"You can't!" Kiana spring up off the ground and clung to my leg.
"Why not?" I replied. "She is responsible for the deaths of tens of thousands here."
"Maybe… Maybe this is for the best." Mei said, "When I was like that, I couldn't control my behavior at all. If I go into that state again, I could hurt or kill more people…"
"..." Kiana didn't reply, but moved to stand in between me and Mei.
Hello? Isn't Kiana supposed to be extremely optimistic, say something profound, or even stupid, and then everyone agrees that saving Mei is the best move? What the hell happened here?
I looked around a little confused, before I heard the sound of metal rending behind me.
I turned around just in time to see Project Bunny rip the rooftop access door off of its hinges before throwing it off the side of the roof. Bronya arrived floating in through a cloud of concrete dust.
Holy crap that entrance was actually terrifying.
The effect was somewhat ruined a second later when the dust cleared and it revealed that Bronya was carrying a bright yellow Homu doll.
Kiana moved to protect Mei, which was good.
"Target identified, Raiden Mei, designation, third Herrscher." Bronya intoned in a monotone voice. Before Project Bunny raised its cannons to point directly at Mei and indirectly at Kiana.
"Stop! Stop! Mei isn't a Herrscher! She is human, just like everybody else!" Kiana said, holding out her hands to either side and standing in front of Mei, as if her body would be able to block the cannon shot. It's not like she was wearing a Valkyrie combat suit.
"Kiana…" Mei said in a voice that sounded full of emotion.
System?
[System: Mei's current affection level towards Kiana is currently 74, it just increased by 28 points.]
Where did the rest of the points come from?
[System: Kiana's speech when she was fighting the Herrscher, and her trying to get the original Mei back.]
Didn't hear that, must have been good though.
"I promised that I would always protect you a few days ago, and I meant every word. A Kaslana always keeps their word." Kiana said while looking at Mei, looking unexpectedly serious.
[System: Mei's current affection level towards Kiana is currently 86, it just increased by 12 points.]
"Wait, so you really meant all those things you said to me…" Mei started to blush and shake like a small animal, "I thought… I thought you were just trying to make fun of me like all the others."
[System: Mei's current affection level towards Kiana is currently 104, it just increased by 18 points.]
Whoa, that was fast. Already at confession territory? Looks like my plan was a success after all.
Mei and Kiana looked into each other's eyes. Mei's blushing caused Kiana to remember some of the things she had said to try and woo over Mei, causing her to start blushing as well.
It would have been a touching scene, however Bronya's cannon was still pointed directly at Kiana and Mei.
"Target HW readings, only slightly elevated. local area HW readings, down 40%. Target emotional state compromised. No hostility detected. Nominal threat, only 5%" Bronya read out the readings coming from Project Bunny and added her analysis afterwards. Still in her standard robotic tone, before lowering Project Bunny's Cannon.
Kiana sighed in relief, before suddenly jumping up from Mei's arms and saying, "Bronya! What are you doing here! And what's with that awesome robot! Where are you in the school?"
Guess Bronya infiltrated Chiba Academy for Cocolia, they probably prepared for having a longer time to scheme. They were almost certainly forced to move up the schedule due to Siegfried's investigations. Speaking of Siegfried, where is he? It's a Herrscher after all, and Kiana was facing it alone. He should be here even if it has the potential to agitate Sirin.
"The Bronya is unaware of the reason behind this eruption, however the Bronya detected extremely high HW readings from this building." Bronya stated.
A pretty bold faced lie, especially since she identified Mei as the Herrscher earlier, which she wouldn't have known unless she was aware of the truth behind the eruption.
Lucky for Bronya, both Kiana and Mei were too distracted to notice this key point.
"Herrscher failed to materialize, in conclusion, this is a nonstandard eruption." Bronya paused before adding, "I propose a joint operation for the remaining duration of the eruption."
So basically, Cocolia's plan has failed, and you want to monitor Mei.
"This is a good proposal." I quickly accepted on behalf of the group before anyone else could object.
I walked over and retrieved my pistol, which was still sitting on the floor.
She noticed Bronya was staring directly at me, "That is what you wanted, wasn't it?"
Bronya continued to stare at her before eventually starting. "ID match, Lee Edelhart, no documentation prior to April 2014. All documents updated from central database 6 days ago. Registered as attending Chiba Academy, no attendance records found. Conclusion, this identity is fabricated. Weapon identified, Alloy Dominator V1.8F, Schicksal Arms mass production model. Conclusion, you are a Schicksal operative."
"Schicksal, like the religion?" Mei asked.
"I am not a Schicksal operative, but there will be Schicksal operatives here soon. Our best chance of survival is to meet up with them. The far east branch is the closest, they will probably dispatch the Hyperion airship." I said.
Bronya didn't respond, maybe she hadn't actually decided to betray Cocolia yet.
I could probably push her over the edge by pointing out that Cocolia's plan had completely failed, and that she didn't care at all about human life. If she only needed the Herrscher core, why not just Kidnap Mei, why create an artificial eruption? The only ones who really wanted that was World Serpent, I don't know what they dangled before Cocolia to even make her try this stupid plan.
