Here's what I can tell you about myself before I tell you all my story: I'm Kimmo Kimono Apple Pronger. I don't have many friends in real life, so most of my friendships were over the web.
Now that I've given you a modest introduction of myself, it's time for me to tell you about my experience. It's about a fighting game called Blazblue. If you played Guilty Gear (Yes, that is a fighting game, also.), chances are that you also know about Blazblue because that game is supposed to be Guilty Gear's spiritual successor.
I first got into Blazblue around the summer of 2011. My cousin Emilio was visiting over, and he was using my Xbox 360 to play some kind of anime fighting game. I'll admit that I'm pretty lacking when it comes to games since I don't buy very often or delve into what games are on sale, or what's hot at the moment. This one, however, caught my eye. I don't usually play fighting games, but the anime art style of this game drew me towards it. When Emilio let me play it after I sheepishly asked him (He's a bit hard to approach because of his intimidating presence), I was completely captivated, and almost immediately in love with it.
I got the games for myself during the fall of that same year after Emilio returned home from visiting me. I bought Calamity Trigger, the first of the series. The one Emilio was playing was Continuum Shift, the second game. Of course, I got that game as well shortly after buying Calamity Trigger. I tend to think like a collector when it comes to games so getting both was a must for me.
When February of 2012 hit, I got Continuum Shift Extend for my Xbox 360, but what I got was the special collector's edition for it. Yeah, I was one of the cool kids. Envy me. Anyway, fast forward to summer of 2012. To celebrate my graduation from High School, my cousins, including Emilio, came over, and we had a blast playing this game together with intense matches. Emilio would destroy us all with his crazy-ass skills with Hazama. Infuriatingly, he had to use his secondary characters to give us a proper chance, which means we don't hold nearly a candle to his best. That's an indirect message on how much I sucked, but my brain's not wired to play fighting games, so what are you gonna do?
Later during that same summer after we departed once more, Emilio texted me about the latest game; Chronophantasma. I remembered being psyched on being able to soon find out what happened next in the story in spite of me having problems with the unparalleled screen-time between characters in Continuum Shift with Noel Vermillion always being in the middle of everything. Little did I know, that started my burnout on the series...
When autumn came, I met a girl who would become my girlfriend since she saw that I liked Blazblue, too. I'll call her Ace. Ace liked Ragna the Bloodedge and Rachel Alucard as a couple, as did I, so we got along pretty quickly. Not even a week past, and we became best friends forever. Three weeks later, we officially decided to become boyfriend and girlfriend. If you seen our interactions, you'd felt like it's something straight out of a movie or a fairy-tale with how great we got along well together.
During the entire year of 2013, I almost completely lost interest in Blazblue. The more I saw from Chronophantasma's demos, the less interested I became, and the game hadn't been released yet. There were new characters that I didn't really have an interest in knowing, the art style has changed so drastically, and the gameplay changed so much as well. The musical remastering of the old tracks was so far-fetched that almost every single one fell flat for me. Then you got the manga Remix Heart which is full of ecchi garbage shit, and the anime counterpart that was later produced named Altered Memory. Don't even get me started with how botched up everything was. Also, a random bath scene? The makers of that anime can kiss my ass.
The nail that sealed the coffin was Celica A. Mercury. I would rant on for hours on that particular subject but it must be saved for another day.
Bottom line, 2013 was a very bad year for me that made me erase my data for Blazblue and sell off my games. That also includes my special edition copy of Continuum Shift Extend. I didn't care. I just wanted it out of my sight. I was that disgusted with what this series has become.
The spring of 2014 came. Ace and I just got over a bump in the road for our relationship. She was on Fanfiction trying to search for stories of Rachel and Ragna as a couple, but was largely unsuccessful. I was tempted to scoff at seeing the name of that series again. At this point, Blazblue was completely dead to me. However, something else in my head was...compelling me to get back into the series.
That feeling increased further when she said she was going to write Blazblue Fanfiction herself, since she had enough seeing a lot of garbage stories on the site.
I found myself contemplating on what to do here. I cannot deny what the series has done for me. I mean... Because of that game, I grew close with Emilio, it prevented my Xbox 360 (Which I'm planning to sell to my other cousin who lives across from me, by the way.) from being a total money waste, I met Ace, and a lot of the characters are simply unforgettable and unique.
