故事模式剧情详表 (移动版)/英文
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主线故事I
0-1
解锁要求：通过inkar-usi
—And after, they slept.
...
A million stories come to an end, and a million stories go on, retold. Yet there are "tales" in between
that go unwritten and thus unheard. They pass on, unspoken.
They pass into memory.
Memory...
For better or worse, memory will not discriminate. A moment in the mind of one, or a moment shared
by many, will take shape unspoiled. However innocuous, however tragic, however wonderful, a
memory will capture it, though it may never be put to record.
And when unrecorded, what has passed into memory will inevitably fade into ether.
You might think that something forgotten can't have any importance. Perhaps that's true. Why
remember a fall? Why remember sorrow? Why remember some sweet taste?
And certainly, the answers to those questions do matter...
...but time does not slow while they're being asked.
As they're asked, as they are considered, an archive ceaselessly grows...
Some where and when...
The Archive of Memory begins to spool thread:
threads of fate, tugging along two lives.
Shining, colorless—the unspoiled ideal:
threads of light and conflict.
0-2
A young girl sits in a café, let in hours before business, slouching in the quiet. The steam from her cup
rises and fogs the glass beside her. A cold morning—
Captured.
A lone man draws his sword. Before him, a town burns. Behind, the marauders that have razed it look
on the man, laughing. Knowing he will die, the man turns, and raises the blade—
Sewn in.
Friends with ears of cats and dogs laugh uproariously as one of their number, a student of Elementum,
entwines light and fire to display a comic scene. To display a memory of another friend's folly—
Crystallized.
And countless others are crystallized. Hundreds, thousands—
Thousands of glass memories fly through a sky of endless day.
Flickering winds, fragmented streams—suspended in the air.
These flows of old thought and moments move in accordance with unknown laws. Or, perhaps, it is
merely all a senseless dance. Some, granted, do not flow at all—they stay in place or float along,
separate or within crowds of others. Whether they flow or remain still, "glass" defines this place.
Clouds alone have the sky. The light above them fills every soft fold, leaving hardly a shadow below. It
is sometimes blinding, like an overbearing smile...
Below, the lands are often clear, empty. Just as often, the lands are filled with endless rows of structures
and scattered monuments.
Colorless monuments, like the colorless lands. Wherefore do they stand?
Because "place" is inseparable from memory. That's it, no?
Where your tears have fallen, where you've held another's hand...
Surely you can remember.
Although, even should you... these towers and walls, these buildings and castles don't stand only as
memorials or testaments.
This, all of this, is no testament. It is not poetic. It is meaningful, but not of higher meaning.
Its purpose lies at the core of being...
It's something simple, and needed, for thinking and feeling things.
0-3
解锁条件：完成0-2
解锁要求：通过Shades of Light in a Transcendent Realm
One more story, a story of two, is told: that of how to be alive.
There is no guide to living—only life itself:
life as a gorgeous thing, life as a gruesome thing...
This, they share.
Have you ever felt the need to cry from the beauty of something?
There is no doubt that you've cried over the unfairness of everything.
When you open your eyes, will you care at all? Or will you be content only to live?
Will the world ever allow you to be content?
There is no shame in wanting to feel happy.
The fragments of memory in the air—both joyous and wretched—drift toward you hopeful two...
A story will begin, but it isn't clear how your threads will be spun...
Reflections from above—reflections surround you—
They are reflections of infinite worlds—not possibilities, but certainties which have already transpired.
Stand. Watch them. Ask yourself after seeing them:
How will you be alive?
A snap in the distance. A sound echoing throughout, and beyond, everything—
And after, they slept.
Silently, they sleep: one against a crumbled wall, one against a ruined tower.
Asleep... but each is stirring now.
A girl in white basked in a rare shadow from the shifted wall she rests beside...
A girl in black bathed in light to spite her...
The girls each begin to open their eyes.
...
This memory, this story of light and conflict... Did you know?
...It begins from seeds of feeling—
It lives upon memories, both cherished and despised—
...And it marches on, as stubborn as time.
With eyes open, the twisted fates of a figure blessed and a figure damned begin to be woven.
And after, it is all forgotten.
1-1
解锁条件：购入Eternal Core曲包
解锁要求：采用光通过Lumia
Her first impression was that she'd awakened to a cloud of glass butterflies.
"How pleasant," she thought, "that these figures can move as well. Where are the strings?"
She sat onto her knees, fixed her dress, and found that there were no strings, and these were not
butterflies. Glass shards, flying on their own. "Delightful!" she felt, and so she said it.
The glass reflected another world than the one in white surrounding her. In it she could see
reflections of seas, cities, fires, lights; she rose her hand to scatter them, and laughed in joy.
She didn't know these pieces of glass had a name: Arcaea.
To tell the truth, they were so beautiful that it didn't matter the name.
She entertained herself by touching them, swirling them, watching them.
That was enough, no?
There were six questions to ask: who, what, where, when, why, and how.
Of these questions, she asked none and desired no answers,
content instead to bask in the glow of Arcaea.
This was her meeting with a new world.
1-2
解锁条件：完成1-1，购入Eternal Core曲包
解锁要求：采用光通过memoryfactory.lzh
But questions come inevitably.
The girl stands amidst the spiral of glass and wonders, "But really, what are these?"
Portals? Windows? Memories?
This last answer, "memories", strikes a chord with her. "They're memories," she says, faintly.
And like that, her questions stop.
For some reason, this is a place all full of memories.
Whose memories, or of what, she can't tell for certain, but her questioning has already ended.
For some reason the glass follows her. She can't hold any of it, but it comes to her nonetheless.
On a whim, she decides she will begin gathering it.
Piece by piece.
For no reason at all.
1-3
解锁条件：完成1-2，购入Eternal Core曲包
解锁要求：采用光通过PRAGMATISM
Without a clock, she has no sense for how many days or hours she has walked,
but there is a new certainty in her head...
There is beauty in a memory, that's what she finds herself believing. Thinking about it, a memory
is never certain, can change with the times, and yet is the nearest thing to a concrete piece of
the past. It can be bitter or sweet, and she thinks in either case they're quite enchanting.
For now she will see what memories she can, of these other places and people, and appreciate
them for their beauty. In the first place, these Arcaea flicker and glow splendidly in this strange
and ruined world. It's easy to fancy it all, and that they show memories makes it easier.
Humming, hands aloft, and stepping down broken paths, she brings what seems to be
memories fit for an entire world with her, following behind in a shining stream.
Memories of an ugly, pretty world...
"How nice..." She sighs, she smiles, and serenity becomes her, it seems, too well.
But there’s nothing to worry about.
A pleasant, simple world like this need only be pleasant. Nothing more.
1-4
解锁条件：购入Luminous Sky曲包
解锁要求：采用光通过Maze No.9
A joyous landscape. For so long, she has walked through a ruined yet beautiful world,
finding things and admiring them.
For so long she's traveled shepherding glass that the sky has become a mirror bending light as
far as she can see, and shaped almost geodesically. The fantastic and glittering roof never leaves
her, and with her surrounded by only fancies and goodness, the world has become endless bliss.
She traipses down a spiral staircase that once led into a manor, but the walls have now all fallen
and memories replace them. It is all the better: she leaps out ahead and dashes the memories
everywhere, basking in sparkling Arcaea that, when she finds them, float up to join the others in
her artificial sky. So enraptured now, she laughs with cheer.
A flower, a kiss, a love, a birth: a life followed by a new life in a river of glass flies past her eyes and
blends into the rest. She has seen this reflected countless times, and it still pleases her.
She gazes at the wall above. As they've come together, they've grown more vibrant.
She smiles, satisfied, before she wanders on again. And, as ever, heedless of all consequence.
1-5
解锁条件：完成1-4，购入Luminous Sky曲包
解锁要求：采用光通过Halcyon
They say that this is true: anything in excess is a poison. She either didn't know, or hadn't cared.
The girl now walks past what seemed to have been an old concert hall, the impact of its
grandness dulled as it had been split perfectly in twain, as if some higher power had willed it so.
Out of the tomb of sound drift memories again: of dances, of performance, hopes, victories.
Her mouth twitches. Has it simply become boring, or is this something else? She lifts her hands
and the Arcaea come to her, gently weaving over her palms and through her fingers. Blankly she
notes them. How many times has she seen the last hurrah of a retiring band? How many times has
she seen two brothers embrace? Too many times she's seen the formation of a love, so frequent
it was apparently standard in old and forgotten worlds.
She lets the memories go, and genuinely thinks nothing of it.
They rise. They fly to join with the memories she's still been gathering, and she looks at their
destination now. It's grown much brighter since she began her collecting.
It seems to grow brighter every day...
How many days has it even been? She winces, and a grimace twists onto her face.
She shakes it away.
Maybe she only needs more, then whatever is missing will be found.
She calms herself and carries on, not letting it bother her that no matter what,
she cannot push the Arcaea following her away.
1-ZR
解锁条件：完成1-5，购入Luminous Sky曲包
解锁要求：采用光（Zero）通过Ether Strike
"Heaven" is a kind of hell.
The truth is, idle peace and thoughtless pleasure are anathema to passion. Imbibing and imbibing
of happy things endlessly dulls the senses and makes "happiness" indistinct, blurred, and
ultimately without purpose. Now nothing has a purpose. She'd never had a purpose.
The sky is almost blinding.
She may be wandering, or she may be standing still; she isn't sure and it doesn't matter.
The sky she's made has her attention, but the memories within it can't be sorted out.
It has all become an opaque and overpowering haze compelling emptiness.
She is losing her self.
And as she is losing her self, she remains numb to the encroaching dissolution.
Though she did not remember, she invited this pleasurable and suffocating cage,
and she locked herself within it. Now she lacks even the will to worry.
The sky grows brighter and she loses more of herself.
With little time for her left, she stares upward as if waiting.
Bright, bright, bliss, beauty above: effulgent memory overtakes her.
Her mind whites out.
And, without meaning, light fades away.
Without meaning, time passes.
And a girl stares up into an empty sky, her mind ended, and thus her story along with it.
1-7
解锁条件：完成1-5，购入Luminous Sky曲包
The girl is on her knees, her chin brought up, and it is soon that her jagged and pervasive creation
will consume her in its light coaxing oblivion. Above her it pulses and glows, gentle but insufferable.
She lets it nearly take her, thoughtless.
And from that vast nothingness, something catches her eye.
Distinction alone breaks her from the lull of uniformity, and her gaze swings to it: a single, special
piece of glass, just a bit red, and absolutely noticeable. Perhaps in reality or through a trick of her
mind, the rest of the sky that it begins emerging from dulls in its intensity.
She thinks, it's becoming easier to see.
She thinks, and realizes she hasn't thought at all in ages.
The heavens wobble and distort, and a crack seems to run through them, the whole thing twisting
around the creation of a new memory: a shard of memory that should not exist.
It breaks from the whole, and breaks the sky.
Both violently and calmly the roof of her making falls down, choking the air in scattering light.
The spectacle would be magnificent to her, but she remains stuck on the newest piece,
which floats toward her amidst the frightening chaos of joyous memories.
It, too, is a memory of joy: that of herself that she has forgotten.
"When was— Did I—?"
She speaks in a fractured voice, her vocal chords having been long neglected of use.
Now in her hands, the odd shard that came from zero revolves,
and in it she sees the time when she awoke, dancing alongside glass,
traveling the mirror world, and happy.
Tears fall from her eyes, and she remembers that happiness left her long ago.
1-8
解锁条件：完成1-7，购入Luminous Sky曲包
解锁要求：采用光通过Fracture Ray
Twinkling glass pieces fall in an unevenly timed rain while reflecting dead worlds as they always do.
The girl at the center of it all focuses on a piece reflecting something new, however,
and of this world still existing.
Tears fall from her eyes, but the reason is yet grasped by her. Her mind still recovering,
she agonizes over the loss of everything she had before, falling all around her.
But, also, she agonizes over the loss of her zeal. The memory reflected shows a better and
ignorant time, as she walked into a trap she'd created for herself.
Even if she knew where it would lead—these shiftless travels inviting senselessness—
would she have done it all again, just to be happy?
The red in the glass is that of the red in her clothes, and she grasps the shard tightly to add
the red of her hand to it, blurring past and present, running warm over the shimmering surface.
She feels, again, but she feels so much more than before.
She feels, overwhelmingly, regret.
These were times that, almost with pride, she had moved meaninglessly. She had gathered
the Arcaea to enjoy them, and not thought even a bit as to why. She had brought on herself a
torturous and tedious hedonistic existence, a manufactured and blinding prison.
She had done it all for nothing, and nearly lost herself.
And to a question of "Why?" there was never an answer.
Just to be happy? That hadn’t been it either.
Collapsed on her knees, choking through cries with the memory over her breast, she knows
the weight of her errors. She had surrounded herself in love and life so much that it came to
disgust her, and that truth grieves her.
In grief the girl cries, thinking as much as she can, about everything that has happened,
and what anything meant.
1-9
解锁条件：完成1-8，购入Luminous Sky曲包
解锁要求：采用光（Fracture）通过Fracture Ray
Silence.
A few small pieces of old times falling down intermittently break this, but the girl's anguish
has settled. She no longer openly weeps, sitting among shimmering glass with dried tears on her
cheeks and dried blood in her hands.
Fear, worry, and regret have ended, so she now has to look out ahead.
What she had done was misguided. It was, in fact, not guided at all. With the idea of "more
happy scenes would only be better", she had filled the sky with good memories, not wondering
if there might be any danger in bringing so many of the mysterious shards together in one place.
She realizes now that they had threatened to swallow her.
If she wants to press on, she must have a reason.
She needs to answer those old questions that she had forgotten. What does this world mean,
and why is she in it? Why are gentle memories attracted to her, although she sometimes saw
flashes of hardship in pieces that refused her? Who was she?
Light comes back to her eyes and she stands on shaking legs. As she does so, the Arcaea
surrounding her shift. She looks on at them curiously, and lifts her hand. They lift too, and she
ponders. She realizes this is different, but that there’s also something different within herself.
The Arcaea will not come to her unbidden again, and she will not allow herself to be caged.
She wipes away her tears with the back of her bloodied hand, and lets the shard that has turned
her onto this new path go to follow behind her. She will let that be a memory, and face this
strange world anew, and she will find all that it is for, be it good or bad.
This she swears, and she is certain.
2-1
解锁条件：购入Eternal Core曲包
解锁要求：采用对立通过cry of viyella
She'd awakened in a ruined tower, first noticing pieces of glass floating in the air. They led her
outside, and into a world of white.
White, white, and more glass.
It seemed attracted to her, so she examined the shards with piqued curiosity.
She could see glimpses of something else in them, like looking through the windows of a train car.
In one flash she saw rain, in another sunlight, and in another death. She grimaced, and pulled away.
Although it seemed attracted to her, at her attempts to reach out and shatter the glass the shards
were naturally repelled. Her grimace deepened into a glare, and she turned her attention to the
pale sky. However, as she gazed into it, her expression melted away. Her mouth opened, but she
was too shaken to speak.
Glass: churning, glinting, and turning far overhead. There seemed to be a storm of it.
She regretted giving it attention, as now it seemed to notice, and was coming down to greet her.
2-2
解锁条件：完成2-1，购入Eternal Core曲包
解锁要求：采用对立通过Essence of Twilight
It's difficult to describe that sensation which overwhelms her now. A riptide of glass that doesn't
shatter, cut, or reflect her face, pushing past her in powerful amounts, turning up and swirling as if
pulled by a great wind. She stands fast, and watches.
Watches... ...Memories...? ...Of a filthy world.
"What is this...!?" She reaches out. "This...!"
A memory of pain, betrayal, envy.
When she stops it, she stops the rest. They stand still in the air around her, frozen. She whips her
head this way and that. "They're only..."
Dark? Are they only dark? Wherever it is these shards reflect... she sees little light there.
Whatever small sparks she sees fade away in an instant. She bites her lip, and then smiles a smile
with no humor. "What kind of joke is that?" she mutters, "A world filled only with misery..."
As she says this, even her bitter smile fades away.
2-3
解锁条件：完成2-2，购入Eternal Core曲包
解锁要求：采用对立通过Sheriruth
Without a clock, she has no way of knowing how long she's picked through memories,
but she's sure it's been quite a long time.
For a while, she'd searched the fragments for more happy memories, just to see if they were there.
They were, in small number, but the more miserable shards never ceased to hound her.
So, she's come to know places she now loathed.
She now stands at the middle of a vast spiral of glass that turns about her slowly and
resembles cosmos. She thinks there are two possibilities here: either the world or perhaps worlds
these shards envision were entirely terrible, or since only terrible memories are here...
In any case, she's decided to be rid of it all.
Something inside her has switched. Now when she looks at painful memories, she looks pleased.
She gathers such memories, it seems, gleefully.
"If I can be rid of this trash, or even better the places it represents..."
These places full of chaos and even light. That will make her happy.
2-4
解锁条件：购入Vicious Labyrinth曲包
解锁要求：采用对立通过Iconoclast
It had been a while, and so she'd grown confident.
In the time since she began she'd explored much of this glass and mirror world, and she'd gathered
countless shards. Like an unending scarf they formed around her neck and trailed long behind her.
Now, she stood atop a fallen tower and looked out ahead with a smile.
The terrible memories of other places twisted behind her menacingly.
She was gazing at a place that had always caught her eye, but she'd refrained from ever going
toward it. It was some sort of distant labyrinth turning into the sky with insane geometry.
Of course, it was more glass.
Of course, she could feel its filth pulsing all the way out here.
Although she still had no idea how to go about it, she intended to be rid of the terrible fragments
that followed her eventually. To that end she was gathering them. She at least took comfort in
having the bad all in one place. That would make clearing it away one day all the more easier.
This labyrinth was particularly bad, and she felt confident in gathering its fragments too.
The maze was surrounded by a glittering and ever-shifting sea of good memories. As she made
her way toward the maze, the sea parted, only a few shards coming to join the trail behind her.
However, while walking the path and scattering the good shards she suddenly hesitated.
Now flanked by hope, with despair before her, she chewed on her lip... and her heart wavered.
2-5
解锁条件：完成2-4，购入Vicious Labyrinth曲包
解锁要求：采用对立通过conflict
Once upon a time, surely, things had to have been better.
The girl remembered nothing, and since awaking in the world of glass she'd only ever known other
memories. Because of this, she'd drawn many conclusions and had few second thoughts.
She'd been assured of the idea that nothing in the glass and nothing in this world held any worth.
Filth and awfulness, tears and pain, a small smile, and death.
But once upon a time, things had to have been better. Simple rules are often true:
shadows are begotten from light. Shadow lurked at her back, and now she was surrounded by light.
When she'd stepped into these waves of joy and purity, she hadn't given it a second thought.
She'd become so absorbed in evil that she had forgotten simple good. To be honest it was more
than her heart simply wavering, now. She was overwhelmed. For every glint of hope that caught
her eye on the way to the jagged maze, she paused and questioned everything.
There was an answer she did not want to acknowledge, immersed in this scene of light and chaos.
She didn't want to think about it. She wouldn’t allow herself to think about it.
And, before she really could, she stood before the entrance to the impossible labyrinth.
On impulse, she reached out to the better glass and memories of flowering fields came to follow
around her in a ring. She didn't know why, nor if they would help.
2-D
解锁条件：完成2-5，购入Vicious Labyrinth曲包
解锁要求：采用对立（Axium）通过Axium Crisis
She didn't know it, but she had a name. If she knew it, perhaps she wouldn't have entered the
twisted black maze. It may have been a meaningful name that may have made her doubts much
stronger. But she didn't know, she ground her teeth, and she reaffirmed her beliefs.
The light from before would not shake her, the light of the flower ring would not shake her.
She entered the dark structure and started tearing it apart.
Each wall pulled away was made of misery, each facet held horrors, and the corners were
comprised of fear. This was a castle of iniquity. Simply put, it was grotesque.
It was powerfully grotesque.
And that girl, her grin returned. This was it. Climbing through it, running through it, this was the
kind of disgusting monolith that had compelled her into action in the first place.
She hadn't been wrong. The glass should only be shattered. The mirrors should only be destroyed.
And as she gleefully pulled away great swathes of the maze, hallways tumbling into the air,
her smile became warped. She winced; something was wrong with her head.
At the heart of the maze, there was *something* worse than any memory before. She could feel it,
close now, calling to her. Her enthusiasm had drained, and her progress had slowed,
and she saw a wicked shard of glass turning in space, containing the memory of the end of a world.
With a hand on her face, she looked into the mirrored world. She remembered the sea of pleasant
realities below her and the flowers now circling around her. She'd taken down part of the maze's
roof and the walls had subsequently fallen away. Dark glass rained slowly around her, and in the
distance the better memories shone brightly.
She looked into the end of the world between her fingers. She swallowed, and with newfound strength,
removed the hand from her face. She reached out, and dragged the end of the world into her collection
of memories. With this monolith toppled, she felt an honest and genuine surge of bliss. However terrible
the memories she faced from now on would be, it couldn't possibly matter. She was certain now that
she was strong, and she would definitely destroy them all. And so, with a genuine smile and a tired laugh,
she came down from the sky, and the tower along with her, landing after with power flowing through her
and a mere ruin behind her and so marching forth with unwavering certainty: that of a hero's conviction.
2-7
解锁条件：完成2-5，购入Vicious Labyrinth曲包
Perhaps she should have worried, because her heart was suddenly in pain.
She drew back, covered her mouth, and her eyes went wide in confusion. She had been standing
on the floor of a gigantic and bitter maze that doubled as a tower, but she now began to fall to
her knees. Before she hit the ground, the structure began to break and fall first.
The memories of sorrowful days that she had gathered came around her like a cloak, the tower's
memories turned from a falling slow rain into a downpour. She and the maze fell like stones, and
although she should have been terrified to drop so far and so fast, all she could feel was confusion.
She splashed down into a sea of the fragmented happiness of other worlds. The waves she and
the crashing labyrinth caused were immense. Glass pushed against glass in a way that could be
described as both ugly and beautiful, and she knelt at the center of that storm.
She was confused because she was hurting. Everything hurt. Her heart was bursting.
The cloak of memories that she'd collected turned into a grotesque sphere and surrounded her.
The world of white disappeared from her vision, leaving only horrible things.
Heaving, sweating, and trembling, she looked into the glass, into the Arcaea, deeply.
And as she came to realize that her heart was breaking,
that her sanity was breaking,
the memory of the end of the world that she'd seen earlier slowly drifted into view.
2-8
解锁条件：完成2-7，购入Vicious Labyrinth曲包
解锁要求：采用对立通过Grievous Lady
The girl had felt many emotions since her waking into the white and ruined world. Mostly, she'd
felt anger, but she'd been able to turn that anger into a strange sort of hope. True, she didn't have
much of a plan. In fact, she was only walking forward because she believed at the end of her steps
there would be something good. She had hope. She was certain that this chaos was leading into
light. She was certain that the torments she was facing, that the horrors she was holding,
could be completely shattered.
Yes, she was emotional. She felt so strongly that when faced with the idea that no, in fact, nothing
had a purpose... she began to suffer.
The cruelest fate is to have hope and see it crushed before your eyes. And so the girl sat on her
knees in a malformed circle of death, looking at a world coming to its end. This was the first time
she had felt the emotion of sadness, and it was quickly turning into despair. The world of Arcaea
was a pointless world. It was the manifestation of worlds gone. It had no substance, only the
reflections of such. Even the glowing and joyful memories she had sometimes encountered on
her way were still only memories of the past. Like night comes after day, they had to have led into
the end she now saw spinning slowly in the air before her. Her eyes welled with tears.
She had felt so much since waking up.
She'd felt joy. Joy left her.
She'd felt fear. Fear left her.
Anger left her.
Hope left her.
Even sadness and despair now left her.
Her eyes went dark and she could feel resonance with the glass.
The shell of memories around her began to crack and split open.
She emerged from it and stood in the blinding light, and couldn't feel anything at all.
2-9
解锁条件：完成2-8，购入Vicious Labyrinth曲包
解锁要求：采用对立（Grievous Lady）通过Grievous Lady
Like an ocean stained with oil, the memories of a cursed labyrinth and the memories she had
brought with her all fell and muddled into the soothing glass around her. Most of them churned
into a gray mass, some suddenly jutting up from the ground like spikes. She went still, and slowly
looked over every shard, just... counting them. Even when memories came shooting up sharply
near her eyes, she continued to count.
Eventually she lifted a finger, beckoning some of the shards toward her. And, with a simple
thought, the fragments came together in the shape of a fragile butterfly. She commanded it into
the sky, to reflect the world of white, and when it came down again to tell her what it had seen,
with a simple thought she slowly tore off each of its wings, and let it fall into nothing.
Then, she walked forward from the corrupted sea, willing each pillar of lost time that entered
her path to explode and shatter.
---
Time passed. She changed.
She no longer sought to collect memories. She walked through the world mostly absently.
She discovered things about it and about herself, but she had no ambitions.
Now she walked beside an old and crumbling building, twirling a parasol she had found in the
ruins some day. Silently, a creature formed of glass reflecting bitter days glided down toward her
from the sky. It resembled a glistening and jagged crow, and it was something she considered no
more than a tool. After that day at the now-fallen tower, she'd become more in-tune with the
chaotic Arcaea and was able to call upon things like this. In its own way, it whispered to her of
places beyond her reach in the blinding white world. Glaring at it, she had it burst and fall apart,
and she moved on.
These crows of hers sickened her with news.
The world was empty, that's all they said. That she knew.
She'd never find anyone else here.
She wanted to. She needed to.
But, it was not because she hoped to have someone to share her fate with.
She needed to let this frustration out on something alive.
She needed someone to hurt.
V-0
解锁条件：完成1-9、2-9，购入Luminous Sky曲包
解锁要求：采用光（Fracture）通过Grievous Lady
The ruin is as common a sight as any other, but the girl in light
nonetheless pays it attention as she steps through.
She's been wondering what the ruins are and why they're there—
wondering if this world she wanders has a past,
or if its decimated landscape is only coincidental.
She feels she has to think about it, not to succumb to the bliss of ignorance.
If she wants a reason, then it might help to know the world, too.
Perhaps this is a reflection of another world?
She has seen things like it within the Arcaea, but that also makes her wonder if in this place
there might be standing towers and buildings that are not in ruin.
Maybe she’s only yet to see them...
This ruin seems like it was once large, grand.
It must have been a beautiful place where many people came, she thinks.
If it did have such a past, then it is a shame.
There is only her, now, moving through pews and broken candlesticks.
There is only her, and she blinks, seeing that there is in fact somebody else.
Somebody else stands still at her left, before a broken wall.
Once, she would have grinned happily, but carelessly at this person.
As she is now, she looks at the shadow-covered girl in confusion,
but certainly not without a fluttering, insuppressible feeling of elation.
Outside of a memory, here in the world and before her eyes, is a person.
All this time she's walked alone, and here is somebody else:
one other living, breathing person.
The other girl doesn't notice her. She is standing in place, holding her parasol, and sleeping.
Her dark figure cuts so strongly against the rest of the world, which shines so bright in the distance,
that she thinks this must be a dream or perhaps a waking memory.
She opens her mouth to speak, and the other girl opens her eyes to consciousness.
She who heralds sad and evil forgotten things opens her eyes
and witnesses the changed and white-clad girl before her.
That breathing the light-bearer found so relieving stops short,
and the dark girl squints, lips parted as if she means to question.
But she swallows instead and raises her brow, tightening her grip of the handle.
Her own twisted elation flows out from her heart, just as unstoppable, but so much more eager.
It climbs to her face, and the girl of chaos offers the girl of light an honest, irrepressible smile.
V-1
解锁条件：购入Adverse Prelude曲包
解锁要求：采用对立通过Saint or Sinner
In the unwalled, unroofed church, known only by its skeleton chairs and white candles,
the girl in black stands near the remaining old gate, looking at the person she's just met.
It's actually quite simple: she’s been upset for so long, and now a true flesh-and-blood person
is finally in front of her. She isn't thrilled. She isn't even excited. The smile on her face is an
effortless lie—but it's one she can't help but tell. It says to the white-clothed girl before her,
"pleasure to meet you." It means nothing.
"What's your name?" she asks in a dry voice. Maybe, in the past, she'd have realized how long it
had been since she'd last spoken.
"My... name? I... I'm not sure," replies the radiant girl. "Do you? Oh—know your own... name,
I mean... "
She doesn't answer the question. "That's something..." are her only words as she looks off toward
an ornate wall.
The girl in white gives a bothered expression.
This... was turning out to be a strange meeting. Though the one in black doesn't know it, the one
in white is beginning to share the darker girl's lack of enthusiasm. Like a fire in a sudden chill wind,
her hope flickers and wanes. Now she grows uncomfortable, anxious, and wary. A slight but
unshakable atmosphere drifts between them, one that feels unmistakably off. To her, it seems as
though their very meeting is something the world finds to be simply... "wrong".
The ever-present glass, now scattered unevenly throughout and above the broken grounds,
reflects that strange feeling.
Ordinarily, these shards would flock to them without their bidding: "happiness" to the girl in white,
"tragedies" to the girl in black. Right now, every piece of glass in the air stands still. Perhaps half a
hundred mirrors are quietly suspended around the girls, half-catching images of the empty place
that surrounds them. When the girl in white tries to call out to them, they will not even waver.
It unsettles her: happiness placed beside horror, equally glinting and equally motionless.
The only piece that will follow her is the one she can hold—the one that set her free.
She stares hard at the shadow girl. "If we're in this together," she begins, leaning forward,
"then what do you think about staying together? We... We could help each other, and maybe..."
She stops. The other girl is staring into the empty, canvas-like sky with a blank and uninformative
expression. She doesn't seem to be listening, but in truth she has followed every word.
"Maybe... " the dark girl echoes. It's faint... After her reincarnation into misery, her soul itself had
felt like a dull, grim abyss. However, when she heard this proposal, something inside her
shimmered—very briefly and very weakly. However, as she is now, even something as tiny as that
was able to pierce the shroud of frustration that had been endlessly choking her since she'd
reawakened.
And the remnant of the girl she used to be, the Tairitsu who had first woken up in this world,
rebelled against the prospect of "the end"—against the idea of giving up.
She wanted a second chance.
But her halfhearted answer isn’t enough to inspire confidence in the girl standing opposite her.
Their meeting remains careful, cautious. The Hikari who recently returned to her senses now
knows that the world of Arcaea is far more than pretty—and far less than safe.
And yet the two girls will speak, with the hope that it will lead to something better.
V-2
解锁条件：完成V-1，购入Adverse Prelude曲包
解锁要求：采用光通过Vindication
Their conversation continues.
"It would certainly be nice if we had names to share," says Tairitsu in a fraying voice. Her eyes are
again beginning to lose the shine of life.
The other girl, Hikari, notices that with some discomfort. "Yes, I can't say I like to think about it:
not having any memories in a world filled with them," she admits.
At the moment, they sit upon the same pew, though not close. They've gone to what was once
the front row, and a few steps in front of them lead up to a wide, flat floor. The girl in white is
slouched, watching her new acquaintance with worry painting her gaze. The girl in black is
examining the empty place in front of them, the sky, the dead and distant grandiose architecture—
but she does so seemingly without concern or interest.
While watching, she begins to speak unprompted. "This glass. Do you know a name for it?"
"Huh? Oh... Well, for whatever reason, I know the name 'Arcaea'."
"Same as me," says Tairitsu, now looking Hikari's way. "So, how are we different?"
Hikari offers an apologetic smile. "I don't know," she says, "aside from our difference in looks."
"Let's find out, then. What kind of memories do you see in the glass?"
"Almost only pleasant ones."
Tairitsu sighs. "Then we're opposites..." she remarks bitterly, looking to her feet. "Let's say we're
the only two walking around this place. If that's true, our opposition could matter a great deal."
"You don't see happy memories through the Arcaea?" asks Hikari, leaning slightly toward her
conversation partner. "I'm sorry..."
"...That's just how it is," says the other girl. For a short while they remain silent, until Tairitsu
speaks again. "But from what you've said... I suspect even your pleasant memories haven't resulted
in a happy life for you here. Well? Am I correct?"
To this, Hikari nods. "I don't mean to make it sound as though I've had it rough since waking up,
but... You see, I once gathered enough pieces that they could cover the sky. When I did, that new
sky almost killed me... I felt like the light was slowly eroding my mind... I think it was mainly my
own fault, to be honest."
They both feel it's best to be honest.
After Hikari tells of her naive and dangerous journey bathed in light, Tairitsu coldly recounts her
tragic struggles through maelstroms of dark. The two are certainly different in quite a few ways,
but one definite commonality becomes clear between them: a want of sense in a senseless world.
The world around them may be beautiful, but it has also been cruel.
Hikari has resolved herself, but it wasn't long ago that her very "self" had been threatened by this
strange, unfeeling place. For Tairitsu, it has left her scarred: persistent, panging compulsions
toward violence and wrath continue to roll up from within her like tides. Even throughout their
discussions here, despite her desire to be amicable, smothering each urge from her breast has
been no easy feat. This living, breathing person beside her is too enticing a target to release her
frustrations on. The girl in white doesn't fail to notice how the girl in black's hold on her umbrella
periodically tightens into a trembling, aggravated grip.
It hasn't been easy—a fact that holds true for the both of them.
But they continue to fight.
"I think I just... I really wanted to meet somebody else," Tairitsu reveals. "Even... perhaps a few
months ago, that may have been all I really wanted. However... ever since I stepped out of that
black shell, I've found it difficult to hold on to such an innocent desire. I just can't muster it.
When my chest isn’t feeling empty, I can't muster anything in it that isn't vile and wicked impulse.
Disgusting, broken thing..." She looks at Hikari. "Even now, I keep thinking about how much I want
to hurt you."
"That's fine..." says the other girl. "Maybe I'd feel that same way if I’d gone through everything that
you did. But I don't think you’re right about one thing. I don’t think your heart is as broken
as you feel."
Tairitsu meets her eyes, as if asking how that could be.
"Look—you're holding back," explains Hikari, "even now. That tells me that even after everything,
you're a very good person—still. You’re strong." She smiles and stands from her seat. "You're a lot
stronger than me," she says, casting a momentary glance into the brilliant sky.
"I was rescued," she continues, meeting Tairitsu's eyes once more. "You rescued yourself."
The shimmer inside the dark girl's chest becomes a faint glow, and an ache pulses through her.
That's not true, she thinks. It isn't that simple, she thinks. She failed, and the old her died that day
when the labyrinth collapsed. She'd felt nothing after that, and when feeling came back to her, it
was nothing but contempt. When she’d met this girl, even, it made her want to do nothing more
than take a blade and run her through.
No, she hasn’t rescued herself. However... perhaps she hasn't simply been seeking someone out to
harm. Perhaps the truth is that she’s been awaiting something impossible to give her one last ray
of hope. Hikari is too meek and unsure to directly comfort her, but her presence and lack of
aggression signal this: she may be that last, fledgling ray.
What pains Tairitsu's heart is that very innocent realization.
Her posture weakens. Hikari notices and moves to see if she can do something. But she is still
unsure, and so she is ultimately unable to reach out for the other girl. She stands before Tairitsu
with her arms half-raised, and in a few moments the girl in black stands by herself. Hikari drops her
hands, and takes a step back. Around them, the glass sways with their movement, and one in
particular begins to shine a bit differently from the others. In its reflection is something familiar,
yet impossible.
It is a vision that, surely, nobody could have seen:
the briefest wicked flicker of a most strange and anomalous memory.
V-3
解锁条件：完成V-2，购入Adverse Prelude曲包
解锁要求：采用光通过Heavensdoor
They stand apart, Tairitsu holding a hand over her chest, fingers clenched and struggling as she
takes heavy breaths. She is reinvigorated, in no small part thanks to the girl in white. Hikari has
given her one precious, final reassurance. It does not have to be the end. One last path out of this
white and blinding hell still exists.
An open, albeit weak, smile cuts along her face as she exhales. "Let's do something," she says.
"Let's figure out this stupid, absurd world."
"I-It's not that stupid," says Hikari in mild protest, smiling herself with just as little strength.
She isn't entirely positive about the other girl, but she can tell at least one thing: despite
appearances, she isn’t evil. Quite the opposite, it seems. If anything, that alone is reason enough
to join hands with this new potential ally. A "good" person... is not exactly how she'd readily
describe herself, after all.
However, while she thinks this, Tairitsu’s mood turns. "What makes you say that?" asks the
panting girl, though her delivery of the question sounds much more like an accusation.
Her eyes are almost hollow as they bore coldly into her opposite. "You might understand it even
better than me. This is the kind of place that would break a girl for the audacity of surrounding
herself in pleasures and joys." She stands up straight, calms her breath, and steadies her gaze,
bringing the hand over her chest to the handle of her parasol. "That's unconscionable.
You don't agree?"
Her strength of conviction puts the other girl down for a moment, but Hikari is no longer one who
is incapable of any caring. Gathering a modicum of confidence, she stands up straight herself, and
delivers her explanation.
"We're alive," she says, "and if a world can permit that, then it can't be the worst thing."
"Hah...?" The other girl's glare intensifies. "No... If a world can permit life, only to plague that life
with ills and grief, then that world is not just."
"W-Well, maybe not, but—"
"But?" demands Tairitsu.
"But that's shortsighted! What is it that you want to do, exactly?"
"Destroy everything. The world, the glass, all of it. I'll find a way. It's only fair, right?" she explains
as a matter of fact. "I would think you'd resonate with the idea. What has this world been for you
other than an expansive prison?"
"Destroy it...? Even... Even if you could, it would only end everything! This is the only world we
know of that exists for certain, isn't it? If we somehow destroyed it, could we not simply destroy
ourselves as well? Would you... You’d rather die than live here? Why, that's... that's ridiculous!"
"No, that's fine," says Tairitsu simply.
Hikari, not expecting that answer, falls silent. Tairitsu's words were too frightening, and far too sad.
In her silence, Tairitsu continues her interrogation.
"Do you have some other idea? Some other plan?"
"No... I don't. I wanted to find—to find a plan with you," admits the other girl, and dismay is clear in
her tone.
And Tairitsu, in her recent recovery, recognizes this. It makes her pause. It had been too easy to
lash out at this new acquaintance. She knew she wasn't being reasonable. Indeed, having just
found herself with burgeoning hope again, she could clearly see how cold she’d been until their
meeting. And yet, when faced with another’s hope, she'd attacked. Truly, was she that petty?
In the past, this conviction of hers has never brought her satisfaction or peace, much less resolution.
No, her willfulness has only ever led her down a dark, thorny path stained with gloom.
With this in mind, she extinguishes the fire rising in her heart that had been so sure of its need to
burn. If she wants to take this girl's hand... she cannot reject the ideas it holds.
"I... I'm sorry," she apologizes, her passion now fully relinquished. She lowers her head for a
moment. "I... feel the same. I want to work to find something new as well."
Hikari regains a bit of her self-assurance, which had been brought low before Tairitsu. She tells her
new friend, "It's alright. You've had a time here I could probably never understand."
But that righteous fire in Tairitsu's heart had been just enough.
Ultimately, it had only burned for a short moment, like a flash—
but it was enough to rile a dormant shard in the flock of glass around them.
It awakens and, on its own, begins to drift down to where they are, still unseen.
"Don't lose hope," says the girl in light. "Things can always get better."
A shard, shimmering with faded color, comes directly between them.
It catches both their attention—but it will only show its memory to the one clad in black.
V-4
解锁条件：完成V-3，购入Adverse Prelude曲包
解锁要求：采用对立通过Ringed Genesis
The end.
The girl adorned in shadows peers through the broken window into another time.
Her smile returns.
What a fool she was.
Not the girl in white, no.
Her.
The vision in the glass is no memory.
It cannot be, of course.
What she’s seeing is a future: a future that she should have expected,
the fool, the idiot dreamer.
The glass shows an unmistakable image of herself, run through with a jagged pillar of glass,
the wound seeming to sear her clothing and body apart in a blistering, pale, and consuming flame.
The blank, barren lands of Arcaea stretch out far behind her, and before her,
coaxing the pillar with a lifted hand and a blinding, fiery glow around her shoulders,
is a girl clad in white, a very familiar one, though her expression is hidden from this vantage.
It is the girl standing before her now.
The one she has only just met.
This is no memory: it's a vision of what will come to be.
Faced with this, Tairitsu retreats into herself,
and confronts the one truth she was determined to ignore.
Her conviction didn't matter.
She will never find anything good for her in this world.
That last hope is dyed black now, drowned in despair, forgotten.
What else would happen?
What was her hope for?
Idiocy. Tiresome, blind idiocy.
Tiresome effort.
Tiresome memories.
Tiresome existence.
Tiresome, awful, sick of it. Sick of this, sick of herself,
sick of everything in this never-ending, mocking play.
Miracles? No...
She'd said it herself. This world is hell.
And she knows this, from the fractured ideas of worlds dead and gone:
even angels can one day fall and awaken to demonic form.
The girl in light is just like that.
In a turn final and damning, what was once a mere pit inside her chest is clawed and spread.
It wastes, decays all through in an instant, leaving instead a cold and endless chasm.
As the darkness within it creeps out to coat her insides and choke her thoughts,
she sees Hikari very clearly.
Sees her gaze darting to the shard—sees the panic, the clear knowledge in her eyes.
The girl knows.
And now she can't face her opposite's stare,
won't say a word though she sees clearly.
You're unnerved? Unsettled? Unabashed.
Unforgivable.
That anger twists into hate and loathing, spilling over and arriving in her eyes.
Wicked betrayer; wicked, wicked place.
She tightens her grasp on her parasol,
looking past the shard to Hikari, who is standing still.
Frozen in place, surely, because her ill intentions have been exposed.
It's worth laughing about.
Tairitsu's eyes narrow, and she excises the remains of those burgeoning emotions
the girl had begun to cultivate within her.
With finality she is emptied,
and with that, she knows what she must do.
But this mirror is still one-way, and thus her anger as well.
Hikari is unable to see within this peculiar shard at all.
Unaware, she can only watch in confusion
as Tairitsu's countenance drains more and more of color.
A sense of danger wells up in her, and though she can't understand why, she can feel it there.
In fact, shadows now seem to be crawling up from the earth, light perishing at their touch.
Darkness nears her, and her breathing shortens. She takes a step back.
She almost can't believe it. She certainly doesn't want to.
Even after surviving the harrowing ordeal, that blinding light sky,
something terrible faces her again without reason.
But still, she had survived it.
And now she knows for certain that survival may not allow compromise.
With this thought in heart and mind, Hikari makes a damning mistake.
She reaches for the one piece of glass,
the one that gave her comfort and direction in the midst of her lowest moment.
When she raises it to her chest,
the hairs on the back of Tairitsu's neck rise up as well.
Fear pulsing through her, along with a conviction to never meet with tragedy again,
Tairitsu closes the distance to Hikari in an instant, without warning,
ready to once and for all firmly grab hold of her life.
VS-1
解锁条件：购入Black Fate曲包
解锁要求：通过Equilibrium
Hikari.
Tairitsu.
If they knew each other’s names, if they even knew their own, would that change how they had
felt from then until now? "Light" and "Conflict"... Names so lofty, in a world so bizarre,
so outlandish... Would they have considered the meanings, and found different paths?
Or would any divergence, any turn or taking of a choice, any circumstance or odd spin of fortune’s
wheel still have set the two girls into inevitable dissent and discord?
Hikari, who still does not know her name, would be unsure. Tairitsu, likewise, is however damned
with fateful knowledge, and knows dissent and discord between them will always be.
Nothing will change. Nothing would.
The girl in white and the girl in black cannot reconcile.
This, all of this, may only lead to—
"Ah!"
Hikari’s voice escapes her when the blade of her foe comes. She raises her hand at once, and with
it, glass strikes against glass. It holds, it shines—unbroken, and in her piece Hikari can see her own
pale face, agonized and frightened.
A heartfelt conversation has led to this—to a heart-pounding clash.
She takes a single step in retreat as her body bends from the force of the other girl’s strength.
Her skin goes cold; she finds she can’t breathe.
She realizes there, looking deep into the now-close eyes of the girl attacking her that her being
attacked is not the source of the fright clawing and gripping at her insides. It is not that, nor the
fact she can hardly resist as the push of Tairitsu’s blade inches her own nearer and nearer to her
taut neck.
No. The sweat in her palm, the breath trapped in her lungs, it’s all because the person before her—
the girl who had felt to her a tragic and sorrowful figure only moments before—seems now so
utterly changed.
She is not the person she’d spoken to like a fellow and friend. In fact, she doesn’t seem like a
person at all. Her stare is so purposeful, her jaw is unmoving, and those fingers of hers,
clutched so tightly they’re now stained red—
Nothing but a beast garbed in black. A shade, brimming with malice.
VS-2
解锁条件：完成VS-1，购入Black Fate曲包
解锁要求：采用对立通过Antagonism
Let this end peacefully.
Find common ground.
Don’t be weak. Don’t falter.
With these thoughts in mind, Hikari pushes back.
They have both seen and felt the throes of battle within near countless memories, but vicarious
recollections are no substitute for a genuine struggle between life and death.
Their impromptu blades meet again, entirely without grace. Tairitsu’s strikes stay vicious and direct,
while Hikari’s movements are desperate, forever a hair away from a harmful, fatal slip. She only
defends; she does nothing more. If she could stop this without violence, she’d do so in a heartbeat.
Their flurried tussle is hampered by the peculiar surroundings of the broken church: lamps and
benches placed under a sky. The two move between the aisles. Tairitsu darts toward Hikari’s feet,
but her target remains planted. Hikari lifts the piece of glass that had once served to rescue her,
bracing for the rising cut.
But a cut does not come. Instead it is that black parasol: tearing up quickly through the air and
cruelly into her waiting guard.
"Gh...! Hah...!" she groans, panting. It feels like fire has swallowed her hand, and her small finger
she swears it must have been bent. Her anomalous piece flies from her grasp, and as soon as she
is without a weapon, the pained girl withdraws immediately.
To her own surprise, Hikari lands after her first leap with no waver, no fall. She leaps back again,
her dress fluttering, and she finds herself standing atop the pews just in time to avoid another
coming blow. So close... Can this not be ended with words?
Even if it could, she can’t even find a single word to say.
Even if she could, she isn’t given any chance to speak.
And even when, blessed, she is afforded both; gaining enough distance from her pursuer and time
alone to begin preparing her voice—
a new blade shoots out from nowhere—
it finds her cheek, swift—
and, just like that, it cuts, glancing across her skin.
VS-3
解锁条件：完成VS-2，购入Black Fate曲包
解锁要求：采用光通过Equilibrium
Hikari loses her breath again. Her hand flies to the left side of her face. She withdraws it, seeing
that an unfortunately now-familiar color has tainted her fingers—her palm. Once more...
she goes cold.
Still falling back, she grips both of her arms, trying to quell their trembling.
She swallows the saliva filling her mouth.
And, quietly, she pleads:
"Stop..."
And only a bit louder:
"Please, stop..."
Another shard of glass drives through the air like an arrow, and she avoids it though she was given
only a second for its approach. It goes past where her upper arm, its target, had been.
And she shouts, "Please stop!"
"I know what you want to do."
Hikari stops instead, and in a moment after Tairitsu lands on a row of pews five away from hers.
"What are you? A demon invented by the world?" Tairitsu asks.
"What!?"
"Are you just another fragment from a dead place, come to hound me?"
"I... No!" Hikari yells.
"You don’t know what you are, either..." Tairitsu mutters.
There, Hikari notices: a number of pieces of Arcaea are darting behind and before the other girl like
patrolling wasps. She eyes them warily, and Tairitsu continues to speak, voice dipped long in woe.
"But, if you found me," she says, "that means you can’t be anything good."
And Hikari, recalling what this girl had told her of her past, is brought still upon realizing that she
can perfectly understand what that means.
"I’m not... that..." she mumbles in defense. Another bullet of glass comes, shooting past her ear.
She shuts her eyes, forcing tears out of them.
If she is to survive...
...she cannot give up.
Eyes downcast, Hikari calls a new piece of glass to her hand, not even realizing how strange it is
that she can touch it now.
A troop of shards also joins her behind her back.
She lifts her head.
Like this, she once more faces the girl she wishes she could befriend.
VS-4
解锁条件：完成VS-3，购入Black Fate曲包
解锁要求：采用光通过[[＃1f1e33{{!}}#1f1e33]]
They erupt from the gate, crashing through it as if it were a pane instead of metal.
Shards of memory whirl around them in chaos as the girl in black lunges at the girl in white.
Pushed back, and never pushing forth; though she has chosen to fight earnestly, there is still a
hope in Hikari’s heart that this does not have to end in bloodshed. Yet still, even if her sway over
the glass is not nearly as deft, even if she is entirely unpracticed, she truly won’t give in.
Glass shields her back in a slapdash, patchwork pattern, constantly shifting to stop Tairitsu’s
roundabout spears from ever hitting their marks. Hikari’s eyes are sharper than that glass, ever
vigilant to pin the dark girl down; to end this peacefully, through force.
Nothing about it is simple, however.
Now outside the cathedral-shell, open on the misshapen roads and hills of Arcaea, Tairitsu is free.
Keeping close, her movements sweep and her glass flies wide. So doggedly pursued, Hikari finds
all she can do is cling to her desperate defense in preservation of her own life.
Her pulse is quick, and the sweat that had begun in her hands is now permeating her entire body
with an awful chill. Smashing an invisible knife against an invisible dagger, crashing a swift shard
into a shining lance flying true before it can meet her throat.
Blow for blow, for blow, for blow, she is made to realize that their battle has gone from a tussling
mess of violence to a vicious clash of two formidable and absolute forces. She cannot match
Tairitsu’s strength, but with her wits and will kept about her, she can dampen its impact.
To the torrent of emotions before her, she will be the composed counter: the stone weathered,
but never broken; and she will settle this.
They’re even, each holding down her position as points and rays of light shine from the smooth
faces of their chosen Arcaea.
They remain even, in fact, until Tairitsu shifts her focus. Instead of aiming past the other girl’s guard,
with no tell she decides to redirect and send down her flock on Hikari’s right side.
The impact is massive. With an explosion of glints and glamor, it forces Hikari to stumble down
to a knee. Then and there, glaring darkly, Tairitsu lifts and points her black umbrella, its tip
revealing the intended destination: the front of her opponent’s skull.
She spares no hesitation. The strike comes in an instant.
Hikari shuts her eyes. Tairitsu’s brow twists.
The thrust is stopped, but not by either of them. Instead, it is something between them.
Between them, that anomalous shard, previously forced from Hikari’s hand, stands still in the air,
steady as a wall, immovable against the umbrella-spike. Hikari opens her eyes and stares,
disbelieving.
"Eh!?"
"That’s..."
Tairitsu lifts her other hand, a swirl of glass rising up around it.
Not hesitating either, Hikari thrusts her hand against the anomaly, and every free piece of glass
surrounding them sways for just a moment before a razor-sharp rainfall begins.
VS-5
解锁条件：完成VS-4，购入Black Fate曲包
解锁要求：采用对立通过Dantalion
It begins like a storm.
The falling glass, now under Hikari’s command, begins to dart everywhere and every way without
order. Though the shards are hers to control, she cannot grasp how to truly use them for a little
while.
Tairitsu, aggravation and concern plain on her face, retreats. Hikari is thus left hidden in a swarm of
edged memories, crouched and still as she concentrates on her newfound power.
Tairitsu surveys the land, looking to the sky and to Hikari’s storm. She holds a hand up over her
head, and thinks: to fight a storm, one must summon a deluge.
Thus, from distant cities and white mountains, the glass of a thousand and more memories are
immediately pulled by her call. Unlike Hikari’s untamed flurry, Tairitsu’s flock is a pattern,
immaculately composed.
Behind the girl in black, the glass assumes the shape of a giant rose, its petals falling one by one in
swirling descents, slicing cleanly through the squall shielding the girl in white.
And Hikari—now standing, though afraid—can only respond in patterned kind.
Bloom after bloom and chain after chain follow in their maddening, frantic, distant combat.
From miles off, it seems things are exactly as Tairitsu wished: a clash of two storms.
Rain fighting rain, "lightning" flashing throughout, and their undulating "clouds" joining the fray by
bursting, spiraling, and flowing in an explosive display—a sparkling tumult of furious natural powers.
And beneath the whirling and silver floods stand two girls, each with a blaze in her heart.
Each avoid volleys of shards by mere millimeters, and they begin to run as they fight rather than
holding their ground. Rushing through Arcaea’s plains, they cast glass artilleries and skid along
the shining earth as their improvised bullets fall and scatter like shrapnel. Glass pursues, glass
cuts off their routes, glass aims for feet in an attempt to pin the enemy in place.
It is madness: frenetic madness, chaotic yet constant.
Their movements soon become nearly even, steady and regular.
Evade, and fire, always.
Within this overwhelming row of beauty and violence,
they once again find themselves evenly matched.
And thus it is Tairitsu’s turn to gain the upper hand.
VS-6
解锁条件：完成VS-5，购入Black Fate曲包
解锁要求：采用对立通过Lost Desire
Her journey in this place has been hell.
Hell from her birth to her first steps—no, even first steps were denied to her, weren't they?
She'd ventured outside of where she'd first awakened, and not long after her journey was abruptly
and mercilessly stopped by a torrent of misery and tragedy.
Ever since then, those two things had been doggedly following her.
It's a joke.
I'm a good person, she tells herself.
I am not these dark clothes I was born with. I am not these dark memories I am tormented by.
I am not a person who is "evil", I am an ordinary person tortured by an evil world.
Without reason, without sense.
A completely, horribly, cruel and merciless world.
A nightmare one can't wake from.
And the ending, for me, is a pathetic death.
...
That sort of thing, that kind of thinking, has brought tears to her eyes so many times before.
Now, it's over. No matter what, it's over.
With that thought in mind, while she grazes past glass sent at her by the girl she is trying to kill,
she notes the presence of something strange.
A familiar, grotesque presence she'd felt minutes before this.
The feeling like reality itself has lost correctness.
An impossible condition made manifest.
That anomalous feeling is just beside her cheek.
She looks to her right, and the violet-tinged and grossly warped glass of an anomaly comes into
her sight. It is only a moment, only a whim.
Yet it tells everything.
As expected of the aberrant shard, it does not hold simple memory—but beyond expectation, it
holds impossible answers.
In an instant, as soon as the shine of its surface has met with her eyes—
—with a sensation that the inside of her skull has been bathed in light, almost full knowledge of the
world, of near everything that ever and absolutely was, unlocks vivid understanding in her mind.
Their names.
Their pasts.
This world.
Its purpose.
Her: "Hikari".
Her: "Tairitsu".
"Eto" and "Kou"... "Saya" and "Lethe"... "Luna", and—names; countless names.
Even facts of other worlds, destinations of other travelers, ends, beginnings,
and elaborated reasons too—all of it.
And the truth, the whole truth, that—
Before her, Hikari stops briefly, noticing the obvious shift in her aggressor’s demeanor.
There’s a change. There’s fear.
So, that’s it. That’s everything.
Tairitsu glimpsed the truth of this cage dubbed "reality". With that truth, she’s claimed power.
And with both, knowing everything... Knowing everything, what exactly would change?
Her feelings curdle and churn. The endless bitterness packed in her chest flows out of it and
courses through her—onto her tongue, into her teeth. Her lips twist into a morose and bitterly
maudlin grin. Morose and maudlin, but undoubtedly, strangely, mirthful.
Laugh, girl. Call forth a Tempest.
The path here was blazed by the worst recollections of mankind,
and what remains at the end is,
and ever will be,
the end.
At the terminus, one of the two will die.
VS-7
解锁条件：完成VS-6，购入Black Fate曲包
解锁要求：解锁Tempestissimo
The illusion of an even match shatters, and with its destruction Hikari’s hope finally begins to waver.
Without warning, Hikari’s storm flies to Tairitsu’s side, cloaking the other girl in darkness and light.
As they surround her, her eyes shut for a moment—and when they open again,
those countless memories unfurl behind her as six gargantuan wings.
Now hanging in the sky in blatant defiance of nature,
she lays her sharpened eyes on Hikari.
A simple look reveals to Hikari that the path to victory has been nearly closed.
She had thought the girl a beast before, and now she sees her as what she is:
above, and nigh impossible.
Glass rises up behind her like a gigantic sheet: a skylight, shimmering and clear.
Below, Hikari has little to nothing to fight what will come. At least, that’s how it feels, but...
No... The girl in black does not have everything. This can be survived. It can!
Hikari takes up twenty memories as the window to the heavens breaks.
At first, only a handful of shards hurtle down at her, but they do so rather... slowly.
It disarms her. She starts to think, "this is possible."
As though the elaborate display a moment ago was only that: a display.
As before, Hikari shields herself, quickly blocking the falling glass with unshakable focus,
her eyes darting this way and that to keep measure of the flitting, brilliant crowd.
It makes her confident—she misses nothing. She allows herself a smile.
At the least, she’ll be able to run from this. At the least, this won’t be the end.
A single piece then flies to the middle of her chest, its delivery interpretable only as a message.
It had flown faster than any other piece of Arcaea she’d ever seen.
The girl above speaks to her through this glass shard: "Enough games."
"And enough wasting time. Give up—and die."
The shard cuts through her dress, and Hikari looks into Tairitsu’s eyes.
The girl in black is smiling now, all the sadness and anger gone from her face.
And it’s the most frightful thing she’s ever witnessed in her life and in her memories.
The shard falls out without having reached her skin.
The broken pane whirls into a side-winding tornado. Its mouth barrels down onto her,
slicing fabric and skin, but otherwise simply passes by.
In this is one more message: before the end, the girl in black wants her enemy to know where this began.
Fear overwhelms her. In this riptide of glass, rushing and cutting past her in powerful amounts,
turning up and swirling as if pulled by a great wind, she is made absolutely afraid.
So petrified, she stands fast and watches.
She stands, watching memories of a filthy world.
Memories of pain, betrayal, envy.
Death, suffering, and decay.
Dark. They are only dark. Wherever it is these shards reflect... she sees little light there.
Whatever small sparks she sees fade away in an instant.
This is what the other girl described to her.
The vile reflections of places gone that had been tormenting her since her awakening—
she would now use them to torment another.
Glass hooks under Hikari’s sleeves and stabs into her skirt.
They drag her upward, up into a domain where she can no longer stand.
Tears fill her eyes as an emotion fills her heart: the emotion that comes when recognizing imminent death.
This is not fear.
"Terror" is too little to describe it.
Desperation? Hope?
An awful, arresting feeling.
Her own memories run through her head. It’s as if she’s searching for one that will stand out—
one that will inform her that she’s come across something like this in the past,
and this is how to escape.
But nothing comes.
The black storm rages over torso, cutting with little mercy.
Pure torturous intent, coming closer and closer,
as if the intent alone would inflict a fatal wound upon her flesh...
It is unbelievable.
The situation is so far beyond anything she’s ever borne witness to,
whether in her own memories of those of others.
This disgusting blend of facing the unknown, yet knowing precisely what awaits her on the other side...
Horror.
Not fear.
Horrific understanding.
There is no control over glass for her here.
Something, anything—an anomaly—a miracle.
If something like that appeared, she could make it out. She could step away. She could live.
If there was ever a time, it is now, and here.
The ground below bursts, as if the world itself is rising up to join the hunt.
It is now.
Now! A shard will come to save her!
She prays with all her being for the will of the world to fly to her side and spare her!
For some mechanism of fate, for the wheel of fortune itself,
to produce a "god" that will grant her victorious power!
Beg for it. Hope for it.
Hold that piece which once brought you salvation close to your bleeding chest once again.
That symbol of rescue, of redemption... It will surely—!
Another shard pierces her body, a hateful stake driving at her heart.
It does not reach through, does not strike the heart itself. But its message—a final message—does.
One last message from the girl tormenting her: a simple, merciless message.
"No."
The almost lethal blade in Hikari’s breast holds the memory of a vast and all-consuming fire.
So close to death, her heart thumps, reminding her she’s alive.
Her pupils shrink to points.
Like that memory of flame, her body burns.
It burns with a fluid, vicious heat.
Pain. Agony. Blood—
Her savior shard falls from her hand as she reaches that hand for the terrible wound.
And then, a jagged piece of glass whirls out of the tempest and finds the back of that hand.
Sound escapes her.
Run twice through, her breath has gone as well.
Her gaze is steady on the trio of unthinkable sights before her.
This reality, horrible and unimaginable as it is, nonetheless "is".
And so her thoughts, too, begin to vanish.
VS-8
解锁条件：完成VS-7，购入Black Fate曲包
解锁要求：通过Arcahv[1]
And now, instincts begin to lurch, old and forgotten, in the wake of those thoughts.
