Something was crawling filthily in the darkness. With every step on the floor, a greasy sliminess felt as if it were sliding past the soles of his feet.
In his color-blind vision, the features of the person before him shifted constantly within the shadows. One moment they were a man with a cold, mocking smirk; the next, a girl smiling with her head tilted—like a piece of clay being kneaded at will.
"Are you alright?"
The chaotic sound echoed in his ears for a while before turning into a deep, heavy voice. Lin drifting consciousness returned to his body.
Ato's mature face emerged from a heap of unrecognizable countenances. Lin forced himself to disperse the double vision until the person in front of him finally became Ato again.
"I'm fine. Old habit." The pupils inside Lin helmet recovered from their dilated state back to normal.
Ato looked at Lin, who was surrounded by a much darker aura than a few months ago, and hesitated to speak.
An old habit... Could a few months cause Lin—who had fought the Honkai on the line between life and death for years without much change—to suffer from such an affliction?
Ato sighed inwardly but forced himself to relax his clenched fingers, offering Lin a smile. "We don't have much time. Speak plainly."
"Was the attack on the Star Gate your own self-directed play?"
Lin first sentence plunged Ato into silence.
The visor of the helmet was pitch black. Ato didn't know if Lin could see the changes in his facial expression when the helmet's functions weren't active. Regardless of whether he could, Ato didn't want Lin to see the subtle twitching of his facial muscles.
"Should I say yes, or should I say no..."
Melancholy? Conflict? Hesitation?
None of the above. Ato simply maintained his usual smile, muttering to himself about which rhetoric to use for an explanation.
Lin gazed at Ato peacefully. After noticing this gaze—the same as always—Ato gave a low chuckle.
"In the beginning, it wasn't."
"...Then the hints left on the wreckage after the attack, were those your doing?"
"They were," Ato admitted frankly.
There were many suspicious points about that attack, but by combining them with Fire Moth's movements over the past two years, Lin could guess the general sequence of events.
Ever since the attack, the Star Gate had been locked down and its existence made public. The result was not only glossing over the Star Gate and Moon Wreckage incident but also using the attack as a pretext for secret research on the Star Gate.
Without involving the R&D department officially, they tasked the department with the HQ renovation while having covert personnel conduct experiments that could potentially trigger a Sverdlovsk-51 level Honkai eruption.
In other words, while the attack seemed like a loss for Fire Moth, the material damage was irrelevant; the subsequent series of events completely benefited the Fire Moth leadership.
And what Lin wanted to know was what role Ato played in that event.
From Ato's ambiguous answer, the attack at the time was indeed an accident for him, but he had participated in it afterward.
"Dr. Einstein wanted to investigate... certain things, but it was too dangerous for her to do alone. One wrong step, and she would end up in your situation." A flash of deep apology crossed Ato's eyes. "She may have noticed something, but she didn't point it out."
"...So, which side are you on?" Lin took a deep breath. He heard his own voice tremble slightly.
"..."
Ato gave a look Lin couldn't decipher—deep affection, self-reproach... and a completely contradictory resolve.
"Lin, what do you think I wanted you to do with the words I left on the wreckage?"
The Sverdlovsk-51 Moon Wreckage incident had already been told to Lin personally. Why did Ato leave those words? What was he trying to guide? What was he trying to lead Lin to do?
The "person" who fell—
Lin looked at the helplessness revealed in Ato's eyes. His teeth involuntarily clicked together as an indescribable emotion completely occupied his heart.
It wasn't a wound, nor an illness; it was pure panic.
As long as you continue to investigate, that kind of future will never arrive.
Lin throat, seemingly lacking lubrication, made a raspy sound: "Is it... among us?"
"..."
"..."
Ato didn't respond, but this silence made Lin heart tighten even more.
The air grew colder. Lin once again heard those voices approaching him in the darkness, and he was now powerless to stop them from echoing in his ears. Deep in his eyes, some ominous iridescent colors were surfacing.
"Who is it..."
"I wanted you to know of her existence, so I left those words. But I also didn't want you to know exactly who she is. That would be too cruel for you, so I only left those words." Ato gave a tragic smile, at Lin and at himself.
The moment he accidentally stumbled upon the truth, Ato couldn't describe the mood he was in as he sat in his room in a daze for an entire day.
Deciding a person's stance based on their identity is too childish and ugly, but... humans can never truly escape childishness.
They are a group of children who need someone else to make decisions for them and lead the way. As soon as the wings attached to their backs are shifted by the wind, they either fall or go with the flow.
Lin might not care, Ato might not care, and the people around them might not care.
But they aren't everyone.
And the name of a Herrscher cannot be engraved in the cemetery.
That's why he...
That's why Lin—
"Lin, I am but a man." Ato finally lowered his hand, still looking at Lin with that complex gaze—the boy who had spent his whole life in the cracks. "As long as one is human, one makes mistakes. I cannot judge whether my decision is right or wrong, much less know if what others have told me is correct."
"This will all be over soon, Lin. I truly feel lucky to have met Blanca, and you."
"You'll always give me hope, won't you?"
Ato smiled easily.
This man, who years ago was taciturn and strict with himself and his subordinates, had a different attitude only toward Lin, his unique junior.
To him, Lin embodied both the cruelty and malice concentrated by humanity, yet also humanity's brilliance and future.
As a member of the former Fire Moth, as a soldier of Fire Moth, as an elder... as a father.
As Ato himself, he looked up at the deep night sky.
"In the future, try living without the helmet. It's such a waste to hide such a handsome face."
Lin left.
The man stood alone in this lightless night.
At the very end, Lin had asked him one question.
"What is it for?"
For what?
Humanity? Comrades? Friends?
Perhaps it was simply the pain he felt in his chest when he watched his daughter run barefoot down the hallway.