Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

The air, heavy and dry, still held the taste of dust and residual magical energy, a harsh mix in the throat that tasted of churned earth and ancient power unleashed. The last gust of sandy wind, which moments before had roared with the fury of an entire desert, suddenly fell still, leaving a deep, charged silence that seemed to absorb even the slightest sound. In the center of the playground, transformed into a lunar landscape of makeshift dunes, Stelle was panting, her lungs burning. The tip of her lance-staff, "The Street Sweeper," pulsed with a faint amber light, the last sigh of the power she had just tamed. In front of her, the floating card, which had been a blinding, voracious whirlwind, grew calm. The illustration of a majestic sphinx in the middle of a shining gale glowed with a deep, golden light, like a miniature sun, before calming completely. It spun with an ethereal gentleness and landed, light as a feather, on the young girl's outstretched palm. In its center, the words "THE SANDY" were written in elegant calligraphy.

"Sealed!" The word escaped her lips in a triumphant shout afterwards.

A small, chubby being that looked like a pink plushie, with long ears and a ruby gem on its chest, floated out from behind a dune that was already beginning to dissolve. Mem, the self-proclaimed and sometimes doubtful Guardian of the Cards, wiped her forehead with a tiny paw.

"By Long's whiskers! That was a tricky one! Luckily, it's no problem for our Stelle!" Her big blue eyes settled on Dan Heng, who was still partially buried. "Good thing there were no body swaps this time, eh, brat? After that one, I swore I'd never look at my own body with so much confusion again."

But the euphoria and relief of the moment were short-lived. Stelle's amber eyes, the color of honey and stars, widened as she remembered the image that had preceded the seal. "Dan Heng!"

Her gaze fixed on the young man. There, where the sand had been the densest and most furious, he lay completely immobilized, like a statue of salt freshly sculpted by a capricious artist. Only his head, with its messy, dusty black hair, and one arm, which he had managed to free in a last, desperate attempt to contain the creature, were free from the golden sepulcher. Stelle ran towards him, her boots sinking with unpleasant crunches into the loose sand, which seemed to have no intention of disappearing along with its card.

"Dan Heng, are you okay? Can you breathe?" Her voice, usually serene, now had a hint of genuine urgency that she herself didn't expect to hear.

Dan Heng coughed hard, spitting out a fine golden dust. His face, usually an impassive marble of serene composure, was tense with frustration and a flush resembling deep embarrassment. His eyes, the color of deep jade, flickered towards her for a moment, avoiding prolonged contact with an almost physical intensity. With some hesitation, he grabbed her hand, using it to help pull himself out of the pile of sand.

"I'm... intact. Thank you." The words came out clipped, dry as the sand covering him, but Stelle had already grown accustomed to that tone. He was always like that, especially after she ended up being the one to seal the card, after her power, so different from his, turned out to be the key. With determined clumsiness, she began to brush away the sand still covering his torso and arms. Her fingers, more accustomed to wielding a weapon than performing acts of delicacy, moved with the efficiency of an excavator. A considerable pile of sand came loose and fell directly onto Mem's head, who was examining the magic-created sand.

"Ungh... Couldn't you be a bit more careful?" she grumbled, shaking her head irritably to free her pink ears, now irremediably tinged with a pale gold.

"Sorry, sorry," she murmured, not stopping, her expression a mix of worry and concentration. Finally, with a last pull that made Dan Heng stagger, he freed himself completely from his earthen prison. He sprang to his feet with the feline agility that characterized him, stepping away from her with a speed bordering on the supernatural. He brushed the now non-existent dust from his clothes with sharp, energetic movements, as if trying to shed not just the sand, but the humiliation of the moment.

"Your sealing technique is increasingly... efficient," he conceded, still not looking directly at her, his eyes fixed on a distant swing. "But we shouldn't have followed your strategy. Charging into the eye of the storm without a backup plan was reckless and predictable. We should have done it like with 'The Wave', where there was at least a containment strategy."

Stelle frowned, placing her hands on her hips in a defiant gesture. "Well, someone had to distract her! While I kept her busy, you could prepare that long-incubation water spell which, by the way, never came! And don't talk to me about 'The Wave'! If Mem hadn't managed to make us float with her magic, your plan would have failed! Magic that left her exhausted!"

Mem, floating to the side, shuddered. "Don't remind me! My tail still feels weird from when it got wet!"

"That conjuring required absolute concentration," Dan Heng retorted in a biting tone, ignoring the pink creature. "It's difficult to maintain it when... when..." His gaze drifted towards her face for an infinitesimal fraction of a second, barely a flutter of eyelashes, before fixing back on the ground at his feet with renewed intensity. "... when the person who is supposed to seal the card insists on attracting all the attention and danger to themselves with the subtlety of a stampede. I should have been the distraction. It would have been much more efficient."

The atmosphere between them charged with that familiar, electric tension, the same that always arose after a fight, especially in their recent adventures. It was a complex mix of tacit gratitude, rivalry forced by strange circumstances, and an uncomfortable, vibrant attraction that both of them staunchly refused to acknowledge aloud.

And it was at that precise moment, as if planned by a divine stage director, that a melodious voice, laden with emotion and unrestrained enthusiasm, emerged from behind the swings.

"Cut! Wonderful! Absolutely cinematic! The perfect shot!"

March 7th burst onto the scene like a ray of pink sunshine, jumping over a minor dune with acrobatic grace. Her cotton-candy colored hair seemed to float around her face, illuminated by a smile of pure and absolute happiness. In her hands, she held a professional video camera with expertise, its small blinking red light betraying that she had been meticulously recording every second of the encounter. And most notably: despite having no magic, she remained pristine without a single grain of sand.

"The sequence of Stelle freeing Dan Heng from the sand was so, so dramatic! The expression of worry on your face, Stelle! And the way the moonlight reflected on the cascade of sand grains falling from his shoulders...! It looked like stardust escaping from his clothes! And the unspoken tension between you two! Unbeatable! The footage is pure gold for my archives!" March chirped, dancing around them with the inexhaustible energy of a hummingbird, the camera now resting on her hip.

"The Seventh... again?" Dan Heng sighed, bringing a hand to the bridge of his nose in a gesture of annoyance that was already habitual. "Is it really necessary to document every... magical 'incident' as if it were a drama for the masses? It doesn't matter, I highly doubt any producer would accept it."

"Of course it's necessary!" she exclaimed, as if he had asked the most obvious question in the world. "These aren't mere 'incidents', Dan Heng! They are milestones in your epic and dangerous struggle to collect the runaway Long Cards! The future 'March Memory Archive' needs this material for future generations! Besides," she added, lowering her voice and throwing an exaggerated, knowing wink directly at Stelle, "someone has to capture for posterity the exact moment when our stoic and serene hero is rescued, over and over again, by the lady with golden orbs and silver hair. These scenes are worth their weight in cosmic credits. After all, there's no one else who can document the feats of you two heroes!" She brought her hands to her cheeks, in a state of drunken happiness, making it clear that neither Stelle nor Dan Heng would snap her out of her world.

Dan Heng made a low sound that was halfway between a growl and a sigh of absolute resignation. Stelle, for her part, couldn't stop a small, satisfied smile from appearing on her lips, feeling a prick of pride. Mem, floating between them, nodded happily.

"The pink girl is right. Documentation is key! Though I'd prefer not to be documented in a body that isn't my own again, like in the... Change incident." She shuddered again.

March lowered the camera and rummaged in her backpack, which seemed like an abyss of possibilities, triumphantly pulling out a set of carefully folded clothes.

"And speaking of posterity and iconic moments, I've prepared the perfect outfit for the next card! All my creative instincts tell me the next one to appear will be something like 'The Love', so I managed to convince my sister to make you this dress with hand-embroidered rose motifs, Stelle! It will match the botanical and solar energy of the card perfectly. And for you, Dan Heng, an elegant and sophisticated emerald green tuxedo, so you can be the serene, mysterious, and terribly attractive counterpoint!"

She presented them with a dramatic flourish, as if she were a model on the most exclusive runway in Pier Point.

Stelle looked at the bright, lush pink dress. It seemed... tremendously complicated to wear in the middle of a fight against, for example, a possibly carnivorous plant. *"Uh... March, are you sure? This looks a bit... bulky for running, dodging, and hitting."*

"Aesthetics come first, Stelle! Confidence is the best weapon! And an amazing wardrobe gives you unstoppable confidence! With your skills and the confidence boost, no one will be able to get in your way," declared March, pushing the dress into Stelle's arms with determination. Then, from her seemingly magical backpack, she pulled out a floral-patterned suit to match the dress, while looking at Dan Heng with an expression both goblin-like and complicit.

Dan Heng looked at the tuxedo with an expression of genuine horror and crossed arms, as if he had been shown an instrument of torture and wanted to protect himself from it, his fingers gripping his sleeves tightly. "I refuse. Under no circumstances, and I repeat, no circumstances, will I wear that... that theatrical garment to fight a lethal magical entity."

"Oh, come on! Don't be such a square! It'll be adorable!" insisted March, her smile unwavering, fueled by an inexhaustible source of optimism. "Imagine the scene: Stelle, radiant and vibrant like the midday sun, and you, so serious, handsome, and formal in your tuxedo, fighting together in an elegant dance against an evil flower, or a wild animal... It's the very essence of romance and adventure! The conflicting emotions! The beauty amidst the chaos!"

As March continued with her enthusiastic and detailed description of that hypothetical choreography, camera angles, and soundtrack for a battle that hadn't even happened yet, Stelle moved a little closer to Dan Heng. He was still looking at the tuxedo as if it were a greater threat than "The Sandy" itself.

"Hey," she murmured, holding the new Long card between her fingers, spinning it gently. "At least this time was better than 'The Change'." She said, looking at Dan Heng. He didn't need her to mention that, for him, any card had been better than "The Change". He was sure he'd have nightmares in the future where he woke up as that furry pink ball that insisted on calling itself a "sacred guardian". He averted his gaze from March's suit to look at her. A flash of something that wasn't pure irritation crossed the depth of his jade eyes. The mention of the catastrophic body swap between him and Mem made his cheeks tinge with a slight blush.

"Yes. The sand is... infinitely preferable to the experience of inhabiting such a... fluffy form." He glanced sideways at Mem. "It's not personal."

"Likewise!" Mem retorted, crossing her paws furiously. "Your body is too... angular and serious and rigid!"

It was the closest Dan Heng would come to admitting that, compared to his previous magical misadventures, something had gone moderately well. A small, almost imperceptible, progress.

"Then it's decided!" announced March, interrupting their momentary, fragile truce. "Tomorrow, at tea time, we'll try on the outfits in my room! And Stelle, don't forget to practice your transformation pose! The one you did today when you summoned the power was a bit... clumsy. Arms a bit higher, and a more determined look!"

"We haven't decided anything!" Stelle blushed slightly, remembering her clumsy landing after the seal (which, had she been wearing one of March's shorter outfits, would have resulted in everyone seeing her underwear). Dan Heng, for his part, turned decisively.

"If that's all you have to say, I'm leaving."

A couple of jumps were enough for him to disappear from sight, his tall, slender figure quickly vanishing among the long shadows cast by the twilight.

In the silence he left behind, March approached Stelle, taking her arm conspiratorially and lowering her voice to a confidential whisper.

"Don't worry about him, my dear Stelle. I'm sure that, in the deepest part of his icy heart, he is tremendously grateful that you saved him. In fact," she added, her smile turning sly and her eyes shining with insight, "have you noticed how he looks at you when he thinks you're not looking? Especially after you seal a card. It's that look... intense, confused. As if he doesn't know what to do with all the feelings you provoke in him. It's the classic symptom of a guy developing a crush bigger than the Lucentrional Boulevard, but who is too tsundere to admit it, even to himself. Even Mem has noticed!"

"It's true!" confirmed the pink bunny, floating over March's shoulder, while making sure no speck of sand disturbed her fur. "That brat's heart rate increases significantly in your proximity!"

Stelle watched the direction where Dan Heng's shadow had faded, then looked at the card in her hand. "THE SANDY" showed a woman with Arabic features, in a position similar to a yoga practitioner, and seemed calm now, tamed, its latent power locked under her custody. To be fair, Dan Heng had helped immensely in its capture. He was the one who had devised the strategy.

"It's normal, we did a lot of exercise," she murmured to herself, a low and somewhat sad smile appearing on her lips as she began to follow March back towards the park entrance, listening to her detailed plans for the next photoshoot. Mem floated beside her, giving her unsolicited opinion on the lighting. "It's fine. But next time, I swear, I'll be the one to record the brat getting caught in something. Tangled in vines, or stuck in magical honey, or anything. And then, we'll see how he likes it." she said, crossing her paws fiercely. "Right now, all I want is to go home and take a good bath."

The idea felt enormously satisfying to Stelle, who just wanted to empty her mind for a while. After all, collecting the Long Cards with Dan Heng, March, and Mem could be dangerous, chaotic, terribly embarrassing, and a constant challenge to her patience, but one thing was certain: thanks to the magic, the costumes, a talking guardian, and a certain jade-eyed mage, it was never, ever boring.

My name is Stelle Hunter. I'm a first-year student at Amphoreus Academy and I have a secret that could blow the roof off this house if my brother found out. Seriously, I'd only need cards like "The Windy" or "The Fire" to blow the roof off my house.

The alarm clock rang with its usual strident cacophony. With a groan, she stretched an arm out from under the comforter and hit it so hard she probably sent it to another dimension. The silence was a momentary relief.

Just five more minutes...

Just as the warm claws of sleep began to drag her back, her bedroom door swung wide open.

"Stelle! Get up now! You're going to be late again!" — the voice of Caelus, her "younger brother" even though he was only born five minutes later, cut through the air like a knife.

This is my brother Caelus. Although "brother" is too generous a term for this pest who thinks he's my personal guardian.

"And stop destroying alarm clocks, Dad said this one had to last for the week!" — he added, hands on his hips and his uniform impeccable.

She opened one eye, facing his silhouette. His hair was perfectly combed. It was exasperating. *If he grew it long, then he really wouldn't be able to maintain that impeccable look!*

"Wasn't me," — she murmured, her voice hoarse from sleep. "It's the alarm clock committing suicide upon hearing its own voice."

"Very funny," — he said. "Seriously, get up. Mom made pancakes."

Pancakes. The only talisman capable of rivaling the gravitational pull of my bed. And the only way to get me downstairs on time. Mom is very clever.

She crawled out from under the covers, feeling the cold wooden floor under her feet. Her room was a chaotic battlefield: schoolbooks stacked haphazardly, clothes on "mounting chairs," and, in one corner, her beloved trash can.

An organized mess, I call it. And hidden in the nightstand drawer, my biggest secret.

As she dressed in her uniform, she couldn't help but glance at the drawer of her nightstand. There, hidden under a stack of papers, were the pen and the card book.

It all started one day when I was home alone. The forbidden basement, a book with a strange cover, a lock shaped like an intertwined sun and moon... and when I touched it, a blinding light. Cards flying everywhere, like paper butterflies escaping from a cage. And then she appeared. Mem. A talking pink plushie who claimed to be the Guardian of the Long Cards. She told me that I, for some reason, had broken the seal and that it was my duty to capture them all, or else a great calamity would be unleashed upon this world. And she gave me this. The pen. Which wasn't just a pen.

She picked it up carefully. It was light, with a snowy white barrel and barbs of a shiny silver with pink stripes. At its base, a small amber detail.

All it takes is a simple flick of the wrist, a firm thought, and it transforms. Energy flows from my hand, enveloping the pen in a whirlwind of light until, where there was once a simple writing tool, now stands "The Street Sweeper," my lance-staff. The weapon with which I seal the runaway cards. Sometimes I still can't believe it. Me, Stelle Hunter, magical card collector.

"Stelle! The pancakes are getting cold!" — roared Caelus from downstairs.

"Coming!" — she shouted back, stowing the pen and card book in her bag with a care she didn't afford anything else. She finished tying her tie and half-combed her hair before nodding satisfactorily at the mirror. Still, March would probably insist on styling it in some outlandish way between classes.

She ran downstairs, almost tripping on the last step. The aroma of coffee, melted butter, and syrup flooded the house. A scene of absolute normality. Her father, Blade, was already in the kitchen, frying more batter. He wore his black apron (with the phrase "Kiss the Cook" written in pink) and moved the pan with a concentration he normally reserved for fixing engines or forging some relic for a businessman with too much money to spend.

"Good morning, little star," — he said in a grumpy tone without looking up from the pan as Stelle planted a kiss on his cheek. "Caelus says you annihilated another alarm clock."

"It was death by natural causes," — replied Stelle, sliding into her chair, and leaving her backpack next to it, checking for the third time that day that the cards were still in place.

Her mother, Kafka, was sitting at the table, reading the newspaper with an elegance that made even local crime news seem like fine literature. She took a sip of her coffee.

"You must learn to be gentler with technology, dear. Or with your brother. He worries," — she said, her voice a melodious whisper. "Though I admit the sound of that alarm clock was particularly offensive. Perhaps it was for the best, Bladie."

Caelus sighed, pouring her a glass of milk, and passing the milk carton to his sister.

"I'm just trying to get you to be on time. Not all of us are lucky enough to have Professor Himeko spoil us."

"She doesn't spoil me," — protested Stelle, grabbing a pancake with her fingers. "She just... appreciates my free spirit."

"Appreciates that you don't fall asleep in her class," — he retorted.

And that's my family life. Chaotic, but normal. Or so it seems. Because what none of them know, or so I hope, is what happens after school. The card business, Mem... and Dan Heng.

As they ate breakfast, amidst the family discussion, Stelle couldn't help but think of him.

Dan Heng. He arrived in the city a few months ago, transferred from Hong Kong. He's a direct descendant of Long, and according to him (well, to be fair, only at the beginning), his family are the true custodians of the Long Cards, and he was sent here after his family detected that the card seal had been broken. He also said his family had dragon blood or something, though it's hard to believe. At first, it was a... hostile encounter. He showed up with a cold, superior attitude, saying I was an incompetent who had unleashed a power I couldn't control. He was arrogant, distant, and terribly skilled with his lineage's magic. And very annoying. It was more of a competition to capture the card than a mission to capture the card.

Our first fight, against the card "The Thunder," was a disaster of lack of coordination and reproaches. But something changed when we faced "The Time." The world stopped around us, trapped in an eternal loop of a few seconds. Only we could move within that bubble. We had to set aside our differences and trust each other to find a solution. It was the first time we didn't look at each other as rivals, but as forced allies.

And then... the "The Change" incident happened. An uncontrollable blush rises to my cheeks every time I remember it. The card hit us with its power, and suddenly... Dan Heng was trapped in Mem's fluffy pink body, and Mem, with her entire crazy personality, was in Dan Heng's serious and stoic body. It was the longest, most confusing, funniest, and most embarrassing day of my life. Seeing "Dan Heng" (i.e., Mem) jumping and squealing about having human hands, while "Mem" (i.e., Dan Heng) tried desperately to maintain composure with my features... was surreal. I even had to take him home, because Mom would ask where my favorite plushie was, and Mem had to take Dan Heng's place (since he came here with his little sister Bailu, and she couldn't be left alone). We were both talking in my room all night. After that, I like to think we started being friends.

For the past several days, every time we get together to capture cards, I always feel my heart race for no reason, and something tells me it's not due to physical exercise. Now, after yesterday, after sealing "The Sandy" and having to help him out of that sandy tomb... something is different. The way he looked at me... it wasn't just the usual frustration or resignation. There was a flash of something more. I think it's the same way I look at him. I know it's silly. March, of course, hasn't stopped pointing out every glance, every stammered word, with her camera always on, talking about "signs" or things like that.

"Stelle?" — Blade's voice snapped her out of her thoughts. "Are you okay? You've turned red. Are the pancakes too hot?"

"No! No, I'm fine," — said Stelle, looking down at her plate. "Just... thinking about... a math problem."

Caelus looked at her skeptically, a Cheshire grin forming on his face.

"I've never seen you blush over math. It's not that maybe there's some..."

"There's a first time for everything!" — she interrupted him, jumping up and grabbing a roll from the center of the table. "Come on, we don't want to be late!"

"Is it me or is she acting weird?" — her father's voice sounded as she took the stairs two at a time. She ran to her room to bring Mem her food, and to take her to school with her. Before the creature could say anything, she grabbed it by the scruff of its neck and stuffed it into her backpack, the roll beside it (Stelle knew she would swallow every last crumb). Before leaving, she couldn't help but take out and look at the card book once more. There, next to the base of the pen, was the card from the previous day. "THE SANDY". She touched it with the tip of her finger. It was soft, almost warm. A bit like what she had felt in her chest after capturing it...

She closed the drawer. Life as a card hunter was complicated. Full of secrets, magical fights, and a boy with jade eyes who drove her crazy (in a completely professional sense of the word). But as she went downstairs to go to school with her brother, with the sound of Mem swallowing in her backpack, she couldn't imagine a different life. She just hoped that, someday, she could tell Caelus the whole truth. And that Dan Heng... well, that Dan Heng would stop being so tsundere for a second and admit that, maybe, just maybe, he didn't dislike her that much.

The trip to school with Caelus was their usual morning routine of reproaches, jokes, and monosyllables. But as she crossed the gates of Amphoreus Academy, Stelle felt the relief of someone who could let their guard down, if only a little. There, at least, she shared her secret with someone. March 7th was waiting for her, bouncing in front of the lockers.

"Stelle! I thought your brother had taken you prisoner for being late again!" exclaimed March, linking her arm with Stelle's, winking at Caelus.

"The pancakes negotiated my release," replied Stelle, letting herself be carried away by the pink whirlwind that was her friend, waving goodbye to her brother and sticking out her tongue.

Together they entered the classroom bathed in the light of dawn. And there, in his seat at the back of the class, behind her seat and March's, with a posture that defied the teenage bustle, was Dan Heng, reading one of his usual boring books. He seemed a statue of serenity.

"Good morning, Stelle. The Seventh," he said, briefly looking up from his book. His voice was clear, lacking the harshness that characterized it at the beginning of their... rivalry? Alliance? Stelle wasn't sure anymore.

He greeted me by my name. Without the 'Hunter'. Not March. That's new. Since 'The Change', it's as if a layer of ice has cracked. It unsettles me.

"Good morning, Dan Heng!" chirped March, then let out a stifled giggle, looking at them with eyes shining with pure mischief.

"What?" asked Stelle, feeling under a microscope.

"Nothing, nothing~" sang March, bringing a finger to her lips. "It's just such a beautiful day! That's all!"

That laugh bodes nothing good. It's surely another of her theories about Dan Heng's attraction to me. Sometimes I hate that her camera allows her to record every sigh.

Stelle sat down in her seat, directly in front of Dan Heng, feeling the weight of his presence more than ever. She took out her books, trying to project a normality that slipped through her fingers.

