Chapter 36: But the War Goes On

La Fin de Toute

(formerly Galactica Palace)

Communications Hub

Minutes before the Time Crash

"Master Joker? You wanted to see me?" Sayaka Miki gave a curt bow as she stepped through the sliding doors. She was preceded by a small white creature, something like a cat and something like a rabbit, with round, unblinking red eyes. Sayaka was familiar with these things; they used to be called Incubators. After what Joker did to them, it probably wasn't appropriate to call them that anymore. Its task complete, it sat on its haunches at Joker's feet and beamed proudly at her... not the usual eerie, frozen cat-smile, but an open leer with a mouthful of teeth, which was even worse. Sayaka tried her best to ignore it.

"Ah yes, Miki. Come in." The harlequin stood before the chaotic mishmash of technology and magic that was his way of communicating with the forces of Dead End across the multiverse. Usually all the screens, holograms, mirrors, portals, and scrying pools were active at once, blaring a constant, discordant wall of noises and images that only Joker, Eas, and the late Viluy could make sense off. Now, however, all stood quiet. The only source of light in the hub came from the artifact floating before him, its crystalline tongues always roiling like as it pulsed with its eerie vermillion glow that Sayaka could feel on her bare skin,.

For a few heart-stopping seconds after Joker's prisoners disappeared, many of Dead End's assembled armies thought that he would simply kill all of them in his fury, either by siccing the Time Reaper on them or tearing them all apart with his bare hands. Sayaka didn't need to ask anyone whether or not they thought that would really happen... it was written on all of their faces.

He didn't. Joker had torn at his hair, poised to let out a primal howl of frustration, of victory unjustly snatched from under his nose... but instead, he went quiet. While the forces of Dead End trembled in fear for their very souls, he said not a word, his lips pressed together so thin and hard that his grimace looked like the slash of a knife left across his face. He then turned on his heel, causing a collective shudder among the ranks... and he beckoned to his Bad End Precure, just once, with a crook of his finger. The six of them vanished in streaks of black light.

It was minutes later when the screaming began. Joker had it piped through every room, every corridor, every corner of the palace. For the first time, the residents of La Fin de Toute heard what went on whenever Joker and his favorite pet Cures disappeared into his private room... they heard it, but did not see it. The message was clear.

Now it was quiet. Half an hour ago, Joker emerged from his room sans the Bad Ends, as usual, and gave a simple command. Now he was here.

He called for Sayaka via one of the former Incubators. It materialized on her bed in her quarters, grinned at her, and told her she was needed in the comms hub. And, it added in a cheerful tone, it would escort her there personally.

Sayaka wasn't afraid. She had done everything Joker asked of her to the best of her abilities. If he wanted to kill her for that, so be it. There were worse things, she knew.

"Status report, Miki," said Joker without turning around.

Sayaka nodded. "Daimon Squad 186 finally dug out Lady Viluy's last body from what's left of her lab. Commander Eas confirmed that she died about two hours ago... the wolf girl ripped out her throat."

"Ah."

"Her body's in cold storage until—"

"Storage?" Joker paused. "Whatever for?"

"Eas thought we should, in case you felt like some sort of ceremony, sir. She was valuable to Dead End."

He waved at her dismissively without turning around. "Ceremony? What a ridiculous idea, she's worthless to us now. Tell Squad 186 to toss her corpse out an airlock and into the black hole before it stinks up the palace any more than it already has... and tell Eas to have her personality engrams checked. She's thinking too much like a human."

"Yes, Master." Sayaka expected as much. Then, after a moment: "Master, did you really withdraw all of our forces?" That was the single command he gave after he emerged. The response was immediate; all of the armies of Dead End spread across the multiverse dropped what they were doing at once and teleported back to the palace as fast as they were able. Joker's commands were not to be questioned, ever.

"Why of course, Miki. Most of them might be barely more than fodder, but they're still assets... assets that would otherwise be lost, given what's about to happen."

That piqued Sayaka's interest. "And what is about to happen?"

"It's simple, mademoiselle." She felt his grin without seeing it. "Both of our wishes are about to come true. Come here."

Sayaka came. The artifact's light prickled her skin, making every fine hair stand on end. The way it twisted and shifted before her eyes like nothing solid should was frightening... but at the same time, oddly hypnotic. Sort of relaxing, in an unsettling way.

Joker leaned close to her ear. "I need your help for a moment, Miki. I want you to think about when you saw Homura Akemi show her true colors... the very moment she betrayed Madoka and everything she stood for. Can you do that for me?"

Sayaka's hands balled into fists. Joker hardly had to ask; in the time since her true memories were restored, she had seen that scene countless times, playing out over and over and over again in both her waking life and in her sleep. Lesser people would have gone mad from it by now, or begged Sailor Lethe to use her powers to make it stop. Not Sayaka, though. Every time it resurfaced, the memory was like immersing herself in ice-cold water. It gave her unmatched clarity and focus, a constant reminder of what it was that she was fighting for.

"Yes, that's it," Joker was saying. "Perfect. Merci beaucoup."

Sayaka shook herself from her reverie. "Sir?"

"As I said, ma sirène, you're about to get your wish." Joker smiled, wild and unhinged. "All worlds are about to see Homura Akemi for what she truly is."

"I don't understand."

"It's the artifact, dear, the artifact!" He motioned grandly to it, as if directing it to speak for itself. "The artifact, and the entity that it comes from! Now that our Will has merged with the entity, it's able to reach its full potential. When it awakes, it will release a massive psychic pulse across creation, and everything that thinks will see what you've seen, know what you know. The name of Homura Akemi will become a curse to rival my own name."

"I don't understand," Sayaka said again. Not that Akemi didn't deserve it, but... A chill ran down her spine. "What is this thing...?"

Joker told her. He spoke a name... not its true name, if it even had one that mortal minds could comprehend. Something that it was called by a few brave souls long ago and far away, in a time and place that was since lost...

Sayaka blinked. She didn't recognize it. "Master, you have a Time Reaper, why do you need a—"

"Pff." Joker blew air through his lips. "'Time Reaper' is merely a fancy sobriquet, my dear. I gave it that name to strike fear into the hearts of the muddled masses. It can't actually reap time, how could it?

