Loita's origin was hanging by a thread now, nearly emptied out. Mira had fared no better — all that remained of her was a faint shimmer of origin aura, barely enough to prove she was still alive.
"Big sis Loita," Luna's voice cut through the exhaustion, urgent, "can you release Mistress Aurora?"
"What exactly are you planning?" Loita's patience had worn down to something thin and fraying.
"Lona, Mae, and Frare are in danger. Five months, maybe less. Before they lost consciousness, they set up a one-time clock teleportation."
"What *happened* to them?" Loita's voice cracked with something close to panic.
"You'll know soon. We don't have time to spare right now." Luna's tone sharpened. "I'll draw on your origin and Mistress Aurora's to form an anti-clock teleportation. It's the only option left."
---
At the Red Cliff, near the mouth of an open cave, a mortal woman knelt beside three unconscious figures, her hands hovering, uncertain.
"So this is where they ran to," she murmured, half to herself. "You saved my village. Whatever this costs me — I'll repay it."
A weak grunt broke from one of the women on the ground.
"Alita... you should... leave. Now."
"What are you talking about?" The mortal woman — Alita — pressed closer, refusing to back away. "Big sis Frare, I can *help* you, let me—"
Before she could finish, the cave flared with sudden white light.
Then silence.
Moments later, a hunting party arrived at the cliff's edge, weapons drawn, only to find the cave already empty — nothing left but the fading afterglow of light against stone.
"*Damn it.* They're already gone."
---
"Luna, remove these runes from me," Loita snapped, frustration bleeding into every word.
"But, Master—" Luna hesitated.
"*No buts.* We don't have time for hesitation. The plan has changed." Loita's eyes burned with something new — clarity, maybe, or fury. "My sisters will be here soon. I've unlocked every memory I had sealed away, back when I burned through my origin. That bastard locked them the moment I started recovering them on my own."
"Mira," she continued, turning, "the moment they arrive, we destroy our bodies. All of them. We nurture our souls together in the Chaotic Prime Soul Pond."
"...*How?*" Mira's voice was barely a whisper.
"He built it. Found a bucket of Chaotic Prime Spring Water somewhere, a Soul Prime Tree, Everlasting Chaotic Flowers — and used all of it to construct a massive pond, split across both the Fay and Eternal Garden realms. Soul Eternal Spring. Eternal Youth Spring. Gaya Life Spring. He fused all three into the Chaotic Prime Springs and sealed them directly into the pond itself."
"...How do you know all of this?"
"Remember my death?"
"You died when the Fay realm was destroyed."
"Did it, though? Was it ever really destroyed at all?" A faint, bitter smile touched Loita's lips. "You sacrificed your body and your cultivation to fake that whole thing for me. Do you have any idea what that did to us? Mistress cried like an actual child."
"...No. Damn it. Sis Aurora had all of us long before that bastard ever showed up."
"Big sis," someone asked, voice small, "is he really that man's son?"
"How many bloodlines does he even carry?"
"One."
"Then... how does that even—"
"He doesn't carry Mistress's bloodline either."
"Do you remember what Mistress told us? Before the oath was even sworn?"
"That she was just a servant. But then the stories started, and—"
"And you believed them?"
"...."
---
*BOOM.*
"They're here."
"Luna — give them a boost. Now."
A moment passed, silence stretching thin, before a voice broke through it, weak but unmistakably alive.
"...Who is she?"
"....."
"Mae — you can talk?!"
"What is it," Mae managed, exhausted down to the bone. "I'm tired."
"Okay. Listen carefully." Loita's voice hardened into command. "We destroy our bodies first — all of them — before we nurture our souls in that pond. We're going to forge Chaotic Prime Souls."
"...?"
"Yes. The legendary Chaotic Prime Soul."
"And the supreme origin we've been carrying?" Luna asked, already dreading the answer.
"We use it to forge our new bodies."
"You cannot possibly be serious right now."
"...."
"...You're actually serious."
Alita, still kneeling nearby, looked between them all with wide, overwhelmed eyes. "What are you all even talking about? Big sis Frare, who *are* these women? Where are we? This place — it's *beautiful.*" Her voice caught with genuine wonder despite everything.
"Who's *she?*" someone else demanded sharply. "Big sis Loita — should I kill her?"
"You *dare?*" Loita's voice cracked like a whip.
"Frare. Explain. Now."
"She was trying to heal us," Frare said quietly, "before you activated that teleportation without checking who else was standing there first."
"Mira..." Frare's gaze slid toward her sister, who immediately looked away.
"...Mmmh. I was only trying to save you both. There wasn't time to think about who else might get caught up in it."
"Fine." Loita exhaled, some of the tension leaving her shoulders. "I'm Loita Fay. These are my sisters — Mira Chaos, Frare Chaos, Mae Chaos, Lona Chaos, Luna Chaos. And that one, over there — Aurora Chaos. She's as close to a mother as any of us have ever had."
"I'm Alitalia," the mortal girl offered, still a little breathless. "An orphan from the village Big Sis Frare saved."
"You're lucky, then." Loita studied her for a moment. "A pure soul origin like yours doesn't come along often. Welcome. You'll be our sister now."
"But to actually become one of us, you'll need to—"
"Loita — no." Frare cut in sharply. "Let's send her back. Now, before this goes any further."
