"Died?" asked the uncomprehending Keith. "What do you mean died?"
"Stelle died in a mission to retrieve a Stellaron" continued Elio, and the thousands of sounds his own voice was composed of seemed to exude sadness.
"What? How?" asked Keith in disbelief and growing horror, not wanting to understand what those sounds implied. "Couldn't you see the future? How couldn't you prevent it?"
"The moment you fainted, the future was fixed again" replied Elio, making Keith widen his eyes in shock. "I saw Stelle's death, but as always, I can only see the future, not prevent it."
And now Keith had a reason to believe Stelle's death.
He took a step back in shock, and a hand slowly travelled to his forehead.
"Stelle...." muttered Keith, not wanting to believe that the cheerful golden-eyes girl wouldn't be around them to joke and prank, or insist on going with her to look for trash.
And the faces of the rest expressed the same, except for Kafka's, who had been there the moment Stelle died.
Blade's expression didn't change, but despite being the most used to grief as he had seen thousands of compatriots die in the war against the Abundance, was also extraordinarily gloomy.
After all, no one could get used to loss.
Silverwolf was silent, but her trembling lips showed that she also wasn't unaffected.
Firefly was openly sobbing, as the person she felt the closest to was none other than Stelle, due to the open personality of the cheerful grey-haired girl.
And yet, Keith saw none of that.
His mind was set on the thought that Stelle had left them forever, and the cheerful girl wouldn't pester him anymore.
A void that he immediately knew wouldn't ever be filled by anyone else, because there was no one like her.
Memories of their adventure trip and Stelle's excited expression when looking at the mysterious box still in her room, Stelle's happy expression eating her spicy meatballs, Stelle's pout hearing that no one wanted to go with her to look for trash, her mocking expression when Silverwolf got punished for playing too much, her crying face when they had watched a sad movie, her smug smile when she won against everybody else in a baseball match, her embarrassed expression when she was forced to sing in front of everyone else due to a lost bet...
All of that had left, and wouldn't come back.
And so distracted was Keith, that he almost missed a source of energy so potent that would have alarmed him.
Almost.
"W-Wh-" Keith felt his words stuck on his throat, and suddenly realized that the world was blurry for some reason.
A source of energy was in front of him, and felt aggressive, volatile, hostile and about to explode.
A source of energy that had no reason to be here.
Despite his choked voice, Elio understood what he wanted to ask.
"It's a Stellaron of Destruction" explained Destiny's Slave. "And where Stelle resides now."
"Resides? Stelle?" asked Keith in shock, looking at the artefact emanating hostility.
"Thankfully, Kafka used her hypnosis to make it absorb Stelle as she was about to die" explained Elio, wondering what Keith's reaction would be. "Stelle i-"
"Stelle is there?" interrupted Keith, pointing at the Stellaron.
At this point, indignation was all remaining in Keith.
The fact that Stelle was still somewhere was a joyful one, but it got replaced by anger.
Stelle was a happy person, open and energetic.
So...what the hell was she doing in the middle of so much Destruction?
"She is" whispered Kafka, biting her lower lip, realizing the same.
How could she not? She had been there, witnessing the hellish scene the Stellaron had unleashed upon a peaceful world, how could she not understand how improper it was for Stelle to reside in the middle of a relic that brought so much death and pain?
And yet, she wasn't fated to help her friend, that much, she was sure of.
"That is all we can do" said Elio, hiding his expectation. "Mayb-"
"No, she doesn't belong there" declared Keith with a frown.
Stelle deserved to live like the most, but the world wasn't a kind place, even less for them.
Keith couldn't revive Stelle, nor could he change the past, but he refused to allow Stelle to stay in such a place.
How would Stelle smile in the middle of something bent on disintegrating everything? He had no idea of the state Stelle was in right now, or if she couldn't even feel to start with, but what he knew was that it was simply inadmissible, he couldn't let Stelle stay in that place.
She had always been making an effort to put a smile on everyone's faces, how couldn't he move to do the same now that she needed it?
And following his will...
.
.
.
Suddenly, all that Keith could see was the dreadful golden Stellaron, feeling a certain impulse surging from within him, taking over his body to try to reply to his desire.
He wanted to make Stelle live properly, but all he could do now was to follow this impulse he didn't know the origin of, but...
It would be okay, he felt that much.
As long as there was a destination, a path could be made, and this impulse would aid him in it, so he obeyed it and walked towards the Stellaron, his eyes dull and body acting by itself.
Stellarons were a type of lifeforms tethered to a certain path, and as such, there were Stellarons of Destruction, Abundance, Hunt, and many others.
They had enough energy to reduce a world to cinders, make all living beings mutate, or freeze the entirety of it, and the Stellarons of Destruction were particularly volatile because all they could do was destroy everything. Would Stelle be alive when this one exploded, bringing destruction to everything?
No, Stelle needed to move.
And he wouldn't allow it to be a single second later.
Keith touched the Stellaron, his purpose unknown even to himself, as only a faint thought that didn't belong to his mind was guiding his actions now.
Did he want to take Stelle out? Eliminate the Destruction? Give a bit of space to Stelle?
