"…Asat. Why did you dispel me?"
The voice was quiet, yet rang with unnatural clarity — not loud, not forceful, but unwavering. It echoed as though spoken into an empty cathedral, the kind where silence held its own presence. Cool and emotionless at first, the words carried a faint, sharp undertone. Merely a question, genuine and curious, but honed like a polished blade left too long in the cold.
Asat didn't respond right away.
His head — a massive gloved hand — twitched slightly, fingers curling in slow thought. The dice that rested in his palm clicked once, then again, the motion as soft as breath, but carrying a strange gravity. It was a sound that shouldn't have echoed — yet it did, bouncing off unseen walls in a space that wasn't quite real.
Eventually, he gestured toward the empty air in front of him with a lazy flick of his wrist, as if brushing dust off an invisible table.
And like dust catching light, the projection returned — a figure dressed in flowing white garments, coalescing into view with almost mechanical smoothness.
"I didn't. That was something else entirely."
He flexed his fingers a little, as though testing an unseen resistance in the air. His palm bent backward further than any hand should, but it wasn't painful. It was normal. Natural, even, for a thing like him.
"And I think that it was the Uniqueness of The Fool."
His tone shifted slightly — still casual, but touched with something almost reverent. A note of curiosity thick enough to drown in. His words hung for a moment, swelling with implied weight.
"Strange, huh?"
The dice rolled again, once, without any movement from his fingers.
"It shouldn't be involved. Not here. Not in this place. Especially not considering how difficult — no, how impossible — it is for Aeons to interact with the Dream Realm."
He paused then, as if tasting the silence that followed.
"But it was here. And whoever was carrying it decided to cut the time limit of my projection down. So much so that I didn't even have a moment to react properly."
The dice clicked once more. A subtle sound.
He watched it with idle fascination, as if wondering what it would land on — though it never fell.
"You know, despite how peculiar the whole thing is… I'm very tempted to chase it. Go after it. If it's truly separated from the Erroneous One, then maybe I could find one of the spare characteristics. Reach Sequence 1."
Then came the smallest shrug — a twitch of fingers.
"Too bad I don't have any clues. No signs. No scent to follow. Nothing at all."
Asat lifted his arm slightly and turned his head-hand over to peer into the curve of his own palm. His voice quieted.
"I'm sure I'll run into it eventually, though…"
The projection remained still. But something in the space around it shifted — not a movement, not a tremor, but a change in tone. Not of light or sound, but of intention.
***
Sunny sat with his back against the wall of the cabin, arms resting on his knees. The wooden boards were still humming faintly from the aftershocks. He hadn't said anything for a while.
Sparkle sat nearby, cross-legged, spinning a card between her fingers.
The silence stretched before Sunny finally spoke.
"…I think I've seen those flames before."
Sparkle glanced up.
Sunny sighed.
"They were the same color as the flames Seele and I ran into in an inheritance."
Her eyes glimmered as if she knew far more than she let on. In the end, she didn't reply.
Slightly annoyed, Sunny changed the topic.
"I think that white thing destroyed the Night Temple."
Sparkle blinked.
"Why's that?"
"I went to check out the area a while back. If you look down at the Sky Below, you can see a white spot."
Sunny rubbed his face.
"There were the puppets, too. For whatever reason, everything seemed to be after Seele, while deliberately avoiding harming me."
Sparkle's tone was light.
"I guess they were your fans."
Sunny shook his head.
"Their abilities were weirdly similar to yours, too. Jumping through flames, paper figurines… don't tell me this is all some sick prank?"
Sparkle seemed a little alarmed, before furrowing her brow in thought.
"Puppets, you said? I'm not able to do something like that. Not yet, at least."
Sunny tilted his head.
"But aren't all Aspects unique? How were they able to use your abilities?"
Sparkle smiled faintly.
"Let's just say… some people don't get to be special."
She stopped spinning the card.
"They just get what someone else had."
Sunny stared blankly for a couple moments, then groaned.
'Can't people be less cryptic?'