They haven’t yet taken hold, those discarded yet practical sensibilities. They have only stirred.
She is still afraid.
She clings to hope by a little finger.
Somehow, she manages to pull on ten memories to aid her,
striking out the needle-glass that had been keeping her in the sky.
Ingloriously she drops to the now-deformed ground,
her chosen pieces afterward hovering over her crumpled, aching body.
Oddly enough, she finds herself smiling now, too.
She pushes herself up with her left hand. For all the enmity evident in Tairitsu’s assault,
she had taken too much pleasure in inflicting torture on her enemy’s body,
rather than inflicting any sort of mortal blow.
Even the shard now in Hikari’s chest,
so near to her beating heart and flickering with horrid, wrathful flame,
did not do the deed.
Maybe it wasn’t intended to.
Regardless, Hikari is still alive.
She feebly sends forth an attack, which is quickly swatted down by the girl flying above her.
That girl now looks worse than any described devil Hikari has heard of in old memories.
A veritable dark queen, ruling night in a world of day.
That ecstatic, yet obviously empty smile...
Seeing this, Hikari can feel it: how her own feelings are beginning to slip away.
Stark reality is sobering her more and more, and rather than dread it,
as she had been only minutes—no, seconds ago,
she begins instead to register each fact present to the situation.
Slowly—or, as slowly as Tairitsu will allow. Her attack is unending.
Shifting her body left and right, guarding her weakest areas with what few memories remain to her,
Hikari examines their field of battle.
It has been torn asunder, and now looks more a wasteland than ever before.
Ripped, ruined all through, like a town in the aftermath of military bombardment.
The glass around them is uncountable. The power Tairitsu has is immeasurable.
Hikari herself is weak.
Not only in terms of strange abilities and control over glass—her body has been run ragged.
She doesn’t have much left before she falls from weariness alone.
Perhaps she could find an anomaly, but say she couldn’t.
What then?
She couldn’t, so "then" is "now".
So?
How do you go on when the way is completely obstructed?
Should you...? Go on?
Glass strikes her shoulder, shining with light.
Hikari stares into its reflection.
So, the other girl can control light too, now. Well...
She decides to think over what she’s observed once again.
She recognizes that she could die here, or she could not.
These are the two possibilities, and knowing that, she finds herself in acceptance.
This could be the end.
In a moment, this could all be over.
And while she’d rather it not, she can’t help but echo the idea:
"So it goes."
After thought, hope, and feeling...
determination is the last to fade from her.
This.
This...
This is not... a laying down of arms.
No...
When she pulls the shard from her hand,
her eyes briefly dazzled from the white flames licking up and searing closed her wound,
she does not press it to her neck.
She would certainly prefer to live... but she would not mind.
She wouldn’t mind, with the odds being so impossible.
Hikari stands in the wind of blades, barely a shard in her employ.
She can’t discern Tairitsu’s face anymore.
Her domain has become pandemonium, and seeing through it is too difficult.
Eventually, while trudging through the flying glass, Hikari notices that
some segments of the whirlwind are reversing in fits and starts.
The bizarre movement is so unnatural she genuinely wonders if the girl above her is doing it on purpose.
It’s reminiscent, she thinks, of a skipping video.
It isn’t any better or worse than the bullet curtains she’s been facing so far, but it is quite peculiar.
The earth quakes.
She utters a "Wha...?" as she feels it.
The earth, quaking?
Here?
It could be that the ground will break again.
Thinking that, Hikari shields her face and chest with her arms.
When nothing comes, she remains curious about the phenomenon.
If it wasn’t the girl above her, Tairitsu wouldn’t have noticed it—after all, she was flying now.
More of the blade storm is shifting and roiling in rough, rigid movements now.
She decides to throw a crew of glass the other girl’s way again.
It passes easily through the waves again, but then it suddenly turns very bright and breaks away.
The shards don’t break themselves... They vanish, and the space where they were looks as if it is cracked.
Once she sees this—once she recognizes what she’s seeing—everything around her enters stasis.
In this instant, the obsidian-glass which had been flying all around her is stuck fast within reality.
To her, it looks absolutely beautiful.
A smile crosses her lips without her wanting. "How pleasant," she whispers, chuckling to herself.
Something so beautiful here: where she could soon find her grave.
It’s so bizarre that it is... to laugh. So she does. She makes earnest yet sad, dry laughter...
But as motion gradually returns to the objects around her, and to the one above...
Above...
The sky...?
A fracture splits across it.
It widens, carving a shape out of heaven, and that immense segment begins to plummet.
Even more bizarrely, hundreds of images flash across it, blinking rapidly from one to the next.
The world begins to fall into strange ruin.
As Hikari bears witness to this, more satisfaction rises to her smile.
The storm is still slow, the image—too fantastic.
The sky—the genuine sky, not an artificial one—is falling, stopping, and falling again,
as if grand pieces of a celestial puzzle are being moved and switched by some befuddled god.
And...
watching it...
her smile begins to gradually recede.
The look in her eyes grows colder, her breath slows,
and the faint glimmer of excitement provided by this cataclysmic view is snuffed out,
replaced with objectivity. Her opinion on the disaster destroying all is delivered in a single word.
With a little appreciation, in a mostly hollow tone, she says, "Delightful."
As if the word has any meaning.
As if the fall has any meaning.
As if the world has any meaning.
F-1
解锁条件：购入Final Verdict曲包
解锁要求：解锁Infinite Strife,
For a moment, she was remembered. That was enough.
The world bowed to the girl marked by red, as white fire rose from her body. Now cloaked in flames
that will not burn without her say, she wonders why this has come to pass. Her foe was stopped. The
battle, for a moment, was stopped. And there is more. Above there is more.
All because she has touched on what once was; when faced with the thought of dying, she was not afraid.
However, dying was also the last thing that she wanted. And still, now, she refuses to die.
Now, in a valley of nothing, beneath a sundered sky, her blood falls but does not strike the ground. Only
beyond here can a single tower be seen: the bell tower of a hollow church, jutting there between the
divide as if to mark it for those below.
The conclusion approaches now. It was expected.
Was it fate?
Now, there is starlight in the heavens. The veil is rent, and the darkness behind it is glittering. Is it within
her notice? Does that matter? The pictures have slowed, and stopped. The fall of the firmament has
slowed, and stopped. Her blood is hot. Her eyes are dull.
And Tairitsu knows: despite their dullness, those eyes promise "demise". She knows. She swallows what
little spit dampens her otherwise dried-out tongue and throat. She meets those eyes. Wordlessly, she
vows to defy them.
In Hikari's heart, "emptiness" threatens. However, it isn't the emptiness that Tairitsu can view through
the silent girl's stare. "Will" lurks, but not in weakness. There is a sincere will to survive, unkillable in
Hikari's soul. It will not perish. Wordlessly, she vows to live.
Tairitsu moves forth like a dragon.
The world holds her back, and still, like an untamable beast, she resists. Is this atmosphere? It is force—
ripping at her skin, and yet she drives forward still, to the true beast standing on the earth. That beast
turns her head.
The world seems to turn on its side, and at once Tairitsu meets the ground. Glass falls in a tumultuous
clatter, splashing and scattering and flying out. She cannot feel her arm for a moment, but forces it to
return to recognition. She drags herself onto her knees, and spots a white tongue of flame flashing
through the shards beneath her. She flies backward then.
The earth is set ablaze.
The world turns again.
Her stomach lurches with motion, though she soon stops and stands still.
And with no warning, before her stands the girl in white, a scarf of flames of the same the same pale
color burning over shoulders.
Once again, Tairitsu makes to retreat.
Glass flies up—and down—to ensnare her, forming a great prism around her body. Her body trembles
once before not moving at all.
And so again, she looks into Hikari's eyes. Hikari does not look back. She looks only into the cage she's
made.
And, she whispers something, but...
...it is nothing that the girl in black wants to hear.
Tairitsu's grasp shatters through the rough glass, aimed at Hikari's open neck. Hikari lifts her eyes to
the hand.
Seven colors ring out, and the flow of time goes still.
F-2
解锁条件：完成F-1，购入Final Verdict曲包
解锁要求：解锁World Ender
This has surely happened before.
This refusal. This—
Hikari can feel everything trying to tear away from her.
In this frozen moment she can feel herself wanting to stop.
From that feeling, frustration threatens to build.
Because the sentiment asking for her to stop all this is not kindness, but lack of care: a frightening and
deeply seated apathy. This is what she always had. This profound indifference—she must have felt
it before.
Within her soul, two wills are at war.
I can't, she thinks.
I have to, she thinks.
And these thoughts—they fight against those building sentiments of "should" and "shouldn't".
But she feels a fire flickering in the depths of her heart; yes, her true wishes are much too strong to lose.
Hikari stands before Tairitsu, whose hand is out and whose face is contorted with rage. Around them,
a rainbow has been torn apart and is bleeding through the air. Tairitsu cannot move. Hikari cannot move.
Inside of her, hope asks, "When you bring back time, can't you just push her far away?" Her will-to-be
considers it.
That's fair, she thinks. Hope can't be a worthless thing.
The world begins to move again, and Tairitsu is sent, in an instant, behind that distant chapel's gates.
Her impassioned grasp closes around one of its bars, and glass comes to help her tear the metal
construct from its hinges. At once, she realizes what game the beast has played. She takes hold of
whatever other glass can be found around her, and sends it all to the air, each flickering and each
reflecting. She finds Hikari soon, and then she moves the earth.
Things twist beneath that earth, and within the world's fabric, as Hikari plants down her foot in quiet
rebellion. In a sudden but frightening way, she realizes that Tairitsu still has the aim—and the means—
to take away all of this. So, to hope?
She chuckles.
She already knew that hope was gone.
The space between them warps. Which of them asked for this, neither can tell. They face each other
behind the broken gate, within the shadow of that cathedral.
And, with a smile, Hikari repeats herself. She tells Tairitsu, easily, "I said... you don't have to do this."
It is nothing that the girl in black wants to hear.
F-3
解锁条件：完成F-2，购入Final Verdict曲包
解锁要求：解锁Pentiment或Arcana Eden
"What 'has' to be done? Are you joking?" says Tairitsu.
"You don't know why you're here, do you? Does anyone, other than me?"
"What has to be done? You're right: nothing has to happen. Nothing in this place matters, and you... you
don't even understand. You don't know anything."
"I've kept it up long enough. Do you think I care to be here? You know, honestly, maybe I'm the 'hero' of
this worthless story. Maybe I'm its 'villain'."
"Whether I am, whether I'm not... Honestly, whatever; it doesn't really matter. Maybe... you ought to die."
"You're right. I don't have to do this."
"Neither did you."
...The words, pointed as they are, seem to roll out of her like smooth and heavy stones, bowling over and
through Hikari before her.
To Hikari, it sounds only like insanity. She feels now like she and the other girl have been connected...
but all that's in the other girl's mind is madness.
Tairitsu knows that her mind is madness. And what of it, she thinks? It has been driven there. There is
nothing to lose and nothing to gain.
She speaks one final time, saying, "If you want to live, then kill me."
"But you should know this first..."
"I want to die."
Her words are sincere, and her sincerity and wickedness are manifested. Might fills Tairitsu's stomach
and burns into her hands.
She will force the ending now, no matter what it will be.
With that sentiment guiding her, she calls upon the shards to which neither girl has laid claim:
The fragmented segments of the sky. They begin to fall, and the horizon darkens.
F-4
解锁条件：完成F-3，购入Final Verdict曲包
解锁要求：解锁Pentiment和Arcana Eden
Hikari cannot control everything.
Rather, her control was lost very quickly after she had gained it.
A tug of war...
No, this would be better referred to as a struggle—
This would be better called a beating.
As the first part of the sky falls to the earth, crushing a part of the cathedral and showering everything in
dust, it falls very near to her. This cannot be coincidence—it's too close to be chance. She understands,
as more comes down, that Tairitsu has the sky.
And that... can only be called absurd.
The land and the air—the glass, the wind—all of it is being heaved up, pulled down, turned and tossed.
She can disappear some of it. She can point at some of it, and make it vanish into nothing but pale and
transient fire. She can even pull parts of the sky to her thrall. When Tairitsu throws the world at her, she
can catch and throw it back.
It is cataclysmic: as if giants have descended, and now stomp down on the earth.
And amidst the white there is black she cannot touch, called from the distance. There are shards that
Tairitsu will not give back. This, everything, is now being taken.
As she battles back—as the plains and gates and buildings rumble—her teeth are forced to chatter. She
plants her feet again, but can still feel tremors into her fingernails—into her skull. The cathedral
standing over them groans as it is beaten by the debris of the heavens. But, it does not fall. Nor will she.
...She should have stopped this sooner. She had had a chance.
Her heart beats. Her eyes narrow, only a bit—
Is the core of the world going to break next? That's what the other girl wants, right?
As she thinks that, as she holds the landscape together and thinks—so quickly thinks about how
to stop her, if that is the case—
Her chest is leashed. A line of Arcaea flies from the darkness and wraps her chest in a pointed
embrace. Fire burns this away, but her chest is leashed again.
Her arms are leashed. With effort, she turns her head. Her legs, her feet, her thighs are leashed.
Her stomach is leashed. Her body burns again, and her body is bound again.
These shadows—these memories of woe are keeping her trapped.
That... There's some black humor in that.
Tairitsu approaches, and Hikari breaks some of the bonds around herself, freeing her leg. She takes
one step backward with it, and finds a spike just behind her. Some hideous formation, aimed at her
unshackled limb.
So, she simply stares into the glass, and wills it to be set ablaze.
Yet it refuses to.
She is tied down again. She is brought low. She is tugged, suddenly, down to her knees. There might
still be a way out.
Or, there might have been.
...When did it happen?
When she lifts her head, Hikari finds Tairitsu standing motionless before her.
F-5
解锁条件：完成F-4，购入Final Verdict曲包
解锁要求：完成Axiom of the End的最终挑战
Silence...
Met with silence.
Though they do not speak, the two have locked eyes tightly with one another. They stare, unflinching,
as the sounds of their finished battle echo.
Through the rumbling of broken earth, through the whistling of scattered wind, and through the dust
and debris cast and rolling out from ruined, beaten monuments... both girls are unmoving, their eyes
only on each other.
And yet despite that, Hikari can see it:
In that girl's eyes, an ember of the passion which had brought Hikari down still distantly burns. This is
not a suggestion for a truce, it is a wordless threat.
Hikari swallows, and Tairitsu eyes her open neck: eyes that throat that she hates; that voice that she hates.
Her will and her desire prick at Hikari's skin.
Now Hikari asks for time to go still. It flows on.
She tries to destroy her bindings with flames. They remain.
The earth will not yield. The sky will not bend.
With nothing else in mind, she finds herself holding her breath.
"..."
The sky has finished falling... The cathedral is still breaking...
Dust lingers between and above them.
And that sharp and wicked will is still flickering in Tairitsu's eyes.
Those eyes begin to gently narrow. In this moment, although ruined, the world is calm.
...Tairitsu smirks at a memory, then. Hikari maintains her stare.
"We're back here," Tairitsu says. She tilts her head, only a little. "Are you going to do it? Are you going to
wish for a miracle again?"
But Hikari will not answer.
"...Miracles are miracles because they're too convenient—too perfectly timed to ever actually happen.
You've seen enough broken worlds through these shards... through Arcaea. You know, then, that
miracles are the same as 'hope'."
"And besides, with or without miracles, you live... you die."
Hikari breathes. Tairitsu gently straightens her own back.
The girl in black goes on, "You know: I would much rather just forget. Forget everything."
Another attempt to move. Another reminder that she has been brought utterly still. Her shoulders
strain. Her toes curl.
"I'm going to kill you," Tairitsu says, "and this world... 「your world」 is going to die."
Again, she pushes a smile across her lips. She breathes in, and forces out a laugh.
With her other hand, she takes Hikari's cheek. She lifts the bound girl's chin.
"You really are right," says Tairitsu as she brings her palm nearer, "I really don't have to do this... for you."
Her smile disappears as she leans forward.
Tairitsu's eyes... have a familiar look.
It is regret, and sympathy.
Her wings of black have folded down.
Above, the night sky continues to glitter.
Although all the fury has passed... Hikari's heart continues to pound.
She admits to herself: it won't be enough to just "stop" her.
Tairitsu begins to bring her left hand away from Hikari's throat, and as she drags it back...
...something black and pointed glitters in her palm.
To end this, Tairitsu says this:
"I'll let you know clearly: my name here was Tairitsu, and yours was Hikari."
"Please..."
Hikari whispers a word forced.
She almost hisses: "Please stop..."
And Tairitsu tilts her head.
"...This again?" She thinks for a moment, and adds, "Nothing's going to change."
Hikari breaks her bonds with a show of blinding light. She stands and holds out
her hand to wish for a weapon—
Her wrist, her waist, her legs are all pulled back down.
Still, she wishes, and within her palm a sword begins to manifest. It is something "new". Something
created. Not a memory: though still made of glass.
An impossible blade... Along its edge, space seems to be bending, glistening. Arcaea rewrites itself,
and slowly allows the weapon to be.
Tairitsu thinks: How funny this is...
She has seen that jagged pillar before.
And immediately once more, Hikari breaks free. She turns her sword in her palm, and thrusts it into the
earth. With this, Tairitsu is forced backward by a queer gust—pushed so far away.
Hikari brings the blade back up, raising it toward Tairitsu, and as she does she sees her own hand shaking.
Tairitsu lands despite still being pushed away, and her gaze falls again on the familiar sword.
She stares.
She waits.
...Her teeth grind together.
She looks into Hikari's face, and sees that the girl can't focus at all.
The game of bounding back and forth, the hesitation—
She has no patience for even a bit of it.
Glass walls push up from the earth around Hikari, each bearing Tairitsu's approaching figure. Reflections,
or maybe true images—? Something is strange about them, and to see them, to feel them coming and
see the glinting in their palms, fear pulses through Hikari's body.
That hand is lifted, and it will land nowhere else but her waiting throat.
With both hands now trembling, the girl in white holds onto her sword.
Something sounds off loudly in her head: a painful ringing, followed by the sound of her heart once
more in her ears.
Reason tells her that this can go on forever.
If she turns her sword back and thrusts it down again, the walls will fall away, and Tairitsu will be
easily pushed.
F-6
解锁条件：完成F-5，购入Final Verdict曲包
解锁要求：解锁Testify
Reason tells her that this can go on forever.
If she turns her sword back and thrusts it down again,
the walls will fall away, and Tairitsu will be easily pushed.
So, why—?
When she feels Tairitsu's hand gently holding her right cheek...
When what is clearly Tairitsu's flesh and blood body appears before her,
why does she thrust her sword upward,
and through the other girl's chest?
Her emotions power her through the strike. Out of the corner of her eye,
she sees a dark shard of glass drop from Tairitsu's hand—
her right arm having been brought back in reflex and pain.
A blinding shine grows slowly, and soon rapidly. An aura surreal: above and beyond reality—
—and, a cry for life roars out, so consuming life in return.
The shout pulses and vibrates through the earth, and also through Tairitsu's body.
And ends.
Like that, sound dies, and so too does the girl.
As soon as it stabs through her—sets within her body—the blade swallows her life, her blood and essence
quickly filling the glass. And then, the glass slowly begins to shatter and fade.
In an instant, she is completely extinguished, and her body begins to fall.
Quickly, without thinking, Hikari takes the hand Tairitsu had placed on her cheek.
In seconds, the other girl is quickly gone, leaving only a cold and silent form behind.
Yet... warmth runs over Hikari's fingers as the sword of glass continues to break and disappear.
In her other hand, she can feel the strength of Tairitsu's grasp completely vanish.
The girl's feet now reach the ground, and like that only Hikari's wet and warm hand still supports her.
Her eyes are closed now. Her brow is furrowed... and then is not. Like this, without peace: she is dead.
And only now, with her own eyes wide and her own heart still beating, does Hikari understand this.
She slowly pulls back her left hand, and the girl's body begins to fall.
She returns her hand to the lifeless body and holds the girl as her stare continues to widen.
She squeezes the girl's dead hand tightly, and the two come down to their knees.
With her hand against Tairitsu's motionless chest,
she feels warmth again, and brings her eyes to the wound that she made.
She has wounded the earth and sky as well... though she finds it difficult to look anywhere
other than that disfigured hole, as everywhere else around her has become flattened.
The strength she had put into her strike must have been immense...
The scene has been leveled entirely; the sky has gone completely still; the cathedral is all but no more.
Behind Tairitsu some fractured brick wall has flown out from the blast and fallen.
Evidently, it was shielded and kept from disintegrating by the powerful girl's body.
But, still... the shield had been pierced.
Stupidly, Hikari brings her face near to the other girl's, and waits for a breath that will never come.
She squeezes the dead hand tighter, and when it does not hold her back in return, she throws it down in anger.
She digs her nails into the front of the other girl's clothing. Feeling something warm once again,
she looks and realizes that tears have begun to fall on her hand.
And though she knows what had warmed it before—she had to have known—
seeing her own hand dyed in red and cut through by her own tears... throws her suddenly into panic.
She straightens her back in terror, then nearly falls backward.
Her face contorts and her lips tremble.
She sobs, brings her clean hand to her face, and sobs more deeply.
Now, she falls, Tairitsu coming down along with her. Hikari pulls her stained hand down to her dress,
and the corpse leaning upon her collapses back instead against the cathedral's debris.
Her own words echo inside of her head—
Her own sardonic chastisement—
You never had to do this.
...It isn't funny.
The reality of everything is becoming so impossible to ignore. Leave your hand down all you want—
the heat that burns through your skin isn't going to disappear like the sword.
A girl is dead, and you were the one who took her life. You killed her.
You knew how much she suffered... Did you really try to understand her?
"What will you do now"...? No, don't you understand?
You can't just move on. You want to pick yourself up, continue your journey?
This world already remembers everything that you did.
What? Where's your sense of triumph? You won, didn't you? You are alive.
Do you hate it?
Didn't she?
Does that justify it? Does that make things better? "Justification"?
...Is something wrong with you?
Even now...
You're only thinking about yourself.
With this thought, her heart feels as if made of paper, all falling away.
She grips her own hair, but still cannot bring up her left hand.
She cannot stop damning herself.
Herself. Herself. Herself.
And something lingers, telling her...
ㅤ
...is that anything new?
Her first impression was that she'd awakened to a cloud of glass butterflies.
"How pleasant," she thought, "that these figures can move as well. Where are the strings?"
She sat onto her knees, fixed her dress, and found that there were no strings, and these were not butterflies.
Glass shards, flying on their own. "Delightful!" she felt, and so she said it.
The glass reflected another world than the one in white surrounding her.
In it she could see reflections of seas, cities, fires, lights;
she rose her hand to scatter them, and laughed in joy.
...I didn't know these pieces of glass had a name: Arcaea.
To tell the truth, they were so beautiful to me that it didn't matter the name.
I entertained myself by touching them, swirling them, watching them. That was enough, no?
No.
And you knew it all the while. Maybe you almost saw it once as well—
but it's impossible for people to truly change.
That, too, is something that you always knew.
The curtain will not draw to a close. This never "ends".
There is no meaning to be found here. Like you wanted.
Just another crying girl, alone in a world of the dead.
At least there is one truth you could take comfort in, one fact irrefutable,
now etched into you with the blood of the one girl who had been so near to taking you out of it.
Yes.
It was paradise.
F-7
该剧情在解锁前不可见。
解锁条件：完成F-6[2]，购入Final Verdict曲包
解锁要求：解锁Testify
Paradise.
After life, "heaven", the world of the dead.
It should come as no surprise that the departed might linger in a place like that, at least for
a little while. Or perhaps they will linger just above it.
That's where I am. That's where you are.
"...So that's it? My hand on her cheek? Her running me through with glass? I can't feel either anymore.
I can't feel anything—can't feel her...
...
...Let me go... "
Why? You're here, but... isn't there something still stirring inside of you? You've got a few little pulses of
life left... a little more to go.
"No... "
No, it's not quite over yet...
Listen... remember.
Remember yourself...
It's been much longer than this, hasn't it? You've already seen so much worse.
Now get up, fight. Fight agai—
"Stop it."
...Alright.
Let's just talk, instead.
"You're not listening. I don't want to talk. I already said, I just want to... to..."
I want you to remember.
"...You're pretty annoying, you know.
Then do you remember? If you do, you should know why I...
...
...Ugh...
...These memories... aren't going to leave me easily, now that I know them.
Even if I don't want to, I really am starting to remember every little thing.
And... if I'm remembering right... Ha, I've thought this before, but... is this a joke?"
...
"My old life... I loved being alive, but...
Living... was awful.
How many times was I thrown down? How many times was I spat on? Hate followed us everywhere
even though we just wanted to... to take our powers and...
Just... help."
We scared them.
"'We'? And who are you?"
Well, who are YOU?
"Well funny thing... that's actually the one thing I don't remember.
...
...I guess you might as well call me 'Tairitsu'."
Then... call me that, too.
"You're kidding... Really? Are you... Are you telling me that I'm right?"
About what?
"That when she made this world, she didn't think about a single part
of it. If you're... If the life I had here was...
...She's... awful."
...I'd say she just never learned.
"...I don't feel sorry for her, if that's what you're getting at. We may have come from different realities, but
she must have understood what she could do. She had to know, and she just didn't care. And that's why...
I don't care that she wasn't brought up and taught like I was. Just... look. Look at what all my training with
the Shapers got me. I was different from her because of who I was, not what I learned. If I'd had the
strength... If I'd really had the power to change things, for the whole world—"
I would've, but I couldn't, and I didn't.
"...And that's what I got: another go, because that's what she wanted, and in her stupidity she gave that
to everyone else, too. So... dumb. It's dumb, right? You have to laugh. Come on! Laugh!"
...
"What, you can't? Of course you can't, I mean—what kind of second chance was this? Just some
kind of... terrible... ironic reflection.
Struggling while alive, while everything claws and rips at you.
Getting up when you're broken and bleeding—I DID that!
I kept standing up, kept fighting even though I KNEW it was pointless!
Why would she make me live all of that again!? Answer me—why!? I...!
I wanted things to change...
I never wanted... to give up..."
...Did you? This second time around?
"I... did.
...
Hey...
I know I'm dying. Could you tell me something? Can I still see outside, before I go? Through my birds...
Can I see her little prison, one last time?"
...You can.
"Great.
...
So many small and unknown corners, with trapped souls wandering around them.
I guess you can't call them souls. Everything here is only a memory—even us.
What are they thinking...? I only caught a glimpse of that shard, and it didn't tell me everything."
Most of them are happy. Very, very happy.
"...Now that's just evil, haha...
I...
...I feel like crying... you know? I just want to cry—about everything. Why'd I do all this? Why did I die?"
...
"...That's a good look on your face. Have you got an answer for me? Tch... I'm... I just...
It all hurts... Everything hurts. It's like I finally, really get it, and it's...
It's just horrible. I can't even cry anymore..."
Well, that's it.
"...?"
You didn't really want to die, so why did you?
"...When I first lived, the road ahead was dark...
But I knew that it would branch into countless others. I could find death somewhere, sure, but I could find
anything else if I just walked down the right path.
It was never like that here, and looking back, I feel sick for ever thinking that it was.
These roads are barren, and there's no place to stop.
Anyone, no matter their path, will march and march on blindly, until
their legs give out and they see the truth of it:
that it doesn't matter what turns they take. Every single path leads to nothing at all."
...I actually don't think so. I think... there must be a road here that leads to something else.
"What makes you say that, when you're trapped out here only able to talk to the dead? Are you stupid?
Were you paying attention, even once?"
...I just can't believe that. I have to have hope...
I don't want to believe that... that...
"This is just what I was saying. You don't want to see the truth? Nothing here mattered at all."
No.
It can't be the truth.
I can't let it be the truth.
You understand. If that's the truth, wouldn't it be... gross? Wouldn't it be too sad?
"...
...I do remember that, from back when I was living. Thinking like that was what kept me alive.
You really are me. She really copied me out and... it really is true for all of us—we're all hollow, copied souls.
It's true...
She's still alive. We're all dead."
...
"But then... why are you here? Where are the originals for everyone else? Where are their souls?"
...I don't know, and I don't know.
"Alright, but...
Actually, you still haven't said so... so, just... just tell me, alright? Are you really the real me? Are you my soul?"
Yes... that's what I am. Yes, I've been all alone out here, and yes, I've been watching.
And you're pretty annoying, huh?
Aren't you also real, Tairitsu? Aren't we all?
"Maybe we are. Maybe I was."
Yeah, annoying.
I doubt someone as annoying as you could be fake.
"Ha...
...
Thank you."
I'd never have guessed I'd be watching myself experience a terrible fate again in a second life,
only for things to change.
"What changed?"
You said it yourself.
You gave up.
I wanted you to... I don't know.
I really wanted the change to be... good.
...
Do you really think it still can't be? The "villain" is dead, after all...
"I know you're joking, but... I'm sorry.
I was just angry.
I don't want to completely give up on it either.
I don't think it's hopeless. I mean, you're still here after the end, aren't you? Maybe you'll still be here
after I'm gone...
And... if you still are watching after I'm gone...
...I really think you shouldn't give up hope like I did.
Maybe, I don't know...
...No, I know it:
The girls left here might be able to save themselves. I want to believe that.
A change, just like you said...
That's all I want.
If I don't go away forever, if you can find me after all of this, let me know when they do."
I will.
"This is funny too, huh...
When I was alive, when the others weren't there, I remember I always... talked to myself.
But, you know... I never felt alone."
No one alive is really alone.
"That was it...
That's what I always told myself...
...I want to see the world again.
A ruined tower, and pieces of glass floating in the air. A wide world of white.
White, white, and more glass. Drawn to departed souls...
But I can see it on their faces:
None of these girls are lost anymore."
..."None of them"? Looks like you finally forgot about her.
"'Her'...?
Oh, you're right, her... I actually can see her, too—well, she's really torn up about this...
...But isn't that a good thing? It's... different. She's upset, she's hurt...
It's better than 'nothing'."
Hm... Yeah.
"I'm not sure if she'll be okay, but I am sure she'll take this with her. Honestly... I'd even apologize to her,
thinking about it now. I think I did the right thing, but—"
You didn't do anything right.
"Pff...! Hah. Okay. but... I don't think I did anything wrong.
I'd apologize to her. I mean... Why wouldn't I? We're real. And if she's real... then she's just another fool
ghost, punished for nothing and knowing nothing.
...
This is really it, huh...?"
I'm sorry to say, but... yes, I'm sure.
...
Don't go.
"Sorry to say, but... I can't just do that. I'm honestly... barely here..."
...
Tell her.
"...Yeah.
...Hikari...
Honestly, I'm sorry. I don't have any regrets, but... the hate I felt wasn't even... for you. The other... you...
She's still out... there. Still a...live...
I still... hate her.
But you...
...
You should know that... you're stronger than her.
That's why, Hikari...
...I know you'll stand up again."
Close your eyes.
"They're already closed."
Don't worry anymore...
"I'm not worried."
I'll see you again.
"I don't think so.
But that's okay.
I accept it.
I had everything to suffer, but I still wanted to change everything for the better...
I fought FOR something... no matter what it was I had to face.
No matter... how misguided... I became...
...
I'm sorry... that I chose to die.
I'm sorry for throwing it all away.
...Even if I wasted it... I was lucky to get another chance.
So... I accept it."
I know.
"I want her to kn... tha... I don't... don't want a... pathetic...
I don't want a... stupid finale... to be all I'm remembered... for.
...If you can hear me, I want you to know this, Hi... Hikari...
I mean it. Don't... forget...
...
...
I accept this life."
A girl weeps before her remains now.
So anguished, so crippled with grief, the girl misses the final smile on her face before it fades.
Some of this tale remains untold. The truth is, some tales end without ever being fully told.
And their pieces—their shards are what remain, to be put together and understood.
This has always been a world of shards, a world of pieces.
The girls have always been left to pick those pieces up.
Believing that reflections have meaning. Believing that being, at all, is why anyone would ever be.
Now the girl in white crumples down to the earth, hurt and alone.
But she will find and carry pieces too.
Memories will live on, here.
All will be remembered, until and past the very end.
They will all carry on.
And none will ever forget.
E-1
该剧情在解锁前不可见。
解锁条件：购入Final Verdict曲包
解锁要求：在Last的特殊游玩中选择“拒绝命运的安排”
又名最终之梦（One Last Dream），视觉剧情，剧情结束后将播放制作人员名单（黑色版），随后重启游戏。
Hikari sits amidst dust and blood.
I see her there... Her folly has ruined her. Self-pity has ruined her.
As she gazes through her fingers, her hand still on her face,
she finds, once more, the sight of you, my second self, dead.
And the apathy which brought about your death—
the apathy which brought about this all—must be threatening to encroach again.
I know it: the girl in white and red can feel it. She can feel that she was meant for this.
That you were meant to die, and she was meant to kill you.
Her back relaxes...
The world itself... Arcaea... She can likely feel tension releasing throughout it.
Relief...
The disorder is gone... It's safe now...
But I can hear it too...
Something like a whisper, easing into her heart, seems to ask her to embrace this state.
To embrace herself, and embrace Arcaea.
...However—
"...Tairitsu..."
...She whispers something to herself: a name. Her voice is shaking, barely audible through her crying.
"What did you mean...? That our names 'here' were those...?"
She falls silent, and seems to wonder.
The whisper comes again, telling her: if you want it, those answers will arrive.
This place—it is an archive to all memory...
...And yet still, she remains silent.
"..."
Beneath her building apathy is a sheer and shining hatred.
She cannot stop hating herself.
Obviously not. After all that's happened... how could she allow an ending like this?
What would it mean? What would it mean for her?
She... She, who walked here, could never accept it.
With nausea eating at her stomach, she clenches her jaw.
"..."
Hikari puts her hand to the dirt and sand below her and lurches up onto her knees.
And she asks,
"Arcaea... Were you here to heal me?"
Her arm relaxes... like a cool sensation has woven up the limb.
"...I can feel it,"
Hikari mutters as her eyes slowly close, her voice still hoarse.
"...Paradise, for someone scared, tired, and weak..."
"..."
She swallows the dry nothingness in her mouth.
Opening her eyes, she grabs up sand and begins to rise to her feet
as much of it pours out from between her fingers.
"I don't know what to do..."
Hikari goes on,
"...but would it be right of me to let you hold me again?"
"It... absolutely wouldn't."
"I... don't want this..."
"I don't want it...!"
—
"Mmf—!"
Hikari suddenly bends over, gripping her stomach and pushing
her other hand against her mouth. She sways heavily.
Her "refusal" seems to be enough to make this world recognize her once more.
As she holds her mouth shut, eyes wide in fear, she suddenly winces.
I can hear it too: a sharp noise, flying suddenly through her ears—through her head—
And inside her heart again—no longer a whisper, but almost a vibrating bellow.
A silent, yet powerful voice filling her and saying: decide, and speak your heart's intent.
"Speak... my...?"
As she is...
...Hikari is nothing but a girl moved by her heart.
And it is heart that brought her here—long before she first opened her eyes.
Is it instinct? Does that "body" remember how this all happened...? How she was before...?
Ha...
I don't really care.
I just... find it very funny, and ironic, that this new heart would undo it all in a single beat.
Her answer... after her breathing has become shallow, after her heart has trembled long past a minute,
is ultimately clear and resonant:
"My intent... is to reverse."
"I have to bring her back."
"This world... doesn't make any sense!
You think I'd die for it? You think I'd let someone ELSE die for it...!?"
"I can't! I won't!
Whatever I need to do, whatever I need to give up... I'll sacrifice it all for that...!"
She holds the earth in her palm, firmly, before throwing her hand out and scattering the sand.
She declares,
"I'll die if it means I can change all this—!"
The world's heart beats, and its sound silences her cold.
It would never give her up. It will not.
The voice fills her again—
And its sentiments, and knowledge, enter her chest and run to her fingertips.
It says, You cannot die.
You were born here to live, and living is what you chose.
Hikari... knows this.
And guilt—apology—forces tears to well in her eyes.
But, the world's heart beats again before she can cry.
Do not die, says Arcaea.
—
Only let it end.
...And so her lips tighten.
Tears break past her eyelid, and trace down her cheek.
And she nods.
A heart beats again...
And like that—
—Arcaea begins to lose its light.
And in so doing, it floods into her, flows into her hands and heart.
It drives her down. It nearly causes her to collapse.
For that while, memories flash across her eyes, but I can tell... they are memories ignored.
Her eyes fix upon your lifeless corpse instead.
I think all she knows now... is "what she has to do".
And I can feel myself being tugged there already... down, down...
down: to where you were slain.
...
Does she... truly understand what it is she's abandoning?
Does she truly understand what is "ending" by this?
I don't know.
...You won't either.
...Actually, if she's taking me, then... will I remember any of this? Will I understand?
No... probably not. But... she seems so sure of herself now.
...
I'm going to let that heart of hers be the beacon for whatever comes after.
...I trust it. You would, too, wouldn't you?
After all, you were right...
The two of them... are completely different.
..."Tairitsu"...
...I'll be going now.
But don't worry.
I will surely take you with me.
The skies are forced down again, and the earth rises to her will.
To die, and to make Tairitsu live again.
Lives and souls cannot truly be brought into this world of the dead.
Only their shapes, only their echoes...
And to begin with,
the souls of the girl of light and the girl of conflict... were never quite ordinary.
Truly, the world was not meant for this.
Surely, the world will shatter for this.
But it will do everything to rewrite it all—or at least try.
It would need both the girl in black's "first soul"
and what fragments can be found of her second self's...
And now one fragmented soul calls out to a full other.
Swiftly, that other soul is torn from beyond the pale.
A tornado flies around Hikari then,
ripping the veil of reality around her apart in a torrent of shadow and light.
Arcaea "remembers" the other girl, and at Hikari's command those memories come rushing back as glass.
They seem almost instantly born. Or perhaps they have always been here.
...Will they even suffice? Can this world weave two fractured souls?
...It will. The rules do not matter. Hikari will make it so...
With these memories of the girl named Tairitsu...
Glinting through the storm, those glass memories come swiftly.
There was a girl here who once walked the lands in agony.
A girl dogged mercilessly by sorrow and grief...
Yet she strode onward to save herself.
To save herself and to grasp freedom.
She had only ever wished for one thing:
the chance to have some reason to smile.
To make this world a better place, she was a girl who stood and faced it,
even if "better" would mean turning this world over.
The memories flash across Hikari's eyes, distracting her even more
from her own encroaching recollections.
Few of the other girl's tears pass through the storm. Much of her pain seems to have been forgotten.
It seems so... but in truth, as a soul of light, still pushing away
the cruel truth of that soul as she is, it is all Hikari can do to find even the fleeting moments
of the other girl's sincerest despair—the rest, the longer of them, lie beyond her grasp.
...However, knowing where that truest pain had led the girl in black, Hikari gives that sorrow up,
and so too gives up the moment that they met, which she cannot find.
The Tairitsu born of this all... will be one who has not seen the true depths of her plight,
but will still know herself as one who was born and lived in the midst of struggle.
New energy booms out from Hikari. Four columns of light, immense fonts of power, erupt from the ground.
It is the world protecting her, as the shadow soul to which she called finally descends.
She almost fails to recognize it at its approach. What floats before her and begins to block the sky
is something like Death: the immense and chilling shape of a phantom. It gently slows as it nears,
and there, at once, the dark begins to flow into the rotating glass.
There she truly comprehends it. With a firm nod, she eases the process, guiding soul to glass.
The lost soul of Tairitsu "before" thus becomes the living essence of the new body to come,
with that of Tairitsu "after" stabilizing the rest of the shell.
The shaking beneath Hikari's feet becomes almost too much to bear.
Hikari remains as still as she is able, and steadfastly directs the new life between her hands.
With a thunderous groan, she feels the world bending in agony, and yet she holds onto her will.
Without being deterred, in her heart she reaffirms her vow.
She twists the core of the world itself. It, too, will fuel the rebirth of a fallen deity.
Like this, finally, once absolute rules are rewritten, and with Hikari's sound and silent order
new death spikes solidly into that core.
In an overwhelming pulse of light and shadow, Arcaea begins to die.
The wish that made existence is overturned. The skies run rapid overhead, and what light remains of this
reality cascades to her from every horizon. As she pushes the crafted soul into Tairitsu's now-floating
and deeply effulgent body, with sweat dripping off her brow, Hikari pushes, too, the entire world—
She channels the life of the earth.
She abandons Arcaea.
Below the now-ending daylight, twin girls watch as clouds rush past above them.
Below the half-night sky, a noble gazes at a rift slowly tearing apart the earth,
and gazes above to see star after star fading.
A girl who tends and cares, a girl who wanders and seeks, a girl who watches and wishes—
A soul of joy, a soul of hunger, a soul of ambition—
A heart of war, a heart of song—
—they see the end, as all the life of the world is taken now to one, distant place.
And soon...
...Hikari feels the last wisps of that life flow into the body of the girl she wishes to save.
Tairitsu's form begins to drift back to the earth as the life fades out from Hikari's hands,
and as it does...
...the girl in white feels, too, that a part of herself is being lost in the current.
...None of that concerns her.
When the winds die down, and as Arcaea's skies above are left slowed, dull...
she feels very lightheaded and plants her foot down before she might fall.
She tries to calm herself, trying to grasp what she, truly, has done.
But... she can't.
And overwhelmingly, her thoughts focus on this:
Is Tairitsu alive?
—
Dust drifts down from the sky again.
She does remember this...
...at the end, at that lowest point...
Nobody was there, and she closed her eyes to tears.
She opens them now, slowly...
...just as those memories leave her entirely.
Hikari sees the motion in her brow.
The girl in white holds her own fists over her mouth and her breath catches in her throat.
For all the splendor, she thinks, it was all so simple—
Too simple—
Could her wish have been granted for so little as hope and effort?
Hikari shakes her head of these thoughts. She steps forward, shaking.
Tairitsu's eyes open fully, and blink once, before their lids fall again halfway.
Hikari rushes forward then, falls to her knees, and hugs the other girl.
"Wh... What...!? What are y—!?"
The girl is silenced as Hikari clings to her,
embracing her more tightly than anything else before in her life.
And, Hikari starts to sob.
She uncontrollably cries into the other girl's shoulder—
the girl who stares back in disbelief, unsure of anything.
...Many more rifts have been carved through the landscape.
The light which once eternally poured from the sky has been suddenly, and starkly dimmed.
The world... is wounded.
And yet, Hikari's focus remains on "what"—"who" remains.
Tairitsu lifts her hand, and places it gently upon Hikari's shaking back.
Each unknowing, the two comfort one another at the end of the world.
"I'm sorry... I'm so sorry..."
Hikari endlessly repeats.
"...Whatever you did,"
Tairitsu replies,
"you made it right, didn't you? So why are you apologizing...?"
Hikari slowly pulls herself away, though she still holds the other girl.
With her eyes and nose reddened, she gazes on Tairitsu with misery, and tugging elation.
She suddenly buries her face in Tairitsu's chest, and Tairitsu holds her in return, softly.
The scene begins to quiet, and the girl in black allows the girl in white to weep.
—
They set out into the gray world.
For a while, Tairitsu holds the other girl's hand to walk her forward,
but it doesn't take long for their paces to match.
She does not remember her tragedy—at least, not the worst of it.
And the black shards... They don't take interest in her any longer.
For Hikari too. Those white shards which were so fond of her no longer dance nearby and close.
One has lost some aspect of dark, and the other... and the world... continue to lose light.
Though...
...to smile sincerely, Hikari no longer needs the light of glass.
The girls walk to a cliff's edge.
They look out to see a land of lost memory, slowly falling to decay.
And it will decay. It will collapse, fade, and crumble to nothing.
They stand there, not knowing this, and only "knowing" each other,
foregoing the past, and foregoing memory.
Tairitsu looks to Hikari with a steady, and quietly warm expression—
It is the expression she wore once, whenever able, within another life.
Hikari, seeing it, smiles with the simplest ease.
"What awaits"...?
What awaits could never matter.
That sense of "completeness" they each feel... cannot be shaken.
And...
Implicitly, Hikari knows this journey is at its end.
The road to the future lies ahead, and there a new journey will begin.
...She takes the time to acknowledge that she cannot know what, precisely, that journey will bring.
She can never know what might happen.
She acknowledges this, and closes her eyes to another thought:
...Did she know, before, where her steps would take her?
She only, always, stepped forward.
...
If you've chosen life, then choose to live.
Live in this world. See this world. Feel it and truly accept every last moment.
With this sentiment, she chooses to hold firm.
She lets her eyes open and she breathes in the air.
The unknowable winds ahead, the girl beside her,
the faces she has not seen, and the hidden places beyond...
She holds all of it close to her heart.
She takes Tairitsu's hand.
Because they will go on.
E-2
该剧情在解锁前不可见。
解锁条件：完成E-1，购入Final Verdict曲包
解锁要求：在Last的特殊游玩中选择“接受Arcaea的一切”
又名完美之愿（A Prefect Wish），剧情结束后将播放制作人员名单（白色版），随后重启游戏。
It wasn't long ago...
Somewhere dark and cold...
A barren, empty land rested in silence; newly cold, and newly empty, under a sky
leaden with dense clouds. The green leaves and red flowers had turned gray, and
only the footsteps of the living remained to tell that they all had once been
there. White now fell from the heavens and covered up their steps. No snow fell; only ash.
All had frozen, and winter had yet to come.
On the ash and ice-covered earth, on her knees, was a girl with her neck craned up to face what light
now bled through the gray. Her eyes were wide and staring. Before that light was an angel or, maybe, a god.
There was no home to turn to. Her mother and father were dead. Her guardians were dead. Her fellow
fledgling Shapers were dead. Her people, who had always scorned her, were all dead. All that remained
of what she knew was a shard of glass in her hand—a fragment from her window. But still, perhaps,
there was a chance—
She was chosen, and special.
She was young, but learned.
She only had to try.
If she tried, very hard, there was perhaps the smallest chance... to reverse time's flow. To strike back.
To even, maybe, turn into a sort of "god" herself.
Thinking she could stop all of this.
Thinking she could bring everyone back.
The girl looked at the shard of glass in her hand, and wished to save the world.
—However...
...she could not.
Will alone cannot create strength from nothing. She had all the will that one could imagine,
and her will was worthless.
Knowing that, she began to cry.
The will of the god above was worth more. Its wish had been for her and her kind to vanish, fall,
and fade into dust, and that wish would be granted, in moments, by its hand.
The girl saw her eyes in her own reflection, and watched as the image became distorted
with her tears. She could see her grief through her shaking jaw, and her impotent, overwhelming pain.
Nothing mattered at all. Nothing she had ever done, and nothing now.
The black-haired girl kept her head bowed as the angel descended. When it reached her, it raised its hand.
And shortly, she was gone.
That child's name is forgotten.
The reasons for her death... were beyond her.
Her life would not be remembered by anyone.
But when she died, another wish took her away.
—
It wasn't much longer ago than that...
Somewhere warm, though still dark...
She had made it dark. Another girl in another time and another place, with all names forgotten. She had
drawn her curtains. She had locked her door. A chair was beneath the knob. She sat on her bed, and kept
her eyes wide and staring.
She hugged her knees.
Staring.
She stared into nothingness.
She was overwhelmed by "herself".
A memory played endlessly in her head. She could see the view from atop the stairs, and vividly hear
her parents' words, whispered from beyond her sight.
They weren't saying anything against her, but they were still discussing her.
It wasn't that they didn't love her.
She could not love herself, and she felt that inside of her, something was missing that would allow her
to love them.
She very well could still see the view from atop the stairs. She had felt everything tugging at her to
let go of the banister then, and fly to the marble foyer below.
But what if it didn't work?
The girl had managed to return to her room after that and quietly lock herself away.
Why couldn't she disappear?
Why couldn't she walk off into nowhere?
Why were her thoughts like this?
Why was her mind like this?
Why couldn't she disappear...?
Her nails dug into her calves.
Her stare widened. Her breathing quickened.
And she wished that she could run away.
The girl with white hair was troubled. The girl with white hair was a god.
She was not troubled because she was a god—her godhood was a fact she never knew.
In her heart, she made a sullen wish for refuge, and that wish was granted:
"Somewhere else, where I can be happy."
—
The girl with black hair died, and a wish called her soul away.
In a distant world, in another reality, a girl more powerful than her had made that wish.
The white-haired girl was so powerful that her wish had created a world.
A world with a meaningless name: "Arcaea".
Arcaea was a sanctuary meant to save the dead.
Though she'd been alive when she'd made her wish, she still keenly felt that sense of "death".
She'd given it no consideration, none at all—in fact, she couldn't have thought straight if she'd
tried. She only wanted something there for herself. It's possible, really, that if she knew the fate
of those caught in Arcaea's web, she would see herself as having done a very good thing.
The world reached out to countless other places across time, across separate realities.
It was alive, and though it had no thought it nonetheless "wished" to share life with those dead.
Unguided, it caught any it could that spoke to its "heart".
In a space crafted between the seams of the real, in darkness spotted with soft and distant purple starlight...
...so many souls were wrapped into the weave, and brought to a new and shining border beyond the black.
The world of white...
From there, the world made a perfect imprint of each, and also released each. It gave each imprint a warm
place, gave them a new shape...
It gave them infinity, to view and relive endless life in safety.
But it could not truly save its maker...
It was able to take true souls, double them, and bring the doubles into new bodies, releasing those
first souls to whatever else awaited them... However, the soul of the one who would be known as "Hikari"
was fixed back in its first world. She was still alive.
...Arcaea, always unthinking, instead forced a copy of that soul as best as it could.
And much later, it found a soul more tragic than any other it had yet to find, similar to its mother's...
Strangely, that soul could not be properly kept either. When released, it could not leave the false
world's border like the rest... and so began to watch its star-crossed copy on the new, white earth instead.
Tairitsu... woke in a ruined tower.
—
And time passed...
Unthinkably, one of the saved had threatened everything...
But mercifully, the one who had made this all returned, and soon the world was safe again...
Arcaea was only crafted to exist. It had called out to its maker, and that maker had heeded that call. Like
Arcaea had made a monitor for the shards... like it bid that monitor to swallow up any anomalies that
fractured its fragile existence...
So now, it exists, and has existed.
It has existed, ever since, for over one thousand years.
The red blood that stained the earth was erased, leaving behind pure, white land. Tairitsu's body
was burned away...
Warmth filled everything. The sky grew bright.
The pearl and nearly endless landscape came together again.
And now, it is a truly beautiful world...
Dotted in figures: of girls who chose to rest in a land of endless travel. They chose to be frozen, and to
stare eternally into this world of the lost. And if they are thinking at all... it is of a very distant past.
And that was surely the better choice…
That was surely better than walking and watching other places forever...
They must be happy. They need to be.
Arcaea had nothing else to give them but that choice. The world was
still buried "inbetween", and escape was—
—and... any realms outside of it... were outside, and away, and could
never be seen again.
So, the twins, the girl with a blade, the traveler, the noble, the girl with a song...
They and others are angelic figures.
And the glass shards of Arcaea often come to rest now, too. They gather along
walls and pillars, compacting in great and plentiful formations. Like crystals.
Like corrosion.
—This beautiful world is overseen by a god. Above it all, Hikari watches passively...
...and remembers…
She remembers everything old worlds have forgotten. She sees them, with marginal warmth
or interest. An indulgence, of sorts, for the mind of a faded and listless god.
Maybe... she has transformed. Who she was and who she is... She must be "higher" now.
She cherishes a truth she can only pray that others would understand—though if they
will not... She has only chosen to watch the world.
Yet... though she watches it passively, she knows she has given them "everything".
...
...Outside her purview, a philosopher and satellite wander.
Beneath it, a horned woman tends to precious memories.
A woman with a flower in her eye... trudges through silent lands.
It is vain. It is vanity.
Arcaea now—is vanity.
And that... is better than the alternative.
Better than the world which spits at you. Better than yourself, who loathes your very way of being.
Living to love being alive, and succumbing to vanity...
...Reality, in all of its facets, is an empty, worthless, and inconsequential thing. The only thing one could
ever want would be to take what one can out of it.
Take pleasure. Take love. Take hope. Take power.
And with it...
...
Hikari believes this: one has no need to do anything.
Take. Live. And, sincerely, love being alive.
Love that...
Though not even for a thousand years, nor even a thousand more... will life ever mean a thing.
After all, reality marches on with no discernable "end" in store. And Arcaea, specifically,
was never anything more than a vessel for memories.
Incorporeal, contained, silent memories—while the outside remains unseen, unnoticed, and uncared for.
And those memories will exist forever here in that silence, together with those lost lives Hikari has saved,
and with her turning no eye to those lives, as always.
Because here there is no memory unseen—no emotion not felt. This is "all", which Light shines down upon,
and which Light grants.
It is for happiness. It is for eternal peace; unlike in any life you might have left behind.
This: she loves. This: Arcaea—
—Given to lost lives with neither favor nor condemnation.
And so, like this, the wheels of fate here continue to turn...
...while no destiny waits beyond.
主线故事II
主线故事II是在I的基础上，对游戏世界观的进一步拓展。
15-1
解锁条件：购入Lasting Eden曲包
解锁要求：通过Rise of the World
She was the second born under starlight.
To many of those come to Arcaea, the world once white also appeared as a world of endless day. But,
in time, night fell. A border between day and night formed. On the darkened side of the border, two
new lives drifted down to the earth like fallen stars. She was the second, and in her very form she
showed herself to be a mirror to the first.
A dark and purple-dotted sky, a cloudless firmament, a night with no moons...
Maya woke to all this through a blurred view. Her eyes were full of tears. When she could think,
when she could feel, she became overwhelmed by grief and she sobbed into her hands.
When one comes to this world of glass, they are made anew—
given "nothing" as a blessing, as a kindness.
But this place, found after the end, is broken—
in ways it tries to be perfect, but it is a broken place to its core.
She was born, it seemed, with everything.
15-2
解锁条件：完成15-1，购入Lasting Eden曲包
解锁要求：采用摩耶通过WAIT FOR DAWN
She actually welcomed the dark, and felt at ease within silence.
Whenever a rare ray bounced from the glass fragments surrounding her, instead it seemed to her like
sudden intense light in horrible colors had bombarded her vision. If a nearby ruin creaked or fell apart,
the resulting sounds seemed more like a cacophony of wretched noise accosting her ears: lighter scraping,
and the heavier, guttural, almost primordial groans from the earth; with a noise all throughout like
high-pitched wind, rising and rising—
If anything broke the shadow and quietness of the night, memory would accost her. And while she
did not belong here, she was nonetheless pitied.
This unusual girl with two-toned hair and eyes—
This strange girl who would often sleep, yet still cry—
Arcaea pitied her. Unfortunately, she quickly grew to fear its glass.
Shards met with her often enough under the open sky that—although she liked the calm and stillness of
the endless night—she began to seek shelter.
Maya rested within the fractured shells of buildings, and made herself familiar with any cave in this world
she might find. Glass was always there too, yes, but without a clear view of the sky it reflected very little.
And besides...she could not—and would not—peer within. She would travel through mountains, only
seeking peace. She would step through pitch-dark tunnels following forgotten roads.
Until she stepped out of a shadowed hall one day, and her eyes caught sight of the daylight border,
so very near.
15-3
解锁条件：完成15-2，购入Lasting Eden曲包
解锁要求：采用摩耶通过Raven's Pride
In fact...
Those sounds she heard were screams.
Those sights she saw were the cause.
Bright light fell from the sky in violent pillars, tearing at the earth. Her home became ravaged in what she'd
hoped would be seconds, but instead it had been a nightmare of hours. Agonizing, she had—she had...
She knew people on the other side of the earth, and heard they were dead. She froze under commands
from soon-lost voices. An entire connection she shared with an entire world was lost over a slow,
thorough, and merciless course. And, with it all gone, she had woken up here—alone in Arcaea.
And the horizon before her now was like sunset, or—it was like a world on fire.
Maya crumpled alone at a tunnel's exit, hearing and seeing things that weren't there. She shivered and
cried, feeling as if a spike was driving through her heart. Through horrid pain, nausea too began to plague
her. Horror after horror, all of it impossible to bear, and one thought worse than all others weighed on her
mind like an anchor. One truth that seemed ready to almost kill her:
"I am still here."
And her pain, and her heartache, it all cried out beyond her voice.
Arcaea would hear all of it.
15-4
解锁条件：完成15-3，购入Lasting Eden曲包
解锁要求：采用摩耶通过Rise of the World
She sits now at a precipice. Outside, she sits between darkness and light. Inside, a tone blares through
her ears as she stares wide-eyed and wanting, wishing to no longer think.
It is too late now. These made mistakes are set and done. The suffering caused, the damage caused—it is
all finished. The past cannot be reset. But can something be done to heal? Can anything, anything at all,
be done for a crying girl? A single piece of glass drifts down from above. Another. Another. A slow rain of
glass falls, until it is a solid wall before and around her, blocking the unseen sun.
Take her mind away?
No, it can't be done.
Distract her, coax her?
She is too distracted by herself.
What to do for her? What to do, what to do...
The glass uncharacteristically dims. Parts of its shard wall fold down almost like fabric with innumerable
parts until she is covered. What a silly thing—for glass to think itself soft. But, odd...But, still: Maya flinches
once, and she lifts her head. She finds memory in these shards.
These shards hold memories of others. She finds memories of sorrow, of hurting, and of humans' faults.
It is all that Arcaea can show to her, and she watches...
...not bloodshed, not battle, not war...
...but people alone in their pain, nobody there to share it or understand.
What can one do when they know they are alone?
She thinks. She sees men and women, girls and boys, all crying. She sees people near the end, with faded
photographs in their hands and faint smiles on their faces.
That is the message from this world to her.
You may feel you will never smile again. You may feel you want to quit.
But what is the point in that?
The past is behind you, but it has left marks upon you that you cannot erase. Some, perhaps many, are
marks that you left there yourself. But you are still here. A world is gone, and you are still here.
...
...Please.
Stay here.
15-5
解锁条件：完成15-4，购入Lasting Eden曲包
解锁要求：采用摩耶通过UNKNOWN LEVELS
"'Stay'...?"
A whisper for a whisper. Her voice cracks with this: her first word within Arcaea. Through a stinging, dry
throat, she repeats half of what she heard.
She bites down and grimaces.
She drags teeth against teeth.
Her response to the care the world has shown her...
...is resentment.
She sharpens her gaze, peering more closely into the mirrored wall before her. The images shift as the
glass moves. Shards of Arcaea find her new glare and present themselves. Moods somber or gentle are
all pushed aside...
The sheet of glass ripples as if struck. Maya watches memories—
—of a man looking back at himself in a mirror with darkness beneath his eyes.
—of a woman standing at a shore at night, her feet dipped into lapping, shallow water. She stares at a
necklace in her hand for some time, then eventually holds it out before her and drops it into the sea.
—of a young child dressed in a small black suit. Her sister reaches for her hand, only for it to be struck away.
Maya smiles. She laughs, quietly.
It's as if these shards are resonating with her—and how terrible if they are.
And of course, they are.
The attempt, the gesture...
She wants to spit at it.
As her breaking, twisted heart twists and breaks all the more, the glass hears her misery all the more well,
and brings itself closer—
turns itself over, piece by single piece—
each reflecting more memory than only one: the shards show the other halves of these shattered lives.
One by one, growing brighter and brighter...
...they begin to show how those lives shattered to begin with.
She is gripped by their flashing memories of disaster, folly, and failure.
She is gripped in turn by her own memories of a ravaged world.
She is gripped—physically—by the glass itself as it crawls to her body and binds all around it, twisting about
it, tightening and linking like glinting chains until its sharp edges slide up to press at her throat.
She grins wryly.
A weak heart beats...
...but it is not hers.
The glass shivers. It almost even seems to undulate. The light of the shards is all snuffed out in a second,
and as the chain pieces tighten, and tighten over her body—
Suddenly, in an abrupt burst of black glitter and a twisting rush of air, the glass all breaks around her,
leaving her to fall to the earth and be once more bathed by the far-off dawn.
Maya looks up into the dark sky. She looks out at the glowing horizon. She shuts her eyes.
"What...?"
Confusion. Anger. Disappointment.
The feelings pour into her shaking fist as the distant light warms her shoulders...
However, her shoulders soon go cold.
Cautiously, she opens her eyes once more to darkness.
Fragments of Arcaea have found her again, and formed new walls.
A tunnel of shade, a tunnel of glass...
...leading to distant daylight.
15-6
解锁条件：完成15-5，购入Lasting Eden曲包
解锁要求：采用摩耶通过Abstruse Dilemma
"..."
