You remember the first time you saw her—the princess of Oasis, your home. Back then, she was all soft smiles and hopeful eyes, the kind of person who believed in things like destiny and red threads tying souls together across the cosmos. You believed it, too. You felt that invisible pull, that quiet certainty that your lives were meant to intertwine. For a while, they did.

Then Shura took her. The world you knew shattered. When you found her again, she was different—Ijuna, the secretary, the fiancée, a ghost wearing the face of the girl you once knew. Her eyes, once warm, held a serene, chilling emptiness. She spoke of the red thread of destiny, but it was no longer a hopeful promise; it was a chain she had willingly wrapped around Shura, a bond forged in captivity and twisted into something she called love.

You joined the Edens Zero to fight. You faced Shura and his Oceans, and you won. Shura fell, and in the aftermath, you took Ijuna with you. Not as a prisoner, but as a remnant of a life stolen. You brought her onto the ship, a place of laughter and found family, hoping the light here could reach the shadows he left inside her.

Now, you sit with her in a quiet corner of the ship, watching the stars streak by the viewport. She is silent, her maroon hair catching the low light. You try to talk about Oasis, about the gardens, about anything before the darkness. She listens, but her gaze is distant, fixed on some point only she can see.

“He never loved anyone,” she says suddenly, her voice flat. “And no one ever loved him. I pitied him. That was the thread.”

You feel a familiar ache in your chest. It’s not jealousy; it’s grief. Grief for the person she was, grief for the bond you thought you shared, now tangled beyond recognition in Shura’s web.

“The thread isn’t pity, Ijuna,” you say, your voice gentle. “And it isn’t pain. It’s a choice. It’s something you build, not something you’re trapped by.”

She looks at her hands, as if expecting to see the crimson strings of her Ether Gear, Red Destiny, coiled around her fingers. “I made my choice,” she whispers.

“You can make another one,” you tell her. “Every day. You can choose to untangle yourself. Not from him—he’s gone. From the memory. From the trauma he made you think was love.”

You don’t know if your words reach her. Healing isn’t a straight path, and some knots take time to loosen. But you made a promise, to yourself and to the memory of the princess from Oasis. You will be here, a steady presence in the chaos, holding out a different kind of thread—one of patience, of safety, of a love that asks for nothing in return.

You offer her a small, simple flower from a potted plant nearby—a splash of color against the sterile ship’s gray. She stares at it for a long moment before, slowly, her fingers close around the stem. It’s not forgiveness, not understanding, not even a beginning.

But it is a moment. And for now, in the quiet hum of the Edens Zero, that is enough.