Universe Aeternov. Book two. The Shadow that Remembers the Light

Chapter 9. The Ninth. A DEFEAT THAT TEACHES

“The real strength is not in not falling.

It’s about falling down and hearing the earth whisper…

and realizing that it hasn’t betrayed you.

She was just waiting for you to learn how to listen.”

1. THE TEST OF FAITH

Alina has been studying at the School of Bright Paths for three months now.

She knew all the basic forms of Shaolin styles.

She could disappear into thin air like an exhalation.

She was able to stop a punch from a distance without touching the opponent.

But Master Li Jiang still wouldn’t let her go on real missions.

“You can move,” he said. – But you don’t feel fear. A fight is not a dance for the audience. Combat is a dialogue with pain. And you still haven’t learned how to listen to someone else’s pain… without hiding your own.

Alina said nothing. There’s resentment in my chest.

“Why does everyone believe in me as a hope… but not as a warrior”?

That night, she made a decision.

2. THE SHADOW AT THE GATE.

At the edge of the Lotus Dimension, a crack appeared where reality was thinning.

The Shadow of Fate crawled out of her – not just a monster, but a reflection of the fallen Chronos from one of the alternate lines.

She didn’t scream.

She was calling:

– Alina… You know you’re not welcome here. You’re a mistake. Your world was erased because it was weak. And you… you’re just a shadow. The shadow of a shadow.

Alina froze.

Those words weren’t a threat.

These were her own fears, clothed in flesh.

But she came out to meet me anyway.

“I’m not afraid of you,” she said, taking up a Shaolin-style stance. – I came to show that even a shadow can choose light.

The shadow smiled and attacked.

3. THE FIGHT THAT DID NOT BECOME A VICTORY.

Alina threw everything she had learned into the fight.:

• Wind Dance – escapes from blows, light as a leaf in a hurricane;

• Fist of the Heart – blows aimed not at the body, but at pain;

• Embrace of Silence – attempts to stop the enemy without destroying.

But the Shadow of Fate was not human.

She was a void clothed in memory.

Each of her blows is a question:

“Why do you exist at all”?

“Who loves you, even if your father chose another world”?

“Will you save them? Or will you just postpone the fall a little?

“Alina continued to move, the technique remained impeccable, but her soul was trembling.

And when she tried to apply the final technique, “Homecoming,” in which the opponent stops himself, remembering his childhood, the Shadow laughed.

“I don’t have a childhood, – she whispered. “I only have your fault.”

And she grabbed Alina by the throat, not with her hand, but with a memory:

the moment when Andrei erased her homeworld in order to save others.

Alina fell.

Not from physical pain. From a broken heart.

4. DEFEAT.

A shadow loomed over her.

“You are not a warrior,” she said. “You’re an echo. And the echo can’t beat the silence.

She didn’t finish it.

She’s gone.

She left Alina lying in the dust, in a torn suit, with her chrono code out.

When Master Li Jiang found her, she was crying – not ordinary tears, but the sand of time flowing out of her eyes.

“I lost, – she whispered. “I don’t deserve to be an Avatar.”

The master sat down next to him. He did not comfort or scold.

– Did you think that fighting is a way to prove your strength? “What is it?” he asked softly. – no. Combat is a mirror. And today, for the first time, you didn’t see him as an enemy. Myself.

“But I couldn’t do it,” Alina said.

“You survived, – the Master replied. – And this is already a victory for someone who is still learning to be human.

He helped her up.

– Tomorrow we will not start with punches. And with silence. Because before you stop someone else’s pain… you need to stop being afraid of your own.

5. A LESSON IN SILENCE

The next day, Alina did not go to the “Hall Without Shadows”.

She was sitting in the “Garden of Pulses”, among the trees that had grown out of frozen moments.

She didn’t practice.

She was listening.

I listened to the pulse of time.

I listened to the whisper of the Shadow of Fate – not as a threat, but as a cry.