You can say that in a way, that game has changed my life. I feel like I owe it.
On September 23, 2014, I met a user by the name of DarkOneBloodedge. Let me tell you, he's a walking encyclopedia of Blazblue knowledge who states information more presentable than the online Wiki. I can guarantee that. Ask him any question about Blazblue that you want, and he'll answer it impeccably with the finest detail jotted down. I swear that he secretly works for Arc System Works, the company that developed Blazblue. He reminds me a lot about my cousin Emilio with how he knows this game inside and out, and the way he speaks.
That was it for me. Thanks to him and Ace, I was going to get back into the series my own way, by writing. I had a hobby of writing throughout my years in High School and am still passionate about it. In fact, I'm pursing a journalism major in college. This time, I was going to focus on what I liked, not what I disliked, if that makes sense.
Six days later from that day, I posted my first Fanfiction for Blazblue.
DarkOneBloodedge and I had great conversations about it, since we both like that pairing, of course. Thanks to him, I have knowledge on things that I didn't know previously about Blazblue. It was all so fascinating to me that I felt my passion for the series coming back.
With DarkOneBloodedge and Ace around, I was beginning to like the series again. I'm not as passionate as I was when I first got the games. In fact, if you recall, I sold off my games already and erased all the data for it on my Xbox 360. To tell you the truth, I have no interest in playing the new games, but maybe I'll buy either Calamity Trigger or Continuum Shift again. Chronophantasma wasn't released for the Xbox 360. As for the consoles that it was released for, I didn't have them, so I couldn't buy it even if I wanted to. Ace wanted to give me her copy of Continuum Shift Extend but her parents wouldn't let her, as she got it as a gift from them. I would say "no thanks", anyway as nice of her it was to offer. I wanted my own copy.
It's March 1, 2015. I have a lot of free time today as it's a Sunday. I decided a few days before today that I'd repurchase Continuum Shift Extend so that I would have the full package to work with without purchasing any of the DLC for the original release, and to relieve all the lore that came with it. I planned to buy it pretty early in the morning once most stores were opened, and I had my spending money ready. But the problem is, almost no store in my area had it.
Well this is frustrating. Every time you want to buy a game, almost no store has it but when you don't want it, every store seems to have it. What a paradox. I certainly remembered seeing at least one copy of Blazblue in every game store I could find when I was buying other games; even in stores that sell retro games.
After many miles travelling all around the city, I finally got my hands on the original release of Continuum Shift at a Gamestop store that was relatively far from my home. It wasn't Extend but it was something. I wanted the extra characters but hey, beggars can't be choosers, right? I felt excited as I hurriedly drove my way home, eager to come back to the unique cast of characters I grew to know and love (Well, except for a select few).
By the time I came back home, it was already sunset, and both my parents were out at work. I also remember my aunt and grandmother had stuff to do in a local church at this hour. Ha... It's funny, considering the beginning of Ragna's story in Calamity Trigger technically begins at a church. Damn, was I out for that long?
It doesn't matter. Being alone in the house means that I can dramatically react to the story again however I please without disturbing anyone.
I made haste out of my parked car on the driveway, and sprinted to my room with my excitement overflowing from my body. Before I played the game, I took the time to dust off the Xbox 360. I hadn't used that thing in literally over a year since Blazblue was the only reason I ever used my Xbox 360.
I still haven't sold this crate to my cousin across the street yet. Maybe I can include Blazblue as a free bonus for her once she takes my Xbox 360 off my hands. I obviously can't play an Xbox game without one, so what was the point of having the game once your system was gone?
Once I got all the cleaning done, I set in the disk and booted up my Xbox 360, ready to dive back into the story that got me so enamored with it.
When I booted up the game, I decided to play Ragna's story first. My previous data was erased but that wasn't a big deal to me. I remembered his story, what the gag reel was, what the bad ending was, what the true ending was, and all that stuff. I was rusty as hell but Ragna was an easy character to use, no matter what level of play you're on, so I decided to shake off the rust using his character. That, and Ragna is the main character anyway.
