"The word 'humanity,' I first encountered it in a book."
"That day, I quietly entered my father's study. Perhaps I just wanted to find a random place to play, since I had already explored the entire house, but never my father's study."
"My father told me that the things kept there would be mine when I grew up. Before then, he didn't want to impose them on me."
"Driven by curiosity, I found a book on my father's desk. The first line written on it was 'The Virtues of Humanity.'"
"And then, on that very day, my parents died in a car accident."
"Afterward, I always felt that the word 'humanity' was too vast and too distant. It encompassed a race, and it encompassed their commonality."
"But it was only when I truly began to interact with real human beings that I realized my father's words were utterly correct."
"Humanity is neither so distant, nor so vast..."
The man finished recording this final log. He sat quietly in the desolate high tower, gazing at the distance constructed of wreckage.
A silent world, a world of death, a world of truth...
If an artist were here, perhaps he would vividly portray the current world, but he was not. So, he simply sensed the residual echoes of this world where no living human remained but himself.
The last warriors fought to the last breath. They believed in the man until their dying moments.
They had no choice, but they died proudly, as humans.
Now, only he remained.
The man recalled a time in his high school days, lying on the grass by the river, not thinking about anything, letting the wind blow over him.
No one else was around, just like now.
But when did things change?
Yes, it was from that moment, from meeting her.
Now that he thought about it, she might have just been an catalyst. The man met more people because of her, and saw the many facets of humanity from a perspective he had never had before. Ultimately, the feelings that solidified were personified in his emotions and relationship with her.
At every turning point of choice, he sacrificed himself and chose the greater number of people.
Yet the result was that only he was left behind.
Even before the girl's condition became critical, the man already knew humanity could not defeat the Honkai. He perhaps should have stayed there then, waiting with the girl for the conclusion of humanity's annihilation. Now, humanity had only delayed the inevitable by a few years; in the end, it was "as expected."
So... did anything change?
The man thought, yes, something must have.
A person's growth is not about becoming colder, but becoming gentler.
He was able to grow up, and humanity was also able to grow up.
Perhaps that was enough.
...
"Not dead... It seems I won't be able to wait for the arrival of the End."
The man watched the human-shaped destruction figure slowly approaching on the screen. The Herrscher's appearance was still so deceptive, so similar to humans, yet so different.
The Twelfth Herrscher, the last Herrscher before the arrival of the End. In the man's view, she was the one who drew the period on this civilization, the strongest Herrscher who brought divine punishment upon humanity.
Because she defeated humanity using human weapons. It could even be said that humanity defeated itself.
"Sakura, thank you... I wanted to say so much to you, but in the end, only this sentence remains... Thank you..."
The man turned his head to look at the pink-haired girl who looked as if she were asleep in a glass coffin. A natural, genuinely human smile appeared on his metallic face.
"That encounter back then was just an accident."
"That promise was just a farce."
"But regardless, this is the conclusion we arrived at together."
"If there is any difference between the me now and the me then..."
...
The man grabbed the Twelfth Herrscher by the neck, and they plunged to the ground together. He attacked with all his might, and the Herrscher, without mercy, sought to take the life of this last human.
Yes, although this person's body was composed of Soulium, and it was impossible to discern that he was human from his physique, she could feel that he was human!
"Thud!"
They hit the ground. The man grabbed her shoulder, and his Soulium arm pierced her chest, ripping out the Herrscher Core.
And at the last moment, the Herrscher completed her attack against him. A blade made of the same Soulium material pierced his head.
"Plop."
The lifeless body fell to the ground.
"Drip-drop..."
A rain came to wash the world after the apocalypse.
It was like tears. It was like sin. It was like hope...
It fell upon the man's motionless body.
The Herrscher Core, after his death, was bound by a container his arm had molded with a final instruction.
After that, the Soulium figure and the Herrscher Core would face ten million years of silence.
The consciousness within the Herrscher Core, from that moment on, began to invade the body composed of Soulium. Within it, the man's last, infinitesimal feelings merged into her consciousness.
It was just the memory of one insignificant individual among billions of humans.
It was just the infinitely close to zero possibility that he had calculated.
It was just the miracle humans naively prayed for to nonexistent deities.
In the very end, he still asked himself that question: "Do you believe a miracle will happen?"
His consciousness dissipated.
"I don't believe in miracles... but the existence of miracles is indispensable in the history of science."
"But if a miracle called 'emotion' truly exists... then please let it happen... even if it's one in ten million... one in a billion... I sincerely pray..."
"This is just the trivial wish of one insignificant human..."
"But even now, here... I am praying for you..."
"Praying for the civilization that will arise, whenever that may be..."
"Praying for the occurrence of a miracle..."
...
The data left by the man vanished in the long river of time. In the end, he failed to leave anything for future civilizations.
Just as he was ultimately powerless to save humanity.
This is just a meaningless story.
This is a story that began with a farce and ended with a great rain.
This is a story of moving from brokenness to normalcy, of desiring change and feeling emotion, and finally of metamorphosis.
This is a story for which there is no final emotion to interpret.
This is the wrong story.
This is the right story.
This is the story of "I" becoming "human."