Chat Group : Another Fate From Honkai

————————————————————————

[System Prompt]:

Multiple chat group members detected logged in on the same linear timeline of the same world.

Please choose to log out of the group chat yourself, or forcibly log out the member 'Kiana Kaslana'.

————————————————————————

The voice in his mind jolted Nagami and C.C. from their daze.

In perfect unison, they shook their heads and exchanged a glance.

From the shimmering analysis reflected in their six-pointed star pupils, Nagami immediately understood where they were—the other side of the world.

This was the boundary between worlds—a place where time itself could be redefined.

Through the void ahead, they could faintly see a colossal tree of unknown location, its crown and roots stretching endlessly into infinity.

The vision vanished as quickly as it came.

In the next instant, Nagami was swallowed by a darkness streaked with prismatic light.

Without the Alpha Stigma Eyes, it would have been impossible to witness the detailed process of traversing time and space.

But now, it gave Nagami a deeper understanding of the Herrscher of the Void's authority.

Naturally, Nagami chose to log himself out.

By doing so, the chat group's timeline would now be anchored to the young lady's point in time.

When he returned from the past, only one or two seconds would have passed.

When he arrived, the first thing to greet him was a world blanketed in snow—pure, unbroken white as far as the eye could see.

Beneath his feet, a glacier stretched like frozen earth all the way to the horizon.

"So this is Siberia in the year 2000?"

For an ordinary person, the cold here would be unbearable.

But for a Herrscher, temperature meant little.

Nagami had already invoked the authority of the Herrscher of Flames, keeping the molecular motion within a one-meter radius around himself at a steady frequency.

In simpler terms: he maintained the temperature around himself and C.C. at a comfortable 20 to 23°C.

Nagami scanned the surroundings.

His eyes sharpened the moment he spotted a certain structure standing solemnly between heaven and earth.

The Babel Tower—in the year 2000, the second-largest Honkai energy research facility of Schicksal.

Its purpose: human experimentation.

And the one at the origin of this story—Sirin.

Once, she had been an ordinary girl in a small Siberian village.

Her only family died from illness, and she was forcibly taken to the lab for experimentation.

Just hearing the words human experimentation was enough to convey the cruelty behind it.

The kind of agony no adult could endure was inflicted on a young girl—inevitably breeding pain, despair, and hatred.

In the Honkai world, despair intertwined with hatred, fueled by dense Honkai energy, created the perfect environment for a Herrscher core to be born. It was inevitable.

If not Sirin, someone else would have become a Herrscher.

The cruel irony was that humanity's strongest organization against the Honkai—Schicksal was itself creating the very disasters humanity feared.

With only a nudge from the Honkai Will, a Herrscher host's hatred could be amplified, redirecting their vengeance toward all of humanity.

That was why Sirin so firmly embraced the Honkai Will's mission to destroy human civilization.

"Hah…"

Nagami stared at the Babel Tower in silence for a while before letting out a sigh.

The Trua Kiana… That girl knew exactly what Nagami had done during the Second Eruption, yet to avoid causing massive temporal disturbances, his future self had left no related memories behind.

Meaning—Nagami could act as he pleased.

Whatever choices he made here would simply become the future.

Still, better to tread carefully.

Even with a Feather capable of altering the memories of all who knew the truth, it was best not to leave any recorded images of himself in this era.

He slowly extended his hand forward.

Space rippled at his will.

The real-number space unraveled like a complex mathematical equation, revealing the pathway of imaginary space.

Nagami stepped through.

————————————————————————

Meanwhile, C.C. gazed toward the horizon with her Alpha Stigma Eyes, recalling the information she had once seen in the future Schicksal database.

After a long, silent look, she opened her own spatial gate not to the interior of Babel Tower, but to Schicksal's floating island headquarters somewhere in Europe during this time.

The room was rough and dilapidated, its cold steel walls gleaming faintly under dim light.

Heels clicked sharply against the metal floor, each step echoing with an icy tone.

A figure in a white lab coat slowly opened a massive metal door.

Light seeped through the widening gap, dimly illuminating the scene inside.

A group of children in thin hospital gowns huddled together.

In the faint light, Nagami could see white bandages wrapped around their bodies—some stained with dark red spots of blood.

And yet… those children, who usually feared this figure, now gazed at them with eyes full of yearning.

More precisely—they were staring at the food in the researcher's hands.

"Time to eat."

The researcher passed the food through the gaps in the iron cage, setting it on the floor.

Two dry, hard pieces of bread.

A bottle of water. A small carton of milk.

