Somewhere in the mountains on the outskirts of what would later become Tenguu City, the night was quiet.
The forest was dark, thin strands of moonlight slipping through the trees and barely touching the ground below.
A girl with long pale blue hair moved between the trunks, one slow step at a time.
Her hand pressed tightly against her stomach, blood seeping through her fingers no matter how hard she tried to hold it in. Each step took effort. Her legs felt heavier with every movement, her balance slipping little by little.
Her clothes didn't match the place or the time. The fabric clung lightly to her body, almost clear in places, catching faint light as she moved. It flowed like water, layered and delicate, nothing like the kind of clothing someone would wear in 2010 - especially not in a mountain forest in the middle of the night.
Gold pieces rested along her neck and shoulders, thin chains and ornaments that should have looked fragile. Even stained with blood and torn from damage, they still framed her figure with quiet elegance.
Her breathing grew uneven.
The cold air burned her lungs. Her vision dimmed at the edges.
If she stopped moving now, she knew she wouldn't get up again.
The girl looked around, glancing over her shoulder before lifting her gaze toward the sky, searching for any sign that someone might still be chasing her.
It had only been a few months since she came into existence. From the moment she was born, groups of people wearing unfamiliar suits had begun pursuing her. They attacked without hesitation, attempting to capture her every time they found her.
She did not know who they were.
She did not know why they wanted her.
Each encounter ended the same way - she fought, she escaped, and she was left injured.
Tonight was no different.
She had barely managed to survive. Her abilities allowed her to break through their assault, but the cost was severe. Her body was badly wounded, and the energy she normally relied on to heal herself was nearly depleted.
Because of that, she knew she wouldn't be able to recover from her injuries this time.
For now, the only thing on her mind was finding somewhere safe before she lost consciousness.
Her body was already at its limit. She could feel her strength fading little by little. It wouldn't be long before she wouldn't be able to stay awake anymore.
At the same time further into the forest, the air began to twist and bend, shifting in a way that didn't belong. A thin line formed, stretching across the trees, growing wider by the second.
At first it was just a thin line, like something had cut through space itself. Then it slowly widened, forming a crack that didn't belong there.
A portal tore itself open.
A second later, someone was thrown out of it.
"Kyaaa-!"
The girl tumbled through the air before hitting the ground roughly, rolling across the forest floor as the portal snapped shut behind her.
"Ow…" Reina muttered as she rubbed her lower back after hitting the ground.
It didn't actually hurt her. It was more of a reflex than anything else after being thrown out like that.
"I didn't expect that gate to suck me in like that… I'll have to adjust the output later."
She stood up and looked around. All she could see at first was darkness and rows of trees, but her eyes adjusted quickly. The outlines of the forest became clearer, the shapes sharpening in the dim light.
"A forest? …No, the wind's stronger than that. A mountain, maybe? What country did I end up in this time?"
She was about to reach out with her senses, trying to locate the bracelet Kiana was wearing—the one she had personally reinforced so she could track her across worlds.
Something felt wrong.
"What is this…?"
She looked around again, focusing this time on the air itself. There was something faint there. A kind of energy mixed into the atmosphere.
It was weak. No—weak wasn't the right word.
It was almost nonexistent.
"…Mana?"
She raised her right hand and tried to gather it. The particles responded, but barely. Even when she pulled in everything she could sense, the energy thinned out and dispersed before it could form even the smallest sphere.
"So little…"
Not every world had mana in its atmosphere. Usually, only worlds with magic or fantasy systems did.
But even then, they normally had far more than this.
"This feels like… Typemoon after the Age of Magic ended. During the Age of Man."
In that world, mana had gradually faded from the world. The Age of Mystery had already declined, and magi were forced to rely on their own Magic Circuits, converting their life force into Od just to keep their craft alive.
Reina frowned slightly.
"…Did I end up in Typemoon?"
The similarity was close enough that it was her first assumption.
But for now she pushed that thought to the back of her mind and looked down at the ground around her.
She easily spotted Yamato that had been sucked in along with her.
She simply reached toward it and Yamato immediately flew into her grasp.
The Herrscher of Void core was still attached to the blade, but the problem was there was no energy left after she used it to create a gate that transferred her to a different universe.
Transporting between universes required a lot of energy, especially in Honkai Impact where there was no mana and only Honkai energy existed.
Converting Honkai energy into mana for her wings was easy, but she had already used most of it to revive many people a few days ago.
And earlier, when she barely had enough left, she still tried experimenting with Yamato and created a gate between dimensions.
"For now I should find civilization and figure out where I am."
Closing her eyes, she tried to sense everything around her.
There were only usual creatures in the mountain like wolves, bears, deer, insects, and so on.
There was a small city near the mountain, and she could also feel two people living in a house in the middle of the forest nearby.
"Hm? What is this?" In the opposite direction, she sensed something strange.
It was weak energy, but very different from anyone she had sensed so far.
From how the energy kept staggering and moving slowly, and how low it felt, that person was probably injured or wounded.
