Lumine sensed that something was wrong.
Had Elysia been appearing around him a little too frequently these past few days?
He saw her during his morning exercise, during training, and even during his nighttime run… Did she really have nothing better to do?
Incidentally, he had merely been trapped under the rubble and hadn't suffered any broken bones from the collapse. However, he had lost a considerable amount of blood due to cuts from the debris.
As a direct result, he was discharged from the hospital fairly quickly and entered the local Fire Moth branch for training.
This recent situation felt very abnormal.
At this stage, Lumine believed that he and Elysia were not particularly close. No matter how enthusiastic or outgoing Elysia was, she shouldn't be acting like this toward a boy, right?
He wasn't Kevin—someone naturally gifted from the start.
"Could it be… that Elysia was also reborn?"
The thought surfaced in Lumine's mind.
But if that were true, then something felt even more off.
In the later stages of the war against the Honkai, he and Elysia had grown distant. He hadn't even attended the formation ceremony of the Fourteen Heroes of the Fire Moth, the Flame Chaser.
Yes—it was because of him that the Fire Moth leadership approved the proposal to form the Fourteen Heroes. In his previous life, the predecessor of the Fourteen Heroes had been the thirteen Seraph under his command.
Originally, the leadership intended for him to be the leader.
But he passed the position to Elysia.
And Elysia passed it to Kevin the very next day.
Setting that aside—if Elysia truly was a reborn individual, then why was she being so enthusiastic toward him now?
Lumine pondered for a long time before recalling the only invitation Elysia had sent him before the final banquet.
Although he had forgotten most of the details and remembered only the general outline, he still knew why Elysia hadn't sent invitations to the other Heroes.
Because of that, he had interpreted her invitation as a sign of distrust—feeling that Elysia hadn't treated him the same way she treated the others.
That misunderstanding bothered him.
Moreover, having just recovered and needing to make final adjustments before the end, he chose to have Kevin return the invitation to Elysia.
He even echoed Mei's words—saying that he trusted Elysia completely and didn't need an invitation—before heading to Mebius's laboratory for the final stage of the "Ascension Project."
Could it be…
That he had misunderstood Elysia's intentions?
"At that time… was she the only one who wanted to make sure I attended that banquet?"
Lumine muttered to himself, then quickly dismissed the idea.
That was impossible.
How could Elysia like a single human individual?
But… if it were true…
Then his attitude toward her back then, and his final refusal to keep the appointment…
Must have hurt her deeply.
Lumine sat up in bed, quickly washed up, and prepared to head out for his morning exercise.
Just as he opened the door to his dormitory, he saw a familiar figure passing by.
It was Elysia.
"Hi~ Good morning, Lumine!" she greeted cheerfully. "I slept in a little today and thought I wouldn't see you, but it turns out you also woke up a bit late~"
"Ah… that's quite a coincidence, Miss Elysia," Lumine replied with a smile.
But inwardly, his thoughts churned.
Was Elysia really interested in him?
Or was all of this just coincidence?
They happened to share similar sleep schedules.
Both had the habit of exercising.
And today, he had lingered in thought a bit longer—while Elysia had happened to wake up late.
Was it really that much of a coincidence?
No.
His original schedule hadn't been like this.
It had been adjusted later, based on Elysia's routine—and he had carried that schedule with him even after his rebirth.
…Well, never mind.
Maybe today really was just a coincidence.
So what, exactly, had he been agonizing over all this time?
Having "figured it out," Lumine dismissed it all as coincidence and didn't dig any deeper. However, he remained cautious about the possibility that Elysia might have also been reborn. After all… the current situation was somewhat different from his previous life.
What he didn't know was that Elysia had been waiting for him to come out, deliberately pretending to pass by.
While he harbored his doubts, Elysia had her own.
Had Lumine truly been reborn?
In her memory, during the early days they spent together, his eyes would light up every time he saw her. But now… his reaction was genuinely indifferent, just like… back then.
If Lumine was also reborn, did she really still have hope?
She recalled how, when she proposed establishing the Fourteen Heroes of the Flame Chasers and nominated him as the leader, he had handed the position to her without hesitation—refusing even to become deputy leader.
Even though he himself had been the leader of the Thirteen Seraph, the strongest Fusion Warrior squad within Fire Moth…
She often wondered whether it was because of her that he had refused the position.
As Elysia struggled with her thoughts, another person approached Lumine. The sound of her voice pulled Elysia back to reality.
When Elysia saw the green-haired woman, she almost failed to recognize her—until she realized that the person speaking with Lumine was Mobius.
But why was Mobius here?
She shouldn't have been.
Could it be… that she too had been reborn?
Elysia decided to first join the conversation and try to glean some information from Mobius.
"So, because I'm the only survivor of this small-scale Honkai incident, they suspect that I possess unusually high Honkai energy resistance—and that's why they want me to join your laboratory?"
Lumine frowned slightly as he briefly reiterated what Mobius had explained earlier.
"But, Dr. Mobius… why me?"
He did possess above-average resistance to Honkai energy, but that was only in comparison to ordinary people. It was nowhere near Kevin's abnormal level, nor even Kosma's, who would later join Fire Moth.
What puzzled him was that Mobius hadn't approached him like this in his previous life.
Although her explanation made sense on the surface, something about it still felt off.
Mobius glanced at Elysia, who had quietly drawn closer to the conversation, and then spoke calmly.
"It was Elysia who submitted the report to me," Mobius said. "That's what sparked my interest in you."
Elysia froze.
What report?
She hadn't submitted anything like that.
Lumine, however, understood immediately.
So that's how it was.
Then it wasn't difficult to explain why Elysia had been hovering around him these past few days. Observation, after all, was a perfectly reasonable motive.
At the same time, Elysia quickly realized that Mobius was lying outright—and subtly implying that she, like Lumine, was also reborn.
She decided to go along with it.
"Yes," Elysia said smoothly, smiling. "I didn't expect Dr. Mobius to act so quickly. It seems you do care about my reports quite a bit~"
'Who would care about you?'
Mobius rolled her eyes before continuing her deception. "Your report merely caught my attention. I came here only after conducting a thorough analysis of the possibilities."
The so-called *thorough analysis* referred to the excuses she had carefully constructed during the flight over—as well as contingency responses she had prepared in advance.
"…Logical," Lumine murmured.