Author's Note: Surprise! Bet you didn't expect me to update the story so fast. I sure didn't, given my track record over the last few years. It's probably Baal's fault, to be honest. All the hype for Baal's release in Genshin Impact next week means that Mei's face has been plastered all over my Youtube feed, so I keep being reminded to sit down and work on this. So if you wanna thank anyone for the somewhat fast update, thank Baal by pulling on her banner when it releases, and give her a hug because she desperately needs it. Anything actually relevant to this chapter will be covered at the bottom, so until then, I hope you have a nice read!

Disclaimer: I do not own any rights to Honkai Impact 3rd. If I did, I wouldn't still be lacking the Herrscher of Flamescion in my roster.

Mei I: Nightmare

Over the days that followed that fateful night, Mei had made it a point to limit her interactions with her father to the bare minimum as a means to voice her displeasure with what she had learned of her immediate future. When she had been woken up the following morning by the birds chirping outside her window, her first instinct had been to track her father down wherever he had gone off to for the day and scream it right in his face exactly what she thought about what she had overheard the night before, but her desire to act so rashly had quickly been tempered once she had managed to pull herself together. It would've been beneath someone of her station to act in such a shameless manner, but that hadn't meant that she would just lay down and accept it.

From that day onward, she had made it a point to stay after school and do her homework in the library rather than at home, and began to join her friends more often whenever they went into town to hang out and waste their hard-earned money on junk food or at the arcade. It was petty, and more than once she had felt a little bit guilty over her treatment of her father when she was lying under the covers of her bed and waiting for sleep to claim her, but then a traitorous little voice in the back of her head would always remind her that he was planning on selling her off like some kind of prized livestock, and in light of that her anger towards him always felt completely justified.

She had no doubt about whether or not her father understood why she was deliberately avoiding him. The glass she had dropped on the floor when she had fled the corridor outside his office had been gone the next day, and it wouldn't have taken a genius to figure out who had dropped it there. Beyond that, the few times she and her father had been in the same room since that night had been extremely formal and awkward, nothing at all like the respectful but affectionate moments they would usually share whenever they could both spare the time. A few times, she had caught him staring at her out of the corner of her eye, but whenever she turned and asked him if she had something on her face, he would always just turn away from her and shake his head.

Somehow, his refusal to address the rift that was forming between them had only served to fuel her anger towards him further.

It wasn't until a week later that something happened to further develop the situation, and it wasn't for the better. This particular evening found Mei sitting by her desk with her algebra homework spread out in front of her. She and her friends had originally gone to visit the local park that afternoon, but their plans for the evening had been interrupted when the skies had opened up above them and drenched them from head to toe. Though it had been... moderately amusing at first, they had decided to cut short their park visit and head home since most of them still had homework to do anyway.

Mei had always liked stormy weather. She always felt a certain sense of tranquility preparing a hot chocolate for herself and wrapping herself up in her softest blankets and listening to the rain smattering against the windows of her home, so that's exactly what she had done as soon as she had gotten home and dried herself off. At that moment, she could almost bring herself to forget what she had overheard the week before, and the rift that had formed between herself and her father as a result...

Knock, knock!

"Mei? Are you still awake, princess?"

That was her father's voice, and just like that, the moment was ruined. It popped, like a balloon when it came into contact with a sharp edge. Hearing his voice immediately brought Mei back to that night from just a week ago, and she felt herself stiffen in her seat. A moment passed while she was contemplating whether or not she should acknowledge him, but the decision was taken out of her hands a few seconds later.

"It's almost time for me to go, so I just wanted to say... Look, I'm sorry you had to find out the way you did. It should never have come to this in the first place, but for what it's worth, I hope that you will be able to forgive me one day."

A familiar cold was beginning to spread through Mei's chest. There was something off about the way her father was speaking. He sounded so defeated, and at that moment she couldn't help but feel the slightest hint of sympathy for him. Maybe she had been a bit harsh on him after all...

"And... please try not to take your anger for this out on your intended, you hear me? I've spoken with him a few times over this past week and he seems like a decent enough guy. He doesn't want this any more than you do, so please don't blame him for it."

And just like that, what little sympathy her father had earned for himself in the preceding moments evaporated. Purple eyes narrowed dangerously and slender hands were clenched tightly atop her still unfinished algebra homework. So that was why he had been gone so much over this past week... He had been meeting with her future captor to iron out all the juicy little details of their agreement.

