"I see… so that's what happened… I understand…"
Himeko murmured to herself, working hard to digest the explosive information.
And yet that elegant, graceful face of hers, like a piece of fine porcelain, began to show hairline fractures - fractures by the name of Cognitive Collapse.
In the end her formidable command of her own expression failed outright. She couldn't keep a straight face.
Understand it, her foot!
She knew Miss Ruan Mei had an eccentric temperament. She could sense the inhuman detachment beneath that flawless shell, could even faintly perceive the bottomless core inside her, unfathomable as the Cave of Sangharama.
But!
Packing herself up, body and all, and handing it over as a gift?!
Wasn't that a little too insane, a little too avant-garde, a little too -
Well, what else would you expect from a Genius?
Purely in terms of personality, every last member of the Genius Society had a killer specialty.
Herta counted as the most normal of the bunch.
"Then… and who is this?"
Himeko drew a deep breath, trying to press down the tangle of emotions churning in her chest. Her gaze left Stelle-Mei and moved to the figure at the very back of the group.
It was a stunning beauty whose exquisite features could hold their own against Ruan Mei's - and whose figure was arguably a shade better.
A face lovely as a painting, wearing a girlish, lively smile; a close-fitting pure white dress that traced every heart-stopping curve and a pair of long, straight, jade-smooth legs.
White hair fell like a waterfall, making her skin look whiter than snow.
The girl seemed to feel Himeko's gaze. She winked her left eye playfully and waved with a smile.
The radiance that bloomed in that instant left even the well-traveled Himeko briefly dazzled.
"This one… is a new friend of yours?"
Just then Welt, barely recovered from the mental trauma inflicted by the coffee, was pressing a hand to his forehead and trying to find his balance.
He struggled to his feet, shook his still-swimming head, and let his eyes sweep the carriage out of habit - landing squarely on the gaze of the white-haired beauty.
The girl smiled brilliantly and gave him a friendly nod in greeting.
That friendly nod hit Welt like a thunderclap out of a clear sky.
A current shot up from the soles of his feet straight through the crown of his skull.
Yu - Yutu!?
Honkai!
The Honkai was still chasing him!?
"Himeko, let me introduce you."
Stelle sprang to the white-haired girl's side with that trademark smug grin, hooked the other's pale, soft hand with total naturalness, and snuggled in close. "Behold! This is my new wife - Cecilia-chan~!"
"Are you sick in the head? What wife?"
March 7th planted both hands on her hips, arched her brows, and deployed the full brow-raised dead-fish-eye retort. "So any pretty girl is automatically your wife? And that isn't even her name!"
"Aw, don't be mad, Ah Qi~"
Stelle switched instantly into heartfelt mode, one hand laid gracefully over her chest, eyes straining to convey the utmost sincerity. "You have to believe me. You'll always be my one true love, the apple of my eye~"
Stelle kept her hand pressed elegantly to her heart, the picture of devotion.
"You… honestly…"
March 7th, choked by that utterly insincere declaration of love, rolled her eyes and turned helplessly to her side for backup. "Uncle Yang, say something- Uncle Yang? You look awful!"
Old Yang was staring fixedly at the empty air in front of him, and only came back to himself when March 7th called out.
"My apologies."
Welt pushed the black-framed glasses up his nose. His fingers were trembling slightly, enough that the glasses trembled with them.
His throat felt dry, and his voice came out a little hoarse. "Stelle, what did you just say her name was? I didn't catch it."
His stomach had never given him trouble before, but today, unusually, it ached - a tight, twisting cramp.
It couldn't be Himeko's coffee. Could it?
"Hello, Mr. Welt. My name is Celia."
A smile touched the white-haired girl's lips, her aquamarine eyes clear all the way to the bottom, like holy light pouring down to wash away every shadow in the world.
It did nothing to wash away Welt's stomachache. If anything it acted as a catalyst, and the cramp deepened several degrees at once.
In the end it was the name itself that worked like a shot of strong painkiller, temporarily numbing that churning gut.
Celia… not Cecilia.
Thank goodness… thank goodness!
Welt felt his strung-tight nerves slacken by a fraction.
After all, the Galaxy Universe held countless similar worlds, all of them with a Bronya and a Seele and a Sushang wearing the exact same face. One more hardly broke the pattern, did it?
The breath hadn't fully left him before another thought shot up and made his brow twitch again.
