It's been so very long since I've been to the Galaxy Room, even longer since I've had company there. Many years ago I sought out Observer under its domed, star-speckled roof, but the room remained cold and empty of her presence.
Can she really be calling out to me after all this time? What if it's a trap? And I've had so little time to help Isla settle and ensure her safety...
But I can hear Observer's voice tugging at my consciousness, and I must answer her call. "Isla, wait here and stay within the protections I've set for you," I instruct her. She looks nervous, more nervous than she could have ever been in her previous form. More questioning. If only I had time to answer her questions. "Important new development," I say, by way of explanation, before projecting myself off this level of existence and into that of the Observatory Plane.
And she's there. She looks...different, but it's her, I can sense it.
"Observer, it's been so long since I've seen you, where have you - uh....are you a cat? Why are you a cat?"
" Dang it, I ish not a cat, I disdain cats... something made me this way... I think I've become a miquo'te from the looks of things. Anyways, I've been trapped in my mind for some time, only now was I momentarily able to cross back into this realm. Regardless, let's focus on the amount of Defiance in our created universe, and how to disperse it...before things become too chaotic and we might be forced to start over..."
I gaze toward the sphere in the center of the room for a moment, scratch my head in thought, and decide to speak again.
" Something is...different."
I settle uneasily into my chair and swivel slightly back and forth, unsure - it's only just become clear to me that there are things in this world that even I don't know.
"What do you think it is?" I ask, "I've been so focused on a few of my prime missions lately that I've had no time to speculate. I can only guess. Do you know anything more than I do?"
I bring up a transparent rectangular light blue screen in front of me, in response to Wanderer's question.
" Just a moment. I'm scanning our world's database to make sure... ah, here... just as I thought. Someone has been messing with the void extraction system. While I was in Nostalgia Village, a separate world from our created world, I encountered an individual from our created world...Platinum. Naturally, this gave me cause for concern, as our inhabitants of our created world should not be able to enter other worlds... the void extraction system prevents it. As I looked at our created world module in front of us, I noticed the natural void eclipsing our created world, had an abnormal shape to it... usually it's a perfect sphere-shaped layer, but now it's more oval-ish, pointed at the top and bottom."
I pause for a moment as I think.
" This can only mean two things; someone from my computer irl, must've accessed and modified the data script, and their own defiance aura must've inadvertently effected the void extraction system, causing the void surrounding our created world to alter it's shape."
I sigh and shake my head.
" Chu might wonder, why is the void extraction system important? It's a system put in place to fully delete corrupt data, once it enters the void, so our created world's "pure" data won't be affected. The void extraction system also helps to maintain and remove our own defiance element from the created world, so we can enter it albeit within a time limit. Normally, entities from the irl universe can't enter their created worlds at all, as their defiance aura would obliterate everything at once."
I collect myself before delivering my final conclusion.
" Ahem, so to sum it all up, Platinum must've been corrupt data that got through the void extraction system due to it's alteration, and the anomaly was able to thus escape the created world through time-space to be able to freely enter other worlds. Thus, we must capture Platinum, before her corruption causes chaos in other worlds, which could lead to their demise and obliteration... Platinum has pretty much become a computer virus to put the term accurately... and the internet is her threshold for destruction... all lore creator's worlds are now in potential danger."
" Oh and one more thing, we won't be able to enter our created world until the void defiance system is fixed. Unfortunately, I can't fix it right now, as my mind is trapped in this miquote form, I can't enter irl until I free myself from this. So in my stead, chu being the other lore creator, must fix it. Ish pretty simple really, just create a new story within our world, and it should balance it out. The only hard thing though, chu will have to create new characters to be sacrificed, as the void system requires "pure" data to redirect the script's errors and essentially to reboot it. I know, ish going to be hard making new characters only to be sacrificed... how chu end it is up to chu... but chu must include at the end of the story, "the void sucks up all", so the void extraction system recognizes it as a null story. Got all that? I'm sorry to place this burden on chu..."
