Chapter 13:

Epilogue: Project Silver Heart

Silver Heart


My eyes opened slowly and painfully. My head felt like it was being hit over and over from within…

I placed my hand on my forehead, slightly covering my eyes. I tried to sit up but my body felt heavy and sluggish. I felt weak and empty.

I felt someone’s hands helping me to sit up. I let my hand down and looked at the person helping me.

Short blond hair and green eyes.

So that means…

I looked at my hand for a moment. I could still move it and I felt every sensation. I was laying in some hospital bed with white sheets covering me and a white gown covering my body.

“How are you feeling?” Shina asked softly.

I clenched my fist and opened it repeatedly…

“Why am I not dead…” I said as I continued to stare at my hand.

“Because you asked to be saved…”

I turned my head and looked at her… I didn’t feel angry, I didn’t feel sad… This next question might change that, however.

“Where is Mana?”

“I can show you if you want. She’s still alive,” Shina said, not making eye contact.

I pulled the sheets off and tried to stand up on the opposite side of Shina, but when I tried to place all my weight on my right foot I felt a sharp pain in my chest and kneeled.

Shina ran over to me and placed my left arm over her shoulder, supporting my body.

“Don’t make movements that strain your body… Your heart still needs time to get used to your body…”

“What do… you mean…?” I said, my breathing unsteady.

“After Akihiro stunned you with his pistol, we brought you here. Your condition was unstable, however, so we ran some tests. Your heart was failing. We believe Matoya placed too much stress on you… and your heart couldn’t handle it anymore… So we had to replace it…”

I placed my right hand on my chest trying to feel my heartbeat… but it wasn’t there… I moved my hand haphazardly around trying to feel that normal sensation of my heart beating, but no matter where I tried I couldn’t find it.

I lowered my head and my eyes widened and filled with tears.

“I’m… one of them…” I said softly.

One of those people with an artificial organ or limb… one of those monsters that abused me and used me until CLEAR saved me… I wasn’t human anymore…

“Project S_Heart, also known as Project Silver Heart. It was one of the projects we stole from the server room… a completely artificial heart made from a silver alloy… your new heart…” Shina added.

I let my arms hang and didn’t put any more force into my body. Shina lifted me and placed me on the bed, making sure I was sitting. My head hung low and my eyes widened. I wasn’t moving…

“Don’t you want to see how Mana is doing?” she asked me.

“...Your right…” I said, shaking my head, trying to put this in the back of my head. I can deal with it later.

Shina helped me once again and we moved through the white and blue hallways, each door we passed numbered and named.

Eventually, we reached a door numbered 302 and named ‘Mana’. Shina opened the door by sliding it. Together with her help, I entered the room and saw Mana on an identical bed I was on.

Her eyes were closed and her long blond hair was loose over the bed. Her body was covered in white sheets. Some wires from machines went under her sheets and connected her.

I gazed at the heartbeat monitor. She seemed to be stable, but her eyes were closed softly. The pieces of machinery that had pierced her back and legs were gone.

“We healed her to the best of our capabilities,” Shina said, grabbing a chair and lowering me to sit on it.

“When will she wake up?” I asked, staring at her face.

“We don’t know…”

“What do you mean?”

“There should be nothing wrong with her, but she’s still not showing any signs of waking up. Her brain has been in a constant state of minimal functionality. Her eyes aren’t reacting to light either. She’s unresponsive yet still alive… she’s in a coma.”

For the first time since I woke up… I felt something welling up within me. It wasn’t intense or quick… it was slow and painful.

I lowered my head and grabbed Mana’s metallic arm under the sheet. I tried to keep myself together but I just couldn’t… and so my tears dirtied the white sheets Mana was sleeping under…

At some point, Shina had come up to me and started to pet my back. She brought her head closer until it was touching mine, combing through my hair as if I was a mere child crying…

I let her do whatever she wanted… and just continued.

I must have been there for a while because when I lifted my head, my eyes felt like they couldn’t let any tears go anymore.

“I know this isn’t the best time to ask… but would you come with me for a while?” Shina asked.

“I will… just give me a bit…” I said, staring at Mana’s face.

“Then I’ll be back in a bit,” Shina said, leaving the room.

I sat there in silence. I wanted to talk to Mana… I wanted to hear her voice again… I had gotten a bit used to her being near me… now that she’s in a coma…

Minutes passed by slower than ever until the door to Mana’s room opened up again and a wheelchair rolled in with Shina pushing it from behind.

“Are you ready to go?”

“I guess…”

She brought the wheelchair close to me and helped me get on it. When I was comfortably sitting, she turned me around and headed for the door. I turned my head and looked back at Mana for a bit, before looking in front of me.

