Lore change: Genius Compass
The newest Schicksal technology capable of revealing the location of the Honkai-infected. Each Valkyrie is equipped with one when going onto expeditions. When in range to multiple infected creatures, the compass needle may not work accordingly.
A young maid and her younger mistress.
One understood that her survival depended on how well she could lie with a smile. The painted picture of the outside world held all the colors of a dull palette, and she promised herself to never return to it by dousing gasoline on her old captured memories and by setting them on fire. It was how time worked like acid on her, seething and eroding away her happiness into the hollow heart she now had. Then, she met her new master...
The other was divinely blessed from the womb, born with supernatural strength and born to lead. Her bubbliness and her stubborn optimism brought brighter colors around her, but the dull palette of reality mixed with her too the more she was exposed to the outside world. She was now sixteen years old (fourteen on paper), with the body of a trained warrior and a face molded and modeled like clay to resemble a foreign goddess.
In a sense, they both depended on each other; one wanted to experience warmth and genuine emotions, and the other needed a companion to guide her.
Bianka Ataegina graduated earlier at St Freya Academy, a year and a half after the Ganesha incident. She was now an A-rank Valkyrie who spent most of her time on the training grounds of Schicksal's HQ. As much as she liked Ragna Lodbrok, she had developed a similar fondness for the Overseer. The simulation system built by Nagamitsu's team proved helpful at first, but it soon precipitated towards failure as Bianka became more and more violent and unpredictable.
"Hah!"
In a flash, Bianka evaded an attack from a Honkai beast code-named "Storm Templar". The simulated beast crushed the floor where she was standing, leaving a vulnerable gap between its body and its hard shell. Her fast movements looked like instant blinks. One moment, she was evading and the next, she was behind the enemy. She stabbed her lance where the Templar was unguarded, lifted up the beast and whirled it twice before smashing it to the ground. The simulation faded and Bianka's score appeared on a holographic display.
Rita made a slow clap. "Excellent display of the 'throw' technique, miss Ataegina."
Bianka smiled at her. "Thank you, Rita."
"I have reorganized your schedule for the upcoming week," Rita informed, keeping her eyes on her tablet, "The meeting with the Immortal Blades will be held an hour earlier today. The Overseer has cancelled his appointment with you upon receiving some urgent matters, so we can put on hold his new mission. You still have to send your survey reports to principal Theresa Apocalypse..."
"Hmm... Save it for later. What time is it?"
"It's a quarter to eight precisely, and we have the Overseer's sermon to attend. I have already prepared your Sunday dress."
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.
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The residents within the Schicksal walls would make a beeline to the church every Sunday morning. Bianka was a faithful follower who had somehow convinced Rita to attend the preachings. There were times where Bianka would disagree with the priest but most of the time she was absorbed with their sayings. Rita, on the other hand, was often lost and left her Bible closed and her heart sealed. She had noticed that her mistress had always been obsessed with the religious books and the spiritual life.
The Sunday chants began and everyone stood up to sing.
"Fascinating..." Rita whispered.
"What is?" Bianka murmured back.
The archbishop, Otto Apocalypse, stood next to the pulpit, the Holy Book in his hand. He wore a long white cloak with golden highlights, with a coat having similar colors underneath. Ragna Lodbrok, who sat three seats away from Rita, rolled her eyes on seeing him. In contrast, Bianka looked entranced by him.
"You're so faithful to this church. Maybe it is not a question of wisdom and religion," Rita hypothesized, a smile forming on her lips, "...you simply have a tiny crush on the Overseer."
"W-wh-what– Why– When– No! Eww! He's so much older than me! I could never!" she stuttered while shaking her head. "Rita!" She half-whispered in a fake anger and her maid suppressed her laughter.
The gatherers remained silent when the archbishop began.
"A pity that a friendship, which was once blooming, is now withering like a flower you've picked from the gardens. As though you've reached the zenith of your camaraderie, you both know the turning point to it leads to a downfall. The distance between you both is growing and soon you will become strangers once more. And so, you kneel down and pray to the Lord to give you a good friend, someone who will always be by your side whether the sky is clear or a tempest is raging."
Rita felt queasy and clenched her hands into fists.
"How do we make sure we get good friends who will never abandon us? The Bible has a simple answer to it — we cannot. The Christ had twelve disciples, and one of them was destined to betray him. In Matthew 26:47–56, Judas Iscariot betrayed Jesus with a kiss on the cheek and Jesus was arrested while all of his disciples fled. Even Peter denied Jesus thrice before the rooster crowed twice. How can we, therefore, plead to God to give us good friends when even Jesus had his twelve disciples — who were more like his mortal friends— flee when he was in trouble? Do not put all your faith in Man for we are all sinners..."
When the sermon ended, Rita looked at her palms and saw the bloody traces her nails left. She could not hear her mistress talking to her and her eyes were fixated on the revered heroine — Ragna Lodbrok. She snapped out of her thoughts the moment a young Valkyrie collided with her as she walked out of the church.
"Ouch! Sorry!" The blonde girl rubbed her nose and immediately ran after her friends. "Hey! Hear me out! I have one more joke!"
"Ack! Run, everyone! Susannah's stupid jokes will depreciate your brains!"