As I started playing Ragna's story, I had a grin on my face. Everything was almost as how I remembered it. It also turned out that I wasn't that rusty since I destroyed Carl Clover on the normal difficulty setting. The same followed for Taokaka and λ-11 in that order.
It felt so good. This sense of excitement, this rush of adrenaline to the heart... Was this what I was missing all this time?
I got to Rachel or the "Rabbit" as Ragna calls her. I had a grin on my face. Seeing Ragna and Rachel interacting was another reason why I was excited to come back. It felt sweet seeing the two interact again with their usual smack talk. I even chuckled a few times out loud.
This part of the story had Ragna demanding answers from Rachel, asking her where to go since Noel's name was mentioned. I did mentioned before that this game somewhat centres around her, and that's to my dismay. Eventually after some more bickering, the two proceeded to fight.
It felt routine at this point. I just did my usual short combos I could do with Ragna, using his Drive move that absorbed life force and that was that. I beat Rachel, no problem even on moderate difficulty. I still know how her character plays. As long as you can get in her face, she won't have time to set up her crap.
Seeing my success, I gave myself a pat on the shoulder. I was expecting to struggle, but everything was going smoother than I expected. I did remind myself to not get cocky as I could get stuck shortly after.
When the screen returned to the usual dialogue sequence, Ragna's pose had his left arm clutching his right side as he was slightly bent over. Meanwhile, Rachel looked stern and serious.
I quirked my eyebrow at that. This part of the story must have been designed to portray Ragna struggling so much against Rachel that he's all tuckered out once he "won". You know, a bittersweet victory? Yet, I don't seem to remember this part...
From the TV screen, I heard Ragna giving out bated breath, as if he were exhausted. Then, I hear him call out "Rabbit" again to Rachel. That's his pet name for her.
Rachel responded merely by giving out a gasp.
"Oh great, the silent treatment again," I hear Ragna say from the TV screen.
I started to recognise this dialogue. I was hesitant at first to press A on my controller to continue, but I did anyway to make sure I was on my way to the good ending.
"Ragna, you use it too much," I hear Rachel say with a slight touch of fear.
Now, I was positive. This was the dialogue you usually get when you are on your way to Ragna's bad ending. Well, that's strange. What did I do here? I became confused, unless my victory was that bittersweet. Before continuing, I was going to make sure I wasn't making a mistake here.
I quickly looked up on my computer for a flow chart on the different kind of endings you can get. Thanks to a Google search, I clicked on a link to Gamefaqs that showed the actions you're supposed to take in order to get certain endings.
I became even more confused once I saw that to get the bad ending, you have to lose to Rachel.
I titled my head while feeling bemused. I clearly won that fight. How is the dialogue for the bad ending playing? Maybe this dialogue was supposed to happen and I just remembered things wrong?
I had no idea. I felt pressure welling up in my brain from trying to remember when I played Ragna's story once before.
I was unsure of what ending I was going to get now. The only way for me to find out is to tap the A button. I think it's best to let the dialogue speak for itself...
"Huh? What the hell are you talking about?"
"Have you forgotten already? 'Never think the power of the Azure Grimoire as your own.'"
"Aren't you just quoting the Master's words? Whatever. I'm using MY powers to carve out my own destiny."
I see a look of distraught on Rachel's face as she said, "Even Jubei's training could not separate the idiot from the man, it seems. I fear you are beyond even MY help..."
Rachel disappeared using her sorcery powers, still maintaining that look of fear.
Meanwhile, Ragna was still in his "defeated" pose.
"What is up with you? You're not making...any...sense... What in the...?"
I read the narration that's supposed to tell you that Ragna was struggling to control his right arm. Great. Now I'm absolutely certain that this was the bad ending. I remember getting this ending once before. I lost to Rachel by pure accident when I was trying my best. Then, I could only watch as Ragna slowly started to lose himself to the Azure Grimoire.
What exactly did I do to get the bad ending? Did I do something to warrant getting the bad ending regardless if I won or lost? The more I hear about this, the more confused I got.
Who knows? Maybe the information was outdated and someone else discovered that hidden condition by now.
It was posted on August 2, 2010 after all. However, when I checked different sources for how to get the different endings, it was all the same: Lose to Rachel Alucard to get the bad ending. I know that the dialogue for the bad ending was playing. Even the online Wiki says to get the bad ending, you have to lose to Rachel. Nothing else.
