Darkness.
That was all I could see, all I could feel, all I could hear. Even though none of those senses should have meant anything in a place like this, they were the only scraps of familiarity my mind could cling to, fragile threads anchoring me to something that might have been myself. Something I could recognize.
I drifted through it without a body, without breath, without sound, as if I were part of the void itself, sliding weightlessly through a black that had no edges, no beginning, no end. The sensation was strange, almost intimate in its impossibility, like sinking into thick, warm ink. It pressed against me, surrounding me, heavy enough to hold me but too soft to resist. The darkness folded in on itself, layering around me like water, soaked velvet, each layer thicker than the last, pressing on my thoughts until even thinking felt as though it could slip through my fingers. Ideas dissolved the instant I tried to grasp them, scattering like droplets across a black surface.
Everything was blurred. Softened. Distant.
The last memory I could claim as my own, jagged and incomplete as it was, was Yang striking me with everything she had. A sudden flash of motion. A burning, biting heat. The shock of the impact stole my breath before I even realized I had one. Then I was falling, suspended, something rising within me, clawing upward, stretching, waking. And then darkness swallowed it all again.
Then this.
A night without sky. A void so absolute that the passing of time became meaningless. Seconds, minutes, years, an eternity, none of it applied here. My memories, my past, even my sense of self had been devoured, leaving only a hollow, weightless feeling of falling without moving.
Yet, even in that infinite emptiness, one thing remained.
I wanted out.
The want was small, fragile, barely a flicker, an ember buried deep beneath mountains of ash, but it was alive. Persistent. Insistent. It stretched inside me, a pulse that said, you still exist. It wasn't born of anger, nor of fear, nor of stubbornness. It was older than any of those things, almost as if it belonged to someone else, some memory of determination I had absorbed, and yet it was enough.
Enough to push. Enough to reach. Enough to move against the impossibility surrounding me.
I extended a hand, if it could be called a hand, and it met resistance. Thick, warm, viscous, almost comforting in its hold. It tugged gently at my fingers as if the world itself were testing me, gauging my resolve. And then, abruptly, my fingertips brushed something solid.
Hope surged through me like a live wire, sharp and immediate. It tore up my arm, igniting every nerve in a burst of warmth and electricity, a rush that chased the emptiness from my chest. It was more than relief. it was proof. Proof that something tangible still existed. That something beyond the void was real. That I could reach it.
A wall. A real, physical wall. A boundary where there should have been absolutely nothing.
I pressed my palm flat against it.
The surface was unbelievably strange, smooth in some places, uneven in others, patterned with faint ridges that felt like the frozen outline of a heartbeat captured mid-pulse. My fingertips traced shallow rises and dips that shifted subtly beneath my touch, as though the wall were adjusting itself around me. Some sections radiated warmth, a gentle living glow that seeped into my skin like the warmth of someone's hand pressed against mine. Other patches were so cold they sharpened into needles that shot up my wrist, startlingly clear compared to the muffled nothingness I had drifted in for so long.
It didn't feel like touching an object. It felt like laying my hand on a breathing surface, a barrier that inhaled and exhaled at a rhythm too low for me to hear, but somehow felt beneath my skin. A hum moved through it, soft and steady, vibrating faintly against my palm. The sensation tugged at something in my chest, an answering thrum that made the warmth inside me, tiny as it was, flare a little brighter.
Hope grew the longer I touched the wall, swelling like a spark being coaxed into flame. The idea that something solid, something real, something that reacted to me, filled my chest with a trembling urgency that felt almost frightening in its intensity. It wasn't loud or dramatic. it was steady, rising with each breath I didn't remember taking.
It was weird. So weird, in fact, that I did the logical and instinctual thing, the only thing that made sense in this muffled, water-thick world of half-formed sensations.
I punched it.
The impact rippled up my knuckles, crisp and clean, so startlingly familiar that for a heartbeat I forgot where I was. It reminded me of hitting a training pad, an echo buried under layers of distant memory, softened by something invisible but still recognizably mine. A sharp crack tore through the air, sound, real sound, echoing across the void like something ancient awakening.
The noise hit me harder than the vibration of the impact. My chest seized, the sudden jolt of it like the flinch that comes from being pulled back to oneself. The sound proved something. Proved I could change this place. Proved that this wall, this boundary, could break.
Hope sharpened.
I struck the wall again, harder this time. My feet braced against what felt like a floor made of cool smoke, dense enough to support me, yet shifting under my weight like fog trapped in place. Each time I pushed off of it, it curled around my ankles, swirling like a pale shadow responding to my motion.
My fist collided with the wall, and the membrane rippled outward like water disturbed by a stone. A thin fracture spidered out beneath my knuckles, a delicate, glowing thread that cut through the darkness.
I struck again. Once. Twice. Four times. Ten times.
Each blow felt more solid than the last, each strike anchoring me more firmly in myself. The darkness around me quivered with each impact, trembling like it was recoiling, or bracing.
