Honkai Impact 3rd : This is My Revenge-Chapter 44 - 043 : Nonexistent Memories

Meanwhile, on Earth...

Space shattered, time reversed.

North Africa, World Serpent headquarters, the outskirts of the base.

Or, to be more precise: the location where this place once existed.

Amidst this cataclysmic event...

"!!!"

Raiden Mei, Kiana, Bronya, Fu Hua, Theresa, Durandal, and Rita, who were in the shattered world but unharmed, were all enveloped in a dazzling white light.

They had all been precisely, and meaningfully, chosen by Ling ke.

They...

The harm they were to suffer was only now truly arriving.

A journey (exile) through reversed time was no cozy team-building exercise.

It was, one by one...

"Seele!"

"Bronya-neechan!"

Previously, there were ten operatives who had come to the World Serpent headquarters.

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But now, only seven were forcibly given a one-way ticket to the previous era.

Ling ke would not ask for their consent.

Just as those arrogant beings of the past never cared about the thoughts of their expendable tools.

The divine white light completely isolated them from the world.

This was the most powerless, most cruel moment of farewell that Ling ke had arranged for his "guests (enemies)".

"No, don’t..."

Bronya tried to grab Seele’s hand.

Just like how she had once pulled her out of the Sea of Quanta.

Just like how she had taken her to watch the sunset by the sea.

Back then, their faces were filled with smiles of happiness.

Back then, they felt they had truly walked out of the darkness.

But even after basking in the light of the sunset, the night would eventually come.

Just like now...

It wasn’t just Seele.

Rozaliya, Liliya... her "sisters".

They were right in front of her, and against all logic, she could hear their voices, but no matter how hard she tried, Bronya couldn’t reach them.

So close, yet worlds apart.

And what would happen next... they all knew.

An eternal separation.

In a fleeting moment, a brief instant.

Bronya recalled a sentence spoken by that avenger who had crossed "hell" and returned to the world from the "abyss".

"Then I’ll make you... alone again."

"!!!"

Bronya was utterly panicked.

At this moment, in her eyes, Seele, Rozaliya, Liliya... they were still trapped in the dying old world, about to perish with it.

Suddenly...

As if already aware of her fate...

"Bronya-neechan..."

"You must... live well."

The kind-hearted girl was too naive.

She didn’t know that the parting words she had instinctively spoken.

Were actually the most vicious curse!

Its name: Loneliness.

Its meaning: Eternity.

"No, that’s not right..."

At the last moment, she seemed to have realized.

She knew she had made a huge mistake.

But it was too late.

There was no time to fix it...

Boom~

Ling ke was truly wicked.

At the critical moment, like a reflection in a mirror or the moon on water, Seele, who was about to speak again, shattered along with the world (Present era).

How can a broken mirror be made whole again?

Humans are not omniscient and omnipotent gods.

All of this happened before Bronya’s eyes.

Silence~

A terrifying silence.

After a long while...

"Ah.."

"Ahhh.."

The emotionless girl, who had only recently regained her emotional center, was like a babbling infant, as if she had lost the ability to speak.

Tears streamed down her cheeks, but what came out was not a heart-wrenching scream.

Instead, this low, helpless melody was undoubtedly even more horrifying.

Bronya stared blankly at everything before her.

Was nothingness really just darkness?

Why did she see something even more chilling—pure white?

Look, how considerate and kind darkness is.

There, she could see nothing.

But in this pure white broken world, forced to travel through reversed time.

She had lost everything, yet she could still see her lonely self.

And only... herself.

******

Meanwhile...

Whoosh~

Standing in the ruins of Schicksal Headquarters, Otto, who was unsealing a special container resembling a hibernation pod, holding the Void Archives and Seven Thunders of Retribution, with the Thousand-Cubit World parked nearby, seemingly preparing to take action.

He too was enveloped in white light.

But upon closer inspection, one would notice that not far from him, Raven and Jackal had already fallen in a pool of blood.

On the other side...

After the "Domination Puppet: Ling ke" entered the Elysian Realm, Kevin, who had been tightly gripping the Judgment of Shamash, stood guard at the only entrance.

Along with the entire Elysian Realm itself.

Both began to glow with a white light.

At this point, the "tickets" for the reversed time had all been distributed.

In this moment...

Perhaps it was the anomaly of time and the phenomenon of space interacting in some unforeseen way.

