Time: Unknown Location: Unknown
The Last Master of Chaldea plummeted into an endless expanse of swirling white. It wasn't the clean white of fresh snow, but a sickly, bruised color – a storm cloud turned inside out. Her stomach lurched with phantom twists and turns in the disorienting space. Silence pressed down on her like a suffocating blanket, broken only by a low thrumming that pulsed through her bones, a heartbeat from the depths of the abyss.
There was no up or down, no direction to her descent. Even time seemed to dissolve, replaced by a monstrous distortion where shapes flickered at the edge of sight. Faces – some grotesque, some achingly familiar – formed and dissolved within the swirling chaos, accompanied by whispers that hissed like static through her head.
Words she couldn't grasp, alien names, and desperate pleas echoing into the void. Suddenly, a voice pierced the chaos, a voice both ancient and laced with profound despair. Though it lacked a clear origin, it reverberated within Ritsuka's very being.
"The cries of your fragile world echo within me now…a symphony of fear I've heard countless times before. I am their genesis and their end…the inevitable tide that swallows all. Yet, within this dissonance…a melody I have not known before." Tiamat's wounded form materialized within the swirling storm, her voice taking on a more focused tone "Your world is young, yet you cling to survival. Like insects before a gathering storm, you defy destiny. Tell me, human child, why do you resist the inevitable?"
Ritsuka, her heart pounding in her chest, found words amidst the chaos: "Because… it's worth fighting for! Every sunrise, every smile… the bonds we form, however fragile, are worth struggling for."
Tiamat's monstrous features softened, a flicker of something like surprise echoing in her depths. "Such fragile things…yet you cling to them with a ferocity I envy. Perhaps that itself is the dissonance I feel…the potential those beyond my kind cannot comprehend."
Just as Ritsuka felt a flicker of hope, her descent slowed, the abyssal storm dissolving. Suddenly, another presence pulsed within her. A single name echoed in her mind like a lifeline: Gardner.
As the swirling white coalesced, she found herself before Tiamat, and a luminous figure emerged - a distorted, spectral image of James. A look of startled recognition crossed Tiamat's face as she addressed the figure. "Bearer of the Outside...you come. This…is the source of the dissonance?"
Ritsuka gasped, her shock mirroring Tiamat's own as she realized the impossible truth about her trusted comrade. Tiamat's words echoed in Ritsuka's mind, their weight settling alongside a lingering echo of the abyssal storm.
As the swirling white began to dissipate, the silence was replaced by a disorienting, static-like crackle. It grew louder, a pulse racing towards a crescendo of blinding light. When Ritsuka's vision cleared, a single figure stood amidst the dissipating chaos. At first, it was an ethereal outline, like a smudge of charcoal upon the white canvas. The figure solidified – the form of a man bathed in an unsettling luminescence, his features obscured. It was James, yet warped, his presence rippling like a heat mirage.
His breath rasped, each inhalation mirroring the static crackle in the air. "You saw the abyss, Mother Goddess," he addressed Tiamat, his voice strained, "Now, witness what battles on its edge…" He turned then, his luminous eyes locking with Ritsuka's. A flicker of recognition washed over her, mixed with a jarring sense of wrongness. His voice...that name...it resonated from the depths of her chaotic descent.
But this image, this feeling of alien power emanating from him...it was utterly foreign to the James she knew. Terror choked her. The kind, reliable James, the one who always had a reassuring smile, was gone. In his place stood a stranger, his very essence a testament to something terrifying and cosmic.
Before she could process further, a flicker of memory pulsed from his mind – a shattering city, silhouettes of heroes amidst explosions, a golden tyrant looming overhead.
The image faded as quickly as it appeared, leaving behind a shared echo of cosmic despair. James raised a hand, the luminescence intensifying. A shard, shimmering with an otherworldly light, materialized above his palm. "This," he rasped, his voice laden with finality, "…is the heart of humanity. Understand it, Mother Goddess, and defy the call of your distant children, for within them lies a potential worth protecting."
The shard shattered into motes of light, swirling into Tiamat's maw. A scream, not borne of pain, but of conflicting instincts and a sudden, blinding torrent of images, tore from her form. Wars and love. Creation and ruin. And within them all, a flickering defiance that dared light the abyss.
When the tempest within her subsided, Tiamat stared not at the Entity before her, but at a horizon beyond. There was a new echo within her now, a dissonant note against the call of her distant children.
It was small, fragile… and worth protecting. Ritsuka watched, a single tear tracing a path down her cheek. The world swam before her eyes, the horrifying revelation stealing the very breath from her lungs.
James, the gentle soul she'd grown to rely on, had sacrificed himself in a way she couldn't comprehend.
He was gone, replaced by a lingering luminescence that slowly dissipated into the void. Suddenly, the mental plane shattered. Light pierced the darkness, and with a gasp, Ritsuka found herself back in the crumbling temple.
The air crackled with residual energy, and beside her, Gilgamesh materialized, his crimson eyes narrowed. "An Outsider offering themself up?" he scoffed, surprise now intermingling with his trademark arrogance. "Now that's a sight truly unexpected." Ritsuka could only stare, the weight of the revelation crushing her.
In that moment, she wasn't just the Last Master. She was a witness to a horrifying truth, a truth that forever altered her perception of the man she thought she knew. ~end~
So how was this? I really hope this update help flesh things out for people. Also not to long after this goes livery I am going to be updating the prologue as well.
