Part 3: Reconnected Reality
(Childhood Memory of Old Worldline)
The afterschool classroom was warmed by preschool children's voicing various difficulties about their homework and their plans for the weekend.
Siqura existed among them at the middle, pouring colourful books into her orange strap bag while preparing to get home early because today her father was about to return from his oversea profession. Her feet couldn't loaf long enough until the class session finally was over.
"Siqura! Siqura!" One small girl banged her foot into her desk, seeking her attention.
Siqura's shoulders shook up, her heart hitched. "Y-Yes...? Is there a problem?" Bore reputation from his father, Siqura couldn't do anything disgraceful. So she didn't avoid the girl immediately. "I apologize but —"
"Your dad is a royal magician. Right, Siqura? But what royal magician do? If my dad, he protects the kingdom from evil."
"Um?" Siqura wondered what her father was truly fulfilling. "He... crosses across the world and does something justice..."
"But your father is an idiot, right Siqura?"
"Hiii!" Siqura splurged back to seat from another girl petted on the desk without noise.
It was her cousin, Horoka. "He indeed had zero mana sense. Accordingly, maybe he has secret love and also a different family. I cry for you."
"T-T-That's not true..." Siqura's raised her voice but slowly turned it down. She couldn't fight her.
Horoka was a prodigy child who learnt ahead a lot of advanced-spells to make Siqura's life in the verge of discouragement even though they all didn't yet master the mana sense. It required to use spigen.
"A-And... and.... h-he... he mastered the hardest Hauspi Fyolin in the world."
"Hauspi Fyolin? What is that, Siqura? What is that?" the first girl said, twisting her head side by side in a protractor shape and springing her loudly mouth.
"Exactly, I can do that likewise." Horoka cast the first tier of Bavolin on the pencil box with nice flower turning decoration.
"Nooo!" Siqura hopped up for the hovering pencil box above her height. But she couldn't do a disgraceful thing like climb on the chair or desk. "G-Give back." She pushed down her skirt edge while pushing her arm up.
"This is Hauspi Fyolin? Hooray. Ahaha!" The girl tiptoed side to side, getting overexcited for something little of her understanding. "Can it breath out a fire too? Ahaha!"
"Urgh." Horoka creaked her head when the energetic-girl moved toward her. "This is not Dragiry and it's just non-living pencil box."
"How-spy Pyo-ring couldn't shoot flame? But I heard Siqura's father is Phoenix."
"It's Hauspi Fyolin. Dumb. Have you misunderstood something?" Horoka raised her short mace. "{Siclony: Exos Bluna}!"
The girl's arms descended away, her eyes teared out anything off dreaming, sleepy, tired, rest, night, silence... then suddenly a bird appeared inside her dream. "Hah! I saw a flame bird!"
"What's wrong with this imbecile?! How much energy you had at disposal? {Sicrony: Bavolin}!"
"Oohh?" The girl's legs, flapped around, was hoisted off ground, she tried mimicking a penguin. "I saw it. Come here Dragiry's sibling." She reached Siqura's pencil box, swimming toward it.
"Hey! Stop that!" It wasn't Horoka. "No bullying happens in this school." It was a beauty child with four other girls stood, two per one side magical wing. Numerous stars blew out from the wings and surrounded her body.
"Are you sure, you're not mistaken?"
The hovering girl was still chasing the pencil box that Horoka controlling around with her mace spigen.
"How mistaken?" The beauty girl pointed her wand. "You have been bullying this girl every since you enrolled into the sanctuary ground. At the canteen, you her lunch, at the female respite, you toss water into her, behind the garden you cut flowers and blame her, on the roof you pushed her and use a spell to catch before fall, and then... and..."
"Urgh... That's sound like a stalker." Horoka turned off her spell with Besfan, the girl and the pencil box dropped. "I'm out for today since my plan is done. Uncle Oluban is about to leave anyway."
"Aaah!" Siqura just recalled and squeezed her ears like watching another ghost inside the ghost. Her father returning wouldn't be that long. He had a couple minutes of family visit before he left for another royal quest.
"Calm down..." The beauty girl dropped her wand and sighed. "I swear I will take you home if you any hurry. On my name."
"Ah? But... I..."
"My wings are the fastest speed of my race. As president of the student council, it's my job to protect peace in this school. Don't worry, Siqura — ah! Hm! Ehem!" The beauty child covered her mouth. "W-W-What y-y-your-r-r name?"
"Siqura Selvona." But Siqura didn't question the strange behaviour.
"Of course, is it."
"Huh?"
"No no no. I meant. My name is —"
"Siqura, I rescued your pet!" The girl brought back the pencil box.
Siqura attempted to recall an incident relating to it. "Thanks, Skayla."
"How about it? Did I become a bit closer to my father? No evil in my sight!"
