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Beloved.
Such a gentle, foolish word.
A word meant for kindred spirits who are allowed to live long enough to grow old together. Not for someone who keeps murdering the man he loves across millions of dying worlds.
I imagined once calling you my beloved.
I used to think that if I endured enough, if I suffered enough, maybe I would earn that future. Someday. Far away.
Now, I understand the truth.
There is no version of me who deserves to stand beside you in the light.
Only the one who drags you into darkness, again and again, and feels devoid over it.
I used to whisper apologies.
Do you remember?
Of course you don’t. You never get to remember.
It is a blessing that you do not know of this.
I would hold you while the light left your eyes and I would beg forgiveness you could not give, promising things I could never keep. I told myself that if I kept saying sorry, if I kept whispering prayers with my lips of deceit, then maybe I had not become something unforgivable yet.
Somewhere along the way, I stopped apologizing.
Not because I stopped being guilty, no.
The word sorry became too small for what I have become.
. . .
There was nothing.
No light.
No darkness.
No sound.
No feeling.
Just nothing.
It was quieter than death, yet it did not feel like living either.
He did not know how long he remained there. There was no concept of time in this place. No body to feel pain. No lungs to breathe air with. No eyes to open. No thoughts coherent enough to form.
Only absence.
Sometimes, there would be the faintest sensation of drifting.
Like fragments scattered endlessly through cold water, separated yet not too far away from each other.
But, even that would disappear.
Nothing remained long enough to stay. Everything dissolved before it could become real.
A memory would flicker—
Golden sunlight over wheat fields, feeling the dirt underneath his feet with laughter like windchimes echoing across the area.
—and then vanish instantly.
A feeling—
Warmth against his chest, not as unbearable as the heat that burned through him for countless cycles. So much gentler. Kinder. Loving.
—gone before he understood it.
A voice—
Full of love. Full of grief.
—disappearing immediately into the emptiness.
There was nothing he could do about it. No sense of direction for himself. No thought and reason to do anything at all.
So, he did nothing.
He remained there.
Drifting off endlessly.
. . .
I think I understand monsters now.
They are not creatures born vile and disgusting. They are not things that delight in the endless bloodshed.
Monsters are the ones who keep doing the unforgivable while knowing exactly that the atrocities they commit are unforgivable.
Monsters remember every face. Every scream. Every pair of eyes that once trusted them with all their heart and soul.
And they keep going anyway.
That is what I am, Mydei.
Not your Deliverer.
Not your supposed Dawn.
Not the man you loved who has walked by your side every time in every cycle once.
Just a pair of hands that keeps ending your life. Each and every single time.
A monster.
I want to laugh when I think about it. If this is what salvation requires, then salvation is only another word for cruelty.
Yet, I still keep going.
There are moments… small, treacherous moments, when I imagine a world where none of this is happening.
A world where I never learn the truth.
Where I never pick up the sword.
Where you and I are simply… people.
Would we have met each other in that life?
Maybe you would be living happier then.
. . .
Days passed.
. . .
Weeks.
. . .
Years.
. . .
No… perhaps only seconds.
. . .
There was no way to know.
The living world moved somewhere impossibly far away from him. A distant place beyond reach that he was not aware of.
Something warm would brush against the emptiness from time to time.
A pulse.
Tiny.
Weak.
It came and went.
At first, it meant nothing.
He could not understand it. Could not recognize it. Did not know if it.
But, every time it appeared, the nothingness for a moment seemed… less cold. Less numb. Less empty.
A faint hum beneath the void.
Steady and waiting.
Sometimes the hum hurt.
It was as if something pulled gently at broken pieces that were himself that no longer fit together properly.
The sensation repeated endlessly within the nothingness.
Suddenly, for just a moment… no matter how barely felt it had been… it stayed. Not long. Only slightly longer than before.
But, now… it was warm.
A hand against his chest. A forehead resting on his own. The sensation of being held.
He did not understand it.
But, something inside the emptiness loosened faintly in turn.
The warmth vanished almost immediately afterward. Yet, traces of it lingered.
That had never happened before.
He wanted to feel that again.
Feel.
Just one more time.
It would come and go, more and more, within the vast nothingness he stayed within.
There were moments where sensations across his being began surfacing more. In every moment that it did, it burned within him.
Flashes.
Pieces.
Not coherent. Never coherent.
Fire.
Screaming.
Golden blood flowing away.
The ichor soaking through pale hands.
Pieces of a body, crackling apart.
A sword.
A book.
A set of tarot cards.
A golden thread.
