Starry-Eyed Aiona

'Perhaps this act of goodwill is what connects us in the future.'

As heir to the Alita family, Aiona—like her two cherished friends—had followed the path laid out for her since childhood. Bound by duty to their noble bloodlines, they all carried unspoken doubts, yet none dared to defy the fate carved for them.

They placed their lives in each other's hands, believing their mutual faith would protect them from the Black Blood's creeping corruption, the resurgence of the Apocalypse, the fury of the Cataclysm, and even threats unforeseen by the Church.

That is, until that mission—when Aiona glimpsed the future she was destined to embrace. To preserve the possibility of reunion with her old friends—even if they met again under different identities—she chose to walk the one path of no return among countless diverging roads.

I found a metal fragment in a corner of the castle. It resembled the ritual tool Aiona wore atop her head. Empousa once told me that when she first met Aiona, her ritual tool was damaged. Back then, Empousa eagerly proposed forging a powerful new tool—one that could cut through iron without a sound—using meteorite iron from Starfall Valley, blessed by the celestial powers of the Tarot, and quenched in the spring waters of the Ashen Garden. But Aiona always hesitated.

Empousa loved spending time with Aiona. She said they connected instantly—Empousa, having grown up without a mother, found a motherly gentleness in Aiona. She often clung to her, lamenting her cold childhood: no bedtime lullabies, no warm embraces, no comfort when she fell. Aiona always consoled her patiently, though a quiet, familiar loneliness seemed to linger in Aiona's own eyes.

Aiona once told Empousa that her ritual tool was damaged during a Church mission. That mission had left not just a thin crack in her tool but also an invisible fracture in the meticulously planned life her family had laid out for her—a life she had followed step by step. Someday, she said, that crack would spread, destroying the last warmth of her past.

Empousa remembers the day Aiona suddenly agreed to forge a new ritual tool. She said a mysterious friend had encouraged her. Empousa was overjoyed. That day, Aiona handed her damaged tool to Empousa. She said something strange:

'The tool had no reason to carry my longing for the past or my defiance of the future.' Under the clear sky, she decided it was time to start anew.

After falling from the cliff of Starfall Valley, I was rescued by Aiona and Empousa. By the campfire that night, Aiona handed me a small lamb craft and told me there was still a future worth pursuing. Only now do I understand why she felt so strangely familiar, why she stayed by my side as I searched for my identity.

That night, in the flickering firelight, she said: 'I will witness your future, just as you once accompanied me.'