Twenty times. Twenty-five times. Forty.
With every hit, the hope inside me bloomed wider, brighter, pushing back against the emptiness. The fracture grew, branching like lightning, forming a web of shimmering cracks that spread far beyond my reach.
Until, finally, the barrier shattered.
It burst outward in a shower of glowing shards, scattering around me like fireflies torn apart by a sudden gust of wind. Each fragment spun slowly, weightless, lingering in the air longer than seemed possible, before dissolving into tiny flecks that clung to my skin like falling stars. They pulsed faintly against me, tracing the outlines of my arms and chest with a light that was almost warm, almost real, before fading entirely into nothing.
Only then did the shape of what I had been trapped inside begin to make sense, at least the parts my eyes could see.
It had been an egg. A large one. Or perhaps a shell. Or maybe a cocoon, stitched from the threads of darkness and light, fragile and immense all at once.
Excitement surged through me so violently it nearly hurt. It struck my chest in a sharp swell, tightened my throat until I could barely swallow. The sensation didn't fade as normal emotions do. it stretched outward, looping back on itself in slow, echoing waves that pulsed through my body like distant thunder rolling across a calm sea. Each beat vibrated against my ribs as if someone were replaying it, over and over, just behind my heart.
For the first time since arriving here, I had changed something. Shifted something. Broken something open.
And yet, even as fragments of my shattered enclosure floated around me, twisting in that unmistakable pattern, the void beyond remained. Vast. Soft-edged. Swallowing everything. Patient.
As the last glowing shards dissolved into nothing, I realized what I had hoped for, and what I had almost believed, was gone.
The void waited, indifferent, unbroken.
A sound escaped me, though it felt alien, dissonant, like it belonged to someone else entirely. A groan? A laugh? Some strange, impossible combination of both? I couldn't tell. The noise faltered, twisted at the edges, and I felt the flicker of hope I had carried surge upward, only to collapse into despair as I realized there was no response, no shift in the void.
I pressed my palms to my face, but even that felt strange, unreal, like touching the idea of skin rather than the substance of it. The light of hope had left a bitter aftertaste, replaced by confusion and a hollow ache.
Then something behind me flickered. A faint light. Weak, trembling, yet undeniably there.
A shock ran through me. My head turned slowly, as though the air itself thickened around me. The glow pulsed again, small, delicate, fragile as a dying ember, but it was the brightest thing I had seen in what felt like centuries.
A soft vibration spread through the space, a gentle hum that brushed the edges of my consciousness. It was familiar in a way I couldn't place, like remembering a tune someone once hummed, one that hovered just beyond memory, teasing me with recognition I couldn't name.
I stepped toward it.
Each movement sent shivers rippling through the groundless darkness beneath me. The void seemed to recoil slightly, thinning like morning mist, letting edges and shapes bleed through, teasing the possibility of form.
At first, only vague silhouettes appeared. Lines that shimmered and curved in impossible ways. Then forms began to take shape.
A small room pulled itself into being as if the glow carved it from the nothingness. The walls were faint outlines, luminous and fragile, like chalk tracing shapes across midnight glass. A low table sat near the center, reflecting a cool, soft, blue light in slow, liquid waves.
And in front of it, resting directly on the floor, was a TV screen humming softly, its surface alive with shifting static, shapes dissolving and reforming with a motion that felt almost conscious.
A TV. In a place where absolutely nothing felt grounded in logic, that single object was somehow the strangest thing of all. Its boxy shape, its familiar outline, it shouldn't have existed here, yet it did, hovering in the void with a weightless certainty that made no sense at all.
Looking closer, the static wasn't normal. It twisted and rolled across the screen like living silk, curling into impossible arcs, forming intricate silver symbols that drifted and glimmered like droplets of mercury suspended in slow motion. The shapes shifted constantly, turning into letters I didn't recognize, into runes that shimmered and dissolved before I could grasp them. Each flicker seemed deliberate, as though the screen itself was thinking, teasing me with meaning I couldn't reach. The sound it made was soft and rhythmic, almost like a heartbeat filtered through layers of cloth, muffled yet insistent, persistent, pressing against the edge of my mind until I wondered if I was hearing it or merely imagining it.
And there she was.
Sitting cross-legged in front of the TV, illuminated by the flickering blue glow, a figure emerged from the darkness.
A woman. Her form was wrapped in shadows thicker than the void itself, yet her silhouette remained sharply defined, carved with impossible precision against the surrounding black. Long hair drifted downward in curling trails, twisting against gravity as if the air around her had its own currents, tracing slow arcs that mesmerized my gaze. Her shoulders were unnaturally still, almost too perfect, graceful in a way that made her seem less human and more like the memory of one, a recollection I couldn't place but somehow recognized.
