Long ago, in an unknown village of an unknown era, there lived two demon children.
No one knew of their fate set in stone, or even their doomed fairytale.
Drawn away by the sunset, they vanished...
Leaving behind a single tale of six trillion years and one night.
actually! the words are âin the beginning was the wordâ
thereâs a bunch of other things in the other videos too! for instance
from kamisama nejimaki! âWhat are you been accused?â
another riinka secret phrase: âYou gods will give us some faults to make us men.â
another nejikami pic! what it means tho, ÂŻ\_(ă)_/ÂŻ ? from what i know, itâs in gujarati (suzumu likes gujarati apparently, thereâs some in ikasama and a bit on nazokunâs umbrella on the youkame album cover art!)
more nejikami! and bad spelling! âWhoes fault is that?â
from chikyuusaigo, in binary at the bottomright:Â âI love you and I always will.â (at least, thatâs what someone once upon a time told me)
Crowns and Whispers were supernatural entities existing in the universe that possessed immense magical power and technology.
Existing originally in the Realm of Akasha, the Crowns escaped their world's destruction to create new paradises for themselves. They had largely died out by the time of the creation of the Realm of Aerthe.
Meanwhile, Whispers were soulless shells of a once-living being rebirthed by the Void for the sake of entertainment; as such, they often had twisted morals and ideals and worked tirelessly to achieve their ambitions, since it is all they can think of.
History
Early History
Since time immemorial, the Crowns enjoyed their paradise in the Realm of Akasha. When their world was suddenly threatened by the all-consuming Void, the Crowns created three Seeds of Light, Darkness and Shadow each and used them to open a portal to a new Realm.
There, they created the Realm of Haides, where they enjoyed paradise for a trillion years. Their second paradise was then destroyed by the aftermath of the war between the Kingdoms of Heaven and Hell. The 72 surviving Crowns were then forced to flee once again.
Creating Paradise
Finding another Realm, the 72 remaining Crowns began constructing the Realm of Aerthe, directed by the chief Crown and his subordinates, as well as reconstructing the fallen Realm of Haides under the orders of the two oldest Crowns.
At some point, 32 of the Crowns decided to become inhabitants of the new world and the chief Crown permitted them to take the newly-created "human" form and live amongst the mortals until their natural deaths; afterward they became the first of the Ripica that assist the two oldest Crowns, under their new title as the High Epica, in maintaining the rebuilt remains of the Realm of Haides, named the Akashic Record-Keepers Archive.
Finishing their creation, the chief Crown and his kin quarreled with the 33 other Crowns after proposing that they leave the paradise they created to the humans' devices. After seemingly reaching an agreement, the Crowns built nine Clocktowers to house the Seeds of Light, Darkness and Shadow and transformed themselves into "time-transcending humans", locking away their memories of their previous life.
The 38 Crowns then lived amongst the mortal humans, constantly reincarnating in one form or another, until one of the High Epica, fearing that their imminent recollection of their previous life as Crowns would lead to instability in the Realm of Aerthe's balance, sealed them in the nine Clocktowers and forbade the humans from interacting with them, a message relayed through the Ripica by way of visions given to those who had gone through and survived near-death experiences.
New Realm
After humans discovered the nine Clocktowers, the 38 Crowns communicated with certain humans who dared to approach them, becoming worshipped in the Divine Kingdom Babylon through these "prophets". Sometime after the first century of creation, four of the 38 Crowns escaped and incarnated as humans: Callisto Guan, Ganymede Thym, Europa Aden and Io Cytos. After a seemingly successful attempt of creating a perfect "artificial human" named Caesandra Serafeim, the scientists later led the Babylonians to attempt to incarnate the rest of the sealed Crowns into human vessels.
Seven young Crowns were freed from their prison and forced to incarnate into the bodies of the deceased Meris Ephe, Serena Titan, Amator Shin, Heri Akasha, Matutino Aether, RespĂșerat Aleph and Nuntius Mem, becoming the consciousnesses for the "reborn" Seven Masters. However, their "artificial human" child infected the Seven Masters' with the Void's "Whispers" before their establishment as new gods could take place, resulting in the corrupted Seven Masters infiltrating one of the nine Clocktowers and causing the First Judgement Incident.
