Seele Vollerei: The end of reality, and what came after.

Yvette's corner

Hello, Yvette. It's the author again. Long time no see. Again, I'm sorry about how this turned out. If you're reading this, it means you're dead, and unfortunately for you, that also means you're stuck here. I don't have much to say. I mean, you know it all already. You were a good person, and you died because of a fundamental problem with the universe.

This is non-canon, so please feel free to tell me off. At any rate... while I'm doing research for the next chapter, I thought I'd get your opinion on the story so far. What do you think of Seele, now you've seen a little more of her? What parts were good, what parts weren't? What could I have done better? Feel free to criticize.

"Seriously?"

I'm not bullshitting. I was up till two in the morning finishing the last chapter. Of course, I know I could do better, but I think it turned out well.

Yvette, you're a sweet girl, and I'm sorry. I have this entire bio written up for you. The plan wasn't... well, never mind.

Anyway.

How was this chapter?

"Pretty good. The twins seem like they'd be really fun at parties."

I'm glad you approve.

"I do."

Well, you wouldn't be the first to say that about them. They're a little more fragile than they look, but Seele already lost one childhood friend. She'd have been absolutely crushed if she lost the others.

"The notes say you cried a lot when writing this."

Well, that's... heh, that was an instruction to the AI. I find it works much better than simply telling it to make the scene depressing. I'm letting it do the writing for you, so it's funny you should bring that up.

"Oh?"

You know that thing you're doing right now? The thing where you pause mid-conversation to see how I'll respond?

"Yeah?"

...

That's what I did, when I was writing the story. Essentially, that's how you make best use of this AI. Give it just enough of a paragraph to let it know what you're going for, have it write the rest. I'm never sure how smart it really is, but it did write the entire rest of this paragraph, this entire explanation, so it isn't dumb.

Maybe it's just really good at responding to implicit commands.

Either way, the chapter's done. I'm a little tired, and next up is a quantum collapse. I'm going to leave the meaning of that to your imagination, but it's going to be a long one. I also think this story needs a little more backstory, and Vel is going to give it to you.

One of these days you'll be back in the story, Yvette. Doesn't that sound like fun?

"Sorry, the next chapter is a what?"

You don't need to worry about that. You won't be resurrected until much later. That's next chapter. For now, you're going to have to get used to Vel's company. You'll be learning a lot about how the world works through her eyes, so don't neglect it.

"I thought I was the main character."

I have no idea where you'd even get that idea. You're a bit inessential to the story. Your personality is rather blank, and your utility is in question. You're basically a plot coupon.

I'm sorry if that hurts you, but that's just how it is. You can't win them all. You shouldn't take this too personally. I did write down a bio, you know. You'll have a chance to overcome your origins.

"I know, I just wish..."

I don't like leaving characters like that. You'll overcome your limitations. Just trust me, and pay attention to what happens.

There will be a test.

You hesitate for a moment, then take a deep breath.

"I think so," you say. "I mean, probably. I... I've watched Kiana, and I've done some odd things before, and... if it's just flattening out rifts, I think I can do it. So long as there are no intrusions from other worlds there. That's when it gets complicated."

"It sounds dangerous," Roza says.

Yeah. It does.

"It's not... really," you say, ducking your head. "I'm hard to hurt. You know, the maintenance corridor you've been using to scavenge for food?"

Rozaliya nods.

"I guess you can sense the rifts somehow, right? Maybe..."

"They make me feel nauseous," Rozaliya says.

"Well, anyway..." You hesitate again, but this is Rozaliya. One of your best and oldest friends. There's nothing you need to hide from her. "I can just go through them. Even if the worst happens, I... I'd just get kicked out into the sea. I'm mostly not here, even right now."

Rozaliya winces.

"That sounds really dangerous."

You nod.

"A little, but... It won't kill me. I have to try. I'm not just going to sit here while everything falls apart."

Rozaliya sighs, then wraps her arms around you in a hug.

"Be careful," she says. "You still haven't seen our show, and I don't want to perform for an empty hall. Honkai beasts aren't a good audience. If we lost you too, then... then..."

Her speech started off as an attempted joke, but it slowly collapses into a sob halfway through. You pat her on the back, and look over at Liliya.

