The world was split in two within the glazed palm.
One side ended hatred for the Witch, and the other welcomed a future for humanity.
The Great Witch named Tsukishiro Yuki made a wish to the purple stars; what she sought was nothing more than to break the destiny of "hatred" and "solitude."
The stars responded to her, informing her of the path she should take.
She followed the guidance of the stars, and within the span of six hundred years, she created a reincarnation cycle where she would no longer be troubled by either.
She set the beginning of the cycle at the moment of human extinction, and the end of the cycle at the day she returned to being alone.
Because humanity was extinct from the start, she no longer needed to carry out acts of revenge. Because her Animus accompanied her from the start, she no longer needed to be trapped by loneliness.
This was the cycle she had exhausted all her energy to forge, a cycle upon which she pinned her very soul.
But... her Animus still rejected the future she had created.
After the extinction of humanity, Tsukishiro Yuki was lonely at every moment. There was no longer an Animus in her world, just as the Animus's world would no longer have her.
But in truth... this was the ending she had prepared for herself from the very beginning.
Long before the Animus appeared, she, who had long wanted to let go of hatred, had entertained the idea of placing her existence in a time "after human extinction." Out of sight, out of mind.
The innate kindness that seemed to come with the Witch race made her unable to bear witnessing the suffering of others time and time again—even if they were enemies with whom she had a feud of genocide.
Moreover, she constantly heard the messages left by other Great Witches who had left this world, echoing incessantly in her ears:
Little Yuki, ah, Little Yuki...
Do not obsess over hatred anymore, do not hate humans anymore...
The race of humanity holds far more hope than us Witches, who are born with defects...
But Tsukishiro Yuki did not accept this.
She felt that her compatriots' heads were simply broken. Regardless of why the other Great Witches left or what they saw in the future, could hatred be simply swept aside for the sake of the big picture?
Well, actually, Tsukishiro Yuki herself was also a bit tired.
That was why she chose to completely melt her existence into this point in time after human extinction, walking alone upon the earth. She mocked herself for ultimately choosing the same path as the other Great Witches... until that day.
Her Animus appeared before her eyes.
...
"So, it has all ended."
Fate arises and fate ceases; it is nothing more than this.
When Tsukishiro Yuki woke up inside the vine-covered mansion on the Island of Witches, she seemed to have returned to that initial dead and silent world where no future could be seen.
Yes, the Animus did not come to this world for her sake after all.
When he chose to stop her from exterminating humanity one last time, everything after that moment would no longer happen. The twelve cycles all became falsehoods the moment he made his choice; they all became delusions she concocted in an attempt to keep him in this world.
There would never be an Animus in this world she resided in anymore; only she would remain... greeting her end like a Witch in boundless loneliness.
Tsukishiro Yuki subconsciously looked down at the ring finger of her left hand; it was empty.
Hiro, Emma, and Animus.
You all should just live well in the past. Forget me, and go welcome the future that belongs to you.
But...
Ugh...
I really am still so unwilling.
A single teardrop fell from the eyes of the young girl named the Great Witch, landing upon her empty ring finger that should have worn a ring.
She recalled her first meeting with him. That man who appeared in this closed-off future, approaching her in the name of "hunting her down," pursuing her with clumsy methods, and finally, after swearing to become her "accomplice," putting a ring on her.
Could it be that all of this was fake?
Was it all a delusion produced by her need to overcome "solitude"?
Clearly, it was you who pursued me first, yet in the end, you made it seem like I cannot live without you.
A boundless sense of loneliness surged like a tide. In this future where she was the only one left, the Great Witch choked with silent sobs.
If she had to continue being lonely like this, it would be better to die completely.
She stood up, walking tremblingly to the cabinet in the room, and took out the medicine stored inside used for killing Witches.
This time, she actively discarded [Death Rewind]. She would sleep eternally in a future the world would never reach, sleep eternally in the final dream.
Creak—
And it was at this very moment that the main door of the Prison Island mansion was violently pushed open:
"No swinging allowed here!"
"...Doing similar things is also not allowed!"
Under the Great Witch's stunned gaze, filled with a touch of disbelief, that figure who still didn't know how to dress himself properly darted into her field of vision.
He was just as before, completely unable to read the atmosphere.
"I heard someone lost something important and couldn't find it because their ability to take care of themselves is poor and they don't have anyone around to look after them."
"Look at your room, it's a mess! It's even growing moss; I thought it was a Junimo Hut!"
The figure first took out a scythe used for farming tools and did a lap around her room, deftly cutting away the weeds bursting through the rotting floorboards.
Only then did he look at her. Taking three steps in two, he ran in front of her and grabbed her wrist—
Clatter.
The unopened Witch-killing potion fell from Tsukishiro Yuki's hand onto the ground.
Replacing it was the figure holding her left palm with one hand and pinching her ring finger with the other, sliding a red and yellow ring onto it over her glove.
