Chapter 11 - Fuchou's Origin
Overseer's Office, St. Freya Academy - Honkai Impact 3rd World - July 2016 - Approximately three days after the end of the previous chapter
(Otto Apocalypse's P.O.V)
It's been several days since the incident involving the Herrscher of Sentience and Schicksal Valkyrie Fu Hua, up until that incident I was quite content in just observing Miss Jingshen's actions and their side effects upon the members of Major Mureta Himeko's squad as time went on as they, while requiring the alteration of some of my plans involving that particular squad, had proven to be quite beneficial to take a hands-off approach.
However, once Fu Hua had entered into a transformation I had never seen from her before this point as well as the subsequent transformation from the Herrscher of Sentience, I found myself quickly requesting Durandal's immediate intervention into the ongoing fight between the two lest their rapidly rising honkai energy levels run the risk of contaminating the various students nearby.
Thankfully the fight had been quickly moved towards the nearby seas allowing for any large-scale dispersal of Honkai energy only to be an environmental problem rather than a threat to St. Freya itself if it continued to occur within academy grounds, another benefit of this was being able to witness the various intriguing techniques of the Herrscher of Sentience against Valkyrie Durandal.
Even with the loss of many sensitive sensors within St. Freya itself, what little the sensors were able to pick up right before their destruction gave immensely valuable data on the theoretical power levels of both Valkyrie Fu Hua and the Herrscher of Sentience, data that I have been also started to use to try attempting to replicate this 'Ki' energy that I've overheard Miss Jingshen speak of several times now.
Initial attempts to replicate it have been so far unsuccessful even with the benefit of having what data we were able to salvage from the destroyed sensors, something I had anticipated the possibility of happening which is one of the reasons why I have chosen to assign Durandal to Major Mureta Himeko's squad in the first place.
It isn't just a way of having a means of close observation of the Herrscher in the field, but it is also my hope that Miss Jingshen may potentially take the S-rank Valkryie on as a student to learn how to harness Ki energy, allowing me to gain first-hand data directly from Durandal herself rather than rely on sensory data of the Academy.
However, there was one irregularity with the data coming from the Herrscher of Sentience that has me quite curious about it as it is something that by all accounts should not be emitting no matter how faintly it may be, from anyone let alone a Herrscher at that.
After all the GARUDA strain of Honkai DNA should not exist in this era beyond what is detected in Fu Hua herself, and yet there appears to be a second albeit dormant strain within the body of our resident Herrscher of Sentience which seems almost too similar to Fu Hua's to be a concidience.
Not to mention it seems that my dear adopted granddaughter finally decided to try and get blood samples from both of them, although she has chosen to keep the results to herself rather than report them to me which is intriguing as it implies that she has discovered something of note that she is choosing to keep hidden for the time being.
As such I believe it's time I got more direct with my involvement with Fuchou Jingshen…
"Ms. Roiseweisse, I will be sending you to St. Freya to watch over Durandal as she acclimates to her new assignment," I say to a particular honey-blonde-haired woman behind me wearing a maid dress, who bows towards me upon being addressed and given her more public assignment.
"Of course Overseer, and my true assignment?" The woman inquires while keeping herself bowing as she awaits her more clandestine role at Academy, one that I have faith she will pull off effortlessly at that…
"Your true assignment will be to discover exactly what my grandaughter has chosen to keep hidden from me"
St. Freya Academy, Headmistress's Office - 2 hours later
(Fuchou's P.O.V)
"Hey there brat, heard you wanted me and my sister for something?" I asked the moment both I and Fu Hua arrived at the Headmistress's office, curious about the sudden summons to said office the moment the both of us had recovered Fu Hua's GARUDA form awakening, I had planned on trying to make that something she can access at will considering it's not only rather powerful but looks damn good on her as well.
Strangely though I noticed that the 'Headmistress' isn't responding to me, choosing to look out the window and not even bothering to retort to calling her a brat which kind of has me worried now, if she isn't responding to my usual taunts with their own back sass then this may be more serious than I had expected…
"Fuchou, Hua….take a seat as we have something very important to go over now that you two are done recovering from that incident several days ago," Theresa Apocolypse says with an ominous tone to her voice as she slowly reaches into her desk and pulls out two pieces of paper, promptly sliding them over to us as we both take a seat.
Fu Hua is the first to take a look at what the two papers say, at first she looks confused at what she is reading with flickers of recognition appearing across her expression every now and then, however, it's when she gets to the second paper that she promptly froze before slowly reading what is written on it with a growing expression of dread while glancing over at me every now and then.
