The New Zealand Branch sat in the relative remoteness of the rural outskirts — far removed from the neon lights and gilded excess of the bustling city. Out here, away from the crowds, the night sky was an endless field of stars stretching to every horizon.
No matter how magnificent the view, it was always a person who had to do the looking.
A girl sat in a wheelchair beneath that sky.
Her shoulder-length hair was dark on the outside, a deep teal beneath, the ends curling faintly outward. Her pretty face was pale in a way that hinted at illness. She simply sat there, quietly gazing up at the night.
The warmth in her eyes — present as she first looked up at the stars — slowly drained away the longer she stared at the darkness behind them. The light in her gaze cooled and deepened, as though the temperature itself had left.
"Move! Move already!"
She strained, shoulders shaking with the effort, forcing the words out in a low, agonized cry. But no matter how hard she tried, those slender legs wrapped in bandages lay still as lead weights — utterly unresponsive.
"Why?! Why is it like this?!"
The effort yielded nothing. She dropped her head, gasping for breath, and fixed her legs with a stare that slowly curdled into something ugly.
She curled her lips back. The white line of gritted teeth flashed. Then she raised both hands into fists — and drove them down against her thighs with a desperate, keening force.
Wendy was a good girl. A perceptive, gentle soul. Back at St. Freya Academy, she had been Teacher Theresa's most outstanding student.
But no matter how soft a person's nature — having your legs destroyed, losing the freedom to walk — that was a devastating blow to anyone.
From a prodigy once predicted to become the fourth S-rank Valkyrie, to someone confined to a wheelchair, unable to move without difficulty. The gulf between those two lives was the kind of crushing fall that would break even a mentally resilient adult. To say nothing of a fourteen-year-old child.
In front of the other Valkyries, Wendy could put on the face of someone holding it together. She could perform strength.
For the first two months, she had even managed to maintain a positive attitude — cooperating with the researchers, searching for a path to recovery, or pushing to further integrate the gem.
But as the months stretched to half a year, the hope in Wendy's eyes guttered and went dark.
Once the fact was made clear that she would never stand, walk, or run again — in the solitude and silence of the night, alone — Wendy could no longer hold back what was festering inside her.
A voice, blurred and indistinct, seemed to stir somewhere in the back of her mind. Whispering. Inciting.
Why her?
It was because of those hypocritical bastards that her legs were ruined.
Kill them.
Kill them all. Destroy everything.
"No."
As if waking from a trance, Wendy shook her head sharply, trying to fling those demonic thoughts out of her skull.
"Even if my legs can't move, I can still fire a gun. I can still fight as a Valkyrie."
She pushed back against the voice murmuring in her subconscious.
"And besides — there might still be a way. The doctors all said so. There has to be a way."
Wendy murmured words she herself didn't believe.
— Ding-dong~!
At that exact moment, a bright, melodic chime rang out from the door.
The girl in the wheelchair snapped out of her half-delirious muttering in an instant. Wendy blinked, momentarily stunned — then smoothed her expression into a smile, a little strained at the edges.
"Come in."
Unlike the other Valkyries stationed at the branch, Wendy's quarters were not a standard dormitory. They were something closer to a modified detention room — overseen by guards, though none were posted inside at this hour. The door was secured with a passcode, and ordinary Valkyries were forbidden to approach except under special circumstances.
Wendy was mildly puzzled. Who would come to find her at this hour?
Was it time for another experiment?
The heavy metal door swung open. Wendy saw three figures step inside.
"Calling at this late hour is truly presumptuous of us. I do hope we haven't disturbed your rest, Miss Wendy."
The beauty in the rose maid's dress offered a gentle smile, dipping her head in an apologetic bow — graceful and perfectly proper.
"You're... L-Lady Rita!"
Wendy's surprise was immediate and unconcealed.
Even after half a year of confinement in this branch, she could recognize this woman at a glance.
One of [Schicksal]'s three S-rank Valkyries. Rita Rossweisse.
Rumor had it — sourced from the Valkyrie forum's gossip channels — that Miss Rita received no fewer than three figures' worth of love letters and bouquets every single month. The line of admirers hoping to court her could stretch all the way from the Grand Archbishop's figurine room to Durandal's bedroom, and still have room for more.
Like most Valkyries, Rita was one of the figures Wendy had always looked up to and admired. The nervousness of meeting a star in the flesh washed over her, and Wendy instinctively gripped her wheelchair's rims, moving to wheel herself over and pour tea for her guests.
"Calling unannounced was rude enough as it is. Please, Miss Wendy, don't trouble yourself."
Rita smiled and placed a light hand on the armrest of the wheelchair, stopping her gently.
"Lady Rita, did you come here to see me?" Wendy asked softly.
"Lady Bianca and Lady Silver Wolf wished to meet you. Ah — as for myself, I am merely a maid at present. No need to address me with honorifics."
Rita's voice was as soft as a breeze brushing your cheek.
"...?"
Lady?
Wendy blinked, understandably thrown, and looked past Rita toward the two girls standing behind her — both appearing to be around her own age. The golden-haired one might even be younger.
She had assumed they were Valkyries accompanying Rita. She had not expected Rita to address them as ladies.
Wait — Bianca. Wasn't that the name of the strongest S-rank Valkyrie, Durandal?
Everyone knew that name. Everyone. She was the aspiration of every single Valkyrie.
She was Wendy's idol.
But... something wasn't right.
Why did Lady Durandal look so young?
And — Lady Silver Wolf? She had never heard that name before. Was she a senior from Headquarters?
"Are you... Lady Durandal?" Wendy asked, treading carefully.
"It's me. Hello, Wendy. You can just call me Bianca."
