Cough!
The outermost armor plates crack first, then fall away piece by piece like burnt husks.
Tavis stumbles a few steps, then sinks onto one knee.
It's time to wake up from your dream.
Standing before him, Helentine slowly lowers her buzzsaw.
She looks at her father without a word. Piece by piece, the failing suit peels back, and what remains is a man grown old, exhausted, and obstinate to the edge of tragedy.
Wait... [player name], Helentine... this thing won't stop!
Leia fumbles with the central terminal, but the data on the screen won't move.
No... there's no time. Everything's locked down!
Heh... what kind of researcher leaves himself a way out?
I've welded every bit of energy I pulled from the Sefirah into this city's bones.
So whether it's this city... or the Sefirah itself...
Neither one is stopping now.
A deep roar sounds from the hub. The city is making its final push toward land.
Once the Veil Rain falls... once I bring it all back...
Then everyone will understand.
Out at sea, the shadow of the colossal whale falls across the last line of defense.
It's less than fifty kilometers away from Constellia now.
The flame Crassus sparked is fading now, dulled by the long, punishing clash.
Hands swinging makeshift weapons grow slow. The casualties keep climbing.
Swathed in Red Tide, the city races toward the abyss.
One by one, the sparks that had just been kindled are swallowed back into the crimson glow.
At the heart of the battlefield, Helentine's eyes come to rest on the half-Sefirah.
Along its veins of light, the patterns of the Phylotree flicker and shift.
...
The Sefirah's authority...
Helentine mutters to herself.
I'll lend you what's left of my consciousness. Parts of me are already woven into your M.I.N.D. It won't be difficult to connect.
This part of me... which is still linked to the Sefirah...
Through it, you can... temporarily seize partial control of the Understanding Sefirah.
If this is something I can do...
Ophelia's parting words echo through her again.
If this is what you wanted... Ophelia.
What comes after... you'll have to do on your own.
I'm just someone left behind in the past, but you still have a future. Your own future.
My own future...
Go now, Helentine.
If this is what it costs to reach the future.
Helentine raises her buzzsaw and swings it down with force. The glass encasing the Sefirah shatters at once.
Shards rain down, exposing the half-Sefirah still pulsing inside, its light flickering unsteadily.
Helentine!
You don't know what you're touching!
The weight of the past—
I'll carry it.
She reaches out and presses her hand against the half-Sefirah, its light pulsing weakly.
A flood of information crashes into her M.I.N.D. like a dam breaking.
Every memory of her life. What she treasured. What she could not let go of. What she was too ashamed to talk about. What she could barely recall.
The city.
Every person beside her.
Faces she could never name, only glimpsed at the edge of her memory.
The temperature of a distant star collapsing.
A mother's hand.
A child's cry.
The boundaries of her M.I.N.D. are peeled back layer by layer, as if countless hands reach in from the depths, tearing at her memories, her senses, her emotions, her very existence.
The weight of the whole world presses down. She tries to push back, but the line between herself and someone else has already dissolved.
From the moment humanity first grasped the idea of "understanding," its boundaries have stretched ever outward.
From the simplest meals of daily life, to songs of courage and exaltation, and at last to the stars and the cosmos beyond.
"Understanding" is a mirror. In the world's noise and riot, it shows humanity its own reflection.
Once enough knowledge was gathered, understanding turned inward and finally came to rest on humanity itself.
Every collapsing star. Every echo of a civilization. Every distant thing beyond her ability to name.
In the end, what reflects back is only the seemingly endless cycle of ordinary human life on this planet.
Steam rising from a breakfast table in the morning. A slant of afternoon sunlight across a windowsill. Laughter scattered by a summer night's wind. A goodbye left unspoken at the moment of parting.
She "sees."
Her mother, humming a soft tune beside her ear and Ophelia's.
A melody she thought she had long since forgotten.
Then the funeral.
Her father, dry-eyed, looking at the photograph and looking and looking.
Then the battlefield soaked black with vital fluid and blood.
Grievances. Suffering. Defiance. Regret.
She has walked through so many places... and listened to so many voices.
You could've gone back for her! Why didn't you?!
Please... is there any more food? Just a little...
I have to go back... Her body's still out there!
No one cares if we live or die... No one!
I don't want to die... I...
I'll learn to be like you, and not trouble anyone...
These voices belong to billions of others, every one of them human, just as she is.
Billions of defiant cries, regrets, and agonies, all refracted through a single mirror and converging onto her alone.
Time breaks across her body. Past and future fracture into endless shards, and in every piece, a different memory plays at once.
I have my sister to thank... Through her, you already knew of me. But unlike the "price" you paid, it is only through this body that I can stand before you here.
...That is precisely our purpose. I paid the price to warn you, you as an overseer, that change is coming. You would do well to master the rules of this world through the Phylotree, and soon.
The crushing weight dismembers her consciousness, and she slowly drowns in the roaring chaos.
In a single instant, the full burden crashes down. Your nerves twist as if carved by blades.
Even breathing carries the acrid smell of something burning.
Every tremor in your muscles sends pain cascading through your entire body.
The young woman before you is enduring an agony beyond words.
Energy level abnormal.
WARNING! Sefirah energy level abnormal.
You...
The man struggles to stand, desperately trying to ready his battle suit's mounted weapons.
Not happening!
Binding straps lash out and twist around his arms, holding him fast where he stands.
The world feels submerged in scalding seawater, its edges softening, blurring, trembling apart.
Her consciousness is crammed past its limits, flooded with too much information.
Years of suffering buried inside this city stir like a tide churning sand, rising dark and murky once more.