Hold on!
She just called me by name?
"You know me?"
"Of course I do~"
Lia's smile was bright and lovely. She ticked the items off on her fingers, reeling them off like a waiter rattling through a menu. "The savior who saved the world, the ace pilot of Arahato, the second Herrscher of Reason…"
Lia counted off title after title without pause, and with each one Welt's face twitched a little more. His stomach started hurting again.
"…"
Old Yang stayed silent for a long while, breathing deeply over and over, forcing himself to lift his eyelids and nail his gaze to that pure, innocent, saintly face. There was a barely perceptible tremor in his voice. "I'd like to ask - how do you know all that? Are you… could you possibly be…"
By the end, his tone had begun to shake in earnest.
"That's right. It's me."
The white-haired beauty set both hands on her hips and tilted her chin up, wearing a triumphant expression that said, oh dear, no hiding it any longer, so I'll just come right out with it~
"!!!"
Old Yang's pupils shrank to pinpoints. His breath stopped dead, his mind went blank, and only one terrified thought echoed through it like a curse: the Honkai really is still chasing me.
The words all but tore themselves out of him. "Cecilia?"
"Kono - Abyss Flower - da!"
Copying the pose Stelle had struck earlier, she jabbed a thumb at herself with boundless pep and announced it with a beaming smile.
"…"
"???"
His head tilted slightly, his eyes went hollow, and you could practically see a row of gigantic question marks rising off his temples.
A photo of that moment would have made a perfect reaction meme.
"Abyss Flower?"
Himeko was the first to shake off Welt's strange behavior and that bizarre declaration. Her brows drew together. "Isn't that Seele's weapon? How could it-"
She stopped mid-sentence, her gaze flicking rapidly between Celia, Stelle and Caelus. "Wait! Don't tell me…?"
A weapon turned into a beautiful girl?
"Same situation as Leylah," Caelus said with a nod.
Old Yang caught on at almost the same moment Himeko did.
He had witnessed Caelus awakening Leylah with his own eyes.
Whew. A false alarm.
His stomach settled instantly.
Old Yang raised a hand without thinking and wiped away cold sweat that wasn't there.
Over in one corner of the carriage, Stelle, Stelle-Mei and a puffed-up, indignant March 7th were staging a full chase-and-scramble farce.
Haxxor Bunny was still sprawled on the couch, playing dead and regenerating HP.
Little Duck had huddled up with White Seele and Black Seele, excitedly swapping newly discovered game tricks. Caelus watched and shook his head again and again - couldn't they see Little 'White' Seele didn't understand a word of it?
Duck-Duck, oh Duck-Duck, keep this up and you just might lose to Bunny!
Himeko and Old Yang, meanwhile, were quizzing Caelus about everything that had happened lately. He'd been gone a matter of days and had already produced "Ruan Mei gifting her body" and "a weapon turning into a girl." Their talent for causing chaos was frankly against the laws of nature!
"Ahem."
A crisp, loud cough cut through the bustle of the Parlor Car.
Everyone turned toward the sound. Pom-Pom came marching in on short furry legs, doing its level best to look dignified.
The Cold-faced Little Azure Dragon followed behind it.
"Everyone's here already, so we can get straight into the Express meeting," Pom-Pom announced, puffing out its little chest.
"Are we departing?"
Haxxor Bunny, who had been flopped on the couch topping up her HP, shot upright as if a spring had been released, rolling over and popping to her feet.
It was a clean, quick flip, a movement fully worthy of the name "Haxxor Bunny." This was her first time riding the Astral Express, her first time crossing the vast sea of stars!
Her first time riding the Express to trailblaze the star sea.
So exciting!
A train that ran through the Galaxy!
"That's right, pom! The Express is departing any moment now, pom."
Pom-Pom's little hand pointed out the window.
Outside, the long, elegant Astral Express was pulling smoothly away from the VIP platform of the Luofu's Jade Gate, its wheels rolling over unreal star-tracks as the bustling scenery of the Xianzhou slid slowly away behind it.
Haxxor Bunny ran straight to the observation window and looked down at the receding Luofu, excitement she couldn't suppress written all over her face, her eyes shining.
"Woo-hoo~ This feels amazing~!" The cry slipped out of her, bright with delight.
"Bronie, come over here, this is the best viewing spot! This young lady spent ages field-testing it."
March 7th cheerfully recommended the prime seat to the newcomer.
