The Arena of Final Notes was a cathedral built inside a dying star.
Its walls were sheets of frozen sound—
every scream, every lullaby, every heartbeat ever sung.
The pews were ribs of light.
The altar was a black hole wearing Velira's face.
They carried Cogsworth in on a bier of brass feathers and shadow-petals.
Her body had been rebuilt by Morvox's dream-flesh and Sable's midnight silk: chrome bones laced with starlight, gears replaced by six Choir children's heartbeats ticking in perfect 6/8 time.
She did not breathe.
She did not need to.
She was the silence between notes—
the pause that makes the song matter.
Arya walked at the bier's head,
two daggers crossed over her heart,
six crowns fused into a single halo of broken laws.
Seventeen lovers followed—
faces carved from grief and gunpowder.
Thirteen dragons flew overhead, wings dripping molten gold that spelled COGSWORTH across the dying star.
A hundred million crystal orbs hovered like mourners.
The continent watched in perfect silence.
Jonathan waited on the altar.
He wore the Void Regent's full regalia now:
a cloak of every yesterday he had murdered,
a crown of every crown he had shattered,
boots of black glass that left footprints of screaming faces.
Velira's dust swirled at his throat like a living noose.
In his right hand: a new dagger forged from Cogsworth's stopped gear.
In his left: a chalice filled with the cohort's tears—
harvested, distilled, weaponised.
He smiled the smile of a god who had learned to enjoy funerals.
"Welcome, Alpha," he said,
voice a choir of every throat he had ever cut.
"Today we bury your hope.
Tomorrow we crown your despair."
He raised the chalice.
The dying star dimmed.
The Celestial Choir of Final Notes descended—
six figures woven from the last note of every song ever sung.
Their mouths were galaxies.
Their eyes were black holes wearing Velira's laugh.
They began to sing.
The song was death made audible:
Cogsworth's gears grinding to dust,
Velira's last breath,
Solara's childhood letter burning,
Arya's library fall looped forever.
The cohort staggered.
Alexander's lightning faltered.
Solara's wings guttered.
Morvox's locked heart slammed shut.
The Choir children's borrowed heartbeats skipped.
Arya did not fall.
She walked the aisle of frozen sound,
bare feet leaving prints of resurrection.
Every step rewrote the song—
a counter-melody of every orgasm,
every vow,
every kiss that had ever defied gravity.
She reached the altar.
Jonathan offered the chalice.
"Drink," he said.
"Forget her.
Forget them all.
Rule with me."
Arya took the chalice.
She kissed the rim—
soft,
deliberate,
poison.
The tears ignited.
Liquid starlight poured down her throat,
burned away every doubt,
every grief,
every yesterday Jonathan had tried to own.
She smiled—
slow,
sharp,
final.
"Never," she whispered.
She smashed the chalice against the altar.
The dying star exploded.
The song shattered into a million crystal knives.
They rained upward,
carving new constellations from the cathedral's ribs.
Each knife carried a memory:
Velira teaching Arya to pick a chastity rune,
Cogsworth's first mechanical laugh,
Jonathan's seven-year-old paper phoenix.
The knives buried themselves in Jonathan's cloak.
The cloak screamed.
He lunged—
gear-dagger aimed at Arya's heart.
Alexander intercepted,
storm-spear meeting void-blade in a clash that cracked the black hole's smile.
Solara's wings became a sun that burned the cloak to ash.
Morvox opened his rib-box,
unleashed every locked scream as a sonic blade.
Liora and Cassia braided ice and fire into a single whip that lashed Jonathan's ankles.
Sable's shadows became a thousand midnight hands,
pinning his wrists.
The twins' fused spear pierced the chalice's shards,
turning them into a cage of light.
Milo and Lena lifted the entire altar,
spun it until gravity forgot its name.
Gilgamesh ran a golden circle around Jonathan,
kissing every knife until it sang.
The Choir children floated to the bier.
They pressed their tiny hands to Cogsworth's chrome heart.
Six heartbeats became one.
Cogsworth opened her eyes.
Not chrome.
Not flesh.
Both.
She rose—
brass feathers unfurling into wings,
gears clicking a new rhythm:
tick-tock, tick-tock, LOVE CODE.
She kissed Arya's forehead.
The halo healed.
Jonathan screamed—
a sound that cracked the dying star in half.
He tore free of the shadows,
cloak burning,
crown bleeding.
He raised the gear-dagger—
now glowing with the cohort's stolen tears.
"I will not die today," he snarled.
"But one of you will."
He threw the dagger.
It spun—
slow,
beautiful,
inevitable.
Straight at Solara's heart.
Time slowed to honey.
Arya saw it:
Solara's wings folding,
her childhood letter burning again,
her first kiss with Jonathan curdling into poison.
She moved.
Telekinesis became a prayer.
The dagger stopped an inch from Solara's chest.
Arya caught it by the blade.
Blood—
her blood—
poured down the handle,
mixed with the tears,
became liquid starlight.
She kissed the blade.
It became a third crown—
brass and blood and forgiveness.
She placed it on Solara's head.
The wings healed.
Solara smiled—
slow,
sharp,
alive.
Jonathan staggered.
The cloak fell away.
The crown shattered.
He stood naked—
scarred,
bleeding,
human.
For one heartbeat,
he was seven years old again,
pressing a paper phoenix into a girl's palm.
Then the void closed around him.
He stepped backward into the black hole's smile.
It swallowed him whole.
But not before he whispered—
soft,
apologetic,
true:
"See you at the final round, Alpha.
I still have one heart left to break."
The black hole winked.
The cathedral sighed.
The dying star healed.
Cogsworth stood at the altar,
wings of brass and starlight,
heart ticking in perfect 6/8 time.
She raised her hand.
The frozen sound unfroze into a single note—
Velira's laugh,
Cogsworth's first breath,
Solara's childhood name.
The cohort sang it back—
seventeen voices,
thirteen dragons,
six crowns orbiting a single heartbeat.
Level 800.
The cohort surged—
Alexander Level 540,
Solara Level 690,
Morvox Level 660,
Cogsworth Level 600 and smiling like sunrise,
the Choir children Level 300 each and dancing in brass feathers.
The High Arbiter's voice arrived as a single brass feather that pulsed above the altar:
"Round 10: OBSIDIAN VICTORIOUS—by resurrection.
Six rounds remain.
The final three sharpen their grief into coronation.
Jonathan Andrew lives.
The war has a final battlefield.
Next: The Arena of First Kisses—
where every memory is a weapon,
and every weapon is a kiss."
Arya stood in the healing starlight,
three crowns orbiting her heart,
Cogsworth's brass wings draped over her shoulders like a promise.
She looked at the black hole's wink—
still open,
still hungry,
still waiting.
She smiled—
slow,
sharp,
eternal.
"Bring it," she whispered.
"I've got seventeen hearts
and one funeral left to crash."
The cathedral sang.
The continent held its breath.
And somewhere in the void,
Jonathan Andrew sharpened a crown
made of the only heart
he hadn't broken yet.