(Episode VIII) (End)

But… It was her Mindscape. She was within her mind.

She found herself floating, within the make up of her being, as her eyes settled onto… Her.

She was looking up at a boundless sky—that put the starriest to shame. Nebulas swelled, planets glowed, and cosmic happenings beyond that. It was more than looking at space, or the universe.

It… Was reality itself.

She was remembering that siVis showed her, in that split moment. Between her never having it and the forced activation. Consciousness and non-consciousness.

Grounded and beyond.

But it wasn’t all that Aiko was focusing on… But something that caught her eye.

In the endless shifting of existence, there was something she witness during this showcase that stuck with her. All this infinity, yet cessation… Imagine all the things that can and has happened within it.

She imagined that possibility.

And she needed it more now than ever.

Aiko’s eyes flickered back open and she started to sink within the construct she landed in.

She didn’t get it. She didn’t know what was going on right now… But she always knew about this possibility.

She sunk further and further, until she was completely submerged.

She reached out to move her arm, but an axel to a wheel turned.

She tried to move her head, but it was still, in place.

She realized she hadn’t breathed this whole time, and tried for a huge gulp.

And only the start and revving of an engine responded.

siVis Ability: FOUNDED!

…And with that, Aiko put herself in gear. She never driven before, nor planned to. But if this vehicle was her new body—she had to think of it as such.

So she drove herself forward, her truck-crane body prowled toward the warehouse as it picked up speed.

Feeling out for the various controls on the dash and inside the crane divided her focus, so she just focused on gaining speed. Gaining speed and power.

She crashed through the fence, and she powered through more so that didn’t slow her down. She knew if she had any less for what was coming up, the whole crane would be destroyed and maybe she’ll destroy herself in the process. The curious thing about this experience, despite being so alien to “feel” what a vehicle does, is the fact she can also feel herself exceed the capability of the vessel. Unlike siVis, where you can push through—but clearly understand the pain and process that goes into it, it was this liberating possession.

As she came up to the warehouse’s side, it was time to test this feeling. She honked multiple times before she slammed into the warehouse.

She rammed the walls, wooden and tinged with erosion—she was coated with debris and body already taken a great hit. But there was nothing to do but do it.

She looked her crane, extending it down towards the Davenoid, who was clearly taken off guard. She chomped down, gripped it with all of it’s might and tore away as the tendrils retaliated—puncturing, slashing, dicing at the body. Funnily enough, it was adding to the damage that was already happening.

The influence of Aiko was taking it’s toll on the crane, which again, was okay. It was already over and the afforded time, she was going to use all of it.

She pulled away, yanking and uprooting the mass of squirming. She crunched the pitiful mascot within her mechanical maw. Again. And again. Until she couldn’t gather and keep the useless bits and pieces that were falling out.

Aiko swung the crane throwing the trash into the hole she came from, into the pouring rain as she popped out of the base of the vehicle.

She stumbled out, forward, as the rushing of human sensibilities blurred into the combination that she recognized: her’s. Her eyes focused, onto the stares and awe of the rest of the girls, huddled together. Clearly was going to stage a final stand before she got there.

But the crane started to buckle, tear itself apart, which caused Aiko to lean forward and forced herself to run. Of course, the girls woke themselves up and got out before she did.

It all collapsed, burying what was basically the girls’ worse experience during this massive trying period.

Even being peddled with rain, feeling so hurt that it became weights on their souls, they were able to beat this. Beat themselves.

They buckled, they fell, they collapsed onto the ruined street.

They couldn’t move, even if they wanted to. Even if they forced themselves to. Even if they went beyond, using siVis to directly influence their bodies, they were broken. So much in pain that they didn’t have the luxury to writhe or shift in it. It wasn’t just the torn muscles, the pulled bones, or being overwhelmed by the sensory of this pain. It was them, as people, running out of the energy to even move.

They barely survive. And now, they can barely exist.

Just in time for the rogue wires to slither out of the wreck. It became just a dark, gibbering mess as it collected itself. And crawled over to the girls, clearly on it’s last legs—looking for anyone, anything, to latch onto.

