Arthur stood in this familiar yet foreign home, gazing at the faces in the photographs, familiar yet foreign faces.
A powerful sense of detachment washed over him.
He was Arthur the game studio boss, weighed down by this world's history, debts, and relationships.
He was also that office worker Arthur, carrying memories and knowledge from another world.
And Honkai, the story, was about to become the fulcrum connecting these two identities, the lever that would move this world.
He walked to the window and pushed it open, brushing aside the accumulated dust.
The night breeze carried the faint sounds of the city below, dispersing the stale air that had settled inside.
Tomorrow, the work would begin in earnest.
He needed to map out the plot in greater detail, plan the framework for the game going forward.
And he would have to deal with... those old acquaintances who had suddenly resurfaced, and the quietly shifting emotions of the people around him.
So after a cursory attempt at tidying up, not that there was much to tidy, really, just a matter of brushing away the dust, he dug out a clean set of sheets and pillowcases from the depths of the wardrobe and changed them out.
After a quick shower to wash off the day's exhaustion, he lay down on that long-absent, slightly stiff single bed.
The twin weight of physical and mental fatigue crashed over Arthur like a tide, pulling him under.
The noise of the city outside filtered through the window, but it seemed to come from somewhere very far away.
His consciousness sank, swallowed by darkness.
Then, without any warning, the dream arrived.
Not fragmented pieces. Not disjointed flashes. But something impossibly vivid, utterly immersive, a complete submersion.
He felt himself drifting through a boundless, kaleidoscopic void.
The space around him wasn't darkness; it was an ocean of flowing color.
At times it gathered into something as brilliant as a galaxy. At others it shattered into dust, fine as pixels.
Vast shadows glided slowly through the depths of the sea, radiating pulses that made the heart clench.
The Sea of Quanta.
The term surfaced naturally within his dreaming mind.
He was aboard... a ship?
No, it felt more like the interior of some enormous constructed thing.
He couldn't read it, yet it felt strangely familiar, and the bridge stretched wide around him. He was standing there.
Not the office worker Arthur. Not the captain scrambling to prevent his studio from going under.
Arthur wore a perfectly pressed captain's uniform, epaulettes bearing a crest he didn't recognize.
His posture was straight, his gaze sharp as he swept the view ahead.
He was the captain of the Hyperion.
Memory flooded in like a tide, not memories belonging to this world.
These were fragments from that captain's life: the one who had navigated countless world-bubbles, leading companions through the unknown, searching for answers.
Adventure. Endless adventure.
To rescue world-bubbles drowning in the Sea of Quanta, eroded, or trapped in some other crisis.
And to understand... why he was pulled into the Sea of Quanta again and again, why he had taken on this crushing responsibility.
Consciousness projection surfaced in Arthur's memory.
He had cast his awareness into different world-bubbles, inhabiting different identities, living different lives.
He saw...
A girl in flowing robes, leaning on a railing with a feather fan in hand.
Gazing at the stars in the dead of night, as though waiting for something.
And another figure, dancing alone.
Her movements were weightless, every leap carried a lethal grace, and threading through it all, a loneliness that wouldn't quite fade.
Beneath the moon. Why did she dance?
And for whom?
More figures, indistinct, flickered along the border of light and shadow.
Familiar and unfamiliar, all of them bearing the deep imprint of some profound emotion.
He wasn't a bystander. He was the one who had cast his consciousness in, again and again.
Meeting them, fighting alongside them, or passing them by.
He could feel the tearing sensation of passing through the membrane between world-bubbles.
He knew the disorientation of shifting between identities.
But for the sake of the worlds adrift in the sea, and to understand why he was wandering at all,
That purpose lit the way forward for the captain in the dream.
And in that same moment, it lit something in the depths of Arthur's consciousness as he lay submerged in sleep.
Who was he?
That office worker, Arthur.
The game studio boss fighting to survive?
Or this captain of the Hyperion, adrift in the Sea of Quanta?
Or perhaps... all three?
The dream lurched and shook violently.
"Brring brring brring!!"
A piercing, unmistakably real alarm.
It seized Arthur and yanked him back to waking with brutal force.
He opened his eyes. His heart was hammering. Fine beads of cold sweat had gathered at his temples.
Above him: the familiar low ceiling. Morning light slipped through the gap in the curtains he hadn't fully drawn.
The figures from the dream, some sharp, some blurred, faded fast.
Only a feeling remained: intense, like he had just returned from an exhausting, endless journey.
Arthur sat up and pressed his fingers to his aching temples.
Whatever it meant, whichever way he turned it over, that dream, that perspective of the captain and everything he had lived through...
It left Arthur with a strange and lingering feeling.
Especially those words: to save the worlds lost in the sea, and to understand why he was wandering at all.
Like a seed, they had fallen into the soil of his present reality.
Saving this studio on the verge of collapse. Bringing the story of "Honkai" to life in this world.
And figuring out why he had crossed over, why it had to be here, why it had to be these stories...
Arthur shook his head, pushing the thoughts aside for now.
What mattered first was the immediate reality.