"Ah..." Bruce let out a long sigh as he looked at the half-pot of mung bean soup and the half-tin of biscuits left on the table.
He really had not expected Horus to like them that much. She had not been trying to be polite at all.
And this was not just some ordinary half-pot of soup. The pot had been scaled up for Astartes use—about the size of one and a half cafeteria stockpots. In other words, it was taller than Horus's current body.
And yet she had somehow polished off an amount of mung bean soup equal to half her own height in one sitting.
"Sorry... did I eat too much?" Horus asked sheepishly, rubbing her stomach.
It had just been so delicious that she had lost track of herself. Especially when she paired the crisp cream biscuits with the chilled soup—those flavors together had made her absurdly happy.
"It's fine. Doesn't matter how much you ate. I'll just send the rest to Lion later. If she knows you had some too, she'll probably be delighted," Bruce replied after a moment's thought.
That meant Warfarin would be losing her midnight snack, of course—but she probably would not care about something so minor.
Probably.
Besides, Alfred had been studying the recipes Bruce gave him lately. Once things settled down, Bruce planned to promote them across the Remilia and make sure everyone aboard could eat something halfway decent.
No more mush all day every day. This was not wartime emergency rationing. A good-looking, good-tasting meal did more for morale than almost anything else.
"All right. Then I'll explain it to Lion too," Horus said, finally putting her mind at ease.
"Now that you've eaten your fill, how about telling me why you want to know about Amiya?" Bruce asked, getting to the question that actually mattered to him.
He still had no clue how Horus had turned into Little Donkey Amiya. Lion's case had been simple enough—she had first become Saber, then been loaded with Saber's memories and settings.
But Horus was a native of the Warhammer universe. By all rights, she should not have known Amiya existed.
And yet she had spoken the name herself.
So what exactly had happened?
It was too important to ignore.
"To be honest..." Horus's expression grew shadowed as she recalled the scene of meeting that girl. "When I was unconscious, I met a girl who looked exactly like I do now."
"She told me she was Amiya. She asked me to help her save her world... and to lend her my strength."
Bruce's eyes widened.
What?!
When your soul was repaired, you met... another Amiya? No—judging from that description, not just Amiya.
At once, Bruce stood up, went to the bedside cabinet, and fetched paper, pen, and a bottle of ink. Sitting back down at the table, he quickly sketched the image from memory: the Demon King version of Amiya.
"Is this the Amiya you saw?" he asked, turning the drawing around for Horus to see.
"Yes, that's her," Horus said, stunned by how perfectly it matched the figure in her memory. "Though... her eyes were emptier than this. Sigh. I wonder what exactly she went through."
The fact that Bruce really did know her left Horus thoroughly baffled. Who was this man? Why did it feel as if he knew everything?
It was too strange.
"This is bad..." Bruce smacked his forehead, feeling a stronger urge than ever to contact Blue Fatty.
The Demon King bunny had somehow crossed dimensions into the Warhammer universe. Was that something to worry about? How exactly were they supposed to deal with it?
As one of the very few game characters capable of genuinely creeping him out, Demon King Amiya was in a league of her own. When he had reached that bad ending in Integrated Strategies, with all those lines full of question marks and all those paths, it had genuinely scared him. The text outright implied that she and the Doctor were separated only by the screen of a phone.
Terrifying.
"Is Amiya... dangerous?" Horus asked when she saw how intense Bruce's reaction was.
"I wouldn't call her dangerous, exactly. To be honest, I kind of admire her. But explaining this properly is... complicated." Bruce frowned, unsure where to begin.
Trying to explain the whole mess of Arknights lore in a few short sentences—especially the differences between the roguelike scenarios and the main storyline—was not easy. It was about as hard as explaining to someone that Warhammer Fantasy and Warhammer 40,000 were not the same thing.
And on top of that, Bruce had to be careful not to let Horus realize that Amiya—sweet and harmless-looking as she appeared—was really a prime candidate for the title of heavy yandere-in-training. Otherwise the Warmaster might start questioning herself.
Because the second Horus figured out that Amiya's feelings toward the Doctor might resemble her own feelings toward the Emperor—
Bruce, as the outsider who knew the secret, would be in physical danger.
Yes, Horus was an obsessive father-lover, but you were absolutely not supposed to say that out loud. If you did, the Warmaster would genuinely bury you.
"It's fine. You can take your time," Horus said with a smile, trying to reassure him. "As long as you're willing to tell me these stories."
Only then, she felt, would she understand why that girl had needed her help—and what she herself ought to do in return.
Horus was keenly aware that if she was alive again, and if the Imperium had narrowly avoided catastrophe, then that girl named Amiya had surely played some part in it.
And Bruce had been the bridge between them.
"All right. Let's sort out two basic concepts first."
"First: you may look like Amiya now, but Amiya is Amiya. She is the leader of an organization called Rhodes Island."
"Second: the Amiya you met is also Amiya, but a very particular version of her—someone who, by a strange twist of fate, never joined the organization's predecessor, Babel, and ended up becoming... what she became."
