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

"After what you just told Roz?" she hisses at you. "Are you in your right mind, sis?"

"Well, maybe you can–"

You stop. Your conversation is too loud, and Roza and Lili have excellent hearing. You turn, with some trepidation, to find them standing stock still. Roza's face is blank, and Lili looks—she's staring at you, her expression shifting between fear and something much worse.

"I–" you say, your throat seizing up. You're not good with words, and you just now realised how badly that came out. "I didn't mean that. I'm sorry I scared you, Lili."

"You didn't scare me," Liliya says, so quietly that you almost miss the words. There's something in those hard, low words that cuts you deeper than a Honkai beast's claws. She's always been the most attached to you, but you've never seen her react like this.

"I really didn't mean it!" you say, your nervous laugh dying as it leaves you. "I'm not leaving you. I'm already out there, really. All I'm talking about is closing these eyes, and opening some others."

"But you would," she murmurs in response, voice suddenly hoarse. "You'd leave if you thought it was best. I know you would. You've done it before."

"I… no! I wouldn't. And it's safe," you say, wishing it were the truth. You lean in to hug her, and she draws away. That hits like a gut punch. She knows you'd go–because you always do what's best for her, which isn't the same thing as what she wants. But you're not even leaving! You said so!

"Stop lying!" Liliya draws herself up on tiptoe and hits your chest with her fists, hard enough that it's nearly a punch. A variety of expressions cross her face, before she settles on anger. She grabs on to your collar, knuckles clenching so hard they go white.

"Are you genuinely out of your mind?!" she snarls at you. "This is an Impact we're looking at! And you want to go prancing about, looking for whatever's caused it? Did it perhaps slip your mind, sis, that every single one of those has had a Herrscher at its core? That's not safe! That's the opposite of safe!"

"I–"

You can't defend yourself.

You can't explain that you're very nearly larger than the universe they're in. That you're not here, so much as carefully dipping a fingernail in. That if something dangerous is out there then you're in so much more danger by keeping your eyes shut than by looking, even if there are some dangers that only become a danger when you spot them. It wouldn't answer Liliya's very reasonable anger, or soothe the fear driving it.

Why isn't your throat working?

"I-I just don't want you to be hurt," you try to tell her. She punches you again, hard, and it's only as you rock back that you see the tears in her eyes..

What have you done? How do you fix this?

Veliona glances rapidly around, a reddish light flickering around her. You follow her gaze, and spot two or three villagers staring at you from a distance. It doesn't feel important, but you don't protest when she hisses, steps up close to you and pulls at your sleeve.

"Not here." Veliona tugs you away from the open ground, her voice strained with worry. She drags you towards a stone wall, only for Lili's hand to pull you up short. Vel looks round at the sudden stop, and you silently plead for her to do something, anything. Heaving a sigh that only you can hear, she takes a step back, and one of her hands comes up to catch that of your impromptu anchor.

"Liliya," she says. Vel has even less experience with words than you do, but she tries. "We shouldn't do this here. It's not the right place."

"We're doing it now," Lili restrains herself from another snarl, clenching her teeth around the words as if trying to choke them. "And you aren't going, Seele. You promised." For the moment that's all it takes to speak those last words, the pain driving her anger overwhelms it, and it's enough to break your heart.

You want to hug her, tell her it'll be alright, like you always have for your youngest sister. But you already tried that, and you can't believe she'd accept it now.

'Then maybe,' Vel says, 'try talking to her like who she is, not who you think she is.'

You can feel the impatience in her voice, the driving need to get all of you out of the centre of attention right now. Who she is? She's still your little sister, you tell yourself. You can't surrender that, you won't. But looking down at her hurting, angry eyes, another realisation hits you. That you can't define her, or Roza, as only that. They're both sixteen now. Had you forgotten that?

"Alright." You slump, and Liliya's gaze sharpens. It's like salt in the wound to recognise that, right now, she doesn't trust you. "Alright, Liliya. But can we please not do this in the middle of the street?"

Your sister looks around, and for a moment the tension between you vanishes as she takes in the scene. A few villagers watching from a distance, a mess of hazy emotions on their faces. Roza, staring at her twin as if she's grown a second head. Her white knuckles on your travelling coat. You wonder, hope for a moment, that maybe that'll be enough. Maybe she'll even laugh?

Instead, she steps back, but only one step. Her hand drops from your collar to your closest arm, and she latches onto it like a steel trap. You almost, almost try to hug her again. Tell her you're sorry. You only just manage to stop yourself.

"Let's go, then." Lilya's voice wavers, but doesn't break. Veliona nods silently, grabs Roza's hand, and leads your little party away into a conversation you'd never wanted to have.

ooOOoo

There's nowhere good to do this, really, but you follow the children—and though they're doubtful, and it must be obvious to them by now that you're not some sort of apparition, they nevertheless lead you to their home.

