"Floating" High School Girl Ibuki Shimizu, Taking Off. #10

Chapter 11: Free-Floating Altitude: Unmeasurable. Floating Force: Unmeasurable.

Beyond the Orbit: Ibuki's Cosmic Path

Ibuki's body was simply moving forward, quietly.
There were no propulsion devices or control mechanisms.
Yet, her trajectory was precise, as if guided by an invisible will.

It was less of a "float" and more of a movement that was "being drawn," as if sliding across the curved fabric of gravity.

The first place she passed through was Low Earth Orbit—the sky at an altitude of about 400 kilometers where the International Space Station orbits.

The silver body of the station crossed her field of vision for an instant.
The solar panels reflecting the sunlight flashed sharply.
That was the last palm of a hand that the Earth had stretched out into the sky.

Continuing on, she reached the lunar orbit.
About 380,000 kilometers away, the moon was hidden in the Earth's shadow.
Sunk in the gray-white penumbra, its form looked like a breath held deep within.

Near the receding sun, inside the Earth's orbit, Venus was shining.
That light was the same one once viewed from the ground as the "Evening Star"—now, it was like a small hope fading into the distance behind her.

She passed the orbit of Mars.
An unmanned probe quietly orbiting the red planet—the letters "IRIS" engraved on its body brushed past Ibuki.
An unmanned gaze that humanity had once sent out.

Before long, she reached the outer edges of the solar system.

Once she crossed the orbit of Pluto, the sun was nothing more than a single point of light.
The existence that had once scorched and nurtured the Earth was now lost in the hustle and bustle of the universe.

Further on, the Oort cloud.
A region where tiny bodies of ice and rock drift as if wrapping around the solar system.
Ibuki's body slipped through that dim darkness without a sound.

And then, she crossed the boundary.

A space that had even escaped the sun's gravitational sphere—a truly free drift began, released from the pull of any star.

Behind her was Betelgeuse.
To her left, the Andromeda Galaxy lay like a thread.

Ibuki had finally exited the Milky Way Galaxy.

The band of the galaxy became a line, then a point, and then even that blurred and dissolved into the depths of the universe.

The journey continued still.
Crossing galaxy clusters, grazing the Virgo Supercluster, the Markarian's Chain—a gravitational mesh where galaxies are linked like a chain spread out.

The stars were drawing circles like quiet music.

“...It looks kind of fun.”

Ibuki let her mouth soften into a faint smile.

But beyond that—everything suddenly cuts off.

Beyond the mesh of the cosmic filaments, there was nothing.

No gas, no dust, not even light could reach it. No stars, no galaxies, no shadows.

A void. A vacuum.

A structureless darkness that opened up as if the universe itself were avoiding something. It had no records, no origins, and no end point.

Ibuki was there.

In that place where there was no speed, no direction, and even time lost its meaning, the simple fact of "being" was all that sustained her.

──Nothingness.

A deep, deep silence that even that word could not reach.

There was nothing to hear, nothing to see.
Nothing began, and nothing ended.

But—it was not an "end".

It was before all words were born.
Before the "beginning," where nothing was yet defined.

A world of "pre-dawn," where possibilities had not yet taken shape.

Ibuki's body trembled faintly.

"…I see. I was a dandelion seed, after all."

The sun and the Earth were no longer in her field of vision.

But deep within her chest, they still remained, certain and true.

The scent of the morning.
The feel of the asphalt against the soles of her shoes.
The shadow of the school gate.

That voice, calling her name.

"This is... where I end up."

That single phrase, whispered softly to no one in particular, resonated clearly within her.

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