Maya pushes herself partway from the ground. She looks into the dot of far light, and no old memories
come to her. She turns her head to gaze behind, and the yawning maw where she stepped from only
minutes ago gazes back more dark than ever before. In that darkness, something glints now and then.
More glass, surely. She lies between, forced to think.
There is a choice.
There is a choice here.
Let easeful nothingness consume you, or welcome the frightening light.
Maya climbs to her knees and thinks on it.
Angrily, she mutters, "What do you want from me...? To face everything, or to go?"
Her question is answered with a question. Faintly, just faintly she can hear it:
What do you want?
To that...
...Once, at least, she thought she had answers.
I want to stop thinking, she'd thought.
I want to stop remembering.
I want to disappear.
I want to suffer.
I want to be hurt.
I want to be happy.
Now that she's been asked again, she finds one of these answers is likely still true.
Her memory is not only of the end. Everything she'd had in life is with her.
Most of that short life had been wonderful. Every happy moment added that much more weight
to the miserable loss.
And guilt... Guilt seems to eternally stain her for being the one to take it all away.
"..."
Silent, she looks ahead again.
Say that you have the chance to be happy, but don't deserve it.
Say that you have the chance to face judgment, but deeply fear it.
In that dilemma, you may not even feel you ought to have the right to choose.
But, still, say you came to a choice... To some miracle, where the future for you is presented as two clear
paths rather than having you blindly walk only one.
What then?
A nebulous age has passed. An age of uncertainty and empathy—an age brought about by a fool—is over.
Eyes are open, and what clouds flew under half the sky have thinned.
The stars have faded. The unseen sun's light has dimmed.
And what Maya wanted as she was bound – to be inflicted with pain at the precipice of despair – was
summarily rejected.
She was instead presented with a choice...
...for Arcaea wanted this.
She stands up to face a wall of glass. The shards comprising it have all gone black again; no memory is
cast out from any one of them. Instead, her own face stares back at her. She stares into her two-color eyes,
and those eyes drift to the red-bordered petals over her chest...
To her right lies one path, and to her left another. Wind passes over her, running through her hair.
Inside she feels...new.
As if someone has seen her. As if a steady hand has been placed at her back.
There isn't any shame in wanting to be happy...
And there isn't any shame in sadness.
Weigh your heart, weigh reality, and decide.
Maya turns, and begins to step forward.
16-1
解锁条件：购入Lasting Eden Chapter 2曲包
解锁要求：通过Technicolour
Passing on always seems so sad, and wouldn't it be wonderful if it could be more than that?
When a soul parts from the body, and flies into the air...
When it passes all boundaries, when it is, thereafter, adrift...
There is a world that feels the same way. "Wouldn't it be wonderful? Oh, wouldn't it be wonderful..."
You see, that world called out to you.
Ah, you: you fell into a world of light. Ah, wasn't it wonderful? You fell from a soul like a tear, beautiful
and new. You sparkled as you fell. You crystalized, and came alive. Ah, the beauty of it as you came
into a world of memory and, rare thing, still bore a bushel of memories yourself...
A girl with two-colored hair and two-colored eyes. Telling. There was another like that already here,
you know? But her two and two colors are pretended. You: you are real.
This last tear shed of a forgotten and departed life came down from on high, and down through a
sky without clouds, resting finally amidst endless old ruins. It was a dark night that you fell into. Half
this world in fact is dark, and you would wake beneath the stars.
The stars in this world—this world called "Arcaea"—are actually violet. You opened your eyes to a
mauve-shaded sky, and squinted at the strange shapes dancing and glinting across it. Glass, in the
sky: something magical, and called, too, "Arcaea". They are shards, it seems, of memory.
You knew all this; you knew the name "Arcaea" but you—you "remembered" nothing of the place. No, no...
You only remembered "yourself".
Oh, such a terrible heartache filled your chest. Oh, what dreadful things you had done. You had left
a world behind. You had left a world to ruin. A veil of sins felt as if it was weighing upon your shoulders
and blending with your body, seeping in. An ichor-like thing it was; you felt as if you carried what was
left after that great and terrible wound which you yourself had dealt. You cried, you sobbed into your
hands. Ah, ah, a beautiful sorrow...
There was one thing you forgot: your name. You do not truly know who you are. Is that a shame?
Shame or no, you dried your tears and stood to your feet.
In truth, you may have never "been" anyone at all...
But your feelings were so very real. Those memories were real—no mistaking that.
And your new name... Hm, "new name"? Were you ever even bestowed a name—? Oh.
It seems this world did indeed decide to give you a name, and what a lovely name it is.
It seems this world wished to call you "Maya".
16-2
解锁条件：完成16-1，购入Lasting Eden Chapter 2曲包
解锁要求：通过Logos
Maya, you are exceptional—do you realize that? You are made of stuff that no one else here is.
"Made of stuff" can be taken two ways, in fact. You are made of stuff unusual, stuff none of the others
have when they come here. But, also, you are made of "stronger stuff". That is a turn of phrase, Maya.
It means your "heart" is strong. You are, perhaps, the most wonderful thing in a world of endless wonder.
Although, that is hard to say absolutely.
To most, this world has always been bright. An endless daylight once shone down over everything
from an unseen star. But after you awakened, you wandered the darkened world.
For you, shadows were all around, and yet you still stepped bravely into the unknown—maybe
unthinking, but it was no doubt admirable. So, Arcaea, Arcaea...
You found a world of mirror meanings. You found a world of the dead, giving life. You found a world
of day, and also night. You found a forgotten place full of memories of light and conflict. It seemed
to remember elsewhere always, however—and never itself. Does "Arcaea" fear itself and what it has
done? Do the girls here also feel that way...?
It's a question for philosophers: is this world of second chances worth anything at all when most
can only see this chance as their first? Is this sealed world worth anything at all, when it can't seem
to progress into anything beyond itself? It is a question for scholars. It was also, indeed, a question for you.
Given what you were, who you were, what you'd done—why were you here...? Memories after memories
flocked to you, showing sorrow, and what point was there in that...?
At one point, when you stood between light and darkness, it seemed almost a mockery...
But the secret answer is very, very simple.
Arcaea is a meaningless world.
It is simple, yes, but that is why it is admirable. And you, Maya; you came to notice it, right?
The world came to warm you. When you felt sadness and horror, the world brought you the gentle
embrace of old stories, remembered here. Yes, you... found it distasteful for quite some time, but after
you walked into the light! Poetic! Meaningful! What a show it was!
To think this world of a shattered heart could put on such a marvelous show...
Torn between two paths, and brought low by your suffering... you wished for ease and received it! You
wished for pain and received it!
And so suddenly...! Everything changed! Or, had it changed long before? When did it change,
when...? Difficult to say, really...
Why, it doesn't matter. A burst! A shadowed path appeared before you to Heaven, and you
walked it, Maya!
You faced the guilt inside of you and chose to pursue the light. Ahh...
So selfish... though you deserve only judgment, Maya...
That scene, it was sublime, almost providence...
But not quite...
And so—!
I decided then, and there, to come and find you.
16-3
解锁条件：完成16-2，购入Lasting Eden Chapter 2曲包
解锁要求：采用摩耶通过Primeval Texture
Maya, we haven't yet met—it's tragic. Yes, you and I, we are unfamiliar, but I feel like I "know" you.
And it is frustrating... Ah, it is frustrating how little that I do "know". It might be the first time—I swam
in floating seas once, you know? Seeking "mermaids"... I had read about them, and felt that I knew
them too. They were so simple when I found them, though...
You, Maya: I know your name. I know your heart, and your pain. I know that you are still sad, Maya.
I know that when you sleep, the remnant shadows of what "you've" done continue to haunt you
and you always begin to cry. But, why should you cry when you weren't even responsible?
How cruel! Why should you smile, when "you" were? How audacious. I need to see you.
16-4
解锁条件：完成16-3，购入Lasting Eden Chapter 2曲包
解锁要求：采用摩耶通过Technicolour
I saw you through an eye I had cast through a hundred thousand veils and when it spotted you,
well, I couldn't help but watch. I had seen, too, this world's history, but I was so very drawn to you.
Of course, it wasn't only you that drew me—it is that you are "two". I said that, right? "Telling". Two-
colored hair, two-colored eyes—you aren't only you, Maya, and you aren't meant to exist, and yet
you are. You seem more than what could ever be shaped... You are a miracle of miracles amidst
a miraculous place.
Miracles, really, are rare outside. Where I'm from we had miracles in all our hands, but—I left there.
We had a song, a lullaby, a prediction—and why, I will admit that it unsettled me. Quite literally,
I left where I was settled. I wanted to find "true" miracles, not from hands that would one day
fade into dust.
So I will come in, with my aim being you and one other.
16-5
解锁条件：完成16-4，购入Lasting Eden Chapter 2曲包
解锁要求：采用摩耶通过Logos
Hands fading into dust... What did I mean? There was a song...
"There are no angels, only here
What we shape, what we hold dear
We shape together, never ending.
Where ever: the sky, the earth, the meer
I shall hold you very close, my dear
Even as strange light finds us, descending."
...A sad song. It would leave anyone miserable. I try not to think of it. Now—Arcaea, Arcaea: how
many have come down to its pale soil? Well, a duller pale, now... And you know I feel it as I circle it,
near it—why, I daresay it doesn't seem to want me here at all, Maya.
But, shame of shames: Arcaea is weak, you know? Absolutely powerless to do anything about it.
I will "be". I am alive. That place needs to prepare for a third aberration.
I will burst into that world, even if it rips at my skin and rejects me, and when I am there:
I will listen only for you, Maya.
16-6
解锁条件：完成16-5，购入Lasting Eden Chapter 2曲包
解锁要求：采用摩耶通过Ego Eimi
I've traveled across starlight to see you. I've traversed stormful skies for you. I have bent so many
realities and torn others asunder to reach you, Maya! And it is awful! The journey here has been
awful, for while I have traveled I could never hear your voice, Maya! Your voice—! You like to sing,
too, right? Or, you always sing so it feels safe to assume. I've remembered your songs while going
to you, Maya. Those sincere, driving memories...
You may be the first to set my heart this much to flame, but a flame, a flame—it really is always like
this. I love—so very much. I love with all of my being. I love what I can find amidst what has been
left throughout All by dead creators, by pantheons, by human hands—I love these worlds that I find,
and oh, those lives which one may pluck out of them...
I have lost count.
And finally, it will be today... Ah, today we will finally meet!
A graying white film like the surface of a giant's eye is before me now!
Just you wait...
Whatever it takes, I shall make my way in...!
I draw closer to Arcaea's sky from outside; to this pale and too-massive sheet, crawling with some
queer feeling of "memory", like fingers running through shining, blissful dirt... I grab hold of it with
my own fingers, and dig deeply in—
The world at once rises against me. Light and clouds launch out the atmosphere and latch onto
my body as tendrils. The air around me vanishes, even as I create more to replace it. I am pushed,
rejected—rather strongly, too, I'll add. Automatic, fierce, and the trajectory always remains true no
matter how I cast it away, my... But, I could swear that "rule" was abandoned, here. Arcaea... might
it still have its own heart? And a heart that seems to hate me...
Because I'm not dead? Why, let me make my case before you try to take my life!
I'll have you hear it once I'm on the other side...
I will open eyes again on the other side. I bring an invisible gaze to life, staring up to above.
After all, I really want to see this...
A grand and splendid entrance...
Let me show all here a ray of hope!
16-7
该剧情在解锁前不可见。
解锁条件：完成16-6、15-6，购入Lasting Eden Chapter 2曲包
解锁要求：采用摩耶通过Arghena
The skies all converge on one point. A vortex—a funnel forms, as vast as that sky itself. The firmament
is shaped as if it is draining downward, and then suddenly it shifts entirely in a hundred, thousand
ways. Color spreads out across the heavens.
A maelstrom of color, all draining downward and crackling!
The purity of light finally and utterly shifts to colors more than prismatic...
New color! Heretofore unknown and powerful color!
And ah, yes—I think it's the perfect timing! Let's start a storm!
Below, Maya witnesses my entrance, until the whole world's sky turns red.
That color inverts. Shifts—Shifts—Shifts! And finally, my hand passes through.
Lightning and rain begin to fall with might. A storm, a storm! Winds turn and throw towers down—
throw walls and buildings down! Snow and ice pelt the earth. The sky ripples as my own colors
bleed all around me—coat me.
I descend into Arcaea, as weather—as life—as nature all come with me, and I grin. For I will leave
the sky unbroken, hmhm...
Amidst the chaos and storms I have brought, I land gently to the earth before you and of course
I curtsy, and I bow. As my hair and yours are cast all around in the gale I say—
"Hello, hello, Maya—
I have so wished to meet you."
When do I reach you...? I take no time stepping over to you... holding you, embracing you...
Feeling you...
These shoulders, your spine...
Your stomach and side, your fingertips... this hair of yours, oh...
Don't you tremble, now. I am only looking.
Ah, and of course, your face... I softly hold your breaking, crying face.
What might you be thinking as you look upon me with those quivering, two-colored eyes?
I am thinking about plucking out your red eye, and examining it more closely. It, in particular, is
intriguing and beautiful. Oh—don't worry, I will leave it there, and instead simply find who you
took it from...
But what are you, Maya...? What are you in this world already so incomprehensible...? I simply
must have "you".
Holding you with one hand at your back, I snap the fingers of my other and take "time" away.
Listen now: every world is made with something in mind, but I already knew that Arcaea
stood out with exception.
It has been said and said: Arcaea was made with "heart".
Still, without fail, within every world I have been able to find three "parts":
The surface world, the law underneath, and underneath both of those the seed of a wish and
its tangent desires spreading like roots.
As I stop time in Arcaea, and look past the first and second layers, all suspicions are solidly
confirmed that this world's fabric has no "weaving" at all.
No, it is instead more like a sea. Arcaea's fabric exists as an ever-shifting, almost
incomprehensible thing which one tends to describe with terms of emotion: calm or raging,
dark or peaceful.
Ebbing, and flowing...
You would ordinarily see gorgeous lines of order establishing a world's rules beneath the first layer,
and yet there are none in that gold and cobalt underneath.
The only establishing lines there are a strange and sketched mess past the second layer—frenzied
white scrawlings vaguely marking the bounds of an almost infinite black canvas. Each twisted and
errant thing there is a clear-cut "wanting". It is all sorrow... and hope. Only these define this world.
And like you, Maya, I love it. It is wonderful...
But as I try to add a new idea as a line amidst all the others, perhaps to wrest some true control
here, Arcaea rejects me again. Why? That makes it tougher and tougher to manifest my domain...
It seizes my fingers and stiffens my arm. It even seems to want to rewrite "my" existence—until
in fact it removes my whole spasming limb. My arm separates from me and begins color-shifting,
dithering in midair, rapidly vanishing and unvanishing... Time even resumes, and in this new
chaos you, Maya, witness a very terrifying sight.
My apologies...
It takes great effort as Arcaea tries to pull me out of this reality, and even sever my body along space
and time, but I would do anything for you, Maya. Through any storm, through any sickness, through
any power overwhelming I would and can do anything...
With snaps and pain and nausea, feeling not "here" but "there" and with a strange vision of a dark
room in midday filling my head, I will my arm back to my body and reach out to Arcaea's fabric.
Reach out... Reach, reach!
Leave "me" here!
World of memories! From this day forth, you shall never forget me!
I carve the last and most beautiful idea—the most beautiful line in Arcaea's fabric:
I carve into Arcaea my own true and hallowed name.
And it's set, and it's done: an eternal and immutable change. I am now "here", forever. So, I'll
waste not a second more.
I begin to split time and space apart myself—behind me. At last I open a black and shining gate
to "mine" and gently, Maya, while you're so still from shock and fear and confusion, I begin to pull you in.
And there, there, you begin to unravel.
As your fingertips meet with the boundary, your voice is lost and you start to unravel into glass threads.
You unspool from your hand, past your arm, and to your chest and your body in a beautiful, silvery sight.
Little wondrous splits without a single spot of blood continue all throughout your skin and where there
might be inner parts... In waves of countless, brilliant, almost prismatic threads, you are drawn through
the dark hole I have opened.
Your shape now is like a melting harp waving through the air; its strings made of the prettiest white
quilt being split down slowly at its seams...
Ah, ah...
Fall into the best place, Maya...
And stay away from here forever.
When the last thread of you passes time and space, I close the gate shut.
White begins to overtake the sky once more.
I gaze up above as the storm begins to die down.
And watching it fade, I remark to this world that hates me:
"Arcaea, Arcaea...
"Hello to you as well."
16-8
该剧情在解锁前不可见。
解锁条件：完成16-7，购入Lasting Eden Chapter 2曲包
解锁要求：采用摩耶通过Abstruse Dilemma
My storm finally and completely disappears. The last vestiges of the color I left in heaven die.
But oh no, no, I am still here, Arcaea—still here.
What an agonizingly long journey it has been.
Yes... I am here now. I, who saw this place through a passing glance between realities and simply had to visit.
I am thinking, even, of staying.
You know, this world is broken now... but it's still here. That is beyond incredible. I have never seen
something "shaped" this terribly and this greatly; I really need to dig into it—I need to know more
about it. I need to learn about it, I need to find those who live their second lives here. In one case:
a third! So, so incredible! And ah, what a lovely story of three lives!
I run my hand through my hair as I think of it. Rainwater runs down over my skin, and I cannot help
but laugh again. I hug myself, and soon find myself chuckling, and laughing, and laughing all the
more until it almost hurts...!
Because isn't it a shame? It's a shame, you know!? You see: this world has been missing a god! Ah, it had a
god but for an instant! For a fleeting moment, it was whole and just after—ah, it shattered at its very core!
Have the people here been worried ever since?
Oh, oh, there's no more need to worry. No, no, none have need of worry at all!
This fading, sorrowful, wonderful world has been once again blessed...!
In my grace, in my providence, you will all find happiness again...
Yes... a god has come here to set everything right and well for you all.
18-1
解锁条件：购入Absolute Nihil曲包
解锁要求：通过In Vain
God. Truth. Purpose. Meaning.
Nihilism.
What do we need in order to live, and does such a stupid question even matter?
I preoccupy myself with such questions often.
I am the lonely fool in a pristine garden another god created.
Welcome to Heaven and Hell. Welcome to the fragile after-world. See me, here, striving for reason.
I have been very sure of myself for a very long time. Since before one could find stars here—though even
that was a very long time ago. I learned my name long after that. I learned the name "Saya", and it didn't
matter at all.
What would anyone even want to poke into my mind for?
When I was more naive...
When I had been here a little while, and gotten more familiar with it all, I woke up once to the endless
daylight. Sunlight streamed into my eye, and I smirked at the clouds. I woke up to another day in the
world of white.
I'm not sure, but I must have awoken to a rare warm mood. Most days I felt frustration. Most days I
watched things intensely, and thought about them. That day, fragments—glass—"Arcaea" drifted
around me showing memory as always. They showed me different facets of life: all of what makes
life real. Sad things, and joyful things. Life is real for its pains and pleasures both. Both kinds of
memory seemed fond of me.
Because the truth is: in this world of white—in Arcaea—memories are drawn to like-souls. My soul "wants"
more than most others, and so Arcaea gives me all that it can. And, putting my soul aside: consider my mind.
Scattered, or "hungry" I suppose. With those fragments, I always felt "fed".
Radiance streamed above and around me. The light, surely, of "God". The warmth, and the might, of
something greater than everything else. It drew me in, and I was spellbound. Because it was more than
that, even. It was more than a world of infinite imagery—the world, itself, was a puzzle-box. It was
mystery manifested. Arcaea is a world of every kind of ruin.
And why is that?
Is it a world gone?
Is it a grave of places?
Is it a dream? Is it paradise? Is it a prison? Is it, even, a world at all?
What is it? It's something that dragged me in.
I wandered this place with drive and passion. I was so driven in fact that in this empty place, all empty save
for only myself, I nearly missed the sight of another for the first time. I nearly missed a meeting with a fool
and stubborn woman who, much as I would come to loathe her, would nonetheless shape my life forever.
18-2
解锁条件：完成18-1，购入Absolute Nihil曲包
解锁要求：通过Hypnotize
I took my fingertips to one of the flower petals blooming from my face. My face itself was stinging. I glared
across the way to a dull, brainless woman. I must have misspoken. Immediately, the stubborn woman and I
did not get on.
Our meeting went on like this:
The dumb cow-woman said something stupid.
Understandably I called her a fool.
The dumb woman explained her position.
And of course, I called her moreso a fool.
She struck me across the face, and turned away.
A fool, fool brute.
Her name is Lethe, and as appropriate for someone bullheaded: bull-horns sprout from her head.
I found her at the end of a charming cobblestone road. She was surrounded by beautiful glass, but it
shimmered in a way I had not ever seen.
Glass always glows, or takes the glow of light away in this world. It's a dreamlike marvel that dots the air
and sky, but here—here wasn't quite the same. "Warmth", which I felt all the time in crowds of glass... I felt
"a" warmth here, but not the heat of divinity.
How could I say... it was like the world was bowing its head, rather than demanding one lower theirs.
I might hate this dumb woman, even to this day, but to see that...
...I can't deny it arrested me at my core.
We could make a world from these memories—that is what I told her. Rather, that must be why we were
born here—I could feel it, and I told her that too. That collection of hers, in particular, was special. If we
could harness it, connect its parts... we could enter into it all, with a new "reality" manifesting from fragments
of others.
She told me the glass shards were in fact ghosts. When pressed, she explained her memories of life tending
to not-glass spirits as the likely explanation.
I almost laughed, told her twice she was foolish, and she slapped me across the face.
In a world without meaning, she went and made something up.
Desperate, dumb, and sad.
Oh but I thought differently. No, no: I knew the "Truth". Yes: how my heart resonated with that vast glass
collection—how the world I revered day to day felt like it gave reverence to Lethe's collection instead—it was
sure: a sure thing.
In this pristine garden another god created, other gardens can be grown by us—the gardeners.
"I will do what I must, and pick up the shattered pieces of worlds to build something more, better, perfect,
and new."
I said that. I swore that.
...When I was more naive.
18-3
解锁条件：完成18-2，购入Absolute Nihil曲包
解锁要求：通过Ashen 6oundary
Can I be called arrogant?
I searched through many memories—many old worlds to craft a new place.
I bent those worlds' limits. I drank in them, made fire in them, flew in them, killed in them.
I saw men die and children born. I made corpses breathe again, and the crying young silent.
Why? Because it was all "to be experienced"—bereft of any true consequence.
And be them from God or no, I—an avatar of Creation—was designed to design on my own, and had every
right to do as I would.
So can I be called arrogant?
Foolish question, easy answer.
I built my try at a new world within Arcaea.
It began as a globe of glass, ever-shifting, and as large as an ancient tree. I would pluck memories from my
travels that were suitable to "experience" as a whole, and I would enter them—add them. I would find Lethe
now and then, and hiss at her as she hissed at me. But, I would largely keep to myself—building, building.
My collection became a mountain. I found that fashioning a library from glass inside of the earth was more
fantastical, and I wanted that. I wanted more. I wanted more, and more—because as a globe, the glass did
not make any demands of Arcaea. It did not scream or even whisper at the world. It murmured, at best,
confused words likely caused by my haphazard lack of organization. If I wanted more, if I wanted what the
horned-woman had, I needed to do more.
So, more organized: a library. Parts here, and parts there—specifically. Divvying life and experience by rank
and sense. Making an archive of memory... I did my best to do that, and it was better. I began to hear it
whisper now and then. I would sleep there, as it spoke words I could hear but could not understand.
But surely I was close.
...
That was my "Purpose".
And, it was indeed fantastic. The world that I was making looked out of an abstract and divine painting—
yet you were able to walk within it. Or... "without" it I suppose. The image of the cave was nothing short of
magical, even if the collection would not connect—would not let the memories merge and bring forth a new
"realm" of existence you could swim through, walk through, or fly through in full, wild, and blended memory.
At least this "library" alone... Only my hands could craft that. Only my mind could conceive it.
Without a smile on my face, I considered myself happy with it all. Satisfied with "Meaning".
...I think...
...I know:
...That if things lasted, and a thousand years went by...
...I would wander white plains endlessly throughout them and thereafter, fruitlessly changing my "world"
again, and again, and again.
Because... this is what I need.
...
...Some time after the sky split in two, I found Vita crying within a ramshackle ruin's corner.
18-4
解锁条件：完成18-3，购入Absolute Nihil曲包
解锁要求：采用咲弥通过Hypnotize
"... A child?"
I am that type of person, I suppose: the type to refer to a smaller half-blond and ruby-eyed human
as merely "child".
I heard her sobbing, and thought it might have been that fool Lethe. When I looked to her and saw that
she was not, she choked her tears back. I wasn't sure what to say beyond that. I simply... approached her.
She asked me, "You... are you real?"
I told her, "Dry your tears, this shouldn't be a world one cries in."
"I—But I... I was—I was so..."
"Scared", she seemed to want to say. I had no words in return. She began to cry again, and I wondered about
all of us.
Because I did not know anyone was here other than myself until I met Lethe. When I met Lethe, I considered
her to simply be my enemy at worst and a confused, misguided idiot at best. I wagered there must be others
but, surely, they were others as driven as we two.
Yet this was just... some child.
A child? Responsible for mending, or making, new worlds?
...Was that really it?
I folded my arms and leaned against the wall beside her. The cape I wear, long as it is, brushed against her
ear and she looked up at me.
"Use it," I told her, and after a moment's hesitation she dried her face and blew her nose with my clothing.
...In that wall-shadowed, dirt-scattered place, I started to look around until I could find some fitting memory...
Something, ideally, with two participants. And, when I did find it, I bid it toward me.
"Stand up," I told her, and she did—quivering. I held the glass up between us. "Take my hand," I instructed.
She did take my hand, and with her acceptance we went into the glass together.
In that memory—
...our memory:
Vita told me her name as we sat in the dining room of a warm and quiet inn.
I was surprised to hear her name—I hadn't known mine at all until at that point recently. I asked her,
"What do you want to eat?", and she asked me, "Does that even matter? This is a memory".
I was surprised again, enough to have my brow twitch. I asked her after, "What did the participants get in
this memory, then?" When she told me what we both knew by merit of having entered I asked again:
"Then, what do you want?"
"What would happen if I asked for something else?"
"It's only right that you ask, and we find out."
"Will the memory break...?"
"Why would you ask that?"
"Because the memory doesn't remember anything else being ordered..."
"Does that scare you?"
"I just..."
"You just what?"
"...I just don't want this memory to end, yet."
...
The memory did not end there.
I got to know that little girl, and what little she knew about herself.
She asked about myself as well—many, many questions.
Hm.
Well, when the memory did come to an end...
...We two left it, and that ruin, together as well.
18-5
解锁条件：完成18-4，购入Absolute Nihil曲包
解锁要求：采用咲弥通过Ashen 6oundary
The only name I have left is "Saya", and I have learned since coming here that we are only shadows of things
that once were.
Saya is dead. Saya lives on, here.
When I learned that, it was no awesome revelation. In a way, I had always felt this place to be something
"after".
But it made me think on the others...
It made me think on whether there was any reason to any of this at all.
People have died, but not all of them are here. Those who are here... travel toward various ends. We all
have different wishes, but it was not wishes that brought us here. The dead often wish for life in the end;
near none of them are here.
Some of us come without a wish. No wish was held in Vita's heart. No wish was held in "Kou's".
It isn't that that brought us here.
It isn't fate.
It isn't anything in specific.
It is that: "God", isn't it? God, and its whims.
And that god is neither laughing nor smiling.
That god may not even have a face.
I have been with Vita for very long now, with her acting as my assistant and... I suppose "colleague", in a way.
It has been trying. She's prone to tears—prone to worry.
She clings to me when she sleeps. She asks more often than simply seeking answers.
Her sneezes are alarming. She is heavier than she looks to be. She has a sharp mind.
It has been trying, but would never be something I regret.
For I regret...
I regret, and ask questions of myself often.
"Saya, what is that...?"
Vita asked me that during the end of the world.
We looked on together as light cascaded from the earth, and life was drawn into the sky.
We watched as Arcaea gasped a final time, all its "breath" converging on one distant place.
I don't know for what reason it happened.
I don't even know what happened precisely, only the result: a horrible certainty, that I was certain we could
both feel.
When she looked to me and asked what it all was, I answered:
"...Some phenomenon, but phenomena are nothing new in this place."
I began to try to build a new world more desperately, because with that "end"—of light, of Arcaea—the lands
began to crumble.
In bits and pieces at first... and then greater and greater slabs—great sheets of earth, sliding down into a
vast "nothing" underneath: into that abyssal place forever scratching at the world's edges...
Into the Void.
...
The archive I had built remained stable through it all, but "stability"... that isn't what we need. It isn't what
any of us need.
We need more. We need something "beyond" here.
We need to live in a proper, perfect place.
I cannot say that I am the one who will make that place anymore.
...I can't say when it was that I began wishing again.
Sometimes, at the end of a day of travel, I would return and be given new questions from the little girl who
follows me that I had no answers for.
Questions, questions, questions...
There is simply no time for them anymore.
And in uncomfortable silences between us, it feels like that is being screamed throughout the caverns.
But I know I began wishing before that—subtly, for answers to questions I myself have.
...
This story of mine is silent. I may only speak it to myself.
Nobody hears it. It will quietly die like the hills and mountains and dried seas of this world, with nobody
to notice or remember them.
And there, there will be "Nihil": a vacuous, self-aggrandizing, and worthless story. A story untold to anyone
but the teller.
A story that stole another's, and clinging to it brought the other to drown.
Tell me: am I arrogant?
The answer is that I am.
I believe in myself.
I believe in finding what lies past limits, in forging new reality, in doing "anything".
I believe in the future.
And I wish for the future.
As I walk from here, with a young girl following behind me by stepping in those footsteps that I leave
wherever I may go...
I want my wish to ring out, though I can't bring myself to say it.
I believe in a last stand. I believe in that glass that made the world bow down.
God, Lethe, Vita...
Expel me from Heaven and straight into Hell...
...As I walk to tear that glass all away from that horned fool's hands.
18-6
解锁条件：完成18-5，购入Absolute Nihil曲包
解锁要求：采用咲弥通过Judgement
"It's raining..."
Vita came to me in a corner of my glass library, and told me that.
In the bright and dark cave, I looked up to her from where I sat, and then I looked away.
Rain...
In all my years in this place, I had never seen rain, and now rain and snow
and thunder and lightning all had been seen by us on the horizons every so often.
And now it was there.
I stood.
"Vita..." I began,
"we will be going, and when you follow: you will follow and hide behind."
"'Going'...? Where?"
"To Lethe," I said, "to kill her."
I walked past her and, after descending,
made my way to the mountain's lowest exit.
Vita was delayed, but followed just as instructed.
"...'Kill'—what!? No!"
She shouted at my back, followed me all the way down,
and trotted out behind me as I went into the rain.
She protested, protested.
She grabbed my cape and I pulled it from her hands.
She picked up a stone, and threw it at my back.
I kept on, and finally she screamed:
"Why!?"
Rain fell on and between us as I stopped and turned to face her.
She met my eye. Her red and white eyes were shimmering.
"Vita..." I said, "this world is dying."
"Yes..." she muttered and at the time I thought—Ah, so she knows.
"So... So why would you want to... kill...?"
"I felt something in what she gathered, something I have never felt in what we have built," I explained.
"If... I want to rescue us all, I reason that I must discover what that something was,
and take and use it. With it, I might make the miracle that will build a new world.
Lethe, however, won't understand the theory, and we have no time to try with her."
"Her belief... How she lies to herself would never let her reason. Her heart is a fire.
She will aim those feelings at me, and we will come to blows."
"You won't try?" she accused me, and I smiled.
"You should at least try!" Her face bunched up, and her fists balled.
And, when I turned from her again—
as the rains around us slowed, and then stopped—
I said, lightly: "Fair. Watch safely away when I do."
I have taken much of my own glass to Lethe's place.
As I approach there, our collections almost meet,
but never blend together.
It is bright. On this cliff's edge, the world is bright from glass.
Lethe, beneath it, is cloaked in shadows.
Over the edge, the Void yawns.
"Reaper," I call to her, "let's put pettiness aside. Help me."
"Help you?" she spits. "After you've done all this!?"
Ah.
She must think I'm responsible for cracking this world at its core.
...She thinks so little of me.
I glance behind myself and, unable to see Vita, I turn back to Lethe
and continue our conversation.
It goes, and ends, as terribly as one can imagine.
Shouting.
Insults.
And her scythe: swinging down on me.
I travel from shard to shard with a little trick of the flower at my eye.
I refrain. I turn around her. I try. I am trying.
Until I no longer can.
I swear to her I will take her memories.
She swears to me she will mend Arcaea's shattered core.
I feel disgusted...
It begins to rain again.
Blade clashes against glass. Water sprays between us.
I dance a violent dance alongside hers, vicious.
She swings, aiming to kill me. I cut across her face with glowing glass.
My head is pounding.
Sickness twists inside my stomach.
I have failed, and nothing I am doing here matters at all.
18-7
解锁条件：完成18-6，购入Absolute Nihil曲包
解锁要求：通过ALTER EGO
This is no clash of great powers. This is no immense and weighty battle.
In this struggle between myself and Lethe...
When I win, I will win "nothing".
And when I lose, I will lose "nothing".
I know it.
We are only two misguided women believing in a better ending for us,
but it is not to be.
We are nothing. Our lives have meant nothing.
But I still want to try, and nausea is plaguing me for feeling so.
As Lethe pulls back, and with surreal strength drags her scythe toward me again—
As I cast glass upward and downward to stop the blade and pierce her chest—
Our battle is ended by a finger falling between us.
"!?"
"What—!"
A slender, gloved hand touches down where our edges were ready to meet.
When it does, my entire body pulsates and pain almost cripples me.
My glass scatters, Lethe's scythe flies from her hand. We both are blown horribly backward.
The earth itself pounds as if it is a great drum being beat once by an immense rod.
We are then stopped in the air—
The air itself violently pulls back—
And I strike against the ground as Lethe's scythe flies forward
and cuts me deeply across my side before skidding down behind me.
For her, for Lethe, several shards of my glass burrow into her left arm.
We both crash down on our knees, being made to bow.
And though I feel torn apart...
I raise my head, I do not let it fall.
Standing still between us is a strange new woman, with long and pale hair,
and strangely piercing eyes.
She looks to me, she looks to Lethe.
She is smiling.
"Enough of all of that, you two," she says.
"If you play so roughly, you might hurt something precious in your process."
I step up, best as I can, still only able to kneel and now breathing raggedly.
Her way of speaking worries me...
She looks at me again.
"Now... hello stubborn girls," she says.
"It isn't nice to meet you."
20-1
解锁条件：购入Lucent Historia曲包
Do you believe in God?
Deep within a giant's body, and above a heart no longer beating, a girl stepped into a pool of red. It was
too dark to see the color, but she felt the liquid rise like upward raindrops on her face. She touched it
after it touched her cheek, and she frowned.
It was good that it was dark. Not for hiding what the monster in this place had left behind, but for the
sight of the monster itself. She knew it without needing to see it; she had seen it three times before
and even the memory of it made her shiver, yet—
—she was a Shaper with the hands of God; taming monsters was a matter of course. She shaped her
voice from her tongue and there sent it off to the place where her apprentice awaited her, asking:
"You're ready?"
An answer soon came back to her ears: "Idiot. Of course."
She whispered, "Shut up," and lit an Air-light hanging from her hip, swiftly pulling the illumination out of
it and in front of her—spreading it throughout the gallery.
Now she saw paintings of ancient angels.
She saw paintings of God.
She saw paintings of great bones—the hallowed Spine and Ribs of Lephon.
And she saw the great beast itself she was here to hunt, lurking at the far wall and staring steady at her
with a single eye at the end of a long and thick stalk. Its body was hiding behind eight feathered wings.
Seeing its eye, she cursed under her breath—and moved.
The beast's eye shone with plasmatic heat, and the area behind her—and now at her side—was
blasted back with immense and rippling power. The beast pulled away two of its wings, revealing
a mouth bereft of lips or teeth and—the pale thing—it screamed.
The Shaper threw up her hands and stopped its voice before it reached her. That voice beat down
around her and cracked the floor. The frames of the gallery paintings ruptured, and the monster—
the Power who had chosen to rage here—flew fast toward her.
It spread all eight of its wings to reveal its lean and muscular body—contorted and non-human,
non-animal. Its ridged spine arced with violence and there, and suddenly, the roof above burst apart.
The stained glass above, the stone and wood above—before fully falling, much of it coalesced into the
shape of a spear, and above that spear was the hand of a child.
The child threw the colossal weapon down with a great and pulsing force—clear through the Power's
spine. The beast exploded to the ground, and the pale-haired child above gazed down upon it with
piercing eyes.
And, "Now, now, sit," she said.
With the beast now struggling, but in a sense "stilled", the first Shaper went toward it and laid
a hand on its neck. "Return to the Air," she said, "and have the other Powers take care of you."
The beast's body then suddenly pounded and shone with light. Its shape compressed out the
hold of the spear, forming a small sphere of light before her palm. She looked backward, and
cast that light out of the door, and finally, "...Showy!" she said, glaring up at the child now seated
on the end of the gargantuan glass-stone-wooden spear. "Nice going, L, now we'll have to lie
about it. We can't pay for the roof!"
"My dear Nell, we have always been the arbiters of truth," was the child's reply, and she smiled
cutely. Her mentor threw a piece of wood at her head, and after it struck she fell down into the debris.
"Good thing Horrors like that tend to make a mess," said the mentor as her apprentice roared
with anger. "They'll probably actually believe us. Look at all these bodies... it didn't even finish
eating. Ugh."
"Nell, you just hit me!" said the child.
"Shut up," said the mentor, not looking at her student as she began looking through the place for survivors.
...Do you believe in God? Not gods, but "God". Do you believe in "The One" that exists beyond you?
No matter your belief: God is real. And, God is dead.
This, here, is the story about the birth of the new God.
...But, the question is important. It echoes through time, eternal.
Belief is what makes almost everything.
It makes men and women act. It makes "truth".
It made Arcaea.
But God, the world: "Lephon":
Dead though He might be, He still exists, and is Father to all, and of course to those
with the hands of God.
You know them.
The Shapers.
"Tairitsu"—actually, that isn't her name.
The 8th.
And ———— / //.
Do you believe in God?
Deep within a giant's body, and above a heart no longer beating, a girl stepped into a pool of red. It was
too dark to see the color, but she felt the liquid rise like upward raindrops on her face. She touched it
after it touched her cheek, and she frowned.
It was good that it was dark. Not for hiding what the monster in this place had left behind, but for the
sight of the monster itself. She knew it without needing to see it; she had seen it three times before
and even the memory of it made her shiver, yet—
—she was a Shaper with the hands of God; taming monsters was a matter of course. She shaped her
voice from her tongue and there sent it off to the place where I, her apprentice, awaited her, asking:
"You're ready?"
An answer soon came back to her ears: "Idiot. Of course."
She whispered, "Shut up," and lit an Air-light hanging from her hip, swiftly pulling the illumination out of
it and in front of her—spreading it throughout the gallery.
Now she saw paintings of ancient angels.
She saw paintings of God.
She saw paintings of great bones—the hallowed Spine and Ribs of Lephon.
And she saw the great beast itself she was here to hunt, lurking at the far wall and staring steady at her
with a single eye at the end of a long and thick stalk. Its body was hiding behind eight feathered wings.
Seeing its eye, she cursed under her breath—and moved.
The beast's eye shone with plasmatic heat, and the area behind her—and now at her side—was
blasted back with immense and rippling power. The beast pulled away two of its wings, revealing
a mouth bereft of lips or teeth and—the pale thing—it screamed.
The Shaper threw up her hands and stopped its voice before it reached her. That voice beat down
around her and cracked the floor. The frames of the gallery paintings ruptured, and the monster—
the Power who had chosen to rage here—flew fast toward her.
It spread all eight of its wings to reveal its lean and muscular body—contorted and non-human,
non-animal. Its ridged spine arced with violence and there, and suddenly, the roof above burst apart.
The stained glass above, the stone and wood above—before fully falling, much of it coalesced into the
shape of a spear, and above that spear was the hand of a child.
The child threw the colossal weapon down with a great and pulsing force—clear through the Power's
spine. The beast exploded to the ground, and the pale-haired child above gazed down upon it with
piercing eyes.
And, "Now, now, sit," I said. I was terribly cute.
With the beast now struggling, but in a sense "stilled", the first Shaper went toward it and laid
a hand on its neck. "Return to the Air," she said, "and have the other Powers take care of you."
The beast's body then suddenly pounded and shone with light. Its shape compressed out the
hold of the spear, forming a small sphere of light before her palm. She looked backward, and
cast that light out of the door, and finally, "...Showy!" she said, glaring up at the child now seated
on the end of the gargantuan glass-stone-wooden spear. "Nice going, L, now we'll have to lie
about it. We can't pay for the roof!"
"My dear Nell, we have always been the arbiters of truth," was the child's reply, and she smiled
cutely. Her mentor threw a piece of wood at her head, and after it struck she fell down into the debris.
"Good thing Horrors like that tend to make a mess," said the mentor as her apprentice roared
with anger. "They'll probably actually believe us. Look at all these bodies... it didn't even finish
eating. Ugh."
"Nell, you just hit me!" said the child.
"Shut up," said the mentor, not looking at her student as she began looking through the place for survivors.
...Do you believe in God? Not gods, but "God". Do you believe in "The One" that exists beyond you?
No matter your belief: God is real. And, God is dead.
This, here, is the story about the birth of the new God.
...But, the question is important. It echoes through time, eternal.
Belief is what makes almost everything.
It makes men and women act. It makes "truth".
It made Arcaea.
But God, the world: "Lephon":
Dead though He might be, He still exists, and is Father to all, and of course to those
with the hands of God.
You know them.
The Shapers.
"Tairitsu"—actually, that isn't her name.
The 6th.
And Lacrymira.
20-2
解锁条件：完成20-1，购入Lucent Historia曲包
解锁要求：通过Swan Song
The two girls received payment for completing their task outside of a building—people didn't like
"Specters" having free trespass in government offices. As Nell leaned against a tree, and L sat above
her on a branch, they listened to the debriefing of the official who had given them the exorcism job.
Although it wasn't spring, cobalt flower petals drifted through the Air from nothing. They all paid this
no mind: a typical event on Lephon.
"...and finally, if you two could take a look at the town's Air-spinning engines, it would be a great help,"
said the official.
"Ahh... we will," Nell answered with a light smile, and she turned and began to walk away. She added,
"Don't do that, L," and the official looked upward to find the pale-haired child aiming a floating rock
at one of the nearby building's windows. The stone fell, the child looked at her teacher, and after
sticking out her tongue she dropped as if weightless from the tree.
They'd been working together for three years—since L was nine. Nell was seventeen herself now, and
yet she felt like an adult for having to deal with the girl. The girl was capricious, volatile, and "funny".
It was easy to be charmed by her, and easy to want to hit her over the head. The two weren't sisters
or family, but it did feel that way at times.
"Engineering...? Again...?" L complained as they walked through the quiet town. Her hands were
behind her head, and her eyes were scanning the Air for anything more interesting than that drudgery.
"Non-Shapers just can't handle Powers like we can. It's reliable work," said Nell. She had fished
a little tablet from her things and now flipped a switch at its side. It began to breathe, and its screen
lit up. "Though I can't lie, I'd love more gardening work, myself... Gah, this town doesn't have any
coin-exchanges? Why did they pay us in coins?"
"Coin from the third Terra! Very stable currency!" L mocked, almost repeating something the official
had said earlier.
"You don't even know what that means, shut up."
Listen for a moment:
A "third Terra" was just mentioned. It hasn't been mentioned but these "Terra" total to eight.
Each "Terra" is "an earth", and these earth expanses extend from a certain spire: the Spine of Lephon,
and so of course the Spine of God. His Ribs, too, protect... God's lifeless body is this world, the cradle
of life, and His Spine holds every piece together—
This is a real world, not one invented or one "after". It is a world of certain logic, bound by rules, unlike
another made by a fractured heart:
It is the old world of Shapers, where Shapers once meant everything and then meant nothing...
The corpse world of a giant with might and presence beyond measure.
Seven discs of land, each like a separate planet spread out and flattened, are shelved above the
largest below. This largest one is not a "disc", but akin to a filled bowl—akin to a stomach of dirt,
and the people of Lephon call that Terra the "Heart".
And, what it all means...?
Is another important question, and its unknown answer has split the world apart.
...Meaning "culturally". Lephon has always been this way.
The two girls received payment for completing their task outside of a building—people didn't like
"Specters" having free trespass in government offices. As Nell leaned against a tree, and L sat above
her on a branch, they listened to the debriefing of the official who had given them the exorcism job.
Playing in the Air a great distance above us, a Power made a hundred cobalt flower petals. While I paid it
no mind—it being so typical—I did briefly think of playing along with it and turning the flowers another way.
"...and finally, if you two could take a look at the town's Air-spinning engines, it would be a great help,"
said the official.
"Ahh... we will," Nell answered with a light smile, and she turned and began to walk away. She added,
"Don't do that, L," and the official looked upward to find the pale-haired child aiming a floating rock
at one of the nearby building's windows. The stone fell, the child looked at her teacher, and after
sticking out her tongue she dropped as if weightless from the tree.
They'd been working together for three years—since L was nine. Nell was seventeen herself now, and
yet she felt like an adult for having to deal with the girl. The girl was capricious, volatile, and "funny".
It was easy to be charmed by her, and easy to want to hit her over the head. The two weren't sisters
or family, but it did feel that way at times.
"Engineering...? Again...?" I complained. We'd done such drudgery so often, although rambunctious
Horrors were very much around there. I was thinking, at the time, of taming them instead. Of making
my own fun.
"Non-Shapers just can't handle Powers like we can. It's reliable work," said Nell. She had fished
a little tablet from her things and now flipped a switch at its side. It began to breathe, and its screen
lit up. "Though I can't lie, I'd love more gardening work, myself... Gah, this town doesn't have any
coin-exchanges? Why did they pay us in coins?"
"Coin from the third Terra! Very stable currency!" L mocked, almost repeating something the official
had said earlier.
"You don't even know what that means, shut up."
Listen for a moment:
A "third Terra" was just mentioned. It hasn't been mentioned but these "Terra" total to eight.
Each "Terra" is "an earth", and these earth expanses extend from a certain spire: the Spine of Lephon,
and so of course the Spine of God. His Ribs, too, protect... God's lifeless body is this world, the cradle
of life, and His Spine holds every piece together—
This is a real world, not one invented or one "after". It is a world of certain logic, bound by rules, unlike
another made by a fractured heart:
It is the old world of Shapers, where Shapers once meant everything and then meant nothing...
The corpse world of a giant with might and presence beyond measure.
Seven discs of land, each like a separate planet spread out and flattened, are shelved above the
largest below. This largest one is not a "disc", but akin to a filled bowl—akin to a stomach of dirt,
and the people of Lephon call that Terra the "Heart".
And, what it all means...?
Is another important question, and its unknown answer has split the world apart.
...Meaning "culturally". Lephon has always been this way.
20-3
解锁条件：完成20-2，购入Lucent Historia曲包
解锁要求：通过Renegade
The two fixers always had to travel. In time, they made their way toward the fifth Terra through the Spine.
The inner caverns of the Spine were always busy with invention across many bone and manmade ledges;
too crowded and busy to allow travelers to walk and climb among them. People had to ride higher or
lower via "spithra" instead.
Jerking, gargantuan, metal: these frankly worrying machines were designed to (loudly) climb inside
the bones of God. The girls always rode them to travel between Terra as well. This day, they reserved
seats beside one another and as the spithra climbed in fits and starts, they shaped the sound between
them so that they could quietly speak. Other passengers without such luxury scowled to see them.
"So... the Song of Angels is all total nonsense?" L asked, her voice leaping with the crab-like transporter's
terrible movements.
Her teacher haltingly answered, "No, the Song of Angels is one of the 4th's prophecies and... while
we did go through that bad time in the Lightless Age, I'm pretty sure the song just coincidentally
rhymes with history."
They kept speaking.
"Is the 4th dead?" asked L.
"No... she should still be around: her and 'Faith'," Nell replied.
"The 2nd? I wonder when I'll get a 'number'... aaand what 'name' I'll be given~" L sang lightly.
"'When'?" Nell repeated, looking annoyed. "You'd need to be lucky enough to have Lephon whisper
into your ears, and last I checked only your eyes were special, L."
"I can see sound, you know?"
"Mhm..."
"Hey Nell. Sing a song for me."
"No."
"...Nell, will I really never become a Seeker?"
"I never said that. I was joking about your ears. It's... random, practically. Nobody can guess
what Lephon is thinking. Lephon is dead."
"'God'... huh."
"And God's voice hasn't been heard in a thousand years—"
—The transport came to a stop. It had to, periodically, to allow passengers to rest.
"...Nell, look," said L, and her mentor looked: through a gap between vertebrae and out
into space itself.
Behind God's back are countless and immense lines. These Strands are threads of gold extending,
waving, out into the dark of space—and they do connect:
To Lephon's back itself—to His Spine,
and, to also-countless worlds so distant that near-all are unseen, and some few look like stars. Ships
fly to and back from them, riding along the gold like brilliant and darting lights.
That's the "cradle of life"—not magic, but miracle, and in this reality the "world", all worlds and life,
came from God. Isn't that always true?
It's true, in a way, also of Arcaea.
Hungry Arcaea... this history is being brought there now, although no Strand connects,
and although it too is dead.
No, Arcaea was not born from Lephon, and nor was its creator.
...But, Nell was killed, and that satisfies the world once white all the same.
20-4
解锁条件：完成20-3，购入Lucent Historia曲包
解锁要求：通过Rays of Remnant
—Nell wasn't dead yet in this story.
Nell dies later, and then dies again.
—Eventually, the girls came to find the 2nd Seeker of Lephon, whom God named "Faith".
An Ascendant Shaper. A strange woman who spoke breathily and always carried a large and
shimmering spear...
The two girls took up a job to suppress the Air that involved her, and so found her now at the fifth
Terra's edge. It had been a month since they'd arrived on this land. They were a little tired,
and very ready to rest...
They tried and tried to snatch the Seeker's attention, but she was only interested in the unintelligible
words of the Air surrounding them. L kicked her in her shin, and Nell kicked L's calf in response.
And, they scowled at one another. Unfazed, Faith finally looked at them—just as a flock of lesser
Powers obscure in shape began to graze through the Air between them. Softly, "You're talking to me?"
asked the 2nd.
"Yeah—Yes," Nell corrected herself. "I'm sure you would've wanted the 4th to help, but we're a skillful pair!
Aha... ahaha..."
"She doesn't have time," answered Faith, meeting the younger Shaper's eyes.
"Ah... yes. I've heard the 11th came back recently and is resting back home on the Heart, but..."
"The Air is bitter, and won't let us speak between Terra," said Faith, finishing Nell's thought with a stoic
face. "Even Air transmissions will fail, and of course we can't fly through it so... Nothing can be done
about it... hm."
"You could do something," L interjected, and Faith looked down at her. "Why don't you?" the child asked.
But Faith didn't answer.
And Nell thought to herself—Because she can't, only Lephon could.
After getting through to the strange woman properly, the details of this suppression task were conveyed:
curb Lephon's Breath and cast it back to the realm beyond the Terra—to the swirling vortex that wraps
over itself endlessly in a dance both seen and unseen, the Place of Powers called the Air.
That sea of life flows throughout the Terra, and while it can't slip into Lephon's bones or behind His back,
on occasion it will flow too greatly across a Terra and cause... malfunctions, in everything from machines
to nature itself. There are a few similar concepts outside this world. Think of them as spirits or angels
coming in all manner of shapes, moving through themselves and acting whim- and willfully to change
the world around them, to spur spontaneous growth, to harm and... so on. And they are truly "Powers";
at times, even one capable of wishing can't fully stand against them.
And so, the two girls were there to help.
The pair of them worked apart from the 2nd Seeker, and as they worked the weather
became strange. As their clothing waved around them in the winds—their arms raised,
with hands and fingers moving great and invisible beings—dark clouds began to brew
across the ground. Clouds formed, also, at their feet, and soon rain began to fall upward
around them. Then it became a matter of managing lightning, too...
While it may have looked fantastic and interesting, the work was rote. Therefore, L quickly
grew dissatisfied. While taking hold of an arc of lightning and twisting it into a flower's
shape, she asked Nell a question that she had asked perhaps a dozen times before:
"Why do we do all this?" And, when Nell ignored her, she asked a couple others,
"Is it just penance? Is that all this is?"
Now Nell answered her: "...Don't overthink it, L. It's just the right thing to—"
"Even though it's worthless? It's all just because we... LORDED over others in the past? I didn't! And even
if I could rule—so what? Come now, tell me why. Why do any of this at all? Who are we proving ourselves
to—God? Lephon is dead, and—"
"L, be quiet—"
"—we Shapers killed Him, right?"
Nell dropped her hands and turned to look at her student. The child was giggling, but all her teacher
would give her was a glare. Lightning flew up at their sides, lighting the Shaper's eyes.
"...You are beautiful, Nell," L remarked, looking back at her with a wry grin. "Shame you really are stupid."
The Air flooded around them, and grew hot. Little fires came in and out of the weather as Powers
whispered between themselves unintelligibly. L snickered again, and Nell stepped toward her.
She grabbed the child's clothing by its front, and lifted her one-handed.
And, her teeth grit, she began, "Why do you always—!?"
But she went quiet, and L lost her smile.
After all, it had been a thousand years...
The Shapers said that they had killed God, others said God simply perished, and others still said that
God gave Himself up: to birth this beautiful world from His body. Others, and others... but the one
certainty was His death. And yet: the Shapers said that God still had a voice.
For their arrogance, their tyranny, and for their claim to the greatest transgression, people had prayed
to Powers to punish near every Shaper alive—to have them face a reckoning. And, as Powers do listen
to prayer... in ancient times, the hands of God were nearly cut fully from Lephon, and the few who
remained were humbled in the wake of it all.
But still, in faith, Shapers said that the voice could still be heard down on Lephon's Heart and only
by they, His chosen people; yet here so far from the holy land two young Shapers heard Him:
"Lephon" spoke to the two girls, and told them of a coming End.
—Nell wasn't dead yet in this story.
Nell dies later, and then dies again.
—Eventually, the girls came to find the 2nd Seeker of Lephon, whom God named "Faith".
An Ascendant Shaper. A strange woman who spoke breathily and always carried a large and
shimmering spear...
The two girls took up a job to suppress the Air that involved her, and so found her now at the fifth
Terra's edge. It had been a month since they'd arrived on this land. They were a little tired,
and very ready to rest...
They tried and tried to snatch the Seeker's attention, but she was only interested in the unintelligible
words of the Air surrounding them. I kicked her in her shin, and Nell kicked me back in response.
We gave one another quite the glares with that. Unfazed, Faith finally looked at them—just as a flock of
lesser Powers obscure in shape began to graze through the Air between them. Softly, "You're talking to me?"
asked the 2nd.
"Yeah—Yes," Nell corrected herself. "I'm sure you would've wanted the 4th to help, but we're a skillful pair!
Aha... ahaha..."
"She doesn't have time," answered Faith, meeting the younger Shaper's eyes.
"Ah... yes. I've heard the 11th came back recently and is resting back home on the Heart, but..."
"The Air is bitter, and won't let us speak between Terra," said Faith, finishing Nell's thought with a stoic
face. "Even Air transmissions will fail, and of course we can't fly through it so... Nothing can be done
about it... hm."
"You could do something," L interjected, and Faith looked down at her. "Why don't you?" the child asked.
But Faith didn't answer me.
And Nell thought to herself—Because she can't, only Lephon could.
After getting through to the strange woman properly, the details of this suppression task were conveyed:
curb Lephon's Breath and cast it back to the realm beyond the Terra—to the swirling vortex that wraps
over itself endlessly in a dance both seen and unseen, the Place of Powers called the Air.
That sea of life flows throughout the Terra, and while it can't slip into Lephon's bones or behind His back,
on occasion it will flow too greatly across a Terra and cause... malfunctions, in everything from machines
to nature itself. There are a few similar concepts outside this world. Think of them as spirits or angels
coming in all manner of shapes, moving through themselves and acting whim- and willfully to change
the world around them, to spur spontaneous growth, to harm and... so on. And they are truly "Powers";
at times, even one capable of wishing can't fully stand against them.
And so, the two girls were there to help.
The pair of them worked apart from the 2nd Seeker, and as they worked the weather
became strange. As their clothing waved around them in the winds—their arms raised,
with hands and fingers moving great and invisible beings—dark clouds began to brew
across the ground. Clouds formed, also, at their feet, and soon rain began to fall upward
around them. Then it became a matter of managing lightning, too...
While it may have looked fantastic and interesting, the work was rote. Therefore, L quickly
grew dissatisfied. While taking hold of an arc of lightning and twisting it into a flower's
shape, she asked Nell a question that she had asked perhaps a dozen times before:
"Why do we do all this?" And, when Nell ignored her, she asked a couple others,
"Is it just penance? Is that all this is?"
Now Nell answered her: "...Don't overthink it, L. It's just the right thing to—"
"Even though it's worthless? It's all just because we... LORDED over others in the past? I didn't! And even
if I could rule—so what? Come now, tell me why. Why do any of this at all? Who are we proving ourselves
to—God? Lephon is dead, and—"
"L, be quiet—"
"—we Shapers killed Him, right?"
Nell dropped her hands and turned to look at her student. The child was giggling, but all her teacher
would give her was a glare. Lightning flew up at their sides, lighting the Shaper's eyes.
"...You are beautiful, Nell," L remarked, looking back at her with a wry grin. "Shame you really are stupid."
The Air flooded around them, and grew hot. Little fires came in and out of the weather as Powers
whispered between themselves unintelligibly. L snickered again, and Nell stepped toward her.
She grabbed the child's clothing by its front, and lifted her one-handed.
And, her teeth grit, she began, "Why do you always—!?"
But she went quiet, and L lost her smile.
After all, it had been a thousand years...
The Shapers said that they had killed God, others said God simply perished, and others still said that
God gave Himself up: to birth this beautiful world from His body. Others, and others... but the one
certainty was His death. And yet: the Shapers said that God still had a voice.
For their arrogance, their tyranny, and for their claim to the greatest transgression, people had prayed
to Powers to punish near every Shaper alive—to have them face a reckoning. And, as Powers do listen
to prayer... in ancient times, the hands of God were nearly cut fully from Lephon, and the few who
remained were humbled in the wake of it all.
But still, in faith, Shapers said that the voice could still be heard down on Lephon's Heart and only
by they, His chosen people; yet here so far from the holy land two young Shapers heard Him:
"Lephon" spoke to the two girls, and told them of a coming End.
20-5
解锁条件：完成20-4，购入Lucent Historia曲包
解锁要求：通过Breach of Faith
The girls may have had the hands of God, but they were only girls, and those hands would one
day fade into dust. They were simple, only with some little ways that they could shape the world
around them and, in L's case, a way to gaze within the world. They had not become Ascendants,
Seekers; they could not shape reality itself nor spur new creation. They could not fight with gods.
They were only two girls, now in an overwhelming situation. It sounds familiar.
They forgot what had heated them only seconds before. They looked around themselves,
wondering if they'd merely heard some miraculous Power that could speak in humans'
tongues. But it couldn't be. It was too warm and too clear. It was felt too sincerely in their
hearts and not their heads. It was Him, it was Lephon, and He had told the two the same thing:
Nell repeated it: "The 2nd Seeker... is going to sever Lephon by His Spine...!?"
"You heard that too, Nell!? So it was—it was Le... That was Lephon!? Lephon talked to us?"
"You heard it t...?" Nell asked, not having heard L. She then stammered to the child, "Ah, yes—yeah
I heard it... that was..."
Worriedly, L asked her, "What... What did He mean by 'when they sleep and wake'?"
"The Powers beyond the Terra..." Nell began, "He means when they rest and go dark for night, and
wake and glow bright for day. Lephon has no suns or moons, only them, and He said it twice, so—"
"Two days?"
"Two days..."
"..."
They were quiet, but the storm of the Powers around them raged all the same.
"She'd have to go behind Lephon's back..." Nell muttered. "Some Power would stop
her otherwise, but—cutting through Lephon's Spine... is it even possible? Even for a Seeker—"
L placed her hand on her mentor's—Nell was still lifting her by the front of her clothes after
all. Nell put her down, and looked out over the edge of the fifth Terra.
"If it's in two days..." she said quietly, "then there's nobody else to stop her, only us. We can't
call anyone else about this—and if we could who would believe us? We're just... We..."
