The ground shook violently as Reina's "Atheism" barrier glowed brightly, cocooning her, Kiana, and Mei in its protective light.
Outside, Nagazora City descended into chaos. Screams tore through the air, raw and desperate, as people ran in every direction, their faces twisted in panic. The mushroom clouds loomed larger, casting an eerie red glow over the seaside, while thick smoke choked the sky.
Men staggered through the streets, clutching their bodies as glowing purple lines spread across their skin like veins of poison. Honkai radiation infected them fast, their eyes wide with pain, some collapsing to their knees, gasping. Unlike women, men had no natural resistance to Honkai, and the energy consumed them without mercy.
Even children weren't spared. Young boys cried out, their small bodies trembling as the same purple lines crawled over their arms and faces, their parents screaming helplessly nearby. The air buzzed with a sickening hum, the Honkai energy twisting the world around them.
Near Reina's barrier, a crowd of people noticed the three girls standing unharmed inside the glowing shield. Desperate, some rushed forward, pounding their fists against the barrier's surface, their hands leaving smudges of sweat and blood. Their eyes begged for safety, but the barrier held firm, unmoving, as the chaos grew worse beyond its shimmering colors.
Mei and Kiana said nothing as they watched people outside the barrier die or writhe in pain with purple lines of Honkai radiation crawling over their bodies. They were in shock. Just seconds ago everything was peaceful but now it was like hell on earth.
"What is this? What happened?" Kiana finally said with her voice shaky as people collapsed right in front of the barrier with their hands clawing weakly at it.
Mei snapped out of her daze and ran toward the fallen people. The barrier stopped her from reaching them. She slammed her fists against it. "Reina remove the barrier! We need to save them!" she shouted while pounding harder.
"Right Reina! Open it! We can still save them!" Kiana added while turning to Reina on her left.
"Reina?" Kiana's voice broke. She saw something new on Reina's face.
Reina's eyes were wide with her expression pure shock. Kiana even saw Reina biting her fingers with her body tense. "This doesn't make sense" she muttered. "She hasn't framed Ryoma yet but she's already nuked the city? My plans were wrong? Impossible! I planned everything! She was supposed to start with framing Ryoma. How is this happening?"
Reina kept muttering with her mind spinning. She had planned every step since arriving in this world but this chaos wasn't in her calculations. Everything was falling apart.
"[Huh I never seen her like this before]" Sora said as she could see everything through Kiana's eyes.
"Sora it's not the time! Reeiinaaaa wake up!" Kiana shouted shaking Reina's shoulder to snap her out of her daze.
But Reina stayed lost in thought completely ignoring Kiana's efforts. With no time to waste Kiana decided she had to do something drastic.
"Sorry about this!" she said and slapped Reina hard. The sound echoed so loud even Mei heard it.
"Wha-?" Mei turned around confused by the sharp noise.
The slap worked. Reina blinked awake from her thoughts and looked at Kiana.
"Reina I don't know what you're thinking or why you're acting like this but now's not the time" Kiana said urgently. "We need to do something!"
"Ah I see you're right" Reina muttered. "I can think about this later but for now..." She looked around at the chaos.
The situation was worse than she thought. Honkai infection spread so fast people were turning into zombies in minutes their bodies twisting with purple lines.
"Reina you can save them right? You can absorb their Honkai energy?" Mei asked her voice desperate.
"I'm sorry but I can't" Reina said her voice heavy with regret. "If the infection was still early I could help. But it's moving too fast. If I absorb it now their bodies are already changing. They'd still die."
"What? That can't be!" Kiana said shocked. "What do we do then?"
Reina closed her eyes thinking fast. This time she wouldn't rely on game knowledge but on what she knew about Honkai from Sora as Herrscher of Void and Mei as Herrscher of Thunder.
She couldn't control Honkai energy except by absorbing it and her experiments were still unstable. She didn't want to risk starting a Honkai outbreak by mistake.
But the outbreak was already here. There was only one thing left to do even if it meant revealing herself to the world.
Revealing herself to the world is gonna make everything complicated for her, but she already planned to save Nagazora City since the beginning. She doesn't want to see what happened in the game happened here.
"There's nothing I can do for these people right now" Reina said looking at Kiana and Mei. "But I need you two to do something for me."
"Us?" Kiana and Mei asked at the same time.
Reina explained her plan to Kiana and Mei for a few minutes while preparing to leave.
"What? Are you serious? That's... how can you be sure that'll work?" Kiana said in shock. She didn't expect Reina to come up with such a wild plan.
"Reina... is there another way?" Mei asked, her voice full of worry. "I'm scared something bad will happen to you if you do this." The plan sounded insane to her.
"Don't worry about me" Reina said firmly. "I need you two to focus on the city. Also if you see Siegfried tell him about this okay? I can sense he's near the city. I'm sure he'll come back after seeing the explosions." She raised her right hand to the side.
"Come" she said. With that one word cracks appeared in the air beside her. Reality shattered opening a gate to her Zero Dimension.
Instead of stepping inside something floated out. It was one of the cocoons that had been drifting in there for a long time.
The cocoon glided toward Reina stopping inches from her right hand. It began glowing so brightly that Kiana and Mei had to close their eyes.
The cocoon shrank forming the shape of an uchigatana. When the light faded a complete uchigatana dropped into Reina's hand.
"It's been a while..." Reina said softly to the weapon she held. Then she tossed it to Mei.
"Here Mei."
"Eh?" Mei caught the weapon quickly.
