Koji looked at Firefly and broke into a strange smile, as if he could see right through everything.
"What is it?"
Firefly's heart jolted. That look… did he already know who she was?
"AR-26710, report and await orders!"
Koji instantly put on a stern face and called out the codename she used back when she was with the Iron Cavalry of Glamoth.
"Yes, sir!"
Firefly straightened up almost by reflex and snapped a textbook salute at Koji.
"?"
Only after she finished did Firefly realize what she'd done. She glanced at the others, who were all trying to hold back laughter, and a rosy flush crept across her face.
At this point, how could she not understand?
She'd been played.
Firefly glared at Koji with a fierce expression. She really had believed, for a second, that an officer was calling her.
"Firefly, what does that codename mean? Were you a soldier before?" Stelle asked curiously.
Firefly fell silent.
For the Iron Cavalry, that "codename" wasn't exactly a soldier's identifier—it was an identifier for a clone.
After she learned the truth back then, everything she'd carried on her shoulders tasted unbearably bitter.
"Stelle… do you want to know my real identity?"
Firefly sounded tense. She was afraid that once Stelle found out she was a Stellaron Hunter, Stelle would distance herself or feel repulsed.
The Stellaron Hunters were wanted criminals with enormous bounties, and their reputation was… not great.
And it wasn't entirely the Interastral Peace Corporation smearing them, either. When the Hunters went after Stellarons, casualties and destruction were common.
If you asked whether the Stellaron Hunters were saints, even the Stellaron Hunters wouldn't accept that kind of "praise."
"My real identity… it's not like you're a Stellaron Hunter, right?" Stelle scratched her head.
From Firefly, Stelle had been feeling something both unfamiliar and weirdly familiar.
It was the same feeling she'd gotten from Kafka and Silver Wolf.
The guess almost slipped out of her mouth on instinct.
"!"
Firefly froze, her expression turning stunned.
Stelle had guessed it.
"Stelle, have you spent so much time with March 7th that you learned prophecy too?" Koji was surprised as well.
She'd nailed Firefly's current identity as a Stellaron Hunter in one shot.
"What do you mean?" Stelle didn't get it. What did that have to do with March 7th?
"Think about it," Koji said with a grin. "Doesn't March 7th often blurt out key clues ahead of time?"
"Let me think…" Stelle rummaged through her memories. Before long, she gasped. "Wait… yeah. March's mouth is scary accurate. Like… a jinx."
Koji added, "So there's a saying: Elio is basically 'Little March 7th.'"
Firefly: "…"
Kafka: "?"
Silver Wolf: "?"
Even the Stellaron Hunters couldn't help making faces somewhere between amusement and helplessness. Elio's Script was famous across the cosmos—now he'd been demoted to "Little March 7th." That was… honestly kind of hilarious.
"It actually checks out," Stelle said, counting on her fingers. "Back on Belobog, Little March said Dan Heng had hidden power—and then on the Luofu, Dan Heng turned out to be the Imbibitor Lunae. Little March also said Tingyun was the mastermind…"
One item after another, and Stelle's eyes widened. "Oh my god… March 7th is actually a prophet!"
Kafka and the others listened closely, exchanging looks.
Could this March 7th be walking the same Path as Elio?
"Trailblazer," Robin asked with interest, "did March 7th say anything else in Penacony?"
Stelle nodded solemnly. "She did. Betrayal among family… a home torn apart… life and death separated… rivers of blood…"
Robin's mouth fell open.
That sounded horrendously ominous. Not a single word in that list was good.
But Penacony was a dream world—supposedly a beautiful dream, at that. Would something like that really happen?
"Kafka, what is up with that March 7th?" Silver Wolf couldn't help asking. "Did she… read the Script too?"
They knew the Penacony Script, and what March 7th had said matched it way too well.
It was the kind of thing that made your skin crawl.
They also knew March 7th had awakened from within a block of ice. March 7th had no connection to the Stellaron Hunters, and there was no way she should know the Script.
"It should be… no," Kafka said, laughing in disbelief. "That March 7th…"
Was she seriously an actual prophet?
"How can Little March be that accurate?" Stelle frowned. "Once or twice is whatever, but every time? That's just creepy."
Koji raised a finger. "Is it possible… this is only a guess of mine…"
"Thought is existence. Memory is proof of existence."
"The Aeon who presides over the Path of Memory records everything that is forgotten, preparing for the rebirth of the universe."
"Maybe the cosmos we live in has already been rebooted by Fuli, the Aeon of Memory. March 7th might be connected to Fuli—she could even be 'March 7th from before the reboot.' She lost her memories, but she personally lived through those events. At certain moments, the things she experienced might spill out on their own."
Everyone: "…"
After Koji said it out loud, the group fell into silence.
It sounded absurd, but the more you thought about it, the more it seemed to… almost make sense.
Which somehow made it even more terrifying to dwell on.
"Let's not talk about that." Stelle shook her head. She was curious about March 7th's identity, but she didn't feel any need to know it right now.
Stelle glanced around. With no outsiders nearby, she asked with interest, "So… you really are a Stellaron Hunter?"
She didn't feel any disgust toward the Stellaron Hunters at all. If anything, she felt a strange warmth—like her past was connected to them somehow.
"You're not disgusted?" Firefly asked softly, a hint of unease mixed into her gentle voice.
"Why would I be?" Stelle said. "Firefly, would you hurt me? Also—didn't Mom Kafka and Auntie Silver Wolf come?"
"Pfft—"
Firefly couldn't hold it in and burst out laughing. That way of addressing them was so weird.
She quickly shook her head and said seriously, "Of course I wouldn't hurt you. But… Mom Kafka? Auntie Silver Wolf?"
Robin felt her brain glitch.
The Trailblazer and the Stellaron Hunters were… this close?
Wasn't it supposed to be bad blood between the Stellaron Hunters and the Astral Express?
This felt less like enemies and more like… family.
"This kid…" Kafka smiled, tender and helpless at the same time, basically accepting the "Mom Kafka" title by default.
Silver Wolf said flatly, "Kafka, you're spoiling her."
Back when they "printed" her into a vessel, it wasn't like they stuffed anything extra into the template. So why did this Stellaron sprite feel so… off?
"Wolfie," Kafka asked, "do you think what Koji said is real?"
"The whole 'the universe got rebooted by the Aeon of Memory' thing?"
Silver Wolf shook her head. "How would we possibly know? Maybe it's true. Elio probably doesn't know either."
People always said the Aeon of Memory collected memories for the sake of the universe's rebirth, but there was no proof.
Maybe one day the Aeon of Destruction, Nanook, would destroy the universe—and then the Aeon of Memory would act.
No one really knew. Opinions were all over the place.
But in Elio's Script, one thing was certain: the Astral Express and the Stellaron Hunters would eventually run into Nanook.
(End of Chapter)
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