Honkai Impact 3rd: My Days as a Captain in Schicksal

...No...when did I...get here?

...I don't seem to remember anything before I came here... Oh well, this place is so much fun! I especially love the little doll room! This place is wonderful! I want to stay here forever! Nobody is allowed to come near!

Keng Huo felt a chill run down his spine.

This is the lair of that summoner of death warriors... no, home?

So, was the attack I suffered earlier because I entered the area she perceived as a threat to my home?

Considering the strange behavior of the person who summoned the assassin, Keng Huo had no choice but to believe this conclusion.

When he threw the grenade in, the summoned suicide soldier, who instinctively sensed the threat, did not choose to flee out of his house, but risked the grenade exploding in front of him to throw that dangerous thing out of his house.

When she stormed into the room, she didn't choose to attack herself with a powerful Honkai energy shockwave. Instead, she used telekinesis to push herself out... because she knew that the Honkai energy shockwave would make a mess of her home.

Even when he was about to kill her, she didn't run away, because...

Because this is her home.

She would never abandon her home, the place where she lived, the place filled with her memories, the place where she would never allow outsiders to enter and damage it, the place that...

That's my home...

Keng Huo stared at the small, decaying corpse lying quietly on the bed.

This house contains my favorite toys...

Keng Huo suddenly remembered the bedroom he had entered when he first went up to the second floor, where two zombie corpses lay quietly on the bed.

...In this house...there are a father and a mother.

The dog kennel in that yard contained half of a puppy's corpse.

...and my favorite little dog is here too.

Keng Huo slowly left the room and turned his gaze to the end of the second-floor corridor, where there was another room he had not yet entered.

In the shadows, Keng Huo could see the faded, almost illegible writing on a small signboard above the door:

Mami's cozy little home.

·

Keng Huo slowly pushed open the tightly closed door. The moment he opened it, a cloud of dust rushed up, making him sneeze, but it also allowed him to see the room clearly.

The items were arranged neatly, but... they were very dirty.

It was very dirty.

The house was filthy, completely out of place with its otherwise clean state. The windows were wide open, and a thick layer of dust had accumulated on the furniture, as if no one had been there for a long time.

Keng Huo's fingertips gently brushed across the photo frame on the table. Inside, there were two middle-aged people standing behind them, and in front of them was a girl of about eighteen or nineteen, whose figure holding a boy of about six or seven was particularly eye-catching.

It looks like a family photo.

For no apparent reason, Keng Huo felt as if his heart was being gripped. In a daze, he seemed to hear the terrified screams and cries of the summoner when he was still human and saw that hellish scene.

He silently walked to the open window, braced himself on the edge of the bed, and looked out onto the street.

The road was littered with cars that had crashed together, desiccated corpses, and leaning telephone poles.

And there was a deathly silence.

Suddenly, the surfaces of objects throughout the room seemed to emit tiny, almost invisible specks of light. These specks rose silently like dandelion seeds, gathering in the air as if about to condense into a single point of light.

Keng Huo slowly turned around, holding the point of light in his palm. Instantly, a flood of memories and emotions surged into his mind, appearing as if they were real experiences.

Keng Huo slowly closed his eyes, stepped back to the window, and placed his hands on the windowsill, as if listening to something.

The voice gradually became clearer and more lively; it was a young girl's anxious cry mixed with fear.

"Ryota! Where are you! Come here quickly! Don't open the door!"

"Don't be afraid! Hide in your room! Your sister will protect you!"

"What should we do with Mom and Dad... they're not home..."

"Suwa-sama...please...please let me..."

"Please let me protect my family..."

Keng Huo's hands slowly tightened, making a creaking sound. A restless anger and sadness rose in his heart, unable to dissipate. An almost murderous aura emanated from his body, and he was completely unaware that he had crushed the already rotten wooden window frame.

It was obvious that the girl named Mami was bound by her last obsession before her death, and had been staying in her younger brother's room ever since she became a suicide soldier.

Because in her vague subconscious, the outside world was still dangerous, while the home was still safe.

Her younger brother, who was only six or seven years old, had to be protected by her when their parents were not home.

This was the last intense wish and emotion of the one who summoned the assassin to become one; it was a desire, stronger than the instinct to prolong one's own life, expressed by a dying being on the verge of death.

"I'm going to stay here and protect my brother."

……

"But when I met you, we were already enemies..."

"I'm sorry... but we all live in the same... hell..."

"Only when you die can we... sleep peacefully..."

His piercing eyes seemed to condense a tangible killing intent. His arms trembled slightly, as if he had a great deal of strength to spare. He slowly lowered his head, and a tear slowly flowed from his left eye.

“Your despair and hope… your pain and struggle… your will to protect your family… I have received it…”

"I'm sorry... but this world... is no longer the human world..."

"Please become my strength, and I will carry you to save those who share your desire."

The ball of light gradually faded in Keng Huo's palm, as if it had never existed in this world.

Keng Huo tidied up his belongings, gently closed all the doors of the house, and put everything he had messed up back in its place.

Then he left without looking back.

There are too many partings and deaths in this world, and countless things that are not what you want. When you live in this hell disguised as a human, you can be spotless and selfless, but what will be your last wish before you enter the cycle of reincarnation?

When you are mired in despair, when you have no one to rely on, when you are fighting with your back against the wall, what is the desire in your heart at that time? Is it the instinct to survive, or some other, more intense emotion?

