Glitch Street (5)
Dreamed a dream.
It was a lucid dream with clear consciousness.
A balcony encircled by the night view of Trinity General School, featuring an antique-designed tea table.
This place I had never visited, yet the scene was not unfamiliar.
"This place... is it the Tea Party Tea Room, by any chance?"
As a player of Blue Archive, I've seen this background countless times.
"Even in a dream, it's an odd encounter, Makoto."
And Yurizono Seia, a member of the Tea Party, was present in the same dream.
"Although I am not so immersed in the notion that this is just a fleeting dream that I would disregard this meeting, I am also caught in a sense of dissonance that I cannot overlook the somewhat incongruous situation."
Her speech was cryptic.
Is she in the mood for a secret reveal announcement like Seia?
"The inevitable closure to maintain the Tea Party's secrecy. Even amidst the invisible erosion of time, Trinity and Gehenna, with their perpetual enmity, remain unblemished."
Millennium has explainers, but that's the science side. Seia is literature and rich in sensibility.
Simply put, a summary is needed.
"Considering the overall situation, the presence of a Gehenna member in the Tea Party is unprecedented and undoubtedly an unprecedented experience. Even if this is a dream encounter, the significance of this anomaly will not be diminished."
Anyway, it was the first time Manma-jeon was invited to the Tea Party. Actually a dream, but still.
"You are Seia, right?"
"Yes, you already know me. I know you too. Hanuma Makoto."
The prophecy dreamer Seia continued speaking.
"No, perhaps I should say your proxy."
And Seia referred to my identity more precisely.
"So you already know."
Meaning I don't need to act as Makoto.
After all, this is a dream. No harm in thinking casually.
"I have continuously observed the fragments of events scattered irregularly across countless timelines. Maintaining a position superior to others in terms of knowledge is my advantage, I suppose."
Hmm, I don't fully understand but I get the other point.
I need to use high rhetoric. Even if I make a friend of Seia angry with emotional manipulation.
"By any chance, do you know about Momo Friends?"
Out of the blue, I asked Seia.
Mentioned the MomoTalk mascot character.
"Yes? What is that...?"
"There is a character named Mr. Nikolai. He constantly spouts philosophical words and then deals with troubles."
Mr. Nikolai is the Quokka who was sidelined due to his pretentious speech.
The design is distant from Seia, but perhaps the character is similar.
"If the opportunity arises, I'll give you one as a souvenir."
"I don't quite understand the intention behind this. ... Is this an act with meaning as a Gehenna custom?"
"Well, it might be similar."
Seia didn't notice.
That I was subtly teasing Seia.
'Her conversation style is quite bizarre.'
Seia's boisterous friend must have had auditory troubles.
That said, it was bad that I gave Arius violence.
"Perhaps I won't have the leisure to enjoy this trivial chit-chat."
Seia brought the topic back.
"Makoto, let me hear the story you're facing."
Eventually, Seia got to the point.
"You fell into a coma due to the penetrating wound in your abdomen."
I had some idea. Since I was hit pretty badly by Saori.
"But you didn't die, right?"
"Yes, the result of your insurance preparation. Thanks to that, we avoided the worst outcome."
The gunshot I heard just before losing consciousness wasn't Saori's.
The familiar gunshot. It was Aru's sniper shot.
"Thanks to the emergency call."
"It was a skillful handling of the crisis. Makoto, your survival is like rolling a die and getting the maximum value."
It was a life-or-death crisis.
I thought it was over for me, the one involved.
Good thing. Human pure love doesn't end. That's why it's not tasteless death.
"But the darkness hasn't lifted. Makoto, as you surely feel too."
"What happened to me after that?"
"You were transported to a medical facility. But since it was rushed, Manma-jeon hasn't realized this fact yet."
It was a plan executed without Iroha knowing.
Suddenly vanished. On the day before the ceremony.
'Ugh... It's a major event that will flip Manma-jeon.'
I caused trouble at a critical time. Iroha and Makoto both have no face.
"The Eden Treaty ceremony will proceed as scheduled. You will not regain consciousness in this state."
The Arius Squad will begin the operation.
Soon, the Day of Fire and Ash will occur.
"And the story heads towards despair and convergence into a dead end. The finale of a pathetic drama filled only with pain... So there's no need to look further."
Seia foretells tragedy. She closes her eyes as if resigned.
"The story doesn't change. Even if it's uncomfortable, that's the truth."
Seia tells me fate is inescapable.
"Makoto, the thought that the story will change because of you is a vain illusion."
Like awakening an innocent child to harsh reality.
"Words filled with hatred, betrayal, and despair remain unchanged. Yes, the result is immutable."
Seia asserts that the result doesn't change.
Like declaring that pure love for Hina is not permitted to Makoto's clone.
"Therefore, I will humbly face it directly. The realism that the world is not made of sweet whims."
Seia, a pessimist who has reached the logic of the world, views the world pessimistically.
"...So, is that all you wanted to say?"
Eventually, I spoke to Seia.
The narrator, Seia who only explains scenes, was given too much turn.
"That I can never agree with."
The one guiding the story is not the narrator.
But the characters on stage.
"Stuck in learned helplessness, pretending to be the only one who has given up and relying on the back, nothing will change."
Seia mentioned that the ceremony will proceed as scheduled.
That means it hasn't even started yet.
"I swear that the story will change because of me."
It's time to wake up from the dream.
If there's a way to wake from lucid dream, I've seen it in a movie.
Kick, I think. I know the theory.
"It won't change. Only sad and painful hardships will flood in."
Seia denies hope. She is certain the following story is an extension of despair.
"No, that's not it. Even if hardships block me-!"
I raise my hand to the sky as if declaring youth at the center of the Eden Treaty.
"Hardships can be overcome with love-!!!"
Hina's pure love is stronger than bullets. The brightest star in Kivotos.
"Preposterous. Love? It's just an overly moistened fantasy."
But Seia raises an objection to me.
Seia doubts the effect of pure love.
"Nothing changes by returning. You have suffered serious injuries. In a body not yet recovered, the physical constraints will break the will."
There's a punishment for a fox who keeps saying bad things.
Named as mute punishment.
I ignore Seia's words to myself.
Well, let's go back.
And,
I returned to the stage of the unfinished Eden Treaty.