Erina…

  Had a body.

  .

  She had a head. She had a torso. She had arms and legs. She wore a school uniform, battered and damp and covered in dirt and small cuts as it was. A small hair clip in the shape of a butterfly helped pin her hair behind her left ear, keeping it from falling into her face.

  She couldn't see. More accurately, there was nothing to see. She saw herself when she lit a ball of energy in her palm, but she was all that existed.

  She wasn't falling. She couldn't feel a surface under her, even when she crouched down to touch it with her fingers, but she wasn't falling.

  She could hear. She heard the rustle of her clothes, her own breathing, her heart beating. There was nothing else to make a noise—none of the ambient sounds that pervaded the world in even its quietest moments. With nothing else to focus on, Erina could hear her joints creaking and muscles shifting as she moved.

  She took a step. Then she took another. And another. Erina walked blindly through the dark, knowing without knowing where she was meant to go.

  The air began to move. Yes, air existed—or perhaps it had only just begun to exist, with Erina's lungs merely following the instinctual motions before. A low, soft wind began to blow, tousling her long hair and toying with the hem of her skirt.

  Light.

  Erina saw a tiny light in the distance, defining a horizon beyond her reach. As she walked, that light stretched into a shining pillar reaching towards an unseen sky. She had no way of telling whether it was a few hundred meters or kilometers or even light years tall.

  More pillars of light began to form at the horizon, their white glow tinted with a pale light yellow. Erina closed her hand and snuffed out the orb in her palm. Thin light spanned the horizon like the first hints of sunrise on an alien planet, stretching all the way around her and casting the void in a breathtaking gradient. The sky remained darker than any black, the spires of light standing apart and alone.

  Light seeped from the horizon. A thin film crept in, giving definition to this existence. Erina walked across the slimmest, shallowest ocean of illumination, stretched so thin she could only see its aggregate light when she looked towards the horizons.

  The wind picked up. Erina brushed her bangs aside.

  The wind became a strong gust. The gust intensified into a howling gale. Erina crouched down, battered under the wind as the gales magnified into raging squalls, her hair flying wildly around her.

  A brilliant shine seared her eyes. Erina squinted under her arm as the pillars of light bent, defying space to join their ends in the air before her. It was too bright to look at. Erina could only see the lines drawing themselves into existence under the point of contact, stretching wide and zigzagging towards her into the wireframe of a long staircase.

  The gales quieted, the glare softened, and Erina rose. The blinding light condensed itself into a smaller form at the peak of the stairs. It took on a form and grew distinct as it descended, every step lending it greater definition.

  The light took the form of a human, too radiant to reveal its features. It was the outline of a tall, mature woman. As it grew closer and closer, it shed that form and condensed further. By the time it neared the bottom of the stairs, it was no taller than Erina.

  "O lost ones."

  A voice rang out.

  "To me, pray."

  Everywhere and nowhere.

  "To my name, sing praise."

  Long strips of light unfurled and faded into elegant silk, layering over itself to form a flowing gown as white as snow. A trim of shining gold and intricate patterns of dark green that invoked both the growth of plants and the course of rivers. The light drew away as glittering sparks in the air, exposing the full arm gloves of the same snowy white tones and golden highlights. Light streamed from her shoulders and settled as a wide cloak blowing in the wind. Its outer surface was smooth olive green, but inside was not cloth so much as a beautiful portal into a deep blue night sky filled with stars.

  "To my heart, give faith."

  She carried herself down the steps like the guest of honor at this empty ballroom. The winds settled, returning to a gentle whisper as she crossed the final step and stood on the same ocean as Erina while the staircase dissolved away. Her cloak settled over her shoulders and enclosed her, neatly tucking the magnificent dress away within its folds. Her hair was like a waterfall of sleek, shiny white.

  Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.

  "To all that I am, entrust all that you are—your dreams, your wishes, your futures."

  Her face was the last to form, all features obscured by radiant light. One arm emerged from the cloak and touched the light. She drew away the veil, her featureless mask disintegrating between her fingers as she lowered it.

  At the end of it all, she opened her eyes. Still half-lidded, Erina saw those dull irises reflect with every color she could imagine and many she couldn't. Fully open, they took on a bright ethereal green she had seen time and again in the mirror, but never quite like this.

  Her emerald eyes moved to meet Erina. She flinched before she knew it.

  Divine. Erina couldn't think of any better word. Their bodies were superficially the same, but they wore them in totally different ways. From the very first moment, she understood that this was someone who could order the reaper himself to heel.

  "You knew the risks."

  She spoke in a tone Erina never thought her own voice could take—strong, clear, with iron-clad conviction.

  "So I ask of you. Why?"

  Erina clenched her hands into fists to stop their shaking. She felt as if she was staring into the sun by trying to meet her gaze, wanting nothing more than to lower her head at every moment. "I seek truth," she said. "I want to know what came before me—what culminated in my birth, and what it means for who I really am. I want answers."

