…
After using a piece of his soul to create a runic formation spanning the entire moon, he not only fell into a coma while his body slowly repairs itself, but he also entered his mind to check on the damage to his soul in doing so.
And the result? It was fine. Except that when he tried to leave his mind and return to unconsciousness, he found that he couldn't leave; his own mind was keeping him trapped while it did its repairs, so even if he wanted to do anything, he couldn't.
So for now, he was trapped in his mindscape.
"But at least I can control it to look how I want," Thor said to himself. Unlike Aurora and Alter, he was experienced in the mind and soul and could easily control the structure of his mindscape.
And since doing that and leaving the mindscape were two completely different things, he thought that he might as well train while he was here.
Changing his mindscape, he created a landscape he was very familiar with, and along with that landscape came what he would train with.
"Hehehe~ So my foolish disciple needs little old me's help, eh?" A flirtatious voice came from behind Thor, one that made him feel nostalgic, considering the years he had now gone without hearing it.
Turning his head, he saw her, his teacher in runes and almost everything else he knows to this day, Scathach.
Chuckling to himself, he summoned a spear at his side, "Haha, frankly, neither did I." He dragged the spear's tip against the dirt.
Opposite him, Scathach frowned. Something was bothering her disciple quite a lot, it seems. So with a serious expression, one free of the playful flirtatious nature she just held, she asked him. "What mess are you in now? To use the sliver of my soul I gave you, where are you right now?"
Thor froze for a second before relaxing, "Heh, of course I couldn't hide it from you." He stared her in the eyes, "I'm in a big mess this time, one that even you wouldn't be able to come to my aid."
Scathach's expression deepened, "Why are you avoiding the question, Thor?" She too summoned a spear at her side, her signature spear and aimed it at Thor.
Thor didn't answer; instead, he tilted his head down, hiding his gaze from her before vanishing.
Scathach's expression didn't get any better. She raised her spear behind her head, and a moment later, a loud clank could be heard as the tip of Thor's spear collided with the body of hers.
Turing her gaze to him, she asked again, "Tell me, Thor." She spun her spear in a motion that threw Thor and his spear across the land. She dug her foot into the ground, splintering it before shooting off in a black blur towards him.
…
Three weeks have passed since the conclusion of the Seventh Eruption.
Everything seems to be going well on the surface: Sydney was already in the process of being rebuilt, emergency aid to countries hit heavily by the Honkai outbreaks has been resolved, and MOTH has had their press conference.
But one thing has started to kick off rumours online: "Where is Thorald?"
It was to be expected by this point, three weeks, and Thor hasn't shown his face publicly at all, even within MOTH rumours started to leak about Thor and Aurora not appearing at all.
Einstein had proposed they make up an excuse that Thor was working on the moon base along with Aurora, but they quickly rejected it after realising the excuse would fall apart within a week, and with no news on Aurora and no signs of Thor waking up, the group were lost on what to do.
Mei had tried to take the lead in Thor's absence, but she wasn't the greatest leader, especially when a lot of the group still had a grudge against her for the whole project Stigma fiasco.
However, it wasn't all bad news for them; the good news was Himeko and her condition. Just days after being thrown in with Jyanhar, she woke up, completely normal, and even Jyanhar vouched for her, but without Thor around, being the only one who could suppress Jyanhar if something went wrong, they couldn't risk getting Himeko checked out properly.
What if this were a 6th Herrscher situation again? What if this was just an act by the Herrscher persona to lure them into letting her out, and Jyanhar wasn't someone they could trust either, she was, after all, still on the side of the Honkai, no matter how docile she is in front of Thor.
Overall, in Aponia's view, the whole group was on the brink of collapse. Thor was their central point. Aurora, despite her clumsiness and naivety, was still a strong commander in the moment, and she had Alter to help her, but neither of those two was here right now.
And not to forget Elysia and her state, the one everyone thought would take the leader position while Thor was out of commission, had hauled herself into Thor's room, unseen for days at a time, and only seen when she randomly strolls around Moth, keeping up her public image. In private, no one, not even Eden, could get a moment to talk with Elysia.
As Aponia thought over all of this, she turned her gaze upwards at Thor in the fluid chamber. By this point, his whole body had healed and then some, even showing that his average muscle density increased again.
'But you're still sleeping…'
Aponia had tried to mentally probe Thor, but she was always hard blocked by his strong soul. The nun had tried for days on end, over and over again, until she felt exhausted, even going as far as to try disciplines on him, like "Please wake up," or "Please come back," but nothing worked.
For Aponia, who saw Thor as her de facto god with his fateless strings, his current condition didn't affect her foundational belief in him; in fact, it strengthened it many times over.
When his supposed AI daughter, AURORA, informed them of his plans to sever a piece of the Honkai, and that they succeeded, Mobius, Mei and Einstein set out to where AURORA was keeping it contained.
A box aptly named, "Pandora's Box". According to investigations, the box itself wasn't made of any known material to them, not soulium or even something newer, but from what AURORA said, something from Thor's own world.
So while they weren't permitted or even able to open it, they could study it from the outside using specialised equipment, and only then did they figure out that Aurora's disappearance was related to the Honkai itself, complicating any plans they had further.
"Hah…" Aponia sighed, "I really wish you would come back to us, Thor…"
…
Elysia was in a strange position.
She didn't know what to do right now.
