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Chapter Text

Prologue: Astral Awakening:

In the twisted, heaven-sent hell that was the Astral Infection, surrounding the Astral Meteor, there was a titanic machine.

It had no will of its own, instead it served the Astral Infection with all of its firepower - which, considering that Draedon made it, was a lot.

It lay dormant, waiting for an outsider to attack the Astral Infection. Not just any ordinary outsider, since those could be taken out by any old Astral Creature. 
No. 
Astrum Aureus was waiting for a hero. Someone foolish enough to believe that they could “save” “their” world from the Enslaving Will of the Virus. Someone who posed a possible threat to it, but not so powerful that the machine would be destroyed in combat with them.

Actually, on that note, the Aureus would be called on to defend the Infection if ANYONE caught its attention enough, even if they were miles above it in terms of power. 
Like Yharim. If Yharim wanted to, he could just get Supreme Calamitas to blast the Infection into the Abyss.

(well, he couldn’t, but Aureus didn’t know that she was missing. And to be fair, neither did Yharim.)

But regardless of who attacked, the point is that they DO attack, and it couldn’t force them to.

So it waited.

Patiently.

...

It receives a signal, pulling it, perhaps more than the Infection does. Interesting.

The Will of the Infection is compelled to let the Aureus trace, track down, and confront the source of the signal.
Astrum Aureus has awoken.

The Titanic Machine, with its servitude to the star-spawned virus, hitched a ride on one of the Astral Meteors. It directed said meteor towards the source of the signal, not knowing what to expect. 

-And in a dying, empty universe, a figure smiled again.

-The malleable machine.

Astral Simulator

Chapter Text

Prologue Two: Simulated Reflection:

Ayano's POV:

Week Eight, Monday:

For as long as she could remember, Ayano had been... empty.

Unable to feel.

Incapable of forming any real emotions, or bonds of any type.

She didn't even truly care about her own mother and father.

And yet...

It was more... convinient to fake such emotions.

To fake friendships.

But no matter how many layers of masks there were in between her outwardly seen self and her inner self...

It couldn't change that she was empty.

Nothing could, until recently.

She bumped into a boy named Taro Yamada, and felt a rush of emotions and feelings surge within her, through her.

She could now feel emotions... feel human whilst she was in his presence.

She knew that Taro must be hers.

And hers alone.

No matter what it took.

She had eliminated seven others who had wanted her Senpai for themselves.

Who had no real attachment to him like she did.

...well, Osana may have, but she dashed all chances of that with how easily she fell for her own best friend, Raibaru.

So with all of them out of the way, who next?

...

She couldn't tell.

Taro's Clingy Younger Sister had recently been accepted into the academy: Hanako Yamada.

But there was also Megami Saikou, who had threatened Ayano back in Week 3. She was back from "Family business".

Both of them were bound to get in Ayano's way, but she didn't know how she was supposed to deal with either of them.

And Osoro Shidesu was scheduled to return from suspension this week.

All of her rivals up until now had been relatively easy to get out of her way, and were only one every week.

But now THREE rivals were in her way in the same week.

Brilliant. Simply Amazing.

And this was what went through her head as she stood near the railings of the school.

She hadn't killed anyone, and nobody had committed suicide, so they were low enough that someone could commit suicide if they wanted to, but high enough to lean on. Y'know, like actual railings.

She wasn't going to kill anyone, either. Too inconvenient.

...and a rising portion of her mind spoke up. Saying that she wasn't her mother, she didn't need to kill anyone.

Didn't need to end all these meaningful lives prematurely.

She sighed, looking over the town.

Earlier, Megami had arrived by Helicopter.

And Hanako had arrived by the arm of Taro.

Osoro, on the other hand, was nowhere to be found.

Of course, she was a delinquent, so she was probably late. Just like the rest of her gang.

...

Wait no, they were arriving just now, and she was still nowhere to be seen.

Suddenly, a light shone in the sky.

Ayano looked up, and saw a star in the morning sky. Impossible.

Even more impossibly, the star fell, from the heavens, crashing down into the ground somewhere over in Buraza Town.