"Alright stop!" The beauty child grabbed Siqura's hand and floated her up with her fairy wings. "Let's go before you miss your important event."
In the end, she missed the chance, watching a red blur rocketed away from her home mansion, dashing up into the clear sky. Little she knew this was her last time to be with her father, Oluban Selvona.
In exchange, she had a best friend and numerous associates that helping her moving through painful hardships in the future and aided her in the escape from that debt wave.
Her social skill and a huge number of friends what saved her.
* * *
(Childhood Memory of Old Worldline)
"Siqura! Siqura!" A girl banged into her desk, seeking her attention.
Siqura's shoulders shook up, her heart hitched. "Y-Yes...? Is there a problem?" The girl was her cousin that Siqura couldn't deal with. So she avoided the girl immediately. "I apologize but —"
"There is interesting stuff I want to show you on the roof!"
Siqura's mind brought herself into the experience of falling from a high place. She crouched, her quivering legs couldn't budge.
"Quick!"
"Hey! Stop that! No bullying happens in this school." Ainari, with four members of the student council, stood behind in serious face, infiltrated in. The nature light submerged into her fragmented skin, creating a eureka atmosphere through each girl that dazing at her.
(Broken Worldline)
"Are you positive you're not confused?" Horoka inquired.
Petal-pink blueprint scrolls flushed out and delivered new ones down from the sky by each existence on the planet. Most of the existence didn't change much but since it occurred to the entire world, the transition signified large change.
"How fooled?" Ainari prepared out her wand. "You're have been bullying this girl since you enrolled in the sanctuary ground. At the canteen, you {bought} her lunch, at the female respite, you {borrowed handkerchief} to her, behind the garden you {decorated} flowers and blame her, on the roof you {saved} her and use a spell to catch before fall, and then... and... huh?"
"Ugh... You're a piece of bad news for following her like a stalker. What's illegal with assisting my cousin?" Horoka grabbed Siqura's hand. "Let's get away from this freak."
"But Horoka..." Siqura puzzled. "I need..."
"Horoka? Is that your dream last night? It's Erika. Erika Harishcon."
The blueprint scrolls finished transporting, everything returned to normal.
(New Worldline)
"Wait..." Ainari mewled. "I-I... I can take you home if you any hurry. On my name..."
"Home?" Siqura forgot about her original plan.
"My wings are the fastest speed of my race. As president of the student council, it's my job to protect peace in this school —"
"Sorry, Skayla," Erika said. "Can you take my turn today?"
"Okay!" Skayla, singing, raced to the whiteboard that filled at the ledge with numerous coloured pen-markers.
Erika pulled Siqura out from the classroom and steered her into the school's roof. They spent several minutes gazing at the group of soldiers flew back into the castle which then spent into clouds eyeing until night.
The city automatically switched on the spigen specifically made for lightning. Faint of blue, green, magenta, and other mixed values sequentially glimmered on the street light's cases and other glass tubes neared buildings around.
With magic, they could construct buildings without changing much the natural landscape, making it magically manifested both modern and wilderness like a relaxing fantasy.
"What is that?" Erika pointed at the red blur dashed through the colourful-starry sky as if she knew it would come.
"Red shooting dwarf — star?"
"Eh! Eh! I-It's getting here." Erika stepped back.
"You're right!" Siqura ran away from the edge.
It landed before briefly fall.
"Dad!" Siqura repelled from Erika and hastened toward her father, Oluban. "Dad! Dad! Dad!"
Oluban hugged Siqura's small humble body and cried huskily. "I'm so-so-sorry. I'm sorry, Siqura. I fail to realize it soon."
"Dad?"
"Be strong, Siqura. Be strong and never give up. I love you. And this is the only way to save you."
"Dad." Siqura tried to push her father. "You hurting me."
Without a single word of explanation, Oluban retreated to the edge while looking into her daughter's eyes.
No magic circles. No spell chanting. No gesture.
Nevertheless, a magical effect already spawned through and launched Oluban's well-made boots off ground. Hauspi Fyolin, Phoenix variation. A flying spell, in purpose to reach the outer space, was specifically recreated for himself and mastered it.
He tore to air as if he was teleporting, then sped into the castle at estimate faster than a rocket going into space. It wasn't long though after Siqura squeezing Erika about the marvelling surprise.
"I don't know," Erika puzzled.
"You don't need to lie. Thanks, Erika. But what is dad talking about?"
"Maybe he had a serious business... Ah, Siqura. Your father is out."
Oluban flew out but one half-second later the castle fired superweapon spell, Napalm, and burned him alive in that split second.
In a split second that so much went on into Siqura's mind, the trauma had erased this situation totally.
In the end, Siqura didn't miss the chance of meeting with her father. Little she knew Erika had to return into Jitfon for her father's work and only returned to Veizralia after a couple years.
