Chapter 87: When Curtain Falls

  The sky over Azul Spira was a flat, heavy grey, a rare, melancholy canvas that muted the city’s usual vibrant, gemstone colors. The air, normally alive with the cheerful sounds of music and laughter, was still, the distant, thundering roar of the great waterfalls sounding less like a celebration and more like a long, mournful sigh.

  In the city’s quiet gravesite, a small, beautifully manicured expanse of green perched on an outskirts overlooking the waterfalls, two figures stood in silence. They were a stark, somber contrast to the festive banners that still fluttered, almost mockingly, from the city’s distant spires.

  Mary’s hand rested on the cool, smooth surface of a newly carved tombstone. The rain from the night before had left glistening droplets on the polished marble, like a fresh fall of tears. The inscription was simple, elegant, and heartbreakingly final.

  ‘EMILE. THE MAN WHO BECAME MORE THAN HE WAS BORN TO BE.’

  “Thank you,” Mary’s voice was a low, hoarse whisper, almost lost in the salty breeze that swept up from the cliffs. She didn't turn her head, her gaze fixed on the name carved into the stone. “For doing this.”

  Lily, standing a few paces back, her own brilliant blonde hair a muted gold in the grey light, shook her head. Her usual theatrical flair, the booming voice and grand gestures, were gone, replaced by a quiet, profound stillness. She was clad in a dazzling gown, but in a simple, elegant black dress.

  “It’s the least I can do,” Lily replied, her voice soft, sincere. She stepped forward, standing beside Mary, her own gaze falling on the tombstone. “He… he was something. Something even more than I could be.” A small, humorless, and utterly sad smile touched her lips. “He did more in his short time here than I ever could have in my entire life. He at least deserved a monument to remember him by.”

  A heavy silence settled between them, filled only by the cry of a distant seabird.

  “How was your daughter?” Lily asked, her voice a gentle, probing thing.

  “She hasn't left her room in three days,” Mary admitted, her voice trembling, the fragile dam of her composure beginning to crack. “She… she missed him dearly. She finally found someone who she called Papa, even if he is not a human. Someone who Anise wanted to grow up with… and he was taken from her. Too soon.”

  “And you?” Lily asked quietly.

  A single tear, hot and silent, escaped Mary’s eye, tracing a path down her pale cheek. “I don't know,” she whispered, her voice a raw, honest confession. “I’ll admit, he was much closer to Anise than to myself. But…”

  The dam broke. The quiet, stoic mother who had held her grief in a white-knuckled grip for three long days finally shattered.

  “I wish I was kinder to him,” she sobbed, her body wracked with a sudden, violent grief. “He never told a lie to me or Anise. I wish… I wish we could have spent more time together. To understand him more.” Her hands clenched into fists at her sides, her voice rising with a desperate, agonizing regret. “He told me and Anise he would come back.”

  She turned to Lily then, her face a mess of tears and raw, unfiltered pain. “He is a liar!” she screamed, the word a raw, broken accusation hurled at the uncaring, grey sky.

  Lily didn't speak. She didn't offer empty words of comfort or theatrical platitudes. She simply stepped forward and pulled the sobbing, broken woman into a tight, firm hug. She held her, a silent, steady anchor in the storm of her grief, as Mary cried for the kind, strange, and impossible man who had, in his own quiet way, saved them all.

  It had been three days since the "Night Sun" event. Three days since the Grand Play, the pinnacle of Spican culture, had been interrupted by a chaotic, terrifying battle with a mechanical doll. Three days since a second sun had burst in the night sky, a light so brilliant it had been seen from every corner of the archipelago, followed by a shockwave that had rattled the very foundations of the city.

  It was an event that should have been seared into the world’s memory, a turning point in history. But for the people of Azul Spira, reality was a much more… flexible concept.

  The news spread, of course. It spread like wildfire, carried by the frantic, terrified tourists who had fled the city in the immediate aftermath, and by the hushed, awed whispers of the locals who had witnessed the impossible light. But the story itself was so fantastical, so utterly beyond the pale of normal, everyday life, that it was met with a wave of skepticism and outright denial.

  A mechanical doll? A second sun? A city-wide panic? It was all, clearly, just part of the show.

  The details were too vague, the story too unbelievable. And with no one stepping forward to take credit for the "save"—Lily Pence herself having given a tight-lipped "no comment" to the press, her usual dramatic flair conspicuously absent—the narrative was easy to control. The Sey Lanz Opera House, with a speed that was almost suspicious, was already shrouded in scaffolding, its grand, gilded doors firmly shut. The official word was "technical difficulties" and "emergency renovations" due to a "pyrotechnic malfunction." The city guard, under quiet orders from the palace, deflected all questions, their practiced, polite smiles a wall against any further inquiry.

