Posted originally on the Archive_of_Our_Own at https://archiveofourown.org/ works/12657009. Rating: Explicit Archive Warning: Graphic_Depictions_Of_Violence, Rape/Non-Con, Underage Category: F/F Fandom: Little_Witch_Academia, Destiny_(Video_Game) Relationship: Diana_Cavendish/Atsuko_"Akko"_Kagari Character: Diana_Cavendish, Savathun_(Destiny), Quria, Atsuko_"Akko"_Kagari, Original_Characters Additional Tags: What-If, Sexual_Violence, Like_holy_shit_sexual_violence, Be_careful_with part_2, Therapy, It's_like_hurt_comfort_but_for_the_reader Series: Part 2 of The_Great_Collapse Stats: Published: 2017-11-07 Chapters: 2/? Words: 2060 ****** Blight Shards ****** by KriegsaffeNo9 Summary Set between The Shape of No Hope and hypothetically a follow-up to be done some time in the future, this is the time our heroes (and our villains) have to learn, recover, and feel. Accepting requests for topics, though as I'm writing fanfics as a sort of self-indulgence/post-original-fic relaxation, don't expect regular updates. If you liked The Shape Of No Hope, feel free to request what-ifs, characters you wanna check in on, ramifications for stuff that went down... all that good stuff. ***** I Talk to the Wind ***** Chapter Notes See the end of the chapter for notes "Cover your face, but let your voice be heard." -- Elector's Mask ===============================================================================   "What do you feel comfortable talking about today?" Diana crossed her hands under her chest. In spite of Akko's best efforts, she'd lost weight. Eating was a chore, and dicey at that; she lacked Akko's omnipresent sweet tooth, and eating practically anything else was rolling the dice on her post-traumatic s tress disorder. Would she be able to eat this salad without thinking about feasting on Beatrix Cavendish's warm, sap-blooded brains? Could she chew something crunchy without thinking of chewing one of her butlers' knucklebones? Could she sleep at all knowing that she was a cannibal abomination still tainted by black magic? "I don't think I'm comfortable talking about anything," Diana said, softly. "Speak about something you're less-uncomfortable with, then," her therapist said. "If it's too much, we'll move away. If it isn't, we'll ease in. Do you feel me?" Diana nodded. "What's less uncomfortable for you to talk about? You don't need to bare any serious secrets, any deep thoughts. Ease in. Dip your toes." "I could talk about the Hive," Diana said. "The Hive... not an inviting name. Not unless you're a beekeeper." "They are not an inviting people." Diana regarded her hands. Her left hand in particular was criss-crossed and pocked with scars where she had been sliced and pierced by Thorn; a line of scars like track marks spiraled up her arm where the healing spell had taken root. "They imprinted their holiest text on my mind--the Books of Sorrow. They were educational... some of the passages were even beautiful, in spite of what they were chronicling. Is that something I should feel?" "There's no shame in admitting an enemy's good points. A way with the written word is always praiseworthy." Diana mulled her thoughts. "They were survivors. A very, very long time ago... the timeline is a little odd. I don't know how long their years were. They're ancient, no matter how their years are reckoned... hundreds of thousands, at the least. Millions, perhaps. Billions is not out of the question." She took a deep breath. "They were once the Krill, fed upon by everything else on their world. Their existence was threatened by a planetary cataclysm. Three princesses of the Osmium Court sought to save their people from extinction. They found the Worm Gods. "The Worm Gods promised them power to save their people at a price. They became Oryx, Savathun, and Xivu Arath, the first Hive, and their gods. The Hive grew powerful, at the expense that they must always feed their worm." "The worm," her psychologist said. "In each Hive is a worm, an offspring of the Worm Gods. To survive, they must inflict pain and death, and tithe some of the pain upwards to their rulers. They are powerful, so powerful they can't inflict enough agony by themselves to feed their worms. If they fail, their worms will devour them instead." "So a pyramid scheme of agony. And the Taken... if I may ask..." Diana closed her eyes. Traveler whimpered. "Too soon?" "I don't know." "What do you want to talk about, Diana?" Chapter End Notes The specific performance of "I Talk to the Wind" listened to in the writing of this... event: watch?v=FNvrhmSuiXQ At the request of a reader who wasn't clear on the Destiny thing! A bit of exposition about the Hive. Other topics I referenced: Light and Darkness, the Ahamkara, the Taken (of course), and Oryx himself, for anyone who wants Diana's take or to not have to do a wiki walk. ***** Closer to God ***** Chapter Summary What if Akko had been successfully Taken? Chapter Notes This work contains violent black-magic rape as disgusting as the author was comfortable making