So I had this webnovel idea a while back that I’m deciding to return to. Basically, the premise is that a super powerful, super righteous, super “OP” hero gets his elemental powers split into six different, still OP,
now–sentient waifus. (Think “reverse” Captain Planet.)
Each waifu is a representation/embodiment of a certain element, and, rather than be “lawful good”, the six waifus are more “chaotic neutral”. They are selfish, immature, inconsiderate, among a whole host of other things… They each have their own goals they want to pursue now that they’re alive. And worst of all, they are egotistic. Each thinks they are the superior element––that they alone are the best magic––and they are more than happy to test that should the chance arise. There is a flash–forward at the start of the story: that one of these waifus will be the destruction of the world. Successive arcs cover each waifu
attempting to bring about the
destruction of the world. How that happens is going to be the long–term hook of the story.
This is a mishmash of many things I like… First off, the magic system is based on the online cardgame,
Elements the Game. It is a deck–building game featuring 12 elements. (like MtG). Now, 12 is a bit too many, so I grouped them in my story into 6 pairs: the
Wave Arcana (fire & water), the
Moon Arcana (light & darkness),
The Nest (life & death),
The Cloud (air & gravity),
The Tower (earth & aether), and lastly,
The Great Passage (time & entropy). Each Arcana is a fusion of 2 opposite elements together.
Second, I took the “destroying the world” concept from my favorite manga, Instant Bullet (same author as Kaguya–sama). There is a similar hook there, where the world will “end” in 100 days, and you’re reading to find out how/who/etc.
Third, being split into competing waifus is my spin on Kuroko’s Basketball, a sports anime about a superteam of 5 superstar players, breaking up and joining into different schools, to find out once and for all, who among them really is “the best”. As such, my story is not a fantasy, but a
sports story, in effect… There are 6 Arcanas (elemental waifus), if you give each of them god–like powers, who will come out on top? Place your bets! (As I’m writing this, I realized it’s also like 5–Toubun no Hanayome. Who’s the bride?? Read more to find out!)
Anyway, this is the intro:
A person is usually born having one of these Arcana; two if talented, and up to three for those really gifted. The number of Arcana is a status symbol in this world. Having multiple Arcana is enough to appoint you president of a country.
But there was one person, Shion, who was born with, not one... not two... but *all six* Arcanas currently in existence. This was unheard of. Never before in history has there been a royal flush of Arcanas, all inside one person. Shion was a one in a million miracle, so, his birth was treated like the coming of Christ.
It wasn't just for show, Shion was the strongest human alive by a wide margin. He could move mountains with just a flick of a finger, he could start thunderstorms with just a mere blow of his breath. Destined for greatness, the people raised him to be the perfect hero, and by the time he's grown, he'd already accomplished countless great feats.
PremiseShion was tasked with the role of defeating the
DemonLord, a powerful entity far within the depths of hell.
Long story short, it did not go well. The DemonLord proved too powerful to banish. In the heat of the moment, Shion resorted to a last–ditch severing spell, a Light element magic that targeted the Darkness–based constitution of the DemonLord. It was a success. The DemonLord was split... That night, 10000 pieces of the DemonLord's magic rained down upon the continents. Even if Shion couldn't kill him, this should be enough to count as a win.
But the use of this spell also left Shion open to a counterattack. As the DemonLord lay dying, he cursed Shion. He cursed the Arcanas of human magic, and promised that never again will Shion have authority over his Arcanas. Blinding flash of light.
Shion wakes up, with no more magic, no idea of who he is, and no memories of his previous life. This... "Amnesia Shion", will be the main character of our story. Standing before him now, are six waifus, all representing the Arcana magic Shion once possessed. The DemonLord had taken his magic, and turned it into sentient beings that can now think for themselves — this is what he meant by Shion
never again having authority.
So as with the DemonLord being split into 10,000 pieces, Shion, the Legendary Hero, was also split into 7 people: 6 magical beings (representing his powers), and the leftover physical body.
