With the completion of the final examination you have officially become an arbiter. A Beholder agent will be assigned to you within five minutes, all further proceedings will be handled by them." And just like that, the agent from the Eye who had spent the last ten years experimenting upon her left, as though they didn't know her at all.
She supposed it didn't matter, everything was over and done with.
The surgeries and the slaughters that came afterwards, injected with an endless supply of healing serums to ensure their bodies never collapsed. The hundreds that would die in an eternal quest for survival, an experiment repeated a thousand times over to find the ideal outcome.
The constant additions and deletion of false memories to create the ideal mind, one that wouldn't bend or break no matter the stress put upon it, one that could never hope to defy the orders given from above. A mind so thoroughly violated that it could no longer be called theirs.
A soul gutted of its origins, their past selves burnt to a crisp, their moral structure uprooted by its very foundations, to be replaced by an ideology of humanity. Pressed from all sides, the extreme pressure would create a rotten diamond from their being.
Yes, none of it mattered anymore. The constant flow of life had led her here, she simply had to keep following the stream, to one day reach a basin that will become her forever constant, that she may no longer fear the darkness that shrouds her world.
Not once has Garion ever seen the face of a fellow arbiter.
She's felt their touch, she's heard their voices, she's witnessed their figures, yet she's never seen their faces. The final destination she searched for, a basin in which she will find her equilibrium, she's yet to see it, not even beyond the horizon.
Yet the arbiters around her acted as though they had already reached their destination, as though they were never a part of the current in the first place, all the while they flowed beside her on their flimsy canoes made from ash and scrap.
They ignore the current, they ignore their hearts, they ignore the sights passing them by; believing themselves unbound by the river, believing themselves a God that watched from above, not realizing they were the only ones to sink.
Through a decade of torture an arbiter is created, the ideal form of humanity. Imbued with technologies and concepts beyond comprehension they have faced the impossible and have made it their own, rising above the masses to be the ones who saw clearly, the only ones to bear witness to the city in its entirety and judge what is right or wrong.
They dictated humanity with an iron fist and a perfect mind, their gaze infallible.
And yet, to fool an arbiter was easier than fooling a rat of the backstreets, for it is their perfect vision that makes them blinder than all.
Through a decade of torture they have become Gods of humanity, yet it is this belief in their divinity that makes them incapable of questioning their true selves, of questioning the absoluteness of the justice they bestow.
By believing themselves humanity perfected, they become incapable of change, unwilling to bear witness to the rotten soul within their being, unwilling to realize the arbitrary nature of the ideology they arbitrate.
Instead, they bury their hearts under a mountain of justification, a mountain so gargantuan in size that it consumes every cell in their body.
In the end, all that remains is that mountain, leaving not an individual below.
That is why she has never seen the face of a fellow arbiter, she's only ever seen a mask of false ideology.
There was a feeling distinctly nostalgic about sipping tea in the office, a result of the millennia that have passed most likely. The humming of monitors, the subtle aroma of black tea and the knowledge that they sat upon a crown of agony.
An atmosphere that never failed to create a feeling of melancholy within her, the weight of time bearing down upon her shoulder much like a warm blanket in the winter breeze.
She took a long sip of tea, emptying her cup. The end was nigh, yet there was still an action she wished to take.
"Will you continue to ignore my presence? I don't believe myself to have slighted you in any way or form." The frown upon Angela's face deepened at her words, proof enough that her words had reached her ears.
"Your refusal to provide support during the breach of WhiteNight will continue to be a black stain upon your records." Garion chuckled for a moment before standing up.
"Let us walk together, and perhaps you will learn to see things from another perspective, if only for a moment."
"I have no reason to follow you." Was Angela's prompt refusal, her words taking on a biting edge.
"Perhaps you don't, yet you have no reason to not follow me either. It would be better than staying here in your solemn silence, would it not? Or do you find my presence that unbearable?"
Her expression told Garion the answer to be 'yes', but Angela moved to follow her regardless.
"Why do you despise my inaction at that moment?" The elevator began to descend, into the facility they went.
"Is it not obvious? Your refusal nearly resulted in the destruction of the facility and risked the manager's psychological wellbeing."
"And yet, were I to take action in that moment it would've been to go against his wishes. Is it not your sole duty? To follow the path he lays? He seemed quite content in being embraced by its wings." The elevator opened, they walked the halls of the control department.
"That was entirely caused by the abnormality's influence! It was not by his own will." Angela argued back, the edge within her voice sharpening with each word.
