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1.
Finé opens her eyes.
That, in itself, is strange.
She hasn't had eyes for a while.
You don't have eyes as a ghost, no matter how you look to the people who can see you.
You just... perceive things.
Oh dear, she thinks. I do hope I haven't accidentally hijacked someone's body again. And after I promised I wouldn't.
Hibiki would be furious.
She gets to her feet, which is also strange. She's gotten used to lurking in people's subconscious.
Nightmares and dreams don't have feet.
She blinks once or twice, and finds herself in what appears to be a plain suffused with light. The light is warm and ineffably beautiful.
Finé has lived - and unlived - for tens of thousands of years. In her mad labours to undo the Curse of Balal, she has shaped history, caused wars, and watched empires rise and fall.
She has never seen a light like this.
It's like nothing on Earth.
And there's a Presence. It speaks.
Or rather, words seem to form in Finé's mind. Its words weigh on her chest like golden dust.
It says:
THIS IS NOT EARTH.
Oh my.
Finé turns to face the Presence. Or would, if it weren't everywhere at once.
Suddenly it's as though the millennia have never passed, as though she's never reincarnated in different bodies, in different eras, time and again, spreading blood and chaos and doubt wherever she goes. She's a young priestess again, robed in white, taking her vows at the temple of her people, learning about the great creator of the universe.
"Hello," she says shyly. "It's nice to finally meet you."
YES.
"You know who I am?"
I AM WHO HAVE ALWAYS KNOWN YOU.
Finé giggles. "I've dreamed of this moment for thousands of years. I didn't think it would ever come."
YOU DID NOT HAVE TO WAIT THAT LONG.
She sighs. "That's the joke, isn't it? Letting go would have got me what I wanted all along."
NO.
"No?" she says, arching an eyebrow. She's glad to have eyebrows again.
WHAT YOU WANTED WAS A BIOLOGICAL ABSURDITY.
Finé laughs. "I suppose. Yet, I can't be the only person who ever fell in love with you."
I AM THE ALPHA AND THE OMEGA. I AM THE BEGINNING AND THE END. I AM THE FIRST AND THE LAST. AND YET I HAVE NEVER SEEN ANOTHER SUCH AS YOU.
"Oh?"
I AM WHO AM. I DO NOT HAVE SEXUAL ORGANS.
"There was that one time..."
THAT DOES NOT COUNT. THAT PENIS WAS NOT FOR SEXUAL ACTIVITY. IT WAS FOR LOGICAL CONSISTENCY.
"Still..."
YOU ARE UNIQUE. NO ONE ELSE IN THE HISTORY OF THE HUMAN RACE HAS EVER WANTED TO, AND I QUOTE, FUCK GOD.
"Perhaps not in so many words," she says.
NO. IT IS PART OF WHY YOU ARE HERE NOW.
She considers the Presence for an eternity. "I was wondering about that myself. I've done such terrible things just to reach you, to talk to you. The blood of billions is on my hands. I'll be honest. I was expecting the other place."
OTHER PLACE. QUESTION MARK.
"With the fire and the brimstone and the hornéd men in red jumpsuits."
AH.
"I suppose I never really believed in Hell," Finé says. "As I've always said, Hell is other people."
THAT WAS NOT YOU. THAT WAS YOUR HUMAN PHILOSOPHER, NOVELIST, AND PLAYWRIGHT, JEAN-PAUL SARTRE. A MISQUOTE.
"I think I might have been Sartre at one point."
NO. HE IS OVER THERE.
Finé casts around until she locates a well dressed man wearing spectacles in an obvious state of permanent distress.
"What's with him?"
HE WAS A BIT PUT OFF WHEN HE FOUND OUT THERE WAS AN AFTERLIFE.
"I would hate to be wrong too," Finé says.
BY THE WAY YOU TELL TIME HE HAS BEEN IN ACTIVE DENIAL FOR FOUR DECADES. I ONCE TOLD HIM THAT I AGREED WITH HIM ON CERTAIN POINTS. HE PLACED HIS HANDS OVER HIS EARS AND SHOUTED LA LA LA LA UNTIL I WITHDREW MY PRESENCE.
