Ophelia's been away on a business trip these past few days. Which means most of the work she normally handles has fallen squarely onto my shoulders.
When work piles up like this, my mood inevitably takes a hit. It's even worse when there's no one around to talk to. The frustration just sits there, building.
Meeting after meeting. The conference room lights glare down with that harsh white glow. Water glasses get refilled, pages keep turning, and somehow it's always the same discussions circling round and round.
And the people at these meetings... I still can't put names to their faces.
The strange thing is, they all seem to know me. So I just play along. Nod at the right moments, flip through documents, offer a remark that sounds halfway intelligent. All while pretending I have any idea what's going on.
Yeah, I don't even get it, half the time I don't even know what I'm saying myself.
The meetings always drag on until evening. Only when night falls do I finally get a chance to tackle the paperwork that's been accumulating all day.
Without the faint music that usually drifts from Ophelia's room, the entire house feels unnaturally quiet.
Sometimes I'll be sitting at my desk, working through documents, and I'll catch myself pausing, instinctively listening for that sound that should be coming down the hall.
Things just don't feel right without it, and I can't seem to get used to it. Eventually, I dug out some old vinyl records and put on a few songs. I have no idea what any of them are about, but at least it settles my nerves a little.
Also, the macarons in the fridge have been disappearing at an alarming rate while Ophelia's been gone.
Maybe I've just been stress eating. Or maybe it's because Ophelia isn't here to restock them anymore.
She bought a full six boxes before she left. Now there are only two left, and I'm actually starting to wonder if I should ration them.
As for our father... the same as always. Barely home.
With him and Ophelia both away, I've at least saved myself the trouble of cooking and washing dishes. One perk of this Construct body: no need to bother with all those tedious human routines. Convenient, really.
Things should feel easier now. But for some reason, I just feel kind of... lonely. Restless, even. Makes me want to find something, anything, to keep myself busy.
Late at night, with the house entirely to myself, I finally had time to poke through every corner of my room.
My room isn't very big, and to anyone else it probably looks perfectly tidy. But that's a BIG lie. Open any of the cabinets and you'll find absolute chaos inside.
Data cables with all manner of connectors, hopelessly tangled with silk hair ties. Photos from an old film camera, scattered across the shelves.
There's also a single earring in my drawer. I have no idea how it got there. Just the one. I've looked everywhere for its match, but it's long gone.
Right, the photos. Most of them are from my volunteer work at F.O.S. Standard documentation shots, me standing basically the same way in every single one. I'm not sure why I even kept them.
I had short hair back then, so I wouldn't have needed hair ties myself. Those tangled ones in the cabinet were probably meant for Ophelia.
The few remaining photos, though, are personal.
Birthday celebration at a cafe. Adelyde and me accepting our awards at the simulation competition. Dozens of graduation day group shots.
Some of them have curled edges now, worn and a little rough at the corners. Maybe from being viewed too often back then. Or maybe they've just been shoved in there for too long.
A loyalty card from a drink shop near F.O.S., all slots stamped but never turned in for the reward. A little pack of tissues from... whenever that was.
Helentine was never good at keeping things organized. That's one habit I'd rather not pick up from her. Better to keep things tidy at home.
But then, looking at those old photos of Adelyde from our student days, it struck me... On a boring night like this, I could just talk to her!
So I reached for my terminal.
Adelyde.
There was a second of silence on the other end of the terminal, followed by the sound of pages turning.
Helentine.
What is it?
Ophelia's away on business, and Father's not home.
"I just wanted to talk with a friend tonight..."
Was it too much to ask? The words nearly left her lips, but she swallowed them back. The sound of pages turning across the line told her Adelyde had other things to attend to.
If it were the old Helentine, what would she have said to Adelyde...
I'm here.
The voice on the other end gently pulled her back from her memories.
I'm sorting through some F.O.S. materials at the moment.
So you're going?
I'm still thinking.
But probably yes.
...I see.
How's your injury?
Well enough to handle paperwork. Which is good enough.
She paused.
Helentine.
Mm?
The voice on the other end of the terminal hesitated for a few seconds without responding.
