Hikaru: More oneshot, angsty-ish goodness.

Guy: Hikaru Irving owns nothing that isn’t hers.

I thought it would be easy.

For what felt like forever had I been searching for the one tool to help me reshape the world to what I envisioned.

What I needed was hyperresonance strong enough to destroy the land, the people, and the planet’s memory.

Throughout the years I ascended the ranks of the Oracle Knights, all the while searching for two Seventh Fonists with strong enough reactions to produce a full-blown hyperresonance, not the halfhearted fraction of one most reactions tended to produce.

But the conditions for hyperresonance between Seventh Fonists occurs under only special conditions, through their Seventh Fonons interfering with one another.

Those special conditions were numerous and hard to spot.

That is when I learned of a fledgling technology called fomicry from the Oracle Knight who would in time become Dist the Reaper. He said he was trying to develop fontech machines to be able to replicate things, especially living things.

I became curious about fomicry.

I didn’t think I’d need it at the time; after all, it was a barely workable process.

Dist informed me of the newly established, albeit secret, branch of research being conducted in Belkend focusing on fomicry. Most of the fontech he built that worked were sent there.

I began to think.

If I could harness fomicry at it fullest potential, I could not only reshape but also recreate the world.

Teaming up secretly with Dist, I helped to develop the theories for successful replication and became involved in many projects, most of which were successful.

But even if I could use fomicry for my purposes, the one problem remained—I had no means of generating a true hyperresonance.

One visit to Belkend changed all that.

By what seemed like sheer luck, many scientists interested in hyperresonance research had a living subject that could produce a true hyperresonance on his own volition.

That is when I first met Luke fon Fabre.

He was only a small child at the time, not more than ten years of age.

I was surprised.

Even a child raised in the aristocratic court life would be cheerful, happy, a child, if you will.

But this child’s eyes were cold, with a cruel glint.

They were just like mine after Hod fell.

I visited him a number of times, never telling him that I was interested only in his hyperresonance.

For whatever reason, he felt he could trust me. He told me many things, about his parents, his best friends, anything and everything he could.

What he mostly talked about was how he hated being subjected to hyperresonance experiments all the time during this stay in Belkend, what his father had so eloquently called a vacation.

He told me that his father originally didn’t want to hand his son over to cruel researchers, and that his mother was most against it of all. But the researchers blackmailed the duke.

Apparently Malkuth had already undergone research on hyperresonance, and knew enough to generate a small, half-formed one. It was enough to destroy Hod.

But if Kimlasca could equal that using the subject who could generate true hyperresonance on his own, it would be ready to counter if Malkuth used hyperresonance to attack Kimlasca.

Thus the duke agreed, but to one condition only—that after a month the duke’s son would be returned to him.

That month was almost up.

Luke told me that he liked me, liked having someone to talk to during this horrible ordeal. So I asked him if he would like me to teach him swordplay, so we could talk more.

He agreed.

From the moment he returned home, I became his tutor in the ways of the sword. I waited until he trusted me completely, beyond a shadow of a doubt.

I asked him if he would join me in the Oracle Knights, to escape being a hyperresonance test subject.

He agreed.

So I kidnapped him.

By then fomicry had developed enough to successfully replicate a living being using the Seventh Fonon to bind its atomic structure together.

I had already formed a plan.

Keep Luke close by me, so in time he wouldn’t think twice about being my tool for the recreation of Auldrant. Dist’s fomicry equipment was already making rapid developmental breakthroughs.

Everything was falling into place.

But the only way to keep Luke close would be to use fomicry, to replicate him.

Dist warned me that even with all the breakthroughs, replicating living things was still immensely difficult, that in four cases out of every five, both the original and replica died within minutes of replication.

If both replica and original died on me, then my plan would fall into shambles.

I had to think of a way that both subjects would live.

Fomicry used the Seventh Fonon in the replication of living things.

Since they were so hard to gather, all I had to do was keep the fonons from disappearing during the process.

I am a descendent of Yulia, and I know her fonic hymns.

So, when I replicated Luke, I used her fonic hymns to gather and keep together the Seventh Fonons.

It worked.

I explained to Luke that the replica would be taken back to Duke Fabre in his place, in order to avoid his death.

I told Luke of the Closed Score that foretold his demise, and he agreed to let the replica take his place.

So I took Luke and left his replica in Choral Castle, where I replicated him. I had informed Gailardia, who had entered House Fabre as a servant, about my plan. He retrieved Luke’s replica at Choral Castle and returned to House Fabre.

I, meanwhile, had taken Luke to Daath to be entered in the service of the Oracle Knights. But he had to have a new name.

I called him Asch.

After I named him, Asch became rather . . . distant.

I paid it no heed. I instead returned to House Fabre. There I told the Duke and King of the Closed Score predicting Luke’s death, and of the replica Guy had brought back.

Neither the King nor Duke had any qualms about it.

So I continued to regularly visit the Fabre estate, when I again became Luke’s mentor in the art of swordplay.

I thought it would be easy.

It was, for the most part. The differences in Luke and Asch were minimal—only Luke’s hair was a lighter shade of red, paling into fire-gold at the ends (probably a side-effect of fomicry), and it whorled in the opposite way Asch’s did.

Their personalities were extremely different.

Asch was cold and distant.

Luke was arrogant, cheerful, and was equally rude and demanding to those above and below him.

The only time he showed anyone any kind of respect was to his mother, who knew not that her son was replaced with a replica, and to me.

It was like the time I first met the original Luke.

I built a strong bridge of trust between us, one virtually impossible to break until the promised time.

Seven years passed quickly.

Fomicry advanced spectacularly, and although Asch was cold to everyone, he still trusted me. He told me that whatever I was planning to accomplish by sparing Asch’s life but sacrificing the replica’s, he trusted that my decision was thought through and it was what was best.

My consciousness tortured me for days.

Especially that day when I was appointed to aid Luke as a goodwill ambassador to Akzeriuth in exchange for my freedom.

I again asked Luke to join me as an Oracle Knight.

I again told Luke of the Closed Score that foretold his death.

He again agreed.

I couldn’t believe that he trusted me that much.

All I was going to do was stab him in the back and leave him to die in cold blood.

I had finalized my plan upon reaching Akzeriuth, the setting stage for my world recreation—no, world regeneration.

It never seemed quite real.

These people chained to the Score had used me to destroy Hod, my beloved homeland, and my hatred for the current world consumes me.

Although I took all the preparations necessary, a part of me never once thought I would actually carry it through.

Whenever Luke looked at me, his eyes glowing with trust and respect for me, I almost stopped.

Only my hatred for the Score got me moving.

One by one all the people who cared for me rejected my ideals and I.

Asch, Luke, Guy . . . and Mystearica.

Mystearica, even you would reject me?

No, of course you would.

I always knew you would.

I am no more a human being—Luke, who I called inhuman for his birth, is more human than I.

Never seen by anyone as anything . . . but a monster.

The stage has been set.

I cannot turn back now.

Please, Mystearica . . . and Luke.

Stop me.

Stop this monster I have become.