it. If this is even slightly upsetting to you, it's a good idea to skip this chapter. See the end of the chapter for more notes "Eternity is very close. Can you feel yourself slipping?" -- The Necrochasm "It's too much… Turn it off… Let me out!" -- RECORD-449-CHASM-6263 ===============================================================================   Savathun asked of Quria: "What could have been the future if Earth was Taken all those centuries ago?" Quria thought, and simulated this: =============================================================================== Croix witnessed the sheer volume of strange matter particles being thrown off at the Cavendish estate. She swore at her computer for its ongoing aneurysm and switched it off. She sat in the dark of one screen for a few moments while it rebooted. It spat the same nonsense at her. Must be something happening at the Cavendish estate--some damn fool get-rich-quick scheme, probably. She sighed and set Wedinburgh to "ignore." Whatever the Cavendishes were up to, they could fuck it all up on their own time. =============================================================================== Akko's shrieks of agony echoed in the ballroom. The Thrall... perceived, if not watched, as Diana bit her eye clear of her head, tenderly snipping the nerve with her teeth. Diana lay on top of Akko; Akko lay nude, bleeding and contused from an hour of exotic and grotesque abuses. It was more than Diana could bear. She had taken brief breaks as the paroxysms of pleasure and seizure became too violent for her to properly move, and Akko had taken those moments to lie still and chant the Words of Arcturus to try and stir the Shiny Rod awake. And now, she pressed Akko's eye against the roof of her mouth, feeling how soft it was, how wet, and when it popped against her incisor and optic humours filled her mouth, she had her sixth orgasm. I am raping her eyes, she though, and had her seventh. When she was done taking her pleasure, Akko lay blind and broken, her skin a canvas of bruises and cuts and bites, raw meat and glistening bone. It was beautiful. Her pain was art. "Me'amorfie fosshus," Akko whispered. "Arie arera. Note orfei audy fretter... federally..." Diana kissed her mouth as she chanted spell after spell which would never cast. The Shiny Rod, its stars dim, she pressed into Akko's hand. She stood over her conquest, inestimably proud, seethingly horny. She would have an eternity to hurt her more. Together, they would be perfect. The darkness yawned wide and Akko let herself fall into it. =============================================================================== There is a knife for you. It is shaped like [your soul is mine]. Take up the blade. Make yourself beautiful. Take your new shape. =============================================================================== The blight shard broke, and Akko was here. The Thrall hissed and withdrew into the shadows. Diana's heart, or the memory of her heart, pulsed cold. Something wasn't right. She'd sent Akko to the Taken King nude; here she was, clothed in her uniform, with a hat she hadn't been wearing. Akko's eyes were gone, as they should be. A singularity was beginning to burn its way free; the blight was spreading across Akko's body. She stood upright. In her hand she held the Shiny Rod, now matte black and un-blue, the stars unblinking eyes. It lurched in Akko's grasp like a bound animal. "Diana..." Akko said. Venom dribbled from between her lips. "Atsuko. I'm here." She stepped forward. She reached for her beloved's face. Akko grabbed her hand. "Diana. Diiiiiana..." "...Atsuko...?" "Tierasud aktiandat." The Shiny Rod burst into knots of flesh and bone and arranged itself into a gruesome half-alive sword, serrated with teeth and dripping with what stunk of stomach acid. The spell was in the same tongue as the Words of Arcturus; Diana ran the words through her head. "Those blessed with strength may feed with impunity on the helpless." Akko seized Diana's throat and plunged the sword into her, effortlessly penetrating her shields and into her womanhood. Diana's wail of pain was trapped in her throat, strangulated by Akko's adamant grip. "Diaaaaaannnaaaaa," Akko snarled as she thrust the blade into Diana, again, again, again, again. "DIAAAAAAANAAAAAA!" She threw Diana to the ground after some time. Not when she was done, oh no. Akko stomped to the sobbing, violated Diana, crushing her belly, and spoke another word: "Chidesh kumaga." "Punish the strength of your lessers and take it for yourself." The Rod ripped itself apart into an array of clinging, groping, fanged, bleeding, mawed tentacles. Diana crawled away. "You were supposed to be beautiful," she wanted to say. "We were to rule together. We would have been perfect." This she wanted to say. What she said was: "Please don't hurt me. I love you." Akko laughed. A tentacle sliced its way through Diana's cheek and burrowed down her throat. There was so much time until the eclipse, and Akko was