The Descent of the Star: Forced Reset

(CRACK!)

Within the ecosystem of souls, in a space Melioris had generated like a garden...

"What do you plan to do now?"

There, Shija’s very essence was being expelled as the environment shattered piece by piece.

"What do I plan to do now, you ask?"

The silken blades of grass paled until they turned gray, and the electric blue sky began to flicker like a lamp on the verge of burning out.

"I suppose start a war...?"

And in the center of that chromatic chaos, Melioris remained seated, but her silhouette was no longer sharp.

"Once my role is finished, I suppose I’ll go back into that damn box for a long time."

She fixed the gaze of her reptilian eye upon Shija, maintaining a constant smile.

"....."

In response, Shija could only hold her gaze with a mixture of hatred, resignation, and a slight hint of guilt in his eyes.

"Listen closely, Shija... for this is the last lesson in harmony you will ever receive."

Before him, Melioris did not move, but her right eye never looked away.

(Fshhhhh—Whaaaaa-shhh!)

At that moment, the wind began to tear away chunks of the crystal floor, revealing the monochromatic void pulsating beneath.

"By defeating that tide of cursed energy, you didn't just win a battle; you caused an imbalance in the fundamental structure of the soul, or in short..."

Melioris tilted her head, maintaining that unyielding porcelain smile as Shija’s arm dissolved into a trail of cosmic ash.

"You have triggered a forced reset."

Everything was falling apart, revealing a profound inner emptiness...

(KRA-BOOM!!)

Simultaneously, a segment of the garden exploded into particles of light, and with a dull static sound, Melioris’s image began to ripple, merging with the wind.

(SHHHHHHHHHHHHHH—!!!)

Meanwhile, in the reality of the world of Ky'lar, Melioris’s consciousness slid into the depths of the earth.

(THU-DOOOOM!!! RUUUUMBLE!!!)

At the core of the Mother Tree, bursts of imaginary energy were continuous, piercing the master roots like shots of invisible artillery.

<"WHAT HAVE YOU DONE?!!">

There, desperately mitigating the damage, the Spirit Queen’s voice vibrated through every neuronal filament of the planet like a cry of pure panic that shook the world amidst the destruction.

<"ARE YOU EVEN AWARE OF HOW MUCH DESTRUCTION THIS WILL BRING?!!">

However, amidst the roar of destruction, a response emerged from the surface, filtering through the dragon veins like a quiet poison.

"Yes, I am aware..."

Melioris's voice showed no agitation.

"...And that is why I did it."

Her voice contained not a trace of emotion.

"Did this help you overcome your grief~?"

And with a playful tone, she asked.

(FWOOOOSH!!)

Meanwhile, on the surface, millions of kilometers away from the subterranean agony, in a field of tall grass swaying under a blue sky...

"...Truly... it is a beautiful sky..."

Melioris stood there, contemplating the infinite blue reflected in her white eye.

"...Hey, Spirit Queen."

Her figure blurred at irregular intervals, and her presence became increasingly less tangible as she gazed at the sky.

"When you and Mireya fought the last time, you lost because you had too much to protect."

She watched the sky as if reading the final line of a score she herself was finishing, while the earth beneath her feet continued to groan from the impact she had directed from deep within.

"I wonder if, with this, you will no longer feel the need to hold back..."

Eola continued to smile, feeling the slow resurgence of the consciousness of both beings she had suppressed for so long.

(Vun-vun-vun-vun...!!)

However, back in the liminal space that mimicked the appearance of the garden, the internal pressure reached its critical point.

"Listen closely... because the flow is about to reverse."

Melioris, holding the porcelain cup with a hand that was already starting to become transparent, watched Shija while the golden reptilian eye on her face filtered a dense light.

(SHHHHHHHHHHHHHH—!!!)

In parallel, the static devouring the garden stopped for a microsecond, only to be expelled outward in a discharge of luminous energy that defied conventional optics.

"Due to the massive release of energy you triggered by defeating that mass of cursed energy, you have caused a chain reaction that unbalanced the internal harmony... Ah, I'm sorry, it seems you won't understand if I keep speaking that way... Let's see... In short: the energy will be suddenly released to the outside, sweeping reality away in its path."

In the midst of the collapsing scenery, Melioris revealed a devastating truth while calmly drinking her jasmine tea.

"¡¡!!"

In response to the revelation, Shija tried to clench his fist, but he only felt the lingering heat of the stardust that was once his flesh, as helplessness and guilt consumed him from within at those words.

"Well, you don't have to get so dramatic... I mean, I won't allow everything to end in a mere explosion... Besides... why are you making that 'Is this my end?' face? If you keep making that annoying expression, I'll hit you in memory of that girl's sacrifice!"

Breaking the tense atmosphere, Melioris took a slow sip of her tea, her gaze fixed on Shija’s chest, where a core of light persisted against all logic.

"You haven't been fully assimilated yet... and that’s why you’re still an anomaly within this abyss... So the explosion, in your case, will release your soul back into your body..."

Melioris looked away from Shija, calmly stirring her tea with a spoon while her hair hid both of her eyes.

"You haven't been fully assimilated by the void... and that is due to the doll's consciousness. Through resonance, she made a decision that wasn't part of... or rather, that I wanted to prevent her from making in my initial calculations."

Upon hearing those words, Shija wanted to respond, however...

(My voice?!)

... His vocal cords had already vanished.

(Chime...!)