In exchange, Siqura had moved through painful hardships in the future, attempting to force herself bear with it, believing her endurance was to help her mother who working nonstop since that day.
Her {adaptability} skill and a huge number of {experiences} what saved her.
The {now} Siqura.
* * *
Wheezing compressor sprinted breeze around my head, it fashioned the whole noise into my left ear that pinned against the raw grate flooring. The siren didn't stop sputtering about how the oxygen level in this section about to bust.
"Siqura!"
My eyelids ignited beyond my fever-limitation as if my body actively worked out. I tilted the irises, looking the tide situation after the med bay invaded by a wild alien.
After we escaped from a pirate, there was a booming blaze launched from outside and damaged the spaceship's centre had the essential engine, I lost unconscious as we're all during the blow.
A danger of stranded million lights away from the sun had begun taking effect on the pinnacle of my frosty nose. The hummer heater mentioned by Onyeka a while ago might decline too. How much longer we had to hold up?
I plucked up my layered-skin that gripped on the metal floor by giving a little squeeze to my arm.
"Mom... Erika..."
"Hah? This is denan eiluna trum."
"Don't recede after dena put sena in an unfamiliar region."
The young woman who once a beauty child and remained that way was a fairy with transparent wings; they could be shut like a jet's airfoils but she loved showing off her glamour as if she would perish when admirers were empty of her. Even now, shining stars that sprinkled out from her back from each of stellar movement was also purposely planned.
"Where is Erika?" I clasped my forehead. My scalp trembled gluttonously at the spot where it hit the floor. Still twitching on fire. I couldn't think.
"Erika who?" Ainari asked.
"Erika...you don't know who is Erika?"
Ainari carried out her handkerchief, by herself, and set it out of her way on the blood flowing out from my root hair. "Alas, did denan head experienced anterograde?"
Rather amnesia, I might in the other timeline memory. It couldn't be... "H-How about Horoka?"
"Indeed, bena!" Ainari made as if she now remembered. "Bena is out of breath. Enosis didn't yet raise and Skayla had suffered from muscle sore to do any capable task. With dena as our last resort, save bena or setrum might have to put bena out of misery. Which sena capable not. But would such be unavoidable?"
"If alien nanocell," Thlesy replied paranoidly.
Horoka wounded? Sick? She had control over a monstrous nanocells since the day she propelling the womb.
No far from where I was lying, Horoka was there among five unconscious people surrounded by high school girls expecting for her to awake. She aroused but only to murmur for pain.
Although the Wicked Ainari and the Justice Ainari were the same people, why my cousin had become two? Did the sandglass tinker the gear of the past as the cost for changing future?
That being said, how could I bore two lives starting from the time I was born? They combined like one long rope, however, no threads meshed or interacted with each other; I saw every thread vividly with limitation of my memorize skill to dig my childhood memory. Unlike when I gained memories from other worlds where I could draw a noticeable line to discern where I belonged, this further memory magic world as Ainari eiluna trum, it was hard to feel the contrast.
To be more direct, this memory exhibited out of place, something that I didn't fit but anyhow inside my brain because of the sandglass doing something to my past. Or was it the other way?
Science, alchemy, and rune art had an almost comparable theory about a time paradox. And based on the three sources of references, time paradox wouldn't happen unless someone probing the past.
Therefore, after rescued Ainari from countable deaths, was there a meaning to beget a new timeline? Or my cousin's split personality simply like a dream totem that committed a distinction checkpoint so my multiple memory existences didn't blend and disarrayed my brain's retention? That way, I could revisit each memory without trouble.
"Siqura. Arrange something." Thlesy faced at Horoka. "Avze in pain."
I felt I retrieved something before my head pounded to the floor. Darn. If my brain didn't complain about the throbbing.
The nurses, Ainari, then Horoka's friends, I peered around after they continued to violate me to examine Horoka. "Is there leftover nanocells?" I crawled toward Horoka, forced myself to the task with my unpredictable condition.
"Nanocells?"
"Are avzo one-hundred-percents Ainari?" Thlesy pitched her arm back. "Avze is basic stuff."
Ainari frowned her mouth. "To how many liberties sena had to delightfully serve the court to be taken truth for denan ambiguous sympathy? Nanocell is it, but unusual to senan ear. Don't expect sena to hear everything from the spoon."
"Seriously? Avzo talk like an erzon tongue! Avlzo accent is too alien. And avzo are the weirdo. Stop chattering like double Belfosie who just ate a hundred lost age dictionaries."
"Never mind. Sena am teasing you. Oh, well, Miss tricky Th-le-sy."
"Aaah! Forget it! Zi, a last medical exome we had." Thlesy lowered herself next to my head as I analysed Horoka's condition. "Sorry for accuse avzo about being alien. And thanks for saving avzi earlier. Avzi... sob... avzi... glad avzo come to save avzi!" She suddenly split tears from her eyes but attempted to hold it with a sniff.
