Author's Note: Welcome back to A Maiden's Betrothed! I think Baal might've read this story while she was waiting for her banner to be released, and refuses to drop for me as some form of revenge for me tormenting poor Mei in the first two chapters. Let's hope that she finds this chapter more to her liking because I really want to get her. And of course, I hope that you enjoy it as well!

Disclaimer: I do not own any rights to Honkai Impact 3rd, but I am now the owner of a Herrscher of Flamescion, since about an hour after I posted the last chapter and complained that I still didn't have her.

Mei II: The Hyperion

A few hours later found Mei in her room on the second floor of the Raiden Estate, hurriedly pulling out the contents of her walk-in closet and throwing it haphazardly into the two large suitcases that laid open on top of her bed. What had originally been intended as a brief visit had eventually turned into several hours, and by the time the ornate double doors had closed behind her and locked themselves, it was already well past noon. It was now less than an hour before she would meet her intended for the first time and she still hadn't finished packing the belongings she wanted to bring along for her stay at St. Freya Academy.

Despite the small time frame it now left for her to prepare herself for her departure, Mei wouldn't have traded the time she had spent in her father's laboratory for anything in the world. The last two weeks had been the worst two weeks of her entire life, and it had felt like a great weight had been lifted from her shoulders when she was finally able to let out some of the feelings she had bottled up over that time.

It had also been a surprisingly soothing experience for her to just take the time to look around the lab for a while. Her father still had a lot of unfinished projects that had been left lying around the laboratory, as if he had just stepped away from them overnight, and it made her feel just a little bit closer to him to take the time to try and guess what he was trying to accomplish with each one. It helped ground her in the present and served to remind her that as long as she played her role well, he would be able to come back and finish them one day.

One object, in particular, had caught her interest among the many gadgets and knickknacks: a small purple gem that she had found littering one of the workbenches. Through some phenomenon unknown to Mei, the gem gave off a soft glow when she picked it up. It didn't seem to do anything more than that, but it was very pretty to look at, so Mei had decided to take it with her to serve as a reminder of her father.

To remind her of why she was going along with this disgraceful arrangement in the first place.

For now, she had just put the gem away in her jewelry box, but she would see about the possibility of having it put into a necklace or maybe a bracelet once she had settled down over at St. Freya. She still didn't like the idea of playing along quietly in this farce, but she would have to be on her best behavior at least until her father had been released from jail. Hopefully, having this little reminder of why she was enduring this would help keep her on track, as she had proven quite readily over the week that had led up to her father's arrest that her stubbornness could have adverse consequences if left unchecked.

Just as she was looking through her row of differently colored kimonos, trying to decide which one she should bring along, she was interrupted by a buzzing coming from somewhere within the pile of clothes she had dropped in one of the suitcases. The Raiden Estate was surrounded by a pretty high wall of concrete topped with sharp metal bars to prevent intruders from making it onto the property, and the only way to get in was through the automated front gates. The gates were controlled remotely through an app on her father's phone, so he could regulate who came and went to the property, and Mei hadn't had the heart or the technical understanding to transfer the app to her own phone. So now that she knew that she was expecting someone, she'd had the foresight to bring her father's phone with her to her room... and had apparently buried it underneath a literal mountain of clothing articles.

It took her a few moments longer than was probably polite before she managed to pick up the video call from the front gates, as she had to practically dive into the clothing pile to procure the phone, and then take a few moments to calm her breathing and put on a professional front, like she had seen her father always do whenever he answered the gates. This would be the first time she laid eyes on her intended, and as much as she wanted to hate him just on the principle that she was practically being forced to marry him against her will, she would be lying if she said that she wasn't at least a little bit nervous to finally meet him.

"Welcome to the Raiden Estate," she said as she answered the call. "Please state your name and your business at our property."

She was met by a soft, and distinctly feminine, giggle.

"Schicksal Valkyrie, Rita Rossweisse, here to pick up miss Raiden Mei, by request of Schicksal Captain, Adam Ferryman."

As it turned out, her oh-so-loving future husband had apparently been called away on "other business" while he was in Nagazora City, and had sent this Rita person to pick Mei up in his stead. So after a brief check to determine whether or not Rita really was a Valkyrie of Schicksal like she claimed, which was quickly settled when the young woman held out her Valkyrie Certification towards the camera for Mei to inspect, the gates were opened and an expensive black Rolls-Royce entered the property.

