Previously…

"I'll wait however long I have to and we'll go home together. I won't leave without you." That light, warm but also blazing and insistent, laid a path for me to follow in my heart. It was pulling me away from the empty place, guiding me back to a world with form and limits and atoms.

"You have been following the light of another Star for some time now," Svetla explained, "so you cannot follow us."

"But I'm so tired," I sighed.

"My bravest daughter; we have one more yet to set free," Svetla whispered encouragingly, "and then you can rest."


Svetla's hands on my shoulders hummed against my soul. Her hands, formed of a hundred upon a hundred weavers all joined within her hands, left me feeling strangely lonely as I could feel the great gathering of consciousnesses from which I was separated.

That distress was soothed as she gathered me in her arms. I fell into the grace of her wisdom and joined my Clan. I could feel the whisperings of their fears, and their doubts, but more than anything else their encouragement. The longing of a hundred hearts released from eternal despair thrummed in my chest, demanding to revive my empty heart.

I still held onto my sense of self for a moment as I tried to memorize the feeling. We rose towards a warm and distant star, and emotion surged like a turbulent sea with us. Hope, determination, pride; I felt them all. Instead of spinning sideways, uncontrollably, watching the stars and galaxies pass me by, I flew directly towards that guiding light.

The surging emotions washed over me and I slipped under the veil of Svetla's power. I lost my grip on time and space and something inside me began to dream. It was like my heart just closed its eyes and slipped off into sleep; swaddled in an ancient power that had just begun to stretch broad and terrible wings.

The galaxies smoothed, spreading out like watercolor aurora borealis. The tones shifted from blues and purples and greens to warmer tones. Glittering lights dimmed into strips of earthy wood dappled with sunlight.

I waddled down a hallway, short breaths faster than my slow stride along gleaming wood floors.

"I quit, this is terrible," I declared as two other women laughed.

"It'll be over soon," one soothed, rubbing my back for me.

"Trust me; you'll forget it all as soon as you see his adorable little face."

"That can't possibly be true."

"I've got three kids, it must be true or else I'm just crazy."

"You are crazy."

The laughter of the room filled me with warmth; this rare moment sitting with my friends most appreciated. They had gathered in this place for me, coming together to support me as my time in this condition drew to a close. From thrones to far-off libraries, they had come to support a powerless friend once more.

"You just have to promise me that you won't let my mother write in some crazy-long Czech name on the birth certificate while I'm asleep."

"Oh, they're back!"

I looked out over the green courtyard to the Torii gate as the sun broke over the hill.

Time found me again as I reached for the sun. I reached for the guiding star that had latched onto my soul and was pulling me, pulling me into its orbit, pulling me into a corona of warmth that I couldn't escape.

With a will and not words I begged for my Clan's help. I didn't want it to escape my reach and I worried I didn't have the strength to reach it alone.

But always patient, ever calm, Svetla collected the remnants of our souls within hers in a convergence of will and power. She collected us, like filling an empty glass with a thousand individual drops of water until it trembled on the lip of overflowing.

Coalescence of being into a single mind with a thousand thoughts, our determination held us together even as we began to spill out at the edges. We fell apart and recombined over and over, a whirling undercurrent creating by crashing waves.

The air of the world didn't feel quite real as we opened our eyes. We. June. Svetla. A hundred weavers. A thousand weavers. We couldn't say.

Our first breath smelled like new trees and withheld tears. The air pressed with an electricity against the surface of our skin that wasn't quite all skin anymore.

"June?" a voice called hesitantly to us. Colors beyond the eye dazzled from the speaker, drawing our attention from the grove of trees. We knew his face - some small part of us, just two of us - and it hurt to see the hope in his eyes.

We knew him, and didn't want him to hurt for us. "Měj trpělivost, červen hvězda." He was the star we'd followed. A timid voice inside us offered his name.

"Hello, Blue." Kuwabara's face split into a shallow grief. "Is… is June… can I talk to June? P-prosim, June?"

It pleased us that he'd learned even just that one word of our mother's language. It felt like approval and appreciation within us, even as other parts of us grew concerned. We frowned, trying to remember how to speak a language he would understand. We were a music of whispers. Our voices had spoken many languages.

"No!" a different voice cried, first in our Star's language and then in our first one. "No! It's supposed to end! It was supposed to be over!" His face had changed so much; twisted and sagged at the corners, but we could still recognize him as well as the day he had vanished into the night to answer the summons of the God of Death.

