I Just Like You the Way You Are

"Huh?" Before Sera could process what was happening, Ruan Mei had already closed the door.

"What was that about?" Sera was out of options.

"Sigh..." Sera shook his head, his golden eyes full of resignation.

Sera pushed open the door.

"Cyrene, I'm home."

The room was pitch-black.

"The lights aren't on?" Sera walked over to the switch and turned them on.

Bang! A party popper burst over Sera's head.

"Happy birthday, little Sera~" Cyrene held up the party popper.

"Mm." Sera wasn't very surprised. Every year on his birthday, Cyrene hid in the room to give him a surprise.

Sera had only been puzzled because he'd been so busy today that he was a little tired.

Even so, Sera looked at Cyrene with gentle eyes.

"You look good like this too, though it's quite different from your usual style." Cyrene looked Sera over, showing no surprise.

"Rather, this is my true form."

That was true. Sera hadn't become a Herrscher later in life; his body had been under the Cocoon's gaze since its birth.

"All right, enough about that." Cyrene took Sera's hand and led him to the middle of the living room.

A cake sat on the table, its candles still unlit.

"I bought it at the cake shop. The owner said it's an ice cream cake, and it's very popular with students~"

"Light the candles and make a wish."

"..." Sera lit the candles, but he didn't blow them out for a long time. He didn't have any wishes.

"What's wrong? Don't know what to wish for?"

Cyrene held her hands behind her back, seeing Sera's confusion.

"Mm, I don't have any wishes. I used to just want to lie flat, but after everything I've been through, I don't think that way anymore."

"You've been working so hard to save Amphoreus all this time. Thank you for all your effort."

Cyrene reached out and pulled Sera into her arms, patting his head.

"No, I just have the ability, and I've only been studying so I can make good use of this authority."

Sera denied it. He didn't think he had been studying just for Amphoreus. He had merely seized authority over Amphoreus along the way as he studied. To him, it was a game of clearing stages.

The only difference was that the final reward for clearing this game was the rebirth of Amphoreus.

Honestly, if Sera had fought one-ninth of Zandar for authority, even though the data world was his home turf,

in the end, the scale of his output would still have dragged things out until Iron Tomb was born. His original plan had been to unleash Honkai after seizing some authority over Amphoreus, so that he could obtain a core.

He still had his core, so how could he obtain one through Honkai? And with him occupied inside Amphoreus at the time, how could he possibly have run off into the starry sky?

"Even if you weren't working to save the world, you're already the savior of Amphoreus, and my savior too."

Cyrene met Sera's eyes as she held him, her gaze impossible for him to describe. Was it love, or something else? Sera didn't know.

But if it were only love, he wouldn't have failed to recognize it.

"I'm not the savior of Amphoreus," Sera seriously denied.

"I've never thought of myself that way, and I won't become one. The savior of Amphoreus can only be all the people of Amphoreus." Sera paused, silently excluding Canis and some of the elders from the ranks of the people of Amphoreus.

"All I did was leave them a key. Whether they can use it to fight the black tide is up to them."

Sera had unleashed Honkai upon Amphoreus. As long as the people were willing to seize power from the gods and take back the areas covered by the black tide, his authority would gradually increase.

Before leaving, Sera had told Anaxa about it. He had also introduced Phainon to him, and he believed Little Bai had already been seized by Anaxa and taken to the Grove of Epiphany by now.

Once things at the Dual-Phase Paradise were over, Sera would return to Amphoreus and pull Cerydra and Hysilens out to fight the black tide.

"But little Sera didn't deny being my savior~" Cyrene smiled.

"Mm... I want to save Cyrene."

"Then is it me you want to save, or the Cyrene you once liked?"

"You're the one I like, so you're also the one I want to save." Sera paid no mind to what Cyrene's question meant. He was simply telling her how much he liked her.

"Little Sera, aren't you curious?"

"I am, but I know you're more important than the answer."

Sera didn't hesitate in the slightest.

"All right~" The smile on Cyrene's face grew brighter. "Have you thought of a wish now, little Sera?"

"Of course." Sera sat up straight and blew out the candles.

"My wish is to know whether I saved Cyrene."

Cyrene's cause and effect ran from the future to the past, becoming her own starting point.

Just as her prophecy in the story said: "You shall reach the end when the flowers bloom, just as the end gives birth to the beginning."

Cyrene's birth was the effect, missing its future cause. Even if Iron Tomb was no longer a threat, Cyrene's cause and effect remained incomplete.

If the cause and effect couldn't be completed, Cyrene couldn't be said to have been born.

The way Cyrene seemed to know everything, along with her question just now, all pointed to a fact Sera couldn't accept. Back on Amphoreus, Cyrene hadn't said Sera had succeeded. Instead, she had avoided the question.

Cyrene had already embarked on the cycle, and the future Sera had shown her his memories, including those from before he transmigrated.

"Little Sera, if you say your wish out loud, it won't come true."

"Then will Cyrene make this wish come true for me?"

"I will." Cyrene answered Sera softly.

"Little Sera saved me."

"..." Sera frowned.

Cyrene had clearly already returned from the future to the past, so why did she say he had succeeded?

"Don't look so worried on your birthday. You don't need to think too much about it now. Leave it to the future."

Cyrene cut a slice of cake and handed it to Sera.

"Isn't sweet food your favorite, little Sera? Hurry and eat it, or the ice cream cake will melt."

Sera took the cake, but he didn't take a bite for a long time.

Demiurge, the heart of Amphoreus.

It was also Cyrene's cause.

Cyrene was also the cause of Demiurge.

Sera felt that he seemed to have some ideas.

"Now then." Cyrene covered Sera's eyes with both hands.

"Little Sera, can you guess what birthday present I prepared?"

"The answer is... me."

Sera suddenly froze. He had realized that Cyrene's body wasn't made of Memoria, as he had sensed when she had just left Amphoreus, but was a real, physical body.

"How did you... get a physical body?"

"What?!" Cyrene pouted. "At a time like this, little Sera actually asks a question like that! You really don't know how to be romantic."

"Ah... um..." Sera felt awkward. He had been so curious that he had asked without thinking.

"But that's just the way I like you."