...

Was this pity?

Well, whatever it was, she couldn't do anything about it. Teachers would get them all in lockdown, and she didn't even want to help them either.

Chapter Text

Chapter One: An Age of Setup:

Note: Viewpoint alternates between Osoro and Aureus.

Osoro Shidesu, leader of the Delinquents at Akademi High, woke up, sighing.

Great. Another boring old, generic day at the academy, where nothing happened, really.

Nothing much, anyways.

Or at least, nothing that concerned her and her little gang.

She did however check around Akademi's online presence on Kaobook, to see whether anything major happened.

Just in case...

But nope! All they seemed to care about was that the resident emotionless girl... no, the other one. Ayano Aishi.

She had gone around befriending a lot of people, and matchmaking her fellow students.

Osana and Raibaru? Yeah, that was obvious.

...wait, the Occult club actually summoned a demon?! ...Two?!? Well, at least they weren't going to go after her gang.

She smirked, the thought of the entire Occult Club joining forces with the Delinquents to take out the Bullies, in spite of the pure terror that came when thinking of what demons they might have summoned.

Oh. Flames-y guy and a bunch of hands that could cut people up.

...sounds like something a mass murderer would use.

...

Oh, and two substitutions happened. Nice.

...that was quite disturbing of the Nurse-

Ew. Yeah no, that thot "teacher" deserved jail time, not a mere firing. Ugh. Whatever.

Well, at the centre of all of this was Ayano, and apparently, according to rumours, she had done it all for a boy...

Taro Yamada.

That boy...

Osoro... frowned.

Rage built up within her, at the thought of this random girl taking her senpai.

One of few who she could be her true self around.

...her gang doesn't count towards that count, she means her true self. Not the Delinquent mask she had to keep up.

She had to go to school today. After all, her suspension ended this exact Monady, and she wasn't going to let Ayano take her Taro away.

And after all, it’s more convenient for her to meet up with her gang at school, rather than somewhere else.

She grabbed her stolen baseball bat. Even though she could take on anyone at the academy with her bare hands, it didn’t pay to be prepared for the worst.

Especially since Ayano was most likely the cause of Oka and her club summoning those demons...

Perhaps it's better to describe it over here:

It was a galaxy-sized sphere glowing with the Crimson of the Zozzrian Power... which was more maroon when you look at it.

A red to be sure, but a darker one. Not candy red, dark red.

The glowing of the sphere intensified dramatically, and a message can be heard by the Astrum Aureus:

"Take over Akademi High."

"Take over Akademi High"...

Well, where was it, exactly?

The space oreo was confused.

Then, its circuits and machinery, which had remained functional within it despite a conversion to the Astral Infection, recieved a set of instructions, telling it the exact location of Akademi High.

The instructions, not possibly by mistake, have also been sent to the Astrum Aureus.

It now prioritised following the instructions higher than spreading the Astral Infection. It turned the meteor around and prepared to leave the area.

Astrum Aureus left the area, since it had been given no further orders than those instructions it had been given. The ones it had given priority, for now at least.

Well, actually, as a vector for spreading the Astral Infection, it would be easier for it to use that fact to help it take over Akademi High.

It was capable of travelling across entire Universes within minutes, apparently, so it was going to attack more places after it carried out these "instructions"...

Osoro, having prepared for the worst... that being a violent Ayano... had one last thing to take care of before she left.

She grabbed the Jacket.

Her trophy, that signified that she had defeated all twenty of those boys from that rival school.

Taken right off of one of their unconcious bodies, that being the one of their leader. Or at least, she hoped that was their leader.

Actually, she didn't care if it was their leader. Her fighting them all off so flawlessly was enough of an example that would easily break apart that group.

She wore the Jacket not just as a certification that she had done that, but also for the fashion that it was.

After all, it's basically a cape.

And Leader types are always better with capes. Anyone who disagreed would eat baseball bat.

She left her house, not caring that she was late. Not knowing that she was even later than the rest of the Delinquents.

