The white light receded like a tide, replaced by an endless deep darkness dotted with countless stars.
"Where… where are we?!"
Fujimaru Ritsuka suddenly opened her eyes. Because the space beneath her feet was empty, her body instinctively tensed.
She tried to grab onto something, only to realize she was suspended in the desolate void of outer space.
There was no gravity, no air—only suffocating silence and cold.
Panic surged through her nerves like an electric current.
"Don't be afraid, Ritsuka."
Just as she was about to suffer from the illusion of oxygen deprivation, a warm hand gently touched her shoulder.
Steve's voice was calm and powerful, instantly dispelling her fear like a stabilizing force.
"This time machine is equipped with a comprehensive life-support force field. Air, gravity, and appropriate temperature are all maintained."
"As long as you don't step outside this force field, it's no different from being inside your room in Chaldea."
Ritsuka regained her composure. She took a deep breath and indeed inhaled fresh air; she felt no dizziness from weightlessness.
She gripped the time machine's handrail a little sheepishly, her cheeks faintly flushed.
"Sorry… I overreacted a bit."
"It's a perfectly natural reaction. After all, for modern people, traveling through space with a physical body is somewhat anachronistic."
Steve smiled and extended his hand, pointing at the massive sphere that dominated their view.
"But for now, let's focus on that."
"Ritsuka, look."
"This is… Earth, one billion years from now."
Ritsuka followed his finger and looked at the blue planet.
She gasped.
It was Earth.
It was the home planet she had seen countless times in Chaldea's simulation images.
Yet what spread out before her eyes was both familiar and unfamiliar—an overwhelmingly beautiful sight.
There was no hazy atmosphere, no dazzling city lights at night, and no wreckage of artificial satellites or space stations.
The entire Earth was covered in breathtakingly clear blue oceans and lush green vegetation.
The clouds were snow-white, drawing elegant spirals in the slowly rotating atmosphere.
It floated quietly in the darkness of space like a newly born, unpolished sapphire, radiating a sacred and primal beauty.
"What a wonderful view…" Ritsuka murmured to herself, her eyes reflecting the clear blue. "But… it feels too quiet? Where are the cities? Where are the lights? Where did everyone go?"
"They all left."
Steve's voice carried a hint of nostalgia. "This is the final result of the Earth Purification Project that I led throughout my life."
"Long ago, humanity had already left this cradle and set sail into the vast sea of stars."
"To protect this mother planet that nurtured our civilization, we dismantled all industrial facilities on the surface, erased every artificial trace, and restored Earth to its most beautiful original state."
"For the humanity of this era, Earth is no longer a place to live, but a sacred site that all of humanity should revere."
"Only on the most important festivals or when coming of age will the children of the stars return to this land, kiss the ground, and remember our origins."
"So that's how it is…"
Ritsuka gazed at the beautiful planet as a strange emotion welled up in her heart.
Humanity had neither perished nor gone extinct. Instead, it had continued to exist in a higher and gentler form, protecting this place of origin.
Wasn't this the very future she had been fighting for all along?
But just as she was immersed in that emotion, an ominous red suddenly entered her field of vision.
At the edge of a lush green continent—land that should have been peaceful and serene—countless red dots were now flickering.
They weren't city lights… they were the glow of wildfires.
And it wasn't just on the surface.
Even the distant sun looked far larger and redder than she remembered, as if a massive crimson eye were coldly watching this small planet.
"Steve! Over there… is there a fire?!"
Ritsuka pointed at the ground with an anxious voice. "And the sun… the sun looks really strange!"
"Ah, you noticed."
Steve nodded. His tone remained gentle but carried a solemn note.
"That is the sun's aging."
"One billion years may be nothing more than a number in a history book for humans, but for a star, it is an unimaginably long journey."
"The sun is currently entering the red giant phase."
"Its volume is expanding, and its temperature is rising."
"Earth's ecosystem is gradually collapsing under this high heat, and these flames are… signs of naturally occurring forest fires."
"How could this happen…"
Ritsuka's face turned pale. "Then… then what about Earth…?"
Would it be destroyed?
Would this sacred land, protected by humanity for one billion years, meet such an end?
"Don't worry, Ritsuka."
Just as despair threatened to spread, Steve smiled and cut off her scattered thoughts.
