[Squrae brackets are used to represent strikethroughs, when Senti edits her own consciousness for reasons completely unrelated to Old Timer]
Senti has modified your consciousness, you now believe she doesn't get all hot and bothered about Old Timer.
Belated Christmas and New Year present to you all! I am afraid I missed my schedule for December, there was a lot going on, but here it finally is.
This chapter contains spoilers for the Elysian Realm arc, and the current Origin and Finality arc, especially regarding the true nature of the Multiverse, and the power of Finality. You may be spoiled if you have not already played through chapters 29 to 34, please be warned.
Mount Taixuan was a paradox
It was primal nature as few places were in Shenzhou, leagues of untouched ridges and ravines, old growth forests undergrowth and canopy thick with life. In spring the riot of growth and life seemed to change its vista daily, an ever-shifting vision of nature's majesty. Few places could surpass its unspoiled landscape, and yet the work of man left their marks in its clearings and paths, and age-worn stone slabs, pavilions and covered walkways remained unclaimed by nature despite seeing no hand that maintained them for centuries, as though the Celestial's long residence here had frozen this place in time and space, an intersection between the human and divine.
It was curated artifice, well-laid out secret paths snake throughout the mountain; moss-covered stone steps and hidden clearings an intricate spider web that managed the flow of Honkai energy. In winter ice and snow traced patterns more reminiscent of circuit boards or Honkai corruption than trails and tracks. Yet barely a few steps beyond the statues and pagodas were primeval nature that somehow did not encroach on each other.
Nature or artifice, everything converged at a single nexus, the Hermitage at its peak, the fog-mounted Temple that once housed the Azure Empyrean, the True Celestial of Shenzhou, the Grand Progenitor of the Crimson Kite.
In modern times, her legend had faded from the popular imagination, but her presence can yet be felt. Despite its abundant resources and pristine nature, in addition to an almost mystical absence of Honkai influence, barring a few villages at its foothills and a single settlement below the Arch, there were no settlements nor any incursions of modernity. The lonely paths and rushing brooks remained then as it was now, along with the fire-scarred ruins of the Hermitage that bore lonely witness to the ascension of the Celestial.
Ascension. Ha. So that's what youngsters are calling mutilation and dismemberment these days.
Not that this had anything to do with the Herrscher of Sentience. There was nothing between them, not anymore, never were, really. It was with her the work of but a moment to modify her own consciousness so the surge of venomous hate threatening to erupt from her core all she felt was a gentle pity for the old fool. They were not her disciples, they did her no harm, and the Herrscher of Sentience simply did not care.
Which would of course be why she found herself back on Mount Taixuan, again and again. Whichever way she went, wherever she turned, the end of her journey were always that unassuming, fog-shrouded hermitage, the place of gentle melancholy and solemn solitude.
All paths led to the Empyrean Hermitage, the heart of Taixuan, an eternity in a teardrop, an island of constancy in the river of time. Stars fell and rose, flowers bloomed and wilted, the Hermitage itself fell to ruin and was rebuilt. The waterfalls dried and the stone censer crumbled - and yet its essence remained. A clearing. The interplay of light and shadow that foretold the passing of the seasons. The serenity of the forgotten. The sheer weight of history.
The Herrscher of Sentience carefully stepped into the clearing, her steps unerringly tracing the stone-inlaid symbol of Yin and Yang in the courtyard, long faded with time and the elements.
To her eyes it was just yesterday that she - the Old Timer - danced with deadly grace her Empyrean forms every dawn for centuries, focusing Honkai energy into inky streams that may sunder any armour and shatter any defence, footfalls wearing patterns on the ageless stone.
It was just yesterday that she demonstrated the blade mantra to the seven children she took from the jaws of Honkai, unaware that shadows were already closing in.
It was just yesterday that she - the sword - Water's Edge -
The Herrscher of Sentience felt like she should remember.
She brushed by the Herrscher of Sentience, azure robes billowing, jade pendant gleaming in the dying light. The Herrscher of Sentience could almost feel her grey hair brushing against her bare arm, and she shivered. She swirl around, hand reaching out -
But of course, Old Timer was not there. Was never there.
The Herrscher of Sentience clenched her fist angrily, and let her arm fall to her side. What exactly was she expecting here?
After all, what was this place but broken dreams and shattered memories? A place without joy, without life, without future - there was only duty.
Flowers bloomed and flowers wilted. In the end they all became dust.
"Come, █ █, it's time for breakfast."
The Herrscher of Sentience swirled around - only to catch the slight figure rushing past her into the small wooden house built after the style of the Hermitage at the far end of the clearing. Grey tunic, blue skirt and grey-blue hair fluttering as she rushed away -
█ █ █!?
"Wait, come back-"
Who?
And then the Herrscher of Sentience saw her. Red eyes met blue.
"Come on in, █ █, or the wonton noodles will be cold."
None of this made any sense. The Herrscher of Sentience knew that. Old Timer looked too young, too whole, not the pale shadow she had become, held together by sheer bloody-minded refusal to give up -
And Old Timer knew her, [loved] welcomed her. Looked at her like she belonged, like she being here was the most natural thing in the world.
