Honkai Impact 3rd - The Next Reality

by ANewFace

It had been many years ever since the downfall of the second civilization. The Honkai have now begun attacking the Earth once again after many years. The Earth is not prepared for these attacks, yet they fight on, hoping history would not repeat itself. During this time, an amnesiac man would be forced to become the central part of this conflict. CHAPTER 4 Rewritten.

6. Chapter 6 - A Harsh World

Disclaimer: I do not own Honkai Impact 3rd, anything related to it, or any other fictional media referenced in this story

I only own my OCs.

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Honkai Impact 3rd: The Next Reality

Chapter 6: A Harsh World

Date: Wednesday, July 23, 2553

---

Lessica's Perspective

"Stop it, get your hands off of me!"

"No way! I'm not getting a beauty like you out of my sights!"

"No, stop this please!" I cried.

I turn my head to look behind the man who began kissing and licking my body. Another man stood watching, smirking at this site. He, along with a blue-haired woman witness sight of my rape while they took notes. This man was enjoying the sight of my suffering, while the lady could only close her eyes. Pity was what she felt.

"Lessica, I'm about to put it in." The rapist moaned.

"Please, I beg of you, don't put it in!"

I tried resisting the rapist's attempt, but his grip was too strong. In the distance, I could hear a wailing cry. That cry came from a baby, laying in the center of a large circle, surrounded by blue and purple flowers. This poor child was about to bear witness to something no one would ever wish upon him.

"No wait, please stop! Don't do this again, I beg of you! PLEASE STOP!"

---

"Uagh!…huh?"

I woke up, laying on the watery ground that was my realm. I lifted myself up. That nightmare again. Can I really consider it a nightmare? It feels like deja vu, except that's not how deja vu works. My nightmare has already happened before in the past, so what do I consider it? A flashback? By definition, it fits, but I don't think you can get flashbacks in dreams, or can you? Doesn't matter, this event has long passed, and my circumstances have changed. I'm no longer subjugated to sexual harassment anymore, I'm finally free from suffering.

What time is it anyway? I think it's early in the morning still, considering that the holographic monitor is still blank. Tendou hasn't awakened yet. Maybe I should wake him up myself. Actually, it could still probably be early in the morning. Maybe I should just let him rest. After all, his mission is today, and it's best if he gets his rest before it begins. Hmmm…you know what, maybe I'll pay myself a small visit to his room. I walked up to his body within the mental realm, which was laying on the ground. I don't know why his mental body is sleeping, but it's probably a metaphor as to how the mind sleeps when someone sleeps. I laid my hands across his chest and began the process of traveling into the real world.

Once I got to the real world, I checked Tendou's phone for the time. 3:23 AM, he has about an hour before he has to wake up. Good call on my part for not waking him up. The room was dyed with a crimson hue like always. I need to find a way to get rid of this hue. The color isn't bad, but it makes things a bit ugly to see. I'll have to figure that out soon. I'm slightly starving right now, or Tendou is I guess. Nothing I do will get rid of this hunger, but hey, I'll still treat myself to a little snack. I walked over to his snack cabinet. Because of his physique, Tendou only bought what was healthy, so he didn't have anything like potato chips. Well, I guess this Clif protein bar will have to suffice. He chose the Chocolate Brownie flavored bar, which sounds pretty good.

*MUNCH*

Huh, it actually is pretty good. I closed the cabinet and walked pass the bookshelves before stopping. The bookshelves…..they hide an entrance to a room that I don't want to talk about. Brings back tragic memories that I don't need to nor want to remember, but seeing it will bring them back anyways. But you know what, I'm a bit grateful for one event that room did for me. Maybe I should tell Tendou about this-…..no, I shouldn't. In any case, I guess I can pass time by reading something from this shelf. Let's see here…..ooh, We Never Learn! I actually read this back in London before well…it got partially destroyed a few years prior. This should give me something to waste time on.

I spent an hour reading through chapters of We Never Learn and a few other books. When 4:30 arrived, Tendou's phone alarm rang, forcing me back into my realm. Tendou was now awake and immediately shut off his alarm.

"Morning Tendou, you ready for the big day?"

"Kind of a stupid question to ask someone if they're ready to go kill something while the possibility of death, but sure I guess." Tendou groaned as he stood up from his bed.

"Oh come on, you had education on what to do on the field."

"Yeah, 2 days of education. Clearly, enough to guarantee survival." He remarked sarcastically.

I scoffed. I have faith that he can survive this day. Tendou stumbled over to the bathroom in his dark room, bumping into a few things on his way. Eventually, he made it into the showers where he stripped himself of his clothes and hopped in. Being the person I am, I also decided to hop into the shower. Sadly, because we are on a "time limit." we can't shower for long.

"So you've been awake longer than I have in this world, think you can fill me about London?" Tendou asked as he sat on the rectangular bump inside the shower.

"I'll try to fill you in with what I know." I answered.

"London is a city all the way in the continent of Europe, which all the way to the west of where we are. It's a major city, but it was devastated by the Herrscher of Devastation not too long ago. Recently, it has been rebuilt, but if the mission we signed up for says anything, I think it was destroyed again."

"Ok, doesn't really tell me much, but I guess that will suffice."

"Sorry, but I never really stayed in London for long, and when I did go to London….Nah, not gonna talk about it. By the way, can you pass me the soap."

"Which one?"

"Body wash."

Tendou grabbed the body wash and toss it in my direction. I catch it with my hand. I stepped outside the showerhead's area and applied the soap around my body. After I closed the bottle, I tossed it back to Tendou. He stood up to catch it, but in the process he slipped on the water and fell, cracking his back against the rectangle.

"Agh, son of a bitch!" He cursed.

I couldn't help but laugh at his pain. I don't know why, but it's funny to see someone wail in pain for a simple mistake. I could be a sadist because I also enjoy watching humans suffer severe pain, but it's not like that with Tendou. Tendout falling down gave me a good look at his crotch area, and I've got to say….boy needs a shave down there. I mean, it's not a jungle, but I still kind of want him to at minimum, trim it at least. I can't bear seeing it for as long as we shower together, which is every time.

After about 15 minutes, I reverted back into the mental realm while Tendou prepared himself for the mission. He wore the red cross shirt along with his black skinny jeans. Throwing his jacket around his shoulders, strapping his wristbands, and placing his fedora on his head, Tendou headed out of his dorm. He went down the elevator all the way down to the first floor and headed to the area where he was told to be gathered. Odd, I thought Reshia would be going alongside Tendou, stopping the elevator to join him. Maybe she was already at the landing zone. Speaking of the landing zone, Tendou arrived there in about 5 minutes. At the landing zone was a large aircraft, which looked like it could fill over 100 people. Oddly enough, there were very few people standing outside the landing zone. None of them looked like Valkyries or Chevaliers, so they're probably the crew of this ship.

"Seems like you're here early, pretty unexpected." I commented.

"It's 4:52 AM. The mission was said to launch at roughly 5:00 AM. I don't know why people aren't here yet."

"I know. You would expect Reshia to be here already considering that she is always early than you at everything, but I guess not here."

"To be fair, it's pretty early in the morning. I mean, the sun hasn't even reached the horizon yet. No one wants to wake up this early in the morning."

"Right, right, right. I guess we'll have to play the waiting game."

….

…..

…..

---

Ino's Perspective

*BEEP* *BEEP* *BEEP*…..*BEEP* *BEEP* *CLICK*

"Uhhhhh…"

It's 4:40 AM. Today's the day of the mission in London. Why does it have to be so early in the morning? I get that London is far, but it's not far enough to warrant us waking very early. Besides, our ships can get us to London in like what, 3, 4 hours? Whatever, I got to get prepared.

I got off my bed and headed out of my room. Unlike most students, my siblings and I lived at the Kaslana Mansion instead of the student dorms. It's because our mansion is just much nicer than any of the student dorms, though we sacrifice getting to school faster. On my way towards the bathroom, Claudia was already outside opening the door.

"Morning Claudia." I yawned.

Claudia, visibly tired waved back. Claudia was so tired that she had bags under her eye. What the hell was she doing last night to garner those bags? We both entered the shower room. Our mansion had a large bathroom. It had multiple bathtubs, multiple open showers, a jacuzzi for some reason, and a door that leads to a sauna. Unnecessary, yeah, but pretty cool nonetheless. Claudia and I stripped out of our clothes and headed towards the showers. We didn't have much time to shower. Mission starts at 5 yet we both decided to wake up so late. Guess Claudia and I are dumb for that. Mid-way through our shower, the door opened, revealing our mother.

"Morning Mother." I greeted.

"Good morning dear." She greeted back.

"Odd to see both of you up so early. Is it because of a mission?"

"Yes mother, Claudia and I have a mission in London."

Our mother stripped herself of her clothes, taking a stall next to Claudia.

"It's nice to see both of my children going on the same mission together. Is it an S-Rank mission?" Mother asked.

"No, it's just a B-Rank mission. Pretty simple." I replied.

"B-Rank? With the both of you? Isn't that a bit overkill?"

"Yeah, especially since Reshia is also coming along with us. Speaking of which, Claudia, why did you sign up for this mission?"

Claudia turned her head to face me. The best she could do was shrug. Her muteness makes it hard for her to reason. It doesn't make sense why she would sign up for a B-Rank mission. Does she just care about the rookies that badly? Well, I guess that's kind of her. Claudia and I left the showers and our mother behind as we quickly had to get to the academy before the mission began. Claudia and I dressed up in casual clothing before grabbing our battle suit bracelets. We ran outside our mansion before pressing the LED light on our bracelet, transforming into our Godsbane Battlesuits. Claudia and I, as S-Rank Valkyries were given Godsbane Battlesuits, the strongest variations of battlesuits that Schicksal gives to their S-Ranks. These suits have the capability to allow flight, and provide better defense while remaining light. Claudia's battlesuit is carbon black in color with some violet parts as secondaries. The suit covers her entire torso, with armored gloves that cover her entire lower arm. Her legs are completely covered with armor. My battle suit is similar, with the only difference being color, and my suit having thigh-high armored boots instead of full-armored boots. My suit was white and orange instead. Likewise, our suit thrusters were different. Claudia's had violet thrusters while mine was orange.

Claudia and I flew towards the academy within 2 minutes due to us forcing our thrusters at max power. When we lowered ourselves to the ground, we changed out of our battlesuits, just in time to meet Reshia, who was on her way to the landing dock.

"Morning Reshia." I greeted.

"Well, aren't you a bit late. It's 5:05." Reshia mocked.

"Speak for yourself Reshia." I laughed.

Claudia in the background released a slight chuckle. All three of us walked to the landing dock together. Eventually, everyone else who chose to participate in the mission followed suit behind us, except I couldn't see Tendou within the crowd behind us. Did he oversleep by accident? Well, it's too late for us to go back to get him now. Schicksal will have to punish him somehow. Everyone walked over to the landing dock, before Claudia put her hand on my shoulder, holding me back.

"What is it Claudia?" I asked.

Claudia pointed in front of us. In front of us was Tendou. It's good to know that he arrived on time, and the earliest of all of us, but something was off. Tendou was messing around with a soccer ball. The big question would have been where he got the ball in the first place, but the bigger question is what was going on with the soccer ball. He was kicking it around like he should, but he was kicking it away from him. That was odd by itself, but the strangest thing would happen after he kicked it. After the ball flew a few feet away, it would go back to him with the same, if not stronger force, as if someone was kicking it back to him. But there was no one with him, he was all alone. What kind of black magic fuckery was this? That wasn't all. Tendou's mouth was moving as he was kicking the ball like he was talking to someone. Obviously we couldn't hear what he said, but we could still see it. What was going on?

"What is Tendou doing?" A Valkyrie asked.

"I don't know what he's doing, but it should be impossible." Another replied.

"Where is the other person he's playing with? I don't see them at all!"

Everyone began bickering about the sight they were seeing. Tendou in the distance somehow didn't hear us despite how loud we were. Eventually, Claudia walked up towards Tendou as he caught the ball with his hands. He was about to throw it again before Claudia placed her hand on his shoulder.

"Hmmm? Oh, morning." Tendou greeted nonchalantly, as if nothing just happened.

Claudia lifted her hand up slowly and waved. She was as confused as all of us were. Reshia walked up next.

"Hey Tendou, would you explain to us what just happened?" Reshia questioned.

Upon being interviewed, Tendou's eyes flashed, slightly startled at the question. He let out a few nervous chuckles.

"Oh, uh….wasting time because all of you were so late." Tendou faltered, throwing the soccer ball very far behind him.

Everyone continued bickering as Tendou's answers left much to be desired as well as being vague. I was about to question him myself, but something that caught my eye was that the soccer ball he threw glowed blue slightly before disappearing slowly into thin air. The hell was that? What soccer ball just disappears into thin air? I really want to question him about this.

"Attention all Valkyries and Chevaliers. You are to board the ship immediately. Please do not halt the mission." The captain of our ship announced through a megaphone.

"That's our cue." Reshia stated.

"Alright everyone, let's board the ship."

Everyone walked onto the airship that would take us to London. We all made ourselves comfortable inside the airship before it took off in about 5 minutes. Once everyone entered, the captain called us to the piloting station to review the mission with us.

"Soldiers, as you all know, we are heading to London. A Honkai beast reminiscent of a dragon, mostly an ouroboros dragon has been attacking the city along with other Honkai enemies. Our primary mission is to eliminate every single of those beasts. However we have a secondary mission. According to our navigators, there are still civilians stuck inside the city of London with theirs lives being in danger every second they stay there. With the 20 soldiers we have here, it is best if we split ten to go fight the monsters, while the other ten go and evacuate any, and every civilian they find."

So this mission is part exterminate and part search-and-rescue. A bit unexpected, but this is our jobs, and we will do it with no complaints. We are the Earth's hope in defeating the Honkai threat after all.

"Captain, who's going to go exterminate the beasts, and who's going to evacuate the civilians?" A random Valkyrie asked.

