Convergence: The First Chain

Melioris’s whisper did not fade; it remained suspended in the air like a physical substance, a stain of oil upon holy water.

"I feel so empty..."

In that instant, the garden's atmosphere didn't just change—it collapsed.

"¡¡!!"

Shija felt the weight of gravity multiply a thousandfold, not upon his shoulders, but directly upon his soul.

(DAMN IT!!)

Looking at Melioris, what stared back at him was not a playful deity nor the impertinent teacher; instead, what emanated from those heterochromatic eyes was a predatory abyss.

"For that reason, I do not care about what I am about to do, nor the consequences of my actions."

The pressure was so dense and vast that Shija felt the nausea of an insect watching a tsunami that shouldn't exist—an anomaly that made the air in his lungs feel like liquid lead.

(Guh...! Curse it... this... this weight...!)

His knees creaked.

"I used others, I manipulated, I deceived, and I even sought attention; all to reach this point."

The cold sweat sliding down his forehead evaporated before it could fall, consumed by the distortion of space.

"Even if it means the world pays the price, that many interesting stories must vanish... I, in spite of everything, will pull the trigger."

But Shija was no passive spectator.

"STOP LOOKING AT ME LIKE THAT!"

He was a warrior who had learned to bite the hand of destiny.

"It’s useless."

Reacting out of pure survival instinct, Shija forced his right arm to obey one last command.

(VUM—SHAA!)

With a sharp, surgical motion, he unleashed a claw-like strike at the air, severing the threads of reality along the path of his hand.

(¡¡SLASH!!)

As a result, an invisible scar tore through the garden at a speed that defied perception: a line of absolute erasure intended to split the source of that suffocating pressure in two.

(¡¡KRA-BOOM!!)

The cut sliced through the table, the porcelain, and the very spot where Melioris was seated, leaving a trail of void that sucked in the light in its wake.

"That wasn't bad at all~"

However... the impact never landed.

"¡¡Tsk!!"

In the microsecond that the void should have claimed her flesh, Melioris simply ceased to be there.

"I apologize for my previous behavior; it seems I lost my head for a moment..."

It wasn't a fast movement; it was a shift between spatial coordinates in an instant.

(Fshhhhh...!)

In turn, the pressure crushing Shija receded all at once, causing his heart to skip a violent beat at the shift from void to calm, while the wind from the impact finished dissipating, revealing how the garden remained immaculate.

(Clink!)

At the same time, the sound of porcelain against crystal restored sanity to the environment.

"It seems I still need much more practice... as I thought, I'm still quite green..."

Melioris was there, seated once again in her white chair, holding her cup with the same lazy elegance as before.

"My... how impetuous of me... well, reaching this point... perhaps it doesn't matter...?"

Her smile had returned: perfect, immovable, as if Shija's attack had been nothing more than an annoying breeze that had ruffled a stray silver lock of hair.

"But I must admit, you did manage to cut me a little~"

She noticed that, in turn, a strand had been slightly severed, falling into her hand.

(¡...!)

In response, Shija slid backward, his feet moving without resistance through the energetic flow that composes everything while he adopted a low, instinctive guard position.

"Haaaah... Haaa... Haa...!"

But in that moment, the wheeze escaping his throat was choked off by a discovery that turned his blood to ice.

"¡¿?!"

His eyes widened in absolute shock.

(... It can't be.)

Finally, he noticed that the arm that had executed the void-cut was no longer flesh, nor even the fractured glass from before; now it was a trail of stardust shedding from his non-existent bones, floating upward like ashes from a cosmic fire.

"… Did you finally realize?"

But the horror did not end there.

"YOU!!"

With a dull static sound, similar to fabric burning, his clothes began to transmute.

"Didn't you say you were partly Mireya?!"

The fabric of his hakama and his tunic, previously solid and heavy, began to fray into tatters of energy that evaporated into the air.

"Yes... I said those words..."

It wasn't tearing from use; it was undoing itself.

"If that's the case, then were you aware of this?!!"

It was the image of an existence losing its right to occupy a place in space, watching as its protection and its very form dissolved into particles of dying light.

(Why didn't I realize sooner... Was it her doing...?!)

In that moment, Shija's pupils began to spin violently, turning into whirlpools of pure perception.

"I am aware of what you mean..."

Through that technical vision, Shija saw the naked truth: the vitality that infused his suit—that energy giving him weight and presence born from the union with the doll's essence—was being drained.

"... But it was that girl’s decision."

And the understanding of those words ignited a spark of suicidal fury in his chest.

"Damn you, Melioris! Is this what you had planned!?"

Shija's cry was a roar of betrayal.

"No... Believe it or not, I desperately sought a way to avoid this conclusion... But no matter how much I tried... in the end, all paths led to this..."

Without letting her finish her words, Shija took a step forward, ignoring how his shoulders were vanishing into shimmering particles, pointing with what remained of his hand at the figure seated at the table.

"Isn't she your daughter, you wretch?!"

However, the response was not a taunt, nor a laugh.

"....."

Melioris remained motionless.

"You are right... She is my daughter... No, she is one of my babies... But..."

Her head tilted slightly forward, letting the silver and emerald locks of her hair fall like a heavy curtain, completely hiding her eyes.

"This had to happen."

What Shija found was an unreadable expression.

"DON'T SCREW WITH ME!!"

It was a void of humanity; her lips remained curved in that eternal smile, but there was no longer any life in it.

"You said that when we finished, you would decide whether to cut me or not, right?"

It was a grimace etched onto a face that seemed to be processing a vacuity that did not belong to this plane.

"... Let me answer your question... You... cannot cut me..."