  "Then you will find them," she said. "Indeed. I am the Great Witch of Six Thousand Years. Master of the Harbingers. Ruler of the human world… Your predecessor, and your terminus." A cold wind rustled the hem of her cloak. "You may consider me the first 'iteration' of our shared existence. The origin of the soul that you carry within your breast. I am known as Eve."

  Icy fingers danced along Erina's scalp and all the way down her spine.

  "You were there," said Erina. "W-When I died… you were there."

  Eve lifted her head slightly. "For thousands of years, I have watched from the sidelines. I observed as humanity struggled for generations upon generations. We proliferated over the planet. When we had nothing else to conquer, we turned against ourselves. We will never reach the distant stars. Humanity will tear itself to pieces on this insignificant blue dot."

  Erina shifted, but continued to listen intently.

  "This could not stand," said Eve. "So I stepped forth. I chose four vessels for the supreme power."

  "The Four Horsemen," mumbled Erina.

  "No. They are means to an end. The true culmination of my plan, the power I sought at the end of an endless journey…" Eve lifted her arm, pointing one finger at her. "You have used it all this time. It is the power of cycles. Reiteration. To return what is to what once was, and choose a new path for what will be. A magecraft that transcends time and space."

  Erina looked at her hands. A small spell circle formed in her palm and faded away. Acceleration, division, spatial distortion, temporal reversion. All of it stemmed from the same root concept.

  From the brink of oblivion, the Great Witch cast Erina's mind into the past and set her free to follow a road to a different ending. So, even her own life and death…

  "I have watched your journey thus far," said Eve. "Your struggles. Your battles. I have always been by your side, and you have done well to come this far." She extended her hand, offering it to Erina. "Now, there is no need for you to toil any longer. Your flesh and blood is a vessel that may house us both. Rest, and leave this world in my care."

  Erina looked at her gloved hand, and then up again. Eve's emerald eyes were filled with a quiet yet potent force of will that made her difficult to look at. The faintest trace of a smile lingered at the corners of her lips.

  Erina blinked rapidly, eyes watering as she maintained her gaze. Slowly, she shuffled one foot back across the ocean. She managed to lift it entirely, and stepped away.

  "You'll destroy it," said Erina. "This world, and everyone in it."

  Eve's hand remained outstretched. "Her name is Akanaga, is it not? And Lazarus as well. And this… Takeuchi. They will find a place in our tomorrow."

  "That's not it. I don't want to see this world end. I don't want to hurt anyone." A chilling wind crept into Erina's clothes. Her voice shivered as she did. "I want to live as the self I know, in the world I know, with the people I know."

  "Consider two boats."

  Erina blinked.

  "One houses ten people," said Eve. "The other houses one hundred. Both are damaged. Your own ship can only reach one in time before they both sink."

  Erina furrowed her brow.

  "Of course, you will leave the ten to die. It is regrettable, but it is the right thing to do." Eve's hand didn't move in the slightest. "Suppose both boats are armed and in high tension. Ten will soon destroy one hundred. You are in a position to sink one first. You must sink the ten with your own hand to ensure the hundred live."

  "That's not—"

  "Ten for one hundred. One thousand for one million. One planet for the future." Eve's eyes were like kaleidoscopes, light reflecting endlessly within their emerald shine. "All the souls in the world today are a fraction compared to all that have ever lived in history. All that have ever lived are a droplet among all that will be born after."

  Erina swallowed the lump in her throat.

  "In coming to this place, you have already offered yourself to the truth." Eve lifted her hand slightly. "This is your moral duty, as one in the position to bring endless prosperity."

  "I won't accept it," said Erina. "I'm sorry, but I can't hand it over to you."

  "Why?"

  Erina grasped for a rebuttal and found herself wanting. She had never been so terrified. Eve spoke of the death of billions in terms of happiness. The total extermination of every last soul on the planet was a promise of utopia. It was wrong, so incredibly wrong—but she couldn't find the right words to pick her logic apart right then and there.

  "You are afraid," said Eve softly. "An understandable sentiment. For millennia, life has always put its own survival first. Such selfishness is not unusual. But you are unusual yourself. From the moment you were born, this was your purpose."

  "Lazarus would never do that," said Erina quickly.

  Eve tilted her head up slightly. She didn't bother responding.

  Erina squirmed as the truth sank in. Lazarus may have changed her mind since then, but she had freely admitted her original intentions to her. When she was born, this was her purpose.

  "This is my body," insisted Erina. "This is my life. I'm sorry. I won't hand it over to you."

  Eve's fingers curled and she retracted her offer. That hand rose to settle at the clasp of her cloak as the wind picked up. A ghastly, hollow moan filled the void. Their hair and the edges of their clothes stirred in the wind.

  "We shall see," said Eve.