The Herrscher of Sentience knew this was not real. That it could not be real.
But she found herself walking towards Old Timer all the same. She could not help it.
Why not? She was the Herrscher of Sentience.
Memories and dreams could be reality, as long as she willed it.
~o~
Senti immediately threw up a barrier of obfuscating dreams, layers upon layers of mist-covered fog, worldscapes subtly shifting and changing, blending into each other and with waking reality.
And then she sent a pulse to the depths of Fenghuang Down's core.
Well, this is new, you are seeking me out?
Shut up and listen.
I hear and obey, O Mistress.
You little - listen, you remember Su, right?
Pretty Psychic Princess Su?
Better a princess than a feather, old girl.
And that's where you and I differ, I'd rather be ineffectual than wrong.
Look, Pretty Psychic Princess kicked your arse, right?
...well, I don't know why I should manifest here and be insulted. Well, no, it's because you somehow wield the Commandments.
The way I see it, if the Herrscher of Sentience cannot break the mental disciplines of a mortal, she pretty much deserved anything that's going to happen to her - LOOK WE DON'T HAVE THE TIME!
As if to punctuate the point, the fabric of time and space seemed to twist and twirl as the howl of the quantic tides became almost visible, unseen vibrations distorting and diffracting, echoing waves of achingly familiar sensations, fading memories and undreamt of possibilities-
That got her esteemed predecessor's attention.
What was that. It isn't -
It's Pretty Psychic Princess. Except this one really is a princess. And it's more psychotic than psychic. Our Su found her in the Sea of Quanta - the Sea of Fate, and it followed him here. Do I have your attention?
By way of an answer, her predecessor manifested next to Senti. With a wave of her right hand and she pulled a multi-layered dreamscape over their shared sea of consciousness. Senti barely had time to be impressed by how smoothly the former Herrscher of Sentience could weave dreams full-formed, before the dreamscapes shifted and deformed, fading into countless tattered pieces. The sky was becoming visibly deformed as colours and patterns not of this world began to appear.
"We're both Herrschers of Sentience here, it would be so embarrassing if somebody else trapped us in their dreams, wouldn't it?" Senti's predecessor said between sending up streams of dream-stuff only to see it burnt away.
"Never live it down." Senti said as she added her own power to her predecessor's. The skies clear a little, but shades and figures, formless suggestions of nightmares and possibilities still continued to manifest.
"Well, if you would release the Commandments-"
Senti glanced back at her predecessor, and it struck Senti again how familiar she looked, long straight dark hair with sparkles of blood-red scattered like crushed glass, gathered two long ponytails, and the ever-present, too-wide smirk, although she could not quite put her finger on what it reminded her of, and here in the space of the Key of Sentience, she was not even sure if the familiarity was real or not. Not that appearance had any meaning here, in Fenghuang Down's core space, especially for the two of them, Herrschers of Sentience both.
The former Herrscher of Sentience's grin widened, "how about it? It'll be just like the old days, just us girls, taking on the world together."
Tendrils of nothingness started to appear over them, the push of the formless void entering the waking world.
"You need me."
Senti smiled back, and golden shackles appeared on her predecessor's wrists as dark feathers floated around her. The Previous Era Herrscher of Sentience's eyes widened and then narrow in anger. Senti did not give her time to say anything, "I'd say it was a nice try, but then we'd both know I was lying. Hey, Old Timer, you got this?"
Old Timer appeared next to Senti, already in her armour, frowning, "Fenghuang Down, is it..."
"Sea of Quanta incursion. Core 2 here will brief you. You know how to activate the Commandments Aponia set on Fenghuang Down, if she tries to break free, zap her. If she tries anything funny, zap her. Actually, just zap her on general principles. And as for you-" Senti turned to her predecessor, who was in the process of doing an impression of a rapidly cooking lobster, and said, "both you and Psycho Princess Su likes to put people in dreams forever, so if you don't want to be on the receiving end of that - you'll help Old Timer keep her out."
"Where are you going?" Hua said with mounting alarm as she looked around at the rapidly shifting reality, a kaleidoscope of nameless colours, shapes and forms intruding into every corner of consciousness, as she wove her own white feathers to strengthen the barrier.
Senti looked at Old Timer, a faint smile on her lips.
She knew what to do with startling clarity.
Su escaped his counterpart, and covered his tracks well. Senti knew from Old Timer's memories that Su continued with Project Valuka and right until he disappeared, the female Su never found her way to their world. That she did now could mean only one thing.
Something had changed the original flow of history.
And there was only one who reached across the Sea of Quanta to change fate.
It was her, Senti. It could only be her.
She crossed time and space to save Old Timer, and she could not help her in any way. Everything bad that Senti remembered happened to Old Timer, still happened.
Senti smiled at the irony of it all. The first time she finally managed to change Old Timer's history, she was going to cut Old Timer's journey short, before it even began. Trap her in a sweet dream that lasts an eternity. A beautiful lie of her very own. And Senti remembered-
A sweet dream that lasts an eternity.
