CHAPTER 92: THE REJECTED SHELF

The darkness remained unbroken.

Oizys drifted, her senses carved away one by one. There was no horizon, no ceiling, no whisper of direction. Her mind stretched thin, screaming silently for definition, until at last—something rippled through the void.

A silhouette coalesced before her, drawn not in form but in fractured intent. White chalk-like outlines twisted and scribbled across a vaguely humanoid figure, pulsing in and out of focus like an animated sketch caught mid-frame.

The figure stood still, faceless and trembling, as though the void itself recoiled from its presence.

Oizys didn’t hesitate. A scythe—vast, curved, and inked in madness—manifested from her aura.

She moved in a flash of thought, and the weapon’s edge hovered at the stranger’s throat. The act was seamless, her instincts taking over before thought returned.

The chalk-figure jerked back, arms raised in a plea. "Wait—wait! Don’t hurt me! Please!"

Her voice cracked through the stillness like a smear across glass. Frantic, feminine, and strangely familiar.

"Who are you?" Oizys asked, her tone flat and cold, the blade never wavering. "Where am I? What did you do to me!?"

The figure twitched, her outline stuttering. "I’m—listen—I’m what’s left behind. A Rejected Self. A shard. A shelf, thrown out when Kivas underwent her Apotheosis!"

Oizys narrowed her eyes. "A Shelf?"

"I am! Or what I’m supposed to be. Like, I don’t know, I just know myself as such because it is an undeniable fact that I have somehow been removed from Kivas, while having her memory and understanding of what is happening!" The figure nodded rapidly. Her words were equally as rapids as if she was on the edge of a cliff, trying to talk her way out of her death. "Kivas didn’t mean to cast me away. It just happened! The Apotheosis event was too sudden! A raw surge of Fateling Essence flooded her. Like, it is not divinity. Not belief...

"This came from somewhere older, absolutely old and volatile! And this—something, is suddenly buried in her being like a reverse leech that just self-inserted itself after sinking its teeth!"

"And what’s the difference?" Oizys pressed.

"Well, you see... Divine power comes from faith. It’s orderly. It follows the patterns of belief and expectation, like a Divine Portfolio! Kivas had control over that. But this Fateling Essence... it’s just raw, untamed, and barely processed to peacefully coexist with her mortal side, resulting in the Apotheosis!

"It doesn’t listen. It doesn’t care for the mortal frame she’s wearing. It simply erupted and begged big daddy Fathomi to come by with a supercar and crash Kivas in the guts before driving away without looking back!"

"You surely talk a lot."

"We’re in a predicament, and I don’t have much time left so you kinda need to bear with my speed."

Oizys’ gaze didn’t soften, but her grip eased. Slightly. "Still, why did you drag me here instead of letting me stop her myself?"

"This was the only way to interact with you," the Shelf said. "Like, there is nothing else can be done unless it was done this way, corrupting you from the inside, place some kind of maddening tether that reduced your perception of reality, just so that I can insert my own shabby reality and get her, right in front of you in a comprehensive form, and talk!"

"Can you do it another way?"

"You can’t simply ask me to do it in a different way. I crammed this improvised method and enacted it last-minute!" the Rejected Shelf yelped. " Regardless, I had to talk to you, to tell you what you need to do. Like, a manifesto, a representation of my brilliant idea to prevent this Apotheosis from completing!"

A pause passed between them. Oizys didn’t lower the scythe, but she stepped back, granting the figure room.

"Talk," Oizys said. "Fill me in with all the details."

The Shelf stumbled forward, words spilling in a rapid rush. "The Fateling Essence—it’s already inside her. Fused. Like, you know, you can’t rip it out. You can’t separate it! That ship’s sailed, long gone! Doing anything about trying to remove the essence from the current Kivas is like trying to scrap a glue that was meant to shut two rocks together!

"But still, the Apotheosis process isn’t finished. It’s still feeding. Still drawing from something called the Fateline. If you can sever that connection, the Apotheosis will collapse!"

"What is the Fateline?" Oizys asked, frowning. "Some divine anchor?"

"No," the Shelf said, shaking her head violently. "It’s not a divine thing, nor is it an anchor. Wait, maybe it is somewhat of an anchor... Eh, regardless, it’s a conduit!

"To put it simply, a limb. It belongs to Fathomi. It’s how that being touches the world and rewrites what it sees. When Kivas started experimenting with her own miracles—twisting the boundaries of belief and creation—she stumbled onto a similar essence...

"Sometimes, Fathom tends to get picky on what it wanted to have inside of itself, and it used these Fateline things to slowly manipulate all of the existences to come forth into a certain outcome. Which, surprisingly, is related to miracles!