"The entity's name, however... it's quite literal, and not at all hyperbole. But please, don't take my word for it..." He laid his spindly fingers on her shoulders and steered her closer to the artifact, then glanced down at the Incubator for a moment before returning his attention to her. "This artifact is called the Frozen Flame. It's both a fragment of the entity and the means of communication with it, and the Will and I are now its Arbiters. I can't have you touch the Flame directly, of course. That would have disastrous effects both on the plan and on that Soul Gem of yours... but with our furry companion here as a buffer, I can give you a little taste. Go on, Miki. Have a listen to the sound of the end..."

The channel opened.

Sayaka Miki collapsed. Even with the Incubator mediating it, the essence of the entity was staggering, far more than she could take. She felt power, a wall of sheer power assaulting her thoughts like a battering ram made of solid lead hammering against her skull. Some of that was the Will of the Book of Darkness, she recognized the cold, enormous presence of her mana, but the Will was merely this thing's battery, the means for it to escape its eternal prison and grow enough to fulfill its purpose, the purpose described by the name that Joker gave her.

That purpose was expressed in a single, primal feeling, a feeling as intense and blinding as the light of a new star and bottomless and deep as a black hole. It stemmed from a being so alien, so beyond understanding that any attempt to understand it crumpled like paper before its might and strangeness, but its feeling was universal... universal, and unbearable in its potency. That feeling scoured Sayaka's insides, even through the Incubator, even though an unthinkable distance separated herself from the entity. It was an old, old feeling, perhaps the oldest feeling there was, apart from fear...

Hunger.

"It's time," said Joker above her, almost serene as he bathed in the radiance of the Frozen Flame, the eyes of his mask burning with a similar glow. He spoke directly to it... or to the entity that it stemmed from, or both, Sayaka didn't know. "Bring down the curtain."

The Flame blazed with unholy light.

A boiling light.

A ghastly light.

A pestilent light.

A light that would have disfigured Hell...

TSAB L-Class Inspection Cruiser Arthra

Cargo Bay One

Minutes before the Time Crash

The crew of the Arthra stood paralyzed. They could do nothing but stare as Alph screamed at them, threatening whoever was stupid enough to attempt to move. Every one of them recognized the extent Alph's combat capabilities: she could shift to her wolf form in the blink of an eye. She was strong enough to rip them all to shreds even without magic, should they attempt to fight back. Any binding spell they had, she could break almost as soon as it was cast. And unleashing any substantial amount of firepower in the Arthra's cargo hold in their ship's weakened state could blow her to bits.

As their ally, Alph was a worthy member of the crew and a trusted friend. Some were intimidated by her at first, back in the old days following the Jewel Seed incident, until they learned that she was really a gentle soul underneath her fierce demeanor. The only thing guaranteed to make Alph lose all control was the possibility of harm to her beloved master, Fate. But Fate was one of the legendary Three Aces, a trio of the most gifted Cadets the Time Space Administrative Bureau had ever seen. Odds were that nothing the crew had could scratch Fate's Barrier Jacket, let alone harm her. It took firepower of Nanoha's or Hayate's caliber to put her in danger. Everyone knew that, it was only logical.

In Alph's state, however, there was no thought for logic, no room for anyone else. Fate was already hurt, she had been hurt when Alph wasn't there to protect her. In her mind, even at her best, all the beings in all the worlds were separated into two groups: Fate, and Others. Even the members of her new adopted family were relegated to the latter category. Just now, an Other had touched Fate, and that Other had paid for it.

"Don't move!" Alph snarled, her claws spread, ears flat against her skull. It didn't matter who the people were that surrounded them. She didn't know. Fate was in danger. Fate was all that mattered. "Don't any of you bastards move!"

Fate Testarossa Harlaown's lips moved without sound. There was no way to express her horror. Mutely she reached for Alph, her oldest friend, who had just savagely attacked her foster brother, unwilling to believe what she had just seen.

"It's g-gonna be okay, Fate." Alph looked back and smiled. It was somehow that old familiar Alph smile, which made it hurt all the more. "I'll... I'll keep you safe. Don't w-worry..."

Nanoha Takamachi was on her feet, all her instincts and mage training ordering her to attack the threat with everything she had until it wasn't a threat anymore. That, after all, was her usual method of problem solving. But this was different, screamed her heart. This was Alph. "Alph-san," she said, fighting to keep her voice from breaking. "You need to calm down. We're your friends. You're sick, and you need help..."

"Shut up!" Alph whirled on her, crackling with power. She looked Nanoha right in the eyes, and there was no recognition there... not even a glimmer. "You're only... only trying to confuse me! I'll die before I let... before I let you lay a hand on Fate! I'll kill you... k-kill you..."

All hands! The telepathic voice came from Admiral Lindy Harlaown. She knelt over Chrono, stabilizing her son's wound with her magic as best she could. As always, she was calm and professional. Only those who knew her the best could see the inner turmoil raging beneath her placid features. Full tactical retreat, through the main hatch. That's an order. We'll seal off the cargo hold with barriers until we—

No! Lindy-san, no! Fate stood, whipping her blonde pigtails back and forth. Please, she still knows who I am, I can still reach her!

Absolutely not! Lindy's glare could have melted steel. Fate, you're emotionally compromised. You need to leave the premises immediately.

Lindy-san— Fate's channel shut itself off as she cried out in surprise. Alph had seen one of the officers edging toward the hatch, but instead of attacking, she threw herself atop Fate, holding her tight and shielding her from her phantom enemies with her own body.

"C-Come on..." The words were strained and halting. "Come on! You bastards... you cowards... you bastards, I'll kill you. Kill you all... Fate..."

Fate squirmed in her familiar's grip. This was all wrong; Alph's embrace was supposed to be a source of comfort. A great black pit opened inside her, a yawning realization that this wasn't a nightmare, that Alph wouldn't back down in this state, wouldn't listen to reason. There was only one thing to do, something she had never done before and never contemplated doing.

