Chapter 10
The Black Shores slept.
Not in darkness
but in balance.
Dino sensed the change before it happened. Not as danger, not as hostility, but as alignment. A quiet tightening of reality, like a breath being drawn too slowly to be coincidence.
Luna had stopped walking.
She stood alone at the far end of the shore, where sand met nothingness and the sea forgot how deep it was supposed to be. Her black dress fluttered softly, untouched by wind, while her scythe rested against her shoulder like a crescent of judgment.
Above her
The moons stirred.
Not all at once.
Not loudly.
One by one, they acknowledged her.
Red Moon surfaced first, faint and warm, pulsing like a distant heart.
White Moon followed, calm and watching.
Silver Moon reflected the sea, multiplying it into endless layers.
Black Moon existed only as an absence, swallowing starlight.
Blue Moon shimmered with patience.
Golden Moon glowed like a restrained crown.
Then deeper, older presences shifted.
Corrupted Moon twitched—but did not awaken.
Cursed Moon remained sealed.
Celestial Moon aligned perfectly above her head.
Gray Moon observed without judgment.
Inverted Moon showed a sky beneath the sea.
Mirror Moon reflected Luna not as she was but as she chose to be.
Ancient Moon remembered her before memory.
Divine Moon bowed.
Holy Moon hesitated.
Demonic Moon smiled.
Two distortions hovered beyond them.
A Black Hole, devouring light without hunger.
A White Hole, giving endlessly without intent.
They did not orbit.
They waited.
Dino watched from a distance.
He did not intervene.
This was not a threat.
This was recognition.
"You don't need to wake them," Dino said calmly.
Luna did not turn.
"I'm not," she replied. "They're waking themselves."
The moons responded—subtly. Invisible to anyone else. Even the residents slept peacefully, unaware that cosmic authorities were aligning above the woman who had chosen to remain human.
"I thought you said you wouldn't use them," Dino added.
"I won't," Luna said softly. "They're mine. But I don't need to swing power to own it."
A pause.
Then she turned.
Her red eyes were steady. Not burning. Not cold.
Simply… certain.
"Do you know why they follow me?" she asked.
"Because you can command them," Dino answered.
She shook her head.
"Because I don't."
That answer pleased him more than he expected.
The moons dimmed slightly, satisfied.
"You scare gods," Luna continued. "You terrify concepts. Even eternity bends around you."
"And you?" Dino asked.
She smiled faintly.
"I scare inevitability."
Silence followed.
Not heavy.
Not tense.
Comfortable.
Dino stepped closer, standing beside her as the sea rolled in slow, deliberate waves.
"They're always at your side," he said. "Invisible. Watching."
"Yes."
"You don't fear losing control?"
"No," she replied. "Because they're not weapons."
She rested a hand over her chest.
"They're witnesses."
The Black Hole pulsed once then stabilized.
The White Hole softened its glow.
Satisfied.
Dino exhaled slowly.
"In another age," he said, "this alignment would have started a war."
Luna nodded. "In another age, we would have ended it."
They stood together beneath a sky that refused to decide whether it was night or dawn.
"Dino," Luna said quietly.
"Yes?"
"If the universe remembers you again… if fear returns…"
He answered without hesitation.
"Then I'll stay here."
She looked at him.
"And if they come for me?"
His presence sharpened—not violently, not outwardly—but absolutely.
"Then," he said, "they'll remember why forgetting me was mercy."
The moons withdrew.
One by one.
Returning to invisibility, to dormancy, to patience.
The shore exhaled.
The Black Shores slept again.
And for the first time since her existence began,
Luna did not feel like a weapon,
a symbol,
or a calamity.
She felt like someone chosen.
Dino walked back toward the house beside her, Eternum silent at his waist, the silver-black bamboo resting where it always had.
Two beings who could end everything
Choosing, once more,
To let the world continue.
End of Chapter 10