Rage rises in me just as the ground underneath my feet begins to shake. Looking up, I find that the moon is filling the entire view of the sky now, thinly veiled by Exla's misty form. The end is fast approaching, and there's no time left to be wasted.
My feelings grow cold in an instant, and I walk over to Nymphy's body. At that sight, Aurelia pulls out the golden weapons that are still stuck in her back with a gesture of her hand and moves them out of the way. Rolan and the others can only watch silently, unable to say a word to me. No more words are needed; I know that they aren't at fault.
"You'll be with me forever." Muttering these words, I open the front of my body and pull Nymphy and her severed parts inside me. Then I turn to Rolan. "Take care of everything here. We'll be back soon."
"Shelnir said that she has Runa on the Rhodos station." He quickly says, sounding desperate. I know that under the circumstances, he doesn't feel that he has the right to ask for my help, but he still mustered his courage to do so.
"I understand. We will deal with that after this is over." There's no reason to blame him; I'm sure I would have fallen for Shelnir's trick all the same. The one I need to seek revenge on is the Old Human who plays with fate.
"Thank you." Rolan lowers his head in apology and gratefulness alike. But I already shift my gaze to Aurelia and raise a hand, upon which Flann appears next to me. It's time for us to meet Mataku on the dark side of the moon; anything else has to wait until we're done there.
"Wait." The rumbling earthquake continues, and I realize that it's not from the moon's gravity just yet. Flying up and clearing the rooftops of the nearby buildings, I look north. I feel something overwhelming fill my heart at the sight that greets me.
A giant naked Tokomaha is rising, her legs obscured by the atmospheric haze due to the vast distance. She's still growing larger, the movements of her form appearing incredibly slow as she raises her arms in preparation to catch the moon. The sight leaves me breathless, and I stop to take in the view.
Flann already told me that the eyes in the sky, called the Watcher in the Night, is the origin of my kind. Its sheer size could be considered celestial, if not universal. But it's not something I could truly register with the mental capacity of a being whose size is bound by the limits of available food.
Tokomaha, on the other hand, is a human with access to the Imagination Engine - and nothing more. That's what she should have been, and talking to her hasn't led me to believe anything else. Still, seeing her massive form that rivals a celestial body, born from nothing but her personal fantasy, drives home just how incredible of a person she is.
She's an existence I can genuinely consider divine.
"She is doing her part." Aurelia comes up next to me, speaking in a calm but determined voice. "It is time to do ours."
"Flann." With this, I order the blonde girl to teleport us to the promised place.
In the next instant, I find myself on glass-covered plains. It's the result of the supernova that Oinos turned into, which accelerated the moon further toward Earth. The glass is reflecting the sunlight, which comes in at a dangerously similar angle to what we just saw from Arkaim.
Now that I think about it, the dark side of the moon is pretty huge, so saying that we should meet there is too broad of a criterion. I turn to Aurelia and then to Flann, raising an eyebrow when I realize that we can't communicate without an atmosphere.
"They will find us." The latter suddenly speaks into my mind, causing me to turn toward her and blink in surprise. But judging by Aurelia's lack of a reaction, it was only audible to me.
"You really are limited to serving my kind, huh?" I ask with my thoughts but receive no answer. Flann keeps looking at me as if awaiting a response. Then she lifts her eyebrows ever so slightly in apparent understanding.
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"It would seem that, once we get back, I will need to teach you many things." Her voice echoes in my head once again. I assume she means that my kind can talk in space without the need for air.
If I had known that before coming to the moon the first time, I would have been able to tell that Juzual was a Crawling Chaos. After all, back when we came here together, the only way for Aurelia and me to talk to each other was through her third-party telepathy.
Then again, it couldn't have been Juzual talking, as I heard Aurelia's voice directly. She was like a conduit for us, so I wouldn't have been able to tell even if I had known. Senka also possesses telepathy, and while I'm still not entirely sure what she is, she's definitely not one of my kind.
"Teach me now." I reply in my thoughts, knowing that Flann won't be able to hear me. But for somebody as expressionless as she, it seems she was able to guess my intentions from reading my face.
"Just do it." Comes the answer, which doesn't teach me anything.
"I need more than that." I open my mouth and try talking in the vacuum of space while shrugging, knowing that the gesture will be more useful than my silent words. Instead, Aurelia suddenly holds her head as if a headache overcame her.
"Adjust your voice. Beings of this dimension cannot fathom the truth of your existence and everything that comes with it." Flann's voice sounds level as always, but somehow, I get the feeling that she's chastising me. Did I just speak in a tone as if the abyss came to life and caused the golden girl mental pain?
"How is this?" I try once again, and this time it seems that Aurelia isn't as affected by it.
"Much better." A male voice echoes in my head, and I spin around on the spot. It belongs to a person I haven't seen in almost a year now, and who I could have gone not seeing for another two eternities. But given the situation, this is where we are.
It's Mataku in his human appearance, accompanied by Mithra, bandaged all over and wielding his staff as he always does.
"You did quite a number on the moon." Looking around, the Primordial Terror speaks in feigned fascination. I'm sure he knows that it was Oinos self-destructing that caused this rather than anything I did. He was able to disguise mockery with praise, and there's nothing I can refute it with.
"Let's get going." Glaring at Mataku, I express my displeasure in having to talk to him. Last time we met, he revealed himself as an enemy of all life on this planet. There's no way I would let that slide, and he hasn't shown any indications that his goal has changed since then.
I'll have to ask him about that artificial Crawling Chaos he left in the basement of the royal palace in Kairaki, but I don't feel like holding a conversation with him. The best thing for us to do is stop the moonfall and then get on with the battle to decide the future of the world. I still have to worry about the solar winds heading for Earth, after all.
Aurelia seems to share my view on this matter, as all the camaraderie she can muster for Mataku right now is an intent glare. She won't let any of his movements escape her gaze.
"Mithra will move us." With a shrug, the Primordial Terror realizes that we won't make good conversation partners. He does glance at Flann, an amused expression on his face when he then looks at his own personal teleporter. Maybe he would prefer a cute girl like her over the bandaged man.
Putting an arm around Flann's shoulder and pulling her in demonstratively, I signal Mataku that she's mine. The blonde girl gazes up at me with slightly widened eyes, wondering what brought this on, but I don't respond.
In the next moment, our vision warps and snaps back to reality. We're still on the moon, but our surroundings are no longer covered in glass. Above us is Earth, and standing on it is a massive Tokomaha looking up with her arms raised in anticipation. From our perspective, it appears as if she's staring down at us, but her eyes aren't focused on us specifically. To her, we've become too small to notice.
"Impressive. I did not expect that little girl to have such a fantasy in her." Mataku's voice speaks into my mind, sounding genuine for once.
"Neither did I." A new voice joins us, belonging to Juzual. When I look around, I find the Witch of the End, or whoever now occupies that form, gaze down at us with her galactic window eyes. She doesn't sound at all worried that her plan to drop the moon will be thwarted by Tokomaha's efforts.
"We stand now at the precipice of fate." Mithra suddenly speaks up, and everybody looks at him. Is he playing at being an announcer or narrator? "Cosmic convergence led you here. Now, the future of existence itself will be decided."
He's laying it on thick. We're only fighting for one planet, so where does existence itself come into play?