Prologue — The World That Refused to Stay Still

People like little Setsuka are called Cosmo. Cosmo people have superpowers that normal humans cannot have. They can fabricate worlds into existence. However, the Cosmo are not unified in how they believe these grand powers should be used, so they are divided into the Purple Cosmo group and the White Cosmo group.

The Purple Cosmo believe their goal is to redeem all humans of evil, and if evil exists, they simply turn people into angel-like beings by brainwashing them using fabricator devices. The White Cosmo, on the other hand, believe that nothing as grand as redemption should interfere with life, and that life should continue as it is. They believe their power should only be used to entertain and make people happy.

While the White Cosmo live peacefully in their solar system, the Purple Cosmo wreak havoc and decide to kill all White Cosmo. Because this was an ambush, the Purple Cosmo were able to fabricate a weapon faster and more powerful than the White Cosmo could react to. Right after the destruction of the White Cosmo galaxy, the Purple Cosmo ran out of Cosmo particles to fabricate further destruction, so they deployed their human and machine units to finish off the remaining White Cosmo members.

Sakuyo, the older sister of little Setsuka, barely manages to escape with her family, though she is traumatized—especially her little sister. They escape alongside other refugees in several small ships using hyperspeed. However, some of the human/machine unit ships are also equipped with hyperspeed technology, allowing them to chase the escapees.

Some Purple Cosmo members hesitate to leave this task to non-Cosmo units, but a high-ranking and arrogant Purple Cosmo member insists on using his strongest human/machine unit to chase them. He threatens that anyone who denies him this arrogant pleasure will be killed, as he still has enough Cosmo particles to fabricate a self-destruct weapon against other Purple Cosmo members. As a result, the others reluctantly go along with him. They wish the highest leader of the Purple Cosmo were present to oversee this instead of being far away fighting the main White Cosmo capital of the galaxy.

Sakuyo, Setsuka, and the other escapees fail to escape and are shot down on a deserted moon. Only Sakuyo and Setsuka are able to breathe in space; the other escapees die because they are not Cosmo people. The sisters are terrified.

Among the human/machine hunters is a human friend of Sakuyo who has a crush on her. He recognizes her when the sisters are surrounded. He tries to convince her to join his side, but rogue humans shoot anyway, angering him because of his feelings for Sakuyo. Sakuyo dies while protecting her little sister. A rogue human mocks her by saying she can always be fabricated back to life, but the human friend knows it would never be the same and despises that mockery.

They both draw their guns on each other, but the human friend is shot and bleeds out. As the rogue human approaches to finish him off, the strongest machine in the hunter unit suddenly appears and kills everyone else, leaving only the sisters and the bleeding human.

The strongest machine questions the human—his friend—and explains that for a long time he has tried to convince him that the Purple Cosmo’s methods of brainwashing people and turning evil into artificial goodness are incorrect and dangerous. The human admits his wrongdoing, and the machine helps them.

However, the audience does not yet know that this same strongest hunter unit, the bleeding human, and the strongest machine killed the sisters’ parents earlier in their lives while trying to prove loyalty to the Purple Cosmo. In reality, the machine was a spy for a small but powerful hidden White Cosmo group, while the human was merely clueless and not a spy.

The machine, the human, and the sisters board their ship and head to a deserted planet where the human remembers an unused, slightly broken fabricator device. The machine needs a convincing story to report back, so one of the sisters must fabricate the heads of powerful White Cosmo members as proof.

Sakuyo offers herself, knowing it may kill her since she is already bleeding, but she does not mind. She does not understand why her human friend followed the Purple Cosmo’s teachings, but she asks both him and the machine to look after Setsuka. She creates a fabricated story as proof for the machine and fabricates the world she and Setsuka imagined earlier in life. She also fabricates Setsuka’s memory so she forgets everything that just happened until it becomes necessary, allowing her to simply enjoy her world.

Setsuka is devastated and begs Sakuyo not to leave her. Sakuyo asks the machine to hold Setsuka back. The fabricator device activates, and Setsuka cries uncontrollably. Everything that needs to be fabricated is completed. Sakuyo’s body lies lifeless while Setsuka fades away to another place—her fabricated world.

The hunter duo returns via hyperspeed to report their extermination success to the Purple Cosmo, carrying the fabricated heads, but only after safely sending Setsuka away and properly burying Sakuyo on the deserted planet.

We then see Setsuka in a white void, having forgotten everything. She happily explores the space. In the void, she sees her room: a Japanese house model with eight dimensions represented by eight floors, and a table filled with stationery. Her memory reverts to a time before the attack, believing she lived peacefully with her older sister, though she is actually alone in the void. She believes she won a “fabricated story lottery” and cannot wait to tell her sister and parents—despite them already being dead, though she believes they are alive.

It does not take long for Setsuka to realize that moving the small model house transports her to the world she wrote in her early life. She spends one hundred years there, eventually realizing she does not age like everyone else. She understands this is an effect of being a Cosmo person, which makes her feel lonely. Though her friends, teachers, and others she meets during those hundred years make it feel bearable, something still feels off.

During her middle years, she searches for a way out of the fabricated world, knowing one must exist. She finds it, but her mental age is no longer that of a child—it is that of an elderly person, though her appearance remains adult. The exit is painful and strange, as she keeps dying and coming back to life repeatedly. This is caused by Sakuyo’s final wish to keep her from leaving and the defective nature of the fabricator.

Near the end of the hundred years, Setsuka returns to the white void and realizes she can still use Cosmo powers there, even though fabricated worlds should not allow this. She remembers that old fabricator devices were dangerous because they granted Cosmo-level powers to anyone, even without Cosmo particles. Both Cosmo factions once agreed to destroy all old prototypes in favor of improved fabricators. Setsuka becomes worried, questioning why her world was created using an old prototype.

She creates two self-aware main characters to protect her and help her with the exit she keeps dying at. More than one hundred years pass, and only a few key figures know that Setsuka is the creator of the world. Many join her journey to escape. Before heading to the exit door in the eighth dimension, she wants to bring something with her.

When she first arrived over a century ago, she made friends and promised to bring their mementos to a special event she wrote to occur every 124 years. Though they are all dead, she brings the items so they can “see” the event, similar to the nostalgic reflections in Frieren.

The aware duo realizes the non-aware characters are on their own adventures, but Setsuka tells them to ignore those and follow her guides, knowing their outcomes. She does not realize Sakuyo’s will and messages were left with the non-aware characters.

They travel to Fourth Japan and encounter a samurai who was not meant to exist in her story. They chase him. The samurai is actually the human friend in disguise, watching over them and teaching them how to fight. Eventually, Setsuka learns about the cruelty of the outside world and realizes the Purple Cosmo will eventually come to brainwash everyone.

She confirms the world was created using a prototype fabricator, which has a unique rule: it requires a key to undo any fabrication made with it. One of her companions must become the princess of all eight dimensions, gaining authority over them. This was the special 124-year event Setsuka had written.

After crowning her companion, they execute a plan to place everyone in a state between life and death. Knowing the Purple Cosmo cannot undo this and are unwilling to kill non-White Cosmo beings, they abandon the population and instead target Setsuka and her party.

The defective prototype fabricator is so powerful—and dangerous—that only Setsuka can manually undo the life-and-death fabrication of her world. Only then can the Purple Cosmo achieve their goal of redemption through brainwashing: a new life, eternally good, but disturbingly unnatural.