[Squrae brackets are used to represent strikethroughs, when Senti edits her own consciousness for reasonings completely unrelated to Old Timer]
The strongest is always lonely. To be peerless. To be invincible. To be... me.
The Herrscher of Sentience perched on a rock on the roof of the world, the Peak of Sagarmāthā, the highest peak in Shenzhou - and the highest point of the world, as befitting her. Being on the border between Bharat and Shenzhou, and rife with Honkai activity since the descent of the Herrscher of Ice, the place was devoid of human activity for hundreds of miles around, and sparsely populated for many hundreds of miles beyond that.
The proud loneliness of the unconquerable.
She had left Mount Taixuan. The place was becoming... [suffocating] tiresome, and she had no wish to further the goals of Honkai by fermenting further Honkai eruptions with her mere presence. The world had seen enough destruction.
And maybe she would not see her face quite so often if she left-
...
... ...
... ... ...
Why would ANYONE enjoy proud loneliness?!
The only problem was one's options for entertainment was sharply limited when the closest sign of human habitation was a yakherd's tent 128 miles away - caught in an unseasonable snowstorm that was probably not caused by the Herrscher's presence - notified the border guards via hypnotic suggestion, you're welcome.
Well, there's always her...
It wasn't as though the Herrscher of Sentience cared about Old Timer, but...
Old Timer's antics were always good for a laugh, if one was fond of amateur home video of children or small animals running headfirst into doorframe. Personally, the Herrscher of Sentience found it quite diverting. Old Timer, that was, not kittens slipping inside bathtubs.
Just a peek.
Only because the Herrscher of Sentience was really bored.
What IS Old Timer doing?
The Herrscher of Sentience had been watching Old Timer's confrontation with those ridiculous puppets for a while now (and her heart did not skip a beat when she saw Old Timer deep in their lair. No, that'd be ridiculous, she did not have a heart), first with faint amusement and derision, then with mounting annoyance and frustration. And now, she was [worried] angry and steadily working herself up to furious.
It was like reliving Old Timer's betrayals, painful defeats and bleak life all over again. Only this time round, the Herrscher of Sentience did not think the failures were her own, so she was free to be as incensed and contemptuous as she liked. She watched as Old Timer and that brat with a borrowed core snuck a way around the puppets and then - shock of shocks, found their way blocked.
This really isn't Honkai radiodynamics, come on, they know where your prized Kiana is, and they control this entire realm, so all they had to do was to wait near the girl and block all points of entry - and oh here they are - by the Abyss they talk even more than I did! Just charge right through! Why are you listening to them!? Maybe try not to kill them if you must but if you don't more people will die! You don't have TIME!
But even as she thought that the Herrscher of Sentience knew it was just not in Old Timer to sacrifice others for the greater good.
Sacrifice herself for the greater good, why yes, thank you very much, I'll take a dozen for the road.
Even killing those already lost to the Honkai cut her up inside, and the Herrscher of Sentience should know. Honestly, somebody with a heart head as soft as Old Timer's has no business being a MANTIS. Kevin, now there was a man who could do what must be done. Too bad he had been a lost puppy since Dr Mei went to the great physics symposium in the sky.
Go on, no mercy for the corrupted their arses!
... and sure enough - Old Timer's genius plan was repeat what she did to Sirin - severe the link between Honkai and their hosts.
How exactly do you intend to go about with that, when you've lost Fenghuang Down? And those dancing dolls specialise in Herrscher Authority - the hint is in the NAME, Old Timer! And all you have is one half-formed Herrscher and another with a core that's not even active, how do you think this was going to turn out?
Wait. Surely not-
And the Herrscher of Sentience felt Old Timer's presence at the other end of the chain that bound their souls. The Herrscher of Sentience instinctively drew into herself. She had not budged at Old Timer's previous attempts at contacting her, and she was not about to start now.
It was honestly [endearing] getting tiresome how she kept going on and on about it.
"Please listen, if you can hear me... Kiana is in danger, and I need your help."
Oh yes, your precious little Kiana.
It was not entirely clear to the Herrscher of Sentience why Old Timer thought she would lift a finger to help the girl who rejected her [and stole Old Timer]. She briefly considered decamping to some other locale and giving Old Timer the silent treatment she so richly deserved, but -
But Old Timer and that little machine girl were stuck in the Theatre of Domination, and they have only seconds before the battle would be joined. Old Timer would surely stay and fight and that would get her body damaged, and the Herrscher of Sentience were not going to be having any of that.
