Kiana sat cross-legged on her bed, one hand wrapped around the half-finished can of cola.
On her screen was the PDF icon—its filename absurdly long.
"What is this?" Kiana muttered, finger hovering over the file.
The group chat jumped.
[AAA Customer Service Xiao Xiang]: Um… Is it really okay to drop something this private straight into the group?
[Rin Tohsaka]: I do want information too, but this involves your privacy. If you mind, I can choose not to read it.
[Dragon Sis Is Dragon]: If it's inconvenient, just say so. None of us have to pry into someone else's secrets.
[Legendary Burn-Resistant King]: Not peering into what others don't wish to reveal—that, too, is human decency.
Messages flew by.
Kiana blinked. She set her cola can on the bedside table. The metal bottom clicked against wood.
"It's fine!" she typed, thumbs moving a mile a minute.
[Want Campus Springtime With Mei]: Go ahead and look! This lady has nothing to hide! Besides, I might need you guys to help me brainstorm later!
She took a breath and tapped the red icon.
A loading wheel spun—and the file opened.
The lines were rough. The black-and-white blocks felt suffocating. Siberian wind and snow practically roared out of the screen, cold enough to sting her cheeks.
Kiana shrank back instinctively, spine pressing into the unevenly painted wall. The chill seeped into her skin.
At first, she read fast, swiping page after page.
It began with a girl named Sirin.
A girl locked inside a cramped laboratory, eyes blank like a broken doll's.
Needles puncturing skin. Green fluid pushed into veins. The girl didn't cry—she just curled tighter, like a puppy abandoned in the rain.
Kiana's brow knitted. Without thinking, she bit the soft flesh inside her cheek.
So pitiful.
She didn't even know this Sirin, yet her chest tightened with sympathy anyway.
Her finger swiped again.
And then the girl became a Herrscher, and everything went feral.
Honkai energy exploded like spilled ink, splattering across every scrap of white space.
The comic only introduced characters when they appeared, but Kiana didn't need explanations to understand what was happening.
Then a blond man appeared.
First he stared across the Siberian snowfield, then—slowly—put on a mask.
Kiana stared at that smiling face, and something in her mind caught fire.
She had no memory of this man. None at all.
And yet rage surged up anyway—howling, boiling, demanding to burn him into ash.
Kiana swiped again, and the scene changed.
A Valkyrie with white hair and blue eyes stepped onto the snowfield, lance in hand. Even rendered in stark black-and-white, her presence hit like a physical blow.
Her long hair fell like a waterfall, the ends softly curled—like the gentlest snow piled into silk. She wasn't looking at the viewer; her gaze was lowered.
Her features weren't sharp. Her eyes drooped slightly at the corners, tracing a softness that seemed able to hold the weight of every sorrow in the world.
Her eyes were beautiful—Kiana could almost picture them, a blue gentler than the cleanest sky.
In that panel, a small line of text read:
Cecilia Schariac. Schicksal S-Rank Valkyrie. Kiana Kaslana's mother.
Kiana stared at the name until her vision blurred.
Cecilia.
That woman's smile was warm even in monochrome—warm enough to melt ice itself. In the midst of the storm, she looked like a living hearth that could thaw all of Siberia.
Kiana's finger stopped. She didn't swipe.
Something clawed at the inside of her stomach—an ache, a sour swell.
She looked at Cecilia's face for a long time.
She'd never even known her mother's name, had she?
That idiot dad—before he left, he always acted like he wanted to say something, then swallowed it back down. As for her mother, Kiana had only ever seen a single photo in passing.
"Cecilia Schariac."
She leaned close enough that her breath fogged the glass, a small patch of white mist blooming on the screen.
That face looked like hers… but not.
Those eyes carried too much: gentleness, compassion, resolve—so heavy Kiana almost couldn't bear to meet them.
"Mom."
The word rolled across her tongue without sound.
Even if the world around her was burning with Honkai beasts' wreckage… even if the ground beneath her feet was scorched black… the space Cecilia stood in felt sealed off by something like a miracle—quiet, sheltered, a harbor from the storm.
Kiana's breathing turned shallow. Slow.
She narrowed her eyes, forcing the tears back, and swiped again.
The comic didn't linger on Cecilia and Sirin. Kiana flipped through a few pages and saw Siegfried draw the Judgment of Shamash, then he and Cecilia were dragged into an illusion by Sirin.
