"I think it's about time you finally know,"
"Who or what you really are."
—
My surroundings shifted with a low, distant hum.
Stars flickered across an endless void. Galaxies drifted like glowing spiral disks, suspended within the fabric of reality itself.
And before me stood Anathasia.
The same white-haired girl with crimson eyes, her presence quietly overwhelming, as if the universe itself made space for her without being told.
"You already know about the Four Existential Fragments," she said, turning slightly as she raised one hand.
The cosmos folded.
Light collapsed inward, reshaping into something familiar.
The Earth.
Before I could react, a colossal white-haired girl appeared above it, her form vast beyond comprehension. With a single, indifferent motion, she crushed the planet between her hands, reducing it to drifting ash.
To my left, another figure emerged.
A woman—no, an angel with long white hair and three pairs of radiant wings, holding a young boy in her arms as she watched the world die.
Her face was frozen in horror.
The girl hadn't even hesitated.
"What you're seeing…" Anathasia said quietly, her gaze fixed on the vision,
"…is the last sighting of The Constant."
I forced the name out of my thoughts the moment she said it, the memory of what happened the first time I tried to think about it still fresh in my mind.
The two white-haired entities suddenly clashed before I could react. The angel was clearly at a disadvantage as the girl casually flicked aside her attacks, absorbing some, deflecting the rest.
The boy from earlier was nowhere to be seen.
"That boy," Anathasia said calmly, crossing her arms as she watched the girl seize the angel by the throat and slowly dissolve her into herself,
"was what you would call an Author Avatar… a creator from outside reality projecting themselves into a fictional one, like ours."
"Unfortunately, he wasn't omnipotent within his own work. And The Constant knew he wasn't the true Creator… which is why she erased him."
I froze.
My eyes widened as the girl's surroundings began to fracture, reality itself cracking around her.
The moment it shattered, we were suddenly back inside the house.
As if nothing had just happened.
"The Constant was never seen after that," Anathasia continued, staring down at her food as she nudged it gently.
"Why…" I choked out. "Why do you look exactly… like that girl…?"
Anathasia didn't look away as she met my eyes, forcing herself to stay calm.
"I am… The Constant's daughter," she said quietly. "A derivative. I was originally a part of her that chose a different path from nullity."
"What you saw earlier… was the moment when The Constant broke free and became something that could no longer be reached, leaving only the Fragments and traces behind to maintain the foundation of existence and meaning," she paused, her gaze shifting aside.
"Which she herself destroyed during her ascension… in her yearning for true freedom."
Her hand rested lightly on the table as she took a breath.
"From that point on, The Constant stopped existing as something… and simply became… is not."
She snapped her fingers.
Ruins and shattered symbols appeared in the air between us, broken words, fractured concepts—before bursting apart into countless glowing traces that streaked outward, piercing into vast, floating spheres.
"Those bubbles you see are demiurgic frameworks," she said. "Each one contains infinite multiverses. And each of them absorbed infinitesimal fragments of her traces."
As she spoke, four blinding lights erupted from the ruins.
Two vanished into separate frameworks.
One condensed into something else entirely.
And another was drawn into a white-haired figure—
No… not just anyone.
It was Anathasia. From the past.
Before I could speak, a fifth light appeared.
Dim. Quiet. Almost invisible.
It drifted slowly… into a single universe inside one of the frameworks.
Anathasia shifted the projection.
We zoomed inward.
A specific universe.
A specific galaxy cluster.
A specific spiral galaxy.
One I could recognize anywhere.
The Milky Way.
We zoomed in further, into a familiar solar system. Then closer, stopping at the third planet as the fifth fragment drifted through space. It passed through the atmosphere, into a small household… and embedded itself inside an infant.
"That's…" I whispered as the woman, his mother, gently rocked the baby to sleep.
"Mom…?"
I glanced at Anathasia. She wasn't looking at me. Her eyes were fixed on the projection.
"What you just saw," she said softly, "happened over a seventeen-billion-year span… compressed into a few seconds."
Then she turned to me.
"You, Kyle… are the bearer of The Constant's final fragment after her ascension."
My breath hitched.
"I am… what…?"
"We came from the same source," she said softly, her form flickering as she appeared beside me, the projection still playing behind us.
"The real reason Marianne became obsessed with you all those years ago—"
The projection faded.
"—wasn't just because of what you did. It was because of what you are."
I slowly met her eyes as her hands found mine.
"Anathasia…" I swallowed. "What exactly is the Fifth Fragment?"
She smiled, lifting one hand to my cheek.
"It is the stillness that stabilizes everything else without being invoked."
She paused.
"And that stillness… is why Marianne was drawn to you. Not just romantically. Not just obsessively. But existentially."
"For someone whose life was nothing but expectations stacked on expectations… you were an oasis."
I still couldn't properly understand most of what Anathasia was saying. But I understood one thing—
I was… one of her own… in some way.
"That's why… I… I'm sorry for hiding this for far too long," she looked away momentarily, then faced me again as she gently let go of my hand. Only to cup my cheeks.
"I wasn't sure how I should say it without sounding…" her voice dropped off. "crazy…"
"I just… didn't know how to handle this better… I don't want to sound like I'm trying to manipulate you by saying I waited for billions of years for you…" she stopped short, her voice wavering.
"That's not what I want…" her eyes darted off, falling as she looked at the floor.
Anathasia slowly pulled away, her hands sliding off my cheeks before taking my hands into hers. Her expression shifting as she met my gaze.
"I want you to choose me… out of your own—"
"Anathasia," I cut her off, prying her hands off mine before covering hers.
"I said I was scared of making you live through the pain of losing me. I know." I took a deep breath, standing as I looked at her.
"I don't really understand what being a Fragment Bearer means… but I will always… choose you."
My grip tightened around her hand as I held her close, meeting her eyes. Something inside me felt like it was starting to snap.
Before I knew it, I was already pulling her into my arms.
"I know I'm being an idiot for diving into something I don't fully understand… but so what?" I said, resting my forehead against hers.
"You're already my girlfriend. Yeah, I'm scared of you suffering when I'm gone, but that doesn't mean I'll stop loving you."
I pulled back just enough to press a soft, brief kiss to her forehead.
"I'm sorry if it sounded like I was trying to push you away," I murmured, letting her bury her face against my neck. "I just… don't want to hurt you."
Anathasia nuzzled against me. Then suddenly nipped my collarbone before pulling back.
"You really are an idiot," she whispered. "You're also a Fragment Bearer… you'll live longer than normal humans…"
"…eh?"