may 31, 2078 - Graveyard Arrival

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Tayako goaded CJ's crew into a brief chase through the graveyard, and Kieran wasted no time to catch up. She realized promptly that she was not being led to a fight, but lured towards something they wanted her to see...

CJ, unmoved by Cros desperate plea to turn back, chases after them, and finds Kieran petrified, eyes trapped upon a pair of headstones, and like her he is utterly hopeless to comprehend.

In front of them lie Cameron and Jacob Roberts, and while CJ hadn't known their names, he knew them, for he recognized their faces in a portrait laid to rest at his feet...

Cameron Roberts died at the age of 25, along with his five year old son, Jacob. That was about fifteen years ago, but that five year old in the portrait was him ... or at least, it looked like him. And Jacob's father, Cameron, had the same scowling face that CJ had found haunting him in desperate silence time and time again. That was his father. His real father, yet he only knew him as a ghost. Why hadn't he recognized him sooner, when it so clearly couldn't have been anyone else? His face... it looked, at ease, no - relieved. Not overly joyous, yet so much happier with his family in the portrait than CJ had ever expected to see.

CJ's mind began to unravel, eyes glued to a family photo he felt was always meant to be his but never allowed to exist. In it was Jacob's mother, embracing her son. A woman he had seen before, but only now could he look upon her face.

CJ's mother, the woman he thought he'd imagined in Auxo's dream realm, though at the time she felt so real. So perfect. How he would've loved to stay in that world with her, if only to just feel complete again in her presence. If only for pretend... She cherished him, truly, but he told himself it wasn't real. He didn't deserve her, truly, if only it were real, he thought.

If he had been able to properly see her then, he would have recognized that same face in Sarah. This woman .... Who was she? His mother, who he had lived his whole life without knowing was missing, yet he had always wished were real. And somehow, she was. Why should she and Sarah have so much to share?

Yet that wasn't Sarah's only impossible connection, and there was a misunderstanding long overdue for correction that only Cro had the heart to admit. Jacob's mother resembled Sarah, because Cro resembles Jacob's mother, and Sarah despite all her distinction, is but one half of a whole, half of Cro'Dhearg.

Cro was distraught, for she wasn't merely a messenger in this. She knew the truth of her existence itself was going to be more than just an inconvenient thing to reckon with. The last thing she wanted to be was his monster, yet here she was doomed to betray her beloved in the face of her better half, Ayne, who may just be that of Cro which was truly loved, and unable to be ripped away from her beloved, was ripped from her when he vanished so long ago.

"Grandfather" Hayato reveals CJ himself is a paradox, a recreation of a dead child sustained by the goddesses unwilling to let go.

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