The Reset Point

She needed a moment to process all of it. Yuki, Saki, everyone stood before her once more. ‘How is this happening? Am I dreaming?’

Even if it was a dream, what happened before played out once again the same as it had previously. The attack on the ark damaged the structure and in her confusion, she couldn’t save Yuki. Spaced again by the cruel fate of bad timing. If only she had more time. Were they intentionally trying to remove him from the equation this time so she had less help?

She only had guesses, but none of them mattered at the moment. If things played out like they did before they needed to keep moving. “It’s not safe to remain here. We need to move further inside.”

“But what about Yuki?”

“I’m sorry, Seiji.” Her fist clinched up having seen it happen a second time. At their back was the exit that they took last time. Yumi walked over to it with the gravity restored. ‘This place will be completely gone in a few minutes…’ Quickly, she opened the locked bulkhead and gave themselves a little security for now.

Absorbing the surroundings for a moment, she had to remember from before where she was in the ark. All the deliveries that she made didn’t take her through the whole complex. It was far too large for that and all of the work that they were doing was isolated to a different section. She only had a vague sense of direction. ‘If only I had Karen to help me…’

That thought gave her an idea though. Yumi went over to the panel and searched through it. ‘There should be a guide function for new visitors. I’m pretty sure I remember seeing that when I was on the guest account…there!’ She programmed a route that would take them into the interior, though not to the command room. “Follow me, I found a safe route we can take.”

After the chaotic open, everyone found agreeing with Yumi easier than standing around. She had a plan and they were all still trying to figure out what was happening. Yumi kept things together for the rest. They managed to make it deep inside the ark and avoid all of the damage from the attack. It would only be a little longer before things would finally calm down with the 3rd Fleet leading the enemy on a long chase around the solar system starting the clock.

“This should be a safe place to rest for now.” Yumi went over to the wall panel wanting to get a map of where they ended up. ‘We’re eventually going to run into security like this…after the fighting ends we’ll become their next priority.’

Saki stepped up to stand next to Yumi. “You going to explain things?”

“Saki?”

“It hasn’t gone over us that you’re far too calm and collected for everything that’s going on. Not to mention how quickly you’re messing around with things that are completely foreign to us. What’s going on Yumi?”

Chapter 482 – The Reset Point

Yumi turned around from the panel and leaned up against the wall looking out at the rest of her friends. They all looked shaken up from everything, but they were alive unlike last time. ‘Am I dreaming? I could say that this feels real, but it’s all just virtual anyway, data. But that last moment at the command room…’ Her memories of it flashed back. Everything went white before the ark was destroyed. She didn’t know what happened to everyone. It seemed unlikely that they were destroyed immediately.

Why was she replaying the events of what she couldn’t change?

‘I can’t really make assumptions about the rules of this world. Until I wake up, I’ll progress things as if it were real. If it turns out to be real then…’ It was an outside hope. She wanted this to be real.

“This is all familiar to me because I’ve done it all before already.”

“Done it all before? What are you talking about? We just arrived.”

“I guess you don’t have any memories of it. Perhaps because it’s my world and my mind was left intact, but this isn’t the first time for me. I had to watch all of you die in front of me…unable to do anything to prevent it…”

“Yumi…”

“I know this isn’t real and that you’ll come back after this world is completed, but everything in here feels real. I can’t distinguish reality the same…I just don’t want to go through it again…” Her fists clenched up with the memories passing through her mind. She turned her head away trying to focus. “I-I don’t know much right now. But the situation currently is that we’re in space on a massive facility that’s under attack by an unknown enemy. There is damage throughout the facility and unless we help them we’re not going to be able to survive.”

“Help them? What can we do?”

A heavy sigh came out as food delivery came to mind. “Unfortunately, there’s not a lot we can do since we don’t understand their technology. It’s mostly just physical labor. I know how to use what amounts to their computer system, but that’s about it.”

Seiji stood up walking over to Yumi. “If they’re stuck in shit, no reason not to help!”

“But Seiji, we don’t even know if they’ll trust us!”

“It sounds like Yumi helped them, so they can’t be that big of an asshole!”

“You figured all that out already?” Saki retorted.

“Yeah! Something wrong with that?”

Nerine and Saki could only really shrug in the end. “He is right,” Yumi agreed, “Though last time they caught us and locked us up for a while. I’d like to avoid that this time.”

“Got a plan?”

“I’m working on one…” She noticed that the facility stopped shaking like it had before. A sign that things had finally calmed down. Though in their talking she didn’t know when it happened. The ark became a secondary matter. ‘Have they already noticed us?’

