You could leave, doing nothing. It would be easy, you wouldn't hurt anyone, and had this been two years ago then you think it's what you would have done. If this had been two years ago, then it's what Veliona would have suggested, and you would have gone along. If it had been two years ago, then your lack of confidence in yourself might have forced you to run, too scared to help the girl below.
But that was two years ago, and today you're too horrified by what you're seeing to even think of running away.
The girl—Kiana, you presume—throws her dagger down next to the woman's body, looking at it with tears streaming down her face. She collapses forward, letting out a soul-rending scream of anguish that nearly breaks your heart. You can't stand by and watch this. Despite your fear, despite the danger, despite everything...
"Seele,
wait," Veliona says. "Think about this for a moment."
"I have thought about this, Vel," you say, your voice breaking. "I can't just watch this."
You pick up speed, barreling down towards Kiana. You're not sure it's really her, but who else can it be? Really? You hope it's her. You'll have at least some idea of what to do, if it's her.
"I said stop," Veliona snaps. "Think!"
You shudder to a halt in mid-air, and not by your own choice. Veliona just seized control of your body, locking you out as she watches the girl below you.
"Vel," you whimper. "Let me go. Please, Vel, let me go save her."
"I'm sorry, Seele," she says softly. "I just don't want you to get hurt. Or to hurt Kiana, actually. You can tell, can't you? That this is a nightmare."
"Yes," you say. "Of course I can."
"In that case, who are we?"
Vel holds up a red-and-black armor-clad arm for your inspection. It's not yours. It obviously isn't yours. It's far too muscled for a girl as scrawny as you are, and there are lines on it that, now that you're looking at them, match the symptoms of fatal Honkai poisoning. You stare at it in confusion. The dream is casting you as someone else entirely, but that's normal for dreams. Normal enough at least, for dreams that aren't your own.
"I don't know who this is," Vel says. "It's just, this is a nightmare. What's the chance we're someone that girl will enjoy seeing? What's the chance talking to her will just make everything worse? If we're going down there, let's at least use our own appearance."
She releases you, and you take control of your body once more.
You don't continue descending, instead hovering uncertainly. Vel is right, at least in that you ought to think this through. This is a nightmare, and… in that case…
"This is a nightmare," you say, stating the obvious. "It's not real."
"Well, what do you think?" Vel asks.
You shake your head. "Then, why don't we just wake her?"
Chances are, Kiana's trapped in some way. Maybe she's 'just' having a nightmare, but if that's true then it's the worst nightmare you've ever seen. You'll probably have nightmares about it later, and you still have to fight to stop yourself from flying down and tackle-hugging her.
Maybe it's not just a nightmare. Kiana's the Herrscher of Void, but she's had nightmares before. They've never turned into bubble universes; you think you'd have heard. Kiana's been having nightmares pretty frequently since you met her. This is probably happening because of the situation, but can you take the risk?
Vel remains silent a moment longer.
"We could," she says. "Tearing the bubble apart would do it. It'd be a shock, but this isn't her mind we're in. It's a reflection of her mind. Destroying it is less likely to harm her than changing it would."
You don't like that wording.
"But do you think that's what we should do?" you ask.
"No, it isn't," Vel says. "Look, I'm no more an expert in this than you are. What I think we should do is pack up and leave. If you insist on helping, then I'm out of ideas. Look at her, is that even Kiana?"
She looks downwards, focusing your eyes on the girl below you. She definitely looks like Kiana, purplish-violet hair aside, but...
Your thoughts derail, as the soldiers reach Kiana and surround her. They're yelling, and the ones with guns quickly open fire. She doesn't seem to notice.
You watch as she's shot in the head. Her head snaps to the side from the sheer force of it, fragments of bone and gore flying through the air, but that's all that happens. She doesn't react at all.
Her eyes flare golden. Reality wavers around you, the previously placid fabric of the dream-bubble—regardless of content—suddenly taking on a much more... biological feel. It
crawls chaotically, shivers flying up your spine as it almost licks you, curiously trying to determine what you are. It doesn't attack. At least it doesn't attack.
Instead, it almost purrs in satisfaction.
