As Fuli continued to question his existence, Mei reappeared in a flash of crimson lightning.
She held a variety of expensive-looking medicines in her hands and, without a word, began to pull open the shirt of the only male in the room.
"Feels like a bit of a waste," Fuli muttered under his breath, but didn't resist her good intentions.
Since he couldn't fight back anyway, he might as well lie down and enjoy it.
Soon, Mei had finished applying medicine to his scarred upper body.
Her gaze shifted downwards, and her thunder-infused eyes gradually focused on his unbuckled belt.
"I can do this myself."
Fuli, firmly remembering the rule 'thou shalt not covet thy bro's wife,' raised a hand to stop her. But the girl's lightning-wreathed fingertips flashed before his eyes a step ahead.
"I said, leave it to me."
Mei took a deep breath, knelt before Fuli, and carefully unbuckled his belt.
Her tone and actions, however, were filled with an unquestionable authority, as majestic as the high and mighty Queen of Thunder.
But in this situation, exuding such a powerful aura, as dignified as a flower, was clearly not a good thing.
For men, the colder and more inviolable a woman's demeanor, the more they would fantasize about seeing them submit.
Fuli was trying very, very hard to divert his attention, but every time he saw the cold and beautiful Queen of Thunder kneeling before him, bustling about like a little wife, he couldn't help but transform into Yoshikage Kira upon his first encounter with the Mona Lisa.
She's Raiden Mei! Who wouldn't be moved by Raiden Mei?
Mei, of course, noticed this. She turned her beautiful eyes to look at Fuli's face, then quickly looked away, her cherry-blossom lips pursed, saying nothing.
The young man and woman finished applying the medicine in an extremely ambiguous atmosphere. After tying high-efficiency bandages that would aid in his recovery, Mei took out a clean set of clothes and helped Fuli change into them.
"You should be fully recovered in about eight hours. During that time, I will stay here with you."
She knelt on the bed, carefully embraced the young man, and let him rest his head on her long, firm, white-stockinged thighs.
"A bit hard," Fuli said in a small voice. "Is there a pillow?"
"No!"
Mei shot him a glare, her charming eyes seeming to chide, 'A beautiful girl's lap pillow you won't use, but you ask for a pillow. No wonder you can't get Kiana!'
"Alright."
He changed his position, turning to lie on his side facing Mei.
After his peripheral vision caught a glimpse of the scenery under her skirt and the Thunder Stigmata, he quickly turned to the other side, tugging at his wounds in the process and grimacing in pain.
(This is how Fuli knew the shape of the Thunder Stigmata.)
Mei remained silent. She had known for a long time that Fuli had to sleep curled up on his side.
Bronya also liked to sleep this way. As her "Sister Mei," she had specifically researched it and learned that it was a sign of a severe lack of security in childhood.
"Fuli," she said softly.
"What?"
The medicine was taking effect, plus the mental strain of battle, and the sleepy boy unconsciously rubbed against the thigh he was resting on.
"Did you... run into Kiana before?"
"Yeah," he said groggily. "It was probably around the time your Far East Branch... their Far East Branch rebelled against Schicksal. I picked her up while on a mission by the Mediterranean Sea. The situation was quite similar to now, actually. That Paramecium was much more seriously injured than I am."
"You healed her."
"We all came out of Nagazora City. I couldn't just leave her there."
Fuli, overcome with drowsiness, yawned. "You're the same, Mei. As soon as you heard what happened, you rushed over to help and even got me such good healing medicine."
Although Raven without the Seven Thunders of Retribution is a piece of crap. A few more minutes and I would have had her kneeling before me, singing 'Conqueror'.
The A-Rank Rule Breaker Li, who had never lost a fight against someone of the same rank, thought to himself.
"Yes, we all came out of the Great Eruption in Nagazora City."
Unexpectedly, the words "Nagazora City" seemed to touch a nerve in Mei.
The slender finger tracing the contours of the young man's cheek suddenly froze in mid-air, then was nonchalantly withdrawn.
"Fuli?"
"What?"
"Want to sleep?"
"Not with you."
The girl smiled. "That's not what I meant. Are you sleepy?"
"Pretty sleepy."
Probably to the point where he could barely keep his eyes open.
"I see... Then how about I tell you a story to help you sleep?"
Fuli yawned and made a gesture to indicate 'OK'.
