The more familiar you are with someone, the harder it is for even the slightest change in them to escape your notice.
If one day, you discovered that the person you spent every day with, the person more important to you than your own life, suddenly looked at you with the eyes of a stranger, what kind of horrifying feeling would that be?
It was as if a bucket of ice water had been dumped over her head. In that instant, Bronya felt a bone-deep chill. "You... are not my Seele?" she asked, the words catching in her throat.
"I..."
Her gaze and tone, which felt as if the sky itself had fallen, became another bucket of ice water dumped on Seele's head, ruthlessly extinguishing her innocent, romantic expectations. But, how could this be...
Hope and despair had come with such violent force. For a moment, Seele's mind went blank. All that remained were the tears streaming down her face.
"Seele..."
The girl's silent tears fell like heavy hammers on Bronya's heart, silently confirming her earlier suspicion while also, bit by bit, melting away the shock and hostility that had erupted within her.
That's right. No matter which Seele, isn't she still Seele?
A realization dawned in Bronya's heart. She knelt down again, pulling Seele back into her embrace. "I'm sorry, Seele," she said softly. "I just disappointed you..."
Yes, disappointed. After all, she wasn't the Bronya Oneechan that Seele had been hoping for.
The tear-stained girl before her wasn't the Seele who had been on her mind all day. At its core, wasn't her own shock and horror also born from that same profound disappointment?
I'm worried about my Seele, and Seele is worried about her Bronya. When she realized this, she had already forgiven her.
But if the Seele before her was from another world, then where was her Seele?
The thought of her little sister, vanished once again, brought Lin Wei's theory about the "time loop being related to the disappearing Seele" back to the forefront of Bronya's mind, filling her with a deep sense of unease.
"Hey, Seele, stop crying!"
Veliona, who had been watching from the sidelines as if it were none of her business, was the first to react. She shouted in the depths of her consciousness, trying to snap the crying girl out of it.
"If she's the Bronya from this world, then why does she know about the time loop?"
Something's not right here!
Her shout jolted Seele from her inescapable despair and self-blame. She quickly wiped her blurry eyes and pulled away from Bronya's embrace, her voice even more urgent than before. "Bronya Oneechan, how did you know that we would return to yesterday?"
"Did Bronya Oneechan already have memories of every loop, or..."
Seele's heart, which had sunk with heavy disappointment, now leaped sharply. ...or did Bronya Oneechan meet the person I've been looking for?
Both possibilities existed. Having just experienced disappointment, Seele didn't dare to get her hopes up again, so she asked with extreme caution.
But even such a cautious, roundabout question made Bronya's heart sink. "Seele, are you saying that we really are trapped in a time loop like this, right?"
She had believed ninety percent of what Lin Wei had told her about the loops and cycles, but she had still held onto a sliver of fantasy. Now, that last sliver of fantasy had been completely extinguished.
After all, if even Seele was saying it, how could it not be true?
But if that was the case...
A profound sense of confusion and nothingness washed over Bronya.
If the world and time always returned to their starting point; if, in every loop, a Bronya would go mad with anxiety and self-blame over Seele's sudden disappearance, only to return to the beginning at a certain point in time, forgetting everything that had happened that day...
Then, what did the 'me' who lived through day after day like this even amount to?
In that moment, Bronya felt as if her body was thinning, becoming lighter, as if she were turning into an ethereal soul, drifting and drifting; passing through the thick walls and floors, all the way outside the small building, only to be jolted awake again by a bone-chilling wind that could freeze even the soul.
And her dazed, self-doubting appearance silently confirmed the real answer for Seele.
"Bronya Oneechan, you..." Looking at those still-vacant, gray-white eyes, Seele asked tentatively, "Did someone... tell you all this?"
Her heart pounded. Seele felt incredibly nervous in that moment.
"...Why do you ask that, Seele?" Bronya's voice was filled with an indescribable bewilderment and dejection. "I did run into a strange guy in the mountains today while I was looking for you..."
"He's now..."
After a string of setbacks and disappointments, this rare piece of good news made Seele's spirits soar.
Then, the sharp pain from her broken ribs sent her slumping back down, breaking out in a cold sweat.
But she didn't care about that. With a courage that came from who knows where, she held back the tears that were about to fall, lifted her pale little face, beaded with sweat, and asked in a small voice, "Bronya Oneechan, do you know that person's name? Where... is he now?"
She was terrified that this hard-won clue would suddenly disappear. After all, it was tied to whether she could return to the real Bronya Oneechan's side...
"...His name is Lin Wei. Right now... he should still be in the orphanage."
Seele's irrepressible excitement snapped the dazed Bronya back to her senses. She keenly realized something. "You... know him, don't you?"
Finally getting the most definite answer, the tension in Seele's heart eased. She let out a long breath, nodded, then shook her head. "I don't know him, but I have to find him to... Only then..."
Here, she looked at Bronya apologetically and summoned her courage. "Only then can I leave this place and return to my Bronya Oneechan's side. And only then... can the Seele who belongs to this world return to her Bronya Oneechan's side..."
"...The Seele... who belongs here?"
Hearing Seele's earnest words, Bronya murmured, "You mean, the one who disappeared this morning... was already you? And even, yesterday afternoon..."
The thought that yesterday afternoon, she had been so happy about Seele's safe recovery; it turned out, the one who had woken up in that body was a completely different person...
"...Yes."
Seele lowered her head miserably. "I'm sorry, Bronya Oneechan..."
How could she not understand what a cruel truth this was for the Bronya of this world?
"..."
Bronya was silent for a second, then she stood up and walked away without a word.
"Bronya... Oneechan, where are you going?" Seele asked hesitantly.
"I'm afraid if I stay here any longer, I won't be able to stop myself from hurting you, Seele..." Bronya turned back, forcing a strained smile. "You're still injured. It's best not to move. I'll go get the person you need."
