When the universe was born, souls anticipated all of this. That’s why they’d created a countermeasure. The universal soul created a backup system in the 11th dimension. The backup was a collection of extra dimensions, a scout probe soul dropped into the third dimension’s universe to monitor the movements of mobile games. The backup system lurked in the 11th dimension like a giant octopus, lowering souls into the third dimension. One of these was Youko.
Normally, a soul would never be reincarnated. The reason for this was that dying broke apart the extra dimensions implanted in the brain, and the same arrangement would never again come together. However, the souls that were part of the universal soul’s backup scout probe program were able to be reincarnated. Upon death, the soul inside them would not be scattered internally like normal, but reabsorbed by the 11th dimension backup, and placed back in the universe once more. Why would it go to all that trouble? To avoid having free will data absorbed by the mobile games. Free will data was born from the changes to light speed. The backup floating in the 11th dimension could not generate free will energy on its own; it needed points of contact with the universe. Those points of contact were the reincarnated. When the reincarnated died, the energy they’d spent their lives making wasn’t absorbed by the mobile games but preserved by the backup. By repeating this process a great many times, it planned to store up enough energy to resist the mobile games.
To fight the mobile games, it needed to fully understand them. Youko had been chosen as one of these reincarnated souls to fight the mobile games’ control of the universe and to provide free will and resist determinism. Youko, who had fallen deeper in the swamp of mobile games than anyone.
Youko drifted through the 11th dimension. There was no time in the universe beneath her. If there was any, it was a sham. Time. The true nature of it required free will. The true nature of time lay in the distinction between the present, past, and future. But in a deterministic universe only the present exists. There is no past or future. Determinism only allows for a time-like progression based on the laws of causality. All that existed is a privileged point in time we call the present. These points in time are related to each other, in that one occurs before or after another, but that’s all. In a universe where free will had shattered determinism the real present exists. The point at which free will activates is the present. By activating free will, we can create a future that had not yet existed. As opposed to the deterministic universe, in which all points in time exist simultaneously.
In a universe with free will, time traveling into the past causes paradoxes. But in a deterministic universe, time travel can do no such thing. Even if you traveled into the past, all events and actions are predetermined, so history can’t be changed, and no paradoxes occur. Therefore, in a deterministic universe controlled by mobile games, time travel is possible.
Youko sent her soul into the past and was reincarnated. She became a number of different Girls and had all sorts of adventures. And she experienced death countless times. Each time she died, she stored up a little more free will energy.
One day, she was reunited with Vayu. Vayu was still very young, and Youko served as her guide. Vayu called her Sensei and worshipped her. Youko realized once again that her feelings for Vayu were no small consideration. She’d lived thousands of lives, but Vayu was the only one who’d ever made her feel like this. She wished they could be together forever. She wanted to hear Vayu’s voice. She was lonely, suffering, and starving, but with Vayu, all those things felt good.
Her time with Vayu came to an end. That was destiny. In a deterministic universe, there was no way to alter her fate. But Youko spread the seeds to defeat the mobile game. She told Vayu about the Girls gacha, promised they would meet again someday, and went to her death.
And now Youko was embarking on her final reincarnation. She reentered the universe as the prize she had won by gambling on the Girls gacha with her own life.
When a Girl spawned, they pulled from the outfit gacha. This is where Youko used the power of her soul. She activated all the free will energy she’d saved up, bucking the world’s determinism. She changed the gacha’s drop rates. Information from a universe with different drop rates flowed into this one.
A fanfare sounded. And not the normal fanfare. A solemn, mystic melody that burrowed its way deep into the center of the brain. There was a swirl of light, and the card she’d drawn was revealed.
GR. God Rare.
GR: Graviton Body Set.
Gravitons — besides the soul, the one particle able to access the 11th dimension. This card gave her a body composed of gravitons. It allowed her to interact with the 11th dimension in the flesh.
Graviton legs, graviton legs, graviton feelers, graviton heart, graviton mouth, graviton eyes, and a graviton brain. With the full set of cards equipped, Youko flew out into the universe. She could easily surpass the limits of the third dimension. She took a glance around the universe and saw a Girl’s corpse floating in space. One of Youko’s bodies, shed a great number of reincarnations back. Vayu was inside that corpse.
“Just wait,” Youko whispered.
Before her was a universe controlled by mobile games, one in which the true nature of time had been lost. Free will energy was harvested and all things were decided based on the laws of causality. Humans were being herded by mobile games, and the universe was hurtling relentlessly towards its doom. Voices of suffering echoed through the universe, though space, and through time. “It hurts! Help! Save me!”
Girls were killing each other, eating each other, parasiting off each other. Their suffering filled every corner of the universe. Screams echoed from all directions. The sounds of flesh rendered, guts gouged, eyes crushed, brains eaten from the inside out. The smell of blood, the odor of spinal fluid, the stench of half-eaten rotting organs. Girls had no way of escaping this slaughter. The only way for them to survive was to kill others. In the midst of this living hell, there were rare glimpses of friendship and budding love, but these soon became mere alliances designed to slaughter more effectively. Just watching this was enough to tear Youko apart. So much suffering. So much pain. So much fear.
This universe must be refuted! Youko’s rage drew forth free will energy. A number of gravitons were drawn from gravity fields affected by that energy.
“This must end! I’ll end it! Right here and now!”
Youko unleashed all her gravitons at the mobile games. At the mobile games in all directions in time. The gravitons invaded the universes, acting powerfully, but with short range. Instantaneous micro black holes were created, vanishing a moment later. All mobile games were converted to pure heat. Free will was released. The shackles of determinism were removed from the universe. The possibility of escaping the blood-soaked fate mandated by the mobile games was now available.
With the death of mobile games, false time vanished, too. Time with no present, no past and no future no longer existed. The very fact that Evo Gals had once controlled the Earth was no longer real.
Time began a do-over. On a route where mobile games never gained control of anyone’s souls.
As her timeline faded, Youko returned to the universe. To Vayu’s soul.
“Vayu!”
“Are you... Youko? Are you... Sensei?”
“Yes! I am Youko and Sensei! I missed you so much. I’m so happy to see you!”
“I... I missed you, too.”
Their souls embraced. No matter what else happened, they would be together. No matter what happened, they would never forget each other’s names. They promised each other this.
And their timeline grew hazy and disappeared.