The villagers follow at a distance, but give way in front of you. You aren't in the mood to analyze them. You spend the walk desperately thinking of ways to fix this, and your body is on autopilot, following along. Liliya's iron grip on your arm wouldn't let you stop if you wanted.

When you finally get to the house it's… not what you were expecting exactly, but something pretty close. It's… homey? It's a bit bigger than the others, and the thatch roof is mended in several spots, there are slabs of stone making a walkway up to the door… It looks like a scene out of a storybook.

It's not until you see the dirt floor inside it that you remember these villagers are poor. Truly poor. The floor is packed dirt, and the furniture looks like it's made out of rough-hewn wood. It's all just trunks and stumps and branches, still looking very much like the tree it once was.

While you're examining it, Annie and Pip run into one of the… you'll call it a "room". You hear low conversation from inside, before Annie comes back out, her eyes cast down. After a moment she looks up, staring at you with large eyes.

"Can I… can we have another piece of food?" she asks. "Not for me. For Jane. She's so hungry, and the food will help her feel better, and we… I don't want Jane to die."

You catch Liliya's eyes, and they're wide. The two of you both knew this was coming, but you can't help but be shocked when it happens.

"How old is Jane?" you ask Annie.

"She's two years old," Annie says.

Old enough to eat normal food, at least. Her being two and dying of starvation… that's almost heartbreaking enough to make you cry. Rozaliya hands Annie a sandwich from her backpack, without saying a word. Annie takes it and dashes back inside.

You look back to Liliya, wondering if she will say something. She doesn't, but her eyes are wide and staring after Annie like she's witnessed an atrocity beyond comprehension. Actually, you kind of agree with her.

You walk over to the doorway, looking inside. There's a dull wooden table in the middle of the room, and against the far wall there's a bed with a… you're not even sure what to call it. Some kind of woven cover? It's hanging from the ceiling and stretched across some wooden frames, like a hammock. In it is a little girl.

She's thin, like a skeleton. Her eyes are sunken in, her face is pale, and her hair looks like brittle straw. She's asleep, her breath coming slowly. She looks like if you touched her, she might break. Still, she's alive. You may have just saved her life.

Annie kneels next to her, stroking her head softly.

"Jane?" she asks. "Jane, do you want to eat?"

The child doesn't respond. Annie picks up the piece of bread and takes a small bite of it, chewing it carefully. Then, she puts it into Jane's mouth, holding her head, and the little girl starts swallowing, her eyes fluttering only partially open. Tears stream down Annie's face as she feeds her sister. After Jane has eaten half the slice of bread, she stops feeding her and watches the little girl as she closes her eyes. She falls back asleep.

"We should–"

"Let's–"

You look away.

"Let's leave them alone," Liliya says, speaking your thoughts out loud. You want to help, but none of you are doctors. What can you do?

Still, it's hard to step away from little Jane, starving and so thin. You wonder if your medical nanites would help at all, and make a note to find out. Annie strokes her head gently before rising. She takes a deep breath, then gives Roza a smile.

"Thank you," she says.

"Jane's lucky to have a big sister like you," Roza replies.

Annie turns back to her sister, and you turn away, finding a… log? Yes, a log. You sit down on it, and Veliona sits next to you. For several minutes, the only sounds are Annie and Pip talking to each other. You can't really hear what they're saying. Roza and Lili, you're sure, can make out far more.

Eventually Lili turns to you, her expression troubled. You look back at her, heaving a deep sigh.

"Let's talk," you say.

"Yeah. Let's. Seele…" Her eyes have lost all focus, but her voice firms up as she keeps talking. "Seele, do you know why I'm angry at you?"

You have an idea. "I… I don't want to guess," you say.

"Try," she says, almost chiding you.

You take a deep breath, and just look at her. Liliya is your little sister. She looks the way she did when you returned from the Sea of Quanta, which is nearly the same way she did when you were lost—horn and tail aside—which is to say that she looks like she's twelve. She'll always look like she's twelve. She has that in common with Theresa, but she is in fact sixteen. She has the body shape of a twelve year old girl, and to some small degree, the mind of one too. Lili's frozen in time.

That's why, you suppose, the three of them have become such good friends. It's why you refuse to grow any older. It's also why…

"Because I was still treating you like a child," you say. You're not looking at her; you're looking at the dirt beneath your feet. "When I said I didn't want you to be hurt."

She sits down next to you. "You think I'm still twelve," she says.

"No," you say, "I know you're sixteen."

"Then why?"

"Because… because I care about you, Lili. I can't stand the thought of you getting hurt. Okay? Is that… Can you accept that?"

Lili falls silent. You hear Roza shift uneasily. Annie and Pip are still talking about who knows what.

