human
Witch:  “Echidna…?” Her voice trembled, appearing at the very, very end in that transient world.
gpt
Emilia:  Turning around, Emilia faced the Witch head-on.
human
Emilia:  Emilia wished she hadn’t. When she turned around, there stood Echidna, her expression so raw, it made Emilia regret seeing it.
gpt
Echidna:  Echidna was simply standing there, staring at Emilia with a face ready to break into tears. "I hate you—I just…hate you."
human
Emilia:  Emilia didn’t comment on the hesitation she detected in the words Echidna wrung out.
gpt
Echidna:  Right before Emilia’s eyes, Echidna’s body became hazy. Like a ripple moving along the water’s surface, her existence became distorted, and the Witch’s form seemed to melt as she retreated from the world of illusion. There was nothing left behind.
human
Emilia:  “Echidna…” Having instilled such bitterness that she had wanted to say nothing, Emilia clenched her own chest with her hand. From there, she put her breathing in order; then she turned back toward the cliff one more time, peering into the water below. She saw her reflection on the distant surface of the clear, shallow lake. Her heartbeats grew stronger, faster. Simultaneously, she instinctively understood how to bring the second Trial to an end. Between this world and the one she really belonged to, what part was different yet the same? The only answer was Emilia herself. She was the only foreign element in either world. The way to end the Trial was for Emilia to find herself and seek out a way to acknowledge, accept, and understand that self. Her memories of the past ended when her homeland froze over and she fell into a deep slumber. Until the present day, over a century had passed—and in all that time, Emilia had never once set eyes upon her grown-up self. The reason was simple. She was simply…afraid. She was too afraid to look. When she awoke, the aging her body had undergone conflicted with the memories she had lost. Her clumsy, unfamiliar body terrified her immature heart, and the way the people living close to the forest treated her drove that fear deeper still. Her features inevitably drew comparisons to the Witch of Jealousy, and Emilia spent that time in misfortune. This made people uneasy, so they persecuted her, causing her to harbor even greater fear than before. She deliberately avoided mirrors, and she’d trained herself to not even look at the reflective surface of water. As part of her contract with Puck, he picked how Emilia would groom herself each day. Normally, he hid everything under his aloof, frivolous demeanor, but this, too, was actually all to protect Emilia’s fragile heart from reopening old wounds.