The White Place remembered.
It was not a place of things, but of Is-ness. The silent, aware foundation upon which all stories were written and unwritten. Here, the final argument was being prepared.
The Ikannuna, beings of shifting obsidian and cold starlight, presented their case not with sound, but with pure data. A tapestry of light unfolded, showing the fall of Luna Major, the sterile perfection of 2999 AD, the Quiet Wrath of an archivist, the Pride of a director, the Gluttony of a biologist. They showed the Seven, reborn and amplified, their sins hardening into eternal Crowns.
"The pattern is terminal," their collective thought-voice stated, a glacier of logic. "The experiment is a failure. The data is irrefutable."
Across the infinite non-space, a presence of immense, quiet love observed. The Primordial One. He did not argue. He waited.
For the defense had not yet spoken. Its witness was still in the field, gathering evidence. Its testimony was written in mud and blood and forgotten smiles, in a book that was not yet closed.
The trial was ongoing. The verdict was waiting in the heart of a man who had forgotten how to live, and in the hands of a girl who held a seed.