Aeon ★ Aha

Cries and comedy intertwine, and the deathly still cosmos awakens to daybreak in a farce.
Stepping back onto the stage of the Path, I tear off the god's mask. Who is Aha? I am Aha!
To play, to trick, to hunt... Please bear witness to an improv tour where humans and gods dance as one!

"Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to Aha's Theater!" The Fool pulls back the stage curtains.
"Fool of the stars, Actor of the cosmos, comic artist of Elation... What exactly is this Aha you speak of?" the Actor asked, with a melancholy air.
"It's simple. 'Aha' is nothing more than a sigh from a god toying with the galaxy." The comic artist finally showed up, latest work in tow.
"Don't believe me? Then feast your eyes. The secrets and entanglements between THEM and the Aeons that shouldn't be missed—"
Pages of sketches flutter down into the audience's hands, and the theater erupts in gleeful laughter.

"...The protagonist this time is Lil' Ha, and Lil' Ha is a master at roping people into THEIR shady schemes.
Walking toward us right now are Stone Hero Amberhead and Captain Cosmos Ena... Wait, what!? Even Goddess Xipe got duped into joining Lil' Ha's Bug-Busting Alliance!?
No! This is just a smokescreen by Lil' Ha, a classic bait-and-switch to kill two birds with one stone. Look! THEIR true target is the restless Evil God Voracity...
Lil' Ha and Aki suppressed the Evil God Voracity together once again, leaving Goddess Xipe heartbroken. It was supposed to be solved by a team of three, why did only two of THEM get the credit?"
— Episode 7: The Swarm Disaster in Three Minutes

"Dear audience, we resume our tale where we last left off. The emperor rose to power, the mechanical sect bathed the organic sect in blood, and heroes from every corner rode forth, only to shatter their lances and return empty-handed.
Word has it that Aha, the Elation, long absent from the mortal world, plucked a thread of mysterious disturbance and wove it into the calculations of the All-Knowing Nous.
That single ripple, like a butterfly's wingbeat, loosed an unknowable variable into the cosmos and unraveled a scheme ten thousand ages in the making. The fearsome emperor slunk off the stage in disgrace, and Aha heaved a contented sigh: 'The deed need not be done by my hand, so long as chaos brings a smile...'"
— Episode 10: Aha Weaves a Bewitching Web, the Emperor Tumbles into the Butterfly Trap

"In this life, you were reborn into the age of the Interstellar Energy War! Sorry to say, you bit the dust pretty quickly in that brutal conflict that engulfed entire civilizations.
With tragedy and comedy thrown so wildly out of balance, the most dependable of all higher beings, the Aeon of the Equilibrium, HooH, finally made a move! But THEY actually called on the most unpredictable Aha?
What in the cosmos is going on? Let's dig into how the tricks of the Fools and the Actors played out one after another across the battlefield and how they saved tens of millions of lives. Were THEY pulling the strings? Or did THEY just delegate the dirty work? Those in the know already know. Those who don't... well, they don't."
— Episode 12: Secrets About the Interstellar Energy War You Simply Have to Know...

...
"According to obscure historical records: during THEIR tenure as an Aeon, Aha received an overall one-star review from THEIR colleagues, which is why THEY're also known as 'Aeon ★ Aha'!" said the comic artist.
"So... what exactly is this Aha you keep talking about like?" The question from the audience persisted.

"'Aha'..." The Actor on stage was on the verge of tears. "Back to the beginning, that was a dying soul's last sigh..."

"Th—That was THEIR first death..."
In the Actor's trembling retelling, a raving beast gave chase to a newborn God. THEY fled across the stars and waded through the abyss, and the starlight itself was snuffed out between the beast's jaws.
The pursuit raged on, until Aha scrambled up the "tree" with nowhere left to run, and the beast bit off THEIR head in one clean snap.
"It hurts... it hurts so much... I don't want to be Aha anymore... Someone else can have the job..."
The Actor's vivid impression sent the crowd into fits of laughter, but no one noticed her eyes, red and teary.

"In the wake of it all, the funeral of Elation dragged on and on, thick with the stench of rot..."
In the air of pleasure and indulgence, dopamine, dopamine, and more dopamine, until ordinary tricks could no longer satisfy the craving, until spoiled nerves began hunting for a stronger hit.
"We hold the final say on what 'Elation' means!"
Shameless farces played out across the cosmos, audiences delighting in the suffering of others, as followers of Elation dumped their jokes into the cosmos like taking out the trash.