A flying rocket.
An antila flower.
An eyepatch.
A tiny, flying pegasus.
A coin.
A violin.
A crown made of flames.
A vine-threaded spear.
A red umbrella.
A gauntleted hand, reaching out, toward him.
Ash falling endlessly from a ruined sky.
Cries. Wails. Sobs.
Someone speaking his name.
His name—
Then, before he could bring himself to reach out more, the memories would shatter before completing themselves.
He could not understand any of it. Could not connect one fragment to another. For him, thinking in itself was impossible. He could not feel nor do anything at all.
He was too…
Exhausted.
… he did not know.
And yet, something was changing. Very slowly, but surely.
The void no longer swallowed everything immediately.
Tiny things remained behind now.
A sensation. A touch. A hum.
A pulse.
The faint awareness, a scarce part, only a small bit, that something existed beyond nothingness.
He did not understand it.
He could not understand it.
But, somewhere deep within the fractured ruins of himself, broken pieces instinctively drifted toward that warmth. Toward that pulse.
It was the only guidance he had within this void.
. . .
Do you know what the most dangerous part of my distant dream is?
It isn’t peace by itself.
It’s how ordinary it feels.
I dream of days within that reality, even in its impossibilities, even with what I have done, where I am waking beside you.
I imagine arguing with you about nothing at all. I imagine you complaining that I steal the blankets every time we go to sleep together. I imagine braiding your hair the way you always pretend to hate yet secretly love.
The worst part isn’t the continuous killing.
It’s that within every cycle… some part of you still loves me.
Even when you don’t know why.
Even when fate twists everything cruelly.
Even when the world burns all around us.
You look at me like I am something worth choosing.
And I break you for it.
Again and again and again and again.
If there is an afterlife waiting for me that is not Styxia at the end of all this, I hope it is nothing but that moment repeated forever.
Your eyes realizing what I’ve done, over and over, without an end.
That would be fair.
More than fair.
. . .
Pain started to become clear to him the more he moved toward the warmth.
It hurt.
It really did hurt.
The exhaustion reached deeper than what one’s body or mind could experience.
The agony of it all felt woven into existence itself.
As if he had been here for far too long.
As if he had been carrying the weight forever.
As if he had spent an eternity dragging himself forward through worlds that kept dying in his hands.
Flashes continued to tear through the emptiness.
All parts of himself that he was made of recoiled every time, if that motion was possible at all.
Again.
Again.
Again.
There was too much pain. Too much pain. Pain, pain, pain—
Would the pain only become worse the more he tried to reach out to this pulse?
Fragments that had once been more distant than close suddenly drifted closer together in the void just for a moment, away from the warmth, pulled by shared anguish.
Enough.
Please.
No more.
Living on had always brought pain. It always had. Hadn’t it?
Rest.
The sudden thought spread through him, enough for him to hold onto easier.
Rest.
No more blood. No more destruction. No more cycles.
No more watching everyone die.
No more killing everyone with your own hands.
Grief.
Longing.
Guilt.
Regret.
Love.
Love?
He could not hold those feelings properly. They overloaded him.
It scattered him further apart suddenly, the agony becoming far too much for him to handle.
Another flash erupted, this time, much clearer than ever before.
The feeling of a spine breaking beneath a jagged blade.
A man of dull amber eyes, dead in his bloodsoaked arms.
Sobbing hoarse apologies against his blonde hair.
Something inside him started to scream within the void.
Monster.
Monster, monster, monster—
Another memory.
Another death.
Another reset.
Another timeline ending while he remained.
Always forced forward.
Always alive.
Alive.
The fragments seemed to break apart further.
No more. Please, no more.
The exhaustion became unbearable then, wrapping around him and drowning him further into nothingness, thoughts breaking apart.
If he stopped now… if he let go… there would be no more pain in his way.
No more weight of the world on his shoulders.
No grief. No anguish. No loneliness.
He would be… free.
The thought frightened some parts of him. But, other fragments leaned toward it desperately.
Because wasn’t this enough? Hadn’t he already given everything? What more remained of him to sacrifice? What would living do any good for him?
He completed his purpose. There was no use for him anymore. He was not needed.
The void around him pulsed softly.
Slowly, almost terrifyingly so with much ease, pieces of him began loosening further. In a way, accepting dissolution. Preparing to finally disappear.
This was it, wasn’t it?
Just let go.
You’ve done enough.
Rest.
He wanted to rest.
. . .
I am so tired, Mydei.
Not the kind of tiredness that sleep can ever fix.
