"How sure are you that they're alright? Or that they'll even receive it?" Red asked as he helped Cosmo finish his clumsy repairs.
"If something happened to either of them, we'd know. Argenta isn't a quiet girl, and I don't just mean that literally."
"Captain, I mean this in the nicest way possible…" Yon winced as he studied the assortment Cosmo was assembling. "…but you suck at this."
Rather than a careful integration of components into a functional device, the construct resembled a skeletal framework of machinery, crudely fused to extract only the bare minimum of functionality from each part.
"To be fair, I've only learned as much as I've seen Oliver repeat," Cosmo said. "That's not even accounting for how much I've forgotten. Right now, I'm just eyeballing it."
"It's barely been a day. Would Oliver have fixed his ADA by now?" Red asked, glancing down at the damaged watches on their own wrists.
"Of course, this is Oliver we're talking about," Cosmo replied. "I'd wager he had it operational within the first hour. If there are any issues, they'll be on our end."
"You trust him that much?"
"I have to. Otherwise, I wouldn't have made it this far–"
Static.
Sharp cracks burst from the speaker, followed by violent pops that signaled seizures in the transmission.
Gradually, the noise faded, leaving only a low, distorted murmur trembling through the air.
Then–
<"Upturn… Lumine… Spire…">
The words came through fractured, but intelligible enough to recognize.
"He's breaking up," Yon said. "We could try to piece it together, but I don't know how reliable it'd be."
"No," Cosmo replied. "It's exactly as it sounds. Those aren't random words; they're allusions."
He lifted the device and raised his voice, as though reprimanding a person.
"I'll make you pay for snooping through my journal later. For now, I get the idea. Is Argenta alright?"
<"…">
"That's good, then," Cosmo said, acknowledging an answer that seemingly never came, much to the others' confusion.
"I'll let you go for now." He leaned back briefly, then paused, as if recalling something. He leaned in again. "Oliver, if something happens to me, then–"
<"Go die.">
The speaker fell silent, the connection severed.
"Ah… he hung up," Cosmo chuckled.
"What kind of allusion was that last line?" Red asked as Cosmo stood and let the device tip over onto the ground.
"That?" Cosmo shrugged. "I don't remember. I might have to reread that travel journal to jog my memory."
"Maybe it's some awesome quote you wrote down and forgot," Yon offered, covering for the obvious liar.
The guilt that followed him as an accomplice to the deception, however, refused to fade anytime soon.
"How about the rest?" Red continued. "Upturn, Lumine, and Spire. Those were the messages… what are you doing?"
Without warning, Cosmo closed his eyes and raised his right hand toward the sky.
"Give me a second." His fingers curled as he spoke. Almost immediately, a ripple surged through every inch of greenery surrounding them.
Then it all erupted.
Branches and leaves burst apart, before rapidly wilting into dust as far as the eye could see.
It wasn't a complex or particularly difficult technique.
Of course, the effective range of his authority couldn't normally extend that far while maintaining potency, and he could only manipulate a single element at a time.
However, the former limitation only applied when there was a meaningful distance between concentrations of the target element.
In a forest sustained by an interconnected root system, that limitation became a loophole.
Carbon was his chosen medium. By dispersing its chains in a single, sweeping phenomenon, he was able to affect a vast area, both above and below the surface.
"Ah… Clarise is going to be pissed," he said as his hand lowered. "Still, this was unavoidable. Maybe she'll let it slide."
"W-why?" Red asked.
"Because that Spire doesn't just control plant life, it can observe through it," Cosmo replied. "It was likely listening to Oliver as well. We can't afford that kind of risk right now."
"…Alright," Red said after a pause. "About the message."
"Right. Short version? We're screwed."
"We're screwed?"
"We're screwed."
"How screwed?"
"Imagine the hardest, dumbest, most tedious mechanic you can think of," Cosmo said. "Now multiply that by a Black Spirits boss."
"No way…"
"That's just crap," Yon muttered.
"Some of us don't get those references," Tyson finally chimed in.
"How could you not?" Yon shot back. "You never played video games?"
"…"
In response, Tyson could only avert his gaze.
