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Chapter Text

They should have known that the prison break was a little too easy. None of the wardens had questioned why six people dressed in a hodgepodge of old-fashioned City clothing and army fatigues had mysteriously appeared. It should have been suspicious that the guards went on a training exercise three days after they broke in. Noah was mentally kicking himself the moment he heard Shania’s self-satisfied laughter coming from the Agnian forces. Though it was hard to focus when he saw two familiar faces in front of him, and it was not just because he encountered one of them at Keves Castle.

The shorter one, who had introduced herself as E, was slouching and folding her arms as she watched the scene unfold from her perch atop a levnis. He wondered how she was able to do that, as her golden armour looked to be on the stiff side. She had the same grin as his friend, but it felt more malicious since most of her face was covered by a golden mask of interlocking feathers that matched her headwings.

“Thanks, love,” E said, her voice deeper and lacking Eunie’s usual inflection. “Couldn’t have done it without you.”

Shania was beaming when she heard the praise she never would have gotten from the people who cared the most about her. “You hear that Ghondor? That’s a real friend over there!”

Ghondor snorted in a mix of mirth and rage. “Is that silver dag your mate too?”

The ‘silver dag’ was also familiar, even if it was the first time Noah had ever seen him. He was as tall and slim as his other friend, and even had the same hairstyle, but what drew Noah’s attention despite their distance was the turquoise crystal on his chest. It almost felt wrong seeing it on display. Even though he had not yet said a word, Noah could guess that this Moebius was called T. 

T didn’t react to Ghondor’s jab, instead following E as she teleported to the surface. If he had any expression on his face, it was completely covered by his mask.

“What’s this bird’s deal?” asked an exasperated Eunie, who was trying her best to not make direct eye contact with E. The last time she did, the head-splitting pain caused her to drop her gunrod when her friends needed her heals the most.

“Sucks to be you,” E commented, smiling at the way she made Eunie wince in pain with a single look. “Your neglect has caused your downfall.”

Shania nodded in approval of E’s assessment. “I gave you so many chances, Ghondor, but you never let me walk alongside you. You and your mediocre mother!”

“We-” Sena said, summoning her hammer and gripping it tight as she steeled herself. “We are not alike at all!”

Noah was glad that Sena’s argument with Shania had given the perfect opportunity for an escape, though he did feel a little guilty for tuning her out. He dug out the Cloudkeep key and offered it back to Ghondor. “If they get this, it’s over.”

“But-” Ghondor protested. “I’m not leaving you behind!”

“As long as the top Ouroboros candidate is alive, there is still hope.”

Ghondor growled in frustration. She begrudgingly accepted the key, slipped it over her head, and tucked it under her top before running to the coast. “Fine, but I’ll be coming back!”

“Coward!” Shania screamed as she chased her former friend. “Come back and face me!”

With Shania gone, it was just Ouroboros, E, and T on the field. E didn't waste the opportunity to talk down on her opponents.

“The day you stood against E,” she said, raising her right hand to dissolve her mask. “Was the day you chose death.”

Now that she had her mask off, Lanz could assess the woman who wore Eunie’s face. She had the same cerulean eyes, but they looked freaky wide open. The combination with her unwavering grin made her look like a woman possessed, which made her tidy, waist-length hair look out of place.

“I guess we’ve got no choice but to fight them,” Sena said, holding her hammer in a defensive grip.

“It feels freaky to be fighting myself,” Eunie said, summoning her gunrod to hand. “And not just because of the bloody headache she gives me.”

“Actually, you’ll be fighting me first,” T interrupted, breaking his silence. “If I may, E.”

“What’s up with you?” E asked, eyebrow raised in amusement. “You’re never interested in this lark.”

“I need to show them that standing against Moebius is a hopeless endeavour.”

E grinned, and pointed her head towards Ouroboros. “Especially those two, innit. X!”

“You called?” X said as she made herself visible. “And here I was thinking I’d be babysitting the new recruit.”

“Seal their Ouroboros powers,” E said. “I want this to be a fair fight.”

“You don’t think I can take them on?” T argued, summoning his blade.

“I’m looking out for ya, bud.”

X summoned a staff to her hand. “Ask and you shall receive, E,” she said, waving it around. 

Mio could feel her bond with Noah wavering before it severed entirely. She summoned her rings, glad that they felt the same as they always did.

“Have fun, you two,” X concluded, her voice trailing after she vanished from view. “Because I’m only stepping in if I have to.”

X’s silence marked the start of the battle. T dissolved his own mask, finally showing his face to Ouroboros. To no one's surprise, he looked exactly like Taion during the rare moments he did not have his glasses on. The lack of frames made his eyes more visible, but they looked off in a way Noah couldn’t put his finger on. If E had the eyes of a fanatic, T’s were as dull as the drones he had encircled himself with.

Taion tried to look away, but his curiosity got the better of him. He was rewarded with a scoff from T and the same headache that had made Eunie cry out in pain moments before.

“Are you okay?” Sena asked, trying to turn her grimace into a smile.

“I’ll be fine,” Taion said, assuming the same stance as T. 

T, not wanting to wait any longer, picked up one of his metallic drones and flung it past Lanz’s head.

“That all you got?” Lanz asked, almost disappointed. 

“Don’t underestimate him, Lanz,” Noah said, sword already raised. “If he’s as smart as Taion, we’ll have a difficult fight on our hands.”

Taion nodded in agreement. “We need to be- Lanz, behind you!”

Lanz saw Sena rush at him from the corner of his eye, his reflexes quick enough to repel her. “Sena, what the spark are you doing?”

“That’s not me!” Sena shouted from the other side of Lanz as she barely missed a swipe from Mio’s blades. “And that’s not Mimi either!”

“Never mind that, where’d T go?” the real Mio asked. She looked around, but E was the only Moebius she could see. The golden consul was smirking as she saw the chaos her partner had already sown.

“Spark!” Eunie yelled as she dodged a blast from her impostor. She looked to where it came from, and was unhappy to see that there were multiples. She fired her own gunrod, but the moment she’d blasted one into scraps, two would take its place. And then, T had the brilliant idea of summoning a ton of fake Lanzs to act as their defence.

She should have realised the decoys were a distraction. The swarm of Eunies blocked her view of the battlefield, while a fake Lanz would stop her from escaping the barrage with a swing of its blade. While she was one of the best shooters in Keves, she was only one woman.

An explosion to her left signalled a reprieve for her. The burning remnants of scrap metal and paper revealed Taion and Mio, who quickly jumped to Eunie’s aid.

“Sorry about that,” Mio said as she cleaved through the illusions. “T managed to split us all up.”

“I’m glad you’re not hurt, Eunie,” Taion added, healing her anyway as a precaution. “We still need to find Noah, Lanz, and Sena.”

That was easier said than done. Eunie could see five Senas in front of her, and they were all fighting one another.

“With this many copies, there’s no way T can keep tabs on all of them,” Taion thought aloud, barely dodging a swipe from a false Lanz in the process. “Hang on, those four are doing the same three moves. Can you see it, Mio?”

Mio’s ears flattened as she concentrated on the five Senas, then perked up when she saw what Taion was seeing. “Got it!” She dashed to where Sena was, and made quick work of the copies with a few swipes of her rings.

“That was amazing, Mimi!” Sena shouted, beaming with admiration.

“Thanks Sena!” Mio replied. That was one friend found, just two more to go. Her ears perked up as a familiar shout reached them. She needed to find her Noah. She grabbed Sena’s hand and ran to the source of the noise.

As for how many Noahs there were, there were only two and they were locked in a dual. Noah was parrying blows from himself, while the other didn’t let up on his assault. They were evenly matched until one stumbled, leaving an opening for the other. The blow to the side was enough for the disguise to dissipate, revealing T. Noah readied his sword to get another slice in, but his opponent used his silver drones to carry himself out of range. He used the window of opportunity to create a false Mio and Sena to distract Noah for enough time to disappear from his line of sight and assume a new disguise.

The battle raged on in a torrent of bodies and metal that fluttered with the grace of paper. Lanz struggled to tell friend from foe, and illusion from reality. His only safe bet was to whack his copy and wait for someone smarter than himself to come up with a plan.

“Noah! Taion! Do either of you have a snuffing idea of how to beat this guy?”

“Working on it!” shouted Noah, his sword cleaving through a fake Sena. “The fakes look a bit duller than the real thing.”

“That’s good, but we need something more reliable!”

“I-” Taion interrupted himself as he narrowly dodged a blast from a false Eunie. “If only there was a way I could detect which one was real…”

Taion stopped in his tracks, almost as if his own idea had paralysed him. Lanz deflected a blow from a fake version of himself before cleaving through a Noah. “Are you on to something?”

“I got it!” Taion shouted. “I can use the Mondo to tag everyone, including him.”

The tactician got into position. Eunie, hearing the commotion, slammed her gunrod into the ground to amplify the ether around them. The Mondo spread out, but one stayed next to her.

“Thank the flames we’re all real,” she thought as she watched the other charms lazily float over Noah, Mio, Eunie, Taion, Lanz and Sena-

Wait.

Eunie aimed her gun and opened fire on her fake. The disguise disintegrated, exposing T to the party. Once his trick had been figured out, T didn’t bother to summon more Ouroboros fakes. He opted to defend himself with his drones, but left himself wide open when he raised them in a circle above his head. Eunie, not wanting to miss this window of opportunity, charged up her gunrod, her eyes focused on the crystal on T’s chest.

E’s guttural scream was the only warning Eunie got before she felt the full force of the Moebius tackling her to the ground. “You snuffing mudder!” E screamed, pinning Eunie to the floor. One of her fists was tangled in her hoodie, while the other was raised in a fist above Eunie’s face. “You think you can take him away from me?”

Noah cringed at the sound of a fist meeting flesh. E’s fists didn’t have the power Mio’s did back when they fought O and P, but she made up for it with how she was pummeling Eunie. He was acting on pure instinct when he ran over to slice at E, who teleported out of range and away from Eunie.

“You’re going to pay for hurting my T,” E growled as she unslung her gunrod from her back. Her golden armour reflected the increasingly intense purple light coming from her gun. “I knew he was too weak to fight you, but I’m never going to make that mistake again!”

E fired her shot at the ground, leaving a crater reminiscent of a small annihilation event and knocking Ouroboros to the floor. Somehow, E did not recoil from the force of the blast.

Lanz used his shieldblade to support himself as he scrambled back up. He had wondered why Joran had died in his place all those years ago, but now he knew that it was all for this moment. “Noah, take the others and go!”

“But-” Noah protested.

“Mimi, you too!” Sena joined in despite being unsteady on her feet. “Lanz and I will hold her off!”

“We’re not leaving you to die!” Taion objected. “We’re all getting out of here, or none of us are.”

“I agree,” Noah said. “You two matter too much to us-”

E’s exaggerated retching cut Noah’s speech short. “I hate this sentimental ardun crap. If they’re going to be like that, I’m going to end this.”

This time, she did not charge up her golden gunrod. Her first shot hit Noah square in the chest, knocking him off his feet just as he had gotten up again. Mio dashed in front of Noah, her face full of righteous fury. She fared a bit better, dodging two blasts before one rebounded back on her. The other hit Sena before she could react to her fallen friend. Like skeeters to a flame, the two healers ran over to their fallen comrades and tried to help them up. E rewarded them with a blast each.

Lanz was the last one standing. He supported himself against his blade, and attempted to answer E’s gunfire with his own. E effortlessly dodged the bullets as she dashed towards her opponent. She swung her rifle into Lanz’s gut, and smiled as he collapsed, choking out a gasp.

Satisfied that every last one of them were too beaten to get back up, E turned her gunrod around so the barrel was at Lanz’s head. He could see the blade glow with that infernal purple colour, and he distantly accepted that he was going to be wiped off the map.

“E!” T shouted, snapping his partner out of her reverie. E withdrew her gun, the purple energy fading away. “This is a bit inelegant-”

“What, like death’s ever been elegant?” E argued.

“No, but that doesn’t mean they have to meet their end right now,” T grinned, knowing that what he had in mind would be more entertaining for his partner. “We can do anything we want to them, and they won’t be able to stop us.”

“Oh yeah, that Agnian’s due a Homecoming,” E said, her grin stretching wider than T's. “We can make them wait for it.”

“Would you really be satisfied with that?” T asked. He was back to his usual cold neutrality.

“What d’you mean?” E questioned, tugging at her headwing.

“Making them wait for Mio’s Homecoming.” Noah caught a glimpse of T taking a sharp breath out of the corner of his eye. Was he afraid of her? “When’s the last time you used that power, E?”

E hummed in realisation “Yeah, yeah, I’m picking up what you’re putting down.”

“Which one do you want to do it to?” T asked, looking at each one of them in turn with a vigour that had not been there before. He settled his gaze on Eunie. “You could get rid of your shadow for good.”

E bristled at the suggestion. “No snuffin’ way, T.”

“So who, then?”

E hummed, flicking her wing as she deliberated. “Are you particularly attached to your shadow, T?”

“Not really,” T replied, crossing his arms as he rested his hand on his chin. “Actually, I don’t think you’d want to see an imitation of me running around, either. You grab him, I’ll get the tenth termer.” 

Noah could only watch as T picked up Mio.

“Let her go!” Noah cried out, his arm futilely stretched in her direction. “Mio!”

T didn’t so much as acknowledge him. Noah tried his best to not sob in the dirt, and forced himself to look up. He could see Eunie wearing the same horrified expression as him as she watched E carry Taion like he weighed nothing.

“You two better do as I say,” E said, pointing her rifle at her hostages. “Or I’ll be snuffing all of you right now.”

“I’d listen to her if I were you.” T said, glaring at Eunie. Noah could hear a choked ‘spark!’ from the girl.

“You-” E said, waving her gun in Taion’s direction for emphasis. “You place your left hand on that mark on her neck.”

“What-” the two shouted almost at the same time.

“Now!”

Despite the urgency of E’s demands, what came next felt like an eternity to Mio. Taion glanced at E, then at E’s gun, then settled on looking beyond Mio. He raised his hand towards her, reluctant to place it on Mio’s neck. His hand was slack against Mio’s skin, but it seemed to satisfy E’s demand.

“I’m sorry, Mio,” Taion whispered. Mio wanted to look into his eyes, find some way to assure him that everything was going to be okay. But his eyes were shut, and Taion wasn’t even pretending to look at her anymore.

“See, it wasn’t that hard,” E mocked. She focused her gaze on where Taion’s hand met Mio’s neck and activated her Iris. Sena gasped when she saw the area glow the same shade of red, and then fade just as quickly.

Nobody dared move.

“You can remove your hand now, love,” E jeered at Taion. He complied, gingerly lifting it off Mio’s neck so he could examine his palm.

Now that Noah could see Mio’s neck again, he was shocked to see that her mark was as vivid as a  ninth termer’s. In a split second of selfishness, Noah was glad that Mio, his Mio, got to live a little longer.

Eunie’s scream made him feel horrible for feeling that way. “H-his hand!”

“I’m sorry,” Noah whispered, his guilt digging a pit in his stomach. He hated that Mio’s extended life had come at the expense of the man who had become one of his closest friends.

Mio choked out a sob. “No, it can’t end like this!”

E smiled at the satisfaction of their collective dismay. “Job’s a good’un, we’ll call it a day there, T.”

Chapter Text

What would have been her last month would turn out to be Mio’s longest. E had them taken to Agnus Castle, but not before X blocked access to everything they had taken for granted. They had no blades, no maps, and no way of contacting the outside world. 

There was no Taion, either. He had been taken down a different corridor while they were marched to the cell they were currently in.

It was big enough for five humans and two Nopon. The bars were wide enough for an arm to pass through, but impossible for even the Nopon to escape from. The light filtered in from the barred window halfway up the tall room. It was too high to climb up to, but it was reachable if someone was thrown into the air.

E didn’t even wait for the day to be over before coming down for a visit. She wrapped her golden fingers around one of the bars, her unblinking blue eyes piercing into Euinie’s eye - the one that hadn’t swollen shut.

“How does it feel,” she asked. “To know that he’s going to snuff it for good?”

“You what?” Eunie said, answering E's rhetorical question with one of her own.

“Did nobody tell you? If you make it to a Homecoming, you’re permanently removed from the cycle.”

It didn’t take a genius to figure out what E’s plan for Taion was. Eunie threw her whole body against the bars in the hope the vibration would get to E. The only thing she accomplished was a blossom of pain along her left arm.

“You mudder!” she yelled, punching the bars separating her from her target. She could feel Sena tugging at her, but Eunie did not budge. “You snuff-”

E laughed. It was a hollow, mirthless laugh, but a laugh nonetheless. “Ooh, I’m so scared. Come at me all you want, but the lot of you put together don’t have the strength of a single soldier.”

Eunie growled, and punched the bars. “If you’ve laid a finger on Taion, I’ll-”

“You’ll what? Hurt yourself?” E mocked. “You’re in no position to be making threats.”

Mio couldn’t take any more of this. “Leave her alone!”

“Oh, and here’s the cat,” E turned to face her. “Did you know there’s an old legend about them having nine lives?”

“You just made that up,” Eunie muttered. “The spark is a cat, anyway?”

“While I’d love to educate you, I did tell T that I’d check on him,” E said, walking away. “And I don’t like to keep my man waiting.”

With E gone, Eunie sank to the floor and leant so her head rested against the bars. The metal was cool against her throbbing head, which helped simmer her temper. She could hear Mio say something, but she didn’t have the energy to follow the conversation. Instead, she blankly stared into the cell across the corridor. 

An hour later, Mio heard the sound of two footsteps approaching. “Someone’s coming.”

Eunie stood up and pressed her face against the bars, hoping to catch a peek at the people coming. “Can’t. See. Who. It. Is.”

The door to the cell next to them swung open, then they could hear someone stumbling in like they had been pushed.

“Let’s see how long you hold on to that hope for,” said the voice outside the cell. The lack of intonation in their voice made it clear that it was T talking. 

“You sparking psycho!” Eunie yelled, hoping to catch his attention. “Who in their right snuffing mind is okay with killing themselves!?”

“Eunie…” Noah said, hoping it sounded more like reassurance than a warning.

“That’s where you’re wrong,” T retorted, slamming the cell door shut for emphasis. “We may look the same, but we are not.”

Eunie did not relent. “Obviously. My Taion would never be so callous.”

“I’m surprised someone like you knows what that word means.” 

“You what? Come say that to my face!” Eunie punched the bars for emphasis.

“I’ve got better things to do than pick a fight I know I’ll win,” T said as he walked away from the cells. Mio noticed that his steps were slower and lighter than E’s. He stopped for a moment, and then carried on until even Mio couldn’t hear him.

Nobody dared speak until they were sure T was out of earshot.

“Did he do anything to you?” Noah asked.

“Other than a long and very dull interrogation, he didn’t do anything,” Taion responded. “I have no clue what he was hoping to achieve from that.”

Sena did think it was strange too. If she was a Moebius, and a version of herself became Ouroboros, would she be curious about how she could turn out so differently? Would she get any closer to knowing who Sena is?

“I’m glad you’re okay,” ‘for now,’ Eunie finished the sentence in her head.

“Now that we’re all together, kinda, we can focus on getting the spark out of here!” Lanz announced. He looked at Sena, who nodded back.

“Noah, give us a hand!”

Noah joined Lanz, and the two of them were able to launch Sena at the bars above them. They were just about too narrow for her to squeeze through, and even if she could, the fall to the sea below would be certain death.

“It’s pointless,” Taion sighed, knowing what he was about to say was obvious. “We’re in a prison.”

“You’ll never know unless you try!” Sena shouted from the window. She tugged at the bars, wishing she had trained hard enough to be able to pry them apart.

“We can’t give up here,” Noah joined in, courtesy of a boost from Lanz. The bars were unsurprisingly unforgiving.

“I’m not saying we should give up,” Taion said. “But we need to conserve our energy.”

“He’s got a point there,” Mio said, then she looked up to the unmoved bars. “I think you two should come down now.”

The two of them couldn’t dispute their friends’ logic. Sena dropped down first, and then she and Lanz gave Noah a safe landing too. He looked at the window, the wall, and the entrance to the cell. If they could break through any of these, they could get Taion out and escape together.

A month is plenty of time to get out, right?

Eunie envied her friends. Somehow they had managed to fall asleep in a place like this. Noah and Mio were curled up together in one corner, while Lanz and Sena lied down together in the opposite corner. Even Riku and Manana were dozing in a heap.

The adrenaline from earlier had run out, leaving her exhausted yet restless. She needed to talk.

“Taion, are you awake?” she asked. She made sure she was loud enough for him to hear her, without disturbing the others.

“Never went to sleep to begin with,” he answered.

“It’s been a lot.”

“It has.”

“I was just wondering,” Eunie knew it was better to ask while it was still fresh in Taion’s mind. “When T was quizzing you earlier, what was he trying to get out of you?”

“My life story, mostly.”

“Weird, I’m surprised he cared about that,” Eunie quickly elaborated so it didn’t come across as an insult. “I mean, he didn’t seem like the type to care about anything.”

“I don’t know how to describe it, but it came across like he already knew the answers to the questions he was asking.”

“That's even weirder.”

“And,” Taion continued. “A lot of his questions were about you.”

Eunie didn’t know why that came as a surprise to her. “What did he ask about?”

“He wanted to know about your fighting style, what I knew about your background, and-” he hesitated. “He wanted to know if you liked me?”

“Why would he want to know that?” Eunie asked. “And for the record, I do like you. I’m sorry I didn’t say anything before all this.”

If it were any other time, she would have felt pleased with herself for stunning him into silence. But now, it felt too real.

“I like you too,” he conceded.

Shania had demanded a meeting with Moebius the very next day. Because of the short notice, only E, T and X were in attendance. They had gathered in a room at the top of Agnus Castle, and had told the soldiers in the area to not disturb them until they were done. They knew that any meeting where E and X were in the same room would run over the allotted time.

Shania was sitting at the head of a long table, with X to her left and E to her right. T, on the other hand, sat at a table near the back of the room. He already had a pen to hand, and was writing the minutes.

“So, let’s cut to the chase,” X said, acting like she wasn’t the problem. “Our new friend has a lovely, City-shaped gift for us.”

Shania pinged X a map, with the City’s location highlighted.

“It was on the Mechonis Sword this whole time!?” X exclaimed. 

“I’m surprised you never checked, X,” T said from across the room. “It’s not like you can see it from everywhere in Aionios.”

“Nobody’s perfect,” E butted in. “And anyway, it’s easy for you to say, Captain Hindsight.”

“Guys, can you have your little domestic another time?” Shania’s arms were crossed over her chest. “We need to get this meeting back on track.”

“Thanks Shania,” X said with a smile. She had enough of their bickering a century ago. “After that stunt Ouroboros pulled at Keves Castle, I’ve been itching to use the Annihilator we’ve got here.”

“Not that I’m complaining, but you’re really okay with us blowing the whole thing up?” E asked Shania. “It was your home and all.”

“I don’t give a crap about any of them,” Shania said, cup of tea in her hand. She pretended to enjoy the dark and bitter blend T had made for her as she took a sip. “If they all died, it wouldn’t be a big loss.”

“Everyone I cared about died a long time ago, but I see their shadows every time I visit a Colony,” E said. “But I can never bring myself to wipe them out if they reach Gold. You’re a better woman than I am, Shania.”

X hummed as she tried to find a common ground with her companions. “They stay the same, but they don’t remember a thing you did. It’s the worst.”

Instead, X had managed to break the momentum. The conversation died down, and the room filled up with the sounds of pen on paper and Shania running her finger around the rim of her mug.

“Did I ever tell you about my bitch of a mother?” Shania asked, eager to unload the real reason she wanted to destroy the place she called home.

“Ooh, tell us everything!” X said, clasping her fingers together.

“Well, where do I start? There was that time when…”

While the women were paying attention to Shania’s tale of woe, they didn’t notice that their impromptu secretary was intently staring at the notes he’d just finished writing.

Ghondor lay in bed, her mind replaying the same scene over and over again. It was Noah handing her the key, putting all his hopes and dreams on her. Not even the most intense training regimen could bring her to the land of nod. 

It was her plan that had gotten those sentimental fools captured, leaving them to languish in some dark cell until Mio’s Homecoming. It was her fault for being a terrible friend to Shania, for making her seek comfort in the grasp of Moebius.

Bitchqueen had told her that the “primary objective was a success”. As if that mattered when the hope of Aionios was going to die because of her. Not that she would ever tell anyone she thought that.

If she was the reason they’re in this mess, she was going to get them out of it.

Ghondor kicked the covers off, and slipped out of her living quarters. She had managed to make it to the port when she found her.

“What are you doing?”

“What do you think I’m doing?” she asked. She knew her mum knew, but she wasn’t going to make it easy for her. Maybe if she stalled for long enough, one of her friends will appear and help her out.

“Getting yourself back behind bars,” Monica retorted. “The castle is on high alert.”

“So I should just leave them!? We don’t have time to piss around!” Ghondor yelled.

“You’ve done enough. You should get some rest.”

“I’m not resting until-” Ghondor’s rant was interrupted by the beeping of an Iris. “You should answer that.”

Monica tapped the side of her head, her left eye glowing as she picked up the call. Ghondor couldn’t hear what was on the other side, but Monica’s narrow eyes said it all. Not many people knew the subtle cues of their leader, but that was a perk that came with being her daughter. Whatever it was, it was serious.

“The hell are you-” Ghondor’s loud whisper was silenced by a finger to Monica’s lips. She ended the call straight away.

“Change of plans, Ghondor.”

It was two weeks until Homecoming when Shania decided to pay them a visit. She had a spring in her step that was not there before, and she didn’t come alone.

“Shania’s got a little surprise for you,” E said. “Show them.”

Shania walked up to the bars, giving everyone a good look at her eye. The Ouroboros symbol was gone, in its place was-

“A flame clock?” Noah asked in disbelief.

“The day your friend departs this world is the day I’m going to have myself killed too!” Shania declared.

Sena stood up. “Are you listening to yourself? That’s crazy talk!”

“I’ve never made more sense in my life,” Shania retorted. “Your friend will vanish from this world forever, and I will be rewarded with infinite chances for glory!”

Lanz lunged at Shania with a shout, stretching his arm out towards her through the bars. “You’ll never make it past second term!”

Shania tilted her head back and laughed. “I hope I’ll be making that face when I’m on the battlefield.”

“That’s not all the news we’ve got for you,” E said. “My new best friend showed me the light. The only way I’m going to be strong enough for Z is if I kill the lot of you by my own hand.”

“As if that wasn’t already your plan,” Lanz said, backing away from the bars.

“She’s taking the time to be honest with you, and that’s how you repay her?” Shania asked as if she was the one being wronged.

The collective glares Shania received from her captives said more than any insult. She had never felt more powerful in her life.

“That’s what I thought,” she finished. “I’d love to stick around, but I’ve got so much to do.”

“Unlike some people, our Shania’s been a busy girl,” E said to Ouroboros, then turned to address her companion. “I’ll catch up with you later.”

“See ya,” Shania said as she walked away, her gait slower but no less resolute. 

It was just them and E now. She was leaning against the bars of the cell opposite them, watching them. Every once in a while, she pretended to look at her gloved nails.

Eunie couldn’t take any more of it. “We aren’t ever giving up. Laugh it up for now, but we’ll kick your arse.”

E warped into the cell, and stretched her arms wide. 

“Go on then, kick my arse.”

Eunie didn’t need telling twice. She jumped to her feet, and swung her fist towards E’s face, hoping to return the bruises she had been given. E sidestepped, and smiled as she watched her other self stumble towards a wall. Eunie was able to steady herself against it, avoiding injuring herself further.

“Come on,” E taunted, hands on her hips. “Who else wants a go?”

Sena took a step forward, only to be stopped by Mio grabbing her wrist. “Don’t give E what she wants. We need to conserve our strength.”

E frowned. “So you do hold on to hope. And here I was hoping you’d all be charging at me. Oh well.”

She vanished in a cloud of purple motes.

The next time E came to visit, it was for Taion. Mio strained her ears listening in on the conversation.

“I swear you haven’t moved a cetri since I last came down here,” E complained. “For a moment, I thought you were a husk.”

“Sorry I’m not interesting enough for you.”

The sound that came from E was somewhere between a huff and a laugh. “At least you can talk. I know you’ve been listening in on my little chats with your mates.”

Mio couldn't hear anything from where she was. Were they standing in silence, waiting for the other to blink?

“Why are you here?” Taion asked. Mio could hear the trepidation in his voice.

“Nothing wrong with checking on the star of the show.”

“You’ve checked on me, so you can go now.”

A scuffle, Mio could feel the impact of someone being slammed against the wall she was leaning against.

“I think you’re a little confused, mate. You’re in no position to order me around,” E growled.

“Don’t you have better things to do? Being a Moebius must be tedious if you’re coming down here all the time.”

“This is part of the entertainment,” E taunted. “And you look so cute when you’re pissed off.”

“Why do you need to look at me when you have him?” Mio could hear Taion struggling against E’s grip.

“I don’t need to explain myself,” E slammed her fist against the wall. “Ooh, you flinched! You really thought I was going to punch you?”

“I think I know why you’re here,” Mio was surprised Taion wasn’t bluffing. “T did something you didn’t like, so you’re taking it out on me.”

E punched the wall again. “He’s in his books more than- you know what? Spark this, I’m going to talk to him.”

A wooshing sound signalled E’s exit. Mio waited for E to warp somewhere else in the corridor, and breathed a sigh of relief when she didn’t. Taion, on the other hand, sighed in frustration.

“Don’t let her get to you,” Mio said.

“You heard all that?”

“It was hard not to, sorry. She had no right to have a go at you like that.”

“Unfortunately for us, she can do as she pleases.”

“At least you don’t sound like you’re injured,” Mio said, hoping a change in subject would relieve the tension. She, of all people, knew about the loss of sensation late tenth termers experienced. The cold stone against her back was proof enough that she could feel again.

“Nothing seems to be broken,” this didn’t reassure Mio. “Speaking of injuries, how’s Eunie?”

“The bruise on her eye’s healing,” Mio wasn’t going to tell him that she had been refusing to let anyone treat her wounds. “And the ones from where E shot her have healed up.”

“And what about you, Mio?” Taion asked.

“Me? Um, I’ve been doing okay. The others are all right too.”

“That’s good.”

Mio wished she could talk about something, anything, in the little time they had left. There was so much to say, but she couldn’t find the words. She didn’t know if she ever would.

“Well, I’m starting to feel a little sleepy,” Mio lied. “I’ll talk to you tomorrow.”

“Uh, same here,” Mio was selfishly glad that Taion was lying too. “Goodnight, Mio.”

“‘Night, Taion.”

From where she sat, Mio could see the stars in the sky. They stood out against the aurora, which stood out more without the moon out. They only had until midday tomorrow, and then it would be over for them all. Their hope for escape had faded with Eunie’s black eye. 

Noah leaned on Mio, pretending to sleep. She could feel his warmth through her jacket.

“You know, I never called you by your name,” Mio said.

Noah pretended to wake up, rubbing his clear eyes to sell the act. “I guess you haven’t.”

“It’s going to sound a bit silly, but I was afraid that I would get too attached if I called you by your name. But now it’s coming to an end, I can’t bear to think about what life would be like without my Noah.”

Noah wrapped his arm around her shoulders. Mio clung to his embrace like a lifeline. “It’s not silly at all.”

She wished this could last forever. Even if she had made full use of the extra time Taion had given her, it would never have been enough. Maybe she’d meet him in their next life, but the chances of them being together like this was minuscule. 

Some may have found beauty in dying with their love, but Mio thought it was a waste.

“It’s almost midnight,” Taion’s voice was too matter-of-fact for a man who had little time left.

Noah loosened his grip on Mio so he could sit up properly. One of them had to keep them all from falling apart, and that responsibility, as always, fell to him. “They let you keep that pocket watch?”

A bitter laugh answered her question. “They didn’t want me to be late for my own Homecoming.”

‘The Homecoming that should have been for me,’ Mio thought. Everyone she cared about kept dying for her sake, when she didn't deserve any of it. She wished it was her that was languishing alone inste-

“I know what you’re thinking, Mio,” Taion said, pulling Mio out of her spiral. “And you should stop right now.”

“How can I?” Mio asked, her strained voice betraying her. “You’re going to die because of me!”

“If it’s anyone’s fault, it’s E’s,” Eunie said. She’d barely eaten or slept, the light in her eyes dimmed after E’s repeat visits. Her hair was a mess, and she had refused to let anyone comb it.

Noah thought back to their battle, though it was a stretch to call it as such. She had them at her mercy in six shots. His mind raced with ways he could have won that fight. He could have warned Eunie that E would attack her if she went for T. He could have attacked X before she used her staff. He had Lucky Seven and he stupidly thought he didn’t need to draw it back then. And now they were here.

Waiting.

He then wondered what it was like for Taion. Preparing for Mio’s inevitable death, making backups for the backup plans, only to have his own life snuffed out before her. Noah could picture him sitting against the wall separating them, his pocket watch in one hand, and staring at his fading mark on the other. He must have heard what E had put them through, and Noah knew he would have hated being powerless to stop her.

“Would you have done anything differently, Taion?” Noah asked.

“Are you thinking about the battle?” he responded. “There’s no way you could have anticipated those two coming up with that.”

Noah conceded that point. “I guess you’re right.”

“But part of me is glad E did that,” Taion paused, and took a shaky breath. “If that meant Mio got an extension.”

That opened the floodgates. Eunie buried her face in her hands and wailed, which tipped Mio over the edge.

“Not like this,” she sobbed, burying her face into Noah’s jacket. “Not again.”

“You… You snuffing idiot,” Eunie choked out. “W-we could have found another way.”

Sena tried to blink away her own tears. “It should have been me.”

Lanz was there physically, but he was miles away. Noah selfishly wished he could detach himself like that. Instead, he felt the tears well up in his own eyes. If he had been better, they would have saved Aionios by now.

“Don’t say that, Sena,” Taion said, his own voice wavering. “You need to be there for Mio and the others.”

Sena rubbed her eyes and forced a smile. “I’ll-I’ll do my best.”

“And Mio, if you get out of this, can you finish what I started?”

Mio removed herself from Noah’s jacket. Her eyes were puffy, and the tears that were soaked up by Noah’s jacket were now running down her face. “That’s the least I can do.”

The hands on the watch shifted, both hands proudly pointing upwards.

Chapter Text

The eclipse had just started, the new moon obscuring most of the sun’s rays on this clear day. Eunie wanted to look up at the sky, even if the still-bright sun would burn her retinas. Instead, she looked at her friends. The month had not been kind to them, and they looked as resigned to their fate as she was.

Normally, the world stood in silence during a solar eclipse, but today was an exception.

The audience jeered at Ouroboros as they were forced to kneel in the middle of the courtyard, facing the throne. Their hands were bound behind their backs, but X stood by with her staff just in case. Mio couldn’t discern a single jibe from the overwhelming chatter behind her, nor did she want to.

The throne was also teeming with people. There was Queen Nia in the middle, flanked by X and Shania on her right hand side, and E and T on her left. Shania kept her eyes on Ouroboros, her grin widening as she took in their despair. E had reigned in her emotions, but the ends of her mouth quivering upwards revealed her smug satisfaction. X and T, on the other hand, elected to keep their masks on.

The rest of the available space at the throne was taken up by two rows of off-seers. They all had their flutes out, ready for the big moment.

Queen Nia stood up, and the jeers turned into jubilation. They all chanted for their queen, who had deigned to grace them with her presence. She waited for the audience to quieten a little before starting her speech.

“Trace our ancestry back a thousand years, and you will find an off-seer, carrying out the first Homecoming…”

“Ugh, I always thought the speeches were the worst part,” Lanz scoffed, turning their attention away from the Queen’s scripted drivel. “It drags the whole thing out.”

“I can’t believe I gave my all for that phoney,” Sena said, not even trying to sound cheerful. “It all feels like a waste now.”

“Even if she’s the real thing, I want to knock her off her high horse,” Eunie commented, glaring at the masked woman.

Noah’s attempt at reassurance felt hollow. “We’ve done all we can, the future’s in Ghondor’s hands now.”

“And we’ll be back in the cycle, like this had never happened,” Mio’s voice was the quietest of the five. “I hope the City can carry on without us.”

“Shush, it’s about to start!” their guard whispered harshly.

“...Engrave this onto your hearts. As he...now returns to me. Ad perpetuam rei memoriam!”

The sky went completely dark as Queen Nia concluded her speech, which was the cue of the off-seers to start playing. On a technical level, the way each musician harmonised their interpolations of the Agnian off-seeing melody was flawless. 

However, the ceremony was not about them.

The grand doors behind the crowd opened, revealing where Taion had been the whole time. He paid no attention to the guards nor the crowd as he walked to the throne, slowing down a little as he passed his friends.

Sena wanted to say something reassuring when he briefly made eye contact with her, but the words died on her tongue. Part of her wanted to thank him for all the times his quick thinking had saved them, but that felt too insignificant now. She could show gratitude for his sacrifice, but she knew he didn’t do that willingly. Maybe if she looked into his eyes for long enough, he’d understand what words couldn’t express.

“Hurry up!” whispered the guard, who nudged Taion forward. “Her majesty’s waiting for you.”

