Chapter 2: The Sun and The Moon

The sterling halls were quiet as the woman walked through them. White hair kept neatly to the side in a braid, eyes obscured by an orange visor. Her dark dress skirted along the ground with each step, sleeves ruffled against a data-tablet tucked to her chest.

The few people the woman passed gave deferential nods and glances as she passed them by. The woman continued on until she reached the end of the hall, stopping at a pair of ornate double doors flanked by well-tended plants that formed an archway before them. After brushing her wrist by a keypad on the door, a soft chime sounded as the light flashed green. The grand doors swung open, the woman striding into the office beyond.

The office she entered was contrasted the utilitarian halls outside with it's cozier, oakwood walls and plush carpet flooring. Walls lined by bookshelves and fine artwork, creating a natural arc to the chairs that faced the large desk centering the office. Light washed in from a window that stretched to the ceiling, outlining the chair behind the desk, turned away from the door.

"Director Oskar," the woman gave a bow of her head, taking a few more steps towards the desk, placing her tablet atop it. "The Source readings we've been tracking have started growing, and as for the epicenter…"

"Nagazora City, correct?"

The chair turned. Occupying it was a man who looked to be just entering his middle-age, the remnants of youth still present on his pale, slim features. Bright blonde hair fell about his head, tied to the side into a short tail over the shoulder, letting the bright locks contrast his black and white attire. And staring at the woman were steely green eyes.

"Yes. However, smaller outbreaks have also occurred in various locations aside from the epicenter. As of 14:07 JST, all non-automated communications to and from Nagazora and surrounding locations cut off. Assumed cause was Honkai radiation effecting the regions because of the rise in Source radiation."

"… as expected," Oskar cleared his throat as the woman tilted her head. "It could potentially be a simple spike. Asia still has yet to fully recovery from the radiation caused by the Second Impact, these things happen."

"Of course. However, the specific range is seen as unusual by the analysts. How should we respond to it? Should Valkyrie teams be deployed to Nagazora?"

"Continue to observe for a few days. Nagazora is one of our world's biggest metropolises after all, they possess Anti-Honkai measures of their own. Handle the smaller Sources as they appear but leave the city for now."

"Understood. I'll pass this on to the active Valkyries then."

The woman reclaimed her data pad. As she turned to leave, Oskar turned his chair back to the window, standing up. "Oh, and Amber, keep updates coming to me personally on any new information in Nagazora. Any kind of activity, no matter who it may be."

"Yes, Director."

As Amber left, Oskar strode to the window, his eyes gazing across the vast expanse of the buildings and pathways beyond there. With a chuckle, a small grin spread across his face, the man's eyes glinting with a sort of wicked excitement.

"It seems the girl finally reached her breaking point. Ryoma really did help me in the most unexpected way when he used that Gem. I'll need to ensure events are allowed to play out without interference… perhaps I can let the Church of Finality have their fun. No doubt that such an outbreak will draw them to Nagazora. Now then… what's awaiting you in that city, Third Herrscher?"

If Soleil had to remark on anything being made annoying solely because of the change in situation, it would, with no doubts, be the Academy City's campus design. Under normal circumstances there were no issues to be had. Open pathways that led from one building of a school's assigned space to another, connecting out to the main roads and to more schools or faculty buildings in the zone's districts.

When he was in the situation before that day, it was fine. But now that he was having to baseball bat his way through a horde of students and teachers turned Honkai zombies in rather tight hallways? Not exactly the ideal place to end up, because once the hordes bust out of their tight spaces, he knew those open spaces would be nothing but a difficult to navigate mob or cadavers.

Soleil's first priority as he worked his way through the horde was getting out of the main Senba building while he still had the space to make a getaway. Which he did accomplish quickly enough.

By jumping out of a third-floor window and into the nearby trees.

"… probably could have had a better plan than that," Soleil sighed as he took the chance to sit down to catch his breath. "Went to all that trouble to think of escape routes and somehow I still end up jumping out a damn window. Peh… Liz is gonna rag on me for that one if she hears about it."

Looping his legs around the branch, Soleil flipped downwards so he could observe the road from the campus properly. The doors to the entrance had finally given way, and now more of the Honkai zombies were pouring out into the road. And no doubt the same was happening at every other school at the various campuses.

"And I've barely even made a dent in the numbers… gagh. If this Impact spread out to Nagazora itself it'll only be even worse."

As he was ready to flip down to the ground, the air suddenly echoed with the sound of gunfire. Three shots all in order, the bangs disturbing any lingering birds and further filling the air with noise. And attracting the zombies towards the noise to boot.

