Synopsis

 

Xavi's Compass.

The great airship that had guarded the heart of Inae

finally lays to rest its long-held duty and takes flight once more.

It cuts across the sky and advances toward Sky of a Thousand Seas.

Within, the Hermit and the Saint look together at the sky, now ominously stained.

 

The Hermit asks.

"Under your plan, does our path lie at the destination of the Compass?"

The question is directed at he who has yet to reveal himself.

 

The Saint also asks.

"Whilst you remain silent, if Doom should finally come, what choice must I make then?"

The question is directed at the silent god with true intent concealed.

 

They each cast their questions toward different silences.

 

Under the same sky,

a man raises the ring in his hand and looks up.

Within the ring's round circle, Xavi's Compass comes into view.

Unlike them, he does not ask. He already knows, so he simply consigns himself.

 

"Come. And watch closely.

The resolve of one who left everything in the past."

 

Xavi's Compass.

Within it and beyond it,

each destiny becomes interconnected in their own respective ways.

 

Story

 

Liberated Ica

 

"Wake up! The sun is already high in the sky!"

"Were you up all night making something weird again?"

"Last time, it was a toothbrush that spun around all by itself, wasn't it?"

 

It's that dream again.

A dream about the young siblings I grew up with in the orphanage.

Every night, I'm trapped in this dream.

 

Soon, the director opens the bedroom door and comes in.

 

"Children, our guest really wants to meet you. Could you come out for a moment?"

 

When we hesitate,

the director takes silver coins from the money bag received from said person and shows them to us.

A famous inventor, searching for assistants, has come.

If we follow them, we won't go hungry.

At those words, just like that day, the siblings always leave the room with faces full of hope.

In the dream, I'm left alone in that room.

And I shout.

 

Don't go.

You can't go.

We'll be subjected to horrible experiments.

At the end of those experiments, I'll become a monster and kill you.

 

The words I speak in the dream dissipate emptier than mist.

Left alone, I remain trapped in the darkness.

 

"Big bro, Ica... She's okay, right?"

"She looks like she's asleep, let's keep watch a bit longer and if something’s off..."

 

The voices that bring me back from the dream to reality are always these two.

Two faces, two respirators. Red-haired siblings.

Idiots who always care more about others, even though the mist keeps them from breathing freely.

I tell them this every day.

 

Go.

Go away.

Leave me alone.

 

But they don't leave.

They don't vanish like the siblings in my dream.

 

"Ica, are you awake? You're not hurt anywhere, are you?"

 

I wish they wouldn't make me feel this longing.

My body is slowly freezing anyway because of the mist's mana.

They should just let my heart freeze over, too.

 

"Ica. If it has anything to do with the mist's mana, tell us right away. That way, we can at least do something for you."

 

I can't let myself want to hold on to you.

If I do, and if you disappear just like my siblings...

If it all becomes meaningless, like my shouts telling you not to go...

 

"Peccator, Pius. I'm fine, so be quiet."

 

Could I endure that?

 

Honest Fictum

 

You were a lure.

A lure laid by the hunters.

No, perhaps you were a lure that I fell for voluntarily.

 

The abandoned.

The weak.

The lonely.

I was always weak to such things.

Because I thought you were like me.

 

Yes, you were like me.

Those eyes,

unable to abandon the world, even after the world abandoned you,

felt as if I were looking at myself.

So, I reached out.

For the first time, I wanted to let someone live.

 

But in the end, you were human, too.

You were human until the end,

and I remained a Maleficent until the end.

 

You did not deceive me.

I deceived myself... probably.

I told myself you would be different from other humans.

I told myself you would not see me as just a monster.

That foolish hope was what deceived me.

 

When I took your breath,

I severed the hope inside me as well.

But it is strange.

No matter how many humans I kill,

you don't disappear.

Not a single piece of your memory fades.

 

If you will not disappear,

then become a lure instead.

 

As you deceived me in life,

deceive other humans in death.

 

I will deceive them with the face you left behind

and call to them with the voice you left behind.

I will swallow them with the sorrow you left behind.

 

So, remain a lure forever.

Remain a lure that will not be erased even in death,

that will not disappear even after being swallowed,

that burrows deeper the more you try to remove it.

 

Tearful Bliss

 

Glass Sepulchre.

A place deep within the Labyrinth of Paradox. A place called a sepulchre, yet one where life is born.

Countless humans, Maleficents, and Sacred Beasts have died inside coffins, and then opened those coffins to emerge again as new beings.

Whether by their own will or another's, no one knows.

