The look of someone staring at a complete stranger.
There was no faking it.
Meeting that guarded, almost disgusted gaze...
Bronya froze.
No matter how hard she tried to selectively ignore those glaring inconsistencies, she could no longer lie to herself.
A cruel truth stood right before her eyes.
The masked, short-haired girl in front of her, no matter how closely she resembled the one in her memories, was only a parallel.
They were two completely different people.
"What a weirdo."
Seeing the gray-haired girl rooted to the spot, eyes glazed over as if she had just suffered a devastating blow, the masked girl, Seele, merely muttered in annoyance.
She wanted absolutely nothing to do with someone who so clearly screamed trouble.
This girl might as well have hung a sign around her own neck saying, I am a massive pain in the ass.
So, since she had already planned to bolt anyway, Seele did not stay a second longer.
She spun on her heel and sprinted out of the alley.
Watching that distant back leave without a shred of hesitation...
"Seele..."
Subconsciously, Bronya raised a hand, wanting to call her back.
But the words would not come out.
Her own conscience kept reminding her.
No one was obligated to become the shadow of another person, no matter how similar they looked.
If she stubbornly clung to that delusion, nothing good would come of it.
But even so...
This place... it must be what that person told me about.
The Previous Era.
Bronya thought this to herself.
Even now, when he crossed her mind, she did not want to say his name.
Or rather, she did not dare to.
She could only refer to him as that person.
Up ahead, this Seele's silhouette disappeared around the corner of the alley.
Suddenly...
Splash.
Splash, splash, splash.
Bronya's legs moved on their own.
Her pace quickened, her boots kicking up rainwater with every frantic step.
She chased after her.
Although she had lost the Authority of Reason, sensation had long since returned to her legs.
It was obvious that she was anxious.
Or rather, her mind was in complete disarray.
Otherwise, she would have simply hovered a few inches off the ground like she always used to.
But now...
"Bronya has only just arrived."
"Whatever Bronya plans to do next, she needs someone who can show her the ropes."
The Silver Wolf murmured that excuse under her breath as she hurried forward.
It sounded more like she was trying to convince herself.
In the end, only she knew what was really going on inside her own head.
Even if she refused to admit it.
Because right now, every time Bronya closed her eyes, she was forced to watch Seele shatter all over again.
Like a fragile mirror struck by a heavy blow.
She needed an emotional anchor.
Only by looking at that familiar, yet frustratingly different silhouette could she keep herself from sinking completely into the abyss of despair.
And so, Bronya chased after her.
Leaving behind the handful of unlucky bastards sprawled out in the alley.
And...
"Do a good deed, they said! Good karma, they said! Bullshit!"
The only conscious man peeled himself off the ground.
He glared at his clothes, now thoroughly soaked in filthy street water, then looked at the scrapes on his right palm from where he had eaten dirt.
"What the hell did I even do?"
He cursed under his breath.
On this day, the world lost yet another Good Samaritan.
And judging by the men still out cold on the pavement...
Well.
Maybe more than one.
Meanwhile, inside the Theater of Domination.
"You really haven't changed a bit, have you, Bronya Zaychik?"
Within the pristine white hall, Ling Ke sat alone on his throne.
He stared at the oval mirror floating in front of him, a deeply mocking smirk plastered across his face.
This suspended mirror was a manifestation of his Omniscience.
By intentionally disabling its Future Prediction and Past Retrospection functions, he could use it to observe anything happening anywhere on the planet in real time.
If he had to make a comparison...
Well.
It worked a lot like the crystal ball the Third Hokage from a certain Head-Pat Village supposedly used to secretly peep into women's bathhouses.
Not really.
Or, alternatively, it was practically identical to the EX-rank Clairvoyance of a certain gill-breathing Magician of Flowers, allowing him to watch the entire world unfold.
Unfortunately, Ling Ke had not managed to pull either of those character templates from the gacha yet.
Good thing he did not actually need them.
Digression aside.
Right now, the waist-high mirror was displaying a live feed of that dark alleyway in Berlin.
With his legs crossed and his cheek propped against his right hand, the Lord of the Theater effortlessly watched the entire scene from afar.
He watched as Bronya, having just arrived in this era, chased after that Seele into the distance.
His gaze finally drifted toward the unlucky passersby who had been completely ignored by the two girls, left with no choice but to swear and curse their rotten luck.
"Tsk, tsk. As long as it involves Seele, everything and everyone else becomes a trivial detail to throw aside."
Ling Ke's eyes narrowed slightly.
"What a pity... what a pity."
"The Seele you are chasing right now is far more cunning than the adoptive sister you remember."
A distinct smirk curled onto his lips as he whispered the truth.
It was worth noting that this Seele was not a disguised Puppet of Domination he had deployed.
She was a living, breathing person who naturally existed in this era.
But precisely because of that...
"Growing up in a different environment naturally breeds a completely different personality."
Ling Ke's smirk deepened.
"This Seele... she's quite the little liar."
"And on top of that..."
This Seele was the very host destined to become the Herrscher of Death during the Sixth Honkai Eruption in the original timeline of the Previous Era.
And as of now, Ling Ke was not the only one with the foresight to know this little secret.
A rough deduction would be...
Raiden Mei, a fellow Returnee.
Kevin Kaslana, who was rapidly expanding his own forces.
The Gray Serpents under Ancestor Kevin's command.
Mobius, who had obtained a massive amount of future intelligence thanks to Gray Serpent taking matters into his own hands.
And the upper ranks of The Moths Who Chase the Flames, who had been fed fragments of future intelligence by Mobius for her own ulterior motives.
It was safe to say that the future Herrscher vessels, the unawakened Flame-Chasers, and every rising star destined to leave their mark on this era were now surrounded by hungry wolves.
Except, some of them...
Like MEI.
Or Pardo.
They were lucky.
They already had reliable backers powerful enough to guarantee their absolute safety.
But this Seele, on the other hand...
"When you stumble upon a mere look-alike, don't delude yourself into falling too deep, Silver Wolf of the Urals."
Ling Ke tapped the fingers of his left hand against the armrest of his throne.
Watching the unfolding drama with the detached amusement of a spectator, he sneered.
"The agony of suffering an amputation, grafting it back on, only to have it violently severed all over again... is a bitter pill to swallow."
"Will you be able to survive it?"