"Oh no no. Siqura made a girl cry," Ainari said as she patted Thlesy's back. "Bad Siqura."
"Of course..."
Ainari halted, hearing my inaccurate agreement.
"After all," I grabbed the medical exome, "we're...friend...right?"
"Why avzo look mad when saying that?" Thlesy snatched Ainari's handkerchief and washed her tears. "Don't say everything before is a lie. Of course, avzo are my friend. We're a team and irreplaceable bonds."
I wondered. We became friend solely because of this school trip. Yet my answer seemed to please her.
"Siqura. Is denan head still okay?"
My head's pain was still in dizziness. So, "no."
"Siqura isn't an idiot."
"Sena implied the other. Do not interrupt if dena not listened to everything. It made dena look an authentic idiot."
But in this world, in the world where I was Ainari's best friend, and on Thlesy's viewpoint, it occurred on the first day of Thlesy's transfer. I recalled it, a memory that supposed to not happen. Hence, I had no experience when people could call themselves a friend.
Indeed. This memory didn't feel real. I remembered it but the wisdom in that timeline didn't progress into my blood unlike with other worlds.
"Why avzi got lectured all of sudden?" Thlesy snorted into the handkerchief before gave back to Ainari.
"This is very expensive..." Ainari picked the sticky handkerchief, refused her body from interacting any deeper, she discarded somewhere.
"Avzin are friends." Thlesy glanced at Ainari. "Give avzi a break."
"Thlesy, idiot. Use denan handkerchief next time!"
They both had accents that didn't mix well, despite so, managed to extract the meaning from each other. And I did understand them because of
I returned to the exome. And my brain disturbed me to rethink my action from treated Horoka.
Usually, I preferred to conceal my ability after seeing how much a big force moving to assassinate Ainari. However, I had no choice after I performed a big show about how Ainari transformed into a fairy after she drunk mana potion. A case that not yet logically solved when the spaceship attacked by something.
Without any focusing effort, I could sense and see the exome through this visor sight like an improvise night vision spell, my surrounding painted grey. Seven objects of a pink ghost image appeared in my eyes. There was some kind of link or connection I perceived as what the item looked like in each world.
Ainari and Thlesy suspended their banter and glanced at my face in astonished. Especially, my eyes which glowed pink each time I used it. Very effortless, although, it disquieted me to notice seven digits next to me that floating in the air counted down fast. Also something I didn't logically understand. I had no time.
My mind directed toward the magic possibility and one blueprint scroll produced out from my chest. It entered into the exome and torn it apart into a blueprint, then finalized into a new object.
"Is this," Thlesy's head moved closer, "a polymorph?"
"Mana potion." Ainari giggled behind my back. "If dena don't know this, dena must be alien."
"Don't talk to avzi," Thlesy said uneasily on the other side of my back as if attempted to mount me like a horse. "When avzo learn alien's polymorph? Even genome is avlzi still struggling subject."
"Argh! Shut up!" I yelled even I never would before. But it didn't concern me. I just couldn't think to feel guilty when I worked hard to remember what happened before my head bumped to the metal. I knew something might happen. I could contact the air and tense.
"Siqura." Thlesy nervously stepped back.
"Sorry." Ainari wrapped her arms to back and turned her sight away. A sweat produced off her face.
I poured the potion with the grape-alike mana into my mouth. A blue smoke discharged wrathfully from my skin as my body couldn't contain mana. But it didn't lose all at once, built opportunity to the low spell casting.
That was weird. My head still messed up even with mana; it supposed to clear my mind.
Though, I pressed my palm on Horoka's belly and tried to cast the spell with the headache. "{Sicrony:}" I took a breather, "{Unaner Hideu}!"
"A very similar spell? Sena already tested on Horoka. However, bena gave no healthful response from the influence — Siqura? Where is denan spigen? How senan cast —"
"No, wait! Y-You use the restorative spell on her and it doesn't work? "
"Certainly. Albeit, senan spell sets are nothing compare to denan resource, I trust it at least desist the pain."
No. If I used my spigen it would. Evoker ability had an advantage of spell casting without spigen, but the spell caused by that never beat against Ainari's high-quality wand. This suggested my spell conjectured to not give any above effect. Why it worked now?
Horoka grabbed my hand on her belly. Bad nanocells coughed from her mouth; they were similar seeds that discovered inside Ainari's wound a few hours ago. After glanced again, I sensed something not quite right. Did the pirate or alien put the seeds into Horoka's body? I meant, no matter how powerful the diseases were, it was nothing for her nanocells to fight the bacteria in a couple of seconds. She had never gotten sick based on Aunt Lizera's statement. Of course, this was true for other worlds as well...
