"Get the hell off me."

Phillip growled deeply as the bulkier man ground his knuckle against Phillip's scalp, earning the ever-growing ire from the boy. The man didn't seem to pay attention, still nogging Phillip, who was pinned under his armpit, with his singular arm. Several minutes passed when Phillip's eye twitching reached its peak, something Wraith, hidden behind the bar, noted and quickly began removing the bottles from the shelves.

Not a second after she removed the last bottle did the man come flying and destroyed the shelves. Phillip patted himself off, trying to get rid of whatever degeneration the man latched onto him. Once he was satisfied, he looked back over the bar.

"Good to see you too, Siegfried."

Siegfried pulled himself from the pile of broken wood and metal, looking no worse for wear, with a bright smile. "See? Now, what that too hard for your future father-in-law?"

"How far down do you want your grave, you ancient perv?"

Hua coughed into her hand, stopping the two from going at each other again. "While it's enthralling to see Phillip interact friendly with a high bounty fugitive of Schicksal, there's still the question of how you know each other."

"We met back when he was starting to get by," Siegfried stated, hopping over the bar counter and taking one of the bottles of alcohol with him. "Had him watch over my baby girl while I dealt with other things."

Hua shot Phillip a critical gaze. "Do you have anything to state against this?"

"Yeah," Phillip admitted as he started counting his statements. "One: neither you nor Schicksal gets to tell me who I can deal with. Second: don't think I forgot about earlier, Ms. 'Herrscher-level A-rank."

"Not a Herrscher."

Phillip shot Siegfried, who got started on his bottle and chucked it down, a raised brow. "Excuse me."

Siegfried pulled the bottle from his mouth, raised it at Wraith in compliments, and answered Phillip. "It's a clone of a Herrscher, not an actual one. Cocolia made some clones of the first with some remaining DNA, and she managed to get two up and running."

Phillip let out an "Ah" in understanding. "Psycho-bitch. Gotcha."

"Fascinating situations aside," Hua stated, still wary about the fugitive before her. "I must ask as to why you've appeared now. Besides intel saying you had a grievous injury," - Hua motioned to Siegfried's missing arm, - "we had very little to go on, outside the possibility that you lost courage in battling Schicksal."

Siegfried grinned cockily, slid the bottle back onto the counter, and tucked his hand into his jacket, resting the hand on his gun. "Wanna fight and see how well this old cripple fights?"

"...No," Hua stated, seeing the obvious threat beforehand. "They say you're as strong as S-rankers and still carry your Divine Key. My chances of winning are next to nil."

"Good," Siegfried said, dropping his hold on the gun and grabbing a different bottle. "In that case, let's talk about Cocolia's plans, yeah?"

"Alright," Phillip said, sitting down in the booth behind him. "What's her plan with Singapore then?"

"Nagazora 2.0."

Phillip cursed and pinched the bridge of his nose in annoyance. "Good to know Cocolia is still four miles off her rocker."

"Maybe a bit of an explanation for those that haven't been in Nagazora before the event?" Hua asked.

"Artificial Honkai Eruption," Phillip told her. "Dip a Gem into a Honkai-rich environment, and watch the city go up in smoke from a safe distance to see the coming of a Herrscher."

Siegfried nodded as he took a swig of his new drink. "Lady wants to jumpstart the 6th Herrscher immediately. Bat-shit insane, if you ask me."

Hua cupped her chin with her index finger and thumb, contemplating the situation. "... That might be why Otto decided to watch this unfold."

"Otto would want Cocolia's plan to succeed," Siegfried admitted. "He wouldn't care if millions died as a result."

Phillip tossed a look at Wraith to see if the Valkyrie would jump out and defend the Overseer. Instead, Wraith busied herself with cleaning the bottles Siegfried hadn't drunk, desperate not to look at the conversing trio. Seeing they were unlikely to be interrupted any time soon, Phillip took to the core solution.

"So, how are we going to get the Gem out of here without causing issues?"

"Got that fixed already," Siegfried said smugly, reaching into his pocket and pulling out a small, black box with a purple line down the middle of it. He tossed it to Phillip, who caught it with a swipe of his hand. "That container neutralizes Honkai chain reactions, so it's perfect to deal with the Gem."

Phillip raised a brow at the man. "Where'd you get this? The black market?"

Siegfried snorted at this. "Nah. Let's just say there are enough people in Anti-Entropy that really don't like Cocolia's little plan, and they sent me to help you guys out. Can't stay in the spotlight, though, with my bounty and all."

