Uroboros smiled with contempt, like frost etching a cruel flower on glass. In that moment her nature showed bare, like a blade drawn in winter air. Maybe she’d never been “kind” at all. She’d simply stood on Aphelia’s side, so her face turned with the wind.

Odin watched the tension bristle like quills on a hedgehog. She didn’t step in; she only pulled Aphelia back a pace, like drawing a lantern from the edge of a storm.

Urd’s words hooked her interest, like a fish flashing under black water.

A fallacy in cycles—sure, that meant the world’s rules, like gears in a buried clock. And from the instant Uroboros appeared, she was wrong to the bone, like lightning striking a clear sea.

Against giants, Runes were a dull knife, like chopping iron with a reed. Odin held her own only by the Aether Aphelia had torn her back from death with, like breath pressed into a drowned lung. Anyone who touched Aether touched a rule of the world, or became a rule, like a star dictating its own orbit.

Power that stretched concepts apart would crush giants like surf grinding shells. But Uroboros? She came, and her power was monstrous, like a black tide devouring coasts. On the Golden Plain, that sky-serpent swallowing the heavens—Odin remembered each scale like cold moons. The giant legions were half-ruined under Uroboros’s swallow, like forests eaten by fire.

Yet in the end, everyone just waved it off as “Aphelia’s aid,” like smoke covering a crater.

Now that Urd spoke her name like a bell, it wasn’t so simple, like fog torn by a sunrise.

“Easy, easy. Don’t bristle,” Urd said gently, like warm rain on hot stone. Silver flickered in her bright eyes, like mercury under moonlight. Then she spoke.

“What if the you standing here… isn’t you, Ouroboros?”

To Uroboros, it sounded ridiculous, like a crow calling snow black. She drew breath to bite back, like a wolf snapping. Urd cut in first.

“How did you die? How did you come back to this world? Do you remember? Why are you at Aphelia’s side like this? Do you remember?” Her finger pressed Uroboros’s chest, like a needle touching a hidden knot.

“Hmph, of course I—” The words froze, like ice choking a spring.

Fear flooded her black pupils, like shadow spilling from a well. The answer caught in her throat, like a hook under the tongue. Confidence drained like sand from a broken hourglass.

Seeing her falter, Urd knew the arrow had hit, like a chime struck true. She went on unhurried, like a loom steady through thunder.

“Do you remember the real reason you’re with Aphelia? Shade reborn from death, oh—”

“No. No!!” Uroboros’s face locked tight, like clay hardening in drought. She knelt in pain, like a tree bending in hurricane. She clutched her head, denying and denying, like a drumbeat in a cave. Yet swift-firing memories flashed, like minnows in a net, and they matched Urd’s words.

Odin moved to stop it, like a hawk stooping. Urd shook her head and stepped in, like a nurse to a fevered bed. She bent close and breathed in her ear, voice soft as moth wings.

“Reaper’s pawn. Your task is done.”

The words landed like a judge’s gavel, and Uroboros hugged her brow in agony, like a diver crushed by depth. A powerless moan slipped out, like wind through reeds. Power bled from her into thick black mist, like ink uncoiling in water, and rose toward the air.

That sentence fixed the note like a hammer on a bell. It shattered her last wall, like ice under a boot. Or rather, the one evaporating wasn’t the true Uroboros at all. The force that kept her here was unraveled by Urd, like knots teased apart, so collapse was natural as dusk.

“Cough, cough… I see. I see…” Uroboros seemed to remember, like dusted books reopening. She murmured, thoughtful as drifting ash. She stood slowly, like a reed in current, and cast a lingering look at Aphelia, like a traveler at a warm window.

“Your task is done. The Reaper sent you to guard her, didn’t he? Her whole life is wrapped in fog, like a mountain veiled in rain. If the Reaper values her so much, don’t you have something to leave? I can keep you here…”

Seeing Uroboros weather into wind, Urd stepped up to persuade, like a hand catching a falling kite.

She had already seen the past, like rings inside a felled tree. With her sisters’ sight of the future, she’d planned to bargain with Uroboros, like a chess move saved for the endgame.

When the whole timeline knotted into chaos, even RhineFairies who swore not to meddle couldn’t stay on their dais, like statues in an earthquake. Yet they were bound not to move in person, like priests before a sealed altar. So Uroboros, Odin, and Aphelia mattered like three stakes in a storm.

But Uroboros wouldn’t bite that lure. She shook her head with scorn, like a cat refusing a chain. Calm returned to her, like moonlight after thunder. Though most of her body had faded, she didn’t agree.

“Urd… that’s the name, right? Even if I’m not the true body, do you think I’d nod to that?” Her pride stood straight, like a spear planted in ice.

Silence pooled for a long beat, like dew before dawn. Urd finally answered.