I bit my lip as I stared at the TV screen. I was getting suspicious. The only reason why this dialogue could be playing is because I just remembered things wrong, and this was supposed to happen. The game played normally. I noticed no glitches, no gibberish text, nothing where it shouldn't have been. Well, unless my eyes were playing tricks on me.
I mentally scolded myself for dwelling on such a small technicality. I was going to play out whatever ending I got anyway, good or bad. I'm not a quitter. Besides, this was a run for fun, more than anything.
I continued to watch, but I'm feeling pretty disappointed that I'm going to get the bad ending on my return to Blazblue. So much for starting off on the right foot.
I saw that Ragna was struggling to maintain control of his Azure, or his "right hand". After a moment, all the pain he was feeling was gone.
"Did it get out of control? ...It can't be. Whatever happened, this isn't the time or place to be sleeping..."
I sighed as the screen faded to black as the scene finished. I knew what was coming next. It was a fight with Jin Kisaragi. Jin is a character that I disdain. He just wants to kill his brother for kicks, he's just a fucking asshole to everyone, and is also a failure in his role as the rival character.
I noticed something strange as it faded in to a different scene. Usually, when the screen fades to black like that, the game asks if you want to save, or shows the Blazblue logo to indicate that the game was loading. Come to think of it... The game never asked me if I wanted to save my progress during Ragna's story at any part of my run. I also distinctly remember you being asked if you want to save before this particular part where Ragna faces Jin in the Novus Orbis Librarium (NOL) headquarters during the bad ending.
That wasn't the case, though. There was nothing. No question if I wanted to save, or any loading indicator. Not anything. This was starting to make me feel unease. If I got a game over after all that I've done, I'd have to start over, which was infuriating to think about. However, I was certainly NOT going to lose to Jin. I still find it strange that the game never asked me if I wanted to save. Most games have an auto-save feature or an option to toggle between manual saving or auto-saving. I can only imagine the game was auto-saving all this time, but I'd appreciate a notifier that my progress was saved.
The dialogue was continuing to go by, but things were starting to unravel. The game was playing through the dialogue without my input. It was auto-playing through the text. I wasn't sure if there were any other parts of the game where the dialogue auto-played but this seemed pretty damn fast because I only had a two-seconds pause to take in what was being said before the next piece of dialogue would play on its own. I still held my controller in my hands, ready to fight, but my grip was getting loose from a feeling in my gut that something was wrong here. I also felt my stomach tying itself up in knots out of anticipation for what's to come.
Again, I'll just let the dialogue speak for itself, instead of describing it. I can remember since the whole experience was burned into my mind...
"Damn...damn it..."
Ragna knew that if he lost his focus, it'll all be over. He knew that there'd be no way for him to recover. Without thinking, Ragna had stepped into the cathedral. He didn't know where he was going but...
"Hey there, Brother." I hear Jin say with that shit-eating grin on his face as his avatar appeared. The music Under Heaven Destruction started to play. That's their matchup music, mind you.
Those who were being drawn by the power of the Azure had begun to arrive as well.
"Jin!" In between lines, Ragna was coughing violently. "I really don't have the time to play with you right now."
"Oh, don't be like that, Brother. We finally get to see each other at last. It doesn't look like anyone will be coming to disturb us, so let's have fun! That's right...let's play together right up until the very end."
"Jin, move..."
"I'm afraid I can't do that, Brother."
"Get the hell out of here!" Again, Ragna ended up having a violent coughing fit.
"Oh? Whatever is the matter, Brother? You really don't look too well. Oh well, you won't have to worry about it for much longer. You'll be at peace, soon..."
Goddamn this man. I really hated that grin. This man is really just a cocky son of a bitch.
"Jin. This is probably the end... So...get the hell out of my way," I could barely hear Ragna say over the music Under Heaven Destruction.
Jin opened his eyes, as he summoned his Nox Nyctores maintaining that shitty grin on his face.
"Yukianesa...come."
The textbox disappeared as the screen faded into a CG where Ragna was bent over while glowing a dark red. His eyes weren't visible with the blackness covering his eyes and parts of his face. Other parts of him were becoming corrupt with the Grimoire starting to take over again.