"That's another question: why are you helping us?" Hua asked, interested in Siegfried's answer. "We work with Schicksal, after all."

"It's more my baby girl, her fiancé, and her friends I'm interested in helping,"

"I'm not her fiancé," Phillip stated with crossed arms. Siegfried simply chuckled and downed another drink, ignoring the statement. Phillip shook his head in disbelief and looked over to Hua. "Well, we've got a solution to getting the Gem. Do we have any idea where it is?"

Hua shook her head negatively. "Most likely, Dr. Magi has already handed Cocolia the Gem of Serenity. Where she has it hidden, however, wasn't a part of the information I managed to extract from the clone."

"I can tell you where it's gonna be."

Phillip shot Siegfried, who had just finished his bottle, a flat stare. "I'm guessing your friends have some spies on Cocolia, then." Siegfried gave a crooked, drunken nod as a response, to which Phillip gave a sigh. "Fine, where do we need to go?"

"Cocolia wants to make an artificial place for it, rather than use the city's reactor," Siegfried told them, surprisingly more eloquent than Himeko when drunk. "So, she's going to make the hotel ground zero instead. Tomorrow morning, she'll plant it there."

"Which means I'll need to refrain from using too much chakra when we go back," Phillip said. "I'll make sure to alert my clones there to refrain from chakra use."

Siegfried gave a burp and placed down his bottle as he walked to the exit. "Well, my part is done. You guys go ahead and deal with Coco, I need to get back to the others." Before Siegfried stepped out of the building, he shot Phillip a stern look. "What I said before still stands: hurt her, and you're dead." With that, he left.

"Can't say that when you're still the bigger trauma to her!" Phillip called back.

"Relax," Hua said with a wave of her hand. "We'll need our full power tomorrow, so it's best to get some rest for now."

"Right, sleep for a few hours at most and wake up before then," Phillip stated as he stretched out his body. With so few options for sleeping, he quickly created and settled on a plan for resting. "Go ahead and take the bed with Kiana. I'll sleep down here in one of the booths."

Hua raised a brow at this. "Why not on the couch up in the room? I'm sure Kiana would be happier waking to a friendly face nearby, at the very least."

"And wake up at exactly the wrong time to find you or Kiana dressing? I know people immune to Murphy Lawson, and I'm not one of them."

"Sorry, maybe I missed something," Wraith finally spoke up, acting deadly serious. "Am I the only person who just recently noticed an S-ranked fugitive just broke into my bar, drank half my stock, and left with no resistance from you two?"

"Just be happy it's still standing."

"Not my bar, not my problem."

"Of course," Wraith sighed to the Hua's and Phillip's responses, resigning herself to picking up the bottles Siegfried drained. "I'll just... deal with these and get some more information on Cocolia."

"Good night then," Phillip said as he laid back and closed his eyes, ready to go to sleep. After a few minutes, light sighs escaped his lips as sleep overtook him. Hua, who hadn't moved from her position since a few seconds ago, walked over to him and grabbed him by the arms.

"Sorry, but I feel this is a better idea than yours."

5:30 am, Wraith's spare bedroom,

"...Why?"

Phillip muttered to himself more than anything, finding himself wedged between Hua and Kiana, the latter pulling him into a tight hug while Hua simply laid her head on his chest like it was a pillow. To avoid awakening the girls, Phillip summoned a clone without signs and quickly swapped places with it.

With his newly found freedom, Phillip walked back down to the ground floor, where he found Wraith, back in the male waiter disguise, wiping down one of her remaining bottles. Phillip sat down at one of the chairs, ignoring the wide-eyed look he received, and asked for a glass of water. After a moment of no response, Phillip shot a glance at Wraith to find she slipped out of her disguise and pulled out her phone, the camera aimed at him.

"Ditch it."

"Sorry, I was just... looking at contact info," Wraith replied to Phillip's demand, stashing her phone immediately with a light blush. "What'chu want?"

"Water." Wraith complied rather quickly, reaching out to grab a shot glass, ran the tab, and slid the drink. Phillip downed the water in a single gulp and slid the glass back to Wraith, who seemed slightly displeased with it. "What info did you get?"

"Nothing much," Wraith admitted, bringing the pink screens back up. "Seems Cocolia gave that creep Hua mentioned a neckband to let him speak. After a nice stroll through the hotel, he met up with Magi and tried to kill him. The thing was that, uh, you seemed to save him."