"Perhaps, yet content he still was. Who are we to decide the genuinity of someone's happiness? What gives us the right to judge what is real?" She stopped for a moment to stare into the containment unit that laid next to them. The long bird held its scales beyond the door, forever tilted towards sin.
"Your words suggest that there's anything to judge in such a situation. There is a truth there just as the existence of gravity is the truth."
Garion hummed to herself in response. "If that is what you wish to believe."
She stopped once again, in a containment unit slept the bird that held the lantern, its eyes seeing all that could be seen, yet failing to understand it.
"But such a thought suggests that you see the truth for what it is. Such a feat is an impossibility, no? We all look upon the outside world through a lens colored by our own beliefs. To find an objective truth would be a difficult task indeed."
Angela didn't let up an inch of ground. "I see enough to know that allowing the manager to be taken by WhiteNight would be against the will of his normal self. It was an objectively wrong action"
And neither did Garion, frustration tinting her voice for the first time in millenia. "By what metric does one define normality? By what authority does one swing their claw at those they deem impure? By what right does one judge the sin of an action? If an objective truth does indeed exist, who holds the right to decide it so? And if such a being does indeed exist, why must we adhere to their subjectivity?"
The two of them stopped one final time, beyond a door fluttered a small bird, forever searching for those it deems bad, believing in the obviousness of sin.
"What does it mean for something to be true? What must one do to find their final truth? To finally lay down their bones and rest their minds, free of confusion forever more."
Angela did her best to restrain her frustration, it would do little good to escalate further.
"Then by your definition, objectivity is impossible. There is no such truth to be found."
"...ha."
Garion raised a hand to cover her eyes as she let out a bitter chuckle.
"Yes. Perhaps the sole objectivity within our world is the subjectivity of everything else."
She continued to chuckle, yet it held none of her usual amusement.
"Hilarious. It truly is hilarious. To think that all of humanity is built upon a lie."
Angela waited for a while for Garion to finally compose herself.
"I suggest you visit my neighbour in Aziluth. Your dear manager will not be at his office, I believe the time has come for the two of us to put a dot at the end of our little dance."
As with all things Garion said, most of it flew over Angela's head, to be tucked away and analyzed at an undecided date.
One must wonder how much more was left.
Garion could only watch as a needle pierced her skull, carefully digging through the crevices of her mind to extract everything that ever was.
The man standing over her could not even bring himself to meet her eyes with his own, a fragile coward at heart in spite of the cold indifference he had built up around himself. Lower than any rat she's seen crawling through the mud of the backstreets, wasting away here at the edge of humanity all by his lonesome.
Yes, he was lower than the rats, yet he still stood over her.
She who was of humanity perfected, a being that existed among those who dictated the course of the city, a God in all but divinity. A being that now laid defeated, her mind violated and her being enslaved to another ideology.
The pain was unbearable, beyond even the experiments she faced while in training; yet his eyes promised a future that held even more suffering, one that would destroy who she ever was, and who she ever will be.
But, inexplicitly, she felt as though she'd be laughing had she been able to control her body.
She would laugh and laugh until her lungs could wheeze no further, such was the sheer hilarity of her situation.
An arbiter brought low by an outskirts laboratory, enslaved by a force that stood against the Head.
It was proof of how idiotic they were, they who believed themselves absolute. Stupidity so grand in nature that it defied all logic, so crushing in its size that it consumed the entirety of their tiny word.
Truly hilarious indeed. To think this is what the city was built upon.
The man walked into the room of the bucket. A sanctuary for just the three of them, they who were forced together in spite of their seemingly diverging paths.
"Your recent words have truly frustrated me, this newfound belief in objective salvation." Garion poured him a cup of black tea, the one forever constant of her being.
"I can imagine. There is none other who understands you better, even if I often find myself struggling to agree with you." He let his eyes rest upon Carmen just for a moment, to pay his respects to the original sin.
"..."
After a long silence of sipping tea, she finally spoke.
"...Do you truly believe yourself capable of challenging the head?"
"You know of their mortality better than any other. At the end of the day, they are nothing more than people."
Garion let out a bitter chuckle before speaking.
"And I know of your boundless vision better than any other. I would believe it if you were to claim yourself capable of overthrowing God in his own heaven, such is the impossibility of your sight." She didn't doubt it for a moment, this conversation too was a part of his beloved ever changing script.
"No, the head's human nature is precisely why I doubt your claims. The sheer belief Arbiters hold in the righteous truth of their action is something only a human could hope to have, for it is a thought that precedes every corner of the city. Or rather, such a belief is what was imposed upon the city by the absolute power they wield."
