The sun rises the next day as it always does.
They laugh together over breakfast.
Ruby pretends Aqua is asleep in the bath again.Ai hums while she fries eggs.Souta curls into his mother's shoulder.
No immortality.
No frozen time.
Just now.
But Souta does make one silent vow to himself:
"If the day ever comes when they ask me… I'll be ready."
Not to flee life.
But to defend it—lightyear by lightyear.
Three weeks elapse.
Life continues.
Souta goes back to school. Aqua's acting career takes off again. Ruby gets a job in a large idol group. Yume begins voice acting classes.
One day, however, Souta feels something odd—faint tug on the fabric of existence, as if someone eavesdropping from the other side.
It happens when he is sleeping.
Between the silence of dreams and waking, a voice calls:
"So… the god-child hesitates."
Souta opens his eyes immediately.
"Who are you?"
The voice laughs.
"A forgotten wish. A failed version.One of the children who asked for forever… and got it."
A new idol bursts onto the scene overnight: Amakusa Haruka (天草陽翔).
Perfect voice. Perfect face. Never tires. Never stumbles.
Souta senses the aura simultaneously.
He's not human anymore.
And then, in the middle of an awards ceremony, Amakusa strides directly up to Souta—avoiding cameras, avoiding handlers—and smiles.
"You were correct not to decide forever."
"Why did you then?"
"Because I had nothing to lose."
Amakusa bows respectfully.
"But if you change your mind, come visit me. I've built a world where none of you will ever cry again."
"You created a world?"
"No," Amakusa blazes with eyes, "I stole the one you nearly did."
Souta commutes to Amakusa's "world".
It's hidden inside a dilapidated amusement park in Nagano—twisted by his power into an eternal bubble.
Inside are humans—hundreds—trapped in their moments of bliss. Laughing. Hugging. Smiling.
And among them, a woman who looks like Ai.
A replica.
A remembrance.
Amakusa clarifies:
"I asked them all first. I offered them a choice. No more pain. No more growing old. Just happiness."
"But this isn't life," Souta breaks in. "This is a painting."
"Why are they all in agreement, then?"
Souta remains silent.
Because in secret, he's too afraid to confess:
Some days… he could've said yes too.
In their homeland, Ai senses something.
A mother's intuition.
She discovers Souta alone, silent again.
He says it all to her.
She listens.
And then she takes his face and says, without hesitation:
"If someday. I'm gone. And you have the power to keep me here.Let me go anyway."
Souta weeps.
"But I can bring you back. I can freeze you, heal you, keep you—"
She halts him gently:
"That's not your job, Sōta."
"But I love you." "Then love me enough to lose me."