Part 60: Nu: Story 03

Ragna...?



Oh! It's really you, Ragna!

I can speak... I can see Ragna. I think I'll finally be complete this time. I can finally touch him...feel him!

So you woke up, huh? ...What a pain in the ass.
Long time, no see! Um, which time was this?
Third.
Did you come to kill me again?
Not to kill. To destroy.
They're both one and the same. It really hurt last time, when you slashed me... Over, and over...again...
Nu is...pretty creepy. The way she says all this isn't done justice in text.
Shut up.
Well somebody's in a bad mood. Is it because we didn't get to talk last time? And the time before? But today we're fine. See? I even have a body I can talk with this time!
I told you to shut up.
Aww, Ragna, you're not happy?
I said shut up! That face! That voice! Don't you dare talk to me like that! I'm here to destroy you! That's all there is to it! There's nothing we need to talk about!
...Why. Why are you so mad? Oh! You're injured! Who did that to you?
...It's got nothing to do with you. Don't make me repeat myself.
No, you can't do that! We finally got to meet again...and I finally get to talk to you...
I can hear your voice... And I can embrace you with these hands...we've finally been reunited, and... You say such terrible things...



...Hmm. So I can't change your mind, huh?
It's too late for me to ask for your forgiveness. You can hate me. Resist to your heart's content. But no matter what you do... I will still have to destroy you.
I see... Then, how would you like it? Gentle? Or a bit more rough, perhaps...


Unlimited Lambda gets EVEN MORE SWORDS. Twice as many swords, along with a new special that teleports her behind the opponent and grabs, and extensions on time and damage for her other two specials. The A version of Act Parser also becomes an auto-grab.

I can also note that Ragna has trouble with Nu. He's not that fast, and his approaches are all fairly straightforward. Nu's tools are perfectly suited to keeping him locked down in the ideal scenario.



It's our destiny, Ragna. That's why you can't change it. The two of us... Are going to become one.
I wrap my arms around Ragna. He's covered in blood. I can feel him breathing in my ear...it's warm...it feels good...

If that's really my destiny...? I'll crush it.



My sword...pierces both of us...our blood mixes...it...it feels so good!
Yeah. Creepy.

Uarrghh! Wh...Why you...
See, Ragna? Let's go lay somewhere warm...

Blood pours out of our wounds, and I feel us beginning to fuse together...

Damn you... Let go of me...
No way. We were supposed to fall in there...together...

I hold onto Ragna...and fall backwards...into the Cauldron. Into a warm...eternal...world of...Azure...



You bitch! Let go...! Let go of my brother!

Someone runs towards us, but they're too late...

Ah, we're falling...melting... Ragna... Ragna...! We'll be together... forever and ever.



Complete annihilation of the 13th Hierarchical city Kagutsuchi: confirmed. Phase #724 completed successfully.

System operating within normal limits. Transmitting all data to "Tamagahara". The system will now proceed to phase #725.
We've seen this once or twice before too.





THE PLOT
Let's put together things we know! Jin is Hakumen, and became so after falling into the space/time distortion that is the Cauldron. Nu and Ragna similarly fell into the Cauldron and merged together. Hakumen refers to Ragna the Black Beast, and a few other things can lead us to assume that, like Jin becomes Hakumen, Ragna and Nu become the Black Beast 100 years in the past.

So it's a time loop . How fast you figure this out really depends on which story you play first. Rachel's basically gives it away when she talks about how the world ending over and over again and her being the audience to a play. Ragna, Jin, and Nu also all have in common the ending in which Ragna, Nu, and Jin drop into the cauldron. Hakumen's story really seals the deal when he outs himself as Jin and calls Ragna the Black Beast.

This also kinds of puts the lousy structure of the games story mode into context. Every single story that we've seen is one of the many, many possible outcomes of the time loop. Except it always repeats, so none of them really matter. This is apparently the 724th time it's happened, according to the text up there.

There are still some questions that aren't answered though. How did the loop start? What is Tamagahara, the person/thing that collects the data at the end of each loop? Who is the green ghost guy, and what's he up to? What is a Murakumo unit, and why is Noel not like the rest of them? What's with the giant space laser monster?

Stay tuned for the True Ending and find out the answers to basically none of these questions!