Erza reached the edge.
The white land dropped away into nothing—a void, an abyss, a place where even memory feared to tread. The emptiness stretched below her, dark and cold and infinite, a vastness that seemed to swallow light and sound and hope itself. There was no bottom that she could see, no end to the darkness, no promise that anything existed beneath except more darkness. The air around her grew still, heavy with the weight of standing at the precipice of something vast and unknowable.
But she looked down.
And she paused.
Because what she saw was beyond her understanding.
The white abyss was gone.
Gone as if it had never existed. Gone as if the darkness had been a lie, a trick of the light, a shadow cast by something that was not there. In its place, spreading from horizon to horizon, covering the depths of the void like a blanket of silk thrown upon stone, was a field of flowers.
Flowers with no ending.
The field stretched forever, without boundary, without end, without any limit that mortal eyes could perceive. It rolled across the abyss like a living ocean, waves of petals shifting in a wind that Erza could not feel but could somehow see—a soft breeze that made the flowers dance and sway, creating patterns of color that swirled and changed with each passing moment.
Beautiful flowers in every color imaginable. Colors that had names and colors that did not. Colors that shifted and changed as she watched, as if the flowers themselves were alive and aware, showing off their beauty for the woman who had come so far to witness them.
Reds that burned like embers from a dying fire.
Blues that deepened into the violet of twilight, the color of the sky just before the first stars appeared.
Golds that shone like captured sunlight, warm and bright and filled with promise.
Whites that were soft as clouds and pure as fresh-fallen snow, untouched and unblemished.
There were flowers the color of Sophia's hair—Pink and pale, delicate as Cherry on water. Flowers the color of Yuuta's eyes—deep red, the red of autumn leaves, the red of the setting sun. Flowers the color of Elena's tiny wings, iridescent and shimmering, catching light that did not exist.
The field was alive.
It was breathing.
It was waiting.
Then she saw a child playing in the flowers.
It was him.
Not the broken boy from the laboratory. Not the lifeless child from the arena. Not the shattered creature who had stood before the Goddess with empty eyes and waiting hands, his small body swaying like a reed in the wind.
He was different now.
He was five years old, older than the memory had shown, older than the suffering that had defined his early years. Time had passed in Sylvaris—One years of healing, One years of love, One years of learning what it meant to be a child.
His black hair had grown longer, falling across his forehead in soft waves that caught the light and shimmered. His red eyes—those eyes that had once been hollow with despair, empty as the void she had just crossed—were bright with laughter. Alive with joy. Sparkling with mischief.
His cheeks were flushed with the pink of health, not the gray of exhaustion that had clung to him like a second skin. His arms, once covered in bandages and scars, were bare and whole—the wounds healed. He was wearing clothes that fit him—soft green tunic and brown trousers, the colors of the forest, the colors of Sylvaris.
He was running.
His small legs carried him across the flower field, kicking up petals as he ran, leaving a trail of crushed blossoms in his wake. He did not seem to care that he was destroying the flowers. He did not seem to notice. He was too lost in the joy of movement, in the simple pleasure of running without pain, without fear, without someone chasing him to hurt him.
His arms pumped at his sides. His mouth was open in a wide, joyful smile—not the tentative smile of a child learning to hope, the small, fragile curve of lips that could disappear at any moment. This was the full, unrestrained smile of a child who had finally, finally learned what happiness meant. Who had forgotten, perhaps, that there had ever been a time without it.
Sophia was holding his hand.
Her Pink hair, no longer tangled and matted from the Death Well, streamed behind her like a banner as she ran. It was clean and brushed and braided with small Pink flowers that matched the ones in the field. Her green eyes—those eyes that had been wild and unfocused in the arena, darting back and forth like a trapped animal's—were clear now. Focused. Alive.
She was laughing.
The sound was bright and musical, a sound that Erza had never heard before, a sound that seemed to belong not to the broken princess of the memory but to someone else entirely. Someone who had never known the Death Well or the Froven wolf or the shattering of her own mind. Someone who had grown up in palaces and gardens, surrounded by love and light.
But this was the same Sophia. The one who had found Yuuta in the darkness. The one who had named him. The one who had lost her mind to save him.
Both of them were running together, laughing together, smiling together. Brother and sister. Two children who had found each other in the depths of despair and had somehow, against all odds, climbed out into the sunlight.
Behind them, the queen stood at the edge of the flower field.
