Chapter 1 - Ryner Lute
[spoili]
All men dream. But not equally.
Those who dream by night in the dusty recesses of their minds, wake in the day to find that it was vanity: but the dreamers of the day are dangerous men, for they may act on their dreams with open eyes, to make them possible.
In short, ambition was what made man dangerous, as it was what motivated him. It was what made a man powerful, as it was what drove him. And hell hath no fury like a man who had set his mind to accomplish something that he felt he absolutely needed to accomplish.
Ryner Lute was one such example.
An extreme example even, given that he was not just a man with such a drive, but a desperate man, fueled by need.
Everything had collapsed for him in the blink of an eye. Those that he cared for, his dear companion Ferris Eris and the king Sion Astral, had turned their backs on him. The world, divided by its very nations, was in turmoil. And every day, he fought off the hunger. The thirst. The desire to kill. This drive that originated from the Alpha Stigma, his two magical eyes that granted him the title of Roland's Strongest Magician. But at the cost of being considered more of a monster than man usually.
Everywhere he went because of this horrifying, uncontrollable power, he was hunted. His power was feared, hated, coveted. Everything that could be thought of when it came to power. And he wanted none of the power he was burdened with. But... If he could harness this power, tame it, in order to achieve his ideal, the ideal of the perfect world where no one had to cry, the perfect world where everyone could just take peaceful afternoon naps... Then so be it.
And so, he realized it.
It was during his adventure that one day, he suddenly woke up to find himself in an unfamiliar location, surrounded by unfamiliar people. Little did he know, this was his first encounter with what turned out to be... a Murder Game. But not just any Murder Game. A game of death that imbued him with an idea on how he would save the world. How he would save everyone. An ironic twist of fate, but that was how these worked. Sacrifices had to be made for the greater good... was something that he used to loathe the very thought of, but somewhere down the line... He found himself acting upon it.
He lost himself somewhere down the line, but as long as it meant everyone but him be damned, then so be it, thought the desperate man.
It was within this Murder Game that he learned of a seemingly omnipotent, magical device known as the Holy Grail, said to be able to grant any one wish to the one that it would deem worthy. And so, after surviving the ordeal, Ryner, in this desperate time, resorted to this desperate measure. Utilizing his godly magic, the Alpha Stigma, the Solver of All Equations traversed him into the next parallel world, and through methods that he was not proud of, he had managed to do it.
He acquired the wish-granting Holy Grail for himself.
And it was then that he realized everything came at a price. But at this point, there was no price that he wasn't willing to pay to get what he wanted.
And so, he made his wish.
For his world to be saved.
In one request, he wished for those that he loved, Sion, Ferris, Keifer, everyone, to be happy. He wished for the warring nations, Roland, Estabul, Nelpha, Gastark, and so on, to be united as a grand, powerful world that was not divided by some trivial war. He wished for his own world to be a utopia in which everyone could smile, and no one had to suffer, as he did.
And the price?
To save a world, he had to destroy worlds.
As the Holy Grail had arrived and demanded to him the souls of the many worlds that made up this universe, this universe of mages, vampires, demons, and so on, Ryner practically acted as the grail's puppet, doing as it ordered. With his Alpha Stigma, he orchestrated the death of countless individuals, of many worlds, within this universe, traveling from place to place with that very power.
For all his intelligence, the so-called Solver of All Equations could not solve this conundrum without changing his present course. But if he could not see these people, then was it not as though they did not exist to him? After all, this was an entirely different universe, separate from that of the one that mattered the most to him, right?
So why did he still feel troubled?
"..."
Well. At least he managed to procure this much. This happy ending for his world, right?
As Ryner Lute, Roland's Strongest Magician, stood at the outskirts of the kingdom of Roland itself, staring distantly at the faraway castle, he could only narrow his eyes. His heart and mind practically warred with each other, the former too ashamed to face everyone after what he had done, and the latter feeling the need to validate himself and his own actions by seeing the fruits of his labors.
To that end, he took a step forward, letting logic dictate his action.
Though he had not wiped out the entire universe of the world from which the Holy Grail originated, he destroyed just enough that the vessel had claimed to have fulfilled its end of the bargain, so there was no further need in keeping him around. Thus, he was free to return to his own world.
