The danmaku was packed so thick it blotted out the whole screen. In the few frames that leaked through, the pink-haired elf girl was clutching a cushion and sobbing her eyes out, wiping tears with one hand while muttering "evil Su Yu" into the mic.
Su Yu turned his head.
Kiana was standing by the floor-to-ceiling window. Sunlight came through the glass and settled on her long white hair, giving it a hard, cold sheen.
Her head was lowered, and those pale hands were knotted together in front of her, restless.
Su Yu had left the tablet lying on the little round glass table beside him.
The screen wasn't locked. Greetings from every corner of the internet were still leaping across it in a frenzy.
All those private messages, stuffed with rage and tears and complete emotional collapse - even from half a meter away, Kiana's eyesight, far sharper than any ordinary person's, could read every last word.
"Haven't you looked long enough?" Su Yu asked, smiling.
Kiana didn't turn around.
Her breathing had gone shallow and quick, and in the quiet of the room even her heartbeat seemed audible.
"...They're all cursing you out."
Kiana's voice came out muffled, carrying an unease she hadn't noticed herself. "Is it because of me?"
She added the question almost as an afterthought, her voice dropping lower and lower, the last few words nearly dissolving into the hum of the air conditioning.
Su Yu looked at the tense line of her back, and laughed.
He stood and walked over to her.
That faint trace of gunsmoke, tangled up with the clean sweetness particular to a girl her age, loosened his brain a little after all that time staring at data.
He knew exactly what was going through this white-haired idiot's head.
Before the open beta launched, she'd lain awake night after night, pacing the living room with that odd-eyed cat, Chongchong, held against her chest.
She was afraid.
Afraid that this peaceful world - a world that had never known the Honkai, where people queued up at a hospital over a scraped knee - would look at her and see a monster who dragged catastrophe in her wake.
Afraid that the people on the other side of the screen would point at those cutscenes and say: look, that girl, she's the one who killed her own mother, she's the one who wiped out half of Siberia.
And more than anything, she was afraid that Aunt Himeko's sacrifice, and Cecilia's, would find no understanding here at all - that they'd be reduced to a punchline somebody tossed around over dinner.
"Those are the private messages sent to me. The ones for you are over there."
Su Yu pointed at the dense clusters on the screen: [Don't cry, Kiana-bao], [Protecting the best Kiana in the whole world].
The corner of Kiana's eye twitched. Her gaze rested on those lines for a single second, then darted away.
"If you really can't stop worrying about how they'll judge this story, go look at Elysia's stream yourself."
Su Yu reached out and gave her shoulder a light pat.
"Go see how this world is welcoming you."
The two of them made their way out into the corridor outside the studio, one behind the other, and Su Yu gave her a gentle push in the back.
Kiana staggered a step, long white hair fanning through the air.
She stared at the door ahead, glowing with its soft pink light, clenched her teeth, and swallowed hard.
She took the first step.
Inside the studio, Elysia was still hugging her cushion, laying out Su Yu's crimes for the audience.
"...He's just the worst! That was the mother Kiana missed most in the whole world, so why did he have to shatter that miracle..."
"And look at the result! Day one and he's already made everyone this sad. So what do you say - once we're off air, shall I lead you all over there to barricade his office door?"
The danmaku answered instantly.
[We absolutely have to! Ellie leads the charge, I'll pay for the padlock!]
[It was brutal. I still can't believe Cecilia just died like that. It was an illusion! An ILLUSION!]
[Every time I think about Kiana waking up and finding out her mom is still dead, my whole heart cracks in half.]
[Kiana-bao has it so rough. She's barely had a peaceful day in her life, and now she can't even lie to herself in a dream.]
[And the Squad Monitor! How could you go through with it?! Do you know that one punch broke my heart?!]
Just then, the heavy soundproof door eased open a crack.
Elysia's voice cut off mid-word.
The best lighting rig on the entire site swung its attention to the newcomer in an instant.
Kiana pulled in a deep breath, and the cold air filling her lungs steadied her a little.
Head down, she walked slowly into the camera's field of view.
She hadn't changed clothes. She was still in that loose cream-colored hoodie, her long hair falling messily over her chest.
