Alpha Omega Nova wasn't sure where he was, except that it was dark and cold. He might have been floating through space, except that he was able to breathe, albeit in slow, painful gasps.
After a moment, he realized that the Blackholeian was floating there with him. Thankfully he, too, seemed too weak to put up any more of a fight.
Nova noticed that he was smiling, which was odd, because he could not remember deciding to smile. But then he felt that odd feeling in his chest and realized that he was happy, despite his ragged breaths and aching muscles. People who felt happy smiled automatically. It was a fact that he had always known, but had never had a chance to experience until today.
"She...did it," he managed to say. "Luluco and I beat you."
Nova could feel the Blackholeian's burning anger as a low growl sounded in the darkness.
"For now. And what of it?! You're defeated, too! Banished from your home dimension, just like me!"
"That doesn't matter," Nova said. "We won. She and the others are safe. Luluco saved me, and now I've managed to save her too!"
The Blackholeian didn't answer. Nova's smile only grew, until it was actually hurting his face.
He closed his eyes. Luluco really did save me, he thought. Before her, I could have never felt happy. But now...
He pictured her face. He heard her voice in his head. He remembered the blast of her heart envelope him, filling him with emotions for the very first time.
Then he saw her face get smaller and smaller, the way it had looked as she had shot him into the Blackholeian.
That was the last time he was going to see her face, he suddenly thought. For years at least. Possibly forever.
Nova suddenly curled into a ball, one hand grasping instinctively at his chest. "What...is this?" he gasped. "I don't even know how to describe it. It's like...I can get air into my lungs, but...it won't reach my heart."
He heard the Blackholeian laugh. "Oh, that's cute. Do you miss your little girlfriend?"
"M-Miss?"
"You didn't think emotions were all about happiness and love, did you?" He scoffed. "Stupid middle-schooler. This is the other side of love. You're feeling longing."
"Longing." Nova considered the word alongside the aching in his chest. "Yes...that's it exactly. I long for her like I long for air, or for food when I'm hungry."
"Well, too bad for you, isn't it?" the Blackholeian sneered. "Because you're never going to see your precious Space Patrol Luluco again. She's farther away than the other side of whatever universe we wound up in!"
The ache in Nova's chest suddenly felt more like a knife twisting. He closed his eyes. "But she'll look for me!" he gasped. "She loves me! She'll look through every dimension until she finds me!"
"Are you so sure about that?"
"Wh-what do you mean?"
The Blackholeian chuckled softly. "Do you really think she'll have the patience to search through a hundred million different worlds? Especially for the boy who put her through such pain?"
"Put her...what do you...?" Then the realization began to sprout in his mind, making his insides twist into a knot. "You mean...when I betrayed Luluco and the others to you...did she have this...horrible pain in her chest? Did it hurt this much, before she...died...of a broken..."
He curled up into a tighter ball, and the Blackholeian's laugh boomed through the void. "By the way," he sneered, "this new emotion you're feeling? It's called 'shame.'"
"You're cruel," Nova spat. It was another revelation; a word like that was useless to a Nothingling.
"You should talk," the Blackholeian mocked.
The thought of his enemy taking pleasure in his agony—of becoming more happy as Nova was overcome with guilt—gave Nova another burning pain in his chest, though this one somehow made him feel stronger instead of worse. Is this anger? he wondered.
Nova couldn't think with so many new emotions swirling around inside him. He closed his eyes and tried to push them away; he remembered that he was a Nothingling, or had been one, and tried to think like they did, with apathetic logic.
"You're wrong," Nova whispered. "Luluco will look for me."
"And what makes you say that?"
"Because she already has. I hurt her before she flew across the planet to find me. Before she confessed her love for me. And before she made me into someone capable of loving her back." He raised his head and glared out into the darkness around him, a harsh laugh escaping his throat. "You almost made me forget that. Is this what it means when people say that their minds are clouded by emotion?"
The Blackholeian growled. Nova could feel him fuming all around him.
His inability to reply, and the memory of Luluco coming to him after his betrayal, suddenly caused a new feeling to rise up in Nova's chest. It was warm, and it was invigorating, and it seemed to banish all of the shame that the Blackholeian had summoned like a medicine curing a disease.
"I know this feeling," Nova said quietly. "It's called 'hope,' isn't it?"
The Blackholeian began to rage and scream all around him, but Nova simply closed his eyes and smiled once again.