Honkai Double Traverse, Taking Cyrene to Honkai Impact 3rd: Chapter 45

Nagazora was far more prosperous than Tokyo.

Nearly 27.32% of the country's population lived there. Even at its peak, Tokyo had only reached 11.61%.

That was a threefold difference.

And one city alone accounted for as much as 53.4% of the country's annual economic output. Joined with the surrounding metropolitan areas, it could practically call itself the Far East.

Having this city in the palm of your hand was, in practice, no different from unifying the entire Far East. Especially since the Schicksal branches stationed here were all pretty useless. Seizing power was even easier.

In thousands of years of history, the emperor had never held even a third of this much power, not even at the height of his authority.

More importantly, she was an only child.

Those so-called major conglomerates could only monopolize a few industries and influence a few cities, even when several of them joined forces. And that was after building on the influence of hundreds or even thousands of people within their ranks—some in politics, some in business, some in the military. It took generations of family members dedicating themselves to the cause to achieve even that much.

But her father alone was already powerful enough to call himself the Shadow Emperor of the Far East, its supreme ruler.

Without her father's approval, even the prime minister couldn't hold on to his job.

To be precise, the prime minister had always served her father.

Raiden Mei had told Jiang Cheng all of this, including some private details, without holding anything back—

There was no need to keep it from him.

"Mm, I understand."

Maybe because it all seemed so far removed from reality, Jiang Cheng found it easier to understand now that she'd explained this much.

It made sense, too. There was never a vacuum of power. It wasn't only people who sought power; power sought people, too.

As long as you had strength, wealth, and money, you naturally had the power to control others. And compared to Theresa, Raiden Ryoma was better suited to rule the Far East.

"Apparently, our family wasn't originally surnamed Raiden. We used to be called Hokushin," Raiden Mei said.

"Hokushin?" Jiang Cheng murmured absentmindedly. "A family with a hereditary secret art and an innate Stigmata... That means your family must have carried the genes for this Stigmata for generations, even if it was usually passed down recessively."

"...?"

Raiden Mei tilted her head, confused.

She was the only person in her family to possess an innate Stigmata in seven generations. Even her father didn't have one.

...What did that have to do with anything?

"All humans have Stigmata in their bodies. But when men and women with different Stigmata have children, the Stigmata's genetic chain can be damaged. That means the bare minimum for descendants to awaken an innate Stigmata is for their ancestors to have maintained a relatively intact Stigmata gene."

Jiang Cheng continued explaining. "Stigmata are extremely rare throughout human history. Even deliberately activating one is a one-in-ten-thousand chance, never mind an innate Stigmata appearing naturally. In theory, if one of your ancestors awakened one, she could have used her superhuman combat ability to easily become a ruler in her time, living a charmed life and building an empire."

"So... bloodlines really exist? And having children with someone whose genes are different can cause genetic errors and things like that..."

Raiden Mei rubbed her chin. Suddenly, her eyes lit up as if she'd realized something, and she looked at Kiana.

"So, the Primal Human Adam's genes have been preserved all the way to the present, and his direct descendants can still carry Stigmata. And Kiana's father chose to abandon her and strongly refused to let her return to the family..."

"I see..."

Under Raiden Mei's undisguised gaze, Kiana's eyes gradually brightened, too. In its place, her voice began to tremble.

"—Is the Kaslana Family really that twisted?"

The two girls met each other's eyes. In an instant, they seemed to consider countless conspiracy theories, silently communicating with each other—

"—What on earth are you two thinking?!"

Jiang Cheng put a hand between them, forcing their attention onto him.

"There's no incest or close-relative marriage involved. Even though that was common throughout history, with many families resorting to a century or more of incest to preserve their purity—and it was especially common in Italy, where the Kaslana Family has always been based, with plenty of old families and royal houses marrying close relatives—the Kaslana Family is the one family that doesn't do that. Never. Absolutely never!"

"Then why?" Raiden Mei asked, even more confused now that he'd dismantled her perfectly logical theory.