A bit by bit my memory strengthened when I heard a voice inside my head. [Siqura~]
I raised my arm but it was too late. Her nanocells already caught me.
[Since you're fearlessly approached me, my special memory lag genome seemed effective. It was risky since you could mangle my nanocells.]
I heard from Erika herself which also meant Horoka, she had dived down to the sixth layer in Ewroz where only with an absurd number of nanocells could go there. I knew well her talent, whether mana or nanocell, had too many unfair gains. As if one of the million. And she prowled the true number of nanocells that she could control from the school. But after she attempted to kill Ainari before she disordered my brain, I saw she created something that supposed not to be here.
A red humanoid. A homunculus. I remembered. That homunculus was there in the axot suit that security guards tried to slow it down so we could transport all passengers into escape pods. Completely under Horoka's control but acted like it was alien.
Another mystery that I didn't understand how she knew magic potion, alchemy homunculus, and alxience genome. Did she jump between world too and perceived the difference?
Despite the setback, when I converted my evoker ability into the alien world, I found out I had the ability to overwrite genome and commanded other person nanocells just like I did with any spell and spigen. And that prevented my brain from fully brainwashed by Horoka when I saw she tried to kill Ainari. Also why she didn't do anything until I closed the distance.
After I regained initiative against her, I didn't believe I dropped my guard because of one pain. Now I concentrated my attention toward my head, the pain wasn't there anymore... this also induced by her nanocell. I was outwitted.
"Oh, Siqura." Ainari blurted out. "Dena did a great job for a First Tier spell. Or did the spell redesigned to do alternate variation? A bit more, dena would be a great doctor one day."
"Something... like that. This is how exactly {evoking}." When I opened my mouth, I felt a foreign sensation on my organs inside. Almost all of them.
[Careful. I might accidentally hurt you without a kill. Right, Siqura?]
My liver had been rummage by her nanocells.
"Evoking?"
"Casting," I muttered. "Spelling. Pronouncing..."
"What avzo are mumbling?" Thlesy sat next to me, picking virus seeds with a glove and eliminated them by putting in the bottle full of acid.
"Some magic routine." Ainari tried to change her speech. "Tell va later if va interested, vo!"
"Aaah!" Thlesy rubbed a couple times both her ears. "Stop shifting persona! Avzo will mess avlzi little brain."
Horoka's opened her glossy blue eyes. "Siqura..." She said weakly and softly. It was her acting skill. I saw numberless time already.
Halvenzo and Skayla were the only persons who knew about medication. If they didn't wound, I was sure I wouldn't be near Horoka and give her no chance to hack my body.
[Then, should we begin the epilogue of your story?] She tried to kill me before I had fainted.
"Fall back! Fall back!" The security man boots hollered as he stepped back away from an enormous alien, taller than the ceiling. An axot that lost its driver. But during that warning, he was killed when the alien crushed the man's head like a watermelon.
But it was homunculus who moving inside the axot. It just couldn't be seen from outside.
That squishy noise put a panic to everyone, they charged into the elevator.
Several security guards managed to escape from the attack.
[Give me help with your arm.]
[Why not you control my body —]
[— hah?]
My lung compressed in by invisible hand. But, I endured, concealed my expression.
[Hm?]
After observed her face for several seconds that debating whether her nanocells worked alright, I gave her my arm and aided her walk.
Ruthlessly, she ruled the homunculus inside the axot to kill every security guards even Benseling my ally in the king's domain.
Even so, I didn't react, tolerated like I persisted Ainari's bully, the Kingdom's Betrayer, malign bosses at the workplace who asking my body if I wanted to continue job — of course, I refused. I wouldn't be lowing myself even more than what the king bestowed upon me.
Horoka grew irritated toward my cold reaction, she telepathically ordered the homunculus to kill Onyeka and Thlesy. It didn't realise when Ainari cast her main magic spell, Mana Ingle like a machine-gun rain.
I stretched my legs up but Horoka controlled my legs, my feet slid as if stood on a loose plank, the bone in my upper arm raced toward the unmovable wall, a bowling-ache swarmed from there without indication. I lost my bearing.
Ainari — Horoka caught me, the bouquet-smell of roses on her hair wrapped into my inner-nose. "Are you okay...Siqura?" Another fine acting.
"I'm fine."
Ainari turned away when the homunculus chased us, she fired another Mana Ingle.
I gave a plod as I crawled along the wall with Horoka.
Thlesy and Onyeka threw a grenade, expectedly, to slow down the homunculus.
An explosion boomed somewhere and made the floor signalling for unstable gravity processor. The footstep we took began out of sync every two seconds, we raised then fell.
I exercised this chance by taking the stun baton from the dead security guard and swung toward Horoka. She got me halted again. Willed for conversion upon the evoker ability, I used it to hack her nanocells, gained my body back immediately after I threw the baton. She had no chance if I kept myself away from her range touch.
