#start of project

[jademmoth]

My final project definitely isn't just a trigun fanart (please they'll never know, they'll never notice, it's fine)

ANYWAY HAVE THE SKETCH OF IT and yes I'm painting on insulation sheets, idk, don't ask 🫶

[starsword-library]

"Anyway, how did the healing thing go, or, how's it going?" Verona asked unsure, currently hanging out in Chrys' room. It had been a while since Mag had left the two alone, and after catching up to what was happening in the Defense Force, it was time to talk about Chrys' side of the story. "I don't even know what you're doing here exactly. I mean, can these guys teach you magic? That sounds weird, and you said no one knew anything about your..."

"We've been calling it 'regeneration skill', which is kinda accurate, you know," they helpfully added as she hesitated. "But yeah, they sure don't know anything, been emphasizing that a lot, it's new to them. But studying Star Beating is their thing so they wanna take a shot at it."

"Okay, and how they are gonna do it? Like, you said before you couldn't do anything to other people, but now you can because of this place, and I still don't quite get it, even though I guess I'm proof of it?" She shrugged. "I mean, that's what you did to me in that battle, right?

"Yup. That one wasn't a healing item. If you wanna know the exact reason you'd better asking Mag, she gives the proper lectures. But yeah, this place may have taught me healing magic forever, oooor it may just be a cool trick for this place." They sighed softly, "we'll see, I guess."

Verona frowned. "You... don't seem as hopeful as you were when this started."

"Oh, I'm fine, don't worry. It's good enough I got to help you last battle, though we own that more to Mag that anybody, she helped find the items."

"I guess she's been nice enough. What do you think of her?"

"Well, well," they played around with their hands as they thought of the answer, "she's something alright. Curious, analytical, diligent, possibly detached from several emotions in the name of science, but still pretty friendly and helpful. I guess overall she's a cool friend, but I still fear she spends her days writing down every little thing about everything to poke them open later, and I can see a bunch of ways that could go wrong, and it's making me quite paranoid."

"We always get the timebombs, don't we? Still, is this like, how she's trying to help, is she going to be," she fumbled for the right word, "monitoring you? That sounds creepy. Please tell me you didn't sign up for this."

"Oh, I would never, but that wouldn't stop anybody would it?" they rolled their eyes, and kept darting them to all corners of the room, smiling all the time. "Could have anything, these big walls here," they continued, lightly tapping the wall for emphasis.

"Okay let's stop, that's too much and is not gonna take us anywhere," Verona hastily tried to turn to subject to less paranoid waters, "we can’t be accusing people just because they write down a lot of things, I think that’s just, uh, how science stuff goes. So, she's not monitoring you. What is she doing then? You still haven't answered."

"Pretty much what you said, sciencey stuff," they said simply, and elaborated once seeing the impatient scowl forming on Verona's face, "blood tests, Star Beating level, and me playing pretend with a lil' machine they have. Mag said they need to analyze all the stuff now, so who knows when we'll do something new." They flopped down to the bed. "Assuming there will be something else," they added in a heavy sigh.

"Hey, what's the matter, Chrys?"

They sighed again and rolled to the side, avoiding her gaze. When they finally decided to answer, their voice was cracking slightly, and their eyes closed.

"Nothing. Just got too hyped for this, I guess. Again. As usual."

It was Verona’s turn to sigh, fumbling for words again. "Chrys, listen, I know you want to be more helpful and all, but I already said you're good enough as-"

"Enough as I am. Better than some others, still very special. Long lost seed of perfection," they raised their voice, cutting her off dryly. "Verona, I, I get it, okay? I heard it already, you know. I've heard all this before."

"Well," Verona started cautiously after a moment, already pretty frustrated with the way the conversation was going, and not having many ideas on what to do with it, " 'lost seed of perfection' is one I'm sure I never said at least. That one sounds more than a little weird."

To her surprise, the awkward comment did the trick and put a smile back on their face, and they rolled back to face her. "Yeah, I know some weird people," they said simply, fiddling around with their hood.

Not knowing how to keep prodding the issue without being tactless, Verona decided to stay quiet for a while, only placing a comforting hand in one of their shoulders. They shared an awkward but tranquil silence that way.

"So yeah, sorry for being so gloomy, I snapped at you for no much reason back there," Chrys said eventually. 

