Early morning. "Kiana" woke up in the massive mansion she called home.
The drowsiness hadn't entirely faded, but her body moved on sheer muscle memory. She rolled out of bed, blindly groped around for her slippers with her foot, and shuffled groggily toward the bathroom sink.
Splash!
Ice-cold water hit her face. Her body shivered, immediately yanking her consciousness out of its morning haze. She was instantly wide awake.
She looked up—and locked eyes with the girl in the mirror, who looked both strangely foreign and intimately familiar.
She froze for a moment, before the realization finally settled in.
"Right. That's me..."
She had to admit, humans were incredibly adaptable creatures.
Kiana originally thought turning into a girl would be an insurmountable psychological hurdle. But after a full day of buffering, she hadn't suffered any mental breakdowns.
However, she knew the true test had only just begun.
Today was the start of the new semester at Chiba Academy. According to the cover identity Li Mu had prepared, she was officially enrolling as Kiana.
The thought of walking onto that campus and facing the scrutinizing gazes of hundreds of people—some familiar, some strangers—while looking like this, sent a spike of pressure straight to her chest.
But backing down wasn't an option. Last night, Li Mu had sent her files detailing the sheer horror and scale of the impending Honkai disasters.
Reading through them, all she could do was pray that such apocalyptic endings would never reach the people she cared about.
Thinking of this, and of the promise Li Mu had made her, Kiana clenched her fists tightly. A resolute, determined smile pulled at the corners of her lips in the mirror.
Courage surged from the bottom of her heart. She was entirely fearless. She wanted to protect everything she loved.
And to do that, she had to...
"I'm going to become God!"
---||---
--- Chiba Academy - First-Year, Class B. ---
As the bell signaling the start of homeroom drew near, the classroom was already buzzing with lively chatter.
But none of this noise reached the girl sitting in the back row by the window.
The students naturally formed their own little cliques, yet no one interacted with the girl sporting glasses and short purple hair. It was as if she existed in a completely separate world, isolated from the rest of humanity.
MEI. In Chiba Academy, this name commanded absolute awe.
Ever since she enrolled, her position as the undisputed rank one in the entire grade hadn't budged an inch. She was an insurmountable peak, a Mount Everest of intellect that ruthlessly crushed the pride of any self-proclaimed "genius" or "prodigy" who dared challenge her.
Over time, everyone lost the courage to even try competing with the supreme genius sitting at the apex of Chiba Academy.
But geniuses are inherently lonely. There simply wasn't anyone who could hold a casual conversation with a girl who casually debated the Poincaré conjecture over breakfast, solved Goldbach's conjecture over lunch, and spent her free time publishing papers that made prestigious university professors beat their chests in despair.
So, when a practically inhuman genius was placed among normal high schoolers, how were they supposed to interact with her?
The ancient philosophers had already provided the answer: Respect the gods and demons, but keep your distance.
And so, the student body consciously chose to ignore the "God" named MEI.
For MEI herself, this wasn't necessarily a bad thing. It meant she didn't have to waste her severely limited energy navigating the exhausting complexities of high school social dynamics. She could dedicate all her time to things that actually mattered.
That was how things had always been... until today.
Under the curious, gossiping gazes of the students, the homeroom teacher walked in, leading a girl no one had ever seen before.
White hair. Striking blue eyes. An incredibly aloof, untouchable aura. She wore the standard Chiba Academy girls' uniform, clutching a textbook tightly to her chest as she followed the teacher to the podium.
For some reason, there was a subtle hint of extreme awkwardness etched onto her otherwise cold, aloof face. This jarring contradiction only added to her mysterious charm.
This was Kiana, fully prepped and deployed by Li Mu.
Instantly, the previously quiet classroom erupted into chaotic whispering.
The teacher coughed politely, gesturing for the students to quiet down before making the introduction.
"This is Kiana, an exchange student from Austria. From today onwards, she will be joining our little family."
"I hope you all demonstrate Chiba Academy's spirit of camaraderie and make sure Kiana feels welcome."
With that, the teacher turned to Kiana with a warm smile. "Kiana, there are quite a few empty seats available. Feel free to choose whichever one you like."
"Understood, Sensei."
Kiana stepped off the podium, clutching her book. Instantly, every girl in the classroom with an empty seat next to them sat up perfectly straight, eyes gleaming with sheer anticipation.
But to everyone's absolute shock, Kiana walked straight to the back row, stopping right beside the purple-haired girl with glasses.
"Excuse me. Is this seat taken?"
Yanked from her own internal world, MEI looked up. She saw Kiana staring down at her, waiting for an answer.
Only then did MEI realize this mysterious new student was actually talking to her.
Without a word, MEI simply gave a faint nod.
Kiana placed her book on the desk and sat down, a distinct glimmer of joy flashing in her eyes.
Seeing her choice of seat, the entire classroom—including the teacher—exchanged bewildered looks. But no one said a word.
It wasn't entirely unheard of. MEI, the living legend of Chiba Academy, often attracted the curiosity of newcomers. But inevitably, those newcomers would be repelled by her inhuman, hyper-logical aura and quickly distance themselves. Everyone assumed this new girl would follow the exact same pattern.
Time flew by, and the school day smoothly came to an end.
