Fade-Out: Chaotic Yet Good

...

Nn...

...Where am I? I've never seen anything so tacky...

For that matter...what have I been doing...?

I remember interrupting the summoning ritual, just like my beloved emperor told me to...

I met everyone from Chaldea... Saved Goghie... Got saved by Goghie... Became besties with Batty...

I kept pretending to get along with everyone...but over time...I actually started to enjoy myself...and I feel bad about that...

Oh, right! I almost forgot! Emperor gave me an order!

This was supposed to be the time I finally fulfill our promise for the seventh day of the seventh month!

Aaand that's quite enough of that♪

Nice to meet you, Yang Yuhuan, and welcome to your new personal hell!

This is the other side of the nth barrier, where causality, common sense, and continuity have all been thrown out the window.

So come on in and make yourself uncomfy in the moon demon's punishment room run by yours truly, everyone's favorite evil final boss kouhai☆

What's going on here? I don't think I've ever been more confused or revolted in my life...

Um, this IS our first time meeting, right?

Of course. It better be, since I resisted going on this little business trip so I'd have a solid alibi.

Would you like to know what it is you're feeling right now? It's aversion to people who remind you of you!

We're both Chaotic-Good, friendly to a fault, and belong to an Extra class.

And if that wasn't enough, we're both the kind of thoroughly rotten types who end up as final bosses...which is I guess true of any lovely young lady.

Anyway, we're competing for the exact same position! There's no way a kouhai heroine like me and a childhood friend one like you could ever get along!

C-c-come on, that's not fair at all.

In general, I'm all about being philanthropic and agreeable, you know?

But only as long as your precious emperor permits it, right?

Even I can't help but be appalled at a moral code full of holes so big you could drive a truck through them. But, whatever. It's fine.

By the way, Yang Guifei, how's your mind right now? Thinking relatively clearly, I'm guessing?

...Now that you mention it, I think I am... Why? Did you do something to me!?

I sure did♪ Honestly, it's a wonder your Spirit Origin held together at all thanks to how thoroughly the outer universe had its hooks in you.

So I took aaall of them out and only left your public persona behind♪ Ahh, I do love me some good old-fashioned moon Holy Grail cheat power☆

You did what!? H-how could you!? What about my link to my beloved emperor!?

Nnn, sadly, my Chaldea senpai's sensibilities preclude any hope of fixing your creepiness through surgical means.

Oh, but don't worry. I'll still make sure to "fix" you back up properly later.

This is a special, temporary treatment, just a little preemptive measure to pave the way for my real punishment.

...You keep mentioning punishment, but I don't recall doing anything to deserve it...

Oho, playing dumb now, are we? Sorry, no dice. I know you're clearheaded enough to know exactly what I'm talking about right now.

What you tried to do was a crime against all of humanity and Proper Human History.

That's right. What you attempted in the name of your precious emperor was just STAGGERINGLY evil!

Ulp...

And now, it's time for your punishment: a comprehensive review of your failed scheme!

Oh yes, it's what every criminal mastermind fears more than anything! We're going to go over every last one of your failures in excruciating detail!

Nooo!!! Anything but that! I'll die from sheer embarrassment and regret! Can't Grandma Zetian just torture me insteaaad!?

Hmm. While you have absolutely no right to refuse, this is still a family show, so I think I'll just subject you to tickle torture until you give in☆

Ahahahaha ahahahahahahaha ahahahaha ahaha! Stop, stop! I'll talk, I'll taaalk!!!

...First off, my Foreigner Spirit Origin was inscribed with a few...directives, I guess.

I had to be completely in tune with my god.

And I had to store up eldritch power in a way that wouldn't arouse suspicion.

Once I had enough eldritch power, I'd be able to turn the tables in that god's favor.

From there, I was supposed to destroy, or steal, or do whatever I had to in order to turn the most important thing in my summoning session into experience points.

Those would eventually enable the god to grow stronger using me as a conduit until they reached a point where they could break their seal and make their comeback...

That's the very, very abridged version.

The divinity of the emperor I serve is basically all about burning and killing everything in sight...

...but I couldn't really do that right after I was summoned, since I was still super weak.

Luckily, the god I was filling in for this time was a surprisingly intelligent, cold, and calculating type...

...so thanks to that, I was able to excuse myself to my dear emperor for choosing to take a more...discreet approach this time.

Nooow I see. And your next step was to ingratiate yourself with Senpai, huh?

That's right... I can actually resist Command Spells to some degree as long as my emperor commands me to, so I wasn't especially worried about those.

However, the situation turned out to be much more difficult than I expected.

Starting with that stupid wild octopus, I couldn't have been stuck with more incompetent allies...