I was at the hospital today. I saw Ophelia.
...Ophelia?
She was in a hurry. Didn't stop to talk. She didn't look well.
That can't be. She said she was out of town. Reconstruction talks.
On the other end of the line, the rustling of papers grew slower.
Then she didn't want you to know.
...I'll go to the hospital tomorrow. I want to see her.
The sound of turning pages slowed, each one taking longer than the last, until finally there was only silence.
Helio?
...It might rain tomorrow. Take an umbrella.
And be careful on the way.
Perhaps she had a premonition. Looking back, she had been unusually insistent that day, offering more words of caution than usual.
But that was something Helentine would only come to realize much, much later.
Medical Center
Early Morning
How long did the double vision last?
...About two hours.
A thin, strained smile crossed Ophelia's face.
Tavis paged through the examination report, his eyes settling on the spikes that shouldn't have been there.
Move the interface down three vertebrae from C7...
A tranquilizer gradient at 0.7 suppresses too deep. If we switch to a tiered protocol instead...
His fingers drummed rapidly against the desk, unconscious and restless. He was no longer looking at Ophelia.
Father.
Time... How much time do I have?
Father!
Tavis raised his head in a daze, his eyes threaded with red. For once, his typically neat hair was a mess.
You didn't sleep again last night.
Ophelia, I'll find a way—
Saving her was never just your decision. We made it together.
Tavis gave no answer. He simply gazed at his daughter, his face empty.
His desk had grown crowded over the last few days, papers stacked high and every blank space filled with his frantic handwriting.
He had been hunting for something he could believe in, some solution he could rely on. But he had turned every page, read every study, and still found no way to reassure himself.
If we leave it in, this "proxy calculation" device... how long do I have?
The unit's activity is climbing too fast... Two months... Could be even less.
Then there's nothing to hesitate over.
...
I've watched you my whole life and seen your every step and every breakthrough. I know what you're capable of.
I trust you.
Tavis hesitated, his lips parting then pressing shut.
He understood that saying yes meant binding himself to a promise.
And the last thing he ever wanted to do was make a promise he might not be able to keep.
Is there anything you want to tell me, Ophelia? ...Anything at all.
I don't regret this. Not one bit.
I want Helentine to live. A long, healthy life.
Tavis fell silent at his daughter's smile.
But I want the same for you, Ophelia.
A tightness seized his throat.
All his life, he had offered conclusions where feelings should have been, plans where others might have pleaded. But standing here now, he realized how pitifully few words he truly had.
...Go get ready. I'll be with you soon.
Ophelia closed the door behind her. Tavis stared blankly at the photograph on his desk.
It was taken the day his two daughters graduated from F.O.S. Despite how busy he was with work, he had still made time to be there.
In the photo, his two daughters wore their F.O.S. military uniforms, their faces still young and bright with smiles as they stood beside him.
In the Golden Age, he had believed with absolute certainty that humanity's triumphs would one day overcome every uncertainty, every unknown.
And yet, here he was.
Arius, this "humanity" you claim to save... does it include the ones who died this time? Does it include my daughter?
Do they... have a place in your grand vision?
This door is too narrow, Arius.
Tavis placed the photograph facedown on his desk.
Private Operating Room
Port Podesta
Commencing removal of the proxy calculation unit.
Scalpel.
The instrument was placed in his hand, cold and silver. Above, the surgical lamp burned with a white intensity that erased all shadows and all warmth.
The monitor kept its beat, almost cruelly steady.
Inside Ophelia's abdomen, the auxiliary processor lay embedded, the unit that linked to the "Understanding" Sefirah.
And down the length of her back, a spine of iron had been set, bolted from the seventh vertebra downward. Each segment was pinned with rust-colored rivets driven deep between bone and flesh.
Vital signs stable. Sefirah activity within threshold.
Beginning incision. Neural mapping synchronized.
First layer separation.
The tip of the scalpel met its mark. The cut was steady, deliberate, no faltering in the hand that guided it. On the monitor, the parameters wavered briefly before steadying once more.
Fluctuation normal. Sefirah activity... rising slightly.