Still, after everything he had done, his heart still panged with remorse. Not just for who he destroyed along the way, but also for those he could not save. Specifically, a warrior, a king of knights, whom he had fallen in love with during the Murder Game. A woman who resembled his dear Ferris in a manner, but more stern, and carried an air of someone who had gone through much hardship, but had overcome it through sheer force of will, or at least, had the potential to.
She was known as Saber, and though her heart came to belong to another, she was beauty, she was grace indeed.
However, all things that were good were never to last. Saber became corrupted during this Murder Game, and was forcibly killed in the end, denied the redemption she had been seeking in her past. However, while the story would tragically end there for some, it was hardly over from there. For little did many know, Ryner was actually involved in two Murder Games, the latter of which transpired in the middle of his journey, and took place in a strange place known as "Gravity Falls."
It was there that he was reunited with Saber, cleansed of the corruption that led to her downfall in the end of the previous Murder Game, but alas, even that was not to last, as she perished once again through unfortunate circumstances.
It was this phenomena that led him to despair, that led him to settle on destroying the worlds. He didn't know why. Perhaps it was out of confusion. Confusion that everything always seemed to go wrong despite all the power he held. Perhaps it was for revenge. The need to avenge Saber's death by destroying the world that had birthed her, the world that had granted her this life filled with nothing but suffering and death.
In his rage, however, he never realized the cycle of death that he had created. And like all cycles, it was to come full circle.
After all, peace can never spawn from hate. And this peace, or at least an illusion of it, that he had created out of this world that he lived within... He wondered if it was genuine, the real deal, manifested by the sheer power of the Holy Grail, or if it was little more than a mirage, and cause him to realize that some things were beyond wishing for.
However, before Ryner Lute could take another step towards the kingdom of Roland where he had once resided within along with those he loved, an unfamiliar voice halted him, not just out of surprise, but out of horror. He didn't know why, but the voice sent chills up and down his spine as a sense of dread overcame him inexplicably.
"And where do you think you are going, boy?"
Perhaps against his better judgment, Ryner turned around to face the feminine voice behind him, the overbearing nuance within it almost demanding him to turn around despite no words ever being spoken to indicate such a thing.
"W-Who are...?!"
"Now, now. That is no way to treat a god. Or at the very least, any sort of figure above your pitiful existence, irritating ant," the mysterious woman spoke. She was a beautiful woman. It made her all the more frightening to be in the presence of.
Her hair, mien, and royal dress had an air of certain royalty to her, yet the emblems, Ryner could not recognize belonged to any nation. Not even Estabul or Stohl. It was almost as though... She was from an entirely foreign world.
Or even a different universe.
The overwhelming threatening sense of dread was something that Ryner was no stranger to. He felt a similar sensation just facing the monster within his very soul, Alpha. But this monster... This monster that wore the skin of a human. She was definitely something else.
Narrowing his eyes, Ryner clenched his fists, attempting to keep his ground.
"O-Oi, whoever you are... You call yourself a god, but trust me, you've never seen power like the one in my eyes. Or what, haven't you heard of the Alpha Stigma?"
"Ah, yes. Trying to talk tough in order to compensate for your fear... A boringly human reaction, I must say," the blonde woman spoke, stepping towards him, Ryner in turn taking an instinctive step back,
"I care not for your bloated power. For you see, Ryner Lute, your sins have caught up to you."
"Tch, and what's that supposed to mean? Got a lot of sins on my back as it is, so you'll have to be more specific," Ryner bluffed, attempting to keep his legs from trembling before the monster that stood before him, the monster that blocked his path from the world he wanted to return to. An ironic thing to say, considering his own back was against that very world.
"Are humans really as slow as you are, or are you just a special occasion?" The woman spoke with irritation, like a sagely queen displeased at some less than pleasant news,
"Or perhaps... You intend to turn your back on the worlds that you've destroyed in order to revert your own to how it was before it came to ruin. You intend to ignore the damages you've inflicted upon my worlds."
...
Ryner had nothing to say to this woman. It was one thing to claim to be some sort of goddess, but there was undeniably something about her that spelled powerful. How could she possibly know about that?! How could she possibly know...?!
At this moment, Ryner Lute was, without any mistake about it, terrified.
"H-How... How do you... Who are you?! What do you want from me?!"