I could tell right away that it was Goghie who'd called me, so I couldn't help but wish she'd done a better job.

Though I guess I can't be too hard on her, since her plans got thrown out of whack when one of the alliance gods she was expecting just didn't show up.

Anyway, when I arrived, the situation basically looked like this:

Van Gogh, the favorite, had failed to get the two factions to work together, so that Outer God decided to go with their backup plan and have her bloom into a flower of pure madness.

Her rival, Hokusai, just wanted to paint all day and caper around doing whatever she pleased. I guess the idea was, if she painted enough, she'd eventually get to the final manifestation?

And then there was me, the dark horse who snuck in amidst all that chaos. How was I supposed to win the race with the odds so stacked against me!?

...But anyway, as much as the odds were stacked against me, it was still secretly a three-way race.

But that's not all. Regardless of who ended up winning, I couldn't afford to sink the Nautilus until it was all over.

It was the only place Goghie and I could store eldritch power, so it had to survive at least that long.

Even Lady Hokusai couldn't operate in Void Space on her own, at least at first.

Oh, incidentally, it looks like she stretched her tentacles out all over Void Space and painted pictures even as she was destroying logic and reason left and right. Talk about a mad artist!

At any rate, the way things were going then, it looked like we were headed to just one big mess where nobody wins.

So I decided to do something to get the Nautilus back on the right track.

Hmm? Why did you do that? Couldn't you have just acted like the evil god stand-in you were and formed an alliance with Hokusai?

No, I couldn't. For whatever reason, Goghie's arbitration abilities only worked on gods from the existing alliance.

And since collecting eldritch power is a zero-sum game, nothing good would have come from multiple factions vying for it.

Trust me, one mastermind feasting on madness in the dead of night even as they present a peaceful façade during the day is more than enough.

Of course, had our divinities been part of the same alliance, the two factions could have worked together to build up eldritch power.

But that's just rarer than rare, like a dream team. If we could have pulled that off, this whole ordeal would probably have been over in an instant.

I see, I see. Well I can certainly sympathize with the desire to be the only heroine (read: villain) in a given story!

Anyway, that's why you, Van Gogh, and Hokusai each had separate schemes, huh?

Ahaha, I don't know if I'd call it a scheme, per se...

While the best way to build up eldritch power is through phenomena that inspire terror and primal disgust...

...the only pure human on the Nautilus was Master. Everyone else was a reputable Heroic Spirit, right?

So unfortunately, there was basically nothing I could do to drive them mad.

The Berserker's madness was practically nothing, and Goghie was racking up her own madness like crazy...

And of course, all the Servants were guarding Master, who would normally have been my best bet, very closely...

Then, just when things were looking hopeless, I noticed the Nemo Marines.

They were Phantom Spirits, not Heroic ones, and even better, they were basically one person spread across twelve bodies. That made them the best hope I had of spreading rumors aboard the Nautilus.

I gave them cursed objects and called them protective charms, and over time, I cultivated madness in them based on piety and good intentions.

Surprisingly, it went pretty much the way I hoped. Eventually, they began spreading a new kind of madness around the ship, one quite different in nature from both Lady Hokusai's and Goghie's.

Meanwhile, the Nautilus had regained its ability to fight, and Goghie's settling point was just starting to come into sight, too.

Settling point? As far as I could tell from peeking in, Van Gogh seemed pretty damn dangerous right up to the end.

Nnn, well, I could already see the light at the end of her tunnel once Master and the captain began to show her genuine affection for her.

Ahh, gotcha. That's a pretty meta way of looking at things, but definitely an important one.

So, with all that in mind, how could I go about stealing Goghie's eldritch power?

Well, as the dark horse of this story, it only made sense for me to swoop in at the end and make off with everything.

You know, that DOES make sense! Personally, I don't have any problem with those kinds of devious, underhanded moves☆

That was when I realized something else.

Well? What was it?

Could it be that my Master... is actually my beloved emperor?

Okay, back up!

It sounded like you were going about your scheme so methodically up to that point. Why'd you go crazy all of a sudden?

Master has formed contracts with so many powerful and temperamental Heroic Spirits, and he doesn't bat an eye at even the most crushing pressure...

And then there's his incredible generosity, which is kind of likeNo, exactly like my beloved emperor! Yes!

...(Sigh) Now I get it. This must be at the heart of why you're a Foreigner.

The more eldritch power you store up, the more you become unable to tell who your own god really is...

D-don't talk about me like I'm some kind of floozy! I'm nothing if not loving and loyal!

Hey, don't worry, there's lots of Berserkers in Chaldea who say the same thing. I'm sure you'll get along great.

