Author's Note: Sorry…It's been a while. Thank you for all your support and patience ,)

Disclaimer: I do not own Honkai Star Rail.

Flashbacks will be written in italics. This chapter is mainly a flashback sequence. Bold is for emphasis.


Lushaka, Of Sunken Lament

Act 0 - Drowned In Endless Torment

Chapter 1- I Wish For Their Damnation


Someone's POV: Her Tears Did Not Reach The Surface

~A Certain Underwater Village, Lushaka, XXX Amber Eras Ago~

Countless agonized screams were muffled in the ruins of that deep-water haven.

Harpoons and torpedoes streaked down upon the coral-stone buildings from invading diving vessels like shooting stars.

Yet, these shooting stars did not grant wishes.

They only brought death and destruction to those within their wake.

Dark, blood clouds leaked from the unfortunate innocents skewered by Invaders' spears.

Explosions ensued as the barrage of torpedoes decimated their territory.

All buildings toppled over amidst the bombing, collapsing on the innocents sheltering in place and passing bystanders alike.

After much of the village was ravaged by the torpedoes, a latch door underneath all of the submarines opened simultaneously. Invaders clad in tight black scuba gear silver oxygen tanks, and barbed spears in hand.

Quickly and efficiently, they swept through what remained in the village. Without a shred of mercy, they chased and hunted down any survivors they laid their eyes on, skewering even those who were no longer moving.

A cacophony of muffled screams rung out through the underwater village.

While suppressed to 'our' limited hearing, HER auditory organs-adapted to her life in water-perceived them as anything but muffled.

From her hiding place within the shadows of a collapsed coral-stone building, she shut her mouth with her azure hands to stave away her panic and curled up to make herself smaller and less noticeable.

In the background, the screams of her loved ones, friends, teachers, and fellow villagers echoed endlessly.

Her kind were known for their alluring voices, but the current reverberations of haunting death cries made every cell in her body scream with fear.

After burying her blue head and onyx eyes into her knees, her dark blue braids tussled over her legs.

Immediately, she covered the auditory canals in front of the pair of cerulean winged membranes on her head.

In an attempt to drown out the screams, she tried to remember her mother's words.

Still, the screams proved too loud.

Only the distorted muffle of her mother's calls echoed within her mind.

"...e...m...a..."

"...e...m...a..."

"...e...m...a..."

Since time immemorial, her kind and the Invaders antagonized each other with these cruel, territorial games of hunt and be hunted.

Far above the underwater village was one of many oases scattered about the desert planet's premises. The invaders dwelled in towns proximal to these watersheds.

Water is the sacred blessing of life.

In the dry, barren desert, this fact was heavily, heavily emphasized.

No water meant imminent death. Therefore, dominion over the oases was directly translated into dominion over who lives and dies.

Unlike those Invaders who could dwell on the sands for hours on end without a drop, her kind - the Edars- would shrivel into dust if they went a few hours without being submerged in its moisture.

In the eyes of her people, the Invader's need for total control over the oases to the point of plundering their civilizations and culling their kind with their land-made technology was utterly unjustified.

After the first invasion, many more came. In a matter of time, the Edars took arms against the Invaders.

Thus, the stain of strife embedded itself between the two races.

All this blood shed over water; over the simple desire to survive in the desolate place they all called home made her feel so hopeless.

...

The screams came to a halt when the light shining from the surface began to dim.

Slowly but surely, the Invaders withdrew their javelins as they swam back into their subnautical pods and made their way towards the surface.

Sensing the danger had passed, she decided to wait half a system hour as a precaution. Her heartbeat increased in terrified apprehension as she inched her way towards the shadow's edge.

Hesitantly, she quietly inched her way out of hiding. The dimming lights from the surface cast their glow on her visage.

She, just like other Edars, were aquatic lifeforms denoted by glittery, azure skin; pupilless, dark-colored eyes; facultative gills and auditory canals in front of their winged membranes often mistaken for ears; flipper-like feet, and beauteous fins to their posterior elbows and calves.

The lonely Edar female wore a white blouse. A necklace of seafoam green pearls floated around her neck underneath the water. Her dark blue braids meandered about her head as she turned her head to observe the surrounding wreckage.

Knowing full well the coast was clear, she quietly swam about the village ruins. Her onyx eyes fell upon familiar limbs and faces of the deceased. With every corpse she spotted and every crumbled building, the memories of who they were or what once stood there briefly flashed in her mind.

The sounds of children's laughter, the bustling voices of busy people going about their daily lives, the schools of swimming fish, and the songs of a loving mother occasionally glitched into her perspective as she hastily wandered around the place where she made all her memories.

All these cadences she grew fond of were immediately dispelled into the silent void as her vision glitched back to this ugly reality every time.

