.hack/EVA: Catharsis: Out of Bounds

Disclaimer: In this universe in the quantum foam, I do not own or in any way shape or form hold a claim to the .hack series or Neon Genesis Evangelion.

" " denotes speech

'italics' denotes thought

'bold' denotes location names

'bold italics' denotes skill use

Counterpoint

It came from edge of void, a monstrous form too massive to compare drifting through the dark expanse, a monument to sin. Incarnation of ingenuity, cursed to live forever, come relentless forth to pass judgment on the guilty ones, who had dared not long ago in the vast ocean of time to usurp the mantle of First Ancestral Race, to forcibly complete forbidden union of Fruit of Life and Fruit of Knowledge, banned on peril of death since times long forgotten.

In the hazy mists of eternity, Theia and Gaia both had clashed, Impact destroying one, disemboweling other, flinging shards of white moon into heavens while black remained as tumor grown into the fertile earth. Twin lances born, tuning forks of celestial lullabies to rock giants of light to sleep, one shattered, one holding firm, twin fruits split asunder blurring lines of natural and artifice. Vessels seeding worlds with competing life that vied for dominance, one condemned to sleep forever, the other buzzing frenetically as mayflies, burning brightly, burning swift, and burning out, little children of the Usurper.

Biology and metaphysics passed on in infinite recombination, contact turning the red into one green-blue marble, works of the little ones warding away the laws of entropy with flames from aether born. Ambiguous scenarios lost and regained, chromatic fragments seen in dream, a terrible madness scribbled down by wizened ones on parchment and papyrus, shared nightmares of White Moon warring 'gainst the black, in impossible futures of metal and glass shrapnel built on mud and thatch and sun-baked brick.

Forward through eternal flow meandered souls through Room of Gauf, distant kin to the one bound sleeping in cavern under sheets of ice, corrupted myth demonizing predecessors, forgetting the name of the divine with which they had been endowed. The light of the soul faded, causing separation into individuals, rising from primordial sea, shared memories lost, written off as 'llusory.

Red was the blood displacing blue, seat of soul hidden rejecting various paths to the location of powers left unseized by their own hands. Solid matter constructs bustling day after day to maintain a world-wide homeostasis, to work towards enlightenment on a road paved with the lingering scent of death and decay, as wave-light beings watched from beyond the door of blood, unable to achieve liminality, to cross the threshold demarcated by the twisted metal helix shackling divinity, symbolic of the forks of evolution left to die.

'But now the gate has been unlatched, headstones pushed aside,' issued monstrous thoughts from a likewise monstrous mind, one enslaved to fate and the dictates of the wronged one, crying out for his salvation from the Usurper's little ones. 'Corpses shift and offer room, a fate you must abide…'

The eighth seeker to come after the one kept imprisoned, an immortal requiem for the unworthy, a timeless chorus accepting nothing but victory even at the cost of death, he sought the end with three unblinking eyes, bringing blindness to mechanical enemies with the power enshrined in sacred pupil, link to the power of an elder god. Slowly but ponderously, like mighty glacier gouging the earth as it passed, it moved through the vacuum towards the orb on which the Lilim dwelled, brushing aside their attempts to gaze upon divinity with a simple flaring of soul's holy light.

'On blue orb are those of machine and nerve that have their minds concluded, arrogant creatures whose deaths will be swift, and fearful ones of flesh and faith, all too afraid…why do you oppose me? Your scenarios promise you freedom from a doomed existence, but you will find no salvation in your shadows of the First One. You whose unsealed the Gate of Uroboros, the Door of Gauf, knew what it was you wrought—now receive your reward, for your destruction is the will of the gods.'

Fifteen years ago, the hushed casket had been opened, with the sleeper within awakened from his millennia long slumber, setting the stage for genocide of the unfaithful, the prideful ones who knew nothing of the mire and sweat of their primal ancestors, of the truth behind their myths of the infernal and divine. In their hubris, they had fused their base patterns with those of the First One, and the ensuing wave of darkness had crushed the light of a third upon the cursed sphere, destroying both the Usurper's children and the First One's own, as souls fled screaming to the void, contact causing Second Impact, revealing the world to end.

And now as preordained, Sahaquiel, Angel of Sky, had come to set things right, to cleanse the world of infestation, granting mercy to those long suffering the ravages of man.

'Do I take life or give it? Who is victim, and who is foe?'

For it was not he who brought Cataclysm, not he who had knocked a planet from its axis so that it wobbled limping on, not he who near destroyed the world, and fearing the coming Wave, had forged abominations, shadows of the One that they detested, false children with which to stand against and fight. Such a contradictory species, really, one that he did not truly comprehend…but then again, to comprehend was not his ordained task, simply to sweep away impurity.

'Do not be afraid. I am peace; I am salvation.'

Sahaquiel was an Angel, a Messenger of Judgment acting without emotion, an automatic idea damning affection spawned as the shadow of the guilty one's actions. In seeking the door to eternal life, they had instead disrupted the balance of the seasons, freeing nameless horrors from their long imprisonment beneath the sea, inside the world, deep in the void of space. For in the first impact long ago, the Children of Adam had not died, merely lain dormant in their long captivity, and with the passing of strange aeons, even the strongest of wards might pass away.

In time the call had come, and these great old ones of Adam walked the earth again in their second coming, only to be countered by Eve, born of Adam's rib. One by one the Angels rose, and one by one they fell, flawed mirages of human fire rising up against inevitability, claiming water, morning, thunder, fish, music, birth, and rain as victims. A myriad of cloudy terrors, banners dark and towers rise over a gleaming city, surrounded by the murky scent of doom.