Reluctantly, Taion walked away from his friends. He didn’t pay attention to the Consuls as he ascended the steps. They, on the other hand, were looking at him. E briefly turned around to face T, who nodded at her. She turned back to face Taion. X slouched on a pillar, already checked out mentally.

Taion stayed standing in front of the Queen until an impatient guard pushed him on his knees. Eunie, incensed at seeing him be manhandled, scrambled to her feet and dashed to the throne. Mio followed suit. 

Noah, not wanting to leave Mio’s side, trailed behind them. 

All three of them were effortlessly subdued by the guards. Eunie had made it further than Noah and Mio, but even she was too far away to reach Taion.

The golden consul, amused at this display, picked up two flutes and descended the steps. When she reached the last step, she tossed the flutes in the direction of the off-seers. The black flute rolled in Noah’s direction, while its white counterpart landed in front of Mio.

“You’re off-seers, right,” she said, fully aware that their hands were tied. “So send him.”

Even if Mio’s hands were free, they would have been too shaky to play anything. The cacophony of quivering notes would not have done this moment justice, even if it was how she felt on the inside. Instead, she tried to compose herself as she was forced to watch.

Eunie, on the other hand, was in tears. She tried to get up a second time, only to be pushed back down by a guard. The only thing she could do was watch as gold motes started to float from Taion. 

Eunie couldn’t tell whether he too was glowing, or if her blurry eyes were playing tricks on her.

More motes spilled out, bathing the space in a golden glow. Taion turned back to look at his partner for the final time, and smiled.

“Eunie…It was good while it lasted.”

And then he was gone, reduced to nothing but gold particles and a pile of clothes at Queen Nia’s feet. The off-seeing melody, too, had stopped.

The motes spilled across the room from where he had knelt, lighting up the area in its darkest moment. Shania smiled as she saw the last of the motes float past her, while E watched Eunie lose the last bit of hope she had. 

“No…” Eunie choked, tears spilling onto the floor. Her chest felt tight, and she felt like she was held underwater. “Taion!”

The world brightened up, signalling the end of the Homecoming. E, satisfied with the reaction she got, moved to the next stage of her plan. She removed her rifle from its perch on her back, cocked it, and aimed it at Eunie. She could see up the barrel from the angle it was aimed at her. 

The dull gold paint coating the inside of the barrel and her own smirking face in the sunlight were the last things Eunie was going to see this lifetime.

“D says hi, by the way,” E said, and pulled the trigger.

Chapter Text

Eunie squeezed her eyes shut, bracing for the shot that never came. She heard an explosion, but felt nothing hit her but the residual heat. She opened her eyes. The bang she heard turned out to be the gun itself exploding. E staggered back, giving Eunie the opportunity to notice the burning scraps of metal scattered on the ground.

Then she heard the sound of her bindings breaking apart.

“Wha-” Mio said from behind her, then raised her voice. “Guys, our hands!”

“No time to hesitate!” Manana yelled as she shoved the guard that had kept her prisoner until now. Following her cue, the rest of the group had made quick work of the guards surrounding them. Lanz, Sena, Riku and Manana successfully tossed them all into the crowd below, causing panic as the crowd scattered to avoid being flattened by their comrades.

With everyone’s attention on the guards, no-one was looking at the throne. That was until X screamed in frustration.

“E, do something!”

E’s shock was a dark reflection of Eunie’s surprise. “I can’t do shit without my snuffing gun!”

“Take mine!” Shania yelled, tossing her handgun to E. 

E didn’t hesitate to point this gun at Eunie and fire. 

The blast was deflected by a paper barrier. She looked up to the throne, noticing that T had finally taken action. His white blade was drawn, and his right arm held out at Eunie’s direction. T used his free hand to dissolve his mask. His expression was calm on the surface, but Eunie was familiar with the cool rage behind his glassy gaze.

“What the spark do you think you’re doing, T?” E growled, firing another blast into the barrier. It did not budge.

T ignored her. In fact, he ignored both E and Eunie as he walked past them both. He bent down to pick up the scattered flutes, offering the black one to Mio and the white one to Noah. Noah’s eyes widened in realisation a split second before Mio’s did.

“They don’t look like they’re broken,” T said as the two accepted the flutes. “I hope you can forgive me for not taking better care of them.” 

Eunie had her suspicions, but it was all but confirmed what had gone down now. 

It wasn’t funny. It wasn’t funny at all, but she still felt a quiver from the bottom of her lungs. She covered her mouth with her hands, struggling to stifle her involuntary laugh.

“What’s so funny?” E yelled, firing another blast in a vain attempt to relieve her frustration. That was all it took for Eunie’s titters to turn into full-on laughter.

“You-” Eunie managed to get out between laughs. “You should hear it from him.”

T didn’t acknowledge E, instead choosing to approach Lanz. His left hand was raised.

“Just because you two look the same, doesn’t mean I’ll-” Lanz noticed that T wasn’t interested in a high five. He looked at the palm, which he didn’t realise was ungloved until now, and saw the ninth term mark in the middle. “No snuffin’ way.”

Noah’s attention was elsewhere. “Mio’s mark is gone!”

This information shocked Mio, who instinctively put her hand on where the mark would have been. She wished she could confirm this for herself, but she had a feeling E was going to do that for her.

“If she’s not got the mark, and T does,” E’s voice was so low that Eunie barely registered it. “Then…”

E looked at the man she thought was T, then at the pile of clothes at the throne. He was near Eunie and her friends. Not her. That said it all.

She screamed at the sky, futile in her attempt to reach motes that were long gone. She staggered toward the two like a woman possessed, swinging Shania’s pistol indiscriminately. 

“WHY TAION? Why would you do this to me! It was meant to be the two of us! TOGETHER, FOREVER!”

“All these years, and you never realised?” ‘T’ responded. “He didn’t want forever if it meant being smothered by you!”

“I was protecting him!” E yelled.

“Protecting from what? You’re Moebius!” Eunie asked. “You wanted him to be reliant on you!”

E pointed the gun at Eunie, finger twitching on the trigger. “YOU DON’T KNOW ME!”

Mio and Sena watched at a safe distance. Since they still couldn’t draw their blades, their options for stopping E were limited. They kept a close eye on her. Sena saw E remove her finger from the trigger, but did not want to wait for her to change her mind.

“Should we do something?” Sena whispered to Mio.

“Maybe we should- never mind, Taion’s already disarmed her.”

Sena missed the flurry of paper that had knocked the gun out of E’s hand, but she could hear the unmistakable sound of a gun skittering across the stone. That wasn’t going to stop E, who charged in the direction of her target. Eunie sidestepped, watching her doppelganger dig her heels into the ground to stop the momentum.

“I don’t think you know yourself,” Eunie argued. “You haven’t for a while now.”

E staggered to a stop, and turned back around. Her whole body was shaking, and she clutched a hand to her forehead.

“Even if I lose my very self, I'll never forget why I'm doing this!” E yelled, then pointed with her free hand. “It was all for you, Taion. Eternity meant something with you by my side.”

E’s pointed finger shifted. “Eunie, my cheap imitation, you’ve stolen the only good thing I had!” 

X’s focus was on E’s ridiculous display. The second-hand embarrassment was too much, but she couldn’t look away. That turned out to be a big mistake, as she hadn’t paid attention to anyone else.

Taion, noticing the window of opportunity, casted a wave of Mondo in X’s direction. She used her staff to defend herself, but in the process she undid the seals she had applied to Ouroboros. Noah and Mio took advantage of their re-established connection, turned into Mio’s Ouroboros form, and effortlessly destroyed X’s sceptre.

“For fuck’s sake!” X screeched. “Z’s never going to replace that.”

“Shame,” Noah and Mio said simultaneously. 

Lanz and Sena summoned their blades as they met up with Eunie and Taion. E was outmatched, unarmed, and surrounded.

“You’re not giving up now!” Shania shouted at E. “Can’t you use your real weapon?”

E held out a hand. It was trembling, even as she grabbed her newly-summoned gunrod. She charged it up, flashing a wicked grin as its purple aura increased in intensity.

Riku and Manana were the last to join the group around E.

“Noah, now time to draw true Lucky Seven!” Riku shouted, not acknowledging the purple light flashing against his fur.

“Right,” Noah said, switching from Mio’s Ouroboros form to his own. He heard something call him from within his core, as if he had done something like this a lifetime ago. He reached into his core, and pulled out a sword that looked like a larger version of Lucky Seven. He looked at the blade for a moment, then swiped it when E fired her gunrod, cleaving the purple beam in two. 

E held her weapon in a defensive grip as she braced herself against the force of the nullified blast. “How did he get his hands on the Sword of Origin?”

X was equally confused. “Where did he get that from? That hasn’t been around since…”

Riku smiled innocently.

Noah and Mio, knowing they had unfinished business to take care of, turned their attention to E. Her eyes widened as they approached her.

“I don’t know the full story,” Noah said, his right eye flashing as he spoke. “But something like this takes a lot of planning.”

Noah's left eye started flashing as Mio piped up. “Don’t you get it, E? T didn’t want to be with you anymore! You left him with no choice but to die!”

Noah and Mio slashed at E, knocking the gunrod out of her hands and and E herself to the floor. E, however, did not relent. She got up, albeit shakily, and made a run for the scattered weapon. Lanz and Sena, now in their Ouroboros form, swung their fist at E, connecting with the centre of her chest. She collapsed, the air knocked out of her.

E didn’t even bother to summon her gunrod back to her hand. She stayed kneeling, too exhausted to even look up from the cobblestone floor. Noah and Mio still had the Sword of Origin by their side. The mere thought of them cutting her down with that blade shook E to her core.

“She’s not gonna fight them, is she? This is embarrassing to watch.” X said, ignoring both her foes and the distressed state of her ally. She rested her chin in her hand and let out an exaggerated sigh. “Guess I’ll have to let her finish her tantrum at Z’s place.”

And just like that, E vanished.

“She may be done for now, but I’m not,” X said, glaring at Ouroboros.

The floor shook, knocking everyone off balance. Queen Nia’s throne had transformed into a battle-ready Levnis, and she was in the pilot’s seat. She opened fire indiscriminately, scattering the Homecoming crowd.

“Spark!” Eunie shouted. “She really was a fake.”

“We need to destroy her before she kills someone!” Mio shouted.

“On it!” Noah replied.

With a single swipe of the Sword of Origin, he destroyed the false Nia and her throne. Agnus Castle was free from the Flame Clock.

“W-with one blow…!” X stuttered, her usual bravado gone.

Noah and Mio cancelled their interlink. Lanz and Sena followed suit.

“So, do you think you’ve won?” X asked, her voice dripping with contempt as if she had never lost her composure. “Will you think that after I’ve done this?”

The tremor came from further below this time. They couldn’t see what had poked out from below, but they didn’t need to when they could see the black fog being sucked in.

“Another Annihilator?” Mio said, shocked but not surprised. “What are you using that on?”

“The City of course!” X beamed. “No prizes for guessing who told us where it is.”

Sena glared at Shania, who gave her a cheery wave. Shania looked across to take in the looks on everyone else’s faces, revelling in their horror. Her smile dropped the moment she looked at Taion.

“Why are you looking so smug?” Shania asked.

Eunie turned to look at Taion. He was smiling at a time like this?

“What’s wrong?” he asked, hands resting on the silver plate on his hips. Eunie wondered if he got too into character when he had to play the role of Moebius.

X peered over the edge, inspecting the weapon. “What did you do to the Annihilator?”

“I didn’t touch it.”

Sena turned to Lanz. “What’s he trying to do?”

Lanz shrugged his shoulders. “Beats me. Do you think he’s sabotaged it?”

Sena didn’t think Taion could do that without his Ouroboros form, and he and Eunie were the only ones that hadn’t transformed today. “No. I think he’s done something different. But what-”

“SHUT THE HELL UP!” Shania yelled. “I don’t care if the Annihilator kills us, I want the City gone!”

“Shania, you don’t have to do this!” Sena shouted. 

The castle shook some more as the Annihilator sucked in more of the black fog. Shania clung to a pillar while Ouroboros struggled to keep themselves upright. 

X raised her hands in the air in reverence. “Z!” she shouted, rapturously, before vanishing in a flurry of purple motes. 

The Annihilator fired.

Nothing happened. Even the castle had stopped moving.

Then, part of the Great Sword imploded.

From the castle, they could see rubble floating in the air, propelled by the force of the attack before coming to a stop mid-air.

The world was as silent as it should have been during the eclipse.

“No…” Noah whispered. “This is all my fault. I should have destroyed it before it fired.”

“This isn’t anybody’s fault but hers,” Eunie said, glaring at Shania’s direction.

Shania grinned, but her eyes did not match her smile.

‘So what do we do now?’ Noah thought. The City, the reason they even went on this journey, was gone. He hoped that the people had died oblivious to the carnage, but a contradictory part of him hoped they were able get out of the range of the blast.

Mio heard the whirring of engines from below the castle. “Guys, something’s coming!”

The ‘something’s turned out to be City Levnises. 

Shania was to stunned to do anything but watch them land in the courtyard. The hatch of the closest ship opened, revealing the people inside.

“Guess who’s back, bitches!” Ghondor announced, as she walked up the steps to where the throne used to be.

“Ghondor!” Mio said, elated to see her again. “You’re okay.”

“And so’s everyone else,” Ghondor replied, barely hiding her own joy at seeing Ouroboros again. “Turns out that the City is a massive Ferronis.”

“So where is it now?” Lanz asked. Ghondor pinged him and the rest of Ouroboros its location.

“It’s under the Great Sea. If your friend hadn’t called us, we’d be up shit creek by now.”

“Wait, Taion called you?” Noah asked.

“He did,” Ghondor answered. “And thanks to him, I also know why our traitor is doing this.”

Ghondor glared at her former friend. There was so much she wanted to say to Shania, but she knew she wasn’t the right person to get through to her. She never was. And she never will be.

“You may know, but you don’t understand!” Shania yelled. “You’ve always looked at me like I was someone to be pitied, but you never reached out! Why am I always here, alone?”

That was when it hit Sena that Shania had just realised that E and X weren’t the friends she thought they were. They’d left her behind to save their own skins.

“When we’re done here, I’ll give your mum a piece of my mind,” Ghondor muttered.

“It’s too late for that!” Shania yelled, summoning her handgun. “I’ve had it up to here.”

She pointed the gun at Ghondor, which triggered everyone else to draw their own blades. Sena, like Ghondor, opted to keep herself unarmed.

Shania pointed the gun to her own head.

“This isn’t what I meant by ‘done’!” Ghondor panicked. “Put the gun down, this doesn’t have to end here.”

“Don’t get this mixed up,” Shania said, a single tear rolling down her eye. “THIS IS THE BEGINNING!”

Sena and Ghondor tried to stop Shania, but neither of them could outrun a bullet at point blank range. Shania collapsed to the ground, and everything went dark.

Chapter Text

With the destruction of the false Queen and Shania’s death, what had been an intense month was over. Ghondor took control of the castle’s administration, and already had her crew make a start on clearing up the grounds.

As for Ghondor herself, she was with Sena, and both of them were watching Noah and Mio play the off-seeing melody for Shania. Noah had insisted after learning what had driven her to do everything.

“I knew her mum was a bit of an arsehole, but I didn’t realise she was this bad,” Ghondor said, her voice low enough to be almost overwhelmed by the melody.

“Would you have treated Shania differently if you knew?” Sena asked.

Ghondor scoffed. “Speculating’s not gonna bring her back.”

“I guess not.”

Noah and Mio finished the rites, and put their flutes away. The four stood and watched the last of the blue motes float up to the sky. Sena knew Ghondor was putting on a brave face, but she still wanted to reassure her. 

“She did say ‘this is the beginning’. Maybe we’ll find her in one of the colonies?”

Ghondor hummed noncommittally. “If she’s Kevesi, she’s not the Shania I know.”

Eunie and Taion did not stick around to see Shania off. They were in the break room, which was around the corner from the cells. Eunie was seated in one of the chairs by the table, while Taion examined her arm. Eunie could feel the ether flow through the limb, even if there was nothing to heal.

She tried to remove her arm. “Do you need to do this? I’m fine.”

Taion ignored her complaining. “You did not look ‘fine’ an hour ago. You’re lucky you didn’t fracture your arm or cut yourself on something.”

“It was just a few bruises, and they faded ages ago.”

“You know better than I do how bad untreated injuries can get.”

“Yeah yeah,” Eunie ran her fingers of her free hand through her hair, and winced when she pulled on a tangle. “Ugh, I’d better have Mio take care of this bird’s nest.”

She got up to look for her. “I’ll see you in a bit.”

After an afternoon of fighting (Lanz and Sena insisted it was the best way to shake off the rust), Noah was relieved to see that part of the castle had been cleaned up while they were gone. It was a sign of things going back to relative normalcy, and it was a great first step towards friendly relations with the castle’s residents. 

One of the Lost Numbers had set up a campsite for Ouroboros to make use of, so they gathered around the portable fire pit after making themselves some tea. Ghondor joined them shortly after, along with a bundle of logs. She dropped them in a heap on the ground, then picked up one to throw onto the flames. Lanz and Sena finished the last of their cool-down exercises and invited Ghondor to sit by them. On the other side, Riku and Manana sat closest to the pit, watching the flames peek out from the top. Mio was combing through the last of the tangles in Eunie’s hair, taking great care not to pull too hard on the knots. Finally, Taion took a seat.

Sena turned around when she heard the sound of metal hit the chair. “Are you sure you don’t want to get changed?”

Taion shook his head. “I’ll do that later. We’ve got more important matters to discuss right now.”

Mio put away her comb and sat down next to Noah. Eunie ran her hand through the strands, then nodded at Mio to show her appreciation. Lanz and Ghondor wrapped up their chat.

“I think I know a good chunk of what happened back there, but you need to explain the rest,” Noah took a sip from his cup. “Just so we’re all up to speed.”

“Yeah! How did you manage to pull off, well, everything?” Sena asked. 

“It was more T than me,” Taion said. “I was only privy to his plan when we were fighting him.”

Taion didn’t know how things had gone wrong so quickly. The barrage of blasts from the false Eunies and Lanzes had forced Ouroboros to scatter in all directions, making it difficult to coordinate a counterattack. He knew it wasn’t the best move to run away from the illusions, but the alternative was to be an easy target for them to pick off. 

If T was a smart man, he would take the opportunity to fight his double one-on-one. Unfortunately for Taion, that had been his plan all along. One of the false Lanzs vanished, revealing T in its place. Taion didn’t want to give him a chance to attack, so he made the first move. His paper attacks were answered with steel, the two exploding on contact. It was clear they were evenly matched.

“Stop. I don’t want to hurt you,” T said after dodging another wave of paper.

“You could have fooled me,” Taion retorted as he prepared another attack. This time it was two paper birds, which glided up in the air before diving toward T. Like before, T destroyed them before they could do any damage.

“Just… wait for a moment.”

Taion stopped his assault, but he did not dismiss his blade nor the Mondo encircling him. While he had been attacking him and the others, he wasn’t trying to kill him yet. He’d hear T out, he rationalised, and then decide whether to carry on fighting him. 

T dismissed his own blade. “You’re doing all of this for that girl. How far would you go for her?”

“For Mio?” Taion asked, instinctively reaching for the swirling talismans. “I’d do anything.”

“Even trade places with me?” T noticed his opponent’s visible eye narrowing in a mix of suspicion and curiosity, even if his arm withdrew. “If you do as I say, she’ll get that extra time you want for her.”

This sounded too good to be true. “And what do you get out of it?”

“I’ll be able to get away from E for good,” T was too flippant about this for it to be the real reason. “She won’t follow me through death’s door.”

“Why? And more importantly, how?”

T ignored the first question. “I’ve had the idea of using her life-swapping power for a while now. In case you don’t already know, only Ouroboros can kill Moebius under normal circumstances.”

“...Swapping lifespans is an exceptional circumstance?”

T nodded. “And this technically fulfils the Ouroboros requirement.”

“So that’s your plan? We pretend to be each other, you somehow convince E to swap your life with Mio’s, and then you die?" What if E overheard them? Or if she saw through him instantly? There were too many ways this plan could go awry for Taion’s liking.

“Do you have any better ideas?” T waited for an answer he knew wouldn’t come. “And I won’t be convincing her. You will.”

T didn’t give Taion the opportunity to properly consider this plan, having taken his hesitation as consent. He raised his left hand, and the glowing Moebius symbol in the palm turned the world red for a moment. When it faded, he saw that T was wearing his clothes. He assessed his own appearance, and found that his own clothing had been replaced with the silver consul outfit. 

He instinctively moved to adjust his glasses, and was surprised to feel the plastic against his finger. He took them off. He could feel the weight of them in his hands, but they were completely transparent. He carefully put them back on.

“This is merely a glamour,” T stated, pointing to his own glasses and eyepatch. “We'll complete the swap later.”

T ran off, shouting Mio’s name to catch her attention. There were multiple Mios, but only one turned around when she heard him. T sent a wave of illusory Mondo to disintegrate the false Mios, while he raised his hand at Taion’s direction. 

He felt his appearance shift again, this time changing to match Noah’s appearance. The disguise wasn’t perfect, as Noah’s shorter stature made Taion feel uncoordinated. He took a step forward to test his balance, and found that he was steady enough to fight.

If he was meant to be his friend, he had to swap his blade for Noah’s red sword before he could search for the real deal. With the fighting going on, it was unlikely that anyone would spot that the hilt was a different shape. 

He scanned the arena. Luckily, there was only one Noah, and he had just finished cleaving through the last of his body doubles. Taion ran over to clash blades with him while T and Mio made quick work of the illusions that were overwhelming Eunie.

“Wait-wait-wait,” Eunie interrupted. “How did the consul disguise not disappear when you got hurt? Noah definitely did a number on you.”

“Sorry,” Noah said, rubbing the back of his head. “You did put up a fight.”

“And the shapeshifting. That sounds a lot like Irma’s power,” Sena pointed out. “I tried bashing the fake ferronis and the illusion didn’t budge.”

“And Irma’s illusions only vanished when she died,” Mio added.

“I think it was part of T’s plan,” Taion thought out loud. “To act like his illusions were flimsy, when he was actually the one that was destroying them.”

His appearance shifted again, this time he felt even shorter. A quick glance at his arms showed chartreuse sleeves poking out of a black jacket. He swapped Noah’s sword for Eunie’s gunrod and opened fire on T. Predictably, he dodged the blast.

“If only there was a way I could detect which one was real…” T said, using Lanz as cover while he pretended to come up with a plan.

“Are you on to something?” Lanz asked. He raised his blade to deflect a blast from Taion’s gunrod.

“I got it!” T shouted as if he wasn’t the one responsible for this chaos. “I can use the Mondo to tag everyone, including him.”

The impostor got into position. Eunie, hearing the commotion, slammed her own gunrod into the ground to amplify the ether around them. The false Mondo spread out, hovering above Ouroboros.

Taion caught a glimpse of the one floating next to him, but his reflexes were too slow to avoid a blast to the side. Since the armour was fake, the ether met no resistance as the fresh pain mixed with the injury from Noah’s swipe.

After that, T stopped summoning the doubles so he could focus on manoeuvring the drones.

Taion was glad that he could count the number of people that primarily used his weapon type on one hand. It meant that even if someone instantly became an expert in the blade, they couldn’t tell if someone was pretending to be its wielder.

Especially since he didn’t expect T to raise the drones above his head, leaving him wide open for another blast from Eunie.

Taion wondered if he’d been tricked, and T’s real plan had been to kill him and take his place. It would be a cruel end, to be gunned down by his own partner, and that was not a fate he was going to accept. He got ready to summon his real blade, to do away with the plan, only to be distracted by a guttural scream.

E knocked Eunie to the ground. He had to resist the urge to run up to E and grab her raised fist, otherwise the plan would be over before it truly began. Taion closed his eyes, but that did not drown out the sound of a fist hitting flesh. 

Noah’s intervention was a relief.

“You’re going to pay for hurting my T,” E growled as she charged her gunrod. Her golden armour reflected the increasingly intense purple light coming from the blade. “I knew he was too weak to fight you, but I’m never going to make that mistake again!”

The force of the blast nearly knocked Taion to the ground, and he was at a safer distance than his friends. Next to their collapsed bodies was a crater that reminded him of the holes left behind by Annihilation Events. He saw Lanz scramble to his feet, muscles straining as he supported himself with his shieldblade. Ouroboros got back up, and E shot them down once again. Lanz was the last one standing, but he too collapsed after E swung at him with her gunrod.

She then turned it around so the barrel was at Lanz’s head. Taion could see the blade glow with that infernal purple colour, and realised he was going to die if he didn’t intervene.

“E!” Taion shouted as he got close to the Moebius. E stopped when she heard him, and thankfully lowered her gun. “This is a bit inelegant-”

“What, like death’s ever been elegant?” E argued.

“No, but that doesn’t mean they have to meet their end right now,” Taion forced a smile. E, like any Moebius, lived for entertainment. “We can do anything we want to them, and they won’t be able to stop us.”

“Oh yeah, that Agnian’s due a Homecoming. We can make them wait for it.”

“Would you really be satisfied with that?” Taion asked. He had her interest, all he needed to do was steer her to the predetermined conclusion.

“What d’you mean?” E questioned, tugging at her headwing.

“Making them wait for Mio’s Homecoming. When’s the last time you used that power, E?”

“Yeah, yeah, I’m picking up what you’re putting down.”

“Which one do you want to do it to?” Taion asked, quickly shifting his focus on each of his friends. He settled his gaze on Eunie, who glared back at him with an intensity he hadn’t seen since Alfeto Valley. He quickly came up with an excuse for looking at her for a bit longer than the others. “You could get rid of your shadow for good.”

E bristled at the suggestion, which made the next step of the plan a lot easier. “No snuffin’ way, T.”

“So who, then?”

E hummed, flicking her wing as she deliberated. “Are you particularly attached to your shadow, T?”

“Not really,” Taion replied. While his contemplative gesture was an act, the hesitation was real. He looked at T, and wondered if he had any lingering doubts. T’s gaze was resolute, urging him to seal his fate.

“Actually, I don’t think you’d want to see an imitation of me running around, either. You grab him, I’ll get the tenth termer.” 

“You could have been a bit more gentle,” Mio said, waving the cup in her hand. She quickly stopped when the liquid threatened to spill over. “You threw me over the shoulder like a potato sack!”

“Yeah, how dare he save your life,” Eunie teased, realising a moment too late that she had gone too far. “Shit, sorry.”

“No, I should be apologising,” Mio turned to face Taion. “I’m sorry.”

Taion held a hand up. “You didn’t do anything wrong. If anyone is at fault, it's me for putting you through all that.”

“Wow, it’s apologies all round,” Sena commented. “Since we’re all doing it, I’m sorry for not telling any of you about Shania.”

Lanz sighed. “That wasn’t your fault, Sena.”

Noah stared into his cup, hoping that the swirling tea leaf would give him an idea of what to apologise for. His answer was in multitudes, and he wasn’t sure if he was ready to put it all into words. The awkward silence was filled by the crackling fire and the occasional sip of tea.

Manana broke the tension. “Manana is perfect, no nothing to say sorry for!”

Sena giggled. “Never change, Manana.”

Riku looked up. “Riku tired of apologies, so Riku forgive all of you.”

“Thanks, furball,” Lanz said. There was a hint of sincerity behind the snark.

“Riku want catch-up done by dinner, that all.”

Eunie was also eager to get the discussion back on track. “I'll ask the next question then. After we all got captured, you had some time to grill T, right?”

“I wouldn’t call it a grilling, per se,” Taion answered. “But I did get to talk to him after the battle.”

“Did you learn anything useful?” Eunie asked.

The short trip to the top of the castle felt like an eternity, even if they took a separate levnis from the others. They disembarked when they reached the destination, and waited for the ship to return. When they landed, the castle guards grabbed one prisoner each.

Taion stopped the guard who was about to take T into their custody. 

“I’ll deal with this one.”

The guard didn’t question him, thanks to the conditioning. They stepped back and returned to their post.

While the others were led to the cells on the left side of the grounds, they turned right. If Taion’s memory of the castle’s inner workings was correct, then the right wing was less frequently visited. The official reason was that it was the Queen’s personal quarters, but it likely had another purpose.

“You’re only bothering with that one?” E shouted. She hadn’t moved from the levnis until now, since she was approaching him.

Taion turned to face her. “People are more likely to talk when they know they’ll die soon.”

She rolled her eyes. “You can count me out of all that. Guess I’ll have to keep myself occupied, then.”

Surprisingly, she went to the throne instead of the cells. Taion assumed she had to keep up appearances and update the “Queen”. He guided T through the doors, and let him take over directions once nobody could see them. They entered a nearby room, which T locked behind them.

The windowless room was bare, save for a metal table with matching chairs on either side. The lamps lining the walls casted light in all directions.

T finally dissolved their disguises. Taion turned his left arm over and saw that his mark had also reappeared.

He held up his hand so T could see the mark. “You should change this.”

T’s own hand glowed, and nine faded to ten.

“Take a seat,” T offered.

Taion sat down, then T followed suit.

Now they were at eye level, and no longer in the heat of battle, it was easier to take in T’s appearance. Looking at T didn’t give him a pounding headache any more, which was a relief. 

There were obvious differences, like the armour and the lack of glasses, but there were some things that were not apparent until now. The absence of dark circles under the eyes was surprising, based on what little he knew of T. As for the eyes themselves, they were unusually bright in the dim light.

“Do you know why you’re here?” T asked, breaking the silence.

Taion wasn’t sure whether T expected him to answer honestly. He was still pissed off from T’s reckless gambit. If E hadn’t reacted so strongly, he’d be a husk right now.

He decided to keep quiet.

“You are here because I want answers,” T answered. “You’re the first one to become Ouroboros.”

That didn’t surprise Taion. He remembered the entitlement emanating from the Ouroboros candidates when he first came to the City. They saw this power as their right, and they were not willing to share with outsiders.

T continued. “...And you’re the second to fight alongside Eunie. Do you know why your Eunie is a healer?”

“That’s not my story to tell,” Taion answered, crossing his arms to signal that this was not up for discussion.

T folded his arms so as to mirror Taion. “Is there anything about her you’re willing to tell me?”

“She was from Colony 9, but originally came from 14. She’s been with Noah and Lanz since they were born.”

He hoped the short answers made it clear that this discussion was pointless for the both of them. The past couldn’t be changed, and they needed to plan for the future.

While T did change topic, he was still looking back. 

“Why did you become Ouroboros?”

Luckily for Taion, Mio answered that question a while ago. “It was by chance. I just happened to be in range of the stone when it activated.”

Unlike Teach, T didn’t seem to be affected by that response. “Of course. And why is Eunie your partner?”

“I don’t remember, but I’m guessing she was closest to me at the time.”

“You originally wanted Lanz as your partner,-”

‘How did he know that?’ Taion thought. Only Lanz and Sena had heard him, and he’s assuming they even remember that morning. If he already knew about his circumstances, why was he bothering with the questions?

“-Do you feel the same way now?”

“Of course not!”

“Is it because of Eunie?” T asked, but he did not wait for an answer this time. He sighed before continuing. “I don't get it. You and her are at each other’s throats one moment, and the next you’re chatting like that never happened. What do you see in her?” 

“I like her, isn’t that enough!?”

T’s stunned expression was unexpected, but not unwelcome. After the incessant and occasionally intrusive questions, a small part of Taion revelled in breaking through his other self’s icy facade.

“I-” T struggled to keep his composure. “I wasn’t expecting that answer.”

“I don’t believe you.”

Taion used this opportunity to take control of the conversation. He stood up, using his full height to his advantage. He waited, silently daring T to stand up. T looked up at him, but stayed seated.

“I don’t know your history, and I don’t know E’s either, but something must have happened for you to go down this path. Is there anything I need to know?”

T let the question hang for a bit before answering. “E abhors death. She’ll do anything Z asks as long as she never loses me. I need to show her that she needs to move on.”

‘Odd way of showing it,’ Taion thought. He wanted to say it, but there was no point. He wasn’t going to ask E to swap his lifespans again.

He was saved from having to come up with a more diplomatic response by a rap on the door.

“T, are you done in there?” E shouted from the other side.

Taion answered for T. “Not yet, come back later.”

“Ugh, I’m not sticking around here. Just- Find me when you’re done, okay?”

They waited for E’s footsteps to disappear before they continued.

“We need to finish the swap now, you don’t want to keep E waiting,” T said.

“Are you sure about that?” Taion asked. “A cell isn’t the best place to spend the rest of your life.”

“While your concern is touching, I’d rather spend what time I have left away from her.”

Taion wasn’t convinced. He didn’t see the need to continue the deception, and the potential benefits of freedom under E’s eye did not outweigh the risks.

“That isn’t the only reason,” T continued. “You have just over a year left, and a month may be the difference between victory and death. I have a study on the top floor of this wing. Use it.”

It didn’t completely convince him, but it was enough to get Taion to untie his scarf and lay it across the table. It served as a warning: ‘This is your last chance, put this on and there is no going back.’

T did not hesitate to pick it up.

The fire popped, spitting hot embers from the pit. The circle widened as people backed away from the pit. Mio quickly got up, picked up the fire guard that came with the pit, and carefully placed it on top of the fire.

Ghondor lowered her arms from her face. “For the love of- Those bastards at procurement told me the wood was dry.”

She got up and stormed off in the direction of the ships. Mio pitied whichever soldier was keeping watch.

“I think we can carry on without her,” Sena said, suggesting that Ghondor’s profane lecture wouldn’t stop any time soon. “I’ll fill in the gaps later.”

“Let’s see how long you hold on to that hope for,” Taion was surprised at how easy it was to keep his voice flat. Per E’s instructions, Taion had shoved T into the cell next door to the others. He could hear them from where he stood, but there was no reason for him to go further down the corridor.

The frustration in Eunie’s voice was tough to hear. “You sparking psycho! Who in their right snuffing mind is okay with killing themselves!?”

“Eunie…” Noah tried in vain to stop her from saying something foolish.

“That’s where you’re wrong. We may look the same, but we are not.” While he was talking to Eunie, Taion was looking at T. He was looking back at him, the glasses doing little to brighten his now lifeless eyes. T nodded, approving of Taion’s assessment of themselves.

Eunie’s wit was as sharp as ever. “Obviously. My Taion would never be so callous.”

All of this would have been a lot easier if he cared about Eunie as much as T cared about E. For now, he had to pretend.

“I’m surprised someone like you knows what that word means.” That sounded like something a Moebius would say. 

“You what? Come say that to my face!” Eunie punched the bars, oblivious to Taion wincing at the impact.

“I’ve got better things to do than pick a fight I know I’ll win.” 

To Taion, the better thing to do was to stay away from his friends. He hated that he couldn’t walk up to their cell and tell them he had everything under control.

Instead he walked away, and never returned.

“That must have been hard,” Noah commented. “To leave us like that.”

“You all had it worse! All I needed to do was avoid rousing E’s suspicions.”

Lanz grimaced. “I’d rather be behind bars. No offence, Eunie.”

“None taken.”

Thanks to T’s instructions, Taion was able to find his study with little difficulty. It was a small room with a single window, which provided a good view of the Mechonis Sword. If he leaned over the desk pushed under said window, he could see Erythean islands under the wispy clouds.

Directly behind him was a sink and a mirror, suggesting that this space was originally for a middle to high-rank soldier. A cabinet to the left of the sink occupied that corner of the room.

He stared at the sword, hoping that a reminder of one of the things he was fighting for would give him some inspiration. He couldn’t go down and talk to T without being in earshot of the others, and asking E or the false Queen was out of the question.

The books would be a good place to start, he decided.

To his left were two bookshelves forming an L shape in the corner. Most of them were dry, academic types, mostly listing whatever pet project the other Consuls had over the centuries. Several tomes chronicled Y’s attempts at making new flame clocks. There was even one that logged past members of Moebius.

Two books on the top shelf caught his eye, so he pulled them out. They, like the others in this room, were bound in cloth. One had a plain red cover and had gold lining the pages, the other had the same simple design but in purple and silver. The titles of these books were “Eunie” and “Taion” respectively. 

Did he want to know? He thought back to how Eunie’s past life memories weren’t triggered until she saw D for the first time, and to those claws lingering over her eyes every time they interlinked. Would that happen to him if he read about his own deaths?

He put his own book back on the shelf, opened the back cover of Eunie’s and flipped to the most recently filled page. Unsurprisingly, it was an account of her current life up to their breaking into the prison. It was concise, but none of the important stuff had been missed.

He was saved from the temptation to turn to the front by the sound of someone teleporting into the room.

“So that’s where you sloped off to,” E said, then noticed the book in Taion's hand. “You’re already hitting the books?”

E leaned back against the desk, hands on her hips. Taion looked up from the book to face her. 

“They need updating,” he said.

“They need updating,” E mimicked his accent, then shifted back to her own. “Can’t it wait until they’ve snuffed it?”

Taion shut the book. “I don’t want to leave anything out.”

She walked to the shelf, and pulled out the book he’d just replaced. “Wouldn’t you want to write in this one first, while your chat’s still fresh in your mind?”

Taion begrudgingly accepted his own book and flipped to its most recent page. Like with Eunie’s, there was a summary of his life. “I don’t need your input, E.”

E sighed. “Fine. Be like that.”

