It was strange.
One second, Mei saw Haru leaping off the seventh-floor ledge, landing a direct, devastating blow on the Honkai beast and obliterating it on the spot. But the very next moment, she suddenly collapsed as her vision went pitch black.
If that were all, she wouldn't have thought much of it, chalking it up to sheer physical exhaustion. Unfortunately, what happened next sent everything careening down the wrong path.
'Mei' slowly stood up. However, just like in her terrifying nightmare, her body moved entirely on its own, as if someone else had seized the reins of control before she even realized what was happening. Her perspective had been reduced to that of a helpless passenger.
She could see everything through her own eyes, and yet, the 'Mei' possessing the body felt like an entirely different entity.
[...]
'Mei' looked down at the scene below with a completely expressionless face. Her gaze lingered on the braided-twintails girl first, as if something about her screamed danger. She paused on the twin pistols holstered at the girl's belt for a few seconds longer.
Then, her eyes shifted to the short, drill-curled girl with a hovering robotic called Project Bunny. This time, no invisible alarm bells went off in her mind, so 'Mei' quickly drifted to the final person of interest.
Watanabe Akiharu.
A mysterious guy who had somehow survived a forced, small-scale manmade Honkai eruption at point-blank range without showing a single side effect.
Anyone else would have succumbed to the corrosive energy, mutating into one of the mindless zombies roaming the streets of Nagazora.
Out of all three individuals, he posed the absolute highest threat.
Without warning, her body began to levitate, gliding silently toward them from above.
As expected, he was the first to look up, followed instantly by the other two. This only validated her assumptions, and the Queen decided to drop all pretense of stealth.
'Haru-kun!'
Even though she screamed as loud as she possibly could in her mind, not a single sound escaped her lips. 'Mei' remained completely expressionless until her face abruptly twisted into a condescending smirk.
Lightning crackled violently around her, as if her very body acted as a magnet for the storm. Mei immediately recognized the terrifying shift within her subconscious.
Something, or rather, someone inside her was trying to overwrite her consciousness entirely.
Something far less human, and deeply unnatural.
If the entity succeeded, she might never regain control of her own body. As if sensing the mounting panic buried deep within her mind, Haru's body suddenly split into a flurry of identical clones through a strange, mist-like fire spreading outward from the soles of his shoes.
Instantly, a majority of his clones launched themselves into the air toward 'Mei', propelled upward by an explosive burst of superhuman speed.
'Mei' didn't seem to take the clones seriously, not even bothering to shift her position. But when the lead clone brought his Great Hammer crashing down, her eyes widened in shock as the heavy blow connected solidly instead of phasing harmlessly through an illusion.
[!? How dare you!]
For the subsequent incoming attacks, she actually twisted her body to dodge most of them, though a couple still grazed her. Even so, the look on her face was that of absolute, seething outrage — as if she had just been dealt a mortal insult.
"Oh my, is the Queen offended by my weak little attacks? You must have underestimated me, thinking my clones were just cheap tricks."
Haru, still standing comfortably down on the ground, called out with a breezy, nonchalant attitude as he looked up at her. To the Queen, his dismissive demeanor infuriated her far more than any physical blow could have.
With a flick of her wrist, another vicious torrent of lightning ripped straight out of the sky, slamming directly into that particular 'Haru' and burning him to a crisp in seconds. Seeing that he hadn't managed to dodge in time, the corners of her lips curled into a triumphant smirk.
'No! Haru-kun!'
[...It matters not. More ants are simply ants in the end.]
"Is it fun killing one of my clones? I haven't tried it myself yet, but judging by that pretty smile on your face, I'll take it as a yes."
Another 'Haru', crouching casually on top of a nearby light pole with his Great Hammer resting over his shoulder, snickered at her, clearly amused by her intense reaction.
[...Hmph.]
Buzz! Boom!
"Whoa, looks like I hit a nerve? Don't look so upset, or you'll ruin that lovely face of yours, my Queen~"
Unfortunately for her, he had anticipated the counterattack; his body instinctively vaulted backward a split second before the strike landed, planting him firmly on the roof of a parked car. The light pole wasn't quite as lucky. The lightning strike had fried the internal wiring, causing it to catch fire and explode.
Though he wore a confident facade, the real Haru was burning through his mental energy, frantically piecing together a strategy to take down the Herrscher hovering above them.
He couldn't just whale on 'Mei' without knowing whether his brute strength would be enough to safely knock her out. He had only exploited her initial arrogance to test the waters with his clones. When he had tested a direct strike earlier, it was his actual physical body delivering the hit because he needed to verify if she could take it.
As he suspected, the Queen's bloated ego made her reckless, and his opening strike had successfully connected. He realized immediately that the Herrscher awakening had heavily reinforced Mei's physical durability.
However, resilient as she was, and temporary as the Herrscher's possession might be, it was still Mei's body at the end of the day.
He couldn't afford to hit her hard enough to leave her hospitalized for weeks, or ruined her pretty face.
"Is he out of his mind? Why does he think he can take on a Herrscher all by himself?"
Kiana muttered from the corner of a ruined building, biting her lip to keep herself from recklessly charging into the fray. Still, she couldn't deny the guy clearly wasn't normal, swinging that massive hammer around like it weighed nothing.
Bronya, meanwhile, was calmly performing maintenance on Project Bunny, though it mostly consisted of wiping dark, splattered gore off the heavy steel plating.
"He said so himself. Maybe he has a plan."
While appraising him a moment earlier, Bronya felt an odd prickle of familiarity. She had no recollection of him in her mental archives, so that couldn't be it. Yet, something about his aura, his overall vibe, triggered a strange sense of déjà vu.
Observing how terrifyingly calm he remained while dodging a continuous barrage of divine lightning, the Silver Wolf of the Urals couldn't help wondering if he possessed a background similar to her own old line of work before she was taken in by Cocolia's orphanage.
'Nobody stays that composed when their life is actively on the line. Is he a spy? An assassin? Just what is his game?'