In turn, the sound of the spoon brushing against the plate resonated like thunder amidst the surrounding static.

"She sacrificed her entire existential burden. She used her own essence as an ablation shield, absorbing all the damage you had received since your arrival in this place... or at least, as much as possible so that your soul could emerge unscathed... Congratulations: you have been allowed to surpass your limits continuously in exchange for her own absolute disappearance."

Did her words carry resentment, sadness, or perhaps...?

(DAMN IT!!)

Whatever the case, Shija’s voice would reach no one in that empty place...

"....."

... except for the one in front of him who could still hear him.

(SHE WASN'T SUPPOSED TO DO THAT! HEY, YOU CAN STILL HEAR ME, RIGHT?! MELIORIS, STOP HER! SHE HAD NO RIGHT TO—!)

Shija had crossed his limit time and time again, going further and further, however...

"... I already tried to stop her... many times... thousands of times..."

In response, Melioris offered neither comfort nor mockery.

"But in every attempt... she rejected it..."

She simply kept a deathly silence, watching the tea's steam drawing whimsical curls between them as the garden finished exploding outward.

"But at the very least, I can assure you of one thing... She will not vanish."

At that moment, the garden continued to crumble, yet in spite of everything, Melioris did not look away from Shija, fixing her gaze once more on what remained of his presence.

"She told you, didn't she? In this place, everything is connected to a greater or lesser extent."

As the environment grew more erratic, Melioris pointed with the tip of her silver spoon toward the center of Shija’s chest, where the doll’s essence was intertwined, fading more and more.

"In this place, nothing is lost, only transmuted. She was born from this same essence, from this primordial 'score' that composes us all. To you, her sacrifice is a disappearance; for the flow of this world, it is a transformation..."

(CRACK!! — CHAS!)

A sharp, deep creak ran through the space as another massive fragment of the garden vanished, leaving a breach between the two of them.

"But transformations can be something deeply sad because of what is left behind."

(SHHHHHHHHHHHHHH—!!!)

In that instant, Melioris’s image underwent an abstract metamorphosis.

"That is why, Shija, I have come here to ask something of you..."

Her silhouette ceased to be solid; it flickered erratically, fragmenting into a myriad of glowing static cubes and crimson interference lines that hummed with a dull, electric sound.

"I know this will sound utterly selfish... But... Even so..."

Her body "shattered" and recomposed itself in microseconds, momentarily revealing glimpses of someone else, as the transition between soul and flesh was completed in a traumatic fashion, distorting the air around her with unstable energy.

(THU-DOOOOM!!!)

And meanwhile, in the world of Ky'lar, processing everything in parallel, Melioris’s consciousness finally anchored itself in her physical body, seated in the middle of the field of pale grass that stretched to the horizon.

"Truly... I was a terrible mother to her... I didn't even give them a name..."

Around her, the reality of Ky'lar was a cauldron of elemental fury.

(PLOP-PLOP-PLOP!!!)

Seated beside the symmetrical hole she had left upon launching her attack, piercing the world's core, she watched the rain fall.

"Did we give... us... I...?"

Melioris gazed at the sky, noticing the errors in her speech becoming increasingly pronounced as she tried to refer to herself, looking up from the hole she had likewise opened in the sky like a pillar of peace amidst the storm.

(FWOOOOSH!!)

Despite the roar of the hurricane winds and the lightning bolts attempting to penetrate her position, the rain generated a barrier of calm that violently rejected any external influence.

"...I wonder if there really wasn't another way."

The storm of Ky'lar beat against an invisible wall, unable to touch the figure watching the disaster.

"Haaah... Aah, ah... It seems the curtain will close~"

Melioris remained there, her physical form still flickering in that corruption of cubes and static that defied visual logic, peacefully gazing at the firmament.

"....."

Her right eye, of a pure white, remained fixed on the sky, ignoring the hellish scene.

"I leave her to you, Shija..."

Under the veil of the rain she herself had summoned, Melioris seemed to be listening to the final note of a song that was only just beginning.

(Ssssss...!)

The heat of her presence evaporated the rain before it touched the ground, creating a mist of jasmine and ozone that slowly expanded across the devastated field.

"In the silence that remains after the scream, where the wounded note seeks its nest, the score is burned in the rite, and the echo of the void is all that is heard."

Her expression, once an immovable porcelain mask, softened into a piercing melancholy.

"Hehe... Poetry before my grand finale... Not bad..."

Her lips barely moved, letting a final whisper ride upon the storm's wind.

(CRACK!! — ZAP!)

She closed both eyes...

"Good luck."

In that instant, there were no more whispers or abstraction.

(BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!)

From Melioris's chest, a pillar of absolute light was released toward the zenith of Ky'lar's sky.

"Go as wild as you want~"

It wasn't an explosion of destruction, but a beacon of pure existence that pierced the dome of violet clouds, acting as a spine for the world's chaos.

"Waking up is scary... And it’s terrifying... Isn't it...?"

Thus, Melioris's figure was consumed by the aurora, beginning to fade...

"...So first, release all that frustration... And scream with emotion..."

...The curtain had fallen.

"Grit your teeth and move forward~"

In the world of Ky'lar, a dance of destruction and rebirth was about to begin.

(SHAAAAAA!!!)

In that moment, as the violet storm clouds were swept toward the horizons, what remained was not the blue of day...

"..."

... instead, what would be passed down in the near future was that, in the center of that cosmic tapestry, a star had descended.