It was only when my sister handed me the papers that I realized why she was reacting strangely to what was written on the second paper, both were an identical match save for whose name is written on the top of the lab report…
"You know Fuchou, it was always strange how quick you were to latch onto Fu Hua as fast as you did, as well as how you knew where to look for her, not to mention looking so similar to her in the first place," Theresa says with a rather blank expression, however the minor twitching of her fingers gave away her anxiety regarding the revelation of what these reports indicate and the rabbit hole it opens up.
"The immediate familiarity with Kiana Kaslana and Raiden Mei, as well as how quickly you were able to slide into the squad as if you had known them for longer than you actually should have, and finally these lab reports indicating a 100% genetic match, not 50%, not 70% or even 90% but a 100% Complete and identical genetic match which was double checked by the way," Theresa says firmly as she openly connected the dots in front of me and Fu Hua, which is making me admittedly rather nervous as I hadn't expected her to be the one to figure out all of this, would have thought that bastard Overseer would have made the connection first but perhaps I should have not dismissed her as such…
"You aren't simply Fu Hua's sister Fuchou Jingshen, you are her from some point in the future or at least what remains of her," Theresa says as at long last she has finally made the connection about what the truth of my situation in regards to my origins was, or at least a partial connection but even that is enough to make….painful memories come up into my mind.
"...You're right about one thing Headmistress Apocalypse, I am from the future," I say while my hair did its best to hide the pain and anguish that I felt even outright admitting to that, trying desperately to keep focused on the here and now rather than be dragged into remembering that fateful moment.
"That being said though, I am not my sister…I am what was born from her body at one point when she was shot by Otto Apocalypse, receiving all 15,000 years of memories that lay deep within her body" I say with the calmest voice I could muster despite the burgeoning rage I could feel begin to simmer at the mention of what transpired to create me in the first place.
The look of horror on Theresa's face, when she hears that, says it all as the fact that her grandfather would shoot one of his own and the fact that I was born thanks to that betrayal is not something she expected him to do even though perhaps some cynical part of her mind does know that and she just chose to ignore it until now, either way it's here that I decided to lay it all out for her because fuck it if she's gone this far just to learn of what's going on with me, with my sister, then she might as well bear the burden of knowledge that I have to!
And so for the next hour or so, I began to lay out all that happened in my original timeline…
During the explanation, Theresa inquired about what I said about having over 15,000 years of memories and the implications of what that means but for the sake of not making this meeting go on for multiple hours, we eventually agreed to put that discussion to one side for when we actually have the time to get into the specifics, considering both me and Fu Hua will need to work together to explain that another day when we had a lot more time to spare.
After that interruption, I continued my explanation up until I had no choice but to speak of that fateful moment, the moment that propelled me into the past by this point the pain was just so raw upon my face that there were moments where I was forced to stop and try to avoid breaking either the chair or the desk from the swell of emotions within me.
"That bastard Killed them, Mei, Bronya….not even his own flesh and blood Kiana was spared, I couldn't stop him or even get revenge for their sake, and just when Old-Timer finally showed up, she said she made a deal with….something to give me a second chance," I say as I could hear the wood on Theresa's desk begin to crack and break from how hard I was gripping onto it, but I didn't care as the grief and pain that I felt was still so fresh, so raw that I could feel the hot sting of tears begin to stream out from my eyes.
"Why me, why did she save me, I was the one who wanted to destroy her and take her place as the True Fu Hua, I was the one who tried to Kill Kiana when she said the Old-timer was the true Fu Hua, I failed her and the others when I was fucking needed the most!" I screamed out as the feelings of grief and pain began to overwhelm me, the feelings of anguish and despair at the fact that out of all the people she could have saved, it was me.
Suddenly I felt Fu Hua's hand on my shoulder and at first, I tried to push it away, only for my sister's grip to remain firm and even pull me closely to her which left me completely and utterly stunned, speechless for what felt like the first time in god knows how long.
"Fuchou, you've already proven why you were chosen, after all, you helped me get all my memories back, you helped Kiana and saved Himeko from Honkai energy poisoning, and in the end tried to help us prepare for what's to come", Fu Hua says as I shook in her embrace, while I know what she said is true, I'm sure that Kiana, Bronya or Mei could have done better than me…
"Let it out Fuchou, you've kept your grief and pain bottled up without any real outlet for far too long now, let me help you as you helped me," Fu Hua says with a gentle, caring tone that I never thought I'd hear from her of all people, but it's here at long last that I finally began to cry, letting free my pain and my grief for all that I've lost in front of the only two that know everything about the situation.