It’s an exhaustion that lives so deep in the bones. In the soul. Whatever fragile thing inside me keeps choosing to continue this ordeal.
Sometimes, I wonder what would happen if I stopped.
If I let the world end. If I let everyone die. If I finally chose rest over everything else.
The thought is so tempting that it frightens me.
I know, with terrible certainty, if it were only your life against the world… if it was only you that mattered and not the fate of the entire universe at hand… if I actually had a choice… I would choose you.
Every time.
That is the truth I can never allow myself to live.
So instead, I keep becoming the thing that destroys you, because loving you would end everything that we’re both fighting for.
What a cruel design.
To make the purest love I have ever known the one thing I must always betray.
If there is any mercy left in this wretched existence of mine… it is this.
You will never remember these words. You will never know how weak I am.
How often I almost stop. How desperately I want a life where I can love you without everyone’s blood, including yours, on my hands.
You will only remember whatever version of me survives to the end.
I hope… selfishly, greedily, impossibly… that somewhere, in some final world I cannot yet see… there is a version of us that escapes all of this.
A comfortable house.
Quiet mornings.
The endless wheat fields.
Your hand in mine without the fear of ever losing it.
And maybe, if the universe is kinder than it has ever been… you will call me your husband.
Not because I earned it. Not because I deserve it.
But because, despite everything, you still love me anyway.
If I cannot give you a life without pain, the least I can do is keep you from seeing how completely I have already fallen.
Please, let my regret reach you.
Forgive the person I am.
Forgive my misdeeds.
Forgive me.
Please don’t forgive me.
I will keep saving this world. Even if it means losing you until I can no longer have you for all eternity.
Goodbye, my love.
I will see you tomorrow.
. . .
The world was ending quietly.
An ending that was starting a beginning that came anew.
Sounds that rang all across the world before them were distant and muffled beneath the unbearable ringing inside his skull.
He could barely hear anything anymore.
The fire inside his body had long since surpassed what any living being should have been capable of enduring.
Millions of deaths.
Millions of worlds ending.
Millions of iterations of destruction.
Millions of versions of his loved ones dying, over and over and over—
Something caught him before he hit the ground.
Hands. Warm hands.
Voices burst through the muffled barrier surrounding his consciousness, every word a strain for him to be able to listen to distinguish.
But, he did.
He still tried.
“Phainon!”
“Mydei, careful—”
“He’s burning up… the fire… it won’t stop!”
“We need more help as fast as possible! Now!”
A part of him recognized those voices. Truly, he did. Even as awareness slipped through his fingers like water, his heart would recognize each and every one of them from everywhere.
The Chrysos Heirs.
They were all alive.
Alive.
The realization alone nearly broke him apart completely.
They survived. They can live.
The thought echoed weakly through the ruin of his mind.
Amphoreus still existed. The Black Tide was gone. Irontomb was gone.
After 33,550,336 cycles… it was finally over.
Over.
The world continued to blur in and out of existence around him.
For brief moments, few in those bare seconds, he saw his surroundings with unbearable sharpness. The ruined battlefield collapsing underneath fading crimson darkness. The ash drifting through the air like the snow back in Aidonia. The remnants of the virus dissipating away, bit by bit.
People’s faces looking back at his direction. Toward his way. Down at him.
And they all looked—
Something deep inside his chest tore suddenly.
He gasped soundlessly, breath ragged and hoarse.
Everything smeared together again into shapeless color and static in the next second before he could even breathe.
He needed to say something. Needed to reassure them. Needed to comfort them. Needed to tell them—
What?
The thoughts in his mind were slipping too quickly now.
He tried to move his hand, yet it barely twitched before agony exploded through his entire body. He could not feel his fingers properly anymore, nor could he not feel where his legs were.
His very being was unraveling before him.
The pain was indescribable.
Something was happening to him.
What was it?
What was going to become of him?
Another rupture tore through him., and he choked out weakly.
Suddenly, he could feel it.
Feel himself coming apart from the inside.
Like threads snapping one by one, memories within his mind were ripping loose. His own self being torn apart into pieces.
The countless fragments of himself accumulated across millions of cycles breaking beneath the strain all at once.
Too many deaths. Too much grief. Too many versions of himself forced together into one existence never meant to endure this long. Never meant to live for an eternity and beyond.
It was as if his soul was collapsing under its own weight.
Perhaps that was the case.
He could barely feel the same warm hands that continued to cradle him against the crackling flesh of his body.
He forced his eyes to follow his command. To open up and look back at the person that stared back at him, the grip only getting more firmer with every passing second.
