BlazBlue:Phase Shift 4 Chapter 5

Chapter 5: Colorless Guiding Light

The Black Beast was gone.

At first, that was an obscure fact, unknown to many and hardly believed by those who were aware. But just as feeling returns to limbs as blood resumes coursing through them, the reality of what had happened spread across humanity.

They all raised their voices and rejoiced as one. Victory is ours. The Black Beast is gone. Everyone was singing to the skies about the glorious fact that the world was now free from its menace.

Like a gear that suddenly started turning again, everyone was busy.

One month passed in the blink of an eye.

In the school courtyard on a mild afternoon, with sunlight filtered through the leaves of the trees above pouring down on her, Celica was idly gazing upon the green scenery spreading as far as her eyes could see once again.

Even though the Black Beast had been defeated, the world hadn't instantly returned to this sort of mundane everyday life. Ishana still wasn't even halfway done restoring the buildings that had been crushed beneath Take-Mikazuchi, and they hadn't finished sorting out all the dead from the final battle until just the other day. There had been talk of erecting a monument for all those who had died in battle for a while, but now the rumor around town was that the Duodecim was in an uproar trying to decide who would succeed the heads of the families, and that things were getting more and more complicated by the day.

Celica was sitting on a courtyard bench, idly kicking her legs.

She didn't have any particular reason for coming here. There weren't enough teachers left, so the school still hadn't reopened. Celica missed her chance to graduate during the mess they had all just gone through, but she had been granted a diploma in recognition of her contributions during the war.

She didn't have to be here, but she came anyway just to kill time and reminisce on her school life that had been cut short. She thought it was a bit of a shame how it had worked out.

Celica had the option to re-enroll, but she didn't want to do that. She certainly had some lingering attachments to her school life, but if she were to restart attending now, Nine and Trinity wouldn't be with her anymore, and she would have felt uncomfortable with everyone looking at her as the little sister of one of the 'Six Heroes.'

"Hm... the Six Heroes."

Celica murmured to herself as the light kept on filtering through the trees and down onto her head.

Hakumen, Nine, Trinity Glassfille, Jubei, Valkenhayn R. Hellsing, and Yuuki Terumi. They were the brave warriors who had given their all to save the world, inspiring their allies with their overwhelming power enhanced by the Nox Nyctores causality weapons they wielded unflinchingly on the front lines in the final battle... that's the sort of praise that they were receiving alongside the honorable name of 'Six Heroes.'

Celica knew that, in reality, not a single one of them were happy about being called by that name. Nine and Valkenhayn in particular thought it was so stupid that it made them genuinely angry. Trinity and Jubei had convinced them to bear with it so that people could have a symbol of hope to look up to in this time of need.

There had recently been another newly-created name, too. The alliance of the Mage's Guild and the Orbis Librarius Norma, which they had been temporarily calling their 'Joint Headquarters' during the war, had officially become a single organization under the Orbis Librarius Norma name. The fact that they used that as their name after officially reforming as a new entity proved that the Mage's Guild wasn't the one calling the shots.

In light of that, Ishana was likely going to undergo some big changes beyond just the state of the academy. With that thought in mind, she didn't have too much hope for the future.

"Haaa... So much has changed this past month."

She suddenly wasn't a student anymore, and Nine and Trinity had become heroes. Ishana, the place she had lived in since she was a little girl, wasn't governed by the Mage's Guild anymore.

The world was finally at peace again, but the reality of it wasn't as nice as it sounded. Sighing listlessly, Celica leaned back in the bench and tilted her head up to look at a figure standing behind her.

"It's kind of a lonely feeling. Don't you think, Nirvana?"

Nirvana was accompanying her.

Nine had said that she was going to seal the Nox Nyctores if they won the war... but she was so busy with administrative matters that she'd been putting it off. Celica, for one, was glad to have more time to spend with Nirvana, but the fact that it was entirely contingent on how busy Nine was gave her some mixed feelings.

"Hm? What is it?"

Celica pulled herself up off the bench with a little huff.

