Kiana
"Lively crowd."
The voice was rough, like gravel grinding against steel, but the cadence was unmistakably Kenji's.
It was the same voice, yet stripped of all the warmth and awkward kindness that defined him.
The severed head of Project Nidhogg rolled to a stop at Himeko's boots, staring up at them with its dead, shattered optic lens.
Kiana lowered her guns slowly, her heart hammering against her ribs. She stared at the boy standing atop the wreckage of the machine.
She knew what the tracker said. What his vitals and reading told them. But seeing his face—seeing Kenji standing there—ignited a desperate, irrational spark of hope in her chest.
"Kenji?" Kiana whispered, taking a hesitant step forward. "Hey... say something. Tell us you're in there."
The boy didn't answer, as if to dismiss her. He rolled his neck, the vertebrae popping audibly in the quiet hangar.
He looked down at his own hands, flexing the fingers as if testing the controls of a new vehicle.
"Kenji!" Kiana called out louder, desperation cracking her voice. Slowly stepping closer to him. "Stop messing around!"
WHOOSH.
A sudden, sharp wall of wind slammed into her chest, stopping her dead in her tracks.
"Don't!" Wendy screamed.
Kiana stumbled back, looking towards the Wind Herrscher.
"It's true," Wendy interrupted, her voice trembling. She wasn't looking at Kiana. She was floating a few feet off the ground, her green eyes locked onto the boy on the mech. The air around Wendy was vibrating—not with aggression, but with caution.
"The tracker was right," Wendy whispered sadly. "Kiana, stay back. Kenji isn't in control right now."
"Of course… His presence is entirely different." Mei asked, gripping her katana and getting into a battle-ready stance. "All because of Cocolia."
"The wind..." Wendy stammered, shaking her head. "Kenji's energy feels... warm. It feels like a gentle breeze. But this? The air around him is dead. It feels cold."
"Ho..."
A low, dry chuckle echoed from the wreckage.
The boy on the machine turned his head. His eyes locked onto Wendy.
"Sharp," the boy said. His lips curled into a smirk that didn't reach his eyes. "You have good instincts, little bird. Much better than the last time we met. I suppose being useless taught you a thing or two about paying attention."
Wendy flinched as if she had been slapped. Clearly not expecting those words to leave Kenji's mouth, even if it wasn't Kenji saying it.
It was the final nail in the coffin of their hope. Kenji would never speak to her like that.
"So it's confirmed," Theresa said, stepping forward.
The petite principal didn't back down. Judah floated ominously beside her, its golden chains rattling like restless snakes.
Theresa's eyes were narrowed, scanning the boy with the cold, analytical gaze of an S-Rank Valkyrie.
"My sensors are reading a massive Honkai energy reading," Theresa said, her voice echoing with authority.
She raised a hand, signaling Himeko and Fu Hua to hold their positions.
"We suspected this might happen," Theresa continued, trying to keep her voice steady. "We know you've awakened, Herrscher. But Kenji is our student. He is under the protection of St. Freya. Release control of his body, and we can discuss this peacefully."
The boy stared at her. He tilted his head to the side, looking at Theresa like she was a particularly noisy insect.
He sighed, a sound of profound boredom. "Your voice," he stated flatly. "It is incredibly irritating."
Theresa bristled, her brow twitching. "Excuse me?"
"You speak as if you have authority here," the boy said, stepping down from the Nidhogg's corpse. He walked with a heavy gait, his boots squelching on the metal deck. "You speak as if I am some... invader."
He stopped ten meters away from them. The air pressure in the hangar seemed to drop, making it hard to breathe. The red glow in his eyes flared brighter.
"You called me a Herrscher," he mused, looking at his own palm. "A Messenger of the Honkai."
He scoffed, clenching his hand into a fist. The air around it distorted as red electricity circled his fist.
"Don't insult me with your human classifications. I am not the same as those... puppets."
He looked up, his gaze sweeping over Mei, Wendy, and finally settling on Kiana.
"I am the Reflection," he declared, his voice deepening, vibrating through the floorboards. "I am the Shadow cast by the Light. I am the Mirror of The Beginning: The False Origin."
The title hung in the air, heavy and ominous. Even Himeko tightened her grip on her greatsword, sensing the sheer weight of the presence standing before them.
"But..." the boy shrugged, the terrifying aura vanishing instantly as he adopted a casual, bored posture. "That is a mouthful, isn't it? And frankly, I don't care for titles."
He pointed a thumb at his chest.
"Just call me Zero. Though it was a name given by Cocolia, it still fits."
"Zero..." Kiana repeated the name, the taste of it bitter in her mouth. It was the name Cocolia had used—the name of a test subject.
