The first sensation was not sight, nor sound, but a sickening, all-consuming ache. It was a headache that felt less like a physiological symptom and more like a metaphysical crime—a brutal, hammering pressure as if two incompatible souls had been violently compacted into a single skull. Yuan groaned, a low, guttural sound that was utterly foreign to his own ears. It was higher, smoother, but frayed with pain.
Memories that were not his own erupted like shrapnel in his mind: a man in a military uniform turning away, the sterile scent of a polished dojo, the weight of a practice katana, the hollow echo in a lavish, empty apartment, and a pervasive, creeping dread of a monstrous energy sleeping within… the Herrscher.
His eyes flew open, and the world was a dizzying blur of sterile white and soft sunlight. He was lying on a firm cot. The ceiling was generic tiled. The air smelled of antiseptic and… cherry blossoms? His body felt wrong. Lighter, yet thrumming with a latent, unstable power. He could feel it crackling just beneath his skin, a storm held in a porcelain vessel. With a trembling hand—a slender, pale hand with perfectly manicured nails—he touched his own face. The features were delicate, the skin soft.
A reflexive, panicked scramble brought him off the cot and toward a small mirror on the wall beside a medical cabinet. The movement was fluid, athletic, entirely instinctual to this body. The face that stared back, wide-eyed and pale, was one he knew from countless hours of digital escapism, yet seeing it as his own reflection was an existential shock.
Lavender hair, long and disheveled, framed a face of stunning, classical beauty. Amethyst eyes, now clouded with terror and confusion, looked back at him. The subtle curve of the lips, the elegant line of the neck disappearing into the collar of a familiar Chiba Academy uniform… He was Raiden Mei. And the fragmented memories told him this was Nagazora. And the Herrscher was coming.
"No… this is… impossible…" The voice that left his—her—lips was Mei's, soft and melodic, even when choked with panic. The dissonance made his stomach lurch. He gripped the edge of the sink, the cool ceramic a feeble anchor against the tidal wave of reality.
[Host consciousness stabilized. Cross-Dimensional Paradigm System initializing.]
The words materialized in his vision, not as light or sound, but as pure, cold information directly imprinted on his perception. A sterile, blue-and-silver interface hovered transparently before him.
[Directive: Simulate. Adapt. Survive. Perform in scenarios to accumulate points. Exchange points for temporary immersions in parallel paradigms. Acquire skills, knowledge, and enhancements to alter your fate trajectory.]
It offered no solace, no explanation for the why. Only a brutal, gamified imperative for survival. Before he could even begin to process it, the sound of frantic footsteps and a voice, bright with worry, cut through his spiraling terror.
"Mei-senpai!"
The curtain surrounding the infirmary bed was yanked aside with force enough to make the rings shriek on the rod. And there she was, a blast of sunlight and chaotic energy incarnate. White hair tied in a thick drill, eyes the color of a summer sky brimming with concern, and an expression of such open, guileless worry it was almost physically disarming. Kiana Kaslana.
Before Yuan could even form a word, a sentence, a coherent thought in this new reality, Kiana surged forward. "You're awake! I was so worried! Those horrible girls, pushing you like that on the stairs! I told the teacher everything, but…"
Her words tumbled out as she moved, her intent clear and instinctively affectionate. She attempted to snuggle into Mei's—into his—embrace, seeking the comfort of her friend and senior, a typical gesture born of their growing closeness.
But Yuan flinched.
It wasn't a subtle shift. It was a full-body recoil, a stiffening of every muscle, the amethyst eyes widening not in welcome but in sheer, unvarnished bewilderment and alarm. He didn't raise his arms to return the hug; he raised them slightly, as if to ward off an approaching, unknown entity.
Kiana froze, her cheek nearly touching Mei's uniform. She pulled back, just a few inches, her bright blue eyes scanning the face so close to hers. The confusion she saw there was not the gentle, pained confusion of a concussion. It was deeper, more fundamental. It was the look of someone seeing a beloved stranger.
"Mei… senpai?" Kiana's voice softened, the exuberance draining away into genuine concern. Her head tilted, her brow furrowed. The paramecium-level intuition—often underestimated, yet startlingly accurate when it came to the people she cared about—kicked in. This wasn't right. "Are you… okay? Does your head hurt really bad?" She reached out, much more slowly now, to gently touch Mei's forehead, her gaze searching. "You're looking at me like… like you don't know who I am. Did that fall mess you up more than the nurse said?"
In that moment, two battles erupted simultaneously. Externally, Yuan had to navigate this intimate, terrifying first contact with a living legend who currently saw him as her fragile friend. He had to mimic, to hide, to bury the screaming man inside under layers of Mei's gentle demeanor.
Internally, the System's interface pulsed quietly, a single line of text blinking with relentless promise and threat:
[First Simulation Available: 'Vessel of the Storm.' Initiate?]
The Herrscher's power stirred uneasily in response to his panic, a flicker of purple lightning dancing unseen along his nerves. He was in Mei's body, in Mei's life, on the brink of Mei's disaster. And the only tool he had was a mysterious system offering lessons from worlds beyond this one. He had to master it all—the social minefield, the impending cataclysm, the war for this very soul—or be utterly consumed.
