-eng- The Shell Part Iii- Paradiso -v1.0.0h- Here

“We have to go back,” Toko said. “Not to the Shell. To the space between. Where memory and dream and reality all spiral into the same point.”

He turned to face the mirrors—all of them, infinite, spiraling. -ENG- The Shell Part III- Paradiso -V1.0.0H-

The spiral on the window had changed.

Toko’s eyes glistened. Not with tears. With the reflection of all the mirrors, all the selves, all the moments he had ever lived or would ever live. “We have to go back,” Toko said

“Do you know why hell has nine circles?” Where memory and dream and reality all spiral

“That’s the story they tell children,” she said. “The truth is worse. The ninth circle isn’t ice. It’s love. Frozen love. Love that has nowhere to go, so it turns into a crystal that cuts you from the inside.”

One wore a detective’s coat, but his eyes were empty sockets. Another held a woman’s hand—a woman whose face Reiji could not recognize, because it kept shifting between Toko, his mother, and someone else. Someone he had never met but felt he had mourned for centuries.