The air in the simulation room moved and swirled like a storm.
And three figures can be seen battling within, their figures a blur as sparks flew from their clashes.
Kiana made eye contact with Mei and nodded her head left.
Mei instantly knew what Kiana meant and quickly moved without a word. She blurred into a streak of violet lightning, dodging a razor-sharp wind blade that sliced through the space she had been.
She didn't need to look back to know what Kiana was doing
Bang. Bang. Bang.
Three shots rang out in rapid succession, aimed at the terrain. Kiana fired at the metallic floor plates, the specialized rounds ricocheting upward at a precise forty-five-degree angle.
High above them, suspended in an updraft of her own creation, Wendy laughed.
"Cute trick!"
The Herrscher of Wind twisted mid-air, her body fluid and weightless. She spun through the ricocheting bullets like a leaf caught in a breeze, her bright emerald eyes showing nothing but pure delight.
Wendy brought her hands together, and the air pressure surrounding it condensed. A localized hurricane slammed down toward Kiana.
"Switch!" Kiana barked.
She dropped into a slide, her heels skidding across the floor as she passed directly under Mei's guard.
Mei stepped forward, her blade drawn in a reverse grip. With her body emitting a violet flow, she sliced straight at the hurricane. Severing the binding currents of Wendy's attack, creating a momentary pocket of stillness in the chaos.
Kiana didn't waste the opening. She vaulted off Mei's shoulder and launched herself into the air, leveling her guns at Wendy.
"Gotcha!" Kiana grinned, unleashing a barrage of special bullets.
Wendy's eyes widened. She summoned a wind barrier to deflect the shots, but the impact forced her to drift backward, lowering her altitude.
Kiana dropped back down to the ground, and the two stared at each other with wide grins.
"Not bad!" Wendy shouted over the roar of the simulation. "But you're still too slow!"
She clapped her hands together, sending a shockwave of compressed air outward. Kiana flipped backward, landing in a crouch next to Mei.
The three of them paused for a heartbeat, the simulation room humming with residual energy.
Kiana stood up, wiping a bead of sweat from her forehead. Her blue eyes tracked the wind patterns, trying to find a pattern.
"She's favoring her left side," Kiana murmured, her voice low enough that only Mei could hear. "She keeps drifting right to compensate for the lag in her wind shield."
"I see it," Mei replied, her katana held at the ready. She glanced at Kiana, a trusting smile touching her lips. "What's the play, Kiana?"
Kiana twirled her pistol. "I'll flush her out. You get through the opening."
Mei didn't ask how. She just nodded, her body tensing as she prepared to engage.
Across the room, Wendy hovered a few feet off the ground, the thermal gloves Kiana had made her humming with faint light.
She felt much better than she did a month ago. Back then, a spar like this would have been impossible with how volatile her condition was. Now? Now she felt like she was finally waking up from a long, bad dream.
She looked at the duo in front of her. Kiana and Mei were moving like a single organism. Perfectly in sync without any more hesitation.
"Come on!" Wendy taunted, hovering higher, her pride swelling in her chest. She summoned four distinct cyclones around her, creating a defensive perimeter.
Kiana didn't take the bait to rush in blindly. She locked eyes with Mei.
"On three," Kiana said.
Mei tightened her grip on her sword.
"One."
Kiana activated her pistols' overload system, the metal glowing orange.
"Two."
Mei channeled lightning into her blade, the air crackling with static.
"Three!"
Kiana sprinted to the right, firing wildly to create a wall of noise and get Wendy's attention.
Mei dashed left, moving silently in the auditory shadow Kiana created. It was a pincer movement, simple but executed with terrifying speed.
Wendy laughed, the thrill of the fight coursing through her veins. This was what she had missed. The thrill of fighting, getting stronger with other Valkyries.
"Try harder!" Wendy yelled, expanding her storm to meet them.
But even as she gathered the wind, she noticed Kiana's eyes. Kiana wasn't looking at Wendy. She was looking at the empty space behind Wendy.
They were planning something.
And she couldn't wait to see if she could break it.
/ — /
Himeko
Himeko stood behind the reinforced glass of the observation deck, a mug of black coffee in one hand and a datapad in the other.
The simulation room below was a chaotic storm of wind, lightning, and gunfire, but up here, the chaos was muffled enough that she wasn't bothered.
