The world had once faced an unimaginable threat. They had called it the “Crusade of the Damned”. A purple singularity covered the sun, its black heart rimmed with a flowing violet light. Across the world the walls between realities cracked and split as countless black daemons seeped into the Earth, killing and destroying indiscriminately. Humanity had fallen, their guns and missiles ineffective against the hordes of damned shades, defeat and extinction all but assured, until the day the savior arrived.
Aika was once a normal high school girl, living a life of blissful ignorance to her place in the endlessly spanning arms of reality. She would study, play, laugh like everyone else, until the day the singularity appeared. As the world fell into chaos, she dragged her limp and dying body through the flames of a decimated Tokyo, her skin black with soot and throat clogged with ash. As she dragged herself through the ruins, a brilliant golden light appeared from the stars in the murky black night, slashing the deep purple gridlines that laced the sky into a shower of countless jagged shards as it fell towards the ground.
The light landed upon a tall dark stone that once served as a courtyard’s decoration. Slowly the blinding glow began to dissipate and revealed the brilliant star’s true form, a peerless golden sword decorated from tip to hilt with elaborate designs and gems. As the pieces of the skygrid fell to the ground, rain began to pour from above in dense sheets, turning the dusty ash to mud as Aika splashed towards the sword, entranced by its shining splendor.
Her weak, bruised hands clutched onto the soaked crevices of the rock as she used the last ounces of her strength to pull her broken body towards the bright glow that stood before her. Her body screamed to let go, her fingers lacking the ability to keep their grasp on the cold wet stone for longer than a fraction of a second, but she still kept climbing until her chest lay flat against the rock’s top. Her ragged gulps of air pressed her wet shirt against the stone, her muscles refusing to move another inch.
Struggling to reach forward, she slowly moved her limp, spasming arms towards the brilliant light that warmly washed over her shivering body. As the tip of her fingers grew close enough to nearly touch the sword’s elegant handle, Aika died. Her body collapsed with a quiet thump onto the wet surface beneath her. Then she died again, struggling and silently screaming through her bloody throat, but this time her fingers grew the slightest bit closer to the golden blade. The sword’s glow illuminated Aika with a warm yellow tint as she died and resurrected, reaching forward with all her might, then fell dead again upon the hard rock countless times. The light’s power strengthened as her hand grew closer and closer with every loop.
The true nature of the multiverse is impossible to comprehend. Its intricacies, concepts, and mathematics are beyond the human mind’s mental capability, however if one boiled its core design down to a level they could imagine, it would likely resemble a tree, although simply in the same way that an orange resembles the vast ball of energy that is the sun. The trunk would be known as Universe Zero, throne room of the Twelve Gods and resting place to the ruins of the Garden of Light and Dark. Each branch would represent a universe that spun off to form its own existence and identity. As the dimensions grew further from the branch, the smaller, newer, and more unique a reality would become.
As Aika died over and over, small twigs would grow from the branch of her home universe, twigs of reality where she struggled and perished that were grown, then pruned as they failed their purpose. The purpose of guiding a desperate hand to its rightful tool. The closer and closer the sword came to the outcome it was working for, the closer Aika would come to the hilt, millions of newly created worlds burning to fuel her march forward.
With a final lunge she threw herself onto the flat side of the blade, her bloody, weak hands covering the ocean blue handle with crimson as she desperately clung to it. The warmth of the sword filled her body, flowing through each molecule until the sensation of the freezing rain pelting her body felt like a distant memory. Her shattered bones began to pull themselves into place, strengthening her grip as she pulled her head away from where it rested upon her hands. The brilliant gems adorning the cross guard of the hilt filled her vision, images of entire universes frozen in time and caught within a crystal the shape of a marble which entranced her addled mind. Her bloody wounds closed and energy flooded her body while she used her hold on the sword to drag herself upwards. Channeling all her newfound strength into her arms, she pulled against the sword, the blade offering little resistance as it slid from the rock that held it like butter.
The energy from millions of dimensions pruned, millions of versions of herself who failed where she had succeeded, began to siphon into her body until it had not only mended, but absorbed the strength of an alternate self. The power she inherited surged through her body, ascending her past humanity. Perhaps in this other universe humans had evolved differently, perhaps she herself had sought more power, there were endless explanations, but in the end it doesn't truly matter. Every aspect of that universe was consumed. The light once emanating from the sword now shot upwards from her body into the pitch-black sky, bathing the word in a bright golden shimmer that could have outshone the sun.
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Leaping off the craggy surface of the rock, she landed softly upon the ground, angelic wings as white as stars arcing above her head to support her fall. Using a new influence over matter itself, she threw heaps of rubble and bodies to her sides with an invisible force, digging a tunnel through the wreckage that flew into mountains of debris as she searched for a single, precious thing.