It hurt us to see his face. We feared him, we hated him, but we also pitied him. Some parts of us tried to slip away from our convergence as our opinions about what to do with the traitor differed wildly. We still remembered the feeling of his hands around our throat, or his knife in our back, and the cackle of his laughter as we died trying to fix what he had broken.

We raised our hands, pushing power through the old instrument of our power. The shuttle hummed violently, shaking is the remnants of a thousand souls moved with single-minded will. The metal whined in protest, but converted the scraps of our souls to energy, bending the wood of the tree to release the prisoner there.

He rushed us, filthy hands reaching for our throat. "Let it die!" he roared.

It was no great feat to grab his dominant hand with one of ours, and plunge the other into his chest. His cry of fury turned into a wet gurgle of pain, and he collapsed to his knees. We followed, our hand still searching inside his chest.

"Blue, what are you doing!?" the Star cried, moving forward to stop us.

We wrapped tree limbs around him in the gentlest embrace we could encourage from the new plant. He couldn't understand what we needed to do, and we didn't want to hurt him.

"We must," we said to our Star.

He strained against the tree limbs, desperate. "You don't! You don't have to! You did it - you fixed it! We can go home!"

We wept slowly as our bare souls grated painfully against the toxic hate in his chest. "We've repeated this cycle more times than anyone should ever attempt. It is over."

"I'll never stop," he hissed, though the anger was swiftly yielding to fear.

We nodded. We understood. "You made us your enemy, and in return we forgot our intent was to rescue you. Forgive us as we have forgiven you." Our hand flexed in his chest, still searching, and he cried out in pain.

"Blue, stop! Don't make her do this!" Our Star's voice cracked with agony. He hurt for us.

Even with our hand in his chest, the parts of him that did not belong made one final attempt to stop us. He grabbed at our wrist where it met his chest, grip painfully tight. "You don't have the strength to stop me."

Only yesterday that might have frightened me. But we released his dominant hand and gently stroked his face. The shock of a gentle acceptance loosened his grip, and it warmed us."If we were alone, that might be true. It's so easy to be afraid when you're alone." We turned to smile upon our Star as his mouth fell open slightly in surprise. "We are not alone anymore."

Like a perfect thousand-hands dance, we reached for our lost father.

We dove both our hands into peeled away the parts of him that didn't belong. We pulled out the demon core that our friends had so fearfully sown there. We remembered their cries in this place as we had reached to pull him from the weaving he had made. We remembered a hesitation, a sinking horror, and the pull of a power not meant to be shared between two weavers. We remembered seeing similar faces over and over and over again; a cycle of horror and violence echoing through time.

Black decaying muck dropped from our hands as we sought for the essence of Dusek bound within ancient grudges. Our interference had split him in two the moment it had bound us to bronze. But we had returned for him at last. Deep in the dark, where terrified whispers of despair could barely reach, we found the scraps of his soul.

The bronze shuttle screeched, pushed to its absolute limit as we pushed for one action, and the toxic remnants of a confused energy fought against us to keep a hold of the soul it had been sown around.

The shuttle cracked, a long fracture starting at the furthest point and scattering like lightning through the bronze. The universe poured out; seeking to reach an equilibrium all of our command over the weaving of the world fell away.

But we had found the soul we'd been searching for. We pulled it from the inky, rotting depths of an energy that should never have touched his. As it broke free, the shell of him collapsed and liquified into a hissing pool like fresh tar.

We staggered at the loss of the shuttle's focus, but carefully cradled the soul even as we fell to our knees. Whatever protection from deterioration and death the shuttle had provided was fading, and we could hear the sweet siren-song of the afterlife calling to us.

"Dusek," we said to the half-soul, "we are here. Show yourself."

We let it open like a moonlit flower, half the petals torn and mauled by time and an indelicate hand. The last protective wrappings of a fearful heart fell away and a flickering white flame caressed the edges of our hands. It whispered with a delicate musical voice as it explored the shape of us, remembering.

The shuttle cracked straight through, falling away from the cording around our neck into a dozen sharp pieces around us. The connection between us and its power of conversion - from soul to will on the world - severed.

We didn't care. We had finished our task. We heard the trees around us shudder and sigh; a tension in them releasing. Twisted branches holding our Star in place relaxed, but we were not watching him. Our attention was focused on the blossoming soul in our hands.

"We've missed you," we whispered to him. The half-soul shrank away in shame, but we only lifted him closer to our face. "We still love you. We understand now what your rendering made you believe."