One hand rested lightly on her knee. Her fingers tapped a slow, deliberate rhythm, not against skin or a surface I could identify, but as if striking the void itself. The faint echoes radiated outward like ripples across still water, and I realized she wasn't waiting for me specifically. She was waiting for something larger, something I could not see, a universe that seemed to lag behind her awareness, struggling to catch up with her presence.
I opened my mouth, but no words came. My throat tightened as if the air itself had thickened. Before I could summon anything, she turned her head just enough to reveal the curve of her cheek, catching a sliver of reflected light. Then her eye, black as oil, yet speckled with silver, glinting like starlight trapped in liquid darkness, met mine.
Confusion struck me all at once. I wanted to understand, to ask, to demand answers, but the pull of her form was disorienting. She seemed to exist in multiple spaces at once, simultaneously close and impossibly distant, each heartbeat of her presence pressing against the edges of my perception, bending what I thought I knew about where I was, what I could touch, what was real. My chest tightened further, a mix of awe and disbelief twisting with a flicker of unease. Time itself felt wrong. The world around me, a world of void and shifting light, wavered like water, unstable, refusing to hold form. I wanted to step closer, to reach out, to anchor myself, but the space between us seemed elastic, stretching and contracting beyond my control.
Then she spoke.
The sound moved through the void with impossible ease, gliding like silk over cold stone, brushing softly against the edges of my mind before settling deeper inside. It felt both intimate and unreal, as if her voice wasn't coming from the space around me but from somewhere threaded between my thoughts.
"You are an interesting one," she said. Her voice was utterly emotionless, as if she were already bored with the entire conversation. Yet every word carried a quiet, steady weight, tugging gently at something within me, bending the darkness with the ease of a breath disturbing mist. "You summoned me by accident, into a world shaped by dragons. And then, right after, you gained pieces of my soul."
She didn't blink. She didn't breathe. She simply continued.
"To be precise," she said, her tone flat and even, "it wasn't my soul you gained. It wasn't even my body. It was someone else's. But before she existed, before she was anything at all, her soul was once a fragment of mine."
She spoke as if the explanation wasn't truly meant for me, as though she were repeating something she'd already lived through countless times. Her voice stayed calm and emotionless, but every syllable felt intentional, placed with a precision that deepened the quiet confusion twisting inside my chest. Her words moved through the air in a subtle, almost tactile current, curling and stretching as if the darkness itself were something soft enough to be shaped. I tried to follow what she said, to hold onto the meaning, but it slipped from my thoughts like water through unsteady hands. Dragons. Summoning. Souls changing owners. The ideas clashed and blurred until I felt both strangely aware and completely disoriented. And yet, somehow, the rhythm of her voice made everything feel right.
Before any question could form in my throat, she lifted her hand in one slow, deliberate motion, palm facing downward. Her fingers brushed the dimly glowing surface beside her with a light, careful touch. The gesture was precise and fluid, almost ritualistic, as though she had performed it countless times before. And as I watched, something inside me stirred with unfamiliar recognition, like I had seen this movement before in memories that weren't fully mine.
It was an invitation, but one that unsettled me, as if moving closer might unravel the fragile sense of stability I was barely holding onto.
With nowhere else to go, and nothing in this strange place offering a choice, I lowered myself beside her. My legs folded beneath me, and the floor, if it could be called that, gave softly. It was warm and firm at once, like packed earth wrapped in velvet, yet it shifted in slow, flowing movements that pressed against me in gentle, unpredictable waves.
I tried to speak, a dozen questions scraping at the back of my throat, but before I could form a sound, something solid was placed in my hands, tangible, heavy, undeniably real in a way nothing else here was.
It felt familiar and strange at the same time. It settled into my hands like a piece of another world, its smooth buttons almost humming beneath my fingertips. The weight of it grounded me, anchoring me in a reality that kept shifting at the edges. Every curve and surface felt exact and deliberate, yet somehow unreal, as if the controller existed both as an object and as a thought taking shape. A faint vibration pulsed through it, a quiet, steady rhythm that drew my attention even as my mind struggled to keep up.
She spoke again, her tone lighter now, almost playful. Her voice slipped through the thick air with effortless grace.
"You probably don't understand what I'm talking about. how could you? Yet your semblance, your ability, is far more... unusual than you realize. It has a function, a purpose, that goes beyond anything you've yet imagined."
Her words barely settled before the TV flickered. The static twisted and folded into sharp, bright pixels. The chaos tightened into a neon-lit stage, a fighting game blooming to life with exaggerated precision, each movement crisp, yet slightly distorted, as though the world on-screen remembered itself imperfectly.
Two characters took form. One was massive, a bald, muscular giant whose very stance seemed to drag gravity toward him. The other was swift and razor-sharp, an assassin moving in bursts of impossible speed, twin blades flashing under the harsh digital lights.
