Honkai: Fire Moth Herrschers

"Pulse rapid, heartbeat elevated, no respiration… but all vital signs normal!"

"This feels… familiar…" Michael twitched a finger. Just as the urgent female voice had announced, his vitals were perfectly fine. His body felt brimming with an inexhaustible energy, almost enough to make him leap out of bed… almost.

In reality, all he could manage was that single, tiny twitch. The boundless energy felt like a crushing weight, like sandbags piled on his chest, immobilizing him. As for opening his eyes? Forget about it. His eyelids felt fused shut, or perhaps he just couldn't sense them at all. All he saw was a dark crimson void.

"This feeling…"

…is so familiar, his mind completed the thought. Ah, he remembered. It was similar to the pseudo-death state he'd experienced during the emergency Sheesha factor fusion back in Nagazora. Not exactly the same, but close.

"Did Mobius do something to me again? No, why would I be on her operating table… wait!"

The memory of losing consciousness slammed into him.

"The Husk! I have to—"

"Haaah…" Michael shot upright, ripping out the dozens of tubes connecting him to various machines.

He wasn't on a battlefield, nor an operating table. He was in a bed… a hospital bed, judging by the sickly green walls.

Mobius's lab, no doubt.

"What happened? Did we defeat the Husk?" Michael looked down at his hands. He was stunned by how easily the Husk had taken him down. Even more baffling, injuries like those shouldn't have completely incapacitated him.

Worry gnawed at him. What price had humanity paid to defeat the Husk? And…

"Don't worry, Elysia is fine." Two icy arms snaked around his neck, resting on his shoulders. Then, an equally cold cheek pressed against his ear.

"Mobius, you!"

"Alright, alright, I'm just messing with you." She hopped off the bed—literally hopped.

Michael stared at her now-petite form, speechless.

"Tch!" Seeing his expression, Mobius clicked her tongue, her voice condescending, as if soothing a child. "Relax, the thingamajig you call 'Husk' is gone, poof. The rift above New Mallorca? Patched up with the Second Divine Key. Casualties? Take a wild guess."

"..."

"Fine, you're no fun." Mobius waved her hand dismissively, struggling to climb onto a chair by the lab table. "Bottom line: everyone's okay. Aside from this defenseless little scientist, nobody got a scratch."

"Even you were on the battlefield?" Michael tried to get out of bed, but a strange sensation in his abdomen stopped him. Not pain, exactly, more like… twitching. Squirming. Wait a second… that couldn't be—

Mobius, what the hell did you do to my body?!

"Hmph… Urp—" Before he could pull back the blanket to check his wound, a wave of nausea hit him. He barely managed to suppress it.

Mobius, facing away, continued her nonchalant narration. "With you out of commission, Elysia stood no chance against the Husk. Sakura was down for the count, thanks to a nasty reaction to the Sea of Quanta. So Mei had to send me, Kalpas, and her little minion as reinforcements. And honestly, despite my repeated insistence that I'm not a fighter… Well, if it was a foe even you couldn't face…"

Michael's curiosity finally won over his nausea. "The Second Divine Key takes time to charge. How did you get to the battlefield so quickly without my spatial abilities?"

"Tch! Please, don't lump me in with those two brutes. They were the first wave. I was the second. Don't assume humanity can't manage rapid deployment without your fancy spatial tricks. Our greatest strength isn't brute force, it's… this!" She tapped her head.

"The Fire Moth 7th? Kalaba's squadron? No, it's fast, but there's still significant prep time—"

"You're halfway there. I, as the esteemed second wave, did arrive via the Fire Moth 7th. But Kevin and Kalpas? Oh ho ho, Mei is ruthless. Strapped those two lovebirds onto an ICBM like a pair of oversized warheads and whoosh—off they went! Too bad you missed their adorable screams. Kevin, I could understand, but Kalpas? Turns out the big guy's afraid of heights!"

"Being launched like a missile… yeah, hard to blame them. Are they… okay?"

Mobius slammed her hand on the table. "I said everyone is fine!"

"Okay, okay…" Michael mumbled, shrinking back from her sudden outburst. He scratched his head. "So… where is Elysia now?"

He immediately regretted asking.

Mobius fell silent.

It only lasted a moment, though. She turned to him, her expression serious.

"Michael, before you start fretting about Elysia, maybe you should worry about yourself."

"Uh… what did you do to me?" Michael blinked innocently, pulling back the blanket.

The wound from the Husk… had healed. Strangely.

Healing wasn't unusual; a Herrscher's body was incredibly resilient. He also had the added benefit of a portion of the 6th Herrscher's power anchored within his World Bubble. Fast healing was a given.

But this was… different. The long, thin wound hadn't closed cleanly. Instead of the seamless, scarless regeneration his powers should have provided, a raised, meandering, worm-like scar remained. And it wasn't flesh-toned. It pulsed with an eerie, sea-blue light.

"Did… did you perform a Vishnu fusion? And you did this shoddy a job?" Michael's eyebrows furrowed, then smoothed out. He was annoyed at Mobius's unnecessary meddling, but he had seen this coming the moment he lifted all restrictions on her experiments.

Still, this was beyond ugly.

"Oh, right, right, terribly ugly, absolutely dreadful," Mobius chirped, hopping off her chair and over to his bedside. She stood on tiptoe, tracing the jagged scar down to his lower abdomen.

Michael grimaced, pinching her wrist and pushing her hand away. "Enough! Let me be clear. I had nothing to do with this wound. Absolutely nothing! Stop blaming everything on me! Not everything is my fault!"

The tiny scientist tugged on his finger, pulling him off balance until he tumbled off the bed.

"Hey! You—"

Before he could finish, Mobius dumped a pile of blood-soaked clothes on his face. His clothes.

"What the hell happened?" Michael demanded, pulling the clothes on.

Only Mobius and Mei knew how to perform fusion warrior surgery. Could Mei have requested it?

No. While Mei operated under absolute rationality, she was even more likely to consult him before making such a drastic decision.

Besides, with the Fire Moth's current surgical capabilities, such a messy scar was improbable.

Which left only one possibility…

Michael stared at his hands, realization dawning.

"Yes, it seems you've figured it out," Mobius said. "So, Michael, care to explain the source of this… cellular hyperactivity you possess? Under the influence of the Imaginary energy, the cells where your wound overlapped with Vishnu's began rapidly dividing. It essentially mimicked a Meta-Morph surgery."

"So, I…"

"Indeed! You, infused with Vishnu's factor, proceeded to absorb over half of Vishnu's corpse, along with pretty much all the Honkai-tainted liquid that had flooded New Mallorca. In a way, not only did you make a huge contribution to defeating that Husk thing, but you also saved countless people who would have drowned in those shelters."

"And you?" Michael looked her up and down, calculating. One meter, thirty centimeters… roughly equal to zero Hua units. In other words, practically nonexistent.

"Me?" Mobius looked down at her feet, then back at him, understanding his implication. "Michael… shut up."