Something terrible almost happened. To Snow, and to the world. Fortunately, Freia caught Snow at just the right moment as she was about to fall.

“Return? Can I… can I return? Without causing a calamity…?”

Snow asked, stumbling over her words. She had half given up since Freia had stopped her when she tried to put her hand in the pond. “Traces” of Freia still remained within her. As long as those remained, she thought returning to the other side would cause the painful events to repeat.

Though she had spoken hopefully to Elios about possibly returning someday, Snow herself had given up. Even if she did return, it would take a long time. Not by human standards, but by “God’s” standards. That’s what she had thought.

“Well. That’s why I’m saying you should check.”

“But how… Oh!”

Snow finally realized. Then she blamed her foolish head.

The future, she could look at the future. A more distant future.

If Snow appeared in other people’s futures, wouldn’t that mean she had returned and was with them?

“If I were you, I’d first check whether you can return or not, then look at other people’s futures. If you can return, that’s a future where you’re involved, so you can change it with your power. But if you can’t return during their lifetimes, it means you can’t be involved in their lives. The moment your hand touches the pond water, snow would fall again in the Empire.”

Though she gave advice, the choice was Snow’s. Freia watched warmly as determination entered Snow’s eyes.

“I want to see. I want to see what happens to me.”

The moment she wished it, the lake water began to swirl again. The sound of gurgling water could be heard. The lake water seemed about to overflow. Fearing her body might touch the lake water and negatively affect the world, Snow climbed onto a higher rock.

She stared intently into the chaotic images for a long time. Finally, Snow found the future she so desperately wanted.

As if she had just had a good night’s sleep, Snow in the pond opened her eyes to the sound of chirping birds. Elios was by her side. So that was Elios’s future.

Elios, who had been about to have his coming-of-age ceremony, who had been at the boundary between youth and boyhood, now had the complete appearance of an adult. She wasn’t sure how many years had passed. Elios was still by Snow’s side until then.

Snow said something to Elios, who couldn’t properly utter a word due to joy and surprise.

Elios rushed forward and embraced Snow. Snow had just gotten up but collapsed back onto the soft bed. Like someone who had been starving for days, Elios kissed the fallen Snow.

Snow, who had been eagerly examining the scene so as not to miss a single moment, hurriedly jumped from the rock to the grass when Elios kissed her. Snow ran to Freia and covered her eyes. Snow’s face turned bright red. Elios’s kiss was too passionate to show Freia.

Freia chuckled. Then a gentle breeze blew. Colorful wildflowers danced with the wind.

“It’s not like I haven’t seen it before, why are you so embarrassed?”

“Ah…? D-don’t tell me, even in the snow field, you saw everything?”

She felt like everything was going white. No matter how much Freia and Snow shared the same soul, embarrassment was still embarrassment. Freia just laughed a little louder. That was enough of an answer for Snow.

Freia knew Snow was embarrassed. She wanted to tease her a bit more but decided to change the subject for her sake.

“So, Snow, you need to decide what to do now. The future where you don’t return still exists too.”

Snow knew this as well. The future is just a possibility. It changes according to Snow’s actions. But for Snow, the answer was already decided.

“I will return. If I can return. Definitely. But I don’t know how, what I need to do now to return.”

“You probably don’t need to do anything. Snow, the reason you can’t jump into the pond right now is because of the ‘Freia’ traces remaining in your heart. But the real ‘Freia,’ me, has separated from you, and you’re no longer influenced by those traces, so their influence will gradually diminish over time.”

Of all the things that had happened to Snow in the past few days, this was by far the most hopeful. That it would resolve itself without her having to do anything. After crying so much, Snow felt like she might cry again. This time, tears of joy.

“Really? Will everything really be alright?”

“Yes. You just need to wish to return. But let’s make a promise.”

Freia held out her pinky finger. Snow, not knowing why, hooked her finger with Freia’s. If she could return, what was there to hesitate about? Besides, she was confident that this Freia wouldn’t make a harmful proposal to her. She was another self.

