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I can bring it back to the Convallis... bring you back.

That would be pointless.

Why... why is the tree not responding to me?

That means it's working.

The outer casing of the device Nasti is carrying on her belt falls away with a crack. Paper tapes pour out, laying themselves out around her as though following an invisible blueprint, forming an elaborate and organized framework.

The tapes are filled with tiny holes that represent incantations, coming together to build Nasti's unique language and safeguard her unique rules, rejecting the anarchic spread of the branches.

I said I must understand, before I can put an end to this error.

Now, I do.

Nasti raises her pen and writes down a function, an incantation.

(Speaks in Sarkaz) Reconstruct.

No... the memories that the tree shared with me... they're disappearing...

Nasti... Nasti! What are you doing?!

Wiping the preloaded data in the tree. All that it shared with you was only temporary data for experimentation.

I know that you don't want to forget. But what you truly want to remember and retain are not these hotchpotch data put together for experiments.

Even if it's so...

Please, don't make the last thing I see be the sight of you destroying your life's work...

You've walked such a long road and suffered so much for it...

To you, the Convallis was your life's work. But I've never had one.

I have a goal. This tree is the means to it.

My judgment of it is not based on how much I committed to it, only whether it can achieve my goal.

You hoped that fusing with it would keep it from withering. But not withering won't make it any more useful.

Just like the Roosting Tree of the Convallis.

I don't want to be cruel, but the Roosting Tree never truly consoled the dying. It is no more than a simple phoebe tree, bent under the weight of incantations.

It's native to the genus Phoebopsis in the family of Targangils-Simaroubaceae, and its wood is commonly used for buildings in southeast Terra. I had an Elf colleague verify its nature after I joined Rhine Lab.

It became the Roosting Tree of the Convallis because you saw it as a symbol and mourned its change.

It has withered because it has reached the end of its natural lifespan.

That is... all...?

Even the colors that run through its branches is merely the result of exposure to incantations over the years.

I don't remember how it used to look anymore...

But... Nasti... if it's truly so...

Why does your tree look so much like the Roosting Tree?

Because it reminds me of you.

Just as you think of me.

Do you know why I planted this 'tree'?

I remember the day we parted.

You were calling to me, but I didn't turn back, because some words can no longer be said once you see the other person's face. But I couldn't help but look at your face reflected in the water—

I wanted to remember how you looked.

New tears flow across the lines made by old ones, as though it was a fixture on your face.

I spent more than a decade with you in the Convallis. I never saw you without tear marks on your face.

Life in the valley was good. I would have chosen the Convallis over Kazdel every time, a hundred times over. But Væla...

Was there a single moment that you weren't in pain, over the course of your two hundred years in the Convallis?

At first, I thought I could wipe away your tears and make you smile with simple methods.

You spent a whole day wiping my face with mistapple pulp.

It was only later that I learned why you were in pain.

The source of your pain was the decision, the lie.

The kin who suffered because they defied their nature; the kindred who could not return to the myriad souls because there was no one to deliver them. They were the source of your pain.

To solve your problem, I must solve the problems of the Banshees, the problems of the Sarkaz.

The answer lies outside the Convallis, outside Kazdel, in a place that I don't know.

As I indulged in such fantasies...

I saw you and I sail in the sky.

The reflected sky...

It was a calm, windless day, but suddenly the water rippled without warning, wiping away the eternal tear marks on your face. You almost looked like you were smiling.

And so, I began to think about the sky whenever I thought about how to make you smile.

Perhaps...

The sky is where we can find our sanctuary, and abode for our souls.

(Speaks in Sarkaz) The Sarkaz's promised land could also be in the sky.

All the things you did, this tree in the sky...

That's where it all began.

Access security camera image.

Falling... like a broken kite...

Looks like Maylander successfully carried out their plan. The entire capital will bear witness to the fall of Propeller Paradise.

But the tremors came from the ground plate. Did Gordon...?

Will we fall too?

Not sure. I've undone the fusion and reset the tree, restoring it to an operable state.

But the tree itself is not yet complete.

At least... save yourself, Nasti...

Three years ago, Aefanyl added a condition to my hypothesis when he delivered the myriad souls. Two years ago, a friend split the sky and showed me the path to the future.

But I'm still one step away from the answer. What is to come will depend on whether we find it.

We're in the sky, but... I don't see the answer.

Everything has fallen... they sky is empty.

Yes, the sky has always been empty.

It is we who must fill it.

For you, Væla, I don't think the answer is in the sky.

It's in you.

I can hear the roars, the hatred, the cries that surround you.

The kin I delivered, or failed to deliver... Vampires, Nachzehrers, Djaj... and Banshees.

I've wiped all the preloaded temporary experiment data from the tree.

It's your own frustration, rage and sorrow that binds you now, like every Banshee that you sent away the last two hundred years, like every Sarkaz that returned to the myriad souls since the beginning of time.

That is why our people are made empty by painful oblivion. That is why the myriad souls are always roaring, always angry, always wailing.

But if we leave behind residues of information in death, and the myriad souls are merely the collective of such residues...

Why shouldn't it be joy and song that remains?

Does our nature prevent it?

No.

To process residues of information, build a server. If coverage on the ground isn't enough, raise it into the sky.

Not just a sanctuary for the living; the 'tree' will become an abode for the departed as well. This time, however, we decide what we leave behind.

Perhaps it wasn't function that the 'tree' was missing. It was a command, a decision, a sincere wish.

Tell me the answer, Væla. What is it that you truly want to leave behind?

The tree... I will preserve that memory for you.

Oblivion will never claim what you want to leave behind.

I don't know.

You don't know...

At first, I just wanted to save our kin from pain, from anger, from sorrow.

But I no longer know how that can be achieved. If neither the Convallis nor the Roosting Tree could accomplish it... is there any meaning in leaving anything behind?

Væla...

Nasti wanted to do something, say something, but no sound comes out from her lips.

She is normally not one to deal with hypotheticals, but she could not help but think: If she finished the tree and took her people to the sanctuary in the sky sooner...

Would her mother have had a comforting memory to cling to?

Hundreds of pods fall burning from the sky, like black meteors, like heavy raindrops, like broken kites.

Mother and daughter gaze at each other silently, as they hoped it would make this moment an eternity.

No...