"Even if it's not the first time seeing it, no matter how many times you do — it never stops being unbelievable."
Haxxor Bunny stared, genuinely stared, at the dark-violet-haired girl who called herself 'Yue'er.' Her eyes went slightly glassy. She performed a small, involuntary swallow.
So. Adorable.
This girl was so unbearably adorable!
Even she, a fellow girl, felt her heart tugged completely out of orbit — the urge to run over, hug her, nuzzle her, and lift her up high was almost overwhelming.
Of course, Miss Haxxor Bunny was still a rational person. Her most, most favorite person was still Seele!
But then again — Yue'er, fused together using Seele as one of the components… did that count as Seele?
"——Miss March 7th?"
Huo Huo froze on the spot, staring at the scene in front of her with the most blank, bewildered expression imaginable. She had absolutely no idea what had just happened.
"It's Yue'er~!"
The girl with dark-violet shoulder-length hair and blue-violet eyes with pink irises smiled her most charming smile, pointing a slender pale finger at herself. "The fusion of March 7th and Seele — my name is Yue'er."
"Huh?"
Huo Huo tilted her head with a dazed little wobble. She still couldn't wrap her mind around it!
Xueyi's expressionless, exquisitely pretty face showed the faintest flicker of emotion.
"Am I going crazy? Humans just fused!?"
Tail's face — ninety-nine percent identical to the Grey Wolf King of the Greenfield Prairie after a full round of plastic surgery — twisted into the exact expression of Grey Wolf discovering that Pleasant Goat was helping him catch goats. Pure, haunted disbelief.
"They're humans, right?"
Fuyan blinked her single eye, her face equally full of what-the-actual-hell.
The fusion of Heliobus was based on the special nature of energy-based lifeforms — like pouring two liquids of similar density into the same container, they naturally merged. But humans were carbon-based organisms!
Put two rocks together and how could they possibly seep into each other's bodies?
"Tch. Ridiculous."
Tail floated there, scrutinizing Yue'er with open suspicion. Its gaze swept over the gold earrings on the dark-violet-haired girl's delicate, soft earlobes before finally landing on Caelus. It muttered under its breath:
"What on earth is this kid's background?"
Tail the Great had lived all the way from Ignamar's ice age to the present. It had inherited a portion of Ignamar's memories and knew ancient secrets. It had been sealed away as a cowardly little tail for hundreds of years on top of that, and was well acquainted with the current state of the Xianzhou. What scene hadn't Tail the Great witnessed?
This scene? It genuinely had not.
First, someone who could cook Heliobus into food with special effects. Then, someone who could produce a gadget that let humans fuse together. Were these two gray-haired kids that blue mechanical cat from that serial animated series who could pull out all manner of miraculous gadgets?
"Adorable~! Baby, you're a beautiful little butterfly~!"
Stelle shot forward like a rocket. With all the energy of a fan catching sight of Elysia-chan, she launched a flying tackle and wrapped the softly yelping Yue'er up tight in her arms, rubbing her cheek against the cutie's token resistance.
"Haha~ that tickles, Stelle."
It was like being pounced on and face-licked by a Husky. The dark-violet-haired girl's cheeks went faintly pink. Although she could have pushed Stelle off with ease, she didn't.
Physically she was March 7th plus Seele; as for soul and mind — it was a triple fusion: March 7th, Caelus-Seele, and 'White' Seele.
"Alright, let's deal with that thing first."
Seele was essentially Caelus at her core — after the fusion she retained a complete version of shared empathy. Caelus could feel the warmth of Stelle's cheek pressing close.
He grabbed Stelle by the back of her collar and hauled her bodily off Yue'er, meeting those lively pink-iris blue-violet eyes.
The feeling of being 'himself' yet not entirely himself was profoundly strange — beyond words.
"Yue'er, it's time for your debut."
"Mm."
The dark-violet-haired girl gave a light smile and a docile nod. The expression was a carbon copy of Seele.
"But~ before that, there's one thing I'd like to try."
Her voice rang out like a songbird — enchanting and melodic. The girl clasped her hands behind her back, leaned forward with a tilt, and strolled over on swaying white-silk legs with light, joyful steps until she stood right in front of Caelus.