AftermathThe Arcana waifus, like their magic, have vastly differing personalities. They can get along to some extent, but most of the time they can't settle their differences. They all have their own opinions, their own outlook on life, and they all think they're superior over the others. They want to prove their own magic is the best one; working together is the last thing they want to do.
Each waifu is magically as strong as the original Shion — just one of them has enough power to destroy an entire country. Early in the story, they part ways and go on separate journeys across the continent, with each Arcana trying to accomplish their own thing. They try to steer clear of each other's business, but as it stands, the world is a small place... It's not uncommon for the Arcana waifus to bump into each other, and it's definitely not uncommon that one Arcana interferes with another's plans. If two of them clash, the resulting damage would be unimaginable.
The Arcanas
Let's have a quick rundown of the waifus. First off, the
Wave Arcana.
Master of Fire. Master of Water. Main girl.
Let's call her Raine.
Raine wants to hunt down the 10,000 DemonLord pieces scattered about. It's "what the original Shion would've wanted", so it's only fair they respect his wishes. The other sisters don't care about any of that though, and deep down, Raine too doesn't want to hunt demons out of her own accord. She only does so because it's the one thing she understands about the original Shion.
She believes they (the Arcanas) are existences who should not have been born. If Shion had just been careful, he'd still be alive and intact right now. It's only by a fluke that they're alive. Them being there only adds insult to the fact that the original Shion is gone, so she feels the only way to get validation for their existence is to finish everything Shion started: clean up the remaining 10,000 demons.
She tries talking this through with her sisters, but when none of them listen to her, like Fire, she can be volatile. At one story arc, she hatches a plan to magically explode the sun. Sure, it would kill all the demons in one go, but would also kill everyone else, completely missing the point. That's her flaw — she wants to follow the
killing demons part to the letter. She's willing to destroy the world just to end the 10000 demons, which, just going out on a limb, is
not what the original Shion would've wanted.The Moon
Darkstar is Darkness-dominant. She hates the Light element within her, she never uses it, and will stop at nothing to get rid of it. It's probably easiest to visualize her as the "goth girlfriend". After leaving the others, she sets out on a journey to research samples of the DemonLord's magic. She is very interested in them, especially on how the DemonLord was able to severe the Arcanas from Shion. It seems demon magic can do things human magic cannot.
She wonders if demon magic could also alter the pre-existing Arcana pairs. She wants to cast a worldwide reality warp that will scramble up the Arcanas, in hopes that her Light magic will finally leave her Darkness side.
The NestShe has two forms. At night she's
Memento.
During the day she's
Mori.
Nest Arcana is not a very combat–suited magic. It's main use is agriculture, healing, and communicating with souls of the dead. Life magic is the least dangerous of all, making Mori the safest waifu around.
That said, Memento's Death magic is dialed up to eleven; she unconsciously saps the life force out of everyone around, making her a walking bio–weapon.
Mori is very shy. She prefers talking to plants and animals rather than people. She's also a bit animalistic, eating meat raw and with her hands. This makes her all the more self–conscious of herself in front of people. Memento is very non–caring, and talks to inanimate objects instead. She does want company to some extent, but accepts that her power is a curse preventing that. The two personalities are perfectly content staying away from human contact.
The Great Passage
A cheerful, lively girl. There are other split personalities she can tap into (because entropy means randomness). She's usually happy-go-lucky — because she already saw the future and knows how things turn out. However, there's one blockage in the future that she can't seem to see past through. At some point in the future, Darkstar will succeed with her grand, paradigm–shifting plans. The universe will disappear, to be replaced by a parallel, alternate reality. She can't see the future past this point. She doesn't know what will happen, but whatever it is, it can't be good.
More than anything though, she takes it a personal insult that someone is locking down her prophecy powers. Her main goal is to prevent Darkstar's plans and alter the future.
She's mostly offscreen, only occasionally appearing to warn MC about the future.
