(Ceruno)
Deep within the Consciousness Ocean.
"It looks like Aldebaran's plan is inevitable. Neither Enheria nor Zodiacal objected... doesn't that mean there's no..."
At the time, I was still crammed together with Miss Terra.
Or rather, pinned beneath her Bubble Membrane...
No other consciousness would take the initiative to talk to me the way she did.
It wasn't that the other individual consciousnesses were particularly cold. It was just that, after merging once, all our experiences and thoughts were laid bare to one another. A primitive form of communication like "conversation" seemed crude and redundant instead.
Still, I wouldn't go out of my way to look through the other consciousnesses' personal experiences.
Although I was curious about the age of dinosaurs, I had never peeked at even Miss Terra's experiences...
"Anyway, these witches and magical girls carving out a new world on the moon and building Peachblossom Haven is pretty much set in stone. More importantly, the Proxy still doesn't know the Earth Crystal plans to absorb her, does she?"
"Nope. Even our Simulacrum Personalities don't know."
"It feels like we're deceiving her..."
She was still me after Witchification, after all, and deceiving myself weighed on my conscience. Besides, she was very close to Miluno's other half. If the Earth Crystal absorbed her too, Miluno would take a terrible blow.
"Sigh... isn't there any way to change the Earth Crystal's mind?"
During our previous merged deliberations, part of my consciousness had remained independent, allowing me to influence the direction of the Earth Crystal's decisions to some extent, like a voice-over...
But that hadn't worked this time.
It was absolutely adamant. Nothing I said made any difference...
After all, absorbing the Proxy really would benefit the Earth Crystal.
"Don't worry. Since the Earth Crystal decided to wait until the dust settles,