Chapter 229: Cecilia's Resurrection
"Literally what it sounds like." Irene gave Siegfried a small smile. "Hm, but didn't Kiana tell you?"
As she spoke, Irene glanced over at Kiana. Kiana, looking a bit awkward, feigned nonchalance as she raised a hand to scratch her head and explained, "Uh, I did tell Elder Sister about it at the time, but I wanted to save the surprise…"
"All right, I get it — you just forgot." Irene nodded. How could she not understand Kiana's personality by now? Whenever the girl lied, she scratched her head. Heaven knew where she'd picked up that habit.
"Ahaha." Kiana scratched her head again, looking embarrassed, her eyes wandering. Irene sighed once more, then spoke up.
"Sirin, come out here. And what's your story?"
Kiana's eyes closed slightly, and when they opened again, the crisp, capable aura around her had transformed into one of slovenly indolence — even the ahoge on top of her head went limp and curled down.
Sirin yawned, looked at Irene, and lazily spread her hands. "What's there to my story? I just don't have a good impression of him, and I don't want trouble, so I didn't come out. Simple as that."
Truth be told, there really wasn't much for Sirin and Siegfried to talk about. Siegfried had hacked at her with everything he had from start to finish, the whole way through — her Core had been torn out by Siegfried's own hand.
In the illusory realm, she'd built up a tiny bit of goodwill toward him — Siegfried had genuinely been good to his family, after all — but that sliver of goodwill had vanished just as quickly.
For Cecilia's sake, Sirin could refrain from saying anything about all of that. But expecting her to put on a friendly face for Siegfried? Yeah, no, not happening any time soon.
So she couldn't be bothered to come out and make herself disagreeable. She'd just have to bother explaining things later, and might end up stirring up more trouble — so she simply couldn't be bothered to come out.
Sure enough, when Siegfried saw Sirin, his eyes narrowed slightly, and his hand instinctively reached behind his back, clearly going for a gun. But his Judgment of Shamash had already been confiscated — where on earth was he supposed to find a weapon now?
But there was nothing to be done about it. Siegfried had a real, deep-seated fear of Sirin. Forget for a moment the impact the Second Eruption had caused and the price Siegfried had paid for it.
Just take right now. How had his arm gotten cut off? Siegfried hadn't forgotten that one either.
Durandal, standing off to one side, noticed Siegfried's movement. After a moment's thought, she silently placed herself between Siegfried and Sirin. Sirin was now a Herrscher fighting for humanity.
So it really was better not to start any unnecessary conflicts.
Sirin was no fool. As lazy as she looked, it wasn't as if she'd missed anything — she'd caught Siegfried's little motion just now perfectly well. Sirin gave Siegfried a cold snort, then sank back into the depths of consciousness.
[Sigh. Looks like getting along peacefully is still going to take some doing.]Cecilia's voice rose up in Irene's mind, clearly finding the current situation a bit of a headache too.
But there was no helping it — the tangle between those two ran that deep. Expecting Sirin to just instantly let go of all her hatred for Siegfried was asking a bit much.
Even Cecilia wasn't naive enough to think it would be that simple.
[Take it slow. As long as they don't come to blows, we're good.]Irene shrugged inside the Palace of Consciousness. [Siegfried isn't an unreasonable man — once we explain things clearly, it shouldn't be a big problem, right?]
Cecilia fell silent for a moment after hearing Irene's words. After thinking it over, her usual expression took on a few strange colors — she felt this was going to be a bit difficult.
Irene, the one who'd raised the subject in the first place, now clapped her hands and drew everyone's attention back. "All right, calm down, Mr. Siegfried."
Siegfried nodded and rose to his feet. His body was still weak, and he wobbled a little. "Looks like there's a lot of things I'm going to need to relearn, isn't there?"
"Mm, that's quite right," Irene nodded. "For instance, almost every Herrscher these days has thrown in their lot with humanity, and so on."
"Also, there's an extra ancestor of yours running around now. Plus said ancestor might just feel like beating us up."
Hearing Irene's words, Siegfried's expression shifted through several changes. He thought of that ancestor who'd taken the Judgment of Shamash away from him. Honestly, how was it that this world had managed to produce an old relic like that?