Her eyes began to turn glossy, her mind attempting to reach memories that had long been scorched from her mind. Of the ideology that was instilled into her, of the mask that was forced onto her.
Of the face of a girl she never saw, Zena's once inquisitive gaze replaced by the all consuming ideology, turned no different from every other Arbiter to have ever existed, blindly seeing the world in its entirety while believing in a subjective objectivity that held no true origin.
Nothing remained, nothing but feelings long inscribed onto her very soul.
"Do you know how I could be so cruel? It is because I alone was the one to realize the unknown existed at all, the darkness that shrouded the truths of the world, the terror that haunted my existence."
Millions of eyes flashed before her. Some held rage, others held despair, all unique in their origins and the lives they mirrored.
But there was one ever present constant. Fear of the unknown, fear of the Arbiter that stood in front of them.
"I devoured my fears for survival, that I may one day find a truth among those who faced the unknown, their eyes that held a testament to a life lived, a life learned—something so dearly missing in the gaze of Arbiters."
If there was one thing she once believed in the truth of, it was the power she held in her hands. That it would someday lead her to the objective truth of reality, that she may no longer fear the unknown.
Yet even that was shattered upon that day, when a weapon unknown to her pierced her abdomen.
What was left of her then?
Fear.
Fear, and a mountain of lies built by the Head.
"You believe yourself capable of challenging the head? Then you must prove to me that you are at the very least capable of challenging this wavering Arbiter. If you cannot do even that with your own strength, you cannot hope to overcome the stupidity of the Head."
'Once upon a time, three happy birds lived in a warm and lush forest.'
"The forty-fifth shall be the day of apocalypse."
Ayin returned her a resolute nod as he left.
The twilight that approached, the dawn that was to come afterwards. Garion couldn't help but dream of it.
Notes:Something fundamental shifted within the way the facility was managed, that Angela knew for certain.
For five millennia her creator had struggled, tens upon thousands of loops doomed to failure from a hundred different sources.
With each catastrophic breach and ordeal they would learn from their mistakes and take a single step forward.
Unbound by time and not limited by resources they have thrown themselves at the unbending wall that was the script, chipping it away one reset at a time.
For the last few centuries, most resets ended not because of a core suppression like the millennia before, but rather from an abnormality breach after day forty. Mere moments before day forty six, a careless mistake from her creator would result in the destruction of the facility.
She had simply assumed it was another lesson to be learned, another obstacle to be overcome over the resets to finally reach the final few days.
So why had everything changed so suddenly?
No longer did her creator struggle with abnormality breaches, no longer did the ordeals result in casualties. In fact, the sheer efficiency in which the facility was managed meant no breaches occurred on most days, even the train having become nothing more than an inconvenience.
Such a sudden shift should be an impossibility, not even her creator could hope to overturn the facility's management in such a short amount of time. Yet it clearly was possible, for it had already happened.
The implication was…concerning.
She wondered, she questioned, and on the forty second day, she finally found the courage to sate her curiosity.
"If I may ask, manager, what is the cause of the sudden improvement in the facility's management?" Her creator froze, his shoulders stiffening ever so slightly for just a single moment.
"...Angela." He said in a grave tone.
"Yes manager?"
"How much longer do you think the script will go on for?" he asked.
She frowned for a moment. "My previous estimate was seven centuries, though the recent shift in management means it is most likely inaccurate."
"And what is your prediction now?" He continued to question.
"Under the assumption that there are no unknown variables, two years."
Her creator closed his eyes at her answer, seemingly mulling over her words. He spoke after several minutes.
"No, this is the last cycle—"
…last?
"—TT2 will not be used by us from now on. We have reached the end of the script, the project will be completed in eight days time."
…end?
The word felt foreign to her ears, its meaning contradictory to everything she's ever known. The sheer impossibility of it, that the cycle had an end, that the project will be completed. Logic dictated it to be true, for nothing was impossible in the face of eternity, even more so with the concentrated effort of her creator and herself over the last millennia, yet that truth still felt like an unreachable mirage that receded with every step she took.
"Angela."
Logic dictated the truth, yet Angela couldn't bring herself to grasp it. There was something inherently wrong about the word 'end', half her being screaming at her that she should never let the concept enter her world.
"Angela."
Eight days? That was one hundred and ninety two hours, or eleven thousand five hundred and twenty minutes, or six hundred and ninety one thousand and two hundred seconds, ticking down with each moment. That wasn't nearly enough time. She still had over three hundred thousand questions she needed answered by her creator.
