The world was in an odd limbo, silent and endless. If there was ever true nothingness, this was what it would be. Deeper than the void, blacker than an abyss.
Lifeless.
It was the essence of a complete lack of potential, a world that had nothing to give and nothing to be taken.
Through it, consciousnesses swam. These were the minds too powerful to be snuffed out in an instant, but too distant to ever taste life again.
This stream existed beyond the Northern Star, a place where the weapons of the Four Great Families had once been hidden. And yet, it was even beyond those deathly destruction flas that Leonel had once tapped into.
Here these minds drifted. Forgotten and buried, never to return.
Soon, in this place without ti, they would vanish without a sound, not even a puff of smoke or a whisper of wind would beckon them to the forever of nothingness.
And it was here that a voice unexpectedly spoke.
"You seem to be doing just fine."
"Fuck you."
The second voice was Leonel's. He was absolutely pissed off.
Did he have a plan? Yes.
Did that matter to him?
Not in the slightest.
He had wanted with his everything to win without having to do this. There was nothing he hated more than putting his wife and children in this situation. But in the end, he still wasn't strong enough.
"No need to be so angry. That grandmother of yours," a whistle ca, "she is not only smoking hot, but, goddamn, is she powerful. I've tried already, believe ."
"Can you not speak about people I'm related to that way? It's disgusting. Also, I'm pretty sure you tried sothing like that on my mother too, don't you have an ounce of sha?"
"She's related to you, not . How is it my fault you descend from bombshells?"
"Your daughter-in-law, you an?!" Leonel's voice clapped like thunder.
The other voice didn't reply for a very long while.
"Listen, Leonel. I'm sure you already know my answer to that question. In my last monts, is it necessary for us to argue like this? Cut a little bit of slack. I've been fighting… for so long… so very long…"
It was a tone that Leonel rarely, if ever, heard from this master of his. It was true fatigue, but it was also a deep sadness, an unwillingness as deep as Leonel's own.
As much as Leonel didn't want to put his wife and children in this situation, Nilrem didn't like to watch his family crumble in front of him… even when he could never truly see them as his family.
"I've tried every way I can. I've tried to be the man your grandmother rembers, but it was never enough. It's so ironic, so sad. But I accepted a long ti ago that not only could I never be that man, but even if I did sohow beco him by so shocking sheer twist of fate and serendipity, I doubt that your grandmother would be in the headspace to even acknowledge it as true.
"This is the truth of it all; she's long since defeated herself, she just hasn't accepted it yet."
These words were enough for Leonel to put the final pieces of the puzzle together. He ca to understand, and what anger he did have, dissipated.
Indeed… this man wasn't his grandfather, not really. That man had long died.
"I know that you understand already, but allow these words from a dying old man. I've wanted to speak this to soone for so long…"
Leonel couldn't see Nilrem, but he could feel the tears in his eyes. He didn't know how he had never noticed that this man had long been broken beyond repair.
In his life, the only person Leonel had ever truly respected was his father. He didn't think that in these last monts… he would gain the sa sort of respect for his grandfather as well.
All that pain that he had so perfectly hidden even from Leonel himself… just how much heavier had the mountain on his back been?
"… in ancient tis, your grandmother and I were among the first humans, the first existences to grasp Force. We were talented, so suprely so that we led humans out of the shadows and into the world. But neither of us realized just what we were doing until it was too late.
"We thought we would live forever, that we would be by one another's side into infinity, but nothing lasts forever, Leonel. Nothing ever does.
"We improved too fast, suppressed other races too much, took too much. I'm sure that you've heard much of this story already on the Idol Battlefield, so I won't waste your ti again with the details.
"The short of it is a story that you've probably never heard, because the sacrifice I had to make back then required erasing myself from the annals of history, from the bounds of ti and the reality of space.
"This Northern Star that everyone in the world thinks of as a harbinger of doom… it's actually what remains of . It's all that stands between life and true nothingness."
Leonel remained silent. Maybe if he had had a body his reaction would have been fierce, but hearing it now, it was the only thing that ever made any sense.
The Northern Star… his last and strongest iteration had personally checked what was behind it, going as far as he could into the ether… only to find that there was nothing at all.
And that was the very point.
There was Nothing.
True Nothingness.
"I thought that that would be the end of it. I sacrificed my life for the woman I loved and the children we had together, to give them hope to live out the rest of their lives, hope that maybe there was an afterlife we could be together in.
"But… your grandmother was unable to accept it.
"All of these iterations, all of the versions of she's forcefully brought back, all of my failed relationships, run-ins with Empresses that wanted my head or a Matriarch of a wife who treated without the slightest ounce of respect… your real grandfather…
"These were all of her attempts to bring back the man she rembers, whom she truly loves.
"Ironically enough, your grandfather was probably the closest—the man who best embodied what I once was.
"Unfortunately, he had a fatal flaw…"
Nilrem chuckled.
"He was too weak."
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