Even Kiana gave him a look of genuine curiosity for the first time, unconsciously walking toward him step by step.

—Though before she could reach him, Raiden Mei casually, almost absentmindedly, stepped in front of her. She faced Jiang Cheng instead.

"The Kaslana Family is different from every other family. Its ancestral Stigmata has been passed down through every generation. Close-relative marriage is irrelevant. Even a little Kaslana blood is enough to awaken the Stigmata." Jiang Cheng said it all in one breath, leaving no room for interruption. "Kiana has genes from both the Schariac Family and the Kaslana Family. Her father is the current head of the Kaslana Family, and her mother was the previous generation's Saint of the Schariac Family."

"...Saint? Head of the family?"

Raiden Mei had asked questions the whole time, but all she'd gained was an increasingly muddled head.

Every answer brought another question. Every word was unfamiliar, leaving her even more confused.

"So," she said, raising a finger and trying to sort it out, "Kiana's father is the head of one of the three great families, the Kaslana Family, and her mother is a Saint of another of the three great families, the Schariac Family."

"That's right." Jiang Cheng nodded. "She has the blood of the foremost knight and the most outstanding Saint, along with another bloodline that is absolutely no less exceptional than either of those."

"..."

Raiden Mei narrowed her eyes and slowly turned to study Kiana, whom she had been keeping behind her. Her undisguised gaze made the white-haired bundle scratch the back of her head and try to avoid her eyes.

Well. There was no sign of grace in her, no matter how you looked at it.

She was a complete idiot.

She'd only shown anything like a Saint's grace when they first met, when she'd asked Cheng-kun if he knew about Honkai Sickness, and when she'd been overwhelmed by too much information and given up thinking, choosing to fight a Titan instead. That was when she'd run over and stopped her, all serious...

—Just as she'd thought.

It was hard to connect that poised, responsible person with the idiot standing in front of her.

And this only raised more questions.

"Was Kiana, with the blood of a Saint and a knight, supposed to be forced into marriage by the current bishop of the Apocalypse Family to secure an alliance between the three families? And did Kiana's father refuse to accept such a filthy political exchange, so he raised her elsewhere and never went to see her?"

Raiden Mei tried to think from the perspective of the upper class—even though she'd never experienced any of this herself.

And she'd heard Otto had been a bishop for ages. He was probably an old man by now.

That sort of thing was pretty absurd... right?

"..."

Kiana suddenly fell silent. At some point, she'd stopped scratching the back of her head.

The cold wind lifted her silver-white hair. Its color should have been as pure and cool as moonlight, but at that moment it seemed to cast a shadow over her face.

"...Huh?"

To Raiden Mei's growing astonishment, the girl she'd just judged to be... well, at least close to an idiot now had a presence so dark and silent that she seemed to have become the girl they'd seen that day.

She'd wielded a baseball bat and spoken sharply. Her eyes seemed capable of seeing right through people.

"Gulp..."

Raiden Mei swallowed, but saw no hint of a joke in Kiana's expression.

Yes.

Kiana answered herself inwardly.

It had to be true.

Stinky Old Man had never hidden his disgust for the current Supreme Bishop. Every time she'd asked about the past, he'd fobbed her off one way or another. He didn't want to tell her anything about Schicksal, either.

It wasn't that he didn't understand. It wasn't that he didn't know.

He simply didn't want to talk about it or even think about it.

Just remembering seemed to torment him—torment him because of her, Kiana. Whenever they talked about it, the look in his eyes frightened even her. It was as if he became a completely different person.

Most importantly, given the strength Stinky Old Man had shown, he had no reason to live in Siberia, a place completely unsuitable for human habitation. Even if it was to fight Honkai Beasts and fulfill his promise to become humanity's shield, there were so many places in the world that truly needed protecting, compared to these dead, uninhabited regions.

But Dad... all this time, he had...

He'd kept her living in a place like that.

She couldn't make sense of it, no matter how she looked at it. But if he'd been hiding...

Ah.

