When had he first begun to doubt the path of HARMONY?
Sunday sat atop a high-rise, watching the beautiful dream unfold endlessly below.
Countless living beings, countless traces of motion—all of them moving according to fixed rules.
Pedestrians, vehicles, even the clouds in the sky all followed their own distinct patterns.
This was not something that should happen in a beautiful dream, yet under the influence of ORDER, it had become perfectly natural.
The beautiful dream of ORDER had already reached the Third Cycle. Its foundation had been laid, and the divine seat of ORDER woven from the lives of the multitude would be even more stable than before.
And yet at this very moment, the fetus that would one day sit upon that divine seat was asking himself what truly separated the path of HARMONY from the path of ORDER.
A crow flew in from outside and into the room, casting a strip of light across Sunday's chin.
And that familiar light brought the past back to him.
Back then, the same hazy glow would shine through the windows and fall across his face.
During that time, he listened to the confusion and uncertainty of the dream's residents, and offered them guidance in return.
There were voices in the dream from every corner.
Among them were Family members proud of their own status, and stowaway dreamdivers who had cast everything aside just to survive in this City of Sweet Dreams.
Complex human nature had laid itself bare before him, and it was then that he came to understand one thing deeply.
"Even within the Family, which proclaims absolute equality and that everyone is one family, divisions still exist."
The crow that had flown in from outside said nothing. It merely watched Sunday quietly from the side.
Gopher Wood knew this was something Sunday had to go through in order to steel his resolve.
He was someone meant to accomplish great things. He was not the sort to lose himself over some trifling matter.
And Gopher Wood was right. Sunday had not fallen into confusion.
But the sight of his sister walking away with her back to him had still shaken him, if only slightly.
That small shock brought the past back before his eyes once more.
Listening to the suffering of the masses had only been the spark of his doubts.
What truly made him set his feet firmly on this path were the many things he experienced afterward in life.
"What happens in Penacony is only a tiny reflection of this universe..."
He had seen food wasted without a thought in worlds of ABUNDANCE. He had also seen barren star systems where people, lacking food, were driven to trade children and eat them...
He himself had once stepped on food simply because it had passed the moment when it tasted best.
He had also walked along mountains of bones and seen people boiling the hard-won ingredients before them—even though only a few hours earlier, those same "ingredients" had still been beings laughing and chatting with them.
If such things were caused only by the unequal distribution of food, that would have been one thing.
But most of what happened in this universe had nothing to do with food at all.
"The unequal distribution of power also leaves countless people trapped in war."
He had seen powerful factions enslave and oppress weaker races for the sake of expanding their territory.
He had also seen once-liberated peoples, driven by hatred, imprison and humiliate the very ones who had once helped them.
These were all things he had personally witnessed.
And the reason all of it happened was the uneven distribution of power.
Why could the Family of HARMONY not stop war from existing?
Why was the IPC still one of the forces behind certain wars?
The Arbitrators of EQUILIBRIUM, the Masked Fools who stirred up trouble wherever they went, the Garden of Recollection that remained aloof from the world...
These factions all existed in the universe, and yet they still could not prevent conflict from arising.
And because of that, Sunday came to understand one thing.
"The multitude are sheep without a shepherd..."
All living beings were sheep without a shepherd. That was why they starved. That was why they turned on one another.
Sunday rose to his feet and stepped into the dream-light.
His expression was the same as ever as he looked at the sky, and at the countless consciousnesses below immersed in the beautiful dream.
"That is why I must become the one and only star in this sky, and guide all living beings forward."
Under his light, people would no longer be burdened by so many troubles.
Within that beautiful dream, there would be no AEON to disrupt the balance.
The distribution of power would be absolutely fair and just.
There would be no famine and no waste. There would be no classes and no distinctions.
Beneath that divinity, all beings would be equal.
At that time, every day would be a day of peace for the soul. Every day would be spent in abundance and satisfaction.
"That would be a paradise belonging to humankind alone... one capable of holding everyone's dignity and happiness."
There was nothing wrong with the path he walked.
Even the obstacles and variables he had encountered so far only continued to prove his point.
Was Sora not acting so recklessly precisely because he possessed power far beyond ordinary people?
If others had that kind of power, would they make the same choice he did?
Most likely not...
They would turn that power against those weaker than themselves.
Sunday had seen scenes like that more times than he could count.
And such contradictions and conflicts kept repeating themselves across the universe.
That was why the dream of ORDER was necessary. It was the direction the future ought to take.