She tries to speak, but every word and every sound escaping her throat belongs to someone else.
A mother's weeping.
A child's cry.
A name murmured by a dying soldier, one that will never be answered again.
The sound of tent flaps whipped by the wind in a refugee camp at night, and the silent trembling behind them.
I...
Who... am I...?
She feels herself breaking apart, piece by piece.
She is shattering into dust, into echoes, into the tears of strangers she has never met.
She reaches for the blue light hovering so close, almost within her grasp.
But her body no longer obeys.
Then a voice, faint but stubborn, cuts through the roaring tide from the farthest edge of her consciousness and finds her.
Helentine...
You don't have to bear everything alone.
She feels a gentle push from someone.
It's a blessing sent from the past.
She feels someone gently holding her.
It's a protection born from the present.
The blue light descends once more through the chaos.
Shaking, she stretches out her hand and seizes it by the thinnest margin.
But this single act drains what little consciousness she has left.
She staggers, on the verge of collapse.
From the furthest depths of her consciousness, a shape steps forward.
The one she knows most intimately and least of all. Her own self.
It's not the time to give up yet.
You're... who I used to be?
The figure from the past raises her head, offers a gentle smile, and lifts the half-Sefirah for her once more.
Not anymore.
I'm just the shadow you kept in your notebook. The past you couldn't look at straight on. The person you've been trying to become and running from all at once.
Helentine's gaze falls on those hands, the same as hers but steadier. Blue light seeps through the cracks of the Sefirah, casting both their silhouettes in flickering light.
Helentine... you don't need to chase me anymore.
You've already gone further than I ever did.
But I don't know if I can keep going...
I understand. Becoming Helentine is hard, isn't it?
But... don't feel lost, Helentine.
If the sorrow feels too heavy to bear alone, try to share the weight with others.
Ophelia's still with you. So are [player name], Leia, Wynne, Crassus...
And everyone in Port Podesta who's still waiting for tomorrow to come.
You also have me... I won't let you bear all of it alone...
Does sharing it really make it weigh less...?
You already know the answer, Helentine. Because you are me.
Helentine? gives a small, resigned smile.
Now let me stand with you, while you do what only you can do.
The road ahead may not have me on it, or Ophelia. And many more may say goodbye to you along the way.
But that's alright. I know you can walk it on your own.
So go, Helentine. Go face the reality that brings both pain and joy.
I...
The figure from the past slowly embraces her as she stands in the present.
The two silhouettes of Helentine merge with the blue threads of light, becoming one.
In this moment, the figure she once chased desperately, the past self she used as a measure for everything she did, is no longer a chain around her.
The young woman's hands close around the handle of her buzzsaw.
The living of Port Podesta.
The dead of Port Podesta.
Those whose names she still carries, and those she has already forgotten.
Those she brushed past, and those she could never hold on to.
All that understanding now settles onto the buzzsaw.
All that weight presses down in one direction.
Together...
Let's cut through this dream woven from the past!
The noise, grief, pain, and chaos that once burned through her have not disappeared.
But something has gently pushed them aside, clearing a path for her to step forward.
She opens her eyes and faces the bitter reality once more.
The young woman's M.I.N.D. still seethes, but she has taken hold of the half-Sefirah called Understanding.
Even as blue cracks spread like veins through the fractures in her frame.
"Understanding"...
She hears it now.
She hears the moments when countless names were written down.
All the goodbyes left unspoken.
All the tears swallowed alone.
All the sorrow piled up in silence.
But that can't be all you hear.
So she hears more.
She hears music drifting through a certain night.
The simple clink of ceramic and metal at mealtimes.
Countless moments of laughter and grumbling in everyday life.
Voices of people caring for each other, offering warmth and understanding.
Now this is...
...the humanity...
...you should understand.
That is what it means to be human.
Always suffering over farewells. Always looking back at things that can never be taken back.
But also, always finding happiness.
Remembering small, meaningless things. Feeling joy from simply eating something good. Gazing up at the stars on some ordinary night for no reason at all.
No matter what happens, people have to keep living.
Even if longing drifts through their days like a phantom dream...
Even if pain wraps around their lives like the tide...
As long as they are alive, sorrow and pain will slowly be diluted, inch by inch, by the small and tender moments of everyday life.
As long as they live on, carrying the responsibility to the dead.
They can always see tomorrow for those who are already gone.
As long as they live on, carrying the responsibility to the dead.
Human history will always carry everyone's longing and press forward.
For the first time, the Sefirah's pulse falters.
The blinding torrents of light, once wild and raging, suddenly freeze in place.
From deep within the blue glow, a voice she knows intimately reaches her.
Do you want to know... Helentine?'s future?
No. I'll see it for myself.
The road ahead won't be easy.
It's the road I chose. I'll find the answers myself.
█▅▄▄▆the cradle of all consciousness. But as life multiplied and diverged, █▆▄▇that once connected them to the roots.
The fruit will soon be ripe.
Helentine...!
A low, mournful cry rises from the whole of Port Podesta.
Go now, and "understand" who you are!
Stop... now!!
<color=000000ff>"Hear me, you who steer the helm of all mortals, and give to all holy time."
The chaotic torrents of light suddenly stall.
All of Port Podesta feels like it has been seized by something immense, and a long, low moan escapes the city.
The anomalous signals still radiating outward and the advance commands locked in place finally show clear deviation for the first time.
The "understanding" of death and life has been etched into that fading light.
The roar deep within her M.I.N.D. has not fully ceased, but the sensation of being torn apart finally begins to recede, slowly.
<color=000000ff>"But, O blessed one, I ask that you draw near to me for long stretches of life."
