"Honestly, Durandal, won't you even let me get a word in?"
As Michael retreated, a pink radiance flared to life, and several crystal arrows shot forth, only to be effortlessly deflected by Durandal's inverted lance.
"Enough talk!"
Durandal coiled power into the balls of her feet. The ground beneath her instantly shattered as her figure blurred across a hundred meters, reappearing right in front of Michael.
"Hah!"
Hiss—
The cold glint of the lance tip was blocked by a pink crystal shield. Michael gave his wrist a slight twist. Unable to retract the force in time, the lance tip slid down the shield's angled surface, kicking up a shower of crystalline dust with a sound that set his teeth on edge.
"Anna!"
Michael whipped his head around, his torso instinctively twisting with the movement. The cross-shaped crystal shield pivoted on his body's axis, redirecting the tip of Durandal's lance toward Anna's incoming attack.
"Don't mind me!" Anna shouted.
Of course, Durandal couldn't actually ignore her. She hastily pulled back her strength, but because Anna made no move to dodge, the lance still grazed her abdomen, tearing away a large chunk of flesh.
"Haah!"
Gritting her teeth against the searing pain, the girl's fist, just an instant before striking the crystal shield, opened into a palm and landed gently on the cold surface.
Michael had been planning to use the force of her punch to retreat, but Anna had anticipated this and gave him no such opportunity.
Vines erupted from the ground, binding Michael's feet before rapidly climbing his body and shattering the crystal shield with ease.
"Good chance!"
Durandal's eyes lit up. Having already moved past Anna, she planted her foot, spinning her entire body and lance around. In the blink of an eye, she reversed her momentum, thrusting the lance tip at Michael's throat.
Michael's Adam's apple bobbed once. He made no move to retreat, no move to defend himself. He looked for all the world like he was scared stiff.
Although she had seen countless powerful foes freeze in disbelief at the moment of their death, this time Durandal felt no pride in her impending victory. There was only an indescribable and overwhelming sense of foreboding.
To make matters worse, Anna was screaming at her side.
"Get back!"
But it was too late. When the two girls realized what was happening and tried to retreat, they found their limbs had gone rigid. Even breathing felt suffocating.
"It's… it's that…"
Looking at the miniscule pink crystal fragments she had inadvertently inhaled, Durandal's heart sank. She abandoned all thought of escape, channeling every last ounce of her strength into the arm holding her lance.
Then, with a resonant CLANG!, her ever-victorious lance came to a dead stop right in front of Michael.
It was as if an invisible barrier had materialized from thin air. As Durandal pushed harder, the barrier showed no signs of cracking, merely lighting up with multicolored bands of light like an old LCD screen.
"Well, what can I say? As I thought, it's quite difficult to fight the two of you at once using a power I'm not familiar with."
Michael tilted his head and smiled—not a sneer, not a taunt, just a simple smile.
"King!"
The moment Durandal spoke, the barrier suddenly expanded, pulverizing everything in front of Michael into dust.
"Cough! Cough, cough!"
Durandal was on one knee in the seawater, with King and Queen protecting her. The force of the waves had slowed the impact, but she had never imagined—never encountered—an opponent whose power could shred King's Honkai energy shield in an instant.
A hand rested on her shoulder. Anna used it to pull herself up. A plume of white smoke rose from her abdomen with a SIZZLE, and the wound Durandal had accidentally inflicted healed in seconds, not even leaving a scar.
"That power is…"
Durandal's eyes widened. As the current wielder of Abyss Flower, she of course recognized the ability, but… how could…
"It's just the power of the Schariac Stigmata," Anna explained simply, her eyes fixed on the space ahead.
Durandal swallowed and readily accepted the explanation. After all, throughout Schicksal's history, Abyss Flower had most often been wielded by Valkyries of the Schariac house. Perhaps the Schariac bloodline itself was compatible with Abyss Flower's abilities, just not to the absolute degree that Might of An-Utu was with the Kaslanas.
Feeling the stiffness gradually leave her body, she got to her feet.
The wind had died down at some point, and the dust cloud from Michael's attack lingered, refusing to disperse. Rather than launching a reckless attack, the two Valkyries, who knew each other only through a few meetings and some letters, tacitly chose to defend and wait for Michael to make the first move.
Time ticked by, but the dust seemed frozen in place, never fully clearing.
Durandal frowned, her eye twitching. Finally, she chose to advance.
"Let's go!"
"Anna" wavered for a moment. It wasn't until Durandal had taken two or three steps that she hesitantly followed.
"Took you long enough. I've been waiting quite a while for you to show yourself. You're definitely stronger than the last time we met. This time… it took me this long and I still couldn't sense you hiding. Not even the Authority of the Void could detect your presence. How did you do it?"
As Michael spoke, the muscles in his throat contracted. A thin line of blood appeared on the ice-blue katana, but it quickly froze solid with the frost.