"I've got to go now. Adam will be involved with the investigation process over the next few days, so he likely won't be able to pick you up until next weekend. I've asked Liserl to check in on you a few times over the next week so if you need anything, just talk to her. I... Just know that I would never have allowed this to happen to you if it would've been within my power to prevent it. I love you, Mei. And please, take good care of yourself."

Even though she was still angry with him, Mei couldn't help but feel a stab of fear in her chest and felt an unnatural chill engulf her entire being when she heard the finality of her father's words, followed by his fading footsteps. In spite of the rift that had been forming between them over the past week, he was still her father. For as long as she could remember, he had been the one constant in her life; the one person who had always been there for her. He really didn't want to send her off to St. Freya Academy anymore than she wanted to go. It hadn't been fair for her to take her frustrations out on him over the past week.

"Wait, father!" she called out and turned to face the door.

No answer. After a few more seconds had passed and it became clear that her father wouldn't be coming back, she threw off her blanket and rushed over to the door and threw it open. As angry as she had been with him ever since she had found out about the marriage offer, she didn't want him to leave while thinking that she hated him. She could feel a lump form in her throat as an image of her father huddled in the corner of a dark cell came unbidden to the forefront of her mind.

"Father!" she called out again, thinking that he couldn't possibly have gotten too far. When she still didn't receive an answer, she felt that cold chill that had been floating about her chest tighten its grip around her heart. How long had she hesitated before calling out to him?

Feeling a sense of dread overtake her, she hurriedly made her way towards the front door, taking the steps of the large staircase two at a time in her rush. The lights had been turned off in every room that she passed, leaving the Raiden Estate shrouded in oppressive darkness that reminded her far too much of that night just a week prior. It felt empty and imposing, and Mei couldn't help but shiver as she realized that it must've taken her a lot longer to pull herself together and call out to her father than she had originally thought.

Realizing that she may already be too late, she gritted her teeth and practically tackled the front door open as soon as she reached it, dignity and noble upbringing be damned. Just as she made it past the doorstep and into the rain, the front gates to the Raiden property closed behind a black and white car that proceeded to turn the corner at the end of the road and disappear from her sight.

A few moments passed where she just stood there, panting and staring wide-eyed at the corner where the police car had disappeared, her hand still reached out in front of her as if to grab hold of something.

"No..." she whispered timidly, her hand falling her to her side.

Time seemed to lose all meaning as she stood there in the rain, allowing it to seep into her expensive brand clothes. She could feel her heartbeat painfully loud in her chest, yet it did nothing to protect her from the chill that was slowly seeping into her very bones, though if it was from the rain or the realization that her father really had been arrested for whatever allegations had been made against him, she didn't know.

Eventually, she was able to tear her gaze away from the corner where her father had disappeared and turned around to look at the home he had left behind. The Raiden Estate loomed over her in an almost mocking way. A traditional Japanese mansion with three floors, and all the extravagance a rich and powerful family could ever ask for. It had never really dawned on Mei before then how excessive that was for just two people to live in.

As she took in, truly took in, the sight of the building she had called home her entire life for the first time, she could hear the roar of thunder in the distance and a fork of purple lightning flashed overhead to illuminate the otherwise dark and gloomy mansion for a brief moment. From where she was standing, her bedroom window was the only one that was still lit up.

She was alone.

-:X:X:X:-

It was a tired and emotionally drained Raiden Mei that arrived at Senba High School the following day. She didn't know how long it had been before she had managed to work up the courage to go back into her now-empty home, but eventually, her sense of self-preservation had won out and forced her to seek shelter from the rain. The remainder of the night had passed her by uneventfully, save for a phone call from Dr. Einstein, who clarified for her what had happened.

Raiden Ryoma had taken his daughter's juvenile attempt to get back at him after she had overheard their discussion last weekend very hard, and had steeled his resolve to try and clear his name on his own, without the aid of Schicksal. Just like Einstein had predicted, that hadn't gone too well for him, and by the end of the week, he had been forced to give in and re-open the negotiations.

But his delay had come at a cost.

