<>(Zack)<>

A cool, dark light emitted by the dark version of Big C fills this Sacred Temple. Big Breeze seems to be just as stunned as I am, though for different reasons than me. I can sense his total attention focused on me and how I made it in here with the block into their Sacred Temples in place.

Meanwhile, I have my eyes closed, because the first thing I saw when I entered his Sacred Temple was not him, but rather, the thirty-four naked people in it. Men, women, young, old, in-between, of many races, hair colors, and eye colors.

And again, naked.

"You can open your eyes," a child, a boy, says.

"No. No, I can't," I say.

"Yes, you can," he sighs. "You can't see them anymore."

"I'll still know they're there," I say. "I'm going."

"They're not there anymore," he tells me. "You can open your eyes."

"If they're not here, how are you talking to me?"

Because that is my manifestation of a mortal avatar, the same voice echoes in my head. I find it easier to communicate with people through it than this when in my Sacred Temple.

I slowly crack an eye open, seeing just a boy wearing black pants, a pure-white tunic, and black boots that go up to his knees, white laces holding them tight around his legs.

Confirming it's just him, I open my eyes and look around. This space is smaller than the other… that one was about three times as large.

Once I'm sure no one else is here, I look back to Big Breeze's manifestation.

"Uh… what the hell was that?" I ask. "And if I ever see it again, it'll be too soon."

"You won't see that one, specifically," he tells me. "But you'll be there again, and not by choice."

"Oh, yeah?"

"Yeah," he nods. "I'm guessing Chaos didn't summon you into his temple, then?"

"He… told you he did?"

"Yeah," he snorts. "But considering that you just summoned yourself into mine, even though it shouldn't be possible until we divert our efforts… until we stop acting against-"

"I'm fully-aware there are other Boundaries."

"He shouldn't have told you that!" Big Breeze suddenly looks furious, his light feeling dangerous as he clenches his fists, anger clear in his eyes as his jaw tics slightly. "Why did he tell-"

"One," I interrupt. "He slipped up by accident. Two, I've had dreams referencing 'a Boundary' instead of 'the Boundary', and three, if you look into my Sacred Crystal, you'll notice a 'scar' of sorts, which is reflected by an invisible scar on my arm."

"I earned it," I hold my right arm out, forearm up so he can see it. "By cutting myself and allowing my blood to feed his Sacred Flames on the Dark Altar in our local Dark Temple, then using his 'feeding' as a link to work with my power of sight to try and see if he was okay.

"It had an interesting effect," I say as he stares hard at my arm. "In that instead of simply seeing if he was okay, as was my intent, I ended up entering his manifestation, in a sense, in another Boundary. So even without him slipping up on that a few weeks ago, I would've known a week ago, when I did that and found myself occupying the same space as him."

Big Breeze takes a deep breath, then lets it out, his anger fading from his body. Or at least, he looks calm. He looks up at me, and I drop my arm back down to my side.

"Okay," he says. "You were honest, there. I'm still mad at him for leaking it."

"Can you seriously blame him?" I ask. "Considering it's me we're talking about. How often do one of you Crystals accidentally leak something to us? How often do you encounter someone like me?"

He thinks about it for several long moments, then sighs, shrugging.

"I don't know," he answers. "Not commonly. I'll still reprimand him, but I won't do it as harshly. And I'll wait until after we finish dealing with the other Boundary's issues."

"Be kind to him."

He opens his mouth to speak, as if to reprimand me. He's one of the true Sacred Crystals, after all, and I just gave him an order. But then he closes his mouth, huffing and shaking his head in frustration.

"You're more loyal to him than you show," he tells me. "He's fortunate to have you as a follower. Whatever you do, please don't bleed yourself into him to do that ever again."

"Considering that it could have killed me last time?" I ask. "I wouldn't do it unless I was truly concerned for him."

In other words, I might do it again, even if it costs me. I was willing to sacrifice myself to make sure he was okay, even if it meant killing the prophecy that says I will change the tide of war and my prophetic visions that say I will do more than start the changing of the tide.

Prophecies aren't set in stone, no matter how much one wants them to be. Big Flame is my patron, and I am his servant. I will always do what I must to see that he is okay when he seems to not be.

I'm not sure what I would have done, were he not, but I could not wait and wait, just in case he did finally contact us again.

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It might not make sense to others, but it makes sense to me, and that's all that matters.

"What did you come here for?" He asks.

"I don't remember."

He stares at me.

"Seriously," I say. "I saw something I totally wasn't expecting. What the hell was that?"

"When you die," he explains. "And you're capable of existing in any Boundary, you are brought into Wisdom's Sacred Temple and given the offer. If you reject it, you die in reality and move on to the afterlife, passing through mine imperceptibly fast. If you accept it, you're given a new body within the Boundary, one that's exactly the same as your dying body in Reality, which dies immediately. Sort of. That's not really how it works, but it's the mortal explanation.

"If you die in a Boundary," he continues. "You enter my Sacred Temple, where you must wait until either your body is cremated or seventy-two hours pass."

"Why was everyone naked?" I ask. "I wasn't naked when I woke up in Big C's-"

"You weren't?" He looks stunned, then stomps his foot in frustration. "Wisdom didn't share that with me!"

That… isn't normal?

The boy I saw in that vision… he was definitely clothed as well.

"Why is everyone naked?" I ask.

"It's your spirit," he tells me. "That gets pulled into the Sacred Temples, not your physical body. It can only 'manifest' a physical representation, not anything else. So the fact that you were able to when you were dying in reality is kind of odd."

