"Quiet...!"
Huginn tightened her grip on the orb, her expression and tone betraying her impatience. As the pressure gradually increased, the purple sphere of light caught in the silver-haired girl's "demonic claws" finally settled down and stopped struggling.
"She looks like a Turban snail after the tide goes out..." Kiana muttered under her breath, staring at the now-still purple orb.
"A Turban snail...? How does she look like that? A neon light, maybe."
Snow, failing to grasp Kiana's peculiar train of thought, shot the White-Haired Knight Princess a bewildered look.
"No, really! Snow, have you ever played with Turban snails...?"
"My advice is not to play with your food—" the blonde girl retorted, her lips twitching.
"It's super fun! You can find tons of them on the beach near St. Freya Academy sometimes. You dig them out of the sand, give them a good squeeze, and their water-filled bodies go pssssh as they spray out water and deflate instantly."
"It's super stress-relieving! And don't you think it looks just like the other me right now—"
"Ah... Another strange Kaslana analogy has been added to the collection... Wait! Huginn, what the hell are you doing?!"
Huginn, who had been listening to Kiana's explanation, curiously poked the now-still sphere of light in her hand. Seemingly having made up her mind, she began to squeeze it forcefully, trying to see if she could wring out the so-called "water"... or perhaps Honkai energy?
Sensing her impending doom, the Second Herrscher's consciousness immediately began to struggle frantically, attempting to escape the silver-haired monster's Honkai-energy-squeezing assault.
"My Lord, um... I just wanted to test Miss Kiana's theory. It sounded quite interesting..."
Huginn tilted her head, her face a mask of innocence, but her grip didn't loosen in the slightest. Her posture screamed, If you don't spray water today, I'm never letting go.
"Kiddo, stop squeezing. A Herrscher isn't a snail. No matter how hard you squeeze, you won't get any water out. The most we could probably wring out is a pile of Honkai energy."
"Understood, My Lady—"
Then Huginn squeezed even harder...
"...I already told you there's no more water to squeeze out! Are you seriously trying to wring Honkai energy from it now???"
Snow glanced at Kiana beside her, who was watching with rapt curiosity, eager to see if Honkai energy could actually be squeezed out of the Herrscher Consciousness. Snow suspected the White-haired Clump had activated some bizarre aura that was assimilating her own Apostle.
The goofiness... it might be highly contagious.
"Lady Snow... rationally speaking, the human body is over seventy percent water. That's why I enjoy squeezing Turban snails, which have a similarly high water content—"
"So, as Apostles of God, our bodies are over seventy percent Honkai energy. Therefore, squeezing a Herrscher Consciousness, which also has a high Honkai energy content, should be perfectly fine, right?"
Oh no. It's not just the goofiness that's spreading—it's the bizarre thought process too.
"Stop squeezing it! Turban snails are food. Is this thing in your hand food?"
"Hmm... It doesn't seem entirely inedible? In the island nations of the Far East, they call it... sashimi..."
Huginn tilted her head, still clutching the purple sphere. She hesitantly poked her own lips with her left index finger.
The listless purple orb in Huginn's grasp had been about to erupt in fury when Snow called it a "thing." It was just about to leap up and fight this golden-haired "human" to the death when it heard the even more terrifying suggestion. It immediately shrank back, playing dead in silence.
"Don't eat me, don't eat me! I've been dead for sixteen years—I'm not fresh! You'll get diarrhea if you eat me!"
Oh no, another one's been infected.
"Stop playing with your food... Ptooey, ptooey, what am I saying? No eating your own kind! Kid, what kind of barbarian are you?"
"Mmm... fine—"
Huginn seemed to lose interest in squeezing the Herrscher Consciousness out of the Honkai energy. She relaxed her grip on the purple sphere.
"So... My Lady, where should we put her?"
Tossing the humble, silent, and motionless Second Herrscher Consciousness up and down, Huginn awaited her Sire's answer.
"How about we stuff her in a Turban snail? Then we can squeeze water out of it for fun—"
Muninn, having finished her "Abba-abba" routine, poked her head out, her eyes gleaming with a peculiar sort of anticipation.
"Stop playing with your food... Wait, what is it with you people and Turban snail?!"
Splat—
A jet of water sprayed onto Miss Snow's hair. The blonde girl stiffly turned her head. The only other responsible adult present—Mr. Welt Joyce—was currently hunched over, squeezing a turban snail he had either constructed or picked up from the sea.
"...Mr. Joyce, you've started too, haven't you?"
"Ah...? Sorry, sorry. Um... I'd never seen this kind of creature before. Miss Kiana's description made me curious, so I constructed it on a whim."
The young man smiled sheepishly and handed the girl a towel to dry her soaked hair.
"Enough fooling around. If you want to play with turban snails, go find a beach and have your fun there. Huginn, hand me that idiot Herrscher's consciousness—"
The blonde girl pulled out a chibi doll identical in appearance to the Second Herrscher, Sirin.
"They say... only when a person is stripped of their freedom can they truly understand themselves..."
"I wonder... how well do you understand yourself...?"
Taking the Herrscher Consciousness from the silver-haired girl, the blonde began to knead it into the doll...
"Second Herrscher Sirin, war criminal—crimes against humanity, crimes against society, waging war, attempted genocide—"
As the blonde girl spoke, the Second Herrscher's consciousness gradually merged with the doll's body. Its tightly shut eyes began to slowly flutter open...
"Today, you are released from prison... but you will soon understand... freedom comes at a price—"
"This body... will be your new cell—"
As the blonde girl's words faded, the purple-haired Sirin doll's eyes snapped fully open—
-
"I might as well be dead..."
Having gained "freedom" and a new body, the Second Herrscher voiced her first thought. She felt her current existence was no different from that yellow-painted mechanical dog from the other franchise—the one with the giant, colorful speaker strapped to its back.
"And how long are you going to keep choking me—"
Doll Sirin glared up at Snow, who was holding her aloft by the neck.
"...Someone is trying to strangle a doll and make it suffocate, but I won't say who she is—"
Doll Sirin stared at the blonde girl with a deadpan, kitten-like scowl... then she felt a flicker of unease...
"G-G-G... Great God?!?!"
"Ah, that's me, little one. How are you feeling?"
"Oh, and I'm not trying to strangle you—"
"I was just curious why you Herrschers are always so fond of choking people—so I thought I'd give it a try myself."