She left the room in the same way she entered.

He was on his own now, but it was not safe to relax just yet. He picked up a pen, quickly updated his page, and put his book back in its place.

“You didn’t read the rest of those two books?” Mio asked. “If it were me, I’d want to know if I’d done anything differently.”

Taion disagreed. “While I do like reading what little history we have, I wanted to ask one of you to read the one about my past lives.”

“I could read it. Yours too, Eunie.” Noah offered.

“Nah, I’d rather read it myself,” Eunie said. “Can’t get any worse than what I already know.”

Whenever E wasn’t bothering him, Taion was reading up on anything he thought would come in useful later. Noah and Mio becoming Ouroboros multiple times was at the top of the list, with their recruitment to Moebius being a close second. Right now, he was reading a book about notable battles. T, being the modest man he was, wrote about how his colonies consistently bested the ones led by other consuls. Taion deemed him an unreliable narrator, and it was further proof that he needed another source to confirm everything he found out.

He didn’t expect E to warp right next to him and snatch the book out of his hands. He looked up and was paralysed by her torrential gaze.

“What the spark is wrong with you?” E’s voice was strained.

“Wha-”

“Ever since we’ve captured those idiots, you’ve done nothing but read!” E snapped the covers shut.

“I-”

“And when you do say something to me, it’s…it’s…” E took a deep breath. “You’re always making fun of me!”

“When did I-”

“Shut up and listen to me!” E’s voice echoed around the tiny room. When she was satisfied with his silence, she carefully put the book on the desk and leaned over so she could look into his eyes.

“I’m trying to be reasonable here,” E started, her rage reduced to a simmer. “But you’ve been acting weird.”

Shit. He’d been found out. There’s no way she couldn’t see the Ouroboros symbol from this distance.

“I’m so-”

“Let me finish,” she hissed. “You’ve been ignoring me for the past couple of months.”

‘Months? Plural?’ Taion thought.

“Every time I want us to do something together, you turn me down. What’s gotten into you?”

As E continued to talk, her voice got shakier. Tears formed in her eyes as she composed herself for the next part of her rant.

“When you wanted to fight Ouroboros, I let you because I thought it… I don’t even know what I was thinking. But when I saw her do that to you, I thought you were going to die again.”

She drew back, but only a little, waiting for a response. If E was anything like Eunie, then maybe she’d already calmed down by venting a little. 

“I’m sorry I worried you,” he began. He didn’t know whether his words would soothe her or infuriate her further. “I shouldn’t have fought them.”

E’s expression did not change, nor did she make any motion to interrupt him. He took it as a sign to continue.

“And… I’ll be more attentive from now on.”

E wrapped her free arm around him and pulled him close, ignoring the sound of their plate thudding together. 

“I was so scared,” she sobbed. Taion almost felt bad for her. Almost. “I lost control and I couldn’t stop-”

“I’m glad you did,” he lied, then followed up with some truth. “I don’t know what would have happened if you didn’t step in. You saved my life.”

That didn’t stop E from clinging to him, but she did stop talking. E buried her face into his shoulder. He could feel the tears, which had slipped through the gaps in the armour and soaked through the thick fabric underneath.

“Can we spend more time together?” E asked in between sobs. “Just us?”

Taion nodded, even though E couldn’t see him from this angle. “Just us.”

“Well, that explains why she didn’t come back down to visit us,” Eunie said. “Not like I was missing her, anyway.”

“I’m not saying that was T’s fault, but he didn’t do you any favours either. She had a proper go at him, thinking he was you,” Mio said.

Sena stared at the flames as she voiced her opinion. “I don’t feel bad for E but… that was the last time she spoke to him.”

“Eh, that’s on her for being an arsehole,” Lanz said lightly. “And she did try to kill us all. You don’t need to pity her, Sena.”

“But still…”

Ghondor returned with some more logs, which looked drier than the first bundle. “They won’t be that sloppy again. Not under my watch.”

She put those logs down and sat down next to Sena.

Ghondor looked at Taion. “What? Carry on.”

E got more restless as Homecoming loomed closer, talking at Taion instead of having a normal discussion. He’d gotten used to pretending to pay attention to her, especially since she was psyching herself up to execute the people he had grown close to over the past couple of months.

One day, she decided that the study was too small for two people. She took Taion to a cliff near Agnus Castle, where they were both watching the scenery in silence.

Taion watched the sea lap at the cliffside and the rubble of the old City, brought to ruin by a previous N. Based on what he could glean from T’s notes on Moebius, there was a decent chance that this Consul was Noah.

Should he tell him? What if it was all conjecture and he worried him over nothing? Would he be disappointed if he found out some other way? How involved was Mio back then? These were the kind of questions plaguing Taion.

The sound of a slap dragged him out of his thoughts. Taion turned around to see D, sans mask, holding a hand to his cheek.

“Stop sneaking up on me!” E exclaimed. “I’m trying to have some quality time here.”

“Wow, what a way to greet a friend,” D held his hands up in mock surrender, the welt on his cheek already glowing pink. 

“We’re colleagues.”

“And I’m here to talk business,” D said, drawing out the end of his sentence. “Heard you’re going to execute the others yourself. Didn’t think you had it in you.”

This wasn’t news to Taion. He had come up with a plan that involved the gun he found in T’s study, hidden behind the space where the two bookshelves met. It was a replica of E’s, with the note tucked into the barrel claiming it had the same weight as the real thing. All he needed was the opportunity to swap the two without raising any suspicion.

D leaned in so he was right by E’s ear. “Are you going to kill her first?”

“Of course, it’ll be a great way to end the ceremony.” Despite the uncomfortable closeness to D, E did not step away from him.

“You know what you should do, right?” D shifted so he was standing in front of E. He stretched his arm out so it was level with E’s right eye, his fingers mimicking the barrel of the gun. “Shoot her right there.”

E appeared unbothered by D’s gesture. “Good shout. I’d better polish my gun in time for tomorrow.”

That was the opportunity he was looking for. “I’ll do it!”

E looked at Taion quizzically. “I’m not against it, but why?”

“You’ve got a lot on your mind right now, so let me take that job off your hands. You’ll get it back before the ceremony.”

E removed the gun from its usual position on her back, and handed it over. “Take good care of it, okay?”

“I will.”

“...And you know the rest,” Taion concluded.

“The exploding gun was a nice touch,” Ghondor said, then mimicked the explosion with her hands. “Saw it go boom on the projection. That look on her face was priceless!”

“I didn’t know it was going to do that.”

Ghondor scoffed. “I would have kept that part quiet. Should have known it was too cool for you to come up with it.”

Eunie’s stomach rumbled. “Right. Eunie’s calling it a day here, I’m starving.”

“Same here, and I don’t think my brain can take in any more.” Sena added. “Manana, are you cooking or will we need to order something?”

“Manana want to try Erythia Sashimi in canteen,” the Nopon declared.

She wandered in the direction of the canteen, with the others slowly getting up to follow her. Since the fire guard was still up, they let it be.

The canteen was unusually quiet for this time of day, Noah noticed. Most of the group left after they had eaten, leaving himself, Lanz, Taion, and Riku. The latter was busy fiddling with his gems, leaving him with the other two to talk to. The problem was, he didn’t know where to start. Luckily, he had a Lanz to break the silence for him.

“How are you able to see right now?”

Taion, still in full Moebius regalia, instinctively went to adjust some glasses that weren’t there. He put his hand back down. “Funnily enough, that was what I was going to talk about.”

Lanz figured it out pretty quick. “I’ve heard of those doodads, but I’ve never seen anyone wear them before.”

“Turns out T was wearing contact lenses.” That explained the unusually shiny-yet-dull gleam that had caught Noah’s attention a while back. “And as you know, my feelings about him are… complicated.”

“And?” Lanz said. “If they’re not your style, go back to your glasses.”

“That’s the problem. That was his choice and we’re only alive because of him.”

Noah understood the implication. Unlike most people, a Moebius doesn’t leave much behind when they’re gone. “So, what do you think of them?”

That question opened the floodgates that had held back a month’s worth of mild annoyances. The kind that were paltry in the grand scheme of things, especially when you know things can be a lot worse, but eat at you just the same.

“You wouldn’t believe it, but the Endless Now doesn’t extend to how long I can leave them in for. And they’re an absolute pain to take out.”

“How many of those lenses did he have?” Lanz asked.

“Enough to last me three homecomings.”

“Spark me.”

“Are there any upsides to the lenses?” Noah asked. If they really were that bad, Taion would never have put them on to begin with.

“Well, they don’t get dusty like my glasses do,” he said, thinking it over. “Which would be an advantage in some places.”

Lanz leant over the table, his eyes had that roguish look he usually had when he found a button he could push. “I know what’s up. You like how you look with them on.”

“My appearance isn’t number one on my list of priorities-”

“But it is on your list.”

Taion conceded. “Fine, it’s in my top ten. Happy?”

The satisfied smile on Lanz’s face said it all.

“Why don’t you ask Eunie?” Noah asked.

“She’s got enough going on, and you know what she’s like with anything eye-related.”

“If you can’t decide, why don’t you wear both?” Lanz asked. “You know, wear your lens doodads and your glasses at the same time.”

“That’s not how it works,” Taion sighed. “My glasses would be too strong in that scenario.”

“How about poking out the clear bits, then?”

“And waste them?” Taion turned to Noah, realising he was getting nowhere with Lanz. “I can’t decide, Noah. I'll leave it up to you.”

Chapter Text

Noah didn’t need time to consider his response. “I’d go for the glasses. They’re more ‘you’.”

He had a feeling that was the answer Taion was looking for, going by the way he relaxed his shoulders. “Thanks, Noah.”

“If not using, Riku will take lenses,” Riku said, finally taking an interest in the conversation.

“What are you even gonna do with them? They’re too small for your eyes,” Lanz argued, but Riku ignored him as he wandered out of the break room. The man sighed. “He didn’t even ask if he could take them.”

“It’s fine, I gave him permission to use my stuff a while back.” Taion explained, but did not elaborate on the Nopon’s experiments.

“Hey, speaking of your things, where are they?” Lanz asked.

Noah had an idea as to where they were. The post-Homecoming rituals in Agnus were similar to Keves, so it was likely that the clothes were drying out somewhere and the items were kept in storage.

“I’ll go and get them,” he said, and got up. There were still a couple of off-seers hanging around, so he left the break room to find one that would point him in the right direction.

Lanz waited for Noah's footsteps to retreat before continuing the conversation. “So, did you do much else but read and stare at some rubble?”

“No. The less people I talked to, the less likely I’d be found out,” Taion said.

That made sense to Lanz. Playing the role of the shut-in meant that the other Moebius would have to go out of their way to see him. Assuming there was one for each letter of the alphabet, there were still a lot of them running around that would have been familiar with T.  

“So you didn’t see any Moebius but the ones you talked about earlier?”

“No, thankfully.”

Noah returned triumphant, along with a box under his arm. He placed it on the table, then stepped back. “That’s all yours, they’ll want the box back when you’re done.”

“That was quick.” Lanz commented.

“Yeah, Seeker was looking for Taion. He comes across as a nice guy.”

"I'll be the judge of that."

Taion picked the box up from the table and left the room. “I’d love to stay and chat, but I need to get out of this outfit.”

“I’ll see you in the morning, then.” Noah called after him.

Eunie was awake, but she didn’t want to wake up. She tried to hold on as sleep released her from its embrace, but her increasing awareness of the bedroll beneath her made it clear it was a losing battle.

She opened her eyes to a twilit sky that was flanked by walls on one side and a canopy on the other. It wasn't the best view in the world, so she got up, stretched, and walked to where the throne used to be. If she couldn’t sleep, she might as well be at a better place to watch the sky warm up.

“Good morning!” called a familiar voice.

She turned around and saw Taion, who was back in his regular outfit. She took it in like she was seeing him for the first time. Everything from the orange stitches in his outer jacket, which was the same colour as his incredibly uncool scarf, to the glasses that framed his amber eyes. 

It was like nothing had changed between them.

“You’re up early,” he said.

“Getting banged up might’ve messed with my body clock. Come up here, the view’s a beaut.” 

He joined her, but stood out of arm’s reach as he watched the sky.

Eunie couldn’t take the distance anymore. “It’s just us now, you can tell me anything.”

She could almost hear him think. Sure, he could hold back whatever was eating at him, but she would find out the next time they interlinked. It would be better for the two of them if they were able to talk openly, rather than through their memory space.

“Do you think we’ll end up like them?” Taion asked.

“Like E and T? That Moebius philosophy crap is more in Noah’s wheelhouse.”

“I’m not referring to them being Moebius. What if I end up hurting you like T hurt E?”

Eunie was surprised he was concerned about the Homecoming for that reason. She considered the possibility, but the answer came surprisingly quick for someone who claimed to hate using her brain.

“Look, the fact you’re even asking means you’re way different to T.”

“Perhaps…”

“And that already makes you a better man than him.”

She sidestepped closer to him, just enough to be able to reach out and touch him. He didn’t move away. Eunie wanted to hold his hand, but she held back. He’d have to make the first move.

“We can’t just stand here and wonder ‘what if?’ all the time,” Eunie turned her  head so she could face him. “We’d never get anything done.”

“Maybe you’re right, for once.”

“Oi, what does that mean?”

“I can’t let T’s actions hold me back, and you shouldn’t let E stop you either.”

“That’s easy enough,” Eunie rested her hands behind her head. “Just don’t leave things until it’s too late, innit.”

She let this statement hang for a moment. It did make her wonder why E ended up the way she did. Or was Eunie always like that, but circumstances made her open up to the people around her.

“Speaking of which, what are we?” Eunie asked. “Are we friends or…”

Taion pushed his glasses, even though they were already in the right place. “We can start with that, and we can see where this ends up.”

“I hope we don’t go all gooey-eyed at each other like Noah and Mio do.”

“No way,” Taion almost fell over his words trying to correct himself. “I-I mean that kind of stuff is a bit too saccharine for my taste.”

Eunie laughed. “It’s fine, you don’t have to answer if you’re not ready. I’m happy with the way things are right now.”

Part of her wanted things to stay this way forever. Just the two of them, bathed in the golden glow, admiring the view of the sword across the sea and the distant sound of waves crashing against the island below.

However, Eunie felt like there was something missing to this scene.

She took a step back from the platform. “I’ll put the kettle on, then we can watch the rest of the sunrise together, okay?”

They were still at the edge of the castle when the others were finally up and ready for the day, which was long after the sun rose. Mio joined the two of them on the platform.

Eunie turned to greet her. “What’s up?”

“Nothing much, just here to tell you that soup’s ready.” 

Mio walked back to their camp, hesitated, then carried on her journey. 

Eunie and Taion found her standing by the pot, where she was filling bowls with its contents. The two of them picked up a bowl each and made conversation with the others, who had already eaten.

“Did you see anything cool?” Sena asked Eunie, whose mouth was full of soup.

Eunie quickly swallowed before answering. Luckily for her, Mio didn’t like to serve her food piping hot. “I saw a sparkling volgull.”

“We’re seeing those more often, right?” Lanz added. “The sparkles, I mean.”

“I haven’t looked, so I can’t tell ya.”

Eunie went back to her soup, but there wasn’t a lot left. She scraped what was left onto her spoon, ate, then went to clean up her bowl. When she returned, she could see her friends standing by the long-extinguished fire pit.

“Now we’re all here, I’ve got something to show you,” Taion said.

“Is it the study you talked about yesterday?” Mio asked.

“Yes. I want to make sure I haven’t missed anything before we leave.”

“Manana and Riku will pack up here,” Manana said, completely oblivious to the annoyed look on Riku’s face.

“If Riku must…”

“Thanks, you two. We won’t be long,” Noah said. He was the last to leave the campsite.

Taion led them into the castle, up a lift, and down a corridor. The wing they were in was pretty quiet, on account of almost all soldiers being assembled at the throne room.

“Didn’t know there were this many rooms here,” Sena commented.

“They’re all sleeping quarters, except for this one,” Taion explained as he opened the door.

Noah opened the door, but let the others in first. Sena, who was the first one inside, made a beeline for the desk and climbed up it. Lanz checked out the bookshelf, but seemed unsure of which one to pick out first. Eunie, on the other hand, was pulling several off the shelves.

“What did you want to show us?” Noah asked.

“First of all, I’ll send you all the information I have on Moebius.” Taion tapped the side of his head, sending his collection to everyone in the room.

Noah had a look. The data was separated into past and present members, so Noah decided to look at the present section first. His eyes widened when he saw a familiar name.

“Crys is one of them?” he asked.

Lanz and Eunie reacted in sync. “He’s Moebius!?”

While they talked, Sena slid off the desk and rooted through the drawers underneath.

Lanz turned his back to the shelf and leaned against it. “Is there anyone else we know that’s joined those mudders?”

Noah browsed the rest of the list in alphabetical order. “The name Dirk rings a bell, but he’s not someone we know.”

“He’s from the textbook,” Taion clarified. “Specifically in the section on serial killers.”

Eunie looked at her hands, but they weren’t shaking at the mere mention of her murderer. “I think I remember reading about him too. We were taught that all Agnians were like him, willing to kill their own mates for kicks. I remember thinking he was a bit of a loser.”

“I felt the same way about Winifred, or W,” Taion elaborated. “The textbook said she was a Kevesi who used her talents to make husks look like they were still alive, then used them to lure her fellow Kevesi to their deaths.”

“Oh yeah, I remember her too. Ol' Winnie was still in her early terms when she got caught.”

Noah turned off his Iris. “There’s nobody else that we haven’t encountered before.”

“Guys, I found something useful!” Sena waved a piece of paper in her hands triumphantly. She sat back on the desk and let her legs dangle off the side. “It was stuck on the bottom bit of a drawer.”

“What does it say?” Eunie asked.

Sena read the note aloud. “The Cloudkeep might be here,” she tapped on a crude drawing of a map. “I don’t remember writing this note, and I cannot verify the source. Nothing happened when I visited the location.”

“We could have a look,” Lanz suggested. “Take the key there and see if it does something.”

Taion nodded in agreement. “Since we’re going to the Upper Aetia region, we could also take care of two things T was involved with.”

He pulled out two books. One had a purple cover with silver lettering that read ‘Purple Flame Clocks and Ferrons, Optimising the Output of Colony 0: A Prospective Study by F and T.’

Mio and Sena gasped when they saw the title of the second book. Like the first, it was purple, but it was dotted with darker purple circles that were clustered like motes. The title, in gold lettering, read ‘The Past, Present, and Future of Colony Omega: A Systematic Review by Y and T.’

“Colony Omega?” Mio asked, trying to keep herself composed. She thought she was over it, but the dry presentation of that day woke up her latent emotions.

“I’d summarise what I found in the first section, but I think it’s better to hear it from the people who experienced it,” Taion said.

Mio hesitated, then turned to Sena. “Is it okay if I tell them?”

Sena nodded.

Mio closed her eyes, took a deep breath, and summarised their experience. “Between our time at Theta and Gamma, Sena, Miyabi and I were stationed at Colony Omega. We didn’t fight. Instead, we were subjected to daily examinations by Moebius Y. Until one day… when the accident happened. Miyabi saved us at the cost of her own life.”

Noah pieced this information with his visions of a past Mio screaming for Miyabi among the flames. All this time, she couldn’t even talk about it without risking revealing the secret colony.

“It’s strange. If T was this involved, I would have remembered seeing him,” Sena thought out loud.

Taion turned to the last page. “Each of these books has a section that explains what each author did. In this case, Y carried out the ‘studies’ while T wrote the manuscript. That’s actually a common theme with these books: the first author does the dirty work while the final one supervises.”

Noah had wondered why T put himself as the final author for almost every book he wrote. With that in mind, the few where he put himself first were more intriguing.

“Maybe that’s what T meant when he asked me to finish what he started.” Mio said. “Part of him didn’t like what Y was doing.”

“I think you’re right, going by the tone of the final section,” Taion said.

“The future of Colony Omega…” Sena recalled.

“It mentions a device that can turn someone fresh out of the cradle into a tenth termer in minutes, but the process is unrefined.”

“Meaning?” Lanz asked.

“Their mental states are too fragile to be deployed on a larger scale. For now, they’re using an off-seer to keep them compliant.”

‘Oh no,’ Sena thought. ‘There was only one off-seer that died when Omega fell, and that was-’

“Miyabi,” Mio completed Sena’s thought. “She’s alive?”

“Not just her,” Taion answered. “Hakt, Mwamba and Cammuravi were also mentioned by name.”

“We can’t leave them like this,” Mio said, appreciating that Noah pulled out his - her - Miyabi’s flute from his pocket. “I know this is pretty selfish, but can you all come with me?”

“You don’t need to ask, doll,” Eunie said. “Of course we’ll help you.”

“Before we go, please take anything you think might come in useful,” Taion said. “We might not come back here for a while.”

Eunie held up her haul. “Already ahead of you, mate.”

“Mimi, there’s a bunch of empty books here. Do you want one?” Sena asked, referring to one of the desk drawers.

Mio went to the desk and looked inside. “Ooh, I like the look of that one.”

She pulled out a plain white hardcover book, which had a strip of red ribbon tucked between two of the pages. Mio opened the front cover, frowned, then put the book on the desk. She loosened the bindings, working from the covers inward. Once she was satisfied with her work, she turned to the front page, got her pen out, and started to write.

Noah watched her. He didn’t pry, but he assumed she was writing everything that happened in the past couple of days. Her bare neck was visible from this angle, which made Noah realise that she was now the one that was going to outlive him.

“Are you gonna pick something?” Lanz asked, bringing Noah back to the present.

“Yeah, I’m just deciding.”

He ultimately chose two books. Both had T as the sole author: ‘Taion’ and ‘Ouroboros’. To compare, Lanz and Sena had one each, Eunie had three, and Mio kept hold of the Cloudkeep note. She tucked that into her new notebook.

“You’re not bringing anything?” Noah asked Taion.

“Anything I deemed important, I saved to my Iris. Plus, you all have the ones I would have chosen.”

“Do we look like pack ponios to you?” Lanz said.

“Nobody said you had to carry them all.”

Lanz sighed. “Right, I’m out of here. This room’s a bit too cosy for the six of us.”

With a new destination in mind, they were ready to leave Agnus Castle behind. They filed out of the study, keeping hold of whatever they had picked out. Sena rushed back in, closed the desk drawer she opened, and went out again. She shut the door behind her, and caught up with her friends.

Chapter Text

With colonies 0 and Omega freed, it was time to explore the altar. The Lost Numbers did offer them a ride to the City, as they were taking the liberated soldiers there anyway, but they decided to investigate T’s note while they were still in the area.

They took a break at the campsite just outside the liberated Omega. The flames were just enough to stave off the worst of the cold, but the jackets stayed on. Eunie had an open book in one hand and a cup of tea in the other. She sat closest to the fire, but was still shivering under Lanz’s jacket. Mio and Sena did their routine stretches. 

Noah poked a stick into the burning wood, and reflected on their recent encounter with Y.

Like many members of Moebius, Y liked to talk about what he considered his achievements. One of them, the purple flame clock at the top of the colony, was staring right at them. His other source of pride was the group of soldiers standing between him and Ouroboros, aged up and under his control.

“E and T were another project of mine,” Y explained. “There was something peculiar about the gold and silver consuls, so I did an experiment after the passing of the originals. I found suitable replacements and observed them.”

Between this information, T’s notes, and Monica asking him about “Old N” when he first arrived at the City, it was difficult for Noah to deny that a version of him had joined them as E’s predecessor. He had committed despicable acts in their name, while leaving him to pick up the pieces. Could he end up making the same mistakes as N? Noah believed he wouldn’t, but he still had his doubts deep down.

While Noah was thinking about N, Y continued his lecture. “There were some differences in the secondary measures, but the primary outcome was the same.”

“I’ll show him a primary outcome,” Lanz said. He already had his blade out, but now he was getting into position.

The Moebius’s eyes glowed, and Miyabi started to play. The soldiers sprung into action and attacked. Lanz parried a blow from Cammuravi, while Eunie traded shots with Mwamba. Hakt acted as defence, but was pushed back by the force from Sena’s strikes. The man dug his heels into the snow, but a last minute dodge from one of Taion’s attacks caused him to slip.

Noah and Mio didn’t fight. They watched the state of the soldiers, both new and familiar, and a part of them knew they could be saved. They got their flutes out, and hoped that Noah’s plan of using Lucky Seven as an amplifier was going to work. This wasn’t just to save Miyabi, Cammuravi and the others, but to give closure for Mio and Sena.

Noah put down his stick and dug out ‘Ouroboros’ . This book was a collection of notes, which made for easier reading than the academic tomes they had left behind. Each team, whether they lasted a week or 50 years, had two pages dedicated to them. As a result, some pages were covered with writing while others had little more than the title.

Accounts of Ouroboros teams before T became Moebius were limited, but his and Mio’s names still managed to appear even then. As the accounts got more detailed, Noah searched for familiar names in the sea of House scions.

‘Ethel and Cammuravi were Ouroboros? Is that why they’re drawn to each other?’ he wondered. He re-read their section.

Ethel: 9th term. Kina Ortiz’s replacement. Formidable swordswoman, destroyed a flame clock without needing Origin metal.

Cammuravi: 9th term. Luke Vandham’s replacement. Was recruited at the same time as Ethel, who he was duelling. Killed a Moebius while unarmed.

This incarnation of Ouroboros was the most difficult for E to defeat so far, on account of the impressive synergy of Ethel and Cammuravi. This is the first time I have seen an Ouroboros form consisting of only two people. 

However, even they were not immune to a blast from E’s gunrod. She was shaken after the battle, but otherwise fine.

Will need to keep an eye on future versions of Ethel and Cammuravi.

Update: Their future incarnations will fight each other the moment one is aware of the other’s existence, but they do not kill. When one incarnation of Ethel, the commander of Colony 4, was asked about this, she couldn’t explain her actions. Ultimately, she and Cammuravi killed each other instead of the Ouroboros they were sent to destroy. This was despite increasingly extreme attempts to motivate them.

More Kevesi and Agnians appeared, but their names were unfamiliar to Noah. The last non-City Ouroboros appeared over eighty years ago, and he didn’t remember seeing anyone called Saomi or Hyzen on his travels. 

He finally got to the most recent page. This was less about information gathering, and more about gaining some more insight on T’s mentality. As always, the left page was a short description of the team, and on the right was a recap of their actions. There were blank spaces on both pages that were waiting for an update that never came. 

Noah (again): 9th term. Unlike his predecessors, this one is an off-seer. Will see off anyone, even if it puts him at odds with his comrades. His sword can cleave flame clocks in two.

Mio (again): 10th term. This one is also an off-seer for the first time. Had three months left to live when she first became Ouroboros. Wants to leave her mark on the world.

Eunie: 9th term. Past can be found in ‘Eunie’. Acts casual, but is the most bothered by Moebius. Will be interesting to see what happens if she meets E.

Taion: 9th term. Past can be found in ‘Taion’. Puts up a cold front and is prone to starting an argument. Cares about Mio’s well-being more than his own.

Lanz: 9th term. He is the one J saved before he became Moebius. His sacrifice has left an impression on him. Might have to start looking for J’s replacement soon.

Sena: 9th term. Mio’s long-term friend and a chronic people-pleaser. Has a tendency to consciously mimic other people’s mannerisms. Incredibly strong. Potential candidate for S?

Unlike previous Ouroboros, this group consists of Kevesi and Agnians. They have killed more Moebius than the last ten Ouroboros combined. Despite this fact, E is hesitant to fight as she is the most familiar with them. Four of them have connections to Moebius, but Lanz and Sena have anomalous properties that need to be investigated. 

So far, they have gone out of their way to help the colonies whose flame clocks they destroyed. This has made it a challenge to install replacement clocks.

It was subtle, but Noah noticed the way the lettering got thicker in the last two sentences. The lack of indents in the thick paper suggested hesitation by the writer rather than frustration, which would have been an expected reaction from a Moebius. 

At the time, Noah had felt a pang of guilt every time they paused their journey to help out a Colony. Mio’s life was short, and time spent not getting to the City felt like he was squandering hers. He wondered if this line of thinking was the pitfall that ensnared previous Ouroboros.

Noah put the book away, and saw that the others had collectively decided to pack up too. They all slipped on their eye patches before heading off. When they got to their destination, they found a platform with an altar at the back. The architecture resembled Agnus Castle, which they took as a good sign. Mio took the key out of her pocket and tried to look for a place to put it, and decided that the plinth on the other side was a good place to start. She waved it over the raised platform, which flashed green.

The fog cleared, revealing the Cloudkeep and the stairs leading to it. The floating fortress was as awe-inspiring as the Castles. The group was humming with excitement and trepidation as they ascended to the top of the building. Mio used the key to access the topmost room, and to reveal the place where the true queen of Agnus had been sleeping.

Nia woke up and slowly emerged from the pod emerged from the pod. She was a spitting image of the false queen, except for the absence of her golden mask. Her real face was just as serene, but her eyes carried a solemn demeanour the facsimile claimed to have.

She wiped the sleep out of her eyes before addressing them. “Good. I’m glad it worked.”

Mio looked at the queen in confusion. “What worked?”

Nia looked at Mio, but did not make eye contact with her. “I entrusted the key to Consul M in the hope that she would give it to you when the time was right.”

It took Mio a moment for it to make sense. The M they knew died by their hands at Iota, but he wasn’t a woman. “Who was this M?”

Nia paused, weighing up whether to tell them the full story. “M… was someone I could trust. She had become Moebius against her will, and desired a way to escape from that fate. If she is not here, I’m assuming she achieved it.”

“So the key found its way to House Vandham after she snuffed it?” Eunie asked.

Nia closed her eyes, and nodded. “Indeed. This is because House Vandham are the descendants of M and N.”

Sena looked at Mio, who wasn’t looking at anyone in particular. This would have been a lot for her to take in, assuming she and old M were one and the same. She also thought of Ghondor, and how this legacy must have been heavy on her mind back at the prison.

“How do you know all that when you’ve been sleeping this whole time?” Sena asked.

Nia gestured to the hunk of metal behind her. It was difficult to miss when the bright yellow lights and steel structure clashed with the elegant stonework that made up the rest of the room. “This gathers data from all over Aionios, and distributes it to me. There is little I don’t know about this world.”

“In that case, you’ll know what to do next, right?” Sena said hopefully.

The queen hesitated. “Well…”

After a lengthy explanation of Aionios’s origins and how Origin, and therefore Z, came to be, Ouroboros had set the groundwork of a plan to breach it. They bid their farewells to Nia and departed so they could get started on stage one.

Mio stayed behind while the others disappeared downstairs. “Are you sure you want to stay here? You can come with us.”

Nia shook her head, to Mio’s mild disappointment. “While I’d love to join you, I need to make my own preparations. You’ll know when I’m ready.”

The girl nodded, then left the room. Mio caught up to the others on their way to the bottom floor. Noah smiled when he saw her come into his field of view, and paused so she could catch up to him.

“Sorry about that, I just wanted to speak to the queen for a moment,” Mio explained.

“That’s okay, Mimi. Now we can set off together,” Sena said.

They managed to reach the top of the entrance stairway when a familiar claw sailed past Noah’s head and lodged itself into the stone in front of them. They looked behind themselves to see D and J on the floor above them, both Moebius in their human forms. The wisps of purple miasma suggested that they had just transformed back.

“You two again?” Sena exclaimed.

The two of them talked as they descended the stairs, drawing out their time in the spotlight for their audience of eight.

“I had high hopes for E,” D said. “I really thought she was finally putting on her big girl pants. Guess I was expecting too much from her.”

“A total coward, that’s what she is,” J added.

Eunie summoned her gunrod and aimed it at D. While she had no love for the Moebius, she was not taking her chances. This was the cue for the others to summon their own blades. They stepped closer together, but did not take their eyes of their foes.

D pretended to yawn, his eyes still narrowed as he went through the motion. “Do you know how tiring it was to track you lot down? Those eye patches made it a right pain in the arse, but this building appearing out of nowhere was a major help. So thanks.”

D and J finally reached the final step, and took their positions in the middle of the platform. Mio felt relieved that they did not venture upstairs, as Nia would be completely open to an attack. She had just woken up, so she would not be at her best for combat.

D transformed, revealing a form that looked less impressive than his Interlink with J. “I was hoping to snipe the old bat, but I guess killing you will have to do.”

He got ready to shoot another claw, so Lanz lifted up his shieldblade. Taion reinforced his defences, which was enough to prevent D’s claw from penetrating the blade. This created an opening for Sena to run in and swing her hammer at the Moebius. While they were distracted with D, J also transformed.

D stumbled backwards, clutching at his side as he reeled from Sena's blow. However, his wounds were quickly healed up by J. They needed to figure out a way to defeat them, or it would become a war of attrition they would not win. 

Noah turned to the rest of his team. “The best thing we can do is separate them. Eunie, can you and Taion distract D?”

Eunie rolled her shoulder and tightened her grip on her gunrod. “I’ve been raring to kick that mudder’s arse.”

“Great, Lanz and I will try to get through to Joran.”

“I’ll come with you,” Mio said. “Just in case. Sena, you should join too.”

Noah looked at Taion, who hadn’t said anything so far. “Do you have anything to add?”

“Our top priority is to prevent D and J from finding the queen. Don’t forget that.”

With a plan formed, the group turned their attention to their respective targets. Noah and Mio stood between D and J, then transformed into Mio’s Ouroboros form. She was fast, and speed was what they needed to drive J backwards without accidentally killing him. When they split in two again, they had managed to get Joran to the opposite end of the platform. Lanz and Sena got into position and parried Joran’s attacks.

While Noah and Mio joined up with Lanz and Sena, D hadn’t noticed that the first stage of their plan had been a success. He was too busy goading the people who had proven to be thorns in his side.

“Pretty bold of you two to face me again,” D said, swatting away ether blasts and paper talismans like flies. He stepped closer to them and away from J. “You’ll regret making a fool of Blackblaze Dirk!”

“We all know who you are!” Eunie yelled while she planted her gunrod into the ground. Learning his real name had demystified the man that had tormented her for so long. He was no longer D, one of Moebius’s top enforcers, but Dirk, a disgraced Agnian who met his end at an executioner’s sword.

“Don’t tell me, you read it in one of T’s books?” D mocked, giving Taion the side-eye. “He never understood the thrill of the hunt. There’s no words for the rush you get when you sink your claws into warm flesh.”

Eunie fired at D, forcing him to back away a little. “We’ll find those words when we’re done with you.”

“What, you don’t know already? How many have you lot killed?” D stroked his chin in mock thought.

Eunie transformed. “That was me trying to survive. This is personal.”

This declaration didn’t move D, who laughed at her. “Since this is personal, girly, I’ll tell you what I’ll do when you’re at my mercy. First, I’ll kill your partner, but it won’t be no Homecoming…”

“Do we have to listen to this drivel?” Taion asked Eunie from within their shared space. While they could still hear D, his ranting was lost in the noise of their memories.

Eunie smiled, though Taion couldn’t see her. “The more he talks about how he wants to kill us, the crazier he’ll come across to Joran. Can you get him to talk some more?"

“I’m not making any guarantees that this will work, but I’ll give it a go.”

"...Thanks."

Their focus shifted back to the real world. One of the perks of their Ouroboros forms was that their enemies couldn’t tell whether they were paying attention.

“...And then I’ll gouge out his left eye, and shove it into your eye socket. You'll be able to see again when I finally snuff his life out!” D concluded, pointing his claw at their direction. The sound of J fighting the others filled the room.

Taion dragged out this silence for a little longer, part of him savouring the slight droop in D’s shoulders. “That's not how eyes work. She'd still be blind if you did that.”

“Ugh, I can’t believe it was possible for T to be a bigger buzzkill. Do you know how badly I wanted to kill him too?”

“Is there anyone you don’t want to kill?” Taion asked. Eunie folded her arms to punctuate his question.

D straightened his posture and laughed at the ceiling. “I’d kill anyone and everyone, even my pathetic excuse of a partner!”

Thanks to D’s inability to turn the volume down, his ranting was clearly heard by everyone in the room. Lanz noticed that Joran was deliberately not looking at D, and he saw his opportunity.

“Are you listening to this, Joran?” Lanz shouted as he clashed his blade against his former saviour’s hands. “You don’t want to be with this madman!”

Joran struggled to come up with a response. “I…He…”

D had resumed his battle with Eunie’s Ouroboros form, or that was what it appeared to be to the others. D would swipe at Eunie, and she would disappear into scraps of paper, only for another Eunie to appear to D’s right. He shot another claw at her, but she dodged the projectile.

With D distracted by Euinie and Taion, Noah used this time to get a word in. “You’re better than this. You’re better than him! Just… Come back to us, Joran.”

J laughed, but he didn’t sound as gleeful as D. “You don’t know me at all, I’m eager to take a life.”

“You know that’s not true!” Lanz rebuked. “You had plenty of chances to kill, and you didn’t. We’re only alive because a part of you doesn’t want this.”

The Moebius held up his hands, preparing to heal D. He had gotten too close to Taion, who vanished in his usual explosive manner. He reappeared, and let Eunie take charge once again. 

While D was obviously hurting from the blast, J put his hands back down.

“What are you playing at, J?” D shouted as he dodged a bolt of ether from Eunie. “Get your lousy arse over here!”

