25 Grave inscriptions

Jin's plan ended in failure.

He had intended to visit the Bellwald family, but was curtly refused.

No place to turn—this was clearly the case.

The lead from his family home had run cold.

"Otō-san looks scary."

"Uh? Really?"

"Yeah. You've been making that face since yesterday."

Mio frowns, making a strange expression.

"Did I really look like that?"

"Not strange. Scary."

To Mio, that was a scary face.

I'll make sure to look frightened when I see it from now on.

"It's fine. I just remembered something approaching—something like a memorial date."

May's situation worries him, but what truly troubles Jin's mind at the moment is something else.

"Birthdays?"

"No. Not birthdays... more like the opposite, actually."

"The opposite?"

"It's nothing to do with Mio. Don't worry about it."

"Yeah... I understand."

Not birthdays. The opposite.

A death day.

◆ ◆ ◆

Third Fleet Memorial Park.

The location is familiar.

He will reach it without hesitation.

That is why Jin stands motionless here.

He refuses to acknowledge what lies ahead.

Nothing beneath.

Everything she was has vanished into the vacuum beyond.

What value can there be in an empty space?

Excuses can be made endlessly.

All of them feeble lies even he cannot deceive.

He simply does not want to see.

The tombstone of Rei.

Does not want to see the numbers engraved upon it— 940–963.

"……I..."

Still stuck in the same place.

Aware of it, consumed by self-loathing.

Unable to take a single step forward, Jin turns away.

Staying here any longer would not move him forward.

Instead, he offers a bouquet to the graves of his former comrades.

……uh?

A familiar figure enters the corner of his vision.

"Sasamori trainee?"

A question forms in his mind: Why is this person here?

He considers calling out, but before he can, Kou has already left.

No particular reason for it.

Who exactly was he visiting the grave of?

"Is this it?"

He finds a single neatly arranged bouquet in the plot and checks the name.

"May Bellwahr. 949–955!?"

The name is utterly unexpected.

He doubts a coincidental name match, let alone a person born in the same year with the same spelling.

"Aah…"

A voice from behind makes Jin shudder, an uncharacteristic reaction. He turns.

"You saw, Instructor."

"Belwahr, trainee."

May stares at Jin with an expression devoid of emotion.

No, now that he thought about it, he could no longer be certain that the girl standing before him was indeed May Belwahr.

"You are... who?"

"Since you've seen this, I'll explain. You've come this far—Instructor, you already have a general understanding, don't you?"

"No, it was chance."

"Chance."

"Accidentally spotted Trainee Sasamori, felt a pull, came here—nothing more."

May's expression returns to its usual neutrality.

She looks utterly incredulous.

"Seriously, Instructor? You just appeared like the real culprit in a mystery story."

"No, I did feel a jolt—though..."

"Fufu. Then my performance was a complete success!"

May gradually regains her usual composure.

Jin, fearing she'd slip away again, presses on.

"You... who are you?"

"As you know, Instructor, I am May Belwahr. Born in 949, sixteen years old."

"But there is no record of—"

"I'll explain that too. But first, allow me to offer you a flower."

She presents the bouquet.

May observes a moment of silence.

Jin waits without interruption.

"Then, Instructor, let us go. There's a fine tea shop just nearby."

"Tea?"

"It will take a little time. I think it best to moisten your throat beforehand."

"I see. Understood."

Nodding, May immediately bows her head.

"Thank you for the meal."

"...You."

She had intended to be presumptuous from the start, but hearing it before she spoke left a faintly awkward feeling.

May's recommended café.

Unlike Jake's establishment, it is well populated. What could be the difference? The proprietor's demeanor perhaps.

She orders tea—Jin, unable to distinguish taste, chooses the same as May's.

"I am undoubtedly the owner of the DNA linked to May Bellwar's citizen ID."

"Then that one is..."

May likely already knew what the question was.

"Does the Instructor know? Anyone can place a gravestone at Memorial Park."

"Ah? Yeah, I suppose."

Take the tombstone of Rei, for example. It exists in both the Third Fleet and the Second Fleet, where her family home is located.

"So that one isn't mine."

"But it can't be unrelated."

Not by accident. Not by chance.

If it were just Jin who had found it, he might have claimed it was unrelated. But since someone came to offer flowers, there had to be some connection.

"Of course. The one buried there is undeniably May Bellwar herself. The girl who went missing ten years ago."

"The attack on Ship 11..."

A phrase like a riddle.

This one here is May Bellwar. The one sleeping there is May Bellwar too.

—No.

This May said it. The owner of the DNA.

"Impossible..."

Jin must have realized he had reached the correct conclusion.

"Yes. I am the one who shares the same DNA as May Bellwar. I am a clone."

"Clones are prohibited."

"Ah, well... it was my parents who did something so foolish..."

Apparently, the original May Bellwar had a cardiac anomaly.

A region difficult to repair even with regenerative treatment.

Nanomachine therapy proved ineffective. The only remaining option was transplantation.

Whether a suitable donor would appear was uncertain.

So the Bellwar parents devised a solution.

Why not prepare the donor ourselves?

"That is how I came to be."

…Age cannot be concealed. At the very least, even if cloned after the original was born, there would still be a difference in age.

Yes. So they did various things. Nanomachines, among other methods, were used to forcibly accelerate development.

Yet the individuals themselves seemed unaware of this.

The original May rejoiced at the sudden arrival of a younger sister.

The clone May held no doubts about herself.

Having two of them became commonplace immediately.

The parents must have been thinking something… perhaps they intended her as a playmate. I wasn’t allowed to step outside the house at all.

At that time, she was called Jun.

Her parents never gave her a name. The original May did that.

If they’d only wanted organs, they could’ve kept her locked away somewhere all along. They’re foolish—letting conscience interfere in the wrong places.

She had stayed inside the house all along, always hearing about what the real May had done outside.

"Because of that, I pretended I had experienced everything May had experienced."

And if there was a child with the same face, she would feel the urge to play a trick.

"Sometimes we'd switch clothes and play around. After all, we're clones. We're identical."

So identical that neither of their parents ever noticed.

"On the days we switched, we carefully exchanged information, trying hard not to get caught."

Such small, quiet mischief.

"I remember the first time we switched—I went to elementary school for the first time. There were so many kids my age—my heart raced a little."

It was Sasamori Kou who helped her through that moment.

"Of course, he knew May. Same elementary school, next door. Same class. We couldn't have been closer—true childhood friends."

Jin gently cared for May, who seemed off-balance.

It was the first time she had ever received such consideration from another person.

“So maybe that moment—”

She shook her head before finishing the thought.

“No. That’s not relevant.”

Jin did not press further.

He sensed it was something she should keep within her own mind.

“Going to the elementary school expanded my world, just a little.”

Of course, she wanted to go again.

But May held firm. Still, after persistent requests, they alternated once a week—May attended the elementary school, and she went instead.

“Even swapping on holidays… it’s laughable. Those parents never noticed at all.”

She laughed openly, then faded into a tired smile.

"Continuing like that would have led to a reasonably proper end, I suppose."

That did not happen.

It was the ASID attack on Ship 11.