When Mokou woke up, dim candlelight cast wavering shadows on the walls of the cave. Kaguya and Eirin were sitting on the other side of the narrow passage, their foreheads all but pressed together.
"We have to do it soon," said Kaguya in a low voice. "I don't know how much more of this she can take."
"I can increase the dosage," said Eirin. "It's a temporary solution, but it's one that will give us another five million years of time to come up with a new one."
"Her suffering is my suffering."
Mokou squinted her eyes open just long enough to properly see Eirin stroke Kaguya's cheek. "And your suffering is mine." Then: "There will be no turning back."
"I know. But it's what would always have happened eventually anyway."
Eirin nodded. "We will discuss it with her once she awakes."
Mokou closed her eyes. Already, the overheard discussion felt more like a fever dream than reality. She only dimly guessed at its meaning, but its significance was obvious. Whatever was to come, it would change everything for good.
Still, it could wait. It wasn't as if any of them were going to run out of time to talk.
When Mokou next came to, she was bathed in light. She reached to touch her head and discovered that her hair had been woven into hundreds of tiny braids.
Kaguya was sitting nearby, idly working on her most recent knitting project. She discarded it when Mokou sat up.
"Are you hungry?" Without waiting for a response, Kaguya left for their food storage and soon returned with a bowl of rice. She placed it before Mokou and sat down next to her as she began eating.
"I spoke with Eirin earlier," she continued while Mokou busied herself with chewing through one pinchful of rice at a time. "She said that lifeforms that are capable of communicating with us won't return for at least another six hundred million years."
Mokou nodded and swallowed. "I guessed as much." She had seen the devastation humans had wreaked every time they had invented with the tools to do so, over and over again. It was a miracle they had persevered for as long as they had.
She took more rice, but forgot to put it in her mouth as a sudden stab made her eyes sting. She had thought that particular wound had finally closed.
Kaguya brought her back to reality. "I don't think you'll be able to make it that far. And even if you will, I suspect what is to come isn't terribly interesting."
From Kaguya's grave tone of voice, it sounded like she was easing her towards a suicide pact. Mokou chuckled at the thought and kept eating. Speaking of impossible dreams.
"Do you understand my meaning?"
"Of course. It's obvious. Even the rocks in the corner over there could tell you that." Mokou paused for another mouthful and chewed through it methodically before continuing. "There isn't anything left for us here."
"Something along those lines, yes." Eirin had appeared from the other end of the cave. She sat down on Mokou's other side. "I will not say there's nothing to look forward to, but pursuing excitement in this world is bound to result in diminishing returns."
"So... are you going to ask the remaining Lunarians to give us amnesty?"
Eirin's lips curled, her eyes suddenly frosty. "No. They will refuse us until the end of the universe. Furthermore, I have no doubt they will leave soon."
Mokou raised an eyebrow at Kaguya. "So, unless the point of this discussion was to drive me into despair... what do you have in mind?"
"How old are you?"
Mokou felt herself going cross-eyed as she retrieved the information. "Two and a half million years?"
"No. Six and a half."
Had the numbers been in the thousands rather than millions, Mokou suspected she would have exploded in a rage pure enough to impress even the divine spirit whose name she had long since forgotten. As it was, she took the news as she had taken most things for the majority of her life: with dull acceptance. "Huh."
"It was only a test, but..." Kaguya exchanged a look with Eirin. "You know that I have been exploring the limits of eternity manipulation. The more I have done so, the further I have been able to push them."
"I remember. You were trying to figure out how to make the passage of time eternal."
"Yes. And while you were sleeping," Kaguya smiled. "I found a way."
For the first time in hundreds of thousands of years — no, millions of years, Mokou corrected herself — she truly looked at Kaguya's eyes. They were mostly unchanged, but there was the kind of peculiar serenity to them which Mokou usually associated with Eirin.
"It's a theory, but one that Eirin supports. I now have the ability to preserve us while also allowing the speed of time to become eternally fast. And..."
She stumbled and stopped. This wasn't at all like the princess Mokou had once known, even taking into account how her haughty edges had been smoothed out by the passage of years. She decided to help her out. "And how far can you take us?"
Kaguya raised her chin. Now, she was once more the princess of peerless beauty who had enchanted even the Emperor himself back in the dawn of time. "To the end of the world."
The silence which engulfed them was as cool and pristine as ice.
"...How long will it take for us to reach there?"