The Cloud
Agyros. She's hot–blooded and aggressive, with even Darkstar going so far as to call her "unhinged". She wants to fight a strong opponent. She has no qualms killing people, she just wants to fight. One as challenging as possible. Her journey is one of finding the strongest people on earth and defeating them, and when it's clear no ordinary human in the world can match her, she turns to lopping off her Arcana sisters one by one.
The Tower
Last but not least, Hera is obsessed with power. She wants to be worshipped, by as many as possible. She wants people serving her, because "servants" equal *power*. She believes true power is having the allegiance of others, either by choice or by force, and since she inherited Shion's inhuman power levels, the whole world is now hers for the taking.
Aether covers mental (non–physical) magic, spatial magic and parallel dimensions. Earth magic includes rocks, metals and precious minerals (diamonds, rubies, etc.), so every shiny jewelry there is, Hera wants for herself. She uses these riches to buy people's servitude, and for those she can't bribe, she'll use mind control magic to force them.
The ProtagonistThe body.
The part of Shion left when his powers were removed. He's lost all memories, he's lost all magic, and he's lost all things that made him the great hero he once was. Let's call him *Amnesia Shion,* or 'Ashi' for short. He is a *Vacuum* — that is, people born with zero Arcana. They can't use magic, they're very weak. They *can* infuse magic into their body, though it's not as glamorous as it sounds.
For the Vacuums, magic is like an unlearned skill (e.g. playing the piano/doing a sommersault). To learn it, you practice over and over 'til you get it right. Each Arcana has a way to 'train' a Vacuum into using magic, and once you've gone through them, a Vacuum will learn to use Arcana the same as a natural born mage.
Here's the catch though: Vacuums are not designed to learn that skill. Their body hates it, so a Vacuum is always in a constant trajectory of "unlearning" all the magic experience they get. It's like studying for a pop quiz of your most hated subject. You absorb the knowledge just long enough for the exam, then once it's over, your brain can't wait to forget every useless thing it tried to cram.
Vacuums have no workaround for this, they just have to face losing every magic skill they learn. Not training for a day is like not playing the piano for a week, you get rusty insanely fast.
If there's one thing they have going for them, it's flexibility. Normal people can't change their magic type, they're stuck with whatever Arcana they've got. But for the Vacuum, they're free to train any and every Arcana they want. Ashi could have Nest Arcana now, and then Cloud next week, and then Tower; it's very versatile...
The Philosophical BattleSpoiler
As I said, at the start of the story the Arcana waifus can't settle their differences. They find it way too easy to argue because of their differing personalities, but the real nail in the coffin is how each interpret differently Shion's life.
Raine argues that he's a hero. Of course, he saved the world countless times, and he always does the right thing. He's what everyone in the world should strive to become. Darkstar says this is bull*censored*, and that all Shion was was a puppet — an overrated military weapon that did whatever he was told.
Agyros also argues against this hero interpretation, but posits that Shion was "an existence beyond human strength". He did not obey anyone. He reached the peak limit of human magic, and was simply bored that everyone else on the planet was so weak. That's why he challenged the DemonLord, when he was sitting oh so quietly in hell. Shion didn't want to save the world or fluff like that, he just wanted a worthwhile fight. He wanted to know if he could beat God.
June supports this, citing how Shion was unable to forecast how the fight will turn out. When Time magic fails to show you even *one* future outcome, you know that's a sign something bad will happen. If he knew what's good for him, he would've stayed away from the DemonLord at all costs.
When asked how Memento considers Shion, she simply replies as "dead". Mori, however, thanks Shion as you would food before eating. She views Shion as a necessary sacrifice so that all of them can exist. Finally, Hera agrees with Raine on the point that Shion is a hero, but adds that he wasted his life doing all those useless things, when he could've been so much more productive.
This sets the waifus against each other, and makes Ashi question how he should view this so–called *Shion.*
Spoiler
There are two types of antagonists in this story: the 10,000 demon pieces, and the Arcana waifus.
