"How does she look?" Tesla asked as she opened the door. Einstein looked over from her computer.
"Perfectly healthy as far as I can tell. Just some severe exhaustion."
"That's good at least. I'd feel only worse if she ended up dying because of those Honkai Beasts while we were huddling together." Einstein hummed in agreement before speaking up.
"How's the analysis on the 4th Key?" They had successfully found the wreckage that was being transported before it got caught up in that Honkai Eruption.
"Well enough, I'd say. So far all I can really tell is that it doesn't seem to have been a precise attack. The Herrscher core powering it wasn't even in the area hit. I'd say that either the culprit's aim was off or they weren't even aiming for it. For all we know it could have been hit by complete accident." She seemed hesitant to even suggest that, which made sense.
The idea that a Divine Key of all things was destroyed by accident seemed too nonsensical. It would have had to have been the work of a much stronger entity in that case. Einstein pulled her thoughts back to Tesla speaking.
"Unfortunately, Schicksal's the only ones who know exactly where the Key was when it was hit, but as it stands, we can analyze the direction of the impact and use that to determine where the culprit came from." Tesla spoke with a level of detail that was hopefully clear and quick enough.
"Hmm, so less than we'd like. I'll see if I can figure out the location of the Divine Key upon impact later. In the meantime, I suppose I can let you know the efforts of my own analysis." Einstein turned back to her computer as she spoke.
"Your own analysis? But you've spent most of your time in here…" Tesla realized the meaning of Einstein's words. "Don't you think it's a bit rude to analyze our savior while she's unconscious?"
"Hey, you were the one suspicious of her, weren't you? Besides, it's really just a simple check up. I am grateful to her, that's why I've refrained from taking blood or deeper inspections like that. I've only done surface level analyses." Einstein spoke without looking up from her computer.
"What would you even be able to analyze on just a surface level anyways?"
"Her stigma." Tesla paused at Einstein's words for a moment before responding.
"Duh, of course she has a stigma, all Valkyries do. I wouldn't be surprised if it's their rite of passage or whatever." Her mood soured a little when she remembered that as a Valkyrie, their savior KIANA likely had a reduced lifespan because of the Artificial Stigmata Schicksal utilized.
"That's not it. KIANA here doesn't seem to have an Artificial Stigma." Einstein spoke as if reading Tesla's mind.
Tesla understood what she was saying.
"Do you mean…?"
Einstein nodded and turned her monitor to face Tesla.
On the screen was an image of a strange diamond shaped design. A stigma, the most reliable defense against the Honkai and a sign of extraordinary power.
"A Natural Stigma…" Tesla breathed out. Unlike Schicksal's Artificial Stigmata that were less powerful and shortened the Valkyrie's lifespan, Natural Stigmata were far more powerful, though they were far rarer. Only a handful of people across the ages had one.
"That seems to be the case. It's located on her back but…" Einstein trailed off, unsure of how to continue. "It's… odd."
"Huh? Odd how? This explains a lot, doesn't it? How she was able to kill all those Honkai Beasts so easily." Tesla seemed confused at Einstein's own confusion.
"It would, yes. But what I'm confused about is the nature of this stigma itself. I've never seen anything like it, not in any of our records." Einstein clarified.
"W-well, Schicksal's always been more focused on stigmata than Anti-Entropy. Maybe they found a new type?" Tesla shot back.
Einstein didn't seem so sure.
"I don't think so. I'm starting to doubt she's even a Valkyrie at all. If she were with Schicksal, then the likely conclusion would be that she was a clone created from Project Sirin using Kiana Kaslana's DNA. That would explain the odd similarities you had noticed before. But if that were the case, then she would have the Kaslana stigma and maybe even the Void stigma. But KIANA here has neither, just this unknown stigma."
Einstein sighed before continuing.
"She's a complete unknown."
She took a look at Tesla's stunned face, and added on. "Of course, we don't know anything for sure. But it's looking less likely that she's with Schicksal. It's even possible she may be involved with the 4th Key's destruction."
At that, Tesla spoke up.
"Hang on, don't you think you're jumping to conclusions there? As powerful as she's shown herself to be, a horde of Honkai Beasts is nothing compared to a Divine Key!"
Tesla may have previously suspected KIANA, but that was before she saved their lives! As far as Tesla was concerned, that removed any suspicions.
"That would be a bit of a leap, if it weren't for this stigma. It's powerful, whatever it is. None of our sensors can get a read on it." At that, Tesla froze.
"None?" She asked.
Einstein nodded.