The danmaku, scrolling like a runaway train a moment ago, went blank for a full three seconds.
Then it hit like a shockwave.
The studio's servers nearly crashed outright from the sudden data overflow.
[HOLY - a real one! A REAL, LIVE KIANA!]
[That's not a holographic projection?! The texture of that hair, the light in those eyes - that exists in physical reality?!]
[Wait... Kiana-bao! It really is Kiana-bao!]
[My heart's in pieces... seeing her actual face makes me want to chop Su Yu up and feed him to the dogs even MORE!]
[Kiana! Come here, mama's got you! Don't be sad, the plot's all fake, evil Su Yu wrote it, we're on your side forever!]
[Exactly! Anyone says one word against you and I'm staging a sit-in outside miHoYo this afternoon!]
[I'm whaling! I'm topping up RIGHT NOW! I'm buying that damn Gem of Desire back for Kiana! I'll flatten Schicksal Headquarters in Moonlight Armor! I'll bring Wendy and Bronya both back!]
Once the shock wore off, all that enormous grief and heartache people had been soaking in found somewhere to go.
The text on the screen shifted to a single unified color, the characters swelling until they nearly spilled past the borders.
Kiana stood frozen.
Beside that pink-toned desk, she'd gone as stiff as a statue.
The mockery she'd braced for, the abuse, the smug detached gawking - none of it was there. Not one line.
What scrolled across that big screen was countless souls who had never met her, reaching through the glass and across dimensions to offer her their warm hands.
They were crying over her mother. They were furious on behalf of her failures. They were spamming the feed as hard as their fingers allowed over a "sacrifice" she'd assumed nobody would ever care about.
This feeling.
The feeling of being loved by an entire world without reservation, even a little blindly.
A bitter ache rose sharp in Kiana's nose.
That "cold Valkyrie" mask she'd been fighting so hard to keep in place melted away in front of ten million players' pure goodwill like ice cream in the sun, and it went to pieces.
"Um... I..."
Kiana spoke.
Her voice was thick and nasal, and it shook, just slightly.
The rims of her eyes went red all at once, moisture gathering fast at the corners, catching the fill lights and scattering them into broken points of brightness.
"Um... thank you, everyone."
She didn't reach for any fine phrases. She simply did the clumsiest, most instinctive thing she could: she faced the camera and bowed, deeply.
Her long white hair slid down with the motion and curtained her face.
"The truth is... I've been really uneasy this whole time. I was scared..."
Her shoulders trembled faintly.
"I was scared everyone would hate this story. Scared everyone would think those characters' sacrifices weren't worth it. Scared everyone would think... that I'm a bad kid who brings disaster with her."
She straightened up and scrubbed roughly at her face with the back of her hand, leaving the skin at the corners of her eyes rubbed raw and red.
"But... thank you."
She looked at the [Don't cry, Kiana-bao] and [We'll love you forever] flooding the screen, tears still falling, and dragged her mouth into a smile that looked worse than crying.
"Thank you for being willing to understand me. Thank you for being willing to accept these... imperfect stories."
The chat detonated.
[DAMN IT, SU YU! You're not human! Look at how hard this kid is crying!]
[Is this what mutual love looks like? I'm bawling louder than I was during the actual story.]
[Don't cry, Kiana-bao! Say the word and we'll go blow up Schicksal right now!]
[The official channel is leading the tearjerking?! miHoYo, have some decency!]
And right as the atmosphere was swelling toward a full-on flood of feelings -
A premium danmaku with a rainbow border shoved its way in, glaringly out of place against a screen full of raw emotion.
[Brother Su, LOOK. LOOK AT THIS. Open your cold-blooded scumbag-planner eyes and LOOK!]
[Your own Little Junior Sister is a woman of genuine feeling. She's on stream right now thanking the players and crying herself into a puddle. And YOU?!]
[I just flipped to the background to browse other streams, and that animal Brother Su is over in some woman's channel going at it with her!]
Elysia's radar picked that one up instantly.
A second ago she'd been busy passing Kiana wet wipes; now, at the scent of premium gossip, her eyes lit up like a pair of stars.
"Oh my? Some other woman's stream? What exactly has our great Producer Su been up to behind our backs?"
