Light.
Or something pretending to be light.
It did not burn. It did not illuminate. It simply was — a vast, honeyed radiance that filled every direction, every angle, every impossible space inside Shojiro's being.
He did not have eyes, yet he saw.
He did not have lungs, yet he breathed.
Each breath echoed.
Not in a cavern. Not in a sky. Not in a body.
But across ages.
Every inhalation felt as though it passed through the hollow ribcage of a dead universe before returning to him. Every exhale rippled through the amniotic gold surrounding him — the living sap of Yggdrasil's root, thick and luminous, cradling his rebirth.
Shojiro drifted.
Or fell.
Or rose.
There was no orientation here. No up. No down. No before. No after. Only the slow, patient pulse of the World-Tree beneath him, a rhythm older than gods and younger than oblivion.
Beneath the translucent amber, veins of radiant energy crawled along his forming body — not blood, not flesh, but creation-memory, threading itself into his skin like golden circuitry. His heart — still not fully his — beat in tandem with Yggdrasil's.
Thump.
The Cradle breathed.
Thump.
Shojiro breathed with it.
His consciousness wavered, weightless yet unbearably heavy, as fragments of what he had just witnessed shimmered across his mind like reflections on disturbed water.
Kaiser — colossal, unbreakable — collapsing to one knee beside Savitar, his vast silhouette cracking like a dying star.
Aegriya — radiant and trembling — carving protective glyphs through her own tears, each sigil born of grief and resolve.
Arae — screaming, clawing, dragged into the consuming void, her voice tearing through reality even as darkness swallowed her.
The images flickered. Stuttered. Dissolved into drifting embers that floated through the golden expanse of the Cradle.
Shojiro felt them fade…
…but the silence that followed was not peace.
It was the stillness before a storm.
The pause before a second birth.
The breath held by the universe itself.
Then—
A presence touched him.
Not physically.
Not spiritually.
But absolutely.
A whisper.
Soft as starlight brushing the edge of reality, yet layered with infinite tones of comprehension — like a chorus of countless minds speaking as one.
Artemis.
Her voice did not enter his ears — he did not have them — but seeped into the lattice of his soul, resonating through every newborn fiber of his existence.
"You have seen the fall, child of the Cradle."
The golden sap around him brightened, responding to her words as though they were law.
Shojiro did not answer. He could not. But his consciousness trembled in acknowledgment — a ripple passing through the amber.
Artemis continued, calm, measured, timeless.
"Now, you must see what rose from it."
There was no pity in her tone. No pride. No triumph. Only the unwavering certainty of one who had watched reality itself die and be reborn.
Her presence felt distant — and yet intimately close, like a god standing beside him and within him simultaneously.
"The void we once tore asunder became our only canvas," she said.
As she spoke, faint images stirred at the edges of the Cradle — dark, fractured skies; bleeding constellations; shattered laws attempting to stitch themselves together.
"The madness that drowned us became our ink."
Shojiro felt it — a subtle pressure, as if something ancient and vast was leaning over him, peering into his soul.
"What you will see now… is how gods try to repent."
The amber around him began to move.
At first, it was a gentle disturbance — like a still pond kissed by an unseen wind. Then the ripples grew deeper, wider, more violent, until the entire Cradle seemed alive, breathing, shifting.
Golden sap rolled in slow, majestic waves around his suspended form.
Artemis' voice shifted — no louder, but heavier, more resonant, sinking into the deepest layers of his being.
"Do not look away, Shojiro."
The Cradle glowed.
Not brighter.
Deeper.
The radiance took on texture — depth — as though layers of reality were stacking upon one another inside the golden light.
"For this is the moment where despair turned to genesis…"
Visions bled through the amber.
Flashes of endless darkness.
Fractured heavens.
Shattered divinity.
"…where ruin gave birth to the universe you now call home."
Shojiro felt himself being pulled — not physically, but existentially — as if his consciousness were being stretched across time itself.
The Cradle's light intensified, transforming from pure gold into a living tapestry of shifting luminance and shadow — molten brilliance interwoven with cosmic black.
His sense of self thinned.
Expanded.
Unbound.
The amber dissolved around him.
