Two sharp whistling shrieks tore through the night sky.
Two black hexagonal-prism pods, their surfaces coated in heat-resistant film, slammed one after another into the concrete apron on the outskirts of the abandoned industrial zone.
The impacts gouged two craters into the ground, sending shattered chunks of concrete flying to strike a rusted chain-link fence nearby with a series of dull thuds.
White decompression vapor hissed out from the pod hatches, which then slid slowly open.
A moment later.
Kiana stepped out of the pod on the left.
She'd changed into that streamlined Valkyrie armor that clung tightly to her body — White Comet.
Faint orange light flickered along the energy circuits at the armor's edges.
Kiana opened her hand, then clenched it tight.
She turned her head to look at the drop pod on the right.
Rita stepped out.
Her signature maid outfit had been replaced with a form-fitting black tactical suit; the armor's outer shell gleamed with a cold, hard metallic sheen, and the exoskeletal structure at her waist and legs gave her silhouette a longer, more dangerous line.
This armor, "Phantom Iron," had originally been custom-built for infiltration and assassination.
Rita crouched down.
A mechanical hunting hound leapt out from the bottom of the drop pod.
Its shell was a mix of dark green and black, its limbs slender but packed with mechanical explosive power.
Rita's gloved right hand gave the hound's metal head a couple of pats.
This was the Genome Reaper — the one Su Yu had smashed apart in an earlier battle and Tesla had since repaired and modified. It let out a low electronic hum from somewhere in its throat, and its red mechanical eyes lit up.
"We tested it a few times back at base," Kiana said, shaking out her arms as she walked over to stand beside Rita, "but this power is still unbelievable. It feels a lot like Honkai energy, but once it's circulating through my body, there's zero strain at all. This is the Imaginary energy drawn straight from the Imaginary Tree, isn't it?"
Tesla's voice immediately came through the earpiece.
"Obviously!" Tesla's voice on the comm was clearly annoyed. "This genius and that System named Ai pulled several all-nighters to build this energy conversion module! It's the most advanced tech Anti-Entropy has!"
"Oh, right," Tesla added after a pause. "There's a fairly strong power sealed inside your White Comet, but since the original sample data is so badly degraded and the core circuit is damaged, I can't unlock it directly right now."
Strictly speaking, White Comet wasn't an armor built entirely from scratch off blueprints Su Yu had provided.
It had been restored from an already half-destroyed base that had come to this world along with Kiana.
Having fought alongside this armor for so long, Kiana could easily sense the changes in it.
Lighter. Stronger defense.
And now, with an Imaginary-energy core disguised inside it, its output could be pushed without any burden. Honkai energy, after all, was a double-edged sword — the moment you used it, it was also eating away at you in return.
But this pure Imaginary energy carried no such corrosive edge, which meant Kiana could unleash her strength far more recklessly than before.
"Don't rush it, though," Tesla said, tapping a few keys. "I've already gotten hold of the low-level upgrade code. Put in a good night's work, and rack up enough combat data with this armor for me. Once the data's sufficient, I'll push the upgrade straight through."
Listening to this, an image suddenly surfaced in Kiana's mind — those player forum screenshots Su Yu had shown her while chatting.
"Well, isn't that something," she muttered under her breath. "Grinding White Comet all the way to SSS rank and awakening straight into Moonbeam — turns out that meme's actually come true in real life."
She pressed the button on the side of her earpiece, cutting the comm link to the lab.
Cold wind swept across the empty factory grounds, tossing a stray plastic bag across the ground.
Kiana drew the pair of specially made dual pistols named "Firmament Tearer," spinning them once in her hands, the metal grips slapping against her palms with a heavy thud.
"Let's talk strategy."
Kiana looked over at Rita.
Rita stood up, and the mechanical hound obediently trotted to her side.
"The Genome Reaper's detection module is running at full power — let it take point." Rita gazed down the bottomless corridor of the factory building. "If we run into low-tier Zombies or minor Honkai Beasts, I'll ask Lady Kiana to handle them from range with precision shots. We should conserve stamina wherever we can."
"And if we hit something tougher — elite-tier enemies — we move in for close combat. Got it," Kiana said, picking up the thread.
She slid her dual pistols back into the holsters on her outer thighs.
Her agreement came without hesitation.
If this had been the old Kiana, back at St. Freya, she would have waved a hand dismissively and said something like, "Who cares, I can flatten all of them by myself."
But now, she said no such thing.
She knew what might be lurking behind that rift.
This wasn't some hero's game she was playing.
Rita's gaze lingered on Kiana's face for a few seconds.
"I'd expected you to be a bit dissatisfied with such a conservative arrangement from me."