After all, almost none who come out of the coffins retain their memories or reason from the past.

The doll that Vilis was beholding now was no different.

 

Two eyes stained red, as if shedding tears of blood.

Skin gone deathly pale. Hair turned white.

Even the seams of its joints that became more distinct after countless experiments of cutting and joining.

It was a doll that possessed only a grotesque beauty.

Vilis felt as if she had become a master dollmaker.

 

The doll that emerged from the coffin took its first steps like a child, falling again and again.

Then, it smiled bashfully.

When Vilis first picked it up from that bloodstained tent, its eyes, stained with Malefic Energy, had been filled with despair and sorrow.

None of that could be seen now.

The same was true of those innocent eyes that had once begged for help, without knowing who she was.

 

"How does it feel to have gained new life?"

"......"

 

Instead of answering, the doll moved its hands, its arms, and its legs.

The movements wandering through the air soon formed rhythm and line.

 

"Hmm. I was certain I erased all of your old memories."

 

For a moment, Vilis wondered if it was a failure.

Then, following the doll's movements, the dark red energy that filled its body in place of Malefic Energy began to ripple.

 

"Yes. You were born a dancer."

 

Vilis sat before the doll and looked at its blood-red blade legs.

They formed a straight line, as if wearing pointe shoes.

 

"I look forward to seeing what kind of dance of yours will lead this world to ruin."

"Stand at the heart of Doom, and, to your heart's content... dance your last dance."

 

Devout Socors

 

#Research Log 1

Mist observation complete. No abnormalities.

No significant differences from last night's records.

The mist itself always remains in the same place.

I often think about it.

If anything in this world is eternal, it must be the mist.

The god behind such a perfect phenomenon must be a true absolute being.

If my research can prove even a part of that god, then my life will be worthwhile.

 

#Research Log 2

Private record. Do not read.

Record after the Cloudless Night.

Today, an incident occurred in Seon where the mist disappeared in the blink of an eye,

as if it had never existed in the first place.

Neither any measuring device nor the wisdom of any observer could determine the cause.

There is only one conclusion left now.

The mist is not eternal.

This proposition has shattered the truth I have believed in until now.

 

#Research Log 3

Private record. Do not read.

I heard that the God of Mist is regaining power through Myre.

If a god is completed through a human, then it is no longer a god.

If a god becomes complete by depending on some imperfect human,

then that is no longer the image of the god I believed in.

What have I believed in and served all this time?

 

#Research Log 4

Day 32 after the laboratory closure.

It has been a long time since I closed the laboratory window.

Looking at the mist lingering outside the window makes me sick.

It's laughable.

I prided myself on having pursued truth all my life.

But my faith shattered into something pitiful.

I want to erase every moment I spent blessing the mist, which could disappear at any time.

 

#Research Log 5

Private record. Do not read.

Record after contact with Vanitas.

The power Lopes showed me was complete in itself.

It overwhelmed everything simply by existing, and I immediately felt fear.

I realized that this was the very power I had sought my entire life.

 

An absolute power that never changes in the end, and never even loses its essence.

 

I regret my foolishness in once regarding the mist as immortal and worshiping it as truth.

I have transferred all my research materials and authority regarding the mist to Vanitas.

Records devoted to a false god are nothing more than remnants that prove how wrong my beliefs were.

My research, my beliefs, and the rest of my life

will all go where the power of Doom points.

I will gladly follow its will.

I will gladly bow my head before it.

If that power foretells the end of the world, I will not doubt that end.

 

The age of mist is over.

My long-held faith will end here, with this record.

I am no longer a scholar who worshipped the mist.

I shall be remembered as one who submits before the power of Doom and testifies of destruction.

 

Lopes, Blade of Doom

 

The mist disappeared.

Without reason, without warning, as if it had been erased from the world.

And we fell.

There were hands I couldn't hold.

There were names I could never call.

Only I survived.

 

After that, the mist returned

as if nothing had happened.

Myre made it so.

He created a new world, ignoring the sacrifices taking place beneath his feet.

 

Once, I imagined this.

If he had said he was sorry,

would I have stopped? What would I have become in that moment?

Would the reason I endured all this time have collapsed,

and would everything I held on to have disappeared, reducing me to nothing at all?

 

But even that was nothing more than a delusion.

There is nothing to learn from one who remains silent.

And so, I still remain, unable to ask.

 

I am now about to accept the last resort.

Using that power, I will destroy this world you and Myre tried so hard to protect.

I know that perhaps all of this may be meaningless.

Even so, I cannot stop.

 

For there is nothing left for me, no reason for me to return.