"That is up for all of you to decide, however, I do have one special order from the Overseer himself. The Overseer wants Tendou to be apart of the combat team for this mission. He can not join the evacuation team and help them get the citizens to safety. That is the Overseer's orders."

The Overseer's orders caused another ruckus with everyone else again, myself included. Why does the Overseer want Tendou to join the extermination? He's just a D-Rank. Surely it would be much safer for him, and the other 2 D-Ranks in this mission to help evacuate the people. What does the Overseer see inside of Tendou? I can't dwell on it too much though, the decision of who's going to do what is more important as of now.

"That is all that I have to announce for now. I will announce any additional information we receive through the intercoms. Dismissed."

Everyone dismissed from the piloting station. A majority of us dispersed throughout the airship. As we dispersed, the airship took flight, making its way towards London. By now, a portion of us were hungry, skipping out on breakfast. Luckily, the ship had a small crew that would provide us with food, and Reshia went to go help the crew out. A majority of us went to the cafeteria inside the ship, waiting for breakfast to be served. I planned on going to the cafeteria, but was stopped by Claudia.

"What is it now Claudia?" I asked.

Claudia pointed to the direction of Tendou. He was one of the few to not go to the cafeteria. Instead, he was heading towards a different direction. Both of us didn't know where he was going to head. The small dorms inside of the ship? The bathroom? Living room? None of us knows.

"What about Tendou?"

Claudia took out a small notepad and wrote down what she wanted to say to me.

"We should follow him." The notepad said.

"What? Why?"

*SCRIBBLE*

"He sort of intrigues me, I wonder what the Overseer sees in him."

"I mean, yeah, but do we need to stalk him?"

*SCRIBBLE*

"I will. You can join me if you want. You have nothing to do after all."

"I mean, I'm waiting for breakfast to be served…..I have nothing to do. Fine, I'll join you."

Claudia put her notepad away and did a small victory pose with her pumping her two fist slightly near her face while closing her eyes and with a cute smile. She released a quiet "heehee" with all that her vocal cords can allow. Claudia, she may be my older sister, but even I feel like I act older than her sometimes.

---

Claudia's Perspective

"Fine, I'll join you." Ino reluctantly gave in.

Thank god Ino gave in. I don't want to stalk Tendou alone.

"Heehee." I whispered with all that my vocal cords can allow.

I looked over at Tendou's general direction, but he disappeared already. Knowing that he could disappear from us with the amount of hallways this ship has, I waved for Ino to follow me. Ino and I ran down the hallway which split into two at the end. Tendou took the right hallway, going towards the dorms. Ino and I sneaked our way towards him. Sadly, because the hallways didn't have any walls to hide behind, we had to be extra careful. Lucky for us, Tendou never looked behind us. Once he made it to the dorms, he turned towards one of the rooms and entered. Ino snuck up to the door first, and quietly opened it to get a small view of Tendou. I stood behind Ino, leaned over her to look at Tendou.

"He doesn't seem like he's doing anything so far." Ino orated.

The dorms on the ship were extremely small. Just a bunk bed in a small room, a couch, and a small countertop. Tendou laid down on the lower bed and turned to face the couch. Nothing seems odd so far. He's been acting normal, but I'm not leaving until I have my answers. What does the Overseer see in him? Out of all the people to force into the extermination, why him? I could understand the Overseer putting Ino, Reshia, and me into the extermination, but he didn't give any orders for us.

"Maybe we should just leave." Ino insisted.

I grabbed Ino, forcing her to stay still as we spectated Tendou on his bed. It was normal, until the bed that Tendou sat on was pressured downwards near his feet. The pressure was released, revealing the mark of someone who just stood up from the bed, but Tendou's body hasn't moved yet. His eyes and head however, were slightly moving as if he was looking at someone. It was quiet until…..

"Otto really has something planned for me, doesn't he?"

Tendou's remark came out of nowhere. His remark was followed by other remarks, all of them unevenly spaced, and nonsensical.

"I guess he does want to harness my powers."

…..

"When you put it that way, he's technically after you Lessica."

…..

…..

"What does he even want you for anyways? I don't see why he would want your powers if he can't really use them to its full extent."

…

"Lessica, you know more than I do. Try solving it yourself."

…

"Actually, if he really wants our powers, then wouldn't he want to put me with the rescue team? Makes more logical sense as I would be safer that way."

I don't know what was going on. Who the hell was Tendou talking to? A person named Lessica? But Tendou's the only one in the room! Is Tendou schizophrenic? No, that doesn't fit into the definition of schizophrenia, I think. Anyways, what powers was he talking about? Whatever they are, he's speculating that as the reason why the Overseer wants him. Will I get to see those powers on the battlefield? I want to see what those powers are. Maybe it'll prove why the Overseer has such a fascination for him.

"Huh?" Tendou questioned oddly.

He turned his head to face us. Ino and I were caught. Shit! We gotta get out of here! I grabbed Ino by the shoulders and booked it. Ino and I ran back the way we came from, and headed for the cafeteria instead. Damn it! I wanted to know more about Tendou, but we got spotted. Actually, how did we get spotted? We didn't make any noise or anything at all. We stood outside the door and never did anything that would garner attention. When we arrived at the cafeteria, Reshia and the other crew members were already laying out food trays on the table like a buffet. The trays contained things like egg-white omelets, turkey bacon, fruits, and different types of bread. The tables also held dispensers for water, different fruit juices, a toaster and milk.

"Alright everyone, breakfast is served!" Reshia yelled.

Sighs of relief were released as breakfast was finally announced. Everyone immediately formed into a line as they began assembling their breakfast. All of the Valkyries were in the line trying to get breakfast, and even the entire crew was in the line. However, someone was not here yet, and we all know who it was, considering that he was the only Chevalier on this ship.

"Hey, where's Tendou?" Reshia asked.

"He's in one of the dorms." Ino answered.

"Hopefully he should come down here to eat. It would be bad if he didn't eat anything."

All of us Valkyries gathered our food and began eating. The breakfast food was pretty good, as expected when you get something cooked by Reshia. It was so good in fact that many of us went back for seconds since Reshia made excessive amounts of food. After 30 minutes, a majority, if not, all of us finished eating. There was still some food left, though we don't know if we could eat it.

"Man that was great. Thanks Reshia!" A Valkyrie thanked.

"Please I don't need all this praise." Reshia denied.

I wiped my mouth with a napkin after I finished my glass of milk. I looked over to the buffet table, spotting 2 omelets, 4 slices of bacon, an apple, an orange, a couple of blueberries, a banana, 3 slices of bread, alongside some milk. We really did take everything from the buffet. I'm pretty full, but maybe I could go for a third plate-.

"It's been thirty minutes, and all of us have finished eating, yet Tendou hasn't come down yet. What is he doing?" Reshia began to worry.

You know what, Reshia's right! All of us has eaten already, but none of us have seen Tendou in the cafeteria yet? Does he not know that breakfast was served yet? Ino stood up on our table to see if she could see Tendou in the cafeteria.

"I don't see him anywhere, did he get lost?" Ino mumbled.

"Does anyone know where he is?" Reshia asked.

The last time I saw him was in one of the dorms. Tendou could still be there, but he also could have moved by now. Well, I have a lot of time to spare after this. Maybe I should bring what's left of breakfast to him. Maybe I can take this opportunity to properly introduce myself. I walked over to the buffet. I threw the 3 slices of bread in the toaster, and grabbed a plate and placed the omelets, bacon, apple, orange, and banana on it. I poured all of the blueberries into a bowl, and poured the rest of the milk in a glass. Lastly, I grabbed some napkins and utensils needed. I placed the bowl of berries on top of the plate of everything with the utensils on the remaining area of the plate. With my other hand occupied with the milk glass, I left the cafeteria.

"Claudia, where are you going?" A valkyrie asked.

I ignored her, not because I didn't want to answer, but because I couldn't. Granted, I don't know where Tendou actually is, but I think he still is at the dorms. When he saw us, he didn't even make an attempt to move off his bed. Slowly, and carefully, I made my way to the dorm that he resided in. When I made it, the door was still opened like how Ino opened it earlier. I peeked into the door. To my surprise, Tendou was still inside the dorm, laying down on the bed. His fedora was over his face as he laid on the bed. I snuck my way in and placed everything on the countertop. Out of curiosity, I lifted the fedora off of his face to reveal….a sleeping Tendou. So that's why he didn't come down to the cafeteria. He fell asleep. Great, I don't want to wake someone up from their sleep at all. But food is really important, especially before a mission, so I have no choice. I poked his face multiple times to wake him up. Tendou slowly woke up, his eyes making contact with my own.

"Huh? Oh, it's you." Tendou groaned.

He sat upright on the bed, grabbing his fedora and wearing it on his head.

"How long was I knocked out for?"

I flashed 3 fingers at him, and then made a 0 with my index and thumb, signaling 30 minutes.

"….um, 30 minutes?" Tendou asked, uncertain.

I nodded my head. Tendou groaned some more as he shifted and stretched his body. I grabbed the plate of food and handed it over to him.

"Oh shit? Breakfast was served. Well, thanks for saving some for me." Tendou thanked.

He dove into the eggs first, as someone sane would do. In the meantime, I grabbed the apple from his placed and began carving it into individual slices with a knife. After cutting the apple, I went towards the orange and peeled it into slices for him.

"So, if I remember correctly, your name is Claudia Kaslana?"

I nodded at his response and continued peeling the orange. Tendou placed a slice of his omelet on his toast with a broken piece of bacon on top of the egg and bit the toast. That's a unique way of eating food. Normally I just ate each piece on its own separately. I don't usually combine food unless it was already combined.

"I have a question. Considering that you are an S-Rank Valkyrie, why did you take up a B-Rank mission?"

I gave Tendou his orange back and took out my notepad.

*SCRIBBLE*

"I just wanted to protect the rookies who signed up for this mission out of arrogance."

Tendou took another bite of his three-way combination before talking again.

"Ok. Another question, why did you use a notepad to get a message across. It's not difficult to talk you know?"

*SCRIBBLE*

"I'm mute. I don't have the physical capability to actually talk."

"Oh. Oh, um…..I'm sorry for asking." Tendou apologized.

I shook my head. I don't fault him for not knowing. We've barely interacted and I don't believe anyone has talked about me to him yet at least.

*KNOCK* *KNOCK*

"Excuse me, but are you two currently busy right now?" A Valkyrie asked.

A random Valkyrie stood outside our door. I don't know how she found us, but it doesn't matter much I guess.

"Nah, we aren't doing much right now." Tendou answered for the both of us.

Tendou took a sip from his milk glass as the Valkyrie walked in. The Valkyrie had black hair that was tied into two elongated tails at the back of her head. The lengthy sides were tucked behind her ears and continued down to her back shoulders. A unique feature of this girl were her eyes. She bore heterochromatic eyes with her left being gold while her right was neon green. Other than that, she doesn't really stand out much. She had an average figure, nothing too big nor too small.

"All of us went to go find you two after you never should up at during breakfast, and you mysteriously disappeared." The Valkyrie explained.

"Sorry about that, I fell asleep." Tendou apologized.

"Well, it was nice of Claudia to bring you breakfast at least." The Valkyrie sighed.

"I know this is out of nowhere, but may you introduce yourself?" Tendou kindly asked.

"Right. My name is Nailah. I'm one of the other 3 D-Ranks on this mission. Please take care of me." Nailah politely introduced.

"…..was that to me, to Claudia, or both? Because that last statement made it seem like it was for her."

"What do you mean Tendou?"

"I don't know if I can really protect you considering I'm also a D-Rank."

"Huh? Then why did the Overseer assign you to combat?"

Tendou shrugged his shoulders. I can't tell if he actually doesn't know, or he's lying. Earlier he was talking about how the Overseer wanted him for his powers. He seemed quite confident in his reasoning, but now he's acting like he doesn't know. Is he just that clueless as we are, or is he trying to cover up something?

"I thought you would have been at least an A-Rank if the Overseer assigned you to combat. Well, we can't combatant the Overseer's words. Anyways, all of us plan to gather at the training ground in the ship. We'll debate on who will do what during the mission. Afterward, we can either train or do something else."

"Oh yeah, that's right. Well, let's go then." Tendou said.

Tendou finished the last of his berries, and by extension, his breakfast. Him and I stood up as we followed Nailah towards the training grounds. None of us started a conversation on our way, so I made an awkward attempt to start one with Tendou.

*SCRIBBLE*

"How do you spell your name?"

I passed my notepad to Tendou with a pen alongside it. He grabbed the notepad and stared at it for a second. He lifted the pen up to write his name on the notepad. Interesting, he's left-handed. Tendou passed the notepad back to me with his correct name spelling.

"Tendou"

Just as I guessed how it was spelled. Now then, the difficult question.

"What are your powers?"

I shoved the note pad in front of Tendou's face. He showed discomfort at my question. He leaned down to my ear and whispered,

"I can't really explain my powers, because even I don't know what the fuck they are."

Great, so even he doesn't know what his powers are, but he has powers. How does he know he have powers? He also could be lying to me. Next question.

"Who is Lessica."

Tendou read the question off of my notepad. He looked away and never answered. I tried to shove the question in his face, but he kept ignoring it. It can't be that bad. Lessica is just a person, I think. I mean, I didn't see her in the room. Still though, maybe Lessica was the source of his powers. Maybe she is the reason the Overseer has a fascination with Tendou. Or maybe she doesn't exist and Tendou's crazy.

Tendou, Nailah and I made our way to the training grounds. Out of the 20 soldiers on board, we were the first few there, with only 4 others at the training grounds. Eventually, everyone arrived to the training grounds, which allowed us to begin our meeting.

"Alright everyone. As you all remember, the Captain informed us that this mission requires the 20 of us to split into 2 teams. A rescue team, and an extermination team." Reshia re-informed everyone

"We are here to decide who will do what. Now as everyone already knows, a spot on the extermination team has been taken already by Tendou. We need another 9 to work along with him."

