Hospital

Raiden grabbed her after that, lifting her up so that she couldn't leave again. He looked at her while having her on his shoulder. "That's not a good enough answer," he said to her as he started to walk back in the direction she came from. He found an empty room in the direction. Further examination showed that it was her own room. "If you want to do anything, then you're going to start talking. I'd rather not see someone throw their life away like that."

Xat growled a little and squrimed to get out of his grip. She didn't have time to sit around and heal she need to get to yukino tell her what she found out and tell her about the evil heros. "I don't answer to you." She said feeling anger grow in her heart at him. He was in her way and she didn't like that. She had a job to do and she need to get it done.

"Yukino is here in the hospital," Raiden began, assuming that if she was in so much of a hurry that she was probably going to talk to her. "As long as you remain here, you'll have a chance to speak with her. More importantly, what can you do for her or anyone else with these injuries slowing you down so much? Why don't you just tell me what happened to you so I can understand why you are in such a hurry to fight again?"

"Time I explained things."

Hikari opened her eyes, existing in a dream landscape. It was similar to the time she and Ezel had entered the Rift... the nearby ocean and United Sanctuary terrain. There was more off about this as well, underneath the beating sun, she felt hot. She felt something was on her... Looking down, it was her sleeves hanging down from her old commander jacket as Yugure. Not only that, but the white gloves were present, the tie was there, all of it that was Yugure Espoir was there. She was Yugure in this dream. The Chosen Sword of Twilight even tested this, using the powers of the Meister to summon forth Blaster Blade Liberator's sword.

"You are in your true form here", the same voice from before informed. Zenon, the Sage of Guidance approached. Yugure felt more comfortable being in this state, yet retained her fierce and stern gaze, watching the mage of time come forth.

"The number of questions I have for you is ridiculous." Yugure started, rather irritated with everything she didn't know. "How much of this are you involved with? How much do you know about what's going on? How much do you know about the Reapers? How in the hell was I affected by Exculpate the Blaster vanishing from time? I'm a Singularity Point, you said, so I shouldn't be able to be affected by this timeline's mishaps or distortions!" The woman already began hounding the Royal Paladin with an interrogator's attitude, a ferocious and violent one. Then, she began shouting about what he told her, finding no sense in it. The jacketed lass started moving forward, dragging the blade angrily toward the caster.

"There's a number of reasons for this special case. First starting with the fact that you are fully synchronized to Blaster Blade. Though you should not be affected by time, you are affected by what does and doesn't happen to him at important points in history. Garnet Star Dragon and Photon - two Star-vaders kidnapped Blaster Blade long before the civil war's climax. Sakuya's prophecy is the coming of the Reapers and this single moment in time being shattered apart."

"Kidnapped... by Star-vaders? That still shouldn't-"

"The Reapers, naturally, were involved. It still does not make sense this way, yet, the Reapers themselves make sense of it. Illogical beings with the power to tear away at time-space can do this - they can defy the laws of time and existence."

The ivory haired soldier blinked at him in shock and awe. The defeated Star-vader forces meddled with the past... they can do that?! The Reapers were specifically involved in the capture of the hero, and the distortion of time that erased Exculpate the Blaster from existence. Now it was coming together... The unit that defeated Phantom Blaster Overlord and Jellal was simply King of Knights, Alfred. The War of Liberation still occurred, but Blaster Blade did not have to ever be saved. Overlord never fell into a coma. The Star-vader invasion played out with Hikari never touching Gold Paladin, because it was never necessary. The bond with Shadow Paladin was never rectified, why would it be? It was born of Blaster Blade and Blaster Dark making amends. Now, the Revengers were just assassination corps under order and mercy of Alfred. No wonder Phantom Blaster was still around, everything was different.

The Prime Timeline was falling apart.

"So I never became Yugure, there was no reason for me to."

"You still went on your rampage with Blaster Dark, but afterward, there was no reason to reach out to him again."

"So if Ahmes was... kidnapped... Who are the Seekers?"

