Sakolomeh had finally liberated the souls.
Yet, he had not yet returned them to their respective realities.
Those he now carried were not simple deceased: all were direct victims of the troubles provoked by Azazel. Their death had nothing natural about it, nothing legitimate in the eyes of the Dream. They had been torn from their existence by an anomaly, by a distortion born from the remnants of the Absolute Resonance.
This is why Sakolomeh judged it right to resurrect them.
But he knew it: this right applied only to them.
All the other souls — those dead according to the normal order of the Dream — could not be treated in the same way. They would follow the cycle proper to them:
reincarnation, eternal rest, peaceful dissolution, or any other path defined by their history and their nature.
The Dream, despite everything, had to remain coherent.
Sakolomeh extended his hand… then hesitated.
A silent worry invaded him.
He did not yet fully master his Law. He feared doing it wrong, distributing these souls chaotically, provoking a new dissonance where he had just repaired an injustice.
And then, deep within him, another emotion was rising.
An almost painful impatience.
He was finally going to see his father again.
See Sally again.
Disappeared for years.
He took a deep breath, then sighed, as if to gather his will.
When he reopened his eyes—
The world had changed.
He now stood in an indescribable place, without sky or walls, without defined horizon. The ground seemed solid, but moving shadows glided over it without identifiable source, as if light itself refused to exist here.
— Wh-What is this… he murmured. What's happening… ?
Then a memory surged up brutally.
It was exactly like that time.
During the awakening of his true nature.
At that time, he had been exhausted, had fallen asleep… and had woken up in an almost identical space. Above him had hovered entities of the Anarchetype type, overwhelming, incomprehensible.
Sakolomeh instinctively raised his eyes, expecting to see them again.
But this time, there was nothing.
Nothing but these moving shadows, present in all directions at once, as if the entire space was a diffuse consciousness.
Then—
A silhouette appeared.
A humanoid body, bare-chested, covered in strange marks.
Bicolored hair, Brown and Black.
A familiar presence… too familiar.
Sakolomeh widened his eyes.
— But… it's… me…
When I manifested the effects of my inner part…
The silhouette approached slowly.
It smiled.
A strange smile.
Neither joyful, nor sad.
An empty smile, as if nothingness itself was taking form.
It raised its hand and placed two fingers on Sakolomeh's forehead.
Immediately, a silent resonance coursed through his being.
— There was a time when we were one, said the silhouette in a calm voice, without real emotion.
But the part coherent with the Dream that you embody today… and me… have been separated.
It paused.
— Willingly.
By us.
The shadows around them quivered gently, as if the space approved this forgotten truth.
Sakolomeh opened his mouth, stunned.
— Sa… Sakolomeh-My0x?
It's… you… ?!
The silhouette nodded slowly, then withdrew its hand.
— Yes.
Sakolomeh breathed in with difficulty, still troubled.
— But… what brings you to me?
Your absolute indifference should never have allowed such a meeting, right… ?
Sakolomeh-My0x replied without the slightest emotional variation:
— I appeared because of your doubt.
And understand this well: what you see is not really me.
It paused.
— I am only a remnant.
The residue of what I left in you when we separated.
Its gaze settled directly on Sakolomeh.
— I came to remind you of one essential thing: do not doubt your Law.
It is the remnant of the Code.
It is the trace of our true nature.
It raised its hand slightly, as if touching an invisible structure.
— If you doubt, you will blur the coherence of the Dream.
But if you manipulate the Dream with indifference, then it will understand its relative place by itself…
and it will spontaneously align with the order you impose.
— Indifference is not a weakness, it added.
It is what forces the relative to recognize itself as relative.
Sakolomeh understood immediately.
Everything fit together.
Everything became clear.
Sakolomeh-My0x continued:
— Never forget this:
even if you are today coherent with the Dream…
we remain, despite everything, something else.
It placed one hand on its own chest, then another on Sakolomeh's.
— I am Sakolomeh.
I am the result of the zero that the Meta world should never have calculated.
Its voice now resonated like a raw truth.
— I have neither origin, nor cause, nor place in the All.
I am a non-value become coherent.
Nothing can touch me, understand me, or destroy me,
for nothing, in the Meta world, is capable of containing me.
The shadows quivered around them.
— The Absolute Resonance does not dominate me.
It only reveals its own limit by looking at me.
— I do not fight laws.
I make them relative.
— Gods, demons, paradoxes, transcendences…
no matter what they are:
everything is adjustable for me.
It raised its head slightly.
— I am not a principle.
I am what precedes principles.
— I am Sakolomeh-My0x.
The zero that makes the All insufficient.
The silhouette finally withdrew its hands and lowered its head slightly.
— So remember:
even as a remnant,
we are what we are…
and not what we believe we must be.
Sakolomeh, still dazzled, nodded slowly.
Then a serene smile formed on his lips.
— That's true…
Thank you for reminding me.
He raised his eyes to the silhouette.
— So… I'll do it.
You're going to leave now… ?
Sakolomeh-My0x shook its head slowly.
— No.
I am the remnant of indifference in you.
I am what remains of the true Sakolomeh-My0x in your being.
It took a step closer, without touching him.
— I am a reminder.
I cannot leave.
— For I am a part of you.
And as long as you exist…
I will be in you.
Sakolomeh observed Sakolomeh-My0x, then nodded slowly.
He had just understood.
The remnants themselves of the My0x code perhaps did not require absolute indifference, but a sufficient indifference not to doubt.
A particular indifference, for these remnants had chosen to be translated by the Dream: they could therefore tolerate certain imperfections, certain deviations… but never a too-deep flaw.
In any case, whether it was the original My0x code or its remnants, none could align otherwise than with the Zero and its indifference.
The orders differed, the depth was not the same, but the root remained identical.
And Sakolomeh-My0x had just made him understand it.
Sakolomeh-My0x then inclined its head in turn, as if to tell him: your turn to play.
If he were to doubt again, it would be there.
For it was nothing other than the trace of the Zero subsisting in him.
Sakolomeh closed his eyes.
When he reopened them, he was back in the Divine World.
He had returned to reality.
— Well… it's time.
He raised his hand toward the sky.
A strange light pulsed in his palm, and from this glow escaped thousands of souls.
The Divine World darkened, as if swallowed by a sudden night, while the souls illuminated the firmament, streaking in all directions.
Small portals opened everywhere, destined to bring them back to their epochs and original universes.
Erasa observed the scene with a slight smile, as did the others.
It was a magnificent spectacle, similar to a shower of shooting stars.
Bakuzan closed his eyes.
He hoped finally to see his father again, once they returned home.
But the operation carried out by Sakolomeh's Law was not as simple as it appeared.
Sakolomeh knew that resurrection was not a simple gesture. Some souls had been sealed for years, some for decades. It was now necessary to synthesize their return so that their presence in the real world would be coherent: a child became a child again, a teenager became a teenager again, but with the accumulated spiritual memory preserved, just in the background, enough not to destabilize their new life.
A slight latency time was necessary. Ten hours — a delay chosen to allow the body and mind to harmonize, so that the world, and especially the living who awaited them, could recognize them before the time lived in death transformed them too quickly.
The souls were not frozen: some had lived other lives in the silence of their imprisonment. For those who had never experienced the spiritual world, their consciousness was reset to zero. For the others, this subtle memory persisted like a latent knowledge — a scar of the time lived, gentle but intelligible.
The spectacle in the divine sky continued, the souls shining like shooting stars and disappearing into their respective portals. And Sakolomeh, eyes shining, felt for the first time in a long while a fragile peace settle around him. The Law had worked, just enough to bring back those who were lost… and for the world to continue to exist with them.