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They're starting a new journey.

I wonder... what they'll find next time?

Again and again in a never-ending cycle.

They can never go back home, and they might never again have a place they can even call home.

Doctor, I found that the Rhine personnel are digging away in the rubble of the labs...

Director Muelsyse, you're here too.

Muelsyse...

Have you figured out when you'll answer my question yet?

Question... What is it that's bothering me?

When I'm prepared to talk...

You'll be the first to know, Dr. {@nickname}.

Relax... It's all been taken care of. No civilians will ever find out what happened at Site 359, and there is no chance of anyone using this against you in your upcoming election.

Yes, I'm well out of Trimounts already, on my way to Max D.C. now.

Ferdinand...?

He's no threat anymore. You can be sure of that.

Ma'am... Y-You're standing right outside Rhine Lab. Why did you lie to the vice president?

Because...

I still remember my original goal.

He doesn't know how far he's walked.

His aching, hoarse throat reminds him that his body cannot bear such exhaustion.

However... It feels as though Trimounts is right behind him.

It could be right in front of him too.

The shadow of a nomadic city is enormous, and it grows endlessly with the passage of time.

He must hurry... hurry...

Where is he going in such a hurry? Will someone betray him at the next waypoint, just as Elena and Ho'olheyak did?

Hold it there.

We know who you are.

Ferdinand... You think you get to just walk away scot-free after everything you've done?

Don't think that gear you're in is going to scare us. You talk big, but you can't actually control it.

Even if you open fire and kill us all here...

You'll run into the next team of Pioneers.

Look out into the wastes! No friends here! Your enemies go on forever!

It doesn't matter.

The 'Transmitter' he developed himself is right at his fingertips. All he has to do is inject it into himself, and he will immediately be able to wield this power armor with ease, and all these so-called enemies will be powerless against him.

But why doesn't he do it?

Is it because he doesn't have the courage that Dorothy does?

Or is it because...

Ferdinand, you are the one who's being left behind by the times—the grand ideals in your eyes.

Because you never believed that you belong to this epoch.

You always talk about how you're in control of it, you're always thinking, controlling... but you never feel.

Whose voice is this? Is it... Elena's?

Right, if you don't want to be left behind... you must become a part of it.

The power armor remains silent. It proceeds no further, and it does not put up a struggle.

It simply raises its arms...

Just like it is embracing the winds, the sunlight, and the lands before it.

An onslaught of angry Pioneers rushes toward it, and just as the silver monster that once hovered midair above the test site—swallows the iron-forged body whole.

Does the Maylander Foundation still have doubts about this?

No, Control.

I'm not representing Maylander this time.

I'm a busy woman, you know...

Right. It so happens I prefer to skip the pleasantries.

You retrieved the most crucial part of the experiment at Site 359.

The 'Hub' was destroyed in its entirety, by Dorothy—That's what it says in the report submitted to the government.

But it so happens that I saw a team in some pretty low-key outfits driving a discreet, completely curtained off transport into your personal laboratory.

Saria said you turned a blind eye to what Ferdinand was doing... Perhaps it would be more accurate to say you used him.

The thing that you wanted most is now sitting right on your desk.

The cleanup work at Site 359 is a project that Rhine Lab had to take.

And every day, countless failed experiments' byproducts are destroyed.

No matter what it is you think you saw, it's not worthy of outside attention.

Destroyed? Well, of course. I'm sure that scrap heap is gone from your desk.

Evidence can be destroyed, and memories can be modified, but whenever something happens, it tends to have a lasting effect on the things that come after.

Loken, Parvis, Ferdinand... Maybe, at some point in the future, their names will be completely absent from the history books.

But there is no doubt they changed the course of history.

Arts Unit implants, technologies imbued with revived ancient Sarkaz powers, power armor controllable over a long distance, and mental manifestation networks over even broader areas...

What will be the next experiment that alters the very epoch we live in?

A researcher is here to explore all the possibilities out there.

I don't make predictions.

Suppose that memories can leap past the limitations of time. Predictions are nothing more than rediscovering history that's been buried.

Why don't we reacquaint ourselves, Kristen Wright?

I'm Ho'olheyak, historian and Honorary President of the Columbian Astrological Research Association.

And forgive me for making a prediction right here and now—

Perhaps... I will be the partner you will most need, and very soon.

Miss Astesia, Researcher Elena isn't back yet.

I know... She's told me already.

I just want to stay here a little while. So I can see her when she comes back.

Haha... Sometimes, I'm jealous of Elena, having a sister that cares so much about her.

Hmm...

Who was that...?

Wait.

The astrolabe... lit up?

The sky after rain is always exceptionally clear.

This is one of the rare reasons that Kristen ever steps out of her laboratory.

It isn't that she particularly likes the twinkling lights. If conjectures cannot be proven, then they are only self-deceiving lies.

Yet lies aren't completely meaningless. Even if a shadow has been twisted thousands of times, it is still cast by something that is real and truthful.

Lies exist only to demonstrate one thing—that the truth also exists.

It is hidden among these radiant, twinkling stars, and the sky also isn't as far as it seems.

When she reaches her hand out, she will surely be able to touch it—

The only truth that has been suffocating the people from up above for thousands of years.