"Please let Mei and me have a smooth future… Boss, appear!"
The voice was so soft it was practically a mosquito hum.
Bai Qian stood two steps behind her, looking down at a scene that belonged in a gag manga and nowhere else.
"…Are you summoning a god?"
Kiana's movements froze.
The next second, she snapped her eyes open. Her azure pupils reflected Bai Qian's figure as she scrambled up on all fours—too fast, too wild—her knee smashing into the "altar" she'd built.
Crash.
The potato-chip pyramid collapsed. A can of soda got knocked over, rolled twice, and stopped right at Bai Qian's feet.
"You came!"
Kiana didn't even look at the mess. She lunged forward, grabbed Bai Qian by the shoulders, and leaned in until her face was practically in his. Her eyes were bright like searchlights.
She let go with one hand and jabbed at the scattered snacks on the floor. "I wasn't summoning anything! This is my entire stash—I took it out with tears in my eyes! I went all-in so this first meeting would feel formal!"
Bai Qian wobbled from the shaking. He planted a hand against her forehead and pushed her back a safe distance.
Only then did Kiana seem to notice the "wrong" texture. She squeezed the stiff fabric at his shoulder, then stared curiously at the oversized wizard hat.
"Uh… you're Boss, but that body's Pointy-Hat Lady's, right? You two swapped."
She tilted her head; the little cowlick on top bounced. "So what do I call you? Still 'Boss'?"
Bai Qian adjusted the collar she'd wrinkled, then walked over to the only chair and sat down.
"Don't," he said, lifting a hand to stop her.
In real life, being called Heart Thief Crew Boss made him want to run for the horizon.
It was like meeting an online friend in person, and they showed up holding a banner with your handle on it.
Just imagining it was lethal.
"Don't call my real name online, and don't call my handle in real life," he said, pointing at himself and then at the phone. "Online friends are like Warp demons from Warhammer—behind the screen, call each other whatever you want. In real life, hearing your handle out loud triggers an indescribable stress response."
"…Just call me Bai Qian."
"Bai… Qian?" Kiana sat cross-legged on the carpet, hands braced at her sides, and tried the name out loud once. "So that's your real name, Boss? Doesn't sound like some super-cool codename… surprisingly normal."
"Fine. If we're trading real names, I can't lose either."
She scooted back and slapped at her skirt, knocking off potato-chip crumbs that had stuck there. Then she inhaled like she was about to declare war, even flicking her slightly loose braids behind her for effect.
"Then you can just call me Kiana. Full name: Kiana Kaslana!"
She made a fist and pressed it to her chest, chin up high. "Yeah, yeah, you already knew, but saying it properly makes it official!"
"Alright," Bai Qian said, pinching the bridge of his nose. "Now pull the rest of them in."
"This room's tiny, but we can cram a few more people in."
"I'm already pulling them!" Kiana sprang up. "If only you came, all these snacks would've been a total waste!"
As soon as she spoke, a cold wind—laced with coal smoke and snow—appeared out of nowhere in the center of the room.
The shag carpet sank under the weight of a pair of thick military boots, caked with mud and slush.
Tallulah stood there.
She still held her long sword—like a fire poker someone sharpened into a weapon—its tip angled toward the floor.
Snow clung to her heavy cloak, melting into beads under the warm yellow light, rolling down the rough cloth and dripping onto the wood.
"…This is?" Her gaze swept the room: the soft bed, the pink wallpaper, the blinding ceiling light—then settled on Kiana and Bai Qian.
Her grip loosened. Her shoulders sank slightly. "We really… made it."
"It's warm here," she murmured. "Warmer than my camp. Much warmer."
In the shadow behind her, a second figure sharpened from blur into clarity.
Melina appeared beside the desk.
She wasn't fully physical; a faint gold glow traced the edges of her form. Her left eye stayed closed. Her right eye turned, slowly.
"So this is… beyond the Lands Between."
"Wait, wait—hold on!" Kiana hopped back half a step, her heel bumping Bai Qian's toe. "I'm pulling everyone else too!"
The room was small, but if they packed in tight, it might work.
A heartbeat later, Rin Tohsaka appeared clutching a handful of gemstones.
Then a blue-haired girl materialized with exhaustion etched into her face, still holding a half-eaten convenience store sandwich.
And last—tall, lean, messy black hair, a coldly punchable expression—an unfamiliar young man… except Bai Qian recognized that body instantly.
That was his body.
Which meant the person inside it was Herta.
Everyone was here.
The once-empty bedroom became instantly, brutally cramped.
"I pulled everyone!" Kiana stood in the middle and scratched her cheek, the flush of excitement still on her face. "So… why is nobody talking?"
"It's just… everyone feels different in person than in the chat," Toyokawa Saki said. She still had half an onigiri in her hand.
The moment she landed, she reflexively shielded the onigiri, then immediately patted her pocket to confirm her phone was still there before finally exhaling.
"This is everyone's first offline meeting, right?"
Her eyes swept the room's parade of weirdness:
A twin-tailed girl with aristocratic intensity dusting off her skirt.
A silver-haired woman wrapped in cold air, watching the window like an ambush could come through the glass.