No — it did not dissolve.
It unfolded.
The Cradle became the Void.
And Shojiro was no longer merely inside it.
He was within the birth of everything.
The silence returned.
Absolute.
Primordial.
Not the silence of emptiness, but the silence that existed before sound had a concept.
In that nothingness, he felt the faint, persistent pulse of Yggdrasil — a heartbeat echoing across a world that did not yet exist.
Somewhere, far beyond perception, the Primordials gathered.
Broken.
Exhausted.
Yet still gods.
Still architects.
Still burdened with the responsibility of creation.
And Shojiro — reborn, suspended, helpless, and witness — drifted at the center of it all, carried toward the next revelation.
Artemis' presence lingered like a guiding star at the edge of his consciousness.
The void quivered.
Reality prepared to breathe.
And the story of the Universe began anew.
The Void stretched endlessly, a canvas of infinite black. Yet here, it was not emptiness. It was the residue of conflict — scarred, fractured, and trembling with unspent potential.
Shojiro floated within it, weightless and hollow-eyed, tethered only by the faint pulse of Yggdrasil's sap in his forming body. The golden veins beneath his skin throbbed in rhythm with the remnants of the Primordials' shattered essence.
He could see them — all of them — though not in full form.
They were shadows first, silhouettes of what they had been, drifting amid the still chaos. Broken, yet undeniable. Even in ruin, they carried the echo of godhood.
Kaiser knelt on fractured planes of thought, his massive frame cracked like cooled magma. Golden light still lingered on the edges of his body, trembling, struggling to hold form. Even now, his very presence weighed upon the void — a living testament to endurance, to the burden of strength.
Savitar's outline quivered, warped, unstable, as though the concept of motion itself refused to reside in his broken form. He was there — and not there — a living paradox: momentum made flesh yet stilled in eternal fracture.
Hephaestus remained, molten and metallic, his gears fused in impossible angles, pistons half-broken, yet the faint hum of creation still whispered from within him. Sparks of pure potential floated around his fractured body, each one a tiny star of ingenuity waiting to ignite.
Poseidara flowed through the nothingness like a river of fractured mercury. Her essence was misted, dispersed, yet her silhouette hinted at endless tides, infinite movement — cycles interrupted but not destroyed.
Thanamira hovered nearby, spectral and flickering, her form both there and gone. Each fragment of her body resonated with sorrow — the echo of every life she had ever held, touched, or mourned.
Aegriya knelt in quiet agony, sigils shattered around her. Her body pierced by the very geometry she had conjured to protect, her form radiated order in imperfection. She was law made vulnerable, the guardian undone by her own duty.
Voltraeus flickered, black lightning crawling along his veins, yet the brilliance was fragmented, stuttering — thunder made incomplete. The storm of his being hovered, alive but suspended in its own decay.
Nocturne's shadow coalesced with the darkness around him, a figure barely holding its shape, edges dissolving into the abyss. Silence had become substance, stillness a weapon — yet even he bore the scars of creation's first undoing.
Moara drifted last, her figure carved in countless runes, layers upon layers of paradox woven into her shadow. She was the curse made manifest — untouched by ruin, yet ever aware of it, carrying the memory of every betrayal, every fracture, every hex that had passed through the Primordials' hands.
Shojiro's awareness expanded, absorbing the panorama of ruin, recognizing the magnitude of what had been lost and yet preserved.
And then — her voice.
Artemis, luminous and calm, glided through the fractured silhouettes. Her presence was absolute, unbroken, yet aware of every shadow and crack in the forms surrounding her. She did not speak in words alone; her being whispered comprehension, pattern, inevitability.
"Look upon them, Shojiro," she said, her tone neither judgment nor pity. "These are the architects of your universe. They are broken. Yet in their ruin, they carry the seeds of creation."
Shojiro wanted to reach out — to ask her why, to ask her how, to ask a thousand questions — but he could not. He could only observe. Only feel. Only let the golden sap of Yggdrasil cradle him as he floated between moments and possibilities.
"They have bled, they have fractured, they have endured," Artemis continued. "And now… they will rise again. Not whole. Not unbroken. But sufficient. Sufficient to weave what was lost into what must exist."
