Night draped over Ashveil like a silken cloak. Lanterns glimmered along the newly rebuilt Terrace of Runes, but Otoku found no comfort in their light. He stood alone at the balustrade, the cool breeze tugging at his cloak, and stared out at the courtyard below where students still lingered, their laughter echoing faintly like a memory he both cherished and feared.
He closed his eyes. The echoes came unbidden—fragments of the looped past:
The agony of Lirael's final breath, and the crushing weight of her sacrifice.
The roar of the skeletal dragon in the Vault as reality unraveled.
The sight of Arthelia's blindfolded face when she first named him "god of ruin."
Every memory was a knife twisting in his heart. He opened his eyes to find Gravy at his feet, silent but watchful. The pup's golden eye shimmered with concern.
> Otoku (whispering): "It never truly ends, does it?"
Gravy (softly): "Not while you hold these memories. But you're not alone this time."
Otoku knelt, running a hand through Gravy's shadow-fur. "I see peace below… but all I feel is the churn of another loop waiting to begin."
He rose and walked back inside, passing beneath the arch where the seal once stood. The corridor was silent, but he sensed eyes following him—remnants of the Vault's watchers, perhaps, or the academy's ever-vigilant wards.
In the Obsidian Pact chamber, Arthelia waited beside a single candle. Her face was somber.
> Arthelia: "You didn't come to the Council meeting."
Otoku: "I couldn't." His voice cracked. "Every time I try to move forward, the old me pulls me back."
Arthelia (gently): "Then let it pull you—for one last time. Face it, so you can truly be free."
She placed a hand on his arm, and he felt her resolve anchor him. Together, they retrieved the Codex from its resting place in the Pact vault—a place now consecrated to truth rather than fear.
> Otoku: "Show me the loop… let me see it end."
Arthelia: "I'll stand by you."
Otoku opened the Codex. Its pages turned, revealing a single phrase glowing in Lirael's blood-ink:
> "To break the wheel, you must face the heart that turns it."
A pulse of magic rippled through the chamber, and Otoku's vision blurred. He saw himself once more standing atop the shattered throne of stars—this time not as destroyer, but as a child reaching out for forgiveness.
He dropped to his knees. Gravy and Arthelia flanked him.
> Otoku (softly): "I'm sorry—for every life I ended, every loop I repeated. I… I don't know how to be the hero."
Silence. Then a subtle warmth from the Codex's pages, as though Lirael's spirit offered comfort.
> Codex (faint whisper): "You already are."
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