"It's over. It's time to rest." Cupped in reverent supplication, we lifted his soul to our lips. Not in consumption but coalescence. One half of a fragile soul found the other, spinning like fond dancers that wove fingers and limbs together to become one perfect unit.

Relief. Sadness. Peace. We were all together again. Within us, our two ancestral souls found each other and wept.

We began to fade. Our eyes began to close, releasing grip on the mortal world with relief. We didn't need to fight any more. We could rest.

A warm hand grabbed at ours, latching on with desperation and our eyes opened in shock.

Panting with exertion, star-fire blade in one hand littering sparks at his feet, he locked eyes with us. "Give her back, Blue." His voice deepened, threatening, "You got what you wanted, you killed the Spider - give her back."

"She is tired, Star," we replied with a sigh. "Just let her rest with us."

"You don't get to decide that - that's for her to decide!" he protested. His lip trembled and the arch of his brows rose into pleading. "June," he called to us. "I know you're still in there - because if you're not… I don't know what I'm going to do. So please… please just listen."

Holding onto the hand of a collection of fading souls, he ran his thumb over the shape of our knuckles and looked at us with a fondness reserved for angels. "I - I don't know how to convince you to fight," he admitted. "I know the world hasn't been kind to you, but… I bought a yukata - it's… it's blue, and I thought it would look really nice on you. I bought it for a festival."

"You promised me you would come back. You're so close - just one more step." He squeezed our hand. "One more thing, and then you can come home. I'll get you there. I promise. I'm here."

He was full of such light, such beautiful glowing warmth, it reached inside us to find the soul he was speaking to. He didn't care about the rest of us - brushed past them - but his heart was looking for hers.

We closed our eyes, pulling back from him and out of his grip as we turned to face death. But not all of them. One set of eyes stayed open, focused on the golden light reflecting from the sword against the Star's earnest face. His promise meant the world to her; an ever-fixed mark in her turbulent seas reminding her of promises she had made with similar urgency.

So we let her go. We made our own promise, souls to soul. We will come for you, when it's time. Encouraging, supportive, and appreciative. The bravest daughter, the sacrificial soul. The shortest time for any of us. We will come for you when it's time, but that time will not be tomorrow.

Little by little, each soul embraced hers. Thanks, appreciation, gratitude. Each left her with a gift - as little or as much as they could spare while remaining whole enough to pass into an afterlife - to fill the grains of sand in her hourglass once more.

And in the end, it was just the two of us. It was hard to remember which one was me, so we were still just… us. We looked up at our Star, and his eyes searched our face; looking for a sign that his pleas had reached us. The older one of us spoke, her lips twisted into a commanding scowl.

"Star," we commanded him, "this is my favorite daughter. Treat her kindly or I will haunt you until the end of time." We did not wait for an answer. We knew.

And then I was alone.

It felt cold to be alone in my body again. The only warm part of me was my right hand; clutched tightly in Kazuma's hand. I blinked, trying to get used to what felt like a limited point of view, and the spectral glow of the universe had faded away.

I lifted my left arm, the stump brushing against the bare cording around my neck. I looked down at the scraps of bronze around me. The breath that rattled through my chest felt full, and it shocked me enough to make me sneeze.

Reflexively I pulled my hand out of his so I could sneeze into the sleeve of my elbow. I sniffed, dabbing at my nose with the collar of my shirt, and looked back up at Kazuma's face to find him looking at me like I was a sky full of stars he'd never seen before.

"June?" he asked, his voice trembling.

"Priviet, Voinichok," I replied, my voice a little croaky.

He let out a whoop of joy and gathered me into his arms, lifting me off my feet as he spun around in tight circles. He held me so tightly my lungs wheezed in protest, and the faint squeak of protest I was able to manage out seemed to bring him back down to earth.

"Oh my god, I'm sorry!" Kazuma set me down on my feet quickly, smoothing down the shoulders of my shirt that had been quite ruffled before putting his hands on my face. "Are you okay?" he asked, eyes darting everywhere.

I put my hands on his, smiling as widely as I could manage. "I'm alright, I promise."

"Good, so I can yell at you now!" The concern in his face made the ire of his tone too funny for me. "You were supposed to stick close! See what happens when you forget?"

I screwed up my face like a whiny toddler. "Voinichok, don't worry; it makes your face all squish."

"Don't-!" Kazuma stopped himself, taking a big heaving gulp of air. "Don't joke about this." his thumbs moved slowly on my face, like he could wipe away tears I hadn't shed for myself. "I was worried."