"Huh?" Kiana pursed her lips, turning her head to look at Rita. "You think I'm the kind of person who can't see the bigger picture?"
She kicked a loose stone by her foot, and it rolled off, clattering into the darkness.
"Besides," Kiana said, hands laced behind her head as she walked forward, "sure, you and I have some history, but wasn't that old score settled long ago? I'm not the petty type."
Rita fell into step beside her.
The mechanical hound trotted along about ten meters ahead.
"Are you referring to what happened during that Valkyrie ranking exam?"
Kiana shrugged.
"Back then I really thought you were just an ordinary maid who served tea. Who would've guessed you were an S-rank Valkyrie hiding that deep." Kiana snorted, using a term Su Yu had taught her. "That's what's called 'smurfing,' you know? If Su Yu caught wind of that kind of smurfing, he'd post it online and drag you through the mud for it."
Rita walked alongside her.
At those words, a faint smile crept across her face.
"Is that truly how Lord Su Yu describes me?"
"Don't believe me? Go ask him yourself."
The two of them entered an abandoned stretch of corridor.
The emergency lights overhead had a loose connection, sputtering with the crackle of static, flickering on and off.
Rita's pace slowed.
"Lady Kiana."
Rita came to a stop.
Kiana stopped too, turning her head to look at her.
"There's something I feel I must apologize to you for."
Rita looked into Kiana's eyes.
Kiana rested a hand on her gun grip and blinked.
"Apologize? For what?"
"The truth is," Rita's voice dropped lower, "there are things about your origins — deeper things — that I've never told you. I've wanted to find the chance to tell you for some time now, but every time the words reached my lips, I never knew where to begin."
Kiana's brows furrowed.
"My origins?" She glanced up at the flickering light overhead. "Aren't I just a clone that bastard Otto cooked up — using the genes of the real daughter of Mama Cecilia and Papa Siegfried, combined with Sirin's Herrscher Core? What else could there possibly be that even I, the one it happened to, don't know?"
She'd known this for a long time. It was the nightmare that had haunted her through countless sleepless nights.
Rita didn't rise to that, instead redirecting with another question.
"What kind of person do you think the real Lady Kiana was?"
A gust of wind swept through the corridor.
Kiana fell silent.
She leaned against a rust-eaten support pillar, head bowed, staring at the tip of her combat boot.
A full half a minute passed before she finally spoke.
"Honestly, my memories of her have grown pretty blurry by now," she said, voice soft. "Whether those memories are really mine, or were implanted into me by someone else — sometimes even I can't tell anymore."
She lifted her head.
"But I still remember the smile on her face when she reached out her hand to me. She even said she wanted to be my big sister — said the three of us, her, me, and Papa Siegfried, would live together from then on."
Kiana closed her eyes.
"The only thought in my head at the time was... having a family really does feel good."
She opened her eyes, and her gaze dimmed, as though a film of dust had settled over it.
"But my sister — the real Kiana Kaslana — she'd already..."
"That's exactly what I want to tell you, Lady Kiana."
Rita cut her off.
Kiana stared at Rita, stunned.
"The lady you speak of is not dead." Rita's voice stayed steady. "On the contrary, she's alive and well, somewhere in this world."
The sound of breathing in the corridor stopped for a second.
Kiana's eyes went wide in an instant, her pupils trembling violently in the dim light.
"As for who she is now," Rita went on, "there's a promise binding me, so I can't reveal her name to you just yet. But I believe that you, as you are now, would recognize her the moment you truly met her."
Kiana's fists clenched.
Still alive.
She hadn't killed that kind girl after all.
The one who had called her a little sister — her sister — was still alive.
But right on the heels of that joy, confusion smothered it.
She looked at Rita.
"Why tell me this now, of all times?"
Rita lowered her head.
"I suppose you could call this a form of confession — a bit of atonement on my part."
She stared at the patterns etched into her own mechanical exoskeleton.
"After all, Lady Kiana, you know as well as I do — no matter what reasoning or standing I had in Bishop Otto's scheme against you, I did become his instrument. Not only did I fail to stop him, I became the very blade turned against you."
Rita raised her head, meeting Kiana's eyes directly.
"No matter how many justified reasons I might have had, the bloodshed, the sacrifices, the suffering I caused you and your companions — all of it was real. That's a fact that can't be erased."
Kiana listened in silence, her expression unchanged.
She simply pushed off from the support pillar and stood up straight.
Then, facing Rita, she gently shook her head.
"What's right, and what's wrong, anyway?"
There was a note of reflection in her voice.
"I used to think the world was simple — black and white."
"Beat down the bad guys, save the good ones."
