In Siberian Snowfields, Babylon Tower.
"What a shame… I'm twenty days too late."
Shimmering ice-blue particles drifted around Nagami and C.C., outlining the intricate patterns etched into his coat and her dress.
High above the frozen earth, ten thousand meters in the air, the furious winds whipped at their clothes.
C.C.'s immaculate green hair streamed wildly, her Herrscher garb rippling like water.
Her golden eyes stared into the far horizon—yet reflected within her pupils were images of landscapes dozens of kilometers away.
It was a skill taken from the Spider's world.
And with the level of knowledge and power Nagami now commanded, he had already refined it into something greater.
With this "Clairvoyance," they could literally see a thousand li away.
"…Now, let's find her. Gray hair, Roman curls…" Nagami murmured, activating the same ability to search.
Though time-based powers were nearly invincible in their own way—Kurumi's 12th bullet could prevent countless tragedies, but recklessly tampering with time itself was dangerous to the world.
At least, dangerous for Nagami as he was now.
The "Fated One's" gift allowed him to blend powers across worlds, but it didn't change the world's laws—it changed his.
Honkai's world wasn't structured like Date A Live's. Who knew what chain reaction might come from crossing timelines too often?
So, when he left the Second Eruption, he couldn't risk returning again.
Once was enough.
For now, he would play it safe.
Originally, his goal had been to bring back one "mother-in-law."
But after rereading the manga carefully, Nagami realized—there was another one he needed to save.
Yes. He was searching for Bronya's mother.
As for Bronya's father… if Nagami had arrived twenty days earlier, he could have saved him too.
But there were no "ifs" in this world.
The man had been a true warrior, shielding his wife and unborn child with everything he had.
Yet, in this world, there was only so much an ordinary human could achieve.
The Second Eruption's devastation could never be summed up by the word "tragedy" alone.
It fractured nations, threw governments into chaos, left countless children homeless.
And those children… most were seized by the military, molded into cold, unfeeling weapons.
Bronya was one of them.
The name Silver Wolf of the Urals carried weight—but that weight was equal to the suffering Bronya bore.
Before she learned to hold a fork, she had already learned to hold a gun.
Nagami didn't know when or where Bronya's mother had died.
What he knew for certain was that she hadn't lived long enough to raise her.
That was why Bronya grew up never knowing what "emotion" even meant—until Seele entered her life.
No mother wishes to leave her child.
No child wishes to lose their mother. But reality is merciless.
This time, however, things would be different.
Nagami wasn't a god, and even Miss Honkai herself couldn't do everything.
But he would do everything in his power to prevent as many tragedies as possible.
For Bronya, suddenly meeting her real mother might be strange.
But she would never reject her. Never.
And Nagami was certain—this mother-in-law would be a hundred times better than the detestable Kokolia.
The evacuation routes in Siberia had been mapped by Anti-Entropy: only a handful of roads, but they connected every major population center. With Schicksal's help, the process moved quickly.
Nagami had asked Welt to help search for Bronya's mother during the evacuation.
But there was a one problem.
He didn't know her name.
In the manga, Bronya's mother's name had never once appeared.
All Nagami had to go on was gray hair—and maybe Roman curls. That was it.
Welt had stared at him, utterly deadpan. "Gray hair? That's your search criteria? Half the women in Russia have gray hair!"
Still, annoyance was annoyance—but duty was duty.
Since the request came from the so-called "savior from the future," Welt carried it out.
Unfortunately, by the time the majority of Siberia's population had already been evacuated, no report had surfaced.
So, as soon as Nagami unleashed the three hundred thousand Delisha-type Honkai beasts, he left the Imaginary Space and began a full sweep of Siberia himself.
He had to find this mother-in-law before the day ended.
C.C. reached out, laying her slender, pale hand on his head, gently rubbing.
The blanket-search was a brutal drain on his spirit.