A world where everyone lived happy lives and die in a beautiful dream of their own making.
Maybe we are not so different, after all.
No, they were not the same, after all.
Senti could still do the right thing. Make the right choice. Even if it is pain beyond bearing.
She took Hua's hand, and bring it to her lips, "try not to think about me too much, Old Timer. I am sorry - for everything. I am your friend. If you believe nothing else about me - believe this."
A kiss soft as a tear falling, and Senti was gone.
"What are you going to do!?" Hua shouted, even though she already knew. Fear seized her heart and she did not understand why.
Something within her was sure that, somehow, Fenghuang Down was someone precious to her, more than just a bonded Divine Key, more than just the oldest companion, waking and dreaming, she ever had.
Something more.
But she did not have time to grief or to wonder why she grieved - she pushed everything, all the shock, the pain, the longing, deep down, because she had a mission, and nothing else mattered, she could not allow herself to be distracted.
She turned to - what did Fenghuang Down call her? Core 2, "I need five minutes, can you do that?"
There was a flash of - something - in Core 2's eyes, "little girl, you have no idea what I can do." A raw wave of power emanated from the shackled woman, dark feathers highlighted in blood flew out like blades, and where they reached, void vortices closed.
Hua permit herself a thin smile, and vanished.
It seemed like a good idea at the time.
Senti frantically skipped across clouds of half-lost probabilities, pockets of unreality eternally balanced between existence and oblivion, her essential self transiting along the paths of equilibrium between collapsing states, and felt the presence behind, around, above, below her, unrelenting.
Fix her own mistakes, save the day, fly out in a blaze of glory. A part of Senti even relished doing this to Old Timer, see how she liked it when she was the one left behind. Worst come to worst, maybe she could buy Old Timer enough time for her to reinforce the barrier separating reality and the Sea of Quanta, and slam the door close in Psychic Princess' face.
Well, on the up side, Psycho Princess Su was definitely after her. There was always the off chance that Senti would simply be ignored - or worse - somehow exploit Senti as an opening into their world.
On the down side, PSYCHO PRINCESS SU WAS DEFINITELY AFTER HER!
Senti shifted through several singularity series as Little Miss Nightmare collapsed the entire swathes of bubble realities, speeding away with barely a moment to spare. There went her way back...
How could she be this dangerous? After all, Su got away once, so it could not be that hard, right? Senti solved time travel and the grand unification theory, and sent her own shattered consciousness across time and space, each fragment transiting across an infinite series of states until they all coalesced at the Origin, she walked the lost paths and zoom across the probability states as well as any native of the Sea. What was the ability to trap an entire world in dreams compared to that? Senti was the Herrscher of Sentience, that came with the package. Even her not-so-esteemed predecessor could do it.
Dreams...
Senti had an idea.
Within the control chamber of Cosmic Juggernaut, Su's eyes opened wide. The dull pain on his left wrist flared to life. She was here.
Five, four, three, two and-
Senti perched, cross-legged, at the top of the central sword-pillar towering over the Tomb of Swords, gripping the hilt of her great sword tight. It felt - nostalgic to be back here once again. This field of towering blades was her very first dreamscape, and where she first faced Old Timer as herself.
But this was no time to reminisce.
The skyline and the clouds seemed to wrap themselves around the sword pillars, pulled by their immense mass and presence. The giant blades were driven haphazardly into the ground, anchored by chains, each single link as tall as a man, and the massive links connected them blade-towers like bridges, to each other and to the central pillar. Senti took a split second to appreciate her own work, and-
One.
The sword pillars shook like reeds in the wind at the approaching footfalls.
Psycho Princess Su had finally decided to make herself known.
"A picturesque landscape. You cannot seriously hope to trap me here." The voice was still, to Senti's somewhat imperfect recollection of Old Timer's memories, unmistakably that of Su's, despite its feminine timbre. Every word was punctuated by Su's footfalls, light as a feather, and yet each step triggered pulses of consuming corruption, shattering and reweaving Senti's dreamscape into a desert of crimson sand.
Senti leaped down, black iron chains erupting from the ground before she was even half way down, wrapping around Su and suspending her between the sword pillars. The chains tightened and pulled, groaning in protest as they crushed Su's body and pulled her limbs apart. Senti hit the floor and was up in an instance, manifesting dozens of dark feathers around Su, shadow-swords, and drove them all at Su, impaling her a dozen times, the blades piercing flesh and bone and clashing dully inside Su's ruined body in sickening thuds.
Su's lips quirked slightly. "Disappointing, I had hoped that the Herrscher of Sentience might at least provide some sport in the realm of dreams." Chains and blade shattered into dim embers before fading away entirely, revealing Psycho Princess herself, entirely unharmed.
Senti hated it when that happened. She was supposed to be the one toying with her prey in the domain of sentience. This was just embarrassing. But at least she expected this might happen. To tell the truth, Senti did not seriously expect to trap Su so easily either.
