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“Phainon of Aedes Elysiae, what is your dream?”
The past suddenly echoed in his mind like a stone dropped into still water, ripples spreading outward through his consciousness.
Anaxa had asked it before, in the classroom where dust motes danced in sunlight filtering through the canopy. That day, Phainon had given him an answer—heroes, what a proper… utterly predictable response. The answer that he had heard a thousand times before, dreams wrapped in others’ hopes that revealed what everyone expected, but nothing of the speaker’s true heart. He also remembered those eyes… Blue sky, flickering only for a moment, but enough for him to notice. The white-haired young man had wanted to say something else entirely—something true to himself.
In the past, his student had seemed to lack courage. now, before he had even noticed the change, Phainon, who stood before him in this miracle encounter appeared to have matured considerably. His blue eyes seemed to tell of hardships their owner had endured—But what remained after long night of suffering was either nothing at all, or the self so pure that could no longer be hidden.
Thus, to celebrate their encounter, he once asked again their parting question..
“Phainon of Aedes Elysiae,” Anaxa said, “What is your dream?”
Aedes Elysiae.. the hidden corner of this blessed world which had been only existed in his heart, here Phainon stood by.
“Huh..?”
Was the light before his eyes a real one or only a mere dream? His hand reached out to it, as if wanted to grasp and hold it closer to prove that this wasn’t the illusion created by someone else. Well… I should have known myself that this childhood memory now no more, then this person who was dear to me might be one of my best imaginations I had created in my mind this far.
Then why, his mentor asked such an unexpected question, wasn’t this only the brain in a vat he fully gained control over it? Even things seem real, nothing left for him was real, surely, no more Era Nova, no more “Vita Nova” likewise, at the doomed Aedes Elysiae’s golden field.
Actually, this was the very first question this certain someone asked him among his fellow classmates, but it was long gone in his memories.
“My dream..?”
Shouldn’t he be more confident about this simple answer, after all this time, shouldn’t it always be “the Deliverer” or simply “hero” he wanted to dream of?
The younger one’s blue eyes lowered his gaze to the ground, as if wanted to buried himself away and be silent, avoiding the wiser one’s sharp vision forever ..so this feeling of fear and trembling could be ignored by the whole world—no one, not a single soul, ever wanted to face this ugly truth that their “hero”, or “deliverer” was only a coward and unstable one, so in quest of morrow glory.. he must burn away all useless weaknesses.
Anaxa’s expression softened almost imperceptibly as he observed the tremor in his student’s hands, the way the young man’s shoulders unconsciously drew inward as if seeking shelter from an invisible storm.
“…Tsk.”
The sound escaped him before he could stop it, softer than he’d intended, carried more disappointment than anger, like a gardener sighing over a wilting plant.
“What kind of response was that?”
His voice stayed steady, but beneath it ran a quiet patience. “Are you under the delusion that I’m merely some convenient mirage you can… dismiss with downcast eyes and trembling silence?“
Then Anaxa took a step forward, his movement deliberate but unhurried, not to intimidate, but to bridge the invisible distance that silence had created.
“No, even if I am nothing more than the voice of your own conscience given form, does that diminish the weight of what I ask? A mirror doesn’t become less truthful because it reflects what you’d rather not see.”
His gaze remain sharp, but there was no cruelty in it—only unwavering focus.
“Stop hiding behind that wounded look.” A pause, and when he spoke again, His tone softened, just slightly, like sunlight filtering through storm clouds “I’m not asking to watch you stumble. I’m asking because I believe you have an answer worth hearing.”
The golden light of Aedes Elysiae seemed to hold its breath around them, the eternal field stretching endlessly in all directions, patient as time itself.
But Anaxa’s patience, while sufficient, was not infinite—and perhaps that was what his student needed to understand.
Alas, this imaginary teacher was still as sharp as a silver knife piercing through Phainon’s heart, ripping apart the entire closed world which was coated with the Aedes Elysiae’s beautiful, safe, and warm scenery. Since there was no great comfort for such a person except the image in their own head—a personal and individual space separated from all eyes.
I thought I could flee from all to this place all alone, so no one could ever find the childish me here.
The best, safest realm existed only in my illusion; now nothing could be hidden here before the person whose name was Anaxagoras, the Great Performer, the Blasphemer, and the Foolish, they called. Ironically, he was the wisest fool I had met under the blessed sky of Kephale ever.
“Haha..my dearest, wisest Professor Anaxa,” said the Phainon of Aedes Elysiae,
“Even your words could be as powerful as the hammer striking on every other before you, and that should cause me to firmly dare speaking something to bore you not..”