“...You think I’m lousy?” J asked, his voice wavering.

“No shit. I’ve never worked with a more pathetic twerp in my life!”

D leapt into the air, aiming to get the drop on Joran. He descended, his leg primed to kick the Moebius to the ground. Lanz, seeing D’s telegraphed move, transformed to form a shield around Joran. D crumpled as the force from the impact with the shield reverberated up his leg, and he bounced onto the ground.

He struggled back on his feet, only to see Eunie blocking his path.

“Get out of the way, girl,” D snarled.

Eunie didn’t dignify him with a response. She knelt, touching the ground for the first time since she transformed, and charged up her rifle. Instead of releasing the charge as she usually did, she got up and tossed the rifle in D’s direction. 

The resulting explosion shook the floor and filled the arena with smoke. Lanz still had his shield up, which protected Joran, Noah, and Mio from any potential debris. Noah clung to Mio, who was having an easier time keeping herself upright.

The smoke cleared, and D was flat out on the floor. His body glowed light blue, making it obvious he was never getting back up.

“So… did it feel good?” D choked.

The monster dissolved into blue motes. Eunie waited for the last specks of light to disappear before giving her answer.

“It was like killing an aspar.”

Joran transformed back into his human form at the same time as Eunie, Taion, Lanz and Sena. He knew when a fight was over.

“So, now what?” Sena asked, wanting to avoid an awkward silence. She rested the head of her hammer against the ground, but did not dismiss her blade.

Noah assessed the situation. Joran didn’t teleport away, which he took as a good sign. He wanted his old friend to join them, but it would take some convincing. Mio and Sena didn’t know him that well, and Taion…

“We’re not letting him go, are we?” the tactician asked.

“Spark no, not when we just got him back,” Eunie said.

Lanz took one look at Joran, who looked completely lost, and decided that it was best if he stayed with him. “He could come with us until we figure out where he can go.”

“But where could I go?” Joran asked. “I can’t exactly go back to Colony Lambda.”

Lanz put a hand on Joran’s shoulder. “That’s why we’ll be figuring it out, together.”

A beeping sound broke the tension. Lanz tapped the right side of his head. “Woah, something just popped up on my Iris.”

His long coat disappeared, replaced by the top half of Joran’s consul outfit. The blade was a copy of his staff, which Lanz waved around experimentally. It healed the wounds that Eunie had missed.

Noah checked his own Iris. This new class was called Puppeteer, and it listed Joran as the original owner. He couldn’t access it yet, so he couldn’t glean any more information. 

He turned it off and tuned back into the conversation. Lanz and Sena were both chatting to Joran while the others observed.

“Now you’re one of us, you could tell us how to get to Origin,” Sena said.

“About that…” Joran mumbled. “I don’t know where it is. But- but I can take you there. Just give me a moment.”

They waited. And waited. Joran hung his head in shame. “I can’t warp there anymore… I can’t warp at all.”

“Aw man, that really sucks.” Sena said. “I should have known it wouldn’t be that easy.”

Eunie stretched her back. “Guess we’re back to plan A. Let’s get to Mr Samon, gang.”

E didn’t care that her legs had gone numb from sitting down for so long.

After X deposited her on Z’s stage, she hadn’t moved from where she knelt. The floor was far more interesting than her almost empty audience.

She wondered if this feeling, this hopelessness, was what drove T over the edge. He wasn’t around to answer her, so all she could do was think.

“Don’t you get it, E? T didn’t want to be with you anymore! You left him with no choice but to die!”

What did that girl know? She may have his life, but didn’t understand him. She didn’t understand her. It made E sick to think that anyone could assume she was a terrible partner.

She heard someone walk up to the stage, the clicking of their boots against the wooden floor stopping when they were next to her.

“Come on, E. Get up. Moping won’t bring him back.”

E didn’t respond. S joined E’s spotlight and sat down.

“You just need to channel your grief into something. Look, I’ll be attacking the City in a few days. You want to join in?”

E shook her head weakly.

“Take the hint, S,” X spoke up from the audience. “She’s not interested.”

S sighed, and E heard the creaking of S’s new armour as she stood back up. “Fine, be like that. I’ll do it all by myself, as always.”

E heard S teleport away, and buried her head between her crossed legs.

‘Where did I go wrong?’ she thought. ‘Did he hate me that much?’

X seemed to read her mind. “Look, maybe his other self put some ideas into his head. You know how much his kind like to think.”

“His kind?” Z asked.

“The ones with the high TP scores. They can reason themselves into doing some crazy crap.” X sighed. “I told Y not to choose anyone above 30, but noooo, he knew better.”

If X was hoping for a snappy comment from E, she wasn’t going to get one. She and Z watched E’s stationary performance in silence.

Chapter Text

Fort O’Virbius was a refreshingly vibrant place in the desolate Keves Castle region. Kevesi of all ages chatted as they walked down the streets, the latest gossip of the broken flame clock on their lips.

Their liberators sat at a table in The Tap-Dancing Nopon, trays of food just served to them. The Origin shard Crys had in his possession laid at the centre of the table.

Joran had swapped his consul outfit for a spare set of Kevesi fatigues while the others ordered their food. He didn’t want to draw attention to himself, nor did he want anyone to recognise him as J. The boy looked at the tray of food that had been served to him, and helped himself when the others started eating.

“This is top scran,” Lanz declared, satisfied that he had finally found something meaty enough.

Joran swallowed his bite of food. “I’d find excuses to be at the castle just so I could eat here.”

“I love Kevesi food,” Sena said. “What we eat in Agnus is more fish-based.”

The others ate as they listened to the conversation. Since he joined, Joran had stayed close to Lanz until most of the group made it clear they were happy to have him around. He’d even told them information about Moebius that had been useful for freeing a few colonies from their grasp.

However, one person hadn’t warmed up to Joran.

“What wrong, Taion?” Manana asked. “You haven’t touched your food.”

Noah turned away from the chatter when he heard Manana. He’d spent enough time with her to know that food was her way of showing that she cared about people.

“I’m fine, Manana,” Taion said, and stood up. The screeching of the bench sliding against the stone floor brought the chatter to a halt. “I’m just not hungry.”

“Wait!” Manana shouted as he stormed out the building. She sighed.

Noah wondered if letting Joran come with them was a good idea. At the time, it seemed like the best course of action, and one Taion agreed to. Compared to other Moebius, he hadn’t done anything too bad when left to his own devices.

He then realised the pitfall: Joran hadn’t done anything bad to him.

Sena looked at the others, and attempted to ease the tension. “This is a little awkward.”

They didn’t know how to respond to that. The room slowly filled with chatter again as they struggled to bring back the energy they had before.

Joran poked at some cured meat with a fork. “I should go, I’m only going to cause problems for you guys.”

“You’re fine, Joran,” Noah reassured. “I’ll go and talk to Taion.”

“I’ll come too,” Mio added.

Eunie wondered if she should go as well, since he was her partner and all. But a part of her was also worried about Joran. Even if they were the same age, he still looked and acted like a second termer. In the end, she decided that Noah and Mio were the best people for the job. And if they couldn’t get through to him, she’d make him see sense.

“I’ll stay here,” she said. “Someone’s gotta keep these guys out of trouble.”

“Oi!” Lanz protested.

Noah and Mio left the cafeteria while Eunie and Lanz bantered, and talked to the first soldier they could find.

“Hey, did you see an Agnian walk past?” Noah asked.

The guard thought for a moment. “If you’re on about the guy with the scarf, he headed straight to the castle.”

“Thanks,” Mio said, as the two off-seers headed to the imposing building they had been inside not too long ago. They took the elevator, as every other path was blocked by shutters.

Noah and Mio found Taion in the throne room. He was on his way to the room behind where the throne used to be, but stopped when he heard their footsteps.

“What are you doing here? You were having a great time with J.”

Noah spoke up. “It’s not the same without you.”

The two off-seers finally reached their friend, standing halfway between the throne and the archway. The sound of rushing water and the gentle hum of the growth modules filled the room, giving it the opposite vibe to the cafeteria.

“Look, I’m not the biggest fan of Joran either, but we need to help him,” Mio confessed.

“I don’t disagree, but…” Taion sighed and pressed his fingers against his forehead. “I don’t trust him.”

Mio trusted Taion’s intuition, but Joran hadn’t done anything strange since he joined them. He must have noticed something she hadn’t. “What did he do?”

“It’s what he isn’t doing that’s bothering me. He hasn’t used his powers since he’s joined us, but Lanz has been able to.”

Noah had also thought that was a bit odd. Joran was able to use his staff to heal them and deal some ether-based attacks, but he said he couldn’t make mudpuppets any more. On the other hand, Lanz had been using this ability to summon a copy of a Speculatos that had taken more effort to destroy than the others. Due to its size and lanky build, it didn’t last long before crumbling into a pile of mud.

“Are you worried he’ll use it against us if he does?” Noah asked.

“He hasn’t done much to prove that he won't. He still chose to become Moebius.”

That choice of phrasing intrigued Noah. He could remind Taion of T and E, or that Joran was driven to this choice by being subjected to visions of every death he experienced, but there would be no point. 

“Why’d you come here?” Mio asked, changing the subject.

“There’s an elevator beyond this room, I want to see where it leads.”

Noah’s Iris pinged. He internally cursed the timing as the familiar chime of his ringtone echoed across the room.

He answered the call. “Hi Monica… What!? We’ll be right there, hang on!”

Noah quickly turned off his Iris. “The City’s under attack!”

Luckily for the group, a City levnis picked them up on the way to the Great Sword. The journey was a tense one, and Monica did not pick up any of their calls.

The smell of burning ash greeted them as they disembarked. It was eerie walking down the streets that were once full of life.

Eunie touched one of the frozen citizens. “Still warm, and they’re breathing… Guys, they’re still alive!”

Sena looked across the city. “Hey, Ghondor’s over there.”

Last time they saw her, she was handling Agnus Castle affairs. Monica must have called her too.

They reached the founder’s hall, where Ghondor was trying to rouse her frozen mother. When she heard them coming, she turned around.

“Ghondor! I’m so glad you’re okay,” Sena said.

Ghondor quickly glanced behind her. “I wish I could say the same about the others.”

Monica had tried to protect the people inside the hall during the attack. Most of the people inside huddled together, but one woman clung to a statue as if it would come to life and protect her from the onslaught.

“I don’t remember any Moebius having this power,” Joran commented.

Ghondor narrowed her eyes, her suspicions confirmed. “It’s Shania. She attacked the City.”

Shania inserted herself into the foreground, illuminated by the burning levnises. She looked around and took in the still life of her own creation.

“You’re one of them now?” Sena asked. “They ditched you!”

Shania raised her arms as if she was showing off the destruction left in her wake. “They more than made up for that castle debacle. Only you lot can kill me now, and I’m going to make sure that won’t happen!”

Purple energy pulsed from Shania, freezing her foes in place.

Sena tried to relax the muscles she’d tensed in anticipation, and found that she couldn’t. While she never felt the burning fatigue the others complained of after a workout, she knew the others would be feeling it. Luckily, she was still able to breathe, even if it was shallow breaths due to a frozen diaphragm.

“Oh, you must be J.” Shania said, directing her attention to her fellow Moebius. “I’ve heard about your little clay dolls. It’s a shame you turned traitor, we could have been pals.”

Joran tried to talk, but he too had been frozen in place. He had just enough mobility to look to his left a little. Out of the corner of his eye, Noah’s hand twitched closer to his sword.

Just a little more, and he could dispel Shania’s curse.

He moved his eyes back to Shania, who was still monologuing.

“I wish it wasn’t such a pain in the arse to kill a fellow Moebius. This is why I wanted E to come with me.”

Shania’s form shifted. In her place was a monster with long tendrils where her pigtails used to be.

“I’ll drag you to her instead!”

The ether shifted, and Shania’s ability was nullified. Noah stood proudly, Lucky Seven in hand. Joran waved his staff, giving the others a boost to their attacks. This, combined with some well-timed moves from the rest of Ouroboros, put Shania on the back foot.

“We don’t have to fight like this, Shania,” Sena said. She used her hammer to block a kick from the Moebius.

“You don’t get it! If I don’t win, there’s nowhere left in this world for me,” Shania argued. “Not all of us are strong like you.”

“It’s you that doesn’t understand shit!” Ghondor shouted. “You couldn’t win against me in a fair fight, so you had to cheat.”

This accusation infuriated Shania, who slammed one of her pigtail tendrils on the ground. Ghondor dodged the blow and hit back at the appendage, which was enough to stop Shania from firing a barrage of purple energy at Sena.

Joran healed anyone that looked like they were flagging. He watched the three women argue as they fought, and he wondered if he could be the one to get through to Shania.

“It’s not too late,” he pleaded. “You still have a place here, with us!”

Shania glared at him as she defended herself from Sena and Ghondor. “Why would I give up on all this power? Thanks to Moebius, the world is now my canvas!”

She tried to freeze them in place once more, but one swipe from Noah’s sword was enough to nullify her power before it manifested. Shania tried to knock the blade from his hand, but was blocked by an urchon Lanz had summoned. The facsimile of the creature dissolved into mud when it absorbed the blow meant for Noah.

“The power of Moebius is amazing, but you’re better off without it. Do you see the pain it causes?” Joran asked. Lanz only had his abilities for a few days, and he had found uses that Joran would never have thought of. It was never about strength alone, he had realised, but finding ways to apply it that would help the people around him.

“I do, J, and it is amazing!” Shania shouted.

Ghondor realised that Shania was a lost cause, and punched her in her core. Shania stumbled back into her human form, but she quickly got back up. She swung her right arm back and enveloped it in purple energy, then made a dash for Ghondor.

“You still don’t get it?” Ghondor yelled, and charged toward Shania. Her own fist was raised to match Shania's

Shania’s chance of redemption shattered with her core. In her final moments, cradled in Ghondor’s arms, she looked to be at peace.

While Ghondor said her farewells to her former friend, the citizens regained control of their bodies. Eunie and Taion entered the statue hall and healed the people inside. Joran thought about joining them, but decided that the two of them had it all under control.

Instead, he joined the others at the memorial stones. Ghondor, Monica and Sena paid their respects to Shania even though her name was banned from being engraved. Shania’s mother, on the other hand, did not have a kind word to say about her late daughter.

The concept of family was still foreign to Joran, but he thought people were meant to care about the ones they gave life to. Monica made it clear that Shania’s mother’s actions were both abnormal unforgivable, and the woman scurried away.

“Thank you for helping Ghondor,” Monica said as if she had not implicitly threatened someone a moment ago. She turned to face Joran. “And thank you for trying to save Shania. If you need somewhere to stay, you are welcome here.”

It was a good offer: Joran had been looking for a place to stay. Fighting Shania, someone who had come to the same conclusion as he did, had him questioning his own choices. She’d had a bad life, but Shania had rejected any help that was offered to her because it wasn’t enough, or she didn't like the way it was offered to her. 

He could relate to that. But he was going to be different. Joran knew where his talents were, and they were not on the battlefield.

“I’m going to stay here. The City needs all the medical help it can get,” he said.

Lanz looked disappointed, but didn’t object. “If you change your mind, we’re just a call away.”

Eunie sat in the park, idly munching on the savoury torpedo wrap she bought for herself. It had been hungry work healing the people of the city, even if she had Joran, Taion, and every City medic helping her. And that was before they had to help the people still struggling to adjust to the new altitude.

She could see Sena walk down the steps, the girl picking up the pace when she spotted Eunie. She also had a wrap, though she hadn’t taken a bite yet.

“Hey, Eunie. Can I sit with you for a bit?” 

“You don’t need to ask, love.”

Sena sat down on the bench and watched the kids in the park play, unburdened by the war going on outside the City walls. “Do you think we’ll be like them when we change the world?”

Eunie shrugged. “Dunno, we could be little, but we could also be wrinkly.”

“We could be different ages in that world,” Sena said.

“We’ll cross that bridge when we get there.” She turned around so she could see Sena properly. “If one of us ends up a lot older, we can make it work.”

Sena smiled, but she didn’t seem happy. “I guess…”

Eunie threw her arm over Sena’s shoulder, her fiery hair warming the limb. Sena leaned into Eunie’s sideways embrace.

“What if you and Mimi outlive us all?” Sena asked, getting to the real issue. “You two look a lot like the queens, and they’ve been around forever.”

She’d never thought about that, having spent her whole life trying to survive. Even the idea of making it past ten years was a fantasy. Eunie didn’t know what was worse, dying young or living long enough to see everyone she loved wither away.

She wondered if that was the reason E joined Moebius. Eunie didn’t know how old E was, but she didn’t look much older than herself. Living forever without ageing a day was tempting, and may have been enough to sway E to enforce rules of this awful world. Being able to spend that eternity with T had also been something E clinged to, but life itself was the thing she couldn’t live without.

Watching Taion die in front of her, knowing she was next, would have been enough to make Eunie go down the same path as E.

Eunie played it cool. “That’ll be a problem for future Eunie to solve.”

“But wouldn’t you get lonely, living that long?” Sena asked.

Eunie took a bite of her wrap, and watched the children play. She heard Sena rip the packaging of her own wrap open so they could eat their food together.

When news of Michiba Canteen reopening reached Lanz, he made sure he was ahead of the rush of hungry City folk. He sat at a table, a tray of freshly-devoured pazza shoved to the edge. He thanked the Colony 15 kid who picked it up, then opened the book he’d just bought.

Lanz wasn’t usually one for reading, but he had been doing his best to keep himself informed. Right now, he was engrossed in the second book of the Founder’s Tale series that had taken the City by storm. There was no way he couldn’t after knowing he’ll appear in the next instalment of Leeanne’s series.

Noah sat down next to him, holding a familiar purple, cloth-bound book. “I think you need to read this.”

Lanz looked at him, already confused. “Shouldn’t you be going to Taion first? This book is literally about him.”

Noah flicked through the pages until he found the one he was after. He offered it up to Lanz.

"Look at this."

Colony: Rho -> Delta

Class: Tactician

Job: Mechanic

Particulars: Wanderlust

Term of death: 9th (estimated)

Cause of death: Unknown

Assigned to Rho until its destruction after a battle with Colony 10. Reassigned to Delta, whose flame clock was destroyed by Ouroboros shortly after arrival. Never seen again after stealing a levnis and absconding with Lanz, a Kevesi from the unbound Colony 23. Fate unknown, but both appeared in cradles two years and five months after their disappearance.

Ouroboros was wiped out by E before I could inquire about their fates. Colonies Delta and 23 were dealt with.

“That’s it? We were the Dorin and Bambam of that time?” Lanz asked, almost disappointed. Maybe it was the novel putting ideas into his head, but he was getting his hopes up for a more scandalous account. “Still one heck of a coincidence.”

Noah laughed at his reaction. “Maybe I was worried about him overthinking it. Thanks for hearing me out.”

“Did you find anything else?”

Noah leaned over the table and flicked to another page of the book, then sat back down. “I’m still reading through it, but I did find this one bit about him being an off-seer.”

“Of course you’d be into that.” Lanz returned the book to Noah. “Make sure you tell him about this, okay? And I’m not talking about the off-seer stuff.”

“I will, but I think I’ll have a bite to eat first. You up for some lobster?”

“Spark yes.”

Meanwhile, at the viewing platform at the back of the City, Mio looked at the new view the City was treated to. A slim waterfall trickling down a bottomless pit wasn’t much, but it was an improvement to a mountain of husks.

She wasn’t here to sightsee, though. After buying a torpedo wrap with Sena and eating it as she walked around the City, she found Taion standing at the platform. Right now, he was looking at something through his Iris.

Mio thought now was the best time to continue the conversation they had at Keves Castle. She finished off her wrap and crumpled the foil wrap into a ball.

“Thank you for putting up with Joran,” Mio said.

Taion turned off his Iris, but didn’t look away from the unchanging view. “Having a go at him would have pushed him back to Moebius, so don’t worry about it.”

It was hard for Mio to not worry about it. While it was a couple of months ago, Joran had still ripped open old wounds of his. 

“Look, if you still have any problems with him, you can tell me.”

He finally turned away from the waterfall to look at her. “J… Joran could have easily joined forces with Shania, but he didn’t.”

This wasn’t just about him joining the fight, even if his healing had been a boon. It also confirmed that he had lost his Moebius powers shortly after Lanz gained his class. If Joran could summon puppets to fight for him, he would have.

“Do you trust him now?” Mio asked.

Taion sighed. “If Monica has no problem with him staying here, neither do I.”

A musician further down the platform started to play a jaunty tune on their flute. Mio hadn’t heard the melody before, but she liked how it lifted her spirits a little. She pulled out her new notebook and jotted down the motif while it was fresh in her memory.

Mio closed the cover, but did not put the book away.

“Did he ever apologise about what he did at Lambda?” she asked.

He looked away from her, pretending to look at the flautist not too far from them. “It’s not me he should be saying sorry to. He is using what powers he has left for good now, but that doesn’t erase what he did.”

At the time, Mio had thought Joran’s actions were abhorrent. To rob someone of their autonomy and have them attack someone else was unthinkable, but that was what Joran had done to a whole colony. 

She drummed her fingers against the railing as she thought of a response. “I think he’ll try to atone once he’s settled here.”

They heard Noah approach them before they saw him, his boots clicking against the grate beneath them.

“Hey,” Mio said. She gave him a hug when he reached her. Noah pulled back so he could look into her eyes, then backed away completely.

Noah pulled a book out. “I wanted to talk about what I found in this.”

“Shall I go?” Mio asked, recognising both the book and what Noah wanted to discuss.

“You can stay if you want, I don’t want this to be a secret,” Taion said. Mio took this as an invitation to stay where she was.

“Right,” Noah said, addressing Taion. “Would you rather hear about the time you were an off-seer, or the time you were a mechanic?”

“If this isn’t the perfect time to discuss off-seeing, I don’t know what is,” Taion said, referencing both Noah and Mio, and the appropriate background music.

“I’m kinda curious too,” Mio said. She’d met many an off-seer on her travels, and she appreciated both their melodies and their perspectives on life and death.

Noah softly smiled, suggesting that this was the one he wanted to talk about. He put the book away and pulled out his flute. The melody he played was the Agnian off-seeing tune, but it lacked the embellishments that were in Mio’s and Miyabi’s melodies. Even so, the people that walked by were impressed despite the simplicity. When Noah finished, a couple of people applauded before carrying on with their day.

He swapped the flute for the book and turned to a page in the middle. “It says you were a good player on a technical level, but struggled to get motes to rise from husks.”

That reminded Mio of herself when she first became an off-seer. Miyabi was able to send off the husks before she got the melody right, while Mio was more skilled but struggled during the ritual. At the time she had wondered why her commander had assigned her to a role she was not the best at. She still wondered, even if she had a greater appreciation for off-seeing now.

“Did he have a partner?” Mio asked.

“Isurd. It says that he was a natural,” Noah answered. He ran his finger down the page as he tried to pick out the most relevant information. “You didn’t fight, but you did watch every battle. It says that you thought living was pointless if you could only help your comrades after they were gone.”

They all knew where this line of thinking ended up taking someone. The version of Taion in front of them had said it himself while they were in Maktha.

“You died on your fifth term,” Noah concluded.

The flautist stopped playing. They bent down to their pot and started to count the change that had been tossed in by passersby.

Noah smiled, but this time it looked put on. “Thanks for hearing me out. The book said that Crys was the one that transcribed the sheet music, so I felt like I had to share it with someone.”

Crys had died that morning by Noah’s hand. Before he faded into motes, he had asked to hear Noah’s melody to see if he was worthy of saving this world.

“Hang on, if Crys became Moebius recently, how was he able to hear a melody from decades ago?” Mio asked.

“They must have a way of watching our past lives,” Taion commented. He did look a little disturbed by the tale, but nothing suggested that he had a flashback like Eunie did. “Speaking of which, is the other one that miserable?”

“Depends on what you think spending a few years with Lanz is like.”

Mio snorted, which got Noah giggling. The two of them were stuck in a feedback loop of laughter while Taion failed to see the funny side. 

Noah checked his Iris, the corner of his mouth twitching upward as he listened to a message. “The ship’s ready.”

"I'll go and find the others," Mio said. She could call them, but she preferred to talk to people in person. "You two can grab something to eat while I'm gone."

Noah did have lobster earlier, but he did have room for a torpedo wrap as he had shared a plate with Lanz. Plus, he didn't know if Taion had eaten at all today.

"Sounds like a plan," Noah said.

Chapter Text

Origin had yet another screening. It was a first-person view of Shania’s final moments, as hers was the only perspective of the City they had. The screen faded to light blue as she did.

“S has broken the record for shortest-lived Moebius,” Y said as he watched her motes float from the City on the screen. While they could not see anything going on inside the ferronis, the outside world was fair game. 

“Should have known the lamb wouldn’t last long,” X scoffed.

What S did with her gift of eternal life had been up to her, it was nobody’s fault but hers that she wasted it. And now that she was gone, E saw no reason to waste any time thinking about her.

Her eternity was for looking back on what she had. Things had been great, until they weren’t. She had all the time in the world with the man she loved, and he rejected her gift.

“It was a gift for yourself,” T’s words from long ago were dragged to the forefront of E’s mind.

She could have sworn those words echoed around the room, too.

E looked up and saw her saviour’s legs standing in front of her.

“Ouroboros have breached Origin. You need to defend the Queen of Keves with your life.”

E looked back to the floor. “I’m staying here.”

The projector flickered on. E saw the lights dance on the floor, but didn’t look behind her to see the image they made.

“If she is freed, the world is doomed.” Z continued. “You will die if you do not fight them.”

Normally, E’s strong sense of self-preservation would have prevailed. Z had to try a different tactic to get her to move.

“If you want to kill her, this will be the perfect opportunity.”

E saw the tip of a scabbard poke into her field of view. Like her gun, the sword was gold-plated, as if it was made for her. She could see purple light emanating from the sheath, but it was different to the energy she felt when holding her usual weapon.

“You will be fighting in close quarters if you want your revenge.”

Revenge. It was enticing. It would not bring T back, but it would stop Ouroboros from inflicting this pain on anyone else. Maybe if she did it, Z might bend the rules for her. Someone as powerful as him would be able to reverse a Homecoming, E was sure of it. 

She also wanted her other self to feel what she was feeling right now. Not just her, but the man whose existence made a mockery of T's. He'd set this all up for his own selfish ends, E was sure of it. She'd show him what he'd done to her, what he made her feel.

She'd make him feel this despair.

She tried to move her legs, but the rush of blood from the sudden movement prevented her from standing. Instead, she took hold of the scabbard and slid the blade out of its sheath. It was like that boy’s sword, but made of black metal. If she was to fight them, this was a requirement to be on even standing with them.

Her legs tingled as she slowly stood up. She slid the blade back into its sheath and gave it a couple of swings. Z warped back to his seat and watched the amateur production.

The inside of Origin was a feat of engineering. Each room seamlessly transitioned into the next, with little variety in aesthetics. It was hard to find a room, or a monster, that wasn’t Moebius purple.

Unsurprisingly, the room that held the real Melia was covered wall-to-floor in Origin metal. Melia was tethered to one wall, a light coming from behind bathing her in a purple glow. The queen’s sleeping form was displayed to her sole spectator.

E had been waiting for them.

“Took you long enough.”

She turned around to face her opponents. The energy she had when fighting them the first time was long gone. E’s eyes were downcast, and her arms hung limply at her sides. Her long hair had some visible tangles, with the occasional feather caught up in the knots.

“Don’t take this the wrong way, but you look like shit,” Eunie said, brushing her fingers through her own wings. A couple of loose feathers floated to the floor. 

E ran her own fingers through her tangled strands. When she met resistance, she tugged, ripping out clumps of her hair. She wiggled her fingers, then pulled out the bits that got caught in her gauntlet.

“I blamed you for T’s death, when it wasn’t your fault at all,” E’s voice was jarringly soft.

“Do you think she’s seeing sense?” Mio whispered to Noah. “She doesn’t seem angry at Eunie.”

“I don’t think so, she’s still armed. Keep your guard up.”

Noah’s intuition was spot on. E summoned her gunrod to her hand and pointed it at Taion. He summoned his own blade, not wanting to take any chances. After the Boundary had finished construction, he and the others had used the leftover Origin metal to enhance their blades.

“It was you, the mastermind,” she accused. “You turned him against me!”

“You don’t get it, do you? When could I have possibly persuaded him?” Taion asked, hoping she would see the flaw in her logic. 

“No, I get what your grand plan was. You’d do anything to save Mio.” E shifted her aim to the girl. “Would be a shame if all that effort was for nothing.”

Noah acted on instinct, his feet moving him in the path of the gunrod’s line of fire. He wasn’t losing her here. Not after they’d come this far. E sighed, and shifted her aim back to Taion.

“We don’t have to do this,” Taion said. His chances of reasoning with her at this stage were unlikely, but it was worth trying.

E fired the first shot, which landed uselessly on Taion’s barrier. Now that his blade had been enhanced with Origin metal, it was able to withstand E's weapon. Noah drew Lucky Seven, counting on E to turn her attention to him. E fired as rapidly as she could, but the blasts were nullified by a couple of slashes from Noah’s sword.

Eunie remained unarmed. What she had in mind was reckless, but if it worked E wouldn’t be able to shoot at her friends. She stayed out of her double’s peripheral vision and waited for her to unleash another barrage of blasts at Noah.

When the Moebius opened fire, Eunie ran as quickly as she could to E before she could redirect her fire. Eunie grabbed the weapon and tried to yank it off her. E pulled back, not willing to let go.

Sena, who must have dropped her hammer when she realised what Eunie was trying to do, grabbed E from behind and pulled. The Moebius was no match for the Agnian’s strength, and lost her grip on the gunrod. Eunie tossed the weapon aside.

E wasn’t one for giving up so soon. She warped to the nearest wall, summoned her gunrod back to her hand, and took aim at Taion again. 

“Just let me shoot you!” E shouted as she watched her blast uselessly bounce off another barrier. 

“Why did you stop hesitating?” Eunie asked.

E’s gun quivered in her unsteady arm. “I lost the man I love because I was weak. Because I didn’t do my job. The one job Z put me on Aionios to do!”

“Killing people won’t make you stronger, and it won’t bring T back. What you’re feeling, E, is regret,” Noah said. He sheathed Lucky Seven, hoping the gesture would put E at ease a little.

Eunie could feel E roll her eyes as she dismissed her gunrod. “You sound just like the others. Don’t tell me, she exists because I regret my decision? That’s total ardun crap.”

“But you can’t deny what you’re seeing in front of you,” Taion said. “Eunie and I didn’t exist, until we did. Something changed in both of you.”

“N and M must have felt the same way you do right now. They gave up their hopes and dreams, and they were reborn in us,” Noah said. He didn’t know if what he was saying was right, but it felt true to him.

“You talk a lot, but you’re not saying anything!” E shouted. She held out her arm again, but this time a sword, complete with scabbard, materialised. E drew her blade and tossed the scabbard aside. She stood up straight and pointed the black blade at Ouroboros.

“Hopes and dreams? I’ll show you how empty those words are. Come at me!”

This was going to be tough, and not because E was good with a sword. Far from it, actually. Noah recalled his training at basic, and a warning from his instructor. 

“Your most dangerous opponent will be a novice.”

And a novice with a sword as powerful as his own was going to be a danger to everyone. A few years ago, Eunie challenged Noah to a dual and he had her on the floor in seconds. It had been more for her safety than him showing off: she nearly cut herself while flailing her sword around. Eunie didn’t pick up another sword until she got to use Noah’s class.

Noah’s finesse with the blade was something E did not possess. She stabbed towards Taion, who stepped to the side and set up a barrier. E swiped to the left, slicing paper but missing her target. Her overeager blow instead hit her own pauldron, which shattered from the impact. E looked at her arm, then at her blade, then back at Taion.

“Try not to get hit by her sword,” Noah said. Regardless of skill, E’s own Sword of the End would hurt if she got a hit in.

Taion dodged another thrust from E’s blade. “What do you think I’m doing?”

Normally, he’d stay back so he had enough space to think, but that was a big ask with E coming after him specifically. She stabbed forward again, and he strafed towards the middle of the room.

That allowed Lanz and Sena to cover for him. Lanz turned his blade into a turret and opened fire, drawing E’s attention to him. Sena hit E with her hammer, which stopped her from piercing her blade through Lanz’s shield. She slashed her own leg, splitting more of her armour, as she reeled from the blow. Blood trickled down the gaps.

Mio made sure that E couldn’t get to anyone else. She alternated between hitting E with her disc-shaped blades and using her agility to avoid E’s telegraphed attacks. Between her, Lanz and Sena, E would be unable to focus on what anyone else was doing.

Now the attention was off him for now, Taion could form a plan. E had more wounds on herself than the rest of them put together. Before they came here, Eunie wanted them to spare her if she decided to fight again. At this rate, E would accidentally bleed out due to wounds inflicted by her own sword.

If he wanted to fulfil Eunie’s wishes, he would have to heal E. That was easy to do: he cast his talismans into the sky, and they released ether when he guided them back to the ground. 

E’s eyes widened as she watched him do the gesture, then she gasped when she felt the ether close her wounds.

Lanz looked back at him, incensed by the sight. “What the spark are you doing? She’s nearly down!”

“You’ll see why in a moment,” he looked at Noah, who had managed to keep his distance from E. “Noah, now would be a good time to use your sword. Just don’t kill her.”

“Disarm her?” Noah asked, then drew his silver blade. “On it!” 

Noah clashed his Lucky Seven against E’s, locking her into a stand-off. Mio dismissed her blades and joined him, wrapped her hand around his, and shoved. E staggered back and collapsed to the ground, her sword flying out of her hand. The blade clattered to the ground. 

E grasped her left shoulder and looked up. Tears welled in her eyes.

Mio put her free hand on the side of her neck. “T gave up his life so I could go on, and I don’t want it to go to waste. Not here.”

“He did it for himself,” E said. She drew in a shaky breath. “Why would he care about what you think?”

“He did care. I only knew him for a short while, and he was pretending to be Taion, but the feelings behind his words were not false.”

E cast her eyes back to the ground. “I know one of you heard my last chat with him,” she let out a sob. “He was snuffing scared of me. I should have been there for him but I hurt him and- and I-”

E couldn’t finish her sentence. The room was filled with her loud sobs, her regret made painfully clear. She tried to wipe away her tears with her free hand, but more would take their place.

Taion looked at Eunie, silently communicating his intent to say something to E. Eunie nodded at him and looked back at E. Watching herself cry was the kind of vulnerability she hadn't expected to see when she entered this room, and she wanted it to stop for both their sakes.

“You did go about it the wrong way, but some part of you did care,” he wasn’t sure if they were the right combination of words to get E to stop crying, but he felt obligated to try. “You knew something was wrong, and you tried to handle it the way you knew how.”

“Who gave you the right to go around like you know everything?” E said, sniffing between her words.

Eunie held out her hand. “We don’t know it all, love. We just want to end this cycle of death.” 

E removed the uneasy hand from her shoulder and reached out. “Will it hurt?” she said weakly.

“You won’t feel a thing,” Eunie said, putting on the voice she reserved for injured first termers. She hoped she wasn’t lying like she would back then.

E’s body quivered as her hand brushed against Eunie’s. Their eyes glowed blue and red, and the world vanished for both of them.

Chapter Text

Evenings at Elaice Highway were stunning. The view of the black fog swirling around the glowing trees made surviving the day worth it. A young woman watched as she sat in the cafeteria, paying no mind to the soldiers milling around her.

Eunie bit into her wrap, savouring the morsel. She didn’t complain about the sinewy meat, since she was well aware that the people of Colony 14 didn’t have the luxury of choice. Anything she couldn’t chew she spat onto the tray.

She’d been newly promoted to captain of her unit. Her scores were impressive, but she knew she was only there because the position was vacant.

Lanz had sacrificed himself to save her unit a year ago, and Noah…

She wasn’t sure if she was ready to accept his death.

It had been a month, but the hole his departure had punched into her chest wasn’t ever going to heal. He’d gone on a solo mission to clear out some monsters and never returned. She tuned out the sounds of the cafeteria so she could commit his soft voice when he said his final farewell to her memory.

“...Aionios to Eunie.”

“Commander Zeon!” Eunie shouted, swallowing the food in her mouth and jumping up so she could salute him.

“At ease, Captain,” Zeon said. “Can you come to my office?”

He walked off before Eunie could answer. She didn’t want to make him wait, so she scarfed down the rest of her wrap and followed him.

Zeon’s office was quiet, except for the quiet hum of the ferronis and the distant sounds of people maintaining it. Zeon stood behind his desk, which was taken up by a map of the region.

“Thanks for coming on such short notice, Eunie. This is what I wanted to talk to you about.”

Zeon pinged Eunie an image of a blade. It was 3D, so she was able to rotate it. It looked like two overlapping discs, with a strap that was long enough to fit someone’s forearm.

“It doesn’t look like much,” Eunie commented, recalling a textbook she’d leafed through a while back. “But I know it’s deadly in the right hands. Agnian hands.”

Zeon nodded. “You act a fool, but you wouldn’t be here if you were one.”

Eunie pretended she didn’t hear the backhanded compliment. 

Zeon then pinged her a map, with a spot highlighted. “This blade is wielded by the man our survey branch says will be Colony Pi’s next Commander.”