"Hey, it's alright, I know this must mean a lot to you, even if I don't quite get it yet."

"Well, if any of us got it that would be the end of the problem, wouldn't it?"

"Yeah sure, you mysterious troublemaker." She ruffled their head. "Still, I just wanna make sure they are treating you well here at least."

"Oh, don't worry, paranoia aside they are pretty chill, really. Mag even lent me a book and made sure I rested and all that. I, just, did pretty bad on those tests. I mean, not the blood test 'cause you can't really do bad on those, not in this sense at least, but, you know. It might be just because I couldn't get into the lil' farce they made up, but the stuff got way weaker already. Weaker than when I healed you, or Mag. And I still get tired pretty fast. I'm worrying it may just fade away soon."

Verona stared at them, making the occasional small comforting gesture. Eventually she sighed, giving up on trying to find cheering words. Those were never her strong point.

"Well, sorry pal, we can't do much but wait to find out, I guess. So, I guess, don't get your hopes up too much, but just take it easy, okay?"

"Okay." They smiled wearily. "Still pretty funny to think about it. If I had thought of this before, you know, of coming to the healing planet to know about healing stuff, maybe I could already have the answers. Instead we sorta just tripped unto it now by sort of a huge coincidence."

"Hey, you who said life always comes up with stuff. I don't think many people take a trip to here anyway, we mostly forget about this place. Maybe, we take the stuff we use a bit too much for granted. Then again, maybe it's for the best that they are isolated. You can't have the planet everyone depends on get into too many messes."

Chrys laughed. "Am I one of the messes, then?"

"What?” she raised an eyebrow sarcastically. “Drop this 'tripped unto' thing, you know why we came here. We're always in a mess."

<back to Mag’s reports read Mag’s reports from the start

[starsword-library]

The evening after Curit's robot crisis...

Ruby was lying down on the bed of the room the people of Curit had provided for him to stay the next loops. The Defense Force was definitely going to want a personal report on what they had just faced, but it wouldn't be Ruby the one who would give it, for sure. He had a much better deal staying here, even if a tough one.

He looked over the notes he had been typing all this time. Fixing Curit's security issues would be a huge task, their technology was far behind in these matters, as one would expect of a little distant planet that never had to worry about protecting themselves. Who would attack the people who had almost all the healing technology of the galaxy on their hands? Not anyone smart, that's for sure. Which did pose questions about this crisis.

Ruby grumbled, rolling to the side trying to find a more comfortable position to stay. He was tired of this monster business. Tired of questions, tired of chasing enemies around without a clue of what they wanted, tired of the fighting. His entire body still hurt from the long battle from earlier. He already regretted keeping that up for so long, especially since in the end he still had to use his secret weapon.

He supposed he should be thankful that Chrys' healing miracle got everyone's attention then. Otherwise Verona would have definitely questioned him a lot about that weapon. She was a smart one, and also sort of hated his guts since forever. 

He wasn't feeling anything good for Chrys though, they were just another puzzle piece of the annoying magical quest. First dark magic shows up, then light magic. The time for these things was way long gone, all this was just ridiculous. 

At least, that was what Ruby wanted to say, but it wasn't just ridiculous. It was actually bad, like really seriously super bad, and he could only hope it blew off soon before anyone started digging too much into it.

Then again, maybe laying low on Curit for a while would be just what he needed. A normal job, on a far-off corner of the galaxy, all the pawnants working swiftly at his command, right there at his sight. It would be good, normal, ordered, peaceful even. Part of him knew how utterly sad it was that a hard stretch of regular work was as close to peaceful as he could get, but he didn't get where he was in life by whining about his options.

There was going to be no peace for him right then, though. Someone started knocking impatiently at the door of his room, and he had no doubts about who it was.

"Hey Ruby! You there?" Ash screamed from the outside, "The long ears said this was your room! You are not sleeping are you, it's too early for that Ruby!"

Ruby got up, despite the protests of his aching body. It is true that he could just not open the door. It's not like the action, or really any other action, would stop Ash from screaming. Ash was an unstoppable loud mess of fire and disorder that annoyed Ruby so much. And yet Ruby would always pick up the door.

