Adam huffed and let the breath hang in the cold air. He sank to his knees on the cold metal bar, palms pressing into the ridged surface as he looked down and then up through the ragged teeth of the mountains. Everything felt too big and too empty at once. "I really want to rest," he murmured, more to himself than anyone else. Confusion sat heavy in his chest like another person.
What was he supposed to do? What was happening to this scape? He watched Toho. She chewed the inside of her cheek and smiled to herself, small and inscrutable, and the sight of her living through the same strange days made Adam wonder if the mechanical world might be easier—if going back would mean more ordinary interactions. Maybe he'd trade the ache in his head for a sparring of jokes with Toho and Yoko. Maybe he'd get a shout-match with Piercebox and Yoku. Maybe the mismatch of common sense between Kiso and Kineki would feel like home again.
He'd been with Toho—traveling, eating, exploring—but how little did he actually know her? The thought nudged at him until he spoke it aloud, clumsy and sudden. "Hey…"
Toho blinked. "Hmm?"
Adam felt the silence thicken into something awkward, then into the slow burn of anger at the memory of those monsters. He forced the feeling down; it wasn't time yet. If he saw them again, they would suffer. He did not waste mental breath on morality. If he ever wanted to kill someone, he would. The idea calmed him oddly, like a rough promise made and kept. Then, softer, quieter: "Hey. What do you like?"
Toho shrugged, thinking. "Like? … Well. I like balloons. Surprises. Boxes. Tight hallways—being in one, encircled, and running around." She giggled, smiling as if she pictured the corridor and the thrill of it.
"That's something," Adam said. It felt small and human, and he let himself tuck it away.
"So are you coming to the festival?" Toho asked.
Adam shook his head. "Nah. I'm too tired."
"Oh." She looked disappointed but kept it easy. "It's a celebration for Piercebox's victory, I think. But the party's boring anyway. I'll wait here." She tried not to fidget as if recalling the crowd made her small... Trying to not imagine a party.
Adam waved a hand, trying to coax himself into false enthusiasm. "Oh come on. It's a party."
Toho scoffed. "Ugh, fine. I'll come back quick." She sprinted toward the elevator, waving over her shoulder. The elevator dome closed and swallowed her in glass and light, leaving Adam alone again.
He stared at the sky. The stars were actually not stars. Up above, a palace larger than any building sprawled or even continents—a white, spiraling cathedral of color, hung like a rainbow-mosaic over the river of light. The constellations dissolved into a shimmering liquid that ran and flashed across the scape. At its center a great clock and a pillar of light kept vigil; the horizon was hollow, an emptiness that swallowed sense. Darkness pooled like ink.
He thought of Mai, imagined her wanting someone to look back—someone up in the skies watching and smiling...Protecting. Adam lowered his head. Maybe you shouldn't break a promise, he told himself, and the vow felt both trivial and binding.
It was beautiful and impossible all at once. He hated the helplessness that sat with beauty like a parasite.
So piercebox wasnt joking huh... How will he actually do it, as i smile humming to myself.
The radio crackled. "Umm, Adam? I think we need a bit of help over here… Piercebox isn't stopping this riot."
Kiso's voice came, steady as a stone. "Adam… I know you've got things. Don't worry. Rest. I'll take care of it."
Toho shouted, "US!" like a counterpoint to Kiso's offer.
Adam closed his eyes. The world compressed and slowed, stretched across infinity. Rehan—his encoded processor, a computational core in his skull—whirred silently. He could think faster than any mind ought to. He processed the noise into order.
He floated then, suspended by the logic of something that felt both human and machine. The environment pressed on him from all sides—thoughts, sensations, the ghost-limbs of the scape—but the meaning of it all slid away like oil. He could feel everything and understand nothing.
A voice from inside the processor, distant and soft, said: I see... Rehan registered the moment with the cold clarity of a machine. Hopeless.
Then the world arranged itself like a radar screen in white beams. He saw them: the monster with an owl's head and a human face and body, the devil smiling like a taxman smirking out of fate. It looked at him and then—realization faded from its grin. It could not move.
