The staircase spat them out into water.
SPLASH—!
Knee-deep. Black. Warm as blood.
The third floor was a colosseum.
Once, long ago, it had been the Red Colosseum—where slaves fought for the amusement of invisible gods.
Now it lay drowned, the stands half-collapsed, marble ribs jutting from the water like bones. The arena sand had become a pool of dark water that lapped and whispered, (water ripple…), under a red sky pressed close like a closing fist.
And in the center stood Effie.
Not the Effie he remembered.
The Effie before him was colossal—twenty-five meters tall, maybe thirty.
Her iron skin had ruptured in a thousand places, rust flaking off to reveal raw muscle that shifted like molten metal.
Her belly was grotesquely swollen, stretched thin over something that moved and kicked beneath the surface.
Rusted shields—hundreds—were embedded in the swell like scales on a pregnant war-dragon.
She fought.
Endless waves of Nightmare Creatures surged from gates that ripped open at random intervals—SKRRRCH—!, THUD—!, SCREEEE—!
Chitin horrors. Bone serpents. Things made from teeth, skin, and memory.
Effie met them with bare hands.
And with laughter.
"HAHAHAHAHAHA—!"
Her voice was ripped raw, shredded across four centuries… but the laughter stayed bright, feral, unbroken. It echoed across the ruined stands, across the water, across Sunny's bones.
Nephis watched beside him, water lapping at her greaves.
Her voice was soft. Too soft.
"She never stopped. Not once. The Spire gave her an endless arena, and she kept fighting. Kept laughing. Because it's all she had left."
Effie crushed a Nightmare the size of a building into paste.
Used another as a club.
Tore a third in half and wore its spine like jewelry.
Laughing.
Laughing through four hundred years.
Then—
She stopped.
(silence drops like a blade)
Effie turned.
Her eyes—once mischievous, bright, always plotting mischief—were now milk-white.
Opaque. Drowned.
But the moment she saw him, something ancient and human cracked through the cataracts of rust and grief.
Recognition.
Shattering, soft, violent.
The laughter died entirely.
The colosseum trembled.
She took one step toward him.
BOOM.
Water parted to her thighs.
Another step.
BOOM.
The swollen belly shifted—shields grinding against each other from the inside.
She knelt.
Slowly.
Carefully.
Until her massive, broken face was level with his.
Up close, Sunny saw everything:
– her iron skin split like old armor
– rust bleeding from each wound
– hair matted with dried blood and salt
– teeth broken
– but the smile…
the smile was Effie's.
She reached out with one trembling hand and touched his cheek.
Her metal fingertips were warm.
"…You came back," she rasped.
Her voice sounded like gravel dragged over cracked bells.
Sunny couldn't speak.
Effie leaned closer, breath rattling through punctured lungs.
"Kill me."
His heart convulsed.
Effie's smile didn't falter.
It simply… softened.
"I've been laughing for four hundred years, Sunny."
She gestured weakly—toward the endless gates, the endless enemies, the water stained with countless deaths.
"Four hundred years of this."
She placed her massive palm over her swollen, shield-packed belly.
"They won't let me die. They keep putting things inside me. Swords. Shields. Memories."
A tear—a clean, single tear—cut down her rusted cheek.
"Every child I was supposed to have… they took them. Twisted them. Made them weapons."
Her voice cracked.
"Please, little brother."
A plea that broke the sky.
"Let me rest."
Sunny stepped forward until his hand touched her massive finger.
His throat burned.
He remembered her voice in the Dark City, laughing as she held back a collapsing building:
Run, little brother! I've got this!
He remembered her dying in his arms in another timeline—still laughing, still protecting.
He remembered the warmth of every joke she had thrown at him to keep him human.
His shadow rose behind him—silent, mourning.
Nephis watched silently from the water's edge, face unreadable.
Sunny looked up into Effie's ruined eyes.
"I'm sorry," he whispered.
Then he moved.
Shadow exploded upward—
SHAAA—!
Seven arms burst from the dark, each wearing a different face of grief.
They wrapped around Effie.
Not to restrain.
To hold.
Effie closed her eyes and leaned into the embrace like someone who had been falling for centuries and was only now touching ground again.
Sunny climbed her body—hand over iron muscle, foot on rusted plates—until he reached her shoulder.
He placed his hand against her cheek.
Shadow poured into her.
Warm. Familiar. Home.
Inside her, he felt the things the Spire had forced into her womb:
Unborn children forged into shields.
Dreams twisted into knives.
Memories turned into armor plates.
He took them all.
Pulled them out of her.
Effie's colossal body shuddered.
Her laughter came again—soft this time, small, almost human.
Sunny pressed his forehead to hers.
"I've got you."
Then he cut.
Not with a blade.
Not with shadow.
He cut with memory.
With every time she had protected him.
With every joke she had told to keep him alive.
With every laugh she had gifted him when he had none left.
He severed the thread binding her to the Spire.
Effie's eyes opened.
Clear.
Brown.
Bright.
Young.
Human.
She smiled—the real smile, the one he had thought he had lost forever.
"Thank you, little brother."
Then—
She crumbled.
Not violently.
Gently.
Her giant body dissolved into rust and light, grains of metal falling like soft rain.
The shields inside her belly clattered into the water—now clean, ordinary, harmless.
She shrank as she fell:
Twenty-five meters.
Ten.
Four.
Two.
Until she was simply Effie again.
Twenty-two years old.
Grinning through broken teeth.
Sunny caught her.
She felt light in his arm.
Effie looked up at him with her real eyes, her real face.
"Tell the kid I finally got some sleep."
Then she dissolved into light.
The final spark drifted upward and became a star.
Small.
Steady.
Laughing.
The colosseum stilled.
The gates closed.
The water calmed.
Only Sunny remained—kneeling in the quiet, covered in rust and tears he had not realized he still had left.
Nephis walked to his side.
She said nothing.
The sky above cracked open.
A staircase materialized—spiraling upward.
Far above, carried on a soft, warm breeze, came Effie's final laugh.
Not raw.
Not broken.
A lullaby.
Sunny listened until it faded.
Then he rose.
The star followed him overhead—small, bright, free—as he climbed toward the next floor.