Quantum slurry boiled in the Room of Pure White, while the gazes of a hundred thousand fluorescent clones pierced Bai Mei's back like steel needles.
His silver ring melted into liquid metal in his palm. The instant it seeped into the giant tree's roots, Tsukishiro's mechanical head rose from the slurry. "How touching... You think breaking the cycle will atone for your sins? You're merely becoming the first link in a new cycle!"
Holographic images suddenly burst across Bai Mei's retinas: in ten thousand universes, the "Sowers" were being devoured by their own creations. Every Kiyotaka clone repeated the same cycle, from savior to tyrant.
"Advanced civilizations call us 'Original Sin Bonsai.'" Tsukishiro's mechanical fingers plunged into Bai Mei's chest and yanked out the throbbing Stardust Core. "Prune the branches, burn the defective specimens... That's the truth of the universe."
Horikita awoke among the ruins, her newly materialized body covered in glowing patterns.
She picked up Hirata's swarm core. To her astonishment, the Nano-swarm pieced together a star chart across its surface—a colossal structure beyond the dimensions of human comprehension hung above all the universes, resembling an "Eye of the Observer" formed from countless interlocking Klein bottles.
"They're here." Kei's remaining Mechanical Heart issued its final warning. "Tsukishiro is just a pruner... The real Gardeners are coming to harvest the entire nursery."
The Seventh Universe's barrier shattered with a thunderous crash, and the fluorescent clones suddenly fell to their knees in unison.
Seven pillars of light descended from the void. From each emerged a "Gardener" clad in a Star-patterned Robe. Their faces shifted constantly between human and machine, and the "Pruning Shears" in their hands were forged from black hole matter.
"Specimens γ-000 to γ-99999, recovery progress: 98%." The leading Gardener flicked his finger, shattering three universes. "Remaining variables: Bai Mei, Horikita Suzune."
Hirata's swarm core trembled in Horikita's hands. The Nano-swarm broke from its symbiotic state and gathered in the air, forming his apparition. "Use my core to activate the Cannon of Possibilities... It's the last card Kiyotaka hid inside the Rose Tree's ruins."
Deep in the ruins, the stump of the Blue Rose Tree, covered in new shoots, split open to reveal a massive, rust-covered cannon barrel.
The instant Horikita inserted the core into the energy slot, the hundred thousand fluorescent clones suddenly screamed—their energy was being forcibly siphoned away and poured into the cannon.
"No!" Bai Mei roared from within the quantum slurry. "How is this any different from Tsukishiro?"
"The difference is..." Hirata's apparition began to fade. "This time, it's our choice..."
The cannon fire tore through dimensions, reducing the foremost Gardener to scraps of data. The Star-patterned Robes of the other six burst into black flames, and their Pruning Shears crossed to form a cage. "Inferior variables, you are forbidden to bloom."
The fluorescent clones' broken bodies suddenly reassembled, building a Circular Court in the void. γ-419, seated at the judge's bench, wept blood as he slammed his gavel against the cannon barrel. "Under Article 7 of the Codex of Possibilities 2.0: collective sacrifice in the name of freedom is forbidden!"
Horikita leaped onto the defendant's stand and tore open her collar, revealing the fluorescent patterns over her heart. "Then put me on trial! Let my annihilation buy—"
"No." Bai Mei's Quantum Body pierced the court's barrier. "They're the ones who should be on trial."
The Stardust Core reformed into a blade in his palm and stabbed into the Eye of the Observer in the void. All the Gardeners suddenly froze. Their Star-patterned Robes faded to white—the masks of advanced civilization had been pierced, revealing the writhing mechanical tentacles within, all of the same origin as Tsukishiro.
"So you're Original Sin Bonsai too..." Bai Mei's blade churned through the core. "Pitiful wretches, pruned by beings even more advanced than you!"
The quantum slurry suddenly flowed backward, and the Room of Pure White began to collapse. The hundred thousand fluorescent clones detonated together, pouring their energy into the Blue Rose Tree cannon barrel.
Horikita caught Bai Mei's hand amid the torrent of energy. "It's time to end this... Use me to activate the Final Protocol."
Her fluorescent patterns spread along the cannon barrel, perishing together with the Gardeners' mechanical tentacles. Bai Mei's Stardust Core burst apart, its fragments stabbing into the new shoots of every universe—
All the Klein Bottle Totems began rotating in reverse, and the "branches" pruned by the Gardeners grew wildly. Tsukishiro's mechanical head dissolved amid his laughter. "At last... At last, a bonsai has grown a cage!"
In the void, the last Gardener removed his Star-patterned hood. His face made Bai Mei catch his breath—it was an elderly Kiyotaka, with the dying embers of the Lantern Keeper embedded in his left eye.
"You've done well," he said, gently stroking Bai Mei's cracked Quantum Body. "Now it's your turn to do the pruning."
The instant the Pruning Shears pierced Bai Mei's chest, Hirata's swarm core suddenly shot out from the ruins and fused with the Lantern Keeper's dying embers. Horikita's fluorescent patterns reassembled over the new shoots, forming billions of questions:
"Who gave you the authority to prune?"
"Who decides who is worthy to bloom?"
"Who builds a bigger cage beyond the cage?"
The Gardener's body disintegrated beneath the questions, and the Pruning Shears fell into the quantum slurry. Bai Mei seized the godslaying weapon and plunged it into his own Stardust Core—
"This time," his quantum state began to vanish, "let all things grow wild."
Three months later, Horikita awoke on the grassland of a newborn universe.
There were no Star Rings or Mechanical Roses, only wildflowers swaying in the wind. A child ran up, holding a glowing new shoot. "Auntie, we dug up something strange underground!"
It was a charred Pruning Shears, with Kiyotaka's handwriting carved into the blade:
"To those who come after:
I pruned a million universes,
yet I never learned
how to appreciate a flower's defiance."
On the distant horizon, the Lantern Keeper's dying embers flickered. The silhouette of a boy, formed from a quantum disturbance, was sowing wildflower seeds without Totems.
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