The shadows of the Primordials began to shift subtly. It was not yet movement in the sense of physicality. It was intent. Sparks of thought, flashes of residual divinity, stirring like coals beneath ash. Each shadow prepared to reclaim the spark of themselves — to turn ruin into genesis.
Kaiser's hand twitched. A shard of golden strength flared briefly from his shoulder.
Savitar's outline flickered faster, momentum testing its edges against the stillness of the void.
Hephaestus' gears hummed faintly, whispering the promise of invention.
Poseidara's currents stirred in miniature eddies, hinting at the tides to come.
Thanamira's spectral flame pulsed, weak but persistent.
Aegriya's sigils glimmered with fragments of order, their geometry waiting to be restored.
Voltraeus' storm flickered like a heartbeat, still alive.
Nocturne's darkness compressed, gathering density.
Moara's runes rippled, aware, patient, eternal.
Shojiro felt it all. The weight of their intention, the faint hum of creation preparing to breathe again. And yet, there was a chill beneath it — a whisper of something unresolved.
Artemis tilted her head toward him, voice softening.
"You are witnessing the patience of gods, Shojiro. Creation is not instant. It is deliberate. Every law, every motion, every heartbeat is coaxed into being by those who survived their own ruin."
Shojiro's mind strained under the enormity. Each shadow — a Primordial — had been broken to the point of silence, yet here they lingered, ready to rise.
She continued, almost in a murmur meant for eternity itself:
"And you, child of the Cradle, will witness it all. Not as a participant… but as the soul who remembers. Who carries the weight of the past and the promise of the future. That is your gift… and your curse."
The golden sap around him pulsed in agreement, throbbing with the heartbeat of a universe yet unborn. Shojiro floated in silence, the hollow awe of being caught between ruin and creation pressing into his soul.
And somewhere deep inside, he knew: this was not the end.
It was only the first breath.
The shadows of the Primordials stirred, faint sparks of will igniting beneath their fractured forms. Shojiro's golden-hued awareness expanded, drifting alongside them as the Cradle of Yggdrasil pulsed beneath his forming body. He could see every flicker, every intention, every hesitation.
The broken silhouettes began to shift with purpose. Not as gods of old, not yet fully whole, but as architects of what must exist.
Artemis hovered before them, her presence radiant and unbroken. She raised a hand, tracing threads of thought through the void. Each motion, each gesture, formed the invisible scaffolding of logic, of pattern.
"Creation begins where ruin ends," she intoned. Her voice was everywhere and nowhere, a melody that threaded through the infinite emptiness. "Let there be understanding before being."
From her command, the first Law was born: Cognition. Concepts took shape in the void — above and below, before and after. Shojiro felt the universe stretch its first limbs, the skeletal frame of thought crystallizing into something tangible.
Kaiser rose next, slow and deliberate. His golden cracks pulsed with effort, his fractured muscles coiling like molten metal restrained by his own resolve. He clenched a fist, and the void quivered under the weight of intention.
"Let there be resistance," he murmured.
From that single motion, the second Law emerged: Mass. The void acquired density, substance, the burden of being. Shojiro could feel it pressing against him, a weight unlike any other, yet familiar — the echo of the strength that had once shattered worlds.
Savitar's shadow flickered faster, unstable yet insistent. His fractured limbs quivered, aligning themselves with rhythm and possibility.
"Let what exists move," he declared.
The third Law arose: Momentum. Time, once still, began to stretch and flow. Shojiro felt reality unravel and reform in a ribbon of continuous motion. Every moment of the void now carried a pulse — the heartbeat of the universe awakening.
Hephaestus' fused gears hummed with anticipation. Sparks of invention flickered along his fractured body, spilling into the void like nascent stars.
"Let creation bear purpose," he commanded.
The fourth Law emerged: Structure. Matter folded into patterns, atoms whispered into symphonies of substance, and the framework of all things took root in the chaos. Shojiro felt the logic of construction — the weight, the tension, the symmetry — as if the universe itself inhaled the blueprint of being.
Poseidara moved next, liquid and infinite in form, her currents bending through the void like mercury.
"Let there be continuity," she intoned.