"The Seekers are Royal Paladin of old that I have informed of Sakuya's prophecy, though not all the details. I summoned them forth, along with others Haruto himself will become familiar with."

"Haruto plays Gold Paladin, what did you give him?"

"Blaze Paladins and... Well, you'll know when you see him."

"... The dragon Seifer gave me?"

Upon asking about it, a majestic white Guardian Dragon with yellow wings of pure holy light descended forth. ... It had an uncanny resemblance to him, and that immediately explained everything she needed to know.

"This is Thing Saver Dragon, another that I summoned. Your brother had him in his possession due to the Blaster Blade Liberator he had morphing into a Seeker."

"... You know who this is."

"I know. That should explain how dire the situation is. Ahmes has already agreed to be his tour guide - his bodyguard of sorts."

"Okay, so we have weapons. They don't mean anything against Reapers! In case you haven't noticed, they're basically invincible! I appreciate the assistance of the Guardian Dragon here, but what does it-"

"You have the weapon of brute force. Now you need the weapon of information. If the Reapers were invincible, do you think they'd need a spy or even a leader?"

"..."

"You need to do the following. You absolutely must in order to put an end to the Reapers before they annihilate the last timeline remaining."

"This is the last timeline left?!"

"The Akashic Record is almost in Harbinger's reach. We're out of time."

"No...!"

"Listen. First, find a silvery haired spirit with pale skin and blade protrusions about his forearms. His name is Chronos, and he is the key to humanity's counterattack. Second, you must restore your connection to Yunos. It is essential you retrieve all of your powers lost by this, or at least as much as you can. Third, you must identify the traitor's true identity with haste. If it is truly that person, you must confirm before more damage can be done in secret. Fourth, you must do what you can to help man's growth and evolution. There is no more time left for them to spend training or discovering a purpose. They must find it soon, or it will be too late for them to be strong enough."

"Anything else?"

"... Settle your karma with the princess, and make your decision on how you feel."

"... That's not necessary."

Yugure had folded her arms listening to all of this and understanding the required tasks. If this was truly the end of the line, they had to stop the Reapers in this timeline. Exculpate the Blaster likely still would not be able to restore the transcendence she assumed, but getting close enough to Majesty Lord Blaster would be enough. She would have to see Cero again at some point, and looking at Thing Saver Dragon, it wouldn't be a pleasant kind of reunion. This spirit... not even she knew what he could be referring to, and the Chosen Sword is usually one who has this kind of information. Thinking on it... she didn't know what the Akashic Record was either. On top of everything, the traitor must be nearby, orchestrating the end of time, while Sovereign goes about his own agenda.

...

The matter with Hana...

Yugure didn't notice, but a strand of her hair had turned completely blue. It was a lighter color than Hana's, but still there.

The ordeal between sisters separated by distortions could wait until humanity survived.

Finally, the woman found hope again after seeing a despair-inducing situation.

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Hikari awoke, quickly seeing that someone must've laid her down. Time to go.

"So she is here, then i need to talk to her. as for what happen I feel off a cliff and thats all you need to know. I have to leave after I talk to yugure becasue i have to return home and help my village." She told him.

Trinity paused when Carlos stopped her, looking away. "I'm sorry but I'm not..friends with anyone here." She once again hurried off to the exit. Hopefully this time she'd make it out without any of the others realizing about her. Or before Carlos let the others know about her.

"What the..." Carlos was surprised by the girl answer. "Not friends with anyone? But her cards were gray..." He thought while the girl moved to the exit. "She must have a bangle to get her cards like that. But what if...?". Then it hit him. "Wait. What do you mean by that?" He asked her, moving in front of her and not letting her escape. "If you're not with them... Then how did you get the bangle? That's the only way I know to fight the monsters and have your cards deleted".

Trinity cursed in her head as she was blocked from the entrance. "I have nothing to say. Please get out of my way. I don't want to hurt you." She was ready to resort to her Witches to get Carlos out of the way if she had to, but she really really hope she didn't resort to that. Especially in this hospital.

