Story Reader / Affection / Bianca: Stigmata / Story
Only when night comes do people see the stars shining in the galaxy above them.
The sun has to hide to reveal the countless, brighter stars glistening in the expanse of the universe.
Emerald light waves in the air like a dress weaved by the goddesses, dancing underneath the endless stars.
As you look up, the light particles that have wandered the universe for millions of years finally find the end of their journey, settling inside your pupils.
Between then and now is a distance that no one can ever travel in a lifetime.
And yet, a connection is made by the simple action of looking up.
On this rare, quiet night...
You feel like you can almost touch the mysterious light if you reach out.
I'm sorry for asking you to accompany me at this hour, Commandant.
A gentle, apologetic voice arrives from your side, drawing your gaze back from the stars.
Bianca stands by you on a broad snowfield. The heating device illuminates her face with a warm light, highlighting her eyes and the reflections of the starry sky in them.
Unlike the rest of the planet, the polar regions experience the midnight sun and polar night in different seasons because of their angles from the sun, when days and nights would last more than a day.
The research station Bianca and you have been assigned to happens to be situated at the edge of the Antarctic Circle, which is one of the few places in Antarctica where there is still a night sky in winter.
Although the night sky technically lasts five to six hours, the stars can only be observed in less than half of that time.
It seems that we haven't been able to have a night out the past few days, doesn't it?
You have been staying in Antarctica for the past two weeks. The transport craft is arriving any day now.
The restoration of Lanternlighter is also reaching the end. Another two weeks, and it will be back in sailing shape.
With that, the load on the Expedition Team has lightened. Their captain decides that Bianca and you can have some free time before you go.
And as the sky began to turn dark earlier tonight, Bianca came to you with a proposal.
You have driven to this empty highland in the middle of the night, away from the midnight sun, where you can go stargazing.
We're going back to Babylonia in three days, and the Expedition Captain hasn't assigned us any task.
I know we're only temporary members, but I still want to help them until the last possible second.
This isn't somewhere you can leave without regrets after staying a dozen days, after all.
Me too... A small regret, I must say.
Still, I think we... no—I've been very lucky already.
These two weeks have been the longest I've greeted people as someone other than the "Purifying Force Captain" ever since I enlisted.
It is as if I were a diver finally surfacing, taking off my mask and breathing fresh air for the first time in a long time.
Who knows what kind of trouble it would have caused me if it were my team who saw me slacking like this?
Which is why I'm glad it's been you by my side, Commandant.
Not to mention that it is quite a stretch for you to call what she has done the last few weeks "slacking."
I'm not displeased with my role—or I should say I'm glad I've joined the Purifying Force.
Some perspectives are only available to people in the Purifying Force.
Some objectives can only be achieved by the Purifying Force as well.
Fish in the deep sea sometimes chase after the sunlight beyond the water out of curiosity.
But that is just a momentary fantasy. In the end, fish belongs to the sea... My apologies. This might not be the best analogy.
Anyway... this place is but a dream to me.
I'll still be the Bianca from the Purifying Force after we return to Babylonia.
And you'll go on as the "Gray Raven Commandant", won't you?
But before that happens...
Let's give this dream a fitting end.
With that, Bianca gently closes her eyes.
Shh...
She answers your question with a hush sign, placing a finger on her lips.
It's about time...
Just a little longer.
As if drawn by the magic in her words, a line of pearl-white light tears the night sky apart in the horizon.
It is the end of the night and the prelude of dawn.
The twinkling stars are slowly wiped away by the dawning sun, and the dark curtains that have shrouded the sky lift to reveal the stage.
But right before night changes into day—
—at the brief moment when the stars and the dawn coexist—
Tiny glitters sprinkle across the sky where day and night merge.
Diamond-like sparks fill the air where your hand can easily reach.
The Expedition team told me that this could happen before sunrise, given today's temperature and humidity.
Water vapor in low altitudes freezes directly into tiny ice crystals in the air, refracting the sun like diamonds... I should stop explaining before I completely ruin the mood.
"Diamond dust"... It only happens for a few minutes as night becomes dawn.
Does this feel like a fitting end to our journey in Antarctica, Commandant?
Bianca's golden-colored pupils turn to you once again through the lustrous halo formed by the water vapor.
I probably wouldn't do something like this normally.
But please indulge me just for a little bit today.