"Angela."
Who is Carmen? Why does Garion hold the power of several singularities? What does tea taste like? Why does Garion's glare intensify with each spoonful of sugar? What is in the extraction department? Why is she not allowed to perceive it? How did her creator and Benjamin meet? Why was Benjamin excluded from memory repository? Why was the facility created? How does one make a cactus bloom? Why are there memories within her she couldn't reach no matter how hard she tried? Who are the people her creator apologized to on that night? What happened with WhiteNight? Why was she created? What is her purpose? Why must they perpetuate this script? Why did he gaze upon her with such hatred on that day?
Did he hate her?
Did he love her?
She had not a single answer.
She saw nearly everything within the facility, every moment of its history recorded perfectly within her mind, to be recalled and relived each and every day.
She saw everything, yet she found herself knowing nothing.
It had been five millennia, what had she done in all that time? Why did she even exist? Why was she created?
Why—
Why—
Why—
"Angela!"
A hand on her shoulder pulled her out of the vortex that had consumed her mind.
"Yes manager?" She asked as she turned towards her creator. There was an unreadable expression within his eyes, perhaps she would have named it guilt had she known a single thing about him.
"From the forty fifth day and onward, there are matters I must take care of in the extraction department." A hundred more questions arose, a tiny grain to be added to the mountain that had been built over the millennia.
"...I see." Was all she could say.
"I'll be leaving the management of the facility in your capable hands."
"..." It was silent for a while, Ayin unwilling to speak further and Angela unable to find her words.
"...May I ask what these matters entail?" She finally asked.
"Every sephirah must undergo their core suppression for the script to be completed, and Garion's turn has come. I will be heading into the extraction department with twelve hand picked employees, Benjamin will serve as your assistant in the final six days. If my estimate is correct, I will return on the 53rd, three days after the project's completion."
She should've found relief upon hearing of her creator's planned return, yet something within his words only served to deepen her worries, an underlying tone that made her wary no matter how hard she tried to calm her simulated heart.
"...Do you promise?" Never before had her voice been so soft, never before had she spoken in a whimper. Yet these words were left without strength, dissipating into the office with no one to hear it.
A soft smile appeared upon her creator's face. Angela couldn't help but worry even further. He held out a pinky towards her.
"I promise." He said. She stared at the finger for a moment, her mind unsure as to what to do. But her body moved on its own, their fingers interlocking in a gesture Angela couldn't help but feel was childish, despite knowing nothing of it.
The sound of chuckling filled the air. It was a delightfully pleasant thing, the soft tone reaching her ears and bringing light into her heart. Perhaps that is one question answered, this was why she was created, to hear that soft sound forever more.
After the moment had passed, her creator reached out under his desk to pull out a bottle of liquid. Angela tilted her head in curiosity.
"What is that, manager?"
"Champagne, it's custom to open a bottle to celebrate a special occasion." He answered.
"Are we celebrating the end of the script?" Her creator shook his head.
"No, we'll celebrate that together, all of us. Every sephirot, employee, and even the abnormalities will be there to bear witness to that bottle. This is to celebrate our triumph over WhiteNight, and your first time taking command of the facility, even if it is late." He took out two glasses before filling both to the brim.
"We were the only ones to bear witness to that occasion, which is why only the two of us will share this glass, as Garion is currently unwilling to see anyone at this moment." He pushed one of the glasses towards her.
Angela carefully picked it up, taking a moment to watch the bubbles rise and pop from the yellow liquid, creating a sizzling sound. She copied the motions of her creator, softly bumping the two glasses together before taking a single sip.
She could taste nothing, and the burning sensation of alcohol described to her was nowhere to be found. Yet the liquid still left a sizzling sensation, much like how the heat of tea travelled throughout her body before settling into the stomach.
In spite of her tumultuous mind, Angela couldn't help but smile.
Angela found herself standing at the final elevator of the disciplinary department, her creator standing in front of her as the twelve picked agents descended into the extraction department, mere minutes before the start of the work day. The crimson and white E.G.O suit along with the winged staff held in his hands made it clear his endeavor would not be a peaceful one, though Angela found it within herself to crush the worry within her heart.
She had no right to question his actions. She would simply trust their shared promise, for he has never once told a lie to her.
"You'll be going then?" Asked Benjamin beside her, her creator nodded.
"Yes."
"All by your lonesome?" Benjamin continued to push, Angela didn't quite understand what he meant.