Pushing tranquilizer. Have the energy suppressor ready.
Tavis' throat moved as he swallowed quietly.
Sefirah activity continuing to rise.
...Push another dose.
Preparing for unit separation.
Still climbing...
Continue.
Activity still rising. Approaching safety threshold.
We should stop, Dr. Tavis.
...
Just as he hesitated, the monitoring panel blazed to life with urgent red pulses.
......
D-Dr. Tavis! The energy is backflowing!
Cut the connection! Now!
In an instant, blue light erupted from the Sefirah, devouring everything in sight.
I'm Helentine Spelmin. Is there a patient named Ophelia here? I'm her family.
Ophelia? Let me check...
...?
From the corridor's end burst a torrent of blazing blue, rushing forward like a wave.
It came with a howl. A beam of uncanny light shot through the building, rippling outward in rings that swallowed every color in their path.
Dock Loading Zone
Everyone? Not just security, the whole damn factory? What about the shipment? I'm still not healed up...
B-Boss, over there!
Shouts broke loose across the docks. Crassus seized his terminal and moved to the window.
A column of azure light was climbing into the sky.
In the direction of the city, fragments of buildings swept around the beam like fallen leaves, churning and spreading like a gathering storm.
The hell is that? Did the ******* dam blow again?
Sirens wailed over the city. High above the streets, Crassus watched as convoy after convoy of military and police vehicles surged onto the highway, speeding toward the unfolding chaos.
He swept his eyes across the scene. Then, after a brief pause, he reached for his terminal.
...How many people do you need from the docks?
At the disaster's core, under the beam's blue glow, motion simply stopped. The living were suspended in an instant that stretched toward eternity.
Then came the cracks slashing across the hospital walls. Around the frozen crowd, the blue light began crystallizing one bubble after another.
They gleamed with strange colors. Inside each one, another world flickered, dissolving and reforming in endless succession.
They coiled together in a spiral, these iridescent bubbles, spinning into a labyrinth of fractured, overlapping realities.
What... How did I...?
She stretched her fingers wide. The numbness of surgery was gone, as if it had never been.
From the shimmering bubbles, ribbons of blue light unfurled and spiraled around her in a slow, ghostly dance.
A sinister voice called out to her.
Eat them. It's all yours. This is your feast.
She caught Ophelia's wrist and laced their fingers together, then stretched her hand into the drifting light.
Something unraveled inside her. Her mind scattered into a thousand threads, each one finer than thought, weaving outward along hidden veins in all directions.
And then came darkness, and an absolute, unbroken silence.
Where... am I?
To make you understand yourself, we must return to where the shadow was first born.
The lights came on, and with them the sound of a man weeping, his cries filling the room.
Ophelia could still recall her mother's hollow features, lying there in the hospital bed.
Tavis... come closer...
Helentine... Ophelia... you too... come here.
Ophelia hid behind her sister, too afraid to step forward.
She had a bad feeling about it all.
She only felt the coldness of the lights. Her mother reached out a hand... and it was cold, too.
...
Stella... how can this be...?
Tavis...
Please... do something for me...
Teach them... how to love someone...
And teach them... how to say goodbye to the ones they love...
I've never... learned it myself... and neither have you...
But... they will need to learn it someday.
At last, Ophelia brought her little cheek to rest against her mother's hand.
She was too young to know what death was. She couldn't understand why the room was full of tears.
She just felt that when her mother was sick and everyone was crying, this must be the right thing to do.
I'd never seen Father like this... so broken.
It was the first time, and the last.
That helplessness planted itself inside him, like a seed taking root in the dampest corner of his heart.
On the night of Ophelia's sixth birthday, her mother was diagnosed with diffuse midline glioma. The doctor told her father the tumor had already spread through her entire spinal cord. By then, surgery was too late.
He believed none of this had to happen. If only he had paid closer attention to what was right in front of him.
So he threw away his scientific ideals and sank himself into the swamp of "practical" work.
But unfortunately, mistakes and regrets had a way of finding him. They followed him everywhere.
Have you ever realized it? Somewhere along the way, you became his tool to settle old debts.