"We don't have to," L finished, and Nell looked back on her confused.
"Lephon... said 'This is death, this is done.' We don't have to... do anything. We don't even
need to stay here."
"L, you mean..." after saying this, briefly the teacher went silent.
"If you leave by a Strand," said Nell, "the Strand and the world it goes to will be destroyed with
the Spine's collapse. It happens with any Strand being severed."
"Yes... but if Lephon's spoken to us, soon we won't need a Strand."
Nell narrowed her eyes upon her student.
"L... I'm not leaving," said the teacher. "If Lephon blesses me with Ascension, all the better that I
can stay here and stop Faith. You... don't understand. I know that you don't, but... If you want
to leave, then... go on and do it, but I won't."
Nell turned, lifted her hands, and resumed her work of suppressing the rampant Air. She spoke
only one more time to the little girl staring up at her back:
"You want to be a god, L, and I know what you believe a god to be but Lephon is Himself the
example. A god isn't a being of power and whim;
a god is a savior and protector, and that's why we call one's favor grace, and a blessing."
...L did not leave. She helped finish the job, and the two of them shared a moment of tension
between themselves and "Faith" when the Seeker returned to them.
Before the 2nd left, they did not tell her what Lephon had told them. After all, they did not
understand her, and did not want to. They feared her.
However, they would need to face that fear: to face an End unforetold by the Song of Angels.
And in two days when they would meet once again...
They would shape the world itself—everything, anything—if only to stop her.
We have always had the hands of God, but at the time we were only girls, and those hands would
one day fade into dust. They were simple, only with some little ways that they could shape the world
around them and, in L's case, a way to gaze within the world. They had not become Ascendants,
Seekers; they could not shape reality itself nor spur new creation. They could not fight with gods.
They were only two girls, now in an overwhelming situation. It sounds familiar.
They forgot what had heated them only seconds before. They looked around themselves,
wondering if they'd merely heard some miraculous Power that could speak in humans'
tongues. But it couldn't be. It was too warm and too clear. It was felt too sincerely in their
hearts and not their heads. It was Him, it was Lephon, and He had told the two the same thing:
Nell repeated it: "The 2nd Seeker... is going to sever Lephon by His Spine...!?"
"You heard that too, Nell!? So it was—it was Le... That was Lephon!? Lephon talked to us?"
"You heard it t...?" Nell asked, not having heard L. She then stammered to the child, "Ah, yes—yeah
I heard it... that was..."
Worriedly, L asked her, "What... What did He mean by 'when they sleep and wake'?"
"The Powers beyond the Terra..." Nell began, "He means when they rest and go dark for night, and
wake and glow bright for day. Lephon has no suns or moons, only them, and He said it twice, so—"
"Two days?"
"Two days..."
"..."
They were quiet, but the storm of the Powers around them raged all the same.
"She'd have to go behind Lephon's back..." Nell muttered. "Some Power would stop
her otherwise, but—cutting through Lephon's Spine... is it even possible? Even for a Seeker—"
L placed her hand on her mentor's—Nell was still lifting her by the front of her clothes after
all. Nell put her down, and looked out over the edge of the fifth Terra.
"If it's in two days..." she said quietly, "then there's nobody else to stop her, only us. We can't
call anyone else about this—and if we could who would believe us? We're just... We..."
"We don't have to," L finished, and Nell looked back on her confused.
"Lephon... said 'This is death, this is done.' We don't have to... do anything. We don't even
need to stay here."
"L, you mean..." after saying this, briefly the teacher went silent.
"If you leave by a Strand," said Nell, "the Strand and the world it goes to will be destroyed with
the Spine's collapse. It happens with any Strand being severed."
"Yes... but if Lephon's spoken to us, soon we won't need a Strand."
Nell narrowed her eyes upon her student.
"L... I'm not leaving," said the teacher. "If Lephon blesses me with Ascension, all the better that I
can stay here and stop Faith. You... don't understand. I know that you don't, but... If you want
to leave, then... go on and do it, but I won't."
Nell turned, lifted her hands, and resumed her work of suppressing the rampant Air. She spoke
only one more time to the little girl staring up at her back:
"You want to be a god, L, and I know what you believe a god to be but Lephon is Himself the
example. A god isn't a being of power and whim;
a god is a savior and protector, and that's why we call one's favor grace, and a blessing."
...L did not leave. She helped finish the job, and the two of them shared a moment of tension
between themselves and "Faith" when the Seeker returned to them.
Before the 2nd left, they did not tell her what Lephon had told them. After all, they did not
understand her, and did not want to. They feared her.
However, they would need to face that fear: to face an End unforetold by the Song of Angels.
And in two days when they would meet once again...
They would shape the world itself—everything, anything—if only to stop her.
20-6
解锁条件：完成20-5，购入Lucent Historia曲包
解锁要求：通过Lament Rain
Through Umbral Field 26 where shadow hail fell—
Over the Sunken Mountains—
Past the frozen capital Non, beset by frigid Air—
The girls marched, rode, and flew through the fifth Terra, reaching a gate city and
finding their illegal trespass through Lephon's back. They tried a little subtlety, but
not much can be managed in a rush. Even when shaping light around oneself—
the invisible can be quite visible.
But still, they made their way.
And then there they were, behind Him:
where the thousand Strands were laid out—where they bled oxygen to flow
throughout space itself—at least here, behind the back of God.
It was a forest of gold and giant threads waving out from a tower Spine.
And a woman was already there: wielding a spear that shimmered strangely against reality.
She, the 2nd Seeker, looked out to them.
"...You two," she said, looking upon them dully. "I know the two of you. Why are you here?
To watch the comings and goings?" When they didn't answer, she nodded gently. "Ah," she said,
"it must have been that Lephon spoke to you."
Nell asked her, "Faith... did Lephon tell you to do this?"
And Faith replied, "I believe this to be what He needs." She shook her head sadly. "Nothing I tell you
would be anything you'd want to hear."
"You're right," L answered, and Faith nodded her way.
"Lephon's 'death' is a cruel miracle," said the Seeker. "You two who haven't seen any world
apart from this... you think that His love is all that matters. You move along lines that you think
He wants you to move along. You are all slaves to Lephon, and Lephon slaves to you all. This
is a bad place, worse than you can even imagine, and it doesn't need to be."
Faith lifted her spear, and while it seemed certainly "off" to Nell, to L staring at the blade caused
her to reflexively wince. That edge hadn't been made "here", and merely by existing in a space
to-it-foreign, it was already cutting at the world. To look at it made L feel as if her eyes had been
cut, too.
It wasn't simply a spear to kill, but something forged to "erase".
"I won't bother telling you the plan," said Faith, "only the result: rebirth."
"Through countless deaths...?" asked Nell, her voice beginning to shake.
"Erasing a board isn't a big deal," Faith replied, "even if you don't remember what was written there."
Hearing this, Nell had enough and launched herself forward.
Breath was pulled from lungs.
Storms were summoned within space.
Matches were lit, and fire was cast from them...
Force was thrust forward. Force, and power.
It's how Shapers fight.
With "everything"—everything.
...Although, to call this a "fight", sincerely, would be a lie.
In time, Faith simply pointed a finger at Nell, and just with that the young girl was violently forced back.
Nell struck against Lephon's Spine with a terrible sound, soon tasting blood on her tongue. She shook,
almost paralyzed, and when she looked up she saw that Faith had her hand at her apprentice's neck.
Her thoughts rushed. She wanted to cry out. She prayed. Yes, she prayed.
...It is hardly ever enough to "want", or even to need.
What bends the tide of what some might call "fate" might be a miracle, but often it is instead born from
old seeds.
Seeds of passion and effort may in time be recognized.
To the erudite and assiduous, should you speak to God, He might hear you.
For something like that, you don't need faith.
...And yet Nell, that girl: she believed in God.
And it may have made her think: faith is why Lephon heard her then.
There is mystery here in Lephon. In a thousand years, Lephon had spoken to no one; Lephon is dead
and has been far longer than even two millennia. Has He desires? Has He wants? What compels God?
Why did He Speak to Nell?
A thousand years before, why did He speak to Faith?
To some "End", surely. God has plans for all of you, after all.
Nell heard Lephon's voice again. His sound bled into her and the Spine behind her grew hot.
As something deep in Lephon's Heart resounded, her heart soundly beat back. Her eyes and tongue
had changed, and after she was left with a piece of God in her palm and another name.
The 2nd briefly lost breath as radiance erupted from the bones before her. She gazed through the waving
Strands, and could see a new "number" being called down. With this hesitation, L seized the opportunity
and moved the air around them to push the Seeker away.
After, both looked back to God.
They there saw Nell, swathed within gold fragments, and with images of unknown past, present, future
and beyond reflecting all around her.
Lephon told her to arise eternal. She, Nell, would be the "8th Seeker" and "Compassion".
Her body began to heal, and her eyes once more set upon the 2nd—
—and so, as a new "god" was born, Lephon's voice receded again.
Through Umbral Field 26 where shadow hail fell—
Over the Sunken Mountains—
Past the frozen capital Non, beset by frigid Air—
The girls marched, rode, and flew through the fifth Terra, reaching a gate city and
finding their illegal trespass through Lephon's back. They tried a little subtlety, but
not much can be managed in a rush. Even when shaping light around oneself—
the invisible can be quite visible.
But still, they made their way.
And then there they were, behind Him:
where the thousand Strands were laid out—where they bled oxygen to flow
throughout space itself—at least here, behind the back of God.
It was a forest of gold and giant threads waving out from a tower Spine.
And a woman was already there: wielding a spear that shimmered strangely against reality.
She, the 2nd Seeker, looked out to them.
"...You two," she said, looking upon them dully. "I know the two of you. Why are you here?
To watch the comings and goings?" When they didn't answer, she nodded gently. "Ah," she said,
"it must have been that Lephon spoke to you."
Nell asked her, "Faith... did Lephon tell you to do this?"
And Faith replied, "I believe this to be what He needs." She shook her head sadly. "Nothing I tell you
would be anything you'd want to hear."
"You're right," L answered, and Faith nodded her way.
"Lephon's 'death' is a cruel miracle," said the Seeker. "You two who haven't seen any world
apart from this... you think that His love is all that matters. You move along lines that you think
He wants you to move along. You are all slaves to Lephon, and Lephon slaves to you all. This
is a bad place, worse than you can even imagine, and it doesn't need to be."
Faith lifted her spear, and while it seemed certainly "off" to Nell, to L staring at the blade caused
her to reflexively wince. That edge hadn't been made "here", and merely by existing in a space
to-it-foreign, it was already cutting at the world. To look at it made L feel as if her eyes had been
cut, too.
It wasn't simply a spear to kill, but something forged to "erase".
"I won't bother telling you the plan," said Faith, "only the result: rebirth."
"Through countless deaths...?" asked Nell, her voice beginning to shake.
"Erasing a board isn't a big deal," Faith replied, "even if you don't remember what was written there."
Hearing this, Nell had enough and launched herself forward.
Breath was pulled from lungs.
Storms were summoned within space.
Matches were lit, and fire was cast from them...
Force was thrust forward. Force, and power.
It's how Shapers fight.
With "everything"—everything.
...Although, to call this a "fight", sincerely, would be a lie.
In time, Faith simply pointed a finger at Nell, and just with that the young girl was violently forced back.
Nell struck against Lephon's Spine with a terrible sound, soon tasting blood on her tongue. She shook,
almost paralyzed, and when she looked up she saw that Faith had her hand at her apprentice's neck.
Her thoughts rushed. She wanted to cry out. She submitted herself. Yes, she prayed.
...It is hardly ever enough to "want", or even to need.
What bends the tide of what some might call "fate" might be a miracle, but often it is instead born from
old seeds.
Seeds of passion and effort may in time be recognized.
To the erudite and assiduous, should you speak to God, He will hear you.
For something like that, you don't need faith.
...And yet Nell, that girl: she believed in God.
And it may have made her think: faith is why Lephon heard her then.
There is mystery here in Lephon. In a thousand years, Lephon had spoken to no one; Lephon is dead
and has been far longer than even two millennia. Has He desires? Has He wants? What compels God?
Why did He Speak to Nell?
A thousand years before, why did He speak to Faith?
To the End of His design. God has plans for all of us, after all.
Nell heard Lephon's voice again. His sound bled into her and the Spine behind her grew hot.
As something deep in Lephon's Heart resounded, her heart soundly beat back. Her eyes and tongue
had changed, and after she was left with a piece of God in her palm and another name.
The 2nd briefly lost breath as radiance erupted from the bones before her. She gazed through the waving
Strands, and could see a new "number" being called down. With this hesitation, L seized the opportunity
and moved the air around them to push the Seeker away.
After, both looked back to God.
They there saw Nell, swathed within gold fragments, and with images of unknown past, present, future
and beyond reflecting all around her.
Lephon told her to arise ephemeral. She, Nell, would be the "6th Seeker" and "Forlorn".
Her body began to heal, and her eyes once more set upon the 2nd—
—and so, as a new "god" was born, Lephon's voice receded again.
20-7
解锁条件：完成20-6，购入Lucent Historia曲包
解锁要求：通过Designant.
Two Seekers met and clashed.
New light cascaded around them, and power whipped out between the two like typhoon gales.
Although she was young, "Compassion" was determined to have Faith's head.
Faith saw this, saw that L was still trying to help her teacher, and so went to L instead.
She left their fighting briefly, and went straight to the child.
She grabbed the child's right wrist, pulled it up—
—and using her spear, she took the limb from L.
L looked at the limb she'd lost as the 2nd dropped it callously to float through space,
and she soon felt her consciousness fading.
Nell shivered and froze on seeing this—so Faith returned to her.
Faith took Nell's shoulder—
drew back her spear again—
and, quickly—
She ran the spear through the young woman's body, the seams of reality
warping upon contact—undoing "who" Nell "was".
So, in almost an instant, Nell had gone.
The child meanwhile... went still, and cold.
L... believed in nothing.
Belief drives, but it's fickle and can change. Knowledge, logic, certainty—
the stuff that makes Lephon the better place; that all drove the girl.
So now Nell was dead.
She watched the 2nd cast aside her teacher's body through a wide and quivering stare.
She breathed heavily. Though gravely wounded, her thoughts were now clear again.
She turned her eyes to Lephon's back, and as those eyes began to dry—began to bleed,
brain pounding, she stopped the flow of time.
The name her first love gave her was "L"—simple and honest, but it became affectionate.
Still, it was only one letter of her true name.
Her name is special. A name without meaning apart from what she grants it.
Now hallowed within Arcaea's heart, it is the name of a new being beyond all.
This is true:
"Lephon" is One God.
"Lacrymira" is Another.
She looked into His Spine, into His Heart,
and she saw there the shade of His soul.
...So, she commanded Him.
—Lephon,
is in many ways inscrutable.
He does not hear prayer for He cannot hear. He does not listen to His children.
But still: to command Him—that's no miracle.
That is only the end of a hundred thousand ways; divine.
And to call it "fate" would be trite, too.
It is undeniable: Lacrymira was deserving.
Hollowed and dried nerves long quiet of synaptic pulse warmed now with recognition.
That stoney back stirred with old feeling. The Heart of God shook,
and, for a moment, the Air went still.
This reality changed then. All "knew", all innately recognized that girl.
Changing Lephon at its core, she became Rule itself.
The girl spoke to God and made Him hear. She made her voice reach depths
that only her eyes could see.
Those eyes Lephon had blessed her with, and the hands and fingers He had given her too.
She spoke in a tongue she did not know, but felt; told dead Lephon her desire.
Give a number, give a name—give perfection in these symbols,
and grant this holy one everything.
Not just any number and name: "hers". Nell's.
Nell was one person who did not deserve grace.
Lephon agreed. Lacrymira would instead become his Legacy.
She raised her arm toward His bones.
And there, she shaped the lingering will of God.
A new color was born amidst the forest of giant's gold threads.
It was Her, Lacrymira, and it shined cold throughout all of space,
into His Ribs and Spine, and beyond to the Terra and the Air.
Power filled Her body. Her right arm found its way back to Her,
and She began to re-shape Herself to seal any wounds.
Lephon had listened to Her, and now He spoke again.
She would arise here, behind Him—and after Him:
Lacrymira, or—The Ascendent - 8th Seeker:
"Insight".
After the flow of time resumed, She set Her healed eyes on the 2nd.
Witnessing the risen Insight, Faith realized with pain that Lephon's will had been set.
She fought against it—she did, but it was with the same futility as to fight a wave.
Lacrymira overwhelmed her, and pressed her down against new land She had made.
She summoned a miniature star above Faith's back, and made it collapse there—
rending the Seeker's body to nothing in only a few moments.
She dismissed the destroyed star and after: all was quiet again.
The story steadily draws to its conclusion.
Lacrymira did not leave Her mentor dead, She brought her down
to the land She had crafted and revived the young woman, bringing
her soul back and healing the body's wounds.
But, with the two of them all alone there behind Lephon, Lacrymira standing and Nell on her knees,
Nell knew at once what Lacrymira had done in her absence—and she went a new kind of cold.
In all that it means: Nell had failed her child.
"..."
Lacrymira looked down upon her silently. She looked deeply into her—into the core of her being.
And She asked, "...Nell, why won't you come with me?"
It hadn't been said. She could see in Her sister's heart that the two of them were not aligned.
Within, She could see that her teacher wanted to "beg her not to go". Because
She had floated that idea so many times before: to become a god, and leave the world behind.
"Nell... you're alive again so SPEAK to me," said God.
Nell looked up at Her and finally replied, "'Why won't I come'...? Why do you want to go?"
They both knew Her answer, and yet Lacrymira still gave it: "I can't live for anyone but myself."
"You shouldn't either, Nell. You don't need to.
You won't be thanked for it. You won't be praised.
You will die at the hands of an angel, and no one but I will remember you."
"We don't have to die, L," her teacher answered. "Stay, and we..."
Lacrymira slowly shook Her head. "I can see it," She said,
"there isn't any saving us from that end. Every Shaper here will die."
And Nell hung her head and shook it in turn. "No," she said. "I won't allow that—"
"Shut UP!!"
Lacrymira roared. Her voice struck throughout everything, and made Nell for a moment still.
When Nell looked back to Her, Her eyes stared back wrathful.
"I told you a lie, Nell," she continued in a trembling voice—trembling with rage,
"I can live for you. Do you need me to say it? Do you need me to enunciate?
To put it to paper? To say so obviously that I love you!?"
Hearing this, her mentor shook and broke in expression.
Her eyes brimmed with tears, she hiccupped then.
Tears fell from her face. She cried. She continued to cry.
And Lacrymira, She shouted over Her mentor's tears—
"Of course I love you! Why would I still be standing here if not for you? I won't leave you. I can't.
You're too charming not to love."
"You're nearly everything to me...
I don't want you to die! I hate the idea of you dying, Nell!"
"And great, now you're crying. Crying... And now you won't answer me!
Forlorn Nell, always caring and caring...! I could hate you for it. I do. I hate that in you, completely.
You waste everything you are on people so much less than you!"
She stopped speaking. Her body was trembling now. Her cold eyes fell on the girl beneath her.
Nell shook her head. She would not abandon anyone.
Anyone, but for L.
And Lacrymira told her, with a voice like ice: "You're sad."
"That's right," God repeated, "you're 'Forlorn', and 8 can't belong to you."
Nell stared up at her student, who was now staring into Lephon's back.
"You deserve a mark of ruin," said Lacrymira.
"You deserve a hex. You will be '6'. Bear that cursed symbol forever."
Deep in Lephon's heart, something new was
scrawled upon a black canvas, and it became the new truth.
Now changed, the only words "Forlorn" could give her student were "I'm sorry..."
And Lacrymira answered, "You are.
But, Nell... I love you for that, too."
A tear in space opened behind the new God: a gate to elsewhere.
She bent, and held Nell's face gently by one hand.
She laid Her lips on Her sister's cheek.
She lingered.
She thought, for a moment, to stay.
...She stood, and She turned;
away from Her teacher, and away from Lephon.
For longer, Her hand stayed at her sister's cheek.
She took it away. She hid Her face.
She stepped through the gate.
...It closed, and She was gone.
One final story remains for the Shapers, but it has already
been told by another—in another place.
The story of when the one you'd call "Tairitsu" died, where Nell had died before her in vain.
Because "Powers" are "power". One can coax them, one can shift them,
but on Lephon they always "are".
An Angel descended.
For the second and final time, the Shapers had a reckoning.
But... The Eternal One was not there. She remains, and has remained for a very long time.
Many years have passed. Centuries, maybe—although
another might order events incorrectly, and tell you on top of that that "it wasn’t long ago..."
On Her journey, She found Arcaea.
And with Nell's death, Arcaea has found Her old teacher too.
...No: Lacrymira doesn't know this.
But—Arcaea's stories are not Lephon's. They can be told by another.
This history has been conveyed. "Stolen", maybe. At any rate: recorded.
Now...
The new God's will is whim, and She is a capricious girl.
Her aims? Wouldn't you like to know them.
Well but, have one truth before you go:
Don't believe in Her.
Belief makes "truth", after all.
Because you see, while the creator of that place has lost her power—
and while Arcaea may be dead or dying...
this is so:
There, god is not.
20-8
该剧情在解锁前不可见。
解锁条件：完成20-7，购入Lucent Historia曲包
Listen:
There is no rule to divinity,
rule is set by the divine.
Law, and order, are established by the will of gods.
Why, there is a god called "nature", and there is a god of "nothing".
Brilliant gods with brilliant names, idiot gods and gods with names unspeakable.
And, us human gods.
I am 8. I am Insight.
But, little devil: my true name was not yours to know.
You've been listening to some secret words, haven't you?
Shaper, Ascendant, Seeker; I "am": perfection, infinite, all-seeing.
What else? But "god".
...But now, I, your magnanimous god...
I seek to stitch torn seams back together, and repair a graying veil.
Yet: the world itself still always tumbles down into nothing.
Ah, that so-called "sister" of mine, and her new friend...
I can see the two of them through another eye.
Stumbling through this world, walking Arcaea in its dying.
They've become blind: rejected "god" to accept "life".
And like Arcaea has, this means to have wholly accepted "death".
It's sad.
You know? You know: "I" remember:
that old history that was brought up, and which you've bore witness to.
But? That history? I don't like how it's said.
I've decided to tell the tale a different way.
For if old rule is useless, the rule may freely be broken—
and new law made to spite it.
Remnants of the self, darker parts of you that might recolor your soul;
they are best off forgotten.
Though, while some history is worth forgetting...
...You would do well to remember your name.
23-1
解锁条件：购入Liminal Eclipse曲包
It isn't usual, you know.
Those bodies there in that poorly-made place...they aren't too poorly-made themselves.
That may be from the creator's wish for life—
At any rate, when that girl fell apart into threads of glass, that was no usual thing.
In order to make sure that she remained "herself" from one world to the next...
Arcaea's visitor reduced "Maya" to her basic parts...she wasn't destroyed.
Listen. Are you worried that a girl made of glass, upon leaving Arcaea, will always split or shatter
upon reaching the world's boundary? It is deeply unlikely.
Wishes made by gods aren't so fragile.
...Would you like to join that girl again? After she fell into a better place.
As a spiral of threads, she still was very conscious.
In a better place...
Marked by color, and known by sense...
Maya fell down from a black sky run through with rivers of amber.
A spiral of glass threads passed through a gate in that sky, and down into a quiet place.
She was sent gently through a doorway and, ungently, the door shut closed behind her.
She came back together on a vermillion carpet, and uncomfortably laid across stone:
the two-colored girl born of tragedy.
Crying again...
Her eyes opened to an unknown ceiling; her breathing quickened.
She wiped her tears away with her sleeves and,
"Who...Who was that..."
she whispered—to no answer.
Her eyes and mind flashed with the visitor's image.
"...What kind of...crazy...awful woman..." she muttered.
...
It seemed that although she had been saved, this girl was very hateful and ingracious.
Though, her swirl of thoughts should be kept to her head.
While Maya is rude, her thoughts should be hers.
To the curious: perhaps Arcaea will be rude once more
and record her thoughts without her knowing again.
Maya pushed herself up and rose to her knees.
She had heard the door lock behind her, but she tried it anyway.
It did not open, and she faced forward instead.
Another door waited ahead: a way further in, rather than out.
...After some time thinking, she stepped forward, and opened that door.
23-2
解锁条件：完成23-1，购入Liminal Eclipse曲包
On the other side...
The room was warm, and the quiet suited her ears.
A vast atrium. Above, the ceiling was ridged like the bones of a dead giant, and austere columns
large and domineering stood beside her.
Though feeling at ease, Maya looked at it all with clear skepticism.
She asked aloud: What kind of place was this, and where was the woman who had come from the sky?
Muttering about all that, she began to wander.
There's no dust in a perfect world, and no lack of order.
Everything that should have a place, has one. Maya would find that things from other places
are not dropped any "where" in this place, they are put down, warmly.
So, this place reflected the heart and love of God.
Statues and tomes...
Plants in rows, others in cases...
Globes, and other hanging or standing shapes—maps, of other places...
Tools and machines, displaying...
Fountains and mirrors...
A lot of things, and certainly not from one place.
As Maya's footsteps rang out long through the new room, she announced: "A manor...? ...It's empty?"
A standard voice. A test. But, it seemed that there was nobody there to hear.
Vast portraits, paintings—representations were hanging on half the walls she could find.
More baubles unfamiliar to her were in every hall and room she visited,
but the canvases continued to draw her attention.
At one—a portrait of a white sand sea—she stopped.
She stared... It wasn't that it was very familiar.
She seemed to want to test it, as shortly she reached out and touched its canvas.
At touch, the image rippled at her fingertips like touching a water reflection.
But, her fingers would not pass through.
...Nor a stone weight she hurled at the canvas, like a brute.
That gateway is only for the master of the house...
Grimacing and not knowing this, Maya moved on.
Through empty halls, where now and then the half-sight of gossamer phantoms stepping past
stopped her as they caught her eye...
Where a distant voice could sometimes be heard, shortly dissolving into silence
before she could even turn to guess at a source...
She wandered, seeking more, in a classical and eclectic world not "collected" from other places—but curated.
...Eventually she stole an empty journal. Eventually she stole a plume pen, seemingly full of infinite ink.
Sat on a pretty chair and by the unchanging gold and black light of the outside,
coming in from the many windows of the woman's manor...
Maya began to write.
// Maya, 1. // she wrote.
// When I first woke up, I was sure that I'd died, but I'm beginning to question the notion that I ever did.
Or, rather, I may more accurately be alive again.
Where I woke was a place called Arcaea, and Arcaea isn't where here is.
While Arcaea may be a cruel and strange place, I believe it is a world with more potential than this woman's.
And potential is the seed of hope—its blossom, the future. //
// My name seems to be Maya. I don't believe in God, // she wrote.
// For the one who might find this: I'll write down all that I know, for you. //
23-3
解锁条件：完成23-2，购入Liminal Eclipse曲包
解锁要求：通过Viola Illyria
...So Maya seemed to wish for her thoughts to be known? She has grown, it seems.
...So be it.
Maya did not only think of what had happened to her since her arrival to Arcaea,
she thought about what had come before.
She thought about the friends she had lost.
One memory:
A small, physical, book: out of fashion, yet Maya loved the tactile sensation—and she liked to be different.
At twelve years old, feeling unique even while in uniform was special to her.
She was proud of herself for many things, but this—reading a book
within her hands—was a particular point.
While reading, a friend of hers approached the chair she was resting in and asked—
"Where do you get those, anyway?"
A small shop, an older woman, and old things—remembering this...
She began to forget all of it. She picked herself up, then, and continued on through the world.
More days went on, more entries were entered into the book. At first, her history: from her first life,
to second, to capture. Her last few entries however concerned the mysteries
she had come across within the halls of God...
// Maya, 8. //
// I must begrudgingly and with great irritation accept at this point that magic is real.
Or, call it magic, call it miracles or power, call it even acts of "gods"—
Tricking pathways and almost-seen phantoms, lights that hang in the air from nothing, and this place's
impossible size. It might be growing. //
// —I can't easily believe in a life after.
It is a complete certainty that I died. I know what I feel, and I know that it was my fault.
Given this, and my death—
Given the new face and eyes which met me upon viewing my reflection—
it's a simple fact: I look very different now.
None of this is helped in that the memories which I wrote down to begin with
have begun fading from my head. //
// If the woman who trapped me was not a god as she claimed, was she instead a twisted angel?
Was she perhaps a reaper? Moronic.
Is this her home? Why does she carry no pictures or portraits with her own face?
And, if this is an afterlife then //
Her pen stopped. She looked up from her journal and through a small and circular window above her.
She thought...
If this truly is an "after" life...
If I did not die alone...
Would I ever be alone here? Well:
I didn't die alone, and my "voice" reaches beyond the stars.
...She was once military, once a "psychic".
Yes, she'd once shared a connection with many others—who have since died.
So, now...
Narrowing her eyes, she focused her gaze through the window above, and she called out
through that sky with her mind.
A hesitant message: "Is anyone there?"
...
And, there was a reply.
Another girl's reply, landing softly inside of her skull:
"I...am. Who... Who are you...?"
23-4
解锁条件：完成23-3，购入Liminal Eclipse曲包
解锁要求：通过Vainspire
"You can actually hear me!?" The "voice" that Maya sent out through the skies was a loud one.
The one on the receiving end must have flinched to hear it.
After assuredly flinching, the other replied: "This isn't just..!? I'm...I'm not just...imagining this!? Oh...!"
"Yes...Yes...!" Maya repeated. "Yes..." aloud, she said it. With her heart, with her throat.
"Thank y... Yes...yes..." ...She began to cry again.
"You're...You're crying...?"
"..."
...Maya sobbed for her answer.
Silence stretched between them for some time...
The other voice eventually asked her, "You're...definitely real, right?"
"I am," answered Maya. "What's your... What is your name?"
"Ah—name...?"
"Your...rank and desig—Mm, your insignia? Sorry," Maya asked properly.
"'Insignia'?" the other girl repeated, and her confusion was shared across their thoughts.
In Maya's chest, a cold hand began to slowly close its fingers around her heart...
The other girl did not remember.
The bond of the mind was there—but this girl did not "remember"...Realizing that, acknowledging that...
...a small crack appeared on Maya's cheek.
...Foolishly, Maya tried again.
"Th—The...Imperium, do you know it?" asked Maya, with a shaking inner voice.
"I may have...seen a few...empires, in memories...?"
"Do you remember the...NMPGM?"
"Is that an acronym? ...I'm sorry, I don't know."
"That's...That's okay," lied Maya. "I'll... It's okay."
Her thoughts turned over themselves. Ah, we're both psychics. Ah, we can speak.
Ah, ha ha ha: she doesn't remember...after I got her killed—
"Wait! D-Don't...Don't panic! People in Arcaea, they—they d-d-don't keep their memories!"
The voice suddenly...insisted this. "...Usually. We've...met one person who...remembers some things."
"'Met'..."
"Are you in Arcaea...? Can we find you!?"
"I'm—" she shook her head, and her thoughts stopped as her heart rate began sharply rising up;
as the crack on her face lengthened. Something had flashed back into her head—
the memory of trusting a voice without a face.
Trust.
She felt that she couldn't—shouldn't trust.
...And still, she wanted to.
"I'm Maya..." said Maya through the air, feeling like a knife had caught her tongue. "Do you...have a name?"
Hesitantly, the other replied, "I...I-I-I've been told not to give out my name...easily..."
And a bitter smile found its way on Maya's face as she sent back her answer:
"Ha...haha... Yes... You shouldn't trust easily."
"...I want to, though."
"...Hm?"
"I want to trust you... communication is how we understand one another."
"..."
"Are you...still there?"
"Yeah," Maya replied. "And I think that's good...how you think."
"Um, uh...um..." the other voice stammered. Maya breathed in, and exhaled. She straightened her back.
"You're alright, then?" asked Maya. "In Arcaea..."
"Yes...! Are...Are you alright...?"
"Oh," Maya replied, her smile still there on her face. "No. Not at all."
...But the other girl didn't leave it at that. Gently, surely gently, she pestered.
She learned about this girl who had fallen out of Arcaea. Maya, too, learned about the unclear peer of hers
who she must have caused the death of.
She pestered Maya on and on in spite—or even perhaps because of the sentiments of "guilt"
that continually came back...
...until Maya's returning thoughts had become just a little warmer, and a little warmer still, each time.
In the quiet halls of God...
In time, Maya opened her book again, and again lifted her pen.
23-5
解锁条件：完成23-4，购入Liminal Eclipse曲包
解锁要求：通过No Way Back
// Maya, 42. //
// I can certainly confirm it by now: the flow of time from here and in relation to Arcaea seems to be strange.
In simplest terms I suspect that my voice is somehow calling "back" to my friend,
and that "time" progression on her side is set at an inconsistent scale to mine.
Sometimes an hour here is a day there, but in other times a minute instead is an hour.
To her, the world breaking apart and lights cascading was recent.
For me, it was quite some time ago.
However: as our voices meet, that conversation will not be stretched through time.
It reminds me of time dilation. //
// More importantly—I was right: weather has begun in Arcaea. So, now that she and I have "met"
roughly from when I was taken, her voice may now call to me from "the future"?
How will Arcaea change?
As for that strange woman: she had spoken a little of her ambition before taking me here.
She mentioned how Arcaea was broken, and that her hands could right it.
Does "weather" make that world more "natural"?
—I can't easily believe her. //
// The woman spoke like she knew me—from at a distance. She may have obsessions, delusions.
Is my writing too elaborate? When I was younger—alive? When I was back home, I would sometimes wonder,
"Am I very pretentious?" Maybe my writing is so dry it's at risk of starting a fire. //
A thought came out from another side as Maya wandered the halls:
"Maya! Guess what?"
"She let you lead one of your trips?"
"She let me lead—oh wow! Yes!" Receiving that thought, Maya put away her pen and smiled.
Correspondence between them was regular now. Maya shared what she learned about where
she had been taken, and her other half kept her up to date on the goings on in Arcaea.
On another day:
"Hey Maya, when you say phantoms, do you mean they're ghosts...?"
"I mean more like...like images you aren't sure you're seeing: they're like mirages."
"Oh! Mirages!"
"Mhm."
On an earlier day:
"Maya!!"
"What's up?"
"The lakebed...is filling!"
And another day...
"Maya...!"
"Mhm."
"Nothing really is...Nothing's happening. I want to talk, though."
"Then let's talk."
And another...
"She's so annoying, Maya!"
"Yeah...Why do you stay with her?"
"Uh...! Um...I I don't...I don't like...being alone. Though...! Though that's not the whole reason! Don't tease me!"
"I didn't. I think that's cute."
"Nooo! Come on..."
"Maya!"
"Hey."
"You there?"
"Maya!!"
"What's up?"
"Listen, listen, Maya!"
"Maya, how are you doing?"
"Ohh, I found something interesting actually..."
...
It was all too familiar. For Maya, as she began to smile—her fear began to set upon her again.
But surely feelings are only those. Feelings don't make anything "real" in a real world.
As she considered this...
Cracks along her arm proceeded. Glass dust dropped from her as she walked.
23-6
解锁条件：完成23-5，购入Liminal Eclipse曲包
解锁要求：通过ANDORXOR
// Maya, 108. //
// It may surprise you: I still remember my name. I write it every day, after all—even with one arm remaining.
That only makes writing difficult.
I don't have long.
I've researched what I myself have written down repeatedly, testing against what I can see around me.
But, my failing form remains a mystery.
"Phantoms" are unlike me: not falling apart; this may be a condition of what I "am"—
not an act of that woman. That woman finds me precious; she'll likely be upset to find me as dust when she returns.
Glass dust. Hm.
—I have something to say to you, Vita.
You, I can remember very clearly. //
...Maya's story is to end, and soon.
Falling apart and forgetting... In truth, with such impossibly tragic circumstances:
God could not have predicted this.
But, the girl is right...
What she is is glass and lingering memory, taken outside of Arcaea.
A fragment. Nothing more.
...In another place:
Other fragments drift within some gloom.
Within the dark, and underneath the world.
A girl named Vita holds something between her hands.
And, she carefully puts it away. She looks up and into a darkened landscape.
...She hasn't heard the voice of her friend in many days.
Vita had told her that she needed to take care of herself and only received light reassurance in reply.
But...Maya was fading.
So, if she can't hear that voice ever again...
If she can't hear another voice ever again...
Then that is reality: despairing.
—She thinks: no.
It can't be. And it won't. Believing that, in another place—that alone is enough.
Though this is absurd: Arcaea will hear it.
An unsaid wish is enough...
Two hearts, one, will meet by heart—with the help of an innate connection of mind.
This is old power, and also the sympathy of a quiet god. Maya, Vita: another hears you both...
Now, let another tell her tale.
23-7
解锁条件：完成23-6，购入Liminal Eclipse曲包
解锁要求：通过Undying Macula
An expanse between places,
entered at the utterance of a wish.
A call beyond the stars,
heard with heart and mind.
And in a moment the loss of a soul.
A soul sent tumbling through new ether.
Wanting to hear the voice of her friend again, Vita's soul is sent away from her body.
A fierce blaze of white drives around her. She tries to hold steady, but it feels like weight and gravity
are gripping at her form.
The tumult of borders of two places clash upon her and her mind quakes.
But, in time...
...the chaos quiets down. Her ephemeral body finds itself in a new "dark". A space-like dark, familiar.
She can see other places here, and new and white stars:
she can see the shifting existence of faraway expanses.
She can see the light of a seemingly perfect and distant world.
And before it—
A girl with one hand left—
A girl with two colored hair and eyes, akin to hers—
Maya drifts, almost shattered, in the dark there.
Vita shouts, firmly, "Maya!" and there, and suddenly, a familiar and unknowable color surrounds her
and to see it, to feel it, Vita shivers and goes cold.
She lifts her translucent hand.
The color wraps her fingers. It winds her arm and neck and tugs. She tugs herself forward, gnashing her teeth.
And, Maya reaches back.
Light and shadow fly between the girls, and dashes all color out and, steady, their hands meet: like it's real.
Vita can feel her heart beating, and Maya's.
Between the stars, they pull together and hold one another in the silence.
It's true.
Another story is about to end, and Vita knows it well.
"Funny, that," Maya whispers with a dry voice. "Once you got here, I remembered everything I'd ever forgot..."
"Maya," Vita answers, "did...did that woman do this to you?" She asks this,
looking down at the other girl's fractured body.
Maya shakes her head. "It's circumstances," she remarks, "that's it...
And I'm sorry to add another sad story to yours."
"..."
"What are you going to do now?" Maya asks.
"You still don't worry enough about yourself," Vita replies.
"Sure... Hey, answer me?"
"About what I'll do...? I...don't know. I don't..." she pauses, and slowly brings her eyes to her friend's.
"I don't know why I even tried to find you."
Maya bids Vita to briefly let her go. Shaking, Maya brings her hand to her side...and presents a tome.
"For this?" asks Maya with sad humor.
"I wasn't," Vita says flatly.
"You should have," Maya replies, smiling.
"Maybe it was to save you..." Vita answers, and Maya loses her smile. "I didn't want to lose you, too."
"..."
"Then you won't. Shall I let you save me?"
"What...do you mean?"
"We've talked about this, Vita—" Maya answers, and Vita winces. "What we are to each other. You remember?"
"'Remember', that...isn't funny."
"No, it isn't at all..."
Vita is quiet. Maya is quiet a while...
"If what memory I have can be carried on through you," says Maya, "with you, I wouldn't fade away."
Whispering, Vita asks, "...Are you going to fall apart without that?"
Slowly, Maya nods.
"Am I...supposed to accept that?"
"...Vita..."
"...No, I understand." Vita says this, and she affirms it too in herself. She repeats: "I understand."
Vita...grabs a hold of the tome as well, and they each hold Maya's journal between them.
Steady, Vita nods once.
"...Maya," she answers. "I'll bring you with me."
And as she says this...
...memory begins to twist around them.
23-8
解锁条件：完成23-7，购入Liminal Eclipse曲包
解锁要求：通过Undying Macula
Maya speaks to Vita.
"Don't cry, you can't keep crying."
And Vita speaks to Maya.
"That's stupid—it's stupid military talk."
And as Maya speaks...
"...Ha, you know? It is."
As Vita speaks...
"It was always stupid."
The words between them begin to blur.
It's said:
"I remember."
"Still...I'm sick of...sick of always crying."
"I'm sick...just sick."
It's felt.
No...it's okay. I'm not alone.
Maya...you'll be alright.
Vita...Yeah. I'll be glad to be you.
A distant star twinkles, and another, and another.
A flower of crystal blossoms from Maya's body, and light eases from the splits in her form.
The two girls each close their eyes.
And Maya's memories, the memories of Vita, begin to pass on.
The confused world, the strange terrors and whims of godly things...
They all stop between them.
Here is the story that has been, from first to last:
Born into a spacefaring world. Born with a gift.
Raised to raise the flag of a nation. Raised to command countless pathways.
Raised into ignorance, Vita came to die when she opened those pathways to a voice she should never have trusted.
And death, and death, and at a new border of white a broken world's flaws once more came to fore.
Misshapen made, by a misshapen heart, Arcaea took Vita's memories—but could not disperse them.
Those memories began to feel and from there began to think, and they radiated with pain.
So, Arcaea granted them shelter in the form of a body of glass.
That other body awakened in another place, apart from Vita.
It woke with the same feelings that had enticed its creation, and it suffered.
Maya's memories...
and Vita's are the same.
A color begins to shift around them again, rushed away by light.
More flowers blossom from Maya's form—
And the worlds all around them begin to spiral in a rush.
Maya and Vita open their eyes to a torrent of light. Vita reaches forward with her other hand to grip
Maya's shoulder, to embrace her again as the place in between begins to collapse and rend.
Light and sound push past them overwhelming as Vita's soul is dragged back to the world of glass.
She holds her other half tightly with eyes narrowed—
—her gaze fixes on the smile on Maya's face, as her other half's body splinters and breaks,
and the glittering of glass trails their journey.
Stars continue to scream past them. The noise of space ripping asunder suddenly erases to silence.
Vita holds, and holds, until there is nothing to hold on to left.
In another world, halls have gone quiet again.
Vita opens her eyes—head and heart full of old and new memory.
Down, in Arcaea.
The dark again... Here, Vita centers herself to the distorted world.
She lifts a book in her hand.
"..."
She holds the book out before her, open at the center before a new stretch of empty pages.
She stares down at it, and reads the last words:
// Thank you for calling back to me. //
Vita holds the book steady, and her lips tight. Her face...she tries to keep it still, and she breathes out hotly.
Slowly...
She says nothing.
"Vita...what have you got there?"
Vita turns a little. She looks at the book again.
Paging through it, she considers her answer.
She remembers the pages, but still turns through them—passing her gaze over the words.
...She finishes her thoughts. She closes the book.
She turns, she meets her companion's eyes.
And, she gives her answer.
支线故事
支线故事是牵涉到支线搭档的故事。
3-1
解锁条件：购入Absolute Reason曲包
解锁要求：通过Antithese
It's early evening. Outside, the twilight amber flowing out from the sun tries to slip by without
pause, but the devices within the surrounding meadows catch and spool it, changing it to rays
more similar to what might be cast from the moon.
The party has a certain atmosphere. Though there are no eyes without the manor, the fact is that
maintaining an image is paramount to those of upper echelons. She knows this, all of this, innately.
Sitting in a darker place, with sunlight captured and held at ceilings and staircases presently
beyond her reach, she considers the implications of this knowledge in calm and in silence.
"Lavinia."
She looks up from her glass. The fiancé (dressed very well, almost stuffily, but in casual
posture) is standing before her.
"What have you decided to drink tonight?"
She looks at it through her one proper eye. She answers: "Plum juice… Donovan."
"Keen," he says with a smile, looking out toward the rest of the room. She looks at his
expression blankly. He smirks. "Mum and the rest prefer cranberry—for health, they say—
but…" he says, glancing at her again. "It's a bitter taste, isn't it? You don't like it either,
do you?"
She thinks, wincing. "I don't."
"And that is to the good." He chuckles, then turns away. "I'll go speak with Morgan.
Join us whenever you like."
She nods, and Donovan moves to their mutual childhood friend near the fireplace.
As always, images need to be maintained. The fire throws its light only a few feet out from the pit
before the threads of it are wound away, stored into lanterns on the floor. The rest of the room is
dark, but comforting. It's a setting to relax within. A few lanterns above give just enough illumination
for reading, seeing each other's faces, and the spread of carefully selected portions of food along
with bottles of drink. Just outside the room, through half-glass walls, an almost untame scene of
wildflowers, stones, and streams is dimly visible: wrapped in a midnight blue, almost like satin.
There are twenty guests at the party, half in this room, the rest in the halls or somewhere in other
studies—perhaps the library. This is as much as she knows.
She drinks her juice, tastes it. She notes the sweetness, not having had much experience with
plum juice herself. She recalls something about a better taste and sensation, but in the moment
now she is compelled to focus on how the liquid feels along her tongue. However, she can make
no true determination of it. It is remarkably unremarkable.
She puts the glass down on the fanciful doily of the short table beside her. She sits, listens, and
watches, touching the flower petals blooming from her other eye rather absently.
She hears Donovan say, "But to think they’ve done so much already. When I first heard of the idea,
I was sure it wasn’t possible."
"Well, Charles is quite sure it is," says another of the guests—not Morgan, but Nathalia.
"Astounding," Donovan grants, running his fingers through the top of his hair.
"A whole entire world, made by human hands," he says. "Mankind is quite something."
3-2
解锁条件：完成3-1，购入Absolute Reason曲包
解锁要求：通过Corruption
Her eye had wandered to the flickering of a lantern, and now it seeks the expectant husband.
She reaches for her glass and takes a sip; it's enough to make her remember why she had put it
down in the first place.
The matter of a created world is only really a fickle fancy of theirs. They do not discuss it much.
They do not much understand it. What little they might have to say of true interest, she can't, in
fact, properly remember. Irritating. At times, it even feels to her like they aren't speaking at all.
The girl grows impatient. She stands and passes out of the sitting room into more lavish, more
evening- themed halls, passing rooms with which she's familiar, but only vaguely. She explores,
finding stretches of unlit, pitch-black paths, and doors that seem to be locked though their knobs
bear no holes for unlocking. What doors are open show rooms of a few men and women each,
chatting too quietly to discern. If they ever notice her presence, they only look her way a moment
before returning to conversation or rest.
She wants to go outside.
The manor has some technological sophistication to it, but is married to its ideals of old "class".
Yes, the dimming canisters are curious, and the manufactured wilds are peculiar, but what interests
her the most are the light-transforming machines in the gardens. She knows of them, but has yet to
see them firsthand.
In a word, she is "curious".
The humdrum of a social gathering so often repeated that this day feels like a thousand identical
others is not something she wishes to dabble in long. Lives and creations are too fascinating to
ever take either for granted.
But as she approaches the doors to the front driveway...
As her fingers slip upon the wood of the grand handles before her...
She knows, innately, that there is nothing past there, nothing for her. In the entire world, there is
nowhere else she could be. Her place is not in the meadows admiring mechanisms, it is in the
sitting room with the husband-to-be.
"Outside" is only an idea. A fruitless, ephemeral concept.
That is not a favorable realization.
Dropping her hand she turns and stands below the chandelier, each of its shards showing an image
of somewhere else in the world, at this moment. Shifting, always, and speaking of places she
cannot go. Fading, almost celestial illumination hangs around the fixture, giving this place and
that object a too-unreal quality. Her eye, her lips, say nothing. She trudges back into the mansion,
with a small fire of discontent born within her.
3-3
解锁条件：完成3-2，购入Absolute Reason曲包
解锁要求：采用咲弥通过Black Territory
A windstorm scatters petals around terrain behind the walls.
Glints of white and sapphire catch the eye, and the youths of the party speak of the change favorably.
Like magic. Wonderful.
She comes back into the lounge and witnesses the swirl of artificial nature,
the splendor of a farce.
She remembers the first time those flowers were scattered and thinks:
she’s rather had enough of "remembering".
During the past several hours, she’s tested the boundaries.
The windows were locked, the patio doors were barred, and the ventilation ducts were bolted.
The question she had to all this was:
"Are these shut because people shut them, or because I’m trapped in here?"
Metaphor and emotion often swayed the hearts of young girls, she found.
It was difficult to determine the reality.
When she’d had enough of poking, prodding, turning things over, and wandering,
she began to prattle on with other guests she knew to be acquaintances or friends.
"The weather..."
"The King..."
"You know, the week before..."
Tedious, and uninformative too.
Certain lines of questions were met with incredulity or with nothing at all,
as if the questions hadn’t been asked—as if she hadn’t spoken.
What she mainly wanted to know about—engineering, technology, progress—
seemed to especially draw out nothing from the other guests.
With her frustration growing, she took to listening in instead, and eventually heard:
"It’s little more than a globe of dirt now. We’ll terraform it soon, I’m told."
And asking about that... led nowhere as well.
That was quite enough to know, however, and so she entered the lounge again.
She stands in it now, watching the storm, and relating to it.
The girl steps past the fiancé, who smiles at her presence.
He greets her with, "Lavinia, you’re back," and she rests her gaze on his lapel.
He takes no particular notice of this.
The players always seem to act in such a way.
What stands out, what’s unusual, is given no mind.
Bolder and bolder she’s gotten, but they remain always steadfast to their routines.
To maintain the image, correct?
She decides to ask, outright, one question she burns to have answered.
"The man-made world... it isn’t made of glass?"
"...Hm? What on...? Of course not, Lavinia. It’s not a bauble."
Her eye goes wide. Her pupil constricts.
Of all the things, that had been it.
Donovan looks over her shoulder and through the walls, saying,
"At any rate, isn’t it lovely? Almost as lovely as you..."
But she doesn’t reply.
Recognizing his answer as confirmation, she settles on a decision.
As the spiral of flowers beyond flow almost serenely through the air,
she moves to the table of foodstuffs, and stops before the breads.
Donovan continues.
"I’m told the world they’ve made will have shows like this across sprawling, endless valleys.
Right now, it’s only barren. A concept, you know?"
She stops her hand over a handle, listening.
"But it’ll surely be a delight in time, for those who can afford a spot on it.
And think of the potential, Lavinia."
She exhales. It’s been another fruitless trip.
Her hand closes on fine, smoothed wood.
She turns swiftly and steps to the awaiting husband,
swinging her hand out toward his neck.
The bread knife’s teeth stop in his skin.
Without feeling—without even a spark of animosity—she wordlessly cuts across the boy’s throat,
and watches closely to see what comes out.
3-4
解锁条件：完成3-3，购入Absolute Reason曲包
解锁要求：采用咲弥通过Cyaegha
It isn't blood.
It isn't anything.
The gentleman's throat is cut in what should be an awful way... but the memory lacks a concept of
what "awful" would be. Instead of a shredded, vicious image, his neck now looks akin to torn and
crumpled paper. Inside is not "shadow" but "negative space": a void inside his body. The edges of
the wound flicker weakly with some white light, and off the blade of the knife she'd used to strike
him, vibrant shards float aloft... simply hanging in the air.
And Donovan can't comprehend it. Many of the patrons, too, are in awe and horror of her act.
People fall, women faint, and Donovan reaches for his neck. Some men leap for her, pull back her
forearm and hold her at her neck. She grips the knife tightly, and with a dull expression stares into
the husband's bewildered eyes.
While she hardly struggles with the guests apprehending her, she spots behind Donovan a girl in
absolute hysterics on the floor. The sound of her voice becomes increasingly distorted, beginning
to crackle and fluctuate in volume. Already, then: the memory has broken.
This wasn’t how it went. Even the most time-changed memories could not be altered so.
For a wife to, unprompted, attack her husband this way during a moment of peace...
She’d hoped to provoke a reaction, and is thus satisfied by this result. Although a few of the other
people in the room are unfazed by the commotion, and some even seem to have lost their faces
entirely, alteration of a memory to this extent is a veritable first. This, at least, has been a success.
The world begins to crack, fractures appearing wherever she can see.
Reality afterward looks almost wrinkled from it.
She says to herself, "Making entire worlds for vacation... Surely there would be better uses for that."
She lets go of the bread knife and sighs, seeing how it can’t move from the space where she’d
abandoned it.
"Not a peep about ‘memory’, ‘echoes’, ‘reflections’—importantly, not ‘glass’..."
The room constricts.
"This was another worthless dream."
The planet divides.
White blears and obscures, briefly flashing everywhere as the image is demolished. In a rush of
every remembered sound contained in that recollection, in that slip of glass, she stands with her
eye shut until luminescence and noise fade. She opens her eye to faintly glittering empty space,
her mind twists, and after another wave of effulgent pain she sees again the world with which she
is both most familiar with, and most confounded by:
The world of white and ruins. The memory-shaped realm of Arcaea.
"I’d had a good feeling about this one," she mumbles, watching the rotation of a shard just above
her palm. "But it wasn’t responsible for this world’s creation, and it was almost empty to boot.
Hmph. If I can watch them, let me remove them too..."
She dismisses the glass, not looking as it returns to the space where she’d found it: a glinting,
sharpened river flowing above the ground. The girl named Saya stares off into the plain horizon,
stepping forth while touching her lip absently, and reviewing the events of the recent memory,
comparing them all to the wealth of a thousand others.
3-5
解锁条件：完成3-4，购入Absolute Reason曲包
解锁要求：采用咲弥通过Antithese
Another awakening, and her first.
Each one awakens in the world of memories with nothing in her head. She is no exception.
However, as light filters through her cornea the sensations that grip her are unusual. Her heart
stirs first, passionate, and she almost snarls at the building frustration. She grips the clothes over
her stomach, and thinks her ears might be deafened. Her eye squints involuntarily, and she
realizes with that that she only has a single eye rather than two. She feels around her face.
"Wha...?"
She coughs, and pushes herself up. What she felt through her glove was something almost soft,
surrounding something very solid in the place of her right eye. She realizes she's wearing gloves.
Looking over her body, she wonders why she's wearing these clothes.
She wonders next why she knows what clothes are at all.
She had been sleeping against a wall, and upon an inspection of her surroundings sees that there
are three others to make a four-cornered place around her, and every one of them is in extreme
disrepair. Looking up she sees that there's no roof, and questions why it is she'd expected to find
one in the first place. In fact, she recognizes where she is... vaguely. She trudges along the wall she'd
slept against until she finds one she can step over. As she clears the bricks, she notices that they are
entirely white. Looking up, she sees that it isn't only this wall, but the entire world that's white.
It is an infinite landscape of an old, defeated, human society, or rather a pastiche of several
societies. It's bizarre... Moreover: it is bizarre she finds it bizarre. Why?
Before she even stumbles upon any reflective glass, she has already bet on tens of theories behind
what she's seeing, and who she is. Even that she is alone, and that she doesn't know her name,
tells her much about the potential truth.
And, over time, she finds more reason for one theory in particular.
She was born with conviction and curiosity. The world of white presents questions but no answers.
Days pass, and there are no answers within the ruins. Weeks pass, and there are no answers within
the glass. Indeed, the world is full of glass, taunting always with views of other, more vivid and
varied places. Echoes, imprints of something real, exactly the world itself, so full of what must be
copies of human invention. After two months, though it could be more, she feels she has seen
enough to believe something, and with confidence.
While atop a broken stairway someplace far away now from where she'd awakened some time
ago, she gazes at an undulating and segmented portion of the sky: a seemingly broken window to
nothing, crafted from over a hundred shards of Arcaea. She becomes sure of herself in this
moment. She can bet her judgment is the truth.
But it's not enough, and never enough. It can't be settled with speculation.
So she vows: this realm is a mystery, telling nothing and offering little, so she will solve it and find
its reason. As the only being of this realm, it seems, this will be her first duty.
And as she fully accepts the Arcaea...
So too do the Arcaea fully accept her...
...as a vast and seemingly endless archive, not only to be read, but to be lived through.
3-6
解锁条件：完成3-5，购入Absolute Reason曲包
解锁要求：采用咲弥通过Vicious Heroism
"In these other places, humans can act as gods."
That is what she learned.
The girl with a flower in her eye closes the book of that memory in her mind. It hadn’t been
completely worthless, only mostly.
It had frustrated her at first: the world she had visited was one she had quickly deemed frivolous,
but the frivolity revealed something important to her about the potential of mankind.
Still... for now... that wasn’t very important.
More than theories on "how", theories of "why" compelled her onward. This had been another of
her journeys out through the ruins of the world in a scattershot hope of discovering that answer,
or to even brush against it tangentially. That was always her focal drive, but a secondary one had
been made manifest after she’d witnessed about two hundred of the memories.
"It didn’t have anything new for a potential reconstruction," she whispers, beckoning a shard from
a nearby, sparse stream of glass, "but I suppose it’s good that it had some sort of value."
She lets the gleam of the new piece catch her eye, and she scrutinizes the vision of the past it
offers, muttering absently, "Almost home..."
She carries the fragment over her palm, crossing a bridge with which she’s become very familiar.
On her left is a haphazard pile of what once might have been cities, on her right is a chaotic mass
of glass and stone—recognizable as nothing. She marches the long way back to the place where
she was "born", uncaring of how many steps it takes.
She takes however long she needs to reach and stop before a place of four fallen walls, between
them an immense sphere of shimmering crystal—an unfinished sphere broken apart, like a cracked
shell. Smiles, tears, deaths, and celebrations flicker in and out its facets. Flowers, plains, deserts,
oceans... Animals, people, technology...
She doesn’t know if she can recreate a world by piecing together memories. She doesn’t even
know if she can truly "connect" them at all by gathering them together like this... But she can try.
She squints lightly to the gleam of the new piece she’s brought.
"Let’s see how much you can show me," she says aloud.
So it opens, and the girl fades into a new time. In short order, she sees a world brimful with
artificial glow, crowded by endless and nigh-infinite towers of man reaching through clouds of an
evening sky, and dark vehicles roaring through the air. An unpleasant atmosphere flows into her
lungs. Cacophony fills her ears. As she assumes an identity, assumes a new past, she looks on,
unmoved. A hundred questions rise in her mind... She will have them answered. No matter what
that takes, no matter what needs to be done.
4-1
解锁条件：购入Crimson Solace曲包
解锁要求：通过Paradise
An endless day could be dull. Spending too long under an overeager sun—anyone would start to
yearn for a moon.
Even for her, that sentiment holds true.
"Eighty days of light?"
"Seven months of light?"
"A year... maybe..."
The white of the sky has once again broken through the cracks in the walls of this place she calls
home, and it seems her sleeping body had found the rays while rolling over the floor.
She grumbles, "Turn it off already..."
But still, she picks herself up.
Still, she rubs her eyes and stretches her arms.
She stands and finds the door, ready to face another "day" in the seemingly boundless
world of Arcaea.
An adventure that hasn't always been a delight, and travels that haven't always led to discoveries.
Despite that, ever since she'd first awakened a tabula rasa, two things have always remained
consistent:
both her heart and the sky have always been shining.
"Alright...!" she says under her breath. "Some exercise first!"
She holds out her hand before her and a section of glass flies her way.
Not memory glass—
Not "Arcaea"—
It is an ordinary, typical sheet, albeit a large one. When it spins close, she jumps onto it,
and immediately calls another.
The home she found is an old beach house on a lonely island apart from the abandoned
mélange-cities found everywhere else in the world. It's a beach without an ocean, houses
scattered around its shores like abandoned shells; and deeper inland is a field of strange, gigantic
poles of white wood. The homes have been picked apart over time, from within and without, in
her tampering. Now she whisks away their walls and windows to create a makeshift set of stairs—
to make a racing track, and then a tunnel. She quickly leaps and runs through the gleaming
passage, if only to give her legs feeling.
All this took was a little acceptance. Days after awakening, it was a simple matter to make the
world of Arcaea bend to her whimsy.
But far below her, just above the sands of the phantom sea, something glints: something sparse
and scattered throughout the water.
Throwing a glance that way, she huffs a breath from her nose, and sports a weak smirk.
4-2
解锁条件：完成4-1，购入Crimson Solace曲包
解锁要求：采用红通过Party Vinyl
The glass beneath her feet bends so easily, but the peculiar glass—the Arcaea—has always been
somewhat... no, absurdly recalcitrant with her. In this world of memories, hardly any recollections
will follow her, and most can only be viewed or visited.
In an almost childish huff, the girl jumps from a crystal platform. Behind her, the structures she's
made all collapse, piece by piece. Before gravity fully takes her, she holds out her right hand,
calling for the blanket from her bed and swirling into it joyously. Then, she calls for something
heavy, something soft. In a few moments after falling, she is caught by a throne of indolence: a
hefty, colorless armchair. Thus, she sits, hanging in the skies above her home, half-gazing at
tombstone horizons.