As her familiar, Alph's body was an extension of her own mana, connecting the two of them together. The contract they made years ago was open-ended; Fate had specified that Alph was free to act entirely of her own will. Her absolute loyalty was derived not from the contract, but from the gratitude she felt toward the human who saved her life. Alph didn't need to be given commands enforced by magic. The very thought of doing so sickened Fate's stomach. But now...

"A-Alph..." She shoved the words past the lump in her throat, tears streaming down her face. "Go to sleep for a while." That was it. For the first time ever, Fate gave her dear friend an Order, an Order that it was not in her power to disobey.

As she went limp and her grip slackened, Alph stared at Fate, her eyes clouding with hurt, confusion... and betrayal. She slumped to the deck and did not stir.

"Fate-chan!"

"Fate!"

And Fate broke down. Her body shook with heaving sobs that welled up from deep in her being. Nanoha, Lindy, and Chrono all came to her to comfort her, but she shied away from them all, clutching Alph to her breast and bawling like a baby.

"Fate-chan..." Once more, Nanoha was at a loss. So unlike her, but this was something no amount of her power or magic could fix. Fate and Alph were both suffering, and she could do nothing... Even if she were at full strength, the invincible Nanoha Takamachi could do nothing.

And while she stood there, helplessly watching her partner's misery, it swept over her: a barrage of words and images, of one face Nanoha knew and another that was very familiar, but in a different form, an ascended form, beautiful and terrible at once...

KNOW THAT THE DEVIL WALKS AMONG YOU,

AND HER NAME IS HOMURA AKEMI.

In her mind's eye, Nanoha saw Homura Akemi rip her best friend in two... and then it was over. She was back in the cargo hold, and every klaxon on the ship was blaring at once. One look around told her that she was not the only one who saw that terrible vision; Lindy, Chrono, Fate, and the other officers were all in states of distress that mirrored her own. Even Alph shuddered fitfully in her sleep, her ears standing upright and her tail fur on end.

"What..." Chrono wheezed, straining to be heard over the klaxons. "What just happened? What was that?! Why are the alarms—"

The flashing red holo screens that bloomed automatically from each of their Devices answered his question. Every soul who saw those screens felt the same chill...

The Lighthouse

Vertex Point Two

Seconds before the Time Crash

"... a-and... and they said they needed me, that only I could help the team get away from the Lighthouse without causing trouble. Kero-chan, onii-chan, Yukito-san, Meilin-chan... I'm sorry, I'm so sorry." For the fourth time since arriving back at their room at the Lighthouse, Sakura Kinomoto bowed low, her eyes filled with tears.

Yukito Tsukishiro pushed his glasses up the bridge of his nose, his expression solemn. "It's all right, Sakura-chan. We know you were only doing what you thought was right."

That was of little comfort to her. Her shoulders quaked. "You... you must all hate me..."

"Dummy," said Meilin Li by way of response. She thumped Sakura on the head... but gently. "Don't even say things like that. Of course we don't hate you."

"B-but onii-chan..."

There was only so long Toya could be angry with his little sister. In his heart, he suspected that he would probably do the same thing in her position. He sighed and laid a hand on her shoulder. "You make dinner for the next week. Maybe two. By hand."

Sakura sniffled. "Okay."

Kero crossed his tiny arms. "It don't make sense," he said. "How could Joker even—"

The storm was on them in an instant, a barrage delivered to each of their brains, a message bellowed at a volume that deafened everything else:

KNOW THAT THE DEVIL WALKS AMONG YOU,

AND HER NAME IS HOMURA AKEMI.

All five of them felt it, all five of them fell to their knees, overwhelmed by the psychic assault... but it was only Sakura who heard Fantine screaming her name.

"Sakura!"

Time wasn't working right; it was as if Sakura were watching the others fall underwater, clutching their temples in slow motion. Only she seemed unaffected... the horrible images and words of Homura's betrayal still burned in her brain, but everything else... "F-Fantine-san? Wh-what is it, what's happening?"

"There's no time to explain!" The Lighthouse Keeper's voice was raw with panic that Sakura had never heard from it before. Her spark-like avatar blinked to life inches from Sakura's nose, its wings a blur of agitation. "I need you to release six of your Cards!"

"But—"

"Please, Sakura!" If the avatar had had hands, they would have grasped the girl's shoulders and shook her. "You're the only one that can help me stop it! I need your help, NOW!"

Terrified more by the thought of something that could scare Fantine than by whatever it was happening to her loved ones, Sakura nodded and pulled her Key from the neck of her shirt. "Release!" Her spell circle flared beneath her, the Key extended into its wand form...

"These six Cards, in this exact order!" said Fantine. "EARTHY, FIREY, WINDY, WATERY, DARK, and LIGHT! Hurry!"

A roar was building like water in Sakura's ears, an awful sound that prickled all the hairs on her arms, a sound that she could feel with something deeper than her flesh, deeper than her soul. There was no longer any doubt: something terrible was happening, something indescribable. Her cells, no, her atoms rattled with that sound, she knew with grim certainty that she was moments from falling apart, scattering into pieces... "E-EARTHY!" she shouted, though her voice was lost in the rising howl. "FIREY! WINDY! WATERY! DARK! LIGHT!"

One by one, the Cards appeared before her. As she struck them with the beak of the Sealing Wand, they resumed their true forms: EARTHY, elegant and stately, adorned with crystals. FIREY, feathered wings spread and aglow with flickering light. WINDY, her first Card, her ethereal hair swirling in curls of breeze. WATERY, mermaid-like, showering the room with droplets from her tail. DARK and LIGHT, mirrors of each other in opposite colors, together as they always were, graceful and mature...

The six of them appeared before Sakura at her command, just as they had many times in the past... but as she summoned them this time, they did something they had never done before.

They played music.

Each Card played a note, a single lonely chime. It was a sequence... no, a song. One note, then a second, a third, a fourth, a fifth, a sixth... but the seventh and final note came not from one of the Cards.

To Sakura's bewilderment, it came from the Lighthouse itself.

Somewhere in the depths of Dead End's palace, the Time Reaper began to scream.

-VERTEX THREE: 8.333882^11-Λ-

Tsunagi

Asahina Residence

A perfect full moon hung overhead, huge and silvery and round, as fine a moon as any spring night could ask for.