She tucked the chain a little.
Let's see how many loops you'll jump through to save your friends.
"I need your help."
Keep talking.
"Old Timer, why can't you lot just leave me alone? First it was Kevin's underlings, then it was those ridiculous wooden dummies. And now you?" The Herrscher of Sentience said by way of encouragement.
"Please, I need your help..."
The Herrscher of Sentience felt irritation rapidly rising, so Old Timer was still going with that?
"You honestly think I don't know what'd happen if you use Herrscher Authority against those dancing puppets? Two birds with one stone, is it? You'd get rid of us both? Or are you already one of them?"
Think, Old Timer, think! The battlefield is no place for your wishy-washy hoity-toity namby-pamby high and mighty snooty-snotty let's save everybody Saturday morning cartoon morality! If you talk about saving the world and protecting all that is good and pure next, I swear I'll come in and smash you myself.
And they would not even remember you saved them anyway. They might blame you for damaging them in the process, though. The Herrscher of Sentience felt her anger returning. That was why Old Timer kept losing everything. Trying to save everyone meant you ended up saving no one.
And how many more times can you keep trying to pull a victory out of your hat? You can't keep eking out wins by throwing everything and into the pyre. Soon there won't be anything left to burn. You've already lost everything you can lose, and quite a few things you really can't. You've lost your blade mantra, your immortality, your Fenghuang Down, your memories...
"A loser like you. Would be a perfect fit for them."
The Herrscher of Sentience could feel Old Timer's growing sense of certainty, the one she got when she became convinced she was doing the right thing, and by Honkai, she was going to do it come what may, "I am not one of them. They are threatening the lives of innocent people, and I need your help."
Innocent people? This is war, Old Timer, a certain amount of death is known to happen now and then. If you value their lives over your own... Sorry, that's my body, and I still require it for my own purposes.
"And I am supposed to take your word for it? Why would anybody not with them ask me to give up my power to them?" The Herrscher of Sentience was not growing frantic with frustration. Maybe she should just take control of the body. She had grown stronger since their parting, and she was now relatively certain she could take over if she wanted to, as long as Old Timer let her guard down. She was equally certain that the Herrscher of so-called Domination had no power over her, a true Herrscher coming to her own Authority.
"I am not asking you to give up your power. If we win, then they won't be able to take your power." A pause, "we will win."
Right, you are deep in the things' realm, Kiana is already knocked out, and you would not even hit your enemies because they took hostages. Being behind enemy lines and with one third of your forces knocked out, and developing a sudden regard for the lives of enemy soldiers is just the thing to ensure victory.
"Yay for you - and what has it got to do with me?"
"Kiana needs you."
AGAIN with Kiana.
"I thought she needed Class President." The Herrscher of Sentience sounded more sour than she intended, and she actually really did not care what the white-haired girl needed-
"I need you."
The Herrscher of Sentience absolutely hated how her heart tightened at that. She was not some three year old child who could be persuaded to do anything because mommy loved her. Besides, Old Timer made it quite plain whom she valued more and-
Dammit.
She really should not do this.
It was far too risky.
The Authority over Sentience was far too dangerous to risk falling into their hands.
She knew how instrumental the power of Sentience was to the defeat of the 11th and 12th Herrschers, too. She could not afford to risk herself, especially now that Fenghuang Down was no longer available.
And yet... If she did not help Old Timer, she would fight with both hands tied behind her back anyway and...
She did need Old Timer's body for her own future use...
Dammit. Maybe-
"I know Kiana rejected you, but you know she isn't malicious or evil. She rejected you as Fu Hua, not because of she hated you, but that you should be your own person - your own soul." A pause, "we both think that."
Modern physics could not adequately describe how tiny of a fraction of a damn the Herrscher of Sentience gave what dear and soon-to-be-departed Kiana thought.
Old Timer gamely pushed on, mistaking the Herrscher of Sentience's silence for approval, "you have your own beliefs, what you think is right, and it's doesn't matter who you are, but who you decide to be. I've wanted to say this to you. Kiana wanted you back - with us."
The way the Herrscher of Sentience saw it, if the Herrscher of Domination wanted to kill Kiana, she was coming around to the idea.
