"Hey, girl? Girl?"
"Ugh..."
At first, only hazy, indistinct light enveloped the girl, like an incredibly fine net drawn before her eyes. But a net is still a net; it couldn't block all light. Some photons stubbornly pushed through the gaps, finally landing on her closed eyelids.
"Ugh..."
People often say darkness exists because of light. The thought surfaced abruptly in the girl's mind, likely rooted in dialectical thinking, yet also serving as its best illustration. It seemed someone had said this to her at a time she cared deeply about, but she couldn't recall when, let alone who said it.
"Girl? Girl?"
But perhaps not remembering didn't matter. What she was pondering just now wasn't an issue requiring dialectical perspective, but rather—
When a person can perceive light in a dream, they are only a step away from waking.
And though the sounds around her seemed filtered through water, reaching her ears thick and cold, the fact that she could perceive them at all, like now, meant something.
"Hehehe, the girl's finally awake? You slept in quite a bit later than usual today. The sun's already high in the sky!"
Hua opened her eyes. The first thing she saw was a ceiling, both unfamiliar and familiar.
After all, this kind of ceiling... plain white paint with no other decoration... you couldn't say it was everywhere in this world, but it was certainly common enough. That familiarity mixed with an unreal strangeness wasn't too hard to understand, right?
Hua moistened her dry, peeling lips. She seemed to have slept for a long time, yet felt none of the satisfaction or relaxation rest should bring. On the contrary, the prolonged sleep seemed to have drained her energy further, leaving her feeling only a deeper exhaustion now.
"Is this... what sleeping in feels like?"
Her eyelids felt heavy, opening and closing sluggishly, as if she might fall asleep again at any moment.
She had a vague sense that this fatigue shouldn't be from oversleeping, but her memory held no recollection of ever sleeping late, so she couldn't know if it caused such results. Thus, the flicker of doubt gradually faded.
Besides, while her mind was blank, a calloused hand rested on her head, gently smoothing her hair.
"Hey, even though I always told you not to be like those boys, getting up day after day to practice, if you keep sleeping like this, it'll be noon soon."
"Urk... Mmm... Ah!"
Hua practically leaped out of bed.
She looked at her father sitting by the bedside, a wry smile on his face. He met her gaze, adjusting his position slightly so their eyes could meet in that indescribable void.
Why did her eyes suddenly sting? She felt... as if she had waited years for this gaze, and yet, it also felt like this might be the last time she looked into her father's eyes...
She quickly shook her head, as vigorously as a pellet drum, trying to banish such dangerous thoughts immediately.
Her father, naturally unaware of her inner turmoil, patted her head again gently and said softly:
"Alright, the break during morning drills is almost over. I need to get back to teach them. Give yourself a day off today, rest well. After all, even my apprentices get days off each week, but my own daughter doesn't. That's just not right, is it?"
Hua glanced at the digital clock on the bedside table:
[9:59]
The break had actually ended several minutes ago. But for her senior and junior martial brothers, this probably wasn't a bad thing.
After her father left, she sat alone on the bed for a long time.
"Strange..."
Only after waking fully did she realize she exhibited none of the normal physiological reactions a person should have after waking from a dream.
It seemed as though all metabolism was absent in her.
Of course, it was also possible it existed in another form.
She herself didn't seem very surprised, or rather, she accepted this abnormality quite naturally, even though such a phenomenon should logically panic an ordinary person.
She swung her legs over the side of the bed, didn't look for slippers, and let her bare feet rest on the cold, smooth floor. Slowly, with unprecedented laziness, she ambled to the window.
The window overlooked the training grounds. As her gaze fell downwards, she saw her group of senior and junior brothers groaning as they emerged from the building's shadow. Amidst her father's admonishments, they began sweating under the bright sun once more.
She watched for a moment, then turned her hands over in front of her.
They were indeed hands unlike other girls'. Not only were the palms covered in rough calluses, but the backs of her hands, especially the knuckles—the skin there was broken, revealing bruised, purplish flesh, looking quite gruesome.
But these were the marks left by practicing martial arts. Unforgettable, indelible, right, Hua? The girl asked herself.
"But these memories, neither painful nor particularly cherished, what do they really mean to me?"
She gently pressed her hand against the window and slid it open.