The soldiers react with terror, and the ones who don't immediately die are driven to their knees by abject fear. You watch as Kiana gracefully stands up, untouched by the bullets that should have ruined her body. There's a look of arrogance on her face.
"See?" Vel whispers softly into your mind. "Told you. That's the Herrscher of Void."
You can't stay.
None of this feels right, but you can't stay. You have to get out of here.
You 'push' outwards, drifting through the borders of a bubble universe that has, abruptly, gone sticky. Had Kiana realized you were there, then you don't think you could have. Not, at least, without a risk of hurting her... or the twins, who should still be nearby in the real world.
Your skin tingles as your body dissolves, leaving only the tangle of interlinked concepts that's… you. You're floating over a sea of dreams. You're in a place between dreams and reality, temporarily joined to each other by Kiana's bubble universe. It's dark; there's barely anyone here. Thirty, forty people at most. All you have to do is keep moving 'upwards', and you'll be right back where you left.
Or, you could...
You turn the thought around in your head for a good minute.
Most of you is stuck outside the Hyperion. Kiana could have annihilated your avatar in the Hyperion, body and soul, and it'd barely affect the real you. That's the largest link, and it's only failing to block out your vision because it's inside you, but from here you can reach a few other 'places'. Configurations. There's Kiana's dream, and those of a few dozen other people, though all the others would be dead ends. There's that piece of corridor you came from, linked to the nightmare world by the rift you were trying to close. And there's Kiana herself...
Could you return to reality in Kiana's bedroom, instead of where you came from?
From the corridor it'd take you at least an hour to get to Kiana, and that's assuming you don't get lost. Too long to stop a nightmare. Far too long for one like this. You bet she's back at the bridge, bunking with Theresa or her father, but you might even be wrong about that.
From in here… the connection is thin, barely there, and it's doing something subtle you aren't sure of, but it's still a connection. You should be able to chase it back.
"Vel, I'm going to do something stupid," you say, and explain your idea. She's silent for a few minutes as you drift through the void. You feel her emotions change several times.
Not exactly.
You feel the expressions she's trying to make, even if you don't strictly speaking have a face at the moment.
When did life get so strange?
You know the answer, of course; it just isn't one you care to remember. It brought you Veliona, yes. Taught you to work together. But if you'd been given the choice, between three years with Bronya and…
Between Bronya and your other half…
You go still, silently floating in the space between concepts. A butterfly with unflapping wings.
Between her and… it wasn't meant to be this way, but Veliona's really changed, and… and Rozaliya already…
If you don't want to risk something precious, then you should stop lying to yourself. Rozaliya's right.
"The last time you did something this foolish, you turned a fire extinguisher into a cognitive hazard," your sister says in her usual way, ignorant of your internal turmoil. "Are you sure about this?"
"It put out the fire, didn't it?" you reply, smiling widely.
There's another pause. Your thoughts hitch. You try to put it out of your mind, to focus on saving Kiana. Who's maybe got someone like Vel locked up inside her, unable to talk. For a while, you actually thought of her as a demon. It's hard not to have your thoughts dragged back to your sister.
What's Veliona thinking, you wonder? She's studying you.
You think you know how Liliya feels now. All you want to do is to hold her, and not let go.
"I'm almost sure I'm supposed to talk you out of this," she says. "I just find I don't want to. You'll be careful, right?"
"I'll be fine," you say.
"No, I mean with Kiana. I'm sure you'll be fine, but she's fragile right now."
You nod, distractedly, and hug Veliona inside your head. You can feel her confusion about what you're doing. It is, admittedly, easier when you're in separate bodies. Or when you have any sort of body whatsoever. You laugh to yourself about that.
"I have one more request," you say, voice wavering only slightly. "Can you go back to the twins and let them know what I'm doing? I don't want to just up and disappear on them. Rozaliya would go spare."
You hope that's something she can do, because saying the twins would be unimpressed is an understatement. They might actually do something that could hurt them. If Veliona says no, then—as much as you hate the idea—you'll have to leave Kiana to her own devices. The risk of losing your two younger sisters, of losing what little is left of your family, is just too high. Any risk at all would be too high.
Vel is quiet for a moment.
"If this goes south, and I'm not there," she says.