Her fingers moved over her controller with flawless ease, each motion clean and confident. Mine tried to follow, but they felt slow, stiff, almost clumsy. Panic edged into my breathing. The controller shook with every impact, the vibrations running up my arms like distant thunder rolling closer.
"Your semblance... it has a power most would never suspect," she said, her tone steady and unwavering even as her character moved with impossible precision, blades slicing and spinning through the air in fluid arcs. "It can summon things, from other worlds."
I tried to keep up. I really did. But every attempt felt a step behind, too heavy, too late. My character stumbled, flipped, crashed against hers, the hits lighting up the screen and sending sharp pulses into my hands. Each one pushed my heart a little harder, tightening the panic that had already begun to twist inside my chest.
"Your original soul... it's interesting as well," she said as her character slammed mine into the ground with a bone-jarring combo. "It is a simple soul."
A new round blinked onto the screen. Now I was a military man with a strange haircut, stiff and awkward compared to her flawless movements. My hands fumbled over the buttons, every motion out of sync with hers. My mind raced, trying, and failing, to process everything. the controller grounding me, the impossible room forming around us, her presence bending sense and logic with every word.
Pixels flared and shimmered with each hit. The impacts echoed softly through the space, like someone striking a distant drum deep inside an empty hall. The rhythm crawled under my skin, steady and relentless, matching the calm, measured cadence of her voice.
"This means your soul carries a trace of divinity," she continued, her tone unchanging even as her character launched into another fluid attack. "An old man once claimed that a simple soul is destined to be a good one."
She paused only to input another perfect combo.
"But I see it differently," she said. "A simple soul does not mean you are purely good, or incapable of evil. It simply means you follow your nature, whatever that nature is, even if you do not yet understand it."
Her character leapt again, blades spinning in bright arcs that caught the surreal glow of the stage. They collided with mine in a burst of sparks that scattered across the screen. I staggered backward under the game's physics, my hands shaking as the controller pulsed with each hit. But my focus stayed on her, on the calm, emotionless rhythm of her voice. Every motion of her fingers, every flawless combo, felt intentional, as if the fight itself were a language and she was speaking it fluently while I struggled to keep up.
"Let me give you an example," she said, her voice calm and unwavering, cutting clearly through the chaos that churned in my mind. "Suppose you see someone in trouble. If your nature leans toward darkness, you might ignore them... or even harm them, torture, kill. But that doesn't necessarily come from malice. It simply means that is your nature."
I glanced toward her. Her eyes had found mine again, black, glinting like oil catching starlight. For a moment, I felt the pull of them, a quiet and impossible gravity drawing my scattered thoughts inward. The darkness around her seemed to respond, drifting toward me in thin, curling strands that moved like living smoke. I shivered, caught between unease and a strange, unsettling relief that she had noticed me at all.
She added, her voice softer now, almost intimate, "And of course, I could save you. That, too, is something I can do... if it follows the shape of my nature."
I tightened my grip on the controller, my heartbeat hammering as her character vaulted, spun, and struck again. Sparks flew with every hit, each vibration running up my arms like small, electric jolts. Beneath it all, her voice pressed heavier, her presence pulling at me, and an unsettling clarity began to form amid the swirl of my confusion.
Then she laughed, an emotionless laugh, delicate yet cutting. It echoed through the space between us like crystal dropped into calm water, rippling the air.
"Don't worry," she murmured between flawless inputs, her fingers steady and precise. Her tone was teasing, though still measured and impossibly calm. "Only an extreme imbalance between soul and body leads someone to become absolute good or absolute evil. Unless, of course, someone is a complete fool, incapable of thinking, refusing to be shaped by the world around them. In that case," she added lightly, "there is some truth to my words."
She kept speaking without breaking rhythm, never giving me an opening to respond. Her character continued its relentless assault, her fingers gliding across the controller as though she had been playing since the moment existence began. It felt disturbingly natural to her, like this was a conversation between old friends rather than strangers meeting in a place that made no sense.
"Your next question is probably, where are we?" she said, landing another perfect combo as if punctuation. "Well, to answer that..."
Her character delivered the final strike of the round. The screen flashed K.O.
"...We're in a dream," she continued smoothly, as if the victory were merely an aside. "More precisely... a dream hijacked by my divine realm."
My breath hitched. Her voice didn't.
"If it wasn't obvious," she went on, "I'm a god. An evil god, if we're being specific." She tilted her head, watching me with those cold, unreadable eyes. "As for my name... I'll tell you that later, Ruby."
My entire body tensed. Hearing my name from her lips, when I had never spoken it, sent a chill down my spine sharper than any strike in the game.
She leaned back slightly, controller balanced effortlessly in one hand. "Your next question is probably why." A faint smile, not warm, not cruel, simply there, touched her tone. "And the answer is simple. I already told you."
Her eyes glinted, dark and endless.
"You're interesting. And I adore interesting things."