She took a sip of the bitter coffee, her eyes flicking from the live combat down to the scrolling streams of biometric data on her screen.
"Unbelievable," Himeko muttered.
For the past month, she had expected things to get a lot worse. With the volatile states of the two Herrschers and their "fight" in that mission, she thought it would be a while before any of them cooled down.
She had prepared to step in again, with some help from Theresa this time, to try and smooth things over. But it turns out they didn't need to do any of that.
Kiana had stepped up and cooled things down. Something Himeko did not expect from the girl at all.
She was definitely proud, no doubt. But it was what happened after that that completely confused her.
Every single one of them started to grow at an insane pace.
Himeko tapped the screen, expanding Wendy's profile.
___
[Subject: A-Rank Valkyrie_Wendy Garett]
[Honkai Energy Status: +48%]
[Combat Efficiency: +94%]
___
The girl who had spent three years trapped in a wheelchair was currently moving with the grace of a dancer.
Himeko watched as Wendy banked hard off a wall, using a precise burst of compressed air to change her trajectory instantly.
There was still some delay from the thermal injections she was still taking, but she adapted quickly.
She had started training way more and was already regaining a small chunk of her previous strength.
'She was the best of Oceania…'
Himeko zoomed in on the video feed. Wendy looked so much different from the first time she saw her.
When she first awakened as a Herrscher, she possessed overwhelming strength but lacked the finesse she had once possessed. Now her skills had improved drastically, and she was close to even Himeko's level.
'If she keeps this up, she will surpass me in a few months…' Himeko thought with a wide smile, shaking her head.
She swiped left.
___
[Subject: B-Rank Valkyrie_Raiden Mei]
[Honkai Energy Status: +30%]
[Combat Efficiency: +60% ]
___
Mei was holding her ground against Wendy. A month ago, the sound of a gunshot in an enclosed space would have sent Mei into a sensory overload.
Now? Mei was weaving through Kiana's covering fire without blinking. It was clear that she was still bothered by it, but the constant training helped her get used to it.
She may not have been as quick as Wendy to adapt to her Herrscher powers, but she wasn't far behind. There was still fear that she held of her own powers, but having someone else in a similar situation was doing wonders.
Himeko also noticed that Mei had grown closer to Kiana after the Nagazora trip. They were already close before, but something about it now was different.
'Now that I think about it, she did look a lot happier after the Nagazora trip… I wonder what Kiana did to calm her down?'
Himeko brushed that thought aside. Whatever the brat did, it worked, and now everyone was a lot happier.
She swiped to the center screen.
___
[Subject: Kiana Kaslana]
[Combat Efficiency: +215%]
___
Himeko lowered her coffee mug, staring at the numbers. She made a hum of approval.
"About time," she whispered.
Just four weeks ago, Kiana had been hitting a hard plateau.
She had been overtraining, skipping meals, and destroying her own body in a desperate, frantic attempt to get stronger.
Her movements back then had been jagged, fueled by panic and desperation.
She was fighting like a cornered animal, sloppy and self-destructive.
But after the Nagazora trip, something had flipped. Kiana had stopped sleeping in the gym.
She had started eating regular meals again. She had actually rested. And the moment she stopped running on fumes, her growth had exploded.
Himeko watched the white-haired girl below. Kiana was currently coordinating a pincer movement, effectively acting as a leader and coordinating seamlessly with Mei.
She was actually dictating the flow of the battle, forcing others to adapt to her rather than the other way around.
Her physical stats had skyrocketed, effectively doubling her combat potential in a single month.
It was impressive. It was exactly what Himeko wanted for her student.
She had a sneaking suspicion that Mei had something to do with Kiana's sudden change in behaviour.
'Two peas in a pod,' Himeko thought, taking another sip of coffee. She shook her head, watching her students work with a sense of relief she hadn't felt in a long time.
/ — /
Kiana
Sweat was stinging Kiana's eyes, but she didn't blink. She couldn't afford to. In front of her, Wendy was hovering off the ground, looking like a goddess of storms who had barely broken a sweat.
"Is that all you've got?" Wendy called out, her voice amplified by the swirling currents around her.
She flicked her wrist, sending a crescent blade of vacuum pressure slicing through a concrete pillar as if it were butter. "I'm just getting warmed up!"