There never was, and never will be, another sacred place like this that just belongs to you and me.
Another step from here, and we'll be back on our own paths. Who knows? We might even end up on opposite sides one day.
Just like the penguin we saw that day... we both have our own "iceberg" we wish to climb.
That isn't something we can give up, no matter the cost.
Still...
I can't help but want to keep a little place for you in my heart.
There will not be another memory like this, a shared path we started and ended—I've made that decision on my own.
This will be how I remember the light that accidentally enters the dark.
I won't apologize for it, even if this has caused you distress.
Bianca sounds stubborn. Unyielding.
To correct..?
You take out the camera you've been carrying for the past weeks.
You power it up and turn the knob.
You've been taking hundreds of photos with it in the last dozen days.
Most of them were taken when Bianca was with you, but some you took yourself when you went out alone.
Within one of these photos is something you've been hoping to share with Bianca—an answer you discovered during your Antarctic journey.
What's this...?
She takes the camera and looks at the photo on its tiny screen, and she is taken aback, just as you expected.
It's a photo of emperor penguins.
More accurately, it is a photo of a flock of emperor penguins slowly approaching a lone penguin on an icefield before uniting into one group.
The outlier and the crowd might have taken different paths, but it is the same "iceberg" they wanted to climb over.
This journey, therefore, does not consist of two parallel paths that will never cross.
To say that a commandant of the Task Force can understand a captain from the Purifying Force is an utterly pointless lie.
But still.
Even though the battlefields you are on cannot be farther away...
Even though you have to pretend to be strangers for now and treat each other with aloofness...
Even though your gazes will meet one day over what neither of you can back down from...
Even though there will be a time when your blades will be drawn to defend your beliefs...
You still believe—
In that future you are fighting for—that world you will spend your life upholding—
She will be waiting for you under the clear sky you have reclaimed.
...
Bianca falls silent after hearing what you said.
As always, your words will not let me off easily.
Our paths will certainly cross in the future.
You don't seem to think of it just as a wonderful fantasy.
How many people yearn for courage like this?
...What do I ever do with you.
She sighs, submitting to your surprising stubbornness.
By the way, Commandant—
Do you remember me saying that I had a more personal reason to ask you to join me on this mission back on the transport craft?
I probably would have made up some excuses if you pressed on back then.
The truth is, even I didn't understand where that conflict inside me stemmed from.
Even now... I cannot say I'm absolutely certain about what that reason is.
But I'm not afraid to say it now.
She takes a deep breath and puts her hands on her chest.
The truth is...
There isn't one.
By the time I realized it, I already handed in the application to the command center.
I took a long time trying to justify it.
My "excuse" might have convinced everyone else, but it couldn't convince me.
How peculiar... I've given up so many things so many times, but I could not give up on this.
But now, it doesn't really matter anymore.
That "reason" doesn't need to be something I must discover, right?
...
I'm sorry, Commandant.
I was still trying to hide from you, even now... trying to hide from myself.
I can't find a reason to be something I'm not, and I don't want to search for it anymore.
If I have to explain this whim...
There's only one thing I can say.
Just like what that famous explorer said to the summit he wanted to conquer—
It's because...
You're here.
With that, she sighs, breathing out white steam as her body visibly relaxes.
Ha... I've kept these thoughts hidden for so long, it's so freeing to have said them out loud.
She clears her throat before regaining her composure.
I'm sure there are things you want to say, Commandant.
But I hope you would do me the courtesy of remaining silent as you digest what I just said.
Right...
"Diamond dust"... is almost over.
Don't you want to take a photo on this rare occasion?
The moment when night and day meet is coming to an end, and the sun is about to rise.
Why?
Memories are not something you record with film or data.
Whether it is the sparkling diamond dust or Bianca's smile...
Heartfelt conversations, or surprising confessions...
You tap where your heart is.
Is that so...
You take a photo of the fleeting scene.
As you press the shutter, you begin to understand what Bianca said.
Not everything needs to be "commemorated."
The important moments, the unforgettable things...
Before you record them with some external devices...
You have already placed them safely in your heart.
You will not keep this camera forever.
Not to mention that memories are not something photos can fully capture.
You tap where your heart is.
The future...
Isn't that too reckless for you...?
Sunlight slowly stretches from the horizon.
Still, thank you... and...
It's a deal, Commandant.
