Kiana
'Ughh, what time is it?'
The red numbers on the digital clock glared back at her in the dark.
05:00.
Stupid clock. Stupid numbers.
Kiana groaned, kicking the tangled mess of sheets off her legs. She stared up at the ceiling, where a constellation of plastic glow-in-the-dark stars stared back.
She remembered sticking them up there months ago, standing on her bed and thinking they looked awesome—her own personal galaxy.
Now, in the pale gray light of pre-dawn, they just looked like dead eyes. Pale, sickly, and judging her for being awake.
She hadn't slept. Not a wink.
Her eyes felt dry and gritty, like someone had rubbed sand in them, but every time she tried to close them, her brain decided it was the perfect time to replay every single scene from the last mission in high definition.
Kiana rolled over, burying her face in the pillow. It didn't help.
It was too quiet.
That was the real problem. The dorm wasn't supposed to be this quiet.
Usually, by five in the morning, everyone else would already be up. Even if Kiana was dead to the world, her subconscious usually registered the sounds.
There should have been the rhythmic sound of a knife hitting a cutting board. Courtesty of Mei cooking something.
There should have been the angry gurgle of the coffee machine fighting for its life, or the low murmur of the morning news. As Kenji always insisted that watching the news helped wake him up.
Something Kiana always called him old for doing.
Those were the sounds that told her everything was okay.
But today? Nothing. It was completely silent.
The silence made everything else sound hostile. The wind rattling the window sounded like claws scratching at the glass trying to get in.
"Ugh, this sucks," Kiana muttered into her mattress.
She sat up, rubbing her face aggressively, trying to scrub away the exhaustion. She swung her legs out of bed and padded barefoot to the door, peeking into the living room.
From her angle, she could see the lumpy shape on the couch, buried under a mountain of wool blankets.
Wendy.
The green-haired girl was fast asleep, just a tuft of hair sticking out from the cocoon. Seeing her there gave Kiana a small flicker of relief.
It was still kind of crazy that Theresa and Himeko actually pulled it off—slapping a "Teaching Assistant" badge on Wendy's file and daring Headquarters to argue about it.
It was a total cheat code, a loophole so big you could fly a battleship through it, but hey, it worked…. Sadly, Kiana knew it was only a matter of time before some stupid politics got in the way of their peace.
Kiana's gaze drifted past the sleeping lump on the couch and landed on the kitchen.
There was no smell of toast. No aroma of spices that she couldn't name, but tasted amazing. No Mei or Kenji standing by the stove, ready to yell at her for leaving her socks on the floor again.
A weird, hollow ache expanded in her chest. It wasn't just sadness. It felt as if the entire dorm had become thinner. Everything was so out of place.
'He's just sleeping, idiot,' Kiana told herself, flopping back onto her bed. 'Theresa said he's stable. He's just taking a really long nap. He'll be back to lecturing you in no time.'
But the thought didn't stop the itch under her skin. The silence was still there, loud and oppressive.
Kiana stared at the plastic stars again.
"I hate this," she whispered to the empty room.
She pulled a pillow up over her head, making a fortress against the quiet. She just needed a few hours. Just a little bit of sleep so she wouldn't look like a zombie for Himeko's training later.
She squeezed her eyes shut, begging her brain to shut up.
And that was her first mistake.
/ — /
Sleep didn't come gently. It didn't drift over her like a warm blanket. It grabbed her by the ankles and dragged her down.
One second, Kiana was staring at the plastic stars on her ceiling, and the next, the world inverted.
The gray ceiling dissolved into a shattered mosaic of violent violet shards. The mattress beneath her back melted away, replaced by something cold, wet, and infinitely deep.
Kiana gasped, her lungs filling with air that tasted like ash.
She wasn't in her room anymore.
She was standing in the middle of an ocean. The water was black as ink, still as glass, stretching out in every direction until it merged with the fractured purple sky.
'Not again!' Kiana thought, panic flaring in her chest as she started to hyperventilate. 'Wake up. Wake up!'
She tried to pinch herself, tried to scream, tried to do anything to break the lucid nightmare, but her body refused to obey.
Then, she saw them.
In the distance, across the expanse of the black water, flashes of light erupted against the gloom. Green wind howled, tearing ripples into the stillness of the ocean. Violet lightning struck the water, sending up hissing plumes of steam.
"Mei?! Wendy?!" Kiana shouted.
Her voice sounded small in the infinite space, swallowed by the dark.
They were fighting. Wendy was airborne, her silhouette framed by a vortex of razor-sharp gales. Mei was on the water's surface, moving like a blur of thunder, her katana drawn and glowing.
They were fighting with everything they had.
They were fighting a shadow.
Standing amidst the chaos was a figure made of static and darkness. It wore the shape of a boy, but the edges of its form blurred and glitched like a corrupted video file.
Zero.
