Guilty Gear Transmigration: Light of Madness

A minute ago, inside the deepest part of Justice's facility, Asuka and a group of United States researchers were scrambling among their terminals at the flying object going towards Justice. 

However, as Justice looked down and thought it would crush whatever was approaching, the Gear gently put the now visible person onto its hand and near its face instead. Where they conversed, surprising everyone in the room.

The Deputy Director was a man with blond hair who paced around while cracking his knuckles. "What the hell is that thing? It's definitely not human; should we have Justice destroy him?"

"No, everything is fine; he won't harm Justice."

The leader of this research facility stood on top, monitoring everyone else's terminals, and could talk to Aria directly with a simple magic call. Upon hearing the director's words, everyone relaxed but was somewhat on edge.

Asuka couldn't help but smile as the two siblings conversed with each other again, assuring himself that everything he had done was worth it. More so, how sane Daubeny appeared alleviated his fears that had been in the back of his mind for decades. In every Gear made using cells replicated from Daubeny's, every subject had some sort of mental problem.

"All of them have depression, lethargy, neurosis, not being able to control themselves, hearing voices, seeing things that aren't there, and more. Thankfully, my master was wrong about that Divine Seed he named the Light of Madness for the original."

Everyone continued to monitor the discussion of the two gears until Daubeny mentioned that Asuka was the criminal known as That Man, leading everyone to stare at him in uncertainty. Shuffling to the side, the deputy director titled his head.

"Sir... your a criminal?"

"No, I, wait. Daubeny said that Frederick was coming to see me. That means!"

As Asuka feared, he heard the laboratory door shudder slightly, a hairline fracture appearing along its metallic surface before halting. He then listened to a distorted voice he hadn't heard in years.

"Come on out, Asuka, I only want to talk."

Everyone in the room seemed scared by the sudden attack, with one of the lab technicians covering their head. "Are we going die?!"

Asuka shook his head while wiping sweat from his forehead. "He won't kill any of you, only me, and I've reinforced that door with magic."

"Ahhhhh!"

A middle-aged woman lab technician with neck-length black hair screamed at what was showing up on her screen.

The Deputy Director became startled again and rushed to a nearby chair, gripping it tightly with his right hand. "What is it? What happened?!"

"We can't confirm physical contact, but... It appears something from the Backyard is attempting to make contact with Justice!"

Another lab technician with silver hair and glasses desperately continued to operate at his magical terminal. "These levels are too high for our probes!"

"Recalculate with the Demi-huma Method. There are over forty trillion per second."

Asuka gritted his teeth in frustration while pressing a button to communicate with Aria. "Aria. Aria! Can you hear me? What happened?!"

"Aaaaaaah!" 

Hearing her yell of pain made Asuka even more worried, as his voice slightly shook.

"Calm down!"

The lab technician who had yelped earlier spoke up again. Her body was shaking. "The test subject's conscious topology readings are all over the place... Is this trying to give itself life using Justice?!"

The Deputy Director was furious and looked towards the lab technicians. "An intervention from INSIDE the Backyard?! That's impossible!"

"What should we do?!"

Asuka took a deep breath to calm down the chaos and ordered. "Terminate the experiment and retrieve Justice immediately! That's our top priority!"

"What the hell is happening...? Justice's information density is equivalent to a galaxy cluster." Turning around to face Asuka, the deputy director asked. "Could the energy of a single organism exceed that of a systematically networked life form?"

Another lab technician stood off their chair as their terminal started to spark. "Something's found the test subject's DNA data... It's multiplying!"

Asuka shoved off notes from his desk while looking through them to see if he had done anything wrong. Only to find a troubling possible answer. 

"Could it be... the Universal Will?" Standing up straight, he commanded with no nervousness. "Calm down; we need to analyze this rationally. We'll assign the variable X to this phenomenon. All new information will be collected in series!"

The lab technician with glasses turned around to Asuka and pointed at the terminal where he was operating. "X will materialize in the real world in T-minus 453 seconds. I can't believe how fast it's eroding!"

The deputy director resolutely nodded but flinched from the more rapid banging on the door to this room. "We have to stop it, no matter the cost! The influx of information would destroy our world!" 

"S-Sir... could we terminate Justice's activity entirely...?"

When he said this, the entire room shook as if it was from an earthquake, and all the residents had to hold on to something as the intensity of the strikes from outside. Asuka stood up first, keeping himself steady from the shock waves.

"It wouldn't work. Gear cells can serve as a conduit to the Backyard regardless of whether the subject's alive or dead."

Sweat was dripping from all over his head while he brought up a magic circle to communicate with Aria.

"Aria... listen to me. Something is going to attempt contact with you from inside the Backyard. We need you to resist. Can you do that for us?"

His only answer was an inhumane screech of pain, causing him to falter for one moment, but he tried to sound encouraging.

