"No... what did you just call me?"
"Mama Mobius."
Mei lowered her head, repeating the name for the third time. Of course, she felt a little embarrassed, but when she said those two words to cater to the other's presumed desire, she felt no resistance in her heart.
Even though her father's study had a wedding photo of him and her mother, even though Mei had a whole photo album filled with pictures of her mother and herself, no matter how hard she tried to remember, she couldn't recall her mother's face, her mother's voice, or even her mother's name.
After all, the woman who had given her life passed away from cancer when she was just two years old, not long after she had learned to say the word "Mama."
If Bronya and Seele hadn't called Cocolia "Mama" that day, she might have forgotten the word even existed.
But since then, the word "Mama" had been awakened. It struggled in the sealed-off corners of Mei's memory, stirring her heart. It made her suddenly realize that even after filling the void of friendship with Kiana, Bronya, and Seele, and patching up her fractured relationship with her father with Michael's help, there was still something missing in her life.
She still lacked a mother. Only by completing this piece of the puzzle could her brief decade and a half of life finally be considered complete, without regrets.
Only then could she face her own end without resentment.
And among the people she had met, at least for now, the only one she could think of who could complete this puzzle piece for her was Mobius.
To be honest, they didn't know each other well. In the large family within the villa, Mobius's relationship with the girls had always been somewhat distant.
It was as if she was worried about something, always distancing herself just as their relationships were about to become intimate. If Mei hadn't overheard her talking with Michael one night when she got up to use the restroom, she would never have guessed that this woman—sometimes cold and indifferent, sometimes wild and crazy, and as clueless as a little girl when it came to chores—would tell Michael that she wanted a child.
Although their relationship had always been kept at arm's length, if one wanted a child and the other wanted a mother, wasn't that just perfect?
Mei waited for a while but received no answer from Mobius. She bit her lower lip, her arms around Mobius slowly tightening.
"Mei, I..."
Mobius seemed completely thrown by the title. Mei could feel her unusually cold body begin to radiate a trace of warmth. Glancing up at her in the firelight, her cheeks seemed to have taken on a rosy hue.
"Heh... Mei, what is it that you wanted to ask me to do?"
In the end, she neither denied nor acknowledged the title.
But in that moment, the title itself no longer mattered. Whether it was a lucky guess or a deliberate move, Mobius had bypassed the distracting outer layers and struck right at the heart of the matter.
"I know this is selfish, but... Mama Mobius, I want to ask you, if my body is taken over by the Herrscher, please, you have to kill me."
"..."
Mobius's chest heaved twice. She turned her gaze toward the darkness to the side, leaving Mei to see only half her cheek and the back of her head.
"Mama Mobius is Michael's colleague. You must know about Herrschers, right?"
"Heh, I know far more than you do."
"Then Mama Mobius should also know that if we don't want the world to be destroyed, what I'm saying is an unavoidable outcome."
"Oh, please. Don't show off things you've just heard in front of me."
Mobius's expression was strange, and she almost let something slip.
It wasn't her fault. If any of the other Flame-Chasers were in her shoes, hearing Mei's words, how many of them could remain completely unfazed?
Not even a certain old fossil could manage it. And if it were that man who never took off his mask, he would probably laugh himself into a cramp.
But the complex emotion wasn't just embarrassment.
There was more... there was wistfulness... and... dislike.
Self-sacrifice was never something to be encouraged, especially when people insisted on sacrificing themselves on their own terms.
"Raiden Mei, you know nothing about what the Honkai even is. You shouldn't be saying things like that."
"Maybe... maybe I really don't know anything, but, ah, Mama Mobius... I just don't have the courage to kill myself..."
Mobius's body suddenly trembled. Perhaps it was that long, drawn-out "but, ah" that had struck a nerve, a memory that had become exceptionally sensitive from long disuse.
"So, all you can think about is either me killing you or you killing yourself? So all you can think about is using death to escape everything, instead of trusting your comrades and bravely facing it all with them? Heh... heheh... hahahahaha..."
As she spoke, Mobius herself began to laugh.
She never thought she'd be the one to say such sappy things one day. It was... she wasn't even sure if she was saying these words to Mei or to someone else.
But on second thought, it didn't really matter.
"Alright, instead of thinking about all this nonsense, you should take this chance to get some more sleep."
Mobius glanced out the window. It was impossible to tell the time in the blood-red light, but it was undoubtedly night.
"Don't you need to rest, Mama Mobius?"
"I don't need to," she wanted to say.
But what came out was—"It's fine, you sleep first. I can manage."
Tsk! You're actually using that kind of line to gain a child's sympathy?
If her past self saw this, she would definitely mock her mercilessly, just like that.
But aside from a flicker of shame, the only feeling left in her heart was peace.
She could feel the strength in Mei's arms, so she squeezed back a little, patting Mei's back in a steady rhythm.
Mei had been through a rollercoaster of joy and sorrow again today. Her consciousness was in a constant tug-of-war with the "Herrscher." After just a brief moment of clarity like the one she just had, her mind was already starting to drift again. She couldn't focus, and her head was filled with sleepiness...
Feeling the gentle snores of the girl in her arms, Mobius stopped her patting.
"Sigh..."
Now that she was the only one awake, she could finally let go of her inhibitions, pouring all her sorrow, anger, and resentment into that single sigh.
If she could, she really wanted to respond with a soft "Mm" the moment Mei called her "Mama Mobius."
Not with repeated questions, feigning ignorance. Not by dismissing it as a distraction...
But she knew she wasn't qualified to accept that title.
She knew what Michael was doing, she hadn't forgotten the role she was supposed to play in this girl's life, and she certainly hadn't forgotten what she came here to do...
