Part 7

After the False S Incident instigated by Qian Yuan was complete, just in case anything was wrong, Yu Guang and Hengsheng were taken to the infirmary car for a checkup.

Wu Shi: Blah blah blah I want to be her friend but she's an asshole.

Wu Shi: I keep oscillating between feeling bad for her when she's being a woobie, and being mad at her when she's being the kind of person who gets their treasure stolen in Persona 5.

Qian Yuan, seeing my startled reaction, flips off the top bunk (??? there's bunks??? is this a case of the art not matching the narrative??) and lands adroitly on her feet.

Wu Shi: Impressive. You're very dexterous.

Qian Yuan: Oh, it's nothing, I've practiced this for the sake of the young mistress after all.

Wu Shi: Okay so what are you doing here.

Qian Yuan: I detected thoughts about the mistress and have thus pursued them!

Wu Shi: Is this another way to say that you are here to stalk me at your mistress's orders again?? Are we back on that now?

Qian Yuan: Oh, no, I didn't tell her I was going to find you this time.

Wu Shi: I thought you said you do everything for the mistress.

Qian Yuan: Precisely! That's why I didn't tell her about this.

Wu Shi:

Then she kicks off her shoes and gets into my bed.

What is it with girls crawling their way into my bed lately??

Qian Yuan: A surprisingly clean and large mattress! How pleasant.

Wu Shi: Okay, first off, the mattress has no correlation with any implications about my character you want to make here. You maids are the ones who set this whole bedroom arrangement up. In fact, your organization owns this mattress. There is no sense in which this bed is somehow representative of my character.

Wu Shi: ...Also, stop trying to find porn mags under the mattress. You're not going to find any. Even if I had any I wouldn't have brought them on this ride.

Qian Yuan: Okay, okay. Anyways, I'm actually here in order to protect world peace. Specifically, the peace between the young mistress and Wu Shi-senpai, in this small undersea world. That's why I'm here to chitchat with you!

Wu Shi: Okay, I'll bite. What's so great about the princess anyways?

Wu Shi: I'm telling you, if one day she has some goal that she needs to sacrifice you to achieve, you better bet she'll sacrifice you immediately.

I said the words with an acerbic bite.

I was expecting them to anger her.

I wasn't expecting her to agree.

Qian Yuan: You do understand the young mistress quite well, it seems!

She nodded approvingly.

Qian Yuan: You must have paid her a lot of attention to recognize so much about her so quickly.

Wu Shi: Okay, no, the way you say that makes me sound like some kind of stalker and I'm not-

Qian Yuan: That's why you want to contradict her viewpoints, isn't it? Because you consider her much more important to you than you're letting yourself admit.

Wu Shi: .............

Qian Yuan: Also, frankly, the fact that you're capable of arguing with the young mistress to her face is also an impressively rare quality. I think that's why she values you.

Wu Shi: ...Okay, maybe you're kinda right. I do care a surprising amount about her.

Wu Shi: I just don't really understand her.

She's so open and pleasant when she excitedly explains the workings of the time machine.

But she's so cold and cruel when deciding how to use it.

She's contradictory. One one hand she wants friends; on the other hand she intentionally keeps herself isolated from everyone else.

Qian Yuan: It's fine if you don't understand her. The mistress is a deep and complex person beyond your ability to understand.

Qian Yuan: As the Se family heir, she bears pressure you cannot even begin to imagine.

Qian Yuan: She's not allowed to speak her true heart or acknowledge any weakness.

Wu Shi: Are you allowed to say these kinds of things about your mistress?

Qian Yuan: I came here specifically to say these things!

Qian Yuan: That is the topic of the conversation I wish to have- 'the Se Yue I see with my own eyes'.

Qian Yuan closes her eyes as if she's recalling something.

Qian Yuan: You know, when the mistress was younger, I think she had siblings? Sisters and brothers, of both the older and younger varieties?

Wu Shi: What do you mean, think?

Qian Yuan: Well, it was a long time ago, y'know?

Qian Yuan: All of them disappeared one after the other. Who knows where they are now.

Wu Shi: Why did they disappear?

Qian Yuan: Because they did not achieve the requirements of the Se Family.

Wu Shi: The hell kind of requirements do you people have??

Some kind of horrific, bloody test that no sane people can possibly pass??

Qian Yuan: A total prohibition on the words, 'please', 'thanks', and 'sorry'.

Wu Shi: Wait, that's it?