The demons take up bulk of the story. Demons find people with powerful emotions such as jealousy and anger, and give them demon powers of their own. They act as the bridge for ordinary people to do evil things. Maybe someone wants revenge, maybe someone wants to take down the government... these are things the demon pieces easily latch onto. Anyone who is a host for demons receives powers beyond human limits, and will start a chain events which the main characters get caught up into. So in this scenario, the antagonists will be other fellow humans.
The second antagonists are the Arcana waifus. They're not "evil" per se, but they're morally misguided. The story progression ultimately heads towards one of these Arcanas attempting to do some "world destroying". Raine does it. Darkstar does it. Pretty much everyone does it at some point. They are the overarching antagonists that everything is progressing towards.
Now, I say they are antagonists, but they also take turns being the heroes. They have a weird dynamic where they're all so powerful they could destroy the world, but they're simultaneously the only "safety switches" that can stop each other. When facing an Arcana waifu attempting to destroy the world, the protagonist or the military are enough. It takes an Arcana waifu to beat another Arcana waifu.
Spoiler
To paint a picture of what Ashi will face, I'll go into a very quick rundown of the main key events.
At the start, Ashi travels with Raine, (more like she forced him to), aiming to hunt DemonLord pieces. He goes along with her because, well... he'll starve to death if he doesn't do anything, and she seems like she already knows the society of this world. He's strung along to hunt demons without being proactive himself, which is generally bad for a protagonist, but since defeating demons is not the story goal, he maybe gets a pass.
The first arc covers Ashi and Raine chasing after a demon into a village populated by Vacuums. Since they're vulnerable, they are all protected by the
Nine Circles of Hell, nine Fire specialists who had the most massive kill counts in the previous world war. From a skateboarding maid to a loli who uses pencils to attack, they are held as one of the strongest military forces to date.
Ashi gets his first experience training magic here. Meanwhile, he notices something weird. Despite being called The
Nine Circles of Hell, there's only eight of them. Ashi and Raine find out the story of how they had to kill one of their members after catching them in the act of doing a crime.
She was a Moon–user. Despite not being a Wave, they recruited her because of Light's very useful, Lie Detection spell. She made information gathering easy, which gave them huge leverage during the war. However, a few years later, she was caught doing (insert crime here). She defends herself, saying someone she knows is being held hostage and she's being forced to do it — something along those lines... But since all the others are Wave users, not Moon, they don't have their own way to determine if she's lying or not. Ironically, it's their own *lie–detector* they can't lie–detect.
They ask, "Why didn't you just tell us before? We're the best military troop around, we could have rescued that hostage." Now, I'm a sucker for internal conflict, and I would love nothing more than to put here that line in Page 18 of Kaguya–sama wa Kokurasetai, Chapter 182:
[Kaguya 182](
https://mangapark.net/manga/kaguya-sama-wa-kokurasetai-tensai-tachi-no-renai-zunousen-akasaka-aka/i2425080/c182)
I absolutely get off on this shiz. Things like insecurity, things like self–blame... when the reason for the story's conflict is based around something psychological rather than physical, it just hits on a whole new level.
Considered a traitor, she was burned alive and buried in the center of town. The Demon smells this injustice — even if she's long dead, her anger for the Nine Circles lingers forth.
The Demon takes over her anger and turns into a towering monster. Civilians are evacuated as destruction rains everywhere. Knowing the full story, what do Raine and Ashi plan to do? Insert character development here.
The next story beat covers Raine and Ashi out at sea meeting Hera, who's already teamed up with a bunch of pirates and is trying to unearth a shipwreck supposedly carrying "tons of gold". Hera asks Raine to help her out (since sea counts under the jurisdiction of Water magic).
Raine agrees, on the condition that Hera later goes to help her demonhunt. Raine and Hera work together to split the ocean and unearth a shipwreck from within its depths. However, as soon as Hera transfers the gold into a pocket dimension, she destroys her crewmates' ship, not intending to share the loot. Raine saves them, angry that Hera would stoop so low. Hera says she's still up for demonhunting if Raine wants, but Raine takes it back, realizing the dangers of having Hera as company. Hera teleports away.