The melancholy on her face grew heavier until finally she saw the thing that would break her.

An older female Edar's lifeless body laying silent on a bed of tattered purple and white Nixblooms. Her abdomen was gruesomely impaled by an Invader spear that was left stuck into the underwater flowerbed. A cloud of dark blood leaked out seamlessly from the site of her lethal injury, tainting her purple and white dress.

"M-Mother...Mo...ther...Mother..."

Her onyx eyes glossed over as dark blue tears trickled from them and rose towards the dying sunbeams cast from the surface.

The accumulated loss and sorrow she felt reached an overwhelming stage. And yet...another emotion welled up within her as she floated above her mother's corpse in the tattered sea flower garden. The lone Edar female clenched a fist as she trembled in the deep-water ruins.

"This...is so pointless...Why must we fight like this?"

Between sobs, she pondered the most important question out loud to an audience that would never reach nor console her, "Why do we feel this need to substantiate our own existences over that of others...when we all equally have the right to live?"

Wiping away her dark blue tears onto her hands, she flicked the last teardrops and let them float away.

"I wish there was water for everyone," she prayed aloud knowing full well no one would listen, "More than enough to drown us all."

'Countless shooting stars streak across the night sky...If you pick the right one, it will carry your wish to thousands of distant worlds'

But the 'star' that listened to her 'wish' was not from the firmament.

"I hear your wish loud and clear," a sympathetic voice reverberated throughout the underwater cavern, "Are you sure you want to go through with this?"

Jolted from her lamentation, the lone Edar maiden came face to face with a shining sphere. Its radiance illuminated the remnants of the aquatic abode like a miniature sun.

"W-W-What in the Great Depths are you?" She was utterly mystified by the ethereal light in front of her.

"That is not important," The voice emanating from the shining sphere felt like the voices of many merged into one as it responded, " I have witnessed you lose everything. Your rage. Your sorrow. And your hopes for this world. I simply want to help make your wish come true."

The female Edar clutched her head. The shiny sphere's honeyed words were enticing, but even she couldn't follow the logic nor find herself in a place to trust anything anymore, "And just how can something like you grant my wish? How can I even trust you?"

"Because I have been watching you from the Great Depths since your birth, Yemoja," the shiny sphere replied with sickening sweet consolation.

"I watched as your hometown fended off many invasions and plunderers prior but still scathed by loss."

"I watched you and your mother cried as your father was butchered by the Invaders' spears."

"I watched as many of your friends did not make it into adolescence because they were blown to bits by the Invaders' torpedoes."

"I watched as you planted Nixblooms on their graves after each and every one of their funerals."

"And now, you have no one. You are the sole survivor of this massacre."

Yemoja clutched her head as the shining sphere's words etched a stinging sensation throughout her neural network. Innately, she vaguely felt like this foreign object was trying to get into her head. Every fiber in her being was yelling at her to resist the temptation.

But her admonishment towards the Invaders and their ceaseless avarice held her back. They must pay...for everything they've done.

"I...I ask of you again," she found herself at a crossroads, yet some resolution was made within her, "What are you?"

"If I must answer," the iridescent sphere's myriad voices relented, "I'm just one of many little Wishmakers, cast off and scattered across the cosmos."

"Little Wishmaker..." the Lone Edar maiden found the name ridiculous, but even she could sense immense power from within its miniscule presence.

"Now it is my to turn to ask you...What is it that you wish for?" the shining sphere laid out its offer again.

Yemoja tightened her fists as she looked back at the submerged ruins of her village.

Lifeless bodies and severed limbs were littered under the rubble stone and coral houses. Dark blood clouds and spilled guts splattered about the walls and streets. She turned back to her mother's body impaled to the cemetery garden. Torn-up purple and white Nixblooms floated about the premises from the Invader's violent ravaging.

Such a harrowing sight to behold. All because of that shared need for water. There was no point in any of it. Nothing was holding her back anymore in her desperation. Should she say no, where exactly would she go from there? What exactly could she do on her own without anyone against the Invader's advanced weaponry.

She finally raised her head to the Little Wishmaker. Her onyx eyes shimmered from reflecting its light.

"I wish for their damnation."


Next Chapter: Next Destination! Lushaka

If it wasn't obvious, the next chapter takes place on the Astral Express around the contemporary Amber Eras.

For fair measure, think of this fanfic as an AU where the Astral Express went to Lushaka instead of Amphoreus and didn't have a fuel deficiency problem.

Please feel free to drop any suggestions, ideas, criticisms in the review section. While I would greatly appreciate your feedback, please keep your feedback professional. Personally, I'm most interested in your speculations.

Maybe I'll drop some ominous keywords into the review section myself depending on your curiosity as readers ;)