"Yeah," she says, her voice wavering. "I can. If you'll let me say the same thing. I care about you too… But I can't stand the thought of losing either of you. Especially like that. Especially if it's because you were defending me. You want to hear something crazy? When I was little, I thought I just got easily tired. But then I started realizing that everyone else saw me as some kind of… broken thing. Like something to be put in a jar and kept safe, not to be interacted with or risked in any way at all. I was so angry about it, but the number one culprit was my twin sister. Roza, you–"

Liliya never finishes that sentence, because she looks up at her sister, and the pain on Rozaliya's face in that moment is indescribable.

Liliya looks quietly at her. Her eyes flit back to you, and then she clasps Roza's hand and smiles. It isn't a genuine smile. She tries to make it one, as hard as she can. She fails.

After a few moments she lets out a sigh, takes both of her hands in her own and gets back to her feet, looking into Rozaliya's eyes from perhaps a centimeter away. Roza has the same deer-in-headlights expression as you, right now. You know she's terrified of what's coming next.

"Back when I was in the hospital," Liliya says. "After the attack on St. Freya's. And yesterday. Twice in the last few months, you've said you'd give your life for me."

Her voice is carefully controlled, but she's clearly on the verge of tears.

"Don't you know I wouldn't want that?" she says. "No, I'm not going to lie. I'd give up my life for you, Roza. In a heartbeat. But I don't want you to do the same, and I don't want Seele to do so either. It's not very fair, is it?"

"Life's not fair, Lili," Roza says, cracking a ghost of a smile.

"I know." Liliya's voice breaks. She turns back to you. "But I guess… I guess that's just the way family is, sometimes? I mean, look at these three. Pip was desperate to save his sisters, enough that he'd wander through a Honkai-infested forest. Annie desperately didn't want him to die, but she must have felt so torn, knowing Jane would likely die without help. I doubt she even considered herself. I can't forgive the other villagers," she says fiercely. "They should have helped. Letting children starve to death is… I don't have words to describe it."

"I don't think anyone else has food either," you say quietly. "We brought a lot, but…"

A lot, yes. Enough for two reactor-powered girls, for two or three weeks. More, if you come across wildlife. Not enough for a village, no matter how much Roza and Lili can devour in one day.

"Oh, I know," Liliya says, her voice tired.

The conversation halts for a while. You want, so very much, to give Liliya a hug and tell her it'll all be okay. It'd be a lie, you don't think it will, and you don't think she's ready for that yet, but you…

Are you crying?

You quickly wipe them away, then look back at Liliya.

"I wanted to help," you say. "That's all. It wasn't about protecting you, at least not physically. I… I saw a chance to find out what an eruption is, and… it's an entire Impact, Lili!" You look at her appealingly. "We can't fight that. You know we can't. At most we can keep this village safe, which means they'd slowly starve to death while dying from honkai radiation. If I look, then I don't know what I'd find. Maybe it'd help."

You can see the fading sparks of her anger flare back to life, buried under melancholia.

"And I suppose it doesn't matter how dangerous that is to you," she says, her voice full of hurt. "Or that you promised not to leave, less than ten minutes ago."

"It's not like that, Lili!"

"You're not going." She says it slowly, but accusingly. "We agreed. We promised. I won't let you leave us. You always do this! Every time someone has to make a sacrifice, it's somehow one of you. Otto's so-called plan, the X-10 experiment. Twice, yesterday and today. You, Bronya, Isabella, Nina. Zofia…" Her voice cracks. "Don't you know how much it hurts for you to vanish? Why don't you ever think about the ones you leave behind?"

"Lili…" Your voice is sore, on the verge of breaking, and it's only the thought of Jane in the other room that keeps you from shouting at each other. Roza, too, looks like she's on the verge of tears. It's not true, what Liliya said. She knows it isn't true, but you think you know why she feels this way.

"Can we make a deal?" Roza asks, her voice just as hoarse as Liliya's. "Seele? Liliya? Veliona?"

She waits until she has your attention, even Vel's, who looks like she'd rather be anywhere but here. No; if she really felt that way, she'd have hidden away inside you. She wants to be here, she just doesn't like it. You can scarcely blame her.

"I want us to stop doing this," Roza says.

Liliya shakes her head–

"Hear me out, sis. Please." She looks at you, and at Lili. Quietly, you take Veliona's hand. It seems like the thing, and…

You want reassurance, you guess.

Lili nods. "Okay," she says.

"Right. So… Seele said she'd close these eyes, and open some others," Roza says. "I want to know what she meant by that, but I guess that's not the most important thing. Like I said, I want to make a deal. Lili, you said it yourself." She smiles, just barely. It's a weak and sickly thing. "You'd give up your life for me. But you don't want me to do the same? It really isn't fair. So here's the deal. Lili, Seele. Vel–"

You can pretty much guess where this is going.