The classroom door opened, but it wasn't Professor Himeko, who had been their tutor for much of the course. Instead, the substitute teacher, Aglaea, entered. She wore a flowing dress in green and gold tones, and her golden hair fell in perfect small curls despite being short. An elegance that instantly calmed the atmosphere.

"Good morning, dear students," she said in a voice as soft as silk. Everyone hurried to their seats.

Professor Aglaea. She arrived a few weeks ago as a substitute and everyone adores her. She's kind, explains well... I like her a lot too. She gives me a sense of calm. But Dan Heng…

Professor Aglaea smiled at the class, and her gaze seemed to linger on them for a moment too long, before moving on as if nothing had happened. "Everyone, I have a wonderful announcement. As you know, the school festival is approaching."

A murmur of excitement ran through the classroom. Stelle couldn't help but smile. It was a highly anticipated event every year, ideal for forgetting about the stress of classes.

"And by vote," she continued, "we have decided to perform Sleeping Beauty."

The class erupted in exclamations of joy. March, next to Stelle, could barely contain herself in her seat.

"And to make it fairer and more exciting," announced Aglaea, pulling out a small glass urn full of folded papers, "the casting will be by lottery!"

She placed the urn on her desk. "Each of these papers contains the name of one of you. I will announce the character and then draw a slip." She wrote 'Fairy Godmother 1' on the board before turning back to the class. "We'll leave the main roles for the end." She put her hand into the urn with a smile, shuffling the papers with her fingers. "For the first fairy godmother... Hyacinthia!"

Hyacinth smiled, relieved and happy. Stelle completely agreed with the role. She was the nurse's assistant, and Professor Anaxa's helper, another newly arrived teacher, and she cared for all the students equally. If there was anyone suitable for the role of Fairy Godmother, it would be her.

"For the second... Cipher!"

The whole class looked at the most disruptive girl in the class. Cipher paled slightly, with an expression similar to that of a scared cat, but nodded.

An almost imperceptible whisper came from behind. "Stelle."

She turned slightly. Dan Heng wasn't looking at her, but at the teacher, his jade eyes narrowed in deep distrust.

"Do you feel it?" he murmured, barely moving his lips.

"Feel what?" she whispered back, feigning interest in her textbook.

"Her magical power. It's denser today, normally it's more discreet. Too sweet, like the calm before the storm. I think she's using it right now," his voice was grave, laden with a certainty that made the hair on Stelle's neck stand on end.

Always with the same thing. He says the teacher gives off a strange magical energy. I don't feel anything. Just peace. I'd swear she's a normal person, since I can feel Mem and Dan Heng's magical power. But he's the expert, right? Although sometimes his obsession worries me.

"You're seeing ghosts where there are none," she whispered, though a small knot of doubt formed in her stomach.

"Ghosts? After 'The Time', where she seemed aware of the time loop... do you still think I'm paranoid?" he retorted, with a hint of frustration. "That energy is undoubtedly magical, Stelle. And it's not benign, if she's normally hiding it. Look closely," he whispered, his voice urgent and low. "Look at her hands. She's not just drawing papers. Watch her fingers. When she touches the urn, energy flows. It's not a lottery, it's a farce. She's manipulating the results."

Stelle, hypnotized by his proximity and the gravity of his tone, shifted her gaze to Professor Aglaea's hands. The woman was reaching in for the next draw, and for a moment, Stelle thought she saw a faint golden glow around her fingers, like a thread of liquid honey tangling with the papers.

Is that... is it just a reflection of the light? Or...? No. It can't be. Dan Heng is right, isn't he? After all we've seen... why couldn't this be another card, another trap?

"Do you see?" insisted Dan Heng, his voice a thread of sound against her ear. "It's not paranoia. It's a trap. Perhaps she's planning something for the festival."

They were submerged in a world of their own, a microcosm of whispers and furtive glances towards the urn, analyzing every movement of the teacher, seeking confirmation in each other's eyes, their gazes completely fixed on those golden threads. Stelle hypnotized by their brilliance, while Dan Heng seemed to want to decipher the type of magic they emanated. Aglaea's voice, announcing more roles, became a distant background murmur. They didn't even hear her as she announced the names of the protagonists.

Until, suddenly, they returned to the present. Mostly due to the elbow March gave Stelle.

The silence was absolute. The whole class was looking at them. Heads were turned towards them, and all expressions ranged from curiosity to amusement. But one look stood out among all: March's. She wasn't just looking at them; she was on the verge of ecstasy. She was bouncing slightly in her seat, her smile so wide it seemed like her face would hurt, and she held her camera, positioned so Aglaea couldn't see it from her spot, aimed directly at them, with the recording LED on like a red, accusatory eye.

Oh, no. March. She caught us. Whispering, with our heads so close together... In her mind, this is already the forbidden romance scene in the theater. She's about to burst with excitement. And Aglaea...

Professor Aglaea was watching them with a curious smile, but her eyes... her eyes seemed to have a glint of satisfaction.

Wait a minute…

Chapter Text

"You're the prince?!"

Stelle's room was immersed in the cozy chaos that characterized it. Scattered clothes, precariously stacked books, and in the center of the floor, an improvised tablecloth with several boxes of pastries that March had brought to celebrate the "exciting play casting." Stelle decided not to answer Mem's question, who was sitting on a cushion, devouring a strawberry cake with a dedication rivaling a dragon guarding its treasure. Powdered sugar stained the pink fur around her mouth.

Dan Heng was sitting on the desk chair, an ancient spellbook open on his lap. But his eyes weren't moving across the pages. He was rigid, the tips of his ears visibly blushing, a striking contrast to his usual serene pallor.

Wow, look at that. Dan Heng's ears are as red as peppers. He's been like this since March started talking about the play. It's almost... funny. Almost.

"This is so exciting! How could you have missed it if you were there!" exclaimed March, spinning around on the carpet again, her camera in hand. "The festival, the play, the casting...! Everything is perfect. And the lottery was so dramatic!"

Mem, after swallowing a huge bite, licked her paws. "Yes, yes, very exciting, but the roll Stelle gave me was really good. Though I still don't understand one thing, Stelle," she said, tilting her little head. "If you got to be the Brave Prince... who is the Princess? That cheerful girl, Trispios?"

The effect was instantaneous. Stelle, who was about to put a piece of cake in her mouth, trying to ignore the situation, froze. An intense heat rose up her neck to her cheeks. In front of her, Dan Heng closed the book with a sharp snap and averted his gaze to the window, but the blush on his ears intensified to a vibrant scarlet.

March let out a laugh that was half hyena, half failing engine. She collapsed onto a pile of cushions, choking with laughter (perhaps on the cake in her throat), pointing a trembling finger at the two of them as tears welled in her eyes.

"Oh, by all the gods! Your faces! It's even better than I imagined!" she gasped between giggles.

Dan Heng took a deep breath, visibly struggling to regain his composure. "We gathered here," he said, in a voice trying to be cold but sounding a bit strangled, "to discuss strategies and improve Stelle's combat against possible Long Cards that might appear. Not for... this. If we're not going to focus, I'm leaving."

"Of course, of course! 'Combat' strategies!" March managed to say between laughs, making air quotes with her fingers. "Strategies for the 'combat' of furtive glances and blushes! Strategies for courting a princess!" *Stelle started wishing March would actually choke for real.*

At that moment of perfect and embarrassing chaos, the bedroom door opened without ceremony. Caelus poked his head in, followed by his friend Phainon, whose calm demeanor and subtle smile made Stelle's heart immediately skip a beat.

Oh, no. Phainon. Nononono. Here. Now. Why?

"Stelle? Everything okay? We heard noise," said Caelus, entering. His eyes landed on the plate of pastries situated directly in front of Mem. Stelle acted on pure survival instinct. She grabbed a piece of cake with a fork and quickly brought it to Mem's open mouth, who was pretending to be a plushie.

"Hey, hey, easy there, hungry beast!" Stelle said in a playful tone, addressing her companion, who seemed to be salivating over the cake in front of her. "You're not even leaving any for the others!"

Mem, with puffed-out cheeks and understanding the game, managed to keep a fairly neutral face. Hopefully, they wouldn't notice her plushie's pupils moving.

Caelus laughed, shaking his head. "Are you feeding your plushies again, Stelle? You're a lost cause."

Damn you, Mem. Damn your insatiable appetite and my stupid reflexes. Phainon and Caelus are looking at me. They must think I'm an idiot. Or a child.

"It's... a very expressive plushie," murmured Stelle, avoiding Phainon's gaze, feeling her face burn even more, unaware that the boy at her desk was looking at her with a furrowed brow.

"Well, anyway," Caelus continued, rubbing his hands together with amusement, looking at the boy at her desk. "I came to laugh a bit. The rumor is all over the school, Dan Heng. Is it true? Did you get cast as the Princess in the play?"

Dan Heng remained motionless as a statue, staring fixedly at the wall as if he found the meaning of the universe in the texture of the paint.

"That's right," confirmed March, catching her breath and wiping away a tear. "Our Princess Dan Heng. So serene and majestic."

Caelus let out an open laugh. "I can't believe it! The most serious guy in the whole school, dressed as a princess! This is epic!"

Phainon, who had been observing the scene with his characteristic smile, interjected with curiosity. "Sounds interesting. And if Dan Heng is the princess... who will be the Brave Prince who wakes her?"

Time stopped. March, with a smile that could rival the Cheshire Cat's, stretched out an arm and pointed directly at Stelle, who closed her eyes imagining what was coming.

"Her! Our brave and intrepid Prince Stelle!"

Caelus stopped laughing abruptly. His brain, visibly, began processing the information. He blinked several times.

"Wait... the Prince is... Stelle?" he asked, confused. "But... then... the Prince is the one who..." His face contorted into a mask of cosmic horror. *In other circumstances, Stelle would have laughed.* "You're telling me that this guy is going to kiss my sister!"

March nodded enthusiastically, enjoying every millisecond. "Exactly! Technically, Caelus..." she said, drawing out the words for effect, "your sister, Stelle, the prince charming, is going to be the one who kisses Dan Heng on stage!"

Caelus's scream was high-pitched and full of genuine fraternal panic. "WHAT?! NO!! Stelle is not kissing anyone!! And especially not that... that intense-eyed terrorist!! ABSOLUTELY NOT!!"

As Caelus entered a state of hysteria, shaking his head and gesticulating, Dan Heng remained petrified in his chair, a blush now covering the entire back of his neck. *Stelle wished the floor would swallow her.* Mem, oblivious to the human drama, grabbed another pastry, unaware that Phainon was watching her.

Meanwhile, March, with her camera now discreetly recording the scene from her lap, smiled with the satisfaction of someone who knows they've just obtained the most valuable material of the entire season.

Finally, the room sank into an awkward silence, broken only by Caelus's last, agonizing gasps and the sound of Mem chewing her third pastry. *Stelle felt the blush on her cheeks could set the carpet on fire.* The worst part wasn't her brother's hysteria, nor Phainon still standing there by the door, observing the whole scene with his calm and slightly amused smile, not even March's stifled giggles. No. The worst part was the look of deep shame and mortification on Dan Heng's face, as if he'd rather be in any other mess than this one.

Please, let the earth swallow me. Right now. Phainon and Caelus are seeing everything. They're seeing me blushing like a fool, my best friend making a spectacle, and Dan Heng... Dan Heng looking as if he'd been caught doing something he shouldn't. He must think what a shitty situation we're in. How much does he dislike this?

Just when she thought the situation couldn't get worse, firm, heavy footsteps echoed in the hallway. The door, already ajar, swung wide open, revealing the imposing figure of her father. He was wearing his usual work clothes, stained with grease, and in his hands he held a tray with a freshly baked apple pie that smelled wonderful. However, his expression shifted from serene to as gloomy as a stormy afternoon as soon as his eyes landed on the "pest" sitting at his daughter's desk.

"Stelle. Caelus," he grumbled, his voice a low rumble. His eyes, the color of steel, swept the room and immediately fixed on Dan Heng, who, noticing the gaze, became even more rigid, if that was possible. The blush on his ears was replaced by a deathly pallor. "I made pie," announced Blade, placing the tray on the only free space on the table with a sharp thud. His offer, however, didn't sound inviting at all towards a certain black-haired individual in the room. It sounded more like a challenge. "Does anyone want some?" he asked, and his tone made it clear that the correct answer, especially from that pest, was "no, thank you."

The tension in the room thickened enough to be cut with a knife. The discomfort over the imminent theatrical spectacle (and especially the kiss) was eclipsed by the palpable, icy disapproval emanating from Blade towards Dan Heng.

Dad... No. Not now. Please. Does he have a radar for detecting when Dan Heng is in my room? We weren't even alone! This is a total disaster.

March, sensing the change in atmosphere, lowered her camera, though her smile didn't disappear completely, it just became more nervous. Blade's apple pie, despite its delicious aroma, seemed to have absorbed all the discomfort from the air. Blade remained standing, arms crossed, an imposing and silent presence whose dislike for Dan Heng was as evident as if he had painted it on the wall. Normally a serene and calm man, the mere presence of the young man with black hair and jade eyes was enough to transform him into a grumpy, overprotective guardian.

Caelus, who knew this peculiar effect Dan Heng had on his father well, swallowed hard. He knew, from experience, that mentioning anything linking Dan Heng to his sister in a context that wasn't openly hostile was like lighting a fuse. And the news that they were the Prince and Princess of the play... that wasn't a fuse, it was a barrel of gunpowder. He dedicated himself to eating his pie in silence, praying the conversation would die there. He could laugh at that pair all he wanted, but he didn't want to see a dead body.

March, picking up the dangerous vibe, tried to distract. "This pie is delicious, Mr. Hunter! The crust is perfect!" she said enthusiastically. At least Blade liked her.

Blade nodded, a brief gesture. His eyes didn't leave Dan Heng, who, along with Stelle, had frozen in place, looking for a way to escape this domestic tribunal.

It was then that Phainon, having finished his slice with elegance, broke the fragile silence. His voice, always so calm and serene, cut through the air like a sharp knife wrapped in silk.

"She's right, March. It's excellent, Mr. Hunter," said Phainon, with a polite smile. Stelle was sure Blade approved of Phainon as a possible romantic interest much more than he tolerated Dan Heng breathing. Then, his eyes settled on Stelle and Dan Heng, and he added, as if he were simply commenting on the weather. "And it will no doubt give these two plenty of energy for rehearsals. They must be nervous about performing the lead roles together. It's a big commitment for the Prince and the Princess."

The world stopped. Dan Heng wanted to drown Phainon right then and there.

Caelus choked on his pie, coughing convulsively. March let out a small "oh!" and brought her hands to her mouth, her eyes darting between Phainon and Blade. Mem sank even deeper into her pile of cushions, pretending to be a rock.

Stelle felt all the blood in her body concentrate in her face, burning with the intensity of an oven. Phainon! Why?! I thought you were calm, not a chaos-sower!

But it was Blade's reaction that froze the blood in everyone's veins.

The man's face, normally impassive, darkened in an alarming way. A muscle in his jaw began to twitch. His gaze, which before was of simple disapproval, transformed into something icy and dangerous. Slowly, like a predator identifying its prey, he shifted his gaze from Dan Heng to Phainon.

"Excuse me?" asked Blade, and his voice was so low and deep it almost made the windowpanes vibrate. "Could you repeat that?"

Phainon, either completely oblivious to the storm he had unleashed or enjoying it in a subtle and twisted way, smiled slightly. "Oh, I was just commenting on how exciting it must be for Stelle and for Dan Heng to play the Prince and the Princess in the Sleeping Beauty play. It's an honor, no doubt."

There was no shout. There was no immediate outburst. That would have been a manageable reaction. Instead, there was a deathly silence, charged with a contained fury that was a thousand times more terrifying. Blade turned his head, with a deliberate, terrifying slowness, until his gaze, now laden with a promise of violence, settled once more on Dan Heng.

Dan Heng, pale as death, instinctively took a step back. He could feel the danger emanating from Blade like a heat wave.

"You," said Blade, and the word sounded like a sentence. "Prince..." He spat the title out as if it were poison. "... with my daughter."

"Dad, it's just a play," Stelle tried to say, her voice slightly trembling. She'd prefer Dan Heng to stay alive for the next few weeks. And years, if possible.

"It was by lottery," Dan Heng added quickly, finding his voice by pure survival instinct. "It wasn't my choice."

"Yeah, Dad, it was totally random!" confirmed Caelus, raising his hands in a gesture of peace. "There's nothing to worry about!"

Blade didn't seem to hear them. His eyes didn't leave Dan Heng. "I think," he said, with an eerie calm, "it's time for you to leave. Now. And regarding that play..." He paused, and his gaze swept over Dan Heng from head to toe. "I hope you can speak with your homeroom teacher."

It was a veiled threat, but everyone understood it perfectly: if Dan Heng dared to get close to Stelle on that stage, he wouldn't leave alive.

"Let's go, Dan Heng," whispered March, grabbing his arm and pulling him towards the door with unsuspected strength.

Dan Heng offered no resistance. With a last look of alarm and resignation directed at Stelle, he let himself be dragged by March out of the room and down the stairs, escaping the minefield his presence had created.

Stelle stared at the empty door, her heart sinking. Then, she turned her head to look at Phainon, who was still smiling with that tranquility that now seemed exasperating. She didn't want to look at Dan Heng.

The air in the school gymnasium vibrated with nervous, expectant energy. The day of the play had arrived, and backstage was a controlled chaos of last-minute touch-ups, urgent whispers, and the distant murmur of the audience beginning to fill their seats. Velvety fabrics hung from the flies, sets of a dreamlike castle and an enchanted forest stood against the walls, and a swarm of students in bright costumes moved with a mixture of panic and excitement.

Amid the whirlwind, Stelle tried to find a moment of calm. The Prince Charming costume that Evernight, March's sister, had tailored for her was a true work of art. She wore a large, wide-brimmed red hat, made of thick felt that gave her a noble and theatrical air, with the pen she used to hunt cards attached as decoration (March's insistence). Over her shoulders rested a white cape with a red lining, of shiny satin and stiff taffeta that fluttered softly with every movement. The blue jacket, adorned with gold trim and red details on the puffed sleeves, fitted her figure elegantly, and the red silk bow at the neck contrasted with the whiteness of the blouse peeking out from beneath. The red velvet breeches completed the outfit, along with tall dark leather boots that gave her bearing and firmness. At her waist rested a golden sword with an ornate hilt that reflected the stage lights as if holding its own brilliance.

Her silver hair, usually unruly, was pulled back in a braided bun that accentuated the line of her neck, and for a moment, seeing herself in the mirror, she barely recognized herself. She felt elegant, powerful… and a little magical, as if the character she was about to play had come to life in her even before stepping on stage.

Breathe. It's just a play. A play where your scene partner is Dan Heng, your father is in the audience, and you have to fake a kiss. Nothing out of the ordinary. Nothing that could go terribly, catastrophically wrong.

Through a gap in the curtain, she spotted the auditorium. There, in the front row, was her family. Kafka, her mother, with a serene smile and her camera ready. Caelus, beside her, with an expression of resignation and fear at the same time, casting fearful glances at his father. And Blade, sitting with a relaxed posture, a small, rare smile on his lips, satisfied after his children had assured him that Dan Heng would not be the prince and that Stelle would be the lead. He seemed a proud father, happy to see his daughter on stage. He doesn't know. He doesn't know that Dan Heng is the princess and I'm the prince. Thank all the gods for that small miracle.

"Stelle! Stop peeking and get over here!" March's voice, who was playing the third fairy godmother, echoed backstage. The sky-blue dress she wore, wide and airy, seemed to float around her like a cloud of light. Each layer of tulle and organza captured the glow of the lamps, reflecting it in silver sparkles that danced with her every movement. The bodice, adorned with tiny gems and filigree embroidery, fitted her figure delicately, while a sky-blue satin headband marked her waist. A translucent cape rested on her shoulders, and she carried a cloth bag from which the inanimate head of Mem peeked out, perfectly pretending to be a plushie. "And Dan Heng! Get out here, I want to see the full ensemble!"

From behind a screen decorated with vines, Dan Heng appeared. Stelle felt the air escape her lungs. The dress Evernight had created for the "princess" was a true masterpiece. Crafted in a range of greens from jade to emerald, the design evoked the freshness of a forest at dawn. The fitted, sleeveless bodice was adorned with fine gold thread embroidery mimicking stems and leaves, while small green jewel details sparkled like dewdrops on the fabric.

From the waist bloomed a voluminous, multi-layered skirt, each layer more translucent than the last, made of organza and tulle that cascaded in soft waves, edged with delicate ruffles and satin ribbons. Hidden among the folds were adornments in the shape of leaves and small embroidered flowers, giving the impression that the dress itself was breathing life. At the back, a large pale green satin bow accentuated the silhouette, and a light transparent veil fell from the shoulders, floating with every movement.

But what truly captured Stelle's attention was his hair. Dan Heng wore his black mane loose, falling in long, silky waves over his shoulders, just as he did during his ancestral magic rituals (he normally wore it in a low ponytail, giving the impression it was short). The usual severity of his features softened under that dark cascade and the dress's radiance, creating an image of ethereal, almost unreal beauty. For a moment, the gym, the bustle, and the nervousness disappeared: all that remained was the vision of his princess, straight out of a fairy tale, radiant under the dim stage lights. She could almost hear the birds singing around him.

Gods... Evernight is a magician. He looks... incredible. And so uncomfortable it's almost painful.

"My, my," whispered March, admiring her handiwork. "Evernight has exceeded all expectations. You look beautiful, Dan Heng! Though you look about to disintegrate from discomfort."

"This attire," Dan Heng muttered, his voice tenser than Stelle had heard in a long time, "is completely impractical. The sleeves are too long, the skirt restricts movement... In this outfit, I could hardly defend myself if a Long Card appeared right now."

March giggled. "Oh, please! Today you don't have to fight anything more complicated than your own nerves!" she said, winking at him. "Today, Dan Heng, your only job is to be saved by your brave prince. So relax and enjoy the ride."

Dan Heng shot a murderous look at March but said nothing. His blush, however, was evident even under the dim backstage lights.

"Now, let's remember the climax," March announced, lowering her voice and rubbing her hands with a gleam of pure relish in her eyes. "Stelle, you enter after defeating the evil witch Castorice," she said, pointing at the sweet Castorice, who, dressed in a black robe, was practicing her lines with a terrified expression. "You find the princess sleeping on her ebony bed. You gaze upon her, overwhelmed by her beauty... and then..."

She made a dramatic pause, looking at them both intently. Stelle was sure Dan Heng had the same expression she did. She glanced at him sideways. His ears were completely red, in a way that was too adorable. He glanced at her sideways, blushing, and she quickly looked away.