And… a half-transparent spirit.
Then her gaze landed on the man in casual menswear.
"Pointy-Hat Lady?"
"Just call me Herta," Herta said flatly. "In the group too—use that name from now on."
She eyed the aggressively girlish bedroom with open disdain. "So this is a moron's room?"
Bai Qian looked up at his own face.
"Seeing myself from this angle feels… weird."
"Does it?" Herta glanced down at him. "I'm used to it. It's just a different viewpoint on the world."
Bai Qian turned to the floating figure in the corner.
Short pink-gold hair. One eye closed. That constant sense of vanishing at any second—completely out of place in a room full of snacks.
"You're… the 'Legendary Fireproof King'?"
Melina's open right eye shifted. She nodded.
"Wow," Bai Qian deadpanned. "That name is impressively malicious."
He'd considered the possibility that "Legendary Fireproof King" meant some kind of Frenzied Flame monarch, but it was still hard to connect the title to Melina.
Usually "Legendary Something King" was the kind of nickname that stuck to him—like "Legendary Crash King."
"I can't believe the chat used that as your name," he said. "You've got a good temper. Anyone else would've changed it immediately."
"…I just don't know how to use that function," Melina said, turning her head away as if she wasn't used to being stared at. "It's only a name. Just know that I am Melina."
After trading real names, everyone ended up perched on Kiana's bed.
Kiana looked at the room packed with impossibly mismatched people, eyes shining like two lightbulbs just waiting to blow a fuse.
"Yesss!"
She grabbed two bags of potato chips and waved them like glow sticks. "Since everyone's here—can we start with a chip party?!"
"I'm treating!"
Rin, standing off to the side, stared at the chaos and pressed fingers to her throbbing temple.
"A party, my ass!"
"We're here to handle a commission, not go sightseeing, you idiot!"
"But it's our first meeting!" Kiana nervously kicked a bag of crushed chips under the bed with her toe. "Everyone showed up, and if I immediately ask you to help me… it feels kind of awkward."
"Your 'character setting' died the moment you named yourself 'Want Some Campus Springtime With Mei,'" Bai Qian sighed. "Nobody's worried about that. Your usual messages already qualify as social terrorism."
Tallulah nodded solemnly. "If anyone found out that I secretly want to eat Alina-flavor instant noodles… I would vanish into the snowfield on the spot."
"Really?" Kiana blinked.
Then Bai Qian said, far too casually, "Tallulah, are you as sexually repressed as Kiana too?"
"T-that was just a metaphor!" Tallulah's composure instantly cracked. Cold sweat appeared. "I'm not like her!"
Being labeled a pervert by group members—of all things—absolutely not.
Kiana clapped her hands together with a loud smack, eyes shut tight, then bowed to everyone in the room like she was making an offering.
"Anyway! Since we're in Nagazora City…"
"Please! Help me!"
"Mei probably barely knows me yet, but please—if I don't have you all…"
She swallowed, then forced the words out as if they weighed a ton.
"…As long as it's something I can do, I'll do anything."
Bai Qian glanced at Saki—still chewing her onigiri—and finally couldn't hold it in.
"That's not something you can toss out lightly," he said. " 'Anything' is a heavy word."
Saki flinched, a strange sense of déjà vu stabbing her in the ribs.
Why was he looking at her when he said that?!
Like she was the one who'd said it!
"Everything!" Kiana declared as if she was making a pledge to the sky. "I'm going to change that future! Boss—Herta—Tallulah—Gem Grandpa—Melina—Saki—help me!"
"Who are you calling 'Gem Grandpa'?" Rin's face darkened.
But when she saw Kiana about to drop to her knees and latch onto her leg, she sighed anyway.
"You've said that much—how could we not help?"
"Herta. Give me my phone back."
Bai Qian and Herta swapped phones. Herta glanced at the notification bar and her eyelid twitched.
"Why is there a 'received 150,000 credits' alert? Where did that come from?"
"Extorted from Silver Wolf," Bai Qian said smoothly. "Buddy, this is the emergency cash I left on your body—use it anytime."
Once he had his phone back, Bai Qian immediately opened the Otherworld Navigation App.
The app was the culprit behind his body swap with Herta in the first place.
If they were going to deal with the Third Honkai, then doing good meant doing it thoroughly.
He'd been thinking: if a Herrscher wasn't "forced personality rewrite," but rather someone's darkness getting amplified until it swallowed everything—until the urge to destroy humanity dominated—
Then from another angle, wasn't that also… a twisted heart?
And if it was a twisted heart, then wouldn't it have a Shadow inside?
He watched the app's interface flash Searching for Palaces… and slowly smiled.
The app worked.
Which meant this world had Mementos and Palaces too.
For Kiana's sake—
He would use the Metaverse Navigator on Raiden Mei.
Time to return to the Phantom Thieves' true line of work.
"I've got a plan," Bai Qian said, standing straight. "Phantom Thieves—move out!"
A Herrscher, huh?
As the Boss of the Heart Thief Crew, he'd make her taste what a change of heart really meant.
Eat my Persona-based personality-correction punch!
-------
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