"Brother Caelus~ you should already know, right?"
Though the word 'brother' was deliberate, it carried none of the coy affectation it might have — instead it landed like the shy, murmured confession of the girl-next-door childhood friend.
Caelus's heart gave a single accelerated beat. Eyelashes dense as a starfield. A face of flawless, pristine beauty framed by a warm, unblemished smile, bright and gentle.
She just looked at him like that. The wind kicked up by DanteMon's destruction of the surrounding buildings sent her dark-violet hair drifting — like scattered shards of colored glass catching the light.
Xueyi and Huo Huo found the remark somewhat mystifying.
Miss Haxxor Bunny, half-bewitched by that breathtakingly adorable girl, felt a sudden, intensely ominous premonition rise in her chest.
Then Haxxor Bunny saw it.
The dark-violet-haired girl rose up on her tiptoes. Lotus-pale arms looped around Caelus's neck. Like a princess from a fairy tale bestowing a butterfly kiss upon her prince, she pressed those soft pink lips to him — and gave a little nuzzle.
"...It really is a very special feeling. Very calming."
Yue'er smiled sweetly, her face flushed a rosy red, her voice barely above a whisper.
Even March Stelle — whose fusion included Stelle as a component — went to extraordinary lengths to avoid catching the narcissism virus. All the more so for a fusion with Caelus's own consciousness directly involved.
Every single one of them inevitably wanted a taste of what kissing themselves felt like — and the sensation of double happiness.
OHHHH! NO! NO! NO!
Haxxor Bunny let out a groundhog scream inside her own head, and arrived at a firm conclusion regarding the question she'd been wrestling with moments ago.
That was Yue'er, not Seele. That was Yue'er, not Seele!
As long as she carved Yue'er and Seele apart as separate entities, that kiss didn't count as Seele's!
While everyone was caught completely off guard by the dark-violet-haired girl's sudden move, DanteMon's dark-violet miasma arms tore open the sky.
The bamboo leaves in Fyxestroll Garden's grove didn't even need to be touched — they carbonized into black ash the instant the arms drew near. Those forty-meter arms reached, grasping toward the group.
"What terrible timing — you really shouldn't interrupt a girl in a moment like this~!"
Her tone was soft and gentle with just a hint of playfulness. Yue'er raised two slender pale fingers in a finger-gun, their dainty knuckles aimed at the massive oncoming hand. Imaginary energy collapsed at her fingertips into ice-blue.
"Bang~!"
With that adorable onomatopoeia leaving her lips, a crystal-clear Six-Phased Ice wall erupted from the void — rising from the ground, its thick face carved with all manner of Pom-Pom dolls in relief.
——A tribute to the legendary fifty-fifty master who, even without mana, still found time to carve a dog's head into his earth wall jutsu.
The freezing air crystallized the miasma arm into a glass sculpture — but only for a moment. The slime arm writhed like living lava, and the black flames bursting from its fingertips seared straight through space itself.
The high temperature of pitch-black spirit-fire couldn't be neutralized by cold — the ice wall melted slowly, as though a red-hot brand had been pressed against it at point-blank range.
Seeing this, Yue'er curled her little finger-gun into a fist. "Burst!"
BOOM!
The ice wall detonated like packed explosives. Ice shards flew in every direction, ice spikes raining down like a storm of arrows, clanging and ringing like gold striking iron as they hammered against DanteMon's enormous blood-red hands.
"ROARRR!"
DanteMon's throat erupted with a soul-shredding shriek — the sound wave hit like ten thousand bronze bells hammering simultaneously inside the skull.
The wooden pavilions and brick towers of Fyxestroll Garden shuddered, roof tiles shattering like shards of jade hitting the ground. Old beams, wracked by the sonic assault, screamed out dying splinters of wood.
The earth churned like boiling porridge. The flagstones buckled up into cresting waves of stone, then collapsed back into chasms.
"Wuuuuu, waaaah!"
Huo Huo staggered and fell against a stone pier, pressing both hands hard over her ears. The Foxian's keen hearing was a pure liability at a moment like this.
"Help me, O Great Lord Tail!"
"Tch!"