Su turned towards Senti, her eyes opening just a little, and her grin widened. With a snap of the finger, the Grave of Swords fell away, blade pillars and chain-bridges cracking like glass and breaking away to reveal-
-a summit shrouded by mist and cloud, with a temple or a hermitage in the Shenzhou style deep inside the fog. Phantom blades materialised around Su and even the speed of her thought was barely fast enough to avoid a dozen swords flying at her from all directions all at once. Su blinked away, her smile faltering just a moment, but then she spotted her attacker, a figure in blue robes with long flowing grey hair, and grinned. Senti had a bad feeling about it, and urged her memory-construct Azure Empyrean to attack.
The ghostly Celestial wasted no time and sent another dozen swords flying towards Su - whose grin widened.
Oh poppycock.
Senti did not know how it happened but one moment her memory-construct of the Old Old-Timer had Psycho Princess, dozens of blades homing in at Su, and the next, Su had somehow swapped places with the phantom Empyrean.
The fake Old Timer's own conjured swords pierced her own body, and the memory-form shattered. Senti winced - she conjured the simulacrum, but the sound of blade through flesh sounded too real and too familiar.
I should have just made it Su. Or Kevin.
But she needed every edge she had against Psycho Princess, and Senti was honest enough with herself to admit that she knew nobody better than Old Timer.
Senti called forth the memory of Old Timer's Phoenix Immortal form, and for good measure three more duplicates and the quartet darted towards Su with flaming fists, bringing a gale of all-consuming fire converging at where Su was a moment ago -
-and became frozen solid. Su walked between the four Phoenix Immortal statues and touch one on the cheek gently, "oh, Hua, I remember you well." She flicked her finger, and the statue shattered into shards.
"Herrscher, you cannot hope to shake my resolve with shadows of my former comrades. I know where they are, and they're all happy in my dreams." Su swirled around, turning straight to where Senti had hidden herself, behind the stone censer and beneath cloaks of obfuscation, shut eyes looking directly into Senti's eyes, "your longing for Hua... it's pathetic, do you truly believe that someone like Hua can ever love a monster, a Herrscher, like you?"
Don't listen to her lies, she could never comprehend someone like Old Timer.
"Oh, she may care about you, she may even care for you, that's our little Hua. But you're a Herrscher. Your very nature stands in diametric opposition to her. It doesn't even matter what you want. You may believe you love her. You may even really do. But will always bring wreck and ruin. It is in your nature."
"DIE!" Senti materialised next to Su and brought her great sword down repeatedly, each blow cutting through flesh, bone, stone and the very fabric of the dream world, cutting great swathes of nothingness where Su was -
"You know I am right, little Herrscher. Your nature is desolation. The nature of all Herrschers is desolation, even if they overflow with love of all things. It won't work, It never could have worked."
"WHY WON'T YOU JUST DIE!" Senti snarled and spun around, summoning a brace of spares, which flew from her palms, puncturing Su's very existence, tearing ugly gaping wounds that appeared to pull light into themselves, only for Su to dissipate into mists and reform whole behind Senti. Senti struck with a quick elbow strike followed by a dagger stab, only for Su to catch her wrist.
"I can make you an offer." Su leaned in, breath hot and cloying against Senti's ear. Senti tried to pull away but all her Herrscher strength was as nothing - it was like she was encased in a bronze cast, she could not move even a muscle, "submit to me, and I will promise you will be with Hua, forever. Your dream will be sweet. You'll be free. There'll be no more duty, no more greater good, no more Honkai..."
Su spun Senti around, so the two of them are face to face, "no more sacrifices. You'll be together. Forever. Or you don't - and when I get through, I'll see to it that your mind is locked in hers, and I'll make her suffer. For all eternity."
Senti feel her head freed from the vice-like pressure over her entire body, and breathed out. She looked at Su, eyes closed and smile wide, confident of her answer.
"You're the Herrscher of Sentience, dream is your domain. Anything can be real, as long as you want it to be. Look around you."
Senti made a noise in her throat.
"Sorry, I can't hear you."
Senti's lips quirked, and she made the same noise again.
"...what was that?" Su's composed façade had begun to crack, and a hint of anger started to come through, "I am running out of patience. You have one minute to decide."
"I said, 'take a look around you'." Senti smirked.
All around, Mount Taixuan was frozen in time, with swathes of red desert sands where Su had broken through Senti's dreamscape - except there are now craters, and bubbling, sulphurous pools and fiery geysers all over.
...and a burning column slammed towards them. Su shoved Senti and teleported away. Senti felt the power holding her in place vanished for a brief instance, and rolled out of the way just in time as the shockwave threw her all the way across the ravine against the mountainside, against Old Timer's statue. Senti could feel bones crack and organs burst at the impact, as burning air and ashes cooked her lungs. She suppressed a whimper and pulled herself up, ruined arm dragging herself against a rock that miraculously survived the impact, only to come face to face with a figure of molten stone and liquid fire floating above her. Fiery rage rolled off him in waves, burning Senti's battered body, but her lips quirked up.
"Herrscher. I thought I told you to stay away from here." The voice cracked like thunder and pyroclastic shock.
"Kal... pas..." Senti choked out the words, "...got you... a fight." And with a final effort, sent a vision towards him, everything she could gather about Su... and everything Su said...