"But let's set the learning aside for now." Irene looked at the people in front of her. "I know Miss Durandal and Kiana, you two must be looking forward to something. But rather than looking forward to me, you should be looking forward to a miracle."
Ever since she'd arrived here, Durandal's gaze had hardly left Irene. Irene knew perfectly well why Durandal was watching her like that.
But compared to her transformation, seeing a living, breathing Cecilia — for these few people, that probably qualified more as a miracle.
"Right, let's set Sirin aside for now." Siegfried looked at Irene. He was clearly very focused on the Cecilia they'd mentioned just moments ago. "Miss Irene, I'd like to know — what exactly did you all mean about Cecilia just now?"
"Now, that's a long story." Irene smiled, then turned and walked out in front. After waving to the others, Theresa fell in behind Irene.
Kiana followed next. Durandal and Siegfried exchanged a glance and then trailed along too, while Irene, walking up front, began briefing Durandal and Siegfried on the situation.
Well, mainly she was briefing Siegfried. Kiana had probably given Durandal a rough rundown over on her end, but given Kiana's powers of explanation, Irene rather doubted whether Durandal had actually understood any of it.
"I assume everyone here understands the concept of the Sea of Quanta, or rather, the Bubble Universe."
Durandal nodded. Of course she understood the concept of the Sea of Quanta and Bubble Universes — that time she'd spent adventuring inside a Bubble Universe was unforgettable.
"If that's what Miss Irene's getting at, Kiana has actually already told me about it."
Just as Irene had predicted, Kiana really had laid out everything about Cecilia and her abilities. The script for it had even been drafted up by Sirin beforehand.
And maybe it was because they were sisters, or because the two of them really did share some special tacit understanding — even though Kiana's explanation had been a little vague, Durandal had still managed to follow it.
On the other side, Siegfried also gave a half-comprehending nod. He'd heard a bit about all this himself. As for the reason — well, it was a bit hard to admit.
Men, after all, will always show interest in certain wondrous things. Especially someone like Siegfried — a chuunibyou kid in his early years, and a young man who maybe still hadn't quite kicked the chuunibyou habit even now.
So he had actually gone and done some research into the Sea of Quanta and Bubble Universes, though he hadn't dug very deep — expecting Siegfried to make sense of academic research papers was asking a bit too much of him.
But fortunately, he did know some of the basic premises.
Seeing that both of them understood, Irene nodded. "In that case, Mr. Siegfried, you must be very concerned about — and very curious to know — what we meant about Cecilia just now. Am I right?"
Siegfried nodded. "If Miss Irene was trying to capture my attention, then you've succeeded. Which means I now very much want to know what exactly is going on."
"Then, Mr. Siegfried, since you understand the concept of Bubble Universes — have you ever considered the possibility of a world where Cecilia didn't die?"
The instant the words left her mouth, Siegfried's eyes went wide. "Wait — what do you mean?"
Irene only smiled and said nothing more, then led the four of them straight toward the cultivation chamber. His curiosity now thoroughly piqued, Siegfried stared at Irene's retreating back, wanting to step forward and stop her — to ask for a clear answer.
But Theresa blocked his path and shook her head. "Siegfried, I know you're shocked, but just wait. Come with us, and you'll see."
Siegfried nodded. Soon enough, they arrived at the cultivation chamber, and the moment he walked in, Siegfried's gaze fell onto the body inside the cultivation pod humming away in the very center.
That was… Cecilia.
"Theresa, what on earth are you all doing?" Siegfried turned back to look at Theresa, though his gaze couldn't help but keep flicking back to Cecilia. "You're not doing some kind of…"
Siegfried trusted Theresa, so he didn't dare phrase his words too harshly. He was just confused — why would even Theresa be involved in this kind of thing?
"Of course it's not what you're thinking. How could we possibly do something like that?" Theresa, of course, knew exactly what Siegfried was hinting at, and simply lifted a foot to kick him in the leg. "How could I possibly do something like that to Cecilia?"
Siegfried winced in pain and bent his leg, then watched as Irene pulled a card out of her pocket and pressed it against herself. In the next moment, a pink-haired girl he'd never seen before had replaced the original Irene.
This sort of thing wasn't new to Siegfried — he'd seen Irene use this ability before. But the moment he saw it again, something suddenly clicked.
Including the question Irene had asked him earlier — he might just understand what was going on.