"Rita, are you okay?" Bianka asked with a frown, curiously looking at the yellow-haired junior frantically jumping around. Himeko Murata, who was now a teacher at St Freya, grabbed the frenzied girl by the ear and dragged her back in line with the rest of her classmates.
"Yes, I am. Apologies, miss Ataegina. I was... daydreaming," Rita replied at a lower voice.
Today they were leaving on a major expedition to send the Abyss Flower to Kolosten's oldest museum. The Abyss Flower was the divine key left by the core of the sixth Herrscher, Herrscher of Death. Not everyone could lift the bulky key for long, let alone have the talent to manipulate both its revive and decay abilities. After Reanna Brigantia, Cecilia Schariac inherited the Abyss Flower, which she used to defeat the Herrscher of the Void, killing her in the process by draining all her blood. For now, the divine key sat locked and chained inside a metal box, waiting for its new owner to arrive.
Shortly after the worship time was over, Ragna gathered the Immortal Blades and gave them the briefings. All junior Valkyries at St Freya stayed to watch their grand departure. Ragna was not fond of the hype but she went along with it since her comrades liked the liveliness. There was a particular craze in the crowd when Bianka appeared on her horse Krishna in her Bright Knight: Excelsis battlesuit.
"Marry me!"
"Kyaaaa! She's so pretty!"
"Who's that?"
"Susannah, get your big head outta my view!"
"You are quite popular, miss Ataegina," Rita commented, beaming. She too had a group of fangirls swooning over her in her Argent Knight: Artemis battlesuit. But then her horse Renaissance aggressively neighed at them, causing them to shriek and back off.
The ground trembled as the horses trampled the path. The carriage transporting the metal box in which the Abyss Flower was kept was protected on all four sides. Bianka's troop was guarding the rear end while Ragna's was at the head. They galloped all the way to the exit gates of Schicksal where Ragna fired a shot in the air leaving bluish-green fumes behind. With this flare signal, the cavalry disappeared one by one, leaving only the agitated dust from the hooves of their horses. In their spirit form, they left no traces behind. Their steps became as light as the plumes swept by the breeze and their shadows were no longer seen.
A strange phenomenon started when the plague spread — some places became stuck in the sands of time. It was believed that Kolosten was where it all began, for it was where the first hourglass broke and where the first clockwork froze. Everything looked the same as it used to be 500 years ago. It was Bianka's fifth expedition with the Immortal Blades, and it would be her first time visiting the lost villages and towns. Their journey was expected to last two full weeks.
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The cloud-filtered sun rays bathed the lands in its summer warmth, the scorching heat did not spare the Immortal Blades even in their spirit form. They stopped by the flowing streams when they saw two orange streaks in the air, and then went back to their previous formation once their break was over. Their pace shifted from a gallop to quick strides when they arrived at a deserted village where the dust and dirt dominated. Only the blackened skeletal remains of what were once houses were barely standing. The few houses saved from the fiery tendrils had broken windows and illegible writings partly washed off by the rain on their walls. Aside from the distant vultures circling in the sky, there was no sign of life.
"This whole village got infected as per miss Lodbrok's report," Rita began, "The squads searched the entire village for anyone with Honkai resistance, but there was no one. So, we stopped the inhabitants from leaving as they would spread the disease to the nearby villages."
Tall grass and wildflowers occupied the field where a fire had once left ash and charcoal. Bianka felt uneasy at the sight of a half-burnt wooden horse lying there, and she quickly realised that this empty field was actually a playground and the wooden walls that surrounded them had once been a school.
"If they were cursed to live the rest of their days slowly turning into zombies, then how did the whole village burn down?"
"A turmoil ensued as no one wanted to cooperate with us," Rita explained as their horses trotted side by side, "They did not believe that we could cure them, and they were right. Mighty fighters as they were, they gathered axes, knives, machetes and pitchforks. That day, both sides bled but death only embraced theirs. People who wear a bird beak mask and who carry a scythe and a torch, those were the last things they probably saw after we encircled their village on horses."
Bianka gulped and tightened her grasp on the horse reins. "You mean... Ragna ordered to burn them alive?"
Rita observed her mistress' reaction but was not sure how to respond. "Tell me which is a lesser curse: dying by fire, dying by the plague, or dying while being eaten alive by your own zombified family?"
"Well... Either way they were sentenced to death," Bianka said after making a gloomy sigh, "How did they catch the Honkai in first place?"
"The village head chief was a sorcerer disguised as a pastor," Rita explained, "He initiated some village members to partake in his rituals to revive the dead. He was quite popular in the region, and he was nicknamed the modern 'Jean Baptiste', but, of course, he was nothing but a fraudster. He condemned the whole village with his actions, and he was apparently the first to turn into a Honkai monster."
The Honkai was a powerful and unforgiving curse, and yet, it was not enough to repulse everyone from practicing magic. The more forbidden it looked, the more tempting. The village ruins had a lesson to share: worship the occult with fire and you die in the same fire. It was a true horror story for the innocents caught in it.
Bianka casted her eyes down and Rita had no words to comfort her. They stayed side by side in silence. Rita's attention then shifted to the vibrating Genius compass strapped to her thigh. When she held the compass in her hand, the needle was pivoting to all directions.
She tugged onto the horse reins and Renaissance obeyed. Worried, she showed Bianka her compass, and the latter heavily sighed.
At that moment, they all saw a red flare shooting up in the sky and the carriage in front of them stopped.