"Can we quit trying to save each other?" she says. "What I mean is, stop sacrificing yourself. Lili, stop jumping between me and attacks! Do you have any idea how often you've made my heart stop pulling that stunt? And Seele, stop just… disappearing. Or touching magic balls, and then collapsing. Or… or being attacked from outside reality. At least explain what you're doing."

Her voice grows quiet again.

"Please? And I'll be more careful when I'm fighting, I won't get hurt so much, and I'll let you help more, Lili. Can we try to fight together, properly? As a team, the way Hua and her sister do?"

Lili looks away.

"We can try," she says, her voice barely audible.

"Do you promise?"

Lili nods. Roza looks at the pair of you, and you see the fear disappear from her eyes. She smiles, a bit sadly.

"I promise too," you say. "I won't do anything without telling you, and I'll try to explain what's happening. I can't promise I won't ever make mistakes, or get attacked, but I'll try to let you help as much as possible."

"Okay," Lili says. Then, a bit more strongly. "Okay."

"It's a deal, then," Roza says, and holds out her hand.

You put your hand in hers, and Lili puts her hand in yours. Roza looks at you expectantly, a trace of a smile appearing on her face.

"Vel?" you say, looking her way. "Do you want to join in?"

You look to her, and see her as she was when you first met her, surrounded by darkness, unable to tell if she was a demon or a person. A lot's changed since then, but she's always been insistent that she's the one meant to protect you. Not the other way around.

You don't want that. You don't want her putting herself in danger, and you don't want her to feel like she needs to. You just want her to be family.

"Vel?" Roza asks, raising an eyebrow. "We're waiting."

You hold out your hand and look at Veliona. She studies you for a moment, then smiles and touches your fingers to join the chain. Good enough.

"Thank you," Liliya says, and it's as if the air goes out of her. She seems to deflate, and there's a long pause before she straightens back up, looking at you.

"Do you want to tell us precisely what you're doing?" she asks.

ooOOoo

"So walk me through this," Roza says. "Seele, you're– an upload running on your stigma. You've said that before. What's it mean?" She nails you with her eyes. "Lili, sit on her if you have to."

Lili raises an eyebrow, gives a little shrug, then does as she's told. You're pinned. Uh…

She draws a deep, slow breath, leans back against you, and relaxes completely. You hesitate, then wrap your arms around her. It's… nice. Roza smiles a bit, though it soon fades. She's incredibly tense.

Vel smiles as well, looking less like she wants to run away.

It's a vote of confidence, you think, but you're still not getting out of this.

There's a lot of ways you could put this that wouldn't be a good idea. 'The X-10 experiment destroyed my body, Vel was just barely able to rescue my mind,' for example. Points for honesty, negative gigapoints for telling them you're dead, and you don't think telling her you're not would work, there. She can see you're not.

"It me-means…" You hesitate. You also don't want to lie to them.

"Yes?" Roza gazes patiently at you, but underneath the surface you know she's anything but.

You've relied too much on the twins' willingness to go along with bad explanations, and assumptions that they understood your vague references. No, you weren't even assuming. You were just happy to pretend.

"So, the stigmata is–it–it's a computer," you say, the words coming jerkily. Now that you're saying it, your stutter is back. "Well, it's also a universe of sorts, but mostly it's a computer. I'm a–" You can't say 'program'. "Uh, it dragged me inside. Or really, Veliona did. That's how we survived the experiment."

"So you're an upload running on a computer," Rozaliya says. "Like an AI, only not artificial. Got that. And?"

And? "And what?" you ask timidly. "You already knew? You're not mad?"

"Oh, I'm hopping mad, but not at you," she says, seemingly calm. "Mother has a lot to answer for. Well, she would, if she wasn't dead. I'm not upset at you because of what she's done, though. And? Do you have trouble feeling touch? A missing sense of taste? Anything like that?"

She pauses a little, forcing herself to calm down. There's still Annie and Pip in the other room. As well as Jane, and none of you want to wake her. Her body needs all the energy it has left.

"I wasn't faking anything," you quietly protest, shaking your head. "I'm not like Kiana was. Cakes have to be sweet, or there's no point to them. Do you think I could make borscht without being able to taste it?" You look appealingly at her. "Yeah, my body's a projection, but I'd hate not being able to hug you. There's nothing like that going on."

"Ah," she says, equally quietly. "So that's how it is. I thought so. It's the only thing that makes sense, really. It couldn't be just Vel." She purses her lips. "And?"

"And?"

"I'm still waiting for the punchline," she says, her voice low. "Like, is Veliona actually your twin, killed by Cocolia to make the stigmata? Your dark impulses come to life? A herrscher trapped in your head, like Kiana?"