"Oh, you poor child," Red said, covering his mouth in exaggerated pity.
"Shut up," Tyson snapped. "I'm just not fond of devices."
"Pfft. I wouldn't be either if most of them caught on fire around me," Cosmo mocked.
A jacket immediately flew into his face in retaliation.
It was the one he had lent Tyson earlier, back when it had quite literally saved his life, and it seemed Tyson had finally noticed it.
Which meant he'd also recovered enough to think and feel properly again.
Cosmo slipped it back on before finally shifting his demeanor.
"Alright," he began. "How much did Oliver tell you about the imaginary space?"
"Well… just the logic behind instant travel. It's a timeless space that holds information," Red replied, offering a simplified definition.
"Information of what?"
"...If I had to guess, since tapping into it via a portal is an indirect method of editing the truth as it pertains to your own 'where,' the information must be that of the world itself. As in, this reality."
"Very good, the 'Upturn' was an incident that occurred fifty-seven orbital ages ago, within the Cross-Boundary Coalition."
"Orbital ages?" Yon asked.
"Roughly equivalent to one hundred sixty-two Earth years. However, the chronology doesn't align perfectly due to the nature of the Conmundia. Anyway… no one knows whether it was out of curiosity or an attempt to usurp the Creator. Some claim it was to resurrect a loved one; others say it was to save a nation on the brink of collapse. But a certain man once tried to reach into the imaginary space itself."
"Reach? How is that different from traveling through it?"
"You see, spatial shifts carry their own risks. Moving a segment of space into another creates inverted voids, an entirely separate rabbit hole, but portals are engineered to compensate for that emptiness with artificial energy before the void becomes unchecked. That's the light you see at their entrances. That aspect of the imaginary space is by far the tamest. In fact, techniques were developed specifically for manually tapping into it through authorities."
"If that's the case… what he did wasn't that extreme, right? What went wrong?"
"He wasn't trying to alter space," Red suggested with a hint of perplexity, "The 'timeless' in the definition of the imaginary space doesn't refer to the absence of past or future… but the absence of a present."
"That's correct," Cosmo confirmed. "Lumine Vèn Helsberge was attempting to alter causality. In other words… control the flow of time."
They could scarcely comprehend it.
It was a hubristic notion, believing one could colonize the first fundamental law of existence.
Did he not consider the dangers?
What of the possibility of failure? Had he accounted for the cost?
Was such a feat even remotely possible?
Yet the more they contemplated it, the more the possibility infiltrated their minds.
If altering space was as trivial as Cosmo suggested, why wouldn't someone feel compelled to tamper with the law parallel to it?
There are countless reasons a person might be driven to tempt fate in such a manner.
If shown a possibility to change even a single event of their past, could they truly resist?
"Those thoughts…" Cosmo broke the silence that followed. "…the ones that briefly passed through your minds, you must kill them. For your sake, and for the sake of those you care about. It's imperative that you never entertain the idea of attempting something like that. That is also why I won't even hint at the methods he relied upon."
They were pulled back from the brink of their fantasies.
"There is nothing to gain from tampering with the temporal laws of the world," Cosmo continued. "All you risk is tearing the world around you apart at the seams."
"Of course," Tyson said, surprisingly the first to agree. "If this space you're describing is a foundational layer of the Conmundia, there's no telling how even the slightest adjustment would affect the world. Especially when it's never been directly observed."
"R-right…" Cosmo hesitated, choosing to ignore the oddity of Tyson's sudden insight. "Well, something did happen, but I'm certain it wasn't the outcome he was hoping for. In the end, during a raid conducted by a unit from Veil-0002, an accident occurred before he could be arrested… and he was consumed."
"By what?"
"By the Conmundia itself. The details are far more complex and entangled than that, but in his place emerged several seeds of a new, specialized class of shadow beasts, known as Spires."
"Wait, hold on. Pause the tape." Yon threw his hands out. "That's an absurd amount of information to dump on us without explanation. A new class? You've never even told us where ordinary shadow beasts come from, and now you're saying someone can just spawn a new class by accident?"