Sunday acknowledged and affirmed that with absolute certainty.
"My heart and my actions are as clear as a polished mirror. Everything I think, everything I do, is for the sake of the gospel."
Sunday had already seen the end of this road.
No one could stop him now. No one could sway his mind.
Or rather, the one person who could already had already walked away from his side...
At that thought, Sunday could not help turning his gaze toward the birdcage by the window.
It seemed it had not been used in a very long time, and yet the beginning of that beautiful dream had once rested inside it.
"Robin..."
...
On the other side, now that she knew everything, Robin's mood was heavy.
"So that's how it is..."
She now knew the truth behind the beautiful dream of ORDER, and the truth of this endlessly repeating world.
No matter how hard she tried, she could not imagine that the brother who had always been gentle in her memories could do something like manipulating countless living beings.
And yet the chains lying on the ground, and the power within them that differed from HARMONY, continued to prove Sora's words.
Sunday had already parted ways with her and gone down a different path.
The shock of that was immense.
Even so, there was still one thing she remained certain of.
"People who live inside a false dream will never gain true happiness."
Even if their hearts remained forever peaceful and content, it would still mean confining them in a fixed state.
There was no way Robin could accept a method that treated people as though they were livestock.
But before anything else, she had to take Sora somewhere to tend to his wounds.
Only... where was she supposed to buy medicine in a dream?
"Looks like you two could use a little help..."
Just as Robin was thinking that over, a figure neither of them had expected appeared at the entrance to their hidden corner.
It was a man with scruffy stubble and a lazy expression, leaning against the wall as he tossed a piece of candy in his hand.
Perhaps noticing the wariness in Robin's eyes, he flashed her a grin.
"Relax, miss. I'm not your enemy."
He gestured toward the still-empty street outside, making it clear there were no hounds or security officers following behind him.
"If you want to heal his injuries, then come with me. Otherwise, the two of you can just keep hiding here."
With that, he ignored both Sora and Robin and walked toward the end of the road.
That alone was enough to put Robin fully on guard.
Who exactly was this man?
And why did he look so oddly familiar to her?
But Sora quickly took her hand.
"Let's go. Right now, it doesn't look like we have anywhere else to go."
If someone traced the path Sora had taken to get here, it would not take long to find the safehouse hidden deep in the sewers.
And Robin's secret base near that safehouse naturally would not be safe anymore, either.
So right now, other than following this man, Sora honestly could not think of anywhere else they could go.
He might as well see what the man was really up to...
...
To be honest, Robin had never imagined that the end of the road would turn out to be a train platform.
And after a short wait, a train really did appear.
The most important thing was that the way it ran was so strange and so wildly unrestrained.
At least from Robin's own experience, this was absolutely the most uncomfortable train ride she had ever had.
It was bad enough to make her feel like she might throw up.
The man sitting across from them seemed to notice the misery on Robin's face, so he held out a piece of candy.
"If you're getting motion sick, candy helps a lot."
Naturally, Robin was not about to accept candy from a stranger that easily.
Sora, on the other hand, unwrapped his and popped it into his mouth before nodding at her.
"Yeah, it really does help with motion sickness."
Only after Sora confirmed it did Robin cautiously open hers and eat it.
As a faint sweetness spread across her tongue, her motion sickness eased by far more than a little.
"There's still some time before we arrive. Would either of you like something to drink?"
Gallagher, acting as though they had known each other forever, somehow produced another colorful egg-shaped thing.
"There are drinks here too?"
Sora opened the menu and could not help being surprised by what he saw.
Soda Bean Juice, West Bird Special, SoulGlad...
Wait, why is there even something as horrifying as Cherry-Flavored Cola on here?!
The range of drinks far exceeded his expectations. Some of them were things Sora could not even begin to identify.
"At the moment, the only thing we can actually serve is SoulGlad. The other drinks are all things this train's conductor still has to learn."
Gallagher crushed Sora's hopes in a single sentence and laid bare the truth behind the menu.
"Then if they can't be served, why are they listed on the menu?"
Robin was only curious what the point of such a menu was.
To bluff people?
"Well, that's because—"
Gallagher had only just begun speaking when a voice suddenly descended from above and interrupted him.
"Everything written there... is something the friends who boarded this train once wanted to drink..."
Looking over, all they could see was a white-haired boy staring at Sora and Robin with visible nervousness.
"H-Hello, you two. I-I-I-I-I... I'm M-M-M-M-M... Misha! The conductor and cleaner of this Compass train!"
