Chapter 32: prologue (volume 2)

May 13, 2008

"Sigh*

"What a pain. What a tiredness."

Ryusuke complained while sitting on the couch with his body all sore. His clothes were a little torn and there were some bruises on his body.

The reason he stayed like this is because...

"I'm sorry Ryusuke. But today you asked me to increase the difficulty of training so I couldn't help myself in time."

Yae Sakura appeared behind and brought him an ice pack. Today she was wearing a white sleeveless T-shirt and short jeans. She was also carrying a wooden sword in her hand. His fox ears were also exposed.

"Don't worry, I'm fine." Ryusuke responded to relieve Yae Sakura.

"Ryusuke ... this past month you have tried much harder than usual. You asked me to step up your fencing training, was it because of the girl named Griseo and the organization known as World Serpent that you told me about earlier?" Yae Sakura asked with a somewhat concerned expression.

Last month, after Ryusuke returned from school, he told Yae Sakura what happened. He talked about Griseo being a MANTIS from the Previous Age and about her probably being involved with one of the three major anti-honkai organizations in the world known as World Serpent. Although the World Serpent has always remained hidden and away from people's eyes and ears.

Ryusuke told Yae Sakura this because he would not be able to understand the motives of the World Serpent and was also unable to predict his movements. Ryusuke did not dare to use Herrscher's powers of Corruption to try to hack computer systems to investigate Griseo, because he is only able to use only a very weak version of Herrscher's digital hacking from Corruption. It is not that the hacking power he can use is very weak, but if he tries to investigate Griseo and he is discovered it can cause several problems.

And if World Serpent doesn't even know about Ryusuke, they may have sent Griseo for another purpose here in Nagazora.

One of the possible reasons may be Raiden Mei, one of the three protagonists of Honkai Impact 3rd. Like Ryusuke, she has a Herrscher Stigma. In the history of the game, in 2014, Raiden Mei became the third Herrscher of this era and caused the third Honkai impact in this city, although it was an incomplete awakening due to the artificial Honkai impact caused by Cocolia.

Although nothing in the history of the game has happened to Raiden Mei in the face of this, there is no prediction of what will happen next. After all, Griseo is alive in this era, and she is also in this city.

In the game's original story, the only survivors of the Previous Age who were alive in the Current Age were Kevin Kaslana, Su, and Fu Hua. These three were the only survivors of the Anterior Era alive today. There was also the question of whether Mobius was alive or not, as it is not known whether the real Mobius survived against Herrscher of the End.

'Mobius was someone who was obsessed with immortality so she should have a strong desire for survival to ensure that her dream comes true, to make humanity evolve into a perfect way of life. So I hardly believe that she would choose to die in the previous era as Eden did.' Ryusuke recalled some information about the game while thinking about his situation. He also sighed as he remembered a classmate with long blue hair.

'In the history of the game, Griseo should have left for outer space in the spacecraft of the ARK project, whose aim was to find other planets habitable for humanity and colonize them. As there was no response from her and space ship after thousands of years she was considered dead. This was the information I knew when I read Honkai's Second Key manga. But...'

Griseo was alive in this era, in this city, and she was studying at the same school and in the same room as him.

'Is it possible that the actions and changes of the Herrscher of Binding and the planet-level Honkai beast of the Previous Age have made major changes in the history of the history of the Previous Age? If so, what happened to the other Flame-Chases? How many of them survived until the Current Age besides Griseo? Was Kevin still sealed at Sea of Quanta?'

Ryusuke had many doubts in his mind in the face of so many uncertainties that were presented to him.

He was afraid and nervous that there were several unforeseen factors in this world. When he learned that he was in the Honkai Impact world he really was very afraid since he knew of several shits that were going to happen in the future of this world, although it was incomplete knowledge he was still relieved that he could avoid stepping into some land mine by accident.

But since he saw Herrscher's memories of Corruption about the Previous Age, he was a little concerned that it could have changed the future a little. Despite this, he still wanted to believe that the game's plot would not be so altered because of this and that he would still be able to avoid certain disasters with his knowledge of the future. But all of this was thwarted because of the arrival of Griseo and Houraiji who were transferred to Ryusuke's school last month.

After that Ryusuke realized that it would be very risky to try to depend on the plot and then he decided to do a little research on the history of the world's anti-honkai organizations, he researched mainly about Schicksal and Anti-Entropy. He used his hacking powers to infiltrate their computers, but he was not too deep to avoid being detected.

Ryusuke researched the consequences of the second Honkai impact caused by the second Herrscher of this era, the Herrscher of the Void, Sirin.

