✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦

「Against the nightly winds blowing latently to the eye, the weightless breaths tried gently pushing into the coat Sora had given me to wear. He was resting himself on the rails as his whole physique almost seemed to disappear from sight. Mysteriously, as if his fine silhouette was blending in with the darker surroundings, all but for the albedo’s bezel on his apparel rotating radially as I walked up closer to the railings and entrusting my weight onto it, facing the polar opposite direction towards Hyde Park.」

“Sonia, when you look up to the stars, what do you see?”

「An abstract question came flying my way. I wondered, how should I respond?」

“Is this some sort of riddle?”

“Nope, it’s a genuine question.”

「Even if you just said that outright, it doesn’t make it any easier to answer...」

“I’d like to say a river of stars, glittering in the lights of the world but that's contradictory. All I see are fiery balls of plasma, heated to millions of degrees and scattered about the universe. That’s all there really is to be seen, mostly. What kind of answer were you expecting?”

“Nothing in particular. Constellations were just one of the other things I had in mind.”

「Constellations huh? That’s a pretty standard thought… although, isn’t that...?」

“Ah! Summer's Triangle!”

“No way, seriously? Where??”

「I pointed out my index finger to the west, up to where all three of the stars in the night sky made up the triangular asterism of the tristar formation.」

“Over there's Deneb, then Altair and Vega, I think. What a surprise, despite it being winter.”

“Ohh... I never knew you could see them even in winter as well. You learn something new every day huh?”

“It's my first time seeing them outside of anime.”

“Phew, thank god I'm not the only one.”

「Oh my. Or should I say ‘ara~ ara~’?? There’s a first time for anything it seems.」

“Poor Orihime. To be separated from each other a distance as far out as the farthest reaches of the galaxy. Hey Sora, do you think they might be separated for another year? Orihime and Hikoboshi?”

“Well I don’t know. Did it rain on Tanabata1?”

“It rained today.”

“Today's not the seventh day of the seventh month! There's literally no connection between them.”

“Pfff... Hahaha!! Of course not! It was just a random thought that made no sense. Like something that sounds correct at first glance but very wrong when you check through it again. Like answering questions in exams light-heartedly. But do you think the two would ever be able to escape their fate?”

“They could. If they truly wanted to, the star-crossed lovers could have left everything behind for their own happiness. But that would also mean sacrificing the desires of others.”

“Isn't that just fine? I wonder why they didn’t, when their love towards each other was more important than the blind greed of others. They could have eloped to another galaxy if they wanted.”

「However irresponsible that may be, love shouldn’t yield to the whims of someone else.」

“The annual star-crossing festival would no longer be if that happened. And somehow, no one ever seems to care about how only once a year they get to see each other again, while spending the rest of the year continuously working. That's just a scam, no matter how you see it.”

“It is just an old legend. In ancient tales, there’s not much to be said about presentism. If that’s their decision, then so be it. If it means not cutting their lives short by trying to take their freedom into their own hands, maybe getting to see each other once a year isn’t so bad but if it was me, I'd be fed up with such a tragic love story. Either go all the way and not give a damn about what anyone else thinks, or commit a lover’s suicide to put an end to this farce.”

“Then wouldn’t everyone else be saddened by your deaths?”

“Either that sadness teaches them what our pain felt the hard way or they don’t care. The Heavenly King acts as if their daughter had a miserable life being single, finds her a suitor and marries them, only to have double standards and separate them seeing their passion? So what if they ignore their responsibilities? The Weaving Princess isn't a damn tool. Then when she pleads to her father and is moved by her tears, he allows them to see each other once a year? What an unreasonable bastard. They should’ve started throwing hands and committed regicide right then and there. What sort of unentitled father does that? And you can’t just give the excuse of being a ruler. Looking out for your daughter's happiness only to do the opposite? What the genuine fuck is that? When you take a closer look, it really is just a legend. A stupid fallacy.”