"Give him back," Kiana whispered, her hands shaking. She knew it was no use, but she couldn't stop herself. "Zero... Give Kenji back to us."
Zero looked at Kiana. For a second, his expression was unreadable. Then, the cruel smirk returned.
"Give him back?" Zero laughed, a hollow sound. "You misunderstand the situation, Kiana. I didn't take him. He is breaking himself. And I'm just picking up the pieces."
/ — /
Theresa
"What nonsense are you spouting?"
Theresa asked, her grip on the Oath of Judah tightening. She stepped in front of Kiana, shielding the girl from the boy's unnerving gaze.
"Kenji isn't broken," Theresa stated firmly, "And we aren't going to let you steal his life just because he had a moment of weakness."
"Moment of weakness?" Zero chuckled. He tilted his head, his eyes boring into Theresa. "Is that what you tell yourself? You speak of him with such proprietary affection. Oh, Miss Benevolent Guardian. The saint of the Far East Branch."
He stopped, his expression hardening into a sneer. "But we both know that's a lie, don't we?"
Himeko stepped up beside Theresa, her massive sword resting heavily on her shoulder. She glared at him, "Watch your mouth. You're talking to the Overseer of this branch. Show some respect, or I'll beat it into you."
"Respect?" Zero glanced at Himeko, then back to Theresa, his eyes gleaming with malicious amusement. "Why should I respect this pathetic Manipulator?"
"A… what?" Himeko blinked, confused.
"She's a manipulator," Zero repeated. "A deceitful wretch who finds a useful tool and locks it away, telling others they're 'protecting' it, when really, they just want to make sure no one else gets to use it."
Theresa felt a cold knot form in her stomach. "I don't know what you're talking about. I took Kenji in to train him. To keep him safe from Anti-Entropy and Schicksal HQ."
"Safe from HQ?" Zero laughed, "Is that what you tell yourself? Then tell me, Principal... why did you lie and implant the Bio-Chip in his neck? You know, the one that tracks his location and energy output every second of the day?"
Himeko froze. She turned to Theresa. "Theresa? A Bio-Chip? You told me it was just a standard vitals connector… I thought you agreed to finally tell me everything."
Theresa flinched. She couldn't meet Himeko's eyes. "It... it was a safety precaution. I was going to tell you… I just wanted to keep an eye on high-risk individuals."
"On your asset," Zero corrected sharply. "And I won't even get into all the secret experiments you've been conducting.
This time, it was Kiana, Mei, and Wendy who turned their heads. With Wendy and Mei's expressions growing more dangerous as the seconds went on.
"H-hold on! I may have implanted a Bio-Chip in him, but I have never done anything to hurt him. I swear on my life!"
Zero laughed out loud at her reaction, "You think you're so sly. I know you never filed a report on his true nature. You hid his existence from the organization you serve."
"Because others would have dissected him!" Theresa shouted, her composure cracking. "I did it to protect him!"
"Did you?" Zero asked softly. "Or did you just realize that he had a use?"
He took a step forward, the pressure in the room dropping.
"You realized that his body acts as a sponge for Honkai energy. You realized that simply being near him lowers the ambient Honkai concentration."
Zero pointed a finger directly at Mei and then at Kiana.
"You didn't keep him to save or nurture him, Principal. You kept him to save them."
Mei's eyes widened as she realized where this was heading.
"He is a stabilizer. That's what he is to you." Zero declared.
He looked at Theresa with utter contempt. "You have two ticking time bombs in your academy. The 3rd Herrscher," he gestured to Mei, "and the Kaslana girl, whose instability is... well, let's call it a 'special case.' You were terrified they would lose control."
Kiana muttered. "Special case?"
"But then you found Kenji," Zero continued, ignoring her. "A boy who can suppress the calamities around him. You hid him from HQ because if they took him away, you would lose your safety net. You would lose the leash that keeps your precious girls from turning into monsters."
Theresa's fists clenched by her sides. "Maybe… Maybe I did need him! B-but he needed us too! I—"
"There it is!" He cheered. Opening his arms like he was an actor on a grand stage.
"She admits it, you brought him in to use him. To contain him for your precious family. Did you ever care about him? Once you were done, you were going to throw him away, weren't you?!"
"I would never—!"
"You used him as a crutch!" Zero hissed, his voice seeping with hatred. "You did everything so that you could use him. You never cared that you could be leading him to his doom."
Theresa lowered her head, not willing to look her team in the eyes. She felt her team's stares and deafening silence behind her.
She had failed them.
She was just like Otto.
And there was no denying it.
"So what?"
A voice suddenly rang out.
Theresa looked up.
Mei stepped forward, placing herself between Theresa and Zero. Her violet eyes were blazing—not with anger at Theresa, but with defiance against him.
