"In other words, this is harmful to you."
Reversing the Ethereals Corrosion was inherently impossible—at least for him in his current state. It was like expecting a fully cooked egg to hatch a chick.
Unless his mastery of Ether reached an unprecedented level—but at that point, he would be nearly omnipotent. For Ether is the chaotic fusion of all other energies. To control Ether is to control them all. Then creation and destruction would be but a thought apart; even the order of life and death could be shattered. Reversing erosion would be trivial.
Yet that realm was too distant. He was still far from such heights—so far that such a scenario could only exist in imagination.
Zane's eyes finally shifted, a complex flicker passing through them. Watching the sisters lost in thought, he spoke softly.
"I know this may be hard to grasp, but what I'm about to say next, you'll definitely understand. You now have two choices."
With a quiet sigh, Zane continued, "First, you can recover on your own. Though the fundamental restoration is slow, it will still happen. So you can maintain your current state and periodically regain human consciousness—briefly, but it will happen."
"In this state, you can wait for that faint, almost imperceptible glimmer of hope—that sliver of possibility to become human again. But I have to be clear: this hope is exceedingly slim. You might even wait forever. And during that waiting, you'll only be able to shift back and forth between being an Ethereals and being human."
"And within that span, the proportion you spend as human might be less than one ten-thousandth."
Meaning, one minute as human, ten thousand minutes as Ethereals.
"The second option is for me to completely extract the Ether."
"This will allow you to truly revert to human and leave the Hollow. However..."
Zane paused, thoughts churning. A notion flashed through his mind: if the Twins were like him, that would be ideal. But the truth was, he was fundamentally a higher-level life form, merely sharing an origin with the Ethereals. The Twins couldn't replicate that.
"But what?" Augilia asked softly. From his earlier words, she had already guessed most of it.
"But... you would only have three days. After roughly three days, without the Ether to sustain you, your very essence of life will dissipate completely. To put it plain... your souls will vanish."
The Ether that had eroded their bodies was no longer merely the source of their affliction—it was the very force sustaining their "existence" until now. Like water binding scattered sand, only with that cohesion could the sand be shaped into anything. Once the water was gone, the sand would collapse.
Zane's heart was far from calm, yet he forced himself to appear composed, so as not to unsettle the sisters.
Augilia fell silent, while Augetta lifted her gaze to Zane and said something wholly at odds with the tense mood.
"Um... Handsome Sir, you know our names, but you haven't told us yours yet... I can't keep calling you Handsome Sir forever... It just feels inappropriate..."
Zane blinked, then replied softly, "Zane. Pleased to meet you."
"Wow! What a unique name!"
Gray Veil Marionette straightened, Augetta's voice within tinged with surprise. "Though my sister and I usually perform in formal shows as dancers rather than celebrities, because of our popularity, quite a few people still follow us... I remember sometimes, I could hear them..."
Black Veil Marionette was still processing Zane's words, but her thoughts were quickly interrupted by her sister's lark-like chatter. She glanced up at her helplessly. How had they ended up chatting like this? Zane seemed hard to approach, yet her sister was already acting like an old friend...
"Um... Mr. Zane, we still have some time, don't we? There's no need to rush a decision, right?"
Beside Zane, Augetta had already stood, hands clasped before her, looking up at him with expectation—her tone practically saying, "Right? Right?"
"Mm. There's still some time," Zane answered, not entirely sure what she was getting at, but nodding anyway.
"Then... could you tell me and my sister about Grandpa's current situation? And, um... I'm also curious about some things concerning us..."
"We can decide after we hear all that, right?"
"Please?"
The veil on Gray Veil Marionette's face had long since fallen. Standing beside Zane, she held his arm and gave it a little shake, attempting a slightly clumsy bit of pleading.
At this moment, Augetta had none of the aura of a "terrifying urban-legend protagonist" or an "elegant, bloodthirsty special Ethereals." She was simply a lively, ordinary girl. And that was as it should be—among the twins, Gray Veil Marionette was Gray Veil Marionette, and Augetta was Augetta.
Seeing Zane agree, Augetta smiled happily, then hurried to Augilia's side to help her up. The stilt-like legs were awkward to handle, but as a skilled dancer, she adapted without much trouble.
"Sister, let's hear what the gentleman has to say about the outside first, okay? You have to understand before you can choose..."
Watching her sister's easygoing manner, Augilia could only sigh inwardly. Even so, that lightness rubbed off on her, easing some of the weight in her heart.
After helping her sister to her feet, Augetta turned back to Zane, ready to ask the question she most wanted answered—only to be gently tugged by Augilia.
The Black Veil Marionette—Augilia—rose and, taking Augetta's hand, curtsied to Zane with swan-like grace.
"Mr. Zane, whatever happens, my sister and I are truly grateful. Just hearing Grandfather's voice... we're already satisfied."
"So if anything would trouble you, please don't worry about us. Given how far you've gone already, we really..."
"After all, we have little left with which to repay you."
Hearing her, Zane's eyes widened slightly. Then he let out a quiet laugh.
"There's no need for that. Your sister just treated me like a friend—do the same."
"Besides... it makes no sense to offer kindness to others while refusing to let others be kind to you."
The sisters' goodness spoke for itself. Zane already knew what they had been like in life. For people like them, he always held a measure of respect—because, in the same situation, he doubted he could do the same.