"As for what interests me about you," she continued easily, as though we were discussing something trivial rather than the structure of my existence, "I've already mentioned some of it. You have an interesting ability... perhaps even an interesting life." Her fingers tapped lightly against the controller, almost thoughtful. "Well, I'll make sure of that. Usually, I avoid interfering. Things tend to be more entertaining when left to unfold on their own."
She paused only long enough for another round to start. Her character moved before I even registered the signal.
"But you may be wondering," she said, almost playfully, "why interfere at all if my usual method is not interfering? If it's more fun to simply watch?"
Another perfect combo. Another impossible arc of neon light across the TV.
"Well," she said, her voice softening with a strange, unnerving amusement, "I've grown bored of being hands-off. So I thought, why not interfere? Why not involve myself to the point that the very source of my entertainment... is me?"
My stomach twisted. That sentence didn't make sense. If I was the source of her fun, how could she also be the source of it? The question tangled in my mind, looping on itself like a knot I couldn't loosen.
She slowly turned her head toward me.
Until then, I had been focused entirely on the screen, too overwhelmed to look directly at her for long. Out of the corner of my eye I'd only seen the outline of her face, just enough to know she was humanoid, but nothing clear, nothing concrete.
But when she finally faced me, fully, allowing the drifting shadows to roll away... the breath caught in my throat.
The darkness peeled back in a slow, deliberate sweep, revealing features I knew intimately.
My nose. My mouth. My cheekbones.
My entire face. Perfectly mirrored. Perfectly precise.
Except... her hair was longer. And her eyes were a deep, glossy black, endless enough to swallow the world.
We were identical. Unmistakably so.
She didn't give me a second to process it.
"Well, you see," she said, continuing as though nothing had changed, "when you first summoned me, it was the most interesting thing that had happened in about five hundred years. Naturally, I had to see who dared to pull me through." Her voice rippled with faint amusement. "At first, I planned only to observe, from a distance. Quietly. Patiently."
Her eyes narrowed with a hint of satisfaction.
"But then," she said, leaning slightly closer, her tone dropping to something almost intimate, "you gained a piece of someone's soul. Someone very interesting."
And she smiled, with my smile, but wrong in every way.
"I decided I wanted to do something different," she said, the words rolling out with unsettling ease. "Something new. Something I've never once bothered to try. Gaining that person's soul, her soul, reminded me of possibilities I had ignored. It inspired me to attempt something far more interesting."
Her lips curled into a faint smile, my smile, but wrong, stretched with something cold behind it.
"And that," she continued, tilting her head, "is to become someone else."
Her eyes slid over me, evaluating, measuring.
"And wouldn't you know it? There just happens to be a perfectly fascinating individual sitting right here."
My throat tightened. My pulse hammered in my ears.
"Of course," she added lightly, flicking her wrist as if brushing dust from the idea, "when you become me and I become you, you won't gain my abilities or my power. Oh, no. That would ruin the fun. I'll simply experience your life... the things you do. And perhaps," her voice lowered, a playful hum beneath the words, "I'll nudge you. Influence you. Twist you until you start doing deliciously terrible things. Not out of hatred, not even out of desire. Just... for fun."
Her smile widened.
"You may call me the dark version of you," she said softly. "Or just 'D' for short."
Something snapped inside me, and I staggered to my feet, stumbling backward. My breath came fast, shallow, every instinct screaming to get away from her, away from me.
But she only watched, amused.
"Oh, don't run," she murmured, rising smoothly to her feet. "The process is already complete. That egg you broke out of? That was the mark of our fusion finishing." Her expression shifted, and for the first time, true emotion cracked her face, something sharp, thrilled, and horrifying.
I backed away faster, only for my shoulder to hit something solid. A wall.
When had it gotten there? My stomach dropped as she began to move toward me, slow and precise, like a predator savoring each step. The space felt too tight. Her presence pressed in from all sides. I couldn't breathe. I couldn't even move.
She leaned in, close enough for me to see my own terrified reflection inside those black, endless eyes. Her hand lifted toward my cheek, my own hand, mirrored and corrupted, fingers stretching to touch me.
But before she could, something snapped through the air like a crack of lightning.
A hand, pure white, smooth as polished porcelain, grabbed her wrist and stopped her cold.
She froze, eyes narrowing.
Who dares dream about me?
The voice echoed inside my mind, vibrating through thought rather than sound.
I turned, heart pounding, and saw her.
A woman I recognized. white robes that drifted like mist, white hair that floated around her like a halo, skin pale and luminous. The one who had started everything.
"Oh. It's you," D said, amusement fading into something sharper. "What are you doing here?"
The woman in white stared back with a calm, unreadable expression, saying nothing at all.
Yet somehow, unbelievably, D seemed to understand the silence.
Her smile faded. The air trembled between them.
"Oh... so that's how it is," D murmured, tilting her head as if listening to a whispered explanation only she could hear. Her smile sharpened, thin and delighted. "You're using my methods. How bold."