You once dreamed of saving all suffering, and you wanted to awaken all dormant kindness, but can you do it?

When everyone else is drunk but I am sober, when I raise my cup and look around but have no friends or relatives, when the road ahead is long and I have no confidants, when I wander alone, I know the bitterness of my own journey.

When your enemy is so powerful that it cannot be described in words or even touched, will your perseverance, your obsession, and your courage to keep going be enough to support you to the end?

Keng Huo had asked himself these questions more than once.

But every time he was about to doubt himself, these memories he carried would remind him, making him think about why he was still alive.

"Collapse..."

His bewildering gaze gradually filled with murderous intent.

Chapter 81 I am Yae Sakura, please leave.

It was nearly dusk.

In a residential house in the center of Changkong City, a tall figure carrying a basin of water gently pushed open the bedroom door, sat down beside the bedridden girl, and tenderly placed a wet towel on the white-haired girl's forehead.

"She won't live long." A hoarse voice, sounding like a special effect from a movie, came from the doorway. "A pseudo-Herrscher specializing in abnormal states... there's no cure."

The entrance to the room was blocked by a pitch-black shadow, with only two scarlet pupils visible, flickering uneasily. The shadow resembled a burning black flame or an invisible, intangible wisp of smoke, rising in the air.

"..." The woman who was taking care of the seemingly seriously ill girl remained silent, as if she had not heard the voice of the dark figure. She simply reached out and touched Theresa's burning face, a trace of worry and concern flashing in her eyes.

"Or does she remind you of that person... Kallen Kaslana's scent?" The dark figure seemed to float into the bedroom, hovering around the woman with long pink hair. "Hahahaha, are you still fantasizing about something? This is hilarious, hahahahahahaha..."

"Or is it that your kind and pure little heart wants to save this thing that is doomed to die? Hahahaha, five hundred years have passed, have you become kind? Yae Sakura?" The voice was strange and ambiguous, making it difficult to distinguish between male and female. If you listened carefully, you could even hear echoes as if countless people were speaking at the same time.

"Hahaha, don't tease me. You haven't forgotten... five hundred years ago..." The voice gradually became sharp and piercing, as if a thin sheet of iron was rapidly scraping across a blackboard, driving people crazy.

"You're a ruthless village-slaughtering demon who's killed countless people!" the voice mocked the woman, its chilling sarcasm like a venomous thread. "You've slaughtered all your family and villagers, the people you lived with day and night, and you're still pretending to be a good person here?"

The dark figure twisted and danced in the air, emitting deafening laughter as if it were rolling around: "You... ahahaha... I'm dying of laughter... hahahahaha..."

The long-haired woman seemed to pause for a moment, even the trembling of her long animal ears stopped slightly, but she still didn't say anything, just stared blankly at Theresa's flushed cheeks, as if she was recalling something.

"What are you waiting for! You're just a burden! Don't you remember what that white-haired woman said? Five hundred years have passed! Karen Kaslana is long dead!" The dark figure pressed closer to the woman, its hoarse voice possessing a special kind of magic, a magic that tempted others to fall. "What are you still lingering here for? This world has abandoned you! You don't belong to this world, you don't even belong to this era!"

"Yae Sakura! In this world, only I can accompany you! What about family? What about lovers? In the end, they all betrayed you!" The dark figure transformed into a long wisp of smoke, swirling around Yae Sakura, its scarlet eyes flashing with unparalleled malice. "Give up! You are hated by all the living! You are despised by the dead! You are a ghost lingering in this world, unwilling to leave... You are the only unnecessary existence in this world... In the end, only I will accompany you... Only the one you hate, the one you despise... the demon~ Hahahaha, you, who associate with the demon, actually want to play the role of a kind older sister? I'm dying of laughter, hahahahaha..."

"Don't waste any more time! 'That thing' is getting stronger every day, we need to get out of here quickly!" The ghostly black shadow hovered around the woman, slowly solidifying, and upon closer inspection, it turned out to be the shape of an enormous canine.

"I'd rather bite her to death and end her suffering sooner..." The shadowy figure's eyes gleamed with a cunning, devilish light as it silently approached Theresa's throat.

Suddenly, the woman's gentle eyes turned stern. She glanced at the dark figure casually, or perhaps it was a brief, murderous stare. The murderous aura emanating from her body vanished in an instant, almost tangible as a sharp, heavy blade, making one feel suffocated just by looking at her.

"……roll."

The dark figure seemed to be greatly frightened, and suddenly shrank, its size suddenly shrinking, and it actually turned into a cloud of smoke and entered the woman's back.

The woman's gaze softened again, her eyes filled with tenderness as she stared at Theresa.

The woman could sense a faint trace of her lover from hundreds of years ago emanating from her. Though faint, it was clearly detectable by her as a pseudo-Herrscher.

“I know…” The woman lowered her head gently, her long pink hair falling in front of her face and being gently brushed behind her ears.

Suddenly, the woman stopped speaking. As if sensing something, her long, narrow animal ears stood up abruptly, and she looked around warily.

"Pursuers...?" A shadowy look slowly crept into her eyes, as if she were deeply displeased by their arrival. "Although you concealed it well, your murderous aura was far too strong..."

The woman stood up, seemingly wanting to leave, but stopped abruptly at the bedroom door, turning back to look at Theresa with some concern.

"Hiyokumaru... I'm going to deal with that pursuer. You stay here and take care of her. Don't move around."

"If you dare to hurt her... I'll kill you."