Eventually, I calm down and just stay there in Fu Hua's embrace for a while, allowing myself to take comfort in my sister at this moment while Theresa stays silent while trying to process all of this, looking as if she can barely believe half of it and it's only the look of genuine pain I had on my face and the indisputable evidence of the lab results that prove it's all true.
After a while, however, Theresa began to speak up once again….
"Fuchou let me be frank and say that out of all the things I was expecting to come from this, learning of just how bad the situation that led to you being here in the past was unexpected, to say the least, let alone just how…ruthless Kevin Kaslana was in attaining his goal," Theresa says with a look of unease laid plan upon her face, picking up the two lab papers and deciding to put them back in her desk but this time she reveals a false bottom of one of the drawers where she keeps any documents she prefer no one but her to see, not even her grandfather knows of it's existence, at least she hopes he doesn't.
"Fuchou Jingshen, you are hereby to serve detention with me every Friday during the afternoon except in the afternoon, during said 'detention' we will be going over your future knowledge to figure out what we can do to avoid certain future events from happening, assuming some of it is still useable due to how much you've already changed," Theresa says, giving a false detention as a way to explain the two of us constantly talking which is honestly a detention I don't mind serving as at least I can talk about what I know with someone who has a way of making use of the stuff I know from my timeline.
Eventually, Theresa allows both me and Fu Hua to go back to our dorms to get some rest, after all, Durandal will be formally inducted into our squad tomorrow and that will promise to be a rather interesting interaction to have for sure especially if a certain maid comes with her for whatever reason.
I will admit though, that part of me was tempted to offer Theresa a Tempest Jewel bracelet before we left but due to being just so emotionally drained after the conversation I never really thought to act on that temptation and never even made the offer to her.
Who knows, maybe it's a good idea for someone who isn't so closely tied to me by way of my retinue to be clued in on the events of my origin and can assist in ways I never could expect, I mean it's not like I've had much if any interactions with the brat in the past so perhaps she'll surprise me.
It's not like that'll stop me from pranking her to high heaven though~
St. Freya, Squad Dormitory - The Morning of the Next Day
(General P.O.V)
"Morning Mei-Senpai, Fuchou-chan~!" Kiana says with a rather bubbly smile as she had gotten up early to get started on breakfast for everyone today and saw the two walking out having only recently gotten up, both grey-haired and ravenette Herrscher/Herrscher-in-training looking like they didn't get the best of sleep.
"Morning Kiana-chan…" Mei said as she sat down at the table while still trying to properly wake up both physically and mentally, as she had secretly been working on honing her control over her lightning abilities as a Herrscher although without the core of thunder, it wasn't exactly something she could do easily yet.
Meanwhile Fuchou for her part had another round of nightmares regarding her past due to the discussion the prior day she had with the Headmistress and Fu Hua, which was what triggered the nightmares to return and had prevented her from being able to sleep much.
It isn't long before Major Himeko herself drags herself out of her room, looking hungover and barely paying any real attention to who's in the kitchen and greets both Mei and Fuchou at the table, gripping her head as she is nursing a headache despite the fact [Body Defense] and [Stress Defense] should be preventing it in the first place.
However, Himeko herself requested Fuchou allow Alcohol to pass through the defenses so she could feel the full effects of her drinking and thus in her mind, the full enjoyment of being knocked down a few strong ones and passing out in her bed sometime afterward, despite the hangover that awaits her.
Thus all three are unknowingly about to experience Kiana's cooking and they only have their lack of awareness to blame, with an oblivious Kiana working hard to produce soup for all three of them to enjoy all with a warm smile on her face.
And so eventually, she places hot bowls of soup in front of the three and eagerly awaits their response….
The first to notice something wrong is Himeko surprisingly as she is the quickest to take a spoonful of Kiana's soup before promptly freezing and slumping over on the table as her stomach begins to immediately protest whatever she just ingested, after which she quickly pushes the soup further along the table before rushing over to the bathroom to throw up the contents of last night's dinner, her booze and whatever little 'soup' she just consumed.
Mei is next to discover something wrong, the taste of the soup making her want to throw up, and to make things worse she could feel [Body Defense] activating to purge her of what she just consumed, the company defense deeming the soup bad enough to constitute as a form of poison as the ravenette realized who had cooked it far too late and is about to try to warn Fuchou.