The white air sprayed beside the hallway, pushing as many as oxygen as it could since this section already exposed to outer space but small. Quick flame popped everywhere, consumed oxygen that served for us.
The homunculus was too fast by long stride it took. It smashed some windows intentionally that had a view of shining-stars in the space.
If we didn't hurry, we might get thrown out from the spaceship without a spacesuit, oxzien, which what Horoka planned.
Horoka dodged to the elevator when the window began cracking, running away from me. She sent the homunculus forward to distract me.
"Siqura?" Thlesy stood inside the elevator with Onyeka. Other two elevators were broken by flames coming out from them. "What are avzo waiting?! Hurry!"
The homunculus reached for Ainari when her spigen lost mana.
I pushed Ainari into the elevator, the homunculus shot a grappling wire into my leg to stop me from the elevator, the window broke, everything started sucking toward that hole on the glass. The doors forced to close by the system.
My body had been rammed against the hard surface, a couple of times, before thrown out to space by the homunculus.
My fear heightened my senses to find something to hold on except I couldn't hear anything, the sound felt null.
My hands rummaged, searching for ground between those spinning stars. The spaceship overall merged and left me behind as my eyes rotating in a spiral. My skin decayed out tiny white ashes, oxygen worsened rapidly from my capacious chest.
I was too panic to think about Horoka or homunculus who swam back toward the spaceship. I had to stop it before it went to Ainari. But Horoka might kill Ainari without it.
My mouth dried, my brain refused this accident as a substance. It denied it. Like my soul that separated into two feelings when I faced Ainari; hated her bullies but loved her as a friend.
I was trembling, shaking, begging for this only just a continuation of the dream.
Despite so, I didn't stop. I didn't give up, praying that I grabbed something by accidentally. And because of that, I knew I was still alive when the spaceship moved slowly in my sight and the cursed dress brightened into the red. The panic I felt was only a few seconds.
Little by little my body became lighter. I started wondering if encountered with this cursed dress at that shop was really a coincidence.
The cursed dress shot out from the hood a black bow-shaped slider that caged my face in a dark. Beneath my neck, I felt in the darkness one black sheet envelope my mouth, soon the air entered into my nose, my desperate-lungs yielded a pain for each air moved in. The slider mask displayed to outside through computer-like visual.
Runes? Alxience? Neither. The skin that sealed the gap between the dress to prevent my body from endangered to the vacuum space wasn't nanocell. But actually a blueprint. How advanced this dress? I never witnessed anything like it in my memory of the blueprint-specific world. How could this runic dress happen to be a blueprint technology?
Someone had intended this dress to be a blueprint. Did it was devised with void also? I should have known since despite how thin it appeared, a void happened to be one of the strongest material in the blueprint world.
The homunculus floated away but suddenly its whole body was consumed by a blueprint flame growing at the surface of the axot. It vanished into a blueprint scroll that disappeared. I didn't do this.
I brought my hand into my face. A mask finished build and comfortably supplied fresh air to me. I twisted my legs around, the cursed dress spray air out from my boots at minimum speed. I could see everything around through the mask including my back. It automatically zoomed at the window when I barely saw Horoka chasing Ainari. Where Thlesy and Onyeka?
Hurriedly, I returned into the spaceship.
I pulled the emergency lever next to the disembarking gate. But the mechanism was dead. Not either could be fixed if I turned into spigen. I hovered toward the small view at the gate to see inside.
"Wait! No!" I called her.
The gate slid up, Ainari had cast a huge mana bubble that we used to dive into thick water at the First Tier. However, it broke immediately when hit the vacuum space. Ainari didn't know this but the division air pressure inside the mana bubble was too wide to hold together by mana. And the world didn't yet found a spell that allowed a person to breathe outside of the space.
Her body rotten and seemed to burst from inside. Horoka downed too, its body slowly rising into the air. I quickly pulled the lever to close the gate.
Oxygen and gravity flowed into the room through the spaceship's system AI, my boot touched the grate ground.
"Ainari!" I stared down to her as my cursed dress reverted into its default state. I shook her but she didn't respond.
Then a flame appeared behind me. On Horoka's body. It explained everything. She was an undead.
Her rotten face hurled out flame the regenerated her smacked nose back into the fine shape. Her arm at the front created a skin without flesh. And at her finger, I saw a golden ring the I heeded before.
"Urgh!" Horoka pressed her head. "Darn!" She held herself on the wall.
Why she looked hurting and troubling?
I picked Ainari's wand from her grip and pointed at Horoka.
Apparently, even with a body full as normal, she didn't bother to look at me, only slowly entered into the last escape pod. She got away.
I stared outside the gate's view. Undead meant dead that still living. If she was, why vacuum space... or did undead need oxygen? Perhaps, hydrogen or something.
"Siqur..." Ainari's rusty voice reduced at the end of the word.