"Not long. Eirin calculated that with only us three and possibly some minimal supplies it will take around one hundred and eighty-six minutes on a steady speed until the last proton degrades. But it's difficult to do it at a constant rate. The longer I manipulate the eternity around us, the faster it will get."
"And so it will take perhaps half an hour, assuming the princess doesn't need to rest before the end," Eirin finished, her eyes trained on Mokou.
Mokou briefly wondered if she should refresh her memory on what protons were, or at least on the exact length of minutes. Then again, could either really matter? She leaned back, making an effort to truly feel the limestone and kernels of sand beneath her palms. "And... then what?"
Kaguya said nothing for a while. When she finally spoke, her tone was unchanged from before. "We will disintegrate. The very moment I let go of eternity."
Mokou turned to look at Eirin. Her expression revealed nothing.
So, disintegration. And resurrection. And disintegration. And...
A low rumble of a chuckle escaped Mokou's chest. It was a suicide pact, after all.
"We'll give you some time to think about it." Kaguya made to stand up. She had only made it to a crouch before Mokou held up her hand and beckoned at her to sit back down. Once she had re-seated herself, Mokou attempted to smile. It came easier than she expected.
"Let's do it."
"Are you certain?" It was Eirin who asked that.
"You'd think that after all these years, you knew me well enough to know the answer."
Eirin exchanged a look with Kaguya. That seemed to be enough to settle it.
In a heartbeat, the atmosphere in the cave changed. Both Kaguya and Eirin sat more relaxed, almost smiling. The suffocating air that was like lead to breathe and had been for so many years was at once thin and flowing, like their shackles had been broken.
Mokou was the first to break this relieved silence. "When will we do it?"
"Whenever you want," said Kaguya. "I assumed you would like to take one last look outside beforehand, but it's up to you."
Mokou hadn't even considered going outside, but now that Kaguya mentioned it, she really wanted to stretch her legs and see what had changed over the past few millions of years.
She got up and dusted herself before flashing her friends a smile. "Hang on tight. I'll be right back."
The final human Mokou had ever met had told her, after Mokou had asked about it in her halting approximation of the human's tongue, of the end of the world as her people had predicted. She had spoken placidly of an eternal winter which made all plants wither and left humans and animals alike to starve till not a speck of life remained. A world of snow and ash, with no-one left to remember what had once been.
Mokou looked at the thin shoots burgeoning around her feet and thought back on that poor old woman and the dozen consequent winters that had outlasted humanity before, ultimately, ending.
She thought to write it down, then didn't.
She looked at the worms and insects, admired carapaces glittering like sapphires and emeralds and twig-like appendages as tough as metal, and knew one day larger creatures would once again crawl on the plains and hills, swim in the oceans, endure the blistering heat and cold and breathe the polluted air like it was the sweetest nectar.
She thought to write it down, then didn't.
She found a tree struck down by thunder and catalogued the lichen, mould, and a two dozen kinds of fungi it now hosted. There was enough room for her to rest her elbows against the bark without crushing anything living, and so she did so. She felt her knees sink into the moss as she stared into the distance. She let the insects crawl on her skin and allowed hunger to shrivel her away. She was a part of this world even as she wasn't. It only made sense she lived and died alongside everything else. And lived. And died. And...
Her ancient daydream plagued her whenever she dozed, so distorted she couldn't make out any faces, not even her own. There were only shadows on a dark plain, existing without an ending.
Perhaps, for all of Eirin's immaculate care, Mokou had at some point gone hopelessly insane.
She thought to write it down, then didn't. Instead, she took the red book out of her pocket and looked at the final sentence she had scribbled down all those years ago. She smiled.
Page after page, she went back in time. She came face to face with those who where gone, whose very names she had forgotten. Despite everything, pieces of them remained within her, living on through time and erosion and wilful erasure. Ghosts of ghosts, remote and faded and cherished.
She didn't write that down either. It was already in the book, black on white.
She pocketed the book and began her journey back. As she walked, she set her hair free one braid at a time. It came out in a cascade of curls, but straightened out to its natural brittleness before she reached the cave.
Kaguya and Eirin sat where they had when she had left them. As soon as Mokou clambered down next to them, Kaguya reached out to fix her clothes, manipulating the threads to reknit themselves back together where they had unravelled.
Mokou took a moment a breathe. She then took out the book and buried it under a rock so that one of its sun-red corners still showed.
"Did you finish it?" Kaguya asked. It was the closest thing to interest she had ever shown in Mokou's little project.
"Close enough." Mokou straightened her back and smiled. "I'm ready. Show us that brave new world of yours."
