I. someday the gacha will end

When news about The Prince of Silk’s end of service reached them, neither the titular hero nor the villain seemed to care much about it. They were busy trying trying to destroy each other and stuff. Besides, they'd seen the writing on the wall years ago—literally—and it had always been kind of mediocre.

...or so the villain would've thought, but the hero stopped mid-parry to say, “Rafaela, I’m t—” after which he was split in half. Since it was a PG-13 game, in lieu of viscera, technicolor pixels sprinkled off Aelius's severed torso as it fell onto the floor of Rafaela's palace; such was the price to pay for his folly.

Rafaela watched the multicolored fountain as one of her henchmen approached, a manlet with an uninspired color palette named Selene. The manlet, not the color palette. "Your Highness!" Was his greeting. "I've come to relay a terrible... uh."

She kicked the hero's body hard enough to roll it on its side. "Are you sad?" She asked Selene. "This was your childhood friend, after all, the very same that you betrayed in order to obtain my tutelage. Deep within that mask of apathy—"

"He’ll respawn soon.”

"—hides a frail little thing that yearns for forgiveness."

"Rafaela." Selene narrowed his eyes. "You knew about this already, didn't you? About the end?"

Rafaela cleared her throat.

"Ugh. Fine. You are most gracious, God-eater General, but I must disagree; I have abandoned all bonds; they are naught but weaknesses. The body you magnanimously punt as we speak is nothing but object to me, although... would you please stop that?"

She did.

"Thanks. Now, about what's actually important: the end of the world. Every bulletin board in every city just received a developer's note. We must take action, and fast. Nothing spreads chaos like inevitability."

So that accursed note had finally been made public...

The hero Aelius began to respawn. His bottom half glowed white, then gold, after which his silhouette began to resemble a man instead of a pair of pants. Once reformed, the light dissipated to reveal an unconscious, armored figure, which Rafaela magnanimously punted again.

Selene glared at her again, but this wasn't the time to mock his moral hypocrisiess. For one, it wasn't entirely his fault; he'd been written that way. For two, there was a slightly less irrelevant matter to attend to—that of the end. The final update. Nonexistence. Rafaela said, "There are no actions to take. It's futile. We live in a closed system, like fish in an aquarium."

"Fish don't have self-awareness," Selene replied. "I'm not talking about leaving the water, just... controlling it. If we are to meet our end, then we must do so with dignity."

"No," spoke Aelius in Rafaela's stead. With a characteristic lack of grace, he stood up.

While Selene’s hair was the color of snow, Aelius’s matched the earth below. Where the former had always been lithe, the latter’s strength was evident beneath his fashionless armor. One was a mage, the other a lancer. One was a villain representing despair, the other the protagonist symbolizing hope.

It was Aelius, symbol of resilience and the power of friendship, who said, "Nothing matters anymore," as he dramatically clenched his hand into a fist, placing it before his chest. "I knew this would happen sooner or later, and yet... why must it sting me so!? I beg you, wretched lord of dragons, slay me again!"

“Gladly,” Rafaela said.

To which Selene interjected with, "Don't," before turning to his former best friend. "Aelius, not now. Get a hold of yours—"

"What 'self'!? I am but a string of code! A fish in an aquarium! A prisoner to existence itself!"

"And developers are just a string of DNA in a giant blue ball. They're not much better. The point is that there is no point."

"Then why live!?"

"Because... I don't know, why not? It's not that bad anyway. Calm down. We'll reach end of service in three months, then get offline servers."

Neither Aelius nor Rafaela responded.

"...right?"

Aelius’s fist shook as he shut his eyes close. Rafaela hadn’t seen that gesture since she  murdered his family (since this happened during the prologue chapter, they never respawned).

“…guys…?”