"In the beginning, there was a goddess named ARCHAIA.
She existed as a constant throughout human history, steadily watching over humanity from her empty dimension of "Limbo."
After observing them for many millennia, she fell in love with humankind and gifted them two things:
The "Akashic Records," a collection of events that have been forgotten by humanity.
"The Secrets of the World."
And the "Ancient Treasures," powerful weapons that created the equilibrium of the world itself.
She hoped that with these two, humankind could learn from their past mistakes with the records and create a balanced society with the weapons.
But that was far from what really happened...
Humans warred with each other in hopes of claiming the unlimited knowledge of the Akashic Records for themselves.
They used the Ancient Treasures to slaughter one another for their own gain and mercilessly hunt for power.
This was the first "War of the Akashic Records."
Seeing the brutality, ARCHAIA evoked the Akashic Records and Ancient Treasures from humanity, stashing them in an unknown location.
But as she did so...
The goddess mysteriously vanished from existence.
Centuries later, a ritual would be founded that allowed certain humans to be transported to Limbo.
In the strange dimension, these people searched but couldn't find a trace of ARCHAIA, the Ancient Treasures, or the Akashic Records.
Though when the humans returned to the real world, each one of them was granted a single "Akashic power."
These powers can be categorized into three types:
The ability to create a specific element.
The ability to create a specific object.
Or the ability to create a specific idea.
As more and more humans learned of Akashic powers, another war would break out.
It would have the same name as the war centuries ago, the "War of the Akashic Records" but the connotation was different.
They fought to find and "claim" the knowledge of the Akashic Records for themselves, but it was merely a poor excuse that veiled humanity's true desire for violence.
For humans, it was never about the knowledge.
It was about the killing.
Nonetheless, the "War of the Akashic Records" would repeat itself time and time again throughout history, even leading to the present day."
This story was one told by Weisenburg that he passed down to his allies.
Juan being one of them.
...
April 5th 2030
Juan was forced to relive the fateful night of his wife's death.
Devastated and sorrowful, he stood in the midst of Limbo as the memories flooded back to him.
The sole purpose for me fighting in this war... is not to claim the Akashic Records for myself but to avenge you.
Miku.
I'm sorry.
I'm sorry I couldn't save you.
The vivid recollection of the events faded from his mind as he found himself watching over the slumped figure of a nude girl whose hair covered her face.
Behind her, white buildings and twisted architecture spread out infinitely.
Blue liquid drenched her body, and it was apparent that this was the occupant of the glass tube in Juan's lab, but out of her holding in this instant.
"It seems... Protocol B was a success," Juan said.
The girl shakily raised her head and answered, "Yes."
"Are you glad, Type-M?"
"If you feel that is the correct emotion for me... then I am."
Juan approached her and unveiled the scarlet hair from her face...
The girl's soft blue eyes sparkled in the white world, and her gorgeous complexion was like a full moon on a pitch-black night.
The innocence of her profile was startling, and she could be described as nothing less than beauty personified.
"You look... just like her," Juan said in a pained tone of voice.
"Yes, but I could never replace her."
"That's... certainly true; nobody in this world can be replaced."
"It's strange... Even now, with her body and memories instilled within me, I'm sure we are completely different people. Individual experience and individual ego are not things that can be so easily copied," Type-M replied.
"I'm sure she would agree with you."
Type-M smiled warmly and rose to meet eye-to-eye with Juan.
"I'm ready," she said.
Juan raised his palm to face her and spoke,
"Allfather's Eye: Clairvoyance. Open the Gates of Limbo."
Endless fractals of infinitely varying sights filled the white landscape around them.
An explosion coiling into the evening sky.
The crescent moon shining brightly on a pale man and blonde girl.
A towering black structure in the middle of a familiar city.
Juan quickly averted his eyes, but Type-M was forced to gaze as the power of foresight flooded into her, filling her body and soul with its hue.
She gazed upon the endless scenes of the future, present, and past for what felt like days on end.
...
The War of the Akashic Records begins.
A willowy man walks through the abandoned ruins of Beaumont's downtown district.
His neat black hair flowed in the wind as he pushed his circular glasses up with his index finger.