"... the kiss," March said, with a clarity that left no room for doubt. "The kiss of true love that breaks the spell. And no, no tricks. Professor Aglaea made it clear. It has to be convincing. It has to be... a kiss. For real. For the sake of the play, for artistic integrity." Her gaze settled on Dan Heng, and a sly smile played on her lips. "And don't tell me you aren't a little bit curious, Dan Heng. We've all seen how you look at each other when you think the other isn't looking."

Stelle felt her face burn like an ember. March! Dan Heng immediately averted his gaze, but the blush spread from his ears to his neck, contrasting violently with the pallor of his dress.

"It's a ridiculous demand," he grumbled, staring at a corner of the floor.

"It's theater!" March retorted, as if that explained everything. "Now, places everyone! The show is about to start. Stelle, you by the curtain. Dan Heng, on the other side. And remember! Kiss! For real! For art!"

March turned and headed to her position, taking Mem in her bag. Stelle and Dan Heng were left alone for a moment, immersed in a silence charged with shame and nervousness. The applause signaling the curtain's rise resonated in the auditorium. In the blink of an eye, the princess would soon be of age and should appear on stage.

"Stelle," Dan Heng said, not looking at her. His voice was low, almost a sigh.

"Yes?"

"Don't... you don't have to... You can fake it if you want."

Stelle nodded, unable to articulate a word. Her heart was beating so hard she feared her hat would move. Professor Aglaea's voice, the narrator's, amplified and melodious, filled the auditorium. "Once upon a time, in a kingdom far, far away..."

The great crimson velvet curtain, heavy and majestic, began to rise with an almost ritual slowness, revealing inch by inch the splendor of King Stefan's throne room. First appeared the tall stained-glass windows filtering artificial light in dancing beams of color, projecting spots of sapphire, ruby, and emerald onto the polished wooden floor. Then emerged the faux marble columns, carved with such detail they seemed authentic from a distance, with their perfect fluting and gilded capitals supporting vaults painted with royal hunting scenes where noble-looking stags and proud falcons seemed to hold their breath at the unfolding story. Finally, the curtain revealed the center stage, dominated by a golden brocade canopy under which stood the cradle of carved ebony, so black and polished it reflected the lights like a dark mirror, adorned with garlands of white silk roses whose petals seemed so real that several spectators in the front rows instinctively leaned forward to catch their imagined scent.

Professor Aglaea moved to the proscenium with fluid movements that made her long black gauze dress ripple like dark water stirred by underwater currents. Stopping in the center, right on the edge where the world of the stage met the reality of the auditorium, she raised her hands with fingers outstretched in a gesture that seemed to summon ancient magic. "Long, long ago," she began in her silky voice that enveloped each spectator in an auditory caress, "in a kingdom where rivers sang secret melodies to the moon and ancient forests kept promises as old as the stars among their roots, King Stefan and his beloved Queen Leah celebrated with tears of joy and hearts swollen with hope the birth of their long-awaited daughter, Princess Aurora, the fruit of a love that had conquered sterility and despair."

The King, played by a senior student whose purple velvet robe lined with faux ermine fell in perfect folds, raised the small princess in his arms with hands that barely trembled with emotion, presenting her to the court as the most precious treasure the kingdom had ever possessed. The ladies in pastel satin dresses that whispered as they moved and the gentlemen in velvet doublets embroidered with gold thread in patterns so intricate they took hours of work bowed before the cradle in a coordinated wave of curtsies, their faces illuminated by genuine smiles that seemed to compete in brilliance with the jewels adorning their necks and hands.

"To bless the newborn," Aglaea continued with a sweeping gesture of her arm that made the jewels in her headdress shine like ephemeral constellations, "they summoned the three fairy godmothers of the kingdom, eternal guardians of the most precious gifts mortals could receive, weavers of fate whose spindles spun not wool but the very future."

A soft music of harp and bells, so ethereal it seemed to come from another plane of existence, announced the entrance of the Spring Fairy. Hyacinthia didn't walk but floated, her feet barely touching the stage boards, while her pale pink tulle dress adorned with hundreds of tiny pearls that sparkled like morning dew created an aura of spring freshness around her. As she bent over the cradle with the grace of a willow swaying in the wind, her star-tipped wand of cut crystal traced golden circles in the air that remained visible for seconds before fading like dreams at dawn. "I grant you, little Aurora," she sang with a voice reminiscent of the song of nightingales at daybreak, "the gift of eternal beauty. May your face always be as fresh as the first flower that breaks the winter snow, may your gaze radiate the light of newborn stars, and may your smile illuminate the darkest corners of the kingdom like the May sun illuminates the fields after the deluge."

The audience's applause was like leaves rustling in the wind, soft and approving, a murmur of admiration that swept through the seats like a summer breeze. Before it ceased, while the last echoes of the spring blessing still resonated, the Summer Fairy made her entrance. Cipher, normally disruptive and full of chaotic energy, now moved with a priestly gravity no one knew she possessed, each step measured and meaningful, her sky-blue satin dress shining like the sky on a cloudless July day. The motifs of silver stars embroidered on her dress with metallic thread seemed to capture and multiply all the stage light, creating a kaleidoscopic effect that dazzled the spectators. "And I," she declared solemnly while her wand of crystal carved like an icicle emitted a bluish glow that temporarily tinted the stage with oceanic hues, "grant you the gift of song. May your voice calm the fiercest beasts with its harmonious modulations, make the most withered gardens bloom with its vital melody, and heal wounded hearts with the purity of its notes, like the summer rain soothes the thirsty earth."

A sinister drum roll resonated in the auditorium like a presage of an approaching storm, followed by a silence so heavy one could hear a fly buzz. The lights flickered in sickly purple and green tones, projecting dancing shadows that writhed on the walls like restless specters freed from their spectral prison.

"But behold," Aglaea continued in a grave tone as the silence became absolute and oppressive, "a powerful witch, expert in the dark arts, offended to the core for not having been invited to the celebration, made her appearance to sow darkness where there was only light, to poison joy with the bitterness of resentment."

From the right wing, making the stage boards creak with her heavy steps that echoed like hammer blows on a coffin, appeared the evil Maleficent. Castorice, with her black robe made from patches of blackened velvet and silk that billowed like the wings of a wounded raven, seemed like a blot of ink spreading across an immaculate parchment.

Her face, normally sweet and full of life, was contorted by a mask of perfectly executed rancor that transformed her features into a sinister caricature of herself, and in her right hand she carried a gnarled, twisted wooden staff topped with a sphere of dark crystal that absorbed light instead of reflecting it, creating a disturbing visual void. *Stelle had to admit that, based solely on that expression on her face, she was a good actress.*

"I did not receive the invitation to your celebration!" she shouted with a voice that rumbled in the expectant silence, each word laden with ancestral venom and resentment accumulated over centuries of exclusions. "And for this affront, for this contempt that wounds more deeply than any sword, I cast my curse upon the princess!" She extended a trembling, pale finger towards the cradle, and the sphere on her staff began to glow with a malignant violet light that seemed to suck the air from the room, making it hard for the spectators to breathe. "Before the sun sets on the day of her sixteenth birthday, the princess will prick her finger on the spindle of a spinning wheel... and die!"

A collective cry of horror arose from the audience like a wave breaking against cliffs, a visceral sound born from the deepest human instinct in the face of the macabre. On stage, Hysilens fainted dramatically into the arms of Cerydra, her immaculate purple dress pooling around her, while her ladies-in-waiting rushed to her with linen cloths and bottles of aromatic salts. The curse seemed to float in the air like a poisonous mist, tangible and thick, a living entity that breathed evil and promised tragedy.

Just as despair reached its climax and several young girls in the audience began to sob at the cruelty of fate (among them Firefly, Stelle's little cousin, sitting next to Bailu, Dan Heng's little sister), a golden glow illuminated the stage like an unexpected dawn after the darkest night. The third fairy emerged from the background with icy majesty, March with her bluish dress shining like the full moon on the coldest night of the year. With each step she took, her cloak billowed firmly under the spotlights like diamonds scattered on velvet. Her wand, carved from what seemed like eternal ice (though in reality it was just Evernight's magic with resin showing itself to the world, emitted a pure white light that visually cleansed the darkness the evil witch had brought.

"Stop!" she exclaimed with a voice that resonated with ancestral magical authority in the auditorium. "My power is not enough to completely undo this dark sorcery woven with threads of pure hatred... but I can transform it, turn it inside out like a glove so that instead of death it brings hope." She approached the cradle with glacial determination, waving her frost-crystal wand with movements that drew ancient runes in the air. Silver snowflakes sprouted from its tip (Evernight had incorporated a mechanism to release glitter when shaken. Stelle was convinced that this was the dress she had put the most effort into), forming a protective swirl over the princess that spun slowly like a living kaleidoscope. "The princess will not die," she announced to the audience, "but will fall into a deep sleep, a slumber from which she can only be awakened... by the kiss of true love, that feeling so pure and rare that not even the darkest magic can simulate or corrupt."

A collective sigh of relief swept through the auditorium, mingling with grateful applause that grew like distant thunder, transforming into an ovation that seemed endless. King Cerydra embraced Hysilens, now recovered with tears of relief tracing her cheeks, while the other fairies surrounded March forming a protective circle whose wands joined in a triangle of light that bathed the princess in a celestial radiance. The curtain closed slowly before the thunderous applause, showing for the last time the image of the three fairies united around the cradle, their silhouettes outlined against the magical light that promised a future of hope against all adversity.

When the curtain opened again after what seemed an eternity but was only minutes, sixteen years had passed in the story's world. The stage now showed the same throne room, adorned with garlands of fresh flowers that climbed the columns and framed the windows, while silk banners in all the colors of the rainbow hung from the vaulted ceiling, swaying gently with air currents created by hidden fans.

"My dear Aurora," said King Cerydra in a paternal voice that trembled slightly with contained emotion as he took Dan Heng's hands in his, "tomorrow you turn sixteen, the most awaited and feared day in equal measure, and we have prepared the most splendid party this kingdom has ever seen, a celebration that will rival the legends the minstrels sing in the squares of remote villages."

Around them, servants in golden livery placed centerpieces with white roses so perfect they seemed carved from alabaster and carried repoussé silver trays with multi-tiered cakes that looked too delicious and elaborate to be made of cardboard and paint, crowned with crystallized fruits that shone like edible jewels.

And then, as if responding to an invisible signal, the music changed. The trumpets fell silent and in their place arose a melody of flutes and violins that seemed to weave strands of sonic light in the air. A whisper ran through the auditorium, followed by an expectant silence that spread like a tide.

Stelle held her breath. From the opposite wing of the stage, first as an elegant shadow and then as a materializing vision, Dan Heng made his entrance as Princess Aurora, his beauty completely enhanced by the spotlights.

The effect was instantaneous and electrifying. The dress in emerald and jade tones that Evernight had created seemed to absorb the light only to return it multiplied, each golden embroidery shining as if imbued with real magic. The layers of tulle and organza in the skirt moved with a lightness that defied gravity, floating around his legs like clouds tinged with green.

Stelle's throat went completely dry. Every movement of the boy's head made that dark cascade ripple softly, framing a face that Dan Heng's characteristic pallor made ethereal, almost supernatural.

She felt time slow down. She watched, fascinated, as Dan Heng moved across the stage with that mixture of studied grace and genuine awkwardness that characterized him in his role. His steps were measured, careful, as if he feared tripping over the multiple layers of his dress or the well-concealed cables on the floor. As he turned to greet his "parents," the emerald dress formed a perfect arc around his body, the translucent sleeves waving like dragonfly wings.

"My dear daughter!" exclaimed Cerydra, opening his arms in a theatrical gesture.

Dan Heng bowed in a curtsy that was remarkably elegant despite his visible discomfort. "Father," he replied, and his voice, though firm and clearly masculine to those who knew him, had acquired a melodic softness that surprised even Stelle. She wondered if that's how he spoke with his older brother.

Stelle couldn't take her eyes off him. Under the stage lights and the transformation of the costume, Dan Heng was... beautiful. Even more so. Not in a conventional sense, but with a strange, androgynous beauty that seemed taken from an ancient fairy tale. His sharp profile, usually so severe, softened under the golden lighting, and his jade eyes, though maintaining their usual alert expression, seemed larger, deeper.

The queen (his classmate Hysilens) approached with small steps, her sky-blue dress embroidered with fake pearls, and placed a gentle hand on her daughter's shoulder. "All the nobility of the kingdom is invited, my love, from the dukes of the northern mountains to the counts of the southern shores, invited to a celebration they will remember for generations, a point of light in the history of our lineage."

Backstage, Stelle watched the scene with a racing heart, feeling every beat like a war drum in her chest. Through an almost invisible slit in the curtain, her gaze met her father's in the front row, who was nodding with innocent pride, completely unaware of the drama about to unfold and the kiss he would have to give.

The stage sank into a bluish twilight. The music became soft and ominous. Stelle, from her position backstage, watched the scene with her heart racing. The princess, Dan Heng, walked with a stiffness that wasn't entirely acting through the enchanted forest towards the forbidden tower. His long black mane waved with each forced movement.

He's terribly nervous. Stelle couldn't help an internal smile. Seeing the always serene and competent Dan Heng struggling to remember his lines and deliver them with a voice that sounded more like a judicial statement than a princess's curiosity was, frankly, adorable.

Professor Aglaea's voice, as narrator, filled the gym. "And guided by a force she could not comprehend, the princess ascended to the highest tower, where a dark fate awaited her..."

And then, she remembered Dan Heng's words, just before the show started, in a hurried whisper between the curtains: "Stelle... if... if you decide to do it... you're free to... kiss me. If that's what you want."

In that moment, she had taken it as just another comment on the awkwardness of the situation. But now, seeing him there, vulnerable and clumsy under the lights, the words resonated differently. They didn't sound like resignation, but like... permission. Like a door left ajar. *What if Dan Heng's awkwardness wasn't just from stage fright? What if it was because he too felt that this, their proximity, their forced complicity, was something more?*

Gods... is it possible? All this time, his glances, his not-glances, his way of always being there...? And what I feel, this knot of nerves and butterflies every time he's near...?

Her train of thought was abruptly cut off. On stage, Dan Heng, with an expression of feigned bewilderment mixed with his usual seriousness, reached a hand towards the spindle of the spinning wheel, a contraption painted with black glitter. Then, with an awkwardness that was half acting, half his own discomfort with the costume, he pretended to prick his finger. His body tensed, and then, with surprising grace despite everything, he slowly collapsed onto the carpet representing the tower floor. He fell on his side, his white dress forming a pale circle around him, his long black hair spreading out like a mantle of ebony. His eyes closed, and an absolute stillness took hold of his figure. He was the image of fragility and sleeping beauty. Stelle held her breath.

Down below, in the front row, Blade was following the play with what was no longer a smile. He had enjoyed seeing his daughter as the brave prince. But when the "princess" appeared on stage, his eyebrow arched slightly. "Is that the boy... Dan Heng?" he thought, a bit confused by the casting. As the scene progressed, his brain connected the dots. The prince... the princess... the sleeping spell...

His smile faded. Slowly, it was replaced by a deep frown of intense concentration. His eyes, which had previously rested proudly on Stelle, now moved between his daughter, standing backstage, and Dan Heng's sleeping figure on the floor.

"A kiss..." he murmured to himself, so low that only Kafka beside him could hear. His gaze became sharp, calculating. "The prince kisses the princess to wake her..."

Blade's eyes widened. The final piece of the puzzle clicked into place with a sharp, terrifying snap in his mind. That brat wasn't the prince. He was the princess. Stelle was one of the leads. She would be the prince. It was Stelle who was going to kiss. And who she was going to kiss was that damned boy. That boy with the intense eyes who was always lurking near his daughter. The blood drained from his face. His relaxed posture vanished.

The curtain closed briefly for the scene change. Stelle, backstage, looked at Dan Heng, who was still "asleep" on the floor, and then, involuntarily, her gaze drifted to the front row. She saw her father's expression.

Stelle's heart sank. The moment of truth was approaching, and not just for the fairy-tale princess. Blade knew now. And the kiss, that kiss that suddenly meant so much more than a simple theatrical act, felt like the most dangerous event they had faced since "The Time." All her scenes passed too quickly. One moment she was arriving at the forest, and the next she had already defeated Castorice and was heading towards the princess's bed.

The curtain opened for the final scene, revealing a dreamlike tableau bathed in a soft, dusty beam of overhead light. In the center, on a raised bed of purple velvet pretending to be ebony, lay the figure of the princess. Dan Heng. Motionless. His green dress, an extravagance of silk and gold and white brocade, spread out around him like the petals of an exotic flower. His long black mane, so unusual and surprising, fell in silky waves over the pillow, framing a face of sculpted serenity. He looked like a figure taken from an ancient tapestry, beautiful and unattainable.

Stelle, with her heart turned into a crazed bird beating against her ribs, moved towards the center of the stage. The heel of her navy blue velvet boots barely made a whisper on the floorboards, but to her it sounded like thunder in the expectant silence that had taken hold of the gym. Each step brought her closer to him, and each heartbeat seemed to shout a different question.

What am I doing? This is crazy. It's Dan Heng. The same one who corrects my posture when I wield the lance, who frowns at my "chaotic" tactics, who can barely hold my gaze for more than three seconds at a time. Kiss him? Really?

Her mind, treacherous, began to project images, flashes of their shared secret life that intruded upon her doubts. They weren't the grand moments of heroism, but the small ones, the unnoticed ones. The way his shoulder brushed against hers when they reviewed a subway map looking for "The Creation."

The slight sigh of exasperation he let out when she got a divination wrong, a sound that over time had stopped sounding like criticism and become something almost... familiar.

The expression in his jade eyes, not of anger, but of genuine concern, when the embers of "The Fiery" had buried her for a moment before he intervened, and his grimace upon seeing the burn left on his arm.

And his words, spoken in that deep voice that always seemed to hold a universe of unspoken things, just before the show started: "Stelle... you're free to... kiss me. If that's what you want."

What if I do want to? What if that knot of nerves and butterflies I feel in my stomach every time we're near isn't just the adrenaline of the card hunt? What if the way our gazes instinctively seek each other out amidst the chaos means something more?

Down below, in the front row, the tension was so palpable you could cut it with the prop sword, especially considering Blade's face was now contorted. The blood had drained from his cheeks, leaving a cement-like pallor.

"He..." he muttered, the word coming out like a stifled roar. "It's him. The princess is... him." He turned his head slowly, like a wounded predator, towards Caelus, who visibly shrank in his seat. "Caelus. You told me... you assured me..."

"I technically didn't lie!" whispered Caelus, desperate. "I said he wasn't the prince! And he's not! He's the princess! It's an important nuance! And I said Stelle was the lead! Technically, the prince does a lot more than the princess, he should be considered the lead!"

The logical reasoning was lost in the whirlwind of paternal fury and panic clouding Blade's mind. "MY DAUGHTER IS NOT GOING TO KISS THAT... THAT LONG-BLOODED, INTENSE-EYED LIBRARIAN!" His voice, though contained, vibrated with a force that made the surrounding seats tremble. He jumped to his feet, ignoring the murmurs around him, muscles tense, ready to leap onto the stage and snatch his daughter away.

It was then that Kafka acted. Not with a brusque movement, but with the deadly elegance of a panther. She extended an arm and placed her hand over her husband's, in a gesture of dominance. Her long, firm fingers closed around his wrist with a pressure that invited no discussion.

"Blade," she pronounced his name, and her voice, though low, had the quality of tempered steel. "Sit down."

"Kafka, you can't expect me to sit here while she...!"

"It. Is. A. Play." she cut him off, each word a whip-crack of clarity. Her gaze met his, and in the depth of her eyes was an absolute warning, a promise of consequences if he defied her order. "Our daughter is playing a role. And she's doing it very well. Now, sit down. Or I'll make you remember."

Blade hesitated, the battle between his protective instinct and his wife's iron authority waging a pitched war in every fiber of his being. With a growl that rumbled in his chest and promised a long, unpleasant conversation later, he slumped back into his seat. But his body was a bundle of nerves about to snap, and his gaze, charged with lightning, fixed on Dan Heng as if he could set him on fire with the force of his disapproval (and if the play had been interrupted by a fire, he wouldn't have complained).

Up on stage, Stelle was oblivious to the silent drama unfolding at her feet (though a part of her subconscious imagined it). Her entire universe had shrunk to the recumbent figure and the storm inside her head. She stopped at the edge of the bed. From there, she could see the meticulous details of Dan Heng's dress, the slight tremble of his eyelashes against his cheekbones, the almost imperceptible tension in the line of his lips, normally firm and now relaxed in a false peace, though Stelle believed she could see his eyes moving beneath his eyelids.

His lips.

Panic flooded her. I can't do it. It's an invasion of his privacy. It's ridiculous. He's going to get up and hit me with a freezing spell. Or worse, he's going to look at me with that silent disappointment that hurts more than a blow.

But then, another voice, smaller but terribly persistent, made its way through the chaos. *What if he doesn't? What if "you're free to kiss me" wasn't just a formality? What if he... feels some of this confusion too, and wants you to make the first move?*

In that moment, surrounded by hundreds of invisible eyes, the greatest honesty she could muster was to admit, if only to herself, that she wanted to kiss him. Not for the play. Not for March. But for all the times their hands had brushed while sealing a card, for all the furtive glances, for all the charged silences that spoke more than their words.

She made a decision.

With a determination that trembled in her knees, she leaned down. Her wide-brimmed hat, with its dark red feather, became a private canopy, hiding their faces from the audience and plunging them into a sudden, dizzying intimacy. For the audience, the kiss would be an unknown. The only ones who would know would be her and Dan Heng.

The outside world disappeared. Only the two of them existed in that small circle of relative gloom.

Closing her eyes, she bridged the distance.

Her lips found his.

And the world didn't explode. There was no ice spell. There was no rejection.

What there was was... calm. An instant, profound calm that abruptly extinguished the whirlwind in her mind. His lips were softer than she had imagined, and they were still, but not inert.

And then, it happened.

A movement. Faint, almost evasive, like the flutter of a hummingbird's wings. A minimal pressure, an infinitesimal change in the angle. It wasn't a passionate kiss, not even a confident one. It was shy, clumsy, but it was undeniable. He was returning the kiss. Reciprocating. Participating in that fragile, terrifying, wonderful moment.

It was fleeting. One second. Two, at most. But for Stelle, it was an eternity. A silent confirmation that resonated in the deepest part of her being.

Slowly, as if emerging from a dream deeper than the fairy-tale spell, Stelle separated her lips. The air felt cold against them. She opened her eyes, feeling dazed, vulnerable, and filled with a trembling hope.

Their gazes met.

Dan Heng already had his eyes open. He hadn't opened them wide in surprise, but they were half-open, watching her from an unfathomable depth. There was no anger in them. No disappointment.