A Valkyrie raised her hand after Reshia finished her statement.

"I want to volunteer for a spot on the extermination team." She said.

"Are you confident that you have the ability to maintain yourself on the field?" Reshia asked.

"I am confident. I mean, other than the dragon, it's just some simple honkai beast, right?" She ignorantly argued.

"Don't become overconfident in yourself now Tanya. There are other factors in the battlefield other than types of enemies."

"Oh come on. If Tendou gets to be in the team when he's a D-Rank, then I should as well!"

Reshia opened her mouth to argue again, but nothing came out before she closed. Reshia tried to maintain a calm exterior, but I can clearly see that she was starting to sweat a bit, and her eyes showed some fear. She shifted them towards Tendou, who uncomfortably looked away. Do they both know something that any of us don't? Is it in relation to his powers? So many questions!

"Fine, you can be apart of the extermination." Reshia reluctantly sighed.

"If she can be in combat, then I want to as well!" Nailah yelled.

Reshia did the same thing again as she did with the other girl where she was about to argue, but stopped. I understand her wanting to stop Nailah and Tanya from entering combat. Nailah was a D-Rank Valkyrie, and I'm pretty sure the other girl was as well. This is not the best option to put 3 D-Ranks in battle. Granted, Tendou was forced, but the other two willingly chose this. I'm surprised no one else is arguing about this!

"So that's 3 spots filled already. Anyone else?"

The meeting lasted for another 15 minutes. Alongside Tendou, Nailah, and Tanya, Ino, Reshia, myself, and 4 others assigned ourselves to combat. The other four were B-Rankers to hopefully balance out the 3 D-Ranks we have. Everyone else, basically the C-Ranks and the rest of the B-Ranks were assigned on rescue.

"With that meeting resolved, we are free to do anything for the next….3 hours before we arrive." Reshia announced, pausing mid-way to check the distance we have until arrival.

"Meeting over. Split!"

All the Valkyries stood up and moved. Ino walked over to me.

"With 3 hours to spare, you want to have a sparring match sis?" Ino offered.

I nodded my head in accordance to her offer. Reshia walked over to us.

"Oooh, a training session between you two? Pardon my rudeness, but may I join?" Reshia asked.

"Sure, why not make it more interesting!" Ino enthusiastically cheered.

While many Valkyries have moved, the mention of a 3-way duel between the S-Ranks garnered the interest of mostly everyone.

"A duel between the strongest warriors we have on the board? This is exciting!"

"Who's going to come out on top? I bet on Reshia!"

"She may be good, but Ino has such a large range advantage. My money's on her."

"Sure, but range won't matter much when Claudia can move so fast. Claudia is definitely winning!"

All three of us activated our transformation bracelet, materializing our suits and grabbing wooden weapons. We walked a few feet from each other before positioning ourselves in a ready stance.

"May the best valkyrie win." Ino stated.

And so, all three of us began our fight.

---

Tendou's Perspective

"May the best valkyrie win." Ino stated.

The three Valkyries made their advancement towards each other. I stood on the outside area alongside everyone else who was hyped to see the fight. I was sort of hyped to see them fight, but I can't help, but be worried about when I get on the battlefield.

"You mind leaving the training grounds? I want to talk to you in private." Lessica inquired.

"But we already talk in private if we just talk in our minds." I responded.

"I know, I just kind of want a quiet space rid of everyone else."

"Sure. I also do need some time to myself alone from everyone as well."

I walked over to the exit of the training grounds. Outside in the ship, it was relatively quiet. I thought I would see more of the ship's crew walking around, but I guess they're all at the piloting station. I haven't made myself familiar with the ship yet, so I don't know what it has to offer. I continued walking around the ship and made my way back towards the dorm. I laid back down on the bed shortly after I closed the door. The room faded into crimson red as Lessica made her appearance in the world. She sat cross-legged on the couch.

"3 hours before your first mission begins. You must be feeling nervous."

"Yeah. I'm afraid of dying obviously, but I'm also afraid for everyone else. They have the chance to cascade into zombies, forcing us to kill them."

"Caring for someone again? How many times have I told you to forget everyone else?! Just care about yourself."

"Of course I would care for someone! Not only are they humans like me, but they are my comrades! They haven't done anything wrong at all! They don't deserve death."

Lessica scoffed at my statement. How many shitty humans has she met? Surely they couldn't have been that shitty to cause her this massive hate.

"I'm especially worried about Nailah and that other girl. Nailah is only a D-Rank, and she forced herself to join the extermination because she thought she could handle it because of the other girl, who joined because of me. If any of them die, I feel like partial responsibility will fall on me."

"Figures you would feel that way."

"No shit."

"I'm both pleasantly, and unpleasantly surprised. In the couple of days that you've experienced this world, you already chose what you wanted to do despite knowing so little. I applaud you for making decisions so quickly, but on the other hand, your decision is a stupid one."

"Why is protecting someone of your own species such a bad thing? Isn't all species like that?"

"Not exactly, but have ever stopped and considered why you're truly fighting to save humanity, Tendou? Of course, you have the simple reason of humans being good, but simplicity won't get you far in life. The answer is you don't have a true reason. You haven't been awake long enough to know why you really want to protect humans. You just want to. You don't know what humans can be like yet because humans can be anything. All humans can be anything. It's not wise of you to make a decision with little knowledge."

I tried to talk back, but Lessica is right. I don't really have a good reason. I don't know much that this world has to offer yet. Maybe Lessica is right, maybe people can be mean. Maybe it's just natural instincts for why I want to protect them. No, no, no. Lessica isn't right. People have been kind to me, I can't just betray them now!

"An ouroboros dragon? I didn't know such a honkai beast variant existed. Fascinating."

"You say that as if that is a good thing."

"It is! It could be beneficial to both of us in the future!"

"Beneficial?! It's a honkai beast! It's our enemy! Are you on the side of the honkai or something?!"

"Maybe….."

"…Well, I have 3 hours left. I'm going to go to sleep again."

"Again? You already went to sleep earlier."

"I didn't get enough sleep last night. Surely you should have known that."

"Oh yeah, you didn't go to sleep until 12 last night. Idiotic move if you ask me."

"Shut up."

I took my fedora and placed it on the table. Lessica walked over to the bed and sat next to me.

"Rest well Tendou."

She disappeared, causing time to go back to normal for me. I closed my eyes as I prepared myself to drift for 3 hours.

"Promise me that you won't die during this mission."

Heh, Lessica caring about me. Kind of hypocritical of her bashing me for caring about others yet here she is, though I guess she has a proper reason. Whatever Lessica, but…..no promises….

"Tendou? Wake up, we're here."

Someone kept poking at my cheek to wake me up. I widen my eyes to the blinding light of the room to see Reshia kneeling down to my level.

"It's been 3 hours already? Time flies by quickly, literally I guess." I chuckled.

Reshia didn't laugh. I guess I deserve no laughs, it was a terrible joke.

"Why did you walk away from the fight? Weren't you interested?" Reshia pouted, her cheeks puffing up, and eyes starting to water a bit.

"Sorry, I just….needed some time to myself, and I didn't get much sleep last night."

"Didn't you promise to not abandon me? What would I do if you were to do so?"

"Flock to another man?"

Reshia was on the verge of angrily crying. Ok, my last comment was really uncalled for. I should apologize before I make things worse.

"I was joking alright. Of course, I would never abandon you. You're practically the friend I can rely on if I need help with anything. You are very precious, not just to me, but to everyone else."

Reshia calmed down a bit, but she was still a bit pissed off. She was also blushing a bit, though I can't tell if it's from anger, embarrassment, or joy. I tiredly grab my fedora and stumble myself from the bed. I place my palms on Reshia.

"Let's go." I commanded.

"Right."

Reshia stood up, wiping the last of her tears from her face as we exited the room. Outside, Ino was waiting for us, eavesdropping on the short conversation.

"Damn Tendou, I didn't know your jokes were that crude." Ino teased.

"Yeah, I know they were offensive, but why didn't you step in to stop me?" I asked.

"I wanted to see where your talk would go. Surprised myself when it started to get a bit lovey-dovey." Ino teased once again.

Lovey-dovey? I don't see where it got to that point. Maybe when I complemented Reshia, but that's a stretch. All three of us walked towards the piloting station, where everyone else was waiting for us.

"Soldiers, we have arrived in London. As you can see outside, it is a nightmare. The once beautiful city has been destroyed once again. As if a Herrscher wasn't enough, the people had to get attacked again. As you all know, we have some citizens still stuck within the city. According to sources, there are about 500 citizens still stuck inside. The numbers could be changing as we speak. I trust that you have split up the teams already. Well, we don't have much time for idle chat. We must go now! Soldiers, are you ready!" The captain vocalized.

"Yes sir!"

"Then get out there, and show the Honkai what the Earth is made of!"

"Sir, yes sir!"

Everyone rushed out towards the exit of the ship. Once everyone got out, we were on the outskirts of the city. A majority of the Valkyries transformed into their battle suits and summoned their weapons. I pressed the button on my wristband, activating my own suit. Claudia ran in front of us, carrying a gigantic silver lance that had a blade resting inside of it. Ino followed behind her with her twin guns.

"Valkyries, you all know your jobs right? Once we enter the city, we'll split into our teams. I will begin shooting to alert the Honkai into our direction. Use our distraction to find any civilians you can find, got that?" Ino yelled.

Everyone nodded. We came towards the entrance to London, or it's ruins at least.

"Good. Valkyries, split!" Ino commanded.

All of us split into two groups, one going right, and one going left, which was us. As we passed the first of the destroyed buildings, Ino began shooting some bullets in the air, hopefully attracting the Honkai. Ino repeated this process every few minutes to make it more obvious to the Honkai on our location. We continued running throughout the city. Some of us were starting to slow down as we ran out of energy, while some continued to charge. I was still keeping up with Claudia, Ino, and Reshia, but I was feeling drained.

"How much longer do we have to keep running?" I asked.

"Not much longer Tendou." Reshia responded.

Claudia, Ino, and Reshia came to a sudden halt. Everyone eventually caught up. Everything was super quiet. No noise could be heard. I was slightly confused about why we stopped, but Claudia was growing a bit tense. The Honkai was here, weren't they? Reshia buckled her halberd, Ino aimed her guns in front of her and Claudia pulled the blade from her lance, dual-wielding two weapons. Everyone else prepared themselves and their weapon. Everyone calmly looked around our surroundings.

"They're coming." Reshia announced.

Behind, above, and crashing through some buildings, an army of Honkai beast came out. Honkai radicals, cavaliers, ballistas, and chariots surrounded us. They haltingly marched towards us.

"Valkyries, attack!" Ino commanded.

All of us charged forward towards the Honkai beast. I charged towards a group consisting of a radical, a ballista, and a cavalier. The radical rammed itself towards me while the cavalier charged with its spear pointing at me. I dodged the radical, kicking it towards the cavalier who stabbed the radical by accident. The ballista shot its ball at me. I pushed my hand outwards to hold back the ball.

"Tendou! Bad mistake!"

Lessica was right. The ball exploded in front of me, sending me flying into a building.

"Ow, damn. I forgot they could explode." I muttered.

I pushed some rumble off of me as I healed myself from my minor injuries from crashing in the building. The cavalier leaped inside the building as my body fully healed itself. It stabbed its spear towards me. I grabbed it to stop it. The cavalier pushed me across the building as I continued to hold on. I steadily climbed the spear, kicking the cavalier off of its horse when I was close enough. I jumped off the horse and tackled the cavalier to the ground. Both of us stood up as we charged towards each other. The cavalier thrusted his spear at my face. I cocked my head slightly, causing the spear to miss its initial target, but cutting the side of my cheek. I sent a jab towards its cheek, which it blocked. The cavalier pulled its spear back, but I grabbed it with my other hand and tripped the cavalier. The cavalier fell to the ground on its back, giving me the opportunity to smash its face in. As I attempted to go for the killing blow, the cavalier's horse came running back, tackling me outside the building we were in. I flew down a few stories onto the ground, crashing into another beast that someone else was fighting.

"Tendou?! Where the hell did you come from?"

I flipped myself up to face Nailah, who was dealing with a radical and chariot.

"I was tackled by the cavalier's stupid horse off a building. Luckily, it's the only one I have to deal with currently." I answered.

The ballista from earlier came to our area. D-Did I just jinxed myself on the battlefield?! Great, now Nailah and I are surrounded, 4 to 2. Nailah and I had our backs against each other, or rather she had her head and back against mine. She was shorter than me after all.

"Two D-Ranks surrounded by enemies. Shit. Got any plans?" Nailah queried.

I look at our enemies, then at Nailah. Nailah was dual-wielding a short axe and a SMG. We were surrounded by a ballista, a radical, a chariot, and a cavalier.

"Lessica, I know you MAY think that the Honkai are your allies, but I need you to help me on this."

"I'm going to help you regardless. Even if I agree with the Honkai's intentions, they'll still kill you. Anyways, the ballista looks like its reloaded its cannon. Ask Nailah to shoot the ball to explode it. It should give you or her enough time to kill the bastard. Next, you two should aim for the cavalier. You almost had a solid plan back in the building of getting it off of its horse. Do the same thing, but have you or Nailah to distract the horse. Once you dealt with those two, both of you can easily handle the chariot and radical." Lessica recommended.

"Alright then. Here goes nothing Lessica."

"Nailah, use your SMG to blow up that ball. I'll run up to the ballista afterward and kill it." I ordered.

"Are you sure this is going to work?" Nailah asked.

"No, but do you have anything better?"

Nailah scoffed. She aimed her SMG and fired bullets at the ball. A bunch of bullets connected into the ball, exploding it and tumbling the ballista over. I ran up towards it and jumped on it. I punched it rapidly, causing dents on the ballista before the ballista's silicone body split open, revealing its core. With all my strength, I sent a punch into the core, destroying it. The ballista shut down immediately as its core was destroyed. I jumped off the ballista and charged back towards Nailah, who was struggling against the other 3.