Or perhaps...

Sigh~

It was the sigh of a certain pioneer (Enlightened One) who had already ascended, unable to interfere with the intrinsic world through conventional means, expressing helplessness.

And so, in an instant...

Ling ke, along with everyone he had specially chosen, saw some... illusory scenes. an Nonexistent Memories.

It was a clear, ordinary morning...

In a classroom at St. Freya Academy.

Sunlight streamed through the gaps in the curtains, forming ribbons of light like silk.

Snap!

"Ouch!"

A piece of chalk accurately hit Kiana’s forehead.

She jolted up from her desk, drool still at the corner of her mouth.

Her eyes still closed, she mumbled, "Aunt Himeko, I know, the answer is C."

Beside her, Mei, her desk mate, was facepalming in exasperation.

Bronya, on the other hand, turned her head away in disdain.

On the podium, a fiery figure teaching fill-in-the-blank questions smiled with a nuclear kindness.

And not far away...

The only boy in the classroom, resting his cheek on his right hand, watched this everyday scene unfold, his lips unconsciously curling into a slight smile.

Kiana, of course, was sent to stand outside the classroom as punishment.

After class ended...

"Kiana, did you stay up late again last night?"

"No, I didn’t."

"Bronya can confirm, idiot Kiana played games all night."

"But I was playing with you, why are you only blaming me?"

"Bronya has undergone professional training since childhood, her willpower is far beyond that of idiot Kiana."

"What do you mean? And... stop calling me an idiot."

As the black-haired young man walked out of the classroom, he saw the white-haired girl stomping her feet, "The one calling others an idiot is the real super idiot."

And just as she saw him appear...

"Ling, come have dinner with us tonight!"

Mei smiled, extending the invitation, "I’ve learned a few new dishes recently, Chinese cuisine taught by Class Monitor Fu Hua."

"I think you’ll like them."

"Sure!"

The black-haired young man nodded with a smile, "I’ll be there on time."

The two of them chatted naturally.

Meanwhile, Kiana, seeing how close he was with Mei, suddenly felt a sense of crisis. Like a protective kitten, she fiercely stepped between her Mei and the black-haired young man, baring her teeth.

Seeing this, Bronya couldn’t help but roll her eyes.

But no matter how they teased each other... in the end, the four of them walked away from the school building, laughing and chatting.

Suddenly, the scene shifted...

It was when they were on a mission to the Oceania branch, and Cocolia led the Anti-Entropy mecha forces to attack, attempting to remotely control Bronya to assault Wendy.

But at the critical moment, the black-haired young man defied logic by transforming mid-air, his entire body turning into a nearly twenty-meter-tall humanoid mecha.

He called it: Freedom Gundam.

With a single "Rainbow Cannon" blast, he repelled all the Anti-Entropy mechas, and with his mechanical arms, he gathered his companions into his embrace, safely rescuing everyone.

Above the clouds, the girls spread their arms, laughing with the joy of survival.

That was true freedom.

Then another scene...

At Schicksal Headquarters, Otto was planning to make his move on Kiana.

But one evening, he encountered an unexpected guest.

The two reached some kind of agreement... and from that moment on, the former "Tyrant of the Heavens" underwent a complete 180-degree change in attitude.

He became the kind and amiable grandfather in Theresa’s eyes, and the slacker who loved to slack off and play Kallen Fantasy in the eyes of his juniors.

He halted all inhumane experiments within Schicksal and focused on promoting welfare projects.

He bowed deeply to Durandal, confessing everything.

He began traveling the world, visiting each person he had harmed.

In the most humble manner, he sought to atone and repay, not seeking forgiveness.

All because that mysterious person had said: "There was once a ’Winter Soldier’ who did the same."

Later, at some point, the leadership of Schicksal changed.

Otto became the right-hand man assisting "that woman."

After being slapped by her, his personality was corrected, and he began striving for a better tomorrow under her demands.

At that time, he was truly a benevolent "priest."

But this priest, who was reliable in major matters but utterly hopeless in minor ones, often acted extremely unreliably. In private, he kept bowing and scraping, begging that mysterious person not to reveal the fact that a certain "vixen" had also been resurrected too soon to the white moonlight in his heart.

According to Otto: "The sisters need time to reunite, let’s not disturb them as outsiders."

But what he was really scheming, those who understood, understood.

