Darkness consumed Reika's collapsing consciousness, the final, devastating words "You are not my mommy anymore" echoing in the void. But the psychic assault woven by Alyssara did not grant oblivion. As Reika's awareness fragmented, the focus of the divine puppeteer shifted seamlessly, drawing another soul into its meticulously crafted torment.

Rose opened her eyes. Not to the cold stone of the Kagu courtyard, not to the concerned faces of her family, but to a place both achingly familiar and fundamentally wrong. She stood in a vast, impossibly perfect glass conservatory. Sunlight, filtered to a precise, sterile luminescence, streamed through the flawless panes, illuminating rows upon rows of roses. Blue roses. But not her blue roses, the ones that held the scent of quiet comfort and honest growth. These were unnaturally vibrant, their color too deep, their petals arranged with a geometric precision that felt cold, calculated. The air was warm, humid, yet carried no scent of damp earth or living blossoms, only a faint, cloying sweetness, like artificial perfume. It was a perfect garden, and it felt utterly dead.

A figure moved among the unnerving blooms, tending to them with graceful, practiced hands that held silver pruning shears. Tall, elegant, radiating an aura of absolute, chilling control. Her mother.

Rose's breath caught in her throat, a knot of old fear and suffocating duty tightening in her chest. Her mother was dead. Rose herself had been the one… the one who had finally stopped her years ago, a desperate act of self-preservation against a suffocating, manipulative presence that sought to twist Rose's gift, her very essence, into a tool, a weapon. Yet here she stood, seemingly corporeal, radiating that same unnerving aura of command.

"Rose, darling," the projection of her mother said, her voice a melody laced with ice, not turning around. "Punctual as always. Though your energy feels… cluttered. Still clinging to those sentimental attachments, I see."

"You… you are not real," Rose whispered, her hands trembling slightly. Her Peak Radiant power felt sluggish here, muted, as if the sterile atmosphere itself dampened her connection to true life.

Her mother finally turned, a serene, knowing smile on her face. It was the smile Rose remembered from childhood, the one that always preceded a cutting remark disguised as loving guidance. "Real? What is real, child? Is the memory of my disappointment not real? Is the necessity of control not real?" She gestured with the shears towards a rose whose petals deviated slightly from perfection. With a single, precise snip, she removed the offending petal. "See? Order must be maintained. Sentimentality, empathy… these are weeds in the garden of power. They choke potential. True strength lies in utilizing life force efficiently, directing it, shaping it to one's will. Not coddling it."

The words echoed countless lectures from her past, the core of her mother's twisted philosophy. Alyssara's fantasy was not just showing her a ghost; it was forcing her to relive the ideological prison she had fought so hard to escape.

"That is not strength," Rose countered, forcing her voice to remain steady. "That is… violation. Life is meant to grow, to connect, not to be controlled."

Her mother laughed softly, a sound devoid of warmth. "Still so naive. You had the potential, Rose. The raw power. But you squandered it on… nurturing. On feelings." She took a step closer, her eyes sharp, analytical. "Though perhaps… perhaps killing me taught you something after all. A necessary pruning. You finally showed a spark of ruthlessness. A willingness to cut away what holds you back. Perhaps there is hope for you yet."

The deliberate twisting of her most traumatic memory, framing the act of desperate self-defense as an embrace of her mother's cruelty, struck Rose with nauseating force. Bile rose in her throat.

Before Rose could retort, another figure appeared beside her mother, materializing from the sterile sunlight. Arthur.

But not her Arthur. This projection wore his face, his form, but his eyes were cold, assessing, mirroring the calculating gaze of her mother. He looked Rose up and down, his expression one of faint disappointment.

"She is right, Rose," this false Arthur said, his voice lacking its usual warmth and resonant kindness. "Your sentimentality is a liability. In the battles to come, against foes like Alyssara, against the darkness gathering… we cannot afford weakness. We cannot afford hesitation born from misplaced empathy."

He gestured around the sterile conservatory. "Your mother, for all her flaws, understood the necessity of control. The efficient application of power. You possess a unique Gift, a connection to life itself. Stop treating it like a balm and start wielding it like the weapon it is meant to be." [cite: user prompt] His gaze hardened. "We need soldiers, Rose. Not gardeners. Shed this weakness. Embrace your mother's pragmatism. Become the potent force you were always capable of being. Stop clinging to these useless attachments and become the weapon we need you to be."

The words, coming from him, shattered Rose's defenses in a way her mother's never could. Her deepest fear – not just of her mother's influence, but of losing herself in Arthur's shadow, of her gentle nature being seen as inadequate in his world of gods and monsters – was laid bare. He saw her love, her nurturing spirit, not as a strength, but as a flaw to be corrected, a weakness hindering the war effort.

Tears welled in her eyes. The urge to please him, to be what he needed, warred violently with the core of her being. She felt her own life force stir within her, usually a warm, flowing river, now feeling constricted, pressured, tempted to sharpen itself into the cutting blades her mother had always envisioned, the weapon Arthur now seemed to demand. She could feel how to do it, how to twist vitality into a tool of control, of dominance. The knowledge felt inherent, a dark echo of her lineage.

Her mother smiled, sensing the internal conflict. "Yes, child. Let go. Become strong. Make him proud. Make me proud."

The false Arthur nodded in agreement, his cold eyes expectant.

Rose looked at the sterile, perfect blue roses surrounding her. She looked at the projection of her mother, radiating cold control. She looked at the projection of Arthur, demanding she sacrifice her essence to become a tool. And something within her, something deeper than fear, deeper than the desire to please, finally rebelled.

'No,' the single quote was a whisper of defiance in her soul. 'This isn't strength. This isn't Arthur. This isn't life.'

She closed her eyes, shutting out the suffocating perfection of the conservatory, the demanding gazes. She reached inward, past the fear, past the imposed narrative, searching for the feeling she knew to be true. She remembered the warmth of Stella's hand in hers, the chaotic, vibrant energy of a real forest, the feeling of sunlight on healthy soil, the quiet strength in Arthur's genuine smile when he looked at her, not a weapon. She focused on the simple, undeniable truth of growth, of connection, of life affirming itself, messy and imperfect and beautiful.

Her own Peak Radiant power, usually flowing outwards, turned inwards, suffusing her being with that core truth. It wasn't an attack against the illusion; it was an assertion of her fundamental nature.

She opened her eyes. The conservatory was still there, her mother and the false Arthur still watching. But at her feet, pushing defiantly through a hairline crack in the flawless, sterile floor, a single, tiny, ordinary green weed was unfurling its leaves towards the artificial light. It was small, insignificant, yet vibrantly, stubbornly alive. Real.

Rose stared at it, a tiny anchor in the suffocating sea of Alyssara's fantasy. The illusion hadn't shattered. The oppressive weight of the divine presence still pressed down. But a seed of resistance had been planted. Her own truth, small and vulnerable, was pushing back against the sterile perfection of the lie. The fight was far from over, but for the first time since being trapped, Rose felt the stirrings not of despair, but of hope.

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