"It's okay." I checked her wrist. "It's going to be okay." Her blood's speed seemed to scatter and her body was too hot from normal temperature.
"Just now... Sena had a dream... a dream where seni are not eiluna trum... where sena made dena worst..."
My thumb thrust at her wrist from hearing that. "Ainari. Y-You, remember."
Ainari induced a long and harsh air into her malfunction lungs. "Because Erika approach dena that time, sena bore hatred over bena who took all senan acts from closing dena. And started spreading a damaging rumour to destroy her. But sena didn't realize how smart denan cousin, everyone was too scared to harm benan reputation. Somehow in the middle of the course, the students convinced to lie that the rumour was about dena and that might what ignited the centred deal. Sena... sorry... Sorry, Siqura."
"It's already in the past." I smiled at her. "What's important, you're still alive."
"Dena don't understand, Siqura."
"I don't need to." I raised my head a bit, deliberately stared down at her shivering eyes. "It's okay. Let's find a way out from here."
If I used my power and knowledge, perhaps I could do something to repair the spaceship.
"No! — ough... I-It's not okay." Ainari seemed wanting to scream, emphasis her point. However, her body was too vulnerable from imperilling into space.
"Doesn't matter now," I said, gripping my dress. "Error of life is a normal circumstance. No one is perfect."
"Dena changed, Siqura. Dena could say that only because dena didn't know the truth behind the war."
War...? When the kingdom secret weapon was discovered by a third party?
"Why denan father betrayed the kingdom? Why bena was killed? Why bena had debt? And...why seni are eiluna trum —"
"— STOP! Please. I don't want to listen. I don't care. Don't say any word. Don't say anything. Don't... Please... Don't..."
"What an innocent girl." Ainari returned her stare to the ceiling. "But telling dena might the only way to redeem senan mistake... Don't worry. Senin friendship is not that fragile." She offered me a wand. "Nothing but true, sena wished to be dena friend. Remember? Dena has helped sena when sena was attacked by a monster?"
Did that happen? I didn't pick the wand, gradually turning my face toward her.
"Promise to sena." Ainari breathed. "Sena would fight back and survive no matter how hard it would be."
"Y-You're not going to die... Don't say anymore..."
"And be careful... with the... king..." Her hand slowly descended. "Asiyur dena... Siqura..."
Time had streamed in the silence while I sat watching her blood cold face. When a fairy died, the wing turned to dust. The makeup effect that she used to dye her new blond hair returned to not black but a pink soft cotton-like; all fairy's hair looked like that. But due to Ainari's pride, she dyed her hair black then blond to look better than anyone else.
"Wasiyur to dena, Ainari." Then I noticed something on her neck. A locket? I grabbed it and opened its lid.
A hazy picture exited and hovered into the air of me and her. It wasn't as perfect as nanocell but the image quality that blinking was quite precious. The background had several spa-chairs that famous as a place for a beauty treatment.
After all, my seven memories were cut after the train. Anything further was completely blank to me. That was why I believed the picture was taken after the memory's border but as Ainari's best friend. In the magic world.
I looked pretty smug a bit and different from me now based on the posture. I hanged the necklace on my neck and picked her spigen wand.
A crackling sounded in my side pocket. I shoved my hand deep inside and touched against the glossy glass. On my palm was a sandglass that had no purple glow anymore.
And then the sandglass broke by itself like it knew this was a right timing.
My sight toward Ainari twisted into another person. The robed-woman that I tried to reach but somehow forget to do it.
"Welcome back," she said, having face shadowed by the hood and lower-mask.
"I... r...return...?" My eyes fell to my both hands. The broken sandglass. And the Ainari's wand. If I did return to the past, the wand supposed not to be there.
"Yes, you did," the mystery woman chuckled at her mystery corner stall. "You seem terribly different and quite a surprise. How far you went to the future? But based on your Time Value, I guessed about one or two weeks?" Inside the hood, two purple glows shortly spawned.
I moved a bit toward the table stall's section where the mirror was there. My whitened face did seem after blacked out a few times but even intrigued me was my hair; it alternated between black and white of seven series. I was still in the alien world?
"Does anyone know a direction to our hotel?"
I turned my head toward Erika's voice. They left to the reestablished station. Erika and Horoka. Which one was her true self?
As for Ainari. She was alive in the group. I didn't chase them since I knew they would back.
Instead, I ogled my eyes at the new world sleeping around the almost dead world. A small number of strangers paced by on the street between collapsed-buildings that leftover for a long and long time. After all, most constructions were in a lost age.
Above of the city was painted with the clearest blue sky as no air pollution could happen anymore in this world. Trees — basically forest — grew everywhere even at this historical city. We might near old Manuix colony where they executed human experiment with engineered-human-cells.