After awkwardly and frantically rejecting an endless swarm of girls trying to aggressively befriend her by calling her Onee-sama, Kiana practically fled the classroom.
She hadn't forgotten her mission. According to Li Mu's instructions, she was here to protect MEI.
Li Mu had claimed that MEI possessed a terrifying intellect and was an absolute necessity for humanity's future war against the Honkai.
Of course, Kiana also had a tiny, personal, entirely selfish motive.
She genuinely wanted to be friends with MEI. And logic dictated that if they were incredibly close, intimate best friends, it would be much easier to protect her, right?
Kiana was a girl of action. She thought it, so she did it.
Spotting MEI leaving the campus gates, Kiana immediately sprinted after her.
"MEI! Please be my friend!"
MEI, who had been engrossed in flipping through a notebook while walking, stopped in her tracks. She turned around, only to see her new white-haired seatmate charging straight at her.
"MEI! Please be my friend!" Kiana repeated, skidding to a halt.
MEI observed Kiana for a moment. Then, with total apathy, she pushed her glasses up the bridge of her nose. The lenses flashed with a cold, unfeeling light.
"Sorry. Not interested."
Her life had already plummeted to rock bottom, draining nearly every ounce of her strength just to survive. She had absolutely zero mental bandwidth left to play house and maintain superficial high school friendships. If it weren't for the massive scholarship keeping her afloat, she wouldn't even be attending this school.
Having delivered her rejection, MEI turned to leave, fully intending to ignore the weird new girl.
But the moment she took a step, she felt a heavy grip clamp down on her wrist. The sudden, forceful yank completely threw off her center of gravity.
Thud!
MEI looked down. Kiana, who had boldly grabbed her wrist, had misjudged her own footing and momentum, causing herself to trip and fall squarely onto her knees on the pavement.
Seeing the girl literally kneeling before her while still tightly gripping her wrist, MEI furrowed her brows.
No matter how you look at it, this is incredibly rude. MEI immediately downgraded her mental evaluation of the white-haired girl by an entire letter grade.
Realizing she was currently kneeling on the concrete, Kiana was also stunned.
Well, the embarrassment is already maxed out. Might as well double down.
Tightening her grip on MEI's wrist, Kiana looked up, her tone bordering on pleading.
"MEI, please! Just be my friend! This is really, incredibly important to me."
Looking at the white-haired girl who clearly didn't know the meaning of the word 'boundaries', MEI fell silent. Then, her voice turned icy.
"Do you even know me? Do you know what kind of person I am? Do you know anything about my internal life?"
Kiana blinked and answered with brutal honesty, "No. But we can become friends first, and then I can learn."
MEI took a slow, deep breath.
"Listen to me. I have zero interest in making friends right now. I have incredibly pressing matters to deal with, and I absolutely refuse to waste my time and energy playing friendship games."
Kiana didn't let go. "If you're dealing with something difficult, you can tell me! I can help!"
A flicker of genuine anger ignited in MEI's chest. She yanked her arm back, forcefully prying her wrist out of Kiana's grip.
She glared at Kiana, her eyes freezing over.
"You have absolutely no idea what I'm dealing with."
Freeing her arm completely, MEI delivered her final words—words that pierced straight through Kiana's chest like daggers.
"Casually offering promises you can't keep, acting like you're dispensing charity from up high... you really only think about yourself, don't you?"
Watching MEI's figure disappear down the street, Kiana felt an overwhelming wave of grievance and hurt wash over her.
She had genuinely, sincerely just wanted to be friends. She had no idea why MEI had reacted with such hostility.
After leaving Chiba Academy, MEI didn't head straight home. Instead, she stopped by a nearby convenience store and picked up a few heavily discounted bento boxes.
By the time she reached her apartment, the sky had already turned dark.
She slid the key into the lock. The mechanical tumblers clicked, and she pushed the door open.
Instantly, a rancid wave of cheap alcohol and fermenting vomit assaulted her nose. MEI grimaced, her brows knitting tightly together.
Fortunately, she had mostly gotten used to the smell over the past few weeks.
Waiting for the stench to air out slightly, MEI stepped inside.
"I'm home."
As expected, there was no response. The only other living person in the apartment—her father, Ryoma—was currently passed out on the sofa, snoring loudly.
Several empty liquor bottles were scattered across the coffee table, and a disgusting puddle of vomit stained the floorboards nearby.
Without a change in expression, MEI walked over and fully opened the windows to let the fresh air in.
She systematically cleared the empty bottles, cleaned up the vomit, fetched a bucket and mop, and thoroughly scrubbed the floor.
Only after the apartment was clean did she take out the bento boxes. She placed one on the table near her father, and set the other one down for herself.
It turned out that the sheer brutality of life was the greatest teacher. Before all this, MEI never would have imagined she could become so efficient at domestic chores.
But just as she sat down to eat, a loud ringtone erupted from the sofa. It was her father's phone.
MEI hesitated for a moment, but eventually walked over and answered the call.
An unfamiliar, deeply polite voice spoke from the other end of the line.
"Mr. Ryoma. This is a friendly reminder that your debt repayment is due in a few days."
"We sincerely hope you can pay it back on time. Please... don't make this difficult for us."