A warm southern wind rushed in. Perhaps this wind had also caressed the green meadows of Bohemia, the white snows of Siberia, the dim yellow deserts at the foot of the Tian Shan mountains, before finally being able to lift the strands of hair at her temples—she inexplicably recalled the last sentence of the third paragraph in the first chapter of a novel someone hid under their desk.
"Sigh! Sigh!"
The person behind her sighed twice, expressing their inner frustration.
"Hua, I really admire you. Practicing martial arts is so hard... Never mind the training, just getting up this early every day would kill me!"
In an instant, Hua was no longer leaning against her bedroom window, but against the railing on the roof of the school dormitory.
The same sunlight pricked every pore of her skin in a way imperceptible to the naked eye, creating a needle-like sensation. But at the same time, the warm morning breeze drifted gently from the distant horizon, lifting her fluffy hair, gently tugging it towards someplace far away—for a moment, she couldn't tell if it was her long hair or her thoughts being carried away.
She emptied her mind, and her body naturally performed the exact same actions as in her memory.
She turned around, wiped the sweat from her forehead, brushed the hair stuck to her brow aside, and then spoke with a mix of resignation and an indefinable feeling:
"Actually... since coming to school, I haven't practiced much. There's too little private space here, and no training dummies. My internal clock just hasn't adjusted yet. Sometimes I just stand here spacing out until class time after waking up, sometimes I go for a run on the track. Anyway, I haven't practiced in a long time..."
"I haven't practiced in a long time"—the girl repeated it twice, as if practicing martial arts were some great transgression that would lead to unspeakable consequences if discovered by her peers.
Looking back now... it truly reeked of adolescent naivety...
"Oh? Really? But your moves last night were so—cool! Sigh, if I weren't terrible at getting up early and couldn't handle the hardship, I'd really want to learn from you."
"You... Are you serious?"
"Hm? Why are you making that face?"
"Don't you think... girls shouldn't practice martial arts?"
"Huh? Huh? Huh?"
Carole tilted her head three times in confusion. She spread her hands, completely unable to understand... completely unable to understand why she would think that way.
"Come on! Why would you think that? If I had the choice, I'd want to... Ahem! Be cool, protect the people around me, isn't learning martial arts good?"
"..."
"So, are there any techniques that don't require hard training to master? Can you teach me? Next time I encounter that kind of monster, I want to show it a Heaven-Splitting Inch Punch!"
"No."
"Aww—so heartless! Aren't there divine skills in novels that you can master just by meditating? Like that big sister yesterday who could control pink crystals?"
"You said it yourself, in novels..."
"But didn't that big sister really use superpowers?"
"I don't know about that either..."
"Hmph—"
Hua let out a soft sound, and all the memories began to flow faster.
She didn't need to deliberately recall any specific memory this way; constrained by the side effects of the surgery, everything was deeply ingrained in her mind, impossible to forget.
But... who was doing this?
Yes, putting aside the initial haze, Hua was now perfectly lucid. Especially since the creator of the illusion made no attempt to hide the fact that "this is an illusion."
Initially, she had assessed the attack the same way Vill-V and Mei had—this kind of psychic assault must be the aftereffect of a battle, either the Tenth Herrscher fighting Himeko, or Aponia fighting the Tenth Herrscher, one of the two.
But was that really the case?
If it were mere "aftereffects," it would still be a form of attack. What psychic-Sensitive MANTIS would expend effort during combat to trap someone in "memories"?
Based on Hua's understanding of the psychic MANTISes around her, they were largely ineffective against Honkai Beasts, as the beasts lacked human-like thought most of the time.
And when attacking conscious targets, like Herrschers or humans themselves, they certainly wouldn't use their powers in such a convoluted and meaningless way.
What they did was simply interfere with the target's mind, then deliver a blow. That was all.
Forcibly dragging someone into memories felt more like a method of confinement, or perhaps...
No, she couldn't be so sure. Didn't the Eighth Herrscher favor such attack methods?
But one thing was certain: Hua felt no killing intent.
Killing intent cannot be hidden, especially within the space of consciousness.
So, how could she break free from this?
Hua looked at the railing before her. Just as she was about to make a move, she felt a hand grab hers—
"Hee hee! Let's go, let's go! I heard the school milk tea shop is having a grand opening sale, ice cream is only one yuan each! I went yesterday, and they were all sold out. It's rare for you to wake me up this early today, we definitely can't miss it."
"Ah..."
Hua opened her mouth slightly, looked at the railing behind her, then at the girl before her with an expectant face, caught in a difficult choice.
