The room has quieted—moonlight streaming in soft, muted waves. The air tastes faintly of moss and ash.
Azalea (he/him):
So. That's it, then. The last time this shard will ever rest in its cradle.
Shizuku (he/him):
(silent, examining the fragment in his hand)
It's warm. Like it knows.
Azalea:
It does. The Earth remembers everything. Especially farewells.
Shizuku stares at the pulsing stone, the glow illuminating his expression. It's rare for the Universal Emperor to look small. But right now, in the middle of a garden that's older than history, he's just a man carrying a burden.
Azalea:
What do you think you'll do after this?
If you stop Kakia… seal the universe again… what happens to you?
Shizuku:
That's the wrong question.
Azalea:
(enough silence to become a statement)
Then give me the right one.
Shizuku:
(sighs)
The question isn't what happens to me.
It's whether there'll be a "me" left afterward.
The silence between them sharpens.
Azalea (softly):
You always do this. You talk like you're just another gear in the system. Just the Emperor. Just the stabilizer.
But I remember when you were just Shizuku—the boy who couldn't hold in his mana without turning the sky inside-out.
You have roots, too. Don't forget them.
Shizuku:
I don't get to have roots. Not when I'm the one being asked to hold the whole universe together like scotch tape and prayers.
he laughs, bitterly
Hell, even Emrys had limits.
Azalea:
And you're not him.
Shizuku:
...No. I'm worse.
(quiet)
Because I know what'll happen if I fail, and I'm still scared enough to try anyway.
The Earth Fragment hums in his palm, almost in sympathy. Shizuku clenches it tighter.
Azalea:
Then let me be the coward for once. Let me say what you won't.
You're scared this'll kill you. That it'll erase you.
Shizuku (quietly):
No.
I'm scared it won't.
The garden stills. The vines curl tighter on the glass walls. The wind holds its breath.
Then—
The air shifts. A breeze pushes through the greenhouse, but it doesn't belong to Meeresboden. It doesn't belong to anything in this world.
Shizuku's head snaps up, his eyes narrowed. Azalea instinctively steps behind him, one petal-hand glowing with radiant sigils.
A figure stands at the far end of the walkway—where the moonlight breaks through the cracked crystal of the dome. They're cloaked in black and deep teal, face obscured in shadow. But their hair…
It's long. Wild. Spiked like flowing seawater.
Just like Shizuku's.
Shizuku (breath hitching):
Is that—