Caesandra Serafeim then split the Seven Masters into three fragments each; the original Crown's soul (Fragment of Light), the mortal human's soul (Fragment of Darkness), and the shared vessel's soul (Fragment of Shadow), before splitting her own self into four beings; a human, a daemon, an aengel and a "Whisper".
Around that time, the four scientists died and were reborn as Whispers; without their previous memories, the four occasionally received visions of their past lives in their dreams and thus inherited their past lives' instinctive desires to achieve perfection, leading them to separate from each other in order to reach their shared goal on their own terms.
When each of the scientists managed to stumble upon one of Caesandra's splinters each, their memories of their past lives instantly returned to them. However, due to the lives they had lived as Whispers, each scientist developed differing ideals of perfection and often clashed with each other whenever they met, attempting to seize each other's splinters of Caesandra for the sake of their own ambitions.
The High Epica later met with Europa Aden and tasked her to collect the Seven Masters' Fragments scattered across the world for them; meanwhile, Ganymede Thym sought to release the rest of the Seeds of Light, Darkness and Shadow from the eight remaining Clocktowers so that he could open a portal to a new Realm and shape it into the Utopia he desired. At first, Callisto Guan and Io Cytos worked on releasing the rest of the trapped Crowns from the eight remaining Clocktowers independently of each other, but eventually began working together with each other and with Europa in order to prevent Ganymede from achieving his twisted ideals.
Following the Duel of Heartbeat Clocktower, Caesandra's splinters fused together and reawakened in the heart of the Void, while the Seven Masters' Fragments merged together into seven Whispers and began corrupting the 27 Crowns still trapped within the eight remaining Clocktowers, unleashing them upon the world and wreaking havoc.
At the peak of their acts of destruction, Caesandra left the Void for the Akashic Record-Keepers Archive.
World's End
After the Realm of Aerthe's collapse, Caesandra began working with the High Epica and the Void to intervene with the world's end and open a portal to a new Realm.
Biology and Appearance
Crowns were anatomically similar to their human creations, maintaining a virtually identical bipedal form with varying traits between them. The Crowns retained a natural youthfulness regardless of age. Like humans, they possessed a superb intellect and could innovate and adapt to unfamiliar situations and environments.
Crowns generally had millennia long lifespans. Should a Crown suffer premature death, the soul would undergo reincarnation, making them essentially immortal.
The Crowns possessed immense magical power, incomparable to human standards. As a result, they were able to easily change forms, allowing them to take on a variety of appearances and shapes. They had the capabilities to create artifacts that could open portals to new worlds, as well as the ability to freely travel between these different worlds.
Whispers, meanwhile, were anatomically similar to humans as well, maintaining a virtually identical bipedal form with varying traits between them; they also retained a natural youthfulness regardless of age. Like humans and Crowns, they possessed a superb intellect and could innovate and adapt to unfamiliar situations and environments, but unlike them, their sense of morals and ideals were incredibly twisted and and they often only had their goals in mind with no thought spared on those around them, resulting in Whispers often working tirelessly to achieve their ambitions.
Whispers were virtually immortal, unable to truly age beyond a certain point, feel pain or take damage from anything except the blood of other Whispers, which acted as a corrosive poison to them.
Compared to the Crowns, Whispers possessed practically little to no magical power, instead having immense technological superiority, incomparable to both human and Crown standards. As a result, they were able to easily create and invent almost miraculous devices, giving them an advantage over the Crowns' and humans' vastly inferior sciences and machinery. They also had the capabilities to reverse-engineer and recreate the Crowns' magics in mechanical form, but were limited to lower-level machinations that did not reach the same degree as the Crowns' magic.
It's peaceful, the almost-empty silence that floats between them, if not for the white noise of quiet breaths and the faraway voices of the others.
It's peaceful, this calm before the storm.
