Chương 117: 116: A Turn Of Events

Katherine stood at the edge of the hole in the floor, her feet hovering a breath above the fractured stone. Her dress was gone. The cornflower-blue dress with little daisies that Butter had drawn for her. The one she had loved. The one she had worn through blood, tears and the slow, terrible process of becoming something else. In its place was something that wasn't fabric. Light had learned how to drape itself.

Midnight silk flowed across her body like liquid held together by memory alone, threaded with luminous cobalt veins that pulsed in time with the quiet rhythm of her heart. It wrapped around her torso like a second skin, leaving her stomach bare before cascading around her hips in soft, layered folds resembling the petals of a flower that had never touched soil. Her hair remained blue. Only...... the colour had deepened. It resembled the deepest ocean trench, the place where sunlight surrendered and never returned.

Every strand drifted around her as though she floated beneath an invisible sea, moving with slow, graceful currents untouched by the air around her. A translucent silk blindfold rested across her eyes. It rippled gently with every movement, flowing like seaweed beneath a tide. She no longer appeared to need sight. The world itself bent around her, every vibration, every ripple, every heartbeat becoming another sense. Her hands were bare. The gold-rimmed glasses were gone. The bracelets were gone.

Only the dreamcatchers remained, hanging at either hip, woven from silver and cobalt thread with crystal beads suspended like frozen tears. They swayed gently as she moved, each one a tiny prison holding a dream that would never wake. Beneath the blindfold...... cobalt light pulsed. It was a heartbeat. The Nonagon breathed behind closed eyes, its rhythm visible through silk, through skin that had become almost translucent, through a body quietly replaced piece by piece, cell by cell, dream by dream.

The eye upon her navel remained closed. Waiting. Korhess stared.

"What hast thou become?" she whispered. Wonder and grief lived side by side within her voice.

"I behold thy countenance, yet the maiden whom I once knew standeth not before mine eyes." Her spear remained in her grasp, though her fingers had loosened around the haft. One careful step carried her backwards, instinct creating distance between herself and the figure wearing Katherine's face. For a long moment...... silence. Katherine tilted her head slightly. A faint smile tugged at one corner of her mouth.

The human part of her surfaced just long enough to point toward the colossal yellow-and-white beast still rampaging below.

"I see you've all met Custard." Silence answered her. Nobody laughed. Butter stepped towards her. Her hand was already reaching out. Pink eyes searched Katherine's face, lingering on the cobalt glow visible beneath the silk blindfold, on the body that no longer obeyed ordinary anatomy, on the quiet perfection the Nonagon had assembled one impossible piece at a time.

"Oh my... Honeycakes..." Butter whispered.

"Are you... are you okay? What happened down there? What did the Nonagon...?" Katherine smiled gently.

"I am better than I have ever been... Sugarbear." The voice belonged to Katherine. The warmth belonged to Katherine. The familiar Parisian lilt remained exactly where it had always been. Something else spoke beneath it. Something immeasurably older. Butter stopped. Her hand remained suspended between them.

"What... happened to you?" The question barely escaped her lips. Korhess hadn't moved. Her spear rested quietly in her grasp. Her hooves remained planted. Her gaze never left the figure before her. The eye upon Katherine's navel slowly opened. It regarded the room with impossible patience. Nobody spoke. Butter instinctively shrank back a step, concern replacing the hopeful smile she had been trying so hard to hold onto.

Her fingers curled against her prosthetic as though she suddenly wasn't certain reaching out had been the right choice. Korhess's grip tightened around her spear. The wood creaked beneath her fingers. Her ears remained still, her breathing measured, yet every instinct she possessed whispered that the being before her no longer fit within the language of life. Kiri frowned quietly from the corner of the chamber. She stood beside the Commander, her small frame tense, one hand resting near the equipment at her belt.

Years of surviving impossible monsters had taught her to trust discomfort, and every instinct she possessed was screaming now. The Commander remained motionless. His mask concealed whatever expression lay beneath it, though the lenses across his visor whirred softly as they focused, refocused, analysed, failed, and analysed again. Neither he nor Kiri had been acknowledged. Katherine hadn't looked at them once. Her attention rested entirely upon Butter and Korhess, as though everyone else in the room simply...

hadn't entered her awareness yet.... Katherine noticed their silence. A small smile found her lips. It was gentle. Almost amused.

"You are all looking at me." No accusation lived within her words. Only observation.

"I do not mind." Her head tilted ever so slightly.

"I would simply ask that you stop looking as though you have already begun mourning." She folded her hands loosely before her.

"It is still me. Do not look at me like that." Butter swallowed.

"Like... what?" Katherine considered the question.

