"Congratulations, it's a baby girl!"
"..."
"Alright, make sure to place it in the system. With that done, Madam, what would you like to name your child?" The doctor turned away from the nurse and spoke to the owner of the small child.
Meanwhile, the person currently cradling the baby had her bangs covering her eyes, effectively closing her eyes from outsider's prying.
But her mouth was visible. And with that small lips, it parted a single word,
"...Faith."
[Wuthering Waves]
Katsuri rubbed her ears as she could hear some buzzing at the back of her mind. Although she was a bit confused, it was still better than the current voice that's narrating her life.
'So you do know what you're doing... Whatever.'
"To respond to that... Am I dead? No. I don't think so. Take a look at me, does it really seem like what a dead man would be wearing?"
"Well, no... But what if you decided to... I don't know, take your own life after serving a customer?"
"Like. I. Said. I am not a prostitute! Do you ever remember selling yourself in the past?"
"...I don't remember owning a white dress, ever."
"Touché, but that's besides the point."
"Alright, listen here. I know it might be quite hard to believe but I am still alive."
"No, I can see that. I don't need clarification on that part but on the way you're able to access this space."
Faith turned slightly and decided to sit down right next to the standing Katsuri.
Katsuri saw this and followed suit, turning around and faced the exact same direction as her other iteration.
What followed was the sight that couldn't and shouldn't exist inside Earth.
A sight so beautiful that it'll put even Earth's most popular tourist location to shame.
Of course, these are all subjective as they came from the bias view of two different... similar?
'Why are you also confused?' Katsuri frowned towards the vastly empty space, filled with only grass and trees with leaves that doesn't fit the term 'natural'.
Quite a contradiction as there were almost as much empty spaces as there are trees.
And the leaves, although there are the minorities that are green, most of them are red.
But somehow, it really compliments the color of the sky and the green grass.
As if it was colored with the environment in mind.
"Why red?" Katsuri asked as she scrutinized the sight.
Faith didn't respond. Instead, she stretched her right hand forward and grabbed onto a falling leaf.
Bringing it to her chest, she opened her grip and it revealed nothing.
Merely an empty palm.
"..." Katsuri became quiet at the sight.
'It... disappeared? No, that's not it. She didn't grab anything at all. So all these... are illusions? Is that it?'
"Heh, I could already see the thoughts written behind that face. I guess all those times analyzing faces really helped us out a ton."
Both pair of eyes gazed onto the same hand, the one that had grabbed onto nothing.
Then, the palm turn into a fist, and then the fingers slowly opened one by one again.
Now, a single red leaf appeared.
Faith turn and look at Katsuri straight in the eye and said, "I know it. You are probably quite confused. But don't worry. Once the time comes, I'm sure you'll also arrive in this place in the more... conventional method."
"By then, you'll understand the essence of this place."
"For now... Just let this be a memory of a place that doesn't exist."
Katsuri blinked and suddenly, the sight changed. Gone was the peaceful outside, now it seemed to her that she was inside a small house.
The furniture were all worn down, seemingly eroded through time. The opened window... no, it's more so a hole in a wall now that she's looking at it.
There was no window frame, merely a view to the outside.
And behind those walls, there were only darkness.
She's been teleported out of Faith's space.
'...No matter how hard I think about it, isn't that place just a Sonoro Sphere?' She thought of something funny.
'Let's see... An artificial space created by a person, a place in which the creator held full power inside and could do whatever they want as if in a lucid dream... Limited access to only the people the owner allowed inside...'
'...Just my imagination, maybe?'
'Either way, I can't be bothered to think about it. Now that my frequency has supposedly been erased from Solaris 3, the Wuthering Waves storyline should still take place without another variable, right?'
She had removed herself from the story, which meant that everything should be going as the original game did.
But for some reason... there's something deep inside her heart that could feel something wrong with this place.
Where is she currently?
She got her question immediately answered as she looked around more and noticed a familiar door.
It was the exact same one she had entered through when she escaped from those two massive Tacet Discords... and also the door she went through when she first met the smaller Faith.
But seeing as to how there's nothing outside of this small space, it seemed like even the whole house was taken away from Solaris 3.
Does that mean the house no longer exist in reality?
Speaking of which... Right. There was a second, no. There was a third Faith she's been putting aside this whole time.
Her younger iteration.
The one that doesn't know of her own persona as 'Katsuri', the one that has yet to discover the joy of eating instant noodle at 2 AM.
"...This is it, I guess." With nothing else to do, Katsuri leaned on the wall, quite hesitant to actually put her weight on any of the furniture so as to not make them collapse.
Slowly, her palm covered the back of her neck, the place in which her supposed Tacet Mark should've been.
But now, she doesn't even know if it's there. There's no mirror nearby.
Katsuri was reminded of what the voice had said before her frequency was removed from Solaris 3.
The things it said would happen to small Faith.
[The Existence: 'Faith Havensith' will not be removed as the Quiet Rapture protocol only requires one subject. Instead, a separate space shall be chosen in order to accommodate her existence. Space has been chosen. Sending subject 'Faith Havensith' to the space 'Lost Beyond'.]