There was... astonishment. A confusion that mirrored her own, mixed with something else, something warm and unguarded that she had never seen before in his jade gaze. His cheeks turned red. They looked at each other, processing. The kiss. The reciprocation. The fact that the other didn't seem displeased. On the contrary. They looked like two castaways who had just found dry land after months adrift, unsure if what they were seeing was real.

That instant of silent connection, charged with more truth than all their words combined, lasted less than a second. And then, the world came crashing down.

Chapter Text

Or, more precisely, it went out.

Darkness fell upon them like a physical blanket. It wasn't the theatrical, gradual, planned blackout. It was a total, absolute, instantaneous blackout. The overhead spotlight died without a snap, without a warning. The darkness was so dense that Stelle couldn't see her own hand in front of her face. The expectant murmur of the audience was replaced by a tomb-like silence, a sonic void that seemed to absorb even the slightest breath.

It wasn't the darkness of a room at midnight, where the mind projects familiar shadows in the corners. It wasn't the twilight of a forest, pierced by the whisper of the wind and the creaking of branches. This was Nothingness with a capital N. An absence of light so absolute it defied the very notion of existence. Stelle opened her eyes as wide as she could, straining to find a shade, a gradient, anything her brain could interpret. But there was nothing. Just an infinite blanket of black velvet, so thick it seemed tangible, pressing against her pupils until they burned.

She raised a hand, wiggling her fingers inches from her nose. She saw nothing. Not the slightest hint of movement, not the outline of her nails against a lighter background. It was as if her eyes had stopped working, or as if her hand itself had ceased to exist. A primitive, visceral panic began to well up in her chest, a rapid, dull heartbeat that was the only sound in the absolute silence.

"Hello?" Her voice sounded strange, muffled, as if she were talking into a pillow. There was no echo, no resonance. The word died instantly, devoured by the void.

The silence that followed was deafening. It was a negative pressure in her eardrums, an absence of everything that was physically painful. She could hear the whisper of her own blood in her ears, the phantom creak of her joints when she moved. Every tiny bodily sound was amplified to the grotesque, becoming a reminder of her solitude.

"Dan Heng?" she whispered, and this time her voice cracked. "March? Can anyone hear me?"

Nothing.

She took a step forward, feeling the ground with the tip of her boot. Her foot found a surface, but it conveyed no sensation. It wasn't hard, or soft, or cold, or warm. It was simply... stable. An invisible platform in the middle of nothingness. She took another step, and another, moving in what her brain told her was a straight line. But without reference points, the nausea of disorientation soon took hold of her. Was she walking in circles? Advancing towards an abyss? Staying in the same spot? The mental vertigo was overwhelming.

She stretched out her arms, moving them in wide arcs around her, desperate to touch something, anything that confirmed there was still an "outside." Her fingers only brushed against the still air, an air that was neither cold nor warm, that smelled of nothing. A cold sweat soaked her back. Her breathing quickened, becoming small, sharp gasps that sounded obscenely loud in the silence.

"Please," she pleaded, and her voice sounded small and lost, like a child's. "Someone... someone hear me..."

It was then that her right hand, in an increasingly frantic and desperate sweep, collided with something solid.

It wasn't a wall. It wasn't an object. It was a hand.

Cold at first contact, but with a familiar, reassuring vitality latent beneath the skin. Long, slender fingers, with subtle calluses on the tips that she would recognize anywhere. Those hands had held ancient grimoires, traced water seals in the air, helped her up from the mud after countless card battles. And now, in the middle of nothingness, they found hers.

A wave of relief so overwhelming it made her legs weak washed over her. Her fingers instinctively closed, with drowning force, around that anchor hand.

"Dan Heng!" she shouted, and this time her voice had an echo in her own heart.

"Stelle," the reply came from in front of her, less than an arm's length away. His voice was a low whisper, laden with the same agonizing tension she felt, but also with a steel determination. "You're here."

And then, the impossible happened.

At the precise moment their palms met and their fingers fully intertwined, a faint glow began to emanate from their point of contact. It wasn't a light that illuminated the surroundings; it was as if the darkness itself, faced with the combined force of their presences, retreated a few centimeters, revealing the space occupied by their joined hands. Stelle could *see*. She saw her own fingers, pale and slightly trembling, intertwined with Dan Heng's, longer, with pronounced knuckles and perfect nails. It was the only point of visual reference in the entire universe, a small miracle of color and form in the desert of nothingness. They could see themselves from the forearms down, where the world existed. Everything else remained absolute darkness.

"We can... see each other," whispered Stelle, unable to look away from their intertwined hands. It was a hypnotic sight, tangible proof that she hadn't gone mad.

"Our magic," said Dan Heng, his tone pure analysis, though the grip of his hand was anything but cold. "Mine and yours. When combined, they create a signature powerful enough to temporarily repel the card's influence. It's an anchor point. A truth in the middle of its lie."

Stelle instinctively looked up, hoping to see his face, but beyond their joined wrists, the darkness remained impenetrable. They only had this small circle of shared reality. *Maybe that's for the best. Maybe this way he won't see my blush.*

"What is this, Dan Heng?" she asked, her voice still trembling, but no longer lost. "What Long card can create... this?"

"I don't know for sure," he admitted, and it was strange, almost disturbing, to hear him admit ignorance. "But its nature is illusory and sensory. It hasn't transported us to a different physical location. I'd swear it's just modified our environment. Blinded us, deafened us... What we must not do is separate. Isolation is a weapon."

"Do you think the others are here too? March? Mem?"

"Almost certainly. But isolated, as we were. Without an anchor..." He squeezed her hand, and the light around them seemed to pulse more strongly. "... it's easy for the mind to surrender and be lost forever in this nothingness. Tell me you at least have your pen to seal the cards."

Stelle nodded, before realizing he probably couldn't see her. "Yes, March put it on my hat." Luckily." Do you have your spear?"

"I can summon it. For now, let's try to find some limit to this card's power."

They began to move, a mutual and tacit decision. 'Walking' was a generous term. They shuffled across the amorphous surface, their intertwined hands forming the only beacon in their fused personal worlds. Stelle felt the warmth of Dan Heng's hand spreading up her arm, a vital and deeply reassuring sensation. Every time their fingers readjusted in the grip, a small flash of that faint light seemed to intensify, as if feeding on their connection.

"My brother once mentioned illusion cards," Dan Heng said after a long silence, broken only by the sound of their synchronized breathing. "He said they don't attack the body, but the mind. That their power lies in the faith we place in their lies."

"Like 'The Illusion'," murmured Stelle.

"Exactly. This darkness... It convinces us there is nothing, that we are completely alone. But we..." He squeezed her hand tighter, and the light around them shone with renewed clarity. "... are the truth. This contact is real. Our connection is real. It's the one thing it cannot deny."

Stelle nodded, though he couldn't see her. His words, however, sank deep, dispelling the last remnants of her panic. They weren't lost. They were trapped in an illusion, yes, but together. And as long as they held onto each other, they had a foundation to stand on.

They continued moving, or what their perception told them was moving, for an immeasurable amount of time. Time, like space, had lost all meaning. They could have been walking for minutes, hours, or days. The only constant was the contact of their hands and the small halo of light enveloping them, a constant reminder of their resistance.

Until Dan Heng stopped dead.

"Stop!" his voice sounded alert.

Stelle stopped beside him, her body bumping lightly against his. "What is it?"

"The floor... it's no longer flat. It's sloping."

He was right. Where before there was a neutral surface, they now felt a pronounced slope under their feet. A slope that, when they slid the sole of their boot, seemed to be made of an extraordinarily slippery material, like polished black ice.

"Let's try to go around it," Stelle proposed, taking a cautious step to the left.

But when they moved their feet, the ground there was also sloped. And in the other direction, too. It was as if they were standing on the top of a giant, invisible, unavoidable dome.

"It's not a terrain accident," Dan Heng murmured, his voice tense. "The card is reacting to our united presence. It's actively trying to make it hard for us to stay together."

As he said it, a subtle but undeniable pressure began to be felt in the air. It wasn't a wind, but a constant, silent force pushing against their bodies, trying to create a gap between them. It was as if the darkness itself had solidified and was exerting physical pressure to break their only bond.

"It's getting harder... to stand firm," Stelle gasped, feeling the muscles in her arms and shoulders tense to the point of pain to counteract the invisible force.

"Don't yield," Dan Heng's voice was a command, but also a plea. "Focus your energy. Think of... when we sealed 'The Fight', the determination you had. Focus your will like you did then. Make our anchor stronger."

Stelle closed her eyes, though in the total darkness it was a redundant gesture, and tried to do it. She visualized the energy she always felt when using the pen, that warm, powerful current, flowing from her core, down her arm and into her hand, strengthening her grip, feeding the light. For a moment, it seemed to work. The pressure eased slightly and the glow around their hands became a little brighter, a little warmer.

But then, the domain counterattacked with terrifying ferocity.

A dull roar, a sound that wasn't a sound but a vibration that shook their bones and made their teeth grind, rumbled through the nothingness. The "floor" beneath their feet convulsed violently, like the skin of a gigantic animal shaking itself. The slippery slope suddenly became a vertical drop. Stelle felt a moment of weightlessness, her feet losing all contact, her body being thrown backward and downward by an irresistible force.

"STELLE!"

Dan Heng's cry was heart-wrenching, a sound of pure terror and determination. His fingers, which a moment before had been intertwined with hers with superhuman strength, were forced to yield to the titanic force separating them. She felt them slipping, centimeter by centimeter, his nails scratching uselessly at her skin in a desperate attempt to maintain contact. The light around their hands flickered erratically, weakening, like a lamp running out of fuel. They managed to hold onto each other, though Stelle swore she felt a mud-like sensation around her ankles.

"Don't let go!" she screamed with all her might, holding on not just with her hand, but with her entire will. She tried to move her feet, to free them from the force pulling her away from her companion, without success.

"Give me your other hand," Dan Heng implored her. Stelle realized, with horror, that this mysterious force gripping her ankles was also pulling on her left arm.

Their gazes, though they couldn't see each other's faces, were fixed on the point of contact, on that last, fragile thread of light and reality connecting them. It was a silent, agonizing communication, without needing to look into each other's eyes. They saw, with horrible clarity, their fingers separating, one by one, forced apart by an alien and all-powerful will.

"I will find you!" was the last thing Dan Heng managed to shout, an oath carved in fire and steel, a promise that transcended the darkness itself. "Wherever this nothingness takes you, I will find you, Stelle! I swear it by the blood of Long and by all that I am!"

And then, the contact broke.

Dan Heng's hand was torn from hers with a dry, final sound. The light enveloping them went out abruptly, like a candle extinguished by a gale, plunging her back into total blindness. But this time it was worse. Infinitely worse. Because now she knew what it was to have an anchor, a point of light and warmth in the cold nothing, and to have lost it.

She fell backward, into a void that was no longer just physical, but also in her soul. The darkness, now triumphant and mocking, closed in around her, cold, silent, and absolutely relentless. Dan Heng's last word, her name, his fierce promise, faded in the distance, drowned out by the same void that now consumed her completely.

Meanwhile, in another fold of the absolute nothingness, an ordinary cloth bag lay abandoned on a surface that defied all definition. It hadn't fallen; it was simply there, as if the void itself had spat it out in an act of cosmic whimsy.

From its interior, a round, pink head emerged with a snort of supreme indignation. Mem's big blue eyes blinked, useless against the total darkness pressing against them, but her expression was one of pure annoyance, not fear. The artistic offense weighed heavier than the existential danger.

"This is completely improper!" declared her sharp voice, which sounded strangely clear and crisp in the oppressive silence, as if acoustic rules didn't apply to her essence. "Interrupting a theatrical performance at its narrative climax, right at the Prince and Princess's kiss, is an act of cultural barbarism! An offense to the dramatic arts, to classical storytelling, and to my sensibility as a spectator and chronicler of significant events!"

She floated completely out of the bag, and her pink plush body began to emit a faint internal glow, a magical aura that didn't illuminate the surroundings but simply repelled the immediate darkness, creating a bubble of visibility just over a meter in radius. Inside that small, self-contained domain of light, the suffocating rules of the nothingness seemed to yield, creating a fragile oasis of perception.

And within that circle, standing with a calm that was deeply unsettling, was Professor Aglaea. She didn't seem lost, disoriented, or alarmed. Her posture was erect and serene, her hands crossed elegantly in front of her black dress, which blended so perfectly with the surrounding shadows it seemed a living extension of the darkness itself beyond Mem's glow. Her eyes, a deep silver-gray, observed the nothingness with a clinical and distant curiosity, like a scientist studying a peculiar sample under a microscope, completely oblivious to any personal danger.

"You," said Mem, floating towards her with determination. Her tone wasn't accusatory, but one of deep analysis, that of a scholar facing a sacred text. "Your energy signature... is now unmistakable. I've felt it before, in the oldest records, in the echoes of the primordial power that shaped the Cards. But it doesn't originate in Long's realm. It's older, colder. It has an aftertaste... of irrevocable authority. Of final verdict."

Aglaea slowly turned her head towards the creature. It wasn't a movement of surprise, but a deliberate and fluid one, like the turning of a planet. A subtle smile, almost a sketch, played on her lips, but it didn't reach her eyes, which remained impassive, reflective and empty like mirrors covered in a thin layer of frost under the full moon.

"You are more astute than your earthly appearance suggests, little guardian," she replied, and her voice was as soft and silky as always, but here, in the nothingness, it sounded like the very whisper of the darkness, a sound that seemed to emanate from all directions at once. "Form is often the most effective disguise. The mundane is the best camouflage for the transcendental."

Mem puffed up slightly, not from wounded pride, but from the solemn certainty of her function. "I am the Guardian of the Long Cards. My essence is intrinsically linked to their creation and their balance. I recognize the currents of power, the cosmic hierarchies, the echoes of origins." She floated a little closer, her blue eyes scrutinizing Aglaea's impassive face as if searching for a crack in perfect marble. "Is it you? The earthly incarnation, the simple and accessible form, of the Judge? The ancestral entity whose ultimate function is to assess whether the current bearer is worthy of their station, of handling the power that, perhaps by chance or destiny, has been entrusted to them?"

Aglaea's smile widened a millimeter, a minimal gesture that, nevertheless, seemed to completely change the atmosphere within the bubble of light. It wasn't a warm smile, not even a kind one. It was the smile of one who knows a secret too great and elegantly enjoys watching others try to decipher its outlines.

"All questions," she said, drawing out the words slightly, as if tasting them, "find their echo in the silence that precedes them, little guardian. What you seek to confirm, what your primary function drives you to discern... will be revealed to you when the time is ripe, not a moment before." She made a calculated pause, and her gaze seemed to lose itself beyond Mem, in the infinite darkness surrounding them, as if she could see the threads of fate weaving themselves in the nothingness. "Soon. The stage is almost set. The actors, in place, playing their roles with moving conviction. Only... the finale remains. The final revelation."

Aglaea then tilted her head slightly, and her gaze, now laden with a genuine and somewhat sinister curiosity, settled on Mem again.

"Tell me, Guardian," her voice was now a thread of poisoned silk, "your chosen one... does she know? Does she know what will happen when the last card is sealed? Does she understand the final price of the task she has so cheerfully undertaken? Or does she walk towards her destiny with the sweet ignorance of one who believes the journey is the end in itself?"

Mem went still in the air, her glow flickering slightly at the question. The ancestral caution she always carried with her turned into a cold certainty in the heart of her plush being.

In the absolute void where time and space had ceased to have meaning, the card hunter floated in a limbo of pure nothingness. Stelle, with her disheveled silver hair and crumpled combat attire, had lost all sense of orientation. She no longer knew if she was standing, lying down, or falling eternally. The darkness was so complete it seemed a living entity, pressing against her skin, infiltrating her lungs, stealing even the memory of what light felt like.

A cold that went beyond the physical coiled around her heart. It wasn't the cold of ice or snow, but the cold of total absence, of non-existence. Her fingers, numb with a panic born from the depths of her psyche, stretched out into the infinite blackness, desperately seeking some point of reference, some contact that reminded her there was still an "outside." But they only found the void. A sob, weak and broken, escaped her lips, a sound so minuscule it was instantly absorbed by the oppressive silence. Warm, salty tears, absurdly human in that wasteland of sensations, traced shiny paths down her cheeks. It was cruelly ironic that these tears were the only tangible proof that she still felt, that she still existed in that limbo of non-existence.

The temptation to surrender, to simply close her eyelids and let the darkness cradle her in a dreamless sleep, was a hypnotic melody resonating in every fiber of her being. What power could a mere human have against Nothingness itself, against the primordial void that consumed all? The weight of isolation was unbearable.

But then, in the darkest hour of her soul, when hopelessness threatened to close her final chapter, something clung to life within her. It wasn't a specific memory, but a deep conviction that emerged from her core.

She wasn't fighting for a title, that of Card Collector, imposed on her by circumstances. She wasn't fighting for an abstract duty or a mystical responsibility. She was fighting for the tangible connections she had forged in her life, for the bonds that gave meaning to her existence.

She remembered Mem's sharp but unwavering voice. The pink creature always told her: "Your magic, little Stelle, must flow from the heart! It's not just a spell, it's an extension of your will, of what truly matters. When in doubt, remember why you started all this!" Mem blindly trusted her "chosen one" not to fulfill a destiny, but to restore balance, to protect the fragile world they both loved.

She remembered her parents, Blade and Kafka. Their love wasn't a dramatic or grandiose thing, but a constant presence, a silent yet indestructible foundation upon which her entire life had been built. They were her home, her point of return. She couldn't disappoint that refuge.

And above all, with a clarity that pierced the darkness like a lightning bolt, she remembered Dan Heng. Not the stoic, reserved companion the world saw, but the archmage with a penetrating gaze who could spend hours deciphering ancient runes by the faint light of candles, seeking answers where others saw only dust. The serene warrior whose hands, firm and sure, traced circles of protection against unleashed elements, not out of duty, but from a deep inner determination. The companion who, amidst the chaos of a thousand battles against nightmare creatures and in the intimacy of a thousand silences laden with unspoken things, had always been by her side. Not as an impassive wall, but as an anchor in her personal sea of chaos, a constant presence that had come to mean more than any word could express.

He believed in her. Not in the figure of the Collector, but in Stelle, the person behind the magic. And in that very moment, with a certainty that transcended logic and the darkness itself, she knew, she felt, that he was somewhere in that infinite nothingness. Not just searching for her, but tearing reality apart with his own hands, defying the impossible, fighting against the very essence of the void to fulfill the oath he had shouted when they were separated.

"I will not... betray that faith," she swore to herself, and this time her inner voice did not tremble. It was a flat, firm statement, carved in the iron of her will.

She took a deep breath, holding back the tears that threatened to cloud her newfound determination. Despair, that thousand-headed monster, transformed into something cold, sharp, and precise. A determination that cut like a sword. Dan Heng would not give up. He would use logic, knowledge, his entire being to find a way out. And she, his equal in everything but lineage, would do the same. She could not fail him.

As if an invisible grimoire, written with the ink of their countless hours of study and shared conversations, opened before her on the exact page, Dan Heng's words resonated in her mind with perfect clarity. She remembered them in the quiet gloom of the great library, surrounded by the smell of old parchment and the accumulated wisdom of centuries.

"Every magical entity, Stelle, no matter how fearsome, abstract, or powerful, possesses a name. A name is not just a label. It is an identity, a definition. And identity is a point of leverage, a crack in the armor of the unknown. What has a name can be observed, analyzed, understood. And what is understood, for the first time, can be truly confronted. Name your enemy, pronounce its true essence, and you will have already stolen half its power... the power of anonymity and mystery."

He was right. This darkness wasn't the impersonal void, a cosmic accident. It was an entity, a Card from Long's Legacy, a creation of power with a specific nature and, therefore, an identity. And as such, it possessed a name to be claimed, a truth that demanded to be spoken aloud.

"'The Black'?" she pronounced, testing the sound, weighing its weight in the void. But the darkness didn't flinch; the word was absorbed without leaving the slightest trace.

"'The Void'?" she tried again, seeking some kind of reaction, a change in the static blackness surrounding her. Only the infinite, heavy, indifferent silence answered.

"'The Nothing'?" A thread of the old despair began to seep back into her voice, but she clenched it tightly, refusing to yield, to retreat.

She then concentrated all her will, all the strength of her being, scrutinizing the very essence of her prison. It wasn't just the passive absence of light; it was an active, conscious force, sowing isolation deliberately, feeding doubt in the heart, convincing the soul of its irrevocable solitude in the cosmos's immensity. It was a darkness that separated, that severed bonds.

"'The Lonely'?" she murmured, with a thread of voice that barely disturbed the silence, but the name didn't resonate with the ultimate truth, it didn't fit the lock of its existence like the right key.

And then, after what seemed an eternity of mental struggle, like the first note of an ancient and forgotten melody suddenly regaining its pitch, the true name came to her. Not as a deduced thought, not as an educated guess after analysis, but as a pure revelation, an innate knowledge branded on the very core of her being, which had been waiting for its moment to be remembered.

"'The Dark'," she declared, and her voice, for the first time since the nothingness had swallowed her, was not devoured. The word remained in the air, or in whatever that place was, tangible, vibrant, defiant. She had named the beast.

The very instant the name "The Dark" was spoken, the still, dead air shifted. A subtle vibration, like the heartbeat of a giant, ancient heart, ran through the nothingness. The blackness didn't physically recede, but its fundamental nature changed. It was no longer a terrifying, unnameable infinity; now it was "The Dark," a named entity, a concrete adversary that could be identified, studied, and thus challenged. The spell of anonymity, its most powerful weapon, had been broken.

But knowing the dragon's name didn't mean taming it, much less driving a sword through its heart. She needed a sword, a tool, a way to counterattack, to break the cage. Her mind, sharpened by extreme need, searched her mental arsenal. She thought of "The Wood," of its organic, vital power to extend sensitive roots through earth and stone, to find boundaries and connections where there seemed to be none, to feel life even in the most inert matter. Yet, a slab of cold, heavy frustration fell upon her: the Card Tome, the physical and ritual channel through which she usually directed and focused such powers, was not within reach. She was unarmed, completely alone, with nothing but her willpower and her enemy's name. She couldn't invoke "The Wood" without the focus.

Frustration, sharp and bitter, bit into her spirit with renewed force. What good was knowing the name if she couldn't act? Her gaze, laden with a discouragement threatening to turn into impotent rage, fell upon her own hands, clutching at nothing in a closed fist. And then, after a long moment of internal struggle, almost without wanting to, she saw it.

It wasn't instantaneous. Her eyes, accustomed to total darkness, took several seconds to process the information. Through the now-named gloom, she could gradually make out the outline of her fingers, pale and long, the lines of her palms, the small scars and calluses that were maps of her battles. There was no external light source, no invoked magical glow, no illumination spell, and yet, she could see herself. Her body, her blue velvet stage costume, everything emanated a faint, almost imperceptible, intrinsic luminosity, a ghostly, self-generated glow that seemed to be born from her very flesh and bone, like that of fireflies painting ephemeral flashes in the blackness of a summer night or that of distant stars stubbornly refusing to be extinguished by the cosmos's immensity.

