Lin stood in the backstage, alone in the empty space. In this ball, he seemed to have seen many things. Things of the Headquarters, things from the past, and things beside him. It felt as if everything had changed, yet some things remained constant.
"Are you at ease?"
Lin nodded instinctively. But the next second, his eyes widened. This sentence didn't appear in his mind; it was in his ear.
Thump.
Something like a sea submerged him.
...
"Honkai energy concentration increased by 5%, still 16% away from the critical point. Continue injection."
Lin stood expressionlessly in a familiar place, not much different from the last time he was here. As always, it was narrow and pitch black. However, this time, he heard a voice that didn't belong to him much faster—a voice from a parallel world, as Mobius called it.
But this wasn't an entirely unfamiliar instruction; it was an instruction issued during a surgery he had heard before. The Project Soldier surgery.
Sizzle—
The scene shifted, showing the operating room where the surgery was taking place. Lin found that he was no longer just an observer "outside the frame"; he could actually stand on the floor inside the scene.
What is going on...
While Lin was still thinking, an eerie alarm sounded from the surgery in progress.
"Wait! Stop the sur—"
Boom!
A massive explosion swallowed him.
...
"..."
When Lin woke from his coma, his thinking—unprecedentedly active—was racing at this moment. He fainted during the observation after losing consciousness? An entity of consciousness could actually lose... "consciousness"?
He scrambled up from the ground, highly alert. The explosion and the abnormality that had just occurred left his nerves taut. After standing up, everything in sight was ruins. Lin frowned and looked around, soon identifying his location.
As expected, this place was an operating room. Lin could never forget the location where the Project Soldier surgery took place. But no explosion had occurred during his and Kevin's surgery. Could this be an accident caused by a future Project Soldier surgery?
A drop of blood fell from his forehead. Lin unfocused eyes grew sharp.
Blood...? That blood-red color was undoubtedly the blood rushing through his veins. Touch, smell, taste, and color perception had all returned to his body. And this body, which was supposed to be a conscious entity, was actually... injured.
"Are you okay?"
A clear, cold voice accompanied the support of a strong hand. Lin reached out to wipe the aching corner of his forehead; his hand was covered in a piercingly bright red.
"Is your mind clear? Do you know your name?"
Only then did Lin focus on the person who had approached him. Fire Moth uniform—correct, and it was a soldier's style. Long black hair... it seemed he had seen it somewhere.
"I'm fine..." Lin steadied his body, brushed away her hand, and nodded coldly. His alertness hadn't ended; the memory of that terrifying hand almost grabbing him last time was still fresh. It was highly possible he'd be found by that "person" whose true form was unknown.
"It's good you're fine. Do you know what happened?" The black-haired woman also looked around alertly, which caught Lin attention.
"No... what about you?"
"I..." The woman clutched her head in pain, shaking it with a slightly distorted expression. "I can't remember."
"Can't remember?"
Lin scanned the surroundings again. Why was it so quiet despite the explosion? Were no other soldiers coming to check? And what about this woman? She was near the operating room and uninjured after the explosion, but she had lost her memory?
"Do you remember what you're called?" Lin asked, taking charge.
"My name is..." The woman shook her head hard, as if trying to shake something out of her brain. After a while, she looked at Lin with a face filled with blankness and murmured, "I don't know..."
"But I have a badge with a serial number on it."
Lin watched as she took out a familiar Fire Moth badge from her pocket, but the number on it was completely different...
CM-000.
...
Lin woke from his dazed state with a jolt. His consciousness felt as if it had returned to his body from a far-off place. A strange sense of detachment came from his entire body, briefly putting him back into the unbalanced state from when he first lost his senses.
However, having experienced it once, his body quickly adapted to his original control.
"..."
He tried clenching his hand. His touchless body moved according to his thoughts under the control of his consciousness. After seeing that serial number, Lin had recovered from that unknown state.
CM-000... This number... Both that woman and that number gave Lin a certain impression, but he couldn't remember where he had seen them.
"Lin?"
Elysia voice came from the entrance, making Lin look up. He saw her poking her head in with a curious face.
"Just you alone? I thought you and Eden had been chatting for so long without coming out."
"...It's nothing, she left first." Lin shook his head. It seemed he had to discuss this with Mobius; he couldn't judge its severity or if it was a threat.
"I see..."
Lin saw Elysia eyes sneakily scanning the surroundings. He immediately realized something was wrong and prepared to walk out.
"Let's go out—"
"Wait, Lin."
Elysia blocked the doorway.
"Can I let you do one thing?"
With a click, she locked the door.
...
"A performance that really makes one nostalgic. It feels like we're back in high school, cutting class together to sneak out and hear Eden's concert. I didn't expect to hear Miss Eden's song even after coming to Fire Moth." Su said with a light laugh, tilting his head toward the man beside him who was completely shrouded in a cold-resistant suit.
Kevin gazed calmly at everything in the ballroom without replying. Mei also just smiled without a word.
"...Can you tell me what you've both experienced all these years?" Su sighed softly.
"Su, the person who originally wanted to go to the concert wasn't Mei, but Lin." Kevin didn't answer, but continued coldly from Su's words. "Do you remember? I told you."
"Yes, Lin is your other friend, he..." Actually, Su had already heard Lin story from Spas.
"He's also in Fire Moth now. I was thinking just now, if the four of us had finished listening to Eden's song here together, perhaps I could have fulfilled a wish from back then."
"But he didn't come."
"So, the past has no meaning anymore, Su. Try to accept the present first."