Chapter 103: Who Abandoned You?
"Do you know this girl?" Himeko slid the satellite photograph across the console toward Rovel.
Rovel leaned in, his eyes widening slightly. "...Gasai Yuno?" He blinked, then shook his head, correcting himself. "No, wait, her name should be Asaka Yuno." He tapped his temple lightly, jogging his memory.
"I... accidentally saved her once, way back when I was at Chiba Academy..." Rovel gave Himeko a brief, abridged version of the events.
"A hero saving a damsel in distress? How cliché." Himeko cast a sideways glance at him, a smirk playing on her lips. "How is it that you seem to be involved in everything, Rovel?"
"An accident! It was a complete accident, I swear," Rovel insisted, holding up his hands defensively. "I had no intention of playing the hero. I just wanted to teach some annoying thugs a lesson, and I happened to run into her by chance."
He sighed, leaning back in his chair. "After that, the game world was locked to Descenders for two weeks, so I never had any further contact with her. The next thing I knew, I heard from Mei that she'd been asked to leave the Kendo Club after failing the evaluation. I have no idea what happened to her after that." Rovel spread his hands, a look of pure innocence on his face.
"Fine, I get it." Himeko waved a dismissive hand, her expression turning serious. She decisively pointed a thumb at the screen displaying Asaka Yuno's distorted energy signature. "You're on point. Go negotiate with her in a bit. I'll cover you from behind."
"Alright then," Rovel agreed with a simple nod.
Aboard the Hyperion, the lighthearted banter evaporated. The appearance of a potential Herrscher was no laughing matter, and a grim professionalism settled over the bridge. Every action had to be taken with the utmost seriousness.
After several hours of flight, the familiar, broken skyline of Nagazora City appeared on the horizon once again.
Looking down from the viewport, the city was in an even more dilapidated state than when they had left it just a few days prior. The streets were scarred, buildings stood like hollowed-out skeletons, and the occasional Death Soldier or Honkai Beast still wandered the desolate avenues like mindless ghosts.
Chiba Academy was the epicenter of the decay. Countless thorny, unnatural vines, pulsating with a faint violet light, had completely engulfed the main school building. The once pristine campus was now a wild, overgrown ruin, and through the shattered windows of the corridors, the shambling silhouette of a Death Soldier could be seen.
"Ai-chan, activate nuclear furnaces five and six," Himeko's voice was sharp, cutting through the low hum of the bridge. "Prepare to interface with the 'Nexus System' at a moment's notice. Descend the Hyperion to an altitude of two hundred meters in two minutes."
"Wait, Major Himeko, are you sure?" Ai-chan's holographic form flickered with concern. "That system isn't fully perfected yet! Engaging it could put a massive, dangerous load on your body!"
"It's a necessary precaution. Our opponent is a Herrscher, after all. We can't afford to be careless," Himeko stated, her voice firm. She was already clad in her crimson battlesuit, its metallic plates gleaming under the bridge lights as she stood fully armed and ready for battle.
Far below, Asaka Yuno raised her head. Her once-bright eyes were now dull and lifeless, and she stared quietly at the descending form of the Hyperion.
The thorns strangling Chiba Academy seemed to sense her focus, retracting inward for a brief, tense moment.
But in the next second, they erupted. With the force of rockets, the vines shot skyward, weaving themselves into a gigantic, thorny net that lunged directly for the warship.
"Activate the protective field!" Himeko ordered instantly.
An invisible barrier of energy shimmered into existence around the Hyperion. The thorn-net slammed into it, erupting in a blinding shower of violent sparks. The sheer force of the collision sent a deep shudder through the entire battleship.
"Tsk, so unfriendly," Himeko muttered, her brow furrowed in annoyance. She turned to Rovel. "Let's go. We'll head down and try our luck. Maybe she'll snap out of it after seeing you," she said, her tone half-joking.
"That seems a bit too optimistic."
Despite his words, Rovel vaulted over the deck railing without hesitation. As he fell, the distinct shape of three glowing magatama materialized on his back. His hair bled from black to a pale, pinkish-white, and a pair of fluffy fox ears sprouted from the top of his head.
"I've been meaning to ask since last time," Himeko called out as she descended beside him, "are those rabbit ears or donkey ears?"