"You can do this... I believe in you. You're our only hope! You've just reunited with Daubeny. Don't you want to see Frederick again?!"

The woman lab technician turned around, looking calmer than before. She wiped the sweat from her brow with some paper notes. 

"We've punched in a V2 report. We've managed to cut the flow of information from our world..."

The lab technician with glasses slammed his fist onto his terminal while letting out a curse. 

"It's not working! The test subject's DNA data is bridging the link! X2... X3... We've confirmed two bodies!"

His eyes focused again, noticing how the subject's location was moving quickly.

"Retrieving coordinates... Latitude 35 degrees, 40 minutes, 51 seconds... Longitude 139 degrees, 46 minutes..."

Asuka couldn't stop himself from blurting out where Aria had flown off to in confusion and fear.

"Japan?!

The lab technician woman turned around and made her towards the front terminal. 

"That's outside our jurisdiction and way too far away to do anything! Both bodies are going to materialize in the real world in... T-minus 183 seconds!"

Asuka looked down at his terminal, knowing what must be done to save the Earth, but it would come at a terrible price. To save the Earth, he had to use a spell Frederick had worked on and modified into Justice called a gamma ray.

"We have to use the Saint Oratorio... Disengage the Outrage Armor!"

It had taken Asuka many years to find the best defense for Aria until he reviewed Frederick's past notes and, based on the design of a possible Outrage. This armor protects her from most magical weaponry and spells. It allows her to draw magic directly from the Backyard to substantially boost her immense power further.

"But if we do that, the radiation levels--we could face sanctions--!" 

Protested the lab technician, their voice trailing off as the fortified doors to the room were blasted away. They lodged themselves in the roof's ceiling. They engulfed the room in more chaos as metal splinters flew in all directions, revealing a thick smoke cloud that billowed into the room.

Through the smoke, Asuka saw a pair of golden eyes focused on him. The true form of Sol stepped forward, revealing itself to look dragon-like, with red and brown armored skin, claws, a nearly black head with white edges, and a curved horn above his forehead. Not even a moment after emerging from the smoke, Sol lunged towards Asuka, only to be repelled by a powerful force pushing the flame of corruption backward half a step.

"I FINALLY found you. This barrier won't stop me!"

Sol managed to control himself to stop his emotions from rampaging as he examined the magic to see how to break it. Although his gear form gives him a massive boost in power, his emotions typically run wild, making him reckless.

The Deputy Director flipped around the lab technician with glasses, throwing his hand into the air.

"I don't really give a shit about that right now! Use the prototype catapult if you have to! And someone calls a security before that thing breaks through!" 

A lab technician on the front terminal turned to face the two while hyperventilating. "Saint Oratorio charging! ETA until full charge... 640 seconds, sir..."

"Damn it! We need more time!"

"We're getting readings on the modulation... Now receiving visual on X2 and X3."

Sol stopped examining the magic circle, pissing him off due to not finding any weaknesses to exploit, and became confused when looking at the glowing screens.

"What the hell is that? It's got... eyes? And ears? But that doesn't matter now. The Outrage is its limit..."

Looking down to see the monstrosity of a sword emitting steam that was starting to boil his skin and the surrounding metal. He set it on the floor and began disassembling it because he knew the explosion from all the magical energy could crack the Earth in half if he didn't. 

Meanwhile, Asuka held both hands on his control panel while diligently looking at the screen. "This is just like the Dawn of Revival."

"I thought that was supposed to affect only electronics?!"

Asuka ran a hand through his hair, saying, "How is this happening? In an hour, the Earth will no longer be a human world... Damnit, Aria..." The gearmaker closed his eyes painfully before opening another magic circle. "...Switch Justice over to manual override!"

He looked over at Sol, who had just finished disassembling the components, which had all turned into different weapons. But the one Sol picked up was a rectangular and blunt-bladed sword. It featured a crossguard shaped similarly to a butane lighter, with a striking wheel and breeze guard. And it began glowing with wild flames.

Sol stopped the flames when he heard a voice he never thought he would ever hear again, panicking.

"Wh-What's happening. My...my body...my mind is... What are you doing?!"

"Entering coordinates, zone 8-81. Target locked. Prepare the gamma-ray! Maximum output + 40!"

"Wait, stop! My brother is still down there. He may look different, but I can see him from here!"

"What?! Daubeny was dragged along with you!"

The lab technician woman couldn't hide her fear as she backed away from her desk. "Are you serious?! You'll vaporize Japan!"

Upon hearing this, Sol glared even harder at Asuka, letting go of the flaming sword and taking the component he and Daubeny had made, which shone with moonlight radiating from it. But, as he was leaving, he left one message for Asuka.

"Damn you, Asuka! It doesn't matter where you run from here, I will find you! And if Aria or Daubeny die..."