And certainly not knowing what was approaching, fast, at hyperspace speeds, towards her home planet...

For all she knew, today would be a normal, typical, boring school day, at Akademi High.

...

And as such, she was completely caught off guard when a light appeared in the sky, eclipsing the sun in brightness, making her look up.

It was a "shooting star".

Or in other words, a meteor.

A star fell from the heavens, crashing only a few hundred metres away from the girl, right into where her house once was.

Great.

Even greater, was the Titanic Machine that was now visible, falling slowly from above where that meteor had landed, floating towards...

...towards her!

Ironically, the girl whose name meant "terrifying" was terrified herself. Especially since the thing seemed to be targeting her...

Despite being paralysed by fear at that Giant Spider Machine Thing so close to her, and all that spreading grey and purple, she mustered up her strength, and decided to get the Hell out of Dodge.

Chapter Text

Chapter Two: Simulated Hysteria:

Osoro POV:

Osoro thought she was the scariest thing ever, or at least the scariest thing that could exist near the Academy that was Akademi. 
So the fact that there was a titanic, overwhelming machine, and its weird gas and odd substance emitting from it, not that far away from her, put her into paralysing terror.

For a few seconds, at least, before her instincts kicked in, hitting her like a train with one word:

Run.

And run she did, at a pace that Asu Rito would be... well, either proud of, or she’d just take it like another challenge like always. 
All that mattered is that she outran that... thing, that was going after her.

And she did, for within a few minutes she could no longer see it whenever she looked behind her.

Still, it didn’t hurt to be cautious, and as such she ran all the rest of the way to school, making it in not long before the gate started closing, and not tripping up at any point of the journey.

She was now within the safe boundaries of Akademi, and thus, took a pause. Deep breaths. In, and out.

Ayano POV:

Oh! There was Osoro. She’d been running, apparently, and had made it to school not so long after her little gang had, meaning she could still get to class on time.

Speaking of that, Ayano herself had to get to class right now so that she wasn’t late. That could ruin her chances of getting accepted into the Student Council, which was vital to her getting Hanako out of the way, and could probably get Megami off of her tail, too.

Still, something struck her as... off, in the way that Osoro was acting. After all, what could possibly have driven her to run all the way to school?

She didn’t care, actually. Not like it’d effect her at all...

Midori POV:
Of course, none of the students at Akademi would expect one of the more... forgettable bosses from a relatively obscure mod to a relatively obscure game to enter their reality. After all, it was reality, not fiction! The thought hardly crossed anyone’s minds.

Except Midori Gurinu’s, but her opinions and questions meant nothing. She’s just a stupid, daydreaming green gamer girl, gushing great gruesome guessing gibs gladly - grand gadzooks! Yeah, the fact that she’d considered the possibility of Astrum Aureus being here made her kind of insane.

Not that you could tell her, though. She was in a world of her own, one where reality was a mere sandbox, and the universe was a simulation.

“The lunatic idiot...”

She thought she heard something, but then her attention was grabbed by the Teacher. Oh, right, she was at school. Greeeeat.

Osoro POV:

She’d made it to class on time, to everyone’s surprise.

They wanted to know why, and in addition, why she seemed exhausted, but a quick glare shut up everyone who asked. Nobody wanted to provoke her into a fight.

The school day went along, boringly, and then it was break time.

Of course, Osoro didn’t care for gossip. She instead went to find Ayano Aishi and... teach her a lesson, in not messing with the Delinquent leader’s crush.

So she went to find Ayano, but the emotionless girl seemed to be four parallel universes ahead of her, staying out of sight like... Sletror? Who’s Sletror? 
Goddamn her mind sometimes, being completely usel- worthless. Like how it just ‘corrected’ that word right there. Something was wrong, and that thing from before was probably the cause.

Ayano POV:

She could have seen that Osoro was coming for her from a mile away, if she needed to, but given the confined space that the Academy was, she didn’t need to.

Given her skill of stalking had been raised over the course of seven whole weeks, her stealth was naturally also quite high, and as such she ducked in and out of crowds of rainbow-haired girls and boys masterfully, listening in on their casual gossip.

