In a place no one could ever find, silence pooled like fog in a hollow valley.

Aer faced hundreds of women who were her mirror image, each clutching her head as if thorns had sprouted inside. One crumpled and fainted.

She snapped her fingers. The pain cut off like a severed string, yet the echo of agony lingered like chill rain.

Three minutes crawled by before one voice sliced the stillness.

“Zero! You’re the core of us all, sure—but you can’t throw rank and leave us to suffer while you wander. Do you know what we endured?”

Aer—her true body—looked down on them with a cold tilt of the eyes. They were Aers dragged in from other worldlines. She was the first to arrive here, the one with the widest reach.

“Shut up. I went to see ‘Ling.’ That’s all.”

The reason drew no warmth.

“She hasn’t turned back into Ling. She hasn’t taken that body… no—she won’t possess that body!”

Aer’s glare skimmed over the speaker like winter wind. A line of frost crawled up the woman’s spine.

“Ling won’t. But I will.”

“You know she’s a fake. Why bolt off to her anyway? Did you want us to suffer?”

Aer’s palm slammed the table. Crack—snap. The wood shattered like thin ice under a boot.

“I want to. Who’ll stop me? Don’t forget who admitted you into this worldline. Here, I am the peak.”

“Then send Arthas or that other one. Why are you so eager?”

“…You should understand longing, right? Years like drifting snow. Even a fake can feel like home.”

“……”

Silence fell, heavy as dusk. Everyone here came from dead worldlines. Their reasons differed, their aim was the same—Ling. Their endings were all failure.

Aer heard the hush and let a breath slip, light as a moth. She lifted her gaze to the ceiling; a clear tear hung at her eye, a dew drop clinging to a leaf.

“Everyone… if you understand, good. Please, hold on a little longer.”

—Dream—

Ling slept and wandered into a dream. Inside stood a small girl who looked just like her, and Aer—friend or enemy, a blade hidden in mist.

In a sealed space, a wall thundered down. Dust rolled away like a gray tide, and the room saw the one who broke through.

Aer and Ling met each other’s eyes. Doubt flickered only in Ling’s pupils, two dark lakes rippled by wind.

Aer spoke first, cutting the quiet.

“Why are you invading this place?”

Ling froze, then flushed and looked aside. Her voice fluttered like a startled sparrow.

“I—I’m not invading… I’m… visiting. Mm, visiting!”

Aer pointed at the collapsed wall behind Ling, face unreadable as stone.

“This is visiting?”

Her little scheme got exposed; Ling’s blush deepened like sunset thickening into wine.

“W-well~ getting lost happens, right? Force majeure, force majeure! A lost visitor can’t be called an intruder…” Her voice shrank, a stream sinking into sand.

Aer burst into laughter, bright as bells. Fondness lit her eyes like warm lanterns.

“If even you don’t believe it, don’t spin such dumb excuses. Are you an idiot?”

Idiot? Ling lifted her pinky at herself, baffled. In her mind, she was a super genius—she’d nailed the Jiu Jiu times table. Four times seven is twenty-eight, five times seven is thirty-five, six-seven is… uh… see? How could she be an idiot!

Aer nodded, unpersuaded, a quiet wave damping the boast.

Ling flipped the table and jabbed a finger at Aer’s nose, voice flaring like a tossed torch.

“I’m not an idiot! I’m a super genius! And… what if it’s true?”

Aer snorted, a small cold puff.

“Heh. No one’s come here for a thousand years.”

Ling tensed, nerves trembling like reeds. This one was an ancient yokai, over a millennium old. And she was just four hundred ninety-five. Would this elder eat her?

“Who… are you?”

Aer smiled. She saw the tightness, and a filament of fear. Why fear her? She had no plan to devour this little sprout. So she soothed.

“Relax~ You can call me Aer, or big sis, or even wife.”

Ling’s pitch shot up like a kettle screaming. Was this old yokai trying to lull her, then snack on her?

“You know I wasn’t asking your name!”

Aer watched her tension and felt her fondness deepen, a quilt laid over frost.

“I told you, don’t tense up. As you can see, I’m a yokai like you. Just a little book-spirit. Experimental number 9527.”

Hearing she wasn’t a man-eating yokai, Ling’s heart-stone dropped with a thud. She flopped onto the floor like a felled sapling.

“Phew—scared me. I thought you were one of those gross tentacled man-eaters.”

“Setting aside why you pictured me with a heap of tentacles—can you really trust a stranger that quickly?”

Ling blinked, then her eyes watered like glass catching rain. She looked at Aer with a face on the edge of tears.

“You… tricked me?”

Too cute—Aer admitted it silently. But she couldn’t make the little one cry. She hurried to soften her tone.

“Don’t—don’t cry. It was just a what-if. I didn’t lie.”

Ling’s tears retreated at once, swift as tide. Her gaze steadied, solemn as a vow.

“Really? I don’t know why, but I really want to trust you.”

Aer paused, then her look gentled, a hand smoothing silk.

“Thanks for trusting me.”

“You’re welcome~ So… are we friends?”

Friends? Only friends… fine. Some rivers you cross slowly.

“Mm… I think that counts.”

Ling leaped and hugged Aer, warmth wrapping like a small quilt.

“Aer, Aer, you’re my first friend!”

Aer rubbed the little one in her arms, voice soft as early spring.

“Is that so? Then it’s a neat twist of fate. You’re my first friend too.”

“Really? That’s a lovely thread of destiny! Oh, right, I haven’t told you my name.”

Aer rubbed her fingers together, like a fortune-teller rolling beads.

“You’re Yufan Ling, aren’t you?”

Ling’s eyes flashed gold, curiosity sparking like fireflies.

“Eh~ Aer, that’s amazing. How did you guess?”

Aer gave a sheepish smile; she hadn’t expected that much interest.

“Uh… it’s just how my ability works. I’m a book yokai who can foresee the future.”

Ling’s gold grew brighter—future-sight! The secret to never losing rock-paper-scissors!

“That strong?”

Aer lowered her head, a small shadow crossing her face.

“Sometimes… seeing the future is a bad thing.”

Ling stared, not understanding, like a carp looking at clouds.

Aer saw the blank look and ruffled her hair, fingers feather-light.

“Kids don’t need to shoulder grown-up talk.”

Ling bristled, fur spiking like a kitten.

“You’re the kid! Your whole family’s kids! Ling’s an adult—four hundred ninety-five-year-old adult!”

“But I’m over a thousand~”

Ling started counting on her fingers, ten little stems trying to measure mountains.

“Then… um… which is bigger, four hundred ninety-five or a thousand?”

Seeing she couldn’t even settle basic counting, Aer sighed. It seemed Ling had been locked in this sealed space since that day, cut off from learning like a tree sealed in amber.

“Don’t worry about it. Just know I’m the older adult.”

Ling took it as she was too dumb to teach, so Aer wouldn’t bother. Her head drooped like a wilted flower.

“Sorry… Ling’s just too dumb.”

“You little fool, what are you apologizing for? It’s not on you.”

“But—”

An alarm shrieked. Red sound washed the air like sirens tearing cloth.

“Alert, alert. Experimental subject—Final Number has escaped. Experimental subject—Final Number has escaped. Capture at once.”

Ling flinched, her body trembling like a leaf. Her eyes darted around, then she sprinted off, feet tapping like rain.

“I’ll come find you!”