AUTHOR'S NOTES:
After going on a Blazblue kick to rediscover some of my old love for the franchise and a friend enabling my intrusive thoughts, I thought why not do what everyone else is and do a Blue Archive crossover.
I'm uploading a chunk of chapters with the initial upload here as wanted to get through the opening act as quickly as I could and not make anyone wait for too long to set the tone and pace of this crossover, quickly get to the important divergences. I'd advise to read this initial upload(The other two may take a few minutes to show up if you just clicked on this) of the first 3 chapters before reviewing, please. Chapter 4's about done and should come in a few days at most, possibly sooner. Future uploads will be done chapter by chapter instead of batches like this.
They'll be spoilers for Blazblue for everything up to Central Fiction as this is Ragna post-CF, if anyone still cares about those.
If you've come here from my other story, it's just way on the backburner right now as I get the notes I promised together.
Taking the dreams of everyone, even his own siblings, that should've been the end of it all. The world was going to be remade with everyone's wishes fulfilled. Free from the intervention and time manipulations of the Master Unit, free from the evil god intent on destroying it, but most importantly, free from the existence of him, Ragna the Bloodedge, and all the conflict that came to him like a magnet. It was supposed to be a happy ending for everyone but himself, and though Ragna wouldn't deny the part of him that wished for a happier outcome for himself as well, it was a sacrifice he was willing to make for the sake of the world and everyone he cared about even if it cost his very existence.
… So then why the hell did he still… Exist?
Ragna had expected complete oblivion and non-existence to greet him after he erased himself, but that was not the case. Instead, he found himself in a train car that was empty of passengers. The only sounds that greeted him were the low hum of the car traveling across the tracks. But there was something else odd about his sight, or rather the lack of it. But something Ragna sensed, or more specifically didn't, immediately explained it.
"What the hell, there's not any Seithr here." Ragna commented with a scowl using his one good eye. Both his right eye and arm, dependent upon the Azure Grimoire and its need for Seithr, the energy substance that permeated the air of his world, were utterly useless, yet not fully numb his right arm felt incredibly heavy despite being immobile, a though which raised alarm in his head. Shouldn't the Idea Engine have taken care of that? Wait, no, it wouldn't have since the Idea Engine, and Noise Canceler in it responsible for him being able to use his upper right half in the absence of seithr, had been damaged when Ragna overloaded it to hold off Susano'o, he'd checked that when first arriving in Kivotos.
No, what the hell, something was definitely off here. How did he know that name?
Ragna could feel information, other memories, starting to trickle into his mind and provide answers. Some hazy, some clear, some slowly becoming more defined as the bizarreness of his situation set in. Many of them were images of teenage girls with halos over their heads. Some were happy, like 5 gathered around a whiteboard in a rundown school discussing how to help save it with him, others included grim images of chaos in the streets and one girl with long silver hair and wings sobbing over a body.
Was this some kind of phenomena intervention? He'd been subject to it before and just like now it often left a conflicting set of memories and information, sometimes even memory loss, as even the rewriting of time and causality couldn't fully overcome the Azure Grimoire's power. Yet everything else was still intact, his clothes, his sword Aramasa, and his memories of his life were even entirely untouched, well, mostly. Every time he tried to think of how he even got here, he was met by an odd headache. What the hell had happened after he reset the world?
No matter, he was experienced in such a strange situation and so Ragna was quick to recompose himself and let the answers flow into his mind, the most recent events seemed to be the clearest, which worked fine to explain his current situation. That was right, he'd brought the General Student Council President onto the train after she was gravely injured in the explosive chaos that gripped the crumbling Kivotos to try and get her to safety, she must've been the presence in the other car that felt weak. He'd gone to check the other cars firstly to see if anyone could help, as Ragna lacked much experience with healing Ars Magus since he could normally regenerate even otherwise lethal wounds with a little time from the Azure Grimoire, but secondly to ensure they hadn't been followed and weren't in any more danger.
He could try to make sense of all this later, for now, the girl in the other car needed help. He could parse everything once certain the other wasn't going to die on him.
Opening up the door to the adjacent compartment, Ragna peered inside the identical car. Red seats with metal silver walls and a few windows to peer into the outside world where a slowly setting sun cast its orange rays into the room. It was no different than the previous one, except for the sole occupant.
It was a young girl, no older than 18, with sky blue hair that went down past her knees which had an oddly pink underside to it, making her hair almost resemble cotton candy. She wore a long white dress with a second layered vest over her chest. The solid color made the tremendous amount of blood on her left side staining it and the already crimson cushions she sat on even more pronounced. Her left side from nearly her shoulder to waist was dyed a dark crimson with blood that was yet to fully dry, it was even more of an attention grabbing sight than the halo above her head, that of a white ring with an angled blue star within it. Her expression was sullen, resigned even. Even with one half of her face covered by hair, the single visible blue eye looked completely defeated.
