In the deepest reaches of the pitch-black consciousness.
Lynn kept diving deeper. Along the way, he had already passed through one point of light after another, each representing an illusory realm of memory.
Each point of light represented one of her most profound memories, from the battle against the God of Ten Thousand Machines in Curse City to her first meeting with him. Further back were records of the little moments of her life in Doll Manor. Yet from their first meeting backward, every memory betrayed a certain numbness.
He could sense no feelings from those times, not even the slightest emotion.
Sometimes, he could see her sisters laughing and chatting in those memories, see their lively gatherings and the scenes of them fighting side by side.
But in her eyes, everything seemed shrouded in a grayish-white haze.
She always sat alone in some corner far from the crowd.
Quietly holding a book.
Sometimes, she went years without saying a single word.
Lynn had seen plenty of icy girls, but Black String Moon was truly nothing like them. She was not pretending to be aloof. Rather, her life seemed to have never contained warmth, intimacy, joy, or anger in the first place. Throughout those long, long years, she had truly resembled a lifeless doll.
She lived like an inanimate object.
Without feeling, without fluctuation, without a single ripple.
His mother said she had no heart, and her sisters said the same. But Lynn did not believe that. If she truly had no heart, how could she have changed afterward? How could she have shown those traces of flesh and blood a month ago?
Lynn clenched his teeth and quickened his descent.
She had merely hidden her heart away.
Or rather.
Something had hidden her true heart in this darkness, something