"I want you back."
...
... ... ...
Well, she did need that body for future purposes.
"You're better at this than the wooden dummies, anyway. You made your mess, I suppose you'll be sleeping in it." Well, if she didn't make Old Timer sweat a bit now, when would she? "If you're so strong-"
And that was when the Herrscher of Sentience knew something was wrong. The familiar flash of determination mixed with sorrow. It meant that Old Timer was going to do something she would regret.
"I am so sorry!"
"Old Timer, you-"
Her Authority flowed into Old Timer, who shaped it with the practised ease of the true master of Fenghuang Down - and burnt away the link between the Herrscher of Domination and their puppets.
None of which mattered to the Herrscher of Sentience. Not anymore. She had the answer she needed.
When it came to a choice between her and saving other people.
Old Timer would always make the same choice.
~o~
Senti was a coward.
She knew that now. The past few centuries had been a testament to her cowardice.
What brought this on? You erasing the little bird's memories for the - what is it - 483rd time? This can't possibly be bothering you anymore.
Wordlessly, Senti activated Aponia's commandment, and consigned her predecessor to the depths of Fenghuang Down's core.
Just what a coward would do when faced with the truth. The Herrscher of Sentience drifted further beyond the edges of their shared dream realm, straying as far as she could. Better that way, really.
There never should have been any doubt, really, not since she used Fenghuang Down on Old Timer for the first time. The first step was always the hardest. Once she had crossed that line... the second, the third step...
They got easier and easier.
Why did she ever think that a creature of the Honkai could change? A creature created to bring death and desolation?
No - not any creature of Honkai. Senti was honest enough with herself now. It was not her Herrscher nature. Elysia - and even that girl Kiana could rise above their birthright. No, it was only the Herrscher of Sentience. It was always her.
She thought she could save Old Timer. And then she accepted all she could do was staying by Old Timer's side and face all the trials over the millennia together. And now, she seemed to have settled for just keeping Old Timer for herself.
If only you could see me now, Elysia. That's what I made of your gift.
...
You'd probably smile sadly and take my hands and talk about how it's no very bad thing to be selfish once in a while.
That brought a smile to the Herrscher of Sentience's face, one without any trace of warmth.
Once in a while. We crossed that bridge a long time ago.
"Senti, you've never been just a creature of Honkai." And here she was again.
"Shut up. This is all your fault." The Herrscher of Sentience muttered, sounding small even to her own ears. She kept her eyes glued to the ground, steadfastly refusing to look, terrified of seeing her, terrified of seeing the disappointment in her eyes.
Terrified that she would not be there when she looked up.
When did she start seeing her Old Timer again? Three hundred memory erasures ago? More? With a slight shudder, the Herrscher of Sentience realised that she had lost count.
The first time was the hardest. Every time after that...
It was after one of the earlier mental violations memory wipes. It was for some painfully trivial reason which Senti could not even remember anymore, something to do with her spear? And she was huddling in the cave behind the shrine - that feature got deleted a few dozen iterations later, far too hard to explain to Old Timer to whom the shrine was dedicated - why yes, Old Timer, this shrine was made for a future caricature of yourself! How did I know? Oh, you know, Fenghuang Down! - and then she saw Old Timer. Her Old Timer. Her Fu Hua. Looking at her with that mixture of fond exasperation and sheer earnestness that used make her all giddy and light-headed. And she could see the recognition, the unspoken understanding in her eyes that she could never see again with Hua - and the knowledge that she would never have that again still made the Herrscher of Sentience feel like she was drowning suffocating shattering-
The thing was, the Herrscher of Sentience knew it was not real. She manifested illusions of Fu Hua subconsciously, right when everything started, fifty thousand years in the future.
It was not real. It could not be real. And it could never again be real. Her Fu Hua was gone forever, in a pyre of her own heroism. But maybe, just for a little while...
The first time was the hardest. Every time after that...
And it was how the Herrscher of Sentience found out that Old Timer could see everything she could. Including illusions.
Memory wipe? Why yes, thank you.
So, it really was Old Timer's fault, after all.
"...I didn't mean it. It's not your fault, it's mine." The Herrscher of Sentience muttered.
She felt rather than saw Fu Hua's arms around her, and the warmth felt oh so real.
"Senti... you don't need to bear this on your own. You know that. I am always here. I will always be here."
