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.

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

"Aina?"

but there was a lack of recognition in her eyes. It was clear that she had turned not because she heard her

was almost like she was a baby hearing sound

that everything she remembered had sound attached to it. So, for those brief moments, she thought that

going on with Aina, so she had agreed to stay by Aina's

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

clearly remembered them, but it was like she

"Oh…"

to speak but it felt somewhat foreign. She paused and adjusted her voice to speak again.

of Soul Force whipped about the estate, causing many to freeze in their tracks. And yet, Aina

talent

was wrong, Aina closed her mouth again. She felt like a piece of her was going away whenever she spoke and

that was difficult to manage suddenly manifested itself. Yuri had no idea how Aina's ability to project her will onto the world would

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