Honkai Star Rail: Make Honkai Great Again

"That's the situation."

After briefly and succinctly recounting the two failures to the utterly composed Ruan Mei, Herta said, "You don't look like you just arrived."

"Your guess is correct. We are indeed in different points in time." Ruan Mei remained calm, without the slightest trace of urgency on her face. "As for how long I've been here? Nearly a year, I would say."

"A year?" Acheron froze slightly.

She had just arrived here. After leaving the school called Chiba Academy, she immediately ran into Herta.

She wondered whether Herta's situation had been the same.

"I arrived earlier than both of you." Seeing Acheron glance at her, Herta knew exactly what she was thinking.

"So? Have you found anything?"

"Mm..." Ruan Mei pondered for a moment, then lifted her gaze to Herta, a hint of curiosity in her eyes. "You seem a little anxious. However, the flow of time in this world should not align with that of the universe."

"I just think that if you haven't discovered anything new either, then ending this Stigmata trial might not be a bad option."

"That doesn't sound like you." A trace of surprise flickered through Ruan Mei's eyes. "The answer has not yet been uncovered. Why would you say something like that?"

"I just think it's meaningless." A faint glint flashed in Herta's eyes. "In the end, this trial is about constructing a Stigmata terminal. It's not as if we can't create what she wants through other methods."

"That doesn't sound like something you would say either."

"If the Stigmata trial succeeds, one obtains a perfectly compatible Herrscher Core. If it fails, one loses that qualification." Acheron suddenly spoke. "Herta told me that the protagonist of this Stigmata trial is Kiana. But the Stigmata does not belong to Kiana."

"I see."

Ruan Mei seemed to arrive at an answer. A look of understanding flashed in her eyes. She had indeed formed certain hypotheses, but after Herta and Acheron appeared—and after witnessing the experiments Herta had already conducted—most of those ideas had been overturned.

The information they brought had greatly narrowed the scope of her considerations. And Acheron's words had just completed a missing piece of her speculation.

"What did you think of?"

Herta raised a brow despite herself. In truth, she had not taken the Stigmata trial seriously at first. Only after avenging herself and preparing to leave had she begun to think about the issue carefully.

The result was obvious.

Every guess she made had been wrong.

Acheron had even confirmed her final guess to be incorrect. The trial had nothing to do with whether one became a Herrscher.

That had been a wrong option.

"I still need to verify it carefully."

Ruan Mei shook her head, choosing not to voice her thoughts just yet, deliberately leaving them in suspense.

"You've been here for a year. Have you seen Kiana?" Seeing that Ruan Mei was unwilling to elaborate, Acheron did not press further. Herta had not explained everything all at once before either, so she shifted to another question.

In Herta's timeline, Kiana had appeared out of thin air.

In her own, Kiana had parents and friends.

What about now?

Acheron was curious.

Ruan Mei nodded without speaking and led them into a laboratory.

On the operating table lay a white-haired girl who looked as though she were asleep.

Seeing this, Acheron instinctively frowned and cast Ruan Mei a complicated look.

"I discovered Kiana in a set of ruins," Ruan Mei explained in time. "Just like when I first met her, she had fallen into a deep state of unconsciousness. At first, I was curious why she appeared there. Now it seems those traces should have been left behind by the era you experienced."

"Unconscious?" Acheron's brows furrowed even tighter. Staring at the sleeping girl, she could not help but say, "First amnesia, now unconsciousness. Don't you think that's far too coincidental?"

"You both felt it as well. There is no Path power here, let alone any influence from a Path." Ruan Mei ruled out the influence of Nihility.

"She had symptoms of amnesia and unconsciousness before?" Herta turned to Acheron. "You never mentioned that to me."

"You never mentioned whether Kiana had ever fallen unconscious, so I saw no need to tell you." After saying that, Acheron looked back at Ruan Mei. "Are there any common factors?"

"It should be a coincidence." Seeing Herta deep in thought, Ruan Mei explained, "When Kiana previously displayed those symptoms, it was because she had been eroded by the power of Nihility for a period of time.

"But there is no influence of Nihility here.