“No…” She knew the answer like a tide knows the moon. Still, as a goddess who saw time, she chased the billionth chance, like a diver hunting a single pearl.

This world hangs on the World Tree, like lanterns hung on a single bough. So every living thing in the three layers is bound to it, like vines on a trellis. Their fates are set, tangled on the spun lines of destiny, like a knot in a net that won’t unpick.

Even as a fragment, Uroboros belonged to the “Reaper,” that keeper of death’s concept, drifting outside time, like a star beyond the sky. As a RhineFairy and a goddess of fate, Urd had never met him, yet she’d glimpsed his silhouette in the river of time, like a shadow on the far bank.

Because of that, she believed there was still a sliver of a chance here, like a crack letting in dawn, to bend the future.

“Then that settles it. Look after Aphelia. My life ends here…” Uroboros laughed softly as she spoke, like snow breaking from a branch. She dissolved into Niflheim, like soot into wind, under every gaze. She became a fine black power, like ash drifting upward.

Watching her vanish, Urd let out a heavy sigh, like a bellows easing. She turned to leave, her sleeves like night.

“Odin, take Aphelia to the World Tree’s roots. Uroboros’s fragment is gone. We can only lean on Aphelia now…”

She didn’t finish. Odin grabbed her shoulder and yanked her back, like a hook hauling a net.

“Urd. From the start. To the end. Explain it.” Azure Aether crackled around her, like foxfire on dark water. She wasn’t one to stomach lies or smokescreens, like iron that won’t bend. She stared Urd down, face cold, her presence heavy as a mountain shadow.

“Ah. Let go…” Urd sighed, like wind through pines. “If you still want to save your realm and this world, then carry Aphelia there. She’s your last hope.” She slapped Odin’s hand off without waiting, like brushing off snow, and strode for the massive root, like a swan toward deep water.

Skuld, who spun the silk, watched none of it, like a lake ignoring rain. Calm and steady, she plucked her spindle, like a night weaver. Threads flew in the air by the hundreds, like spiderlines at dawn. She bound them in a sheaf and fed them into the void, like reeds thrust into a dark kiln.

“Odin, answer me. Have you actually grasped the situation?” Urd’s voice rang at the root’s base, like a chime under bark.

Aphelia already lay upon the altar, like a lily on stone. Innumerable mighty souls piled beside it, like coals heaped high, ready for her to draw in.

Odin and Urd sat before the altar, like two statues before a shrine. Urd rubbed her brow, headache clear as thunder.

“I’ve got the gist. Humans paid some price to sway the giants. They damaged the World Tree. They went to the top world…” Odin’s words fell like scattered nails.

“Ha…” Urd shook her head, like a teacher staring at a broken slate. Pain flashed on her face, like a cut reopened.

“You’re a leader. Can you grow up? You’re reading the foam, not the tide.”

“Then give me something deeper,” Odin shot back, like flint striking steel. “I came back from my travels and got hunted the second I set foot home, like a stag in a snare. I’m desperate too.” She tapped her chest. Her voice sank like a stone. “If not for Aphelia, I’d never have escaped. If you’re still playing coy, we’re done talking.”

Urd couldn’t scold her more, like a sister swallowing a retort. Odin hadn’t just stormed out on a whim. Her wandering was to sharpen her, like tempering a blade. Most high Aesir agreed before they “exiled” their leader, like elders sending a novice into snow. Then she returned to slaughtered kin and an ambush that drove her from Asgard, like smoke driven from a hall. Anyone else might’ve done worse. In truth, Odin was still too young for the Aesir, like spring wood cut too soon.

“That’s fair. I slipped…” Urd exhaled, like a valve easing. “We’ll start from their invasion. Then you’ll see why Aphelia matters.”

“I’ve always thought she matters,” Odin said, firm as bedrock.

“Can you not pick a fight with me here?” Urd’s composure frayed like silk on a thorn. With Odin, she always felt short-lived, like a wick burning fast. She wanted an axe and a berserker’s howl, to split Odin to powder, like a storm felling a pine. A vein throbbed at her brow under her hair, like a drumbeat.

Odin shut her mouth at once, like a lid slammed on a pot.

“Should’ve left you out there a few more years…” Urd muttered, like rain under breath. She pulled a single thread and spread a mirror before Odin, like water rippling to show the moon.

“Humans won the giants with a stranger, like a masked herald. He could gift the Valkyrie legacy and break the World Tree, like giving fire and stealing the hearthstone. They planned it since before you left a hundred years ago, like roots creeping under a wall. Compared to the Aesir fat from peace, humans were far more ruthless.”

“Then why didn’t you tell me at the start…” Odin asked, voice low as dusk.

“Aren’t you the queen of hiding? Nobody could find you,” Urd snapped back, like a twig flicked at a cheek.

This time Odin took the hit and shut up, like embers smothered under ash.