At the dead of night, when the time was nearly 10:00 pm, a lone girl walked on the empty streets of Nagazora City.
She was young, clearly a teenager, and she did not seem to be Japanese. A foreigner.
Her long white hair, which nearly reached her hips, were tied and braided into two long twin tails and her blue eyes were focused.
She had just entered the city of Nagazora a few minutes ago after a lot of walking.
Her memory was fuzzy. Not that she was suffering from any kind of memory issues. Rather, Kiana only had memories of up to a few years ago. Unlike other people, she did not remember her very young childhood.
She did not remember her mother and only ever had a father to take care of and raise her.
For reasons unknown to her, her father was on the run and had taken her with him. The two of them traversed Europe completely and Kiana was forced to learn how to fight in order to face the honkai and not be a burden to her father.
Siegfried Kaslana, her father, taught her the traditional Kaslana fighting style— Kaslana Gun-kata.
It's origin is derivated from Kevin Kaslana's use of the divine key, Judgement of Shamash, a weapon only a Kaslana can unleash the true might of.
That's also why her weapon of choice were dual-wielding pistols. Which by the way, she somehow managed to lose on her way to Japan because she misplaced them one night.
Her father had, for reasons unknown to her, left her and ran away four years ago, in 2010, but not before telling her to 'do what was right.'
Since then, for the next four years, she's been trying her hardest to locate her father. She searched all across Europe for it. Unfortunately, all of her efforts were for naught as she's still not been able to find him.
During her travels, Kiana fought through hordes of honkai beasts and zombies, honing her own combat skills. Despite beings a literal child, her Kaslana genetics, combined with her training from her father, seemed to be paying off and she was able to keep herself relatively safe throughout the length of her journey.
Kiana has also picked up several languages across Europe because of her constant travelling from country to country, which was a plus. So yes, she was multilingual.
Unfortunately, her travelling meant she couldn't actually go to school and never settled down at a place to get educated. Although she did had the finances to do it, she was only focused on finding her dad.
As a result, Kiana grew up to be an idiot due to lack of an education. Kiana was an expert combatant and fighter. She proficient in languages and in history, but only parts involving the honkai. Anything besides that, she's horrible at it.
Academically speaking.
The now fourteen year old girl had to travel halfway across the world on her quest to find her father.
She remembered the words of her father before he left her and a memory resurfaced.
She did still have one more living relative.
Her name was Theresa and she lives in the Far-East Branch where she was the president of a Valkyrie training institute called St. Freya.
Kiana knew that if she wanted to find even the slightest clue to finding the location of her father Siegfried, she's first going to have to locate her aunt, Theresa.
So, she somehow arranged a flight to Japan and eventually wound up here, in Nagazora City.
The same city Raiden Mei currently lived in.
The same city Alastor recently transferred to.
When she arrived, it was already night time and she was very hungry as she hadn't eaten anything all day. Luckily, she knows how to stay without food and water for a while since she had lived a nomadic life for years.
She had some amount of money with her surprisingly, so she immediately rushed to the nearest restaurant to fill her empty stomach. She forgot she had nowhere to stay for the night.
While walking quietly in Nagazora, her senses suddenly sharpened. She felt a presence near her and her head was about to turn towards it, when a bright flash of red blinded her momentarily.
"Wha–?!"
She stumbled a little and opened her eyes after recovering from that flash of light. Her head snapped to the direction the flash of light seemed to originate from and narrowed her eyes.
"What was that ? Is someone there ?"
The light was followed by a momentary cloud of dust, which made her run to check out exactly what it was. Curiosity and cautiousness overtook her body.
She wanted to know what it was.
But at the same time, she also wanted to see if it was caused by the honkai. She had just arrived in the city and didn't want to take any chances.
The city was filled to the brim with million aof people. The honkai was at its most dangerous when within a highly populated city like Nagazora.
If there was a zombie or honkai beast nearby, she had to go kill it right away.
But when she got to the sight of the flash, she found nothing. No honkai beast. No zombie. No person. No threat. Nothing.
There was nothing at all.
It made her face scrunch up in confusion as she looked around and even searched the place, trying her best to locate whatever was the cause behind that flash of light.
Kiana hadn't realised that Alexander was watching her from a rooftop four hundred metres away.
"What a curious girl. I suppose that is the normal reaction though."
Alexander could tell she sensed the danger of the archangel even before he killed it. He was certainly surprised when he figured out how sharp this girl's senses were since the archangel was a good 100 metres away from her at least.
So her ability to suddenly locate a lone archangel like that from that distance without actually seeing it with her own eyes was certainly impressive.
It was above average, that's for sure.
Alex had assumed she was a civilian at first, but her senses were quite high for a normal teenage girl.
Alex made sure to remember her face.
"She's not human..."
A clone.
An artificially created human who resembles someone else.
An imitation of another individual that has or is currently living.
As a clone himself, Alex could tell.
He honestly didn't know how he could do it so quickly, just that he could. His body instantly recognised her as a clone of the real person, even before his mind.
A very peculiar sense of déjà vu.
Schicksal did have the technology required to use cloning. He should know this better than anyone. It's entirely possible this girl was someone related to Schicksal.
Not to mention, her appearance is also very similar to someone he knows from the past.
