"Aaaahhhh—!"
The air filled with the charred scent of roasted flesh, as if fresh meat had been scorched on a grill. Collapsing backward into rubble and shattered glass, Shu Ouma's brows twisted together in disbelief and terror.
His "Power of the King" was gone.
Thud.
His body curled involuntarily. His left hand pressed down unconsciously on the wound where his arm had been severed. The fragile, carbonized "scab" formed by the instant high temperature split apart at once. As his heartbeat accelerated violently, thick blood broke through the crude layer of cauterization created by the heat and streamed down onto the ground.
The effects of adrenaline began to fade. The metallic tang of blood, the burnt aroma of cooked flesh, the lingering warmth against his palm...
All of it made the throat of this underage, cowardly boy bob as stomach acid churned upward.
He had seen corpses before. He had seen worse.
But this blood was his.
This smell of cooked meat came from his own body.
That was entirely different.
"Ugh—"
Suddenly, Shu braced himself on one hand and began retching. His crimson eyes were bloodshot. The retching turned into voiceless sobbing, then into hoarse howls—like a wounded wolf crying across a midnight wilderness. Pain, anger, and hatred intertwined within the miserable sound.
Beneath her sealed helmet, Alvitr indifferently tossed the severed right arm—still containing what the local experimental research group called the "Power of the King"—backward.
"Catch. The Science Bureau wants this as a rare sample. Prepare to withdraw and regroup with Susannah."
"Yes, Captain Alvitr."
Another Valkyrie, likewise clad in sealed armor bearing the Valkyrie floral insignia, caught the limb and placed it into a portable sealed container.
Just as Alvitr turned to leave, a stubborn and foolish voice called out.
"R-return it... That's mine. I need it to find Inori..."
She stopped.
"What a contradictory person. Even now, you still want it?"
Turning her head, she looked at Shu Ouma. His brown hair clung wetly to his face, mixed with dust and grit like mud. Snot ran from his nose and mouth. Beneath her visor, Alvitr's brows furrowed slightly, crimson eyes flickering with mockery.
"When you refused to use that power—when you chose to run away, to abandon your Funeral Parlor comrades and crawl back here to hide—you forfeited any right to wield this so-called 'Power of the King' again."
"King? You are unworthy of that title."
She despised cowards.
The Valkyries despised cowards.
The Imperial military despised cowards even more.
From the real-time intelligence Susannah had sent regarding Funeral Parlor and its leader Gai Tsutsugami—and Shu Ouma's recent conduct—judged solely by actions and not by inner thoughts, regardless of stance, from the perspective of the Imperial military ethos—
Shu Ouma was a soldier. A soldier possessing a unique and powerful ability.
Yet when his organization needed him most, he fled.
That was desertion.
Had he been captured in battle, or even defeated and surrendered outright, Alvitr might have regarded him with a trace of respect. The Imperial military would have assessed him based on the damage he caused—perhaps conscripting him, perhaps executing him. Even execution would be preceded by decent treatment and a clean beheading, without unnecessary humiliation.
But Shu's avoidance—his fear of his own power and his refusal to use it after joining Funeral Parlor—was precisely what disgusted her.
Perhaps he had the potential to change.
The Empire had no patience to play psychologist or life mentor.
"No! I'm not— The power of the Void uses people's hearts. I can't abuse it—"
"Hatred."
Beyond the shattered wall, the burning city cast an orange-red glow, staining Alvitr in blood-colored light. She interrupted him roughly and turned around.
"I saw hatred in your eyes."
She stared into Shu Ouma's bloodshot gaze. Her voice was low, tinged with reluctant inevitability—as though she were about to do something distasteful once more.
Click.
A round chambered.
The blade-rifle leveled at Shu's head. The edge glinted coldly. The dark barrel exuded bone-chilling menace. Like muffled thunder descending upon the world, Shu instantly shrank back. The fragile courage he had mustered vanished without a trace.
"..."
Though he said nothing, his eyes screamed: I don't want to die.
"Goodbye. Cowardly yet strangely brave boy. If you choose to run, run to the very end. Why turn brave now? You didn't have to die."
The Valkyrie corps had always been the model force embodying the Sacred Selene Empire's benevolent morality.
That had never changed.
But Valkyries differed among themselves. The St. Freya faction and the Schicksal headquarters faction were well-known examples of contrasting styles. And the Imperial military was a vast crucible.
