It was quiet in the Chamber of the Empty Throne.
Ena lingered at the foot of the steps, staring up at the giant crystal throne. It hadn't held a ruler in a long, long time. The King of Light and Shadow had not graced the Astral throne in many millennia—not since before Ena's time. The Astral World had kept itself too far aloof. Too separate. It tried too hard to keep itself pure, free of chaos. It had not accepted the rule of the King of Light and Shadow for thousands upon thousands of years. Now, if the King had dropped the "shadow" part of the title, maybe they would have. But of course, the King could not. That would disrupt the balance. But there had been no King for several decades to even attempt to make peace with the Astral World anyway.
Ena ran their fingers across the cold stone steps, sighing. The Astral World had long forgotten the balance. It was the reason for their slow march towards death.
Why can no one else see? They thought. See the way that we are failing?
Sickness had set into the city. So many Astral were showing the signs of it, the cracks that ran down their bodies in terrible designs, going deep into them so that they couldn't breathe, their hearts would barely beat, and they would fall into deep sleeps that were near impossible to rouse them from. Ena worried about what would happen when someone fell asleep and never woke up. Death was not a familiar prospect to an Astral. And if it decided to visit them, then they knew that the panic would set in. And that would be when the riots began.
Chaos will find us no matter how much we try to fight it.
They settled themselves on the steps, hands twisting into their dress. Time ticked by. They could hear the pendulum swinging in the giant stardial behind this room. Even they, who thought the Astral obsession with time was ridiculous, could feel the seconds ticking down.
He will come, they thought. The Bringer of a Thousand Distortions will come again, and this time we will die.
The Chamber of the Empty Throne was a large one, of polished blue crystal and sweeping, tall arches that stretched to remarkable heights above. Intricate, curvy pillars lined the far wall, which was mostly open to the large balcony and the sky above. The frozen aurora stared blandly back at Ena, and not for the first time, they longed to see something different. Something that would tell them that their world was not deteriorating, not stagnating to the point of being beyond fixing. They longed for the golden hues of a sunset that Mirai had described to them, the gradients of pink and lavender and blue and orange that would awash the sky in light and color to herald the end of the day. It sounded a beautiful, glorious prospect to Ena. Even the very Earth itself knew how precious every day was, without mourning what was past...it knew how to celebrate the ending of a day. The Astral did not know how to celebrate an end.
The Astral did not want to believe in endings.
How much time had passed since they had seen Mirai? A few years, already? It couldn't have been that long. It felt like mere months.
After their work was done, their sister had to go into hiding. With Yuma's soul signature woven into her own code, she was a beacon for all of the distortions who wanted Yuma's power.
Ena had wanted to join her—wanted it so badly that it hurt. But their sister knew her way around the Astral wilderness far better than Ena did, and Ena knew they would only slow her down. Mirai lived and breathed the wilderness, the fire and uncertainty of adventure. Things that Ena longed for, but didn't know how to grasp. She would be fine, they told themself every day. She would be fine. She could take care of herself.
And Kazuma would join her, after he finished his own work here...they would protect each other, as they always had. Ena would have to trust him to take care of their sister. There was a tiny stab of jealousy that came with the thought, but they squashed it. That conflict was long past. They were glad that their sister was happy with him. They were...glad...
Their eyes rose up to the orb that rested at the end of the chamber, hovering and swirling under the light of the aurora. All of their thoughts had been an attempt to draw their eyes away from this.
The orb hovered on the balcony. It turned almost lazily, as though made from several layers of stars that were all moving at different speeds and in different directions. It was difficult to see through those layers, but Ena knew what the faint shadow inside was.
"Astral-99," they whispered. "The hope and savior of our race."
They laughed hollowly. A farce. What a farce it was. The Astral-99 homunculus was millennia old. No one still lived that knew how to use it. And even if there was someone, no one knew where the key part was.
No one knew where to find the Numeron Code.
Ena hugged their knees to their chest and rested their cheek on their knees, still staring at the orb that held the ancient weapon.
What were you? They thought. Who were you? Were you like an Astral? Do you think? Do you...dream?
All they had were a few old journals chronicling the first war. A vessel built to hold the god code, the force that had created the world, and channel it as a weapon to destroy the distortions that threatened them.
And now we have created our own enemy, they thought. And we are going to use the fruit of our failures to solve the problems we ourselves created.
Ena sighed and buried their face in their knees.
Where is he?
Kazuma should have been here by now. Human or Astral, they knew he should have been here by now. He had claimed he had found the key that held the final code necessary to reprogram the homunculus. To turn it from a destructive force into something more productive.
They were going to steal the homunculus.