“And you’re telling me this because…?” Eunie asked.

“We’re going to attack them in a week’s time. Your task will be to kill the wielder of that blade during the battle. Do that, and they’ll struggle to find a replacement in time for our next assault.”

“Can you at least tell me what he looks like?” Eunie asked. “I don’t think the lads in the survey branch would miss something that important.”

Zeon pinged her an image Noah had taken moments before he died. It depicted his killer: a man who’d be mistaken for a Kevesi if it wasn’t for the white armour. His right arm stretched frontward, directing a flurry of paper talismans. Several of them were close enough to obscure parts of the shot.

Eunie recalled their off-seer, Url, describing the number of slashes he’d seen all over Noah’s husk. She gritted her teeth under her straight face.

“Don’t worry Zeon,” Eunie said. “I’ll crush that mudder.”

Colony 14 rolled across Fornis before the sun even rose, hoping for a decisive victory before it got too hot to fight. If all went according to Zeon’s plans, they would intercept Colony Pi at the edge of the Eagus Wilderness. Eunie already had dust all up in her plumage. She’d brush it out, and more would take its place. It was a losing battle.

Eunie opened her Iris and quickly reviewed the information she’d gathered on her target. As was customary for the survey branch, they didn't provide his name. What they could tell her was that he was in his ninth term, like Eunie, and tended to stay back and monitor the battle, which was completely unlike Eunie.

Most importantly, she knew he was going to be in the rear guard today. Eunie’s vision was perfect, but even someone as brilliant as her would need some help to see the back of the enemy lines. She looked down the sight of her gunrod. It was difficult to find anyone since they’d prematurely charged into the fray. Even if she did spot him, he’d likely have a helmet on. She scanned the battlefield, hoping to see him in the sea of dust and white.

There he was.

She was right about him wearing the helmet, but there was no mistaking the gauntlet on his arm. Furthermore, he was the only Agnian that was surrounded by paper.

Upon Zeon's signal, Colony 14 charged to meet the advancing Agnians. Eunie took cover behind a rock and poked her gun to the side. She took aim, and-

Missed. One of the soldiers next to him collapsed into a cloud of red motes, and her target stopped in his tracks. From her vantage point, Eunie could see him try in vain to heal his comrade as he held them in their final moments. The other soldier in his team said something, and he laid the husk down.

He removed his helmet and tossed it aside. The man stayed kneeling by the husk even as his comrade tried to get him moving again. It would have been piss-easy to shoot him right now and fill up her flame clock. However, she found it difficult to pull the trigger when she could see his face now.

He looked up and in her direction. Eunie ducked out of his sight, pressing her back against the stone.

‘So much for one clean shot,' Eunie thought, cursing her aim.

She hoped to the queen and to anything that would listen that he had not spotted her. She could see the Colony 14 ferronis standing proud, its flame clock topped up by Agnian casualties, and her comrades running from their base as the battle intensified. Behind the ferronis were some rocks and cliff faces that blended into the dusty sand, and-

Something white flew past her head.

“There she is!” a man’s voice shouted. She quickly peeked from her hiding spot and saw that guy, and he was looking right at her. He pointed at her, directing his paper drones in her direction.

Eunie needed to move, or she would be ashes. She got up and fled, hearing the rock she just fled from explode. Retreating to her colony would put them off, since she seemed to have killed their attacker.

They didn’t relent even as a couple of Kevesi soldiers directed their attention to them.

Eunie fired at them as she ran. Her bullet sailed towards them, but her intended target countered with a barrier made of the pieces of paper he had surrounded himself with moments ago. The defender wasn't so lucky, having turned to ash after being sliced by Zeon's blade. Eunie's commander forged ahead, not even acknowledging his fleeing comrade.

“This is for Noah!” Eunie shouted between breaths.

“Sorry, I can’t hear you!” her opponent responded. He did not lower his barrier as he pursued her. “Come a bit closer!”

Eunie wasn’t falling for that one. She fired once more, but he dodged her blast this time. The only thing going Eunie’s way was that she was faster than the man. Once more, she found herself behind a rock. She raised her gun, then gasped when she felt a hand grab her arm and pull it away from the trigger.

Next to her was a blond man that did not look like an enemy or an ally. His eye patch and brown clothing weren’t something she had seen before, and neither was the chunky red gauntlet over his other fist.

“Put your gun down, or I’m going to throw you.”

“Who the spark are you?” Eunie asked. She pulled her arm out of the man’s grip.

The man pointed at the eye patch over his left eye. There was a white pattern she didn’t recognise. “I’m the man that’s going to save the day.”

“I don’t need your snuffin’ help!” Eunie argued. “I just need to kill him and I’m done.”

“Do you even know who he is?” the mystery man asked. He took her silence as a negative, then noticed someone talking. This part of the battlefield was a little bit quieter, so noise carried more easily.

“I am most grateful for your being able to regroup on such short notice,” said the voice. It was loud despite being distinctly muffled by a helmet.

The two of them peeked over the rock. There was a consul, most likely the one for Pi, talking at one of the surviving Agnians. Eunie recognised the brunet as the man she'd been trying to kill.

“...We’ve got some new pieces on the board. As we all know, this is a game for two players only. Your new objective is to kill any hostiles wearing an eye patch.”

“May I ask why, Sir Consul? They didn’t look like they wanted to attack us,” said the Agnian. He was as tall as the consul, maybe taller if he stood up straight.

This consul sighed and held a hand to his helmet. “I give you one promotion, and you let it get to your head. What part of ‘Don’t question me’ do you not understand?”

Eunie heard her companion sigh in frustration and tap his fingernails against his gauntlet. “Right, I’d better make my entrance.”

Before he could be stopped, the mystery man leapt over the rock, ran to the consul and punched him clean through his chest. Eunie couldn’t believe her eyes. And from the look of it, neither did the consul. He disappeared into a cloud of blue motes before he could utter any final words.

The Agnian couldn’t believe it either. Eunie’s target backed away from the consul’s killer, and prepared to attack him. The mystery man dodged a wave of paper and got close enough to grab the Agnian by the front of his white jacket.

Eunie could see their lips moving, but couldn’t tell what they were saying. The Agnian looked like he was ready to punch his assailant, but the mystery man told him something that caused him to drop his fist to his side. Both of them were looking at something in the distance, the blond smirked at the sight and at the Agnian’s shocked expression.

The mystery man practically dragged the Agnian to Eunie’s rock.

“You, keep your head down,” the eyepatched man said. He looked at Eunie, then back to the Agnian. “Right. Taion, this is… Eunie. Be nice to her.”

From the look Taion gave her, it was a big ask. Despite the obvious animosity, the mystery man left them to go after sparks-knows-what.

Eunie waited for Taion to throw the first punch. She could see his hands clenched into fists at his side, but he did not move, nor did he make any motion to summon anything from his blade. And she wasn’t going to make any moves either. If he attacked first, she could justify killing an unarmed opponent in self defence.

“What are you waiting for?” she asked. She held her arms out, encouraging him to hit her. “I killed your mate, don’t you want your revenge?”

“...There’s no point.” He sounded lost. He wasn’t even looking at her. In fact, Taion had been staring in the same direction since the mystery man grabbed him.

Eunie looked behind her, following his line of sight. Colony Pi’s flame clock was in pieces and the last of its red motes trickled from the crack. 

She scanned the battlefield for Colony 14’s ferronis and saw a figure fly up to the clock face. The ferronis shot at the figure indiscriminately, only succeeding in killing the remaining soldiers on the battlefield. This entity split into four, and one of them pierced the face of her colony’s flame clock.

“Who are these people?” she thought out loud.

There were two more members of this mysterious faction under Colony 14, with one of them being the man from earlier. Both of them were fighting Eunie’s consul.

Triton was an odd fellow. Unlike the consuls for the other colonies, he insisted on using his full name and threw himself into every battle. Eunie thought he was pretty cool for that, even if his quirks got on her nerves a little.

“I’ve been waiting to have a scrap with some Ouroboros landlubbers,” Triton said, finally giving a name to this strange group. He attacked the duo with a flurry of kicks that would have knocked out a normal person, then kicked some debris from the destroyed flame clock at them.

Ouroboros were not normal people. The blond dodged the projectile and matched Triton blow-for-blow, while the other one stood back and waited for an opening. They found it, and shot the consul clean through the chest.

Triton clutched his shattered core, unusually calm despite his imminent death. “I finally fought a beastie… that was too big…”

The duo regrouped with the rest of their team in the now-still battlefield, not even acknowledging the way Triton faded into blue motes. With no colony, no comrades in sight, and no better ideas, Eunie emerged from the rock and approached the group.

“Althea, what do we do?” asked the blond man from earlier.

The leader, Althea, looked at her like she was an injured pippito. Eunie hated that look. How dare this woman, who barely knew her, treat her like some defenceless creature.

“I want to take them to the City, I really do,” she said half-heartedly. “But I don’t want to fall out with the Elders.”

“Spark the Elders!” shouted another woman. “All they do is fart around while giving no real solutions.”

“If you think your way is better, you should do their job,” a second man argued, pouring cold water on her fire. “Oh look, there’s another one.”

While Eunie wasted her time watching these people argue, Taion had also joined them, albeit at a greater distance than her.

“We can’t leave them like this though, do they even know how to cook?” asked the gunner.

That rubbed Eunie the wrong way. Who were they to think she was incapable of looking after herself? She didn’t even ask to be saved by them.

“Right,” Althea said, having come to a decision. She approached Eunie and offered her a bag. “Here’s all the supplies we have, Taion. I’m sorry we can’t do much more.”

“I’m Eunie,” she muttered under her breath as she accepted the bag.

Althea looked at the two of them, and kicked her foot against the ground to signal her departure. “All right, don’t kill each other. You’re all you two have now.”

The six of them walked off towards the sunset, leaving Eunie alone with her target. She sized him up. It would be an even match, but Eunie believed she would be the winner.

Taion made the first move. He tapped the side of his head, activating his Iris, and took cover behind a piece of the wrecked Colony Pi. Since he called for backup, Eunie considered him fair game. She ran after him, but stopped in her tracks when she heard a bunch of footsteps rapidly approaching.

Eunie knew she didn’t have much time until reinforcements arrived, but she didn’t expect them to be that quick.

The Agnian squad emerged from the same route Colony 14 had taken, drawing their blades the moment they saw Eunie. Taion emerged from behind the scrap metal and waved to them.

“That was quicker than I expected,” he called out to them. 

The soldier’s eyes narrowed, then she pointed her lance at his direction. “Thanks for saving me the trouble of finding you. The castle ordered us to kill any Pi defects.”

“What? I haven’t betrayed anybody!”

“Orders are orders, and there’s supplies on the line.”

Eunie looked at the soldiers and was relieved to see no gun wielders in the unit. On her own, she would be able to take down a few before the others could get close enough to stab her. The rest, however, would be a challenge.

She looked at Taion, and realised allying with him might be the only way she could survive this.

He had made the same realisation, and moved close enough to talk to her. “I loathe to ask you for assistance, but this is the only way we’re going to make it out of here alive.”

Eunie cocked her gun. It was unnecessary as it was powered by ether, but these Agnians wouldn’t know that. “Stay out of my way, and don’t snuff this up.”

Chapter Text

The last Agnian turned to ash, and the two of them ran as far from the battlefield as possible. Since other Agnians were hostile, Eunie assumed the Kevesi were just as likely to attack them for snuff all. And if they weren’t, she wasn’t sure if she could trust them to not kill her out of desperation. They needed a new base, and fast.

Elaice Highway was out of the question, and the two of them couldn’t go through Rae-Bel Tableland without stumbling across a colony. This left Aetia as their safest route out of the battlefield.

The two of them didn’t stop running until the sand beneath their feet became lush grass. They spotted the remains of a long-destroyed colony, and with a lack of better options, headed there and cleared the area of monsters.

At the top of the colony was a receptacle for ether cylinders. Eunie opened the bag, which she already knew was stuffed full of ether cylinders. She shoved them in the machine, but exhausted her supply before it had enough energy to go back online.

“How is this thing so hungry? That’s all my cylinders gone!” Eunie exclaimed. She turned to look at Taion, who was barely hiding a smirk. “What?”

He pulled out two cylinders from his personal supplies. “These will be enough to power it.”

Eunie begrudgingly stepped back and let him pour the ether into the hulk. The engine whirred beneath their feet, and the hulk threw out a field of ether.

“This should keep the monsters away,” Taion said.

‘Most of them,' Eunie thought.

It was getting dark.

Eunie claimed the top of the Hulk, arguing that her class made her the best person to pick off anyone trying to ambush them. 

In reality, she was keeping an eye on him.

He was poring over a map by the campfire. It reminded Eunie of the surveyors back at 14. They hadn’t picked up her calls since the battle. In fact, nobody from her colony was answering her messages.

Speaking of the surveyors, they wore glasses like Taion's. Eunie wondered why she hadn’t noticed this when she saw his photo a couple of days ago. The large, thin, light grey frames the Agnians wore made even the coolest fighter look like a total dork.

He turned his back to the table and looked up, watching Eunie watch him. Eunie looked away and pretended to be interested in a distant brog.

It had been a week since the battle. The two of them were less on edge, since no soldiers had found them at the hulk. In fact, there was no other intelligent life.

The river was also quiet, giving Eunie time to reflect on a difficult conversation as she scrubbed the stains out her jacket. They talked it out later when they both had cooler heads, but that didn’t undo the initial falling-out. They hadn’t eaten in a while, and a difficult day of foraging had narked both of them. The tipping point was Eunie startling a grebel they’d been hunting.

“Mio wouldn’t have screwed this up," Taion had been too quick to criticise for Eunie’s liking, and she wasn’t the one to let this slide.

“Why don’t you go and ask this Mio to do it then?” she asked, her hands firmly planted on her hips. She could feel the muscles supporting her headwings twitch as she'd started to seethe.

“I would if you hadn’t killed her.”

At the time, Eunie was so caught up in the argument that she didn’t think of the Agnian she’d sniped. Instead, she’d deflected.

“Well I can’t bring her back, can I? She’s as dead as Noah.”

Bringing him up again was a cheap shot, but she wouldn’t have taken it if he hadn’t mentioned Mio. Taion pressed his fingers to his forehead and sighed forcefully.

“If you’re expecting me to apologise for that, don’t hold your breath.”

From a certain point of view, the lack of remorse made sense. Noah would have killed Taion if he hesitated, and the flame clocks made talking things out impossible. Even so, Eunie had summoned her gunrod and pointed the barrel at his chest.

“Go on then, shoot me.”

It had been really tempting to take Taion up on the offer, but something held Eunie back. It wasn’t the misplaced sense of honour she had in the heat of battle, nor was it the knowledge that her hands were as red as his. She wringed the excess water from the jacket, remembering her parting words to him as she dismissed her blade and stormed off.

“I ain’t giving you the satisfaction, mate.”

Eunie returned from the river with the freshly-washed jacket in her arms. It was waist-length, but the long sleeves made it a bitch to dry. She hung it up on a line she’d made out of wires and ferronis wreckage, then she stood back and watched. It hadn’t fallen over yet, but she didn’t want to risk getting more grass stains all over her clothes.

Speaking of grass stains, she wondered how Taion had managed to keep his white clothes looking fresh. They didn’t have the luxury of a proper place to clean themselves, and the river could only wash away so much.

That settled it: she was getting this secret out of him.

It didn’t take her long to find him, since he was sitting in her spot at the top of the hulk. He was looking away, possibly at the rocks in the distance, but the glasses and cloth in his hand betrayed him.

She climbed up the ladder to get a closer look at him, now that his face wasn't veiled behind the oversized lenses. Eunie couldn’t find the right word to describe how she thought he looked without them. Staring at him didn’t piss her off as easily, but this new feeling was foreign to her. She knew she shouldn’t be thinking that way about Noah’s killer, even if she understood why he did it, so she tried to push those thoughts to the back of her mind.

Her mind, like the rest of Eunie, wasn’t going away quietly. It screamed at her to go up to him and do… something. Eunie’s mind didn’t know what exactly it wanted.

Did she think he looked… good?

Nah.

“Oi, that’s my spot!” Eunie shouted. She did her best to sound annoyed.

Taion quickly put his glasses back on. “It’s mine now, you left it for more than 15 minutes.”

She should have known that stealing his spot by the campfire would come back to bite her in the arse. It had been a windy night, and that was the only spot where she didn’t get smothered in smoke. When he came back, Eunie made up the 15 minute rule so she didn’t have to move.

“You thought I was being serious back then?” she asked.

Taion didn’t answer. Eunie climbed up the ladder to the top of the hulk, skirted around the pile of folded paper in the centre, and sat on the other side of the platform.

She reached over and picked up one of the talismans. Upon closer inspection, it was vaguely arrow-shaped and had something scrawled on the back. She scanned the ink through her Iris and found no match on the network.

“What’s all this for?” Eunie asked, waving the paper arrow.

“Security. If this is going to be a long-term arrangement, we’ll need these to tell us if someone’s nearby.”

He picked up another arrow from the pile and used his blade to lift it into the air, then he stood up and pointed in the direction of the cave next to the hulk. The arrow sailed through the air and hit a part of the wall by the entrance. It didn’t fall to the ground.

“What’re those things called, anyway?” Eunie asked.

“Spell tags. I’ve heard of other wielders giving them different names, but…”

“But?”

Taion hesitated, and looked at the pile when he answered. “I couldn’t come up with one.”

Eunie grinned, a devious idea taking shape. She was going to name them. “What about Eunie?”

“I’m not naming them after you.”

“That was a joke! What about… Millick?”

“No.”

“Arrow.”

“Definitely not.”

“Ugh, why do you have to be so picky?” Eunie groaned.

“Does your gunrod have a name?” Taion asked.

“No.”

“Then mine won’t have a name either.”

Between the two of them, they came up with a lot of names for Taion’s blade. None of them were right for him. 

They didn’t see anyone else for two months. It was good, as any human would attack them on sight the moment they realised who they were, but it did get a little lonely with only each other for company.

So it was a pleasant surprise for Eunie when a Nopon caravan decided to set up shop at their new home.

“Shillshill happy to buy if you have thing to sell,” the Nopon cheerfully announced.

Eunie digged through her supplies and offered up one of the empty ether cylinders. “Do you take these?”

“Shillshill happy to take off hands!”

The Nopon transferred some G to Eunie’s account after she gave them all away. She looked at her finances, and wondered if she could buy anything that would come in handy.

Taion appeared from the cave shortly after, his still-unnamed wards having alerted him to the new arrival. He slowed to a walk when he spotted the Nopon and dismissed his blade.

“You could have told me you were okay,” he said, barely hiding the worry in his voice.

“I was going to," Eunie protested.

“Ohoho! A Kevesi and an Agnian living together? This not happen in years!” Shillshill babbled.

She dug around in one of her bags, and fished something out. It was a book with a plain, pale pink cover with no title. The cover was soft and pliable in the Nopon's wings.

“Do friends have feelings friends can’t put words to? This book will be of massive help!”

Taion accepted the book and turned it over to inspect the spine. “Sparks…”

“Oi, watch your snuffing language. We’ve got guests here,” Eunie said. The Nopon snorted at her outburst. “What’s so funny?”

“Sparks is name of book. It free of charge as friend make Shillshill laugh, but please to not tell others you got from Shillshill.”

The two of them bought a few items that would come in useful, and let Shillshill make herself comfortable while they retreated to the top of the hulk. Taion opened the book, and the duo glanced at the contents page.

“Attraction…babies…sexuality… never heard of any of those words before,” Taion said, more to himself than to Eunie.

Eunie snatched the book off Taion and turned to a page that caught her eye. “Kissing, that sounds cool.”

The word “kissing” rolled so easily off her tongue, the soft middle of the word sandwiched by a harsh exterior. The page on the left showed one person pressing their pursed lips on another person’s lips, while the other page explained that the two people were “kissing”.

Eunie could now put a word to what she wanted to do to Taion. She stood on the tip of her toes and gave him a peck on the cheek. His reaction was priceless. He looked up from the book, already blushing and utterly speechless. Eunie liked that look on him.

“Why did you…?”

Eunie grinned. “Just wanted to give it a go.”

That grin was wiped off her face when he gave her a kiss in return. Eunie could feel the heat rising in her cheeks, so she shielded it with the book. She peeked at him over the pages and hoped she could stall him until the blush faded.

He pulled the book out of her hands. “I think it’s my turn to choose a page.”

Since they had nothing better to do, they looked at the rest of the strange textbook. They were blissfully unaware of the audience watching them read the forbidden texts.

They’d settled into a routine. In the morning, they’d greet any Nopon that set up camp the night before, cleared the remnants of the campfire, and lit a new one to cook breakfast.

The majority of the day was taken up by hunting and foraging, which got easier over time. There were plenty of options for food as they now lived in a fertile area. If they had any excess, they sold it to the Nopon. Eunie would insist on cooking whatever they caught. She wasn’t the greatest chef in the world, but at least what she made was edible. 

Right now, they were sitting next to each other at the campfire. Eunie took a bite of her meal, glad the two of them had survived another day.

A single blue mote floated by, mingling with the wisps before finally disappearing into the sky.

“Where do you think they go?” Eunie asked. She put the bowl on the floor so she could lean back a little, but kept the spoon in her hand.

Taion flopped to the ground and watched the sky. “I don’t have a clue.”

It wasn’t something Eunie had time or the inclination to think about. She preferred to think that death was for other people, and that she would never turn into motes herself. Not even the gold motes appealed to her that much.

“I don’t want to reach Homecoming,” Taion confessed.

Eunie stopped mid-bite, and put the spoon into her half-empty bowl. She looked at him and noticed the moon’s reflection on his glasses eclipsing his irises, then at the term mark on his hand. They were the same age, give or take a couple of months.

Taion continued. “I’m not eager to die, but when the time comes I’d rather be wherever the blue motes are.”

Eunie hummed in contemplation. “I’d rather not think about it, to be honest.”

More motes flew across the sky, passing by the hulk as they floated to their unknown destination. The husks must have been nearby.

“We’d better put the fire out before the off-seers find us,” Taion said. He sat up and stretched.

Eunie begrudgingly got up to get some water.

A year of relative calm had made them complacent and sometimes sloppy in their vigilance. Eunie was meant to be lookout, Taion was meant to check his wards, but both decided that leaving it until later wouldn’t hurt.

They had more important things to do, like watching the river. Sometimes a fish would get too close and Eunie would spear it with her gunrod, then drag its body to dry land. The two tenth termers looked at Eunie’s haul.

“I’m cooking this one,” Eunie pointed at the largest fish. “The rest are going to the Nopon.”

Eunie waited for a response. She got one when Taion pulled her to the ground. Eunie pushed herself up so she could see what he spotted.

“Kevesi. Keep your head down,” he whispered.

Eunie had a peek at the unit. They were large, definitely enough soldiers to outnumber the two of them. They kept walking, and Eunie foolishly hoped that they were safe for another day.

Unfortunately for her, someone in the squad was incredibly observant.

“It’s them! The defects. We’ll get a lot of G if we snuff them.”

The leader looked at the gunner who spotted them. “What are we waiting for? Get them!”

Eunie got up from the floor and summoned her gunrod. She managed to down a Kevesi and give Taion enough time to get up and summon his own blade.

“I’ll cover you, try to shoot as many of them as you can,” he said.

As predicted, the closest soldier dodged Taion’s attack, leaving himself open to a shot from Eunie. She hit him in the head, ashing him instantly. The two of them were able to take down two more Kevesi in this manner before the rest wised up to their strategy.

It did give them enough time to get closer to the cliffside. While Taion’s blade could accommodate for walls, Eunie had to choose between being able to attack or taking cover. She tried to go for both, though she still felt too exposed when firing at the enemy.

Eunie gasped as a blade grazed her side. A soldier had managed to get close while she was thinking about her positioning. In turn, the Kevesi was too focused on Eunie to notice Taion’s attack until it was too late. Eunie cursed her lack of awareness as the soldier collapsed in front of her: she was meant to be keeping Taion out of harm’s way.

Eunie glanced at her companion. His paper drones were raised in the air as they gathered ether to heal her wound. The she looked in the direction of the soldiers, and a pit formed in her stomach when she saw one of them had sneaked up the river. She tried to shoot the soldier, but the distance and her injury meant she missed every time.

She watched in horror as a sharpshooter took aim.

“Taion!”

It happened in a matter of seconds, but that time moved at a glacial pace.

The gunner didn’t miss. Eunie couldn’t look away as the cyan bolt hit Taion’s chest. He fell backward from the force of the blast, red motes spilling out of the wound as he slumped against the side of the cliff.

Her blood froze as she felt the warming sensation of ether healing her wounds as his own life flickered. She picked him up, ignoring the way her power frame whined at the exertion, and ran until she reached the nearest piece of hulk wreckage she could find.

Eunie laid him down but did not let go. She threw off her jacket and pressed it against the open wound, then looked at him. His eyes were squeezed shut, but he still tried to lift his head from the ground. Eunie freed one of her hands and supported the back of his head. He opened his mouth to speak, so she leaned forward so her ear was close.

“Eun…” he couldn’t even finish her name without struggling for air.

Her vision blurred, tears filling her eyes.

“Please, just hold on,” Eunie sobbed. “Stay with me!”

Taion turned to ash in her arms. Eunie buried her face in his jacket, soaking the material.

A voice in her head told her to flee. She could escape through the fog-filled cave, or jump off the cliff and lose them that way. That voice diminished as she lifted her head and looked in the direction of the soldiers, and a new idea asserted its dominance. They were going to pay for killing him.

Eunie summoned her gunrod to her hand and shot one soldier in the head, then hit another in the chest before they spotted her. She took cover behind a different piece of the hulk wreckage, peeking out to snipe anyone who didn’t hide behind pieces of the former colony in time.

A sword fighter got within striking distance of Eunie. They swiped at her, but she counted with a swing of her gunrod. The two clashed blades until Eunie got a lucky hit on their head.

The soldier fell to the ground, and Eunie hit them on the head again. Even as their life flickered to nothing, she didn’t stop until their helmet cracked open and their head disintegrated into dust. She yanked her gunrod out, barely registering a second crack as the helmet split in two. It was a fraction of what they deserved for taking Taion away from her.

Eunie was so caught up in her righteous rage that she had forgotten about the rest of the unit. The wings of her gunrod faded to grey as she repeatedly slammed it against the powdered remains of the husk’s head. Eunie lifted the gunrod again and felt a punch to her chest.

She looked down and realised it wasn’t a punch at all. Red motes spilled out from where a bullet had shot clean through. The adrenaline that kept her going faded and she collapsed to the ground.

“I… don’t…” she gasped, trying in vain to push herself upright. Her efforts were rewarded with a shot to the head.

She saw a flash of red and ash before the world went dark.

Rhythmic clicking roused Eunie from her slumber. She was sitting in a plush chair, positioned to face a screen that illuminated the dark room. She looked around, seeing more chairs arranged in neat rows.

Finally, she looked at what was in front of her. It was a screen, flickering in time to the beat. The scene depicted herself saluting a man she did not recognise. Then it shifted to her in the heat of battle, destroying a Colony she couldn’t recall fighting. Another image, showing her eating lunch with more strange people.

“It’s a tragic shame, isn’t it?” Said a voice from the row in front of her.

The scenes changed. Eunie wasn’t sure if it was her imagination, or if the colours on the screen were more vivid. It showed her and Taion resting in front of a campfire. There was no audio, but she knew it was from one of their chats about the state of the world.

“You only met him in this life-”

The scene rapidly cut to the moment Taion was shot. Eunie wasn’t able to look away in time.

“-Only to lose him. You two will never cross paths like this again.”

Eunie was then treated to a third-person view of her wrath. Soldier after soldier meeting the same end, until she was overwhelmed by the sheer number of people after her. 

“You can stay together.”

The screen showed the six Ouroboros, their exposed eyes brimming with unearned confidence. Their leader condescending in her compassion, but in the end only serving to further her own mysterious agenda.

“All you need to do is destroy Ouroboros.”

Eunie thought back to the six that had claimed to be her saviours, only to leave her to her fate. If they were all like that, the world wouldn’t be missing out on much.

Still, a part of her hesitated. While they were arseholes, they did give her supplies, and in the grand scheme of things she could think of people a lot worse than them. Plus, she was already dead, and she didn’t like the idea of risking her life again.

Z, as if reading her mind, sweetened the deal. “Neither of you will have to fear death again.”

“I’ll do it.”

Her black clothing morphed into a thick bodysuit that was just as form-fitting as her old one. That wasn’t the only change, as gold plating covered her legs, arms, sides and shoulders. The look was completed by a matching mask. The golden wings that fanned from her eyes matched the off-white ones behind her head.

She could feel the Flame Clock in her eye shift to a red figure-eight symbol, giving her powers she could have only dreamed of before.

E would need them if she was to fulfil Z’s will.

E scanned Aionios for Ouroboros and hoped that the fourth Kevesi colony she checked would be the last one. Their eye patches made them a pain in the arse to find, but with some clever thinking and a bit of gossip she was able to narrow down their possible locations.

She spotted their leader, who E remembered was called Althea. She was talking to one of the soldiers of Colony 14. Her face was more leathery than she remembered, but E wasn’t too bothered by that detail. She had higher priorities. 

E teleported into a clearing near the entrance to the colony, putting herself in between Ouroboros and the Kevesi.

“A-a consul!” exclaimed Zeon, quickly saluting. “Please forgive my indiscretion for letting these intruders into our colony.”

E wanted to protect Zeon, and she could only do that for as long as he was bound to a flame clock. It wasn’t just him she wanted to save, but Url, Kite, Fla’ran, Aizel, and the others too.

Ouroboros had to go.

E summoned her gunrod to her hand, its appearance having also changed to match her new look. Origin purple wings fanned out from the back, complimenting the red infinity sign in the centre. Red light spanned the length of the gunrod, serving as a warning to any who dared oppose her.

The changes weren’t merely cosmetic. As a show of power, E pressed the trigger and let the barrel draw energy from the wings. She pulled the trigger again, releading a potent bolt that cratered the ground in front of Ouroboros. The six of them stumbled at the impact, which E used to her advantage.

The gunner was the first to reorient themself, answering E’s gunfire with their own. The bolt uselessly pinged off E’s chest plate. E laughed at their efforts and shot back, aiming for their legs. They crumpled to the ground, wounded but still alive.

The blond was next, charging towards her with his red first raised. He threw his weight behind the punch and staggered when E teleported out of his sight. He scanned the field for E’s new location.

“Is this about the boy?” he shouted in the hope that E was close enough to hear. “We’re sorry we couldn’t save him. Save you.”

E gritted her teeth. They’d forgotten them, forgotten their names, and left them to their own devices. Their words meant nothing.

She turned her gunrod around, teleported in front of the blond, and slammed it on his chest. Like the gunner, her opponent collapsed to the floor in a winded heap. The next three were easy to take down.

“Eunie, please!” begged the last one standing. E vaguely remembered her being the damp firecracker of the bunch.

“Oh, so you do know my name,” she hid her spite behind a casual exterior. “A bit late for that.”

She pulled the trigger and extinguished the woman for good.

E turned to the remaining five. Some of them had enough energy to lift themselves off the ground, but their will to fight had been sapped from their bodies. “If the rest of you try anything funny, you’ll end up like her.”

Althea glanced at the others, then at the pile of clothes where her friend used to be, then looked at E. “What are you going to do to us?”

E had considered shooting them all, quick and easy like she did to damp firecracker. However, Z had blessed her with a power she wanted to try out.

“Zeon, come here.”

The dark blond slowly approached E. “What is it, Lady Consul?”

“E’s fine. Can you take your jacket off? I want to see your mark.”

Her old commander obeyed. E pointed her gun at Ouroboros, but addressed Althea specifically. “You. Put your hand on his arm.”

The leader of Ouroboros hesitated, but did as she was told. Althea gingerly put her hand on Zeon’s arm and grimaced at the contact.

That expression confirmed E’s suspicions. Althea had seen them as little more than vermin, and she was going to pay for her false sense of superiority.

E’s eye glowed red, then faded.

She had no reason to question Z’s power. E wouldn’t be alive if he wasn’t omnipotent. However, seeing the transfer of Zeon’s mark to Althea cemented her newfound belief.

E did four more transfers, then fired five shots. The only proof of Ouroboros ever existing was the heap of clothing just outside the Colony. The five Kevesi E had just saved watched, their mouths agape as they processed what she had just done.

“L-Lady Consul, what happened to our Marks?” Zeon stuttered.

E smiled at him. “You don’t have to worry about them anymore.”

She wouldn’t have to worry about them dying. 

E watched Zeon’s back as he retreated into a tent along with the other soldiers she had gifted a longer lease of life. Even if he didn’t recognise E, he was still Zeon to her.

She heard a whooshing sound to her left. E turned away from the colony and saw that her efforts had been rewarded. The man wore a similar outfit to herself, but the plating was silver compared to her gold. The chest plate had a gap in the centre to display his core crystal.

He looked back at her, his eyes the only visible facial feature behind his new mask. They glistened like glass in the sunlight.

E didn’t need to see the rest of his face to know he was T.

“How did your hair get so long?” he asked.

E blinked.

“I bring you back from the snuffing dead and that is the first thing you say? Not even a ‘thank you’?”

T pulled at a strand of his own hair, stretching out the curl to show that it was as long as it was when he was human. He let go and it snapped back into position. “I was getting to that.”

‘That’s not the only thing he should be getting to,' E thought. She stepped towards him, closing the gap until he was an arm’s length away from her.

“So, what next?” T asked.

E smiled, she knew what she wanted right now.

E put her hand on his neck, where the armour met skin. She found the button she was looking for and removed his mask, then used her other hand to remove her own. E wrapped her arms around T and pulled him down so their faces were at the same level.

She pressed her lips against his, then pulled away. She flashed a smile at him, which he returned. E took this as an invitation to do it again.

This time, she deepened the kiss. She promised herself that she would never take his presence for granted again, and started with exploring his mouth. E wanted to savour this moment, savour him.

This time, T pulled back. “Can we take this somewhere else?”

This blessing, this reciprocation, cemented E’s faith in Z, in Aionios itself. The two of them used their newfound powers to teleport somewhere more secluded.

Chapter Text

E loved her downtime.

Ouroboros only showed up every once in a while, so it allowed E to spend some quality time with her man. She leaned against T, threw her arm over his shoulder, and took in the sunrise bathing Great Cotte Falls. No colonies were stationed in the region, so it was just the two of them.

“It’s so peaceful here,” E said contentedly.

She could almost hear T think about something or other. E used her free hand to tilt his head to face hers. “Stop thinking. You can strategize later.”

“I was thinking about something else, actually,” T said. He removed E’s hand from his face, but kept it intertwined with his. “That if I was one of them, I wouldn’t mind being stationed around here.”

“What, because of the caves and tunnels and stuff?” E asked. “It would be a good place for a scrap.”

“That too, but I just like the region.”

E smiled. She knew she’d chosen the perfect spot, but it was good to get a confirmation.

E leaned in and kissed T. “Neither of us have to worry about any of that anymore. We’re Moebius.”

T pulled her in closer. “We are.”

Whenever a Kevesi, especially the ones she knew in her past life, drew her attention, E would use her power to give them the lifespan of one of the City people they had in storage. Sometimes she would use it as an incentive for a colony to reach the next rank, other times she would only tell the lucky soldier when they had met her arbitrary requirements.

This time, she chose Ashera. Her strong will and her ability to keep the most stubborn mudders in line made her difficult to ignore. This woman was at the end of her seventh term, and E couldn’t wait to breathe more life into her.

Ashera laughed lightly when she heard E’s proposal. 

“What, you can’t get enough of me?” she’d asked while twirling her blade.

This new lease of life propelled Ashera to greater heights. E never watched her in action, she couldn’t bear the thought of seeing her get hurt, but the other consuls begrudgingly commended her for the amount of life she accumulated for her colony. So much so that she was rewarded with the rank of commander.

Today, Ashera was facing off against Colony Beta in Everblight Plain. E didn't watch a battle if it involved people she knew in her mortal life, which was pretty much every battle. She had her back to the carnage, instead watching the steady trickle of a nearby waterfall. Anloods drank their fill from the pool while ignoring the distant violence.

As she took in the tranquil scene, E thought of the others she’d gifted a longer life to. The first five lived the longest, and their deaths were the reason she didn’t keep tabs on what happened to subsequent giftees. She’d found all five of their husks in a cave shortly after the youngest reached their 20th term. E destroyed the monster responsible, but that did not un-tear her old friends apart. Each subsequent life she extended didn’t live as long, which was a fact T increasingly emphasised each time he updated her on their passing.

E brought herself back to reality. She no longer heard the clash of weapons nor the firing of lasers. The battle was over, and she felt a pit in the stomach. While she was the Consul of all Keves, a more sentimental part of her hoped that Colony 11 had emerged victorious. All she had to do was turn around to see if they did win, but she didn’t want to.

The uncertainty was almost comforting.

She heard someone teleport behind her. Again, she could turn around to confirm it was T, but that would also mean seeing a colony’s carcass.

“Since you didn’t turn up, I have to fill you in,” T began. “It was a close battle, with plenty of life harvested.”

E didn’t like the sound of that. Narrow victories usually meant a mountain of bodies on both sides.