She stepped closer to the white woman, wrist still trapped in that pale, unyielding grip.
"It's like invading another god's soul," D said, her voice rich with fascination. "You consumed the fragments of her divinity... mixed them with the scraps of your own... then wove them together with her soul." She let out a low, amused hum. "And with her unconscious body, you reached out, grasping at that sword of miracles."
Her grin widened, feral and thrilled.
"And somehow, it worked. You actually managed to use it. Which means..."
She leaned forward, eyes bright with an awful joy.
"...you can stand against me. At least for a while."
A soft sound rippled through the air, crack like a shell fracturing.
The woman's eyes opened.
And what I saw wasn't human. Ten pupils, spiraling, shifting, gleamed from her irises like an insect's segmented gaze, each one reflecting the void, the TV light, D's form, and me.
The aura that poured from her was unbearable, cold, ancient, vast. It pressed against my lungs, wrapped around my ribs, and made the darkness itself tremble.
All around us, tiny red dots began to blink into existence. Dozens. Hundreds. Then thousands. Then, millions. No, billions.
Eyes. So many eyes.
And from the darkness beneath them, titanic shapes emerged, colossal spiders, each the size of buildings, their legs scraping against unseen ground, mandibles clicking with hollow hunger. Their bodies layered like living obsidian, reflecting the faintest hints of crimson light.
My heart stopped. My mind blanked. Every instinct begged me to disappear.
D only laughed.
"This is so interesting," she said, delighted beyond imagination. "Truly, this was my best decision. What a treat, this world already contested by another."
Her voice began to distort, drifting away from me as everything around us dissolved. The spiders, the void, the TV, even the ground beneath me, all of it faded like smoke pulled apart by the wind. My senses slipped, one by one, replaced by weightlessness, then numbness, then,
Nothing.
Then,
millions. No, billions.
Eyes. So many eyes.
They blinked in and out of existence, hovering in the darkness like stars that hated me. And from the void beneath them, shapes began to rise, massive, monstrous shapes. Colossal spiders, each one as tall as a tower, pulled themselves into the dim light. Their legs scraped against the unseen ground, echoing like blades drawn across stone. Their bodies shimmered like layered obsidian, catching faint streaks of crimson that pulsed like veins.
Their mandibles clicked in unison.
My heart stopped. My thoughts shattered. Every instinct I had, every human shred of self, screamed run, hide, vanish, stop existing, anything to not be seen by the things that were already staring at me.
And D just laughed.
"This is so interesting," she said, her voice bright with delight, as if she were watching a fireworks show instead of an apocalypse. "Truly, this was my best decision. And this world, already contested by another? What a treat."
Her voice twisted, echoing as though the very air couldn't hold a stable version of her.
The spiders faded. The void faded. The TV, the floor, the room, everything dissolved like smoke torn apart by a merciless wind. My senses faded away one by one, sight first, then sound, then touch, until there was nothing but weightlessness.
Then numbness.
Then,
nothing.
And then,
I gasped, bolting upright.
Pop
(6/1=https://frieren. fandom. com/wiki/Spells?utm_source - by the way, I just added spells into a wheel and spun it, and I got Judradjim a destructive lightning spell. It casts multiple bolts of lightning from the caster's staff toward the target. Because of a low role, the effect is that when she touches someone, they'll get shocked but after that the ability is gone.)
Air tore into my lungs like fire. My hands clenched automatically, fingers closing around something icy and heavy.
I looked down.
A sword. Strange. Dense. Its surface gleamed with symbols I couldn't read, shimmering faintly as though they were alive, shifting when I tried to focus on them.
It tugged at the edge of my memory, at the dream, at the woman who spoke about "miracles," though most of what she'd said now felt like half-remembered whispers.
I closed my eyes, trying to pull the pieces together.
After several minutes of digging through fog, I managed fragments. The sensation of being inside something... something absurdly big... A giant cookie? That made no sense, but the feeling was vivid. A woman, strange and unsettling, speaking calmly as if she were explaining the weather. Me becoming someone else. And... someone familiar appearing.
That was all I could remember. Everything else slipped through my fingers like water no matter how tightly I tried to hold it.
The sword pulsed once, faintly, almost like it was breathing. I exhaled shakily.
Whatever that dream, vision, realm, nightmare had been... I shook my head and looked more closely at the weapon in my hands.
At first glance, I had assumed it was just a sword, some strange relic my semblance had dragged in from who knows where. But as I turned it slightly, letting the morning light catch the metal, the familiar shape... the familiar balance... the familiar color,
My breath hitched.
"Crescent Rose...?"
(3/9=https://rwby. fandom. com/wiki/Windlass- Due to the Midling role, Crescent Rose gains an enchantment or modification: when someone fires it, arrows appear instead of bullets. These arrows explode depending on the rounds used. The speed is still at same level, and of course, this effect remains unnoticeable until the weapon is actually fired.)
