“Mm. You’re all me now… all the most extreme hours of my past or yet-to-come,” Edlyn said, tucking fringe like a dark curtain behind her ear like the moon hooking a cloud.

“Back then, all I wanted was to scatter the Demon Race’s footprints, to fling our seeds like black rain across the world—across the mortal lands, across the Celestial Realm!” Edlyn acted it out, hands painting hawks in the air like storm wings.

Pandora, watching, let out a laugh like a clink of ice. “Woman. I believe you’re tied to the Demon Race, but I don’t believe you’re my future. You spoke my grandest hunger—so what?”

Edlyn smiled, cool as frost on a blade, as if the firebrand from a breath ago wasn’t her at all. “So nothing. I only know your hunger ends by being cast out with you, like ash caught by a cold wind.”

“You!” Pandora’s shout cracked like thunder against a cliff.

Edlyn ignored him, and turned to the Pandora who’d fought the Hero, now bleeding out like autumn leaves falling in a slow spiral.

“You are his downfall made flesh. Do you still carry those sky-high vows now?” Edlyn’s gaze fixed on the Pandora slumped on the ground like a broken pillar.

He looked spent, breath fluttering like a moth’s wing near a candle, the sound brushing everyone’s ears like a faint reed flute.

At last he hesitated, then said, “I… am no longer sure. Half-demon girl, your words ring true. I… can’t find my road, like a traveler lost in fog.”

The first Pandora—Pandora A—glared at him, voice sharp as a whetstone. “You… is this how you treat your own aim, like steel left to rust?”

The weary Pandora—Pandora B—gave a cold smile, thin as a knife of ice. “Ridiculous. You’re someone else’s piece on the board, and you sit in the drum, deaf to the beat, like a fish in a jar.”

Pandora A knotted his brows like ropes. “You! You’re a piece too—you walked that man’s layout to the end, like a cart in a rut. What right do you have to speak, hmm?”

“Heh. That’s why I said it—those who don’t know, don’t fear, like children running into waves,” Pandora B shook his head, the motion slow as a pendulum.

Edlyn smiled. “Hey, how about you tell him what you’re thinking right now, like pulling a thorn out in the open?”

B hesitated, then shook his head, the refusal soft as falling ash. “I have no thoughts. I was about to die under the Hero’s sword, cold as a winter moon. I only felt… light, like a pack dropped at the roadside. Nothing would be mine to carry anymore.”

He looked at Edlyn. “I didn’t expect that even in death I couldn’t close my eyes, like a ghost with sand in them.”

Edlyn’s smile stiffened at the corners like a mask. “Uh… anyway, this state of mine… it’s you—er, or rather, something the Demon King did to himself, like a snake biting its tail.”

“Hm?” B blinked, puzzled like a stag hearing a twig snap.

“Ah… in short, rest easy. The Abyss won’t pull your strings from the dark anymore… or rather, won’t hold your reins,” Edlyn said, brow pinching like a knot.

“You can say his name unscathed now? I’ll trust you, for now,” Pandora murmured, closing his eyes like shutters at dusk.

His whole body became a beam of light, flowing into Edlyn like a stream of fireflies pouring into a lantern.

“……” Edlyn closed her eyes. “Face myself? Or…” Her voice drifted like mist over a lake.

The remaining Pandora watched her with winter-cold eyes. “Good. I can’t deny it now. You are my reincarnation, like a ring of a tree inside the trunk. Then you know my mind. Convince me—Pandora, the Great Demon King? Do you think that can happen?”

Edlyn frowned, let the challenge pass like wind past a stone, and turned to the others like a river bending around rock.

She went to the smallest her. “Still want revenge?” Her voice was quiet, like snow over coals.

Little Edlyn scowled, yet glanced up with timid light like a doe in brush. “Of course. Every heartbeat, I want the Hero torn to pieces, like tearing thorns from flesh.”

“Pity. Looking at you, I doubt there’s much to lean on,” Little Edlyn muttered, brows drawn like storm clouds, courage skittering like a crab.

Edlyn stepped close and patted her head, palm smoothing like wind over grass.

“Hey. After living so long with Angela and Mom and Dad, haven’t you softened at all?” Edlyn tapped Little Edlyn’s forehead, fingertip like a raindrop. “Cherish what’s in your hands, like warming your palms over a hearth. Okay?”

Little Edlyn blinked, puzzled like a lark at a mirror. “I…”

“Don’t deny it. You’re an extreme hour too,” Edlyn said, hugging her, cheek rubbing cheek like a cat against a knee.

She felt it—the prickle from the other, a chill that raised her hairs like needles of ice.

“From birth, we lived in a wasteland of knives. Aside from that first glimpse of the Abyss, it was all our own fists, like weeds pushing through stone,” Edlyn said, a thin smile like a crack in shale.

“When I got the Abyss’s message and it sent me here, my heart hammered like drums in rain.”

“I always thought I was like the others, molded straight from the Abyss’s ink-dark spring, like clay from a black well,” Edlyn shrugged, the motion loose as a reed. “But I couldn’t square it. I asked every demon I could reach—Reni too, that chuunibyou general of the Demon Race. I almost forgot about her, haha—like a pebble kicked from mind.”

She paused, as if a headache bloomed like thornbush, and rubbed her brow till the ache ground down like millstone on grain. “Point is, for demons, after reincarnation, you end up fostered by foreign parents. When you’re strong enough to return, you kill the fosterers, like cutting the ladder after climbing.”

