/POP Zuta/
Zuta on her memory with her best friend Gooly. Those were the best memories she had in her childhood. But they were also the worst memories for her. If that nightmare had never come, maybe she could have lived a normal life. She couldn't believe there was something crueler than that AI. Sometimes she felt like she was no longer human anymore because of her illusion-like duty she had sworn to herself.
In Zuta's past life, she had a sister-like figure. She was her neighbor, and her name was Gooly. She was older than Zuta by 3 years... She wished she would never meet that person again, but she had no choice except to face this shit again. What a painful thing it was to exist.
But even though there was an age gap, they still became friends by sharing the same aims like normal girls do. To be beautiful, talk about boys, or even things related to adult topics... After all, it all felt fake, a lie to live like a normal girl.
When she was first born into this world, she could feel something strange within it. It felt like a system or something else beyond understanding, far beyond what a human could understand. She could feel the heaviness of the sky itself... something beyond all galaxies...
Zuta forced herself to pretend to be a normal girl, trying to distract herself from those weird feelings. Sometimes she even felt déjà vu in some way. It made her childhood feel like a curse created by her own senses or maybe just her own imagination.
They had a lot of memories together, but one day that evil man appeared, named Lustem, and took everything Gooly had. Her family, her love... even her freedom. She knew it, that déjà vu feeling made her deeply uneasy, like her own soul was hiding something from her without her understanding why.
From that event, Zuta didn't truly meet Gooly again. She spent her time alone thinking about this world and this life. No normal child should have feelings like hers. She always asked herself:
"What is the huge puzzle behind my existence?"
Those feelings never ended, but instead became worse...
Zuta had a terrible feeling about the sky. Something about it felt dark, like blood would rain down upon this world. A death sentence for all humanity. She was terrified by those feelings.
While looking at the sky during the night from a special place, she wore black clothes covering her whole body and held a camera to capture the stars. She could see many beautiful stars. They flickered as if they were calling her toward the place where she belonged, but deep inside her there was only primordial fear.
She asked herself about Gooly while her face showed sadness.
"Why did she accept his evil suggestion to become his wife? He had been lying to her. He said if she accepted it, he wouldn't kill her lover. But when it came to the nightmare wedding..."
[But why do I feel like this...? Why don't I feel sad enough for my friend? I'm so emotionless, like I'm not even human anymore... Am I really human...?]
She wore her headphones to calm down her emotions.
"何も言わずに 静かに泣いてるのも 知らないままで"[Music] ~ "You're crying so quietly without even realizing it..."
She took some pictures of the sky, continuing to learn about her weird feelings connected with the universe. It felt like she had some kind of mission when she came into this world somehow.
"Her beloved didn't accept it, so he came to save her and help her escape from that evil man. But that became the last day he breathed in his life and turned into a tormenting memory for Gooly."
[Love...? I don't understand it, even though I've tried to read and understand those feelings to become more human. Every human, animal, and existence just wants to be loved, but for me it still feels like an unknown thing... or maybe just another lie created to force existence.]
She looked below from where she stood and saw many exhausted people sleeping on the streets after hard work. The streets were filled with trash. What an ugly side of Japan.
But her face stayed emotionless as she continued.
"After that, she became emotionless, with only revenge left in her mind."
She looked back toward the uncanny sky.
In her past life, Gooly had helped Zuta a lot to finish that bastard. Yes, she remembered everything from Timeline 1. But for some reason, thinking about it always exhausted her. Maybe she truly needed rest.
But after that, Gooly lived like a walking corpse, empty inside. The world became a nightmare because of Alice. It was once a beautiful world where people could travel freely, but now it was nothing but war after war across the whole world.
Her face showed pain, haunted by Alice again. Alice felt like her nightmare. The feeling was similar to the fake sky she was studying now.
She blinked slowly, trying to remember Gooly.
"Gooly was so tired and empty from this cursed world, so she chose to give up and finally meet her beloved and her family in the afterlife."
[Death feels weird to me. Even if an afterlife exists, I still can't fully believe in it.]
When Gooly died, Zuta felt pain and torment and kept asking herself why she couldn't save her friend... That moment triggered something strange inside her. Maybe human connection was what made her feel human for the first time.
So she realized that all the problems she met in life came from one person: Alliter. Her hands struggled to hold the camera as she almost dropped it. Her face showed stress.
When it came to this timeline, Zuta didn't want to change it because she knew someone needed to sacrifice themselves for the future of the world. So she didn't stop it, even if it was her best friend.
With a calm face, she took pictures of the shooting stars. But those shooting stars weren't normal because of their strange spatial coordinates.
She could have helped her, could have saved her from that evil man's touch. But she wouldn't, because saving the world was her top priority rather than her individual friendship. She didn't know why she loved this world so much, even though it continued making her more exhausted from existing.
Sometimes it became torment for Zuta too. She kept asking herself if this was truly the right choice, to sacrifice her friend like that. But in the end, she had no choice. Those emotions would only make her weak, so she chose logic instead.
Then she showed a faint smile while seeing Sana and Alice helping people find places to rest, like an internet café.
Even though Zuta looked less human now, it showed she still had some hope for Sana to change this cursed world together with Alice.
She believed love had the power to do anything, even though she had abandoned her best friend Gooly.
No choice...
Reality returned harshly, like the sound of a broken mirror.
Her face looked sad while imagining how suffering and emotionless Gooly must be right now.
Zuta: "I'm sorry, Sis Gooly..." Her voice trembled while talking to Gooly through her magic.