BOOM!
Thunder dragons coiled through ink-black spiral clouds. Tornadoes stretched from sea to sky like whales drinking rivers dry. Hundred-meter tsunamis blotted out the horizon in every direction.
And yet — to Durandal, the world felt as though it had frozen solid in that single instant. An absolute, perfect silence.
"..."
The howling storm tore at her cascade of golden hair, sending it rippling like a waterfall. Durandal stared blankly at the golden-haired little girl across from her, while within that outwardly calm surface, a storm of her own crashed and surged — wave after wave slamming against her chest.
Bianca Durandal Aglovale… Siegfried and Cecilia's daughter. Kiana's older sister…
A past version of me?
She might be blunt, a touch inflexible — but Durandal was no fool.
Piecing together the clues the golden-haired little girl had thrown out, it only took a moment's thought for everything to click into a single, coherent chain of logic.
"...You're a future me?"
It sounded absurd on its face — and yet it was the only answer every piece of the puzzle pointed toward.
"Mm."
Her eyes were bright and vivid, lively and clear. Little Bianca held her azure-white spear — taller than she was — in one hand, the light of Luminous Flux blazing fearlessly ahead.
It was common knowledge that trial characters came with matching weapons.
"But you look like me at twelve years old."
Durandal's brow furrowed tight. Her head was a bit of a mess right now — no, a complete mess.
"That part I honestly don't understand either. It was an accident, all things considered."
"If you really are 'Bianca' — why aren't you moving to subjugate the Herrscher?"
Durandal's gaze turned sharp enough to cut.
Little Bianca flexed her small arms and legs, twisted her head to glance at the tornadoes tearing between sea and sky, and at the vast wings blotting out the sun.
"A bit of an unexpected development… But I trust them."
"Did Otto send you here? Even as I am now, I know enough about Otto to say — it's better not to follow his orders too faithfully."
Little Bianca pressed one small finger to her chin and smiled at Durandal. "That man certainly kept things hidden from me and Auntie for a very long time."
"..."
Durandal was silent for a long moment. In the end, she raised Weltende — her Aesir-class knight lance, forged of Honkalloy — and spoke with full gravity.
"Once the Herrscher has been dealt with, I don't mind having a thorough conversation with you."
She wasn't about to take anyone's word at face value just because they appeared out of nowhere — even if what they said might be true. It still needed to be verified.
"Ah — I really was a bit too by-the-book back then."
Seeing Durandal's response, Little Bianca gave a mildly exasperated smile. "Well then — since the opportunity has presented itself, let's have a sparring match."
"A chance to actually fight your true self in a battle trial — that's pretty much unprecedented, wouldn't you say?"
"..."
Durandal said nothing. She answered in action instead — raising Weltende and driving it forward with full force.
CLANG—!
The grating ring of steel on steel filled the air. Weltende and Luminous Flux met head-on, the shafts of both knight lances locked in contact, each straining to overwhelm the other.
Then, by a small margin, Durandal began to gain the upper hand.
"Ugh, the physical strength gap is a bit too obvious."
[Then let's crack it open a little.]
Daylight's young, breezy voice drifted up quietly from somewhere in her mind.
[Crack it open? What?]
Bianca blinked in confusion.
[The Star Ring, silly～]
The Star Ring — expressed in-game as a certain mechanic, but in reality a special kind of power. The incarnation of the starry sky. The final aria of heaven and earth.
[Other me — do you have the Star Ring?]
Bianca recalled her experience carrying out a mission inside the Mars system long ago, and following the memory, she opened it —
"Crimson heart, will unwavering!"
The breathtaking, mysterious radiance of the starry sky suffused Little Bianca's body. With unstoppable force, the balance of the struggle shattered in an instant.
"What — what IS that?!"
The shriek of Honkalloy grinding against itself exploded through the air. Durandal was launched backwards, and stared in stunned disbelief at the golden-haired little girl — standing on a hoverboard, two lances orbiting her on either side.
"Queen——!"
A great white phantom manifested before Durandal in an instant, spreading a translucent barrier of light — but in the very next second, that transparent shield shattered like glass at the first crisp crack of the azure lance catching up behind it.
How did she know where the shield's weak point was?
And that strange power of hers?
White-and-blue entwined with the starry-sky azure — twin meteors — carved brilliant, lethal arcs across the heavens in a relentless series of collisions.
On the back foot, Durandal bit her lip.
She had suspected, until moments ago, that the figure across from her was a clone Otto had secretly cultivated using her own genes.
But now, that notion was gone.
This opponent's combat experience didn't just exceed hers — it crushed it. And she had intimate, precise knowledge of every quirk, every habit, every weakness of the Moonrage Armor and Durandal's fighting style.
Was she really a future version of herself?
While Durandal and Bianca were getting closely acquainted with each other —
In the adjacent stretch of ocean, a radius of several kilometers centered on Wendy had been filled to the brim with surging Honkai energy. A sacred cyan tornado raged straight into the heavens, punching through the cloud canopy.
"AHAHAHAHA!"
Wild and unfettered — a smile belonging only to the Wind element, pure and unrestrained — appeared on the Herrscher girl spinning inside the funnel cloud. Wendy felt her entire body brimming with power.
In this moment, her spirits soared without limit. All the resentment, rage, and other dark emotions she had been accumulating over months of experiments, whispered judgments, mockery, and betrayal erupted at once, unleashed by her Herrscher ascension.
"A bunch of hypocrites — I'm going to kill every last one of those researchers and Valkyries! Hehe, HAHAHAHAHAHA!"