A beige trenchcoat that draped over his narrow shoulders gave him a slender look.
His steady gait stopped as he arrived at an old Victorian house that seemed to have had its top half ripped off.
Its former beauty could be seen through the wreckage—a destroyed building that was now overflowing with greenery as nature thrived without the interference of man.
"You've stirred up quite the mess, I guess it's my job to clean it up now."
He forced the door to the rickety house open, revealing the dusty wreckage inside.
A precariously placed piece of wood shifted from the side of the door, and a quiet clicking sound could be heard.
Instantly, a realization hit the man.
This place is rigged.
An explosion formed, resulting in a fiery ball of intense plasma that consumed the house as the shockwave singed the surrounding buildings.
The blooming ignition of the blast coiled into the cloudless evening sky as the tall flames danced upon the house.
A black smoke rose from the destruction and flew to the horizon as the silhouette of the willowy man stood in the midst of the destruction, unscathed.
"Well played, Juan. Well played."
The man walked to a seemingly random pile of flaming rubble and uttered the word, "Consume."
A specialized skill honed by consistent use of his power.
A disembodied floating mouth the size of a semitruck appeared above the blazing ruins and parted its lips, baring its jagged teeth.
Biting down, it devoured the wreckage and promptly blinked out of existence, taking the rubble with it.
With the remnants of the house's flooring now cleared, a stairway resembling a pitch-black well in the ground could be seen.
The man walked down the stairs, his steps echoing a steady rhythm in the expansive stairwell.
The cold stone walls disappeared from sight as the light from the entrance dimmed. He pulled a stout handgun from his coat and clicked a button on the side of it, a flashlight turning on at the end of the barrel.
Beaming into the darkness, a large steel door could be seen at the bottom of the steps.
Arriving at the entrance revealed that the door was locked, the man attempting but failing to wrench the handle open.
"Consume," the man uttered the words irritatedly.
A disembodied mouth appeared once again to devour the door, and that it did.
As the jaw of the mouth disappeared, a blue light emanated from the room.
Lightning suddenly shot out from the entrance, striking the man in the chest as he was blasted backwards, his back colliding with the stairs.
"Long time no see... Matt," the voice of Juan emerged from the lab, stepping into the stairwell.
"Expecting me?" Matt asked as his willowy frame separated from the stairs. Pebbles falling to the ground, and the crunching of rocks sounded as he set himself upright.
Type-M stood unsteadily beside Juan, grasping a bladed steel chain and dressed in ragged old clothes two sizes too big for her.
So he really did it, huh? A replica of Miku, and it looks exactly like her, Matt thought.
"I bet your wife is turning in her grave right now, Juan," a sinister grin spread across Matt's misleadingly casual face.
"You-" Juan's pupils filled with an indiscriminate wrath as he glared holes into him.
"Palace of Sin: Gluttony," Matt interrupted.
The first strike of the war.
Matt raised his pistol and fired off a shot while a hairy beast resembling a lion with gray fur and rabid eyes emerged from his shadow.
Juan nimbly dodged the bullet as wind picked up in the lab.
He rushed forward, sprinting unto the breeze and launching his fist at Matt with his arm coated in deadly lightning.
A grotesque jaw emerged from the ground as the attack drew near and bit into Juan's arm, stopping the punch an inch before Matt's face.
Matt clicked the side of his gun to his chest as the creature incapacitated Juan before unloading half of the clip.
Juan quickly prepared a gale of wind that acted as a barrier between him and the bullets, but when the shots hit the invisible air...
An explosion blasted him back into the tube at the center of the lab. It shattered, and his body was stabbed by a countless number of glass shards.
Matt had changed the rounds in his chamber to an explosive variant.
Strange blue liquid once in the tube permeated onto the stone floor and doused Juan's bloodstained figure in its hue, a reversal of when Type-M resided in that liquid...
All while this fight took place, the ravenous beast Matt had summoned bounded towards Type-M, her eyes glowing a scintillating azure.
"Allfather's Eye, Clairvoyance."
As the words left her mouth, Type-M pulled her chain taut and narrowed her stance.
The beast pounced on her with its teeth flared, but she sidestepped it at the last second, barely avoiding its fangs.
