Distrust pricked like thorns under her skin; Lian still lay on Aer’s chest, eyes clouded like a lake in winter.

“Are you really not lying to me this time?”

Aer nodded, the gesture small as a falling leaf; she knew Lian couldn’t take another lie, and she’d decided to never deceive her again.

“Fine… I’ll trust you one more time, for now…”

—But don’t make me disappointed again, or I don’t know what I’ll do…

Lian rose slowly, like mist lifting at dawn; Aer pushed up from Lian’s hold, breath returning like tide to shore. Aer tried to move closer, but Lian slipped away like a wary cat; looks like she’d be sulking for a while.

Still, sulking is one thing; on the important matter, we can’t be sloppy.

“Lian… what do we do now? Do we keep the spell? If not, you and Ling will vanish like two candles in the wind…”

Some doors stand like cold gates; they must be faced.

Lian was torn, heart split like a fork in a river: on one side a sister-in-all-but-blood, on the other her own life. Equal weights on the scale; the pointer shook.

—So annoying! What should I do? If it were Ling, what would she pick? Me or someone else… No. If nothing went wrong, that girl would say, “Only kids make choices. I want it all!” Then she’d stride over and kill the World Consciousness… Right. If we kill the World Consciousness, doesn’t that solve it?

“Maybe… we try killing the World Consciousness?”

Aer gave her a strange look, like thunder muttering behind clouds.

“Lian… are you serious? That’s the World Consciousness! That’s—”

She swallowed the last words like a stone in her throat. Luckily, Lian was weighing the idea and missed Aer’s oddness.

“I think we have to try. You noticed it too, right? Ling’s power had an accident and… got ten—no, dozens of times stronger.”

Aer nodded, a quiet tremor like grass in wind. She’d noticed. In her plan, those had been small variables; now the plan was ash—unless she wanted a lasting rift with Lian.

“But that thing isn’t something you face with a mere dozens-fold boost.”

Her certainty landed like iron. Lian’s doubt rose like fog.

“Why do you sound so familiar with the World Consciousness? Like you’ve actually been there?”

Aer froze, words catching like a fish in net; she realized she’d been speaking without a filter, letting thoughts spill like a tipped jar.

“Um… me and the World Consciousness… emmm… I… she… Ah! Right. I only received memories from Aers on other worldlines. Some of them challenged the World Consciousness, so I know how it works.”

She exhaled inside, a small relief like a guttering flame saved by cupped hands; it wasn’t a lie, not exactly, and saying it felt clean.

Lian found it reasonable, like stones fitting in a wall. She knew Aer was a book spirit who could speak across worldlines, so the explanation made sense. But…

“Then on those other lines, what happened to me and Ling? Did both survive, or did one fall?”

Aer’s smile went out like a lamp in rain; shadow drifted over her fine features.

“They… all died. No one survived.”

“?! Why!”

“On every worldline, you refused to sacrifice Ling. In the end you both were killed by the World Consciousness. Your resistance bought you one second of life. That’s why I tried everything—even lies—to push this spell.”

—Was I too willful?

The thought struck like a needle of ice. Had she been unreasonable? Aer had prepared all this for her sake, and now Aer stood as the one being scolded.

Should she keep on with this tantrum? Ling is woven into her fate like red thread, yes—but is Aer unimportant? On the contrary, Aer weighs more. Lian had stormed up to question Aer because she wanted Ling to stay, to force a perfect ending.

But perfect endings are a mirage; a Happy Ending exists only in dreams.

So what does she choose? Sacrifice Ling and live for Aer, or take that less than one-percent chance and challenge the World Consciousness with Ling?

She glanced at Aer, who stood aside like a statue, face blank but eyes bruised with sadness; then at Ling, still sprawled on the ground like a fallen hawk.

Heh… the result is clear. I thought I could challenge the boundary, thought I was someone who’d give herself up for others; that was just talk.

“Aer, I’ve decided, we—”

“Let’s challenge the World Consciousness~”

Aer cut in like a sudden breeze. Her words shocked Lian, a bell struck at dusk.

“Aer… why?”

Aer turned her back so Lian couldn’t see her face; a light wind lifted her silver hair like watergrass, and a sunset, arriving who knows when, dyed it red like maple leaves in autumn, as if—

“No reason~ Just like you don’t want to make things hard for me, I don’t want you to suffer for me. Otherwise, I’ll be sad. So forget those useless probabilities—let’s defeat this world and walk to a real Happy Ending.”

She spoke grandly, a banner raised against night, but a hair-thin sadness threaded her tone; Lian heard it like a faint violin under drums.

—Heh… what a foolish, adorable girl.

Lian slipped behind her without a sound, arms circling her slender waist like silk tying a bundle; she rested her cheek on Aer’s back, savoring the warm, safe hush that settled like snow.

“Thank you, Aer…”