Rita Rossweisse was nothing if not perfect, Mei had learned once she had let the Valkyrie into the house proper. Standing at just an inch or so taller than Mei herself, the young woman was blessed with a slender yet curvy body that Mei was certain would be enough to turn the heads of all straight males within a 20-meter radius of her. Short gray hair held back by a black-laced hairband framed a heart-shaped face with a pair of pink eyes that had managed to send a shiver down Mei's spine with their intensity when the two of them had first laid eyes upon one another. She was dressed in a somewhat old-fashioned white frilly shirt that had a rose attached to the front of her collar, a pair of black tights, and a tight-fitted black skirt with an oversized zipper running down its front that gave it an almost punkish aesthetic.

Ever the gracious host, Mei did her best to make her guest feel at home and prepared some tea for the Valkyrie to drink while she finished packing her things, but on the inside, she was fuming. If this was an indication of how her betrothed was going to treat her, then no matter if he successfully helped clear her father's name or not, they were going to have problems. They hadn't even met each other properly yet, and he had already stood her up once for something or someone else. As far as first impressions went, this one certainly didn't give her any hope that her life would turn around anytime soon.

Despite her growing hostility towards her intended, Mei couldn't really find any good reason to dislike Rita. The young Valkyrie, who couldn't be more than a few years older than Mei herself, was very polite when spoken to and even made it a point to hold conversations in Japanese rather than Engish like Mei had thought she would have. She even used proper Japanese honorifics whenever she addressed Mei or when she referenced other people, like "Otto-sama" or "Captain-san". If it wasn't for the vague hint of what Mei guessed was a British accent, she could've easily passed for a Japanese citizen who either had a European parent or had moved here from abroad when they had still been very young.

"The Far-East Campus of St. Freya Academy is located on an island in a lake on the north-western edge of Soukai City, so I would suggest that you bring some swimwear, Raiden-san," Rita said as she inspected the articles of clothing that had been laid out on Mei's bed. "Also, as the lake is surrounded on two sides by mountains, I would suggest bringing along something to keep you warm whenever the mountain winds sweep over the island. It can get quite chilly during autumn afternoons and evenings."

It hadn't taken long before Rita had integrated herself into Mei's disastrous last-minute attempt at packing and Mei, who hadn't kept very good track of what she had or hadn't packed before Rita had gotten there, had reluctantly allowed her to take charge. Barely had more than a few minutes passed before the messy heap of various articles had disappeared from atop Mei's bed and had been replaced by six neatly folded and stacked piles of clothing, sorted by type. It had all happened so fast that Mei had been left wondering if her new acquaintance was even human.

"You seem to know a lot about the academy, Rossweisse-san," Mei remarked as she went to fetch the recommended items from her walk-in closet, which had been restocked in record time by the Schicksal Valkyrie. "Did you attend it when you were younger?"

"Fufufu, if I had, I would still be attending it, Raiden-san," Rita said with a good-natured laugh. "I'm still only 19."

"Eh?" Mei almost did a double-take upon hearing that and looked up from where she had been folding a turtleneck sweater that she had just retrieved to stare at the other woman. "Then how come you're already a Valkyrie? Don't you need to graduate from that St. Freya place to become one?"

Rita hummed thoughtfully, comparing the piles of clothing and other items that had been laid out in front of her with a handwritten checklist she had procured from... somewhere. If Mei didn't know any better, it almost seemed as if the Valkyrie had come here expecting to have to aid her in packing her luggage.

"While I can certainly see why it would appear that way to an outsider, that is actually not the case," she said after a moment of contemplation. "St. Freya Academy offers the level of education required to pass the theoretical part of the Valkyrie Exam, as well as the physical conditioning and combat practice required to pass the physical part, but you technically don't have to actually attend the academy to qualify as a Valkyrie, you just need to pass the exam."

That little nugget of information threw Mei for a loop, but she supposed that it made some sense, at least in theory. Though she admittedly only knew about as much as the average person about the Valkyries of Schicksal, she would've thought that they would've had very strict regulations on who could attain the title. But on the other hand, she supposed it also wouldn't have made much sense for the organization to turn away capable individuals just because they didn't get their education at their designated academy. It wasn't as if just anyone could become a Valkyrie and fight the Honkai, so as long as they were good enough to pass the examinations, she supposed Schicksal would take what they could get.

"I suppose that makes some kind of sense," she said as she sat down at the edge of her bed. "Does it happen often, then? That someone who hasn't attended the academy passes the exam?"

She couldn't imagine that it was a very common occurrence, or else it would be a more widely known fact that it was possible. And just like she had expected, Rita shook her head in denial.