Nirvana would normally just silently watch Celica, but now she was turned around facing the other direction. She was looking at a winding, overgrown footpath. At the end of that trail... was the Cathedral of the Mage's Guild.

"Do you... want to go see the Cathedral?"

She had a bad feeling about it even as she asked. She wasn't sure if Nirvana was even capable of simply wanting to go see something.

While Celica was standing there thinking about it, Nirvana started tottering away.

"Huh? Huh!? W- wait up!"

She had just started walking down the path like someone had called her over, so Celica chased after her in a panic.

It looked like Nirvana really was heading for the Cathedral. Guards used to be commonplace around here, but now there were none to be seen. The former Mage's Guild was so severely short on manpower that they had stopped posting human sentinels for the time being.

They found themselves standing in front of the small building before long, sunlight pouring through the cracks in its white outer wall. Nirvana pushed open the double doors.

"Huuuh!? Hey, wait wait, don't do that!"

Ignoring Celica's bewildered pleas, she stepped inside and turned around, seeming to urge Celica to follow her with her glass ball eyes.

"Um, Nirvana? We're not supposed to just walk right in here whenever we want to, so..."

Nirvana turned away before Celica could finish her sentence and walked right in, just as she wanted to. She headed straight for the staircase at the back of the Cathedral, which was a place where students typically weren't allowed in at all.

Celica knew that it would spell trouble if she just let her go, so she figured she had to follow Nirvana. There was something weird about a Nox Nyctores like Nirvana suddenly deciding to lead someone somewhere, and the cause of it might be waiting inside.

They passed through countless doors and descended countless flights of steps before finally arriving at a magically-powered elevator. At the bottom of it was what must have been the deepest level of the Cathedral.

They passed through a corridor with a high, arched ceiling before arriving at a tall set of double doors. The wooden doors were clearly very old.

Nirvana stood before them and stared at Celica, seemingly urging her to go on.

"Is it really alright for me to open these?"

Celica glanced over her shoulder nervously, but Nirvana neither nodded nor shook her head. Her only response was to start staring silently at the doors.

Celica couldn't get any kind of read on her expressionless face, so she furrowed her brow and reappraised the doors. They were majestic, and looked incredibly heavy. Her common sense as a former student in the Mage's Guild was telling her that the place lying behind them would not be the sort of place you should enter casually, but still... she had a funny feeling. Even beyond the fact that Nirvana had led her here, Celica felt like something was inviting her to go past these doors. She wasn't hearing anyone's voice or even feeling anyone's presence, but she had a feeling that she needed to go on as if someone had just called her name.

She put her slightly flushed hands on the door and gave it a gentle push. It swung open far easier than she had expected, almost like it was opening on its own. The wood creaked a little, but the tiny sound it made was swallowed up by the massive ceiling of the room beyond, even higher than the corridor behind her.

"Wow..."

It was a circular hall. It was completely deserted, but it was incomparably wider than the chapel on the surface above it. Mosaic tiles on the floor made a pattern that resembled something like a flower, the sun, or perhaps swirling fire, giving the whole room a sort of ritualistic feel.

Walking in slowly, Celica felt like she was being invited to continue.

The moment the tip of her leather shoe touched the floor, with neither a sound nor a warning…

Celica's world was dominated by white.

Whiteness.

Nothing but pure white.

No floor, no walls, and no ceiling.

Even the concept of an 'end' to the whiteness was vague at best, and Celica found herself standing alone in that world of nothing but white. She looked around in bewilderment, but even Nirvana, who was standing right beside her just a moment ago, was now nowhere to be found.

Instead... she didn't know when it had appeared, or if it had been there from the start, but she saw a single rectangular mirror standing upright in the pure white space.

(A mirror...)

She couldn't manage to speak the words aloud, as if they had been sucked away from her. Her memories rustled like ripples on the surface of water. She had seen this before.

