The North PacificBoard

The room was dark save for their glow, silent save for the bubbling that echoed within each cylinder. A year ago this many vats would have been spread across the entire Chudokuren Isles- but after months of exhausting labour and expended magic, entire facilities now existed dedicated to this singular purpose. Bodies bobbed and drifted within, suspended within the arcane fluid, the faint crackling of burning and rejuvenating flesh barely audible when close to the glass that encased each experiment.

And what an experiment it had proven.

One of the vats lit up, a dull drone indicating that the process was complete. She walked over to it. Reached a hand out, left one finger on the button. To think it was so easy. So simple. How long ago could she have done just this, and spared herself so many troubles? For how many years had she shied away from the obvious solution when it was so intuitive and right?

This is wrong and you know it.

Shut up.

This is the antithesis of everything you’ve worked so hard to avoid.

Shut up.

You’re only proving Her-

“Shut. Up.”

A deep sigh followed. The wretched voices in her head wouldn’t be quelled no matter now many times she forced them out. But perhaps that was for the best. It reminded of her of times long ago. Times before the trauma and the pain and the suffering. She turned to face the glass, and stared into her reflection. Did her eyes always look this tired? Was their violet always so dark? Enough wasting time. She at last pressed the button, and the vat began to drain. Fluid poured out, the container’s occupant falling slack against the front. The door slide open, a waft of cold steam pouring out, and-

A charred, ashen corpse collapsed onto the ground.

Failure.

But that was the risk of tenshification. It always had been. Those left in too long, those who resisted and struggled and fought against the indoctrination imposed to keep her tenshi in line…they perished. Those who stood against her will faltered and died. Such was the way of things. And such ought to be the way of all things, as had it once been-

You’re making a mistake.

That noise again. The nuisance that wasted thought after thought, tainted memory after memory. It had spoken to her when she had conceived of this project. When she had authorised it. When she had prepared it. Ever since the destruction of the Himitsu no Shakai it had whispered and shouted in her mind. It called itself a part of her, but it was not. It was an illusion, a deception, a delusion she longed to cast aside. It was weakness. It was failure. It was a relic of past suffering that no longer mattered.

She turned away from the corpse. The urge was getting strong again, and though she craved to revel in it, it was not instinct that controlled her. She was in control. Of herself. Of everything. Of all reality. Her title said as much. And reality was soon to bow to it. Already the laws of physics warped at her command. Nations had risen and fallen by her hand. And though they had forgotten what terror lurked in the bastion of tyranny for those who dared oppose order, she would soon remind them of each and every grisly fate. The broken bones and leeching blood. The wails and screams of the unworthy and the wretched. The pain and agony of the treacherous. The world would know each horror again.

The age of mercy was at an end.

Listen to yourself. I can only take you seriously because I know what you’re going to do.

She turned to another vat. Stared at the silhouette of the subject trapped within. A tomb of their own choosing, in a sense. Because these tenshi were not chosen at random. They had committed a crime, the greatest crime in all of Kyoki Chudoku- they were tengokutankyu. The country had been scoured for their presence, but their treachery was not revealed to the public. In secret they had been taken to facilities like this, made to pledge their oath and recite their forbidden prayers as they were forced into the vat. They longed to be a part of the Overlady’s heaven, and so they became her angels. For most of them it was a privilege. The lack of resistance increased the survival rate. Almost a fifth survived the process now.

For so long she has resented it. That they saw her as divine. As a goddess. As someone to be worshipped, whether they believed it or not. Half of them knew this was wrong, but they wanted it to be right. But now…now she understood. She understood that there was truth to every prayer. After all, where had she come from? She was not of this world. She was a saviour of tyranny and order, and a punisher of treachery and chaos. A nightmare for the wicked and a paragon for the virtuous.

You’re insane. You were already, but now you’re utterly, totally insane. How can you believe any of this? Why are you falling back into these habits? I fought for so long to keep you at bay. To have control without losing it, and now you’ve gone and undone everything for your own sick satisfaction.

There were stresses in her duty, of course. The Supreme Overlady of All Reality had spent day after day tending to her rising angels, preparing the new order that was to take the place of the treacherous Himitsu no Shakai that dared question her authority and threaten to rescind her power.

Because you told them to, you idiot. Because without them, this would happen.

She had found ways to alleviate the worst of the tension that gnawed at her from time to time.

Baking.

You mean burning them alive.

Gardening.

You mean filling their lungs with poison.

Combat training.

You mean cutting them apart while they writhe and struggle in their shackles.

To think she had known herself so much better before it all. Before she had allies or friends or even followers. Before she had been corrupted by the humiliations and torments of the world. Before she had been led astray by compassion or remorse or even affection. So many lies she had come to believe. But now she understood. She would stay true to herself. Her instincts were right, not abhorrent. Her desires were necessary, not extreme. And her word was law and truth. Her orders almost divine. The world was her playground, her belonging, her domain-

And one day, one way, it would be hers. All of it, utterly hers. It was not for nothing that she called herself the Supreme Overlady of All Reality. For years the title had been a joke. A relic. A forsaken promise. But no longer. Now she meant it. Now she would live up to it-

By abandoning everything good it ever meant.

The voice just wouldn’t shut up today.

Perhaps she could drown it out with a traitor’s screams.

Aozora Chiyumi left the bunker behind, conjuring her scythe long before she reached her home. Before she reached the once-forsaken torture cells, already anticipating the fear and the horror and the pain she would inflict. Already smiling at the prospect of spilling blood and showcasing her power, of demonstrating to herself and every enemy she had captured that her power was immutable and indomitable.

And behind it all, behind the veil of her merciless gaze, some part of let a tear fall down her cheek. She wiped away the weakness in an instant, but some things were not so easily destroyed. The voices would never go away, and some part of her knew, no matter how much she forced herself to ignore it…

That they were right.