Normally Tail would have savaged Huo Huo with mockery. But this was different. That monster — even at Ignamar's full strength back in the day, it would've gotten hammered. This was combat at an entirely different tier.
"Let me handle it — and get those paper dolls of yours out, fast!"
Tail's spirit-fire surged and flooded across Huo Huo's whole body, spiraling — Huo Huo activating Tailed Beast Transformation.
"Hold steady now, let me buff everyone~"
Yue'er gave a wink, raised her finger-gun again, and fired.
In an instant the cracked and crumbling earth was sealed under Six-Phased Ice — a platform thrust upward from below, a thick wall of heavy ice dozens of meters tall rising like a fortress.
Put simply: after the fusion, March 7th's Skill had been upgraded to Gepard's Ultimate.
"Watch out!"
Xueyi, sheltered within the thick ice layer, shouted a warning.
The inverted cross on DanteMon's chest blazed with a crimson laser, and even the void itself let out a wailing cry.
Yue'er pirouetted with a flick of her toes, pushing off the ground. Fluorescent blue Quantum light bloomed and scattered like jacaranda petals in their thousands, dissolving into a sky full of brilliant blue-violet butterflies.
The blue-violet Quantum butterflies converged in midair, and the girl's silhouette reappeared within them:
"Everyone — watch closely. My transformation~!"
Slender legs crossing and spiraling in a spin, Yue'er turned and tilted her head as she faced those behind her — giving them an adorable wink, striking a pose: Ciallo~ (∠·ω
A golden ring inset with a pentagram crystal fell into the girl's hand.
The Magic Ruby Wand.
For those outside the Star Rail universe to use the wand, Masier authentication via blood was required.
Back on the Starskiff en route to Fyxestroll Garden, when Caelus had been explaining all of this to March 7th, he'd also sent a message on his phone to notify Seele and Haxxor Bunny — backup in case of emergency being only one of the reasons.
Caelus's main purpose in having Seele come was to perform the blood-pact contract.
March 7th accumulating Adorability Points alone could never outpace two people doing it together. Using the earrings to fuse meant both of them could establish a contract with the magic wand simultaneously.
Cold light flickered. A single drop of vivid red blood welled from one tender pale fingertip. Yue'er let it fall onto the pentagram, then slowly spread her arms wide:
"Key that hides the power of the stars — reveal your true power before me. Yue'er, who has made a pact with you, commands: the seal is released~!"
Activation Key the Second — Maiden's Heart~!
Stelle scratched her head, her pretty face scrunching in a squint. "The vibe is right, but somehow it feels… off-brand?"
"Yahoo~ Masier login complete~!"
The instant the blood fell, the pentagram seemed to come alive — a red wand extended from it, three pairs of small white wings unfurling along its edges.
"Compact Full Open~!"
Countless pink-violet feathers brimming with radiant light wrapped around Yue'er.
"Boundary Corridor — Maximum Expansion!"
Her black hair bloomed outward into deep blue and pink-violet, like the aurora piercing through a polar night over the southern seas, cascading down in curtains. Butterfly-shaped hair ornaments shimmered with glass-gem light in an instant; at the curling ends of her hair, stardust ribbons blossomed.
A bare-shouldered white chiffon settled on her shoulders like a resting cloud, silver thread along its lace edges embroidering midnight epiphyllum blossoms. Behind her fell a cape like butterfly wings.
The violet-pink skirt was cut diagonally from the waist to one side, the layered satin trimmed with dark-blue and black piping — like a swallow's tail sweeping across a starry night.
The tattoo on her right leg unfurled in the falling light-dust into a magic-circle-patterned leg band. Her instep curved like the arc of a crescent moon gangway. Luminously pale bare feet stepped through empty air, and with every step — pink-violet butterflies and flower petals drifted and fell.
"Perfect, perfect! Adorable to the point of breaking the rules — now THIS is a magical girl!"
The ruby wand's voice sounded like an overly excited big-sister creep — but then, in the next instant, it faltered. Its tone shifted to bewilderment.
"Master~ how strange, you don't have any parallel world skills available to download."
What?
Ruby was a little confused.
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translator's note: Do you guys prefer Big Herta or The Herta?
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