Unintended Consequences (Homura Akemi)

Unintended Consequences (Homura Akemi)
Date of Cutscene:	24 December 2023
Location:	The Void
Synopsis:	It turns out resetting time over and over can eventually lead to complications, and those complications can have knock on effects themselves.
Cast of Characters:	{{{Cast of Characters}}}
Tinyplot:	A Stitch In Time

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Homura Akemi is a girl who travels through time and stops time. Time travel is an affront to reality and causality, and can come with the potential risk of creating paradoxes. In actuality these are very rare but repeated time travel, and especially repeated time travel within the same temporal space, created a situation where effects that should for all intents and purposes remain separate found a way to coalesce. Specifically the remnant, leftover magics of reality altering Wishes, supremely powerful magic attacks, and other effects with defy fate and reality managed to converge in a space outside of reality, space, and time as worlds, relationships, and casualties looped around each other again, and again, and again. Every time Homura reset time the power of her earnest and heartfelt Wish was enacted and entropy was overcome. With that eschewment of the physical and magical laws of order tiny bits of those most powerful of magics leaked out of our reality, and into another. Even from the first reset of time this was starting, but it took dozens before there was anything more than the faintest trickle.

Once that trickle of magic started to coalesce, though, something strange was created. In an nth dimensional void strange enough to be entirely outside of normal perception, the magic of miracles collected together enough to form a seed. When more magic filtered through rather than just waiting for an inevitable coalescence the seed actively sought out the little bits of energy and brought it into itself. At that time the seed wasn't conscious, not truly, but it was exhibiting the behavior of most zoological forms of life. It was seeking out through whatever method was available to it whatever source of energy it could find. For the magic that collected in this place was not magic of destruction or darkness, not even if it was magic that caused destruction. The magic here was that which sprung from the most heartfelt wishes of hope. Magic created to enact better futures, to save the innocent, to protect dear friends, even to save and revive those who had already been lost. The magic of Hope, Creation and Life. So it should be little surprise when those various magics collected together fresh, new life sprung forth.

At first that life was of the simplest kind, but as time wound and tangled more and more it became aware first of its surroundings, a dead calm of nothingness that should have no bounds but did. Those bounds were explored and learned and the new being roved about the confines of its existence, waiting for the next miracle and reset to supply it with more energy. Eventually enough energy was absorbed so that the being became aware of not only its surroundings, but of itself. It realized that it wasn't really an it at all, but a person. And a girl! She decided that every proper person needs a name, so she named herself Mirai. Now that she was alive and awake she was unsatisfied with the conditions of her surroundings. There wasn't much to do other than wait around hoping more magic she could absorb into herself would show up. She had to learn to be patient, but even with patience it was very difficult with how much waiting there was. Rather than simply waiting she started observing her surroundings, empty though they were. When more magic did arrive she felt how it arrived. So she began experimenting, not just finding the bounds of her existence but testing them. Pressing harder and harder on them with physical and magical force, then finally striking them in various places, trying to find any weaknesses.

As more timeloops passed and she collected more energy she became more and more aware that there was a world outside of her void, a real world with other real people that were going about their lives. They were growing up, meeting new people and learning new skills and having new experiences, making new memories every single day. She envied these people and wanted to meet them. The probing eventually became earnest attempts to break what she now saw as bonds that held her back and kept her from the real world. She felt like a baby bird trapped inside the shell of its egg. What had started as a small desire became an instinct, and Mirai tried everything she could to break out of her prison. Most things had no effect at all and others caused tiny cracks to appear, but these repaired themselves before she was able to act again. Eventually, though, she found something that worked. The cracks she made didn't repair themselves anymore and with repeated attempts they grew wider and longer. She'd found a way to crack the egg. Now it was only a matter of time before she could break enough to escape into the real world. Mirai smiled to herself, imagining all the new things she'd learn and new people she'd meet once she finished, and got to work.