He didn't know, nor did he care.
He wouldn't allow Stelle to stand in the midst of such hostility, because Destruction didn't care for anything, not even the golden-eyed and mischievous girl who loved her treasures and spicy meatballs over everything.
So Keith, extending his hand, touched the Stellaron, his intention unknown even to himself.
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Keith's soul wasn't common, neither in strength nor nature.
The soul of an Aeon had been eroded to the point where only a minuscule portion of it remained, but had lost everything from its usual majesty.
A fragment of the End of Everything had attached to it, conferring it a touch of something Foreign that constantly battled against anything trying to tie it down, as the Paths did.
As big as the nearly infinite universe was, Keith's soul was without a doubt the most special soul.
There couldn't exist anything like it, and would never exist in the future.
And yet, as special as it was, it was still a soul, a very powerful one, but still a single soul.
Nothing more, nothing less.
And souls had something in common, they moved through the Will of their owners.
Just like in Teyvat those with a strong will were given Visions, just as the man once called Kenshin had trained his own ability willing his soul to move, how the Plane of Euthymia had been created, and how the soul of a being called Akivili had resisted the End Of Everything.
Every single soul used Will to move, and now this powerful soul was subjected to the strongest will it had ever experienced.
And like all souls, this powerful one also moved.
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With a sound akin to an explosion, everyone surrounding the Stellaron was violently thrown back.
"Ahh!" shouted Firefly in pain, hitting the ground violently.
Ruan Mei fell next to her, and Silverwolf followed soon after.
Only Kafka and Blade were able to twist their body in the air to fall on their feet, but they looked at the scene with shock.
Keith remained unmoved, with his hands touching the Stellaron and dull eyes in the middle of the room, seemingly unaware of the discharge of energy that left the Stellaron the moment he touched it.
Kafka crouched to avoid getting blown by the wind being emitted from the point Keith's hand was touching the Stellaron, but another shockwave made her retreat another few steps.
"Elio!" she shouted in alarm and worry, asking for instructions from the being cursed to See.
"Let him do what he wants" Elio's calm voice came back, knowing that as he had expected, Akivili's Will wasn't so easily snuffed out. As long as there was an objective to chase, a Trail would be made. That was what being the Aeon of the Trailblaze was about. "This was our plan from the beginning."
"But Stelle-!"
"Will be safe" interrupted Elio, with a voice that might have held a tinge of... relief. "Because Akivili wills it."
And that made Kafka look at Keith in shock, as well as Ruan Mei.
A new shockwave reached them, but none of them could be more surprised than they already were.
'We only need to wait' thought Elio, feeling something he hadn't felt in his whole life.
Hope.
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Keith didn't know where he was, who he was, or what was he trying to do.
He touched the Stellaron, and a rush of energy instantly tried to take over his body.
Malicious whispers, harmful energy, wanton Destruction.
His body was being attacked in every single way, but he didn't complain, because the more he suffered, the more he realized this wasn't a place for the kind Stelle to be in.
The last part of his brain still working told him that he should have turned into cinders just by touching the Stellaron without special protection, but the fact that he wasn't told him that there was something for him to work with.
So he willed for the rush of energy to disappear, dissipate, disintegrate.
He didn't know how did he want to do it, but he wanted that energy gone forever, and never come back.
And as he willed, his soul replied.
Something deep within him responded to his call, and a rush of energy coming from the deepest place in his being rose to meet that of the Stellaron's.
But it wasn't enough, and Keith realized it. There was no way a single human could generate as much energy as the one a Stellaron contained.
But...so what?
If this energy had appeared following his wish to make this Destruction disappear, the only thing he had to do was to wish for it even more.
So once again, Keith willed for this energy to disappear, and a rush of blue energy infinitely stronger than before rose to meet the Destruction.
The energies clashed with each other inside Keith's body, causing untold damage, and making all his bones break and organs melt with the torrent of energy flowing through him.
And yet, Keith didn't notice.
Because right now, only making this Destruction disappear mattered.
His body seemed to be rooted in place, only the flow of energy from the Stellaron keeping him in place, but it was evident that he wouldn't last.
The collision between the 2 energies, one of Destruction, and one still without meaning to it akin to a soup composed of only water, would have made Keith's body disappear, turning him into a soul again.
These energies were that powerful, and not even Keith's body could tolerate it.
And yet, he didn't disappear.
His body started regenerating, allowing him to continue his struggle, without anyone knowing the reason for it, but no one cared, and Keith didn't even realize it.
The rush of energy battling against Destruction kept fighting, but the more energy that came from Keith, the Stellaron seemed to reply in kind.
The fight inside Keith's body intensified, but the regeneration of Keith's body also accelerated.
It was a 3-way fight, where Keith's own energy fought against Destruction, while his body fought against that collision.
Keith felt his energy slowly losing ground, so he decided to forget about everything else.
His body, his state, his reasons and his future.
He couldn't, WOULDN'T lose against this Destruction.
So everything Keith existed for, was pushing back this Destruction, and his soul, once again replied.
A torrent of blue energy attacked with unexpected violence, pushing Destruction back, to the point the baleful energy left his worn body.
