Bura, Libaax, and Kemau left the precinct, the recent stillness of the air a testament to their successful interruption of the narrative loop. They climbed toward the upper tiers of Akogwa, seeking a vantage point high enough for the diagnosis.
Kemau, now fully engaged, led them to the rooftop herbarium of a Dibia healing collective. It was a serene space, filled with plant life vibrating with bright, healthy Ase.
Here, they found Mandla Ada.
She was a slight woman of the Saffron phenotype—skin yellow like the flesh of mangoes, radiating a soft, gentle Yellow Aura. Unlike the martial intensity of Libaax and Kemau, Mandla projected an unnerving openness, as if her entire Dapabie (Mental realm) were exposed. As a Dibia, she wore simple, earthen robes, carrying the essence of her faith-based healing.
She wasn't looking at the plants; she was looking through them.
"The air is thick with old sorrow," Mandla murmured, confirming Bura's suspicion before they even spoke. Her Unique Class, Naxariis Akwa (Empathic Bridge), allowed her to perceive and map the collective emotions of the city.
"We need a full reading, Mandla," Bura requested, wasting no time. "The deepest source of the sickness."
Mandla nodded, closing her eyes. She inhaled deeply, and her Yellow Aura expanded, filtering the noisy Ase of the world into a coherent stream.
To Bura's meta-sight, the air around Mandla became an intricate color gradient. She was seeing the Huenergy—the spiritual climate of the capital.
"Beneath the surface," Mandla began, her voice distant, "I see the four basic colors. Yellow (Happiness) flickering around the newborn. Blue (Sadness) pooled in the alleys of the grieving. Red (Anger) is still heavy from the recent stand-off. And Green (Fear) is everywhere, woven into the city's nerves."
She paused, then winced. "But above the city, the colors break down. They are not merely emotions anymore. They are being crushed by a weight. A cold, colorless despair that filters down like dust."
She pointed to the sky, where the sun rode it's golden cosmic chariot high in its corrected position. "It is a vast, invisible storm. A superstructure of anti-life."
"The Dildillaac," Libaax rasped, the King of Beasts feeling the unnatural weight of the anti-story.
"Yes," Mandla confirmed. "The clustered Kifofirists. They exist only to destroy connection. Their purpose is Utupu—Nothingness. They feed on our Huenergy and Ase replacing it with their own destructive energy: Iku (Entropy)."
Mandla's gaze drifted toward the clouds. "They want the Moea to be so fragmented, so cut off from Ubuntu, that when we die, no Amava replica can be created. We would achieve true Nothingness."
Kemau, the Resonance Judge, shuddered. "So the Kifofirists are attempting a rewrite of the metaphysical laws of Aye!"
"Worse," Bura clarified, his eyes glinting with the grim understanding of the Diegesis-noir genre. "The Dildillaac exists because the author created it as an existential threat that was never meant to be fought, only feared. It is a source of conflict that conveniently keeps the protagonists passive and the world dark. It's structural pessimism."
He stepped up beside Mandla, looking at the invisible storm. "The Kifofirists thrive on weak plots. When characters act out of character, or when the script contradicts the lore—when Contrivium leaks—it creates metaphysical friction, which is fuel for Iku."
"So our passivity makes us sick?" Libaax asked, the shame of his recent inertia palpable.
"Your passivity feeds the storm," Bura corrected. "The Council's bad governance, the lack of Ubuntu, the generic conflict—it's all a banquet for the Kifofirists. We are currently a world designed to fail, serving as dark nourishment."
Mandla opened her eyes, her Yellow Aura stabilizing. "The only counter to Iku is Ase used with Ubuntu—selfless love. But the structural weakness of the world makes that love almost impossible to muster."
"The diagnostic report is complete then," Bura declared, turning to his new council of awakened protagonists. "We have the sickness (Iku and Contrivium), the symptoms (passive heroes and weak Ubuntu), and the cure (Agape and agency). But to apply the cure, we need the blueprint."
He tapped his staff on the ground, the sound echoing the importance of his next decision. "We need to know what Aye was supposed to be. We need the original, legitimate history, unmarred by the author's silly mistakes."
"The Amava Codex!" Kemau stated, recognizing the need for the matrix of all memories.
"Precisely," Bura confirmed. "The temporal construct of Zamani. The original script of everything that was and could be. It is not a place we can walk to, but a temporal stream we must access through meditation and the collective power of Ase."
"We will need a safe place, protected from the Dildillaac's influence," Libaax said, now thinking like an active sovereign. "A sacred place where the current plot cannot easily interfere."