At the Herrscher's inexplicable words, Mei was taken aback. The next moment, she felt the surrounding environment suddenly change, as if it were about to fade away.
"Wait!" Mei's heart jumped, and she quickly reached out. "Bring Kiana..."
"Her..." The Herrscher's departing figure paused for a moment, then turned back and gave Mei a meaningful smile. "It's not my place to bestow her..."
With that, he seemed to find it somewhat amusing and even snorted at Mei. "You people are really..."
He didn't finish the rest of his sentence, instead returning to silence.
Then, he decisively waved his hand, dispelling the surrounding illusion, and turned to leave without hesitation.
Inexplicably, Mei saw a trace of finality in his departing back.
The moment she returned to reality, Mei felt a sense of absurdity.
This was probably the closest she had ever been to a Herrscher other than Shu. She had thought it would be a fierce battle at the very least, and had not even expected to survive.
She was already prepared to give her all to buy her companions a sliver of time, yet now she had escaped from the Herrscher's grasp so easily...
"We should prepare to leave," the silent Noah suddenly said. Mei was taken aback and looked down at him.
After what had just happened, she was somewhat reluctant to bring Noah back with her... It wasn't her personal opinion, but letting a Herrscher stay with those children was still a bit too dangerous...
"I won't do anything near that name," Noah said in a small voice, the gloomy emotion in his eyes almost overflowing.
"...Alright." Mei looked at Noah in silence for a long time, then sighed. "But you can't leave my side until Shu returns."
Noah nodded.
...
If one were to expand the scope of discussion to the whole of civilization... then all eyes would focus on the things that best demonstrated the greatness of humanity.
Miracles. This seemed to be a term humanity had created specifically for itself.
The Herrscher sat at the highest point of the orphanage, a puppet with a missing arm sitting beside him.
In his hand was the script that Mei had torn to pieces. His silent appearance was almost identical to Noah's.
After all, they were originally one person... just that one was the past, and the other was the future.
"Raiden Mei..." he murmured the name, his eyes downcast. Then he glanced at the puppet beside him. "And you? You're not planning to leave?"
"He can't tolerate me," the puppet spoke, revealing a mature female voice.
It was the voice of the person truly named "Cocolia."
"Compared to my other values, my absence is more important to him," Cocolia said, using the puppet's body to state her reasons.
"You were prepared to die here from the beginning, weren't you?" the Herrscher let out a cold laugh. "After all, before you died at my hands, my other half never had any thoughts other than devouring me.
"Using your own death to enrage him, to make him perish with me, really fits your values, [Devil]," the Herrscher said with a sarcastic sneer.
"Unfortunately, neither of us guessed the process of events, although the final result is not much different from what you wanted."
The puppet nodded, silent.
Cocolia had not expected her death to come so slowly and covertly, nor had she expected Noah to be able to tolerate her death to some extent.
She had valued Kiana, and also Bronya. Schrodinger and Sirin were also within her scope of observation.
But it was this Mei, whom she had ruled out as a threat from the very beginning, who had always acted as an assistant, who had disrupted all her plans.
The balance of the argument, which would have been shattered by her death, was broken first by Mei, and led to an unexpected ending.
But in terms of the result... it didn't really matter.
"At least let me accompany you to the very end... Noah."
The puppet possessed by Cocolia spoke its last words and then fell silent.
The Herrscher was silent, just looking up at the canopy he had arranged.
"Ten... nine..."
He began the final countdown, counting down to the end of this drama.
And also tolling the final death knell for the curtain call.
...
Whether the beginning of human civilization was the moment humans picked up a wooden stick, or the moment they mastered fire... this is still a major point of contention.
And whether the moment civilization began to flourish was the birth of the feudal system, or the liberation of free thought, this is also a point of contention that everyone holds their own opinion on.
But in the history of human civilization, one thing is beyond doubt.
To this day, there is only one era in which civilization developed the fastest. And in that era, there was and is only one slogan that brought civilization into its golden age—
"Hoist the sails—set sail!!"
"...one."
The furled sails fell from the mast. The moment they unfurled, they were violently billowed by the oncoming wind.
The sound of tearing cloth exploded in the sea breeze, but the thick canvas only billowed, using its own body to once again provide the power for this old sailboat, which had existed for who knows how many years, to set sail.
The ship, docked by the shore, began to slowly leave the coastline, its bow turning toward the boundless ocean.
The wind pushed the ship out of the harbor.
Just as humanity has never lacked the courage to leave home.
And it is precisely this courage to leave the harbor that has given birth to human civilization.
Sin Mal stood on Kai's shoulder, grinning, pointing forward. Seele held the helm, struggling to turn the ship.
Schrodinger stood in the crow's nest on the mast, staring blankly into the distance.
Mei and Noah looked at each other in a small, cramped cabin.
In the dream, Frélle and Sirin watched as the masterpiece they had created together submerged into the canopy, heading straight for the threads that bound Kiana.
The puppet beside the Herrscher closed its eyes, losing all signs of life.
The canopy... shattered.
It turned into specks of light, slowly drifting down from the sky like fireflies. And in this golden debris, the sailboat, braving the wind and waves, rushed into the vast sea.
Bronya stood at the stern, watching the gradually departing island, and beside her was no one.
Emotions that had been building up for who knows how long burst forth at this moment, turning into two streams of hot tears that flowed down Bronya's face.
"Goodbye... Mama Cocolia..."
...
In the falling golden light, the Herrscher slowly stood up, patted the non-existent dust on his body, and then looked down at the square below.
In the center of the square, a figure covered in blood had appeared at some point.
And in those eyes, like a brilliant galaxy... was a killing intent like a supernova explosion.