"For the third time, Seele... wake up!"
A familiar voice, tinged with anxiety and concern, was like a gentle hand brushing away the fog of consciousness, pulling Seele from a deep slumber. For the third time, she experienced the helpless, exhausting feeling of sleep paralysis.
"I... Where am I?"
Her long eyelashes fluttered as she slowly opened her dazed eyes. Bronya was still sitting by her bed, but the room seemed much brighter. The familiar details in the patterns on the walls and ceiling were reassuring. This was her room.
Coming to her senses, Seele hurriedly turned her still-stiff neck and eyes, but to her disappointment, Lin Wei was no longer there.
"I... I'm back again..."
For some reason, amidst the disappointment of falling short at the last moment, Seele felt an even greater sense of relief.
"Seele, you're awake... What are you looking for?" Bronya's voice, a mix of joy and confusion, rang out. It was the first time she had seen Seele look so anxious right after waking up.
"...Bronya Oneechan, you still don't remember?"
Though she already knew the answer, Seele couldn't help but ask. This feeling of being "reborn" every time she opened her eyes wasn't pleasant.
"Remember what?"
As expected, Bronya's expression turned to confusion. She couldn't help but start looking around as well. Seeing this, Seele sighed softly and murmured, "She should be coming in now..."
BANG!
As if on cue, the moment the words left her mouth, the door was kicked open violently. Sin, radiating a frosty chill, burst in. She tossed the prey she was carrying at Bronya's feet and then began to shout impatiently, "Hey, Bronya, how much longer are you going to stay here?"
"Sin, you're just in time. Seele's awake. I think she was just looking for you," Bronya said with relief. Sin's sudden entrance provided a perfect explanation for Seele's odd behavior just now.
"Hah? Her? Looking for me?"
Sin was taken aback. Her mismatched eyes flickered toward the bed, and then she sneered, "Forget it. Look at her, she's trembling just from me looking at her. Tsk, still the same pathetic look. It's so annoying!"
"..."
Perhaps the painful memory of the beating had been triggered. The moment her eyes met Sin's, Seele did indeed flinch, instinctively crossing her arms over her chest. Then she heard Sin's undisguised mockery.
"Sin, Seele just woke up!" Bronya shot her a displeased look. Can't you tone it down a bit at a time like this?
Sin pouted and shot Bronya a glare, but she didn't say anything more insulting.
The next second, the usually quiet Seele spoke.
"Sin, thank you..."
Seeing the usually ferocious Sin again, after a moment of instinctive fear, Seele felt an inexplicable wave of gratitude.
"Huh?"
Now Sin was completely baffled. Her eyes widened, and she waved a hand in front of Seele's face, then waved it again. Then she turned to Bronya and said, seriously, "Something's wrong with Seele's brain. I just insulted her like that, and she's actually thanking me?"
"..."
Bronya didn't know whether to laugh or cry.
"Thank you for going out to hunt in this cold weather. These two rabbits... Seele likes them very much. Thank you." Seele propped herself up, her voice as soft and weak as ever.
"..."
Veliona couldn't handle such a direct approach, and neither could Sin. She froze for two seconds, then kicked the prey at her feet with an annoyed grunt, turned, and stomped away, leaving a parting shot.
"Tch, don't get any ideas... I'm leaving!"
Before she had even finished speaking, the door had slammed shut. Bronya's hand, which she had been about to raise to stop her, had to be awkwardly lowered. She could only smile wryly.
"That Sin..."
"She's as mischievous as a boy, isn't she? A bit arrogant, a bit pretentious, and a bit clumsy. Who gives a patient a wild rabbit to eat!"
In this second loop, Seele felt much calmer than before, and she could even manage a heart-stopping smile.
"...Yeah, she's always doing things that make you not know whether to laugh or cry." Bronya smiled helplessly, then looked back at Seele. "You've been in a coma for a few days, so you must be very weak. Don't go outside for a while. Come, drink some water first. Then I'll go to the kitchen and make you some porridge. After you eat, you can have a good sleep."
Although she was happy to see Seele so cheerful and wanted to chat with her a bit more, just having her awake and safe was enough to satisfy her. There would be plenty of opportunities to chat later.
"Okay."
Seele nodded obediently and let Bronya help her up, propping her against the pillows. She craned her neck as Bronya gently fed her a large glass of warm water, then watched with a gentle smile as she left the room.
Click.
The door was gently closed, leaving her alone in the room. The smile on Seele's face gradually faded. She raised a hand to touch her right side, where a rib should have been broken, then touched her cheek, which should have been red and swollen.
Now, everything was back to normal, without a hint of pain or discomfort.
"I really... came back again..." Seele murmured. Each loop felt like an incredibly vivid dream. Besides her memories, there was no proof that any of it had actually happened.
"Yeah, back again," Veliona's voice echoed from the depths of her mind. Unlike White Seele's relief and confusion, she only felt a sense of unwillingness. "Damn it, we were so close..."
In her view, returning to the beginning of the story for a second time was a complete failure.
As for seeing Bronya and Sin again, she felt nothing special. She only cared about Seele, about herself. As for everyone else, she couldn't care less.
"Yeah, we were so close..." Seele agreed, then smiled gently to comfort the fuming Veliona. "It's okay, other me. Look, we've already successfully met that person once, haven't we? That's huge progress!"