No, that's not true. He's just trying to do better. That's what Mother asked of him.
Is that so?
With a mocking sneer, the shadow gave a snap of her fingers.
Afternoon sunlight fell in long, angled shafts from the tall windows, settling over the heavy bookcases and the dark wooden desk.
Papers were spread across it, anchored by a fountain pen. Tavis' glasses sat nearby, just taken off.
Before the desk, a girl stood small and still, her eyes already reddening.
Your grade this time... it's still a B, Ophelia.
A B isn't... good enough?
You know the standard I hold you to.
Tavis laid the report card flat. His tone never rose, yet it wounded more than any harsh word could have.
It's not that you aren't capable.
During the derivation of the final problem, you stopped at the fourth step.
You always fall just short of the mark...
You've seen your sister's grades yourself.
Ophelia's fingers twisted into the fabric of her sleeves.
Father, I think...
Helentine reached from behind and wrapped her fingers softly around her sister's shaking hand.
...What does my sister have to do with this?
Because she can do it, I have to be exactly like her?
I've told you this many times, Ophelia.
The Spelmin family's motto is "Vision beyond all. Duty above all." For centuries, it was a matter of blood. Now, it stands as something greater. A reminder that we are meant to go further than the rest.
The Atlantic Eye's monument is carved with the names of its designers, its overseers, and those who gave their lives for it.
Trade routes are named for pioneers. Theorems carry the names of their discoverers. Cities remember the people who shaped them.
I don't want either of you standing in the shadow of the age, watching greatness from the sidelines.
What's so wrong with being ordinary...?
You bear the name Spelmin. I expect you to rise above that. To stand higher than the rest.
This is also what your mother wanted, before she...
Then let the world remember Helentine's name! Just remember hers, and leave me alone for the rest of my life!
She tore her hand from Helentine's grip and fled the study.
The door slammed shut with a heavy, resonant thud.
Then everything went quiet. Only the clock on the wall kept on, unhurried, as if nothing had happened at all.
Father...
He let out a soft sigh.
Let her go.
Stella's daughter... would never be this fragile.
The room dimmed, the lights receding into a low gloom. In the center, the shadow and her master stood together again.
So this is your entire life story, as the shadow of your mother and sister. And here's the thing: no one can sympathize with someone who's ordinary, someone who runs away. That's what you are at home, right?
...What exactly do you want from me?
You and Helentine both owe your lives to a piece of technology called the "Understanding" Sefirah. Funny thing is, that same thing caused the Atlantic Calamity.
The proxy calculation device inside you is linking to it now. And your father is ignoring every risk and trying to forcibly remove it. As a result, a small accident is happening in Port Podesta right now.
I don't even know what a Sefirah is... But putting that aside, are you saying my surgery is going to destroy Port Podesta?
Hardly. The device inside you is just a pale copy. At most, it'll cost those people their lives.
With a wave of her hand, the window filled with the image of the ruined medical center. Bodies drifted among the debris, held aloft by tendrils of blue foam that reached out like umbilical cords, wrapping tight around their limbs.
The device is inside us. Let the accident run its course, and you'll have the happiness you've always longed for.
Spare me the theatrics. I don't need anyone to hand me my happiness.
Ophelia reached toward the shadow, but the space beneath her feet warped and stretched like a kaleidoscope.
You of all people should understand me. Just look.
The past rippled outward, like water disturbed by a stone, its waves reaching into every stilled future.
Out of infinite moments, infinite decisions, infinite versions of herself were born.
Each one moved forward, unshaken, walking the path her convictions had laid.
"She" had once dreamed of becoming someone as reliable as her father.
Professor Ophelia...
She was at the podium, delivering her latest findings on the M.I.N.D.
The students below watched her intently, their eyes full of passion.
Just as she once did in her youth—admiring, thinking, questioning.
She listened attentively to the young seekers of knowledge.
Just as her father once did.
"She" had once wanted to stay at F.O.S.
When applying nanomaterials to vacuum insulation panels, you must consider...
The fresh faces before her were full of dreams for the future, just as she and her sister had been.
Isn't this what you wanted?
No...!