Qian Yuan: Yep, that's it.

Qian Yuan: Failure to avoid all of these three phrases will lead to the Se Family disposing of you, as an heir.

Wu Shi: Well, now I know why Se Yue's the way she is.

Wu Shi: Holy shit, like, the fact that she's lived under these rules for, like, over a decade, where the stakes are if she fucks up she basically dies,

Wu Shi: Given all that, honestly, she's turned out surprisingly well as a human being.

Qian Yuan: This is the part where I should threaten you with a knife in the name of the young mistress, but I honestly agree with you, so I'll just pretend I heard nothing, la la la~

Wu Shi: I will graciously forgive all the myriad ways she has wronged me up to now!

Qian Yuan: ......

Qian Yuan: Look, the point is, at this point she's lived this way for so long, the rules are part of her blood. I don't think there's anything you could do to her to make her violate the rules at this point.

Wu Shi: It seems you understand Se Yue rather well, Qian Yuan.

Qian Yuan: Honestly, I don't know if the Se Yue I know is the real Se Yue.

Qian Yuan: I believe that, so long as I belong to the Se Family, I'll never be able to really understand her.

I wondered if that was why Se Yue didn't like to be called 'young mistress' by those outside the family?

Qian Yuan: But, well, really, no matter how close any two people are, nobody can ever truly totally understand another person.

Qian Yuan: Perhaps even Yu Guang and Ji Hengsheng have hidden sides to them that you've never imagined.

Wu Shi: No, I know about Yu Guang's freaky urges to streak in public, that one's not a hidden side.

Qian Yuan: Uh.

Wait, shit, Yu Guang has a crush on her. Fuck, did I just fuck things up for my man?

I've got to fix this.

Wu Shi: ...To be clear he keeps his pants on when he streaks.

Qian Yuan: .....

I think I fixed it.

Qian Yuan: Leeeet's talk about something else.

Qian Yuan: What I want to bring up next is something you should be interested in.

Qian Yuan: I want to talk about our shared experience, as sinners who have enjoyed the benefits of the Tour of Time.

Qian Yuan: I want to talk about the time I used the time machine.

Qian Yuan's hands were shaking, I noticed.

Wu Shi: Are you okay?

Qian Yuan: I'm okay.

She clasped her hands together. It helped reduce the shaking, somewhat. Not completely.

Qian Yuan: It's been a year, so I have to be okay.

Wu Shi: If you don't want to talk about it, you don't have to.

Qian Yuan: No, I have to. If I can't bring myself to talk about it after all this time, then I'll never be able to make any progress.

Qian Yuan: One year ago, my older brother died in a fire.

Well, that introduction by itself made it pretty clear where things were going after that.

Qian Yuan: Coincidentally at that time, the young mistress's research finally bore fruit. She'd created a machine that could reverse time. But she banned its use, and permitted nobody to use it.

Presumably that was because she discovered it cost lives to use, yeah.

Qian Yuan: Against her orders, I used the Tour of Time on my own.

Wu Shi: Wait, how'd you do that? Knowing the princess's attitude, there must have been a ton of security on the thing, right? How'd you manage to use it on your own?

Qian Yuan: Because the current head of the Se Family overrode her orders and permitted me. Not only did he permit me, but he even used his own resources to remove all the obstacles the young mistress placed to defend the time machine, helping me achieve all of my goals.

Qian Yuan: In retrospect, this was all part of the family head's plans.

Qian Yuan: He was using me as an experimental subject to see if the Tour of Time would function properly or not.

Wow.

The Se Family really sucks major ass.

And Se Yue's supposed to inherit all of that?

Qian Yuan: Senpai, as someone who has experienced the endless hell of the time machine, would you care to take a guess as to what happened to me?

Wu Shi: ...Probably nothing good, right.

Just like the world of the thirteenth car.

Endless deaths and no change.

Every loop a new corpse.

Qian Yuan: I couldn't save my brother.

Qian Yuan: Refusing to give up hope, I looped endlessly- and the only result was that more and more unrelated innocents were ensnared into the loop, perishing in the butterfly-effect of the fire.

Qian Yuan: No matter what, every route led to tragedy.

Qian Yuan: In the end, a fire that was meant to only cause a single casualty became a disaster which caused the deaths of dozens and dozens of people.

Qian Yuan: At some uncounted loop, I... broke.