Bone-deep madness swirled in her jade-green eyes as Wendy laughed her unhinged laughter.
"Vayu!"
At the girl's cry, the presence high above the heavens churned the dense cloud layers.
It was as though a predator from the apex of the Jurassic era had descended — its vast body built from carapace-like plates in sleek, streamlined forms, its surface shimmering like translucent green tourmaline, its wings shaped like enormous curved blades.
Having received the nourishment that the Third Eruption had denied her, the Herrscher of Wind had not only developed splendidly — she had birthed, from within the Great Eruption, a Judgment-class Honkai Beast entirely her own.
"Hey, hey! You said you could keep her self-awareness intact! She's clearly lost her mind here!"
Tesla's voice blared through the comms.
"Don't be hasty. Wendy is a good girl. I'll go have a little talk with her — she'll definitely come back to herself."
Silver Wing glanced at the puffer-fish Kiana-cat inflating herself and hollering "Come down here and fight!", then shook her head and raised one hand to summon Project Bunny. She settled onto the steel giant's shoulder; its massive arm rose like a rampart, shielding her against the raging wind.
"Wendy! Stop — if this keeps up, it'll trigger a massive tsunami and flood the entire New Zealand coastline."
At the sound of Silver Wing's voice, the black-and-green-haired girl froze in place. The wild, frenzied laughter on her face began to shift — flickering back and forth between quiet compliance and full-blown madness.
"Silver Wing sis… No, I can't — I can't make Silver Wing sis sad…"
"Don't come near me! Silver Wing sis! I don't want to…"
"Kill — kill all those hypocrites!"
Wendy clutched her head, as if locked in a struggle against some other will.
"Your so-called method isn't just talking to her and hoping for the best, is it?"
Tesla's composure was beginning to buckle.
"Do you believe — do you believe that little Wendy's feelings for Silver Wing are strong enough to let her find her own consciousness again? Come on — you can do it!"
Woven from love and the gathering of flowers and birds, Miss Fairy watched the scene with a look of quiet revelation, and began cheering for Wendy and Silver Wing alike.
Silver Wing gave Elysia a sideways glance.
Love, hope, and bonds — the classical story beats were certainly the proper development for a tale like Honkai. But her own core was that of someone from the real world.
She didn't much believe in that sort of thing anymore.
"Dr. Tesla — I have always been most persuasive when reasoning with people."
Silver Wing reached into her system storage space and pulled out a Tiger Talisman inscribed with two tigers, then tossed it casually to Project Bunny. Like a Super Saiyan mid-second-stage power surge, crackling lightning wreathed Project Bunny's arm.
She hurled the talisman outward with full force — a small meteor streaking across the sky, flying toward —
"Wendy!"
Silver Wing called out again. In the brief window when Wendy was taken hold of by the call of "Silver Wing sis," the Tiger Talisman landed with pinpoint accuracy on that snow-white nape — a match for Seele's own.
In the Herrscher of Wind's momentarily dazed expression, white light bloomed.
A split.
Into two silhouettes — identical in every detail.
"Huh?"
Inside the airship, Tesla — seated in her chair — slammed both palms on the table and shot to her feet with a loud thwack, staring wide-eyed at the screen:
"What did you just do?! The Herrscher split into two?!"
"Wow~ Now that was genuinely unexpected. Silver Wing always has a way of surprising people, doesn't she."
The wild wind lifted that beautiful, flowing fall of pink hair as Elysia blinked and slowly lowered the crystal bow adorned with a hundred flowers.
"Those two Herrschers…"
Standing at the top of the airship, Sakura's palm rested on Frozen Naraka, as though she could draw it at any moment.
Trained as an assassin in the Swallowtail Squad, she had honed sharp perceptive instincts — and the Yaksha MANTIS factors she had fused with further heightened her sensitivity to auras and presences.
She could sense the two Herrschers' differences with reasonable clarity.
One: gentle, quiet, strong, and well-meaning — Wendy the Valkyrie.
The other: wearing a vicious smile, her malice and hatred toward the world utterly unconcealed — the Herrscher of Wind.
"Elysia, Sakura, Wendy, Kiana, Mei — target is the Wendy with the crazy smile."
Silver Wing pinched the Wind Clow Card between two fingers and flicked it out. Its nimble jade-green wind scattered and circulated, flowing to the backs of Kiana, Mei, and herself — condensing into Wind Gliders.
"Let's go have a little talk with her."
Project Bunny shifted into a pseudo-self-destruct state. Invisible waves of energy gathered in the air, coalescing at the junction of Project Bunny's arm — the pitch-dark cannon muzzle blazing with a brilliant torrent of energy, gradually solidifying into a spherical mass that looked almost physical.
The cherry blossom petals on the back of her neck bloomed with radiance — the Counter-God Shrine Maiden had arrived!
BOOM!
Elysia, Sakura, Tesla, and Einstein all wore identical expressions of faint bewilderment.
This is how you reason with someone?
Having witnessed Silver Wing separate Ling and Higyokumaru within Stigmata Space, then use the latter as a training partner, Kiana and Mei asked no questions — they picked up their weapons and charged.
And so did Yae Sakura.
After a brief flash of surprise, Sakura's expression returned to composed focus. She settled into a iai stance, then drew at speeds beyond sight — her whole body vanishing from view along with the blade.
"Frozen Sakura Flash."
A faint keen rang out. The sword-light of Frozen Naraka flickered.
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