Astro was dying.
Aging decades in seconds.
White hair.
Deep wrinkles.
Body weakening.
The gear feeding on him.
Consuming him with stolen time.
Punishing his refusal.
The sound of his aging was terrible—bones creaking audibly, joints popping with sudden brittleness, skin making soft papery rustles as it dried and wrinkled. His breath came in shallow gasps that rattled in his chest, each inhale more labored than the last.
No. Stop. STOP!
But the mechanism didn't care.
Didn't listen.
Just kept feeding.
Kept aging him.
Kept consuming.
The bronze blades remained embedded in his temporal form, pulsing with sickly light as they drained him. The stolen time flowed through them in visible streams—silvery substance thick as mercury, moving with sluggish determination, carrying centuries in liquid form.
I had to do something.
Had to save him.
Had to stop the forced aging.
My Reborn Luna divinity.
The uncorrupted power I carried.
The light that had broken five trials.