"Wait!" Kiana screamed, throwing her weight forward, desperate to close the distance. "I can help! Please!"
She tried to sprint, but her feet wouldn't move. The black water had turned to tar. It clung to her ankles, holding her rooted to the spot.
She pulled until her muscles screamed, until she was gasping for breath, but she couldn't move an inch. She was a statue. A spectator in her own mind.
"Pathetic."
The voice didn't come from the sky. It didn't come from Zero. It slithered out from the back of her own skull, echoing in her ear like a secret whispered by a ghost.
Kiana froze. That voice. Her own cold, distorted voice. She hasn't heard it in months, so why is it coming back now?!
"Look at you," Her voice whispered, the sound vibrating through Kiana's bones. "Struggling like a bug in a jar. Do you really think you can save them? You couldn't even save yourself."
"Shut up!" Kiana yelled, tearing her eyes away from the fight to glare at her reflection in the dark water. "Get out of my head!"
"Make me," She laughed. It was a dry, hollow sound. "Watch. Watch what happens when the little girl tries to play hero."
Ahead, the battle turned.
Zero didn't attack. He simply raised a hand. The glitching static of his form expanded, shooting out like tendrils of black wire.
Wendy screamed. The wind died instantly. The tendrils wrapped around her ankles, dragging her out of the sky. She slammed into the black water with a sickening splash, struggling, thrashing, her eyes wide with terror as the static crawled up her legs.
"Wendy!" Mei cried out, turning to help her.
But Zero was already there. He moved without walking, blinking into existence right in front of Mei. He caught her blade with a bare hand. The violet lightning crackled and sparked, trying to burn him, but the darkness just swallowed it.
Kiana thrashed against the water holding her feet. "NO! STOP IT! MEI!"
Zero's hand closed around Mei's throat. He lifted her off the water effortlessly.
And then, they began to crumble.
Starting from where the darkness touched them, Mei and Wendy began to turn gray. Cracks formed on their skin like dried porcelain.
Pieces of them—fingertips, hair, clothes—flaked off and dissolved into ash, carried away by a wind that Kiana couldn't feel.
Mei reached out toward Kiana, her mouth opening in a silent plea, before her hand disintegrated into dust.
"See?" She hissed, the voice growing louder, drowning out Kiana's sobbing. "They are fragile. They are breaking. And you can't do anything."
"I can't move!" Kiana wailed, tears stinging on her face. "I can't move!"
"Because you are weak," The voice taunted. "You let him break to save you. Now you let them die because you are afraid. You are nothing without them. Just a vessel waiting to be filled."
Wendy's face crumbled away. Mei's body collapsed into a pile of gray sand that sank beneath the black water.
Zero turned.
His face was a void of static, featureless and terrifying. He began to walk toward Kiana.
"Wouldn't it be easier?" She whispered, her voice softening into a seductive purr. "Just let go, Kiana. Close your eyes. I can make the pain stop. I can save them. Just... give up."
Zero was feet away now. He reached out a hand, his fingers twitching with that same destructive static.
Kiana stared at the hand. The fear was paralyzing. She could feel the cold radiating off him. She squeezed her eyes shut, bracing for the end, bracing to turn to ash just like the others.
"Die,"
BOOM.
The world shattered.
It didn't come from the dream. It was an actual physical, violent shockwave that ripped through the fabric of her dream.
The purple sky cracked like a mirror. The black water vanished. The static figure of Zero was blown apart by a shockwave of reality.
Kiana's eyes snapped open.
She wasn't in the ocean. She was in her bed.
But the shaking hadn't stopped. The floorboards beneath her were vibrating. The window pane rattled in its frame so hard it sounded like it was about to shatter.
Another sound followed—a crashing, tearing noise, like metal being ripped apart.
"Explosion?" Kiana gasped, the air rushing back into her lungs.
The nightmare evaporated instantly, replaced by a surge of adrenaline so sharp it made her dizzy. That wasn't a dream. That was a bomb. That was an attack.
'Zero? Is he here?!'
There was no time to think.
Kiana scrambled out of bed, her bare feet hitting the floor. She nearly tripped over her own sheets but recovered, lunging for the nightstand. Her fingers closed around the cold metal of her dual pistols.
"Not again," she snarled, the image of Mei turning to ash still burned into her retinas. "You're not taking her."
She kicked her bedroom door open and sprinted into the hallway, guns raised, ready to kill anything that moved.
Kiana moved on pure instinct, her bare feet slapping against the floor. Her heart was beating so fast it felt like it was vibrating in her throat.
She burst into the living room, swinging the gun barrels toward the center of the space.
"Wait! Don't shoot!" a voice snapped back.
It wasn't an enemy. It was Wendy.
The Herrscher of Wind was already standing. She looked like a wreck—her green hair was a bird's nest of tangles, her skin was pale and waxy, and she was clutching a thick wool blanket tightly around her shoulders with one hand.