  To the outside world, and even to many of the locals who had been too far from the plaza to see the truth, the "Night Sun" was just another piece of Spican theatrics. An elaborate performance that had, perhaps, gotten a little out of hand. The terror of that night, the shared, primal fear, was already being rationalized, softened, rewritten into a story that was easier to swallow.

  The three days passed in a strange, blurry haze of rumor and rebuilding.

  But for those who had been there, for those who had felt the heat and heard the screams, for those who had borne witness to the truth… it was three days of quiet, profound loss. Three days of mourning for a gentle, smiling florist who had fallen from the sky, and who had returned to the stars, leaving only a small, empty café and a heartbroken little girl in his wake.

  A short distance away from Mary and Lily, hidden by the shade of a weeping willow, the other two witnesses stood. Raito and Yukari watched the scene of grief unfold, their own bodies still aching, a few white bandages stark against their simple clothes.

  “That thing… that man, Emile…” Raito’s voice was a low, angry murmur that was lost in the sound of the wind. “He admits he was built to kill us, but he chose to save us. It shouldn’t have ended this way. This is wrong. Why does this have to happen?”

  His hand clenched into a tight, white-knuckled fist at his side. “He was happy. He found a family. Yet all of it was taken away in a single night.” He struck the tree trunk, his knuckles splitting, a few drops of blood welling up.

  As his blood dripped onto the grass, a flicker of something, a wisp of shadow like a black flame, licked at his fist for a fraction of a second before vanishing. It was so fast, so unnatural, that Yukari, who was watching him with a worried gaze, blinked, convinced her tired eyes were playing tricks on her.

  “I should have been stronger,” Raito whispered, his voice raw with a familiar, self-loathing guilt.

  “It’s not your fault, Raito,” Yukari said, her voice a soft, quiet thing as she stepped closer, placing a gentle hand on his arm.

  “It’s not, I know!” he shot back, though there was no heat in his voice, only a deep, weary ache. “But I feel like it is. If only I noticed the sound sooner, I…” He turned to her, his crimson eyes full of a raw, desperate fear she had not seen since the duel with Ao. “I don't want to lose anyone else, Yukari. Especially you.”

  His gaze became distant, sweeping over the peaceful, quiet gravesite, but seeing only the chaos that seemed to follow them. “I feel like with everything going on, how trouble always seems to find us, I have to be stronger. Better than anyone.” His voice cracked. “If not… you, Miss Yinzi, Bob, or Mila, anyone I know… they will lose their life. I don't want that,” he admitted, the fear in his voice a sincere, tangible thing.

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  “Raito…” Yukari’s own resolve wavered. She could only do one thing. She stepped forward, wrapping her arms around him, pulling him into a tight, desperate hug. She held him, her own heart aching with a shared, silent terror.

  What Raito said… it wasn't false. She didn’t want to lose him, her other half. But something always seemed to come for them, and the stakes were escalating with a terrifying, exponential speed.

  She said nothing. She couldn't. Despite her own newfound confidence, she was just as scared as he was. She didn't want to lose Raito, just as she had lost her parents all those years ago. She just held him, the two of them a silent, shared island of fear in the quiet, grieving morning.

  “Papa!!!”

  A young, crying voice, sharp and full of a desperate, childish anguish, suddenly pierced the somber quiet of the gravesite.

  Everyone turned. Mary’s head snapped up from Lily’s shoulder, her eyes widening in disbelief. A small figure was sprinting across the manicured grass towards them, stumbling over the uneven ground, her small legs pumping as fast as they could. It was Anise. Her hair was a wild, tangled mess, her simple dress was stained and caked with thick, wet mud. She was clutching a single, delicate pink flower in her fist, its petals already bruised from her tight grip.

  She ran right past her mother, past the other silent onlookers, her gaze fixed on only one thing. She skidded to a halt in front of the cold, silent marble tombstone.

  “Look!” she cried, her voice a raw, broken thing as she held the muddy flower up to the unfeeling stone. “I found it, Papa! The one I like!” Her small body was shaking, her face streaked with tears and dirt. “So let’s plant this in the backyard! You promised me!”

  She waited, her small chest heaving, her eyes wide and expectant, waiting for an answer that would never come.

