The weeks following the final confrontation at St. Augustine's were a period of suffocating normalcy. The Guardian Trio was reduced to two, and the constant, crushing guilt over Maya's sacrifice weighed heavily on Booma. The world was safe, the Shadow King banished, and the Unified Locket was now a permanent fixture around Booma's neck, a beautiful, tri-colored monument to tragedy.
Chinnappa and Rishi stood by her fiercely. They were constantly researching, hoping to find a spell or a loophole that could undo the Final Sacrifice Spell.
"The locket's power is immense, Booma," Rishi concluded one evening, his eyes red from lack of sleep. "It stabilized the barrier and fused the magic of Aethel and the Mundane Realm. But the Ultimate Wish feature... it's a one-time charge. Using it will drain the locket to zero."
Chinnappa, who was now Booma's constant shadow, looked at her with unwavering hope. "We know what the wish is for, Booma. We bring Maya back. We have to."
Booma looked down at the Unified Locket. She knew that was the moral, right choice. Maya was an innocent victim, sacrificed for their world. Yet, the cryptic warning from Bujji echoed in her mind: "It can bring one soul from the sealed Aethel back to the Mundane Realm. But only one."
Bujji, sensing Booma's turmoil, landed on her shoulder. "Guardian, the locket acts on the purest, most powerful intent. If you wish for Maya, the power will comply. But the magic of the wish will choose the soul that your heart truly, unreservedly longs for."
"What if my heart is still... broken?" Booma whispered, thinking of the illusion on the mountain—the one that revealed her deepest, most complex one-sided love.
"The locket will know the truth," Bujji stated simply.
The Visit
The tension reached its breaking point when Booma decided to visit her old classmate, Leena. Leena, stripped of the Shadow King's power, had been found wandering near the Metro Train station, confused and malnourished. The authorities assumed she was suffering from a breakdown due to exam pressure and social competition.
Booma visited her in the hospital. Leena, frail and human, showed no malice, only intense fatigue and confusion.
"Booma," Leena whispered weakly, her eyes glazed. "I remember the mountain... the fantasy world... the Shadow King... He promised me ultimate greed and fulfilled wishes. He promised to make him love me."
"Who, Leena?"
"The one with the greatest power. The one in Aethel who could truly defeat the Guardian..." Leena faded, drifting back into sleep.
Booma left the hospital, her mind reeling. Leena's entire descent was fueled by a promise concerning someone in Aethel. Someone with a power that could threaten Booma.
The Revelation of the Heart
That night, Booma couldn't sleep. She walked down to the familiar basement beneath the school, where the sealed portal still hummed faintly. She held the Unified Locket, channeling her exhaustion and confusion into its core.
Maya. Maya. Maya. She repeated the name, trying to focus her heart on the ultimate friendship.
But as the locket glowed, the image that flashed in her mind was not Maya's face. It was the face of the mysterious, unnamed warrior she had briefly encountered during her initial training in the Aethel plains—the figure who guarded the elemental spring, the source of the spell knowledge. He was the one with the raw, untamed power who had warned her about the consequences of the locket. He was the one who represented true sacrifice and betrayal in the Aethel lore.
The truth slammed into Booma with the force of an elemental blast: she didn't just feel gratitude toward him; she felt a profound, magical kinship—a one-sided love far deeper and more complex than anything she had felt for Chinnappa.
He was the true object of her subconscious, magical wish.
Booma realized that if she used the Ultimate Wish now, her deepest heart's desire—the warrior from Aethel—would be brought into the Mundane Realm, permanently sacrificing the chance to save Maya.
Chinnappa found her there, sitting in the dark, tears streaming down her face, the Unified Locket blazing with uncontrollable light.
"Booma, what is it? What did you find?"
"The truth, Chinnappa," Booma confessed, her voice thick with anguish. "I can only bring back one soul. And I don't know who my heart will choose. I'm afraid I'll choose wrong."
Chinnappa knelt beside her, his expression resolute. He gently placed his hand on the locket, beside hers. "Then don't use your heart, Booma. Use your Guardian resolve. Maya chose to save the world. You choose to honor her friendship. We do this together, Booma. Now, make the wish. Focus on the core of our team."
Booma looked at the locket, at the faint crystalline patterns on her skin, and at the face of the boy who had chosen to be her loyal friend over his own feelings. She took a deep breath, focusing all her will, all her guilt, and all her desperation onto the memory of Maya's smile.
"I wish to restore the soul of my friend, Maya, to the Mundane Realm!"
The Unified Locket erupted in a cataclysmic, world-shaking burst of light, the final, ultimate surge of its power leaving the core completely dark.
When the light faded, the basement was still intact. The locket was now a dull, inert piece of metal. But standing right in the center of the room, looking confused and slightly annoyed, was not Maya, nor the warrior from Aethel.
It was Rishi.
He blinked, rubbing his temples. "What happened? I was just on the phone with Chinnappa... wait, why is my cat food recipe gone from my notes app?"
Booma and Chinnappa stared at him, their hearts pounding in silence. The Ultimate Wish had failed.
Why did the locket bring back Rishi, who was never gone? Did the wish target the purest human connection to the locket? And what happened to Maya, who was the heart of the artifact?