Because the final boss of Kallen Fantasy V was yet another fox-eared woman.

And later...

A certain purple-haired girl regained her family.

Her birth mother from her memories, her childhood playmates, all came back to life.

Seele, trapped in the Sea of Quanta, was able to return.

The World Serpent’s covert operations, the crisis in Sky City, were safely resolved through everyone’s joint efforts.

Later... there was Coral Island, Taixuan Mountain... and so on.

Almost every tragedy turned to joy had that black-haired young man involved.

Everyone grew accustomed to his presence, relying on him, chasing after him, walking alongside him.

In their vision, there was always "your" smiling face.

As long as he was there, everyone felt completely at ease.

And so, they arrived at the "Elysian Realm," met the "Flame-Chasers," made up for the regrets of the previous era, and successfully crossed the "Finality" under billions of blessings.

The human civilization on Earth finally welcomed a brand-new tomorrow.

Even the already destroyed previous era, with the help of that black-haired young man, existed as the "neighboring world" of the current era.

Not a world bubble, not a subspace, but a true... second world.

The two eras began to exchange resources.

No petty villain could escape his gaze.

No one dared to cause trouble.

Then, one night...

Pop! Pop!

In the celebratory room, Kiana and Theresa laughed and cheered, pulling the strings of party poppers.

In the kitchen not far away, Mei, Bronya, Seele, and Wendy were busy preparing the meal.

Liliya was pouting as Rozaliya teased her.

Fu Hua, leading a certain head-scratching Sushang who had a big steamed bun in her mouth, and the serene Cheng Lixue, along with the "Flame-Chasers," had just entered, each carrying bags of groceries.

Elysia, holding an electronic megaphone, secretly recorded, her face showing a "I’m committing a crime right now.jpg" tongue-sticking expression.

Eden and Aponia, seeing her like this, exchanged a helpless smile.

A certain faceless hothead strode straight into the kitchen, where he and Mei clashed, resulting in a burst of flames and lightning.

He let out a maniacal laugh, luckily it was a standalone house, so no neighbors called the police misunderstanding it.

But it scared even Pardofelis, who was pretending to slack off on the sofa but had her hand unconsciously reaching into someone’s pocket, making her hair stand on end.

Sakura, allergic to cat hair, sneezed several times.

Rin gently patted her sister’s back, then considerately handed her a glass of warm water.

Mobius was carefully pushed into the room by Klein, Danzhu, and Cangxu.

By the window, the silent boy Kosma and Dystopia, using telekinesis, were helping to hang a banner on the wall.

Griseo was fiddling with something near the chimney, and when her parents approached with smiles, she clumsily tried to act cute to get away with it.

Kevin, Su, and MEI chatted casually, while Rita set the table.

At that moment, Durandal and her biological parents, Siegfried and Cecilia, descended from the second floor.

A family of three... no, now a family of five.

Because Durandal had not reclaimed her former name, she was quite content with her life as "Bianka Ataegina."

And she had two younger sisters, one named Kiana, and the other... Sirin.

Sirin really disliked the occasional visits from Welt Joyce, Yang, Elias (Yang’s dad), Einstein, Tesla... and that group of scholars from the "Most Epic Group Photo" who were all decades old.

Especially that messy-haired doctor and the lobster doctor, always nagging her to study, study, study...

Seeing that hiding behind Bella was useless, she quickly made a run for it.

And just as she was scurrying past a certain spot, you could see a certain drunken fiery figure, completely unhinged, leaning on the shoulder of a certain black-haired young man, causing a scene.

Behind them, on the wall, were two banners hung by Kosma and Dystopia, one above the other.

"Congratulations to Major Himeko on her honorable retirement!"

"Congratulations to Major Ling ke on becoming the new captain of the Hyperion!"

The final moment of the scene was Vill-V using her latest, oddly designed camera to take pictures.

She was capturing the beautiful moments.

Every single moment.

Suddenly...

The moment frozen in eternity, in the center of the richly detailed photo, the most prominent spot...

That drunken fiery figure, with a white military cap, casually plopped it onto the head of the black-haired young man who almost lost his balance.

Faintly, one could hear...

"Everyone, you’ve been saved by him."

"Yes, from now on, I will save even more people, more civilizations, more eras, more worlds."

"I have this ability..."

"After all, I am a ’savior’..."