What Geffin Left Behind (1)
Karator-sa nodded.
Shirone's Miracle Stream was every bit as formidable as the Geffin Shirone knew.
"It passed on properly."
"Yeah. Thanks."
Having experienced Omega, Shirone no longer felt any remaining mystery; speaking came easier.
"If it hadn't been for you, the Gaian spirit wouldn't have survived to this age." His reverence hadn't vanished for all that.
"I'll convey our thanks on Geffin's behalf." They were the ones who had preserved time through that vast current—from Geffin's erasure to the Great Purification.
"We only did our duty."
Even as he said it, Karator-sa's expression ran deep; he stared at the ceiling with a distant look.
"…Knowing Omega isn't the end. Like I said before, I can't tell you the history of the age you live in. From now on you'll have to fight the world by your own judgment."
"I'm prepared."
"However—"
Karator-sa slowly lowered his head, fixing his gaze on Shirone.
"One more thing remains. The only thing Geffin allowed: the history of the time period you exist in."
"Geffin allowed it…"
Shirone swallowed.
"Yes. It's an incident that happened just before Geffin left the photon realm, and around the time you were born. Very few know that a Hexa was born, so it won't greatly affect your present. But Geffin asked that I request your permission. I don't know the contents of the event. If you don't allow it, I'll delete the log I have."
He didn't want to pass on his feelings when leaving Hexa behind.
'That's the parent's position, I guess.'
Still, Shirone wanted to know.
'He says he's the biological father, yet there aren't any memories.'
Shirone didn't appear in Omega, so there should be no contact between Geffin and him.
"What Geffin left behind."
Shirone murmured and drew a deep breath.
"Yeah. I want to know." Karator-sa's eyes glowed with golden light again, and a record from Omega flowed in.
A gate made by Geffin had been installed in Istas, and not long after—around the time of the Twenty Judges—Miro sought Heaven.
"Is that the child?"
The Plateau of Corruption.
Amid a landscape swept bare by war, Geffin held a child.
He bowed his head to meet the child's eyes, and an indescribable emotion curved his mouth.
"Let me see."
When Miro lowered the swaddling, a bright, moonlike child smiled.
"Hmm."
Geffin snorted.
"If you think they're cute, just say so. They're Ikael's and mine—of course they're handsome."
"You're grinning from ear to ear. How can you give them away when you're so attached?" Geffin's smile turned bitter.
'Even if you fathom all things, children still tug at the heart.'
Feeling pity, Miro looked the child over again and tried to change the mood.
"Well, they look ninety percent like Ikael. Little one, consider yourself lucky. If you'd taken after your father… ugh."
Geffin exclaimed in disbelief.
"What are you saying? Anyone can see he's my son! Look carefully—how is that ten percent?"
"No, the face is one hundred percent Ikael. The remaining ten percent, hmm, maybe it's here?"
Miro's index finger slowly parted the swaddling and moved toward the child's lower body.
Shirone's shoulders trembled as he received the log.
'Miro, please…' Because it wasn't just a video but an eleven-sense experience, her thoughts were completely visible.
'She's actually going to look.'
At that moment Geffin twisted in alarm.
"What's this? I can't give our son to you."
Miro snorted.
"What, weren't you the unrivaled heir and the world's final defender? Was all that bluster?"
"I don't know. Anyway, our son absolutely can't go to you! He'll have a normal life and a normal relationship with a normal woman."
Miro's eyes sharpened.
"You won't remember me soon anyway, will you?"
If Geffin erased his log after leaving the photon realm, he wouldn't remember what happened here.
"There, there—good boy."
Without pretending to listen, Geffin—who had been comforting the child—suddenly showed a tender look.
"Saying he looks like Ikael…"
When Geffin's emotion flowed through the empathic link, Shirone's eyes burned hot.
'How much he must miss him.'
Seeing Geffin's gaze, Miro relaxed her expression and patted his back.
"Come on. We should get started."
…Hmm?
A hundred meters ahead, a huge bell-shaped structure rose from the ground.
"This is… the Tower of Babel?"
Geffin laughed.
"I get being disappointed. Still, it was once high enough to pierce the sky. It was massive."
They had drawn near to the divine.
"The Battle of Babel. In the Second Resistance, the Gaians officially lost their confrontation with the gods. You could call this a historic place."
"You want to show it to the child?"
"Thinking about it, Gaians never truly had a homeland. After realizing Ultima, they rejected fate and challenged the gods. With their roots gone, perhaps this place can become a home in spirit."
Geffin looked down at the child.
"My son, remember the Gaian resolve that dwells in this tower. Though we were defeated, we kept challenging without end. We never yielded to the world. We never despaired; we protected our free will to the last."
Geffin and Miro descended into Babel, deeper and deeper underground.
Shirone realized.
'They really did come here.'
That was why entering Babel during the Heaven Project had felt like déjà vu.
Miro asked, "Why is security so tight? Didn't Gaians live here before?"
Geffin answered as he disabled the security with Miracle Stream engaged.
"This is Heaven's doing. From the code, it's Kariel. Originally, Heaven's technology came from the Gaians. Now a subject people called Mekka maintain it."
"…It should be safe, right?"
Miro glanced around warily. Geffin smirked.
"It's still only technology. It can never imitate the Gaian spirit."
Each time the Miracle Stream's haze spread, the corridor's red warning lights went out.
