"Have you ever wondered why you were born, why you exist? What exactly is this so-called 'Alien God'?"
At that mont, Shiomi suddenly spoke and asked a question that cut to the heart of it.
"I... I only heard the cries for help from my kin, then obtained a body through the Fantasy Tree, and then..."
"If that's so, then why use... a human body?" Shiomi asked again.
"What?"
"I think you've already noticed it. mories that are not your own are gradually being awakened because they resonate with the records contained in my authority. They originally belonged to you, and yet for so reason they were sealed away and hidden from your awareness... the mories belonging to this body."
Shiomi let out a quiet sigh.
U-Olga Marie's eyes were full of turmoil.
There was no denying it. Those mories were fragnted, but every one of them shone.
Ordinary, and yet imasurably precious.
They made her want to treasure each fragnt carefully, to keep herself from ever losing them.
She wanted to go further and find more, yet all she could ever obtain were those scattered pieces.
That was why she was confused.
That was why she could not understand.
If those mories belonged to her, then why did she have only these few?
And if they did not belong to her, then where had they co from, and why did they exist inside her mind at all?
A chain of logic that should have flowed without obstruction had broken down completely because of those fragnts she could not bear to discard.
She could not fight. She could not think. She could not even carry out her own mission.
All she could do was hide here in the Third Netherworld, Xoxoauhqui, in a miserable state, incapable of doing anything.
"I..."
U-Olga Marie looked at Shiomi in utter confusion.
"At first, I regarded you as the most dangerous enemy of all," Shiomi said. "But now it seems the situation is not so simple. You are not what you think you are. You are only a piece that was created and made to believe that you were the 'Alien God.'"
He held out his hand to her.
"You have a choice. You can co with us, or you can continue being our enemy."
"..."
But U-Olga Marie did not answer him.
Still sitting on the ground, she shuffled backward a few steps, avoiding the hand of the Olga Marie she could not perceive.
"Teacher..."
Olga Marie sounded a little worried as she turned to look at Shiomi.
But Shiomi only encouraged her with his eyes, telling her not to worry.
So Olga Marie stopped worrying and simply rose quietly to her feet at the sa pace as U.
Their bodies were built a little differently, and U was slightly taller than she was.
"There is no need for that."
U-Olga Marie rejected Shiomi's offer as she looked down at her own hand.
"I cannot beco your companion, and I can no longer be your enemy either. Even now, I am fully confident that I could kill you, but my body unconsciously rejects that choice."
"That's painful. I understand."
Shiomi gave a small, rueful smile and shook his head.
"The body rembers certain things more easily than the mind does, and then it makes its own judgnt."
"Don't talk as if you understand everything. You clearly know I am not your Olga Marie, and yet you still ca... and even brought her with you..."
By now, U had more or less guessed who the existence she could not perceive was.
Her expression was full of anger and confusion, like a child who had lost her way.
The sight made Shiomi's heart ache.
He had seen that sa look on Olga Marie's face more than once.
"She asked for this. It wasn't my decision alone," Shiomi explained calmly.
"...Mm..."
U-Olga Marie frowned in deep discomfort.
She clenched and unclenched her fists several tis, clearly wavering over whether to fight.
But in the end, unlike when she had first entered this Lostbelt, she could not bring herself to attack decisively.
"Take it back."
As she said that, U released sothing.
It was the portion of authority taken from Shiomi, the part he had failed to recover earlier in the Second Netherworld.
"Are you sure?" Shiomi accepted the authority and asked lightly, "You're just going to hand back spoils you took in the middle of battle?"
"...I cannot devour your authority, and I cannot destroy it either. There is no reason for to keep it anymore."
When U-Olga Marie said she "could not," it was not because she lacked the ability.
It was because she could not bring herself to do it.
She knew perfectly well that if she truly wanted to devour the authority, she could.
But if she did, then the records attached to that authority would also beco part of her completely, joining together more fully with those awakened fragnts of mory.
If that drove her into utter madness, or brought about her self-destruction, neither outco would be surprising.
"I see..."
Shiomi let out a soft sigh.
"Blue," U-Olga Marie said. "The outline of your soul is blue. Your emotions are in a rather poor state."
Shiomi raised an eyebrow in surprise.
"You can see the color of my soul?"
"All life is the sa," U-Olga Marie replied. "I've returned the authority to you. Don't co looking for again. I don't want anything more to do with any of you."
"Then where are you going?"
He glanced at Olga Marie and asked that question to U on her behalf.
"That has nothing to do with you."
U-Olga Marie gritted her teeth, forcing her voice to sound firm.
Then, in the blink of an eye, she vanished from the forest clearing.
It was the 'Alien God's' greatest specialty, instantaneous teleportation without the slightest delay.
If she truly wanted to, then by now she had probably already left the Third Netherworld. And as long as she chose not to show herself, neither Shiomi nor Chaldea would be able to track where she had gone.
"So in the end... we barely managed to say anything at all..."
Olga Marie sighed a little sadly and threw herself into Shiomi's arms in apology.
"You already did everything you could. The problem is that from the very beginning, the 'Alien God' was set up so that she could never perceive the 'real Olga Marie.' Whatever the reason behind it, it was obviously ant to prevent exactly this kind of situation."
Shiomi comforted her as he stroked her hair.
Of course, Olga Marie had expected so chance of failure from the start. After getting at least a small response, she let Shiomi go.
"Now that you've recovered the authority, let's hurry and regroup with Lady Morgan," Olga Marie said. "Even if the enemy is weaker than us, we still have to be careful about unexpected developnts."
"Then hold on tight."
As he said that, Shiomi picked Olga Marie up once more, then kicked off the ground and sped back the way they had co.
Soon, the small island in the middle of the lake returned to silence.
Only U-Olga Marie remained, hidden in the shadows, still watching them.
She still could not make out the person beside Shiomi, but from his reactions and expressions, she could guess their emotions and even the shape of their conversation.
Even she herself did not understand why she had remained there instead of leaving.
Was it really just so she could catch one more glimpse of sothing whose full shape she could never know?
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