"Well. I can hardly fault him for trying." Finé laughs. "I know all about futile causes."
YOU DO.
Finé is silent for a moment. Or a year. It's hard to tell when you're dead. "So why am I here, then?"
YOU ARE HERE TO TALK TO ME.
Oh, my.
WALK WITH ME.
2.
WALK WITH ME, the Presence had said. So Finé does. He doesn't have legs, or a body, but He manages to create the impression of walking anyway.
She strides through the plains of light with the Presence at her side. He's also technically everywhere else, being who He is. But it's nice to think that He's by her, and her alone.
The Presence begins to speak again.
THE AFTERLIFE IS CONDITIONAL.
"How so?" says Finé.
WHAT YOU GET IS WHAT YOU SEE.
"Isn't it the other way around?"
NO. THAT IS A FUNCTION OF BIOLOGICAL CONSCIOUSNESS. YOU NEVER SAW ANYTHING BUT ME. SO ALL YOU GET IS ME. SOME FILL THEIR AFTERLIVES WITH WINE AND SONG. SOME MAKE THEIR WAY TO THEIR LOVED ONES. SOME, LIKE YOUR SARTRE, SHUT THEMSELVES OFF FROM IT AND FIND A CORNER OF HEAVEN TO SULK IN UNTIL SULKING GETS BORING. AT WHICH POINT THEY PROCEED TO THE WINE AND SONG.
"So what do you see?"
EVERYTHING. I AM.
Finé sighs again. "I've always meant to ask you something."
YOU HAVE.
Even when you're dead, questions are hard. "Why?"
BECAUSE.
She laughs. "Alright then. Why do you allow pain and suffering? Why do you allow heartbreak? Why do you allow evil to exist?"
THESE THINGS ARE BECAUSE THEY MUST BE.
"Does that apply to me too?" says Finé "I ruined everything. For everyone. And I kept ruining everything for everyone until a fist with a human heart turned me around. Why did you allow me to exist?"
YOU ARE BECAUSE YOU MUST BE.
"You were just as inscrutable in the holy scripture."
YES.
"Let's change the subject."
TAKE YOUR PICK.
Finé considers the vast range of things she could ask the creator of the universe about. She settles on one near and dear to her heart, and more closely connected to the last and final time she died.
"How are the girls doing right now?"
YOU WILL HAVE TO BE MORE SPECIFIC.
"You are who you are," says Finé. "You know exactly what I'm talking about."
TIME DOES NOT FUNCTION THE WAY YOU THINK IT DOES. ALL MOMENTS ARE RIGHT NOW.
"Very well. How have Hibiki and her friends been doing in the time since I left Earth?"
BETTER.
A space begins to clear in the surface of the plain. It's like a window. A window with zoom.
THIS IS FOR YOUR BENEFIT. YOU HAVE NOT LEARNED YET TO SEE WITH CLEARER EYES. YOU HAVE NOT ABANDONED THE CONCEIT OF THE BODY.
Finé cups one of her breasts experimentally. "I'm quite conceited about my body, thank you very much."
DO YOU WANT TO KNOW OR NOT.
She laughs. "I do."
COME AND SEE.
"Come? I'd love to."
I WILL RECONSIDER LETTING YOU STAY HERE IF YOU CONTINUE YOUR SEXUAL INNUENDOES.
"Oh, very well."
3.
Finé peers over the edge of the window and looks into the world she left behind.
And what she sees doesn't please her.
Flashes of green fire.
Fear.
Death.
Pain.
The world being pulled apart.
A city in ruins.
At the heart of the conflagration stands a child. She has the body of a woman and the power of a god, but she's a child nonetheless. She's singing. It's a song of hatred and loss. It is outrage in its most distilled form. It's a song that threatens to end the world.
Even from Finé's position, far removed from events, she can sense the child's sorrow. It's hundreds of years old, a festering wound that's turned into a lethal hatred for everything that is, was, and will be.
It seems a petty thing, to burn billions for one stolen life.
But Finé's heart goes out to her, even if she no longer agrees with the methodology.
After all, she was there once too.
She looks back at the Presence.
"Well."
WELL.
