Kiana was bristling with fury, looking almost like a great cat baring its claws.
"Sorry~"
Cyrene immediately offered a sincere apology—
The girl was adorable and exquisite from every angle. She bent her slender waist and leaned toward them like a willow branch dipping toward the water.
Her pale, jade-like fingers came together gently in front of her.
They concealed half her face,
leaving just enough mystery while also revealing her eyes in all their glory.
Those clear, spring-blue eyes were brimming with tears, as though the bright sky were reflected in their depths, broken by jagged shadows.
"This young lady—A-Cheng isn't suited to riding in this kind of vehicle, so he couldn't warn us in time."
Kiana instinctively glanced over and met those eyes without reservation.
But the moment she saw the girl, her bristling, beastlike posture vanished.
"...Ahaha."
She scratched the back of her head. "So you're not feeling well? I thought something had happened. If that's the case, I'll forgive you!"
"Are you sure you're all right?"
Cyrene gave her a little wink.
"I'm fine, I'm fine! I'm as tough as they come."
Kiana thumped her chest with enough force to spare a hand for a thumbs-up.
"I don't think you lot are the type to follow traffic rules, either." She planted her hands on her hips, putting her full-on pretty-person-loving personality on display.
"What happened just now? If you'd hit someone else instead of me, they might've gotten hurt."
"We have something very important to take care of."
Jiang Cheng finally spoke, breaking his silence. His voice still carried the aftereffects of motion sickness, which only made it sound deeper and more concise, without a word to spare.
"Miss Raiden Mei's life and identity are being threatened by someone's violence. She also has a danger within her that needs to be dealt with. We have to get her somewhere safe."
—That legendary Mei-senpai.
For the first time, Kiana had heard that name outside of school. Her gaze was drawn to the driver's seat.
Purple hair, as long as the stories said.
Even from behind, Mei looked remarkably soft and alluring.
Raiden Mei could clearly feel herself being scanned from head to toe, inside and out, not missing a single inch from her scalp to the tips of her toes.
"That's awful."
Kiana raised her brows and spoke loudly.
"Someone's threatening Mei-senpai's privacy and safety, and I'm supposed to just sit by and do nothing?"
"—I've decided. I'm joining you!"
Speaking before she thought, she reached to open the car door.
Her strength was enough to kill a bull with one punch, and she nearly yanked the door out from under Jiang Cheng, who was leaning against it.
"Wait!" Jiang Cheng hurried to stop her.
"The problem you're carrying is no less serious than the one Raiden Mei has. If the two of you stick together, we'll be easy to catch unless the Great Honkai breaks out right now."
"Huh?" Kiana tilted her head, stunned.
"I can't tell you the truth about what's going on with you, but I can tell you this—"
He lowered the half-transparent window and looked straight into her eyes.
"Raiden Mei is about to become the Third Herrscher."
"—What?!"
Kiana's eyes flew wide.
Her gaze, which had already swept over Raiden Mei once, fell on her again.
But she wasn't looking at her the way she had before.
Even Mei could feel the sheer disbelief and shock in Kiana's stare, along with—
wariness.
"You said someone was threatening Mei-senpai's safety, so you're taking her outside the city..."
"Are you..."
"—trying to make the Third Herrscher appear?"
Kiana: I'll kill the Herrscher of Thunder! (Edited)
Under Kiana's fixed stare, Jiang Cheng's easygoing air shattered completely. His gaze turned sharp enough for the other two girls to feel it.
The fallen young lady furrowed her brows.
At school, she seemed like she should be the relatively easygoing type. But now...
Am I really that dangerous?
Then why...
Reflected in Raiden Mei's deep-purple eyes was Jiang Cheng, arguing his case with Kiana.
...A-Cheng?
Why?
Jiang Cheng knew that the Nordic young lady who had traveled across all of Europe alone had no illusions about the Herrschers.
"What if I told you that Herrschers have human feelings, and that they can be brought over to humanity's side?"
"Ha! What kind of ridiculous fantasy are you talking about? Even I know that Herrschers are disasters."
Kiana hadn't gone to school at St. Freya yet, and her knowledge of Honkai was shallow. Still, she knew that the birth of a Herrscher meant the destruction of a city—
"You're taking Mei-senpai outside the city because... you have that kind of plan?"
"Are you going to deny Raiden Mei's future just because she might become a Herrscher?"
Jiang Cheng looked at her, enunciating every word with conviction.
That argument was most effective against a good person.
"..."
As expected, Kiana was stumped. Her hands, which had been creeping toward her waist, froze in midair.
Her blue eyes gently closed.
She hadn't been given any emotional buildup,
and she hadn't lived through a story that would turn a young lady into a helpless wreck. But casually writing someone else off...
—She couldn't do it.
So—
"I won't just dismiss Mei-senpai's future. But I'm coming with you. If the Third Herrscher appears and can't be controlled, then I, Kiana Kaslana—"
"—will kill her!"
Jiang Cheng looked at Kiana as she drew two pistols from her waist, her expression utterly serious. She looked like Sasuke declaring, "I'm going to kill that man," or "I've mastered the technique to kill him."
Choosing Mei's route was already greedy enough. If he brought Kiana along too...
"That kind of thing..."
"If I lose control, don't hesitate to kill me."
Her unspoken words were cut off again. Raiden Mei, in the driver's seat, had reclined her seat as far back as it would go to make room. She immediately turned around and came between the two of them, meeting their gazes.
"Don't make some ridiculous promise like that on your own." Jiang Cheng's gaze instantly shifted to her.
"Death is terrifying. Pain is, too. I don't want you to do something without knowing anything about—"
"But!"
The girl had spent a long time being bullied, until every last bit of sincerity and courage had been drained from her.
Yet at this moment, she lifted her head without the slightest fear.
The bearing she'd had as a young lady, the fierce pride that had earned her the name Thunder Queen, seemed to reappear.
"A-A-Cheng, you said it yourself: the power inside me is dangerous, even if it's strong. The hero in a hot-blooded manga sometimes loses control and hurts the people close to him. I don't want to..."
—I don't want to hurt you, the person who appeared out of nowhere and, for some reason, trusts me.
She hadn't said the rest. It was too hard to put into words.
But even that much was enough to make Jiang Cheng swallow his protest.
"Then let's make a promise."
Kiana gazed at the girl who was called a Herrscher, yet stood tall before them, her eyes fierce—
One of them made the promise without knowing anything.
The other agreed without knowing anything.
The Three Houses, who should have become the closest of friends, had barely met before making a promise that one would kill the other.
Could such a twisted relationship ever become the kind of friendship where they shared everything?
Jiang Cheng couldn't help worrying.
At the same time, a soft voice that had paused for a moment, seemingly scattered on the breeze, drifted gently into the car.
"Calling him A-Cheng is my special privilege~"
"Miss Raiden Mei, please don't use it so casually~ Or I might get angry, too."
Her voice was gentle and warm, like soft silk brushing against their ears.
And yet something strange was mixed into that softness, scraping against their eardrums like a sharp nail.
All three of them looked toward the back-left seat. The gaze of Raiden Mei, whose name had been singled out, lingered there in particular—
Cyrene.
The first thing that met their eyes was the adorable girl, smiling like a flower with her hands clasped together. Then came—
—something terrifying.
That clear, alien feeling mixed into her presence became especially strong at that moment.
It was like looking at a blurred world through a thin veil of mist. An inexplicable pressure crept over them, as if they had suddenly been tossed into the eye of a typhoon.
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