"Not at all," she said as she closed to lid on the first of the suitcases, apparently satisfied that they had fit everything they would be able to into it. "It isn't unheard of, but more often than not the examinee in question have other ties to Schicksal beforehand that have given them valuable knowledge and experience relevant to the exam through other means. The Captain, for example, had been in the service of Schicksal for 4 years before he passed the exam."

While Rita turned her attention towards the second suitcase, Mei felt her good mood slip away as her mind processed what the young Valkyrie had just told her. "The Captain" had passed the Valkyrie Exam, and there was little doubt in her mind as to who Rita was referring to.

"My... betrothed is a Valkyrie?" she asked with a frown, not quite sure how she felt about that.

"Well, in a manner of speaking," Rita said absentmindedly while she ticked off the last item from her checklist and, satisfied that they had finally gathered everything that she thought Mei would need to bring along, began to fill up the last suitcase. "He has the credentials for it, but we don't actually have an official male equivalent to the title, since it is so uncommon for men to be capable of Honkai manipulation. I think that Siegfried Kaslana tried to get us to call him an Einherjar or a Berserker a few years ago, but none of the titles ever caught on."

Most of that explanation went in one ear and out the other for Mei, only earning Rita a quiet "Hmm" in response. She had, of course, been well aware that her future husband was more than just a simple combat instructor. Her father's reaction to learning of his identity during the conversation she had overheard two weeks prior had indicated as much and Dr. Einstein had confirmed that was the case when she asked her about it. But the famed scientist had been unable to tell her much beyond the fact that he was a Schicksal Captain, which still left Mei fumbling in the dark when it came to her betrothed.

-:X:X:X:-

By the time that the gates to the Raiden Estate closed behind them, the sun had already begun to set on the horizon. It was with a heavy heart that Raiden Mei looked back over her shoulder and watched as the only home she had ever known disappeared around the corner, unsure of when or even if she would be able to come back. As much as she had avoided her family property over the last two weeks, the thought of not being able to come back still terrified her. She knew that every bird must eventually leave its' nest, but at that moment, she didn't feel like she was ready to fly on her own yet.

"There's no need to look so sullen, Raiden-san," Rita's voice sounded from the driver's seat, drawing Mei's attention to the front and away from the corner behind which her childhood home had disappeared. "If everything goes according to plan, Raiden Ryoma-dono will have been released by the end of October at the latest, so if nothing else comes up you will be able to come back here and visit him during the Christmas break."

As much as she appreciated the Valkyrie's attempt to lift her mood, Mei didn't know if she dared to believe in her words. From where she was sitting, being able to spend Christmas with her father at the Raiden Estate as if nothing had happened sounded too good to be true, and she didn't want to get her hopes up just to have them come crashing down again. She didn't think that her heart would be able to handle it. If there was anything that she had learned over the last two weeks, it was to not take anything for granted.

"Does that mean that you've made any progress on that front, then?" she asked, looking at the older woman through the rearview mirror and noticed that her eyes very briefly turned to meet hers through the reflection.

A few seconds passed before the older woman broke eye contact and focused her attention back on the road.

"I'm afraid that I can't disclose any details pertaining to my superior's current mission, Raiden-san, as doing so could have me charged with treason," she said with a pensive tone of voice. "But I suppose I can tell you that your betrothed hasn't slept very much over the past week."

'Hmpf, I suppose that makes both of us then,' Mei couldn't help but think sarcastically, but thankfully managed to refrain from voicing her vindictive thoughts out loud. As polite as she had been toward her so far, she didn't think that Rita would take it very well if she were to give any openly disparaging remarks towards her future husband.

Silence fell between the two young women, and as Rita didn't seem inclined to elaborate further on that vague statement, Mei decided to take it at face value and assumed that the investigation was at least heading in the right direction. Her father had told her that Adam Ferryman would be involved with the investigation, so if Rita said that he hadn't slept a lot over the past week, she was probably trying to imply that he had been busy pushing the investigation forward.

A few minutes passed and when it was clear that neither of them was going to pick up the conversation again after that, Mei leaned back in her seat and watched as the familiar streets of Nagazora City flew by outside the car window. It had been a long and very emotionally charged day for her, and the preceding week of troubled sleep must've finally caught up with her, because the next thing she knew, Rita was shaking her awake, telling her that they had arrived at their destination.

It wasn't until she stepped out of the car and looked around that she realized that they weren't at the airport.

"Well, of course not," Rita said with an amused snicker when Mei dumbly pointed it out. "An Aircraft Carrier-type Battleship like the Hyperion would disrupt every flight going in and out of Nagazora City for several hours if it as much as entered the airspace above the airport."