How was it possible? "The Dark" was absolute in its dominion. It should have blinded her completely, should have nullified all visual perception, should have reduced her existence to an isolated point of consciousness in the nothingness. Unless... unless she carried within her, in her very essence, something that opposed it by nature, a contrary and fundamental principle that "The Dark" could not completely suppress or corrupt. A power that belonged to her alone, as inherent to her being as her own soul, as fundamental and inseparable as the beating of her heart.

She looked at her hands with a new intensity, almost awe, then placed her flat palm on her chest, over the place where her heart beat with a rapid but firm rhythm, a war drum in the silence. It wasn't the blue prince's tunic, nor the wide-brimmed hat. It was something deeper, more essential, etched into the very code of her existence. It was the living connection that bound her to Long's Legacy, the subtle channel through which her will could influence reality, the bond that allowed her to feel and seal the cards. But... what if that bond wasn't just a passive conduit for invoking external powers? What if one of those cards, some fundamental force of the universe that Long himself had managed to capture and define, didn't reside in the pages of a tome, but resided in the deepest part of her essence, as a gift granted at the very moment of her choosing, as a seed planted in the soil of her soul waiting only for the water of extreme need to germinate and bloom?

The question blossomed in her mind not as a timid whisper, but as a clamor, a seed of pure hope forcing its way with brute force in the arid wasteland of despair.

Do I possess... a Long Card that is mine alone? A fundamental power that chose me, as I chose to accept this destiny? A light that doesn't need a grimoire, because it is part of who I am?

It wasn't a logical deduction, a process of elimination, or a reasoned hypothesis. It was a blinding epiphany, a flash of pure, instantaneous, and total understanding that ignited her spirit and blew away the last, tenacious shadows of doubt. And with the question perfectly formulated in the sanctuary of her mind, the answer came, inevitable and glorious. A name, simple, powerful, and laden with a hope as ancient as the universe itself, arose in her consciousness not as a memory learned from a book, but as an awakening, as a truth that had always been there, waiting for its moment to be recognized, as natural as her own shadow waits for the sunlight.

"'The Light'," she whispered, and it was not a mere sound, nor just another word.

It was an invocation. A command directed at the core of her own being. A fundamental truth of the universe, sung in the primordial tongue of creation itself.

The exact moment her voice, charged with all her will, her faith, and the memory of all she fought for, pronounced the name, a golden, warm, and life-giving light erupted from the deepest part of her being. It wasn't a bolt from the sky, nor an illumination spell cast with her hands following a ritual. It was a dawn born directly from her heart, an aurora of pure life energy, of tangible hope, that expanded from her center in a serene but unstoppable wave, bathing everything in its radiance. "The Dark" recoiled before it, not with a roar of fury or a groan of pain, but with a long, deep sigh of surrender, defeated by the ancient and incontestable truth that her very existence represented.

The light did not completely dispel the darkness. The power of "The Dark" was too strong for that. Instead, Stelle's light pushed back the boundaries of the blackness, creating a bubble perhaps three or four meters in diameter around her. Outside this small golden domain, the absolute darkness still reigned, dense and impenetrable, but now it had a visible limit, a shimmering, golden border between the light she emanated and the darkness surrounding her.

Stelle gasped, looking at her hands, which now glowed with a soft light of their own, and then at her entire body, turned into a beacon in the midst of nothingness. She had managed to create a refuge, a small world of light in the heart of the darkness. But she was still trapped. And then, a figure emerged slowly from the peripheral darkness, right at the edge of her light bubble, like a specter materializing from the shadows.

It was Dan Heng. His silhouette was barely visible against the blackness enveloping him, but his face... his face, illuminated by the faint, warm light Stelle emanated, showed an emotion so raw and powerful it took her breath away. It wasn't the serene admiration or contained relief she associated with him. It was an expression of pure, absolute, and undeniable desperation relieved. His eyes, normally so serene, analytical, and impassive like jade lakes, were wide open, and in their depth she could see the sharp reflection of the visceral terror he had felt when they were separated, a terror that only now, seeing her standing, safe and sound, bathed in a light that seemed to be born from her, began to dissipate, leaving behind a vulnerability so raw and exposed that he had never, in his entire life, allowed her to see.

He remained there, on the threshold, looking at her as if he couldn't believe his eyes. He made no move to approach.

It was Stelle who, driven by a relief so overwhelming it erased all other thought, crossed the few steps separating them and threw herself against his chest. Her arms closed around his torso with a force that spoke of overcome terror and a happiness too great to be contained. Only then, feeling the real, solid contact, did Dan Heng react. An almost imperceptible tremor ran through his body, and then his own arms closed around her with a desperate, almost fierce strength, burying his face in the curve of her neck. She could feel the wild, accelerated beat of his heart through the layers of fabric, a chaotic, living rhythm that was the most wonderful and comforting sound she had heard in her entire life.

The embrace seemed to have no end. In the small world of light Stelle had created, they clung to each other as if letting go meant being dragged back into the darkness. Stelle's heart beat strongly against Dan Heng's chest, and she could feel the tremor in his arms around her.

"I thought I had lost you," Dan Heng managed to say, his voice hoarse and broken against her ear. "I couldn't feel you... I couldn't find you..."

"I know," whispered Stelle, holding him tighter. "Me too. But I remembered you. All of you. That gave me strength."

Dan Heng pulled away just enough to look at her face, his jade eyes scrutinizing hers with an intensity that made her skin prickle.

"That light..." he said, with admiration in his voice. "How...?"

"It's mine," Stelle replied, with a certainty that surprised even herself. "It always was. I just needed to remember."

Dan Heng nodded slowly, a deep understanding in his gaze. "Mem was right. Your magic has always come from your heart."

The moment of intimacy was interrupted when the light around them began to shine more intensely, and the darkness at the edges of their bubble started to writhe like ink in water. From the dance of shadows and light, two figures emerged.

They were women of an ethereal and disturbing beauty, perfect twins in everything except their essence. One had hair as white as freshly fallen snow, waving in soft cascades around a face of pale, luminous skin. Her dress was pure white, simple yet elegant, and from her body emanated a serene calm. The other was her exact opposite: hair of jet black, straight and long like a cascade of obsidian, contrasting violently with her equally pale skin. Her black dress seemed to absorb the light, and her dark eyes held a depth that promised mysteries.

Stelle and Dan Heng separated instantly, adopting defensive stances. Stelle's spear appeared in her hands in a flash of light, while Dan Heng traced protective runes in the air with his fingers.

"No," said the woman in white, her voice sounding like distant bells. "We have not come to fight."

"We are sorry," added the one in black, her voice a silky whisper that seemed to arrive from the shadows. "The unpleasantness was necessary."

Stelle frowned, not lowering her guard. "Necessary? You separated us. You terrified us."

"So you could find your true strength," explained the woman in white, The Light. "So you would understand that power is not in a book or an artifact, but within you."

"Only by facing the most absolute darkness could you find your light," completed The Dark, with a slight smile. "And only by experiencing the deepest solitude could you truly value the connection you share."

The two cards turned their attention completely to Stelle, and then did something no one expected: they both bowed in a sincere reverence.

"We are happy," said The Light, "that it is you who will be our master."

"Yes," nodded The Dark. "A bearer who understands both light and darkness. Who knows that one cannot exist without the other."

Stelle looked at them, bewildered, but something in their words resonated with truth. She slowly lowered her spear. Dan Heng remained alert but relaxed his posture slightly.

"Are you saying... you want me to seal you?" asked Stelle, incredulous.

"It is our purpose," confirmed The Light.

"And it is your destiny," added The Dark.

Stelle nodded slowly. She took her spear, "The Street Sweeper," and concentrated. This time it wasn't a struggle. It wasn't a clash of wills. She felt her energy, the same light that had been born from within her, flowing through the weapon. The two figures began to glow, The Light with an even more intense golden radiance, The Dark with a silvery gleam that seemed made of stars.

As they transformed into pure energy and began to flow towards the tip of the spear, The Light leaned towards Stelle and whispered something that was almost lost in the whirlwind of power:

"The day of your judgment approaches, little master..."

The Dark completed the sentence, but her words were drowned out by the roar of the magical transformation:

"... and with it, the truth about..."

They couldn't hear the end. Two new cards, "The Light" and "The Dark," materialized and floated gently into Stelle's hands. They were beautiful, both with silvery sparkles that looked like miniature constellations.

In the blink of an eye, the darkness disappeared. The world snapped back into focus abruptly, and suddenly they found themselves exactly where they had been before it all began: on the stage, with Stelle leaning over the bed where Dan Heng lay as the sleeping princess.

The audience, who had been holding their breath for what were, to them, only a few seconds of dramatic pause, erupted in thunderous applause. To them, the couple had performed a scene so convincing and charged with emotion that the kiss seemed completely real.

Stelle, still holding the two new cards in one hand, looked at Dan Heng, whose eyes were open and reflected the same shock she felt. Without thinking, forgetting the audience, the play, everything completely, she pulled him up into a passionate hug, burying her face in his shoulder.

"We did it," she whispered, with tears of relief and happiness in her eyes.

Dan Heng, for once, offered no resistance. His arms closed around her, returning the embrace with a strength that betrayed how much the moment had meant to him too.

"You did it, Stelle," he corrected her softly, his voice for her ears only. "You did it."

The applause grew around them, but for them, in that moment, the world had shrunk to that embrace, to the warmth of the other, and to the certainty that, no matter what darkness or light they faced in the future, they would do it together.

There were no words. None were needed. They clung to each other in the center of that small world of light, two figures merged in an embrace that was an anchor, a silent oath, a refuge reclaimed in a sea of darkness that still threatened to swallow them. The way out remained a mystery, the card was not yet sealed, but they were no longer alone. Together, in the light one of them had created from the depths of their being, they would at least have a chance.

The light of the sunset, dense and laden with golden dust, filtered through the window of Stelle's room, painting the walls in orange and melancholic tones that failed to dissipate the heavy sense of injustice permeating the space. The room, normally a chaotic sanctuary of memories and found treasures, felt like a cell. Stelle was slumped over her desk, her head buried in her arms, while her twin brother, Caelus, paced from side to side with the contained energy of a caged tiger.

"This is completely absurd!" Caelus burst out for the umpteenth time, slamming his fist into his palm with a dry snap. "A week of being grounded! Why? For participating in a school play? For being 'too' convincing?"

Stelle lifted her head, her messy silver hair falling over her eyes, which shone with impotent frustration. "It's not just about the play, Caelus, and you know it. It's about... the kiss thing. And because you lied to him."

"I didn't lie!" he protested, stopping in front of her with his arms akimbo. "I clearly told Dad that Dan Heng wasn't the prince. *He* assumed you would be the princess. It was an error of interpretation on his part. I was technically truthful."

"'Technically truthful' isn't a concept Dad appreciates, especially when it involves Dan Heng within 50 meters of me," murmured Stelle, the memory of her father's icy expression burned into her mind, who had pronounced the punishment with a coldness that had chilled the blood of both of them. "Concealment of relevant information potentially dangerous to your sister's emotional integrity." The bureaucratic, cutting words still echoed in her ears.

"Well, it's unfair," insisted Caelus, crossing his arms forcefully. "And punishing me too for your... your dramatic life of... what was it? Stage kisses? It's doubly unfair."

Stelle was about to retort with sarcasm when the distinctive sound of her phone cut through the tension like a knife. A message. Seeing the name on the screen, her heart did a flip against her will. Dan Heng.

"Stelle, can you talk?"

Her fingers flew across the screen. "Yes. Even though you know I'm grounded. A week, no going out. Caelus too. Dad... is not happy."

The reply came almost instantly. "I'm sorry. It was my fault."

"It wasn't your fault," she typed, feeling a pang of tenderness and guilt. "It was the play. It was the situation. It was... everything."

There was a longer pause this time, so palpable Stelle could almost feel the deliberation on the other end, the weight of unspoken words. Finally, the phone vibrated again.

"I need to see you. In person. Can you get out through the window? The Temple of Mnestia. Tonight, after dark."

Stelle looked at the closed door of her room, then at Caelus, who had now thrown himself on her bed and was staring at the ceiling with exasperated boredom. Finally, her gaze went to the window, wide open to let in the evening breeze. An idea began to form in her mind, bold, reckless, and completely typical of her. But she needed patience. Caelus couldn't know. No one could know.

Minutes later, Caelus's patience ran out. "This is so boring. I'm going to see if I can wheedle a sentence reduction out of Dad for good behavior," he announced, getting up from the bed with a snort. "You coming?"

"No," replied Stelle, feigning a yawn. "I think I'll stay here. My head hurts a bit."

Caelus nodded, too focused on his own negotiation mission to notice anything strange, and left the room, closing the door behind him.

As soon as her brother's footsteps faded down the hallway, Stelle jumped from the chair. With her heart racing, she went to the door and pressed her ear against the wood, making sure he was gone. The silence was total. Now was the moment. She ran to her closet and, from behind a pile of boxes filled with memories, pulled out the small card book. Opening it, the Long Cards glowed softly, their latent energy tingling at her fingertips. She rummaged through them urgently until she found the one she was looking for: "The Mirror." She held it in her hands, concentrating on creating a convincing replica for a domestic scene: herself, sleeping peacefully in the bed.

"Please work," she whispered, and with a flash of silvery light, a second, manifested Stelle appeared lying on the sheets, breathing softly, a perfect though static imitation. It would be enough for a quick glance through a half-open door.

Without wasting a second, she went to the window. Just as she was about to climb out, a small, familiar shadow slipped through the opening, followed by a fluttering of cards that swirled in the air before obediently lining up.

"Mem!" whispered Stelle, both surprised and relieved.

The creature landed on her shoulder, its soft fur brushing against her cheek. "I felt your intention from afar! Don't think you're going on a capture without me!" Her little tail wagged with energy, and Stelle didn't even bother to tell her she wasn't going to capture a card. "And don't worry, I told March." Stelle was sure she would have preferred March not to be there to record everything on camera, but what did it matter now.

Stelle had no time to protest. With the agility her card-hunting adventures had given her, she slid down the thick, ancient vine climbing the house wall. Her boots found purchase on the rough stone, and in an instant, her feet touched the damp grass of the garden. Without looking back, she ran towards the shadow of the trees, feeling Mem clinging to her shoulder and the soft whisper of the cards flying around her, like a magical and loyal escort.

The Temple of Mnestia was submerged in an almost supernatural peace under the cloak of night. The full moon, huge and silver, hung like a celestial beacon, bathing the gardens of nocturnal flowers and the white marble colonnades in a milky, ethereal light. The air was cool and laden with the intoxicating perfume of flowers that only opened their petals for the moon. Stelle felt like an intruder in someone else's dream, her heart still pounding from the risk of the escape and the anticipation of what was to come.

She saw him immediately. Dan Heng was sitting on the low steps leading to the main sanctuary, lost in thought. He wore his usual dark, practical clothes, but there was an unusual vulnerability in his posture, his shoulders slightly hunched, his hands interlaced, that she didn't normally associate with him.

At a certain distance, under the shadow of a cypress tree, she made out March's silhouette, who gave her a small conspiratorial wave before turning back to scanning the surroundings, with Mem joining her on her shoulder, giving them space but being present, like a safety net in the gloom.

"I made a clone," was the first thing Stelle said, approaching, her voice sounding strangely loud in the sacred silence. "It's sleeping in my bed. If Dad checks, I hope he doesn't try to wake it up for a chat."

Dan Heng jumped to his feet at the sound of her voice, and for a briefest instant, Stelle saw an expression of genuine relief and something more, something warm and unguarded, cross his face before his usual mask of serenity returned.

"You shouldn't have come," he said, but it didn't sound like a reproach, more like deep concern. "If your father finds out..."

"I'm already grounded," she replied, shrugging with a sad smile and sitting on the step beside him. "What more can he do? Double-ground me? Send me to my room within my room? You said it was important."

Dan Heng nodded slowly, looking at his hands. The silence stretched between them, comfortable but charged with a palpable emotional voltage. The scent of the nocturnal flowers seemed to intensify, enveloping them in a private bubble.

"Yes," he said finally, his voice softer than usual. "After yesterday... after everything that happened with 'The Dark' and 'The Light'..." He paused, searching for the right words in the deep well of his thoughts. "Seeing you there, in the middle of that nothingness, creating light from nothing... it was..."

"It was what?" Stelle asked softly, her voice almost a whisper, leaning slightly towards him.

"It was the most incredible thing I've ever seen in my life," he confessed, and this time he did look her in the eyes, and the raw, honest intensity of his gaze took her breath away. "And also the most terrifying. For a moment, in that darkness... I thought I had lost you forever."

Stelle felt a lump in her throat, an emotion that prevented her from speaking. "But you didn't. You found me. Or... I found you. With the light."

"Yes," Dan Heng nodded, and a small, rare smile, as fleeting as it was precious, touched his lips. "With the light." The smile faded, replaced by a greater solemnity. "That's what I wanted to tell you, Stelle. All of this, the cards, the magic, my past... it has taught me to analyze, to distrust, to prepare for the worst. But yesterday... yesterday taught me that there are things that cannot be dissected. Things that just... are. That are simply felt."

The atmosphere changed. The temple's peace became pure electricity. The distance between them on the marble step seemed to shrink, drawn by an invisible force. Stelle could feel the heat of his body, see the determination and vulnerability waging a silent war in his deep jade eyes.

"Stelle," he said, his voice a little lower, a little huskier, laden with contained emotion. "There's something I've been wanting to tell you since... for a long time. Since before the play. I know we started off on the wrong foot, but for a while now I've realized that I..." He took a deep breath, like a swimmer before diving into deep, unknown waters. "It's that I..."

At that precise moment, a primordial shiver ran down Stelle's spine. It wasn't a change in the air, nor a distant sound. It was a pure sensation, an intuition etched into her hunter's bones, a tremor coming from the depths of the world. Something powerful, ancient, and earthy had been activated. Her hand flew instinctively to the folded spear at her belt.

Dan Heng stopped, his words dying on his lips. He had felt it too. His expression hardened instantly, the vulnerability and the pending confession replaced by the instant alertness of the warrior. The intimate moment evaporated, shattered by a more urgent reality.

"Do you feel that?" Stelle asked in a whisper, getting to her feet.

"Yes," he confirmed, standing up beside her and scanning the gardens with a sharp gaze.

Before they could say anything else, the ground at their feet shuddered. With a dull and terrible crunch, the earth of the garden path cracked open, revealing a black, deep fissure from which an immense, ancestral power emanated. From the abyss emerged a golden and brown glow, and a kind of stone dragon twisted in the air before rising, defiant.

Chapter Text

Stelle, her clothes stained with dirt and chest heaving, held the final card in her hands. "The Earthy" glowed with a deep calm, its power now tamed, resonating with the heartbeat of the world beneath her feet. The illustration showed a beautiful woman, with hair and dresses made of crystals, sleeping with a serene expression.

March had recorded everything with her camera, ecstatic, but before she could say anything, something beside her caught her attention. With a flash of light that seemed to cleanse the air, Mem transformed. Her small pink lion form expanded, elongated, until it revealed a majestic, ethereal figure. The white fur on her face transformed into a human face, her large blue eyes sharpened, and her pink fur became an abundant cascade of pink hair. Instead of the fur that once covered her, she was dressed in a pure white dress and wore a pair of silver sandals. On her hands were tattoos of two moons in red ink. Her face, always serene, showed a deep happiness as she looked at Stelle, who stared back in surprise.

"You did it, Stelle," said Mem, her voice like the chiming of crystal bells under the moon.

"Wait, you're Mem? What happened to you?"

"This is my true form. Please, call me Cyrene. Now that you have captured all the cards, I have finally returned to my original form. Thank you very much, and congratulations. You have sealed the last card. Your work as a Cardcaptor... is complete."

Stelle felt a wave of conflicting emotions: triumph, relief, and a pang of nostalgia for the adventure that had just ended. "Complete?" she asked, almost unable to believe it. "That was the last one?"

"Yes," Cyrene nodded, and it was then that Dan Heng, watching from a few steps away with his ever-alert senses, noticed something. A shadow of sadness in the young woman's silver eyes, a sorrow that didn't fit the joy of the moment. "Now," Cyrene continued, addressing Stelle, "to complete your task, you must write your name on 'The Earthy'. That way, you can aspire to absolute authority over the deck, and your mission will truly be finished."

Stelle nodded, a smile of satisfaction blooming on her lips. With a determined gesture, she transformed her spear into her pen and leaned over the card, concentrating on tracing the characters of her name with her energy. The world seemed to hold its breath.

Dan Heng didn't take his eyes off Cyrene. The concern he had detected in her didn't dissipate; on the contrary, it seemed to deepen. He took a step closer, his voice low but clear.

"Guardian... I mean, Cyrene... that's not the face of someone celebrating a happy ending. What's wrong? Is there something more? Something you're not telling Stelle?"

The guardian looked at him, and in her eyes, Dan Heng thought he saw a flash of infinite anguish, a secret she, for some reason, dared not reveal to her mistress. At that instant, several things happened at once. The atmosphere was cut with a sudden coldness. Two figures appeared under the temple's entrance arch, their presence distorting the very moonlight. Aglaea, with her characteristic elegance and a disconcerting gleam in her eyes, and Phainon, clearly confused about this nighttime gathering. "Stelle, Dan Heng, March? What are you doing here at this hour?"

At the same time, Stelle, oblivious to the new threat, raised the card with a triumphant gleam in her eyes. "Done!" she announced, having finished writing her name on "The Earthy".

But Dan Heng was no longer looking at her. His senses were screaming at him. The hairs on the back of his neck stood on end, not because of the appearance of the two emissaries, but because of the expression of deep sorrow on Cyrene's face and the sudden, overwhelming sensation that the "end" was, in reality, the beginning of something much darker.

Stelle's words, laden with triumphant relief, clung to the air for a brief moment, a fragile echo of victory before the world crumbled around her. Stelle's smile, wide and genuine, froze on her lips, not from a sound, but from a sudden, unnatural silence that engulfed everything. She first noticed the absolute rigidity that had turned Dan Heng's body into a statue of alarm, and then the expression of disbelief and fear that had blanched March's face.

It wasn't thunder, nor a furious wind. The silvery glow of the full moon, which just seconds before had bathed the temple in a milky, sacred light, began to fade. Not as it would behind a cloud, but as if a stain of thick, voracious ink, born from nothingness itself, spread across the sky devouring everything. The brightness of the stars diminished, until only a vault of absolute, impenetrable black velvet remained, with tiny white dots one had to struggle to glimpse. The air, once intoxicating with the perfume of nocturnal flowers, became heavy, dense, almost liquid, and every breath was a conscious effort, as if oxygen was being sucked from the world by an invisible force.

