Chapter 143: The Past and Confession
On the playground at night, the moonlight shines on the vast field like a layer of silver gauze.
The school is filled with the atmosphere of youth, and the laughter of the girls interweaves into a beautiful melody in the air.
Kirataka and Mei were walking here in the evening breeze, strolling side by side.
"Kiana has changed a lot since she came back from Singapore," Mei said.
The change of the white-haired girl was obvious. Although she didn't know what happened to Kiana during this mission, in her opinion, it was not a bad thing to have some positive changes.
"Well, Seele just happened to have a companion."
—At the level of being a poor student.
The two of them chatted about the people around them, from the other three girls they lived with Aunt Himeko, and the principal.
Kirataka and Mei are quite similar in that they both like to care about other people.
However, the focus tonight is not on other people, but on Mei herself.
He suddenly asked:
"By the way, Mei, do you remember what happened before? I mean... before the eruption in Nagazora."
"Of course, I remember. Why are you talking about this all of a sudden?"
"Well... because I want to know more about you, Mei."
Kirataka explained with a smile:
"Look, I only know that you were a student at Chiba Academy. I don't know much about things before that. I'm a little curious about what you were like in the past, Mei."
From Mei's perspective, this is indeed true.
After all, the young man next to her suddenly appeared in the disaster-hit Nagazora, which was different from classmates like Kiana.
"Well...if you want to know, it's not impossible," Mei said softly.
Although the experience at that time was not very pleasant, she has become much stronger today and no longer cares so much about what happened in Chiba Academy.
Moreover, memories of the past are not all painful scenes; there are still fragments worth cherishing.
In order to continue the next topic, they temporarily stopped walking and found a relatively secluded seat to sit down.
"Hmm... where do I start?"
The purple-haired girl pointed a jade finger at her chin, tilted her head slightly to think for a moment, and said with a faint smile:
"Let's start with cooking, Kirataka. You know what? I actually couldn't cook at all in the beginning."
—As the daughter of ME Company, she was born with a silver spoon in her mouth.
As a daughter of a noble family like her, she naturally had a large number of nannies and housekeepers taking care of her since she was a child.
So, for a long time, she had no cooking skills at all and didn't even know how to cut vegetables.
"Before my father got into trouble, I would bring lunch boxes prepared by my housekeeper to school every day. At that time, my classmates would gather around me and compliment me."
Those days were so glamorous that she lived in praise and envy every day.
But... this is just a facade.
At this point, Mei smiled bitterly and said:
"It was only after a long time that I realized that they didn't really want to be friends with me. They just wanted to use the name of 'friends' to get some benefits from me."
They coveted the financial resources and influence of ME Company, wanting to gain benefits for themselves by getting close to Mei.
It must be said that as an aristocratic school, the girls there were still quite realistic.
Of course, there were sometimes outliers like a certain white-haired ball...
"Everything changed after my father got into trouble and went to jail."
The girl recalled.
Cocolia planned a conspiracy, framed Raiden Ryoma with an economic case, and arrested him, leaving ME in the hands of that old witch.
The old witch might have only coveted the large amount of funds and resources controlled by Raiden Ryoma, but she also dealt a devastating blow to Mei's life.
From then on, no classmates gathered around Mei anymore. On the contrary, everyone started to keep their distance from her.
Various negative rumors about her began to spread in the class and even throughout the school.
The pampered young lady turned into a helpless Cinderella overnight, which was a fall from heaven to hell.
But life must go on, so Mei began to learn to take care of herself.
She cooked her own meals, brought her own lunch to school, and handled everything in her life by herself.
It is said that adversity forces people to grow, and this is true. Her cooking skills also made rapid progress during that period. Perhaps she wanted to escape the heavy reality through this "hobby."
After saying all this, Mei let out a long sigh and said with a smile:
"But those days are over now because I met you."
"In St. Freya, I met many people who were truly kind to me, whether it was the Class Monitor, Kiana, Bronya, and Seele, or Principal Theresa and Teacher Himeko... and of course, you, Kirataka."
Life here has healed her past pains, and she no longer cares about the bullying she suffered at Chiba Academy.
She has also found a new goal in life and is working hard for it.
"It's good to move on from the past," Kirataka said.
A certain Paramecium was so afraid of the past that it sealed her own memory.
In comparison, Mei is indeed quite strong.
"Well...it's just..."
The girl whispered.
However, there is always a regret, or an unsolved mystery, about her past.
Not about herself, but about her father.
"…I don't know where my father is now," Mei sighed.
—Just as Kiana asked Theresa, her aunt, about the whereabouts of her father Siegfried when she came to the academy, Mei also asked the principal for help in finding the whereabouts of Raiden Ryoma.
However, she had lost contact with her father for a long time before the Eruption and had no clues about him.
After the outbreak of Honkai, Nagazora became a mess. It was not easy to find Ryoma's whereabouts in such chaos.
Theresa agreed to help her investigate the information in this regard, but even with the resources and intelligence network of Schicksal in the Far East, there was no way to find Ryoma's whereabouts.
By now, she had almost given up hope.
The worst-case scenario was that her father had had an accident...
Kirataka listened quietly to Mei's words.