The chat's gossip-devouring spirit ignited completely.
[THERE'S TEA! CERTIFIED RIPE, GRADE-A TEA!]
[There's this mesugaki streamer over on the rival platform who goes by Sparks. Brother Su, that old crook, didn't just pop into her room - he dropped ten straight Hyperions on her, the top-tier gift!]
[That's not even the point! The point is Brother Su personally got down in the public chat and started typing at her! The two of them were roasting each other in the danmaku, questioning each other's IQ - it was too painful to watch!]
[So Brother Su is into the mesugaki type?! It's over, it's over, the official daughter has been cruelly abandoned and a wild new daddy has burst onto the scene!]
Elysia read all this with both hands clapped over her mouth, letting out an exaggerated gasp.
She turned to look at Kiana, who was still wiping her nose with a tissue, and her tone dripped with the joy of pouring oil on a fire. "Oh dear, oh dear, Kiana~ It seems things are looking a little... heavy above our heads. Could it be... a lush, thriving green pasture up there?"
The hand holding the tissue froze.
"Wh- what green pasture?!"
Kiana's face went scarlet in one rush - not only from jealousy, but from the excruciating humiliation of being teased in front of several million people.
She stammered out a denial, her voice climbing an octave. "D- don't talk nonsense! That idiot Su Yu was just plain arguing with that woman! Yes! Arguing! And besides... besides, Su Yu and I only have a working relationship! There's no cheating or not cheating about it!"
The chat had no interest in her explanation. The bandwagon was already airborne.
[Working relationship? I don't buy it! Look at the color of your face!]
[Right? If Brother Su didn't have feelings for you, would he have made your character that exquisite? Would he have tuned your animations that smooth? Would he have made you the female lead? If that's not favoritism, what is?]
[Brother Su really went too far this time. He's got a gorgeous white-haired Little Junior Sister AND Miss Pink Elf at home to comfort and instead he runs off to watch some other woman bite a lighter?]
At that moment a big-spender danmaku drifted past in gleaming gold.
[What makes you all so sure Brother Su likes women? Obviously he doesn't, because Brother Su is MY boyfriend! I can testify he only ever likes gaming with me!]
[WHOA! A gay dude just materialized above me!!]
[SECURITY! WHERE IS SECURITY! Drag this man out of here!]
Kiana watched the takes on the screen get more and more unhinged - from story analysis to infidelity, from infidelity to gay panic.
She sat there, clutching a wadded-up tissue, blank.
And then.
A snort escaped her.
She couldn't hold it in.
Tears still clung to her lashes, quivering gently with each shake of laughter.
This was the first time.
The first time since arriving in this world that she had felt it so clearly, so defenselessly, in front of this many people - warmth, made of ordinary human life and ordinary human kindness.
Not pity handed down from on high. Not blind worship of a hero.
This was how you treat a friend standing right next to you: aching for her, teasing her, ogling handsome men and pretty women alongside her, and getting weirdly jealous over nonsense together.
This noisy, down-to-earth chaos. It felt good.
And in that very moment -
[System Notice: Ding-!]
A crisp chime like a wind bell rang out inside Kiana's head.
At the same instant, in the office where Su Yu was watching the backend data, a line of dazzling gold text popped up across his retina.
[System Announcement: Explosive-tier surge detected in target individual "Kiana Kaslana's" Cognition, sense of acceptance, and emotional resonance within the current world!]
[Site-wide faith value has been converted into a survival Anchor!]
[Anchor Stability: EX!]
[Substantive parameter breakthroughs achieved:]
[1. Activity radius for target Kiana and the Host expanded to: 10 meters! (Previously 5 meters)]
[2. Daily allowance of Absolute Freedom Time raised to: 90 minutes! (Previously 60 minutes)]
But the System's chime hadn't finished.
[Main Mission: "Honkai Impact 3rd: Not Playing Means You're Not Skyborn" - Stage rewards continuing to accumulate!]
[Current statistics: projected first-week revenue, social media discussion volume, derivative fan-creation index, peak player emotional fluctuation... every metric has surpassed the System's all-time historical record!]
[System rating being adjusted upward...]