On cue, Eirin stood up and walked to her side. She gently turned Mokou's wrist and dropped something in her palm. A pill, luminescent pink with the delicacy of a butterfly's breath.
Mokou swallowed it without thinking. Whatever it was, she trusted Eirin wasn't trying to poison her. And if she was, did it matter?
Then she saw the small bag of supplies attached to Eirin's belt. "What's that?"
"Some snacks," said Kaguya. "It's a long journey, after all. I may need to take a break."
Mokou shrugged the joke aside and watched Eirin circle to Kaguya's other side to take her hand. She reached for the other. They got up together and, for one final time, they walked outside.
Mokou was so busy breathing in, still marvelling at how much easier it was now than when she had last been awake, that she didn't at first notice Kaguya's hand leaving hers. She turned to watch Kaguya slowly raise her arms, her eyes shuddering shut, a look of smooth serenity falling upon her face. It reminded Mokou of a monk... no, a nun, someone whose name she couldn't remember even though she had only just read it, but whose smile accompanied her regardless.
Kaguya opened her eyes into thin slivers like twin sickle moons. She moved her fingers delicately in the air, pushing and pulling at invisible objects, weaving threads of air. On her other side, Eirin looked on without a word, nodding intermittently with evident pride.
It crept on Mokou suddenly, as though it only began when she glanced upwards and saw the atmosphere roaring above them. The movements of clouds and dust grew violent and less distinguishable as minutes were compressed into seconds compressed into instants compressed into—
She turned just in time to see the cave that had been their home for so long soundlessly crumble and explode into ten thousand fragments of stone, so suddenly she couldn't tell why. They should have been struck by the debris and squashed where they stood, but it never came to pass: as soon as the rocks flew near, they landed against an invisible barrier and disintegrated into dust. Mokou watched the grain slide onto the ground. When she squinted, she could just about make out the globe surrounding them, a barrier as thin as a soap bubble holding back all eternity.
She accepted it for what it was and leaned her head back. Far away, just barely visible behind the ashen clouds rolling over the skies in an endless maelstrom of chaos, the pale glow of the sun was just barely visible.
Kaguya lowered her arms, almost like the strain of keeping them up had gotten to her.
Time sped up.
The entire hillside the cave had stood on flattened, then rose again as the earth shook time and time again, visible but beyond both touch and sound. The clouds parted just as a vein of molten lava opened up some feet away from them, revealing a warm, bright sun, which remained permanent as days and nights passed by faster than Mokou could blink. She smiled at it, her oldest friend.
Time sped up.
The land they stood on splintered off and cast them adrift above the choppy water of a grey ocean, then reformed anew as another volcano burst from the ocean. In moments, everything around them was streaming with life. Mokou watched it all, the plants, the insects, the fairies, living and dying between heartbeats, beautiful, fleeting lives flashing by, flourishing and fading away, vanishing to where she could never go until all that remained was fine white sand.
If tears sprung from her, they were coupled with a helpless smile.
Time sped up.
When Kaguya next raised her arms, she took them as high above her head as she could. The protective bubble followed her direction, gently but inexorably rising first to the clouds, then beyond them. Mokou watched Eirin mouth the names of each layer of the atmosphere as they passed through them, but her attention was soon drawn to the solar winds, and then above them at stars almost exactly as distant as they had always been, some dead, some alive, all magnificent.
Time sped up. Stars blinked in and out of existence, like reflections of sunlight on the surface of a rippling pond. Knowing it futile, Mokou waved at them.
"Princess. This is a good occasion for a pause."
Mokou returned back to the bubble. Eirin's hand had fallen to Kaguya's elbow, guiding her line of sight. Mokou followed it to see the swollen sun, looking ready to burst out of its crackling seams.
But Eirin herself didn't look at the sun. She glanced first at the moon, then at the blue planet it was forever tethered to. "Perhaps we might say a few words of gratitude."
And, immediately contradicting herself, she said nothing more. Instead, she bowed in the direction of the moon, then nodded more curtly at Earth.
Kaguya was slightly more demonstrative. Even now, her smile matched the dazzle of the stars. "Thank you, Terra, for harbouring us for so long."
Mokou had nothing to say to the satellite, but she nodded at it in acknowledgment of the countless times its light had helped her find her path. Then she considered Earth.
"I'm made of you, so I guess in that sense this isn't really goodbye." She closed her eyes. "Still. Thank you for everyone who lived upon you, whether they were of you or not. Even Kaguya."
"Oh, yes. I would also like to thank you for all the times you served as a good place for trouncing Mokou."