On the Schicksal side, Ryusuke managed to confirm that Valkyrie rank-S, Cecilia Schariac sacrificed herself to end Sirin's second eruption and prevent people from Siberia from dying from exposure to Honkai energy. Her husband, Siegfried Kaslana survived and is alive, but last year he deserted Schicksal and was considered a criminal with a high reward for his capture. It looks like Siegfried managed to take the K-423 with him. So far his whereabouts are unknown to Schicksal.

On the Anti-Entropy side, Ryusuke managed to confirm the existence of Welt Yang, who was originally known as Joachim Nokianvirtanen before changing his name to Welt, Ryusuke also managed to confirm the existence of Frederica Nikola Tesla and Lieserl Albert Einstein. He saw a little of the history of the Anti-Entropy foundation and he managed to confirm that it is the same Anti-Entropy as the Honkai Impact 3rd.

With this information Ryusuke was able to confirm that he is in the world of Honkai Impact, although there are some irregularities like Houraiji Kyuusyou.

"What do you want to do? Should we move to another city?" Yae Sakura asked. She had a concerned and reluctant expression, she had already become accustomed to this temple where they lived for more than three years.

The temple in which they are living is the abandoned temple in which the two met. Ryusuke used Herrscher's powers of Corruption to hack some of the city hall's systems to buy temple land. The two became owners of the abandoned temple land. Ryusuke also made a lot of money and started renovations, now the temple is brand new.

"No, we will not leave. We still don't know what their intentions are and there is also a small and unlikely possibility that they won't know about us. This could also alert them and somehow force them to act hastily. For now we will keep an eye out for any suspicious movement from them and act accordingly." Ryusuke spoke calmly.

"So, okay, if you're saying that then I'll keep an eye on what's going to come up front." Yae Sakura responded with a sigh. These 3 years that she lived with him was enough to understand his personality.

She knows that Ryusuke is not a saint who would help people without having a good reason to help them. But she also knows that he is not a bad person who would go around destroying everything and killing innocent people.

In this unknown world, Ryusuke is the only person she sincerely trusts.

*DING DONG*

At that moment they heard the bell ring.

"Will I see who it is?" Yae Sakura said and went towards the door, Ryusuke was left alone on the couch while looking at Yae Sakura's back. Just below the neck, on the top of the back that are visible above her shirt was a small part of a pink tattoo in the shape of a cherry blossom.

This tattoo was the Natural Stigmata of Yae Sakura.

During the period of the Previous Era, humanity was always experiencing many difficulties in the fight against the Herrschers who had immense and absurd power compared to humanity. Even though humanity had beaten the Herrschers, with the exception of the final Herrscher, they still had to pay countless sacrifices and losses.

Humanity has never stopped moving forward, they have continued to do research on how to defeat Honkai and some of these results are...

The MANTIS, warriors who had Honkai beast genes injected into them, the number of people who survived surgery to become a MANTIS was extremely small but the few who survived had a power capable of competing against the Herrschers.

The Divine Keys, weapons created using the defeated Herrschers nuclei, these weapons are capable of using the powers of their respective Herrschers.

And natural stigmatas. Natural stigmatas were created from studies on the stigmas that were in Herrschers' bodies, from then on he managed to create weaker versions of Herrschers' true Stigmatas, these Stigmatas created by humanity are natural stigmas.

Natural Stigmata can grant a huge increase in resistance and adaptability to Honkai energy and they also grant some powers to their users although they are much weaker than true stigmas.

Before the final battle against the final Herrscher, humanity from the Previous Age already knew that it would be defeated and that its era would be destroyed. But they did not give up, they decided to use all their efforts to ensure that the next generation (next age) of humanity managed to defeat Honkai. And for that to happen they implemented the S.A.V.E.

The S.A.V.E project is a set of plans that Dr. MEI created to help humanity in the next era. These plans are:

Stigmata project.

Ark project.

Valuka project.

Ember project.

Among the four plans, the most terrible among them is the Stigmata project. In the previous era, the Doctor placed sleeping genes on several people who would be frozen and who would be thawed when humanity's next era gave its first signs of civilization, these people would live among the locals and have descendants. The descendants of these people also carried the sleeping genes in their blood and then continue to transmit these over the generations.

These dormant genes are natural Stigmatas and the only way to awaken Natural Stigmatas and expose the individual to Honkai energy.

Natural stigmatas can also be passed on in a bloodline, in the past there were some people who aroused Natural Stigmas and these same people gave rise to families that have Natural Stigmatas. Some examples of this are Schicksal's three large families. These families are ... the Kaslana family, the Schariac family and the Apocalypse family.

