"Drip—"
Where was it coming from?
Why was the sound by her ear so clear, so crisp? Was God right beside her?
"Drip—"
"She broke her promise."
The sound of dripping water and the girl's gentle, bone-deep voice came together in that moment alone.
Ah...
She couldn't keep lying to herself anymore—
—It was blood.
"But you know, things won't happen the same way again."
"You've already proved that to me, Cheng-kun."
Her words paused ever so slightly, the final syllable so light it seemed ready to shatter in the wind, impossibly gentle.
"There are no more frames around us. Watermelons can grow freely, and no one will blame them. If we still end up with a square watermelon, then... it must be the watermelon's fault, right?"
The girl was the one being worn away, little by little.
Yet somehow, he was the one suffering.
"From the very beginning, I never did anything to help you. And I didn't come back to see you because I had any expectations—"
"I just heard someone's voice, so I crawled over like a stray dog by the roadside. The first time I saw you, I thought someone from outside the school had come to bully me."
"Everyone dislikes me. The people I used to know would've loved to come over and kick me. I figured that even someone dressed so strangely would be no different."
"But you weren't like that at all."
"You believed in me more than anyone from the very beginning, and understood me better than anyone. Even when I couldn't explain what I was feeling, you seemed to understand exactly how I felt. You were hurt by the Honkai Energy I gave off, yet you kept enduring the pain. Even though... even though it must have been awful. That pain was like being slowly flayed alive... and yet you..."
"Kiana had already pointed out how much pain you were in, but I still refused to believe it. I even started running away from myself, afraid to accept that I'd really hurt the only person who cared about me. So... I must've been acting pretty weird after that, right? I was sad just a moment before, then suddenly started cracking jokes. And when we fought later, every single blow... I was really cruel."
"Ah, I've said a lot of pointless things. Anyway... thank you so much for being willing to trust someone like me~"
The swing of a blade and her gentle words.
Though it was lightning, in that moment it became an accompaniment.
Peach pink, cherry blossom pink. A rose-colored world that existed only in legends.
"Xilian has already forcefully claimed A-Cheng's catchphrase, so please allow me to call you..."
"—Cheng-kun."
Jiang Cheng could see the light in her eyes. It was so bright, brighter than any eyes he had ever seen.
Like a grand stage, with everyone cheering and dozens of high-powered spotlights shining their dazzling beams on the leading lady. And that leading lady was looking only at you. No matter how scorching the sunlight, it couldn't hide the fervor in her eyes.
The girl's joy came so quickly, like a tornado—impossible to withstand.
If only... it really were a stage.
The blood, the wounds...
None of it mattered anymore.
Jiang Cheng could clearly see her smile. It was the kind of smile that came naturally only when someone was truly happy.
It wasn't something she could ever fake.
The moment she tried to pretend, it would feel false.
Jiang Cheng finally understood why Raiden Mei had seemed so burdened after he reached out to her that time, and why, in the future, she could say, "I'll fall into darkness so you can return to the light."
This wasn't about being rescued by someone in a moment of crisis. It was about finding, among countless lamps shining along the shore and countless hands reaching out, the one warm hand she could hold tight.
He forced himself to his feet, picked up the revolver from the ground again, and fired at Bronya—
"Bang, bang, bang—!"
But it was utterly meaningless.
He couldn't hurt Bronya at all, and there wasn't even a gap he could exploit.
Even with her low Honkai Energy resistance, Bronya's physical abilities were at least on the level of a B-rank Valkyrie. She could parachute from the stratosphere without a parachute.
His actions couldn't even slow her down. Jiang Cheng didn't even get another glance from those eyes.
He had been judged—
No threat whatsoever!
24. Kill Him, Kiana: In Your Dreams! (Revised)
"Start using your Honkai Energy! If you're really happy about this, then hurry up and use it."
"You don't have to trigger a Great Honkai. Just make greater use of the Honkai! That's all it takes to win!"
For the first time, Jiang Cheng shouted in desperation.
He let anger sweep away his emotions without restraint.
"You still have a long life ahead of you. You can walk this world as the Herrscher of Thunder, a Herrscher with human consciousness. You can live however you want, be revered and worshipped by everyone, or even start a religion and proclaim yourself a god. If you want to, you can do all of that with ease."
His plea was rejected without hesitation.
Why? There was no point asking anymore. No point asking the same question over and over.
"Because..."
"Of all your requests, Cheng-kun, this is the one thing I absolutely can't do."