Blonde hair, blurred into pale gold with crimson strands that always let loose, in exception for the braid that hung low by the side, though dirtied in blood and debris now.
Broad shoulders. Strong frame. Crimson lines across open skin that he revered every cycle.
His jaw trembled violently as he forced a sound through a throat scorched raw.
“Y… Y-You— …”
His voice cracked apart.
Not human anymore.
Something fractured instead.
Was he even truly living anymore?
A gauntleted hand immediately cupped his face as his broken voice led away to a raspy exhale.
“Don’t speak… just stay. Stay with me. Stay with us.”
He couldn’t help but frown.
The deeper voice curled over him sounded devastated.
No. No, that tone should not exist anymore.
There shouldn’t be any touch of despair.
No pain, no agony, no sadness.
So why…?
He tried to continue breathing, keeping his heart steady somehow. However, before he could even try, the agony nearly eclipsed thought itself, barely handled by his experience full of more than a million years.
“M-Myd— … ei…”
This time, the word, his name, came out barely audible.
But, the man heard it instantly.
“I’m here.”
Both of his hands cradled his face carefully now, finally starting to tremble.
“I’m right here. Stay. Deliverer, stay.”
Stay.
Stay.
He wanted to.
Titans, he wanted to.
For once, just once, he wanted to stay.
No more blood. No more death. No more cycles.
No more.
He just wanted the chance to be able to show around Aedes Elysiae. To dance with everyone under the true sun, where smiles could be shared without another care in the world.
He wanted to be there and be chastised by Aglaea regarding his fashion choices for his clothing.
He wanted to hear Tribbie call him, “Snowy!” with the bright grin of hers.
He wanted to have the honor of getting to hug Castorice without her curse.
He wanted to get reprimanded by Anaxa in a debate between the two of them.
He wanted to listen to Hyacine laugh joyfully and talk about herself.
He wanted to banter with Cipher when the weight of the world wasn't on their shoulders.
He wanted to get to know both Cerydra and Hysilens better and make up for the cycles they could not.
He wanted to truly meet March and take her around Marmoreal Market for her scrapbook.
He wanted to allow Dan Heng to regale his tales and knowledge to him without a disturbance.
He wanted the Trailblazer, his partner, to show him the world and the cosmos outside of Amphoreus.
He wanted mornings beside Mydei where they could abide by peaceful days. A moment where they would not have to fight for their lives. A second of solitude together.
A heartbeat.
Just a heartbeat with him.
He wanted…
Wanted—
The thought collapsed midway through its formation.
Something inside him split open completely, and his vision suddenly darkened around the edges.
The world tilted violently as his hearing vanished deeper and deeper into ringing static. He could no longer feel his own heartbeat properly, if the weakening pounding said anything at all.
Panic flickered weakly through him, the only indication being the shuddering hitch in his breath.
What would happen to him soon?
Would he disappear?
Would he become nothing?
Would he cease to no longer exist?
No thought, no feeling, nothing at all?
The fear should have terrified him. Maybe even rage should’ve followed in pursuit of the unfairness of this all.
Hadn’t he given everything?
What more did this universe want from him?
Instead, exhaustion swallowed almost everything else.
He was so tired.
So impossibly tired.
Millions of cycles crashed through him all at once, and for once in his unyielding life, he let the collapse fester.
His body visibly sagged against Mydei’s arms, and in turn, those hands steadied him and held on with a terrified grip. Even more than before.
The others were speaking. Talking. Crying.
He could vaguely see them surrounding him, and yet, he could not hold onto their faces. They fazed in and out of his withering mind.
At least they were alive.
That mattered.
That had always mattered most.
He tried to smile.
He did not know if he succeeded in doing so.
Another rupture tore through his body as his head dipped back, and this time, it felt as if his soul was dying.
He forgot where he was for a moment. Forgot his own name. Forgot how to think. Forgot what breathing was. His thoughts were slipping away like sand escaping from the cracks of one’s fingers.
His vision blurred completely now. But, he could still barely make out the prince’s face.
Amber eyes full of horror and unbearable grief.
Pain.
So much pain.
And yet, as the tears slipped past Mydei's face and burned away against his own, he was beautiful.
Even now, he was beautiful.
He was sorry to have made Mydei cry like this. He did not deserve such tears.
But… he still cried.
To be given this chance to be able to see his closest companion, his kindred spirit, his other half, for the very last time…
Perhaps that in itself was a mercy.
A small grace that could relish in for just a second.
A second was enough.
