Why am I not dead yet?
Why wasn't it me who died?
Why am I still clinging to life in this world?
…
The same questions had replayed in the girl's heart countless times.
Ever since she started wandering, she hadn't slept well even once.
"Run? And where do you think you can run to? I'll keep appearing—again and again—in your deepest nightmares, until you no longer have the strength to resist…"
That sneer, saturated with malice, often broke into her dreams. The grotesque face of the Herrscher of the Void was a nightmare she could never escape.
But what truly drove her to despair wasn't the Herrscher's vicious mockery, nor the confusion and helplessness when her body was seized…
It was—
"Kiana…"
The moment her consciousness snapped awake, the red-haired woman was only an arm's length away. Her skin looked like cracked, dried earth. The light in her eyes had gone out, leaving only dead ash.
"This is… the final lesson…"
The sound of the Godslayer sword shattering made her pupils constrict. The Herrscher's will surged like a tide, drowning her own once more, and the power that erupted slammed the woman's body away.
"Heh…"
A faint smile tugged at the woman's lips—so slight it was almost imperceptible.
When the liquid from the Godslayer Spear injected into her body, it surged through her like molten lava.
Pain—like it would rip her apart entirely. Even her soul felt as though it were burning in hellfire.
The Honkai energy inside her was continually being dissolved. The Imaginary Space collapsed.
All she could do was watch that lifeless figure fall into a bottomless abyss, like a bird dropping out of the sky…
Every time the dream reached that point, Kiana would jolt awake.
"Kiana, Kiana! You can't use the Herrscher's power anymore…"
That familiar voice kept sounding in her mind, trying to pry open her frozen heart—but to her ears, that anxious plea only felt like the jeering of an executioner.
She knew exactly whose voice it was—the voice fighting the Herrscher of the Void in her head, suppressing it again and again.
But she couldn't accept it. Couldn't acknowledge it. Couldn't forgive it…
Fu Hua.
Her beloved class monitor. Her companion. Her…
Liar.
Liar.
Liar liar liar liar—!
Anger felt like it would burst through her chest, yet Himeko's final voice rang in her ears once again.
"Kiana…"
In those half-dreaming, half-waking moments, Kiana sometimes felt as if she'd returned to her days at St. Freya.
Sleeping in lazily, when suddenly her ear would sting—she'd open her eyes to Himeko's furious face.
"Kiana, how long are you going to sleep?! Get up!"
"Ow ow ow! Auntie Himeko, don't pull my ear!!"
"Don't call me auntie. Call me teacher!"
Yeah.
She had to be dreaming. A sad dream.
But it didn't matter—if she just opened her eyes, she'd go back to the warm little nest at St. Freya.
She'd smell Mei's handmade breakfast, hear Bronya playing games, and before long Himeko would appear at her bedside, personally dragging this lazy lump out of bed—
But when Kiana opened her eyes, what greeted her was a pitch-black alley in Arc City.
She could only pull her coat tighter, yet that cold that seeped down into her soul couldn't be driven away—not even by the fiercest flame.
She knew. Of course she knew…
She couldn't go back to St. Freya.
And Teacher Himeko wouldn't come back either.
When that thought rose clearly in her mind, she didn't cry—because her tears had already run dry through countless awakenings.
But her chest still felt crushed under a boulder. Every breath dragged, thick and heavy.
It wasn't a sudden, explosive agony—it was a dull pain that ground slowly over her nerves, more torturous than being struck by Mei's lightning during training.
Like a blunt knife carving flesh, endlessly, without pause…
"It was you who killed her."
"You—you—you did it, Kiana—!!"
"You remember, don't you? The feel of the Void Spear piercing through her body… the sound of her bones cracking as you crushed them with the Herrscher's power…"
"Of course you remember. Of course you do—because… I am you…"
That voice was like a venomous snake: sharp, thin, and cold. Under the Herrscher's near-mad torment, her nerves had grown unbearably fragile—like a taut string, ready to snap at any moment.
And that day…
Finally arrived.
Clinging to the last sliver of light in her heart, Kiana killed a Honkai beast that appeared in a corner of Arc City, urging a mother and daughter to run.
After watching them vanish, she pulled up her hood again, intending to leave before the Arc City police arrived.
But the raging will instantly broke past the critical threshold. Days of repeatedly drawing on Honkai energy had summoned a terrifying demon.
Her eyes were stained gold once more.
Ah…
She pressed her pistol beneath her chin. In the hallucination, she seemed to see Himeko waving at her.
"You think suicide will set you free? Don't be ridiculous!"
"Stop, Kiana. Steady your mind—I'll help you—"
Two familiar voices tangled in her head, like they were locked in a fierce battle.