"Going by the direction… whoever's firing would be near the library. Which means they'll be headed down the Sakurakouji pathway if they're coming near me," a smile split Soleil's face as he dropped to the ground, his landing light as he adjusted the grip on his bat. "Guess I'm not going to have to solo my way outta this after all! Let's see if we can't meet halfway!"

Soleil took off at a sprint, taking a flying leap and springboarding off the nearest zombie to launch himself, taking a few more leaps to launch himself back over to the central pathway, bursting through the blossoming Sakura trees and skidding to a stop, surrounded by a whirl of petals.

With a slight smirk splitting his face, Soleil took off again, rushing down the path at full tilt. Any zombie that would have slowed his progress was quick to meet the barrel of his bat, each swing trailing a blaze of blue light. This rush continued, the sound of gunfire growing closer with each step Soleil took. And when he set eyes on a denser group of zombies, broken up by the occasional muzzle flash, the boy's smirk widened.

Stepping around and twirling his way through the crowd of zombies, Soleil springboarded from another, his arc carrying him far across the distance he had left until he reached the tighter group. His bat came down right as he did, blowing past a couple of zombies in one flame-covered swing, twirling past another as he carried his momentum into a second swing that blew him past the center of the mob.

And right past whoever was fighting, giving him a brief but full glance of his fellow survivor.

A girl about his age, wearing the girl's uniform of Senba Academy. Her pure white face was marked by a curious expression, bright blue eyes widening just a bit as she looked at Soleil zipping back. Her twin-braided silver-white hair flared as she spun while swinging a bat of her own, the blunt instrument coupled with a black handgun in her opposite grip.

With only a glance shared between them to confirm they were indeed both in fact living beings and not hostile to one another, the girl whipped her gun up, firing off a shot that pierced through a couple of the zombies in front of her, the next swing of her bat matching up with Soleil's as he took post at her six o'clock without another thought. With a simple exchange of looks, the two flashed smirks before laying into the zombies trying to rush them, the air filling with the sounds of gunfire and bats slamming into flesh and bone.

Minutes passed as the two fought on, things only finally becoming still after who knew how long. The road was scattered in swathes of corpses, the fallen Sakura petals scattered among pools of purple-tinted blood. And the two zombie slayers stood with nary a breath lost, Soleil giving his bat a quick flick to clear it of any lingering blood as he turned to his fellow survivor, taking a moment to size her up as she checked her gun, fishing a new magazine from her waistband.

'A decent bit shorter than me… and while she looks pretty thin, something tells me this girl is stronger than she looks. But… strange, something about her is familiar. I can't pin why though…'

"You know…" the girl's voice was almost a chirp in how light its tone was, glancing back at Soleil over her shoulder. "Most girls would consider it rude for the mysterious knight in shining armor to just stare without so much as introducing himself."

"Ha! You say that like you needed saving. You probably could've gotten through these zombies no problem. I just showed up because I heard the gunfire."

"Probably," the girl then let out a surprised sound. "Wait a second… you're one of the upperclassmen at Senba!"

"So I am. Granted I do kinda stand out."

"No kidding! I didn't think I'd meet another foreigner while I was here. Though… maybe this isn't the best place to be talking, is it?" As the girl looked around, more of the zombies were shambling into view, Soleil shaking his head.

Just then, both heard a ping. Hands went to pockets, drawing phones that bore the same message on their screens. "Honkai Source detected. 700 meters north of current location."

"Really?" Soleil grumbled. "That's the center of the Senba campus. Just bloody left there, and now I gotta run back?"

"Wait… you've got a phone like mine?" The girl leaned closer to Soleil, confirming he did indeed have the same message showing. She then glanced at his bat, and quickly let out an aggravated noise. "And that bat's Schicksal tech, isn't it?! Ahhh, that's so unfair! All I was able to stash with me was this old Beretta!"

"And the bat?"

"I… borrowed it from the sports storeroom."

"Stole it, gotcha… not that I'm one to talk," Soleil sighed as he looked around. "But this clearly isn't the place for chatter. If you know what Schicksal is… agh we can explain that once we're safe! Let's get back to the main building to find a hiding spot first!"

"Hey, hold it first!" The girl grabbed Soleil by the wrist as he shot off, and he yelped as he was yanked back, finding the girl's grip quite tight. "At least let me tell you my name first! I'm Kiana, Kiana Kaslana! A Schicksal Valkyrie here to save the day!"

