The summit of the Mother Tree rose above the mountain like a wound that had chosen to grow toward the sky.
Its roots, once anchored in stone, now stretched like colossal veins—palpable, pulsing with something new. The trunk had thickened, twisted, risen… as if the plant world had instinctively tried to reach the plane of the gods after feeding on the divinity of the God of Strength.
Lusian stood there.
Amid branches that creaked under a pressure that was not wind. Black and gold sap still coursed through the bark, seeping with freshly digested power. His hands were stained with blood—divine blood—and the air around him vibrated with a silence that did not belong to nature.
Then, the space behind him folded.
It did not break.
It did not tear.
It simply bent, like an obedient page.
A circle of silver distortion opened without a sound, and from it emerged Keitaro.
Or what Keitaro once was.
He appeared already seated, as if he had always been there—on a thick root of the Mother Tree, one leg crossed with the ease of someone who feared neither heights nor gods. He exhaled slowly, with the weariness of one who had seen suns born and die.
His silver eyes lifted.
They were no longer human.
They were the eyes of Vaelen, God of Space.
They settled on Lusian's bloodstained hands.
"Still hurting, aren't they?" Vaelen said. His voice was soft, ancient—like the brush of the void between stars. "Your hands. Your soul. Even the memory of that cheap coffee you were drinking when we tore you from your world."
Lusian tensed.
The name Erwin trembled in the air, unspoken.
He did not know whether to summon the darkness to suffocate that entity…
or fall to his knees and weep.
"You were there," he said at last, his voice breaking.
"You were the man in the suit."
Vaelen shook his head slowly, a sorrow-laden smile touching his lips.
"I was the one who held the veil so the others would not see," he corrected. "Kheris wielded the knife, yes. But I created the distance. I carved the tunnel between your room and that forest. I hid you in the folds of space while Sophia held you… so that not even Fate could scent that your soul was foreign."
He lowered his gaze. One finger traced invisible circles in the air, as if recalling paths that no longer existed.
"Kheris was dying, Lusian.
Not exiled.
Condemned."
When he was cast out of the celestial world, he had two paths.
To disintegrate…
or crawl back as the very thing he despised most.
A demon.
Vaelen's jaw tightened, for the first time letting something like anger slip through.
"Kheris hated demons. Not for their form, but for what they represent: gods who chose to keep existing even when they no longer deserved to. He would not survive by betraying his own law."
He lifted his gaze to the endless canopy of the Mother Tree.
"So he chose to die.
But not in silence."
His silver eyes returned to Lusian.
Lusian clenched his fists.
There was rage.
There was pain.
And a gratitude so deep it hurt to breathe.
"Why tell me now?" he asked.
Vaelen rose. His form flickered, revealing for an instant the silhouette of an entity made of constellations and impossible lines.
"Because you are no longer a piece," he answered. "You are the owner of the silence. Kheris left knowing his Throne would be in good hands. And I…"
He smiled.
"I remain because I want to see what a man from your world does with the power of a god from this one."
He stepped closer and placed a hand—Keitaro's hand—on Lusian's shoulder. The touch was warm. Human. Real.
"Do not thank us," he said. "But do not curse us either. We only gave you a stage. The courage, the pain… and the choice to love that Demon Queen and protect that little guardian—that was yours."
His voice softened to a murmur.
"Erwin died so that Lusian could live. But both are, and always will be, the same heart that refused to break."
The silver glow faded from the air.
The invisible pressure holding that place dissolved, as if space itself had finally exhaled.
Consciousness returned to the body.
"Take care of Keitaro," Vaelen whispered, distant now, already gone.
"He likes this world very much. Almost as much as you do."
Silence fell.
Keitaro blinked.
His knees faltered slightly, as if his body suddenly remembered it had weight. He brought a hand to his head, disoriented.
"…What am I doing here?"
His voice no longer echoed with starlight.
It was only that of a confused young man.
Lusian watched him for a second longer than necessary. Then he exhaled through his nose, tired.
"Perfect," he muttered.
"Just what I needed right now."
Keitaro looked up.
"Huh?"
Lusian turned away, walking from the edge of the Mother Tree.
"What are you doing here, idiot."
But there was no anger in his voice.
Only relief.