They had done everything right.
That was the first thought—clung to desperately—as the chamber began to tremble.
The sanctuary lay deep beneath Divide City, carved into bedrock that predated the streets above it. Smooth obsidian walls swallowed torchlight whole. Runes pulsed faintly red and violet along the floor, converging at the center where the altar stood.
And upon it—
Cresselia.
Bound.
Chains of star-forged alloy wrapped around her crescent body, each link etched with sigils stolen from half-remembered myths and mistranslated scriptures. The cult had worked for years to gather them. Paid fortunes. Killed quietly.
Captured a god.
The High Devotee stood at the foot of the altar, hood lowered just enough to reveal a smile carved from certainty.
"It's working," he breathed.
The others felt it too. The pressure. The shift. Darkrai's power aboveground, swelling, distorting the night skies, feeding on the imbalance they had engineered.
Without Cresselia, Darkrai grew unopposed.
Without balance, fear bloomed.
And fear…
Fear listened.
They had assumed the Trickster would interfere.
They had prepared for it.
That was the mistake.
The first sign something was wrong was not an alarm.
It was laughter.
Soft.
Close.
Wrong.
A child's giggle echoed through the chamber, skipping along the obsidian like a stone across still water.
The torches flickered.
One went out.
Then another.
A Devotee spun, pulse spiking. "Did—did anyone else hear—"
A ring appeared.
Just… appeared.
Hovering in midair, gold and smooth, rotating lazily as if bored.
Panic rippled outward.
"Barrier formation!" the High Devotee barked. "Now!"
Runes flared brighter. Defensive glyphs slammed into place around the altar. The chains around Cresselia pulsed in response, tightening, draining moonlight into containment crystals embedded in the floor.
The ring did not react.
Another ring blinked into existence behind them.
Then another.
Then five more.
They formed no pattern.
That was worse.
A voice drifted from everywhere and nowhere at once, light and sing-song, as if spoken by someone who had never learned the weight of consequences.
"Ooo~ you made so many rules!"
The High Devotee swallowed hard. "Hoopa," he said carefully. "Trickster. This sanctum is warded. You cannot interfere."
A pause.
Then—
"Mm~ who said?"
The wards screamed.
Not failed—screamed.
Every rune ignited at once, overloading, cracking, spiderwebbing across the floor as if reality itself had flinched. One Devotee collapsed, clutching his head as blood ran from his nose.
"No," the High Devotee snapped. "You're bound. You observe. You do not act."
Another giggle.
"Bound is such a funny word~"
A ring slid forward, passing effortlessly through the outermost barrier like it had never existed.
The cultists froze.
That was impossible.
Those wards were designed specifically to—
—to—
The High Devotee's breath hitched.
"They said," he whispered, "you couldn't take her."
Hoopa's voice softened.
"Oh~ I'm not taking."
The ring expanded.
Passed around the altar.
Around the chains.
Around Cresselia herself.
"Just fixing~"
The chains fell apart.
Not shattered. Not broken.
Unlinked.
As if they had never agreed to be chains in the first place.
Moonlight flooded the chamber.
Cresselia stirred, eyes opening slowly, luminance washing over obsidian walls and terrified faces alike. The containment crystals cracked, then dissolved into harmless dust.
The cult screamed.
"No—!" the High Devotee staggered forward. "Stop! You'll ruin the—!"
Hoopa finally appeared.
Not fully. Not solid.
A silhouette framed by golden rings, floating upside down in the air, head cocked, eyes bright with delight.
"Ruin?" Hoopa asked sweetly. "But now it's interesting again~"
Cresselia rose, freed, radiant and furious.
Her cry was not loud.
It was absolute.
The chamber buckled.
Cultists were thrown to the ground as lunar light scoured the runes from the walls, erasing years of preparation in seconds.
The High Devotee crawled, screaming, toward the altar. "You—you don't understand! Darkrai—Darkrai was meant to ascend!"
Hoopa spun lazily.
"Oh~ he still might."
The Devotee froze.
"But now," Hoopa continued, clapping softly, "he has to earn it!"
Cresselia turned her gaze upward, toward the surface, toward the city, toward the dark sky where imbalance raged.
She vanished in a beam of moonlight.
Gone.
Silence fell.
The surviving cultists lay broken, sobbing, staring at nothing.
The High Devotee whispered, hollow, "You… you could have stopped us at any time."
Hoopa drifted closer, eyes wide, innocent.
"Mmm~ yes!"
"…Then why didn't you?"
Hoopa leaned in.
"Because watching you be wrong was fun~"
A ring opened beneath Hoopa.
Before vanishing, he added brightly—
"Also~ you forgot something."
The High Devotee looked up, hope flickering despite himself.
"What?"
Hoopa's smile widened.
"I was never part of your story."
The ring snapped shut.
Aboveground, the moon brightened.
And somewhere in Divide City, Cyrus felt the night shift—not toward safety, not toward peace—
—but toward a confrontation that would no longer wait.