"Woooow, the moon is big tonight!" The young girl gazed out from the sliding glass door to her house's balcony, awestruck at its glory. Unable to help herself, she slid the door open and ran out onto the enclosure, inhaling the fragrant scent of Tsunagi's cherry blossoms as they blew in the breeze. What a gorgeous night. A perfect night. So exciting...

"Eh?" A flicker of movement caught her eye, a tiny dot moving in front of that splendid moon. Perhaps a shooting star? But as she watched, it moved erratically in a manner that no shooting star could, spinning and zig-zagging and darting back and forth with greater and greater speed until she grew dizzy just from looking at it. Not only that, but the shooting star (or whatever it was) left a distinct sparkly purple trail as it wobbled and weaved... Finally, the object (it couldn't be a star, could it?) dropped out of the moon's glow and crashed into a distant row of cherry trees in the park. It was no illusion; even from this far away, she saw the branches tremble, and an updraft of loose cherry blossoms from the point of impact.

"It fell...!" Mirai Asahina didn't give the matter a second thought. No matter how late at night it was, no matter how far away it was, she had to go see whatever it was that fell, it was so exciting...

And—

-static-

Mirai dropped to her knees at the sound: a terrible, penetrating, warbling shriek mixed with the loudest burst of white noise she had ever heard, a shriek that went on and on and on and threatened to split her skull. Nothing on earth made sounds like that. Overlaid with that awful sound were words and images, a message delivered directly to her mind, carved into her thoughts in burning strokes ten stories high.

There was a teenage girl that Mirai didn't know, pale and solemn, with cold violet eyes and long hair like a waterfall of black silk. From above her descended a goddess, beautiful and resplendent in holy light... The goddess reached down to the girl where she lay in state, the girl smiled... and in one swift motion, before anything could stop her, the girl smiled, seized the goddess's hands, and tore her in half.

And the words howled:

KNOW THAT THE DEVIL WALKS AMONG YOU,

AND HER NAME IS HOMURA AKEMI.

"Wha—" Mirai's vision blurred. The stranger's face and name were branded in her mind's eye along with those words. Clapping her hands over her ears, she looked up to brilliant moon-

- and saw something tear the sky apart.

The sky - moon, stars and all - rent asunder as if they were made of paper. There was a... a rip forming in them, a great savage slash that took up half the horizon. Something stared out from behind it, a vast something she couldn't make any sense of. Long, curving shapes thrust out of the tear, spreading it wider... legs. The spiny, insectoid legs of a creature of impossible size. Just one of its footsteps would crush an entire city block to dust. The thing the legs were attached to... Mirai couldn't make out a face, or eyes, or any discernible features except for what was clearly a monstrous mouth, a tripartite beak with a hellish, blinding white glow in its center. Its body was the color and texture of an old scab, a revolting, mottled red-brown-black bristling with spiked protrusions. Its... back...? Shell...? was a forest of oddly beautiful crystalline spires, and in the center of that forest, a single ovaloid crystal egg containing a tiny winged figure, trapped like a fly in amber. Its wrenching, staticky scream echoed from one end of Tsunagi to the other as the three segments of its beak spread, the awful glow shone brighter...

And as Mirai watched in dawning terror, Tsunagi was drawn into that mouth. Buildings, trees, cars, street signs, people... even the ground that the city stood on, the rock and tectonic plates beneath the ground, the molten magma beneath the tectonic plates... all funneled into the spread beak, crumpling down to nothing and vanishing into that glow, into its breath. No, not its breath, its pull. An unstoppable, inescapable pull, a maelstrom without wind, drawing not just air but existence itself.

Slack-jawed and unable to scream, Mirai saw the shooting star from moments before, made it out by its sparkly violet trail before it retreated back up past the line of remaining trees, caught in the vortex of the immense entity's feeding. A pang of inexplicable loss reverberated through her body as the star dwindled and vanished, consumed by the nightmare that tore apart the sky.

Behind her, her mother and grandmother shouted words of warning, something about fleeing to the basement for shelter. But there was no shelter from the entity, somehow she knew that... Block after block of Tsunagi uprooted itself and was swept away. The advancing wall of its destruction crept inexorably closer and closer to their neighborhood, their block, their street...

Even knowing that it was about to happen, Mirai was not prepared for her bare feet to leave the balcony's floor, as if gravity was a machine that someone had switched off. Shortly, there was no floor anymore... the entity's power demolished her house and everything in it, and the debris of what had been her home drifted in fragments of wood and concrete and metal, falling backwards into the torn and broken sky. Caught in the pull, Mirai spun faster and faster, trying to scream but unable to hear herself. In the chaotic blur that was her vision, she saw Mofurun, her beloved teddy bear, fly past her and out of sight, bleeding cotton stuffing from a burst seam in her side.

As she tumbled end over end, she she saw every crystal point on the entity's back begin to shine with that bright, hellish light. It was as if it was preparing to explode... but no. To the accompaniment of its awful shrieking, it hurled thousands of smaller, needle-like spires into the night sky in all directions, firing them off like a volley of rockets. Mirai inexplicably thought of fireworks... The needles slowed their flight, stopped, and plummeted back to earth glowing white-hot, each one detonating like a massive bomb the instant it struck solid matter. They leveled what little was not already consumed...

It's not supposed to be like this. That was one of Mirai Asahina's last coherent thoughts as the entity's ravenous mouth swallowed her, swallowed everyone and everything she loved. Within the belly of that horrible beast would not be death. It was worse than that. It was a fundamental emptiness, a ceasing to be. She wasn't even sure how she knew that... but she knew it wasn't supposed to be this way. It's not supposed to happen like this.

It's all gone wrong...

Within seconds, where Mirai Asahina's city, her world, her universe, her time had been, there was only void and silence.

-VERTEX THREE: 8.333882^12-Λ-

Ichigozaka

Simultaneously

Fragrant, salty breezes blew in from Anmitsu Bay, fluttering the orange pigtails of a teenage girl who stood at the top of a hill, all energy and smiles. "All right," she said to no one in particular. "I've got this!" True, she had said that before. True, that phrase usually accompanied some kind of kitchen disaster that would take hours to clean up. This time, though? This time was different.