"…" Soleil pondered it for a second, briefly shutting his eyes. "Rei, Rei Vollerei. Technically a nickname some classmates gave me 'cause they had a hard time saying my real name. Nice to meet you, Kaslana…"

Soleil trailed off as he felt the gears in his head turning, Kiana tilting her head at him. And when that light bulb pinged, Soleil's expression cracked as it felt into place.

"The hell is someone from one of the Four Founders doing here of all places?"

"Hehe, make it to the school with me, and I'll explain why!" Kiana drew her gun in a split-second, placing her arm over Soleil's shoulder and firing, her shot slamming right through a zombie that was about to lunge for Soleil. "If you can keep up that is, Rei-senpai."

"Well, 'side from the bit of tinnitus you just gave me…" Soleil chuckled as he shot around and slammed another zombie with a solid homerun swing. "That won't be a problem at all!"

"Hehehe, then it's on!"

The two took off at full speed, back down the path of scattered petals and the dead. On to find whatever it was that had to be the center of this disaster itself. And not a single zombie would be staying in their way for long as they carved a path back to Senba Academy.

Getting back into the main Senba building proved to be less of a problem than Soleil had getting out of it to begin with. For as brief a time as it had been, most of the zombies seemed to have cleared out since, though there were still a fair few of the shamblers left roaming the halls by the time Soleil and Kiana had breached their way back in.

And in their search for an immediate safe zone, had diverted to the first floor nurse's office, luckily clear of any zombies or bodies. One door barred by a broom and blocked with a bed and a few shut curtains later, and the two had a chance to slow down amid it all.

"Hmm… good on ammo, but I'm going to need to be conservative with my shots. Tch… should've tried to get a battery-powered gun before I left," Kiana was grumbling to herself as she checked her pistol, a flick of her wrist setting the slide back in place as she set the magazine back into position. "So, what's a third-year student like you doing carrying around Schicksal tech like that bat of yours, hm?"

"You first, Miss Kaslana," Soleil leaned against a bed as he scoffed. "I'll repeat: What's a member of the Four Houses doing here in Nagazora?"

"Exchange study, I guess," Kiana gave a shrug, though Soleil didn't look convinced. "Bad joke I suppose. I'm kind of here on a mission. See I'm not just a run of the mill Valkyrie—"

"Wouldn't expect run of the mill out of a Kaslana."

"Ahem," Kiana gave Soleil a cross look for his snark. "I'm not just a Kaslana! My mother also happens to be a mother of the Schariac family. So, I'm not just any Valkyrie you know?"

"Uh huh. And what rank are you?"

Kiana puffed out a cheek as she kicked a foot. "B. But that's more than enough! Valkyries don't even get to go out on field missions like this unless they're at least B Rank you know? Besides, I'll be A Rank soon enough! No, not even A, I'll be an S Rank before anyone knows it!"

"Can we back up to the part where you said your mom is a Schariac?" Soleil tilted his head, Kiana tilting her head up with a prideful giggle. "The hell kind of whack ass situation am I in right now? Ah, whatever. So, what's this mission of yours, huh?"

"Ahtata! You need to tell me who you are first, Rei-senpai! You wouldn't be carrying around Schicksal tech like that if you were just some rando student! Plus you stand out way too much with how you look to boot!"

"Pot meet kettle," Soleil's snark earned another glare, and he gave a relenting sigh. "I'm also with Schicksal. North American Branch, Anti-Entropy unit in particular."

"Isn't that the division that does most of the mech research? I thought they didn't deploy Valkyries or Knights at all."

"Yeah, well… I'm something of an exception," Soleil wanted to go quiet, but Kiana was giving him an all too insistent stare. "And I'm not really on some mission. I'm actually here on exchange study program. Let me guess, you got sent here to Nagazora because Schicksal was picking up on the rise of Honkai energy or something?"

"More of a… predictive model someone I know put together," Kiana strode to one of the windows, tugging the curtain aside just enough to look outside, grimacing as the storm overhead was looking ready to get worse than just booming thunder alone. "Some fancy program or something he can use to track stuff like this. No clue how it works. All I was told that there might be an outbreak like this in Nagazora, so I was sent in to see if I could find the cause. Still, kind of glad I don't have to prance around playing pretend anymore, playing the nice lady was getting old."

"Senba was an all-girl's school until a few years ago. Guess the mentality stuck around."

