Chapter 36: Where Roots Meet Rust
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Scene 1: Echoes of the Bloom
The sky bleeds green.
What once grew in silence now howls.
Jakku sits alone, face lit by a flickering memory shard of Reen — laughing. It hurts.
Gift watches the Bloombane splinter in his hand. It doesn't bleed. But he does.
Maiku dials in and out of static. One frequency keeps returning: a heartbeat.
Matthew (to no one, maybe God):
"We lost her... but not the war."
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Scene 2: The Crown and the Cage
Location: Root Core - Dream Chamber
Crown-Bloom floats.
Her body a monument. Her mind a maze.
Kenji claws inside her skull like a drowning man.
Reen flickers — a child among gods.
Root Avatar, towering in silence, stares down at her.
Root Avatar: "The garden you loved was always meant to be trimmed."
Petals peel back from her skin. Screams hide in the thorns.
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Scene 3: Maiku's Signal Reaches Someone
Deep in orbit, a rusted ship stirs.
A Cadet crew.
The message: distorted but undeniable. A cry.
They turn the ship toward the planet.
They whisper: "I thought this world was already dead."
Their name? Unknown.
But the old ones called them Ashroot.
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Scene 4: Jakku's Fracture
Inside a memory room made of glass and grief…
Jakku yells at a phantom.
Jakku: "Why'd you let it take you?"
Phantom Reen: "Why didn't you stop me?"
He presses a Bloom-burned hand to his chest — feels the itch of the merge calling.
One step from surrender.
Then…
Reen's memory (gentle, small): "You keep the rot from spreading, Jakku. That's who you are."
He breaks the mirror and calms himself down.
Jakku : "She would've wanted me to stop this. I don't know why she choose to merge but I'm going to save her no matter what."
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Scene 5: Root Ascending
The world screams in color.
Cities twist. Trees sprout wires. The ground opens like a mouth.
The human soldiers and Bloom now battle across continents.
And in the middle?
A man.
Half-stem, half-blossom.
Eyes hollow. Mouth wide. A Spliced Vessel.
It cries. And its cry shatters glass three miles away.
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Scene 6: Inside the Bloom Network
Gift volunteers.
He lies down. Connects. Breath slows. Heart syncs.
He falls into The Quiet — the last pure Bloom memory node.
There… she waits.
Reen. A thousand versions. All flickering.
She cries as she sees him.
Reen: "It hurts to be this many. Help me find the one that was just… me."
Gift reaches out. Plucks a glowing seed from her chest.
When he wakes, it's in his hand.
Still warm.
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Scene 7: The Squad Reunites… and Decides
They meet under the broken dome of Theta.
Guilt. Rage. Fear. But love, too. Still stubborn.
They shout.
Maiku: "We can't save her — we have to end her."
Gift: "I saw her. She's still in there."
Matthew: "I'll follow whichever of you doesn't lie to me."
Jakku: "…Then let's walk straight into hell."
Silence.
Then:
Together in unison:
"We go to the Root Core. We bring her home."
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Scene 8: The Unexpected Fight
The Root Core trembles.
Jiro arrives without a sound. No announcement. Just presence.
Crown-Bloom turns her head — curious.
Root Avatar nods once. Sends Stem-Born Jakku forward.
The copy leaps — roots shooting from his palms.
They wrap around Jiro's arms. But then…
They wither.
Jiro (smirking): "You forgot one thing. I'm the rumored Withered King."
Stem-Born Jakku howls — channels the Stem Axis within him.
The room warps. Bark splits. The two clash.
But it's not a battle. It's a reminder.
Jiro hits harder.
Faster.
Stem-Born Jakku starts running, not fighting. Using all his strength to dodge and block.
Root Avatar enters.
He forges a Thorn Blade from his own rib.
He drives the thorn blade through Jiro's chest. Jiro grins — no decay.
Root Avatar (confused): "You should have cracked."
Whips of bone, thorn and bloom shred the air. Jiro falls.
Breathing. But broken.
From the shadows — Irogi and Florin rush in, gloved, masked.
They take his body and vanish.
The Vault groans.
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Scene 9: The Bloom's Choice
Crown-Bloom stands alone atop a tower of writhing flora.
The stars overhead flicker. Some are not stars — but roots wrapping satellites.
Root Avatar watches from below.
Root Avatar: "Choose. Bloom or root. No in-between."
She closes her eyes.
Then opens them.
One glows green.
The other, faint blue.
She whispers
Reen : "Gift…"
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Final Line (Voiceover style):
"Before war, there must be betrayal. And before betrayal… choice."
Narrator (measured, almost reverent):
"In Chapter 36, the war speaks in tongues both old and blooming. The line between memory and flesh grows thin, and every heartbeat echoes like a drum in the dirt."
"Jakku grieves in shards, haunted by a laughter that no longer belongs to the living. Gift bleeds where the Bloombane refuses to, and Maiku, the signal-sifter, catches a pulse in the static — a lifeline disguised as noise."
"Deep within the Dream Chamber, the Crown-Bloom is neither god nor ghost. She is possibility. She is fracture. And Kenji, clawing through the chambers of her mind, seeks what none can name — redemption, or maybe just control."
"Old ships wake. Forgotten names like Ashroot crawl out of orbit's grave. Even rust remembers."
"Jakku's memory turns against him, but not all ghosts want to hurt you. Some remind you who you were before the bloom took root. And somewhere deep, something twisted rises: a Spliced Vessel, neither human nor Bloom — a scream walking."
"Gift enters The Quiet, where Reen is many but wants to be one. And from the pain of multiplicity, a seed of self is rescued — warm, still beating. A chance."
"The squad regathers beneath a sky that's broken in ways words can't patch. Guilt hisses. Fear barks. But love, love endures — stubborn and sharp. They don't agree. But they walk. Together."
"At the Root Core, battles are fought not with fists but with legacies. Jiro, the Withered King, crashes into prophecy like rot through bark. And even the Root Avatar hesitates — for something in this old king refuses to crack."
"In the final moment, Reen stands at the peak of her becoming. Half-Bloom, half-Root. The sky watches. The roots whisper. And she — fractured, powerful, human — whispers back."
"This chapter asks: Who do you become when you're no longer allowed to be just one thing? When your past begs for peace, but your future demands fury?"
"Where roots meet rust, memory meets revolution. And choice… becomes the deadliest bloom of all."