Time spent with family always passed quickly.
And the more Anna spoke with them, the more certain she became—these two really were her parents.
Only... their memories diverged sharply from her own.
For instance, the battle against the Annihilation Faction—what had once consumed the planet five years ago. According to their recollection, they had instead left to seek a way to revive the world.
They spoke of countless planets they had traveled to.
But when Anna looked into those names, she discovered that many of the places her parents described had already been destroyed thousands of years ago.
Only a few still existed in the galaxy.
Yet the way they told the stories—so vivid, so detailed—it was as if they had lived them themselves.
They didn't seem to notice the inconsistencies, and kept reminiscing, sharing tales of their "interstellar journey" with Anna, their daughter.
As if someone had taken the experiences of others and inserted them into their memory, filling in the blank space that came after their supposed death.
Still, unless Anna brought it up, her parents never questioned those memories.
It was as though the purpose of those inserted memories wasn't truth—only to make their five-year absence seem plausible.
The thought led to a wild theory forming in Anna's mind.
A completely absurd one.
And one she quickly forced back down into her heart—unless that person was truly still on this planet.
"Papa, Mama, can I ask you something?"
"What is it?" Her mother gently brushed a strand of hair from Anna's face.
"Is there anyone on our planet... named Hoshigaki Sora?"
If he was here—then maybe... just maybe...
"Sora?" Her mother blinked, thinking aloud. "Sounds more like a name from the Xianzhou Alliance. I don't think we have anyone like that here."
At those words, a strange disappointment settled over Anna.
So... her theory had been wrong?
"Eh? Wait, aren't you forgetting something?" her father said suddenly. "That man the guardian deity brought in a few days ago—he woke up yesterday, right? His name was something like that."
The disappointment faded—replaced by a flicker of hope.
Her father quickly pulled up a terminal and began searching. "Found it. I think this is the name you mentioned, Little Anna."
He passed the device to her.
The moment Anna saw the name on the screen—and the freshly updated photo beside it—her smile returned.
Her fingers brushed across the image, and a complicated emotion filled her gaze.
Of course it's you. It could only ever be you...
She scrolled through the profile bit by bit, until a particular word jumped out at her.
"Entropy Loss Syndrome?!"
"Oh, right. That's what the doctors said he had, the guy the guardian deity brought over," her father added helpfully.
No way. Absolutely not.
There was no way Sora could be sick with something like that. She'd been with him for so long—how could she not know his condition?
Aside from his occasional nosebleeds, his physical strength had always been absurdly high.
This had to be a mistake.
She opened the medical records and scoured the health data—until finally, she found something off.
"This unit of measurement doesn't even match," she muttered.
One of the hormone values—testosterone levels—was abnormally low. More in line with a young woman's.
"Are you sure this isn't the wrong record?" Anna handed the terminal back to her father.
He frowned too, spotting the inconsistency. Given that this involved the guardian deity's guest, he didn't dare take it lightly.
He immediately contacted the hospital to verify the original test results.
Upon receiving Anna's query, the hospital began re-pulling data—
---
"Seriously, who the hell reads medical records this thoroughly? You're not even a doctor!" someone grumbled in a dimly lit room.
The girl lounging inside quickly switched off her game screen.
"Guess I gotta tweak some files again. Ugh, Elio, you owe me for this."
She cracked her fingers and began typing furiously across the hovering keyboard.
Soon enough, the falsified records were scrubbed, cleaned, and replaced with a fully compliant set.
"Whew. All done. Now let Kafka handle the rest. Time to get back to gaming."
The room once again filled with the frenzied sounds of digital combat.
Meanwhile, back at the hospital—once the updated data arrived—Anna, no matter how much she wished otherwise, had to accept the truth.
"Why...?"
Was it really... all for the planet's sake?
Her feelings were too tangled to sort. All she could do was stare at the report, hoping to find another flaw.
But the file in front of her was just data—cold and clinical. Unmoving.