  “Anise!” Mary rushed forward, her own grief momentarily forgotten in a wave of maternal panic. She tried to pull her daughter into a hug. “Anise, please, why are you covered in mud? We need to get you cleaned up.”

  “No!” Anise shrieked, twisting out of her mother’s grasp. She shoved Mary away with a strength born of pure, unadulterated grief. She turned back to the tombstone, her small fists hammering against the cold marble.

  “Papa!” she cried, her voice cracking. “Papa! Papa! Answer me!”

  The tombstone said nothing.

  “He promised me!” she sobbed, her words a desperate, frantic plea to a silent, grey sky. “He promised he would come back! Right, Papa? Don’t be a liar!” She looked at the tombstone, her eyes full of a child’s simple, devastating logic. “Mama said a liar is no good! So don’t be a liar, Papa! Please!” Her small body finally gave out. She collapsed at the base of the tombstone, her forehead resting against the cold, wet marble, her shoulders shaking with great, gulping sobs, the small, muddy pink flower still clutched in her hand.

  Mary could only stand there, her own hands outstretched, her heart shattering into a million pieces. The other onlookers—Lily, Raito—just watched, their faces masks of pained, helpless silence.

  But for Yukari, the scene was not just a tragedy. It was a mirror.

  The sight of the small, sobbing girl, her world shattered by a promise that could never be kept, was a key that unlocked a door deep within her, a door she had kept sealed for over one hundred years. The polished marble of Emile’s tombstone dissolved, replaced by the simple, wooden marker of her mother’s grave. The grey, Spican sky became the heavy, oppressive grey of a Jinlun winter. She wasn’t a commander. She wasn’t a runaway. She was just a little girl again, her hands too small, her grief too large, her world just as silent, just as empty.

  And then, another memory, sharper and more recent, crashed over her. The frantic, desperate search for her father, the hushed whispers of his disappearance, the final, cold pronouncement of his death. The second loss. The second, identical wound that had never truly healed, only scarred over.

  She fell to her knees, the strength leaving her legs in a single, silent rush. A sound, a low, guttural sob that was not a child’s, but a woman’s, ripped from her throat. Raito, his own grief forgotten, could only watch, stunned, as his wife, his pillar of strength, crumpled beside him.

  And as if the heavens themselves could no longer bear the weight of so much sorrow, the heavy, grey clouds that had been looming over the city finally broke. A cold, steady rain began to fall, plastering their hair to their faces, soaking their clothes, washing away the blood from Raito’s knuckles and the mud from Anise’s cheeks. The droplets mingled with the tears on their faces, a shared, silent deluge, drowning out the heartbreaking cries of a little girl who had lost someone she held so dearly.

  In the vast, black, and starless void where the six thrones lay, a quiet council was in session. Two thrones, one of crackling, static yellow and another of pure, crystalline white, remained empty, their silent vacancy a heavy presence in the chamber. The other four were occupied.

  Lily sat atop the sapphire blue throne, her arms crossed, her usual dramatic flair muted by the somber, heavy atmosphere of the realm. Sun Yoon occupied the emerald green throne, his expression thoughtful, his long white moustache twitching slightly as he stroked it. The last two figures remained shrouded in mystery, their forms hidden within deep, hooded robes of crimson red and earthy brown.

  “So, that was what transpired four days ago,” Lily said, her voice, stripped of its theatricality, was a flat, concise thing. She had just concluded her report on the battle at the Sey Lanz Opera House.

  “‘IT’ has gotten bolder,” Sun Yoon commented, his voice a quiet rustle of leaves.

  “Or scared,” Lily countered, her gaze sharp. “If what that doll, Emile, said is true.”

  “If what that ‘Mark I’ said is indeed true,” the figure in the brown hood interjected, their voice a low, rumbling bass, “what is ‘IT’ afraid of? And what is this ‘anomaly’ its creations kept mentioning?” They shifted in their massive stone throne. “There are too many unanswered questions.”

  “Alas, it may have something to do with the boy,” the figure in the crimson hood said, their voice a quiet, intense murmur.

  “Indeed,” Lily agreed, a flicker of her old, analytical curiosity in her eyes. “The other doll, the one called Mark II, seemed to exclusively target the boy, Raito. But even I can’t sense what is so special about him as to be a dangerous target. And I am good at sensing things.”

  “However, Emile’s sacrifice was not for naught,” Sun Yoon said, his expression softening with a quiet, profound respect. “That explosion dealt significant damage to ‘IT’s’ fortress. ‘IT’ won’t be able to interfere for a while, due to prioritizing repairs.” He paused, a grim, strategic light in his ancient eyes. “‘IT’ may not die. But we now have time.”

