Savage Psalm

Horikita knelt on the soft soil, her fingertips brushing against the charred blade of the pruning shears.

Children played and ran into the distance, the glowing sprouts in their hands scattering with the wind, blooming into totem-less wildflowers wherever they landed. What flowed within the pistils was neither data streams nor quantum patterns, but the most primitive luster of chlorophyll.

"This is how life is meant to be." She buried the pruning shears into the flowerbed, suddenly sensing a vibration from deep underground—a roar beyond the reach of hearing surging from the depths of the star core; it was the "cosmic heartbeat" that the gardeners had once extinguished.

Three days later, the grassland split into bottomless chasms. Horikita climbed down vines into the earth's core, her glow-stick illuminating the reliefs on the rock walls: the faces of successive Sower generations appeared in turn, finally freezing on the image of Kiyotaka plunging the pruning shears into his own chest.

"You finally came." A boy formed from quantum fluctuations stepped out from the shadows, wildflower seeds sprouting in his palm. "They are afraid, so they have awakened early."

"Who is afraid?" Horikita's fluorescent markings suddenly burned with pain.

The boy flicked his finger, shattering the rock wall to reveal the "Graveyard of Civilizations" buried for ten thousand years—countless mechanical skulls piled into mountains, each branded with the Klein Bottle Totem of a different universe. The skull at the very top suddenly opened its eyes, its electronic voice shaking the rock strata:

"Non-sequenced lifeform detected. Executing Pruning Protocol."

Twelve black obelisks rose in the center of the graveyard, the inscriptions on them identical to the engravings on the pruning shears.

Horikita's fluorescent markings crawled onto the obelisks uncontrollably, dragging her consciousness into a vortex of memories:

In her first life, she was Tsukishiro's most obedient clone, ordered to purge all "errors" that dared to bloom;

In her second life, she built the Blue Rose Tree with Bai Mei, only to bury a self-destruct program deep within its roots;

At this moment, her fingerprints were pressing against the activation key of some ancient gardener...

"Wake up!" The boy wrapped wildflower vines around her neck, the sensation of suffocation forcibly severing the connection. "These inscriptions are alive; they are screening for a suitable 'New Gardener'!"

Horikita vomited blood mixed with fluorescence, discovering her own face emerging on the surface of the obelisks. A star-patterned robe and pruning shears descended from the top of the monument, identical to what she had seen on the relief in the earth's core.

"Put it on," the mechanical skulls chanted in unison, "and you shall attain eternity."

The boy suddenly tore his own quantum body apart, the wildflower seeds expanding violently within the disintegrating energy.

The vines pierced the totem cracks of the obelisks, and the inscriptions twisted and struggled like living snakes: "Chaotic variable detected... Error! Error!"

Horikita raised the pruning shears, but aimed them at her own fluorescent markings: "Kiyotaka, if you truly saw through the cycle—"

The moment the blade pierced her heart, all the obelisks shattered simultaneously. The mechanical skulls fell like rain, and a giant wildflower tree rose in the center of the graveyard, its leaves displaying the lingering shadows of civilizations that had once been pruned.

"You are more resolute than Bai Mei." The boy's lingering shadow condensed in the canopy. "Now, it is time to hear the true reason for the earth's heartbeat."

The tree roots suddenly turned transparent, and Horikita saw Bai Mei's quantum body curled up deep in the core—he was using stardust fragments to carve poems into the void, each line of verse transforming into the skeleton of a newborn universe.

"He is using the process of his own annihilation to reverse-compile the creation laws of higher civilizations." The boy snapped off a wildflower branch and inserted it into Horikita's fluorescent markings. "But the gardeners are coming; someone needs to buy time..."

Seven layers of thunderstorms suddenly descended over the grassland, identical to the pillars of light from when the gardeners first arrived.

The difference was that the "Pruner" who stepped out this time wore wildflower vine armor, and the pruning shears in his hand were forged from antimatter sprouts.

"Experimental subject γ-00000, you have violated Article 13 of the Sower Charter: Prohibition of spreading non-sequenced genes." The lead Pruner pulled back his hood, revealing the face of a Horikita clone. "Now, please accept the pruning."

Horikita's pruning shears collided with the opponent's, and what erupted from the blades was not sparks, but the creation memories of two universes.

She saw this clone poison Bai Mei with her own hands in a certain timeline, just to gain the favor of the gardeners.

"How pathetic," she severed the clone's vine armor. "You even imitate others when playing the executioner."

A mournful cry suddenly came from the earth's core. The roots of the giant wildflower tree were being corroded by quantum fluid, and Bai Mei's poetic carving was forced to a halt.

As Horikita rushed toward the core fissure, the boy used his final energy to construct a barrier: "He cannot hold on much longer... unless someone becomes the 'rhyme' of the poem for him."

Bai Mei's quantum body had become transparent, and the stardust verses were dissipating from his fingertips. Horikita grabbed his wrist, her fluorescent markings resonating with the stardust: "Use my consciousness as the carrier, just like the Nirvana Protocol back then."

"You will be trapped between the lines of the poem forever," Bai Mei's verses began to bleed. "The birth and death of every universe will become your torture."

Horikita kissed his cold forehead, just as she had during their farewell at the Cage of Entropy: "Then let me, this unqualified mother... teach you one last time what love is."

The fluorescent markings transformed into billions of light filaments, weaving Horikita's consciousness into the poem.

The giant wildflower tree broke through the earth's core, and where the petals drifted, the Pruners' vine armor withered away. Bai Mei's quantum body reconstituted on the surface, holding a scroll of poetry formed from Horikita's consciousness:

"To all life that grows wildly:

Do not question the qualifications to bloom, Dewdrops and magma alike have the right to kiss the dawn."

The seven Pruners evaporated in the light of the scroll, their pruning shears falling to the ground to take root, blooming into totem-less blue roses. The boy's lingering shadow picked one up and pinned it to the heart of his quantum body: "Time to set off; there are thirty-six thousand universes still waiting to be sown."

Three months later, Bai Mei found half a stone tablet in the desert of a newborn universe. The inscription was in Horikita's handwriting:

"When you read this line, I am living as the rhythm of all things breathing, Do not miss me, For wildness is the most affectionate order of all."

At the edge of the star sea, seven new pillars of light from the Pruners were condensing. Bai Mei buried the scroll into the sand, and his quantum body began to decompose—this time, he chose to become the first thorny wildflower in the desert.