"Then wouldn't it be odd that I'm wearing the outfit I was wearing when I summoned myself into here?" I ask. "Because I am, and was when I summoned myself into Big Flame's."

"You-" he starts to say, then looks me up and down. "You ignore such petty things as 'not possible'. Huh."

"Well," I say. "When I hear the word 'impossible', I hear that thing screaming 'I'm possible!', so I just have to do it to prove it is."

"You didn't even know about it," he points out.

"I'm a psychic," I remind him. "It's aaaaaall in the subconscious."

He snorts.

"So what did you come here for?"

"I don't remember."

He stares at me.

"I wasn't expecting to see what I did!" I exclaim. "That was totally unexpected, and it completely derailed my line of thought that led me to seeing if I could summon myself into your Sacred Temple!"

He sighs, then frowns, grabbing my arm and inspecting it.

"Oh!" He exclaims.

"What?"

"I know why you come with them when summoning yourself here."

"You do?" I ask.

"Yeah!" He nods, tracing a finger along my 'scar'. "You've actually summoned your physical body here, not your spirit."

That is a massive relief. I don't want to accidentally end up here naked, because that would probably be worse than seeing what I saw. It's bad enough I'm going to see it again when I die, that was just gross.

"Oh, right," I remember. "Hey – is there such a spell as Resurrection?"

"I can neither confirm nor deny that," he answers in a neutral tone, his expression blank.

"You do know that that's usually an indication that it's true, right?"

"No, seriously," he tells me, emotion back in his voice. "The System prevents us from confirming or denying it. We can't even hint at whether it exists or not. Period. It's impossible."

If he's serious about that… then Big S really is the Big S. That's incredible.

"Okay," I say. "Thanks, I guess. Another question: is it possible for Big Flame to ever be in danger? And is there a way that we Dark Knights could help, if so?"

He stares at me again, thinking for several long moments before opening his mouth to speak.

"Yes," he answers. "And no. The only way we could ever be in danger would be if we were forced to enter reality against our desire, which will never happen. The nine of us support the existence of the Boundaries themselves, and are linked to them."

They support the existence of the Boundaries? Did they form with the creation of the Boundaries, then? Or were they around before them? How long have the Boundaries existed?

"Should even one of us," he continues, not giving me time to focus on those thoughts. "Ever disconnect from them fully, then any Boundary we lose the connection to would cease to exist. However, because of that, we would grow stronger, as our power is stretched across the Boundaries as a multi-level barrier against the Shadow of Life. Because we're stretching ourselves like this, the seals on him are harder to break."

So that is what Big Flame meant, then, when he said that there was something they could do that would help them against Alexander, but at the same time, be risky because it could end up helping him instead.

They would be able to influence more in the remaining Boundaries, if there were less of them, because their power would be divided into bigger parts. However, Alexander would also have that same power boost. He'd be able to influence more as well.

"So if," I say. "You were to enter Reality yourselves, you would have to disconnect from all of the Boundaries?"

"Indeed," he nods. "And that is part of why the Dark Knights cannot do anything to help Chaos, should he ever be in danger – because the only way for us to be in danger would be to enter reality personally. However, it's a bit more complicated than that."

"Why?"

"Unless we were to merge the Boundaries into reality," he explains. "Our presence could not exist in reality. It would reject our existences. In other words: we will cease to exist, should we ever enter reality personally. All we can do is view into it and sometimes influence it or communicate into it."

Wait… so the only way for them to be in danger… is if they were to do something that is a guaranteed death sentence? Something no one can stop?

"Why?" I ask.

"Our souls," he responds. "Are tied to the Boundaries, and have been out of reality for too long. Reality will not acknowledge us as part of it, and thus, reject us. Only Existence itself or a child of Existence could allow us to exist within reality."

Existence? A child of Existence?

Something tells me he won't share more than that with me, no matter how hard I pry.

"How come," I decide to ask. "No one knows about people entering your place when they die and waiting there?"

"We're not allowed to reveal it," he answers. "The System binds us into not."

Uh…

"You did."

"I got permission, first," he waves a hand dismissively. "Though I told him that I was summoning you to inspect the scar on your Sacred Crystal, and because of our focus on the other Boundary, I goofed it and didn't create a new instance for you to be in, so you saw everyone. He giggled really hard and said you're probably traumatized for life."

I am.

"Wait," I realize. "You didn't tell him the truth?"

"Nope!" He giggles. "I'm going to run with that story! Chaos didn't tell us, so I'm not telling them, either! It'll be so amusing when they find out!"

That's funny. I wonder how many of them I can do this to before they all realize the truth or one of them shares it with the others.

I mean, I knew the moment you did it to Big Flame, but I pretended not to when Big Breeze contacted me, because I'm letting them have their fun.

Thanks, Big S!

"Alright," I say. "How did he react to the scar?"

"He didn't give any indication of his thoughts on it," Big Breeze shrugs. "Though he did ask me to tell him my thoughts on it, seeing as he wasn't aware I could detect it without focusing on your Boundary…"

Okay, so maybe I hinted a little bit that I knew he was bullshitting me.

It takes every ounce of my willpower not to snort at that. Doing that would definitely give something away.

"Who knows?" I shrug. "Anyway, I'm probably taking too much of your focus away from the other Boundary, so I'm going to head back."

"No worries," he shrugs.

A moment later, I'm in the central room in my house. I could have totally returned to the Dark Temple, but whatever.

After starting a fire, I settle down, curling up in front of the pit and wrapping myself in a couple of blankets, quickly drifting into a dream-filled sleep.