"You...son of a...!" I hear Ragna struggling to say as he was being overcome by the Azure Grimoire.
The CG morphed into a more sinister one.
This one had more parts of Ragna's body covered in black as his Grimoire on his right arm started to erupt with red beams of light coming from it. His right hand was also starting to morph into some kind of claw. It looked like a claw to my eyes, at least. I saw that Ragna's face was becoming deformed. His eyes started to glow pure bright red to represent the eyes of the Black Beast itself.
Just looking at this side of Ragna was sending chills down my spine, even though I've seen it before. Then, I hear him screaming with agony.
Jin only teased and taunted the deformed older brother, praising him for returning his hatred to him.
I braced myself for the upcoming fight. I tightened the grip on my controller, but I felt it soaked in my own sweat. I guess being out of action from Blazblue really takes you back once you return.
Interestingly, there was no VS intro that you usually see before a fight. Instead, it took me to a cutscene. The first few seconds of the cutscene showed Jin ready to strike against Ragna, but the entire cathedral started to shake as Ragna roared in agony. His head jerked back and was looking straight up towards the ceiling. Jin couldn't keep his balance because of how violently the place shook, thus giving him no time to attack.
But that didn't stop Jin from laughing maniacally at his older brother's transformation, even as he's stumbling. That twisted maniac.
The cutscene then centred towards Ragna. From many different camera angles, I see him morphing into what I can assume to be the Black Beast form of himself. His appearance was changing very drastically. His body was becoming much thinner. His muscle mass seemed to be unaffected, though. Ragna's normal pale skin became a much darker shade of grey. On his head and arms, especially his right arm, veins of darkness were growing all around. His right arm has a red glowing deformed claw erecting from it.
I felt a sense of both excitement and fear from watching all of this happening. I don't remember any of this. I know this is the first time I'm seeing all this. I should be excited but why do I also feel so scared?
A bright fiery red light spills from Ragna's eyes and it starts to trail around his head. His jaw deforms and his lips were torn away to reveal large, jagged fangs, reminiscent of the Black Beast. His normal white hair became dark black streaks from the Seithr building up all around him. The outline of his body was shrouded in a dark bluish purple glow. If you're not familiar with the term "Seithr", the most basic definition I can give you is that it's the "fuel" in this universe but detrimental to your health if used too much.
My mouth was slightly opened from looking at this cutscene. I felt my tongue was dry. My mouth must have been opened longer than I thought it was.
I certainly don't remember seeing a cutscene like this in Ragna's bad ending. Was this even Ragna's bad ending anymore? What kind of ending was I even getting at?
My eyes were glued to the TV. I couldn't take them off. This was all too interesting, but fearsome to watch. After the transformation sequence itself was complete, Ragna roared one more time skyward towards the ceiling of the cathedral, causing the entire place to shake once more. His voice started off as his own but then slowly morphed into a distorted roar. It was so loud coming from my TV speakers that it almost seemed unnatural.
I felt myself getting nauseous from the lack of oxygen. I was apparently holding my breath watching that cutscene that I forgot to breathe.
The cutscene finally concluded, and the screen faded to black. I wouldn't have any time to recover as the screen showed the usual one when two people are fighting and a match was about to begin. I looked at Ragna, and he's...indescribable. Really, he was. I can't find any single adjective I knew to define what Ragna's supposed to be.
W-Was I...supposed to fight as THAT thing? Was that abomination even Ragna at this point?
My hands were hesitant to control this thing. I don't think I even want to fight Jin anymore.
Jin was in his usual idle sprite, holding his sword in his scabbard, ready to strike. With Ragna, he was almost...I couldn't tell you. He was leaking Seithr all over the place and out from his body. The Seithr even hovered over the ground around him like fog. His sprite didn't seem natural at all, as if the developers didn't design it.
I heard no music. I saw that there was none of the usual stuff like the heat gauge, the life bars, or even the match time displayed.
There was no announcer with the usual "The Wheel of Fate is turning" dialogue that is said before a round begins.
I'm usually okay with silence, but this kind of quiet felt air-thinning, especially with what I was seeing.
I tried moving Ragna with my controller but he didn't respond to my input. I see the two men just standing there with the eerie silence lingering from no music or sound.