Qian Yuan: The massive pressure and trauma caused me to lose the expressive capacity of a regular person, and I became an expressionless puppet.

Wu Shi: ...Uh, you seem pretty expressive to me right now, though.

Qian Yuan: Oh, that's just a disguise I've put great effort into learning to use.

Qian Yuan: After all, an expressionless doll would be unfit to be the personal maidservant of the young mistress, right?

Qian Yuan: So, I worked hard, worked myself to the bone- really actually to the bone- and I won my smile back.

Qian Yuan: But, well, that's the only one I've managed to get back so far.

Qian Yuan: Anyways, at the time, I'd completely lost control and was just looping mechanically.

Qian Yuan: I'd watch my brother die and then reverse time, and then watch him die again.

Qian Yuan: If I'd kept doing this, then eventually maybe everybody at the Train Station would have been expended as fuel, right?

Wu Shi: Man, fuck the Tour of Time.

Qian Yuan: I was the one who killed everyone who died in that tragedy, and for the sake of my brother I was even prepared to kill more people.

Qian Yuan: Why aren't you saying anything, senpai?

Qian Yuan: If you'd known that the fire you experienced a year ago was caused by me, would you still be able to stay silent?

Wu Shi: Eh?

Qian Yuan: That's right. It was I who nearly caused your death last year.

Qian Yuan: So, you see, I've known you for a year, now.

Qian Yuan: Albeit, only at a distance.

Wu Shi: Wait- but, then, that means...

Qian Yuan: That's right.

Qian Yuan: The firefighter who perished in the fire to save you, was my older brother.

Wu Shi: I'm sorry.

Qian Yuan: Don't be. If anything, I'm the one who should apologize to you.

Qian Yuan: At first I was looping time because I thought I could find a way to avoid the inevitable.

Qian Yuan: But at the end, I was just looping time because I couldn't bear to see the inevitable actually come to pass.

Qian Yuan: Eventually I forgot why I was even looping time at all, and just started to do it automatically.

Qian Yuan: Then, before I fully gave myself over to the abyss, the young mistress appeared before me.

Qian Yuan: Even though I haven't told her of the loop, she still noticed something was wrong, and appeared before me to stop me- and to save me.

Just like me, too.

Appearing in the midst of lost hope, telling me to 'let her handle it from now on'...

Maybe my image of her as a cold and haughty princess was wrong. After all, she'd apparently saved both me and Qian Yuan when we were each in the depths of loop-induced despair.

Qian Yuan: After the incident, I used the corporation's resources to track you. I was very aware of how much suffering my actions brought you, even after your recovery from the coma.

Qian Yuan: Therefore, I must apologize sincerely to you.

She knelt down before me so far her head touched the floor.

Qian Yuan: I'm truly very sorry.

Maybe that was why I felt such a disassociation between the me that was, and the me that was running so far ahead of me. The distance between us was the distance of those dozens of loops that I couldn't remember having lived.

Qian Yuan: Thank you for forgiving me, senpai.

Wu Shi: ...It's no problem. So, what happened after that?

Qian Yuan: The young lady appeared before me and stopped me from continuing to loop time. With her and the rest of the corporation's resources, the disaster was contained and written off as an uncommonly terrible electrical fire.

Qian Yuan: But though the disaster was contained in the outside world, in the Se Family, the fires continued raging.

Qian Yuan: My actions resulted in the deaths of many. The Se Family was required to spend some of its resources to contain the disaster, and in the aftermath I was found to be at fault for the incident.

Wu Shi: Wait, I thought the head gave you permission though?

Qian Yuan: Why, the family head denied ever having done so, of course~!

Qian Yuan: In the end I was found to be solely responsible for the whole incident, and at that point all that was left was to decide which of the house's countless torments would be inflicted upon me.

Wu Shi: ...I want to ask, but, you're being literal, aren't you. You're actually being literal.

Qian Yuan: It's not clear, actually. Nobody knows exactly what the family's punishments are, but it's said to be an experience worse than death. It wasn't like I had any other options, though, other than to accept my fate.

Qian Yuan: But, just as I was about to be dragged away, the winds of fortune changed once more for me.

Se Yue: Who dares lay a finger upon my personal maidservant?

Family Head: You're defending her, Se Yue? Do you know what you're doing here?

Se Yue: I do.

Family Head: Do you know the depths of the mistakes she has committed?

Se Yue: She has committed no mistakes.

Family Head: What do you mean by that.