"You don't have a say on my sleeping schedule, you don't even know a thing about schedules," he retorted as he opened the door with the coldest poker face he could muster. The effect was slightly ruined by the fact he had to raise his voice just to be heard amidst Ash's shouts, and also completely ruined by how much he was grimacing just for being up on two legs right now. Maybe he was overdoing the standing and walking business that day. He had a perfectly good walking cane right there, maybe he should be using that.

Wasn't going to happen though. Ash immediately scooped him up with eir left arm -thankfully the one not on fire- as usual. It was a gesture somewhere between embarrassing and familiar, and a closed room was private enough to keep it closer to the second one.

"So what are you even doing here, resting?" Ash asked, having already placed Ruby back in the bed and sat down next to it, "if that's the problem you could have called me to carry you around, you know? We just saved a planet we should be celebrating!"

"Oh don't you start that again, I can get around just fine without you. Also, I don't believe there's any celebrations going on, since Verona wanted to get back to the Defense Force as soon as possible to report."

"I don't need Verona to celebrate anything," ey hissed. "But yeah, we should be leaving soon, you should have enjoyed here while you had the chance! They have a bunch of weird things on some rooms, it's like a treasure hunt or something! Though there's a lot of trash too. I found a rotten peel on one of them," ey said, picking up a nasty old peel from... some stuff Ruby didn't even notice ey had carried into the room. Were those tree branches? Oh, of course. Show-off.

"You gross wood stick why did you even bring this?!" Ruby complained while trying to shove eir peel holding arm as far away from him as possible. Ash ended just throwing the rotten thing at eir own fire, which would have been a good solution if ey hadn't done it with the mouth fire of all places, giving the disgusting impression ey had just eaten the thing. And for all anyone knows that could have been exactly what had happened, who even understands the biology of a living burning tree? Ruby knew em for a long time and still had no clue of what was going on with that. Ash was so unreasonable even the universe itself probably had a hard time keeping em within its laws.

"Anyway, I don't think I missed anything hunting for trash, thank you very much," Ruby continued talking in an attempt to stop the half silly half gross line of thought his brain had got stuck on, "and were you including me on that 'we'? I'm not going anywhere, it's just you and Verona who are going back."

"What, seriously? No way, I already can't find Chrys and now you're ditching me too? I don't wanna be stuck with Verona a whole trip!"

"Verona is a part of the team and a pretty important one too, you're gonna have to deal with it. And Chrys isn't, so they can technically do whatever they want."

"Yeah, that's why they are cool! But why are you staying here?"

"Good to know you haven't been paying attention to a single thing that happened so far," Ruby said dryly. "This crisis did a lot of damage to Curit's robots and defense systems, so I took up the job of fixing it all."

"Yeah, we crushed a lot of those things!" Ash boasted, either not realizing or not caring that the robots were not the real enemy and just unfortunate losses for the planet. "But you're bringing the pawnants, then? Don't bring Clock, he hates heights, and this place is just a lot of tall stuff."

"Yeah, of course I'm bringing- Wait, how do even know that? I barely get Clock to say a word to me."

"His siblings told me last time we went hiking, remember? You should have been there!"

"Ah yes, your classic hiking escapades. Was that the one someone broke a leg or the one you burned down a house and begged me for the repair money later?" Screw the poker-face, Ruby was plainly sneering at this point.

"Hey, I don't beg, I just knew you could help!" Ash protested. "But no, I think it was the one we started a forest fire too soon and didn't even get to get near the mountain before running." Eir fire clacked slightly in what Ruby knew by now was a disappointed sound. Ruby bumped his head in the tablet he was holding, out of words to complain. 

"But you're gonna be here just typing and fussing and working then? Boooring!" Ash on the other hand wasn't out of words to complain. Mostly because they always used the same one for everything.

"What, you mean this monster hunt we've got ourselves into is doing any better? We've been going on circles for a while now."

"We got one of these weirdos to talk this time, didn't we? Even if it was just that nonsense," ey said dejected, while absentmindedly picking one of the branches ey brought and and shoving it in the hole that was torn on eir mid-section during the battle. It was about time, Ruby thought. For a moment he feared ey would just forget those things at his room. "I'll make them talk for real soon, just you wait."

"And then what?

"Huh?"

"What are you gonna do once you learn who are these monsters? No matter how they explain themselves, in the end they are still wreaking havoc on our galaxy, and as part of the Defense Force, you have to fight and stop them."