"Nailah! The horse!" I yelled.

"What about the horse!" She yelled back.

I leapt towards the cavalier, tackling it off of its horse.

"Oh, I get it now." Nailah understood.

Nailah charged towards the horse, keeping it busy. The cavalier and I had our rematch. We both charged at each other. The cavalier thrusted its spear towards my face again, but this time, I slid across the ground and grabbed the cavalier's leg to trip them. The cavalier planted face first, giving me enough time to smash its head with my foot. The cavalier became unresponsive for a bit. It was dead. Onto the horse-.

"Tendou, stomp on the cavalier's chest area."

"Why?"

"Look at its fingers."

The fingers of the cavalier were trembling. It wasn't dead after all. As Lessica ordered, I stomped on the cavalier's chest multiple times, stopping the fingers from trembling. Ok, now it was dead. I looked up to see Nailah, decapitating the horse. Looks like the girl's got it in her. She ran back towards me after decapitating the horse. We only had the radical and chariot left. This should be easy enough-.

*BAM* *BAM* *BAM* *BAM*

The radical and the cavalier were shot down by gunshots. Behind them, Ino, along with everyone else ran to us.

"Are you two okay?" Ino worried.

"Yeah I'm fine." I answered.

"Other than this minor cut, I'm fine." Nailah answered.

"Good. I'm glad that both of you are ok." Ino said.

She grabbed both of us into a hug. It was odd to hug someone on the field, but you know what, it felt comforting in this depressed environment. Ino pulled back, ready to command another order.

"Alright, we defeated some of the Honkai here. Reshia, how's the rescue team doing?"

"They seem to be doing well. They managed to rescue 132 out of the 500 citizens already. Mission seems like a success so far." Reshia cheered.

"However, seems like they also encountered some beast along the way. According to their leader, 3 of them are dead."

"I see. Now then, we still have more enemies to kill. Let's go to a different spot and-."

*BOOM*

Many buildings began to crumble around us. All of us looked around to see what could cause such destruction. A mighty roar echoed through the sky, almost shredding it. In the smoke debris caused by the collapsed buildings, a long serpent was circling us. All of us tracked it with our eyes. As the smoke cleared, we finally got a clear view of the enemy. It was the ouroboros dragon. The dragon was a long, armored serpent with nearly square shape eyes. Those eyes were glowing a neon pink as it stared down at us.

"Is that the dragon?" A Valkyrie mumbled.

Everyone backed away from it slowly, before the dragon roared. It headed down towards us, breathing fire down at us.

"Everyone! Take cover!" Reshia yelled.

All of us made an attempt to run from the dragon as it rained fire down on us. Looking back behind my shoulders, I could see a Valkyrie being engulfed in the flames, shrieking in pain and agony. I continued running away and hid behind a building. I heard footsteps coming towards me. Those footsteps belonged to Nailah, Ino, Reshia, and Claudia.

"Everyone ok?" Ino asked.

Everyone nodded. Soon after, 4 more Valkyries showed up, being Tanya and 2 other.

"So, that's the dragon." I commented.

"Yeah. He seems a bit more deadly than I thought." Reshia stated.

"He seems more aligned to something an A-Rank needs to fight. I don't understand why this was stated to be a B-Rank mission."

"Lucky for us, we have 3 S-Ranks on this mission." Nailah mentioned.

Ino, Reshia, and Claudia nodded. Hopefully, with those three, we can handle the dragon. Speaking of the dragon, where is it? It flew towards us a few minutes ago, and it's suddenly gone.

*BOOM*

"Speak of the devil." I cursed.

The dragon began flying around us again. It started to breathe fire at the buildings around us, causing them to crumble and creating more smoke and debris. All of us shielded our eyes from the falling debris. Claudia took her lance and stabbed it on the ground. A white tree began to grow from the lance, creating a roof for us to cover ourselves under.

"Huh, your lance can create a tree? That's pretty cool!" I complemented Claudia.

Claudia slightly blushed and looked away. I'm confused, how does a complement so simple cause someone to blush? Ino laughed next to me.

"Oooh, is Tendou hitting on Claudia now? Sorry Reshia, but it looks like he's moved on to another girl." Ino teased.

"You can't be serious!" I yelled.

"Relax, I'm just joking. It's just rare for Claudia to receive a compliment you know? It's not a normal experience for her."

The dragon continued to breathe more fire. More debris than usual began falling. What the hell is going on? Why is there more debris? Shouldn't the buildings around us already be destroyed? There should be less debris-.

"Everyone watch out!"

I looked up. A couple of buildings were about to fall on top of us. Claudia tackled a Valkyrie and Ino, Reshia tackled 2 Valkyries, and I tackled Nailah and Tanya. The buildings fell down where we originally were. With the buildings collapsed, it blocked Tanya, Nailah, and I from everyone else. More buildings continued to crumble and rain down upon us. All 3 of us ran away from the buildings as the cracked and released debris, clouding our view. I continued running until the raining buildings stopped. The smoke of debris lasted for a while longer, making it hard for me to breathe. Once it was cleared, I was finally able to see clearly again. Those dust clouds really caused a predicament. Hopefully, Nailah and Tanya are fine-….where the hell are they?

"Nailah!? Tanya!?" I cried out.

Nothing. None of them responded. Shit! Did they get separated from me in the dust? Did they get caught by one of the buildings? Damnit! Great, now I'm all alone in this city with a dragon on the loose! Well, the best option now is to try to find the others and regroup. I don't think I will be able to last long by myself. I can fight against the simpler Honkai monsters, but if the dragon comes…I'm fucked.

---

Reshia's Perspective

"Tendou!? Ino!?" I hollered.

No response. The dragon was smart enough to split all of us up. If I remember correctly, the Kaslanas and a Valkyrie should be together and I'm here with two B-Ranks. Then that means that Master Tendou is with Nailah and Tanya. Oh shit! This was not a good scenario, in fact, this was probably the worst-case scenario! Three D-Ranks alone with a raging dragon roaming around who knows where is far from ideal. While the dust on the ground level may have disappeared, it seems that the sky slightly above us has gotten foggy.

"Reshia, what do we do now?" A Valkyrie asked.

With our original path blocked with buildings, there's no way for us to go back to regroup with the others. Our best chance is to explore a different path.

"Our best bet is to find a different path and hopefully meet the others. For now, all three of us are by ourselves." I tell the Valkyrie.

"I lead our tiny group ahead. I'll need both of you to be my lookout for allies, or enemies. Got it?"

Both Valkyries nodded. Immediately, I began leading the two down a path. The path we went down didn't split into different paths for a while. We went down one narrow path. Surprisingly, our travel was quiet, way too quiet. This seems like the best opportunity for the Honkai to attempt an ambush. However, I can't sense the presence of anything close by to us. Our tiny group continued walking until we came to an intersection. As with any intersection, it split into four different paths. Since we came from one path, that leaves 3 paths that could lead anywhere. Of course, we could split up, but with our little group, and the dragon lurking about, it would be stupid for us to split.

"We got three different paths. We could split up and explore each path, but I'm not willing to take the risk." I mentioned to the Valkyries.

"I trust you in this." A Valkyrie agreed.

"All of us have already seen what that dragon can do. Of course, you can handle it easily Reshia, but I don't see how you can get high enough to even scratch with all the buildings around us having collapsed. Hell, the fog above us makes it even more difficult."

"So we're sticking together? Sounds good to me." The other Valkyrie agreed.

"But, which path are we going down?"

Let's eliminate the worse option, going straight. If the others are smart enough, they would try to attempt regrouping together. Us going straight would stray us father from the group. That leaves us with left and right. If we go left, we have a chance of regrouping with Claudia, Ino, and the other Valkyrie, as they were to our left before we were split. The right would lead us to the D-Ranks. However, a flaw with both of these is if any of them are even going towards our direction. We don't have much of a choice though, either left or right.

"Where do you two think we should go?" I offered to the Valkyries.

"I think we should go left. If I remember correctly, the Kaslanas and someone else was to our left. While we can't guarantee that they are still to our left, it's better than knowing nothing of their whereabouts." A Valkyrie opinionated.

"It's plausible that we'll regroup with them, but I want to focus more on the D-Ranks. They're not as experienced as us, and are more prone to danger in this environment. As much as I want to get together with our two strongest, it's better if we try to get the other 3 instead." The other stated firmly.

"Damnit, I forgot about those 3. I guess we do have to go save them, or else they'll be reckless, as all D-Ranks are." The first Valkyrie sighed.

All of us ventured towards our right, hoping to meet with our rookies. I sure hope Master Tendou is safe out there. Him and the other two could be in prominent danger as I think. We need to get to them quickly.

"We don't have much time to idle around. Let's hurry, quickly!" I uttered to the Valkyries.

The Valkyries nodded as we began sprinting towards the right. We continued sprinting down the right path, which like our previous path, was a thin, narrow pathway. Partway through our sprint, one of the Valkyries slowed down. The other Valkyrie and I slowed down to wait for her.

"What's with the wait?" The Valkyrie next to me asked.

"I feel something ominous close to us." The other Valkyrie warned.

She raised her weapon up in a ready position. There were no Honkai in our sights, but I still prepared my halberd just in case something does attack us. All three of us stood still for a bit, circling around to see if something will jump us. It was awfully quiet. By the way, I haven't learned the name of these two yet. I know names really aren't important on the battlefield, but it would be nice to know.

"By the way, I haven't learned what your names are yet. Would you be so kind as to tell me them?"

"No problem, my name is Rosemary." The first Valkyrie said.

"I'm Phoebe. Pleasure working with you."

After Phoebe introduced herself, a radical jumped out of a building. Rosemary managed to bat it away with her sword, slicing it in half in the process. After the first radical, all sorts of Honkai beast came charging at us. Likewise, all three of us charged at them. I sliced my way through many radicals and cavaliers, killing them with ease. The chariots gave me a bit more trouble, but nothing that I couldn't handle. All of us slaughtered throughout enemies with ease, however, they just kept coming.

"Where the hell are they coming from?" Rosemary quavered.

"It's like something is giving birth to them instantaneously!"

All 3 of us continued to kill all the Honkai beast flying at us, but Phoebe and Rosemary were starting to get fatigued with the endless waves. Both were starting to struggle fending off the beast. If this keeps up, both won't be able to make it. After a few more minutes of slaughter, the wave seemed to have stopped. Phoebe fell down on her butt, while Rosemary was trying to continue standing, using her sword as a cane. While I wasn't fatigued, I could really use a short rest. However, a ballista jumped from a building, shooting an explosive ball that rolled towards us.

"Girls, watch out!" I screamed.

I tried to press the time fracture button, but it was too late. The ball exploded. It wasn't close to us, but the explosion still had enough force to send us flying. I crashed into a building while Rosemary slid on the ground before stopping by a street ledge. I stood up and ran towards the ballista, slashing and stabbing it multiple times, ripping its silicone body into pieces. When I finished the ballista off, Rosemary was screaming in the distance. Turning around, I saw a horrifying sight. Phoebe's body was pinned against a building, Rosemary's sword piercing through her chest. I ran towards Phoebe. Phoebe's pinned body was not moving, hanging like a rag doll. I lifted Phoebe's hand to check for a pulse. Nothing. She's dead.

"Phoebe's dead." I stuttered.

Rosemary fell to the ground crying. She must be feeling guilt for indirectly murdering Phoebe. I kneeled down to Rosemary's level, doing my best to comfort her through this.

"It's ok Rosemary, this wasn't your fault."

Rosemary kept crying as I tried to comfort her. Her boisterous crying attracted the attention of more Honkai beast. I stood up and readied my halberd, prepared to defend Rosemary with my life. Alright, let's do this-!

*BAM* *BAM* *BAM* *BAM*

Gunshots ripped through the air, piercing through the silicone Honkai monsters. The other Honkai beast were ripped to shreds by a sword and a lance. The wave of Honkai beast were completely massacred in a matter of seconds!

"Reshia! Are you alright?" Ino ran towards me and Rosemary, very worried.

"Yeah, I'm fine, but Rosemary over here…"

I pointed at Phoebe's dead body. Ino's worried expression phased away into a grim expression. Claudia could only close her eyes and quietly paid respects to Phoebe. I walked over and pulled Rosemary's sword out of Phoebe's body. Looks like the sword stabbed her straight through a lung. There was no chance she would have survived. I gave the sword back to Rosemary, who calmed down slightly but was still sobbing.

"We don't have all day, let's go." I ordered everyone.

We all walked down the path. Ino stood by Rosemary's side, taking my place in comforting her while Claudia and I led everyone else. The trip down the path was a quiet one, only being filled with Rosemary's slight sobs. On the plus side, at least we managed to reunite with the Kaslanas and the other Valkyrie. However, we still don't know where the D-Ranks are. I decided to check in with the rescue team using the earpiece given to me and the rescue team's second in command.

"How's the rescue mission going?" I asked.

"It's not going as well as we hoped." The voice said.

"On our way to evacuate some citizens, the dragon found and attacked us. We lost the last of our C-Ranks, and a few civilians as well. It's just us B-Ranks now."

"I see. Stay safe out there." I pleaded.

"Likewise." The voice replied before cutting off

*BAM*

"What the hell was that? A gunshot?" I asked.

I turned to face Ino, our only gun user here with us, but even she was confused. So it wasn't Ino who fired the gun. Then who was the one who fired a gun? Claudia sprinted over to where the noise echoed from and everyone else followed. As we got closer, we heard the sobbing cries of a girl. As we turned the corner, we saw Nailah, who was crying on her knees, in a circle of fire. Next to her was Tanya, with a bullet lodged inside her forehead. Tanya's body was covered with purple energy lines, covering her body, and almost reaching her eyes. She was cascading, and Nailah put a bullet in her before she could turn into a zombie. Claudia swung her lance to clear a temporary path in the fire for us to get to Nailah.

"Nailah, what happened?" I consoled her.