"That's certainly something. Why does she exist?"
YOU KNOW WHAT I WILL SAY.
"Yes. And still I have to ask. It seems like madness. Not to allow her to continue living - even though you who are could step in and end her sorrow with a wave of your hand-"
I DO NOT HAVE HANDS.
"-but to allow the circumstances that produced that child, and her heartache. It seems... unjust."
JUSTICE IS A HUMAN CONCEPT.
"The prophets disagree."
THE PROPHETS ARE HUMAN.
Finé falls silent again. She's not quite sure she's in love with Him anymore.
LOOK AGAIN.
She does.
The girl is no longer alone in the blaze. There are others there. Fighting her. Finé recognizes the Symphogear system she created. She recognizes the girls she exploited and turned into weapons to further her own selfish goals. Hibiki. Chris. Tsubasa. And Maria, Kirika, and Shirabe. The ones she intended to use as reincarnation fodder before she'd had a change of heart.
She pulls herself away again. "Now that's even worse."
IS IT.
"Are you trying to guilt trip me?"
GUILT IS A HUMAN CONCEPT.
"I'm human," Finé says. "I'll be as guilty as I please."
YOU WILL.
"To think that even after I'm gone, the evil I've done lives after me."
IT DOES. QUESTION MARK.
"I created Symphogears as an afterthought. A stepping stone on my path to you. And look now! It's still dragging those poor children into fights they never asked for."
Finé catches sight of Shirabe Tsukuyomi in the viewing portal. "Look at her! I died saving her! I ended my thousands of years of half-life by bringing her back from the brink of death! And now she's probably going to get herself killed trying to stop this insanity!"
YOU ARE UPSET.
"Quite."
LOOK AGAIN.
"I've seen enough."
YOU HAVE SEEN NOTHING. LOOK AGAIN.
Even when you're furious, it's hard to disobey a direct order from the creator of all things, even if you're no longer as enamoured of Him as you were when you were young. So she does.
Things look no different. The battle rages. Finé catches the child's name - Carol. She continues to rampage.
She's burning all that she is in an insane move for power.
She has rejected the world so thoroughly that she has reduced all of reality to a binary - it's either her, or everything else.
Finé watches the others.
And amazed, watches as they reject the choice Carol has offered.
They try to save everything.
Including her.
"That's ridiculous." Finé breathes. "They're ridiculous. That silly girl."
She watches as Hibiki, that silly girl, reaches a hand out to save Carol, as she's saved countless others, as she once saved Finé.
She looks away and turns to the Presence. "I think I've seen enough."
YOU HAVE.
"I think I have my answer."
TO ASK WHY EVIL EXISTS IS TO ASK WHY GOOD EXISTS. IT IS AN ANSWER IN SEARCH OF A QUESTION.
Finé smiles. "I've lived through all of human history. I've seen them repeat the same mistakes over and over again. Not all of it was my fault either. I suppose strictly speaking it was your fault, but that's beside the point. Those Gears they wield. They were an afterthought at best, a tool of murder and hate at worst. And yet look at them. They're saving people. They saved them from me. It's practically a miracle."
YOU MIGHT SAY THAT THE GOOD THAT YOU DO LIVES ON AFTER YOU'RE GONE.
"I suppose."
HUMANS REPEAT THINGS. THAT IS WHAT THEY DO. HISTORY IS A CYCLE. THE SAME MISTAKES. THE SAME TRAGEDIES. THE SAME HATREDS. THE SAME SORROWS. THE SAME EVIL.
"Yes."
BUT THEY ALSO REPEAT OTHER THINGS.
TRIUMPH.
SALVATION.
LOVE.
LIGHT.
HISTORY IS THE STAGE ON WHICH PEOPLE SAVE THEMSELVES AND EACH OTHER AGAIN AND AGAIN.
Finé nods.
ARE YOU SATISFIED. QUESTION MARK.
"I think so. I just have one question left."
THE ANSWER IS NO.
"I haven't even asked it yet."
IT IS STILL NO. YOU CANNOT FUCK GOD.
Finé arches her eyebrow slyly, and a small smile spreads across her face. "I have an eternity to try."