There was a notable change in the air.

TENKAGOMEN: KIRI-SUTE…GOMEN.

They couldn’t even see it. They were instantly overwhelmed.

The sheer pressure—pressing them down around all side, forcing the pressure inside of themselves to shift and change—wanting some kind of release, rattled the girls into screaming primally. Their cadence, their restraint less they damage their vocal cords—were all lost in that one moment that lasted an eternity.

There was a wave of silver, that slowly brought the warehouse into a destructive crush. Planks, beams, the wires that was once their enemy—all popped and turned into crumbled slop. And anything else that unfortunately was nearly that warehouse was crushed into dusty paste as well.

They all screamed themselves raw. They all then, almost in sync, proceeded to sob. And not without reason. They begged their bodies to work. Just one more chance. They know they exhausted all of their chances, but please, right now of all times.

At least let them look up at Nathaniel Fuuki. Who was right there, walking towards them from up the street.

Aiko was the few that was positioned to be able to look at him. And she cursed reality, the thing she just praised, for it.

It was he who not only spurred her parents, but her people, into a mass exodus when he roamed about Japan. He was the boogeyman, who terrified them so badly, that fear looms over them for life.

An siVisTrend. Once a victim, but became so obsessive with the concept, he became an oddity. One of the collection of outliers that could very well be the possible dead end for most, if not all, siVictims like herself.

A man, who became so obsessive—modeled his ability’s appearance to provoke the visage of the Shifts, so that whoever dares to face him struggles with the mental suggestions and associations.

A man, that refused to be a mortal man anymore, so much so that he removed it.

His limbs were double helix-themed parts, made up of pieces of himself he arranged. His hands and feet were stripped down to the bare minimum, bendable rods for fingers, foldable square plates for palms. Currently, his arm was transformed into a sword-like appendage. “Uneven Edge”, he called it, due to the jaddeged look it took because of the transformation from arm to “sword”. The rods made up the blade’s edge, floating, as the shape of an arm was maintained but rendered featureless and flat. He was just structure. Pieces that had a purpose and efficiency. No redundancies. No weakness. Nothing recognizable.

But nothing was worse than what covered him.

He fashioned his skin into a living cloak. It was translucent apart from the clear tears and stretches where the skin refused to come off. It was collapsed into a cloak, with the hood spiraled and coiled around the last bit of humanity he has left. His head.

He let the cloak peel itself off from his head, letting his wet, white “hair” free. In reality, it was small fibers that made up to hair. Neck up, he was human, but only in the loosest sense of the term. His skin was just alabaster, avoid of any distinguishing characteristics. No moles, no skin that was tight or sagged in places, no eye lower than the other, no unique shape of the eyes, nose or mouth at all. Even the rain, that should've wet his face--casading and then dripping from his chin. It was just sliding off. His face remained dry. Still.

But his eyes.

Nathaniel’s eyes were the common indicator that he’s passed the point of no return—or at least that’s what Aiko heard. Instead of the ring, it was a series of them. A pattern that circled and encased the pupil. And anything beyond the pupil was torn away bare. Only leaving the rings and a hollow look.

“…What… Are you…?” he tilted his head, at the girls in the pile. “How… Did you manage any of this?”

“please…” Jackie sounded so innocent, clearly sobbing her words out. “do…don’t kill us…”

Nathaniel simply stared with his hollow eyes and motionless face.

“Oh. You misunderstand… I was merely coming back to what I discovered here…” His voice was so even, so punctual, and relatively young despite being in his late 20’s. “I’ve been so bored since this ‘incident’ had occurred… I merely wandered around, seeing whatever this phenomenon created. Only the standard with twists so far.”

The being looked at his hand, glancing it over as he extended what could’ve been his index, picking at it, “I commend you for targeting that doll, I assumed the same thing when I stumbled upon it… But you upstarts couldn’t have lasted any longer—you needed to find a way to deal with the wires themselves after. The way you’ve already fell due to that mascot, you couldn’t have anticipated the wires finding a new host in some other form of technology. A tough puzzle indeed…”

“Look, if yo—you’re gonna fucking kill us—just—just—” River cut herself off, suddenly screaming, “YOU PICK AND POKE AT THINGS—THEN YOU ‘TEST’ THEM TO SEE HOW FAR THEY GO!”