He could feel his heart start to slow down more and more now. Every thump against his chest that slowed down as he struggled to breathe fully now, blood flowing down from his cracked lips.
He tried desperately to hold onto it.
Onto him.
Onto all of them.
Onto this newly freed world.
But he was breaking apart too fast now.
Thoughts shattered before completion. Memories caved in piece by piece. His body no longer obeyed him. Even pain was becoming distant.
The warmth of his beloved’s hands against his face began to fade.
His own eyes, once full of light that shined brighter than the sun once, dulled away.
He wanted one more moment. One more breath. One more second beside them.
But now, it was too late. The darkness was already swallowing everything. The Chrysos Heirs blurred before him, and Mydei’s voice cracked somewhere far away. Distant. Absent.
He could no longer understand the words.
No longer comprehend their presence.
Only the emotion.
Only the feeling.
Only the heaviness in his chest.
Love.
Love that flowed endlessly.
Enough to fuel the hate he held onto for eternity.
Enough to survive millions of cycles forevermore.
Enough to follow him even here, at the very edge as he lost himself surrounded by the people he swore to fulfill the wishes of, to the ultimate end.
His final coherent thought came softly.
Not fear.
Not regret.
Only love.
I'm happy.
The last threads of his soul tore apart... and the Deliverer lost awareness of the world.
. . .
Haikas.
You fool.
You beautiful, impossible, stubborn fool.
You were never meant to be the sacrifice on the altar where everything else was saved upon.
You call yourself a monster so easily. As if the word could ease you. As if it could rewrite what I know in my bones to be true.
If there is any mercy in the place your broken soul now rests within, hear my words as clearly as if I were holding your face in my hands.
You were never a monster.
Not in a single cycle.
Not in any of our lifetimes.
Not even in the moment your blade found my vertebrae.
Do you know what I remember, even now, across centuries of silence?
I remember your hands shaking as you held Dawnmaker. I remember apologies you thought I couldn’t ever hear. I remember the way your eyes never stopped being tender, even when you tried to be strong.
Monsters do not tremble. Monsters do not weep over the lives they destroy. Monsters do not love so fiercely that they would rather be hated than let their world die. Monsters do not break themselves apart, time and time again, trying to save a world that would never thank them for anything.
What you became, what you endured, what you kept choosing… that is not monstrosity.
That is cruelty done to you. Never by you.
And I am furious. At that Antikytheran, at the Aeons, at this universe, that you were ever made to believe otherwise.
You said the worst part was that I still loved you.
You were right about one thing.
I did.
I do.
I still do, and I always will.
I will love you across lives I cannot remember clearly, across deaths I cannot feel properly, and across millions upon millions of cycles that tried very hard to make me forget every moment we shared together.
You did not break my love. You carried it every time we had to depart away from each other.
Even while stabbing through my only weakness, while drowning in guilt, while believing you were unworthy of the very thing keeping you alive.
Do you know how unbearable that is to know now?
You dreamed of calling me your beloved.
For one moment… I, too, could see it clearly.
You, half-awake in morning light, with your silken hair a mess you would pretend not to care about.
Your hands warm from sleep. The serene safety of a life where no one is broken and bleeding.
I let myself imagine it longer than I should have. You wanted ordinary happiness, and the universe answered that hope of yours with endless slaughter.
Tell me how I am supposed to forgive the ones that did this to you.
How many lifetimes did you spend beside me, loving me, protecting me, choosing me, and still thought you were unworthy of standing as equals to my side?
You speak of a beloved as if it were a title granted by purity alone.
But, if love was measured by the suffering endured for another, if devotion was weighed by how much of yourself you were willing to burn to keep someone else alive… then you, Phainon of Aedes Elysiae, were my beloved in every way that has ever mattered.
In every world.
In every death.
In every beginning and ending.
You kept going. Every time you forced your hands to keep saving our world we love, you were choosing the part of me that believed in you.
You were choosing the future where I could live.
Where everyone could live.
Where peace might exist without bloodshed.
Saving the world was the way you loved me.
And I hate that is true.
I hate that love demanded so much from you. I hate that I was part of the reason you kept suffering, even if you would say to never blame myself and to never think such thoughts.
If I could go back and stand in even one of those cycles beside you with all the knowledge I have now, I would only hold your face and tell you to rest.
There is nothing to forgive.
There never was.
The only unforgivable thing in all of this is that you believed you were alone.
And I am sorry that I was not there to prove you wrong.
How am I supposed to live a peaceful life knowing the cost was you suffering in silence for millions of worlds I will never even remember?
