These days, I often found myself wondering what would have happened if I had just jumped that day. The thought always arose whenever my mind drifted somewhere it should not.
Would I have opened my eyes as Vanitas Astrea again?
Or would I have woken as Archmage Zen?
Or perhaps, the simplest possibility of all, would I have simply died?
When I considered every option carefully, the last one felt like the best outcome.
If I had died then, maybe the strings would have finally loosened.
Maybe the universe would have corrected its error.
But I did not die. I lived. And because I lived, I was forced to keep moving, no matter how tired I became. I did not know which version of me the world wanted.
I did not know which thread I truly belonged to.
And I refuse such a fate.
If I were to fall, then the world must fall with me. It was only right, wasn't it? I, who had lived as Vanitas Astrea with no memories of Archmage Zen, had still saved the world in the past.