"I go by many names... The Type-Moon, Daughter of the Crimson Moon, Arcueid Brunestud... But it matters little. As I implied, I am a god. A god of a world very much like this one that I, and I alone, govern. But my power is not restricted to but a single world. I feel the tremors within the universe. I feel the hollow emptiness inflicted upon this universe. And thus, I've traveled from my own universe just to meet you. But you see... I have no interest in your world, or whether or not your wish was truly granted. You have interfered with a universe that was not yours with power that you do not deserve. So I will take everything from you."
"For the countless lives of those you've destroyed, I shall take yours."
"If you want me so badly... Come and get me!" Ryner exclaimed violently, as though retaliating more against his own fear than the woman herself, before raising his hand and drawing a circle in the air with his finger, his eyes glowing red as he activated his Alpha Stigma.
"What I seek is thunder! Izuchi!"
FSSSH!
With that, a magical glyph was formed in front of him in the air, and from there, like a portal, bolts of lightning flew straight at the woman who called herself Arcueid Brunestud!
"Hmph. Pathetic. This is all your so-called magic eyes are capable of amounting to?"
All the woman felt the need to do was slash her arm across as the bolts of thunder reached her, the bolts dissipating as though she were swatting away annoying flies. With a perpetually bored expression on her face, she took another step forward, inching towards Ryner like an axe murderer towards a defenseless civilian, her pace slow, yet deliberate.
"That is your first chance. Two more remain, and if by then, if you have not so much as scratched me, I will kill you slowly and painfully," the goddess spoke with an unnervingly playful tone, her eyes growing wider and lustful at the thought of murder and her voice practically echoing throughout the edge of the woods at which they stood,
"However, I am also a benevolent god. Surrender now, and your death will be quick and painless."
It was clear to even Ryner that the woman was merely toying with him, indicating that she was immensely powerful to shrug off Izuchi like it was nothing, let alone exude that kind of air to begin with.
"Tch! Not on your life, crazy lady! Goddess or not, you don't scare me!" Ryner exclaimed, gritting his teeth. But that was a lie. He could practically feel himself quaking in his own boots out of fear. He could talk big all he wanted, but never in his life, when it came to battle, did things seem as hopeless as they did here and now. He had never faced an opponent that he felt was just straight up stronger and superior to him in every way. This was simply a fact.
This woman was...
D a n g e r o u s.
Still, he had to try
something! He couldn't give up! Not after how far he had gone, not after everything he had done in order to accomplish what he wanted!
Raising his hand, his eyes still glowing red, Ryner drew a small red circle with his magic, his eyes glowing brighter than ever before as he began to recite an incantation.
"I offer up this contract to--"
THUD!
In a split-second, Ryner's world quite literally spun upside down as his body, like a rag doll, was sent rolling down the hill he was standing atop. He was unable to realize that Arcueid had, in less than a second, delivered a punch powerful enough to knock him down the hill, and much more, with a burning pain in his chest. Ryner struggled to even move, realizing that more specifically, his solar plexus was struck, temporarily disabling his ability to even breathe for a hot second.
Still, he managed to recover quickly enough, scrambling to his feet as Arcueid Brunestud walked down the unstable hill as easily as one would walk up and down stairs, maintaining an air of grace comparable to that of a princess, an irony that betrayed her true strength and ferocity underneath her beautiful exterior.
"That is two. Last chance, human. Make your final move wisely. It may very well be your last."
"Tch, is... Is that all you got?!" Ryner taunted spitefully, gritting his teeth and wiping blood from his mouth. He didn't care what he had to do to win. He
needed to win. Nothing would stop him from seeing his friends again. He would do anything to make sure this was so.
Anything.
Even if it meant losing himself.
Even if it meant giving in to Alpha again.
Even if it meant erasing this goddess's very existence.
"I could very well ask you the same thing. With that kind of bad attitude... I think I remember you. Yes... You were there in that town when the Night of Wallachia attacked, weren't you? And to think even my lesser self thought little of you. Quite a wonder how much humans can escalate..." Arcueid mused, evidently bored enough to ramble lightly to herself.
"Underestimating humans is a mistake you won't live to regret!" Ryner only said, his eyes glowing a brighter, more vibrant than ever before, as the Alpha Stigma began to take over. His desire to kill. His thirst for blood. It was welling up now. Yes... That's right. Giving in to the monster inside him. The monster who saved nothing. The monster who spared nothing.