You nod. "I'll get out. I won't hesitate even a second."
She nods, before you feel her split off.
"The twins do seem like fun. They remind me of someone," she says, smiling wanly. "I'm not sure who. Okay. I'll head out first, just in case this goes wrong."
You nod. "See you soon, big sis."
Vel hesitates a final, shocked moment, then turns around, giving you a final wave before disappearing. You make your own preparations.
It's... wrong, you think, to say your wings look like those of a butterfly. For one, they're far too large; they don't look like wings, they look like an ocean. Their tracery of azure lines rises up around you, fully unfolding, a line-drawing of something that might be butterfly wings and might be a continent.
For another, it's not that you're a teenage girl with wings. That tracery, untangled, is you; the girl, a superfluous appendage. Spread out in three-dimensional reality, the wings only look like wings because of someone's sense of aesthetics. You love butterflies, so maybe it's yours?
In conceptual space, you only look like a butterfly because Bronya keeps saying you do. Most of the time you're folded up inside your stigma, but your physical, pretend-biological body has gotten less and less important. You use it for—eating cake, and hugging people—both crucial activities, yet neither is something you want to do right now.
It's a butterfly made of light, therefore, which skims around Kiana's dream, seeking a return to reality—but not the obvious, simple path. It's a strain, one that grows the further you get from Veliona, and you feel lonely in a way you haven't been since you were twelve. Still, you have to try. You can't leave Kiana alone, not like this. At least, you... you
assume it's Kiana.
ooOOoo
It's Kiana.
You wing your way back into reality, manifesting with a convulsive effort that leaves you dizzy and stumbling, and it's all you can do not to fall over. When you straighten up, the first thing you see is Kiana, curled up in her bed and crying. She's definitely asleep, but the tears streaming down her face are very real.
She's recreated the St. Freya dorms, with enough beds for six people, but there's only her and Theresa in the room. That fact barely registers, in the face of her pain.
"Kiana?" you whisper, touching her shoulder gently, only to have to catch yourself when she flinches away with a whimper. The walls around you pulse three words, a desperate prayer in a voice full of terror.
"Ich liebe dich."
"Ich liebe dich."
"Ich liebe dich."
"Kiana!"
You don't exactly shout, something tells you that would be bad. But you speak loudly, reaching out with both hands this time, pulling the older girl close. The whispers stutter, for a moment accelerating into a wordless scream. But you don't flinch. And then her arms are grasping you tight, pulling you close, clinging in desperation in a way that you'd never imagined Kiana would ever do.
Is it Kiana? You try to answer that as the hold loosens swiftly, a sniffle drawing attention to the sudden wetness at your breast. It's hard to imagine, and-
"Seele?" She asks, the confusion clear. "I thought you went to search for survivors. What are you doing here? "
In for a penny, as that odd saying went. You take a breath, and sit up.
"I came to find you, Kiana," you confess.
"You did?" she asks, her voice childishly hopeful, and you nod.
"I found somewhere while we were searching," you say, trying to be gentle. "I think I found another survivor. But I can't save her."
"Why not?"
"She's…" How did you explain this? "She's stuck somewhere, somewhere horrible. I can feel her, she's scared and confused and hurt. But I can't save her. I came to get you to help me."
"Of course," Kiana nods. "Where is she?"
"Please," you say, pulling tight as Kiana tries to rise. "Just...tell me you'll listen first."
She looks confused, but nods. "Alright."
You reach up with one hand, and tap your friend gently on her forehead. "She's in here, Kiana," you explain, tapping your own head. "Like Vel used to be with me, only I don't think you can hear her."
You wait patiently, and Kiana is quiet for a moment.
"Seele," she says carefully. "What are you talking about?"
"I…" You stumble a little. It's hard to explain this when you're still feeling so alone. Vel will be back soon, you tell yourself. "When we went looking, we found a bubble universe, one not like any I'd ever seen. All the others I've been in, they're like echoes, maybe dreams. But this was a nightmare. And I think it was–" You swallow hard. "I think it was your nightmare, Kiana."
She stares at you, uncomprehending, and you find the words coming out in a rush. How you'd appeared in that awful world of ice and ash, finding two violet-haired girls. One torn apart, the other holding a knife. The terror, the pain in her voice. Everything else.