Seeing him agree, Mei bit her lip lightly. "Then I'll start?"
"Go ahead."
"Don't you dare complain about my poor storytelling skills!"
"If I don't have any hope from the start, then I won't face despair—ouch!"
A twisting pain in his waist made Fuli suck in a sharp breath, making a negligible contribution to global warming.
"Hmph, smooth talker."
Mei withdrew the delicate little hand that had been pinching him and huffed. "I'm starting, okay?"
The boy, having learned his lesson, didn't make a sound.
Her fingers twirled a lock of his hair. The girl let out a low laugh and said in a slightly nostalgic tone, "The protagonist of that story, she was born into a wealthy family."
"Her parents always, always doted on her. The kind of spoiling where they were afraid she would melt in their mouths or get cold in their hands."
A little jealous, Fuli thought.
Mei continued, "Living in such an environment, the protagonist slowly grew up. For some reason, her father's attitude towards her gradually became stricter. Fortunately, the protagonist also knew that her father was doing it for her own good, so she worked very, very hard to become an outstanding person in people's eyes."
"And the protagonist did achieve this. Not only did she meet her father's expectations, but she also became an object of admiration for her classmates, the 'other people's child' that other elders talked about."
"Wait a minute."
Fuli listened and realized something was wrong. "What about the mother?"
He asked, "How did the mother disappear halfway through the story?"
"The mother..."
Mei fell silent for a moment, then said softly, "She..."
Left this world not long after giving birth to me.
The girl had wanted to answer truthfully, but as she opened her mouth, the various tragedies she had witnessed during the Third Eruption flashed before her eyes.
"My mother... she and my father divorced."
In the end, she still couldn't bring herself to confess to him.
"Oh."
Fuli had been a little suspicious that the "friend" Mei was talking about was herself, but now it seemed he was overthinking things.
He didn't think Mei would lie to him about such a trivial matter for no reason. This was a good girl that even he, who had sworn off romance, couldn't help but think about.
...
Due to the soft peaks of her chest, Mei couldn't directly observe the fluctuations in Fuli's expression.
After mentally apologizing to her deceased mother and her father in Anti-Entropy, she continued, "Although the protagonist had a hard time—well, actually, it wasn't hard at all."
"She was like a child favored by the heavens. Whether it was studying or anything else, she could master it quickly."
"Even if she hadn't been born into this suffocatingly wealthy family, she could still have carved out a place for herself with her own talent."
This wasn't Mei making things up; it was the truth.
Mastery of the Hokushin Ittō-ryū?
The result of practicing in her spare time.
Top of the school in grades?
Weren't those concepts something one could grasp just by glancing at them?
Looks and figure?
No further elaboration was needed.
A Mei like this was a treasure bestowed upon this world by the heavens.
"Until the anomaly struck."
Her voice suddenly became calm, like a pool of stagnant water. "The protagonist inadvertently caused a great disaster."
"Afterward, it was proven that the one who made the mistake was not the protagonist."
"She was just used by an ambitious person, becoming a tool for expanding her own influence and research. She herself was even one of the victims."
"But the protagonist still caused a great disaster!"
The Third Eruption occurred under Cocolia's machinations. Nagazora City was transformed into a living hell where demons roamed free, and millions of lives were snuffed out in an instant.
To be blunt, although Mei had grown up in the Far East, she loathed this hypocritical country from the bottom of her heart.
The irresponsible "craftsmanship" spirit, the resurgence of militarism, the bottomless worship of the strong, the small courtesies without great righteousness... they hadn't even learned a third of humanity, yet a seventh of bestiality was deeply ingrained. They adopted the Confucian concept of hierarchy but rejected the most important moral integrity within it, resulting in an increasingly bizarre and radical development.
For such a country to elicit a shred of goodwill from Mei was truly asking too much.
But even so, that was still millions of living people!
Among millions of people, not all could be good, but there must have been some who did not deserve to die.
Lead-gray clouds rolled and gathered. A strong wind, carrying with it a heavy rain, blew in from the window, causing the girl's waist-length hair, tied in a ponytail, to whip about.
A phantom flashed by. A demonic, crimson armor closed the window, blocking out all the invading storm.
"At that time, the protagonist was trapped in her body by a force, able to do nothing but watch everything happen."
