The slightly mischievous whisper faded away, and Ritsuka slowly opened her eyes.
She had been expecting a romantic candlelight dinner or a room overflowing with roses. She wouldn't have been surprised if a giant red robot had appeared either.
However, the moment her retinas adjusted to the room's light and she saw the object suddenly materializing in the center of the room—emitting a soft halo of light—her brain went completely blank.
It was a vehicle.
It featured a retro-style open cockpit, a wooden floor, three round control balls, and extremely primitive-looking control levers. Right in front of it was a massive black void the size of a clock face, slowly rotating and radiating a deep, mysterious aura.
This design… this color scheme… this sense of déjà vu…
"Huh…?"
Ritsuka blinked, then blinked again.
She pointed at it, her fingertip trembling slightly. After her lips quivered for a long moment, she finally uttered the name that had held absolute presence in her childhood memories.
"Isn't this… isn't this a time machine?!"
"Yes, this is a time machine."
Steve nodded calmly and reached out to lightly tap the cheap-looking plastic outer shell which was actually a futuristic polymer material, producing a "bang" sound. "Its official name is the Spacetime Leap Device, but calling it a time machine isn't wrong."
"After all, in my world line, this is a well-known form of civilian transportation."
"No, no, no! That's not the point!"
Ritsuka finally rediscovered her inner tsukkomi role. She clutched her head with both hands and stared at Steve with an incredulous expression. "Why does it look like this?! It's exactly like the gadget from that anime with the blue cat-shaped robot!!"
"Steve, are you serious? Does this thing actually work? If I sit down, won't a drawer suddenly slam shut and trap me?!"
"Haha, don't get so excited, Ritsuka."
Steve smiled and waved his hand. "It's a bit… well, it's an homage to the classics."
"But its essence is genuine future technology."
"Simply put, think of it as a portable single-seater terminal for the Rayshift system."
"Rayshift… system?"
Ritsuka faltered for a moment.
"That's correct."
Steve dropped his joking expression and began explaining patiently. "The spiritron transfer system used by your Chaldea basically converts humans into spiritron data and projects them to a point in the past."
"In a sense, it is a form of time travel."
"Now that 21st-century humanity has already mastered the prototype of this technology, just imagine what it would become in the distant future—after it has been thoroughly analyzed, optimized, and miniaturized."
He pointed at the machine before them.
"And that's it."
"No need for a massive Chaldea sphere, a complicated control room, or mystical observation equipment to prove its existence."
"With just one machine like this, anyone can freely travel through the flow of time as easily as going for a drive."
"This is… the future of spiritron transfer…"
Ritsuka stared at the seemingly simple machine, and a look of astonishment gradually filled her eyes.
It might look comical at first glance, but if what Steve said was true, the technology this machine represented would surpass even the Atlas Institute's by several millennia.
However, at that moment, another question popped into her head.
"But… Steve."
"If you just wanted to time travel, why not use Chaldea's system? Da Vinci and Sion would surely be happy to help…"
"That's a good question."
Steve snapped his fingers. "Chaldea's system is indeed excellent, but it has a fatal flaw. It can only travel to specific points in the past."
"The past is history that has already occurred—records etched in stone."
"While anomalies like Singularities exist, the coordinates are generally clear."
"However, the future is different."
Steve's gaze deepened. "The future is fluid, uncertain, chaotic, and filled with countless divergences of possibility."
"Traveling to the future is far more difficult than returning to the past."
"Do you remember? In the Singularity known as the SE.RA.PH, to reach the future of 2030, we barely managed to pinpoint that point by borrowing the power of BB, who held advanced AI authority."
Ritsuka nodded. That experience had left a deep impression on her.
"Now, I'm going to take you there…"
Steve turned around, gazing at the black spacetime vortex, and spoke in a low, solemn voice.
"Not 2030. Not 3020."
"But something much farther away, far more magnificent… the future, approximately one billion years from now."
"One billion years?!"
Ritsuka gasped, as if her brain couldn't properly process the scene before her.
One billion years? What on earth did that mean?
It was a span of time so vast it defied description even by the flow of ages—a time when even the sun itself would have aged into its twilight.
"Yes, one billion years."
Steve turned to face her and extended his hand.
His hand was ungloved; the lines on his palm were clearly visible, radiating a reassuring warmth.
"That place is my homeland, and at the same time, the final destination I reached as a human."
"Ritsuka, I want you to see it."
"Look at that… humanity did not perish or go extinct. We overcame countless disasters and finally set sail into the sea of stars together with this planet… It's a breathtaking sight."
"Come on—this is our private elopement spanning one billion years."
Ritsuka looked at his hand, then at Steve's eyes, which were filled with sincerity and anticipation.
Fear? Of course.
It was the instinctive fear of the unknown.
But stronger than fear was trust.
It was the absolute trust built over many years from the countless miracles this man had performed for her.
"…Um."
Ritsuka took a deep breath, and a bright smile bloomed on her face.
She reached out and firmly grasped Steve's hand.
"Steve, please take me there."
"Let's go see the future you truly love."
"Yes, Master."
Steve smiled lightly and pulled her into the passenger seat of the time machine.
"Hold on tight! We're departing soon!"
When Steve forcefully pulled down the retro control lever, a faint "humming" sound came from the time machine.
Immediately after, the black vortex suddenly expanded and swallowed the entire room in an instant.
Weightlessness struck instantly.
Ritsuka felt as if she had turned into a feather, floating in an endless void.
The surroundings were no longer the familiar Chaldea corridors but a bizarre tunnel filled with vibrant colors and strange lights.
Countless enormous, distorted clock faces sped past them at terrifying speed, their hands spinning wildly and producing an inaudible yet soul-shaking tick-tock.
It was the embodiment of time itself.
Streaks of multicolored light danced like auroras, each streak seemingly glittering with countless images—humanity's history, the past, the present, and innumerable possible futures.
"It's amazing…"
Ritsuka gripped the time machine's handrail tightly, eyes wide open, completely stunned and speechless at the sight before her.
This was ten thousand times more spectacular and ten thousand times more real than the abstract data streams she had seen during spiritron transfers.
"Don't blink, Ritsuka."
Steve operated the control levers with a calm demeanor. His usual playfulness had vanished, replaced by a solemnity akin to reverence and a touch of nostalgia on his face. "We are about to cross the walls of time."
"Every single second we are experiencing now traces the flow of tens of thousands of years."
The time machine raced through the colorful torrent.
Ahead, where there had once been deep darkness, a single point of light gradually appeared.
The spot of light grew larger and brighter, eventually transforming into a pure white curtain of light that filled Ritsuka's entire field of vision.
"We're almost there."
Even amid the sound of rushing wind, Steve's voice came through with surprising clarity.
"Are you ready, Ritsuka?"
"This is… Earth, one billion years from now."
The moment the time machine plunged into the white light, all colors and sounds vanished.
Only pure whiteness remained—and the distant future's truth that was about to be revealed.
…
…
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