But his appearance left Sora openly stunned.
No, wait. Why are you here?
If Sora was not mistaken, this boy was supposed to be the Clockmaker's legacy.
In the normal course of things, he should have stepped out of the dream bubble because of the Astral Express's arrival.
But the Astral Express had not arrived, so how could he already be here?
And more importantly, weren't you supposed to become a cleaner at The Reverie?
How had you suddenly become the conductor of this train?
The change was so drastic that Sora just stared.
Robin, however, seemed to realize something, and her eyes widened at once.
"Could it be—you're 'Captain Misha,' the conductor of the Compass, the one who only appeared for seven episodes in the Clockie cartoon?!"
Clockie was a household-name cartoon character throughout Penacony.
After all, it was a long-running animated series with more than ten thousand episodes.
And the story it told was simple enough: Clockie and his friends joined forces to drive off Boss Stone and turn Nightmare Town into Dream Town.
Robin had grown up in Penacony, so naturally she had watched it too.
And within that ten-thousand-episode series, there was one special character who had only made a guest appearance in seven episodes before disappearing completely.
And the train he drove, the Compass, had left an exceptionally deep impression on the story.
So those seven episodes featuring the Compass were also known as one of Clockie's greatest arcs.
In fact, it was universally acknowledged as the number one spot.
That alone showed how highly people thought of those seven episodes.
A moment ago, Robin had still been puzzled by the sudden appearance of this train.
But the instant she saw Misha, everything suddenly linked together in her mind.
Because she knew this much: when Clockie's cast had first been created, many of the characters had been based on real people.
For example, the Origami Birds had actually been modeled after Dreamweavers whose names had been preserved in Penacony's history.
Some bored people in the Family had even once put together a full list matching Clockie characters to their real-life inspirations.
Only Captain Misha had never been matched to anyone.
So everyone eventually agreed that he must have been based on a friend of the Clockmaker who had already passed away.
That was why only seven episodes had ever been devoted to that arc.
And today, Robin had suddenly found the hidden real-life counterpart to Captain Misha from Clockie.
"I-I-I..."
Misha's body trembled slightly, as though he had grown nervous at meeting strangers.
"Hahaha, don't get so worked up. It's no big deal."
Gallagher's laughter made Misha relax at least a little.
Robin also realized she had gotten carried away and quickly forced down her excitement.
"Sorry. I got a little too excited."
"N-No, it's fine. Here... this is your SoulGlad."
Misha set the drink down, then went and sat in the seat near the far end of the train.
Still, the way he kept sneaking glances back at them showed that he actually cared a great deal about what was going on here.
After that brief interruption, Sora grew even more curious about everything happening around him.
Especially what Robin had said just now.
Misha had actually appeared in the Clockie cartoon.
Which meant that Mikhail himself had seen the dream-bubble legacy he had left behind...
Why would he dream up something that absurd?
The whole thing felt strangely unreal to Sora.
But Robin's excited chatter showed no sign of being fake.
Could that really be true?
Sora was still full of questions when his head suddenly swam.
It was almost as if he had bumped into something.
Only then did he remember that they were following Gallagher right now, not trying to puzzle out Misha.
Misha was a gift the Clockmaker had left behind for later Trailblazers. He did not really have much to do with Sora.
What mattered right now was treating his injuries and then completely shattering ORDER's beautiful dream.
Which brought him to the obvious question...
"Where exactly are we going?"
To that eerie Dreamflux Reef?
"No..."
Gallagher leaned closer to the train window and motioned for the two of them to look outside.
"Welcome to the real Penacony."
And the world outside left both Sora and Robin stunned.
It was a small town that looked rather shabby and run-down.
Smoke rose lazily from chimneys above it.
Children played nearby while adults busied themselves with work...
That peaceful scene left both of them speechless for a moment.
Yes, the level of technology here was far beneath Penacony's.
One side was towering high-rises. The other was a quiet little town...
The gap between them was almost unimaginably vast.
And yet this place carried a sense of ease and reassurance.
Most importantly, Sora saw several familiar faces here.
The octopus vendor with eight limbs and the purple-haired woman carrying a sword as tall as a person.
The two of them seemed to be talking about something.
"H-How did she get here?"
Sora was honestly dumbfounded.
He had only just learned this place existed himself. So how had Acheron gotten here?
"Oh, you mean the purple-haired one?"
Gallagher explained, "She got lost and wandered here."
...What?
Sora's face went blank.