And finally...the Stellaron was touched by the blue energy, allowing the spectators to witness how the previously golden cube turned blue on the edge Keith was touching.
But Keith found himself stuck.
The blue energy seemed to lose a lot of his strength when it left his body, and the Stellaron seemed to be a steel wall he couldn't push through.
No matter how he willed Destruction to disappear, the existential weight of the Stellaron was too much for him to lift.
"It's impossible for you to destroy Destruction" a complex voice formed by thousands of other ones sounded in Keith's head, but he didn't have enough brainpower to identify it.
And yet the message was clear, he would eventually lose.
"But you don't need to eradicate Destruction"
But the voice presented an alternate path for Keith to eliminate his target, to reach his destination.
"And impossible is only what no one else has done before."
And the voice now said that he still could fulfil his goal.
"There is a being, the only one, who made the impossible possible."
So if Keith wasn't that one, why was the voice telling him that?
And if he was the one who could, he only needed to work harder.
"You don't need to destroy Destruction, not dissipate it, nor make it disappear."
Then, what Keith had been doing had not been the correct path.
"You only need to do what no one else has done before."
And Keith felt that something inside him was responding to what the voice was saying.
His energy started vibrating, as if remembering its original purpose.
"You need to be the first one, to crave the path for others to follow"
And Keith's energy acquired a rich blue colour, that slowly pushed and conquered the energy inside the Stellaron itself, only to allow a girl to get what she had earned with her acts.
"You only need...to Trailblaze"
And the blue energy remembered its purpose.
Not destroy, not conquer, not dissipate, and not push back.
Only to forge a path through the impossible.
To Trailblaze, to create a brilliant road that would pass over the wall representing the impossibility, and would reach directly the other side, the land of miracles.
And so, for a single second, the Aeon of Trailblaze appeared once again as a brilliant blue bridge of resplendent majesty appeared in this universe once again.
How could a mere Stellaron resist the Will of an Aeon, weakened as it was?
Blue veining appeared inside the previously golden cube, and quickly expanded until not a single yellow spot was left.
Destruction retreated as the Trailblaze bypassed everything in its path, as it had always done, and will always do.
Because as powerful as Destruction was, the trails left by Akivili were not something that could be destroyed, merely because they passed above everything, through a space only beings like him could reach.
The objective wasn't to eliminate Destruction, revive Stelle or subvert the hostility behind the baleful energy, the remnant of Akivili's soul wasn't strong enough to do that.
The objective was way simpler.
Create a place where Stelle can be happy.
The Trailblaze was only the path Akivili's will followed, and one that created the best road for such an outcome to appear.
And Destruction, unable to destroy the Trailblaze, disappeared, simply pushed outside the Stellaron that defined the place it could exist in, pushed from the centre as blue energy appeared through a brilliant bridge, because if Stelle was to be happy... there could be no Destruction around.
Leaving behind beautiful blue Stellaron, proof that the Aeon of the Trailblaze had appeared for a single second.
And yet, a single second was all that was needed for the until-now-dead PATH to appear again.
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In a desolate plain with only a dead tree, something had also changed.
The tree awakened, as death wasn't a concept that could be applied to it as long as the soul it resided in didn't crumble, and even if it would take some time for it to recover...
It had been the start of a process that couldn't be stopped.
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Himeko raised her head and looked with astonishment through the window of her room, feeling a stream of warmth cursing through her.
She had been following the Path of Erudition, and yet, she knew that wasn't the case anymore. A new Path, new possibilities, and unknown powers resided within her.
Because the Trailblaze had been within her, and the moment the road appeared, her soul had jumped into it with glee.
And like her millions of people in the universe adventured themselves through this new Path, that had resurged after countless millennia.
The Path of Nihility, the Hunt, the Abundance, the Erudition, the Harmony, the Destruction...
All of them retreated when the Trailblaze surged through the souls of those who yearned for the unknown, because their soul recognized the Path that would reply to their expectations.
Every single Aeon knew then that Akivili had come back, that a new Aeon resided in this infinite Universe.
And yet, 2 Aeons had more information than the rest.
One of them, Nanook, the Aeon of Destruction, who felt that a Stellaron tethered to him had disappeared under Akivili's wish.
But as always, Nanook didn't care. Because everything in the universe would be destroyed under Destruction, what meaning would Akivili's presence bring to the nothingness he was destined to bring?
And the other one, Yao Shi, the Aeon of the Abundance.
The same one that had sensed the Foreign moving, and willed for his body to regenerate faster than any Emanator would have.
Because in the end...this Foreign was hers, and she wouldn't allow it to disappear.
Not due to Destruction, not to the Trailblaze, and not even to herself.
No, Foreign was hers, and she would make sure it kept being that way.
But now, after that burst of energy and thanks to the damage Foreign had sustained, she had been able to locate Foreign's body.
She had a direction, she only needed to move.
She was sure Foreign would move, be it running from or towards her, but it didn't matter.
When an Aeon moved, the Universe made space.
Sooner or later, Foreign would be in her hands.
Because the Aeon of the Abundance Willed it, and nothing could fight against an Aeon's Will.