The silence was deafening.
Inside the secluded wooden cabin nestled in the mountains, the atmosphere was suffocatingly tense. By now, the beef borscht that Bronya and Seele had cooked together earlier had been served on the table.
But it was slightly burnt.
Yes, the bottom of the pot was scorched. However, as long as one didn't recklessly stir it, the top portion was still edible.
Earlier, Ling Ke had arrived entirely on his own terms, and departed just as quickly without lingering. Since then, the hearts of the two young girls had been unable to find a single shred of peace.
Seele did not know Ling Ke. Therefore, her current unrest naturally stemmed from the massive amount of information the man had actively—or rather, deliberately—revealed.
As for Bronya...
Her mind was in absolute turmoil. It was a chaotic mess.
The incredibly haggard Cocolia sat in the wheelchair right next to her. Even though her sanity had been entirely stripped away, the devastated woman seemed to have found her sole pillar of support. She gripped Bronya's wrist with one hand in a deathly tight hold.
It was so tight that Bronya could faintly feel the pain.
It seemed that this catatonic woman was using such desperate force not merely to seek comfort, but subconsciously trying to convey something else entirely.
However, at this moment, Bronya could not make any sudden movements.
Seele sat directly across from her, not saying a single word.
But Bronya truly wished she would say something. Anything. Instead of subjecting her to this absolute, freezing silence. The other girl's gaze felt like actual needles piercing her skin.
Right now, between the two of them, aside from the pot of overcooked beef borscht, there lay a single photograph.
It was one of the very few surviving artifacts from a civilization era that had completely faded away into nothingness. A group photo from the former Cocolia Orphanage.
In the photo stood Cocolia, wearing her military coat over her shoulders, looking high-spirited and vigorous. There was Sin Mal, arms crossed over her chest, looking extremely antisocial. There were the Olenyeva twins, younger and with wildly contrasting personalities.
And then, there was the gentle and sweet Seele, hugging her from behind. She stood alongside Bronya herself, who was holding a HOMU doll with a wooden, emotionless expression.
Bronya knew that the short-haired girl across the table was waiting for her to speak first.
But she truly did not know where to start, nor how to even begin explaining.
Under this deadlocked atmosphere, a long time passed.
"Aren't you going to say something?"
Ultimately, it was Seele who broke the silence.
"..."
Bronya opened her mouth. There were so many things she wanted to say in her heart.
But in the end...
"I'm sorry."
She lowered her head. Her hands, resting on her knees, were clenched into tight fists. She was incredibly nervous. She looked exactly like a child who had committed an unforgivable sin.
Strangely enough, compared to her, the Seele born in this current era—who usually possessed a carefree and straightforward personality—appeared exceptionally calm.
"You know that's not what I want to hear."
Seele looked directly at Bronya. Her tone sounded incredibly tranquil. "Explain it to me properly. I am giving you a chance."
"Perhaps you have forgotten, but I haven't." She added, "I told you. I would believe you."
"!!!"
In that instant, Bronya's heart was profoundly moved. Finally, she managed to mentally prepare herself.
And then...
"Bronya will confess everything to you."
The gray-haired girl raised her head and looked straight into the short-haired girl's eyes. "The truth defies all logic, but please believe that everything Bronya says is the truth."
"Mhm." Seele nodded. "Go ahead. I'm listening."
"Okay."
Bronya took another deep breath. She was finally going to speak. Or rather, she was truly backed into a corner and had absolutely no choice but to speak.
"These events... they begin in a future over fifty thousand years from now."
From there, her brilliant mind working at a frantic pace, Bronya began to recount her story as concisely and clearly as possible. She spoke of her childhood training as a child soldier assassin, gaining the moniker of the "Ural Silver Wolf." She detailed her failed assassination attempt on Cocolia, her integration into the orphanage, and meeting her younger sisters.
She explained the mission in Nagazora, and how acting as a crucial link in that chain of events triggered a series of massive, cascading tragedies.
She laid out this entire chain of cause and effect.
"The man you saw today, his name is Ling Ke. He is the Herrscher of Domination from our era."
"In order to complete his revenge plan, he forcefully reversed time by over fifty thousand years, returning us to this current era."
"He said that if Bronya and the others wish to save our own era, we must force this current era to repeat the same old path of destruction and demise."
"But Bronya does not want to do that."
She spoke extensively in a single breath.
Seele listened quietly the entire time. In truth, she didn't naturally possess this kind of patience. But just for today, in this very moment, she was surprisingly capable of holding her temper.
That was, until this exact moment.
"Alright." Seele spoke up, cutting off the rest of Bronya's words.
Then, she asked, "So, that first night we met, the reason you knew my name, the reason you called out to me with such intimacy... it was because you mistook me for someone else?"
"Seele Vollerei... was it?"
Hearing this incredibly sensitive question...
"..."
Bronya fell silent for a long time. Finally, gritting her teeth, she answered with great difficulty, "Yes!"
The expression on Seele's face showed no discernible change.
She asked again, "And later on, the reason you desperately risked your life to save me, and during this entire time we've lived together, finding ways to overcome every hardship... Was that also because you saw me as 'her' shadow?"
