The pocket dimension was known in the cosmic logs as "Oneiros." It was intended to be a paradise for artists and dreamers, a place where imagination could take physical form. But its creator, a well-meaning but naive entity, had woven the law of "Intention" too deeply into its fabric. Here, a passing thought was not just father to the deed; it was the deed.
Kairo did not step into a world so much as a seething, chaotic collage of reality. The ground beneath his feet shifted from marble to grass to water to molten gold in the space of a heartbeat, responding to the fleeting whims of unseen minds. A castle of spun sugar melted into a fortress of screaming faces, which then dissolved into a field of weeping flowers. The sky was a roiling canvas of conflicting colors and shapes—dragons, starships, childhood toys—all blinking in and out of existence. The air thrummed with the psychic static of a billion uncontrolled creations.
It was a nightmare of pure potential, a prison where the inhabitants, the "Dreamers," were trapped by their own unfiltered consciousness. To think of a monster was to summon it. To remember a trauma was to relive it in vivid, horrifying detail. To desire peace was to create a tranquil glade, only for it to be instantly overwritten by another's paranoid thought.
Kairo saw them—ethereal beings huddled in what passed for shelter, their eyes screwed shut in concentration, desperately trying to empty their minds, to think of nothing, to achieve the void. It was the only way to achieve a semblance of stability. They were meditating themselves into comas to survive.
The problem was not a lack of connection, as with Sound, but a connection that was too direct, too immediate. There was no filter, no delay, no process. The lock here was broken in the "on" position.
His key would not be used to open something, but to introduce a buffer.
He closed his eyes, shutting out the visual cacophony, and focused on the memory of craftsmanship. Not the god-like power of the Stellar Forge, but the simple, patient act of making. He remembered Astra, in the early days on Vesper, patiently teaching a young Saiyan how to shape a brick. The feel of the clay, the slow, deliberate motion of the hands, the time between the idea of a brick and the existence of a brick. The beautiful, necessary delay of process.
He took that concept—the sacred space between intention and manifestation—and, with the gentle precision of his key, he wove it into the fundamental law of Oneiros.
He turned the key.
There was no grand explosion. The chaotic landscape did not vanish. But the frantic, instantaneous shifting slowed. A thought of a tree no longer instantly created a tree. Instead, a shimmer of potential energy gathered, and over the course of several seconds, the tree began to grow from the ground, its form solidifying at a natural, observable pace.
The effect was revolutionary.
A Dreamer, who had been desperately trying not to think of a fearsome beast, accidentally let the image cross her mind. She flinched, waiting for the monster to tear into her. But it didn't. Instead, a faint, ghostly outline of the beast appeared, flickering for a moment before dissipating like smoke. The thought, without the sustained focus and energy of craft, had failed to fully manifest.
A wave of profound relief passed through the dimension. The oppressive psychic static lessened, replaced by a low, manageable hum of potential. The Dreamers tentatively opened their eyes. For the first time in eons, they could think without immediately destroying their environment. They could have a fleeting fear, a passing fancy, without consequence. To truly create now required will, focus, and time. It required art.
The prison of their own minds had been given a door.
Kairo watched as the landscape began to stabilize. The changes were slower, more deliberate. A Dreamer, with tears of joy in her eyes, focused on a single, simple flower. She held the thought, nurtured it, and over a full minute, a perfect, red rose grew from the chaotic ground. It was the first truly intentional, and therefore truly beautiful, thing created in Oneiros in centuries.
The repair was complete. He had not taken away their power of creation. He had gifted them the tools to control it: time and effort.
As the pocket dimension began its long journey toward becoming the paradise it was meant to be, Kairo felt the next whisper. It was a faint, cold signal from the edge of the observable multiverse. A place where a "Conceptual Black Hole" was slowly consuming not matter, but context, rendering entire civilizations incomprehensible to themselves and others.
A subtle, insidious erosion of meaning.
The Forever Repairman turned from the slowly calming dreamscape, his key warm with another successful adjustment. He moved towards the silence of the void, ready to mend the tears in the very fabric of understanding.