Phillip smiled at Wraith's perplexed face. "My clones seem to be doing their job then."

"Weren't you, like, six seconds from removing the guy's kneecaps yesterday?"

"Yes, because I wanted him to heal Kiana," Phillip stated as he rose from his seat. "Had he done so, I would have either kicked him out of the room or held him there until Hua met up with us."

"...Well, glad to see you're not completely inhuman," Wraith muttered as she got back to work. "So, what's the plan? Wait for Hua to wake up and get going, or are you gonna head out now?"

"Second one is appealing, but I'll wait for the other two first," Phillip said. "I want to see if Kiana actually awakens first before heading off, see if you two weren't feeding me false info."

"Ye of so little faith."

Phillip shook his head at this and walked back to the door that went upstairs. He reached out to open it, but it burst open at the last second, revealing a yawning Kiana, rubbing her eyes from the sand in them, right behind it. Seeing the truth standing before him, Phillip shot Wraith an appreciative look which she responded to with a small smile.

Deciding to see how oriented the now-awakened girl was, Phillip spoke up. "How are you doing, Kiana?"

Pulling her palms from her eyes, Kiana noticed Phillip and took a step towards him. This one action made her legs fail her, almost sending her to the ground if Phillip didn't catch her.

"Sleepy," Kiana admitted with a yawn. "And kinda weak. What happened yesterday?"

"Nothing important," Phillip said as he picked her up in a bridal carry. "Let's get you back to the bed so you can rest some more."

"... You and Hua are gonna go do some mission thing, aren't ya?" Kiana asked woozily, her head planted on Phillip's arm with her eyes half-closed. "Gonna go fight the bad guys while I'm here, right?"

"You're too exhausted, Kiana," Phillip reminded her. "You still haven't recovered from what happened last night, so leave the heavy lifting to Hua and me for now."

Kiana pouted at the statement and weakly squirmed against Phillip's hold as he scaled the stairs. "I'm fine. I can help out too."

"I'm sure you could, but it would be better if you were at hundred percent rather than barely five," Phillip insisted as he opened the door, just as Hua finished putting the suit from last night on, his clone long dispersed. Hua looked at Phillip, noticed Kiana in his arms, and quickly excused herself from the room, slipping past him with a fluid motion.

Phillip laid Kiana down on the bed and tucked her back in. As he turned to walk back downstairs and settle a plan with Hua, Kiana latched onto his wrist.

"If I feel better later, can I come?"

"...Just stay here and rest for now," Phillip demanded, pushing Kiana back to lie down. "We shouldn't be long." Summoning two clones to look after her, Phillip went down the stairs. When he reached the bar, Hua and Wraith seemed wrapped up in conversation, so he raised his voice to ask his question.

"So, what's the plan?"

5:45 am, inside the Hotel,

"Do you have him in your sights?"

Hua spoke down at her wrist, a communicator disguised as a golden watch resting there. She and Phillip were able to re-infiltrate the hotel using Wraith's disguising capabilities and a masterwork of acting between the three of them. Granted, Phillip learned a bit more of Hua's experience with the Herrscher clone than he desired, but that was the cost of making sure they could enter the hotel safely.

~Yeah. Dr. Magi is currently shuffling down the hallway of the 55th floor. One of your boyfriend's clones is helping him due to a leg injury, while a bunch is fending off the creep. ~

"Could you kindly remind her I can hear her from here?" Phillip asked, getting fed up with the constant insinuations.

Hua sighed as she cut communications by dropping her arm. "Wraith works at her own pace. Thankfully, her drones will keep us informed of Magi's movements."

"Well, luckily, we won't need to do so much," Phillip stated, sending out a telepathic message to his clones. "All we need to do is direct my clones to the ground floor, and we'll meet up there."

"Correction: you will," Hua insisted, pressing the button of the elevator. "I'll head off the clone while you follow Magi down to the Gem." Phillip nodded in agreement and went to the staircase doors. With that, the two separated for the time being.

It only took a couple of minutes before the clone appeared before Phillip with a nauseous Dr. Magi draped over his shoulder. Crimson blood dribbled out of Magi's right calf as the clone passed him off to Phillip, just as a loud bang was heard from above.

"Welp, no time like the present," Phillip muttered as he jumped down the remainder of the staircase and landed on the basement floor immediately. When he heard Hua cutting the Herrscher off their trail with some smack-talk, Phillip strolled casually into the B1 entrance with Magi limping along.