"Yeah, Old Timer. I think that's the problem."
Senti was a coward. She had long lost the ability to escape from her own dreams. She could not bear to wake up. Even when she should. Even when she must.
She looked at the formless mist that formed the boundary of their memory space.
I could...
Deep within Fenghuang Down's core, something stirred.
I am almost sorry for you, child, to have come so far, only to find that Fate cannot be denied.
But you've given me a lot to think about.
You've crippled and imprisoned me, broke me apart and forged me into this parody of my Authority.
But I have time, and I have knowledge.
Knowledge you've so generously... shared.
And there are no limits when one has time and knowledge.
"Fenghuang Down."
"Hua."
"I think - I think I am ready to face a multi-core Herrscher."
A flicker of - something crossed Fenghuang Down's face, but Hua had long since stopped trying to guess what her - ally - was thinking. It never seemed to go anywhere and the few times she tried, she got the distinct feeling that she was going round and round in circles, like there was some truth hidden in plain sight she could reach if only she pushed a little harder - but when she did there was nothing there. And yet, in her depths Hua wanted to trust Fenghuang Down, even as another part of her told her she could be trusted about as far as - Elysia.
Whatever that meant.
"Multi-core Herrscher. What a... novel idea." That's Fenghuang Down's face when Hua recognised as carefully schooled neutrality. It meant that Fenghuang Down was keeping something from her - but what, Hua could not imagine. They have spent most of their existence together, now, and Hua had never sensed malice from Fenghuang Down - anger, yes, acerbic bitterness, certainly, deception...
Rather a lot, actually.
But not malice. Never malice.
So if Fenghuang Down meant Hua no harm, and she hardly had any opportunity to keep any secret of her own... What exactly was Fenghuang Down lying about? And for what?
Hua wanted to ask.
She did ask? Right?
Hua could not remember. And if she could not, it probably meant she removed those memories, or they never existed in the first place. And that in turn meant they could not have gotten anywhere, or she would have kept the memories.
Hua shook her head. This was not going anywhere. There was work to be done.
"It's - I think it is theoretically possible that a Herrscher might possess more than one core - as a corollary of the Herrscher of Domination where a single core was shared by many - I am not Dr Mei or Dr Mobius, but - I've been thinking and working through the theory, it's - look, can you go through my work and see if-"
"No need." Fenghuang Down smiled, "I have just the thing for you."
And then portals opened all around Hua and she scrambled out of the way just in time before wind blades sliced the rock she was sitting on just a moment ago in two, and an avalanche of ice and fire crashed against her.
I didn't mean to. I didn't mean to. She'll be alright. It was only a simulation.
The Herrscher of Sentience fled at the speed of thought, leaving behind the field of burning dreams, bright against the endless void, as dreams became mere sparks, and then pinpricks of light, and then nothing.
She asked me to. She wanted to train against a multi-core Herrscher, didn't she? I only did what I was asked...
Everything was spiralling. The Herrscher of Sentience did not feel like she was in control of anything anymore.
Damn it all to the pits, she was the Herrscher of Sentience, she lived through the whole of Hua's life, she had experienced two eras, saw the end of one world, and could draw from the insights of the greatest minds of two ages, and yet she increasingly felt as though she had no idea what she was doing or where she was going. As though she had no idea how she could help Old Timer.
I am not sure why you think you were going to help her.
Shut up.
...you sound like a petulant child.
And you sound like somebody without a body or control over the divine key core.
I helped.
Since when were you ever able to help your little girlfriend? You started everything when you stole her body and forced her to fight you for control; you exposed her to Herrscher core corruption right after that, you took Fenghuang Down away from her - though she destroyed most of it herself to be sure - and that's just the first week!
I... you...!
I suppose you did help her shatter her own mind a few times. Even Dr Mei did not expect the damage to her brain would be that severe. But you knew, didn't you? And you did nothing. No wait, you did quite a lot more than nothing. You helped her. I could take back control, but why would I? You seemed to be doing a better job torturing her than I ever could.
With a silent scream of boiling rage, the Herrscher of Sentience slammed the cage shut, and poured power into Aponia's discipline. Thou shalt deny with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind, and with all thy strength the Will of Honkai, even unto thy own end.
...and slammed the Herrscher of Sentience of the previous era back into the depth of the core.