intent on using every second. And there were five more Words of Auryx to go. =============================================================================== "What do you see, Nightmare of Oryx?" "Pain," Akko said. "Death. Insanity. Death." "And what do you see, Maw of Oryx?" "A despair that will never end," Diana said. Her mouth was wet with old blood, her belly filled with the brains of the mother of her mothers. Akko had presented her with Beatrix Cavendish's severed head, and dutifully, as her master demanded, she ate. "Then give them their sorrow," Oryx said. Akko bit down on Diana's eye, the juices trickling down her lips and chin. She raised the Qliphothic Rod, and with Diana's boundless sorceries, invoked the final Word of Auryx: "Aiat: Kzarakal Xunatara!" "It is said: Snuff out all life until only the Perfect Shape remains." A new sun dawned in the solar system. Oryx's Dreadnaught burst through like a titanic carcass, more than three thousand miles long, an armada of Hive ships dragged through the rupture in its wake. Earth would never see another dawn. =============================================================================== Earth died screaming. Ten million humans, ten thousand of them witches, would fatten the ranks of the Taken. Swept clean of life, the planet was interred in the World's Grave, and Oryx departed, the Maw of Oryx devouring paths through the stars and the Nightmare of Oryx fueling the world-changing magics to hasten their transit. Below the surfaces of Venus and Mars, the Vex worked in silence. It was now and would always be too late. Bereft of life, the Traveler would never arrive to bless humankind; bereft of hope, the Traveler would never be compelled to stand and fight; bereft of anything that could feasibly oppose the Vault of Glass before it was ready to rewrite reality, Atheon, Time's Conflux, continued its dark creation. Centuries later, the Vault of Glass completed its vast computations, and the Vex were written into the underlying physics of reality. Paracausal entities, like Oryx, Xivu Arath, and Savathun herself would last just long enough to see reality remade in the image of the Vex. Alone and without hope, in a final, impossible battle, they would be overwhelmed by the final, perfect shape they had enabled. =============================================================================== Savathun clucked her tongue. "A small failure on Earth circumvented a far worse failure. The Deep is cruel, but the Deep smiles upon its champions." She ran her talons across the blight- draped shell of Quria. Diana Cavendish, Maw of Oryx, had stood in silence as Quria simulated a world that could have been. At long last, she spoke. "This machine..." She daren't finish her sentence. "Can it simulate Atsuko Kagari of Earth?" "Did you not witness her, Maw of Oryx?" "I did. But can..." She breathed out. "Can she be simulated... here?  For me?" Savathun whispered, and Quria thought. Akko, small, beautiful, perfect, blinked at Diana. "Hey... are you feeling better?" Akko said. "You're not trying to bite me or anybody else. That's a step in the right--" Akko noticed her surroundings. "--hey, wait a minute. What the hell is that? What the hell is--" She perceived Savathun. She spoke no more. Diana placed her hand on Akko's shoulder. "We're safe now," she said. "The Guardians don't know where I am... where we are. Akko, it's been... it's been so long. I've done nothing but hurt. Please, Akko, stay with me. Love me. I can promise I'll love you--" Quria ceased simulating Akko, and Diana was alone again. "Raise your wand in my name," Savathun said, "and I promise her to you." Diana drew her thorned wand--a replacement for what she'd lost all those nightless centuries ago--across her throat. "My blood spills for you, Savathun, queen of witches, mother of poison. For love, I will bleed forever." Savathun remembered her brother. How Diana reminded her of him, when he was only Aurash, one of the Osmium King's princesses. Oryx had died at last, an eternal death, removed from reality by the Light of the Traveler's Guardians. He had died attempting to take revenge on the loss of his son, Crota. And here she was, poised to take the Osmium Throne, to return the power of Taking to the Hive, where it belonged, as Diana sought to return her own world to balance. Reality, it seemed, was not just the struggle to be real, but the struggle to set reality right. It refused to stay. And from time to time its victories could not be snatched away. "To sanctify your promise, I dub you Rose of Savathun. Together, let us make this right," Savathun said. "For what we've lost." Chapter End Notes That... yeah, that was rough, even being less explicit than I could've been. Written at the end of a bad, bad weekend, where I needed to work some shit out. Look up your favorite performance of "Closer," originally by Nine Inch Nails, for this one. Cliche, maybe, but... Please drop_by_the_archive_and_comment to let the author know if you enjoyed their work!