: Woo… woo…! I really can't hold it in anymore! How can someone be this pure?!
: So it was all just for Master Kucha.
: Is it simply because, in this place, only Master Kucha treated her as a human?
: What shook me the most is that, even in such circumstances, Rappa is still such an innocent person…
: Someone like her shouldn't be treated in such a cruel way!
: Damn it! Mihoyo, you're really good at stabbing people in the heart! Damn!
: How did you even come up with such a tormenting plot?!
: Comics are Rappa's only form of entertainment, her only source of light…
: And the Master Kucha in her memories, and all those past fragments, were actually just… fabricated.
...
The comments flooded the screen.
What hit the viewers hard wasn't just Rappa's kindness and her suffering, it was also the shock on a larger scale.
After successfully implanting the memetic virus into Rappa, the human experiments continued.
And because of her ideology and methods, the Umbra Headmistress quickly became the only voice left in the lab.
During a grand assembly, accompanying the many researchers' synchronized, hollow thoughts, she declared:
"Wise attendees, as you can clearly see, our universe today is nothing but a crate of abandoned bananas."
"In order to save the worlds marching towards rot and decay, humanity must regress! Regress! And regress further! Only then will civilization be imbued with endless possibilities yet again, allowing Erudition to shine with kaleidoscopic rays once more!"
"Do not be concerned by the accusations and criticisms of others, for a grand cause must always use the dreams of the common masses as kindling. Yet, it is blissful for them to become kindling, for rotten wood only contributes the greatest value when it is set ablaze."
"People should make use of their talents to the fullest, just as items should be utilized fully! We must ensure that every "monkey" in the experiment fully comprehends this bliss. Let us burn alongside them in happiness!"
When the Umbra Headmistress finished her not-so-passionate speech, all the researchers present, except for Kucha, had been fully brainwashed.
They shouted "Burn! Burn! Burn!" with feverish enthusiasm, no different from the monkeys.
What unfolded before the audience was a starkly humorous contrast.
The Umbra Headmistress and the researchers under the Dr Primitive's faction treated "devolution" as the cure for saving the universe.
This was a kind of cold, grand love, not compassion, but a chilling, overwhelming, almost grotesque ideal.
Its difference from true compassion was that it never cared about the thoughts of certain people, or any person at all.
The goals it touted, and the eventual "desired outcome"…
None were things ordinary people could ever understand.
It existed to fix some vague cosmic "symptom" incomprehensible to mortals, while ignoring individual lives.
Like a folk remedy that may treat one illness, but with devastating side effects.
And for the Dr Primitive's faction, this remedy is aimed at some unknown problem, but the side effect is already crystal clear,
Those "fuel," for the experiment, the includes the almost all of mankind.
The Umbra Headmistress believed that intelligence has only one coordinate axis.
Everything outside of that, Rappa's kindness, Master Kucha's emotions, was an obstacle to progress.
For the sake of this cold "love for the universe," she could perform human experiments without hesitation.
And in this lab filled with such so-called "great love," one person alone still possessed the most genuine kindness.
That person was Rappa.
Compared to the forced "universal love," Rappa's kindness was the true elixir.
This elixir gave her the ability to find meaning even within pain.
It came from real people, and real emotional bonds.
It was spontaneous, arising from genuine human agency, not tainted by any utilitarian purpose.
Even when she learned that everything was fake, she still chose to believe in the master-disciple bond between her and Kucha, that it was real.
This kindness was the power that allowed Rappa to define who she was.
In a lab where countless individual identities had been erased, only Rappa, under Kucha's guidance, retained the right to determine who she was.
And the root of that was her genuine, heartfelt kindness.
Some viewers skilled in philosophy immediately recalled deeper connections when they saw this contrast.
But the painful echoes were not over yet.
After the Umbra Headmistress devolved into an ape-level researcher, she could no longer tolerate working with Kucha.
When Kucha protected Rappa and criticized her for lacking even the most basic morality, she finally snapped.
"Morality? Are you really talking to me about morality?"
"On Bacchus-Il, morality is how every family's second son must be sacrificed to Nanook. On the Interstellar Principality of Pegasus, morality is how bipedal organisms must be enslaved by quadrupedal ones. On the Kapakala planet, morality is how blue-eyed individuals are forbidden from walking on the streets."
"That was why Dr. Primitive chose them as targets of the atavistic experiment."
"The sacrifices we made are not for such vulgar things. Rather, they're meant to create a future where humans can be happy, where the universe can continue to advance, and one that the Doctor can be proud of!"
The Umbra Headmistress roared hysterically at Kucha.
Her words revealed a massive amount of information. The viewers immediately noticed the hidden implications.
...
: I refuse to accept this bullshit sophistry! Free will belongs to the self, it should be decided by the self.
: And her eyes are blue. That's too much of a coincidence.
: She might be a survivor of the Doctor's experiments, and instead became the Doctor's fanatic believer!
: What do you mean 'for a future that satisfies the Doctor'? Your motives are nowhere near as pure as you claim!
: What makes these researchers disgusting isn't just their cult-like ideology, but the fact that even their motives for believing it aren't pure!
: Too much personal emotion!
: If this were truly the lofty 'grand love' you preach, I'd be the first to acknowledge it, but these people are just lunatics.
: I suddenly understand why Dr Primitive never interacted much with this group. From the very beginning, they must have completely misunderstood his intent.
: They're just clumsy imitators.
: Kinda reminds me of the Grand Duke.
: The Grand Duke? Don't insult him. He has the real qualities of a proper Honkai: Star Rail antagonist. These people aren't even close.
...
The comments erupted into heated debate.
Some even brought up the Grand Duke Inferno.
But as one viewer pointed out, comparing the Duke to these researchers is basically insulting him.