“Colony Beta emerged victorious, but their numbers are too small to be sustainable. We’ll need to transfer some fresh soldiers there.”

She might as well know the full truth now. She turned around and saw segments of the serpentine colony curled up on itself. The severed ‘head’ of the ferronis laid by its ‘tail’, while the rest of the body formed an incomplete circle.

She teleported to the battlefield. Husks littered the landscape, all of which had just been sent off. E was looking for one in particular. 

Part of her wanted T to be wrong. That she would see Ashera atop a boulder, mocking her for worrying and challenging her to another fight. She was one of the few that treated her like a fellow soldier nowadays.

E found her. 

Ashera was in the middle of the Colony 11 ouroboros. Her husk proudly stood tall, but even in this state she looked ready to pounce on her enemy and tear them to shreds. Her post-mortem bloodlust appeared to stem from the hand gripping her own neck.

She didn’t get it. All this extra life, and Ashera still snuffed it before the end of her tenth term.

“Why did she squander the gift I gave her?” E whispered.

“It was a gift for yourself,” T answered the rhetorical question. 

E didn’t know how long he had been watching her. He stood between the head and the body of the dismembered colony, completing the circle.

“Ashera accepted my offer…” E weakly defended.

“Because she was programmed to hang on to your every word.”

That wasn’t true at all, E wanted to argue. Ashera was unpredictable, impulsive. All E ever heard from the other consuls was how much of a pain in the arse she was to deal with. She was the predictably unpredictable Ashera. This, and the way she threw herself into every battle, was what had drawn E to the warrior to begin with.

“This was the best fight R has put up so far, but I attribute that more to her soldiers,” T commented.

The audacity of this man.

“You were in charge of Beta?” E could feel her voice increase in pitch and instability. 

T’s lack of an answer said everything.

“You did all this to prove a point? You put Ashera in harm’s way!” she shouted.

“For your information, she volunteered to be in the vanguard. This-” he gestured at the husk. “was her choice.”

E balled her hands into fists. The worst part of her really wanted to punch T, but that voice battled with the internal faction that didn’t want to do anything that would make him leave her. The status quo won, and she turned her back on both T and Ashera’s husk and slammed her hand against a piece of the Colony 11 wreckage.

T approached her, breaking the circle of debris. He didn’t look at Ashera when he passed her. “You may be able to extend their lives, but you only delay the inevitable. Such is Z’s world.”

She wished she could tell T he was wrong, but there was no arguing against Z’s methods. He kept the world in place, by any means necessary, so they could live forever. It was her job to make sure his will was done.

“I won’t make these soldiers live longer,” she looked T in the eyes as she slammed her hand against the metal again. “But you can count me out of all this.”

Some time after this incident, soldiers bearing their faces started to appear in the Cradles. E did not want to watch either of them live and die over and over again, so she didn’t.

E had too much downtime. 

She did spend a lot of it keeping an eye on T’s whereabouts. Sometimes he’d spend an unusually long time at places he normally wouldn't visit. 

One time, she found him at the remains of the old City. He’d been so engrossed in watching the waves lap at the rubble that he didn’t notice E until she tapped him on the shoulder. When he turned around, surprised at her sudden appearance, she noticed him blinking away his tears.

T’s excuse was that he’d just put in his contact lenses.

Since then, she made sure to keep an eye on him via the Iris network. This meant she could do other stuff at the same time, like hang out with X in the theater. 

X wanted E to get over her hang-up over seeing Kevesi die by watching battle footage. E agreed. After a narrow victory against an Ouroboros version of Ethel, she needed to stop holding back against former allies.

It was easier said than done. 

“Can we watch something different? This battle sucks,” X moaned as she dipped her hand into a cardboard bucket.

E slapped X’s hand away from her box. “Oi, get your own. There’s nothing better on right now so we’re stuck with O and P’s double act.”

They watched as the on-screen soldiers tried to pincer each other, resulting in two smaller battles happening simultaneously. Commanders Hexen and Korresia weren’t anything special either, which was totally the reason E stopped looking at the screen.

“We could watch an old battle,” E asked, a mouthful of popped corn in her mouth. A piece jammed itself into her gum, providing a welcome distraction. “How about Q versus T?”

That was the one that reminded E why she wanted T to be with her in the first place. She off-handedly mentioned a battle plan that he used to prevail over Q, and he gave her the credit after his victory. She didn’t watch the battle at the time, but she could make up for that while dislodging the shell from her teeth.

X huffed. “Nah, that one was boring. I wish T would have another go, it’s been forever since his last one.”

“What do you want to watch, then?” E asked.

“We could see what Eunie is up to…”

“Spark no.”

The projector shut off, bathing the theater in darkness.

“How about we hang out at Agnus Castle instead?” X proposed.

There was the matter of dealing with Colony 18. It had reached Gold rank, and she was aware that was where her other self was stationed. She’d refuse to attack a Kevesi colony on principle, so having to see the look of terror on her own face was too much to even think about.

Normally E would skip these meetings, but Z did ask for her to be here. She stood at her usual spot in the aisle. T joined shortly after and took his usual position further back.

“E, you haven’t harvested a Colony yet,” H said from the stage, voice like frozen honey. “You should try it, it’s sublime.”

E puffed out her chest. She had a reputation to maintain as the slayer of many an Ouroboros. “I’d love to, but being the generous Consul I am, I’ll let one of the newbies have some fun.”

E could feel T stare at her back. Whatever his problem was, he didn’t voice it.

Z spoke up from his seat. “If that is your wish, this will be a great initiation for D.”

“Finally, I’ve been raring to go,” D said. He warped out of the theater before anyone could take the opportunity from him.

E didn’t watch the harvest. 

Instead, she found a spot at the top of Maktha Wildwood and watched the trees sway in the breeze. The wind whipping around the ruin drowned out the carnage coming from the bridge behind her, and it nearly deafened her to the warping sound behind her.

“I’m getting fed up of being your messenger,” said the intruder.

E turned around so she could see T. He, like herself, had his mask on.

She wondered when she last saw his face.

“I didn’t ask for a report,” E retorted. She turned back to face the woodland.

“All Kevesi affairs need to be reported to the gold consul.” T sighed. “I can’t do your job and mine at the same time.”

“I do my job: if Ouroboros appear, I destroy them. I’m just chilling out right now.”

The wind died down, no longer obscuring the sound of a distant battle. E wasn’t having any of this today. 

She turned back so she could see T again. “Look, I’ll take you to Cadensia and we can forget about Colony 18.”

The woods were replaced with sand and sea. They landed in front of a ferronis hulk in the middle of an island. 

It was just like old times. E collected some driftwood that had washed up on the island and built a fire, which she lit with a shot from her gunrod. She even topped up the hulk with some ether.

After teleporting back to the ground, she found T sitting on the sand. He was watching the waves lap the patch of sand they were on. E sat down next to him. Part of her wanted to cosy up to him, for old time’s sake, but decided against it. If T wanted to, he just had to shuffle to the left. 

He didn’t.

Eunie’s many lives went unwatched by E. If she was interested, she read T’s book on her. His concise, detached writing style made it easier to digest the nasty parts.

E was happy with the way things were. She would organise the goings-on at Keves, chat to some of the friendlier consuls, watch T whenever he left the theater, and destroy Ouroboros every once in a while. It wasn’t the most exciting life, but it was worth it if it meant having T by her side when she needed him.

Right now, she was watching the view from Keves Castle. The Moebius symbol disrupted the night sky, signalling that a fresh batch of Ouroboros needed to be taken care of.

This was top priority.

E could look at the Iris to identify her targets, but this was the perfect excuse to talk to T. He’d been keeping himself busy in Upper Aetia and was overdue a distraction.

She found him sitting on a raised part of a platform near the snow-covered edge of a cliff. He watched the snow dance across the sky, with some flakes already settling on him. The scene reminded E of a landscape K commissioned a while back.

She walked onto the platform, her boots clicking against the stone announcing her arrival if her teleporting hadn’t already. T swivelled around the altar so he could see her properly.

“So, who are the City folk I’m gonna crush?” E asked.

The look in T’s eyes made E’s shoulders tense in anticipation.

“This one purely consists of Kevesi and Agnians,” he said matter-of-factly.

This was not what E wanted to hear. All the time watching battles on the screen and listening to it as background noise would pale in comparison to joining the fray herself. But she must, or the world as they know it would end.

“Is it anyone we know?” E asked. It was a stupid question, after all these centuries there wasn’t a soldier she hadn’t seen at least once.

T shut his eyes and looked away. “Unfortunately, yes.”

E heard a ping in her Iris. It showed six images, but two immediately drew her attention. And then she saw who the other two Kevesi were.

“You’ve got to be kidding me.”

Fortunately for E, she did not need to watch Ouroboros in action. The other consuls had their use beyond being meatshields, and that included their gossip. One of their sessions was unfolding right in front of her, the spotlights highlighting the stars of the show.

“We let J make his debut and he snuffs it up?” R jeered.

“You had an Ouroboros offer up his life and you didn’t kill him?” O mocked.

“What an idiot,” P added, hands on her hips. “Killing him would have neutralised his partner too.”

Consul J pretended to not be bothered by this mockery and rested his hands behind his head. “I didn’t care about winning, I just wanted the drama.”

“That sounds like loser talk,” R said, as if talking from experience.

J pretended not to acknowledge one of the real reasons he didn’t take that opportunity. E stood in one of the aisles, with T just behind her. Neither of them looked amused.

In the same row, Z sat at his usual spot.

“Hope you didn’t bring me here just to watch their piss-poor commentary,” E said. “They never have anything to say until the dust has settled.”

“Fate has a sense of humour, it seems, for you two to be Ouroboros,” Z mused, ignoring the on-stage antics and E’s comment.

“They may look like us, but they are different,” T said.

“Speak for yourself,” E said, not bothering to look at her partner. “The bird looks, talks, and acts like me. So she is me.”

E could have sworn that T called her an idiot under his breath.

Z chuckled. “Since they are with the boy, they are also pulled into the currents. If left to their own devices they will reach this room.”

E inhaled, then released some of the tension from her body. “Well, that settles it. I’ve got to make sure that doesn’t happen.”

Z addressed E, but still faced the stage. “While I do appreciate your work ethic, I think you need to take some time to amuse yourself first.”

Ethel hadn’t visited Keves Castle since her Colony got demoted. Even in private, getting a dressing down from Queen Melia must have been humiliating. This time, Ethel had let Ouroboros destroy Colony 4’s flame clock. E chose to attend Ethel’s second disciplinary hearing for that reason alone.

“Consul E… that’s her? The head honcho of the Kevesi Consuls?” E didn’t know why Bolearis was surprised by her appearance. Of course she’d be here, by the Queen’s side.

“In the flesh, Bolearis,” E replied. She leaned against the throne like it was a container, hoping her casual demeanour would catch them off their guard.

The sound of a large weapon firing echoed around the castle. It was shortly followed by a rumble from far away. A screen appeared between the throne and the visitors. It depicted the Urayan Mountains, but its appearance had drastically changed.

“I’m surprised you did that, Your Majesty,” E said, inspecting her gauntleted fingers. “You did like the flowers over there. Sirius Anemo-something, right?”

Ethel and Bolearis tried to compose themselves after seeing another hole carved out of the Urayan Mountains. Flowers were the least of their worries.

“You’re going to use that on Agnus?” Bolearis asked.

“Nope! This is gonna be our target.”

A screen lit up, showing a familiar location.

“You’re going to attack Colony 4, Lady Consul?” Ethel was able to keep her voice steady despite the thinly-veiled threat against her colony.

Queen Melia corrected that assumption. “She isn’t going to destroy Colony 4. I will. If we let it stand, the rest of Keves shall fall.”

Things were starting to fall into place. E won’t be forcing Ethel to fight Ouroboros, so if she died fighting them it wouldn’t be E’s fault. It would be the Kevesi Queen’s. It had nothing to do with a past version of Ethel nearly killing E all those years ago.

That wasn’t the only convenience. Her Majesty's decision to destroy the mountains was completely unrelated to the tea E’s other self started drinking, and it definitely had nothing to do with who made it for her.

It was lies like this that E told herself so she could get the job done.

Queen Melia’s mask clattered to the ground, revealing a robotic skull where her face should be. E tossed her toy aside. She didn’t like it when the true queen wrenched control from her, even for a moment.

“You’ve still got hope, Melly?” she mocked as she strode past the queen’s false body.

At least she could enjoy watching her other self struggle to keep her blade upright. She tried to balance the gunrod in one hand while clutching at her head with the other. The blade tilted downward, and the barrel tapped the floor.

“Why… does my bloody head hurt when I look at her?” Eunie struggled to say. Eunie’s gunrod clattered to the floor.

E smirked. “Stop looking, then.”

Lanz ran up to her and planted his shieldblade in front of the two of them, giving Eunie a chance to pick up her weapon. “What’s wrong, Eunie? Don’t drop your blade!”

Ah, Lanz. He had a tendency to pop up across Eunie’s lifetimes. And not just hers, going by what she gleaned through T’s book on himself.

E didn’t want to kill Lanz, he didn’t need her help to die, but she needed to show she meant business. If she was scary enough, Ouroboros might give up their little quest and meet their end to some monster.

She summoned her gunrod to her hand and aimed at his shieldblade. One blast disintegrated his meagre defence. Lanz staggered back while Eunie lowered the hand on her forehead to protect her face from the shrapnel.

Healing ether swirled around the two of them. E recognised the pieces of paper that had carried the energy, even if its wielder folded them into a different shape.

Even if Taion was the furthest away from her, she could still hear him. “What are you doing to Eunie?”

E’s was going to let her gunrod do the talking, but her Iris suddenly pinged. She let the soldier speak.

“Lady High Consul, the Lost Numbers are attacking!”

She didn’t have enough time to get the soldier to explain himself before said Lost Numbers burst into the throne room.

E ducked behind the throne and used it as cover as she fired back at the City levnises. The intensity of their firepower prevented her from taking a look at the rest of the room. E charged up her gunrod, poked it over the throne, and fired straight ahead.

She’d missed, but it did get the levnises to stop firing at her.

E emerged from the throne in time to see the levnises grab as many cradles as possible and leave as quickly as they had stormed in. Ouroboros were long gone, having taken advantage of the chaos to slip out of E’s grasp.

“So you couldn’t do it?”

“Now you decide to show up?” E said as she saw T approach her. 

“There wasn’t any point in my being here, unless you wanted the company.”

“Spark no,” E objected. “I’m not losing you to them.”

T didn't argue. That surprised E. Maybe he was in a good mood despite everything going tits up.

E watched the ships disappear into the horizon. “We’ll see them again.”

T’s good mood didn’t last long. He headed straight to his study after the battle at Keves Castle and immediately got absorbed into writing notes on their Ouroboros counterparts. E tried to talk to him, but he didn’t bother to acknowledge her.

E didn’t know what to think of T. One day he would completely ignore her, and the next he wouldn’t leave her side. E didn’t know if he’d be giving snide comments or kind words until she spoke to him. Other times he’d be lost in his own thoughts, but those moments didn’t last long.

E took the lead when it came to finding somewhere to hang out on his good days. Today, they had cleared the theater so it was just the two of them. Even Z had disappeared to spark’s knows where.

“Look at them, thinking they’re all that because of some fancy powers,” E said in response to Noah’s struggle to withstand a blow without said powers.

In all her years of fighting Ouroboros, not one of them took a form that stood a chance against her golden gunrod. That didn’t mean they posed no threat, however. One time an Ouroboros chose to self-annihilate and she nearly got sucked into the vortex. That was an experience she did not want to repeat.

“What do you think of them?” E asked.

T stared at the screen. “I thought they had potential, but they’ve just walked right into our trap.”

E raised an eyebrow, though the expression was hidden by her mask. “Potential for what?”

“Ouroboros are a repetitive bunch. I hoped that having two people that looked like us would make it more exciting.”

They watched Ouroboros fight the girl they captured a while back. Due to the City folk’s tendency to shout each other’s names while fighting, they knew she was the latest in the long line of Vandhams. She packed a punch, but was no match for the might of Sena’s hammer. The screen shut off when the guards swarmed in to break up the fight.

“What’ll you do when you defeat them?” T asked.

E hadn’t thought that far, she didn’t want to think that far. What mattered to her was the now. It was familiar. Reliable. There was no need to kill anyone who looked like herself in this moment.

She looked down and saw her hands tremble in her lap. She needed to be strong.

“Normally I’d put one between the eyes, but...” her voice wavered on the last word.

T placed his hand on hers. The cold touch didn’t stop the shivers. “Look, I’ll come up with a way for you to fulfil your obligation. Just let me be with you when you next fight them.”

The reassurance stopped the shaking a little. They had gone together to fight Ouroboros before, but T never involved himself this much. He’d just watch at a distance and comment on their performance.

But she couldn’t bear to let him die again because of her carelessness. If he was in danger she… she didn’t know what she’d do. She didn’t know what she’d be capable of doing.

She looked at T and flashed a smile. “Thanks. If things get dicey, I’m getting you out of there.”

E wished she hadn’t taken her downtime for granted.

Chapter Text

The last month of E’s life flashed in front of Eunie. She already knew what happened to her, she’d been there or heard of it, but the different perspective reframed things for Eunie.

For a start, none of this would have happened if T hadn’t replicated the circumstances of his first death. E wasn’t perfect, it was a stretch to call her a good person, but she would still have been hesitant about killing Eunie and her mates if T hadn’t put Taion in danger.

The last vision Eunie saw was E reaching out for herself, then everything faded.

Eunie came to and found herself in the same spot as before. All her friends were looking at her. Some were curious about where E had disappeared to, while others were more concerned for Eunie.

“I thought you didn’t want to kill E,” Taion said.

Eunie hummed and tugged on her wing as she tried to think of the best way to explain what just happened. “She’s still alive. E’s just chilling out in my body.”

She could feel E’s presence within her, but the Moebius wasn’t as chatty as she used to be. A part of Eunie wondered if E had fully merged with her.

“What’s up with your eye?” Lanz asked.

“I don’t know because I can’t see it,” Eunie answered. “Muppet.”

Mio got a mirror out and passed it to Eunie. She could see her own eye, as blue and intact as ever. She looked closer and saw what Lanz was on about.

The blue Ouroboros symbol had combined with E’s Moebius eye. There were now two serpent heads feasting on the other’s tail. The red infinity symbol in the middle was faint, but she could see it more vividly in her pupil.

She handed the mirror back to Mio, then scanned the room to see what the others were up to. Noah had E’s sword in his hand, having retrieved it from where it landed.

“Who wants this sword?” Noah asked. There weren’t any immediate takers, so he continued. “I’ve already got one of these.”

Mio looked at the sword, then at the others. “It was E’s, so I think it should go to Eunie.”

“I can’t hold my gunrod and that sword at the same time. Your blade’s like a sword, Lanz. You can have it if you want,” Eunie said.

“Riku object!” Riku butted in, not giving a chance for Lanz to respond.

“Oi, I didn’t want it anyway,” Lanz argued.

“Guys, look!” Sena announced.

The group looked in the direction Sena was facing, and watched the true queen’s release. The tethers shattered like glass, and Melia glided to the floor. When she landed, she opened her eyes so she could look at her rescuers.

“Thank you for waking me up from a terrible dream,” Melia said. “It was one where I saw children fighting endlessly, and they did not know why. I’m happy that you freed as many as you could on your way to this place.”

Melia looked at Eunie. “The Moebius E, I watched her try to thrive in this dying world through the eyes of my simulacrum. By accepting that you and her are the same person, you have inherited her memories.”

Eunie nodded to show that she understood her queen. She looked at the others, who were equally in awe and uncertain of how to address the real Melia.

“Will you need help getting back to the castle?” Sena slowly asked. “We can take you there.”

“Do you not know who I am?” Melia playfully responded before using her staff to teleport out of Origin.

Eunie filled the others in on E’s past when they got to a safe place to relax. It was a room tucked away in one of Origin’s many corridors beyond Melia's prison. The entrance was small enough to prevent any of the metallic monsters from following them inside. 

They formed a circle around the lamp fixed to the floor and warmed themselves using the residual heat. Noah put E’s sword in his storage cache as nobody had claimed it.

“She spent most of her time sitting on her arse? Sounds pretty boring,” Lanz said after Eunie told him E’s role in Moebius.

Eunie leaned from her perch on her chair. “There wasn’t a whole lot to do. I kinda get it though, no point doing busywork for the sake of it.”

“Did she know anything about Origin?” Taion asked.

Eunie tugged on her wing as she went through E’s memories. “She walked through it a few times, sometimes she’d chat shit to Her Maj because she couldn’t fight back. Other than that, nothing much.”

Mio and Sena listened from the other side of the giant floor lamp.

“It wouldn’t be much use at this stage, but I wish we had T’s memories,” Mio said. “Just in case there’s anything that might come in useful when we fight Z.”

Sena remembered one of the books she picked up earlier. It was meant to be a log of items collected by Colony 0, but there was nothing but ripped-out pages and a threatening note from Consul F. At the time, Sena had used the book to learn more about Segiri and her colony, but now she realised any member of Moebius could access the study.

Speaking of the study…

Sena spoke up. “That note still bugs me. Who told him the Cloudkeep’s location? It was super convenient for us.”

Mio pulled the note out from her book. Comparing it to the other notes, the handwriting on some parts did not match T’s usual style. It didn’t match Taion’s comparatively rushed style either. However, it did look like her own handwriting when she compared the note and her latest entry side-by-side.

Sena had the same idea. “This writing looks like yours, Mimi.”

“It does, but it’s not a perfect match,” Mio said. If old M was still around, she would have said it was her that wrote it.

Eunie slapped her knee, which was the universal Kevesi sign for wanting to leave. “Right, we’d better be off. We won’t find out anything sitting in here all day.”

They left the alcove and continued down the winding paths that held Origin together. Monica and Ghondor joined the group as they got deeper into Origin. Noah appreciated their help and agreed to let them see the City’s millenia-long plan through.

The Vandhams weren’t the only familiar faces they stumbled across. X stood in front of them and pretended to be more interested in the scythe she ran her finger across.

“Ugh, now I have to fight you lot because E couldn’t do the one job she was meant to do,” X groaned.

Eunie summoned her gunrod to her hand. She’d learned a new move thanks to E’s memories, and she had plenty of target practice on the way.

“Sounds more like you’re the weak link, X.”

X leaned forward and noticed the red and blue glow in Eunie’s eye. “Ew, you ate her.”

“You got that right. She eats Moebius for breakfast!” Ghondor shouted, cestus already in her hands.

With that declaration, X transformed into her Moebius form. She alternated between swipes of her upscaled scythe and summoning balloons that burst into shrapnel. Monica and Lanz did their best to shield the others from the onslaught.

“Eunie, show X that new move!” Lanz shouted.

Eunie charged her gunrod, the blue glow growing in intensity as it pulled in ether from the environment. She pulled the trigger, and the beam pierced through X’s core.

She vanished into a cloud of blue motes, her pleas to Z for help ignored.

They settled into a formation as they ventured further into Origin. Noah and Mio were in front, while Monica and Ghondor covered the rear. The others stayed in the middle, prepared to pick off any monsters that would come at them from the side. 

In hindsight, they should have stuck closer together whenever they entered an empty room. The door shut behind Ouroboros and separated them from Monica and Ghondor, then Y decided to show his face. Two sets of weapons banged on the unyielding doors as Ouroboros faced Y.

“I hope thou will forgive me for separating thine group. I only want to fight Ouroboros,” Y explained.

Ghondor shouted from outside. “That’s ‘cause you Moebius bastards are a bunch of craven arseholes!”

“Let us in!” Monica yelled, not bothering to admonish her daughter’s foul language. “You’ve got those blasted Nopon in there.”

“Thou hath a point,” Y conceded, then turned to address Riku and Manana. “They too shall sit out of this fight.”

Y’s Irises activated, and the two Nopon were warped out of the room. A third weapon joined in on the banging.

“Manana not taking this lying down!” yelled Manana as she punctuated each word with a slam of her wok. “Moebius too scared of Manana?”

“Manana! Please to quiet down!” Riku said, trying to calm down his companion.

Eunie activated her Ouroboros eye as she summoned her blade. Unlike X, Y was amused at the appearance of Eunie’s Iris. 

“That was a most impressive fight, and such a boon too. It would be disappointing if only one of thee had thine memories as Moebius.”

Y activated his Irises once more. “Consider this a reward for making it thus far.”

“Why are you-” Noah abruptly stopped mid-sentence.

Eunie couldn’t do anything to stop him. She already had an idea of what just happened, but she waved a hand in front of Noah’s face. He didn’t react. Mio and Taion were practically frozen in place too. She could have sworn that E’s integration into herself wasn’t this slow, but it didn’t look like they were going to come to their senses any time soon.

“Are you going to put any more of us out of commission?” Lanz asked, using his gigantic blade to point at Y accusingly.

Sena tightened her grip on her hammer. “You’re too scared to take us on in a fair fight!”

Unfortunately, the whittling down of the party now made Eunie the brains of the team. She watched Y transform into his Moebius form and tried to think of what to do. For a start, she couldn’t leave Noah, Mio, and Taion standing there.

“I’ll distract Y, you two take our daydreamers and put them somewhere safe,” Eunie ordered.

Sena disagreed. “No way, you can’t take on all that. I’ll distract him.”

That made a lot more sense, Eunie had realised. With the class she had right now, her defences would be too flimsy to withstand Y’s blows.

“Fine, we’ll be quick as we can. I’ll carry Taion. Lanz, you grab the lovebirds,” Eunie said.

“Yes ma’am,” Lanz raised his fist to give a mock salute and got to work.

Sena raised her hammer and went to town on Y’s strong body. It didn’t leave a single dent, but it did achieve her goal of distracting him.

“Whack ‘em harder!” Ghondor shouted.

Eunie laid Taion down so his back was resting against a corner. Eunie thought it was weird to see him sit so still. He was shortly joined by Noah and Mio. When they were both sure the three of them wouldn’t slump, Eunie and Lanz rejoined the fray in time to stop Y from grabbing Sena.

Eunie had one strategy, and that was to hit the enemy until it died. It was the same tactic E used whenever she sparred with Y, and with the same amount of success. Y shrugged off her new special move and knocked Eunie to the ground. Lanz shielded Eunie while Sena helped her up.

She knew she’d be wishing Taion was awake, but she didn’t realise she’d start wishing for his insight this quickly. Even Noah or Mio would be great to have around right now. Eunie could shout for Monica or Ghondor, but Y would hear either woman’s plan.

Still, she’d be an idiot to not try.

“Ghondor, got any better ideas? This mudder is tough as spark!” Eunie shouted.

One of the Vandhams hit the door again, determined to get in.

Monica was the one to answer Eunie’s question. “Can you use your Ouroboros form?”

“Lanz and I can!” Sena answered. On that cue, the two of them transformed into Lanz’s form and blocked Y’s punch, then unleashed a barrage of lasers to distract him.

“Smash his face in, Sena!” Ghondor shouted.

Eunie slammed her gunrod onto the ground and gave Lanz and Sena a boost to their attack. The duo then shifted to Sena’s form. She made good use of her weapon, which morphed from staff, then to a pair of giant hands, and back to a hammer as she chipped away at Y’s defences.

One blow from Sena’s hammer was finally too many for Y to withstand, and he collapsed to the ground. Surprisingly for a Moebius, he did not despair in his final moments.

They stayed in the room until their friends recovered from Y’s “gift”. The door behind them also opened, allowing Riku, Manana, Monica and Ghondor to reunite with the group.

Noah was the first to come to. Like Eunie, his right eye had integrated with the Moebius Iris.

“Snap!” Eunie joked when she noticed. Noah didn't smile back.

Mio and Taion woke up around the same time, but neither of them looked well-rested. Their Ouroboros eyes had also integrated with Moebius. Mio stared at the floor for a moment, then looked up. 

“I’m so sorry,” she whispered to the room.

Sena looked at the three of them. She didn’t want them to fight Z if they were distracted by whatever they saw. Plus, she was a little curious about their new memories.

“I think we’ll need another group chat,” Sena declared.

Chapter Text

Luckily for them, there was another alcove further on. Everything from the size of the room to the ether lamp on the floor was identical to the place where Eunie recounted her life as E. They set up some chairs and sat around the light fixed to the floor in the centre.

Monica was the last to sit down, having checked one final time that none of the smaller monsters would disturb their sanctuary. The others had already made themselves comfortable, with some of them holding a cup of their favourite drink.

“Right, who wants to go first?” Eunie asked.

Noah looked at Mio, then at Taion. Neither of them seemed eager to talk just yet, so Noah decided to take the initiative. “I want to go first, but I don’t know where to start…”

“What about the first City’s destruction?” Monica suggested. “We know that N did it, but not the how or why.”

When faced with a choice between eternity with his Mio or oblivion after countless failed attempts to defeat Z, the decision had been easy. The difficult part had been his mission to destroy the place they called home. He’d rationalised it as being for a good cause, Alpha was going to destroy it if he didn’t, but there was no need to ravage it with Origin’s creatures. Alpha’s presence was definitely no excuse for N stabbing his own son to death, even if it was an accident.

He, of all people, should have realised that Ghondor would protect his grandchildren in the same way N used to protect him.

The City, choked by flames, served as the backdrop for M’s arrival. Her eyes welled with tears as she took in the devastation, then she looked at N. He approached her, a pit already forming in his stomach.

“Tell me why!” she demanded, hoping for an explanation for this wanton destruction.

N could stay quiet and let his burden be his alone. At the end of the day it was his fault, and he deserved to be seen as a monster who destroyed his home in exchange for eternity with one woman.

However, he didn’t want to keep it all a secret from her. He loved her too much to do that.

“...It’s Alpha.” M looked at him blankly, urging N to properly explain himself. “He destroyed the City, and he’ll destroy us all if we don’t stop him.”

“Who’s Alpha?”

N recalled what Z had told him about the entity that had taken over Origin. “He wants to destroy Aionios to create a new world. A world that wouldn’t have room for us.”

A teardrop fell from M’s eye and sizzled on the flames. N wondered if he’d done the right thing by telling her the partial truth. It would have been easier if she thought he’d done all this slaughter just to revive her. Easier on him, as he didn’t understand the inner workings of Origin, and easier on her as she wouldn’t have to imagine what happened here.

“So you sealed our fate, and theirs, for a fight that isn’t ours?” M said softly. More tears streamed down her face, her grief too strong to contain them.

N wanted to tell her that the fight was theirs, that Alpha was puppeteering their great-granddaughter to manipulate their family, but he’d barely believed it until he saw it with his own eyes. He still couldn’t believe that their own son had thrown himself in front of N’s sword. 

That truth was his burden to bear.

“It was the only way,” he whispered.

Despite her obvious disdain, M let N continue his quest to defeat Alpha. He joined forces with the people who would eventually become the founders of the rebuilt City, and even combined with them to create the first Ouroboros form.

He didn’t see her again until Origin wiped out the Cent-Omnia region. 

Even then, she wouldn’t talk to him for years. At first she had thrown herself into the administration of Agnus Castle, then she added the new Homecoming ceremonies to her list of responsibilities. If N tried to talk to her, she would find a reason to leave without reconciling. She’d been one of the people who came up with Homecoming, but her interest in the ceremonies had grown over time.

N’s world came crashing down a century after he parted ways with the Founders. His day had been like any other, he’d watch Ouroboros from the theater, then he would look for M in her usual spots. 

He found her at Keves Castle, but the blank look and Ouroboros eye he got in return made it clear that she wasn’t his Mio anymore. Despair flowed through him as he impaled her with his blade. Even if she wasn’t his Mio, N struggled to keep himself composed as she faded into nothing with a final, fearful look in her eyes.

N warped to one of the alcoves in Origin, not wanting to risk seeing anyone in the theater. He collapsed next to the lamp and cried himself out. When he ran out of tears, he wiped his face and left the room so he could inform Z of Mio’s passing.

As for N himself, the reason he became Moebius was gone, and so was his reason to live. This made it easy for the next batch of Ouroboros, who were eager to avenge their fallen predecessors, to dispatch him years later.

“...And that’s it.”

The others sat in stunned silence. It was difficult for them to conflate the man in front of them with the monster that massacred the City in a misguided attempt to save their world. Noah looked at each of them in turn, hoping one of them would say something. Instead, the gentle hum of the ether lamp filled the awkward stillness.

Eunie, finally, was the first to speak. “Well, that blows everything E did out the water.”

She did have a point, but Noah thought this wasn’t a competition of who had the Moebius counterpart with the most atrocities. Both N and E had done terrible things for the people they claimed to love, and that had also been their downfall.

“Did N have any memories after he died?” Mio asked.

“No, the last thing he saw was his own motes-” Noah said, then realised what Mio was implying. “Wait, are you saying M had memories after her death?”

Mio decided that now was the best time to talk, as it would pick up from where Noah finished. “She did. After their deaths, N and M’s consciousness were transferred to Origin so Moebius could recruit their replacements. However, the transfer of Gold and Silver to E and T wasn’t seamless.”

The Homecoming plan went off without a hitch. It wasn’t every day that a Kevesi became Ouroboros, and M wasn’t letting the opportunity go to waste. She hoped the woman she swapped bodies with would be able to use her powers to bring about a better world. 

She had expected oblivion, but she didn’t expect to be aware of it.

M couldn’t see a thing. She wasn’t sure she even had eyes to see with.

She could hear though. Two people argued in the distance. M focused and found herself getting closer enough to hear them properly.

“I’m not letting her go, not after all she went through!”

“Rex, we were pushing it with Glimmer and Nikol. We can’t save everyone.” 

M heard a third voice. This person’s voice was soft but carried the weight of something greater than even Z.

“The passage of fate has been altered. And so, I will alter the course of her fate.”

The three voices quietened to a whisper. M tried to listen closer but she couldn’t discern a word of what the trio were saying.

Then two of them shouted in horror.

“A, what did you do!?”

“What did you do to Mio!?” 

“A!” shouted the two simultaneously.

The third entity, A, answered calmly. “I found a workaround for Moebius M, formerly known as Mio.”

“What the-”

The three-way argument ended abruptly, and M was back in her silent world. There was nothing to see, or hear, even time itself seemed to have no meaning in this space.

‘Who were those people, and why do they care about what happens to me?’ M wondered. It was too much and not enough at the same time and she just wanted it all to be over already.

And then it was over. M could see again.

She was back in the theater, nothing had changed there, it never did, but there were some things she immediately picked up on.

She was taller, for a start. While she couldn’t control this body, its owner looked down to inspect themselves. They were of slim build and had the same colour armour as she did. The crystal was different, however. It was turquoise, like those seen in most Agnians, and lower on the chest than M’s was. From this angle, M couldn’t tell the exact shape. Her host looked back up before she could find out.

M wondered if they too had become Moebius against their will.

Those entities must have put her in the body of the new silver consul, M realised. She couldn’t figure out how or why they did it based on what little she knew.

“Welcome to Moebius, Consul T,” Z said, giving his scripted initiation speech. M had hers while N tore up the City. “You are free to do as you please, as long as you protect the now.”

“The now?” her host, T, asked. Their unsure voice reminded M of N before he made the choice that had doomed them to an eternity of misery. 

“Indeed,” Z answered. He flicked a projection on the screen. T turned his back on Z to see the image. It depicted a tall, slim brunet poring over a map of some sort. The shot changed, focusing on his face as he frowned at a detail. T touched the part of his face where his glasses would have been and felt metal.

Z continued his speech. “All those things you wanted to do, but did not have the time to put into action. You’ll have all the time in the world, and all of the power. And you won’t have to do it alone.”

M panicked. There’s no way he didn’t know she was here, there was little that went beyond Z’s domain.

A Kevesi woman joined the shot, which had zoomed out to accommodate her. She leaned against the table, saying something inaudible as she tugged at one of her wings. The man smiled at whatever she said.

“Consul E carried out a mission of utmost importance so she could bring you here. I think you should show her how grateful you are when we are finished.”

M knew exactly what Z meant by ‘finished’. Even she, who had been brought in against her will, had to watch every single one of her deaths before Z let her go. It was an experience she did not want to go through again, one time drove her to the brink of despair, so she tried to will herself out of T’s perspective. 

To M’s surprise, it worked, and her world faded to black.

Clarity would come in waves, and each time she would see the world through T’s eyes. Usually he was planning a battle or assisting the other Moebius in their pointless projects. She wondered why he even bothered.

One of T’s own projects was the monitoring of two soldiers that looked like himself and E. True to Z’s word, the two never met, even if they were in the same battle. Every once in a while one of them would be in a liberated colony, but nothing significant ever came of it. 

It was through these efforts that M learned that a copy of herself had been dragged back into the cycle. Noah too hadn’t escaped from fate’s clutches. 

M wondered if he had suffered the same fate as herself.

Now, more than ever, she needed to see Noah.

Suddenly, darkness became light. She could see T’s reflection poking at his own eye.

M instinctively flinched and T’s hand drew away from his eye, like she had willed him to react.

This was new.

M held up T’s hand and experimentally wiggled her fingers. The hand responded to her mental commands.

“Woah,” M said with T’s voice, speaking for the first time since her death.

Unlike the other times she took control of people, M couldn’t communicate with T. It was for the best, she thought. She didn’t know if he could be trusted, and she wouldn’t be able to resist communicating with him if she could.

