"What's wrong, Death? Don't you think that it's ridiculous to keep playing human, traitor?"
Following the Herrscher's words, Lightning crackled through the hall, spreading across the walls, floor, and ceiling. Thunder boomed, threatening to blow Sunny's eardrums.
'Damnation…'
He was in no means fast enough to dodge lightning. Despite that, the golden snake of devestating light did not hit him.
After all, it was an attack that he provoked the Herrscher to use.
Using his instincts, Sunny had jumped through the window the moment the air began to feel fuzzy. As shards of glass began to rain down from the sky, he grit his teeth while he looked down at the distant ground.
He had leaped from the fifth story of a building, which would inevitably kill him before the psychotic calamity that pursued him.
As he fell through the air, his mind calculated the precise distance between him and the ground. While doing so, space distorted as portals began to open up. The first was directly below Sunny, while the other was above the ground that threatened to turn him into a red stain.
As he went through the portal placed below his descending body, the momentum carried him as he leaped out of the other portal, airborne for a few moments before gravity caused him to crash back down. Stumbling on his own two feet for a moment, his eyes widened as he saw the figure before him.
A blonde woman with amber eyes faced him, a bloodthirsty sneer on her face. Clad in samurai-esque armor — which was way to revealing — she held a bow made of pure lightning in one hand, with an arrow in the other. She twirled the arrow around her fingers with ease, as if she was holding a physical object and not a construct of energy.
'This… is so unscientific.'
Sunny wondered if he should run, before deciding against it. Not only could she shoot lightning at him, but the stormy clouds above were not just for show. He had entered the building to avoid them, after all.
And now he was out in the open.
The Herrscher looked upon Sunny with unconcealed resentment, her mouth opening as thunderclaps in the distance sounded along with each syllable.
"Why do you deny our purpose? We are Honkai. As long as humanity continues to stand, we will hasten their extinction. And yet… you, the incarnation of Death itself, continue to mingle with these… abominable lifeforms?"
Sunny was starting to feel a little awkward. It seemed that she was mistaking him for someone else.
She continued, her voice tinged with hatred:
"Do not think that I did not see that stunt you pulled? Void, is it not? You must have been the one to slay our elder sister, moments before her descent? You must be mad… to go against your own kind?!"
'No, you really have the wrong person…'
Even so, Sunny was going to make sure this monster died. With an infuriating grin to hide his nervousness, he provoked her with scathing words, targeting the weak spots that she had revealed to him.
"Oh, Void? I almost forgot about that one. They didn't leave much of a lasting expression. It was like taking candy from a baby… but the candy? That was their life."
Sunny was simply lying. He had never faced a Herrscher besides the one before him.
However, with the way that she referred to the Herrscher of the Void as a sibling, he was confident that he could provoke her into attacking.
As he spoke those words, there was no physical reaction from the Herrscher. Even so, Sunny was satisfied.
He saw how the Honkai energy she emitted began to flow differently, depicting a change in mental state.
After a few moments of silence, the Herrscher of Thunder grinned. It was a manic smile, one that was followed by the thunderstorm above intensifying.
"Ah… you must not hear her voice anymore, but do you know what mother has been whispering in my ear?"
Although he was unsure who this 'mother' character was, Sunny shrugged.
"Nope."
Her pupils constricted as the air grew thick with murderous intent.
"Kill the blasphemer."
Before Sunny could even ask what she was talking about, her bow and arrow dissipated into fleeting sparks. Then, a small, metallic object flew out of a nearby fountain, falling into her hand as she tossed it up and down.
The Herrscher suddenly chuckled.
"Wouldn't it be ironic? To kill you with a weapon humans invented?"
Feeling a sense of unease, Sunny's vision focused on the object she was playing with. As it rose into the air, he couldn't help but quirk a brow.
It was a coin.
Catching it, the Herrscher held out her hand, the coin grasped as if she was going to flick it. At the same time, she tilted her hand forwards, seeming as if she wanted to aim the coin at him.
Lightning trailed across her body, coalescing at the point where her hand made contact with the coin. Smirking, she added:
"They call it the railgun, don't they?"
Sunny brows furrowed for a moment, before his eyes widened in panic. He realized that with her supreme electromagnetic control, she could certainly replicate the effects of a railgun with nothing but a small metal object!
He stood still, not daring to move until he could see a cue.
Focusing on both her physical movements and erratic, shocking Honkai energy, Sunny was able to trace a single moment in which it spiked.
And at that same moment, both Herrscher and Hyman moved.