Mokou grinned. "And thank you for all the times Kaguya ate your dirt."
They smiled at the silliness of it all. Then Mokou focused on the planet again. For its serene beauty alone, it was the perfect graveyard to end all graveyards.
"Seriously, though. Thank you."
She reclaimed Kaguya's hand. On Kaguya's other side, Eirin followed suit.
Time sped up.
Mokou had thought she knew what being engulfed in fire was like. But her flames had nothing on the inferno from the silent eruption which consumed everything beyond their tiny bubble, a sea of flames which swallowed the world and then was the world. For several heartbeats, Mokou was convinced the thin walls of eternity would cave in and burst, that Kaguya had exaggerated her control, and then there would be nothing left but burning, always burning...
And then it was over. When Mokou blinked the blaze-blindness from her eyes, nothing remained of the sun, or Mercury, or Venus, or Earth or even the Moon. Looking over her shoulder, she saw Mars alone, quietly guarding the asteroid belt as if nothing had changed.
She pressed her forehead against the comfortingly cool surface of the globe as Kaguya worked her magic once more, offering one more private thank you.
Without the sun to hide it, distant stars revealed their true radiance. Beneath Mokou's feet, a galaxy swirled in ten thousand pale lights, initially all white against black, but soon unveiling its true inner lights, red, orange, delicate yellow, and the brightest of blues, a slow-moving dance of the brightness of the cosmos. She choked on her heart at the sight.
Kaguya, however, paid the spectacle little attention. Her eyes were fixed forward at the endless space, bright but glassy. For a moment, Mokou wondered if she saw any of it, if she even noticed the enormous galaxies and endless ocean of stars they drifted through, but as soon as the thought crossed her mind, time slowed down, and stood almost still. Kaguya sighed and lowered her shoulders.
She turned to look at Eirin. "I do need a break, after all."
Mokou stared. Then blinked.
Then she began to laugh.
She was still laughing when Eirin opened the bag and revealed that it really had been snacks all along, baked sticks made of seeds, honey, and berries Mokou could no longer name. She sat down at the floor of their bubble and accepted her share, chuckling as she bit in and nearly choking as a result. She ate more thoughtfully after that, taking in the vastness of the universe as she did so. Even now, she couldn't really comprehend it all. Could Eirin see to the edges of the universe, or at least understand them? Was there any point in asking?
Whatever the case, Eirin ate her own share of the food in perfect serenity. Kaguya, meanwhile, was now definitely paying attention, gazing at the galaxies and smiling between bites. Both of them appeared like stars themselves, luminous and ethereal and comprised entirely of stardust.
Curious, Mokou slowed down and looked at her own hand. It looked the same as ever, but it was a good, solid hand. It had served her well.
Looking again at her friends, sitting there calm in the face of impending oblivion, they were both more beautiful than Mokou had ever seen them before.
She was the last to finish their final meal, while Kaguya and Eirin waited in unbroken silence. It wasn't surprising. They were three beings moulded into patron deities of patience by the passage of time.
Finally, Mokou wiped the crumbs off her face and stood back up. She nodded, and received two nods in kind. One final unnecessary confirmation.
Kaguya raised her arms.
Time sped up.
In flashes, the borders of the world became translucent, allowing a clear view of the mesh of connected realms, distant and close and familiar in their unfamiliarity. Between blinks, they dimmed and vanished as they either ceased to exist or simply severed their links to a world quickly coming to an end.
Time sped up.
The stars retracted. One fragment at a time, galaxies popped out of existence. The remaining lights in the universe could now be counted, dwindling by the moment, paling in comparison to the warm glow within their globe, which Mokou realised with dull surprise was her own creation. She dimmed it down to where it resembled twilight.
Time sped up.
The final light outside guttered out like a candle flame.
Kaguya lowered her hands. Without a single word, they stared at the vast nothingness threatening to swallow them at all sides. Nothing remained. Nothing would ever exist again.
For the first time in five million years, Mokou's pulse quickened.
She closed her eyes. "How long can you keep us like this?"
Kaguya's smile was sardonic. "For as long as I live."
Eirin nodded. "The eternity field is stable. We may take our time."
An absolute stillness, wavering only with the sound of breathing, immersed the globe. It too became eternal.
For a time.
"You know..."
It felt like fracturing glass, breaking the delicate silence. But the looks Kaguya and Eirin gave Mokou were not reproachful. They were merely expectant.
Mokou closed her eyes and took a deep breath before meeting their eyes again. "Even now I can't believe I'm really saying this. But... thank you. It's been an honour."