No. Not Crescent Rose. Not the scythe, at least.
This form, this sword, looked far too similar to Uncle Qrow's Harbinger, the way it shifted between forms, the sleekness of its blade. Except Crescent Rose was never designed for this. My weapon had two modes. scythe and sniper rifle. It wasn't supposed to be able to do... this.
And I definitely didn't remember making or installing a sword form.
This was new. Surprising? Completely. But honestly? Not even close to the weirdest thing I'd seen since yesterday.
I blinked a few times, realizing only then that I had no idea what time it was. Turning toward my window, I watched pale morning light spill across the floorboards, washing my room in soft gold.
Morning already. A whole day. It had been an entire day since my semblance awakened, and in that single day, more insanity had happened than in my whole life combined. Crescent Rose gaining a whole new form wasn't even in the top three.
At least now I finally understood what my semblance actually was. Yang had explained the basics. And in that dream, or hallucination, or whatever terrifying nightmare it was, that strange woman had gone into even more detail. how my semblance could conjure or modify objects from other universes. How it could reshape things that already existed, or pull in things that shouldn't exist here at all.
I swallowed hard. Thinking about that dream made my skin crawl. The memory was still foggy, like trying to recall something underwater. I could remember being inside... something. Something huge. Something warm and enclosing, A giant cookie? Egg? Cocoon? I honestly wasn't sure.
There was a woman talking to me, saying something about becoming someone else. And someone familiar showing up, someone I couldn't quite place.
Just fragments. Shadows. Feelings. Nothing more.
I shook my head harder, trying to shake off the lingering weight of it all. Focus, Ruby. There were enough real-world problems to deal with without getting lost in nightmares that might have only been half-real. One thing at a time.
I pushed off the covers and forced myself upright, muscles stiff, mind still tangled in leftover sleep. My feet carried me toward the bathroom almost automatically, as if my body had decided it was done waiting for my brain to catch up.
Halfway there, a memory bubbled up, unexpected, sharp, and oddly vivid. One I hadn't thought about in years. Why Dad and Uncle Qrow had built us separate bathrooms in the first place. Back then, there had been only one bathroom upstairs. One. And Yang treated it like her personal concert hall. She'd take showers long enough to outlast entire albums, singing, humming, even trying new riffs at full volume. Meanwhile, I'd stand outside the door doing a frantic "I have to pee right now" dance while Dad yelled down the hall that hot water wasn't infinite. Eventually, Dad just sighed the sigh of a man who had accepted defeat and remodeled the entire second floor.
By the time the memory finished replaying, I was already inside the bathroom, still half asleep.
I turned on the faucet and let cold water pool into my hands. The moment I splashed it onto my face, the shock hit me like a punch from Yang, sharp and clarifying. I grabbed the towel and dried off slowly, letting my thoughts settle.
Then I lifted my head.
And froze.
My reflection was smiling at me.
But I wasn't smiling.
Pop
(1/16=https://scp-wiki.wikidot.com/scp-049 — Due to the high role, a friendly version of this SCP appears near Ruby's house. He's relatively friendly and wants to help Ruby in any way he can. Of course, he can still be violent toward other people.)
The girl in the mirror looked exactly like me, same nose, same jawline, same everything, except her hair was longer, falling past her shoulders in dark waves, and her eyes...
Pitch black. Endless and Wrong.
She leaned forward until her face almost pressed against the glass, her smile curling into something too smooth, too knowing.
"Well..." she purred, using my voice, but not my tone. "Hello there."
", EEEP!"
(2/19=https://type-moon. fandom. com/de/wiki/Achilles — Due to the extremely high role, and despite not being summoned, Ruby gains two skills from Achilles. The first is Dromeus Komētēs (ドロメウス・コメーテース, Doromeusu Komētēsu), which makes her extremely fast in base form and even faster in semblance form. The second is Duel Field (決闘場, Kettō-ba), which originally allows a fair 1v1 duel in a space similar to a reality marble if both parties agree. Due to the high role, Ruby can place someone in this space twice a day by touching them; for the rest of the time, the target must consent. )
I stumbled back, nearly slipping on the tile, my heart hammering so hard it felt like it might burst through my chest.
The girl in the mirror didn't flinch. She didn't blink. She didn't fade. She just... watched me. As if she'd been waiting.
The sound cracked through the room like a bubble bursting, and I yelped, crashing backward until my spine hit the wall with a jolt that stole my breath.
She didn't step out of the mirror. Instead, she lifted her palm and pressed it against the glass, slowly, deliberately, fingers spreading as though testing some invisible barrier. The mirror wasn't a reflection at all.
Her smile twisted across her face, not warm.
"Did you really think I was just a dream?" she asked, tilting her head with a playful curiosity that didn't reach her eyes. "That Shiroari could stop me? Oh, no. Not even close."
My stomach knotted so tightly it hurt.