"I think," you say quietly. "When you were little, something happened to you. Something awful." You reach out to touch her shoulder, but she pulls away. "Kiana, I'm sorry. You don't deserve this. No one deserves this."
"What did you do?" Kiana asks. Her voice is shrill. Fearful? Angry? It's not that you don't understand, but–
"Nothing," you say. "You know you weren't the first Herrscher of the Void, Kiana." She didn't recognise the place you'd described, yet her face had turned pale as a ghost when you'd described the girl and the woman so similar to her. "I think that when you were young, when Otto did what he did, it wasn't just the previous Herrscher that found a home in your mind." You close your eyes. "I think someone else did too, and I've found her. She's been alone all her life, and she's in agony."
"Her?"
"That girl. The girl who became the first Herrscher of the Void."
You hear Kiana gasp as she puts the pieces together. Then...
"No." She shakes her head. "That can't be. She's my nightmare. She's... she's not a person. She's a monster!" Desperation makes the words louder, fuelled by rejection and fear.
"The Herrscher of Void?" You shake your head. "A monster, yes, but everything we know says that wasn't by choice. The girl who was forced to become her?" You harden your words, despite everything it costs you. "Do you think she had any more freedom in that than you did?"
You're angry; you want Kiana to understand. The girl you found was a scared child, clearly in agony.
"What do you think can go wrong, if you just try to talk to her?" you ask. "Not the Herrscher, but this girl. The one I saw in your nightmare."
Kiana's eyes dart around, wild with terror, then fall on you. She breathes deeply, as if trying to control herself. Takes another breath. Then, she nods.
"I'll try." She closes her eyes, and leans back onto the bed. You stay sitting.
You wait.
Vel is back with you by the time Kiana opens her eyes again, her presence a much-needed balm to your anxiety. Kiana's face is a mask of horror, and her blue eyes swim with tears.
"You're right," she says. "I can… I can feel her. She's so scared."
"Kiana–"
"But I need to understand. She's too scared, too hurt, so much that I can barely reach her and I don't even know her name." She pushes herself up, ignoring how one hand punches straight through the sheets and bed below it. "I need to know her name!"
There's a terrible will in those words, enough to make you shiver and for Vel to draw suddenly close, red light glinting where only you can see it. Kiana doesn't notice, but her eyes are still blue. That's something. She's out of the bed before you can move, crosses the dorm room with a handful of swift steps, and there she does something you'd never have dared. She places one hand on each of Theresa's shoulders and shakes. Hard.
"Wake up, Theresa. I need you to wake up right now, there's someone I need to ask you about."
"Wha-?" The girl groans, rolling over and opening her eyes. When they land on Kiana, she jolts upright in bed. "Kiana? What are you doing?"
"The girl who became the first Herrscher of the Void," Kiana demands, ignoring the question. "What was her name, Theresa?"
"W-what?"
"Her name. What was her fucking name!"
"I...I don't understand. Kiana, what's wrong?"
Vel's hands clench into fists as you feel the world around you shudder, and Kiana reels back with a cry of pain.
"Her name, Theresa!" She cries. "I can't explain why. Please, just tell me!"
"Sirin," the diminutive headmistress replies. "Her name was Sirin."
Kiana slumps, sagging back against you as if all strength has left her body. You gasp for breath, vision darkening as you find yourself staring into Kiana's exhausted eyes. She's doing something, something that's making the space around her harden, and that, combined with exhaustion from being separated from your sister, is making it almost impossible to keep standing.
"Sirin?"
"That," Kiana whispers, "That's her name. I can feel it."
Her head turns, gaze finding yours across the room. "Thank you," she breathes, and all your reservations about her, about this situation, seem to disintegrate in that one moment. This is your Kiana, the real one.
You've never been so happy to see her in your life.
The moment is sullied somewhat by the sudden flash of movement behind Kiana. Golden chains whirl in around Theresa, ripping through the bed as a large cross crashes down through it. It splits along an invisible seam, flaring with power as spears of golden light glint in anticipation. The look on the headmistress's face is hard, fury and fear carving it from granite in a way no child's should.