The fires surrounding the figure flared up, a living inferno. Senti could feel the wave of superheated air blasting against her, even thrown all the way across the valley, "...traitor." The figure rumbled.
"Go get 'er, tiger." Senti mumbled, and her head lolled, her last reserve of strength gone.
In the Sea of Quanta, all things were possible, and all probabilities are true - to the right observer.
Senti knew this. Senti understood this better than anyone can.
She had traversed the Sea of Quanta, walked all probability pathways, her core broken into an endless multitude, experienced all things, at all times, all at once.
And before she found her way back to Old Timer, she had seen everything.
She had seen Hua, at the very beginning of her journey, unblemished by loss and unburdened yet by duty - turned into a monster, the wielder of the Authority of Finality.
She had seen herself, at the very start of her own journey, consuming Old Timer and destroyed the world in order to save it.
She had seen the Herrscher of Rimestar, inheriting the legacy of ice and fire and fought to defend all that is beautiful in the world.
She had seen realms beyond imagination, too alien to even conceive. Realms that locked itself into cycles of death and rebirth to defeat the Honkai, locking Finality into a set path, so civilisation may survive.
Realms falling into eternal stasis to stave off the advent of the Honkai.
She had seen the triumph of Project Stigmata, of utopia without end, raising a banner to challenge even the World Tree itself.
And she had seen Kalpas who survived the Final Battle, slumbering under the deep shelter that eventually would be named Mount Taixuan... awakening to bring wrath and ruin to the world when he felt the death of Old Timer at the hands of her own disciples.
Senti barely escaped that one. Kalpas had always been susceptible to psychic abilities, be it Aponia's commandments or Su's mental control - but apparently fifty thousand years of slumber had completely burned away all remnants of human sanity and rendered him utterly immune to any form of mental influence.
That particular world bubble was a fiery hellscape, a burning realm whose immense energies released had warped spacetime back into itself - the Quantic equivalent of a blackhole, rather like the Infinite Corridor Sirin created... or that one spacetime trap Kevin tried to keep the Herrschers on the Moon - which gave Senti the idea on the first place.
Thanks, Kevin, Project Stigmata was good for something, after all.
All Senti had to do was to build so many dreamscapes, one after another, that Su would not realise that she transited from the Domain of Sentience into a world bubble.
And once in, there would be no escape.
Just like there would be no escape for Senti.
As far as death went, Senti never quite imagined that she would meet her end inside a quantic singularity.
How did I do, Old Timer?
Are you proud of me?
Will you be alright?
You will be.
You must be.
You were fine the first time, before I came along.
You'll be again.
I am sorry.
I am so sorry.
You'll be fine.
I am here, Fenghuang Down.
I've got you.
Senti tried to open her eyes, and immediately regret the rash decision. Something stung where her face should be.
Everything hurt. Every inch of her skin, every one of her limbs, and every single organ.
Senti had no idea organs could hurt. Showed what she knew.
The slightest movement hurt. The breeze hurt. Even breathing felt like swallowing glass shards. Molten glass shards.
"You're awake." A voice, gentle.
Okay, Senti was not ready to find out that even listening could hurt. But apparently as that involved sound waves and movements in the ear canal... it could.
"MmmM?" Senti croaked, her voice sounded cracked, raspy and more dead than alive.
"Don't stress yourself. You're healing, but you are still heavily wounded."
...Su? Thank the Heavens it was boy Su.
"I see that you recognise me."
What happened?
"You did it, Miss Senti. You've trapped my female counterpart within a causal loop."
Don't call me that.
...
...you knew?
"I do."
...
How am I...
"Hua came to us - I was, of course, active, the threat posed by my counterpart was certainly something I had to deal with." A pause, "I have to thank you for dealing with her, when I could not."
...all of you seemed to have evil counterparts. What's with you lot?
"We were never heroes, Miss Senti. We were just ordinary people caught at the wrong place and the wrong time. And if things went slightly different..."
Yeah.
Senti hated that idea so very much.
"There is no need to, Miss Senti. Even in the infinite sea of probability, we were not yet slaves to blind chance. There is always a choice to make, and we can always choose, even when the pain is unbearable. Even when the only way out is death. Our souls remain in our own keeping." Su paused, and continued, "and some of us, at least, would always make the right choice..."
Elysia...
Su said nothing, but Senti could feel the gentle grief which even forty-five thousand years could only dull.
"All we can do is to face that which Fate has given us, and do with it what we can. That, at least, is up to us."
Adrift in a sea of her own thoughts, Senti could only agree, and drifted away.
Hua looked up at Fenghuang Down.
Here, in the Sea of Quanta, Fenghuang Down was able to manifest a physical body, no longer a pure memory-form.
Hua was not sure whether it was a blessing or a curse. Having a physical body was the only thing that prevented her from being completely scattered by the currents of probability in the Sea of Quanta.
On the other hand...
Hua looked away again, and winced. Suspended in a healing tank hastily converted from one of the spare cryopods courtesy of Doctors Cangxuan and Danzhu, was Fenghuang Down's form. Because of the nature of the healing tank, every inch of her skin was exposed... and it did not look good.