Se Yue: She has committed no mistakes, because I told her to do all of that,

Se Yue: And I cannot commit a mistake.

Se Yue: Therefore, she has committed no mistakes.

Se Yue: To confirm the function of the Tour of Time, I instructed my personal maid to undergo a thorough stress-testing of the device. I ask you, father, what wrong there is in such a practical course of action?

Wu Shi: Ohhhh, she COVERED for you.

Qian Yuan: That's right. For one such as me, she dared to make an enemy of the family head.

Family Head: She must bear responsibility for her actions.

Se Yue: I will bear all of her responsibilities.

Family Head: The actions of your maid have led to the deaths of dozens of people. Are you claiming responsibility for that, as well?

Se Yue: ...There is no responsibility to be claimed.

Se Yue: After all, as the princess of the Se family,

Se Yue: It is only right for others to die in my service.

Se Yue: ...Yes. That is what I must claim, now.

Se Yue: I decline to take responsibility for their deaths, because there is no responsibility to be claimed, because it is perfectly natural for them to all have died. I am the kind of important person, after all, for whom any number of deaths is meaningless.

Se Yue: In this way, you have no grounds to punish me or my personal servant for any of these actions.

Se Yue: I will take my servant with me, now.

Qian Yuan: When I heard her say those things, tears ran down my face.

Qian Yuan: That was when I realized that I owed the young mistress an unrepayably vast debt.

Wu Shi: .....Wow.

Qian Yuan: After hearing the young lady say that, the family head laughed uproariously for a spell, and then let me go.

Qian Yuan: The price the young mistress paid to save me, though, was that from then on everyone looked at her with greater trepidation, and stayed even further away from her than ever before.

Wu Shi: Well, yeah. Makes sense.

Wu Shi: ...Damn, that's where the rumors about the princess being mad with power and obsessed with human experimentation came from too, wasn't it.

Qian Yuan: She never even asked me about my experience using the time machine, either.

Qian Yuan: She never said anything about it, but I got the impression that she was trying to take care of me, in her own way, by not reminding me of the trauma I'd put myself through.

Qian Yuan: She knew that those loops were a terrible, bleak experience for me, and so she never asked me to recount my experience of them.

It seemed that the princess cared much more for Qian Yuan than I'd previously imagined.

Qian Yuan: Anyways, senpai, that's the young mistress as I know her.

Wu Shi: .....

Wu Shi: Thank you for telling me about all this.

Qian Yuan: Now, having heard all this, what's your opinion of the young lady like now?

Wu Shi: ...She seems to be... the kind of person that's easily misunderstood.

Qian Yuan: Probably you're the only person in the world who could see her that way.

Wu Shi: Really?

Qian Yuan: She's a clumsy and troublesome young lady, but I do hope you'll take care of her.

Qian Yuan: Also don't tell her I came over here.

Wu Shi: So you ACTUALLY didn't tell her where you were going then.

Qian Yuan: Oh, yeah, if I told her, she'd TOTALLY have ordered me not to come.

Wu Shi: I understand. I'll keep this a secret.

Qian Yuan: Thanks, senpai!

After she said what she'd wanted to say, she got up and left quickly.

At that point in time I didn't really understand the true impact of Qian Yuan's words.

Only later did I realize just how many terrifying futures were buried within that conversation.

Wu Shi: ...Wait. Qian Yuan.

Qian Yuan: ...Yes?

She was at the precipice of the door, just about to leave.

Wu Shi: ...Should we still continue this whole thing? The Tour of Time?

Wu Shi: After all, nobody has died yet...

Qian Yuan: ...I have no comments to make here.

Qian Yuan: Let me make something clear, though. Death isn't the fearsome thing.

Qian Yuan: The fearsome thing is endless looping.

Seeing her expression, there, I could say, with full confidence-

There was no way she was S.

Qian Yuan: Other than that, I've got no useful advice for you.

Qian Yuan: My own experience with the looping of time has been a complete and terrible waste of time, one that led me nowhere and won me nothing of value. I have nothing to teach you.

Qian Yuan: I would only ask that you take good care of the young mistress, in the case where I am no longer around to do so.

Wu Shi: ...I understand.

Wu Shi: Where were you even hiding?

Qian Yuan: It is a professional requirement for maidservants to be able to hide themselves perfectly anywhere they need to, and to always be available on demand no matter from how far away.

Wu Shi: Wow, I had no idea that the standards for maidservants were so high these days.