“Demon blood can’t be stained—so after you wring out their worth, you slaughter them,” Edlyn said, brow furrowing like raked sand. “Cruel, yes—but that’s most of it, like winter in a mountain pass.”

“And me…” Edlyn looked at Little Edlyn, gaze deep as a well.

“This is what knots you up too, right,” she sighed, the breath like steam fading.

Little Edlyn clenched her brows, long and hard, then sighed too, a twin cloud. “You’re right.”

“Then, my past self,” Edlyn smiled, a small dawn. “Let me tell you what the Abyss told me, like a lantern passed hand to hand. Okay?”

Little Edlyn nodded. “Say it. I’ll listen,” she breathed, words soft as moth-dust.

“…Actually…”

They bent close, whispering like crickets at dusk.

Little Edlyn nodded, then stared, shock widening like a dropped stone rippling a pond. “That… can’t be.”

Edlyn spun once in place, skirt flaring like a petal caught in a whirl.

Then she bowed with easy grace, like a willow in wind. “Well? What’s impossible now?”

Little Edlyn grimaced like a cracked egg and sighed. “Do as you please.”

She dissolved, turning to mist in sunlight, and drifted back into Edlyn like dew returning to the leaf.

Edlyn stood with eyes shut, felt it for a while, then sighed. “Maybe I… forget it,” she said, voice like a guttered candle.

“Ah… next. You… who wants to hear me ramble?” Edlyn shrugged, shoulders rolling like waves.

Several girls stepped up together, feet quick as sparrows. “Hey… you’re the future, right?”

Edlyn nodded. “That’s right,” she said, simple as a stone.

“Can you tell us what this is, exactly?” asked the Edlyn in a little skirt, brows pinched like stitches.

Edlyn looked her over and scratched her head, nails tapping like rain on bark. “Uh, that outfit… Oh! You’re at the Elven Forest, right when you first met the Hero?”

“Yeah,” said Edlyn A, frowning like a flint line.

Edlyn eyed her, then smiled. “You’re closest to me, like the next ring on a tree.”

“Huh?” Edlyn A blinked, confusion bobbing like a cork. “What the heck?”

“My time sits just after yours… a few weeks, maybe—a moon or so,” Edlyn said, a shrug like a leaf falling.

“No way—just weeks and we get this strong?!” Edlyn A’s eyes lit like wet stars.

Edlyn froze, brows knotting like roots. Yeah. Her power had shot up more than double, like bamboo after rain.

“Uh… future me?” Edlyn A waved a hand before Edlyn’s face, fingers fluttering like swallows. “Don’t zone out.”

“Mm. It’s nothing. I just thought of something,” Edlyn said, brow creasing like folded paper.

Edlyn A tilted her head, curious as a fox. “Your way of talking’s off. I don’t buy it, like a drum with a different beat.”

Edlyn lifted a brow, leaned to her ear, and murmured, “Eli isn’t here. Playing cute won’t work,” the tease slipping like a silk thread.

Edlyn A flushed, pink as a peach bloom, and bit her lip like a petal. “How can you say that.”

Edlyn shrugged. “Mm-hm. It’s just us who get it,” she said, words light as dust.

Janus shot both hands up like a gull catching wind. “Hey, hey—me too!”

Edlyn A rolled her eyes, round as coins. “Fine.”

Edlyn smiled. “So, do you love him?” she asked, voice clear as a bell.

Edlyn A looked at her. “What do you think? Can I fool you?” Her gaze steadied like a river’s line.

Edlyn cocked her head. “Fair,” she said, a nod like a reed dipping.

“I wanted to hear it said,” Edlyn added, eyes drifting past Janus to the Pandora of his peak, stumbling over with dust on him like ash.

Edlyn A frowned. “Everyone here is ourselves, right,” she said, voice wary as a cat.

“Yeah. All me, even if a few blockheads won’t admit it, like stones refusing rain,” Edlyn said with a shrug.

Edlyn A looked at Edlyn for a long beat, then flushed again, color blooming like dawn. “I… I love him.”

She vanished at once, dissolving like fog, and flowed into Edlyn like a silver stream.

Edlyn blinked. “Huh?! That’s it?” Her surprise popped like a seed pod.

Janus cut her a sideways look and curled his lip, a smirk like a crescent.

Edlyn turned her gaze to the Pandora who’d just come up. He was already pale; now he went ashen, like snow over ash.

“…I lost,” he sighed, breath like wind through pines.

He studied Edlyn. “Tell me what you love in him. He fights us at every turn, like a river against a dam.”

Edlyn smacked her forehead, palm thudding like a drum. “Oh! I forgot to say. The Hero now isn’t the same as in your day.”

“Not the same?” Pandora frowned, lines like plow furrows.

“Mm. He’s him. He’s my Hero, not theirs,” Edlyn said with a smile sweet as spring water.

“As for what I love…” Edlyn frowned, thoughts circling like swallows.

The last two Pandoras perked their ears like foxes at the thicket edge.

“I don’t know. I stayed by him. And slowly… it just happened, like moss on stone,” Edlyn said, shoulders lifting like a tide.

Janus leaned in and rubbed his cheek against hers, a cat against sunlight. “Let me teach you. It’s called love growing over time.”

Edlyn shot him a glare sharp as a thorn, then folded her arms, keeping quiet like a sheathed knife.

Pandora sighed and shook his head, the motion weary as old trees. “The future… is no longer mine to decide. Do what you will,” he said, and turned to light, flying back into Edlyn like a comet thread.

The last Pandora stood there, frowning like a cliff face, thinking hard as grinding stone.