She was holding a food tray—a large wooden platter piled high with fresh bread still steaming from the oven, with wheels of golden cheese, with clusters of grapes and slices of melon and berries that glowed like jewels. Steaming cups sent wisps of fragrant steam into the air—tea, perhaps, or warm milk with honey and some leaf spirit soup and meat.
Her Golden-brown hair was tied back in a simple braid, and her green eyes—the same green as Sophia's, the same green that had watched the Dreadvex Ape break a child's bones—were narrowed in mock fury. But there was no cruelty in them now. No satisfaction in suffering. Only the warm, exasperated love of a mother chasing her children through the garden.
"Yuuta. Sophia," the Queen called, her voice carrying across the garden, gentle despite her tone. "Come here. Your food will get cold."
Yuuta turned back, puffing his cheeks, his small hand gripping Sophia's sleeve.
"No! We're not coming, old hag!" he shouted, a mischievous grin spreading across his face.
Sophia, still healing, still piecing herself back together, burst into laughter. Her mind had once been broken—but now, slowly, she was returning.
"Yeah!" she echoed, hugging Yuuta from behind. "Yuuta is not coming, old hag!"
The Queen froze for a moment… then sighed.
But there was a faint smile on her lips.
"You brat!" the queen screamed, shaking the tray at the running children. "Stop it now! Or else I will lock both of you in your room!"
Her voice was loud, sharp, commanding—the voice of a queen who expected to be obeyed. But beneath the anger, there was something else. Something softer. The warmth of a mother who was not truly angry, who was playing a game she had invented, who was pretending to be fierce so that her children would laugh harder.
The tray wobbled in her hands. A grape fell from the platter and bounced across the grass.
Yuuta looked back at her.
His red eyes sparkled with mischief. His lips curved into a grin that showed small, white teeth—teeth that had grown in healthy and strong, thanks to the healers and the good food and the years without pain. He stuck out his tongue—a childish gesture, innocent and defiant—and called back to her.
"Godmother!" he shouted, his voice high and clear, carrying across the flower field. "You can't catch Yuuta and Sophia!"
He tugged Sophia's hand, and they ran faster, their laughter floating across the flower field like birds taking flight. Petals rose in their wake, swirling in the air, caught in the wind of their passage.
The queen's face flushed with performative rage. Her cheeks reddened. Her eyes widened. Her free hand shook in the air as if she was shaking a fist, though her fingers were spread wide, harmless.
"You.... Yuuta! Sophia! Stop right there!"
But she was smiling.
She was smiling as she chased them, as she pretended to stumble, as she let them get farther and farther ahead. She was smiling as she watched her daughter run without fear, as she watched the human child she had once condemned to death laugh without pain.
The flower field stretched on forever.
And Erza watched.
Erza watched the happiness of Yuuta.
Two years of his life where he had lived his life fully. Two years where he had been a child—not a weapon, not an experiment, not a prisoner. Two years where he had run through fields of flowers with Sophia, where he had eaten meals prepared by the queen's own hands, where he had played with elf children who did not know his past and did not care.
In this short frame, only the brightest moments were exposed—snapshots of joy, fragments of peace, glimpses of a life that could have been. But they were enough.
She saw him running with other elf children through the corridors of the palace, their laughter echoing off the living wood walls. The children were of all ages—some older, some younger, all of them with silver or gold or copper hair, all of them with bright eyes and open smiles. They accepted Yuuta as one of their own. They did not ask where he came from. They did not care that he was human.
She saw him sitting at a long table in the great hall, eating with the queen and Sophia.
The table was laden with food—roasted meats and fresh vegetables and leafy spirit breads of every shape and size. Yuuta's small hands reached for a roll, then a piece of cheese, then a handful of berries. The queen watched him with soft eyes, her own plate forgotten.
Sophia sat beside him, close enough that their shoulders touched, close enough that she could reach out and ruffle his hair whenever she wanted.
Erza saw him playing with elf kids in the garden, chasing them around ancient trees, falling in the grass and getting back up again. His knees were scraped—normal scrapes, the kind that came from running too fast and tripping over roots. The queen knelt beside him, cleaned the wounds with gentle hands, and kissed his forehead. He did not flinch. He did not cry. He simply grinned and ran off again.
She saw him riding on the back of a Wingroar for the first time. The beast was white-scaled and gentle, its eyes soft, its wings spread wide. Yuuta's small fingers gripped the beast's fur, his knuckles white with excitement, not fear. His face was alight with wonder as the ground fell away beneath him, as the wind whipped through his black hair, as the world expanded in every direction. Sophia flew beside him on her own Wingroar, her green eyes watching him with fierce protectiveness, ready to catch him if he fell.