Ena shivered at the thought. It was a terrifying and yet exciting prospect. They were going to steal the homunculus. Eliphas wanted to use it to destroy Earth. They believed Earth held the doorway to the pocket world where the Numeron Code had hidden itself. They weren't wrong.
But destroying Earth and the human realm would not reveal the door. It would most likely seal it away forever. That was why they needed the program to change Astral-99's objective.
That was when they heard the whispering.
Ena's head jerked up. Someone in the hall, there was someone coming—there was no rule against them being in here, but that didn't mean it wasn't frowned upon, and it would look suspicious and they would have to come up with an excuse—if someone was coming up here then that meant Kazuma couldn't make it and then everything was lost—
But the whispering continued and it grew neither farther nor closer. They frowned, staring into the dark arch to their right that lead to the hallway. Their imagination? But no, it continued, and continued, and they couldn't be making that up.
Their eyes wandered over to the orb on the balcony.
...there?
Ena rose with a rustle of fabric. They hesitated, hand to their breast, staring, frowning. They weren't imagining it. It was...it was coming from there.
Ena took a step forward. Then another. And another.
They stood before the orb, then, out on the balcony in the cool, breezeless air. They half circled around the sphere, staring through the many layers to the small shadow within. They felt as though there should be some kind of pulsing there, like a heart. But it was a homunculus built to hold a heart—so it could not have one of its own, and thus there was no pulsing light within it.
Ena put their hand on the sphere. It was remarkably solid for something that appeared to be made of dust and starlight. For a moment, she felt a thrumming. Like…like breathing. Something breathing, or shifting, like inside a womb. Unlike many other Astral, Ena knew what a womb felt like—Mirai had been pregnant just before she had had to flee, and Ena remembered putting their hand to her belly and then jumping with surprise at the kick from inside. Remarkable, that a human body could foster life the way it did. So very different from how Astral were born, simply falling from the stars on the prescribed days in the form they would remain in for the rest of their eternal existence. Mirai had wanted her own children, and she had been willing to give up her Astral body, been willing to turn to uncertain magics, to change herself into a human that could support a life.
Ena pressed their other hand to the sphere, feeling the thrumming like a rhythm against their palms.
Life. There was life inside here. They called it a homunculus, but it was different from the beings that Eliphas created to guard the borders of the Astral World. This life felt…real. Not cold and soulless, not like the blank eyes of the homunculi on the borders, but a warm, thrumming life like the feeling of a child waiting to be born.
What are you? Ena thought at it again. What…what were you? And what will you become?
There was no answer. Of course there would not be. They were probably imagining all of this—this homunculus would be as soulless as the rest. A weapon forged to destroy the distortions. Nothing more.
Or…
A crash rang out in the hallway, a shout. Ena whipped around, clutching their hands to their breast, heart hammering. What was that? What was going on—
A golden homunculus staggered back into view with a hiss—its vaguely human shape was hunched over slightly, enlarged shoulders and dangling arms tipped with deadly claws, elongated, almost wolf-like face snarling. But something struck it back, out of sight, and then Kazuma was hurtling into the door way. He gripped the side of the door, a trickle of blood running down the side of his head, eyes wide and searching the stairs at the foot of the throne.
"Kazuma!" Ena called.
His eyes snapped to them.
"Ena," he breathed. "You have to—fix the programming, I'll draw them away—I'm sorry, there were more them around than I thought there was and I couldn't sneak through—"
"Me? I have to—you haven't given me the program!"
"It's simple—just—strip away the excess initiatives—reduce it to its initial directive—"
And then Kazuma was already whipping away down the hall and a howl rang out from one of the homunculi. Feeling the crystals under their skin grow cold with fear, Ena ducked behind the sphere, hoping that no one would see them from the doorway here.
Initial directive? Its initial directive had been to destroy Don Thousand!
Their breath caught.
No. That wasn't right. That wasn't quite right.
Astral-99's initial directive was to seek and host the Numeron Code.
They pressed their hands to the sphere again, shaking as the howls and shouts of the homunculi rang through the halls. Kazuma might not even make it out of this, they thought. If he wasn't killed, he'd be imprisoned, and then they'd lose their chance.
Ena had only this one shot.
They pressed their hands harder against the sphere as though they could push through and reach the incubating homunculus inside. This was—this was probably going to hurt. If the homunculus could feel such things. They were taking everything. Stripping it away and reducing it into shards of code. Taking away every bit of its programmed information bank and shredding it, sending it flung out across the stars to reduce it to only a single thought.
Find the Numeron Code.
That would lead it to the beacon, left behind on Earth.
"I believe in you two," Ena whispered. "I really do."
I don't have a choice.
They pressed their hands to the sphere and began to untangle and remove code.