As a child, Seele was like a pool of clear, deep-blue seawater, every bit as innocent and well-behaved as the Seele of the Current Era.
She was timid by nature, slender and petite. The slightest touch frightened her into trembling all over, her eyes brimming with crystalline tears that made anyone pity her.
She hated violence. Her happiest moments were spent curled up in Vill-V's arms, pointing at the illustrations in fairy-tale books and chattering endlessly in her sweet voice.
She suffered from an extreme inferiority complex, acting awkward and hesitant no matter what she did. Whenever anything happened, she would timidly hide behind Vill-V.
By comparison, Bronya back then had been as tough as an unruly red rose. More than once, she had criticized Seele for being childish and weak, then pulled Seele off Vill-V and dragged her away to train.
Incidentally, Bronya's training methods had made Seele cry quite a few times.
To keep Seele from developing any psychological trauma, Vill-V had no choice but to squeeze out more time to watch over them both.
Vill-V certainly did not want Seele to encounter some obsessive lunatic like Sin Mal from the original Honkai storyline.
At one point, Vill-V had even believed that Sin Mal's counterpart in the Previous Era was Idovia.
Vill-V had not known that Idovia was Bronya until now. Only then did she finally understand that Bronya had already been fighting for "ownership" of Seele back then.
As expected of Bronya. No one needed to teach her that raising a child bride had to begin from childhood.
As for little Newton, Vill-V could only let her roam free. Little Newton did not need Mommy Vill-V. She could find grass to eat on her own. A genius would not starve that easily.
Dr. Newton's current development was passable, and Vill-V was at least fully responsible for that.
At that thought, Vill-V discreetly glanced at Seele's chest.
Unfortunately, Seele had covered it up completely, like Hare.
Was fabric free, so she had decided to add as much as possible?
Naturally, Vill-V was not concerned about Seele's underdeveloped figure.
She had merely remembered how Seele changed after that strange mark appeared on her chest.
Of course, Seele had not developed some second personality like Dark Seele because of it. As an expert in multiple personalities, Vill-V could confidently guarantee that.
But her disposition had changed. She had grown increasingly rebellious and aggressive.
She had even dared to resist Bronya's training and defeated Bronya in a one-on-one simulated battle.
Seele had possessed virtually no talent for combat. Vill-V, who was equally hopeless at physical activity, had always sought comfort in solidarity with her.
Vill-V's fondness for Seele also came from how much the girl resembled her. Id was just as insecure and cowardly.
Being with Seele was like two little lambs huddling together for warmth. It allowed Vill-V to forget her usual tension and finally relax.
And now she was telling Vill-V that they were actually wolves with off-the-charts combat power, and Vill-V had been the only real sheep all along?
Was Vill-V the only one who had simply grown into a plumper, fatter sheep with age?
Was she the only one delicate, soft, and easy to push down?
That was going too far!
Incidentally, even Newton was far stronger than Vill-V. As expected of the grandmaster of mechanics. (All that wild-game hunting had paid off.)
At the thought of her future as the one person in her harem whom everyone could bully and ride, Vill-V launched a research project into the strange mark on Seele's body. She intended to eliminate its peculiar influence and restore Seele to her former delicate and soft self.
But she also feared that her experiments might trigger Seele's painful memories of the Babylon Laboratory and cause irreversible damage to her psyche.
Thus, although the project had been planned to perfection, it remained shelved for a long time.
As a result, the mark grew darker and darker, while Seele's emotions became increasingly unstable.
Vill-V had no choice but to forcibly begin researching the mark on her body.
Seele's friends were also deeply concerned about her. Bronya even volunteered to undergo the stigmata experiments first, proposing that any successful results could later be transplanted into Seele.
She was going to die anyway. One more curse would make little difference.
That was also the origin of Vill-V's Project STIGMA.
But then...
On the night Seele was informed...
Seele ran away...
Using some unknown method.
It seemed Seele still hated being studied. The mere thought had triggered a stress response.
Vill-V could only terminate the research project.
Vill-V could have caught her, but she did not.
Fine. If she doesn't want to see me, then she doesn't have to. I'm the one who hurt her.
As long as Seele could still live a healthy and happy life after leaving her, that was enough.
As for the mark, Vill-V would secretly find a way to deal with it herself.
The Herrscher of Death? It probably had not reached that point. Herrschers awakened in an instant, though the Herrscher of Corruption was an exception.
Had she awakened an anomalous stigmata? Impossible. Where would the Previous Era's Seele have acquired a stigmata?
Of course, while Vill-V made her plans, she could not forget Seele wandering alone outside. Vill-V could never stop worrying about a child who had run away from home by herself.
She had only just turned eight that year.
Eight years old. Did anyone understand what that meant? She had barely lost the scent of milk!
What? Someone said she had been weaned long ago?
Nonsense! Every time Vill-V held eight-year-old Seele, she smelled wonderfully milky, and even tasted like cream when licked.
Huh? Why was Vill-V licking Seele? Obviously because clumsy little Seele was always careless while working and injured her fingers easily.
When a finger was hurt, of course one had to lick it better.
No one would even hire such a silly child for part-time work, unless it was for something disreputable.
Vill-V did not want Seele to end up homeless, much less become someone's cream puff.
So Vill-V sent several trustworthy people to follow Seele and quietly offer her help.
That butterfly emblem was the protective charm Vill-V had slipped to Seele. The emblem was both a locator and a wish-granting device.
Of course, the wish-granting device created by Occultist was not omnipotent. More precisely, the emblem used quantum methods to select, as closely as possible, the fleeting possibility that approached what its user desired.
Do not mistake it for some all-purpose wish mallet from Doraemon or a magical wishing tag.
That fleeting possibility lasted only one billionth of a second.
For example, if someone wished for a toothpick, the wish would fail unless they could come into contact with a toothpick within the next billionth of a second.
Wishing for superpowers was even more impossible. If the possibility did not exist in the first place, it could not be realized.
Thus, the wish-granting device actually had an extremely narrow range of applications. After all, the possibilities available to a single Seele were already limited, let alone what wishes she could realize within one billionth of a second.
Of course, this was not one of Vill-V's classic redundant designs. No, Vill-V had never created a redundant design in her life.
Did they understand versatility?
The emblem Seele called Mr. Butterfly had one primary function. If Seele ever fell into the Sea of Quanta, she could use the butterfly emblem's quantum-manipulation capability to send Vill-V a quantum signal.