"Well, that all depends on what they say, I can't predict what it's gonna be! So whatever I'll do, I'll have to decide later," was eir answer, and after that ey froze for a moment in a vague expression, no movement besides the eternal fickering of eir flames and the slow melding of those new branches on eir body, a process that seemed so natural to em but didn't make any sense.

Like anything with Ash, the pause didn't last long. "And I don't care what the Defense Force is gonna do about it," ey continued with the same energy of before, as if nothing had happened, "they can't tell me what to do, I don't even have to stay with them if I don't like it!"

"Yeah, that's what I expected from you," Ruby said with a hint of disapproval. "It... would be a shame, though, I think," he added after a moment of hesitation, "you did get more into the Defense Force that most things, I don't think you ever lasted this long in a job."

"Yeah sure, it's been fun! But maybe later it won't be fun anymore, that's just how it is!" ey said, getting up to leave, chest hole almost fully patched up by the newly burnt wood. "For now I don't mind beating up some monsters all around!"

"Sure, sure," Ruby nodded, waving a goodbye without even looking.

"Ah, wait, Ash!" He called back, when the other was already halfway through the door.

"Huh? What's wrong?"

"I..." Ruby hesitated, unsure of what to say, "just remembered I wanted to ask something else. About these monsters, I mean."

"Oh yeah? What's it then?"

"It's about the one we talked to this time. Did you, did you think they looked familiar, by any chance?"

Ash mulled over the question for a while. "Uh, no, I have no idea what you're talking about," was eir answer. "Why? You think you've seen them before?"

"Not sure, I mean, definitely haven't met a blob of dark magic before of course, but I feel there's something about them I know. Could be just my imagination though, I'll think some more about it."

"Yeah, you do that then!" ey waved a hearty goodbye, and left.

Ruby sighed, not sure if he should regret the question or not. Ash probably wouldn't think much of it, used to weirdness as ey were. Eir answer had been useless though.

He picked up the tablet, switching away from his notes and into the other open window. He had several questions about this planet, and being there he was going to take the opportunity to look into them. 

His searches had lead him to some less known researches conducted in their university, mostly the works on a certain Professor Wiz. History studies. Unearthing of ancient technology. Magic theories. Myths. A legendary spaceship.

Idiots. The Lucia II is a scam, he had looked for it a long time ago already.

__

<back to Mag’s reports read Mag’s reports from the start

[starsword-library]

Report 02 (Morning)

No visible changes to report on my wounds.

Professor Wiz and I have yet to figure out the next steps of the project, so Chrys should be free for the loop, but I still want to check on them at least in the morning. They liked the book I lent to them last loop and didn't finish it so it's already something for them to do, but I still want to at least confirm they are well rested and have had breakfast as supposed to.

Report 02 (Night)

Everything worked out better than expected.

As I suspected, Verona the Nemean came back to the planet to check on Chrys. She seems responsible and certainly knows them better than me, so after showing her around I'll sure they'll be fine with her.

<prev   what Mag didn’t see she can’t report   next> read from the start

[starsword-library]

Chrys started to show exhaustion after the fourth spell, and none of them came close to the power I've experienced last time. Overall it was a worse performance than I expected, but if their skill is affected by having actual wounded people around it can't be helped. We can't be testing something so new and mysterious on patients for now.

We redid some of the exams from earlier and proved that their Star Beating levels did go down after the spellcasting practice. Also, it was less agitated. This may explain why it is harder for them to control it like this, and also their tiredness. I've been so worried about them hurting themself overusing their powers, that I have to wonder if this reaction happens exactly to prevent such attempts.

"Well, that's kinda miserable then," they said when we explained the results, " 'cause that lil' bunch of spells are not gonna do much I think."

"Well, it's not easy to live up to legends," Professor Wiz said simply. "If there's something bigger about your powers, we're here to figure it out, and if not, well you have what you have. And I'd say it's still quite special."

"I guess. Can't complain too much about it," was Chrys' answer. They didn't look too cheered up, though I expected that, as they hardly reacted much to my encouragements before. And thinking now, those were very alike to the professor's speech, to be honest. I did learn a lot from him, but I hadn't realized we talk so similarly too.

Professor Wiz had to leave to take care of other matters, and I was tasked with taking Chrys back to their dorm and making sure they would rest.