At first it was only meant as mockery, but without anyone realizing it, Sirin slipped into it—savoring the warmth of a family.
The Herrscher of the Void, on this page, wasn't a queen of destruction.
She was just a child covered in scars.
Time moved fast.
Siegfried and Cecilia escaped with help. Sirin fell into despair. Honkai energy spiraled out of control. With Welt Yang's assistance, Siegfried delivered the final blow to the Herrscher core.
Cecilia used her holy blood to neutralize massive amounts of Honkai energy.
Otto saw Siegfried slipping beyond his control—and launched a Honkai fission warhead that blanketed the snowfield.
At the end, Cecilia used Abyss Flower to protect Siegfried… and went alone to find Sirin.
Sirin floated in midair, violet hair whipping like a storm.
But she was crying.
Tears streamed down the purple-haired girl's face in fat, hot drops, carving paths through grime and blood. Her expression was twisted—rage, yes, but also terror.
Like an animal cornered in the dark. She bared her teeth, trying to look vicious enough to hide the shaking inside her bones.
Yet she didn't have the strength to stop Cecilia from approaching.
Kiana raised a finger.
Somewhere along the way, she'd started crying too—tears running down her own face without permission.
Cecilia didn't stop. She held out her hand.
It wasn't a flawless hand. Bandages wrapped her knuckles. Wounds crossed the back of it.
But it reached forward steady and sure—without hesitation, without even the smallest tremor—and pulled Sirin into an embrace.
No explosion.
No slaughter.
Sirin went quiet in that hug.
She froze, eyes wide. Her purple pupils reflected Cecilia's gentle face like a mirror.
There were no speech bubbles, but Kiana watched Cecilia's lips and, without thinking, spoke the words aloud:
"Ich liebe dich."
Her throat tightened—something lodged there, impossible to swallow, impossible to spit out.
She watched Sirin slowly rest her head against Cecilia's shoulder. That small hand—the one that had wanted to tear the world apart—clutched Cecilia's clothing at the back, gripping so hard it looked like it might rip.
Like she was grabbing the last straw left in the universe.
"Mom…"
Kiana didn't know if the word belonged to the comic or to her.
"This is… the truth?"
Her finger held on that page.
Cecilia held Sirin as the white light spread, the two figures blurring at the center.
No sound.
Kiana could only hear the dorm AC humming, and her own heartbeat tripping over itself.
She reached out and lightly touched Cecilia's face on the screen.
"Mom…"
This was her mother.
Not a frozen photo.
A mother who would die to protect someone else.
Her nose stung.
She sniffed, forced the hot blur back, and swiped.
A block of narration appeared.
Kiana read that Siegfried had been investigating Sirin's project, and after being persuaded, he agreed to rescue K423.
A bad feeling crawled up Kiana's spine.
A laboratory.
Rows of massive glass tanks, filled with green liquid. Inside each one floated a body—silver-white hair, not-yet-grown limbs, eyes closed.
A row after row of Kianas.
Her finger froze in midair, hovering millimeters above the glass, as if the air had turned to ice.
K423.
She understood now.
Her eyes glued themselves to that designation—the black letters on a glowing screen, sharp as a knife.
It wasn't a name.
It was a serial number.
Like a can of cola. Like a bolt on an assembly line.
The panels shifted.
That man burst in—face full of stubble, younger than the scruffy middle-aged bum Kiana knew now, but with the same eyes.
He smashed the glass tube and lifted K423 into his arms.
The child he held had Kiana's face.
Then another girl appeared—the real Kiana Kaslana—trotting excitedly behind Siegfried.
Kiana blinked, brain struggling under the weight of information. Her thoughts turned choppy, frame-skipping like an old game console that had been running too long.
She was smart… but the moment she left danger behind, she always relaxed—devolving from husky to amoeba. At times like this, even a border collie could come over and "fish-bomb" her.
She already knew what came next.
The transport craft launched.
Red alarm lights flashed.
Decompression.
Falling.
That girl—the real Kiana—was sucked out of the cabin by the violent airflow. The white figure shrank fast, swallowed by cloud layers and snow.
On the screen, Siegfried's hand stretched out, five fingers spread, knuckles whitening with force—
and caught nothing.
In reality—
Kiana's hand clenched on her knee. Her nails dug into the bedsheet, wrinkling the smooth fabric into a tight knot.
She fell.