"These eyes... If only you knew the full extent of my power. You think you can hold a candle to me, but if you know that I destroyed all those worlds... Then you should know. I will erase y--"
SLASH!
A scream pierced through the air like a drill, and it wasn't until a second or two later that Ryner had realized it was his own scream. He was in pain. It hurt. It hurt so much. It hurt.
It took him another few seconds to realize that he could no longer see. His vision was completely black. From the shock of the pain, he sunk to his knees with his hands on the ground, only to feel a strange substance on the ground. Blood. It was blood. It was
his blood.
And that was when Ryner realized that Arcueid had slashed his eyes out. And with that, she had easily undone the power of the Alpha Stigma as though it were nothing to her.
"If your intent was to intimidate, all you've accomplished is that you've thoroughly disappointed and bored me. You are less than an ant."
Though Ryner was unable to see it, let alone see anything now, Arcueid almost had what resembled a sadistic, yet calm, smile on her features, as though the only amusement she found in this was through her own actions.
"You talk too much. And your power is hardly all-powerful if you're that slow. At least the other little boy with mystic eyes was able to pose a threat to me in some manner, but even compared to him, you are nothing more than a bad joke, Ryner Lute. That is the sum of your ambitions, your identity, your very existence, and that is how it will go down in your world's history... That is, that is what would happen if your world would continue to exist once I am done with it."
Ryner could only clumsily crawl away, unable to even get up on his feet. Blindly gazing in Arcueid's general direction, he could only breathe rapidly, barely able to talk in Arcueid's words through his searing pain.
"W-What... What are you...?!"
"Despite my actions towards you, boy, I am no villain. I am simply a force of nature that will do anything it takes to recover the stability that you have disrupted in my universe. If anything, you are the villain, disrupting the natural flow of a universe for your own selfish desires. And thus, you will pay the price for it."
With that, Arcueid took a pause to calmly walk over to the fumbling Ryner, reaching down and grabbing both of the magician's arms with her hands, before savagely ripping them off with her own brute strength, fountains of blood violently flowing out, eliciting a horrified cry of pain from Ryner, who could only agonize uncontrollably as his head hit the grassy ground.
"So ultimately... In the end, am I not the hero in this case? An amusing sentiment," Arcueid spoke calmly, an eerie sight as she remained so calm and collected before the writhing Ryner, who continued to scream in terror,
"Of course, human labels such as good and evil mean little to me. In fact, what vexes me more than man's need to label things..."
SKRSSSH!
"... is your incessant screaming."
With one fell sweep of the arm, Ryner ceased to scream, but he was not dead. Not yet. Arcueid had merely slashed his vocal chords, evidently annoyed by his screams. As her fingernails, razor-sharp and resembling more like claws than anything else, dripped with blood, she glanced at the blood in her hand, before almost stifling a laugh for whatever reason, and then focusing her attention back on Ryner.
"There we go. You have a mouth, but you can no longer scream. Ah... But that was a regrettable course of action. Since you can no longer speak, I cannot hear you beg. Beg for me to not destroy your world. But is it not only fair? Your world in exchange for the many worlds of mine that you have destroyed. You brought this upon yourself. But do not fret. I am not so cruel that I shall keep you alive long enough to witness me kill everyone you've ever loved and then some... as much as you could possibly witness anything now."
"No... You'll be long dead by then."
THUD!
And with another singular motion, Arcueid smashed her fist into Ryner's head, crushing his brain against the ground. Ryner Lute had instantly died with that, and no fanfare rang for the fallen magician. Arcueid had made sure that everything he had worked toward amounted to nothing, because after all, as she said, he was nothing.
And he had no right to wield the power of gods as a man to destroy worlds. So for trying to change everything, he had doomed his entire world to oblivion.
As Arcueid Brunestud gazed at the town ahead, looking away from the corpse of Ryner Lute as though it were little more than the dead carcass of a rat, a cold smile tugged at the corners of her lips as she walked forward. The full moon was quite beautiful tonight. And as the night was still young, surely many people would still be about.
She figured she may as well entertain herself a little before destroying this entire world in one fell swoop in the end.
[/spoili]