When she put it like that, Mei could only nod in agreement, too in awe of the futuristic dreadnought in front of her to give voice to her thoughts. Rita had parked her luxurious Rolls-Royce at the edge of an empty field, in the shadow of what Mei had to assume was the battleship known as the Hyperion. The ship itself was gigantic and looked like something straight out of a science fiction movie, complete with front-mounted canons and its own hangar bay to carry other aircraft. It took another few seconds before it dawned on her that this battleship would've been her home for the foreseeable future if the Archbishop hadn't reassigned her betrothed to St. Freya Academy as a combat instructor. He was the Captain of the Hyperion. This was his ship!

While she dwelled on what her life would've been like if she had been forced to live with her betrothed on the Hyperion, Rita had taken the time to retrieve her luggage from the car and exchanged a few hushed words in English with one of the crew members who had capitalized on the break in their routine to get some fresh air, before handing over the car keys to him and turning back to face Mei.

"Why don't we drop your luggage off in the Captain's Quarters before we do anything else, Raiden-san?" she suggested. "The crew has finished restocking, so we're just waiting for the Captain to come back from his little errand, but he should be back within the hour."

That snapped Mei out of her awed daze.

"He's not back yet?" she asked with a frown. "What is he even doing that is taking him so long?"

Dr. Einstein had told her to be ready to leave by the time that her betrothed came to pick her up at the Raiden Estate. Given that she and Rita had to spend an hour to finish packing after the agreed-upon time, she would've thought they would have been the late ones to arrive.

"Perhaps he is preparing a surprise for his lovely future wife?" the young Valkyrie said with a mischievous smile. "Or perhaps he has simply fallen asleep in some remote corner of the city? Either seems totally plausible, really."

Mei couldn't tell if the other woman was mocking her or not, but when Rita didn't say anything else and simply smiled disarmingly at her, she just shook her head and decided to let it go. Rita had already made it clear that she wasn't allowed to divulge information related to her Captain's mission, and at the end of the day, it didn't really matter why he was late, only that he was late.

"I suppose only time will tell," she said with a nonchalant shrug. "In the meantime, would you mind showing me the way to the Captain's Quarters, then?"

With a polite bow and a soft "It would be my pleasure", Rita began leading her through the maze of corridors that made up the interior of the Hyperion. The interior of the battleship was just as futuristic as the exterior, and if it hadn't been for the helpful signs that had been placed at every intersection, Mei would've thought that the other girl was making fun of her by leading her in circles, that was how similar the hallways looked to her.

Eventually, the two of them arrived at the end of a hallway that was littered on both sides by metallic red sliding doors that each had been marked with a plaque that revealed the name and title of the room's occupant. Rita headed straight to the other end of the hallway, and came to a stop in front of the room that had been marked with the label "Cpt. Adam Ferryman".

"This is the residency wing for the higher-ranked members of Schicksal who are assigned to the Hyperion," the Valkyrie explained while she unlocked the door. "As a privilege of their rank, they get some better accommodations compared to the regular crew members, who have two dorms divided by gender on the floor below. Although I believe at this moment that the Captain's room here is a bit empty since he recently moved most of his belongings to your shared apartment at the St. Freya Campus."

An involuntary shiver ran down Mei's spine at the mention of their shared apartment but she was thankfully quickly distracted by the automated door sliding open to reveal what had to be the most spartan room she had ever seen. It was about the same size as a small one-room apartment, but aside from the large bed that had been placed in one of the corners and the small kitchenette that made up about a quarter of the space in the room, it was completely empty.

After they had left the two suitcases next to the bed, Rita offered to show her around the battleship while they waited for her betrothed to come back. Despite its purpose as a military vessel, the Hyperion contained a surprising number of recreational areas, including a small arcade, a bar, and a gym. It also had a cafeteria where all the crew members ate their meals, since unlike those of higher rank, like the Captain or the Valkyries, they didn't have their own kitchenettes in their dorm rooms. As they were riding the elevator up to the bridge, Rita explained that aside from the gym, the recreational areas were fairly recent additions to the battleship.

"They were added when the Hyperion was redesigned following a mission when it came under heavy fire from Anti-Entropy about three years ago," she said, and Mei couldn't help but feel a little bit uncomfortable. It wasn't exactly a secret that her father was aligned with Schicksal's rival organization, and hearing it spoken about so casually reminded her that she was, for all intents and purposes, surrounded by people who regarded her family as enemies right now. "Since the ship needed to be rebuilt anyway, your betrothed seized the opportunity to implement some changes he had been looking to make to it for some time, amongst which were the addition of some areas where the crew members could relax and hang out whenever they weren't on duty."

