No-one knows what caused the initial problem with Yggdrasil, the World Tree. All that is known is that at some point in the multiverse's "past", Yggdrasil was damaged. In order to stablize the various universes, the gods (or Admins) put them into a "safe-mode" of sorts, where time is looped during an important portion of the universes time-line.
Originally, seven universes were started looping by the Admins: Ranma 1/2, Harry Potter, Naruto, Bleach, Evangelion, Sailor Moon, and Slayers. Other universes followed afterwards.
And now, long after the event known as 'The Crash', and long after The Doctor's own Awakening, a brand new universe is entering the 'Infinite Time Loops'. Let's see how the imperial bodyguard turned assassin is dealing with an endless life and the craziness of the loops.
1.01
It had been useless. All he'd done, all he'd taken upon himlself... to end up where it all started, holding the bloody corpse of his lover as she gave him her last words.
Holding Emily's hand on her coronation day, leading her into the throne room, Corvo Attano suddenly ended up in the palace garden, his sword blocking an assassin's. It had been so confusing he hadn't had the time to protect the empress and was forced to watch her fall, again.
And now, he was in his old prison cell, eying his blood tainted hands. No, they weren't tainted, not yet anyway.
He may not understand that whole situation but maybe... maybe it had all been another test from the Outsider. If so, it was clear that he had failed. Farley Havelock, the Pendelton brothers, Sokolov, the Lord Regent, way too many corpses brought down for his revenge. And in the end, he wasn't feeling any better, there was nothing but rats and plague.
But he now had a way to redeem himself, a way to make it right. He would bring them down, but he wouldn't let himself be blinded by hatred and sorrow. Never again.
1.02
Corvo was going crazy, he was sure of it. How many times already had he put Emily back on the throne?
He had done it in every possible way, through murder and kidnapping, choking the whole Dunwall Guard Corp unconscious and even blackmailing the city officials. But there was no escape, he was trapped in this nightmare.
1.03
Once again, he had awaken just in time to witness Jessamine's murder, before being knocked out and thrown in his cell. Thankfully, getting out wasn't that difficult. Even if the Outsider kept on avoiding him since the first time around, he had kept the mark and all of his powers... but what was the point of it since he wasn't able to live on, or even die properly?
The tallboy explosive arrow had hurt badly, but he had almost feel relieved. He was out of this whole time nonsense, at least.
But as the cell was now testifying, he was but fooling himself.
He wasn't out, he never would be.
1.04
The keyboard was violently assaulted, the sound of keys echoing loudly across those parts of the divine realm. It was well known among gods that such an intense fast-typing never was good news. That the coding was currently done by none other than Hecate, goddess of the new moon, was even more worrying. For her, usually so reserved, to dive so deep into Yggdrasil's code... whatever was happening just had to be dreadful. How exactly she managed to work so fast on six different terminals, with nothing more than wings, was beyond everyone. But hey, Sleipnir was doing it with hooves on a daily basis.
Ceasing her flight upon entering the pavilion, a white-wrapped goddess when straight for her sister.
"Cat, what's happening?"
"Sorry Lén, no time."
Séléné, goddess of the full moon, looked at her sister with a raised eyebrow. Like if saying "Seriously?".
"Come on, we can hear you complaining all the way from Zeus', but you can't take five minutes to explain?"
"No Mis, I can't. The window's closing fast." replied Hécate, her eyes going from screen to screen.
"What window?" asked said Mis, better known on Yggdrasil as Artemis, hunt goddess and last of the moon sisters.
"Ho, you're making a fused-loop for this new anchor of yours."
"Really?"
"Indeed."
"Then why the rush Cat? He will have one soon enough, why forcing it?"
"He still knows nothing and is slowly going mental."
"On a scale from sanitarium to Sakura Syndrome, how mental are we talking about?" said the most human-looking one. It was weird coming from a woman clad in leather armor, holding a long bow and messing with the hawk feathers stuck in her dark-brown hair.
"Bloody murder mental." answered her anthropomorphic bird of a sister.
"Why didn't you just pop in there?"
"I'm restraining myself too much when lowering to so few dimensions and that xylem of a Leviathan is powerful enough to keep me out if I tried. Beside, the whole loop is kinda fuse- and variant-proof, it keeps going baseline."
"So you're forcing it for him to meet other loopers."
"Pretty much."
"Well, let's do it."
"Mis?"
"I'll handle that mark data. Lén, in the meantime, keep the Leviathan at bay."
"Got it." said Séléné before going on her own computer, her great white wings folding themselves behind her back.
"Girls..."
"Stop the drama and focus on your quantum matrix Cat."
"Oh, right. And Lén, watch out for his Outsider."
"Already quarantine him."
"Neat."
The howl was horrifying, like a thousand voice crying their despair. The twisted body and ghostly white mask only added to the atmosphere.
"Step aside, I'll handle him myself."
"Ai, Attano-taicho."
"The Seireitei, seriously?"
"Wouldn't it had been better to send him to another loop? Like Equestria, or even Berk?"
"He's not prepared to swap body... and he would have been bored anyway."
1.05
Corvo blinked, sorrow assaulting him as he was to watch Jessamine die once more.
But instead of blood, he caught a glimpse of orange as a fist to the chin sent him flying backwards. Hitting the dirt wasn't pleasant, but it was a welcomed new sensation, given the blue cloudless sky offering itself to his eyes.
What was happening? Where was he? And who was he fighting?
"Awake now?" said a cheerful voice.
Picking himself up, Corvo saw an orange-headed teenager in a weird black dress. And the guy was beaming with joy.
