And sometimes, late at night, Kikkuri would stare at his hands and wonder why the only thing that now made him smile was not power, but the sound of someone else's freedom.
"You see," Kikkuri said, caressing the feather, "time doesn't heal all wounds. But a timeless tickle? That wound never closes. That's my Eternal Kosukuri Fantasy. No begging. No escape. Just the soft, unending torment of the nerves."
Because Elara's laugh was alive . It rippled outward. Where it touched the frozen raindrops, they fell. Where it touched the silent bird, it sang. Where it touched the giant's bubble prison, the glass cracked.
"It was never a fantasy," Elara said, helping him up. "It was a prison. And you were its first inmate."
Kikkuri shrank. Without the feather, his fingers were just fingers. "No… my eternal fantasy…"
A faint, rhythmic skritch-skritch echoed from the Temple of Giggles.
She dropped her sword. She doubled over. A real laugh tore from her throat—not silent, not frozen. And that was the difference.