Over the next few weeks, Raine tries to catch word of her sisters. Darkstar and Memento Mori have been completely under the radar so far. Raine stumbles across Agyros, who true to her character, has gone and challenged every professional fighter she could find. Raine asks her to join demonhunting, to which Agyros says she'll do it if Raine beats her in a fight.
Raine refuses, saying she's not going to hurt her sisters. Agyros says that's her weakness. If you want anything in this world, you should be prepared to take it by force. Agyros leaves.
The last person to meet is June. When Raine meets June, although she doesn't want to do it, she takes Agyros' advice and challenges June to a fight. June agrees, and absolutely scrapes all her attacks. Raine failed to land a single strike. Frustration builds up. June says that contrary to what Agyros said, Raine's true weakness is that she doesn't
mean what she does. There's a world of difference between simply trying to do something, and using everything in reach to achieve that goal. June leaves.
This is when Raine gets fed up with everything. It's pointless to rally the Arcanas together, she should've just done everything from the start. She disbands the team with Ashi, and goes off on her own.
Ashi hears of the news that the sun is acting weird. June tells him that Raine is trying to blow up the sun and kill everyone. That's insane, he says. Ashi tells June to stop her, but she just leaves. Ashi chases after her, he tries to find Raine, but no matter what he does, with no magic he can't do anything. He is useless by himself... He trips. All hope lost...
That's when Darkstar appears, revealing that she had been following Ashi all along. She doesn't have the same goal as Raine, but she is similarly interested in the demons. So, she secretly followed the two while concealing herself with invisibility magic.
Ashi pleads Darkstar to stop Raine. Darkstar doesn't really care if the sun blows up or not, but the idea of teaching "miss goody two shoes" a lesson
does enthrall her. An unlikely duo, Ashi and Darkstar team up to stop Raine. Light should protect against non–physical attacks like Fire, but Darkstar is stubborn. She won't use it. Only when she's on the verge of defeat does she use Light's heals.
Raine almost succeeds with her plan, but Darkstar also unleashes what she's been working on. A huge, snake/dragon–like smoke figure appears, black as the night. It catapults into the sky and swallows the sun. I reference this to the quest
Eclipse in Dragonfable. (very amazing game if you want to check it out)
Ashi (Entropy) fights Raine who has little mana left. Just in the nick of time, Ashi pulls out a lucky
body–swap magic. With Ashi in Raine's body and Raine in Ashi, the disaster has been successfully neutralized. Raine reflects on the error of her actions. Hotsprings filler episode where the body swap effect suspiciously won't revert.
Spoiler
Darkstar and Ashi truly part ways this time. Ashi and Raine are about to return to demonhunting when they notice that for some reason, the demons have become more powerful. This was Darkstar's doing. Though the world has Darkstar to thank for stopping a solar burst, this was her true motive all along. That Eclipse spell was an experiment to see how demons in the vicinity will react to Darkness magic — stopping Raine was just a side errand. All over the news, demons start cropping up, swarming the major cities. Raine makes a mental note to discuss this the next time she sees Darkstar, but in any case, there's too many demons for one person to handle alone.
June quickly tells them where to find Memento, before disappearing again. With no better option, Ashi and Raine go to Memento for help. They manage to convince her after a long talk, and as the idol of Death, she mass wipes most of the demons in one go. They enlist her to the party.
From here, Raine, Memento Mori and Ashi go on one or two mini–adventures together. I'm thinking of, instead of the usual demonhunting formula, they get involved in a murder mystery... to make it thematic to the Death element. Anyway, there's a lot of opportunity to insert adventures here. A lot So probably a series of self–contained arcs takes place, exploring the world and introducing many interesting characters.
But as said, Memento passively lifesteals everyone around her. As time goes on, it becomes increasingly obvious she shouldn't have joined her party. Just as they were starting to develop a bond, Memento tethers around whether it's best for her to just leave. I do love my internal conflicts, so Memento's character arc is going to be about her wondering if it's better for everyone she go back to isolation.