I looked down at my controller and saw that it was on. The TV didn't say the battery was out, or anything.
Suddenly, the sound of someone being grabbed resonated from my TV. My head jolted itself up from looking down at my controller, and I saw that Ragna had Jin by the throat with his right hand, or whatever his right hand is supposed to be. As Ragna held Jin in his grasp, I noticed the darkness creeping up his arm and across his hand, trickling over his fingers in snake-like streams. It turns out I was still not in control at the moment. I don't even know if I was ever going to regain control over my own actions again during this "ending" I was getting.
My eyes glued to the TV as I saw Ragna's dark red right hand lift and toss Jin into the air. The camera went up to show Jin in the air, vulnerable. The camera went down again to Ragna. Ragna's right arm morphed into an undefinable shifting mass of darkness, loosely in the shape of what I thought was a claw.
I don't think I've ever seen something like this in a Blazblue game or even in general, ever. I also don't think what I was seeing was normal, even in a game like Blazblue. Usually when it comes to disturbing stuff like this, Blazblue is discreet enough about it, but this is the first time I'm ever seeing Blazblue being so frontal and shameless with how graphic things were getting.
Parts of the claw morphed into giant tendrils as they launched themselves up at Jin to cover his entire body. I watched helplessly as the younger brother becomes enveloped in the tendrils of darkness. Eventually, a sphere of some kind formed around him. Shortly after, the sphere rapidly starts to condense but darkness continues to flood its way towards Jin who was helpless within. The screen showed the inside of the sphere, where Jin's limbs are slowly being crushed by the condensing darkness he was in. Not only that, it was pure black within the background. Just pure black. He couldn't move. He was totally helpless.
This game is supposed to be rated T. What I'm seeing is M rated territory, maybe even AO.
An extremely loud scream from Jin resonated from out of my TV screen. That made me cringe, and almost made me cover my ears out of reflex because the volume in my TV was so high up. It was a scream that I had never heard Jin do before. It almost didn't seem like his own voice... It continued on as the darkness was continuing to crush his limbs as the sounds of bones cracking could be heard. The sounds of cracking bones almost made me feel Jin's pain. My entire body shuddered from seeing this whole thing. I felt the dinner I had earlier coming back up from my stomach.
A brief white flash happened before fading back to Ragna's perspective. Ragna is standing there, looking up at the sphere that was off-screen at the moment with a grin of his own, but I'm not even sure Ragna was himself anymore. Those elongated fangs that took the place of his mouth made him look as if he's taking pleasure in an extremely high sadistic scale.
Then, an exploding sound happened as the darkness that used to form the sphere dispersed in the background. The remains of what used to be the sphere went their way into Ragna, and he looked as if he was being fed by those remains.
There was a moment of silence, as if the game was telling me to take in what had just happened. Ragna stood stiff as the silence lingered. I waited for about ten seconds, but there was nothing. I noticed that Ragna wasn't moving, as if the game was frozen. I looked down at my Xbox 360's rings to see that there was no red ring of death, but my game looked frozen. I couldn't move out of fear that if I do, the game might do something else in accordance with my movements.
After about two minutes of this silence, and staring at my TV screen without blinking, the stage started to shake as Ragna built up energy within himself. A cloud of darkness started to surround Ragna as he continued to build up energy. I could barely see this beyond my eyes that got watery due to the lack of blinking.
Ragna threw his head backwards with a roar, and at this exact moment, the image of one of the Beast's heads appears out of the cloud and roars as well, echoing Ragna's own. The screen faded out as the howl went on. The howl sounded inexplicably agonising to listen to, making me filled with fear and doubt.
I honestly felt terrified. Anything could happen at any moment now, and I thought I've seen it all and done it all in Blazblue.
The screen stayed black for about another minute with no sound or music.
The silence was broken at last when I heard another voice coming from the TV.
"Ragna...you promised me..."
There was no textbox to display the dialogue but I immediately recognised that voice. It was Rachel Alucard.
"Ra...chel...?"
Again, no textbox but I recognised who was saying it. It was Ragna's voice but it was almost unrecognisable and very distorted.
"I'm...not...human," Ragna's distorted voice said from the speakers of my TV screen.