"I see now. She's a Kaslana, isn't she. No wonder she looks so similar. But then how can she be a clone ? And who's she a clone of ?"
"I don't think she's another Kallen... I hope not."
Alex didn't seem to care about this woman being a clone. But rather, was trying to anticipate the future. If a Kaslana clone suddenly appeared in Nagazora, Alex felt his senses sharpen as he predicted something bad will happen in the future.
"Now this raises the question... Is she a free bird ? Or is she a leashed dog ?" This was the real question and the one that would decide the flow of time for the future of Nagazora.
Alex didn't bother staying for longer and quickly disappeared into the sea of darkness humans called the night.
The next day, Alex got up from his bed with a stoic face, like always. He stretched his body and cracked his neck.
It was still early in the morning. He had over two whole hours left until his school started. He had a lot of time to get ready, pick up and drop Mei, and reach his school.
He remained seated on the bed with a frown on his face.
"The black box. It's still out there. I have to hasten my pace if I want to prevent any horrible accidents in the future."
The city of Nagazora was not a safe place. It was a ticking time bomb. A place just waiting for the right time to start a honkai eruption and it would be a large scale eruption.
And no, the main issue wasn't Mei.
Alexander did not know Mei was the a herrscher candidate, only that she had a weird amount of honkai energy within her body. Other than that, he had yet to associate her with being a herrscher or connected to one in any way, shape or form.
The thing that worries him, was the Honkai Beast, trapped inside the black box after being sealed inside somewhere around 500 or less years ago.
"Dhumavati..." Alex murmured.
If a honkai eruption were to happen, even if it wasn't above 1000 HW, it might still prove to be dangerous as it may be enough to release the Honkai Beast trapped inside the black box, which would lead to a large scale honkai eruption.
He doesn't know about Mei's candidacy, but is still cautious as he believes she has a gem inside her body, though he doesn't know which one.
He stood outside Mei's home earlier than usual. He didn't understand why but his heart told him to go early as if something was about to happen.
He had no way to explain this.
He's racked his mind countless times before for several hours, even entire days on end, to try and find a solution for his ability to just know when something will happen.
Eventually, he chocked it up to him having a high, inhuman intuition. Well, either that or fate is playing him.
And like always, he was right. Because Mei was for some reason awake and ready a whole thirty minutes before their usual meet up time.
She also looked very tired and it made him feel a little anxious and curious on why his friend looked like that.
He didn't know it was because she couldn't sleep last night properly, yet. He did manage to figure it out a few minutes later. Though, he failed to come up with a reason for it.
When Mei walked out, he immediately questioned her.
"Why were you up so early. And why do you seem tired ? Did you not sleep well. Mei, you know that's not good on your health." His face hardened and he seemed to be scolding her.
Mei backed up a little with an embarrassed and guilty expression.
"Judging by your expression and calculating your fatigue and mental exhaustion, I believe you went to sleep yesterday at 2:00 am and woke up at 4:30 am ? Two and a half hours of sleep. That's not good at all Mei! It can negatively affect the health of normal humans like you." He scolded her, his voice growing harsher.
Yes, Alexander had a habit of referring to humans as "normal humans", as if he wasn't one himself.
Which... He wasn't.
Mei did find this weird at first, but paid it no mind and gradually got used to it.
Mei's head hung a little low, but she looked back up at him.
"I'm sorry. I couldn't sleep well last night. I don't know why. I just couldn't sleep."
Which Alex found weird. She clearly didn't have insomnia or any mental issue related to sleeping or the lack thereof.
"As for why I woke up so early..."
She removed a carefully packaged box wrapped neatly in a cover. She stretched her hand out to offer the box to him and bowed her head slightly.
"I made this for you. I hope it's not too much."
A bento box.
Alex seemed surprised by this sudden development. That meant Mei woke up early because she made lunch for him, which made his inhuman heart throb and flutter.
He was happy that his friend decided to make food for him, especially since it was Mei who had cooked it. But at the same time, he felt a little guilty because it was his fault she didn't get proper rest.
But of course, he never allowed it to be shown in his face. Instead, he smiled happily, his eyes radiating raw emotion.
Slowly, he accepted the gift from Mei and smiled at her.
"You didn't have to... But since you already made this, it would be rude of me to refuse. Thank you, for making this, Mei. I'm certain it will be very delicious."
It was a chicken kastu bento box.
Mei noticed how much Alex seemed to like katsudon and decided to make a katsu bento for him.
Mei smiled at his generous complements.
"It's not a big deal. I'm glad you like it. If possible... I'd like to make more bento for you in the future."
Alex was going to outright refuse her, but seeing the hopeful expression on her face, he concluded that refusing would only make her sad. So he agreed.
But with one condition.
"Only if you promise to take care of your own health, Mei. Prioritise yourself first. I don't want to see your health deteriorate because of me. Got it ?" His gaze fell upon Mei and waited as she worked up a reply.
"Yes... Don't worry. I'll take better care of myself."
She agreed, not wanting to make her new friend develop a guilty conscience because of her. She also knew to take better care of herself.
Silently, she puffed up her cheeks when Alex wasn't looking and mentally whispered.
'You were the reason I didn't sleep last night, idiot.'