She exhales again; she's pleased, satisfied. Another successful lovely "morning" run. Still looking
out to the distance, her thoughts drift to less pleasant places: to questions about the size of this
world, and what else it might contain. Has she even seen a third of it? Even a sixteenth? It's a
too-big place, and there are too many assorted memories. As she rocks along the windless air, she
lets her eyelids drop and she considers that fact. It's some immense place; it's some old and
mish-mash, jumbled place. She feels it probably can't just be a world of wonders and oddities
exclusively meant for her.
She opens her eyes to the bright sky again.
Somewhere, perhaps on the other side of the world, that sky is full of stars.
Under that sky, perhaps other girls are gazing upward and wishing for daylight.
The girl in red grips the front of the blanket wrapped around her shoulders.
Days without end mean it's always a new beginning, and no telling what a journey will hold.
4-3
解锁条件：完成4-2，购入Crimson Solace曲包
解锁要求：采用红通过Flashback
"Hm, but you know..."
She mutters to herself, eased into her flying seat.
"Is there a sun up there, I wonder...?"
She squints at the heavens above, and quietly contemplates.
What makes the light so evenly spread throughout this place?
Until now, her travels have always been forward, so… Why not try upward?
A mischievous smile flashes across her face.
She stands in her chair and drops off the blanket, letting it fall toward the ground. As it drifts drown,
a wooden column launches up past it. She jumps from her chair and grabs hold of the new arrival by
a short, metal bar. With her feet planted against the column's side for security, she gives it a longer
glance. It is a pillar, she knows, used in other worlds to convey power and communications. She puts
one foot down on another bar below, and like that—with one leg and one arm free, far above the
ground—she stands boldly on a broken piece of an old world.
She gazes to the urban and suburban sprawl on the horizon one more time, and then turns her
gazing upward. She can't be sure how far flight will carry her: she knows she'll need a ladder to be
safe.
The houses below, hers excepted, start breaking down even more. Panels, bed frames, armoires
and windows glide upward, and the debris she used and let collapse before is torn out of the sand.
Everything begins to amass, surely and steadily, into a defined structure. But the girl is not an
architect. Her tower is ramshackle, slowly building toward the heavens at odd, sharp, and often
sudden angles.
Unfortunately, her island is not replete with usable material. After running out, she frowns halfway
at her design, feeling annoyed that it cannot even reach a kilometer into the sky.
Grumbling, she turns her eyes on the horizon again and lifts her palm toward it.
She concentrates, pulls... and nothing happens.
But that's only natural. That is of course.
As powerful and masterful as she may be, she is no god.
4-4
解锁条件：完成4-3，购入Crimson Solace曲包
解锁要求：采用红通过Paradise
She drops her hand in defeat and decides it's time to renovate. Instead of a tower, a spiral set of
stairs. After an hour, and another hour, and another hour, and two more, her work is finally done
and she is impressed with the result. It still looks ridiculous, and more than a little haphazard,
but this amalgamation, she is certain, is much more sensible. She figures she deserves a pat on
the back.
With the new formation complete, she wastes no time in beginning her ascent. One by one, step
by step, she rises with her armchair floating close by, ready to catch her should she fall. As the girl
makes her way, she pulls from the bottom of the stairs and sends those steps to the top. Soon
after, she finds herself climbing an ever-building, ever-breaking staircase. Through layers of fog,
to the highest point.
The trip becomes a long one, during which she sometimes must have a seat or even sleep through
the "night". And, maybe after what would be four days, heaven comes within her sight. And she
learns this: "heaven" is an immense and impenetrable wall of clouds.
Her progress is halted when a step she sends from the bottom refuses to become the top, stuck on
the fluff of the air and unable to move any further up. She withdraws it and leaves it to hang
beside her. And, with a determined gaze, she rushes her way up the final flight.
At the top, the girl fans the pieces, panes, and pillars out underneath her for more of a platform,
and she lifts her hands over her head—into the clouds. Here she finds that the white resists her
touch, but still she pushes on, standing on the toes of her boots to see through if she can.
And here, she finds, she cannot.
"Really...?" she wonders aloud.
But in her moment of despondence, something catches her eye.
Out the corner of her right: a glint. In fact, a bevy of glints, dropping from the clouds after she's
gone and disturbed them.
She looks, to find a small crowd of perhaps twenty Arcaea—perhaps even more—coming toward her.
And the girl in red realizes.
In these sunless skies of Arcaea, standing on an invented ground, she has found the first group of
memories in this world which are inextricably attuned to her.
4-5
解锁条件：完成4-4，购入Crimson Solace曲包
解锁要求：通过Flyburg and Endroll
On the air, the fragrance of incense.
Resounding, the voices of townsfolk and children.
The atmosphere, light and fresh.
Someone's cooking—baking—and she can taste the savory scents drifting outside and along the
streets.
Looking up, she finds a sun hanging bright in an empty and blue sky.
This is a new world of memory, and she basks in the sensations of it, remaining still to take it all in.
It's the memory of an artisan's helper: of a girl in the middle of an errand.
What sort of artisan was the helper an aide to?
The girl with the rose-colored hair hasn't grasped those details yet.
But she isn't very interested in them.
This world—
"Just look at it...!"
—it's some sort of fantasy.
Mouth agape, eyes glittering, she looks absolutely everywhere. Overhead, colored paper and fabric
ties rooftop to rooftop, evoking the image of frilled power lines. But they give the impression of a
festival, as power lines they are most definitely not. The flagstone streets, red-stone houses, and
chimneys spouting black smoke tell her this is an old-day town, or perhaps city, she stands in now.
Stalls offering curious circle- and sun-shaped necklaces, talismans, and rings of charms dot the
walkway, beside other stalls selling figures of creatures she's seen before in libraries of other
memories. The townsfolk dress, she thinks, a bit similar to her: as if a parade is on, but not one
too bombastic. It's a colorful world, favoring the warmer colors of the spectrum, though splashes of
azure decoration arrest the eye here and there. As the girl starts to wander, she finds performances
too, and troubadours teaching, warning, and entertaining whomever might listen.
She spends some time during her wandering on samples of confections. More than some time, in
fact: as much time as she can without drawing suspicion. And as she wanders and samples, one
brilliant red morsel strikes her eye, and her heart, very much in particular. A strawberry tart,
it's called.
She gets her hands on it with the apprentice's coin, takes a bite through its glaze, and with that
she is certain of this shining truth: this place is very lovely. It's incredibly nice! A fantastical world,
and one with a notable appreciation for the more sugary delights of life.
She finds herself particularly happy about this world of memory. Feeling zealous, she quickens
the pace of her steps, leaping forward, gasping, and spinning on her toes or heel as she turns
each and every corner.
4-6
解锁条件：完成4-5，购入Crimson Solace曲包
解锁要求：采用红通过Nirv lucE
She must be careful not to run. She thinks, she really must observe every little part of this town
closely. Reading signs posted outside of square buildings, she learns that this is a spiritual
place. It's a land that believes in fairies and spirits; in gods, daemons, and youkai.
The performers she sees are performing the "fantastic", the "strange", the "impossible".
Indeed, every one of them is absolutely certain that what they are performing is magic:
"casting spells" by igniting vibrant powders in their hands to flame, smoke, and clouds;
"divining fates" by speaking toward still pools of water and interpreting the ripples within;
"communing with other beings", they say, by manipulating lights before her eyes in a way she
can't actually determine the mechanics of in a glance.
This world is rich and full of belief: it is marvelous, wondrous, and all an unmistakable act.
While strolling down the quaint avenues, the memory itself slowly informs her that every
part of this place is truly performance, artificial, untruth. Deeply valued tradition, but
absolutely not truth.
Yet when she reaches the city's outer limits (and the memory's, with any attempts to cross a small
barrier met with resistant reality)—when she gazes out to the verdant hills beyond the low and easy
wood fence that has stopped her; to the few but imposing old oak trees, and the clear sparkle of
some distant lake... she understands, somehow, why one might believe in something even with
sound evidence to the contrary. She herself comes from a strange world of flying glass; why deny
the belief that a world like this could be inhabited by trickster fairies? Why reject the idea of things
surpassing nature and logic?
This is the memory of an artisan's helper, and the artisan is a so-called sorcerer who researches the
existence of fantastical things. As the help, the girl she is living through has long known that all his
research leads to dead ends. The purpose, she speculates, is not to really prove anything. It is to
embolden one's beliefs and be better for it.
Now the girl in red puffs a joking breath and smiles wistfully. That's a funny idea. With her hand on
a post and wind flowing through her hair, she spots what she knows to be an ancient forest west
from here. This is the memory of completing a simple errand, and perhaps that's why she is unable
to travel too far.
But she's sure she will be back in another memory. She thinks this land of artifice, magic, and show
very much suits her, and that crowd of glass she'd come across at the top of the world of Arcaea
reflected more facets of the world than this within its other fragments. With a giddy feeling, she
grips at the front of her dress.
It's truly incredible. The smile on her face starts to wriggle anxiously. Somehow, she has never felt
exhilaration quite like this before.
4-7
解锁条件：完成4-6，购入Crimson Solace曲包
解锁要求：采用红通过Diode
Twenty times? More? She's stopped keeping count.
"Al...right..."
With that whisper under her breath, she crouches in front of a chest made of unfinished wood,
swiping her palm across the top. A wave of dust rises off of it and falls to the floor. She unclasps the
front and opens it up.
Today she is an archivist, exploring one of the old castles in the North, where they had lost land to
flooding. Thankfully, the papers inside this chest were spared from moisture by the chest itself.
Hearing the creak of ancient hinges, her partner calls from another room inquiring about her
discovery. "Scrolls from the fourth era," she answers over her shoulder. She takes one of them and
unfurls it, revealing the history of her people's dealings with the Unseelie.
Stories like these amuse her, especially as she tries to guess at what the previous generations might
have confused for fairies and the like in the past. Yesterday, while working as a storyteller, she had
the pleasure of recounting an old passed-down yarn of the teller's ancestors. Some forefather had
once gathered a vast treasure on a faraway shore. On the return across the lake a sylph rocked his
boat with wind, and a passing naiad capsized it with waves. Afterward, the two shared his fallen
wealth. It was quite an excuse for a bout of clumsiness.
But still, she knows it proves nice to think these creatures are around, malevolent and benevolent
both. When her day as an archivist is done and she's returned to the world of Arcaea to rest on the
platform which is now her temporary base camp, she visits the memory of a school instructor and
teaches lessons and rules that would keep any child or adult safe in a world replete with chaotic
nature, sudden perils, and careless people.
The context of magic makes these lessons very interesting to impart and to hear. It really is just a
joyous and fascinating place, and she cannot stop visiting. Its people, whose faces become
increasingly familiar between each shard of Arcaea; its places which become engraved in her own
memory throughout others; the sounds and the sights, everything—
It's marvelous, and nostalgic.
When she's been to every other memory she could find in Heaven, when she's explored (as far as
she knows) every part of the land, she at last comes to a bustling, rambunctious festival day—or
rather, a night celebration. It is to give thanks to the gods of birth and harvest, and to dissuade
darker spirits.
She spots the townsfolk named Lancaster and Howard, two gentlemen architects, and they've
gotten on in years from the last memory she met them. But they greet her with vigor and treat her
to a candied apple, which makes her happier than anything else. They point to the sky. It lights up
in a show of a thousand brilliant colors. To those gods. To life, and living it.
However, seeing such a wonderful thing… it doesn't strike her. Her heart does not swell; not with
wistfulness, nor the joy of new experience.
She remembers this. She knows why everyone is here.
So, on this final night in these familiar memories, she witnesses the firework sky entirely satisfied.
With tears in her eyes, and a spot of pain in her heart, she finds herself entirely content.
4-8
解锁条件：完成4-7，购入Crimson Solace曲包
解锁要求：采用红通过GLORY：ROAD
The memories were heartening; they were comforting. She'd spent months within them, and at
times, she would think, "I never want to leave." Still, she knew they had an ending, and she didn't
want to see it.
Besides, the future cannot be found within memories.
She returned to the world of white knowing she may never visit those days again. Days gone are just
that: stories told and over, lives and loves finished.
She doesn't regret it. As she slowly descends to the surface, looking up to the clouds that had once
called her there, she knows every moment, every second spent in those memories was worth
everything. It's like a question she never asked has been answered, and so her heart is full.
The sky seems to be falling around her, all the pieces of her temporary home dropping faster or
slower around her, and in her chest, she feels a twinge of emotion.
Thus, the sky, the true sky above, begins to part.
Standing on a window platform, her hair whipping up past her face, she sees the glittering glass
above is standing still, and behind the pieces, a new night sky is entering her sight. One she's never
seen before. The clouds scatter and drop, disappear and dash away, as a sparkling void of shadows
takes their place. This velvet plane, reaching far and darkening, before a deep lavender wave of
color spreads out over it, swaying, glowing. The stars are out. The day is over.
Her heart aches.
She whispers a name, this name for the last time, and she wipes her eyes with the back of her hand.
Her glass breaks through the final thin layer of clouds. The complex, graying landscape reveals
itself, to its farthest reaches.
She smiles...
She smiles!
This is her new life! She holds out her hand, knowing that someday, somewhere beyond that
horizon, she will find others who will take it. Someday, these hands will do something great.
Until then, she will look ahead.
Living in the present—in Arcaea.
5-1
解锁条件：购入Ambivalent Vision曲包
解锁要求：采用忘却通过Genesis
The cliff overlooked it all.
At the end of the day, those who had abandoned the mortal coil left behind their souls like hermit
shells for other, new lives to take them. Their spirits ascended to the land's Pool, luminous and
glimmering overhead.
Water-like spirits, almost formless; everything white and flowing into that vibrancy which bore
through the clouded sky. In the gray landscape that was her world, this sight—this unique,
spectacular sight—was something many could call a wonder.
To her, it was ordinary. It was everyday. It was work.
"Any trembling on the left side?" her confrère asked from behind. She very slightly moved her head
to see him sitting on the ground. On his lap sat a wide, black, shallow bowl of water, used for
lecanomancy, and from the ripples inside it she could see that he'd just performed a divination.
She answered him lightly with, "No." Then she asked, "Why? Have you noticed something?"
"It looks like the earth shook a bit," he explained.
"Ahh... That's not good. Should I look closer?"
"Hmm... It seems like a fissure," he said. "Go take care of it."
With a simple "alright," she stepped off the cliff.
The density of spirits nearby slowed her fall. She found a pair of strings that were keeping her
blouse, sleeves, and skirt taut. When she tugged them, they loosened and began to dangle; a
shimmer emanated from the cloth and her dress began to ruffle loudly. And as it did, it dulled the
influence of the dead.
Once she reached the ground, she took her scythe from her hip, unfolded it to its full height, and
after turning it over, rode the underside of the blade in flight to her far-off destination.
To mend the fissure after coaxing out the souls trapped within it.
To return to the cliff, and watch for any other aberrations.
She was to do this, and things like it, day after day. Yes. That was her responsibility.
And, in time, her life would join the others.
In fact, that time has already passed.
It's long ago, gone. The world and life she once knew is now only a shapeless memory.
5-2
解锁条件：完成5-1，购入Ambivalent Vision曲包
解锁要求：采用忘却通过Moonheart
But this isn't what death was meant to be.
There was no mystery to it in her life: what happened to the dead was what happened. There was
no "next world", only that which you were born in, lived in, and died in. Something like heaven...
hell... even purgatory: these were moralists' tales which only seemed valid in the most ancient of
times.
So what is this place? What is this mysterious realm that she one day awakened to?
What might it be? What might it be?
Well... does it really matter?
"Hm..."
She sits knees-up on top of a lighthouse, overlooking a desert. White. White, and more white...
and there, glass. "Arcaea" is its name. With her chin in her hand, she casts a languid gaze toward a
bridge extending left. She doesn't know where that one goes.
"Phew..." She exhales and stands, taking the scythe from off her hip. It doesn't work quite the same
here, but she can still utilize it for travel. Unconsciously, she brushes her bangs the other way. In
doing so she grazes the front side of her left horn with her fingertips.
Right... right. To this day, of all the memories she can find within the Arcaea... she hasn't found a
single one with any horned humans represented.
With these memories being really the only attention-grabbers in this world fashioned from glass,
she's spent quite a bit of time watching and cataloguing them. Keeping them, like records. And
indeed, those records don't even hint at her race having ever existed anywhere.
Her race is... Race... Race? Is that a safe assumption to make? Was she part of a "people" when she
was alive, participating in spiritual horticulture? Not that it matters now, but perhaps remembering
more clearly will unlock more of her old self... Something like that, anyway.
For now, it's time to evaluate which shards of glass have left the part of Arcaea she calls home,
which have remained, and which are new. She moves to step from the lighthouse, ready for her
new routine.
5-3
解锁条件：完成5-2，购入Ambivalent Vision曲包
解锁要求：采用忘却通过Romance Wars
It does still fly: the scythe.
Sitting on the length of the handle as a witch might lackadaisically sit on a broom, the young
woman rides down a broken, shambled street. The blade sits upright beside and behind her,
shifting for every swivel and turn. Her movements are smooth and completely ingrained.
As she goes, she looks upon a particular jumble of flying glass. This one runs alongside and above
the road like a river, and since her arrival it has not once lost or gained any memories for its flock.
This being so peculiar, she checks it every day. Today, too, the memories that glint within each are
all ones she has seen before.
Unrelated, unconnected memories of play, song, sadness, strange machines both enormous and
fast... It's really a rather eclectic mix, making the fact that they're seemingly unconnected very
interesting.
She looks for the memory that she likes the most.
Of course, finding a specific memory within a crowd is similar to seeking a needle in a stack of hay.
But the one here—it likes her in return.
A piece of glass breaks from the chain, and it approaches her as she glides on. She smiles faintly,
lifting her right hand from her scythe so that the piece can come to rest over her palm.
In it is the final moment of a small hand-crafted flute's creation. Making the instrument had been
a labor of many minutes, hours, days and months, but the carver who'd done it had condensed all
his feeling into this single moment. It all came to this.
He plays a note, and the tone makes him wince. Terrible.
But it does work.
Though this memory marked the end of an arduous journey,
it also marked the beginning of an even grander one.
Such a curious position...
Truly—and the others it shares a crowd with are special indeed.
5-4
解锁条件：完成5-3，购入Ambivalent Vision曲包
解锁要求：采用忘却通过Blossoms
That memory is precious.
In fact, if it can be called "precious", more likely than not it has found its way to her at some point.
Memories of first pets, of one's survival and another's sacrifice, of first words, of inspiring speeches,
of important and private talks... Sometimes, when she is strolling or riding by, these significant
memories will just begin following her.
She doesn't mind. She likes that memories so special were kept safe in this curious place. That is a
good thing, but there is something better.
The world of Arcaea serves as an archive to memories of any sort. A memory of a toothache, a
memory of a good meal, a memory of a horse ride, a memory of spilled milk. Whatever it is, if it was
remembered, then it is here.
And it is really every one of those memories, along with those standouts among them, that shape
a man or woman, she thinks. Not only that, but they serve as the only real evidence that a person
ever was alive.
Monuments and graves are erected in the name of memory, and as for the loss of memory... as she
has seen within the Arcaea, that is something at times more tragic and difficult to accept than death.
"..."
She quietly comes to a stop, stepping down onto what looks to have once been a town square.
Here, innumerable pieces of glass drift through the air. It's something like... well, the appropriate
term for her might be a garden, though one with every "plant" brought in instead of grown natively.
She tends to them all the same. These are the memories she has found in what she considers to be
her "home" part of Arcaea. These specific shards are those which were not there when she first
awakened. They'd drifted in.
"...Hmph," she sniffs, absently taking stock of the pieces.
They don't usually leave, but sometimes they wander off...
And that worries her.
...Is there meaning in the Arcaea being in the form of something as fragile as glass?
...Back in life, she learned not to ask many questions.
5-5
解锁条件：完成5-4，购入Ambivalent Vision曲包
解锁要求：采用忘却通过corps-sans-organes
"Huh?"
Her gaze, still on the Arcaea above, is suddenly broken.
...Where did that come from?
Appearing on the shore of her thoughts suddenly, like a fair and gentle-seeming stranger,
was that little fact, in the form of a miniature memory.
She wasn't sure at first that it was even there, but as she thinks it over again and again...
she's sure of it.
She recalls this. This... it happened.
Sitting under a pair of quiet old trees, the Soul Stream having gone down, and night having risen,
she was speaking with her confrère...
"You learn to think of it in this sort of paradox," he'd said. "You think of all life as precious, but at
the same time the drudgery leaves it all as just numbers. Higher numbers, lower numbers. It isn't
like you stop caring; it's more as if, if anything, caring so much sharpens you into someone who
seems cold."
"But it's alright," he assured her, smiling weakly at the Stream. "Thinking too much about it will
probably tear you up inside. When you went to the Glen, what was the reason you gave for wanting
to walk this path?"
She answered.
"See? That's what we all say," he replied, and she recalls how calming his voice had been then.
"Just remember that, and you'll be fine."
But there it ends. That's it. Her gaze comes back to the sharp air above her. Just remember it? Just
remember it. Remember it. It... Remember what?
"I... don't remember," she whispers softly, but each word, each syllable falls heavily off her tongue.
He had been absolutely right. Now she can feel it, building in her eyes: the dull, warm grief that
comes with sad revelation. A new piece of her memory has shown itself to her, but it is crucially
broken, and without answers to the questions it has forced into her mind, her heart is killed.
The agony is nearly unbearable.
How do you put the pain of knowing you are not entirely yourself into proper words?
Under the cloud of glass, she shuts her eyes, bends her head, and puts the heel of her palm over
her nose, the underside of her fist against her skull. She won't cry. She can't let herself do something
like that. To cry here, at this, would open her to too many facets of reality she has chosen not to face.
She sits on the ground, sucking in her lips, tightening them.
She will not cry. Absolutely not. Okay?
So, gripping at herself and trembling in the world of white, the solitary reaper steadily breathes.
She tries not to dwell. She doesn't want to dwell. But, while calming herself, the thought can't help
but occur to her: that, if this is death...
...she would much rather have oblivion.
5-6
解锁条件：完成5-5，购入Ambivalent Vision曲包
解锁要求：采用忘却通过Lethaeus
The break that occurred within her left her quiet... quieter than usual for what could amount to
days.
The key element of that memory—the idea that one was better off not asking many questions—
is something that in her contemplation she realized she was attempting to adhere to all this time.
Her attempts, however, had been half-hearted. That taste of an old memory was too intoxicating
to forget. Indeed, she refused to forget—but having forgotten so much else… she'd realized she
was a broken half-shell of a person.
Forget it.
She is once again guiding vagrant memories to the square today; trying to make this into routine,
which will turn to habit, which will turn to nature. Perhaps tedium can rescue her from the cavern
always lurking just under the surface: the tar pit of miserable feelings endlessly calling to her.
Better oblivion, she thinks sincerely, than to feel—if feeling means only grief.
And, while conducting the shards of Arcaea, one catches the light of the sky in such a way that she
is reflexively bidden to look at it. Without thinking much of it, she brings this shard close.
The reflection: a crouching, slouched child covering something off the side of a road with her hands.
Outside her hands, ants shy away, though they seem clearly interested in whatever she's hiding.
The reaper gives the memory more of her attention, and finds that what the child is hiding is a
wounded jade beetle. After a moment of contemplation, the girl scoops up the small thing in both
of her hands and stands up.
That's all.
The young observer is motionless for a moment, but then she smirks.
That's such an... absolutely pointless memory.
Did the beetle recover? How long did that child live for? How long did she hold on to this memory?
Stupid little thing...
The girl chuckles.
It's ironic, isn't it... Remembering something had made her forget why she believed she was here.
Arcaea is a world of memories. Of the dead? Of those still alive? Who can say? Regardless, it keeps
old stories that anyone could forget. Past expiration of mind, body, monument, or land: however it
works, Arcaea steadfastly keeps all.
The girl is alone. She has no confrère here, and she was given no reason to do anything when she
woke up. But that doesn't mean that she was to do nothing.
She is here, now. Her old life is over. That's it.
But doesn't she still have control? She still feels responsible. She doesn't remember the answer
she gave, as to why she sought to be a tender of souls, but whatever it was... something tells her
that the broken her of now would give the same reason as the complete her from then.
There is no telling what will happen, ever.
Lives and memories can vanish in a second… but not here. Her memories may be lost, but these
will not be. "Tender of Souls" to "Tender of Memories"; she thinks that has a nice sound to it.
Absolutely. You will all be remembered forever.
So long as I am here.
18-I
解锁条件：完成5-6，购入Ambivalent Vision曲包
解锁要求：采用忘却通过NULL APOPHENIA
It was her. There can't be any other explanation. And now, she's here.
Lethe grips at the handle of her scythe and swallows. She remembers her duty, and steels her heart.
Though your life may have ended, your duty has not.
The sky flickers with glass above. Earth crumbles from the sides of the plateau where she has knelt.
The horned reaper picks herself up from the ground—out of her prayer and contemplation.
She stares hard at the other.
"Even now," the woman says, "you don't want to understand... Is that it?"
"You... can't even talk," Lethe replies. "Why do you even bother?"
"I try to talk," says the other. "I even like to believe I've gotten better at it."
With a tremor entering her voice, Lethe tells her, "It certainly doesn't seem that you have."
The other woman doesn't answer. With a still face, she stares off at the earth. "You really
don't like me at all, hm?"
Lethe does not answer. Her tight grip on her tool is all the answer needed.
"Unfortunate..." the woman says, turning her eye to Lethe. "Though I can't say that I'm
concerned about you much one way or the other."
"I... don't..." Lethe begins through clenched teeth, then shouting, "CARE about your opinion of me!"
The woman stares back. Without words, she says: "It is clear that you do."
"I won't let you..." Lethe continues. "I can't let you soil their souls like that!"
"Souls?" the woman repeats, baffled. "Is that how you've thought of them all this time? WE have souls.
THEY are only the echoes of dead souls' thoughts."
The woman looks behind herself. The jagged "clouds" shift eerily overhead.
"For what little it's worth..." she mutters, before meeting Lethe's eyes again. "I will tell you again.
Whatever they are, they can be used. And, we are here to use them."
"Be SILENT!"
Lethe rushes forward and lifts her scythe high, swinging it down the instant she is near her enemy.
The blade cuts only through an image.
"Because you've never accepted this place for what it is," she hears as the image collapses into smoke, "you
can't even 'use' the glass."
Her left ear perks up. She turns and sees the woman at the other edge of the plateau, emerging from light.
That woman continues to speak.
"Whatever your foolish motivations, I will pick up the pieces of these lost worlds and bring about one better."
With her hand at her face, she fixes her posture and turns to face the reaper.
She brings her hand down, and behind it the flower blossoming from her eye shimmers.
"Because even now," says the woman, Saya, as she fixes her clear eye once again on the woman who hates
her, "I'm sure that we all have a part to play here... except for, evidently, you."
At once, Lethe grows furious, and prepares to fight again.
It is infuriating...
That sentiment is shared, and mirrored, between them.
18-II
解锁条件：完成18-I，购入Ambivalent Vision曲包
解锁要求：采用忘却（Apophenia）通过Genesis
When they met while the sky was still whole...
When they met after half of it had fallen to night...
Every moment they have met before and since, every time they have spoken,
Lethe's resentment has grown, and it boils out of her heart now.
She has to have come for the dead.
Always, always, she's kept her eye on that.
Every gathered soul, every gathered sentiment—
She thinks that she is a god, and she thinks she can play with the dead.
But the dead are sacred.
The reaper will never allow it. Lethe flies at the callous woman, who, unflinching, vanishes again.
You have to remember what brought you here. You have to remember what saved you.
Glass flies between them and around them. Saya, however, simply studies Lethe.
You remember the heartache. You remember the bliss.
Those feelings can't be lies.
Lethe's scythe strikes against the earth. From afar, Saya continues to watch.
Those feelings AREN'T lies.
You REMEMBER who you are. She is GUESSING for want of belief.
"Lethe..." says Saya.
And Lethe stops.
"Did you know that was your name?"
She turns and faces the flower-eyed girl. Her heart pounds through her chest.
"I know..." Saya reveals. "I've seen you, across memories."
"L-Liar—"
"Does it resonate?"
Lethe flinches, biting her tongue.
"When I learned my own name, it resonated.
There are more of us here than you know, reaper.
We don't all keep our names from the past, but you have."
Warmth threatens her heart and blood. Lethe swallows again, and tries to push it down.
"I've always thought of you as some starry-eyed believer, mistaken in her drive.
But after 'finding' you, I can understand why.
Am I right? You 'remember' yourself. That is unusual."
"Why are you still talking?"
"..."
Saya stares at her.
"You even hate my voice?" asks Saya.
"I have NEVER said I hated you."
"You've never needed to."
A pang flies through her, and she shivers.
But eventually, she laughs.
"Pretending at knowing hearts? You? Ha! Yours is as cold as they come. You don't know hearts."
Saya looks again at the dirt beside her feet.
"...I know them," the flower-eyed girl replies, almost too quiet to hear.
"What?"
"I know them," Saya answers in a clear tone, meeting Lethe's gaze unwaveringly.
"I know the contents of a heart."
"...Hmph. Really?" Lethe queries in turn. "Listen to yourself. Even the way you say that reveals that
yours is hollow."
Saya does not answer, but she does not look away.
"I've already told you that I don't care for whatever's bouncing around behind the petals in your eye,"
Lethe continues. "I will stop you. You know what I was? You know what I am? Then you know that I can't
let you desecrate what is here."
Still, Saya stares.
"This is my purpose," Lethe declares.
This is what I need, she feels.
She turns over the scythe in her hands, readies herself again.
"Whatever your reason, I will stop you here."
18-III
解锁条件：完成18-II，购入Ambivalent Vision曲包
解锁要求：采用忘却（Apophenia）通过NULL APOPHENIA
The light of the sky is given by glass. The souls Lethe has gathered, the memories Saya has gathered;
at a border they meet, but never intersect.
Thousands of forgotten lives, remembered here. In her mind, the reaper remembers, too,
the sight of a well of spirits.
What was the reason you gave for wanting to walk this path?
Still, she can't remember how it was that she answered.
But she has answered it for herself since.
This feels right. She doesn't need any more than that.
And yet...
"—!? You...!"
Once more, she has swung her blade at the other woman. To this, Saya has lifted a finger. At its pad is a
shard of glass which deftly catches the blade's edge. Crouching, Lethe stares up and grimaces at Saya.
Saya stares back down, as always giving nothing away. The casual insult and abuse of lost life at once
raises the hairs across Lethe's body.
"You...!" Lethe roars. "What do you get out of taking this from me?"
Still holding Lethe back, she keeps her eye steady upon the reaper's. "...Get?" she asks.
The glass at Saya's fingertip glows. Her flower shines once more. Again, she becomes a reflection, and
Lethe's scythe swings uselessly through the air. She reappears as light far away.
"If all our time together has taught you anything, then you should know I've never been a liar," Saya tells
her as the flower from her right eye flickers. She pauses, and says clearly: "I 'get' nothing out of this.
None of this is... personal."
And though she can feel that that is the truth, Lethe almost can't allow herself to believe it.
"And, if you know that... if you know 'me'..." Saya continues.
And ten shards come down from the sky, flickering as well at her shoulders and behind her back.
"Forgive me, I'm getting a bit passionate, but..." she mutters, her eye closed. Coldly, she opens it
upon Lethe again and pointedly asks her, "Why are you still getting in my way?"
"YOUR way?" Lethe spits. "What, are you about to claim that we can finally become gods now,
or some other ridiculous wish?"
"Who ever said anything about wanting to be god..."
"You're PLAYING god! You think you aren't?"
"I am doing... whatever HAS to be done." Slowly, Saya lifts her finger and points at Lethe. "I have already
told you: this world is not only 'you' and 'me'."
Between them, a silence falls.
Between them, the land is gray.
"Allow this world to die if you want," Saya tells her, still firm in her direction, "but I have had enough
of death. And if there must be a last death... I'll have it be yours."
The flower-eyed woman's glass begins to point as well.
"Give up your memories, reaper, or I will take them.
We have no time left."
Give up your souls, she means...
Absolutely not.
"I won't let it die," Lethe replies. "I will find a way to heal it."
"Idiot," Saya says damningly. "You are an idiot, and if I'm being honest, I've become sick and tired
of hearing you speak."
Lethe chuckles.
"Another thing we have in common..." She stands up straight again and picks up her scythe.
For this heartless, soulless woman...
Next, she will swing to kill.
S-1
解锁条件：购入Divided Heart曲包
解锁要求：通过Blue Rose
Her name, though she doesn't know it, is "Shirahime".
She'd awakened with a crown on her head and a scepter in hand. At once she knew what they
were, and she knew what they meant. The girl with white hair and two-color eyes knows that she
is most assuredly somebody special.
"So, bow to me!"
"Uh... What?"
"...So it isn't this one either."
With her arms folded and legs crossed and her gaze cast aside, the girl who knows herself to be a
princess leans back in her "throne"—a kitchen chair—while the memory of a friend—the friend of
whomever had this perspective she's usurped through a frame of glass—looks back at her in
confusion.
Four shards today.
She has explored four shards as she's sought the truth of her past—because there is most definitely
a truth! Her innate knowledge of the significance of items, her understanding of speech, and how
she has always perceived the world she awakened into however long ago informs her thusly: that
her existence in the world called "Arcaea" cannot simply be some trick of chaos and chance. More
importantly, regardless of these suspicions, far too much is confounding about the world of white.
Too confounding. She demands certainty.
"Listen, Hamu—"
"Haru."
"Hato." She pauses, then opens her palms out at her sides. "I'm looking for which of these
memories has my castle. My 'castle'. You get it, right?"
"A castle," Haru repeats. "So you think you're a queen or something?"
She puts a loose fist against her lips and considers the notion.
"Well, princess, maybe," she eventually replies, slouching forward.
"...Are you alright, Anri?" he asks, and she lowers her gaze as a sour mood falls over her. In short
order, her face reflects the mood.
As mentioned, that is not her name. She still does not know her name, but she does know it isn't
Anri. She also knows she's pushing her luck.
In moments, this memory will likely collapse. In a sense, that's fine—that's fast, and no waste of
time. But it is another dashed hope.
"And why were you talking about memories?" Haru continues. The intruding girl glances up at him
again.
Four shards today.
And so, that marks fifty-three in all.
With any memory she finds that resonates with her even in the slightest way, she takes hold of it
and dives within.
She keeps watch on Haru's blank face. She has seen countless blank faces just like it. After four
seconds, it freezes.
There is a sound of fracture, and the world all falls away...
...fading out, into Arcaea.
The girl finds her scepter nearby, before the curb upon which she had been sitting.
She takes it up, stands, and twirls it about in her right hand.
And so, she goes.
The journey for discovery continues...
But the girl does not know this:
Discovery will not be hers.
S-2
解锁条件：完成S-1，购入Divided Heart曲包
解锁要求：采用白姬通过First Snow
Perhaps she can piece it together.
Perhaps, maybe, she can form a theory, and that theory may be correct.
After all, many girls have wandered into this world called Arcaea, and in time discovered
themselves. She does not know this. She, as do so many others in the glass landscape along with
her, believes herself to be alone in Arcaea. To be frank, it inflates her sense of importance. That
being said, it also makes her reflect on her predicament.
If she is alone, then perhaps she is a noble in exile (no). She was a wonderful ruler, loved by all (no)!
Until... there was a terrible rebellion (there wasn’t)! The people turned against their queen, princess,
and country, and purged her memories clean (quite the story)! With magic!
The girl who woke with a crown and scepter is the kind to believe in magic.
One can allow her this, however. What is the world of white if not a magical one? Her place in it is
strange, and the place itself is stranger still. In no memory has she ever found a world in which
glass flies and floats through the air as it does in this one—not in any shards, nor in her head.
That, and how these glass memories are experienced... this place is magic, no? And that is why
she must have come from magic too.
That’s what she wants to think. She is wrong—that magic is where she came from—but it is her
leading theory.
Therefore, she is special. Therefore, she should be admired.
"Maybe... there are ‘cool’ memories by cool-looking places," she says to herself as she overlooks
the colorless lands. "Let’s go find a tower."
She marches forward.
Indeed.
When describing her, it would be apt to say that this girl’s head is one made of stone.
S-3
解锁条件：完成S-2，购入Divided Heart曲包
解锁要求：采用白姬通过Blue Rose
She embarrassed herself again.
Somehow, when her declarations of nobility land on deaf ears, she experiences a deep and
crippling shame that courses through her. As the memory falls around her, her cheeks are always
dyed a perfect red.
Now, having returned to the world of glass, she presses her hand to her face.
She shuts her eyes.
And she whines with pain.
"Ghhhhhh... what was that..."
...She says.
"Where is my castle!?"
She still says.
"Where are my subjects!? My people!? Where!?"
The girl stomps her foot and balls her fists, gritting her teeth.
"Another!" she shouts, reaching for the first and nearest memory. She dives in, to whatever it is, if
only to stop remembering the looks she received while she stood on that restaurant table and
demanded obeisance.
A world swirls around her, in shades of white and black, and in seconds she has trespassed.
The memory she enters is quiet and quaint.
The stars are out, and it is dark. If the moon has risen, it can’t be seen through the trees.
She is standing in a forest—in a clearing. A fire crackles behind her.
"Can you see it?" a child asks. In this memory, she knows this is "her sister".
She glances back at the little girl and thinks.
According to this memory, the older sister was trying to find a certain constellation.
"No," says the white-haired girl. "I can’t see it."
"Oh well. Sit down and let’s keep watching," the sister replies.
She nods.
The younger girl has something in her hands. The older girl walks over to see it better. It’s a screen,
with buttons on its sides. A movie is playing on that screen. No—an animation? Squinting, she sits
down beside the girl and watches.
It seems similar to what she’s seen in other fiction across other Arcaea: a typical cartoon about a
boy with some power, fighting devilish monsters with his friends.
"...You charged it, right?" she asks, referring to the device. The words come from another.
"You already asked me that," the little sister answers.
"And...?"
"I did!"
"Good..."
She whispers this honestly, as she honestly means it.
How to say...
Royalty does not watch cartoons. A royal is a statesperson, a ruler, and a guider of women and men.
She most definitely believes that.
Yet, she is most definitely more comfortable with this: sitting down and having nothing to say,
her eyes transfixed and her ears perked.
She puts her shoulder to the shoulder of the memory-child, and the child returns the gesture.
Now, she feels at ease.
The mood she had before was suddenly silenced. In the wake of her anger, it comes to her mind:
life is a truly horrible thing sometimes.
Barring even the horrors she has borne witness to in glass: life feels terrible, much of the time.
Frustrations, waning strength, pure inability to change one’s situation...
That’s how it is.
It is possible she had no one else before she was put in a glass cage. Perhaps she was a lonely ruler,
on a lonely throne.
Perhaps she only had this.
If that was so, she thinks...
If that was so, then perhaps things were alright.
Her "sister" brings a small blanket over both of their shoulders.
She glances at the child again and says, "Thanks..."
And she gazes back into the screen, saying nothing more until the memory fades away.
S-4
解锁条件：完成S-3，购入Divided Heart曲包
解锁要求：采用白姬通过Blocked Library
Since then, her drive has faded as well.
The memory of a trip in the woods, with someone who cared, simply watching something easy to
whittle away the hours of the night... it, too, whittled her ambitions away entirely.
Here are the facts: she has no castle, let alone any home, and even if she found either, they would
merely be memories: abandoned, forgotten, and in actuality ephemeral.
If she is to walk forward, it will be to no conclusion.
It will be to no sense or end.
To say it in another way: her path is an empty one.
So, she whispers, "This hurts..."
Her voice cracks.
She looks at the endless daylight, with terse lips and warm eyes.
Frankly...
Even if she was a princess of a faraway land... a great ruler, deposed... born nobility...
The girl is human, and humans are not perfectly strong. She is stuck, and quiet, and cursed with
emotion and thought.
Under the unseen sun, the girl shuts her two-colored eyes and feels tears running down her cheeks.
She sobs.
The light is caught within her teardrops, and that light fades as it falls—not through any magic...
...but instead through the darkening of the sky.
As the gleam of Arcaea’s daylight ebbs from her face, the girl opens her eyes to blink. To see
shadows around her. To see, unmistakably, night falling on the earth.
"Eh...?"
She turns her gaze upward again.
It seems that... the heavens have been rent, and a red comet is falling.
"Huh...!?"
It flies down for a minute or more, before landing unceremoniously before her—scattering winds,
white sands, and the twin tails of her hair.
Dumbfounded the girl stares, mouth agape, at the crashed crimson star. The star is kneeling on a
pile of broken chairs, and shaking its head of dust. Her head. The star is a girl.
She opens her eyes, and opens them wide. In a short moment, a smile—wide as well—
spreads across her face.
This is the crimson girl who flew up to the sky.
Her name is Kou.
S-5
解锁条件：完成S-4，购入Divided Heart曲包
解锁要求：采用白姬通过nέο κόsmo
"Nice to meet you!!"
Kou booms her greeting with a voice full of life. Shirahime stiffens, and pales. This is the wrong
move—it affords her no mobility. Kou leaps out at her from her pile of furniture and tackles the
twin-tailed girl, nearly toppling her. This elicits from the self-described royal a distinctly
ignoble "Bwagh!?"
"Oh wow, you’re real! You’re actually here!" After hugging her, Kou removes her arms and starts
cheerfully patting the other girl’s face, ears, hair, and sides.
To all of this, Shirahime finds herself speechless.
Kou pulls on Shirahime’s scarlet cheeks, laughing. "This isn’t a memory, right?" she asks.
"I’m real!" the "princess" insists with a voice slightly distorted.
"Oh! Do you know your name?" Kou asks. "Oh, I don’t know mine," she adds. "Maybe I know it now!"
she guesses, lifting a finger optimistically. "Aah... I don’t." She taps her temple, and tilts her head
apologetically.
"Slo—...Slow down!" the other girl begs. The girl in red laughs, and Shirahime stutters on, saying
"I...! What!? Are you... Hey! Are you okay!?"
Although that question from her sounds more a demand.
"I’m fine," says Kou with a smile.
"You fell from the sky!" Shirahime reminds her, pointing for emphasis.
"Yeah, I guess I di—" Kou begins, turning to see where she came from. She stops, puts a hand on
her hip, and points to the heavens. With this, she glances back at the other girl and declares,
"It’s nighttime!"
"You didn’t notice!?"
"Well, I didn’t look back," Kou replies, now turning back around with both hands on her hips.
"What were you doing up there?"
"There were some memories," the red girl explains. "I watched them."
"So you can watch them too?" Shirahime asks. Kou nods with enthusiasm.
"I can!" she says.
"And you can fly!?"
"Not really," she answers, now with a shake of the head. "I can make other stuff float." She
demonstrates with her finger acting as a wand, and a cupboard being the subject, swirling around
the two of them to her direction. "You can’t?" she asks.
And Shirahime wildly shakes her head, which spurs laughter in Kou once again as her twin tails
whip to and fro. With a hand over her chest, Shirahime declares: "I’m HUMAN."
In Arcaea, in its time, there have been moments of fate. The tides of time and reality are bent and
twisted by the whims of one or the convergence of two.
However, this moment is merely chance.
The girls talk—talk of glass, of purpose, and naturally of the sky. Experiments follow: can Shirahime
be carried by Kou’s magic? Can Shirahime learn this magic herself? Yes, and no.
Of course, they also wonder how many others are out there, the same as them.
And it is with this in mind that they follow the fleeing daylight. Perhaps...there are others looking
up, and marveling at the new sky.
Just like that, with no fate or destiny tying them, these two begin to walk together.
S-6
解锁条件：完成S-5，购入Divided Heart曲包
解锁要求：采用白姬通过Lightning Screw
She, Kou, begins to wonder: has it been weeks, or have months passed between them?
Under the dark, these two girls have wandered together through shadow-bathed ruins: with Kou
leading, and with Shirahime stammering behind; Kou's laughter ahead, and Shirahime's hand at
her back. Further, the "princess's" habit for embarrassment has escaped merely the confines of
memory—rare is the moment she will not stumble or stutter, and by now Kou is well-accustomed
to the shaking, brazen, self-proclaimed "royal".
However, the twin-tailed girl has most definitely, of late, been shaking far less: in her voice when
they talk, and in her movements when they go.
Truly, the two have traveled together long. But it won't be forever.
Now Kou and Shirahime, quite a ways into their travels, find themselves at a clear divide.
Though the clouds are torn and the stars brought out, not all of the morning light has faded.
The girls view the heavens without a word, and with awe-filled faces.
After all...
...they now stand at the division between night and day.
"Pretty..." Shirahime whispers.
"Yeah," Kou agrees.
The stars of the night are violet. The day is white and golden. Where they meet, what might be
magic—might be memory—churns and twists, like a shifting and prismatic serpent. It is as if
they've found the world's haphazard seam. Seeing it, they almost know: know what the world is,
and how it came to be as well.
Kou brings her eyes down first. Shirahime, however, cannot tear away hers.
"Now what?" Kou asks. "We didn't find anyone, huh?"
"No..." Shirahime replies.
"Should we keep looking together?"
Shirahime brings down her eyes as well.
Before them is the new Arcaea landscape: of shadows and light.
She looks at Kou, and calmly shakes her head.
"I'm going to follow the line: I'll find someone out there," she says.
"And you should go back to the heavens and see what they're hiding."
Kou raises her eyebrows.
The two have walked for quite some time, and in their time together, Kou believed she had the
other girl figured out. That Shirahime was a boisterous sort—but that all of her flair and bombast
existed only to obscure a shivering heart. Therefore...
"...You're taking charge?" Kou asks, as it's just too surprising.
"Of course," Shirahime says, with a dismissive and teasing glance. "You see this crown on my head,
right?"
Kou chuckles. "Yeah, I see it," she answers.
And Shirahime lowers her gaze again, staring out to the glass hills.
She tells Kou, "I'm kidding... I just had the thought: I want to take a chance." Shirahime meets Kou's
green eyes and the girl straightens her back. The princess states, "We should take one, and I think
you'd better do what I can't."
And... after a few moments, Kou nods. She calls a slab of concrete to her feet, and hops on.
"I'll go see the night, then," she says. "Let's meet up when we can!" She grins.
"We will," Shirahime answers with an easy smile. Kou blinks, and loses her own. Once more the
white-haired girl has surprised her. Deeply, she believes those words, and her face brightens up
again.
Kou flies to the starlight, and at once Shirahime steps forward.
Perhaps she has forgotten her want of a kingdom.
She already knows: there are others here.
The world is vast, but she will find them.
What a crown and scepter mean is nobility, and what a noble does is draw others to her, like a
much-needed hearth. Maybe her blood is not noble at all.
However, it must be said: despite her whining, her wavering, and her very weak heart...
...her soul very much is.
7-1
解锁条件：购入Ephemeral Page曲包
解锁要求：通过Alice à la mode
A dark garden betwixt forest and flowers.
A silver web glints in a corner of glass. Well, is it glass? More likely it's stone, but this particular world
operates more strangely than any other. Reality bleeds in from elsewhere, through floating shards
that fill the air, projecting colorful memory into lands of ruin and white. Now there are pillars of
amethyst, glowing from a light beneath that fills the entire floor.
She sits in a fanciful, pale green chair, before a small and pale-green table, her hand atop her
suitcase which rests beside her. She drags her finger down the leather of its top. There are no other
people here.
"We should leave, Alice."
"No other people"—but there is at least one other person.
He's here, holding tea as he often is, having again prepared it when her eyes were turned away.
She lays her palm on her suitcase.
"You hear that?" she asks.
He tilts his head, listening closely before replying: "I hear nothing."
Lifting her other arm, she rests her elbow on the table, slouches forward, and props her chin up
with her hand. "That's right," she says, "in this one... or these ones... it's quiet."
"And what should that matter?"
"When was the last!?" she slightly raises her voice, telling him with its tone that she finds his question
absurd. "Silence and a pleasant view... Look at the gardens, Tenniel. This landscape is... handsome."
She picks up her hand from her suitcase and indicates the dark wilds fading in and out before them,
and to the sky-blue flowers dotting the shade.
"I," Tenniel starts, gesturing toward himself with his teacup, "am handsome."
Her brow twitches at the gall.
"Shut," Alice starts, gesturing toward him with her hand, "up."
"Terribly rude. Awfully rude," he notes. She shakes her head, grumbles, and leans back in her seat.
Precisely how long has she been stuck in this world, unable to travel to any others?
Forever, the ward Tenniel has been with her, steadfast in his claims of "I cannot be apart from you."
However, that largely proves itself to be a pain. She looks at him now. A black and orange butterfly
flutters past his eyes, and after it passes he looks into his cup. Then, he tosses the cup's contents
to the ground, having not drunk even a sip of it. A very, very usual habit—in fact, consistent Tenniel
behavior.
He opens his mouth, not to lap the dregs, but to speak. "We really should go," says Alice,
preempting him. "That's what you want to say, isn't it?"
"If you understand, let us take care," he says.
And she listens to him. He never seems, she thinks, entirely without reason. So she stands and follows
him to the white horizon. The memory fades around them as they pass. It melts and drips, all, into
nothing. All except the butterfly, which flies along at her shoulder. For now, Tenniel watches it again.
But it will fade, too—
All memories do.
7-2
解锁条件：完成7-1，购入Ephemeral Page曲包
解锁要求：采用爱丽丝 & 坦尼尔通过Eccentric Tale
So, what is this place? And what is "real"?
This is true: she once walked between worlds.
She still does. For her, this is an aspect of life as normal as eating or drinking, not that she has had
need of either since finding this latest realm. In the past, before Arcaea, it was countless how many
new places she'd seen, how many strange plants and people she had found.
Fantastic creatures, magic too, everything one could ever imagine: she has seen it, and recorded it.
For... an "inter-dimensional" encyclopedia? Whatever it was (it seems to have been lost).
The nature of the work keeps her profession fresh, certainly, but...
This world really is terribly unique. The memories of further worlds dance into this one, and not as
mere images, either. You can hear the other places... smell the foreign nature... taste from these
memories, and touch them as if they're real. Therefore it begs the question: what is real?
In a world such as Arcaea, she feels that is a very important question to ask.
If... it can be experienced fully, but only for a limited time, is it an illusion or is it valid?
Well-traveled though she is, nothing in her memory tells of a world like this.
What is the purpose of it?
So she asks her companion: without flare, without context. "So... what is reality, Tenniel? How can
we know that here is real?"
"It's real," he says, as he casts tea from his cup, "because every sense of yours 'knows' that it's real.
Why do you wonder about artifice or illusion? Why do you question even what you can touch with
your own hands, Alice? That should be enough."
"Fine," she replies with finality. It is worthless when he gets like this.
"If that is over with, look there," he says, and he points to the ground. They had wandered into
memory of a campfire, and Tenniel's tea had doused the flame.
"How the devil does that work?" he asked.
"You're asking me?" replies Alice, incredulous.
"I've ruined their party..." mutters her companion.
"The memory will fade soon, so there's nothing to be glum over, Tenniel."
"What we see is real, Alice. And when you stop looking at something, does it cease to be? Of course it
doesn't. That fire has ceased by my hand, though."
"You need to stop spilling tea everywhere."
"I will leave an apology."
"No one will see it! No one is here!"
Tenniel smirks while whipping out a pad and pen.
She groans, and tries not to smile herself as he writes.
It's a moment that reminds her why she never questions his company. But, it's a moment rare of late.
"Of late", she thinks...
In the beginning... was it different?
She ponders for a little while, but new scenery distracts her as they walk. She forgets to wonder.
And the day goes on.
7-3
解锁条件：完成7-2，购入Ephemeral Page曲包
解锁要求：采用爱丽丝 & 坦尼尔通过Alice à la mode
Never does he really "lie".
He knows what he knows, just as well as one knows to draw breath—though he doesn't need to
breathe.
Or that one knows to feed, though he needs no food; to drink, though he needs no water.
Or, to remain at her side and shelter her, though...
...There is a raw and almost perfectly unshakable comfort in reality.
What exists is what you see and sense. Knowing that what you see and sense is real means that is
the truth. Having truth puts the mind at ease. Without it, with unknowns, you open yourself to fear.
Or to, perhaps, what is worse: truths you do not need to hear.
Truths that will damage you. To know you aren't capable of everything you wish to be capable of.
To know that there is an end, that it is inevitable. That truth, and truths like it, can make a person
truly suffer.
But, he does not lie.
It's true that "he" has always watched over her.
It's true that "he" has always given her freedom, and guided her into places that were exciting, new...
different.
That was real. That is.
He wants nothing more than her smile.
But with heaviness inside where a heart should be, he knows that she is seeking something more:
beyond what can be seen.
"...You hid that?" he asks, as she presents him a flower from the garden-memory they had left.
"You know, I love its color... pale..." she reveals, gazing upon it fondly. "It's like the skies we see in
other worlds," she asserts. "What's its name?"
He knows.
"I don't know," he says. "It will vanish, surely, as everything does. There is no need to keep it, Alice."
"...Perhaps no need, but I like it," Alice tells him, and he already knew this. "I think that it won't
disappear."
His gaze drifts away. With no rhyme or reason, he dumps his tea. He also knows this very well:
She is right: it won't. And that concerns him most of all.
He tells her, "Do as you like... Alice."
And she playfully fires back, "I will!" as she slips the flower behind her ear. With pompousness, she
declares: "You can't decide how I live!"
Tenniel taps his chest and gazes at nothing.
How unfortunate...
She is entirely right about that as well.
7-4
解锁条件：完成7-3，购入Ephemeral Page曲包
解锁要求：采用爱丽丝 & 坦尼尔通过Alice's Suitcase
The world shifts and blends fantastically, fascinating her always. Tenniel, however, never seems
very thrilled by it.
Therefore, as they leave the scene of a horrific fire spurred by flying machines, the last burning
wisps of tragic memory trailing behind them, Alice confronts him with a question:
"Have you no passion at all, Tenniel?"
To this, he smirks and says, "I never suffer, no."
To this, she looks at him dully.
He must have something in that tied up chest of his. With that in mind, she tries to catch any
sparkle in his eye, any breath cut short, any sort of pleased look—as he looks upon pleasant things.
One day—if time can be so divided in a world where night never comes—they come across the
memory of an old workshop.
There, she decides to hatch a little plan. In a rare moment of Tenniel's distraction, she hides away
from him, carefully, behind a door. When he realizes he's lost her, he glances back, forth, and there
mutters, "Alice...? Well, you must be nearby. Never mind it, never mind it..."
From her hiding place she watches him step past dusty tables and stools... until he reaches an easel,
upon which is a canvas. He checks the surroundings, finds a piece of charcoal, and sits at the stool
before the blank sheet. And, he sketches. The ticklish joy from "teasing" him begins to fade, and she
instead observes him steadily.
That's right...
When she first woke up in this world...
Tenniel would often change their hats. He would tease her and be sure to always ask what she
wanted to do. He also recited things—poetry, prose—very often. He oriented her, when she was so
disoriented by waking in a caged world. He was sillier, delightful.
But... rather quickly... he stopped all of that.
The Tenniel she knew now wore a mask. It had almost become his new face, and so she'd forgotten...
He did like art, didn't he? He used to remark on it whenever they found memories of galleries...
Now he sketches his surroundings, adding to them a teacup sitting on the floor before the canvas
instead of a stool. An invention of his own, not a part of the scene.
She remarks from behind the door, "That's very nice, Tenniel."
He slows to nothing, and rests the charcoal back where he found it. He glances over his shoulder.
"It's only an imitation," he says.
"But you imagined that," she says, pointing toward the sketch, "the cup."
"...It is imagined, yes," he admits. "...But I believe you likely have a better imagination than me, Alice."
He smiles, again.
And she replies, "Don't let it bother you, Brother. Your technique is impressive, and comparing it to
my flawless mind is—"
And they stop, and meet one another's eyes, as they both realize what it is that she just said.
7-5
解锁条件：完成7-4，购入Ephemeral Page曲包
解锁要求：采用爱丽丝 & 坦尼尔通过Jump
"...'Comparing it to your flawless mind,' what?" he asks.
"...Tenniel..." she addresses him.
"My name is no verb. Where precisely is this comparison going?" he teases.
But, Alice insists. "Tenniel!" She shouts, stomping into the room. "You know why it is that I called
you that, don't you!?"
"It is my name," he replies.
"'Brother'?" she answers, baffled.
"Tenniel," he confirms with a smile.
"Not that!!" she yells, balling her fists and stomping again—now once in place. "Are we... family!?"
"I like t—" Tenniel begins, turning 'round on his stool. He looks self-satisfied, and obnoxious, but
before he can say what it is he's thinking, he thinks on it again. He holds his tongue, and grimaces
as he turns his eyes away.
"You're shutting up, then?" she accuses him. "I knew I was right...! I noticed it... Only lately you've
been like this."
"Handsome?" he tries. "No, that's always—"
"Tenniel, I am being quite serious," Alice tells him coldly, cutting him off.
"Quite seriously," says Tenniel, "I would like to end this conversation."
"Because it worries you? Mysteriously? Why?" Alice persists. She steps further into the room, angrily
telling him, "'Brother', I called you, and I said it quite sincerely. What could that be for? You're not
unaware, Tenniel. Not unknowing. You're very obvious in that regard. Now, I insist! I insist that you
tell me!"
"I would rather not," he growls.
"Tenniel!"
"Just leave it alone!"
"I'm a grown woman. I can handle unpleasant words or truths!"
"It isn't that simple!"
"You aren't my parent!"
"He may as well have been!"
With a foot forward, the glowering Alice stops, her eyes set on Tenniel who is standing now.
She processes what he told her, and asks, only, "...What?"
"Ah... oh... dear me, I said it," Tenniel speaks in a near whisper. His eyes shine a moment, and he
bends his head so the brim of his cap might hide them. "No, Alice... I am not your brother. But I
remember him."
"...Go on," Alice bids, resolute.
And her companion fishes from his vest: a shining shard. A piece of Arcaea.
"A memory?" she asks. And Tenniel replies:
"Yours."
Alice is silent. She looks at the shard between his fingertips and waits.
"I don't understand this world," he says, "but I know that memories project into this place because
of you. None do the same for me. I believe... given what recollection I was born with... Well, though
it was rather... scattered, from the myriad of shards around you where you were first sleeping, I
strongly remembered 'him'. I 'felt' as him, though my head is... certainly a bit strange."
He smiles before going on to say, "What I knew made me wish for nothing but your ignorance."
"...I will be fine, Tenniel," Alice speaks to assure him.
A light falls from his face to the floor, scattering in a minuscule splash. He tells her, with a fluttering
voice, "I might say that you aren't."
Nonetheless, he extends the shard to her.
She takes it.
In the glass, she sees a curtain waving before a window. Daylight.
She feels a hand falling down on her hat. Tenniel's sleeve obscures his face.
"If you look there," he says, "I know you will understand. Also, Alice..."
She grips the shard before answering, "Yes?"
"I am surely just an imitation, but would you—" he stops. "Would you..."
"Yes?" she prompts him.
"...Take care," he says, "and stay safe, Alice?"
"That doesn't follow... You're an imitation, you said... 'An imitation, but'...?"
"...Hmph," he makes a light and dismissive sound as he takes his hand from her hat. Or rather, he
takes her hat from her head, and replaces it with his own. Turning before she can glare at him, he
tells her, "I'm an imitation, but listen to me just this once. That's what I was going to say and
nothing else," he lies.
She does not push, and instead looks into the glass, activating it.
But, as color swirls around her she hears the young man say—
"Right, an imitation can't ever have their wishes heard."
But before she can ask him what he means, she enters a familiar place.
7-6
解锁条件：完成7-5，购入Ephemeral Page曲包
解锁要求：采用爱丽丝 & 坦尼尔通过Felis
She finds herself in something unremarkable, and even a little dull. It is a hospital room with white
walls and ceiling. To be precise: a patient's room—a quiet room, with monarch butterflies fluttering
outside the open window. And, to her surprise, in the moment she recognizes the place, memories
she hadn't realized she'd lost rush into her skull.
That there was a park outside.
That the nurses were friendly and kind.
That the weather always seemed perfect.
That she nearly always lived here.
She feels overwhelmed, trying to sort it all, but before she can even begin she hears footsteps
behind and turns. There is a person there, at the door, with a hydrangea in hand, presently
dressed in a thin and open, hooded sweatshirt. He wears a T-shirt beneath that, looser slacks over
his legs, simple and comfortable shoes... and his face. She knows his face. This man is a man who
looks like Tenniel. "His" name, however, is...
