Title: Paradigm
Author name: Ruaki
Category: Adventure/Romance, BlazBlue
Keywords: Ragna, Hazama, AU
Spoilers: Let's just say through Continuum Shift just to be safe.
Summary: She knew that removing Terumi's favorite failsafe was guaranteed to cause a critical system failure.
Notes: In case you missed it, this story is AU. Canon is Jayoku'd to the sky with a big smile. Though one could more accurately call the story an "alternate timeline," I've taken a few liberties in a number of areas, especially concerning a few things that were revealed in Phase 0.
The story features mainly a pairing of Hazama & Ragna. There's some other minor ones in there too, but that's the big one.
If any of the above just made your face resemble a piece of Cubist art, then I invite you to read one of the many other fanfics available for this series.
For any of you still present and willing, please enjoy the show.
Disclaimer: If I owned it, Ishiwatari Badguy-sama would be the one doing a lot more than just music for this series. So obviously I don't.
prologue. splintered millennium
Facilities owned by the Novus Orbis Librarium would never be described as modest. When the organization began to first establish its power, its founding members—which included the influential circle of clans known as the Duodecim—built its structures to convey a sense of immensity and power. And in a world barely pulled from the brink of extinction, such a tactic worked, and continued to work, as those outside and within NOL feared and respected the entity and its control.
This particular facility was marginally less imposing than its brother agencies, and by marginally, Ragna meant it contained about a third less flying buttresses and two less compounds. But the aura of infallibility and implacable authority was still present, and despite himself, Ragna felt appropriately awed—and slightly disgusted with himself for feeling that way.
"There are about a hundred and twenty servicemen permanently stationed at this base," a short, heavily bearded-and-browed man explained as they walked through halls made for giants. The man had introduced himself as Captain Ryoji Sakamoto of the 32nd Company, and Ragna was sure that all that facial hair made up a good sixty percent of the diminutive captain's body weight.
"Of course, that doesn't include our field agents on loan to the Ars Magi," Sakamoto added with a chuckle. "There's still a war going on and all." He glanced up at Ragna expectantly.
The young man blinked, unsure of what Sakamoto wanted. Was that a joke? Should he laugh? Engage in a discussion about the war? He quickly decided to fall back onto the safest way to placate a superior officer: "Sir, yes sir."
Sakamoto's bush of a beard twitched. "Hardly a year at the Academy, but you act like you've been there all your life, Private."
Ragna managed to fight back a frown and a retort. He had been doing that a lot this last year, struggling to keep a hold on his temper to avoid being expelled from the Academy. And the last thing he wanted to do now that he was finally out of that hellhole was to be discharged for insubordination so soon after enlistment.
"If you don't mind my saying so, soldier," Sakamoto said casually, as if he wasn't a captain and Ragna wasn't a rookie, "you look more like the type to be in the Ars Magi than in Intel." He stroked his beard. "I look at you and think 'blue.'"
A frown wormed onto Ragna's face at that. "I had requested to join the Intelligence Department, sir."
Sakamoto caught the inferred reason and nodded knowingly. The military divisions were known to discriminate based on bloodlines and social standing. Ragna, lacking both a reputable bloodline and powerful connections, was doomed to remain at the bottom of the barrel, never rising higher than a junior non-commissioned officer. At the Academy, the Intelligence Department was snidely referred to as the 'gutter of NOL' for the way it collected the less privileged and seemingly unworthy graduates.
"I read your dossier. No family, entered the Academy late on merit of innate ars ability." Sakamoto slapped Ragna on the back in good humor. "Not to worry! We don't think too much about rank, bloodlines, or race here. Why else would a captain be giving fresh meat like you a personal tour?" A guffaw puffed out from under the gnarled hair.
"We are only concerned with results here," Sakamoto said. "The Librarium uses our intel to command the rest of the organization. It doesn't matter whether it's a Kaka or a Duodecim heir who uncovers and reports the intel—we only want the data and its truths."
Ragna's head bobbed automatically, the 'sir, yes sir' spilling out without any thought. It was all stuff he had already known and had banked upon when he first set his eyes on entering the Library's service.
A pair of black-mantled personnel passed by as they walked, pausing to salute the captain even as their eyes stared curiously at Ragna. He glared back from under messy bangs, used to the stares he received for his somewhat unusual appearance. Their eyes jerked away even as Sakamoto dismissed the pair with an answering salute, and Ragna couldn't help but smirk a bit in self-satisfaction.
If Sakamoto had noticed the stares Ragna had received, he did not acknowledge it and continued on. "Of course, I expect you'll do very well here, Private. Your sponsor was very glowing in his recommendation."
The fingers of Ragna's right hand twitched; he hadn't known about any recommendation. Since this base in one of the lower Hierarchial cities, he figured NOL was just anxious to ship him some place where he wouldn't be a threat. But it made sense, the more he considered it. However, he was sure it was a recommendation not based on his aptitude but on something he had that NOL wanted to keep under their control.