There were heavy burns all over all the exposed parts of her body, painful-looking blisters and raw-red flesh oozing. Hua could not see a single inch where the dermal layer was not heavily damaged. Blackened muscles and even carbonised bones were visible, and several of her extremities were little more than charred stumps. And her face... Oh heavens her face...
Her mind at least, according to Su, was still active, but the body seemed...
Beyond repair.
Hua's heart tightened painfully at the thought.
The body sustained heavy damage, both physical and spiritual. Only the peculiarities of the void in between realities kept her from immediately expiring. Once they - recovered Fenghuang Down, it took the combined efforts of Su, Cangxuan and Danzhu just to keep her alive.
But Fenghuang Down was not stabilising. Her brain activity somewhat recovered, but no sensory organ survived. Her face was just a charred ruin now, a mass of burnt, unidentifiable lumps fused together. Hua forced herself to look.
She did it for you, you know.
Core 2 sounded... oddly gentle. Hua closed her eyes. Why her? Why was it that she was once again the girl who lived? Hua tried to remember everything, everything said, every little interaction, every glance, every thought, about the one person she had spent the most time with... And she could not understand why. She was not exceptional like her friends, she was not strong like Kalpas, brilliant like Vill-V, or... like Elysia.
And yet here she was, once again outliving those better than her.
Core 2, there's a zeroth order power for Fenghuang Down, yes?
...Sentience transfer?
Hua nodded by way of an answer.
Fenghuang Down's body may be beyond the power of science to save.
But it is not beyond the power of her Garuda genes. Of all the Flame-Chasers, Hua was by far the most resilient, able to recover from almost any wound.
Dr Mobius had tried to test the limits to her regenerations in order to discover some ways to increase survivability on the field... before the Tragedy of Binding changed everybody's priorities. Barring Dr Mobius herself, nobody was closer to physical immortality.
I am ready. Zeroth Order Output, activate.
Deep inside the sea of her own consciousness, Senti slept and dreamed.
Suspended in the endless void, Senti felt the agony that lanced over every part of her body... slowly abating, little by little. With every moment, the pain became a little less unbearable.
Slowly, her eyes opened.
Huh, she had eyes now?
That's good to know.
Her felt her heart beating erratically, like she had two-
...another heart?
In the dim light, she sees...
Old Timer, slumped on the floor. Her hair completely white.
Senti began to bang against the pod's glass wall, and screamed.
Cangxuan looked down at Hua.
Correction, Cangxuan glared down at Hua.
"Now, describe to me precisely why this was a complete misuse of a Divine Key, and reckless to the extreme."
Hua gingerly shifted so she could turn her head away from Dr Cangxuan's penetrating glare. Her body protested and her arm felt like it had needles driven into it at every inch. Hua closed her eyes briefly and steeled herself, and opened her eyes-
-only to stare into the red eyes of one very, very livid Dr Danzhu.
"I'm sorry." Hua muttered, her voice small.
"Zeroth Order Power was untested, its limits and capabilities unknown. You made use of it under uncontrolled conditions, even though there were three highly qualified persons available who might provide support. You did not, because you knew we would not let you do it. This kind of reckless behaviour I expect from Danzhu-"
"HEY!"
Cangxuan rolled over Danzhu's protests placidly, "but not from a seasoned veteran and our project leader like you. Hua - you're a MANTIS. There're only four of you left now in this era. Even if you don't care about yourself, would you at least care about the Project - and the rest of us? We need you. Don't try to throw your life away at the first opportunity. At least try other options first."
Hua could only nod.
"...still, at least the results seemed promising. Fenghuang Down is healing."
"Whatever THAT means." Danzhu muttered, "isn't she just a memory form from the divine key? Can't she... go back inside or something?"
Cangxuan rubbed her temple, "could you at least pretend to be a neurology post-doc that you allegedly spent 8 years of your life as? 'Go back inside or something'?"
"...h-hey! I am not a Honkai radiodynamicist! Or a Honkai engineer! I don't know how these things work!" Danzhu averted her eyes and had the grace to redden a little. Hua tried not to smile, but evidently failed, as Danzhu sent her a withering glare and a pout.
"...regardless, it appeared that by - the process is still somewhat unclear, but perhaps best described as 'synchronising', as it was certainly not a full transfer..."
Cangxuan and Danzhu shared a significant look with each other, before turning back to Hua, "neurological scans showed that your consciousness was co-active along with Fenghuang Down's. And your body's recuperative capabilities took over and activated Fenghuang Down's core. We are still not quite sure about the exact mechanics, but it seemed that as Fenghuang Down's physical form was linked to yours, somehow, and it - fully assimilated your body's capabilities once the zeroth order power created a link between your two consciousness." Cangxuan looked thoughtful for a moment, "in the old days this could have changed everything, "regenerative medicine, neurological conditioning... even cloning MANTIS-like capabilities..."
Cangxuan fell silent.