"Then we should go home." I took his left hand with my right, prying it gently from my face to lace my fingers with his. "We can talk about it over some tea." I squeezed his hand. "We have plenty of time."

Three things you will need to Weave the World.

Kazuma spun the sword in his hand and the edges smoothed, dropping sparks for clean edges and a brighter gold. He struck at the empty air in front of us and it opened up a wide gash in the universe.

We stepped through into the dusty cavern and into a smell of death. Corpses littered the floor, but the mood in the air was strangely cheerful.

"June!" multiple voices called to me. Aria, leaning on Magnolia for support or comfort, broke away to run and wrap me in a hug. Eyes wet with tears, she patted at my face just like Kazuma had done. "Look at you! You did it! And you're okay!"

First, the Lion whose tears fall across rivers.

"I'm okay!" I confirmed with a laugh.

"Why are you surprised?" Magnolia asked, arms crossed over her chest and a strangely sly smile gracing her face. "She's sturdy like that."

She walked slowly over to us, laying a supportive hand on my arm with a fond smile. It changed almost instantly to surprise, her grabbing my upper arm with an intense look.

"Magnolia?" I asked. "Is… is everything okay?"

Her face read as pure and unguarded shock, wide blue eyes lifting to mine as her mouth fell slightly open. "You're okay!" she cried.

Second, the Raven whose cry summons the World.

"Yes?" I asked, now more concerned for Magnolia than myself.

That seemed to be it for whatever emotional dam she'd built. Magnolia's face started to leak liquid that looked an awful lot like tears and she wrapped her arms around whatever parts of me Aria wasn't already holding on to.

I was so confused. I patted Magnolia's back comfortingly and looked to Kazuma for some kind of answer. He shrugged, but with a grin like he understood the sentiment. I didn't understand at all - I'd never had more than maybe one person concerned about my wellbeing.

Huge bear arms wrapped around all three of us, squeezing and lifting us into the air with combined screeches of surprise as Woden insisted on joining the celebration. "Tkadlec!" he cried in delight.

"Don't you want to get in on that?" Yusuke asked Kurama, jerking his thumb over to the odd group hug.

"I believe any more and June might not make it back to the Temple," the fox demon chuckled.

Yusuke nodded. "I guess if Kuwabara kept her alive it'd be embarrassing to mess up now."

Last, the Star whose light will guide you home.

"Shut up, Urameshi!" Kazuma yelled. "What the hell were you doing out here, anyway? Taking a nap?"

"Taking a-?!" Yusuke spluttered, his face turning red. "I'm gonna beat the shit out of you!"

Kurama laughed politely into his elbow to pretend it was a cough.

Woden set us all down gracefully, and I spent the next several minutes trying to help both of my friends collect their composure. Maybe it was just a general release of tension - an easing of fear that left an overwhelming sense of relief that was simply too much to bear without tears.

So we all cried happy tears. We'd all made it - somehow - intact. Against generations of precedent that indicated we should have failed, we'd made it.

Magnolia and Aria filled me in on the deaths of Mishka and Yasuo - gory and violent both - and the group of demons that had fled as soon as their leadership vanished.

Time faded into a blur.

We traveled back to the Temple and promptly began drinking like it was the end of the world - and it nearly had been, I suppose. Aria held her daughter close, tossing her up in the air until the toddler shrieked with laughter. Hiei stood at her side, an arm around her waist and the closest thing to fondness I'd seen glimmering in his eyes.

Magnolia and Kurama shared several cups of sake, and it was Kurama that invited the towering shape of Woden to join them.

Yusuke excused himself to make a phone call as Genkai complained about us going through her entire supply of alcohol in an evening.

She seemed to be overestimating our drinking ability, however, as more bottles kept appearing as the demand increased.

Time slithered away from me, but crawled back again as I tried to sober up in the wee hours of morning. I drifted out onto the porch as distant skies began to lighten. I hadn't expected anyone to join me but I seemed to be attracting people these days. Or maybe no one wanted to sleep.

"Are we watching the sunrise?" Magnolia asked, sitting down next to me.

"Seems right," Aria added, sitting down on my other side, Yukiko fast asleep in her arms.

There was so much left to be said between us. We should have talked about our connection - the intertwining of fate that had drawn us together seemed to be fading, but we still felt a fondness for one another.