"Mei?" Theresa whispered.
"Maybe you're right," Mei said to Zero, her voice steady. "Maybe Theresa was scared for us. Maybe she did need help keeping my powers in check. I remember Nagazora. I remember how much easier it was to breathe when Kenji was there."
Mei looked back at Theresa, offering a small, sad smile. "But I also know he wanted to be a Knight, to protect people. Theresa made that possible. She gave him a home. She gave him protection."
"It's a cage," Zero spat.
"It's a family!" Kiana shouted, stepping up beside Mei. She glared at Zero, her blue eyes fierce.
"Stop trying to twist everything! Kenji isn't stupid. He's smart! If there was a chip, or if Theresa was using him... he probably figured it out ages ago!"
Theresa blinked, tears pricking her eyes. "Kiana..."
"Kenji stayed because he wanted to!" Kiana yelled, clenching her fists. "He stayed because he loves us! And he trusts Auntie! She might not have been doing it for the right reasons, but she still saved him!"
"She's right," Wendy added, floating forward to join the line. "I only knew him for less than a day. Yet I could already see what kind of person he is. Someone willing to look past someone's actions and to see their humanity."
Mei turned back to Zero, raising her katana. "You're trying to make us doubt her. You're trying to put a rift between us. But we won't let you."
"Kenji trusts Theresa," Mei declared. "Even if she made mistakes. Even if she was afraid, he would never hate her for trying to protect us. Don't you dare insult him again."
Theresa felt a hand on her shoulder.
"You heard the kids, Theresa," Himeko said, her voice rough but gentle. "We'll talk about the secrets later. Right now, we deal with the brat having a tantrum."
That definitely struck a nerve, as Zero's eye twitched at the insult.
Theresa wiped her eyes. The guilt didn't vanish, but she found the strength to move again. Her students... her family... She really didn't deserve them.
She couldn't afford to be rattled right now. They needed their principal, her punishment will come after.
Zero stared at the united front. His expression shifted from arrogance to irritation. He looked at Kiana's defiant face, then at Mei's resolve.
"Touching," Zero drawled, though his voice lacked its earlier amusement. "Truly. The power of friendship conquers all logic."
He stood up straight, rolling his shoulders. The red lightning around his body intensified, cracking the floor beneath his boots.
"But friendship is a dependency," Zero said coldly. "And Kenji's dependency on you people is exactly why he is weak. That's why he is slowly dying."
"What do you mean?" This time, it was Fu Hua who asked. "Kenji has shown no signs of deterioration or infection. How could he be dying?"
"Your actions are going to push him to make a choice, a choice that will lead to his pathetic death—! Wait a minute…"
Zero's anger vanished so suddenly that it gave the group whiplash.
His gaze was now stuck on Fu Hua. His brow furrowed as he was thinking hard about something.
"You… I know you…"
"I-I assume you do? You did claim to have access to Kenji's memories—"
"—Shut up. Not what I meant." Zero cut her off. He put a hand under his chin, "Fu Hua… Fu Hua… Hua… Oh. You're one of them."
Kiana let out a frustrated sigh, "Can you stop being so vague already! You're even more annoying than Kenji—!"
"Enough," Zero said, his tone shifting back to that terrifying, casual boredom. "We have nothing else to talk about... I believe this conversation is over."
Even at his words, Theresa stood taller.
Kiana and Mei's trust in her had shattered the cage of guilt he had built around her.
She had made mistakes. She strayed from the path she had set for herself. But she won't let her mistakes stop her. She will bring Kenji back and atone for her sins.
"We aren't leaving," Theresa declared. "And we aren't listening to your manipulations anymore."
Zero stared at her. The amusement faded from his face, replaced by a profound disappointment.
He looked at the united front—Kiana with her pistols raised, Mei with her hand on her sword, Wendy surrounded by wind, and Himeko hefting her massive blade.
"Disappointing," Zero murmured. "I offered you a chance to walk away. You could have left here, lived your lives, and pretended I didn't exist."
He took a step down from the wreckage, his boot crushing a loose metal plate with a wet crunch.
"This is your final warning. Leave this facility. Leave me to my business. Or die here."
"We aren't going anywhere!" Kiana yelled from beside Theresa. "Not without Kenji!"
"We bring him back," Wendy added, the wind whipping around her legs. "That's the deal."
Zero let out a dramatic, exaggerated sigh. It was the sound of an adult dealing with petulant children who refused to go to bed.
He bent down slowly. Theresa tensed, expecting a lunging attack or perhaps one that showed what authority Zero held.
But he didn't attack. He simply brushed his fingers against the debris scattered on the floor. He picked up a shard of titanium plating torn from the Nidhogg's armor—a jagged, twisted piece of scrap metal roughly the size of a baseball.