"So, anything else we can do right now?" They asked as soon as we got out, and I began to fear my task wouldn't be as simple as it should. " 'Cause I might have got a lil' tired back then but I'm fine now, really."

" 'Back then' was around twenty moments ago I think. I don't think you recovered so fast."

"We are literally studying my regeneration", they emphasized the word playfully, "skills, aren't we? I'm tough to put down, don't worry."

"I'm noticing. Either way, even if you're up for it, there's no reason to start another experiment now. We should analyze the data we have first before planning our next step."

"Sure, sure, so I'm free to do whatever for now, I guess? Not that I know where I'd go. I could go check on the pawnants but Ruby said they'd be really busy these next loops."

"Pawnants?"

"Yeah, the pals who work for Ruby," they explained. "They are fixing the security stuff that got messed up with that crisis, and Ruby said it was lots to do, so I think I'd just bother them if I went there now."

"I see. Well, I can guide you back to your room so you can rest, as you're supposed to do-"

"Well, yeah, you can do that," they interrupted me in what I felt was a teasing tone, averting their eyes. It didn't surprise me at this point.

"-but it seems you're insistent on doing something else," I continued, "And I'm sorry but I can't figure out what it is, so can you just tell me?"

"Well, Mag, it's not like I have a plan, I'm up for a lot of things, really. What do you even do for fun around here?"

"Oh, sorry. As you and the professor reminded me right then, I'm not that knowledgeable on fun."

"What, is this about your pal's bloody joke back there? 'Cause it's okay if you didn't like it, it wasn't the peak of comedy or anything. I'm just an easy audience. Also, I have to appreciate the commitment of someone who keeps a whole jar of weird stuff just in case an opportunity arrives."

"Even so, I still don't know what I can suggest for your entertainment. Professor Wiz is always trying to get me to relax more but I never managed to pick up any hobbies. Most of the time when I'm not working I just read on whatever topic has my attention at the moment, or other random things I find. I try picking up some works of fiction at times, because it's interesting to see what people's imagination come up with, but... it is frustrating to get to the ending and never again have the chance to explore the world they created. I'd rather find answers and pose questions to a universe that does not have a finish line."

Despite being flippant through most of the conversation, Chrys listened intently to me at that point. I couldn’t quite figure out what the look on their face meant, but they seemed so absorbed, it took a while for them to say something.

"I can see what you mean," they said, with a smile softer than usual, "but I wouldn't mind checking out a fleeting world or two right now, you know. You got any of these books laying around right now?"

"Oh, actually, yes. I believe I have at least one in my room right now," I said, and realized that was probably the closer they would ever get to resting, given their resistance before. "Would you like me to take you there? It's not far from your room too, there would be no problem at all."

"If you don't mind, sounds good enough for me."

<prev   what Mag didn’t see she can’t report   next> read from the start 

[starsword-library]

After the exams, it was finally time to gather data on Chrys' spells.

As usual, said data is already attached to the end of the report. Our experiment was basically the same procedure used to measure the energy of Star Wands. Simple, yet a good start for any study of a healing spell.

"So I just gotta do my healing thing on this stuff here?" Chrys asked, looking at the equipment, after Professor Wiz explained the basics of the experiment. "Not the stuff I expected to be healing, but sure, I can give it a hand, I guess."

"Well, friend, you'll have to forgive us but we can't be hoarding wounded people in these labs to give you more realism on this," the professor answered calmly. "You'll have to do with our little starmeter here. Besides, I feel you two had enough excitement on the battlefields already."

He glanced at me shortly while saying that. He had been very worried about me when he saw my wounds, and for good reason, I believe. Excitement aside, I don't want to get into another battle anytime soon. 

-Since you'll be the first one to check this report, I'll assure you here that I'm fine, professor. It's a bit frustrating to have lost one of my visible mutations but at least now we'll finally know if they grow back like a normal shell or not. Also, I'm not in pain, which is surely a good sign, so don’t worry (Please remove this note when revising this report).

"If you say so," Chrys on the other side had a daring look on their eyes that makes me think they plan on using their skills in battle as soon as possible. It was this same determination that led us to help the Defense Force last time, after all.

"I better not disappoint then." They waved one arm in front of them, similar to how they would extend it at the other times they've used their powers, except it was a more relaxed gesture, and the spell looked weaker, the Star Beating enveloping only one of their fingers instead of the whole hand as I remember it from the previous time.