"Yeah yeah. Well then…" Kiana put her hands to her hips, cocking her waist to the side a bit as she flashed a smirk. "Since we're both stuck in this situation now, Mr. Anti-Entropy, how about we both go after the Source and find out what caused this Impact? You were planning on going after it too, right?"

"Of course I was. And I can't argue an extra pair of hands is better… wait a second," Soleil felt another ding in his head. "Wouldn't a squad have been sent in for a suspected Impact event? Why are you the only Valkyrie here, huh?"

"Well, it wasn't clear if it would happen. So, I was sent alone to monitor someone," Kiana pulled her phone out, flicking her finger across the screen, then showing Soleil an image. "This girl right here. Raiden Mei, the daughter of ME Corporation's CEO. Heard of her?"

The mugshot was of a girl their age, bearing an elegant yet dour countenance. Black hair falling around her like a curtain, and striking violet eyes staring ahead.

"Not a soul in Senba doesn't know who Mei is," Soleil said, Kiana giving a nod. And Soleil's brow knit as troubled thoughts rose up. "Heck, she and I are classmates in homeroom. But I didn't think anything was too up with her… well, aside from the whole shut-away thing she does."

"Oh I know the story," Kiana sat down on one of the beds, letting her phone lay on her thigh as she folded her legs. "The darling daughter of ME Corp, practically the idol of Nagazora's esteemed Academy City. Only for it all to turn on its head when her father was arrested for embezzlement. And like that, she went from idol to pariah… the kind of change that can foster the worst of emotions in a person, don't you think?"

"Emotions that would be perfect for a certain something to pry in on… you're telling me Mei's suspected as being a Herrscher candidate?"

"Eh, just a theory. Won't know until we find her. Or whatever else this Source could be. I wanna be optimistic and say it isn't her."

"And if it is her?"

"Then I'll just have to save her, of course!"

"That so, huh?" Soleil let out a slight chuckle, though his expression fell a bit, hidden by his hair as he looked down. Saving a Herrscher, huh? I wonder if that kind of thing is even possible. Hehe… though I'm sure the geezer would have something to say about it. Granted, he's kind of an exception to the rule.

Herrscher. The title that had only been used twice within the history of the world. A "Ruler of the Honkai", humans who through one mean or another had gained near-godlike power through the Honkai rather than become mutated by its corruptive effects. The arrival of one was the heraldry of a coming disaster. This, however, was not something made known to the public.

After all, how would they react to knowing that the world-altering disasters that were the Impacts were in fact caused by one of their own?

"Then I guess we need to find wherever Mei holed up and hope for the best," Soleil stood straight, picking his back up as his dour expression raised back to a confident grin. "So, how close does it say we are anyway?"

"About… fifty meters," Kiana gave a hum. "That'd be somewhere on the third floor or rooftop, right? Haaagh, it's gonna be a lot of fighting to get to either isn't it?"

"Not much else we can do," with a quick yank, Soleil pulled aside the bed that had been blocking the door. A sigh left him when the door immediately buckled a bit alongside a thud. "I'm surprised the broom is holding that well."

"Our classmates suddenly got very rude, didn't they?" Kiana snickered as she chambered her pistol, holding it up as she joined Soleil at the door. "Time to put more of them to rest."

"The only favor we can do for them now."

In a classroom now rendered all too quiet and barricaded by every desk she could have shoved in front of the doors, Mei could only sit quietly in the corner of the room, cautiously eyeing the doors. The only sounds she heard were either the booming thunder outside, or the groaning voices from beyond the door.

She had no idea what was even going on, how a seemingly ordinary day had turned into something out of a horror movie. She'd had the luck to somehow find her way into a secluded room like this, but every moment was just more and more building dread at the idea that eventually, those doors would be broken through. And that would be it.

"But isn't it perhaps better all of them ended up that way? After all, wouldn't you say they deserve it with how they've treated you?"

"Does it matter?" Mei replied to the voice ringing in her head, her eyes dark as she stared ahead. "Me, them… all of it'll be gone soon anyway."

"Then why not speed it up a bit? Destroy it all with your own hands. Get revenge on them for how they turned on you, made this world hell."

"Get… revenge?"

Mei was pulled out of her stupor when the doors rattled again, causing her to shrink further against the wall to try and conceal herself. The groanings outside intensified, as if something had aggravated her warped classmates. And echoing through the air were vague bangs and other noises. Gunfire.

"You'll make your decision soon enough… though I'm not exactly the patient type."

As Mei's hands tightened up, a slight glow ebbed out from under her shirt. A mark forming on her hip, a sigil that crackled like thunder.

A Stigmata.