Daylight activated auto-battle. The consciousness now piloting this small, young body was the Durandal of the future — and she let her gaze drift across the books arranged on Wendy's desk: Firearm Maintenance, A Comprehensive Guide to Valkyrie Armor, Military Logistics and Management.
"Even though your legs can no longer carry you — you haven't surrendered the chance to improve yourself. Even without the battlefield, you still burn to find another way to fight the Honkai."
A young, soft face and voice — yet the phrasing and cadence were those of the saintly Cecilia in her prime: mature, warm, utterly composed. Rita, standing to the side in the middle of brewing tea for everyone, stared so hard she overfilled the cup, tea spilling down the sides.
"You have a remarkably resilient spirit and tremendous room to grow. You will become an extraordinary Valkyrie one day — I'm certain of it."
From the perspective of the future Durandal, the tragedy that had befallen Wendy was undeniably [Schicksal]'s fault.
But...
...Sigh. The version of herself from this era was still being kept in the dark by Otto. Still too rigid. Too inflexible.
Too immature!
When I get back, I absolutely need to have a proper talk with my past self. I can't keep letting myself be used by Otto like this.
"Really?"
Wendy's face lit up with the joy of receiving her idol's recognition — then something seemed to occur to her. Her expression fell. She lowered her head, the light in her eyes gradually dimming.
"No... I'm actually... useless. I can't do anything."
"I can't control the power of the Gem of Desire. And because of the crystallization, my legs won't move anymore either."
Durandal hesitated briefly. "Why haven't they removed the crystal?"
She still remembered it — after the Fourth Eruption broke out, Wendy had been identified as the fourth Herrscher, and Headquarters had sent her to New Zealand to apprehend her. She had been ambushed en route by an Anti-Entropy fleet.
In truth, she had been sold out by her big aunt.
Her route had been shared only with Theresa. Theresa, in order to buy time for the Far East branch team, had relayed her position to Anti-Entropy — which was what triggered the ambush.
What made it even more mortifying for Durandal was the explanation her big aunt had given her afterward: 'Your route happened to overlap with the Golden Coast tourist trail that's been very popular lately. Anti-Entropy's forces were just there on holiday — what bad timing that they ran into you.'
And the worst part? Durandal had believed her.
Her big aunt had even brought it up to tease her and her little sister at a family gathering. An overly straightforward person and a fool are really the same thing~
— That particular excuse, naturally, had been dreamed up by her own impossibly adorable little sister.
Wendy said nothing. Her expression grew faintly shadowed.
"Lady Bianca — the reason is that the Gem of Desire is highly unstable in almost every known medium. But inside Miss Wendy's body, it has stabilized."
Rita, who had caught a glimpse of the classified experimental files, offered the explanation in a quiet, measured voice.
"So they've been using Wendy's body as a container just to preserve the Gem of Desire."
The small golden-haired girl's brow furrowed.
[Schicksal] in this era really is...
Sigh.
No — when I get back, I absolutely have to sit down and have a real conversation with my past self. I can't let myself keep being used by Otto.
"Bianca is right. Wendy — you have a unique gift. All you need is a little help, and you can bring out everything you're capable of."
Silver Wing's voice was gentle.
That she had been chosen by the Cocoon of Finality as a Herrscher candidate spoke for itself.
"Help?" Wendy looked at the unfamiliar silver-haired girl.
"That's right. Legs this beautiful going to waste — now that would really be a shame, wouldn't it?"
Silver Wing's gaze dropped to Wendy's bare feet, then traveled slowly upward along the bandaged, snow-pale legs.
Wendy: "?"
Rita: "?"
Durandal: "?"
A single sentence left all three of them staring blankly. Beautiful? What kind of adjective was that in this context?
"Alright, then — let's get out of here first."
Before any of the three could respond, Silver Wing smiled and gave a light wave of her hand.
"We're going outside? I'm in a wheelchair — moving around is a bit..." Wendy said, caught between surprise and hesitation.
"Not a problem. Project Bunny."
The steel giant materialized in answer to Silver Wing's command. Its enormous hand reached out and lifted Wendy — wheelchair and all.
"This is — is this a robot?! It just appeared!! And we're — we're flying!"
Like floating in low gravity, the sensation drew a cry of astonished delight from Wendy.
"Wendy — look at this."
Silver Wing settled herself onto Project Bunny's other palm and extended one slender leg — encased in pure white silk stockings — into the air.
Wendy turned her head at the prompt, eyes landing on the silver-haired girl's calf. "That's...?"
"Same as you — in a past experiment, my legs were badly damaged. I spent a long time in a wheelchair. But with this exoskeleton armor, I recovered the ability to walk."
Getting Wendy back on her feet was straightforward — all it would take was an exoskeleton frame. Yet [Schicksal] had never done this.
Silver Wing had every reason to suspect that whoever had been conducting experiments with the Gem of Desire had been scheming toward Herrscher-ification from the moment Wendy began directly interfacing with the gem.
"Really? Does that mean — Sister Bronya is saying that Wendy can recover one day too?"
The shared experience, the shared struggle — the possibility of recovery — in an instant, Wendy's warmth toward the silver-haired girl rocketed skyward.
She had jumped straight to calling her sister.
Not that it was wrong for a little Seele to call her that~
Wendy was the same age as Seele.
"Can I walk freely again? Can I fly through the sky too, like Sister Bronya?"
Wendy looked up at the silver-haired girl with bright, shining eyes full of longing.
"Of course. Definitely — and soon."
Silver Wing answered with a warm, steady smile.
In the original worldline, even Little Duck had been able to push Wendy's affection meter up to the point where Wendy, as a Herrscher, couldn't bring herself to harm her — and all of that in an extremely short span of time.
For Caelus, operating at a considerably higher level — this much was child's play.
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