The Honkai Beast-like mask looked slightly odd. You had to look very closely to see the fine scratch on its surface.
CRACK—
The mask split in two along the scratch and fell to the ground, revealing a pair of long-unseen violet eyes.
Of course, there were many ways to identify the newcomer. The long, slender fox ears twitching atop her head, her flowing light pink hair, or the crescent moon of unstoppable light that was her blade—all were proof enough of her identity.
"I froze the space I was in and hid inside… To be honest, I wasn't confident I could truly deceive your senses."
"Nicely done," Michael praised her sincerely. "So, why?"
Sakura remained silent for a long time.
"Was this your own plan, or someone else's? Mobius, perhaps? Or… Mei?"
Sakura reacted this time, but only with a slight shake of her head.
Did that mean it wasn't her own idea, or that it wasn't anyone else's?
Michael unhesitatingly used the Authority of Sentience, but a moment later, he let out a cold snort.
"Heh. Discipline and Wisdom. Prohibitions and illusions. You've really thought of everything, haven't you?"
"Even so, if you truly wanted to know my thoughts, it wouldn't be impossible," Sakura said, lowering the katana from Michael's neck. With a sharp flick, the bloodstains on the blade flaked off and fell to the ground.
Of course, it was possible. Never mind the mental blocks set by Aponia and Su; if the roles were reversed, they could just as easily shatter any mental block Michael placed in her mind. But the result would inevitably be immeasurable and irreversible damage to her consciousness.
It was a simple trade-off.
He hadn't forced the issue, so she had pulled back her blade.
"What? Weren't you here to kill me?"
Sakura gave him a deep look, not answering his question but posing one of her own. "If I had, just now… if my blade had continued, what would you have done?"
The wind blew Michael's bangs aside. He lowered his head, thought for two seconds, and shook his head.
Sakura shrugged. "You wouldn't have done it, so neither would I."
Michael quickly shook his head again. "No. Your appearance is too suspicious. I need to know who planned all this and what their goal is. So I couldn't have killed you. I probably would have forced my way through Aponia and Su's restraints on your mind to get the answers directly."
"And what about now?"
Without warning, Sakura drew her blade again. The edge stopped just before Michael's neck, yet he didn't move a muscle.
"Did they send you here to die, Sakura?" Michael sighed wearily.
"Michael, we should have died a long time ago."
The statement was loaded with meaning, and Michael couldn't be sure what exactly Sakura was trying to say.
"Heh. You mean that even without me, without you, the worst-case scenario for the people of this era is defeating the Honkai with Project Stigma. Unimaginable in our time. To think that humanity's victory over the Honkai would one day be a certainty, to the point where we can even distinguish between best- and worst-case scenarios… Heh… But my existence is an obstacle, the biggest variable. A variable that is both the greatest and most intolerable threat to Project Stigma, Project Sanctuary, and humanity itself. Is that it?"
Sakura suddenly broke into a silent laugh.
"Michael, you really… don't understand anything."
She muttered the words, then sheathed her katana. When she turned, Durandal and Anna had arrived, one after the other.
"You are…"
Durandal eyed the newcomer warily, her gaze drawn to the slender fox ears atop her head. Such an inhuman feature was hard not to stare at.
However, the only respect Sakura afforded the "Strongest S-rank Valkyrie of Schicksal" was a single, one-second glance.
She turned to Anna, her voice as calm as ever. "Let's go. What we came to do is done."
What exactly did you do? Michael's lip twitched. He suspected he was even more confused than Durandal at this point.
"Anna" nodded slightly. A moment later, Durandal reacted, grabbing her arm, but the Stigmata on the girl's arm quickly faded. Her body went limp, and she conveniently fainted into Durandal's arms.
When Durandal looked up again, the fox-eared woman was gone.
"What in the world is going on?"
"Who knows? You're the one who attacked me first," Michael retorted.
He and Durandal stared at each other, speechless.
"Ahem!"
After another few minutes of this standoff, Durandal finally came to her senses. She planted her lance in the ground to support Anna's body, then put her left hand on her hip, cleared her throat with a fist to her lips, and asked with a faint blush on her cheeks, "My apologies. I saw Anna… and instinctively assumed you were an enemy. I will submit a self-criticism report to Overseer Otto, but before that, please tell me who you are and why you are here."
Michael let out a rather dejected sigh. With a distinct lack of enthusiasm, he plucked a magnetic card from his coat pocket with two fingers and flicked it. The card tore through the air, shooting straight for Durandal.
Smack!
Durandal caught it with two fingers of her own. The thin, sharp edge of the card was a mere three or four centimeters from the tip of her nose.
Such power!
Ever since undergoing the MANTIS surgery as a child, her physical abilities had been on a monstrous level compared to other Valkyries, but compared to the man before her… they were at least on the same level.