"...Okay."
Listening to Bronya's deliberately calm voice, Seele's heart ached. Oneechan is still so gentle, even though I'm an uninvited guest from another world...
"My Seele... will come back, right?"
"Yes."
"I see. That's good, then..." Bronya let out a long breath, as if a heavy weight had been lifted from her heart, and pushed open the door of the small confinement room.
"Well, well. Talk about searching high and low for something only to find it when you least expect it." After Bronya left, Veliona's voice surfaced again. "Alright, don't be sad. Once we get that guy back to the other guy, you can return to your Bronya Oneechan, and the Bronya just now can get her Seele back. Everyone's happy!" she concluded optimistically.
"Will it... really be that smooth?" Staring at the empty doorway, Seele muttered to herself. "After all, Seele... if..."
If it happens again, can we avoid that dangerous experiment?
Thinking about what had happened before, in this moment, she didn't know if she was hoping for things to go smoothly, or for an accident...
---||---
I hope that guy who was acting like he was at death's door hasn't left yet...
With a nervous heart, Bronya hurried toward the kitchen. After all, if that guy just up and left, it would be hard to say if she could find him again.
Pushing open the kitchen door and seeing the familiar, albeit pale, face behind it, Bronya breathed a sigh of relief. "Seele is looking for you. Come with me."
"Seele?"
Lin Wei, who had just been subjected to a "verbal beatdown," was stunned by the name. Then, a thunderclap went off in his head as an obvious possibility struck him. He temporarily pushed Schrödinger's words to the back of his mind and, without thinking, squeezed out of the doorway. "She's here? Quick, take me to her!"
So Kevin is reliable after all. He knew to send someone to pick me up. Lin Wei thought to himself. But then, what was that battle in the Sea of Quanta all about?
He couldn't figure it out. But whatever the case, the priority was to meet up with Seele!
"You!"
Bronya was knocked off balance by the suddenly frantic man, and all the frustration she had been suppressing instantly erupted at him. "Hah, in such a hurry? You don't act like a stranger at all! Tell me, what's your relationship with Seele? Is this so-called 'time loop' your doing?!"
There were some things she couldn't bring herself to say to Seele, but with this detestable guy, it didn't matter.
"Sorry. To be honest, I don't know either. It was only when you just mentioned Seele that a possibility suddenly occurred to me. After all, she wouldn't want to see me for no reason, right?" Lin Wei realized he had been a bit out of line when he bumped into her, perhaps due to what Schrödinger had just said.
He immediately composed himself and spread his hands. "As for being in a hurry... hehe, I'd rather not be sent back to the beginning of the story when I'm so close to the finish line."
Ever since entering the Sea of Quanta, Lin Wei felt that nothing had gone his way, so it was best not to dawdle at a time like this.
"...Forget it. Come with me. Seele is in the confinement room on the first floor, at the end of this hallway."
Lin Wei's "back to the beginning of the story" made all of Bronya's fight deflate, leaving only a baseless resentment. Pointing down the hallway, she asked through gritted teeth, "In the eyes of you people, what... what are we?"
Are we just insignificant NPCs in an adventure game? The kind you can just reload a save for after failing a run?
Bronya, who was already a seasoned gamer, could easily apply this logic to herself, and it made her both furious and terrified.
"You are Bronya, of course. My... hehe, although strictly speaking, I've only known you for a day, I still think you're a trustworthy friend." Lin Wei thought for a moment and said, "After I leave this world, if one day in your remaining life you meet the Lin Wei of your world, how would you see him? As a shadow of me, or a somewhat familiar stranger?"
"But this world is in a loop!" Bronya felt inexplicably agitated. "Maybe this is just a fake world! After you and Seele leave, everything will come to a complete stop, disappear, like a game file that's been deleted after completion!"
"...This world is real, Bronya."
Lin Wei looked with some pity at the little girl who was trying to act tough.
She was as fragile as a string about to snap. "You, Seele, this world... you're all just in a temporary predicament. But it's this very predicament that is giving you the most real feelings, moment by moment. Bronya, do you really think that the pain and confusion you're feeling right now are fake?"
"...You're really bad at comforting people."
Bronya was speechless, but her heart had inexplicably calmed down a lot.
"Maybe everything that's happening right now is just an insignificant dream. A dream that belongs to either Bronya or Seele. Thinking of it that way, it actually feels a lot easier..."
"...Did I not say you were an optimist, Bronya?" Lin Wei said with some admiration.
"At least, this way, I won't feel sad for Sin." Bronya gave a bitter smile, then stopped in front of a narrow door. "We're here."
The kitchen wasn't too far from the confinement room. It was only a walk of a few sentences.
"Good, no accidents."
Lin Wei let out a long sigh of relief and followed Bronya inside. The twin-drill loli was so short that Lin Wei's view wasn't obstructed at all. He easily saw the wounded-looking girl at the far end of the room. She had short, somewhat messy hair that had a blue tint under the dim, cold light. Like her eyes, it was the blue of the sea.
So this is Seele?
Lin Wei silently observed the pitiful-looking girl, and couldn't help but think that there were a lot of people with blue eyes in this world...
At a time so ripe for sentimentality, why am I always thinking about such random things? Lin Wei wondered to himself.
"He's the one..." Seeing the strange man standing at the door, Seele felt inexplicably nervous.
"Seele, I brought him," Bronya, as the "host," spoke up, sensing the somewhat awkward atmosphere.
"Hello, Seele. It's nice to meet you. I'm a friend of Bronya's, both the one here with us, and the one from the original world..." Lin Wei took the lead, his voice tinged with emotion. "If she knew that you had regained a stable physical form from a discrete quantum state, she would be very happy."