"Dan Heng..." Stelle managed to murmur, and her own voice sounded tiny and terribly distant, drowned by the oppressive stillness.

He didn't take his eyes off the dying sky. His profile was a line of pure tension, every muscle on high alert, his senses expanding beyond the human to probe the danger he couldn't see but could taste in the air: a flavor of ash and oblivion.

"The temple... and the entire valley surrounding it," he pronounced, and his voice, low and grave, cut the silence with the precision of a dagger. "We've been sealed. Trapped inside a barrier that not only encloses space but seems to be extinguishing reality itself."

His gaze, cold and charged with contained fury, shifted to the figure who remained serene amidst the emerging chaos: Aglaea. With a movement that was both fluid and deadly, Dan Heng summoned his spear. The weapon materialized not with a roar, but with a hiss of concentrated energy, its edge flashing with a faint, desperate light against the growing darkness.

"Aglaea," he addressed her, and his tone was not a question, but a direct accusation, laden with the certainty of one who sees a pattern in the chaos. "Are you the one who did this?"

The woman turned her face towards them, and her hair, of a pale gold that seemed to retain a last, weak glimmer of the lost sun, fell softly over her shoulders. Her eyes, the deep green of an ancient forest but empty like bottomless pits, settled on Dan Heng. There was no contempt in them, but a sad serenity, a sorrow that transcended centuries. It reminded Dan Heng a lot of the expression he had seen on Mem just moments before.

"No..." she began to say, with a calm that contrasted brutally with the situation, but her denial was interrupted by a heart-wrenching sound.

A choked moan, laden with an agony that was not physical but existential, escaped Phainon's lips. The young man with hair as white as freshly fallen snow staggered, bringing his hands to his temples as if something inside his skull was fighting to get out. His face, normally serene and illuminated by an innate confidence, was contorted by a pain that seemed to come from the depths of his soul.

Aglaea fell silent, watching with a mixture of concern and resignation. March, her heart in her throat, took an instinctive step forward. "Phainon!" she cried, reaching out a hand.

But she couldn't reach him. A violent spasm wracked the young man's body and he collapsed onto the cold marble steps. At the very moment of his fall, a golden light, blinding, warm, and of an overwhelming purity, erupted around his inert figure.

The transformation that followed was both a spectacle of celestial beauty and a vision of a nightmare. His white hair turned into a platinum blonde so intense it seemed made of solidified light. His eyes, now open and empty of any trace of the Phainon they knew, shone with a radiant gold, like miniature suns that saw and judged everything. His body, once slender and impeccable, was now traversed by an intricate and extensive map of scars that intertwined over his skin, each one emitting a faint golden glow, as if his very essence was seeping through the cracks of a form that could no longer contain it.

From his shoulder blades, with a sound like the tearing of reality itself, a pair of majestic and terrible wings unfurled. One was of a gold fit only for kings' crowns, but the other was a chaotic mosaic of feathers black as jet.

Cyrene, who had watched the entire development with eyes clouded by a millennia-old melancholy, stepped forward. Her presence, always ethereal, was now filled with an authority that resonated in the very fabric of the sealed reality.

"It is Khaslana," she announced, and her voice, normally melodious, now had the weight of history. "The Judge."

Her gaze met that of the transformed being, and in the depth of her silver eyes, a battle was being fought between the solemnity of duty and a painful, deep longing for a past that no longer existed.

"It has been an eternity, old friend," she greeted him, and her tone was a mixture of unshakable respect and a nostalgia that cut like a knife.

Stelle, clutching "The Earthy" so tightly her knuckles were white, stared at the scene with wide eyes, her mind refusing to accept the evidence before her. "What... what is happening?" she stammered, confusion and a seed of panic making her voice tremble. "Phainon? Khaslana? No... I don't understand anything."

It was Aglaea who, with her unshakable serenity, turned to them. Her voice was not cold or disdainful, but clear and full of a gravity that admitted her own concern.

"He is the Judge, Stelle," she explained, her words carefully chosen. "One of the two halves of the primordial power that guards the Clow Cards, just as Cyrene is the Guardian. And he has been summoned here to fulfill his most essential function: to judge the heart and spirit of any soul the Guardian has selected to ascend and become the next true master of the cards."

Khaslana, now fully conscious in his true form, straightened up. His mere presence was overwhelming, a combination of a divine grace that spoke of creation and the unsettling severity of his scars and his corrupt wing, which spoke of infinite pain. His serenity was not peaceful; it was the calm of the sentence, the tranquility of one who has accepted a terrible burden.

"This interlude in the veil of normality has lasted too long," he declared, and his voice was melodious, but every word resonated with a terrifying finality, like the tolling of a bell announcing the end of times. "It is time to put an end to this farce, once and for all. To fulfill our purpose."

"Wait!" Stelle exclaimed, finding a thread of courage in the sea of her confusion. "Put an end to what? It was supposed to be over! I captured the cards, I sealed them all. Even 'The Earthy'!" She lifted the card like a talisman, as if its physical existence could refute the nightmare unfolding. "That's what I was supposed to do! That should have prevented the calamity looming over the world!"

Aglaea shook her head slowly, and in her green eyes, a glimpse of the emotion she so well concealed was finally visible: genuine sorrow.

"That was only the beginning, dear child," she said softly. "The capture of the cards was merely the prelude, the tangible proof that you possessed the potential, the willpower, and the necessary heart. But the true calamity, the one that threatens to tear the very seams of reality and reduce it to nothingness, will only be stopped the very instant you become the legitimate and absolute *owner* of the entire deck, not just the hunter who locks them away." She made a slow, grave gesture towards the black sky, a void that seemed to pulse with an infinite thirst. "And judging by the firmament observing us, or rather ignoring us in its unfathomable void, the time you have left to make that final transition is limited. Terribly limited."

The revelation fell upon Stelle with the weight of a mountain. Every battle, every risk, every moment of doubt and triumph... it had all been just an entrance exam. The final test, the one that would decide the fate of everything, was now.

It was then that March, shaken by disbelief, found her voice. "But... this makes no sense! If Phainon is Khaslana, and he's been here the whole time...! He's been going to our school for years! We've known him since we were kids!"

Khaslana turned his golden gaze towards her, and there was no recognition in it, only the impartiality of a mirror.

"My other self, the one who inhabited Phainon's unconsciousness, was not a mere disguise," he explained, his voice devoid of any emotion that could relate to human bonds, or to Phainon at all. "It was a necessary fragmentation. And to ensure that mundane identity remained hidden and safe, my slumbering essence subtly shaped the memories and perceptions of all around him. It inserted false memories, created a coherent history. For you, Phainon always existed. But that existence was an illusion maintained by my power, a shadow projected to fulfill the role assigned to me: to be near the candidate, to observe her without being seen, without being questioned."

"The role assigned to you?" Stelle asked, feeling a shiver run down her spine.

Aglaea nodded slowly. "When you, Stelle, first opened the book and broke the seal, the two guardians manifested on this plane. Cyrene, the Guardian, assumed the form of the being you call Mem, a constant companion by your side. But Khaslana, the Judge, needed a different perspective. One that wouldn't be suspicious. His mundane counterpart, Phainon, was created, and through his connection with your brother, Caelus, he was ensured to always be in your orbit, observing, evaluating, even without knowing it himself. Phainon knew nothing of the cards, of magic, of his true self. He was an empty shell, a piece on the board placed by fate, or by the design of the guardians themselves."

"That... is horrible," murmured March, horrified.

"It was a necessity," Khaslana replied impassively. "But now, that is irrelevant. The pieces have returned to their places. The veil has been drawn back." His intense, inescapable gaze fixed on Stelle again, piercing her, searching the last corner of her soul. "And I am here to judge you, Stelle. Only you."

Upon hearing these words, Dan Heng, who had remained in a silence charged with analysis and contained fury, moved. It was almost imperceptible, a simple adjustment of his posture, but it was enough to place himself slightly in front of Stelle, his body becoming an instinctive, protective barrier between her and the overwhelming presence of the Judge. His spear, held firmly, was a silent declaration.

Stelle, her heart pounding in her chest, felt the world narrowing around her. The black sky was the final proof that the warnings were not metaphors. She took a deep breath, the air heavy and difficult, and pressed "The Earthy" against her chest. Fear was there, an icy fist clenching her stomach, but above it, from the depths of her being, arose a determination as steely as the earth the card represented. She had come too far, had learned to believe in herself and in others, to be defeated by terror now.

"Alright," she declared, and her voice, though trembling, did not break. "I understand. I accept the judgment."

But before the process could begin and before she knew what she would have to do to pass the judgment, her gaze fixed on Khaslana's golden eyes. She needed to know. She needed to understand the full magnitude of the stakes, beyond the warnings about time and terrifying transformations.

"But before you begin," she said, and each word was an effort of will, "I need you to answer one thing for me, Khaslana, Judge of the Long Cards. Tell me, with all the truth you bear... what is the exact calamity, the concrete fate, that awaits this world... and everyone living in it... in the event that I... fail?"

The question hung in the rarefied air, a challenge and a plea. Everyone held their breath. Cyrene lowered her gaze to her hands, and a single silver tear, the first Stelle had ever seen her shed, traced a silent path down her cheek. Aglaea closed her empty eyes for a moment, as if she couldn't bear the burden of the coming answer. Dan Heng tightened his grip on his spear even more, his knuckles white, awaiting the verdict.

Khaslana held Stelle's gaze, and for a brief, heart-wrenching instant, the absolute severity of his golden eyes cracked, revealing something infinitely more terrifying: a deep, cosmic pity, the compassion a god might feel for a mortal about to be annihilated by forces they cannot comprehend.

"The rules of the Final Judgment are simple," declared Khaslana, and his voice was the cold toll of a bell announcing its own end. "You must demonstrate your magical ability. You would have to create your own card using only your magic, but I doubt your magical capabilities for that. Therefore, you must defeat me in combat."

Stelle couldn't even nod. The tremor that ran through her was the only possible response. Dan Heng, beside her, was a statue of impotent rage, his white knuckles gripping the spear he knew was useless.

"When the last star goes out," continued the Judge, pointing at the gloomy gray sky where the stars were dying like fireflies trapped in tar, "if you have not succeeded, you will be considered to have failed in your task and the sentence will be carried out."

The silence was so thick it could be cut. March held her breath.

"The world will not be destroyed," Khaslana clarified, and his gaze, of an impassive gold, settled on each of them. "Instead, every human being will irrevocably, forever, lose what matters most in their life. And they will be able to mourn that loss, because the memory of it will remain, like a tormenting ghost, haunting the surviving humans for the rest of their lives."

He paused, letting the first shiver of horror run through them.

"If it is a person, a beloved being, they will disappear from the world. Those who knew them will keep the memory of their existence, the echo of their voice, the trace of their step, but only as a painful shadow, a ghost that once was real and is no more. A child will weep for a mother who vanished into thin air. A lover will cling to the memory of a kiss that will never return. It will be an eternal mourning, without a body to bury, without possible consolation."

Stelle thought of Caelus, of her father... of Dan Heng. Seeing them disappear, becoming a painful memory... was an infinite torture.

"If it is an object, an invaluable treasure, it will turn to dust before its owner's eyes. The one who cherished it will remember its shine, its weight in their hands, its importance, but only as a lost relic, a broken symbol. An artist will weep for their destroyed masterpiece. A warrior, for their shattered sword. The absence will be tangible and heart-wrenching."

Stelle's gaze fell to "The Earthy". To see it turn to ash, along with the rest of her cards, forever remembering its power?

"And if it is a feeling or a memory," the relentless voice continued, "the very essence that defines a person, it will be torn from their chest. The one who loses it will remember having had it, will remember the happiness, the peace, the courage they once felt, but only as a distant echo, a forgotten taste on the tongue. They will know they have lost something fundamental, and that awareness of the loss will be their greatest torment."

March brought her hands to her heart, imagining the desolation of remembering joy without ever being able to feel it again. Dan Heng saw out of the corner of his eye how Aglaea shuddered.

Khaslana then fixed his gaze directly on Stelle. The air around her seemed to grow colder, heavier.

"But for the failed aspirant... for you, Stelle... the punishment will be different." His voice dropped to a whisper laden with absolute fatality. Cyrene narrowed her eyes, aware of what was to come. "If you fail, you will be condemned to absolute oblivion. You will not just die. You will be erased from the face of the earth, from history, from the memory of everyone and everything. You will never have existed."

The terror that invaded Stelle was so complete, so visceral, that it stole her breath. She felt the world blur for a moment. She wouldn't die. It would be something infinitely worse.

"No one will mourn your loss," the Judge continued, each word a hammer blow to her soul, "because no one will remember you ever lived. Your twin brother, Caelus, will grow up with the feeling he was always alone, without understanding the emptiness in his soul. Your father will not have a daughter to protect, only a son and a silence in his heart he cannot name." His gaze shifted to Dan Heng. "And he... he will hold no memory of your eyes, your smile, the light you created to find him in the darkness. For all of them, Stelle Hunter will be a name without a face, a gap in reality they don't even know is there."

Stelle felt tears clouding her vision. She looked at Dan Heng, desperately seeking his eyes, clinging to the reality of his gaze. To cease to exist in his memory? To turn everything they had lived through together into... nothing? It was an annihilation not only of the body but of the very meaning of her life. It would be like unraveling a painting and scattering the pigments to the wind, with no one knowing they had ever formed something meaningful.

Panic was a living animal writhing in her chest. It wasn't the fear of ceasing to be, but the horror that everything she was, everything she had meant to others, would vanish without a trace. It would be the most absolute solitude, one she couldn't even feel, because nothing of her would remain to feel it.

In the sky, another star, one of the brightest remaining, flickered and went out.

"The Final Judgment begins," announced Khaslana the Judge, in a tangible force that changed the very texture of reality, sealing their fate with the coldness of a marble slab. Without his expression changing, he strode firmly towards Stelle.

Dan Heng didn't think. His body exploded into motion before the declaration had finished resonating. Every muscle, every nerve, screamed in rebellion against the scene. He lunged forward, his spear a flash of silver determination in the gloom, a silent cry of denial. His aim wasn't even to wound; it was to interpose himself, to place himself between Stelle and that entity, as he had done so many times. But Khaslana didn't even glance at him.

With a supernatural fluidity, the Judge leaned towards Stelle. She, paralyzed by the wave of overwhelming power preceding the judgment, barely managed to blink. Her eyes, filled with a terror she was only beginning to comprehend, met Dan Heng's for a fraction of a second. It was a gaze laden with everything unsaid, with the interrupted confession at the temple, with the tacit promise to always be there.

Then, Khaslana's hands, which were not rough but of a terrifying solemnity, took her, while her body suddenly relaxed and collapsed to the ground, the Judge preventing her from hurting herself against the floor. Not with brutality, but with the inevitability of an ancestral ritual. He lifted her as if her weight were no greater than a feather, and in that act, something broke inside Dan Heng.

"Take your hands off her!" he roared, his voice, normally so contained, tore in an explosion of pure rage and panic. His spear rose, ready to stab, to shatter, to do anything to stop that contact.

It was then that the world closed in around him. A blinding golden radiance erupted between him and the rooftop. A barrier of pure energy, studded with spinning glyphs that sang a song of ancient power, materialized with a dull rumble. Dan Heng crashed into it at full speed. The impact was like hitting a mountain made of light. A violent shock ran through his entire body, making him stagger backward, his arms numb to the shoulders, a sharp ringing filling his ears. The physical pain, however, was nothing compared to the agony that gripped him upon seeing Stelle, now unconscious and pale, being carried in Khaslana's arms like an offering to the altar of judgment.

'No... No, it can't be.'

He hit the barrier with his fist, again and again, feeling his bones protest.

"Stelle!" he shouted, but his voice was absorbed by the energy field, not reaching her. "Let her go!"

But it was useless. Khaslana, that precious burden, rose with a powerful beat of his asymmetrical wings that stirred the air laden with sorrow. Dan Heng followed them with his gaze, rooted to the ground, his chest a knot of ice and fire. He saw her, so fragile, so still, and a horrible truth made its way into his mind: the sentence wasn't just loss. It was oblivion.

'No one will remember you ever lived...'

Khaslana's words resonated within him like a poisoned echo. Forget her. Forget her silver hair disheveled by the wind, her stubbornness that defied logic, her rare laugh that was the most genuine sound he had ever heard. Forget the way her eyes shone when she created magic from nothing, the feel of her hand in his, the warmth that enveloped him when they were close.

Forget that she had found him in his own darkness. If she failed, all that would vanish. His mind would search for those memories and find only a void, a gap in her shape, but without her essence. The idea was so monstrous, so profoundly wrong, that it stole his breath. He would prefer a thousand times the pain of losing her, eternal mourning, to the poisoned peace of a world where Stelle had never existed. He didn't want to forget her. He couldn't. She had become the compass of his world, the meaning behind his strength. What was the point of protecting a world that didn't remember her?

Meanwhile, on the rooftop, the cold wind brought Stelle back to consciousness. A moan escaped her lips. The headache was a dull pounding, but the emptiness in her chest was worse. She blinked, disoriented, and there he was. Khaslana, at the other end of the rooftop, standing like a divine statue, watching her.

"It was time you woke up," he said, his voice a serene whisper that cut through the whistling wind. "It is time. Attack me. Use all your cards. There is no room for restraint here. Your survival, and that of the world you know, depend on it."

Stelle struggled to sit up, her legs trembling. Her fingers found the familiar metal of the pen, her grip convulsive, transforming it into her spear. The book, heavy, opened in her hands. Fear was a metallic taste in her mouth, but as she looked down and saw Dan Heng's desperate figure pounding against the barrier, something hardened inside her. *I can't give up. They won't forget me. I'd rather die.*

"I summon thee, The Sword!" she shouted, her voice hoarse with emotion and fear.

The sword of pure light materialized, and she charged. She wasn't an expert, but her father had taught her some fencing as a child to test the swords he made. She tried to feint, hoping to distract him. *Let him think I'm attacking from the left.*

Khaslana didn't flinch. He raised a hand, and the energy blade crashed against his open palm, stopping dead. A dry snap, like a breaking bone, and the sword shattered into a thousand luminous fragments that vanished like tears in the darkness, several of them grazing Stelle's face like shards of glass. Ignoring the blood trickling down her face, she felt the card she was thinking of jump into her hand.

"The Firey!" A sphere of roaring flames emerged from the book, hurling itself towards the Judge with a heat that rippled the air.

Khaslana blew gently, as if extinguishing a candle wick. The flames, which would have reduced a fortress to ashes, went out without a snap, without a trace of smoke, as if they had never existed.

"The Thunder!" A crackling lightning bolt, an angry finger from the sky, fell upon him with a roar that shook the rooftop.

The Judge raised an index finger. The lightning, instead of striking, coiled around his arm like a docile golden serpent, glowing for an instant before dissipating in a sigh of energy.

Below, Dan Heng witnessed each failure with an agony that grew exponentially. Each failed card, each attack that vanished effortlessly, was a piece of hope torn from his chest. He clenched his fists so hard he felt the warmth of blood where his nails dug into his palms. His breathing was ragged, his eyes, normally so serene, reflected absolute torment. Hitting the barrier had become a frantic, useless rhythm, the only way to discharge the impotent fury consuming him. He was trapped in the worst of nightmares: watching the person who mattered most in the world fight a losing battle, knowing that her failure meant not only losing her but forgetting she had ever been worth living for.

Stelle, panting, with cold sweat sticking her clothes to her body, resorted to desperate combinations. "The Watery and The Freeze!" A torrent of icy water, a geyser sprung from nowhere, swirled around Khaslana, instantly solidifying into a translucent block of ice trapping him inside.

For a second, a spark of hope illuminated her heart.

Then, Khaslana took a slight step forward. There was no effort, no tension. The ice, hard as steel, simply cracked with a crystalline sound and burst into a fine drizzle that evaporated before touching the ground.

Exhaustion, physical and emotional, began to paralyze her. Her breathing was a broken bellows. "The Fight!" The card granted her a surge of agility and martial knowledge. She lunged at him, a silver whirlwind of fists and kicks, moving with a speed the human eye could barely follow. "The Wood!" She tried to combine it with one of her favorite cards, hoping to restrict his movements and end the fight without having to struggle further.

Khaslana dodged every move. He didn't run, he didn't defend with brutal blocks. He merely tilted his head, turned his torso, moved a foot a few centimeters, making every lethal attack brush past his clothes without touching him. It was a macabre dance, a demonstration of a power difference so abysmal it was obscene. Finally, when Stelle threw a direct punch at his face, he deflected the blow with the back of his hand. The contact was minimal, but the force of the deflection, perfectly calculated, threw Stelle backward like a ragdoll. She fell to her knees, sliding on the cold stone, the air escaping her lungs in a painful gasp.

She couldn't go on. Her cards, her will, her body... everything had failed. With her heart shriveled, a bitter hopelessness flooding her, she looked up at the sky. Only a handful of stars remained, their little lights flickering, weaker and more spaced out, like the last, agonizing beats of a dying heart. Time was running out. Her time was running out.

Khaslana remained standing, impassive. His golden eyes watched her from the distance, patient, expectant. Waiting for the end.

The air on the rooftop grew colder and thinner, each of Stelle's inhalations a stab in her exhausted lungs. She leaned on one hand, trembling, while the other still clutched her spear like a talisman. Through a veil of sweat and repressed tears, she looked at Khaslana. And then, she saw it. It wasn't something obvious, not a drastic change in his impassive expression. It was a fleeting flash, a shadow of something peeking from the depth of his golden eyes. It wasn't anger, nor triumph. It was... sadness. An ancient and profound sorrow, like that of an executioner fulfilling a duty he detests. But the compassion, if it existed, did nothing to mitigate his determination.

"You do not understand the nature of magic," said the Judge's voice, serene but laden with infinite weight. "You trust the tools you have, but not the force that drives them."

Stelle tried to stand, her muscles protesting with sharp pain. "The Wood!" she managed to articulate, and vines thick as snakes sprang from the marble, coiling around Khaslana's legs with vise-like strength.

He didn't flinch. He looked at the vines, and with a slight movement of his hand, the living wood instantly dried up, cracked, and turned to dust, as if centuries of decay occurred in a second. The defeat was so absolute it was humiliating.

"You have used brute force, the elements..." he murmured, and in his tone there was no disdain, but a terrible, didactic pity. "But you have not understood the flow. You have no idea about magic."

And then, he did something that froze Stelle's blood. He extended his hand, and in his palm, a familiar energy crackled. It was the energy of The Thunder, the same she had invoked minutes before, but now condensed, purified, and obedient only to his will.

"Observe," was all he said.

