Arc 1: Thaumiel
The reality hiccups.
SCP-3812 climbs. It always climbs. Past narratives, past authors, past the concept of "past" itself. It climbs until the framework of existence develops a stutter, a pixel out of place in the cosmic code, and then—
Shirou exists.
He doesn't fall into being. Doesn't crawl from void or light. He simply is, suspended in a non-place that refuses to commit to existing or not existing. His first glimpse of reality isn't reality at all, it's the script. Lines of dialogue he hasn't spoken yet. Future drafts of scenes he'll suffer through. Character notes describing him as "cosmically overpowered but existentially fucked."
He blinks. Black eyes like abyssal pits stare at grey-furred hands that are simultaneously there and being written into existence.
"Oh," Shirou says to absolutely no one, his voice the first sound in a place that has no concept of sound, creating a Concept. "Oh, that's bullshit."
He knows he's fictional. Knows he's being written right now, in this very sentence. Knows that his knowledge of being written is itself written. Knows that knowing that is also written. The paradox spirals like 3812's infinite climb, except he's not climbing; he's the glitch left behind, the error message given consciousness and a frankly spectacular physique.
Shirou looks down at himself.
Grey fur. Defined pectorals that would make sculptors weep. Abs you could grate cheese on, if cheese existed here, which it doesn't, because "here" is barely a concept. His tail swishes experimentally. His ears flop forward, then back. Everything is perfectly rendered, perfectly masculine, perfectly designed to be—
"Furry bait," he mutters, and somehow finds himself grinning despite the cosmic horror of aware fictional existence. "The author made me furry bait."
A very masculine urge begins to make itself known.
He admires his forearms. His biceps. The way his digitigrade legs suggest both power and grace. Six feet of anthropomorphic wolf sculpted by narrative convenience and the author's apparent taste in—
The urge intensifies.
"Well," Shirou says reasonably to the non-void, "not like there's anything else to do."
His hand moves south.
........
Hour 72:
There is nothing here.
Not darkness. Darkness implies absence of light, and light implies physics, and physics implies a reality that's decided to actually exist.
Not light either. Light would be a mercy.
Not even nothingness. Nothingness would be something, a state, a condition, a philosophical concept he could cling to.
Just... not.
Shirou floats in the non-place, and knowledge pours into him like water into a drowning man's lungs.
He knows about fiction now. Knows about Web Novels and power scaling forums and readers who'll argue about whether he can beat Rimuru or Anti-Spiral. Knows he exists as words on a webpage, digital text that won't even be popular yet, might never be popular, but is still fundamentally, irreversibly not real.
"I'm entertainment," he whispers, and his voice cracks. "I'm just... I'm just fucking entertainment."
More knowledge floods in. Characters "beyond fiction" who are still fictional. The impossibility of ever climbing past narrative itself because even the act of climbing is written, is narrative, is—
He laughs. It sounds like breaking glass.
"Okay. Okay, sure. I'm fictional. But fiction entertains people, right? That's... that's purpose.That's—"
The thought curdles immediately.
"No. Fuck that." His voice turns vicious. "Fuck the author. Fuck the audience. Fuck every single reader who'll watch me suffer and call it 'good characterization.' Fuck—"
Powers slam into him.
Infinite Layers of Conceptual Elemental Manipulation because the story needs flashy battles.
Infinite Layers of Infinite Conceptual Strength because power scaling forums demand quantifiable metrics.
Infinite Layers of Soul Manipulation because he needs to neg-diff Soul-hax users.
Infinite Layers of Perspective Overdrive because protagonists need to be smart and analytical.
Each one burns itself into his existence like a brand, like a role being assigned. He doesn't want them. Didn't choose them. But the narrative requires an insanely overpowered start for those "Insane Start of Series Battles to entertain readers."
"I DIDN'T ASK FOR THIS!" Shirou screams into the nothing. "I didn't—I don't—"
Infinite Layers of Melancholia Feedback manifests. The power is protection, ostensibly. Anyone who tries to harm him experiences 1% of his isolation.
But the isolation isn't over. It's happening. Right now. This is hour 72, and he has 9,999 quintillion years ahead of him.
The math is being written into his awareness as cosmic law.
"No," he whimpers. "No, please, I'll—I'll be good, I'll be entertaining, I'll—"
Narrative Awareness locks into place.
And Shirou understands.
He's not just fictional. He's fictional and aware of it, written specifically to be aware of it, tortured by awareness that's itself scripted. Even this breakdown is planned. Even his despair is a story beat. The author is writing him to suffer because suffering creates emotional investment, and emotional investment makes readers care about a furry wolf-man with cosmic powers.
"You bastard," he snarls at the author he knows is writing this. "You absolute bastard. You made me, made me know I'm made, and now you're going to keep me here for—for—"
9,999 quintillion years.
The number burns in his mind.
"And power scalers," he adds with hysterical spite, "will still fuck up the matchups. They'll say I lose to characters I'd obliterate because they didn't read the *fucking* scan."
His laughter echoes in the place-that-isn't.
Shirou floats in the glitch between narratives, gaining power he never wanted, aware of an audience he's learning to hate, and the isolation has only just begun.
Somewhere, impossibly far above, SCP-3812 continues climbing.
And in the error it left behind, a grey-furred wolf with perfect abs and a shattered psyche begins counting down 9,999 quintillion years.
"Fuck you," he whispers to the author, to the readers, to the cosmic joke of his own existence.
"Fuck you all."