A harsh ringing sound deafened her ear as Anima stumbled backwards.
Millions of lives played out in front of her in that instance with no boundaries separating them from her. Was she Anima? Or was she one of the many within the flood of information.
A life of a husband who went to war leaving his family behind, their tears and his sadness. His fear and regret at the moment of his death.
A child who watched hunters take her family away from her before being sold as a slave.
The homeless who starve, the rich who abuse and the ones in between. All of their lives merged within Anima's mind.
Within the boundaries of her soul, millions of hands reached out in an attempt to seize every piece of her as she was unable to hold them back in time.
Tripping over her own foot, she fell backwards and started to spasm on the flood with her aura becoming more unstable with each passing second.
"Anima!"
"Big sis!"
Both Aria and Chaos shouted out in shock seeing Anima stumble back with blood dripping from her nose.
Quickly running beside her, Aria tried to see what's wrong with Anima's body and realized it was her mind that was being overwhelmed by the information.
Chaos noticed the same thing and quickly halted the project. Running over to Anima's side, Chaos frowned and waved her hand. Several tier 9 magic circles surrounded Anima's body and started to heal her wounds.
Snapping her finger, a hole opened in the center of her chest and Chaos could see the core of Anima's being faltering from all of the interference.
Separating them one by one, she removed Anima's connection to the book and tossed it aside before 'fixing' Anima's core.
Moments passed as both Chaos and Aria looked on with anxiousness. Thankfully, Anima's condition stopped deteriorating as she fell unconscious.
"Take your sister back to her place for now. We'll continue the project once she's feeling better." Chaos asked as Aria nodded her head before taking Anima away.
Standing by herself, Chaos picked up the book and flipped through the contents, seeing the full extent of what flooded Anima's mind during that one instance.
"I shouldn't have told her to go see why life and death was important. I thought she'd learn her role as a higher being, one that lives a different life compared to these mortals but she learned the human heart instead." Chaos muttered, massaging eyes before making up her mind.
Setting the book aflame, she destroyed it completely and left no traces.
During that instance, the essence of the book pulsed out and Chaos noticed something within the room. It was brief and barely noticeable. But Chaos could sense that something had been tampered with.
Walking towards Shiro's direction, Chaos furrowed her brows before conjuring a tier 9 magic circle.
Before she could do anything, the magic circle shattered apart much to her surprise and understood she couldn't figure out what had interfered with this part of the world.
Shaking her head, she realized something must've happened in the future and something has blocked her power. Something that was stronger than her.
Unsure of what to make of the strange reaction she sensed briefly, she could only put her focus back on the task at hand.
She needed to clean up the process of the cycles more and find another way to record things other than the book. Something that wouldn't harm Anima like this even if she tried modifying it.
Before Shiro could see what Chaos was planning, her vision shifted to where Anima was.
Anima was now laying on the bed and Aria was no where to be seen. After a brief moment, her eyes opened slowly as she clutched her head in pain.
Sitting up, she realized that she was no longer in Chaos' lab and understood that she must've collapsed.
She could remember the different souls trying to tear her apart due to her haphazard preparations.
Sighing out, Anima raised her hand and stared in silence.
"Am I still Anima?" She muttered.
Even though Chaos managed to cut the connection quickly and separated the souls, she could still remember everything all of the lives had lived. She could see still flashes of their existence, their lives playing out in her mind.
If she fails to focus on 'Anima' as an entity, the visions will start creeping in, trying to take over.
"This can't stay like this."
Taking a deep breath, she conjured a tier 9 magic circle. While Chaos may have separated the book, she could still remember the composition due to the fact that it had linked with her soul.
Flicking her wrist, an interface appeared in front of her once more. She wanted to sort out these lives into categories just like this along with the information she absorbed daily. She'll document everything in a way that doesn't flood her mind.
Just like a book, she'll be able to choose when to access her knowledge.
While she was making this feature, she couldn't help but contemplate the future of the cycles now that the first test run ended in failure due to her own negligence.
"Knowing mum… she'll probably try again but with more precautions this time. I doubt she'll let me use the book if she hasn't already destroyed it."
'But why should she take away the blessing I give to everyone in the cycles. It gives them all a chance at life even if they start in poor conditions.'
"Having the book merge with her new precautions might not be too bad… In the end it's just the burden placed on me that's worrying her. If I make the new feature document everything for me without flooding my mind, I'll be fine."
'She can't be allowed to interfere with the cycles or else people like Aaron will suffer. Their goals lost in the sea known as mankind with only the final result being the one that matters. I can't let her dictate my life like that.'
Pausing momentarily, Anima held her hand against her head.
"My life? No… It's their life." She frowned, understanding that she was going through drastic changes the longer she left things like this. She had to sort out the new feature to preserve her sense of self.
'So this is when she created the database I suppose. It seems like it became something inherent to all of us. But that still doesn't explain things…' Shiro frowned. There was one major difference between the cycles she was seeing here and the cycle they were living through.
The cycle that Chaos was creating felt like small contained experiments. Naturally it could just be her perception of everything as one of the lives that live on it yet it felt much bigger compared to what she was seeing.
Plus, Anima had only been in one cycle so far as Leia. According to her knowledge, there should be millions of Animas, millions of Shiro's and so on.
'I suppose there's still some major turning points I haven't witnessed. Did Order want me to see all of this during our fight? For what reason? Just seeing the first cycle wouldn't change the outcome of our battle. Unless there's something later that shows the secret of tier 10…' Shiro thought to herself with skepticism.
Shrugging her shoulders, Shiro conjured Error on her wrist and tapped him on the head.
"Seems like you and I were always destined to meet I suppose. Considering your original conception was made by the original me." Shiro chuckled as Error swayed with the movement of Shiro's finger.
After playing with Error for a short time, Shiro glanced back at Anima who had just finished creating the database and gave herself a partial reset to purge all the lives that were trying to merge with her.
Filtering them all into a database, she sighed out softly. After visualizing herself internally, she realized there was too much that had already merged to be purged properly. If she purged all the parts that had merged, she would cease to be Anima as well.
Massaging her head, Anima got out of the bed and made her way back to Chaos and Aria.
Now that she had purged herself of most of the issues, she should be fit to help out with the experiments once more.
She just hoped that the parts that had been merged wouldn't cause too many issues.
Over at where Chaos and Aria are, Aria returned to help Chaos with sorting out a new way to manage the cycles.
One that splices the successful cycles together while the failed cycles would also be spliced together. On the off chance that they succeeded with failures, they'll be given another chance but the chance was low for failures. This was a sentiment that both of them agreed.
"Should we make a purging function so that sis doesn't have to work too hard? I don't think she's in any condition to help right now." Aria asked.
But before Chaos could reply, Anima made herself known.
"It's fine. I can handle it. I've already resolved the problem." Anima called out as she created an orb in her hand and placed it on the table.
"It's a new version of the book and has some safety features, it won't harm me anymore." Anima reassured.
Seeing her determined gaze, Chaos could only reluctantly nod her head and resume the project. There was something different about Anima but she couldn't put her finger on it.
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