And from Gallagher's explanation, he finally pieced together the whole story of how Acheron had ended up here.
It really was just as Gallagher said.
She had gotten lost.
Step by step, she had simply kept walking on her own from Penacony toward the outer boundary of the dream, until Misha found her halfway there and brought her here.
That was when Sora remembered that the last time the world had reset because of ORDER, Acheron had not seemed affected at all and had just kept walking straight ahead.
So she had already been lost back then.
No wonder.
While Sora was still marveling at Acheron's unbelievable ability to get lost, the train gradually slowed as it pulled into the station ahead.
"The train has reached the final stop. Please remember to take your belongings with you, and we welcome you aboard again next time..."
Misha stood by the exit and spoke to them.
And just as Sora was about to get off, Misha suddenly called out to him.
"S-Sir."
Sora turned back in confusion.
Misha placed two things into his hand.
"I saw that you have blood on you, so... you can take these bandages. And this is our Compass survey booklet..."
A few bandages and a sheet of paper were placed in Sora's hand.
"I'd really appreciate it if you could fill out the survey so I'll know what to improve."
"So... have a pleasant journey."
With that, Sora watched as Misha drove the train off along the track they had come from.
He was left standing there, looking down at the bandages and the questionnaire in his hand, a smile slowly appearing on his face.
He had not expected to have this sort of strange experience too.
It really was kind of interesting.
Though those bandages would be completely useless for an injury to the bone, Sora still stuck one onto his face.
At the very least, he wanted Misha's gesture to feel like it had mattered.
Gallagher said to Robin and Sora, "Welcome to the real town."
"The real town?"
Robin frowned.
Dreams and reality should have had nothing to do with each other.
"Of course. This place is the edge of the dream, the place closest to reality. So people here get tired, get hurt, feel exhaustion..."
That was precisely why Gallagher had brought them here to treat Sora's injuries.
Because within the dream, this was the only place where injuries could actually be healed.
Even so, Sora could not help feeling that something about this whole setup was a little backwards.
Looking for reality inside a dream—wasn't that getting things completely mixed up?
"And most of the people here are here to experience what it means to be alive."
As though he had seen the confusion on their faces, Gallagher explained further.
"A lot of the people here are either suffering from illness, or they've been driven to despair by something in the outside world. They come here with death in their hearts, wanting to run from reality."
But this place had none of Penacony's extravagance, none of its drunken luxury or grand spectacle.
It was a place where the soul could loosen and breathe, and where people were encouraged to keep living.
Because it was so close to reality, the sensation of living was magnified all the more here.
"I see. I never imagined Penacony had a place like this."
Sora nodded.
Most of the people scattered throughout the universe would never have guessed it.
Within Penacony, that Planet of Festivities, that city of luxury and splendor, there could actually be a place this plain and ordinary.
In truth, it did feel somewhat out of step with Penacony's overall style.
And yet it existed right here before Sora's eyes.
As for who had created this place...
Sora looked at the Clockie statue in front of him, posed in a mischievous gesture, and immediately understood.
It seemed Penacony had undergone some truly astonishing changes.
Gallagher did not waste any time with them. He took Sora straight to a clinic where injuries could be treated.
"That's a nasty injury, young man. If it isn't treated properly, it could affect your real body too."
The doctor could not help looking startled when he saw just how badly Sora's arm had been knocked out of place.
At a glance, he could tell Sora was here in a consciousness-body. If the injury to his arm was not handled properly, his real arm would be affected too.
And yet despite how serious the injury was, the doctor saw no real panic on Sora's face.
After making a few associations in his head, he seemed to arrive at a conclusion.
He's hurt this badly, doesn't seem to feel the pain, and he's this calm?
Could this young man possibly enjoy pain?
"Young man, while I understand that might be your hobby, you still need to know your limits..."
With that, he placed a hand over Sora's injury and began treating it.
As he worked, he sighed inwardly.
Young people these days really did keep finding stranger and stranger ways to play.
Sora could tell there was clearly something behind the doctor's words, but he had no idea what exactly the man meant.
So in the end, he stuck to the principle of saying less and making fewer mistakes, and quietly accepted the treatment.
Once it was done, he left under the doctor's complicated gaze.
"Did you say something strange to him just now?"
Robin was deeply curious.
"I didn't dare say anything weird at all. He's the one overthinking things, okay?"
Sora felt helpless too.
Still, at least the injury to his arm had been treated.
Next, he planned to rest briefly, then go find Sunday and settle this once and for all.