We traveled through the hallways once more and went down to the ground floor. Here, the building felt much more open. The halls eventually opened up on my right, forming multiple arches and showing the courtyard.

Children were running around from one side to another, throwing around a small metal disk at each other. Among the small children stood two large adults.

One of the two adults was a woman. She was wearing a casual white t-shirt and baggy black pants. The parts of her body that weren’t covered up were all metallic except her face. Long, brown hair.

“Was she the one in the black Expansion Suit?”

“Her name is Julia and she is, indeed, Silhouette’s user. She‘s energetic and reckless but overall a fun person…” she said, speaking softer with each word. “See that large bulky man there?”

“The one that has children clinging on to his large arms? He’s the only other adult here…”

“His name is Akio. He’s the one that gave commands during the battle with CLEAR… He was the one that planned the attack along with the information from Matoya.”

The two of them should have been enemies… but just like with Shina I felt nothing towards them. They were just people, playing with the children and making them laugh. They both smiled brightly…

Julia had the metal disk and passed it to a kid with no hair. Akio stood in front of him, guarding what I presumed was the goal where the kid had to score. The kid made some dramatic movements and threw the disk, Akio reacted slowly and the disk went in the goal. The bald kid cheered and other children lifted him, celebrating.

Akio meanwhile was surrounded by children and barraged with questions like “You have such a large body. Why couldn’t you stop it?”

Akio just smiled through it and the kids also seemed to smile despite Akio not having stopped the disk.

Eventually, Akio looked my way and some of the children followed his gaze.

“Who is that?” one kid asked Akio, pointing at me.

The other children and Julia stopped celebrating and looked in my way. The children all gathered in groups and began whispering.

“That would be your new older sister!” the brown-haired Julia said loudly.

“We just saved her so be gentle with her, okay?” Akio said just as loudly.

The children began looking my way with curiosity. Before they could act on it, Akio grabbed the metal disk and announced he would begin playing and score if no one was paying attention. The other children protested and went back to their game.

“Isn’t it nice?” Shina asked me.

“...It’s far different from how I was raised…”

Shina continued pushing the wheelchair I was on and we continued through the building.

I didn’t look around at all. Just down to my lap and hands. Shina eventually stopped pushing. I turned around to look at her.

Her eyes were filled with uncertainty and empathy.

“How are you feeling?”

That voice that I didn’t want to hear… It's okay Shina…

“You of all people are asking that?” I said, not looking him in the eye but just at my lap.

“Yeah I did bring up a traumatic event but I never anticipated your heart would fail… I meant to hurt you mentally, not physically.”

“Someone’s mental situation has a great impact on their physical body… have you been doing your whole ‘breaking’ thing without even knowing that?”

“I knew about it… but your case was the most extreme. Someone’s body failing on them… I’m glad you're okay…” he said softly…

At the sound of those words, I clenched my fists tightly… I wanted to stand up and punch him right in the face. Everything he has done, everything he has caused… I wanted him to feel how I felt…

“Congratulations… Erity has died… Now you stand outside the system, like all of us at MINX. You are no longer Erity… once you figure out your new name… be sure to tell Shina,” he said walking past me. “I would love to continue talking but I have someone I need to meet…”

“Your name was Matoya, right?” I asked.

“My real name is Matoya, that’s correct…”

“Matoya… I really despise you…”

“...I’ll accept that hatred…” he said softly. “Once you can move around normally, be free to use me as a punching bag. I don’t mind.”

I couldn’t see him from where I was but his footsteps sounded softer. A few seconds later, Shina continued pushing me around.

We eventually arrived outside and reached a large metal fence. I looked down only to see part of the edge of a large circle expanding below us and a dark void beyond it.

“This would be the edge of level four,” Shina explained to me. “Look there,” she said, pointing up.

I looked and saw the edge of the planet illuminated by pure light. A white ball of pure light, not even comparable to the planet in front of me, could be seen just barely above the edge of the planet.

The sun had risen here…

“Beautiful isn’t it?” Shina said with awe.

I placed a hand over my eyes because I couldn’t handle the brightness. The sight was beautiful… but it just made me sad for some reason…

“Will you be okay?” Shina asked.

“I don’t know…”

“Do you hate Matoya?”

“For what he did to me… for what he did to Mana, I despise him…” I said firmly, “I was just a puppet dancing in his hand, wasn’t I? …”

“You weren’t a puppet… you were someone he genuinely wanted to save… At first, MINX rejected his offer to try and bring you over. But Matoya kept insisting, saying he couldn’t let you stay at CLEAR and be used as a mere tool…”

“Then couldn’t he have just told me that? Instead of bringing up memories, I wanted to forget, instead of making me feel weak and terrible… instead of shooting me in the back…” Tears started flowing out again…

“He can’t be like that… for better or for worse, Matoya can’t express his feelings and feel genuine. Everyone here at MINX was raised as an orphan, like you. But what separates us from the orphans taken in by other corporations is that we all remember our parents… they were all taken from us…”

“...Is that so…”

“Mana is the first person we took in that doesn’t remember her parents…”

“Then what will happen to her?”

