Chapter Twelve - Timeline 4
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[ Omega - The Creator's highest ranked angel ]
The white haired angel floats in the air, staring at Cthullu with a stoic expression. Its mechanical arm emanates smoke, a byproduct of the laser it fired at Cthullu.
Standing below them is A-Chan and Sora, A-Chan standing in front of Sora to protect her.
*Voooom!*
Omega launches another beam and Cthullu quickly teleports away to avoid it. Omega swiftly launches another beam at Cthullu's new position but the god teleports away again.
This cycle continues as Omega gives chase to Cthullu while A-Chan throws debris to destroy the hands grabbing Fauna and Kronii, freeing the two from the giant hand's grip.
*Boom!*
The two gods fall to the floor, catching themselves on a giant flower Fauna creates on the ground as they fall.
"A-Chan, where's IRyS!?" Kronii asks frantically as she watches Omega and Cthullu fighting behind her. "IRyS isn't ready yet, she's still-"
*Boom!*
A-Chan tries to respond, but she's interrupted by Omega, who crash landed right next to her.
"Watch out, he's coming." Omega warns the girls nonchalantly as they get up, causing A-Chan and Kronii turn around to see a swarm of fists flying towards them.
*Ruuummbbllee*
*Boom!* *Boom!* *Boom!*
Fauna summons multiple stone spikes from the ground, each spike piercing and destroying the hands before retracting into the ground. "Huff, Omega, you and A-Chan keep Cthullu busy, huff, me and Kronii will try to talk to the Creator." Fauna says, her breathing becoming heavy due to the fatigue she's accumulated over the course of the battle.
"Ok." Omega replies calmly, drawing their sword as they fly back into battle. As A-Chan runs, she suddenly stops and turns around to look at Fauna. "Please, keep Sora safe." A-Chan tells Fauna, a worried expression in her face. "Don't worry A-Chan, we'll protect Sora at all costs." Fauna replies, an assuring smile on her face.
Her mind now at ease about Sora's safety, A-Chan turns around and rushes towards Cthullu.
*Boom!* *Boom!* *Boom!*
Omega flies around Cthullu, cutting down flying fist after flying fist as the god sends an onslaught of attacks to halt the angel's offense.
While Cthullu is distracted with fighting Omega, A-Chan sneaks behind the god and strikes them with a powerful punch to the back of their head.
*Thud!*
A-Chan's punch only stuns Cthullu for a second, but that's all the time Omega needs. She fires a beam at Cthullu,
*Voooom!*
The beam completely passes through Cthullu's body, leaving a gaping hole in their chest while narrowly avoiding hitting A-Chan, who just barely managed jump out of the beam's way.
"You are getting to be an especially troublesome nuisance." Cthullu says as the hole in their chest quickly regenerates. Omega raises their arm, ready to fire another beam, but a mass of energy suddenly surrounds the angel.
In an instant, Omega disappears, Cthullu having teleported them away to an unidentified location. "I am not interested in playing games anymore." Cthullu says, summoning a mass of tentacles to grab A-Chan.
"Urgh!" A-Chan grunts as she struggles to escape from the writhing tentacles. Cthullu ignores A-Chans cries and teleports in front of Fauna, Kronii, and Sora.
Fauna immediately stands in between Cthullu and Sora, who's eyes are glowing a bright white as the Creator possesses her body. "Kronii! Get Sora out of here!" Fauna shouts as she creates a wall of stone between her and Kronii. "Fauna, please don't die." Kronii says worriedly from behind the stone wall. "I'm sorry Kronii, I don't think I'll be able to follow that command." Fauna mutters quietly as she stares down Cthullu.
Cthullu raises its arm, summoning a-
*Slick!*
*Splat*
The yellow axe cuts straight through Cthullu's arm and swiftly flies back to its wielder. "You're not touching Sora." Suisei says furiously as she catches her weapon.
"I do not have time to play your foolish games." Cthullu says as they snap their fingers.