It was true that fighting side by side, Valkyries had softened the brutality of other Imperial units.
But they, too, were influenced.
More decisive methods.
More pragmatism.
Fewer unrealistic, naive illusions.
Bang!
The headless corpse slowly knelt before collapsing. The shattered skull burst open like a split white watermelon, viscous brain matter spraying outward.
"Mission complete. Withdraw."
Lowering her blade-rifle, Alvitr tapped her visor.
She had originally intended only to take Shu's right arm—the host of the Void Genome—and leave. Let the deserter continue hiding. He was not an Imperial soldier. Unless unavoidable, she did not delight in killing.
But that flare of hatred—his renewed intent to use the "Power of the King"—meant he might act again.
So he had to be eliminated.
"Inori... Inori Yuzuriha? The EGOIST singer. Funeral Parlor operative."
Consulting the database, Alvitr spread her hand slightly.
Did he harden himself at the very end for love?
Before she arrived, he truly seemed to have been struggling—debating whether to use his power to search for someone.
"Captain... is that what love is?"
After firing warning shots that drove off the cautious students of Tennouzu First High School who had been peeking nearby, a Valkyrie member looked thoughtfully in a certain direction.
A girl with brown hair and eyes, petite twin tails tied neatly at shoulder length, was being dragged away by classmates, crying as though a cuckoo weeping blood.
"Seems someone liked this Shu Ouma... The tactical manual says to eliminate threats at the root—"
She made a throat-slitting gesture.
Thwack!
"Ow!"
"You're getting carried away." Alvitr withdrew her fist irritably.
"What, planning to massacre the whole school? Shu Ouma is one thing—he's a special case as a Void Genome host and a Funeral Parlor member who's seen combat. Eliminating a potential recurring threat is justified. But a bunch of ordinary students? Teenage infatuation. It burns fast and fades fast. Nothing more."
"Oh. Captain Alvitr really knows a lot," the subordinate said with exaggerated admiration.
"Cough, cough... enough about that. Remember, we are Valkyries who fight for all that is beautiful. Killing to stop killing is permissible—but indiscriminate slaughter is not. Violence must have justification. Otherwise, how are we any different from those brutish warmongers?"
"Also, bring Shu Ouma's body. A product of genetic programming—there may still be some use for it..."
...
"The former technician has finally grown into someone capable of standing on her own. As expected of Alvitr—the one once jokingly given the 'honorary' title of tool person. Decisive yet not devoid of mercy, unwilling to determine another's life based purely on personal likes and dislikes."
Durandal withdrew her gaze from the screen and spoke to those in the room.
She had seen the flicker of compassion in Alvitr when she had initially intended to spare Shu Ouma. It was he who failed to grasp that chance. And Durandal fully approved of Alvitr restraining the other Valkyrie who had suggested eliminating the students as well.
They could kill.
But they would not slaughter without cause.
Violence required justification.
If it had been a rougher Imperial unit, the mere possibility of those students harboring thoughts of revenge over the mission target might have been enough reason to preemptively massacre Tennouzu First High School and their entire families to eliminate future trouble.
"Alvitr did well," Rita said with a gentle smile, hands clasped lightly together.
The two stood within the GHQ Tokyo Bay Headquarters Central Control Room in District 24. Pale blue holographic data projections filled the space. Kiana, Raiden Mei, Fu Hua, and the others were manipulating the displays with evident curiosity.
"And Susannah as well. The once reckless mascot has finally become reliable. Her work attitude is serious. Though there are still flaws and the occasional lapse in focus, she's handling battlefield data collection and analysis quite well."
Turning her head, Rita's wine-red eyes reflected the blonde, golden-eyed girl before her—adorned with soft bear-ear-like hair accessories and dressed in gem-studded attire that screamed wealth—as she offered praise.
Within the chaotic projections, one section had already been meticulously organized and categorized by Susannah, arranged in neat order.
"Hehehe... Lady Rita overpraises me," the energetic gem-like girl said, pausing her work. She beamed, then shyly twisted her body—
"Ah—ah—my toolbox!"
In her excitement, Susannah accidentally knocked over her toolbox on the console, scrambling to stabilize both it and the connected data cables and servo processors.
"..."
Rita stared silently.