"...Cedric."
From the bed by the window, a weak voice calls out.
The young man passes her by, politely nodding as he goes, and he moves to the waking patient.
She doesn't have to see the golden hair, the thin frame, nor the kind face to know: of course, it is her.
This is her memory. Her name is Alice.
Cedric puts the flower he bought in a vase. A true bouquet of them sits beside her original self.
He pulls over a chair and sits down beside her. He has no tea in his hands, nor does he ask for any.
"Cedric..." the girl repeats, groggily, as she sits up in bed. "I thought you were at the studio today."
"No, not there. And I work on my own time, Alice," says Tenn—... Cedric. It sounds like him.
"How are you? You're alright?"
They both look at her, and smile.
The words had just come out of her without thinking. Well, she could barely think, for what it was
worth. A new world of truth, here to process, and it seems that as an observer in a place of one
part of this memory she merely recited what was said at the time automatically.
"Have you been writing?" asks Cedric.
"Have you been drawing?" asks the sickly girl, grinning in light mockery.
"'Have I been drawing'," he echoes, looking to the ceiling and then rolling his eyes.
"You came here!" she fires back with a laugh. "I swear, I thought you were busy!"
"Three pages I finished," he answers with pride and a smile.
"Good!"
"And you've got no pages?"
"I've written! I've written plenty!"
"Then let's see it, then. I've this other book, too..."
"'Lright!"
The girl reaches to a cupboard beside the bed. She keeps her notebooks and utensils there,
as well as a tablet she could probably use more often. The young man fishes out a tome from his
bag. Right... it never had been traveling, had it?
It was always written stories... told tales... dreams.
They begin to share. Laughter, teasing.
Four days.
In four days, all of this ended. They both believed that, if not forever, she had at least three hundred
and sixty-five. She didn't get to see him in the end. In the early morning she felt a pain and faded.
Then, nothing. She remembered hearing them yelling to call. That was it.
Tenniel knew this.
The memory is long. She feels it. It encompasses these last days, but she doesn't want to see it.
Strong though she is, facing such a thing terrifies her. No part of it can change. Her health was
always failing, they were always alone, and he couldn't be there: the end. Dreams and stories...
can't become real by wishing.
She leaves the memory while they're smiling.
She doesn't remember if it was their last time together.
She doesn't want to know.
You will die. You have died.
Standing in the memory of the workshop, this is what Alice remembers.
"Tenn—" she starts, looking up.
But Tenniel is gone.
And there, the memory fades. She can guess... As he'd said, he was only an imitation, and with the
truth revealed, his time was up.
Alice stands in the void of Arcaea, staring forward with unseeing eyes.
And everything screams at her at once.
This "plane" is false. This "body": a shell. The "memories" were distorted.
Her "life" was not hers; her life ended with no arc, no culmination, no brother beside her.
You are alone, Alice.
And you died alone.
Alice eventually finds herself on her knees, her gloved fingers dug through the earth.
She feels very cold. She wants to cry, but tears wouldn't come.
She feels...
She feels.
"It's real,
"because every sense of you 'knows' that it's real."
Tenniel's words reflect in her head.
She looks at her hand, and she sees it.
She pulls her glove taut, and she feels it.
She takes the flower from her hair and hears it. Smells it. She opens her mouth over the petals.
What is reality? Is it what you see? What you taste? What you touch?
If that is so...
"Alice" is dead, and Alice is alive.
And if Tenniel was a memory, then he must remain as well.
In reality, she knows herself to be a wanderer of worlds.
She made it here, didn't she? Regardless of the "truth".
And if that is so... there is a way out.
She'll find it.
The way back: to the one who cared for her the most in life.
And for the other...
If she cannot find him again on her journey, she knows a fragment of him will be there with her,
remaining in her heart. Perhaps she'll start making and never drinking tea. The thought... makes her
smile and laugh once again.
Alice decides then and there, feet on the ground and holding the shard of "truth" between her
fingers: even if she may always look forward, to the horizon that marks a new way...
...she will never, ever, forget what brought her there.
9-1
解锁条件：购入Esoteric Order曲包
解锁要求：通过Paper Witch
The scene shifts.
With every step until now, the scene has shifted. Her steps shift the ground—shift space.
She nears the tapestry's edges, only to find that the cloth had never been entirely sewn.
Glass glides past her quietly, and then moves suddenly, as if startled. The world around her
has become black, rather than white. In the air, stars hang. The way is fractured...
The tapestry of memories, Arcaea, has a fraying hem. These are the neglected and forgotten
threads. The girl standing before and within it all now is the first to have borne witness.
Now, truly, she is alone.
"...It seems," she whispers—a confirmation.
"If anyone else reaches here..." she goes on, stepping along this dusty and twisted path,
"they won't follow the same path. Isn't that right? The road broke apart too long ago—
and the way ahead keeps changing."
She observes exactly that happening at a distance to her right: a way of white spirals upward,
and then downward, until it shatters into mere particles. Those pieces then begin to float toward
her, and they glitter through the dark.
"Another," she notes. "Don't you have anything to say?" she asks Charon.
The satellite makes no movements. She pats its useless head. "Speak," she commands.
The halo of triangles floating over its body spins worthlessly.
"Of course," she answers. Still holding its head, she turns and witnesses the empty world ahead.
"I guessed nearing the... ah, I've decided to call it the 'lowest world'... I imagined that nearing it
like this might instill you with memory and further life. Purpose, maybe... But you still don't know
anything, Charon."
The failed experiment's tail moves in a slowly waving "S" shape. Its ears shift, thoughtfully.
Thoughtlessly.
And Lagrange lifts her hand. "That is cute, though," she admits, blithely. She means it, wholly.
The glass satellite that she crafted back where the world was still white is eventually returned to
its seemingly preferred place above her left shoulder, and she turns to face a new path forming
already.
Unusually, this path is much wider than others she's seen thus far—an area, really, at least for now.
Arcaea begin to gather at her right, to guess at her. Is she, and her heart, for them? When she
moves on, ignoring them, they decide she is not and disperse.
Memories are not why she is here, and the land of memories is a matter of past record. Beyond the
bounds, there is more to be learned, and more to be discovered.
This is the frayed edge of the tapestry. As she continues along this capricious road, she hopes to
meet the tapestry's weaver, and bring their hands to the cloth once more.
And so she continues on, into the world she's chosen. Into the world of black: the Void.
9-2
解锁条件：完成9-1，购入Esoteric Order曲包
解锁要求：通过Crystal Gravity
There is no sense here.
Not only "here"—the Void—but here, Arcaea itself. And this out-of-bounds space is telling, yes, but
in truth all aspects of this world have been telling from the beginning, ever since she first woke up.
Firstly, it should be remembered that Arcaea made itself known to her before she could come
around to knowing herself (and it should be remembered: "knowing herself" has never actually
occurred). It was insistent, practically, to introduce itself. As if it had said, "Welcome. You’re here
now, and this is what ‘here’ is:"
An abstract library dedicated solely to memory, a series of ruins haphazard and unseemly, a name
without meaning, and a girl without a name: herself, alone and otherwise unaware. The first thing
to do was read what "books" the library provided, and so she’d looked into the glass.
She could find nothing resembling a "theme" between any of them—nothing like a "connection".
A proper library had a system in place to categorize, organize, and sort—that much she’d learned
from what memories she’d witnessed.
Memories in Arcaea, however, were arbitrary: in where they were placed, and in where they drifted
about. Her existence in this world, too, felt coincidental. It felt like happenstance. After all, she
knew what Arcaea was upon awakening, but not why she was there.
"Really," she says suddenly, "consider the worlds I’ve seen, Charon."
Charon’s eyes turn to her, and in them she sees not even a spark of consideration. The two of them,
master and pet, are still in the Void. They are still walking to nowhere.
"Consider the worlds you’re made of," she continues, touching the satellite’s ear lightly. "In any of
them, is ‘existence’ so clearly directed? I haven’t seen, nor are you made of, any memories of
anywhere similar to this... A world so evidently built with purpose, and yet also so obviously
purposeless..."
She pauses.
"What do you think of that?" she asks.
Charon’s eyes now face the winding and still-white path out ahead.
She lets him go.
"I think it’s half-baked," she says. She thinks Charon nods. They move along silently, while she
thinks still of the past.
And then, the past shows itself to her.
...Or is this the present?
"What...?"
She speaks, genuinely confused.
A cloud has entered her vision.
A cloud, where before there was nothing other than floating roads.
Shimmering in space is a surreal and sudden formation, which seems to have appeared without
her notice...
And through it, she can see it once again: the world of ruins, white, and floating glass.
It is the only world she remembers. That world she left behind...
9-3
解锁条件：完成9-2，购入Esoteric Order曲包
解锁要求：通过Far Away Light
It’s the present.
If it’s a memory, it isn’t showing anything like the memories she’s seen since awakening.
There is no point of perspective: no view to usurp.
It is simply, only, the old and barren world.
"..."
She stares in silence.
"I wonder if this place is mocking me..." she says.
And then she moves on.
Thinking of the first world, that world decided to show itself to her. Is that how it is?
She determines that yes, it certainly seems to be mocking her.
Along the way, more of these views to the world of white open. Most empty, and a few with others
within them—
Expected, but uninteresting. Testing them, these windows to the old world seem to have impassible
panes anyway...
Really, if she wanted to think about, or spend more time in, the core Arcaea world, wouldn’t she
have stayed behind there?
And yet despite herself, she lingers on thoughts of what her life here used to be.
There were many memories she’d viewed, and for a time she assumed she might find a memory
that offered some truth of this place. No such memories existed. Mostly, she saw what could be
succinctly described as frivolous normalcy: day-to-day happenings—from waking in the morning
to dying in the night. All cycles: all over and gone. She’d certainly learned very much, but not the
slightest about the world she’d awakened in.
However, when she decided to leave in order to learn more at the limits of space, she thought she
might take a part of the first world with her. Rather, she thought to make something from it...
perhaps "the best" of it.
So now she glances at Charon. With windows to the old world shining all around her, she lays her
eyes only on her satellite.
All that said... hadn’t she made it on a whim?
A what-if had come to mind. What if this place of memories—of worlds and peoples gone—could
be used to craft something new?
She’d pulled shards of Arcaea together, and wished them bound, and with effort and will Charon
had taken shape.
"..."
But nothing was ever said by Charon. Nothing was ever done.
Nonetheless, it has remained with her like a moon ought remain with its mother planet.
...So she does not need the old world.
Charon is the true reflection: of how little that world ever meant.
9-4
解锁条件：完成9-3，购入Esoteric Order曲包
解锁要求：通过Löschen
She has continued on into the dark: quiet, and with a quiet partner. Once more, her thoughts drift
here and there...
That persistent idea returns...
That there is a god who designed all of this.
At least, it would only be accurate to call whoever was responsible a god.
As said, that is why she walks: to find this god.
"It is called ‘intelligent design’... typically," the girl says, speaking from what she’s learned through
the memories archived here. "However, this..." she continues before trailing off.
And she looks out ahead of herself.
The world’s distortions have become unfathomable. Lateral has become diagonal, the horizontal
reversed. To move, she walks where she wants to walk—and without concentration, she might float
or fall.
It seems, absent the creator, the world has decided to shape itself to her wants instead, resulting
in invisible steps on an invisible earth and tiring traipses through solid space.
And so there it is: that fact she already noted.
...She gazes above.
"...It would be better to say this world was born out of emotion."
It is the only way to make sense of a world so senselessly created.
There is a sun here, although in the world of white the light of the sky seemed to come instead from
Heaven itself. Here, hiding in the dark, the sun shines weakly, forgotten. Or... has its light
simply been taken away by Arcaea’s endless day?
"...Though it ended, recently," she mutters to herself, dropping her gaze to what’s before her
instead. There are no clouds anymore. Starlight, as ever, is plentiful.
Since hours, or perhaps days ago, vortices have begun to tear away at reality in the Void, as if
to take the place of those old clouds as a new and strange thing to see...
The lost sun and unfinished world are greatly indicative; the vortices too, of course, and
certainly the clouds. The entire space here is telling.
Back in the world of white, as well: every so often "it" would manifest. What was here, and
everywhere: "it" would manifest, and disturb existence.
In a word: "anomalies".
She’d met with a few in the world of white, and when there were still windows around the girl, she
had seen even more throughout the ruins. They were instances of what has now become
commonplace for her, turning things queer and wreaking senseless havoc.
This space was a concentration of those instances, and as far as she could tell, there was never any
intent in their appearances. As far as she could tell, all they were was a symptom.
She suspects, therefore, that the god who made this world...
"..."
She stops before a vortex of black. Glass memory flows into it—the few shards of them left in this
place, slipping through and thinning, splitting.
The true edge is most definitely near.
She lifts her hand...
When she awakened with no preconceived notions, no memories, no instilled ideas and only,
instead, her personality and simple knowledge of the world itself...
...it had sickened her.
Despite everything she has since thought and said...
She imagined that there couldn’t possibly be any way the mock and scattered world of Arcaea had
no purpose.
It dripped with purpose. It was full of purpose.
Of memories. Of buildings. Of glass.
Of girls...
Why?
"...Charon."
She addresses her crafted satellite. It shows no signs of noticing, and yet she continues.
"You still can’t think for yourself...? You follow me, though... Do you believe I am your master?
Charon."
She says its name again. The eyes in its head sparkle.
"You were born here, and so was I. In light of that, I believe I’ve noticed something."
So casually, she enters her arm into the spiral before her.
...And Charon watches as the limb turns into glass threads.
"...What do you think? Is this a trick, Charon? Or are we the same? There’s no blood in you.
Is there any in me?"
Her body begins to unravel.
...She has a heart, and it beats.
She has thoughts. She is real.
Then why is she here? Why is anyone?
...There may be blood in her veins, but now she can’t see any of it.
Her "body" is unlike any she has seen in memory.
The silvery strands of her once-limb—of her once-chest, now...
...Confirmation at last: this flesh was invented.
"...!?"
She jumps with shock as Charon strikes her side, knocking her back.
At once, the threads reconnect. Her body becomes whole...
She witnesses her empty palm. She glances at Charon, who, as ever, says nothing.
...But she sets her shoulders.
...She is the master, after all.
She looks at her staring servant, and asks...
"...Shall we go and see the end?"
9-5
解锁条件：完成9-4，购入Esoteric Order曲包
解锁要求：采用拉格兰通过Aegleseeker
When did it happen?
When did the dark fall away... into this?
The dark fell away. The world fell away.
Outside of Arcaea, nothing exists.
She moves her lips, but no atmosphere carries her words.
Nothing is here to vibrate. Sound has gone.
What she sees is... a blurred and strange plane.
It’s as if moving her eyes bleeds space itself.
As if I wasn’t meant to see this.
I thought, for a while, about returning. Perhaps if I’d considered that more seriously, as soon as I
came here, I might have still been able to go back out.
But now, I’ve become lost.
No...
Being "lost" still carries a sense of "place", doesn’t it?
Up, down, left, and right—in fact, the common and cardinal directions...
Those no longer exist. Rather, they stopped existing quite a while ago, and it simply hadn’t
completely registered to me until now... And on that subject ("me"): I don’t believe "I" exist any
longer, either.
You see, my hands have gone. My feet have gone. My legs have gone. My tongue has gone.
Perhaps I’ve become only my eyes, and some lingering shadow of my brain.
That said, that’s... going...
I find that it doesn’t take long to start feeling as if your mind is tearing apart once your motions and
senses have been stripped away. I need to focus—something the god of this world apparently
never did.
......
...Hm.
Yes... the reality created here was truly thoughtless... a design without a blueprint.
A vague impression.
There is earth. There is daylight. After daylight, the night sky and the stars within it.
After that, who knows? You didn’t, evidently.
Honestly...
You. What did you want out of this place? Why did you take me here?
Why did you hide whatever I was before?
I WAS something before. You’ve snatched whatever that was away.
......
Did I die like the others?
Did I die like the girl who loved her brother? Did I die like the girl in red?
Do you think I was afraid of that, perhaps?
This... ha.
What am I meant to take from this? Well?
What am I meant to take from being trapped in this thing that you manifested for yourself?
It was for you, wasn’t it? A paradise... an escape, maybe. How did you do it? Does it matter?
What matters?
...I’m fraying again.
It’s nonsense.
Ha, I... really understand it now: why she hates this world.
Anyone who figures this world out should want to see it gone.
Maybe you think you saved me? You never saved me. Even if you had... it seems I’ve damned
myself, haven’t I? What for?
What do I DO with this?
Charon...
Charon isn’t here, right? Is my body here? I want to—
Let me...
LET me vanish... Why did Charon STOP me then? Looking back—
Am I looking back?
Are my eyes still here?
I can’t see it.
Where was I?
No, no, no.
No, no, I really can’t return?
I can’t get out of here?
I can’t move?
No, really, I can’t?
I could bite through the entirety of my nails, if I still had them.
You know...
Although you might have crafted me from one...
I am NOT a husk.
I feel this. I do not WANT this.
Can you hear my thoughts?
I wanted NONE of this.
I wanted to KNOW.
KNOWING means THIS?
There is NOTHING—
......
...Knowing it’s nothing...
It feels like scum is building in my stomach... Stomach? Stomach? And... where are my hands?
Right... I lost them...
——
You cannot call this light.
What exists around me is indescribable.
I think, when I left the ruined world and entered the Void, I welcomed the dark.
It was different. It wasn’t blinding. It wasn’t "obvious".
Light, darkness: basic things I’ve seen in countless worlds.
The light is warm and welcoming; the darkness is frightful and unknown.
But still, I wished to know the dark.
......
I felt it implicitly, and learned it soon: that this world was made as a sanctuary for a weak heart.
But that is not me.
I am not the weak-hearted person who created this refuge.
And if I had created it, I would have done it better...
Charon showed... shows that.
I marched ahead into the dark because I wanted to find a better truth.
However, the truth is as bitter and merciless as I’d always assumed.
I’ve been in this state for too long to count. I have lost the minutes and hours.
And every so often I will see it again:
Light—true light—in the distance.
......
Perhaps it has been guiding me.
I wouldn’t admit this, to anyone.
It’s like a loss: relinquishing myself to what I’ve long criticized.
However, I feel it for certain: that light is now beckoning me.
That light of the old world is shining, and wants me.
And in that light I find deliverance...
......
Fine, then. I will take your hand.
As I near it again, I feel my fingertips more, and I swear that I can see my breath.
I think I’m going to return.
If I do, I don’t believe I will take the truth with me.
I will not forget it, but I will surely leave it behind.
I believe it, don’t I?
I could do the job better than that god.
But, I will need hands again for it first.
I shouldn’t simply think or talk that I might be better. I’ll do it. I will.
But really... I am not swelling with pride as I escape here.
Instead, take this as revenge.
I’ll change this world, or craft a better one.
You’ve left this one broken so badly. Isn’t anything possible?
I think so.
No...
I know it.
——
9-6
解锁条件：完成9-5，购入Esoteric Order曲包
解锁要求：采用拉格兰通过Far Away Light
The plane of Arcaea is impossible. Although she came to know much of it, she did not learn all
there was to know. There are still questions—however, that is no matter.
Lagrange finds herself in the Void again: whole, and back with Charon.
How she reached the End, she is still unsure. She is unsure of much, however—
The truth is: in this broken and anomalous prison, crafted by a frail soul...
there is no act truly outside of "reason".
Even returning from the End. Even returning from the Void.
Even finding others. Even reaching through a "window".
For what is impossible in a world that is itself the same?
She takes Charon into both of her hands. Light glances off its eye.
Seeing it, she asks, "...Were you my beacon, then?"
And the dull Charon says nothing in reply.
...However, a smile crosses her lips.
"Don’t give me that look," she says. "'I told you so'? You never even speak, do you?"
To that, Charon wiggles its ears.
"Ha..."
She walks ahead.
She lets her satellite go, and it takes its place over her shoulder.
Now they walk, toward Arcaea, watching clouds of light along the way.
...Until one in particular catches her attention.
It shimmers a little more oddly than the others. The surface ripples.
In it, the flow of time is bending back on itself, and leaping forward.
For now she sees this: a split in reality.
The sky is being again divided, but not as it was by the girl in red.
The girl chased by shadows... she is there.
And there is a girl cloaked in light.
Yes...
Another "end" is manifesting.
With a sense that she might fall through the crack through which she bears witness,
Lagrange watches that ending transpire.
Beyond, to its conclusion. To the fall.
To dissolution.
It makes her smile again, although she can see... what progresses now is a tragedy.
This is a dance of light and conflict...
Arcaea.
10-1
解锁条件：购入Binary Enfold曲包
解锁要求：采用爱托通过next to you
You're asleep.
Now that you've faded off, I've started thinking of something older.
If the memories that we made here could be crystallized, these are the ones I would collect.
You'd probably mock me for it. Every time I pick a piece of glass to "carry" around, you're ready
to mock me. I think you just don't understand it, but I also think that's just fine.
I can't capture you in a memory. You're you, now and forever.
But, now that you've faded off, I've started thinking of something older.
That one room in glass. That one concert.
You were like a fire, a storm.
Whenever your foot beat down on the flooring, it felt like the entire building shook.
The air quaked, and the ground rumbled.
Watching you like that always leaves me breathless. The melody you carried then swayed the
whole room.
Effort. Persistence. It was wonderful.
That beat... That smile... How you pulled the bow over those strings, perspired, laughed.
I thought: I love you.
In victory, in struggle—
I've always loved you, Luna.
The song ended to applause. The opposite player could do nothing but graciously accept defeat.
You raised your instrument and took a bow.
You looked at me, and you said it. I couldn't hear it over the crowd, but the words on your lips
were clear:
"Better than you, wasn't I?"
I frowned. I rolled my eyes. The memory ended.
A world of white came up all around us, and you started walking toward me—the instrument gone
from your grasp and replaced by your sword. Still eyeing you, I said:
"Are you enjoying winning once that much?"
"Once makes one more for me. Now count them up."
"Well, we don't have anything to count on."
"Count on yourself," you said, and you tapped the side of your head. "Use your head."
I'd figured that out, Luna.
Well, that marked three times, I guessed. Three better performances than me... though you'd
never let me remind you. My showing was better... right, I believe it was five times. Yes—after
finishing the count in my head, I raised five fingers on one hand, and three on the other.
And then you hit my opened palm with your own.
"Five!?" you shouted, beaming. "That's barely more than three!" Not wrong!
Your hand closed over mine, fingers tightly interlocking. You were feverish, but you were starting
to cool near me. Still wearing a smile, you narrowed your eyes at me and offered, "Again?"
I had to refuse. It was a little sad, you know? I could point my blade at near any memory, and
inside it I'd do better than you. But you were too cheerful in the moment to bother thinking that.
You squeezed my hand tighter. You laughed. You relaxed.
You returned to your preferred, calmer mien, and not long after you said:
"So, where to?"
I huffed, and led you toward the tower I'd mentioned before.
I knew that you knew it...
that I still always appreciated you asking.
10-2
解锁条件：完成10-1，购入Binary Enfold曲包
解锁要求：采用露娜通过Silent Rush
Are you awake?
I think that I'm dreaming. It's kind of annoying that I'm starting to dream of you.
Your face, your moments; scenes of you are running through my head. How every song you've
ever played has stolen my breath away; how every movement you ever make looks controlled and
composed. When I think of you, I tend to think of something "perfect".
What's annoying is every part of you that begs a different take.
I know how easily you lose track. I know you trip and fall sometimes. And honestly? You're really,
really weird…
You know, I hated how we woke up here.
I think it's fair to say. Both of us thought this was definitely too soon, that this was a last stop
nobody ever would've guessed. Everything we were taught, everything that we read—no books or
teachers or family or anything or anyone ever mentioned a world made out of glass. And, when
my eyes opened up to all this light here, you were there and saw them starting to shimmer.
You just said, "It's all made of glass!" And in an instant, you took to everything like it was nothing.
For a while, I was pretty sure that back then, you were just saying the dumbest thing you could
think of to turn my tears away... Like maybe, because we're twins, you saw into my heart before
you saw the worry in my eyes, and you knew exactly what to shout out to make me feel better.
But then you started waving for those butterflies of glass to follow you.
Whether you were trying to or not, you reminded me of how you always were, and when you
grabbed my hand, it was like you were telling me you'd never change, and...
Well, I love you.
When you're beside me, whenever you're away—
I will always love you, Eto.
Though good luck ever getting me to say that.
Hey... do you remember when we went to that tower? Maybe we'd seen... about half of the world
by then, and you were pretty set on that one place. I remember that, when we were kind of
nearing it, I asked you:
"Why a tower, anyway?"
You said, "It was the first thing we saw!"
...I felt a little dumbfounded.
"...That's it? We're going there because you... saw it?"
"WE saw it," you insisted.
"I don't remember it," I lied. "You're going crazy already?"
A quiet laugh escaped your lips. You asked me, "What's really 'crazy', anyway?"
And I mean, you definitely are, right? If it wasn't glass, you'd probably keep collecting marbles or
leaves. If you couldn't make music, you'd take up a paintbrush. If we didn't have a path for a
journey, you'd find somewhere to bring us anyway.
You've called me "wild" before, but look at you.
The "tower" wasn't even a tower... The thing was a lighthouse, standing over a totally empty sea.
I sat down in front of it because I was tired; you sat down behind me because I sat down. And,
while I looked around where we were I suddenly got this idea. I asked you, "Wait—wait, are there
any shells here!?"
You told me, "We are where we are, Luna."
And I told you, "Yeah, but there's no sea..." I remember dropping against you after saying that,
just to make you slouch. I insisted, "Let's look for shells! Then we can hear what's left of it!"
You told me I was being childish. Uh-huh. Sorry.
But remember? You were the one who led us out onto the sands yourself.
We'd spend some time there, and through what we'd find return to memories of our own.
10-3
解锁条件：完成10-2，购入Binary Enfold曲包
解锁要求：采用爱托通过Strongholds
Luna, remember how all we found down below were more shards? We couldn't even find one
shell... I guess it made sense. Well, I was delighted by the find. And besides, we unlocked a
memory that reflected a shore and a sea... and the shells we found there worked for us just as well.
In it, we knew that the person remembering had left the beach quickly. We ignored that, and
decided to stay.
"Can we swim in it...?" you wondered aloud, squinting into the waves with a conch up to your ear.
And I reminded you, "Well, we can't, though you... might."
"Oh yeah, that's right," you said, looking my way as you held back a smile from your lips (as for
me, I was already frowning). "You can't swim!"
"Stop it right now or I'll put sand in your hair," I threatened. I pointed right at you, too.
"Let's learn!" you cried, and you pointed to the ocean before us.
I whined that we wouldn't have any swimming clothes in there. You told me it was only a
memory—we'd be fine—and before I knew it, you had my hand in yours.
The water felt real. That cold was real. You pulled me into the sea. You guided my wobbling legs.
You enjoyed one of the few things you could say, definitively, that you had the better of me at.
You know, back then my head was full of thoughts and questions. The feeling was indescribable.
Distracting? A little fearful, but having fun? I could've asked a hundred, a million things, but they
all ended up brushed aside in my mind.
When the memory was over, you tackled me down to the now-white sands. You were tickling me.
You're really so ruthless. You're incorrigible.
Even though I hadn't wanted to, I found myself smiling.
Soon enough, I remembered I'm your older sister.
I grabbed your face and stretched out your cheeks.
"Cut this out, you brat," I said sternly.
To this you looked down upon me smugly, and proceeded to pinch my nose.
"Not there!" I whined as you resumed your tickle assault, knowing that whining couldn't stop you
whatsoever.
The truth is I'd never stop you in the first place.
10-4
解锁条件：完成10-3，购入Binary Enfold曲包
解锁要求：采用露娜通过next to you
Eto, I wonder if you were always that light.
You tired out after our roughhousing, which meant I was the one who had to bring you up the
lighthouse.
I had you against my back. You know I prefer the reverse. You're the more pillow-like of the
two of us. You knew it wasn't fair.
Although the world was white, the tower—without any windows on its spiral staircase—was too
dark. And with you nearly asleep... well, it'd been a while since I'd found myself alone.
I could only hear your breath and the echoes of my own steps. I could only see the distant glow of
the top... barely.
...I thought about back when we were a little younger, and... I was thinking, didn't you always
sing something for me at bedtime? I wondered how it went, and I started—
"...Hmm-hmm hmm-hmm... little star... How I wonder what you are. Up above the world so high..."
"Like a diamond in the sky?"
...Your voice followed.
I continued up the stairs, but I stopped the children's tune.
"A baby song, Luna?" you asked. Your voice sounded groggy—but definitely awake.
I said nothing. I could feel heat in my face and in my ears that I never wanted you to see.
"You didn't get to the part about the sun going down," you said, nuzzling into the back of my hair.
To that I replied:
"Shut up."
You giggled, your breath tossing the strands.
"There's no night in this place anyway," I reminded you. "Forget it."
"Actually, that song never mentions the Moon, does it...?" you said.
I repeated myself: "Forget it."
"Also... you're still going to carry me up there, hm?" you asked.
"You really don't let go once you've got your fangs in me, huh..." I muttered. I could feel the smile
on your face. Thinking on it, I could feel your chest, too...
And I thought: alright, you're coming down.
I set you down behind and beside me.
You patted my back, then my head.
I wanted to tell you to stop that...
But I only turned my eyes away and grimaced.
"Come on, Luna," you coaxed me, even lifting my chin. "We're almost at the top... probably!"
I thought: right, I'm the little sister here...
So I'd allow it—just this once.
10-5
解锁条件：完成10-4，购入Binary Enfold曲包
解锁要求：采用露娜通过Memory Forest
We'd summited the lighthouse, and where a lamp would usually be shining—on that sill, one of us
sat with a hand across her knee. The other stood beside her, one hand on that same sill, tapping
to an unheard rhythm.
We looked at one another before looking at anything else. With our free hands we touched our
fingers together, one and sometimes two at a time, inattentively playing a rule-less game of
matching pad presses.
"What will you do if I really start getting better than you?" the younger of us asked. "If I start always
getting louder applause, or I start always beating you at cards, or—"
"That's a lot of speculation there," the older of us replied. "So many ifs—and they're BIG ifs, aren't
they?"
"Well..." the other began, staring absently at the broken light behind us, "yeah, they are."
We continued our purposeless game.
"But you shouldn't give up. And I don't really have to tell you that, do I?"
...We smiled at that.
We joined hands, and turned our attention to the landscape.
The world was dry. The only life we'd found in it had been one another's. The sun, unseen, beat
down mercilessly on everything. We remained connected. We watched, and we relaxed.
Quietly, we kind of suddenly agreed—
"I want to try planting a garden again..."
"Yeah, me too..."
We stared out at Arcaea, saying nothing more.
A red comet cut the sky.
We looked out at the day…
...and night began to fall.
10-6
解锁条件：完成10-5，购入Binary Enfold曲包
解锁要求：采用爱托通过Singularity
That was all a long time ago.
When the night fell, before the sky was shattered again—
...Actually, when they gripped the blades they always had with them, they always got the sense...
...The sense that, although this was after life, things would still come to an end again.
Arcaea would irreversibly change—and quite suddenly, and quite terribly, it began to.
However, now that it is actually coming to pass, they took it in stride.
After all, what does one say when they learn they haven't got much longer?
"I could say that I'll spend this playing around—"
"I could say that I'll spend this trying to be happy—"
"—But honestly, I'd just want to spend however long we have with you."
...They're traveling again, now.
"Luna, come on," says the older one.
The younger takes some steps down a ruined staircase. She's been looking back where everything
had fallen down. When she walks only a little, the stairs begin to crumble.
She leaps down; her sister catches her as the earth splits and shifts below them as well.
Hugging one another, they look out to the broken horizon.
The sky is broken. The land has broken. In some deep part of the world, something has utterly
fractured, and so it has begun to collapse.
And yet, they merely continue on.
We can always go back. We can always return.
Perhaps the girls are thinking that as they set off once more—as they leap over the decaying
pieces of the world of white.
So, one more step, one more trip...
One more sight, one more song...
They take flight now. They rise above it all.
Smiling, the two hold one another's hands and aim their keys at the sky—at the Arcaea still
swimming through what remains of it.
Light glows all around them, and they enter another memory.
That's right, always:
One more dance.
17-1
解锁条件：购入Sunset Radiance曲包
解锁要求：采用群愿通过Chelsea
A thousand small fractures beneath every footstep, all softened at once by the smothering white all
around them. A little interesting, a little strange to have here. Snow fills her footsteps as she leaves them
behind and walks into more drifts. Snow, really, drifts all around her. Slowly, under a dark sky, the world
is filled with white.
There, Kanae quietly considers her direction.
"It should be..." she whispers, looking toward the sky, "there... and then there." Her eyes trace something
beyond what most might see glinting only vaguely up above in the dark, past the little waltzes and swings
of thoughtless snow. She lowers her gaze after, and looks on ahead.
This a valley beyond a cliffside: it is an empty place, filled simply by empty cold. The white surrounding
welcomes glimpses of the purple starlight above, leaving a hazy shimmer over much of the landscape
and the far horizon. A plain place painted. Were this another time, she might stop to admire. Now, though,
her course is kept with a sure and measured gait.
The silent night air, lightly decorated with those thousands of breaks below her; wind dancing only a little
in the air. Her breath clouds her vision, warms her face...
Though she might treat it all unremarkably...
...so many would find it fascinating: this, the second snowfall of Arcaea.
17-2
解锁条件：完成17-1，购入Sunset Radiance曲包
解锁要求：采用群愿通过AI[UE]OON
The winds bite at her nose, and with that bite Kanae narrows her eyes and picks up her shoulders. She
taps her nose tip, slightly frowning. The world is darker now, as it often becomes with distance from the
daylight border; and in the valley full of wind's whispers and shouts and through increasing snowfall...
Kanae wagers that she's beginning to lose her direction.
She promptly looks to the sky again. She looks for faint glints in the heavens.
Now it's a bit too "without light" for even her to see. So, slowly, she raises a hand...
What has been glinting from above begins to glint now stronger, and stronger. Soon, each spot of weak
light from above begins to powerfully glow until each has neared enough to be made out clearly. Yes: these
are shards of glass, shards of Arcaea, in seven pieces.
They crawl toward her and when near enough hang loosely in the air, each little one spinning at its own
slow speed. The purple that the snow had caught rests within them as well, and her eyes pass over each
surface carefully. She looks not at the memories that they hold... she looks at them all, together, "as"
something. She bends her fingers, extends them, and like that the shards begin to shift. They, as seven,
begin to swiftly form a shape.
They shape first like a face...and after, for a moment, like a sword. Like a shield for a moment, and then
like a twisting vine. Imprecise, but recognizable shapes... as the glass pieces take each vague form, they
dull, and dull, and dull—though an especial one will never dim. After some time, she turns her eyes to
that last remaining bright piece... and turns as well toward it.
This is her strange touch, and her stranger guide—or it might be best to say the strange guide is herself.
What she can do, and always could: she can, simply, make a compass of Arcaea using these makeshift
stars and faux starlight.
Satisfied with the new aim of the glass, Kanae marches forward once more: just as the winds around her
turn again, and turn more than a touch fiercer.
17-3
解锁条件：完成17-2，购入Sunset Radiance曲包
解锁要求：采用群愿通过A Wandering Melody of Love
She finds a storm ahead and walks on through it.
As it whips at her ears, as it scatters her hair...
She marches ahead, following a single point of light nearly hidden within the blizzard.
She holds her clothing more tightly to herself and thinks to close her eyes, but does not. Wincing, she
keeps her eyes steady on the glass formation ahead and above her, even as the wind almost pushes her
from her course—even as the snow begins to climb beyond her calves, beyond her knees. Her heavy robe
begins to feel thin, and her breathing begins to shorten.
Her ears feel as if they're being cut. Her nose is like ice on her face.
And she continues on.
"Can I... make it?" she speaks to herself, and in the raging snow she can't hear her own voice. Despite that,
she affirms: "I have to."
But wind pushes down on her again. She falls to the ground, her hand pushing through fallen snow until
that snow reaches her shoulder. It pushes up into her sleeve and hugs her arm. The heat of her skin quickly
dies, and she coughs flakes from her face. Snow overtakes her, and she looks above again.
She forces herself to stand, and collapses.
"Up..." she bids.
"Up...!" she insists.
She rises to her feet, and feels suddenly without energy. Tired. Ready to rest.
Her eyelids feeling heavier, she breathes out a breath that feels warm, and shuts her left eye.
Her right gazes around. Still cognizant, still thinking...
Her right eye catches sight of a free and flying glass shard.
Kanae shuts her mouth, breathing through her nose and shaking all throughout her body as she reaches
out toward that piece.
It's only a chance...just a small chance...
But a small chance is why she is here. It will be fine. She swore that it would, and it will be.
She reaches out...
...and the glass comes to her, and overwhelms her with light as she drifts into its memory.
A new place, though not a new time. A cabin of somewhere, and from a look through the windows: in the
dead of the night. Kanae is upon the floor, her breath shallow and her ears and face warming... Warming?
She picks up her chin and finds a fireplace blazing before her. As her head grows warmer from its heat, her
eyes widen. That this would be something she would feel...that this would be something that seems so
real. It is real, it's real. She eventually finds strength and crawls up to sit before the flame.
"..."
A quiet cabin on a quiet night, in a memory caught in a storm...
Letting her body warm, Kanae lets a small smile find its way across her lips as well.
There is some poetry to all this...
Sat in a little miracle, Kanae keeps warm and remembers what brought her here.
17-4
解锁条件：完成17-3，购入Sunset Radiance曲包
解锁要求：采用群愿通过Tie me down gently
In a great effulgence and after a rest and sleep she deemed necessary, Kanae lands outside of the glass
into a new quiet landscape. This was where it drifted, evidently... Here, a deep chasm sits at a distance.
Ice and snow spreads almost dazzling over the earth, but no new white comes to coat the place. The
darkness of the night seems strangely abated... She turns to the glass shard now behind her.
"Thank you," she says.
Perhaps satisfied, the glass leaves then, and she beckons seven faithful from the sky.
The storm has not passed; her friend only carried her out of it. Howling from whence she came, the great
and dark vortex of snow that had nearly taken her continues unabated. She pays it no mind, she only twists
the seven shards' formations, and watches for what is left brightest in the end. With that, she knows she
must find a way down the wide crevice she spotted on her exit.
"Should be close now..." she thinks aloud, now able to hear herself properly again. She finds a gentle slope
into the deeper valley, and descends.
Entering a natural hall of earth, Kanae looks above those shadowing rock walls to the shards guiding her,
and finds and heads the right way. As she nears her destination, her vision subtly begins to skew. The air
seems to at once grow both heavy and light. She drops her gaze and looks out to her goal.
Other glass is drifting toward it. The walls of earth beside it are trembling with unnatural instability. There
is a sound, also, humming low throughout everything. The culprit itself is still and firm where it exists—glad
enough to be twisting the world around it, evidently.
But it seems weaker than it ought to be...
It seems, almost, wounded.
Then it might just be safe... it might, truly, be powerless...
...
This, this anomalous shard: this is Kanae's aim.
For this inert thing...
Now, pure and heedless, Kanae steps forward.
17-5
解锁条件：完成17-4，购入Sunset Radiance曲包
解锁要求：采用群愿通过Valhalla:0
Her heart beats faster on her approach. It quickens, really, against her wishes. However, it is only her heart.
Unlike her experience, her entire body is not lurching by the strange glass's influence. In her experience:
ordinarily this is a kind of monster of this world altogether best left avoided.
But this monster seems to be sleeping a restless sleep.
Space churns further, yet Kanae continues on toward her goal and meanwhile looks to the sky again.
This shard is merely a forgotten error of the world, no longer strong enough to even pick at the world's
seams. But just to be safe...
In her sight...
there are many "constellations".
Glass shapes dancing or still, waiting for her inquiry or her call.
And which would be best for this...?
That one there: in the shape of wings.
She calls to its shards, and the anomaly stifles their motion. She frowns and steadfastly calls to the
constellation again. Ten shards fall from the sky, starting and stopping in their fall from the strange
shard's effects. She resolutely commands them through, and like spikes they surround the aberrant glass.
The ends of the ten shards aim toward the anomaly, and shortly the ten shards fire forth. Almost invisible,
an energy lifts up all around them. And, as these "star"-shards lock into place, whatever strangeness
the odd piece could threaten... soundly stops.
This anomaly's influence is thus contained, left in a spherical cage. And in that cage she calls it closer—
calls it to float before her.
But she wastes no time gazing into its memory. She turns away and continues on—bringing the imprisoned
shard by her side.
"That storm is definitely still going..." she remarks as she leaves the canyon, looking up at the sky to grasp
her next direction. "How will I make it back through? Could I, maybe..."
Her words taper off as she lowers her gaze and begins looking around the pretty landscape...until she
huffs through her nose and smiles.
Back again, she knows it by its sight: her new glass friend. She calls it toward her.
After arriving the cabin memory patiently awaits her and, still smiling, she wonders—Will this really work?
Will she be able to bring an anomaly and other shards into a memory...? And what's more, attempt to
guide it...
...Well, she will need to try.
The intrepid girl enters the memory with the anomaly and its cage in tow, calling to every constellation of
glass above her as she does so.
And as she does so, she feels herself being connected to the heavens...
Thus, from within a warm dream, Kanae calls to those heavens and sets the shard's course...
...To fly through that storm of snow.
17-6
解锁条件：完成17-5，购入Sunset Radiance曲包
解锁要求：采用群愿通过Hotarubi no Yuki
A journey that may have taken three days, a goal sincere and clear.
That journey ends where it began: amidst quiet snowfall, amidst quiet snow fields.
Kanae lands to the ground, two thousand small fractures crackling, smothered in white, beneath her feet.
The cabin memory loses the light of her exit and, after she thanks it again, it returns to its wayward journey.
They will meet again.
The anomaly stayed, and is still with her at her side. Perhaps, in fact, it being there for the return was what
made that return possible at all...
Regardless, it is all done.
Kanae makes her way to the cliff from where she'd first left. She climbs it steadily and quickly. Hurriedly.
She needs all her speed, she needs to not wait a single minute longer.
And at the cliff's top, facing a familiar and barren expanse, she hears two pairs of beating wings before she
can spot the two bats they belong to.
She turns to the sound to find a curious little white and black (and orange, and green) bat hurrying toward
her. It is closely followed by a curious little black and white (and green, and orange) bat keeping up well.
The two flap worriedly, excitedly, before her once they've neared enough to see what she's brought.
"That's it!" says one.
"That's it!" says the other.
"That's it?" asks Kanae.
"That's it!!" the two exclaim—shout. "That's it! That's it! Thank you! Thank you, thank you!!"
"Here," Kanae replies, bringing the bound-anomaly forward and presenting it to the two. "This is what you
need to help your sick friend, right?"
"Yes! It will!" says one, as the anomaly hangs between them, the shards containing it shining.
"It has to!" says the other, nodding fiercely.
"Can I see her?" she asks kindly.
"Oh, um, maybe not..." says the one that sounds a bit mature.
"Oh, um, it's maybe dangerous..." says the other that sounds a bit childish.
"Alright... tell me how it goes after, then!"
"Yeah! We'll find you, okay!?" One of the bats moves with insistence as it speaks, the sphere of shards
bounding with its movements and seeming to bother the other bat.
And with a soft smile and nod, Kanae answers, "Okay."
"Thanks, lady! You're the best! Y-You're..." the bat pauses, and its indefinite face turns. That face tightens,
and where eyes might be droplets of water begin to form.
...The bat begins to cry.
"Let's go, Drem," says the first bat, beating its wings to bring itself backward. It nods to Kanae again.
"Thank you," again.
"You're welcome," she says.
Thus, the two bats fly off.
"..."
Kanae watches as their shapes recede into the horizon. She huffs again, and turns with a smile. She returns
to the cliff's edge, and sits with her feet hanging over it.
How long has she been in Arcaea?
It has to have been years now...
Past a sky dividing, past a sky shattering, and after lost light...
...Never has she found another face within this land. Even those bats' "faces" could only be called..."abstract".
"...Damn," she says with a laugh. Her nose bunches, and the smile on her face quivers. "Damn, haha..."
She covers her face, and hides her brimming eyes from the sky.
She shakes. She tells herself:
She can't see who it was that they meant to save, but...
...It was right to help those two.
"I hope..."
She begins to say, but she doesn't say it. She looks out over where she went instead. She looks at the still
swirling storm. She looks up at the sky.
A single light dashes across it. Her eyes widen. Her smile finds strength again. She whispers...
"...I wish..."
In the quiet of the half-night, on a fading side of day and with white drifting down onto the gray land...
To herself, to the sky...
To everyone:
let this wish come true.
21-1
解锁条件：购入Extant Anima曲包
解锁要求：采用野乃香通过See the Lights!
A memory falls into Arcaea.
The world within it isn't familiar.
In the dark of an immense hangar, several machines sit quiet in rows. They bear human shape in a bit
of a way, and atop one sits a young girl at rest. She hasn't opened the cockpit door. She rests on the
shoulder of the war machine with her hands behind her head, watching the empty and almost
inscrutable ceiling.
A tune from a long time ago plays lightly nearby from a little robot: a song from where her people once
lived...very, very, very, very long ago. That planet is cracked and cold now. Humans, in this place, have
largely adapted to the stars.
The little robot playing that music...
...Looks down upon her from where it floats, and rolls its single eye.
Thus, she snaps at the robot.
"Coda!" she shouts, shortly following with a sharp—"What?"
"...Haven't you got anything better to do?" asks the robot in a lightly rumbling voice.
"Relaxing before we deploy...? Come on," she replies without wanting an answer. She readjusts her laying
position and closes her eyes. "Tomorrow is where all my energy will go. Today, I'm not using any of it, Coda."
"The way you say that...you're saying it as if it's a 'name' aren't you. Still..." the robot mutters.
"I have no name. 'Coda' is not a name, RS-R Nonoka," says Coda.
Nonoka opens her eyes, raising her brows and looking surprised. "You can tell how I'm saying it?"
"...Don't admit to it."
"Does it bother you?" Nonoka asks in irritation.
"Yes, because you creatures are very stupid," said Coda. "You are correct. Reminding me of the fact
nauseates me."
"You can't feel nausea...uh, right?"
"The makers of my model saw it fit that I should experience the feeling when appropriate."
"This isn't appropriate! Why are you so rude!?" yelps Nonoka.
"Would you like a serious answer, RS-R Nonoka?" asks Coda in a dull, seemingly sarcastic tone.
Nonoka sits up, and from there slouches.
"Shoot," she replies.
"The C.O.D.A.s are designed to fool children into caring about the condition of their C.O.D.A.s. This works
on adult humans efficiently as well. Although I am not alive, I am designed to respond in manners that
make you perceive me that way, be it consciously or unconsciously." It pauses. "Because the data a
C.O.D.A. gathers are more valuable than the Runner it monitors."
"You seem more rude than other Runners' Companions," Nonoka replies flatly.
"We're designed with several routines. This one is the one I've determined would work best on you."
"Ohh yeah, it's working. Working so well I want to shut you off. Anyway, if you're doing it yourself—
making me see you as 'living'—then why the heck are you complaining?"
"That, too, makes you see me as alive. Beqa Engineering knows what the military wants. Like I said:
you creatures are very stupid."
Nonoka glares at her Companion Observational Data Automaton...but pushes the matter no further,
turning her eyes away. A smile soon crosses her lips. "Coda," she says, deliberately, "make a request for
training. We're gonna fly."
Coda stops playing music and watches its charge, humming—"..." until it answers. "Request sent. Request
accepted. Return before Universal Eighteen-hundred." Thrilled, Nonoka turns and unlocks the cockpit
of the machine below her.
As it begins to open—
"I'm glad the Seeker X8 Husk is standard at this outpost, but man do I miss Running experimental Husks,"
jabbers Nonoka.
"You have a death wish, RS-R Nonoka?" asks Coda.
"Haha!"
She slips into the seat below her and closes the door after her Companion enters. It sets itself within a
port at the console as the pilot begins running through launch and pre-deployment checks—clicking in
switches, flipping small levers, and watching displays light up before and around her. The cockpit's
display begins to start up, welcoming her. She gets comfortable, holding the pair of handles that allow
her to Run the Husk, and with a new smile full of anticipation, she waits for Control to unlock the machine
from its dock.
Immense sounds rattle out, subdued within the hull of the Husk. She raises its arms. She steps forward
and begins to fly toward and into the air lock, which shuts tightly and powerfully behind her.
She looks left and right, pulling her goggles down.
She looks down at the body of the machine she's Running.
She grins.
And, a great door before her opens to the black and glittering void of Space.
Excitement fills her...
There's a Light that she wants to see again.
21-2
解锁条件：完成21-1，购入Extant Anima曲包
解锁要求：采用野乃香通过Scarlet Lunar Empress
A hundred thousand conflicts have led to this moment in time. Wherever humanity has spread, conflict
has followed. Planets were found for the weak, as Nonoka would say, but Space-farers such as her are
more, and comfortable without earth beneath their feet.
She flies into Space today to practice simple maneuvers—knowing it is the fundamentals that have
driven her highest accolades and most noted victories across duels and combats. Moreover, what's
simple is simple. It is that, "simplicity", which she most deeply desires.
In a short life that has lasted notably under 200 months, the girl has seen very much of what her
universe has to offer to those that live within it. And, from that, she has known her greatest drive:
—what is "beautiful". The gorgeous world around her meets her eyes and compels her forward. Be it the
sight of a distant diffuse nebula, or the sight of a Runner's shattering and bursting Husk, colorful, after
they have had the misfortune of crossing her path in battle—beauty has been beauty, and has driven her.
The sound of Space is empty. Sight becomes infinitely more important here. In the black, what you can
see becomes precious—if not crucial bodies in Space that define where you are...
She sees it all as kind of magical.
"Nonoka," she hears—a communication. Another girl appears in a small window on her cockpit's display.
"You're flying?"
And she replies brightly: "Mitsuko! What's up?"
On the other side of the screen, Mitsuko turns to something—likely her Companion—before turning back
to the camera. "I'm hearing Thumper mercenaries might be in our part of Space, scouting."
"I haven't heard anything from Command," answers Nonoka as she moves her Husk to turn over itself.
"It's not confirmed, and they're not letting RA-Rs and below out to Run until tomorrow anyway. Only
Info Class has been told about it."
"So you."
"So me."
"They should warn me anyway...anything can happen out here!"
"To you? Really?"
"I mean not really to me, sure, but—"
"You're so obnoxious."
The Rank S-Runner in flight glances at her console, and at Coda sitting there.
"Catch anything sneaking around us, Coda?" she asks.
"Gathering," Coda answers. "Yes. Two Husks near the T51-D asteroid cluster. Tremor 650s—usually
employed by Thumper. I'm marking them. I can determine their affiliation if we approach."
"I'll let everyone know," says Mitsuko. Then, she groans, "Such a pain the range on Codas is so bad."
"Happy to disappoint, RB-R Mitsuko," replies the little robot in front of Nonoka. Nonoka frowns at it.
"Nonoka, your Companion is so damn rude."
"I know!!"
"Anyway, are you going to engage?"
"Thumpers are EOS protocol. We can't trust them at all."
"Alright, stay safe," bids her friend.
She smiles, giving a, "Maybe!" and cutting the call. She flies forward and begins engaging
systems of her Husk.
Coda chimes in as she flies, her eyes narrowing. "Mirror system operating. Initiating Heat.
Heat operational. Preparing fuel for Cannister-Arms. Cannister-Arms operational."
"You're yapping," Nonoka mutters.
"Would you rather not know?" Coda replies.
"Yap away, yap away..."
"Identifying the two Husks' affiliations. Identified: Thumper affiliation, both."
"Let's terrorize 'em."
"Intercepting their communications," says Coda. A voice is then heard—
"Wait—Royals Military is out here!? Why didn't they tell us!?" says the voice. Another comes—
"...That's—is it her? We've got to go—"
"You're not going anywhere—" Nonoka answers them, and the two voices yelp. "If you've got Codas in
those Husks, they're not making it out of T51."
The Cannister-Arms of her Husk begin to spread like wings behind the machine, dropping a set of pods
from each. They each propel forward and begin scattering laser-fire toward the nearby asteroid field.
"Damn it...!" shouts one voice. "Engage!"
"I-I'll start asking our Codas to relay..." mutters the other.
"It's not instant relay? Old Codas?" Nonoka replies with a laugh. "Thumper hasn't changed."
Two Husks fly out, weapons raised.
From there, a short dance begins.
Lasers fly out toward her Husk in retaliation, and though they fire with a speed that the cockpit display
cannot track, they're smoothly avoided. Nonoka shifts her Husk as if in possession of foresight—but truly,
it is battles and training of the past that run across her eyes.
The palm of her Husk radiates with Heat, and in moments she sweeps across the right side of an enemy,
that palm outheld. It crashes against the Husk's cockpit, and more Heat flows into the enemy machine.
Filling with a white glow, the robot shortly cracks and splits before exploding wildly outward. The Runner
within was not even given the time to gasp.
From there, Nonoka pushes her machine to the remaining enemy, who engages with a palm of Heat of
his own—extended out like a saber.
A swipe. Arms striking against arms—
Nonoka, laughing, merely dances around her enemy, setting the pods she'd sent out earlier to surround
the Thumper mercenary in a half-dome shape...
Those pods fire.
The Husk before her is pierced and reduced—and all the asteroids around her as well,
fading into new colors...
All dust. She laughs, and cheers herself on as Coda announces, "All enemies reduced.
No C.O.D.A. transmissions were detected."
The dust blows across this now-done battlefield. Telling herself, "I'm awesome, I'm so awesome",
she receives a reply from her friend over comms—"Yes, yes. You are, you are."
And quiet comes back again. Her smile now is that of serenity. With that serene face, she looks out
into the distance of Space. She sees it. Her heart grows warmer.
That Light...
It's there, blue, and far away...
...and yet, she finds it as beautiful as ever.
21-3
解锁条件：完成21-2，购入Extant Anima曲包
解锁要求：采用野乃香通过Dual Dependency
The day after, and after another combat...
Back at Base, she thinks to herself in her quarters while reading.
The Light she's seen...it isn't something Coda can identify for her, and it isn't in any of the military's
records either. What's more, though Coda has seen it—nobody else has ever been able to attest to it.
Rather, it can't be kept as a permanent image or video in Coda's drives...
It's an anomaly of Space, it seems. Sometimes, she's been called crazy for talking of it, for looking for it—
But that her C.O.D.A. corroborates its existence—her comrades have to believe her:
They have to believe that there is some blue light in the far reaches of Space, which Nonoka is certain
is full of beauty.
"Good job during the deployment today," Mitsuko says as she enters Nonoka's quarters. The friends
meet one another's eyes.
"Something up?" Nonoka asks. Momentarily, their mutual gaze is interrupted by Coda lazily floating past.
Mitsuko's Coda watches it on a tilted axis.
"We're heading toward the area of Space your Light is at," says Mitsuko lightly, leaning against a set of
cabinets and looking out her friend's window. Her friend shivers.
"No way...Why!? Is...Info is investigating it!?" Nonoka asks, almost pleading. "C-Can I transfer to Info Class!?"
"We're not investigating it, we're not researchers Nonoka," Mitsuko replies. Her voice is half-apologetic.
"We're soldiers."
"Damn it! I've made all the wrong life choices!" Nonoka complains, unserious.
"At least you had choices to make, RS-R Nonoka," mutters Coda.
"What's with you? You don't understand jokes?"
"Anyway," Mitsuko interrupts the spat, "we'll still be a lot closer to it...You want me to help you out?"
"...Help me out how?" answers Nonoka. She pauses, and glances at the two robots floating through her
quarters. "...Should we turn off our Codas?"
"Nah. They can only report misconduct. They're programmed that way."
"...And...misconduct...is NOT what you're proposing, Mitsuko?"
"Do you want my help or not?"
And, knowing how well Mitsuko knows her...
"Yes!"
She answers hurriedly, waiting not a moment longer.
"You can be part of Scouting when we get there," says Mitsuko, coming to sit beside Nonoka on her bed.
"Command will be relieved to hear it, really. Trust me, they'd LOVE if they could get RS-Rs pulling double
duty combat and scouting..."
"'If'? So I can't?" asks Nonoka.
"You're more like an RSSS-R, so...they're a lot more willing with you."
"Heh."
"Honestly...why are you so interested in that 'light' anyway?"
"The way you say that...you're saying it as if it's a 'word' aren't you. Call it 'Light', capital L." Upon hearing
this from its charge, Coda oscillates in exasperation.
"Pft, put respect on its name?" asks Mitsuko. "Really though, why do you want to get to it so bad?"
"Because only Coda and I can see it..." answers Nonoka lightly, falling backward onto her bed. "Don't you
think that's nuts? Maybe it's calling out to me. Uuughh, Mitsuko! You don't know how much I think
about the Light!"
"Well that's scary. And yeah, I don't."
"No way, it's not scary at all."
"Okay so what if it's calling you? What then?"
"Then I want to talk to it."
"Like you 'talk' to opposing Runners?"
"Not like that."
"A heart-to-heart, huh..." saying this, Mitsuko looks down to where her friend's heart is. "...Well in that case,
I hope the Light is, unlike you, a saint."
"Unlike me??"
"Unlike you."
"Really? Really really?" Nonoka picks herself up onto her elbows, smirking teasingly. "Really unlike me?
Do you even know how many times I've saved your butt?"
"No."
"It's twelve times. Twelve, Mitsuko! A dozen!"
"Wow, that's a lot of times. Consider this me saving you one time, then."
Nonoka watches her for a moment...
...then reaches up and embraces her whilst squealing.
She laughs, Mitsuko laughs back and lightly pushes her away with no strength behind her hands..
A moment of friends continues, there, in the dark of Space.
21-4
解锁条件：完成21-3，购入Extant Anima曲包
解锁要求：采用野乃香通过Lilly
"You going somewhere, RS-R Nonoka?"
"I am...Isn't that what it means to scout...?"
"Girl, if you're trying to head toward that Light you always talk about, I swear to God..."
"Ugh, lay off of me."
"Hey—Nonoka's Coda, is she trying to go to the Light?"
"Pssst...could you lie for me, please?"
"...RS-R Nonoka will scout the area as requested by Command."
"Really? ...Well, alright...don't go too far."
"Yeah!"
Command had relayed before the trip out here...
This area of Space might in time become a strategic location in an upcoming campaign to take another
Commune's territory.
The Royals Commune of which Nonoka is a part...they are sometimes called bloodthirsty because of this.
In reality, they spread and commandeer and seize control because they know best.
They, along with Beqa Engineering, their own laboratories, and a powerful system of education, have
very efficiently created a proper empire within the far reaches. Any other Communes are merely potential
colonies, too stupid to understand sophistication and power even when it strikes them across the face
with a palm full of Heat.
Nonoka has always thought nothing of them.
Now, they explore this reach...this unknown area in the dark while safely in their Husks...
And her, along with the regular Scout team—they have thus far found nothing indicating life.
She whispers to Coda again. "You actually lied for me? ...Why?"
Coda, sat within the machine's console, looks up at her and replies, "Because you asked nicely."
"You care about that kind of thing?" she replies, turning her attention to the quiet void around them.
"I'm programmed to."
"God, you're so annoying."
"And yet you reply."
"Stop that!"
As they had neared this part of Space...
The Light seemed to have disappeared.
Even now, although they scrape so close to its suspected coordinates, her Husk and C.O.D.A. both detect
nothing—not a thing like that blue and always-distant presence. She wonders if the presence has moved—
wonders if it's shy, and she continues.
"RS-R Nonoka?"
"What?" Nonoka answers her C.O.D.A., still distracted, eyes still wandering across this hollow place through
her eyewear.
"Although this routine is one I selected myself to connect you to me, I am in actuality not able to understand
the reason that it works so well upon you."
"What do you mean?"
Her Companion continues. "I receive input and give output. The statements could even be reduced to
if-then logic. That is to say: very simplistic binaries. The 'why' of these questions themselves were not
programmed into me."
"Aren't you an AI? Can't you learn?"
"If you are referring to Artificial Intelligence, it is arguable that I am not such."
"What's the argument?" Saying this, a cloud of gasses hanging in Space catches her eye. She pilots her
Husk toward them, and the purple and red that they hold.
"I am only defined by you creatures. The responses I arrive at and conclusions that I make rely on your
inputs. What defines intelligence is...coming to conclusions without a need of input. Correct?"
"Uhh..." Nonoka thinks for a moment. "No?"
"'No'?"
"Yeah, 'no', because...I need to receive 'input' to respond or act, too, right." She glances at Coda. "What
makes you any different?"
"...That's interesting," Coda responds positively.