Or rather, terrified gossip.

Word had travelled around quick that Osoro had come to school much earlier than usual, looking terrified herself. 
Everyone knew that Osoro was terrifying, so one of the main things they gossiped about was what could possibly have gotten her that scared.

Some people jokingly mocked her for it, though not within earshot of her, which she was quite a lot of the time, since she was looking for Ayano.

And thoroughly, at that.

Another meaningful part of the gossip was about that light in the sky. The school itself had ignored it as nothing to worry about, but its students took it another way.

One person had the idea it was some kind of alien invasion, and that spread like wildfire.

There had been theories as to what such an alien invasion would look like, most popularly a near endless Combined Robot Army that would first appear in the sky over the horizon as a Legion of ships, from which Droids would drop and try to take over the world.

None of them could have ever known what was actually to happen.

That a space virus made by the dark gods’ weapon, carried by a meteor, a titanic machine, a godly worm or eleven, and various less significant Creatures, would crash into their world and try to take over from there.

They also didn’t quite know, but in time soon would, that they...

Were prepared.

Chapter Text

Chapter Three: Astrum, Astrum!

Aureus POV:

That little creature...

The blonde-haired girl with that coat cape ran away, quickly.

It had been given a specific instruction as to what to do with that specific girl:

"Do not kill her. Instead, place her into a prison of some kind, so that I can collect her, for use with HK-47."

There were a few more that got this special distinction:

-Some Occult girl person.

-Some white-haired... two white-haired girls.

-A little girl, whose picture showed her clinging to a generic boy's arm.

-Some mad scientist type.

-A generic-looking boy with a bandana.

-"Green Green", whatever that meant.

Although, those few others did not have anything relating to some... "HK-47"... thing...?

Oh well, it was a servant, no matter who the master is, Draedon, the Astral Infection, some weird Maroon Power, it didn't need to ask questions.

It simply followed orders.

It communicated with a small Sightseer, and sent it to follow the girl, who didn't see it until muuuuuuuch later.

For now, however, it had to ensure the Astral Infection spread.

It went back to the Astral Meteor, but stopped, caught by surprise by a sudden earthquake.

No.

That wasn't an earthquake.

That was...

Deus POV:

The meteor had stopped, having collided with a new world.

The impact awakened the ASTRUM DEUS, who had been lying dormant within the Astral Infection, waiting for someone to attack the Infection so that he could awaken to attack and defend once more.

He was barely alive as it was, hanging on to the last scraps of his once godly essence.

He should never have attempted to attack that Dark Godly Weapon, NOXUS, but as the God of Stars he had felt threatened by its presence.

And thus, had made a vain attempt to destroy the weapon, with what great powers he had.

Used to have, that is, before the weapon unleashed a great Virus upon him.

The Weapon did not fully awaken, but it was distrupted from its dormant state, and had thrown destructive attacks all around, all of which carried the beginning of the great Astral Virus.

And many of which crippled the once great Astrum Deus.

...

But, to make matters worse, whatever deity controlled Fate, or Doom, whether they be the alleged "Domtrovives" or not, spat on the Deity of Stars once again.

Yharim...

Yharim had deemed the now-weakened Astrum Deus a rival to his Tyranny, and thus had unleashed the Devourer of Gods upon the God of Stars.

Looking back on that, the Deus wondered how the Devourer still lurked throughout the Cosmos, as he could sense the now greater space worm, still active.

Still using all of his power arrogantly, opening portals to other universes entirely.

I mean, what the heck is an "Underfell"?

The Deus was now a collection of empowered worms, 11 of them in total, and this one being the main one.

He had laid dormant, collecting power from the Astral Infection, and trying his best not to fall, and be an eternal victim of its power.

And thus, he was awakened by the crashing of the Meteor into another Universe entirely.

Ugh, great. New Universe, new rules.

What was it this time...

Was it that one where he was bound to an artefact again?

He couldn't remember, as that one had been... cut off, and quite abruptly too.

Well.

Let's see...