"Bastard," the devil hissed, amused.
Adam's body flickered. Spirals of colored boxes crawled across his skin and then became part of the air. "I really hate you," he said. "For doing that." The words came out steady. "You're strong. But I'm the only thing you can't mess with."
The monster—huge beyond measure, a continent of muscle and intent—paused. "Adam… No. Whoever you are. I see. You are Minori, right? Why are you doing this?" Its voice carried the weight of tectonics. It could not move even a finger.
Its manipulation of monsters of the scape stopped; influence frayed like blown wiring that desintegrated.
"You should know," it said, in a tone that was apology and decree, "that it is pointless. We are the ones who end. Stop."
"I am not him," Adam replied. "I'm the one who will destroy you all."
Then he acted. Before thought finished its last syllable...Instant, the beings around him were bound in something indivisible and invisible, as hot as a newborn universe. It was a furnace without walls. He wrapped them in it, and it trapped them forever. Powers tried to burn and claw their way free but found only the same cold, repeating destruction: a miasma that tore them down and rebuilt them only to tear them again, an endless grinding. He fed them into his storage: infinitesimal teeth, grinding them in a orb forever.
When he blinked, he was back on the ship. Time sewed itself closed being back again and his eyes bled red from the strain. He coughed, felt earth under him, and smiled. A thin, terrible happiness: grateful for power, grateful for the capacity for this things. "Thank you," he whispered to whatever listened.
Adam realise when he felt all sensation... He wasnt alone...
Darkness crept in, consuming the edges of the world in small bites. Screens—TV-like panes—lined the scape and watched, recording everything. He wiped away the blood, the motion automatic and clean.
"Why can't you just… stop?" he asked the void.
A blackhole of an eye hovered at the bottom of the scape—a hollow pupil that looked down like judgment. Its tears were full of void of hopeless as if the world could not cry anymore.
And it answered—she knew it was hopeless. It was unreal. A dream that refused to be anything else no matter how much hope or will or action she poured in her imagination into it.
"Well, I don't know either," Adam admitted aloud. The confession was small but honest.
She could not live in this WORLDSCAPE forever. it was inevitable to return to the real world, to a life of suffering the real thing that you actually cant do anything about... Opposite to this world.
Silence settled like a blanket. Adam closed his eyes and sighed, teleporting inside the ship.
"Toho!" someone squealed in the clipped, bright way she always used. The ship's interior hummed. Figures slumped—humans and creatures sedated—ink and pencil lines tracing across their skin as if someone had drawn them asleep. The question hung: who did that?
Everywhere had garbage... It was a literal riot...
Kiso walked past Adam with a soft, practical voice. "I guess we're going to Kaloterm Kingdom."
Piercebox barreled forward and hugged Adam like a spring. "I guess we're heading to the final destination," he said with a grin
Adam's head spun. "Wait—what?" It all moved too fast. What about the endless forest, the flower garden, the dark landscapes below—were they gone? He looked at Piercebox, bewildered.
Piercebox's grin turned sharp with conviction. "We can't save everyone. The outerscape horizon is decaying. It's too dangerous and rewards are small...Adam...
If we ever finish this mission," he said, eyes alight, "I'll try to save even more people. And if you don't find Manori on this mission… look for her yourself. I'll try too...Dont follow me"
Adam: Smiling... "Who said ill follow you? You followed me"
Piercebox naively smiles "Oh yeah... Haha"
Adam glanced at Kiso and Toho. They smiled and gave thumbs up, small flags of faith.
They raised their hands and stretched them forward.
"Comrades?" Piercebox asked.
"Yes," Adam said.
"FOREVER!" Toho shouted.
Kiso shrugged, the most honest answer he could manage. "I guess."
With adam head wondering... What if she's fine? And all im doing is wrong?
And that i should let it be... Am i wrong?...
As my friends just push our fist together smiling looking at me.
Oh yeah i had friends.