He conveyed his sincere gratitude and respect to the older, though he remembered well that it might provoke his teacher’s nerves instead. At this moment, the woeful eyes shifted from the ground to the only person who pierced through from the outside world and showed his existence in his mind; whatever happened.. he knew this well—he was no longer expecting anything alive here to come out and be his companion like a generous miracle cast by some gods above.
“If you were a real human living in the land of Okhema, then my answer would be that same boring answer you had criticised.” Finally, for the first time, he was awake inside this dream; Phainon of Aedes Elysiae smiled softly, gently, and bitterly.
“Yes. I have always wanted to be the hero who carried all hopes, for that was the duty of the warrior named Phainon everyone kindly planting inside me.” Because here, where Phainon stood still, was no more than a mere dream of the many millions of dreams he had, then being truthful—imperfectly to himself—would be more or less difficult to voice out.
“And.. maybe no, as I have already forgotten my very first answer for this question. I hope you won’t mind me, since now your proud disciple is too dull to answer you vividly..”
Anaxa’s expression tightened almost imperceptibly at the name—Anaxa. Though his gaze remained steady, his lips thinned with restrained disapproval.
Then he spoke—
“First,” he said, the corners of his mouth twitching—not in amusement, but with irritation honed by long practice, “it’s Anaxagoras to you. Not Anaxa.”
Then his eyes, unwavering, settled fully on the young man before him “And tell me—since when did you confuse the weight of others’ expectations for your own dream?” He gave a short, quiet scoff. “Don’t make me laugh.”
“That is no dream. It is a burden you chose, born not of love for others, but from hatred toward one’s own self, disguises itself in noble robes. ‘A savior,’? No, a scapegoat in costume.”
The corner of Anaxa’s mouth curved—not into a smile, but into something smaller, tighter.
—Bitterness, maybe. A sliver of contempt, not directly for Phainon, but for the delusion he had embraced.
He tilted his head slightly, studying his former student. “Your dream need not please others, nor make sense to them. It need only be yours—chosen, claimed, even if spoken with a trembling voice. ‘This is mine. This is what [I] choose.’ That alone makes it true.”
Then, after a short silence, he snorted. “Tch. How tedious… Even that dull answer you gave me once—that one had more truth than this.”
“…”
Those blue eyes fell to the wheat field beside his shiny armour once more, lost their focus, like every star had fallen down from the sky and left only a blank canvas—yet not the same marvellous “blank paper” his mentor once spoke thus, but only a vast no-man's-land where all living beings had fled away from its deadly, seemingly fresh air, like a clear puddle that no breaths of life were allowed near, and even the golden light also ceased to exist in these lone sights.
“If you agreed with my silly statements, then you wouldn’t be the Professor Anaxa I had remembered.” Phainon breathlessly whispered with a soft smile as the nostalgic feeling rushed into his childish heart.
“Umm…. Scapegoat? Haha.. what a brilliant phrase you chose for me. However, just to be fair, Professor Anaxa, aren’t we born to take this burden from the very beginning? ‘To love others’ is the burden we embrace with all one’s might, even if it could possibly destroy us all—human beings who have no ill intention would desire to hold everything dearly and protect them all, just for the sake of one’s own happiness and the reason to endure all hardships, isn’t it right?“
“Then… no saint or saviour's acts needed to be done, but only a good and kind will of a mortal, who wants to cherish everything in their life.. this feeling is what lingering on..”
He saw his guidance under the long-lost sunlight of Aedes Elysiae, as the lifeless wasteland now emerged a new habitant; the only warm and satisfied presence appeared in this golden field.
“Ah, I still couldn’t find the best answer for myself yet.. but—“ His clear, blue eyes shone as if he just took them out and polished those gems to bring life back into those eyes.
Since a mortal yearned for a company desperately, he was no exception as well. The student, who was strangely insecure of the outside world, decided to reach out his hand forwards to his kindest teacher, the only person who ripped his precious, personal realm apart and stood there before him, interrupted the peaceful silence in his own dream.
“…I hope you would accompany me till that moment.. Is that possible?”
Since you are here, then you should know well that this is your responsibility, right..? Professor? —His keen mind unconsciously flooded with some hopeful yet cunning words while his hand still remained steady, unlike his trembling postures just now.
The mint-haired scholar lowered his gaze, just slightly—- One might say he knew his student all too well. The rhetorical tactics he had once drilled into that young man had, it seemed, circled back to bite him in turn
“Tch, You truly never change.. Still so skilled at bending words to suit your cause. Slippery as ever, Phainon of Aedes Elysiae”
Anaxa remarked with a touch of dry mockery. His arms crossed in a manner that suggested irritation, but there was no true harshness in him. His posture was rigid, but his pale eyes remained calm—soft, even. There was still a strange gentleness in him, the kind that lingers in those who have long abandoned hope of being understood.