---

Nailah's Perspective

Many minutes before…

"Tendou! Where are you!" I screamed.

Nothing. Tanya and I have made several attempts to call out for Tendou but to no avail. Tendou wasn't responding. At most, he was crushed by a building, and at the least, he was separated from us. I'm hoping for the latter.

"Tanya, what do we do now?" I asked her.

"Well, we can't go back obviously. Only thing we can do is move forward. We'll just have to hope Tendou is fine unless we can confirm it." Tanya said.

"Let's go, we can't remain idle here when we have a dragon on our ass."

Tanya and I made our way down a pathway in London. The path led down towards many split roads, but we decided to stay together instead of splitting up. When choosing a path, Tanya and I opted for the paths with the most destroyed buildings. The buildings could be used to our advantage to hide from any enemy we encounter. Both of us scattered around the city, trying to predict where the others might regroup at. We found some Honkai beast scattered around the area we patrolled, but thanks to the buildings, we were able to sneak past them. That being said, we prepared ourselves if the worst were to ever happen.

"How many enemies are out there?" I asked Tanya.

"Seems like a bunch of radicals, and that's all." Tanya looked over from behind a piece of fallen debris.

"Think we can handle them?" I questioned while look behind us for potential monsters.

"Probably, but there's enough that one could send a message to alert others of our presence, even if we kill it. It's best that we avoid them." Tanya cautioned.

Tanya lowered herself down to my level. She crouched her way across the piece of debris we were behind and I followed until we were out of sights completely. Both of us walked around the city again, until the path that we took led to a dead end. All the roads that were originally there were blocked by buildings. The only open path we had was the one we just came from.

"Shit, looks like we have to go back and travel one of the other paths we didn't take." Tanya cursed.

We turned around to head back until a building behind us broke. Turning our head around, we saw a Sanctuary Honkai beast crashing out of a building, alongside a cavalier, and 2 radicals. This was bad. A Sanctuary was much taller than us, and the shield that it carried will only make things harder for us. It was also bulkier than most Honkai beast, meaning that it will be more difficult for us to even scratch it. Damnit! This is not what we had in plan.

"We can outrun them? Can we?" Tanya asked.

"Probably, but they'll alert everyone of our presence. The forewarn enemies will surely slow us down enough for these beasts in front of us to get us." I answered.

"Looks like we have to fight our way out."

I raised my SMG and sprayed the enemies with bullets. All of them dodged the bullets, but it helped split apart the monsters. Tanya, with her gigantic axe, ran towards the radicals. With a swift swing, she easily sliced one in half while missing the other radical. The radical who managed to dodge Tanya's attack would be sprayed with bullets from my SMG, ridding it from this world. With the two radicals out of the way, we only have the cavalier and the sanctuary.

"Tanya, do you think you can get the cavalier off of its horse?"

"I could, but the Sanctuary will probably prevent me from doing so."

"Crap, then what do we do?"

The cavalier charged at us, thrusting its lance at us. We both rolled away, only for the sanctuary to slash its own lance at me. Colliding with the building, I felt my back crack slightly as I steadied myself upward. I lifted my short axe, or tomahawk and tossed it towards the sanctuary. The sanctuary shoved its shield in front of it, causing the tomahawk to cut itself, and stuck itself inside of the shield. I only had my SMG now, and I was starting to run low on ammunition. It'll be difficult for me to get the tomahawk back. I'll have to try my best to preserve ammo for now.

"Nailah, I have a plan!" Tanya informed.

"You do? Spit it out!"

Tanya didn't say anything, but she started to glow red. Fire swarmed around her giant axe. She swung her axe overhead, the fire creating a trail as it followed the axe. The stigmata set on Tanya's back were glowing red, signifying their use. Tanya slammed her axe against the ground, rupturing it with a flame path that reached the cavalier and the sanctuary. Once it reached our enemies, the fire erupted, covering them in fire. The Sanctuary fumbled backward, causing the shield to shake enough for my tomahawk to fall off. The cavalier launched itself off of its horse. Tanya summoned fire using her stigmata once again, doing the same thing as she did, this time only targeting the fallen cavalier. I sprayed some more bullets at its horse. Together, we managed to get rid of the cavalier. We just have the sanctuary left. By now, Tanya was getting exhausted. She was rapidly breathing and sweating. Her axe supported her upward as she stood up. The sanctuary took some damage, but it was still in decent shape.

"Once more!" Tanya shouted.

I was getting worried about Tanya. She had already used her ability twice now. I'm afraid of what could happen if she used it a third time. Before I could tell her to stop, she had already activated it again.

"Tanya, stop it! You're going to overwork yourself!" I warned her.

"I know, but this is our only chance!" Tanya yelled.

"You're nowhere near your tomahawk, and I know you're almost out of bullets! If I don't do something now, we'll both be dead!"

B-b-but how did she know I was almost out of ammo? Did I do something to give it away?

"Tanya, just stop it! There has to be a much better way to-!"

*KABOOM*

Tanya slammed her axe on the ground again, causing another explosion around the sanctuary. I gritted my teeth as the flames burned around us. I ran and grabbed my tomahawk. The sanctuary saw me and made an attempt to kill me, but I fired off a few more bullets, staggering the sanctuary long enough for me to escape. Tanya fell down on the ground out of exhaustion. I went to pick her up. Tanya was starting to form purple lines on her body. She was about to cascade.

"Tanya, stand back! You can't go on any longer." I commanded.

Tanya outright ignored me. She limped towards her axe, grabbing it and leaned it against herself. Tanya struggled to even lift it up from the ground, but slowly the axe began to levitate above the ground. The sanctuary hovered closer to us with every second passed. Tanya managed to lift her axe up, and abused her stigmata once again. I tried to warn her from using it, but she created a small explosion around her, pushing me away. Tanya swung her lance overhead, but instead of slamming it on the ground, she tossed her giant axe towards the sanctuary. The sanctuary attempted to block the flying axe, but its shield cracked. The axe jammed itself inside the sanctuary, sending fire inside it, and causing the sanctuary to explode inside-out. Tanya fell backward onto the ground. I ran towards her and carried her to a wall. The purple lines that she had earlier have elongated on her body. She was about to cascade. I was freaking out. What the hell do I do? If Tanya cascades now, I'm likely to be fucked.

"Tanya, I don't know what to do." I cried.

Tanya placed her hand on my trigger hand. She lifted it up and aimed it at her head. As expected, I was visibly shocked towards her actions and frightened at the meaning of it. Tanya's hand fell off of mine, too weak to even move it anymore.

"Shoot me."

I can't believe those words just came out of Tanya's mouth. I didn't want to shoot her at all, but if I don't shoot her, then she'll cascade! I was stuck in a stalemate. Do I shoot her to rid her of being a zombie? Or do I refuse to kill her?

"I…I can't." I hesitated.

Tanya, with every muscle she could, frowned upon me.

"You have to do it!" She yelled.

"If you don't, then I'll become a zombie, and could kill you. Please, this is for your own sake."

"Please, I can't." I hesitated, my hands shaking tremendously, and tears starting to fall.

"Do it Nailah! End my misery and save yourself!"

"Stop ordering me to kill you!"

"Nailah, just do it!"

"No! I won't!"

"Nailah!"

"Stop it!"

"Pull the trigger!"

"Stop it!"

"Do it, before it's too late!"

"Stop it!"

*BANG*

…..

….

…..

Oh my god! Oh my god! Oh my god! I actually did it. I pulled the fucking trigger. I just killed an innocent human being! Please let this all just be a nightmare, I'm just dreaming, right?! No, this is reality. I just killed someone! Why? Why did I have to do this out of all people!? I want to vomit so fucking badly. Someone, please take me out of my own misery!

"Nailah, what happened?" Reshia attempted to comfort me.

I shook in place as Reshia's voice scared me. In fact, almost everyone that split up was now back together, here where I am. I was a sobbing mess. I couldn't answer Reshia's question clearly without stuttering over my own words. I poorly filled in everyone about what happened to Tanya, about how she abused her stigmata. I cried out my guilt over killing her, blaming my actions on peer pressure. One of the other Valkyries, who looked like she was just crying earlier thanks to dry tear marks on her face, kneeled down to comfort me.

"So, you went through something similar." She related.

"I too, just killed another Valkyrie before all of us regrouped, albeit indirectly."

The girl hugged me tightly. I appreciated the hug, but I just wanted to end it all. I just want to stop suffering from this guilt.

"I'm done with this." I said.

I alerted everyone's attention with that statement. I lifted my SMG to my head. I'm going to fucking do it! I don't want to be apart of this cruel world any longer! I'm sorry everyone, but please continue on without me.

"Nailah no!"

*KLINK*

….

*KLINK* *KLINK* *KLINK*

….

Am…..am I out of bullets? No, this can't be! I can't run out of bullets now! There has to be at least one more for me to end it all! Come on, there still has to be one more bullet-argh!?

"Nailah, pull yourself together!" The Valkyrie hugging me yelled.

The Valkyrie grabbed my gun hand and forced the gun to point off of my head. Ino and another Valkyrie helped her restrain me as I flopped around to free myself. To enforce more safety precautions, Claudia took my gun away as well as my tomahawk to prevent another suicide attempt.

"Let go of me! Just let me end my suffering!" I desperately screamed.

The 3 Valkyries holding on to me pushed me further on the ground to restrain me. I eventually gave up resistance, becoming a sobbing eyesore instead. While everyone made an attempt to calm me down, Reshia received a message from her intercoms.

"Reshia, this is the Captain. How is the extermination mission going?"

"Not bad, but not good either." Reshia answered.

"The dragon attacked all of us, causing a split. Some of us sadly perished during the split. If I count correctly, then 3 of us have sadly died. One was killed by the dragon, another killed by accident, and our latest sadly was killed by another Valkyrie in order to prevent her from becoming a zombie."

"I see. That is very tragic indeed. Of course, this is the battlefield. Death is bound to occur but knowing this doesn't stop death from being emotional. I just checked up with the rescue team earlier. It seems that 6 have died on their side, all C-Ranks. The dragon managed to find them and attacked. I believe a few citizens were also caught in the attack. Luckily most of the citizens we found have been evacuated back to the airship, even if it isn't that many. Where is everyone on your side now?"

"Luckily, we've managed to regroup now. Let's see here…..1,2….we have 6 people with us right now."

"6? Didn't you say that 3 died? Then how come there are only 6 of you? The math doesn't add it."

Reshia looked back at us, and then around us before her facial expression reciprocated from calm to egregious panic. She desperately searched around us, her panic level rising every second that passed. Reshia was about to have an existential crisis the longer she longer searched.

"Reshia, what's wrong?" Ino asked.

Reshia faced all of us, sweating profusely as she asked,

"Where's Tendou?"

Reshia was directly pointing that question straight at me. I guess her, and everyone else would think that he would be with me.

"I…I don't know where he is." I admitted.

"When the buildings were falling on us, Tendou was separated from Tanya and I. He's all alone in this city right now."

Reshia looked like her life just flashed in front of her, and fell backward. Claudia caught her from behind. Reshia was taking too many short breaths, too fast.

"He-he's all alone?" Reshia asked.

"Please tell me you're just joking." She maniacally laughed.

I couldn't respond. I only looked down at the ground. For some reason, Tendou's separation from our group felt like my fault for some reason.

"You're not joking?! No, no, no. You must be joking!" Reshia denied.

Eventually, Reshia couldn't deny reality any longer. She screeched loudly. She was now in an actual existential crisis. With the exception of the Valkyrie who could relate with me, everyone else moved to Reshia to try to calm her down. Reshia got back up immediately, trying to begin the search for Tendou.

"We have to find him fast!" Reshia commanded everyone.

"But we don't know where he even is, or if he is even alive at this point-." A Valkyrie suggested.

"He's alive, he has to be!" Reshia cut off.

Ino rubbed Reshia's shoulders in an attempt to calm her down.

"Easy now Reshia. You don't need to be this brash to our comrades." Ino relayed.

"I believe that Tendou is still alive out there too. Just calm down a bit. There's no need to be reckless."

Reshia sniffed a few times, before calming down just a bit.

"You're right. Sorry for my berserker outrage." Reshia apologized.

The Valkyrie next to me finally spoke up after a while. She asked Reshia the most logical question about Tendou.

"So, how are we going to find Tendou? We don't know what direction he headed off towards when he split from everyone else."

"You're right. We don't know where he is. Claudia and Ino could have made it easier for us to find him, but with this thick fog above us, they won't be able to navigate clearly." Reshia acknowledged.

"So we're clueless on his whereabouts. Do we split up again to cover more ground in our search, or do we stay-."

*CRACKLE* *CRASH*

To the northwest of us, the sound of a thunderclap erupted. All of us looked in the direction of the sound, spotting a humongous lightning bolt shooting itself into the sky. The lightning bolt pierced through, and split the thick fog within its area, revealing what I presume, to be the afternoon sky. The fog slowly covered the area the lightning bolt struck again. A majority of us were very confused. A lightning bolt coming from the ground instead of the sky? What the hell did that? I tried to ask everyone on their opinions of the lightning bolt, but Reshia began sprinting towards the direction of the lightning bolt.

"Reshia! Where are you going?" Ino called out.

"It's him!" Reshia yelled back, not even turning around to face us.

Him? Tendou? There's no way he could have caused that lightning bolt. Maybe Reshia's just going crazy. Or is she? There's no way Tendou could create lightning that powerful. Unless…..

"And just when I told her to not be reckless." Ino sighed.

"Well, do we just let her be? I mean, she can clearly handle herself-oof!"

Claudia zoomed past all of us, grabbing her sister by the wrist and essentially dragged her to Reshia's direction. She twisted her head to face all of us and motioned her head to tell us to follow them. We didn't have time to question her decision, but all of us obliged. The other 2 Valkyries with me still had me in their grips, carrying me along with them as they followed Claudia, Ino, and Reshia. They gave me my weapons back, but they still chaperoned over in case I made another suicide attempt. The guilt over Tanya's death still loomed over me, and it always will. I just want to die, to get rid of myself in this harsh world. But maybe, just maybe, I could witness something to hopefully let me rest peacefully, knowing that this world might be left in good hands.

