Several portals opened around Himeko, the tips of void lances emerging through them.
To Otto and Shamash's surprise, I started humming.
Himeko's sword that had been launched at Sirin suddenly trembled, before flying back towards Himeko and splitting into fragments, before combining back with the original to form Surtr Muspellsverd. With the simultaneous activation of the 4th Gen Nexus Overdrive system powered by the Gem of Haste, flames shooting out of her back and from the sword itself.
She swung. Each void lance ignited and vaporized before it could strike.
Sirin raised her hands, and two purple pillars materialized above Himeko, causing Himeko to disappear from view.
Sirin created a cube, drawing her arm back like a bow as it narrowed into an arrow. Launching it towards the pillars. However, it was blocked by a huge explosion as Himeko leapt forward.
Sirin tried to block Himeko with silicon ribbons, but they were cut in half by Surtr Muspellsverd, but the medical panel that was now being displayed lit up red on Himeko's arms, legs, and chest. Along with several even more critical warnings.
Sirin blocked the greatsword by materialising a giant drill made from the power of the Void around her arm, aiming it at Himeko above her.
My drill will pierce the heavens! Lee thought.
Himeko swung at it with all her might, crashing into the tip, compressing it down from a cone to a disk before flames burst forth, pushing Himeko even harder.
Suddenly breaking out into acapella singing,
"Never let you go~"
Otto "?"
Shamash "?"
Himeko drew back her sword again,
"It's why I did them all~"
The Gem of Haste's power focused into a beam of pure flame, piercing the disk and striking Sirin's void shield head-on.
"For a chance at least,~"
Falling straight down, every monitor in Himeko's suit screamed critical warnings. The power of the Gem of Haste wasn't just an asset.
"...to live in your way!~"
A bright flash of light lit up the screen as Himeko and Sirin collided, the fire maxing out the sensor of the camera.
Suddenly I paused singing, "Activate the portal. Now."
Transferring the feed from the wall monitor to my HUD, I sprinted toward the end of the chamber as a beam of purple void energy erupted from the Divine Key.
Himeko was kneeling on the ground in front of Sirin, Surtr Muspellsverd crumbling into fragments. She slumped forward, only for Sirin to headbutt her, forcing her back.
"The way I, go through with, red roses burn my eyes~"
Sirin threw her head back, a storm of void energy erupting from her as the God-Slaying Spear activated. Black tendrils stretched into the air, portals ripping open at random.
"Cold rain starts pouring hard, I'm being called upon~"
I dove through the portal, falling for several seconds before activating the flight system as the feed cut out.
"Never let you go—it's why I did them all~"
My HUD locked onto Himeko's falling battlesuit, its medical readouts completely corrupted.
"For a chance at least, to live in your way!~"
I caught Himeko as she was falling, the faux Hyperion arena dissolving into nothingness now that Sirin was no longer around to maintain it.
"Love of you is my most cherished thing~"
I poured Abundance Energy into Himeko, the purple lines covering her entire body slowly disappearing as she was surrounded in a golden glow.
"So stay alive bravely!~"
Looking around, I saw that Kiana was no longer around, the area where Sirin had been was still covered in random portals, appearing out of nowhere and dissolving just as quickly.
I reached behind Himeko's suit, gripping the Gem of Haste embedded in the frame, and tore it free. With a flick, I hurled it toward where she had fallen before.
My heads up pinged me, pointing me towards where the original portal I had entered from was located, pushing the flight systems into overdrive, I flew back up and through the portal, pushing Abundance Energy into Himeko the entire time.
Suddenly back in the reduced gravity of the moon, I almost hit my head on the ceiling of the Divine Key chamber, before the flight systems adjusted to compensate, landing me back on the floor, before turning off.
"Shamash!"
I ran into the room over, in which there was emergency treatment equipment, and a large tank.
Shamash, hovering behind me as I placed Himeko onto the bed, several pieces of Vermillion Knight Eclypse crumbling and falling off, leaving only a few inner frame pieces intact.
"Congratulations, my friend," Otto's voice said over the intercom. "However, don't forget the final piece."
"I remember," I replied, irritation creeping into my voice.
I pressed a button on the console. The tank began to drain, revealing the clone of Murata Himeko inside, covered in purple lines. Wearing only the underlayer of a 4th-gen suit, the clone slumped as the cylinder twisted open.
I dragged the body out and back into the Divine Key chamber, before tossing it through the still-active portal, along with some of the shattered armor fragments scattered across the floor.
Returning to the medical chamber, two Valkyries had entered and begun attaching sensors to Himeko.
"Status?" I demanded.
"She'll live," one replied. "Considering how damaged her suit is, her body's in remarkable condition."
Because I pumped her full of Abundance Energy. The real concern is neurological damage, or the Stigmata.
I told them as much.
"We can't confirm brain trauma until she wakes or the scan completes," one said, turning Himeko onto her side to check her back. "As for the Stigmata…"
The Stigmata was gone.
Stigmata, while a lifesaver due to its effect in increasing Honkai Energy resistance, was also extremely dangerous. I guess the Abundance Energy's conceptual healing removed it.
Interesting that it didn't do that with Siegfried, maybe it was because of the differences between "natural" and artificial Stigmata, with the latter having significant side effects.
"It's best to sedate her for now, the battlesuit is partially melted into her skin in some places, it will be quite difficult to remove. It's still extremely hot"
The Abundance Energy didn't fix that? Actually, the remains of the battlesuit didn't really have time to cool, so that probably happened again after healing her, I can always heal her again later.
Shamash was still floating beside the bed, however they gestured towards the door.
"Keep her sedated, do whatever you need too." I instructed.