*Snap*
Cthullu looks around in confusion and snaps their fingers again.
*Snap*
"What did you do?" Cthullu asks Fauna, who looks back at Cthullu with a slight smile. "I placed down a sanctity flower. It's an ancient species of flower that briefly disables the magic of anyone that inhales its spores." Fauna explains. "Of course, that includes me as well." Fauna says, moving her hand like she does when she creates life, only for nothing to happen.
"You are making a dangerous gamble, pest." Cthullu says as they look down at Fauna. "I know that I can't beat you without using magic, but I do know someone that might be able to." Fauna replies confidently as she nods her head to her right.
Cthullu immediately turns to their left,
*Thud!*
*Crack!*
Only to be met with Suisei's axe slamming into their jaw.
*Thud!*
Suisei follows up her attack with another hit to Cthullu's jaw, this one being an uppercut with her broken left hand. Cthullu's head flies upwards as blood violently shoots out of their mouth and nose.
Cthullu's broken jaw falls off of their head, the god catching the bloody part and attaching it back onto their face.
*Bam!*
Suisei slams her left hand into Cthullu's stomach, causing the god to spew even more blood from their mouth. "Foolish pest! You think you can defeat me!" Cthullu shouts as they recoil from Suisei's punch.
*Slick*
*Splash*
Suisei's axe cuts through Cthullu's neck, sending the god's head flying. "Huff, puff." Suisei lowers her arm as she looks at Cthullu's severed head.
"It is not over yet, pest!" Cthullu's head shouts as their body throws a straight punch at Suisei.
*Bam!*
*Crack!*
Suisei blocks with a cross gaurd, but her left arm is crushed under the weight of the god's punch. She quickly jumps backwards, but Cthullu quickly catches up to her.
"Tch!" Suisei swings her axe at Cthullu's body, but they swiftly catch the weapons handle with their left hand. The god pulls on the axe handle, bringing Suisei closer.
*Thud!*
*Crack!*
A right hook sends Suisei staggering backwards as she spews out blood. Suisei tries to retaliate with a kick to Cthullu's stomach, but the god's body catches Suisei's left leg and uses it to lift up her entire body.
The god raises Suisei over their neck and throws her, sending her flying towards the stone wall Fauna erected.
*Boom!*
Suisei slams into the stone, landing upright. While she's still stunned by the impact, Cthullu's body grabs her by the head.
*Boom!* *Boom!* *Boom!* *Boom!*
*Boom!* *Boom!* *Boom!* *Boom!*
*Boom!* *Boom!* *Boom!* *Boom!*
*Boom!* *Boom!* *Boom!* *Boom!*
Cthullu repeatedly slams Suisei's head into the wall until it turns into a substance that's reminiscent of tomato paste.
"Did you believe that she could beat me?" Cthullu's head tells Fauna as it rolls towards its body. "No..." Fauna exclaims under heavy breaths as she stares in disbelief at Suisei's body.
"It seems like my magic has returned." Cthullu says, summoning a tentacle out of the ground with one hand and picking up their head with the other. "Be grateful Kirin, you are not my highest priority as of now." Cthullu says as they attach their head back onto their neck and,
*Snap*
Their fingers, teleporting away.
Kronii is looking around, on edge after hearing the sound of Suisei's head being pulverised. Meanwhile, Sora is in a trance like state, her soul being astral projected into heaven as she talks to the Creator.
Cthullu suddenly appears in front of Kronii, the time god pointing her swords at her enemy on sight. "Out of the way." Cthullu says as they fling their fingers to the side, summoning a giant tentacles that swats Kronii across the room.
"I cannot have the creator of this universe interfering." Cthullu says as they create a giant hand above Sora, who's still standing perfectly in place, unaware of what's happening in the physical world.
*Boom!*
*Splat!*
"Now I can finally get rid of you." Cthullu says, turning around to point at Fauna, who is now standing behind them. "Not so fast."