Kaguya was the first to reach for her, with a gentle touch at her wrist. She didn't have time for more before Mokou threw her arms around her and squeezed her more tightly than she ever had for any reason except to strangle her.
Eirin joined in on the hug, and soon they were a tangle of arms and cloth and strands of hair poking at each other's eyes and mouths, laughing as though they had all become children. Even Eirin laughed, and Mokou was struck with a realisation that she didn't remember ever seeing her laugh, actually laugh, so artless and carefree and suddenly illuminated by an entirely new glow.
She had seen Kaguya's genuine laughter before, and even remembered it. It didn't change the swelling of warmth within her as she watched her face, distorted by mirth but all the brighter for it, and didn't feel even a memory of resentment. All the hatred and animosity ceased to matter and melted away. She surrendered to the warmth and accepted the bodies pressed against hers for what they meant. Kindness. Safety. Home.
And love. Always love. The only thing that mattered, the only thing that had ever mattered, here at the end of the world.
Long after laughing made her sides sting, long after she had run out of breath, Mokou held onto Kaguya and Eirin. She wasn't sure she could let go.
Kaguya was breathing steadily, but had otherwise stilled. Eirin had gone deathly silent, only the gleam of her eyes betraying her as alive. They remained huddled together, no-one willing to be the first to shift and break the spell. Yet someone would have to.
Mokou breathed in. It might as well be her. It was already too late for regrets.
But before she could move, or speak, or even breathe again, something approached the globe from the abyss.
As one, they drew apart and stared at what was initially a mere dot in the distance. It grew larger by the moment and soon became recognisable as a small, humanoid girl, simply dressed and without footwear, but with a pair of floppy white rabbit ears poking out of her short black hair.
Despite everything, a name rose to Mokou's tongue. "Tewi?"
Tewi walked closer still, by now unmistakable for anyone else. She swung her arms behind her back as she leapt and skipped ahead, dancing in the void as if each spot she landed on was a rock protruding from water. She was humming an ever so slightly off-key tune.
She skipped right past them without even a glance.
Then, Tewi paused. Tewi turned. Tewi smiled.
"It's been a while," she said.
Although Mokou couldn't wrench her gaze away from the boldly smiling rabbit, she managed one sidelong look at her companions. Kaguya looked as baffled as Mokou felt, and even Eirin appeared surprised. If Tewi was a dream, she was a collective one.
"How—" The word escaped her throat on its own, but no follow-up joined it as more memories she had believed forever lost returned in a flash. Tewi had simply vanished one day, then slowly eroded out of her mind just like a mountain slowly succumbing to water and air. She had never actually seen her die.
Somehow, even knowing it explained precisely nothing, she felt her shoulders relaxing.
Eirin was the first to get out a coherent sentence. "Why are you here, Tewi?"
Tewi's smile widened. "To see you, of course." Her clear, child-like voice was perfectly audible in spite of the globe and the nothing she stood in. "Congratulations for making it to the end!"
She began to clap wildly, like she used to cheer at particularly funny plays back in Gensokyo — Gensokyo, another memory so long since buried that Mokou felt herself reverting to an earlier time just recalling the name.
Kaguya cleared her throat. "Maybe we should have instead asked you how you are here."
"And," Mokou added, even as she felt a sneaking suspicion dawn on her like a rising star, "what are you, exactly?"
Tewi giggled at that, exactly as a child might. She raised her hands to her sides. "I have to be here. That's all."
Mokou frowned. "Why?"
"What do you think? To start a new one."
A new light, entirely white and as bright as the heart of the sun, lit up behind Tewi. It quickly engulfed everything but the rabbit, rendering her instead in silhouette.
"You're all invited, of course." Even with her face a mere shadow, Tewi's smile shone in her voice. "Maybe you'll find peace this time."
It was immediate but welcome, the way Mokou's bones and flesh and her very being began metamorphosing into light. It felt like sinking into a warm bath composed entirely of starlight. She embraced the feeling.
She saw Kaguya and Eirin likewise overcome, expressions of surprise and confusion melting into soft bliss. She caught their eyes one final time, in acknowledgement, in certainty. In farewell? She couldn't tell. She could hope.
Then she only saw light and shadows, and lustrous ruby irises glittering with ineffable power. There was no mischief in them for once, only
and she felt
her ligaments gently unravelling
and her blood crystallising into starlight
as the dark plain within her finally faded away
and allowed her final exhale to expire from her body as the world began anew.