All three of them knew whatever possibilities that once held... it was certainly completely beyond the capabilities of the few sorry survivors from their age, now. They had no resources, equipment, or frankly brainpower to pursue a project like this.
And even if they did...
They had already lost, had they not?
"Wait, cloning?"
Cangxuan and Danzhu exchanged a glance.
"...have you had a chance to look into a mirror?" Danzhu said, as Cangxuan wordlessly held up her pad which she set to mirror mode.
Hua looked at herself.
She looked a mess, bags under the eyes, cheeks sallow - and somehow her hair had turned completely white.
But it was her eyes that immediately captured her attention.
They are the same shade of blood red as Fenghuang Downs', although her pupils remained black.
"Dr Su." Senti pushed herself up on the bed, "take a seat."
Su smiled and accepted the invitation. "I am glad that you are healing."
Senti looked out the porthole at the starstreaks that she knew was an artefact of her mind trying and failing to process the physical reality in the Sea of Quanta. Now that she was better and Psycho Princess was definitively sealed away, Su had prepared the Cosmic Juggernaut homewards.
"I noticed, you know."
"Oh? What did you notice?" Su's voice held clinical interest, and nothing more.
"How you avoided my questions."
"You were at death's door at the time, it was hardly the time or the place to discuss-"
"To discuss what?" Senti set up, face red, "That you knew who I was all along? When do you plan on telling Old Timer? Kevin? Well?!" Senti gasped for breath, a combination of the exertion and her emotions tiring her out in her weakened state. Pathetic.
Su leaned over and put his hand on her arm and gently eased her back down. "Miss Senti, your reaction was precisely why I distracted you at the time. Yes, I know, but only after the Tragedy of Binding. I don't think I ever properly thanked you for helping us catch your predecessor."
Senti glared.
Su sighed, his eyelids flicking a little, "I did not tell Hua, nor do I intend to, for now. From our first meeting you've proven your good faith." Pause. "...and I would be quite the hypocrite if I hold being a Herrscher against you, when my best friend..."
Senti tried to sit up again, and broke into painful coughs for her troubles, "...just how much did you..."
"They called me the Enlightened One, that I can see through all obfuscation into the essentials of everything." Su stood up and went over to the side table to pour Senti a glass of water, "I don't. Not really. What I can do, however, is through understanding every actor's character and motivations - deduce their inevitable end. People like us always make the same choices, over and over and over. Kevin... he will try to save the world, no matter the price. Just as I could never do the same. Dr Mei saw this. I saw this. Kevin saw this."
Su sat down heavily on the chair next to Senti's bed, and offered her the glass of water. "From the moment Dr Mei took Project Stigmata way from me... there was only ever one possible outcome."
"How do you go on knowing all that?" Senti was honestly tired of all the saints and heroes she seemed to be stuck with. If Su knew all along that Kevin would take the power of Finality for himself... and that he would die trying to stop Kevin...
How did he keep going?
If Senti had known all along that Old Timer could not be saved... Would she...
"Exactly." Su smiled, although there is an unspoken pain behind it, "character is not set in stone. We may always make the same choice, all else being equal, but every day we try to make a difference, every day we may get closer to a world where the painful choices need not be made. All else - need not be equal."
"That's a lot of big words for 'blind hope', Su. You do realise I am the Herrscher of Sentience, you can't lie to me." Senti said, smiling despite herself. Who was she to mock Su?
"You are no Herrscher. You are the true keeper of the Divine Key of Sentience."
"I - I lost interest in saving the world, Su, a long time ago. I only want to save Old Timer..."
Su smiled softly, "saving one person is often harder than saving the world."
Senti looked away, "I knew you'd say that."
But she knew it to be true, all the same. Old Timer was Old Timer, and if the world was not saved from Honkai, that stupid, pig-headed, stubborn, noble and brave woman would always find newer and more creative ways to get herself killed, so to save Old Timer, Senti would have to save the world first.
Senti shook her head, "Herrscher of Sentience, the Enlightened master of the Signet of Bodhi, we're a pair of idiots, aren't we?"
"The best kind, the sort of idiots who knew something cannot be done, and yet keep trying to do it." Su said, and stood up. "I hope I have set your mind at ease, Fenghuang Down. You really do need more rest, it'll be a few days before we return to Earth. Take it easy, it may be the last time you get any rest for a while.
Senti raised her eyebrows, and then almost pulled a muscle on her face, "is it time already?"
"Given the incursion - and since Hua insisted on going after you, somebody had to hold the fort down on Earth, so I had to wake Kevin up and give him Abyss Flower." Su twists her left wrist a little on reflex.
Ah, of course, the 'insurance', just in case Su was taken over by somebody from beyond, or more specifically, Psycho Princes Su.
"And with all three of us active, and background Honkai radiation fading to an acceptable level, there was no longer any reason for us to stay in cryopods. There may be some preparation time, but I suspect we will emerge sooner rather than later. Knowing Kevin-" Su smiled at this, and Senti smiled back. Always make the same choices, indeed.
"So yes. I am unsure of your exact modus vivendi with Hua, but I am sure you know Hua would be keeping herself very busy, so you probably won't be getting much rest either."