*Bang!*
A bullet flies straight through Cthullu's skull, creating a hole in the god's head. But they couldn't care less about the injury, caring more about finding out which pest just shot them in the head.
"So you have recovered, Civilization." Cthullu says as they turn to face Mumei, who's holding a sniper rifle in her right hand. "I will punish you for interfering."
Bae swiftly turns her head, avoiding another one of Laplus's invisible atom splitters. She leaps backwards and takes in a deep breath.
"Huff... can't we just... call it a tie?" Bae jokes, placing her hands on her knees. Ever since Laplus started using her new technique, Bae has been constantly avoiding attacks, leaving her fatigued and with cuts all over her body.
"I told you not to look down on Me." Laplus says as she sticks out her finger and walks closer to Bae. "Don't act all high and mighty Laplus, I'm not even in my final form." Bae jokes, standing upright in anticipation of Laplus's attack.
"Then why don't you use [it]? Maybe then you'll give Me a challenge." Laplus says confidently as she gets closer to Bae. "You know what, I think I will." Bae says, raising her fingers up to her face. "[shed]!" Bae shouts as drops her fingers, activating her [shed] form.
The universe tears itself open as Bae's power unleashes. But her physical form looks the same, her power instead unleashing outwards, creating a barrier around her and Laplus.
"What..." The god of knowledge exclaims, looking around dumbfounded. "Hehe, welcome to my circus." Bae says with a smile, stretching her arms widely outwards.
Laplus looks around in disbelief, never in her life has she ever considered something like this to be possible. Bae had transformed the area around them into a circus, with them standing on the stage in the middle while the sides of the tent spin like a carousel.
"This is your [shed] form?" Laplus asks in an attempt to gain a single bit of information on Bae's ability. "Pretty cool isn't it." Bae says, smiling playfully.
Laplus steps backwards while keeping a close eye on Bae, being extremely cautious. She's never seen this type of thing before, and she can't gain any knowledge on it no matter how much she analyses.
*Bam!*
Bae's fist suddenly slams into Laplus's face, and before the god can even react,
*Bam!*
Bae punches her back, and in an instant,
*Bam!*
Bae kicks Laplus in the face. Laplus quickly teleports to the other side of the stage, but what awaits her there is another kick to the face.
*Bam!*
"I bet you aren't used to being caught by suprise." Bae says cheekily, standing in front of Laplus with both hands on her hips. Laplus couldn't think of a response, instead, she was trying to figure out the power of Bae's circus.
It seemed to allow her to teleport anywhere within the circus, and allow Bae to do impossible things like kick Laplus in the face while simultaneously standing behind her.
But how was she doing those things? That's the question that Laplus was trying to answer. But before Laplus can understand Bae's ability, her assault started up again.
"Get ready for my Clown-Zooka!" Bae shouts as she points a clown themed bazooka at Laplus. The bazooka itself looks like a clown, with the missile is loaded into its mouth.
'Where did she get that weapon?' Laplus thought to herself, Bae never had anything with her during their fight. Can Bae's circus create objects as well?
"Get clowned!" Bae shouts as she pulls the trigger, sending the missile flying towards Laplus.
Laplus swiftly teleports behind Bae, avoiding the rocket while charging up her own attack.
*Boom!*
The rocket suddenly appears in front of Laplus and explodes on her face. She quickly jumps backwards to avoid any follow-up attacks, but as she jumps backwards, Bae grabs her from behind and lifts her up into the air.
*Boom!*
Bae slams Laplus into the ground face first. Laplus tries to teleport away, but no matter where she goes, she somehow ends up facing the ground.
Laplus tries to push her body off of the ground,
*Boom!*
but Bae quickly puts her back down with a powerful downward kick. "It's game over, Laplus." Bae says as she digs her foot into Laplus's back. "Don't underestimate Me." Laplus says scornfully, her atom splitter forming around her fingers.
"Good game." Bae says, the pointed tip of a sword now placed on Laplus's head.