He weighed it in his palm, tossing it up and catching it a few times.
Theresa narrowed her eyes, her grip on Judah tightening. 'What is he doing? That's just scrap metal.'
"You want Kenji back so badly?" Zero asked, his red eyes locking onto Kiana with a smirk. "You want to play catch?"
He drew his arm back. It wasn't a combat stance. It was casual, almost lazy, like a pitcher warming up in the bullpen.
"Here."
He casually tossed the metal shard.
"Catch."
Theresa watched the projectile leave his hand. It moved slowly, lazily arcing through the air. With the amount of power he put into the throw, it wouldn't even reach them.
Her combat instincts, honed over decades of fighting Honkai Beasts, were confused. It was moving slow enough that Kiana could have caught it with her eyes closed.
Then, halfway to Kiana, reality itself seemed to glitch.
There was no sound barrier boom. There was no buildup of momentum.
One millisecond, the metal was floating in a gentle arc. Next, a blue light enveloped it before it vanished into a blur.
SNAP.
Theresa's body moved before her mind could process the violation of the laws of physics. The shard hadn't just sped up; it had accelerated from zero to supersonic instantly.
It was aimed directly at Kiana.
"Kiana!" Theresa screamed.
The golden cross slammed into the ground in front of Kiana, the heavy divine steel expanding its barrier just as the projectile made contact.
CLANG.
The sound was deafening, like a church bell being struck by a meteor.
Theresa expected the scrap metal to bounce off. Instead, the kinetic force was transferred instantly through the shield. It hit with the weight of a speeding train.
"Gah!" Theresa gasped as the shockwave slammed into her chest.
She and Kiana were lifted off their feet. The impact blew them backward, launching them across the hangar. The world spun in a blur of ceiling lights and gray metal before they crashed into a stack of wooden supply crates twenty meters away.
"Auntie!" Kiana groaned, untangling her limbs from the splintered wood.
Theresa shook her head, fighting the dizziness. Her arms felt numb. 'What was that?!That was just a piece of scrap metal, but it would have put a hole through me if I hadn't blocked it!'
'He threw with so little force, but it changed speed after it was already thrown. How is that possible?!'
Zero stood exactly where he had been, his arm still extended in the follow-through of the toss. He flexed his fingers, looking at his own hand with a mix of curiosity and critique.
"Gearshift..." Zero muttered to himself, ignoring the chaos he had caused. "Feels weird. Kenji's muscle memory is—"
BOOM.
He never finished the sentence.
Fu Hua didn't wait for him to finish monologuing. While he was distracted by his own hand, the Class Monitor blurred into motion.
She crossed the distance in a single heartbeat, and she delivered a devastating, high-speed palm strike aimed directly at his exposed ribs.
Theresa blinked, her vision finally clearing.
Zero hadn't dodged. He hadn't even looked up.
His left hand had snapped up with impossible speed, catching Fu Hua's wrist inches from his chest.
"Danger Sense too…" Zero continued to mutter.
Fu Hua froze, her eyes wide behind her red glasses. She tried to pull back, but his grip was iron.
Zero slowly turned his head to look at her.
"I'm going to have fun with you," Zero whispered.
"Let go!" Fu Hua shouted, twisting her body to deliver a kick to his head.
Zero caught her ankle with his other hand. He held the A-Rank Valkyrie—one of the strongest fighters in St. Freya—suspended in the air like a ragdoll.
"I see it flickering in there… I can feel it." Zero murmured, leaning closer to her face. His red eyes bore into hers, seeing something the others couldn't.
Fu Hua stiffened. She didn't know why, but it was as if Zero was personally offended by her very existence.
"Is this really the best you can do, Class Monitor?" Zero taunted, his voice dropping to a low, mocking growl. "You're holding back. Are you afraid you'll break this fragile vessel?"
"You talk too much." Fu Hua gritted out.
"Show me," Zero challenged. "Show me what you can really do, little flame!"
He let go of her arm and leg. Fu Hua was about to attack again quickly, but her eyes widened when his fist was already right in front of her stomach.
The air distorted around his palms.
"ARGH!!!" Fu Hua was launched upwards from the uppercut, the force embedding her deep into the ceiling.
Before she could recover, Zero suddenly blitzed in front of her, forcing her to cross her arms to protect herself as he rushed into her.
""""Fu Hua!"""" Everyone yelled, but it was too late.
They rocketed through the ceiling, and in a blink, Fu Hua found herself back on the surface of ME Corp.
She pried Zero off and retreated, her hand clenching her stomach in pain.
Zero stood across from her, an excited grin on his face. "Make this interesting, will you?!"