“History repeats itself. Thus, we must look back on the mistakes and successes of our ancestors to avoid making the same mistakes.”
But sometimes, even when you know where all the traps are, you can still be taken by surprise, still fall into them. Sometimes, even when you know every wrong step that was taken, you still end up retracing the same path. Sometimes, humanity is doomed to repeat itself, over and over again, and nothing can stop it.
Origin and Finality are intertwined. Origin heralds Finality, and it is only through Finality that Origin can exist. The Herrscher of Origin and Finality are simply personified forms of those concepts. Raiden Mei is unable to continue in the absence of her beloved, and Kiana Kaslana will always return to her.
The common folk know of the feats of the Valkyries. They know of the Final Battle against Honkai — ‘The Great Sealing of Honkai’, it is called now — They know the names of their saviours, and how they preserved despite the world throwing tragedy after tragedy at them. They know of the legends of the Flame-chasers, who were the foundation of the current Era.
The common folk know of the Herrscher of Origin and the Herrscher of Truth. They have seen, for themselves, battle after battle as the heroes of Earth fight against the remnants of Honkai. They know of Finality. Of Kiana Kaslana, the final heir of the fifty-millennia-old legacy of the Kaslana Family. They know of Bronya Zaychik’s fondness towards St. Freya, they know Raiden Mei’s unfailing love for her beloved. They know of the tears in the Schicksal Overseer’s eyes as she speaks of her students, they know of the feats of Fu Hua. They know of Kiana Kaslana’s unshakable will to fight for the beauty of the world.
The common folk see when Raiden Mei, who stood against Herrscher and world-ending disasters alike with a stoic expression and a raised blade, break down in tears at the faux-funeral of Kiana Kaslana. They see when Bronya Zaychik’s eyes glisten, and tears roll down her face for the first time in her entire life. They see the way Overseer Theresa nearly chokes on the words as she speaks of her niece, quietly and adoringly and nearly crying, and they see the way the grass around her coffin seemed extra green and the way the sun’s rays hit the coffin in just the right way to make it shimmer, as if even nature and the world itself is paying their respects.
The public sees Kiana’s final battle and her final acts as the greatest in history, just like how the people Kallen Kaslana helped saw her as a saint. But a hero’s story never ends with true happiness — Tragedy always follows.
The public think they know Raiden Mei.
They think Raiden Mei is a great warrior and an even greater hero, a combination of gentleness and ruthlessness that makes her the perfect person and the perfect warrior. Truth.
They think Raiden Mei would put the world before her beloved.
False.
Raiden Mei, the best friend of Bronya Zaychik and beloved of Kiana Kaslana, learns to understand and accept her beloved’s wishes and continue on, to make the world a brighter place.
The Herrscher of Origin does not agree.
‘Poor Kiana, alone on the moon. Did the price have to be so high?’ It whispers.
It starts small. Mei starts taking Kiana’s things into her room. Her jacket. Her blanket. Her baseball bat. All things that were part of her daily life. Mei enters Kiana’s room, kept in perfect condition for her return — For she would return, as she promised, and if she can’t, Mei would just have to make sure of it herself — and leaves with a framed picture of Kiana and her and Bronya.
Theresa smiles gently. She thinks of the five stages of grief and thinks that Mei has already gotten over it and simply wants to feel closer to Kiana. Bronya notices and dismisses it. It’s not anything serious, anyways.
Then Mei starts reading Kiana’s diary. She flips through pages and reads entries, written in the past where everything was so bright and simple and the world was beautiful. She remembers the past, visions playing out before her in the form of Kiana’s messy writing, eventually evolved into elegant words.
Origin whispers in her mind. “Kiana-chan,” she bemoans.
Then Mei takes in a child. A young boy, orphaned with a natural stigma, with long white hair and grey eyes. He looks like Kiana, but he is not — He is different and yet so similar in every way that matters. Mei doesn’t care. She names the boy Kiana and has him call her Mei-senpai. She dresses him in pretty dresses and ties his hair into two braids,buys blue contacts for him and has him wear them every day. She has him acts outgoing and cheerful and smile every day. She has him learn the Kaslana katas and use pistols.
She treats the boy kindly. Buys him pretty, cute skirts and plushies — Everything he asks for. Cooks for him Kiana’s favourite food, and watches in dismay as he pushes it around, looking uninterested. “Eat up,” She tells him. “It’s your favorite!”
The boy rebels. He stomps her feet and cries and yells at her. She remains calm right until she blurts out : “I’m not Kiana, Mei! I’m a boy, not a girl! I’m not her, so stop treating me like her!” And Mei feels something inside her snap, and she raises her blade and —
The apartment is destroyed. The boy lies admist the wreckage, looking terrified. Mei tells the concerned people that there had been an unnatural energy build-up, and apologises. They accept it graciously, and thank her for stopping any danger, and Mei picks Kiana up and brings her to the hospital.
The boy recovers. He becomes more cheerful, less subdued, stops spending all his time studying and starts acting like Kiana. She smiles and calls Mei Mei-senpai with a cheerful voice, and Mei hugs her, breathing in the familiar scent of Kiana’s shampoo.
December comes. On the 7th day, Mei bakes a cake for Kiana and buys loads of presents for her. She sings ‘Happy birthday’ to her and Kiana smiles toothily and blows out the candle. They eat the birthday feast together and Mei ignores the way Kiana seems to look almost reluctant as she eats, because that’s ridiculous — Kiana has always loved pie. She must have eaten too much snacks earlier, she muses.