“That depends on you… From this point on… You are no longer Erity from CLEAR. You’ve been reborn,” she said, showing me the phoenix pendant she had given me when we first met. “From today, you are free. If you want to leave MINX, we’ll arrange for Mana to be placed in a trustworthy hospital and you will work for the government under a new name. Or… you could join me, Akio, Julia, and Matoya… Join MINX and Mana will be treated here… what do you think…”

I lowered my head and stared at my lap, my eyes unfocused… I felt tired of sitting, tired of being pushed around. I gripped the arm supports of the wheelchair tightly and used my arms to push me up. Shina was voicing her worries and protests, but I continued until I finally stood up.

I grabbed the metal fence and leaned on it with my forehead against it.

“I don’t know if I can be in the same team as Matoya…”

“Please consider it. We’ll take good care of you. You can tell us your decision when your new heart has accustomed to your body…”

“From this point on I’m free…” I said softly…

It doesn’t feel like that at all…

The day MINX attacked… is the day Erity died…

What should I do…

Join MINX or go my own way…

For now… all I want is for Mana to wake up…

…I can’t forgive Akihiro… I can’t forgive Matoya… I’ll be sure to pay him back for what he did to me and Mana…

I gripped the metal fence tightly and looked up towards the planet and the bright sun…

***

“Well done Matoya and Thomas,” a man in a red business suit said, “you’ve exceeded my expectations.”

“Why thank you,” Thomas’ elegant artificial voice said.

“You’re overestimating me, Artorias,” was all I said.

We were standing in a large open room. Decorated with a hearth, some paintings, multiple large wooden bookcases, a vintage wooden desk, and a modern office chair.

This was now the office of the man who stood next to me, the man in the red suit. I didn’t know his real name, but he called himself Artorias… the king of a castle and land so ancient it doesn’t exist anymore.

With a glass of red wine in his left hand, he stared through the large window, looking at the children playing in the courtyard.

“You used to call Kaito ‘Boss’ when you were a child right? Please do call me the same,” the man said, taking a sip of his wine.

“I… will try. With all due respect, Kaito was something of a father figure to me… Calling you Boss as I did with Kaito is going to be a bit difficult.”

“Then get used to it,” Artorias said sternly.

“...I will…”

“Now, now…” Thomas interjected, “the boy came back from twenty years under CLEAR. Please have some patience.”

Artorias drank his glass empty and placed it on the wooden desk. He ignored Thomas who was standing beside me, swinging his tail occasionally.

“I can see why Kaito wanted to make you the leader of this group… now that you’re all reunited, do your best to lead them Matoya.”

“Kaito just saw the best within me,” I said waving my hands around, denying Artorias’ thoughts. “I’ll do my best to lead them… boss… but I can’t promise anything.”

“Not only did you fulfill your mission, but you’ve also brought over CLEAR’s head of security and a friend of hers. You’re quite talented… that means I’ll have to watch you carefully… The most talented are the most dangerous…” the man said with a serious expression.

He walked over to me and placed a hand on my shoulder for a second, only to continue walking to the large doors and exiting the room, leaving me behind.

After the large doors closed behind him, my expression turned lifeless.

“Artorias… You can’t even begin to replace Kaito,” I said softly.

“Relax Matoya. Kaito ended up dying from natural disease. There was nothing he could have done. Someone needed to take his place and he was chosen to do so.”

I looked at the white cat and relaxed my breathing.

“I know… Besides… soon enough, he’ll be kicked off his throne.”

“There’s that smile again… What do you have planned?”

“For now, I need to place Artorias’ focus on someone else… our new recruit for example…”

“You seem to be quite sure Erity will join…”

“Whether she likes it or not, her despise of me makes her bound to me. The words I said to her… part of them seem to have hit deep within her. She’ll join MINX. And after she grabs Artorias’ attention… I can lay the groundwork to usurp him…”

“And who will take his place?”

“How about you Boss?” I said laughing. “I could also take over myself…” but an idea appeared in my head. One that was fun and entertaining, thrilling and exciting… “...What if Erity took over?” I said, my grin widening as much as it could.

I couldn’t help but laugh a little.

“I can’t wait to see how you grow from this point Erity… Will you burn in the sky like Icarus? Will you fall even deeper, not even trying to better yourself? Or will you become the hero I’ve always needed someone to be…”