Hope, Once More
In the very heart of a vast cosmos, open on every side, in every direction.
A breathtaking vista spread wide across the void, scenery that drew the eye whether one willed it or not.
"Whew... so this time was a failure too..."
At the center of it all, a prism-shaped square—no, a cluster of squares spinning in frantic disarray—trembled faintly, as though sinking into disappointment.
"There is simply no way to raise a creation's rank to Father's level..."
Its identity was Yog-Sothoth, who had been creating one civilization after another since time immemorial.
"Potential, psychic power, magic, raw strength... nothing, nothing at all, has come close to Father."
Ever since her Father had fallen asleep, she had stumbled through countless trials and errors. At times she forged entirely new powers, like magic, and granted them to her creations. At others, she simply made creatures of overwhelming strength and tried raising them.
But with no progress to show for it—nothing but failure, failure, and failure again—she had even attempted a 'new' method: pooling the power of all three sisters together.
"Ahem... and in the end, 'that thing' failed as well..."
It, too, had joined the ranks of the countless failures that still drifted through the universe to this day. It had not died, even adrift in the center of the cosmos, and among all her past creations it had displayed power that could only be called overwhelming. And yet in the end, it had stopped growing without ever surpassing its creator Yog-Sothoth—let alone Father.
"And now it's the leader of a whole gang of failures, I hear?"
Just as Yog-Sothoth was lost in memories of her mightiest creation—
-!!!!!!!!!!
An alarm of survival blared through her mind. Flee, now. Death is at your doorstep—that was the warning the feeling carried.
Throughout the entire universe, there was only one being who could inspire such a sensation in Yog-Sothoth, eldest of the three sisters.
"A—aaaaah...!!"
Father. Father has awakened.
Her Father, finally rousing from His deep, deep slumber. And what she felt was a flicker of gladness, and then—
"What do I do, what on earth do I do..!?"
—sheer, overwhelming dread.
"The Plan hasn't made the slightest progress, and if Father wakes and sees the state of this universe..!!"
The Plan to create a friend for Father was littered with failures. The present age of the universe was an era of chaos, crawling with those failures. Creatures of grotesque, repellent forms—the kind Father despised—lay strewn across heaven and earth. There were normal-looking beings as well, of course, but they amounted to a tiny sliver of all creation.
Worse still, because Father had been asleep, none of them had even bothered to maintain a disguise.
"F-first, let me change my own form..!"
-Vreeeeeeeng...!!!
The instant Yog-Sothoth channeled her power, her cubic bodies began to spin at blinding speed. A dazzling radiance soon enveloped her, and from its very heart emerged a fair-haired maiden.
Billions upon billions of years had passed, yet her appearance had not changed in the slightest. The same peerless beauty, the same jeweled eyes, alone remained in that place.
"First things first..."
Yog-Sothoth, gazing slowly down at her own body, broke the silence.
"I have to warn my sisters, right now!!!!"
There was just a touch of urgency in her voice.
"Lady Yog-Sothoth and Lady Nyarlathotep are most likely off attending to their own affairs, each in a different place!"
One of the members of the ensemble reported to him in a booming voice.
...Come to think of it, their names... I never knew them until now.
Only now, after all this time, had he finally learned the names of his own daughters. From a certain angle, it made him look like a garbage excuse for a father—but oblivious to this, he pressed the member for more.
"Start with the golden-haired one... tell me where Yog-Sothoth is."
"At once, O King of the Outer Gods!"
At the member's effusive reply, he furrowed his brow in puzzlement. The title "King of the Outer Gods" made no sense to him whatsoever.
"Hmm. I suppose that must be me?"
Having settled on that conclusion, he crouched down to listen to the member's explanation. His long, wild hair draped over his entire childlike body, a strange silhouette that from a distance might have been mistaken for some large animal—but the member paid it no mind and began.
"First, Lady Yog-Sothoth has been endlessly repeating her trials and errors in an empty stretch of the universe."
"What's a trial and error?"
"...I beg your pardon?"
The member blinked, caught off guard by his father's ignorant question.
-..?
But Father only tilted his head with a genuinely baffled expression.
So the rumors that Father has a bit of a fool's charm were true after all...
Every member watching the scene thought the exact same thing.
"Er... you may understand it as attempting something over and over, failing each time, in order to find a way that works."
"Ohh..."
Only then did he nod along, finally satisfied by the explanation.
"And the other one?"
"Ah, yes! Lady Nyarlathotep..."
The member's next words
rekindled a hope in him that had been quietly, leisurely listening all along.
"She has gone to the place where people have gathered to see the... Plan... through to success."
-!!!!!
The hope that he might yet make a friend.