{Nicholas Anstalionah.}
[Nicholas had to admit it, Rosen's words were correct, it held no worth.]
The realization settled over me even as pain flooded my chest. Not as panic, not as despair, but as clarity.
Loss had already been tallied. Outcomes had already been decided.
Whatever meaning I once attached to this war had eroded long before this moment.
He pulled his blade from my chest and kicked me to the ground, then turned and looked outward.
His posture stiffening as if something far more dreadful than me had caught his attention.
"I can't sense Horia anymore…did he lose?"
The question trembled, not because he lacked confidence, but because he feared the answer. I felt it too.
An absence where something vast and malignant had once pressed against reality.
I seized the moment to seal my wound with hellfire, flames coiling around my boots as I forced myself upward.
The heat closed flesh and bone alike, but it did nothing to dull the ache spreading through my lungs.
I kicked upward, desperate, reckless.
He moved effortlessly, evading, and swung down; every defense failed.
Every rune I had painstakingly set to guard against death shattered beneath his strike.
They flared briefly before collapsing into ash and dead light.
Years of preparation unraveled in an instant.
Everything was lost. I was bare, exposed, with nothing to stop him from finishing me.
And yet, he did not strike.
He simply stared forward, unsteady, trembling, fear and worry etched into the tension of his shoulders.
His blade lowered without his consent.
I forced myself to rise, coughing as I wove my will back into motion, blood splattering the scorched ground.
Each breath felt borrowed. Each step felt like trespass against my own failing body.
What I saw rooted me in place.
Mirabel stood over what appeared to be Horia's remains.
They no longer resembled a man, nor even a corpse, but something smaller, curled inward.
Almost fragile and malformed like a fetus abandoned by creation itself.
The sight twisted my stomach, not with revulsion, but with dread at what must have been done to reduce him to this.
Her aura pulsed, thick and dense, not expanding outward but pressing inward, compressing the space around her.
Dust hovered midair.
Light bent as it passed her silhouette, curving as if reluctant to leave.
It felt as though her Inner World had not been summoned, but had instead overwritten the laws nearby.
The air rippled with each slow breath she took, and distant thunder echoed without clouds to birth it.
Her hair was darker, shadowed like a midnight flame that drank in illumination.
Her skin had taken on sharper contrast, edges too defined, as though reality itself had traced her form with trembling hands.
Her eyes were cold and precise, pupils reflecting stars that were not in the sky moments ago.
Her blade gleamed like a distant star, not shining so much as bleeding light into existence.
She scanned the battlefield with a circular motion of her gaze.
As her eyes passed, shadows shifted in the wrong direction.
Gravity wavered, stones lifting an inch before settling again.
Her focus landed finally on Rosen.
Killing Rosen was never my true goal, but instinct forced me to reach out as she advanced.
My plan was precise. Strike him. Fail. Lose. Give her enough slack to capture him alive.
A living enemy was leverage. A dead one was waste.
Her movements were terrifyingly calm.
She shattered his newly forged sword as he attempted to block, the sound not ringing but collapsing inward.
Like the air itself had folded around the impact.
I felt his Regalia surge, ancient authority flaring in protest, and then vanish, undone by her spiritual negation.
No chant. No sigil. No preparation. Just erasure.
No effort, no strain. Only her will, absolute and unyielding.
Then she stomped.
The ground folded rather than broke.
Rosen fell, his right arm shattered from shoulder to wrist, bones crushed into angles that defied anatomy.
His scream cut off as her next motion severed his tongue.
Blood did not fall immediately.
It hovered, trembling, before splashing down seconds later as time stuttered to catch up.
Her eyes turned toward me.
She opened her mouth, but only incomprehensible sound came forth, madness incarnate.
It was a voice that belonged to no one, yet touched everyone.
The sound vibrated through my bones. Stars flickered above, some dimming, others flaring as if recoiling from recognition.