The bridge was located towards the back end of the battleship and was probably the most unique room that Mei had seen so far, as about two-thirds of it consisted of transparent glass panes that allowed for an excellent view towards both the front and the sides. Unlike the recreational areas or the cafeteria, the bridge gave off an air of professionalism. Every crew member who was currently at the bridge was doing something, be it going through something on a notepad, tapping away at a keyboard, or adjusting something on a dashboard.

"No offense, but why would he go out of his way to include an arcade and a bar?" Mei asked as the sliding doors closed behind them again, and the elevator sped off back down to one of the lower floors. "I can kind of understand the gym, but those two just seem excessive to have on a military vessel."

"They would be if you only looked at it from a military perspective," Rita said while she began leading Mei around the outer walkway of the bridge. "But the Hyperion is more than just a battleship. Though it certainly is one of the more advanced ships in the Schicksal Fleet, it hasn't seen as much combat over the last few years as one might think, and whenever it isn't away on active duty like it has been this week, it spends most of its time patrolling the airspace over Soukai City. With over 250 crew members, what do you think happens when the ship is stuck on patrol duty for a few weeks?"

It took a moment for Mei to catch on, but once she did, it felt like it should've been obvious from the start. With a crew of that size, it was reasonable to assume that only about a third of them at most were on active duty at once whenever the ship wasn't off on important missions, but that didn't mean that the remaining two-thirds of the crew could just leave the ship. If they were called away for an emergency or were given a mission on short notice, they would need to have the entire crew already gathered to be able to respond swiftly. The recreational areas were meant to help the crew pass the time and hang out when they were off duty but still stuck on the ship. Without them, the off-duty crew members would literally just be sitting around and waiting for the time to pass.

She was about to comment on it, but their discussion was interrupted by the sound of the elevator coming back up, and a feminine voice announcing over the speakers:

"Captain on the bridge!"

Author's Note: Does this count as a cliffhanger? Either way, I always wanted to end it with that elevator coming back up. As a result, this chapter is also still a bit shorter than I would've normally tried to go for, but the other option would've been to put this and Mei I as the same chapter, but personally, I think that would've messed up the tone a bit since Mei I was such a depression piece and this is a bit more lighthearted.

There are no real symbolic references in this chapter, but it does quite a bit of setup and worldbuilding for later. I just hope it wasn't too dull compared to the more emotionally charged chapters that preceded it. But we finally got to meet a new character and we got to see what state the Hyperion is in. And yes, we do learn here that Adam has passed the Valkyrie Exam, but I am taking this liberty because of his namesake in A Post Honkai Odyssey. And for the record, the Captain himself has been capable of wielding Divine Keys like the Oath of Judah during in-game events, so it isn't outside the realm of possibility that he would be a decent fighter if he was capable of Honkai Manipulation.

Also, something to take note of, there is a point in this chapter where it is stated that Rita is taller than Mei. I am basing this on the fact that Mei in this chapter is still just 16 years old and is still growing, while Rita who is 19 years old probably has stopped growing at this point, but I am well aware that Mei is taller than Rita at the time of the Honkai Impact 3rd game, standing at 172 cm compared to Rita's 168. Just wanted to put that out there in case somebody was scratching their head at that.

And while we are on the subject of miss Rossweisse, it was really hard to write her interactions, because I wasn't sure how she would interact with this version of Mei. They very rarely interact in the game at all, and the only real conversations I can remember between them that weren't during an event were during the Arc City storyline in Chapters 10-12 or something, during which they were enemies. They have some short conversations in Cooking with Valkyries, but the only one that really stands out is their dispute during Rita's episode during Season 2. I think I did a pretty good job capturing her polite side, not sure how well I did with her professionalism.

Oh, and before we end this, I have a question. What is Mei's natural eye color? I have been referring to them as purple so far in this story because I think that's what they're meant to be, but I have a form of red-green colorblindness so I actually see her natural eyes (whenever she isn't in Herrscher form) as dark blue rather than purple. Somebody, please help me overcome my disability here and tell me what color her eyes are.

At the time of writing this, the story has amassed 20 reviews, 32 favorites, and 53 followers. Let's see how far we can climb before the next chapter! If we can get to 35 reviews, I'll try to make the next chapter a bit longer than these opening ones have been. It will be our first chapter with Adam too, so look forward to that! Until then, I hope you all have a good day and I wish you all the best!