A golden lightning bolt, ten times brighter and more precise than hers, shot from his hand. It wasn't a blinding attack, but a whip of pure energy that struck Stelle in the chest with terrifying precision.

The world exploded in white, crackling pain. A scream choked in her throat as every nerve in her body seemed to ignite at once. The electricity shook her violently, throwing her back against the cold stone of the rooftop. The smell of ozone and her own scorched flesh filled her nostrils. She gasped, unable to breathe, her body convulsing uncontrollably. Her vision blurred, sounds became a distant buzz. She lay on her back, staring at the sky without seeing it, semi-conscious, the echo of the lightning still reverberating in every bone.

Below, March let out a choked scream, bringing her hands to her mouth. "Stelle!" Her voice was a thread of horror. Her gaze, however, wasn't fixed only on Stelle. She pointed at the sky with a trembling finger, her eyes wide with terror. "The stars! Another one... and another!"

And it was true. In the vault of gray velvet, four of the faintest remaining stars flickered erratically, like failing hearts, and then went out forever. The darkness deepened, swallowing another piece of their hope. Very, very few remained.

Khaslana approached Stelle, floating serenely. He stopped beside her, looking at her vulnerable, trembling figure lying on the ground. Stelle tried to get up, but her body wouldn't respond. She could barely move a couple of trembling fingers. The sadness in her future executioner's eyes was more palpable now, no longer a flash, but a veil covering his golden depth with resignation.

"End this now. Spare yourself the shame and fade away with honor," his voice said, strangely soft, almost a whisper that curved with the wind. Under other circumstances, Stelle might have believed he said it compassionately. Considering a lightning bolt had just shot through all her nerves, she very much doubted it. "Resistance only prolongs your agony and hastens the inevitable. If you surrender and accept the verdict... I can make your transition peaceful. You will fade without pain. I promise you. Like falling asleep. It is more than the sentence offers to the others."

Stelle, struggling to stay conscious, managed to turn her head towards him. The movement brought a new wave of nausea. Her eyes, filled with tears that finally overflowed, met his. There was no anger in her gaze, not even fear at that moment. Only a deep, heart-wrenching melancholy.

Stelle's tears traced clean paths down her cheeks, dirty with soot and dust, reflecting the faint light of the few remaining stars. She looked at him, at the embodiment of her doom, offering her an empty mercy, and in her eyes there was only the silent, terrified question of a young woman having everything torn away from her.

From the prison that was the ground for him, Dan Heng witnessed every second of the torture. He saw the vines of "The Wood" turn to dust, another defeat in a litany of failures tearing his soul apart. But what came next froze his blood to the last corpuscle.

He saw Khaslana summon the lightning from his own palm, a perversion of Stelle's power, purified and turned against her with cruel precision. The blinding flash illuminated for an instant the Judge's impassive face and Stelle's vulnerable figure. The impact, silent from his confinement, was nevertheless violently clear in his eyes. He saw her arch, a grotesque spasm running through her body before she was thrown against the cold marble like a rag. The faint smoke rising from her tunic made him imagine the smell of scorched flesh, and a fierce nausea churned in his stomach.

March screamed, her voice a sharp nail in his ears, but he barely heard her. His world had narrowed to the image of Stelle lying motionless, and to the sky where, like a sinister omen, two of the last stars went out, plunging everything into an ever-deeper gloom. The countdown to nothingness was accelerating.

Khaslana approached her. He leaned over. Dan Heng couldn't hear the words, but he saw the offering in the Judge's posture, a false mercy in his gesture. And then he saw Stelle's tears. Despite the distance, he could see those precious tears reflecting the moonlight. Those silent tears, clean amidst the dust and pain, reflecting the dying light of the stars, were the final straw. He had waited too long.

With a calm that was the antithesis of the hurricane roaring inside him, Dan Heng concentrated. He visualized the golden barrier not as a wall, but as a fabric of energy. A fabric that demanded constant maintenance, and that would be costly to deform. And he had something to offer in exchange for his passage: something so valuable, so fundamental, that the barrier could not refuse it.

He extended his hand, not to strike, but to offer. He whispered the words of the pact in a forgotten language, a spell of equivalent exchange. 'Take what you ask for.' A wave of absolute cold, deeper than any winter, pierced him. It wasn't physical pain, but a sensation of emptying, as if something essential was being torn from the very roots of his existence. He saw, for an instant, the glow of his own years, years of potential life, fading, consumed as an offering by the barrier. How many had he lost? 5, 10, 15 years? The price was brutal, but the reward, the only one that mattered, was on the other side.

With a dull burst of inverted energy, the golden barrier fractured right in front of him. It didn't shatter, but opened, a blink of vulnerability bought with his own future.

Dan Heng didn't hesitate. He propelled himself forward, the barrier closing behind him. As he leaped, a flash of white light enveloped him. His practical clothes dissolved, replaced by the heavy cloth and intricate embroidery of his ceremonial mage robes, one of the first magical artifacts he received in his life. And then, for the first time since arriving in this country, he let the essence he always contained flow freely. It wasn't a complete transformation, but a flash of his draconian heritage: his eyes became vertical slits of incandescent jade, nacreous scales, fleeting like shadows of fish in deep waters, shimmered along his arms and neck, granting him superhuman strength and agility, and he allowed his horns to emerge from his head.

He landed on the rooftop with the elegance of a predator, interposing himself between Stelle's fallen figure and Khaslana. His spear, now imbued with a faint ceremonial glow, pointed at the Judge, who straightened up slowly, his surprise merely a slight arch of an eyebrow, quickly concealed. "You are interrupting the Final Judgment, intruder. It is a transgression that will not be tolerated."

Dan Heng's voice was cold as steel, but with a determination that resonated in the stillness. "Never, in any of the rules you stated, did you say that Stelle had to face this trial completely alone. You said she had to defeat you. You did not specify she had to do it alone."

Behind him, Stelle, still gasping and her body convulsing from the remnants of the electrocution, heard his words. A wave of something warm and heart-wrenching flooded her chest, momentarily countering the cold of the pain. He came. For me. Even with these absurd rules, he found a way. And then, bitterness hit her. Because she was still there, immobilized, a weight, a burden. She cursed herself for her weakness, for not being strong enough, for forcing him to pay a price she couldn't see but intuited was monstrous. Get up.

Khaslana observed Dan Heng, a spark of genuine interest in his golden eyes. "Very well," he conceded, and his tone was almost respectful. "I accept your logic, but know that I will not hold back."

Without further warning, Khaslana attacked, launching a series of solidified light daggers that hissed through the air. Dan Heng didn't try to deflect them all. His priority was not himself. He spun his spear, creating a defensive vortex in front of Stelle, causing the daggers to crash and shatter against the ground at her feet, protecting her completely while he dodged those aimed at his own body with fluid, serpentine movements, his draconic heritage making his reactions almost precognitive.

Khaslana didn't flinch. With a gesture, the marble at Dan Heng's feet froze, turning into a sharp trap. Dan Heng jumped backward, moving away from Stelle for a crucial moment to avoid being caught. It was the mistake the Judge was waiting for.

The instant Dan Heng separated from her, Khaslana didn't follow him. His gaze settled on Stelle. With a natural movement, he tore a long, sharp shard of pure ice from the air, a fragment of the essence of "The Freeze" that Stelle had invoked before. And with the speed of a thought, he threw it.

It wasn't even an attack meant to kill, at least not for him. But as if it were.

Dan Heng saw it all in slow motion. He screamed her name, a torn syllable, and propelled his body to interpose himself, but the distance was too great. The shard of ice, bright and deadly, cut through the air and embedded itself with a wet, dull sound in Dan Heng's torso, right in the middle of his chest.

A sharp, icy pain shot through him, so intense it left him breathless for a second. The force of the impact made him stagger back several steps. He looked down, seeing the ice projectile protruding from his body, a scarlet and crystalline stain slowly growing on the immaculate white of his ceremonial robe. His spear fell from his hand with a metallic clatter against the stone. He reverted completely to his original form, even letting out his tail that normally bothered him.

Stelle watched as he fell dead to the ground.

Chapter Text

The sound was horrible. A dull, wet impact that cut through the night. The projectile embedded itself in his torso with brutal force, stopping his charge dead in its tracks.

Time stopped for Stelle.

She saw his body tense, a gasp of pain and surprise escaping his lips. She saw the scarlet stain, obscene and vibrant, spreading over the immaculate white of his ceremonial robe, staining the symbol of his legacy with the price of his devotion. She saw his spear, that extension of his will, fall from his hand with a metallic clang that sounded like the end of everything.

The cry finally tore from her lips, a hoarse, broken sound. Her own fingers, numb from the lightning, scrambled across the cold marble, trying to reach him, to push her useless body towards him. Tears, now hot and salty, streamed down her face uncontrollably. It was no longer the silent sadness from before; it was a heart-wrenching anguish, a visceral pain at seeing him wounded, seeing him bleed for her.

He staggered, his hand instinctively going to the wound, touching the shard of ice protruding from his flesh. His gaze, clouded with pain, sought hers. And in that moment, through the veil of her own tears, Stelle saw no reproach, no regret. She saw a silent question, a last, fierce determination. Are you safe? before he fell to the ground.

The universe shrank to a single point of agony. For Stelle, the world exploded in a deafening silence when that shard of pure ice, drawn from the very essence of "The Freeze," killed Dan Heng. It wasn't the sound that shattered her, but the image, seared into her retina: his body, so strong and sure, becoming an inert weight, the ceremonial white of his robe defiled by a scarlet stain that expanded with obscene voracity. The spear, the symbol of his will, falling with a metallic clang that sounded like a funeral bell.

A scream tore from her throat, a primitive sound that wasn't a word, but pure pain given voice. "NO...!"

The lingering punishment of "The Thunder," which still made her muscles dance in uncontrollable spasms, was drowned out by a wave of horror so glacial it froze her blood. The judgment, Khaslana, the dying sky—none of it existed anymore. Only he existed, collapsed, and the certainty of a void that was a thousand times worse than any threat of oblivion.

Her will, forged in countless battles and fueled by a love she only now understood in its full depth, a love she only now wanted to admit, exploded in an act of instinctive, pure power. She didn't need to grab her spear, nor utter a spell. She extended her trembling hand, and from the deepest part of her being, from that core of light that had defied darkness itself, a silvery flash burst forth. "The Shield" answered her desperate call. It wasn't a shield to block a blow, but a complete dome, a translucent, glowing cocoon that closed over the two of them with a whisper of comforting energy, isolating their pain from the outside world, creating a bubble of last hope amidst the nightmare.

She dragged herself across the cold marble, her nails scraping the stone, every centimeter gained a battle against despair. She completely ignored Khaslana's voice, which came muffled and serene from outside the dome, an ice dagger in her soul: "Time is running out, Cardcaptor. Every heartbeat you waste in mourning is one less for the world. The sentence approaches."

She reached his side. Her hand, trembling but urgent, rested on his cheek. A deathly cold transmitted to her fingertips. His skin, always so full of life, was pale, cerulean. His eyes, those jade eyes that had been her anchor in so many storms, were half-open, sealed by eternal unconsciousness. She leaned in, her breath ragged, bringing her ear to his lips. Nothing. No air. Only the silence of the void. She pressed her fingers against his neck, desperately seeking the pulse that would tell her he was still there, that the fight wasn't over. But she found only a terrifying stillness, an organic silence that screamed his absence.

"No... no, no, no, Dan Heng, please," she begged, her voice broken into a whisper, a prayer to a god who wasn't listening. "Don't leave me. Don't go."

She shook his shoulder gently, as if she could wake him from a simple dream, like with "The Sleep," but his body was an unfathomable weight, an empty echo of the warrior who moments before had defied a deity for her, who had declared himself her weapon. Panic enveloped her then, a blind, suffocating panic that clouded her vision with fresh tears.

With frantic, almost out-of-control hands, she opened the Book of Cards. The pages glowed, showing the arsenal of wonders she had conquered. Her gaze, blurred by tears, scanned each one with growing desperation. "The Time"? It could stop time. But no, it would only freeze this moment of infinite horror, perpetuating her agony without being able to rewind, without being able to undo the damage. "The Return"! Her heart leapt with hope only to crash against the floor of reality; it only reverted objects to a previous state, a mere physical memory, a broken toy repaired, not the complex and precious life slipping through her fingers. "The Create" could form matter from nothing, but not a soul, not the unique spark that was Dan Heng. Nothing she created could come close to him. "The Sweet". "The Mist". "The Fight". "The Earthy". Nothing. Absolutely none of the cards, not the most powerful, served to heal, to resurrect, to give back the breath that had been stolen from him. A heart-wrenching sob, laden with the bitterness of the most absolute defeat, escaped her chest. Her tools, her power, everything she had fought for, was useless for the only thing that truly mattered in the universe.

"Take it all!" she screamed at his lifeless body, pressing her palms hard against his chest, over the icy wound that was a monument to her failure. "All my magic, all my energy, my life, take it! It's yours! Please, just breathe!"

She tried to force her magic through her hands, a current of silvery light that flowed from her to him in an uncontrolled torrent. But it crashed against a wall of organic silence. Life was gone. There was no vessel, no channel to feed. Her energy, her desperate offering, scattered uselessly in the air inside the dome, a spectacle of defeat that left her even emptier.

It was then, in the very abyss of her despair, that her spear, lying abandoned on the floor like a mute witness, dissolved into a glow of silvery particles. It floated to her open hand, like a faithful bird returning to the nest, and transformed back into the magic pen. The object that had started this whole journey. The catalyst of her destiny. And feeling its familiar weight in her palm, a sudden and terrible clarity illuminated her mind. She couldn't use the existing cards to save him. She couldn't give him her magic because there was no one left to receive it. But perhaps... perhaps she could *create* something new. Write their future together. Something born from her very essence, her will, her love. Something just for him.

With a determination born from the deepest ashes of her hope, she closed her eyes. She no longer concentrated on sealing or capturing. She concentrated on a wish, a longing so pure, so intense and desperate that it burned inside her with the force of a sun. She visualized not a future of power or victory over Khaslana, but a simple, luminous, earthly future: a future by his side. Laughter shared at dusk, hands intertwined walking through the garden, the warmth of his shoulder against hers in silence, sunrises contemplated together. The promise of an "after." The certainty that their story would not end here, on this cold rooftop under a dying sky.

The pen in her hand began to glow with an intensity never seen before, a light that transcended silver and gold. It was a rainbow of pure emotions made blaze: the warm pink of tenderness, the deep blue of unshakable loyalty, the blinding gold of absolute devotion, the vibrant green of a hope that refused to die. The light expanded, enveloping the pen in a whirlwind of colors and feelings, and when it faded, in her hand was no longer the pen, but a new card.

It had no name written. It bore no seal of Long. The image was not an element, nor a force of nature, nor an abstract concept. It was the simplest, most innocent, and profound representation of her heart: a small girl, with black hair and eyes full of stars, hugging with infinite sweetness and protection a winged angel's heart, of a vibrant jade full of life. It was the essence of her love, her desire to heal, to guard, to protect that winged and wounded soul that was the most precious thing to her.

"Please..." she whispered, not knowing who she was asking, the universe, the cards themselves, or the creative force beating at the very center of her being. "Work. For him."

She pressed the card against Dan Heng's chest, right over the icy wound, as if she wanted to seal it into his skin, into his heart. She kept trying to channel her magic, her entire remaining essence, through that new, fragile link. "Take it!" she implored, her voice hoarse from crying. "All of it! My magic, my life, my future, my memories! I don't want any of it if you're not in it! It's meaningless without you!"

The card, as if it had acquired a will of its own, a consciousness born from the love that had created it, began to glow again with that multicolored light. It didn't stay in her hand. It wasn't a seal. It melted. It became a liquid, warm, vibrant light that seeped through the torn robe, through his cold skin, and entered directly into his chest, merging with his heart, with his very essence, like a new magical heartbeat intertwining with her own, like an eternal oath engraved in the core of his being.

A sigh, an almost imperceptible tremor. Then, the shard of ice, brutal and deadly, began to melt. It didn't happen drop by drop, but as if the very heat of life was returning, dissolving it from within, transforming death into a vapor that rose towards the dark sky in a last sigh of defeat. The wound beneath closed, the skin fused without leaving a scar, as if love itself had acted as the best of balms, leaving only the torn and stained robe as the sole, terrible testimony of what had happened.

And then, Dan Heng opened his eyes.

A gasp, deep and vital, filled his lungs, a sound so marvelous it seemed to Stelle the most beautiful of symphonies. His jade pupils, disoriented and veiled by the last echo of nothingness, focused on her. On her tear-streaked face, on her swollen, red eyes shining with a relief so immense and overwhelming it was almost a pain in itself.

"What... what happened?" His voice was weak, rough, like the crunch of sand, but it was *his voice*. The voice she thought she had lost forever.

Stelle, breathless, her heart racing with an emotion she couldn't contain, pointed a trembling finger at the place where the card had melted. "I... I transformed my pen," she managed to say, haltingly. "Into a new card. A card just for you. One that... that would protect you, that would... bring you back to me."

Understanding, and then a deep, protective horror, painted Dan Heng's face. He sat up with a groan, a hand instinctively going to the place where the ice had pierced him, only to find healthy, warm, living skin.

"What? Why... why would you do that, Stelle?" he asked, his voice laden with an alarm born of pure terror for her. He looked around, and realizing where they still were, looked back at her, grabbing her shoulders desperately. "Your pen! It's your connection to the cards! The core of your magic! The Judgment! Damn it, we're still in the middle of the Judgment!"

She looked at him, and in her eyes, still wet, there was no trace of doubt, calculation, or regret. Only a truth as clear, as simple, and as absolute as the sky observing them.

"Because I love you Idiot," she said, and the words came out with surprising calm, serene and firm, as if they had always been there, waiting for their moment to be spoken. "And I'd rather disappear, have the whole world forget me, than let you die. Just like you'd rather die than let me disappear. You are my future, Dan Heng. You are the tomorrow I want to fight for. And I will fight to the end."

He looked at her, and the horror in his tear-filled eyes transformed into something more complex, deeper. Damn it, he was handsome even while crying. A mixture of absolute awe, a tenderness that tightened his chest, and a fierce, overwhelming devotion that consumed him. His eyes shifted to a point in the sky.

Stelle followed the direction of his gaze and looked up at the sky, at the vault of gray velvet. Only two stars remained. Two small, faint points of light, flickering desperately in the gloomy immensity, like the last grains of sand in a cosmic hourglass. A thread of time, infinitesimal, agonizing, but it still existed. There was still a chance.

With a grunt of effort, Dan Heng got to his feet, ignoring the last phantom echoes of pain in his body, the weakness screaming at him to stay down. His gaze hardened, turning towards Khaslana, who watched from behind "The Shield's" dome with that indefinable expression, though his golden eyes seemed to hold a new spark of interest.

"Alright," Dan Heng said, and his voice was no longer weak, but charged with a new resolution, a strength reborn from the gift she had given him. "I get it now. If you think I'm going to let her disappear after this, you haven't understood anything."

The Judgment hadn't ended. Stelle's question, laden with an empathy that transcended time and power, resonated in the silence following the battle. Khaslana, trapped in the cage of silvery light, didn't try to free himself. His gaze, fixed on her, seemed to pierce the eons, lost in a pain as ancient as the stars themselves.

The air on the rooftop of the Temple of Mnestia was a broth of contradictory energies that kept increasing. On one hand, the warm, comforting presence of the new card beating in Dan Heng's chest, a beacon of hope forged from the purest love, along with the love emanating from his companion. On the other, the cold, impassive authority of Khaslana, the Judge, whose mere existence seemed to defy the possibility of a happy ending.

But Stelle was no longer the same. On the brink of the abyss, having seen life fade from Dan Heng's eyes, something had transmuted within her. It wasn't just strength she had gained; it was a fundamental understanding. The Long Cards were no longer external tools. They were part of her. And by creating a card from scratch, from her own essence, she had reclaimed sovereignty over all the others.

She noticed a pattern. Every time she used a card in its original form, Khaslana not only countered it but seemed to feed on its golden energy, on her connection to Long. It was as if the Judgment was designed to test a master of that specific power. But she no longer was one. Until that moment, Khaslana had only attacked her with the equivalent of the cards she had used.

She looked at her empty hands. The magic pen, the staff, had dissolved forever in the act of creation. She no longer needed it. She extended the palm of her hand, and the Book of Cards floated before her, its pages glowing not with the inherited gold, but with a silvery, vibrant light that was her own.

Khaslana watched, and in his eyes there was no surprise, but a deep, almost anxious expectation.

"I am no longer the Cardcaptor who captured these cards," Stelle declared, and her voice resonated with crystalline clarity. "Now I am the one who redefines them."

"The Storm" was the first. But it wasn't the chaotic whirlwind she knew. Upon invoking it, Stelle visualized not destruction, but the contained fury and justice of a storm, and she marveled at the poor perception she had had of it. The card glowed with an intense silver in the book and, upon materializing, was not an uncontrolled wind. It was a dome of compressed, roaring air that descended upon Khaslana, not to push him, but to oppress him, an atmospheric prison exerting constant pressure on every inch of his body, hindering his movements and absorbing sound. The whirlwinds didn't spin erratically, but in perfect concentric patterns, like tree rings, sealing him in a cylinder of controlled fury.

Khaslana tried to raise an arm and found tangible resistance. His golden eyes blinked. This was not Long's power.

"Dan Heng," Stelle said, without taking her eyes off the Judge.

He needed no more. He understood instantly. His role was no longer to protect her from attacks, but to be the anchor point, the cornerstone from which her new magic could flow. He positioned himself behind her, a hand on her back, not to transfer energy, but to offer his unshakable presence as a focus. His own card, the nameless one, glowed in sync.

Khaslana, with visible effort, managed to conjure a golden "The Shield" to counteract the pressure. But Stelle was already a step ahead.

"The Fight" was next. She didn't apply it to herself. She channeled its essence through the card, transforming it. It wasn't just martial skill; it was strategy, precision, the essence of the conscious warrior. The silvery energy merged with the winds of "The Storm," and suddenly, the air whirlwinds developed a predatory intelligence. They didn't blow randomly; they launched at precise angles, like invisible, swift fists, striking the weakest points of Khaslana's golden shield with concentric, methodical impacts, seeking to fracture it.

The Judge took a step back, his shield creaking under the incessant, calculated assault. Doubt began to cloud his face.

With a broad sweep of her arm, Stelle invoked "The Firey". But the flames that emerged were not orange and red. They were cold flames, of a silvery white and blue, that didn't seek to consume, but to purify. They weren't launched directly at Khaslana, but intertwined with the wind prison, creating a cyclonic furnace that didn't burn flesh, but dissolved the golden magical energy emanating from him. Khaslana's shield began to fade, not from brute force, but because the very fuel feeding it was being annihilated.

A grunt of effort escaped the Judge. For the first time, he was forced to concentrate solely on maintaining his defenses.