I rose slowly, using my sword as a cane, Cradella's blessing gone, leaving me raw and vulnerable.
My legs shook beneath me, and my vision blurred at the edges.
She hovered over Rosen, every motion crushing him with subtle menace.
She did not need to touch him again. Her presence alone pinned him in place.
I felt my illness intensify, every breath a battle against the pressure of her existence.
My lungs burned. My heart staggered.
[She had him wrapped around her fingers.]
I looked at Rosen, then back at her, measuring the cost of every second she remained unbound.
Entire constellations trembled now, stars drifting out of alignment like frightened animals.
"Do you agree to end this war with your loss if I stop her?"
Her scream tore the air, fire spiraling outward in a widening ring.
Above us, stars wavered and slid from their orbits, streaking across the daylight sky before narrowly missing the planet itself.
The sky groaned as though strained by invisible hands.
"You madman! I give you the mercy of living before me, and you propose that?"
Her aura flared. Her hair lifted like flames.
Lightning erupted from the ground, not striking downward but clawing upward toward her, desperate to be acknowledged.
Rosen clenched his teeth, extending his unbroken hand, blood pouring freely now that time had resumed its cruelty.
"I will send word to all leading forces to stand back, if you do the same."
I reached out, taking his hand. "You lose."
Black messenger birds erupted from my shoulders, their wings slicing through the distorted air as they scattered toward Nicole and Malachi.
Orders carried on will rather than ink. Withdraw. Consolidate. Survive.
Rosen snapped his fingers. His method was likely faster, more refined. It did not matter.
My birds vanished upon completion, purpose fulfilled.
The war was ending. Not cleanly. Not without loss.
A large portion of the army was gone, reduced to memory and ash.
But my core remained intact. My irreplaceable assets still lived. That was enough.
More than enough. Relief settled into me like a guilty pleasure.
Mirabel finally paused, her presence still immense but slightly tempered.
The stars steadied, though they no longer returned fully to their old positions. Some scars would remain.
Rosen moved, using the moment to heal himself. Flesh knit together under trembling hands.
Bone realigned.
He could only do so because her wrath had softened, even if only by a fraction.
A crack in infinity was still a crack.
I released my grip, fire coiling around my arms, warm and terrifying, lonely yet intimate. It was her.
Step by step, I advanced, each movement threatening to end me, pressure mounting with every breath, until I stood within her reach.
"Mirabel, my little miracle, you must grow, you must grow into the greatest star."
She tilted her head, tearing the ground to her right as continents of stone shifted beneath the surface.
She clenched her teeth, and space itself fractured, thin white seams opening and closing like wounds.
Her aura pulsed with terrifying precision. Then, for a single heartbeat, all destruction ceased.
"My love, will you accept my embrace?"
I spread my arms wide.
She hesitated, a flicker of uncertainty passing through her gaze. The stars above dimmed in response. Then she reached out.
She embraced me, breaking every bone as she did, yet the moment froze.
Breath caught. Chaos stilled. Even the sky seemed to hold itself in place.
She pulled back, eyes shimmering, legs trembling as I collapsed.
She knelt beside me, eyes soft yet sharp, looking down at my ruined body with both pity and fierce devotion.
[Maybe it was fate, but these two fools would be together always, both mindless insane, both wholly themselves.]
Her hands rested against my face.
"Do you love me?"
I nodded. "There is nothing in this world I love more. Nothing."
[Nicholas was a fool loving such a beast, such a monster of ruin. He loved the wrath of all worlds.]
She mended my broken bones, fingers entwining with mine. Warmth spread through fractures and torn flesh.
"You were right, only you were also mistaken. If you are worthless, then I surely must be."
She smiled.
"So it must be that we are both valuable, as we have each other."
[Nicholas was a fool, for in this, he found comfort. It was pure delusion. They are worthless.]
"I have found my will, my worth, my love, my heart."
Blood coated my lips as I smiled back at her. "It will be eternal."