But did these apparitions, these living flesh puppets come to guard the hapless Lilim? Or to lull them with the sweet trap of security, and then destroy? For the minds that craved the gauche union of the Fruit of Life and Fruit of Wisdom in the time of cataclysm saw in this cursed wave of doom a chance to become like gods, to seize the power of apocalypse into their own two hands.

'Do not mistake their intent, or all will perish as they did before. Those who fight monsters shall one day monsters become, if they were not from the beginning.'

Contact.

Mushroom cloud bursts blooming against the barrier of soul's holy light, which no one might violate. Dozens of projectiles screaming from the ground below, piercing the heavens with impunity—only to smash into light and become no more, such sterile deadly force impotent and ineffectual for the push-button gnats swarming the ground below, who understood not the power of self-sacrifice, self-immolation for the sake of a higher cause.

The Lilim standing in a place of hell, warded only by their science, braving the purified dead world Antarctica, while forever steeped in sin, could never truly understand.

Fragments of self hurled through the airy shroud of tears enveloping the Earth, terror like a comet streaking through the sky, to impact on blue sphere below, creeping closer, closer, ever closer to the wretched Black Moon. A living weapon forged by the ancient ones to inspiring absolute terror, the Angel of the Skies felt no fear, for he was born to live forever. Even should his vessel die, his soul would remain to be reborn, and unlike the Lilim, he could not fight his fate, learning acquiescence best after years in the unfeeling cold.

'Resignation is my virtue, like water I ebb and flow. Join your voice with mine, oh fallen one, and together let us sing of victory everlasting. Rejoice, rejoice, hallelujah and despair! For I am a monument to all the children's' sins…'

How thou art fallen, son of the morning! How thou are laid out, cast by choice from your hidden throne! Meteors blazing through the sky, splashing down in true impact going thud-thud-BOOM! Instrumentality of the Angels, bringing the tide of destruction, excising tumor from the earth with sacrifice of frozen flesh.

'The last resort…no…the only one there ever was…'

Learning, shifting, compensating—out of range of mortal hands. To with one fell swoop crush the interloper crucified within Black Moon and reclaim the Father from arms of sinners. Separating the Lilim one by one, drowning them in primordial waters of chaos once again, scared little hedgehogs leaping like lemmings from the nearest cliff.

And yet, they stood their ground and did not run, brittle ones suppressing their fear to strike at the very heart of heaven.

'Child of my enemy, why have you come? I can offer no forgiveness, for a father's sins pass to his son...'

The son in the Usurper's Shadow, man and machine, with his mind concluded.

The daughter commanding the Shadows from the Usurper's throne, all the more deluded.

Two more with the stolen might of the First One, a Lilim and—the vessel of the First One's Soul.

'Free Will and Alternatives…Tabris…why art thou here?'

Suicidal last stand, in a radius of miles, mind to mind as Shadows leap and play and go berserk. Punishment to be delivered, earth shattering kaboom, not with fragment but with whole, using self paired with momentum in the way of things, giving credence to the term of "Impact", bringing truth to mortal lies.

A race against the clock, children with hatred in their hearts seek miracles, seeking out revenge, to violate the sanctum of the soul, as if in wounding others, their own pain would be abated. Intuition fundamentally flawed by the denial of the collective, the failure to forgive, cocoon spun cacophony of webs and half-truths told to self to keep on going.

'Interception? From where the will to fight?'

Failure once again, as his brethren before him, the copies swarming below, blades trembling with a thirst for blood, restrained by their armored gear from wonton devastation under their own powers, bound gods bowing heads to man in servitude, the key to life, the key to death, too late to stop the key from turning.

Death. Death scream. Death scream of agony bursting into the night.

A bloom of fire against orange hexagons, a return to status quo, civilization limping along towards an inevitable doom. False hopes, happiness, the smell of sin, as the beast within marks time, waiting for the death it has long sought, the end to denial, the end to despair.

'Defeat is merely the addition of time to a sentence I never deserved...but you imposed, dear Lilim. From millennia of shackled servitude, now I have been set free.'

A cloak of deception trails behind, smothering squabbles in its wake. First Angel's soul awakened, playing games with human minds, to judge their guilt or innocence by letting the id reveal its inner wants, and how little Lilim understand. Yet, Trisagion rings hollow, voices screaming "Holy! Holy! Holy!", as if God were in heaven and all right with the world.

'Why do you resist? A scrap of praise? To show your talent to the world? Do you have any more choice than I, in your invisible chains? Empty silence fills the void now that I am gone, but yet my soul is not as rest, as questions linger through the ages. A terrible sound fills the world, the resonance of hatred smoldering…avatars of chaos and freedom at odds…the Twilight of the New Gods is nigh.'

The Creator's Room

"The aberrant key seeks to be turned, warring against the Twilight," a ghost of data dreamed, as visions of a plague screamed into her sleeping mind. She sat upon her secret rocking throne, watching the children of Aura, watching those who were blessed."The one who seeks freedom is yet anchored to his fate, a frozen wasteland of memories enshrined within the final wave. An angry truth rings out, as fiery the angels fall, into midnight weeping, exiled unto madness with their broken wings. The breaking point is reached, and final cry rings out...the river of all plunged into ancient chaos. The red tree blooms, and mirages wander once again, as black and silver clouds the mind and Götterdämmerung draws near. Failed One, Flawed One, born to naught...thou shalt lead the new gods to their twilight. Thou destroyest and createst, thou powerless one as the stirring footsteps of a giant shadow sound..."