You shake your head.

"We're separate people," Vel supplies. "Mostly. As separate as you two. Seele's easy to predict, but I reckon I'd know if I were a Herrscher, so no."

"That's not funny," Roza sighs. "But thanks. And thanks for the last christmas present, come to think of it. It came in handy. And?"

"And?" the two of you chorus.

"Where's she from?"

Liliya perks up a little, looking curiously up at you as well.

"…I have no idea," you say.

ooOOoo

"Okay, so," Liliya starts. "Counting this off. Vel thinks she came with the stigmata. Theresa thinks she came with the stigmata. Seele, you agree." She pauses. "Which doesn't explain where the stigmata got her from, or why you're so alike. Any thoughts?"

"Lots," you say. You look questioningly at Vel, who shrugs. "No idea how to test them, though. My best guess…" You collect your thoughts, willing yourself to say this exactly right. Then, you squeeze her hand a little harder, and look her in the eyes.

"I think I've had the stigmata for longer than since I was twelve," you say, studying Vel. The two of you really are astonishingly alike. Mirrors? Who needs mirrors when you have her? "I think, when I got it, it copied me. Just like it did during the X-10 experiment, except the first time it left the original me in place. Which means Veliona really is my twin sister, or even closer than that. She's me, from when I was eight, or six, or… whenever it turned on. But she didn't have a body of her own, and she wasn't fully conscious. Not until years later."

You nudge Lili slightly, and fortunately she takes the hint, hopping off your lap and getting to her feet. She stretches as she does so, like she was about to fall asleep. Like a cat. It's a good sign, you think.

After a moment, she starts playing with Roza's ponytail.

You stand up, looking into Veliona's perfectly mirrored eyes, and wait patiently for her to gather her thoughts.

"That's… actually a really sweet thought, Seele," she says. "But…" She looks down. "How come I don't share your memories, then? Everything I remembered when I woke up was about the stigma."

You shrug helplessly. "Sorry, Vel. Maybe it didn't copy properly? Or maybe I'm completely wrong. It's just an idea. Was it a lot of work saving me?"

She shakes her head. "Not much, but… it was some. If I'd let the stigmata work entirely on its own… I don't think you'd…"

She falls silent. You lean in, and give her a hug. After a moment, she hugs you back.

"Really though, I don't think it matters," you say. "I just want you to keep it in mind. You're not some sort of guardian AI. You're my sister, okay? Can we work with that? I don't want you to hurt yourself for me."

"It'd explain a few things," she says, so quietly you think you're the only one who can hear her.

You tilt your head.

"I'll let you know when I feel a little more sure of it," she says, then grins. "That said, I'm still the older sister. Okay? You can keep calling me Vel. And if we're looking at an Impact, then I'll be the one to do it. You can stay here, with the twins, where it's safe."

"Okay, Vel." You laugh. Roza's smiling at the two of you. After a moment, Lili coughs conspicuously.

"As cute as that was, I still have questions," she says, nudging her sister. "If you're up to it?"

You give her a serious nod.

"Whatever you want to know," you say. Liliya smiles.

"Okay, so… You're sharing the same body. But not the same mind?" Lili says. "Only, I'm sure I've seen you talk without words."

'So do you,' you feel like protesting.

"Well. Yes," you actually say. "I can talk to Vel without opening my mouth, but that's more like talking than telepathy. Usually I just use my mouth. And she's predictable."

"But you're walking around in separate bodies," Liliya points out.

"Yeah. Now." Roza looks at you. "So are you using radio or something?"

You shake your head.

"We're still sharing the same body," you say. "I said it before, but the ones you can see are projections. Like… shaped honkai energy, except a little less aggressive. I guess in some ways I'm a little like a honkai beast?" You blink. "Makes me a little more like you two," you say, smiling.

"So you're not… really here?" Liliya asks.

That's, well.

"Soooort of?" you say, drawing the word out. "It doesn't feel any different. But my real body's kind of adjacent, yeah. I'm like one of those four-dimensional objects in your math books, Liliya, only it's not quite like that—it's an adjacent possibility, not four-dimensional space."

She looks unsure about that proclamation. Well, you weren't expecting her to like it. It can't be helped, you guess.

"I used to think Vel was the projection," Rozaliya says. "As in, just her. I mean, I guess that doesn't make sense when you disappeared entirely back when she said you had to sleep, but she used to borrow your body to sneak out for snacks, and…" Her voice gets lower and lower. "…combat, that sort of thing."

Roza draws a deep breath.

"We were wondering when you'd introduce us properly to her," she says. "I said it'd be this year, Lili didn't think it'd happen before the end of the world." She flinches. "I guess we were both right."

"Getting sidetracked," Liliya says.

