As night deepened, the newly established Chaldea of the Wandering Sea was wrapped in an uncommon stillness.
Sion lay in a simple room, her breathing calm and even.
As a genius of the Atlas Academy, she was long accustomed to maintaining a shallow layer of thought-processing even in her sleep, in order to respond to crises that could occur at any time.
But tonight, her consciousness did not drift in a monotonous ocean of data.
Instead, she was drawn into a corridor of memories that technically did not belong to her.
And yet, they felt impossibly familiar. That familiarity came from the warm, powerful, and natural gravitational pull that had grown between a Master and Servant.
That was… a dream.
It was also the past deeply engraved at the very core of the spirit of the Heroic Spirit called Steve.
[Memory Coordinates: Parallel World – A.D. 2001]
Location: Asteria (Orbital Elevator Station)
Weightlessness.
Outside the window, a sea of stars spread endlessly, so deep and beautiful that it took one's breath away, so much so that it brought tears to the eyes.
The viewpoint within the dream floated, and Sion saw a young Steve—who had yet to become a Heroic Spirit—sitting in an extremely futuristic office.
He had lightly rolled up the cuffs of his white shirt and was holding a document stamped with the United Nations emblem. A faint wrinkle marred his brow, as though he were contemplating some grave question related to the fate of humanity.
He looked younger than he did now, but the cool composure and the ambition hidden behind his eyes were exactly the same as they were in the present.
"…Who's there?"
Suddenly, he set the document down and turned his sharp gaze toward the dimness at the edge of the office.
Sion's heart skipped a beat.
She followed his gaze—and saw herself.
No, the person she was now would never act that way.
The girl who emerged from the shadows wore a tight black combat suit reminiscent of a special forces operative, her long purple hair carelessly tied back.
Her face was unnaturally pale, and her eyes completely lacked the lively intellectual spark the present Sion possessed.
Instead, they held a deep gloom and nihilism, as though she were utterly exhausted by the world.
That was… a Dead Apostle Sion.
On that timeline, she was a descendant of the Atlas Institute, burdened with a heavy fate.
"Mr. Steve, your security system is almost useless against magi, you know."
The Sion in the dream spoke in a voice cold as ice. "I'm here to confirm one thing."
"Your Earth Sanctuary Project… is it for the sake of human evolution, or… for the sake of human extinction?"
"Oh? An alchemist from Atlas Academy, is it?"
Steve showed no sign of panic at the intruder's sudden appearance. If anything, he seemed intrigued. He rose to his feet and walked toward her, one step at a time.
"To be able to see through part of my plan—your computational ability is impressive."
"But your body… looks like it's nearing its limit, doesn't it?"
"That has nothing to do with you."
"It's very much related. Because I don't want to lose someone who understands me."
The scene shifted.
The tense standoff that had begun as a high-strung deadlock gradually evolved into a kind of surgery, one that employed advanced technology.
Steve held a syringe emitting a faint blue fluorescence. Inside it, countless microscopic nanobots swirled as though they were alive.
It was a miracle he had created by referencing the technology of the ancient Greek gods and fusing it with the science of that world—a power capable of rewriting the structure of living beings.
"…This is a gamble. If we lose, you die."
Steve's voice was calm—so calm it felt cold.
"But it doesn't matter… I don't have a future anyway."
On that worldline, Sion closed her eyes, despair so intense it looked like it would tear her chest apart etched across her face.
And yet, a miracle occurred.
With the injection of the nanobots, the girl's deathly pallor gradually regained color. The uncontrollable vampiric impulses lurking within her were forcibly suppressed, transformed, and reconstructed.
After a groan of pain came the first breath of a new life.
When she opened her eyes again, a clear light shone for the first time in the previously murky purple of her irises—that was the face of Steve.
"Congratulations, Sion."
"From today on, you are no longer a Dead Apostle Apostle, but a newly evolved human."
Steve smiled and held a hand out to her. "In return, won't you lend me that brilliant mind of yours?"
"To pull this collapsing world back from the very edge."
In that moment, the Sion within the dream stared at his hand for a long time. After much hesitation, she finally reached out and gently took it.
Watching this dream from the outside, Sion felt her heart give a violent thump.
What followed streamed past like a fast-forwarded film reel.
It was the age when the two of them had fought side by side.