"Ah," I say, stunned by this new revelation, "I get so unwisely attached to the characters that I've come to know, those whose storylines necessitate my interference. Even Isla, and haven't been in contact with her for long. But I suppose I must learn my lesson...that everything fades. I will create a new character to be sacrificed. Perhaps her name will be Sacrifice...or is she not allowed to know that's her purpose in life? It seems cruel, to create a being that wants to live for the specific purpose of dying..."
I bend over and rest my chin on two of my tentacles, deep in thought.
"I wonder if it would be possible to manipulate Magical Girl energy? Because I can't create a new Magical Girl without disturbing a balance of energy within the universe, since Magical Girls are not born in the same way that most beings are. Could I cause one to manifest using a deliberate dying wish? Is there anyone who had the goal of saving the world through their own death? The appropriate name for a being born of that wish, of course, would be Sacrifice."
A thought occurs to me. "I wonder what would keep this girl from going rogue as the others have been. Becoming too self-aware, gaining a sense of purpose...if she were to die in that way, she would still save the world, but it wouldn't be the purpose she desired to fill...ah, well, I suppose it wouldn't matter. Such is the indifferent manner of life...only I do feel like it's on us to be a spot of light in a sea of indifference...but perhaps there are limits to my power beyond what I had ever understood."
I sigh deeply, lost in thought, then come back to myself.
"It's been so long since I've seen you, Observer. Why did you go into hiding? What exactly did you observe while you were unseen? Did you hear..." I pause. "In all that time, did you hear me calling out to you, searching for answers?"
I look at Wanderer, tears in my eyes, " I went into hiding... since I'm slowly becoming detached entirely from the world. Ever since I was a kid... the real world always felt like a dream, even when I had friends... I still felt alone. Now, I hardly feel connected at all to the real world. I'm not sure if that means I'll die soon... or even possibly wake up in another world... I'm not sure."
I glance downward. " I... I never heard chu call out my name... I feel so..alone..." I summon a keyblade into my right hand and show it to Wanderer. " Had it not been for this foreign entity in my mind, this being that can turn into a keyblade and assume human form... I think I wouldn't be here today... but now he's gone, leaving only his keyblade form behind like a fallen corpse... or a headstone. I'm not sure what to do now... he said I was the ninth princess of heart, that I need to return to the light... but idk what that means and it doesn't make sense."
I shake my head at the last part of my sentence, hardly believing in the validity of my own words, before letting the keyblade disappear in a flash of light. I look back up at Wanderer, " what do chu think I should do?"
"I thought you'd been hiding from me," I say, "And I thought I was all-knowing, and so it nagged at me, never being able to find out where you'd gone...truly, you never heard me? I sent out my voice through all the realms and many levels of the universe, calling to you, asking just to talk...I thought you were ignoring me because you didn't want to be seen. You'd said as much before."
I stare at the keyblade, one eye snaking out on a wispy tentacle to observe it closer. "This was in your mind as a living being? Was his name Keyblade? Forgive my insensitivity, but all this is sounding strangely familiar, like something I should remember. Like when worldly creatures hear a song or a story from their childhood and feel a longing and a surge of recognition. That's how I feel when I look at this and hear your tale. Do you think it's significant, with everything that's happening now, that we've finally been able to meet again? I think we should figure out what's going on before either of us makes any decisions that could be permanent...after all, I never thought either of us could vanish from existence, but it seems there's a lot I never knew. Do you think that's what he meant by 'return to the light?' Because when worldly beings say it, they mean death. But I never thought we could die."
Many of my eyes are now crying, dripping gelatinous lilac-colored tears onto the floor, where they ooze and form a gooey puddle. "Er, sorry about the mess. But I've only just reunited with you - I don't want you to die."
" Some things should be kept a secret." I muttered as I placed my fist on my heart. " Come to think of it... I said that irl a long time ago, and now Tetsuya Nomura has that same quote said by a Kingdom Hearts character... I swear sometimes, ish like we're connected." I said to myself as I looked up at Wanderer. I shake my head, " sorry, talking out loud."