Only to discover too late that Fuchou had already taken a spoonful of Kiana's soup as well and had frozen, [Body Defense] activating like it did for Mei and dealing with Kiana's soup before she snapped to awareness and looked straight at Kiana as she considers how to respond to the smiling white-haired girl.
Part of Fuchou wants to openly label what she just ate as a bio-hazard not fit for consumption but if she did that would hurt Kiana's feelings and in the end, her own uncertain feelings over the Kaslana girl won over and thus said…
"T-thanks for the food Kiana-chan, do you mind if I took this into my room to eat alone?" Fuchou asked Kiana who smiled wider and nodded, happy that one of the two girls she had growing feelings for was happy with her cooking and so the grey-haired Herrscher stood up and took the bowl of 'soup' back to her room, although rather than to eat it she is going to save it for something special later.
"I-I'd like to do the same Kiana-chan, if you don't mind?" Mei asked Kiana politely, like Fuchou she couldn't bring herself to hurt Kiana's feelings and fully understood what Fuchou was doing, with Kiana agreeing to it herself and allowing Mei to take the bowl of the soul to her room, a room that thankfully had a window where she can discreetly dump the contents of the soup bowl.
This left Kiana to go grab some Yoghurt as her choice of breakfast today, treating herself to a bowl of strawberry Yoghurt after putting away Himeko's unattended bowl of soup and just enjoying the morning sun against her body, deciding to take a small nap to get just a bit more sleep before taking on the day.
It is this nap, however, as inconsequential as it may seem, that will lead to some interesting developments….
Kiana's Mindscape - Moments later
(Kiana's P.O.V)
My mind felt hazy as I wandered a strangely foggy place without knowing where exactly I was going, almost as if I was being drawn somewhere by something but I don't know what exactly. But whatever it is, it's tugging me in strange directions at times that seem strangely familiar, like I've been in this place before but I just can't remember.
It was then that I felt my hand touch glass and my mind became fully aware of where I was, freezing in shock as I stared at a glass tube with a familiar white-haired girl floating inside of it, her golden eyes staring holes into me but doesn't show any attempt to attack me right now either by choice or because she simply couldn't right now.
"At long last, you have returned Clone," The woman says with a contemptuous look on her face prompting me to scowl at her calling me a clone, memories of what she put me through fill my mind making my fist clench in anger, slamming my right hand curled into a fist against the glass of the tube, the tube showing absolutely no damage despite how hard I slammed my fist on it.
"It's Kiana, K-I-A-N-A….got it?!" I said with gritted teeth, this was the woman who made me kill the illusion mama and tried to hurt Fuchou, I don't know what her game is but I didn't wanna play it as I began to turn around to leave this place, not wanting to hear a word she wants to say.
"And here I thought you wanted to know something important, like say a new development regarding the Honkai~" The woman said which made me stop before I could even make more than two steps away from the tube that contained her, whirling around to face her with a look of skepticism as I looked at her.
"Why should I trust what you might say, you tried to hurt me, tried to hurt Fuchou" I retorted back as I had no desire to trust a word that she might say, it could be a trick to get me to release her from whatever prison me and Fuchou put her into.
"Simple Clone, this new development is enough that it warrants my….reluctant cooperation if I want to even have a chance at freedom," The woman says prompting my eyes to narrow but other than that I choose to stay silent for a moment and try to think whether or not this is a good idea, but if she's telling the truth then….
"Fine, say what you want to say then before I change my mind," I say as the woman smirks as she floats closer to the tube keeping her contained and gesturing for me to get closer, prompting me to get closer warily before she begins to speak.
"The Honkai has begun to react differently as of late, differently than it used to prior to your Usurper crush's arrival and they're doing so in a way that has left me rather concerned for my own survival," The woman says, while I want to refute her claim of having a crush of fuchou, I can't because not only is she right but also because of the implications of what she has said about the Honkai.
While I am not book-smart like Mei-Senpai, I am not an idiot either no matter what Bronya-chan says as whoever this woman is, they're similarly connected to the Honkai just like Fuchou-chan and Mei-Senpai which means that she must be some Herrscher, or something right?
"So wait, you're a Herrscher right, like Mei-Senpai and Fuchou-chan?" I asked the woman who paused for a moment and began to give slow claps at my deduction, giving me a smirk of amusement that made me want to try what Fuchou does and punch her or use some energy blast.
"Indeed, it seems that you're not as slow as the Bronya girl pegged you for, even though you are indeed still a fool," The woman says before closing her eyes and taking a deep breath, opening her golden eyes and floating in the tube as if she's sitting on a regal throne with her legs crossed.