"No!" Bronya reacted intensely, answering without a second of hesitation. "Bronya did not mean it like that."
She seemed too panicked, to the point of stumbling over her words. "Seele, you and my Seele are different."
"..."
It wasn't until Bronya saw Seele remaining completely silent that she belatedly realized she had said the wrong thing.
She hurriedly tried to salvage it. "Seele, Bronya didn't mean it like that, you know."
"I don't know."
Seele interrupted Bronya once again. Her tone remained flawlessly calm. Meeting Bronya's incredibly terrified gaze...
"I didn't know you had such a past."
"I didn't know the world harbored such dark secrets."
"But..."
The corners of her mouth curled up slightly, blossoming into a smile. "You finally confessed to me. Even if it is a little late."
She did not specify exactly which step was too late.
"Seele..."
"Let's eat first, Sister Bronya."
"It's not good to stay hungry."
Seele truly seemed as though she wasn't affected in the slightest. She stood up and moved the nearly cold, slightly scorched beef borscht to the center of the table. In passing, she casually picked up that glaring photograph and tossed it aside.
Only then did Bronya let out a heavy sigh of relief.
She smiled. Her mood relaxed immensely.
But perhaps, she had relaxed just a bit too much. It wasn't surprising. Under these circumstances, she was inevitably lying to herself to some degree.
Because of this, Bronya selectively failed to notice that the Seele in front of her right now was acting incredibly gentle.
Her tone was soothing, her smile was accommodating.
She was calling her "Sister Bronya."
It was exactly like the "Seele Vollerei" from her memories.
And so, the two of them shared a rather unappetizing lunch. Their smiles were far less frequent, but they were still there. Most of them belonged to Seele.
And seeing the smile bloom on her face once more, gradually, Bronya began to smile along with her.
Only Cocolia, sitting off to the side—despite her shattered sanity—was inexplicably, uncontrollably trembling.
In the afternoon, Bronya wanted to prepare some easily digestible liquid food for her Mother Cocolia. She planned to boil some porridge for her.
Seele did not object.
But she did not offer to help, either.
Bronya vaguely sensed that when Seele looked at Mother Cocolia, her gaze was filled with pure repulsion. It made sense. Mother Cocolia had committed so many atrocities; it was normal for her to be looked at that way.
But she had no choice. This woman had raised her. She could not simply abandon her.
Bronya went outside the cabin to cook the porridge. Meanwhile, Seele stood at the doorway of the wooden cabin, watching Bronya's bustling figure from afar.
Project Bunny was beside her, assisting with the chores. Starting the fire, adding firewood.
In a specific fraction of a second, a flash of blood-red tainted the short-haired girl's dark violet eyes.
Faint, ethereal phantom butterflies seemed to flutter around her.
She didn't even notice it herself.
On her right forearm, those bizarre purple veins that had been spreading over an increasingly large area were suddenly receding in an instant, as if being rewound.
Ultimately, they vanished completely without a trace.
Just moments ago, before Bronya had fully confessed, the girl had received a revelation and a "blessing" from "God."
"God" had gifted her with a silken robe, bestowed upon her the wine of death, and granted her a sweet slumber. Once she silenced everything in this world, she would possess a true, beautiful "dream" that belonged exclusively to her.
Right now, her eyes were solely focused on the gray-haired girl who was working so hard that fine sweat beaded on her forehead.
She whispered, murmuring to herself, "Seele... abandoned heavily ill Natasha. Abandoned the children at the orphanage. Abandoned everything in the past... and finally, came here."
"Seele has absolutely nothing left."
I thought you were the same. At this moment, within the palm of the girl's left hand, a picture frame had somehow appeared. She gripped that glaring group photo in a deathly tight hold, and then...
Crack~ The glass shattered.
Starting from Seele's fingertips, the photograph, along with the frame, silently withered in the stillness. It turned into a charcoal-like substance, and more than half of it was pulverized into dust.
In the end, only a single small fragment remained. A fragment reflecting Bronya's younger self, slowly drifting to the floor. Around its jagged edges, there was absolutely nothing else.
"Bronya... Seele is so pitiful. Now, I truly only have you left."
"Therefore..."
The girl's lips curled upward into a grotesque, twisted arc. "Naturally, you can only have Seele, too."
"That's only fair, isn't it?"
With those words spoken...
The girl turned her head. Her blood-red eyes stared into the room, locking onto that cripple.
She had once told the gray-haired girl that this was the "burden" she despised the most.
"You are truly too much of an eyesore."
"Why are you still here?"
The girl standing at the doorway... her excessively twisted, entirely psychopathic expression was perfectly hidden in Bronya's blind spot outside.
She slowly raised her right hand.
On the tip of her index finger, a phantom butterfly landed softly.
Having already broken out of its cocoon, it symbolized absolute, definitive death. Anything that touched it, even the surrounding air, withered away in utter silence.
Carrying the power to eradicate all things and enforce an absolute, conceptual dead silence, it prepared to flap its wings.
"You whose very existence is a superfluous, repulsive eyesore."
The girl's eyes were glacial as she spoke with complete apathy. "Disperse with the butterflies."
"You discarded phantom of the past... forsaken by 'God'!"