"Why...?"

"Hm?" Phillip looked down at the Magi in confusion.

"Why are you helping me? Were you not infuriated at what happened yesterday?"

"Well, I wouldn't say 'infuriated', honestly," Phillip admitted as he walked down the metallic hallway, looking for anything out of the ordinary. "A mild temper tantrum is closer to what you experienced."

Dr. Magi looked at him with disbelief. "You murdered roughly 20 men and women with guns yesterday, and you call that a mild reaction?"

"Truth me: If I was actually angry at what you did last night, this city wouldn't survive what would happen." As the conversation ground to a halt, Phillip noticed a door in the middle of the hall with a number pad. "Is this it?"

"Yes, that's the place Cocolia wanted the gem stored," Magi answered as he pushed himself off of Phillip. He hobbled over the keypad and began typing in a passcode. "It's very likely she changed the code when she decided to kill me, but I'll check it anyway to be certain."

Magi did just that and typed into the keypad the number code 8088. The door didn't resist and opened quickly to allow the two access to the room.

"...This doesn't make sense," Magi mumbled to himself, a hand covering his face as he did. "Why direct that man to kill me but leave the storage room unsecured?"

"It doesn't matter," Phillip said as he took a step into the room. "Let's just- damn it!" He immediately jumped out of the room as soon as he noted something off. He quickly pulled off his jacket and examined his arm, seeing his hand had now been colored completely as a whitish gray. Rolling up the sleeves of his t-shirt, he saw that all the golden clips on him now glowed a radiant magenta.

Dr. Magi seemed just as concerned by this. "Is there a leak in the container?" He investigated the room before them and noticed something else off. "Why the hell are there Honkai crystals next to the gem?!"

Phillip looked inside himself. It wasn't an impressive room, simply a large, square room with only two things in it: the Gem of Serenity hovering in a blue forcefield made between a machine with a large cylinder base and a floating ring above it, and a computer system off to the side. The machine holding the blue Gem had a ring of crystals around the forcefield for some reason.

"I'm going in and checking it out," Dr. Magi stated. "I've had mechanical implants to raise my Honkai resistance to a level above most Valkyries. Wait here for now."

Phillip nodded and pulled out the capsule Siegfried gave him. "Once you're done, see if you can get the Gem into that."

Dr. Magi rotated the box in his hand, pondering the little wonder, before he nodded and dove into the storage room. Phillip situated himself on the side of the room, standing guard should any unsavory people attempt to get to the doctor. Not long after doing so, the door down the hall opened again, and Phillip spun towards it and entered a battle stance. Who he found there, however, surprised him enough to drop his guard.

"Kiana, what the hell are you doing here?!"

Kiana, still in her short qipao dress, huffed in annoyance at the action. "Why do you sound mad that I'm here, huh?! You were the one who agreed to let me come when I got better!"

"No, I said that you needed rest, not that you could come here whenever you felt!" Phillip yelled back, storming up to her. "Were you able to avoid the guards at least?!"

Kiana scratched her cheek with a look of nervousness. "Do ya mean the guys at the front gate? I did... by knocking them out and all."

Phillip pinched his brow together, thoroughly annoyed by the girl's actions, but decided to make the best of it. "Well, you're here now, so you're going to help out." Walking over to the storage, he jerked his thumb into it. "Head in there and help the doctor with what he's doing." Kiana didn't disagree, giving a wide smile and a salute before jumping into the room carefreely.

'...I need a stronger upgrade for my resistance.'

"Nothing short of injecting a Herrscher Gem directly would do that," Gabriel stated as he forced the energy out of Phillip's body, curing him of infection. "And that's the last thing you'd want: every Herrscher desiring to drain you of every drop of chakra."

'Thanks for that visual,' Phillip replied sarcastically, just as Hua came down the hall from the staircase. "Hey, just a warning: Kiana came here, and we're five minutes from detonation. Where's the Herrscher clone?"

"Dealt with," Hua said abruptly, peering into the room that held the Gem. "Seeing as the worst opponent has fallen, I decided to – Kiana, what are you doing?!"

Hua's sudden scream jolted Phillip's attention toward the storage room. Dr. Magi was standing off to the side with the computer, eyes wide and pointed at the center of the room. Kiana was there, right in front of the force-field generator, with her hand directly where the Gem was sitting.

Hua started to run, but Phillip cleared the door's boundaries quicker, reaching Kiana and wrapping his arms around her waist to pull her from the crystals. With a jump, Phillip exited the room just as quickly as he entered, slamming his back against the wall outside of it.