Tell me, Deliverer. How do I make a life large enough to honor that?
Because I am trying. I am still here. Still breathing. Still learning how to wake up in mornings you are not getting to see right now.
And every gentle thing in this world… every conversation between the families, every laugh between friends, every child who gets to grow up safe and sound… all of it exists because you decided to keep on going.
Because you loved us more than yourself.
You were stronger than anyone should ever have to be.
You hoped that somewhere, in some final world, we might have a comfortable house and quiet mornings with hands that never have to let go of each other.
I don’t know what waits beyond this life.
I don’t know what mercy the universe has left. I do not know if such mercy exists.
I do not know if your soul will ever be whole enough to come back to us. Even Anaxa’s genius solutions with his knowledge of nousporism have been starting to waver… no matter how much that truth hurts.
I do not know if you will still be here with me the next day, or if you will be gone the moment I leave by your side… if you soul can never be together once more.
But, no matter what… listen carefully.
This is the promise I carve into eternity in return for the one you did not let yourself keep.
If there is any world, any life, any fragment of time where you breathe again… may it be this world or another… I will be here and there for you.
I do not care if you do not remember me.
I do not care if you cannot look me in the eyes.
I will sit beside you as a stranger if I must.
I will learn your new smile, no matter how broken it is.
I will love you patiently and reverently, until the day you believe you deserve it.
And when that day comes… whether the universe allows us one moment or a thousand years… I will ask you again.
Not as a king, not as a warrior, not as the Demigod of anything. Just as the man who has loved you in every world.
Stay.
That is all I have ever wanted. All I will ever want.
You. Alive. Here. With us. With me.
There was never anything to forgive. Only someone to love. Only someone I still love. Endlessly. Hopelessly. Without regret.
I told you in every cycle that if there ever was a chance, you should come visit my library.
You still carry the key in your hands.
So come back to me. Come back to us. Come back to this world.
Come back.
Come back to me in whatever form fate allows.
I will be waiting, as I always have been, as I always will be, at the end of every path, in the silence of every morning where only the birds sing, in the space beside me that has never belonged to anyone else.
My Deliverer.
My Dawn.
My heart.
My husband, in every life that ever was and every life still to come.
I will see you tomorrow.
. . .
To give up would be so much easier.
To simply let go…
It was easy as it was.
But, before he could truly let himself fade… before all parts of himself gave up right then and there…
Somewhere impossibly far away, something touched him gently.
Someone.
It stopped all pieces of himself in their tracks.
The warmth.
Reaching for him.
The sensation spread through several fragments at once. But, despite the pain that now hummed with him, there came another feeling.
Soft. Gentle. Tender.
Home.
The fragments stirred uncertainly.
That warmth again.
Closer this time.
More… apparent.
Arms.
Holding him.
Cradling him.
Large hands embracing him.
A heartbeat against his cheek.
And then… there was a voice.
“Thank you.”
The words arrived broken, quiet, and distorted through the void.
He could not understand them fully.
But, the emotions that he could truly feel now carried more clearly than meaning itself.
Reverence.
Grief.
Love.
Devotion so profound it hurt.
The fragments trembled.
Then, the voice reached out to him once again.
“Thank you… for everything.”
Something inside him reacted violently to that.
Stay.
The word echoed strangely through the broken remains of him.
Stay.
But, why?
Because… they need you.
And, instantly, a part of him shrank.
No.
Too tired.
Too exhausted.
Too broken.
Memories flickered, this time a lot more vividly, once again.
Hands against his face.
Sparring beneath the Dawn Device.
Being held after constant nightmares.
A voice calling out to him in fond exasperation.
The scent of pomegranate flowers with the fruit within his hands.
The fragments shook, and the exhaustion inside him cracked slightly beneath the force of those emotions.
And then, more voices reached him from where he was.
Not clearly. Never clearly.
But, enough.
Truly enough.
Aglaea’s grief no longer hidden beneath composure as golden threads weaved around his arm.
Tribios praying softly for his well-being, full of hope as always from every cycle.
Castorice whispering stories beside his bedside, brushing his hair.
Anaxa refusing to stop working for anything, even as his own body failed from the constant exhaustion of trying.
Hyacine’s gentle crying as she checked up on his health, making sure his body was alright even in her own sadness.
Cipher placed a coin beside his bed, tail swishing back and forth.
Hysilens humming a song to herself within the solitude while tending to his bedsheets.
Cerydra ordering for all healers to attend to his needs first and utmost.
Dan Heng trying to do as much research as he could to find solutions to his current state.