Whoever I might have become, I would never let you do this...
Is that really true?
Her fingers nearly touched that other version of herself when countless shadows came, rushing at her like a black tide. They tore at her shape and drove her backward.
Where... where is... everyone?
Dad... Helentine...
The wandering shadows seized her.
Please... just... answer me...
No—no, no...!
The shadows from the sea of blood seized her.
If I could've saved Cassie back then... and talked you out of it...
Would things be different now?
The shadows of reality seized her.
AARGHH!
Like brambles of light, the blue tendrils wrapped around her, ripping into skin and muscle with searing, unbearable pain.
Your mind's a mess anyway... Might as well give it to me.
Get away...
...from me!
She thrashed her arm, but the thorns of light carved away a strip of flesh. Before she could recover, two more blue tendrils swept in and lashed her down harder.
At least... I'd be more honest about who I am. Hehe.
The blue tendrils kept coming, winding tighter and tighter. Ophelia gasped for air as her sight dimmed at the edges.
Then, through a sliver of vanishing light, she saw another figure, thrashing and straining just like her, throwing herself forward with everything she had.
Ophe... lia...!
Time stood still. A Construct she knew well shattered through every barrier in its path and stretched a hand toward her, down where she was sinking into the deep.
Ophelia—!
O—PHE—LIA—?
Pasta's ready. If you don't come down soon, it's going to get all clumpy.
She went to Ophelia's room first and knocked on the door.
I'm coming in?
Only silence met her at the door. She stepped inside. The bed was made with care, the curtains drawn halfway. On the desk lay an open workbook and a pen someone had forgotten to cap. Ophelia was not there.
She tried the terrace, only to find it empty as well.
O—PHE—LIA—? Dinner's ready. Dad already left.
She checked the little reception room at the end of the second floor. It was also empty.
The piano room door was slightly open. She nudged it wider and looked in. A sheet draped the piano, and the chairs sat in tidy, vacant rows. No sign of her.
At last, she came to the storage room and paused.
The door was not quite closed, just a thin crack of darkness showing through. Helentine eased it open.
The smell of damp wood and old cardboard rose to meet her.
The storage room was crowded with forgotten things: dress boxes, discarded decorations, odds and ends left to gather dust. Light fell from a high window, catching the slow drift of dust motes in the air.
Behind the pile of boxes, just as she had suspected, was Ophelia.
She had made herself very small. Her head was buried in her arms, and her shoulders shook in uneven, silent waves. The red ribbon in her hair had slipped halfway loose, hanging beside her neck like a dying flame.
Her body shuddered with each breath. In the stillness, every sniffle echoed clearly.
Ophelia.
What...
Dinner.
Go eat by yourself. I'm not hungry.
When she looked up, her eyes were swollen and red, her voice too thick with tears to hide.
The pasta's already done.
Now you've even taken over the cooking around here.
It's not like that. Pasta's the only thing I know how to make, and if you leave it too long, it gets all clumpy.
Then just throw it out!
She hid her face in her arms again, and when she spoke, the words were thick and prickly, as if she were determined to sound ungrateful.
Slowly, Helentine lowered herself to a crouch before her.
If I hadn't come looking for you, would you have stayed here all day?
Why do you care? It's not like anyone cares about me anyway.
I do. I'll feel worried.
What's there to worry about? You don't even know what I'm feeling... You're perfect at everything. Just go eat by yourself. Go talk to Dad about your perfect grades by yourself.
I'm not as great as you think I am.
You always say that!
Ophelia looked up. The tears came faster now.
Why... why are you so good at everything?
Why am I always just a little bit behind?
I've been working really hard too...
Why does everyone always compare me to you?
Do you have any idea how much I hate that?
This is as far as I can go! What else am I supposed to do?!
Ophelia...
...I thought if I took on more, you wouldn't have to carry so much.
If you do everything for me, then what's left?
You took it all! I'm the one with nothing left! You can handle everything just fine on your own!
It's not what you think, Ophelia... Like things with Dad, and things around the house.
I figured you wouldn't enjoy all that boring stuff, so I wanted to handle more of it. It's really the only thing I'm any good at.