“...”

「I completely snapped.

My eyes had lost their colour, remembering something from a long time ago. I shouldn’t have said what I said. Maybe I didn’t realise it myself, but halfway through my tirade, my emotions unconsciously flew out in a turbulent deluge… I couldn’t hold it back.」

“I’m sorry. Just flipped a little there.”

“Nnn... Not at all.”

「He held my hand. So easily.

I could feel his warmth through our palms – fingers locked and intertwined. My heart leapt up in my chest, as if it was about to burst out my ribcage.

You can’t be telling me this sensation was phantasmal?

Hot, agitating pain swelled up in my throat. I wanted to scream out in joy and frustration. But no, I couldn’t.」

“You can let it all out if you want.”

“I-idiot… I’m perfectly fine…”

“You’re really bad at lying, you know?”

“Nnn… I’m telling you, I’m alright!! Hic–”

“…”

「Ahhhh… how embarrassing.

My own tear glands betrayed me. The corner of my eyes glistened like sapphire jewels and fell down in confluences.

I hate it. I hate it. I hate it.

I hate it I hate it I hate it I hate it I hate it I hate it.

I just can’t seem to forget.」

“…”

「Yet again.

I’m relying on Sora. He’s always been there when I needed someone the most. It was him and Yuki who pulled my miserable self out from a cage of darkness the world had enclosed me within. A once-hideous past of self-hatred, self-loathing, self-deprecation.

And in his arms, he held me close. As if shielding me from the contempt of my own misfortune.

And in silence, the night whistled.

For a few seconds, I tried to regain myself. Regain my calm. Regain my composure.」

“But when you take a closer look huh? What purpose would there have been for them if they never got to see each other again? If the long years built up each time and the magpies could never bring them across the Amanogawa, for their whole lives, it would be continuously raining. But it’s always been that way, hasn’t it?”

“Always has been. For centuries.”

“What would they do then? But if we asked that, it’d be more like we're looking into reality to answer the most widely disputed topic of all time: the purpose of life.”

“Ahaha… this is getting deep and philosophical real quick... I suppose they might look for some other reason to keep living. People don’t go looking for reasons to die, to not die or to not live. They look for reasons to be alive. If that changes, everything else goes downhill.”

“Like the summer of 2016?”

“2016 was such a lit year!! Yeah, maybe something like it.”

「Thank goodness. It returned. The colour in Sonia’s voice.

It should remain that way. A past you can’t deal with, you might as well suppress it. Just like what myself and Yuki did. The past is the past. And you should just let it be.」

“Think about it. What is it that our existences are meant to accomplish? There really isn’t a true, clear-cut definition to it. Therefore, all we can do in this finite world of ours is do what we can. Then why does reality exist? What comes out of existence?”

“Little planets sometimes form from leftover stardust debris, then more stars form, and die, making dwarf stars, neutron stars or even black holes. If they’re old enough, galaxies could form, then clusters, then filaments and it keeps scaling up, bigger and bigger. You could say it’s all a one-way ride to the end of time without any real meaning. It’s just up to humans to come up with meanings to explain the idiosyncrasies of nature. But nature doesn’t have a reason to abide by a purpose. It keeps going on towards eternity and beyond. Then when and where does the universe end? Some might say when all lights in the universe are snuffed, others would say it’d continue expanding at the edge forever, but how would they know? Is that really all there is to the universe? Is there ever an end to the Evening of the Seventh?”

“It could go on till Andromeda merges with the Milky Way. If humans could ever see that far, then one day they might know the answer. But beyond that, is there a reason for being? If you knew every little thing that's left to comprehend, what do you do after that? You'd just be left with a clueless civilisation. What would Kardashev Type 5 civilisation even look like?”

“I wonder? There'd be so much uncertainty about advanced galactic empires and whatnot. They’d be playing in a creative mode of their own. Or like a certain sandbox where you could smash stellar objects together.”