March trying to share stories of their past journeys with her photos before breaking into tears she couldn’t stop.
The Trailblazer promising to bring him to as many worlds as he wished to see once, when, he came back.
The Chrysos Heirs.
Everyone.
Alive.
The realization ruptured through him.
Alive.
In the end, even with all the suffering, that had always been the point. Hadn’t it?
Not the cycles and the destruction with what could’ve been.
Them.
Their lives.
Their futures.
Their wishes.
Amphoreus moving freely beneath open skies.
Children laughing without fear.
People surviving.
Breathing.
Living.
But, look what became of us.
His raging thoughts were put on silence from that voice alone.
How cruel it was.
It was true.
What remained of him was pitiful now. Already mostly gone. Even if he stayed, what kind of existence would it be?
How would he live on?
The fragments of him argued with themselves endlessly.
Rest.
Stay.
You’ve suffered enough.
Please, just stay.
I don’t want to be strong anymore.
You don’t need to be strong to stay.
But, it hurts.
I know.
So why?
The question surfaced instinctively, and in turn, more questions only piled on.
Why still love us like this? Why still want us? Why should I live?
He was shattered beyond repair. The cycles had done their damage, and now, he was broken.
Ruined.
Monstrous.
A thing held together by the blood of those he killed again and again with fractures of a worn down body.
But, the warmth remaining within his reach never wavered.
It never once did.
It was then that he understood the true choice before him.
It wasn’t to die. It wasn’t to live.
Will you allow yourself to be loved and live a new life with the others or disappear believing you never once deserved this world?
The realization terrified him.
Dying was simple. It was so easy to let go.
But, staying?
Even when he stayed for a million times over, it was never easy.
Staying meant bringing pain onto the ones he loved. Having to remain the monster he always had to be again and again, never once having solace for himself. No one to help him. No one to save him.
And now… this time… staying meant allowing people to be there for him.
For once in his life, there were people for… him.
The pain would come with vulnerability.
It meant letting others carry him now.
The void around him no longer felt quite as cold. The nothingness remained expanse, large in its entirety for him to stay within forever.
Some pieces still drifted toward rest.
Toward oblivion.
Toward the promise of no more torment.
However, others began inching slowly back toward warmth.
Toward the warmth.
Toward the pain.
Toward life.
The unbearable hope of maybe, just maybe.
Enough hope for him to begin finding his way back, drifting through the void.
The smallest, barely surviving pieces of his soul chose something so impossible after so many cycles.
To stay.
Just a little longer.
To see a world without war or bloodshed every single day.
To see the sun he had fought so hard to bring.
To see what tomorrow looked like.
Not because he believed he deserved it.
Not yet.
Not just yet.
But, because the people waiting above loved him enough to keep reaching into the darkness until he could believe it eventually.
So, he continued to reach.
Reach, reach, and reach out toward the warmth.
Sometimes, it felt as though he was crawling through the deep bottom of an ocean.
Sometimes, it felt like dragging broken bones through a battlefield of corpses.
Sometimes, it felt like burning away to shards all over again.
The further he ascended, the more pieces of himself he recovered.
And the more pieces he recovered, the more the pain returned with them.
Millions upon millions of pain made from worlds his mind could barely handle without affliction.
Enough to wound.
Enough to ache.
Enough to remind him why he had wanted to disappear in the first place.
And yet… and yet…
“When you come back… I wish for you to try out my new designs I’ve been working on.”
“You have broken through Fate’s original plans of Destruction for us all. Now, allow us to do the same for you, Snowy.”
“I made a chimera doll today. Here, I will put it by your bedside. For you.”
“As I have said before, I will only give my greatest to the best of my students. You are fortunate to be my student, Phainon of Aedes Elysiae.”
“Your vitals have been steady… weak, but steady. Good… that’s good. Little Ica misses you. Get more better soon.”
“You’ve won enough battles in your lifetime now, Little Hero… so, no need to fight anymore. We have your back.”
“What song shall I sing for you today?”
“I have heard from other people that you are rather excellent at chess yourself. If that is true, then the Imperator demands a challenge as such once you wake up.”
“I am sorry. I wish I can do more for you, old friend… but, I will not give up. Not yet.”
“A lot of people are unsure of you waking up… b-but, I believe in you!! I still need to properly talk to you! So, don’t… don’t go away just yet…!”
“Hey, partner… we’re still thinking about you. As always.”
“I’ll wait. I don’t care how long it takes. You waited for longer than anyone should have had to… so I will wait for you.”
Their words carried on.