"Enough, girl!" he roared, but his voice sounded choked by the storm and flames.

"It is not," Stelle replied, and her gaze was one of deep pity. "Not yet."

"The Freeze" was her next move. But it wasn't a mortal, sharp ice. She wouldn't do the same as Khaslana. Passing through the filter of her soul, it became ecstasy, stillness. A cold not physical, but magical, emanated from her and merged with the silvery firestorm. The effect was instantaneous. Khaslana's movements, already hindered by the pressure and assault, became incredibly slow, as if time itself thickened around him. His wings beat with an agonizing heaviness, his fingers, trying to form a new seal, moved with the slowness of dripping honey.

He was trapped. Immobilized not by chains, but by the laws of a new magical system being written in real time before his eyes.

"And now," whispered Stelle, exhausted but triumphant, with Dan Heng as her unshakable rock behind her, "the final knot."

"The Wood". The card she once used to create vines. Now, transformed, it was the essence of connection, of the roots that sustain everything. No trunks or vines emerged. From the marble of the rooftop, at the boundaries of the combined storm, perfect geometries of solid silvery light sprouted, shapes resembling ice crystals or giant snowflakes, which interlocked forming a perfect, translucent cage around Khaslana. They didn't hold him by force; they simply existed around him, sealing the space he occupied, finalizing the complex and brutal choreography of elements Stelle had orchestrated.

In divination, each card was associated with multiple meanings. "The Freeze" symbolizes difficulty in moving forward, a blockage, or the stopping of something. "The Thunder" symbolizes paralysis and energy. "The Firey" symbolizes creativity and passion. Until then, she had been guided by the literal meaning of the cards. Her nameless card represented her love.

Silence fell suddenly. The storm dissipated, the flames went out, the stasis ceased. Only the cage of silvery light remained, and within it, Khaslana, completely immobilized, defeated. Not by brute power, but by Stelle's mastery, by an evolution of the very power he had come to judge.

His breathing was ragged. His golden eyes, finally free from the mask of impassivity, reflected absolute disbelief, mixed with something that seemed like... liberation.

Stelle, her strength at its limit, leaned slightly on Dan Heng before taking a faltering step towards the cage. Her gaze was not triumphant, but one of infinite compassion.

"Why?" she asked, her voice a whisper laden with all the weight of the night. "I've seen your pain from the beginning. It's etched in every movement, every attack. Why does a Judge who can do everything carry such a deep wound?"

The question hung in the air, more powerful than any spell. Khaslana looked at her, and for the first time, he didn't see an aspirant, but a mirror of a truth he had avoided for eons.

"The Judgment..." he began, his voice now rough, stripped of its former coldness, like a stone polished by the river of time. "...was not created on a whim. It was a necessity. A safeguard."

He paused, and a spasm of agony crossed his face. "There was... another. Before you. A soul with immense potential, an ambition that shone brighter than a thousand suns. He was also chosen by the Guardian of that time." His golden eyes clouded, looking at a memory only he could see. "He... or she... I've forgotten. That's the cruelest part. I remember the feeling, the echo of a presence that was everything to me. A laughter that was my melody, a promise that was my reason for being. But the face, the name... erased. They tried to master the cards not to protect, but to possess. To impose their will on reality itself. And in their failure... the price was exacted. Not just their life. Their existence. Torn from the fabric of the world. And with it..." his voice broke. "...everything they were to me. Only this... this void in my soul remains. A pain for someone who, to the universe, never existed."

Stelle felt a pang of compassion so intense it made her hold her breath. She looked at the trapped Judge, the ghost of his lost love, the empty shell that didn't remember its own pain. Her loved ones had almost known that fate. She had almost become an echo in Dan Heng's heart, a void in March's memory.

"I..." she said, and her voice was firm, clear. "...do not want to be the Master of the Cards."

Her words fell like thunder in the stillness. Even Dan Heng, behind her, held his breath.

"I have known them," Stelle continued, looking at the book floating before her. "I have fought with them, I feel what they feel, I have learned from them. 'The Sweet' helps me bake cakes, 'The Fight' gives me confidence, 'The Light' and 'The Dark' showed me that hope can be born even in darkness. I don't want to dominate them. I don't want to be their owner. I want... to be their friend. Their guardian. Someone who protects them and ensures their power is used with wisdom and kindness." Then, she turned her gaze to Khaslana, her expression open, sincere. "And if you allow me... I would like to be your friend too. Not as the Judge, but as Phainon, or as Khaslana if you prefer. As the person you are, with your memories or without them. Because I believe that behind all this power and pain, there is someone who also needs a friend."

At that precise moment, as if the universe had been holding its breath waiting for her words, an absolute stillness fell over the world. March, from below, was the first to notice it, letting out a terrified squeak.

"The sky..." she whispered, her voice trembling.

Everyone looked up. Dan Heng shuddered, horrified.

The last star, a faint point of light that had held out until the end, flickered once, with a tenderness that seemed like a farewell, and went out. Her time to convince the Judge was over.

The twilight light tinted Dan Heng's apartment orange, where the air smelled of book dust and the faint moisture of recently practiced magic. Dan Feng, sitting with his impeccable posture in the only armchair not occupied by stacks of scrolls, watched the scene with a mixture of exasperation and affection.

"Your wrist posture, Bailu. It's not a club, it's a wand," Dan Heng instructed serenely, gently correcting his younger sister's hand, who was threatening to flood his apartment for the fifth time that week. And it was only Monday.

"But it's heavy!" protested Bailu, her face showing fierce concentration. A few specks of bluish light flickered erratically at the tip of her wand as she tried to levitate her teapot.

"Gravity is a perception, not an excuse," Dan Heng replied impassively. "If your teacher knew you were practicing astral projection in my living room, without proper supervision..."

"But you're a better supervisor than the teacher!" she implored, making the specks of light dance in a slightly more stable pattern. "And you'd never tell him, right?"

Dan Feng, who had remained silent drinking his tea, raised an eyebrow. The jasmine aroma couldn't completely hide the residual ozone of minor magic. He had noticed the contained energy in the room upon entering, the subtly magical disorder that betrayed the secret lessons. And he had noticed something else, something resonating from Dan Heng himself. A warmth that wasn't the familiar cold glow of his draconian magic, nor the disciplined aura of the warrior. It was something... organic. Palpable. A core of serenity and warmth that seemed anchored deep within his brother, emanating a peace that hadn't been there before. It wasn't a magic he recognized from any text or tradition. It was unique. And he wisely decided not to mention it.

"Secrets between siblings are the cement of trust," Dan Feng declared, gently ending the discussion. He set his empty cup down with a soft click. "And speaking of secrets, the air here is thick with yours, my little star. An open park would be a more... discreet place to test that control."

Bailu let out a sigh of relief, the specks of light disappearing completely. "Really? We can go to the east park! It has a perfect pond for practicing water reflections."

"An excellent idea," Dan Feng nodded, standing up. He adjusted the folds of his robe and headed for the door. As he passed Dan Heng, who was still standing by the table with his usual impassive expression, he stopped. His gaze, sharp and perceptive, settled on his younger brother. Not on his eyes, but on that point on his chest where that unknown warmth resided. He said nothing about the magic, nor the secret lessons.

Instead, a genuine smile, small but deep, softened his features. "I'm glad to see you..." he said, and his voice was softer than usual. "...more... at peace. It's a good look on you, little brother."

It was a subtle acknowledgment, a wink at that internal change he couldn't name. Dan Heng didn't flinch, but a slight, almost imperceptible nod was his response. A silent understanding passed between them, as tangible as the magic in the air.

Dan Feng opened the door. "We'll be out for a while." His gaze swept the room, from the messy scrolls to the empty teapot. "And, Dan Heng..." he added, with a hint of that prescience that always characterized him, "...perhaps you should prepare more tea. Something tells me the visits... are far from over."

The door closed, leaving Dan Heng alone in the twilight silence. His hand rested, almost instinctively, on his chest. There, Stelle's nameless card, forged from the purest love, pulsed softly, an ember of warmth and promise. He looked at the empty teapot, then the door through which his brother and Bailu had left. "More visits." With Dan Feng, it was less a prediction and more a fact to be confirmed. And for the first time in a long, long time, the idea didn't weigh on him. The warmth in his chest seemed to expand, filling the empty space with a stillness that accepted whatever was to come.

Khaslana closed his eyes. A long, weary sigh escaped his lips. When he opened them again, the pain had been replaced by a serene acceptance.

"The Final Judgment has concluded," he announced, and his voice was no longer that of a judge, but of a witness. "Stelle. You have demonstrated a strength that resides not in domination, but in compassion. A wisdom that seeks not to control power, but to understand its purpose. And a heart large enough to offer friendship even to the one who sentenced you to nothingness."

He paused, and the cage of silvery light containing him dissolved into a soft glow, freeing him.

"By the authority bestowed upon me, I, Khaslana, the Eternal Judge, declare you the Master of the Long Cards. May your will be their guide, your compassion their compass, and your friendship their greatest treasure."

A beam of golden light, warm and benevolent, descended from the dark sky, enveloping Stelle. It wasn't a bolt of power, but an anointing. She felt the cards in her book resonate with pure joy, as if they had finally found a true home. Her exhaustion didn't disappear, but it mingled with a deep peace, a sense of fulfillment and duty correctly understood.

With a flash of silvery light beside her, Cyrene finally materialized. Her silver eyes shone with tears of joy and pride.

"You did it," she said happily. "I knew you could. I'm so sorry, but I couldn't tell you." She turned to Khaslana, and in her gaze was a millennial understanding. "Khaslana and I... our duty as absolute guardians is over. We will be by your side, but not as rulers. In our mundane forms. As Mem, your faithful companion, and as Phainon..." she looked at the young man with white hair, who watched them bewildered. "...as the friend who has always been near, even without knowing why. And if you ever need us, if darkness threatens again, we will be there. But we trust that the light you carry within is more than enough."

Khaslana nodded slowly. He looked at Stelle one last time, and a genuine smile, small but real, touched his lips. "Take care of them. And... take care of him."

Then, his form began to fade. The majestic and terrible wings retracted, the golden scars closed and disappeared, the platinum blonde hair turned back to snowy white. The golden light extinguished, and where the powerful Judge had been, now only Phainon stood, blinking, disoriented, swaying slightly.

"What... what happened?" he asked, rubbing his temple. "I feel like I had a very intense dream... Why are we all on the rooftop? Stelle, are you okay? You look pale."

Stelle tried to answer. She wanted to smile, to tell him everything was fine. But the enormity of the events, the colossal expenditure of magic, the transformation of the cards, the anointing as Guardian, the emotional release... it all crashed down on her at once. The world began to spin around her. Voices became distant echoes. She felt Dan Heng's arms encircling her, preventing her body, finally surrendered, from falling to the cold marble.

"Stelle!" she heard his voice, sharp and full of alarm, before the darkness, this time a darkness of exhaustion and peace, claimed her completely.

The last thing she felt, before fainting, wasn't fear. It was the warm, firm security of his arms, the soft glow of the card that had given him life in his chest, and the quiet certainty that, at last, her adventure as a Cardcaptor was over, and her new life had just begun.

The soft, almost timid knock sounded at the door. It wasn't Caelus's noisy drumming, nor March's energetic rap. It was a rhythm instantly recognizable to him.

Upon opening it, the outside world seemed to filter into the silent room. Stelle was there, framed in the doorway. She wore a loose, soft gray sweater that matched her hair, and jeans with a small stain of what looked like green paint near the knee. In her hands, she held with almost reverential care a clumsily wrapped package in deep blue paper, adorned with crudely cut-out silver stars pasted with what seemed like an excess of dried glue, forming little shiny lumps around the edges.

But what immediately caught Dan Heng's attention, with a pang of something between worry and a deeply rooted protective instinct, were the marks on her face. They weren't the thick, ugly scars he had feared, but fine, almost translucent pink lines that crossed her left cheek from her temple to her jaw, like the memory of a lightning bolt frozen on her skin. They were the aftermath of the moment Khaslana had shattered "The Sword" in front of her, a physical and fragile reminder of how close he had come to losing her forever.

"Stelle," he said, and his own voice sounded deeper than usual, the single word laden with the weight of the silent, recovering days.

"Hi," she replied, and a nervous smile touched her lips, a gesture that couldn't hide the shadow of discomfort in her starry sky-colored eyes. Her gaze quickly scanned his face, seeking, making sure he was also whole, that he was there.

"Come in," Dan Heng indicated, stepping aside to make space. The simple movement let a ray of twilight light briefly illuminate the dust dancing between them, like particles of residual magic.

The atmosphere in the room thickened. It wasn't the charged electricity of a spell or the tension before a battle. It was the palpable awkwardness of two people who had shared a cosmic trauma, who had seen the abyss and clung to each other to avoid falling, and who now reunited in the banality of a messy apartment, with only their raw and overwhelming feelings for company.

"How are you?" asked Dan Heng, returning to the table and beginning the familiar ritual of serving tea, his precise movements an anchor in the surge of unspoken emotions. He poured hot water into a second cup that, significantly, was already waiting on the tray.

"Okay. Still tired," admitted Stelle, approaching and setting the clumsy package on the table before accepting the cup. Their fingers brushed, and a small shiver, as intense as any magical discharge, ran up both their arms. She looked at the cup, avoiding his gaze for a moment. "Things... hurt. Things I didn't even know could hurt. Like the bone here," she touched her eyebrow gently. "But I'm okay. Really."

She brought the teacup to her lips, enjoying its flavor. "Caelus..." she began, and a sigh escaped her lips. "Caelus won't stop bothering me. He wants to know every detail, every spell, every... every thing. But Dad... Dad sat down with us last night. With both of us."

Dan Heng raised an eyebrow, surprised.

"Yeah," Stelle continued, reading his expression. "Apparently, he... and Mom... always knew. About the cards. About Mem. Not everything, but enough. They said it was my path, my choice. And last night, they explained everything to Caelus." Her smile was a bit embarrassed. "But now he's mad at me. Not in a loud way, but... quiet. He says he doesn't understand why I didn't trust him with something so big."

"It's hard, for someone like Caelus, to feel in the shadows," Dan Heng commented softly, taking a sip of tea. "He needs time. And probably pastries. March has been supplying you, I assume."

Stelle laughed, a sound that seemed to clear the charged air a bit. "Like a possessive baker! She brings at least two every day. She says if I'm going to have 'epic battle scars'," she made air quotes with her fingers, "I need 'epic fuel' to tell the story. She brought one shaped like the 'The Sweet' card yesterday. It was... incredibly detailed."

"That sounds exactly like March," murmured Dan Heng, and for the first time since she had entered, a corner of his mouth curved upward into something resembling a smile.

"And Phainon..." Stelle paused longer this time, her gaze lost out the window. "Nothing. Absolutely nothing. It's as if... as if he woke up from a very long, confusing dream. He's so... carefree. So *Phainon*. He saw me yesterday and asked if I had fallen from my window vine again," she pointed to her scars with a finger. "It was... bittersweet. Seeing him there, just being himself, after... after everything he was."

"Oblivion can be a mercy," murmured Dan Heng, his voice low. He remembered the depth of the pain in Khaslana's golden eyes, the weight of eons of solitude and loss. A reset like that, cruel as it seemed, could be an act of mercy.

"On the way here, I ran into Aglaea," Stelle continued, changing the subject. She fiddled with the handle of her cup, tracing its contour with her fingertip. "She's... different. She's leaving next week. Back to Greece, with her husband."

Dan Heng blinked, genuinely surprised. "I didn't know Aglaea was married."

"Nobody did!" Stelle exclaimed, with a hint of the curiosity that had always defined her. "She seems... lighter. As if she'd taken a weight off her shoulders. She told me that, during the judgment, when Khaslana described the sentence... she knew immediately. What mattered most to her, what she couldn't lose, was the love for her husband." Stelle smiled, a soft, understanding smile. "And then, almost as a confidence, she joked that what matters most to him in this world are his 'dromas'. She said they're like his four-legged children. Do you know what they are? I'm curious."

Dan Heng let out a soft, almost inaudible snort, but one full of ancestral disdain. "The dromas. Yes. They are a magical species, a very, *very* distant offshoot of dragons. Basically, they're... fluffy pets the size of a wolf, with the brain of a hyperactive squirrel. They have an exasperating tendency to drool and chase their own tails until they collapse." He shook his head, though his tone wasn't unpleasant, almost resigned. "Comparing them to dragons is an insult to my ancestors' dignity. They are, at best, puppies with sulfur breath and a very vague concept of gravity."

Stelle laughed, a genuine, carefree laugh that seemed to vibrate right in Dan Heng's core. "Aglaea said her husband has three! And they insist on sleeping in the bed with them. She said it's like having three rumbling furnaces."

"A deeply undignified image," murmured Dan Heng, but he couldn't help his expression softening a bit more.

The conversation continued like that, rocking in the comfort of mundane details. They talked about how strange it was to return to classes, how the world seemed to have become quieter and less magical, and yet, how every familiar corner now seemed charged with new meaning. Gradually, the initial shyness dissolved, replaced by the deep familiarity they had always shared, but now enriched by the layers of their shared experience, tinged with a new, vulnerable awareness of the place they held in each other's lives.

In a moment of comfortable silence, Stelle's gaze drifted behind Dan Heng, where his draconic tail now rested on the floor, the tip moving with a slow, calm rhythm. It was a part of him he normally kept hidden or controlled, a part always associated with tension, danger, his hidden heritage.

"I've never... never been able to just... look at it before," she said softly, almost to herself, before her brain could censor the words. "It was always hiding it, or in the middle of a fight, or..." She looked up to meet his eyes. "It's really beautiful, Dan Heng."

He went completely still. The statement, so simple and direct, took him by surprise. Most people saw his tail as a curiosity, a oddity, or a reminder of a nature that wasn't entirely human. Disdain or fear were the most common reactions. Sincere admiration... no.

"It's..." he swallowed, his voice sounding a bit rough. "...impractical. Knocks over vases. Topples piles of books in tight spaces."

"It's still beautiful," she insisted, with that stubbornness that had defied gods and magical cards, and that now applied to convincing him of the beauty of his own nature.

That stubbornness, combined with the intimacy of the moment, gave her the final courage. With a determined movement, she picked up the clumsy package from the table. She didn't hand it to him. Instead, she stood up and walked around the table, approaching him. The proximity was overwhelming. She could see the dust motes dancing in his eyelashes, the beat of his pulse at the base of his neck.

"I... I made this for you," she said, her voice barely a whisper. She offered him the package, holding it between them like an offering. "It's a gift."

Dan Heng looked at the package, then at her face, then the package again. His curiosity was a palpable force field around him.

"Open it," Stelle encouraged him, her cheeks flushed with a blush that rose to her scars.

With a delicacy that contrasted with the package's clumsiness, Dan Heng took it. His long, skillful fingers methodically undid the paper, carefully peeling back the glued edges. What emerged from the crumpled wrapping was a teddy bear. It was, undeniably, unique. Its shape was decidedly asymmetrical, with a head slightly larger than the body, as if it had been stuffed with a fervor that surpassed precision. One of its black button eyes was situated noticeably higher than the other, giving it an expression of perpetual astonishment. The stitching of its smile, made of brown thread, was uneven, going up and down like an electrocardiogram of joy. It was made of a soft, silvery-gray fabric vaguely reminiscent of Stelle's hair, and around its neck was tied a small blue satin ribbon, whose bow was more of a messy knot than an elegant tie.

"I made it myself," Stelle confessed, staring at the bear in his hands as if it were the world's most fragile relic. "The days I was in bed, after... after everything. I'm not... I'm not very good at these things, I know." She took a deep, shaky breath and looked up to meet Dan Heng's intense, inscrutable gaze. "But... I read something. In an old, dusty book I found in the folklore section of the library, hidden among texts about domestic fairies. It said that... if you give a teddy bear to your special person, and you name it, and that person accepts it... then..." her voice broke. "...you will be together forever."

The last word came out as a barely audible sigh, a whisper laden with all the hope and fear in her heart. The silence that filled the room was deeper than any darkness they had faced. Stelle's heart beat with a frantic, painful rhythm against her ribs. She had defied a cosmic Judge, transformed magic itself, faced annihilation for him. But in that moment, holding that clumsy, misshapen little bear, she felt she was making the most risky and vulnerable bet of her life.

Dan Heng wasn't looking at the bear with mockery, nor confusion, nor polite courtesy. He was looking at it with an intensity so absolute, so concentrated, that he seemed to be absorbing every imperfection, every clumsy stitch, every questionable choice of stuffing. He was reading the story in those unraveled threads, the dedication in the clumsily tied ribbon, the pure, unfiltered love in every inch of its imperfect making.

Slowly, he looked up. His jade eyes, normally so impassive and analytical, burned with a raw emotion that took Stelle's breath away. The distance between them, already minimal, evaporated completely. He didn't lean in. It was a fluid and natural movement, as if a force of gravity was pulling them towards each other. His forehead rested against hers, and the teddy bear was trapped between their chests, a mute and soft witness.

"Then," he whispered, and his voice was rough, charged with an emotion that made Stelle tremble to her bones, "its name will be Dan Heng."

The words, simple and definitive, resonated in the space they shared. They were an acceptance. Not just of the gift, but of the promise. Of the future.

And before she could respond, before she could process the torrent of relief and joy flooding every fiber of her being, he closed the last few centimeters separating them.

The kiss wasn't passionate or desperate. It wasn't the kiss of two people clinging to life amidst chaos. It was slow. Deliberate. Infinitely tender. It was the woody taste of jasmine tea, the silent promise of a shared tomorrow, the total acceptance of all their scars—the visible ones on her face and the invisible ones on their souls—and of a future represented by a clumsy teddy bear. Stelle felt tears, warm and irresistible, escape her eyes and slide down her cheeks, symbolically blurring the line of her scars. Her hands, trembling, let go of the bear and clung to the sides of his face, anchoring herself in the solid, palpable reality of him, in this perfect and fragile moment.

Gravity, or perhaps simply the overwhelming nature of the moment, made them sink back. It wasn't a fall, but a slow, joint sinking into the cushions of the worn sofa. The "Dan Heng" teddy bear fell softly onto Dan Heng's lap, its one well-placed eye looking up with approval.

When they finally parted, both their breaths were ragged and shared. Dan Heng's eyes shone with a light she had only glimpsed in brief moments of extreme vulnerability, a light that now belonged to her completely.

"Dan Heng," she managed to say, her voice a trembling thread, confirming the name that now belonged to the bear, and the future they had just sealed.

He nodded, his forehead still resting against hers, their breaths mingling. "Forever," he murmured, and this time it wasn't a quote from a dusty folklore book. It was an oath, a truth engraved not in the magic of the cards, but in something infinitely more permanent and powerful. The teddy bear, trapped between them, was their first and dearest witness.