The entire screen was still black with no textbox appearing at all. I had no idea what was going on behind the black screen.
Rachel's voice started again, "Resist it! Don't make me do this!"
From how she said that, it sounded like she was holding the urge to cry. Her voice was breaking too, very uncharacteristic of her. Normally, she is a strong woman who is unfazed at nearly anything that comes her way. However, even a woman like her has exceptions.
"Ra...chel? Rachel!? No...I-," As I hear Ragna screaming, that horrible screechy roar echoed after.
A brief paused happened before Rachel's voice replied to Ragna.
"I see words will no longer reach you. This is...goodbye, Ragna."
I noticed her pause as she said her goodbyes to him. I can't imagine what she's feeling just from looking at what little that's left of Ragna's sanity go.
Then, there was no sound at all. I gulped, swallowing my saliva. I was bracing myself.
A few times while I was watching everything unfold, I did think about shutting off the game. I scare easily at stuff like this but the whole thing was all too fascinating to me in a sick sort of way. I just couldn't look away or bring myself to just turn it off. Besides, I came this far. I wasn't a quitter, and I'm not planning to be one now.
I had my eyes on that screen that was still black. Still no music or sound. What the fuck is even happening beyond the blackness, only the game knows.
It seemed like the black screen would never end.
I hear Rachel say beyond the black screen after about five minutes of staring and waiting, "Ragna...I'm so sorry...I'm so, so sorry...I..." I hear Rachel break out in a sobbing manner.
The textbox was back and I was finally in control again of when to play the next line. I felt like I could finally breathe. I took a moment to put my hands to my face. My hands felt so cold when they touched it from just watching everything. That fucked up torture scene, that horrifying transformation, and the game taking my control away from me; it was all so surreal.
I pulled myself together, and after I took my time to gather my wits, I pressed the A button to continue with the dialogue.
Rachel continued, "This is all but a cruel, cruel joke that time has played on us all. While people may be quick to put the blame on you for what has happened here today, know that none of this is your fault because it really isn't. It isn't your fault... It's not-," I hear Rachel break out in a sob once again, unable to contain herself.
"...I will never forget you, Ragna. Always remember that..."
The TV fell silent again. In a few seconds, I was simply brought back to the title screen. There was no narrative dialogue that said, "One of the many possibilities... of the Continuum Shift.", not even a "Help Me! Professor Kokonoe!" segment played afterwards. You get both of these things, one after the other, whenever you get a bad ending, normally.
I just stared at the title screen while hearing the music that plays for it. I felt relieved, hearing something normal at last. I don't know what the hell even happened beyond that black screen after Ragna seemingly killed Jin, and when Rachel arrived.
I snapped myself out of my shock, and I made my way to the gallery from the menu immediately to see if the cutscene I saw was saved somewhere within. Lo and behold, there wasn't any option to replay a cutscene in sight. Was what I saw supposed to be a secret ending that the game doesn't save it in your gallery? Now that I think about it, I didn't even get any sort of achievement points for stumbling across this "ending" that seemed like exclusive content. When I looked in the list of achievements I got or have yet to get, there was nothing remotely related towards what I saw.
I went back to the story mode menu to check if the game had auto-saved my progress at any point. No slot for saved data was filled.
One last thing I needed to check: The sound room. I took about a half hour to skim through the sound effects, one by one, to find the sound clips of whatever was within that fucked up scene. I especially payed close attention to Jin's sound effects to find that inhumane scream he did before he died. Still nothing...
I couldn't play it anymore. I went for my Xbox 360, ejected the game after turning it off, and quickly put it back in the case.
Then, I put the case in one of the deepest parts of my closet. I don't know why I did that but I didn't want to see that game again for a while after seeing something that twisted and fucked. Knowing my usual stubborn self, I'd come back to it after a while to hunt for that thing again. Curiosity truly kills the cat.
After I took a few moments to catch my breath after shutting my closet door, I loaded YouTube on my computer and without thinking I typed down the words, "Beast Ragna Ending" in the search bar to see if anyone else got the same thing I did.
After skimming a few videos that I thought had it, I saw that there was no video that showed the same thing I just saw. I searched through the internet on forums, seeing if there was a thread that discussed similar findings to mine. There wasn't anything. I searched for about fifteen minutes to no avail before just giving up on it.