"Ten years. Three years. I absolutely can't shorten it any further."
"But you can give me resistance right away!" Jiang Cheng instantly seized on the loophole in her words.
"But I can't be sure the next time won't turn three years into zero in an instant. This illness only keeps building up, doesn't it?"
And so...
Jiang Cheng could only watch the miserable scene continue to unfold before him.
A senseless rage, as though something were burning inside him, seemed about to consume his entire self.
The next moment, a screen appeared out of nowhere before his eyes.
The figure reflected on it was Cocolia, a character who played a role in all three games.
Brown eyes met emerald-green ones.
At that moment, the latter were terrifyingly contemptuous.
She looked down on everyone present from on high, as if she were an omnipotent god.
"Your weakness has given me so much amusement. I have to commend you for your tenacity—you cling to life like cockroaches."
Jiang Cheng took a deep breath, burying all his emotions in the shadows.
It hadn't come to the worst-case scenario yet.
The other side didn't know the Herrscher's true combat strength, nor did she know that he could shout for Grey Snake at any moment and enter the Elysian Realm's safe zone in Cyrene's name to avoid fighting.
His current predicament was nothing more than the consequence of his greed. He had wanted to get Mei as an ally, stay in Nagazora, and obtain the Stigmata and Divine Key before Theresa arrived.
"Not going to say anything? So what?"
"You don't think you can still escape, do you?" Her voice was haughty and arrogant.
"Cocolia, I don't need to judge your character."
"Heh." She gave a cold laugh.
"You're just a little bug who wandered into my lab and accidentally took something that belonged to me—Raiden Mei. Even my daughter, Bronya, can send you to your doom with ease. What right do you have to question me? In the face of the great cause of fighting the Honkai, what right do you have to stand here?"
"—Bronya."
Bronya had suppressed the self-restrained Herrscher of Thunder—Raiden Mei—with overwhelming firepower, and her expression hadn't changed once. She gave a slight nod.
"Bronya is here."
Cocolia gave her order with haughty confidence.
"—Kill him."
The moment the order fell, Bronya—whose free will had been left with a failsafe—activated Project Bunny without hesitation.
Raiden Mei immediately stepped forward.
Lightning flashed beneath her feet. It was as if every step landed on thunderclouds stretching into infinity.
Hundreds of meters were nothing. She crossed them in an instant.
Cheng-kun couldn't be hurt. Never—
—Whoosh!
An iron fist struck fiercely from her side. Her body's instincts couldn't ignore an attack like that.
Without thinking, she planted her forward-stepping foot hard against the ground, twisted her waist, turned her wrist, and swung her blade back across her side—
"Rip!"
The steel fist was torn apart like cloth. The lightning-wreathed blade remained unstoppable, but Raiden Mei's eyes didn't relax for even a moment.
Because the Titans already filled her entire field of vision. They weren't somewhere in the distance; the Titan Mechs were right in front of her, close enough to touch.
Even if she gave it everything she had, one strike could destroy at most thirteen Titan Mechs.
Against hundreds or thousands of machines, that was next to nothing.
Unless she let loose and attacked indiscriminately. But then Cheng-kun would die immediately, and even if she survived tonight, it would mean nothing.
"Crackle—"
Holding back her own power was the most important thing.
Her fingertips were already blood-red and swollen, no longer smooth and pale as scallions. Blood was seeping between them.
[...] [...Fuck you, Cocolia!]
Even the voice in his heart, the power of a hot-blooded manga protagonist, no longer tried to tempt him.
Should he shout for Grey Snake right away?
The thought sprang into Jiang Cheng's mind. At the end of his gradually whitening vision, he could already see that lance charging toward him again.
But—
Just as the sharp silver gleam reached him, seeming about to pierce Jiang Cheng's forehead in an instant—
"—In your dreams!"
A sudden, unbelievable voice was accompanied by something just as unbelievable—
A fist.
Five fingers clenched into a fist. By all appearances, it should have been pathetically weak, yet it didn't hesitate to meet the tip of the lance.
"—Bang!"
A dull sound rang out, like steel crashing against steel. Jiang Cheng stared blankly at the scene before him—
"Don't worry. This young lady isn't that weak. Mere steel can't compete with my body."
"Boom—!"
The cannon, still lodged in its barrel, was forced back by five fingers. A pair of long, slender legs came into the corner of his eye, followed by safety shorts beneath a skirt, and finally the girl herself—
The girl named Kiana was fighting a mecha made of alloy with nothing but her flesh and blood.
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