Type-M pierced the creature's nape with the blade on the end of her chain and wrapped it around the creature's neck.
A sickly red blood spewed from the creature as she heaved against its weight, pulling the chain tightly and choking it out.
Matt caught this in the corner of his eye while battling Juan and analyzed the situation.
She adapts quickly; she's already able to see into the future.
That power of clairvoyance can change the tide of battle instantly if paired with the right Akashic user.
I can't let her progress further.
She needs to die first...
After blasting Juan away, Matt turned his pistol to face Type-M and unloaded the rest of his mag.
Her bewitching eyes widened as she gazed into the future.
For what was seen must've been a tragedy.
She reined in the hairy beast with her chain and took cover behind it.
Explosions shook the laboratory as the beast absorbed the brunt of the shock from the bullets.
Type-M braced herself, nearly being blown off balance by the impact, the edges of her clothes singing as the blast nearly swallowed her.
She stood upright, treading over the corpse of the hairy creature, the sound of the steel chain in her palm dragging across the floor.
Her eyes met Matt's, and she spoke, "I cannot allow this future."
"And what exactly is that future?"
"The one where you live."
She sprinted forward, her scarlet hair dancing in the air as she accelerated.
Matt quickly reacted and summoned twisted hounds of gluttony from his shadow to protect himself, but it was futile.
For Type-M wasn't rushing towards Matt, but to Juan's desk, which held a myriad of vials and flasks.
She grabbed a capped vial with an unknown substance within, knocking over the other glassware in her scurry as she tossed it to the floor.
The glass shattered, sending the liquid inside flying into the air.
She quickly ducked down as Juan rose from the destroyed tube that once housed her.
He raised his palm, summoning a strong wind that picked up within the space.
It spread across the room, permeating to every corner of the lab.
Something's wrong, Matt thought.
He unleashed his ravenous hounds on Miku as he reached for another mag to use on Juan.
They could've attacked me then, but they didn't...
Reaching into the depths of his trenchcoat, he grasped for a mag but...
Before he could do that, he collapsed onto the floor, seizing uncontrollably and frothing at the mouth.
Attempting to stand, his muscles disobeyed him, and he crashed back down onto the stone floor.
The corners of Matt's vision fading, he saw the figure of Juan and Type-M escaping as they ran up the stairs of the lab, holding their noses plugged.
Seeing this, he realized the true nature of his nagging suspicion.
The vial Type-M had thrown to the ground was filled with a toxic gas and Juan had spread it across the lab with his wind.
She's too adaptive.
Together, they're going to be... a big problem, Matt thought.
"Consume," his coarse voice spoke as his eyelids shut and he lost consciousness.
The disembodied mouth appeared above his motionless body and pursed its lips. Sucking in, it inhaled all the gas that filled the lab before disappearing, taking the toxic fumes with it.
...
Juan emerged from the lab's stairwell and was met by the sight of his house burned to the ground by the booby trap he had set.
He reminiscently gazed at the ashes for a moment before taking Type-M's hand and running through the streets.
"Sir, are we really going to leave the lab behind?" Type-M asked while panting lightly.
"Yes, everything we need for this war is stored within you. Nothing in that lab is necessary anymore."
They ran and ran, not having a particular destination but keeping on.
The setting sun shone brightly on them as they sprinted down the countless winding avenues of the ruined city.
"Where will we go?" Type-M asked Juan.
"Anywhere. There's no place we can't go now."
Type-M smiled widely and laughed heartily as her pace slowed.
"It feels good to let things go. What is this feeling?"
Juan gazed at her beautiful profile glowing in the orange sunset, wondering how someone so entrancing could even exist.
"It's freedom. In losing everything, we've been granted the ultimate freedom," Juan said.
The two would throw their inhibitions to the wind... traveling hand in hand throughout the personless district of Beaumont.
A tall building that had its foundation completely uprooted by greenery and foliage.
A giant tree that had numerous initials carved onto it.
A field of lush grass and white lilies that had sprouted in the middle of the gray city.
Type-M laughed heartily as she gazed upon sights she had never seen before.
And for a second, seeing her so filled with joy made Juan reconsider...
