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[Exalted/SMT] Shard of a Broken Sun

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*biting nails*

...is there time to speculate some more and have it help?
 
In-Character, there is only one pairing that makes sense for us to ship: AmuXEveryone she wants. Though we'll have to wait a few years, considering her age and board rules.
 
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Sunday's Melancholy 9
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    • Pain​
    Beyond anything she'd imagined. The dragon stream twisted and bucked like a wild beast. Every wild swerve had to be crushed with brute force, and every clash left her a little more battered. Her passenger was her lifeline, but also her killer; it blazed in her head like a miniature sun, scorching her from the inside out. She forced herself to draw closer, even as every new wave of power grew harsher.

    Terror​
    She could feel herself falling apart, her mind dissolving into its individual thoughts and urges. A primitive craving for survival forced her to gather herself together, but she couldn't do that while also maintaining the seal, and the seal's influence was itself corrosive to her. She was left as a vortex of thoughts orbiting a central core of denial, only marginally capable of recalling the object of her denial. Then reality shifted and the seal blazed into life, denying that such a being as her could exist. There was a refuge, an area where it couldn't reach. Had all of her survived? She didn't know, she couldn't know, there was no thought for anything but the struggle, but just for a second everything had behaved itself.

    Nothingness slammed into her from a different angle, tinged with desperation, and she was once again falling apart.

    Pain​
    Not hers. Hers, but not only hers. She could feel the Demiurge's emotions, such as they were, and it was every bit as damaged as her. So many times it had slammed the door, only to find an iron ball stuck in the hinge; it couldn't complete its task, couldn't reset the world. It couldn't even see her, and its only response to harm was to try harder.

    Panic​
    The flow of power from her passenger slackened, slackened further, until she could only barely maintain her grip on the seal. Had it been harmed? She didn't know if it could be, but if the flow fell any further either her or the seal would fail. She was already drifting apart, thoughts and memories falling beyond her reach.

    "Don't falter now, Amu! R͟emembe͢r ͢yo̵u͝r f̶a̵mi̧ly ̸an͏d ̧frie̵nds! Reme͢mb̕er ̛wh̕y yơu͜ ͡a̶r͞é f́͠i̶g̛ht̸̀̀ing̸͠͡!"

    Confusion, then dawning sadness. It was talking to her, but she couldn't understand a thing it was saying. It went on for a little while, and some part of her reacted, but language wasn't something she'd held on to.

    She thought of her family and friends, the ones who were relying on her to overcome this. Of Fumi, standing ready to do her part the moment existence returned. She couldn't fail them, regardless of the cost.

    The flow momentarily stuttered, then reestablished itself, and all of a sudden she went from dissolution to accretion. Something had changed; the seal's energies were shifting and relaxing, bound into her preferred shape even after she marginally relaxed her death-grip on the spells. The seal as a whole still wasn't working, but somehow reality had reasserted itself around its power input, removing the need to grasp high-voltage wiring with her bare hands.

    Recognition. Weakness. Resignation.​
    Not hers. Never hers.

    Conservation​
    The pressure fell away.

    She felt the seal bootstrap itself back into existence. Even as her mind gradually reformed itself, self-organising around three interconnected whiteboards that she couldn't immediately remember the purpose of, she felt reality spreading in fractal trees throughout the machinery - and outwards, the tendrils coalescing into a bubble that forced its own will on the cosmos before the Demiurge's fully receded.

    She was done. There was nothing left for her to fight.

    There was no pain, but she felt hollowed out. Nothing but the idea of a girl, whose mind was rapidly shutting down without the whiteout of pain to keep her awake.

    That wouldn't do. Mom would be sad. She needed a body.

    Didn't she already have one?

    Time resumed. Amu fell, tumbling across the metal floor until she hit the warm body of someone already lying there. She heard twin grunts, Miki and Ran falling on top of her, and someone shouted her name. Light was blazing around her, a scorchingly hot corona of golden essence, but she just wanted to sleep. She squeezed her eyes shut and turned away from the world.

    [ ] …

    A/N: Next update will be in 2-4 hours. By the way, 8/10.
     
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    • We got a fricking 8 out of 10... holy shit. I'm going to guess that last minute Chaos-Repelling was most of that.

    Does anyone else find it slightly hilarious that she had to remind herself to make herself a body? :confused::D
     
    ...
    Did we somehow got TWO Amu on top of everything else? (If yes - I soooo want to know about how it would affect interaction with Charas and each other) (Poor, poor Ikuto)
    Or it's Fumi?
    Or just soul-less former body?
     
    8/10 is... Really good, all things considered.

    Considering that 5/10 was "Pulled off the plan somehow", and 10/10 was "perfect success"

    ... I wonder if the other body is Us, as in, the Shard somehow manifested?
     
    Baughn said:
    ..GM Bat Signal..
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    Btw. I would like to know what dice rolls did the Dragon Seal got in canon if we got an 8 on a 1D10.
    al103 said:
    ...
    Did we somehow got TWO Amu on top of everything else? (If yes - I soooo want to know about how it would affect interaction with Charas and each other) (Poor, poor Ikuto)
    Or it's Fumi?
    Or just soul-less former body?
    Click to expand...
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    So we now have two future Fetiches and several Proto-Third Circles.

    Good. Good.
     
    al103 said:
    Amu created one when she remembered that she need one - it's in update. Then she remembered that she already had one. Which makes an interesting question...
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    Give it to our Chara.

    They need it more then we do... But also, d-does that uhm... What about the one we made?! WHAT IS GOING OOOONNN?
     
    Anyway, judging by the scale...

    5/10 likely meant "You pull it off, but with severe cost"

    While 10/10 is "Not only did you pull it off, you grew stronger from the experience" or at the very least, took little more damage then one or two Limit Vents.

    8/10 is likely "You pulled it off, and did so without suffering serious long-term injuries"
     
    What is another interesting question - if we do have two Amu now... if they are separate - do they have 8 chara?
     
    al103 said:
    What is another interesting question - if we do have two Amu now... if they are separate - do they have 8 chara?
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    Well, the closest analogy we have is a proto-primordial. So maybe another Amu Jouten-equivilent?

    Or, you know, our own Exaltation got embodied somehow.
     
    Baughn said:
    In canon? Versus the Conception?

    0.

    Versus Polaris? Maybe a 4 or so.
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    Oh Wow

    They managed to save most of Japan with a 4?

    Holy shit

    Proof positive that even a newborn Solar Exalt can throw the best laid plans of gods and monsters into complete disarray with a decent support network.

    Even if we assume the maximum range of the current program was limited, then we likely heavily reduced the damage to Amu for moderating the flow. Or possibly, we saved more of the world then anticipated.

    And oh hey! We just accomplished Amu's Motivation while we were at it most likely! And then some! That means permanently raising her Essence "Instantly" is in the cards!
     
    Baughn said:
    In canon? Versus the Conception?

    0.

    Versus Polaris? Maybe a 4 or so.
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    So Central Tokyo was canon. Polaris was secondary canon. Which was a "4" mild failure.

    With an "8" what everything did we bring through the Conception this time I wonder? Care to divulge?

    Ninja'd
    Alectai said:
    Oh Wow

    They managed to save most of Japan with a 4?

    Holy shit

    Proof positive that even a newborn Solar Exalt can throw the best laid plans of gods and monsters into complete disarray with a decent support network.
    Click to expand...
    Click to shrink...
    We are so going to be #1 on everyones shitlist now. Welp.
     
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