Yui gave them all a week to rest, recover and prepare for the upcoming event-- a small mercy, to be honest, but a mercy nonetheless. They were grateful, Souhei especially so, when Yui allowed them to roam the Transparent City freely, as long as they kept within its boundaries.
His nerves had been on edge the entire time before they arrived, fraught with worry and anxiety. The previous battle with the so-called Heroes of Rain Shelter Street left deep, festering wounds in all of them, opening up scars and memories no one cared to recall. Souhei was one of the lucky ones, apparently; they didn't perceive him as a threat, and as a result, he was spared from their mental torture, in return for a slightly less painful physical one instead.
The bruises still haven't fully gone away, black and blue and ugly. Disgusting.
A proof of his weakness.
The black-haired boy leaning against him mumbles something incomprehensible, before yawning and stretching his back, wincing at the creaking sounds emitted by his stiff limbs.
"Had a nice nap?"
Souhei stiffles a chuckle at the way Hijiri sits up straighter and rubs at his face, trying his best to chase away the sleep still plaguing his tired eyes. The voices of two girls float over to them from somewhere behind them, most likely Riina showing Haruka around and showing off her parkour moves. The brunet moves to a more comfortable position before resuming his sky-watching, fascinated by the scraggly cracks in the reddened horizon, a reminder of the all-or-nothing fate that looms ahead of them all.
"Thinking again?"
Hijiri's voice is a welcome reprieve from the silence that had just started to become suffocating, a rough but gentle tone that's just a slightly lower pitch than his own. Souhei smiles, leaning back against Hijiri, who grumbles a threat but does nothing to push the brunet away.
"Maybe a little."
The response is short, but it satisfies Hijiri enough that he nods his head in approval. They spend a little more time like that, just staring into space and appreciating each other's company, before the sunset falls and the dark curtain of night starts to rise.
Yui's voice rings clear through the city, harsh and commanding, ordering them to return to their assigned houses.
Four days left.
Four days left before the end of the world as they know it.
It hurt, it burned, the wires coiling and sinking into her skin and leaving marks, spiteful, cynical, blood-stained marks, but all she can do is breathe.
Breathe, and exist.
Tamagawa Maki let out another strained breath, trying her best to ignore the immense pain surging, dancing through her veins and burning up in her blood, the wires coursing through her body as they physically and mentally connected her to the device that grants wishes. The miraculous cube, fueled only by a voice, and the strength of a wish.
The Voxx.
Another breath, another scream, another wire lodging itself in her skin, her flesh, and the pain is unbearable, bringing the pink-haired girl to her knees, sobbing.
And then, in the blink of an eye, it ends.
The pain, the screaming, even the breathing slows down and comes to a cease as the wires finish their task, buried within her body. Maki opens her eyes.
The world is much brighter than she'd ever remembered it to be.
Bright, but still so far from perfection. The perfection she had yearned for all this time, so close and yet so far away.
The Voxx burns hotter than it ever did, as bright as the imperfect world, trapped within her body, her hands.
Her lips don't move, even as she screams out her wish for the world to hear.
âYouâll die.â The words come out slow and soft, almost unwillingly. Blue eyes meet blue eyes, only to tear away from each other as the girl returns her gaze to the fractured red sky.
âSo? Itâs not like we have any choice. They arenât going to stop hunting us down, Riku. We need to fight back.â
âBut, Maki--â
âIs not an option!â Louder, her voice rises until it hits a crack. The girl swivels around, glaring at Riku with fire in her icy blue eyes. âDo you hate her that much? Do you want her to die instead? Do you want the rest of them to die instead?â
Riku flinches, lowering his gaze. The girl lets out a breath she never knew she was holding, and sinks to her knees.
âListen, I know how you feel. I know that this, this... none of this matters to you.â She mutters, leaning against the half-broken wall. âBut it matters to me. Even if Iâm not... Iâm not...â
âHuman.â The boy finishes, plopping himself onto the cold, hard floor beside the girl, eyes raised towards the bright sun in the sky. âWeâre demon children, Ai. Weâre not meant for this world.â
Blue eyes meet blue eyes. No more words taint the quiet air between them.
