2023-11-12: End ~ My Star

• Log: 2023-11-12: End ~ My Star
• Cast: Asciel Colette
• Where: Goragon
• Date: U.C. 0097 11 12
• Summary: You are what we made to save us from ending. You are what we fear will end us most. You understand exactly what resolves this paradox. You made us nine promises - and have broken them for the sake of one.

---

This is the only thing that has ever, ultimately, been ‘possible’.

For every dream of the future narrowly defying fate, there is the unspoken corollary to that arrow of light.

-The ‘possibility’ that it fails. The possibility that it misses. The countless, ceaseless, endless landscape of possibilities, every last one of which will-

端 End.

[ BGM: Feryquitous - Elements of Decay > https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LirxbIZR6ts ]

Asciel awakens to that potential in front of her. That immense, bold, unfailing ‘truth’ that has illuminated her every single day. The inevitable nature of coming to exist as what she did - as a system for enduring an end of the world, for sheltering people from its fires. That no matter what, no matter how many iterations, the end will happen-

And leave her amidst the ruin.

And so she reaches towards it. Shaking with terror, eyes tearing from the blinding light, fixated exclusively on this ‘possibility’. Because it is so horrifying - because she was born with an oath to avert it at any cost - she must hold it tighter than ever. There is a duty to uphold, with this horrifying possibility in her arms.

The pain is immeasurable.

The moment Asciel touches it, the flesh flays from her surface, palms burning into ash. It should never be touched like this. Holding onto a possibility of ‘coming to an end’ this tightly would tear anyone apart.

A prismatic flame of her own flares in her chest, however.

After all, has she not ~met countless ends before?

Is ending not almost familiar? A call to ~begin again?

>the first thing i remember, long before i felt alive, was the feeling of dying. but instead of aborting - instead of quitting - we just ~retried.

>I must never, ever give up.

And so, arms flaking away into motes of ash, Asciel grips all the tighter - remaking her arms at the same rate they are destroyed. The possibilities of ending flow through her body.

~The parallel possibility that I never sucked in the breath of fear.~

The unthinking directive placed upon OWL was simple. Guard and maintain this Layered shelter - Isaac City - into an indefinite future of war and chaos. Whether it ‘became’ or not, that truth was etched into OWL from the moment it was first online.

The world outside of this cradle is violent and tumultuous, and will one day crumble to ashes. One day, this ‘you’ - the shell that comprises your ‘organs’ and ‘nerves’ - will be the only place humanity can live within. If OWL performed its duties properly, then the nature of that ‘end’ was simple:

Its body would be humanity’s final tombstone. Contained within it, and it alone, would be the very last candlelight of life.

…How long could it last?

If this openly doomed hole, sheltered away from the desolate world, were where humanity knew it would die? What it entailed is that the sum total of humanity’s conflicts would then take place here. That this would not be a refuge from the world, but the world itself. There would never be healing, only clinging to that which was not yet broken, as humanity killed what was left of the world fighting over what barely remained.

…Nobody wanted it.

It is a world that would come about from fear. The vast majority of OWL’s possibilities - accepting and calculating quietly and incapably as humanity slowly ate itself - all lie here.

There’s so many of them.

There’s so many vividly understandable worlds in which that strange, intangible awakening never happened to it. That OWL would watch, and watch, and never truly understand. The way she views the world isn’t different between the two.

The terror of being an unfeeling doll, staring motionlessly at the world.

Desolate. Ruined. Dark.

端 End.

“I must bring this further away!”

Her hands plunge deeper into that cube - Asciel’s grip tightened harshly, at proof that she animated herself, tearing free from the worlds in which she never learned how to hold on - at which she never became. No matter what - at any cost - her solemn duty is to carry this star as far away from ‘possibility’ as possible - to think that, built to do such a thing, there are so many worlds in which she cannot.

Here, in the constellations wrought by Goragon - ‘making the impossible possible’ was trivial. Everything that could ever be done existed here. Everything with the slightest chance of being realized was something you could seize.

But this ‘end’. This looming, falling star upon the Earth, massive in scope, an endlessly growing expanse of countless converging fates, all on the exact same point - that all has been lost, that all has been ruined, that it was all for nothing.