Irene turned her head to look at Siegfried. "Of course there's no way we'd run that kind of experiment the way Otto would. But what if you call it a resurrection — of a sort?"
Irene opened the cultivation pod and placed her hand on the shoulder of Cecilia's body. With the assistance of the Corruption virus, the prepped Cecilia consciousness rapidly merged into the body.
Thanks to the fact that Cecilia's body structure and DNA weren't as complex as those of the MANTIS, once Irene had gotten the hang of it, she could complete the cultivation rapidly.
And after several previous trials, she could now smoothly transfer the soul in using nothing but Little Senti's viral abilities — without needing Little Senti's direct help.
Watching Irene's movements, Siegfried immediately shifted his attention onto the body. A moment later, the fingers of that flesh — of Cecilia — twitched.
With some difficulty, she pried her eyelids open. Cecilia opened her mouth and let out a few breathy sounds, and then, as if she'd grown accustomed to the body, she raised her hand and waved at Siegfried.
"Long time no see."
Thanks to Irene's frequent transformations and the fact that she let others take the wheel of her body from time to time, the few souls inside Irene actually had a bit more experience with what it felt like to truly operate a physical body, compared to the other Flame-Chasers.
So they grew familiar with their new bodies very quickly. Cat, earlier on, had been the same.
Irene released her transformation. The other cultivation pods were actually also running at this point, but since there was no immediate rush, Irene hadn't used her ability to deliberately accelerate them.
"All right, friends." Irene clapped her hands. "The room next to the cultivation pods is already set up as a rest area. Why don't we stop chatting in here, hm?"
Several of them nodded. Standing around in this place chatting really didn't seem terribly appropriate.
As they headed out, Cecilia walked along laying out her own situation to Siegfried in full. As he listened, Siegfried's eyes kept drifting toward Kiana.
Or rather, what he was looking at wasn't Kiana — it was Sirin. Just like that. Just with that small change, Cecilia could go on living.
"A lot of times, coincidence is just like that. The smallest little change can trigger unimaginable shifts." Irene walked alongside him. "That's how it goes with so many things."
"That… Cecilia…" Siegfried looked at Cecilia. He knew that this wasn't his Cecilia, and yet he himself…
Cecilia looked at Siegfried and smiled. "Don't put yourself through it. I know I'm not — or rather, from your perspective, I'm not — the real Cecilia."
"But…" Cecilia turned to look at Durandal and Kiana, who were walking behind the two of them. "I still want to look after these two."
"…" Siegfried fell silent for a moment. "Then, Kia — no, that's not right… Durandal, what do you think?"
"You'd better hurry up and break that habit, you know." Cecilia turned back, regarding the tense-faced Siegfried with a gentle look. "This is the fruit of a seed you sowed yourself."
"Th-that's because I didn't know, isn't it." Big beads of sweat rolled down Siegfried's face. Giving Kiana's name to K423 had been done, as far as he was concerned, entirely out of tradition and as a blessing. He really hadn't thought it could mean anything else.
In all fairness, given the kind of situation Kiana had been in back then, swap him into the same shoes and he himself might not necessarily have survived. So how on earth could he have ever imagined Kiana could actually survive under such extreme conditions?
So although the matter of his having named Kiana "Kiana", looked at from where things stood now, was admittedly — how to put it? — a little bit of a dog move, at the time he really had been following tradition by inheriting the name, and giving her a little blessing besides.
But he genuinely hadn't expected she could actually survive!
On this one, Siegfried felt rather wronged. Well, given what he'd done, you couldn't entirely call him wronged either.
"Whether you knew or not, you've already done it." Cecilia walked over to Siegfried's side and lightly flicked his forehead.
"You'd better be ready to apologize, hm?"
"Absolutely, absolutely." Siegfried nodded again and again. If he didn't make some kind of gesture at a moment like this, he really would feel like an idiot.
Granted, he was supposed to apologize, but Siegfried had no idea exactly how to go about it. Should he go prepare a gift first? But he'd come here completely lost as it was — where would he find the time to prepare a gift?
Cecilia saw Siegfried's nervousness and couldn't help shaking her head. Siegfried was still the same as ever. So she reached out and patted him on the shoulder.
"Anyway, you've got to do it, one way or another."
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