25 The Time of Choice 1

"What kind of shame game is this?"

Chi, reading her sister's diary, fanned her flushed cheeks with her hand.

No, I mean... this is...

"Damn it! Jin, you bastard! Snuggling with my sister, snuggling and snuggling!"

The way her sister had gradually begun to notice Jin since their meeting.

Having that awareness presented directly, with her sister's own thoughts attached, Chi was overwhelmed by embarrassment and resentment at losing her sister.

"Besides, surely they wouldn't have just split up right there! They must have done something!"

The diary only mentioned a reunion at the dormitory entrance.

The next day, it stated simply—“I started dating Jin”—so briefly it invited the opposite interpretation: that the relationship had already begun.

Anyway.

"...My sister's initial approach to Jin was just part of her duty. But she gave it up midway."

Because she had fallen for him.

Chi thought it was surprisingly casual of her sister to admit such a departure.

In truth, the Laitera Project was little more than a theoretical construct—likely considered easily suppressible, even if the sister, ignorant of its theory, raised an alarm.

"Typical of you, sister."

The motivation to experience history firsthand was so predictable it bordered on laughable.

It is almost amusing to see his older sister—slightly younger than he is now—falling for Jin.

"...but"

She will meet her end in approximately two years, according to the date on this journal.

She was never meant to die, sister.

Having read this far, Chi reaffirmed that conviction once more.

More—more—should have lived, experienced countless things.

That's right, Mio-chan... you're just a stranger to them.

Still unresolved.

Yet still, the life of her older sister, abruptly severed mid-course.

Glimpsing that one fragment, she still wished he were alive.

Chi felt it strongly.

Sorry...

Speaking an apology that should not be heard.

Chi decided not to move.

If she remained in this room, the Laitera Project would eventually be carried out.

The Third Fleet had no means of pursuing this fleet.

By the time their location was known, it would be too late. The Laitera Project would activate. The past would be altered.

Her being a combatant was irrelevant. The project would proceed without her.

So all that remained was waiting.

Once that decision was made, boredom set in immediately.

"... Shall I read on?"

Yes. The mystery of the password remained.

Why had that word been set?

Perhaps reading to the end would reveal the answer.

Chi continued reading her sister’s diary with the faint mood of a minor detective story.

Days after beginning to date Shōgō Jin.

Things like how holding her right hand made her uneasy—slightly amusing, in a way.

Walking together in an environmental protection zone. Information about going somewhere together.

In addition, visiting each other’s rooms.

A record of utterly ordinary interactions between lovers.

“Hmph. Even your older sister had a dish she couldn’t handle.”

Mother was skilled in cooking, and I assumed her older sister had inherited that talent.

Indeed, the dishes I remembered her preparing were always delicious—but there was no memory of her ever making this one.

“Chāhan. Maybe I was actually better at it than her.”

A complaint about practicing but failing to master it.

Jin’s expression softened, as if he understood the motive behind the words—something he must have felt.

Reading through the diary, Jin’s name appeared in nearly every entry from the last two years.

All motivations converged on Jin. The joy that had been found belonged to him alone.

The intimacy between them becomes so palpable it feels almost embarrassing to witness.

"Jin Tohgo... you've never been this kind to me before."

That bitterness is entirely self-inflicted.

Continuing onward.

The dwindling number of remaining documents.

Each one reads like a countdown to her sister's lifespan—growing harder to bear with each passing entry.

The daily life recorded in the diary is genuinely tranquil.

Knowing it will shatter without warning makes it unbearable.

Among them, one sentence stands out.

"Something wonderful happened...?"

No details are provided.

Opening the next day's entry.

"Ah. I see."

There it is: the word "proposed."

Naturally.

The reason both came to the Second Fleet.

It was to announce their marriage.

"The order is reversed... I see. The ring."

A few days after Chi had rolled into Jin’s home.

At that time, she confirmed the presence of the ring Jin held carefully in his hand.

Likely something meant for her sister.

That it remained in Jin’s possession meant the order had never been fulfilled.

“Happy, I suppose.”

Chi, who had never been asked to marry, could not comprehend such a feeling.

A passage described selecting a room together. Chi thought it must have been that room.

The room her sister had chosen. The room her sister had been meant to live in.

“…What was he thinking, leaving that room behind?”

A sudden thought occurred.

After losing the one he was meant to live with.

Yet only memories remained.

She had believed her sister had abandoned her. Harsh words followed.

There had been times when she resented him for not saving her.

But now, looking back—was it only family who shared that sorrow at the time?

Chi had a mother.

Jin had no one.

"Lonely, but kind—"

The words spoken about the man who was supposed to become her sister’s brother-in-law.

It was she who cast him once more into the cold solitude he had only just begun to heal from—

"Me…?"

Regret comes now.

A story of two distant fleets. There were limits to what could be done.

Even so, the choice made that day feels wrong.

"...No. Irrelevant."

The past can be changed.

If Rin had not died, this regret would vanish too.

So there is no problem.

Yet the unease remains, sharp as thorns.

Can this regret truly be erased?

After losing her sister, she joined the Laitera Project. There was much suffering.

Yet was there truly nothing among them that must not be forgotten?

"Irrelevant... it's irrelevant."

All of it erased.

Only because she knew it could be erased did she manage it.

Shaking off hesitation, Chi opens the next document.

The remaining days— one.

The day before boarding the relay vessel.

The tablet containing this diary data was not brought aboard the relay vessel.

Perhaps it was forgotten, having been brought from the Second Fleet.

She never thought this would be the final entry, simply wrote as usual— and so it became the last.

The end was unbearable to witness.

Yet now that she had come this far, there was no choice but to see it through.

On the eve of returning home to her family for the first time in years, she opens the final diary, seeking a glimpse of her sister.

The words written there.

"………………This will be the last entry, won't it?"

What meaning lies in that?

Is it merely about ceasing to keep a diary?

Coincidentally, at the very moment when death by misfortune would claim him in a few days?

Continuing to follow the text further.

This time, Chi was on the verge of screaming.

The content was too unbelievable to accept.

I saw two futures. Completely different paths.

Confusion fills Chi's mind.

He failed to grasp its meaning at once.

And finally, the previously stalled thoughts began to align.

...Saw the future? The Laitera Project succeeded...?

Theories concerning time remain largely hypothetical.

Harold himself is certain that past alteration is possible, though the process remains unverified.

The Laitera Project has not yet been achieved, but if it is to be accomplished in this future, it is not surprising that information was sent back to the past.

But that is already a matter of water pouring over water. Arguing over who came first serves no purpose.

What matters to Chi is not what her sister saw.

Only that.

"Likely, this is the information transmission to the past attempted by the Laitera Project."

Chi read aloud the words of Kō.

"‘If so, this is my future. Yet I am not in one of the two.’... Wait."

Something was wrong.

Chi realized that this was wrong.

"If information could be sent to the past through the Laitera Project, and if her sister received it... then why—"

Had Kō died?

Was it something unavoidable, even with knowledge of the future?

Or had Kō’s attempt to avoid the future she had seen led directly to the incident with the communication vessel?

"‘I intend to choose the future in which I do not exist.’... Why! Why would she do such a thing!"

Chi did not wish to believe that what was written in this diary was true.

Because if it were true—

then Kō had chosen the future in which she would die.