Her eyes are fixed on the ground, apparently studying the metal plating of the floor. She looks uncomfortable, shifting from one foot to another. Her tail twitches a little. Rozaliya looks at her as well, her eyes widening, then sighs and look away. You're about to say something, but Liliya beats you to it.

"I'm coming with you," she says. "I don't want to be left behind either."

"...it's dangerous," you say. "It'd be a lot more dangerous for you than me."

"I don't care. If something happened to you, I... I..."

You sigh, and look pleadingly at Rozaliya.

"I'm coming too," she says. "Obviously."

"No you aren't!" you snap. "There's no way I'm putting you in that kind of danger."

"Like she said, if something happened to you, I'd just... I'd..."

You look around at the audience. The people Roza and Liliya saved, and the small shelter they helped build. Well, there's no real need for a shelter inside the Hyperion, but it's got to be far nicer than sitting in a cubicle farm doing nothing.

They did that while knowing nothing about what happened. Without knowing if their family, their friends, if anyone they knew at all had survived. In an alien world that, by Rozaliya's admission, hurts her just to interact with.

Veliona, apparently, stayed up late to comfort Bronya while she cried herself to sleep. You didn't think she had it in her, especially back then, but you know exactly what she must have been feeling. You did the exact same thing for Rozaliya and Liliya, just a little later.

You walk over to them.

"What are you doing?" asks Liliya.

You grab them both by the hand, and turn to face the door.

"I want you to know," Veliona says. "This is a really bad idea."

"Vel," you say. "Be quiet for a second."

You hold their hands, and take a deep breath.

"I love you both," you say. "If something goes wrong... I don't care what happens to me, but I want you two to stay alive. No matter what, stay alive. Don't worry about me. Like I said, I'm hard to kill."

You look into their eyes. Your eyes are a little clouded with tears.

"Is that a confession?" Rozaliya asks. "Because I think that's a confession."

You shake your head, happy to see her smirk again. Veliona laughs.

"I think that's the most romantic thing I've ever heard," she says. "But Rozaliya, don't get the wrong impression. Seele is taken."

"By who?" you ask, your smile fading a little.

"Bronya, of course." Veliona cocks her head to one side. "Right? Seele, I think you've forgotten something. She's dead, yes, but..."

But what?

Veliona's smile fades. She frowns, and drags the three of you out of the room. You stumble along, curious what she's trying to say -- curious, and a little hopeful. Bronya is dead... right?

It's a changing room that all four of you end up continuing the conversation in. An incongruous location, but what Vel says next makes all such thoughts fly out of your head.

"But you're holding on to the Core of Reason. Even when the sea started tearing you apart, you refused to let it go. That's why you nearly died, and... Seele, there's a reason you wouldn't let it go. Since Welt could use it to resurrect himself, then maybe so can Bronya. If she can't, then maybe we can help her. She's dead, but... she might not stay that way."

Veliona pulls you into a hug. Her body is warm against yours. Her hair is soft against your cheek.

"We'll definitely get her back," she whispers in your ear. "We have to."

Then she steps away. You blush fiercely. Still... still Vel, but you're glad to have her back.

Rozaliya and Liliya take a little while to recover from the shock, and Roza bursts into tears again. Happy tears, this time. You take a little while to calm her down, inasmuch as 'calm' is a state she's able to achieve -- it's not, in fact -- so when you finally set out, it's by the side of an entirely more exuberant pair of twins. That's how the world should be, and you're happy to see it.

You just wish... you just hope things will stay that way.

ooOOoo

"So how does this work, exactly?" Roza says, walking next to you with her hands behind her neck. "Flattening rifts, or whatever you're doing."

You're headed towards engineering, which means there's a few hundred meters of corridor. Not all in a straight line, of course, and most of it unpassable, but that still leaves a bit of a walk before you can start. You wish it was more interesting than plain metal corridors. Then again, after what you've seen of the Deep, maybe you shouldn't.

Also. Murgle.

"Do you know basic honkai theory?" you ask, in lieu of answering.

"I got a perfect score," Liliya says. "Rozaliya barely passed, because she's a Roza. There. I didn't call you an idiot, see?"

"Yeah, yeah," Roza says. "I wasn't concentrating."

"You never do."

"Honkai energy," you say, smiling slightly. "It's a misnomer. Not energy, and it doesn't really try to ruin anything, but it's alive almost. What it does is eat the reality of the stuff it interacts with, which you can use to make power -- when electrons and protons suddenly disappear, that's exploitable. It's also really dangerous. Thing is..." You take a deep breath.