In that perilous era, they calculated orbital data together through the night on space stations, constructed a forward base on the far side of the Moon, and faced assassination attempts by Dead Apostles and sabotage from the Mage's Association.
She watched her perpetually gloomy self gradually brighten by staying at Steve's side—learning how to smile, and slowly, inevitably… falling in love with the man who always stood at the very front.
What Steve pursued all his life was not romance in the conventional sense; it was frank, domineering, the very picture of a scientist's style.
He would gift her the blueprints for the latest weapons, take her on a spacewalk for her birthday, and while pointing down at the Earth beneath their feet, say:
"One day, I'll cleanse all souls shackled by Earth's gravity, and turn this primate cradle into a pure holy land."
This clumsy yet grand romance completely shattered the alchemist's defensive line.
And the image froze on a scene from that very night.
It was a private cabin onboard the Asteria space station.
Outside the window, the Milky Way blazed brilliantly. Inside, only the faint flicker of LED lights softly illuminated the room.
"…Sion."
Steve's voice was low and hoarse, laced with an aggression unlike anything before.
He pushed the girl down onto the soft bed, cupped her ears with both hands, and stared at her with eyes so heated it seemed they could melt everything.
"According to my calculations… given our situation, shouldn't we be… taking some sort of action right now?"
"Idiot… idiot…"
In the dream, Sion's face flushed bright red. She still put on a proud front, but her arms were already wrapped tightly around his neck.
"At a time like this… what do you even need to calculate for?"
Their lips met.
It was a long, passionate kiss, as if they were trying to draw each other's souls out.
In the quiet room, the sound of saliva mingling seemed especially loud, and a faint, intoxicatingly embarrassing fragrance filled the air.
Steve's hands began to roam restlessly.
His fingertips traced her collarbone, unfastened the first button of her uniform, then the second…
The sensation of his fingers grazing her skin, the slow rise in body temperature, that scent where hormones and love intertwined—all of it flowed unreservedly through the connection of the dream into the sleeping Sion.
So… so real.
It felt so real that she could practically believe she was the one being pinned down in that moment.
"Mmm… ngh…"
In reality, Sion let out a sweet little murmur as she slept and twisted around under the blanket.
Just as the Steve in the dream stripped away the last of the girl's clothing and was about to proceed to the next critical step—in-depth communication—
"Wah—!"
Sion suddenly bolted upright from the bed, letting out a scream loud enough to blow the roof off.
"Hah… hah… hah…"
She panted harshly, tiny beads of sweat dotting her forehead.
Her heart hammered violently in her chest, pounding against her ribs as though it might burst free at any moment.
Her pajamas were soaked in cold sweat, clinging tightly to her body and perfectly outlining her graceful curves.
"What… what was that…?"
Sion covered her burning cheeks with both hands. Through her fingers, one could still see panic and humiliation swirling in her purple eyes.
"To think… to think it actually fast-forwarded all the way to that… that shameless part?!"
"And… and why did I have that kind of expression? It was like… like I was actually looking forward to being eaten alive!"
She buried her face between her knees and curled up like a boiled shrimp.
Rationally, she knew this was the memory of a parallel-world Sion, someone whose life was different from hers.
But… the deep resonance echoing from the depths of her soul could not be forged.
In that dream, along with the shame, she had also felt an unprecedented sense of peace and happiness.
"So… that's the relationship between him and me?"
Sion muttered to herself, recalling the scene in the workshop during the day, when Steve had taken her hand and said, "I am your servant."
Of course.
Of course he would understand her so well.
Of course it was no wonder he could always follow the flow of her thoughts effortlessly.
Of course she would be completely unprepared for him.
"Husband… and wife…?"
The word rolled lightly on the tip of her tongue, tinged with a strange, unfamiliar sweetness.
Sion lifted her head and glanced at the mirror in the room.
The girl in the mirror had flushed cheeks and eyes shining with springtime warmth. The usual composed aura of the genius girl from Atlas Academy was nowhere to be seen.
"No! I can't! I absolutely cannot think about this anymore! If I keep going, my CPU is really going to fry!"
She slapped her own cheeks hard, trying to calm herself down.
But the unfinished dream and the looming specter of that first-time experience clung to her heart like a curse.
"Steve… you… you total… idiot!"
She snatched up the pillow beside her and punched it a few times, then buried her face into it with a long, sweet sigh.
There was a good chance she wouldn't be getting any sleep tonight.
…
...
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