After Welt left, Siegfried sat in the lounge for a long while.
The paper cup beside the coffee machine had gone stone cold, a film of oil floating on the dark brown surface.
He didn't drink it.
The intel Welt had dumped on him tonight was too much, and far too heavy.
Honkai. The end of the world.
A six-month countdown to extinction.
A Herrscher from another world.
A lunatic game producer treating an anime game as a weapon to save mankind.
And… that girl with the conspicuous white hair and eyes as stubborn as a young calf's. Kiana.
Welt said she came from a parallel world different from this one.
In that world, his own superior was still that old fox Otto.
Except there, Otto was a madman willing to drag the entire world into chaos and ruin just to resurrect the woman he loved.
Cecilia had been one link in that madman's Project Sacred Blood.
And his own union with Cecilia had likewise been arranged by that madman, all to manufacture the strongest possible warrior.
And the crucial part.
Because of Otto Apocalypse, Cecilia had stayed behind forever on the battlefield of the Second Honkai War.
Even though, to Siegfried, it was nothing more than another life experience, something close to a story.
The moment he heard that Cecilia had died in battle, his fist clenched on its own and his breathing turned ragged.
He couldn't imagine it. He refused to imagine it — how a version of himself who had lost Cecilia was supposed to go on living.
And that girl called Kiana, how had she managed, growing up without a mother…
But what came next hurt so much it left Siegfried unable to breathe.
The Kiana Kaslana who had stood in front of him earlier wasn't actually his and Cecilia's daughter.
She was a clone of their daughter, the product of one of Otto's deranged schemes.
According to Welt, in that world Siegfried had broken into a Schicksal laboratory together with the young real Kiana, and carried off the test subject designated K423.
The real Kiana had innocently taken K423 for her little sister, and Siegfried had fled with the two of them, only to be intercepted by Schicksal along the way.
In the end the plane went down. Siegfried only had time to shield K423, while his true daughter fell from that height, her fate unknown.
Hearing that, the old man nearly lost his grip on himself.
He had lost the wife he loved, and then the daughter he loved.
He truly couldn't imagine the depth of despair and pain that other Siegfried had lived through.
And what choked him even harder was this.
The real Kiana hadn't died, but she lost her memories because of the fall, and by some cruel twist of fate she ended up becoming an S-rank Valkyrie of Schicksal.
Her teacher was even Otto Apocalypse himself — the man who had destroyed her family.
Fate really does love to toy with people.
And that girl designated K423 was a terrifying Herrscher vessel, yet she was also the only family Siegfried had left in that world.
He gave K423 the name Kiana Kaslana. But a peaceful life was never meant for Siegfried, nor for Kiana.
In 2010, while they were on the run, the Herrscher of the Void consciousness inside Kiana suddenly awoke and went berserk.
To suppress that consciousness, to keep Kiana from becoming a monster that would destroy the world, Siegfried was forced to draw the life-burning Divine Key, Judgment of Shamash, and fight his own daughter to the death.
In that battle Siegfried succeeded in sealing the Herrscher of the Void, but the price was his left arm, gone forever.
Siegfried was Schicksal's most wanted fugitive, a defector who had taken a Divine Key with him, and Otto's hunters never stopped coming.
After that battle he understood something: as long as he stayed at Kiana's side, she would live nothing but a life of hiding and running, never sure of tomorrow, and could be hauled back to the laboratory by Otto at any moment.
So he chose to leave alone, to draw all of Schicksal's attention and every last hunter onto himself, using his own life as bait.
The fate of the Kaslana bloodline was to be sacrificed for the salvation of humanity.
Siegfried didn't want that poor girl carrying such a crushing destiny.
He left her behind, hoping that without a hazard named "Siegfried" hanging over her, she could live under another name and have the ordinary life an ordinary girl deserved.
It didn't work out that way. She wandered anyway, and eventually joined St. Freya.
She finally found companions and spent the happiest stretch of her life with them — and then, because of Otto Apocalypse, not only was her body taken from her by the Herrscher of the Void.
Even the teacher she respected most, Murata Himeko, died in battle trying to wake her.
Kiana herself bore double torment, mind and body, forced to dodge Schicksal's hunters while drifting from place to place.
And Welt had told Siegfried that if Kiana hadn't met Su Yu, she probably wouldn't have endured the Herrscher's torture any longer — she'd have put a bullet in her own head to spare that world from being hurt again.