「Even though I'm the one saying it to Sora, just the thought would easily make human blood run cold if it was possible for one to ever witness something that shattered your sense of reality. Heck, even that gloomy ambience from earlier was completely gone! Haha!」

“Damn, that'd be scary. Crushing together entire solar systems just for fun like scoring a strike in a game of bowling. Can’t even imagine what'd be like if such a civilisation got serious and wiped out the universe.”

“Ohhhhh? That'd be cool too. Witnessing the world come to an end. What if everything just reset like in some sort of game? If you 100% reality, you clear the game and somehow something happens like a special event. Or... maybe not. That's too unrealistic.”

“Some people out there really believe that life could just be a simulation of some kind. Physics is the engine, the universe is the world stage, humans are the players. The graphics are stunning, the plot is–“

“Life has plot?”

"It always had plot. Terrible pacing and and it's on hardcore mode all the way to the end. Terrible endgame most of the time as well.”

「I sigh. Like, give me some credit. Doesn’t that just sound oh-so tedious? Everyone does it anyway. It’s a unidirectional rollercoaster to the epilogue.」

“What a bland-sounding game. An MMO that all people would play. Imagine taking millions of years to finish a game…”

“Well, it’s a game where you don’t even know how much progress you're even making, nor how to even make that progress, so you just mess around till you die of boredom. Oh hey, there it is. The solution is just to repeat the process.”

“Wait, isn’t this all assuming that we're playing only one game?”

“I'm sure only one true reality exists. And that's what we all experience first hand.”

“Even then, you'd eventually get tired of having to clear all sorts of objectives. Start again from scratch with all the things you know, and speed running it will get repetitive. If you could just forget your first playthrough, the same feeling of exhilaration could be experienced every time, although if you're playing the game of life, you'd be trying to clear objectives you didn’t even know existed.”

「That way you don’t get bored all the way till the end of the game. But my god, I would never touch such a tedious game.」

“Humans would just come up with their own aims, goals and aspirations themselves. Ways to satisfy their mind to let their clock of life tick away till death. Time is limited for the living, but not for the world.”

“Is time really unlimited for even the world? We know there'll definitely come a time when life on Earth will be gone billions of years in the future, even if we don’t live long enough to see it. There are things humans will know of without needing real verification.”

“Speaking of time, there'd be plenty of it if we just rewind it.”

“True time travel just reeks of causality-breaking tachyons. In fact, fate would be a mess if there were different timelines when we know only one reality exists right? According to you...”

“U-unnn... Guess having multiple timelines can’t be it. But you can have different saved files, right?”

“You can have different consoles playing different games, right?”

「Damn, that sounds harsh. Although I’m the one saying it. Teehee.」

“If time was reserved, there'd be no way to find out for sure. Time symmetry is the one other fundamental geometry of nature that just can’t seem to be broken, because everything flows in one direction. You can’t interpret something ahead in time if it doesn’t exist yet. If it does and you're back in time, then that simply means you're gone further in time to a place before the future happens. If tachyons did just that, then causality wouldn’t make a raindrops bit of sense in the vast oceans of physics. Boom, multiple corrupt save files on the same game.”

“So no tachyonic antitelephones?”

“No microwave time machines either.”

「How disappointing right? Come on reality, can’t things be more fun to break?」

“How about warp drive? Without something like Element Zero, that just isn’t going to happen....”

“Hahah, how would you even go about making negative mass? That'd be like asking for the collapse of thermodynamics. Negative gravity for negative spacetime needed in warp drives. That's something only seen in the inflation of the universe, where space expands.”

“Ahh yea, dark energy. Influencing reality and the whole universe, right?”

“Don’t get me started with magic. Haven’t we been talking about all sorts of ridiculous philosophies since a while ago?”

“When have we not been 'talking about ridiculous philosophies'?”

“Haaahh...We might as well be talking about aliens then.”

