Eighty thousand. Eighty Goddamn thousand. How the fuck… I mean… Jesus Christ, the hazard really was supplying Acasiana with an unlimited amount of battery. Even if each of those attempts only lasted five minutes, that was still… almost seven thousand hours. Which was getting close to a year’s worth of reiterated time.

And that was only if they all lasted five minutes. There had to be some where we fought tooth and nail for hours on end, and Acasiana only gave up when it was abundantly clear either Keratily was going to win or the only way to beat her involved us making a sacrifice. A more realistic estimate was probably close to two years worth of repeating the exact same thing over and over again, hoping for a slightly different outcome.

{We… we didn’t succeed even once?} I asked as quietly as text-to-speech would allow. {How’s that even possible?}

“It just is. A truly unfortunate truth.” Acasiana replied callously. “In a good chunk of them, we succeed in the far worse of our two victory options. For most of them, however, it ends like this. Keratily and Moricla fight, we find out that Keratily has been repressing a frankly disturbing amount of power, and at least you or Inopsy is lost in the crossfire before we can subdue Keratily. If we even manage to subdue her at all.”

I… just… fuck. {How the hell are we supposed to win, then? If you’ve tried eighty thousand fuckin times, then how can you keep going? When will you stop? Will you… will you ever stop?}

Something in my message brought Acasiana pause. She silently watched as Keratily and Moricla continued their now silent standoff, both women brimming with such power and danger that I couldn’t even conceive of any way I could influence the fight. Even with Okeria’s empowerment. Even with Wipe-away’s continuous drain that would have to last days to have a real impact on Keratily. Hell, even with Inopsy being as close to immortal as physically possible.

The only one of us who could do anything was Acasiana. And she’d already done that eighty thousand times.

{It’s… enough.} I reluctantly said as I came to a terrible decision. {The next time we all survive and we manage to trap Keratily in clearing the hazard, don’t rewind. You’ll go insane trying for perfection that doesn’t exist.}

“No. I… I can do it.” Acasiana whispered shakily. “I already failed my city. My people. My friends, my family, my lineage… everything. And it didn’t even stop her. If I’d been smarter, or stronger, or acknowledged the things I really didn’t want to, then maybe I wouldn’t be… this.”

She gestured down at herself with such hatred that it made me wince.

“The monster in the hazard that can’t even save a few people. So… no. I’m not going to stop.”

The orbs over Acasiana’s shoulders grew brighter. She snapped her fingers, and one of them burst into eight smaller orbs that began to orbit in a perfect figure-eight. Keratily and Moricla both turned at the introduction of another powerful being, but I couldn’t tell whether they were taking her seriously or if it was like flinching at a bright light.

Acasiana looked back at me. For a split second, she removed her helmet to let me see her face. Regret and loneliness warred for purchase in her expression, but settled down to share the space not a moment later. There was no hope in her eyes. No expectations that she’d be free from the prison of her own making ever again.

It struck me far more personally than I expected. She wasn’t looking at me as an outsider. I was the integral part of this. I’d brought the war to her doorstep, given her the first company she could tell the truth to in a very long time, and… maybe… no.

Shit. How could I be such a fucking moron? I forced myself to stand as Acasiana joined the stalemate, and Inopsy peaced the fuck out. He scrambled around the one person I was fully sure was fighting for us and stopped at my side, where he just huffed and coughed to try and catch his breath from a few hours of constant fighting.

“Sorry for making you do this again.” I apologized with my own voice, something deep inside me welling up to force down the effects of my consumable. “When all this is over, you can take as long a vacation as you want.”

Inopsy tilted his head to the side, then staggered back as The End’s power flowed through me. It proved my hunch horrifically right, and I took no joy in repurposing my role as The Envoy for Acasiana. Because it had such horrible implications for all those years she’d been stuck here. Forced to obey the whims of a broken god, using her function to placate and learn all for the sake of surviving.

I reached out my hand. Everything ground to a halt. Keratily and Moricla snapped to me with their bodies positioned for horrific violence. I didn’t let them move. But this time, my abilities did not extend to violence. The End’s voice didn’t echo in my ears, and my connection to the Ossuary was brittle and as thin as spun sugar. But it was enough.

Matria Acasiana Rambola had been forgotten and erased by the Staura. All her efforts to save her city and her people in the process of being undone by Endra. And now she was fully aware that she’d wasted her life placating Moricla to keep Endra from having a host on the all world.

She had nothing. Her legacy was forgotten. And I’d chosen to keep her in forced exile instead of looking for another way to cure the people Dylan had doomed.

“Matria Acasiana Rambola.” I stated. The weight of existence pressed down on my words, and I knew people would hate me for this choice. “You have done more than enough. Will you take my hand and join me?”

Things wouldn’t be the same after this. I was throwing away our best chance at saving a good chunk of people and access to the closest hazard for one woman’s freedom and one woman’s imprisonment. Something told me we’d need Acasiana’s power, whatever would remain after she disconnected from the hazard, to fight the monsters Endra would be throwing at us.

She gulped loud enough for me to hear. “Can I… are you… but all of your people.”

“We will find another way. The world is vast, and we have more than enough medical professionals to keep them alive.” I half-lied. “But if we don’t survive these next few days, it won’t matter at all. Your vigil has ended. Nobody remembers you or what you have done for them. If you take my hand, I will give you somewhere to call ‘home’ again. Will you fight to defend it?”

Hesitation. I should’ve expected as much for someone who’d sacrificed thousands of years for the greater good. There was so much more I could’ve said to convince her. But it didn’t feel right. This wasn’t like Mortician’s case, where I’d actually pulled them from non-existence and given them reality. Honestly, I didn’t even know what would happen if Acasiana accepted my offer. I was going on pure instinct and a power high.

“I am so confused.” Inopsy muttered from behind me. “Should’ve paid more attention in those briefings.”

Acasiana tilted her head to the side, and after a few long seconds, she began to laugh. It started as utter joy–the kind you’d hear from a kid as they opened up exactly what they’d asked for from Santa. Then came the sobs. The tears. The relief, guilt, and absolute desire to be free rolled into one mess of emotions that I would’ve called uniquely human before I met Jun.

She walked up to me and stared at my hand. “I’m not worthy of this. I failed my city, the world, and you. Almost a hundred thousand times over, I failed you. And you’re just going to… let me fail.”

“No.”

“No?”

I could hear the absolute confusion in her voice.

“You haven’t failed at all. You’re still alive, the world is still here, and Endra hasn’t succeeded yet.” I walked a little closer. “Tell the world you failed when it’s a dead husk floating through space as a cosmic entity devours the very life from it. When all your people don’t have somewhere to go back to, and so many of them are just gone. Until there is nothing left to save, you haven’t failed. And I am not asking you to give up.”

I gently grabbed her hand and placed it in mine. The motion didn’t actually do anything, but it felt symbolically right.

“I am asking you to keep fighting. No matter how painful it is.”