No, she hadn't simply seen this in passing once. She had seen this countless times. This scenery had appeared before her countless times before, and countless times it had melted away both from her sight and from her memory. She had always thought it was a dream, but looking back on it, the first time she had slipped into this monochromatic world had been a similarly sudden visit.

...Why had she forgotten?

Why…

(Why was I called here...?)

Stepping forward in a daze, Celica muttered without thinking, but the words didn't actually come out.

Even her breath was simply melting into the whiteness.

Had someone... really called her here?

Who? Why? Who were they calling for?

Like intermittent droplets creating ripples that eventually faded into the distance, her sporadic questions slowly disappeared.

Just what was this place?

With this final question in her heart, Celica found herself drawn before the mirror. It was just tall enough to reflect Celica's entire body, as if it existed here solely for Celica's use.

...Just how many times had she thought that before?

The mirror reflected Celica's appearance perfectly, but something about it was strange. It seemed like, rather than showing the Celica who stood here in this pure white world, the mirror was actually a window showing a different Celica standing on the other side.

The uncomfortable feeling Celica had had ever since she appeared in the pure white world finally became a vivid chill running down her spine.

That's right. The mirror wasn't reflecting her standing here on the white ground in front of it... or at least, it didn't feel like it was.

(No, that's not right. It is me, but it isn't. It's not reflecting the me that's standing here. It's like I'm watching a me from a different place...)

She tried to feel around in her heart for the right words, but she couldn't find a good enough way to describe what she was feeling. It was frustrating. Annoying. What should she call this feeling?

(But... it's weird. I haven't really been able to stand here and just think about stuff before, have I...?)

She was getting more and more confused and uncertain, and she was even less sure about her self that she was seeing in the mirror. It was like the indefinite outlines of ink after spilling water on it.

(...Huh?)

Celica suddenly realized something.

That was weird.

The world in the mirror wasn't white.

It seemed like some kind of circular, sanctuary-like hall. The ceiling was so high that she couldn't see it, but the floor had a mosaic tile pattern that looked like the sun or a flower.

It was the underground room below the Cathedral that she had opened the doors to just moments ago. The Celica reflected on the mirror's surface stood in the center of the mosaic and looked at the Celica in the pure white world with wonder in her eyes.

(What's... going on?)

Once again, her question couldn't pass her lips. However, Celica did realize something else: even though her voice wouldn't come out, her lips did move, but every time they did, the Celica on the surface of the mirror's lips stayed still. That Celica was just standing there, perplexed.

She still wasn't certain about anything even though she had remembered this place, so she couldn't say anything for sure, but she felt like this was the first time something like this had happened. There was a clear separation between this side and that side, with the rectangle forming the boundary.

Maybe she should have felt fear at this realization... but instead, Celica felt a strange emotion similar to nostalgia from deep within her heart. It wasn't as if she was looking at herself from the past, so she didn't understand why she felt that way.

(Is this... really a mirror?)

She told herself that it wasn't as she slowly raised her arm.

This couldn't be a mirror. At the very least, it wasn't an ordinary mirror like the one Celica looked into every morning at home.

She wanted to know what it would feel like. Inside the frame, the Celica standing in the room beneath the Cathedral raised her hand at the same time.

However, just before they touched their fingers together, the Celica on the other side of the mirror suddenly turned to look behind her. She smiled bitterly like a child who had just been caught doing something wrong. She shuffled her feet on the mosaic tiles and made eye contact with a woman who had just entered the room.

The woman had soft hair beneath her large hood, and a soft smile graced her face.

(Trinity-san?)

She tried to call out to the other side of the mirror, but it seemed like her voice wasn't reaching them.

As if doing it in her place, the Celica on the colorful side of the mirror called out to Trinity in exactly the same way. Taking graceful steps, Trinity walked toward her with a gentle smile as she raised her index finger, seemingly admonishing her.

Her voice wasn't audible in the pure white world, which gave Celica a hunch about what was going on here.

They were different. Her side and the other side were different places. The rectangular mirror looked like it was connecting the two, but it really wasn't. Either that... or the mirror had previously connected them, but now it wasn't anymore.