Each sound, voice, continued on through the void.
Enough for him to go on.
Enough for him to keep moving.
No matter how much it hurt.
Within that darkness, in the nothingness that was everywhere around him… the light started to peek out.
At first, it was tiny. Barely visible from where it was.
A star at the edge of infinity.
A point so distant it might have been imagined.
Eventually, as the fragments of his soul moved along more and more… it grew.
Slowly.
Shakily.
The light became brighter, and with every move to be closer to it, the pull towards it became stronger.
Not just from the light, but from the world itself.
A tug somewhere deep inside his fractured soul.
An anchor.
A call.
A vow.
A promise.
There is still a place for you.
We are waiting.
We are here.
Stay and come back.
Come back.
Come back.
Come back.
One fragment at a time.
One memory at a time.
One step at a time.
Until eventually… finally… finally…
The light became impossible to ignore.
It was no longer a distant star. Not at all.
What he could sense from his fractured self… what he knew… was a horizon.
A dawn.
A world.
His world.
And for the first time, he could feel warmth coming from it.
Not the false comfort of the darkness around him.
Real warmth.
The warmth of sunlight.
The warmth of a hearth.
The warmth of people waiting.
The closer he came to the light, however, the harder it became to go on.
The darkness realized it was losing him.
The fractures worsened.
Every step felt like agony.
Every piece of himself groaned beneath the strain, and the cracks spread across every remaining fragment now.
The sound of himself breaking.
A soul drained beyond anything it had ever been meant to endure.
The light grew brighter.
The pain grew worse.
The two became inseparable.
It felt as though every piece of him was being torn apart and then rebuilt.
He could smell things now. Sense things. Feel things.
A hand holding his.
A blanket over his body.
The scent of medicine and antidotes.
The ache of a still healing body, somewhere far away.
His physical body.
Waiting.
The realization nearly shattered him.
It was at that moment that it all became real.
This was not merely survival anymore.
This was a return.
Returning meant living.
Living meant remembering. Living meant pain. Living meant agony. Living meant learning how to exist again. Living meant the chance to truly be there.
Existing inside of a body and mind that had suffered for over a millennia and beyond.
The enormity of it terrified him.
For one horrible moment, he stopped.
The light was right there.
Just ahead.
The edge.
The threshold.
The place where life waited.
And yet, he froze.
Fear gripped him his whole body.
What if he couldn't do it?
What if he woke up only to suffer forever?
What if he woke only to hurt them again?
What if he woke only to be a burden?
What if he truly did not belong in the world he had saved?
What if, what if, what if—
The darkness immediately surrounded him whole, for that brief second.
One final, desperate attempt.
Rest.
You can still rest.
You do not have to suffer anymore.
He trembled.
Every fragment of his soul shook.
And then… he heard it.
One more time.
Not one voice.
Not two.
All of them.
Together.
Not words.
Not sentences.
Just presence.
Love.
Lifetimes full of love.
The love that had been the fuel to keep him going forever.
A million memories of hands reaching for him.
A million moments of laughter.
A million moments of smiles.
A million moments of companionship.
A million reminders that he had never truly been alone.
Not now.
Not anymore.
The realization broke something inside him.
A wall, getting torn down.
A barrier, put a tear onto.
A loneliness he had carried for millions of cycles, slowly melting away… as his heart broke with the jubilation of someone finally realizing they were loved.
Not because they saved the world.
Not because they suffered.
Not because they were heroic.
Not because they sacrificed everything.
But, because they existed.
Because they… no.
Because he was Phainon.
He was Khaslana.
Nothing more.
Nothing less.
The light surged forward, or perhaps he had surged toward it.
He could not tell.
Everything blurred.
The darkness screamed silently around him.
The fractures burned.
Pain engulfed him.
Agony beyond words.
The worst pain he had felt since becoming the vessel of Irontomb themselves.
And Khaslana, broken and exhausted as he was… reached forward.
One final time.
A hand extended into the light.
The moment his fingers touched the warmth that had been guiding him all along… everything shattered.
The darkness disappeared.
The agony vanished beneath something greater.
Warmth.
Light.
Life.
And as the radiance swallowed his vision completely, as every remaining fragment of his soul reached toward it, he made his choice.
Not for Amphoreus.
Not for the world.
Not for the universe.
For his family waiting.
For the future.
For himself.
. . .
“Phainon?”
. . .
“… Mydeimos…?”
. . .
“Deliverer… oh, my Dawn.”
. . .
“Mydei… Mydei. I’m... here.”
. . .
Khaslana was finally home.