*Bang!* *Bang!* *Bang!* *Bang!* *Bang!* *Bang!* *Bang!* *Bang!* *Bang!* *Bang!* *Bang!*
Mumei fires bullet after bullet at Cthullu from the turrets mounted on her shoulders as both gods flying across the room, trying to avoid each other's attacks.
Mumei launches a missile from the hole in her chest and Cthullu avoids the attack by teleporting onto the ground. Fauna quickly flies at the grounded god, attempting to swallow Cthullu whole.
*Boom!*
Cthullu slaps Fauna with a giant hand, pinning the dragon to the floor. A mass of energy surrounds Fauna as Cthullu tries to teleport her away, but a batch of sanctity flowers Fauna creates disables Cthullu's magic.
After seeing Bae activate her [shed] form, Mumei, Kronii, and Fauna went into their own [forms].
But fearing Kronii's time reversal, Cthullu removed Kronii's hands, disabling her ability to use her [shed] form.
Being able to enter their [shed] forms before Cthullu was able to intervene, Mumei, who had transformed into a futuristic cyborg, and Fauna, whose [true] form is a giant, golden Chinese dragon, battle Cthullu while Kronii tries to avoid getting killed.
"These flowers are getting to be a nuisance." Cthullu says as they step on the plants and trample them.
*Bang!* *Bang!* *Bang!* *Bang!* *Bang!* *Bang!* *Bang!* *Bang!* *Bang!* *Bang!* *Bang!*
Mumei's turrets unload bullets onto the now defenceless Cthullu, the god being forced to retreat by flying to a higher level.
As the bulets fly through Cthullu's body, Fauna flies at the god, opening her wide mouth to bite them. Seeing Fauna approaching, Cthullu deliberately jumps inside of Fauna's mouth.
Now that Fauna's in the way, Mumei ceases fire. Feeling Cthullu inside of her mouth, Fauna swallows them whole, sending the god down her throat.
"Fauna! Did you get him!?" Mumei asks as she slowly flies up to Fauna's level. "I th- Bleeerghh!" Fauna vomits out a fountain of blood as Cthullu bursts through her chest.
*Boom!*
Fauna falls to the ground, unable to support her flight after sustaining heavy damage. Cthullu then flies upwards, their tentacles reappearing on their back as their magic is restored.
*Bang!* *Bang!* *Bang!* *Bang!* *Bang!* *Bang!* *Bang!* *Bang!* *Bang!* *Bang!* *Bang!*
Before Cthullu can deal lethal damage to Fauna, Mumei sprays them with bullets, causing Cthullu to create a shield of black sludge in front of them, which absorbs every bullet that Mumei fires.
"You are an especially troublesome one." Cthullu says before teleporting away. Mumei quickly looks behind her to see Cthullu standing behind her. But she also sees Bae holding onto Cthullu's back.
"It's your turn Cthullu!" Bae shouts as she pushes herself off of Cthullu's body, sending the god flying downwards, while she gets flung upwards.
*Boom!*
Cthullu quickly gets up, only to be met with a rain of dice and missiles flying towards them. With a,
*Snap*
Cthullu teleports Mumei and Bae's attacks away.
"This guy's a cheeky bugger, isn't he?" Bae jokes as she lands on the flying Mumei. "Cthullu is above the concept of gender." Mumei replies robotically. "Well, I guess that makes sense, since she's literally a robot." Bae sarcastically replies to my narration, causing Mumei to look at her in confusion.
The pair regain their focus as a swarm of giant fists flies up at them. Mumei gets ready to fire at the hands by priming the missiles on her arms. Bae on the other hand, notices that Cthullu is missing and turns around to find Cthullu flying towards them from above, striking with an army of tentacles.
*Boom!* *Boom!* *Slick* *Boom!* *Boom!* *Slick* *Boom!* *Boom!* *Slick*
Mumei launches a flurry missiles that destroy the hands, while Bae throws high speed dice that cut through the tentacles.