The nail in coffin is (details not worked out yet) when she uses a Resurrection spell to revive someone from the dead, completely shocking everyone around. Even Raine didn't know that was possible. The best Death magic could do so far was either necromancy (corpse reanimation), or simulating a hologram of the dead that talks and acts like the original. A true Resurrection spell was not something that's ever been done before.
Memento confirms that the original Shion could do it. However, he kept it a secret from everyone somehow. News of this got out quickly — that someone brought back the dead, good as new as if they never died.
Everyone suddenly wanted a piece of this. Everyone wanted Memento to revive their loved ones. People were rioting, fighting, to get to Memento first. This must be what Shion feared. He must've (with Time magic) predicted this insanity.
Memento cuts off ties and goes into hiding. Raine and Ashi go in search of her, as well as thousands of people who want that Resurrection magic. Now begins a worldwide race to find Memento. Meanwhile, Agyros has already beaten all the strongest fighters in the world; she's running out of challengers. She comes to June for advice. "A person worth fighting, where can I find one?"
June tells her that there is one such person — a person much, much stronger than Agyros. If she wants to find out the details, she needs to be at this {exact place and time}, right where the climax of Memento's story arc takes place. Agyros asks if June thinks Memento can beat her, but June clarifies that it's not Memento. It's someone the six Arcanas haven't seen before, and June further teases that it's someone they couldn't even imagine existing.
If it's not Memento, that means it's one of the people looking for her... — this is how Agyros interprets it. June alludes that Agyros should kill everyone approaching Memento. Protect Memento from all the ones after her. Just keep doing that, and someone amazing will appear before her eyes soon enough...
Agyros takes this advice and leaves for Memento, warning June that she better not be lying, or else. Agyros finds Mori, they travel together. Mori doesn't want to kill people, but there's too many people after her. Agyros happily does all the killing. This goes on for a while...
As things heat up, a huge, cult–like organization starts putting others in danger as well. They kidnap Ashi, thinking he knows where Memento is. June informs the others of what happened. Raine, Mori and Agyros all break into the secret hideout to bail Ashi out. Huge and long complications ensue, lasting several chapters, and involving many innocent civilians. Raine is trying to break Ashi out of the organization's grasp, while Agyros is killing everyone she could find. The designated meeting time should be right around now; he should be coming soon — that supposed "strongest person". In the height of the climax, Ashi is held at gunpoint. He is about to get killed.
Memento was fine if they'd just gone after her and not involved anyone, but going after Ashi too is unforgiveable. She's had it, this is the last straw. Out of nowhere, Memento takes over Agyros and the two combine to form a new, different waifu. Memento and Agyros are gone now — in their place, a unique, never before seen Death+Air waifu. Her magic is not something resembling any known Arcana. She combines Air's long–range slicing magic and Death's ability to kill. No one is spared, everyone is instantly diced.
Memento and Agyros return to their original forms. Agyros is shocked by what transpired. Memento reanimates the corpses of the dead to follow her, and comes to the conclusion that she should've just stayed alone from the start. Memento ends the conflict by saying that next time anyone comes near her, she's surely killing them, before leaving into the distance.
Spoiler
Agyros confronts June about what happened. June explains that what that was was a "Fusion", a phenomenon that happens when two of the Arcana waifus, in the heat of the moment, share a common goal. The Arcanas, by default, are too different to get along together. In times that they do see eye to eye however, that one moment where they understand each other and share the faintest semblance of an emphatic bond, when that happens, they unlock a hidden power to merge into one unified being.
Back then, when Ashi was in danger, both Agyros and Memento aimed to kill the enemy. This mutual understanding is what allowed them to combine the best of both their Arcanas: Death's killing power, and Air's long reach. A Fusion has the fighting strength of two Arcana waifus combined into one.
Agyros is not satisfied with this... She wanted to fight a strong opponent, not be merged into one... She orders June to fuse with another Arcana right now — June says it's not that simple, but that there will be more Fusions to come in the future. With Agyros' anger reaching its peak, the two fight. June uses speed magic, but Cloud Arcana is unfortunately the hard counter for it. Gravity sucks things in a magnetic "field". It's an area coverage, it's not something you can dodge or run from. June is defeated, and now, Agyros decides the "strongest people" she's looking for are her very own sisters.