"Don't worry, Anna," her parents said, pulling her into an embrace. "He's a friend of the guardian deity—and that makes him a friend of ours too. We'll do everything we can to help."
Their warmth eased her pain for a moment.
But her eyes still lingered on the terminal. Still locked on the name and the photo above it.
And she had no words to say.
"It's quite a tale. The War Foundry was destroyed five years ago, the planet revived, and life slowly returned to normal."
Black Swan sat across from Sora at a small four-person table.
"A righteous, heroic arc. Evil defeated. Justice restored."
She pulled a tarot card from her spread and handed it to him.
"But, Mister Sora... all of that—we already know."
"What we're interested in are the missing years. The period when Planet Kaemomiar—now Promia—vanished from galactic records."
"What happened during those days?"
"Why was Promia erased from the universe's memory? Why are there no surviving records from that time?"
"Would you be willing to explain?"
"Oh, so even you don't know what happened..." Sora toyed with a silver bullet in his hand, voice tinged with melancholy. "Well, first of all—it's no longer Kaemomiar. This planet has a new name now: Promia."
Robin raised an eyebrow. When did that happen? Why didn't I hear about it?
"'Promia'—the star blessed by the gods. The star of hope. Only with that name could it begin to shine again."
"When that hunting bullet was fired, the gaze of the Aeon of the Hunt turned toward this place…"
Sora returned the tarot card to Black Swan. "So... do you really think your Garden of Recollection could've seen what happened next?"
The Garden was a branch under the Aeon of Memory—Fuli.
But that's all it was: a branch. A faction.
Once the gaze of a Hunt-aligned Aeon descended—even memory couldn't reach it. Not unless Fuli personally intervened.
"In that case," Black Swan said smoothly, "how do you explain the Day of Doomsday?"
Clearly, Sora was hiding something.
So she brought up the one thing he couldn't explain away—a cosmic-scale phenomenon witnessed by billions. No matter how he spun it, he couldn't dodge that.
"Oh, that's simple."
Sora smiled faintly.
"Because I destroyed it."
Silence fell across the table.
Robin looked skeptical, but given all she had seen Sora do, she couldn't dismiss it outright.
Black Swan, however, wore a look that practically screamed "Do you take me for a fool?"
She didn't sense any Aeon residue from him. Nothing divine. Just... a human. Maybe one with strange powers, but still—human.
A mortal destroyed something created by the Aeon of Destruction?
That was pure fantasy.
"Mister Sora... if you don't want to answer, you don't need to make up stories."
"No, no—I believe it."
A new voice cut in, as the last empty seat at the table was pulled out.
A woman sat down—long purple hair, stylish black glasses perched on her head.
Her gaze was languid as she glanced over the group.
"After all, anything's possible. What if he really did destroy it?"
Everyone else fell silent in shock. Sora narrowed his eyes.
He knew this person.
"A Stellaron Hunter?!"
The newcomer was none other than Kafka—one of the Stellaron Hunters with a galactic bounty of 10.8 billion.
"Relax. I'm just here to help."
She slid a card across the table to Sora.
"I heard you were sick. I thought you might need this."
It was an information tag—linked to a planet.
Sora read it aloud:
"Cradle of Rebirth: Zeltworth?"
"That's right. They've recently made progress in treating Entropy Loss Syndrome. I figured it might be useful to you."
"Entropy Loss Syndrome?!" Robin stared at Sora in disbelief.
"But... you and I... we don't really have any ties, do we?" Sora said warily. Stellaron Hunters weren't exactly known for altruism.
"This is just a good deed," Kafka replied, voice low. "After all, we were almost caught in the Day of Doomsday too. We owe our lives to the one who stopped it."
She leaned back and added, "Let me tell you one last thing. Five system ticks from now—the Annihilation Faction will send people to this planet."
With that, she stood and rejoined the quiet man who had been waiting nearby the whole time.
"This is my final gift to this so-called star of hope. Believe it—or don't. It's up to you."