She saw him riding on the head of Elder Theilon. The ancient elf, whose skin was wrinkled as tree bark and whose eyes were milky with age, walked through the palace gardens with Yuuta perched on his shoulders.
Yuuta's small hands gripped Theilon's antlers, and he laughed—a bright, bubbling sound—as the elder pretended to stumble.
Theilon was laughing too, his ancient voice rough but warm, his hands reaching up to steady the child.
She saw him sleeping in the queen's chamber, curled between Sophia and the queen, a blanket of white fur pulled up to his chin. The queen's arm was draped across both children, holding them close, keeping them safe. Sophia's pink hair mingled with Yuuta's black hair on the pillow. Their faces, in sleep, were peaceful. Innocent. Unmarked by the horrors they had survived.
She saw so many moments. So many small, precious, beautiful moments. The kind of moments that most children took for granted, that most parents forgot to treasure, that seemed ordinary and unremarkable—until you knew what had come before.
Erza's heart, which had been clenched with rage and grief for so long that she had forgotten what it felt like to relax, finally began to ease.
Then little Yuuta looked up.
He was standing in the flower field, his small hand still holding Sophia's, his red eyes gazing upward. He was not looking at the field. He was not looking at the queen. He was not looking at Sophia.
He was looking at her.
At Erza.
At the woman who would one day marry him, who would bear his children, who would enter his memories and witness his pain.
Their eyes met across the distance of time and memory and sealing spells. Across the barrier that separated past from present, dream from reality, the child from the man.
He smiled.
A small smile. A child's smile. The same smile she had seen on his face a thousand times in Luna City—when he cooked breakfast for Elena, when he looked at her across the dinner table, when he held her hand in the quiet hours of the night. The smile that had survived everything.
His lips parted.
And he spoke.
"Wait for me."
His voice was soft, distant, carried across years and memories and the barriers of a sealed mind. But she heard it. Clear as a bell. Close as a whisper in her ear.
"Wait for me."
He smiled again.
And the memory disappeared.
The flower field faded. The colors bled into white, then gray, then nothing. The children vanished, their laughter echoing for a moment before fading into silence. The queen's voice, still calling after them, hung in the air and then was gone.
Erza and Isvarn were thrown out of the world of memory.
The sensation was violent—a rushing, tumbling, spinning feeling, as if they had been caught in a current and dragged to the surface. The white land vanished beneath them. The golden wheel of the seal shrank to a pinprick of light and disappeared.
They landed on the wooden floor of an apartment in Luna City.
Erza blinked.
The ceiling was familiar—the cracks in the plaster that she had stared at a hundred times, the water stain in the corner that Yuuta kept meaning to fix, the light fixture that flickered when the wind was strong and had done so for as long as she had lived here. The walls were familiar—the cheap paint that peeled at the edges, the photographs of Elena on the refrigerator, the calendar hanging by the door with its marked dates and circled reminders.
The air was familiar—the scent of cooking oil lingering from dinner, the musty smell of old books stacked on the shelves, the faint, warm scent of the man who lived here.
Yuuta's apartment.
Her home.
She looked at the clock on the wall.
The hands had barely moved.
Only an hour had passed.
Only one hour since she and Isvarn had entered the sealed memories. Only one hour since she had witnessed the laboratory, the Death Well, the arena. Only one hour since she had watched a four-year-old boy command a monster to die with nothing but his voice and his will.
But she felt as if months had passed. As if years had passed. As if she had lived an entire lifetime inside his mind, drowning in his suffering, gasping for air, climbing toward the light. Her body ached. Her eyes burned. Her heart was heavy with the weight of everything she had seen.
She looked at Yuuta.
He was lying on the floor where she had left him—his black hair spread across the pillow, his red eyes closed, his chest rising and falling with slow, steady breaths. His face was peaceful. No tension in his jaw. No furrow in his brow. No sign of the nightmares that had plagued his sleep for as long as she had known him.
His memory was sealed.
Finally. Completely.
The Goddess's spell, reinforced by her own magic, would hold. The seven orbs would sleep within his chest. The suffering would stay locked away.
Everything was supposed to go back to normal.
But not everything could go back.
Because after knowing everything about Yuuta—after witnessing his pain, after understanding his past, after seeing the child he had been and the man he had become—her heart could not be quiet.