With Ryoma now in an even more dire position, Schicksal's Archbishop had felt confident enough to push for more favorable conditions for his desired outcome, knowing full well that Mei's father would be unable to outright refuse him. The terms they had agreed on, in the end, had stated that Mei would spend not just one year as a transfer student, but her entire remaining education at St. Freya Academy, and that if by the time she reached the age of 20 she still hadn't agreed to her potential marriage to Adam Ferryman, Ryoma and Anti-Entropy would need to give up something else in compensation.

Mei had not taken this news well, as it meant that her childish vendetta against her father had indirectly resulted in much worse conditions not just for herself, but for her father and the organization he supported.

"Don't be too hard on yourself," Dr. Einstein had told her over the phone. "Otto Apocalypse may be a man of questionable character, but his affinity for politics and mind games is almost second to none. It wouldn't surprise me at all if he had counted on your father to refuse his initial offer, just so he would be able to push for harsher terms when he inevitably had to come crawling back."

That had done absolutely nothing to make her feel any better about how she had treated her father over the last week they'd had together, or the fact that she hadn't even had the presence of mind to reassure him that she didn't hate him for accepting the offer before he was incarcerated. For a brief moment, the call from Dr. Einstein had ignited a small flicker of hope in her chest that she would be able to call her father and tell him everything that she had failed to tell him before the police had taken him away, but that hope had quickly been dashed when she had dialed his number and heard his ringtone play from within his office. Apparently, people in prison weren't allowed to bring any personal artifacts with them into custody, so if she wanted to contact him she would need to wait for the scheduled visits or phone hours for her father's block.

For as long as she could remember, the Raiden family, small as it was, had always been untouchable. Their family-owned business, Massive Electronics Incorporated, was one of the largest and most profitable companies in the world. At least one out of every 10 electronic devices was equipped with components produced by their company. They had been on top of the world for Mei's entire life. And all it had taken to bring them down were a few incriminating pieces of paper. In the span of a week, Mei's entire life had come crashing down around her violently, and she had been all but powerless to stop it. But, as she was about to learn, the storm had yet to completely pass her by.

"What do you think you're doing?"

It took a moment and an unfriendly push from whoever was sitting beside her for Mei to realize that the harsh words were intended for her. Frowning, she looked up from her still unopened bento box to find the entire table glaring at her. The by-now-familiar feeling of dread reared its' ugly head once again as she noticed that all her friends were present, yet she still couldn't find a single friendly smile in the group.

"What do you mean? I'm just sitting down to eat my lunch," she answered with a hint of annoyance, slipping into the "Queen of Thunder"-persona she had forged for herself to deal with the constant unwanted attention she had always received from her peers.

"Yeah, not here you're not," one of the girls said haughtily. Mei thought her name was Nene, but she wasn't positive about that. "We don't associate with criminals here, so shoo! Go away!"

Upon hearing the mumble of agreement from the rest of the table's inhabitants, Mei felt her face heat up as the last vestiges of her patience crumbled. Within the last 24 hours, her entire life had been turned upside down, and she was just about done with it all at this point.

"Don't be ridiculous! I haven't done anything wrong!" she spat angrily, her eyes locked on the girl who had challenged her. The girl in question seemed to wilt somewhat under the intensity of her stare, but it didn't stop the boy who was sitting right next to her from speaking up.

"Oh, come off it Raiden, the jig is up! We all know what your father did! Are we supposed to believe you had no idea he was committing economic fraud?!"

Mei was 99.9999% sure this guy had no idea what "economic fraud" even was, just from the way he used the term. Feeling herself finally reach her breaking point, she slammed both her hands on the table and rose to her feet.

"My father has done absolutely nothing wrong!" she screamed towards her entire group of "friends", no longer caring that they were drawing the attention of the entire cafeteria. "You think you know what my father did?! Well, obviously you don't 'cus then you would know that whatever allegations have been made against him are FALSE!"

Silence fell over the Senba High Cafeteria, hanging over the student body like a cloud of smog over an industrial city. Mei was panting from finally having let out a bit of her pent-up frustration and was staring wildly at every member of her group of so-called "friends", one at a time. She knew that she probably looked like a mess, but at that moment she couldn't bring herself to care. The public mask she had so carefully crafted for herself over the years had finally cracked, and once it did, the entire thing had just crumbled and fallen off completely.

"Regardless of if it's true or not," another girl, Mikoto, spoke up from the back of the group. "We don't want you here, so I suggest you find somewhere else to eat your lunch, or I will have to go get one of the teachers."

