Finally, it was all over. Finally...

He supposed he should go tell them that he'd finished their task. All of them, still inside, their memories mingled, their hopes and fears...

He was the Final Emperor, something that had consumed him wholly and now-

Now, it was over.

He took no offerings with him; it felt too strange in some way.

Instead he stepped into the quiet, cool hall beneath the castle with only his thoughts.

There was an empty niche, one he would not occupy if he could help it. But perhaps if someone brought him back after he was gone... What would he know of it? He was the last.

Generations of skeletons, decorated and venerated, stretched before him.

"It's done," he said.

He'd finished their task and what had been the end of them all. Each skeleton was carefully wired into place with thin spun silver and gold, decorated with jewels that sparkled in the torchlight, resting.

Now they could truly rest.

"It's done," he said he walked farther.

Henrique still had his hat, along with gold and silver coins spilling over the bones of his fingers. Sapphires and emeralds clung to his skull like droplets of water.

"It's done."

Mariah still held her spear. Pearls fell in strings over her, wrapped around her arm bones, around her ribs... Aquamarines hung in a thick necklace, set in silver.

"It's done, it's done..."

He walked farther, reaching, touching old bone with both reverence and familiarity. He'd done this as Terry, paying respect to those who'd been Emperor before.

Terry now looked back at him with jasper eyes.

"It's done."

He paused before Souji, robes hung over armor over thin bones, fingers wrapped in gold and jade and moonstone. Someone had burned incense for him, the ash was there but the scent had faded.

"It's done."

Coppelia appeared no different than she had in life, though no tinkering would ever let her function again. She'd been Emperor; and then she hadn't. She deserved her resting place.

"It's done."

Sophia's niche was a grand display of tiny bits of glass mosaic, though Sophia herself was far more beautiful. Her fingers were covered grand rings set with amethyst and amber. Her skull sparkled with garnets and sapphires.

"It's done."

Farther, farther, until he found himself staring at two skeletons forever entwined, thin wire holding old bones perfectly in position. Gerard had dark emeralds set into his eye sockets and it was difficult to meet the torch-flicker that rested in them. The pieces of armor he still wore shone. The rubies and sapphires and pearls would have embarrassed him... Hector would have appreciated his own decoration, however. He'd never seen Gerard's skeleton; the tradition had begun after his death, when it had been decided that they'd be happier together.

Their hands were woven together with golden thread and their fingers decorated with matching rings. Hector still bore a shock of hair, though it was a wig. His damaged ribs had been replaced with gold. And--

"Hector, Gerard, it's done."

Only Leon rested in a tomb behind stone, beside his wife, beside his eldest son...

"It's done."

He stood in silence for a few moments longer.

And then the final emperor turned and walked away, towards the light of day and the world that was waiting.