Lin climbed out of bed, bleary-eyed. He had been severely sleep-deprived lately, and his mental state was poor.
Whenever he woke up, he always felt as if he were in the middle of a white snowfield, seeing nothing but drifting snow, as if time had abandoned him and he was the only one left in the world.
In his dreams, he could feel the changes in his body more clearly than when he was awake. Something invisible was permeating his body, transforming him into a completely different person.
This made Lin reluctant to enter deep sleep; he wouldn't sleep if he could keep himself awake.
"Mmm... don't move..."
He wanted to get out of bed, but his right hand was stuck. Looking down, he saw it was being held tightly in someone's arms. She breathed sweetly and mumbled in her sleep, her beautiful, nearly naked body largely exposed.
Lin stared at her flawless profile for a while, gently pulled his hand from her grasp, covered her with the blanket, and went into the bathroom to shower.
Splash.
Cold water poured over his head. His wet hair clung to his forehead, suppressing those chaotic voices.
Stay away from me.
Lin gritted his teeth, his right hand tracing the location of his heart. He breathed heavily, his fingers digging into his muscle.
Cough...
After several minutes of cold water, Lin opened his eyes again, his breathing leveling out.
Click.
The bathroom door was pushed open.
Lin turned his head and locked eyes with Vil-V, who had poked her head in...
...
Lin sat in the bathtub, leaning back and gazing upward. Water droplets from the ceiling fell onto his eyelids. The hot steam made the entire bathroom blurry.
"Oh, stop being angry." Vil-V sat in front of him, her back against his chest and her beautiful face against his cheek. Seeing his rare gloom, she couldn't help but laugh. "I couldn't control myself last night. Hearing you say those heart-touching things, what girl could hold back?"
"...You didn't even do anything." Lin sighed gloomily.
"Hmm, does it only count as 'doing something' for Lin if we go all the way?" Vil-V expression turned serious. "Then let's do it now."
"..."
He was trying to give Vil-V an out, yet she was pushing her luck.
"Just kidding. It would be too much if only one person was willing." Vil-V enjoyed the feeling of lying on him. She stretched and smiled brightly. "If we were born in a different era, even just a few decades ago, I'd probably use some little tricks. Whatever the Great Genius Vil-V wants, she gets."
"But let's forget it for now. We don't have that kind of time. This world and this era won't allow us to do that."
Her soft body pressed closer to him. She seemed to be smiling, but there was a hint of loneliness in her eyes.
It had been emphasized more than once: Vil-V was someone who saw things very clearly. She was similar to Mei, having full awareness of the era, humanity, and herself. But because of this, she was more free-spirited than others while also knowing when to stop.
The Lin as a person didn't love individuals; he loved the connections between people and the human race as a whole.
He wouldn't refuse, but... she didn't want to do it that way.
Lin hair covered his eyes. He saw the silver-white at the tips of his hair and saw Vil-V through the gaps.
"Aren't you going to ask?"
"Ask what?" Her smile was radiant.
"..."
Lin was referring to his hair. It wasn't obvious before, but now a third of his hair was pure silver-white. Anyone with eyes could see it was an anomaly.
Vil-V let out a breath that drifted into the white mist. "Lin, no matter what you become, I will be with you. The people around you will love you too."
How exactly is humanity defined?
What are the Fire Moth high-levels thinking?
Who did the remains that fell to the ground become?
It didn't seem to matter anymore.
Lin closed his eyes. "In a little bit, let's go back."
"Back where?"
"Home."
...
Lin and Vil-V walked out of the hotel toward Lin motorcycle, intending to return to the 10th Branch.
After a few days of investigation, the Svatok 51 incident had some leads, but Lin felt there was no longer a need to find out the result.
That "person" who fell... no matter what she originally was, she should be human now.
"I haven't been back to the headquarters in so long. I wonder how the flying base is doing, though I don't think flying into the sky is necessarily a good thing... Lin, have you heard this saying? We fly into the sky just for the moment of the fall."
"..."
They chatted idly until a sound of cracking came from the sky.
Crack.
The sky?
The two looked up at the misty morning sky simultaneously. Other drowsy pedestrians hadn't noticed yet and passed by them.
In the shadowed sky, a fissure had appeared at some point.
It was as if it were on a different layer; the location of the crack couldn't be determined with the naked eye. It seemed only a hundred meters away, yet also felt incredibly distant, higher than the heavens.
Crack.
The fissure made another sound. This time, it caught more people's attention. They stopped and looked at the sky in confusion, pointing at the crack.
Crack.
"Vil-V, hide."
Lin reached for his motorcycle helmet, lifted it, and put it on. The visor quickly lit up, and the analysis system locked onto...
No, it couldn't lock on.
This was the first time Lin had encountered this. Usually, even with an unknown substance, the helmet would at most be unable to analyze it. But this time, the clear fissure acted as if it didn't exist at all; the helmet judged that there was nothing there.
As more people stopped to look at the sky, the sound of dense discussion grew. Cracks began to spread thickly around the fissure.
Crrr-ack—
Finally, once the cracks reached a certain number, spreading across the sky like a spiderweb, they stopped.
An eerie atmosphere began to spread through the crowd. Lin watched Vil-V hide back in the building before he started walking forward.
The cracks were located right in the center of the city; he needed to go there to check the situation.
But after walking dozens of meters, Lin stopped. He discovered something.
His position was changing, but the position of the cracks was also changing. Or rather... he couldn't get closer to them.
It wasn't an issue of reference points. Unlike ordinary people, he could feel even the slightest change in position. When he walked forward, the crack receded.
Lin scanned the directions in which the people around him were looking. He found that they were all slightly different.
The fissure wasn't in the center of the city.
It was at a fixed distance from the position he observed.
Then, ten seconds after he stopped.
Boom!
The fissure exploded, and "phantoms" like a tide surged out from within.