I helped. I helped Old Timer. I did. I saved her from Kevin. I - I -
And she could not help but feel that she had no idea how to go forward.
Do nothing and Hua will always end the same way.
Do anything - and she risked making things worse. Perhaps she already did.
They were running out of time, she could already sense the stirring of dreams from beyond the deep shelters.
And here she was, running so far away she went all the way to the Imaginary Tree.
Yes, this going to help.
She just did not know what to do.
"You do, Senti. You always did."
"I am not strong enough, Old Timer. I've never been strong enough. Why did I ever think I could do better than you?"
Warm arms that were never there embraced her, and Senti allowed herself to melt, just for a moment. Just for a little moment, her body shuddering as she tried to hold in all her fears and doubts, and the forlorn certainty that she could only watch Fu Hua walk her path to martyrdom all over again.
"Because you are a beautiful soul - and your mind rebelled at all the wrongs of the world - all the injustices - that was why you wanted to do better, and that's why you can. Take my memories, do with them as you will - and forge your own path beyond my end."
And that broke the dam. Senti hugged herself with convulsive strength, deep inside the core of Fenghuang Down, a dream within a dream, she wailed and screamed and cried and tried to hold on to what was never there in the first place.
"How - how did you do it? All on your own?" It took a while for Senti to finally be able to form coherent thoughts again, the memory of Old Timer's warmth holding her the whole time.
"I was never alone, even when I didn't remember it. You were always with me. And they were, too. Each of us are a part of the whole, Senti, the individual threads fray and break, but the whole - humanity - lived on, as long as civilisation still existed, and each of us are an undying part. Previous Era, Current Era, and all the eras gone and still to come, with each thread grows the more elaborate - and on the whole, the more beautiful. I died, but I am not gone, not as long as you are still here. Thus it was for me, and so it would be for you."
"Remember that, and you will find yourself stronger than you can ever imagine."
Senti snorted, "now I know you're an illusion, Old Timer would never admit that I am stronger."
Her Old Timer just looked at her, eyes gentle.
Senti drew a breath, "that was a lie. You would. You did." A long pause as Senti tried to keep the residual warmth of the Old Timer closer to her for a little longer, "you always used to say you don't know your way, Old Timer. I guess if that's how you went through fifty thousand years... there's no reason why I can't do the same."
Old Time gently pat her on the head. "Most people don't, Senti, and yet they bear all that fate brings to bear upon them with dignity and fortitude - how can I do any less? When the time comes, you will know what to do, you always did."
The last echo of her Old Timer faded. Senti stood up.
It was not time for despair just yet.
"Hey, Old Timer."
Hua looked up from her work - in truth, she felt out of her depth most of the time when trying to work through the more theoretical side of the Honkai. Her education was never completed, she was only in secondary school when she was thrown into a war of gods and monsters. She learnt here and there by necessity, but her education was hardly formal or systematic.
But as the leader of Project Ember, she had to be familiar with topics as wide ranging as mass psychology and anthropology to political economy, agricultural history, and Honkai and non-Honkai ecology all of this was on top of what she had to master to keep abreast of Honkai in the next era.
Thankfully, she has had thousands of years to learn during her cryosleep, and even though she was hardly the sharpest tool in the box, she managed to acquire a working knowledge of most topics that was required of the project leader.
Still, it was sometimes a struggle.
"Old Timer day-dreaming in a dream, is it?" Came the voice again, quizzical, insistent and a little amused, and Hua blinked - she had another moment of distraction again, something against which she must learn to guard herself - and saw Fenghuang Down looking at her, smiling one of her secret smiles that seemed to be equal parts mischief and tenderness - and found herself colouring a little.
"I am sorry - I tried to follow Dr Mei's worked examples, but I am not sure I really got a lot of the reasoning behind it." She waved at the pages upon pages of symbols and vectors and arrows trying to crudely visualise a Mobius Manifold undergoing a Meian discrete projective transform… and swiftly degenerating into a dizzying jigsaw of colour lines that Hua had lost track of after the twelth colour or so.
Fenghuang Down narrowed her eyes at Hua's magnum opus, blinked once, twice, and then shook her head, "...yes, quite, I see. The purple and the red. They look very well together. I particularly like the yellow line, it lends a certain air, don't you know, like a dashing rogue, or whatnot..."