“The good old Fermi's Paradox. Could you imagine there being another lifeform of intelligence out there in the universe?”

“Yeah, a very seclusive race. But that’s assuming they are as technologically advanced as us or even more developed. I mean, there's been plenty of time for life to form in many other places outside the Solar System and even before the Solar System emerged. In that case, then it would mean that at present, humanity is the only race that has gotten far enough to use technology to gaze out into the cosmos for as far as we can observe.”

“Then we can rule out any other lifeforms that happened to evolve in Earth-like exoplanets.”

“The only way there could be others like us is for life to be born beyond the threshold that light could have travelled to us to be detectable for all of time. Because then, we wouldn’t know of their existence because we can’t see that far back in time. Ah! That's another thing you can see when you look up at the night sky right?”

“Oh right, sure is. An alien civilisation that escapes our eyes and from the past. How crazy would it be if we were under their control without even knowing it?”

“Uhuh... One where they can freely use dark energy to exert their power on the plane of reality.”

“And we're trapped in some cage by a façade of our knowledge and everything beyond that cage is distorted by dark energy?”

“Dark matter galaxies could be the limit for us then?”

「Let’s keep this going and see how much more we can fantasize.」

“Like Dragonfly-44 in the Coma Cluster!”

“Or HVC 127-41-330.”

“Or even HE0450-2958!”

「Why do we know all this? The answer's simple – because we have no life.」

“They could mess around with the universe all they want then. After all, if you have dark energy, you have influence over the physical universe.”

“That'd explain why Hubble’s Constant is constantly changing. What if we were right about there being aliens beyond our perception who are so superior that they're messing with the outside, even beyond the edge of the universe? Where there are new laws of physics that might exist. Somewhere nothing is known of.”

“Humans wouldn’t be able to hold a candle to them. The only way we could if we started our migration into an interstellar civilisation.”

“Before that, we need to have a way to travel without constraints if we want to swim among the stars.”

“Aaaaaand that forms part of the reason why we're going to ANTARES right? To find out what exactly neutrinos do to spacetime for some clue to the puzzle.”

“Yep! I'm thinking that we could use CERN’s newly built FCC to produce results that could help find a solution to this. Sending neutrinos through the colliders is now possible thanks to the electroweak theory. At CERN, they're finally able to take advantage of weak force interactions and put them into practical use for experimentation.”

“I heard they completed it in November, only 2 months after they decided to push forward with the quantum facilities upgrade plan on September the 30th. They sure have a versatile workforce over there.”

“If neutrinos really do have multi-dimensional properties on such a small scale, I'm sure their quantum entangled laser interferometers might detect some change in its entangled states or any shift in the laser’s path by any gravitational distortions caused by some dimensional shaking or collapse.”

“A dimensional collision? I doubt a little wobble in the entangled states of quarks from gravitational waves will be sensitive enough to pick up these dimensional fluctuations by strings, if they even exist…”

“Wanna try it out then, like a test run demo of it before using the bona fide accelerators from here?”

“How...? Like hacking into CERN with an IBM 5100?2 That'd be realistically impossible, no matter how you spun the facts. Are those legacy machines still in circulation? I’d be surprised if that was the case. Without quantum technology, it’s not possible.”

“China even claimed that they managed to achieve quantum supremacy at the start of the month. And it might be possible that CERN already has their hands on such technology.”

“I doubt it. All they did was come up with a new algorithm with gaussian boson sampling. Sure, it can cut down the time taken for calculations at quantum speeds, but that’s it. Nothing useful or scalable as of yet. And so, it cannot be called quantum supremacy from what’s been done.”

“Ohhh… But isn’t that what quantum supremacy is though?”

“I mean it in a broader sense than just singular specialisation. Something like how the University of Copenhagen’s Niels Bohr Institute and University of Bochum had joined with Google to proliferate quantum processing chips. Scaling up quantum technology is within reach and thus it’s described as a ‘quantum advantage’.”