My mother knocked on my door and entered my room to greet me after returning home from work. When she saw my pale, sweaty face, she asked me what was wrong.
Really, what the hell am I going to say? Was I supposed to tell her that I watched two brothers fight, and then one of them ended up losing his own senses while being twisted into a damn monster? No. I couldn't tell her that, even if I wanted to. She doesn't have to or deserve to hear about the hell I saw a while ago.
I slowly went to my mum and merely hugged her.
I just know that if I play that game again, it'll be lurking somewhere, and I'll bump into it again. I just know that if I see that twisted abomination kill someone else again in the same gruesome way that it did with Jin, the image will be forever planted in my mind. Hell, I think it already is, now that I'm reliving it a second time by telling you guys this.
When I explained to my mum that I was just watching a horror movie on YouTube, she just laughed and scolded me for seeing something I dislike. She then left my room. I wasn't about to leave this issue alone just yet, though.
I called Ace on my phone to tell her about Beast Ragna. There was no way I wasn't going to tell her. She had to know. I don't know if what I got was an unreleased Director's Cut version or if the copy was modified by some fucked up sadist who likes to reprogram games and scare the shit out of people. I also don't know if it's the same thing with Continuum Shift II or Extend, but to be safe, I'm assuming that it's possible in those games as well since they're practically the same. I told her to play Ragna's story and try to get the true ending.
About half an hour later, she called me back, telling me that she did get the true ending, and didn't get any "Beast Ragna". Honestly, I wasn't really expecting her to say that anything different happened. I know she believes in what I tell her since I usually don't lie to her. She told me to go to sleep, try to have sweet dreams, and then hung up.
I glanced over at my closet as I was standing a short distance from it. Deep within that closet was that beast.
Beast Ragna... Beast Ragna?
I thought about it for a moment. Beast Ragna... Why did I call it "Beast Ragna"? I felt like it's something I should know already. A spark went off in my head out of suddenly remembering something. Beast Ragna.
That was an idea that DarkOneBloodedge shared to me once. He called it his own personal conceptualisation. "Beast Ragna", as he'd simply refer to it, is one of his favourite things about BlazBlue, and it's just a possibility. On February 22, about a week before today, he sent me a document in my Fanfiction account. A brief summary I can give you is that this document consists of written descriptions and data of Ragna the Bloodedge after he lost control of his Azure Grimoire, as if he were a playable character.
I went back on my computer and logged into my Fanfiction account. I went through past documents people have sent me to search for the one DarkOneBloodedge sent me. It didn't take me long before I saw a document he sent me whose description only said, "Beast Ragna".
I took my time reading through the document, and...you're not going to believe what I found.
When I was reading through the list of attacks DarkOneBloodedge made for Beast Ragna, there was one attack description that nearly took my breath away.
Special Attack: Slaughter Reaper – A short-ranged jab. If it hits, Ragna grabs the opponent and throws them into the air.
An attack lifted directly from the Black Beast. After Ragna leaves the enemy defenceless, he transforms his right arm into a shifting mass of darkness, loosely in the shape of a claw. Using this power, Ragna assaults his enemy with tendrils of darkness, quickly covering them. The darkness forms a sphere around the enemy, which rapidly condenses, despite darkness still being launched at the enemy. Inside the sphere the enemy is being slowly crushed as the darkness rips them to shreds. This attack kills anyone it is used upon, slowly, and brutally. All the enemy can do is scream. Once the attack ends, the sphere explodes feeding Ragna the remains them of the victim's body, soul and all.
Needless to say, I freaked out when I read that part of the document. Word for word, it matched what I saw Ragna do a while ago. Other parts of the document that described things like Ragna's appearance and personality, they all lined up almost exactly with how I saw Ragna in that "ending" I got.
I don't think I can say any more about what happened that night. I can't seem to remember much after that, so I guess that's it for my story to you all.
It honestly feels great to tell you all this and get it off my chest.
At the very least, you are now aware of this little phenomenon that I encountered.
Thank you for reading my story. Thank you so, so much. I can't tell you how grateful I am to you if you read all the way through. Please remember to have a nice day.
Until the next time we meet,
-Kimmo Kimono Apple Pronger