The fifth Law: Flow. Rivers of energy surged through the nascent cosmos, linking time to space, cause to effect, action to consequence. Shojiro could see the threads of cycles forming — currents of possibility flowing from cause to consequence, binding everything in rhythm and harmony.
Thanamira's spectral form shimmered faintly. Her presence was quiet, sorrowful, yet deeply potent.
"Let life dream," she whispered.
From her, the sixth Law: Spirit. Sparks of spectral flame flickered into being, the first echo of consciousness, the seed of soul. Shojiro felt them drift like embers, waiting to ignite the potential of thought, of feeling, of life itself.
Aegriya knelt amidst the forming cosmos, sigils unfolding beneath her fingers, weaving barriers and protections.
"Let what lives be protected," she said.
The seventh Law arose: Order. Boundaries, veils, atmospheres, and natural laws flowed outward from her sigils. Shojiro felt the balance of all things, the gentle but absolute guidance that allowed chaos to exist without consuming everything.
Voltraeus' body flickered with storm, black lightning crawling along his veins.
"Let there be rage," he growled.
From his will came the eighth Law: Light. Thunder, brilliance, and fury ignited the cosmos. Lightning arced across the void, illuminating stars that had yet to exist, giving energy and vitality to the skeleton of creation. Shojiro felt the heat of potential, the brilliance of divine defiance.
Nocturne emerged as the inverse of Voltraeus' light, his shadow stretching like a tangible force.
"Then let there be silence to meet it," he whispered.
The ninth Law: Obscurity. Darkness balanced illumination, shadow tempered radiance, mystery tempered revelation. Shojiro understood it immediately: light could not exist without dark, movement without stillness, creation without restraint.
Finally, Moara, her figure layered in woven curses, stepped forward. She pricked her finger, letting a single drop of black ichor fall into the center of the forming universe.
"Let all that is born, one day end," she said softly.
The tenth Law: Death. Not destruction without purpose, but inevitability — the mercy that completes cycles, the certainty that binds life to consequence. Shojiro felt it pulse like the slow exhale of the void, the quiet reassurance of finality.
Ten Laws. Ten Primordials. Ten voices.
Shojiro could sense the balance — the perfect interweaving of existence from cognition to mortality, thought to shadow, flow to stasis.
Yggdrasil's roots trembled beneath him, digging deep into the conceptual soil. Its branches stretched outward across the infinite, connecting every Law, weaving them into a living tapestry. Shojiro could see the first stars ignite — not as flames, but as thoughts given substance. Worlds hummed, oceans of potential pulsed, and the faint stirrings of life whispered in nascent harmony.
The Primordials stepped back, watching their masterpiece awaken. They were still fractured, their forms incomplete, but the universe they had shaped now had its own pulse, its own will, its own rhythm.
Artemis turned to Shojiro, her voice faint yet certain:
"It is imperfect. But it will learn. As we did."
Moara's veiled gaze swept across the new cosmos.
"And if it forgets… Yggdrasil will remind it."
Shojiro's heart swelled, not with triumph, but awe. He floated, golden sap pulsing through his forming body, understanding that he had witnessed not only the end of ruin but the birth of everything that would follow.
The Cradle pulsed beneath him, warm yet infinite, the golden sap rippling through Shojiro's forming body. Every vein, every cell, every shadow of his consciousness resonated with the memory of what had just been — the Laws, the Primordials, the fragile emergence of order from ruin.
But even as the universe breathed its first structured breaths, Shojiro felt something deeper stirring. Patterns within patterns. Echoes of thought reaching out from what had been formed, yet not fully alive.
Artemis' voice flowed into him, layered and infinite, carrying the calm certainty of one who had observed existence since before time:
"Do you see it, Shojiro? The first life is not a being. It is a whisper — a question asked of the void. Listen closely, and you will hear their answer."
The golden sap around him vibrated. Tiny pulses expanded outward, tracing filaments of thought that glimmered like starlight. These were not stars, not planets — yet they contained the seed of both. Shojiro watched as minuscule sparks of consciousness flickered in the void, delicate as the first heartbeat of a newborn god.
Kaiser's voice rumbled faintly, as if carried on a cosmic wind:
"Strength must test itself, even before it has form."