The Duke's true "villain quality" lies in this: Only bad people feel the need to justify their actions.
Yet neither the Stellaron Hunters, nor Phantylia, nor Sunday ever tried to give excuses for what they did.
Their worldviews were internally consistent, and self-contained.
These people don't care about worldly morals, nor do they need to borrow anyone else's moral contradictions to prove the righteousness of their actions.
They believe acting in a certain way is correct, so they act that way.
This in itself is choosing one's own ideals.
And of course the Dr Primitive was among them.
The trait of a major Honkai: Star Rail villain has never been being "bad enough," but being rational enough, and having enough of a deep, genuine idea.
But Umbra Headmistress is different. The moment she said she was fighting for the Dr's future, she had already become a clown.
On this front, the Duke Inferno can completely crush fifty thousand Umbra Headmistress.
Even though he too fought for someone else's ideal, the Grand Duke never wavered from his single minded devotion.
And even knowing that doing so wouldn't draw Nanook's attention, he still chose to defend his values with his life.
This is the ironclad proof of not needing anyone else's approval to validate your correctness.
Because of this, Acheron personally sending the Grand Duke on his way was a form of respect.
So Umbra Headmistress's passionate speech didn't shake the Master Kucha in the slightest.
It only made him feel even more strongly that these people had completely gone mad.
In this place that is more cult-like than any cult, there are bound to be even more twisted people hiding among its members.
When Kucha watched helplessly as Rappa was pressured by Umbra Headmistress into undergoing human experimentation in his own name, and Rappa agreed out of gratitude for his kindness,
He finally couldn't hold it in anymore.
The trigger was Rappa refusing to obey Umbra Headmistress's order to tear up her comic book.
But Umbra Headmistress coerced her with, "You don't want to disappoint the Master Kucha, do you?", forcing her to compromise.
Yet this compromise didn't make Umbra Headmistress treat Rappa any better. Instead, after one experiment, she finally lost patience and wanted to destroy Rappa.
So, Kucha exploded on them.
In the chaos, Kucha begged Rappa to destroy the memetic shield protecting the facility with spray paint, to attract the Galaxy Rangers' attention.
When Rappa returned to his side, before Umbra Headmistress could come settle accounts with him, Kucha gave Rappa his final teaching.
This scene, the audience has seen before,
It was that deeply memorable moment, with the Master wearing the headgear, handing Rappa the spray paint… that scene.
Only the real truth was this bitter…
The world-weary Master Kucha forced himself to stay alert, and with an imposing tone, he repeated the lines again.
Then he looked at the newly determined Rappa, his expression impossibly complicated.
He sighed, placed his palms together, and waited for the final judgment.
Umbra Headmistress arrived, her face full of uncontrollable emotion,
Shock, panic, anger.
"H-How dare you deceive the experimental subject, your fellow research partners, and the Research Apes !?"
"The biggest mistake Laboratory 17 ever made was to allow a research fraud such as you to infiltrate this place!"
The Umbra Headmistress screamed hysterically at Kucha.
Kucha didn't argue. He only calmly told Rappa, that Umbra Headmistress was a follower of the evil ninja, and the apes behind her were also the same.
The result of the battle was unsurprising.
No matter how dissatisfied Umbra Headmistress was with Rappa, she couldn't deny it, Rappa was the strongest in this lab. A true superhuman.
"Look. This is what they call the "failed subject."
Seeing the wrecked lab and Rappa not even winded, Kucha laughed, his voice turning wild.
"We conducted this experiment together. We were the ones who shaped her into this: someone with unparalleled intelligence, extraordinary perception, and incredible power ..."
"You! @##¥ You're not human at all! I #%¥%!"
Everything Kucha had repressed finally erupted. He pointed at Umbra Headmistress's nose and cursed her out.
Umbra Headmistress was stunned that this always-submissive Kucha would dare shout at her.
Under blow after blow of failure, her eyes reddened. She began to scream curses, at Kucha, at Rappa, at all these failures.
She blamed her inability to complete the Dr Primitive's experiment entirely on the two of them.
Her source of confidence, was the Dr Primitive.
"You just wait! Dr Primitive will judge you all!"
"Sooner or later, the Doctor's wrath will destroy you! You worthless kindling without self-awareness!"
Her voice was completely hoarse.
But the fear she expected never came.
Kucha only looked at his former colleague with pity. "The Dr Primitive won't care about us."
Then he turned. "Rappa, the trial is over. You must leave."
Rappa said in shock, "But… Master Kucha, "
"Leave," he said decisively.
"... "
"Yes."
Rappa lowered her head and left.
After she left, Kucha took out the gun inside his robe and aimed it at Umbra Headmistress.
"You, what are you doing!?"
Umbra Headmistress's voice instantly turned terrified.
Even when Rappa defeated all combat apes, she hadn't reacted like this, but now she did.
Simply because she had always assumed Kucha would be too afraid of the Dr Primitive to ever lay a hand on her.
"Thanks to you, I finally understand, morality is nothing but an illusion and a chain."
"So I've decided to cast it aside."
Kucha's face was calm.
Umbra Headmistress, however, reacted in a way that would almost be laughable.
Her whole body trembled. "Friend, put, put the gun down, we've been together so many years, you can't-"
At a time like this, she suddenly remembered to call Kucha a friend again.
But Kucha only took a deep breath. In his final moment, he entered the ninja world he and Rappa had created, and spoke his last line in the Master's tone:
"Director Umbra Headmistress, recite your death words."
But Kucha didn't give her any chance to speak.
Bang!
The gunshot rang out.
Umbra Headmistress's twisted face froze in that moment.
Looking at his fallen former colleague, Kucha said bitterly:
"This… is karma."
The emotion was directed at Umbra Headmistress, and at himself.