Though Ragna kept his face calm, he was used to far more graphic injuries than this, he knew a horrific wound when he saw it. If not for being superhumanly durable, a thought Ragna didn't question how he knew, that kind of blood loss would've been fatal without immediate medical attention. Even being conscious was a testament to the girl's endurance, despite the pale face that was still feeling the effects of her injuries. Survival wasn't impossible, but it certainly wasn't guaranteed either
"Hey," Ragna spoke up gently, drawing the girl's attention to him as he walked over toward her. "There's no one else on the train right now, so you're safe. But try not to move so much until we stop. You've lost enough blood already." In this place, whatever the story was, he clearly knew this girl well, seeing her in this state stirred up plenty of worry. He was still sorting through this second set of memories, slowly forming a picture of how he knew this person, but if he was dealing with someone who very well could've been dying he could roll with the situation for a little longer to keep her calm and let the memories come to him.
The girl shook her head with a somber smile. "Thanks for checking, Ragna, but it doesn't matter. Will you sit with me for a bit?"
A little confused, Ragna slowly took a seat to the girl's right.
After a moment, she sighed deeply. "It was all my fault. My decisions, and everything they caused. It had come to this for me to finally realize that you were right all along…"
"Little late for that." Ragna huffed with a sigh. He and the General Student Council president, the entire General Student Council really, had butted heads a few times over various matters, matters Ragna was still trying to remember all the specifics of, but he was pretty sure it had something to do with him, initially at least, effectively being an unaffiliated party that disregarded the GSC's authority in vigilante work. It was almost like trying to recall a dream right after waking up. Fragments and feelings remained that weren't unlike when he had been sent 100 years back in time to the Dark War, where he was able to recall numerous fragments of future knowledge or even recognize people in the past without understanding why, yet the whole metaphorical picture had been blurry and impossible to see with most of his memory gone.
"Don't start beating yourself up with self-pity yet though, you're better than that. If you can do that then you can put that energy into fixing this mess once you're fixed up yourself." Kivotos was in utter disarray right now, there wasn't time to feel sorry for yourself.
The girl's smile widened just a hair into something that looked genuine. "Despite how blunt it can be, I know how much you care and appreciate it. I wouldn't have expected that from when I first met you."
When was that again…? It was following doing something that'd almost gotten him branded a criminal, again for causing grief to a company, the name which escaped him, that'd been causing troubles for the first students he'd met exploring Kivotos because no one else was doing a damn thing about it. The thought gave him flashbacks to the NOL.
"So forgive me for being so bold, but I must ask for your help again, Ragna."
Ragna raised his one good eye brow, looking at her curiously.
"You'll forget these words, but it won't matter."
Ragna's suspicion only grew further at her strange words, scoffing. "Try me, I've dealt with whatever memory crap's been thrown my way more than once." What was she even talking about? Was the blood loss starting to get to her?
Ragna was starting to get an eerie feeling of deja vu from when he had been preparing to go back in time to the Dark War.
His answer was a bemused chuckle, her tone even lightening up slightly. "When I first met you, I thought that that attitude was just being too prideful, but after everything that confidence is always reassuring to hear. If we'd been able to work together from the beginning, maybe then…" The girl's words trailed off into a wistful melancholy.
The girl shook her head after a moment. "But it doesn't matter. Memories or not, I believe you'll make those choices that only you can make, this time before it's too late."
Once more, she fell silent for only a moment as Ragna listened, content to let the girl ramble. "I've spoken of responsibility before. I didn't truly understand it then, but now I do. Adulthood, responsibility, obligation, and the choices you make which extend beyond those ideals. I even understand their implications. Therefore…"
Another pause.
"… you're the only one I can trust. Only you can free us from this twisted, distorted fate and find the choices that will lead us to a new reality."
… This was definitely sounding oddly familiar to Ragna. "Just what the hell are you planning…?"
His companion turned to look directly at Ragna, a regretful smile over her expression, but she didn't answer him. "So, Ragna… Please…"
Ragna tensed up. Something was wrong, the world was shifting, changing. It was like when he'd killed Izanami and prompted the Master Unit to change reality to accommodate a new possibility where that didn't occur, Phenomena Intervention. But that wasn't it, this didn't feel the same, it was similar but not exact.
But before Ragna could make any further sense of what was happening, the world faded to darkness around him.