“Either way, that still means that for these quantum qubits, it’s easier for them to generate random numbers. More random numbers, the stronger the encryption I’m assuming. Then that means hacking into cloud computing services reinforced by quantum encryption. You up for it?”

“I don’t think I might be able to do it on my PC alone if they have quantum-enhanced security. It’d be impossible to get past the sort of otherworldly quantum encryption that such technology could offer, even after a billion years. Heck, quantum technology might even pose a potential threat to the widely-used RSA encryption algorithm.”

“What’s this RSA algorithm…?”

“A method of modern encryption. Besides, quantum physics has loads of caveats to harnessing its prowess. And taking that into consideration, it would be no joke – tampering with high-energy particle accelerators without much of a clue on what you are doing exactly – just for curiosity’s sake. It's just not worth the risk.”

“Fufu~, well I was just joking either way. But they are going to carry out the testing of neutrino collisions in experiments starting tomorrow with their integration of said quantum technology.”

“Wait, they're actually going ahead and conducting the experiment tomorrow?!?”

“Yep, that’s the plan! Or at least half.”

“That's completely ridiculo...us?”

「Abruptly, Sora's phone went off with a duet of vibrations, sonorously humming through his pocket. Taking out his device, he opened the message he received before turning it off.」

“Yuki said she wants to return your phone. Should we get going then?”

“Yeah we should. It’s probably gotten a little late and we need to rest for tomorrow. By the way, what’s the time?”

“1938 hours.”

“No one ever tells the time in that format….”

“Well guess what? I do. Oh, and Yuki's cool with tagging along to the Franco-Swiss border. And just a heads up, she’s gonna be extra suspicious of you as well. Huehue…”

“That makes sense. After all, I've lost all her trust but boy was it worth it! And I know you’re being sarcastic.”

“For what? The sake of science?”

“For curiosity’s sake!”

“You've got some extreme sense of entertainment... And we're here happily going along with the flow. We're no different I suppose.”

“Eh? You don’t mind how hectic things get when I'm around?”

“Nope, in fact I welcome it. Dunno about Yuki though. Getting into dangerous situations is all about the thrill. And getting a pair of passports stolen and exploited from someone close is a bit lukewarm for taste.”

“Yet you two were freaking out a moment ago. Hy~po~crite~.”

“N-no... you're c-completely wrong. I mean who wouldn’t be surprised? The adrenaline just got to our heads. That's all. Like you said, it’s like answering an exam question without looking twice.”

“Whaaaat? How does that even relate?”

“We both knew how hazardous it would be if our identities were exposed. So what’s why we freaked out. But now looking back, it really wasn’t necessary cuz the perpetrator was you.”

“You make it sound like I was some serious threat before completely dismissing it cuz of my existence! How cruel. I wouldn’t do anything too drastic, you know?”

“That's why I said lukewarm ✩.”

“Then next time, I'll come up with something even more deranged ✩.”

「HAHAHA! I bet he's sweating buckets right now! Way to dig your own grave.」

“W-well let’s head back, wouldn’t want Yuki to change her mind once more...”

✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦

“Here's your fully cleaned, sanitised phone, Nee-san.”

“?!”

「Ahhh!!! My eyes!!! It's too pure! Too bright! Too shiny!

What's this?!?! It looks like a brand-new phone taken right out the box! What happened to my phone during my short absence???

I was shaking on the spot…」

“Y-yuki-san... just what on Earth did you do to it?”

“Oh, nothing much ✩.”

「LIES!! That's a lie, no matter from what angle I look at it! She definitely did something!」

“Hahhh... Well, I'll be on my way then. See you two tomorrow in the morning by 4! Make sure to get up by then!”

“Umu... Later!”

「Exiting their apartment with my clothes in a bag, I was still wearing what was originally Sora's to wear at home. Fufufu... maybe I should just keep it? Oh well ~ I can always return them tomorrow.