Somewhere along the line, the girl who was once full of pessimism and gloom could now comfort others with an optimistic tone.
"Hah, I guess so. At least we know what the guy looks like now, so we're not flying blind like before." What's done is done. No matter how unhappy Veliona was, she had to accept it. "But how come you don't seem sad at all?"
This isn't right. Usually, it was White Seele who was crying and blaming herself, and she who had to comfort her like a nagging mother. Why was it suddenly the other way around today?
"Bronya Oneechan and Sin are both back to how they were at the start. Of course that's something to be happy about. As for Mr. Lin Wei..." Seele pulled the blanket up to her chest and smiled slightly. "We can just leave with him the next time we meet, can't we?"
The bad things had been erased, but the gains had been kept. Wasn't that the best possible outcome? she thought, quite content.
"Alright..." Veliona said, as if admitting defeat. "Back to the main topic—we're back at the beginning. What's your plan this time?"
The last time, her rash actions had caused a lot of trouble, and seeing Seele so sad and in pain had made her feel guilty for a long time. This time, she planned to calm down and not be so impulsive.
"We don't have to do anything!" Seele smiled again, brighter and more relaxed than ever before. "Look, Mr. Lin Wei has already been to the orphanage once, so we just have to wait here patiently!"
Why was there any need to do anything extra?
"...That's true." Veliona paused, silently chiding herself for being too impatient and not thinking of something so simple.
Since Lin Wei already knew where the orphanage was, he would definitely make his way here on his own. There was no need for her to overcomplicate things, which could easily lead to them missing each other again in the vast snowy plains.
The correct answer was presented before her, so simple and straightforward. For a moment, Veliona felt like this third loop had entered garbage time from the very beginning...
"That guy won't get lost, will he?" Veliona muttered suspiciously. "After all, last time he was brought back by Bronya. What if he can't find it on his own?"
"That's a possibility," Seele said after a moment's thought. "Yesterday... no, in the last loop, Mr. Lin Wei was brought to the orphanage by Bronya Oneechan at night... If I'm not mistaken, Bronya Oneechan discovered we were missing around noon that day, and then left the orphanage in a hurry. Then at some point, she caught Mr. Lin Wei, and finally came back here with him..."
"Are you saying we should set a deadline, say, until tomorrow night?" Veliona said. "With Bronya leading the way, it only took a few hours to get back here. Now he has a whole day and night. Tsk, even if that guy is an idiot, he should be able to find this place by tomorrow night!"
They both referred to Lin Wei, one politely as "Mister," the other dismissively as "that guy." Their tones were completely opposite, yet neither corrected the other's "mistake."
"You're right, other me, we do need to set a deadline. But... we can't wait until tomorrow night." Seele nodded, then shook her head, paused, and bit her pale lips. "Because, at the latest, Mother Cocolia will be back here by dusk tomorrow. We... can't wait until then."
"Huh? That woman did that to you, and you're still calling her 'Mother'?" Veliona said in disbelief. "The Cocolia in this world bubble is even worse than the one in the original world!"
"I know she... did very bad things to us, but..." White Seele hesitated for a moment, then said, "If Mother hadn't taken us in, both I and Bronya Oneechan would have been wandering in different places, and we would never have had the chance to be together. We might even... have died young from the cold and hunger..."
Seele thought of her even more terrifying and helpless childhood experiences and couldn't help but shrink back. After a few seconds, she came to her senses and straightened up, a bright smile returning to her face. "Never mind, let's not talk about that. In short, we can't wait until tomorrow night. We have to act before Mother Cocolia comes back. Otherwise... Bronya Oneechan and Sin will..."
The thought of the X-10 experiment, hanging over them like the Sword of Damocles, made her scalp tingle. She gritted her teeth and said, "You're right, other me, we can't just sit and wait. Tomorrow noon... we'll wait until tomorrow noon at the latest! If Mr. Lin Wei isn't here by then, we'll have to find a way to act on our own!"
"Seele..."
Veliona was stunned. It was the first time she had seen Seele so motivated, so proactive.
No, the second time. The last time was when she had volunteered for the X-10 experiment and, despite her protests, had forcibly unlocked the power of the Stigmata...
Seele always seemed to summon an unexpected courage when people least expected it.
"The last loop, the reason you were in such a mess was because I was too hesitant, too weak. If I had been a little braver then, you wouldn't have had to carry my burden as well, and you wouldn't have..." Seeing Veliona's confusion and surprise, Seele said apologetically, "To let the people around me pay the price for my own weakness; that kind of thing that makes you feel pain and regret from the bottom of your heart, I never want to experience it again!"
She couldn't help but shrink back slightly, a little scared.
Thankfully, this is a world bubble, not my own world.Thankfully, this is a time loop, where all mistakes can be corrected.
But... what about after I return to my own world?
If I continue like this, the next time I face something that is already irreversible, what can I do besides feel pain and regret?
I can't be like I was in the past, hiding in a corner and deceiving myself, weakly turning a blind eye to everything that's happening, passively waiting to be saved...
So, after these two lessons, I have to learn to stand on my own two feet!
"...Alright." Veliona was silent for a moment. Seele's growth made her feel gratified. "Have you thought about what to do?"
"Actually, I haven't yet..." Seele lowered her head in shame. Then she remembered the last words she had heard before her consciousness faded completely. A surge of courage welled up in her heart, and she firmly encouraged herself, "But Seele will definitely try her best!"