“But when one dares to love all and protect all,” he began, “he invites his own destruction—crushed beneath the unbearable gravity of his ideals, forgot to save himself. At that point, the burden no longer shines with nobility; it rots into delusion.”
As he spoke, he watched the boy [young man] before him. The eyes, those same unguarded, sky-colored eyes—burned with a longing unchanged since the day they’d first met. The childish desire hide in those azure eyes was still there. It’s as if time had brushed past him, but left no wound in some place of his soul. How absurd. How foolishly young he still was…
How unconsciously arrogance of him…
“I will not promise to accompany you,” he declared with that same unwavering tone that had once silenced classrooms “I’ve no intention of shepherding my student, even you, to the very ends of his journey.”
He tilted his head, slightly. “You’ve grown your own thoughts now. Everything I have ever taught you—if you remember it well— should be enough to guide you forward.”
Then, silence. Not the silence of uncertainty, but of resistance—of something held back. He exhaled, slow and quiet, and allowed himself the smallest concession.
“…But if what you need is merely a companion for part of the road— then it’s happens that I’m in need of a research assistant too.”
Not daring enough to touch his beloved teacher, for fear that this presence would vanish at his touch and leave only the empty field as always..Phainon of Aedes Elysiae merely stretched out his arm to cover another man behind his back without touching him, —as if he tried to bring the most precious illusion closer to himself.
“You’re generous as always to have me by your side; I apologise..really.. for not having enough strength to walk alone at this moment. Well… If I can accompany your lifelong research, I hope you will also teach me about your marvellous experience more too.“
“Ah, it would be nice if I could assist and be your hands on this project.. yet, my own ‘research topic’ has been related to this fateful world we live in too. I will eventually grow my own understanding from the seeds you have sown before we reach the end of this dice game.”
His eyes showed, somehow, the sorrowful sight, yet reflected the only light that he had left. The great hubris of this young warrior simply couldn’t hide itself; the vast void beneath his eyes helplessly devoured the entire starry sky of this certain someone to brighten up its lone twilight once more.
“Um, anyway, I’m glad that you are here, Prof. Anaxa!” His voice was filled with joy. “I have been waiting for someone.. to appear in this promising journey for too long.” He said with his gentle smile, the eyes once unfolded his long-lost comets [tears] among the dim clouds silently.
Anaxa, who visibly irritated by the white-haired young man’s hesitation, seized Phainon’s hand with sudden force, dragging it toward himself. He wielded surprise like a weapon, to seize the moment, to bend it, as if to say: Look at me. Now.
“Uh—?!”
“Stop acting like I’m just some illusion of yours. it’s insulting,” Anaxa said, his voice sharp with irritation.
“And if you have accepted my offer, as I assume you have. Then your first task is to stop behaving so tragically. Tch, it’s already an eyesore.”
His words were as harsh as ever, and his pale-colored eye seemed to pierce through to the very core of this long-lost hero; catching, in a single glance, the weight of his solitude.
“What you should do is laugh. Accept your failures with a joyous smile. Be thankful for it, Treat your journey as a lesson learned and use it to pave the way forward, with ever growing confidence. That’s all.”
Anaxa spoke plainly, with his usual unwavering tone. This was how, even in the truth seeking journey that constantly robbed him of everything, the scholar continued forward unflinchingly. Fear, pain, and suffering had never chained him to the ground. On the contrary; they lifted him higher, toward the truth he tirelessly sought.
How—?
With the abrupt touch of this miraculous, yet fleshly being [anomaly], which was full of such vitality and warmth, the damned, so-called “Deliverer” [child]’s mortal tears [lacrimae] were brought back to life once again.
Even he was nearly not shattered by endless acts [Eternal Recurrences] of tearing down the spaces and times of Amphoreus [Experiment Ground] times after times, but the very touch of this certain someone who should not exist here anymore shattered his lonely heart into the most dangerous state of his longstanding endurance [pains]. As if this warm hand could ruin everything [illusions] that he had fought to cling onto since he was fated [programmed] to become the only person who could chase [operate] the longest, tragic trail [experiment].
Phainon of Aedes Elysiae was unable to control the violent stream of overwhelming emotions in his eyes, which was wildly terrifying to witness another presence—how could this happen? How could this Anaxagoras actually exist in the Aedes Elysiae’s golden field?
How could this hand possibly have come into contact with his? How could the alleged illusion appear to be strong enough to hold? How.. How could this person be so vividly to his blurry vision?