"To be fair, that information is strictly classified. More so than anything else. If I disclosed it, and if it ever leaked, I'd be obligated to kill you."
"…"
"…"
""What?""
"Relax, this much is fine," Cosmo said calmly. "All you need to understand is that the Spires Lumine created escaped into the foils before they could be contained and neutralized."
"Oliver once told me that foils lie along the spatial and temporal discrepancies between each boundary," Red said. "How could they possibly cross them?"
"That's the fundamental difference between shadow beasts and every other entity in the Conmundia," Cosmo explained. "The 'dark matter' they're composed of isn't the conventional kind, hypothesized to be unaffected by light, but a substance unaffected by the standard laws of matter altogether. In short, they aren't part of the world's natural blueprint. Because of that, they can't be constrained by temporal shifts or spatial barriers."
"So that's how they're able to invade and infect boundaries at such an alarming rate," Red concluded. "But what makes these Spires different from other shadow beasts? I assume it's not just their origin?"
"Correct. Even back then, Veil-0002 wielded considerable influence within the Cross-Boundary Coalition. Ordinary shadow beasts wouldn't have escaped in such numbers. The defining factor was that these Spires held unprecedented abilities. They were fragmented manifestations of Lumine's dream."
"They could reach into the imaginary space, couldn't they?"
"Yes."
Yon didn't need to voice the question aloud. The purpose was to release the weight of how daunting their current opponent had begun to feel. It was clear each of them shared the same oppressive sense of dread.
"Honestly, it's taking everything I have not to lose it," Cosmo admitted, his palms covering the lower half of his face. "From our first encounter, I deduced that our first hunt might possess the ability to gaze into our future at will. And that's not all. The echoes Oliver was tracing yesterday are most likely the result of Spire somehow terraforming through the imaginary space to avoid detection as it approached. If it can do that, there's no telling how it could respond to any attack we attempt. To be frank… even if victory were possible, or if I could confront it alone, there would be absolutely no chance for us to save the girls in our current state."
The weight of Yon's earlier ramblings began to sink in, even for him.
Its ability to kill them at will was not overstated.
In truth, they could go so far as to say they would be entirely at its mercy should they face it again.
"…which is why I need you to give me seven days," Cosmo said.
It was, without question, the most startling declaration they had ever heard from him.
So much so that none of them could even find a suitable response.
"Sure, our luck is sh*tty, but it's fortunate that, despite how dangerous it is, every Spire is still technically newborn in the grand scheme of things. Some shadow beasts are as old as the Conmundia itself, so this isn't even the most dangerous I've seen with my own eyes."
They wondered if he was bluffing, offering them hope where none could be found–
"Its dead zone hasn't spread very far, which means it hasn't consumed much of this
boundary or amassed enough strength to pose a catastrophic threat. It's still within a tier I'm more than capable of neutralizing."
–or if he truly wasn't the type to gamble their lives as chips at this crossroads, even when everything hinged on saving their comrades.
"While that's happening, you'll have to help me pry your friends from its grasp. That's not something I can manage while attempting to corner it. Clarisse still needs to open this boundary, and she wouldn't turn back, no matter how worried she might be. She'll see it through. That's why I'll have to rely solely on the three of you."
Was it truly possible?
"I hate to admit it, but it can keep pace with my gift–"
"Captain…" Tyson interrupted, his voice carrying more than one unspoken concern.
"…how likely is this to work?" Red pressed.
"Can we save them?" Yon completed the shared thought.
In response, Cosmo grinned.
"Yes. We can."
Another first.
As far as they could remember, there had never been an outcome he spoke of with such absolute certainty.
"I'm not very old," he continued. "In fact, compared to most other captains, even my void-age is closer to that of a toddler."
That much was evident.
No one could deny the immaturity that surfaced in his everyday demeanor.
And yet, there was always something else.
Even the least perceptive of them couldn't bring themselves to underestimate him.
"For seven days," he said, "I'm taking off the training wheels."
He met each of their gazes with absolute certainty.
"The means by which I earned this mantle. My cheat code." His smile sharpened. "I'll carve it into you, no matter what it takes."