Chapter 89: Dan Heng: Oh, There's Even a Love Triangle Drama to Watch.
Rekka pushed open the door to his quarters, fully expecting a quiet sanctuary. After finally reuniting Delta and Liliya, he figured the pink-haired girl's favorability meter had to be completely maxed out. Logically, that meant he could order Delta around to do whatever he wanted.
Wait. Was his grand ambition really just ordering her around to do chores? A wave of deep disappointment in his own lack of imagination washed over him.
But the moment he stepped inside, his train of thought derailed completely.
"What are you trying to do?" Delta and Liliya asked in eerie unison, staring at him from the center of his mattress.
"No, what do you two mean by this?" Rekka asked, rubbing his temples.
Delta sat cross-legged right in the dead center of his bed, her tail swishing behind her. Her usually chaotic face was set in a mask of deadpan seriousness. "From today on, my life belongs to you."
Beside her, Liliya mirrored her posture, giving a small, synchronized nod. "I... well, my thoughts are exactly the same as Rozaliya's."
Rekka stared at the two Olenyeva twins occupying his sheets. "Look, I know what you two mean, and I appreciate the sentiment. But can you both get off my bed? Otherwise, how am I supposed to sleep?"
He felt like a living meme. 'Ultraman Jack's first time fighting two monsters.JPG.''Don't occupy my respawn point, dammit!'
This bed was his literal death respawn point. Given his daily, unpredictable Path changes, he had absolutely no idea where the universe would glitch him into existence if his spawn point got blocked by two stubborn girls. He did not want to wake up clipped into the floor model.
"You two, get down," he ordered, pointing at the floor.
"No." Delta defiantly snatched his favorite pillow, hugging it tightly against her chest. "From today on, I'm sleeping here."
"Me too," Liliya chimed in, leaning against her sister.
"This is my bed!"
"We know," they answered in unison.
Rekka threw his hands up. "Have you ever considered the sheer logistical nightmare of my existence? When I wake up tomorrow morning, I might turn into a fire-breathing dragon, a giant Swarm bug, or a literal mass of collapsing black holes! Do you want to be crushed?"
"We've thought about it." Delta nodded sagely, entirely unfazed. "That's exactly why we need to watch over you. In case you turn into something strange, we can help handle it."
Rekka narrowed his eyes. "Are you sure you're helping handle it and not handling me?"
"It's fine!" Delta declared, her tail thumping against the mattress. "Even if the Captain likes both of us, there's no problem at all! Liliya and I are already prepared to spend the rest of our lives with you!"
Liliya nodded again, her expression completely blank but her grip on the blankets tightening.
"What kind of weird, twisted preparation have you made?!" Rekka gestured wildly, his voice pitching up. "Hey! Honkai: Star Rail, Honkai Impact 3rd, and even Zenless Zone Zero aren't like this at all! The pacing is all wrong! It should be me helping you first, then you gradually turning from a guarded tsundere into a saying-no-but-meaning-yes tsundere! We're supposed to build feelings through daily interactions to raise the favorability meter, and then, slowly, at a highly atmospheric moment, the game releases a beautiful, but actually lazy and workload-reducing, story CG!"
He paced at the foot of the bed. "How can you just drag Liliya in here and confess that you like me? The Honkai multiverse doesn't operate on this kind of speedrun logic! I refuse to accept this sequence breaking."
Delta and Liliya exchanged a long, silent glance. Then, they turned their identical, unblinking stares back to him.
"I don't know what any of that meta nonsense you're spouting means," Delta said, her voice softening just a fraction. "I only know that you saved Liliya. You brought her back to me. I owe you such a massive debt of gratitude that I have to repay it with my life. My life is yours now, Captain. So naturally, I am yours too."
Liliya leaned her head against Delta's shoulder, echoing her sister's sentiment. "Rozaliya said the Captain is a good person. So, I want to try staying with you too."
"That kind of thing is absolutely not allowed!"
Before Rekka could mount a proper defense against the twin assault, his bedroom door slammed open, hitting the wall with a sharp thwack.
Standing in the doorway, hands planted firmly on her hips, was the clear-eyed, pink-haired heroine herself: March 7th.
'Wow! Ding-Dong March, my hero!' Rekka practically wept tears of joy. A rescue!
Liliya tilted her head, her blue eyes locking onto the newcomer. She spoke with a completely flat, expressionless tone. "So, does this mean... you're also here to snatch him?"
"What snatching?!" March sputtered, her cheeks flushing pink. She pointed an accusatory finger at the bed. "This lady is here to uphold justice!"
But the universe, as always, thrived on Rekka's suffering. As if the scene wasn't chaotic enough, a tall, grey-haired gremlin slid into the room right behind March.
"Rekka!"
Stelle showed absolutely zero reserve. The Trailblazer bypassed March entirely, striding up to Rekka and casually hooking her arm around his neck, pulling him into a one-armed headlock.
"How about coming to my room to sleep today?" Stelle asked, a mischievous glint in her golden eyes. "Just like last time!"
March 7th's brain visibly short-circuited. Smoke practically billowed from her ears before the realization hit her. She remembered exactly what Stelle was talking about, that infamous incident where Stelle had crashed in Rekka's room and dragged him into a forced nap.