Riding the elevator fitted perpendicular to the sets of stairs in the lobby, I descended 5 floors and disembarked from the platform out onto the landing before returning back to my apartment. Inserting my keys into the hole and turning it clockwise, the lock came undone and I could enter my flat.

Leaving my plimsolls on the shoe rack, I had to wash my dirtied exercise outfit. Walking to my own bathroom, I recklessly shoved the clothes into the washer dryer and let it do its thing. Directing my way to my room and exerting whatever strength I had remaining, I changed out of Sora's borrowed clothes for my own.

Just in case, I powered on my computer and logged in. Opening up the operating system's file explorer and opening a certain folder, it was empty.

...

Empty.

So, Yuki somehow managed to break in, not only into my condo but my PC as well, and permanently deleted the photocopies. Should've expected this much. She's probably also erased all my online copies too, as I happened to check them as well.

But this time, I've got the edge! I have three backup USB storage drives, two that are always on me and one I've got in my drawer, which has probably been altered. Loaded on each of them were their passports.

Connecting one of my two other drives, another window popped up which was for the universal serial bus.

Inside the drive, the backup images were perfectly safe.

Now, time to–

Uhh?

It's... gone...?

It’s gone.

I swear on my life it was there, but the number of files on the drive decreased by one as well in the bottom left corner of the window...

There's no way.

Through the application menu, I ran the antivirus software and scanned my whole hard drive and what came up was an executable called Eraser.exe.

Removed.

I don’t have the courage nor the energy to try my luck a second time. I really wanted to just drop dead since I was oscitant and overwhelmed by drowsiness. The bed. I... needed... to sleep.

Powering off my PC, I laid down on the bed, sinking into my mattress like lead in water. Trapping myself in a sensation among the clouds and by a bonfire, I was sound asleep in no time.」

•❅─────⋅☾✦☽⋅─────❅•

M4F5M96UB97(L(')E;65M8F5R+"!T:&[email protected]

M[email protected]2!S:&%L;"!A=V%I="!T:&]S92!W:&@9&5L87DL('5P;[email protected]

M=&AE('!R;VQO;F=I;F[email protected]%[email protected]=&AE('5N[email protected];[email protected]

29&5S=&EN>2!I;B!D:7-M87DN`

「...

Lights.

Chandeliers.

Tables.

Walls.

Stairs.

A scene of utmost decadence spread around me like the insides of a palace. It was as if a banquet was being held to celebrate some special, auspicious event. No, that’s exactly what it was. But I wouldn’t have known that though. Halls hiking up the walls decorated in tapestries of unknown ornaments to my young self. Silver chandeliers of scintillating stars – or were they platinum, I wondered – were anchored above everyone’s heads which to the eyes, they appeared as upside down lilies floating all over the ceiling and even the candelabras situated atop the white-clothed tables were blooming with tiny, flickering flames.

The foreground was filled with men and women adorned in suits and dresses for the banquet as they spent their time chattering away and moving about. Conversations drowning out the elegant music playing in the background – that which I could not hear at all among the cacophony of laughter and voices.

The drifting aroma of delicacies prepared by world-class chefs were etched in many places with desserts among towers of iced vanilla cakes, cupped luxury gelato snowflakes, parfaits, and drinks, platters of grilled meat on the bone garnished in herbs, saturated with salads and cuisine from all around the globe.

There was so much going on and yet nothing really entered my mind as I shut out everything from my thoughts, engrossed with the vermillion carpets leading up to plateau and arcing up to the upper floors on both sides and down the main aisle of the set of grand stairs with gentlemen and accompanying ladies making their way through.

The reason being that they were departing from this high-profile gathering. And so were we in returning back hom–…

Huh?

‘We’…?

Wait, who do I mean?

