The Dreamgate pulsed violently, like a heart under siege. Veins of light crawled across the cracked tiles, trying to stitch together the reality the narrative wanted—where Evelyn trembled, where Sera charged in alone, where Verena fell to temptation, where Beatrice never stepped into the light. But none of them were following the script anymore.

Verena stepped forward first, heels clicking with finality. Her gaze was steady, commanding, but not arrogant. She wasn't trying to dominate the story. She was asserting something simpler—control over herself. For too long, the narrative had tried to frame her as a temptress, a manipulator, a villainess just waiting to snap. But her eyes held no hunger now. Just intention. Just resolve.

"I'm not here to break this world," she said to the gate. "I'm here to fix it."

The Dreamgate flickered. A mirror surfaced from its core, revealing flickering visions of Verena's 'intended' story—she seducing the male lead, betraying the heroines, dying bitterly in Act Four. The real Verena raised her hand and crushed the vision with a single pulse of Eidos. The mirror cracked, and the gate howled.

Evelyn followed. Her posture was still shy, but something deeper had shifted. The woman who once apologized for breathing now walked with weight. Her balance magic steadied the area, dampening the Dreamgate's erratic pulses, harmonizing the dissonance trying to fracture their minds.

"I used to think being invisible was the safest way to exist," Evelyn murmured. "But silence only lets others write your story for you."

She stepped beside Verena, and the Dreamgate dimmed slightly, its illusions weakening under the pressure of their defiance.

Sera came next, arms crossed, her expression fierce. "Screw your plotlines. Screw the trope that says I need saving every time I trip. If I punch a goddamn monster in the jaw and break my arm, that's my decision."

A ripple of aggressive fire crackled around her. The Dreamgate tried to warp her with flashes of her 'role'—hotheaded, reckless, always needing a savior. But this time, she didn't rage against it. She acknowledged it. And then turned her back on it.

"Not gonna be your comic relief anymore," she said. "If I burn, I burn on my own terms."

Beatrice stepped lightly behind them, her gaze calm but penetrating. "You always made me a prize. A muse. The delicate one with the tragic arc."

The Dreamgate answered with music—sad notes of her past, her isolation, the countless scenes where she cried alone in the rain for a man who never saw her clearly.

Beatrice took out her violin.

And played a single, discordant note that shattered the melody.

"You forgot I compose," she whispered.

Her music spun like wind, reshaping the air around them, warping the illusions before they could form. In her presence, the story lost rhythm. And without rhythm, the plot couldn't continue.

Clarina didn't speak. She didn't need to. Her presence was a rebuke to the very idea of fate. The Dreamgate's illusions bounced off her like water on stone. Her sword was sheathed, but her silence was a sharper weapon. She stood beside them, tall and unyielding, the final piece in a circle of women the story had failed to break.

The Dreamgate screeched.

It tried one last illusion—projecting the 'perfect' scene: the heroines returning to their destined romances, the villainess begging forgiveness, the restoration of harmony as defined by clichés.

But the five of them stared it down.

And Evelyn took the final step.

Her balance magic reached into the heart of the gate—not to destroy it, but to recalibrate it. Her aura shimmered with soft white light, pulsing between harmony and defiance. A new law was being written, not in ink but in intention.

"Stories change," she said. "They have to."

And with that, the Dreamgate fractured—not into destruction, but into possibility. The mirror shards no longer reflected fixed paths, but infinite branches.

New choices.

New truths.

Verena turned toward her companions. Not followers. Not side characters. Equals.

"Ready?" she asked.

Sera cracked her knuckles again. "Always."

Beatrice smiled faintly, fingers still on her strings. Clarina gave a quiet nod. Evelyn exhaled and reached for Verena's hand.

The air shifted. The Dreamgate's remains glowed faintly behind them, no longer a threat, but a reminder.

They weren't here to play roles.

They were here to write new ones. Together.

They walked forward as one, stepping beyond the broken remnants of the Dreamgate. The Old Wing of Irasios warped around them, no longer pressing illusions upon their minds. The halls no longer whispered lies or tempted them with nostalgic delusions. It was still fractured, yes—but now the fractures ran along possibility, not fate. The academy groaned with age, but it wasn't dying. It was waiting.