The readings on the starmeter confirmed my impression, ranking below the power of a 3-Pointed Star Wand.

"Well, I'd call that disappointing if you were a wand, but no one has ever had enough natural control over Star Beating in order to use a starmeter like this in the first place, so for us puny living beings I'd say it's actually a groundbreaking feat," was the professor's analysis, which was much like my first impression of their powers, but I know they can do better and have the wounds to prove it, so I questioned them about it.

"Can't you do better though? The wound you healed in my face needed much more than this amount of power, I believe."

"Well, yeah, I think so. I was just testing the waters here," they confessed, "it's just, kinda hard to get it right this way, you know? Like, the conducting metal stuff is cool and all, but it's not quite the feeling of healing something, you know?"

"You mean your magic recognizes and reacts to people's wounds?" They shrugged. "Or it could be just a psychological thing..."

"Oh, if that's the problem it's easy to solve," Professor Wiz stated.

He then took a jar, filled with a red sauce, from his hands, and used some drops to mark the starmeter with lines vaguely reminiscing of bloodied scratches, and a sad face under them.

I understood his point, but I didn't think it was a very convincing scenario, and I never saw Professor Wiz be so careless around lab equipment before. It felt irresponsible to me.

Chrys looked as astonished as me, except their mouth was hanging open in a sort of smile. They bursted into laughter soon after. Professor Wiz was also snickering so I suppose it was a joke. Not that I'd know, my sense of humor has always been weak, to say the least. 

But Chrys’ performance did improve slightly at the next tests, so Professor Wiz must have known what he was doing when he changed the mood like that. It seems that I still have a lot to learn about dealing with other people, especially out of scientific circles. Not that I remember being so odd as a subject myself, but I suppose we are all different. It’s interesting to be on the other side of the relationship this time.

<prev   next> read from the start

[starsword-library]

We finally began the tests after breakfast, at the University's general laboratory, joined by Professor Wiz. I've attached the detailed results of the exams at the end of this report, but to summarize, Chrys has higher levels of Star Beating inside them than the expected of an usual living being, and slightly more active than normal too, which might explain why it reacts to the flow on our machines. 

Its state is similar to that of people recently healed with a strong dose of magic, as their Star Beating remains agitated for a short while after reacting with the healing items. Chrys' Star Beating however, seems to be perpetually in that state, which might explain how it reacts to any injury they get, acting as a regeneration skill. 

We asked Chrys more about this skill, as it is the part of their powers they knew before the incident, but sadly they don't know much.

"No idea why I got this," they said, shrugging as usual, "and I have it as long as I can remember."

"So it is not a normal trait of your species?" I asked. The doctors hadn't found Chrys' species on the database, and Chrys hadn't declared it either, which I thought was odd. The professor explained that a few reclusive planets still restrict information on native species and cultures even at our current age. People from such places are hardly even seen out of their home planet normally, but galaxy-wide groups like the Defense Force are meant to reach everywhere after all, so it's not too strange that they know at least one person from these isolated areas. 

"If it is I wouldn't know," Chrys answered me, "I must be from some far off corner of the galaxy, 'cause I've never seen anyone else like me, and you saw the docs back there can't find a thing either."

"'Must be'? So you don’t actually know where you're from?"

"I'm adopted, my caretaker never said much about it. I've lived in Planet Vitality most of my life, so it's not like anyone made a fuss of it either."

I can see what they mean by that. As the most populated planet of the galaxy, Vitality hosts dozens of different species, so I think they are too used to the diversity to notice someone unusual.

Either way this is bad for us. I don't even understand the reason for planets to restrict information, and our work could be easier if we already had basic information on Chrys' biology and origins. 

However, part of their situation reminds me of myself actually. We are both subjects who do not know anything about our own births, and both apparently related to ancient magic and technology. For all we know, Chrys might be as mutant as me in relation to their species. They might be someone truly unique.

This is disheartening in a way. Research on myself hasn't seen progress for a long time now, and it would be terrible to see this project end up the same way. But it is also a new hope. The same potential many once saw in me, I can see in them now, and they even have a concrete ability to develop already. If this project ever reach a breakthrough, it might help my case too after so long.

As always, I look forward to it.

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