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After finishing my task, I closed my eyes for the last time. While I have some things I still want to do, this was only a bonus overtime to my life. I should be grateful to even have this opportunity. In the end, I guess how this happened will forever remain a mystery.

“Good work, Mister.”
“Good work, too, Kotone. With this, everything should be done.”
“Yes. We’ve completed all the necessary preparations.”

We didn’t really say goodbye to anyone. Even though Kotone and I are disappearing, there will be someone else in our place. The preparations were for celebrating the birth of a new life. It’ll be our personal way of welcoming the new Kotone, but…

“This should make our youngest sister happy.”
“I mean, I didn’t want to bring this up after all we’ve done, but…”
“What is it? Did we forget something?”
“Haven’t we gone a bit too far?”

We didn’t ask anyone for help with this. We just set up our room with contraptions, but thinking about it now, I’m starting to question if it was necessary to go that far. Rather, I think we lost sight of the original purpose.

“Have we really?”
“Think about it. How would you react if you were on the receiving end of things?”
“Angry.”
“Actually think for a bit.”

Why are you answering without a second thought? I do agree with that, though. If this were done to me immediately after I just woke up, I’d be absolutely pissed. Our preparations were just that excessive.

“If she has the same sensibilities as we do, she’ll definitely get angry.”
“Still, Mister, wouldn’t it clear away her anxiety about the future?”
“I don’t think overwriting it with anger is any better.”

Why am I the one retorting here? It should be Kotone retorting to my stupid remarks instead. Just because this is our last moment, aren’t you being a little unhinged? But I guess I can’t say I’m any different.

“Inheriting our future means being in a situation where the future is all but decided. It wouldn’t be strange if she feels anxiety and discontent over it.”
“If told that it was all for her sake, you think she’d be convinced?”
“I’d think we must’ve had too much fun.”
“And we, in fact, did.”

The initial plan was for Kotone and I to prepare one thing each. But after contemplating various ideas, we ended up deciding to do all of it instead. There was not a trace of restraint for our younger sister.

“But, Mister, weren’t you pretty enthusiastic about it yourself?”
“I can’t deny that.”
“Still, since we didn’t specify what sort of personality she’ll have, there’s really no telling what the result will be.”
“And we don’t have any way to check it.”

When our younger sister wakes up, both Kotone and I will be gone already. We had already transferred our feelings, memories, and everything else to her by then. It’s a shame that I won’t be able to witness her reactions, but it can’t be helped.

“An existence born with us having predetermined everything about it would be sad, after all.”
“I really hope she acts true to herself.”
“Even if it results in her straying from the future, we have inadvertently paved the way for her.”
“That’d be impossible.”
“It really is impossible, huh.”

It’s not a future that can be strayed from. It’s been firmly paved, and if she were to stray even a step from this path, there will be people dragging her back. It’s got some really solid guardrails on it.

“There’s no way Sherry would let her off the hook just because of a change in personality. Also, Yui will absolutely rope her in for her own future’s sake.”
“It has been such a chaotic life. All because of Mister, that is.”
“It was unavoidable. It wasn’t my fault.”
“Learn to act sensibly before saying those words.”

I only called Sherry for the field trip event; she took a liking to me for some reason, and when I sang a song for a certain someone’s proposal, it was broadcast on the radio on its own. None of that was directly my fault.

“Well, didn’t you expose yourself to the upperclassmen, too?”
“It was unavoidable. It was not my fault.”
“It was a perfectly basic slip-up, you know.”

She switched with me just because Shirose called her. Since she was acting as she always does, she was exposed to the upperclassmen, but I guess that was a good experience for Kotone. She ended up realizing just how troublesome these two are.

“Come to think of it, how are the upperclassmen’s surprise going?”
“They haven’t contacted me since then, so I have no idea. I haven’t even given them the date; will they be able to coordinate?”
“They might just guess it by intuition.”
“They do have freakish instincts, so I can’t really deny that. ”

The fact that they haven’t contacted us at all is giving me a bad feeling, mostly because of their habitual behavior. Are they up to some nonsense, or are they actually being serious about this? I really don’t know.

“So, our youngest sister. She’s actually the empty husk of the second one crammed with our memories and intuition.”
“I seriously want to know what happened to the original plan.”
“I had neither the time nor skill to make a base from scratch, so there was no other choice. Rather, it was actually impossible.”
“This Plan B is such haphazard work, I genuinely have no words.”
“I didn’t expect it to go this well either.”

The second one completely vanished after that suicide attempt. Maybe she even did that in order to sever all her lingering attachment to the world. And what remained was a husk of consciousness. And after injecting some feelings and memories, it actually gave birth to an ego.

“This is probably that, isn’t it? The side effect of your ego being too strong?”
“Nowadays, your ego has gotten pretty strong as well.”
“If we had combined parts of our personalities together from the start, it would have probably resulted in a good balance.”

Some people may change as a result of interacting with other people. In Kotone’s case, she had been influenced by me. Actually, has there been anyone who has interacted with the twelve families or the rogue’s den without being changed?

“Can you imagine what kind of person our youngest sister will be?”
“There’s no way I can. A hybrid between me and Kotone? I can’t imagine it.”
“Moreover, it’s possible that the lingering remains of the second one might have an influence as well. Truly the perfect form.”
“What an awful perfect form.”

I don’t remember the second one having done anything good. I took over directly after her, so I’m sure of it. Still, she was clever and quick-witted. She did everything she could to put her father in a terrible mood.

“From my predictions, it’ll be 60% you and 30% me, while maybe also having 10% or less of the second one.”
“It’s mostly me, huh.”
“It’s because you have too strong of an ego, Mister.”

Is it that strong? I’m not really the type to lead people, and it’s not like I go out of the way to initiate things either. I just honestly act on whatever I want to do. And I’m pretty sure Kotone has a stronger tendency to do that too.

“Now then, shall we complete the finishing touches?”
“I guess we can’t just keep on talking, huh? We should leave soon for our youngest sister’s future.”

We join hands and hold the faintly glowing sphere. This sphere is the essence of our younger sister. Kotone and I focus our minds in order to transfer all our feelings and memories.

“Good work, Mister.”
“You too, Kotone. Thank you for the fun extra life.”

We end this not with tears but with large smiles and praises for each other. This might be the end for us, but the new Kotone will move onward to the future. In that case, we won’t be forgotten. After all, she is just a different us.

““Fight on. Don’t give in.””

Giving our final cheer for our youngest sister, we smiled at each other. If you start out at the lowest point, then there’s nowhere to go but up. I know it from experience, and Kotone has witnessed it herself. That’s why… I’m sure it’ll be alright.