At that same moment, inside the Under the Stellar Sky studio.
Bronya's screen displayed real-time sentiment data from every major social platform.
The hashtag #SupportHonkaiImpact3rdTruthWontBeSilenced was trending upward at a visible rate.
"Elysia spoke up."
Bronya delivered her report in her usual terse manner. "Her fans are pushing back. The sentiment curve has hit an inflection point."
Dan Heng adjusted his glasses. "The astroturfing rhythm has been broken. Their attacks were too concentrated. It backfired and turned off neutral observers. Now a lot of players who weren't even following this situation are starting to speak up for us on their own."
Stelle and March 7th's hands flew across their keyboards in a blur, responding to the flood of private messages and comments pouring in. Some were skeptical. Some were hostile. But far more were supportive, asking about the truth, or offering to help.
Kiana stood by the window and spoke quietly.
"Arthur."
Arthur was in the middle of working out the details of evidence submission with the lawyers. He looked up. "Yeah?"
"That Elysia..." Kiana's voice had a strange quality to it. "Is she the streamer who shared our trailer that day?"
"That's her."
"She's standing up for us?"
"She is."
Kiana went quiet. After a long moment, she finally spoke.
"She's something else."
Her voice was soft. "Getting screamed at by that many people, and she's still smiling while she goes to bat for us."
Arthur simply reached over and gently took her hand.
Bronya had already shifted her gaze from the screen to the #SupportHonkaiImpact3rd hashtag, watching the numbers climb in real time.
Beneath that hashtag, Elysia's fans and Scott's bot army were locked in a brutal, all-out fight.
Not for profit. Not because anyone told them to.
Simply because the person they believed in had chosen to believe.
"Arthur."
Bronya spoke up suddenly.
"Yeah?"
"We can't lose."
Arthur looked at the data. He looked at the stream, still shining bright at the center of the storm. He looked at all those strangers who had no reason to fight for them, and yet were fighting anyway.
He smiled quietly.
"We won't."
---
Principal Theresa was enjoying a rare moment of downtime.
As the nominal Chief Executive Officer of the Destiny Group (though everyone knew the real decision-making power rested with her grandfather, who had a talent for being impossible to find), her days were an endless cycle of meetings, signatures, briefings, and the grim struggle to extract meaning from stacks of tedious financial reports.
At the moment she was curled up in the custom-made executive chair in her office, the one she'd specifically ordered a size larger than standard, though she still needed two cushions stacked underneath her before her feet could reach the floor.
She held a tablet in both hands, its screen showing the Honkai Impact 3rd game interface.
"Mm, mm, the writing on this chapter is really something," she muttered to herself, guiding the in-game Kiana through a battlefield with nimble dodges.
"The protagonist's personality is exactly like a certain headache-inducing niece of mine, but somehow it comes across as adorable in a game."
After grinding through the day's irritating company affairs, stealing away to her office to play games for a little while was the happiest part of her day.
And this game was free, no less. Free! In an era where mobile games practically demanded you watch ads and spend hundreds of dollars just to get started, this one had the audacity to put the word free right on its face, and spell out its pity rate system in plain language for everyone to see.
She was so moved she almost wanted to send the developers a commemorative plaque.
As she was thinking this, a notification banner dropped down from the top of her tablet.
Sender: Kiana (Troublemaker Niece)
"Aunty! We're on trending! Look look look!"
Theresa blinked, puzzled, and tapped it open.
Her expression froze.
The trending page was wall-to-wall hostility toward Honkai Impact 3rd. Vicious headlines. Fabricated "insider information." Attacks on the character designs. Attacks on Kiana herself.
"Kiana, real-life rich kid using the game as a vanity project, how many people's hopes has she crushed?"
Theresa's brow furrowed. She kept scrolling.
Then she saw the attacks on Elysia. The insults the bot accounts were hurling at the streamer and at ordinary players. The fierce clash between fans and astroturfers under the Support Honkai Impact 3rd hashtag.
And finally, she saw the targeted malice aimed directly at the Kaslana name.
"Just another heiress out here selling a personality."
The office was silent for exactly three seconds.
Then Theresa set her tablet gently down on the desk. Her movements were unhurried, controlled, even graceful.
But anyone who knew her well would have recognized it immediately: the calm before the storm.
"Well then," she said softly, her voice barely audible. "Very well."
She picked up her phone and made the first call.
"Rita."
The voice that answered was warm and composed. "Principal Theresa. How may I assist you?"
"I need you to look into something for me." Theresa's voice remained quiet.
"Someone is running a large-scale coordinated attack against Honkai Impact 3rd online, with organized bot activity behind it.
I want to know who's responsible. Every piece of evidence you can find, the more detailed the better."
"Understood," Rita said, her tone perfectly even. "How soon do you need it?"
"As soon as possible." She ended the call and immediately dialed a second number.
This time the voice that answered was cool and steady. "Principal?"
"Durandal." Theresa's tone softened slightly. "Where are you?"
"The training grounds. Just finished today's conditioning. What is it?"
"Your little sister is being bullied."
A beat of silence on the other end. "Please elaborate."
Theresa laid it out simply: the game, the trending topics, the statements attacking Kiana.
Another pause. Then Durandal's voice came through. "Understood. What do you need from me?"
"Keep watch. If they dare reach into the real world, or if they dare touch a single hair on Kiana or anyone in her studio..."
Theresa paused.
"You know what to do."
"Understood."
After handling all of this, Theresa leaned back in her chair, picked up her phone, and opened her chat with Kiana.
"Saw the trending topics. Played the game. It's fun, the story is great, I'm looking forward to what comes next. And those things people said about you, I saw those too."
The reply came back almost instantly, a chaotic stream of "Aunty you've been playing this whole time!" and "wait how did you see it, you're always so busy" and similar Kiana-flavored rambling.
Theresa ignored all of it and kept typing.
"Kiana. Hurting you is hurting me. As your aunt, this is not something I can let pass.
"People are already looking into it. No matter who's behind this, I will make sure they understand what it costs to come after our Kiana. You just focus on doing your work. Leave the rest to me."
She set the phone down and picked up her tablet again, tapping back into the game.
On the screen, that little Kiana, the one who looked exactly like her niece, was standing on the bridge of the Hyperion, eyes fixed on the horizon.
Theresa looked at that small figure and laughed softly.
"You really are just like her, you know," she murmured. "Always getting into trouble. Always willing to throw yourself into the fire for someone else."
She tapped the "Continue" button.
"So then," she said quietly, "anyone who wants to come for my people is going to have to ask Judah first whether she agrees."
She paused.
"Wait, why did I just say Judah? What even is a Judah?"