She accessed the Iris network and searched for Noah. He’d emerged from a cradle three months ago and was training as a swordfighter in one of the colonies. She found Mio in a similar situation but a term ahead. 

M attempted to relinquish control in the same way she used to. It worked.

When she’s in the dark, M has to choose whether to observe or take control. Observing was easier for her, as she could see how T interacted with the world. From these glimpses, she watched his curiosity about the world fizzle into apathy. M couldn’t blame him for that. The difference between her and T was that she had an easy way out.

E frequently appeared, talking about what she got up to when hanging out with the other consuls. Sometimes she’d mention a soldier that caught her eye, and that she made them commanders because she found them appealing for some reason or other.

“You’re telling me this because…?” T asked one time.

E sighed. “There’s nothing wrong with a chat, is there?”

“Are you trying to make me jealous?”

E’s wings fluttered with indignation. “Jealous, he says. What do you think I’m doing with them?”

M could feel T tense up, even if he didn’t say anything. M assumed that whatever T was thinking of E, he knew it was irrational.

And just when M thought things couldn’t get worse, X inserted herself into the situation.

“Makes me wonder what he’s doing during those ‘strategy meetings’,” X sneered.

M was offended on T’s behalf. She’d watched a couple of those sessions and they were above board by Moebius standards.

“The only thing I’m doing is strategy. If you don’t believe me, you can check the theater,” the words tumbled out of T’s mouth. He glared at X, then at E for not having his back, then warped away from the two of them.

He found refuge in one of the commander’s tents. It was empty right now, so T slumped onto the cot.

“What’s the point?” he thought out loud, though his words were barely audible to M. She missed the acute hearing she had in her old body.

He laid down but did not rest.

Until she takes control, M doesn’t know what she’ll wake up to. This time, T was in the middle of another argument with E. M didn’t know the hows and whys, so she relinquished control and let her world fade to black.

T was better at handling E, anyway.

The last time M borrowed T’s body, some external force had made her take control. For a moment, she wondered if it had anything to do with the entities that refused to let her rest. Then she saw something way more important.

T was in his study again, the shelves filled with more books than the last time she was here. The empty spaces were filled with knick-knacks relating to different hobbies. M noticed that the tea set had been recently dusted off. Just looking at it made her fancy a cup.

M brewed herself some tea and looked out the sole window in the study. The red infinity symbol hung in the sky, announcing a new generation of Ouroboros. She decided to inspect the Moebius network. She not only saw E and T’s faces staring back at her, but N’s and her own. If that was not a sign for M to take direct action, nothing would be.

M rummaged around for a plain piece of paper. She found a notebook and ripped a page out, then she scribbled a crude map of Upper Aetia and an instruction for T for when he came to.

‘The Cloudkeep could be here.’

M hesitated. She could sign off the note with her name, or some other indication of who she is. She decided against it, but resolved to tell him if this version of Ouroboros failed their mission. M wondered if the entities would force her to take control for as many times as it would take for Ouroboros to win.

If it did go to plan, she and T could escape this world for good, and so could everyone else. The rest was up to him.

M finished her tea and let go for what would be the final time.

“So it was Mimi’s handwriting after all…” Sena said.

Mio took a sip out of her cup, the tea having cooled to the perfect temperature for her. It had been galling to find out she would hijack a person’s body and not care about how it would affect her host. She looked at Taion, who was staring intently at the contents of his cup.

“I’m sorry,” Mio said quietly.

Noah also looked deep in thought. “You mentioned Rex and A, they were two of the people who defeated Alpha. After his disappearance, they took his place as Origin’s processor.”

“Why the hell would they need people to process Origin? Couldn’t they get a machine to do it?” Ghondor asked.

“Alpha was the machine… I think.”

Taion set his cup on the floor, letting the clink of the metallic floor draw the room’s attention to him. “So, N destroyed the first City and then joined forces with the founders to destroy this Alpha, some of said founders take Alpha’s place as Origin’s processor, M died some time later, then they put her in T’s body every once in a while. Is there anything I missed?”

“Shulk, Rex, and A travelled with the founders, but weren’t founders themselves. Otherwise that’s pretty much what happened,” Noah clarified. 

Noah looked at Riku and smiled softly. The Nopon’s secret was safe with him.

“Who Shulk?” Riku asked like he didn’t already know. “First time Riku hear that name.”

Noah rubbed the back of his head sheepishly. “Oh yeah, Shulk. He’s another part of the processor now.”

Lanz and Sena looked at each other. There were a lot of names flying around that had no meaning to them.

“That’s great and all, but how’s this going to help us beat Z?” Lanz asked.

“The existence of the processor, and some information I got from T, suggests that Z isn’t as powerful as he makes himself out to be,” Taion explained. “If he’s been kicked out of Origin before, he can be kicked out again.”

That sounded promising to Lanz, but he wanted to know more. “Wait, what info?”

Chapter Text

It was a clear night, so E took T to the Rae-Bel Tableland to watch the night sky. 

While that had been her intention, T was more interested in the sole glowing tree they had materialised next to. Going by what he knew about Saffronias, they were not native to this region and preferred to grow in more dimly-lit areas. It made him wonder how the tree was able to thrive in a place that was inherently hostile to its existence.

T was about to suggest to E that the two of them could sit under the tree, but she had a question of her own.

“So, what’re you gonna do now?” E asked.

That was a good question. Knowing the truth of the war that had been his life had reshaped T’s perspective and opened up a lot of opportunities. He could make his role purely administrative, but that didn’t sound like his idea of fun.

The colonies would be a good place to start, since there was a lot that could be done with them. He could try to get a Dirt colony to Silver as fast as possible, or do the same thing but with as little resources as possible. Alternatively, he could focus on one soldier and make them as strong as possible. X’s ranking system itself could be something he could break in half.

As long as he didn’t hit Gold, he’d be able to keep his colonies indefinitely. While the soldiers bore the likeness of his old friends, they were effectively new people. And if one of them died, another copy would take their place.

“I’ve got a couple of ideas,” he said noncommittally, aware that telling the truth would kill the mood. “And you?”

E scoffed at the idea of work. “I’m going to lie down here, and so are you.”

She wrapped her arms around him and they both flopped to the ground. E rolled off him so she could lie on her back, but made sure to keep her hand intertwined with his. The two Moebius watched the night sky.

“No moon tonight,” T commented.

“I could bring it to you,” E teased.

“That’s one of your new powers?”

E snorted. “Heh, that would be a funny one. Controlling the moon.”

She was joking, but it did give T an idea. He summoned his blade and guided one of his drones to the sky, then he used his new power to make it look like the moon. The illusion only worked from where he and E were laying, and the gentle glow was merely a reflection of the Saffronia’s light, but that was all he needed.

E let out an impressed whistle. “Ooh, we’ve got a full one now.”

At first, being Moebius was amazing. T could put plans into action that he had only dreamed about, relishing each victory he claimed over the others. And if anyone died, they came back with almost no memory of what happened, so he didn’t have to bear too much guilt about his more reckless ideas.

It took twenty years for battles to get old.

He was too good at it, so the other consuls either stopped trying or let their fear of imminent loss cloud their judgement. Without a good challenge, battles became a chore.

After that, he moved on to Kevesi or Agnians with an aptitude for strategy and a reason to not hold back. That was fun for a while, sometimes they’d strive to improve and defeat him. However, each incarnation of these soldiers had to relearn the basics. He, on the other hand, had all the time in the world to come up with new tactics.

There was so much he could do with both sides being evenly matched. It had been satisfying the first time he had a Dirt rank colony destroy a Silver one, but the taste of victory turned more bland each time he succeeded.

Today, he’d done too good of a job and had to harvest his own colony. 

It was his fault, he normally made sure that his Silvers had room to make the occasional mistake so Gold was out of their reach. Colony Zeta kept to themselves and were more logistics-focused, so T checked on them less frequently. That had been his first fumble in a long time.

He summoned his blade, then used them to summon the drones he was going to use to wipe out Zeta.

Instead of attacking the soldiers directly, he hid his silver drones around the colony while under the cover of darkness. The people of the colony had gotten complacent with their watches, the false assurance of a peaceful life already making them more inclined to skip their duties for the night.

He’d hidden them in the ferronis, in every tent, and even buried some in a straight line along every possible escape route. Any stragglers would be picked off individually.

It was efficient.

He’d rigged them to explode in waves. The tents would go first, then the ferronis, and finally the surrounding area. 

It turned out that T had over-prepared, since he ended up not using the third wave of drones. As expected, most of the soldiers were in their tents. They wouldn’t have had the time to react to the explosion before their lives were snuffed out. As for the ones in the ferronis, they were still in range when T triggered the second wave. The ones that were not in the ferronis itself were shredded to pieces by the shrapnel.

He returned to the theater to see that his attack had been projected onto the screen. Zeta was a burning hulk of metal and ash. There was no pride to be felt in succeeding in this mission.

Then he noticed he was on the stage. The other Moebius sat in the seats as they judged him. T felt relieved that E had opted to not watch.

“You know,” X said as she rubbed two of her fingers together and inspected them. “I was expecting something more… y’know. Not this, anyway.”

V sensed weakness and joined in. “You should have had me do it again. I wouldn’t have screwed up our feast.”

T didn’t have any respect for these two, so it was good to know the feeling was mutual. X was the rule maker, and she loved to remind T of that fact when he tried to demote Zeta after they reached Gold. V, on the other hand, was an anomaly of a man. T wondered how someone so daft had lived the longest of all of them.

“We want to hear their screams and taste their fear, but you killed them in their sleep like a coward,” V continued.

“Since it’s that unpalatable, you’re not having any of their life,” T said.

It had been made clear that the colony rank system was X’s game, and T was no longer interested in playing.

For once, T had an opportunity to talk to Z without the others around. E had gone off with X, chatting about something “amusing” that happened in a Keves colony. This gave him the opportunity to say something that had been on his mind.

“Do you have any ideas for dealing with the Annihilation Effect?” he asked. Even in his old life, his human life, the fear of the world around him imploding had been omnipresent. Letting it continue unabated went against Z’s goal of preserving the world, so he would have something in mind.

Right?

The projector showed them the Urayan Mountains. It had been ravaged by over a thousand years worth of Annihilation Events at this point, and by T’s calculations, it would barely qualify as a mountain in a couple of centuries.

“I do have a brilliant idea, you can use the powers I bestowed upon you to repair the mountain’s visage,” Z drawled.

That didn’t solve the problem.

“I’d know there’s holes in it,” T said. “And the life reaped from those that would fall through the illusion wouldn’t sustain us.”

Z hummed. “Then it is nothing you should concern yourself with.”

That was not the first time Z had that annoying conclusion. Whether it was questioning the term system (“Why fix something that isn’t broken?”), asking for more information on the City’s founders (“Why fixate on the past?”), wanting to access other parts of Origin (“That is not your responsibility.”), or even a request for contact lenses that didn’t cause eye strain when he used his powers (“I shall move your Iris to your hand.”), Z saw it all as a non-issue. 

T decided not to press Z further. If he was willing to deny what was in front of him, and he couldn’t persuade him to take action, Z would doom this world via inaction. And T didn’t want to be around to see it when it inevitably happens.

It had been days since his argument with E and X, and T hadn’t left the commander’s tent. He didn’t want to see anyone, let alone talk to them. Even getting up and out of the cot felt like a massive task.

T turned over so he faced the ceiling. The canvas didn’t give him any ideas as to how he could face the other consuls.

E materialised next to the cot. She looked down, her masked face doing little to conceal her apologetic expression. T turned to his side so he didn’t have to look at her.

“I should have told X to knock it off,” E conceded.

T looked over his shoulder so he could see E’s face. Instead of pressing the button to remove her mask as usual, she pulled it off her face. Her bravado was gone, it had been replaced with a look of regret that did not suit her.

“And… I know you don’t see them in that way. I don’t either, for the record. We don’t talk much, and I thought that would have sparked something between us,” E said, blinking back her tears.

It had, just not in the way E wanted. T has let his cynicism get the better of him and made a baseless accusation.

“I shouldn’t have assumed the worst of you,” T said, though he did not feel tears in his eyes.

E closed her eyes, thinking of a way to respond, then she opened them. “Can we do the things we used to do?”

That sounded good to T. He needed to get out of this tent, and E’s company was pleasant when she was in a good mood. He nodded.

E sat down on a space on the cot and put her hand on T’s shoulder. “It’s you and me, together forever.”

Being with E until the end of time should have been romantic to T, but it deepened his pit of dread. It wasn’t at the prospect of being stuck with E, after this much time together he couldn’t imagine life without her, but at the increasingly likely possibility that forever simply did not exist.

“Yeah. Together forever,” he said, knowing forever would be over. 

He didn’t know exactly when it started, but he knew something was amiss. Every once in a while he’d find himself somewhere he hadn’t planned on going. At first, he thought he wasn’t getting enough sleep. Then one day he came to at the edge of a cliff and E’s hand gripping his shoulder.

He backed away so he could get a better look at his partner. Her eyes were taut with concern, then relaxed a little.

“Mate, why are your eyes all wet?” E asked.

“It’s…” T tried to come up with a way to explain the situation he found himself in. He’d already died once because others deemed him to be defective, and he wasn’t going to give X the satisfaction of finishing the job.

“…my contacts. I just put them in.”

E didn’t look convinced, going by the way she tugged at her wing, but she didn’t ask any more questions. “Okay. Just… let me know if you want to talk about it.”

He didn’t want to talk about it, and E’s collusion with X made her difficult to trust.

T chose an unused room in Agnus Castle and warped there. It was simple in its layout: there were some cots lined up against one wall, and a sink and mirror on the perpendicular wall. On the other side of the beds was a window facing the Great Sword.

T walked to the sink and looked at himself in the mirror. 

There was no way he was going senile already, he thought. He removed his mask and looked at his reflection, scrutinising his own face. He hadn’t aged a day since he joined Moebius. Going by the data he had on himself, he also wasn’t predisposed to memory lapses.

So why did he keep waking up in unusual places?

His mirror image didn’t give him any answers. All it showed was the accumulation of countless sleepless nights.

His first lead was the other Moebius. He’d made a lot of rivals during his strategy days, and he didn’t help matters by reminding them of his victories. One of them could have coerced W into mind-controlling him for some petty revenge. If it was any of them, T thought, it would be R. She was a poor loser.

While it would make sense, his actions while under control earlier weren't consistent with any Moebius as far as he was aware. None of them had a strong attachment to Hope’s Rest. T needed a way to get to the bottom of this, and fast.

T found a standard-issue notebook and opened it. He wasn’t much of a writer, it was a completely different beast to reading, but if he was starting to forget things he needed a way to jog his memory without showing weakness to the others.

The best place to start was with a list of topics. He wondered how long this new venture would keep him occupied for.

His writings of the goings-on in Aionios made him highly sought-after by some of the more involved Moebius. T wondered if his attempt at hiding the lapses in his memory had worked too well.

Colony Omega was the place where Y tested his prototype flame clocks. The other Moebius had complained that the flavour from those bound to a blue or yellow clock was getting stale and repetitive, so Y aimed to produce a new colour that would whet their appetites.

Y saw promise in the purple flames. T was aware of some potential applications, and had thought of a few himself even if he was not inclined to share his ideas. 

Colony 0 was the first to use the purple clocks, and that was to power up the ferron units that kept the war in stasis. Since F tended to kill any soldier that grew too tall for the machines, their reduced life expectancy merely made his job easier. Unfortunately for T, he did not have the power to put a stop to this project.

T watched the Levnis land in front of the Omega ferronis with a fresh batch of soldiers. They filed out the moment the door opened. He recognised a lot of faces.

Three girls were the first to approach the Colony. While they couldn’t see T, he could see them.

The latest version of Mio caught his eye. When he checked his search history from around the time he first had his memory lapses, he or something else had searched for her.

He felt a distracting presence behind him. They weren't touching him, but they could have stood anywhere else in the room.

“Personal space, Y. Have you heard of it?” It was not a question.

Y laughed. “I thought thou would be used to it by now.”

T sighed, pretending to not be bothered by the lack of distance between him and Y as he stepped to the side. “What do you want?”

“Is there anything wrong with conversing with my favourite consul?” Y waited for T to answer. He didn’t, so Y continued. “The purple flame clock has been promising, but I have noticed that the weak link has been the soldiers. I’m going to remedy that problem.”

“How?” T asked.

“The free will we let them have is a burden. Their memories also hold them back. If all goes to plan, they will not have to worry about either of those things any more.”

The proposal disgusted T in a way he couldn’t put into words that would make a compelling case. Free will was all they had left. That was what let them form bonds that would spur them on in battle, igniting their flames even brighter. He looked out the window and saw the three girls talk to one another about something.

Just thinking of them as nothing more than mindless thralls was grotesque. 

T gave Y a sideways glance. “I’ll log your efforts, but I won’t do any more than that.”

Keeping up appearances was one of the most important duties of a Moebius. T stood in front of the facsimile of Queen Nia and updated her on the positions of her colonies.

He hoped for something to break the monotony, which came in the form of one of the soldiers.

“Consul, sir. Can I have a moment?”

T turned his back on the queen and approached the soldier. He recognised him as Isurd, who had an above average chance of involvement with Taion. He was not as familiar with the woman next to him.

The only way a soldier could be removed from the cycle was via Homecoming, but some would vanish for other reasons. The City would take growth modules whenever they could, but there were times where soldiers would vanish for unrelated reasons. However, T could not discount the possibility of her being a City spy.

The woman spoke up. “Sir High Consul, I know this is unconventional, but I would like to be Lieutenant.”

“You need your Consul’s permission for that,” T said.

“Consul I told us to ask you.”

Of course she did. I was more interested in assimilating herself into the colonies than she was in running them.

However, it was thanks to her that T could see what would happen with a new variable in this world. The other Moebius were after entertainment, and giving this suspicious woman enough responsibility to cause problems would make things less tedious.

“Permission granted, Lieutenant…”

“Nimue, sir.”

T did not tell anyone about Nimue’s presence. A woman mysteriously appearing centuries after her disappearance wasn’t high on his list of priorities.

In retrospect, it should have been.

The battle between 4 and Delta had been a disaster that neither consul involved wanted to clean up. E stuck to her promise of not getting involved, so that made it T’s problem to put right. He stood next to the Kevesi queen’s throne, changed his appearance so he looked like E, and watched the automaton dress down the commander of Colony 4.

“For your insubordination, Colony 4 will be demoted to Dirt Rank. Do not display such mercy against the enemy again, or the consequences will be more severe. Do you understand?”

Ethel saluted. She managed to look dignified despite her shaking fist. “Yes, I understand clearly, Your Majesty.”

“You are hereby dismissed.”

T watched Ethel pace down the corridor and take the elevator back to the entrance. With nobody else in the room, he dismissed his disguise.

Forcing his perspective into someone of a different body to himself was always disorienting, even when standing still. But with E neglecting her duties and I focusing on Agnus Castle, that left T to take on E’s role.

The platform of the lift emerged, along with C. He was the newest member, having chosen death after mentoring an off-seer version of Noah. What baffled T was that C chose eternal life when he had desired death moments before.

“The more your appearance deviates, the more off-key your melody becomes. It’s quite interesting,” C mused.

C had instantly integrated himself into Moebius, and that automatically raised T’s suspicions. If this interaction happened a few centuries ago, T would have investigated C. Now, he didn’t see the point in trying. Whatever C was trying to pull, he would eventually realise that his efforts would be pointless.

“Don’t look at me like that. I’m just impressed by how you’ve been able to apply your powers,” C said.

Now C was trying to get on his good side.

“What do you want, C?” T asked, hoping his voice made it clear that flattery wouldn't work on him.

C removed his helmet and softly smiled. “Please, just call me Crys. All I want is to see how you’d arrange my melody.”

“You want me to- what?”

The musical metaphors were lost on T. While one of his doubles had been an off-seer, it was evidently something they were not good at. Plus, T stuck to hobbies Taion picked up for as long as that version lived, and the latest iteration was really into tea.

C repeated the same question but in a way a normal person could understand. “Can you tell me how you’d use my powers? I’m pretty new to all this, so I’ll need all the help I can get. E said you were really good at this sort of thing.”

T knew that was E’s way of offloading her responsibilities to him. Again.

Taion paused his recounting of T’s life to take a sip of his tea. It was barely warm enough to be drinkable, so he finished the cup.

“No wonder E liked Z so much, they both sat around and did snuff all,” Lanz commented.

“Oi, I’m E y’know,” Eunie said with a playful slap on Lanz’s knee.

Noah looked up and his eyes widened as he was struck with an idea. “What if our integration took longer because it took us longer to accept them as us.”

Mio hummed in contemplation. M wasn’t as bad as the others, but she still doomed the girl she swapped bodies with. There was little the Kevesi girl could have done to stop N from realising the switch had taken place. And then there was her ability to possess people in life and in death. It had been a lot to take in.

“We only learned about N and M’s lives when Y exposed us to their memories,” Mio said.

“T did a lot of questionable stuff, but you already knew that. Why did yours take a while?” Noah said to Taion.

“I think some part of me didn’t want to admit that we were the same person. We look alike and started out the same, but our choices made us different. That’s what I thought at the time, and T had the same sentiment.”

“But now…?” Mio asked.

Taion pointed at his Iris. The yellow-and-red glow was apparent from where Mio was sitting.

“...you can’t deny it any more,” she finished.

Chapter Text

T stared at the title on the front cover of the book he just finished updating. Y would never admit it, but the Colony Omega project was a total failure. The soldiers were obedient, which did achieve Y’s primary objective, but the secondary measures were dire. They were only good for anything if they had an off-seer to keep them in line.

He looked at the other books, some of which chronicled the various vanity projects Moebius carried out over the decades. Most had been of little importance, except for X’s Annihilator project. Her weapon was groundbreaking in every sense of the word, and T wished he knew more of how it worked. E did fill him in on the bits X was willing to share with her, but X didn’t want T anywhere near her projects.

Loath as he was to admit it, his own research on Eunie and Taion hadn’t yielded anything exciting. They’d live, they’d fight, and they’d die with little fanfare. Sure, there were times where one of them was a commander, reached Gold, or had their connection to the flame clock severed, but that didn’t make either of them special. That didn’t make either of their lives meaningful.

If he got any closer to figuring out why Z chose him and E, the better chance he had at convincing her that Z wasn’t what she thought he was.

He put the book back in its place on the shelf, then sat back at his desk.

The red infinity symbol signalled D and J’s failure to destroy the Ouroboros Stone. Their chance of success wasn’t something T would have betted on if he was that way inclined. He sighed as he watched, and was about to get up to get his book on Ouroboros off the shelf when his mind went blank.

One moment, he was gazing at the Moebius symbol in the sky from his vantage point in the study. The next, he had an empty cup in one hand and a note in the other.

‘The Cloudkeep could be here.’

That one note didn’t explain everything, but it did confirm a suspicion he had for a long time. Someone, or something, had been taking control of his body.

He wondered if he could trust the note. Whatever the entity was, it hadn’t done anything to hurt or embarrass him. On the other hand, it was incredibly suspect that it didn’t make itself known until now. Then there was the third hand: he was meant to look for the real Agnian queen anyway, so he decided to investigate.

He warped to the location marked on the crudely-drawn map and found a platform. The altar at the edge didn’t react when he approached it. He tried tapping different parts of the stone slab, then tried attacking it with his blade. Still no reaction. Finally, he waved his hand over the top of the altar.

He admitted defeat and sat on top of the plinth. He hoped the entity would tell him how to activate the altar the next time they took control. 

While he waited in case something did happen, T checked the Iris network for any updates. He noticed that the entity had also accessed the network, and left the page they were looking at open. 

If fate existed, it was laughing at him right now. Not only were Noah and Mio Ouroboros again, but Eunie and Taion had been in range of the stone when it went off. He didn’t know how he was going to break the news to E.

T watched the snow dance across the sky until she made her appearance.

The theater was the perfect place to watch Ouroboros. The extensive surveillance network meant that he didn’t miss a moment, and he wouldn’t have E fretting over him.

He’d come under the pretence of passing on intel to E, who was currently introducing herself to the soon-to-be Moebius S. T had put in a token dissenting vote in favour of Sena as she was better than the City girl in almost every measure, and that had been enough to lock in Shania as X’s choice. 

While those two were distracted with Shania, T could assess whether this incarnation of Ouroboros was any different to the others.

Over his years of collecting data on the world, T had noticed that they had one flaw in common: their single-minded drive to reach Origin. Even when soldiers joined their ranks, they ignored the struggles of the people around them. That neglect ultimately led to their downfall if they did not meet their end at the barrel of E’s gunrod.

The latest incarnation had unlocked two more of their Ouroboros forms, one of which had been Eunie’s. Like E, she used a rifle to pierce holes into her enemies. Unlike E, she also healed her allies and strengthened them.

Ouroboros successfully freed Colony 4 and killed K, that alone had been impressive, but the most striking feature was the blade their unofficial leader used to slice the flame clock. It reminded him of Pi and 14, and the Ouroboros of that era.

Unlike them, the people of Colony 4 survived relatively unharmed. The colony’s commander, Silvercoat Ethel, even praised their abilities.

Ouroboros’s biggest strength was their willingness to help the colony after it had been freed. Despite the hostilities from some Kevesi, T’s double had used his wealth of intel to locate an incoming supply drop so the colony could get back on its feet. Even E’s double used her medical knowledge to appropriately distribute the supplies. 

If there was anyone that could save this decaying world, it would be them.

There was one problem though, and that was Mio’s dwindling life. This woman was able to temper the strong personalities in her new team, and her ability to empathise with her former enemies had earned her some powerful allies already. She also had less than three months left, and every moment counted. If T could find a way to extend her life, Mio would have more time to help colonies like 4 and rally them to her cause.

A plan stated to form in T’s head. E had the power to swap lifespans, but convincing her to swap Mio’s with one of their City prisoners had no benefit for her. And even if she went along with it, one of the other Moebius would see through his plan in an instant. They were dumb, but they lasted as long as they did for a reason.

He could use his powers to disguise them as someone E would swap Mio’s lifespan for. The frequent rotation of the Li Garte guards and their unwillingness to go against Moebius would mean that one prisoner wouldn’t be missed.

Did he want to use a prisoner, though? Even if they agreed to go along with the plan, they’d have every reason to turn on him. And if they did stay loyal, it still did not sit right with him. That unease was similar to what he felt with Y’s recent experiments and F’s implementation of the ferron units.

This idea needed more time to brew, T concluded.

The rest of T’s plan fell into place during two sessions: the first was when he watched his other self hand a cup of tea to E’s double, and the other occurred when the Agnians awoke their Ouroboros form.

He was a little jealous. Only himself and E did not have Moebius forms for reasons Z never bothered to explain, so he didn’t get to experience the kind of power that the other Moebius bragged about.

Eunie and Taion loved their new powers, that much was obvious. Their roles were more supportive than their allies, but both of them had exploited their abilities to deal a lot of damage to their foes. Their synergy was on a level T never had with E. 

Was it due to Eunie being a healer? That was the biggest difference either of them had to their previous selves. This version of Eunie had changed from her usual Sharpshooter class to fill the gap left by J’s first death, and she quickly caught up to people that had been healing from their first term.

E was a healer in her own way. Her powers let her extend the life of one person at the expense of another. When she used to use it, she gave her favourite soldiers the lifespan of a City person. However, she did not think about whether the soldier would be able to cope with an unnaturally long life.

Ashera handled it the worst of them all. Each year the phantom pains from her past life would intensify until she could no longer take it. Her death at his hands had been a mercy compared to the decades of agony from E’s “blessing”.

Maybe that was why the thought of using a prisoner to extend Mio’s life had bothered him so much. The years of Moebius activities had eroded his morality, he couldn’t deny that, but this was a line he did not want to cross. 

While he was more inclined to use a soldier for his plan, they would come back if they died before a Homecoming, the number of years Mio would gain wouldn’t be enough for his liking. A Moebius lived longer than almost everyone else, but all of them would rather die than help another. That left… himself.

T thought he didn’t want to die, not when he’d be replaced by another victim of the system he perpetuated. Everything from the battles, to his assisting in the other Moebius’s endeavours, to his fracturing relationship with E, none of it had brought any good to this rotting world.

He couldn’t argue against his own assessment. The world would remain in its constant state of decay, or it would literally be better off without him.

He realised that he’d unconsciously made plans this whole time. He’d been pushing E away for a while now, so she wouldn’t miss him if he was gone, and he’d been writing those books so he could pass on his knowledge. The entity was another factor, as even that was miserable in the moments it took control. 

This was the final piece. His death would mean something.

He slept soundly that night, the decision had taken a massive weight off his shoulders.

This death was slow.

He could feel the phantom pain in his chest from his first life. Back then, Eunie’s voice as she begged him not to leave her had been the most agonising part of dying. He didn’t have that luxury now.

T looked through the bars that blighted his view of the night sky. The waning moon counted down the days he had left.

He pulled the scarf over his mouth and exhaled, feeling the heat diffusing across the fabric. He remembered cringing when his other self had picked it out of the City crates, among some other questionable fashion choices. That thing was a tripping hazard, and Taion did trip over it a couple of times, and that was before thinking about what would happen if it got tangled in a levnis’s wheel. And that shade of orange…

It turned out he could pull off that colour.

T pulled the scarf back down and felt the cool air hit his face. For a brief moment, the pain in his chest faded to the background.

Back in the room where he’d questioned Taion’s motive, he’d picked it up to make it clear that he did not have second thoughts about languishing in this cell. It was also the last item he put on. He had tightened the knot too tightly, putting unnecessary pressure on his neck, so Taion had to loosen it a little.

T adjusted the material, hoping it didn’t skew the distribution of the scarf. 

So far, his plan had gone almost perfectly. Ideally it would have been only himself and Mio in these cells, and Taion in his self-imposed gilded cage, but the other four and the Nopon could survive a month behind bars.

Especially Eunie. He’d heard her rage against E, against his impending death. She was living proof that Z had misled E all those years ago. He didn’t know exactly what he said, but E had claimed that they would have never been able to get together again if she hadn’t accepted his offer.

He heard the tell-tale woosh of a Moebius entering the cell.

He did not want to see E, but she had other plans. She had almost killed Lanz, and that single act went against the few principles she had left.

When a soldier previously became Ouroboros, she captured them and let someone else deal with them. That meant T had the dubious honour of locking them up until their Homecoming. If E didn’t have the luxury of delegating, she turned unusually quiet and would watch a scenic view in the theater.

This time, she was really trying to make Ouroboros’s lives as miserable as possible, thinking it was the end for them.

T looked up and watched E watch him. She approached him and bent down so she was closer to his level. Even at this height, she was looking down on him.

“I swear you haven’t moved a cetri since I last came down here. For a moment, I thought you were a husk,” she said.

Normally, T would noncommittally respond or outright ignore E. It was the most effective way to get her to leave him alone, but these were not normal times. He had her full attention, so this conversation was only going to end on her terms.

“Sorry I’m not interesting enough for you,” he snarked.

The sound that came from E was somewhere between a huff and a laugh. “At least you can talk. I know you’ve been listening in on my little chats with your mates.”

He’d heard her taunt Ouroboros about his impending death and revel in their powerlessness. She hadn’t acted this way before, and T wondered if fighting her copy after years of ennui had finally broken her.

“Why are you here?” T asked, unsure if he even wanted to know the answer. 

“Nothing wrong with checking on the star of the show,” E casually said.

“You’ve checked on me, so you can go now.”

E grabbed fistfuls of T’s scarf and jacket and yanked him off the floor. She shoved him against a wall and knocked out what little air was in his lungs. T forced a breath in, vaguely aware that the wall against his back was the one he shared with Ouroboros.

E’s eyes narrowed, as did her voice. “I think you’re a little confused, mate. You’re in no position to order me around.”

He never wanted to be in that position to begin with, but he had to take that role with each task of hers he took on. He should be infuriated by the smug look on her face that barely concealed her rage. However, he’d gone beyond caring.

“Don’t you have better things to do? Being a Moebius must be tedious if you’re coming down here all the time.”

“This is part of the entertainment, mate,” E taunted. “And you look so cute when you’re pissed off.”

“Why do you need to look at me when you have him ?” T said, struggling to get the words out between the already existing pain and E pressing him against the wall.

“I don’t need to explain myself,” E slammed her fist against the wall, barely missing T’s face. He still flinched at the indirect impact. 

E sometimes punched something when they argued. It started with her pummeling levnis wreckage, and it was ending like this. Maybe she’d punch him. She had made her intent clear all those times before.

“Ooh, you flinched!” she mocked.

T realised what was going on, and that calmed him somewhat. He’d avoided telling Taion too much about his relationship with E, so his Ouroboros counterpart was either ignoring E or said something he shouldn’t. From the way E was treating T, she hadn’t learned about the swap.

“I think I know why you’re here. T did something you didn’t like, so you’re taking it out on me.”

E punched the wall again, then ran her fingers through one of her wings. A feather came loose and floated to the floor. “He’s in his books more than- you know what? Spark this, I’m going to talk to him.”

E vanished in a cloud of purple motes. With nothing to support his weight against the wall, T slid to the ground.

The only thing left of her was a single feather on the cell floor. After he’d convinced Mio he was fine, T reached out and grabbed it.

He looked at the feather. E and Eunie were the only Kevesi he’d seen with white wings, and they were the only ones that changed colour at the tips. That alone had to make them special, since they were the closest to the Kevesi queen’s in appearance.

If the queen knew Eunie from the old world, what did she think of the woman E had become? 

He’d created a monster. Or maybe she had always been this way and he had brought forth what had been simmering on the inside. Deep down, E must have known what she would become if she killed her former comrades.

Was that the real reason she didn’t want to talk about how she died?

T didn’t want to look at the feather any more, so he buried it in his trouser pocket.

Why did he even care about how she felt? E won't be his problem in a week’s time in the same way her wrath wasn’t his problem right now. 

‘I don’t believe you.’

Even now, Taion’s assertion bothered him. He’d been trying to understand his relationship with Eunie as a way to figure out where he stood with E. He couldn’t come up with a rebuttal then, and even now he was struggling to find a reason to be surprised by Taion’s bond with Eunie. He’d been like that once.

T looked out the window once more, hoping the unchanging scenery would send him to sleep. It didn’t, but he closed his eyes to keep up appearances.

Chapter Text

With everyone’s Moebius lives recounted to the group, it was time to use that information against Z. Taion got up to make a fresh cup of tea and picked up Eunie’s empty cup on his way to the table.

Lanz stared at the large ether lamp as he parsed the information he’d been bombarded with. He looked at his friends and wondered if he and Sena would have become Moebius if they had the chance. Would they enforce Z’s will like Noah and Eunie, he wondered, or would they give up trying to change the organisation from the inside like Mio and Taion.

That was assuming Z deemed them to be as special as those four. He and Sena could just as easily end up like O and P.

Sena was looking at Mio, but turned to face him when she noticed him staring at the lamp. Lanz looked at her quizzical expression, and wondered if she’d be as open with her emotions if she was one of Z’s minions.

“What’s on your mind?” Sena asked.

“I’m just thinking,” Lanz said. 

A ping sounded from Mio’s Iris before Eunie could get a cheap shot a Lanz's expense. Mio tapped the side of her head and answered the call.

“Your Majesties!” she exclaimed. “I thought you two were getting ready.”

Mio fiddled with her Iris so her call could be shared with the others. Both queen's voices echoed around the metallic chamber.

“Everything is all set up at the castle,” Melia explained.

“We are pretty much done here too, we’ll launch our offensive when you’re about to fight Z,” Nia said.

“Do you have any tips on fighting him?” Sena asked. She felt more confident about her chances after having learned a little about Origin’s overseer.

“Z is more of a concept than a person, as he embodies the fear of change,” Melia explained. “He will use everything in his power to stop you from taking over Origin.”

Eunie chimed in. “That’s good to know, but how can we hurt him? If it was easy Noah would have done him in lifetimes ago.”

“That is something you’ll have to figure out, I have absolute faith in you all,” Melia said.

Nia spoke up. “As do I. Four of you have memories of past Moebius, and the ones that don’t will be able to pick out the most important parts. Between you all, you’ll find Z’s weakness.”

The conversation petered out. Nia took a short breath to speak before someone else beat her to it.

“Before you go, Queen Nia, I’ve got a question. Do you know how to use the Annihilator?” Taion asked.

They could hear the beeping of electronics from Nia’s end of the line, along with a voice shouting “Poppi, do you have the instructions for that blasted thing!?”

Ouroboros sat in shock. Most of Nia’s reputation had come from her robot double, and that had never been so inelegant. One question had shattered that image of the Queen of Agnus.

Nia returned to the call, having resumed her queenly demeanour. “Thank you all for bearing with me. I’m happy to say that I can use the Annihilator. What will be your target?”

Taion decided against addressing Nia’s prior outburst.

“I don’t have one yet, but I reckon we’ll need its firepower when we’re fighting Z.” Taion summoned his blade and an Origin shard. “All Moebius have weapons made from Origin metal, and mine is reinforced with it, so assuming T’s drones were also composed of the stuff…”

He held out his hand so his palm faced up, then tilted that same hand upward. The shard jerked up in the same direction and suspended itself in the air. 

Mio adjusted her Iris so the queens could see the floating piece of Origin metal.

