They walked through the rain-soaked streets.

Past the walls half melted by Ladon's Breath and into the kingdom, past the square and across the market, they walked down quiet streets devoid of people. Their footsteps splashed softly in the puddles.

“The Kingdom of Kassel must have fallen.”

“...”

“I appreciate your consideration, but there's no need. I know now, too. It feels like the very, very distant past, but I still remember it vaguely.”

SPLASH.

“I think I only brought my star down and made this grave after swallowing about a third of the kingdom. It must have fallen, then. It was precarious enough to begin with.”

Violet walked ahead with her back to Najin. He couldn't see her expression.

“I wasn't the hero who saved the country. I was the calamity that destroyed it.”

All he could tell was that her voice trembled a little. Najin parted his lips, wondering what to say.

It wasn't your fault. Didn't Ladon devour you? Besides, the very structure of the Kingdom of Kassel, which tried to depend on you alone...

Countless responses came to mind, but none felt appropriate. She didn't seem to want excuses or consolation. Najin was a complete outsider to the events surrounding the Kingdom of Kassel. He felt that an outsider had no right to pass judgment on them.

“So I suppose my past self was trying to punish me. Though I don't know whether this punishment was enough.”

Violet looked up at the sky.

The rain was falling. Endlessly.

“Twelve thousand times,” she murmured.

“I think I've repeated that final month about twelve thousand times. How much time has passed outside?”

“About five hundred and sixty years.”

“Then I've spent roughly twice that long in here.”

Time flowed differently here than outside. Violet had experienced more than a thousand years within this dream. Reflecting on those years, she smiled bitterly.

“So much time has passed that I don't really know what I was thinking when I made this grave. It must have been me, but she feels like someone else.”

“After a thousand years, that's understandable.”

“Isn't it? Still, if I had to guess... The reason I chose to repeat this final month endlessly, this month when I didn't know who I was or what I was becoming, when I knew nothing at all...”

Violet spun around to face Najin.

“I think she must have wanted me to overcome it. Hoping I'd find a different ending from hers, instead of being devoured by Ladon and left broken.”

Every month, she lost her memories.

She returned to the beginning and, with no memory, played again from the start (Da capo). When asked how long this would continue, the Viola Ordina of a thousand years ago had answered:

Until you, who are no hero, become a true hero.

Until, in the same circumstances,

you achieve an entirely different ending.

Viola Ordina had always been that sort of person. Someone whose standards for a “hero” were impossibly high. Someone who believed only a flawless being could be called a hero. Thus, in punishing Violet, Viola had also set her a trial.

“As if that were easy.”

Resenting her past self, Violet gave an incredulous laugh. How did that make any sense? Repeating it while losing her memories would only lead to the same ending.

Unlike Viola, Violet was fragile.

She wished for someone else to save her. She desperately wished for someone to shatter this nightmare in her place. That was why Violet's grave did not bar others from entering. She had left the entrance open and waited for a hero.

“Viola Ordina wanted me to break this dream myself. Violet wanted someone to break it for her.”

Violet pointed at Najin, then smiled ruefully.

“In the end, it was Violet's wish that came true, not Viola's. My wish. Because you appeared and saved me. Because you killed Ladon and broke this dream for me.”

“In the end...” Violet let out a breath.

“I suppose I never overcame it. In the end, even after a thousand years, I'm still...”

“I don't think that's true.”

“... What?”

Najin interrupted her. Standing in the middle of the street beneath the pouring rain, he looked straight at Violet.

“In that final moment, didn't you stand before Ladon of your own will? Even though no one pushed you into it?”

“That was...”

“Didn't you have no duty, no compulsion, no responsibility then?”

Najin had taken Viola Ordina's place. No one would die even if she did not step forward. There had been no room for Viola's compulsion—the belief that people would die unless she acted—to intrude.

“And yet you came, didn't you? You stood there.”

“...”

“And when I asked what I should call you, this was your answer.”

That either name would do.

That, after all, both were her.

“It wasn't because I pushed you or led you to that answer. You answered that way because it was what you believed.”

Najin smiled.

“All I did was set the stage. You chose to leap onto it and become a hero. Doesn't that mean you overcame it after all?”

“That doesn't change the fact that you helped me.”

“Must you overcome everything alone to be a hero? Even the great King Arthur had the Round Table's help.”

“Then...”

“Yes.” Najin nodded.

“You were a hero.”

At that answer, Violet's eyes grew misty. Pressing firmly at their corners, she spoke in a slightly trembling voice.

“The truth is...”

She exhaled at length, then looked at Najin and smiled.

“Maybe I just wanted to hear someone else say it. Because I couldn't be certain myself, couldn't feel confident... Maybe I just wanted someone who truly seemed like a hero to acknowledge me.”

To tell her she had been a hero.

That she deserved to be called one.

That Violet and Viola Ordina were not two entirely different people, but the same person—and that they had been a hero.

“You're right.”

Violet—Viola Ordina—exhaled as though a weight had lifted from her chest.

“You really are.”

Najin had fulfilled Violet's wish. By saving her, he had provided the means to break this dream. Violet's wish for someone to help her had come true.

Likewise, Viola Ordina's wish had also been fulfilled. Though Najin had helped her, Violet had reached an answer through her own soul-searching, and that answer satisfied even “Viola Ordina, the hero.”

Both wishes had come true.

The lingering regrets of the Constellation who had wished for her own death five hundred and sixty years ago were resolved. The dream that had repeated for a thousand years had reached its endpoint.

CRASH.

Somewhere, a pane of glass shattered.

2.

CRASH.

Cracks spread across the sky.

It wasn't only the sky. Cracks began spreading throughout the Kingdom of Kassel. This was different from being devoured by Viola after Ladon had consumed her. Unlike that tumultuous destruction, this collapse was quiet.