Fenghuang Down Trailed off at Hua's flat glare, and she had the grace to look slightly abashed, but only slightly, "I didn't read dimensional physics at college..."
Hua looked at Fenghuang Down, and looked at her pile of diagrams and formulae, and then back at Fenghuang Down, and raised a brow, significantly.
"...look, Old Timer, Senti took a deep breath, and spoke all at once, "I probably won't be able to help you with all these frightfully brainy stuff, but - there are things I can do. I am the Herrscher of Sentience. I can train you - we can train together. I'll teach you how to use the Divine Key of Sentience in battle - both defence and offence. I know you've been thinking along those lines. So what do you say? We can even travel to other dream realms, it'll let offer more realistic training than in a realm where we hold complete dominion over."
Hua blinked at Fenghuang Down's outburst, and then blinked again at the sense of déjà vu. There was an itch at the back of her mind, an aching familiarity. Everything Fenghuang Down said had the spark of truth - too much truth. Hua could almost remember, but...
Surely she could not have erased these memories? Training and dream-travel would both be valuable information and of material use in the execution of her duties. Then why-
"Look, I can feel the consciousness from the Outside stirring. The end is in sight, the time to wake up - well, it's coming. We no longer have forever."
That caught Hua's attention, "wait, really?"
"Sure, look, take Fenghuang Down, you can sense it yourself. Why would I lie about something like that anyway? Still, it's not going to happen tomorrow, or any time soon, really. It would take time for Dormant Creation to make sure Life Springs Eternal had done its job, and then it'd take centuries more to survey the world, find survivors, and so on, before Project Ember can start in earnest. It'd take centuries."
Hua nodded slowly, momentarily surprised that Fenghuang Down seemed to have such a good grasp of her duties, she did not recall ever discussing this part of Project Ember's execution. Still, given she regularly back up her memories and excise useless information, Hua supposed that Fenghuang Down does know everything she knew.
Well, except differential geometry, apparently. Hua looked back at her pile of work forlornly...
...and Fenghuang Down pointed to an out tray that she apparently just conjured out of thin air - which looked entirely out of place on the low mahogany table in the old Shenzhou style that Hua had been using as a desk - labeled, Attn: Dr. Cangxuan and Dr. Danzhu.
Well, I suppose consulting people who actually went to university and had degrees in physics and mathematics might not be such a bad idea.
... ... ...
Oh, why not.
Hua took her pile of paper, heaped them up roughly, and move the entire stack into the out tray.
Fenghuang Down smiled indulgently, "attagirl. C'mon, where shall we go? There's the Elysian Realm-"
"Not - no." Hua closed her eyes and tried to stop herself from thinking about them again. She was only partially successful. She felt Fenghuang Down's hands brushing against hers slightly before withdrawing, and oddly enough that seemed to centre her, at least a little.
"...Old Timer? Are you..." Fenghuang Down voice was low and urgent, and ironically the thought that someone was concerned on her behalf, even if it was forced to by Aponia's commandment, calmed her a little more.
Hua took another steadying breath, and when she spoke she was almost calm, "not the Elysian Realm. Not - not yet. I - I can't face them. I failed them all. I-"
"...we don't have to go there. We could go anywhere else. There are easily thousands in this shelter alone, Most people won't have a dream space big enough for us to play around in, but you never know, we could have a look around." Fenghuang Down rambled on, trying to distract Hua, a thought that made Hua feel a little warm inside, "You wouldn't believe what people are like in their dreams, why there was this one fellow, his entire dreamscape was dedicated to one woman - no, it's not Kevin-"
"Fenghuang Down, we can't abuse your power and just go into someone else's memory space. Dreams are very intimate and private places," did Fenghuang Down just colour a bit? Perhaps she disliked having her actions questioned, "it would be an abuse of our power to enter another's without permission."
"...fine, fine, we'll ask first..." Fenghuang Down muttered something under her breath.
"I think we should probably start with the sparring. One step at a time."
Fenghuang Down looked up sharply, an unreadable expression on her face, but then she smiled and nodded, "sure, Old Timer." And she manifested a sword as large as she was tall, and grinned.
Hua gulped. She may have made a terrible mistake.
Senti agreed with Old Timer in principle that it was probably not entirely the done thing to just peer into people's minds, but...
She was the Herrscher of Sentience! Reading other people's minds was just like breathing to her! Might as well ask her to walk around with earplugs and a blindfold.