The Gear didn't finish his sentence as he began flying his fastest out of the facility. Usually, Sol would rush toward the source of the problem. Still, after many attempts at striking Asuka, his only option was stopping Aria himself, so now he was rushing towards Japan. 

-

POV Daubeny Bismark 

As I struggled to crawl out of the rubble, the acrid scent of smoke stung my senses, mixing with the metallic tang of blood that oozed from my wounds, of those in this building and on the outside. With every movement, I reached further towards the top of the debris.

When I finally reached the top of the buildings, I saw that all the buildings in my surroundings were ruins. The ones responsible were bloated masses of dark tentacles that exploded with such force that they sent me slamming into the rubble behind me.

Those masses of exploding flesh were Japanese people, and that's when it all started to click for me...

"But it can't be. This... this would mean that all my work has been for nothing. Everything that I have tried to save Aria... To change... All those people I experimented on for my own... sick entertainment."

My heart felt like it wanted to tear itself from my chest, each beat stretching my skin, and I began clawing at my head, trying to tear out those memories. But my fingers quickly turned into claws as I felt myself change and glow while black wet blood flowed down my head.

There was only one thing holding back the rest of the transformation.

"What I've done... it was all... Madness."

Admitting that single sentence led to me experiencing unbelievable pain in my head as I recalled everything I had done to the Japanese people I had kidnapped and how I enjoyed my experiments. I looked down to see my newly transformed dark purple skin and gold accents, and my feet were now talons. I wanted to sulk more, but a familiar, carefree voice was heard nearby.

"My friend, you never told me you could transform into an angel."

Izuna jumped from one piece of rubble to the next, with Nekomata following close behind, though she was visibly crying.

"I didn't know I could do this, but you should get as many unaffected people out of here as possible before the beam fires down and annihilates Japan."

Izuna might have kept his carefree expression on his face, but his eyes told another story. 

"It's not just Nekomata and me; everyone from Japan's guardians from our world is here. But we won't have enough time to save many."

Looking up at the sky and gazing at Aria, who had stopped flailing her limbs and was charging her gamma-ray on her shoulder, I sighed, not really caring what would happen to me.

"I'll buy you as much time as I can, and for however long we were friends, but I'm glad I met the two of you."

I flew without waiting to hear their response, and I saw many survivors look at me with awe. That didn't matter at the moment, as I set up a magical barrier as far as possible. Within a few seconds, the gamma-ray hit my shield, barely holding it back as it was being pushed down. That's when I received a call.

"Huh, who's calling me at a time like this?"

"What the hell are you still doing there?! Get out of there now!" Sol screamed with urgency.

There were a lot of things I wanted to tell, or maybe not tell, since I didn't want him to look at me in disgust or never call me a friend again. But... there was something I needed to tell him.

"Frederick, I... don't think that I can continue. Continue to have done the things I have done in the name of saving Aria." Chuckling hallowly to myself, I continued. "It was madness. I can see that now. Madness. There is no hope of changing anything."

"You can tell me whatever you've done in front of me! Now move it!" 

At this point, the beam would break the barrier within a few seconds, as I could see the magical energy leaking out from the entrance, distorting the area it affected. That starting area was over more than I could see.

The barrier fractured like glass in no time, and I could feel the searing heat of destruction clawing at my soul, consuming me bit by bit. My regineration was useless.

I couldn't see Aria's face anymore and returned to talking to Frederick as the beam collided with everything around me. I used my newly powerful body to halt it, if only for a few seconds.

"Save Aria, Frederick, while you still have hope."

The gamma-ray had now disintegrated my hand, holding back the rest as I felt nothing from my waist down. Darkness soon clouded my vision as I could no longer open my eyes.

-

I awoke to a sensation of weightlessness, the cool embrace of the night air on my exposed skin and open inner body. Thankfully, my arms and chest were still intact, but my lower body was nowhere, and I could feel large amounts of blood, some of my veins and intestines falling into the night sky. Wait?

"Night?"

Blinking away the haze of my numbing pain, I found myself falling from the sky. The lower half of my body was destroyed by that beam, and with a crunch, my body splattered against the dirt below me. 

I did not break most of my newly strengthened bones and flesh, but I was twisting the angle of the bones in my wings in the wrong direction.

The pain, initially numbed by the overwhelming rush of adrenaline, now pulses with renewed intensity as my severed nerves send frantic signals to my head. It's a visceral ache, throbbing with each slow heartbeat.

But as I gazed upwards, I saw a sight unlike any I had seen in all my years. The night sky, painted in hues of crimson and gold, stretched out infinitely before me, countless stars twinkling like precious gems in the darkness.

For a moment, I forgot the pain and fear as I marveled at the sheer beauty of the cosmos. And then, with a weary sigh, I surrendered to the darkness again, my consciousness slipping away as the stars danced above me.

-

A/N: How are you all liking the story so far? Plus, do you think the Hale family is genetically cursed for bad things to happen to them?