Story Reader / Festival Event Story / Mercy in All Things / Story
Reconciliation Day
Hurry, follow me! Now!
This world's falling apart!
...Just one world destroyed—another one gone.
I'm
Ah... it's you again.
...Mm, of course it's you.
With Ishmael in your arms, you hack desperately through the herd, not stopping until the monsters' howls fade behind you. Finally, you find a sheltered spot to catch your breath.
The hemp ropes have chafed Ishmael's wrists and ankles raw, and the sight is so painful that you don't dare set her down.
My wrists...? It's of little consequence. This physical form... its condition is not something I dwell on.
Ishmael studies your expression, a silent war between explanation and uncertainty. After a weighted pause, her gaze drops to the scabs forming on her ankles.
...I see. You're "worried" about me.
She blinks slowly, a small habit you've come to recognize, where the pace of her blinking matches the speed of her thoughts.
Then, reaching her conclusion, she gives a soft nod and rests her forehead against your shoulder.
Yes. It does hurt.
She closes her eyes.
Pain never slows her thoughts, but exhaustion does—exhaustion from converging the threads of "guidance" from too many people. The effort has deepened the biomimetic shell on her chest to a crimson so intense it looks ready to bleed.
Ishmael nods slightly, her head still resting against your shoulder.
The port? What for?
Ishmael pauses for a moment, recalling those desperate, unanswered phone calls you made that night.
The ship tickets to Kerentos that Shorthalt bought for us... You actually took it to heart.
We've provoked the "world," and now it spirals toward collapse. Thebesia is not the only place transforming into a chaotic grimoire. Kerentos will be no different. Every person, every blade of grass... every fragment of existence will gradually crumble away.
There is no sanctuary left for us to escape to. And no path left to save it.
You returned here, against my warning. But have you truly considered the cost of failure...?
Ishmael wants to say more, but her words dissolve into a weary sigh.
...Thank you.
She raises her hand, pointing one last time to the magnificent glass tower overhead. The gaping hole torn through the tower's center by you remains starkly visible.
Let's go to the top of the tower. The place where we truly "met" for the first time.
I've converged most of the "guidance," but the gears were thrown into disarray. The tower is where I can complete the calibration.
This world was born from me. It's only right that I be the one to set its course again.
At the very least... I want Lesti to see her homeland again. For Etha's articles to finally make the headlines. For Raheleh's inventions to change people's lives, the way she always dreamed.
Ideals of war and love... they're too vast. Even in this world of my own making, they feel boundless, beyond my grasp.
All I can truly care for is this small corner of existence. And the few souls within it.
More importantly... You're with me.
Come with me. There is so much worth adjusting the gears for. We'll be safe up there, for a while. The tower is tall, and the monsters cannot reach us.
Pushing open the door to the tower's summit once more, you find its order utterly undone.
The symphony of gears has devolved into a screeching dissonance, the mechanisms fraying and fracturing at their core. Just as expected, the very law holding this world together is about to collapse.
You can put me down now.
Ishmael slips from your embrace and drifts into the heart of the mechanical forest.
Gently, she reaches out to guide a misaligned gear back into its place.
These are the paths of those three children... Now they're set right.
But in this world, you are their guardian. That is the "proper path" I designed for them.
Lucia, Lee, Liv... They will never know a life of hardship and displacement. Under your care, they will have a childhood. An education. A chance to grow up normally, far from the grasp of the military or any other armed faction.
They will become ordinary people. Happy people.
She turns and floats toward another gear, guiding it back to its proper alignment.
And these are the paths of Shorthalt and Valeria.
They will never be forced to abandon the ones they love. They won't be bound by duty as officers or soldiers. They will be free to enjoy the literature and art that can only bloom in peace... and live long, full lives.
These are the paths of Raheleh and Etha... my professor and my friend.
I don't know if they would have approved of this world I made for them... but for now, they seem happy. And that is enough.
The path of Ta·3T-class, the path of Lesti, the path of Si...
