But by the time Claire realized that Black Flames had appeared on her body, it was already too late to break free. She shook off the pull of that Black Sun, but the black sun in the sky grew larger and larger, swallowing the heavens and the yellow sand as though it meant to consume the entire world.
Claire could not move. She could only watch in terror as that sun covered the world before her. Her soul and body struggled desperately, while the Eleventh Rank Golden Stairway and Twelfth Ring of Fate behind her had both fully appeared.
The struggle between her soul and Doomsday made even her body, shrouded in the phantom of Black Flames, seem somewhat blurred. Fortunately, at that very moment, a clear chime rang out with a ding-dong~, as though it would shatter Spacetime itself. With her consciousness so intensely focused that everything before her had become blurry, Claire even heard a cat meow within that bell's chime.
The expanding black sun abruptly stopped at the sound of the bell, and Claire clearly saw a dazzling streak of gold at the very center of that black sun.
It was certainly not Ellie in the distance, nor Little Mia, disturbed by the Unicorns, much less Shade, who was still nowhere to be found.
Claire clearly saw that the gold within the Black Sun was herself at that moment—the sunlight shining from her own body, appearing within that black sun.
"Yes, I'm a sun too!"
All the insights she had gained since the Year-End Festival melted into her heart at that moment. Claire reached toward the center of the black sun, and the instant her fingertips overlapped with that golden radiance, she felt her body and soul completely ignite.
From that moment on, for Claire Reinhart, the