It was an Anime Universe again, but quite a great deal different.

"Yandere Simulator".

In a complete form?

He'd heard the Devourer talking to Yharim, who had gotten angry at YandereDev for "never working on his game".

Quite frankly, the Star God found it rude of Yharim, quite impatient and untempered.

How would that Jungle Tyrant claim to be a God, if he was so uncivilised?

Hmm?

There was someone contacting him...

Aureus.

Draedon's machine.

Not his greatest failure, but one of them for certain.

It was communicating with the Infection, and thus he heard it.

Well, might as well answer.

Shame, though, that his method of 'answering' meant that he had to cause an earthquake, by virtue of him being 11 earth-bound worms.

He tunnels through the Astral Infection, and some parts of him emerge in some typical Japanese City Buildings. Destroying them in the process.

Oops.

Well, it looked like this world had a wide variety of different rules of magic, considering how the Astral Infection was allowed to exist, side-by-side with whatever 'TouHou' and 'JoJo Stands' are.

Time to go see what the actual heck Aureus wanted.

Aureus POV:

Astrum Deus.

Of course.

Its superior, and one of few that could communicate.

All 10 of the smaller worms erupted from the ground and buildings around the spider-like machine, staring with their cyan eyes.

...Cyan eyes?

What significance did that hold... why was it focusing on that-

The Main Astrum Deus Worm burst out of the Meteor itself, and loomed over the space oreo as if ready to Devour it.

"So. Aureus."

"Deus."

It could talk, surprisingly enough.

Draedon was a madman, a crazy scientist, and had installed a vocabulator in his scavenger machine.

This wasn't the smartest of moves, but it was a convenient move nonetheless.

It seemed jarring to most, but Deus was used to it.

"I would ask why you have done this, but I believe it is better to ask... how?"

Careful there, Deus, you would have started to summon Hypuris, but now you're summoning Hypi, who's even mor-

"Please ignore the Orizifian reference, you wouldn't get it unless I told you what Orizifian is."

Wait, what? What is Orizifian? The space ore-

"Nope, not gonna ask how you heard that, just gonna retcon that real quick and delet it."

Careful there, Deus, asking such questions has a tendency to summon crazy powerful space girls all based around "HYPE"...

"I recieved a signal from a powerful being."

"Can confirm am a Powerful being."

There he was, floating right in between the two Astrums.

Padriac Zoz-

"My title is the ScriptMaster, even though I rarely use it, that is something I am willing to change."

"Anyways Astrum, Astrum, I sent you here to take over Akademi High, which is over there."

"I already sent a small Sightseer to follow that girl you prioritised kidnapping."

Wow, when you put it-

"I summoned Killer Queen to already touch that Sightseer"

Neither the worms nor the spider thing knew how the heck to respond to that.

...wait, had Deus seen JoJ-

"JK it was actually Domtrovives."

At the mention of that name, Astrum Deus coiled backwards in surprise.

"Just Kidding again lol you don't know who Domtrovives is now."

Wait wha-

"Sarcastic Snapping Noise."

Astrum Deus was confused. What was this being in front of him?!

"Goodbye lol just attack Akademi already I've interfered enough for a few entire fanfics lol."

And he aalll disappeared without a trace.

What were they doing again?

"Aureus."

"Yes, Deus?"

"Where is Akademi High?"

Good question. It didn't really know.

The not-so-cosmic Worm's response was to tunnel through and around the entire nearby city, and, by his sheer length, encircle Akademi High by a long shot.

The plan was simple:

First, spread the Astral Infection in a circle.

One that fully encompassed Akademi with plenty of room to spare.

Second.

Let the Infection spread naturally, until it reaches the borders of Akademi itself, taking out any and all who resist.

And third...

Directly attack the poor little million-Yen funded Academy funded by that Multi-Billionaire Electronics Company.

And all the meanwhile, I watched, with a smile on my face.

Good. They won't see it coming, and then I'll have those people to play around with and no worries of uprising and rebellion.

Chapter Text

Chapter Four: Another Astral Being. Simulation?