Where could be better for hiding than an uninhabited region?

"So... it was an arranged marriage?"

Kiana drew a deep breath of cold air, though it felt as if her insides were already frozen solid.

"Is that why you've never wanted to tell me..."

"—That never happened!" Jiang Cheng had lost count of how many times he'd interrupted them.

"You don't need to comfort me," Kiana said quietly.

She seemed to have turned entirely into the weathered color of snow.

"The biggest power in human history, the greatest political exchange ever attempted... It really is despairing."

"From what Stinky Old Man said... Bishop Otto seems even older than him..."

Her mournful voice was like a winter breeze, so faint that it seemed it could carry away the warmth in her body.

But amid the snowstorm, Kiana lifted her head.

"Still, at least now I know something about Stinky Old Man. He definitely didn't abandon me on purpose!"

Raiden Mei bit her lip.

Anti-Entropy, weaker than Schicksal in terms of overall strength, had a leader of one of its factions who could inflict such torment on her through sheer personal strength.

And the strongest organization, Schicksal, had existed for thousands of years. She couldn't imagine anyone who could stand against it. Even the so-called Herrschers had lost several battles, hadn't they?

"—?!"

Raiden Ryoma's eyes widened, too.

The executor, who'd arrived at some point, was frozen like a rookie soldier.

As for Cyrene, she'd promised Jiang Cheng that they would have an honest conversation and hold nothing back. But only one night and a morning had passed, and they'd gone through a love triangle in the meantime, so there hadn't been a chance to talk.

So, still completely in the dark, she finally managed to break into the story of the knight and prince eloping.

"So does that mean Kiana's going to have to live with an old man..." She bit her lip.

"...That's just too tragic, isn't it?"

"No wonder Siegfried kept warning me not to tell Kiana where she was, but wouldn't tell me the truth no matter how many times I asked. So... the truth really is that cruel..." Raiden Ryoma nodded as realization dawned on him.

The others, all deeply caught up in the tragic twists of Kiana's life, hadn't paid the slightest attention to the man who'd appeared without a sound. His voice had reached all four of them loud and clear.

"—Uncle Ryoma, what are you doing here, too?"

Only Jiang Cheng remained completely baffled. He turned around and saw the middle-aged man talking to himself.

"After I sent out the notice and you guys didn't show up for ages, I was worried you'd wreck the city... I mean," he quickly corrected himself, "I was worried you'd gotten hurt, so I came to see if you were in trouble. But I never expected that Siegfried had such a deep reason for defecting from Schicksal. His daughter was chosen as a bargaining chip for the family alliance. Just thinking about it is enough to make you despair."

Raiden Ryoma couldn't imagine what he'd do, or what choice he could make, if Raiden Mei were ever treated that way.

"But I'd thought he was just irresponsible and didn't want to raise Kiana. I never expected him to be so devoted as a father," Raiden Ryoma said earnestly. "Looks like I still have a lot to learn from him."

"Father."

Raiden Mei bit her lip as she looked at her father.

Maybe she'd felt a little resentment in the past, but ever since she'd learned who the Homu Sword Saint was, she no longer did.

It wasn't that he didn't love her. He just didn't know how to say it, bound as he was by the dignity he'd always maintained. If only he would make a little more room for her and Cheng-kun...

"Stinky Old Man..."

Kiana lowered her head.

It was impossible to make out her expression. No matter how they looked, all they could see was silver.

Like the snowfields of the Far North, where the snow had remained unmelted for a thousand years, like moonlight shattering across the sea at night.

The only thing they could hear was her voice—

Silent, speechless.

As if countless emotions had been mixed together, thrown into a dye vat, and ground into something impossibly complicated.

"I never knew Kiana had such a moving story~" Cyrene twisted her slender fingers together in front of her. "Even my storybooks rarely have father-daughter bonds like that."

Jiang Cheng watched from the sidelines, unable to get a word in from beginning to end. The one time he'd spoken, Kiana had taken it for a well-meaning lie meant to comfort her.