"...They're fox ears!"
The two landed simultaneously, kicking up a small cloud of dust and debris. As the dust began to settle, the thorny vines that had been closing in on their position hesitated, pulling back slightly.
Asaka Yuno stared at the newcomers, and for the first time, a flash of disbelief crossed her lifeless eyes.
"Classmate... Rovel...?" A few broken syllables escaped her lips, barely a whisper.
A notification Rovel hadn't expected pinged silently in his mind.
[Name: Asaka Yuno, Level:???, Affection: 100%!]
This was only the second person he had ever encountered whose affection—or in this case, obsession—had reached a perfect 100. The first had been the Death Soldier he had saved, Asakura Miyuki.
"Asaka Yuno. Long time no see," Rovel greeted her, his voice calm and even.
"Classmate Fang Ruobai... I thought you..." Asaka Yuno seemed flustered, a stark contrast to her previous catatonia. The corners of her mouth unconsciously curled into a smile, her entire being radiating an exceptional, almost manic excitement at his arrival.
"I'm fine," Rovel said, his gaze softening with a hint of pity. He gestured to the thorny chaos around them. "But look at you. How did you end up like this?"
"What's wrong with me? I feel great!" Asaka Yuno lifted her head, her green eyes now filled with a disturbing, ecstatic pleasure. "Classmate Fang Ruobai, why am I always the unfortunate one? My mother always hated me, scolding me for the slightest mistake. My classmates always shunned me, bullied me..."
Her voice grew stronger, laced with a chilling glee. "But those annoying people are all dead now! And I've gained a power that surpasses every single one of them!"
She spread her arms wide, a messianic look on her face. "I... am the chosen one!"
As if responding to her declaration, the surrounding thorns began to writhe and twist violently.
Her gaze snapped back to Rovel, a wounded, accusatory look filling her eyes. "Classmate Fang Ruobai, why did you leave? Why did you... abandon me, just like all those other people?"
Rovel let out a long, heavy sigh. "I feel for your misfortune, I truly do. But you seem to have misunderstood something. You were the one who wanted to join the Kendo Club. Mei explained the evaluation process to you clearly."
He took a step forward, his voice steady and clear, cutting through her delusion. "You could have changed your situation through your own hard work, yet you chose to place that so-called hope entirely on me, a practical stranger."
"I'm just an ordinary person. I can't know everything, and I certainly can't fix all the injustices in this world."
His final words landed with surgical precision. "Asaka Yuno, I never abandoned you. It was you... who abandoned yourself."
Rovel's words were like the tip of a scalpel, methodically and mercilessly piercing through the layers of naivety and innocent fantasy she had wrapped around herself.
She was so similar to Asakura Miyuki, he realized. But where Miyuki was defined by her cowardice, Asaka Yuno used the idea of romance as an excuse—a shield to avoid effort, to avoid facing reality, all while praying for a fairy-tale prince to descend from the sky and save her from herself.
"That's not it... it's not..." Her hands flew to her head, clutching her hair. "Right... no, you're not my Classmate Fang Ruobai! He would never say such cruel things to me! NEVER!"
Asaka Yuno stared at him, her mind unable to reconcile the man standing before her with the idealized hero in her head. The Honkai had not only twisted her personality to its most extreme, but it had also amplified her fantasies of him into an unbreakable gospel.
Now, at this moment, the shattering of that gospel caused her to break completely. She fell into a total, screaming frenzy.
'The negotiation failed... As expected,'Rovel thought, closing his eyes for a brief moment.'Are all girls named Yuno yanderes?'
She was fundamentally unable to accept her own shortcomings. Even if he had played along, if he had truly "rescued" her, the weakness in her heart would have remained. In that state of mind, how could she ever hope to overcome herself, let alone the corrupting influence of the Honkai?
Since reason had failed, only one answer remained.
Rovel's hand went to his side, drawing the Prototype Pulse Katana. In a flash of light, the sleek, modern blade transformed in his hand, its physical form dissolving into the shimmering, ethereal edge of its Spirit Blade state.
"I'm sorry," he said, his voice low and filled with a somber resolve. "I'll set you free as quickly as possible."
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