Leaving the room, Otto was back on the original wall monitor, presumably he had never left. A small drone was picking up all the battlesuit fragments, before they chucked it back through the portal, the Divine Key finally deactivating.
"Everything went as planned," Otto said. "The location of subject K-423 has been lost, but I have no doubt she survived."
I exhaled slowly. Planning everything was one thing, holding a dying Himeko in my arms was another.
"Yes, everything went according to plan," I said. "Only one question, how do you intend to deal with Theresa's little rebellion?"
"I won't hold it against her, after all, I won't be around much longer, I will fulfill my ultimate wish in a little more than a year."
"I know that. But how will you get Theresa and the others out of HQ?"
"The Honkai levels are dropping. The eruption's over. Some portals lead back to Earth, and the telemetry from Himeko's battlesuit likely made it through. The clone's medical system is online and registering Himeko as deceased. As for Theresa and the others, I'll handle them. You, my friend, should attend to Miss Himeko. A most worthy Valkyrie indeed."
The screen flicked off.
Returning to a battlesuit chamber and removing my battlesuit, before dressing in my Schicksal uniform, before returning to the medical room.
According to the Schicksal medics, nothing had changed, and she was still almost perfectly fine, besides burns from the Hot battlesuit, which was currently being removed by one of them, piece by piece, while the other sprayed and applied bandages to each spot, skipping over some that were extraordinarily bad.
I sat quietly in a nearby chair, watching for nearly an hour until they finished.
They replaced the IV with one that didn't contain sedatives, and left me in the room with Himeko.
Rising, I summoned the power of Abundance once more, letting it flow through her. The burns faded.
Moments later, she stirred. The healing must have neutralized the sedatives, her breathing quickened, and her fingers twitched.
I moved the chair closer to the bed and sat down.
Himeko's eyelids fluttered, her gaze unfocused at first, then sharpening as she turned her head toward me. Her voice came out hoarse, barely above a whisper.
"...Tesla said you were probably dead."
I leaned back slightly in the chair, arms crossed. "And yet I'm standing right in front of you."
"Actually you're sitting right before me." Himeko exhaled a weak laugh that quickly turned into a wince. "Guess I should be dead too." Her eyes wandered toward the ceiling, the faint light of the medbay reflecting off her irises. "Then again... maybe I am."
Her expression softened into something halfway between exhaustion and disbelief. "Heaven looks remarkably like the inside of a Schicksal medical bay."
I shot her an unimpressed look. "You're not dead, Himeko."
"Not yet, huh?" she murmured, eyes closing briefly before opening again. "Then what happened...?"
She stopped midsentence, her gaze drifting as fragmented memories began to surface, The Herrscher of the Void, her 'Final Lesson', the flames, passing out. Her mouth tightened, the color draining from her face as the weight of it all pressed back into her mind.
Then she looked back at me, supposedly dead.
"...About everything," she said.
"Where to begin?" I started, which wasn't actually true, I had planned out what to say beforehand.
"Inside Kiana there are two personalities, Kiana, and Sirin, the Second Herrscher."
"I know, we figured that out."
"Kiana was completely unaware of her true nature as a Herrscher, all knowledge of it locked away and repressed into the 'Sirin' personality, who when awakened, became a Herrscher attempting to destroy humanity." I narrated, "in order to wake Kiana up, beating the 'Sirin' personality, and gaining a rational Kiana with Herrscher powers, extremely strong emotions were the best way."
Himeko's eyes suddenly flashed angry, "So all this was intentional?"
I quickly pinned all the blame on Otto, "It was Otto's plan, your 'Final Lesson' is exactly what Kiana needed to wake up and defeat Sirin."
"So Kiana is back to herself? And she has Herrscher powers?" Himeko asked.
"Kiana is back, but she disappeared through one of the portals, as a Herrscher now, she won't die easily, but we have no idea where she is for now."
"And who exactly is 'We'? You and Otto?" Himeko asked.
"Yes, I am content to play the bad guy, for the future, and for the survival of humanity."
"Hah, the 'Survival of Humanity'?" Himeko scoffed.
"Himeko, do you know how to beat the Honkai?"
That shut Himeko up for a good while, before she countered with, "And you do?"
"Yes." I responded simply.
Himeko raised an eyebrow at that.
"You cannot beat the Honkai by fighting it, you're not actually 'Fighting' the Honkai at all, just its side effects. There is only one way to stop the Honkai." I explained, pausing to let Himeko ask the question.
"And what is that?"
"You need someone so powerful that they can gain 'Authority' over the Cocoon of Finality."
"Cocoon of Finality?"
"A form of conceptual device, the Honkai is something like a parasite on the Imaginary Tree, the Cocoon of Finality is the one responsible for spreading the Honkai on each 'infected' world."
I paused dramatically, "And the only being strong enough to gain control over this world's Cocoon of Finality is the Herrscher of the End."
"The Herrscher of the Void used the power of Death in addition to the power of the void. You think Kiana can wield other authorities." Himeko leapt to the answer.
"Bingo, each authority is a shadow of the power of Finality, by combining every Herrscher power you can effectively create a Herrscher of the End that sides with humanity. Overcoming the Honkai by cheating."
A.N. Read through chapter 40 again and I realized that I forgot to include why Lee has to trap Welt in the Sea of Quanta herself. In this timeline, due to Lee, Einstein is studying Imaginary Energy instead of the Sea of Quanta, so the original exploration of the Sea of Quanta by the Conservatives never happened, this also means that the Quantum Sheath Technology was never developed, so no magically appearing Titans.
A.N.2 Bro I fell off, I don't even know what my ranking is now. Gotta get in those reminders to give me all your power stones so I can eat them.