Kiana exchanged a quick look with Mei, who was crouched on the opposite side of the arena.
Mei's chest was heaving, sparks of violet electricity dancing along the edge of her blade. She gave a microscopic nod.
Kiana grinned, shifting her grip on her pistols. 'Okay, time to end this!'
She sprinted straight down in front of Wendy, exposed, making herself the most obvious target in the room.
"That's predictable, Kiana!" Wendy laughed, gathering wind into her palms.
She dropped from the sky like a falcon, aiming to intercept Kiana with a concussive blast that would end the match.
Kiana planted her left foot to pivot.
It happened fast. Kiana's knee gave way under the torque. Her body lurched violently to the side, her balance shattering.
Wendy's eyes lit up.
"Got you!"
Wendy accelerated, abandoning her defensive perimeter to punish the mistake. She closed the distance in a heartbeat, wind howling as she prepared to blast Kiana off her feet.
But as Wendy entered the kill zone, she saw Kiana's face.
She was smiling.
"Got you~" Kiana whispered.
Kiana let gravity take her, dropping her center of mass below Wendy's attack vector. She slammed her hand onto the floor plates, turning the stumble into a rotational pivot point.
Using the momentum of the fall, Kiana kicked upward with both legs, activating the specialized thrusters in her heels at point-blank range.
BOOM.
The explosion of energy caught Wendy completely off guard. The blast didn't hit her, but the shockwave knocked her trajectory off-balance, sending her tumbling forward—right into the space Kiana had just vacated.
Right into Mei's range.
"Now!" Kiana shouted, launching herself backward with the recoil.
Mei was already there. She materialized from Wendy's blind spot, her blade drawn.
Purple lightning collided with green wind.
Wendy, realizing she'd been baited, screamed in frustration and flared her wind, expanding a desperate, spherical barrier to catch the blade.
The collision shook the entire room. A blinding flash of white light engulfed the simulation deck, followed by a shockwave that rattled the observation glass above. The screech of metal on wind screamed through the arena, drowning out everything else.
Then, silence.
The smoke cleared slowly.
In the center of the room, the three of them were sprawled on the floor in a tangled heap of limbs.
Kiana was lying on her back, staring up at the ceiling, her chest heaving. Mei was sitting a few feet away, her hair a static-charged mess, leaning back on her hands. And Wendy was lying face down between them.
For a long moment, the only sound was their collective, ragged breathing.
"Heh..."
Wendy pushed herself up onto her elbows. She spat out some blood and looked at Kiana.
"That… Was… Cheap," Wendy wheezed, but her tone lacked any animosity.
"War is deception," Kiana quoted, breathless. "Sun Tzu… or… something, I forgot."
"I really thought your leg gave out." Wendy laughed, flipping onto her back and closing her eyes.
"A month ago, it would have," Kiana admitted, sitting up and wincing slightly. "But I've been resting more now."
Mei chuckled. She sheathed her katana with a sharp click.
"It was a good plan," Mei said, reaching over to offer Wendy a hand. "You were too focused on Kiana's opening to notice she was leading you."
Wendy took the hand, letting Mei pull her up. She dusted off her thermal gloves, looking from Mei to Kiana.
"Alright, fine," Wendy conceded, crossing her arms. "You guys win this round. But I still have a higher win rate."
"Bring it on," Kiana challenged, while Mei also smiled at the challenge.
/ — /
Himeko.
Down in the simulation arena, the atmosphere had shifted from combat to camaraderie. Kiana was currently trying to convince Wendy that victory crepes were a legitimate post-training dietary requirement.
It was a wholesome, heartwarming tableau of teenage friendship.
Up in the observation deck, however, the mood was freezing over.
"Something's not adding up," Himeko murmured, her voice tight. "Computer, cross-reference Kiana's current metabolic rate with her file from thirty days ago. Overlay the Honkai adaptability curve."
A holographic graph materialized in the air. Two lines appeared. The first, a jagged red line representing last month, showed a steep decline. The second line, glowing a steady blue, represented today.
Himeko felt a chill down her spine. She had seen Valkyries grow stronger before. She had trained prodigies and monsters on the field.
But none of them ever showed such drastic growth. It was unprecedented. A B-Rank Valkyrie outpacing the growth of two Herrschers?
Even if they weren't fully awakened Herrschers, this should still be impossible.