Yet people refused to believe Aha was dead. Instead, they poured their own imaginings over THEIR empty shell.
"Chaotic." "Unpredictable." "Evil." "A trickster." "Generous." "Petty." Contradictory, capricious images took the stage one after another. And strangely, they are all a little like that monstrous beast.
But beneath the mask, what of the real Aha?

Gazing upon the headless divine body, the Actor's tears fell like rain.
"Yes, like this... just like this. Life always arrives at its end amid cries of sorrow, only for a newborn's first wail to ring out in its place. How fragile. How sorrowful. Very much... worth celebrating..."

"This is good news, so why the tears?" The Fool burst into laughter, tissues in hand.
"If you ask me, the true 'Aha' is the laughter THEY share with humanity!"

The first burst of laughter belongs to the infant found by an Actor. She seemed a born master of mischief.
Since then, the solemn troupe never knew peace: Mourning dirges were changed into dance music, six-string lutes were swapped for steamed twisted rolls, and gondolas loaded up with sweets. Well, who made her Troupe Master, anyway?
The Troupe Master chuckled from her seat at the prow of the Starfroster: "Tell me your stories. Might be they'll make Aha cry, yes?"
And so eight Actors gathered beneath a moon shaped like a cookie, and baiting them with just that single opening line, she harvested countless long and enchanting stories.

She snapped off a piece of the Abundance, and laughter took root and sprouted: generation after generation of Supplicants offering up miracles for the Phantasmoon Games.
And yet, it is not only winners that may seek an audience with The Laughter. Always, she hides in every peal of laughter.
She left a Trailblaze Morning Star for that girl who dreamed of what lay beyond the sky. She brought a mask to the young girl lost in the Abundance, and for those drowning in Nihility, she drove back the Dark Sun... She must have spent everything from her lucky investments on this!

"Aha, spend enough time associating with mortals, and you'll become one yourself."
A fellow Aeon once offered her this advice, and she took it as a compliment.
"What kind of The Laughter would I be if I just played the role of my own Path?"
But as time wore on, the slow corrosion of Desire upon Elation left her weary.
Now, faced with a resurrected beast, she began to doubt: what would greet her if she got onstage? Shock, silence, or applause?

She had intended to remain behind the scenes, but then she saw it: the wishes she had sown had begun sprouting.
When the lights of the Express lit up her eyes once more, she could only wait on the platform, ready to deliver the first delightful punchline of a new world:
"Hello everyone, welcome to Duomension City!"

"So, is this all there is to Aha?" The comic artist winked at the audience.
"No: a truly great joke is never fully told!" The Fool sang out, and the lights converged.
"The strictest mother of the Aeons, the origin of all Elation..." The Actor wiped away tears and gazed up at the Phantasmoon overhead.
The Actor, the Fool, and the comic artist took their curtain calls one by one, until only a hazy, familiar figure remained on stage:
"Old friend, Here I come~"

Come, return to the moment of dusk with me! Hear the Leviathans howl across the cosmos, watch the nouspores flee through the shadows.
Humans as puny as specks of dust lived precarious lives, and yet it was the age when heroes rode as recklessly as wild horses.
Akivili's Express flashed across the cosmos like a meteor, and we sped past, laughing and treading on the fanged maw of the beast...

Go seek adversaries worthy of mettle, games that while away the hours, and outcomes indifferent to victory or defeat.
Go chase laughter that leaves the audience breathless, twists born of fate's whimsy, and songs that ascend our soul.
It's not me seeking the Elation: it's the Elation following in my footsteps!

The gods were still young in those days: not yet numb, not yet silent as they are now.
We blazed towards the end of the cosmos, and there, Akivili vanished at the border of the universe, fading into an insignificant spot of light, and I, too, became a headless God.
The cosmos fell quiet once again, but the spark we left behind still waits for the day it ignites a raging wildfire.

Now, we take the stage together, just as it began a thousand Amber Eras ago.
"Every side of me, every step I have ever taken: these are all me. And yet, none of them is the whole of me."
The Actor, the Fool, and the comic artist embrace each other, sighing, weeping, marveling, laughing... They walk toward the first "Aha," and become the last "Aha."
"For this unprecedented Phantasmoon Games, I shall offer you an unprecedented miracle!"
The full moon rises, and the Supplicants will draw back the curtains and step onto the stage, smiling.

"Old friend, have you found your answer? Shh, it's alright if you haven't. It was never the proof that mattered."
Self-introduction complete. And so, I, Aha, issue this invitation to everyone across the entire cosmos:
"Let us revel in unabated joy, and take the stage for this... final Improv Tour!"