"Anyway," Stelle continued, completely ignoring March's impending meltdown. "No matter what anyone says, we share the deep, unbreakable bond of having shared a bed for a nap. Want to sleep together tonight?"
"Not going," Rekka refused, his tone absolute and decisive. He ducked out of Stelle's grip.
In the end, survival dictated a tactical retreat. While the four girls descended into a chaotic, high-volume argument over territory and sleeping arrangements, Rekka slipped out the door unnoticed. They bickered for a solid half a system hour before finally realizing their prize had vanished.
His sanctuary? The Data Bank.
Dan Heng sat at his terminal, the soft blue glow of holographic archives illuminating his stoic features. He glanced down at the chaotic Trailblazer currently sprawled on a makeshift floor mat in the corner of the room.
'Ho ho, there's even a love triangle drama to watch,' Dan Heng thought, though his face remained a mask of cool indifference.
"This absolutely has to be Aha's evil plot. Otherwise, how could this happen?" Rekka ranted indignantly, staring up at the metallic ceiling. "Truly a naturally evil old geezer of Elation! Think about it. Delta and Liliya suddenly deciding they need to repay a life debt, March rushing in for absolutely no logical reason, and Stelle joining the fray just to cause maximum chaos? Don't you think it's way too coincidental?"
Dan Heng turned his chair slightly, his piercing gaze settling on Rekka. "You genuinely believe the Aeon of Elation is behind a squabble in your bedroom?"
"I just hung a No Entry sign specifically for Him on my door today!" Rekka rolled over, jabbing an accusatory finger at the empty air. "With His twisted personality, how could He not cause trouble the exact same day?"
Dan Heng fell silent for a moment, processing the logic. "...What you're saying actually makes a disturbing amount of sense."
The quiet hum of the Data Bank filled the silence between them. Then, Dan Heng suddenly straightened his posture, his brow furrowing.
"That sign at your door," Dan Heng began slowly. "It has Aha's mask drawn on it, correct?"
"Yeah."
"...What kind of pen did you use to draw it?"
"Just a standard ballpoint pen for the outline, and a black marker to fill it in," Rekka replied, confused by the interrogation.
Dan Heng's eyes narrowed. "Then why do I distinctly remember the sign hanging on your door having a red mask on it?"
Rekka's expression instantly froze. The blood drained from his face.
"What did you just say?"
"I said, on the sign hanging at your door, there is a red mask drawn on it," Dan Heng repeated, his gaze locking onto Rekka's pale face. "Didn't you draw it?"
Rekka shot up from the floor mat, his mind racing as he frantically recalled his arts and crafts session. "I drew it in black and white! I outlined it with a ballpoint pen and colored it with a black marker! How the hell could it turn red?!"
The two of them stared at each other, a heavy, suffocating tension settling over the Data Bank.
"Since you're so certain it's Aha's doing," Dan Heng suggested, his voice dropping an octave, "why don't you just go take the sign down and throw it out in the space incinerator?"
"No way! I was just venting my emotions earlier!" Rekka protested, rubbing his arms as goosebumps erupted across his skin. "I didn't actually know Aha did it! I was just talking trash!"
They both fell into a deep, uneasy silence. Rekka stared up at the dark, metallic ceiling of the Data Bank, a deep sense of being watched creeping up his spine. The cosmic prankster was definitely messing with him.
Eventually, paranoia won out over common sense.
The two of them slipped out of the Data Bank, tiptoeing down the dimly lit corridor of the Astral Express like a pair of amateur thieves. They crept toward Rekka's room, sticking close to the walls, eyes peeled for any sign of cosmic anomalies, or worse, angry girls.
"Where are you two going?"
The voice was soft, sweet, and utterly eerie. It rang out from the shadows directly behind them, making Rekka violently flinch.
He spun around, clutching his chest. "Senior March! Please, don't scare me like that! I'm easily frightened. If you spook me too hard, I'll start sweating buckets and literally turn into a pressure cooker, the kind with massive, explosive pressure!"
March 7th stepped into the light. She crossed her arms, her pink eyes narrowing dangerously. "You haven't called me Senior for several days now... hmm?"
She was angry. It was clearly, terrifyingly visible.
"Senior March!" Rekka immediately plastered on his most sycophantic, harmless smile. "How could I ever forget to call you Senior? I was just... I was just..."
"Just what?" March took a slow, deliberate step forward. "These past few days, you've been calling me March quite smoothly. Why did you suddenly revert back to Senior March today the moment you have a guilty conscience? Do you think this lady is easy to fool?"
"How could I ever think that?" Rekka waved his hands frantically, his feet unconsciously retreating backward down the hall. "A senior is a senior! It's a prestigious honorific, a mark of deep respect straight from the bottom of my heart! Usually, dropping it is just to close the distance between friends, but right now, it's to show my proper, respectful attitude!"
His desperate backpedaling hit a wall, or rather, an ambush.
Stepping out from the adjacent doorway were Delta and Liliya. Delta stood with her arms firmly crossed, her tail lashing the air, while Liliya remained perfectly expressionless beside her.
Both of their unblinking gazes were locked dead onto him.
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