No. To be precise, Kiana had actually ended her own life, and Su Yu and that mysterious System had dragged her back from it by force.
When Siegfried heard that, the paper cup crumpled in his hand.
Welt hadn't said much more.
He'd only pushed his glasses up, handed back Kevin's neatly folded coat, and left.
It was past three in the morning now.
Siegfried stood on the rooftop of the Anti-Entropy Tower.
The downpour had stopped, but the wind hadn't.
The damp air carried that smell Arc City only had after midnight — asphalt, storm drains, the twenty-four-hour ramen shop in the distance, every odor blending together and riding the wind upward.
All of it mixed into one and slapped without mercy against his stubbled face.
He fished a cigarette out of his leather jacket pocket and had to strike the lighter three times before it caught.
The lighter was a birthday gift from Kevin last year, a silver Zippo with a line of small text engraved on the lid. Siegfried turned it over and glanced at it: Smoke less.
He drew the first mouthful into his lungs and let it out slowly.
The white smoke was shredded by the wind and scattered past the rooftop railing.
Across the way, the lights on the top floor of the Arc City Tower were still burning.
Kevin was still lying in the recovery pod underground, all his readings stable.
As for Kiana… that loud, brash brat was probably sprawled out across the couch by now, dead asleep — or tiptoeing around the kitchen, raiding the freezer for dumplings.
Siegfried looked at those lights, the cigarette pinched between his index and middle fingers, elbows propped on the railing.
His son was in there.
And so was a daughter from another world who had swallowed more suffering than anyone should.
With his free hand he pulled a sheet of A4 paper out of his shirt pocket, folded over several times, and unfolded it bit by bit under the rooftop's pallid emergency lights.
It was the paternity test report Theresa had shoved on him. The printed characters had blurred where rain and sweat had soaked through.
But in the conclusion column, those words — Biological father-daughter relationship confirmed — still stung his eyes until they ached.
Siegfried knew perfectly well that the report wasn't real. He and Kiana were people from two different worlds; he didn't have the powerful genes that the Kaslana of that other world had.
So there was no way they were truly, biologically, father and daughter.
But did that even matter anymore?
Whether or not she was born of this universe, whether that damned report was genuine or forged.
When that girl stood there tonight, white hair whipping loose in the wind and rain.
When she glared at him with those blue eyes that looked so much like Cecilia's, one hand planted on her hip, jabbing a finger at his nose like some pint-sized adult and snapping, "Hey, old man, what are you moping about!"…
Siegfried took a hard drag, the ember flaring and dimming violently in the dark.
He freed his rough right hand and scrubbed it savagely over his face, trying to grind that softness out of himself.
He had spent over twenty years as an S-rank Schicksal agent.
He'd played the part of a polished diplomat, an arms dealer reeking of money, a slick underground casino manager — and for one deep-cover assignment, he'd spent three months as a cook at a bilingual kindergarten.
The skill he was proudest of, and the one that shamed him most, was keeping everyone in the dark with lies without his heartbeat ticking up a single beat.
And what he had to do now was no different from the last twenty years.
Keep everyone, absolutely, in the dark.
Schicksal could not learn the truth about the Honkai.
If that old fox Otto caught the scent of the apocalypse, his first instinct wouldn't be to save the world. It would be to drag Kiana and Kevin back and use them as experimental material.
And there was Cecilia.
Cecilia absolutely could not find out about the mess happening in Arc City.
She was one of Schicksal's strongest S-rank combatants, and the only weak spot Siegfried had in this life.
If she learned that her son, and a girl who looked exactly like her own daughter, were standing on a doomsday bomb with six months left on the timer… what would she do?
Siegfried knew his wife far too well.
She would smile, hang up the phone at once, dump every S-rank mission on her plate, and buy a seat on the nearest stealth jet.
And then she would gently cleave in half everything standing between her and her children — whether that was a Honkai Emperor, a Spatial Rift.
Or Siegfried himself, the man trying to hide the truth.
And most crucial of all.
He had seen a Honkai Beast with his own eyes. That was not something humans could handle. Not even Cecilia.
The Cecilia of the Honkai world was an S-rank Valkyrie.
But the Cecilia of this world had no Sacred Blood, no Stigmata.
More to the point — that story Welt had told him. The story where Cecilia left him and their daughter behind first.
It twisted in his chest like a knife.
He could never let that happen.
So he couldn't tell her.
