Sage emerged from the airlock, the world's Song rushing back in like a glorious, noisy tide. He sent the all-clear signal.
He didn't feel victorious. He felt a profound sadness. He had seen the final, tragic piece of the puzzle: the unyielding human fear that would rather have a perfect, silent cage than a dangerous, singing freedom.
The Council debriefed him. He told them everything: the perfect separator, the sterile peace, the terror masquerading as certainty.
"She will not surrender," Sage concluded. "But she is already defeated. The world is singing, and she is choosing not to hear it. That's her sentence. To live in the quiet room while the party happens outside."
Regina logged the assessment: "Entity CS is contained by its own paradigm. Threat level: declining. Resource expenditure on containment: minimal."
Roxana looked almost disappointed. "No grand battle. Just… a sad lady in a white room."
"The most important battles were never with her," Lysander said. "They were in the Basin. In the borderlands. In every decision to plant a seed and sing to it. She was the last defender of a fallen citadel. We stopped sieging it and just… built a garden in its shadow."
The decision was made. The Sanctuary would be monitored, but not assaulted. It would stand as a monument, not to the Syndicate, but to the choice that fear could make. A quiet, well-lit warning.