### **Narration – Belenus**
Peace was not the absence of motion.
It was *preparation*.
A breath before the clash.
The quiet forge where legends were tempered.
Even as Hollow Earth bloomed under my will—its skies infused with starlight and its rivers glowing with divine ether—I knew this moment would not last.
And so we honed ourselves.
Not for war.
But for the future.
---
### **Neo-Fusion Temple – Skybound Training Grounds**
Perched high above Hollow Earth in a gravity-stabilized prism shard, the **Neo-Fusion Temple** shimmered with raw power. Floating platforms twisted around celestial roots. Each one held its own unique pressure level, elemental essence, or time dilation ratio.
This place wasn't just made for training.
It was made for *evolution*.
Deku stood at the heart of the arena, veins crackling with One For All's layered quirks. The boy was breathing hard, eyes locked onto Goku and me as if his soul demanded it.
> "He's almost there," Goku said, floating beside me. His silver hair shimmered in the midday glow, Ultra Instinct activated but subdued. "He just needs one more push."
> "Fear still lingers in him," I murmured. "Not fear of loss—fear of failure. We need to break that."
Goku smirked. "I've got an idea."
Without warning, he vanished.
Deku barely reacted in time, but *Danger Sense* flared—and he twisted, kicking upward, catching Goku's palm.
I stepped in next, wings of ash and light spread wide, heat trailing behind every strike. Deku parried with **Blackwhip**, wrapped around my wrist, and flipped over me with **Float**, his **Smokescreen** flaring to disrupt my line of sight.
> "SAINT LOUIS… SMASH: *REFRACTION MODE*!"
He struck down through the smoke. My body cratered into the ground, but I laughed as I stood—my armor glowing white-hot, steam rising off my shoulders.
> "You changed your vector mid-strike," I said. "That's new."
> "I'm learning," Deku said, panting, "because I have to."
> "No," Goku corrected, smiling. "You're learning because you *can*."
---
### **Interlude – Golden Hour on the Blooming Horizon**
Later, after a feast of starfruit and grilled earthbeast (Goku devoured enough for a mountain village), I brought **Amaterasu** to the **Heartglade**—a sacred garden where the first flame trees of Hollow Earth grew.
There, Lunadora waited.
In her arms… our daughter.
A being of paradox—born of destruction and gentleness. Her eyes glowed with twin coronas: one lunar silver, one radiant crimson.
And when **Amaterasu** entered, the garden itself seemed to bow.
The Celestial Flame Goddess walked barefoot, clothed in robes of living fire. Her steps sparked new blossoms from the soil, and her aura hummed with the songs of stars.
Lunadora rose.
> "You honor us," she said, not bowing out of submission—but respect.
Amaterasu approached, pausing only as our daughter reached out, tiny fingers aglow with embryonic divine essence.
> "This child will walk between realms," she said, brushing her forehead gently. "Sun and moon, ash and tide. She will change everything."
I watched them, a storm of emotion in my chest. Pride. Wonder. Fear.
> "She already has," I whispered.
We sat together—two goddesses, a titan-turned-guardian, and the seed of a new age—sharing stories, old songs, and fruit from the Trees of Rebirth.
Amaterasu touched my shoulder, her gaze piercing.
> "You are no longer the Red Death," she said. "You are the *Dawnbearer*. A fire that creates instead of consumes."
> "Will it be enough?" I asked.
> "It will *have* to be," she replied. "Because the final war will not be fought with fists… but with *truths*."
---
### **Narration – Belenus**
The greatest fire I ever kindled… wasn't made of heat or rage.
It was this: a table, a family, and the hope in a child's laughter.
Legacy.
It starts not with power… but with presence.
---
### **Elsewhere – The Veil Beyond the Stars**
A being of obsidian and cosmic frost shifted on a throne made of fractured probabilities.
One massive eye blinked open—serrated, glistening with galaxies trapped in its pupil.
**The Leviathan Seed** had awakened.
> "The child breathes," it rasped, voice like entropy itself. "The forbidden line has been crossed."
In its clawed hand, it gripped a crystal of inverse light. Inside flickered fragments of timelines—those *erased*, *sealed*, or *never born*.
> "Then let them rejoice for now…"
The claw crushed the crystal.
> "…before we consume their dawn."