POV Change.
Clack
A young woman ran across the rooftops of a barren city. The nearby Buildings were smothered in Dark vines, the ones that didn't bore incredible amounts of damage. The fact that any of them hadn't collapsed might as well have been a miracle. Strange multiheaded creatures roamed the streets below her, snarling and screeching at every loose tile she accidentally knocked off the roofs.
Clack
Even after all her hard work, Nothing she saw was natural.
The sky was black and violet. The clouds looked more like bloody mist than actual clouds. During storms, they'd gain additional swirls of yellow and brown. Rainwater looked black and tasted of iron and dirt. None of these things should have been happening in Japan, let alone on earth.
Clack
Strange servant-like beings spawned at random times of the day, attacking everything and anything they came across. People, houses, animals, and even the planet were in danger.
The young woman pondered what type of magus could pull off such a feat, hastening her step. Maybe it wasn't a magus at all? 'Could it have been an ancestor?', she questioned internally. The further she traveled, the darker the skies became, and the oxygen she received lowered over time. She contemplated her life choices as she traveled further out of New Eden's layered Bounded Fields. According to her memories, it was a sanctuary and training ground for the remaining survivors.
Clack
Every human has now become aware of the presence of magic, but somehow magecraft as a whole only bolstered. The young woman never considered the day when magi actively revealed themselves to the populace as it seemed impossible.
Correction, It was impossible.
Now everyone who fell victim to whatever this was felt compelled to start working together to set bounded fields, preventing the atmosphere from waning into the emptiness of space.
Despite not buying any of it, she was not willing to take any chances. The remaining oxygen had to be pulled into safe zones, and it took all their efforts to do so. It had been a month since she had been trapped, and she had not yet found a way out. They even sent a mystic code to the moon, which acted as a vacuum and gradually pulled back the scattered atmosphere. The remaining magi banded together regardless of their statuses, under the belief that something or somebody was making an effort to wipe everyone out. Whatever it was, it was vicious, even the plants began dying. If what they said was true, It'd take several decades to recover even a sliver of what was lost.
Clack
Sliding a life support Mystic code over her face, she permitted her eyesight to focus, her gaze shining a deathly blue.
"Where were they again?" Around a week ago, or at least what she believed was a week ago, there was an overwhelming amount of Prana released into the area she was traveling through. However, the Clock Tower dismissed it as some magus releasing the rest of their reserves in a fight since the area was usually swarming with mutants. She couldn't help but feel like something else was going on. Despite the Clock Tower's original rejection of the call, She ran off alongside Azaka.
"I'm not seeing any humans nearby," she said. "We'll keep looking." Although she had a brooding personality and could be merciless at times, she believed that every human being was important. "Somebody with that amount of energy wouldn't die that easily."
"Shiki..." She turned to face Azaka and quickly looked forward again.
"Yes, Azaka?"
"You heard that?!" The girl behind her stumbled for a second before stuttering out an apology. " I-it's n-nothing! Let's keep going!"
"Mhmm."
The girl thought to herself, 'Azaka... She doesn't believe they're alive... Does she follow you out of pity or worry?'
Shiki remembered the day this all started. It wasn't very noticeable at first. The only person who felt like something was off was Mikiya, who told her that he had felt strangely aggressive recently and very restless. The following day, everyone began acting differently, more erratic, prone to anger, and several times more defensive than usual. She remembered sightings of people just freezing all together, their eyes rolled back and other signs of vitality declining rapidly.
Shiki looked back and wondered if their subconscious was being tampered with, but she couldn't explain how they managed to get past the clock tower and their companions. The number of known living humans had decreased to only twenty from the original 6.6 million, even when counting Magi, True Magicians, and wizards.
She found herself worrying more than usual about the security of people not associated with her, which she attributed to her original partner's influence. She had long severed the connection between what she believed to be a large-scale reality marble and herself. Sadly, that man was no longer with her as he found himself among the many who fell the day the planet ceased spinning. The premature shift in momentum compelled everything eastward immediately, resulting in the displacement of stones and seas, triggering quakes and tsunamis. The flooding and demolition of houses engulfed the survivors who weren't launched due to the planet's sudden freeze. The only remaining residences were safeguarded by bounded fields. The still-moving atmosphere brought about considerable deterioration of landscapes, resulting in the destruction of power plants and leading to nuclear meltdowns. Only the fortunate and powerful supernatural entities were able to endure the changes.
She glanced down at the damaged roads, flipped cars, and partially flooded homes through their torn roofs. Bodies of innocents floated down newly formed 'rivers', severed limbs sticking out upturned trees or sprawled out across the pavement, partly consumed by those accursed creatures.
She remembered the first time the man she was so close to falling for died, Slashed straight in half in front of her eyes. It all happened so suddenly she couldn't react fast enough. He flew off into the wind with millions of others crashing into objects with a force she could have sworn surpassed Mach 1. That same day, she met one of her other selves, the only reason she survived. Their interaction was something that would never occur naturally. She'd never forget it.