“I see…” Melia said. 

One of the Mondo came to life and floated over to the origin shard. It bobbed up and down in time with the shard, pointedly looking away from its wielder.

“I’m not replacing you,” he quietly reassured the paper creature. It briefly looked at Taion, then turned its head away again in a huff.

“That’s pretty nifty,” Nia said, though it was unclear what she was referring to. 

Taion dismissed his blade, causing the Origin shard to clatter to the ground. The Mondo stayed in the air and floated back to his side.

“If there is nothing else to add, I’ve got to finish my preparations. Please call or send us a message when you’re about to fight him,” Melia requested. “And… good luck.”

Melia ended her call.

Nia paused for a moment, choosing her words of encouragement carefully. “Mio, I just want to say that I want the best for you. For all of you. I’ll see you when you’ve won.”

“I’m already looking forward to it,” Mio said, then hung up.

Noah got up to start packing away their supplies.

“Wait, what about E’s sword?” Sena asked. Noah stopped in his tracks and looked at her. “Two Lucky Sevens are better than one… I think.”

“Are you volunteering?” Eunie teased.

Sena awkwardly grinned and rubbed the back of her head. “If no one else wants it, I’ll take it.”

Ghondor looked at Monica. “I’m surprised you’re not jumping at the chance to hold it,” she said, then addressed Noah. “And you. How do you feel about dual wielding?”

“I did think about that, but I think it’s better if someone else had it,” Noah said. 

He summoned the golden sword and handed it to Sena. Sena brushed her finger against the flat edge as she hummed in contemplation. After being mocked for using a hammer one too many times in her early terms, she took some lessons in sword fighting before Mio encouraged her to go back to her original blade.

“I’m gonna call this one… Lucky Fourteen,” Sena said. “It’s a second Lucky Seven, and two times seven is fourteen.”

“That’s a great name, Sena,” Noah said. Sena blushed from the praise.

Eunie facepalmed. She wanted to tell them that N had already given that blade a name long before E had it, but she knew a lost battle when she saw one.

She was relieved to have a distraction in the form of a fresh cup of tea.

After centuries of oppression by Moebius, the time had come to bring it to an end. Keves, Agnus, and the City had united under the true queens and were taking their final stand.

The theater was the eye of the storm.

Once everyone was ready, Noah pushed open the wooden doors and entered. Mio sent a message to the queens before joining him.

Ouroboros and the Vandhams walked down the central aisle so they could meet Z on stage. Warm light bathed the arena while the screen showed a third person perspective of Ouroboros’s journey, starting from when they met in Alfeto Valley.

“How many times is it now, that we have met on this very stage?” Z drawled. “You could have resigned yourself to the flow, but you choose to persist.”

The projector flickered on. It showed Noah and Mio’s failed attempts to defeat Z, with Noah outliving Mio every time. There were times where they didn’t fight Z at all, including one scene where they had a child. Like before, Mio died first, followed by Noah after some parting words with his son.

Lanz growled. “You call it a flow, but nothing’s sparking moving!”

“We’re here to get things going again,” Eunie added.

The silver screen shifted its focus to Eunie, alternating between shots across her lifetimes. D’s claw hovering above Eunie’s eye transitioned to a shot of that same eye watching Taion’s Homecoming. The film insisted on reflecting Eunie's world through her eye. It then showed E’s wild gaze as she attempted to avenge T in both her lifetimes.

The eye focus was weirding Eunie out a bit.

“Why did you lie to E?” Noah asked in reference to the scene he just watched.

Z chuckled. “For the same reason I allowed the processor to transfer M’s consciousness to T’s body, and let T carry out his final plan. Because it amuses me.”

The reason being something as base as entertainment was appalling. Yet, the projection continued. Battle after battle bathed the room in the glow of explosions and flame clocks from long ago. Swathes of Moebius appeared to fill the seats, which they immediately stood up from to give Ouroboros a standing ovation.

Ouroboros summoned their blades in anticipation of the audience joining in the battle. The Moebius returned to their seats, but Ouroboros did not put their guard down.

Z continued his monologue. “The action-packed drama of your lives never ceases to entertain. Your strength has helped you withstand the kind of adversity that most people would give up trying to overcome.”

This was getting tedious to Eunie. She looked at Sena. “Hey, can I borrow the sword for a bit?”

“It’s technically yours, but sure,” Sena said as she passed the blade to Eunie.

Eunie looked at Noah, hoping he understood what she was communicating to him. He got his Lucky Seven out and nodded at her direction, and the two of them leapt into the air and pierced the floor of the theater.

The ground fractured under their feet and purple light glowed from the cracks, then the false floor disintegrated completely. Eunie and Noah looked up and saw that the rest of the theater had vanished too, along with Z and the audience.

Origin metal dismantled into fragments around them and burst upward, leaving them on a platform that slowly raised them into the sky. Z had done away with his human form, reducing himself to pure energy bearing his face.

The fragments coalesced into the centre of the platform, forming a large, volgull-like statue. Tendrils of Origin energy spread out from the structure and stabbed anything that ventured too close. The remaining fragments formed turrets that blasted Origin’s energy across Aionios indiscriminately.

The defence weapons shifted together and took aim at Keves Castle. With Agnus Castle fighting off the tendrils and the City defending the Colonies, this left Keves wide open for a devastating attack.

Taion looked up and decided to put his plan into action. He swapped to the Origin shard, and rapidly fired multiple shards. The shards ripped apart enough of the turrets to give Melia the opportunity to take the offensive. She steered Keves Castle toward the statue and punched it in its side, causing the weapons to waver in the air for a moment.

Z stabbed one of the tendrils into the side of the castle, forcing Melia to retreat. With the Kevesi queen temporarily out of the picture, Z directed his attention to Agnus Castle. He set up a shield to protect himself from Nia’s arsenal as he manoeuvred his turrets to take aim at her castle.

Fragments of Origin metal collided with the turrets, forcing them in the opposite direction of Z’s trajectory. He searched for the source of the interference and found it almost immediately.

He briefly observed Taion, he was the only Ouroboros not looking at him, and upped his concentration on the turrets. They sped up, resulting in the Origin shards bouncing off them uselessly. Taion's fingers twitched as he tried in vain to increase the velocity of the Origin shards.

Eunie passed Lucky Fourteen back to Sena and stabbed her gunrod into the platform. She could feel the ether flow from herself, down the gunrod, and diffuse across the platform. The shards sped up a little, but it was not enough to nudge the turrets away from Agnus Castle.

“We need all the buffs we can get!” Eunie shouted.

“On it!” Sena shouted. With a flourish of her blade, she transferred some of its power to the group. Noah focused on attacking Z directly, with some of his attacks stacking on top of the boons from Sena.

Z noticed their increased strength and upped his own efforts. He ignored Noah and Sena and concentrated on manoeuvering the turrets.

Taion needed more power if he wanted to weaken Z’s offensive capabilities.

“Eunie!” he shouted.

“Ready!” Eunie responded, and the two of them transformed into Taion’s Ouroboros form.

They were now strong enough to increase the velocity of the shards and summon more to overwhelm Z’s turrets. The shards had enough force behind them to rip the turrets to shreds once more.

This upper hand was short-lived. Z effortlessly wrestled control of the remaining Origin shards from Taion, including the ones he’d just summoned, then used them to reinforce the damaged parts of his barrier.

Z laughed at their struggle, his voice distorted by the energy engulfing him. “You think you can use Origin metal against me? All is in my domain.”

The existence of Lucky Seven and Lucky Fourteen, along with the Ouroboros stones, was proof that Z was overstating his power.

“You’d know more about your world if you didn’t sit on your arse,” Eunie mocked. “Seriously, who can’t tell the difference between metal and paper?”

With a snap of Taion’s fingers, the Origin shards transformed into paper and disintegrated. The shield dimmed as some of its power was used to fill in the gaps in its components. Nia, seeing her chance, used the castle’s missiles to destroy the now-weakened barrier while she waited for the Annihilator to charge up. 

“Now!” Eunie and Taion shouted simultaneously.

On that signal, Nia fired the Annihilator. It hit the statue directly on the head, and the metal completely vanished in the implosion. With Z’s attention on Ouroboros, building more defensive weapons was lower on his list of priorities. This gave Keves, Agnus, and the City more breathing room for their assault on Origin, while Ouroboros could completely focus on Z.

With the worst of Origin’s defences dealt with, Eunie and Taion cancelled the interlink. They quickly got to healing their allies while they continued their assault on Z.

Sena stabbed into Z with Lucky Fourteen. Mio saw her draw her hammer, and realised what she was going to do. She slipped her moonblade over Lucky Fourteen so she could hold it in position. Lanz also moved into position so he could shield Mio from Z’s attacks. Sena swung her hammer so it hit the pommel of Lucky Fourteen. The blade pierced through and sailed into the horizon.

Z screamed in pain and dissolved into pure energy for a moment, giving Mio and Sena enough time to back away from him. 

When his grimace reappeared and Z attempted to heal the gaping hole in his vortex, Noah stabbed him with Lucky Seven.

That was enough for him to dissolve into energy and shrink into the distance. Everything, from the outside world to the platform Ouroboros stood on, disappeared under the bright light coming from Z. The kaleidoscope of colours was disorienting. In the distance they could barely make out Z’s futile attempt to cling on to his human visage.

A blinding light filled the right side of Noah’s vision. He was about to cover said eye when it suddenly stopped. In front of him was a man that looked just like him, but with E’s armour on. To his left was a phantasm of Mio wearing T’s armour.

Noah recognised them as N and M, though they lacked the masks they wore in life.

N was the first to speak. “I see that you all have succeeded where M and I failed all those times before.”

“We couldn’t have done it without M’s help,” Mio said. “Your information on the Cloudkeep was invaluable.”

M casted her eye to the ground but accidentally made eye contact with Taion. The red glow in his eye was uncomfortably familiar to her.

“Noah, how the spar- ahh!” Eunie cried out before E emerged from her eye. She floated so she was on N’s right, while T ended up next to M.

If things weren’t awkward for M before, it definitely was now.

“For the record, I would have done the same thing in your position,” T said to M in a weak attempt to reassure her.

E watched in disbelief.

“While it has been nice to meet you all, we need to go,” M said. She turned her back on Ouroboros so she could look at Z.

N floated to M with open arms. She accepted his embrace as E looked away from this display of affection. 

“Z is still alive, and us Moebius are the only ones that can finish him off,” N explained.

“But we’ve only just met!” Noah pleaded with N. He didn’t need to know the exact details of N’s plan, but he knew it involved destroying himself in addition to Z.

N softly smiled. “We need to do this so you can live in the world you’ll create.”

E’s eyes widened as she figured out what N and M’s plan was.

“We… We’ll die if we do that!” E protested.

M looked at E incredulously. “We’re already dead, E.”

“Yeah… but we’ll be more dead.”

N looked at T sympathetically. “We’ll go first. Maybe M and I will be enough to get rid of Z for good.”

“Farewell, all of you,” M said.

M and N floated in the direction of Z. A flash of white light signalled their collision, but Z persisted after the light cleared.

T watched the vortex and saw no change, then looked at Taion for clarification. “How many Moebius are left?”

“It’s just you two and Joran,” Lanz answered for him, then he was hit with a realisation. “You’re not saying he has to throw himself at Z too?”

“He might if E and I aren’t enough to stop him.”

“I never said I’d blow myself up!” E protested. “This is sparking insane! You’re all insane!”

“You’re questioning my sanity when you’d been following that thing?” T asked, referring to what was left of Z.

Eunie watched E and T argue. It was like looking in a mirror with the way they talked to one another so frankly. If they had more time, they may have even reconciled.

“I’m not following him any more, am I?” E exclaimed.

Mio cleared her throat. “We can’t take control unless he’s completely destroyed. Otherwise he’ll just take Origin again.”

E tugged at her phantom wing in hesitation. She still wasn’t convinced.

“Look,” Eunie said. “You can destroy Z, or you can disappear into Origin’s storage banks. I know which I’d rather do.”

“I’ll do it. I… We’ll destroy Z for you. Just… don’t forget us, OK?” E softly asked.

E and T floated together so they were side-by-side. They looked over their shoulders and smiled at Eunie and Taion, then looked at each other.

"Do you think we could have ever loved each other the way they do?" T asked.

"We did once," E admitted, though she did not sound sad. "They are us, but they won't screw it up like we did."

E and T stayed apart as they floated away to join N and M, and had almost disappeared into two specks of light when they directly hit Z.

He screamed for the final time as he burst into bright light.

“We’ll make sure you’re remembered,” Eunie said as she shielded her eyes. She and the rest of Ouroboros watched Z fade away into nothing.

Chapter Text

When they could see again, they were standing at the top of a verdant hill, while two planets were visible in the clear blue sky. Noah had never seen such vivid colours in his life.

He looked away so he could see his friends. The marks on Lanz’s face, Sena’s arm, and Eunie’s chest were gone. He looked at the back of his right hand and saw that his mark had disappeared too.

“Is this what you truly want?” a voice asked them. 

Behind them stood Nia and Melia, and their castles proudly behind them.

“This is what we came for, innit,” Eunie answered.

“It’s not too late to change your mind,” Melia reminded them.

It was tempting. Noah saw the separated worlds in the sky and knew there was a chance he’d never see Mio again. It was now, of all times, that he understood how he could have possibly become N.

“No, I’m sure,” Noah said. “But what about the City?”

“Don’t mind us,” Ghondor said, startling Noah. He hadn’t realised that she and Monica had joined them.

“Are you sure?”

Ghondor scoffed. “Just having the chance to be born in this world is enough, but I think I’ll want a different name next time.”

She looked pointedly at Monica. He thought it was a lovely name, as did N and M all those years ago, but coming up with odd names was a Vandham tradition at this point.

After agreeing on separating the two worlds after taking control of Origin, Ouroboros split up so they could wrap up any loose ends. Mio joined Nia and headed to Agnus Castle, while the others stayed with Melia.

Nia brought Mio to the Cloudkeep, which was now the castle’s throne room. They stood at one of the balconies and watched the sea lap at the islands below. 

Nia mustered the courage to open up to Mio. “Mio… there’s something I want to tell you.”

Mio looked up, her ears high with curiosity. “Your Majesty?”

Nia smiled. “I’m not really a queen. Back in our world, I was something called a mayor… and your mother.”

Mio’s eyes widened in surprise. While they were the only people Mio knew that had red swirling in their crystals, she didn’t realise they were related this closely. They also had thick sheets of pale grey hair and pointed teeth. Mio’s eyes were a different shade of yellow to Nia’s, and her ears were shorter, but she must have taken after her father in those ways.

“Your Ma- Mum, I-”

“Please, call me Nia.”

“Nia, thank you for telling me,” Mio said.

Nia pulled Mio into an embrace that had been a long time coming.

“I’m so glad I can see you again. For so long, all I could do was read your data,” Nia said.

Mio tried to put herself in Nia’s position. She saw M before she sequestered herself, but never got to see her again. Did she grieve M’s loss until she found her data attached to T’s? Did she feel joy? Confusion? Relief in how it resulted in Mio’s own life being saved?

Nia pulled away and put her arms by her sides.

“And it was through this data that I knew you would save this world. You just needed the right team to support you,” Nia said.

Mio agreed. She didn’t know how she and Noah could have done it without their friends. Sena’s strength, inside and out, had gotten them through some tough times. Her cheerful energy was infectious even if it had started out as an act.

It was the little things as well, such as the lighthearted chats she’d have with Lanz while they washed the dishes. When her life flickered to her final two months, he’d been able to put her mind at ease even if it was just for a moment.

She then thought of Eunie and Taion. Both of them had hard exteriors that softened when they were alone with her. Eunie listened to her talk about Miyabi, and the legacy she had left with her sacrifice, as well as hearing out Mio’s fears of her own mortality. Mio now knew she was familiar with dying herself.

As for Taion, he assured her that he would do everything in his power to help her live longer. And for an awful month, she thought he’d succeeded in the worst possible way. She didn’t know if she could ever repay him for pulling that plan off.

“Your Majesty- sorry, Nia, do I know Sena and Taion in the word I come from?” Mio asked.

Nia thought for a moment, then decided there was no harm in telling Mio at this stage. “Do you know what a school is?” Mio nodded, so Nia continued. “The three of you are classmates, as are a lot of the friends you made on your journey.”

“Will we remember all this?”

“Probably not, but this is uncharted territory.”

Nia and Mio continued their chat on the nature of the separation, but they were not the only ones thinking about the consequences of Aionios splitting in two. At the other end of the castle, Taion had found a reason to write something of his own. After asking Melia some questions about her world, he’d headed straight to T’s study.

It was a long shot, but if he created something made only out of Kevesi materials it might survive the transition to the new old world. The information he gained from Melia was worth more than anything in the remnants of Aionios.

Sirius Anemones were one such item, despite being found almost exclusively at Uraya. He finished writing the recipe for Sirius Tea and put his pen down. He’d miss their aroma and their distinctive flavour, but Eunie would be able to make her own blend. Assuming his idea would work, anyway.

Fortunately for him, he didn’t need to make the paper from scratch. Queen Melia had a couple of spare notebooks that had come from her world, so he just needed to make the ink and pen the right recipes. He also replaced the soft cover with something more durable.

His Iris pinged as he was about to write a note on the first page. Eunie was calling him.

“Noah just lobbed his sparking sword into the sea!” Eunie exclaimed, not bothering with introductions.

“He did what!?”

“Yeah, he just got it out and chucked it off Keves Castle. He was getting a right bollocking from Riku when I left.”

“Where are you right now?” Taion asked.

His question was answered with some rushed footsteps and Eunie bursting into his study. She was about to tell him more about Noah’s shenanigans, but her thoughts were interrupted when she laid eyes on his project.

“Whatcha got there?” Eunie asked.

“A… book.”

Eunie narrowed her eyes in suspicion.

Taion sighed. “It was meant to be a surprise.”

Eunie approached the desk and looked at the book. It had a brown cover with a triangle motif and no title, which was a far cry from the richly coloured notebooks T kept.

“Isn’t it kinda pointless?” Eunie asked. “The worlds are gonna separate soon.”

Taion pushed his glasses up, as they had slipped as he’d looked down on the book. “Maybe, but everything is made of materials from your world. If anything’s going to survive the reset, it’s going to be this book.”

That was solid reasoning, Eunie admitted internally. It had come as a surprise when Melia told her that Agnian flutes were entirely made from Kevesi materials. It was one heck of a coincidence, and one that might give Noah a souvenir of their time in this world.

“Can I read it?” Eunie asked.

“Sure, but I’m not done writing it.” He glanced at the page he just wrote in. “The ink’s dry.”

Eunie picked up the book and flicked through it. The first page was blank. Eunie assumed it was going to be a contents page once Taion finished the book. Half the pages were filled with tea recipes, while the rest were blank.

She hid the lower half of her face behind the book when she read the Sirius Tea recipe on page four. This had all been done for her, and her only.

Eunie sat on top of the desk and leaned over. She closed the book and set it down next to her.

“Right, I’m not leaving this world without giving you something,” she said.

Eunie wasn’t one for crafting, and she didn’t have enough time to call in a favour for some embroidery lessons. But even if she did know how to, she knew she could give him something better.

She leaned in and pressed her lips against his. She did have memories of kissing him over the centuries, courtesy of E, but doing it for real was way better. The sun warming her back through the window was nothing compared to the sparks she felt with him.

Eunie pulled away.

“Why didn’t we do this sooner?” Taion asked.

Eunie smirked. “We’d better make up for lost time, then.”

They couldn’t outdo E and T in the number of kisses, but that didn’t mean they weren't going to try. She could taste a faint hint of tea as she kissed Taion again. And again. Eunie didn't want to stop, even if she had to eventually.

With the privacy of the study and the only window overlooking the sea, they didn’t have to worry about anyone stumbling across them.

Mio and Noah were more public with their display of affection. They kissed in front of the setting sun at the moment the worlds started to drift apart.

Eunie would have cracked a joke about them picking the most dramatic moment possible if she wasn’t running to the end of the world.

She was just following Noah, Lanz, and Riku, and she didn’t want to be the odd one out. When she did look ahead of her, she could see her Agnian counterparts desperately try to reach out too.

They all skidded to a stop when they saw the edge of a cliff. This definitive split put an end to their running, so they tried to catch their breath. Eunie tried to not look down, the sheer drop would have made her nauseous, and instead focused on what was in front of her.

She was close enough to see Mio wave. Out of the corner of her eye, Noah waved back.

“One day, I’ll come see you! I promise!” he shouted.

“Me too!” Mio shouted back. “One day… I promise!”

“You’d better not slack off!” Sena joined in.

“Right back at you!” Lanz replied, shouting louder than Noah.

Eunie had to get the last word in.

“You’d better not forget me!” she raised her voice so it would reach the disappearing continent.

Taion shouted something back, but he was now too far away to be clear. It sounded a lot like “You too!”, but Eunie couldn’t make out the rest.

Agnus disappeared into the horizon, along with the people they had turned from sworn enemies to stalwart allies. Eunie watched until it vanished completely, then opened the book for the final time and tried to commit the first and fourth page to her memory.

The clock finished chiming and the fireworks started. Eunie looked up at the sky and marvelled at the bursts of colour that lit up Colony 9. She’d been looking forward to this all night, and it had been well worth the wait.

She could feel something weighty in her hand, so she lifted it up so she could see what it was.

That was odd… she didn’t remember taking a book with her.

She read the first page, and was baffled. Whoever this ‘Taion’ was, they had an active imagination. She had a quick flick through the other pages and was surprised to see a lot of tea recipes. Eunie wasn’t a big fan of the drink as the leaves were too bitter for her developing palate.

“Eunie! Have you seen Noah? He just vanished!” Joran shouted.

She closed the book and stashed it away. Eunie will get to the bottom of this later. Her top priority was finding Noah.

Chapter Text

When the words merged properly, seven years after the unsuccessful attempt, the Leftherian Academy opened up an exchange program with their counterparts in Alcamoth. This was going to be the first of many trips to the Bionis capital, courtesy of the Alrestian and Bionis governments. Anyone could take part in the exchange, but the highest-performing students would get more spending money for the trip.

Four students sat at a cafeteria table with envelopes in their hands.

“I’m so nervous, what if I goofed up my exams?” Sena asked. While she could afford to go on a shopping spree if she didn’t do well, the girl felt like she had to live up to her family’s vast achievements.

Mio hugged her friend. “No matter what, you’re brilliant to me Sena.”

She then gave the second girl a hug. “The same goes for you, Miyabi.”

The only boy in the group stared at his name on the envelope. He’d developed a reputation for excelling at most subjects, but a part of him worried whether this would be the day where it would all come crashing down. Grades that others would be proud of would be tantamount to failure for him.

Mio tapped him on the shoulder. “Hey, you’ve got this.”

The four of them ripped open the envelopes at the same time, read the contents of the letters inside, then compared grades.

“Oh, I did the worst,” Miyabi sighed.

Sena looked at Miyabi’s sheet. “What are you talking about? Those scores are amazing!”

Miyabi looked away from her grade sheet. “They’re rubbish compared to Taion’s.”

Taion didn’t know why he’d doubted himself. He’d done amazing in every subject, with the exception of Cooking. Even then, his passing the subject had given some of the others a reason to think the grading system was flawed. 

“It’s not a competition,” he said.

“Yeah!” Sena exclaimed. “Look Miyabi, we’re all going to Alcamoth!”

Mio could hear Glimmer shriek at the other end of the cafeteria. She had missed the threshold by a couple of marks. Dirk laughed at her misery, then baulked at his own grades. They were both coming too, just like the rest of their class, but they were only having basic expenses covered.

The Bionis capital was even more stunning than on the screen. Pale towers loomed over the horizon as they approached Alcamoth, which also dominated the city skyline as they walked through the city streets to their destination. When the Leftherian students reached the academy, they were led to the classroom their counterparts were in.

Mio stopped in her tracks when she laid eyes on a boy. Sena nearly walked into her.

The students were familiar with Noah. He was the reason this exchange was even happening, as he somehow ended up on Alrest before the Intersection. 

Mio, not caring who watched, threw her arms around the boy. 

“Noah!” she said in the same way she announced she was coming home.

The two quickly moved to a table in the back of the classroom so they could have a little privacy. The Leftherians looked at one another, some of them taken aback by Mio’s change in demeanour. Taion wasn’t surprised, he and some of the others had joined some of the calls Mio had with her boyfriend.

He also wasn’t surprised to see one of the Alcamoth girls approach him.

“The name’s Eunie,” the girl grinned.

He already knew who she was. When the governments of Bionis and Alrest shared their light communication technology with the rest of the world, its people had been eager to get to know one another. A week after he gained access, Eunie had sent him a message. After leaving her on ‘read’ for a day, he worked up the courage to reply. One message became several, then grew into calls that made Mio's look fleeting in comparison.

And finally, they got to meet in person.

“Come on, I saved you a seat,” Eunie said as she sat at her desk, referring to the space next to her. 

Once the two classes settled into their seats, the classroom door opened. Queen Melia entered, along with one of her guards. She was wearing a simple grey dress that reached her knees, which came as a surprise to the people that had only ever seen her on screen or in a textbook.

“The queen’s here!?” whispered one of the Alcamoth boys. Another boy shushed him.

“Good afternoon, all of you. Most of you know who I am, but I will introduce myself to you all. I am Melia Antiqua, the last empress of the High Entia and the first queen of Alcamoth. I am here to tell you about how our two worlds became one, but we will also be sharing with each of you some information you need to know. Some of you will have longer sessions than others, but that does not mean anyone’s are less important.”

After they had been informed of their final lives in Aionios, Eunie dragged Taion to the typical sights on Alcamoth. It was hard to believe that this place had been ravaged by telethia and fogbeasts alike. The two of them had even made a day trip to Gran Dell, which had also given them a reason to avoid a lot of the itinerary their schools had laid out for them.

Tonight was a party neither of them had an excuse to avoid. It was Bionight, a celebration that commemorated the fall of the Bionite Order, a sworn enemy of the Antiqua family. The tradition started with people dressing up as their perceived enemy to scare one another, but it evolved into a fun excuse to dress up.

They decided to get ready in Eunie’s room. Eunie laid out their outfits, which had been provided by the Imperial Family, onto her bed. The quality of the bodysuits and plate armour were too good to be mere costumes.

“Don’t you think that’s a bit on the nose?” Taion asked, holding the silver armour against his body. It seemed to fit his proportions.

Eunie picked up her own golden outfit. “If you don’t like it, you’d better have something else in mind.”

Taion pushed his glasses up, which was a habit that already got on Eunie’s nerves. “I researched the traditional celebrations of Bionis and Mechonis before coming here, so I did bring a costume.”

“And?” Eunie asked.

“I didn’t know you already had this. I could have packed some more regular clothes.” 

Before Eunie could ask about his original Bionight outfit, he slipped into the en-suite bathroom with his outfit.

“Oi, I wanted to go in there!” she shouted as the lock clicked. Admitting defeat, Eunie quickly changed into the gold outfit. She was worried about the plate digging into her skin, but the black bodysuit was as protective as it was comfy. The look was complete when she donned a gold mask with protruding feathers.

She looked at herself in the mirror and thought back to her conversation with the queen. It was hard to believe that she was not only one of the people that saved this world, but also the one in the way of that goal. She definitely looked the part.

If only the costume came with the gunrod Melia mentioned. Eunie loved a good gun, and she didn’t have the time or inclination to decorate the one she had resting against the wall.

The bathroom door opened and Taion stepped out. His outfit was similar in construction to Eunie’s, but with silver plate and a gap in the chest that displayed his core crystal. He had told her about it, and why he had it, but this was the first time Eunie had seen it. She could watch ether flow through the crystal all day.

She quickly looked up to his face, silently hoping he hadn't caught her staring. “You look smashing.”

“Thanks. Just one question though,” he held up his own mask. “How am I going to wear this?”

Eunie looked at him, then at the mask. “On your face, duh.”

While she showed off her classic Eunie wit, she remembered the small box that came with their outfits. She went back to her bed and fished it out, then passed it to Taion.

“Contact lenses,” he read out loud as he scanned the box. “Aren’t they expensive in this world too?”

Eunie shrugged. She never had to think about this sort of thing.

“Her Maj found your prescription in Origin’s data banks, don’t know much else about it,” she said. 

The High Entia wiggled her finger against the tip of her wing as she weighed up whether to tell Taion any more about Origin right now. Officially, Aionios was a computer simulation, but that was a lie the queens dispelled once the students were old enough to understand what happened to them. 

She had some strong evidence on hand, so Eunie decided that now was a good time to tell him.

“When the queen said Aionios was more than a simulation… I've known that for a while now.”

Eunie stood on her bed and pulled a book from the shelf fixed to the space above it. It was a brown hardback that looked like it had seen better days. She flipped it to the first page.

“Get this,” Eunie said. “On the Queen’s anniversary a few years back, this book suddenly appeared in my hand. I thought Lanz or Joran had pranked me, but Noah’s weird flute also appeared on the same night.”

She showed the first page to Taion.

Eunie,

If you’re reading this, then it worked. This book is made of materials from your word, which had unsuccessfully merged with mine. As of writing, we managed to start the process of separating them again.

I don’t know if I’ll ever see you, Noah or Lanz again, or if I’ll even remember meeting you, but I want to. If we do, it’ll be the third time we meet.

The rest of this book has recipes for tea you can make with ingredients you can find in your world. Your favourite was the Sirius Tea (page 4).

Until we meet again,

Taion

The letter was consistent with what Queen Melia had told them about their time on Aionios. The two of them had met twice: once as Moebius, and once as Ouroboros. It wasn’t a romantic tale of reincarnation like Noah and Mio, but it didn’t have to be.

“I wrote this?” he asked.

“Who else could it have been?” Eunie said as she tapped the name that signed off the message.

They sat on the bed and read the recipe book, starting from the front.

“Which one do you wanna try first?” Eunie asked.

“The Sirius Tea,” Taion said with surprisingly little hesitation.

While there was some distance between the academy and the palace, the faculty had set up warp points on each dormitory floor to get the students to their destination. Eunie and Taion stepped away from the platform when they arrived at the palace and made their way to the old throne room. Since the restoration of Alcamoth, Melia had repurposed it to a space where guests could gather for special occasions.

It didn’t take them long to find their friends in the bustling hall. They stood near the entrance and waved when they saw them.

“Hey!” Mio greeted them. She was wearing M’s armour, which matched Noah’s N costume.

Lanz and Sena also had their costumes on. Their Moebius counterparts, L and S, were the first to wear gold and silver, but they had been reduced to motes long before N and M came into the picture. 

Their memories were also different: Aionios was at relative peace until they came into the picture. Despite stoking the flames of war, L and S openly defied Z and were rewarded with their destruction and the permanent deletion of their powers.

“What took you guys so long?” Lanz asked.

“We didn’t know you guys were turning up early,” Eunie said, then looked at the clock. She and Taion had arrived five minutes before the event was due to start.

Noah held up his hand as a way to stop the brewing argument between his friends. “You’re here now-”

The sound of tapping glass reverberated through the room as Noah spoke. People stopped their conversations so they could see who had made the noise. At the front of the room stood Melia, donned in the elaborate ball gown she wore as the Queen of Keves.

Melia used her free hand to pull the porcelain mask off her face and started her speech.

“Good evening, my esteemed guests. I am glad you came to this year’s celebrations, as this is the first year that our friends from Alrest are in attendance.”

She paused to give the guests a chance to give their counterparts a round of applause.

“And on this Bionight, I want to thank the people that made this new world possible. Starting with Her Majesty, and former mayor of Fonsett, Queen Nia of Agnus.”

Mio’s mum joined Melia, the “Queen of Keves”, at the front of the hall. Nia was wearing the elaborate white dress she donned as queen, though she looked unusually formal while wearing the garb. She removed her golden mask so she could be heard clearly.

“Thank you, Melia, for organising this celebration,” Nia started, taking great care to enunciate each word. “While we were the overseers of the Origin project, which is the reason all of us are standing here today, neither of us could have done it alone. I want to thank Tora, Tyrea, and Teelan for designing Origin, and to the teams that helped their vision become reality.”

More applause erupted. Poppi picked up Tora so he could wave at Nia, while Tyrea nodded at Melia from the back of the hall. She and Teelan took it in turns attending these sort of events. Nia looked more serious when the clapping died down.

“While the Origin project was a massive success, we didn’t get it right the first time. Only a select few of us remember the thousands of years of war that went by in a minute. As one of the people that does know of the endless strife, I want to thank the people that brought it to an end.”

Eunie nudged Taion. “That’s us!” she whispered.

They joined Noah, Mio, Lanz and Sena as they made their way to the front of the hall. Only Noah and Mio were going to give short speeches, but that didn’t make the eyes on them less unnerving.

Noah spoke first. “Thank you, Nia. And thank you for organising the exchange between Fonsett and Alcamoth,” he paused to give room for some polite applause. “This has been coming for a few years now, and it all started when Nia and Mio took me in when I found myself in Alrest…”

Taion tuned out Noah’s speech, he’d practised it in front of him enough times that he knew it by heart, and scanned the crowd. While there hadn’t been an official theme, almost everyone wore the uniforms they donned in Aionios. There were few who wore the standard uniform.

His concern regarded how they would act with this new information. Some, like Ashera, were told a lot less about their lives for that very reason. She wasn’t paying attention to the speech either, having opted to bother Oleg about something or other.

His classmates were scattered across the hall. Miyabi, dressed as an off-seer, stood next to one of Noah’s friends. He also had Moebius attire on but had left his helmet behind. Joran stood on the other side of Miyabi. His Moebius outfit had to be altered to fit his taller stature.

They politely clapped when Noah concluded his speech, then it was Mio’s turn to speak.

“Thank you, everyone. I don’t want to keep you all waiting when the buffet table has been laid, so I will keep this short. I want to thank all of you for coming here tonight, and I hope you enjoy the rest of the evening.”

With the formalities over and done with, Lanz and Sena made a beeline for the vast garden while Noah and Mio approached the drinks table.

Eunie checked the clock again. “Fireworks aren’t for another couple of hours.”

This was why Eunie didn’t like these events, even the ones with great hosts like Melia. They always saved the fun stuff until later, so she had to fill in the time in between. 

Luckily for her, she had a lot of people to talk to for once. The topics revolved around what they found out about their Aionios selves and how that had affected their future plans. Despite the thousands of years of war they all went through, some ambitions were pretty benign.

“I never thought about farming before, but now I can’t get it out of my head,” Zeon said in between bites of loaded potato skins. He had a whole tray of the bite-sized snack in his hand.

Juniper stood next to him and munched on a portion of chips they definitely didn’t sneak out to buy from the street market. They were one of the youngest people in attendance, so a formal event like this one would have captured their attention even less than it did with Eunie.

Juniper finished their mouthful before talking. “Same here. The Gormotti side of my family were farmers, so I might continue the tradition.”

Juniper offered Eunie a chip, which she happily accepted. They then offered the bag to Taion, who politely declined, then held it in front of Zeon. The High Entia was about to pick up a chip when Kite swooped in and shoved his hand into the bag. 

Kite then realised Juniper was the one holding the chips. Eunie savoured her own portion as she watched her classmate get flustered.

“Ah- Juniper. I thought those chips were Zeon’s!”

“Would you like another, Kite?” Juniper asked.

Kite’s cheeks turned a similar shade to his hair.

She turned to make a comment to Taion, but realised he was looking at Noah and Mio. The happy couple were dancing, though their moves were too erratic to be a ballroom routine. Noah and Mio got close, then backed away just as quickly as they clashed. Their moves blurred the line between fighting and dancing.

They stopped when the song ended, then waved when they noticed they had garnered an audience. Music swelled once again, and more students joined in with this unusual form of dance.

“Do you know where Juniper got their chips from?” Taion asked. Eunie knew it was his way of asking if she wanted to leave the party for a bit.

They managed to sneak out of the hall as the music increased in intensity. The market was only a couple of streets away from the palace, so they could get back if they needed to.

Once they got their chips, they ate them as they sat at a fountain. Eunie wanted to swirl her fingers in the water, but she didn’t want to deal with a damp glove for the rest of the night. The occasional passerby did a double-take as they walked past them.

Taion removed his mask so he could eat a chip. Eunie followed suit even though she could eat with hers on. They both laid their masks on the bricks they were sitting on.

The pop of a firework caught their attention, and the couple looked up at the sky. Eunie took in this moment like it was a memory she already looked back on fondly.

“You know, Melia said we kissed before Aionios ended,” Eunie said.

“That doesn’t surprise me,” Taion replied. “I wonder what they felt back then.”

Eunie couldn’t answer for them. Unlike them, they were ordinary students that had unknowingly saved the world. They had the luxury of time those two did not have. Time, she realised, to properly work out everything between them.

She didn’t care if what she had with Taion lasted for a year or for a lifetime. Right now, he was the one she wanted. 

“You wanna find out?” she asked, half passing it off as banter. Still, she leaned into him.

This time, he was the one to kiss first. The fireworks between them echoed in the sky, illuminating the street they were on. 

They pulled away, then realised that the fireworks were coming from the palace.

“Shit. We’d better get back before we get a search party after us,” Eunie half-joked.

Begrudgingly, they left the fountain behind and returned to the party. Their masks, accidentally forgotten, rested on the stone circle.