The weight of a collapsing sky had to be carried by him alone — an inadequate father, an inadequate husband — and he had to hold it up without letting go.
Siegfried crushed the cigarette, burned down to the filter, against the cold iron railing. It left an ugly black scorch mark on the metal.
He pulled out his custom encrypted phone and flicked practiced fingers to the very bottom of his contact list.
There sat a number with no name attached, just a string of digits that looked like garbled code.
The absolutely secure direct line to Schicksal's supreme commander, Otto Apocalypse.
Siegfried stared at that string for five seconds, then dialed.
"Beep—"
It rang once before the other end picked up.
No "hello," no "good evening." Otto never wasted time on that sort of thing.
"Siegfried." The voice on the line was perfectly steady. "You rarely call at this hour. What's happened?"
Siegfried switched the phone to his left hand and shoved his right into his pocket.
"Boss, I have a situation to report."
His voice was no different from usual.
It even carried that lazy, devil-may-care edge.
Twenty years of training in deception let him keep his breathing even while his heart hammered, let him sound like he was chatting about the weather while his brain ran at full tilt.
"Things have gotten ugly here in Arc City. Tonight's overpass explosion wasn't an ordinary terrorist attack."
Siegfried played his first card.
"During perimeter reconnaissance I determined that it was a test site for what appears to be a higher-dimensional Spatial Folding weapon."
"Its energy output far exceeds anything in Schicksal's current conventional arsenal. And there's solid evidence tying it directly to a classified research project run by that hidden conglomerate, Anti-Entropy Technology."
A lie works best when it's half true.
On the other end, Otto was silent for two seconds.
"Go on."
Siegfried leaned against the railing, his gaze sweeping the lights below.
"My son Kevin currently holds a position at Anti-Entropy as a core engineer. In tonight's weapons test accident, he was caught inside the primary danger zone and nearly lost his life."
That sentence was one hundred percent true. It was also the most lethal emotional soft spot Siegfried could throw out.
"My assessment is that this spatial project Anti-Entropy is running is ten times more dangerous than HQ estimates. If I blow my cover now to force an extraction or call in support, I won't just tip them off immediately — I'll put Kevin, who is still in their hands, in far greater danger."
That sentence was the half-true bait.
"So I am formally requesting authorization from HQ: sever all routine communications and initiate S-rank deep cover status. I'll stay inside Anti-Entropy alone, get as close as possible to uncover what they're really doing, and at the same time… ensure my son's safety."
That sentence was a lie from start to finish, with poison hidden inside it.
The other end went quiet again for several seconds.
Siegfried could picture the expression on Otto's face as he sat in that ornate executive chair.
That face with its permanent mask of false gentleness — and behind it, in this brief silence, tens of thousands of information threads cross-referencing, risk-checking, running profit-and-loss analysis.
"I have always trusted your judgment."
Otto finally spoke.
His tone was as level as before, level enough to raise the hair on a man's neck.
"The Deep Cover Plan is approved. From this moment on, Schicksal will not deploy any large-scale armed force to Arc City. Your contact frequency drops to once every seventy-two hours, using only encrypted one-way band three."
Siegfried's heartbeat settled a notch.
Done.
"However."
Just as Siegfried was about to hang up, Otto's voice came through utterly flat, like a trivial supplementary clause being tacked onto the end of a contract.
"Considering the threat level of this 'spatial weapon' you've described, and the worrying position your son is in, I believe, Siegfried, that you need an absolutely reliable external fire-support contact."
Siegfried's fingers froze inside his pocket.
"I've already issued the order at the highest level. I've decided to dispatch the partner you trust most, Cecilia, as the sole external support for this deep cover operation. She'll go to Arc City and help you get your son out."
Tap.
The cigarette butt he'd forgotten to drop, still glowing, slid straight out from between his fingers.
The burning end grazed his ring finger and left a red welt.
He didn't feel a thing.
His mind had gone completely blank.
A boomerang.
A boomerang named "weak spot," one he had hurled out with his own hand and all his strength just to con his way into deep cover clearance.
He'd been so busy using "my son's life is in danger" to fool Otto, so busy making himself look like a brute who could be steered by family feeling.
And he'd forgotten the single most fatal thing!
If Cecilia found out her precious son Kevin was gravely injured and in mortal danger, she wouldn't need Otto's orders — she'd commandeer a stealth fighter herself and come tearing across the world!
That old fox Otto didn't need to guess whether Siegfried was lying at all.
