21 Betrayal 3
Chi presses a hand to the throbbing head and rises.
"Here is...?"
His own room.
Recalling the moment before consciousness faded, he lunges at the door—naturally, it does not open.
"Older sister participated in the Laitera Project...?"
Abandoning the futile effort to break through the door, Chi sits on the bed and recalls what he just heard.
He has never heard such a thing.
No—since he himself never told their mother anything, he can understand that his sister, even as family, would not have revealed it.
Yet if that is true, what did Rei seek in joining the Laitera Project?
And did that not change even after meeting Jin?
"Call Mom...? But she probably doesn't know either..."
Driven by the need to find a clue, a trace of his sister, Chi paces aimlessly around the room.
Then he remembers.
"Right—when sorting through my sister's belongings..."
A locked file placed on Rei's tablet terminal.
It should have been downloaded onto their own terminal, despite being unable to delete it.
A lucky break if, for entertainment's sake, you happen to guess the password and see the contents.
Perhaps it's a diary.
Data intentionally saved not in the cloud, but within a local domain. Highly likely to be of an extremely personal nature.
In addition, Rei had written numerous documents, but the textual data could not be located.
Chi attempts the password guess, perhaps understanding what his sister had been thinking.
Still, what should be put in here…
Everything that came to mind had been tried, in one way or another.
Things easily associated with relationships—names, birthdays, favorite foods, and so on, of oneself, one's family, and Jin.
...No, perhaps
A new fact learned just moments ago.
If you had participated in the Laitera Project.
Breathing deeply to suppress the racing heart, she enters the password.
Nine letters: RigthTale. Then Enter.
The screen displays the merciless message: Password is incorrect.
"Idiot sister!"
A complete act of misplaced anger.
Laitera Project. Various ways of writing Project Laitera.
Next, names like Harold or Grace—any profile she can recall.
Eventually, random names with no connection whatsoever.
"If it's come to this, maybe I should just hire a professional...!"
Muttering complaints, she types in words at random...
"Wait?"
The file’s lock has been removed.
The encrypted file unfolds, transforming into several document files.
No sense of triumph, no satisfaction at having guessed correctly by chance.
Only a lingering sense of unease.
"What... is this?"
It was impossible for that word to be the password.
There should be no point of contact with the order, no matter how it's approached.
No chance to know. Shouldn’t have been possible.
"...had you been talking with Jin...?"
The most likely possibility is that—but only the person involved can confirm it.
For now, setting aside the matter of the password, Chi finally felt a faint thrill at the revelation of her sister's secret.
It seemed, after all, to be a diary.
Arranged in chronological order.
Old things are truly old. They seemed like relics from student days.
...Quite detached, though.
Not particularly diligent, it seemed, yet maintained as a habit for several years.
"This... is about the speech contest from student days?"
They spoke of history, but the outcome was unimpressive.
The text contains something akin to regret.
Calm in front of her younger sister, yet internally quite agitated, it seemed.
Now, suddenly, Chi realized she was about to expose her sister’s hidden truth—and froze.
But she couldn’t stop.
The Laitera Project.
And the password.
Those two might be decipherable through this diary.
With resolve, Chi continued reading the document.
What became clear from the inwardly written entries was that her sister acted more on impulse than reason.
The older sister had seemed mature, years ahead in demeanor—but her inner world was likely no different from that of someone her own age.
Amidst this, the word finally emerged.
“The Laitera Project… was it Major Grace who personally recruited her?”
From the diary, it was evident she had been a Captain at the time.
The orders had felt deeply suspect—like a scam, she had warned.
Yet, despite those doubts, she had decided to cooperate.
The Byron family name carried immense weight.
Chi could predict, likely, that it was the concept of temporal leap that had drawn her in.
Not that she wanted to change the past—perhaps her sister simply wanted to experience it.
The lightness of that stance struck Chi as distinctly different from the current team’s demeanor.
Whether for better or worse, the current group was saturated with solemnity.
As they progressed further—there it was, the name that should have been expected.
Shōgō Jin.
The moment he would meet the person he would one day marry.
Now, Chi began to feel uncertain: was this really safe to look at?
A diary laid bare her sister’s emotions.
The thought of what intimate confessions might spill forth made her dread it.
Yet this too was all in pursuit of her sister’s mystery.
Driven by the forbidden pleasure of peering into another’s secrets, Chi opened the next document.
◆ ◆ ◆
Historian.
No falsehood in claiming that title.
But she had not told everything.
“Thus, historical research. I came here to find documents only available in the Third Fleet.”
The Third Fleet officer, eyes narrowed with suspicion.
Tōgō Jin.
Recalling the profile drilled into his mind before arriving here.
Orphan.
Raised in an environment far from ideal, in a poorly maintained orphanage, now a Defense Force pilot.
The Third Fleet is an extreme surveillance society.
Every action monitored by nanomachines, every action recorded.
Thus, acquiring personal information is extremely difficult.
Yet, information publicly available as a military officer is another matter.
Also, rumors circulating between people—those cannot be controlled, even here.
From these factors, Tōgō Jin was deemed highly likely to support the Laitera Project.
Recruiting him is one of the objectives of this mission.
—Even if it is pure coincidence, Ling thought, this contact is fortunate.
“What kind of age are you, anyway? You don’t have a proper job, do you? Doing this kind of thing…”
“Don’t talk like my mother… I’m doing real work! This is my university ID!”
The university ID is genuine.
Yet, despite that, Shōgō Jin—
“History research, huh…”
“Ah, I just mocked history. I did.”
History is magnificent. Human wisdom is contained within it.
There are foolish events, too. Even those serve as worthy lessons.
And unfortunately, such magnificent history is greatly incomplete.
Six centuries of conflict on the homeworld. Records from before that period are severely damaged.
Further, over the past one hundred and fifty years since venturing into space, numerous gaps remain.
One objective of this mission is to locate any surviving records that may have been overlooked.
Still, in the Third Fleet, that is difficult. Most such records would likely be with the First Fleet.
Rumors say it holds mountains of classified material.
Rei’s request is to fill in that buried history, that concealed past.
If the Laitera Project succeeds, temporal displacement becomes possible.
Then events of the past could be witnessed firsthand.
History could be experienced directly.
That is the greatest reward for Rei. Which is why cooperation was possible.
"A civilian outside the fleet receives authorization within a week of application. Better to begin procedures at the office tomorrow."
"A week, huh."
Separate from the Laitera Project. Rei concluded the historical archive collection—half hobby, half pursuit—would not be feasible this time.
"Disappointing… The investigation period ends the day after tomorrow, right? Can’t help it… We’ll do it next time."
Suppressing frustration, he murmured.
For now, merely making contact with Tozō Jin was enough.
"Tomorrow is my off-day. I’ll take you there."
And yet, hearing something like that.
He thought, *Good person*. But couldn’t accept it straightforwardly.
"Could this be a pickup? A date invitation?"
He might have messed up by saying it like that.
And what made it worse was having to report this in the official log. He felt embarrassed.