The Boundary was more than a library — it was the beating heart of Acrix Solara, the Hellgate stronghold and capital city. Its halls stretched endlessly, a labyrinth of tomes and tablets chronicling ages of triumph and ruin. Here, within these walls, time held its breath. The Boundary was a ...

Nagase expected resistance. Aerys’s jaw had tightened earlier, his pride bristling even in silence, and Vivi… Vivi never took kindly to being ordered, no matter how gently the words were wrapped. So when the chamber remained still—no sharp rebuttals, no brittle laughter—she almost didn’t trust it ...

The air still trembled from Inariel’s words when she finally exhaled. For a moment, Nagase didn’t trust her voice—didn’t trust herself. She hadn’t expected anyone to speak for her. Especially not him.

Her eyes lingered on Inariel, that strange mirror of light and shadow. She had learned not to ...

Prisma:“I want a second chance. I wanna see where I went wrong. Now that the cursed flame doesn’t live inside me, I see the world so differently.”

Her voice wasn’t desperate—it was hollow. Worn thin. Like she'd said this too many times in too many echoes of this same nightmare.

“I’ve seen your ...

Nagase: “Bullshit.”

The word cracked like lightning between them—sharp, dismissive, real. Nagase’s voice steadied, grounded not in disbelief, but conviction.

Nagase:“I know myself. Even as a Horseman... we can’t kill him. Neither the forest nor Vescrutia would allow such a thing. And Mother ...

Nagase:“I…can kill him? That’s impossible! YOU killed him. YOU became a Horseman…not me.”

The prismatic warrior stood with that unnatural stillness again, like light trapped in glass—eyes dimmed of their earlier shimmer, now half-lidded, absent of any trembling water or regret.

Prisma: “…Yes, it ...

Nagase: "Help me?! Just a moment ago you were ignoring me and sought to abandon me without so much as a whisper."

She halted—her voice edged, yet soft. The silence that followed wasn’t empty. It was questioning.

Nagase: "Come to think of it… how did I bring you back here?"

The woman in the broken ...

I didn’t come to kill you,” the older Nagase finally said—her voice a deeper echo of the younger’s. “I came to test you.”


Nagase’s breath caught in her throat.

“I—” she started, but couldn’t finish. “You’re me?”

“Not exactly,” the prism woman replied, stepping forward. “A possibility…impossible ...

Nagase staggered, eyes wide, mind tearing at the seams.
She could feel her grip on reality began challenged, torn from her grasp. The Fire wasn’t hot in the way fire should be. It was beautiful—crystalline, refracted, spiraling through her thoughts like light through shattered glass. Her memories ...

Nagase dropped to her knees.

The sand clung to her like ash as the last rays of sunlight gave way to dusk. Her shoulders shook, quiet at first, then violently, as sobs tore their way out of her. She buried her face in her hands and wept—not just for the woman, or her father, or the riddles left ...