Holding it Mei could feel it wasn't an ordinary uchigatana. It was powerful with intense energy pulsing inside.
"Use that to fight the Honkai" Reina said. "I'm sure an Emperor-class beast will show up with this much Honkai radiation."
"What kind of uchigatana is this?" Mei asked staring at it.
"It's a weapon my original self replicated when he met them" Reina explained. "I made another copy when I came to this world. You can call it Yamato."
"Yamato... that's a great name" Mei said gazing at the blade in her hands.
"Alright we need to hurry!" Kiana said suddenly reminding them time was running out. "When do we start?"
"Remember what I told you two. I'll be back as soon as I can. Also Kiana you can remove the bracelet. This city's way too big for just the two of you" Reina said before stepping into the portal to the Zero Dimension.
"Leave it to us" Kiana said as the portal closed leaving her and Mei alone.
Kiana turned to Mei who was still inspecting the Yamato. "You ready Mei?"
Mei looked up her eyes meeting Kiana's. "I'm not sure... This is my first time doing this but I'll do everything I can to save this city" she said her face full of determination.
"Hehe so this is gonna be your first time being a hero?" Kiana grinned. "Then let me teach you how to be a hero~" She reached for her bracelet and made it vanish.
"Alright Sora let's do this!"
"[Fine fine just do it already]" Sora replied in Kiana's head.
Kiana took a deep breath, her body starting to glow. Her twin braids unraveled, her hair loosening into smooth long strands flowing down her back.
Her casual clothes, meant for a fun day out, shimmered and shifted into her Herrscher of Void form.
Her blue eyes turned bright yellow, glowing with power. Thanks to a year of training with Reina, Kiana transformed effortlessly, her control over her Honkai energy now sharp and precise.
Mei closed her eyes, focusing on her core. Unlike Kiana, she wasn't used to transforming yet, having only managed it a month ago.
Her clothes began to glow, morphing into her Herrscher of Thunder outfit. Her eyes gained hot pink pupils, and dark red horns, fading to bright red, sprouted from her head. Her hair grew longer, parting in the middle into two flowing sections.
But then lightning crackled around her body as she struggled to hold her power. The ground beneath her cracked and crumbled under the pressure of her energy.
She bit her lip, frowning, fighting hard to control her energy. When suddenly she felt something soft grip her left hand.
"It's okay Mei, just let it flow inside your body" Kiana said gently, squeezing her hand. "Don't hold it back. It's your power, so it'll follow your command, not the other way around."
Mei nodded, taking Kiana's advice. She let the Honkai energy flow freely through her. Slowly, the wild lightning around her faded, and her transformation completed. She opened her eyes, exhaling a steady breath.
"Nice! Now let's start!" Kiana said, touching Reina's barrier. It shattered instantly, revealing both of them to the chaotic world outside.
Seeing the chaos outside, with people writhing and transforming under the Honkai radiation, Kiana and Mei felt sadness and anger burning inside them. But they had their goal: to save everyone.
"I'm gonna prepare myself" Kiana said. "Mei, I leave the fight to you."
"Leave the Honkai beasts to me" Mei replied, gripping Yamato's handle. She channeled her Honkai energy into the sword, and it began to change. The blade turned purple, the handle black with red lines curling around it, adapting to her power.
Kiana leapt into action, jumping higher and higher into the sky, her glowing yellow eyes fixed on her target. She left Mei standing alone, surrounded by people now turning into Honkai zombies, their purple-lined bodies lurching toward her.
Mei looked around her eyes flaring with lightning. The zombies had fully transformed their faces twisted with glowing purple veins. They growled low and menacing then charged at her their claw-like hands slashing the air. As a Herrscher who betrayed the Cocoon of Finality every Honkai beast targeted her as an enemy.
Mei kept Yamato in its scabbard. She didn't want to kill them just stop them. Her heart pounded but her training took over. She spun the sheathed sword in her hands moving like a dancer. A zombie lunged and she sidestepped hitting its head with Yamato's scabbard. It crumpled to the ground unconscious.
Another rushed from her left. Mei ducked low sweeping its legs with a quick martial arts kick. As it fell she slammed the sheathed Yamato into its chest knocking the breath out and leaving it still. Three more zombies came at her from all sides. She twirled her sword like a staff blocking their claws then jabbed each one in the stomach with fast sharp strikes. They stumbled back collapsing in a heap.
Lightning sparked faintly around her as she moved faster. Her kendo stance was flawless mixing with martial arts grace. A zombie grabbed at her arm but she twisted free smashing the scabbard against its temple. Another leapt from behind and she spun kicking it hard in the jaw sending it crashing into the others. Mei stood tall her breathing steady Yamato still sheathed with zombies lying around her groaning but alive.
Unfortunately for Mei her efforts were only temporary. The zombies stood back up their twisted bodies moving despite her blows since they felt no pain.
Worse yet Honkai beasts started appearing. Flying Seraph-class beasts looking like twisted birds with sharp claws swooped down from the sky. At the same time Chariot-class beasts bulky and armored charged in with their heavy steps shaking the ground. Mei was surrounded by a swarm of Honkai beasts and zombies.
"This is harder than I expected..." Mei said to herself her voice steady but tense.
The plan hadn't changed. She wouldn't kill the people that turned into zombies until Kiana was ready. Her focus was on taking down the Honkai beasts.
"Haaahhhhh" Mei exhaled deeply. She began to unsheathe Yamato as red lightning crackling around her body as her Herrscher power surged.