Anyway, it was just a small accessory sold in a roadside shop in a small place. How expensive could it be?
"Little Shun, can you help me put it on?" Sirin came to Shun's side holding the hairpin, her face full of anticipation as she waited for his next action.
"Okay, okay, I'll put it on for you." Shun took the hairpin Sirin handed him and looked at it.
Hiss, why did it look more and more familiar the more he looked… Shun felt like he had seen this hairpin somewhere before.
It was only when he placed the hairpin on Sirin's head that Shun understood where that sense of familiarity came from.
Wasn't this exactly the headdress Sirin wore when she became the Herrscher of the Void? Was this another choice of the Gate of Stein?
Looking at Sirin wearing the headdress, Shun suddenly felt an indescribable emotion. Why did it feel like all the flags had been fully raised?
However… the future Herrscher of the Void was still Sirin. This point, in the end, had not changed.
"Little Shun, little Shun, do I look good now?" Sirin kept blinking her large, watery eyes, her gaze filled with expectation and longing.
"Mm, you look good, you look good." Shun's perfunctory tone instantly swept away Sirin's originally great mood.
Little Shun was good in every way, except that every day he looked like he couldn't muster interest in anything, making him not feel like a child of the same age as her.
"Damn it, little Shun, look properly at me!" Sirin was upset and tried to forcibly turn Shun's head toward her.
Shun wanted to dodge, but Sirin pressed him down. When he tried to break free, he found that Sirin's hands were like two clamps, locking him tightly and making it impossible to escape.
"Sirin, did you always have this much strength?" Shun remembered that a few months ago Sirin still looked malnourished. Not to mention having more strength than him, even her two hands couldn't compare to one of his.
"Seems like it! Why did my strength suddenly become so great?" Only after Shun's reminder did Sirin realize that she, who originally couldn't carry anything on her shoulders or lift with her hands, was now stronger than little Shun in terms of physical strength.
"Maybe it's because I've been eating my fill these past few months?" Sirin didn't know what was going on for a moment. Asking her to think about this was too difficult.
Shun had a vague bad premonition, but for a moment he couldn't quite put it into words… However, his sixth sense should still be quite accurate.
Sirin… her strength suddenly increased. In the Honkai world, what could cause a person to undergo such a huge change in a short time? —Honkai energy!
"Aunt Dalia should have gone to handle your withdrawal procedures, right." Shun suddenly grabbed Sirin and started running down the street. However, since he was only wearing a prosthetic, he couldn't run very fast.
"Little Shun, where are we suddenly going…" With Sirin's brain capacity, she had no idea what was going to happen next.
"The train station." To be precise, Moscow train station. Before going out with Sirin today, Shun had already felt something was off, so he had given half the money to Dalia and told her to meet up with them in Moscow.
As for the reason… there was no reason. He just felt that something bad was going to happen.
Shun looked for a suitable vehicle on the roadside—one with off-road capability that could handle long-distance travel.
Found it… Shun's gaze landed on a pickup truck parked by the roadside. From the temperature of the hood, it was clear the vehicle had been parked for a long time and the owner wouldn't return soon.
Then it's decided to be you! Shun's eyes narrowed. Without hesitation, he reached into his pocket. He pulled out the Makarov pistol that had been hidden there all along and gripped it tightly in his hand.
The metal grip of the pistol emitted a cold gleam. Shun used all his strength to swing the pistol, smashing its hard metal grip toward the car window like a bolt of lightning.
With a loud "bang," accompanied by the crisp sound of shattering glass, the entire car window instantly turned into countless fragments that flew everywhere. These fragments sparkled with cold light in the air, like a gorgeous yet extremely dangerous rain of glass.
However, Shun did not stop his actions. Taking advantage of the moment the window was shattered, he grabbed Sirin beside him. In a flash, the two of them flipped over the broken window at extremely high speed and entered the car.
"Sirin, sit tight. We're setting off right away." Unlike the time he had stolen his father-in-law's car with human-machine operation, this time he had learned the one-second ignition trick from Theresa.
Sirin only felt that she hadn't even steadied herself in the passenger seat when the car started.
"Is this car yours, little Shun? Then why did you smash the glass just now?"
"Uh, don't ask about things you shouldn't. Anyway, just follow me closely. If nothing unexpected happens, we probably won't see Aunt Dalia at the train station."
Shun gripped the steering wheel tightly with both hands. Driving with a nine-year-old body was also a first for him.
"Little Shun, what are you talking about? Why can't I understand anything?" Sirin felt her head was getting bigger. Starting from yesterday, little Shun had inexplicably said they needed to move, then took out money she had never seen in her life. Today he took her out shopping, but halfway through he suddenly seemed stimulated and dragged her to steal a car on the roadside and run.
She felt that little Shun was hiding something from her and not letting her know.
"Sirin, I'm going to ask you a few questions later. You have to answer honestly, okay?"
"Okay." Although she had many doubts now, Sirin had never been a child who liked to cause trouble for others.
"What is the name of the church that sponsors your school?" Shun asked this question first. In fact, to him now, the answer was already self-evident.
"It seems to be called Schicksal. It came from Europe. I also learned a bit of German at school."
Sure enough, it was Schicksal. Shun was not surprised by this answer. It was precisely after realizing this answer that he had immediately dragged Sirin and run.
"Then, has anyone at school made you come into contact with anything purple?"
"Purple things? Does the juice we drink during lunch break at school count? The teachers said it was grape juice. It tastes very good."
"Damn it! Stupid Schicksal!" Shun slammed the steering wheel hard. The car let out a loud honk, causing the nearby cars to slow down and distance themselves from him. Who knew if this was some drunk person driving?
"Little Shun, what's wrong? Isn't the Schicksal church very good to us? They even let us attend school for free." Although Sirin didn't really like studying, she also knew that sponsoring children to attend school for free was undoubtedly something only kind people would do.
"Good? Good my ass! Sirin, do you still remember how many of your classmates have disappeared from the start of the school year until now?" If Shun had guessed correctly, the reason Schicksal opened a free school for children was to select test subjects. And the reason Dalia had previously said he didn't meet the criteria wasn't because he was disabled, but because… he was male.
"How many?" Prompted by Shun, Sirin finally realized that the people in her class seemed to have been replaced in batches. Although Sirin had an introverted personality at school and had no friends, it wasn't to the point where she didn't even recognize familiar faces.
"At the beginning, someone asked where those children went. The school teachers said they were eliminated because they failed the assessment. The teachers said we are the most outstanding, but I clearly haven't even done my homework…"
"Little Shun, the children who disappeared—where did they go?" Sirin shrank in the passenger seat, feeling a little scared. She had the feeling that this was the thing called "conspiracy" taught in books.
"Who knows? Disappeared? Dead? I don't care. Sirin, I won't let you die."