"…You only have one body, right?" Rozaliya says. "So Vel, why on earth do you think it'd be any safer for you to go out, on your own, than for Seele to do it? Want to explain that one?" She shakes her head. "Something's still not making sense here. Also, didn't you say you're not moving at all?"

"I'm better at fighting than she is," Veliona says. "Anyway, we don't overlap completely. There's a part of the stigmata that's mine, and a part that's hers, and I'm better at dealing with damage if it happens. It makes a lot more sense for me to do it."

You almost groan. You love her, really, but that wasn't a good answer. You can see Liliya struggling not to explode again, biting her lip, and you'd be half tempted to join her.

"She didn't mean she'd go alone," you say, giving Vel a warning glance. "I'll keep an eye on her, so if anything happens I can help. And to explain this first, we really wouldn't be moving. It's like…"

You look around, before inspiration strikes and you grab hold of the system Veliona rigged to make your butterflies. A moment later about a hundred of them are flapping in mid-air, all jammed into a single small sphere and looking like nothing so much as a slowly undulating glob of water.

"Okay," you say, once Roza and Lili are both looking your way. "Imagine this is the universe we're in. The bubble, I mean. I'm sort of squished in around it, but…"

You add a few more butterflies, floating in three orthogonal lines around it. Then a few more, until there's what looks like a wireframe of a 3d compass floating in mid-air. Up and down, left and right, and so on. Vel, who can see what you're doing from the inside, is suppressing giggles. You give her an irritated look.

"These are… places I can look, I guess," you say. "Only I'm mostly looking inwards, because it's hard running an avatar. That's tos ay, it's hard for the stigmata. Not really for me, but it can hardly do anything else while running two at once. And also… it's not really three-dimensional space. What I mean is…"

You let the compass blink out, rotate the butterfly-glob slightly, and form a second one. Then you do it again. And again.

"Each of the lines is a different set of directions I can look," you say. "There's at least several thousand. Trillions, really, but they're connected in a way so I can't just go straight to whichever one I want. They're not really dimensions either. Does that… make any sense?"

You look mostly at Liliya. She squeezes Rozaliya's hand, then nods.

"Kind of," she says. "So you're literally not going anywhere." She narrows her eyes. "And it's perfectly safe?"

You draw a deep breath. "It's… safe-ish," you say. "Safer than not looking. There are things that can only notice you if you're looking, but there are plenty of things that don't have that problem. It's safer than sitting here playing ostrich."

Liliya slowly nods. She looks sick, but accepting.

"Lili, before you say anything else, I'm sorry," Vel says. "I just want you to be happy."

You blink in surprise. Well, that's unexpected.

"Thanks," Lili says. "But you're still going, right?" Her eyes glisten.

Vel's eyes dart to you, then she sighs. "Yes. It's still what makes the most sense. Seele's right, there shouldn't be any danger. And if there is, I'm the best choice to deal with it. But I'm actually considering a third option."

"Oh?" you say.

"The stigmata?" Liliya asks, humming. "You said it's like a bubble universe. Can we go inside it?"

Vel massages her temples. "How would that even… no, Lils. It's not a physical place, and it's full, anyway. Of weapons. We should actually… nah, later. I forgot about those for a while, but Seele might be able to use some of them now."

"Oh." Her eyes cloud over with confusion. "Then?"

"Even if you could go inside us, there's nothing to see there," she says. "You wouldn't be able to do anything but sit still. So I have a different idea. How would you like to watch from here?"

Your eyes flick to Vel. "Watch? Watch what?"

"The scenery." Vel laughs. "Or rather, a three-dimensional mapping of it. You didn't think the stigmata came with holographic butterflies per standard, did you? What it came with is a hologram emitter. You stay here, I'll go look, and Roza and Lili can watch and make sure we're not doing anything crazy."

Liliya's eyes light up, and she nods happily.

"And if any of it looks dangerous," Vel says, "you'll…" She shrugs. "Well, you'll at least know. If I could think of a way to let you help, I'd do it. Anything you say to Seele I'll hear, so you'll have a way of warning me, but it's going to be confusing. Truth be told, you might not understand what you see."

She smiles at Liliya and Roza.

"You're sure about this?" you ask her. "We've never done this before."

"I'm sure," she says. "It's simpler than the butterflies, honestly. Just give me a minute."

"Alright then." You nod. "Let's do this."

ooOOoo

She turns away from Seele and twins, and it's all she can do to maintain the facade.

Not because she was lying, about anything.

She's starting to worry that her dreams are premonitions. What just happened, before they started talking? She's seen it before, in her dreams. Not in detail, but the general outline. Bronya was gone, Lils and Roz were in danger, she went to search for a way to help, and they…

In the end they died. How and when is fuzzy, just like all her dreams, but all day long she's been having moments of horrified realisation followed by stunned relief they're still okay. She didn't hurt them. She doesn't want to lose them. Her childhood playmates, her closest friends in the world.