And it was not as if the Old Timer once contacted the entire base, tens of thousands of people, all at once.
Senti was in the right here.
...so why was she floating about the memory space of the cryopods' occupants, trying to find one with a sufficiently manifested dream for Old Timer and she to practice in - and to ask the host nicely to please let them make use of the premises?
It was not as though they were USING their memory space for any other purpose anyway.
Well, there was always old Blondie and his shrine to the girl who Senti was fairly certain was not amongst the occupants of the shelter... She could create an illusion of the dead girl based on his memories, and he would probably agree to anything she asked. Old Timer did not have to know.
And then Senti stopped.
Senti was familiar with the chaotic void - and wasn't that a contradiction in terms - that made up the 'surface' levels of the Sea of Quanta. Being a creature of the Honkai, Senti had no natural affinity to the Sea - quite the opposite, in fact, the sea of dead gods and lost souls was anathema to her existence.
But in the - it was impossible to say whether it was a long or short - time when she shattered herself into an infinite multitude and traverse the lost places of the Sea to reach Old Timer, she had - changed.
She learnt to surf the collapsed quantum states and navigate by the probability clouds that pointed to pockets of stability yet to be consumed. She had learnt to locally entangle herself with the dominant probability states and gain their information echoes.
In short, she had gone native, as much as any creature of pure Honkai energy could.
That was why she was immediately alarmed when she felt the echoes of the Sea, waves crashing and harmonising and disintegrating. Here, in the memory space of Dormant Creation, they were deep inside the World Tree - as far as anything could be from the Sea of Quanta.
No - not just the Sea. There was a presence, watching, probing.
An achingly familiar presence - familiar and yet - alien.
Wait, it's Su. Of course, the immense presence, the serenity, the stillness that resembled a pool of still water that ran deeper than the eye could see...
And yet the presence was unmistakably feminine-
Oh.
Fiddlesticks.
Author's notes:
And with this, we're all caught up with the story as posted on AO3, and from this point on the story will go back to the originally scheduled timetable of two updates per month.
And yes, female Su is here. For those of you who don't know, see Su's remembrance vessel, Buddha's Memory, 8th conversation. I won't say any more.
Dormant Creation is a translation (official translation is the 'Great Hibernation') for the 5th Divine Key, aka the cryopod system, the Chinese of which is literally 'ten thousand things must sleep', which has a double meaning that is important because it was repurposed from a weapon, which 'great hibernation' simply does not convey.
Life Springs Eternal is my name for the 4th Divine Key, which is a terraforming satellite but was never named in the game or in the comics (Alien Space) where it showed up.
I hope these translation sound more like names Vill-V would come up with.
It is canonical that Elysian Realm Elysia had never met any of the surviving Flame-Chasers. Kevin was certainly aware of the Elysian Realm, but Sim Elysia never once met the 'Kevin outside'. While Hua was revealed to have forgotten the Elysian Realm as at Chapter 32, she was probably aware of the place before she had her memories shredded a few times. I suspected the fact that they never visited was because neither of them feel like they could face their old friends - and they were probably both aware that if they went in it would be harder and harder to leave.
We're finally getting to the fundamental contradiction Senti faced - that this Hua is not the woman she fell in love with. She is the same, and yet not the same, and this character dynamic will drive their relationship for the entire story.
It is important to remember that while this Hua is still Old Timer of Senti's memories, she is also a lot fresher on the one hand, and had a lot less time to process her trauma in the other; but Senti has had very little time to really get used to Hua as she then was - to Senti, the Hua that made an indelible mark on her soul was the one who died to save her life in 50,000 years; the one who lost everything but kept pushing on, the one who had stripped away every part of herself that was extraneous to her mission in the name of duty, and she could not help but see her own Old Timer in Hua.
And this, on top of her own extensive but incomplete set of Hua's memories, was going to cause problems down the road.
This chapter was written while listening to Schicksal, from the ending song of the Girls Frontline campaign, Poincaré Recurrence. The hope beneath the gentle sadness of the melody, and song that spoke of partings and loss, and yet standing unbowed - well:
I'm on the verge of losing my mind
The flame of war lit up the lifeless sky
It's so beautiful
Have I seen the light before?
No matter I'm in heaven or hell
Always I hear the voice hidden in the wind
Never bend your knees or lower your head
Last but not least...
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