The Resurrection

My family lies dead.

My home lies in ruins.

My world lies barren.

All destroyed at the hands of the one I cared most for.

"If I ever lose myself...please, promise that you will stop me. Even if it means killing me, you are the only one I can trust to do this. I don't want to become a monster!"

Those are the words she said to me, months ago.

They may as well have been another lifetime ago.

Because at the end, even though my loyalty was absolute, the very reason she trusted me with that terrible burden...my loyalty to her, my love for her, was also the reason I betrayed her.

I couldn't allow myself to accept it, the fact that even my great mistress was becoming the most horrific of monsters...and in my denial, I stayed my hand until it was too late.

Her madness, and her rage, they shattered the tapestry of fate, crushing the laws of causality, and in the process, wounded even the omnipotent dragon.

Perhaps she might have even killed him, had my heart not finally broken, and my silver knife found her long silent heart.

My mistress died in my arms, no longer even recognizing me, clawing in rage and agony at the world as the darkness took her, tearing at my face and body with her claws.

But even with her death, there was one more tragedy to play out.

The dragon, omnipotent and almighty, had been wounded. And the aftershocks of that blow were enough to tear apart the fabric of causality beyond even his ability to undo.

The once pristine wonderland lay in ruins, thousands dead, dozens fleeing. And not even God could repair the horrors that had been wrought on this now barren waste.

And so I was left alone in the ruins, a woman who betrayed her mistress, failed to save her family, and was even abandoned by God.

But in those ruins, I found a ray of hope.

The same power that had so ensnared and corroded my mistress, in my mad rage to destroy it, reacted with me.

My powers of time, amplified by my anguish, my sorrow, and my rage, resounded like a death knell...and preserved the life of the last member of my family.

Her body, mortally wounded, simply...ceased to be affected by the progress of time.

She lived, and she breathed, comatose...neither healing, neither degenerating.

A perfect existence in stasis.

And in that instant I realized something:

My power, incapable of reversing, and unable to advance, only capable of stopping...if this power of destruction could even allow it to affect even the living...then...

WHY STOP THERE.

The power to shatter the flow of time, severing the ties of past and the future, plunging reality into an eternal, chaotic mix of all three...in such a world, where there was no longer any directed flow of time...why wouldn't it be possible to simply rewind it all?

Turn back the clock of life, reversing wounds, undoing sickness, even...

...restoring life to the dead.

In that moment, my course was set.

Even if it was only a dream...even if it was merely a lie...this was the only road forward.

I barely even noticed the wind picking up, the clouds of ash and smoke overhead raining down bitter, soot-stained water.

Yes...I had acted too late to save her.

Too late to protect them.

Too late...

But what is such a phrase in a world where causality no longer exists? What is such a phrase, in a world where there is no too early, nor too late, just an eternal 'now', a world where even death could be banished at the flick of a wrist?

Yes...Yes, there lay my answer!

The world trembled around my feet, the air thrumming with power. My ruined face stung, the bitter rain splashing across the gouges left by my mistress' death throes.

Time was merely an error in this universe's existence, a great, deceitful tool, used to break the backs of those struggling to claw out an existence in this bitter, cruel world!

An error that I would no longer tolerate!

The wind was raging now, the destructive power I now held in my hands beginning to already eat away at the air around me.

I would master this power, and I would BREAK it, as it had broken my master, and as I now knew it had broken me. I would deal it the ultimate defeat, by never bothering to master it, but by turning it into a mere tool, to further my own goal, to undo EVERYTHING IT HAD WROUGHT ON THIS ACCURSED WORLD!

I would become as powerful as even Ryuujin, that worthless serpent that played at being a god!

No, I would become even more powerful than that!

As if answering my madness, I felt the earth shudder, the massive, ruined shell of my home beginning to stir. Colossal, scarlet chunks of masonry cracked and shattered, the power in my hands surging through every seam and fissure with terrible, arcane power.

But I saw none of this, only the gleaming, crystalline supernova in my grip.

The great scarlet corpse of stone and steel rumbled behind me, a mournful howl like the souls of all those slain by this travesty of a disaster. Dimly, I could feel its' presence in my mind, thousands of arcane spells lying dormant within it now flaring to life with this new power.

I could feel the great hands clawing at the earth as it began to rise, a single, monstrous golden eye burning through shattered glass, a monstrous machine united with me in my rage for our fallen, the people who had walked it's halls every day, the people I had considered my family.

Molten metal erupted from the ground, ensnaring my limbs, my screams drowned out by the sizzling as it  fused to my skin, power eating away at my nerve endings with an agony that would have killed any human.

But I was no longer human, an aspect lost to me the instant I sought this path.

Bones shattering and reforming, down to the very atoms, I died a thousand times, and was reborn one thousand and one, as though the world itself realized what I was becoming, and sought to destroy me in self defense.

But I was past being stopped by such pettiness.

Torn and scorched paper burst from the rubble, scraps from an obliterated magical library, fluttering as they bound my skin in layers upon layers of magically imbued bandages, their knowledge and power surging into my mind.

My heart beat once, twice, and then stopped, only the ticking of clockwork replacing it as the once great clocktower crumbled to dust around me.


My uniform, as much a part of my identity as it was a symbol of my position, creaked, edges sharpening as metallic fibers raced through it, battle armor as scarred as I now was.


I could feel the gears of the world turning, screaming as my power took hold of them, wrenching and tearing as I bent them to my will, the massive, scarlet colossus behind me rearing up.

A blank, iron mask appeared before me, glowing lenses flashing.

I knew that the instant I donned that mask, it would truly be the end of Sakuya Izayoi.

And I knew that at this point, I was past caring.

My hands seized the floating object, and without another word, brought it to my face, my torn features and tear streaked face vanishing forever from the world, the roar of my reanimated Scarlet Devil Mansion echoing in my ears.