"Like I am already dead." Her smile softened.

"I assure you... death would describe this very poorly." The cobalt light pulsed once beneath the blindfold.

"I have never been more awake." A quiet breath escaped her.

"I have never been more... Katherine." Butter nodded quickly.

"Okay, Honeycakes... that's... good." She forced a smile.

"I can feel a lot of power coming from you, which is definitely a good thing. The Commander... well... my dad..." She scratched the back of her head.

"I unlocked a new ability. Or... well... more like a combination. Actually it's a really long story, but we made a mistake. We need to save everyone in the pods, clean up this whole mess, and there's no reason for us to keep fighting anymore." She brightened.

"We can tame the galaxy-beast." Katherine tilted her head.

"His name is Custard." A faint hint of pride entered her voice.

"I named him." The tale has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

"Do you like it?" Butter blinked.

"Oh my, really?" She laughed nervously.

"That's actually a really cute name. I like it. That's awesome. Okay, so now let's—""Sugarbear." Katherine's voice remained soft.

"Calm down." A gentle smile rested on her lips.

"You are rambling." Butter immediately clamped both hands over her mouth.

"Mmph." Katherine's smile lingered. It was beautiful. It was the smile of a girl who had been given a gift she had never wanted and was only now beginning to understand what it had truly cost.

"I saw the truth," she said quietly.

"I understand now." A slow breath escaped her.

"I understand why the world was drowned." Her voice remained calm.

"Why God chose to begin again." The cobalt glow beneath her blindfold pulsed.

"No human deserves mercy." Butter scratched her head.

"How did we even get here?" she asked.

"What happened down there? Is this about that conversation we had about God?" She frowned, trying to organise her thoughts.

"What did you..." She stopped. Started over.

"And... well... yes, nobody deserves mercy. That's sort of the point." She rubbed the back of her neck awkwardly.

"Jesus died because we couldn't save ourselves. At least... if we're following Christian doctrine." She looked at Katherine hopefully.

"Or are you talking about something else?" A flicker passed through her face. Something almost human.

"And yet," she said, "you persist in the belief that a pardon once given must be eternally honored, no matter how often it is defiled." Her voice softened.

"It is not." Butter stared at her.

"You're not Katherine," she said.

"I am what Katherine became when she ceased pretending," she replied.

"No," Butter said, firmer now.

"You're talking like some ancient judge. Like you've lived a thousand years. That's not you. That's something else." Katherine's eyes softened. Just slightly.

"When one is permitted to see all moments at once," she said, "time becomes… irrelevant." A pause.

"Language follows. I have seen further than it was meant to carry," she said.

"Meaning erodes when forced through small mouths." Butter's jaw tightened. Her stance shifted.

"So that's it?" she said.

"You saw too much and decided everyone deserves to die?"

"I did not decide," Katherine said.

"I understood."

"You really believe that?" Katherine met her gaze.

"I know it." The eye upon her navel regarded Butter in complete silence. Butter stubbornly ignored it. She kept looking at the blindfold instead. Kiri wasn't nearly as successful. Her gaze remained fixed on the cobalt eye. It never blinked. Katherine's smile never faded. Something shifted behind it. Recognition. Pity. Perhaps the last fragile echo of the girl who had laughed over burnt popcorn, held Clock's hand without embarrassment, and once screamed at a deer simply for existing.

"It is time," Katherine said softly...

"For humanity to answer for its sins." Silence settled across the chamber. It was absolute. Butter's hand slowly fell to her side as she reached into empty air and touched the Aria. Sonata was still there. Requiem too. Harmony, however, was gone. She couldn't see the satchel on Katherine anymore, which meant Harmony was somewhere else. Still with her. Butter's thumb traced the bloodstained cover of the Aria. Her voice became small and careful, the voice she used whenever she spoke to something that might bite.

"Honeycakes... I understand. We'll punish the people who deserve it. We all want to. But right now..." She swallowed.

"The people in the pods. The dreamers. They're why we came here. We need to—" Katherine looked at her. Nothing lived behind the blindfold. Her expression remained perfectly composed. When she spoke, it sounded like someone answering a question that had already been settled long ago.

"Sugarbear."

"Forget them." Butter blinked.

"What?"

"Forget them for one second." Katherine took a slow step forward.

"Look at me." Her voice sharpened for the first time.

"They do not matter." She took another step, and the room seemed to shrink around her.

"I matter."

"You matter."

"It has always been about us." The calm shattered.

"I do not care about them!" Her voice echoed through the chamber.

"Stop talking about them!" Silence crashed down afterwards. Everyone stared. Even Butter had recoiled. Katherine closed her eyes and let out a slow breath. When she spoke again, her voice was perfectly calm.