The contrast was terrifying: the lower part of her face maintained the mask of cordiality, while the rest of her presence emanated a deathly silence, a static that devoured any trace of hope.

"... Because, quite simply... nothing can..."

She did not move, she did not defend herself; she simply let the stardust that was once Shija orbit around her, as if she were waiting for the final note of the song to finish playing.

"YOU WRETCH!!"

As a result, Shija's fury was not a cry; it was an explosion...

"RRRAAAAAAH!"

Immediately after, Shija unleashed hell.

(VUM—KRA-KOOM!!)

There was no technique, no strategy; only the pure, visceral desire to destroy the smile before him, discharging all the emotions accumulated up to that point.

(SH-SH-ZVZZV-SHRRRRTT-KASH!!)

His arms became a blur of motion.

(S-S-S-S-ZIIINNG-VZZZZ-TCHAK!!)

A flurry of void-cuts shot forward: a web of absolute erasure intended to shred Melioris and the table in a microsecond.

"¡¡!!"

But the price was immediate.

"... Go ahead... Attack..."

As he launched the first cut, Shija felt a sharp sting of pain in his right shoulder, followed by an anesthetic coldness.

"I deserve it."

His technical perception—those whirlpools in his pupils—registered how the spiritual connection with his limb was breaking.

"SHUT UP!!"

The arm did not fall off; it simply ceased "to be." It turned into a trail of stardust that continued the motion of the attack by inertia before dissipating.

(F-F-F-SHRRR-K-K-K-K-RA-SLASH!!!)

Nevertheless, despite that, Shija did not stop.

(VUM—SHAA!!!)

He continued launching cuts using every limb he had left, without rest, as he felt his bond with the doll's consciousness return more and more, only to feel her vanish with nothing he could do.

"....."

And at the center of the storm... receiving every cut from every angle... Melioris did absolutely nothing...

"I had already tried to cut myself with the flames that nullify all of Sirael's phenomena."

She didn't move.

"I had already tried to stop thinking and be locked inside that damn box."

She didn't raise a barrier.

"But in the end, nothing worked."

She didn't even blink.

(KRA-BOOM!! KRA-BOOM!!)

The void-cuts, capable of dividing imaginary matter, struck her body directly...

"SO WHAT...!!"

But upon touching her, there was no blood, no screams, no impact.

"ARE YOU JUST GOING TO GIVE UP IN THE END?!"

The energy simply vanished.

"Give up...?"

It was like trying to cut water with a sword, or blowing out the sun.

"... I’m afraid you are operating under a misunderstanding."

The attacks passed through her figure, leaving trails of void that closed instantly, without disturbing a single lock of her silver and emerald hair.

"I reached this conclusion because I was incapable of giving up... No matter how hard I tried... quite simply..."

Melioris remained seated, her head still bowed and that porcelain smile etched beneath the curtain of her hair.

"I cannot break this desire that burns me from within."

The roar of Shija's attacks bounced off the silence she emanated, becoming a futile echo.

(Fshhhhh...!)

In the end, only when the final volley ended and Shija—exhausted and with half his torso vanished into stardust—could barely stay on his feet, did the garden regain its immaculate calm.

(Clink!)

And in that silence, the sound of the porcelain being set upon the table resonated like thunder in the stillness.

"Are you finished yet?"

Melioris's voice held no trace of amusement, nor annoyance. It was flat, devoid of emotion, as if she were reading a list of ingredients. She did not bother to look up; her eyes remained hidden.

"Do you not have other questions for me...?"

Shija, his chest heaving in spasms of exhaustion and half of his existence already turned into stardust that refused to fall, fixed his gaze on Melioris's impassive figure as the garden began to crack.

"You..."

The fury in his eyes gave way to a cold, analytical calm as the suspicions that had been brewing in his mind finally germinated.

"That day... when you decided to leave. When you left Boudica and me behind... What was it that you did?"

In response to those words finally asked, Melioris did not answer immediately, but the air seemed to grow denser.

"We knew you were superior. There was no point in attacking you. And Boudica... she has always been a coward, someone who flees before the steel is even drawn. But in that instant... she acted on pure instinct. It was an irrational shift, a bloodlust that wasn't hers. TELL ME WHAT YOU DID TO US!"

Upon hearing those words, Melioris, with exasperating slowness, propped her elbow on the glass table and rested her face in the palm of her hand.

"I will answer your question..."

The curtain of her hair shifted just enough to reveal a small and enigmatic smile—one that wasn't of mockery, but of a terrifying honesty.

"I didn't manipulate anything. I didn't create anything that wasn't already there."

She moved a finger in the air, tracing an invisible circle.

"I only fanned the embers. Their emotions were there, repressed under layers of logic and fear. I only gave them a little push, subtly directing the flow of their resentment so they wouldn't have time to think about the absurdity of their behavior. I used their own adrenaline as a blindfold. It was... an experiment in emotional honesty, so to speak."

Shija felt a cold more intense than that of death.

"Then..."

The revelation that his own emotions had been the weapon used against him was a blow more lethal than any void-cut.

"Did you know? Did you know exactly how that duel would end? Did you know all of this would happen?"

Before Shija's gaze, filled with fury and resignation, Melioris looked back at him, revealing eyes that were profoundly weary.

"No... I am not so heartless as to make predictions of that caliber... Or rather, I must thank you, Shija..."

The garden began to fracture more and more, like glass shattering...

"... If it weren't for what you showed me in that moment, I wouldn't have reached this conclusion."

... The curtain that would close a long journey was about to fall.

"I thank you for having broken the 'first' chain."

And, in turn, a new curtain was about to rise.