'Unidentified Grimoire.' He knew that line was printed on his dossier somewhere, probably under the words "CONFIDENTIAL: AUTHORIZED PERSONNEL ONLY" and NOL was not going to let any type of Grimoire fall outside of their authority, no matter how benign it seemed.
That had been exactly what Ragna was betting on when he applied for the Academy and exposed the nature of his right arm to them. He also knew that NOL wouldn't risk putting an unknown factor on the frontlines of the war and would comply quickly with his request to join the Intelligence Department.
But a sponsor made Ragna nervous. That meant someone was keeping tabs on him and will most likely be requesting progress reports from his superiors at the base. He'd have to be careful.
"I don't believe I've done anything to warrant a sponsor," Ragna said slowly, tacking on the requisite "sir" as an afterthought.
"Mmm," Sakamoto rumbled, which just confirmed Ragna's suspicions that this sponsorship was about his Grimoire. His fingers twitched again. NOL may not have much information about his Grimoire, but someone sure had an interest in it. Ragna had told the NOL physicians during his physical that it had permanently attached itself to him and replicated his lost arm—a magical prosthetic and nothing more. Now, he'd have to be extra careful to continue to hide its powers beneath a front of 'innate ars ability.' He wanted to know about his Grimoire, but he definitely didn't want to become a casualty to NOL's experiments in the process. It was a fine line he was walking, to stay both under the radar but to advance far and quickly enough to gain access to NOL's information databases.
"Well, either way, we're expecting great things from you." Sakamoto clasped both hands behind his back and smiled. It was a smile one would expect from a grandfather obliging a child's whims. "Welcome to the Intelligence Department."
xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxox
It had been the only Unit created without an artificial consciousness, no indepedent program outside of the directives issued from the Master Unit. It was simply a slave drive, connected to a central system brain.
However, its creators immediately saw the limitations of this configuration and, after many trials, managed to successfully install an independent algorithm into its system, but with the failsafe that the Master Unit's processes would be issued as top-level commands which could override the installed code.
Right now the Master Unit was exercising its right as the central mainframe, sending out waves of data to overwrite Susano-o's consciousness as it drifted blindly and aimlessly within the frozen emptiness of the Boundary.
The Master Unit, the crowning summation of the beauty of physics, was still a creation of Man. And Men, despite their achievements and advancements, were imperfect by their humanity. With their science and knowledge, Men could finally understand the mind of God, but were still unable to become God. So their imperfection was passed onto the Master Unit and its imperfection had unforeseen consequences.
This was why Susano-o was given an independent algorithm. Once the Master Unit's commands finished downloading, the consciousness of the experimental subject U-235 decrypted the data and immediately replicated the code within Susano-o's operating system's executables. With these commands, Susano-o was no longer blind and awoke to its new purpose.
It took only a moment, yet that did not matter. Time was infinite within the Boundary, even while Time marched on outside it.
xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxox
"Join the Library?" It was rare that his master would be caught off guard.
"You had said they have access to information no one else has." It was hard not to be defensive at such an incredulous question; it had sounded like a good idea in Ragna's head.
Jubei's eye glittered in the moonlight, pupil large in the soft darkness. "Whatcha wantin' to know so bad that ya'd run to the Library?"
Flat on his back, the boy stared up at the sky, emptied of stars by the brilliant moon. "Information. You know... about..." Ragna trailed off, feeling a bit embarrassed. It did sound a bit far-fetched. Why would the Library have any type of information about one in a thousand or more kids with no family and no past?
Though they might have something about his right arm... the alien limb not of flesh or bone.
"Yeah, I guess it's a bit stupid..."
Jubei sighed, gracefully settling down next to his pupil, tails flicking back and forth in thought. "No, Ragna, ya might be onta somethin' there..." Ragna was not reassured by Jubei's tone of voice: it wasn't dubious so much as concerned, even worried.
The boy craned his neck to look at the one known as the strongest being in the world, one of the legendary Six Heroes, the creature that he had first awoken to and who had subsequently taken him under his tutelage. "I just need to know." He appreciated everything Jubei had done for him these last few years, but even Jubei, in all his wisdom, didn't have the answers Ragna sought.
"What would ya do with that knowledge?"
Ragna blinked. "I..." He laughed, sheepish. "I don't know. I guess I'll figure it out when I get it."
Jubei was silent and that silence made Ragna uncomfortable. Did his master actually know something?
"Okay, Ragna. I've done about all I can for ya anyway... " Jubei smiled briefly, all toothy pride, before the smile dropped into an expression Ragna had never seen on his master's face: intense, adamant, fierce. It was the expression of worthy of one of the Six Heroes, and not the laid-back, kindly teacher and father-figure who had raised him since that day. "Just promise me somethin'. When ya find the truth, wheaver it is, promise me ya won't run away from it."
"Y-yeah..." Ragna squirmed under that stare and the mysticism behind those words. "I promise. I mean, since when do I run away from anything?"
Jubei suddenly smiled again, chuckling. "When indeed."
Love and thanks for kurumasha for beta-ing this chapter and the previous one. I forgot to give her credit for the last one and she's been unbelievably patient, forgiving, and helpful.