"Teacher Himeko… I'm sorry. I can't let the Herrscher…"
Tears slid down her cheeks and splashed onto the ground.
Bang—
A gunshot shattered Arc City's nighttime silence.
Everything seemed to end there. To finish there…
Was it over?
…
Maybe not.
"After people die… do they still have consciousness?"
Kiana remembered asking Teacher Himeko that once, and the woman had scoffed.
"You'll find out when you die!"
But Kiana still had consciousness. A ridiculous joy rose in her chest—
So I can finally tell you, Auntie Himeko. After people die…
Cold liquid splashed onto her face.
The sensation made her shudder.
Kiana opened her eyes. A fine drizzle was falling.
"Where… is this?"
She found herself lying in an alley. Rain threads struck her lips with a rusty, metallic chill.
She wiped her face. Her fingertips touched damp tear tracks and rainwater's cold slickness—no piercing pain through her skull like she'd expected.
She looked down at her hands. The soreness of gripping the gun still lingered in the web of her thumb, but the pistol that had been under her chin was gone without a trace.
Her White Comet armor felt like heavy scrap metal. Every joint light was dead. Even the thermal layer that hugged her skin had lost its function.
Cold wind and rain wormed into the gaps of her armor, making her teeth tremble.
She braced herself against the wall and stumbled forward. Each step tugged at her wounds, making her suck in a sharp breath.
But the pain was real. It belonged to "Kiana Kaslana."
It wasn't the Herrscher's hallucination.
She instinctively touched her chest—only to hear the steady thump of her heart.
Once. Then again.
As if reminding her—
You're still alive.
The moment she stepped out of the alley, she froze.
Colorful umbrellas drifted along the street. Car horns rose and fell in waves.
The thing that made her pupils shrink—
was the huge screen in the plaza.
A woman in an ornate gown smiled with elegant poise, and the caption beneath read:
"World Superstar: Eden."
"Where… is this?"
Rain slanted across Kiana's face, mixing with the tear tracks that hadn't dried, icy enough to sting.
She staggered into the crowd.
"Hello? Excuse me—where is this?"
No one answered.
She grabbed at a passerby, but they walked straight past her shoulder—
No.
Not brushed past.
Passed through.
Kiana lowered her gaze to her hand.
Rainwater slipped through her fingertips and fell onto the ground.
Her palm was turning transparent.
"No…"
She tried to grab something—anything.
But her fingers passed through the roadside railing, through the advertisement board, through everything she reached for.
"No, no, no—"
She crouched down, hugging her knees, her whole body shaking uncontrollably.
Rain fell onto the top of her head, yet it didn't wet her hair.
It simply went through.
"Heh…"
A familiar mockery sounded by her ear. She couldn't tell if it was real or imagined.
"So this is your destination, Kiana? Becoming a ghost the world refuses to acknowledge?"
"Fine. That way you can watch the world keep turning forever and ever… while you can do nothing, touch nothing…"
"Isn't that… the punishment best suited for you?"
Kiana didn't answer the voice.
She just crouched silently in the rain, watching pedestrians pass by, watching rain pass through her body.
She didn't know how long it was.
Minutes. Hours.
Eventually, she stood up and walked without purpose.
Neon lights smeared into hazy blots behind the curtain of rain.
She didn't know where she was going.
Or where she even could go.
She just walked.
And walked.
Until she entered an old residential complex, climbed a building's stairwell—
and slid down the wall to sit.
Tired.
So tired.
The sensation of being rejected by this world made her dizzy and sick.
Every so often, she would feel her existence grow thinner, as if she might dissipate into the air at any moment.
Only in certain moments—
Like earlier, when she'd drifted close to a particular door in the stairwell—
that feeling of vanishing would ease slightly.
As if something was anchoring her.
So she sat down beside that door.
Maybe it was just psychological.
Maybe she was so exhausted she'd started hallucinating.
But she didn't have the strength to keep walking.
Here was fine.
No one could see her anyway.
Until—
Footsteps sounded.
A young man appeared in the stairwell.
He held an umbrella. In one hand was a convenience-store plastic bag. In the other, a set of keys.
Kiana didn't look up.
Another passerby who couldn't see her.
She was used to that.
Then she heard him stop.
"Could you move a little?"
His voice was ordinary, carrying a trace of that tiredness you get when you're heading home on a rainy night.
"I'm home."
Kiana froze.
Slowly, she raised her head.
The young man was looking at her.
Not the kind of "looking" where his gaze passed through her and landed on the wall behind.
But truly—
looking at her.
"Y-you… can see me?"
Her eyes widened.
-------
My : pat*eon*com/RuneA
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