"I am the Herrscher of the Void, and you best remember that Clone," The Herrscher of the Void says with a smug tone to her voice, finally knowing whatever this woman is and being able to give at least a title to who she calls herself but strangely no name yet…
"What about your name Miss Herrscher of the Void, can you tell me that too?" I asked with perhaps a slight bit of snark to my voice, however, I quickly noticed that she froze the moment I asked for her name before scowling and floating as close as she could from within the tube to glare at me.
"You are nothing but Clone Trash to me, why should I deign to grace you with my name?!" The Herrscher of the Void says with a snarl, although for some reason I couldn't help but feel a sense of not only pain but loneliness from her out of nowhere, prompting me to briefly feel a pang of sympathy towards her.
The expression of anger that the Herrscher of the Void had moments prior quickly devolved into shock as she felt that pang of sympathy directed toward her and realized somehow the two of us could feel each other's emotions somehow, maybe a side effect of whatever Fuchou did to contain her within me.
"We are done here, leave Clone…..Now" The Herrscher of the Void says with a tone as cold as ice, I can feel her attempting to block out her emotions but even trace amounts of anger and an unclear secondary feeling filter through regardless, either way, I began to walk out of whatever this place is.
But as I opened the door that led out of this mind-created laboratory that houses the Herrscher of the Void's Containment tube in it and felt my consciousness being pulled into what I think is reality, I couldn't shake off just how…strange this encounter felt.
I think I might try to ask Fuchou to help me talk to her more often, mostly because I feel kind of bad for her despite how she tried to take over my body and force me to experience those nightmares, all because of that feeling of pain and loneliness I felt from her earlier…
Maybe there is more to her than I first thought.
Author's Notes
Ok first of all I want to apologize for just how long the wait was before releasing this one, it was literally just one thing after another that prevented me from continuing to try to write most if not all of my stories here.
From illness to a lack of motivation, to all the holidays in between, there were just way too many things happening consecutively one after another that prevented me from finishing this until 2025.
But we're finally here at long last, and we'll be continuing on now for some time with fingers crossed on that account.
With that out of the way, it's time for some good old Plot point Discussions like usual
Otto Apocalypse and the Debut of a Certain Maid
Here we have our blonde Overseer of Schicksal starting to get more actively invested in the development of our dear Herrscher of Sentience and the goings on in St. Freya as well as the mystery that surrounds her, especially after Fu Hua displayed the GARUDA form of hers.
This means that BOTH Durandal and Rita will be involved in the squad now, with the latter mostly the former's minder which I don't think Rita would have it any other way, although she does have that new assignment to follow up on~
Fuchou, Fu Hua, and Theresa's Discussions
Ok, I'm going to start by saying I had ORIGINALLY intended for this to be the moment that Fuchou offers Teri a TJ Bracelet, however as the discussion got underway and things got heavier and heavier for Fuchou I kind of decided to back away from that idea for the time being.
It will probably happen eventually, but for now, I decided to recant on the original idea if only to try and think of a better way to make the offer.
That being said I believe this is the only time where Fuchou really openly spoke about what happened to her during chapter 1 and the mental anguish that she still has regarding what happened in the Future Past.
Either way, I think the fact that at least someone outside of herself and Fu Hua knows the truth does help Fuchou if only to lessen the mental burden that it brings.
Kiana's cooking
Ok originally this was going to be the moment where Durandal is properly introduced to the story but my mind kinda blanked out on how the interaction would go and I decided to do something a bit more humorous in order to lighten the tone a bit before going back down into the depths of seriousness later.
Thus Kiana's soup scene was born, mostly it's commonly agreed that it's never a good idea for a Kaslana to be allowed in the kitchen and it's unfortunate that Himeko, Mei, and Fuchou had to find out out for themselves, although I can't recall if Mei ever was treated to Kiana' cooking so I won't say that definitively just yet.
As for what Fuchou plans to do with her bowl of 'soup', well that's for you all to find out later.
Kiana's Encounter with the Herrscher of the Void
Ok here is the plot point discussion where I kinda need to clam up here, mostly because I have plans regarding these two but for now just know that their relationship is going to take a very different path to what they had in the canon timeline, both because of Fuchou's intervention prior and also because of how things are shaping up elsewhere in the story.
With that out of the way, Next time on Sentient Wrath!: Durandal Joins the Squad (For real this time), preparations for a new mission, and a chance to change another's fate.
See you all next time!
Edit: Had to update to fix some discovered grammar errors, apologies