After more than a year of working abroad, Ichika Usami's mother was coming home. And if Ichika had anything to say about it, her mom would come home to find a strawberry shortcake waiting for her. The special kind, the kind she always used to make when Ichika was a little kid. Baked, frosted, and decorated with so much love that it sparkled and shone like glitter. And, and this was this important thing: made from scratch by Ichika herself.

She almost had everything she needed, the list had been checked and rechecked twenty times: flour, sugar, milk, cream, baking powder, baking soda, vanilla extract... and of course, strawberries. The only things left to buy were the eggs. One last stop, and then...

Ichika took off, descending the stairwell on the side of the hill two steps at a time. One of her neighbors, a bald old man named Yamada, took the steps going up with far more caution, due to his arthritis. He smiled a toothless smile at her as she bounded past, always so bright and cheerful. She made one feel twenty years younger.

"Oh, Ichika-chan," Yamada said in greeting. "Lively as usual!"

"My mom's coming home today!" Ichika didn't even slow down.

Ah, that explained it, Yamada thought. Doctor Satomi Usami was the pride of the town, doing humanitarian work overseas for needy children. The job kept her away for months at a time... no wonder Ichika was so excited.

"Oh, Ichika-chan!"

"I'm going to bake a cake!" Ichika shouted and waved at Terada outside the bakery as she ran through Market Street, attracting smiles from the passersby. She skidded to a stop outside Nishimura's grocery. "Eggs, please!"

Nishimura handed over the bounty, a dozen fresh brown eggs. "Here you go! What are you making today?"

"My mom's coming home so I'm baking her a cake!"

"Is that so. Careful with those!" Nishimura always made sure to give that warning; more than one case of his best products had wound up lining the pavement over the years due to Ichika's enthusiasm. She wasn't much of a cook yet, but she never stopped trying.

"Yup! Thank you!" There, that was it. Ichika waved goodbye and danced down the Market Street incline, humming a merry tune. A strawberry shortcake for her mom, and this time, it was going to be perfect. Unable to contain herself, she took the last few steps of the hill in strides, looking even more rabbit-like than usual to the early morning shoppers who were used to seeing her out and about.

"Whip..." One foot left the ground, the breeze blew back her pigtails.

"Step..." Then the other foot. It was almost like she could take off flying through the blue sky like a sparrow, she felt so light. And now, on the last word of her lucky phrase, she bounded off of the asphalt with both feet...

"J—"

An explosion behind her, a great, echoing boom that was heard from one end of Ichigozaka to the other. Ichika pivoted in midair, and beheld a bizarre sight: a geyser of sparking pink cream from the top of Ichigo Mountain—

-static-

No.

No, not a geyser of cream. Ichika didn't know how she could have thought that. What was happening to Ichigo Mountain was impossible to mistake for anything else.

Ichigo Mountain had become a volcano.

The mountain's funny little peak that always reminded Ichika of a topping on a cupcake was gone. In its place was a raging caldera, a hellish, gaping hole in the earth vomiting flames and great clouds of choking grey ash. Rivers of white-hot molten lava flowed down the mountain's sides, catching great swaths of forest ablaze as they passed. In the center of the caldera was an enormous pillar of fire reaching to the heavens, she could feel the heat from miles away...

Ichika's flight ended abruptly. With her attention on the volcano, she forgot to brace herself for her landing; as a result, she came down hard on her left ankle. It twisted beneath her weight, sending a jolt up her spine, and she fell sprawling to the street in a heap. She didn't scream or cry out in pain, she only stared...

... for there was something in the pillar of fire at the center of the blaze that used to be Ichigo Mountain, something she could swear was moving...

A sound. A hideous, wrenching sound that penetrated into the minds of everyone in Ichigozaka at once. It was a warbling, staticky, drawn-out shriek, the likes of which no living thing could ever make... and entwined with that shriek were words and images. A message. Ichika saw a beautiful girl with long black hair, reaching up for a shining goddess... The girl took her hand, smiled, whispered something, and pulled...

KNOW THAT THE DEVIL WALKS AMONG YOU,

AND HER NAME IS HOMURA AKEMI.

The message charred itself in Ichika's brain. She knew who Homura Akemi was, she knew what she looked like, she knew that she had torn apart the goddess for her own selfish gain, but how she knew all of that, she had no clue. All around her, the Market Street shoppers and resident townspeople clutched at their temples, many of them screaming. Did they somehow see it too?

It didn't matter. There was something moving in the center of the volcano, something enormous, something that parted the geyser of scalding fire and molten rock as if emerging from behind a silk curtain. It was a thing that Ichika couldn't make sense of; something like all the worst parts of a crab an an insect but with a jet-black, three-part beak, its back bristling with crystal spires the size of buildings. One crystal in its center was like an egg, there was something inside it, too tiny to make out...

Its beak opened, a terrible light came from within, bright and hot as the sun but with none of its life-giving power. Ichika watched in horror as the entire mountain was funneled into that beak... that mouth... around it, as if the mouth contained a black hole. And not just the mountain, but the hills that surrounded it, the villages that ringed its base, the streets leading out of those villages. All shrank down and vanished in a reverse cyclone, pulled into the entity's all-consuming mouth, and it left behind nothing. Not air, not space, just nothing.

At Ichika's side, the carton of eggs fell and smashed open, spilling their sunny yellow contents on the cold hard ground. She didn't notice. Every thought was blotted out by mindless terror. This monster, this terrible thing... it was eating her home. Eating everything, sucking in existence from its perch in what used to be the mountain.

And as it ate, and ate, and ate, the spires on its back began to glow bright with the same blasting glow that came from its mouth. A thousand thin, needle-like lines of light launched in volleys from its back, riddling the clouds of ash that blotted out the sky. Seconds later, they fell back down upon what little was left of Ichigozaka in an endless rain, exploding, destroying everything...

It's all gone wrong. That was the last coherent thought that Ichika Usami had.

It's all gone wrong...

-VERTEX THREE: 8.333882^13-Λ-

Hagukumi City

Nono Residence

Simultaneously

"What a big day... but I guess it turned out okay!" Hana Nono said this to herself as she put the finishing touches on her sketch.

