The fire rekindled in Kiana’s eyes, burning away the lingering shadows of despair.
She was Teacher Himeko’s student.
She was a Valkyrie who fought for all that was beautiful in the world.
How could she possibly stop here?
If she surrendered to the guilt now, how could she ever be worthy of Teacher Himeko’s teachings—of her ultimate sacrifice?
“I will keep fighting,” Kiana murmured, her fists clenching at her sides.
Frez cupped a hand over his ear.
“I can’t hear you.”
“I will keep fighting!” she repeated, her tone sharpening.
“Too quiet.
You want to save the world with a squeak like that?” Frez leaned in, a teasing smirk playing on his lips.
“Try again.”
“I WILL KEEP FIGHTING!!!”
Kiana’s shout echoed down the pristine hospital corridor, loud, deafening, and overflowing with absolute determination.
Thwack.
A ballpoint pen snapped through the air like a sniper’s bullet, burying itself into the drywall mere inches from the back of Frez’s head.
He spun around abruptly.
At the far end of the corridor stood a furious, heavily muscled head nurse.
Her arms were thicker than Frez’s thighs, veins bulging against her scrubs.
Yet, terrifyingly, as she broke into a dead sprint toward them, her heavy footsteps made absolutely zero sound against the linoleum tiles.
“No shouting in the ward!
You two!
Prepare to die!”
You’re the one who’s louder!
Frez didn’t waste a single second.
He grabbed Kiana’s wrist and bolted.
They tore through the hospital corridors, dodging medical carts and startled orderlies, sprinting all the way out the sliding glass doors and into the bustling streets before finally escaping the head nurse’s murderous pursuit.
“That was close,” Frez gasped, leaning against a brick wall to catch his breath.
“I almost got taken out by the final boss of the ICU.”
Watching him dramatically wipe imaginary sweat from his forehead, Kiana’s heavy mood lifted.
The corners of her lips curled up into a genuine, unconscious smile.
“You can defeat the Herrscher of the Void without breaking a sweat, yet you’re terrified of a hospital nurse?” she asked, amused.
“Because we were in the wrong,” Frez replied, adjusting his collar.
“Besides, I only get heavy-handed with people I consider actual enemies.
I communicate normally with everyone else.”
Kiana leaned against the wall next to him, her smile softening into something more contemplative.
“Speaking of which…
why are you helping me like this?
Do you pity me?”
“That’s part of it,” Frez admitted with a casual shrug.
“But mostly, I help because I want to.
Not everything in life needs to be driven by some grand, calculated purpose.”
He pulled a pair of dark sunglasses from his pocket and slid them onto his face, flashing her an easy grin.
“Besides, I can’t bear to see a beautiful girl die in front of me.”
Kiana looked down, her white bangs casting a shadow over her eyes.
“This is Kiana’s face.
Not mine.”
“No, it’s yours,” Frez corrected smoothly.
“What the real Kiana looks like when she grows up is similar to you, but there are distinct differences.”
Kiana frowned, shaking her head.
“How is that possible?
I’m a clone.
Genetically, how could there be differences?
And the real Kiana is already dead.
Seeing her stubborn disbelief, Frez simply raised a hand and pointed across the street.
High above the intersection hung a massive digital billboard displaying a public service announcement.
The woman featured on the screen was exceptionally striking—radiating a valiant, confident beauty.
She had long, flowing white hair, and her facial structure bore an uncanny, matured resemblance to Kiana’s.
Kiana’s azure eyes widened.
“Is that…
Durandal?
But I remember she had blonde hair!”
She had seen photos of Schicksal’s strongest Valkyrie before.
Durandal was the pinnacle of strength, the very goal Kiana had been desperately chasing.
Looking closely now, the woman on the billboard shared an obvious resemblance to Lady Cecilia.
Is it just my imagination?
Kiana thought, her mind racing.
Or is it because the Durandal of this world is also a member of the Kaslana family?
“She has white hair here because she didn’t go through a catastrophic injury and fall down a snowy mountain,” Frez said quietly.
“What do you mean?” Kiana tore her gaze away from the billboard, staring at Frez in total confusion.
“Kiana, is it possible that the real Kiana never died?
That she just lost her memory while trying to save you?”
“You mean…”
Without the Herrscher persona clouding her mind, Kiana’s natural intellect kicked in.
Her thoughts connected the scattered dots, arriving at a seemingly impossible conclusion.
Her breath hitched.
“Durandal…
is the real Kiana?”
“Bingo,” Frez nodded.
“I know a lot of things.