Alitalia turned to her, hurt flickering across her face. "Big sis Frare... you don't want me?"
"You don't understand what you'd be signing up for." Frare's voice softened, but the warning underneath stayed firm. "Once you become one of us, you give up any chance of marrying someone you love. You'll be in danger every single day, for the rest of however long you live."
Confusion knit Alitalia's brow. "What danger? Why couldn't I marry someone I love?"
"We share a husband, Alitalia. All of us. And we're — what you mortals would call boundless ancient ancestral gods. Primordial ancient divine beings. Now do you understand the kind of danger that invites?"
"...But I'm standing right here. Talking to you. And I'm not dead."
"Our origins are shattered right now," Frare said gently. "And if you pay attention, you'll feel it — something inside you, shaking. Cracking apart, slowly. That's your soul, Alitalia. It's been crumbling this whole time. If it weren't for that necklace you're wearing, and for me shielding what's left of you, you'd have died a long time ago."
"...What? So that's what's been happening to me."
"Big sis Frare," Alitalia said softly, after a long moment, "I don't have any family left. I don't mind the danger. Not if it means I finally get one."
"Will *that bastard* even be alright with adding her to the mix?" someone muttered.
"Since when did any of us care what he thinks?"
"Sis Aurora," another voice asked, turning toward the older woman, "how exactly are you planning to pull off pretending, when the time comes?"
"...*Wait.* Mistress was already awake this whole time?"
"What about the potion's effects on her?"
"She doesn't have an origin left to speak of anymore."
"Little Loita." Aurora's voice, when it finally came, was measured, careful. "Why does our body forging need to be built on the supreme origin as its foundation? We have other treasures we could use instead. Leave the supreme origin for Novaah — he'll need it more."
"No." Loita's answer came without hesitation. "We start from *zero.* All of us. And don't waste a single thought on the realm cores — I'm going to merge them straight into this realm myself. This place is our home now. Since we've got no origin of our own to speed things along, the merge alone will take a full thousand years."
"We still have half an origin left between us."
"That's going toward Luna," Loita said firmly. "We'll use it to evolve her synthetic soul into a proper primary soul before she goes into the pond. She doesn't get to enter unprepared."
"Mistress Aurora," Mira asked carefully, "who exactly *is* the young master to you?"
"...???"
"What's going on here? Someone explain."
"I watched him grow up. That's all there is to it."
"Yeah, but — *what does that mean*, exactly?"
"I'm not a Chaos family member," Aurora said quietly. "I was his fiancée. And his servant. In his first life."
"*WHAT?!*"
"No — no, no, no. We *saw* you give birth to him. With our own eyes."
"Did you, though?" Aurora's expression didn't shift. "Or was it something that only *looked* like that?"
"Is that true, Big Sis Loita?"
"Big sister!"
"...It's a secret."
"But he *called* her mom. He wouldn't even let himself be intimate with her — he knocked her *unconscious* rather than let it happen."
"If he's ever reborn again," Aurora said softly, almost to herself, "maybe you'll be the one who becomes his mother next time. I'm the youngest among all of us, after all."
"*WHAT?!* But — you're the one who took us all in, when we were still mortal!"
"Not exactly." A faint, sad smile crossed Aurora's face. "Those origins were always yours to begin with. I only helped you find them."
"*Ours?!* What does that even mean — what's going on here?!"
"Secret," Aurora said again, gently but firmly. "You'll understand, in time."
---
"Luna — absorb what's left. Bring yourself up to a primary soul, equal to a mortal soul's foundation."
"Alitalia — since you've chosen to join us, drink this, and enter the pond alongside them."
Alitalia took the vial without hesitation and drank. Her body began to come apart almost immediately, dissolving into faint light until only a fragile, transparent soul remained — and even that had already begun disintegrating at the edges.
"Jump into the pond *now,* or you will die where you stand. Luna — you too. In. Now, or you're finished."
"Extract the realm cores. Integrate them into this realm immediately — we still have ten years before the evolution process truly begins."
"Everyone. Into the pond." Loita's voice rang out, steady despite everything. "Mira — release his soul fragments before he enters the rebirth cycle again. Release Chronos and Lafila as well. Once the nurturing process finishes, our souls will awaken as Chaotic Prime Absolute Souls. Body forging happens automatically the moment we wake — new bodies, cultivation reset to zero, no memories of anything at all, except one single truth: that he is our husband. We'll carry a brand-new cultivation technique when we rise. A dual cultivation technique. Chaotic Prime grade."
"Everyone — into the pond. I'll see you all again on the other side. We regain our memories once we reach primordial rank, and not a moment before."
"This is the only way to strip every mark and tracing technique they've placed on us. Every single one."
One by one, they stepped into the pond — and the supreme origin flared to life around them, wrapping each woman in a glowing cocoon of light.
The world dissolved into blue.
---
Somewhere impossibly far away, a flash of blue light streaked down through open sky and struck the surface of a green planet.
*BOOM.*
A massive crater bloomed outward from the impact, smoke and fire rolling off its edges in slow, heavy waves.
And there, at the very center of it all — half-buried in scorched earth, wreathed in drifting embers and a faint, lingering shimmer of blue — sat a small black Metroid, silent and still, waiting for the world around it to notice it had arrived.