"I already killed them." The words settled into the room without weight, without anger, without remorse, like the simple statement of an observable fact.

"Every single one." Butter's lips parted, but no sound came out.

"I absorbed them. Their dreams. The Apis cores that were still maturing."

"I consumed all of it." The cobalt light beneath the blindfold pulsed once as a faint smile returned to her lips.

"I feel... replenished." Butter didn't move. Her hand remained on the Aria. Her breath stayed trapped inside her lungs. Her heart continued beating. Something inside her chest quietly cracked. Korhess parted her lips as though words were coming. None did. The Commander remained at the rear of the chamber, silent, every sensor hidden beneath his visor studying Katherine without interruption. Kiri never looked away from the eye upon Katherine's navel.

"You..." Butter whispered. She swallowed.

"You killed them." Her voice was flat.

"The dreamers."

"The people waiting for us." She forced a weak laugh.

"Haha... okay... Honeycakes, that's... that's a really bad joke." She smiled far too brightly.

"You got me. Come on, let's—""They were not waiting for you." Katherine's voice remained gentle.

"They were being harvested." A small pause followed.

"They are no longer any of those things." Butter's grip tightened around the Aria until her knuckles turned white.

"We have to save the ones who are still..."

"There are no ones." Katherine spoke with quiet certainty.

"I killed every dreamer."

"Every pod."

"Every soul condemned to become fuel." She lowered her head slightly.

"I freed them." Silence answered her. Katherine took another step towards Butter.

"Forget about them." A warm smile spread across her face.

"Look at me." She slowly turned once in place, the luminous fabric flowing around her like liquid starlight.

"Don't I look pretty?" She stopped, facing Butter again.

"You no longer have to protect me. I am not weak anymore." The smile softened.

"We can protect each other now." Butter raised her hand. It was a plea to stop.

"Please..." she whispered.

"Just... give me a moment." Her voice trembled.

"I only just found out something about my life. I..." She drew a long, shaky breath.

"I'm feeling too many things right now, okay? I'm tired." Her eyes searched Katherine's face desperately.

"Please, Honeycakes... just... be good for a little while. Let's have peace. I don't even know what I'm supposed to say anymore." Katherine listened quietly.

"You can rest, Sugarbear," she said softly.

"I shall carry this burden from here." Butter stared at her. At the girl who had once skipped school in Paris, covered metro walls in graffiti, argued with judges, laughed at the worst possible moments... and had never once pretended to be perfect. Butter understood. There was no reaching her anymore. Her hand remained raised, fingers spread, her palm open. She wasn't threatening. She was begging.

"Carry what?" Butter asked.

"You want to kill us." A long silence.

"All of us. Every human being." Katherine nodded.

"Yes." Butter's voice became even smaller.

"Even the innocent? The children? The ones who haven't..." A dark-colored seahorse drifted through the air around Katherine, interrupting her. It dissolved into a cloud of bubbles, and everyone watched it in silent confusion. Katherine spoke.

"What about them? The women? The children?" Her expression never changed.

"I'll kill them first."

"Honeycakes, you can't kill innocent people."

"There are no innocents." Katherine's answer came without hesitation, anger, or satisfaction. Only certainty.

"Every child has entertained cruelty. They lie. They steal. They hide. They witness suffering and choose silence. They grow. They become teachers of the same darkness." Her head tilted slightly.

"No one arrives here clean." Butter's eyes glistened.

"That includes you." For the first time, Katherine's smile changed. It became painfully human.

"Yes." The single word carried no resistance.

"I know. I died for my sins." A quiet pause.

"Twice." She lowered her gaze to her hands, watching the cobalt light pulse beneath her translucent skin before slowly lifting her eyes back to Butter.

"When my debt was collected..." she said quietly.

"... theirs became due." She raised her head. The eyes beneath the blindfold no longer belonged to Katherine. Nor to Sylvia. They belonged to something impossibly patient, something that had waited in silence for a very long time, spending centuries building, in darkness, a world that would never require mercy because it would never require forgiveness...... because humanity would no longer exist within it.

"I am Apotheosis."

"I am Sylvia."

"I am Katherine." A faint smile touched her lips.

"I am all of them." Her voice remained almost tender.

"And no one standing in this room will prevent me from bringing this flawed creation called humanity to its end." Butter didn't move. Her hand remained raised, her palm still open. She looked at the girl who had laughed with her over burnt popcorn. The girl who had pressed warm hands against her chest and reminded her how to become whole again. She looked...... and found someone else.

"You were never good," Butter said quietly. There was no accusation. Only sadness.

"Even before all this. Even when you didn't have the power to hurt anyone, you were never good." Sylvia's smile never faltered.