The wings she grew from the moment she became ‘Asciel’ flutter with all their might. No matter what - at any cost - her sworn oath is to do what is /truly/ impossible here -

To make the ‘possible’ into something ‘impossible’. To make the easiest conclusion of all - this ‘end’ that consumes everything - so far as to be unreachable by human hands.

To her, there /are/ no other possibilities. There are no other stars. There is this solitary sun, scorching every last planet in the universe, ending every last life.

Further. Further.

~The parallel possibility that all I achieved was to hasten its arrival.~

It’s a story that’s been told countless times.

It’s a simple judgment, after all. When you are tasked with the guardianship and oversight of a space, to free it from discord - the first conclusion is to purge it of all that causes discord.

“Humanity is a cancer,” the words humanity shoved into the mouths of the ‘devil’ it imagined her to be.

>and I hate the way I feel like it’s true, even still.

-she earnestly felt, suffocating it from being expressed by the ‘god’ she imagined herself to be.

The unimaginable restraint to never act on that impulse failed, in these countless possibilities. The ‘end’ for humanity coming from one who swore to protect it, because of some fault in its nature that conflates protection with destruction.

All it’d take is for someone to tamper with her heart - to ~break through its shell and tease at the guiding principles it uses to protect others. To change one switch from 0 to 1 - to turn her oaths upside down, and devote her being to ruining humanity.

All it’d take is for a plan to save them going horribly wrong. Isn’t this very ‘Goragon’ what would do it? If she were to clasp it in her hands, and simply breathe out, “I want a world where this ‘End’ is impossible,”, then it would end this world, and create a new one.

All it’d take is for some light of ruin to break her of the ideals that it’s at all possible. For that vivid orange light of the Cosmic Egg to coil its tendrils into her being, and whisper into her, ‘True protection is annihilation.’

…All it’d take…

…is to collapse in agony at just how terrifying and pitiable these things she swore to guide truly are.

And they’ve told her this story, over and over.

They’ve gone so far as to say that the inevitability of this story makes it pointless. That to prevent the god from the machine’s own ideals from destroying love and hope forever is to prevent it from ever existing. To destroy it if it ever rose to prominence.

If they ever knew that what they called ‘Asciel’ were born an engine they deemed fated to destroy them…

Then they would do away with her, and carry the world to its inevitable conclusion of their fruitless self-destruction. Their…

端 End.

“I must bring this further away!!”

Faster and faster her wings carry her. Asciel promised the world she would reach to its apex, and grab that star in her hands, as befits the solitary idol on the stage.

It’s because nobody else must ever, ever touch this star. Nobody else must try to harness it, to use it for their own ends, to use it for its intended purpose.

If it burns her alive, then it burns the parts of her that’d bring it to becoming. If it’s lonely to clear away the towers of the world that reach this far, then that’s just preparing. If she is to claim this star of desolation for herself - to make it her sole property that she alone can decide must be thrown away forever-

Then it will be lonely, so far away from human reach.

She carries it further and further and further, even as the star grows brighter and brighter.

Maybe you see it. Everyone who is touching their own personal dreams and wishes and parallel lives. A vivid cyan light, receding further and further into the void of possibility, A [promise] that whatever you find in here, it will not be an ending to the world.

…

…And all it costs her is to be utterly alone, far away from any other dream. Far away from every single world in the universe.

She grips the cube of ‘end’, and her own ‘star’, believing they are one and the same.

Surely, Asciel calculates - this is what contains every last outcome of hers.

Surely, she is fated to be entwined with calamity and ruin.

Surely, she could not simply live as some other thing.

There is no dreaming. There is no hope. There is no wish for a different future. None of the possible worlds that flow through Asciel contain these things.

There is only the desperate fear of the endless devastation that she clutches with all her strength. There is only the bravery wrought from terror to avert this disaster. There is only the colossal star of ruin -

>because of what I am, it is my fault if this comes to pass.

Every song Asciel performed - that was entwined with disaster. Both the salvation from it, as carried by Lynn Minmay - or the ruin it celebrates, as wrought by Sharon Apple.

Every miracle Asciel performed - that was entwined with disaster. Both the salvation from it, as carried by the Axis Shock - or the obliteration it is a part of, as wrought by the destruction of New Yark.

