“Well, this is certainly a tangled mess of a world we find ourselves in now,” Weiss declares as soon as Nier closes the door to his borrowed room behind them.

“You’re telling me,” Nier mutters as he runs a hand over his face and then through his hair with a grimace. “Weiss, you were, well… there from almost the beginning weren’t you? Was there anything…”

“If there was anything even approximating this tangled mess of a reality, I either no longer remember that fact or never knew it,” Weiss declares before Nier can fumble his way through the question, then swirls around to hover in the air in front of the young man’s face and adds, “I believe we should operate under the assumption that this world is wholly distinct from our own, and that any familiarity we find is mere coincidence.”

“Yeah, I thought you were going to say that,” Nier grumbles as he steps around where Weiss is hovering and crosses the small room and drops to sit on the floor, right next to his habitual tangle of blankets. He draws a leg up to his chest and drapes an arm across it while leaning back on his other, gaze sweeping over Weiss before settling on a space a few inches away from where he’s actually hovering. “So, chances this guy is pulling our leg for some reason?”

It’s still disconcerting to be stared through when he can sense himself and his pages just fine, but it’s clearly something he’s going to have to get used to. At least Nier’s gaze is tracking his correct approximate location — the young man is quite skilled at that, in fact — so it isn’t quite as bad as it could be. But even so…

No. He cannot let himself be distracted by such a petty complaint. Invisible or not, he no longer appears to be in danger of fading beyond Nier’s reach, and he can sense that their pact is as strong as it ever was.

It will do.

He will make due.

(He has to.)

“As much as it would please me if that were the case, I must ask: what purpose is there to this man deceiving us in such an outlandish fashion?” Weiss asks as he swirls through the air and pointedly rustles his pages to draw Nier’s gaze to him. “Such a story is too easily proven false, and though I say our worlds are wholly distinct, we do know that souls, or at least something approximating them, existed in our own world. That here, now, we discover that this new world has an entire afterlife and functional system of transference between the states is, perhaps, not as outlandish as it might otherwise seem.”

Nier wrinkles his nose and casts an exasperated look towards him. “I suppose,” he says a touch doubtfully. “It still seems…”

“Fantastical? Absurd? Fairytale-esque, even?” Weiss can’t help but needle as he darts closer and spins around Nier’s head, hoping to get his point across. “Tell me, is it more or less believable than all the things we’ve been through in the past few years, hmm?”

“I… well no, I suppose it really isn’t that out of the ordinary, but it’s still…” Nier pauses, pursing his lips in thought, the huffs a sigh and continues with, “Well, whatever. The man wants our help if we can give it, so I don’t see why we should refuse.”

“You don’t see—” Weiss cuts himself off in frustration, unable to resist his own sigh of exasperation; he really shouldn’t be surprised by Nier’s willingness to involve himself in a matter that is certainly none of his business, but a tiny sliver of hope had remained. A sliver that is now crushed underfoot by Nier’s absurd drive to help, even when those he’s helping are questionable at best.

A stubborn look crosses Nier’s face as he tilts his head towards Weiss and says, “Look, I’m not ignorant of the fact we know nothing about the guy, or how truthful he’s being, but so far he’s taken me in, let me clean myself off, gave me a change of clothes, helped me get you back—”

“Entirely on accident, I will remind you!”

“—and fed me,” Nier continues, voice rising to cover Weiss’ outburst. “All while I was a stranger to him. The least we can do is repay that kindness by listening to him and seeing if we actually can assist with his problems.”

“And if our ‘assistance’ ends up causing more harm to this world than help?” Weiss prods a touch grouchily, knowing that he’s already lost the argument but unwilling to give it up quite yet. “We know nothing more than what he’s told us. There could be any number of caveats, half-truths, or even outright lies and we’d never know until far too late, if ever,” Weiss says in an attempt to get through to Nier, hoping that their recent experiences will make the other at least a touch more cautious about diving into unknown situations.

Nier clearly takes a moment to consider his words, and for a brief moment Weiss feels the stirrings of hope, but then—

“We have to trust someone,” Nier murmurs with a small shake of his head. “I understand your worries, Weiss, but… we’re basically lost, right now. At least if we’re doing something we’ll be moving with a purpose instead of floundering in this new world. We’ll just… stay on the lookout for anything that contradicts this guy’s story while we’re doing it.

Weiss grumbles and lets himself drift back to his usual place behind and slightly to the right of Nier. “I suppose I cannot stop you, then,” he says in resignation. “I will admit that the core of the story is not entirely unbelievable, as it is certainly a failing of large groups anywhere to believe the words of someone favored over someone disliked or regarded as suspicious or of questionable morality. The conclusions drawn, however…”

“Yeah, it’s all a bit strange, isn’t it?” Nier muses as he tips his head to stare up at the ceiling, his shaggy white hair spilling down across the odd garment he was given. “Still, Aizen did get him almost executed, and was apparently experimenting on living— well… souls?” He wrinkles his nose again and slants a look in Weiss’ general direction. “Do souls count as ‘living’?” he asks almost plaintively.

“You’re asking me?” Weiss rejoins, then snorts when Nier just keeps giving him an expectant look and reluctantly finishes with, “Well, I suppose in a manner of speaking they would be. It is called an afterlife, after all.”

Nier makes a thoughtful noise and turns his attention back to the ceiling, letting the silence settle between them as he mulls their recent experiences over.

Weiss leaves him to it, sweeping away from Nier with a soft rustle of pages to announce his departure, and busies himself with examining the room they’re in; despite being mostly empty, there’s a quality to it that no building in their world had, a level of polish and complexity simply impossible to replicate given the resources and knowledge Nier and the others had access to. It’s… almost familiar, actually, like a tickle in the back of his mind saying he’s seen places like this before. Which is… not impossible, Weiss admits to himself as he drifts over to the window and stares out at the bare ground and wall outside.

He still doesn’t particularly remember much from before Nier woke him, not even after Devola and Popola tossed those reports on the Gestalt project at them, but… but maybe this is what the world was like Before. The question now is whether or not this world will suffer the same fate as their own.

And if it will… can the two of them prevent it?

There is no question about ‘should’ — Nier will make every effort to assist, Weiss knows that as firmly as he knows that the sky is blue — but without knowing the true cause of the calamity, their efforts will lack a certain amount of… focus.

Heavens, perhaps their very efforts to assist this Urahara will cause the calamity, or one near enough as to make no difference. There’s no way to know if that will happen until they’ve already gone too far, but… he supposes that’s just another eventually to look out for.

(Nier is right, neither of them is very good at remaining still for very long, so he might as well accept the inevitable.)

(This is their world now, so they might as well make themselves comfortable.)

(Starting with learning all they can.)

(He won’t let Nier down again.)

(He won’t.)