Back then, it had spread from the center to the edges.

Now, it began at the edges and approached the center.

The dream created by the Star of Separation slowly began to collapse. Her world shrank, slowly but surely. Watching it shatter, she murmured,

“I've thought about what I'd do once I stopped being a hero. Not just once, actually. Many, many times.”

The world drew toward its end.

“What would I want to do? Once I was free of everything, able to do anything, what would I try...?”

Her voice was calm. Even as the world shattered, she spoke unhurriedly.

“Maybe read novels. Visiting places known for good food sounded nice, too. I wanted to travel somewhere far away, or visit a city where famous musicians gathered. I made plans like that. Though I never told anyone.”

She smiled.

It was a faint smile, as though it might vanish at any moment. Without thinking, Najin took her hand. Looking down at his hand around hers, Violet nodded.

“There are so many things I'd like to try, but if I had to choose just one, it would have to be that.”

Then she clasped his hand in both of hers.

“Najin.”

The world drew toward its end.

Smiling brightly, Violet tugged at his arm.

“Let's play together. One last time, again from the beginning!”

Holding Najin's arm, Violet ran. They ran through the rain-soaked streets, racing with all their strength through the cracking world. They ran into the old tavern that had served as her final refuge.

She sat on the bench before the piano. Steadying her breathing, she struck the keys with vigor.

And so the performance began. Najin joined her melody on the violin. Merlin, who had followed them in silence, sighed and took up the cello as though resigned to the inevitable.

The sound of pouring rain.

The sound of shattering glass.

The sound of the world collapsing.

Even those sounds became part of the performance, joining its harmony. Violet played with sweat on her brow, more focused than ever before. Her eyes shone.

“Ah, ah, ha!”

She raced toward the end.

Again from the beginning (Da capo).

The notation that had always marked the end of this dream. But now, another notation appeared beside it.

To the end of the performance (Al fine).

Read together, the two meant “Again from the beginning, to the end of the performance (Da capo al fine).” And so the performance repeated no fewer than twelve thousand times finally raced toward its endpoint.

The end approached for a performance that had seemed endless.

“Ah...”

Violet pressed the final key firmly. As its deep note settled over them, she bowed her head. A tear dropped onto the keys.

“I wanted to play a little longer. Just a little longer.”

DRIP. DRIP.

“I wanted to talk with you a little longer,” she said in a trembling voice.

“I'm sad that it ends here. Ah, I should have held on just a little longer. I shouldn't have made that choice. If I'd endured, perhaps an opportunity would have come someday... Why did I choose that?”

Regret. Remorse. Sorrow.

“But still...”

Violet lifted her head. Murmuring those words again, she rubbed her face with her sleeve. Wiping away her tears and managing a smile, she looked at Najin.

“But still, I like the ending, at least. I think I can accept a death like this.”

She approached Najin. With the crash of breaking glass, the spreading cracks finally reached her last refuge. As even the tavern began to shatter, Violet undid the tie holding her hair.

“Najin.”

Embracing him, she whispered in his ear and reached behind his head.

“Thank you. Truly, for everything, right to the end.”

Undoing the tie holding Najin's hair, Violet tied it again with the one she had worn in her own hair. Then she stepped back.

“My hero.”

Violet smiled through her tears.

“Remember me.”

Who am I? As though answering the question inscribed on her gravestone, Violet smiled brightly.

“Viola Ordina, the hero. And...”

She laid a hand on her chest.

“Violet, the musician.”

The End (Al Fine)

CRASH.

At last, the world shattered completely.

Within the world breaking apart like glass, cracks began to run across Violet's body. She had separated herself from the world, living an isolated life in which she belonged nowhere. Yet in her final moment, she was able to belong to reality.

It didn't matter if this was a dream.

To her, it was real.

The Star of Separation refused to remain separate. By denying her own star, she met her death. Neither a fall nor a corruption, but a complete death enveloped her.

Najin tightly clasped Violet's shattering hand. He spoke to her as she crumbled. Though the sound of the world breaking and collapsing drowned out his words, Violet heard them clearly.

“I will remember you.”

In her final moment, Violet smiled. She closed her eyes in true repose, rather than a false one. As she did, she thought that at least the ending had been good.

And so, her life had not been bad.

3.

Najin's hand swept through empty air.

Violet, whom he had held until a moment ago, was gone. He blinked, and before him lay dense undergrowth, a gravestone among it, and the ruins of the Kingdom of Kassel.

Viola Ordina's dream had broken.

Everything felt like an illusion, like a dream, but there was an object proving it had been reality, not a dream. Najin touched his hair. The tie holding it bore six stars.

It was both the stellar relic Viola Ordina had left behind and a keepsake proving that Violet had existed.

Najin clenched the hair tie she had left him tightly.

“...”

Having left the dream, Merlin was once again within Najin. Knowing what he felt, she kept silent. Only after a long time did Najin let out a lengthy breath.

“...”

He looked at the gravestone before him.

「Viola Ordina, hero of the Kingdom of Kassel.」

「She defended her country against an evil dragon.」

「A knight who fought bravely to the very end.」

Lowering his gaze, he read the sentence beneath it.

「Who am I?」

Najin extended a finger. With his starlight, now imbued with the star of the Star of Separation, he carved letters into the gravestone. Her name, which perhaps only Najin knew.

「Violet, the musician.」

Najin gave her an answer to the question no one would have answered for five hundred and sixty years—the question she would have asked throughout a thousand years within the dream.

Thus, the names “Viola Ordina, the hero” and “Violet, the musician” came to coexist on the gravestone.

There was no difference between the two.

Both were her names.

The moment he put that final full stop on the gravestone, a star twinkled high in the sky.

The star of Funeral Rites.

Najin had gained his fifth star.