---

Tendou's Perspective

"Damn, I'm all alone." I cursed.

"Out of all the people who could have been separated alone, it just had to be you." Lessica sighed.

"Is it really my fault though?"

"Partially."

"Well, looks like I'll have to continue on without everyone else."

I walked all over the devastated city, trying to find interconnected paths that would hopefully lead back to my friends. It wasn't soon enough that I got myself lost within the city. After all, with too many paths that I can't count using my hands, I would get lost eventually. I'm just surprised that I haven't encountered anyone, or anything yet.

"The thick fog above us is much lower than I thought it was." Lessica mentioned.

"Seems perfect for a sneak attack from tall buildings."

"That's true I suppose, but how would anyone actually see through these fogs?" I interrogated.

"I can't, and I think none of our allies can either."

"I wasn't referring to you when I mentioned that."

"Oh. Actually, can the Honkai see through this fog?"

"Considering that the dragon is roaming through this fog, it definitely can. I can't vouch for the others. Best be on your guard."

"Got it."

I walked around some more. I don't know how much time has passed, though not like it matters. Have my friends regrouped with each other yet? I hope all of them are safe and sound. We already lost one person on our team, and 3 from the search team. I hope it stays that way. I stopped at one of the few intact buildings. Out of all the buildings in my area, it was still standing tall and was in normal condition. Judging from the exterior, it was a hotel, and a fallen sign helped prove so. I can't ascend to the highest level since I won't be able to see anything, but I could hopefully go to the highest visible level to see everything else. I walked inside the hotel complex and walked all the stairs up to the 5th floor. It was the highest I could go, but I could view a majority of my surroundings.

"No Honkai beasts. That's surprising." I conferred.

"Unless I'm just blind, or they're hiding themselves behind buildings. I'm pretty safe."

"I'm surprised myself." Lessica agreed.

"With such a strong Honkai monster swarming the city, I would have expected more subordinates to be in this city. Unless the others distracted or eliminated the majority of them, there weren't many Honkai beasts in this city. Actually, now that I have a decent view of this city, the destruction doesn't seem that bad. The mission sign up mentioned how this is just part of London, not the entirety of it. I've seen London in worse condition."

"You've seen London in worse condition? Are you talking about that story of when it got attacked by the Herrscher of Devastation? You went to the city after it got destroyed?"

"Oh, I didn't go there after it was destroyed. I was there when it was destroyed!"

"Shit. Um…I'm sorry."

"There's no need to be. I got a full-frontal seat to the destruction. That was a positive."

…..ok, I don't know why that's a positive. What I'm wondering more about is that she went to London. I thought Lessica was stuck to me. I would have thought that she went to London before she met me, but that's impossible. Lessica has told me that she's been with me the entire time, even stating that she and I were essentially one and the same. Did I go to London before I lost my memory? Shit, now I'm more interested in finding things here that might aid in my memory loss than this mission. Well, can't remain idle for long. I got to regroup with everyone.

*SWISH*

"Holy fuck!"

As I turned around from the window, a scythe zombie swung its weapon at my neck with the intent of decapitation. I was able to duck in the nick of time, and swung my leg at the zombie's ankle, tripping it. Before it could touch the ground, I stabbed my foot at her stomach, sending flying across the ground, and hitting the door frame. As it stood up, I made a running start before jumping and landing a double kick on the zombies face.

"What the hell!" I shouted.

"There wasn't any sign of enemies around me, let alone a zombie! Where the hell did you come from?!"

The zombie looked very generic, but zombies like this are from cascaded Valkyries. It should be impossible for zombies to even show up here! The only Valkyries here are us, so the appearance of these zombies make no sense! Damnit, it doesn't matter how they arrived here. I need to make it out alive. Ok, Tendou, calm down a bit. It's just a zombie, one zombie, it won't be that bad.

"Tendou, I don't want to freak you out, but I don't think she's the only one here."

Contrary to what I thought, there were actually more zombies. A ninja variant of the zombie zipped its way behind me and slashed both of its katanas at my back. I fumbled forward, headbutting the generic zombie in the process. The zombie also fumbled backward into furniture. I turned around to face the ninja zombie. The ninja tried to slash both of her katanas horizontally, but I lifted up my fist to block it. My block worked, but the force that the ninja applied on her katanas staggered me to the sides, giving her enough time to zip her way towards me and slashing them at my torso. Looks like blocking is eliminated for safety then. My healing factor was at play during my bout, but with the constant action, the healing process is taking much slower. The generic zombie that crashed into furniture earlier finally stood up. It grabbed its scythe and made an attempt to swing it at me. However, the hallway we were in was pretty thin. Due to the scythe's long handle, the blade pierced itself into the wall and was stuck. I took this opportunity to run in and slide kick the zombie in the stomach. I landed the kick successfully, but behind the zombie, a cat-like one pounced on top of me, mauling its claws at me.

"What the hell! How many zombies are in my proximity?" I yelled while covering my face.

I managed to grab the cat zombie's claws and pushed her off of me. I jumped up from the ground, just in time for the ninja to hold me tight by grabbing me in a lock. The cat was able to get up in time to start running at me on all fours. To avoid getting scratched again, I bit down on the ninja's arm with my mouth. The ninja's grip weakened, giving me enough room to move my arms. I grabbed the ninja and threw her at the cat.

"Three to one? How the hell did this take a turn for the worse instantly?"

The three zombies started the march towards me. I readied myself for the onslaught to come, but even I was unprepared. I tried to run towards them, but I staggered forward as an arrow pierced, and lodged itself into my shoulder. I turned my head ferociously, trying to spot the archer who shot that, but I couldn't find them. The distraction gave the zombies enough time to tackle me out of the nearest window in the hotel building. All three piled up against me as all of us fell many feet downwards. As we collided with the ground, the zombies fell off of me, and the arrow lodged in my shoulders now stabbed out of the other end of my shoulder.

"Blagh!" I groaned.

With a shoulder damaged, it made it difficult for me to even get back up when using just one arm. It was made even worse when multiple archers popped out from their hiding spots, firing more arrows. Some of them missed, but the ones that did land stabbed through my stomach, right biceps, left thigh, and both of my damn knees! If it weren't for the healing factor, I would have been made a guard of someplace rather than be a Chevalier after this mission. I stood up, but the arrows everywhere made it extremely ambitious to even do so. I pulled out the arrows I could, even pulling the arrow that stabbed me from to back and to the front. Pulling out the arrows proved to be futile, as the archers would just release more arrows upon me. I continued to scream in agony as my skin was pierced more and more. Chevalier armor? Yeah, totally armor if I'm still getting hurt.

"How, the, hell, has no one found me yet? I've been screaming for 5 minutes now. Surely someone could have heard me by now-."

*SWISH*

"Agh!"

The volley of arrows continued down. I fell flat on my front, causing more arrows to stab out to the back. I slowly made an attempt to push myself up, but two archers shot my elbows, making me fall down again, and pushing the arrows further in. My body was now limp. I can't do anything anymore. I can't move anything other than my head. I slid my head across the ground to face up the horde of zombies. The 3 zombies that attacked me were marching towards me again. The ninja had its katana ready to stab it in my head. The cat crawled its way slowly towards my immovable body, and the scythe zombie prepped its scythe. The archers in the back aimed the bows at me, holding their arrows back. Further behind the archers, came many Honkai beasts. Multiple chariots, cavaliers, radicals, ballistas, and 3 sanctuaries jumped from destroyed buildings. They stood behind the archers and watched as if I was the victim of a public execution.

"Lessica, looks like I failed the promise huh?"

"….."

"Lessica?"

"Let me take control of your body."

"What? But don't you have limited time?"

"I do, but it will hopefully be enough to get us out of this situation, and if we're lucky enough, maybe fight the dragon if it arrives."

"…Tsk, got no choice then."

Lessica began taking control of my body. My vision was clouded with crimson red, my body began heating up and my organs began working faster. However, this time, I allowed for this to happen. My vision zoomed in on itself, before zooming outwards. When my vision came back to normal, I was now in the mental realm. I was off of the center circle, with Lessica now in control.

"Good luck Lessica."

---

Lessica's Perspective

"…Tsk, got no choice then."

Upon that statement, I walked over to Tendou's mental realm body. I wrapped my arms around him, as we both glowed an amethyst purple aura. After a few seconds, I gently pushed him behind me as I went into full control of his body. As my consciousness was transferred, the pain that Tendou endured was felt by me.

"Agh!" I groaned.

I already knew that Tendou was in pain, but holy hell did I underestimate how much pain he was in. As the ninja zombie lifted its sword up, I used my ability to burn the arrows inside of me to free myself. I howled in agony as my insides were burned during the process. No matter, as the fire scared the zombies backward, and startled everyone else. I stood up, hunching forwards. I calmed myself, allowing the healing factor to work at full effect. Soon, my wounds were healed completely. The zombies and Honkai monsters prepared themselves as my wounds fully healed.

"Sorry brethren, but I have to do this."

I charged my legs with electricity and stomped the ground to send electric currents to everyone. The electricity hit everyone, but it only did major damage to the archers, and ballistas, as the archer's heads were blown up while the balls of the ballistas exploded. As the electricity shocked and froze everyone, I summoned a void lance from a portal and threw it at the ninja zombie's head. The lance stabbed through and essentially decapitated the zombie. Before the electricity faded away, I created two cube launchers. Pulling them back with all I could, I released them, decapitating the scythe zombie and the cat zombie immediately. The wave of electricity ended, allowing everyone to finally move again. I ran towards the sanctuaries. Next to me, I created laser cannons that fired at the sanctuaries on the left and right. The lasers melted through their shields, and went through their cores, killing them. I released multiple jabs at the last sanctuary's shield. The shield was durable no doubt, but my punches started to chip away at it.

"How the hell do you have such strength?" Tendou asked.

"I don't want to talk about it." I replied, not wanting to talk during battle, nor did I want to talk about my past.

The sanctuary bashed its shield into me, sliding me a few feet away. It thrusted its spear in my direction. I dodged to the right slightly, grabbing its spear near the tip in between my biceps and body. I yanked it out of its hands and slammed its shield away. I bonked the sanctuary multiple times before launching myself using wind and kicking the sanctuary down on its back. I jumped up in the air and came crashing down onto the sanctuary's core with its spear. The cavaliers made their move towards me. I lifted my left hand up, sending a gush of wind to get the cavaliers off of their horses. As the cavaliers fell off, I summoned multiple portals above them that sent ice spikes upon them. As for the horses, I charged my leg with fire, doing a roundhouse kick that sent a fire wave towards them. I think that should be enough to kill them. The only things left were the radicals. Easy job! I created an energy blade of Honkai energy around my right hand. I dashed towards the radicals, dicing them up like onions. They're radicals, a very big pushover.

"Wow, you made easy work of them!" Tendou applauded.

"Hmph." I scoffed.

I turned around to walk away from the area, just in time to see a little girl who was peeking in the corner. The girl became terrified as she made eye contact running away from me. She ran for her life. A survivor huh? I should follow her to see where she'll go. I chased after the girl. Of course, I was much faster, but I wanted to see where she would go. My wild goose chase lasted a few minutes, ending when the girl ran down into a crumbled building. I walked over to the building, just to see that the entrance of the building to be blocked by a large rock. I kicked the rock forward, causing it to roll. Inside the building was the girl from earlier, along with many other survivors, men, and women, elders, and children.

"Hey, we found some survivors!" Tendou cheered.

"Maybe we can leave a mark somewhere to notify the search crew that they're here."

I took one step forward, sparking terror in the eyes of the survivors. Normally, when they see a Valkyrie or a Chevalier, they would probably jump for joy, and be glad that they are safe. Not with me, however, and rightfully so.

"It's been a while, hasn't it?" I greeted the survivors.

I didn't know their names, but this isn't the first time I've met them. I've met them when I came to London before. With them cornered like rats, I can finally finish the job that I couldn't do so before.

"It's sad really. You all hid yourself so well from the Honkai, only to meet the end. Of course, you knew that the moment you laid eyes on me, didn't you?" I smirked.

"All you did was delay the inevitable. And really, you should have known that. Don't be afraid now."

I lifted my left hand up, charging a lightning bolt in the palms of my hands, and aiming towards the survivors. The survivors huddled together, hugging each other as they stared down the face of death.

"After all, there's nothing to be afraid about the inevitable, is there?"

I tried to launch the lightning bolt at the survivors with the intention of killing them, but my left arm became stiff for some reason. I couldn't fire it off at all! Why can't I fire-…Tendou…

"Tendou…" I menacingly called.

"You really think I'm going to sit back and let you kill these people!"

"Why though? Why are you so insistent on protecting them. They are a menace to this entire world! I can't allow them to live-!"

"Weren't you the one that told me that I didn't have a valid reason to protect humans?"

"Oh, don't argue with me that you do have a valid-."

"You're right. I don't have a valid reason. I don't know why I want to protect these people. I don't know what they're like, so I can't truly decide if they get to live or not. I just want to protect them because it's just in my instincts to do so. So I don't have a true feeling on why I want to protect them. All I know is that you could be right. Maybe humans are a menace, and I've just become a fool to their fake exterior."

For some reason, my heart fluttered in happiness as Tendou continued speaking. Does he finally see things my way? I don't know what made him have such a huge change in heart, but I'm so overjoyed!

"Finally!" I gushed.

"You're finally starting to see things my way! I'm so overjoyed! Once and for all, we can finally unite and rid this world of the travesty that plagues-."

"But I have a question for you Lessica. Do you have such a reason to hate humanity? And do you have evidence to back it up?"

I paused. He asked me the reversal of my question for him. Do I hate humanity, absolutely. Do I have the evidence too, absolutely!