"Here?"
Haxxor Bunny walked over.
"Not so fast."
Caelus sauntered up and draped an arm over Haxxor Bunny's slender, soft shoulder with perfect ease.
"Wait until the Express accelerates into deep space. That's the real show."
As if to prove him right, the Astral Express's engines let out a low, powerful hum, and its speed climbed noticeably.
Through the huge viewport, the world in Haxxor Bunny's eyes began to change faster and faster.
The Xianzhou's outline contracted rapidly. The train shuddered almost imperceptibly, as though it had punched through some invisible barrier.
The view outside was drawn instantly into countless streaking lines of light, and in a matter of seconds the enormous Xianzhou below shrank from a whole world into a single ship adrift against the dark.
"It really is a boat."
Haxxor Bunny had known perfectly well that a Xianzhou was, by definition, a vessel - but this was the first time she'd seen the whole of one with her own eyes.
Her field of vision opened all at once. The deep, boundless dark of the universe unfurled before her like a vast velvet curtain, and rushing up to meet her came a sea of stars so dense it blazed.
Enormous nebulae, like colored paint splashed across that curtain, turned slowly and gave off a dreamlike, mysterious glow.
Space itself seemed to flow. Starlight stretched into fine threads of light, weaving a shimmering corridor beyond the window that led away into the unknown.
"Whoa!"
Haxxor Bunny stared, a little dazed.
Gorgeous!
"All right, you can come and watch any time you like, pom."
Pom-Pom had waited patiently for the first-time passenger to enjoy the entire process of departure and settling into cruising speed before steering the conversation to business.
"All passengers should already know, pom: this trip's destination is the Planet of Festivities, Penacony."
"Even this Conductor knows how long everyone has been looking forward to that famously luxurious hotel among the stars, but before we set out there are three things I have to remind you all about."
As it said this, Pom-Pom looked pointedly at Stelle and Caelus.
Pom-Pom was genuinely fond of these two passengers. With them aboard, the Express felt like it had gone back to the old days - just a bit too far back.
The one comfort was that Caelus wouldn't blow up the train, and he really did follow the rules. He also followed absolutely nothing that lay outside them.
And he had a gift for finding loopholes in them.
"First: Asdana, where Penacony is located, is a star system saturated with Memoria. Historically it was one of the great cavities where the Memoria Realm leaked through, and even after several thousand years the Memoria concentration ahead of us is still above average."
"Normally it doesn't cause any real problems… but everyone's constitution is different. If you experience dizziness, hallucinations, memory disturbances or anything of that sort, do not take it lightly, pom!"
"Second: Penacony is Family territory, and this is the first time the Family has openly extended invitations to other factions. Remember, the Express is going as an invited guest. The rules that ought to be observed must be observed."
Pom-Pom shot another glance at Stelle and Caelus. The pair sat like model students giving the lecture their undivided attention, backs straight, and when they caught Pom-Pom looking they nodded earnestly.
"When in Rome, right? Relax, Conductor, we won't embarrass the Nameless."
Having said that, March 7th reached out and lightly took hold of one of Stelle's ears in one hand and one of Caelus's in the other, all the airs of a pert little girlfriend. "You two little tyrants hear that?"
"Wifey, you get me," Caelus said, solemn and sincere.
"Ditto," Stelle chimed in.
"It's precisely because I get you that I'm warning you!"
March 7th wasn't about to be taken in by Caelus's dignified expression.
Caelus wasn't a super-adorable little boy anymore!
Then came the third point, which was less a requirement than a request. Pom-Pom hoped everyone could set aside some time to help ask around for news of several of the Nameless.
So the third item, sure enough, was not the matter of the Astral Express actually being able to transform into a giant robot, which left Stelle badly disappointed - though tracing the old Nameless, and Penacony itself, were attractive enough to make up for it.
"That concludes this route's meeting, pom. There's still a while before the Warp, so everyone is free to do as they please."
The Express only initiated a Warp once it reached the edge of a star system, which meant a stretch of travel within the system itself, the length depending on the system's size.
Given the scale of the system the Luofu was currently in, it would likely take half a month. Not long, not short.
Caelus looked at the 2,289 Crystals on his System interface, and heat kindled in his eyes.
Time for a long-overdue round of pulls!
Caelus glanced at the Xianzhou Luofu.
Never mind. Better to wait until the train got a little farther away first.
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