damn

wait wait wait wait quick recap for my own sake. so "normal mode" is what ORIGINALLY happened in their world. and when the world was taken over, vinter sacrificed himself to create a time loop to last until ORIGINAL penelope could defeat leila. but original penelope's soul was turned to "dust" with all of the regressions--stopping the time loop entirely--until a fragment of original penelope's soul was reincarnated and it restarted again. so that the REINCARNATED penelope (our protagonist) could fulfill original penelope's role and stop leila.

so does this mean that our penelope is actually the ORIGINAL penelope (like same soul entirely), or does she just have a tiny bit of original penelope's soul mixed in with her own soul? did the game seek our penelope out so that she could fulfill her purpose?