She knew the Carole before her was just a reflection of her memory. Perhaps this reflection would create a world more distant than time itself, a world where Hua and Carole, just like in her current consciousness, were holding hands...
But for Hua herself, a reflection was ultimately just a reflection, just as a shadow is ultimately just a shadow. Geometry could use inversion to swap the space inside a circle with the space outside, but a shadow and a person could never be reversed.
Yet despite this, despite this, saying no, facing all of reality, remained so... difficult to decide.
She had heard both Kevin and Sakura describe this feeling before. Clearly, as an observer back then, she could never understand such hesitation. Until now.
She was clearly aware that everything before her was false, yet lacked the courage to shatter it.
It felt as if countless hands were tugging at her pant legs, embracing her body, whispering softly in her ear:
"Just let it be... The problems outside will eventually be resolved, just like every time before. They, Michael, will solve everything. You just need to enjoy this happy phantom woven from memory right here. When you wake up again, it will all be over."
"What? You're unwilling? What's there to be unwilling about? Even if you woke up now, would you suddenly possess the power to defeat the Tenth Herrscher? It's not difficult for Himeko to hold out for thirty minutes. Why bother?"
"Even if you insist on waking up, insist on asserting some self-awareness and self-strength, just wait a little longer, okay? Don't you want to know what kind of future the weaver of this illusion will show you? Don't you want to wait for the day when fate changes? Perhaps in this illusion, the Third Honkai Eruption won't happen. Don't you want to see the happiness you deserve?"
"..."
For every argument, Hua had countless rebuttals, but she kept her lips tightly sealed, saying nothing.
"Words are always pale and powerless."
Someone had once told her that.
But she felt it should be phrased differently—"Words spoken by oneself are always pale and powerless."
But... but...
As if sensing her struggle and hesitation, a sigh echoed from all around.
"What's wrong, Hua? Are you not feeling well? Don't want ice cream?"
Carole asked quizzically.
Hua's response was a trembling breath.
"No..."
Hua didn't seem to be talking to her.
"If... If it could be as you say, if the Third Honkai Eruption didn't happen, at least not around me. Father, Carole would live on... But is that all I desire? Or rather, is that what you think I want?"
"What are you talking about, silly child?"
Himeko looked at her with a half-smile, reaching out, wanting to ruffle her hair.
But Hua didn't react. She gazed ahead with slightly pitying eyes. Himeko's movement stopped. And then, there was no one there, only a void that made one's heart clench just looking at it.
Hua knew that void hadn't just appeared; it had... always been there.
It was that same person again, who had once told her—
"There was once a myth that all humans originated from the same mother entity, the sole god. When creating humans, this mother entity had two choices: grant her offspring the [Fruit of Life], or grant them the [Fruit of Wisdom]. The former contained the ultimate physical power, the latter the absolute height of the spirit. In the end, She bestowed the Fruit of Wisdom."
"Thus, humans possessed wisdom far exceeding other creatures. Philosophers called this consciousness—not biological consciousness, but contemplation of the self and the world. But humans aren't born contemplating these things."
"Humans are truly fragile creatures. According to the mother entity's design, She should have birthed one descendant, not a species. But because She didn't bestow the [Fruit of Life], human bodies are extremely fragile, so fragile they couldn't even appear as [a single complete individual], forcing themselves to divide into countless parts."
"Correspondingly, humans possess a spiritual world rivaling the mother entity's. An oversized spiritual world and a minuscule physical remnant—thus, under this mismatch, a void inevitably appeared in the human heart."
"If humans constantly stared into this void, they would realize their own insignificance, fragility, worthlessness, and consequently lose all hope to live."
"So people must fill this void with something to truly feel [alive]..."
"And the only thing that can fill this void is [others]. Humans were originally one, only scattered because their power dispersed. Therefore, the emptiness within must be filled by others—more accurately, by the connections between them."
Many fragments suddenly appeared in Hua's hands. She fit them one by one into the void before her.
Father, everyone in the small town, Carole, Himeko...
One by one, pieced together into the most suitable positions.
But...
But just as she thought, the void didn't disappear. There was still the central, largest empty space, with no fragment found to fill it.
She didn't know when this specific phenomenon appeared. Perhaps because most of the fragments she placed corresponded to people who had passed away?
The connection between the departed and the living ceased at that moment, their link to those still alive severed. So their share in the hearts of the living would never expand...
But was that really true?