She let out a breath, putting those thoughts aside to look at the card.
"Michael Schariac? Wait, you're a Schariac too… St. Freya Academy, Senior Instructor… Alright. I'm sorry. My actions just now were far too reckless."
Durandal placed a hand over her heart and bowed slightly.
"However, I hope you can explain the full situation to me. Of course, you don't have to. I will simply report what happened here truthfully to the Overseer. He will ask you for a mission report anyway. It would be better to tell me now so I can explain things in my report. It would save you a lot of trouble."
Michael tilted his head, mulling over her words. He met her clear, unwavering gaze and confirmed that she was being completely sincere, not threatening or being sarcastic.
Ugh… I guess people who are brutally honest are often misunderstood like this.
Michael felt a bead of sweat roll down his temple. Snapping out of it, he quickly nodded. "Let's find Rita first. She should be fine. We can talk on the way."
"My thoughts exactly."
Durandal efficiently hoisted Anna onto her shoulder and, without waiting for Michael to say another word, strode off in the direction she remembered Rita being.
Michael stood there, stunned for a moment, finding it genuinely difficult to comprehend his descendant's thought process.
Alright, so she's the product of a Kaslana and a Schariac. She perfectly inherited the shared trait of earnest bluntness from their four bloodlines. Kiana, on the other hand, perfectly inherited the idiot gene from all four.
That bloodline must be incredibly pure.
Durandal was already a dozen steps away, not even realizing Michael hadn't followed.
Michael shook his head and hurried to catch up, explaining everything that had happened from the beginning. He didn't embellish, but he did omit two things: first, Sakura's identity, and second, the fact that he had deliberately allowed "Anna," possessed by an unknown Schariac, to instantly defeat Rita. Of course, from Rita's perspective, she really had been taken down in an instant, so that shouldn't be a problem.
They found Rita's unconscious form. Michael took Anna from Durandal's shoulder, but Durandal didn't immediately move to pick up Rita.
"Could you please place Anna next to Rita?"
"Mhm."
Michael did as she asked without another word.
Hler's Serenity, which had been in Durandal's hand, abruptly vanished, replaced by a lance Michael knew all too well.
"Um… This is something I acquired… How to explain it? Just think of it as me being able to carry extra weapons."
Seeing Michael staring, Durandal thought he was shocked by her ability to produce a weapon from thin air. But then she noticed his gaze was fixed on the lance itself and added, "This is Abyss Flower. As a Schariac, you should recognize it, right?"
The moment she said it, she felt a pang of regret. Would a member of the Schariac family take such phrasing as a provocation?
Fortunately, Michael didn't seem offended at all, just offering a slightly weary smile.
"Of course I know what it is. Don't worry, I'm not offended. You have the right to use it."
His words were just as bold, but given his strength, Durandal felt he had earned the right to say them.
The tip of the lance pierced both Rita and Anna's bodies, leaving no wounds. Michael had the strange impression that Durandal was wielding a giant syringe, injecting a cure-all medicine into the two girls.
For some reason, he wanted to laugh.
Just as a grin started to form on his lips, Himeko's voice came through the comms.
"Whoa! Comms are finally back up. Michael, is it a good time to talk? What's the situation? By the way, Durandal was heading to your location. I didn't have time to brief her, so if you meet her, just identify yourself. Don't want any misunderstandings."
"Mm… Durandal is already with me. I'll explain what happened when I get back."
"Good. Looks like we got lucky. Bronya's team found the Herrscher of Wind. But don't worry, her condition is very stable, even more so than Mei's was. They also found the survivors of Squad Snow Lotus, but their captain, Anna, is missing…"
"Anna Schariac is with us."
"Huh? How did she end up over there? Never mind. Is she in critical condition? Head south and rendezvous with Bronya's team."
"She's not in critical condition. Understood. We're heading out now."
Michael rubbed his forehead. Himeko's habit of rattling off several orders at once was really something else.
"By the way, Kiana and the others… they aren't hurt, are they?"
Michael was a little confused. Himeko's habit was to say "Kiana and the others," wasn't it? Why was it "Bronya" this, "Bronya" that today?
"Er… uh… it's nothing major. They seem to have run into some trouble. Both Seele and Kiana are unconscious and haven't woken up yet. It's a good thing Durandal is with you; her Abyss Flower might come in handy. Don't worry, both kids have stable vitals."
"Is that so… I understand."
Michael closed his eyes, his fists slowly clenching.
What are they trying to do?
Just as the Flame-Chasers of the past could never guess his motives, he now found himself completely unable to grasp what the current Flame-Chasers were thinking.
Sakura had seemed hesitant, as if she was about to tell him the answer, but she had been interrupted by Durandal…
"It seems a trip to the Elysian Realm is in order."