Hardly enough for the four children in the room to share.

All of this was for the sake of the experiment—by reducing food rations, they forced the human body to rely on Honkai energy to sustain itself.

This, in theory, increased the subject's adaptability to Honkai energy, until they could eventually control and wield it.

But so far, no one had ever reached that final step.

Even the girls whose adaptability far surpassed that of the boys had never once shown the ability to truly control Honkai energy.

Which meant… the only fate awaiting every test subject was death.

That was the cruelty of Schicksal's human experimentation.

One chestnut-haired girl was the first to move.

She neatly divided the bread into four pieces, then impatiently opened the milk.

After drinking less than a quarter, she passed it to the next child.

When the third, already frail and fading child finished their share of the milk, the chestnut-haired girl carried what was left—about a third—over to the coldest corner of the room, where a purple-haired girl sat curled up.

"...Sirin, you should drink some too. Otherwise your body won't hold up."

"I'm not some weak human who needs these things to survive☆!"

Her voice was so faint it almost sounded like a dream.

"Sirin? What did you just say?"

The chestnut-haired girl's question brought the purple-haired girl out of her daze.

Sirin glanced longingly at the milk for just a moment before speaking with feigned casualness.

"I don't like this stuff. You guys can have it."

Wrapping her slender arms around her knees, she made herself smaller, her delicate face carrying a trace of stubbornness.

"You've said that so many times before…"

The chestnut-haired girl's eyes seemed to glisten.

She hadn't known Sirin for long, but she knew this—every friend Sirin had come here with was already dead.

And even for companions she had only just met, Sirin would likely say such things on purpose—just so the ones barely clinging to life could drink more.

But Sirin herself hadn't had milk for days… and this was the only real nourishment they had to keep them going.

"...Fine. I'll drink. Happy now?"

Seeing her silent, tearful companion, the purple-haired girl hesitated before finally speaking.

She took the bottle, let her small pink tongue barely taste the milk, and handed it back.

"Alright, the rest is for her."

Without outside nutrition, that third child's body was on the verge of complete collapse.

The chestnut-haired girl, seeing that the milk level had hardly gone down, shed two silent tears before bringing the bottle to the lips of the weakened child.

Sirin turned her head away.

Out of sight of the chestnut-haired girl, she secretly licked her lips, then swallowed hard.

But then she froze.

The steel floor beneath her no longer felt cold.

Instead, it was as though warmth had wrapped around her entire body.

She heard a gentle voice by her ear, and suddenly realized—she was being held by someone.

"What a little angel."

Right now, Sirin was nothing like the inflated pufferfish she would become as a fully awakened Herrscher.

"Who! Who's speaking?"

She didn't struggle, nor did her voice carry fear.

Here, even if the ghost of the dead appeared, she felt it wouldn't harm them.

"Sirin, what are you talking about? There's no one else in the room," the chestnut-haired girl said, puzzled.

Sirin froze—because a boy with a warm smile was standing right before her. And it seemed no one else could see him.

"Sorry. To avoid leaving any unnecessary impressions on bystanders, I've temporarily blocked their awareness of me."

Nagami looked down at the fragile body in his arms, so light it seemed weightless.

He raised an eyebrow, then waved a hand.

In an instant, food appeared on the ground out of thin air.

"Consider this my apology."

Ordinarily, food recreated by a normal Herrscher of Reason would be inedible.

But Nagami's authority had already fused with his Void powers—the food he produced was indistinguishable from the real thing.

The sudden appearance of food left the girls stunned for a moment, then whispering in muffled delight.

Nagami had subtly altered their perception, making them believe this was simply today's lunch.

"Who exactly are you?"

Without her Herrscher powers, Sirin wasn't arrogant yet.

And she wasn't foolish enough to drop her guard around him—her experience of being tricked into the lab had taught her caution.

In her golden eyes, a faint, almost imperceptible glimmer began to gather.

"Already starting? Good."

With his Alpha Stigma Eyes, Nagami could see the Herrscher core forming.

He let out a quiet sigh of relief.

From what he had just witnessed, he truly didn't want to leave her to suffer here any longer.

Still, he worried taking her away too early might disrupt the future.

But now that the core had formed… things would be easier.

"Me? I'm your future—"

The word husband stuck in his throat as he suddenly took a good look at Sirin.

A frame even smaller than Bronya's, soft skin, a childish face… Could this even be called a girl yet?

If he said it outright, wouldn't her first impression of him be that he was a pervert?

…Well, it was technically true—

Eek! No, no, not like that!

What he meant was—it was true that he was Sirin's future husband!