(“My birthday is on March 7th, not December 7th,” The boy whispers to himself that night, voice so quiet he hardly hears himself. But he has to be cautious — If Mei-senpai hears him, she’d get angry. “My name is Michael, not Kiana. I have a sister, I’m not an only child.”
He has to remember this. If he forgets, then he’ll truly become Kiana and stop becoming himself. His very identity will be taken, never to be returned.)
Bronya finds out, eventually. Mei had always known it would happen, because as cunning as she was, Bronya was just as smart, and had the advantage of Project Bunny. She looks horrified as she connects the dots, and Mei wants to laugh, because she’d never looked that way even when Kiana sealed herself. Why was it that a random orphan received more emotion than Kiana did?
“This is wrong, Mei-oneesan,” Bronya whispers. “Kiana wouldn't have wanted —”
“This is for Kiana-chan.” Mei says. “Everything is for Kiana-chan. Would you choose a stranger over her, Bronya?”
“Kiana-chan gave everything for us. She saved me; saved you, saved everyone. And yet no one even tries to bring her back. While she’s staying in the moon, lonely and without companion, we’re down here, celebrating! We don’t deserve her, but what we can do is try our best to make her happier.”
It takes nearly an hour to convince Bronya. But Mei knows Bronya, knows that even when they were younger, Bronya always had a soft spot for her and Kiana. All it takes is a bit of guilt-tripping and Bronya reluctantly agrees to keep her silence, although she threatens to tell if Mei ever hurt the child. Mei laughs, and thinks, ‘I would never hurt Kiana.’
Under Mei’s strict tutelage, Kiana re-learns Neko Charm. Her movements are nowhere as graceful and fluid as Kiana’s were, but it looked similar enough. Kiana starts to attend St. Freya and raises a few eyebrows, but the world only knows Kiana as the hero and Herrscher, not as a child — and quickly becomes A-rank, but one day, she notices that Kiana has been hanging out a lot with her fellow Valkyrie — A grey-eyed prodigy named Myra. That’s fine — Despite her outgoing and cheerful exterior, Kiana had never been social — But what’s not fine is when Kiana misses their daily lessons for a lunch date with said Valkyrie.
“My love,” Origin mutters. “My Kiana, so perfect. So perfect.”
Mei kisses Kiana one day. Kiana slaps her and runs away, crying, and Mei wonders what she did wrong. When Kiana quietly and nervously returns at night, Mei assures her that she did nothing wrong, and if she wanted to wait, Mei would wait an eternity for Kiana. “You saved me when I was young, after all,” She says. Kiana feigns ignorance, exquisitely crafted confusion in her eyes, but Mei simply laughs.
Then, one day, Kiana and that Myra show up to Mei’s office. Myra claims to be Kiana’s sister — Which is utterly ridiculous since she was obviously not Bianka — accuses her of forcing herself on Kiana, of abusing and gaslighting her. Kiana agrees with her, and Mei comes to the conclusion that Myra must have poisoned her mind. Poor, innocent, naive, trusting Kiana — But that’s alright, because Mei will always be there to save her and help her heal.
It’s easy enough to frame Myra for abusing Kiana and gaslighting her. Theresa is reluctant to do anything after hearing Myra’s tearful pleas of innocence, but it’s even easier to spread unsavoury rumours and have Myra suddenly become a pariah. Theresa’s attempts to help do nothing but to create more rumours that she was blackmailing Theresa. Myra drops out and goes rogue, and everything seems fine.
“Bring Kiana back,” Origin urges.
Meanwhile, Mei and Bronya have finally reached their final phase of the plan to get Kiana back. Enlisting Fu Hua’s help was more difficult than Bronya’s, but in the end, guilt-tripping and the promise of Kiana’s happiness was enough to sway her. It’s easy enough — They just had to transfer Kiana’s consciousness into the child’s. Mei promises to create a new body for the child, and trusting of her as they are, no one questions it.
She won’t, of course. All she has done is to get Kiana back, and having the child around will just complicate things. She can simply tell them she sent the child home to a faraway continent. It won’t even be the first life she’s taken or ruined — But what they don’t know won’t hurt them.
“I’m going to bring you to a hospital for the gender-change surgery next week,” She tells Kiana. Glancing at her horrified expression, Mei quickly clarifies, “It’s not your fault, Kiana. You didn’t have a choice in what gender you were born in. But we’ll make you into a real girl, Kiana-chan.”
Kiana tries to run away. Unfortunately, Mei knows every trick in her book. Terrified, Kiana attempts to postpone the surgery, but Mei is anxious to get Kiana back sooner and she’s not going to subject her beloved to surgery, so the current owner of Kiana’s body will have to suffer through it.
Then Myra breaks into the office one night, and everything comes crashing down.
“Kiana, Kiana, Kiana,” Origin repeats Kiana’s name like a mantra.
“How could you?!” Myra is screaming, “You’re just like the past Overseer Otto!”
She’s not Otto. Everything is for Kiana.
Kiana, Kiana, Kiana, Kiana.
Find her, save her. Bring her back.
Kiana
Beloved
Kiana
Perfect
Kiana
Kiana
My Love
KianaKianaKianaKIANA—
Everything is for Kiana.