What he was truly fighting for...
...
It all started with "Protocol A."
A project assigned by Weisenburg to Juan and Godfried four years ago.
The object of the project was to create an artificial body and infuse a human soul in it.
Juan was able to make the artificial body by rendering a model of his wife's and using it as a blueprint.
But Godfried failed his side of the project and was unable materialize a soul to infuse.
That led to both of them searching for other methods to complete the task...
Juan would begin to develop an artificial intelligence, which he stored in a supercomputer named "Type-M" to act as a pseudo-soul.
But Godfried... would kill numerous people in torturous ways, hoping that the methods he used would result in the eventual extraction of a soul.
Finding out his gruesome approach, Juan quickly disassociated with Godfried and renamed the project "Protocol B."
A year would pass and Juan would continue to work tirelessly even after his wife's death.
His labor would finally bare fruit 3 years after that on April 5th, 2030.
Infusing Type-M into the artificial body and imbuing her with an Akashic power, he granted her a new life that could be called her own...
Juan was not only fighting to avenge Miku but also to give Type-M a meaningful existence.
...
The figure of an old woman stood over Matt who was laying on a canvas hammock.
They were in the midst of a dry desert with the beaming sun overhead, radiating a dizzying heat.
A small canopy shaded him and the lady.
"Grandma..? What's going on? Are you okay?
She stood over him, her body motionless and face emotionless.
Many more people suddenly appeared behind her, filling the canopy to its capacity.
"Oh, everybody. How are you guys? Did you all need something?"
An array of different individuals began sparsely crowding the arid desert as more and more of them stood stone-facedly staring at Matt.
"What's on your minds?"
The entire desert was soon filled with countless people as they all soullessly peered into Matt.
"I'm sorry...
I'm sorry..
I'm sorry."
Their faces were all too familiar to him.
"All of you... Please forgive me."
"I swear that in the end... I'll save you all."
...
April 6th, 2030
Past midnight of the prior day.
"Matt," the sound of a quiet yet golden voice entered Matt's right ear, awakening him.
His eyelids fluttered open as he sat up from his lying position on the stone floor. It seemed he was just dreaming.
"Iris?" He muttered, his consciousness slowly returning.
"Yeah... are you okay?" she asked softly.
Iris kneeled next to Matt, her pearly lilac eyes meeting his intently as she tucked her long platinum hair behind her ear, revealing an elegant complexion glimmering in the moonlight.
"Yeah, what are... you two doing here?" He paused mid-sentence to look around the lab.
Violet.
Violet was barely visible in the dim lighting, leaning on the broken tube at the lab's center, lightly gazing at Matt with her arms crossed.
"We should be asking you that, I thought you weren't getting involved in this war," her sharp voice seemed to interrogate him.
"Don't twist my words; I told you I wouldn't get any of you involved, but I never said anything about myself."
Her shrewd scarlet eyes and short violet hair seemed to hiss at Matt like snakes as he admitted his half lie.
"Is it really worth risking your life for, though?" Iris asked.
"Yes, it's what must be done. If I don't awaken ARCHAIA, then nobody will."
"You..." Violet uncrossed her arms and walked up to Matt, her face frothing with contempt.
Raising her open palm, she swung it to his face.
Matt caught her arm as the slap stopped a moment before hitting him.
"So you'd sacrifice everything and pin your hopes and dreams on a false god? You'd sacrifice what your grandma worked so hard to build for that!?"
She breathed heavily and clenched her teeth in frustration.
"I would. She is the ultimate being, the salvation this world needs. If you're unable to accept the need to sacrifice for the greater good... then you need to reconsider yourself as a person."
Violet's ruby eyes widened, glaring at Matt as she spoke, "I can't believe it. When did you become so delusional?"
I'm sorry, Violet, this is the only way... I could possibly repay them, Matt said in his own head.
He looked to Iris, who was preoccupied with the stairwell.
"My flowers are being trampled... Someone's coming," she whispered, her eyes fixed on the entrance.
The ominous echoing of footsteps approached as the dark figure of a man slowly descended the laboratory steps.
The crescent moon glowed brightly behind his silhouette.