"So in practice, the two Amiyas are two different people."
"If I had to compare it to something..." Bruce hesitated, then chose his words carefully. "It's a bit like the you who was sent into the temple after being critically wounded, and the you now. Different outcomes, different destinies—so in a sense, two different people."
"I understand," Horus said with a nod.
So that meant the other Amiya had asked for her help, and in return had lent her Amiya's appearance and soul.
A fair trade.
At least, that was how Horus understood it.
"Well then, let's go one step at a time. You can tell me first what exactly you want to know—about which person, which organization, and at what point in time."
"For example, do you want to hear first about Amiya herself? Or Babel? Or Rhodes Island? Or even the Doctor?"
"Theresa...?" Horus frowned.
The name slipped out before she could stop it, and with it came a blurred image: a gentle face, pink hair, a presence she could not quite grasp.
Bruce froze.
What?
Had he mentioned Theresa at all while they were talking just now? He was almost certain he had not.
So how did Horus know the name?
This was getting far too strange.
"Go in whatever order you like, Bruce. You don't have to worry about me," Horus said, shaking her head and forcing herself back into focus.
For one fleeting instant, she had fallen into a fractured memory sequence. The force of the emotion inside it left her shaken—sorrowful, helpless, feeling as if she ought to do something and yet unable to tell what.
"All right then. Since you brought up Theresa, let's start with Babel—and with the Sarkaz as a people," Bruce said after carefully making sure Horus had steadied herself.
At the same time, he kept a close eye on her reaction, half-afraid that something he said might resonate with her still-fragile soul and send her collapsing again.
If that happened, Bruce would be a dead man.
If the Warmaster collapsed unconscious in your room after just having eaten half your pot of mung bean soup, no one was ever going to believe you had nothing to do with it.
Even if Lion believed him, the Sons of Horus certainly would not.
"Mm. I'm listening," Horus said, every inch the diligent student.
"First, then, the Sarkaz. Back when the original peoples of Terra first emerged, the Teekaz were among the earliest to master Originium and harness its arts—"
As Bruce began recounting the world of Arknights, Horus once again drifted into that strange, half-dissociated state.
Living images surfaced around her, vivid and immediate, as if she were there. And among them came another scene as well—one from the future, perhaps, when she returned to Holy Terra and stood once more before her father.
She saw the Emperor teaching her at a blackboard. He was so learned, so endlessly patient.
Then the Emperor's figure blurred and became a woman in white, with pink hair and a smile as gentle as a blossom. She too was teaching her.
Then that image shifted again, becoming a silver-haired man with a stern face but a calm voice. Like Bruce, he spoke in a way that drew Horus in utterly.
Father...
Theresa...
Reality and memory layered over each other in overlapping, flickering sequences. Horus slowly let go of thought, let go of resistance, and simply surrendered herself to the surge of feeling rising within her soul.
Save them all...
I have to save everyone.
The me that exists now—
surely I can do it.
Join here to read ahead.
In Star Rail, Ultra-Beast Armored — Have I Caught "Equilibrium"? l (Chapter 80)
Uma Musume, But I Only Have Five Years Left to Live (Chapter 178)
Zenless Zone Zero: I'm a Doctor, Not a Bangboo (Chapter 138)
Ben Tennyson Wants to Join the Justice League ( 126 )
TYPE-MOON: Redemption Beginning with the Holy Grail War (Chapter110)
Yu-Gi-Oh! — Transmigrated into the White Dragon Girl (Chapter155)
"Is this chat group even serious?" (Chapter98)
I, Lord Ravager, Utterly Loyal! (Chapter172)
Can Playing Games Save the World? 65
Crossover Anime Multiverse: The Demon Hunter of an Unnatural World 77
From Junkman to Wasteland 66
Weekly Refresh of Overpowered 31
I'm Grinding Proficiency Like 46
From Kiana, Lord Ravager, Onwa 158
Honkai: Is This Still the Prev 42
Elf: My Starter Pokémon Is Inc 65
Warhammer: My Primarch Is Remi 144
From Demon Slayer to Grand Ass 100
The Way the Umamusume Look at 68
Uma Musume, but My Cheat Power 165
Naruto: Weaving the Future, Be 65
Zenless Zone Zero, but Kamen R 76
Multiverse Crossover: The Perf 66
My Cyberpsycho Girlfriend 65
Uma Musume: The Dark Trainer 140
Uma Musume: A Calamity Born fr 120
I, a Reincarnation-Loop Player 69
The Violent Girl Group Is Beat 90
Uma Musume: The Horse Girl Who 66
Uma Musume: From Beginner 95
Becoming a Horse Girl, I Will 70
Uma Musume: I Want All 80
I Can Copy Unique Skills 65
Summoning an Evil God, but the 52
Supernatural Multiverse 65
My Harem Is Indescribable 50
Jujutsu Kaisen: Heroic Spirit 55
"I'm just a Valkyrie passing through." 40
Uma Musume: Today Is Another Romantic Battlefield 50
Still playing traditional Honk 30
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