Chapter 239: A Different March
Despite her earlier suspicions, the moment Stelle pointed it out with such blunt, undisguised glee, March 7th still felt a rush of hot blood to her head. She couldn't stop her hands from balling into fists, an invisible, throbbing vein of irritation practically popping into existence above her brow.
She fought tooth and nail to suppress the overwhelming urge to charge over and give Stelle a good couple of punches. Hitting someone in front of this enormous 'child'—a being that seemed to genuinely regard her as its mother—would surely make for a terrible first impression.
"You—you—you unreliable trailblazer!" March 7th's cheeks flushed a furious crimson. She jabbed a finger at Stelle. "You didn't even understand what it was saying, and you dared to lead us in?! What if... what if you misheard? Or maybe it was saying something like 'mother's friend'? You're just a half-baked expert, messing around like this!"
Just as March 7th was desperately grasping at straws, attempting to discredit Stelle's listening comprehension, Olonios seemed to finally settle from its state of pure ecstasy. It appeared to realize the communication barrier between them.
The flowing, cerulean light of its form rippled, as if undergoing some internal adjustment.
A moment later, the ethereal voice sounded again. This time, however, it spoke in the common tongue—a language Stelle, March 7th, and Dan Heng could all understand perfectly. The tone, though, remained ancient and distinctly non-human, now laced with a slight, cautious tremble.
"Mother... you've finally come to see me! I've missed you so much!"
The air in the chamber seemed to solidify.
The last echoes of March 7th's complaints about Stelle's recklessness still hung on her lips, but her body had frozen, locked in place as if by an invisible layer of ice. Her final, fragile shred of hope was utterly shattered.
What was destined to come had finally arrived.
Ever since that dream—the one filled with a hazy pink halo and weeping calls for a mother—she'd had a vague premonition that this day would eventually dawn.
She just hadn't expected it to happen like this. So suddenly, so directly, crashing down upon her with the weight of a collapsing star.
Facing this colossal, ancient Titan, who gazed at her with the purest filial devotion while calling her "Mother" over and over, March 7th's mind went completely blank. She was at a total loss.
How was she supposed to respond? Acknowledge it? But she had no memory, no feeling of ever being a "mother."
Deny it? The emotion in that voice was so sincere, so raw, that she couldn't bring herself to be that heartless.
She felt like a protagonist pushed onto a stage who had forgotten every single one of her lines—awkward, bewildered, and suffused with a powerless frustration at being toyed with by fate.
Into this almost suffocating silence, a certain attention-seeker decided it was time to make her presence known once more.
Stelle gave Dan Heng a light nudge with her elbow, "whispering" in a volume she clearly thought was quiet, but which everyone present could hear with perfect clarity.
"Hehe, Dan Heng, aren't I amazing? Not only did I deliver the crucial blow in the battle against Nikador, turning the tide, but now I've also helped our Astral Express Crew find a long-lost..." She paused, considering her words. "Uh, a very, very long-lost 'child'! With an achievement this great, when we get back, Pom-Pom will have to award me an 'Annual Best Trailblazer' medal, right? Maybe they'll even throw in a year's supply of limited-edition trash cans... No, wait, Trailblaze Supplies!"
She seemed completely lost in the joy of her "contribution," having unilaterally decided that Olonios was March 7th's offspring and, therefore, a "family member" of the Astral Express Crew who had simply gotten lost.
Dan Heng pointedly ignored Stelle's nonsensical chatter. He took a single step forward, positioning himself to shield the visibly flustered March 7th, and fixed his calm, sharp gaze on Olonios.
His voice was steady, carrying a convincing and grounding rationality.
"Respected Aeon Titan, Olonios, we understand your feelings at this moment. But please allow me to speak frankly: a mere verbal address cannot serve as conclusive evidence. March 7th..." He glanced back at her. "Her situation is special; she has lost all of her past memories. Can you provide more substantial evidence to prove that she is indeed the same being as the 'Mother' in your memories?"
Dan Heng's words were like a splash of ice-cold water, jolting March 7th from the complex storm of her emotions and snapping her back to reality.
'Oh, right! Where's the evidence?' she thought.
How could she be so stupid? Getting all flustered and embarrassed just because Stelle was stirring the pot. She couldn't just accept this "child" because some entity called her "Mother," could she? What if it was all some kind of cosmic misunderstanding?
Her muddled head was really being led around by the nose by Stelle! She was definitely going to teach her a good lesson when they got back. March 7th made another firm mental note about her in her little black book.
However, just as March 7th felt a renewed flicker of hope, praying this was all just a mistake, Olonios seemed completely unsurprised by Dan Heng's questioning, as if it had already prepared the answer.
The massive, luminous blue entity subtly contracted, and its core began to emit an even more brilliant glow.
Countless tendrils infused with starlight danced gently in the air, like a conductor waving a baton, stirring the omnipresent flow of time that permeated the space.
A crystal-clear, three-dimensional image, like a holographic projection, materialized before the three of them.
In the image stood a girl who looked almost identical to March 7th.
The same cotton-candy pink hair, the same delicate features, and she even wore the exact same style of clothes.
However, unlike the usually lively, cheerful, and occasionally clumsy March 7th they knew, this version in the image always carried a hint of lingering shyness and timidity in her brow. When she spoke to people, she would unconsciously lower her head slightly, her hands nervously twisting the corner of her clothes as her eyes darted about, as if she were suffering from severe social anxiety.
But, in a contradictory twist, when the moment demanded it—such as to protect the trembling people behind her—her eyes would become unusually firm. And though her body still trembled slightly, she would stand at the very front without hesitation, showing a courage and sense of responsibility that belied her timid appearance.
This "March 7th" was so vivid, so rich with detail, that it was clearly not some fabrication or a poor imitation.
The only thing that felt deeply out of place, to the point of being unsettling, was her eyes.
They were not the clear, bright, pink-crystal eyes of their March 7th.
The eyes of the girl in the image were a deep, gradient red, as if they had been stained with blood and shadows. They carried an ominous, almost obsessive undertone that made one's heart chill just by looking at them, creating an extremely eerie contrast with her shy and timid expression.
March 7th stared at her familiar yet utterly strange self in the projection. Her gaze was fixed on those deep red eyes, and she felt as if all the blood in her body was about to freeze.
She instinctively reached up to touch her own eye, the pad of her finger feeling only normal, warm skin.
Could it be... that she really did appear in Amphoreus's past? And in such a... strange form?
What was going on with those eyes? And who was that "self" who seemed so timid, yet so brave?
Her final psychological defense began to waver, and she fell into an even deeper state of confusion and self-doubt.
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