Their positions in each other's eyes seemed to keep changing.
The former Thunder Queen looked down from on high at the girl holding a baseball bat, who stood there with a careless air.
"Just think of it as... something that feels novel to me."
"What kind of answer is that?"
"After all, it's hard for me to imagine someone who, when faced with a problem, doesn't choose to run away, but instead..."
She shrugged, seemingly without a care.
Yet she hesitated and agonized over the final two words for quite some time.
"—faces it."
Raiden Mei's gaze swept over Kiana, who showed no sign of backing down. She looked like an unreliable, silly girl, but at that moment her bearing was so aloof that she seemed like a broken princess, hanging high above the moon and apart from the crowd.
Her figure was slender, her skin as pale as if she'd never seen the sun, and her features so exquisite she seemed to know nothing of the world.
How could someone like her...
She turned away and gently closed her eyes.
Then she stepped forward.
"Meet at the designated location, Kiana."
"..."
After watching her leave,
Kiana suddenly let out a breath of relief, lightly patting her youthful, full chest.
"Phew..."
"Haah..."
Her tense little face crumpled at once.
Her aloof facade was like a mirror smashed to pieces, revealing what lay beneath in an instant.
"Thump-thump—thump-thump—"
Her heart was beating faster. That was no act.
Even her blood seemed to be rushing faster, surging through her veins with a sound she could clearly hear.
If she hadn't been trying to look cool, she would've come up with an excuse to make a strategic retreat ages ago.
She couldn't help it. She was already at her limit.
If she didn't say it, she felt like...
She'd regret it for the rest of her life.
Phew.
Jiang Cheng, you'd better be grateful to me.
There was still another step to go. Mei-senpai clearly hadn't opened her heart yet. Well... they'd known each other for far too short a time.
If they could spend a few more months together, Mei-senpai might slowly come to accept it.
—Who told you to die so soon?
Kiana let out a long sigh.
She drew the revolver from her waist, then couldn't help closing her eyes for a little longer, as if sinking into sleep.
—Face it.
—Face it.
If only everyone could learn to face things.
Stop hiding all the time, refusing to see anyone, like a rat that would die the moment it saw the light.
At the same time,
Jiang Cheng had completely let loose.
In the eyes of the onlookers, the young man wore a dusty, bloodstained white robe in the style of ancient Greece. His expression was impassive, and he looked uncannily like a sage. Now he was laughing in a grating, almost broken way.
An excitement he couldn't contain. A joy he couldn't contain.
—All that pressure, finally released.
The present and the past. Before he'd crossed over, he'd watched these vile bastards do whatever they pleased without facing any consequences. All that fury...
At long last, at this very moment, it was finally set free.
Hunt! Hunt! Hunt!!!
Overcome by uncontrollable emotion, he clenched his fist and smashed it into the last man's face as the man stared at him in terror.
"Crack—!"
The beautiful, melodious, crisp sound of bones breaking.
If...
If he could hunt Laigushi, too,
wouldn't that feel a million times better than this?!
He wouldn't have to live in constant worry and fear, wondering if that condescending gaze was watching him.
He could finally feel completely safe and free.
—Too bad he couldn't.
His expression changed to calm in an instant.
The frenzy was only temporary. If he wanted to survive in this world, he still had to rely on reason.
He kept saying he would build up enough strength in this world, but even if he squeezed it dry, he probably still wouldn't amass enough power to kill Laigushi head-on. The core problem was that the highest levels of power were almost impossible for him to get his hands on. Even Erosion was out of reach for the rest of his life if, instead of taking a gamble, he played it safe and went to Grey Snake to follow the World Serpent route. And behind Laigushi were an Aeon's calculations and interference. Laigushi was only the first enemy he had to fight.
—First, he'd get his first pot of gold.
Jiang Cheng calmly stepped over the staff member's body.
Up ahead, Kiana was waving at him—
"Jiang Cheng, hurry up! The way's clear."
"A-Cheng? I came to get you~"
Jiang Cheng ran toward them. This enhancement from Honkai Energy couldn't be sustained for long, but it was quite smooth to use in short bursts. Apart from the pain, it had no drawbacks.