I'm fuzzy on the chronology after this. Maybe more filler arcs here and there. Agyros goes after Darkstar, who only narrowly escapes, and then Mori next. Probably for emotional effect, Raine finds Mori on the verge of death. Raine tells Mori to fuse with her so they can defeat Agyros, but the Fusion fails. Mori doesn't want to fight her sisters, so she passively accepts her fate.
Raine freezes Mori to preserve her life, and takes it upon herself to stop Agyros. The matchup is now Raine (and Ashi) vs Agyros. Agyros tries to suffocate Raine with Oxygen Depletion magic, but Raine hard–counters this by taking the battle underwater. Raine and Ashi narrowly take the win.
From here there's two Arcana left: Hera and Darkstar. I haven't worked out the details, but Hera eventually goes for a worldwide mind control, and Darkstar for a reality warp.
Spoiler
The easy way to write this is probably that Ashi wants to save the world, just like the original Shion did.
"Even though he's weaker than the average person, heroism and righteous deeds are not something you forget. They're inside you." So Ashi, despite not remembering anything about anything, is still the same person through and through: a hero. You can build up to an emotional climax with this theme; it's simple, it's reliable, and no need to write the story super complicated.
But I don't want this. This is a direction I'd prefer to avoid at all costs. In fact, I want to show the complete opposite theme: Shion is gone. Whether you like it or not, a person that has amnesia is no longer the same person you know. A person is defined by his memories and personality. Change that, and you've basically killed that person.
So we get Ashi, who is in stark contrast to Shion. He has no traits of being a hero in him. It would even be better if he's an asshole, or rude — something to that effect. He should have beliefs (not finalized yet) that are unsavory to listen to... things like you should not give to the poor, or that slavery is a natural product of human nature. He doesn't sugarcoat things, and says them in an almost cynical way.
Right now, I'm envisioning Ashi as someone who's "a hero for the wrong reasons". For example, let's say Ashi at a birthday party. Suddenly, bad guys break in and kidnap the birthday girl. A fight ensues, where Ashi and main characters are defeated because they weren't ready. Target is taken to a secret hideout, because *insert plot element here.*
Ashi and the cast break into secret hideout, retrieving the hostage and taking her as far away as possible. As bad guys chase after our characters, Ashi stays behind to delay one of the henchmen. In your usual action story, Ashi would be doing this for the team. He's giving the others valuable time to escape, he's doing it for birthday girl.
But Ashi here cares about none of that. He just has a bone to pick with the guy who beat him. He takes it as a personal insult that he was defeated because he was caught offguard, so now it's a fight with no surprises...
This is the kind of development I'm leaning towards. He's clearly fulfilling a heroic act here, but there's something that makes it unheroic all the same. This happens every single time. Ashi doesn't reach that state of being 100% truly heroic. There's always something off about it, whether it's the motive, the method, his decision–making, etc...
Add to that that Entropy magic can backfire (help the enemy instead), and there's the perfect case of a non–hero. Once the bad luck starts rolling in, Ashi will turn the smallest problems into a world–level threat. There'll be conflicts that are entirely his fault, throwing him for a loop, and it would now be up to Raine or another Arcana to clean up his mess, not that they hate doing that.
This is what I want Ashi's character to be about: a celebration of flaws. He accepts that trying to be a 100% righteous hero is unrealistic, because no one is born a saint. So he does things the way he wants to, for better and for worse. To the question of who he thinks Shion is, his answer will be "not me".
Spoiler
I’ve mentioned this is an homage to ib-Instant Bullet. Spoiler alert, one of the characters in there tried to destroy the world via “ruining the reproductive libido of everyone and making sure no humans will ever be born again, thus ending humanity.” That has always stuck with me… Destroying the world can mean different things to different people, they could mean it literally, but they could also mean it figuratively as well. Which things fall under the world they want to destroy?