Your past, your future.
Though, now that you’re making different choices, that future only has reference value.”
He leaned back against the brickwork, his tone turning serious.
“After you were born, Siegfried fought his way out of Schicksal with his daughter.
At that time, the real Kiana liked you at first sight.
She genuinely hoped you could be her younger sister.”
Kiana’s chest tightened.
“But during the retreat, her brain was struck by missile fragments, and she fell from a height of several thousand meters into a frozen wasteland,” Frez continued.
“Thanks to inheriting the monstrously excellent bloodlines of the Kaslana and Schariac families, along with her own extraordinary talent, she survived by a fluke.
Honestly, if Schicksal’s search and rescue team had arrived a few days later, she probably would have healed herself and walked right out of that snowy mountain on her own.”
Kiana’s mouth twitched.
The heavy emotional atmosphere shattered for a brief second as the sheer absurdity of her family’s genetics set in.
Isn’t that constitution a bit too ridiculous?
“Ridiculous, right?
I wanted to say that too,” Frez chuckled, reading her expression perfectly.
“She was only eight years old at the time.
Eight!
Absolutely insane.”
“And then?” Kiana pressed, desperate to know the rest of the story.
“What happened to her?”
“Schicksal’s search and rescue team found her.
Otto personally performed the surgery to save her life.
The price of that trauma and the subsequent treatment was the loss of her memories, and her white hair mutating into long, blonde, wavy locks.”
“It must be Otto’s doing!” Kiana snapped, her fists clenching again.
“He just wanted to brainwash her into being a mindless tool for his command!”
“You’re actually misunderstanding him there,” Frez corrected gently.
Before she became his trump card, he even sent Durandal to an orphanage to live a normal life.
Later, when she officially joined Schicksal, he assigned her to Theresa’s side.
He hid her true identity, yes, but Durandal eventually left Saint Freya on her own because she didn’t like the relaxed atmosphere.
Under Otto’s guidance, she grew into the warrior she is today.”
“But keeping her by his side…
wouldn’t he just raise her as a weapon?” Kiana asked, her voice laced with worry for the sister she never truly knew.
“No.
You can question Otto Apocalypse on literally anything else, but his ability to teach and nurture students is beyond doubt.
Every single student he personally teaches turns out to be a genuinely good person, fighting for all that is beautiful in the world.
Himeko taught you that exact phrase, right?
Do you know who Himeko learned it from?”
“Teacher Himeko said she learned it from the captain of the Schicksal Valkyrie Assault Squad at the time…
Ragna.”
“Exactly,” Frez pointed a finger at her.
“And Otto taught Ragna.”
Kiana stood frozen, unable to believe her ears.
The Bishop?
The ambitious, ruthless schemer who orchestrated the Honkai eruptions and manipulated the Herrschers?
He was the origin of that heroic ideology?
“Kiana, there are two things I will never doubt about Otto,” Frez said, his voice steady.
“One is his absolute, obsessive love for Kallen.
The other is his dedication to his students.”
He looked up at the sky, pushing his sunglasses up the bridge of his nose.
“In your world, Otto lost Kallen and spent five hundred years trying to resurrect her.
That phrase—’fighting for all that is beautiful in the world’—was something he learned from Kallen.
He passed it down to his students.
It echoed through generations.
From Otto, to Ragna, to Himeko, and finally…
to you.”
Frez looked back at Kiana.
“He is an irredeemable bastard.
He absolutely deserves to die, and he will be your ultimate enemy in the future.
But that specific legacy?
That is worth respecting.”
Kiana slowly exhaled, the tension leaving her shoulders.
“I understand.
When the time comes, I will settle the final score with him.” She looked at Frez, her azure eyes filled with deep sincerity.
“Thank you.
Thank you for pulling me back from the darkness, and for guiding me.”
“Don’t sweat it, we’re bros.” Frez waved his hand dismissively, completely indifferent to the praise.
“Besides, I might need your help in the future.”
“Of course,” Kiana agreed without a second thought.
“What kind of help do you need?”
Frez’s casual demeanor faded, replaced by a sharp, calculating edge.
“The world I’m currently living in isn’t exactly normal.
It’s a diseased wasteland, and its ending is currently hurtling toward absolute destruction.
I intend to reverse that future.”
He turned his gaze toward the horizon, his tone laced with quiet confidence.
“Rather than entrusting an ethereal future to the hands of others, I’d rather believe in myself.
You can call me arrogant, Kiana, but I have to try and change that cesspool of a world.”
[Akarin’s Note:
Enjoying the story?