But her other hand was raised, fingers curled into a claw, swirling with a small, unstable vortex of wind. Her teeth were chattering audibly, but her eyes were sharp and ready to kill.
"Wendy?" Kiana lowered her weapon. "Are you okay?"
She couldn't help but notice Wendy shivering from head to toe. But why? The living room wasn't even slightly cold?
"I'm f-fine," Wendy stammered. "The explosion. It c-came from the hall. It sounded like a grenade."
She didn't wait for Kiana. Wendy took a step forward, her legs shaking but moving with grim determination.
"Let's go," Kiana said, stepping in front of her.
"Mei is down there. Move." Wendy hissed, pushing past Kiana with a burst of wind that felt strangely icy.
They turned back to the hallway together. Smoke was beginning to drift along the ceiling, thin gray tendrils that smelled of burnt debris.
It wasn't coming from the front door.
It was coming from the last door on the left.
'Mei.'
The nightmare flashed in Kiana's mind again.
"No," Kiana hissed, gripping her pistols tighter. "Not real. That wasn't real."
But the smoke was real. And the silence coming from behind that door was deafening.
Kiana sprinted the last ten feet, Wendy close on her heels, the sound of the wind girl's chattering teeth cutting through the quiet.
She braced her shoulder and slammed into the door with everything she had.
Kiana rolled into the room, coming up in a crouch, both pistols leveled at the window. Wendy swept in behind her, the wind howling around her blanket-clad form, ready to shred an attacker.
"Get away from Mei, you—!"
The command died in Kiana's throat.
There was no enemy. There was no mech, no Honkai beast, no glitching shadow-boy trying to kill them.
There was barely even a room left.
Kiana slowly straightened up, lowering her guns as her brain tried to process the destruction. Beside her, Wendy let out a hiss as the morning air hit them.
The entire far wall was gone. It hadn't just been broken. It had been erased.
The glass, the frame, the curtains, even the concrete reinforcement of the outer wall... they had been vaporized.
A gaping, jagged hole opened up to the morning sky, letting the cool dawn wind rush into the bedroom. Dust and pulverized concrete swirled in the air like fog.
"Mei?"
Mei was standing near the edge of the destruction, silhouetted against the gray light of the sunrise. She was wearing her silk pajamas, her long dark hair flowing loosely down her back.
She was staring at her right hand.
Violet electricity arched violently around her fingers. It wasn't the controlled, elegant flow Kiana was used to seeing in battle.
It was jagged, erratic. It snapped and hissed like a live wire that had been cut, scorching the floorboards beneath her feet.
"Mei?" Kiana took a cautious step forward, holstering her guns. "Mei, look at me. Are you hurt?"
Mei flinched. The electricity flared, striking the remains of the wall with a loud crack.
"Don't," Mei whispered. Her voice was trembling. "Don't come closer, Kiana. It's... it's too loud."
"What is? What attacked you?"
"Nothing."
Wendy stepped forward, shivering violently as the draft from the hole cut through her blanket. "Mei, y-you blew out the w-whole wall. S-something had to h-happen."
Mei turned around slowly.
She looked terrified. Tears were streaming down her face, but her eyes were wide, dilated, darting around the room as if every shadow was screaming at her.
"It was just a bird," Mei choked out. She held up her trembling hand, staring at it with revulsion. "A stupid little bird. It landed on the window and started chirping."
Mei squeezed her eyes shut, her hands clutching at her head.
"It was so loud. It hurt so much, I just wanted it to stop. I just... I flinched."
She gestured helplessly to the gaping hole in the wall where the balcony used to be.
"I tried to shoo it away. But the lightning... it just came out. All of it. At once."
Kiana followed Mei's gaze to the floor near the edge of the precipice. There, swirling in the draft, were a few tiny, black charred feathers.
'Blowing up the entire wall, because of a bird? Something's not right.'
"I can't turn it off," Mei whispered, watching the arcs of energy jump from her skin to the ruined floor.
Beside Kiana, Wendy groaned, leaning against the doorframe for support. Her lips were turning a faint shade of blue.
"I-I can't feel my f-fingers," Wendy muttered, pulling the blanket tighter. "It's f-freezing in here. W-why is it so c-cold?"
Kiana's mind quickly connected the dots. This couldn't be a coincidence. Two semi awakened Herrschers suddenly acting wack?
Something was wrong, and Kiana wasn't going to wait around for it to get worse. Kiana stepped forward, ignoring the sparks popping off Mei's skin.
"We're going to Theresa. Right now."
"Kiana, I might hurt you," Mei warned, stepping back toward the edge.
"I don't care," Kiana snapped. She grabbed a coat from Mei's closet and threw it to her. "Put this on. Wendy, lean on me."
Kiana grabbed Wendy's arm, feeling the unnatural cold radiating through the wool. She looked at Mei, her blue eyes leaving no room for argument.