Honkai: Fire Moth Herrschers

"Sur… name?"

"Wonendie."

Elvin, with drooping eyelids, typed "wonendie" in the gender column, based on the pronunciation.

"Pfft! Hahahaha!" Michael couldn't help but laugh.

Hearing the laughter, Elvin looked up, somewhat at a loss, and glanced around with his eyes closed.

Then, as if remembering something, he quickly slapped himself, using his index finger and thumb to forcefully prop open his eyelids, looking at Michael, who was sitting opposite him with a swagger.

"Sub-Captain Michael, could you please be a little more serious!"

He arbitrarily drew two horizontal lines through "wonendie" and then wrote a crooked "male".

He then filled in Michael's name in the name column.

"Team Leader Elvin, please get this straight. You're the one who keeps dozing off!"

Michael said indignantly.

Elvin touched his nose a little awkwardly. He turned around and set the air conditioner to the lowest setting, with the fan on full blast. The cold air, visible to the naked eye, condensed into white frost and enveloped him. The piercing cold made him a little more awake.

He chuckled twice, took a sip of tea, and said, "I also want to sleep well, but isn't it impossible? Who asked you, Team Member Michael, to have that Vill-V you caught cause problems?"

"Blame me!" Michael responded with a wry smile. "You guys didn't recognize Vill-V's bio-mechanical doll either."

"Yeah, no one really noticed until she went on a hunger strike for three days and finally broke down due to a lack of power… But there's nothing we can do, Michael. As the person who personally captured her, you naturally have to accept a routine investigation – look, we haven't even restricted your freedom."

He took a sip of iced tea with goji berries, and used the tip of his pen to point at Michael's hands and feet, which were still free to move.

"Please retell the story… um… I'm so sleepy… I can't help it, you do it yourself…"

Before he could finish speaking, Elvin collapsed onto the table, the sound of his snores and sniffling rising and falling.

Michael's mouth twitched slightly. He turned his head and spread his hands towards the only camera in the room.

"Hey, why is this camera off? Never mind, it doesn't matter."

There were quite a few broken cameras within the Fire Moth, and they rarely got fixed in a timely manner. Michael didn't take it to heart.

As for Elvin…

He had heard that this newly appointed team leader of the intelligence team had been working day and night during the search for Vill-V, not caring about his health, otherwise, their Fifth Squad wouldn't have been able to grasp Vill-V's general movements so quickly.

But then again, it had been almost a week since Vill-V had been brought back. Why was he still so sleepy?

Heh… from that sentence "do it yourself," Michael seemed to understand something.

He leaned over the table, wrote down the prepared statement, and then sat back down in his chair.

But he wasn't anxious.

Just as Elvin had said, this was just a routine check. If the Fire Moth had really grasped some clues or had real suspicions about Michael, then at the very least, they would give him silver bracelets[handcuffs], that would be a sign of respect, right?

Sure enough, a few minutes later, the door of the interrogation room opened, and Blanka, with the same blue-gray hair as Ato, walked in. She walked to the table, glanced at the report filled with words, and nodded at Michael, her back to him.

"Since you've already written it, you can go."

"Hey, Aunt Blanka, why is it you?"

Blanka glanced at him and said in a deep voice, "It was just a routine investigation anyway. Are you unwilling to leave?"

Michael blinked innocently. He felt that Blanka was particularly cold today, and her voice was a bit low – well, Uncle Ato must have made her angry again.

"Hehehe, I'm just curious. Aunt Blanka, aren't you supposed to be Dr. Mobius's assistant? How did you end up at the command department?"

"Is that strange?" Blanka tilted her head. "I submitted my resignation to Dr. Mobius. I'll be working in the command department from now on… Anyway, you won't see me in Dr. Mobius's lab anymore."

"Oh, oh." Michael responded absentmindedly. "Then, does the doctor not need an assistant anymore?"

"Of course, she does. So, I introduced a friend to her."

"Does she have a grudge against her?"

"What?"

"Nothing."

Michael stood up, stretched, and was about to leave, but as he took a step, about to brush past Blanka, his steps suddenly stopped.

"No, no, no… that's not right! Every time I went to see Mobius, Blanka shouldn't have been there!"

"And… her figure is a bit thin, and her walking posture is like she's walking on stilts…"

More and more details flashed through his mind.

"Most importantly, I called Blanka 'Aunt' twice, and she didn't even get angry!"

A chill went up his spine, making his hair stand on end.

He instinctively dodged to the side. In the corner of his eye, he caught a glimpse of a swift flash of a blade, and then the metal chair he had been sitting on was easily cut into two pieces.