"Took you long enough, I was afraid Aizen would come before you got out of it."
"Who are you?"
"Just give it a minute, it's coming."
"What is?"
"In-loop memories. You should get them any minute now."
"In-what?"
"Oh boy, you're new. Okay, stay right here. I'll get us a nice little vacation and give you the speech."
Saying that, the teen seemed to... vanish in a burst of speed.
A shunpo. Wait, how did he know that?
"So... a broken tree." deadpanned the ordinarily empress's bodyguard.
"Yep."
"... What now?"
The shinigami substitute thought it through for a few seconds, before making up his mind.
"Well, you just got the 'Welcome-to-the-Multiverse' speech. Since you're replacing Byakuya and judging from what you told me of your baseline, there's no need to annoy you with kenjustu or kidô. So let's stay practical and start with 'subspace pocket 101' and move on to 'ping for dummies'."
Corvo Attano smiled, for the first time in forever.
"Let's."
1.06
Three unconscious smugglers, brought down entirely through spiritual pressure, in under a single second. As that Kurosaki fellow had predicted, Dunwall citizens weren't ready to support this kind of energy, especially with his captain-level reiatsu. It was now time to see if he had been correct on that too.
"So you convinced them, that's a relief. Thank you for your kindness, pretenders are way too eager for their own good." stated Granny Rags with a small smile.
It made the old blind women seem almost friendly. But Corvo was beyond that now, he knew too well what she was. A horrid witch, feeding upon Void magic and human flesh to stay mostly alive.
And he hadn't yet met a single undead who would not succumb to his fairly-new power. Fairly, considering it through a shinigami lifespan.
"Split, Keimei."
Good thing that a zanpakuto was soul-linked. His subspace pocket was still too small to store anything other that his copy of 'Looping Tips, by Hermione Granger'.
On someone as twisted as Granny Rags, a kônso wasn't an option. He would purge her the old way, through cold hard steel.
It appeared there was little he could do without her cameo. The sorceress had dissolved into rats the instant his shikai had struck her, and only her voice had stayed, lingering in the air.
"So, the Outsider was right about you. Not only are you stealing his mark, you're also bringing the void to its knees, forcing it to fold upon himself. Beware stranger, for your powers may be your own end."
Corvo methodically crushed the few rats remaining in the apartment, 'till he couldn't sense any more. It was time consuming, but he had plenty. His end was nothing more that a new beginning.
1.07
"Mom, what are those men doing on the rooftop?" asked the little princess, fear making her voice shake.
Corvo simply walked to her and put his hands on her eyes. There was a brief metallic sound, followed by screams. Soon, the imperial bodyguard took his hand away from Emily's face, only to reveal an empty roof and her ill-looking mother.
For the local Anchor, Awakening early was always a good thing. Almost as good as a good supply of enhanced Spring Razors.
1.08
"Mom, what are those men doing on the rooftop?" asked the little princess, fear making her voice shake.
Corvo simply came closer to hug her, blocking her field of vision with his larger body. A brief buzzing sound and the imperial bodyguard let go of Emily, smiling.
"Corvo, what is this thing?" asked the little princess, pointing to the weird object that appeared out of nowhere.
"That's an arc pylon, sweetheart."
1.09
The High Overseer Campbell heard a small gasp coming from Captain Curnow. Surely was he realizing that his wine had been poisoned, that death was coming for him and every other enemy of their new empire.
Only one of the two men walked out of the meeting room. The overseers standing by the doors soon found that Campbell's glass had been filled with whale oil and small scrap parts. The result had been... messy.
On the office's rooftop, Corvo was raising his whine glass to Pietro's genius and arc pylon leftovers. This loop was going to be fun.
1.10
"Great oak!" roared the new moon goddess.
From the other side of the room, her huntress of a sister grumbled.
"You're spending too much time with Lokison."
"Hey, I heard that!"
"Planning on stealing him from Epona, aren't you?" chirped the white-winged woman, last of the moon trinity.
"Am not. Sleipnir's just doing me a favor."
"By being charming?" teased Séléné.
"Prince and stead, all in one." add Artemis.
"Hush you. And no, he's making a Mobius Patch for Corvo's loop to work properly. It should lower the baseline occurrence and allow more fused-loops."
"That's great, but it doesn't justify bad-mouthing." point Artemis.
"I just loaded a beta version to see how it would work out, but that chlorophyll of a Void is echoing with the subspace pockets."
Séléné narrowed her eyes on her sister's screen where data kept on shifting. Then she saw it.
"Oh, it's gonna be good. Come Mis, you can't possibly miss that one."
The Leviathan was feeling a strange disturbance in the Void, like it was confined... somehow more crippled than usual. The great whale suddenly saw a small burst of light and something that looked like a severed hand coming out of it.
Corvo Attano pulled his whole arm out of his subspace pocket and eyed what he had caught... his mind went blank as the loop crashed.
Nothing much to say here.
1.01 - Let's get it started.
1.02 - It's getting old.
1.03 - Here, take a bullet.
1.04 - A crazy Corvo ? Nah, we would have known it.
1.05 - Putting him in place of Byakuya was convenient, but I keep thinking he would have been way more efficient in Soi Fon's shoes.
1.06 - 'Keimei' means 'dawn' and 'Split' is because of .. reasons. Don't worry, everything will be explained later.
1.07 - Watch where you're walking, you might hurt yourself.
1.08 - Oh, stop that, it tickles.
1.09 - Remember guys, alcohol is bad for your health.
1.10 - Crashing cetacea, though it was appropriate.