[Later, those who survived sang of all this in ballads.]
[The tattered idealists sat around drying their wings, someone holding a lost firefly in scarred hands.]
[When this heavy book closed, the campfire in the rainy night was still burning.]
[——They will remember the purity and grandeur of those with white wings, as if incarnations of myths in the world.]
"Look, they really turned the long night into the prelude of dawn."
...
"Have you decided?" Captain Mu asked.
"Yes." Su Ming'an answered.
"No regrets?"
"No regrets."
"You will become the 'World Tree' of this new world, equivalent to the consciousness of the planet...or rather, a kind of collective unconscious below the iceberg."
"Mm."
"You won't have a true human form, won't be able to walk freely in the world, your talents and future will be cut off, no longer able to reach the depths of the starry sky... even so, is it okay?"
"Mm."