"This feels like déjà vu for some reason…" Opening her eyes, she remembered the first time she met Kiana, when she found her in the middle of a snowstorm in the mountains, in a forest just like this—only without the snow.
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Not too far from Reina's location, the girl continued forcing herself forward.
Her steps were unsteady now. She had been pushing her body for too long, and each step felt heavier than the last. She stumbled once but managed to catch herself. The second time, her legs gave out completely.
She fell hard onto the ground.
Her vision blurred, darkness slowly creeping in from the edges. It was only through sheer will that she had managed to keep moving until now.
But her body had finally reached its limit.
She couldn't move anymore. She could only lie there, barely conscious, her breathing weak as her strength faded.
Her thoughts drifted back to a few months ago—the first time she was hunted.
She still didn't understand why they were chasing her like that. Was it wrong for her to exist?
The more she remembered, the more anger rose inside her. In the few months since her birth, she had never experienced anything good from humans. Every time she saw them, they only tried to capture her.
Her hands clenched into fists. Her teeth ground together as tears slowly slipped from the corners of her eyes. Her eyelids grew heavier and heavier, almost closing completely.
"Oh wow, it's literally déjà vu."
Suddenly she heard someone's voice, and her eyes snapped open again. Instinctively, she tried to move, wanting to get away as fast as possible.
Unfortunately, her body was already too weak to stand. No matter how much she tried, she couldn't make her limbs respond. All she could do was lie there, waiting for whatever would happen next.
The last thing she felt was someone lifting her into their arms.
And a faint, unfamiliar fragrance lingering in the air before everything went dark.
While carrying the girl, Reina released her three pairs of wings. This time, she also used a spell to make their bodies invisible and undetectable.
In the Honkai Impact 3 world, she didn't care much after the Nagazora incident. But this was a new world, so she needed to be careful.
Flying high into the sky, she moved around the mountain, searching for a place to build a shelter.
"A house? In the middle of the mountain? Is that where I sensed those two people earlier?" Reina murmured as she looked at the house while looking around from above.
Maybe after she established her own place, she could go there to ask where she was, or even find out what world she was currently in.
For now, though, she flew away from the house and spent a few minutes looking for a good location to build her place.
"Creation…"
Her wings glowed as she used her power, and in front of her a wooden cabin materialized—the same one she created when she first met Kiana.
It was easier to recreate something she had already made before since she knew its composition and physical structure.
Because of that, it took less energy to form everything she needed to make the cabin comfortable.
Furniture, electricity, decorations, and running water for bathing.
She also added clothes, since she didn't know how long she would be staying here.
Especially for the girl she was carrying, because her dress was torn and stained with blood.
"I hope nothing complicated happens…"
With that, she carried the unconscious girl inside the cabin, leaving the dark forest behind.
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"…haa…" A quiet breath left her lips as she exhaled.
It had been a few days since Reina arrived in this world, and so far she had spent her time meditating.
She was trying to absorb as much mana from the air as she could, but just like she noticed before, the mana was so scarce that even after several days she had only gathered a minuscule amount.
After doing it a few more times, in the end she decided to stop and stand up.
"It's useless if I keep depending on the mana. It's going to take me hundreds of years before I have enough energy…"
Returning to the Sky Realm would require less energy, but even then it would still take around a hundred years before she gathered enough mana to open a gate.
"Chip chip."
Her thoughts stopped when she heard a bird chirping on her shoulder.
"Yeah, it's useless to think about that. For now I'll think of another way," Reina said as she patted the little bird before it flew away.
She started walking back to the cabin since she was currently outside near the mountain stream.
During these past few days, she had also found out that she wasn't in the Typemoon world.
She couldn't sense the presence of Gaia and Alaya, the ones protecting the Earth and humanity.
Well, technically Gaia hated humanity, but that didn't really matter. She also couldn't feel any Archetype beings.
So that meant she was in a different world than she first thought.
"I'm home," she unconsciously said after entering the cabin.
Usually Kiana would answer her with "Welcome back," but there was no Kiana here, and Reina had already started to miss her.
The way Kiana would happily say she missed her cooking, then shower her with praise while eating, and afterward the two of them would cuddle until Sora suddenly appeared, embarrassed and fed up.
She walked upstairs, reminiscing about Kiana's antics until she arrived in front of the bedroom.
"I wonder if she's already awake or not."
Opening the door, the usual scene she had seen every day came into view.
The girl was still sleeping on the bed. Unlike a few days ago, her appearance was no longer dirty or covered in blood.
Even her dress had returned to its original elegant beauty, looking like flowing transparent water, and the decorations on it were completely restored.
Reina already knew this girl wasn't normal. She had tried to remove the dress before to change her clothes, but the moment she did, the dress disappeared and then reappeared on the girl's body again.
When she checked her condition, she also found some kind of crystal inside her body. That crystal had been gathering energy on its own, slowly healing her injuries and even repairing the dress while she was unconscious.
"I wonder who she really is…"