So, once you went off the deep end, what did you do next?

...Once I stole the Holy Grail, I should have just converted all of its magical energy into experience points and used them to transform into living flame...

But I wanted to make my beloved emperor happy so much that I, um...ended up putting on a grand Foreigner festival...

Hmm. I kind of hate that I know exactly the feeling you're talking about...

Anyway, you thought your festival would make your emperor happy, only for it to have the opposite effect...

...and in the end, your defeat was sealed when your scary grandma-in-law gave you the verbal thrashing of your life, huh?

(Sigh)

You know, thinking about it now, wouldn't getting to serve my beloved emperor in Chaldea be my greatest wish coming true?

Ah great, she's off in her own world now. All right, putting the memeworthy stuff aside...

Okay. I see how it is now.

You and I might be birds of a feather, but our plumage couldn't be more different.

You're Chaotic-Good because one evil act spoils everything good you do, but I'm Chaotic-Good because I'm always pretending to be all evil while managing one good deed in the most stylish way possible.

Love drives me to make my schemes succeed, and causes you to make yours fail.

Honestly, there's so much about your stance on this stuff I hate that I'd sooner wipe my memories than risk learning from it.

On the other hand, the way you Foreigners went about realizing your schemes was veeery educational!

As an AI, I tend to want to use my advanced intelligence to send players spiraling into chaos all at once...

But as an evil god, I see now that a little nudge at one's mental weaknesses is better, and that taking advantage of good-intentioned madness is also totally viable!

...Of course, you don't want to go so far with it that you veer into Sessyoin territory, but it should work as long as you don't make it about your personal desires.

Then there's your "swoop in at the end and take it all for yourself" initiative, the way you handled Phantom Spirits...

Mmm, it's all coming together! I'll have to remember all this the next time I put on a swimsuit☆

...You know, it's strange. Once you said the word "swimsuit," I went from hating you for reminding me of my failures to outright wanting to murder you...

Huh? Does this mean you're my sworn enemy? Should I be burning you alive right now?

Oopsies, I've said too much☆ Oh well, I think we're about done here. Now, let's see about getting you back to Chaldea, shall we♪

(Sigh) Gosh, thinking back on all this...I royally screwed things up, didn't I...?

Oho, what's this? Is your Good-natured heart only now feeling the weight of your sins?

Well, don't you worry. Once your Spirit Origin is back to its original state, you'll be so maniacally besotted with your precious emperor again that you'll forget your guilt completely!

Naturally, you'll forget everything that happened here at the studio, and almost all your Void Sea memories will be sealed away, too.

From your perspective, you'll be all set to start a brand-new life at Chaldea under the impression that your precious emperor ordered you to go there. Enjoy☆

Now I feel like crying...

I feel terrible for how I treated Master... Batty... Goghie...

They all treated me like a friend, even though this personality is just a façade...

But now, when I go back to Chaldea, I'll be so preoccupied with my beloved emperor off in the distant stars that I won't even notice them? That's terrible...

H-huh? Cut that out. This is no fun at all if you don't at least fight it! Come on!

...So you feel bad about being mean to people you feel sorry for? I guess you really are good at heart, just like me.

H-huh?

Yeah, I think I've decided I actually like you! We should be besties, BB!

Wha!? No way! You said it yourself: the best villains are solo acts!

I never thought of myself as a villain...

And with Lady Wu Zetian's restrictions stopping me from going berserk, and my natural diligence...maybe I can get even stronger if I work at it...?

In fact, maybe I can grow strong enough to save humanity or Proper Human History one day, even with this façade of a personality!

Ooh, I just got a great idea, BB! What if we both air all our dirty laundry and give in to the good side together!?

No freaking way! Why would you even think that was a good idea!?

Hey, don't knock the aesthetics of destruction until you've tried them. They definitely don't leave you feeling bummed out like you do after cheating and brute-forcing your way to a perfect victory.

Shut up! You don't know the first thing about me!

Y-yikes. So this is the unbridled self-esteem and oratory skills that earned you your nation-ruining femme fatale reputation... Maybe I stared a little too long into the abyss...

But, unfortunately, that route you just suggested will never be made official!

So no, you're going to start over at Chaldea as a crazy Foreigner and build your good karma back up!

Of course, I don't know what's going to happen when you try, and I couldn't possibly care less☆ Good luuuck☆

Aww, it's so cute how you pretend to be evil when you get flustered.

Thanks, BB! I've learned a lot from you!

Aaah! Quit it! You're creeping me out! Don't look at me like thaaat!

That's all for today! BB Channel, signing ouuut!!!

See you later, BB!