Mikoto didn't sound as confrontational as "Nene" or the random boy who Mei couldn't even be bothered to guess the name of had, but her words still cut deeper than either of the other two's ever could. Over the years, many people had come and gone within Mei's circle of friends. But Mikoto was one of the people who had been with her for the longest time. They had never been particularly close, as Mei had never really bothered to spend much time with any of her friends outside of school-related matters, but she would've liked to think that their friendship had meant more to the other girl than to just be discarded over something like this.

As the adrenaline faded from her system, Mei felt herself deflate as she stared at her oldest friend. And as her mind processed what she had just been told, she realized that Mikoto was telling the truth. Her so-called "friends"... they didn't care if the allegations that had been made against her father were true or false. They only cared about being seen with the right people, and now that Raiden Ryoma had been accused of economic fraud and arrested, Raiden Mei no longer fit that description.

With trembling hands, she reached down to retrieve her homemade bento box and stuffed it back into her bag. She had spent an inordinate amount of time preparing extra servings of everything she cooked yesterday, hoping to find some sort of comfort in the praise she usually received from her friends whenever she shared her homemade cooking with them today. Now, with her eyes lowered to stare at the ground in front of her feet, she left their table and made for the exit to the cafeteria, doing her best to ignore the stares she could feel digging into her back all the way until the cafeteria doors closed had behind her.

For what felt like an eternity, she wandered the corridors of Senba High aimlessly until she eventually found herself in front of the steps that would take her up to the roof of the school's main building. Dull purple eyes stared at the staircase in hesitation for just a brief moment before she shrugged with indifference and ascended them. Thankfully, nobody else was up there to stare at her or harass her further. Letting out a sigh of relief upon seeing that she was alone and feeling some of the tension leave her shoulders, she took a seat on one of the benches that were nailed down opposite to the door she had just come through.

Slender hands fumbled with the strap of her bag before she was able to pull out her bento again. She hesitated for just a second before popping the lid open to reveal its' contents. As she stared at the miniature feast she had planned to share with her friends that day, she felt an unfamiliar stab of... something in her chest. If she hadn't been particularly close to any of them, to begin with, then why did it still hurt so much to learn that they had never really cared about her in the first place?

After trying and failing to grip her chopsticks properly with her still trembling hands, she eventually gave up and tossed them over the edge of the building in frustration. A very unladylike hiccup escaped her lips, and as she reached down into the ornate box to pick up a popcorn chicken with her bare hands...

A lone tear rolled down her cheek.

-:X:X:X:-

The longer the week went on, the more creative the student body at Senba High got in their attempts to make her feel as unwelcome as possible among them. It almost felt as if it was a sick game to them at times; who could get away with the most malicious thing against the now outcast "Queen of Thunder" without getting caught. Her locker and her desk in the classroom had both been vandalized multiple times, and her things started disappearing when she wasn't looking. Some had even been bold enough to get physical about it in the corridors when no teachers were present. A shove here and an unwanted touch there. Even when she had clearly seen who had groped her at one point and had tried to tell a teacher about it, they had been let off the hook because supposedly she couldn't "prove" that they had actually done what she claimed they had.

That had been the last Senba High ever saw of Raiden Mei. She could grit her teeth and endure a lot, but the hypocrisy of her teacher lecturing her about the importance of not falsely accusing other people of things she had no proof of when her own father had been arrested and locked up for something she knew he hadn't done just a week before had been more than she was willing to take. It wasn't like this last week would make much of a difference for her anyway. She would supposedly be getting her entire high school and university education at this St. Freya Academy place she was being shipped off to, so what did it matter whether or not she attended her last week of classes at Senba High?

And so, when Friday finally rolled around, Mei found herself standing outside the closed double doors that led to her father's private laboratory, rather than the open gates of Senba High School. Dr. Einstein, her "honorary aunt" Liserl, had called her late the previous evening to let her know that her "intended" would be dropping by the Raiden Estate to pick her up on Friday afternoon. During the week, Mei had still made it a point to spend as little time as possible at her family estate to try and escape from the overwhelming loneliness she felt being alone in the three-story mansion. However, now that the day had come for her to leave it behind and start her "new life" in a different country altogether, she couldn't help but feel a strange need to visit the place where her father had spent so much time forging their family legacy one more time before she departed.