"So this should be part of the trial's mechanism. If we must say, perhaps it is a form of restriction?"

"Nihility?" Herta glanced at Acheron. Only then did she recall that Acheron's homeland—and her friends—had all been a special group of Self-Annihilators.

Perhaps this part had been drawn from that memory.

The trial world could not have been generated out of nothing, without data or memory as its foundation. It must be supported by fragments of Kiana's memories.

There were not many familiar places.

But there were some.

If so, then drawing upon that portion of Kiana's experiences as part of the trial was not impossible to explain.

As she was thinking this, Acheron suddenly realized something and strode to the side of the operating table.

She saw the girl's eyelids tremble lightly twice.

Then her eyes opened, staring blankly at the ceiling. Just as she had been unable to see Herta before, she did not notice Acheron standing beside her either.

Unwilling to give up, Acheron reached out to touch her face.

Her hand passed through empty air, as though she were touching an illusion.

Her fingers slowly curled.

She withdrew her hand in disappointment.

"She's awake?" Herta arched a brow. "Oh. The plot always needs an opening scene. Waiting for everyone to be present, is it?"

She recalled the previous trial, when shortly after she appeared, she saw Kiana dragging Acheron past her.

"Fitting enough."

Ruan Mei walked to Kiana's side, her gaze gentle as she looked at the girl lying there with her eyes open, seemingly unresponsive to the outside world.

"You're awake? Do you feel unfamiliar with anything?"

The voice reached her ears. Kiana's unfocused eyes slowly gathered clarity. She turned her head and saw Ruan Mei beside her.

Perhaps because she had not spoken for too long, her voice was weak. "You are?"

The moment she spoke, it was as though she had regained her soul, transforming from a hollow puppet back into a living person.

"Herta..."

Unexpectedly, before Ruan Mei could respond, a barely audible murmur slipped from Kiana's lips.

Hearing her own name, Herta was momentarily stunned. She stretched out a hand to test it and confirmed that she was still in the state of an observer, unable to interfere with the trial's progression.

"Wasn't she supposed to have amnesia?"

Though she said that, what she was thinking about was the previous trial—when, after becoming a Herrscher, Kiana had suddenly been able to see her at the very end.

"Where is this? Who are you?"

Kiana sat up from the bed, one hand pressing against her heavy head, the other supporting her body.

"Ruan Mei." Watching her wary expression, Ruan Mei spoke gently. "Don't be nervous. I mean you no harm."

"Ruan Mei?... You're Ruan Mei?"

Kiana suddenly widened her eyes, staring in disbelief at the graceful, elegant woman before her—the woman who somehow gave her an inexplicable sense of closeness.

What an interesting reaction.

Ruan Mei seemed to understand something. A faint curve touched her lips. "Then, my dear, how much do you remember?"

"Is that fair?" Herta also sensed what was happening and turned to Acheron. "Why is it that when it comes to her, Kiana doesn't lose her memory?"

"...This doesn't look like she hasn't lost it."

The issue likely stemmed from after Kiana became a Herrscher and saw Herta. Strictly speaking, at that moment, Kiana had already remembered what happened during the first trial.

Otherwise, she would not have called out Herta's name.

"I..."

Kiana's body began to tremble, as if recalling something utterly terrifying. The hand on her forehead tightened in her hair, and the hand at her side clenched into a fist.

Her breathing grew rapid and heavy.

Seeing this, Ruan Mei took her hand and gently pried open her clenched fist, her fingertips brushing over the marks left by her nails.

"Those things have already passed." She looked steadily into Kiana's eyes and raised a hand to stroke her soft cheek. "This is a new beginning."

Kiana met her gaze for a long while. Looking into those calm eyes, she gradually pulled herself free from that turbulent emotion.

Slowly, she regained her composure.

Ruan Mei stood very close to her—close enough that she was almost leaning over her—holding her right hand while her other hand rested against her face.

Kiana could clearly feel the warmth of her touch, different from her own. Unaccustomed to it, she shifted her gaze away from Ruan Mei.

"Have you calmed down?"

As if unaware of her avoidance, Ruan Mei gently patted her head, her fingers smoothing down through her white hair.

