Honkai Impact 3rd: I picked up a Seele at the start of the game.

……

Step, step, step...

Black boots trod across the blood and filth scattered on the ground, slowly approaching Yun Fuyu.

The boy clutched a bathrobe tightly, raising his head blankly. His empty gaze met the eyes of the newcomer, causing her to sigh in pity.

The newcomer was Alicia. She held up a light gray umbrella, shielding herself from the continuous rain of blood falling from the sky. For some reason, her black boots remained unstained as she stepped through the pool of blood.

“…Aili?”

"Yes, it's me." Alicia responded and extended her hand to him: "Let's go, I'll help you escape."

"……escape?"

He gave a bitter laugh, then screamed as if he were having a mental breakdown: "Where am I?! Why am I here? Was everything I experienced before just an illusion?!"

His expression was ferocious: "I am the Tree of Imaginary Numbers, the supreme deity!! What is it that is blinding my senses? Don't force me to forcibly regain divine authority and dispel this ridiculous illusion!"

—I just want to live!

Alicia gripped the umbrella handle tightly, a wave of sorrow washing over her. She spoke many words—explanations, apologies, gratitude, and comfort—but to him, they were all just jarring noises, like strings of text that had been muted.

All he heard her say was, "Don't be afraid, I'll stay with you until we resolve this."

...That's what Seele said too.

He slumped down, clutching the bathrobe tightly, but couldn't smell Seele's scent that should be on it, as if Seele had never existed in this world.

After a long silence, he finally reached out and took Alicia's hand.

Above the sky, pink starlight pierced the blood-red curtain, gradually dispelling all the eeriness and restoring the world to its original state.

However, this is only effective in the area centered around them. They are powerless to help areas further away.

Yun Fuyu's tense nerves finally relaxed a little, and he regained some of his ability to think normally. He asked, "Alicia, do you know the truth?"

She nodded: "I know, but only to me."

"So, the Alicia I believe exists in reality, in the pre-civilization era, doesn't know about what's happening here?"

"Yes. The previous civilization and the current civilization have severed their causal ties, and Alicia there is no longer related to me."

Even now, Yun Fuyu could still hear and understand what she was saying. This performance gave Alicia a glimmer of hope, hoping he could glean something from it.

but no.

Yun Fuyu continued to ask, "In your eyes, where is reality?"

She replied, "The reality you see is the real reality. This is..."

Unintelligible background noise.

Yun Fuyu: "You know the truth, but for some reason you can't tell me, right?"

"……Correct."

In reality, it was Alicia who revealed the truth, while Yun Fuyu automatically blocked out the truth.

That was his unique "cognitive impairment." No matter how much he thought or how many clues he knew, his cognitive impairment would prevent him from ever recognizing the truth.

He then asked, "What do you mean by saying you'll help me escape?"

"…………" More background noise.

Alicia sighed, then looked at him earnestly: "I will take you away from here. Trust me, and then, entrust everything to me."

Her expression was serious, as if there was no other way to gain his trust. Yun Fuyu looked at her silently for a long, long time before finally nodding in agreement.

"Okay, I believe you."

"Thank you~"

The pink-haired girl smiled gently, and continued to hold his hand, walking in a certain direction under the umbrella.

The world they inhabited seemed like a fantastical painting pieced together from different dimensions. And at this moment, they were walking in the most bizarre area. Filthy blood rained down from the sky, each drop carrying a chilling aura, splashing up layers of scarlet, viscous ripples on the ground.

As they moved, the surrounding scenery began to subtly change. The blood rain gradually faded, and the darkness in the sky slowly dissipated, turning into an endless expanse of blank space. The world was blank and silent, with only the rain, like an ink painting, still falling, and the pink-clad girl leading him step by step forward.

Finally, the world's colors deepened, as if the gods themselves had painted a new world stroke by stroke. This world was bright and vibrant, the sky a clear, deep blue, and the sunlight warm and radiant. Pink petals rained down from the sky, dreamlike and ethereal, each tiny flower swirling and dancing in the air, releasing a delicate fragrance.

I don't know how long we walked, but at this moment, the female protagonist in the painting turned around, her smile becoming even brighter, and something shimmering in her eyes.

Yun Fuyu seemed to wake from a dream: "We escaped?"

Alicia shook her head: "Of course not."

"Where is this place? Why is it so...beautiful?"

The lush green grass carpeted the earth, colorful flowers bloomed in profusion, butterflies danced among the blossoms, birds sang merrily in the branches, and a clear stream babbled by, its water sparkling brilliantly in the sunlight…

Including the pink-haired girl in front of me. She smiled brightly, and pink petals fell on her face and hair, making her indescribably stunning.

She replied, "I only temporarily helped you 'reconstruct the area of ​​cognitive restructuring' and leave that place; it's not a permanent solution. But as you might expect, the real world is beautiful and certainly not as bizarre as it seems."

Yun Fuyu slumped on the grass, gazing into the endless distance, which seemed like blank spaces in a painting or an unloaded map in a large game, inspiring both longing and fear.

He asked in a deep voice, "How can I completely break free from this state? Although it's only happened twice, I've had enough of this damn illusion!"

Alicia retorted, "No, it's not just twice."

Yun Fuyu stared at her in astonishment, not understanding what she meant.

"........."

Alicia sat beside him, silent for a long time, before finally saying softly, "Erinnis, Argona, the Shadow of Darkness."

"...Although I don't quite understand, do you mean that the strange illusions, hallucinations, and auditory hallucinations I've experienced in the past also count as the 'strange' things happening now?"

"Correct."

Yun Fuyu racked his brains to recall the past: briefly recounting the hallucinations during the fusion surgery and the auditory hallucinations he had experienced multiple times in the Origin Land, he had always assumed that these were the work of 'Alisia' in Erinis, or caused by the special nature of Erinis, so he never gave it much thought.

Since traveling through time, the world line has changed, Seele has gained divine authority, and Yun Fuyu has also regained some of her power. She no longer cares about what happened back then.

But now, this "Alice" tells him that he has actually been engulfed by the strange waves all along, and that what happened back then was just a rehearsal for the present.

A feeling of ignorance and helplessness spread through him, and he instinctively gripped Alicia's wrist: "So, how am I supposed to get rid of all this? How can I escape?!"

Alicia pried open his tightly clenched knuckles, took his hand, and said with a mixture of expectation and sadness, "I can only rely on you, only on you. I can only help you for a while, but I can't completely eliminate the anomaly. The cause of all this is..."

Realizing that the truth she had revealed could no longer reach Yun Fuyu, she changed the shape of her mouth several times and repeated her words several times, but it was still to no avail.

In the end, only a single, faint word remained.

"you".

But he still knew nothing, or perhaps... he was unwilling and unable to face the truth.

"You should wake up."

Alicia suddenly said this, and then her body transformed into fluttering flowers and butterflies, dancing in the air, and finally gradually fading away and disappearing.

As she disappeared, the bright and vibrant world gradually faded, eventually turning into a void of consciousness in a pure white expanse, shattering and dissipating completely upon waking.