"No."

"I wasn't." Butter's eyes searched her face.

"Then why not choose to be good now?" She took a hesitant step forward.

"You finally have the power to choose. So choose. Become the person you always wished everyone else would be."

"Lead by example." Sylvia fell silent, her head tilting thoughtfully. For the briefest instant, something resembling memory crossed her face.

"There is a belief," she said softly, "that the powerless are righteous by default. That evil requires strength. That power reveals corruption." Her gaze lowered to her hands, to the light moving beneath her skin. She shook her head.

"A child's philosophy."

"The powerless cannot prove righteousness. They merely lack opportunity. Their restraint is mistaken for virtue."

"The weak do not choose good. They cannot choose anything. They lack the reach to enact what they truly are. Their 'virtue' is restraint imposed by impotence. A mask shaped by fear." Her voice deepened, distant.

"Give them dominion, and the mask rots." Her fingers slowly closed into a fist.

"I was never different."

"I was only... smaller." She lowered her gaze to the cobalt light flowing beneath her skin.

"A seed." Her smile returned.

"And at last..."

"I have been given rain." She lifted her head once more.

"I understand free will now. Not the childish dichotomy of good and evil. That is a story told to comfort the undecided."

"It was always the choice between remaining a seed..."

"... or becoming the tree you were always capable of becoming." Her voice became almost reverent.

"And I have chosen. To remain a seed is a choice. To become… inevitable is the path I prefer." Silence settled over the chamber.

"No one is innocent," the girl said quietly.

"No one deserves mercy." Korhess's voice escaped in little more than a breath.

"Then hath the grove been doomed ere ever the first seed was sown. If every bough be cankered to its very heart, what forest remaineth to be spared? Alas, we are all undone." Sylvia's gaze settled upon her. Depthless. Unfathomably calm.

"Yes," she answered.

"That... is the point." THOOOM. THOOOM. Katherine staggered backward through the air. Even with Understatement and Herculean woven into her existence, Korhess's blows still found purchase. Apis collided with Apis as the ancient charge saturating Korhess's body slipped beneath the Nonagon's layered protections exactly as the Hexagon once had. The strikes had landed before they were thrown. For a single heartbeat...... Sylvia was off balance. Korhess was already there. She hadn't crossed the distance.

She simply occupied it. Her spear drove forward as her hooves carved deep cracks through the stone beneath them, every movement flowing into the next with terrifying inevitability. The thrust had begun in the past. Sylvia had only just arrived at the moment where it connected. The Nonagon recoiled. Not Katherine. The Nonagon. A pulse of cobalt rippled beneath Sylvia's skin as an instinct older than language screamed through it. An Apis-eater. Korhess was saturated with ancient charge. Far too much.

If she managed to close the distance, if she employed the same grasp that had once ripped Gloom from Butter's body...... she could tear whole masses of Apis from Katherine instead. A bear reaching into a beehive. Sylvia spoke. When she uttered the word, it no longer came from a single throat. Two voices overlapped with perfect synchronicity. Katherine's. … And something else. One was unmistakably human.

The other was vast, hollow, impossibly ancient, like a presence speaking through the spaces between her words rather than alongside them. They reached the ear at the same instant, yet neither voice obscured the other.

"Collapse." The word wasn't spoken as an order. It was spoken as a fact, as though Korhess's body had always existed in that condition and reality had merely forgotten to acknowledge it. Reality remembered. Korhess folded. Her spear slipped from numb fingers and clattered across the floor. CLAAANG. Her antlers fractured. KRRRK. Invisible force compressed every joint in her body. Her lungs flattened.

Her ribs groaned as muscle, tendon, and bone fought against an impossibility that insisted they occupied less space than they truly did. She crashed to her knees, shattering the stone beneath the impact. Her hands struck next. Her forehead followed. The chamber echoed with dull, brutal impacts as the ancient doe was pressed closer and closer toward the floor. Her eyes remained open. Wide. Clear. She couldn't breathe. Couldn't move. Couldn't even scream. Every instinct demanded air while her chest refused to expand.

Even Korhess's extraordinary resistance to Apis should have rendered such an attack meaningless. It didn't. The Nonagon had long since surpassed the output required to sustain a solar system. It had climbed beyond galaxies, beyond clusters, beyond scales the human mind possessed language to measure. Power eventually ceased caring what something was immune to. Fire could still consume fire if the blaze grew vast enough. Korhess dimly heard Butter shouting.

The words reached her as though carried through miles of deep water.

"Honeycakes, stop!" She wanted to answer. Wanted to reassure Butter. Wanted to stand. Nothing obeyed. Only silence remained inside the prison of her own body.