"Take a seat if you need —"
"Please!" I grabbed her hand. "Ainari's life depends on me. Give me a new sandglass —"
"Sorry." The mystery woman rotated her head away.
"I will buy it. I have the money."
"That's not the problem."
"Then, what..." I let go of my hand. "If I don't do something, Ainari, will die."
I probably could reprogram this wand to be mine but I didn't think it was possible to use against the undead man and the wizard woman. My old spigen broke during the magic fight. How I could do more with one spigen wand? Most of my spells gave a strong knockback to the caster, I couldn't use well even with the very powerful wand.
"Regardless of how far you foresee the future, it would not disturb in any way you wish. That was a fate and above all, you should not see the future in the first place."
I stared at the wand, imagining the situation after Ainari's death. "What I should do now I knew she would die? Just watch? If I couldn't fight a fate, then why... you give me the futureless? Why?"
"Have you preferred not to? Know the future."
"I..." I clenched my eyes, reminding myself what was my relationship with Ainari and since when I tried to save her. Without the sandglass, I would never learn about Ainari. And I might still believe she was a demon after the undead killed her.
"Seems you have the answer now, Siqura Selvona."
I stepped back when she spoke my full name without having me introduced myself first.
"Siqura!" Erika waved. "We find a way to the hotel. Let's go!"
This was different because we should arrive here at night because of the snow... Did I change the future?
"But in the end, Ainari would die. What I should do? What I should do?"
"Don't worry Siqura. Because when I gave you the sandglass, it's because I received a Time Opportunity. Then, the action might be born into something good for you in the future if not now. Believe in Time. Trust in Time."
"Oh? Ehehem. What a rude of me." She pulled the hood to back, a long black hair tended straight with a hint of dark purple. As the half-mask lowered, she slowly split her eyelids, showed her distinct-sharp purple irises.
I thought Ainari was the only top pretty at the academy. Never came to my mind that there was always someone better out there. In addition, she was in my age.
"Miu." She spun a well-made smile. "Miu Mestrin. The second owner of Time Blueprint. Nice to meet you, the next owner of World Blueprint."
* * *
I just discovered my self. Instead spent time with Ainari or tried to think another way of saving her, I ran away. I just ran without thinking, leaving her behind that might searching me to apologize.
Getting thirst, hungry, and exhausted from walk who knows how long the daylight again, I spotted an out of practice bus stop at the front of the half-destroyed road.
My back shivered upon the bulky metal-tube bench, forgetting how I came to this place or where I was now. I might outside of a safe zone. My leaning-head stared at the bus stop roof with a filtered-sunlight brushed by raising trees, warmed my body to heat. My spreading tears helped to cool a bit my face.
"What I'm doing?"
As I glanced inside the magic necklace, the air-hanging picture of me and Ainari's cheering posture, the moss wind whispered softly memory of my magic world that came with madness and unreasonable difficulties. It deepened depression having to not live in the world inside the picture.
My memory as Ainari's best friend didn't as strong as it seemed. But, I still wished it could be the other way. I couldn't feel hopeless when I knew Ainari would die soon. Something dead inside. I didn't have the motivation to save her anymore. So much for my eiluna trum.
The doll that I bought for her, slipped pass off my dress. After all this time, I had one more stored in my pocket. My grip started to loosen around Ainari's wand. And I felt I would nod off at any moment. In this zone, the wild alien or carnivore snimal might feast my flesh during my sleep.
[Promise me!]
If I died here then this was my destiny. "Ahaha..."
[You would fight back and survive no matter how hard it would be.]
I gritted my teeth when I recalled her words again. My soul couldn't decide to hate her or to love her. My heavy arm hit the bus stop's bulletin.
My goal to kill the king merged in front my {cognition} — if that what science called it — I perceived a wild alien stood several melvi, sneaking on me. Its face looked strange because it had one squinting black oval-shard eye. And also a thinner body compared to regular axot.
Tardily the rate of blinking reduced, heavier and harder to resist, eventually it closed. It was a danger to fall sleep here but I was too tired and hungry.
I guessed I should try one last time. To survive. To see if there was anything to live for. I selected one spell and bet on it. After all, I promised to Ainari.
I started recollecting every last of memory bit with Ainari, regardless she was my enemy or my friends. Both were my connection. When she hurt me. When she aided me. When she pushed me. When she pulled me. When... The strongest bond of nine memories with her.
The multiple-linked bond.
The doll slid to the very edge of the collapsed part of the road and about to fell inside. It was still my range of spell but not for long. Last chance.
"{Si...crony: Shu...lonro}..." I smiled annoyingly before I closed my eyes, watching my spell successfully converted my bond with Ainari into a human-size life for a small doll. "Da...rn..." I had brought myself more toward the corruption of lowlife to leave Ainari behind.
She was my best friend.
My magic proved that… despite impossible… with… Erika.