But by the time Bae had cut through all the tentacles, Cthullu had already reached striking distance. "Cthullu incoming!" Bae shouts as she clings onto Mumei and flips her around, so she's now the one facing Cthullu.
*Boom!*
Cthullu's punch sends Mumei and Bae flying downwards until they slam into the ground. "Ouch! You're heavy!" Bae exclaims as she pushes Mumei off of her, the two quickly standing back up and regaining their balance.
*Crackle*
*Crackle*
Cthullu's punch had carved a hole into Mumei's chest, causing her internal wiring to spill out.
"Are you two okay!?" Fauna asks worriedly, now flying again after healing her chest. "Yeah, we're good, right Mumei?" Bae asks, leaning on Mumei's shoulder and Mumei gives a quick little thumbs up in response.
"Cthullu did all of this?" Amelia asks, looking around at the pool of bodies spread across the area. "Amelia, you're awake?" Bae asks in disbelief. "Fauna healed us while you were fighting Cthullu." Cali says as she walks towards the group and reveals herself. "I honestly thought you were dead." Mumei says with a deadpan expression.
"I finally have you all in one place." Cthullu says, looking down at the council as they fly above them. Cthullu raises their hand, summoning a massive ball of black sludge above them that hardens into a boulder like object.
*Boooom!*
Suddenly, a pitch-black shadow covers the land as a giant meteor falls from the sky, crashing into and destroying the black boulder.
"Ohohohoho! Fauna's doing the Madara!" Bae shouts as she jumps in excitement. Cthullu looks up at the giant meteor, and then down at Fauna. "Foolish Kirin. That meteor will destroy you as well."
"Anything to defeat you!" Fauna shouts as she swings her tail down, that action summoning another larger meteor that crashes into the first one.
*Boooom!*
"Is Fauna actually gonna sacrifice us!?" Amelia asks frantically. "Nah, she's not that reckless." Bae says casually as she waves off Amelia's panicked question, looking more concerned about watching the meteors smash into each other.
"This is nothing for me." Cthullu says as they raise their arm.
*Vwoooom!*
Cthullu blasts the two meteors with a ginormous black laser that completely envelopes and erases them in an instant.
"Cthullu is gaining new abilities! That means that they're close to fully awakening!" Mumei shouts as she quickly flies up to Cthullu. Fauna follows suit, creating four dragons bigger than [Coco] to fight alongside her.
Cali brings her fingers close to her face as she tries to enter her [shed] form, but Bae stops her by grabbing her fingers before she can transform.
"Bae! What are you doing!?" Cali says as she throws Bae's hand off of her fingers. "If you want to beat Cthullu, you'll need the council's power." Bae suddenly says in an uncharacteristicly serious tone.
"The council's power?" Cali asks, causing Bae to flash a wide smile. "If you join the council, you'll be able to use your true power, a power even more powerful than your [shed] form."
Cali is taken aback by Bae's statement. "You can make me a part of the council, ...right now?" Cali asks, completely confused by Bae's proposition. "That's right. So what do you say?" Bae asks, reaching out her right hand.
Cali thinks about this important decision. She's hesitant at first, but after thinking back to the state that Ina is in, Cali grabs Bae's hand and shakes it. "Bring it on."
The universe morphs and changes shape, it's order being upturned by the council's first new member in millions of years.
A flood of knowledge enters Cali's mind as the power of the Creator runs through her veins. Cali looks down at her hands, trying to verify if what just happened was real.
"Welcome to the council, Mori Calliope." Bae says as she claps softly. But Cali isn't concerned with the fanfare, there's just one thing on her mind. Kill Cthullu.
"[shed]!" Cali transforms, sending ripples throughout the fabric of the universe. Her giant skeletal form was now clearly visible, her robe no longer needing to hide any imperfections.
In addition to Kaela's scythe in her right hand, Cali creates an addition scythe on her left. The scythe being covered in the underworld's eternal flames.
"Haha! Now that's awesome!" Bae exclaims in excitement as she jumps onto Cali's right scythe. Cali flies into the air, bringing her arms back, getting ready to swing at Cthullu.
