38: Chapter 34 Honkai Energy Corrosion

Kaiwen heard Mei's voice, but her mind was in complete chaos, completely unable to process the question.

Because there was only one thought filling her mind.

Am I still myself?

She flipped her left wrist over to inspect the skin on the inner side of her arm.

No purple lines, no brand marks.

Still uneasy, she touched her neck and felt behind her ears.

There was nothing.

Yet she still didn't dare to believe it, wanting to continue checking.

"Sister Kaiwen, your self-awareness is intact."

Bronya's cute, childlike voice came from not far away.

Kaiwen looked toward the sound and saw her leaning against the opposite wall, her gray eyes staring back at her.

"Project Bunny's biological monitoring shows that your nervous system was not overwritten. The transformation was interrupted at the last moment," Bronya continued.

Kaiwen's movements gradually came to a halt.

"...Interrupted?"

"It was Raiden Mei." Bronya paused for a moment, shifting her gaze to Mei. "At the critical moment, she reclaimed control of her body and forcibly cut off the injection of Honkai Energy."

Hearing this, Kaiwen finally closed her eyes again and let out a long breath.

Thank goodness, she was still her original self.

After a few seconds of silence, she opened her eyes once more and looked upward, her gaze landing on Mei's face.

Mei had been keeping her head down, looking at her with purple eyes full of torment.

She was afraid.

Afraid that Kaiwen would continue to look at her with that desperate expression.

The two stared at each other like that, neither opening her mouth first.

In the end, it was Kaiwen who spoke first.

She raised her left hand and gently touched Mei's cheek.

Her fingertips felt the tear tracks that had long since dried.

"...You look pretty ugly."

Mei froze for a moment.

"Crying like this," Kaiwen's voice was terribly hoarse, "you're losing all the dignity of the Raiden Queen."

Mei's lips began to tremble.

"I..."

"I don't blame you."

Kaiwen interrupted her, her voice faint, yet every word clear as day.

"And I won't leave you behind either."

Mei froze completely.

Then her whole expression seemed to shatter from within, and all the composure she had been trying so hard to maintain crumbled into nothingness in an instant.

She slowly lifted her head, hiding her face from Kaiwen as her shoulders trembled violently.

Her sobs were tightly suppressed in her throat, almost silent, leaving only the tears constantly falling onto Kaiwen's face to prove that she had completely broken down.

Kaiwen said nothing more; she merely used her still-movable left hand to gently grasp Raiden Mei's other hand.

She didn't have the strength to do anything more right now.

After a long time, a faint noise came from the doorway.

A figure wearing a dirty coat stepped out from behind the doorframe of the adjacent room.

Kiana leaned against the wall. Her blue eyes brightened slightly upon seeing Kaiwen awake, but her brow furrowed again when she saw Raiden Mei weeping.

"Raiden Mei." Her tone was flat, yet every word carried an unnegotiable weight.

Mei's body stiffened slightly.

"Does what we agreed on before still stand?"

Mei didn't raise her head, but Kaiwen felt her grip tighten on her hand.

"...It stands."

Kiana nodded, saying nothing more.

Her gaze rested on Kaiwen's face for two seconds before she whispered, "Rest up and recover."

With that, she turned around and walked back to the room next door.

Once the footsteps faded, quiet descended upon the ruins once again.

Kaiwen turned her head to look at Mei's tear-stained profile and asked softly:

"What did she say to you?"

Mei remained silent for a long time.

"She told me she won't hold what happened before against me anymore."

She paused, her voice trembling slightly.

"But she made me promise her that from now on, I must never let you get hurt again."

Hearing this, Kaiwen fell silent for a few seconds before letting out a soft sigh.

"...That girl, worrying about others when she's in such a state herself."

Mei didn't respond, only silently tightening her fingers around Kaiwen's right hand.

Just then, a chaotic commotion came from the adjacent room, followed by hurried footsteps.

"Student Kaiwen is awake?! Is she really awake?!"

Then a familiar figure burst into the room.

She was wearing an oversized black hoodie identical to Kaiwen's, covered in dust and stains, and her face was filthy, yet her eyes were startlingly bright.

"Student Kaiwen!!"

Asakura Miyuki rushed over and squatted beside Kaiwen, tightly grabbing her arm as tear after tear fell, yet the corners of her mouth were utterly unsuppressible from smiling.

"Thank goodness, thank goodness... I thought... I thought you..."

She couldn't bring herself to finish the sentence, resorting to wiping away her tears with her sleeve.

Seeing her in such a disheveled state, Kaiwen couldn't help curving her lips upward.

"...Why are you here too?"

"To save you, of course!" Miyuki sniffled and patted her chest. Her voice was still thick with tears, but she was already striving to straighten her back. "I followed those monsters all the way here, you know. Pretty amazing, right?"

"You followed monsters?" Kaiwen's brows furrowed.

"Hehe." Miyuki scratched her head awkwardly. "Anyway, they didn't spot me... probably."

Looking at her, Kaiwen didn't know whether to feel touched or terrified in hindsight.

This silly girl actually dared to run several kilometers alone in such a dangerous place just to find her.

"Miyuki, thank—"

"No saying thank you!" Miyuki suddenly interrupted her, her expression adorably serious. "Student Kaiwen saved my life before, so I still owed you! At best, we're even now!"

After saying that, she broke into a happy laugh again and started chattering on about her heroic feats.

As she talked, however, Miyuki's voice suddenly faltered, her body shivering slightly.

She reflexively wrapped her hoodie tighter around herself, trying to shrink her neck into her collar.

The movement was natural, looking like a casual gesture.

Yet Kaiwen's gaze locked onto it at that exact instant.

In the brief moment Miyuki tugged at her zipper, her collar shifted slightly, revealing a small patch of skin on the side of her neck.

Was that a touch of purple on her neck?

Kaiwen's face darkened instantly.

"Miyuki." Kaiwen abruptly cut her off.

"Hm? What is it, Student Kaiwen?"

"Unzip your jacket."

Miyuki froze for a moment, then waved her hand with a smile. "Ah? What for? It's pretty cold here—"

"Unzip it."

Kaiwen's tone turned stern, leaving no room for argument.

Miyuki's smile froze on her face.

She reflexively pulled back her neck, her fingers clutching her collar tight.

"It really is nothing... I just took a fall while running and scraped a bit of skin..."

Kaiwen said no more; forcing herself up, she reached out and grabbed Miyuki's collar.

"K-Kaiwen?!"

Miyuki panicked and tried to dodge backward, but Kaiwen's hand had already pulled down the zipper.

The moment the hoodie collar was yanked open, Mei and Bronya's eyes fell upon it simultaneously.

Silence fell over the room for a second.

Spreading from the side of Miyuki's neck down to her collarbone, several dark purple lines traced the path of her blood vessels, looking as though something was slowly crawling beneath her skin.

Miyuki looked down and saw the purple veins on her collarbone, and the last layer of pretense on her face shattered completely.

"...I just didn't want you guys to worry." Her voice suddenly grew quiet and feeble, laden with deep grievance and timidity.