It could never be quiet again.
Erza grabbed Yuuta.
The movement was sudden, violent, desperate. She crossed the small apartment in two strides and fell upon him, pulling him against her chest with a force that surprised even her. Her arms wrapped around him, her fingers digging into the fabric of his shirt, her face pressing into the curve of his neck.
This was not the Yuuta of the memories.
This was not the broken child, the lifeless boy, the victim of cruelty beyond measure.
This was her Yuuta.
The man she had married. The father of her children. The man who had endured the worst of things before he had become a man at all, who had crawled out of darkness and learned to smile, who had found her in the chaos of her own cold heart and warmed it without even trying.
She hugged him tightly.
Her body trembled against his. Her breath came in short, ragged gasps. Her tears—hot and unstoppable—fell onto his chest, soaking through his shirt, leaving dark stains on the fabric.
Yuuta was still asleep.
The seal was still settling. The memories were still quiet. The healing, both physical and spiritual, was still underway. But he felt her. Some part of him, deep beneath the surface of his consciousness, recognized her touch. His arm moved, draping across her back. His lips parted, forming a word that did not quite emerge. His heartbeat, steady and strong, pressed against her ear.
He was warm.
He was alive.
He was hers.
Erza's tears fell faster.
She wanted to kill everyone.
The scientists who had created him. The doctors who had tortured him. The Graduate Novens who had laughed while he screamed. The queen who had watched the Dreadvex Ape break his bones and smiled. Every single person who had ever hurt him, who had ever looked away, who had ever decided that his suffering was acceptable.
She wanted to burn the laboratory to the ground. She wanted to freeze the Death Well solid. She wanted to tear down the Colosseum stone by stone and salt the earth beneath it.
No.
That was not enough.
She had to find them. All of them. The being who had funded the Karma Project, the organization that had pulled the strings, the faceless names on documents she had never seen. She had to hunt them down, one by one, until she had found every last one.
Until then, she could not be silent.
She could not rest.
She could not forgive.
Isvarn watched from the hall.
He stood in the shadows at the edge of the room.
His violet eyes, old as the mountains, sharp as the edge of a sword, studied his granddaughter as she held the human man against her chest. He watched her shake. He watched her weep. He watched her rage.
He wanted to speak.
He wanted to warn her.
He wanted to tell her that the path she was choosing—the path of vengeance, of retribution, of hunting down every person who had ever hurt Yuuta—would lead only to darkness. That the rage she was feeling, the hunger for blood and fire and the screams of the guilty, would consume her if she let it. That the future, if she followed this path, would end in ways she could not imagine, in ways he had glimpsed and feared.
But he knew his granddaughter.
He had watched her grow from a hatchling—weak, rejected, thrown into the Snow Forest to survive or die—into the most powerful being in existence. He had watched her take a throne through bloodshed and hold it through will.
He knew that if he spoke, she would not listen. If he warned, she would not heed. If he tried to stop her, she would only move faster.
So he remained silent.
And he watched.
Erza's voice was quiet when she spoke.
But it carried the weight of a decision that would change everything—not just for her, not just for Yuuta, but for the entire world.
"I have decided."
She did not look at Isvarn. Her face was still pressed against Yuuta's chest, her tears still falling onto his shirt. But her voice was steady. Certain. Absolute. The voice of a queen who had made up her mind and would not be swayed by anyone or anything.
She lifted her head.
Her violet eyes, red-rimmed from weeping, met Isvarn's.
"I will bring him to my kingdom. I will give him the life he wants. A peaceful life. Under my protection."
Isvarn's heart stopped.
He had known this was coming.
He had seen it in her eyes since the moment she had emerged from the memories, since the moment she had looked at Yuuta's sleeping face and understood. He had felt it in the way she held him, in the way her tears fell, in the way her rage burned.
He had watched her fall in love with this human. He had watched her bind herself to him through magic and blood and the children they had created. He had watched her come to Earth, of all places, to find him.
But knowing something was coming did not make it easier to hear.
"No one will ever hurt him again," Erza continued, her voice rising, gaining strength with each word. "Not the humans. Not the elves. Not anyone. He will live in Atlantis, in my palace, where my word is law and my power is absolute. He will want for nothing. He will fear nothing. He will be safe."
The future stretched before him, dark and uncertain.
He had to stop it.
Before too late to stop.
Or else—
He did not know how it would end.
No one did.
To be continued...