines. The person who had given the speech was a young girl, looking around sixteen years old, but her eyes showed a wisdom that stretched for thousands of years. This was the future, an age of technological miracles, and as the last remaining Eternal, a ruler beyond the rules of time, she would lead her people into the future. The tails of her long, forest green trench coat billowed in the constant wind that blasted from the Reactor. In her right hand she clenched hard onto the reflective chrome handle of a bladeless katana.
The girl raised her right arm high, and ignited a blade of shining pink plasma, its light piercing the crushing eternal darkness of the forgotten dimension. With a single elegant motion, her hand arced downwards, the blade humming through the air. The glowing blade sank into the ground like it was made of butter, and the girl rested both hands upon its handle, forming an imposing stance.
"ACTIVATE THE REACTOR!"
Space tore into shreds. Time, matter, physics, light, all were brutally torn into pieces around the reactor, bolts of electricity the size of skyscrapers arcing in every direction. All 32 mechas formed a ring, adopting a defensive stance facing inwards in an attempt to block the seas of citizens from the carnage of the Reactor. The girl, still standing tall above her people, was consumed by a light that spread out, erasing all in its wake. However she was an Eternal, a being beyond death in any conventional idea.
The structure of all reality screamed and collapsed into itself a million times over, obliterating the walls between worlds into dust. The infinite pieces of this universe were scattered across the endless number of alternate worlds, the final salvation for a doomed universe. Some people may find happiness in their new world, some may find pain and death, but no matter how they found their situation in their new dimension, they had made their choice to roll the dice. Certain death, or a miniscule chance of success. To most, the choice would be obvious.
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The Eternal's soul was split into 17 pieces. Each one a vital part of existence. The logic, the emotion, and the body clung to each other until the end, but even they became unstuck. However, they had stayed together long enough to all land within the same world, and thus the 33rd Replica Deity landed on Earth.
***
Aika was a hero. Her long, black, straight hair fell upon her crumpled school uniform, while she held a slender golden sword lightly in her hand. The sword itself was breathtaking, its golden form covered in delicate carvings and embedded metals of rich, deep color. Adorning the hilt were a trio of large, round gems, and when looked into them they seemed to contain an entire galaxy, caught in time and sparkling like a kaleidoscope.
She swung her sword with a level of skill and grace that would entrance any who watched it into her masterful choreography. She danced and she killed, slaughtering the mindless creatures that seeped into her world. Their bodies were a glitched and torn mess of black nothingness, and no clear features showed on their faces or bodies except their piercing bright lilac eyes.
No emotion showed on her face, no anger, no exhaustion, no happiness. She killed and killed without blinking an eye. Not one of them hit her, and not one of them survived.
The night was silent and dark, a pleasant cool blackness covering everything, a perfect time for routine extermination before bed. Aika quietly appreciated the beauty of it as she walked along her patrol. As her blade slipped deep into the center of a daemon, the serene darkness was shattered by an explosion of bright violet light, and sounds of fighting and shouting emerged from the peaceful silence. Shocked, Aika spun around, facing the source of the explosion. Her silken black hair flew around her head, a lone strand landing on her nose.
Beginning to run, Aika blasted through the sound barrier and landed in the middle of a warzone. A battle between two girls around Aika's age, both floating dozens of feet in the air. One looked young, around sixteen years old, her pink hair was short and slightly fluffy, and fell down onto a casually unkempt dress shirt. A dark pink tie was loosely knotted around her collar, the top 3 buttons all undone, showing a peek of the skin in the center of her chest, down past her shoulders. She wore a long military trench coat colored a deep, dark green, rolled up at the sleeves to show her sleder pale arms. In her left hand she held a bright pink submachine gun with a small holographic screen floating by its brightly colored side, while in her left hand she held a katana, the glowing pink of its energy blade shining across the chrome of the handle.
Across from the pink girl there was... an impossibility. A ghost. A ghost Aika couldn't bear to look at, but neither could she look away. The other girl was her girlfriend, Shirai Tanaka, who died nearly half a year ago. The sight of her face, a cool beauty through and through, filled Aika's panging heart with a flood of pain, despair, and elation. The way her smooth black hair flowed down her head and ended near the base of her neck, shimmering in the light, how her eyes almost shined white, it wrenched Aika's heart into a broken mess. Her pale skin complimented a slender yet muscular physique and bright blue eyes that locked onto her combatant. Her handsome face was twisted into a haughty smirk, showing off her canines to sparkle in the streetlight.
Her casually scruffy male school uniform gave her a rather cool tomboyish charm, and the energy of the attacks would make her rumpled shirt's popped collar flutter slightly. Behind her tall form was a weblike spread of shattered light, space itself smashing like glass into shining shards of crystal. The crystals formed a myriad of glasslike weapons, a hundred swords, spears, maces, arrows, glaives, and halberds, their edges rough and sharp as they reflected the moonlight. Floating and spinning the air behind her, they spread outwards in a fan pattern. The weapons were thrown at her enemy, shattering the ground they hit into rubble as the pink girl dodged and weaved through the air, avoiding each weapon with a hair's breadth of space.
With Aika's arrival, the two had stopped fighting, instead staring at the new incomer to the situation. Shirai's eyes seemed to aggressively narrow upon seeing Aika for the first time. Hurtling towards her with the speed of a jet, Shirai pinned Aika to the ground, holding down her arms and staring into her eyes, assuming an imposing stance over the Aika.
"I don’t know who you are but I know what I must do." were Shirai's words before she gestured forward, her myriad of weapons pointing toward Aika’s heart.
"Shirai..."
A look of shock and confusion shot across Shirai's eyes as she pushed herself away from Aika. The confusion hid the slight pain in the back of the fake Shirai's mind hearing that name brought her. Looking at Aika, she asked a single question.
"Who?"