I didn't loiter around very long. In fact, I loitered only just long enough to leave Shikaku a hastily scribbled note, saying something to the effect of 'Something came up, be back soon', and to pick up the Gummi block.

After I did both, I left, breaching through the Dimensional Barrier in instants, tearing out first into the Sea of the Skies, and then into a Corridor of Darkness.

Distance meant little in the Sea of the Skies, but meant even less in the Corridors of Darkness. I emerged only seconds later outside of my target World, and for a second, I though that I had gotten the world wrong.

There had been Darkness before, immense and overwhelming, both inside and outside of the World. The World had been seeped in it, surrounded on the outside, and all but filled to the brim inside.

Now, however, I beheld a World that was different, changed on a fundamental level. There was much less Darkness, both inside and out, but a fraction of a fraction of a fraction of a fraction. Infinitely smaller, compared to before.

The Darkness was not gone, not destroyed, but it had been removed from this World.

I had no god-damned idea what could possibly do that.

I raised the Gummi block to the Dimensional Barrier, and promptly passed through the Barrier

I slipped out of a Corridor of Darkness, nearby to the piece of myself.

It was the exact same city that I had been to before; yet all it took was a simple look around to see the differences.

Once, I had seen maelstroms of Darkness, storms of the very same blackened power. Despair, Grief, Hate and many other negative emotions had existed, all in overwhelming amounts.

Had existed.

The city was scarce now, calm; not a single raging maelstrom in sight, so very little Despair, so very little Grief. Hate was even more so, naught but little pockets, so disconnected, so petty. Miniscule, irrelevant.

I stepped out of my shadow, the rain pouring down on my form. I gave a mental frown as I stared at it, shaping my claw into a cup to hold the water.

Even the rain felt warmer, softer, somehow. They were ice-cold spikes no longer, but cool and pleasant even in the torrential downpour.

I looked up, and noted that even the clouds seemed brighter, seemingly dark grey instead of the near black that I could have sworn they once were.

The colors seemed more vibrant. The shadows didn't seem as long. Edges seemed duller, more soft instead of sharp angles. The World had changed, and the result was brighter.

I absorbed a small piece of the World's Darkness, and noted that even the Darkness itself felt more...

Hopeful.

Positive, somehow. Happy, I might even go as far to say.

I shook my head, and decided not to dwell on it. Not yet, anyway.

I noted that the corrupted pen was above me, so I slipped into the shadows and quietly skittered up the walls, the only way I could do so without leaving a mark of my presence.

I slipped through a glass window, the transparent material doing absolutely nothing to slow my passage, only serving as another entrance for me.

I entered a corridor, and turned left, then right, before finally slipping underneath a door. I noted yellow 'POLICE LINE DO NOT CROSS' tape on the outside of the door before I slipped under, but I didn't really put any thought to it.

The room itself certainly seemed normal enough; just a bedroom with a lot of junk in every other direction.

My eyes, like a magnet, were instantly drawn to the corrupted pen, still blackened and lengthened from my very own darkness.

Sayaka, and Kyubey, were nowhere to be found.

Carefully, I picked it up, and promptly pulled my Darkness back into myself, the pen returning to its normal shape as I did so.

I gently set it back in place, returning it to exactly where it had been, though it was now a normal pen again.

I looked around the room again, noting that a fairly large portion of the room was covered in dust, even the pen itself had been covered.

Kind of had to wonder about what happened here... And, more importantly, how my pen had ended up in a place like this.

Later, though.

I dipped into a Corridor of Darkness once more.

I emerged on top of a skyscraper, the very same one I first arrived on when I first came to this World.

I looked around, my vision a sight of Hearts and Darkness, searching for Sayaka's Heart.

A Heart which I couldn't find, problematically. I was reasonably familiar with it, and that really should have been all I needed to find it no matter where it was, but I couldn't find it within the hundreds of thousands within this city.

Hmm.

Problematic. But not unsolvable.

I turned around- and something brushed against my senses.

I was a shadow before I even finished blinking, the something swirling closer, Darkness pushed out of its path- but not destroyed, merely repulsed. And I could easily tell why:

LIGHT

Immense, powerful Light.

Not a being who wielded the Light directly, but a being so pure that the Darkness barely touched them.

My vision flickered, and I saw more clearly; a Heart and a Soul, bereft of a Body- No.

That wasn't all there was to it.

My vision Expanded. I stared at the Heart and the Soul, and comprehended the entirety of the- her Existence.

I saw... A small girl, dressed in an elaborate white dress, which seemed to be glowing. Pink hair cascaded in every other direction, seemingly disregarding gravity entirely. She had a soft, confused expression on her face as she looked at me.

I looked deeper. And Saw.

She is connected. Tied to this World. Merged with it on the most fundamental of levels. She is connected to the Body, tangentially, existing as a part of all of Space and all of Time, in this World. She is connected to the Soul, tangentially, Greater Knowledge now a part of her.

This girl has become one with the Heart Of This World.

I hadn't even thought that was possible.

She stepped slightly sideways. My eyes followed her, even when she took another step to the right.

All too suddenly, she vanished. I twisted around, having not lost her Light for even a moment.

And lo, there she was, standing a fair ways behind me with a much more perplexed expression on her face.

"Can you see me?"

Slowly, deliberately, I nodded.

And, slowly, an utterly radiant smile stretched out across the girl's face.