*Vwoooom!*
*Vwoooom!*
*Vwoooom!*
In addition to the giant hands and tentacles they summoned, Cthullu also releases an onslaught of lasers, Fauna and Mumei barely being able to attack because how much they're focused on just avoiding Cthullu's attacks.
"Chuck me at 'im!" Bae tells Cali as she crawls to the edge of her scythe. Cali looks at Bae, and then at Cthullu. "Alright, time to fly!" Cali shouts as she swings her right scythe forwards, flinging Bae at Cthullu.
Bae flies through the air, flying past Cthullu's many floating hands and tentacles. Before Cthullu can react, Bae manages to grapple onto the god's front.
"Taste my big brain power!" Bae shouts as she cocks her head back.
*Bam!*
*Bam!*
*Bam!*
Bae headbutts Cthullu over and over, the god getting stunned and slow to retaliate. "Get off of me, pest." Cthullu pries Bae off of their chest and throws her down towards the ground.
"Oof!" Bae exclaims as she lands. She realises that where she landed was still in the sky, and moving, so she looks around her landing point.
"Fauna! You caught me." Bae says as she holds onto her friend's golden scales.
Meanwhile, Cali reaches Cthullu and swings her giant scythe at them. Cthullu swiftly dodges and retaliates with a punch from a giant fist
*Bam!*
Cali blocks the fist with her left scythe and quickly retaliates with a swing of her right scythe.
Cthullu narrowly avoids Cali's blade, and quickly teleports behind her. Cali turns around, only to see Cthullu closing their outstretched hand.
A giant hand appears behind Cali and grasps her. She struggles to break free, but before she can, the giant hand goes barrelling down to the ground.
*Booom!*
Seeing Cali fall right next to her was the last straw in Kronii's mind, now was the time for plan B.
Kronii quickly runs to Amelia and grabs her attention. "Amelia, I'm going to transfer all of my power to your watch. I want you to travel as far back in time as possible." Amelia is a little surprised, but quickly accepts Kronii's command. "Okay, let's do this."
Amelia's watch glows as Kronii closes her eyes and enters a trance like state. Amelia's pocket watch slowly floats upwards as Kronii's power flows into it, the sound of a hundred ticking clocks echo around her.
Shortly after, Kronii awakens and the watch falls back down and hangs on Amelia's waist.
"It's done. It's time rewind the clock." Kronii says as she catches her breath, transferring her power taking a lot of energy out of her. "I will not let you do that." Cthullu says, reaching out its arm to fire a laser.
*Booom!*
But an explosive from Mumei diverts Cthullu's attention towards her. "Don't worry Amelia, we'll protect you." Mumei says, flying in between Cthullu and Amelia. "That's right, just focus on rewinding the clock!" Fauna says as she summons a pair of dragons to guard Amelia. Amelia gives a determined nod as she opens her pocket watch.
She turns back the clock's hands as fast as possible as Cthullu and the council battle around her.
*Boom!*
Fauna falls besides Amelia, diverting the detective's attention towards her. "Don't worry about me Amelia! Just keep rewinding!" Fauna shouts as she quickly flies back up and rejoins the battle.
Amelia returns to rewinding the hands, ignoring all the destruction happening around her. She's been counting how much she reversed, and around a week is how much she's rewinded.
*Boom!*
*Boom!*
The two dragons protecting her fall to the ground as they perish. Sweat falls from Amelia's fingers into the watch as she gets more and more nervous.
*Boom!*
A week and two days, that's how far Amelia had reversed when Bae crash landed in front of her. But Amelia pays no mind to the mangled chaos, instead focusing on moving her fingers as fast as possible.
Amelia's thoughts became even more distorted as Cthullu gets closer to awakening. She's barely able to keep her focus on rewinding the hands, wanting instead to try to quell the pain in her head.
But she pushes onwards, reaching a week and six days when Mumei and Fauna fall. Cthullu doesn't even bothering to kill them, the god's focus more on stopping Amelia from reversing time.