Her family members had her form three separate personalities at birth so Alaya wouldn't purge her. She had grown up believing it was two. SHIKI and herself.
The first time she met 「Shiki Ryougi」[1], she hijacked their body and sliced through space itself. Her explanation was simple, "I found something interesting, and it repulsed me. So, I got rid of it." She utilized her natural connection to the root to sever the foundations of their reality, forcing it to "Reset" itself. Essentially destroying the old world with a new one. She could use this ability to remake history to her liking, well Shiki Ryougi's liking. She didn't care much to do anything for herself refusing to ever come out unless her main personality found herself stuck in an impossible situation. It was a fantastic theory, they'd be "Remaking" the world into a better one where this event never happened through annihilation.
Unfortunately for them, it wouldn't work. At the very least they managed to discover something that managed to intrigue「Shiki Ryougi」and terrified her, something that she thought impossible. The leylines themselves were completely tainted by some foreign substance, corrupt at their very core. The side effects of the evil that took over the lands the first time remained despite their efforts.
「Shiki」stayed up all night to deal with the situation, but society collapsed even faster than before, each death more brutal than the last. It reminded the pair of an annoyed animal venting on their surroundings. Whatever it was even tried its hand at punishing her ended up destroying almost everyone in her immediate area after realizing it couldn't reach her without risk. Ultimately, both parties gave up on harming the other. The energy it took to eradicate the old world with a new one could have killed her if she wasn't adept at using her eyes. Doing it more than thrice in a row might as well have been considered akin to ending themselves. Silently watching as the planet fell into disarray, they accepted that the only way forward to returning the planet to what it once was was to let the magicians know something was wrong.
Even if the reset appeared useless, it allowed the world to learn more about their surroundings, compared to the first time around. Surprisingly the area had been completely transformed. The entirety of Japan had been cut off from the rest of the world by a coat of reddish-brown liquid. It had been slowly overtaking their entire planet. Their moon was sentient, related to the birth of vampires, and had a supercomputer capable of generating a 1 to 1 replica of the planet. It regularly sent messages through the mystic codes they had managed to sync up to it, updating them on the status of Gaia. The Earth, Moon, and Humanity actively worked together to get rid of the blight that plagued them all. The Moon Cell Automaton became a space where engineers and alchemists became Adept Spiritron Hackers or Wizards. They could gather safely and experiment within its systems, working together to ensure their survival and restore Gaia to her former glory despite all the things she did to get rid of them.
"Slow- Oh god. Slow down shiki... let me catch my breath."
Ryougi obliged and decided to wait for the person behind her. "Kokutou, you shouldn't have followed me."
Azaka Kokutou panted as she grasped her sides, trying to catch her breath. "Ah... shut up Ryougi... just. give. me. a second..." Unlike Ryo, she had no circuits and was less than subpar at using magecraft unless they were ignition spells. She became a Wizard instead of a Magus, relying on mystic codes and technology to fill the gap and defend herself.
"I could just leave you here, you know." She wore a set of gloves and stockings that allowed her to utilize her unique ability, spontaneous combustion, to its fullest potential in conjunction with martial arts.
They had been trying to move as stealthily as possible so Azaka couldn't utilize her Mystic Codes to maneuver. The two of them had been evading those mysterious black-outfitted servants for far longer than they had anticipated. She felt drained of energy, and the sun's scorching heat didn't make it any easier for her to carry on.
The sun pierced through the clouds in this area. The tainted light leaves a terrifyingly red ambiance for others to walk through. She only knew it was night when the moon covered the sun entirely. She glanced up, "Maybe five? Six o'clock?" She questioned, slowly sliding her mask back up over her nose and mouth. Since the planet didn't rotate, whenever it circled the sun it would slowly move positions in the sky, taking around an entire year to return to their side of the earth. Their day-night cycle focused on the moon which cut a 27-day orbit into 25 hours.[2]
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Just some stuff I had sitting around. Thought it'd be nice to just let these shorter side chapters go
Hope all of you guys have a nice break over the holidays.
[1] Shiki Ryougi, the main protagonist of the Kara no Kyoukai is a girl that possesses the mystic eyes of death perception. Her family, The Ryougi, artificially forces the creation of dual personalities within their children. They usually have dual personalities but Ryougi has three. Whenever Her name is within, 「 」, it is the personality connected to the root. This version of her might as well be considered godlike.
SHIKI (in all caps) is the personality responsible for Shiki Ryougi's more destructive tendencies.
Shiki Ryougi or just Shiki is the main personality.
You can read up on this character on the Type-Moon fandom site. she's one of my favorites tbh.
[2]
Christ, imagine a world where the sun's light takes 27 days to reach every part of the planet and the moon circles the planet every 25 hours.