"...Shizu's fate...?"
"That's right. Her [soul] is bound tightly to the fate of death. And overturning a fixed fate like that is difficult even for a Hero. Even you, the strongest Hero, haven't managed it even once across tens of thousands of regressions."
Fate was salvation to some, but to others, it was despair.
If there were fated meetings, then there were also fated deaths.
There was always a matching set of shackles that came with it.
'...Just like in my previous life.'
That was why I didn't particularly like the word fate.
It was true that fate had brought me no small number of connections. But if I admitted that fate existed for me too, then what exactly had "the me of my previous life" been?
Wouldn't that mean losing my family early and ending up bedridden had been decided as my fate from the very beginning?
...I couldn't accept that. I didn't want to believe that kind of thing had ever been "my" fate.
'Even if becoming a [Hero] means my fate has been decided... I have no intention of following the rails the world laid down for me.'
My fate had to be decided by me alone, and the future wasn't something fixed in advance, but a [novel] I would write with my own hands.
So first, to prove that, I would change someone else's unhappy fate.
And the beginning of that would be Izawa Shizue. In other words, Shizu.
"I don't believe a person's fate is fixed. I think it can change as much as you like depending on the harm or help others bring into your life. So I want to try it once. Whether it's really possible, or whether I'm the one who's wrong."
"...Interfering with fate doesn't even have the slightest chance of success unless you're at least a Hero or a Demon Lord. And even so... you're still going to challenge it?"
"Yeah. It's more than worth trying. More than that, you've already guessed at least a little that I'm a 'similar kind of existence' to you, haven't you?"
Chronoa seemed unable to imagine that, because I was a demon, I might also be a Hero, but she had still sensed faintly, on an instinctive level, that I possessed a [Hero's Egg] like she did.
On the other hand, her reason was completely ignoring it.
"...Aren't you afraid of failing?"
"No. Of course I'm afraid of failing too. I'll have to accept that everything I worked so hard to build was wrong, go back again to find out where I made a mistake, and if I was wrong from the very start, I'll probably clutch my head and groan about how miserable it is."
Even if I answered as if it were nothing, fear was the same for everyone. That was simply what failure was.
But...
"Even so, the more you repeat those things, the more experience you build, and the closer you get to the answer. That's the very process by which the true 'me' is completed."
When I felt the existence called "me" gradually taking shape and becoming complete as a single work, my interest in the result grew greater than my fear of failure.
"You hate doing nothing and just sitting still, frozen in place, don't you? That's why you're trying to use the time you have left well. Isn't that right?"
"......"
Chronoa didn't have much time left now.
Once Chloe, who was practically the same as her very essence, was transferred into this world before long, the [world's rule] that the same existence could not coexist in the same era would activate, and Chronoa would have to become someone who did not exist for three hundred years.
Without even being able to confirm whether she had succeeded or failed.
So of course she couldn't help but feel anxious.
"Don't worry. I don't plan to stay in [Eldorado] until all your time runs out. The only reason I'm going there this time... is because there's something I need to confirm for myself."
"Really... ?"
Seeing Chronoa recall that fear of failure, I answered with certainty.
"Yeah. If you want, I'll even make a contract on my [soul]."
A promise in the form of a contract, with my soul as the stake.
To drive away her anxiety.
"...All right. I'll wait until you come back."
Perhaps my intent had gotten through to her. Though only temporarily, Chronoa steeled herself and soon made her choice.
[...Chronoa. Are you really okay with this?]
Hinata's question echoed inside Chronoa's inner world.
Hearing that voice, Chronoa let out a sigh and pushed out her pale pink lips in a pout.
'...Honestly, I don't want to be apart either. Compared to all the time I've endured through regression, it'll only be a very short while, but I still hate it. But... this is about Shizu.'
Shizu.
Just as she was a precious teacher to Hinata, she was also a teacher Chronoa respected and trusted.
It was a bond deep enough that, if there were any way to save her, she wanted to save her no matter what.
'You want to save Shizu too, don't you, Hinata?'
[That... of course I do, but...]
'I'm the same. During all the regressions up to now, I've thought over and over again, "What if Shizu were still alive?"'
To Chronoa, Shizu was one of only two mentors in the world.
'I might be able to meet Shizu again, and I don't want to ruin that possibility because of my own selfishness.'
At that moment, Chronoa's eyes, now filled with resolve, shone with absolute firmness.
Just as Shizu the Hero and Hinata the Hero once had.
[Chronoa...]
Hinata, who had watched her more closely than anyone, felt that unshakable will sink all the way into her bones.
Because once, in the past, she too had worn that same look in her eyes.
[...All right. If that's your will, then I'll follow that choice too.]
In the end, the two of them chose for the sake of later.
A choice that would let everyone smile more.
*
But they probably didn't know.
That because of their choice, the gears of fate had changed, and a new fate—and a fate beyond fate—had been born.
That the direction [he] had once called the original flow had already branched out in many directions, letting possibilities for endings no one knew begin to bloom.
And that other people's fates, little by little, had also begun to be moved by [him].
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