All I can do is try to get things done as well as I can and not cause anyone more trouble.
The sound of Ophelia's sobs went on, filling the quiet room.
But the more I tried to help, the worse you seemed to feel... I don't really understand why.
Honestly, I don't like dealing with all that stuff either.
Sob... You're lying.
Stop crying, okay? Here, take a tissue. Wipe your eyes.
Helentine handed her the tissue.
I don't like how Dad's been either. And I don't like everything that's going on at home.
And I'm not good at everything. Your cooking's way better than mine, for one.
What Dad thinks is good or bad... it doesn't really mean anything.
There are so many other people in the world besides him!
But Dad always praises you.
Other people can praise you too. The kids in our class all love the snacks you make, don't they?
There are tens of thousands of people in this world. You have to believe someone out there will appreciate you, like you, understand you, respect you, and want to spend their life with you.
...But where are they?
I'm one of them, and I'm right here with you.
...Helentine?
Helentine reached out and softly dried the tears from her sister's cheek.
You don't need everyone's approval. You just need to be yourself.
I keep trying to prove myself. Trying to show everyone, show Dad, that I'm worth something. But I can never seem to find my way...
Then... let's make a promise.
A promise?
Yeah. We promise that no matter where you go, Ophelia, I will find you. And I will keep you safe.
...I don't want you just staying by my side. You're so talented. You should be out there protecting everyone.
Alright then. I'll protect you, Ophelia, and everyone else too. Is that our promise?
...Yeah. That's our promise.
So no more tears, okay?
Ophelia understood then that this was the vow Helentine would carry with her to the very end.
Of course I do...
I made a promise, didn't I? I said I'd protect all of you!
I'm sorry, Ophelia.
There are still people who need me... This is something I have to do.
Ophe... lia!!
Tch, what a pain!
Inside that dim blue void, Helentine could barely move. Thin strands pulled at her from every direction, and chunks of wreckage hammered against her, draining what little strength she had left.
...If I destroy that device, I can save everyone, right?
With a violent surge, she tore loose from the bindings and seized the scalpel off the table.
Then open your eyes and watch. What I want was never some weepy little trip down memory lane...
What are you doing?! Stop it!
I've never, NEVER wanted anything but to be better than the person I was before!
The scalpel bit deep, parting flesh. From the wound spilled not blood but shimmering, iridescent light.
Video: v4.6动态漫
As the procedure advanced, the Sefirah energy bled outward, then quieted as Ophelia's consciousness slipped away.
Whether the disturbance itself had been weak, or the suppressor had simply functioned as intended, the outcome was the same. No large-scale catastrophe followed.
Parts of the medical center were compromised, but the damage was nothing like what had been seen in the Atlantic Calamity.
The entire event lasted sixteen minutes. Its radius stretched ten kilometers from the medical center.
Those within that radius recalled it only as a dream. A strange one that made it impossible to describe with any clarity.
But time had unraveled entirely for the young woman bound to the "Understanding" Sefirah.
She saw herself. Countless versions of herself, each standing at a crossroads of fate.
One fought shoulder to shoulder with Adelyde.
Another walked forward beside a commandant she knew well.
Yet another fell with the world, swallowed by its ruin.
In every world, despair found her. And in every life, she refused to stop.
Perhaps all of her selves understood the same truth: the world could not be saved by one or two hands alone.
But still she believed that every person had something irreplaceable to give.
She and her sister had always shared this conviction.
Out of infinite chance, the actions born from that shared conviction became the only inevitability she could grasp.
Ophelia searched the futures, and in every one, red consumed the horizon, devouring all that might have been.
Fate's threads wove themselves into a vast, sorrowful music. Ophelia could only listen and sigh.
She watched herself die in a thousand different ways, and with her, her sister, her father, every friend, every love, every face she had ever known across every life.
And yet, in every story, each version of her had tried. She had gathered what little hope remained and bent it into a thin blade of light, pressing it against the dark.
The red tide thickened into blood and spun itself into a crimson cobweb.
She hesitated. Should she even peer into the "future"? If ruin was certain, every action became meaningless.