Wh…」

3

M4F5M96UB97(L(')E;65M8F5R+"!T:&[email protected]

M[email protected]2!S:&%L;"!A=V%I="!T:&]S92!W:&@9&5L87DL('5P;[email protected]

M=&AE('!R;VQO;F=I;F[email protected]%[email protected]=&AE('5N[email protected];[email protected]

29&5S=&EN>2!I;B!D:7-M87DN`

3

“Huuu…”

The voice of a young teenage girl sighing rang out as she walked across the hall in a frilly dress with a pleated skirt and rose gold cardigan covered in a translucent shawl of monochrome anemones, ascending the stairs in high spirits.

“Mother! Father! Hurry up!! ...?? Mother...? Father?”

Turning around, the girl named ***** seemed to be at a loss as she could see neither of her parents around. Frantically scurrying about in the crowd, she weaved through the many grown-ups. Her sight became hazy, frantic in her worry before the young lady eventually found a corridor and passing through to the end of the walkway, she herself opened up to a view of an elevator system with walls plastered with the images of the skies and clouds at day. A curved line of elevators beside her on the right, and above them were a walkway which had no entrance or exit, other than another row of elevators further back following the same curvature.

Thinking to herself of how surreal the sight was, she scanned the area before her eyes in curio and swivelled her head to look outside the large glass panel and into the vast abyss where the lights of the lobby didn’t extend out to any further than a few feet.

But in that darkness, from a point smaller than the eye of a needle, a luminant burst of inflating white light shrouded her vision.

An instant state of stupor. A dizzying bout of vertigo. The world spun. It ruptured.

Dissolution and wither.

Disapp–

•❅─────⋅☾✦☽⋅─────❅•

“Ah. You too huh?”

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“...hk!?? Wha…?!”

「A voice?!

My eyelids momentously peeled back. A blink occurred in flash that returned me back to reality.

I shot up in a hurry and glanced around my room. There was no one around in this blurry world I awakened to. I guess I must have been imagining it, huh? Blurry? More like empty.」

˹ “You weren’t. And you’ll soon realise it. It’ll be an instantaneous epiphany for you.”

I was trolling her. Wel, I sort of had to because she kept on ascending to a place she really shouldn’t be. ˼

「In fact, I couldn’t see anything but–」

Rin, rinrin, rin, rinri–

【 03:00 | Flight to Franco-Swiss Border 】

「My alarm went off without a care beside my pillow. Shuuuuuuut uuuuuuup, I don’t caaaare. I honestly felt like throwing my phone across my room as I looked at it out the corner of my eye, but I couldn't do that of course. Up straight on the bed, I was surprised at myself. 7 hours of sleep and I managed to wake up at 3 o’clock, but a second before the alarm went off. Talk about annoying…

I couldn’t think. My mind was blank.

What in the world was that dream? Dreams? Didn’t I see one last night? Was it yesterday? Today? Not sure. Don’t remember. Don’t care.

What a bizarre paracosm it was though. The human mind works wonders, doesn’t it?

I've got time to think about it later, but for now, recharging my stomach comes first. I didn't get time to eat yesterday since I dropped dead from fatigue.

Taking care of daily morning activities: brushing, showering, changing, finishing up yesterday's beef lasagne in the fridge and preparing to leave. 03:50 on the dot right now. Everything was already packed into a black luggage yesterday morning, so all I had to do was wear an outfit comfortable for traveling.

I sent the two a message on Discord in our group chat, asking if I could come over to return Sora's borrowed clothes and a reply came, giving me the green light.

But I wonder, why did I feel so exhausted? It’s not like me to all of a sudden want to go to sleep…」

˹ “That’s probably it.” ˼

✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦

“The clothes I borrowed are in the bag. I'm sorry if it caused any inconvenience!”

“Don’t mention it. I'm happy to help. Let me leave it in the washroom and then we'll leave straight away.”

“Nii-chan, do you have... Oh Nee-san's already here.”

“Yahallo! Yuki-chan!”

“Yahallo!”

「If it isn’t the Dorobo Neko herself. I’m just kidding.」

“Nee-san, aren't you going to come inside?”