Michael had never seen such a blade flash before. It was like a white ribbon casually lifted in a river, or like the clear, peerless moonlight in the night sky. The moment the blade flash burst out, the whole world seemed to dim, and all the bright light and shadows couldn't compare to it.

Such a blade flash, even if it was wielded with the power of a pure human, would probably be unstoppable.

He didn't know who the other party was or why they dared to commit violence in the Fire Moth's base.

But he knew that fighting was the worst option.

Just from that one slash, he understood that if he didn't use his Herrscher powers, he would definitely not have the means to match the other party.

Thousands of thoughts were collected in an instant. Taking advantage of the other party's forward-leaning posture due to the momentum of the slash, Michael quickly passed her and ran towards the door.

As long as he reached the corridor!

As long as he got outside!

But a whistling sound came to his ears. Michael ducked his head, and a black shadow passed over his head even faster, slamming into the alloy door with a "thud."

Michael looked down and saw that it was a humanoid headgear made to look like Blanka!

He had reached the door, and one hand was on the handle.

Just at this moment, the second slash arrived. Michael hurriedly let go, the blade flash cut off the door handle and left a deep scratch on the hard alloy door panel. The half of the handle that was sent flying accurately pierced Michael's right arm.

Such pain didn't have much of an effect on him. He finally saw the figure of the person in front of him.

The person was wearing a Honkai beast mask on their face. After removing all the disguises, she looked much thinner than Blanka…

No, rather than thin, it was more like the other party was a girl who was perhaps no more than two years older than Pardo.

When did the Fire Moth have so many minors?

But when he saw the pink hair of the other party, he was instantly stunned.

"Sakura?"

No wonder someone so young could have such outrageous swordsmanship. It was indeed her.

At this time, a straight line of lightning slashed horizontally. Sakura's third slash had arrived. The blade wind that was stirred up almost tore Michael's clothes to shreds, but the seemingly unstoppable tip of the blade stopped less than an inch from Michael's chest.

One after another, pale blue, honeycomb-shaped matrices lit up, forming a complete and thick energy barrier, separating Michael and Sakura.

Sakura tried to pull her blade back, but Michael's reaction wasn't slow either.

He made a grasping motion with his right hand, and a heavy greatsword appeared in his hand.

The blade was semi-transparent, looking like a holographic projection.

But as it drew a full moon-like arc, it instantly solidified into a Soul Steel entity when it met the katana in Sakura's hand.

"Clang!"

Three inches of the blade tip snapped off and flew into the wall.

"Ha… huff…"

It seemed that someone had put some kind of drug in Elvin's goji berry iced tea. He was now sleeping soundly. He was like a low-quality record player, and his ungraceful snores were the worst music imaginable.

Because it was so bad, the other two didn't dance to it.

On the contrary, a strange silence had fallen between them.

"Poison Cocoon Number 007?" Michael asked.

Visibly, Sakura's whole body shook, and then she sheathed her blade.

"I'm just following orders, but I don't want to kill you."

Her voice revealed a childishness, but her words carried endless coldness, as if she was stating a cold fact, as if killing Michael was a very easy thing to do.

What made Michael even more strange was that this coldness was also fleeting. It was as if she had remembered some distant memory. The girl's breathing first stopped halfway, and then it clearly started to accelerate. Her breath even had a tremor in it, as if she was suppressing something.

This strange feeling made Michael's movements stop.

"Thank… you… you…" she said in a barely audible voice.

"What did you say?" Michael raised an eyebrow. He keenly sensed the other party's abnormality.

After a long time, Sakura seemed to have calmed her emotions and asked in a deep voice:

"Honkai, what is that?"

Michael's eyes narrowed slightly. He answered irrelevantly, "Are you a member of the Fire Moth?"

"Mm." Sakura nodded woodenly.

"That's strange, how can someone in the Fire Moth not know what Honkai is?"

Michael muttered to himself without showing any expression.

"What do you mean?"

"The Fire Moth was created to fight against the Honkai."

The girl gripped the scabbard tightly.

"I already know that…"

No, you don't, Michael said silently in his heart.

"Will this disaster called Honkai happen a second time?"

Michael didn't speak.

Sakura silently closed her eyes, which was a big taboo for her in a battle.

After a long time, she opened her eyes and said in a slightly bitter voice, "I understand."

A moment later, a slender figure rushed out of the interrogation room and disappeared amidst the surprised gazes of the others.

Michael followed closely behind, clutching his right arm, red blood dripping in a line.

"There's an assassin!"