He raised his hand like a great magician about to lift a magical veil and elegantly pointed into the void beyond Earth.
"As I said before, this is my worldview."
"As long as humanity exists, we will never allow this planet to die alone."
"Look over there—they are here."
Before he finished speaking, the empty space suddenly rippled violently.
It was as if countless pebbles had been thrown into a quiet lake; the very fabric of space distorted and tore apart.
Immediately afterward, futuristic spaceships emitting silvery-white light burst out one after another from the spacetime rifts.
One, two, a hundred, ten thousand…
In just a few seconds, a massive fleet large enough to obscure the stars suddenly appeared outside the orbits of Earth and the Moon.
They were arranged in orderly formation like a steel Great Wall, blocking Earth from the raging red giant sun.
"That's…!"
Ritsuka's eyes widened.
"That is the Earth Guardian Fleet."
"And what you are about to see is the gift they prepared for their mother."
Steve said quietly.
As he spoke, the warships simultaneously emitted dazzling light.
Countless blue beams shot from their prows, precisely striking the sides of Earth and the Moon that faced away from the sunlight.
However, this was not an attack.
The beams did not explode upon contacting Earth's surface. Instead, like ultra-high-dimensional 3D printing technology, they rapidly constructed magnificent, enormous structures on the planet's crust.
They were towering metal towers—steel giants tens of thousands of meters tall, spewing blue plasma flames.
One, two… ten thousand!
In the blink of an eye, more than ten thousand planetary engines rose up as if by magic and firmly anchored themselves to the backbone of the blue planet.
"Activate."
Steve commanded in a low voice, like the supreme commander of the fleet.
BOOM—!!!
Although sound should not travel in vacuum, Ritsuka felt as if she could truly hear the ear-splitting roar.
The ten thousand planetary engines simultaneously unleashed dazzling blue beams toward the sky, piercing the heavens and transforming into an irresistible force. That power slowly shifted the heavy planet from its orbit of billions of years.
At the same time, the same light poured onto the Moon.
The faithful satellite was also equipped with engines and faithfully followed Earth's movement.
"They are… going to…"
Ritsuka asked, trembling.
"Take this planet with them."
Steve watched the two slowly moving planets, his eyes shining with pride. "Since the sun is no longer suitable for life, we will change the sun."
"This place is no longer safe, so let's move our home to a new location."
"But… where can we go? The universe is so vast…"
"Go there."
Steve pointed ahead of the fleet.
There, several flagship-class giant vessels were generating some complex energy resonance.
They simultaneously emitted golden beams that intertwined in the void, swirling and converging at a single point.
Then that location exploded.
The originally pitch-black cosmic background was forcibly torn open by a massive rift.
It was a circular passage several times the diameter of Earth, radiating mysterious light.
Through the passage, Ritsuka could vaguely see a youthful golden star on the other side, surrounded by a life-filled habitable planetary system.
It was a Hyper-Dimensional Stargate.
Steve explained, "On the other side lies an entirely new artificial solar system located outside the observable universe. It was specially constructed by the future human civilization of this era using groundbreaking technology for Earth and the Moon."
"There are the most stable stars, the safest orbits, and… eternal tranquility."
The massive Earth and Moon, escorted by countless warships and propelled by planetary engines, slowly sailed toward the stargate leading to the new world, like two grand arks.
This scene was incredibly grand, romantic, and… unbelievably magnificent.
As Ritsuka watched, her vision blurred with tears without her realizing it.
She had seen both the insignificance and the greatness of humanity.
She had witnessed the cruelty of time, yet she also felt the resilience of civilization.
"Is this… the future?"
She asked, her voice choked with emotion.
"Yes, this is the future."
Steve turned around, looked at the teary-eyed girl, and smiled as he reached out to gently wipe the tears from the corners of her eyes.
"This is the Valentine's Day gift that the humans of my world are giving to this planet."
"And this…"
He took Ritsuka's hand and pressed her palm against the time machine's transparent shield, allowing her to feel the vibrations spanning one billion years more clearly.
"This is also the Valentine's Day return gift from me—a Servant—to my Master, Fujimaru Ritsuka."
"So, how do you like this gift? Will you accept it?"
Under the vast starry sky, in front of the wandering Earth, the man's smile shone brighter than the distant stars.
…
…
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