act29side

I...

The whole theater has fallen silent.

Every piece of music... every sound has vanished.

It is as if someone had used the largest-scale silencing Arts ever cast.

Those who lost control of themselves in the chaotic noise have now lost their surface-level agitation.

Pain, anger, and other intense emotions fade from their faces, replaced by a deep fear.

But this dread does not last for long; instead, it expands into a blank space, and at its peak, a void.

Something seeps out of the void.

Something that's eroding and annihilating everything.

Order collapses. Chaos wishes to tarry, but cannot.

The calamity within the void, the vacuum that corrodes all of existence.

Its eyes have noticed us.

No wonder our threads couldn't stabilize the space on both sides...

...What's coming for us?

*sigh* It sure would be nice if our enemies were tangible.

The scariest part is that they might not even appear.

Kargereich gets its name from its emptiness. It's just a void. So place with nothing at all, conversely invading our reality... What do you <i>think</i> will happen?

We need to get the old man and the others out, right away. Then figure out a way to block the passage.

Ermengarde, can you and the old man still hear each other?

...We're cutting it close. In all this mess, I'll need time to find the end of the right thread connecting our two sides. But they'll never get out without it!

Did they... fail? Grimmacht... failed? That's impossible...

Get back here. Think, fool, think... about what's concerning you most.

Grim... Grimmacht... I can't...

She should have given you a final order.

If she doesn't come back...

If... time runs out, and the Gesatzswächter don't receive a new.. a new order.

I see, their last resort will be to annihilate Zwillingstürme.

For once, I agree with her choice. It's one thing if we all die here, but we mustn't let Leithanien... and everyone else outside the country, die with us.

Wait, the knot moved just now. The people inside haven't given up. Let's hold on, just a bit longer!

...Mm.

Ermengarde, does this knot count as a 'thread' between the two sides?

It'll have to. I'm trying my best, and if the connection stabilizes, the professor and I might be able to focus on the Arts cast on the knot to stabilize the passage.

We're counting on you, Ebenholz.

I can feel Lessing and the others...

They're close!

And you think that's a good thing?

Kargereich and reality are once again drawing near, like two bubbles stacked on top of one another. No, more like a bubble balanced on the tip of a needle. Even the slightest bit closer, and the bubble will burst.

So if I pull on the knot and move further away... will you and Ermengarde be able to stabilize the passage?

Stay away from the edge of the bubble!

Scheiße, little lamb. You're going to get yourself caught in the void.

The knot trembles in his hand.

Ebenholz can feel the hand gripping the other end.

A hand already numb from too much time spent swinging a sword.

His strength, spent. His Arts, nearly exhausted. His wounds no longer bleed, and his pain gradually blurs.

His duty and his will remain seated deep within his brain, pulsing tenaciously. Such concepts are difficult to describe after language itself has collapsed.

Why did we come here? Why have we been fighting? Why were we born, and why will we die?

The void greets him. There is no path either forward or out, only nothingness to meet.

Ebenholz is falling.

And at the end of his fall... there will be nothing at all.

No. There is something there.

A warm shade of white, emitting a radiant yet gentle glow.

Ebenholz suddenly realizes that while he didn't have time to find the cello-playing Sankta, he has found the answer.

The emotions and memories he shared with him were not bestowed upon them by any person, Arts, or even fate itself.

The most beautiful part, right there with him, has always belonged only to them.

A smile.

A piece of music.

A touch... of hope.

Fate will always be snatching things away from us, but fortunately I still retain the ability to love and hate.

Zwillingstürme's glowing sunset, ardent marigolds in bloom, a child with eyes glistening like a lake, and her gentle parents...

I love the scenery and the people I cannot see. They illuminate me, dispelling the darkness obscuring the eyes of many others.

But I also hate it.

I hate how brief the flowering season is, and the formless wills constricting everything I love. My child, your brows have been knitted ever since you returned to Leithanien.

You asked me: 'Where is the new order? Can you guarantee it will be better than yesterday or today?'

There is no way I can answer you, so I just decide to do as I have.

Love means responsibility, and hate will likewise attract even more. You must take responsibility for the things you have changed, and have yet to change.

My child, my friend, if you love, if you hate, then you will bear far more than you can imagine.

I doubt.

Is doubt a form of cowardice? Or bravery?

If cowardice, then why did I mix the flesh and blood of those monsters into our sacramental bread and wine, willing to place my hopes in a different faith?

If bravery, then why did I retract my hand? Did the vivid and hideous living tissues frighten me at the very last moment?

For sixty years I could not see that elusive Paradise, while my life fell apart before my eyes. I do not want to pray, but it is all I can do.

Who wrote the laws, and who ensures their purity and integrity? I ask my faith, and it stays silent.

I dare not say that I've already rid myself of the delusions embedded in the depths of my mind. No, I still harbor doubts.

The monastery gets further and further away, and I find a handful of seeds in the folds of my robe. Oh, Clément, my son, I will find them a patch of moist soil, even if I were to die on the road.

I doubt our laws. Question my cowardice, suspect my bravery, and doubt pushes me on forward.

Honestly, I hate alcohol. But suddenly I found myself unable to live without it. It's been a long time since Yulia's death. Three years? Five?

Twice in my life I have run away.

The so-called holy city of Laterano is not as perfect as it seems. The sweetness and noise in the air mask the inequality beneath, the differences between Liberi and Sankta seemingly not worth discussing.

I was still young when I came to Leithanien. The dark clouds I saw were a stark contrast to the white walls of Laterano. Countless died tragically under the Witch King's regime.

I was the first soldier to set foot in the Witch King's Spire, but I never once believed that his defeat would usher in a new era for Leithanien.

Yulia was wrong. I've always been pessimistic. Disappointment makes me sober, disappointment compels me to look for a few good things to protect.

But in the end, I reached a compromise with my disappointment, and ended up like this.

If souls truly have a final destination, then I most probably won't be going to the same place as her.

But surely I've protected at least a few people, at the very end? I want to ask Herr Executor, Yulia, and myself...

Do I still count as a hero?

Am I walking?

I never seem to stop.

But where am I going?

I seem to be walking along a sandy shore.

A sticky beach. A strange creature from the ocean actually reverberated in my strings.

It has the dullest inner voice I've ever heard, and I couldn't obtain any answers. The waves push me away from the beach.

I was twenty then.

I seem to be walking over sand dunes.

Soft grains of sand. Opposite me is a warrior known as the Zhayedan, as old as the golden grains.

With every note I play, history roars from the cracks in the warrior's armor.

I was fifteen then.

I am walking.

I never stop.

I am walking on...

I seem to be walking on grass.