Ishmael sees each one as a gear. With careful hands, she coaxes them back toward their true axes, until they click into place, their teeth meshing to form a new order and structure.
And this... is yours.
At the heart of the space, the final gear turns in solitude, a colossal wheel whose circumference barely grazes the others.
Have you ever wondered what your life would have been like? Without the Punishing Virus, without the war... without the weight of being the Gray Raven Commandant?
I had a path designed for you, too. I thought you might have made a wonderful scholar. A quiet, leisurely life.
I could picture you walking to a lecture with books under your arm, challenging your professors, making friends on campus and in the town...
I imagined you exploring the world. Reading, enjoying clever games, writing articles that made people think... building complex arguments and debating them with passion...
My plan was to gently draw you closer to me, to my role as the "Pontiff". I was going to make a slight adjustment to your gear, just like all the others.
But I then discovered something. Even as a mere "gear," yours was different from everyone else's.
I could barely turn it.
Your freedom was... too vast. You are the only one who ever existed outside my guidance.
I didn't understand why. But before I could find an answer, everything began to fall apart.
You saw what happened. The "guidance" went out of control, triggering wars, assassinations... It seems even a simulated civilization is doomed to follow this inevitable curve.
So I intervened to retrieve the "guidance." I never expected the sandbox itself to resist me. And that... led to all of this.
It wasn't until the day of the "Pontiff's burial," when you told Shorthalt that all your efforts felt "futile," as if your path was being guided... that I finally understood.
The "guidance" power I had scattered... it had somehow pulled your true self inside this world.
...No wonder I could never control your path.
To your surprise, Ishmael's face softens into a smile of relief.
You are always that special variable, aren't you?
Ishmael gently pats your gear, concluding her calibration before floating back to you.
My initial plan was simple: retrieve the "guidance," no matter the cost. Even if it meant having myself burned to death. I created this sandbox; it was my responsibility to correct it.
But then you arrived. And these gears, these predetermined paths, began to turn freely around you. They created new stories I never could have written.
Thanks to you, this world's ending is filled with moments I will carry with me forever.
Ishmael finds a comfortable spot in your arms, floating closer and nestling against you.
The power has been retrieved now... so, shall we take one last look at this fading world, my kindhearted Gray Raven?
Just like when we watched the sunset together in Andymion.
But there is no beautiful Andymion sunset here. Outside the glass tower, the sun has gone mad. Its light trembles, a frantic beacon urging the monsters below to surge upward.
The illumination it casts is unnervingly clear, bleaching the sky into an abnormal, haunting blue.
Let's sit here, at the edge.
Into this strange panorama, Ishmael "leads" you to a vantage point with a view.
Now that you've seen the gears... you understand. I carried regrets for so many of you. That's why I created this "sandbox."
And it's not just here. I always find myself in these "positions"... these vantage points high above a world.
As a high priestess of some ancient tribe, as a Pontiff gazing down from a glass tower, as a Control Court member of Babylonia...
I wanted to be objective. Neutral. To observe every story from a distance.
...I'm sorry. It's easy to lose yourself in a beautiful dream. And I was no exception.
...Please, don't say I'm selfish...
Ishmael's voice floats weightlessly, as if about to fade away entirely.
Human civilization had you. People who fought, who changed their fate. But the Four-Winged White Raven... we lost so many, yet our ending never changed.
I escaped the heat death. I avoided despair. I stayed objective. I even let go of all strong emotion, drifting through the long river of time.
But watching your story... humanity's story... it stirred something in me I thought was gone.
You blink, unsure if your vision is blurred from fighting or if Ishmael's form is genuinely flickering into transparency.
But when you look closer, you see only the bowed head and hear the faint murmur of her speaking to herself.
I feel... so very lonely.
Her eyelashes seem to be bleaching white, those pale fronds fluttering, dissolving into a stark, white patch in your vision.
I've decided. This power cannot be allowed to run free again. I will contain it. Secure it. There will be no more incidents, no more chaos.