His once-unhealthy body could now easily run several times faster than the world's top sprinters.
When he reached them, all three girls looked a little worse for wear.
Not from injuries, but from other people's blood and grime.
Their powerful physiques had kept them from getting hurt, but the grime still dulled their skin, pale as jade.
Their weapons were all dust-streaked, to some extent. Only the Ritual Sword, bright as moonlight—
remained sharp, gleaming, and dazzling.
"The alarm's already sounded, and we're only a few thousand meters from the city limits. I know of a deserted area nearby. Let's run over there first, then here—"
Kiana held a map she'd torn off one of the staff members and pointed to a spot.
"—split up."
Jiang Cheng calmly finished her sentence.
"After we split up, Raiden Mei will head left. Cyrene, Kiana, and I will stay on the right and find temporary shelter from the Great Honkai."
"If Raiden Mei still has enough of her self-awareness to control her body after becoming a Herrscher, and can at least communicate, then she should come find me right away. Of course, if she loses her self-awareness but still comes after us, Kiana will kill her, and we'll find another way out..."
"Though there won't be much point by then."
Jiang Cheng gave a self-mocking smile.
"By then, I'll probably be as good as dead anyway. I'm already pretty much beyond saving. Even if I had the resources for the best possible medical care, the technology would only let me linger in agony in a hospital bed. And even then, I'd have ten years at most."
"—Three years."
Kiana refuted him without hesitation.
The girl who only looked like an aloof beauty lifted her elegant, high chin.
"It was ten years before. Now you've been exposed to Erosion for longer, and you've fought using Honkai Energy. You have three years at most, and that's assuming most of your organs are replaced with machines."
"Isn't that... plenty of time?"
P.S.
I finally found this. It's from a great writer.
A Guide to Making Movies in the Honkai Inner World
Kiana was cheerful and lively, but also prone to sadness. She cared deeply about people; you could even say she felt things deeply.
At a very young age, she discovered that her only family had run away for no reason at all. She dragged her little body all the way across Europe, then crossed half the world to Nagazora over the smallest trace of a clue.
Before she met Raiden Mei and was forced to stay in Nagazora, she probably had few friends she'd seen for more than three days in a row—or maybe no friends at all. If you accept the Three-Year Sakura story, Kiana may have been very fragile at this point, like snow that shattered at a touch.
It was only later, at St. Freya, that she became more cheerful and lively. Then, under Otto's interference, she became the Void Drifter.
Unconditional trust. Facing everything instead of running away—things like that must have seemed more fantastical to her than fairy tales.
20. Escape from Nagazora—Failure (Revised)
The atmosphere instantly turned heavy.
The air seemed to have been replaced by some kind of solid matter.
Cyrene's fingertips were taut, her knuckles white. Her face was hidden by her pink bangs, so her expression was impossible to make out, but instinct alone made it feel like a storm was brewing.
If her eyes were like a clear spring,
then the water in that spring must have been pelted with too many stones, pushed to the limits of what it could contain.
"----!"
Raiden Mei clenched her teeth.
She had caused all of this. Her own corruption had inflicted Jiang Cheng's injuries.
The earlier warning had made her realize all too clearly that it was her fault. Now she bit down so hard that her lower lip was almost bleeding, her delicate flesh nearly torn.
The blood was real. Threads of scarlet swallowed up the white.
Her teeth and skin were both stained red in that moment.
A few simple sentences had pushed everyone's spirits to the brink of collapse—
Kiana seemed to have fallen back into a thoughtless state, becoming less intelligent than even the future Paramecium. But then she turned around, facing Mei directly.
"Mei-senpai, if you don't want Jiang Cheng to die like this, then you'd better prove yourself worthy of his trust."
"...Kiana?"
Everything she'd shown so far had been completely at odds with the Paramecium Kiana remembered.
But at this moment, the girl before her had become so unfamiliar that even Jiang Cheng barely recognized her.
"Obviously, the fewer enemies we fight, the better. You don't think I don't know how powerful Herrschers are, do you?"
"And besides, I already said—" Kiana lifted her head and pointed her thumb at herself.
"The future you saw has already been changed!"
"...Thank you."
Before you continue