Vel moves faster than you could hope to match, her red-and-black clothed form darting forward in a blur. You leap forward to catch her, and succeed only in running into her back as she comes to a stop with her right hand fastened about Theresa's wrist.
"This isn't what you think." There's no room for argument in her voice, but Theresa finds a space anyway.
"Don't you know who that is?" She snaps, her voice icy. "Don't you know–"
"It's not the Herrscher." You surprise yourself with your own fierceness, slipping past Vel and placing yourself between Theresa and Kiana. "Please, Theresa. It's really not."
"Then who
is she?"
"The girl who remembers you trying to be kind," Kiana says from behind you both, yet there's something different to her voice. A ragged softness, in utter opposition to her usual boisterous nature. "And who remembers what the cross can do. Please, don't use it."
"Ki-Kiana?" Theresa never drops her stance, ready to release the Oath of Judah in an instant, but her voice tells another tale.
"Not," a small gasp of pain, "not just me anymore. But not Her, either. Someone new...and older than me." You turn to find her shaking her head, a rich violet shimmering across her normally pure white hair. "She...remembers you, I think. It's hard to tell, I can barely hear her. But she's here with me, Aunt Teri, and I know what She felt like. Sirin isn't Her."
"How can you be sure?" Theresa asks, her hands lowering ever so slightly. Behind her, the golden spears begin to retract back into the cross.
"Because I can feel her." Kiana's smile is almost heartbreaking. "All she wants is a friend."
ooOOoo
"So, um," you say.
It takes you all a while to calm down, and to be truthful, you want nothing more than to fade into the background. To be entirely honest, you'd like it even better if you could leave; go back to search and rescue duty. It'd be easy to justify. You left your younger siblings hanging, for one, and a lot of people with them.
There's just…
"Yes, Seele? What is it?" Theresa says. She at least is back to normal.
"I…" You hesitate. "I just, um… there's something I have to tell you," you say in a rush. She blinks blearily at you. She looks tired, but it's the middle of the night, you guess.
You weren't gone that many hours. That's something you prefer not to think about.
Before she can respond, you squeeze Vel's hand and rush on. She stiffens a little.
"I, um. I want to introduce you to my twin… older sister," you say. Your skin is prickling. "Theresa, this is Veliona… Vollerei? I thought I should let you… know that. And I want you to meet each other."
You make it a question, lean into Veliona's side and shrink a little. She gives you a strange look, but nods, relaxing against you in a way you aren't at all used to.
"Yeah," your sister says, smiling softly. "Yeah, I think I'd like that."
= = =
You shouldn't assume Seele's perspective is the correct one. She said the right things, not necessarily for the right reasons; there's no guarantee she will in the future. Although there's definitely a sense in which her and Veliona are identical twins, or even the same person, it bears stating that they were born fifty thousand years apart.
They're separate people, every bit as distinct from each other as Roza and Liliya. For a while they were stuck with just a single body, yes, but that's all it was.
Also, massive thanks to @Snowfire for helping me with the second half of this chapter.
On a meta note: While I enjoy high update rates as much as anyone, it just isn't possible to write a good update all in a single evening. That isn't a matter of time; I can't spot flaws without sleeping on it. So from now on, expect updates to take two days (when they don't intimately involve Kiana). It'll give me time to work on my other quest.
Votes will still be until consensus.
[ ] Stay with Kiana as moral support / help restoring the corridors
Plus: We'll be nearby if this goes south.
Minus: Nobody is doing any rescuing.
- [ ] Starting with engineering
Plus: This is mostly done.
Minus: It'll still take most of a day. Probably.
- [ ] Starting with a path to the twins
Plus: Rozaliya doesn't bonk you. Someone is doing
some rescuing.
Minus: The bridge isn't connected to engineering yet.
[ ] Go back to S&R
- [ ] Starting with the twins
Plus/minus: Fairly obvious.
Meta: Faster updates… temporarily.
[ ] Write-in
), but kinda need to suplex her guilt over other people's choices with her own morals. We'll probably end up fighting the 2nd to some mixed degree as breaks down over someone (in her view) giving their life to protect her again, but that's also our chance to do the above even if it hurts her a bit.