From thousands of meters up—not a jungle gym, not a two-story staircase.
Even current Kiana would die if she fell like that.
But then… how old had that girl been?
Eight.
"How could she possibly survive that…" Kiana whispered. The words stuck in her throat, coming out thick and hoarse.
If the one who fell was the real Kiana—
then who was she?
Her gaze returned to that designation.
K423.
A clone. An experimental body spliced from Sirin's Herrscher factors and Kaslana blood.
"So…"
Kiana lowered her head and opened her right palm.
The lines were clear. Her lifeline was messy, tangled.
Her fingertips and the base of her thumb were hard with calluses from years on the road—calluses she'd stopped noticing. The back of her hand was damp, from wiping tears.
The sensations were real.
"Am I… fake?"
The thought had barely surfaced before the next page hit her like a slap.
An endless snowfield.
Siegfried back then looked like sludge made human. He drank every day, hugging his bottle. On Kiana's birthday, he only drank harder—blackout drunk.
And the tiny K423—little Kiana—on Siegfried's drunken birthday, saw a Honkai beast creeping toward the cabin.
To protect her father, she clumsily raised twin pistols.
The Judgment of Shamash.
She was so small then. The weapon looked thicker than her arm, heavy as sin—yet she stood in front of the beast anyway, trying to pull the trigger.
In the next panel, the drunken man snapped awake and charged in, killing the beast.
He held the little K423 tight and said so much—regret, grief, self-blame—
and then, finally, he made his decision.
He gave her the name of the daughter he believed dead.
He said it aloud:
Kiana Kaslana.
Not to the biological daughter who'd fallen beyond the clouds.
But to her.
To the experimental body numbered K423.
Kiana remembered that day.
The best birthday gift she'd ever received.
After that, her idiot dad really did change—he drank less, he toasted bread for her (a little burnt), he called her name often and asked her to help.
Back then, she'd thought it meant she'd finally earned his approval.
Now, remembering it again—
it just felt heavy.
Good days never lasted.
After that, the Sirin consciousness inside her was triggered. Siegfried, losing an arm, used the Judgment of Shamash to suppress the Herrscher of the Void.
He made a promise with the Kiana who woke up afterward.
Then came her years of drifting—following rumors of her dad, ending up in Nagazora City.
Cocolia pulled strings behind the scenes. The Third Honkai erupted. Raiden Mei became the Herrscher of Thunder.
Kiana couldn't read any more.
The hot, sour burn behind her eyes finally overflowed. Her vision blurred. Everything in front of her twisted like she was looking through thick frosted glass.
Plop.
A warm drop landed on her phone screen.
"Idiot dad…"
She sniffed. Then she lifted her sleeve and scrubbed her face hard, the rough cloth scraping her eye corners painfully.
"You cared about me that much—so why act cool?"
Her voice was dense with nasal congestion, stuffed and buzzing.
"And you still had to run away… and leave me behind."
The group chat was quiet too.
No one spoke. Everyone stayed silent, as if by mutual agreement.
Bai Qian looked at his phone's download list.
[Want Campus Springtime With Mei] Downloaded.
[AAA Customer Service Xiao Xiang] Downloaded.
[Rin Tohsaka] Downloaded.
[Dragon Sis Is Dragon] Downloaded.
He scrolled down one more line.
[Pointy-Hat Lady] Downloaded.
"Oh?" Bai Qian raised an eyebrow.
Herta had been playing dead like her Wi-Fi had cut out, but her hands were quick when it mattered.
So much for "not interested." Looks like Ms. Herta's curiosity about other people's pasts was alive and well—no matter what she claimed.
For more than ten minutes, the chat stayed silent.
In those ten minutes, everyone was probably surfing that PDF like it was a stormy sea.
Then the first message popped up.
A voice clip.
Bai Qian tapped it.
"WAAAH—! MOM! Wuuuu, Mom is so gentle! I wanna be hugged by Mom too!"
The volume was murderous—thick with sobbing, and the unmistakable snff of someone sucking snot back up.
Then another message.
[Want Campus Springtime With Mei]: WAAH! Mom and idiot dad! And Kiana! Oh—wait, am I also Kiana?!
[Want Campus Springtime With Mei]: Why did it turn out like this?!
[Rin Tohsaka]: W-WHAT—! Cecilia, don't die!
[Dragon Sis Is Dragon]: Damn it—Otto, you dog! Cocolia too—I'll kill you!!
