The barrier of time shattered, just as it had that time, just as it did every time, and he was sent back once again to the point in time where he belonged.
Like a flame falling onto a cold wasteland.
When the Feather Pen found him, he lay in the burning crater, his fist clenched tight, his arm pressed hard against his eyes. Yet even that seemed unable to hold back the sorrow that kept pouring out. His body trembled violently, low, stifled cries rising again and again from his throat, as though every tremor had to be paid for with endless years.
He had thought he could finally hate.
But now.
Even hatred had become a luxury to him.
Or perhaps this had been the ending the God King had planned all along. As he had said, if every bond of causality had to be severed before the final battle against that calamity, then he, who stood in his path, had to bring things to that final end as well. After all, he himself had been the greatest bond of causality along his entire journey.
And now.
There was no one left to stand in his way.
Whether he accepted it or not, whatever changes or destruction he intended to inflict on history, there was no one left.
He had made himself into fuel for him, too.
At last, he staggered as he raised his head. The pitch-black sky bore down like an endless weight.
That day.
When he returned once more to the Void beyond time, all he saw was that flame falling through time, that vast, fiercely burning dream stretching beyond the mottled river of time.
He strained to hold his dry eyes open.
But not a single tear could fall from them anymore.
It was as