His eyes bloomed with confused yet miserable tears while reflecting the shiny ruby dwelling in Anaxa’s pupil. The taller man completely lost all composure—without answering the sarcastic [uncompromising] instructions, his free, yet trembling hand unconsciously embraced the other man’s, bringing the hand with the golden blood pulsating and flowing in to touch his face as if wanted to prove that this hand was not a shadow of his illusion.
He adored and carefully covered the warm skin of his long-lost mentor as gently as possible as his bitter tears rose from his wounded eyes. Surely, even this heartless [cold] warrior became a mere child when he confronted the warmth of another human being [love].
He should not act so tragically towards both himself he determined to feel no more—and this Professor Anaxa, who had just advised him to cease behaving in agony like this.
He could not even bring himself to apologise for his careless and disrespectful behaviour.
Thus—weeping was the most typical way to deliver the proof that we had fallen on earth as mere mortals—not to endure all suffering, but to live on nourishing our own humanity [passion].
“……?”
……?
Why on earth is this man-child crying after I tried to comfort him?!
Anaxa stared in confusion at the other’s trembling arms. Phainon’s sudden outburst had caught him completely off guard. For a moment, he felt utterly at a loss.
For Anaxagoras, who had walked this far alone—the art of human connection had never been his proficiency. Though his mind could analyze and decipher the intricacies of human behavior or even offering others what might pass as sound guidance, he—being human all the same, often found himself faltering at the threshold of genuine interaction. Moments arose when he simply did not know how to act. In those moments, silence often became his only answer.
Human, after all, are the most intricately paradoxical beings in this world.
Yet even in that helplessness, he had no intention of revealing his confusion to Phainon.
Without a word, He quietly rosed his palms to brush away the hero’s shameless
tears in silence, offering compassion with a gaze that had softened, though he himself hadn’t noticed.
“Stop it already, didn’t I told you to quit acting so tragically?” He asked, not as a command, but with a tone that hovered somewhere between slightly teasing and tired affection.
“Well, I do understand why, of course. I warned you, didn’t I? That trying to save the world blindly would cost you dearly [hamartia]. And now, here you are—paying it price.” He tilted his head slightly, eyes narrowing with some thought hardly visible to others.
“But then, you were always my most exceptional student. Even if we’re fated to walk separate paths, your stubbornness is… remarkable from the very beginning. Glorious, in that self-destructive way.”
He let out a breath, half a sigh, half a laugh.
“At least you can still cry. Still savor the exquisite bitterness of mortal suffering. Well done… I suppose.”
Either the world Phainon had tried endlessly to save or the golden field preciously preserved for his own secret hideout, all waned before the warm hands of his teacher.
Nothing was longer important than the very fact that this tragic [selfish] hero had craved for someone [companion] only to exist and embrace all of his failures [hamartia]. Precisely, if I had [dared] to choose the path of being true to my own self..
Shall Professor Anaxa, Lady Aglaea, and even everyone who fuelled their lives to shine through my path forgive me if the so-called Worldbearer [Saviour] abandons the whole world for a moment.. a short moment to act greedily.. just to bath himself in this gentle comfort?
As another presence’s warm fingers touched across his pale skin, his eyebrows bent with complex expressions [angoisse] as he could not control his breath and tears; every past experience [Gethsemane] and expectation were unspeakable, inexpressible, and undefinable—for the young man who wished to carry everything on his shoulders with agony. The bitter outcome of misjudging his own melancholic heart with the holy duties and moving forward with a plan blasting with glorious illusions —these were a saintly, genuine heart not, but a wicked belief to define foulness [Destruction] as if it was done in the name of holiness [Deliverer].
Anaxa’s straightforward criticism was just as merciful as his hands; it was reserved for the proud student of Professor Anaxagoras as always—even if their paths would be split apart, even if this dear teacher would never agree to his own tragic [doomed] choices. Such a particular speech [lesson] was engraved in his mind [caches]. Phainon realised that he ought to take this person away from the world’s eyes and let him deliver his wisdom solely to himself all alone.
His blurred eyesight shone with the other’s touches, voices, presence and warmth; tears continued to fall desperately from his eyes. Unable to speak—and stop himself from hesitating at the thought of insecurity that was vanished not, he did not let go of the gentle hand near his face, the other one reached out to touch his teacher’s soft hairs tremblingly, as if the owner had a suspicion and doubted whether or not this man had existed before him.
After clarifying with his own mind, the young man chose to loosen his hands from Anaxa—thus embrace the scholar’s frail body into his arms tightly, closed the eyes shut—
And abandoned the entire world to hold another person—instead of the world.