Yumi turned back around to the panel pulling up the map of the facility. She motioned to anyone that wanted to see what she was doing. Minus her brother, they all huddled around the panel that displayed the layout. “We’re right here and their command room is here. This is where the people that we’ll need to talk to are, though given the situation of being under an enemy attack just showing up isn’t going to work with them.”

“Do you know who the hell the enemy is?”

“Unfortunately not. I wasn’t able to find out anything about them, though I was also focused on other things.”

“So we just have to get here—“

“What are you doing?!” shouted a deep voice in authority. They had found them, sooner than Yumi wanted. She slowly turned around, finding that they had four guards, different from last time.

Seiji took a step towards Yori before the weapons pointed at him, making him stop. “What the hell man?! You didn’t say anything!”

“That’s enough, Seiji. There’s no point yelling at him now.”

Their weapons pointed around at everyone trying to find some sort of order with them not taken seriously. “That’s enough! Answer me! Who are you?”

“We’ve come to help you out! What the hell is with you pointing guns at us?”

“Seiji…” Yumi rubbed her hand against her face wishing things were different. As to be expected, they didn’t take too kindly to his very direct approach and moved even closer to them. Their defenses went up with their party becoming even more suspicious in their eyes.

“You’re coming with us, right now!”

Back inside the cell that Yumi already knew, they were forced to wait. “Seiji I wanted to avoid the cell.”

“But we reached them now!”

“Yes, but they’re going to be spending the next day or so fixing up their immediate risks to the facility and not come to see us until there. At that point it’ll already be too late. Things will just repeat the same cycle.”

“Maybe they’ll come by sooner, you can’t be sure. Hell, things are different this time right?”

Yumi leaned against the wall. He still had his optimism. “Yes, they’re different, but that’s not going to change anything now.” She sighed wishing for a different way out of the situation. ‘I just needed more time…I needed a plan…’

Her mind hovered around the what ifs and unknowns of her scenario. Things played out differently at the start, that much she could agree with him. But things were on a timer already. The enemy would be back sooner than they expected. The sub-reactor would still end up being a failed path and the hall was going to explode. The only thing that she could do was save lives, but to what end? Things would still end up the same way as before.

Yumi's fears and certainty became more of reality as time progressed. Things played out how she remembered them. Sumiko revealed herself and trusted them enough to help out with the work. Though because everyone was around Yori remained behind unwilling to even move to help. Yumi just left him in the cell since she couldn’t deal with him anymore. She tried and failed. He had more than enough chances.

Explosions from the failed sub-reactor made a cascading effect through the facility. Nerine was fortunately not caught up in it. Having the knowledge of what would happen was useful, but not enough. Yumi saw the way things were going.

Nothing had changed for her.

She sat at the terminal on the guest account trying to absorb new information. The learning process of the computer was no longer a thing for her. Karen warmed up to her sooner and they managed to get along better this time around. But things were still heading down the same path.

Taking a pause, Yumi could see what time it was on the computer. “I’m sorry Karen.”

“Yumi? Did you break something? I’d be really impressed if you did, it should be impossible.”

“No, nothing like that. I wasn’t able to do anything to change things.”

The woman turned in her chair to look directly at Yumi, interrupting her own work. “You can’t take on everything by yourself. We already have every scientific mind gathered here to make this work. This sort of thing is just beyond people like you and me. But that’s not to say we can’t help in our own way. Everyone contributes, but it’s not always seen.”

Yumi glanced over to the right of her where Nerine and Saki sat poking through the terminals that they had been granted. She hoped that any little bit would have changed things, but now she was just going to wake up from this dream within a dream. “I would have liked to have been here with my friends at the end.”

“Yumi? Are you alright?” Warnings came up suddenly interrupting any further chance at a conversation. “The enemy’s back! But they’re too soon!”

“Yeah I know…”

Everything went white.

Silence.

Nothing.

“We’re in space!” shouted Yuki with all of the energy and enthusiasm of a child on Christmas opening their present and finding that it was the one thing that they wished for the whole year inside the box. And indeed was Yuki ever correct about the statement. They were in space, though not the vacuum of space. Their surroundings were a station, a space station giving their situation, which came as a shocking departure from their last world that was in Japan with demons.

But Yuki's enthusiasm quickly changed as he made another declaration. “And there’s aliens attacking us! Crap!” A large energy wave from whatever he saw filled all of their vision.

Yumi started confused and puzzled at what was happening. It was the same place again! “What’s happening? I’m back here again?!”