"...Mm."

Kiana responded softly. Her body was faintly stiff, unsure how to face the person before her. She asked again, "Are you really Ruan Mei?"

"My dear, when you say my name, don't forget the pause in the middle—Ruan Mei."

"Ruan Mei?" Kiana repeated after her, then asked, "You know Herta, right?"

"She and I are partners."

So she really was the person Herta often mentioned. During the time Kiana had stayed with Herta, she had heard that name more than once.

She had been looking for Ruan Mei.

Of course, what left the deepest impression were the words Herta had said when she rejected her.

"I'm Kiana..." she murmured distractedly. But when she spoke her own name, she seemed to wake up, lowering her head. "Kiana Kaslana."

"So you remember everything from the beginning to the end of the trial. It must be related to becoming a Herrscher." Herta analyzed out of habit. "Hm? Come to think of it, at the end of the last trial, Kiana seemed to survive, didn't she?"

If that were the case, then the memory of killing her father and personally destroying the entire world would have been preserved as well.

Herta found that malicious.

"Don't be tense. It's alright. I remember everything." Ruan Mei merely kept Herta's words in mind, her attention still on Kiana. "Herta should have mentioned me to you."

"Herta... I saw her." Kiana looked up at the woman before her and, compelled by that sense of closeness, couldn't help but confide in her. "After I destroyed the world, I saw her."

This world was fake.

Everything here was part of a trial.

She remembered something Herta often told her. And now, she completely believed it.

"Destroyed the world? No, my dear. Listen to me. This world has not been destroyed."

"That's not true." Kiana lowered her head again, as if trying to avoid something, her voice filled with pain. "I completely destroyed the world. This is just another beginning... another cycle..."

Ruan Mei hooked a finger beneath her chin and lifted her head, meeting her eyes. "It hasn't ended. Human life is resilient. You did not destroy the world entirely. Your attack did not cover every corner. Some people survived and gradually formed the world as it is now."

"What?"

Herta hadn't paid close attention at the time. She had been too busy thinking about how to break through from within and terminate the trial.

Since she had already seen it once, she hadn't focused much on the world's subsequent evolution.

"You didn't notice?" Acheron glanced at Herta and explained, "In Ruan Mei's timeline, only a few hundred years have passed since Kiana destroyed the world."

"A few hundred years?"

Herta's expression turned strange. In her trial, humanity had been completely wiped out. She hadn't spared a single thought for what came after.

A backup plan?

If they were going to die, then let them all die. Why leave a spark behind?

It was only a trial.

Was her approach flawed?

No... If she hadn't acted that way, she would never have realized that the intensity of the Honkai scaled with the level of civilization.

"Is... is that so?"

Kiana froze for a moment. Her mood did not improve much. She knew that the people and things she was familiar with had already vanished.

At the same time, she remembered—

She had killed Mei with her own hands.

When she had lost control after becoming a Herrscher.

Herta came from outside the trial. Ruan Mei was the same. But what about Mei? Was she someone special?

She could see Herta, whom others could not.

That meant she should be special, right?

Mei... could she be the other person Herta had mentioned—Acheron?

"Herta... is she here now as well?" Kiana suddenly asked.

Ruan Mei glanced toward where Herta stood and nodded. "She is indeed here. But she cannot interact with anything within the trial at the moment."

"Then... what about Mei?" Her heart tightened as she anxiously sought confirmation. "Is Mei here too?"

"She is here as well."

Ruan Mei looked at the two people with differing expressions and thoughtfully asked Kiana, "Would you like me to pass along a few words for you?"

"...No. There's no need."

Learning that Mei was actually alive—and not a true part of this world—eased the crushing weight on Kiana's heart, if only slightly.

She had so much she wanted to say to Mei, to Herta. But when the words reached her lips, she found she did not know what to say.

And asking Ruan Mei to act as a messenger felt inappropriate.

As long as she knew they were still here.

That was enough.

Even if she could not touch them. Even if she could not hear their replies.

"Are you sure you don't need me to?"

Kiana shook her head. Looking at Ruan Mei before her, she couldn't help but say, "You're nothing like how Herta described you."

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