"Yes." He answered once again. Benjamin frowned as he closed his eyes, a sigh escaping his mouth before he turned to leave.
"So be it." He left without a word more.
Another question to be asked, another one added to the endless list.
"Please be safe, manager." She said.
"I will."
"Please contact the office should further reinforcements be needed." Twelve agents weren't many in the grand scheme of things, even if they were among the best the facility had to offer.
"I will." He said once again.
He turned towards the elevator, the final two agents awaiting his presence before leaving.
For just a moment, she thought she witnessed the golden crown of thorns she saw after WhiteNight's suppression, an E.G.O that disappeared as quickly as it came.
A single moment later, it was gone, instead upon his back were wings of white and crimson, the ones that belonged to the apostles.
A single moment later, there was nothing. Just her creator, and the E.G.O that he wore.
The elevator descended the moment he entered, before he could turn around to see her one last time.
Angela told herself that it was okay, that her creator will be back in just a few short days, yet a glance below showed her hands to have been outstretched, one final reach into the dark, her hands still empty.
The why she did not understand, even if she knew the answer.
Ayin took a step outside the elevator, the tranquil purgatory of the extraction department stretching out far beyond the horizon and growing larger than any comprehensible scope as the facility began to resonate with Garion's quietly raging emotions.
The clock showed ten minutes to remain before the workday began.
"Edward, BongBong, keep the others in line while I'm gone. Be prepared for battle at all times." Edward attempted to protest, but a single glance from him silenced the agent. The man had become even more obedient since the suppression of WhiteNight, even if the agent no longer showed any significant symptoms after a full memory wipe.
"Bong!" The other agent nodded enthusiastically, somehow remaining ever cheerful. Ever the strange one.
A five minute walk later, Ayin found Garion sitting in her usual spot, by Carmen with a cup of tea in her hands. Unlike most days, there was not a hint of amusement to be found in her expression.
She did not speak a single word, instead loosening her uniform slightly to reveal her nape. He took out a scalpel before cutting open a bit of skin, revealing a tiny device implanted in her spine. The restriction that he had put upon her.
He began his work, careful movements of a needle used to disarm the implant.
In the entirety of the city, there was only one whom he truly understood.
Benjamin, Carmen, the sephirot. He could see their being, he could predict their actions to perfection, yet he could never truly understand them. It was all nothing more than a well calculated equation, forever short of true understanding of the soul.
Even Angela, the one whom he had created, had grown far beyond what he had made, spreading her roots to find a different person altogether from the core she was created from.
There was only one person whom he could find true understanding with, the only one whose mind he had witnessed in its entirety.
Perhaps that is why he found no fear within himself when the device was finally removed, the might of an Arbiter returning to Garion in all its incomprehensible grandeur.
To kill him now would be to embrace the comfortable, to take the course of action leading to the obvious conclusion.
She would not do such a thing. Even as she resists his will, even as she rejects his words, even as she claims otherwise in her own mind, she had already made the decision to change, she had already chosen to face her fears.
She would not have granted him this test if she hadn't.
All that remained was for him to overcome it, to shatter the fear of the unchanging that had taken root in her soul.
!!!MANIFESTATION OF QLIPHA DUE TO SEPHIRAH BREAKDOWN!!!
Suppression of Sephirah's Core Required
Angela watched as three abnormalities breached containment with no rhyme or reason. Completely ignoring their behavioral patterns, the three birds ignored all employees standing in their way, instead converging towards a single location.
' A long time ago, in a warm and dense forest lived three happy birds.'
They were not created by the corporation, they were simply a concept too powerful to not exist in the physical world.
'Little Bird decided to punish bad creatures with its beak.'
The Claws are wielded by those above, with no true understanding in their minds they destroyed all that was deemed impure.
'Big Bird, with his many eyes, watched over the forest to seek trespassers. Big Bird's eyes can see very far, and things we can't see.'
The Beholders watched over the city, searching for trespassers, that nothing may corrupt the future of humanity.
'Long Bird weighed the sins of creatures that enter the forest to keep peace. Long Bird's scales would measure every sin, and were fair and just.'
The Arbiters bore witness to the soul of the people with nothing clouding their vision, that the city may finally find their arbitrary virtue.
' In chaotic cries of fear, somebody shouted. It's the monster! The big terrible monster that lives in the dark, dusky forest!'
Together they formed the Head, a false God to sit upon the eternal epoch of mud that was humanity.
The facility shook as the beast arose from the gate to the Black Forest.
Twilight had come, the first to represent the old world that would reject her existence.
Notes: