Dimensional Descent

Across the Dimensional Verse, in a familiar villa, just days after undergoing what could be considered to be a life altering change, Aina’s eyelashes finally fluttered open.

The first thing she felt was herself being hit by a wave of memories. As though she was reliving her own life piece by piece, she recalled everything with striking clarity. If it had to be described, it felt like she was a computer downloading files one by one.

She stared blankly at the ceiling, all sort of weird emotions coming one after another, but she didn’t quite know or understand how to process them. It was similar to how a child might not understand the complex inner workings of relationship dynamics.

A child might comprehend surface emotions, but complex, multi-layered ones would be beyond their comprehension. At the same time, empathy would also be something difficult for them to grasp, at least not when it came to placing another above themselves.

These matters became very complicated, very quickly. A toddler might be able to understand emotions by reading someone’s facial expressions, but they wouldn’t necessarily understand that someone’s outward showing of emotion might be different from what they felt on the inside. And even if an older child might understand this, they wouldn’t understand more complex emotions like bittersweetness, nor would they grasp morality and beliefs and how it might connect to what a person was feeling.

Aina didn’t lose her memories, nor did she lose her ability to feel emotion, but what she had lost was the ability she had built over her more than two decades of life: how to interpret and maneuver around her own feelings and that of others. And, when it was all boiled down, wasn’t this the core of what a person would call personality?

Things like holding onto two frames of mind at the same time, how to control impulses and the emotions that came with them, or what sort of morality should govern her emotions had all been lost on Aina.

The result of this was Aina becoming somewhat detached form her emotions not because she didn’t have them, but because she didn’t quite understand what they meant. Even her sense of self hadn’t quite redeveloped, so while logic told her that the person in her memories was indeed herself, she still couldn’t quite connect to this version of Aina.

It was like she was trying to fit together two puzzle pieces that were misaligned. No matter how hard she pushed, she couldn’t quite fit them together.

“Aina?”

Aina blinked. She turned her head toward the voice, but there was a lack of recognition in her eyes. It was clear that she had turned not because she heard her name, but rather because someone had spoken when she had thought the world was filled with silence.

It was quite a unique feeling. It was almost like she was a baby hearing sound for the first time.

While she had been going through her memories, she hadn’t quite grasped that everything she remembered had sound attached to it. So, for those brief moments, she thought that the world was soundless and she was okay with that. Only to come to find out that she was wrong about this.

Yuri stood over Aina’s bed with Savahn by her side. By now, Savahn had already been briefed on what was going on with Aina, so she had agreed to stay by Aina’s side until she could finally manage to fit those two pieces together again.

Seeing the somewhat blank look Aina was giving them, Savahn was shaken. There was a hint of recognition in Aina’s eyes, but it didn’t come with the same emotion it should have usually come with. It was almost like the two of them had been estranged.

It was a truly odd feeling. Aina clearly remembered them, but it was like she might as well not have.

“Oh…”

Aina tried to speak but it felt somewhat foreign. She paused and adjusted her voice to speak again. But, it came with a sudden blast of mental coercion that made Yuri and Savahn shiver.

The wave of Soul Force whipped about the estate, causing many to freeze in their tracks. And yet, Aina had only spoken a single syllable.

Yuri’s pupils constricted. ‘Adoptive father was correct. With her mental blocks gone, her talent has been fully unleashed. I never thought that the difference would be so exaggerated…’

Seemingly realizing that something was wrong, Aina closed her mouth again. She felt like a piece of her was going away whenever she spoke and it made her feel weird, almost like she could project herself onto the outside world.

An added layer of complexity that was difficult to manage suddenly manifested itself. Yuri had no idea how Aina’s ability to project her will onto the world would affect the rebirth of her personality.

At first, Aina was a bit cautious with speaking, finding the novel feeling somewhat odd. In her memories, she could tell that she always had this ability but she consciously reigned it in after she awakened it. However, she couldn’t quite understand why.

From what she could tell, there were two reasons. First was that it was wrong to coerce people? And the second was that it saved stamina for battle?

No matter how hard Aina tried, she couldn’t quite come up with a reason that justified the first. Why was it wrong to coerce people?

However, when she traveled down the rabbit hole of the second reason, she found it made more and more sense. Battle was about survival and every human wanted to survive. Apparently, she really liked to battle, it was exciting. She also liked to win. Winning was fun. In that case, it made sense to save power for those moments.

“They call it… Logic?”

Aina thought aloud, not quite realizing that she should be thinking in her head. After Yuri spoke, she thought that all her memories had sound to them, including her personal thoughts. So, she spoke them out loud not quite knowing better.

“Logic… He likes logic, right?”

Yuri blinked. She could tell who this he was immediately.