She was not a good person.
But she really liked that title. She really wanted that title.
This desire didn't stem from her own yearning for the continuation of life. She liked her fragility, liked her gentleness, liked her innocence, and of course, her face and the sound of her name.
In this girl, she could see so many traces of the past.
And more importantly, the girl before her was both a Herrscher and a Stigmata Awakener. She knew what that meant—this girl was destined to enter the Elysian Realm, to learn everything about their past, and to carry their will into the future.
If that was the case, after she met the Mobius of the past, how would she view the title "Mama Mobius"?
No! You can't keep sinking like this, Mobius!
Snap out of it!
"Ngh... uh... haah—yawn!"
Not long after Mei fell asleep, Bronya stirred. She squinted one eye as she yawned, forcing the other one wide open to check the time on her watch—7:30 PM, right on schedule.
"We agreed you'd take over the watch at 7:30. You're not even a minute off. Are all you mercenaries this good with time?"
Looking at the girl forcing herself to stay alert despite her sleepy eyes, Mobius couldn't help but tease her.
"Ah, sometimes when you're on a solo mission, there's no one to remind you. Alarms, whether sound or vibration, risk alerting the enemy, and wearing headphones reduces your awareness of the surroundings. So you have to rely on psychological suggestion to regulate your biological clock."
Bronya answered while rubbing her eyes. After speaking, she removed the magazine and cleaned the chamber of her Tokarev pistol. Then, she quietly unzipped the backpack Seele was holding and took out two oil-paper packets, counting the ammunition inside.
"Sigh..."
"Why the long face? How many bullets are left?"
Bronya shot Mobius a glare and silently held up three fingers.
"Thirty? No, three magazines left?"
"Mm."
There were enough bullets in the packets to fill three magazines, and she had four full ones in her hand. Frankly, the ammunition situation was not optimistic.
"Actually, you don't need to worry about that. With me here, you probably won't have a chance to use your gun."
"Is that so? But I don't like leaving my fate in someone else's hands. I prefer to have a backup plan."
Faced with Bronya's visible distrust, Mobius just slowly shook her head.
She knew what the girl was worried about. Because of her unique childhood experiences, this girl was the most mature of the group. And with her outsider's perspective, she could notice details that those directly involved couldn't.
Of course, she had also been one of Cocolia's subordinates. She wasn't ignorant about the world, about the Honkai.
"Mobius, you and Michael, what organization do you belong to?"
Bronya gently cocked the hammer of the Tokarev with her thumb.
She hadn't spent the last two years with Cocolia just idling around. The Honkai was what had turned her Siberian hometown into a living hell. How could she not learn about it?
What was the deal with that twenty-meter-tall Honkai beast Mobius had killed in one hit? The strength of lesser Honkai beasts was primarily categorized by size. According to Schicksal's combat protocols, B-rank Valkyries were only permitted to engage beasts under ten meters. Anything larger was handled by A-rank Valkyries.
A lesser Honkai beast over twenty meters tall was already approaching an Emperor-class beast in terms of destructive power and defense. It would typically require an elite A-rank Valkyrie squad like the former Snow Wolf Squad or the deployment of a large battleship to deal with.
For Anti-Entropy, the cost of dealing with a beast of that level was even more staggering. The Siberian Branch, due to its director's personal reasons and geographic factors, had very few combat missions against the Honkai, but they still had combat protocols.
And according to those protocols, a beast of this size would require at least twenty mecha squads and over a hundred tactical mechs for the initial encirclement, while simultaneously requesting deployment authority for a giant mecha from headquarters.
Even Arahato and the Alliance Leader himself would have to be on standby.
So, just how strong was Mobius, who could one-shot such a beast?
Forget being on par with an S-rank Valkyrie or Anti-Entropy's Alliance Leader. Even if she was just benchmarked against an elite A-rank Valkyrie, she would be anything but a nobody among humanity. After all, the entire active Schicksal Valkyrie force was only about three thousand strong.
Bronya had previously assumed Michael and Mobius were from Schicksal. But if that were the case, there would be no reason for them to hide their identities now. On the contrary, they should have seized this opportunity to get Mei, the perfect host for the Gem of Conquest, under Schicksal's control.
Then... were they from Shenzhou? That was even more unlikely. Neither their appearance nor their demeanor suggested it...
"Is that question important?"
Mobius shook her head regretfully.
"Alright, I don't need to hide it from you—Michael's interests and mine are not, in fact, aligned. Does that make sense to you?"
Bronya frowned, clearly dissatisfied with this answer.
"Do I really have to spell it out for you? Michael is Michael, and I am me. I don't take orders from him. Everything I've done so far has been out of personal friendship. As for what Michael's situation is, you might as well ask him yourself. I've just seen him meeting with that Schicksal Overseer more than once."
Bronya's brow furrowed into a deep frown. She couldn't quite grasp this complex relationship, and she felt... that Mobius's answer wasn't exactly straightforward...
Of course, there was the most important point...
"Your interests and Michael's are not completely aligned? What does that mean?"
"It's simple. I'm just helping him out of personal friendship. But he's not my superior, and he doesn't give me orders. So I have my own judgment on some matters. I will also do things he might not want to see. Is that so hard to understand?"
"A little... difficult..."
Bronya tried to put herself and Seele into the shoes of Michael and Mobius, but she couldn't understand it at all. If you were helping Michael out of "personal friendship," shouldn't you be actively trying to accommodate his thoughts and wishes?
"We're leaving at eight. Let me rest for a bit. As for you... if you can't figure it out, don't bother. Because you'll know what it means soon enough."
A flash of lightning suddenly lit up the window, casting an eerie and bewitching glow on Mobius's smile.