"I just want to know if you want to help" Carlos said to her. "I don't have the bangle with me, so I can't fight you unless you want an old-fashioned cardfight. And I'm pretty sure you don't want to solve this with card games". He then showed her his gray Thunder Break Dragon card. "I don't know if this helps, but I'm showing you this to let you know I'm a victim too, if that makes sense".

"Just tell me... Are you fighting those monsters? Or helping them? I may be not helping, but I want to make sure that there's no crazy people helping those things" He recalled his fight with the girl during the first monster attack.

Trinity had a pained look at the sight of the card. "I am sorry for your loss. Please move aside." That's all she felt she had to say to show her allegiance. If he didn't move though, she was ready to attack. Pity for him or not.

"... I see. You don't want to talk" Carlos said. "I don't think I'll move either. We can stand all day here if you want"  He added. "I don't know what your problem is. If it's about talking to strangers, then my name is Carlos Estevez. Nice to meet you. Do you want candy or bread?" He said while crossing his arms in front of her. She had the bangle, so if she really was an enemy she just had to summon an Unit and attack him. Not the best way to make sure of someone allegiance, but he was short of ideas. "Huh, what's your name by the way?".

Trinity grimaced. He had to be stubborn. Closing her eyes, she mentally called on a Witch to get Carlos out of the way, though not in the most painful way. From behind Carlos came Rias. She was silently grinning from behind him, waiting for him to turn to notice her before she would grab his face, specifically where his mouth is and Trinity would run past them, giving an apologetic look to him. "Its Trinity Lowell." With that, Trinity ran out of the exit as Rias used her magic to send Carlos flying through the hospital hallway as she let go of him, disappearing right after.

"Ouch... My back" Said Carlos. Thanks to the summoned Rias, he was sent flying through the hospital, miraculously landing on an empty hospital stretcher. "I just came out of the hospital... It's a miracle this didn't send me back". He then got up in front of surprised doctors, nurses and patients. "Huh, nothing to see here. I just... Slipped. Yeah, they clean these floors very good".

"And this is a good reminder of how out of my league this whole deal is" He said to himself. Grabbing his things scattered across the place, he began a slow and painful walk to the exit. Then he noticed Hikari was there, waking up and watching the whole ordeal. "Huh... Hi there?". Now that was embarrassing. Painfully embarrassing. "Funny running into you here, given that i just said goodbye to you and this whole deal of monsters invading earth and whatnot like 10 minutes ago. Weird, right? ... Huh, where you sleeping?" He tried to change the subject.

Raiden crossed his arms upon hearing she fell off a cliff. "If that is what happened, you are better off resting," he said to her. "If you need to talk with her that badly, I'll tell her, but she isn't much better than you are right now." He sighed before he turned his body lightly. "As much as I want to know why you fell off a cliff, I will worry about that later. For now I'll tell Yukino about you. I'm going to tell her you're in this room, so if you move from here any time soon it will be harder for her to meet up with you." He didn't give her time to argue, leaving the room and closing the door. As an extra precaution, he informed some doctors that she was trying to leave in her condition.

Karin's eyes slowly opened. She could barely feel a thing, though the sensation- or lack thereof- didn't last very long. A finger twitch, a shift of the leg, a tilt and turn of the head to one side. Her senses came back to her, over about a minute, and Karin began to realize her situation. She was laying in a hospital bed. Of course. She had collapsed and lost consciousness, after all, it was only natural. But her entire body still felt a bit sore. That probably made sense too, considering what she had been through...

...Whatever feelings of relief or happiness that had lingered in Karin's head vanished. She recalled the events of the battle with Sovereign, the massive losses they suffered, and Overlord's deletion...

That's right. Overlord had been deleted. Erased from existence, entirely.

Pulling herself to sit upright in the hospital bed, Karin scanned the room. It was about as featureless as you'd expect a regular hospital room to look. Her belongings were on a table next to her. Picking up her phone from among them, she checked the time and date. Two days had passed. Fantastic.

...