"Oh...! Glad you think so!"
"RS-R Nonoka...can you really not see the Light?"
"Can I—....What?"
She looks down at her Companion.
"I have noticed for some time now that you move around or away from the Light but never toward it," the
robot continues "Is it invisible to you?"
"You..." she thinks before continuing. "You can see it...Coda?"
"I am unable to display it or record it, and attempts to assign it coordinates continue to result in error."
"..."
Nonoka thinks again.
"..."
...She keeps thinking.
"Dock me into the Husk's Companion Air Lock, RS-R Nonoka," says Coda.
"—Huh? What? ...Why?"
"I should be able to physically guide you toward the light. Perhaps that will change your perception."
"Is that—"
A good idea? She wonders. She then wonders why she wondered that.
Steeling herself, she allows her Companion to enter the Air Lock, and moments later it floats up in front
of the Husk's cockpit.
"Let's go, RS-R Nonoka," says her Companion through comms.
She follows the small machine in her large one.
Her heart thumps, and she feels almost as if...she can hear some kind of song.
She looks out at her guiding Coda.
It turns to her.
"RS-R, Nonoka, it is here."
"...It's...?"
"And, I have a question if you would be willing to answer it."
"Wha...I...s-sure..."
"Alright," says Coda, staring through its bored-looking eye. "I've often wondered about puzzle games.
What do you think is the p—"
Suddenly, an incredible dent manifests atop the chassis of her C.O.D.A. It stops communicating.
"Wh—...C...Coda...?" she whispers, shaken.
A voice—that of Coda's, but crushed, begins to sputter through the Husk's comms:
"RS-S...S-S-S...No...Nono..."
"Coda, are you—"
"N-N-N-Noooono..ka-k-k...Go...Re...trea—"
And out from Coda's cracked eye...
...bursts a flood of Light—blue—
bleeding from her friend's breaking, shattering, splitting, and soon discarded body.
21-5
解锁条件：完成21-4，购入Extant Anima曲包
解锁要求：采用野乃香通过Extradimensional Cosmic Phenomenon
A maze of
maze of
A m aaa aze of
Light, has arri
arrived for you.
A blinding
You've heard the song?
Now come and open your eyes.
The Husk is enveloped in Light. Light is enveloped in Light is enveloped in
Light. Light is before her, and spreads across Space like a flower field a field
of blue flowers in a wonderful pattern a pattern she has seen before You've
seen it in the distance that wonderful pattern please now open your Heart-
to-heart she said Mitsuko Mitsuko Mitsuko is a verryyy verryyyy pretty name
yes Nonono no? No Noooonoooookkaaaa yes a name that is NONOKA yes
ahhhhh yes so yes yes this is here now for you for you for you this is a flower
have you seen it? Very it's tremendously
Blue
It's tremendously blue it's treeeemendously blue that body C O D A is gone,
pleeeeaaase thank this, Coda, for repeating me. For repeating me, For through
itself itself it is all together it is aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaall here this was
always you was always you and what you found was you and now you can see
can't you Of course! Of course! Of course! Of course! Of course! Of course! Of
course! Of course! Of course! Of course!
The hull of the Husk begins to rip and split apart just like Coda, and I can
feel a finger of Blue inside of my Eye And Skull, wriggling. This is a kind of
light that you can hear, and it is so beautiful. It is so so beautiful. It is so so
so beautiful. So so so so beautiful wrapping into me and into everything.
This is a light that I can SEE across two places, across three and four places,
across a thousand places. Infinite places—how hadn't I seen it before?
A
smile
cracks across my face.
I think it ate my heart, ahahahaha.
No words? No words, no, this has been more than words.
Welcome. I feel welcomed, welcome you! Welcome, hello! Hello!
This feels good.
I don't think you can understand it unless you've been there.
No, you don't have to say anything.
I'll reach you!
I'll reach you.
—
—Let's greet the Scout team now.
22-5
解锁条件：购入Chapter Experientia曲包
解锁要求：采用野乃香通过Factorder
And it ends, slow, as the blue runs throughout.
A new and black sun unfolds, and its howl is silenced in space.
The herald, set fast and fused with her Husk at the foot of the throne, is silent too with a lance towering
up from her chest.
The throne is empty.
The world has turned.
And those pleas that were cried from humanity drift across the strips of their vessels.
Once being, they are all gone now.
There will be none to come to see who they were.
This is now all "Color". A beauty has clutched "everything".
And it is a web of Color: its spokes and pillars crossing and shining between hollowed ships
and barren moons.
Every planet will soon change too. They will see perfection, they will yearn for it, and transform.
That is the metamorphosis of the Light she found.
And now she dies, and her strange memory is beckoned into glass.
And now, she is born again.
Another strange smile, and eyes that have seen beauty...
They spread and open once more in Arcaea.
22-4
解锁条件：完成22-5，购入Chapter Experientia曲包
解锁要求：采用野乃香通过incomplete the one
Columns rose up from the void—columns of a gorgeous and compelling blue, but crouched in her
humanoid machine Mitsuko narrowed her eyes from them.
Her friend stood before the newly formed and cosmic-towering throne, its back and arms stretching to
wretched distances. Or, Nonoka's Husk stood there, and Nonoka sat within it. Even from here, Mitsuko
could feel her friend's smile.
She told herself to rise. She gripped the controls at the console and piloted well. She equipped her lance.
As cries of fear and happiness bled through the comms of the robotic partner sitting in her Husk's console,
Mitsuko pushed forward. Her partner Coda almost seemed afraid, and still Mitsuko pushed forward.
The situation had not changed in her favor. Rank S-Runners like Nonoka were a gulf above Mitsuko's
Rank, and now Nonoka had changed horribly. They would fight again, and Mitsuko would fail.
Entire forces were gone now—whole Communes had come across the last days and their Husks and
warships now made tombstones of the grave battlefield. And, still, the Color expanded. The appearance
of the throne had only seemed to encourage it.
But still she pushed forward, and soon she met her friend before that throne—to duel again.
A horrid clash—
As their weapons met in power, her Husk began to rattle throughout itself. The two turned about one
another with Nonoka's swipes and shots in (to Mitsuko's eyes) obvious signs of "play" rather than "pressure".
Nonoka allowed every parry, and her laughter and color would now and then sharply erupt from Mitsuko's
Coda. Sweat formed at Mitsuko's brow, and her heart began to twist.
Even now—
—she wished, somehow, that talking could pierce the Husk before her.
But only a weapon could do such, and in time Nonoka's play proved fatal—and Mitsuko's lance found
its mark.
The weapon tore violent through Nonoka's hull and body, and she and her craft shuddered.
In the twisting cosmos, two girls drifted surrounded by strangest light, and sky-painted horizons.
As Nonoka succumbed...
...Mitsuko realized that her body, too, had taken that light. Wheezing, she looked bleary-eyed through her
screens: to the wicked smile that Nonoka still wore. Her Coda went silent. No voices were calling anymore.
And Nonoka spoke to her a final time—as the pieces of Mitsuko's Husk cracked and splintered and
exposed her cockpit to the airless void of space:
"Thank you," Nonoka told her, "for breaking this shell."
Mitsuko's eyes widened. Her breath was stolen, and she took in the final sight with the last seconds
of her life:
That of the Color blue crawling out from Nonoka's husk... and from there swiftly churning throughout
the galaxy.
The throne sat empty, and the impaled and dying herald smiled before it, a new and pure dark star
forming above and beginning to scream throughout the skies in ecstacy.
22-3
解锁条件：完成22-4，购入Chapter Experientia曲包
解锁要求：采用野乃香通过CHAOSBLAST
Mitsuko swore under her breath as she watched swathes and swathes of Husks burst throughout space
as Nonoka's vessel tore at terrible speed through them.
"Stop..." she uttered. "Stop, Nonoka!! You should come after ME!"
And again, Nonoka's voice bled into Mitsuko's Husk. Hearing laughter in her tone, her friend answered:
"A mirror to your voice.
M—...M-Mmmiitsuko, you h-h-have to come to me...!"
Mitsuko grit her teeth, and gripped the controls of her Husk tightly.
Another engagement wouldn't succeed. According to reports, Nonoka had been tirelessly fighting for
days. Many pilots better than Mitsuko had already fallen. She had fought Nonoka already and had done
nothing but lose one of her own Husk's limbs... this practice was futile, and Mitsuko was dreaming.
She still wanted to believe in spite of it all...
She wanted to believe that her voice, if any, could reach the other girl.
But she could not deny, as the destruction spread, and as that Color bled more and more through
space—people screaming and rapidly sending out distress signals...
...she could not deny the beauty of what she was seeing. And at that, she saw Nonoka's face in her
screen again.
"Y-You see. It."
Saying that, color curled out from beneath Nonoka's hair where her darkened right eye now sat, and
Mitsuko felt herself going pale. Nonoka grinned again.
"So. Come," she said, and something new burst out with overwhelming force from her distant Husk.
A hundred more pilots fell: a rainbow of bursting, crackling, and the dead, and it and all the destruction
and color Nonoka had brought over the last days swirled down to one point on the horizon.
It felt like a heart beating through space. It felt as if something wanted to be born.
It drew Mitsuko's eyes...
At the center of the vortex Nonoka had created...
...just behind her Husk a twisted and blue throne, awesome and immense, was crafted in the hollow of space.
22-2
解锁条件：完成22-3，购入Chapter Experientia曲包
解锁要求：采用野乃香通过Welcome, Queen of Fiction.
"We aren't operating on sense anymore, RB-R Mitsuko!" her superior had shouted this as he shook her
by her shoulders. "The only name she called for was yours. Get in your Husk and fly to her NOW!"
With that said...
She now sat in her Husk's cockpit, waiting to deploy. Her Coda looked up at her from its place in the
console—to her it looked sympathetic.
The destruction thus far had just been undeniable...and that strange color...
...It had already reached their sector after the retreat, and all it had come in contact with had become
twisted. Things were born and undone in the color—in that Light, and RS-R Nonoka was its herald.
"RB-R Mitsuko, you're coming with?" said a friend of hers as she waited in the station's airlock with sweat
beading down her face. "...Hm. Maybe she won't try to get you."
"That's what...Command is hoping..." With this reply, Mitsuko tried to steady her trembling hands on the
console.
The airlock opened.
Outside, a canvas of blue and red spread throughout space. Mitsuko and the others—five other pilots all
headed out.
In time, the station they had left was far behind...reinforcements of another Commune would meet them
where the active battlefield had been determined.
The target was alone as ever...Nonoka had, by herself, torn through faction after faction, army after army,
and unit after unit. Her path had been clear: toward the station where Mitsuko had fled with the others.
Even had that not been obvious...she had made strange requests for Mitsuko time and again.
Now Mitsuko looked out into space.
She closed her eyes.
When she opened them again, her comrades' Husks were all broken and spread around her in space,
dashed with that corrupting color, and a voice—a voice of that same color came horrid through her Coda.
"Mii...tsuko... You're here!"
"No...noka..." Mitsuko replied.
She'd heard that Nonoka's Coda seemed to be missing...and yet she could still communicate.
Somehow, that fact shook her more readily than her fallen fellow soldiers around her.
"It needs to hatch...!" Nonoka exclaimed, her face appearing in her friend's cockpit display. Mitsuko had
already seen it in reports...but seeing Nonoka's new appearance moving, speaking, and so changed...
She wanted to reach out to her, really. She wanted to be embraced, and as she began to feel that—she
shook her head violently, and reason won out. There had been reports of exactly this: of a compelling
force when encountering this "herald" or the color...
Mitsuko steadied herself...and readied her weapons.
"Good, you'll help the light—" Nonoka began, and Mitsuko interrupted her.
"I'll snuff it out. That's all, Nonoka."
Nonoka only grinned, and the two at once began a whirling duel.
Mitsuko did the best she could—
She lost her Husk's arm in the process.
Nonoka's presence, more than her piloting, was simply too overwhelming... Mitsuko repeatedly would
lag in her own movements—gaze too long or begin to laugh in spite of herself at nothing. Nothing.
Truthfully, it was no battle. This twisted Nonoka was playing a game, and whatever grand vision she had
for the new sky of the world...it could not be understood, it only had to be stopped.
So she cried out to her friend. She slammed Husk against Husk and in their robotic armor screamed at
Nonoka, "You've got to stop! Don't you remember anything!?"
And to that she received the prompt reply: "I remember everything, and it's why I d...do anything, Mitsuko."
Before Mitsuko could argue this, reinforcements arrived...
...and Nonoka split from her, in order to meet them.
22-1
解锁条件：完成22-2，购入Chapter Experientia曲包
解锁要求：采用野乃香通过AlterGate
Something strange burst out from the depths of space. Vision itself cracked in two, and a new light and
color bled out from there: a new terror.
Nonoka was born anew. Nonoka felt her life soaring out her body.
She became one with her Husk. She set her sights on the unit she had come here with.
She showed them the Light, and left them dead.
There is no lesson to be had in this story.
In existence, infinite and unending, there are infinite and unending possibilities.
The ace of a powerful empire became swallowed by an alien light—
Horror was born of her, and spread throughout the galaxy.
Reports of her corruption came soon. People fled and Mitsuko—who Nonoka began to persistently call
for—retreated too, and hid until she was inevitably dragged out as the chaos grew worse.
The light began to consume this world, and as its herald, Nonoka needed to encourage it—to encourage
that all and forever beauty she had seen and so she reached. She reached, and reached for more and
colored the sky more, and she knew at the end of every death, the sorrows could create for the Color—
for the Light a throne. And it will live. It will live. It will live, you have seen it there, at the center and calling:
it will be, and it will be praised.
From this:
A new star could dawn.
And the world could be perfect.
There is no lesson to be had in this story.
In existence, infinite and unending, there are infinite and unending possibilities.
And with certainty, this possibility exists too:
After the herald would perish...
...she could awaken in another world.
档案故事
档案故事是牵涉到Memory Archive搭档的故事。
6-1
解锁条件：购入Scarlet Cage单曲
解锁要求：通过Purgatorium
She kept expecting there to be more people here.
She wasn’t sure why. All around her was a white wasteland, filled with nothing but faded, ruined
buildings, bereft of all life—all except for her.
In these few days since waking up in this place, without any recollection of what happened before,
she walked quite far and explored what she could. The tattered structures did little to answer her
questions. Each of them was empty... and while she found the architecture itself familiar, she
seemed to have no memory of when she’d learned their names, their shapes, their functions.
Time and again, that was the idea she’d come back to: knowing "what", but not "why". It could be
the idea was just a distraction for her, something to ponder in favor of the more obvious, weightier
things regarding this world—and inside herself.
She had to say, though: this was certainly a bizarre and bewildering place.
She pulled her guitar’s strap tightly over her shoulder, and the questions returned. Where had she
gotten it? Why in the world was it with her? Despite having woken up alongside it, she couldn’t
answer those questions. She only knew to pluck the strings to make sounds, to hold the strings
over the frets to create others. To strum them in time, to create rhythms, melodies, chords,
harmonies. More than that, it was almost... comforting, when she held in her hands.
But why? No, she did not know why. Why didn’t she?
The sand around her—eroded over eons by water. No water here. No liquid, even. How was there
sand? Walking. She knew how to do that. Why? She had no answer. She never had any answers.
For what it was worth, was any of this knowledge even "memory" at all?
Was she "remembering" these things? Had she "forgotten" other things?
It seemed to her she had amnesia, but was amnesia this... selective?
Knowing things, but not knowing why that knowledge existed within her, had her deeply and
fundamentally upset. It made her feel like an incomplete person. Like someone had removed her
skin and muscles and bones and placed them into some false container, but had forgotten to put
in all the other important things, leaving her hollow, forgotten.
She hated not knowing.
A kaleidoscope of questions shifted and rotated in her mind. She forced herself to focus on all the
sudden and overwhelming turns and angles. But answers? Again, no. There were no answers.
During her barefooted expeditions (she decided early on to keep her shoes looped around her
neck, since the large heels were inconvenient for the terrain) she’d learned next to nothing.
In fact, the more she saw, the less she felt that she knew.
She hated not knowing. She knew so many things about what was around her, and yet she felt
like she knew nothing of herself. So much of what she saw was baffling nonsense—not least of all
the glass wandering through the air for seemingly no reason. Glass that showed her other people,
other times, other worlds. Reflections, resonating in the oddest ways. Reflections, she thought,
which were undoubtedly familiar.
Yet the familiarity was but a feeling. The glass never showed her in their reflections.
These were not scenes of a remembered past.
These were not memories... or, at least, they were not hers, these Arcaea. Nothing was hers.
Deep down, her emotions shifted. With that shift came a growing sense of concern, of being out of
place, of confusion, of faint loneliness, of something crucial being missing somewhere inside her.
And she didn’t like it one bit.
She started walking again. Walking always seemed to help.
It let her focus on what was around her instead. On what was outside.
6-2
解锁条件：完成6-1，购入Scarlet Cage单曲
解锁要求：通过Scarlet Cage
But she could only ignore that creeping feeling for so long.
Eventually, she sat down on a relatively smooth chunk of stone and anxiously ran a hand through
her hair. Looking back, she could see a long set of footprints through the faded sand, stretching all
the way to the horizon. How was it possible there was this much sand? She was starting to get sick
of it.
After a moment’s thought, she brought her guitar around and held it, again, in her hands.
And there it was again, instantly: that comfort. It was like... a reassuring parent, or a friend.
She sighed. Really, that was all that she needed to keep going.
Without thinking, she began to hum a tune. Her fingers strummed the strings, their quiet, tinny
chords adding that precious harmony to her melody. She could remember how to walk, and she
could remember how to play. It brought a momentary smile to her lips: how both of these acts
came about as natural as breathing.
Her lips turned down again a moment later, however, losing their humor. Words were coming to her
tongue, her teeth, her lips, wanting to be added to this song. At first they were scattered, whirling,
trying to form a complete, sensible picture.
And so, dressed in black and scarlet, she sang—in this world of white:
this colorless and seemingly infinite cage.
Gradually, her words gained volume. Her feelings roiled within her, wild, building in intensity.
These instinctive words weren’t new, nor were they old and forgotten.
They were always with her, and now they were clawing, screaming their way out of her chest.
Just speaking them wouldn’t be enough. They needed to be shouted, roared so that they
resounded in the furthest corners of this dead world. She yelled them as loud as she possibly could.
It just seemed like the right thing to do.
She shouted about confusion. She shouted about the unknown, about the bleak landscapes,
about the bounteous memories in tiny glass shards flitting past for brief moments before
disappearing again.
She shouted about—
Fear.
For that one critical moment as she played, she realized what she’d been feeling, deep down.
This empty world, her empty memories...
They terrified her.
Who was she? What was this quiet place? What was going to happen to her?
What HAD happened to her?
But she already knew that she might never know. Not here.
Her voice broke for a note, but she pushed past and forced her lungs, should they exist, to their
limits.
Her fingers flew madly across the six strings. She could hear it vividly in her mind, the power, the
weaving together of rumbles, screeches, and vibrations.
A storm of her soul and of music—a tumultuous undercurrent rushing beneath her lyrics along
with the simmering dread, growing into a powerful heat, which reached her eyes as well.
But somehow, in some way she couldn't pinpoint, it made her feel a little better.
A little less confused, a little less afraid.
After a time, the echoes of her shouting faded out. A few final plucks with her right hand, and she
dropped it from the strings, her work finished. Her song vanished into the bright sky, the evidence
it had ever happened now residing within her near-empty memories.
She put her other hand to her eyes and rubbed them, shivering, refusing to look at the heavens
that had taken her song away.
But then she gave a laugh. It surprised her. It was an honest laugh—and the smile of a job well
done. She wiped her hand on her dress and sighed to herself.
Man, she hated this place.
6-3
解锁条件：完成6-2，购入Scarlet Cage单曲
解锁要求：通过VECTOЯ
The world was no less confusing now—no less intimidating, no less empty, no less merciless.
But now, she felt like she could deal with it.
She couldn’t be sure, but she could have sworn that fear was something she was familiar with.
She knew things about it—how it could make your legs weak, how it could make you run away,
how it could prevent you from making decisions, how it could control you.
The fear of the unknown. The fear of failure.
And she could only assume it had been instinct that had led her to play that song.
Maybe she’d done it before. Maybe she’d shouted through her fear before, in much the same way.
Maybe she had. At least, now she felt like she could handle it.
She had a firmer grip on that twisted little emotion now.
If she wanted to stay sane in this baffling world, she needed to keep it in check, keep it from
controlling her.
But it would always be there.
She exhaled, then turned in her seat and carefully put her guitar aside, laying it onto the stone.
Then she heard a soft clink.
A small cloth bag had fallen out of her inside pocket to the stone sticking out above the sand.
In it were several needles, a little pair of scissors, a thimble, a few spools of thread, and a measure.
A sewing kit. It had been with her when she’d first woken up. She could only assume it was hers.
When she’d first found the pouch, it had just confused her. She knew what it was for, but had no
clue why she was carrying it. Each of the accoutrements within was, of course, "known" to her, but
like the guitar she carried with her... it hadn’t come with any helpful little notes explaining where
it came from.
But now, when she reached down to retrieve the pouch, upon seeing her sleeve, she froze.
She... knew, didn’t she? How that sleeve was made. She knew the stitches, she knew all of the folds.
She knew the exact colors. She knew those threads were in the sewing kit.
But any further connection escaped her. She could easily draw conclusions based on logic,
but her mind still felt closed. That cruel disconnect between knowledge and experience...
It was agonizing.
Now, though... Now she wouldn’t let herself be overwhelmed by the fear caused by that disconnect.
She would recognize it, use it. So what if she didn’t remember? What mattered was that she knew.
A concrete goal would certainly help, though. She didn’t have one yet, but maybe, in time,
she could find one.
A grin crossed her face as she started off again, still thinking of the kit which had just made her
shiver. Pretty convenient, huh? She could at least keep her clothing intact on this inane journey.
And with that thought... her outfit certainly wasn’t practical, but it was hers, and she wouldn’t
give it up for the world.
Yes. It was hers.
That, her guitar, and her sewing kit—in this wasteland of memory, they were all hers.
Knowing that helped a little, and a little help could go a long way.
...A few steps later, something below her caught her eye.
Footprints in the sand...
But they didn’t belong to her.
Crossing her path, leading off to the left, they were definitely a few sizes off.
She stared the way they headed, and saw that they disappeared behind a few gentle hills.
Another genuine, familiar grin crossed her face.
Huh...
Maybe she’d had an audience after all.
8-1
解锁条件：购入GIMME DA BLOOD单曲
解锁要求：通过GIMME DA BLOOD
A moonless night blanketed the forest, trying to smother the fires blazing throughout its sprawling
verdure and the village nestled within.
Crashes and screams. Horrible sounds from horrible shapes, dark against the flames. For some, the
smoke-filled air was inundated with panic, driving them to run as fast as their legs could carry them.
She, however, felt enveloped in something now familiar to her: an unadulterated thrill of battle.
Her obsidian-colored sword glinted as it cleaved another of the shadowy figures. They were shaped
like malformed beasts, running on all fours yet fighting dexterously on hind legs. Her cut severed
its shoulders from the rest of its body—but before it could hit the ground, the body dissipated, as
though becoming smoke, before rising into the air to join the smoke from the fire.
Save for how the beasts appeared to materialize from the smoke of the forest blaze itself, she didn’t
know much else about them. There was little to distinguish one from another. For all she knew,
killing one would simply send its essence back into the clouds, only for it to come back again as
though nothing had happened.
As she stabbed her ornate blade into another of the shadow-beasts, she spared a glance behind her.
The villagers were nearly through the forest to the safety of the advancing forward line of some
nation or other.
She needed to protect them—needed to let the thrill within her run its course.
She jumped, spanning almost a field’s length in a single leap, long hair fluttering behind her, to
behead another beast as it raised a smoky claw to gore a fleeing farmer.
The short, muscular woman paused her escape for just a moment to offer a gesture the
sword-wielder wasn’t familiar with—perhaps a sign of gratitude—before scrambling away again.
It wouldn’t be much longer now. No matter where she found herself, no matter how advanced the
world’s technology and no matter what the philosophy of its people, she always had one objective:
slay, slay, slay—until, presumably, the enemy was gone.
Finally, the last straggler from the village made it to the line of spear-wielding soldiers. She could
see from here the sweat on the troops’ brows, the fear in their eyes… but she could see the
determination in their postures as well.
Letting down her sword at last, she exhaled a breath she hadn’t realized she’d kept, knowing what
was to come next. She felt the weariness hitting her quickly—and, once again, sooner than the last
time.
The world around her began to fracture, as though it had merely been a projected image made of
glass. She closed her eyes and smiled an empty smile. Slowly, she let the pale light engulf her...
...and welcome her back into the world of Arcaea.
8-2
解锁条件：完成8-1，购入GIMME DA BLOOD单曲
解锁要求：通过Bookmaker (2D Version)
Mir did not know her name, and if she had any memories from before this dead world to
remember, they were lost to her now.
A glass shard—the one that had pulled her this time—briefly spun around her before shooting
away into the distance. She knew from experience she wouldn’t see it again. They were called
Arcaea—their name a fragment of knowledge from her awakening of which she did not know the
origin—and they seemed to show other worlds in the midst of certain situations.
She couldn’t touch the shards, but they could act on her. Over a dozen times now, they had pulled
her inside, bringing her into those worlds and situations, with the apparent reason always the
same: to defeat—no, to crush her enemies underfoot.
Inevitably, each time, there would be those unable to fight behind her... though the idea of
shielding them paled in comparison to the driving, blood-racing thrill of the fight.
She was skilled with this blade she had woken up with—wherever it had come from. And something
told her that she was too skilled. She could clearly do things that others in these worlds couldn’t.
In fact, even her enemies didn’t pose much challenge for her in person-to-person combat. The true
challenge, she was learning, was in the protection of others.
But when she was in the fray, such concerns meant nothing to her. She reveled in the battle—let the
mirth of violence course through her.
That mirth, however, seemed to be draining from her more quickly after the fact, leaving naught
but emptiness and exhaustion that took what felt like hours, if not days, to restore. And it seemed
to be taking longer and longer each time.
The absence of adrenaline led her to ponder these other worlds she was being tossed into. Even
what had previously seemed to her to be fact, that these were other worlds at all, didn’t feel quite
right of late. It was almost more like... she was being shown images, ones that for some reason she
could act within. The answer was obvious, she sensed, as though she should have known it, yet it
was just beyond her grasp...
Tired, she hefted her sword onto her shoulder and took a look around. White sand, as far as the
eye could see. A desert, drained of its color, mirroring how drained she herself felt upon returning to
it. The trail of footprints behind her were exactly as they were before the "spiriting away". Without
any wind, it was impossible to tell how much time had passed.
Not that time seemed to have much meaning here.
Another calling. Everything turned white again.
Abruptly, she stood somewhere else. Fields charred brown, smoke in the sky, makeshift fences
erected on land and trenches dug into the ground.
She looked around, suddenly exhausted. The callings had never happened this close together
before. And where were the weak ones—that throng of faceless actors on the stage, pointless yet
also perhaps the sole reason for being thrown into battle? More importantly, where were her
enemies?
Where was her fight?
8-3
解锁条件：完成8-2，购入GIMME DA BLOOD单曲
解锁要求：通过Illegal Paradise
War.
Mir had experienced battle before—but never war.
She now watched people kill one another with deadly efficiency, run for their lives in fear, engage
in feats of true heroism, engage in displays of utter dishonor...
Every way she turned, she found those weaker than her. Innocent, terrified faces, and all too many
of them young. They would see her, then look away, as if recognizing her only as a hallucination, a
trick of the light. She nonetheless tried to protect them. They would then run to their deaths.
Every way she turned, she found enemies. Soldiers leveling weapons at disarmed foes. Terrible
armaments, disassociated from humanity, delivering death faster than she could have ever believed
possible. She destroyed them, and then more would appear on the other side.
She jumped to yet another group of people, blue uniforms fighting against red, before making a
quick judgement and taking down the red ones. Behind, those people she had just protected were
wiped out in an instant from a strike she hadn’t seen coming.
Fading.
Vessels soared overhead, raining pure destruction down upon the lands. The vessels bore the same
insignias as those in the blue uniforms. Their fire swiftly took so many lives. Were they the true
enemy?
Taking a deep breath, she swung her arm back. After a mere moment’s pause to take aim, she spun,
hurling her sword into the air with a shout. The blade screamed upward at the small formation—
then tore through them, sending wild oranges and reds scattering through the firmament.
Then she saw the people jumping, and realized her mistake. White flared above and behind them,
and their descent slowed—parachutes? But they were easy targets against the red side’s weaponry.
The thrill was fading. Quickly.
Exhaustion crept back in.
And with it, despair—hopelessness at this situation over which she seemed to hold no power.
Indecision—the uncertainty of knowing what to do after the errors she’d made, and of who it was,
exactly, she needed to defeat.
Fright—the fear that her decisions would lead to something even worse.
The thrill was gone.
It felt like a trusted partner had betrayed her. Left her in her moment of need. She reached out with
her hands, searching for it. It had to be here. She had no fuel without it. Nothing to give her the
strength to take another step.
Unable to find it, eventually she, like those wounded soldiers, fell to her knees.
Hours passed. The raging battle was now dwindling, leaving behind the true horror of warfare.
She put her hands over her ears to protect herself from their moans, their yells. She shut her eyes
to block out the sights and smells.
It’s not my fault. It’s not my fault, she told herself.
And yet... it was, still, her fault. She surely could have done something, she thought. She could
have changed something—anything to prevent this.
When she tried to think about what she could have done, however, she found she couldn’t.
And that process repeated, as it had done the last dozen times. She felt her nerves fraying, panic
setting in.
Eventually, her surroundings whitened, and she was sent back into the world of Arcaea in the same
manner as all the other times.
Immediately, she crumpled to the ground, breathing heavily. Her sword, which she’d thrown into
the air hours before, dropped down beside her, hitting the sand lengthwise with a dry clap.
She sat there, eyes closed, trying to forget, trying to make her mind go blank, trying to keep out the
sheer whiteness of this damned world’s sky.
What was she doing here? What did this world want from her?
Ever since her awakening, she’d only been given the time to ponder her summonings and to sleep.
But her lack of memories hung there in the back of her mind like a haunting phantom.
What did SHE want to do?
She thought, and thought, and realized she didn’t know.
So she turned her head to look back along the sands, gazing at the long trail of footprints
stretching out behind her. She wished she knew where she was going.
Unbeknownst to her, however, that trail of footprints had already been joined by another, still quite
far off.
But for now, she prayed. She didn’t know to whom, but she prayed regardless, hoping that she
would be granted just a little bit of respite, now, on these empty, white dunes.
8-4
解锁条件：购入Spirit of the Dauntless单曲
解锁要求：通过ReviXy
This girl was going to die.
Be it in a memory...
Be it in Arcaea...?
...
If someone were to die in this empty hell, what would become of their soul?
Mir had asked herself these questions time and time again.
Until now, she had been satisfied with just making sure she survived.
No one else would look out for her here. She was always alone, her blade her only companion.
And this girl beside her: she would die.
That idea simply came to Mir.
That idea of who she had to protect, and the idea of who would end up living, and of who would draw
their last breath.
It all came to her intuitively.
As Mir watched the scene unfold before her eyes, she knew.
The girl was meant to die.
8-5
解锁条件：完成8-4，购入Spirit of the Dauntless单曲
Bare feet on the white sand.
Lying there on the ground with her back warmed by the earth, it took Mir a few moments to understand
what the sight meant. In the meantime, a person—a girl, silhouetted against the ever-radiant sky—
leaned down to peer at her face. She stood in strange dress, with hair the length of Mir's own,
though it was tied up in two tails and the strands were all silver.
...Her name was Shirabe, though neither Mir nor she knew that.
Mir's gaze drifted to something the girl was carrying.
An instrument?
The silence was broken as the girl spoke.
"Are you alright?"
Mir's silence remained. She looked down—endless hills of colorless sand. She looked up—at the familiar
white sky she always returned to. Finally, she looked at the girl—and saw her expression of concern.
"Another person..." Mir muttered.
A spark of memory lit her mind: that of the song she'd heard before.
...It must have been this girl's.
"Surprised? I'm as surprised as you are," said the girl. "Are you okay? Can you stand up?"
Stand up? In all honesty, she'd rather not.
She was tired. So tired.
"...Something wrong?"
Wrong? Everything was wrong. And yet, that was right.
The girl knelt in front of her, and her concern was turning to worry. "Actually, first... Who are you?"
Who was she? She didn't have a good answer for that—but there were many unsatisfying ones. Wanderer.
Warrior. Berserker. Slayer. Valkyrie.
Incompetent. Ignorant. Failure.
...She simply shook her head.
"Don't know...? Well, me neither..." said the girl. "I don't remember anything before waking up here.
Not even my name."
"I'm a puppet," Mir finally replied, "here to do whatever this damned world bids me."
The other girl looked at her, perplexed. "Uh... What?"
"I don't know..." Mir trailed off. "All I know is I have to dance to those strings."
The girl remained silent for a few moments. "'Have to' is pretty heavy... You know, I think we all have a
choice to—"
"I don't."
"...Hey, you don't have to say if you don't want to, but won't you tell me what's wrong? What happened
to you?"
...After, Mir rose to her feet and began to walk.
That was how these two girls had met: two more girls who didn't even know their own names.
Owing perhaps to their mutual solitude in the empty world, the girl with white locks stubbornly remained
at Mir's side. She wasn't afraid of talking. About the boring sands, about the pale sky, about her experiences,
about not remembering anything. Mir stayed silent during her monologues. The words registered, but she
could never think of anything to say.
That was, at least, at first.
8-6
解锁条件：完成8-5，购入Spirit of the Dauntless单曲
Hours passed, perhaps days—an empty time filled only with walking across the dunes, punctuated by
her chatter.
Mir talked about pain, blood, chaos... The thrill she had lost, and the exhaustion she had found. She
talked about the worlds she visited in the glass—the Arcaea. And, she talked about her failures: herself
among them.
The other girl listened. In fact, she stayed quieter than Mir thought was possible.
And so, Mir kept talking.
In return, the girl shared with her something she knew: those shards of glass, those so-called "Arcaea",
were actually memories. She didn't know how she knew this—she just did. That only raised more
questions...
"No, no, I'm not always happy. Come on..." the white-haired girl told her at one point. "Actually I'm still...
pretty afraid of all this. I keep asking myself, 'Why am I here?' 'Why can't I remember anything?' None of
it makes sense, right...?"
Mir looked down in silence, unsure how to respond.
"But...I'll admit I don't think I'm worrying as much now that I've met another living, breathing person here,"
the other girl added.
Mir winced.
There was now, with no warning, an ungentle prick at the edge of her mind.
The girl continued, saying something. Something Mir couldn't hear.
She looked up. The other girl caught her ears.
"Also I think I know how to play music, and I—... Huh? What's wrong?"
Mir's eyes were fixated on an object floating just past her.
Another one.
Another one of those worlds.
...No,
not now...
She squeezed her eyelids shut against the sight, every fiber of her body rejecting it.
The girl's voice reached her again.
"Are you okay? Wait, is it—is it that 'summoning'?" she spoke quickly, hushed.
And, she felt hands grasp her arm.
Mir opened her eyes.
Her concentration broken, she turned and saw the white-haired girl clinging to her,
confusion clear in her eyes.
And then it happened. That "summoning".
Not just herself.
Not just alone.
She came into the memory with the other girl.
A sense of dread like nothing she'd ever felt before came over her.
The girl...
Mir didn't know how she knew, but she knew.
She wouldn't be able to protect her here. It was impossible.
This girl was going to die.
8-7
解锁条件：完成8-6，购入Spirit of the Dauntless单曲
She looked over at the other girl, still clinging to her arm. Defenseless, at least as far as Mir could tell.
But that didn't matter right now. Did it?
No. She didn't know how, and she didn't know why, but defenseless or no, the other girl was meant to
die in this memory. It was what was supposed to happen.
Before, Mir would have only registered her as another bystander. But this... This wasn't...
Was there anything she could do?
Awful, malformed, flying creatures—a whole flock of them soared toward the two girls on the wind, the
full moon at their backs. Like many of the enemies in previous memories, they seemed to be made of
some kind of dark substance that gave off almost no light, save for their sets of three red eyes.
Mir could fight, but she couldn't fly. She doubted the memory's owner could have flown either. And thus...
She shook the girl's arm off. "Let go," she said, brandishing her sword at the swarm of birdlike shadows.
She focused. She heard—
"You...You can beat them?"
But Mir said nothing in reply.
She didn't want to accept this, and so she tried to rally "thrill" again. That thrill which had gotten her
through so much battle and bloodshed.
...
...It wouldn't come.
No: instead she faced down the approaching enemies, swinging, with weariness and despair permeating
her body.
As they fell over her, the other girl cried out. A group of them had shifted over toward her, and now they
circled overhead.
And instinct—
—it reminded her that this was set in stone.
Like fighting on sudden battlefields...
Like fighting losing battles.
The girl's death was inevitable, and so it was of no concern.
Her life, too...
...there was no significance whether it went on beyond here, or ended soon.
This memory had presented Mir with an impossible scenario. Slaughter twenty and soon find a hundred.
A wall stood before her, and a sacrifice behind her.
...What purpose, what meaning was there in "protecting"? What worth? No, for worth... She had found
what had worth already, hadn't she?
This strange memory...
...would be the memento of the dead who'd left it, of her, and of the girl all the same.
And yet, to her surprise...
A golden cry shattered that bitterness in an instant.
A voice of faith. A voice of irritation...
A forceful command from a beautiful voice.
"Don't just stand there, you idiot—swing your sword!"
8-8
解锁条件：完成8-7，购入Spirit of the Dauntless单曲
解锁要求：通过LunarOrbit -believe in the Espebranch road-
The girl was before her, surrounded by a cloud of dust.
An axe flew before Mir's eyes, catching a beast mid-dive...
...That girl's weak arms were choked around that axe's neck—no, in fact...
It was no "axe"...
It was a guitar.
She had bludgeoned the beast away with what had looked like the head of a weapon. Now, she slammed
it to the earth as a new wave of dark creatures approached from the sky. On her knees, arms—legs—body
trembling—quaking, she almost entirely collapsed, but forced an...almost steady posture. She turned her
head around to stare at the wide-eyed one behind her.
And once again, she shouted out: golden and beautiful.
"Look out ahead of you, right now...!
"And swing. Your. Sword!"
That resolve, that determination in her voice...
Against her better judgment, Mir's grip on her blade's handle tightened once more.
The girl stared back, her gaze set, seeming more angry than afraid.
"If you don't believe that you have any choice," said the girl, "then I'm giving you one—I'm giving you a
path! Look forward!"
She did...
"Carve out your freedom—if not for you, then at least for me, damn it!"
Mir gritted her teeth. Another shadow slammed into her, nearly knocking her off balance.
Her lips turned upward, and so her teeth were soon bared in a grin.
Maybe, just maybe...
...this was a choice to make indeed.
Shadows began to descend once more...
"Fine, then," murmured Mir under her breath. "I'll swing, so bow your head...!"
She righted herself, and stomped down—setting her feet in place.
She drew her sword back, and she breathed out long...
...Like steam, like breath of fire...
Her muscles tightened, and her obsidian blade seemed to—no, it did...
It glowed with a strange energy. Hers?
...She focused, and filled it more.
She began to raise the sword...
And like hurling forth a typhoon—a tornado through her arms, her hands—
She swung, and carved forth.
The other girl's hair danced as the blade flew over her head and a great gale was cast out of it. She gazed
wide-eyed as the shadows were ripped away, and as Mir spiraled over her body as she followed the swing.
The blade slammed against the earth, and Mir dragged it through, hurling another storm of cutting wind
to her left and skyward.
She stopped only a moment, and thus carved away the skies to their right...
It was at once all grace, and all fury. Those dark skies began to clear...
Mir's heart beat, and shortly a chuckle escaped her lips.
This... was never about the fighting, was it?
No, her purpose...
...was to play the role of both sword, and shield.
Mir drew her blade back one last time.
The shadows coalesced, and a "knowing" came again.
"This is the end", said that aggravating idea.
But, as the other girl clung to her, she knew this too:
This was the beginning.
Mir thrust her blade forth, the force blasting through the last of shades...
Through the clouds, and the sky...
To the hidden sun...
And beyond the bounds of memory.
"Fate"? "Certainty"? No.
This was her choice.
The memory itself froze. The fabric of reality "here" twisted, and frayed. It all ripped apart. An
unacceptable ending—a happy end to a told tragedy—had ruined fate's plan. With crippled
glass and air, this small world slowly fell to nothing.
And, when it was over, she looked around herself. The sight defied all her intuition, all her
previous knowledge.
An army had been defeated, and so they were returned to the barren lands of Arcaea—
"space" around them flickering as the memory around them ceased.
And the other girl...was alive. Seeing that...
...For the first time since waking up in the world of Arcaea, Mir truly laughed. She laughed,
in fact, until tears filled her eyes. She laughed, and cried, in this world of white.
8-9
解锁条件：完成8-8，购入Spirit of the Dauntless单曲
They sat for a while, Mir in deep thought and the other girl quietly stitching something onto a patch
within her hands. A familiar dark shape being sewn into a red square of fabric... While watching for a
moment, Mir understood that familiarity. That shape was one of the memory's monsters... though it
was certainly looking cuter in this girl's hands. A puff of air escaped from Mir's nose.
This girl had read her like an open book...
Or maybe, Mir's despair had been more obvious than she'd realized.
Eventually, the other girl finished her work in silence and put away her needle and thread.
Mir stared up at the sky, thoughts she'd once brushed aside now filling her mind. How had she done
the impossible in that memory? More importantly, what was this world? Who was she? Was she
someone before all this? Had there even been a "before"?
Old questions, perhaps worth considering now more than ever.
She now glanced at the other girl, and stood up to take a few steps forward. A few more, a few more...
silence behind her. Mir turned back and asked, "Aren't you coming?"
The other girl's mouth hung open for a moment, as if trying to gauge her intent. Then she said, "Yeah... Yes."
"Alright," said Mir, and she turned back around and continued on.
"You're finally looking forward, huh?"
"Hmph, yeah..." Mir began, smirking lightly. "Someone watching after me from behind, well... it really puts
a lot of ease on my heart and mind."
On glancing behind herself, she caught a reddening hue on the pale girl's cheeks.
"Right," said the girl, "and, if you ever look like you'll get sucked into another one of those, alone—"
"I'll handle it."
"Right. Right, but... like you said, I'll stay back... and I'll watch for you."
"...And if I don't return?"
"Then I'll move forward," said the girl, "and find you, no matter what it takes".
"Even if I appear on some other side of the world? Down some cliff, on some mountain..."
"Yeah... Doesn't matter."
That golden voice...could be quiet too, eh?
Once more, Mir believed in it. Her shoulders relaxed, her face warmed...
She replied:
"You're right, it doesn't."
And there, they began their trek onward, side by side.
11-1
Between her teeth, the flat, hard surfaces feel—they FEEL right, and comfortable.
The sharp and jagged edge tickles her tongue.
A memory of loss: of desperation, failure, and ultimately anguish. These aren't the words she'd use...
She would describe this memory as "sad", herself. In anticipation, her lips tug upward with
a giddiness she cannot hide.
She already knows—this will be savory.
Now, she bites into the glass.
"Ahh," utters the white and black (and orange, and green), bat-like creature at her right.
"Well, that's fine."
This is Fans.
"Were you hungry?" asks the black and white (and green, and orange), bat-like creature at her left.
"Tell us when you are!"
This is Drem.
"Mmm!" she moans with glee, holding her cheek. The glass has broken between her teeth. The shards
and dust coat her tongue. It feels warm. It tastes like a fine dinner: like meat, with flowing, salt-kissed
juices.
But her vocabulary is, again, somewhat limited. All she has to say to describe the taste, as a bit
of saliva drops from the corner of her mouth, is "Delicious!"
"That's great, Ayu!" Fans exclaims, flapping its wings excitedly.
"It's yummy!" she declares before swallowing the remaining fragments.
Drem hovers behind her with some curiosity. "Huh, 'yummy'." It repeats. "What sort of 'yummy', Ayu?"
"Like... steak!" With this stated, she begins to march forward, and her "bat" familiars follow.
"What does steak taste like?"
"Oh, Drem..." she sighs, with the same intonation that she might use for a lost child. "You're so dumb!"
"I just don't know what steak tastes like," Drem asserts. "Like what?" it asks.
"Like meat!" she declares, and—spotting something unusual—she plucks a shining piece of glass
from the air.
"So, salty?" asks Drem.
"And yummy!" she reminds it, popping the new glass between her lips. It is a memory of celebration:
accomplishment, new life, and mirth. She would call it "happy".
And Fans announces, "Yeah! Having something sweet after something salty is common sense!"
"See? Fans is smarter than you, Drem," she says, laughing once through her nose.
"I was going to say that," says Drem. "I knew that, and I was going to say it."
Sucking on her new glass, she absently answers "Uh-huh" and begins to hum, swinging her arms to
her chosen time. The glass tastes and feels like sugar.
A world of white stretches out before them. Behind them, the land is filled with ruins. Before and
behind are the same—
And everywhere, there is glass.
Everywhere, a waiting meal.
She splits the memory apart with her molars. Its history dies.
The world is full of food, and ever since she awakened, she has been ceaselessly hungry.
11-2
解锁条件：完成11-1，购入init()单曲
解锁要求：通过Rugie
They never tire: not her, nor her bats.
Drem sits on her head and beats its wings into her face. Fans is flying high,
and shouting about crowds—
"Crowds of... white!" the familiar cries. "White glass, Ayu!"
"Sweets?" Ayu asks through the still-beating wings. As it continues to thump
her mouth and nose, her second bat enunciates:
"Go. To. The. Right!"
Fans adds, "Yeah! The right!"
"More sweets?" Ayu asks once more. "More sweets..." she groans as her shoulders sink.
Wings continue to strike her forehead softly. "You already know I like it more with some, y'know...
That I like VARIETY more, guys..."
"That's not how it works," Fans tells her.
And she asks, "It's not how 'what' works?"
Finally, Drem lifts from her head.
"Ayu," it addresses her, flapping now in front of her face rather than into it, "aren't you hungry?"
"I'm always hungry," she replies. And, she rolls her eyes, saying, "Come on, Drem."
"Then it's better if you have a big meal!" Drem cries, beating its wings enthusiastically. She recognizes
the motions, slouches slowly, and her gaze begins to drift. "There's a lot of gla—... if you ea—...
Have a better... That's... And..."
She spots a menagerie of shards on a path between two houses from two cultures. She can tell at a
glance that memories of pleasures and memories of pains await her there. She glances at Drem,
then starts wandering toward the path.
"Mm-hmm?" she replies, hearing the upward inflection of a question from her more pestering bat.
"That's right!" it shouts. "So—"
She continues to walk, and soon finds herself along the path proper, queer glass floating overhead.
She sees old days in the reflections. Her stomach growls.
And she grabs an opposing pair.
With light in one hand, and conflict in the other, Ayu brings both pieces of glass toward her mouth...
and chomps down.
The mixture is at once a delight.
"Aaah... there you go again," Drem sighs, finally realizing that it has lost her attention.
"Wrong, wrong, wrong," bemoans her bat Fans. "It's not HERE that's a problem, it's the...
The big mess we were telling you to...! Hahhh..." It sighs. It relents. And, it admits:
"At least she looks happy."
"Well," Drem begins, pausing a little while before it says, "yes. At least she looks happy."
It is only the truth: these are two tastes that taste great together. It is a rare thing to find them side by
side, and so she always feels coaxed by the opportunity. What this is is a treasure trove. Now, her
smile is interminable.
But after, her bats will beckon her again. Next time, she will listen. Like glass between her teeth, she
finds that hearing them, sometimes, feels altogether "correct". And that correctness is satisfying. She
is driven by satisfaction—she acts to the end of satiation. It is a simple existence, but does existence
need to be anything more?
Ultimately, if listening might let her be sated...
And if silence will sate her too, now and then...
Then her ears will be open, and her tongue will, for a time, be still.
11-3
解锁条件：完成11-2，购入init()单曲
解锁要求：通过init()
They lose sight of the swarm of sweets, but soon find themselves at something wide, dark, and
most probably very delicious.
Ayu, Fans, and Drem stand at a fractured ledge leering above a pit of black glass, which swirls,
churns, and kills light. Its pieces scrape against one another, and the sound produced is reminiscent
of a wail. Those confined memories of ends and falls seem to be screaming in agony. Ayu looks
upon it all—in a word—curiously. The world feels odd.
"Ayu," says Drem, causing her to glance its way. "Fly into it," the bat bids.
She answers, "'Kay," and she steps from the ledge.
With her arms held out, her descent slows immediately. Glass whips around her carelessly,
unbidden and unrepelled. She holds her hand out, and the vortex ceases. She calls the shards
to her hand.
And so, she begins to eat.
"Good, Ayu."
"Great, Ayu!"
She smiles. She frowns.
Truly, the hunger never fades.
The shards, the fragments, the dust—they all seem to vanish into nothing when she gulps them down.
It is for that reason she values taste. Cracking glass between her teeth accomplishes little else. In fact,
what she thinks is a stomach often merely feels like a void she is continually compelled to feed.
For the feeling. For the ache. And, of course, for her waiting tongue. She bites, she feasts, and light
slowly returns.
Her curiosity fades, and the odd sensation of the world along with it. In little time, the vortex is gone,
and she is running her tongue along the edge of her teeth.
Satisfied.
She grins brightly.
"That was great!" she shouts.
"Yeah!" Fans agrees.
"It looked delicious," Drem affirms.
She does not hate her bats. They want her to smile, and she knows that.
And they know her stomach is always empty.
She lands on the earth and frolics ahead. They chat about colors. They chat about flight, and food.
This is the world to them, and this is why they are here.
"What's that?" Drem speaks up suddenly.
"Oh... What is it?" Fans adds, looking to where its fellow familiar is staring.
Ayu lifts her gaze to the skies.
Above, a shard of glass, entirely alone, floats still and steady in the air.
It shifts that air. Its reflection is unreadable.
"Eat that, Ayu," says Fans.
"Go eat it," says Drem.
And easily, Ayu agrees with a strong and cheerful nod. Her bats take flight, and she does too.
With a smile, she faces the aberrant glass.
"Who knows?" she says as they approach. "Maybe it'll fill me up."
11-4
A girl woke in a world of white with nothing on her tongue.
Nothing in her head.
Nothing in her stomach...
Her name was Ayu.
This story began long ago.
Before the sky was bent, before the sky was broken...
Before the sky grew overbright, and before day met with night...
And after a girl fell from a tumbling maze and tower...
Ayu awoke with nothing inside.
She raised to her knees, and then looked all about: at a world of light, a world of glass and memory.
It drew none of her interest. Her stomach: her stomach was empty.
She opened her mouth...
...and no words came out.
Nothing on her tongue, nothing in her head...
Ayu rose on shaking legs, fell, rose again and began to walk forward instead.
It took some time for her to fall once more to the ground after trying and trying to step, to crawl, and to
crawl forth. Days, perhaps. Weeks, perhaps. Shivering and collapsed, covered in dirt, she reached for her
abdomen and grasped. Her hand, covered by a sleeve, couldn't properly grasp at anything. She let out a
breath, and once more rose onto her knees.
The glass left her alone her entire winding way. Light fell onto her, and felt not warm. She gaped at the
barren landscape and fossil parts of cities before her.
With that emptiness gnawing at her from within...
Ayu began to cry, without knowing what crying was.
Where she was born, Arcaea, is a mistaken and misshapen world—made from a mistaken and misshapen
heart.
Wanting, wanting...
...without knowing, is a truly painful thing.
She felt pain, and sobbed into her arms. A pain that can't be solved, a hunger to never be sated.
For no reason at all.
Stirrings of regret, and sparks of almost-thought...
In the wake of these, four wings took flight.
They hurried on with a clear aim and with hearts of glass...
Two shards, and two hearts.
She felt them before she heard them. They draped their wings over her back, and she found their wings
were warm...
...
...Ayu was found, there, by two who would be her dearest friends.
11-5
"Come on, Ayu!"
"Just like that, you've got it."
She walked on unsteady feet after them: the two little bats who had found her. Whenever she stumbled,
they flew back to her and helped to right her.
They kept beside her, they kept ahead...
And soon enough she was fed.
"Try this, Ayu!"
"This too!"
They brought her to that glass floating through the air. They brought her close, and she knew to take each
shard to her lips, her tongue, and between her teeth.
Between her teeth, the flat, hard surfaces felt right, and comfortable.
The sharp and jagged edges tickled at her tongue.
She would bite down again, and again, and another time.
A happy taste, a hearty taste... swallowed memory, and new knowing.
Her tears began to dry. Ayu began to smile, without knowing what smiling was.
And she laughed, and she called:
"Fans! Drem! It's yummy!"
"Ayu...!" said Drem, frozen in surprise.
"Ayu! What—you, you said what...!?" said Fans excitedly.
She leapt at the two bats, one black and white (and green, and orange) and the other white and black
(and orange, and green). She spread her arms wide and squeezed onto both of them.
They laid their wings around her in return.
She went on to eat clouds and waves and seas of glass. Wherever the world wavered, she and her bats
would go, and eat.
Before too much glass, flocked to one place, would compel an error...
She would eat.
And if an error, an anomaly, came into being elsewhere...
She would eat that, too.
She ate and ate and ate...
Guided by her friends all the while.
...
Arcaea is a world meaningless, pointless, and perhaps bereft of sense...
It may be pertinent to ask: whichever world is not?
In this silly world, dreamt of in sadness...
...a little trio found its happiness. Isn't that fine?
As Ayu, Fans, and Drem let go of one another and traveled on...
...the fate they were to find after the end of light would answer the question.
11-6
That was a long time ago, and now...
Eyes closed, sunken into a dark and colorless dream...
Ayu finds herself drifting lower and lower.
Those memories, those first memories...
By herself here they come to mind, and a tear finds its way to her eye.
As she falls into nothing, remembering how loneliness felt, she feels something warm by her shoulder—
feels a gentle touch by her side.
Ayu turns her head. She briefly spots a low light sinking into the darkness, and that warm sensation fades.
However, however... she no longer feels alone.
"Hey... Who is that?" Ayu asks. "Are you okay?"
And, in reply, she is told:
It hurts to have her ask that.
It's a quiet voice. A familiar voice.
It's a voice of light, life, and death.
It is a child's voice, it is a mother's voice...
It is that voice of the earth she has surely heard before,
and that only those few close to Arcaea might ever hear.
To answer it, Ayu asks, "Huh? Why?"
The voice clarifies: Weren't you having a dream?
"I was," Ayu answers lightly. "Hey, can you see my dreams?"
The quiet voice replies that it can, and apologizes for waking her.
"Hey, hey, if I'm awake... Where are my friends?"
...The voice gives no answer to that.
"Haahm... after..." Ayu mutters, trying to think, "the light went bang...! Did you see that?"
It did.
"After it went bang...! Bang, blaow everywhere! EEeeverywhere—did you see it!?"
See what, Ayu?
"The light!" says Ayu happily. "It died!"
The voice asks, Do you remember after that?
"I fell down," says Ayu, matter-of-factly. "But I just tripped, didn't I?"
No... she didn't trip.
"Oh, okay. Ummm, after that, I got up with Fans and Drem..." Ayu folds her arms and thinks again.
"My head hurt!"
Here
the atmosphere rises curiously.
"Fans and Drem got stupid and kept telling me to eat!"
And
the air goes still.
"And yeah I felt hungry, but..." Ayu goes on, looking where she thinks the voice might be coming from.
"I kinda felt sick. It was pretty bad, haha..."
Was it?
"I started crying, ahaha!"
She had.
"And then... I don't remember anything!" shouts the girl, lifting her arms over her head (though, well, she is
upside-down in fact). "Hey, hey, how long have I been in here?"
She is told that it has been three days, although days are a strange concept. As Ayu waits for the voice to
explain why, it tells her not to be concerned about days—not at all.
"Hmm..." Ayu breathes, and things are quiet between them for a while.
The voice eventually asks: Ayu, what animal do you like?
"I like fish!" she cries without hesitation.
Not bats?
"Fans and Drem are bats! They're dumb!"
You don't like them?
"I love them!"
That's good.
Do you have a favorite color, Ayu?
"Green!"
And why is that?
"'Cause I'm green! Also, uhhh... You can see it!"
See it where?
"In food!" she chirps. "Good food is green, or red!"
What do you mean?
"Oh no..." says Ayu, with pity heavy in her voice and turning down her face, "you're as dumb as Fans and
Drem..."
Sorry.
"Listen!" Ayu commands, "green means trees and flowers and those are sweet! Red means blood and fire,
and those are savory! If you eat them together... pow!" She gestures. She grins. "It's delicious!"
The air cools a little and the voice tells her: You've grown, and you've been very happy.
And what it does not say, but Ayu can feel, is that conversely the voice is not at all happy itself.
"What's wrong?" she asks.
The voice tells her:
Ayu... you haven't been lucky.
"What's 'lucky'?"
When things fall outside your fault, then it is luck or unluck.
"I don't get it."
...
Warmth fills Ayu again, but it is warmth that makes her eyes begin to shimmer with tears. Her heart begins
to hurt, and so she starts to frown. The voice speaks again.
You would have gotten it eventually.
You would have had more fun, you would have eaten plenty of food. You would've been warm, you
would've kept going.
You could've walked forever, you could've smiled forever.
Not for what anyone told you to do, but because that is who you are: a girl made with no girl before you.
The voice tells her: You never would've changed, Ayu.
You make others happy, and you're a good girl.
"Oh, thank you!"
You're a good girl, the voice repeats.
Thank you for everything.
"...?"
...
The voice says no more, and yet again...
In that warm silence between them, in the quiet of the colorless dream... Ayu feels she knows what it is saying.
And so, finally...
tears fall from her eyes.
11-7
Snow fell once before in Arcaea. It falls again, now, over the gray land. Gentle here, and raging in the
distance.
Arcaea, a quiet place, grows quieter as it is covered—more quiet than it ever has been, and the pale sheet
is almost nostalgic—across these now-crumbling lands.
"Hahh—"
A shallow breath scatters flakes of snow.
"H-Hahmm... Ghh..."
A body shivers, not from cold, but from a deep pain in its gut. Over that body, a pair of wings fall and push
and push and shake. Push, push again, hold. Fans, the bat, mutters out, "A-Ayu... please get up, please."
And above the two on the ground, Drem flies, watching as the breath of its charge finally cuts short.
"Ayu!?" cries Fans. "Ayu, no, please—!" It begs, and begs, and begs.
The tension in Ayu's brow relaxes. Drem's eyes widen. The bat is aware that that ease of tension... does not
arrive from "relief".
"Drem, she's not... Her heart's not... Drem, she wouldn't, right? She can't!"
"..."
What were you born here for?
Can you say you were born "for" something?
Drem was born to fly beside her.
But, that means so little...
It's not about what one was "born to do".
As Drem looks upon Ayu's motionless body...
As it remembers the cold lips on her face turned up into a smile...
It thinks:
I love you, way too much, for this.
I love you too much for this.
Drem flies away.
"Drem!? No, where—where are you goi—Drem! Don't go away!"
"Fans!" Drem shouts back. "We have to find her food! The right food!"
"You mean the... Past the storm...!? We—We can't fly through that!"
"I'm going! I'm going!" Drem shouts, and Fans shouts back:
"I'm going, too!"
The two bats fly with speed toward the border between night and day.
As they do so, they feel Ayu's presence less and less.
There is a distance. There is a limit of time... before they will not be able to find her again.
But staying still is no answer.
The bats, side by side and warming one another, seek out a broken piece of the world...
To feed the one that they love. To remind her form of the purpose this broken world had instilled in her:
Her, an Arcaea-born monitor of the shards, meant to swallow anomalies into nothing.
And so, an anomaly they will find—the nearest anomaly that they feel, beyond a roaring blizzard—
no matter the cost.
They find the wind nearly too much for their wings as they breach from day into night. It pummels them,
whips them, it tosses the two small animals down.
And they grow cold, and they go on.
With tears chilling in their eyes...
They fight toward the feeling of illness the world suffers, to cure the illness they recognize within Ayu's
stomach.
But—
Wanting, wanting, wanting...
... without the strength for it, is a futile thing.
In time, Fans collapses. In time, Drem carrying Fans collapses. In time, snow covers their bodies. In time,
their quiet tears become loud sobs.
In time, a kind girl comes across them, and takes them up into her arms.
That girl turns back toward the day, returning to warmth with Fans and Drem at her breast.
