"Even if humanity was crying out for death, I won’t let Her reach them—"
His grip on his clipboard tightened.
She was talking about herself like she was already gone.
The factors were all there. The hints, the implications, the way she carried herself—like someone who had already reached their end and had made peace with it.
He didn’t want to make assumptions. He couldn’t.
Because if he was right, if he acknowledged what was clawing at the edge of his mind, then what did that mean? That he was talking to a ghost? A lingering cognition left behind in the wake of something tragic? A memory?
A lump formed in his throat.
Maruki tucked the thought away, quickly, methodically—like pressing down a loose page in a book before the wind could carry it away. His own psyche was already a fragile enough thing. He wasn’t going to risk unraveling it further.
Instead, he exhaled quietly, carefully choosing his next words.
“…I don’t know your circumstances,” he admitted, his voice measured. “I don’t know what your timeline, your world, particularly looks like in the way you may have experienced it. But I do know that you’ve made an impact. Just by existing.”
His gaze softened, his sincerity pressing against the weight of her words.
“I believe that each and every person is a miracle in this world, Hamuko-san.”
It wasn’t just something he told his patients. He believed it. People were born into circumstances beyond their control, shaped by joys and tragedies alike, but their very existence was a defiance of the impossible.
Maruki hesitated for a beat before continuing. “And while I won’t pry into what you’ve been through… I can say that there are people out there who are striving to fix society now. People who have devoted themselves to their cause, to sort out Humanity's old habits of self-destruction, to studying cognition, to understanding the mind’s influence on reality.”
He offered a small, almost wistful smile.
“People like me, hopefully.”
Morning believed in it too. Right?
Because if cognition could shape the world, if reality could be rewritten—then maybe, just maybe, they could create a world where despair didn’t have to linger.
He just...needed to perfect the method. The answer must have been somewhere simply lingering in his mind but he will do it. No matter what it takes.
no subject
"Even if humanity was crying out for death, I won’t let Her reach them—"
His grip on his clipboard tightened.
She was talking about herself like she was already gone.
The factors were all there. The hints, the implications, the way she carried herself—like someone who had already reached their end and had made peace with it.
He didn’t want to make assumptions. He couldn’t.
Because if he was right, if he acknowledged what was clawing at the edge of his mind, then what did that mean? That he was talking to a ghost? A lingering cognition left behind in the wake of something tragic? A memory?
A lump formed in his throat.
Maruki tucked the thought away, quickly, methodically—like pressing down a loose page in a book before the wind could carry it away. His own psyche was already a fragile enough thing. He wasn’t going to risk unraveling it further.
Instead, he exhaled quietly, carefully choosing his next words.
“…I don’t know your circumstances,” he admitted, his voice measured. “I don’t know what your timeline, your world, particularly looks like in the way you may have experienced it. But I do know that you’ve made an impact. Just by existing.”
His gaze softened, his sincerity pressing against the weight of her words.
“I believe that each and every person is a miracle in this world, Hamuko-san.”
It wasn’t just something he told his patients. He believed it. People were born into circumstances beyond their control, shaped by joys and tragedies alike, but their very existence was a defiance of the impossible.
Maruki hesitated for a beat before continuing. “And while I won’t pry into what you’ve been through… I can say that there are people out there who are striving to fix society now. People who have devoted themselves to their cause, to sort out Humanity's old habits of self-destruction, to studying cognition, to understanding the mind’s influence on reality.”
He offered a small, almost wistful smile.
“People like me, hopefully.”
Morning believed in it too. Right?Because if cognition could shape the world, if reality could be rewritten—then maybe, just maybe, they could create a world where despair didn’t have to linger.
He just...needed to perfect the method. The answer must have been somewhere simply lingering in his mind but he will do it. No matter what it takes.