  “Then we should use that time, and the ‘gift’ that doll Emile gave us, wisely,” the brown-robed figure stated, their voice a low, commanding rumble.

  “Even with such ‘gift.’ The price of freedom is too steep,” the figure in red said, their voice heavy with a quiet, ancient sorrow. “While we may have gained temporary freedom, we can only fight with about less than fifty percent than what we are capable of.”

  “I felt that too while fighting,” Lily sighed, her frustration palpable. “Normally, that Mark II shouldn’t have even been a problem for me. I guess we are still tied to ‘IT’ in some way.”

  “Alright then, enough banter.” The brown figure slammed a heavy fist onto the armrest of their stone throne. “We need to actually enact our new plan while we still can. Half of us should find the truth of why ‘IT’ is scared, and maybe more, while the other half find those who are missing: the Freeze Lord and the Static Lord. Understand?” they proclaimed, their voice ringing with an authority that was used to being obeyed.

  Every head turned to face them.

  “Who made you our leader?” Lily asked, her voice a sharp, challenging blade in the sudden silence.

  “But for once, it is not a bad plan,” Sun Yoon interjected, his voice a calm, mediating breeze that washed over the rising tension. “I agree with them.”

  The figure in red just nodded, a silent, simple affirmation.

  “Alright then,” the brown figure continued, their tone softening slightly, their point made. “It is time for the ‘package’ to be with me. I shall contact my friend to steer them towards me.”

  “Then I shall come,” the figure in red said, their voice a low, determined thing.

  “No. Definitely not you,” the brown figure rejected instantly, their voice a sharp, uncompromising growl.

  “Why? Are you scared?” the red one countered, their own voice taking on a dangerous, icy edge.

  “Because you—” the brown one began, their voice rising in a new wave of frustration.

  Clap.

  A single, sharp sound from Sun Yoon silenced them both. “That is enough,” the Storm Lord said, his voice quiet but firm, an undeniable, ancient authority in his simple words. “So, you two will find the truth. Then I shall find the missing ones.” He turned his kind, weary gaze to Lily. “What about you, blue one?”

  “I… obviously,” Lily began, her voice full of a renewed, dramatic confidence. “I shall return to my grand stage! The preparations for the play, the hearts of my adoring fans—”

  “Lily? Hey, Lily?”

  A voice, faint and distant, but unmistakably Yukari’s, suddenly echoed in the vast, starless void. “Lily, wake up.....Raito, I think she’s dead.”

  “Oh no! What shall we do? We’d better call a healer fast!” Raito responded.

  The voices, though not physically present in the ethereal realm of the Lords, were a jarring, chaotic intrusion. Lily’s ethereal form flickered, her eyes widening in a dawning, horrified realization.

  “I am not dead, you buffoons!” she shrieked, her voice a strange, disembodied echo in the void, a sound that was both there and not there. Back in the sunlit, opulent living room of the mansion penthouse, Yukari was leaning over Lily, who was slumped in a high-backed velvet chair, her eyes closed, her posture unnervingly still.

  “But why are you murmuring and talking to someone while closing your eyes in the middle of the mansion?” Yukari asked, her voice laced with genuine, if slightly exasperated, confusion.

  “That… that…” Lily’s eyes snapped open, a wild, cornered look in them as she scrambled for an excuse. “Yoga! Yes! I was practicing yoga!” she declared, her voice a triumphant, if slightly unconvincing, thing.

  “Suspicious,” Raito commented from the couch, his voice a low, teasing murmur.

  “Anyway!” Yukari said, apparently deciding to let the bizarre explanation slide. She grabbed Lily’s arm, her grip surprisingly strong. “You will come with us. We need your help, its about Anise.”

  “Wha—?” Lily yelped, as Yukari began to drag her, unceremoniously, from the chair. Back in the void, Lily’s shimmering, blue-robed form flickered violently, like a candle flame in a hurricane. “Drats!” she shrieked, her voice a final, fading cry of pure, theatrical indignation. “Not again!” And with that, she vanished from her throne, pulled from their council by the mundane, chaotic, and utterly inescapable reality of her houseguests. Sun Yoon just watched the empty sapphire throne, a slow, deep, and utterly fond laugh rumbling in his chest. “They are always a fun bunch,” he commented, his voice a warm, amused whisper in the sudden, quiet emptiness of the void.