"As of 10:00 AM today, Nagazora City has lost contact with the outside world. The United Nations has issued a statement confirming the outbreak of infectious disease within the city."
The announcement echoed from a giant screen on a telecommunications tower, its broadcast cutting through the oppressive silence of a city now choked with the shambling dead. Below, on a street that had once pulsed with life, two girls were fighting for theirs.
"Get out of the way! If you're already dead, then stop blocking the road!" The white-haired girl's shout was a raw mix of fury and desperation. Gun in hand, she fired with practiced precision, clearing a bloody path through the horde while pulling her companion along. She moved like a force of nature—a wrathful, fleeting goddess on a battlefield of ruin.
"Truly… nostalgic."
High above, on a windswept rooftop, a figure watched. She shared the fighter's face, but hers was etched with a weariness that spoke of years and wars the girl below could not yet fathom. Clad in attire that seemed both ceremonial and combat-ready, she gazed down, her expression a complex one.
"My past self…" the woman murmured, her voice barely a whisper stolen by the wind. "Do I still have a chance to go back and change it all?"
She was Kiana Kaslana—yet not the one on the street. This was the Herrscher of Flamescion, a culmination of sacrifice and power, a future written in ash and ember. And within her resided the consciousness of a transmigrator named Xia Qi, who had awoken into this nightmare only to discover a strange salvation: the ability to become the Valkyries and inheriting their memories and might.
Now, as Flamescion, she watched history repeat its first, brutal act.
She made no move to intervene. She knew the script. Bronya was already in position on a building ahead, a silent guardian ready to tip the scales. To interfere now would be to steal a crucial lesson, a necessary pain. Her own complex emotions, filtered through Flamescion's memories, held her in check—a bittersweet ache of remembrance and resignation.
Her azure eyes, holding the depth of a cloudless sky, shifted to the adjacent rooftop. There, the doll-like Bronya waited beside her heavy cannon, her gaze locked on the street corner where a Chariot-class Honkai beast lurked.
As if on cue, the beast erupted from the shadows with a ground-shaking roar, charging the two fleeing girls below. The scene unfolded with a dreadful familiarity: Bronya's cannon fired, Kiana and Raiden Mei fought, and they eventually found temporary refuge as dusk began to fall.
Xia Qi followed, a ghost from the future tracing the footsteps of her past. She watched the trio—young, battered, but alive with a fire she remembered—and felt the vast, silent canyon of time between them.
Then, the air grew heavy. A shadow fell across the building where the girls rested.
"So, you're here after all," Xia Qi whispered, a wry smile touching her lips as the monstrous form of a Templar-class Honkai beast loomed into view, moving with an eerie, predatory silence.
"Back then, wounded and reeling, I never questioned how it found us. Now, it's clear. This creature… is 'Lightning's' harbinger."
The beast raised its colossal blade, a grim executioner against the darkening sky. Xia Qi's heart stirred, not with fear, but with anticipation. She looked toward the horizon.
"Teacher Himeko… you must be on your way."
If there was one soul she yearned to see in this twisted revisit, it was Murata Himeko. The longing was a physical pull in her chest.
"But before she arrives, there is something I must do."
As the Honkai beast's sword began its catastrophic descent, Xia Qi vanished from the rooftop in a flicker of ember and flame. Drawing upon powers once gleaned from the Class Monitor and the indelible marks left by Fenghuang Down, she slipped, unseen and intangible, into the dreaming mind of her younger self.
The dream I had back then… was…
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"Mei, Mei! This is so delicious! I want some more!"
"Okay~ It's all for you. Bronya won't take any."
Warm, golden light filled a small, impossibly cozy apartment. Kiana sat at the table, happily opening her mouth like a baby bird, waiting for Raiden Mei to feed her another bite. Nearby, Bronya sat in tattered clothes, watching with large, forlorn eyes.
After swallowing, Kiana stuck her tongue out at Bronya. "Ha! Bronya~ See? Mei likes me best! And when I licked her wound earlier, it made her feel all better!"
"Is that really so, Kiana?"
A voice, cool and clear as mountain spring water, spoke directly into Kiana's ear.
"Huh?"
Kiana blinked, turning in confusion. Beside her stood a figure of breathtaking and formidable presence, clad in armor-like white and gold, her cape faintly aglow. The woman's piercing blue eyes held Kiana's own startled reflection, revealing a depth and severity that felt utterly alien.
"Who… who are you?! Why are you in my house?!" Kiana jolted up from her chair, instincts kicking in. "Mei! Bronya! Get behind me!"
She whirled around to shield them, but her breath caught. The chairs were empty. Mei and Bronya were gone.
The cozy room dissolved like mist. The warm light was replaced by the hellish flicker of widespread fires. The comforting walls transformed into a war-torn street littered with the grotesque remains of zombies, Honkai beasts, and shattered mechs.
"Kiana Kaslana."
The woman—Flamescion—stated her name, each syllable weighted with an unspoken history.
"Where's Mei?! Where's Bronya?! What did you do to them?!" Panic and rage twisted Kiana's features. Discarding all thought, driven by pure protective fury, she launched herself at the intruder.
Flamescion did not flinch. She merely watched the charge, and in her steady gaze, a flicker of profound, weary disdain finally showed itself.
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