But just as the two of them were about to leave, a sharp stab of pain suddenly shot through Sora's arm again.
The area that had just been restored began showing signs of slipping out of place once more.
That left both Sora and Robin at a loss.
Could it be that this injury simply could not be healed?
"This place may be far from Penacony, but it's still the boundary of the dream of ORDER."
"And your injury was inflicted by ORDER personally. If ORDER does not permit it, then your wounds can never truly heal within the dream."
Sora frowned and looked to the side, only to discover that standing at the end of the road was a—trash can.
The number twenty-four engraved high on its metal body was just as conspicuous as ever.
"It's only been a short while, and you've already managed to get yourself hurt like this."
The trash can sidled up to Sora with complete familiarity and clicked its tongue at the injury.
"Honestly impressive."
Earlier, when Sora had seen the octopus vendor, he had already suspected he might run into this trash can too.
But he had not expected it to show up here just to mock him.
And the trash can's appearance left Robin thoroughly puzzled as well.
More than that, she could not shake the feeling that its tone sounded oddly familiar.
But this was not the time to dwell on that.
What the trash can had just said clearly lined up with the problem she and Sora were facing now.
"Then if what you just said is true, that means you have a way to heal Sora's hand?"
There was no way Robin could stand by and watch Sora keep fighting for his life while still injured.
She had thought the mysterious Gallagher had brought them here because something in this place could heal him.
But after arriving, they discovered it could only provide temporary relief. It could not truly cure the wound.
Just as she had found herself completely at a loss, now a trash can had appeared out of nowhere.
She had no idea who it was, but at this point she had no choice but to treat a dead horse like a living one.
"Please, tell me. This matters to both him and me. I'm willing to trade anything for it."
"Oh?"
The trash can moved closer to Robin.
It was not especially tall, and yet Robin felt as though she had been seen through completely.
The sensation sent a chill down her spine and filled her with unease.
Perhaps noticing her discomfort, the trash can stepped back two paces and left a safe distance between them again.
"If you want to heal him, what you need to do is actually very simple."
Robin pressed at once, "What do I need to do? Just say it."
"Since injuries can't be healed in the dream because of ORDER, then just return to reality and heal him there."
The trash can offered a very simple solution.
"Everything in this dream is false. The sky, the flowers, the trees, the sun..."
Everything here was illusory. Everything was under ORDER's control.
If things continued like this—if Sora kept clashing head-on with ORDER—then the injuries on his body would only multiply until, in the end, he died in the dream from sheer accumulated damage.
So the answer was simple.
Get him back to reality.
Once he was back in the real world, he could recover through real medical treatment.
That truly had never occurred to Robin before.
Because in her understanding, Penacony's dream and reality were almost no different.
And because of that ingrained assumption, she had overlooked the simplest answer of all.
But...
"To return to reality, don't we have to go back to The Reverie first...?"
And The Reverie was in Penacony.
It was under Sunday's ORDER.
If Sora went back there, would that not be delivering himself straight into the tiger's mouth?
"There's another way back to reality from here," the trash can said.
This frontier land was the boundary closest to reality. Since it had existed for so long, naturally there was a way back.
But before that, there was one thing the trash can had to make clear to them.
That was—
"Once he goes back, once he returns to reality, then if he wants to come in again, it'll have to be by another method..."
The trash can turned its gaze to Robin.
"You'll have to return to Penacony yourself, and preserve your sense of self through ORDER's assimilation."
Because he would be going back by special means, there would be no way for Sora to re-enter through The Reverie's ordinary dream entry.
If he tried, Sunday would simply bar him from entering.
So they needed an anchor inside—someone who could allow Sora to come back here again.
Naturally, that role fell to Robin.
Because any other existence, after enduring three rounds of ORDER's baptism, would find it difficult to remain independent.
Robin alone had not yet gone through that cleansing and corruption.
But now that Robin and Sunday had already drifted apart, he clearly would no longer keep her hidden away in some safe corner as before.
"Do you dare do it?"
She would have to endure the remaining four rounds of ORDER's baptism and become the anchor that would receive Sora when he returned.
That was the only real difficulty in the entire plan.
"The choice is yours. I'm only the one making the suggestion."
Though really, your answer was already decided the moment you chose to take Sora away.
Sora stepped forward, wanting to stop her.
"Robin, there's no need to decide this so quickly."
Robin turned around, her expression utterly serious.
"I've already decided!"
---
T/N: is that trashcan future sunday or something :sob:
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