Honkai Impact 3: Deadwood

"ich...libeh..."

The girl murmured, although tears were still flowing from her eyes, her empty eyes were lifeless. She just used her last strength to repeat, repeating the words that her mother could not finish before she died, the words that were engraved on her most cherished memory. words on the ring...

Listening to the girl's murmur, Kiana took out the dark ring that she had been holding in her hand. She looked at the inside of the ring, where three short words were engraved:

"ich libeh dich"

Although she has never heard this sentence, Kiana somehow knows the meaning of these words: I love you.

"I love you"...

"Celine...no, don't..."

As the girl repeated these words angrily, Kiana saw the relief in Sirin's eyes and saw the light of Sirin's life dying out.

She shook her head, denying all this. This was not the story she wanted to see, this was not the ending she wanted to know...

"Don't cry... Siren... Captain, he will definitely come, he will definitely... So, please, don't cry..."

It was like a shameful escape. He actually asked a child who had only despair and was about to die, asking her not to convey that terrible despair to him...

"Don't cry, don't cry, don't cry, please, don't cry -"

Kiana knelt in front of the window and held her head tightly in her hands. She tried to close her eyes and cover her ears so that she would not have to see or hear these...

She didn't dare to see the desperate look on Xilin's face again, and didn't dare to hear the cry deep in Xilin's soul...

However, just across this ordinary glass window that defines the world and hell, hope and despair, life and death at this moment, Kiana knew that she would not hear any response to her plea, but she got the other side of the glass window. One end responded.

"That's not right~ Xilin, you're not crying~"

"...?"

The chill that came from nowhere instantly invaded every corner of Kiana's body. She slowly raised her head, and what was reflected in her blue eyes was the calm and weird smile on the girl's ferocious face.

"Xi...Lin...?"

"The one who is crying is you~Ki~A~na~☆"

"…Eh?"

In a brief moment of trance, the girl named Xilin in the glass window disappeared from her eyes...

Kiana looked around in a daze. There was only darkness around her, and on the other side of the glass window was a corridor with lights on, which seemed to be no different from before.

……

…………

……………?

corridor?

"The corridor, isn't it on my side?"

Doubts flashed through Kiana's mind. She raised her hands, which were a little too heavy and still felt numb, and placed them on the glass window. She wanted to look on the other side of the window, but at this moment , she noticed something.

"...my hand...what...?"

What caught Kiana's eyes was a pair of girl's hands that were covered with scars, stained with blood and dirt, and the fingernails of several fingers were turned up at terrible angles.

"...?"

When thoughts began to flow again from the stagnant trance, fear quietly began to follow, trying to drag the girl into the bottomless trench. Kiana felt her heart beating violently under the stimulation of adrenaline. It was beating, as if it was about to escape from the chest in the next second.

Her breathing became rapid, and the terrifying hands close at hand kept impacting Kiana's consciousness, which was about to collapse. She was so scared that she wanted to scream, but her throat could not make any sound at all. She wanted to escape from here, but her body could not do anything. Movements, only senses...

Her five senses became extremely blurred at this moment, but at the same moment she felt extremely sharp. She heard the girl's silver bell-like laughter, enveloped in darkness, coming from all directions.

But when Kiana finally tried to calm down and look for the source of the laughter, she saw that on the other side of the glass, a purple-haired girl was smiling happily at her.

That smile was so hearty and innocent, but once it was discovered that this smile came from a terrifying face full of terrible scars and densely packed with collapse energy veins, everything became extremely weird.

"Why... are you laughing?"

The question came out of Kiana's mouth involuntarily, and the answer came immediately: "I'm not laughing~☆"

"…What?"

"Obviously it's you who is laughing~Ki~A~na~☆"

"…I?"

Suddenly, Kiana seemed to notice something. She stretched out her broken hand tremblingly and touched the glass window. Then, she discovered that the girl named Xilin who smiled happily at her... was not on the other side of the glass window from the beginning.

What is reflected on it is just the reflection of my own face...

"Ahh...ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh..."

Kiana collapsed amidst the screams she finally let out due to collapse. Before losing consciousness, the last thing she felt was the faint pain caused by her body hitting the hard ground, and the pain in her mind. The cheerful laughter of a certain girl echoed over and over again.