"That's different from what we learned in class," Liliya says, looking at you.

"I don't know the right words," you say softly. "But I've seen it from the other side. There's the real world, which is, well, real. And then there are bubble universes, like this one, which don't follow proper laws of physics. They're controlled by what happens in the real world, and it's just Tesla's invention that's keeping that from happening to you. And then there's the stuff that's... in between. That's the sea of quanta."

"Wow," Vel says. "That's... actually really interesting. Not what I expected from you."

"What were you expecting?"

She smiles. "Dunno."

You shake your head. "Anyway, the sea of quanta isn't made up of anything in particular. Bubble universes tend to have time loops, or they slowly fall apart, or bad things happen for no obvious reason, but they at least have a form of causality. The sea of quanta is just... noise. If you end up inside it, and you can think, then it'll probably reflect your thoughts back at you -- but that's because thoughts have correlations back to the real world, or at least that's what Tesla said. Or it's just reflecting thoughts, and you can't tell the difference. Or it's tearing you apart, and you can't tell. It's... scary."

Liliya shivers. "I'm glad you got out of there."

"So'm I," you say. You look down. "I had Vel to help, though. Um, but between the real world, and the bubbles, and the sea itself, there's a gradient of sorts. There's a shore, where the sea washes up against reality, and there's... well, there's not life, exactly, but there's stuff that just happens to randomly find patterns where it can make itself more real."

You look at Rozaliya. Surprisingly, she's paying attention.

"And because it does," you say. "And because of something about quantum mechanics that gives it lots of chances, that happens all the time. That stuff is the only part of the sea that ever gets real enough to interact with the real world, or with bubbles, so of course it's aggressive. That's what we call honkai energy."

"So there's... wait." Liliya frowns. "So honkai beasts are... are they aggressive because of what they're made of?"

"I dunno," you say.

The thing is... the thing is, you're made up entirely of the stuff of the quantum sea yourself. What reality you had, when you were thrown headfirst into it, was lost years ago. You didn't drag yourself out of it yourself, though -- you were pulled, by Bronya. Maybe that's what made the difference, or maybe you're just making stuff up.

You don't know.

Honkai radiation doesn't burn you, it just feels... overeager? Exuberant? A bit like Rozaliya. It's hard to define, and you're still a lot more real than the Hyperion, anyway.

You can't answer the question. You're not quite real enough for that.

"I... I think," you say slowly. You're guessing, but, "I think it's both. Honkai beasts really are alive, but the stuff they're made of wants to be real. A beast that didn't try, wouldn't... wouldn't be cooperating. It might notice that, somehow."

Like with Mei, or Kiana. Or Bronya. Although...

Something nags at you, a slightly sour note in that theory, but you can't put your finger on it.

"Anyway," you say. "Tesla built a few... I guess let's call them shelters. There's one surrounding all of engineering, and one on the bridge, and inside them physics works just like normal. There wasn't one where we found you, though. You were just lucky, and I guess proximity to a shelter also helps. Everywhere else is being..." You close your eyes, then open them. "Eroded. But that's like taking a picture, and scribbling on it with crayon. Even if you can't see what used to be there, you can still guess. You can maybe even erase the crayon."

You nod, and stare into the ceiling.

"Yeah. I guess that's it."

There's silence, for a while, before Rozaliya explodes.

"That didn't explain what you're doing at all!"

"I'm sorry, Roza," you say. "I really am. But I think... I think I'll be able to figure it out when I'm trying. That's why I didn't want you here, though."

There's a pause. Rozaliya looks, grimly, to her left, and Veliona shifts uncomfortably.

"And her?" she asks. "No, don't tell me. It's beyond obvious, I was just confused by the lack of darkness and tentacles and stuff. I've even seen her sneak out for snacks in the middle of the night. The reason she's in a body of her own now... that's because of the situation, right?"

You nod slowly, watching Rozaliya's smirk return.

"You understand now, right?" you say. "I'm going to start working soon. When I do, I want the two of you to stay back."

"Nope," Rozaliya says. She glances at her sister.

"Nuh-uh," Liliya confirms.

You sigh.

= = =

I'm sure it's fine.

[ ] Let them stay.
[ ] Convince them to stay back, at least a little bit.
[ ] Write-in