Alita is first transported back to the Scrapyard, where she is forced to fight her old enemy Jashugan in a game of motorball (which is reminiscent of Rollerball). When she defeats Jashugan, thus overcoming her karma, she escapes from the program. The second time, she is transported to a time when she first became a Hunter-Warrior, and is forced to kill her beloved father-figure, Daisuke Ido. She lives through this dream for months, enjoying a happy fabrication of the past, until Kaos Nova invades the dream and fights alongside her.

The Ouroboros is also briefly mentioned in the novella Singularity, a great sci-fi novel about two boys who stumble upon a shed which houses an event horizon, allowing time to move significantly faster than the outside world. A monster eventually obliterates the shed, coming out of the sink and thrashing about as it tries to eat its own tail.

The ourobouros (also spelled ouroboros, uroboros, aroboros), is a usually circular symbol of a creature (traditionally a serpent, lizard or dragon) following, biting or consuming it's tail in an endless loop. Many modern interpretations have also become popular now, such as impressionistic works like 'Drawing Hands' by Escher.

Though frequently thought of as a medieval symbol, images of such a thing have been seen as early as 1600 BC in Egypt, Japan in the 14th century and Meso-America in the 1500's. The name we know it as, however, comes from the Greek for "tail eater" (ouro = tail or remainder, boro = to consume, as english bore).

Though an undoubtedly popular symbol throughout history, the meaning has never remained concrete and has been reshapped by whoever adopted the symbol. It has been a representation of people and Deity through the ages, from Isis and later Abraxas in ancient Egypt to Jormungand, the serpent of Midgard, in Norse legend. It also serves to represent many philosophies and ideas, from the cyclical nature of reality, the karmic cycle and chaotic interplay to even such things as thermodynamics and the nature of matter and energy.

Red Dwarf Note: as ohe marks, Dave Lister's box was inscribed with the name ourobouros. But when he was told later in life about it, he understood it as "our Rob or Ross" and thought that it meant that his biological parent's couldn't decided on naming him "Rob" or "Ross".