Her keycard was accepted without issue and the doors swung open to reveal the almost futuristic room in all its glory. The entire place lit up as soon as she stepped into the lab, triggered by the motion sensors that were placed along the edges of the room. Light reflected off of white and silver surfaces that had been polished so well that she would've been able to use them to do her makeup had she so desired. Tools and instruments that Mei couldn't even imagine what their purpose was littered the room and the fact that almost nothing of it looked familiar made her feel woefully out of place.

As she slowly made her way around her father's little technological sanctuary, stopping every now and then to inspect something or other that caught her interest, she realized that it had probably been almost two years now since she had last set foot in this room. There was a time when she would be in here with her father almost every day, as she had wanted to spend as much time as possible with her only parental figure just like any child would have. But that child had been long gone even before this mess had happened, buried underneath a mountain of expectations and responsibilities.

"I'm sorry, father," she said to nobody in particular. She didn't know why she said it. Maybe being in this place where she had spent such a large part of her childhood together with her father made her feel a step closer to him? But whatever it was, once she had opened her mouth, it was like a dam had burst, and all the pent-up frustration she had held back ever since her father was arrested came floating to the surface. "I... I shouldn't have been angry with you for listening to Dr. Einstein. T-this isn't your fault, none of it was! Why are you the one being punished when I was the one... it's not fair!"

She knew she was crying again. Mei had always hated crying. It made her feel weak, and as the heiress of the Raiden family, she had been taught that she couldn't afford to show weakness. But after everything she'd had to endure over the last two weeks, she didn't care anymore. In just a few hours' time, she would be picked up by the man she had been set up to marry unless she wanted to cause even more problems for her father and his associates than she already had. She was already a failure as an heiress. What more damage could a few tears possibly do at this point?

And so, she kept pouring her heart out to the empty laboratory. Her guilt over her own role in having put herself and her father in an even worse position, her fear of having to spend the rest of her life with a man she had never met before, her anger and hurt over the way her friends at school had turned their back on her... all of it came bubbling to the forefront more than once, and for the first time in her life, Raiden Mei allowed herself to let it all out.

Author's Note: In an attempt to make it easier for my writing to build up some steam again after 2 years of no posts on this site, I have decided to cut this story up into shorter chapters for now. It also makes it easier for me to try out new things, like having the chapters be divided by character, hence why this is called "Mei I" instead of "Chapter I". For the most part, we will probably stick to Mei and Adam's point of view, but we may also see some guest chapters with characters like Theresa, who will obviously also be a part of the story once Mei reaches St. Freya Academy. Speaking of other characters, some readers asked about whether or not Kiana will be in this story, and after a lot of deliberation on my part, I have decided to include her. There is a role for her to play within the scope of this story, I just hope I won't be tempted to focus too much on her.

Looking at this chapter, in particular, there are a few deliberate writing choices made here that I think some or most of you might've picked up on. In the first part, there is the obvious detail of associating Mei's life falling apart with the roar of thunder in the distance. It is also stated on the wiki that Mei likes rainy weather, though I don't know if this anecdote comes from Honkai or GGZ, or if it is even correct in the first place. But I figured it would make sense, and it adds some personality to our main girl here.

The second part has a few more interesting references. Mikoto, the name I ended up giving to Mei's friend, means "Empress" in Japanese, so it is supposed to be a reference to her Lightning Empress battlesuit. The roof where she ends up having her lunch after she leaves the cafeteria is the same one where she and Kiana have their fight during Lament of the Fallen, and by extension that means it is also the roof where Kiana originally "saved" Mei after she was freed from the 3rd Herrscher's influence during the original Honkai Outbreak in Nagazora. That bench that she sits on is the same one that Kiana throws at her during their fight. Finally, "popcorn chicken" is the first dish that Mei prepares in her first episode of "Cooking with Valkyries" before Kiana devours it and forces her to come up with another dinner plan.

Oh, and there is of course the title of the chapter, "Nightmare". Yes, it is a reference to the preview we just got for the Raiden Shogun. I just couldn't resist, and it fits pretty well with the theme of this chapter.

With all that being said, I hope you enjoyed reading the first "real" chapter of this story, and I want to thank everyone who followed, favorited, and reviewed the prologue! At the time of writing this, the story has amassed 8 reviews, 22 favorites, and 34 followers. Let's see how far those numbers can rise before the next chapter! Until then, I wish you all the best!