“It's fine, you're almost done, so I don’t mind waiting.”

“Is that so? But you're welcome to wait inside. Ah, Nii-chan, do you have all the downloaded material? Can I copy them onto my device?”

“Yeah, transfer whatever anime, manga or light novel you want...”

✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦

“So the plan is, we walk to Aldgate Station, take the Circle Line to South Kensington Station and from there, we change to the Piccadilly Line for an hour all the way to Longford. After we alight at Hatton Cross, we reach Heathrow's Terminal 4 by foot once more and get our luggages checked-it. Head to the security scans and get the customs out of the way before waiting at the gate to board our plane and off we go to Geneva Airport!”

“I thought we'd be flying to the south toward Toulon, but instead we're going to CERN?”

“Don’t worry about it, Yuki-chan! Specialists at CERN will operate on ANTARES remotely, so it'd be more efficient to directly go to the laboratory while visiting Geneva. Two birds with one stone ✩!”

˹ Right now, Sonia, Yuki and Sora were walking down Bury Street and about to take a right into Mitre Street, down to Aldgate High Street. It was near Whitechapel in case you couldn’t tell. ˼

“After all, ANTARES is an experiment conducted by CERN themselves. We also get to see the Science Gateway once we're there.”

“Oh, that public showcase of what CERN is working towards. Apparently, it’s meant to reflect the sorts of experiments they do in workshops, exhibitions, and activities. They might even allow members of the public to try it out for themselves.”

“Kinda sounds like the Science Museum in South Kensington. Oh, should we go there once we stop at the station?”

˹ The streetlights were bright like a lit candle on a stand lining the road down Mitre Street. It felt like our steps weren’t getting us far as I walked along with them, except the gradual gyration of our view kept on changing as we approached the high street. We kept walking on and on. Into a future unknown.

“Ah… it’s about time for my other self to wake up. That’s good. Because now…

…I can finally leave it all up to her.”

Those were my final words before I let my spectral form disperse into mana particles–

–and returned back to Elyiere. ˼

“That'll take too much time. Besides, we'll get to see the Science Gateway anyways, right?”

“Nn... I guess. But it wouldn’t hurt to...”

“Nee-san.”

“Okay! Okay! We won’t.”

“Try to take this seriously. My god...”

「Everywhere around us was devoid of human presence. It was quite the odd spectacle because Aldgate was never this quiet, no matter how far you went into the phantasmagoria of London's nightlife. Looking around, I though that this empty world might as well have belonged to us as we crossed the road. All to ourselves in a world where things were complacently ‘normal’––」

“You know, I've been having these weird dreams the past couple days. A dream about–”

˹–us.

Us? ˼

「––except for what was the birth of a star.

An object was burning up in the upper atmosphere. A hypocenter of conflagration perforated the murky clouds, afloat in the supernal oceans. Divaricating the dense precipitous clouds. Dispersing the sky’s vapour in all directions.

A fireball plummeted down towards Earth.」

“What in the world...”

“I know right! How weird... that’s exactly what I–”

“No, not that, Nee-san!?? Above!!!”

“Hm...? Wha...”

「Both Yuki and Sonia reacted out of sync in what amounted to absolute surprise. Their eyes and bodies quivered in slight shivers of trepidation while vacantly looking up at the accelerating ball of flames.

Mercilessly descending, it was no exaggeration to say our life flashed before our eyes.

It was falling towards us.

There was nothing that could be done.

All we could do was silently watch.

There was no hope of escape.

It was impossible.

It was too late to do anything.

We were going to die.」

“『Reien』.”

「But at the chime of a bell, our whole world warped in a spatial distortion, ringing out loud in antinomy. When a young maiden cloaked in a white robe appeared out of thin air, it was as if she teleported in front of us.

And in a feminine voice, the valiant maiden inspirited–」

“–Don’t worry, you'll be just fine.”

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