"You idiot!" Phillip hissed, his infection slowly climbing up his neck. "What the hell made you think that was a good idea?!"

Kiana looked up at him, her hand tightly clamped around the blue Gem. "That doctor guy... he said that this thing would do something like Mei-senpai had to deal with. I stopped it though, right?"

"That's not how it works, dammit!" Phillip yelled before he directed his voice to Magi. "Toss me that container, now!"

Dr. Magi seemed to comply almost instantly, pulling the box from his pocket and was posed to toss it, when a sound from the computer distracted him. The doctor dropped his pose, looking at the computer an incredulous look, and shuffled over to it to investigate.

A whimper of pain barely managed to escape Kiana's mouth, and Phillip appeared at the doorway, ready to rend the door-frame off the wall. "Magi, you have negative seconds to hand me that damned box before I start tearing limbs."

"No, no, look!" Dr. Magi pulled himself from the computer, showing a small screen where a number in the low thousands was steadily dropping. "That girl – Kiana – she's managed to insulate the gem from ambient Honkai energy with just her hands!"

"M-My head! It hurts!"

Dr. Magi seemed to realize the situation upon hearing Kiana's scream – or when Phillip crumpled the steel doorway with his grasp – and tossed the container back to Phillip. Phillip didn't stay long after this, getting back to Kiana and forcing her head into his shoulder for an embrace.

"Hey, you're okay, you're strong," Phillip whispered into her ear, trying to soothe her pains with small words of comfort and encouragement. Hua dismissed the two in favor of confronting Dr. Magi.

"Dr. Magi, I'm Fu Hua, an A-rank Valkyrie sent here to recover both you and the Gem."

The doctor growled at this. "Take those two and get them out of here. Take this with you." He reached into his pocket and tossed her a large test tube, corked at the end and filled to the brim with a pink liquid. "Give both 5 ml once you get to a safe spot and save the rest. Give it to one of the other Valkyries that want to live a normal life."

Hua grabbed the vial with ease but didn't relinquish her mission immediately. "Your safe return is also a part of my mission. Come with me."

Dr. Magi shook his head and pulled down the collar of his T-shirt, revealing the graying skin beneath. "My body is too far gone at this point, and I lack the capabilities the boy has. Besides, a reactor meltdown would leave Singapore uninhabitable, so I need to stay back and shut this place down."

Hua sighed deeply at this, realizing this part of her mission was going down as a failure. "Very well then. I'll depart at once." Dr. Magi nodded at this and closed the door behind Hua as she tapped Phillip on the shoulder.

"Come on, we need to leave before the self-destruction sequence finishes."

"Right," Phillip replied, picking up Kiana's body bridal style while grabbing hold of Hua's wrist. "This is going to feel weird, though."

The three disappeared in a flash of yellow light.

5:55 am, several miles away from the hotel,

"...Teleportation?"

Hua stumbled out of Phillip's grasp when they appeared on top of a building a few blocks away from the hotel. A small flash of purple light near the base of the hotel was the only indication they gained of the self-destruction being a success, but that was all they needed.

"Kinda," Phillip settled Kiana down on the rooftop, preparing the box for the Gem. "More space-time manipulation, really. Besides, I'm not the one that set it off." Phillip jabbed his finger over his shoulder, pointing out the clone that was holding a pronged kunai in its hands.

"Fair enough," Hua muttered before she dropped to her knees to inspect Kiana. "She shouldn't have any lasting damage so long as we get the Gem from her."

"I know-"

Phillip stopped his argument in the middle of it to avoid a punch Kiana sent to his face. Kiana followed up with a full-circle sweep kick, forcing both Hua and Phillip to jump back to evade. With the three separated from each other, Kiana climbed to her feet and opened her eyes to reveal golden irises instead of her standard sky-blue color.

Phillip tensed himself in preparation for anything but shouted over to Hua for answers. "So, can a Gem just integrate with a person and make a Herrscher? Because the last two I've met needed a city wiped out to get them made."

"No!" Hua exclaimed, also battle-ready for Kiana's next move. "It's more likely that the Honkai energy in that room was enough to re-awaken the original Herrscher of the Void, Sirin."

"You know, it's rather rude to talk about someone that's right in front of you."