"Kivas’ aptitude with miracles has been on the rise lately, and together with her Fate Weaver skill—wait, should I really say the skill name out loud? Whatever! To put it in layman terms, Kivas found this Fateline and had been trying to interact with it for quite a while to no avail.

"That’s why you can trust this information. Go intercept the Fateline, and save Kivas from finishing her Apotheosis process!"

Oizys’ scowl deepened. "If my stats aren’t high, I would barely be able to hear what you’re saying."

"Sorry..." the Shelf said quietly.

Oizys drew in a breath she didn’t need. "If I intercept this Fateline... what happens?"

The Rejected She;f regained her enthusiasm. "You’ll be sent into the manifested possibility of Kivas! A reflection that Fathomi created based on Kivas’ essence. To put it simply, a dream twisted into a form.

"And since Fathomi is the one manifesting it, and it didn’t want the Apotheosis process to be interrupted. The Kivas inside the manifestation, she’ll be hostile. She won’t recognize you. And she’ll fight to preserve the Apotheosis.

"Also! Defeating the manifestation won’t do it. You’ll just get sent to a different manifestation, and it will be a never ending loop!"

A flicker passed through Oizys’ eyes. "And how do I stop her?"

"You have to convince her of something that isn’t true. Anything. Something that would make Fathomi’s calculation stumble. A paradox. A lie so convincing that the Fateline falters in its pattern." Something sly and vicious could be felt from the Rejected Shelf’s words as if she was concocting an evil plan. "You need to confuse the manifestation, gaslight it, even! All in the name of tricking Fathomi to perform a wrong impression and re-adress its own understanding of Kivas’ existence!"

Oizys gritted her teeth. "That’s a thin thread to dangle all this on. Is there no other way?"

"It’s the only thread we have."

The void pulsed again, slightly, as if time threatened to resume.

"Have you told Samael any of this?" Oizys asked.

"No," the Shelf said. "I couldn’t. I know that it might be obvious, since she is the former infamous Endless Dragon and all but, Samael’s core is laced with defense systems—anti-illusion fields, spiritual veils, anchor wards, and possibly so many skills she reacquired to ensure that she is an impregnable wall of power!

"I couldn’t reach her. But you—your spirit is unguarded. You’re strong, but surprisingly weak toward spiritual or just overall mental stuff, like madness inducing power. I could find you in the in-between and did this whole interaction.

"Also, Samael is currently holding the physical version of Kivas at bay. Buying us time. That alone should be a nice role to have, and I don’t want to interrupt her from doing it since this Apotheosis can go drastic any moment.

Oizys finally lowered her scythe and let it unravel into smoke.

"Then send me back," she said. "I’ll intercept the Fateline tether and trick the manifestation of possibility inside it."

The Shelf nodded hard, chalk lines flickering in jagged relief. But then, her form hesitated—shivered.

"I’ll do it," she said. "But before you go, I want to ask something."

Oizys raised a brow.

"Promise me something."

"What is it?"

"Don’t forget me."

The words were soft. Vulnerable. Like a memory asking not to be erased.

"After this, I’ll be gone, like absolutely gone." Tone of sadness carried her speech. "I wasn’t a full person, but a Rejected Shelf. Just a possibility. Just a leftover. This, what I called me, the traits I had—the thoughts, the fears—they’ll all disappear. And the worst thing of them all...

"The real Kivas might never even realize they were here after I’m gone, since I have been completely removed from her."

Her form began to stabilize into something more familiar.

Eyes took shape. A mouth formed, trembling. Hair fell into a jagged approximation of Kivas’ usual straights, but dimmer, less distinct.

Her face now wore a strained, brittle smile—somewhere between relief and heartbreak.

"I tried my best," she whispered. "To help her. To ensure that she doesn’t fail this timeline. At the same time... I don’t want to vanish without someone remembering I tried."

Oizys stared at her, and for the first time, her eyes softened.

At the moment, Oizys felt like she was looking directly at the very part of herself that she lost a long time ago during the thousands of years of suffering, or even her very essence when she was still trapped in isolation for eons before the World Forgers found her.

"Will you come back?" Oizys asked, the words tight.

The Shelf blinked at her, eyes wide. For a second, she looked human.

Then silence.

Her features cracked like glass under pressure. White dust blew into the void, scattering into nothing. Her voice, now just a wisp at the edge of hearing, uttered her final words.

"I hope you and Samael find your home."

The Rejected Shelf disappeared from Oizys’ sight like a dimming darkness fading into an obscured light of the sun.

And a moment later, Oizys returned to Fathomi with all of her perception and soul intact, no longer veiled by darkness and trickery.