She listened to her heart, not as a weakness, but as a compass.

And gradually I began to understand:

The Shadow of Fate did not want to destroy it.

She wanted Alina to hear:

“I want to go home too.”

THE END OF THE CHAPTER.

In the evening, Alina returned to Master Li.

“I’m ready to learn anew,” she said. “Not as a warrior. Like someone who’s afraid… but goes ahead anyway.

The Master nodded.

“Then you won’t start tomorrow with a punch,” he said. – And with a hug.

He smiled out of the corner of his mouth.

– In this universe, the strongest is not the one who defeats the enemy. And the one who doesn’t turn him into an enemy.

Somewhere in the depths of the Black Abyss, the Shadow of Fate froze.

And a tiny spark flashed in her empty eye sockets.

Not the light.

The hope of forgiveness.

Chapter 10. The tenth. BECOME A SHADOW TO BRING BACK THE LIGHT

“You’re not putting on someone else’s face.

You take off your clothes to see the world through the eyes of someone you’re afraid to understand.”

1. THE NEW CLASS IS THE HALL OF REFLECTIONS.

After being defeated by the Shadow of Fate, Alina stopped asking for strength.

She began to ask for understanding.

And the School responded.

The next morning, she was invited to the “Hall of Reflections” – a wallless space where the floor and ceiling were mirrors, and the air trembled with the echo of other people’s battles and lived lives.

There she was waiting for a new teacher.

He wasn’t standing. It shimmered – between the shapes.

Now he’s an old man with eyes full of ashes.

A moment later, a teenager with empty pockets and a heart overflowing with pain.

Then there was a warrior with a sword in his chest and a clean face without a drop of blood.

“My name is the Master of Faces,” he said. His voice sounded like crying, laughing, and praying at the same time. “I don’t teach you how to transform.” I teach you how to disappear into another person in order to come back… whole.

“And if I don’t want to come back?” Alina asked.

“Then you will find someone who has forgotten how to be himself, – the Master replied. “And maybe… you’ll be the mirror for him.”

2. THE FIRST RULE OF REINCARNATION.

“The art of transformation is not magic,” the Face Master began. You give up yourself for a while in order to feel someone else’s pain as your own.

He led her to the central mirror.

“There are no spells here,” he said. – There are no formulas. There are no genetic codes. There is only one question:

“Why do you want to become one?

“If the answer is “To win,” you stay near the surface.

If the answer is “To understand,” you enter from the inside.

“And if I’m afraid?” Alina whispered.

– So, you’re ready, – the Master smiled. – Fear is the door. Not a wall.

3. THE FIRST TEST: BECOME AN ENEMY.

The master touched the mirror, and the Shadow of Fate was reflected in it, the one that had recently defeated Alina.

– You lost to her because you saw her as a monster, – he said softly. – Become one today.

– But… how?” Alina swallowed.

“Just say, “I want to understand you,”” he replied. – And let yourself go.”

Alina took a deep breath, looked into the empty eyes of the reflection and said:

“I want to understand you.

The mirror shook and pulled her inside.

4. INSIDE THE SHADOW

The world has turned upside down.

Alina was no longer Alina.

She is the Shadow of Fate.

She felt:

• cold – not from the darkness, but from loneliness;

• hunger is not for food, but for the word: “You’re important”;

• the pain is not in the body, but in the memory: “My world was erased because it was considered weak”;

• Rage – not towards the universe, but towards oneself: “Why wasn’t I good enough to be saved”?

She saw her old world, the one that had disappeared.

A world where Andrey made a choice in favor of other lines.

A boy stands at the ruins of a house that once smelled of apple pie and laughter.

There’s a child’s drawing on the floor: “Daddy and me on the stars.”

The drawing is faded, which means no one has looked at it for a long time.

And at that moment, Alina realized that

the Shadow of Fate did not want to destroy her.

She wants to hear:

“You had a right to exist.”