"I cannot let you get in the way of my awakening." Cthullu says, their voice getting closer to Amelia as they descend from their flight.
Amelia's anxiety grows every second, she doesn't know how many allies she has left to protect her or how long she has left until Cthullu kills her.
*Vwoooom!*
Amelia hears the sound Cthullu's laser firing above her, and she brace herself for the moment her body will get evaporated by Cthullu's attack.
But nothing happens, something must have gotten in the way of Cthullu's laser. As Amelia keeps her focus on her watch's hands, a tattered and burnt black ribbon falls in front of Amelia, it's blue colour being burnt off by Cthullu's laser.
Afraid of any more attacks from Cthullu, Amelia lets go of the watches hands, triggering the reversal of time.
Time quickly reverses at a speed Amelia has never experienced before, the world rapidly spinning around her as the timeline resets.
Amelia falls to the floor, the nausea from time travel overtaking her. In an instant, the world stops moving, and the timeline returns to how it was two weeks ago. With this, Amelia would get another chance at preventing Cthullu's awakening.
[Timeline 4 / May 10, 2021 - One of Hololive Japan's event halls]
—
Author's notes:
Hey, Yur3i here! Did you miss me? I just want to say thank you for reading all the way to stage 0's climactic finale. I'm so happy that a lot of people decided to read my first fic. I mean, 4 favorites and three hundred-something views!? That's crazy to me!
For this author's notes, I wanted to elaborate on my thoughts about each chapter, so... I'll do that.
CHAPTER ONE:
This was my first time writing anything so I was really worried if it was good or not. It's okay, but it's definitely at the level of the chapters are at now. It's also missing things that I like to do in recent chapters like using italics and having funny haha's. So if I didn't release chapter one until I finished chapter 8, why didn't I re-write chapter 1 to be the same level of quality as chapter 8? Because I was lazy, that's why. Also, I just wanted to release this fic as soon as possible.
CHAPTER TWO:
When I was writing this chapter, I realised, "Kronii's a little too serious, isn't she?" So I really turned up her silliness and playfulness in this chapter. I also fiddled around a bit with the rules of Amelia's time travel. Before, she was able to rewind time up to like, 3 hours, but she was only able to do it once per day. But after reading Would You Trust a Time Traveller? by Shadrake1, I realised that I wanted to involve Ame's time travel abilities in combat more.
CHAPTER THREE:
I don't really have much more to say besides what I wrote down in that chapter's author's notes, so I'll give just a little fun fact. Originally, A-Chan was supposed give each member of Myth their weapons one by one and explain each of them. But after writing the section of Cali's scythe, I got tired of writing those weapon explanations. So I just made a little gag about Cali's scythe almost hitting Amelia so I had an excuse to skip the explanation for Kiara's Weapons.
CHAPTER FOUR:
This chapter is actually one of the most important in stage 0. Why? Because of the timeline at the beginning. The order of the generations is different in this fic because of lore reasons, so the timeline alleviates a lot of confusion about that. But I don't expect you guys to memorize it, heck, even I didn't. I still go back and check the timeline when I write 'cause I'm not sure if I got the order of the generations right. I also wanna talk about this weird glitch I encountered when I wrote this chapter. So, you remember Mr. Nakiri and Mr. Sherlocke? Originally, I wrote their names as Mr. (No Space)Nakiri and Mr. (No Space)Sherlocke. Well, whenever I did, would automatically delete their names. So I found out that if you don't add a space after Mr. and just put something directly in front of the period, it would get automatically deleted whenever you tried to save the document, and I still don't know why to this day.
CHAPTER FIVE:
Everything I wanted to say about this chapter's writing process is already in that chapter's author's notes, so I just wanna talk about Kibara here. His name comes from the Kiiroibara or yellow rose. In Japanese flower language, a yellow rose signifies jealousy, and if you know Kibara, you know he's a jealous guy. His lore is also based on the legend of the blue and red oni, a story where the blue oni helps the red oni become adored by humans in exchange for the blue oni being seen as a monster by said humans. My idea for kibara was, what if the descendant of the blue oni was tired of being seen as a monster and wanted to take what their ancestors had given to the red oni for themself.