He only had to go with the current and send Cecilia out, and he'd accomplish two goals at once. If Siegfried was telling the truth, Cecilia would provide fire support.
If Siegfried was lying, Cecilia would arrive in Arc City and turn the truth inside out on her own.
Either way, he came out ahead.
Siegfried started to speak, wanting to say something, anything, to block the decision.
Was he supposed to shout into the phone, "Boss, my son's actually fine, please whatever you do don't send my wife"?
That would be laying his cards on the table for Otto: everything I just said was garbage, and there really is something rotten in Arc City.
"However."
On the other end, Otto's voice rose again, sounding like it saw through everything, still keeping that unhurried, devilish rhythm.
"Cecilia's Winter Operation in Europe is currently at the most critical stage of closing the net. I can't pull her out immediately."
"At the earliest, she'll need fifteen days to finish the mission completely and depart for Arc City."
"Until then, Siegfried, hold the situation steady."
Fifteen days.
Siegfried chewed that number over three times in his head.
"…Understood, sir."
"Good luck, my finest knight."
Beep, beep, beep — the cold dial tone rang in his ear.
Siegfried mechanically lowered the phone from his ear, staring hard at the red "Call Ended" screen, then stuffed it stiffly back into his pocket.
He turned slowly, put his back against the freezing iron railing, tipped his head up, and stared in despair at the pitch-black sky above the rooftop.
Over Arc City after the storm, the cloud cover hadn't fully broken up yet.
Only a few stars leaked through the gaps, their light as feeble as a cigarette about to go out.
Fifteen days.
He had a pitiful fifteen days of stayed execution.
Within that window he had to come up with some brilliant, world-class scheme to send Cecilia back to Europe untouched and unmoved the instant her feet hit Arc City soil.
Siegfried shut his eyes and started drawing up a list.
Excuse one: tell her straight out it was all a misunderstanding, the crisis is over, no support needed.
Pass.
Cecilia was ten times more stubborn than he was. She'd smile and say, "Well, if the crisis is over, surely Mom can stay a while and have dinner with Kevin?"
And then rent a hotel room directly across from the Anti-Entropy Tower and settle in for the long haul.
Excuse two: claim he'd already relocated Kevin to an absolutely secure zone outside Arc City.
Pass.
The first thing Cecilia would do on arriving in Arc City was demand to see Kevin in person to confirm he was safe.
And Kevin's eternally unchanging iceberg face could play it cool in front of strangers, but in front of his own mother, three sentences in he'd be cracked wide open.
Excuse three: confess everything and ask her to trust him.
No good.
"Fuck…"
Siegfried laced his hands behind his head in agony, his legs gave out, and he slid slowly down the railing into a crouch.
Then he pitched forward and flattened himself across the rooftop floor with zero dignity.
The rough concrete at the base of the railing was still soaked, the chill of it seeping through his leather jacket into his skin.
He just lay there, face buried deep in his crossed arms.
He'd nearly worked himself to death, told the biggest lie of his life, all to keep Cecilia firmly outside this apocalyptic storm that could only end badly.
And because of one unnecessary excuse, he'd dragged his own wife with his own two hands straight into the eye of it.
After a while Siegfried rolled over onto his back.
The wet concrete pressed against his spine, and those few stars flickered in and out of the clouds overhead, as if laughing at how clever he thought he'd been.
The city ran on beneath him, peaceful, noisy, completely ignorant of the sword of Damocles hanging above its head.
Siegfried hauled himself up off the ground and brushed the grit and water off his leather jacket.
"What the hell kind of miserable life is this…"
So furious he started laughing, Siegfried draped both hands limply over the rusted railing again.
He lowered his head and looked at his own weathered hands.
A wind carrying a bone-deep chill surged up from the streets below.
Siegfried sighed and dug another slightly crumpled cigarette out of his pocket. He thumbed the Zippo engraved with "Smoke less" once more.
The crisp click of it echoed across the rooftop.
The flame rose and caught the tobacco.
Pale blue smoke curled up from his mouth, torn apart by the gale in an instant and folded into a night sky that was slowly shedding its blackness.
On the eastern skyline of Arc City, the faintest trace of fish-belly white had begun to spread.
August thirtieth. Dawn on the eve of Honkai Impact 3rd's all-platform open beta.
Carrying a storm strong enough to tear the world apart, and a time bomb that could blow Siegfried's family to pieces at any moment… it arrived, without a shred of mercy.
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