Karin stretched herself from side to side, making sure to loosen up all of her muscles. She had redressed herself and gathered up her belongings- phone, deck, and the like- and was now doing a much-needed stretch after having stiffened up during her two-day coma.

Feeling sufficiently limber after a few minutes, Karin headed out into the hallway to look for any familiar face.

Mirai slowly started waking up and realized she was in the hospital. "Ehh, how did I end up here?" She was clueless, the last thing she remembered was being at the shopping district looking at tasty treats. That was when Mirai remembered, "Ah! That's right, there was a group of people and ahead, there was a giant monster! I know my imagination gets the best of me but it never made anything like this before... then my head started hurting a lot and... and... I wake up here?" That was about right. The blonde had passed out and has no idea of the chaos that happened.

The girl sat on her hospital bed, still a bit dazed out but had finally recollected everything she had remembered up onto that point. If the monster was real, that means the district was in trouble! No! The tasty treats!! The people there too but the treats are in danger! She got up and looked out from her room and noticed there was a lot of people inside. It seemed like many were from little bruises to serious injuries and doctors were running around crazily attending those in dire need. "Did something really bad happen? I hope what I saw was my imagination..."

As Raiden was walking through the hallway, he noticed Mirai waking up. He blinked in confusion as he walked inside. Why had she passed out the way she did? Yukino said that looking at those things without a Reality Bangle would cause madness. That had to be what it was. "Its good to see you're alright," Raiden said to her. He walked inside as he said, "The situation was bad but everyone's alive. Do you know anything about what happened?"

Within Noel's room, one of the Omens of Malice appeared next to her bed. It quickly placed a hand onto her forehead, disappearing immediately after that. No matter who was there, they wouldn't have time to see what it was, perhaps sense it. Inside Noel's mind, Malice himself was there, or at least an image of him. He looked through the darkness of this near broken mind for a sign of Noel. His goal was to finish what the Reaper began and break her completely. Not just her either, but one step at a time.

The blonde girl just stared and blinked at Raiden because of what he told her. Everyone's alive? Who was everyone? What exactly happened? That one response made a thousand questions to the poor girl to handle. Her usual clueless self was gone and behaved more "adult-like." Considering what is probably going on, focusing and paying attention seemed like a good idea right now. "I don't remember much really. I was going from pastry shop to pastry shop until I noticed a group of people gathering and up ahead was a giant monster. My imagination tends to act crazy but this was too real for something that my own mind made up. I hope it was just my imagination though. I looked at it and my head started pulsing and I slowly lost conscious. Next thing you know, I wake up here..." As she said it, Mirai was worried and confused. Did the city normally deal with these types of things?

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Meanwhile, Noel was in a deep coma. The fierce tail whip from the Daunting Deletor caused severe injuries, including a fractured, possible broken, left shoulder that she landed on after smashing down to the ground. She was honestly extremely lucky to even be alive as well as standing up for a moment right after getting hard like that. The impact caused a severe blow to the head as well which caused her to be in this comatose state.

The losses from that encounter was too harsh and too heavy to take in. Especially for Noel, Salome, her best friend was deleted from existence. There is not possible way, or at least a known possible way, to even bring her back. Is there even an existence to bring back? The answer isn't known even Noel won't find out as long as she is in a coma. One thing to note was that she was able to display a power that was new to her, the ability to summon swords from her units. In this case, she summoned Ashlei Reverse's red twin swords to directly attack the Deletor.

As she laid dormant in her hospital bed, vulnerable to any outside threat, a mysterious being showed itself in her room. Unable to do anything because of the coma, the being took the liberty to place it's hand on her forehead and disappeared as soon as it did. Whatever it was, entered Noel's body, and the only physical response Noel did unconsciously was her right hand started twitching. Deep inside her consciousness, Noel was just there, sitting by herself in darkness. She noticed something enter this private space and called out to it, "Who's there?! Show yourself!"

Raiden gave a small sigh and said, "Unfortunately, that was no dream or image..." He showed her his Autumn Rain Liberator, Coil unit. It was completely blank and gray. "This unit is proof, something that monster did. I wish I was the only one, but many people fought it, and they're all here like you are now. Its for the best you passed out when you did." He walked closer towards her as he knew this was a lot to take in.