None of the power at her disposal could help Thor wake up from this coma he was in, and other than the weird feeling she felt back then, she had no way of helping Aurora either.
And with the rest of the group able to handle everything else, albeit barely, she knew they could handle the rest, but as for herself, she secluded herself in Thor's room.
Not to be alone or grieve, but because she wanted to figure things out. For a long time now, she has been suspicious of her connection with the Honkai.
Like, why does she have no parents? Why was she able to use Honkai energy from childhood? Why does she feel a connection to each Herrscher she has seen?
These were questions she never really thought about before, but with the current situation, she had to think through these questions seriously. Hence, in seclusion, she knew that if she didn't do this, she might fall back into her natural rhythm and neglect these important questions.
"But it's so hard!" She complained, falling back onto Thor's bed with a pout on her face.
To decide as she did and stick with it was the complete opposite of her personality; even in any other situation, she would not be able to go through with this.
She stared at the ceiling in contemplation for a while before slapping her cheeks, "Hmph! I can do this!" She said with determination.
Elysia sat up, brushed her pink hair behind her elf ear and smiled.
Only for it to falter minutes later and for her to grumble all over again.
..
"Thor…How do you do it?" Elysia asked no one.
She'd spent weeks trying to answer these questions, yet got nothing. She knew the outside situation was getting worse, most of the team were teetering on fracturing, Thor showed no signs of improvement after recovering physically, and she was still nowhere near answering a single one of the questions she had for her existence.
This left her feeling lost, and for the first time in her life, Elysia wasn't the Miss Pink Elf people knew her as.
…
In Thor's mindscape, not much has changed over the past few weeks, not that Thor even noticed the passage of time when training with his Master.
In fact, he was beaten up more these past few weeks than anything he experienced while in this world. If this weren't the mindscape, Thor might have died hundreds of times by now.
Although that isn't surprising, he might be training with a fragment of his master's soul, but it was still his master after all. She was a god slayer as a mortal. Thor might be strong, but against an ancient being legend like her, he stood no chance.
"Are you still not going to tell me?" Scathach asked coldly as she drove her spear through Thor's heart.
Thor coughed violently as golden blood painted her red spear. "Y-you already k-know my a-answer…ha…ha" He said with a weak chuckle at the end.
Scathach frowned. This is a stupid disciple of hers who won't console his problems with her. 'Who taught him to be this stubborn? …Oh, it was me, Ugh!'
Despite Thor's refusal to tell her outright, Scathach picked up a few things in his cryptic words. And from the first words he said that even she might not be able to aid him, she could already guess he was dealing with something in the 5th dimension or at least on the precipice of it.
What made her more alarmed was that she couldn't connect with her core to transmit these memories of hers, meaning Thor wasn't anywhere on Earth, at the very least. 'Could he be in the void? A pocket dimension, perhaps? Maybe even in the ninth layer of hell?'
The details didn't really matter to Scathach, but what did matter was that even her disciple was in danger, and he was in this desperate mode to train with her fragment.
Feeling even more annoyed now, she yanked back her spear, dropping Thor to the ground as he clutched his chest and breathed heavily.
"Stop being stubborn, you fool, let me help you."
Thor glanced back at his teacher. Her expression of concern made him feel warm inside, but not from the blood dripping everywhere, but that his Master, even after being so stubborn not to tell her anything, only showed more concern as time went on.
It warmed his regenerating heart. In fact, Thor wasn't just being stubborn about not telling her; he just didn't want to drag her into it any further. By now, even with some time dilation, his disappearance in his world was definitely noticed, and he would bet his life that Scathach and his Sister were searching for him.
And if he somehow consoled with her fragment and she was able to transmit these memories and even his dimensional location to the core, then he could end up causing a huge mess worse even than the void invasion.
That was why he didn't want to tell her.
Instead, he chose to train with her; he needed to go back to his roots and stop relying on Honkai energy, after the seventh eruption, which made him realise that Honkai energy isn't his own power, despite being able to generate it.
In front of the Honkai, which is the origin of the energy, it can be sapped away anytime. His choice, the only right choice, is to go back to using runes as his main power.
He admits he made that mistake, runes are his, they were passed down to him by Scathach, and he treasures her teachings. Just like now, the whole time he was "fighting" Scathach, he was only using runes, his strong body, and the old, reliable spear.
And what happened?
He realised how stupid he was, pushing runes to be secondary after gaining such a power spike with Honkai Energy.
Snapping his fingers to clean his body, he stands up, looks at Scathach and is thankful for having such a perfect teacher. Even the look of annoyance on her face at his smile reminds him that he still has a lot to learn from her.
"I'll be coming at you seriously now, Master~" He flirted with her, and flipping his old power structure he was used to the past few years, he made Honkai energy a secondary, expendable energy to support his runes.
Scathach's expression turned surprised, not from her disciples' flirty tone, but from the unknown energy his veins radiated. And why did she feel that it was a step above divine energy?
'It doesn't matter right now.' She shook the thought off, 'Besides, it seems something has changed in him.' She smiled. Maybe this time, she could get him to tell her what's going on with him.
So with a feral grin, she decided to let loose, to release the frustrations she's built up over the time she's been here, and focus it all on using her precious disciple as a sandbag.
…
A/N: I think I have like two or three more chapters in me before I've got to do real life things again.