54: The Daughter of Shadows

Marisol stared, the cat quiet in her arms. She placed a hand over her heart.

"You weren't just brave," she whispered. "You were willing to sacrifice everything. But you believed in her."

Marisol help back her relieve. Even in this world Aiden was still the Aiden she knows.

The light dimmed.

And from behind the frozen image of Aiden and Lila—

Another Lila stepped forward.

Not as she was in the park.

But dark-eyed. Pale-skinned. Her smile was wrong at the edges, her gaze unblinking..

The cat hissed.

The Core spoke through her.

"Isn't it strange?" the Core said, Lila's voice cold and echoing. "How he stole me from my vessel… and yet still, to this day, protects you—the daughter of the very thing he rejected."

Marisol stared at the figure in the shifting light.

It looked like Lila—her hair, her stance, her soft-spoken intensity. But the moment she met those red eyes, she knew something was wrong. Too still. Too perfect. Like staring into a cracked mirror that never quite blinked.

"Which one are you?" Marisol asked, voice sharp with unease. "Lila… or the Core?"

The figure smiled, just slightly—too calm for either. "Does it matter?" the Core answered through her lips, the voice layered with echoes, low and coaxing. "I am what remains. What was cast out. Buried by lover boy over there."

The cat hissed softly behind Marisol. She stepped forward anyway.

"I don't need riddles," Marisol said. "Say what you want."

The Core tilted its head, watching her like one might study a flame. "I want to show you. Help you become what you were meant to be. The world is broken, Marisol. Yggdrasil stands tall and proud—but it cuts away anything that doesn't fit. The others like you? Pruned. Lost. Forgotten."

Marisol's hands clenched at the ends of her skirt. "If you still exist, then why not take the form of the Doom Tree again? Why not just return? Be the balance. Be the other half to Sylva like you were before."

The Core's smile faltered.

"I can't," it said at last. "Not anymore. I'm fading. A whisper. A fracture in the bark. My voice gets softer by the moment, just like the seeds who carried me before you. Each one vanished. Corrected. Their roots severed by fate."

"You're trying to tell me I'm next."

"You will be," the Core said. "Unless you act. Unless you seize what's yours and reshape the world in darkness—your darkness. Control it before it controls you."

Marisol's throat tightened. Her words cracked as they escaped: "You ruined my life. If you hadn't made the Dark Seeds… I could've had something normal. I wouldn't be like this."

The Core's expression softened—not in pity, but in knowing.

"No," it whispered. "If I hadn't made the Dark Seeds… you never would have existed. I made you. My children. The shadows. But not your sorrow. Fate hurt all of them. They hurt you. And it will keep hurting unless you make it stop."

She staggered a step back.

"You want me to become a god of vengeance."

"I want you to become what you already are."

Visions cracked through the air. The scene began to play again the Core overwhelmed Aiden's thoughts, he glimpsed Sylva's loneliness and, for a fleeting moment, wished she wouldn't be alone. The Core seized on that subconscious desire. The ring fell into the abyss below—unaware that his wish was set in stone in that very moment.

The scene bled away to show Eri, in that other timeline—her rage directed at Garrison's chest, her eyes wild with grief, with belief. The Doom Tree in her world, twisted and screaming, more prison than haven.

And then—

Garrison, here, in this timeline.

Tired. Flawed. But still trying nonetheless.

Smiling as he fitted a toy sword onto a stuffed bear. "I just wanted to be her dad," he'd said.

Tears rimmed Marisol's eyes.

"That's all I ever wanted," she whispered. "A family."

She looked up.

"I'm not your vessel. I'm not your fury. I'm not your vengeance."

The Core's face twisted, Lila's eyes hollow with pain. "Then you're a fool," it spat. "You'll fall like me. Like your sisters. You are darkness. And if you don't devour the light first, it will eat you alive."

"Maybe," Marisol said, stepping forward. "Maybe I'll stumble. Maybe I'll become a monster one day too. But I'll use this power to build. To heal. Even if the whole Otherworld turns against me."

Her voice trembled—but held.

"I'll use my darkness to make people happy. Like I think… maybe… you once tried to do too."

The Core paused.

And—for the first time—it looked… tired. Not as a threat. But as someone who had carried sorrow for too long. Lila's expression wavered beneath the mask. A tear slipped down her cheek.

"It's a hard path," the Core whispered. "Full of pain. They'll never thank you."

Marisol nodded.

"I know."

Silence.

Then they stepped forward together.

Not as enemies. Not even as mirrors.

But as past and future.

Marisol opened her arms, and the Core embraced her.

They held each other quietly in the center of everything—for one breath, one heartbeat, one moment beyond time.

Then the Core exhaled.

Its form broke apart into dark smoke—tendrils of ancient power, fragments of forgotten dreams—and those shadows spiraled into Marisol's chest, disappearing into the roots of her soul.

The Core was gone.

But not lost.

Marisol stood alone now—eyes burning gold, the ring of the tree blooming in her chest. The cat curled around her feet.

She was no longer half of something.

She was whole.

Just as the tainted light of darkness swelled, Marisol faltered for a breath—

A memory brushed her mind, soft as a whisper.

"Make it a good one," Mephisto had said, voice worn but certain as he faded in her arms.

Her hands curled into fists, the warmth of that moment anchoring her.

A shaky smile broke across her face—not of victory, but of resolve.

"I will," she whispered back into the light. "I'll make it a story worth remembering."

And the world trembled—waiting to see what she would do next.