#ignika

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Matoro's thoughts trailed away as he saw the light dim further within the chamber. Crystalline shapes, holding each other, formed a sort of rising half-circle atop which the Ignika sat, faintly pulsing.

Another quake rocked through his icy dome, fresh fractures having to be sealed rapidly with his elemental powers before the precious air escaped and he drowned.

Something was wrong. Karda Nui didn’t have this much water around the Codrex, and if this stalactite fell, then the others- If Matoro could swim to the surface, he could get the Matoran to safely, and then come back and-

Out of the corner of his eye, the mask pulsed weakly.

Matoro winced, facing the far-away sky and squeezing his eyes shut, as if to wake himself from a bad dream. He had been a Matoran just weeks before.

Don't ask me to make this choice. He pleaded. They need me. If I don't go, I'm letting everyone in Karda Nui die. But... if I leave-

"They all will die anyway," Jaller's words echoed in his mind. “You can’t save anyone if they don’t have a Universe to live in.”

Matoro opened the seal on the Chamber, the air warm and comforting as he stepped inside.

The Mask was a slightly different shape than when Jaller had carried it, and it even seemed to move as Matoro approached it.

He picked up the mask and moved to the other end of the Chamber, sitting down to complete the circle with the vaguely hand-shaped outcroppings set perfectly on his shoulders.

As if they were the whole of the universe resting upon him.

It was just his imagination, but he almost felt them… move, gripping him tighter. Reassuring him.

With a deep breath, Matoro put on the Mask of Life.

Far within the mangled machine-god corpse above, within the cold, flooded chamber of the Codrex, within the Ignition Core, and within the Ignika set upon a light-crystal that was once the body of a Toa of Ice, The Great Spirit breathed life into what remained of the Universe.

And the Great Spirit fell into a deep slumber.

And he dreamt of an Island far above.