When Cloud's consciousness fully embraced the true meaning of entropy, his continuously regressing body stopped changing.
He didn't transform back into the omnipotent Dimensional Sovereign. Nor did he continue regressing into a helpless infant.
He simply became light. An extremely ordinary, unremarkable light.
It wasn't dazzling—not sacred and majestic like Sunlight's Blessing.
It wasn't scorching—not full of overwhelming presence like the Kusanagi flames.
It didn't even have any power fluctuations. It was just like the most ordinary candle, guiding travelers through the night.
But this light was different, because it was alive.
Within its glow was reflected Mai Shiranui's flame-like passionate love. It carried Chizuru Kagura's earth-like serene protection. It sparkled with Natasha's starlight loyalty watching silently from afar. It danced with Wanda's chaos heart full of infinite creativity. It held Diana's pure justice, struggling between divinity and humanity. It burned with Harley's wild madness that defied all rules.
Within its glow was also carried Kyo's pride, Iori's solitude, K's confusion, Terry's carefree spirit, Ryu's pursuit of the Way, Superman's kindness, Batman's obsession...
It carried all the love and hate, all the memories and bonds that Cloud had experienced along his journey.
It carried all the irrational, imperfect, bug-filled yet undeniably real entropy.
It was no longer the Dimensional Sovereign Cloud.
It had evolved into an infinite existence that no law could define, no concept could comprehend.
It was the essence of possibility itself.
This light, bearing everything within it, slowly drifted toward that Negative-Entropy, that ultimate void of absolute cold.
It launched no attack. It made no attempt to devour or purify its opponent.
It was simply like a weary traveler who had reached the end of his journey, standing face to face with the lonely cosmic management program that had also been running for countless eons.
Then, facing that void where nothing existed, it gently performed the gesture Cloud had loved most in life—one full of provocation and swagger.
—It snapped its fingers.
Pop~
An extremely soft sound, barely audible.
This gesture produced no energy. This sound triggered no waves.
But it dropped the first ripple onto the surface of that "sea of nothingness" where absolute stillness reigned and even space-time didn't exist.
An uncertain ripple. A ripple of possibility. A ripple full of bugs.
The instant that cold, dead Negative-Entropy law—pursuing absolute stability—made contact with this ripple full of irrationality, it experienced chaos.
Its law core, operating like the most precise computer, fell into an unsolvable logical paradox.
—If entropy is also part of existence, then isn't the act of reversing entropy to nothingness itself a form of entropy increase?
—If chaos is also the normal state of the universe, then isn't the pursuit of absolute order itself the greatest chaos?
This paradox, like an unkillable virus, began spreading wildly through the core code of the Negative-Entropy law, growing, expanding!
Finally...
BOOM—!
An explosion that resounded through all dimensions yet was as gentle as the first heartbeat at the beginning of creation occurred.
The cold Negative-Entropy law, caught in its own self-contradictory loop, collapsed upon itself.
And that light representing infinite possibilities, in that gentle explosion, transformed into billions upon billions of warm seeds of light, scattering to every dimension that had been eroded by Negative-Entropy.
The universe was reborn.
...
"Mmm..."
Mai Shiranui slowly opened her eyes and found herself lying on Infinite Manor's lawn, warm sunlight shining comfortably on her body.
She seemed to have had a very, very long dream. In it, she was about to forget Cloud, and then she saw a very warm, very familiar light.
She unconsciously touched her cheek. There were still traces of undried tears.
"Strange... why was I crying?"
She looked around and found everyone was there.
Chizuru Kagura sat quietly beside her, wearing a smile of relief.
Kula lay sleeping soundly in Wanda's arms, her mouth still smacking as if eating something delicious.
Natasha, Diana, Harley... not a single one was missing.
And they all seemed to have undergone some wonderful changes.
Kyo Kusanagi and Iori Yagami stood not far away, facing each other, but their faces no longer carried that sense of destined enmity.
The flames at Kyo's fingertips had become more restrained and pure, while Iori's purple fire had lost some of its violence and gained a touch of something even he couldn't quite describe—liberation, perhaps.
Their power hadn't weakened at all. Rather, it had been cleansed of all impurities, returning to its most fundamental state.
Wanda discovered with surprise that she seemed to have suddenly figured things out.
She merely thought of "a strawberry-flavored cloud" in her mind, and the next second, a pink cloud emitting a rich strawberry fragrance was actually floating above her head.
She seemed to have finally learned how to befriend her chaos magic.
Diana looked down at her hands. Her divine power hadn't fully recovered, but she had gained a new, deeper understanding of her purpose as a guardian.
She felt she had moved one step closer to becoming a true god.
Everyone was there. Everything that had been reversed was restored—even better than before.
It was as if that apocalyptic crisis capable of erasing everything had truly been nothing more than an absurd yet rewarding dream.
But one person was missing.
That man who always lay lazily on the couch waiting for them to feed him.
That man whose venomous tongue full of twisted logic always made their teeth itch with frustration.
That man who, at the most critical moments, always stood before them like a god, holding up the sky for them.
—Cloud.
He had disappeared.
He wasn't in Infinite Manor, wasn't in the KOF world, wasn't in the Marvel Universe, wasn't in the DC Universe.
They mobilized every force they could to search for him. Chizuru Kagura used the Yata Mirror. Natasha deployed the entire Council's intelligence network. Wanda used chaos magic to sense every dimension. Diana even returned to Mount Olympus to request the ancient gods' help.
But the result was always the same—no record found.
The name "Cloud" had been completely erased from all dimensions, all space-times, all records of existence. As if he had never appeared at all.