I saw it in the knowing smile Aria gave me, and the roll of Magnolia's eyes as Aria waggled her eyebrows. Like grafted branches on a single tree, we may grow apart but we would always be connected at the core. Those two demons would outlive me by centuries, but for the moment we would sit on the porch and watch the sunrise.

"June?" I twisted my neck to look up at Kazuma as approached from behind us. "Can I have a minute?"

"Yes, of course," I said, hopping down from the porch. "Walk with me?"

"Oooooo," Aria crooned.

"Shut up," Magnolia swatted her arm.

Kazuma flushed red as he stepped down to join me, shoving his hands deep in his pockets. We walked a few feet apart, listening to the forest around the Temple start to wake up and begin songs to summon the dawn.

"So," Kazuma started hesitantly, "how are you feeling?"

"Very good," I said, kicking a loose rock and watching it skip across the courtyard. "Better than I have in… a long time."

"That's good," he nodded, maybe more for himself. "Say, June?" he asked, watching me as I hopped up onto a large rock at the edge of the courtyard. "Would… I mean… I think…"

"Kazuma?" I asked with a serious tone, "I have a question."

"Uh, sure, shoot."

"This yukata - the blue one you bought - when is the festival?"

His ears turned bright red. "Uh, three weeks."

I nodded solemnly. "I've never worn yukata before."

"Oh."

"What I mean is, I should probably try it on before - practice wearing it."

"That's a good idea."

I jumped down from my stony pedestal, reaching for his hand. He surrendered it easily and I wove my fingers with his. "I will need lots of practice at things, now I have a long life to live."

"Like what?" Kazuma asked, clearly not catching my meaning.

"Well," I started, sighing, "for one, I will definitely need to try playing video games again."

Kazuma scoffed. "I think you've got the hang of that just fine."

I'd had enough of the careful distance and casual flirting. Completely derailing my train of thought and probably Kazuma's as well, I stood on my tiptoes to bring my face close to his and just brushed my nose against his. "Voinichok," I said very lightly, and smiled as he seemed to stop breathing with me that close, "I am trying to ask you to show me all the things you promised."

"O-oh," he squeaked.

I sank down onto my heels, pressing my hand to my chest and the bare cording I hadn't felt the need to take off. "I don't have the shuttle anymore. It… it scares me a little. I've got a lot of things I need to figure out and I barely know where to start." I looked out at the warming horizon; light blue clouds yielding to yellow streaks as the sun struggled to break through the lingering night. "But, if it's alright with you, I'd like to do that here." I looked at Kazuma. "With you."

"Kotonok," he said, his voice much stronger than before. He struggled to finish his thought.

"Yeah," I agreed, moving my hand to his face, "we're really bad at this." I stood on my toes again but pressed a kiss to his lips. I pulled away before I could get too distracted and gave him a wicked grin. "We will just have to practice, no?"

Someone whistled from the porch across the courtyard, and I suddenly lost a lot of my nerve and surety. I stepped away quickly as my face grew very hot.

"Get it, Kuwabara!" Yusuke yelled. "Ow!" he cried as someone hit him on the back of the head.

"Get in here, the lot of you! You've made a mess and you're damn well going to clean it up!" Genkai yelled.

"We'd better-" "-yeah," we agreed. Kazuma laced his fingers with mine and our hands swayed lightly as we walked back towards the Temple.

The sun broke against our backs as it escaped the horizon, coloring the courtyard pavers with pools of sunshine. A new day, the first of ten thousand new dawns. I had a vague inkling of what might lay ahead as the lingering memory of a moment out of time tickled my memory, but I wasn't worried about it. I was happy enough to have ten thousand dawns left to explore, and a hand in mine to share it with.

Kazuma shot me a curious look, and I winked at him. "I'll explain it later."

"Promise?"

"Promise."


A/N: Here we are at the end. I think I've closed most of the plot points that I opened, but please reach out to me if you still have questions.

I know my readership for this story dropped off pretty heavily in the last third, but it would mean so much to me if you would please leave me one last review. It's been a real challenge to overcome my burnout with this story, especially in the middle of all this COVID-19 scariness. It means so much to authors to hear from you about or works, and it is heartbreaking when you fall silent.

I'd originally intended to give this a very certain Epilogue, with determined endings for each character, but it felt so forced so I decided to go with this more ambiguous ending. You can imagine for yourselves how their paths diverged or didn't from here.

Thank you for joining me on the journeys of Aria, Maggie, and June. They are precious to me, and I hope now to you as well.

Ad Astra,

Aria2302