"But later I came to understand — most of the time, this world doesn't have such clear-cut good and evil."
She walked over to the shattered window in the corridor, gazing out at the pitch-black night sky.
"Behind all those so-called noble causes, those grand stances — what's usually there is a subtle, exquisite shade of gray, impossible to fully see through."
Kiana turned around.
"Take the simplest example — someone you know very well, too. That idiot, Su Yu."
A hint of warmth crept into her expression as she said the name.
"He made this game, Honkai Impact 3rd. He took all the bloody, painful stories we actually lived through, wrapped them up as entertainment, and fed them like knives to tens of millions of players across this world, tormenting them until they were half-dead."
"And at that press conference, he even lied straight to every reporter's face, calling it a healthy, uplifting, positive story."
Kiana paused.
"Do you think, in the eyes of the players who cried their eyes out behind their screens over the story and cursed him for not being human — do you think Su Yu looked like a decent person to them?"
Rita didn't answer.
"But you and I, sitting here, knowing the truth — we both know exactly why he did it."
"He did it to earn willpower, to save us, to protect this peaceful world."
"So even carrying the whole internet's scorn, even getting death threats mailed to him, he still went and wrung those players' tears out of them."
Kiana took two steps closer to Rita.
"But just like you said a moment ago — no matter how grand and justified Su Yu's reasons were, the fact remains that he hurt those players who poured out real, genuine feelings. That's a plain fact too."
The lights in the corridor went out completely.
"I am the vessel of a Herrscher."
In the darkness, Kiana's voice turned utterly resolute.
"My very existence once brought unimaginable disaster down on thousands upon thousands of people in that world. In the eyes of the survivors who lost their families, I was the Devil — even if I had my own reasons, the harm I caused doesn't stop existing just because I had a justification."
"Yeah, maybe in Auntie's eyes, in Teacher Himeko's eyes, I'm just a disobedient niece, a hopeless student who never learns no matter how many times you teach her."
She lowered her head, looking down at her own hands.
"But that's not a reason for me to run from it with a clear conscience. I'm a Herrscher, and I'm human too. I'll carry the weight of my own sins, and keep fighting — for this world, and for the people I once hurt."
Kiana lifted her head, meeting Rita's gaze.
"I'm not going to claim any authority to decide whether to forgive you or not. Those old debts — how they're settled is something for people after us to judge. But that's on the condition that humanity actually has a future to reach that point."
Her hand rested on the holster at her thigh.
"If you really feel sorry, if there's real guilt weighing on you..."
"...then share your strength with me, hold nothing back, and let's fight for everything good left in this world, together."
The corridor fell completely silent.
Rita looked at the white-haired girl standing there in the dark.
A long moment passed.
Then Rita suddenly lowered her head, her shoulders trembling slightly with a soft, low laugh.
"You really are so very much like that lady."
Rita raised her head, looking at Kiana.
"Once, because of my own misjudgment, Lord Su Yu very nearly died beneath this scythe of mine. I truly believed he would hate me for it."
Rita's fingers tightened around the handle of her scythe.
"But he didn't."
"He chose to set me free, even though I was already his prisoner by then. He even reached out his hand to me, entrusted me with power, and hoped I could lend him my strength."
Rita drew a deep breath.
"And now, here you stand, saying words so very much like his."
Just then—
A low, droning hum — as though space itself were being torn apart — rolled out from the direction of the main factory building at the far end of the corridor.
The mechanical hound up ahead let out an urgent alarm signal, every fur-like armor plate on its body standing straight on end.
The conversation was cut short.
Kiana turned her back to Rita and straightened up.
Her hands drew the twin "Firmament Tearer" pistols from her outer thigh holsters with practiced ease, thumbs flicking off the safeties.
A high-pressure gale, whipped up by the expanding rift, came roaring back down the corridor toward them.
The two white braids of hair whipped wildly in the storm.
Holding her dual pistols, she stared down the corridor at the patch of darkness that had begun to warp and twist.
"I've learned a lot from that idiot, that's for sure."
Kiana's gun barrels rose steadily, without a single tremor.
"Getting to come to this world, getting to meet that huge idiot Su Yu—"
The sound of her chambering a round rang clear through the wind.
"I'm glad."
She turned her head slightly, her profile looking sharp and cold in the faint light bleeding in through the window.
"You can remember that last line and pass it along to that guy Su Yu, word for word. Call it the female lead giving her recognition to the Producer."
She stepped forward.
"Now, then..."
"...don't you dare slow me down, maid lady."
Rita let out a soft laugh, the scythe in her hand angling down and sweeping through the air in an arc like a crescent moon.
"I'll be right behind you. Let's go, Lady Kiana."
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