Seeing it unfold, Lilo felt a chill crawl up her spine like frost over grave soil. Not long ago the same tableau had opened like an old wound—when Brynhildr seized Aphelia’s body.

She slammed the table and sprang up, like thunder splitting a ridge. Crimson Aether coiled in her palm, hungry to burn.

“Lilo, calm down!”

With a clear shout like a bell in mist, Hrok dropped beside her like a hawk folding its wings.

“But… that statue—don’t tell me it’s like Brynhildr and it wants Aphelia’s body?”

Worry pressed on Lilo like storm weight. She truly couldn’t bear to watch Aphelia suffer again; scarlet Aether twined her fingers like living flame. One flick, and that timber fortress would fall like dry reeds.

Seeing Lilo about to erupt, the bandaged women scurried behind the giant tree like startled rabbits, peeking half their heads out, eyes wide and pitiful.

“This time is her chance,” Hrok said, gaze heavy as iron rain on the towering wooden wall. “Success or failure hangs on this.”

“What do you mean? Miss Hrok, you knew this would happen?”

Lilo slid a step closer like a blade edging in. Aether hardened behind her into crystalline shards, and cold intent bled between her brows like hoarfrost.

Hrok didn’t anger. She shook her head as if brushing off snow. “It’s not that we knew. It’s that the future does.”

“I don’t care what the future does. I want to know if Aphelia will be hurt again!”

Lilo seized Hrok’s collar like a drowning woman catching driftwood. To her surprise, Hrok didn’t strike back. She only looked at Lilo with eyes cold as a winter lake, as if this scene were natural as nightfall.

“Of course not. If you could hurt yourself, what order would be left… no, there’s no order anyway. So, can you let go?”

That frosted glance cut her grip like ice; Lilo’s hand loosened.

“What do you mean… hurt herself? Don’t tell me that statue—”

The guess flared like lightning. Lilo didn’t want to believe it; no, she couldn’t. The legend of the statue and her memory of Brynhildr made the link obvious, but she hadn’t dared think this far.

Hrok sat down at the side like a stone under rain, stopped answering, and fixed on the wooden bastion, waiting for the verdict like sailors watch a horizon.

Inside the wall of giant timber, Aphelia floated in a halo of Aether, bandages unwinding from her like serpents shedding skin. The Crimson Flame didn’t detonate; it froze midair like a caged comet, held by some unseen law.

But in Aphelia’s sea of consciousness, the scene was utterly different.

Ruins ran to the horizon like broken teeth. Weeds choked the cracks, and corpses lay strewn like felled logs, a limb every few steps. The reek of blood filled her nose like iron rain, hell poured onto earth.

What surprised her wasn’t the bodies, but the mismatched buildings around her, alien as a dream. She’d only seen that style once, in a memory that leapt across endless time like a bridge of dusk.

No bandages bound her now. She wore a tight black outfit like shadow on skin—her memory called it a “suit.”

Smoke curled from the gun in her hand like a dying incense stick. The corpses looked like her handwriting.

“I killed them?”

She stared at the ruin of flesh with a heart like stone. Curiosity, not remorse, rose like a small flame. Why was she here? Or rather, why had her mind sunk into this memory? A moment ago she’d been by the statue, and she’d heard a voice—

“Of course you did~. Well? Do you feel the weight of sin?”

A soft, playful voice brushed her ear like a silk ribbon. Her body moved like water over rock—raise the gun, flick the safety, sight, take up slack—one smooth river.

A beautiful woman in white stood before her like a moonbeam on rubble. Aphelia knew that face: the gentle side carved into the statue, the “culprit” who had pulled her here.

“Sin? I don’t feel it. I’ve killed more than I can count.”

She kept the muzzle steady, gaze cool as glass. She wanted to see what this supposed original would do.

“Oho? Even I felt sinful,” the white-dressed girl said, tilting her head like a sparrow. “I reflected for… mm, how long? A minute, maybe~.”

She didn’t have the statue’s mature grace; she was all fox-light mischief.

“So you’re the world’s will? Or… are you also Brynhildr?”

The similar face soured Aphelia’s stomach like old wine. She saw again Brynhildr’s smile, the knife peeling her flesh with a mother’s patience. Memory brought the blade-on-bone ache roaring back like surf.

“Mm… you’re half right.” The girl drifted down barefoot onto the rubble, unbothered by the gun, and walked in like a breeze.

“Not all correct?”

Aphelia frowned. Her finger tightened on the trigger like a bowstring. One twitch from the girl, and she would fire without mercy.

“First off…”

In a blink, the girl stood at the muzzle, her pale brow kissing the barrel. Long fingers wrapped the gun like ivy. “Do you think you can kill me?”

The sudden nearness almost tripped Aphelia’s reflex, but she strangled the urge like a snake. “I don’t mind trying.”

“Then do it~. Show me your resolve.”

“Huh?”

The line jolted her like cold water. What kind of twist was this?

“Kill me, and you’ll take back all your power—stronger than Brynhildr. The whole world will sit in your palm. Even the Eldritch Gods won’t match you. Tempted?”

“This isn’t the real world.”

“This is the sea of consciousness—your mindscape. Don’t worry. Just pull the trigger. Take back your strength. So simple~. I won’t hate you, promise. No traps.”

Her voice flowed like honeyed poison, a devil’s lullaby over a cradle of fire. Temptation stirred like wind over coals.

Her hand slid off the barrel like a falling petal. She stopped holding the gun, and the mindscape shivered like a lake under hail. Aphelia felt it in her bones: this was her sea. Killing the girl would be as easy as closing a fist.

On gain: kill, and she’d wield power to rival Brynhildr, a height above a True God, erasing the threat like dawn erases stars.

On duty: with that power, she could crush the Eldritch Gods and set the world back on course like a river returned to its bed. The girl stood ready for sacrifice like a candle before sunrise.

By every light, shooting was best. A voice in her head beat the trigger like a war drum.

She sighed.

Aphelia holstered the gun with a weary breath, as if laying a blade into snow, and raised her hands.

“I don’t need that kind of power anymore. Let Brynhildr lead the world. I don’t have the knack, and she hasn’t wrecked it, has she?”

She looked at the girl in white and tasted rue like bitter tea. If she hadn’t begged for strength, she wouldn’t be seeing this one. Saying she didn’t need it was the peak of hypocrisy, and she knew it like a thorn under skin.

“Tch. Coward.”

The girl flipped her the finger like a naughty child, then slid in and hugged her, warm as spring sun on stone.

“Congrats. Correct answer~.”

“Correct?”

“Yep. Correct.”

She nodded, let Aphelia go, and walked up the ruin like a swan climbing a hill, smiling.

“It’s a little experiment. If you can keep from firing, you pass.”

“What kind of experiment is that? It’s just not pulling the trigger. I could change my mind now and shoot you. And that claim about power stronger than Brynhildr—she’s an old fossil who’s lived for eons.”

Aphelia shook her head, helpless, and climbed after her, boots ticking on stone like rain on tiles. Falling for a dumb test like this—unbelievable.

From the shattered peak, a blood-red sunset sank behind a forest of broken blocks. Warm afterglow spilled over Aphelia like a quilt, and peace rose in her chest like a slow tide.

“I didn’t lie. If you killed me now, you’d get that power.”

“So what?”

Aphelia sighed and lay back on a slab of stone like a sleeper on a raft, watching the sky burn. Loneliness pooled in her eyes like dusk rain.

“You refused so cleanly. I’ll be heartbroken.”

The girl in white laughed softly, then sat beside her, and together they shared the sky like two birds on one branch.