True, it was a strange day. And chaotic. By anyone else's standards, it would have been a disaster. It started with the catastrophic failure of "Operation Stylish and Grown-Up Hana"... "Operation Stylish and Grown-Up Hana" was the name she gave her attempt to grow out her bangs over the last month and a half. Her aim was to look just like the glamorous model she saw in one of her favorite fashion magazines. No more random, energetic little rascal. Well, there was nothing she could do about "little" until she grew a centimeter or two taller - or ten - but with the new, grown-up, super-cool hairstyle, on the first day of her new school...

That was the plan, anyway. The result was... calling it "uneven" would be kind. Worse still, she spent so much time trying to repair the damage that she was late on her all-important first day. Well, that wasn't exactly true either. She was also late because she had to stop on the way to keep that poor old lady from being hit by the errant baseball from the park. Hana couldn't just let the woman get whacked in the head, could she?

That was when the first strange part happened. Just before the baseball collided with her forehead, she could have sworn that it stopped it mid-air... and more than that, the world seemed to go... gray... for a second or two. And she heard what sounded like a baby's cry... a cry that inexplicably kept haunting her throughout the day.

Then, of course, the baseball struck, giving her a nasty red mark that was all the more visible for being right beneath her poor, mangled, newly-shortened bangs.

She thought she could salvage the day with her super-cool class introduction... but because she was even later due to helping the old lady carry her bags, her new classmates got their first look at Hana Nono when she came flying through the door twenty minutes late, screaming an apology that was interrupted when her shoe caught on a floorboard and she fell flat on her face in front of everybody. That threw off her introduction, and everyone laughed at her, seeing the same image of the same cute little Hana she had been trying so desperately to grow out of...

At least it wasn't all bad. There was that cool, gorgeous older girl in the hall, the one the teacher called Homare Kagayaki. At first it looked like she was laughing at Hana as she passed by, but when she ran into Kagayaki on the school roof later, she said with utmost sincerity: "Your bangs... they're pretty stylish. Looks good on you." Swoon~.

There was also Saaya Yakushiji, the class president, who took all the screw-ups in stride and offered to show her around. Hana had a good feeling about her, too.

"Mature... kind... cool..." Just like the two of them, Yakushiji and Homare. Just like her mother. Even a series of screw-ups couldn't dampen Hana's spirits for long. She would do it someday, no matter the setbacks. She would become the stylish, respected woman she was destined to be. "I'm smart, I'm sporty, I'm stylish," she said to herself as she rose from her chair. The words were a litany. "I can't wait to grow up! And I'm not going to let anything stop me!"

On a whim, she opened the sliding door and stepped out onto her balcony, which offered a spectacular view of the velvet night sky, studded with stars and illuminated by a spectacular full moon, big and round and white...

Just like that baseball.

No, no. That was all in the past. "No ball falling out of the sky... no anything falling out of the sky is gonna stop me!" Hana clasped her hands in a kind of prayer, closed her eyes, and repeated her gospel to herself: "You can do anything. You can be... anything!" The future was open. Tomorrow was a new day. Anything was possible...

And the impossible happened. There was a bright pink flash from the moon, a pink flash that turned into a pink comet, falling from the sky right toward her balcony...

"Hagyuuu~!"

For some reason, the pink comet made the same sounds Hana had been hearing all day. Hana barely had time to wonder how on earth that was possible before the comet fell right into her arms... She caught it without thinking. "S-s-safe!" It was warm for a comet, she always heard they were icy. Warm and soft. And moving.

No, not a comet. A baby. An adorable, blonde-haired, ruby-eyed baby that looked at her with a toothless baby smile and said cheerfully, "Hagyu~!"

Hana's cry of shock was heard throughout the neighborhood.

"This is for your future!" That was what it said. The talking mouse ("I'm not a mouse! I'm Hariham Harry!" he insisted. Hana would have to try to remember that...) which presumably fell out of the sky with the baby said so itself... himself, in a high-pitched Kansai accent for some reason. Thanks to Hana, the baby was now dubbed "Hugtan", which the mouse agreed was an excellent name. He provided Hugtan with a bottle filled with milk, which he pulled from... somewhere. Then he pointed at her, bellowed "This is for your future!", and turned over and went to sleep on her bed as if he owned it with a curt "Get it? Okay, then. G'night." That was the extent to which he was willing to be helpful, which wasn't much.

"I don't get it at all! And this is way too sudden!" Hana's distress went unheard by the tiny interloper, and naturally, Hugtan was no help, being that she couldn't say anything other than "Hagyu~!"

"A baby out of nowhere..." Hana fretted to herself. "But why...?"

-static-

A crescendo: a burst of white noise filled Hana's brain, the baby burst into a frenzied wail... and from outside, a terrible howling sound from the sky...

KNOW THAT THE DEVIL WALKS AMONG YOU,

AND HER NAME IS HOMURA AKEMI.

"Wha—" Hana scrambled, trying to find her feet. She knew in an instant what the words and images scorching her mind meant, but how they got there and why, she had no idea. It didn't matter. The way Hugtan was crying, it wasn't a hungry cry or a needs-changing cry... it was sharp and panicked, like something was hurting her.

"No...!" The mouse, Harry, sat bolt upright on the bed. His beady eyes were wide with terror. "They... they couldn't've found us already... it's too soon! How?!"

Hana barely heard him over the echoes of the message, over the howling from outside. Hands clapped over her ears, she tried to yell at him and couldn't hear herself. "What is it? What's happening...?"

Light. From the sky outside, a blossoming crimson light... it filled Hana's room like it was drenched in red paint. Her gaze snapped back to the balcony, she looked up...

Another comet was falling. Ten times, no, a hundred times bigger. Glowing blood red, alight with friction from the air. Surrounded by burning chunks of white rock... debris from the full moon that it had just smashed through.

Hana stared at it without comprehension. It made no sense. Comets didn't just appear out of nowhere. As she watched it screaming down from the heavens, surrounded by the remnants of the broken moon, she came to one inescapable conclusion:

It's all gone wrong.

It was moving. The comet was moving. Hana saw it unroll like a pillbug, she made out a massive spiked shell, legs, something like a beak... nothing she could make sense of. Each of the crystalline points studding its back began to glow as it spread its triple-beak wide, there was a horrible light from within...

