Rei tumbled through the portal, his last sight of Enid burned into him, the boy's bloodied face, lips shaping one word:
"Live."
The light swallowed him whole.
-----
Back in Hurukoya, silence fell for the briefest breath. Then the Elders moved.
The four ascended into the sky as one, robes dragging shadows across the village below. Their faceless heads tilted, arms rising. Four fists met, and from their union bloomed a sphere of impossible energy, black and burning, a wound in reality itself.
The villagers who still stood, the few children clutching each other behind Enid, the mothers who had not yet fallen, the warriors who still gripped shattered weapons, looked up in horror.
Even the dead seemed to watch, their corpses bathed in the false light.
The sphere grew until it drowned the sky. The Elders spoke no words. They commanded, and the orb answered.
It fell.
The world screamed.
The black beam swallowed Hurukoya in a single breath. Houses, streets, the river bridge, even the roots of the forest, unmade, erased as if they had never been. Every soul, every memory, every trace of what had been home was scoured away.
When the light faded, there was nothing. No blood. No bodies. No ruins. Only grass. Only silence.
Hurukoya had never existed.
----
Far away, Rei awoke on cold ground, gasping. His body ached, his head swam, his memories flickered like dying stars. He knew he had once had a village. He had once had people.
But their names? Their faces? Gone.
All he remembered was the void. The silence. The weight of loss he could not name.
And the word still burning in his heart:
Live.