And then Valeria spoke.

"Plans often rarely go as planned, Selene," she said smoothly, stepping forward until the faint starlight from the projection dome traced her profile in cold silver.

"Especially when those plans involve souls that shouldn’t exist."

Selene’s head lifted slowly. "You’re speaking in riddles again."

Valeria’s smile didn’t reach her eyes. "Am I? Or are you simply tired of pretending that your little experiment is still a secret?"

That stopped her.

Selene’s expression froze. The flicker of understanding that crossed her eyes was sharp — not surprise, but recognition.

"You’ve been looking into her," Selene said softly.

"I’ve been looking through her," Valeria corrected.

"And what I found isn’t a birth record, nor a traceable signature in the Aether. There’s... nothing. She’s a void stitched together by something that mimics identity."

Selene stayed silent, but her mind was already three steps ahead. The term Valeria used — imperfect soul — wasn’t theoretical. It was a code. An accusation.

"Which means... these are implying Kairi isn’t from this world,"

Valeria said, taking another step closer.

"Tell me, Selene... where did she come from? Or better yet — who made her?"

For a moment, Selene didn’t breathe.

Then, coldly: "That," she said, "is not your business."

Valeria tilted her head, amusement flickering like a candle in her eyes.

"Not my business? Don’t insult me. You brought her into my jurisdiction."

"Into this city. Into these systems."

"It was necessary."

"For whom?" Valeria asked. "For her? Or for you? Be honest for once, Miss Veylith."

The dome’s projection glitched — a single star blinked out, like punctuation to a truth no one wanted to hear.

Hidden in the upper tier shadows, my pulse quickened. My name — my very existence — was being dissected as if I were a specimen on a table. Every word tightened the air.

Which means, I wasn’t supposed to be there.

In other words, I wasn’t supposed to exist.

And yet, here I was.

Listening to creators argue over the terms of such a forbidden creation.

My very own existence.

* * *

A terrible feeling settled in my chest. I didn’t know why — but something in my heartbeat was warning me of something bad coming.

It was as if my heart wanted to scream as it hammered against my ribs, announcing the arrival of disaster waiting just around the corner.

And no, this wasn’t a poetic metaphor or some philosopher’s flowery language without logical grounding.

It was the fact that ever since Kairi interfered and helped reconstruct my body, I had begun to feel something genuinely connected to her.

Whether it was something spiritual, supernatural, or outright irrational... none of it could be explained by the theories I created to shake the worlds of academia.

Especially not with the basic and trivial magic I studied half-heartedly until I was half asleep — such as using subversions to project and combine magical elements based on the applied sciences of Aethelgarten.

Ah... what on earth am I rambling about? No, that’s not what I meant to say.

What I really mean is...

For the first time in my life, I felt that my life was truly in danger.

And no, that is not a figure of speech.

My life.

Truly.

Absolutely.

In. Danger.

Yes — compared to what Arthur once did to me, this is nothing.

This is far worse. Whatever this witch has done eclipses all of it.

It felt as if my heart had completely left my body, chills running down my arms and legs, wrapping my entire body in panic.

If I used one of Kairi’s expressions, this was like a "jump scare" I never wanted.

She’s here...

That was the first thought that crossed my mind when it happened. Uninvited, unannounced — that conniving woman appeared just like that, without warning.

Or maybe... that little bird’s cryptic message earlier should have been taken seriously instead of ignored. 𝑓𝘳𝑒𝑒𝓌𝘦𝘣𝘯ℴ𝑣𝘦𝑙.𝘤𝑜𝑚

Kairi was right...

I swallowed — slowly but surely — gathering what courage I could pull off in her presence.

Run? Pointless. I had been haunting this worn-out narrative for too long, avoiding this confrontation out of sheer reluctance to face her.

Too late now.

"So? What’s wrong? Why are you frozen there?"

"Are you deaf? Cat got your tongue?"

The venomous witch spat insults like a snake flicking its tongue, trying to provoke me with such aggression that—

Unbelievable... how reckless can you be?!

Just when I was worrying about her safety, Kairi — in all her "audacity"... or perhaps "idiocy" was more accurate — simply walked right up to Valeria.

Yes, the old wicked hag I was referring to.

She walked with that calm, casual pace of hers — face utterly emotionless.

"Oh, so that’s how it is..."

Wait.

What do you mean "so that’s how it is"!?

She said that as if she was ready to lay down her life like it’s a charity!

Very good, Kairi. If she actually dies... in her grave, I’ll make sure her epitaph reads:

"Died because she was too confident to face a monster on her own."

I had just been thinking about how I might save her—yet there she stood, surrendering herself like your average theatrical drama protagonist, fully prepared to die for the sake of the plot.

But in the next instant, I realized something crucial: No, this was no longer just a battle of wits nor narrations. This had become a matter of life and death.

And I hate admitting it, but for a brief moment... I almost believed she might actually win.

I wanted to shout, to pull her away—but no sound came out.

Because in Kairi’s eyes, this wasn’t stupidity. This was a choice.

To her, every action wasn’t driven purely by logic. It was also shaped by the surrounding pressure that left her with almost no space to truly choose.

As explained previously, change within a person doesn’t usually happen in an instant; it follows patterns formed by external forces that push someone to adapt in order to survive.

So if she sounded like someone ready to die for her words, it wasn’t mere melodrama.

It was the product of layered experiences, awareness, and pressure closing in from all directions.

In the end, every human moves toward an ideal version of themselves shaped by the reality they inhabit—whether they actually realize it or not.