The pink-white blur draws closer. You feel the gentle pressure of her hands cupping your cheeks, drawing you toward her.
Please, let me be the first to say—
You seize Ishmael's hands in return, your gaze locking with hers, burning with determination.
……
Ishmael blinks, then breaks into a smile—radiant and bright, just like any truly happy person.
This world is chaotic, flawed... but because you were in it, I came to love it.
She rises from your arms and walks to the very edge of the sky.
Her eyes never leave yours as she leans back into the void—and falls.
I am a convergence of power that should not exist. To love me... is to let me go.
With her "guidance" fully converged, she once again becomes the world's true master.
A flock of birds spirals down from the tower peak, gathering around her. They circle in a silent homage, tenderly pecking at the hem of her garment.
I will dissolve into this world. I will become the sky, replace the sun and moon... become one with it all.
Goodbye. Though I know we'll meet again. And again. Just as you once told me:
"We don't say goodbye. Just do this for me."
We've watched the sunsets of Andymion together, and journeyed through the seams of time as one.
Together we've witnessed a nation's rise and fall, a planet's destruction, and the birth of a star.
...
After all that, what couldn't we look forward to?
But, well...
Next time, I'll just come to you as a bird.
She waves farewell to you as her dress hem tears asunder, dissolving into feathers.
Please remember me. Please...
She never intends to finish her sentence.
She plummets like a handful of cotton dissolving in the air, only to burst apart before she can land.
A fluttering of countless wings beats against your ears. From Ishmael's falling path, more and more birds pour forth until they swarm the sky, obscuring everything.
Then, in an instant, they disperse, revealing the heavens once more.
You take one last, deep breath, your consciousness beginning its return to the true world.
But you are held captive by this pink-white sky—a sky that is the very essence of Ishmael.
And there, most striking of all, are the two white marks: a white sun and a white moon, present together.
It feels as if, long ago, you had seen such a pair of eyes watching from the heavens.
The time and place are now lost to you, leaving only a single, indelible certainty...
The sun and moon twinkle, like a slow, deliberate blink.
This is her response.
One month later, at the highest vantage point in Constellia.
Following directions on your terminal, you enter a newly opened cafe run by mechanoids.
A pink silhouette is reflected in the window glass, almost merging with the rosy sunset outside.
Seeing her invited guest has arrived, she nods in acknowledgment.
I heard you were on a mission nearby. I thought I'd take the chance to see you. How have you been resting?
I've been watching. Your daily routine, your condition in the field... It all seems perfectly fine.
Ishmael smiles with relief, lowering her gaze as she stirs her drink with a teaspoon.
Coffee. With just enough milk, and precisely the right amount of sugar to reach maximum solubility. That's when the flavor is at its peak.
There's something in your eyes... You have something for me, don't you?
You reach into your pocket, pull out the paulownia wood die, and hold it before Ishmael's eyes.
The die is spotless. Not a single trace of blood remains.
Yet as your eyes meet, you both silently acknowledge everything that happened in that secret little world.
You should keep it. Consider it a little memento.
The teaspoon continues to stir, tracing a perfect arc across the surface of her coffee.
This isn't a mission. I don't simply anchor to random coordinates on a whim.
My being here is no accident... Read my thoughts, Gray Raven.
She sets down her teaspoon and leans slightly forward, close enough for you to count her lower eyelashes.
Did you hear that...? I came here for a reason.
A certain Gray Raven has been flying so freely across the world lately. Now my steps are fixed on a course.
She extends her index finger and traces a circle in the air before you.
If I were a gear, I suppose you've nearly become the axis I revolve around these past few weeks.
But it's good to see you're well. "Your feathers are preened, your spirit is soaring."
She studies your eyes for a moment, reading the wealth of unspoken answers there, then smiles and leans back against her chair.
The circle is complete. It's finished.
She pats the empty chair beside her.
This time, we can share the same view.
Not looking down from above, but truly immersed in this world's perspective... Thank you for showing it to me.
Come. Sit with me.