And it was only then, standing here, fully awake, fully aware, that I realized something I'd missed before. In the dream, her expressions had felt... natural. Seamless. Real enough that I couldn't separate illusion from truth.
But here, in the solid, bright, unforgiving light of morning, I could finally see it.
Every smile. Every flicker of amusement. Every tilt of her head.
All of it was fake. Deliberate. Manufactured for one purpose. to make me uncomfortable. To watch me squirm. To see what kind of face I would make when pushed into fear.
The mirror rippled again, like disturbed water. She lowered her hand slightly, her black eyes gleaming.
"The only thing Shiroari managed to do," she said calmly, "was finish what had already begun. She merged the three of us so completely that you became the dominant personality." She tapped the glass lightly with one finger. "And we, " Her finger traced a slow circle, implying herself... and someone else. ", are simply guests now. Parts of your soul."
A chill ran down my spine. She leaned closer to the glass, her reflection overlapping my own. Her voice dropped to a whisper, velvet smooth and cruelly soft.
"Of course... the side effects of this little fusion?"
My breath hitched. A cold dread curled inside me, tightening like a knot.
What side effects? What did she mean? What was going to happen to me?
She watched the fear rise in my eyes.
And then she smiled. Not wide. Not dramatic. Just the faintest, sharp curl of her lips, subtle, deliberate, unnervingly precise.
"That's a secret."
Pop
(4/10=https://kumodesu.fandom.com/wiki/Elroe_Frog Due to the Midling role, this frog appears outside and whoever kills it gets XP a.k.a. they get more aura. )
The words slid out like a blade through silk, quiet but carrying a weight that pressed against my chest, too deliberate, too satisfied.
A soft, knowing laugh followed, barely audible, yet it filled the air, and then she was gone.
No fading. No flourish. Just... vanished, as if she had never been there at all. Just gone. Like she had never existed outside my head at all.
I stood frozen, breathing far too fast, the air catching in my chest. My hands trembled as though the chill she left behind had soaked into my bones.
Okay. Okay, breathe.
I forced myself to inhale slowly... hold... exhale even slower. I repeated it again and again until the hammering in my chest eased enough for my lungs to feel like they belonged to me again.
Forget it, ... no. Not forget it. But shelve it. Push it to the back of my mind and deal with it later, because if I didn't, I'd spiral right here in the doorway of my bathroom. And spiraling wouldn't help anyone.
I moved through my morning routine on autopilot, shower, brushing, fixing my hair, as if doing the ordinary could drown out the memory of black eyes and too-perfect smiles.
By the time I finished and slipped into my usual outfit, my nerves had mostly settled. I stepped into the hallway, bracing myself.
The living room was a mess of pacing energy. Dad and Yang were both wearing grooves into the floorboards, taking turns with matching anxious expressions. Yang especially looked like she might actually combust.
The moment she saw me, her eyes lit up.
"Ruby!" she shouted, and then she launched herself at me in one of her signature, full-speed, spine-cracking flying hugs.
She hit me, and the instant she made contact,
ZAP.
A sharp burst of electricity snapped out of me like a static explosion gone rogue. Not enough to injure her, but definitely enough to jolt her entire nervous system.
Yang froze in place. Then, very slowly, her hair fluffed up in every direction like a golden dandelion having an existential crisis. Smoke wafted gently from the frazzled ends.
She blinked once. Twice.
"...What the, Ruby, did you just shock me?!"
I winced, lifting a hand in a tiny, guilty wave. "Uuuhhhh..."
Her eye twitched. "Ruby."
"So," I said, drawing the word out slowly, trying for a smile that definitely came out more like a grimace, "funny story..."
Yang crossed her arms, her sparking hair crackling faintly. "This had better be hilarious."
Dad just sighed into his hands like he suddenly aged ten years.
And me? I was freaking out in my mind. No way. No way. There's seriously no way. Yang loves her hair. I'm dead. I'm definitely dead.
"No way!" I screamed at the top of my lungs inside my head.
But before I could fully descend into mental chaos, before Yang could glare at me so hard it might spontaneously combust the air around her, something happened.
A strange noise drifted in from outside. Subtle at first, like a cat tiptoeing on tinfoil, almost drowned out by the thrum of my own panicked heartbeat. Then louder. Sharper. Distinct. Something alive. Something probably judging me.
I froze, chest tight, every nerve on high alert. My mind still screamed "no way," but a tiny, trembling thread of relief snuck in like it had accidentally wandered into a horror movie thinking it was a rom-com.
I exhaled sharply, bracing myself, eyes narrowing like a cartoon hero about to face the world's most ridiculous villain. Whatever it was out there, I was ready, or at least as ready as someone who had already died approximately fifty thousand times in one morning could be.
And for the first time since waking, I felt the tiniest flicker of control. The chaos hadn't completely won yet. Not today. Maybe. Hopefully. Probably not.