Verena led the way, her hand still lightly brushing Evelyn's. Not possessively—just an anchor. Something real in the shifting landscape. The corridors twisted, reforming with each step, but they no longer fought against the group. Instead, they rippled with cautious curiosity, as if asking: What kind of story do you intend to build now?

Evelyn spoke first. "That wasn't the only Dreamgate, was it?"

"No," Verena replied. "Three heroines went missing. Three gates formed. We've just broken one."

Sera stretched her arms overhead and groaned. "Ugh. Great. Two more dreams to punch through. Do you think the next one will be as 'narratively challenging,' or can I just deck the damn thing in the face this time?"

Beatrice gave her a side glance. "Sera, subtlety is a kind of art, too. You don't have to pulverize metaphors."

Sera smirked. "No, but it's fun."

Clarina, who had remained silent until now, finally spoke. "The next gate will react differently. They'll adapt. The system behind them knows we've gone off-script."

"The system," Verena echoed. Her voice dropped an octave. "The narrative parasite."

She didn't say the name—but they all felt it: that thing watching from the cracks of causality, the force trying to overwrite their agency for something neater, safer, easier to consume. That thing that viewed characters not as people but as props.

Beatrice slowed her pace. "If that thing's using the heroines to rewrite the world, then the longer we wait..."

"The more their identities might fracture," Clarina finished.

Verena stopped. "Then we find the next gate. Immediately."

They moved again, more quickly now. Evelyn reached out with her Balance magic, attuning herself to the air, the weight of space, the flow of logic. She could feel it—the second anomaly. Not just a crack in the wall, but a wound in the world, echoing with the chaotic pull of another heroine caught in falsehood.

Sera's fingers twitched. "It's Sera Anverre, isn't it? She's next."

Verena looked back. "You mean the one who always acts like she doesn't need saving?"

Sera gave a bitter grin. "Yeah. She'll probably hate the idea that we're coming for her."

Beatrice's lips curved. "Then we don't 'save' her. We just remind her. Of who she is, and what she already chose before."

They reached the next hall. The architecture flickered again, like a memory trying to resist erasure. Bookshelves warped into castle ramparts. Lockers turned into iron prison doors. Moonlight filtered through impossible windows. This place wasn't designed like the last—there were no romantic illusions or mirrored ballrooms. This was grim.

The second Dreamgate stood in the center of the great atrium, half-buried in rubble. It bled red mist into the surroundings, shaping everything into a warzone. Flames licked the edges of reality, and echoes of battles that never truly happened resounded like thunder in their ears.

Evelyn stumbled, her balance faltering. "This one's louder. It's almost... angry."

Verena pulled her close. "It's a gate of conflict. The heroine inside isn't seduced by fantasy. She's fighting everyone."

Clarina stepped forward, her blade unsheathed now. "Then this is a battlefield."

They drew closer, and for the first time, the Dreamgate reacted before they touched it. It spoke.

"YOU LEFT ME."

The voice was ragged, fierce, and familiar. Sera's eyes widened. "That's her. That's... me?"

The gate flickered, and a figure emerged within the mist. Sera Anverre stood alone, bloodied, panting, gripping a broken sword. Her expression was wild, desperate. Her surroundings showed ruined comrades, collapsed towers, and unending war.

"Everyone left," the dream-Sera snarled. "I fought and fought and no one ever came. So I stopped waiting."

The real Sera stepped forward, jaw clenched.

"That's a lie," she said. "I was stubborn. But I never wanted to be alone. You just buried that truth because you thought being vulnerable was weakness."

The gate crackled. Dream-Sera lunged, and the battlefield surged with flame.

Verena grabbed Sera's shoulder. "We go in together. No one faces themselves alone."

And then, hand in hand, the five of them stepped into the burning dream.

Heat slammed into them like a wall. The air inside the dream was thick with ash and the coppery tang of blood. Explosions rocked the ground as phantom enemies clashed in endless cycles. At the center stood dream-Sera, eyes wild with grief and fury, blade raised high. The real Sera broke from the group, stepping into her counterpart's path without drawing her weapon. "You're not angry because they left," she said. "You're angry because you thought you had to fight everything alone." Dream-Sera's blade trembled. "Then prove me wrong," she spat. And with a scream, she charged.

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