Bianka unhooked her water canteen and handed it to the little girl. Bianka estimated that there was still about half a bottle of water in her canteen, though she didn't know exactly how many milliliters... it was definitely enough for a hundred.
And then Siegfried was arrested... well... taken away by the city defense team, Shigure Kira brought her back, the little girl was scared off, and she wanted to chase after her, but Shigure Kira stopped her, and she didn't dare to run away at that time...
"Aiya! I should have chased after her!" Under Stan's watchful gaze, Bianka started again, wriggling a few times like a stranded gosling.
She rubbed her face vigorously until it was red before stopping.
Right... why didn't I chase after her?
She couldn't answer herself immediately.
Bianka's current quietness was a stark contrast to her earlier frenzied state. Her gaze was downcast, her thoughts unreadable.
In her silence, Bianka failed to remember that she had been awake for almost a full day.
It had been fine before, but this body was different from her previous one. Children need plenty of sleep.
Having slept without even a proper mat for the past half month, Bianka's eyelids grew heavier and heavier without her realizing it. She eventually collapsed onto the soft bed and fell asleep.
Mmm... the bed doesn't smell like cleaning solution... It's like some kind of floral scent... sweet, with an unusually rich feel...
---||---
"Bianka!" A sharp cry jolted Bianka from her slumber. She snapped her eyes open, her heart pounding from the shock.
The heart palpitations caused by the surge in blood pressure almost suppressed all of Bianka's thoughts. She looked up in terror and saw a world of blood.
This was hell... The sky and the distant ground were both a bloody red. The horizon was gone, as if painted over with blood-colored pigment. Bianka felt as if the world had become a sphere without edges or boundaries.
And she was the one trapped inside.
A strange sensation came from under her feet. It didn't feel like shoes. It was as if she were stepping on something barefoot, or something was tickling her feet.
She looked down in horror and saw that her feet were submerged in thick blood.
Startled, Bianka stumbled backward, sending up a spray of blood that stained her calves.
As the sound of the splashing blood faded, a cacophony of whispers began to emanate from all directions. They chanted, complained, cursed...
"Honkai... I hate the Honkai!"
"Destroy the Honkai..."
"My child, my child... give me back my child..."
"Mommy—"
"..."
The voices were chaotic and indistinct, but each word was like a sharp blade that could slice through flesh, seeping through Bianka's hands as she covered her ears.
She didn't want to listen... but she could hear...
"It's a Honkai Beast..."
"A Honkai Beast killed my daughter!"
"That damned Honkai Beast took him from me..."
"Kill it..."
"Kill the Honkai Beast!"
"Kill it..."
"Kill her!!"
The ankle-deep blood began to recede, gradually revealing what lay beneath.
But the voices grew more intense. The whispers sharpened, turning into roars and screams from different people in different voices.
"Kill her!"
"Kill her!!"
These roars became spears, dripping with blood, aimed at a Jesus bound to the cross.
Bianka struggled to open her eyes, but even a sliver of an opening was enough for the scene at her feet to burn into her mind.
Corpses... severed limbs and mangled flesh, mixed with stark white bones. All kinds of gruesome, tragic deaths lay at Bianka's feet!
"No!"
Bianka screamed, her blood pressure skyrocketing. Her heart skipped a beat, and she nearly fainted.
But even as the world spun, her consciousness remained unnervingly clear. She could see the state of every corpse at her feet, and even analyze what each had suffered before death...
Torn apart, chewed, crushed and broken...
The pain seemed to manifest in Bianka's own body. In that moment, she felt their agony as if it were her own...
The girl, covering her face, squeezed her eyes shut again. She could only hug her head tightly, curl up into a ball, and try to lessen her suffering.
"I didn't want to... I didn't want to..."
Faced with the screams and roars in her ears, Bianka could only repeat this one, pale sentence.
"Did we want to?"
"No one can always do as they please."
"No one can be absolved of [sin]!"
"All who have erred must face [judgment]!"
"Tear out her heart—"
"Tear out her core!"
"You must pay the price for this—"
The whispers, which had been merging into a single voice, suddenly stopped. A brilliant golden light appeared in this hellish world, shattering all the blood-red.
A completely different voice emerged in this world, accompanied by a sound that seemed to exist in the past.
It was the chanting of the monks in the pagoda on Jieyang Mountain. The low Sanskrit seemed endless, but after dispelling the blood-red sky, it seemed to lose its strength.
This was, after all, only a fragment of a memory, but it was enough for now.
Bianka had paid attention to the chanting when the old monk had said his disciple could suppress his inner demons by reciting the sutras. But she hadn't had time to delve deeply into any Sanskrit. In the end, when the Sanskrit she could recite was exhausted, the repeated phrases from Bianka's mouth changed.
"We have no choice...
"We are born to die...
"We are the moths that chase the flame...
"For... the dawn of tomorrow..."
The blood-red of this place faded, leaving only Bianka's small, self-redeeming recitation and a faint sigh.
And even without those things around her, Bianka's body still trembled with fear.
Until—
A hand gently caressed her face.
"It's okay, you don't have to be afraid..."
It was that floral scent...
It was as if someone were whispering in her ear... completely different from the dark roars from before. This voice was like the gentlest spring water, exuding all its warmth.
"No matter what you've been through, you don't have to be afraid anymore..."