Thinking that, I tapped the play button in the center of the two rotating rings on the screen.
Then a beam of blue light projected down from the ceiling and cast the figure of a girl with long pink hair, wearing a long white dress.
In the pitch-black factory, the mechanical hum from the workbench still echoed.
In that darkness the light of the projection made her look white enough to shine, illuminating the floor at her feet.
She wore a pair of white boots.
Behind the long white dress a pair of white wings stirred softly.
She slowly opened her eyes—
They were eyes as clear and translucent as amber, carrying amber’s pale-gold color.
I had imagined the look of those eyes countless times in dreams and in my own paintings.
The lashes were thick and long, curving toward the corners.
The shape of the eyes was like a fawn’s, round and lovely.
Beneath them floated a faint, thin crease.
“Lingyin…”
Countless words surged up in that instant and made my head go buzz—, waves of numbness.
It was as if I had seen a scene like this in a dream.
I stood in front of her, wanting to reach out and touch, yet for a long time I could not move.
“Hello there, Yulin~”
Her voice was like a cool breeze passing by, and also like a slender stream, soft and carrying a little playfulness.
Looking up at her so close, her appearance, her voice…
made my heart stir again.
Just like when I first met her, just like the first time I opened my mouth to speak to her, I could not squeeze out a single word.
I only listened as she went on.
“Sorry for meeting you this way. It looks like we failed.”
Failed?
In my blurred vision I tried to control the tears that had filled both eyes.
When I saw her, when I knew she was somewhere in this world, when I knew we could finally be together… it was as if I had gone back to that time.
I stared at her blankly.
I was still the me who could not speak.
I only looked at her.
She went on.
“And, I’m sorry.”
Sorry?
“I’m sorry, Yulin. I caused you to die. It was my fault. I never thought the world on the ground would become like this, and I sent you off so rashly. In the end, I caused you to die.”
I… died?
But when I saw her frown, her face full of sorrow, looking down at something in her hands, I reached toward her as well.
Her body was ice-cold, like a statue.
Facing my hand she had no reaction at all, so I could not help taking a step closer.
“Lingyin? I-I’m here, you know?”
But it was obvious she could not hear.
Like a recording made in advance she only pushed my hand away with her shoulder and looked up at me.
“I thought too simply. Not long after you died, Daidalte began to collapse. The connecting sections linking Eden’s inner ring and outer ring started to break. Eden, which had already lost its main energy source, was about to become unable to maintain its own structure and began to fall under the gravity of the Daidalte structure. I think before long Eden will fall onto the Star Ring. I still thought that if the Star Ring Drive could be repaired, Eden, with its energy supply restored, would surely let you live here without worry, happily. But the facts proved I thought too simply…”
“Lingyin…”
To be honest I had barely taken in Lingyin’s words at all.
Right now my eyes and my whole mind were full of her.
Yet no matter how I shook her body or called her name—
she only went on talking to herself.
“I’m sorry, Yulin. I know that once the outer-ring link is completely severed from the inner ring, it will be very hard for us to have a second chance. But I still have to go. We still have an unfinished mission, whether for the world or for ourselves. Or maybe I just wanted to give you a carefree home that belonged to the two of us.”
***
“When you wake again, perhaps you will not see me. When you wake again, perhaps our souls will already have returned to Eden’s core. Perhaps you will drift in the universe for a very long time before landing with Eden. Perhaps you are already on the ground. But please do not worry. Do not feel lonely. We are still here. Forever and ever, at your side.”
She never answered me.
She only kept talking to herself.
And I, who did not even have a top on, was truly freezing to death in this gloomy factory.
The hum of the machines, the icy air wrapping around me in the pitch-black factory.
I seized her hand and sank to my knees.
I only felt so powerless.
Don’t.
I don’t want you to go.
A situation like this seemed to have happened before.
Something inside me felt in that instant as if it would burst from my heart, but waves of stabbing pain in my head left me without even the strength to stand.
I could only grip her ice-cold hand tightly.
“Yulin, perhaps to the you of now, becoming an angel still does not feel like much. But please believe at least this one thing— I will be by your side forever and ever. Right next door, right beside you. I have always been here, watching you.”
…
After a slight pause, Lingyin seemed only then to remember what she had originally meant to say.
Then she turned her gaze aside.
Following her gaze I looked to one side.
The humming workbench had at some point already finished its work.
As the workbench slowly descended, the factory issued another prompt:
[“Print complete. [Produced product—portable Construction unit], [with expandable interface]. Please collect.”]
“This is the tool you liked most, because you said this thing was like a paintbrush, able to turn imagination into reality. When you grabbed Luna’s hand and asked her to design a Construction Tower you could carry, I was a little jealous, you know.”
Luna…
Another familiar name.
Looking back toward me again, Lingyin smiled.
“I’m handing it to you now. It counts as fulfilling one small regret of mine. Please live well. Wait for me…”
[“Playback ended”]
Lingyin’s hand gradually faded in the air.
The faint light was gradually swallowed by darkness.
Before my eyes there was only the blue band of light shining under the workbench.
When I came back to myself, my awareness felt blurred, my scalp numb, and my heartbeat gradually weakening, so weak that even breathing seemed so laborious.
[“User 0109 Yulin. Your clothing does not appear to be complete. Please allow me to print new clothing for you.”]
Clothing?
Ah.
Right…
My clothes had been used to wrap the injured Alice, then broken down in the surgical pod.
Eden…
The place where angels live.
Lingyin’s voice still echoed in my mind and would not fade for a long time.
But I could not suppress the wish to speak with her at all.
I had not even had time to attend to the content of what she said.
It had been too long since I last heard her voice.
Two square metal pillars extended from the floor beside me.
Then an orange-yellow band of light that lit on the floor circled me in the exact center.
In the factory’s prompt tone that cold, machine-like voice said:
[“Scan complete. Establishing blueprint. Complete. Aerosol prepared. Complete. Releasing…”]
Puff—
A cloud of mist sprayed from the two metal pillars.
When it touched my skin I felt it was a little sticky, and a little cold.
Then a beam of red light shot from each metal pillar and cast a thin line around my body.
[“Beginning print… 10% 20%…”]
The red light began to move from my head down my body.
As the red light swept past, the mist thinned all at once.
Before long, a black top with a white collar and a pink neckerchief drifting at the chest settled over me from top to bottom in the red light.