Sakolomeh remained silent for a few seconds.
Snow continued to fall gently around them.
He lowered his eyes, then sketched a calm smile — not arrogant, not mystical. Just… human.
— The difference, Erasa… is that he doesn't exist to live.
Erasa narrowed her eyes slightly.
Sakolomeh raised his gaze.
— Sakolomeh-My0x has no attachments left. No future. No fear of losing.
He doesn't act because he wants to…
he acts because something must be true.
Bakuzan said nothing. He already understood.
— When Sakolomeh-My0x acts, continued Sakolomeh, it's neither a choice nor a fight.
It's a statement.
A structural correction.
He placed a hand on his chest.
— Me, I doubt.
I get angry.
I get attached to people.
I can hesitate… and even make mistakes.
Erasa pressed her arms a bit closer to herself.
— Sakolomeh-My0x doesn't need to protect anyone, he resumed.
Because for him, nothing can truly be lost.
Everything can be reconstructed by the code.
A brief silence passed.
— Me, on the other hand…
if someone disappears, it hurts me.
He smiled slightly, almost with self-deprecation.
— Him, he is coherent with the zero of the My0x code, me, I am coherent with the Dream.
Erasa looked away for a moment.
— Sakolomeh-My0x can't stay here, he concluded softly.
Not because he's too strong…
but because his mere existence makes everything else relative.
He watched the snow fall.
— Me, I can walk here.
Get my hands dirty.
Make mistakes.
Grow old.
Laugh with Bakuzan.
Worry about Hinata.
He turned his eyes back to Erasa.
— If you confuse me with him…
then yes, I would be dangerous.
A short silence.
— But as long as I remain Sakolomeh,
I'm just a guy who saw a part of the Absolute code from himself… and who chose not to be it.
Erasa remained stunned for a moment by what Sakolomeh had just said.
Her gaze lost itself in the snow, as if she were inwardly recomposing every word.
— Yet… she said finally, when you were fighting, I didn't get the impression there was a difference.
She raised her eyes to him.
— So why separate?
Bakuzan slowly closed his eyes, already guessing the answer.
Sakolomeh took a deep breath before responding.
— The difference is simple, actually.
He paused.
— Me, Sakolomeh, I am the one who accepted his nature while remaining coherent with the Dream. I accepted being what I was… the bug, the exception, the living contradiction. I accepted that this part was part of me.
He placed a hand on his chest.
— Sakolomeh-My0x, him, had nothing to accept.
He is that nature I recognized.
He is infinitely closer to Absolute 0.
Erasa listened without interrupting him.
— And without me, continued Sakolomeh, he's not even really coherent with the Dream.
He settled for a slight smile.
— If we separated, it's precisely because of this question of coherence. His presence here would have been far more serious than mine.
He raised his eyes to the sky.
— Him, by his mere existence, would have forced the Dream to contradict itself constantly.
Me… maybe I still do it sometimes.
But it's infinitesimal.
Erasa frowned slightly.
— That would mean that… Sakolomeh-My0x is more powerful than you?
Sakolomeh let out a small laugh and shrugged.
— It's not even debatable.
Then, with disarming calm:
— But deep down… what is power really worth?
Bakuzan cut them off suddenly:
— Okay, are you done with your couple's discussion? Can we go?
Sakolomeh blushed immediately.
— You, shut up!!
Erasa, for her part, said nothing.
Hand against her chin, thoughtful gaze, she had just understood something essential:
It wasn't the power of Sakolomeh-My0x that mattered.
But Sakolomeh's choice not to be him.
Sakolomeh, Erasa, and Bakuzan had settled into a quiet restaurant.
In front of them, three cups of coffee steamed slowly as they waited for the others to arrive.
Each took a sip in silence.
Then Sakolomeh turned his head slightly toward Erasa.
— Erasa…
She raised her eyes to him. Bakuzan, curious, did the same.
— Are you still the apostle of the goddess Mü Thanatos?
Erasa nodded gently.
— I still am. And I will be until the end of time.
She paused.
— After being erased by the Anarchetypes… when we came back thanks to you… we realized something.
Bakuzan frowned.
— Realized what?
— That our bond wasn't complete, she replied calmly.
— The goddess had been separated from her true self. She was no longer anything but a fragment… and so was I, by extension.
Sakolomeh listened attentively.
— Even after she was reconnected to her true essence, continued Erasa, I remained focused on only one of her facets.
She raised her eyes, more assured.
— But that's no longer the case now.
Sakolomeh sketched a smile.
— So… you're complete now?
Erasa returned his smile and nodded.
— Yes. I am now the apostle of the goddess Mü Thanatos in all her forms.
— Including… her Anarchetype form.
Sakolomeh smiled more.
Bakuzan, for his part, sighed before smiling in turn. He took a sip of coffee, set the cup down on the table, then said in a falsely blasé tone:
— Great… You're all getting more and more powerful while I stagnate.
Erasa frowned.
— What are you talking about? Didn't you receive a favor from the father god?
Sakolomeh looked away slightly, amused.
— He's playing coy, he added.
— When he's become the apostle of the father god himself.
Bakuzan closed his eyes, an almost proud look on his face, and sipped his coffee quietly.
The father god had been watching him for a long time.
He had seen his journey, his choices, his will.
And he had judged him worthy.
Bakuzan had become his apostle —
the one who would carry his power through the Dream.
Sakolomeh observed Bakuzan then Erasa in turn.
He now understood that they had become true monsters of power — at least inside the Dream.
In that precise framework, Erasa remained inferior to Bakuzan: she was the ego of Mü Thanatos, and Mü Thanatos was the Dream itself.
Now the father god was the one who had made this Dream legitimate. He was its founding instance — and therefore, above Mü Thanatos.
But in the Chôrion, everything would have been different.
There reigned the Absolute Anteriority to the Dream:
the unspeakable, the non-narrated, that which refuses both hierarchy and non-hierarchy.
In that domain, neither order nor domination could be affirmed.
The father god and Mü Thanatos, in their Anarchetype forms, might have been equivalent egos… or maybe not.
No one could really know.
One thing was certain:
that part made Bakuzan and Erasa terribly powerful.
The restaurant door opened then.
Ravena and Neru entered, wrapped in long coats to protect themselves from the cold.
Sakolomeh smiled inwardly: being Ineffables, those coats served them absolutely no purpose — except to give the illusion of normality in the eyes of the other customers.
They approached the table.
— Hi, everyone…, said Neru.
The others responded with a simple nod.
Ravena scanned the room with his gaze.
— He's not here, Zar'Khan?
Sakolomeh shook his head.
— Not yet, I fear.
— He's probably preparing a spectacular entrance.
Erasa raised her eyes to him, falsely detached.
— I hope not…
— Otherwise, I might really kill him.
Sakolomeh and the others burst out laughing.
Everyone… except Erasa, who suddenly realized what she had just said, felt her cheeks heat up slightly, and looked away, a bit embarrassed.