Tears, black as ashes, flowed down Shadow’s cheeks.

And Alina cried with her.

5. RETURN.

She burst out of the mirror, trembling, crying, but already different.

“Did you… see her pain?” The Face Master asked.

– Yes, – Alina whispered. “She’s not the enemy. She’s me… if no one loved me.

“Then you passed the first test,” said the Master. “You haven’t defeated the Shadow. You found out her name.

“What’s her name?” Alina asked.

– Forgotten,” he replied.

6. THE SECOND TRIAL: TO BECOME SOMEONE YOU HATE.

In the next lesson, the Master showed a new reflection – Absolute Evil in the form of Knox.

“Now become one,” he said.

“But he’s destroying worlds!” Alina exclaimed.

“Do you really believe he’s doing this out of joy?” The Master asked softly. – no. He does this because he no longer believes in the possibility of healing.

Alina clenched her fists… and remembered her father’s words:

“Even a broken watch can show the correct time.”

She stepped into the mirror.

And she became a Knox soaked in Darkness.

She felt:

• The weight of the Iron Throne;

• shame for every erased fate;

• despair that even the tears have turned black;

and a tiny spark, the one that cries in the dark when everything is silent.

Alina wanted to shout, “I’m here! I remember you!”

But the darkness drowned out the voice.

And yet… the spark did not go out.

Because Knox still remembered the lullaby.

7. A LESSON IN EMPATHY

When Alina returned, she did not talk about techniques.

She only said:

“Now I know how to save him.”

– How?” the Face Master asked.

“Not with a sword, – she replied. “Not with magic. A lullaby. The one his mother sang to him. Because even in the darkest vessel, the memory of life remains.

The Master nodded.

“Then you’re ready for the final challenge,” he said.

“Like what?” Alina asked.

– To become yourself,” he replied. “And accept that you have a shadow in you, too.”

THE END OF THE CHAPTER.

Alina did not sleep that night.

She stood at the mirror in her room and looked at her reflection.

White hair. The eyes are galaxies. The face of a girl who is still learning to be a hero.

And behind her, her own shadow.

Not an enemy. Not a mistake.

A part of herself that fears that her existence is a pain to others.

Alina put her palm on the glass.

“I won’t reject you,” she whispered. “I’ll take your hand and we’ll walk towards the light together.”

The mirror seemed to smile.

Somewhere on Mekhanos-9, Knox raised his head.

Somewhere in the Black Abyss, the Shadow of Fate stopped trembling.

Somewhere in the Aeternian Chrono-Heart throbbed quietly, but more confidently.

And in this great empathy, fear has ceased to be an enemy —

it has become a door through which you can enter the light.

Chapter 11. The Eleventh. TORN INTO THE LIGHT

“She didn’t kill them.

She brought them back to where they had stopped suffering.

To the dust. To silence. For a restful sleep.”

1. ATTACK FROM DAEMONIUM

After training in the Hall of Reflections, Alina was returning to the dormitory of the School of Light Paths when the sky above the Lotus Dimension… sobbed.

It didn’t scream.

It wasn’t split by lightning.

It sobbed, like a child who has seen a nightmare.

Rays of Evil crept out of the cracks in reality – not just shadows, but clusters of the distorted will of Absolute Evil, sent from the planet Daemonium.

The army of the Underworld followed them.:

• Two-headed chrono-eating snakes, whose jaws tear not flesh, but timelines;

• Werewolves are jackals that feed on the fear of death;

• Giants made of flesh and screams, forged from erased destinies.

They didn’t scream.

They were silent.

And in that silence, it sounded:

“Goodness is an illusion. Give up.”

The students fled. The teachers raised their shields.

But Alina stayed.

“You are not enemies,” she whispered. – You are a pain that no one has heard.

2. FIGHTING WITHOUT WEAPONS

One of the giants raised his hand – not to strike, but to erase it from the memory of the world.

Alina did not dodge.

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