Hana never saw the spires rain from the creature's back. She never saw her city vanish into the entity's maw. The instant she saw its mouth, she ran back into her room, scooped up Harry and Hugtan, and rolled into a ball, offering herself as a shield. At least she could do that much for them.

It's all gone wrong.

It's all gone wrong.

It's all gone wrong.

It's all gone wrong.

It's... it's all... gone...

-VERTEX THREE: 8.333882^14-Λ-

Simultaneously

-VERTEX THREE: 8.333882^15-Λ-

Simul

-VERTEX THREE: 8.333882^16

-VERTEX THRE

-VER

The Lighthouse

Restricted Access Room, Top Floor

Simultaneously

Too late.

Too late to prevent it. The destruction, the loss... it was unthinkable.

But not too late to put a stop to it.

The entity was worse than before, incalculably worse. Before, it had been confined to the void where all things erased from time were discarded, forced to feed on its selves from alternate timelines for lack of anything else to eat. Still a monstrous threat, but a shadow of what it could be. Back then, it was cut off from its source of power before it could mature enough to threaten all of existence. It was returned to the Darkness Beyond Time, unkillable, but powerless.

Now, thanks to the Will, thanks to Joker's unbelievable insanity in his willingness to find and use this thing, it was full-grown. Exponentially stronger than before.

Too late to prevent it.

But, she prayed, not too late to put a stop to it.

The Lighthouse Keeper, the one who called herself Fantine, stood up from her seat. Through her avatar, she pleaded with Sakura Kinomoto, the only one left with the strength and versatility of magic that could maybe, possibly put an end to the beast's rampage. Fantine could only pray that this method, desperate and haphazard as it was, would still work.

Sakura responded. She released the Cards in the right order. Fantine held her breath and clasped her hands until she was sure, absolutely sure... until she heard them resonating.

One note sounded, then another, a perfect fifth higher. A minor seventh fell, a fourth rose. A falling major sixth, and another perfect fifth below it.

Fantine took a breath and did what she swore she would never do...

She opened a door to her room at the top of the Lighthouse. A door in space and time, just wide enough for the entity to see, to sense her on the other side. Her blue cloak billowed wide behind her in the gale, and she threw off her hood as she screamed at it: "Here I am! Come and get me!"

Within the carnage of destroyed timelines that surrounded it, the entity heard. It sensed. There was a being there, beyond the door, more powerful than any it had ever imagined. One that saw not only all that was, but all that could be. If it had her, it could eat forever and never hunger again.

The entity let out its terrible, warbling scream and launched itself at the door, a raging timestorm in its wake, spreading its maw wide. It hungered.

Fantine raised her arms and spread them wide. Twin streams of blood ran down her upper lip. The acts of holding the door open and preparing her ace in the hole both at once took almost everything she had. Her infinite other selves throughout existence, the other selves she hid away so carefully for so long... she let them be consumed by the entity, sacrificing them to its bottomless hunger, all so she could distract it long enough to strike...

All her power channeled into one place.

The Lighthouse prepared to sing. All of the Immaterial, every inch of the prismatic substance, it all rose up and hummed like an engine, resonating with notes that would echo throughout time and space. It was only by chance that Fantine knew of the Immaterial's true power... a traveler of the multiverse, another outsider like Fantine herself, had once stopped at the Lighthouse for a brief respite from her eternal wanderings. The traveler was astonished to find that she recognized the substance that composed the sanctuary, and she told Fantine what the people of her world once called it. More importantly, she told Fantine how to use it...

One note sounded, then another, a perfect fifth higher. A minor seventh fell, a fourth rose. A falling major sixth, and another perfect fifth below it, and then a minor second on the rise. Seven simple tones, but when played in the right order, at the right time, fueled by Fantine's energy, the six elemental Cards, and the entirety of the Immaterial, the song rang strong and clear and raw with power. All heard it. Few would remember, but all heard it:

B F# E A F# C# D

The entity froze. All of its selves, all of its possibilities, collapsed and condensed into one, woven together by the song. Like a bad dream, its body slowly faded away, back to the Darkness once more. It left behind only the Will of the Book of Darkness, freed from her crystal prison, from her Hell, opening her crimson eyes to find them blurred with tears...

"Take my hand!"

There was a voice calling for her. A figure that she couldn't quite see, shrouded in a deep blue cloak that swept behind her in the gale of the timestorm, looking like a bird's wings.

"I know!" said Fantine. Her door fluctuated around her. If she didn't close it soon, it would collapse upon her by itself, scattering her existence throughout all of time and space. If that happened, she would never be free, never... "You've done terrible things, I know! So have I! But it's not too late for either of us! There's always a chance! You're not the Will of the Book of Darkness, you're Reinforce! She named you that, and you can be with her again, you can help to fix everything! TAKE MY HAND...!"

The Will, Reinforce, caught a glimpse of blue eyes. Astonishingly blue, like robin eggs... then her vision turned wet and misty again. "No," she whispered. Her words, heavy with regret, carried over the storm of collapsing time. "Not again. What I have done, what I helped to do... can never be forgiven."

"Maybe not!" Fantine staggered, her strength failing. The door trembled. "But you can still move on! Please, Reinforce, take my hand...!"

Reinforce reached out... then pulled her hand back to her own chest. With a cry of pain, she plunged her hand into herself, disrupting her Unison... What was once one became two once more, Reinforce and Hayate Yagami. The girl kicked and struggled, disoriented by the breakdown of their Unison, her magic flaring to life...

"I am sorry," said Reinforce. A spell circle swallowed her hand.

Hayate screamed, feeling fingers rooting around inside her, grasping her Linker Core...

Reinforce pulled. The Relic, the forbidden lost technology that could control a mage's will through being bonded with their very core, crumbled into dust.

She was herself once more. Hayate woke as if from slumber, and saw a face she thought she would never see again. Her throat closed tight, her eyes brimmed with tears. "Re... Re..."

"Goodbye, my Master. Take her!" Reinforce shouted to Fantine, flinging Hayate through the door before she could react. "Take her... and tell her... not to cry. It is better this way."