"Yeah, and that led me to another hypothesis. But then that ran into its own problem. Take a look at this," At that, she changed the image on the screen from KIANA's strange diamond shaped stigma to a set of 12 other stigmata. "Do you recognize these stigmata?"
Tesla stared at the image for a while, looking over the 12 stigmata there before she recognized them.
"Those are the Herrscher stigmata, right?"
As soon as she said that, she realized what Einstein's 'hypothesis' was and recoiled. "You can't honestly believe that she's a Herrscher!?"
Then she took a closer look at the 12 stigmata. "Wait, but hang on. None of those are the same as…"
Einstein nodded again.
"My hypothesis was not actually that she was a Herrscher, just that she had a Herrscher Stigma. We've seen such a case before, with Raiden Mei. She had the stigma of the Herrscher of Thunder long before she actually became one. Not to mention some files from X-10 suggest that one of the casualties was a kid from Cocolia's orphanage with the Herrscher of Death's stigma, though Cocolia didn't realize that."
She pulled up KIANA's stigma alongside the 12 Herrscher Stigmata. "I had thought that KIANA was a similar case, just someone who could become a Herrscher. But it turns out that her stigma doesn't match any of them."
Tesla stared at the images, looking over the 12 Herrscher Stigmata first then looking back at KIANA's stigma. She traced her eyes over the strange diamond mark, trying to piece together the mystery behind it.
A thought came to her, and she turned back to Einstein.
"But these aren't the only Herrscher stigmata out there, are they?" She asked. "There are still two we don't know about."
"Yeah, that's what my current bet is. The 13th and 14th Herrschers are complete mysteries. Of course, it's impossible for KIANA to have the stigma of the 14th, since all records from the Previous Era indicate that it appeared unnaturally, not born from a human like the others." It was impossible for a human to have the stigma of the Final Herrscher, due to its inhuman nature. "The 13th however…"
"Is a complete mystery. We don't even know its authority." Tesla finished for her.
"All we can guess at now is that KIANA here's got either the stigma of the mysterious 13th Herrscher, or some other stigma we've never seen before."
"There haven't been any Eruptions large enough to create a Herrscher since Nagazora, so I still say she's not a Herrscher." Tesla crossed her arms as she spoke
"Haven't you been paying attention? I don't think she's a Herrscher either, just that she's got the stigma of a Herrscher like Raiden Mei did." Einstein sighed at her colleagues' stubbornness. Tesla was adamant on trusting the stranger, even though she had been the first one to be suspicious of her.
"For now, I have an idea to at least help us determine a little more. When she wakes up, we'll mention the Divine Key and gauge her reaction. Based on that, we might just be able to tell where her affiliations lay, whether they be with Schicksal or otherwise."
Tesla sat silently for a moment, then groaned.
"Ugh, fine! Just to confirm that she's not involved with the 4th Key! That she's just some random Valkyrie that was sent to America undercover, yeah! We've already established that she holds no ill will towards Anti-Entropy."
Einstein gave her a deadpan look.
"You do know that if she is with Schicksal, then she's almost certainly here to investigate the 4th Key for them, right? She'd be involved either way."
Tesla groaned again.
KIANA woke up in an unfamiliar place.
It was odd enough to her that she even woke up again. The last time she woke up was after being dead for 50,000 years. Did she die and get brought back again?
"Oh good, you're up."
KIANA turned to the voice that spoke and saw the red haired girl from before. Next to her was the blue haired girl.
"Yeesh, you slept longer than I expected. Must've been more worn out than you looked."
The blue haired girl stepped forward.
"How do you feel, KIANA?"
"I feel fine." She stretched her arm out, noticing that it felt less sluggish than before. "Better than fine, actually."
"Yeah, I suppose that's what a good night's rest will do for you. Though in your case the night was closer to 27 hours. We almost thought you weren't going to wake up."
The red haired girl spoke again.
"How long have you gone without sleep anyways? A 27 hour nap isn't natural!"
KIANA began counting on her fingers, not noticing the red haired woman's face growing more pale with each finger.
KIANA held out four fingers.
"Four days."
The red haired woman stood there stunned for a moment, before exploding.
"You absolute IDIOT! Four days without sleeping and fighting off a horde of Honkai Beasts! You're still only human, so you need to get some rest now and then!"
The blue haired woman chimed in.
"You would have stayed awake for four days too, if I hadn't drugged your coffee."
As the red haired woman turned her attention to her colleague, "You WHAT?!" KIANA looked down at her hands.
"I suppose I am, aren't I?" She said softly with a light smile on her face.
She looked back at the two other humans and spoke up, interrupting their argument.
"By the way, what are your names?" She had fallen asleep before they could introduce themselves in the ruins.
