Uh, so I guess this space is reserved for prefaces to the chapter. Once again, we don't have any Date A Live content, except for a small section at the end, so, once again, you may want to steer clear of this if you don't care for anything not immediately centred and based in the DAL universe. The main protagonist is also an Original Character rather than Shido, so, yeah, another warning for anyone who wants to step out now.
This was actually supposed to get here on Christmas day, so, sorry about that as well.
Also, I'm continuing this immediately after the anime. I don't plan to add any characters or plot from the LN (Light Novels), because I'm writing this story on my own, and I'd rather not have to read every volume and process it just for the story. That's it for now. Enjoy! (Well, I'm hoping that you enjoy, that is.)
Chapter 2
A Journey Through Nothingness
He was alone.
By himself, with nobody, and nothing else, inside of the infinite void surrounding him.
The boy couldn't rely on his senses. They did nothing. It was a miracle in and of itself that he was somehow able to tell he was conscious. Did different states of consciousness even matter in a place where time itself likely meant nothing? In knowing that, it was pointless to ask a question such as "Where am I?"
He brought his memories to mind.
Barely, he recalled what he was doing before being pulled into the void. Vaguely, he remembered a conversation and consequent walk with a girl who had… cookies? Thoughts racing a mile a minute, he came across the image of his sister. Her almost lifeless, downcast gaze, and monotone voice… Despite all of this, he still felt uneasy. All of these recent memories should've felt like nothing, but they felt much too vague.
Clouds hovered over some of his thoughts. As if an invisible shadow was being cast over his mind.
Temporarily, the boy gave up on remembering anything, and wondered for the hundredth time if he could move. This useless thought was immediately blown aside, as it always was after the first attempt. He innerly chided himself a little bit for attempting such a fruitless endeavour. Everything, after all, was gone.
Silence reigned once more, until Shinji turned to another elusive subject – the words he'd heard before being forced into the void.
'Knowledge is your worst enemy.'
What a counterproductive thought. One would have to have knowledge of such a thing to avoid it in the first place. Perhaps, then, this was why the boy was put into this place. To stop him from learning something. Indeed, in a hell such as this one, anyone faced with such circumstances would learn nothing. Letting his mind run wild, he figured that maybe one day, he would cease even thinking, the only thing that let him know he was here.
As much as he would've loved to think there was an easy way out such as that, he had long ago determined he wouldn't allow such a thing to happen.
Once again, he tried to distract himself with thought. Ironically, however, this attempt to cheer himself up through some more assessment resulted only in him learning one disturbing fact, that not even he could keep hidden from himself anymore.
His mind blanked out. To protect him from himself, he had done it, purposefully.
At that moment, more than ever in the young boy's life, he was alone.
An uncountable amount of time passed since Shinji had faced the truth of his solitude. Attempting to calm himself, Shinji had taken to once more diving through a large chunk of his memories while "travelling" through the void. He had no way of knowing if he was moving, but didn't find it very important.
It seemed as if another trip down memory lane was due, as Shinji felt his grip on his memories loosen a little. Quickly, he searched his memories, salvaging two which served as a central point for him. A girl with… cookies… right? No, he remembered them to be pastries. Or was it just plain old sausages? Yeah, that sounded right. Then, he came across the memory of his sister once again. She was always expressive and over-emotional, and he made sure to remember that.
After putting together those pictures in his mind, Shinji once again proposed a rather interesting question to himself, as he always did. Did his "world", as he knew it, even exist anymore? Now that he was no longer a part of it anymore, it felt odd to refer to it as his, but he was sure that his home would always be his home. Despite these somewhat selfish thoughts, the boy hoped mostly that it still did exist. Not only for him, but for those that resided in it.
It was another unknown day, in an unknown month, during an unknown year. Shinji was very good at counting and being patient, but he felt he didn't have the fortitude to count large measures of time like days and months. A year was out of the question.
Musings such as these – more often than not – was what filled the boy's head. Perhaps there was a certain scientist who would believe that his cursed fate was a very intriguing case to be studied. Existence in the non-existence. Maybe they'd laugh at him trying to speak while stuck in the void. Comedy wasn't his thing, but he'd grown tired of his jokes, and desperately craved for someone – anyone else's.