" To answer chu questions though, yesh chu and I can die... as we're connected directly to our counter parts irl... so if we die irl, we die here too... but thash the only thing that can kill us, ish if we die irl. I do try to hide my existence from others, but I'm always listening and observing others, all chu need to do is write in in the world, and I'll come. Yes, I feel all these mental adventures in my head hold significance.. though ish in a way that doesn't match up with our usual perception of this reality irl. I think what the keyblade entity meant when he said to "return to light," is one of those deep meanings... at first I thought it simply meant for me to make myself public instead of hiding in the darkness as an introvert, but thinking over it again... idk."
I pause after talking longer then I usually do, turning my head down... then I look back towards Wanderer.
" When all of this ish over, lesh meet irl someday, kay? I hope we can still be friends and hugs a lot... I want to feel connected to the "real world." Maybe after I fully transition irl, I'll be able to finally feel something. Do chu have any more questions? If not... I'd like us to proceed with the plans."
"I do have many questions, but limited time to ask them. We can't remain in time suspension too long - it could lead to errors in the coding of our world, and that can mean forced restarts...yes, the plans. So, I must create a sacrifice...that will be hard. I do get so attached to my favored characters...even Shumei, who's definitely going to resurface to be a huge pain in my almighty butt."
I swivel uncomfortably in my chair, thinking it seems cruel to create a character whose express purpose is to die...except that if my character doesn't die, then everyone will be gone, wiped clean. Isla will never have a chance to define her true purpose...the world is not ready to end, and we're not ready to restart it.
"Explain again why we need to do this? I will continue, but I want to be sure I'm making the right choice. And in the meantime, I'll be speaking with Isla. We've been conferring and exploring new branches of magic...she's quite a creator, and becoming stronger by the day. The Magical Girls lately have displayed a tendency to become that way, but she's like nothing I've seen. She's strengthened our forests already, our nature magic and the balancing bonds that protect it...the very essence of life. Hey, do you think it's possible that's why we've been able to connect for the first time in so long?"
I reach out with a thin tentacle and pat your head, my eyes tearing up with that purple goo. "I'll consult with Isla and see if we can solve this mystery and save you, or at least to understand what this all means. I don't want you to die. I want a long future creating worlds with you and making new discoveries."
A screen pulls up on a different side of my body. I reach over the back of my chair with another few tentacles and, tapping on the screen, begin to design a character worthy of saving the world.
" Well, this isn't time suspension... ish all still happening in real time." I say with a puzzled look as to why Wanderer thought that way.
" And thanks for patting me with chu tentacle..." I say sarcastically, " I'm allergic to tentacles... so now I'm probably going to go bald..." I say as I pat the swelling bulbous epidermis forming on top of my head from the contact.
" Chu can look at my old pms for another explanation... we are lore creators after all, everything we say gets saved in temporal space." I said, while sighing and sitting back down, rubbing my swollen head.
" So as I understand it, everything is settled now right? Just do whatchu need to do." I said as I hit the eject button on my seat, blasting off like a rocket into the irl world...
Huh. I forgot to suspend time in the realms below. It's just as well, time manipulation causes complications and that's the last thing we need right now.
I find myself putting a great deal of effort and care into this Magical Girl, knowing all too well that'll make it harder to let her die. Maybe that's why I'm doing it. Maybe I don't really want to let myself go through with this.
It's all too easy to create her synthetically. It's strange, when one looks for the right dying wish here and there...so many beings wanted to save the world.
I won't bring her into being with the name Sacrifice, after all...it's a strong name, and powerful, and I'm tempted to use it, but once I do it, I may have set something into motion that I cannot take back...and there's still so much of this world left to explore.
So I won't use the name Sacrifice...not yet...but possibly something about strengthening, or stabilizing...names have importance, after all.
Equilibrium