The relationship between Cocolia and Mei is indeed one of deep blood feud.
Whether it was destroying her family and taking away all her wealth, capturing her father and imprisoning him, or creating a tragic disaster and turning her into a "monster" that everyone feared... each one of them alone was enough to make her pay the price in blood.
In the original timeline, Cocolia, the executioner without any conscience, was ultimately sentenced to long-term imprisonment instead of being executed. Kirataka felt it was a bit regrettable.
Such an ending would be unfair to victims like Mei and the countless ordinary people who died in Nagazora.
Blood debt... must be paid with blood.
So, let him change the villain's ending and let her get the fate she deserves.
Such a future is not too far away.
Well, since the topic has come to this, it would be a good opportunity to talk to Mei about the next course of action.
Kirataka thought the timing was right, so he whispered to Mei:
"Mei, speaking of Uncle Ryoma and Cocolia, I just happen to have something I want to tell you."
"What's up...?"
Mei raised her head and looked over with a puzzled expression.
"Uncle Ryoma is still alive, and I know where he is being held now," Kirataka said in a steady voice.
"…!"
"He was captured and imprisoned by Cocolia, but... he is not in the Far East. I have some sources that tell me Uncle Ryoma is being held in an Anti-Entropy base in Siberia."
As he spoke, he retrieved the intelligence Raven had previously gathered from his portable terminal and showed it to her.
Mei already trusted Kirataka deeply, so she did not doubt the authenticity of the news.
Her chest heaved violently as she processed the sudden revelation.
'My father is still alive... That's good...'
As long as he's alive, there's a way to rescue him.
If her own strength was insufficient, she would seek help from the other "Mei" within her.
Mei thought for a moment and asked softly, "Kirataka, have you been investigating my father's whereabouts?"
"Yes, that's true. I also hope to rescue Uncle Ryoma as soon as possible," Kirataka nodded.
"…Thank you."
Mei's purple eyes looked sincerely at Kirataka, gratitude evident in her tone.
"If you really want to thank me, then wait until we rescue Uncle Ryoma," Kirataka said seriously. "Cocolia is a cunning and dangerous individual. We must be fully prepared before the rescue."
"We...?"
"Yes, Mei. You don't want to leave the task of rescuing your father to someone else, right?"
"Of course not," Mei nodded slightly.
"I'll go with you, then."
"When do we set off?" The purple-haired girl asked anxiously.
Knowing her father was alive, she was eager to act immediately.
"Cocolia will appear in Siberia in about a week. I plan to take action then and catch her off guard. Before that, I'll explain the situation to Theresa and request a team for the mission," Kirataka replied.
After all, the scale of this operation would be larger than what they encountered in Singapore. It was necessary to formally inform Theresa and approach the mission with proper planning.
Since they were targeting Cocolia, it was crucial not to mobilize a large force from the Hyperion.
"If we send too many people, Cocolia will almost certainly receive advance warning—after all, Siberia is her territory."
"Not to mention whether it is possible to locate the old witch herself and take revenge on her; by that time, it's entirely possible that Raiden Ryoma would have been urgently transferred to another secret base."
He wouldn't be able to accept it if the final result was just an empty base.
Therefore, this time Kirataka still plans to use a small-team combat approach to infiltrate and decapitate the target.
Basically, except for elite Valkyrie units like the Immortal Blades, which are deployed on a large scale to handle major disasters, most of Schicksal's Valkyries perform their missions in teams of three.
He and Mei will naturally participate in this mission. If the chip issue in Bronya's head can be resolved in time, she could also join them.
After all, they are all closely tied to Cocolia. With Bronya as a 'double agent,' many things might become much easier to handle.
Of course, if the issue with the brain chip cannot be resolved, to avoid any complications with Bronya's condition, it would suffice for him and Mei to go alone.
The reason Kirataka didn't consider including 'elders' like Theresa or Fu Hua in this operation was the same as before: he didn't want to reveal his full strength to them.
If one were assessed as S-rank based on the ability to kill an emperor-level Honkai beast alone, Kirataka likely already met that threshold. Yet most people around him remained unaware of his capabilities.
Letting these 'elders' know his limits would be akin to indirectly letting Otto know his situation.
That wasn't ideal.
It was better to keep it a secret.
Moreover, speaking purely in terms of combat strength, the Stigmata within Mei's body could unleash the full power of the Herrscher of Thunder.
One Herrscher was more than enough to attack Cocolia's fortress head-on. Even if only two people were involved, it wouldn't arouse suspicion from others afterward.
At that time, all combat achievements could be attributed to Mei.
——What Kirataka worried about most wasn't Cocolia's final counterattack, but the potential involvement of the World Serpent.
After all, what Cocolia had at her disposal—such as the Titan mecha and the clone of the First Herrscher—were hardly threats to him.
In comparison, the World Serpent's potential interference was much more dangerous to Kirataka.
——Although he had a deal and agreement with a World Serpent Lord still trapped in the Quantum Sea, the World Serpent as a whole couldn't be considered his ally until Kevin was released.
If nothing unexpected occurred, the biggest trouble during this operation would likely come from them.
Well... he would handle that when the time came.
In short, he was determined to ensure that Cocolia would meet her end in Siberia this time.
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