Hua actually knew the answer, but... she was still a girl, after all. She was unwilling to admit it, at least not face-to-face.
She couldn't help but wonder if her supposed coldness, Michael's supposed strength, stemmed merely from a cognitive bias—Even though I lost those people, I still have someone more important alive, standing beside me...
Though this was just a perverse thought, it was already quite revealing.
"Haha... hahaha..."
The void before her dissipated. From the corresponding position came two dry laughs.
Hua quickly lowered her head, unwilling to meet the other's gaze.
"My main body detached a part of its consciousness to attach to you... Originally, I wanted to use this choice to help you grasp the resolve you should have. I didn't expect to see all this..."
Hearing his guilty-sounding explanation, the corners of Hua's mouth twitched upwards slightly.
But she wasn't in the habit of expressing everything with a smile. She averted her gaze, closing her eyes. Her chest rose and fell rapidly with her quickened breathing. After what seemed like a long time, she finally spoke slowly:
"I think I understand... what you wanted to tell me."
"Is that so?"
The sentence structure was undoubtedly a question, but Michael's tone was unquestionably declarative. Clearly, he wasn't surprised that Hua could grasp what he meant.
"But... I'd still rather hear you say it. I..."
People tend to remember what others say more than what they themselves have said. Michael had told her that once. Back then, Hua didn't have perfect memory, but she still missed those times... when Michael nonsensically instilled these things in her.
"I just want you to understand what the past truly is. Whether it's your father, Carole, those you knew who are gone, or those you know who are still here, I hope you understand the meaning of these things. Because even for me, it was something I only truly grasped two years ago."
"So, presenting all these past echoes before me, it was all to tell me one thing..."
Her lips moved slightly, but no sound escaped.
But Michael knew. Although she hadn't made a choice like him or Kevin, she understood it all.
"Humans, due to their physical weakness, cannot unite as a whole. But why do the atoms composing each person form separate individuals instead of dissolving into an ocean? It's the self. The self binds all the atoms constituting a person, fixing them in this form. But what is the self?
"Hua, for you, all these past echoes, whether happy memories or painful ones, these are what allow you to perceive your self, to feel your difference from others. This feeling of difference is sought after by some, but for you, it's the opposite.
"That's why the void in your heart is so vast, because your sense of self is extremely faint. If you had a choice, you'd prefer this void to be filled to the brim with connections to others.
"But when that happens, you'll find that's not what you want either. If a person's heart is filled only by connections to others, the layer of self binding them will gradually dissipate, eventually becoming a beast constantly crying out for love at the center of the world.
"So... Hua, rather than using me to fill your final void, I hope your choice is to accept your own past—pain, sorrow, joy... it doesn't matter. Let your past illuminate the steps that led you here, the footprints that formed your self, step by step.
"Only when you perceive your true self can you make the choice you truly desire. So, regarding those yearnings for the past, obsessions, regrets, unwillingness—don't suppress them entirely, because they are intrinsically part of you. Others can't take them away, and you can't erase them.
"Only by understanding this, understanding what the self is, understanding the past that constructed the self, can one understand the future the self desires. And only by understanding the future the self desires does a person know what they are truly fighting for.
"Since you understand all this, then it's time to hand you the key to unlock the power of Garuda. Don't worry, it's a key well-suited for you, and its core holds special significance for you."
Hua pursed her lips and asked in return:
"You seem to have always had great confidence in me, especially believing I could..."
"Words are pale and powerless, Hua. I simply made judgments based on your actions."
Michael lowered his head slightly. Whether he truly meant what he said, only heaven knew.
"But some things you said before weren't like this."
"Mm."
Michael admitted it readily.
"After all, some things I only figured out recently. Thinking back now, when I thought I had bid farewell to the past, it was merely a false farewell. The true attitude towards the past is neither drowning in it nor bidding it farewell, but rather an embrace."
As he spoke, everything before Hua gradually dissipated. She opened her mouth futilely, grasping grasping at air towards Michael's direction—she did indeed feel she had grasped something.
It was a feather.
And so she knew how Michael had attached himself to her.
But she also knew very well that this feather, or rather, this part of the Authority of Sentience, was not the "key" Michael spoke of to unlock Garuda's power.
Then, what was the key?
A feeling arose in her heart. She lifted her head slightly, ignoring the concerned gazes of Mei and Vill-V, and fixed her sight on Vill-V's two suitcases.
More accurately, on the larger, longer case underneath.