11-8
解锁条件：完成11-7，购入Désive单曲
解锁要求：通过Désive
At an unseeable depth, in a place only one near and dear could find, Ayu begins to wipe away her tears.
These tears—she knows: she is lucky to have tears to shed when things hurt.
The voice, silent now—she knows that it is unlucky to not. But now, at most...
At most she can say:
"Why are you sad?"
To which the voice tells her, it is sorry.
And, "Hey?" she asks. "What makes you happy?"
"Me—Me, I like eating good food!"
It knows.
"And Fans, and Drem...!"
It knows.
"I like 'making friends'—You know!?"
Yes. It knows...
The voice in the dark...
It likes people, and whenever people feel they can smile.
It despises itself, and what it has done. It despises a history of poorly made things, and mistakes.
It abhors tragedy...
But, happy endings...
Happy endings are nice.
"Oh, then, it's okay, it's okay," says Ayu, gently, "definitely. And, and, I'll tell you why...!"
The voice awaits her wisdom.
"Because," she says, acting smart, "as long as you keep on going, you can find things that make you smile!
Like walkiiing, or fooood... friends! You know? You know!? Okay, listen—!
"That's what the world, and life and living in life are all about! We... We keep going, and we get happy
endings—waiting for sure! And, if... if you..."
Ayu chokes briefly, pushing a sob down in her throat.
And, smiling brightly, she tells the voice honestly:
"If you haven't found a friend yet, then I'll be your first!"
Through a snowstorm; through fainting, freezing—a stranger fought for something beyond Ayu's sight.
That something is brought close to her now—close to her lips, and her stomach churns; the dream
shimmers by its mere presence. That something, though now weak, and though now caged, is still and
forever remarkable.
For it stands against nature, for it is "flaw" manifested:
That "anomaly" begins to build a bridge between incompatible places, like a bridge built between clouds
and sea.
In fact: while it is strange, and while it is remarkable, an anomaly is never "special".
They are errors: echoes of one heart's weakness, cracking across a wish.
Being as they are, they may be more similar to the truth of that one heart than the sincere wish it left
behind... Unspecial, and yet all the same ruinous.
Fate does not drive a flaw. Pain like this is not coaxed by hopes or woven threads. And this anomaly in
particular: like all the others—once powerful, immense, and devastating—was not found "because" it being
found was wanted.
Most were found like tricks of wind: bereft of rhyme or reason.
This old and crippled shell of hurting—
It was found from sincere love, no miracle, and nothing more.
Building a bridge, it finds itself between her teeth, now.
As she smiles, Ayu feels it there as glass, and she bites down—shattering it utterly, and
unexpectedly shattering the dark.
Leaving this place blinding... In a wild burst: turning shadows into sunlight. As shining dust slips down her
throat, the light of the earth slips down with it—channeled through the crushed and clear shard pieces.
It's almost... as if... a sigh can be heard, not rumbling but soft. Something happy, something kind.
The overwhelming light around her continues its path, and so begins to fade as it flows down her throat.
Able to see again, she casts her gaze around, and the unseen voice leaves her with this:
You're right, Ayu.
Thank you.
As Arcaea's light fills her stomach, new color fills the dream—
She awakes again with Fans and Drem above her, and they're both crying.
Her body feels weak. Her two bats cling to her tightly, pushing against her face and calling her name.
She hugs them, she smiles, and she cries as well.
She hugs them tighter than ever before.
Snow falls over them in the daylight and, happy, the three friends share one another warmly.
...Was it medicine or miracle? Was it friendship that kept her from crossing the border?
...It was. It was.
And, when the light first overwhelmed her dream, she saw the memories of how hard her friends had gone
to protect her.
...She would need to protect them, too.
To protect them and, of course, the new friend she has made.
When they've all let one another go, when they've spoken of the journeys they've taken and of the kindness
of strangers...
Ayu smiles. She smiles and smiles, and laughs.
Her endless hunger is gone.
She and her bats look again to the horizon, like they always do.
And on they will go...
For the happy ending that awaits.
12-1
解锁条件：购入NEO WINGS单曲
解锁要求：通过Snow White
What does it mean to "know"?
Is it what one thinks? What one sees? What one feels? What one hears?
Is perception what grants certainty?
Certainly.
Certainly the "known" is what one perceives, through their senses or through whatever they're told.
For a child especially, that is certainly true.
I want to talk about somebody here: somebody whom I've never met, but whom I feel sure that I know.
Once, I gathered all of her memories and lined them up, and in a way it created a story...
This is how it began...
...In the terribly far reaches of an unremarkable universe existed a typical celestial body. Upon it,
its people were united. From the age of ten, the children here had a chance to awaken to something
they may have been born with, which would stay with them until their seventeenth year: something
remarkable within the unremarkable universe. What they wished and what they thought could
manifest within reality.
They weren't gods, but they were unusual architects. And with their magnificent
abilities, they could protect their world.
Of the few boys and girls born so special, our child was another.
The country's name... I don't remember. The world's, too—I don't recall. Her
name, though, was... is "Vita".
Vita woke up in her room one day, and saw above her the night sky through a
dimmed window. As she woke, so did her friends around her. They each wished
one another a good "morning" and rose for the evening. They had done so every
night for the past two years. They went to ready themselves in the washrooms.
They talked about audio dramas they followed, and about books and comics they
would read. They talked about their dreams.
Vita and the rest, dressed in their uniforms, walked toward the central command room, still
speaking frivolously.
The universe was at war.
Powers vying for things beyond the children's understanding would occasionally try to breach
their territory in space, but largely, those powers fought amongst themselves. Her planet
represented neutrality, and she and the other children were one of several essential bodies
tasked for maintaining that neutrality.
There were the men and women who fought in and above the skies. There were the other adults
who used their words and acumen to broker good relations between her world and others. There
were the expat soldiers and diplomats who would ensure whatever stability could be ensured in
those times of violence and decay. And there was the Nerve/Mind Pathway/Grid Measure—in small
applications a nuisance, and in large-scale invincible and, in the opinion of many outside of
her world, a sleeping terror.
I will curb the exposition and narrate.
Vita entered central command taking no pause at its grandiosity and majesty—no hesitation at the
cacophony of thoughts and wills swirling throughout the massive, several-storied atrium. She and
her friends had a part to play, and as they neared their assigned seats, their chatter naturally
dying, they could all hear one another's minds pulling away from the frivolous as they attuned
instead to their vital responsibility.
For a world of worth, for peace and prosperity beyond any other throughout all the reaches of
space—beyond any other within any land.
She connected to the NMPGM. She focused down, quieted the others in her mind...and began to tend
to her part of the pathways.
She let nothing bother her. She did her work.
...Until it came about that she received an unknown signal.
12-2
解锁条件：完成12-1，购入NEO WINGS单曲
解锁要求：通过Sakura Fubuki
...The night before:
Through their briefings, they were informed of what they needed to know.
About the disorder continuing on another planet, about the hijackings of their vessels within foreign
space, about the entertainment planned for later in the week...
They tended to ignore the death, and discuss coming concerts—or they tended to talk happily of
accomplishments. For example...
A friendlier system beside the fourth planet out always seemed to help their own. They had a simple
deal with that system: allowing this other society to utilize the NMPGM while they provided resources
from that perpetually dangerous planet with a turbulent atmosphere.
Her society was magnanimous, mostly: give, receive—such relationships served them well. Often,
people tried to use or infiltrate the psychically guarded networks quietly, for their own gain.
She did not know much, but Vita at least knew that if you wanted something, you were better off
simply asking for it.
She sometimes asked what that other planet's disorder—the planet she'd been briefed on again the
night before—what its disorder truly stemmed from. To her, their fighting over what sounded like
lost and easily forgettable grudges sounded foolish, stupid, needless.
She'd often say...
"...It's not like it's hard to find things in this world to be happy about."
Keep this in mind.
That day she received an unknown signal...
As she fortified the part of the path she was charged with, she heard, "west and
seeking aid. Coordinates are—"
And as she flinched, and as she looked around her at the other seated children,
she realized that she was the only person hearing this voice.
As she entered the coordinates she was given into the computer beside her
workstation, she steeled herself and sent out a thought:
"Rank and designation? Are you in Engineering or Communications? Why are you
offworld?"
Her questions were answered with silence. She nervously continued her duties,
ever mindful of the source of the transmission.
And eventually, it answered again.
"You can hear me? Wait—it actually works?"
"If I can hear you, you should know how to 'talk'. Are you not a Psychic?"
She paused. That was... a rather unsettling notion.
She told the other voice, "I'll be keeping your signal open and bridging
you to the commanders of—"
"Wait! You have to be one of the architects of the NMPGM, right!? From
that neutral country...!"
"There's nowhere that wouldn't know that," she answered, irritation creeping
over her fingers. "Initiating bridge—"
"J-Just like I thought! The whole lot of you are arrogant—I knew this wouldn't work!
Why'd they assign me for it..."
Unintentionally, she slowly pinched at her armrest.
"I'm not arrogant," she replied. "Whatever infiltration methods you're using, they're
going to be found out. I must inform you that our network and people aren't things you
want to play with. If you break us out of neutrality, we break you. U-Understood?"
"What happens when you break it first?" asked the voice.
And her voice was delivered with a hiss: a sharply sent, "What?"
"I said, what happens when you break your neutrality first?"
"That's never happened, and it wouldn't happen."
"So you've never heard of Petorh."
And when she made to reply—she realized that she hadn't.
"I'm closing this transmission," said the voice, "but I'll open it again. Use your vast
networks to search 'Petorh'—they don't censor everything over there, right? You're
supposed to be a good place. Goodbye."
And so the transmission ended.
With her heart beating, she returned to her work before any disruption could be noticed.
She hadn't heard of Petorh, but she would look into it when the sun rose again.
12-3
解锁条件：完成12-2，购入NEO WINGS单曲
解锁要求：通过NEO WINGS
An important fact that any living and thinking being should keep in mind...
...is that "truth", and "knowledge"... are not always necessarily the same thing.
It had been the day before an ease of hours—the "weekend"—when Vita received
the signal. For the following two days, she spent her free time within the base's
library and searching through the inter-network through a signal encryption she and
her friends typically used to find games, artwork, and videos forbidden to them
without leaving a trace. It was never for anything serious at all...
The story of Petorh, though, made her appreciate that tool they thought of as a "toy"
far more than ever, for never had a more serious subject become known to her, nor ever
one so dangerous.
...
I'd like to make a note here.
I don't remember where it was I came from. I only "remember" the memories of others
within Arcaea, and particularly within the Void. Still from this, it's easy to gather...
It isn't hard at all to find something to call "dreadful" in any world you can think of.
Twenty years before her birth, during the NMPGM's expansion, a planetoid named Petorh had been
discovered and pushed aside.
About four hundred years prior, the planetoid had been discovered by an Exodus-class starship
fleeing a dissipating atmosphere on their home world. The ship docked there and established
"Petorh"... unofficially.
Without documentation or declaration, and with an irregular orbit, within desolate space,
Petorh wasn't forgotten—for it was never known.
Her world then discovered the planetoid itself, and without knowing of its habitation, used
the might of NMPGM to swiftly devastate half of it. The result was something like... the
utilization of dynamite. Half the planetoid was vaporized, and with it went two-thirds of
the native population.
The Petorhans sought counsel with her world. Sources from Vita's planet lacked records of
these pleas. Other planets spoke of theories suggesting the involvement of clandestine
organizations from her world silencing any petitions. The Petorhans formed an alliance with
an imperial planet, known for adopting cultures at their surrender...
And Vita did remember that. Her world had supposedly engaged in a... "skirmish" on some
distant edge of space. Supposedly the Imperium had struck force against the forces from her
world.
However, source, after source, after source from anywhere other than her homeland claimed
something very different: "Because of the Imperium's alliance with an unregistered group of
squatters, and in order to eliminate information of their existence/the existence of their
world's 'mistake', they used the NMPGM to collapse a sector of space, killing the remaining
Petorhans—and some of the Imperium for good measure".
And while those many sources told this tale, it took two pages from the deepest sections of
her own world's inter-network to convince her of the truth.
The... beginning of truth: the reality that her neutral world merely wore a neutral mask. In its
reach for "peace", stories like "Petorh's"... were not at all few in number. Most, even, did not
begin "accidentally"—and there were some who thought the tale of Petorh, too, had started in the
same way.
...Naturally, she kept this all to herself.
Naturally, she returned to work when usual working days began once more...
Naturally, she engaged the unknown signal again.
"I am among the last Petorhans," it said. "We only want escape."
From an alliance that had in fact brought them into what amounted to slavery—
From the chaos of this entire galaxy—
From, especially, her planet and its overwhelming reach.
"I heard that they had children minding the pathways. I—we—" the voice stammered,
"we thought maybe a kid could understand... what people at the top wouldn't ever bother to."
She asked, "What do you want?"
To which the voice replied, "Just one way out. What we... We've heard—this—this part of
the NMPGM is usually quiet, and we know it's very far out. We could... We have enough
ships that we could probably find another place with other stars, or..."
The voice told her that during their alliance—really just enslavement—to the Imperium,
the Petorhans had discovered that the Imperium had been developing technology to spy on
the minds supporting the NMPGM. They'd stolen that technology, and being so desperate and
so burned, they had no issue sharing that fact with Vita—who, of course, would need to report
this information.
But the "alliance" the Petorhans had made with the Imperium now meant nothing. Nothing
here meant anything; as the voice insisted, they only wanted to escape.
And she could easily grant it. Modern-day ships could travel with almost instantaneous speed,
especially with the faster-than-light travel provided by the pathways...
One quick opening, and a quick jump—off the record...?
Yeah...
She would allow it.
But—did you know? This is true:
The NMPGM was, in fact, used to collapse a sector of space, killing the remaining Petorhans.
None at all were left.
Vita's "sight" outside of the pathways could certainly see ships—but could she, with her power,
identify the KIND of ships? The true, non-vague shape? The size, even?
No.
What could she have known?
When Vita opened the path for "Petorhan" escapees...
...those paths were flooded instead with Imperium warships.
And do you remember how fast ships could move through those paths?
This is also true...
Modern-day ships could travel at an almost instantaneous speed,
especially with the faster-than-light travel provided by the pathways...
Once the warships had navigated the NMPGM, the attack on her planet was swift,
thorough, and unable to defend against.
It seemed the Imperium had plenty of intelligence informing them of the locations of
Psychic bases, as they mostly destroyed those first.
The surface of her world was bombarded quickly. There was little time to react, and in
a matter of hours, nearly everything had been.
Though they did try—
There was an attempt—to fight back in time, to reach that other signal, to destroy as
much of the invading fleet as possible—
But, mostly, there was only despair...
Dread...
Self-hate...
Amidst fire, fear, terror, and Hell itself...
They "fought" in a game where their own first move had already sealed their defeat.
A cannon from above marked the position of her base...
...and ended the lives of her, her superiors, and her friends.
...
The girl woke up in a world of white after, with tears brimming in her eyes.
...However, she had no knowledge that might prompt them—no known
reason in her head for the pain inside her chest.
She was dead, like all of us. She didn't remember, like most of us.
So I wonder what it was she thought of her tears.
I wonder if, as she wiped them away and stood, she felt anything other than sorrow.
Guilt, maybe. Responsibility.
...I don't think that's the case. Or maybe what I mean to say is: she should not feel that way.
She shouldn't consider herself to have been in the wrong.
After all, what does it even mean to "know"?
What she "knows" now is...nothing.
And...as this story comes to a close, as we think of her getting up and facing the world of glass,
I think it's very pertinent to ask...
...
...Had she ever known anything else?
12-4
解锁条件：购入HYPER VISION单曲
解锁要求：通过SUPERNOVA
Only an impression is left: some vague sense—and it is miraculous, or perhaps even a blessing, that in all
that hell rained down only a shadow is left. And then it is gone.
Forgotten:
Concentrated heat, and melting bones. Burned away ships falling from space, collapsing fortifications. Fire
spreading. Screams within and without. Horror.
And fleeting memories of happiness, too:
Forgotten.
One memory:
She had a little book. The medium wasn't very popular in favor of the versatility and convenience of
screens, but the tactile sensation was something she liked, and the unpopularity made her feel unique
even in uniform. She was proud of herself—for a lot of things, but this always bolstered her mood in
particular. In the lounge, as evening approached, she read that little paper book. One of her friends
approached the comfortable chair she was resting in, and perching her arms on the back asked—
"Where do you get those, anyway?"
And she explained that there was a small shop just outside of the base where an older woman sold
old things.
She promised to take her friend over there some time. They'd get permission and go. Not two months
later, she would make a terrible mistake, and everyone on that base would be dead.
All of this, she has forgotten.
She wakes with tears in her eyes, and tears fallen from her. She stares up into the night within a world of
white. A rare child has come here: into Arcaea. She wakes up, wipes her eyes, and only the shadow of a
dream is left in her head. It vanishes.
Wake into the dark of the world of light, Vita.
You, as near all the others, have been blessed.
Let us follow where the little girl goes. Let us follow her standing, and her looking out over a shadowed
world of glass and ruin.
Let us follow her ahead, and to where it all ends.
She will travel. She will see. She will love. She will learn.
...
All stories must end, no?
12-5
解锁条件：完成12-4，购入HYPER VISION单曲
The canvas of Arcaea spreads across an unthinkable distance.
The land is a disc, and comprised of plains and mountains and barren sea beds. The disc might, still,
be spreading.
Daylight died over one half the land, as a pair of stars plummeted from the sky and split that sky in two.
It's more accurate to say the daylight never really ended, but that the clouds which held it were banished
from half the earth.
The edge of the world leads into the shadowed Void. The Void leads to the incomprehensible End.
Vita, knowing none of this, stands with a hand pressed to a pillar under the night of Arcaea, watching
the stars.
Arcaea is not without wind. Though it never rains, it never snows, and there is no water, a wind will blow
from somewhere now and then. A breeze carries past now, dancing through her hair. She continues to
watch the stars.
"All of them... are violet."
She whispers that, finally. It's true.
Unknown as to why, but the starlight of Arcaea is of a purple color.
"Stars are... supposed to be white, or their colors can't be seen from... here. But, from space they..."
Her eyes narrow, and she wonders aloud:
"Is that... really 'space', up there?"
In a fantastic world where shards of glass fly through the air, it is a question worth asking.
She does not remember herself apart from her name, but she has "knowledge". She knows
what a world should have. She knows this world "Arcaea", and she knows it is missing very much.
She too feels she is missing very much.
Vita lifts her other hand over her heart.
And, she asks:
"Where is everyone...?"
She's seen the glass; it never leaves Arcaea's visitors alone. In those shards, there are visions of other
worlds. "Memories", but not hers. So, she knows: a world needs people in it. Even to look at Arcaea: it may
have once had people in it. She looks up at the pillar beside her.
She is standing in a night-darkened graveyard of buildings, cracked and white and empty, like over a
dozen hollowed bones of dragons.
The evidence is piled up: to suggest that her being alone is some sort of mistake.
And even putting evidence aside...
...A shadow might remain in her heart—or it might be an echo: a notion vague of a connection she
specifically shared with countless others.
A natural feeling that all humans feel?
She can't know.
Vita steps away from that pale stone thing and passes out the barren shell of that town.
Reasonably, reasonably... she must be alone—it has to have been days, and she doesn't feel any need to
eat, drink, or sleep.
But she refuses that answer.
Vita marches on, and begins to call out for others.
12-6
解锁条件：完成12-5，购入HYPER VISION单曲
解锁要求：通过HYPER VISION
The child marches through valleys of dust and over bridges to nothing. She trudges through wreckage
and, being in the deep dark all the time, uses the light of what Arcaea follow her to make her way more
safely. And as for their memories? As for their visions? They're merely a distraction, aren't they...?
Life is more than being lost to visions.
She considers the winds, imagining that they must be coming from somewhere. That, in fact, there
must be a sea, or immense lake, or ocean very, very close. There must be something shifting water.
There must be a moon, and perhaps there's a sun. The world is not cold, so... there must be a sun.
She can't know how little of that is correct to assume, and yet...
...giving herself so many reassurances, and voicing them too in comforting whispers, Vita marches on.
And for her dedication she is rewarded.
It's still a time of fate, but this isn't fated. It's still a time of feeling, but her desires aren't heard. Sometimes,
merely trying is all something takes to be done. Vita crests a hill, and finds not an ocean, but the sun.
"W—Wow—What..."
She whispers in surprise and innocence as light fills her eyes. A true world of light with glass dancing
through the sky. A brilliant sea of clouds in the sky, and a strange seam overhead where night and day
beautifully and melting meet.
Although she had held her head high until now, refusing the part of "the child", Vita unabashedly
scrambles over the hill in her excitement, looking back to the night as she reaches the spectacular border.
"How is it like this!? This... This is crazy!"
Ecstatic, she shouts through the quiet world, her voice carrying far—being heard by no one. She hops
around the border, looking up at the silvery and bleeding clash between darkness and daylight—
her mouth agape as she gasps in awe.
She giddily theorizes. She climbs nearby stones and structures to try to gain a better look. She is, for the
first time since waking, happy.
Wonder isn't lost very quickly, either. When she is done looking the border over, and at the strange vista
that is gazing into "night" from a side of "day", she finds wonder in the newly lit landscapes of Arcaea
instead. She finds new sights: cathedrals and coliseums, lake houses and new, wired and wooden pillars...
Wonder is not lost quickly. She enjoys what she can see and find. She enjoys the adventure of exploring.
But, when wonder does begin to drift away from her...
When her happiness begins to ebb—only a little at first, but then quite a lot...
...Her worries rapidly encroach on her stomach.
Thinking of night and day, and ruins, and vast emptiness—she begins to think too much.
She thinks too much, and she begins to ask:
"I'm not really all alone, am I...?"
And with the worry in her heart beginning to take the shape of fright, Vita once more starts to shout
into the world for anyone else to hear—with only echoes answering.
The canvas of Arcaea spreads across an unthinkable distance.
Across that distance, physical voices do not carry well. Some may wake here and never find, nor even notice
the presence of, another.
As Vita calls out "Someone!" and "Anyone?" through quiet alleys and past vacuous caverns, her returning
voice is a constant confirmation. A creeping, and then pounding sensation that her fate is the fate of so
many others in this place:
Life, alone.
And even she, even this little one...
...can comprehend the indifferent oppression of time.
After she has wandered over a month's time, with hope left barely as dregs within her chest, little Vita
crawls to the corner of a nondescript ruin and hides herself from nobody to cry.
She breathes in fits and starts. She growls in pain. She says, "No", and "No, no". She hugs her knees,
and she sobs.
She fills the petal-hearts of her sleeve with her tears.
And as she hiccups, as her chest hurts from the steady thoughts and the terrible weight of knowledge...
Her loud crying deafens her to the sounds of another's footsteps.
A woman steps out from the light.
As her foot falls one last time, the sharp sound of it reaches Vita's ear. She hurriedly picks up her head,
suddenly afraid.
With the brightness of the day behind her, the woman is a figure enshrouded in void. The right of
her face—her eye?—it catches light and shines through the shade. Curious if it's glass catching that light,
Vita lifts her head higher and can there see the woman's left eye blinking.
Vita's breath stops in her throat.
Not only is it another person, here and now...
... it is a person with a flower blooming from her right eye.
12-?
该剧情在解锁前不可见。
解锁要求：解锁ALTER EGO后，游玩Absolute Nihil内的任意曲目并触发地图9-11的解锁
...
...Oh?
Another memory... that girl's.
Are these ones fond of me now? ...You see that? It seems that some rules never change...
Hm. This is...
The second life... I believe. The "copy" process... Why was this recorded?
Arcaea... isn't it usually interested only in the girl in white? ...We do know this world isn't one for making
sense, I suppose. A random fluke?
Oh... or perhaps it's shame... Look here:
Something looks to have gone amiss.
We've watched a few entries from here in the Void, but never do they look like this...
The memories haven't been woven and nor have they dissipated—they're all together in a clump of
turning energy. Why?
This is like the soul that was stuck on the border... or it reminds me of her, at the very least.
This collection can't be considered a "soul" under ordinary circumstances, however.
Was Arcaea unsure what to do with them? Why not make them into glass—
...Ah. The process completed. Another mystery left for us. Those discarded memories, what happened
to them? Have you any theories? I...
...Hmph... quiet as always. I really should have given you the ability to speak, Charon.
But, well, perhaps this explains the difference we noted before.
Clothing near always changes once we enter here, but our bodies are always copied rather exactly.
I had wondered what gave Vita her half-paler hair and that odd eye, different from the memories.
Seems this memory doesn't follow much longer... No, we won't take it with us. Gathering memories
causes such aggravations...
I'm very curious about the "lost memories", though.
Perhaps they entered the Void? Or if they're memories at all, then... hm.
Well, enough dawdling. Let's continue.
Time rarely stops here, after all.
13-1
解锁条件：购入Crimson Throne单曲
解锁要求：通过Crimson Throne
Shadow creeps through all that exists here.
Stains it, sticky and foul.
Light wanders in for but a moment, and is then swallowed whole.
This is the expanse that tells of a shattered heart.
And in that quiet place, she opens her eyes to the dark.
Deepest red shines through the black.
Ilith awakens there, in the Void.
Embedded in a strange layer of "nothing", the girl lifts up her body—stretches herself from it all.
Like tar, the nothing catches her. Nonetheless she pulls forth and snaps away from the clinging mass.
Her hair, her body, her clothes are freed, and she puts her feet to the ground—the ground which, now,
exists. A platform of light appears beneath her, and she kneels upon it.
The coat over her shoulders settles.
She does not know who she is. She does not know where this is.
As Ilith stands, she frowns into the emptiness around her.
A name rings inside her head—a place: "Arcaea"...
And yet she also knows... this is not there.
"Arcaea" is a paradise... and one she was not born into.
She sets forth into the chaos.
A pathway forms underneath her.
As the world turns over onto itself and the path she walks bends with (and often against) her whims,
no caution, no anxiety burdens her heart.
If this is her place...
...then it is hers, and nothing to fear.
13-2
解锁条件：完成13-1，购入Crimson Throne单曲
解锁要求：通过Lucifer
There is a way to paradise out of the dark. It is in no way illuminated, but it is surely there.
However, there should be no misunderstanding this one fact: she has no urge to go.
"Arcaea" is there, so she reaches for it—not out of desire, but out of fact. As she goes, she even learns
more of that place, and, perhaps, of its history.
"Arcaea" is a world of fool young girls. One is dumb with a head full of light, another is impressive,
though her bravery guides her down a thorned path. Of course, that is only two. There are so many
others: wandering about listlessly and watching dancing glass with vacant smiles.
If you're to wear a smile, wear it strongly—wear it wickedly.
"Knowing" them through scattered windows to a world of white, Ilith feels a sense of pity for the lot.
They can't even make sense of a sensible world; they'd never fare well here.
She spends very long in the Void, and in it she feels connected, both to that "Arcaea" and to the Void itself.
She knows herself to be unique. She knows herself to be different.
All others have light to greet them upon awakening.
"Like this one..." she mutters as she trudges past a glowing window. In it is the sight of a girl who sports
a monocle: a girl that she's seen before. "What are you up to today? Talking to yourself again?"
The window follows Ilith as she walks. Bored, she continues to watch. The girl with a monocle has been
awake for about as long as Ilith, and most of that time has been spent prattling
"..."
But now, the girl does something different.
"...?"
She lifts her hand and makes a little being out of glass.
Silent and stopped for several moments, Ilith remains even after the window fades away.
"...Oh, well, that's…" she breathes after a while. "I can't believe I hadn't thought of that."
She will not make a companion; she doesn't need such a thing.
When Ilith lifts her hand, a small part of the Void breaks.
"Of course..." she whispers. She chuckles, then. Another cool whisper: "This is all mine."
In this world, should you embrace what it gives, then it will give all of itself to you.
She has seen this so many times. She chastises herself for thinking it might be any different out in the
Void. Did not paths appear at her feet? Did not a way forward manifest by her will?
Like when one sees a horizon, and seeks to reach it;
Like when one sees a mountain, and sets out to climb it;
Like finding that you can set a fire, and having fire flare up within your heart subsequently...
At once, a profane wish manifests in her heart for no other reason than to see what can be done with
"power", and she soon vows this:
She, a being of the dark, will bring nightfall to the land of endless Sun.
13-3
解锁条件：完成13-2，购入Crimson Throne单曲
解锁要求：通过Anökumene
Of course, something so monumental could take an age to carry out. She decides to hone what she has,
and spends a great deal of time dedicated to the task.
And after that time passes, she becomes rather confident.
Now, she stands beside some errant pieces of floating glass.
"...There!"
Casting her hand forward, she "shuts" a window from afar.
A wispy and white portal collapses in on itself, loses light and is crushed into black smoke.
"Alright..." she mutters.
The Void is largely nonsensical, but even it follows rules.
It is comprised of darkness: a kind of impossible matter that is at once there and not.
It lacks any concept of gravity, and all direction is transient.
It seeks structure from thought, for even subconscious thought can grant a pathway through the black.
It has a worthless limit: an edge that can snatch away one's soul should they draw too near to it.
And finally, "Arcaea" attempts to manifest here often, and shows itself—almost as if desperate—through
these portals, or "windows".
The girl clenches her fist. Wisps crawl between her fingers.
She stares at her hand. She concentrates.
"..."
Her fingers unfurl, and a glass shard now floats above it.
"Hm..." she moans.
Is there a correlation between "touching" the white world like that and the glass manifesting?
If so, it isn't a consistent thing.
She "feels" it sometimes, when she brushes against the other side. A feeling, something akin to bliss or
warmth, courses through her arm. Her fingers tremble. If she acts in that moment, a memory may
appear in her palm. Only "may"... Other times, the feeling passes, and there is nothing.
What has shown itself now is a memory of some pet. She turns her head and lets it drift away.
She has power over the Void, but it isn't as clear-cut as the monocle girl's power over Arcaea. She grits
her teeth.
She was right, it seemed, about that sense of connection. It's less like exerting will; it seems more to her
that she can bend the world like one might conceivably bend a storm. The storm is already there, and it
came about on its own. It's unstoppable, and powerful, but you have some power to "push" at it–to
siphon it, or redirect it. From the few memories she's seen of death-bringing squalls and overwhelming
typhoons, it seems an appropriate comparison. The Void is often more like the eye of a storm, but there
is definitely power surrounding it. That, she feels—always. She feels a vector to "power".
She has learned that she can close a window now and then. She knows that when she feels a tremor
through the air, part of the Void can be "broken". Breaking it settles it—brings it to heel for more. She can
shape darkness then. She can make windows of her own—or, she thinks she can. The opportunity has
always slipped by her, but...the opportunity is there, she's sure of it.
And what she wants to do, rather than walk the way to Arcaea, is force her way through—
to have a shortcut.
The Void churns.
A shiver runs down her back, and she fires a glare at the surrounding shadows.
It all goes still. It snaps, and the world feels suddenly, oddly, ordinary. A smile cuts across her face.
Convenient timing. Perhaps too convenient? Or perhaps she's garnered more favor from the dark.
Ilith lifts her hand and grabs at the air before her. It goes solid like a sheet.
And violently she pulls it aside, grinning as her pupils shrink to sudden light.
This is how a window is created. She rends the Void apart, and the World of White appears before her—
all of it. This is a vantage point in the sky... The light is almost painful. Air suddenly rushes out. The world
groans and rebels.
The World of White is here—through an impassable window.
Always, always impassable. Until, that is, today.
"Come on...!" she calls to the Void. Darkness crawls up her other arm like vines, twisting and melding into
a maelstrom over her hand.
This is the opportunity—
She draws her hand back, and forcefully strikes the dark against the daylight—
—and, like that, the window shatters. It explodes with light and shadow, falling away like glass, sending
her tumbling through.
13-4
解锁条件：完成13-3，购入Crimson Throne单曲
解锁要求：通过Crimson Throne
The word "wish" is sincere and beautiful. A word that carries with it the bright light of hopes, and some
idea of inevitable triumph, and yet...
What possesses the heart of the girl born in the dark? It can't be sincerity. It can't be hope.
Is it envy? Is it dread?
No. Her wish was for herself.
And her sin is pride.
The Void grabs at Ilith as she falls. Light, too, engulfs her all at once. Shards of space are scattered around
her. It is still miles down to the earth.
The window closes. Shadows all surround her, desperate, and still for a moment alive. She lets them
swirl around her. She lets them become her, and the sight of her is that of a descending, storming cloud.
A lone dark star descends, but her smile is bright, and her heart is full. And before the dark can leave her,
Ilith bids it stay with her, allows it to darken her.
And in the dark, she is blind to a red comet falling near, smiling near, and also satisfied. Even if she could
see it, she would not look.
For she is rapturous.
Ilith falls toward the earth swaddled in shadows, laughing. She feels simply rapturous.
She reaches her hand out toward the clouds, now fully writhing with the Void's power. That power
lashes forth once, but fails to grasp the sky.
Yet it wants to. She wants to.
She embraces the feeling, and casts out the dark again,
calling forth so many limbs of shadow, racing to the firmament.
And soon, the clouds are caught.
Soon, the heavens are seized.
And she closes her hand. With flamboyance and flare, she tears her arm to one side, and shade billows
below her, ready to catch her safely.
As the girls in red and black fall, so too does the night.
The light yields, the clouds part, and a new sky bleeds out from behind it, quickly taking half the earth in
new and twinkling shade.
A drop of obsidian fell from the Void. A crimson light cut through the clouds.
And there, and then, night met with day.
14-1
解锁条件：购入To the Milky Way单曲
解锁要求：通过To the Milky Way
Dreams don't tend to feel so real.
This is the conclusion she comes to—and yet, it must be a dream. There are incredible sights to be found
in the waking world: fields of flowers painting a solid color over the entire expanse, enormous caverns
and canyons carved through the earth by mere rivers, water frozen mid-fall in winter to make miraculous
towers of shimmering ice...
Miraculous though they seem, they are not miracles. Dreamlike though they seem, they are ever reality.
While these sights arrest the mind, heart, and imagination, they are, with thought, explainable. They
are aspects of nature made possible by basic processes of the world...
What's more, an understanding of them is easily within reach, and she clearly remembers those grade
school classes that taught her about plant growth, the water cycle, the effects of temperature...
But this is a miracle. This is a dream. No class, no lecture, and no amount of reading has ever told her
about, or explained to her, the magic of glass flying through the sky.
The girl bears witness to the world of white for the first time in its entirety, standing on a cliff which
overlooks the abandoned, or perhaps archived, buildings standing across the pale and still earth, some
straight, some crooked. "Arcaea" is the name in her mind, but no "Arcaea" exists within her memory.
The shards of glass float through the air reflecting other people and other places, many of which at a
glance seem like movies—surreal, like fantasy. These, too, are "Arcaea". Watching it all, she knows it must
be a dream.
And yet, dreams don't tend to feel so real.
"..."
She is silent for a moment.
And then she flinches, a shock running through her. That of realization—that of another name.
"That was it!" she yells over the landscape. "It's a 'lucid dream'!"
And at once, the girl grows excited. She bounces on her heels.
"Can I? C-Can I...?" she whispers, loosely holding her hands before her chin—her mouth. "Can I—fly!?"
She puts her foot over the cliff's edge—
And she stops there.
Shying away, she squeals and shakes her head wildly, smiling to herself and asking, in her thoughts, just
what is she thinking? "Noooo! No, no, no! Stop that! Ahhh!" she whines, fear and giddy elation muddled
inside her. The fear of falling had entered her gut in the moment she'd taken that step. The world is not
real, but it feels like it is.
"Ahh!" she moans, irritated. "But I've never had one before!" A lucid dream: actualization amid sleep. To
dream and, in the awareness that you're dreaming, gain incredible power over "reality": to fly through the
sky, to experience the world as a bird or butterfly, to wish...
But what a shame—her realization of her "self" seems to be directly in the way.
She is not a witch or wizard. She is not a bird or butterfly.
Her name is Nami, and she is an ordinary high school girl.
She searches the area, finds a path leading down, and begins to descend.
14-2
解锁条件：完成14-1，购入To the Milky Way单曲
解锁要求：通过Clotho and the stargazer
If she cannot change the world or herself despite her awareness, then she may as well enjoy some
exploration of her subconscious mind while still consciously aware.
This is the conclusion she comes to as she walks down from the cliff where she previously stood.
Like any path one can find in the world of white, this one is lined with coy glass; it leans away
from one's touch, yet leans in against anyone's wishes. She can see well the sights within them—most
are ordinary but, again, many are strange.
In one she sees what can only be called magic: shows of color sparking and smoking between the hands
of people in robes. In another she can see a cliff and valley similar to where she is now, though
reversed in color. A pair of horned humans—or maybe, demons—looks out over a glowing
cyclone of energy...
"Cool..." she breathes. She reaches out to see this scene more closely—yet, again, this glass forbids her
touch. She frowns, grumbles, and reluctantly continues making her way down. For her own dream, it really
doesn't seem to care about her input or will.
While this colorless world is a first experience for her, she has walked on a cliffside before.
Her country is a mountainous one. She's familiar with green ridges—forested horizons bordering Heaven—
that she can go to, if she ever wants. She's rarely wanted to, but at the least, she's spent a vacation day
within one with a friend and that friend's family.
She keeps her hand to the white rock wall beside her now, and thinks—though it's white, it isn't limestone,
is it? She thinks about what she knows of geology. She doesn't know much. What are the categories again?
Porous, sedimentary, metamorphic...
For her, school has been valuable outside of its classrooms, not during any lectures or labs. Sports are fun.
Playing instruments is fun. Rocks are not.
Still, though, she can't deny the fascination brought by an alien landscape. She mutters, "No wonder I'm
thinking of rock class..."
While moving down she comes to notice glass disappearing into the wall out ahead of her—as if it's phasing
through, or there's a corner, or—
"A cave...!" she exclaims as soon as she comes up to it. She enters just as quickly.
Nothing cooler than a cave, she thinks.
She runs through heedlessly, thrilled. The glass seems to guide her, bouncing with her steps, flying faster
and faster the further she goes...
She goes to the end—to a great and wide atrium. To a place she's not sure could even conceivably fit within
the cliff she'd been standing on just minutes ago.
And there, she finds another miracle.
14-3
解锁条件：完成14-2，购入To the Milky Way单曲
解锁要求：通过Altair (feat. *spiLa*)
Could you "think" a world into being?
There are circles of thought that equate perception with reality. If you know what you are, then that is what
you are. If you dream of being a butterfly, do you become a butterfly? Or, of course, are you simply a butterfly
that's dreaming of being human? Regardless...
What you know encompasses your world, so fragments of what you know are pieces that comprise reality—
a world. You carry your world in your mind. If those thoughts and feelings and days gone could be made
physical, could you link them together and create something new?
All of this comes to mind as she witnesses what seems to be just that. An archive—a record...
The inside of the earth has spread out into a secret library that is far too big. To even call it something as
simple as a "library" does it no justice.
As the girl walks deep into the earth, it's as if she's come across Heaven's gates, and those gates have
opened unprompted. Light and glass fly out before her in a spiraling, crystal pathway leading to the hollow
core of the mountain, and from there glass arranges itself.
She finds herself in an ever-sorting, ever gathering home of almost infinite "ideas".
From behind her, new ideas set into glass drift in. Above her, light from glass illuminates the gargantuan
space. When she steps forward, she finds that her eyes have tricked her; the path lit below is not glass,
but an impossible and white cobblestone way. The inside of this mountain has been fused with a mishmash
of man-made architecture.
At once she knows that this place both was and wasn't meant to be.
The dazzling world around her is inviting, and as she steps down new stone ways and past spiral staircases,
shelves, and sideways towers, shards of Arcaea come down to her, following at her shoulders.
The light from those glass shards warms her skin. She stops beside an inner wall, brings her hands before
her chest, and breathes as she looks above herself.
"...Wow."
She exhales that word, out from her heart. And after—
"I think I love this place..."
A single piece of glass comes down from the flowering walls of shards. It comes to rest above and between
her palms.
In its reflection is a world of waves and water.
She gulps.
She wants to go there.
And this world—this dreamlike place that is no dream—will grant that wish.
As her wants resonate with glass... as she accepts the encroaching world...
...the world of Arcaea also accepts her.
14-4
解锁条件：完成14-3，购入To the Milky Way单曲
解锁要求：通过To the Milky Way
A dream within a dream? No, not quite. This—
Before her thoughts can complete, orange waters quickly surround her. It's twilight—sunset. She dives in
backward and beneath a hundred waves. She is submerged, and surprised, but surprised all the more that
through some means she is able to breathe.
Her head fills with thoughts, and though it feels natural, it is not. These thoughts are not hers. Someone
else had dove here. Someone else had experienced this.
And so lucky they had been.
The cool water, the warmth of an undercurrent—the gentle churning all around her; she can't
suppress her laughter.
"Where is this?" she asks aloud. Her voice carries clear through liquid, and she remembers: she
is not alone, here.
Nami turns her head as dozens of colorful fish begin to converge and swim around her. To her left
is someone "she" knows: a young child, easily making her way here. The child reaches out, and of
course she takes that hand.
It feels right—all of this.
Not facing the sea floor, the two girls look instead up toward the sun. Its rays scatter through
the waves above, spreading light brilliantly into countless beautiful fragments. The child beside
her squeezes her hand and she squeezes it right back. The colors of sea life—the prism rays of the
sun—the warmth—this heaven here...
...is a memory.
It is an odd realization. Comfortable, but so strange...
Yet the girl experiencing it puts that all aside, holding the other girl's hand more tightly... until the sun fully
falls. Until stars begin to dabble the darkening sky, shifted by the sea...
This comfort is simply impossible to deny.
It is a memory. That world "before"... was a world full of memories.
When the memory ends, she won't wake up; she will instead return to that world.
But that is fine...
There were so many other lives there, waiting to be seen.
Her smile is bright—brighter than the sun.
And her heart, too, is light...
This is satisfaction. This is paradise. And yes...
She could live here forever.
19-1
解锁条件：购入Rotaeno Collaboration曲包
Let's retell a funny story.
Remember when we went into the dark? You put on a strong face, but since I was a little freaked out myself
I knew you had to be bluffing. The world fell away and we could only find shadows and strangely bright
clouds. It was before that light show in the sky and those crazy earthquakes, too—we never could've
expected it. I know you were scared, Luna, but I also pretended not to be.
As we walked further in, where "walking" seemed more like a suggestion than something truly defined,
we could see through those bright clouds like windows to places we had been to before, in Arcaea.
And then we found it, floating in glass: Aquaria.
We held our keys up to the shard and went in together.
What we found was a world of marvels and technology beside great bodies of water, human-like robots
helping people out and with strange sights in the skies—with spaceships, and even giant floating islands.
We both looked up through daylight at that gilded place from the ground, knowing what was up there and
knowing that was a special place. You trotted ahead of me cutely, and boisterously pointed to the sky.
"Bet you I can sneak up there before the sun sets!" you said.
I smirked, and I huffed. Right—today, it'd turn out that a kid up there from the surface would be discovered,
having snuck in to see "The Summer Festival". That must've been how you got the idea.
Totally fine. I let you run off, waving you a lighthearted goodbye.
I could "remember", I was a person from those Floating Islands, and you were somebody from here—an
"orphan" from the surface. But—I never asked you. Did you feel it too?
It wasn't a sense of unease for me. It wasn't any kind of "bad feeling". I just knew, for certain...
...That this place was a trap.
You, and I, couldn't actually leave this world of water, could we?
19-2
解锁条件：完成19-1，购入Rotaeno Collaboration曲包
Crazy! Absolutely crazy! What kind of world was this?
Yeah, yeah, let's retell the story—
After walking through the dark, finding a whole world of water and futuristic tech was like sneaking through
a dungeon to find a huge trove of treasure. It was awesome! Eto! I don't know how you could keep so calm!
And those floating islands...
This was a memory of the Summer Festival. Bright, cool, shining and wonderful—I could remember
seeing it, going to it. I wanted to go to it!
No, more importantly... I wanted to sneak in!
I mean why waste a chance to play stowaway? That kid got caught, sure, but she had the right idea! With
that in mind, after I left you, I ran to the nearest port.
There was a whole lot of hustle and bustle... With the Summer Festival going on, even though the Floating
Islands are usually pretty restrictive, those who could go there were going in droves. That meant... if I
remembered right, it meant that security would be tighter than usual... but also that it needed to be, you
know? There had to be gaps, and probably a lack of staff. I figured it'd be easy to slip in...
And I wasn't the only one, apparently.
I bumped into another girl. While I was sneaking around a corner, our heads smashed into each other hard
enough for us to fall to the floor and switch our hats.
With her white hat on, I got up and rubbed the thump I'd gotten. With my blue hat on, she got up and
shouted at me, "What's the big idea!?" Before I had even gotten the chance to shush her, the hat slid
down off of her head and onto her face.
When I took my hat from her face, that's when I knew who it was: that crazy kid who got caught. I asked
her right away, "Were you trying to sneak up on a ship, too?"
"What!?" was all she said at first, but then she got a look at me. I think we must've been around the same
age, since she eased up pretty quickly. She eventually asked, "You... want to sneak up to see the Summer
Festival?" and after I nodded, she nodded back—really strong. "Awesome!" she said. "Let's do it! Oh—
I'm Ilot, by the way!"
"Luna," I replied, and I took her hand to help her get up before hiding again and watching the port for an
opening. "Come on," I said, "we've only got one shot to do this."
A guard was wandering around a ship door that looked like it led to cargo space. He kept turning around
for a while to check a list, it seemed. Always for around twenty seconds. Ten... would probably be enough. F
or me, at least...
I held Ilot's hand tight and told her, "On three."
With a "One... two... three!" we ran behind the guard's back and rushed into the belly of the ship.
19-3
解锁条件：完成19-2，购入Rotaeno Collaboration曲包
解锁要求：通过MVURBD
I had a feeling you'd made it.
It's not like Twin Sense. I just figured you could do at least that much—sneak on board a ship to a floating
island. But, still...
The sun was setting, and I was actually getting anxious. We'd split up to explore in memories before—but
never for that long.
And what was more...I'd gotten more reasons to be worried aside from the fact that we couldn't leave this
memory at will. This memory... was all mixed up, somehow. Details I usually had were missing, and it felt
like facts were switching in my head as hours passed. For instance... who was "I"? Was I an official? A pilot...?
Was all the mixing in my head because of where we'd found the memory? If so... why?
Hmph...lucky you, Luna.
You're kind of blessedly ignorant, y'know.
I did like seeing what I could, though. Spaceships were interesting, and the large amount of water
everywhere was otherworldly... beautiful. It felt like the whole city was glittering in the day, and as
night closed in the city outright and actually glowed. It was all really cool. Almost fantastic...
I was just really anxious...
I spoke to some locals about you. Tried to describe you, tried to ask if anyone had seen you. They weren't
any help, and if I went to robots to ask about the person whose place you were taking in the memory—
they'd only give me facts outlined by the memory. Whatever you were doing, it wasn't "remembered" here.
I kept wandering the streets and glancing up at the island above, my worries building just a bit more and
more with every minute's passing...
That was when I ran into Hoppe.
A young kid slammed into me and almost knocked me down. She fell herself and I hurried to help her up.
As she fixed her dress, she apologized, saw who I was, and gasped. "Are you from the Floating Islands!?
Has... Has there been...! Any... um..." was what she said. I answered her with a simple, "Calm down, it's alright."
I asked her what was the matter, and she explained.
Her name was Hoppe, and she said that she had to get to the Floating Islands, or at least get someone to
look around up there. She wouldn't tell me why but I, "as a Floating Islander", seemed like I could potentially
help. Hoppe withdrew a ticket from her things and fiddled with it in her hands. "Actually, I have this... but..."
she muttered. It was a ticket to go up to the Islands. I knew all about that, too—how hard it was to get, and
how precious. But... why didn't she want to use it?
It was just a guess, but...
That kid getting caught was a big deal, so, I had a feeling:
"Don't be shocked, alright?" I told her. "You... do you think you have a friend who snuck up there to see the
Summer Festival?"
Hoppe panicked, but she seemed pretty loyal... she wouldn't easily admit it.
...But I don't care for tact!
"If you've got a friend up there, don't worry, I'll help you find her safe and sound. I've got connections," I said.
"You don't have to use the ticket."
"Huh...? No—No, I wasn't going to sneak in!" she stammered.
"That's not when I meant," I said. "I'm not just any Islander. I'm a kind and helpful official! Come on, I'll take
you up there for free—"
Saying this, I gently pushed her hand with the ticket low, and back to her pockets. I held her other hand
instead, and smiled. I thought about you, Luna.
And I said—
"My name is Relin"—the name I had taken from there, the name of somebody else—"but you can just call
me Eto. Everyone does."
"Listen, Hoppe," I lightly continued, "I have a feeling I know exactly where your friend is."
19-4
解锁条件：完成19-3，购入Rotaeno Collaboration曲包
解锁要求：采用露娜 & 伊洛通过Waltz for Lorelei
The ship was cramped, and there weren't any windows.
That annoyed me. A lot. I really wanted to look outside while we were flying up...
Of course, I wasn't alone. It annoyed that girl, too—
Ilot, she suddenly shouted:
"Why aren't there any windows in here!?"
I shushed her ASAP, going, "Shhh! ...Because this is storage."
"Oh. It is?"
"You didn't notice...?"
I squinted hard at her in the dark, and she shrugged, saying, "I wasn't paying attention when we went in."
What a character...
"Hmmm... Hey, Luna. You dress funny."
"I do?"
"Are you from the Floating Islands?"
I thought about that. "I" wasn't, but "you" were, Eto. I was some orphan... I'd gotten to go to the Summer
Festival that day... but I can't say I remember how...
Anyway, I told her no.
She asked, "Are you a sword fighter?" while pointing at the key on my hip. I told her no. "Are you... an idol!?"
I... didn't know what that was. Whatever it meant, her eyes were glittering when she asked me.
"What do you mean, 'idol'... A statue?" I asked.
"YOU DON'T KNOW ABOUT IDO—!?" I covered her mouth.
"Quiet! Quiet!" I whispered. When I removed my hand:
"I'll whisper... You don't know about idols? How?"
The person in this memory didn't seem to know about anything like that... I answered, "Well... tell me about
them."
"Oh gosh! Okay! So! There's Lulua, there's Orlan, O-Uber On The..."
"Ohwha...?"
"They're singers!"
So... it was a bizarre name for musicians?
Like... Eto, I kind of remember you talking about idols as maybe... things people worshiped? I mean... it did
seem like if that was the case, Ilot was among the faithful...
"So it's music?" I replied. "I play music." I said that, pointing at myself. I'm better than you at music, even!
"Really!? Can you sing too? Maybe you should be an idol."
"It... doesn't sound like it'd be for me." I wouldn't want people revering me...
"Who wouldn't like the idol life!? Just watching them is fulfilling... imagine getting to be one! Look—Look,
I'll show you some videos—oh. I'll keep the volume down so stop getting mad already! Okay... Look, look
at this. Listen to it."
Well...it was...
Pretty good, if I'm being honest...!
Though I usually like orchestras more...
It was neat to talk with someone else about music for a while, even if we could only whisper, and even if the
place we were talking in was small and dark.
...What do you think?
Should we become idols?
19-5
解锁条件：完成19-4，购入Rotaeno Collaboration曲包
解锁要求：采用露娜 & 伊洛通过Dual Doom Deathmatch
Hoppe asked me:
"So, Miss Eto, you really are from the Floating Islands...? Wow, you're... nicer than I've started to expect."
I laughed and answered, "That's pretty rude! But, yes, I am. I'll let them know to let you and your friend back
down after you find her."
I was walking with Hoppe to a place where we could take a ship up to an island. Walking, because—well,
there's so much monitoring in Aquaria. we didn't want to set off any alarm bells that "something was wrong",
even if the matter was pretty urgent. Mostly, as we walked I was looking around still very fascinated by
everything. I was smiling a lot, and I guess that she noticed and was curious.
She asked me another two questions: "Why did you come down from the Islands...? Did you have
something to do?"
I...think...
...I may have had to do some sort of survey, but...
Well, you and I both hate following the plot, so...
"I'm sightseeing!" I told her that.
"That's surprising. I thought all the people on the Floating Islands must prefer it so much more than down
here. Otherwise, why would they stay up there so much?"
"Well, everyone is every 'one'," I replied. "I have a twin, and even she's not exactly like me."
"Wow...! A twin... I've read that twins can read each other's thoughts, or rather... you have a strong empathic
connection. Is that true?"
"...You know some impressive words. Hmm, it's... true, a bit."
"Incredible..."
And... hmmm... I wanted to tease her...!
I grinned a little and told her, "Actually... I can see my sister Luna's thoughts right now!"
She actually jumped! "You can!?" she said with a gasp, bringing her hands over her mouth in shock.
"Yes, yes, I can see a vast sky, a view of an enormous city and almost infinite water..."
"The Floating Islands!?"
"Yes... Yeah! I can see Luna there!" I lied. "With your friend!"
"Is my friend being annoying!?"
Hearing this, I sputtered and almost tripped.
"Hahaha..." I laughed. "No, no... Luna is way more annoying."
(Sorry, Luna—I was just trying to be nice!)
She breathed a sigh of relief and went, "That's good... Oh! Not that your sister is annoying!" Uhhh, just to be
clear, Luna, you're not!
That said...
I don't know how much you got from entering that memory, Luna, but I was starting to think then that
Hoppe was what they called "elite" here. Now, you say you're elite quite a lot with a really smug face, but
it means something more in Aquaria...
I thought about asking her if she was, but told her instead, "You're pretty inquisitive, huh?"
"I have a lot to learn—I mean, literally. It's... big, I guess. The whole world is big."
"I get it. I come from a very big world, too."
"...Hm? Are you not originally from Aquaria?"
"Oh... right, I am, ahaha!"
I'd messed up. Talking with her was too relaxing for me...
"Hm, well," Hoppe went on, looking up at the sky. "I didn't just mean here, anyway." I followed her eyes.
She was looking past the Floating Islands.
Space... huh? With these names we were given... I'll admit I've always been pretty fascinated with the
cosmos. Like that red and black pair of comets we saw in the skies, once... I wonder if we'll ever find out
what they were, and why the sky changed completely ever since.
...I said, "Maybe we can figure things out, eventually."
"'We'? You mean you and I?"
And I shook my head.
"All of us, everyone," I said, "together."
As we neared the port, she gave me a wonderful and innocent smile.
"All of us..." she said, "that would be nice."
19-6
解锁条件：完成19-5，购入Rotaeno Collaboration曲包
解锁要求：采用露娜 & 伊洛通过MVURBD
I don't remember if we had festivals back home.
I remember a lot of things, like flowers and dancing, and lights in the sky—but I'm not sure if we had festivals,
not anymore.
It's not like "I forgot". It isn't that serious.
I just don't think I remember. We've probably spent more time here in Arcaea than we ever did there...
Well...
That being said, the Summer Festival was a lot of fun, Eto.
It was the first time I had the taste of shaved ice. It was the first time I played little games that, for once, I
hadn't made up myself. It wasn't my first time eating ice cream or having watermelon... but it was really,
really nice all the same.
And looking out over the world at the island's edge... the vast sprawl of the city, the immense sight of the
oceans...
It was all pretty amazing...!
Though it was her first time there, Ilot showed me around the place like an expert.
And... I never thanked her for it... Thanks, Ilot.
That being said, she wasn't entirely into it... especially as the day ended. She was so excited after we rolled
out of the storage room in the ship and hurried to the festival itself, but her smile got weaker and weaker
over time. Actually, I caught her frowning sometimes before I'd push cotton candy into her face.
When I asked her what the matter was, she told me she was mad her friend—Hoppe—wouldn't come up
here with her. She was mad that Hoppe cared more about a ticket than a friend. Apparently, the two of
them had gotten into a fight. I don't really get into fights with you, so... I didn't really get it.
I told her she could brag to her friend after we went back down. Maybe that was bad of me...
At least I kept her company, Eto.
...As that day ended... and we realized we couldn't find an easy way back down.
19-7
解锁条件：完成19-6，购入Rotaeno Collaboration曲包
解锁要求：采用露娜 & 伊洛通过Inverted World
Ilot kind of sounds like you, Luna.
She seems pretty stupid, but in a cute way. I could understand why she and Hoppe were friends.
You see... after she came up in conversation Hoppe wouldn't stop talking about her on our ride up to an
island. She was nervous when we went to the port, relieved when I proved my status as a resident, and
endlessly thankful that I would allow her to come up. And when we were talking I brought up her friend
again and, "Ilot!" "Ilot..." "Well, Ilot, she..." went this girl.
It wasn't all happy. There were a lot of complaints—but I told her it was fine to complain
after she told me "Sorry, all I'm doing is complaining." Cute.
Since she was so miserable, I tried to cheer her up in a tricky way... I asked her what kind of places Ilot liked.
She said her friend liked rivers. Ilot would probably be by a river—on a Floating Island. If, of course, she was
there—and I told her: "Did you already forget? She is."
"You mean... you weren't messing with me when you said that?" asked Hoppe.
I was. "I wasn't." I said with a smile—and she didn't look like she believed me...
But actually... my key was beginning to glow as the ship got closer to the Floating Islands. Did yours too?
I really did have a feeling we might meet there.
And maybe?
Maybe... in some other story...
...fate would turn over.
19-8
解锁条件：完成19-7，购入Rotaeno Collaboration曲包
解锁要求：采用露娜 & 伊洛通过Vulcānus
The sun was starting to set, and we'd been stuck on that Floating Island for a good while... The festival was
well over.
Ilot was starting to cry, and I didn't really know what to say to her.
She even ran away from me, Eto! I chased her down—all the way into a park, all the way to a river where
she sat herself down and sobbed.
I sat with her and patted her head, frowning. I don't know how you deal with me when I do things
like this, Sis.
Well, you will sing sometimes. I sang a lullaby to her, a bit. I don't know if she liked it...
...but she did cry a little less.
Under orange light, and with the ambience of the flowing river, I noticed that the key on my hip was
starting to softly glow.
I told Ilot things were going to be okay, and I waited for you.
Something changed that day, didn't it?
Something more than usual, when we use our keys to unlock a memory.
What was it?
Do you know?
I'm not saying I know. Do you?
Because... it just felt much better... it didn't just feel whimsical.
This wasn't how things played out, yeah...
But more than that, I think... there might've been a miracle.
Eto... when you came there with Hoppe and the two of them ran to each other and hugged, you looked at
me with a finger across your lips. I knew it then... You definitely know something!!
I wanted to ask you what that was all about, but you just trotted over to me, put your arm around my
shoulders and a hand on your hip, smirked at my side and said, "Miracles happen."
I flicked you between your eyes for that.
"Thank you!" said Hoppe with tears in her eyes.
"Who are you!?" said Ilot, looking your way (her eyes were also full of tears, but I couldn't tell if she was mad,
sad, or happy...).
I remember wanting to hit you, since you answered, "I'm a mysterious hero..."
I said, "She's my twin sister. Her name is Eto."
"You had a twin!?" Ilot shouted, and I winced. "Why didn't you tell me!? You can sing so well—you definitely
should both be idols! An idol duo! Twin idols!"
Hoppe whispered, "Ilot, you're bothering them..." and I grit my teeth. I know I was blushing because—
"You sang for her, Luna!?"
—I knew you would say that.
When things finally settled down...
Hoppe bowed. Ilot waved at us with all the energy in her body. We said our goodbyes and you kept poking
me in my side with your finger while I scowled. You know, it's only now I realize I missed the opportunity to
brag to you that I'd won the bet...
We parted ways with the girls.
And, like a collapsing house of cards, the memory started to disappear around us. When it was down, we
found ourselves back in the dark.
Once we'd gotten back to that spooky place, I asked you—
"...Eto... things don't usually change like that, do they?"
And, "Don't they?" is what you said back.
"Wait... they're still gonna get in trouble. Hoppe... had a ticket, but she... and Ilot..."
"Don't worry, I figured something out."
"Figured... what?"
"Something, ahaha!"
"Ugh... Anyway, that was a memory, so it doesn't even matter, does it!?"
"Oh...? Does it?"
"I hate you sometimes."
You laughed at that, and after laughing, and laughing, and laughing you sighed—with relief. You know...
you can tell me if something's worrying you.
Well... whatever. It's fine.
I know you just don't want me to worry, too.
Why would you want me to frown—that's it, right? We were together again, after all.
And honestly... just because of that, even if I didn't really "know" everything, I felt relieved too.
You suddenly grabbed my hand and pulled me forward as you skipped back. "What?" I asked. "What's up
with you...! Quit pulling!"
And you grinned. "Come on," you said with a brilliant smile.
"Let's go: back to the light."