"I believe I must retract my earlier statement. Susannah, you still require further tempering."
"Waaah!"
Shaking her head and ignoring Rita's strict instruction toward her former Immortal Blades junior, Durandal shifted her attention to the data projection in front of Kiana.
"GHQ? The multinational force stationed in Japan during the Lost Christmas Incident. Later it assumed administrative authority from the Japanese government. Established under a United Nations resolution as Japan's provisional ruling organization. Kiana, why are you focusing on this? Has the GHQ high command submitted a surrender document?"
"No. The Lost Christmas Incident. The meteor impact. The Origin Stone. The Apocalypse Virus progenitor. The first infected..."
At this moment, Kiana's fingertip hovered over a single name.
Mana Ouma.
"With the arrival of the Origin Stone, the Apocalypse Virus began to spread. Mana Ouma would mature as 'Eve,' triggering the Fourth Apocalypse on a global scale. Life would be culled together and ushered into evolution."
Reading from the compiled database—assembled from records of various factions and aggregated memories—Kiana clicked her tongue, brows knitting.
"These scientists are really infuriating. The Ouma family..."
For the sake of research—without responsibility, without reverence, without adequate safety measures—a single person, a single family's tragedy had unfolded. And then the entire world paid the price.
Even knowing she had no moral high ground to judge—she, a planetary governor who held the fate of billions in her hands, her elder sister even more so, a ruler whose will was the Empire itself—still, it left a bitter taste.
The instinctive disdain of a self-styled incorruptible administrator toward selfish incompetence.
"I've read the report. The accompanying Science Bureau personnel have already compiled a document on weaponizing the Apocalypse Virus and submitted it upward," Raiden Mei added.
"The Science Bureau always shows boundless enthusiasm toward new phenomena and elements. Based on the Apocalypse Virus' ability to activate via specific frequency-based genetic resonance, infiltrate the host's genome, and explosively proliferate—resulting in tissue crystallization—they believe research into this virus could enrich the Empire's stockpile of non-hazardous detonation devices."
Fu Hua was long accustomed to the temperament of the Imperial Science Bureau.
"Why so many varieties? Virus bombs—every time they maintain them and haul them into ship armories, I've hardly seen them used. Whether it's the Navy, auxiliary forces, or servitor troops, most units don't even have the habit of using virus bombs, do they?"
Kiana frowned in confusion. Viral weapons were never a pleasant term. She had never used them.
"Someone will use them. How does that saying go...?" Fu Hua coughed lightly. "Insufficient firepower anxiety. I may not use it—but I must have it."
She folded her arms and chuckled softly, clearly recalling someone's maxim about armaments—the more the better.
"This is just..." Kiana covered her face.
"Stop pretending to complain after benefiting from it. Focus on your own jurisdiction. Don't overthink it. This modern world, having completed three industrial revolutions, is more than enough for your governor's office to digest. Deliver the Origin Stone and the Apocalypse Virus progenitor upward and exchange them for technical guidance from the Science Bureau and the Department of Fabrication. It won't be difficult."
Durandal patted her younger governor-sister's shoulder earnestly.
"Y-you all... with that tone—am I really that immature in your eyes?"
"What do you think?" Raiden Mei replied, smiling warmly.
For a fleeting moment, Kiana thought she saw maternal radiance flickering on Mei's face.
Directed at her.
Too dazzling!
"Hmph... fine! I won't bother with you all. This Governor is going to deal with the soul-consciousness issue of 'Eve' Mana Ouma."
"Yes, yes. Governor Kiana," they answered in unison.
...
Elsewhere—Honkai Dimension, the Imperial Capital.
"Achoo."
After rinsing her mouth and washing her face, shaking off the remnants of a midday nap, Selene strolled leisurely along the imperial avenue leading toward the outer court.
She was about to receive a group of special guests.
A group wailing that they were the true believers of the Emperor.
A group clamoring to join the Empire's Department of Fabrication and contribute bricks and mortar to Selene's grand enterprise.
"Strike the great bell."
"Sing in unison—praise the Omnissiah! Praise the Omnissiah!"
"The Omnissiah knows all and understands all!"
...
Outside the hall, listening to the booming chants infused with the greasy timbre of machine oil devotion, Selene knew perfectly well.
Her list of honorific titles was about to grow longer again.
The Omnissiah.
The Machine God.
—
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