Phillip dropped his guard slightly – enough to seem less threatened by the appearance but still prepared for anything – to address the newly-awakened Sirin. "Well, Ms. Sirin, you're currently controlling a friend of mine. So, if you could do us a favor and go back to sleep for the time being, I'd be grateful"

Sirin seemed confused at this, peering at Phillip with narrowed eyes for a second before a fierce grin appeared on her face. "Oh, you're her little boyfriend, aren't you? Well, sorry to tell you, but this body is mine."

Hua didn't let the lapse in attention go to waste, clearing the distance once more and aimed a punch at Sirin's neck. However, Sirin was able to dodge at the last second and launched her own attack with a wide swipe of her arm that released a black cloud behind it. Hua managed to dodge by leaning back and turning her run into a slide as she stopped right before Phillip. Sirin turned back to the two with a vehement smile that faltered when she noticed one of them gone.

Phillip appeared behind and brought a chop down that would have rendered the Herrscher unconscious had it not been blocked by a golden version of the Imaginary barrier that the cloned Herrschers used. Sirin spun to meet him but stalled once more when she smelt something. For a minute, Sirin sniffed around like a bloodhound on a trail, stopping only when she realized the source stood right in front of her. A wicked smile graced her face as she leaped at Phillip, knocking him off his feet.

"You smell good, human," Sirin said as she pinned Phillip's arms down at his head, the Gem in her hand starting to poison Phillip with her grip. She leaned down and gave a hearty whiff, letting out a heavy moan as a result, and leveled a seductive gaze at her prey. "I'm sure my host wouldn't mind if I took the first bite out of you."

Sirin leaned forward to continue her newest version of an assault when Hua appeared above the two, once more aiming to take out the Herrscher with a single strike. It didn't work, however, as Sirin released an arm to block the attack. This gave Phillip the opening he needed to land his own neck chop, forcing Sirin to rescind her control and fall unconscious. Hua wasted no time in searching Kiana's hands and retrieving the Gem.

"Here," Phillip called, tossing the soulium container to Hua so she could seal the Gem away while Gabriel purged Phillip of the Honkai energy. As Phillip sat against the rooftop's edge and panted heavily at the sudden tolls his body had to endure, Hua dragged Kiana's unconscious body over to his feet and sat next to him.

"Thank you for the aide," Hua said calmly, not even slightly weathered by the quick fight. "If that became a battle of attrition, I may have needed to use more power and even asked Otto for a battlesuit to even the score."

Phillip waved it off. "I would have bit it back at the reactor had my suit hadn't taken the brunt of the Honkai energy. I'm lucky to have simply gotten here."

Hua looked up and spotted a helicopter coming their way that bore the insignia of Schicksal. "Well, however, you feel, I'm sure you'll be happy to know our exit is coming to us right now."

A hollow laugh was Phillip's response to this.

3:00 pm, St. Freya's medical wing,

"Well, you've been messed up."

Phillip groaned at Himeko's assessment as his battlesuit was purged of the Honkai energy by several tubes now linked to the clips along his shoulders. Theresa stood next to the doorway of the hospital room; arms crossed about as hard as the expression on her face.

"Honestly," Theresa huffed. "I let you two go out to help Hua, and you both get hit by a Honkai shockwave."

"Don't worry about it too much," Phillip said, willing to follow Hua's requested lie to evade any questions about his conditions. "On that note, though, how's Kiana?"

"Still asleep," Himeko answered. "That girl must have been hit harder than you if you woke up immediately and she's still out of it."

"Blame the Kaslana in her," Phillip said as the tubes retreated into the ceiling. "What about Hua? Is she being forced through medical exams?"

Theresa shook her head at this. "She's dealing with the briefing with Otto. She had the least number of injuries, so she was fine to do so."

Phillip jumped off the medical bed with a quick hop and made for the door. "Well, if that's all, then I'm heading back to the dorm." He was stopped, however, when Himeko held out her arm.

"There's something else," Himeko said, meeting eyes with Theresa. The principal nodded at this, allowing Himeko to continue. "The mission I had with Kiana was an attempt to locate a special area, mostly to do with a long lost Honkai Beast as Chiyou."

"Okay," Phillip said slowly, puzzled by why this information was given to him. "And this is important because...?"

"We're still in the research phase, but we should be able to locate a location known as the Nine Realms," Himeko stated, oddly serious about the mission. "When we're finished, all five of us are heading in. Understand."

Phillip gave a prompt salute at the order.

"Understood."

Not going to say much on this one,

Hope you've enjoyed the chapter, and I'll see you in the next one.