Senti nodded, and took a sip from the glass of water Su gave her. The water felt good in her parched throat, drinking no longer felt like swallowing liquid magma. "Wait." She said, as she recalled something.
Su stopped and looked back at Senti, raising a single brow. "You have further questions?"
"Just the one. How did I..." Senti was at a temporary loss for words. She did not expect to survive, much less leave Kalpas' burning Taixuan...
"Oh, that. That particular Kalpas threw you out." Su actually grinned at this, "I think he really likes you."
Senti snorted, "last time we met, he threw a volcano at me."
"If it was just a small volcano, he must be really fond of you."
Somehow, Su was able to duck the cushion Senti threw at him without opening his eyes.
Senti lied back down.
There was a long road ahead of them, yet.
But she felt at peace for the first time in a very long while.
It was only ever a fool's hope.
But what's so bad about that?
~o~
Author's notes:
And this, boys and girls, was how Fu Hua got her Phoenix form and definitely not a case of design retcon.
The note following is spoiler-filled, so people who don't want to be spoiled, please skip this.
Well, you've been warned.
As you may or may not be aware, Mihoyo recently revealed that the Authority of Finality is similar to that of time, and the Previous Era, in fact, was not a 'previous' era at all. The Herrscher of the End basically reset the Previous Era back to 50,000 years ago.
Now, the idea of incarnation and resetting is, I'd like to think, not without its support, the most prominent of which is the entire worldbuilding and plotline of Gun GirlZ, aka Honkai Gakuen, aka Honkai Impact 2nd, where Finality's whole thing was resetting the world line, over and over and over.
However, Mihoyo either did not know, or did not care enough to make this self-consistent, so we keep having things like Schicksal digging up PE relics, or the Herrscher of the End in Honkai 3rd damaging the world so badly that they needed the Fourth Divine Key to re-terraform the Earth.
I've tried to rationalise these inconsistencies in my own way, but if something doesn't quite seem to add up, well, now you know why.
One of the more fascinating snippet of lore from the Elysian Realm arc - and one which is unlikely to see resolution at all, is Female Su, the one who chased Su 'for a long time', in Su's own words, and spooked him enough so he basically put a dead man's switch on himself on the off chance that the girl ever got to him.
Only Su never seemed to worry about it ever since. Su's first major appearance was in the Second Key comic, and Su did not seem to care at all about an outside threat that was looking to invade Earth at any time, and plucked Bianka out apparently without a care. Now, the obvious reason was when the Second Key comic was written the Elysian Realm wasn't even a gleam in Dawei's eyes, but we cannot avail ourselves of this explanation. The most reasonable explanation therefore is, then, that Female Su had already been taken care of by the real world Su, a fact of which the Sim Su was unaware.
Well now, I have a spare Herrscher of Sentience...
The characterisation of Core 2, or the Previous Era Herrscher of Sentience, was likewise only based on the few lines she had in chapters 8 and 9 of the Second Key comic, where she... well, she had this slasher grin on a silhouette for a face, was fairly mocking and mean, and seemed not to understand why people won't accept her dreams. Not much to go on, but I hope my development of her was believable.
A lot of people seemed to assume Senti had the full set of Fu Hua's memories, that is demonstrably not true. For example, from the beginning of chapter 21 of the main line we can see that Senti did not even remember Cheng Lixue's name. By the time of Shattered Samsara, however, that memory seemed to have surfaced. We could only assume that it was not an Easter egg placed by the animators for the rule of cool, but rather that it was a memory buried in one of the Fenghuang Down feathers which Senti managed to pick up and restore over the course of Chapter 20 and 21. But the point remains that Senti did NOT have the full set of Fu Hua's memories. She has more of it than Fu Hua, but as should be clear from Chapter 21, it is far from complete.
"Grand Progenitor of the Crimson Kite" is the closest semi-plausible translation of 'Chìyuān Zhēnrén', or 赤鸢真人, or the 'Azure Empyrean'. The problem with this name in Chinese is many fold, first of all, chìyuān is not a real bird, and certainly not anything related to a phoenix. Yuān is a generic term for certain types of raptors of which kite may be one, chì is simply red, and zhēnrén is a Taoist honorific for an accomplished master, a 'true' or 'perfected' person... for men. The female equivalent is Zhēnjūn or yuánjūn. So the entire name from start to finish makes little sense. The English is even worse, as Azure Empyrean is actually a translation (a bad one) of Yúnmò Dānxīn, or 云墨丹心, which is the VERSION TITLE of 3.7. It would be like calling Dea Anchora Aurelia Invicta. Given how widespread the use of this name is, I've retained its use in the story, but I really, really don't like to.
This chapter was written while listening to Three Spheres, Four Realms, from one of songs of the yet-to-be-released game Black Myth: Wukong. It fits as a themesong for the Sea of Quanta because the Sea is basically a collection of failed and unsalvageable worlds... and the void:
Three Spheres
Four Realms
There is no Salvation
Day and Night
Then and Now
Right and Wrong, Upside Down
Last but not least...
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