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(Her sword is his. Her time is his.)
{Once upon a time…}
[She was a soldier who kept on marching on.]
“Hero Chronoa, time traveler,”
The legendary hero, Chronoa, faced the addressment, silent behind her own mask of paradoxes.
A clown spoke, wearing an everlasting smile of a comedy mask over their face, what a theatrical mask, “By turning back time and changing the events of the past, you have relived this past two millennia over and over across numerous different timelines, seeking the outcome you desire.”
The hero’s weapon burned by her side, ready to draw blood. Because she has seen them- these clowns- bleed before. And if they can bleed, then they can die. She may not have the skill, Merciless, but that did not mean she had any mercy for them. These clowns led to the downfall.
{She was a stone knight covered in the markings of time, a suit of armour cracked with fighting never ending wars. Fighting forever for the one she swore to protect with stone limbs creaking and ivy curling the hilt of her blade.}
[She was a soldier who kept on marching on.]
Unbidden by the deadly threat towards their very existence, they continued, smiling, with a voice chosen to be bubbly, “Your existence has answered at least one great mystery: Why does Rimuru Tempest possess such great potential as an otherworlder?”
“...” The red gem on Chronoa mask caught the light, shining like crystalized blood.
“ ... Now we can put together a reasonable hypothesis!” The clown clapped their hands together rapidly. Like a child with too much force they did not know how to control just yet.
“...What?”
“You see, an otherworlder's latent potential is based on the weight of the ultimate’s destiny they bear. We could have understood if he had been related to the stars somehow, but none of us could comprehend why Rimuru Tempest,” The clown’s entire body was shaking, as if they were trying not to release boundless energy. Their voice took a sharp turn. “Who - while leading something that was anything but an ordinary life - was still. just. a. mortal. King.”
{He is becoming one with stars and it is an illness. The cosmos is slowly eating him- taking him away. Plasma makes way for stars, becoming a crown made of nebulae that form points that look like claws on his head. Sitting on a throne of refracted light.}
[She was a soldier who kept on marching on.]
The clown stilled for a split second before reverting to bubbles in voice and body language. If it had not been for how much attention Chronoa was focusing towards them, she would have missed that stillness- it made the clown look like a doll, “-He shouldn’t have so many threads of fate woven so tightly around him... But listen, Chronoa. Isn't it possible that Rimuru became more powerful as a singular organism, every time you reset the timeline?”
Chronoa stood, so still as if she were a pillar and not a person. But that pillar was cracking with the pressure of time and now… space.
(Did you know that space and time could not be separated? They were so intertwined that it is impossible to cleanly separate them.)
Chronoa remembered just how easily Rimuru was murdered in the first loop, only to become a being more powerful than even a true dragon by the last.
{He was taken from the forest he called home, taken from the home he built- forced onto a throne made of refracted light was a prison, and its chains were the claws of his crown.}
[She was a soldier who kept on marching on.]
Seeing something in Chronoa’s stillness, The grin on the clown’s mask widened.
“... I thought so. You were the cause. Or should I call it a side effect of your skills?”
Even as Chronoa stayed so still, her voice was the only stable thing about her in this conversation, “What do you mean?”
“It was you who traveled through time. Over and over and over!” The clown bounced, throwing their hands up in celebration. Every gesture and movement from the clown had been exaggerated. It was the facade of bubbly happiness. It was something of a disturbing sight. [Chronoa wanted to kill them.]
{Once upon a time…}
“You traveled through time for just one purpose too, how noble!” The clown clasped their hands together in a swooning motion that only the truly young and lovesick could pull off. It was fake. It was malice and hostility. [Chronoa wanted to kill them.]
{A great injustice was done.}
“Time travelling in order to protect Rimuru Tempest from their end. But wait!” The clown threw their arms into the air as if in surprise. [Chronoa desperately wanted to kill them.]
{Someone had taken the blue heart of this world and forced upon him raw power he never wished for.}
[She was a soldier who kept on marching on.]
“By turning back time over and over and over- each time for the same reason and goal… You inadvertently caused multiple timelines to converge together and centered them all on Rimuru Tempest!” The clown gave vigorous jazz hands to emphasize their point.
It was then, Chronoa trembled for the first time and her eyes widened in shock from behind her impossible-paradoxical mask, as she realized just what the consequences were for failure. Rimuru was no longer just a mortal king. But he also never was just anything. Not to her. Not for thousands of years.
With a quiet shing she pulled out her blade, a straight edged sword with a narrow point. Unbidden by the deadly threat towards their very existence, the clown did not stop their false celebrations.
[Chronoa had to kill them. Now.]
“Excellent work, Hero Chronoa. You've raised Rimuru to be the most powerful magicule-enriched otherworlder we've ever seen!”
(He does not want this. She will not allow this.)
[She will keep marching on.]
{The legendary hero Chronoa was fighting a never-ending battle as a stone knight that wore the markings of time on her very being.}
{Rimuru Tempest was the slime turned lord forced god.}
(He does not want this.)
The Voice of this World stayed silent. Somewhere else Rimuru can feel Chronoa upset and all he can do from his prison of stars and power is smile, both sad and gentle.