The letter bleeds in Bombombini's hand.
The Choir circles him, mouths unseen, notes drifting from their ribs like candle smoke.Each note they sing is a memory.Each harmony is a price paid.
As they sing, the notes carved into Bombombini's chest begin to glow—and melt.
He doesn't scream.
He sings back.
Not from his mouth, but from every wound, every scar, every part of himself that has ever loved and regretted it.
Below the Vatican, beneath the catacombs and ossuaries, something ancient stirs.
Not a demon.
Not a god.
But the Original Key.
The first sound.The first breath before light.The silence before time realized it could echo.
And it awakens.
Far away, Tralalero feels it.
She stands barefoot on wet forest stones, holding the flame that once was a Vatican candle.
Birds are frozen mid-air.
The leaves around her shift into musical notes.
Every tree is humming.
She hears Bombombini's song and drops to her knees.
"He gave himself for us."
Her voice trembles.
"He opened the Gate."
In the temple ruins, Lirilì hears it too.
But she doesn't know who Bombombini is.
She holds a reflection of Tralalero's veil — but she doesn't remember whose it was.
Her body knows the tune.
But her mind is blank.
"I've heard this before," she whispers.
She weeps — and her tears fall upward, writing verses in the sky.
And the Gate?
It opens in Naples.
Where the opera house once stood.
Where it burned without fire.
Where time collapsed the first time Tralalero sang.
Now it stands restored, but not rebuilt.
Made of stone, starlight, and sound.
Its stage is velvet black, and floating above it is a violin with no strings and a mouth instead of a bridge.
And as the Gate yawns open—Time begins to unravel.
Birds sing backwards.Mirrors leak.Priests speak in tongues they don't understand.And seven cities across Italy hear the same note echo through their bell towers.
A C-sharp that only exists in dreams.
In the deepest Vatican vault, Capuchino Assassino screams.
His hands tremble.His blade shatters.His orders fade from the scroll in his pocket.
"The Final Verse has been sung," the Choir says.
"The kiss cannot be stopped anymore."
"Only chosen."
And on the horizon—
A star explodes.
Not in space.But in the sky of the dream.
A signal.
The end begins now.
And the kiss will follow.