"Are you feeling all right physically?"
"Yes..."
Wednesday morning, in The Steambird’s newsroom. It was a place Avrora knew very well, but an unfamiliar setting for a woman named Elena.
"First of all, I would like to say how fortunate this is. A place that conducts human experiments on people... You should thank the Hydro Archon that you escaped from there."
"..."
I prayed to Lady Furina, again and again. I begged her to let me escape that hellish place. When they first put some kind of medicine into me, it felt good. But gradually, I began to feel nauseated, and soon vomiting and convulsions came over me. The black-haired woman who had been there before me and was rescued alongside me had completely lost her mind. If he had not come to save us that day, she would have died the next day. I did not know then whether he was Lady Furina’s messenger, or the grim reaper they spoke of in Liyue. But seeing myself here now, being interviewed by The Steambird, made me realize that I was alive because of him.
"Um... Elena? Are you all right?"
"Ah... yes... I’m all right..."
"I sincerely apologize for calling you in as soon as you were discharged from the hospital. Please forgive our rudeness in taking your time away from your family."
"It’s all right... I have a lot to say, too..."
"Then... how did you get out of that place?"
"Someone saved me... He was dressed like a Fatui member... and he was with a very tall man."
"The Fatui saved you? How unusual. As I recall, they are not that sort of organization..."
I thought so too. The Fatui? All I knew was that they were a frightening group from Snezhnaya. Avrora’s orphanage had belonged to the Fatui too, or so she said. Was it a place that made killing machines...?
"Then what did they do to the women there? Did they rape them, for example...?"
"No... There was no sexual assault... They just kept conducting human experiments on us..."
I never thought the Serial Disappearance of Young Girls Case would happen to me. I had lived wondering, They say dozens of women have disappeared, but why would it be me? Yet when I was taken there, there were only two others besides me. I could not help wondering where all those girls had gone.
"I see... It seems we will need the woman in intensive care to wake up before we learn the details. What did the person who rescued you look like?"
"I don’t know... He wore a mask, so I never saw his face. But I remember his voice..."
‘Knock that woman unconscious.’
‘I was about to.’
Then I lost consciousness, and when I opened my eyes, I was on the beach by the Court of Fontaine. Those were the only two lines I remembered. Other than that, there was only the fact that the tall man had said the Debt Collector was his subordinate...
"His voice? What was it like?"
"The tall man had a deep, dignified voice, while the person who saved me sounded like a younger boy... the kind of voice from just before puberty..."
"Hmm... Do Fatui children that young ever go out on missions? Judging by the information that Avrora went on missions when we investigated the House of the Hearth last time, I would think that was an exceptional case..."
Avrora...? Avrora’s voice was definitely... a little sharp, like it was just before puberty... But perhaps because it had been muffled by the mask, I could not hear it clearly...
"We should call Avrora in and ask her again. That girl comes and goes from here as if it were her own home. If Euphrasie had not brought her in, another newspaper would have snatched her up, and we would have been boiling with envy. Ha ha!"
Avrora... Should I ask that girl...? She said she had been in a Fatui facility before becoming independent... I did not know how tall she was... I had been in so much pain at the time that I could not picture it.
"Then that concludes today’s interview. Elena, you have to go to the police as well, right? They are making a composite sketch of the culprit."
"Yes..."
"You have only just been discharged and cannot even rest... You have our sympathies. This disappearance case is an extremely serious matter, after all. The three of you who returned are the only evidence we have. Take care, then."
"Yes..."
I headed to the police station with the officers who had been waiting in front of The Steambird. There, based on my hazy memories, I helped make a composite sketch and underwent questioning before leaving. It was exhausting. With the police’s assistance, I went home. My mother rushed outside and embraced me.
"Oh, my goodness! My daughter... Thank goodness you came back..."