“When you go, this time truly shed all your powers as God. Even the minimal power to return to the Garden of Beginning. Become a real ‘person’ forever. So that this doesn’t happen again. So you don’t make the same mistake I did.”

“That…”

It wasn’t particularly difficult in itself. The fact that she had been God in the first place felt vague and unreal, like a dream. However, Snow was worried that Freia would be left alone here, just as God had been long ago.

“Freia, what about you? You have to stay here, don’t you?”

“Who says so?”

Freia casually retorted to Snow’s worried question.

“Being imprisoned for thousands of years is enough, don’t you think? I won’t stay here.”

How? Snow’s eyes seemed to ask. Freia smiled brightly.

“The moment we split into two, we became beings that can hardly be called God anymore. The moment you jump into this pond, you’ll become human again. Since you have a body to return to, you’ll go there, and I’ll just become an ordinary human soul without a body. At that point, our souls will truly exist separately.”

“Then, will you be reincarnated?”

Freia gently stroked the head of Snow who asked so innocently. How cute. Though they were similar in age at the time of death, Freia felt like Snow was a much younger sister.

“I might be reincarnated, or I might request eternal rest. I haven’t thought about that yet.”

“…I wish we could meet again.”

“We still have a long time before parting”, Freia said, but Snow became stubbornly gloomy. She thought it would be nice if Freia were reincarnated somewhere and they could meet again. But Snow knew that Freia was very tired. So she couldn’t make unreasonable demands. A meeting with a predetermined farewell was this sad.

Freia comforted Snow.

“Yes, yes. If our souls are truly perfectly split in two, I might be reincarnated in your era. Then, perhaps we really might meet again.”

Freia consoled Snow. No matter what anyone said, the two were soul mates. Now that they fully understood each other’s positions, they were the two most compatible people.

“But that’s far in the future. Snow, you haven’t been here long. Time here is different from time in the world. Just because Elios looked like only a few years had passed when you saw him wake up doesn’t mean it will really take only that long. You might be able to return right after a short while, or conversely, you might have to return after a very long time.”

The flow of time is different. Snow learned another new fact. It didn’t matter. As long as she was certain she could return someday, she could endure. Snow didn’t want to lose either the world beyond the pond or Freia here. So she said nothing.

“So, what will you do now?”

Freia asked.

“About what?”

“Now that you know you’ll return, will you look at other people’s futures? There’s not much else to do here anyway. Now you can know how to avoid dangers that might befall them by how you act.”

Snow pondered whether to look or not.

“If I don’t look at the future, what should I do to pass the time here until the fragments of Freia inside me completely disappear?”

Freia made a slightly troubled expression.

“Hmm. Well. Meditation…? Since we can’t sleep here, hmm… Since there are two of us, shall we play card games?”

“Card games…? When it might be years, or even decades?”

Freia nodded. Snow realized that whether to see the future or not wasn’t something she could choose. There wasn’t much else to do here to pass the time.

‘If I know the dangers, won’t I be able to avoid them in advance? I can be with them and help my precious people in dangerous moments.’

Snow decided to be a little brave.

From then on, the two of them, lying side by side, spent a very long time observing the pond water.

♣ ♣ ♣

In a remote corner of a distant fief far from the imperial capital Akelan, there stood an incongruously magnificent mansion. It looked so out of place amid the surrounding fields and paddies that it seemed as if the mansion alone had either sprouted from the ground or fallen from the sky.

Everyone in the fief knew how noble the person living in that mansion was. If asked to choose between the lord of the fief or the owner of this mansion, ten out of ten residents would choose the mansion’s owner.

The person living in that mansion was the former Emperor. Someone higher than the heavens and more noble than any jewel.

Today, soldiers surrounded the large mansion in several layers, guarding it. This was because His Majesty the Emperor himself was visiting the mansion. The people of this fief were seeing the Emperor’s procession, something difficult to see even once in a lifetime, for the third time this year. This was an extraordinary event.