The mirror in front of Celica wasn't showing her a reflection of herself at this point: it was just a window for her to peek into the other side through. That was why she had had an uncomfortable sense that she and the image in the mirror weren't one in the same.

She could tell that Trinity was asking the other Celica to leave with her now. The Celica on the other side sheepishly walked to Trinity as Trinity beckoned her.

She turned her back to the mirror... no, to the window, and left it behind. Past her, Celica could see Nirvana standing at the entrance to the room as well.

(H- hey, wait!)

Seeing that, Celica finally started to panic.

If the Celica on the other side was going to leave with Nirvana, who had brought her here in the first place, then what was going to happen to her here on this side?

(Wait, Nirvana! I'm still here... Trinity-san!)

She screamed and beat on the rectangular frame that was no longer a mirror with her fists.

Not a sound escaped her throat, though, and her fists made as little impact as if she were swinging through thin air... until she suddenly stopped cold as if she simply couldn't do it anymore.

(Nirvana! Trinity-san! ...What do I do?)

After the fear and sadness had set in, her thoughts became surprisingly clear. No matter how much she struggled on this side, no one on the other side would be able to perceive her even in the slightest. The fact that Nirvana hadn't even glanced back slightly proved that quite well.

(Back when I got stuck inside the Black Beast... he came and saved me...)

This, however, was an entirely different situation. She was in some unknown place that even Nirvana couldn't interfere with, not the inside of a monster made of seithr.

(Where is this place, really?)

Celica couldn't think of anything even remotely like this. Could a place more unbelievable than the inside of the Black Beast really exist?

As if in response to her question, she heard a voice. ──ca.

(Wh- who's there...!?)

That was the first sound she had heard in this world of whiteness. Hearing someone else's voice filled her with equal parts relief and anxiety. She didn't know if that was a voice she really wanted to hear or not. She wasn't sure if she ought to respond or keep quiet, but as things stood, Celica didn't have any straws to grasp at other than this voice.

──ca... ury…

The voice was slowly getting clearer, and as it did... Celica began to feel a strange, oppressive sense of pressure closing in on her. The atmosphere around her changed. The supposedly empty space around her seemed to be filled with molasses, trapping her body.

It was a familiar feeling, somehow.

──Ce...ca...Me...cury…

(They're... calling my name?)

Oh, of course: it felt like water. Just as soon as the realization struck her, Celica's body sank.

She was sinking into a body of white water.

Even as she did, the voice continued to call out, growing ever clearer and ever closer.

──Celica.

(This voice... sounds familiar...)

──Celica A. Mercury.

(Oh, I know... It sounds like how Onee-chan does... when she's thinking about something too hard.)

A strict, strong voice... hiding deep kindness within it.

The voice dispelled every trace of fear she was feeling. Feeling like she was rising to the surface now even as she continued to sink, Celica closed her eyes.

...She couldn't clearly remember what happened then.

Celica turned with a start when she heard someone calling her name to see Trinity standing behind her with a troubled expression. She felt like a child being caught in the middle of doing something wrong and tried to talk her way out of it.

At that point her surroundings had already switched back to being the underground room of the Cathedral instead of a blank white world... and they had been that way for some time. Nirvana stood silently between the open doors, like she was some kind of gate warden.

Obviously, Trinity wasn't fooled in the slightest by Celica's excuses, and she firmly scolded Celica by saying, 'you shouldn't come in here,' with a tender expression on her face. Celica wanted to try and explain herself, but even she didn't really understand what she was doing here. In the end, she gave a sincere apology and let herself be led back up to the surface.

...What had happened to her when she went below the Cathedral? When she was back out under the sunlight again, for some reason, it felt like she was waking up from a dream that she couldn't remember clearly. The memory of the mysterious experience that she had just had melted away into the sunlight. In just a few days, she completely forgot about the entire thing.

After that, she just quietly and peacefully drifted through the rest of those days when the world was slowly healing its wounds.

Back to Chapter 4: Azure Wish's Fate

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