Mei, whose body had been taken over by another consciousness, had become extreme. If left unchecked, she would truly have become a source of disaster, bringing pain to this world.
"She was powerless! She couldn't do anything!"
"The trapped protagonist could only hug her shoulders and cry out in a sunless wasteland, praying for someone to come and stop her from going berserk, praying for someone to appear like a shining hero in a story and stop her from destroying everything!"
The sound of dripping water echoed in the room. It seemed a pipe had burst somewhere.
"And then?"
Fuli forced himself to stay awake and ask.
"And then," Mei said quietly, her emotions now under control, "a shooting star came."
"A white shooting star streaked across the sky and made a grand entrance. Using various methods, it finally saved the protagonist who was on the verge of falling."
To this day, and into the future, Raiden Mei would never forget the white-haired girl who had extended a hand to her in her moment of despair.
She pursed her lips and smiled secretly, as if lost in the beauty of the past.
The pressure on her thigh brought her back to reality.
The drowsy boy in her arms was telling her with his very presence:
The mutual salvation of the princess and the knight was indeed beautiful, but the backdrop for this picturesque drama was the death of millions and the displacement of countless people whose fates were rewritten by the Third Eruption.
"The tragedy had already happened. The protagonist was saved, but only the protagonist was saved."
In the end, Raiden Mei never got the hero who could save everything. She only got her late-arriving best friend.
"Of course, I'm not blaming that shooting star! To be able to save the falling protagonist under those circumstances, the protagonist is grateful to her best friend beyond words!"
"But in the future, when the protagonist occasionally looks up at the starry sky alone, when the protagonist meets those whose fates she changed, she always thinks: if only the shooting star had come earlier... if only, if only there really was a hero from a fairy tale, clad in rainbow-colored sacred armor and riding on a seven-colored cloud, who made a dashing entrance and turned the tide before everything became irreversible!"
The soaring emotions turned into a gentle breeze. The Herrscher girl under the moonlight lowered her head wistfully and gently kissed the handsome face of the boy who had long since fallen into a deep sleep.
"...Then would the future have been a little different from now?"
Then now, would I be able to stand before you, not as the creator of the Third Eruption, but with my head held high, in the name of Raiden Mei?
...
"And then?"
On the second floor of the villa, Mei couldn't help but ask.
For some reason, although the story was extremely simple, the girl's sense of immersion in the protagonist was extremely deep.
"What happened after the protagonist was trapped in her body by that force?"
She was a little impatient, her delicate body unconsciously leaning forward.
When she felt herself touch something, she suddenly straightened her spine, a blush crawling up her beautiful, youthful face.
"And then," Fuli's tone changed, having received two waves of fan service, "then a hero in silver-white armor, riding a tall horse, made a grand entrance. Wearing a mask, he brandished his sword and spear, knocked down all the villains in one go, and walked towards a happy and bright future, holding the protagonist, whose face was full of gratitude and affection!"
Perhaps due to his drowsiness, he hadn't grasped the full picture of the story, or perhaps for some other unknown reason.
The boy did not continue the story as it was originally told, but instead fabricated a happy, grand-reunion ending that would be considered cliché and boring in some people's eyes.
"So perfunctory!"
Unsurprisingly, she complained.
"Perfunctory or not, it's a happy ending, isn't that what matters!"
Fuli curled up like a shrimp, adjusted the position of his 'thigh pillow,' and muttered, "Alright, alright, the story's over. Ah-Li is sleepy now and needs to sleep. We still have the invincible trio's grand strategic retreat tomorrow."
He closed his eyes after speaking, looking as if he really intended to rest.
The pale moon flowed, and the stars shone brightly.
The quiet night seemed to make time stand still at this moment, and all the hustle and bustle seemed so distant.
Feeling the warm, even breaths on her thigh, Mei suddenly said, "Fuli!"
"What?"
The boy resting on her lap opened his eyes.
"Do you think we can really escape?"
"Of course we can. I may not have any other skills, but I'm good at getting you guys out of trouble. Very good."
"How good?"
"As good as Mei wants me to be."
"No lewd jokes!"
"Ah, I'm dead."
Feeling the warm, even breaths on her thigh, Mei said, "Fuli!"
"What?"
The boy lying on her lap opened his eyes.
"Have a good dream."
The girl smiled, her beautiful eyes sparkling in the dark.
...