After I was found, they said the household had been turned upside down. My father and mother rushed to the hospital, and my younger brother, who had been in Sumeru, returned to Fontaine as soon as he heard the news. The moment they saw my face, they burst into tears. They had grown terribly haggard and asked where I had been. My father and mother would not leave my hospital room. My brother also cried when he saw me, then returned to Sumeru the next day. He seemed to be having a hard time writing his thesis. The doctor understood the circumstances, but sent my parents home because I needed tests the next day. And today, we were finally reunited.
"Mom... I told you not to do this..."
"But... my daughter nearly died. How can I not?"
Perhaps feeling awkward remaining there, the police officers told us to take care and left. I went into my room for the first time in ages and lay down on my bed.
"Lady Furina... thank you..."
The Lady Furina decorations in my room. I had bought them all at performances or collected them as limited-edition merchandise. Looking at them like this, it felt as if Lady Furina had been watching over me in my room all along.
"Maybe I should have entered a seminary... I heard Mondstadt even has a church for the Anemo Archon..."
And Avrora... That girl bothered me. A girl from the Fatui. A voice caught ambiguously before puberty. Her height... I did not remember. Still... it was well worth asking her.
"Elena! Your friends are here! Come downstairs!"
Friends...? Who could it be? Hearing my mother’s voice, I went down to the first floor and opened the door.
"Hey~ Good to see you made it back alive, yeah?"
"Hello."
"Ah, what? It’s just you two?"
It was Marco and Avrora. My fellow trainees at the Judicial Training Institute.
"We were going to have dinner with you tonight, but looking at you, I guess that would be too much. When do you think you can come back to the institute?"
"Probably... next Monday? They contacted me and told me to rest until then."
"Really? That’s a shame. Still, we’ll stop by every day, so don’t suddenly disappear again. Ever."
"The two of us were so worried... I’m glad you came back alive, Elena."
"Yeah... thank you... both of you..."
"All right, then! Get plenty of rest at home! Avrora and I are going to get something to eat!"
"I can’t today either. I was going to go if Elena came, but the younger ones at home are chirping up a storm."
"What?! You’re ditching me too?!"
"Then would you like to look after my kids, Marco? You’d die."
"I hate playing nanny..."
Avrora and Marco walked away into the distance. I closed the door and sat on the sofa in the living room. It was such a familiar sight. That human experimentation site from a few days ago felt like a dream.
"Elena! Come eat!"
"Yes, Mom!"
I hoped this ordinary, happy life would never be shattered.
"She died in the end... I don’t know whether that’s good or bad..."
[Woman Who Returned Alive Ultimately Dies... Bereaved Family Wails...]
[Will the Serial Disappearance of Young Girls Case Ultimately Remain Unsolved...?]
[What Was the Purpose of the Human Experiments?]
Reading Friday’s issue of The Steambird, I was left with complicated feelings.
The black-haired woman had died. When I first saw her, her eyes had already rolled back, so I had thought she would not live long. But she was dead in the end. In a way, she was the person who had watched everything Vacher did from beginning to end. If she survived, she would reveal everything, including how Fontainians dissolved in water. From my perspective, it was a good thing, since the story’s foreshadowing could not be revealed yet. But what kind of lunatic would consider someone’s death a good thing? I felt conflicted. Then I turned to the second page and flinched.
[The Fatui Saved the Women?!]
[Snezhnayan Embassy: Unrelated to Us]
[A Childlike Voice—Who Was He?]
That Elena woman heard my voice...! All of a sudden, this had become serious. The day it was revealed that I had entered that place, every spotlight would inevitably turn toward me. What was I supposed to do...? Marco approached me as I sat there with a grave expression.
"Hey, Avrora, why do you look so miserable?"
"Hasn’t my face always looked miserable?"
"I get that things are hard, but try to brighten up a little. People will start calling you an old soul."
"They already do, quite often..."
"Do they? Ha ha! Oh, right! Elena said she’s coming back on Monday. This time, let’s really go have dinner together. What do you say?"
"Sounds good. I’ll let the younger ones know."
"It’s a promise, then?"
"Yes. I won’t ditch you this time."
The law professor walked over from the distance. It was time for class.
"See you after class, then. Let’s pay attention!"
"All right."
Our everyday lives were not over yet.
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