Kiana's sharp, intuitive concern lasted only a moment. It was a flicker of something profound and observant in her bright blue eyes, a testament to the hunter's instinct buried under her bubbly exterior. But for Kiana Kaslana, intuition rarely translated into complex intellectual suspicion. Her logic was beautifully, overwhelmingly simple: This person looked like Mei, sounded like Mei (mostly), and was in Mei's bed in the infirmary. Therefore, this was Mei-senpai.
If Mei-senpai was acting strange, it was because she was hurt, sad, or scared. And the solution to any of those problems, in Kiana's unshakable worldview, was unwavering, enthusiastic affection.
"You're just still woozy!" she declared, her momentary worry melting into a renewed, sunny determination. "Don't worry, Mei-senpai! I'll help you get back to normal!"
Thus began Yuan's trial by fire—or, more accurately, trial by overwhelming, clumsy, and relentlessly physical affection.
Kiana didn't just walk beside him back to class; she looped her arm tightly through his, her body pressed snugly against his side, chattering non-stop about how she'd "given those bullies a piece of her mind" and how the teacher was "totally on their side." The sensation was utterly foreign. The warmth, the soft pressure, the casual intimacy of it sent jolts of panic and a strange, unwelcome static through Yuan's borrowed nervous system. He walked stiffly, his movements a poor imitation of Mei's natural grace, hyper-aware of every point of contact.
In class, the ordeal continued. Kiana, seated nearby, would lean over during independent study, her head nearly resting on his shoulder to whisper loudly about how boring the lesson was, her breath tickling his ear. She'd pass notes—poorly drawn doodles of a triumphant Kiana vanquishing stick-figure bullies, with "For Mei-senpai! Get well soon! <3" scrawled at the bottom. When he fumbled with his pen, his new fingers uncooperative, she was there in an instant, picking it up and pressing it back into his hand, her own fingers lingering in a brief, warm clasp.
Lunch was the apex of his sensory overload. Kiana practically dragged him to their usual spot, produced a comically large lunchbox she'd "specially prepared for her recovering senpai," and proceeded to feed him bites of her own cooking with a terrifying, hopeful grin. The food was… an experience. A bizarre, chard more than cooked, overly salty, yet somehow sweet concoction that was uniquely Kiana. Each bite offered on the extended chopsticks felt like an intimacy he hadn't earned, a ritual belonging to another person. He ate mechanically, the frightful taste barely registering over the roar of his internal dissonance.
Throughout it all, Kiana's affection was a constant, husky-like barrage. She'd bump her shoulder against his playfully, lean her full weight against him while complaining about being tired, and once, when he zoned out staring at the cherry blossoms (trying to mentally navigate the System interface), she simply plopped her head down on his desk, smiling up at him, her face mere inches away. "You're here, but you're not here, senpai," she'd said, her voice softer. "I'll just wait right here until you come back, okay?"
It was disarming. There was no subtlety, no hidden agenda. It was a pure, unrefined, and slightly clumsy outpouring of care. For a man from a world of digital connections and guarded interactions, it was as overwhelming and incomprehensible as the Honkai energy sleeping within him. He felt like an imposter wearing a skinsuit of flesh and lavender hair, desperately trying to mimic the expected responses—a small nod here, a strained smile there—while screaming internally.
The final bell was a mercy. As students streamed out, Kiana quickly packed her bag, her usual boundless energy seeming focused. She slung it over her shoulder and turned to him, her expression shifting to one of minor frustration.
"Gotta run, Mei-senpai! Gonna go hunt down that deadbeat old man of mine," she announced, puffing out her cheeks. "His last sighting was there weeks ago, and now he's gone radio silent again! Probably off on some 'super-secret mission' or something equally lazy." She rolled her eyes, but the fondness underneath was clear.
She leaned in suddenly, giving him a quick, tight hug before he could react. It was brief but potent, a burst of warmth and the scent of sunshine and gun oil. "You rest up at home, okay? No more stairs! I'll check on you tomorrow!" she called over her shoulder, already dashing down the hallway with a wave, her white drill of hair bouncing behind her.
And just like that, Yuan was alone. Standing in the emptying classroom, the ghost of Kiana's embrace still lingering, the echo of her booming, affectionate voice in his ears. The silence that followed was profound, broken only by the quiet hum of the fluorescent lights and the frantic beating of a heart that was, and was not, his own.
He looked down at Mei's slender hands, still faintly tingling from the day's relentless contact. He had survived the first day. He had not been exposed, not in the way he feared. Kiana's simple, intuitive logic—Mei is Mei—had, for now, protected him more effectively than any subterfuge could.
But the cost was a deep, rattling exhaustion of the soul. And as he stood there, the System's interface glowed insistently in his vision, a path away from this unbearable social and personal chaos.
[Simulation Environment Ready. 'Vessel of the Storm' – A trial of will against the inner tempest. Recommended for initial synchronization. Initiate? Y/N]
With a thought born of sheer desperation, Yuan selected 'Y.' The classroom around him dissolved into shimmering pixels, and he was thrust into his first lesson for survival.
T/N: Don't expect peak fiction, or reliable release schedule. Plus, I am not a professional writer, or well versed in writing English, I use a lot of AI and will continue to use it for my rusted, rotted brain of main sadly is unable to cook anything grammatically comprehensible than what AI could achieve.
Case in point I struggled for 13+ minutes to write the word 'Comprehensible' correctly. And no voice text recognition doesn't work with Arabic accent. — your brook ass Gacha addicts.