"Of course I hate humanity, and want to rid them! They've started countless wars amongst each other for the stupidest reasons, and they do things harmful to others just to selfishly benefit themselves. I can back it up too! I was…..I…I-I was…"

Silence broke out between us. I know what my past was. It's evidence of the vileness of humanity, but why am I afraid to share it? Am I really traumatized by such event to this extent? Why? Why am I still so traumatized? I've freed myself so long ago, but this feeling won't die out!

"So you don't want to cite what your evidence is, but judging by the face you bear in this realm right now, you clearly do have something." Tendou said.

"While I don't know what you want to say, or why you're so hesitant, you do have something to back your belief up. Something that I don't possess myself. I'm sorry if that one thing you're afraid of was traumatic, but I need to ask you another question. Didn't you say that all humans can be anything? You can't go back on your words, can you?"

"Huh? Yeah, I did say that. Humans can be anything. They can deceiving, antagonizing, villainous, selfish-."

"Keyword, anything. Humans can be anything. That includes selfless, heroic, caring, loving, trustworthy, and the list goes on. While I haven't seen a vile human, what I'm trying to say is, humans can be good as well. Don't let the few people you've met dictate your feelings on humanity as a whole. As far as you know, there could be some who could be good as well. So please, don't kill these innocent people."

My left arm felt free. Tendou released his grip from me. I looked at the terrified humans in front of me. The elders were trying to calm the children down, the adults trying to use the last of their moments together to wish everyone goodbyes, and the children crying, not wanting to leave the side of their parents. I wanted to kill them so badly, but what if these people were actually good like Tendou said. They're still humans though, they can change within a snap of a finger. But maybe Tendou was also right when he said that I can't cloud my judgment based on the few that I have met, because all humans can be anything, they can be different. But, they still can be a menace though. What the hell do I do?!

"Fuck you Tendou!" I cursed.

"You're really had to go make this difficult for me, didn't you?"

I charged the lightning bolt to its maximum potential. I prepared myself to fire off the lightning bolt. I'm going to do it! I'm going to finish my job, and kill these survivors-!

"WAHHHH!"

Suddenly, I stopped. I lowered my left hand to view the cry of a baby, cradled in its mother's arms.

"Please go back to sleep my child." The mother wished and begged.

"I beg of you to go back to sleep. I don't want you to witness this manslaughter, my child." The mother cried.

The mother was wishing for her crying child to go back to sleep, to avoid him from seeing this mass slaughter, even if the child was going to die along with everyone. She didn't want her child to bear a mental witness to the terror that was about to happen, just like how I didn't wish for HIM to listen to me getting raped all those years ago.

"….tsk."

I lifted my left hand up and fired the lightning bolt into the sky. You win Tendou….you win.

"Lessica…." Tendou muttered.

"By shooting the lightning bolt into the sky, I've given the signal to both our team and the search crew to the location of the survivors. However, I've definitely alerted the Honkai, and the ouroboros dragon as well. I'm going to leave a note on the ground about the survivors, and run away." I told Tendou.

I used my foot to write a note on the ground, telling the search crew about the survivors. Afterward, I looked at the survivors, confused about my actions.

"I'll spare you all, for now."

I made a sprint away from the survivors, shooting a ball of light up in the air, hoping to alert the Honkai and steer them away from the survivors. Why did I let them live? Is it because I couldn't kill an innocent baby? A baby who has never done anything wrong at all? Or did I spare them because the mother and the child just reminded me of me and him? Maybe it was both. I'll figure it out myself later. For now, I got a dragon to deal with.

---

Claudia's Perspective

Our squad ran down many different paths, trying to reach that lightning bolt that was shot. We got close to the area that the lightning bolt was shot from. We passed by an area with dead zombies and Honkai. I don't know what happened to them, but they were massacred. Was this Tendou's doing?

As we got closer, more footsteps emerged to our side. The search crew came within our distance, also entranced by the lightning bolt.

"You girls saw that lightning bolt too?" The search crew leader asked.

All of us nodded as we made our way to the area. Once we arrived, the area was fairly empty, with a note left on the ground. I walked over to view the note.

"Survivors in the building." - Tendou

The note had an arrow pointing towards a crumbled building. I ran over towards the building and peeked inside. There was a group of survivors inside the area.

"A Valkyrie? We're saved!" Someone yelled.

The search crew came inside the building, checking on every survivor's condition and escorting them out. The survivors hugged every single one of us, as if we were some sort of miracle that blessed them.

"Excuse me." Ino asked one of the survivors.

"Did you happen to stumble across a man with a fedora?"

When asked, the survivor's face went from pure happiness to extreme terror.

"The man in the fedora? Are you trying to find him to kill him? If so, please do it quick!"

Ino, and by extension everyone was confused? Why did we want to kill Tendou? He's our ally!

"Um, excuse me sir, but that man is our ally. We're trying to find him so we could-."

"He's your ally?! You're telling me that the Valkyries have teamed up against a monster?! How could you? He tried to kill all of us!"

Everyone else became more confused and shocked, except for one person, Reshia. Reshia fell to her knees and started to have a panic attack. Ino kneeled down to Reshia's level.

"What's wrong Reshia?"

Reshia breathed heavily through her statement.

"I don't want to believe it, but I'm afraid that he's gone haywire again."

Reshia started to cry. She leaned against Ino's shoulders as she cried. Ino tried to calm her down, but nothing was working. I've seen Reshia break down before, hell, it happened earlier! But I've never seen her break down so far that nothing could calm her down. The search team decided to escort everyone back to the ship, leaving our clueless selves behind. More of us tried to calm Reshia down, but again, nothing was working. I stood back and let myself think. Did Tendou really try to kill the survivors? And what did Reshia mean by him going haywire? Tendou, from my experiences has been pretty calm. While I can't tell if he is extremely kind yet, he doesn't seem to be the person who would go berserk. I can't see him going crazy unless…Lessica? I forgot that this Lessica person "existed". Is she actually real?

"Claudia, Reshia's not calming down." A Valkyrie informed me.

I was too lost in thought to actually reply with a notepad or sign language. My eyes gazed on the ground back at the note, and then further down the road. There were footsteps marked on the ground running away from us. Those must have been Tendou's. I sprinted towards the directions that the footsteps were leading to, leaving behind everyone else.

"Claudia! Where are you going?" Ino called.

I didn't look back. I know this is a team effort, but with Reshia out of commission temporarily, I need to do this myself. I looked back at the crowd, seeing my sister following me, and leaving Reshia in the care of others. Ino caught up to me, trailing behind.

"Claudia, why did you just abandon us?" Ino asked.

I pointed to Tendou's footsteps on the ground with the White Flower Divine Key. Ino looked down at them and received my message clearly.

"I see, let's find him quick."

Ino and I ran until the footsteps came to a stop. There were none left. They abruptly stopped. Both of us were now in a heavily destroyed area. We scanned the area for Tendou, but nowhere did we find him. Did Tendou just vanish? Also, why did he run down this way? Was he also trying to look for us? Ino and I continued to search for Tendou until a monstrous roar soared through the sky. It was the dragon. Ino and I backed ourselves into each other, waiting to see where the dragon was going to come from. As we circled ourselves, the dragon swooped down from our sides, trying to chomp on us. Ino and I managed to dodge in time, but the dragon came back, aiming for Ino, who just bumped into a building. Ino fired some bullets at the dragon, causing it to turn its head. The dragon came at me next. I jumped upwards onto its head, with the intent of stabbing Black Abyss on it. However, the dragon wobbled its head back and forth, tossing me off of its head and crashing into Ino. The dragon turned around as we both got up from our collision. It opened its mouth to breathe fire at us. I stood in front of Ino, planning on using White Flower to create a tree to block us, until out of nowhere, Tendou jumped from a building and held the fire back with his hands.

"Get out while you can!" Tendou yelled.

For some reason, his voice had a feminine voice echo shortly after his actual voice. Ino and I rolled out of the way of the fire, with Tendou jumping up and somehow boosting himself towards the dragon. He launched a roundhouse kick against the ouroboros dragon, knocking it sideways. He followed up by flying towards the dragon, punching it downwards towards the ground. His two hands created to lightning orbs. Tendou clasped his hands together, combining the two orbs together, and firing a massive lightning bolt down on the dragon. The collision of the bolt against the dragon caused a gigantic lightning dome explosion. Wind formed around Tendou's foot, slowing his descent.

"And I was going to plan a strategic sneak attack as well." Tendou sighed.

"Of course, you two had to go and ruin it. Can't have shit in this world!"

Tendou looked at us with both annoyance and disappointment. His eyes were amethyst purple. Aren't they supposed to be cobalt blue? Also his braid, it's silver, unlike his brown hair. And the powers that he just used, shooting lightning, manipulating wind and fire. Those abilities are something that some battlesuits can provide, but battlesuits usually only allow the user to manipulate one element. Tendou using those three means that either his battlesuit is that special, or he's doing this himself! If it's the latter, then maybe I'm starting to see why the Overseer has a fascination with him.

"Tendou, your voice-."

"It doesn't matter what my voice sounds like right now. It's not like a person's voice really matters." Tendou scolded.

His last statement sort of tore a hole deep inside of me. A sudden rain cloud felt like it poured on me. I nervously scratched the back of my head, hoping to get the last statement out of my head. Tendou clearly saw my discomfort, forcing himself to sort of restate himself.

"You doltish buffoon, I didn't mean it like that."

Besides the voice modification and the strange display of powers, Tendou had a completely different personality. I haven't known him for long, but he's never used insults, neither has he sound this sullen. It was as if he was a different person.

"I hope you don't mind me asking, but what's with your weird display of powers that you just showed." Ino begged.

Before Tendou could answer, the ouroboros dragon rose from the crumble of a building that it crashed into when Tendou punched it downward. Tendou turned around to look at it.

"Persistent bastard. Why can't you just cease and desist?" He angrily sighed.

Tendou's hands started to glow, creating two energy blades on his hands. Ino and I stepped back in surprise. He looked back towards us.

"Where are the others at? Don't tell me they pathetically died."

I shook my head. I was partially right, no one died pathetically, but we have 3 others who've died before we met him. Tendou scoffed at that revelation, but he showed some relief.

"Well, at least Tendou can rest well tonight, knowing that no one else died." Tendou whispered out.

….Did Tendou just refer to himself in third person? He's never talked like that during breakfast! Hell! Earlier he even referred to himself in first person earlier when he semi insulted me for being dumb! Is he being controlled by some internal, or external entity? Could this be Lessica? It's a shame that I can't talk. I want to confront him about this.

"Doesn't matter right now. I only have a limited time before I leave and Tendou comes back, and waiting for everyone else will only deplete that limited time. All three of us will have to confront this dragon ourselves."

Yep, he's definitely being controlled by some other entity. Tendou just referred to himself in both first and third person, and mentioning that he'll be back after a limited time. Either that, or he's just high right now. No one, but Tendou, and possibly this other entity, which I'll just refer to as Lessica for now, knows.

The dragon roared at us, diving down while shouting fire at us. Tendou jumped upwards while Ino and I leapt sideways.

"What are your battlesuits capable of!" Tendou yelled to us.

"Our suits are capable of flight, though the thick fog above us will limit how high we can go!" Ino yelled back.

"Drats. Alright then, Ino, since you're the one with the guns, aggro the ouroboros away from your sister and I. Claudia, use your lance or whatever to create a tree and hold it still when you find the open space to do so. Once stuck, either me, you, or both of us will go for the killing blow. Got it!"

Both of us nodded. It's a weird plan. Usually, both Ino and I would be the offense part of a plan, though this time, my sister is playing defensive and I play what I can best describe as a trapper. Tendou really has a lot of guts if he's willing to be the one on the offensive. But, it's a plan nonetheless, and could probably work.

*BANG* *BANG* *BANG*

Ino shot the dragon three times to attract it to her. As expected, it began chasing after her. I flew away from Ino as she distracted it, trying my best to find a spot big enough for the dragon. Tendou followed after me, jumping and leaping from every destroyed building like a frog. For a beginner, he's really agile. Then again, it's probably not him in control, but that still means his body is agile. It wasn't long until we found a large circle that should be large enough for trapping the ouroboros. I landed in the center with White Flower ready in my right hand. To signify our location to Ino, Tendou magically created another lightning bolt from his hand and shot it up in the air. Huh, Reshia was right! Tendou does have some bonker abilities!

*CRACKLE*

The bolt cleared the thick fog above us before it reformed again. Tendou backed himself up, prepping himself for if Ino comes with the dragon. 5 minutes passed, and Ino didn't show up. There's no way that she died. Not only is she an S-Rank, but she has the speed advantage against the dragon thanks to her suit. Either she is still stalling, or something else happened. I looked back at Tendou, pointing up towards the sky, trying to message him to shoot another bolt. At first, he didn't understand, but when I reenacted him shooting the lightning bolt, he got the message. Tendou lifted up his hand again, shooting another lightning bolt. We both waited again, this time, we heard some footsteps. Those footsteps, weren't Ino's, because it was multiple footsteps. To our sides, everyone else from our group, alongside the search team.

"Claudia, we saw a bunch of lightning bolts like earlier. What is going on-." Reshia asked before finding out herself.

Reshia looked at Tendou in dismay. Tendou also looked at her but looked away later. Reshia fell to the ground, suffering from another panic attack. I twisted my head to Tendou, who shrugged it off like it was nothing.

"Don't worry about it. She'll calm down, eventually."

*CRASH*

From a building in front of us, Ino came crashing through an already broken window. She looked down towards me and nodded.

"Prepare yourself!" She shouted.

My sister zoomed past us, just as the ouroboros crashed through the building she came from. I stabbed White Flower down on the ground, creating a humongous tree, encapsulating around the ouroboros. Tendou walked up to the ouroboros before hopping on the trapped dragon's head. I switched Black Abyss from my left hand to my right and jumped on the dragon's tail. Looks like the plan was successful. If it weren't for the shock factor from earlier, we probably would have stayed this thing awhile ago. I lifted Black Abyss up, ready to stab it into the ouroboros and killing it, however…..