Another hand reached out, took Hayate's and held on tight. The owner of that hand screamed back into the collapsing void, pleading: "Reinforce! There's still time! Please!"

Reinforce smiled. She closed her eyes, contented.

The explosion was titanic. It flung both Hayate and Fantine back through the door as it blinked out of existence, slamming them both into the Immaterial console.

The last thing Hayate Yagami saw before she blacked out was a pair of astonishingly blue eyes, like robin eggs, filled with bitter tears.

Crossroads

The Lighthouse

Ten minutes after the Time Crash

They were all assembled. The Three: Usagi Tsukino, Sakura Kinomoto, and Madoka Kaname. Nagisa Misumi, Cure Black, sullen and silent, still recovering from her injuries but able to stand. Nanoha Takamachi, the Ace of Aces, reluctantly pried away from the side of an inconsolable Fate. All the remaining survivors from Vertex Three, save for Erika Kurumi, Cure Marine, and Yuko Omori, Cure Honey, both still in intensive care aboard the Arthra, and Towa Akagi, Cure Scarlet, who had finally cried herself to sleep in her room.

"There's been..." The voice of Fantine's avatar trembled. "A catastrophe."

Kirara Amanogawa, Cure Twinkle, smiled bitterly. "Seems like that happens a lot with us."

"Not like this," said Fantine. "Not this way."

"Does..." Tsubomi Hanasaki, Cure Blossom, swallowed heavily. Filmy stains still marred the lenses of her glasses. How they talked her into coming when Erika was still... still hurt, she didn't know. "Does it have to do with... that message?" The words screamed out inside her brain: KNOW THAT THE DEVIL WALKS AMONG YOU...

Everyone save Madoka cringed. They all heard it, there was no forgetting it. All present made a point to try not to look at her. She was still reeling with shock, too stunned to process it. She was only here and not confronting Homura because Fantine insisted upon her presence, and she had not said anything, not one word, since leaving the secondary infirmary. Homura, she thought. It's only true if I hear her say it. It's only true if I hear her admit it. Until then...

"The psychic pulse was an additional effect of Joker's attack," said Fantine. There was no longer any doubt: the almighty Lighthouse Keeper was terrified. "I suspect that he did that as revenge on Miss Akemi for denying him his fun. That was cruel enough, and we'll have to deal with the consequences, but we can't right now. The thing that he used to send that message, it's... it's a monster you can't imagine. Even I never thought he would go this far."

"But..." said Usagi, her brows furrowed. "But we've beaten monsters before. Just what is it?"

"It's like..." Fantine paused. "Like a ninth note in a scale. Like a triangle with four sides. It's like an embodiment of that city you and Chibi-Usa were trapped in, Sakura... something wrong, that shouldn't be. Something that warps reality just by existing."

The color drained from Sakura's face. "Then... that sound. That music..."

"It should have been gone," said Fantine again. "It should have been excised from all possible timelines at once, powerless and imprisoned... but somehow, Joker found it. It... it's called..."

The name she gave it went unrecognized by all but one: Yayoi Kise. She shivered and squeezed Yui Nanase's hand for support. "But..." she stammered. "B-but that thing... it's... it's from a..."

"I know." Fantine's acknowledgement was grave. "Whatever can exist, does exist, somewhere out in the multiverse... it's just a matter of how far away it is, and how much power one needs to find it. Even with the Will on his side, I didn't think Joker had the power, the knowledge, or the patience to find—" Another pause. "It should have been gone. Beyond anyone's reach. God willing, that's where it is now."

"Wait," said Yui, pushing up her glasses with her free hand. Cold sweat trickled down her back. "You said 'Everything that can exist, does exist...' If... if that's true, then a-are you saying that if Joker wanted to, he could find Darth Vader and have him fight us?! Th-that can't be true... right?"

Silence from Fantine.

"But... but Darth Vader isn't real!" The sentence burst out of Yui, and she turned red with embarrassment.

"Not in your universe. Be glad." said Fantine. It could have come off as joking, but none could mistake the seriousness of her tone. "Think of every story you've ever read that has something that can end the universe, no matter how far-fetched. Every monster, every weapon, every kind of disaster. Joker has demonstrated an ability to cross boundaries he shouldn't even have knowledge of... the boundaries of what's real and what isn't. If I hadn't stopped the entity he unleashed, if I hadn't separated it from the Will..."

Nanoha gripped Raising Heart's globe. By some miracle, Hayate was back, asleep in her quarters on board the Arthra as if she had never left. Exactly how she got there, only Fantine knew... and because of the alert that flashed on every TSAB mage's Device in huge, glaring red letters, she knew that Hayate, and even Fate, for that matter, were secondary concerns. "Fantine-san, you still haven't explained... what happened? What did it do?" Nanoha and the rest of her Vertex's mages had some inkling, of course, but...

The avatar turned to each of the Vertex Three survivors in turn. "I did all I could. It was spreading, consuming everything like a cancer... I used up ninety-nine percent of my power just to contain it long enough to stop it, but I... I was too late. It attacked Vertex Three... either because Joker pointed it there deliberately, or it sensed so many alternate branches... a-and it... it consumed your future. All of your futures, every timeline, every possibility, even the Facets that hadn't finished forming yet. They never existed. It's all... gone... and the Facets that were left, the timelines that it couldn't consume..." Fantine stopped. For some things, human speech was simply not equipped for the task. Words didn't exist to describe what the entity had done, what Joker was responsible for. She attempted to explain as best she could. "The future, the past, the present... they can't exist without each other, th-they're all connected, and the remaining timelines... couldn't take the strain. They've collapsed. It's called... a Time Crash. The damage was... incalculable."

"I'm so sorry."

END OF CHAPTER 36

NEXT: FALLOUT

Author's Note: Acknowledgment and apologies to Douglas Adams (RIP) for borrowing the most chilling words from Hitchhiker's, and to Diane Duane for borrowing Yui and Fantine's exchange here. I simply couldn't resist... it was just too good.

Much gratitude to anon's subs for the specific wording for the A La Mode and Hugtto scenes. Keep it up, guys.

And to steal a line from my best friend: comments are an author's food pellets! Leave plenty!

- BHS