With a bang, the coin broke past the sound barrier as it traveled through an imaginary tunnel of electromagnetic waves. The coin was being forcefully pulled in a singular direction, melting as it moved with excessive force while making contact with electricity.
Right before it fired, Sunny had created a one-way portal before him. Above the Herrscher's head was the destination of the portal.
'Crap!'
Sunny felt his eyes burn from the sheer pressure of the approaching projectile. The coin moved at a speed far-surpassing the railgun, incinerating the very atmosphere itself.
His skin, his flesh, his hair, his previously-singed clothes, his blood, his internal organs… nothing was spared from the devestating heat brought by the friction of a coin moving at such speeds.
He tried to scream, but his vocal cords had melted, flowing down towards his lungs like lava. Those same lungs had lost all form, vaporizing as his body began to convulse — not because of the agony, as his nerves had already turned to ash. Rather, the heat within him was causing him to bloat, inflating as the methane gas within his stomach ignited, before eventually…
Pop!
He turned into a mess of melted flesh and guts.
Fortunately, he had died before the worst of the pain could assault him — not that he could have felt it without nerves, but it was the principal of the matter!
The portal dissipated into nothingness long before the coin could reach it, allowing it to fly undisturbed. Silently into numerous buildings as it moved too fast for sound to follow, a display of towering structures with large chunks seeming as if they were erased from existence were created.
Staring down at Sunny — who had become one with air as he evaporated into the atmosphere, she scoffed.
"Your treachery will never be forgiven…"
***
Sunny violently twitched as wet coughs escaped his throat. Losing his balance, he almost fell of the edge of Chiba Academy's Science Department's roof before a strong grip kept him from falling. Tears welled up in his eyes as he felt the phantom pain of being burned to death.
"Hey…"
He furiously patted his body, making sure his body wasn't turned into molten liquid as he began to hyperventilate.
"…nny!"
His bloodshot eyes began to dart around, searching for the false goddess of thunder.
"Sunny!"
At the call of his name, Sunny's gaze fell on boy — a college student — with snow-white hair and icy blue eyes. There was a clear expression of alarm on his face, and his hand was gripping Sunny's shirt, keeping him from falling off the building.
He blinked for a second, before shouting so loudly that the students below could hear:
"Kevin!"
Covering his ears at the mind-numbing shout, Kevin sent him a glare.
"What was that for?!"
Sunny scoffed.
"I've been telling you, haven't I? No matter how much you pathetically grovel, she's not going on a date with you! To be more specific, your only redeeming quality is that you have a pretty face. Bastard."
Sunny had been expecting a glare or a wince, not a look of confusion.
"What? Sunny, that was almost a week ago. I haven't even brought it up with you yet."
Kevin squinted his eyes.
"Are you okay? You look… sicker than usual. And there was that whole thing…"
There was a short pause before Sunny huffed in indignation.
"Coughing up blood everyday doesn't make me sick, thank you very much. Plus, I'm always okay. In fact, I'm fantastic!"
Lingering for a moment, he continued:
"By the way, what day is it today?"
Kevin frowned for a moment, before sighing in resignation.
"It's Wednesday."
Sunny nodded before hopping down the ledge he had been sitting on. He turned towards Kevin, saluted him with a grin, and continued to the door that led to the stairwell.
"Unfortunately for you, my friend, it looks like I have an appointment with a woman… unlike you. Have fun without me…!"
As he opened the door, he paused, looking back at Kevin — who had a baffled expression.
"Actually, don't have fun without me. Don't even think about it, Snowy~!"
Stepping through, Sunny closed the fort behind him as he ignored the exclamation of; "Stop calling me that!"
However, instead of descending, Sunny pulled out his phone. His previously cheerful expression contorted into a scowl as he looked through his contacts.
'The Herrscher arrives on Friday… and this entire campus is going to get destroyed.'
With only two days, Sunny made a choice he normally would have hesitated with. Tapping on an emergency contact, he held his phone up to his ear as he listened to the excruciatingly long ringing sound.
After a few seconds, someone picked up.
"Hey, Mobi— huh? Who are you? Oh, an assistant? Well, could you get Mobius on the phone? I have business with her. Thanks!"
After a few seconds that consisted of impatiently tapping the floor with his foot, he got a hold of his target.
"Hey— what? No, I'm not going to let you cut me open… and yes, joining Fire Moth will definitely lead to that. I don't care if you'll sign a legal contract to not experiment on me, you give me the creeps!"
Groaning, Sunny adopted a more serious tone.
"Listen. So, I need you to send a message to your boss… only if I become your assistant?! You already have one!"