[Want Campus Springtime With Mei]: I'm gonna cry to death! Lao Da, what did you DRAW?! Why is it so knife-filled?! You have no heart! Quack doctor!! I feel worse now!!
[Want Campus Springtime With Mei]: So I'm actually an artificial human? And I have a sister?!
[Want Campus Springtime With Mei]: Whatever! Idiot dad called me Kiana, so I'm Kiana! And I HAVE A MOM! Even if Mom is—wuuuu—Otto, you blond bastard! I'm going to Schicksal HQ and ripping every strand of his hair out!!
[Heart-Thief Crew Lao Da]: You okay now? That was fast—already processing it?
[Want Campus Springtime With Mei]: I ALREADY CRIED ONCE!!! I'm still crying while typing this, how could I process it that fast?!
[Want Campus Springtime With Mei]: But other than you guys, I have nowhere to say this!
[Want Campus Springtime With Mei]: I've been crying this whole time! I never stopped!!
Bai Qian stared at the barrage of exclamation marks, and the knot in his chest loosened by half.
Yep. Total amoeba.
Crying it out—letting it out—was a good thing.
Of course, she'd also completely missed the point.
The "who am I" philosophy question took her three seconds to resolve: Dad acknowledges me, so I'm me.
That kind of mental toughness… honestly, only a Kaslana could pull that off.
[Rin Tohsaka]: That woman, Cecilia… that level of power, that kind of resolve… and she just died like that? And she chose to protect that—that Herrscher?
[Rin Tohsaka]: So that's what a "mother" is? That's… insanely reckless.
[Rin Tohsaka]: And that brat Sirin… sure, she killed a lot of people, but being kept in a lab like that… tch. I can't say I don't understand.
[Dragon Sis Is Dragon]: Sacrificing innocents for "plans" and "control," not even sparing children… That's no different from the nobles of Ursus, or those patrols who hunt the Infected across the snowfields.
[AAA Customer Service Xiao Xiang]: Um… Miss Kiana…
[AAA Customer Service Xiao Xiang]: This might be rude to say, but… having a father who'd sacrifice an arm to protect you—no matter how clumsy he can be sometimes…
[AAA Customer Service Xiao Xiang]: I'm… a little jealous.
[AAA Customer Service Xiao Xiang]: Compared to people who treat their children as tools, or who can throw a family away without blinking—Mr. Siegfried is a truly great father.
[Legendary Burn-Resistant King]: That warrior named Siegfried burned everything he had—not only his body, but his very soul. Not to destroy, but to protect a fragile spark.
[Legendary Burn-Resistant King]: Miss Kiana, you are that spark. Please do not let that warmth go out.
[Pointy-Hat Lady]: That Otto—classic control freak. People like that usually die because they scheme too deep and end up tying their own noose.
The chat chilled for a moment at Herta's sudden reappearance.
But it didn't last, because Kiana started flooding the screen again.
[Want Campus Springtime With Mei]: @Heart-Thief Crew Lao Da Lao Da! Even though you made me cry my eyes out, thanks.
[Want Campus Springtime With Mei]: Knowing I'm K423 is… weird, okay, but—knowing dad turned into that because he loved me, knowing Mom was that gentle…
[Want Campus Springtime With Mei]: It feels like a rock finally fell off my chest.
[Want Campus Springtime With Mei]: And I know what I need to do now! I'm going to find idiot dad! Drag him back! And then laugh at him until he cries!
[Want Campus Springtime With Mei]: Anyway—Mom's gone, and my sister's gone, but the Kaslana family? Not a single one left behind!
[Heart-Thief Crew Lao Da]: Actually, your sister isn't dead. She's working for Schicksal right now—doing pretty well.
Kiana, mid sniffle, froze.
[Want Campus Springtime With Mei]: You made all that up?! So the comic is fake?!
[Heart-Thief Crew Lao Da]: No. It's all real. And the real Kiana being alive is also real.
[Want Campus Springtime With Mei]: So you're telling me a little girl fell from thousands of meters in the sky, didn't die, and is now alive and healthy at Schicksal—answer me: how old was my sister when she crashed?!
[Heart-Thief Crew Lao Da]: Eight.
[Want Campus Springtime With Mei]: THIS IS EIGHT?!
Kiana's face turned red. She couldn't find anything else to say.
"…Man, what can I say!"
-------
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