CHAPTER SIX:
So I said before that in chapter two I realised Kronii was to serious and I wanted her to be her regular goofy self. Well, in this chapter, she's back to being serious. I think that since the investigation reports are supposed to be serious discussions, the council should be more serious and focused, right? But I dunno, I'll try to give the council their personalities back, especially Mumei.
CHAPTER SEVEN:
I really struggled when thinking about what this chapter was going to be about. Originally, it was supposed to be Gura's birthday. But I decided against that because I wanted to set the chapter during Hololive's new year's concert (Which was originally when Cthullu was going to be awakened). And then I was like, new years is quite a big jump in time from November 5, so I'll set it somewhere in November. And then I found that stream where Amelia and Ina drank ramune and answered questions, which just happened to be streamed on November 16. So I just slapped Kobo on there and boom! Chapter seven.
CHAPTER EIGHT:
Now that Laplus has entered her [shed] form and revealed herself to be the one who initiated Cthullu's revival, it makes you think about her actions in chapter eight. Or at least, that's what I was going for.
CHAPTER NINE:
This is the chapter where I introduced the chosen, members of Hololive that were given special abilities by the council in exchange for being the council's assistants and apprentices. Some of them make sense, like Miko being Fauna's chosen, and Shiori being Mumei's chosen. But two that might need some explanation are Haato being Bae's chosen and Suisei being Sana's chosen. I chose Haato to be Bae's chosen purely because of Haachama. I mean, Haachama would definitely be chosen by the chaos god, right? And about Suisei being Sana's chosen, there really wasn't a better choice. I want Moona to be a being kind of above the concept of chosen. Hoshinova's a moon god, so I don't think she needs any help from Sana. And since stars and comets are like, Suisei's whole thing, why not make her the space god's chosen. And speaking of Suisei, her title of the enforcer is kind of unexpected right? And what's this about being Hololive's death machine? The Suisei in this fic is a little different from the one you know.
CHAPTER TEN:
I decided not to have any author's notes this chapter so the final words would really stick with you and the momentum would carry on to the next chapter. This chapter was the first one with member versus member combat, so one of the things I had to do was think of the different abilities of each member. One member I was really happy with the abilities of is Watame. I like her little fluff balls and the fact that her harp is used to sing people to sleep. I also really like Kanata's pseudo [shed] form.
One interesting thing about this chapter is the perspective shifts. It was really fun to write in Suisei's perspective because I got to write in the little differences in Suisei's narration compared to Amelia's. Also, it was fun to write a main character who wasn't missing ninety percent of her attacks.
CHAPTER ELEVEN:
This chapter is my personal favourite. Writing the Cthullu fight was really fun because I got to show off the abilities of many different members like Fubuki, Shion, Kobo, and Haachama. One thing about the Cthullu fight that I want to mention is that it's very heavily inspired by this one fight in Jujutsu Kaisen. I won't go into detail about it because it happens later in the manga and I don't wanna spoil anyone who might be currently watching/reading JJK, but if you know what fight I'm talking about, then you can probably tell the similarities.
CHAPTER TWELVE:
The climactic end to stage zero. This chapter took longer to make than the last even though it's shorter. This is because I kinda got tired of writing the Cthullu fight. And I maybe got distracted when a certain gacha game had a Hololive colab. Anyways, maybe it's because I was the one writing it, but the fights in this chapter felt kinda stale to me. But when my brother test read it for me, he said it was better than chapter eleven, so maybe it's better than I think.
Anyways, that's all I have to say. Thank you once again for reading this fic all the way to this point and I hope your excited for Hololive's End Is a Blonde Girl In a Detective's Hat state one: Let's Go To Indonesia!