Despite this desperation to have someone else acknowledge his existence, he felt that he had a more pressing matter. That was, his lack of memory of other people. Skimming through his collection, as he'd taken to calling it, he only came to fragments. Going through these scraps, he tried to pick up what was left. A girl with food? Reflecting on it, it didn't feel quite right to him. One day, a girl had come up to him and offered some… No, no, he was quite sure that nobody cared to talk to him in high school. It was quite the hilarious idea, though, of someone offering him anything.
There was also someone who he thought was a relative… His intuition suggested someone close, like a sister. But he found he could only remember something about her hair color and attitude… After a good long while of trying to pinpoint more information, he gave up. Obviously, she wasn't very close to him if he could hardly recall anything.
After his shaky trip through what were probably now shattered memories, Shinji settled back on counting time, starting from a second.
Shinji's mind raced with uncontrollable thoughts focused on something other than his existential crises. Despite his supposed solitude in the void that was, by all assumption, meant to break, or do something to him, this was far from the truth. He was seeing things again. Seeing something. They were, by all means, shapes. And if his senses served right, they were human shapes. Accompanying the sight of these shapes were an array of voices, masculine and female. Though it was very rarely he had these encounters, he more than believed that they were real.
"They" had started getting louder, but the number of "them" also decreased. Despite this, however, he could still very much hear them, even if they were no longer sounding their insane cacophony. His eyes made them seem far away, but their voices were where his ear… should be. It was hard to remember what he looked like, and it was even harder to remember anything except his name. The word memory itself seemed like nothing but a concept, and the only thing that filled his mind was thoughts of the void that had become his home. Maybe something about a sister every now and then, but he figured it was just his mind playing tricks on him. He was sure he had never had a sister, or brother, or any sort of family. He had to have had parents, but he figured that didn't matter anymore.
Forcing sense back into his being, he suddenly realised that while in his stupor, the voices had stopped. This gave him time to do what he'd eventually came to do best, and that was to think on it. Oddly, the knowledge that something else was here, and knew that he was there as well didn't fill him with happiness as it should have.
Shinji could not yet realise why, but something about those ceaseless, unintelligible whispers didn't sit with him right.
Two were there. One female, one male. Despite their otherworldly presence, they took on human appearances. However, their features did not remind Shinji of any person that he might once have known. The male had unnaturally dark hair, with its eyes as deep and sinking as the void, itself. The female had impossibly long, wavy silver hair, with a blindingly white glow for its "eyes". Despite their contrasting appearances, they both carried an expression full of what could only be called malevolence. Immediately, Shinji realised that not only for them to stay, but to have the expressions on their faces that they did, they must want something.
Though they did not speak to him, nor vice versa, he found information filling his head that proved his guess correct. It was an odd sensation, feeling his mind filled with intent and words other than his.
The two beings wanted his assent to a certain deal. Both the male one, named Hatov, and the female, Hara, were proposing to grant him exit from the void, in exchange for one thing – the room in his soul. In other words, he would no longer own his existence.
These words struck a chord of hesitation within the boy.
At any moment, something could go wrong.
At any moment, something could happen.
But honestly, he didn't care much for his worries. From his perspective, it was much better than being in the void, and waiting until his body and mind died, if it was even allowed to.
Hara reached "her" hand out towards the boy, pearly white skin making the offer look all the more tempting. Shinji did not need much of an extra push, however, as the being easily took his hand, and restored feeling to his body. There was a moment of relief for him.
Then, there was pain. Unbelievable pain rushing through his body, debilitating him as soon as he was able to feel himself once more. Then, the other, Hatov, brushed pass Hara and forcibly stabbed its' hand through Shinji, his mouth opening in a silent scream as his pain was more than quadrupled. The sensation went through his body like acid, burning every corner of his body, down to the ends of his nerves, leaving nothing in its' path.
That was when his consciousness gave in, along with his vision, the last thing the pain enabling him to witness being the large, unsettling grins splayed across the beings' faces.
Shinji had made a mistake.
In the centre of Tengu City, a familiar siren went off, signs popping from buildings and a voice announcing the disaster known as a spacequake. The air vibrated violently and crackled, clouds parting as space bent in on itself. The citizens rushed to shelters around the city, clearing as quickly as they could before the inevitable occurred.
However, a young boy, Shido Itsuka, was not like the others. He stood a while away from the impact site he had been conveniently transported to, awaiting the impact. He had a job to do. And he would make sure that he did it without fail. That was – to seal unstable spirits.
This spacequake itself was a calling card, and more than anything, it required his attention.
A spirit was coming.
And it was very, very much unstable.