I racked my brain for how each of the Arcana waifus can destroy the world in a way. Raine was easy. Solar Burst or Ice Age, both are a straight-forward enough apocalypse. Hera is also pretty clear-cut. What does she want? Power. Being worshipped. Queenhood. What are her powers?? Altering metals (making gold, rubies, diamonds, etc). Mind control… I mean, it’s basically in the name. In her quest to be ruler, she’ll cause a massive mind-control hysteria covering an entire continent. Similar to Miku Izayoi in Date a Live Season 2, just on a much larger scale. It’s funny that she’ll also, via bribing people with infinite mounds of gold and jewelry, unintentionally tank the economy. That’s certainly an interesting end to the world. (One of the proposed ways to destroy a country peacefully is known as the “money bomb,” where you just, drop literal cargo loads of cash onto a country and let its economy self-implode.)
The other Arcanas are not so simple…
For Memento Mori, there are a lot of options. First, famine… A scenario where she protects the livestock and thus causes world-wide food shortage (& hunger). Another is where Mori witnesses animal abuse and grows to take revenge on humanity as a whole. Something that could also be relevant right now is Memento unleashing a large-scale pandemic. I didn’t see how these could fit into the story tho, so in the end, I went with Memento unveiling Resurrection magic and causing a world-wide panic/uproar.
June, I want to cause a time-loop, but I can’t envision how. But if the question is how to destsroy the world using “Time magic,” then the answer is definitely “rewinding time constantly so that the future never comes.” I don’t know why June would imprison MC in a time-loop, but if she does, I suspect it would be after some dramatic, story-altering character death. Imagine. Important major character that the reader has endeared dies. Shion is angry/regret/devastated/etc. He goes to sleep. The next morning, he wakes up in the past, with character still alive/disaster still not happening. Character death repeats again and again a. la. Re:zero trauma style. Again, I don’t know what reason June would do this to MC other than a d*ck-move. I don’t think there’s any lesson to be learned in repeating a character death over and over again. (Possible plot twist tho! Remember June having multiple split-personality clones? What if the killed major character was secretly one of June’s clones all along. For a sort of bitter-sweet “maybe this wasn’t such a downer ending, afterall…)
Agyros, I can’t see trying to destroy the world literally, though she may do so by killing strong person on earth, leaving only average and below average fighters.
Darkstar is probably the most complicated. I didn’t want Darkness magic to be strictly “evil,” but as it stands, Darkstar is the most final boss out of every Arcana. Atleast in terms of progression. Her ending the world via a world-wide reality warp and scrambling the Arcanas into new elemental pairings (Fire+Air, Darkness+Water, Life+Aether, Entropy+Light, Time+Death, Gravity+Earth), seems like a question to the very setting that the MC is born in. It’s ending the world via creating a newer, happier one, and asking, why not just stay in this new one? Why would you ever want to go back to your old life?
Of course, as per the story theme, MC reverses this reality warp choosing the old, flawed world over the promise of paradise. And I’d say this is probably where it ends, as each Arcana would have had her own world-destroying arc finished. I realize I didn’t really “destroy” the world as promised in the blurb, but what else am I supposed to do?? Destroy the world??? You can’t really make a satisfying ending using that, right? In what universe is “destroying the world and everything I hold dear along with it” a conclusion?? At best, Shion would have to “destroy the world” figuratively as well, whatever that may be…
But by this point, the ending should also answer the other question: “Who among the Arcana wins?” I did say this is a sports story, afterall… Who’s the strongest. Who’s the best.
I can’t promise how the story will turn out, but for now, my instinct is to rank them this way:
Agyros and Hera wins in a fight. These two are the strongest in combat. Who’s stronger is up to you.
June and Memento Mori are the most dangerous. In terms of “destroying the world,” they can really fk up the earth in ways the others cannot.
Raine and Darkstar are a heatlhy balance of being good in combat, good in world-destroyness…
Topic: Is my story direction okay? (Read 198 times)