The crushed wreckage of a car flew off the body of a young woman, the crumpled chassis smashing into a pile of concrete and ash. The girl’s body was crushed and beaten, the dried blood that caked her short, jet-black hair beginning to run again as it became exposed to the heavy rainfall. Aika rushed towards the body as pieces of rubble and glass crunched under her boots. The sword that had held her attention so strongly clattered across the ground as she brought both her hands together to hold the girl’s smashed hand. The ice cold of death seeped into Aika’s clenched fingers through the beaten corpse. Desperate to fend off the chill, she shoved the warm handle of the sword into the body’s hands, Aika’s falling tears boiling into steam as they fell upon the golden blade.
Color seemed to spread across the blue skin of the cadaver from where Aika hand pressed the motionless fingers into clenching the hilt, a pale tan beginning to cover her body. The glazed eyes that Aika stared into as she wept began to shine with life, and once stiff fingers tightened around the sword’s handle of their own accord.
With a sudden motion the girl’s upper body lurched forward into an upright position, the ash covering her body falling off into a dusty gray cloud. Her immediate motions after waking up were looking around with wide eyes, her mind boggled with confusion after she returned from the unyielding grasp of the afterlife. Her body was still cold and numb, her fingers unable to loosen themselves from the strange blade in her right hand, incapable of sensing the battering pelt of rain upon her back. The first thing she felt was Aika’s scalding hot tears smearing across her face as she brought the newly revived girl into an emotional embrace.
“Shirai…” Aika quietly whispered as she cried into the dusty and torn shoulder of Shirai’s uniform. Her grasp crumpled the fabric covering Shirai’s back into bunches while she slowly pulled her slumped head upright.
“You’re alive!” Aika shouted with elation as the girl coughed in her arms, leaning forward. “I don’t know what I could ever do without you..”
“Yeah Aika,” Shirai chuckled as she wiped wet, crusted blood off her face, staring back into Aika’s tearful gaze. “I missed you too.”
***
3 years later, the fake Shirai pulled herself away from Aika, holding her head in her arms. Looking intensely towards Aika, her mind filled with a mixture of pain and confusion. Something about the unfamiliar name that Aika had spoken created a wrenching, empty pain within her beyond what she could understand.
“Who?” Aika seemed to shrink backwards as the fake Shirai’s eyes gradually became crazed, beginning to shout. “Who is Shirai?”
The fake Shirai’s body began to move forwards to where Aika lay splayed across the ground, however she was stopped when the third girl landed between them, flourishing her coattails. With a blinding flash of her angered lilac eyes, she bound the faker in place.
“Well well, isn’t this unexpected?” Her lighthearted voice contrasted the serious gaze in her eyes. “We can’t continue if we risk the livelihood of an unrelated third party.” The bright pink plasma of her katana’s blade shimmered with heat as it shot upwards from rest to hold a position near the faker’s chin, her immobilized face unable to move away. “I hope you understand this is where our little brawl ends.”
“...I’ll comply.” The fake Shirai’s voice strained with broken pride as she spoke through clenched teeth. Her body was let loose from its invisible restraints and fell upon the grass with a thud.
The pink girl looked pleased. Her weapon vanished into a flurry of purple motes of light, and she reached out her hand to help pull up the fallen girl.
“If that’s the case, I think we can put away the weapons and have a little talk.” The mysterious pink girl spoke as the fake Shirai brushed her hand aside. “First, our names.” She made a slight bow as she introduced herself in a proud and noble tone. “My name is Alexis, the last Eternal and god of the Transient Human Empire.”
Aika pulled herself to her feet from the soft park ground, brushing off the dirt that clung to her skirt. Her eyes were still dazed, her mind a maelstrom of thoughts and emotions.
“Aika, Earth’s Protector.” The voice coming out of Aika’s mouth felt empty, an automatic response devoid of thought and filled with unrelated feelings that left no room for the words themselves to have any of their own. Her introduction was a habit from her 3 long years of being a hero, and one that would require no attention as she focused on thinking. “I wield my Sword of Infinity against all who threaten this world or its people.”
The fake Shirai left her gaze locked on the conflicted Aika for a moment before turning to Alexis.
“I’m Sakura.” Sakura looked towards the ground beneath her, struggling to find the right words to use for her bizarre situation. “Yesterday I appeared in this world with no trace of my identity or memories. All I know is that I am a god, stranded on a planet filled with humans and unable to leave.”
“I believe I can find the answer to that, if you decide to work with me.” Alexis laughed cheerfully as she spoke. Her sword swung in her hands, a fanciful twirling motion that transitioned into a stab, piercing the air in front of her. The space tore open into a gash, the interior of the cut showing the black expanse of space. “Well then,” Alexis approached the gash in space, gesturing towards the portal to invite the other two girls inside. “Shall we continue this conversation in a less public place?”