The red haired woman froze, halting her argument and then suddenly gaining a sheepish look.
"Ah, I suppose we haven't done that yet, have we?"
She coughed into her hand.
"I am Doctor Frederica Nikola Tesla, but everyone just calls me Tesla." That made sense, such a long name would be annoying to say so constantly. Tesla continued. "This one here is Mophead, but you can call her Einstein."
Einstein stepped up to KIANA's bed.
"Doctor Lieserl Albert Einstein, nice to meet you." Ah, so Doctor was likely a shared title between the two of them, rather than part of their name.
Einstein then began to walk towards the door. "All right, now that you're up, I can begin analyzing the Divine Key without worrying. Tesla, you keep her company, all right?" She glanced at KIANA as she said it with an odd look in her eyes
Tesla nodded affirmative, while KIANA mulled over the new term she heard.
"Divine Key?"
Einstein gave her another odd look before answering.
"It's supposed to be confidential, but since you helped us out, I can let you know a little. We were in that town looking for something called the 4th Divine Key. It's a manmade satellite normally supposed to be floating in space, but it was destroyed, so we were picking up the debris." She spoke without breaking eye contact.
"Why call it Divine?" KIANA asked.
"Huh?" Whatever Einstein seemed to be expecting from her, that clearly wasn't it.
"If it's made by man, then why call it Divine?" It could just be some egotistical name, but it felt deeper than that.
Einstein shook her head as she spoke.
"I'm afraid that would be a little too confidential, sorry."
"I see." She didn't say anything more. She still wasn't all that used to holding conversations.
Einstein stared at her for a moment longer with a curious look on her face before asking a question of her own.
"Actually, based on the Homu Land pictures, you were rather close to the area the debris landed in. Any chance you saw what caused it to break?"
KIANA thought back to that day, and shook her head.
"No, there was too much fire. I couldn't see anything past that." That was completely true.
Einstein nodded, disappointed but not too surprised by the answer. That's what most other reports said too.
"I see, well, thanks for answering. Oh, and for saving our lives, too." With those parting words. Einstein left the room.
Tesla seemed oddly happy, smirking in the direction Einstein had left.
"Well then, mophead? What's the verdict on our suspect?" Tesla was being far too smug about this, Einstein decided.
They were both standing before the 4th Key, while KIANA was left in her room to rest.
"Well, the best conclusion I can come to now…" Tesla rolled her eyes as Einstein dragged out her answer. "Is that we have no clue."
"No clue? What do you mean? We now know that she can't be involved with the 4th Key."
"That's partly true, the chances of her investigating the 4th Key for Schicksal are practically nonexistent now. Her reactions seemed too genuine to be fake."
Tesla seemed far too proud of herself for that, so Einstein decided to remind her. "That leaves two likely possibilities. One is that she's a Valkyrie unrelated to the 4th Key investigation who happens to be stationed in Anti-Entropy territory for an unknown reason. The second is that she's a third party capable of effortlessly killing Honkai Beasts, which still could be involved with the 4th Key in some way."
Tesla's mood seemed to deflate with her words.
"So how are we supposed to narrow it down between those?"
"Unfortunately, as it stands, we can't. Not without risking our good relations with her. We're still in her debt for saving our lives. Not to mention that stigma of hers. She's powerful, and I don't think it'd be smart to antagonize her. The most we can do right now is try to have her stick around for a while."
As if on cue, the door slid open, revealing KIANA. She stared up at where the door opened, as if trying to figure out where it went, before turning her attention to the doctors.
"Ah, glad to see you up and about. Are you feeling ok?" Einstein asked
"As I said, I feel better than ok, but thank you." She walked into the room, looking around.
She didn't even take a second glance at the 4th Key sitting in the center of the room.
Einstein looked at the 4th Key for a moment, then back to KIANA.
"Was there something you needed?" KIANA was a guest, so it was their job as host to help her out. This also had the added benefit of making her more inclined to stick around for longer.
"I'm here to say farewell." Welp, that plan was in flames out of the gate.
Tesla seemed more shocked.
"Are you sure? You can stick around as long as you like, we don't mind."
KIANA shook her head.
"That's fine. It's best if I move on. I still have many places to see."
"Do you have a destination in mind?" Einstein decided that if they couldn't keep an eye on her directly, it'd at least be best if they knew where she was heading.
"Not in particular. I've been traveling along the coast, so I'll probably keep doing that for now."
Einstein pulled up a holographic map and made some notes.
"Heading along the coast, from Homu Land to here… So you'll be heading north near Canada?"
KIANA walked over and looked at the map.
