Creeeak.
Vill-V cautiously pushed open the already broken door to the Taixu Gang's office.
A flurry of documents swept toward her like falling snow, accompanied by the choking industrial smell unique to Dusk Street.
"Cough, cough, cough. Did the wind pick up? No, the office has sealed floor-to-ceiling windows. Where would wind come from?"
Vill-V pulled the document plastered over her face away and looked around.
"My god. This place is a complete disaster!"
The dim office was in total chaos. Documents and papers fluttered like snowflakes, while shattered furniture covered the floor. Tables and chairs had overturned, scattering fragments everywhere.
Dirty water had splashed across the walls and floor. The plaster had peeled away, exposing the concrete underneath.
At some unknown point, a huge hole had been smashed through the floor-to-ceiling window in one corner. Wind howled in from outside, whipping the discarded papers across the floor.
Zeo crouched trembling on the ground with a length of electrical wire still hanging around his neck. It seemed he had torn down a ceiling light while struggling.
"Zeo? Why are you huddled in the corner shaking?"
Vill-V sighed. "I never programmed you to wreck houses. You don't have to fight if you don't know how. Look at the mess you've made of Su's office. He's going to have a terrible headache later. Even if he's a workaholic, you can't just pile extra work onto him whenever you please."
"Coo, coo, coo!"
"Oh? You're saying you only wanted to escape through the window, but they forcibly dragged you back? I thought you'd taken the initiative to help us fend off an enemy and thrown yourself fearlessly into battle. So where did the enemy go?"
"Coo, coo!"
Click.
The wind stopped.
The scene inside the room changed like a slide being switched.
Tens of thousands of fluorescent butterflies occupied every corner. They danced gracefully, forming a vast ocean of flowing, multicolored light.
Brilliant halos shimmered behind them, filling every corner of the room.
Vill-V had just been wondering where the butterflies she had seen before entering the room had gone. She had not expected so many to appear all at once.
The sight was like encountering King Crimson itself.
The halos flowed across their bodies. Wherever they passed, broken walls and shattered glass became whole again, as though time itself were reversing.
Even the peeled plaster returned to perfect condition.
A dreamlike, illusory atmosphere permeated the air as light and shadow intertwined into a fantastical spectacle.
It was like a gate to utopia had opened before them.
"The Sea of Quanta?"
Vill-V had only ever encountered such a wondrous sight within the Sea of Quanta.
Yet even though Vill-V had witnessed it before, she could not reproduce it herself. Like the Honkai, this phenomenon arose from properties unique to the Sea of Quanta.
At the center of that ocean sat a girl around Bronya's age, her body likewise encircled by light, making her resemble the goddess of this sea.
A transparent butterfly fluttered its wings and slowly alighted on her fingertip.
"It's been a long time, my dear... teacher."
Over her skintight leather outfit, she wore a brownish-gray coat fastened with a red bow.
The girl folded her arms and crossed one leg over the other with elegant composure, casually resting it on Zeo's stomach. Her leather miniskirt rode up against thighs even paler and fuller than Zeo's, while the metal buckles on the straps wrapped around them rang with a crisp chime.
Such an adorable young beauty should never have escaped Vill-V's notice, especially in an atmosphere like this.
Yet when Vill-V had entered the office just now, she had unconsciously overlooked her.
Had the girl attacked Vill-V from behind, Vill-V likely would not have reacted in time.
The same might have happened even to Hua.
After all, not even the equipment on Vill-V's body had detected the girl's presence.
"Seele, we haven't seen each other in three years. Did you visit the neighboring railway world to learn another Seele's secret technique?"
The girl before her was none other than Bronya's long-lost wife(?)—Seele.
Six years ago, when Vill-V wreaked havoc in the Babylon Laboratory, she rescued a group of girls. That was when Bronya and Seele had met.
It seemed that even in the Previous Era, Bronya's and Seele's places of birth had not changed much. The only difference was that they had never met Cocolia. As a result, Bronya's and Seele's circumstances in the Previous Era had clearly been far worse.
"...Teacher Vill-V, you still enjoy saying bizarre things that make absolutely no sense."
The petite girl adjusted the black, wide-brimmed top hat sitting crookedly on her head.
"You've grown up. Mm, whenever I came to visit in the past, Seele would immediately throw herself into my arms, bury her face in my chest, and call me 'Mommy' in that sweet little voice of hers. Is this what they mean when they say a girl can change completely as she grows up?"
Screech!
A teeth-grating sound came from overhead.
The butterflies covering the office's ceiling light vanished. The light went dark once more and dropped around Zeo's neck.
The butterfly in the girl's hand transformed into a small butterfly emblem.
A crafty gleam flashed through Seele's eyes beneath the shadows. The tip of her tongue lightly brushed across a sharp canine as her lips curved upward. Vill-V's figure was reflected in her crystalline crimson eyes. She closed her hand around the butterfly emblem, and it transformed into a scythe.
A scythe taller than Seele herself.
"Coo, coo, coo!"
Zeo stared warily at the scythe in her hand.
He was not worried about Vill-V. He was terrified that Seele might accidentally damage his adorable feathers.
If the scythe moved even slightly, Zeo would become bald, just like Dora-X-Mon.
Then Zeo would have no choice but to wear a "wig."
Seele had no intention of attacking Vill-V. She merely tapped the butterfly resting on Zeo's belly with the tip of her scythe, and it dissolved into multicolored quantum energy. "Teacher Vill-V, Seele can grow too. Look, Seele has already surpassed Teacher Vill-V."
Vill-V looked at Seele. Grown? Surpassed her? In what way? Seele had not surpassed her in age, height, or figure.
Did she mean combat ability?
"That's true. I'm nothing but a weakling with a combat rating of five. Pick anyone at random from the St. Freya Academy I founded, and they could hang me up and beat me senseless. Still, the Seele of the past would never have compared herself to someone else so arrogantly..."
Before she could finish speaking, multicolored quantum energy enveloped Vill-V.
Everything around her blurred. Vill-V felt as though she had returned to the days when she and Planck played hide-and-seek in the Sea of Quanta.
This time, however, she did not have the Cosmic Juggernaut. Vill-V experienced the dizziness of quantum tunneling firsthand.
The blurriness lasted only an instant. When her vision cleared, Vill-V discovered that she, too, was sitting on Zeo's belly...
Directly across from Seele.
Quantum tunneling again!
"Coo, coo!"
Zeo's belly bore a weight far beyond what someone his age should have endured.
Vill-V herself weighed no more than forty-five kilograms, but the portable weapons and magic props she carried added up to nearly half a ton.
Zeo... felt nothing at all.
He might as well let her sit there. Vill-V was his creator, after all.
Vill-V and Seele stared into each other's eyes.
The cowardice and inferiority that had once filled those jewel-bright ruby eyes had completely vanished.
Only a mature sharpness remained, one that pierced Vill-V's heart.
Only then did Vill-V understand that when Seele said she had "surpassed" her, she had not meant strength or height, but maturity and experience.
What exactly had Seele endured during these three years?