CHAPTER 1 ECHOES AFTER THE END
The sky bled with colorless flame.
Where once vibrant streams of cosmic energy surged through the arteries of the Ultraverse, now only silence remained—a deafening, eternal silence that stretched across shattered realms and dimmed galaxies. Planets no longer spun in rhythm. Stars flickered with uncertainty, caught between remembrance and ruin.
The Fracture had done more than rend spacetime—it had unwritten the laws.
And the Awakening?
It had changed him.
Bakudou stood alone atop the remnants of the Citadel of Origin. The once-immortal stronghold of the Overseer now lay in scorched ruins, wrapped in ash and floating debris. Pieces of the Ultraverse still drifted like fractured thoughts, slow and weightless, orbiting the remains of a forgotten dream.
His body, still forged from reality's core, burned with residual energy—stronger than ever, yes. But different. More than strength now pulsed through his being. With the Fracture, something had bled into him—memory, perhaps. Or something deeper.
He clenched his fist and felt time ripple.
Not break. Not bend. Ripple.
It unsettled him.
Bakudou's gaze turned toward the void where the Ninth Dimension had once been, the birthplace of Emma's design. It was gone now—eaten by the unraveling. But Emma…
Emma had survived.
Or perhaps more accurately, Emma had returned.
He had seen her—felt her—during the final moments of the Awakening. The celestial light, the impossible voice calling to him through layers of time and creation. It wasn't merely a rescue. It was a revelation. Her presence had awakened not only his latent core but stirred echoes of forgotten truths—truths the Ultraverse itself had buried.
"You are not its guardian, Bakudou.
You are its consequence."
Those were her words, spoken not in defiance, but in sorrow. He didn't understand them then. Not fully. But now, as he stood amidst the dust of a universe trying to remember itself, the meaning began to surface—like an island emerging from a storm-wracked sea.
Emma was not only his sister.
She was its creator.
The Ultraverse hadn't been born of a cosmic singularity or a divine architect. It had been crafted, hand by hand, spark by spark—by Emma.
And him?
He was its Warden. Its weapon. Its final fail-safe.
A construct shaped by love and fear.
Bakudou's eyes closed. The cold vacuum of the void didn't touch him. Nothing ever did. But within, a storm brewed—a growing dissonance between who he believed he was and what he had now become.
A faint hum vibrated through the fracture lines of the multiversal crust. He opened his eyes.
Something approached.
At first, only a shimmer—a distortion of light, as though a mirror of the broken Ultraverse attempted to stitch itself together. But then, the air folded in upon itself, and from that wound she stepped forth.
Emma.
Not as a shadow, not as a dream—but as flesh.
She had crossed the boundary of the Starveil, walking from outside the known folds of creation itself. Her form shimmered with impossible geometry—part woman, part memory, part code—but her eyes were real. Achingly so.
"Hello, brother," she said.
Bakudou stood still. His voice—so often thunder and decree—came soft now.
"You should not be here. The Ultraverse… it no longer obeys."
Emma smiled faintly. "Then we're even. Neither do I."
They stood amidst the cosmic grave, two titans cast from different truths. One forged from purpose, the other from intention. For a long time, they said nothing.
And then, Emma extended her hand—not in peace, not in command, but in invitation.
"I need your help."
The Voidstream, the realm between realms, shimmered around them as Emma guided Bakudou through layers of thoughtspace. It was here, beneath the currents of forgotten time, that fragments of what once was still floated.
"Before the Fracture," she began, "I planted fail-safes. Seeds. Not just physical constructs, but ideas—hidden in the minds of those I knew would survive."
"Survivors?" Bakudou asked. "I felt none."
"You felt none because they've become something else," Emma replied. "When the Ultraverse collapsed, consciousness didn't die. It reconfigured—merged, evolved, rewrote itself. The people are no longer singular beings. They are collective memories, living code scattered across the Ruinspace."
Bakudou processed her words slowly. "You hid pieces of yourself among them."
Emma nodded. "I had to. Because if I ever returned… I would not remember all of what I am. I left myself a trail."
Bakudou turned toward her. "Why tell me this now?"
Emma looked away. "Because one of those fragments has gone rogue."
At this, the air shifted.
She gestured, and a vision unfolded—an entire star-system trapped in temporal freeze. Above it hovered a being of endless shape, its form constantly rewriting itself with the language of creation. Even Bakudou felt a tremor in his essence.
"This one calls itself Nahir," Emma said. "It was born from my Will fragment. But it has chosen to reject the balance. It seeks to finish what the Fracture started."
Bakudou's eyes narrowed. "And destroy the Ultraverse entirely."
"No," Emma whispered. "Worse. Remake it."
Bakudou stepped forward, fire coiling from his fists. "Then I'll stop it."
But Emma caught his arm. "You can't defeat Nahir alone. You are power incarnate, yes—but Nahir is intent without restraint. A god with no tether to consequence. You were made to protect structure. Nahir was born to challenge it."
Bakudou lowered his fist. "Then what is the plan?"
Emma's eyes darkened. "We find the remaining fragments. Reassemble the whole of me. Together, we reforge the Ultraverse before Nahir can overwrite its core code."
"And if we fail?" Bakudou asked.
Emma's voice grew quiet.
"Then there will be no Overseer. No structure. No memory. Only a singular will—burning through eternity with no one to stop it."
Bakudou nodded slowly, the truth settling over him like armor.
He was not the guardian he thought himself to be.
He was the hammer.
But Emma was the flame.
Their first destination was a ghost planet called Myrithal, long since consumed by entropy, now flickering in and out of reality like a dying echo.
Buried deep within its temporal crust lay the Fragment of Emotion—the part of Emma that had once loved, once mourned, once hoped.
As they descended into its fractured surface, the air shimmered with memories—visions of lives never fully lived, dreams unspoken, heartbreaks unreconciled.
They walked through a garden made of echoes.
Children playing with shadows of stars. A mother singing to a planet that had already died. A soldier holding the hands of his fallen enemy. Bakudou's steps slowed. These things… they struck something within him. Something unfamiliar.
Or perhaps… something once forgotten.
Emma walked beside him silently, her presence growing fainter as they neared the heart of the ruin.
At the center of the world stood a statue—not of Emma, but of Bakudou. Towering, serene, arms wide as if embracing the cosmos.
He stared, stunned. "Why?"
Emma didn't answer with words.
Instead, she placed her hand upon the statue's heart.
A pulse surged through the world.
And then it broke apart.
The Fragment of Emotion spilled forth like light refracted through crystal. It entered Emma's body, and she staggered—overwhelmed by the rush of forgotten longing, of joy, of fear, of love.
Tears fell from her eyes.
For the first time in epochs, she wept.
Bakudou stepped forward. "Are you—"
She held up a hand, nodding.
"Yes. I remember now… I remember why I made you."
He didn't ask for the answer.
Not yet.
They had more fragments to find.
More selves to reclaim.
And a god to stop.