Chapter Text
“Saganoya.”
Sagara turns. It is—
Impossible. He killed her with his own hands, he fell, he broke, he—
A ghost.
“Biruchira,” he says. “Why have you come here? You know the cost it will bear to your new life. You know the cost it will bear to what remains of you.”
Biruchira just smiles. She always smiles.
Except when he tried to talk to her. Of what big dreams the Forest wanted why didn’t she understand we can bring our peace with us, change and grow it. Connect and tie until god itself will notice me why did father abandon me will bow to us and our vision? It may be more war but it will be worth it. Please, Biruchira. Listen.
You aren’t listening I have no choice there are greater things greater than—
“So you’re still in there,” Biruchira says. Sagara—
No.
Saganoya cannot bring himself to smile. His face breaks.
“Of course,” he says. “Sometimes. But I chose this curse. I was forced to kill—”
“Oh please,” Biruchira says, her arms crossing. “We both know it didn’t take your soul until after I died. I told you— I begged you to keep fighting. Do you remember that?”
“What worth would that be,” Saganoya says. “Without you?”
“Worth enough!” Biruchira shouts. “Billions of lives, Saga. I begged you . I would have forgiven you if killing me made you see any kind of sense.. . And now… and now, the woman we would have fallen for forever, had Decade not touched our story, lays dying. In our Forest.”
Saganoya laughs.
“And what would you have me do?” He asks. “We are not truly gods, here. That is Forestopia itself .”
“No,” Biruchira says. “It’s still us. And I say, we give all that we have left to save a woman who… who is better than you. Who realized her obsession. Who chose the right thing. Who came here to fix her damn mistakes instead of letting them spreading, Saganoya of Studytopia.”
…and oh, he still loves her. He has not been this aware in millennia.
And… she’s right.
He did give up, didn’t he? He gave up on their future. On peace. On exploring for knowledge, for joy, for love…
All to become a puppet. So little left of him that he has no soul left to save.
“What do you have in mind, ‘Chira?” He asks. “I don’t have much time, you know.”
Biruchira sighs.
“I know,” she says. “I will give up most of what’s left of me. You will give up the same. Our powers will go to Kureshima Chinatsu of World of Gaim. And… you can have us! Both of you! Hikari Natsumi is yours to torment. To use or trick… but she is strong. She is strong enough to destroy you .”
Saganoya nods, letting out a piece of himself and—
Twisting writhing and let me out we must keep going we are strong and we will grown and amasss until—
Sagara laughs.
“I guess that means you’re mine,” he says.
Biruchira grins, again. This is why he hates her. She cannot stop fighting. Stop thinking, and fixing, and…
“I wouldn’t make it that easy,” she says. “You’ll find me on the World you’ve chosen to consume next. You’ll find her protecting the ones you plan on using. She will not cave. She will not lose to you. ”
Sagara grins.
“Sounds fascinating,” he says. “Been a while since someone did something new when we found them.”
(Megahex was fun. He wonders if they ever learned he hacked their code, turned their protective utopia into a cheep copy of what Sagara is, what Helheim (that is what the next World to be consumed calls it) will always be. A thing that consumes.
So was the world that built its own gods. Too bad he couldn’t quite break them completely.)
(What Hikari Natsumi did does not count. She is already the most bitter and off-putting extension of Helheim itself.)
The Woman of Beginning grins as she fades.
“Oh, don’t worry,” she says. “I’m sure it’ll be more than you could ever dream. ”
Sagara cannot wait to break her.