Nathaniel was unfazed by the accusations, and casually ripped off a regrowing fingernail before flicking it aside, causing it to crack the sidewalk beside him with a thunderous snap.

Anything they had in mind what he was going to do to them, that managed to scare them silent alone.

“Again. You all misunderstand. I do those things towards what catches my interests, that… Tells me the final secret to my total transcendence. Besides. No use of telling a gnat how long it has to live.”

“W-what do you mean-?” Tracy desperately asked. “WHAT DO YOU MEAN?!”

Nathaniel raised his newly inhuman finger and looked down upon the girls. “It’s clear as day. Whatever you did, your cheap ways of achieving siVis—It was never meant to be done in this fashion. It’s impressionable knowledge in need of foundation before it can be applied. And you all lack it.”

He continued on, looking up to the storming skies now.

“You’re a series of mistakes. Interlinking and never supporting. Creating this long, winding and crooked line, ready to cave into itself in a matter of… Hm. I’d say… If you meet a true siVis user. Someone, even as an upstart, tries to best you and pushes you like this mascot did… The amount of activity, lack of structural support, along with your clear overemotional dispositions… Implosion. And not a terribly brilliant one, at that. You all will just beg for more power, before collapsing into a pile of pieces.”

There was shaking, howling, shouting—they didn’t want to believe it, and they refused. They came a broken pile even before their assumed fate happened.

“A shame, really,” he continued to look up at the pouring rain. “I can tell—your lot in life, right? That made you take the chance? Even before my enlightenment—honestly, everyone knows that this is a confused, meaningless world… Not a student of nihilism, especially the modernized bastardization, but it is true that in this life… Simply, existence does not have the capacity to house meaning. What we create is slowly destroyed. Ideals can crushed by one simple truth. And finally… Every living thing strives for the pursuit of comfort—of total fulfillment… And the concept of life denies it. Only a select few can truly achieve such, and the system cannot support anymore.”

He simply turned around, shaking his head. “Hey… At least, in the precious little that you have left… I’m sure you can use siVis to find peace in your demises. The best thing you can do, is at least create a bittersweet end for yourselves. And while I can’t exactly covey or emote the sentiment, I’m happy that I’ve sent you towards the right direction.”

Then he shrugged, starting to walk away as his cloak clawed at the back of his head to reform the hood. “Or not. At least your raging against inevitability will be just as short. If not more.”

The rain got to the point of masking any and all sound. Aiko couldn’t hear her own protests, crying and screaming. All of this. For nothing.

Nothing.

Nothing.

She fell into it’s lull. Closing her tearful eyes.

***

Jackie was the last one to pass out. She was too busy crying on her back to let her body do so. The rain stung her eyes and her crying made them ache. Just adding to the threshold of pain that she’s discovered was designed to be added to, never stopping for function or mercy.

How did this happen? How did happen? She’s not really here, is she…?

She was supposed to be at home, her real one. Quadale, California. Studying for some exam, maybe some other class because the History one was going to be a steal. Her father offering her cocoa, and playfully scolding him that she can’t before downing it, making him laugh.

It was supposed to be her final year, dragging Scarlett into school to make sure she doesn’t flunk and graduate. Stupid, wonderful things like that.

She always refused, raged against the idea that life was out to get people. That life was the ultimate entity. It was assigning blame to something when the blame fell to themselves.

But it’s happening now. Life, reality, existence… All of it. It was always like this. It was just invisible then. It was manageable, then.

All it took was for us to give in, and made it easier for life to rot from the inside out. For life to get worse, and let the worse become the norm. What was she supposed to do? What was she supposed to do?

She should have accepted that, everything. Accepted that she just never had a chance here, and found peace in this void.

It was always meant to be.

We never stood a chance, in the end.

Before she closed her eyes, she saw a shifting figure manifest into a woman. She ran towards them. Jackie surrendered to it.

Jackie let it be.