Chapter 90 – "The Price of Remembering"
> "To keep truth alive… they had to kill.
And in doing so, they buried a piece of themselves."
---
Scene 1 – "Ashes on the Wind"
The Ash Rebellion move around. Suspicious of their surrounding.
Suddenly. Ambush.
A battle commences.
The battlefield after the confrontation.
Smoke. Bodies. Silent wind.
> Narrator: "They weren't supposed to burn like this.
They were supposed to walk."
5,000 rebels lie dead. The rest kneel in disbelief. No music. No Ledger Capsules. Just silence.
---
Scene 2 – "Five Falls"
Each of the Five is alone, scattered on the field.
Flash snippets of their kills.
Gift, whispering names after every one.
Jakku, writing a tally mid-battle.
Maiku, burning a squad mid-sentence.
Reen, stabbing a soldier begging for mercy.
Matthew, tearing up as he kills.
Each one falls to their knees, alone, horrified.
---
Scene 3 – "The Grief Gathering"
The Five reunite.
Nobody speaks at first. Then:
Gift: "We were the memory-keepers.
What are we now?"
Reen: "Not saints."
Matthew: "Not monsters either."
---
Scene 4 – "Dion's Embrace"
In a moment of complete silence, Dion appears—not in a dream, but in waking presence. Golden light.
He doesn't speak at first. He hugs each of them. Holds them long.
Then:
Dion: "You remembered who you were.
Even when the world tried to forget you."
> Narrator: "And for one breath, their guilt cracked just enough for love to reach through."
---
Scene 5 – "The Root Body Rises"
The Root Body stands 275 feet tall, cracking the land around it. Vines twist upward like ribs. Its form is almost human, almost tree.
> Narrator: "The god they feared wasn't being built.
It was waking up again."
---
Scene 6 – "The Hilltop Smirk"
The Root Avatar stands on a distant hill.
His silhouette watching.
Matthew approaches alone.
Matthew: "Levi? Are you still in there?"
The Avatar convulses violently.
Then stops. Looks at Matthew.
Smiles.
> Narrator: "It was the wrong kind of smile.
One that forgot what it was for."
---
Scene 7 – "Ledger of Hope"
Jakku steps forward with the Ledger of Truth. He reads:
> "He who listened to trees—forgot how to listen to himself."
For one breath, Levi blinks. His hands twitch.
A shimmer of old memory rises—of children handing him seeds.
But then—
---
Scene 8 – "The Memory Socket"
The Avatar screams. Roots lash out.
Root Avatar: "If I cannot kill memory—
I'll overwrite it."
He inserts root tendrils into the skulls of fallen bodies.
We see their eyes flicker.
Their last memories replaced by the Root's will.
> Narrator: "He didn't bury the dead.
He erased their right to ever have lived."
---
Scene 9 – "Gift's Rage"
Gift throws a capsule. It fizzles—rejected.
Gift: "They deserved to be mourned.
Not puppeted!"
His flame is wild. But Reen holds him back.
Reen: "He's not taunting us.
He's proving how far he's fallen."
---
Scene 10 – "The Forgotten Name"
The Avatar murmurs:
> "Levi Sarutobi?
That man weeps too easily."
He clutches his head. A war inside.
Then his voice shifts—colder, unfeeling.
> "Pain is weakness.
I will make a world without it."
---
Scene 11 – "A Perfect World"
He raises both arms. The Root Body stirs behind him.
Root Avatar: "A perfect Julio.
No cities. No humans.
Only green.
Only growth.
Only peace."
The vines roar like thunder. The earth shakes. The Root Body is now 275 feet.
---
Scene 12 – "The Twisted Gospel"
The Avatar preaches as more fallen soldiers rise—not as undead, but converted.
> "They will not remember suffering.
They will thank me for rewriting it."
Villagers watching on begin to panic. Some fall to their knees in grief.
---
Scene 13 – "Maiku's Line"
Maiku (nearly broken): "We killed to stop lies.
Now… we face one that wants to forget."
His fire begins to swirl—this time blue.
Not from rage. From resolve.
---
Scene 14 – "Matthew's Last Plea"
He sings a piece of "Before the Rot". Soft. Painful.
Matthew: "You planted peace once.
You whispered to trees.
You were the storm that listened."
The Root Avatar hears it—and flinches.
His hands tremble. But then his eyes go dead.
Root Avatar: "That storm died. I uprooted it."
---
Scene 15 – "The Declaration"
He rises into the air.
Root Body expands to 285 feet.
He points to the crew:
Root Avatar: "You carry grief like armor.
But I will give the world something stronger:
No memory at all."
Roots spread across the horizon. Whole towns begin to vanish behind vines.
> Narrator: "He forgot who he was.
Now he remembers only what he wants the world to be."
---
Scene 16 – "Jakku's Final Note"
Jakku opens the Ledger.
He writes, hands shaking:
> "When we remembered who he was—
he erased who we were."
"Next: The Uprooting."
---
Scene 17 – "The March Cracks"
The remaining 15,000 Ash Rebellion members begin to march again.
Not proud. Not confident.
But changed.
Their silence isn't defiant now—it's haunted.
To Be Continued...
> Narrator (Closing Monologue):
"There comes a day in every rebellion when the songs stop.
When remembering costs more than silence.
This… was that day."
---
"They were supposed to walk.
Not burn.
But memory is not immune to ambush.
And truth bleeds just like flesh."
---
"They killed.
Not in rage.
Not in vanity.
But in the awful clarity of necessity.
And in doing so—they buried the gentlest parts of themselves."
---
"Even now, he did not come to judge.
He came to hold.
Because grief, in the presence of love,
does not rot.
It roots."
---
"The thing that rose was not a god.
It was a memory unchecked.
A grief unguided.
A tree grown without pruning, towering, ravenous."
---
"There are smiles that comfort.
There are smiles that lie.
And then there are smiles so hollow,
they echo."
---
"Words carved in truth do not beg to be heard.
They wait.
And when the time comes—they remind."
---
"He did not kill them twice.
He killed the right to be mourned.
And that—
is a desecration too cruel for history to bury quietly."
---
"He was losing the war inside.
Not to them.
To himself.
And in his desperation to silence the storm…
he became the flood."
---
"What he offered was not salvation.
It was surrender.
Not peace.
Numbness.
And the world trembled at the price."
---
"Maiku found blue flame in the ruin.
Not from fury.
But from faith.
And Matthew's song?
It wasn't meant to win.
It was meant to remind."
---
"He did not want a better world.
He wanted a quieter one.
And if truth screamed?
He would drown it in vines."
---
"They had remembered him.
But now—
He retaliated by unmaking them."
---
"They marched still.
But not with heads held high.
This was not hope now.
It was duty.
The kind that doesn't sparkle.
The kind that doesn't sing.
The kind that walks, even with blood on its boots."
---
"They were truth-bringers once.
Now they were truth-bearers.
And the weight of that…
was beginning to break them."