[[Phoenix Ring]1 has been delivered]
[Reward has been issued to the Farmer's backpack]
"Alright, now the item has returned to its original owner!"
"Now you don't need to look so glum, right, Miss Great Witch?"
Listening to the notification sound from the farm system panel, Suke put his hands on his hips and looked confidently at this Great Witch whose height didn't even reach his neck.
At this moment, the Great Witch was raising her head, staring blankly at him, her thoughts unknown.
However, Suke didn't care about that. He only knew his quest was complete!
How old is she, yet she still acts like those little girls throwing tantrums, getting all 'emo' and wanting to commit suicide at the drop of a hat?
Okay, he admitted he did that in the past too, but could that be the same?!
"Animus..."
"I'm not dreaming... How did you do it?"
The Great Witch was still processing the scene before her, not daring to blink beneath her slightly furrowed brows. She was afraid that if she blinked, the scene before her would shatter.
"Is there anything I can't do? And honestly, you really are something. If you wanted to live in seclusion, couldn't you have picked a better place? Why run to such a broken dump?"
"Here, take this too!"
Suke took out a pre-written letter from his backpack. The Bus Ticket rewarded for completing the quest had just been stuffed inside by him.
Tsukishiro Yuki took the letter. Behind that blue vermilion seal, a line of handwriting written personally by Suke was visible:
[My Dear Miss Great Witch, Tsukishiro Yuki:]
[If you are reading this letter, you must be in dire straits and hoping for a change.]
[A long time ago, I encountered the same situation... so I gave up everything and went to the place that truly belonged to me.]
[I have placed a ticket inside the envelope. It can let you take a bus to a place... It is named Stardew Valley. It borders the coast to the south; it will be the perfect place for you to start a new life.]
[This is the most precious gift I can give you, and now it is yours!]
[Love, your Animus.]
(Stardew Valley Opening Animation)
The text was very simple and unadorned. This was the message Suke had decided to write to Tsukishiro Yuki after thinking for a long time.
After all, he was clumsy with words and didn't know how to provide 'talk therapy' to others. What he could do was imitate the format of "the letter Grandpa left him" and write down what he wanted to tell Tsukishiro Yuki, as well as his invitation to her, on paper.
The Great Witch gazed at the handwriting on the envelope for a long time, pondering who knows what.
Light flickered in her snowy eyes. At times she pursed her lips lightly, at times the corners of her mouth curled up, making Suke feel rather uneasy watching her.
"Well? Do you want to leave with me, or continue staying here to live?"
"Let me say this first: whichever you choose, I will keep you company to the end!"
Suke, who had entered the "future" through the power of the phantom summoned by the Statue of Yoba, was not worried about running out of time. In other words, no matter how much time passed here, it would be but a snap of the fingers in the outside world.
He looked at Tsukishiro Yuki, waiting for the Great Witch to give her answer.
"...Fufu."
"Is this the explanation you are giving me, Animus?"
The Great Witch's body floated up. That smile, which seemed both confident and indifferent, returned to her face.
She clamped the envelope between the ring finger wearing the ring and her middle finger, waving it before Suke's eyes.
Immediately after, without waiting for Suke to react, she suddenly flew out the window—
"?!"
Suke, who hadn't had time to react, was startled. Why did this perfectly fine person suddenly fly away?
"Come and chase me, Animus! Just like you once 'hunted' me!"
But a moment later, Tsukishiro Yuki's voice came from outside the window.
She hovered outdoors, shouting to him from a spot where sunlight pierced through the dense leaves of the towering trees:
"Just keep 'hunting' me like this! For one hundred years!"
"If you catch up to me, I will consider agreeing to your invitation! Do you hear me—!"
The girl's voice echoed inside and outside the mansion in the isolated island's forest, also traveling into Suke's ears.
Hearing the girl's words, Suke's expression first turned strange. He gazed at the Great Witch in mid-air outside the window, his invisible Stand also overlooking this planet of human extinction on his behalf.
The doubts in his mind suddenly cleared. In that instant, he suddenly understood many, many things.
His first meeting with her was not elsewhere; it was right now.
Precisely because he personally gave the ring to her, those cycles were created. Those memories were not fabricated by the girl, but belonged to them originally.
Immediately, Suke heartily agreed to the girl's request:
"I'll chase you then!"
"But let me say this first, fly a bit slower..."
"Although I won't get tired, I can't fly!"
He would spend one hundred years chasing her, and then use five hundred years to accompany her. Until the day she grew weary.
[All living beings, from time without beginning, have continued in the cycle of birth and death, all because they do not know the constant, true, and pure nature of the bright substance of the mind. They use all kinds of false thinking, and because this thinking is not true, there is the turning of the wheel.]
[Pure thought implies flight, and will certainly result in birth in the heavens... Pure emotion implies sinking, and will certainly result in falling into Avici... If emotion and thought are equal, one neither flies nor falls, but is born in the human realm.]*
— Shurangama Sutra, Scroll Eight
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