But if it meant Bronya could one day smile more often… then it was worth it.
"Oh!"
Nagami and C.C. simultaneously lifted their heads, instantly turning toward a certain direction.
A smile of relief tugged at their lips.
"Found it!"
C.C. stopped moving her right hand, which had been casually massaging her temple, and snapped her fingers.
In that instant, a Gate of Imaginary Numbers appeared.
Nagami stepped into it without hesitation.
"Well then, it's time for the final act of the Second Eruption!"
Her slender fingers met, another sharp snap ringing out.
At the center of Babel Tower, a torrent of Honkai energy burst forth from the Imaginary Space, like a tidal wave sweeping across thousands of miles, as though the calm surface of the sea had been shattered into raging storms.
From within the gate crackling with blue arcs of electricity, an endless horde of Honkai beasts surged out—like huskies finally unleashed from their leashes.
Tens of thousands of intelligent, glowing eyes bore down on them.
Even C.C. dared not stare at them for long; the mental pressure alone was terrifying, the spiritual damage far surpassing what the original Second Eruption had ever inflicted.
A faint smile curled on her lips.
The green-haired girl's figure dissolved into countless icy-blue particles of light.
Those radiant fragments shifted and reshaped, taking the form of a smaller, more delicate body.
A pair of golden, cross-shaped eyes slowly opened.
Flowing like a waterfall, her long purple hair cascaded down to her ankles.
The star of the Second Eruption—
The Queen of the Void, Sirin— had returned!
"…That blonde woman… it really is Cocolia."
Stepping out from the freshly opened Imaginary Gate, Nagami gazed down at the snow-covered plains, where an off-road vehicle sped across the white landscape.
In the driver's seat sat the stern blonde in military uniform.
In the passenger's seat, a gray-haired woman with twin Roman curls.
A hexagram flashed across Nagami's pitch-black pupils. Analysis complete.
No wonder Duck [Bronya] would grow so strong eight years later… so it was genetic after all.
…Ahem, but that wasn't the point!
The point was—within that gray-haired woman's belly, a child would be born eight months from now.
Nagami could already sense it—the faint but unmistakably pure soul within her.
There was no way he could have gotten the wrong person.
What troubled Nagami, however, was that in order to preserve the established future, Bronya's tragic childhood could not be avoided.
Still… without that childhood, she might never have met Seele.
Stepping into another newly opened gate, Nagami reappeared—this time, in the back seat of the off-road vehicle.
"What—?!"
The words cut off abruptly, like a television suddenly switching off.
The raised pistol was lowered back down.
Cocolia acted as though nothing had happened, eyes fixed ahead as she calmly continued driving.
That, of course, was the power of the Herrscher of Sentience.
But the gray-haired woman in the passenger seat suddenly widened her eyes—eyes identical to Bronya's.
Her face went pale, her expression panicked as she stared at Nagami, who had appeared out of nowhere, as if she'd just seen a ghost.
Though she had a decent resistance to Honkai energy, Bronya's mother was no Valkyrie warrior—just an ordinary woman by comparison.
At this moment, her body was trembling with fear, eyes full of wariness as she glanced between the boy in the back seat and the unbothered Cocolia.
Beads of cold sweat rolled down her pale cheeks.
And then, in the next second, her fear was shattered.
"Please don't be afraid. I'm here to help you, Mother-in-law."
Nagami's gentle smile and warm tone left the gray-haired woman completely dumbfounded.
"But first… could you tell me your name?"
"…???"
Her mind filled with question marks, the gray-haired woman could only point at herself in confusion, eyes darting toward the black-haired boy for confirmation.
He nodded.
Still bewildered, she instinctively answered.
"M-my name is… Alexandra Zaychik…"
"Pfft—! Cough, cough, cough!!"
Completely blindsided by that response, Nagami nearly choked on his own breath.
"Alexandra?!!"
His shocked outcry was so loud it almost blew the roof off the car.
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