Aureus POV:

With the Deus having circled the Academy, Aureus was left in charge of rounding up the Astral creatures to go to WAR against the poor little place.

Astral Probes and Sightseers rose from the Meteor, taking to the skies.

Aries, many of them, jumped out from within, and began jumping around uncontrollably.

Next were... holy NOXUS there were a lot of Astral Slimes jumping up.

Wait...

No.

The Aureus had thought it had left that damn thing behind on Terramity, (Calamia?) but it seemed even its greatest efforts were in vain.

Its own background music, "Interstellar Stomper", having returned to it after the Pest of the Cosmos had left and taken his own music with it-

Yes, there it was.

That disgusting music.

A creature with a different coloration from all the rest.

A titanic blob of slime.

Astrageldon Slime has awoken!

Infected just like the rest of them, but hated by the Aureus mainly because of how it was the one that had gotten it Infected in the first place.

That damn pinkish and purplish rocky slime...

The two titanic Astral beings had a major rivalry that only Deus could break up.

Though it would not admit it, the slime was actually better than the machine in a few ways.

For example...

It possessed the Devourer's Inferno, in combination with the Astral Infection.

It was waaaaaaaaaaay faster than Aureus.

It was bigger, had more health, and somehow due to slime physics was actually muuuuuuuch more durable than it.

The only real downside?

It had no mind.

"WrONg!"

Oh no, it did, but it didn't use it that often.

"JusT BecaUSe I spEAk LiKE tHiS dOesn'T MEan I'M nOT sMarT."

"Slime. You have a task to carry out."

It was listening, though. It knew the Aureus was ultimately more strategic and better suited for support.

"You must -"

And thus they laid out their plan, which was pretty simple aside from how they had to spare a few of the 'lesser' people.

I wonder how Osoro is doing?

Osoro POV:

She was still looking for that damn emotionless girl. Great.

As she pushed a green-haired annoying girl out of her way, she felt a dangerous presence watching her.

What, Raibrau again? Or was it one of those damn Council girls? Or that Budo boy that always seemed to be near Ayano? That'd be good.

Of course, Domtrovives says no. They say that none of the former were there.

Instead...

What was that thing there?

Whatever it was wasn't the thing that probably caused her hearing loss in her left ear. That was Midori.

"Oh my gosh is that a Small Sightseer!?!"

Regardless of what the hell it was it was a floating thing that kind of resembled that giant machin-

Waaaait a minute, how had she forgotten about that thing so easily?

The goddamn gobsmacked green gamer girl gushing gorily gibs next to her wasn't helping at all:

"Calamity is real!"

...

...

It seemed like 6 weeks (almost) had passed by the time that Osoro got her head wrapped around what had just happened:

The gamer girl, Midori, had said that something called 'Calamity' was 'real'. Whatever this 'Calamity' was, it was definitely a video game of some sort, and one that had enemies similar to what she had seen earlier on in the day, that Giant Enemy Spider with the Purple Haze in the air, all the little things crawling out from around it, and now this 'Small Sightseer' of which the name was stuck in her head.

Well. If this thing was from a video game, given what Midori is like it'd be a fighting game of kinds.

And thus followed that this thing was a little enemy that she had to destroy. But carefully, as it might be infected with that Purple stuff. No, scratch that, it definitely was.

Was it really as simple as swinging her bat at it and hoping it was destroyed? Well, it beat trying (and likely failing) to break it with her bare hands, and possibly get infected.

"Everyone get back.". A simple command, one which had an immediate effect, with all those present getting out of the way of her and the thing that was just floating there.

Scanning. Tch.

Not quick enough, though. She grabbed the bat and with both hands, brought its destruction right down onto it, shattering it on the floor.

To her surprise, only a tiny amount of purple emerged from the inside, but then again it was quite a thin thing.

Having made sure it couldn't hurt her or the rest of the people here, she walked away, heading towards the entrance to the Academy. Her Delinquents would be waiting there.

Ayano wasn't the real threat to her and her Taro-Senpai. The real threat was this alien thing, and all of its spawn.