Unfortunately with the passage of countless generations, the genes of Natural Stigmatas mas languished and disappeared almost completely from the genes of people who did not awaken a Natural Stigma.

The essence of the Stigmata project is to expose civilians to Honkai energy to force them to awaken Natural Stigmata in their bodies. If civilians around the world are exposed to energy then it is very likely that 99.9% of the global population will end up dying while only 0.1% of the world's people will arouse Stigmatas.

When Ryusuke looked at Yae Sakura's back and he saw his Natural Stigmata he remembered something.

'Usually the chances of awakening a natural stigma are very low, even if the person is exporting Honkai energy not the guarantee that it will arouse a natural stigma. But I just remembered a certain detail... Yae Sakura's body was modified by Herrscher from Corruption, right? Did that have any influence?'

Ryusuke remembered that one of Herrscher's powers of Corruption is biological modification. And then he thought...

'Can I use Herrscher's powers of Corruption to awaken natural Stigmata that are latent?'

When Ryusuke thought about it he was a little excited.

He had some questions about it. Will he be able to awaken stigmas with the little power of Corruption he can use?

Is it possible that he also has natural Stigmatas?

Ryusuke was very curious about this and he was about to go to his room to pick up Jizo Mitama and try right there. But before he could get up he was hugged by someone behind the couch. The only thing he saw at that moment was his long dark purple hair.

Only with that did Ryusuke be able to guess he was.

"Houraiji-san, could you please let me know when you approach me like that? I almost had a scare." Ryusuke spoke with a slight tone of annoyance to the girl who was hugging him in the back.

"Hehe, and I think it might surprise you even a little bit. Ah, please don't call me by my last name, just call me Kyuusyou. After all, we will be the pair who will save the world, so it is natural that the two of us call ourselves by the first name. And before I forget to say, good morning to you, Ryusuke." Kyuusyou spoke with his usual cheerful smile.

In this last month that the two met at school she always tried to stay close to Ryusuke, even though he found it a little annoying annoyance since she always keeps saying that she is a savior and that the two will save the world together while she does some poses of Chuunibyou. Every day she always visits his house, but although she is sometimes considered irritating for always trying to drag him into her speeches about saving the world.

"Yes, good morning to you too, Houraiji-san." Ryusuke told her.

Although he found her a little irritating, he would not be so intolerant of a 10-year-old. This phase of hers will probably pass, so he just needs to be patient.

"Hey, at least call me Kyuusyou, it's a little cold of you to treat your partner like that." Houraiji Kyuusyou complained while pouting.

Ryusuke didn't give much importance to that, he let go of his hug and went to the television, there were two silver glasses. Ryusuke handed one of the glasses to Kyuusyou.

"You want me to call you by name and you didn't even beat me at games, you're being very arrogant." Ryusuke spoke with an arrogant smile as he challenged her to play a VR game. They played several times and nowhere did Kyuusyou win.

"Hoho, is that so? Well, I accept your challenge. This time I will definitely win." Kyuusyou spoke with a lively smile. Even if she never beat Ryusuke she will not give up, she will keep trying.

Without the two children noticing, there was Yae Sakura who was watching the two children, she had a smile on her face. She was relieved that someone was close to Ryusuke and that he would not spend his childhood alone, she knows that he maintains a subtle distance between him and the other children his age and although he does not appear to care that she was still concerned about him, she thought he was putting on a mask to hide his feelings. Just like she did in the past.

'Looking like that he even looks like an ordinary child.' Yae Sakura thought with an ironic smile, after all Ryusuke said that he just wants to live a normal life being that he is a Herrscher. She is also concerned about his future and his safety.

And she also remembers the expression he made last month when he returned to the house after meeting Griseo and Kyuusyou. Even though he had kept a normal expression Yae Sakura still noticed that he was very depressed and afraid. He explained to her about Griseo and the possible connection she could have with World Serpent.

'Fortunately he looks calmer and more excited now, and thanks to little Kyuusyou. Looking now she has an optimism similar to that of Kallen.' Yae Sakura thought relieved by Ryusuke although she was a little sad to remember that Kallen was not there.

And so another weekend of Ryusuke's strange and peaceful life passed.

********

Author's note: hi galera, how are you? I wrote this chapter more focusing on the reflections and thoughts of the protagonist and his relationship with Kyuusyou and Yae Sakura.

And I'm also taking the opportunity to show the photo of the appearance of a character that fits the protagonist well.

This character is from Owari's manga at Seraph. That is all I will say about him. If you want to know more, you will read the manga, which in my opinion is much better than the anime.