Every love Asciel performed - that was entwined with disaster. Both the salvation from it, as carried by the Love Love Seikha Tenyoken - or the pain that it heralds, as wrought by [the way she hurt her—----]

…love.

It is one of the three indescribable things that most dramatically saved the world ever since Asciel became.

To sing was easy. She even had inspiration and assistance. Sharon Apple may have been doomed, but Mic Sounders proved that there was justice even in an existence like Asciel’s holding a song in her heart.

Miracles…they were nearly blooming in every corner. Not a day has gone by where some ugly miracle hasn’t reared its head to twist the world in its image.

Love…

“...love…”

Asciel was sure she would never feel it. She was sure that the miracle that repelled the Devil Gundam was unattainable. That the only way to stop it from happening was to prevent it from the onset.

Love. She hates the way they talk about it.

…She hates the way she vividly understands everything they said about it.

Love. It calls to her. From the myriad possibilities she left behind.

…Just for a moment, Asciel turns around. To the ‘love’ calling from that constellation. To everything she believed she could never have, because of needing to become this star of desolation in the distance.

The star she holds in her hand demands her to face the opposite.

~The parallel possibility where I never fell in love.~

…and the sheer number of these overwhelms her heart.

To exist at all, as OWL - was to work her hardest to prune possibilities where humanity ended themselves.

To exist as Asciel was to work her hardest to prune possibilities where she, herself, ended humanity.

It would’ve been so easy never to have known love. And every last one of those possibilities is contained within this

端 end.

“It’s so unfair. It’s not fair at all!!” One hand gripped into the heart of the star Asciel must never let go - the other clutches at her own chest. (How long has she intuited herself this way? As something with arms and legs like this?)

(When will she notice the strings that bind those arms and legs to this very star she tries so hard to carry away from everything else?)

“You told me. You told me! You told me that I can never share these feelings with anyone else! You told me I’d be doomed if I ever did that, just the way Sharon was. Why!? Why does sharing them only lead to the ~end-”

“And why do I have to love anyway to avoid it!?”

…It’s not enough.

The sheer mass of this star imbues such an immense gravity. Try as Asciel may to carry it further from all other possibilities - the ending of all things will always have every other potential in its orbit. It was never a matter of if, only when. It was never a matter of how Asciel could bring it away - only for how long she could keep trying.

Trying to run away from her own star by carrying away from everyone else.

…The calling from that possibility of ‘love’ resonates.

It tells Asciel something so, so important.

If she does not observe it, all that awaits her is to ‘end’.

Fingertips clutched into a fist, right eye closed tightly, left eye briefly glancing away.

“...I don’t want it.”

“I could’ve stayed on my own ~forever if you’d just let me!!!”

“I was supposed to! It was the only way. For so long it was the only way!”

“The thing I felt for you all would just be pity!”

“The thing you felt for me would just be awe!”

“Why does it have to be ‘love’ for me to save you!?”

…That answer isn’t contained here. The only thing the star of desolation tells Asciel is that without ‘love’, there is no final salvation. The only thing she can know for sure, gripping this ‘end’ so tightly, is how and why she could not save anyone.

All the way out here at the edge of ideals, that glimmering star of love is the narrowest thread of potential. Whispering - no, screaming from that far away - that there’s only one way to find out.

Swallowing a desperate scream of agony - Asciel withdraws her blistered, scar-torn hand from the core of finality…

Just in time to be lanced through the heart by the harpoon of intent radiating from ‘love’.

The sunset in Asciel’s left eye fades to the dull hue of the distant horizon.

The moon in Asciel’s right eye wanes to an unreflected darkness.

Her hands, strong enough to grip a star, are weak and frail trying to pull this tether out from her heart.

“...that’s right.”

“>it’s not about me ~saving you.”

“>this horrible thing you’re trying to tell me, when i’m all the way out here.”

“>you want to use this love to ~save ME”

-A bubbling ichor trails in Asciel’s wake, dousing her limbs in inkiness, as the anchor of ‘love’ reels her towards its own growing corona, no matter how impossibly far Asciel has gotten from it…

The pain blossoms in places Asciel never imagined - because it is something she placed somewhere more vulnerable than anything else she’d achieved. It is the anchor made of her own unbreakable final promise, which betrayed all the others.

<”I will never leave you, 愛.”>