Su Yu watched the gold-and-green data stream refresh downward like a waterfall, and finally stopped fighting the grin.
[Host is requested to sustain this level of heat throughout the first week of open beta!]
[Note: the more spectacular the first-week data, the richer the high-dimensional resources and item gacha pools available for exchange in the upcoming "Valkyrie Development System."]
Watching the numbers flicker on and on, Su Yu let out a long breath.
Kiana, this is the world you want to save. It's a mess sometimes, but it really does love you.
Back in the studio.
Elysia looked at the light returning to Kiana's eyes and thoughtfully handed over a tissue printed with little hearts.
"All right, all right, gossip time ends here. As for evil Su Yu, we'll go settle that score with him after work."
She took Kiana's hand and guided her back into the seat in front of the computer.
"Since Kiana herself has come to supervise the battle in person, we'd better help her walk the rest of this road properly."
Elysia's interface was sitting on the main menu.
Her finger flicked lightly across the controller.
The icon for Chapter Seven rose slowly into view.
[Chapter 7: The Rebel Sword Raised to the Heavens]
Kiana read that title, and the profile that had just begun to relax tightened again without her meaning it to.
In her memory, the end of Chapter Six was the last second before her consciousness sank completely beneath the Siberian snowfields.
After that, Sirin had taken her body, and the world had dropped into a long, soundless blank.
Fragments of memory surfaced now and then, but they were scattered shards, impossible to piece into anything whole.
What had Theresa and the others given up to save her?
And... there was the one who always drank while ruffling her hair into a mess, who was forever saying, "Kiana, keep working this hard and you'll fail again." Teacher Himeko.
What kind of terrible price had they paid to drag her out of that Abyss?
Kiana held her breath.
A thin film of sweat was seeping into her palms again.
This was more than playing a game.
This was her, in the role of a bystander, facing for the first time that tragic past of her own, the one abandoned somewhere in blood and fire.
"Kiana?"
Elysia tilted her head, watching her with a trace of worry.
Kiana turned. The screen's glow reflected in her eyes.
She bit down hard on her lip, then nodded slowly.
"Start it. I want to see it too... the choice they made at the end."
The screen dimmed.
Chapter Seven opened on an introductory CG.
The captured Kiana, suspended in a cultivation pod.
In front of her stood a man with blond hair and green eyes - Otto Apocalypse.
Head of the Apocalypse family. Bishop of Schicksal.
At his direction, Honkai energy poured endlessly into the pod.
In the game, Kiana's eyes finally opened.
But those eyes were no longer that clear blue. They had turned gold - lofty, remote, the gold of a god.
As the whisper rang out -
Beneath the frozen earth of Siberia, a blue-and-white dragon burst through the ice and loosed a roar that shook the world!
She beat her wings and climbed, tearing through the Skyward heights, driven by one purpose alone: to reach her only Queen.
"Judgment-class Honkai Beast, Benares -"
Inside the studio.
Kiana looked at that blue-and-white dragon and recognized what it truly was at a glance.
It was the Second Herrscher's familiar.
The demon dragon that had once cost Schicksal so dearly.
Then the camera cut, and Kiana's pupils contracted. Something clenched tight inside her chest.
Because she had just seen the person who could never come back.
[Approximately 300 kilometers from Schicksal Headquarters, aboard the transport ship Helios.]
[A swarm of Honkai Beasts assaults the transport as it makes its run at Schicksal's Third Airport.]
[And at that critical moment, a streak of purple energy rips an Aegis-type Honkai Beast out of the sky!]
["Relax, Theresa!"]
[Murata Himeko drags her ship-slaying sword behind her, the blade grinding against the deck and throwing off bursts of sparks. She wears the Fusion Armor: Crimson, and paired with that flame-red hair she looks like a goddess of fire descending onto the battlefield!]
[The woman hoists the ship-slaying sword onto one shoulder, faces the tide of Honkai Beasts surging toward her, and lets a confident smile curve her lips.]
["Time for the Far East Branch's ace to take the stage!"]
That high-spirited figure burned itself into Kiana's eyes.
Her voice, thick and choked, spoke aloud the name of the person she had wanted most to see through countless wandering nightmares.
"Teacher Himeko..."
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