"We'll be able to do something here." In the control room the first things they saw were conical pillars fixed to the ceiling and floor.
Beyond them were crude machines—apparatus Kariel must have made, ugly to Geffin's eye.
"The Babel Tower runs on the Ultima system. The angels are out of luck." Geffin slipped his hand between the cones and activated the Ultima system; a powerful electrical potential condensed.
Lights flared across all the devices, Babel powered up, and a display came alive.
"Main system connection. Codename: Babel Project."
Under Miro's watch, a program's logical circuit appeared on the screen.
"What are you going to do firing it up now?"
"Well…" Geffin felt slightly embarrassed.
"But since we're here, I thought I should leave something. After all, I'm the last Gaian."
We once existed in this world.
"Of course, if Hexa can't beat the god, this record will return to nothing…
That's why it's Omega.
"This time I'm just casting it out. My feelings."
As his thoughts converted to text, characters that had never existed before began to appear on the screen.
Miro couldn't read them.
'Law Number 1.'
They were Geffin's script alone.
"Gaians used different scripts according to individuality. But communication wasn't a problem. In the end, the signal that governs this world is one."
That signal was empathic sense—the Ultima system.
So if Shirone ever comes here later, he'll be able to read Geffin's record.
'When Anke Ra attempts the second reset… that'll be about Omega 412.'
Geffin recorded specific Gaian eras in Omega units and filled the last 999 years.
'The last Gaian, McClane Geffin. Photon realm departure.'
The name would be erased anyway, but with this the Gaian history came to an end.
'The future…'
Geffin muttered after a pause.
"Beyond infinity."
A sentence addressed to someone was recorded, and then the screen went dark.
"All done?"
Miro asked.
A dimensional gate to Istas had opened behind her.
"Now give me Hexa. If you switch her with the prince of Kazra and then initiate the reset, Hexa's cause will be removed forever. Then even Anke Ra can't touch it."
"That should do it."
Because humanity's future was at stake, Geffin didn't hesitate to hand the child over.
Only his hand trembled a little.
"…The child will be safe. I can't persuade sister Yolga, but I won't let her off easy either."
"Good. I'm counting on you."
Miro, taking Hexa, stared at the child's face, then raised her eyes.
"As a father, any last words?"
A final farewell.
Knowing leaving some space makes parting easier, Miro still couldn't walk away like this.
"Last words, huh."
If any advice could be given to a son who would have to fight the world alone…
"If ever you—"
Geffin stroked the child and spoke.
"If you must fight an evil so strong you cannot protect yourself, use the methods of that evil."
The Behemoth sealing sigil engraved in Shirone's mind flared red for a moment.
"If you grow strong enough to protect your family, stand neutral between good and evil."
There is nothing greater than protecting one's family.
"Your father couldn't do that."
When Geffin laughed hollowly and his eyes reddened, Shirone felt tears fall from his own eyes.
"If you become strong enough to protect your family and to protect more people, defend the good."
That is what is right.
"And if… you grow strong enough to protect the whole world…"
Geffin raised Hexa high.
"Listen to everyone's stories." Nothing born from the One is trivial.
"Ah. Ah."
As if enjoying seeing Geffin's face from above, the child smiled brightly.
Geffin, lifting his face as if swallowing tears, slowly lowered his arm.
Miro, solemn now, gently took the child and stepped into the dimensional gate, turning away.
"How much time do I have left?"
"Istas's time is linked with space. If an event branches, time's relativity spikes. One second here could be decades inside Istas."
A closed time curve.
"Don't worry. I'll succeed. If I can't return in time, just shut the time. I won't resent you."
"No. You'll resent me anyway. If I disappear, you'll just become humanity's scapegoat."
Geffin, who had been lost in thought, continued.
"I'm prepared to be hated and pitied. But please—protect Hexa without fail."
Miro nodded and stepped into Istas, murmuring,
"Yolga."
The next moment, Shirone saw Miro walking down the corridor with her face painted in blood.
In a closed time curve, space equals time, so from Geffin's perspective the seventy-second storeroom was the same timeframe.
'If I create an independent time inside the world and then leave the photon realm…
Other storerooms of Istas may already have been affected by Geffin's erasure.'
Inside the closed curve, what is future within it can be the past in the larger timeline. That was Istas's mystery.
'The prince of Kazra… isn't there.'
Miro had never looked so fierce, yet she simply nodded and didn't ask further.
'Thanks.'
There had probably been tragedy, but Geffin didn't ask and closed the dimensional gate.
This left the event of Miro exiting Istas sealed in the closed time curve.
"All preparations are complete."
Geffin looked up at the ceiling and murmured.
"This time you won't be able to stop me, Anke Ra."
He wasn't alone.
Ikael's tears streamed through Hexa, and a vast Ataraxia unfolded.
"Grrrr!"
Amplification.
Geffin's body itself became a Miracle Stream and began compressing toward infinity.
'There is no Ultima left in this world anymore, but…
I'll leave one thing behind.'
As his body slowly diffused into light, a faint smile crossed Geffin's face.
"It was fun."
His flesh vanished in flickers.
'It pierces.'
When he passed through the boundary of the photon realm—the unknown layer without even the concept of spacetime—
'What's that?'
He saw a blond boy, uncannily like Ikael, running straight toward him.
"You little—"
Geffin understood everything. "You turned out fine." See? I told you he takes after me.