A bird, gliding across the sky, let out a cheerful cry.
I stood on the cloud, gazing at the high-flying migratory bird, soaring with all its might toward that fiery Party of light.
Burnt to ashes in the sunlight, its loud roar, guided by the wind, was blown far away.
"If only I had a pair of wings."
I looked down and saw him standing before the ashes, pointing at the clouds beneath my feet.
He was the one who spoke the words.
"Do you also yearn for that scorching sun?" I shouted to him.
"No, I long for your patch of cloud."
He smiled and waved to me, then dissipated in the wind.
He, too, became burnt-out ashes.
Delta stood in the cloud, looking up in bewilderment.
"Chief! Chief!"
Delta groggily opened his eyes. His consciousness hadn't fully returned to his body from his dream. He rubbed his sleepy eyes and shook his head.
The floor was cold, stimulating the skin beneath his thin outer garment.
"Uh... what happened? Why am I sleeping on the floor?" He grabbed the armrest of the chair, slowly climbed onto the seat, and shook his chilled head, feeling a cold, nasty sensation all over his body.
His assistant handed the vacant Delta a cup of hot water: "Chief, this is the third time you've fainted this week. Didn't you say the main Titan development was in the final stages and you could rest? Why did you sneak back here again?"
Delta looked at his scattered pupils in the water, forcefully concentrating them. He took a sip and sighed: "But the Anti-Gravity Flight System isn't finished yet. The Titan Floating Backpack and the Hovercraft are only missing this last step. I want to finish it early."
"Eh? Then why do you want the Titan to fly so badly? That wasn't in the original proposal, was it?"
"Why, huh..."
Delta leaned back in the chair, covering his sickly pale face with one hand. The muscles he had worked so hard to build were now slack due to his abnormal schedule. Through the gaps between his fingers, he vaguely saw a bird fly out from behind him, soaring toward the scorching sun.
He pulled a photo from his chest pocket, staring at a picture of himself with another person.
Delta stood with his hands on his hips, laughing into the camera, while the other person stood beside him, looking up at a migratory bird taking flight in the background, his back to the camera.
"If only I had a pair of wings," he murmured softly.
There wasn't much residual information on the Cocoon, and it was very vague. The only document Lin had contained only basic information: name, gender, address, etc. There was no mention of appearance, relationships, or combat style.
Finding a person whose name was known but whose appearance was unknown in a sea of people was clearly a fool's errand. Lin also couldn't risk searching the database for the name. If the record of his database usage showed the target was a Cocoon member, problems would follow immediately.
The reason Lin waited a few months to start investigating was to let the impact of The Deepest Reaches and the Fifth Branch incident subside somewhat.
The male killer named Ibili... was he nearby? Who could he be?
A secret unit of the Moth of the Fire Chasers, yet hidden outside the base, would certainly cause Lin quite a bit of trouble.
Lin and Hun chose a random restaurant for their meal. Since they were outside the Moth of the Fire Chasers, everything tasted good in the unfiltered air.
"Squad Member Lin, the news outside is saying there's a killer who deliberately leaves forget-me-nots at the scene," Hun said to Lin, who was lost in thought on how to find the Cocoon member. "Ah, I'm sorry. Were you thinking about something just now?"
Lin, who was holding his chin, gently shook his head: "It's fine. You don't need to be so reserved."
"Really? That's good. I was a bit nervous going out with you, Squad Member Lin..." This could be seen from Seele attire. She smiled, but it quickly faded. "Why must there always be people who take others' lives..."
"..."
It seemed the news reminded her of the Fifth Branch, as both involved killers.
Seele parents both died in the first wave of the explosion. Her mother was at the epicenter and had no complete body. Her father was struck in the head by shrapnel right in front of Hun and died instantly. This manner of death would undoubtedly leave Hun with lifelong trauma. If her psychological endurance wasn't high enough, she might not be able to live normally due to PTSD.
Therefore, it was quite remarkable that Hun was able to move past it in just a few months.
"Squad Member Lin, why must there be 'death'?" Seele turned to look at the passersby. The traffic outside the window flowed quickly, full of human vitality and spirit. "'Death' separates people, turning once vibrant lives into motionless corpses. All emotions vanish at the moment of death. Isn't that too cruel?"
"If only there was just 'birth' and no 'death'. People would constantly meet and never have to separate."
A topic about life, then?
Lin often pondered the state of a person after death. He couldn't analyze the existence of a Seele after death from a professional scientific, theological, or philosophical perspective, but after a long period of thought, he made a judgment based purely on intuition.
There was no Seele, and no afterlife. Death was just death. It was the endpoint of all life.
Thought ceased at the moment of death, and the body stopped functioning at the moment physiological signs disappeared. Fair, just, and cruel.
"... Seele, how do you define being alive? And how do you define being dead?"
A rather generous spread of dishes was placed before Lin, but he hadn't touched any of it. He nudged his sunglasses and looked at the bewildered Seele.
Only when dressed like this would his facial muscles move slightly. However, judging by his appearance, even without the helmet, he still had a stoic expression.
"How to define being alive? And how to define being dead..." This was obviously not a simple physiological question. What came to Seele mind was the classic concept of the three deaths.
A person dies three times in their life. The first is brain death, meaning the body dies. The second is the funeral, meaning the social self dies. The third is forgetfulness. When no one in the world remembers you anymore, that is when you are completely and utterly dead.
But the core idea of this saying could not comfort everyone. Hun was the same. She could understand the intended meaning, but she couldn't genuinely believe that as long as she remembered the deceased, they were still alive.
Did Lin think this way? Is that why he remembers all the dead people?
"I believe a person is alive from the moment they realize they are a living entity. And death is defined by others judging them to be dead."
However, Lin's words were exactly the opposite of what she had thought.
"In other words, a person's 'creation' is self-perceived, and death is perceived by others."