*ROAR*

The ouroboros dragon shuffled violently in the tree capsule. It spat fire on the tree branches surrounding it, melting them slowly, and freeing itself. Its tail moved aggressively, but I managed to hold on. Likewise, Tendou was grabbing onto its head. I lifted my sword again to stab it in its tail, but the damn thing was free enough to fly and escape. The dragon carried both Tendou and I up towards the sky. It continued shaking frantically to get us off. Tendou lost hold of his grip and slid down the dragon's body. Due to its scaly and sharp armor, Tendou was cut many times on his way. He only managed to stay on the ouroboros when he summoned an energy blade on his left hand and stabbed it in far enough for his hand to get stuck inside the dragon's insides. Stabbing inside the dragon caused it to shake more frantically. My grip wasn't weakening, but the convulsion of the ouroboros caused my hand to slowly slip off. My hand was now off of the dragon, causing me to fall back to the ground. I fell through the thick fog before my vision was clear enough to see the ground. I activated the flight mechanic, slowing my descent to safely land.

"Claudia! What happened up there?!" Ino asked.

I pulled out my notepad to write down what happened in the sky. I was getting to the part with Tendou cutting himself against the dragon when a large explosion occurred above us. Bits and pieces of the ouroboros dragon plummeted down on us. Everyone ran and dodged every body part that came crashing down on us. After a couple of seconds, the body parts stopped falling. Around the area of the explosion, the thick fog cleared itself, giving all of us a clear view of Tendou, declining down from the sky.

"AHHHHHHHHHHH!"

On impulse, I went to go grab White Flower from its previous location and stabbed it down at where Tendou was falling. Another tree grew high, capturing Tendou. The tree grew smaller to lower Tendou closer to our level. I jumped up to the top of the tree, seeing Tendou wailing in pain. I think he hurt his back in the descent. He yelled many curse words out of pain, but his voice didn't have that feminine echo anymore. His eyes were also back to being blue, and the braid was brown again. Pushing himself from a part of the tree, Tendou lifted himself back up.

"Agh, I'm lucky this won't affect me for long." Tendou said as he pushed his back from behind.

"Tendou!"

I turned around to see Reshia jumping up to the tree, running towards Tendou, and giving him a bear hug. She cried into his chest. Tendou did feel sad for making Reshia cry if his facial expression said anything, but he looked more uncomfortable if anything. Ino also climbed up the tree.

"Tendou, what did you do up there?"

Tendou looked up at the sky, which was already covered by the thick fog. He looked back down to face Ino, and said,

"If it wasn't already easy to tell, I blew the ouroboros up."

"Blew it up? How?"

Tendou's mouth opened, but nothing came out. He just shrugged.

"I don't know how. All I remember is seeing myself get flung off the dragon before Les-I stabbed it. Afterward, I just did something and blew it up."

Mid-sentence, Tendou cut himself off. It sounded pretty obvious that he was going to say Lessica, but hid it from everyone else poorly. So, Lessica was the person controlling him? Tendou probably won't tell anyone about what happened. It sounds like he knows most of it. Guess I'll have to play detective myself.

"So even you don't know what you did?" Ino asked.

Tendou shook his head. Ino laughed it off as some joke. She calmed herself down, before hugging Tendou with Reshia.

"Whatever you did, I'm glad you're still here with us."

I stood by the sideline, witnessing the group hug. Something bothered me. During his descent earlier, he cut himself multiple times. There was still blood on him from those cuts, but those cuts were gone now. I'm guessing he has some sort of healing factor if his wounds completely healed, but that's not what bothered me the most. It's the color of his blood. Human blood is red, and Tendou's was no different. However, inside the human body are two types of blood, oxygenated blood, and deoxygenated blood. Both were red, but there were still some minor appearance differences. Oxygenated blood was a medium-dark shade of red, but it was entirely red. Deoxygenated blood has the same medium-dark shade of red at its outer core, but a darkish purple as the inner core. Deoxygenated blood is blood with little oxygen, so it would be located at places like veins and the heart. Oxygenated blood would be everywhere else. The blood still covered on Tendou looked more like deoxygenated blood instead of oxygenated, but he didn't get cut anywhere to bleed such type of blood. Strange.

Ino let go of the hug, but Reshia was still clinging onto Tendou, still crying too. Ino had to reluctantly pull her away from Tendou. Ino comforted Reshia. I went back down to grab White Flower, thereby destroying the tree. As the three on top descended to the ground, everyone else rushed towards Tendou, bombarding him with their own questions. It was very clear that Tendou was not comfortable with this situation. I mean, if my theory that him being controlled by this Lessica person is true, then it makes sense for him to be uncomfortable! He probably doesn't know what the hell happened. The only one who didn't ask him any questions was Nailah, who stood back. Tendou must have noticed this as he pushed through the crowd to get to Nailah.

"Nailah, you looked depressed. What happened with you and Tanya-."

*SLAP*

To the horrific sight of many, everyone witnessed Nailah slapping Tendou across the face. Tears were falling down Nailah's face. Her teeth were cringing.

"Why?" She said.

"Why didn't you do anything?"

Tendou looked confused. After all, he just reunited with the entire group.

"You had these vigorous powers, yet you decided to hide them from us, and not reveal them until now! If you would have shown them earlier, then maybe Tanya wouldn't have needed to die!"

Nailah began breaking down. Rosemary and another Valkyrie went to go care for Nailah. I walked over to the side to look at Tendou. I expected him to be shocked, and he sort of was, but his face showed mostly guilt. Tendou turned to me and asked,

"How many others died?"

I lifted 1 more finger to signify to him about Phoebe, and another 3 to signify the other 3 that died on the search team after we split up. In total, that makes 9 out of our 20 dead. That's almost half of our team. Would have been half had Nailah's suicide attempt worked. Fortunately, it didn't. Surprisingly, the team that should have had the least action had the most casualties.

"Tragic. And what about the civilians?"

I pointed towards the search team's leader. He walked towards her and started a conversation. He walked back later, filling me up in the news.

"Not good. Turns out some of the survivors got lost when the search team came into conflict. Out of the 500, we only have 201."

201? That's not a lot. I think this mission is both a bust and a win. We managed to defeat the ouroboros, but most of the survivors haven't been found yet, or are dead.

After regrouping, everyone headed back to the airship. The journey was long, but we made it back safely. We encountered some enemies here and there, but it was light work. Eventually, we did make it back to the airship, which had survivors outside with the crew nurturing them. Upon seeing us, all of them cheered for our return, until someone saw Tendou. When a random civilian mentioned him, everyone went from upbeat and cheerful, to horrified and depressed. Naturally, everyone, and even I were confused as to why they treated him so differently than us. Some survivors were muttering us to kill him, arrest him, punish him, and many other terrible things. Hell! I even heard someone tell me to take his innocence away as odd as it was. I turned my eyes to face Tendou. My expectations were to see him shocked, but no. Instead, he looked like he knew this was coming, and bore a convicted face.

"I'll be going back on the ship now." He quavered painfully.

Tendou walked aboard the ship ahead of everyone. Reshia tried to follow him, but I made the bold decision of stopping her. Reshia turned to me. I shook my head towards her, pulling out my notepad and notifying her to give him some time. Reshia was definitely pained, but at least she understood. I can feel Reshia though. I too, want to go up to comfort Tendou, but maybe it's best to leave him alone for a while, even if we technically did much earlier. I hope he's ok though….

---

Tendou's Perspective

I walked aboard the ship, deactivating my battlesuit with the press of a button. My armor disappeared, being replaced with my preferred apparel. I headed towards the bathroom. I was still covered in blood, and my clothes were dyed with it. I'll need to get Reshia to wash them again. Inside the bathroom were many shower stalls, and bathtubs. However, not in the mood to do either, I just wet a towel instead and rubbed it against my body, probably much to the dismay of Lessica.

"Aww, you're not going to take a shower? A bath?" Lessica moaned.

I didn't reply. She should already know the answer. After rubbing the wet towel, now red, I tossed it into a basket for someone to wash it. I headed back towards one of the dorms and laid on the bed. My vision was wiped red as Lessica appeared in the world. She sat down on the bed, staring at me.

"I'll be honest with you, I didn't expect you to spare them." I interjected.

"Really? Do you really think I'm that stubborn?" She denoted.

"If not revealing anything about the past, and being too stubborn to see humans as anything other than filth says anything, yeah, I'm pretty sure you're stubborn."

"…Fuck. I was going to say otherwise, but yeah, I guess not wanting to change my perspective is being stubborn. Even if I have my reasons for not doing so, I guess it's still being stubborn one way or another."

"Exactly, though that begs the question. If you still see humans as filth, then why spare those survivors?"

"…It's more so personal. I would rather not state why. Also, your, or my statement of being anything is pretty vague huh?"

"Don't tell me you're going to backtrack on your statement."

"No, I won't. Still though, I can't believe you managed to turn my own words on me. Legit made me eat my words. Don't get me wrong though, I still view humans as vermin. However, as much as I want to say this, I'll give humans another chance. Don't take this chance easily though."

"Really now? Do you feel so defeated that you're willing to go against yourself?"

"You figure that yourself."

"Alright then. Moving on, what the hell did you here a long time ago? When we met those survivors, they looked like they knew us, and in a negative light. What the hell are we to them, the Herrscher of Devastation?"

"Pfft!"

"Why are you laughing?"

"That last statement."

Lessica stretched her body before she went back to her realm. The world went back to its normal colors. I pulled out my phone to check on the time, which was almost reaching 6:00 PM. That mission almost lasted the entire day! Holy fuck. And I have to do this on a weekly basis?

"Attention all staff and passengers! We'll be heading back towards Crescent City in about 30 minutes. Please note that if our radar spots any other Honkai activity during our trip back, then we will land and deal with them. If you have any injuries to be dealt with, then please hurry to the medical bay. Also, we'll be serving dinner after the ship takes off. That is all for now. If there is anything else, I will announce it later."

The comns inside the ship announced a few things before shutting off. Dinner huh? Sounds good, but for some reason, I feel queasy. I guess the mission really took a toll on me. Whatever, I'll just go to sleep. Someone's probably going to find me later anyways. After the shit I just went through, which granted, probably wasn't much, I just need a break.

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?'s Perspective

"Oh my, it looks like she's already awakened again."

I sat inside one of the destroyed buildings of London, staring at the airship carrying her, Lessica. It hasn't been long since she was knocked unconscious back in Arastan city, yet she's already back in action, though from what I presume, with limited time. The thought of her already being back seems a bit worrying, but she's seems weakened by a lot. Maybe we can actually convince her this time.

"What are you staring at?"

I turned around to face a gorgeous woman. She was wearing a silver dress that reached down to her ankles. The dress was left open at the top, giving me a full view of her shoulders, and the top of her large breast. Likewise, her hair was also silver, with a tint of gray in the mix. She wore high heels for some reason. Even if they looked pretty, they're extremely inefficient for combat. Then again, all she does is float around.

"About time you've arrived." I jabbered.

"You have no idea how long I've been waiting for you to show up!"

The woman scoffed. She floated towards the window, spotting the airship in the distance.

"What's so interesting about this airship?" She asked.

"Nothing in particular, but its what's inside that is interesting."

"It's just a normal Schicksal airship. I don't know what inside would be interesting enough to call me over-."

"Lessica."

The woman next to me turned her head to face me. She was slightly shocked, but her serious facial expression still remained intact.

"Lessica? As in THAT Lessica?"

I nodded my head in happiness. The woman looked back at the ship for a moment, staring at the Valkyrie crew still outside.

"Are you sure she's there? I mean, all I see are a bunch of Valkyries."

"She's not outside anymore. She went back in the ship."

The woman looked back at me. She definitely had her questions, and so did I. After all, both of us wouldn't expect Lessica to already be up, let alone, working with our enemies.

"I noticed something interesting." I stated.

"I've actually been stalking this entire Valkyrie crew throughout this entire mission. However, I've been paying attention the most to Lessica. It doesn't seem like she's the one in control, not mostly at least."

"What do you mean by that?" The woman asked.

"You know how Lessica resides in the body of a male right? Well, it looks like the consciousness of that man has resurfaced. I don't know much about the man, but he seems fully aware of Lessica. I decided to stalk him the most out of everyone. As expected, he's the weakest of the team, but he still held his own."

"So the man took his body back. Do you know if the man has any control of Lessica's powers? If so, maybe he could be helpful for us."

"I don't think he does. I actually tested this out by giving him some zombies to face off against. The man wasn't using any powers and was nearly demolished. Thankfully, it looked like Lessica intervened to save him, or herself. That being said, I'm a bit surprised as to why she would protect him. If my ears didn't fail me, then it seems like the two are at opposite ends with each other."

"Opposite ends? So he's siding with humanity. Shame. Also him not being able to harness his powers is also a shame. Does he have a name?"

"Of course he does! Who doesn't have a name!"

The woman scoffed. She stared outside the window, just as everyone started packing up to leave on the airship.

"Well then spit it out."

"The man's name is Tendou. As I said earlier, he seems to be at opposite ends with Lessica, and by extension, us."

"You say that, but you remember that while Lessica shares our same goal, she's not fond of us either."

"You're right. However, maybe if I pamper them, and give both of them the love that everyone desires, then maybe they'll reconsider!"

"…Your motherly instincts are coming out again."

"Oh…..um…..forget that you saw that."

"…..I'm going to leave now."

The woman jumped off of the building through a window. She floated a bit before completely flying away. I stared at the airship, containing Lessica. I planted my right hand on my cheek, seeing everyone enter the ship.

"Oh Lessica, one day, you and your little friend will join us, but not today I suppose."

I leapt out of the window as well, flying off into the distance to go do my own thing. In my mind, all I could think of was Tendou, and Lessica, but mostly Tendou. What a naive boy. The patience of seeing how he'll develop will continue to boggle my mind. Maybe I should talk to him when I have the opportunity! Hehehee!

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Chapter 6 End