And with that, the first spark flexed. It was motion itself — a ripple, a flicker, a tiny pulse of being that radiated purpose. Momentum, the third Law, whispered through it, and the spark stretched, elongating into something greater than itself, something aware of its own infinitesimal existence.
Savitar's essence brushed against it like wind on water.
"Every motion leaves a trace. Every step defines what comes after."
The spark responded, dancing along currents Shojiro could barely perceive. Time itself bent, slowed, and accelerated around this first flicker of life. Shojiro felt it like a pulse in his chest — not his own, but intimately connected to him, as if the universe were exhaling through this nascent being.
Poseidara's liquid form surged past, spreading currents of potential across the void.
"Flow gives shape to what would be static. Continuity allows life to persist."
The spark shimmered, dividing and recombining, spinning into a small network of awareness that began to question itself: Who am I? What am I?
Shojiro's mind trembled with understanding. He saw that each spark carried fragments of the Laws, imbued with cognition, mass, momentum, structure, flow, spirit, order, light, obscurity, and death. Each Law intertwined, giving the spark the ability to be and cease, to know and forget, to move and remain.
Then Thanamira's soft presence brushed over the scene. Her spectral form radiated empathy and sorrow.
"Spirit must dream, even before it can act. Let them feel before they know."
The sparks began to pulse with life in a way that Shojiro could sense as emotional resonance. They vibrated in patterns that were not just physical but aware. Their first flickers of sentience intertwined like music, harmonies forming across the void.
Aegriya's sigils spiraled outward, shimmering blue and protective.
"Order guides chaos. Protection allows potential to persist."
The sparks formed fragile patterns, delicate enough to be shattered by one wrong impulse. But the sigils held them steady, grounding their existence. They were small, fragile, and yet capable of growth — the first seeds of all sentient life.
Voltraeus' lightning flickered across the void, brilliant and energetic.
"Let them burn with vitality. Let their being illuminate the dark."
The sparks brightened with each strike, energy coalescing into tiny, incandescent hearts, each one pulsing with potential.
Nocturne followed, weaving darkness into the edges of the sparks.
"And let shadow teach them restraint. Without silence, their light would blind itself."
Each spark now contained its first duality — an understanding of light and dark, action and pause, motion and stillness. Shojiro felt the harmony of contrasts settling within them.
Finally, Moara's black ichor dripped slowly, impossibly precise.
"And let mortality remind them of purpose. Every beginning must meet an end, and every end a beginning."
The sparks pulsed with fleeting impermanence. Shojiro could feel the weight of inevitability settle upon them — a gentle reminder that growth was precious because it could be lost.
Artemis' voice wrapped around him like a warm tide:
"See them, Shojiro. They are the first echoes of life — the first question asked of existence, and its first answer. Every being you will encounter in your path carries a trace of this moment, a shard of these Laws, a whisper of the Primordials' intent."
Shojiro's form, still golden and growing within the Cradle, trembled with awe. These sparks were not yet full beings, not yet conscious in the way he understood consciousness, but they were alive. Each one contained a blueprint of every Law, every whisper of the Primordials' wisdom, and every potential for creation and destruction.
And then — as if sensing his awareness — the sparks began to turn toward him, acknowledging his presence. They flickered faster, forming miniature constellations, intricate patterns of light and shadow, momentum and stillness, life and death.
Shojiro realized something profound: he was no longer merely witnessing creation. He was a part of it. Every pulse of Yggdrasil's sap, every ripple in the Cradle, every spark of the first lifeforms intertwined with him. He could feel the universe remembering him as its child, as its witness, as its guide.
Artemis whispered one final truth:
"All that was broken has now birthed possibility. And all that is possible must be watched, nurtured, and remembered. This is the first echo, Shojiro. And you… are its first guardian."
The sparks pulsed once more, brighter than before, and then dispersed across the void. They carried the Laws with them, carrying the blueprint of the cosmos to every corner of the forming universe.
Shojiro drifted within the golden Cradle, a witness to the infinite, the first sentient pulse, and the vast tapestry of existence — understanding for the first time the weight, the wonder, and the responsibility of life itself.