Honkai Impact 3rd: The Girl Who Chases the Flame

He fell to the ground in a spectacular fashion.

"Aili?!"

.........

"..."

Kevin stood silently at the harbor, breathing in the night air, his eyes fixed on a certain direction...

Across the sea lies Australia, the place where he personally killed his comrades.

Beside him, seemingly with the same thought, a girl sat on a bench with a can of black coffee and a sandwich beside her, staring intently at the sea.

"...Do you have family in Australia?"

After a long silence, Kevin, unusually, started talking to someone.

"Family?"

The girl put down her sandwich and remained silent for a long time.

“Yes, family. I have family there, and her tombstone is there too.”

"……Feel sorry."

"What are you apologizing for? Just because you're a moth drawn to flame?"

The girl pouted.

"Don't be arrogant. What can you do all by yourself?"

"You're right, I'm all alone..."

Kevin sighed.

"I can't do anything."

"If one person feels pain, then he is at fault; but if everyone feels pain, then the world is at fault."

The girl finished her sandwich in a few bites and tossed the coffee to Kevin.

"Compared to the world, how insignificant is an individual, like an ant, no..."

The girl thought for a moment and said:

"Like a paramecium."

"...So, according to you, a person is incapable of doing anything at all?"

Kevin took the coffee and asked.

"How could that be? People are all different."

The girl shook her head.

"Some people have the right to change the world, while others can only wail in despair. Fairness and rationality are the biggest lies in the world."

I used to think that even if lies were everywhere, as long as we maintained a facade of happiness, it was still a viable option.

But in this apocalyptic world, humanity has torn off its masks, revealing its ugly faces.

"...Your coffee."

Kevin didn't answer; instead, he handed the coffee to the girl.

"Giving it to you means I don't want it anymore."

The girl pouted.

"How can there be such a man with such low emotional intelligence? You'll never find a girlfriend, will you?"

"..."

Kevin was momentarily unsure whether he should answer her, "I do."

"You're not answering because you realize that what I said is correct, but it's not the same as your goal."

"you……"

Kevin was genuinely surprised.

"how do you know?"

"Humph."

The girl turned around and made a face at him.

"Take a guess?"

Then he walked away without looking back.

"...Is this era really that bad?"

Kevin opened the coffee, tilted his head back as if to gulp it down, but his expression suddenly froze. He turned the coffee over and shook it—

There wasn't a single drop inside.

Kevin squinted and noticed a small hole at the bottom; the girl had actually finished the coffee.

So this is just a...

mischief?

Kevin, both amused and exasperated, threw the coffee into the trash can.

"What a smart girl. I wonder if she'll join the Fire Moth?"

Would he be a formidable partner?

Kevin thought to himself.

Chapter Eighty-Eight: The Song of the Actor (Part 1)

One hundred kilometers from the deepest point on the coast—

The woman standing on the beach seemed to sense something and slowly turned around.

"Hey, woman, I've found you."

"...Still as rude as ever. This time I was really trying to hide. How did you find me?"

"You're either looking at the sea or a lake. Do you have some kind of psychological trauma?"

"...I guess so."

Nino smiled, not angry at all.

You've probably memorized my name by now, haven't you?

“Nino, I’ve got it. Also, this place isn’t hard to find.”

Qianjie crossed his arms, clicked his tongue, and said impatiently,

"May informed me to go to the deepest part... I guess you must have guessed May's thoughts, is there a better observation point than here?"

"........."

Nino seemed surprised by the answer; she stared blankly for a moment, then suddenly burst into laughter, clutching her stomach.

"Hahahahahahahahaha... Hahahahahaha... Thousand Tribulations, Thousand Tribulations... You really are a 'remarkable' man..."

"Huh? Are you provoking me?"

Qianjie said, very displeased.

"Hahahaha...no, sorry..."

Nino felt she needed to apologize, and she stopped laughing.

"Hey, Qianjie, do you actually believe me more than you believe that Mei?"

"At least when it comes to judging people, you're more accurate than her."

Qianjie curled his lip.

"...Thousand Tribulations, it's me."

Nino, with her hands behind her back and barefoot on the sand, didn't look like a madwoman causing chaos, but rather like a young lady on a picnic.

“I used to love the sea. When I was little, my parents liked to take me there. They would rent a big villa and have the whole beach to themselves. My sister and I would play kayaking, beach volleyball, and catch crabs on the beach…”

"...They're dead?"

Qianjie listened silently until the end, then asked a question.

"He died. When I was six years old."

Nino smiled, as if the speaker wasn't referring to himself.

“I wandered around the city alone for a few days, and on the third day I finally found a blood-stained steamed bun… I fell into the mud and water, and ate it while crying, my mouth full of the taste of rust.”

“...I heard that you and Melutina were there at the time.”

"Yes, and Melutina."

Nino turned his head and looked towards the sea.

It seemed that her emotions fluctuated when she mentioned this name, and Qianjie noticed that this action meant she didn't want Qianjie to see her expression.

"Merutina and I were saved by a very kind person, she really is a good person."

Nino walked in the seawater, like a girl who had met her best friend and wanted to tell her her secret.

Although Qianjie was not suitable for the role, he surprisingly did not interrupt.

"I was later adopted by distant relatives, but I often went to visit her and Melutina. I acted as a good child at my relatives' house so that they wouldn't hate me so much, but I didn't dare to make any demands because I was a burden, a 'money-losing burden'."

Nino uttered that hurtful word expressionlessly, and Qianjie roughly understood that this wasn't self-deprecation, but rather that she had actually been said that to her.

“But she’s different. She’ll take me out to play, she’ll listen to me, she doesn’t like to hear lies, and she doesn’t need me to act like a good kid. She also…likes to take me to the beach, like here.”

"...You sound so happy. Don't you live together?"

Qianjie sat down on a rock by the sea, making no attempt to attack or interrupt her. If someone knew him well, they would probably find it hard to imagine that Qianjie would ever listen to someone quietly.

"No."