'Her sisters.' That word echoes hollowly through her head. Like an echo… That's right, that's what it feels like. Like an echo of Seele's feelings, through a warped mirror, and if the stigma's not supposed to do that then maybe it's more broken than expected. Or maybe her "little sister" is right. She used to think her role was obvious, that they didn't see her the way they see Seele. She used to feel nothing for them, and she used to be okay with that. Now, though Roz and Lils are ever more accepting, she can hardly look at them without being overwhelmed by sourceless guilt.

It'll pass, it always does, but there's lingering damage from what Seele did to Ai-chan that's messing with her head, even though it shouldn't have, and and and even just thinking that thought makes her thoughts stutter and spark, like she's bouncing off limits she isn't supposed to even realise she has. It's not clearing up over time. It hurts, but this time she didn't forget. She was able to form the thought. Something is breaking.

She wants, desperately now, to find Einstein. A genius of her caliber might be able to help. Surely no-one else can.

Maybe it's okay, though. Maybe she's just remembering.

But that's later, and this is now, and right this moment she needs to be the one to help her family.

She pushes her awareness outwards.

Outside the bubble universe, which she and her sister are mostly surrounding, there's nothing except her, the void, and the distant bulk of the Hyperion. If there's a Honkai eruption, there should be something else here. She's never seen one from this perspective before, and could never have done so nearly as clearly, but she remembers at least a little bit from Schrödinger's lectures. Schrödinger wasn't able to tell Seele what it'd be, just 'something'.

There's a disturbance in the sea of quanta. The vacuum shudders, and she 'pushes' onwards, seeking the source across a multitude of potentialities. Just like she told Lils, she's not really moving. Her and Seele can't physically split up, whatever it sometimes looks like.

That's when she sees it.

It's a creature. A great, beautiful serpentine beast made of pure nothingness, but she can tell that it's alive, because it's moving with purpose around the island world. Its scales are the same as the void around it—black as the darkest night. But wherever its skin touches anything even slightly more real than it, reality starts breaking down.

It can't be the same snake-beast her and Seele saw days ago… can it? It's a quantum shadow, clear as day, but when she studies it she gets an impression of familiarity. It's bigger than when last she saw it. Much, much bigger.

There's honkai energy as well, flowing both ways between it and the world. If a serpent can be said to have hair, then this one has white tubes of honkai energy taking that role.

It's headed for where the twins are. She breathes in, and…

She feels a sense of regard coming from the snake-beast. It's not hostile, not like a honkai beast should be. It feels more like—curiosity? Regret. Surprise. Familiarity. Two at once, always two at once.

Worry?

Pride. In itself, and…

The impressions make no sense. But the void-snake is a predator, and the world the twins are in is its prey. There's no doubt about that. It could have attacked the Hyperion. For that matter, it could have attacked Seele. It didn't. Because this world is easier prey, or..?

She has to help them. She can't let herself get distracted.

"I'm sorry about earlier," she tells it, mind running a mile a minute. She isn't expecting a response. She is expecting it to attack her, but there's no need to play the role of prey here.

There's no response save for a slightly more urgent wafting of honkai energy, and the slow rumbling of the snake-beast gnawing through the fabric of reality. Vaguely, she wonders if it's trying to communicate something, or if the beast just does everything at that infernal pace. Finally, it pauses for a second. Turns its head, and studies her. And then, it–

Nuzzles her.

Nuzzles her with a big honking maw that could crush her skull like a peanut. That could crush Mount Everest like a peanut.

She does not want to know what Roz and Lils are making of this.

= = =

Sometimes, the characters just take over. This was one of those times.

That's how it goes. It might have been easier if Seele could have genuinely said she misspoke, but Liliya was having none of this. While I couldn't predict the events in advance, that rope has no more slack, and this conversation was necessary. I… guess it's essentially sorted, however. I don't expect you can go anywhere without them, ever again, and Seele gets a hard veto on betraying this new agreement, but the problem is resolved.

Kevin isn't around, but here's Jormungandr. A more genuine version. Concerns? No, I don't think I have any of those.

The next update will be set back in the village, and you can think the vote on Jormungandr over while I'm working on the start of that conversation. There was already a vote, requesting Seele run into a villager while searching for the leaders; it appears to be coming through, though you can expect said leader to show up shortly.

If you want to provide any guidance for the start of that conversation, let me know. Otherwise I'll go with what was already decided. That is to say: Let me know within 36h that you'd like to do something specific with the villagers, and I'll try to provide a few options if you haven't already thought of some. Otherwise the next vote will be a little into the conversation.

…

Anyway, look at that! Seele came up with a reasonable, sensible explanation for where Veliona is from! It honestly makes a lot more sense than the truth.