Yet if the future were only randomness, then action and consequence held no meaning either.
In the end, humans were creatures who acted on conviction alone.
Ophelia decided to step into her world once more.
What kind of ending awaited it?
What future would unfold for those she loved, once she was no longer there?
Even if it ended in ruin... she wanted to see that end with her own eyes.
Gently, she slipped free of the knotted threads and drew aside the last veil that hid her world from view.
She saw her sister's future.
She was on a battlefield; she was thinking; she was standing before the corpse of the universe.
She saw her father.
He's in Port Podesta; in pain; in sorrow; in the dead of night.
She saw Port Podesta.
It was bleak, silent, and decrepit.
And at the end of every thread, a nameless red thing lay coiled, waiting. It pulled her mind into the deep.
A hand.
A hand woven from crimson nerve fibers and hetero-crystal clusters reached out from the Red Tide and gently rested atop her head.
Then everything began collapsing. The bizarre and flickering visions drew inward, spiraling toward a single point.
The whale named Port Podesta. The sycamore trees at F.O.S. Her sister's silhouette. Her father's reports.
All of it was pulled inward, crushed together, and fused.
Until they hardened into something small and strange. Something she did not recognize.
A "Sefirah".
And beside it stood a Construct who was familiar as a heartbeat, though they had never once met.
Lucia... are you here to take my misery?
You've already seen how this ends for you, haven't you?
I have... but I think it's a good ending.
Even knowing you'll face death and endure the long wait?
I saw it. Far in the future, we'll meet again. In some new way, but we will.
With my sister, with you, or with that █Raven █mandant.
It'll take time. Whether it's inside my sister's consciousness, or inside the Sefirah...
Every ending comes at a cost.
I know.
Let me bear my own. And let me... carry some for you too, Lucia. It's all I can do.
I'll wait for that day inside "her" consciousness. And when it comes, let's sit down and really talk.
In that future we both want.
You ████, ███tree█.
█every world███████choose███.
Ophelia took in every word.
It was an invitation, an inquiry.
And also a soft, distant sympathy that seemed to travel across impossible distances to reach her.
Ophelia's eyes lit up for a moment.
Thank you for coming to tell me this, Lucia.
Ophelia looked back.
Countless versions of herself smiled even in death, gazing up at the multitude of stars as if the truth of all things were written at the edge of the universe.
One after another, they fell. And with each fall, they laid down a road into the unknown.
A thousand choices flashed through her mind.
But the answer had already formed inside her, long ago.
She knew her decision.
The same decision every version of her, in every world, would make.
I'll see you again in the near future, Lucia.
She gave Alpha a nod. Then she turned her back on the way she had come and began to walk.
Through the rain of Port Podesta. Across the grounds of F.O.S. Past the figure of her father. Beyond the skull of the whale.
The world's weight did not burden her steps.
That weight would be borne aloft by the rising song of every living soul.
She had made her choice.
The door creaked open, its groan joining the chorus of fate.
And in that endless music, Ophelia believed her life could change something.
Just like her sister.
This was her only chance.
If, at the end of her life, she could change something for herself, for life, for the world, for the universe.
Even if it was just a gear turning one notch forward.
Even if time erased her name from memory.
Even if the rain fell again tomorrow.
I have to go now, Lucia.
Are you going to say goodbye?
Yeah. A proper one this time.
Once again, the words her mother had spoken long ago returned to Ophelia.
"And teach them... how to say goodbye to the ones they love..."
...
The door closed softly.
And the light trapped in the prism, and those worlds spun fine as silk—
They began to gather now, all at once.
Every vision streamed toward a single point, like innumerable rivers surrendering to the same vast sea.
The young woman chose to take up the weight of the future.
What might have been, she entrusted to the living, though her name would soon be lost to breath and memory.
Her goodbye, she pressed into that single moment, though the future would carry no trace of her voice.
Her regrets, she let fall behind her, though the world of understanding might never understand her.
And then she walked forward through the door.
To end the disturbance of Understanding. To guard the "future" she still believed in.
She surrendered her consciousness to the Sefirah. She chose death and goodbye.