"Yes, I suppose so." She held out a hand and traced out a curved path. "That looks like the best route for me to take."
Einstein looked over her planned path. Around the Pacific Ocean, hm?
"That'll be taking you through Siberia. Are you sure about that? That area was devastated about 15 years ago in the Second Eruption." Not to mention that south of that was Shenzhou, which was Schicksal territory, and well outside of Anti-Entropy's reach.
"I can protect myself." Oh right, this was the lady who fought off hordes of Honkai Beasts. Of course she'd be fine.
Einstein sighed.
"One last question then, if you don't mind. Do you know what a stigma is?." She asked in one last attempt to get something out of KIANA.
KIANA simply tilted her head.
"The shadow of the Imaginary?" That… was not quite what Einstein expected to hear.
"I… see." She had no idea what KIANA was talking about, but it was a clue nonetheless. "That's all, then. Safe travels."
Tesla spoke up now too.
"Yeah, I'm sure we'll meet again. Good luck." Huh, remarkably calm for Tesla. Einstein gave her a baffled look.
Tesla returned it with a glare. Ah, that's the familiar Tesla.
KIANA gave a soft smile and walked back to the door.
"Yeah, good luck to you too." And with that, she was gone.
Einstein grabbed some bubblegum while she sat back down in her chair and began looking over the 4th Key again, at least until Tesla spoke up.
"Siberia… that's Cocolia's territory more than it is ours."
Einstein blew a bubble then popped it.
"It sure is. How much do you want to tell her about what we've found?"
"Honestly, I'm almost thinking it'd be best to keep her in the dark. If she begins to suspect KIANA's a Valkyrie like we did then she'd probably just try to kill her. Ha, try at least."
Einstein let out a short laugh alongside Tesla.
"That said, Cocolia can be tricky when she wants to be. I'll have some scouts try to keep an eye on KIANA while she's in Siberia, both to keep an eye out for her and to keep an eye on her. However, the bigger issue is when she leaves Siberia."
Tesla frowned as she remembered.
"Right, Schicksal. If KIANA's not with them then things become a lot trickier for her. And if she is with them then they get her report of her time here. I'm not sure which is the better outcome."
Einstein's computer let out a ping as she got a new message. She read it over before turning to Tesla.
"Looks like we'll be moving out soon enough anyways. Cocolia's calling for a meeting. Seems she wants to deal with the 3rd Herrscher."
Tesla narrowed her eyes.
"The 3rd Herrscher? A mission that big would need Joachim's permission, but he's still…"
"He's still undercover at St. Freya, yeah." Einstein finished. "As I said, Cocolia can be tricky when she wants to."
She got up and started shutting down some of the devices in the room.
"We'll have to pause our current investigation until this matter is over, so let's lock down the lab here for now, to mitigate the risk of intruders."
Tesla nodded and got up to help, but paused.
"Wait a minute. I just realized something."
Einstein looked up at her with a curious look. Tesla's face grew pale as she suddenly remembered.
"Does KIANA know the way out?"
Einstein paused in surprise, then sighed.
"All right, let's go find her and show her the way out first."
The two shut off the lights and left the room. Einstein spoke again as the door closed behind her.
"Then we'll see what Cocolia's got planned now."
"Some would say that loneliness is the greatest destroyer of society."
He walked amidst the barren lands, holding an umbrella for rain that would never come.
"I would say that death is greater still."
He walked down a set of stairs, almost mechanically.
"Death is the end of progress, the end of everything."
But he was no simple machine.
"It takes all, and gives none."
He was not entirely human, either.
"Some would say that the death of one grants life to another."
Yet no matter what he was, he was alive.
"I would say that going from death to life is no different from life to death."
He reached the end of the stairs, and continued on his way.
"Some would say then that life has no value, and death is not to be feared."
The Moon may have seemed empty, but so long as he was there it was not.
"I would show them why death is so feared."
And of course, her as well.
"I am not lonely, for I am alive."
He was on his way to his neighbor in solitude, the one who no longer lived.
"I am not lonely, for I am my best conversationalist."
He was the expert on that, since Gray Serpent was never alone.
"But when you are dead, you are also alone."
He stopped in a place he stopped many times before.
"You would know best, for you made a great many dead."
The floor was marked by his footsteps, the Moon never eroding them.
"But in the end, even you, the great destroyer, fell to the death called loneliness."
He looked up at his false companion, the corpse of 50,000 years ago.
"Wouldn't you agree? My dead and lonely neighbor?"
The statue of the Herrscher of Finality stared back.
At least it should have.
Where was the statue?
"The hell?"