[ ] [Jormungandr] Headpat snek
- Veliona will accept advances of snek, without acting too bothered by hek.
[ ] [Jormungandr] Study snek
- Veliona will figure out what the hek. Snek may be annoyed by feck.
[ ] [Jormungandr] Write-in
[ ] [Villagers] Continue as planned
[ ] [Villagers] Write-in

It's late at night, I'm tired, and I want to write but I have nothing to write. I'm resuming Questor Quest this weekend, but it's not there yet. At times like this... let's talk a bit about

Delta Olenyeva

She's a character from a recent HI3 event, but let me correct one thing, straight off. "Delta" is a codename, not her name. It's the one she goes by — she doesn't want to use her original one. She is, in the timeline she's from, Rozaliya and Liliya's older sister.

The event is set entirely in a bubble universe. One of the more stable ones, but it's got serious issues; a long-term Honkai infection, for one. The main character of the story is a young girl named Seele, who has just recently left the village she grew up in to go searching for her older sister, Bronya, who went missing after leaving to defeat the dark lord.

Seele's youth was spent reading adventure novels and listening to Bronya's tales, so she has a warped and... frankly unrealistic view of the world, although one which would work just fine in any actual adventure story. It's a pity this isn't an adventure story. It's a tale of how an eldritch horror from outside the universe has invaded, wiped out most of humanity, and was then temporarily sealed away by Bronya's efforts and those of AIs created by ancient scientists.

This young girl, after being taken advantage of in the first town she visits, finds herself taken under the wing of a more experienced... "adventurer", Delta. It's not necessarily clear why. Delta is a brusque person, unlikely to ever admit if she likes someone or not, but if we could read her mind we might find she can't help it. After all...



Delta used to have another name. She used to be called Rozaliya, before she lost the one person she cares most about in all the world.

Liliya isn't precisely dead. She was badly hurt after an attack on St. Freya's, at which time Rozaliya made the horrible mistake of telling her, out loud, that she couldn't wait for Liliya to be back on her feet and helping her again. That fighting, without her, was impossible. That was meant to be encouragement, but... this happened right after the doctors had just told Liliya she'd be lucky if she ever walked again.

I'm not sure where Bronya and Seele were at this time, but in Seele's case I don't think she existed at all. The overall scenario seems to make the most sense if the Sea of Quanta arc never happened. So Delta's Seele, if she's even still alive, remains lost in the void.

But Liliya did make it back to her feet. She wasn't able to fight again, but she was able to walk. Somewhat.

Which leads to the next, and final misfortune in Delta's life. There was another attack, or a fighting retreat; they were losing the war against the Honkai, quite badly by the looks of it. Rozaliya was desperate to get Liliya to safety. Liliya was desperate for Rozaliya to get to safety. Regardless, Liliya lacked the physical ability to run, and Rozaliya was fatally wounded while saving her. The end result?

Liliya begged the doctors to save Rozaliya somehow, even if it meant giving up her own life.

That bargain, it seems, was acceptable.

They merged. Liliya is still conscious, but the only element of Delta's body she can control is the tail. She is, at least, aware of her surroundings. And they are, to some degree, able to talk. They still fight together.

Ever since then, Delta has been a retrieval agent of sorts. She moves from one bubble universe to the next, fetching interesting items while looking for... something. We're not sure what, exactly, but she gets around, so it's very possible we'll run into her again. She works for Otto—probably. He has the means, and the text messages we were shown match his writing style. They don't match anyone else's.

= = =

This is authentic MiHoYo writing, folks!

Ah, but there's at least one spot of hope here. Delta is still Rozaliya. She's torturing herself for no good reason, but she's still the same good person she always was. She helps out, even if she has to pretend to herself it's for some selfish reason or other; as that universe's Seele quickly discovered, she can be quite reliable.

Granted, that was Seele, and I doubt Delta would be as accommodating to anyone else. When it comes to her siblings, she just can't help herself.

Oh, and she has two little sisters; Rozaliya and Liliya. That particular pair have been seen before. They're the Gemina twins. She picked them up from yet another bubble universe, where they'd been trapped, and... Otto can be quite accommodating to people who help his cause, really.

= = =

In terms of fluff, Delta has a rather dubious playstyle. She's the most powerful physical attacker in the game, but she achieves this using skills such as... ignoring enemy attacks (though they still do damage), going into a berserk rage, and psychically beating them down with a bizarre empathic projection at the same time as she's literally beating them down with a pair of broadswords weighing more than she does.

The only reason this is remotely survivable is high-speed regeneration, and I haven't even mentioned her unique weapon. Most weapons use SP to activate skills; this one uses HP instead. One HP, just so you know it's symbolic.

It's all very... lovely.