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The figure looked at her with a small grin. She was so vulnerable. This was almost too easy. "You don't recognize me, Noel Kusanagi?" he said to her. The skin of his face peeled back on its own like a banana. It revealed Darren's face, his eyes closed for her to see. It soon went back to normal before he said, You can call me Malice for the sake of formality, but I think we both know I am more than that... especially for you. Do you even know why it is that I exist?"

"I was afraid of that..." Then she saw in horror that the legion unit she got for him was blank. It didn't look like a smudge or anything. The art of the card was perfectly blank, all that was left was a black and empty space where the art would be. "How is that even possible? What happened to your card?!" Mirai held her deck box tightly, afraid that they could meet the same fate as that.

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Darren? Noel was confused, who or what is this thing invading her mind? "What the hell are you?! Why are you using Darren's face?! What do you and him have to do with me?!" Noel was getting angry that she summoned one of Ashlei Reverse's red swords for protection. Who is this Malice person? Is he or it even a person?

"Like I said, that monster did it," Raiden explained. "He called it Delete. The units existence is gone completely. Luckily it was just one of them. Another of my units is completely gone, and I know most others had that happen as well. If you never face them, you should never have to face the same thing." He didn't even know if that was true or not, but he was hopeful that it was.

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Malice gave a small grin to her desperation, taking a step towards her before he said, "Go on and strike me down... You understand what the Seed is, do you not? Darren battled one of them and he won. His body was taken over by that power and thus I was made... The one who he defeated in order to gain that Seed was you, Noel Kusanagi... I wanted to thank you. Your weak heart from another world is the reason I exist. And look at you now... From one friend going to darkness to another being wiped from the world... If weakness really is a sin, I suppose this is your punishment..."

Yukino stared at Carlos for a moment in silence, not having really seen the... mess between him and Trinity. Blinking and remaining quiet for a minute, the queen plucked off the monitoring devices, showing a rising pulse rate just before the system going blank. No time to waste, got to get moving. Humanity has something left, the Chosen Sword has things to do and karma to settle. The mess of a woman got out of bed, quickly placing on her clothing, and carrying her white jacket. Several nurses attempted to stop her, yet, fighting through the pain, she told them to flock off.

"Are you trying to give someone an award for how many times they can tell you not to push yourself?" Ahmes jeered. Tsubasa was especially fond of telling her to not do it, and Haruto is basically the same. Everyone says it, and not once has this girl ever listened.

"I'm fine, I need to get to work."

Yukino retrieved her phone.

"There is a 'spirit' of some sort around with long, silvery hair and pale skin. He has blade protrusions on his forearms. He's one of the keys to counterattack." was texted to the Resistance.

An image appeared before Yukino, an image that became a figure. A blue figure that seemed not to have a physical form at all. It had the mask of a demon and it stared directly at Yukino. The Omen of the dark one, Malice had come before her.



It spoke a single, simple sentence, "Lord Malice... will speak with you..." It moved a hand up to its mask, removing and the figure changed, taking the form of the dead skinned figure that had now taken Darren's body.

"Oh, lovely", the stressed Hikari groaned. "What is it?" She inquired the figure appearing before her, folding her arms. The presence of Darren was detected, and even then, it took a few moments to put two and two together with her disorientated state of mind. He... still had a Seed that somehow wasn't furthering distortions, yet, they never got the chance to deal with it. They never found him afterward.

"Huh, bye then" Said Carlos to Hikari as she silently tried tried to exit her hospital room. Now it was really clear that she wasn't just sleeping. "Are you sure you should remove those things?" He asked as she retrieved her phone. "I'm sure you had them on you for a reaso- What the hell is that!?".

Suddenly, a blue demon looking person appeared out of nowhere in front if her and introduced itself as Lord Malice or something like that. It removed his mask to reveal itself - It was... Someone he didn't knew or remember. But it was still shocking. "... What?".