I decided against it, having knowledge of Cocolia's involvement in the eruption might make Bronya immediately target me. I could attempt to use Path energy in order to drain Project Bunny of Honkai energy, causing it to collapse back into a quantum state. But I don't know if it would work on something that was nonliving.
Then again, the power cells, and possibly the Honkai Zombies too. That would explain why the Path energy didn't heal them, it only neutralised the Honkai Energy leaving the bodies to collapse into dust.
Maybe I could find a way to show Bronya that I know it was Cocolia without letting her think I am one of Cocolia's operatives? I'll think about it while we walk.
"We should find a large open area and wait for evacuation." I said.
I started to walk towards the staircase. Before pausing, turning back around checking to confirm what I saw earlier, that Kiana was unarmed. Meaning that she had gone to confront the Herrscher of Thunder with absolutely no weapons.
"Your weapons are in your apartment?" I asked Kiana.
Kiana just nodded in response.
"Then let's go there first so that you and Mei can arm up." I thought for a moment before handing my gun to Kiana, before pulling my backpack off of my back and taking out the spare pistol, before loading in a new Honkai energy cell.
"Let's go." I said firmly before starting to walk towards the now doorless staircase.
Behind her she heard Kiana say to Mei, "Are you okay to walk? If needed I can carry you!"
Unfortunately for her the path energy had already healed any injuries Mei might have sustained in the fight with Kiana.
"Actually I don't feel injured at all, in fact, I feel pretty amazing right now." Mei said.
Walking down the staircase, I left through the alley emergency exit, which Bronya had apparently also ripped off its hinges and threw into the wall of the building across the alley, where it remained half embedded.
Turning to make sure I was actually being followed, I saw Kiana with Mei obediently following behind her, grabbing onto her left arm with both hands.
Walking out into the street, I was rudely interrupted by a rather large 2 story tall Honkai beast.
Pulling out my pistol, I shot it twice before realising it wasn't very effective. I needed to test out the effects of my path energy on a honkai beast, and since this one was rather slow and lumbering, it made for a good target.
I swapped my pistol to my left hand, noticing that Kiana had also emerged and was firing on the Honkai Beast.
I raised my hand to perform my attack before looking up just in time to see Bronya and Project Bunny fall from the roof of the building and perform a huge gravity punch on the Honkai Beast, causing it to collapse to the ground.
"Mission Complete" Bronya added with a flair of dramatic effect.
"Thanks" I said simply. I still hadn't tested my attack on a Honkai beast.
"Whoa, that was so cool!" Said Mei.
"What the Hell! You can't just do that! You could have hurt us instead!" Said Kiana, seemingly jealous of the attention Bronya was getting from Mei.
"End protection routine for subject Kiana. Set subject Kiana's mission status to expendable." Bronya said in response to Kiana's accusation.
"Oi you really want a war, huh brat! I'll show you!" Kiana said, before raising her pistol slightly as a threat.
"The Bronya has a victory chance of 99.999%" Bronya said while raising her chin.
"Oh yeah! Well I've got a 100% chance of winning!" Kiana said while looking frustrated.
Slightly shaking her head, Mei asked, "Why was that monster here? Where did it come from? Are we going to encounter more monsters like that?"
I resisted the urge to say because of you, which wasn't actually that true after all, since it was Cocolia who had forced the eruption to happen.
"There hopefully shouldn't be any more Honkai beasts that large in the immediate area, hopefully only some Seraph-Class or even just zombies." I said.
We started making our way towards Kiana's apartment, running lightly, project bunny and both Alloy Dominators taking out zombies before we reached them.
It was only a few blocks, but some of the zombies had come out of the buildings and into the streets.
Fortunately, Project Bunny's AOE attacks were quite effective against the groups of zombies.
Making our way through Kiana's apartment building, Project Bunny was too big for the tight corridors, and Bronya dismissed it back to quantum space. It seemed like most of the zombies were trapped in their own apartments, the power was out and all the electronic locking mechanisms were locked shut from the outside.
I used my gun to open the door, this time making sure to shoot the latch, and not the handle.
Making our way into the empty apartment, which had a brand new hole in its side from the Alloy Dominator. Kiana quickly placed the gun on the kitchen counter, before opening a random cabinet, a different one than before, and took out the gun case holding her dual pistols.
She said to Mei, "There is a shotgun in the closet of my bedroom, it's easy to find."
Grabbing back my Alloy Dominator, I moved to the couch before slumping on it.
"Okay, now that we are armed, what's next?" I asked.
"The Bronya has been monitoring all radio channels in the city, Schicksal's far east branch has indeed sent the Hyperion. ETA, 3 hours." Bronya responded.
That seemed kinda long, especially since St. Freya is supposedly on an artificial island just off the coast of Japan. But it was probably right, it seemed like the gang originally spent quite some time in Nagazora.
"Well, we might as well wait here until Hyperion arrives. We can venture out to the roof and hopefully ask for a lift from one of the landing craft."