Midnight. I woke up suddenly.
　I feel very heavy-headed.
　Rin-chan is sleeping well at .......
　Unlike me, who just follows Rin's instructions and runs through the labyrinth every day, Rin does everything for me, including delivery, mapping and schedule management.
　Even though I'm good at using my head, I'm sure she's tired too.

　I slipped out of bed without making a sound, as I didn't want to wake her up, and headed straight for the balcony.
　I put my hands on the balustrade of the balcony, which seems small for such a large room, but still spacious, and look down at the light of the city that never sleeps.
　A cool breeze was blowing.
　I wanted to feel the night breeze.
　And I wanted to gaze blankly at the sky.

　Looking at the sky like this reminds me of the past.
　Distant, distant ...... faded memories.
　The vague memories of the time before I met Rin.

　My memory is actually very sparse and lacking in precision.
　It's only recently that I've realized this.
　Maybe it was after I fought Aria the Red Wolf. Every time I talk to Rin, I'm reminded of memories I don't remember.
　In particular, my memories of when I was little and around the age of 15 are hazy.
　Of these, it is the memories of my childhood that I have recently recalled.
　It is the memory that I call my origin.
　It was the memory from just before I met Rin-chan to the time when we became friends in the true sense of the word.


　In the past, I was a curious child who laughed a lot.
　When I say that, everyone may tilt their heads in disbelief.
　In particular, those who have only seen me from the age of three to fifteen would never believe me.
　A while ago, Toka-chan also told me that I had changed.
　Now, a while ago, and when I was little.
　I think I've changed so much that I've become a different person. 　

　After all this time, my body is different from others.
　Something in the shape of a human being. My body is so different from others that it is more appropriate to say so.
　My physical abilities, my reflexes, my senses.
　All my life, I've managed to suppress them.
　Ever since the first time I broke my mother.

　I've always loved to break things.
　I've torn toys apart and smashed them by force.
　I've crushed bugs in my hands.
　I crushed insects. I cracked building blocks and got blood on my hands.
　I already had that kind of power from an early age, and it was a slow, destructive impulse that turned on those around me.
　That is why I spent my early years, before I could even remember, doing nothing but destroying things.
　My father and mother were worried about me, but they were never angry.


　It was the first child for both of them. They didn't know what constituted a 'normal child'.
　By the time I was two years old, my destructive behavior had begun to include household appliances, but fortunately it did not extend outside the house.
　I think they were watching over me in silence, including that.

　And then the accident happened.
　Yes, that day was the first day in a long time that the three of us were going out together with my parents.
　I was so happy to be out with my parents. I was happy.
　I couldn't help squeezing my mother's hand.


　With a cracking sound like something breaking, a warm liquid flew out.


　It was a very beautiful red, very warm liquid.
　It didn't take me long to realize that it was fresh blood from my mother's crushed hand.

　I was struck by the sight of my mother wincing in pain, my father rushing to her, the sound of the ambulance, and the clamor of the sudden disaster.
　Scary. It was the first time since I was born that I felt that way.
　My power was already beyond the realm of human beings, enough to realize that my power could ...... destroy the people I cared about.
　It was then that I first realized how stupid and horrible it was to break things, even though I was very young.

　Since that accident, I have stopped breaking things.
　This is because I no longer know what is acceptable to break.
　The things that are important to each person are different.
　Because I realized that fact, albeit vaguely.
　And most of all, I was afraid of destroying the people I cared about. ...... I was a little girl, and I thought.


I thought, 'If I don't touch anything, it can't be broken.


　If I had been in control of my powers, I might not have been so extreme in my thinking.
　But I was not mature enough to control my power.

　After that, I closed off my interest in the world itself.
　No more curiosity.
　I gave up my desires.
　I don't eat or drink water unless it's given to me.
　With the exception of sleep, I have abandoned free will.

　I don't know what my mother and father thought when they saw me like that.
　But they loved me.
　With very sad faces, they still loved me, even though I had become a mute doll.
　But because I rejected them, there was no more contact between my parents and me.
　Because of our love for each other, a distorted parent-child relationship was born between us.

　About two years and six months after I was born.
　That was the most human period of my life until I became a doll.


☆


　The next six months. In that period of time spent doing nothing, my emotions had completely stopped.
　But I was growing. It's a bummer, but my physical abilities were getting stronger.


　And yet my heart was cold and frozen to the bone.
　That's fine. I would stay that way until the day I died.
　I think I even felt a sense of comfort in the calm of the world.

　It was my father and mother who turned that stagnant environment upside down.
　I went out for the first time in almost a year, and was taken to the home of two friends.
　It was a mansion that I had only seen on TV. It was the residence of a hawker family.
　The sight of the mansion did not sway my heart, but what was decisive was what happened afterwards.

　That is how I met the daughter of the Takashou family.
　In other words, it was my encounter with Rin.

　As a child, Rin was a little smaller than me, and she was the most fragile and fragile creature I had ever seen in my life.
　She was always and everywhere happy and full of energy.
　She took me around to various places without complaining, even though I was forced to be uninteresting and did not do anything like a doll.

　I remember that the temperature of her small, tightly held palm felt very warm.

　Rin, who had always been athletically challenged, still wanted to play outside and was often injured.
　Whether she was playing on the playground equipment or just running around, she would always get hurt.
　At first I didn't think anything of it when I saw it.
　But when I saw from the sidelines that Rin was getting hurt, I knew I had to help her.
　Every time I did, the red color of the time I broke my mother's heart came to my mind and my body stopped moving.
　Because I didn't want to destroy Rin, I couldn't touch her myself.

　Still, my heart was shaking enough that I wanted to help her.
　I had come to care about Rin enough to not want to destroy her.
　Slowly, slowly.
　Slowly, slowly, my frozen world was being melted by the temperature of Rin's palm.

　Just as a colorless world becomes colored, the world becomes filled with color.
　I couldn't think of anything on my own, but everything in the world seemed to glow as Rin took me around.
　The warmth from her palm seemed warmer than the sun.


　Before I knew it, the sun, Rin, was shining brightly in my world.


　In order to be in contact with Rin, I was able to put my power under complete control.
　I wanted to be by Rin's side, no matter how cramped my life was.
　Even if I had to sacrifice my own life, she was far more important to me than my own.

　After I became friends with Rin. I was so happy when I was able to protect Rin from that dog.
　For the first time I was able to appreciate my power, which I had only thought of as an abomination.
　And I made a vow.

　I would use all of this power for Rin.


　When I became aware of this, I finally understood.
　I was loved by my parents. Even after that tragedy, my parents never for a moment showed any dislike for me.
　No matter how twisted their relationship was, they had given me free love.


　And that I loved my parents more than anything.
　I finally understood those natural feelings.

　Some things can never come back. But there are things we can build on.
　I cared about my mother and father as much as I cared about Rin.
　There were only three people in my world: my father, my mother, and Rin-chan.
　I thought that as long as I had those three, no matter what happened, I would be happy.


　So ..................?


☆


　Bang.
　I heard something fall down.