Kiana's growth was exponential. It was as if her body wasn't just learning to fight; it was biologically rewriting itself to survive the environment.
Himeko suddenly remembered the cryptic words Zero had spoken. He had called out Wendy and Mei, but called Kiana a "Special Case."
At the time, Himeko had brushed it off as usual villain monologuing. Now, looking at the charts, a theory began to take root in her mind.
She pulled up the logs from the week Kenji fell into his coma. She looked at Kiana's medical reports from those first few days. The doctors had labeled it "Acute Stress Reaction" and "Psychological Trauma."
But Himeko looked at the symptoms again with fresh eyes.
Insomnia. Extreme irritability. She read the notes on how Kiana was extremely persistent in visiting Kenji.
Behaviour that was oddly similar to Biological Withdrawal. The same thing Mei and Wendy, the two Herrschers, were experiencing.
Himeko's mind raced. She thought about Theresa. The Principal had always been evasive about her niece, deflective Siegfried, and strangely protective of Kiana's medical records.
'Theresa blocked the deep-scan DNA test. She always oversaw any medical emergencies Kiana had, and she only let her most trusted personnel do checkups on her.' Himeko recalled, narrowing her eyes.
She looked down at the white-haired girl below. Kiana was laughing now, draping an arm over Mei's shoulder, looking for all the world like a happy idiot. But the data didn't lie. Kiana's body was evolving to match the Herrschers around her.
'Is there a chance that—'
BZZZZT.
The shrill ring of the phone on the wall cut through the silence.
Himeko jumped, the sound bringing her out of her thoughts. The holographic graphs flickered as she turned toward the red emergency phone.
Only two departments used that direct line: The Overseer's office and the Intensive Care Unit.
'Oh goodness, please don't be bad news.'
Himeko walked over and picked up the receiver.
"Major Murata speaking."
There was a pause. Then, a voice on the other end spoke five words that changed the gravity of the entire room.
"Understood," Himeko said, her voice dropping to a steel whisper. "I'm bringing them in."
/ — /
SCREEECH.
A high-pitched feedback sound tore through the overhead speakers, making all three of them wince and cover their ears.
"Alright, break it up, you brats. Simulation over." Himeko's voice crackled over the PA system.
Kiana released a laughing Wendy, looking up at the glass booth. "Hey! We were having a bonding moment! I was about to convince them to buy me lunch!"
"Yeah, well, lunch is cancelled," Himeko deadpanned, before her tone turned serious again. "And so is the rest of your schedule."
Now that got their attention. They exchanged worried glances as they heard the change in Himeko's tone.
Mei stepped forward. "Is something wrong? Did we break the floor emitters again?"
"No," Himeko sighed. "Listen up, because I'm only saying this once. I just got a call from the ICU."
The room went dead silent.
The playful atmosphere evaporated instantly. Wendy's smile vanished. Mei stiffened, her hands clenching at her sides. Kiana felt her heart skip a beat, a cold stone of dread settling in her stomach.
"Don't give me those looks," Himeko huffed, seeing their terrified expressions on the monitor. "It's good news. Kenji finally decided to wake up."
She almost chuckled at the collective jaw drops of the three Valkyries.
"He's…" Kiana choked out, her voice barely a squeak.
"Awake," Himeko confirmed. "And you can go visit him now."
A wave of adrenaline hit them all at once, but before they could bolt for the door, Himeko's voice cut in again.
"However," Himeko added dryly. "If you walk into the ICU smelling like burnt rubber and sweat, the head nurse will ban you for life. You look like you rolled around in a chimney."
The three of them looked at each other.
They were filthy. Kiana's hair was a bird's nest of static and soot. Mei's battlesuit was covered in dust. Wendy looked like she had wrestled a coal miner.
"Out of my way!" Kiana roared, shoving past them to get to the door.
"Hey! Watch it!" Wendy shouted as she boosted herself forward with a gust of air, bypassing Kiana entirely.
"That's cheating!"
They crashed through the locker room doors, shedding armor and flight suits in record time, fighting for the showers so they could be the first to the ICU.
Up in the observation deck, Himeko watched the chaos unfold on the monitors, shaking her head as she took a sip of her coffee.
"While you're all doing that, I am going to visit him first." She muttered smugly before gulping down the rest of her coffee and walking out of the room.