Durandal (2024)

Spoiler warning! This article contains major spoilers for the plot of Honkai Impact 3rd. Proceed at your own risk.

Durandal, aka Bianka Ataegina, is Schicksal’s most powerful S-rank Valkyrie. She’s also the heir of the Abyss Flower and the one who leads the Immortal Blades.

Appearance

Durandal has a fair complexion, light blue eyes, and strawberry blond hair that fades into a light pink at the ends. She often wears her hair down, but she occasionally has it in a high ponytail.

Battlesuit Appearances

• Valkyrie Gloria: Durandal wears a tight black coat with streaks of teal and a short cape, a black military hat, brown leggings, and a pair of dark boots.
• Bright Knight Excelsis: Durandal wears silver armor with streaks of dark blue, a dark blue skirt, black knee high socks, silver boots, and a silver crown like accessory.
• Dea Anchora: Durandal wears golden armor that surrounds a dark blue top and a short dark blue mullet skirt.
• Palatinus Equinox: Durandal wears

Personality

Bianka was an ambitious person even at 12 years old. Both Shakespeare and Schrodinger praised her bravery and kindness. She risked her life multiple times to save others, even if the chances of success were low. But the inexperienced Valkyrie wasn’t without her flaws. Bianka was an impatient and hot headed kid, and even Rita Rossweisse criticized her a few times for that. She recalls an orphanage counselor calling her an idiot and telling her to think before she acts. Rita told Shakespeare that when she sleeps, Bianka “puts her head under her pillow, kicks her sheets out of the bed at least 5 times throughout the night, and when it seems she’s done, one finds the sheets drenched in saliva”. She also became jealous of Jimmy and Alice’s romantic relationship, and the way Roland could live her life so carefree after losing her memories.

Bianka knew that she was what some people would call a “genius”, and that ordinary people could never reach her level. She chose to walk the lonely path to honor those who died in the battle she survived. She undergoes rigorous training daily and she cares so much about becoming stronger that she tells Rita that it’s a little like having OCD. She also criticizes people who are afraid of getting out of their comfort zone and facing the unknown.

Because she’s gone through many hardships during her life, Bianka knows the world values results more than anything. This view makes Shigure Kira feel better about “cheating” to become an idol, but Schrodinger encourages her to start enjoying the process more than than the end results. Bianka can speak English, German, Russian and French.

Throughout the years, she adopted the nickname “Durandal” to honor the sword that helped her in her adventures. She became more patient and relaxed, with her and Rita growing closer than ever. The maid became part of her everyday life: they live together and go on missions as a team. When Durandal received Rita’s request asking for backup in Arc city, she rushed to her side.

Another important person for Durandal is overseer Otto Apocalypse. Otto was among the first people Bianka had met after losing her memories. He was her doctor from a very young age, so she grew attached to him. Kira pointed out that when Otto’s with other Valkyries, he puts on a cold smile, but when he’s with Bianka he’s a lot more relaxed and open. During Su’s trials, Bianka showed a deep trust for him.

But, even with a strict training schedule, Durandal hasn’t forgotten to have fun in her daily life. To Rita’s despair, she meets a cat called Stan during her London holiday and adopts it. She enjoys shopping, taking care of her garden with Rita, and was even good at playing soccer back at the orphanage. She also has a lot of admirers. One time, they found out when Durandal’s birthday was and on January 1st her room was filled with presents. She then thanked personally each and every one of the people that sent them.

History

Her earliest memories are of waking up in an orphanage in Sochi. As one of the victims of the 2nd Eruption, she was left orphaned along with other children. Unlike others, however, she had no memories. She chooses the name “Bianka Ataegina”. One day she wakes up to Otto sitting by her bedside. He says he wasn’t here for tests today, and takes her on a walk. Otto tells her the story of Medea, a magical princess that fell in love with a prince from a far away land. Medea did atrocious things for him, including killing their 2 children and murdering many other people. She ended up doing so much in the name of love that she herself became a monster.

Bianka thinks this is an awful story. Otto says that one day she will experience something similar in the real world, and when that day comes, she should remember that there’s still kindness and beauty in the world. He tells her not to sympathize with Medea. Otto then whispers to himself the poem of Zarathustra II:33 “The grave song”.

One day, the captain of a Valkyrie assault squad and a training instructor came to visit the orphanage. Her name was Ragna. They expected her to be cold and severe, but all she did was teach them about gardening instead. Ragna passed away that winter, and Himeko came to recruit people for St. Freya. Bianka could only hold anger for such a heartless person, but the Valkyrie told her that if she wants to honor Ragna’s ideals she should take on the responsibility and fight herself.

Bianka joined Schicksal at 10 years old, and went straight to the HQ as she thought training at St. Freya couldn’t improve herself as fast. Bianka underwent many hardships from that point on. She was the only one from her squad who survived her first mission that took place at Agra Fort. Another mission also had her watch her teammates die after being hit by a wave of Honkai radiation, after which she fell asleep for an entire week. Some time before the visual novel she became an A rank Valkyrie and the squad leader of of Schicksal’s special exploration unit “Lonely Phantalassa”.

Durandal Visual Novel

Bianka and her adjutant Rita begin their adventure on a small island that’s threatened by the sea creature Leviathan. They team up with Miguel de Cervantes and embark on a small reef boat to kill the monster, only for it to be immediately destroyed by a mysterious submarine. The crew invites them on the ship called Caledonia.

They meet the ship’s captain: Marian William Shakespeare, the boatswain: Lalla Sayyida al Hurra, the engineer: James (Jimmy) Watt and “Iron mask”: a masked figure that wishes for her identity to remain secret. Honkai energy in this world is much weaker than the one they came from so Rita and Bianka challenge Shakespeare and Iron Mask to a fight to prove that they can handle themselves anyway.

The Valkyries lose, and tell their reason for coming to this world: their mission is to explore “a topological formation that exists between the dimensional manifolds”, called the Ether anchor point. Basically, the Ether anchor holds together worlds that follow a fixed set of laws. Using technology from the previous era, Otto created a device called Gnius/Genius that allows the user to travel between the main world and other bubbles. One downside to it is that from their side of reality it can only be activated at a specific point in time, the nearest being on February 29^th.

Another property of the Ether anchor is that it allows bubble universes to interact with one another. That means the bubble the Valkyries were sent to explore is made of elements of other bubbles stitched together.

A few hours pass, and Bianka gives Rita a decorative fang made from the Leviathan’s corpse as a birthday present. Shakespeare interrupts their heart-to-heart to fill them in on the current situation: refugees from other worlds are increasing, and it might be connected to whoever is running Europe (of this world) right now. Because this world is wacky, the principles are also different, and the Caledonia can travel through ultra speed currents to get to different places extremely fast.

Arriving at Gibraltar, they come across a wall of Honkai energy surrounding the entirety of Europe. The wall keeps expanding and is threatening the life of citizens. Shakespeare pulls out a sword that she calls the Durandal, and asks the Valkyries to help restore it’s power by bringing back it’s 6 remaining gems. Bianka grips the handle of the sword and the locations of the gems come into her mind. She also feels overwhelming power that could be used to destroy the energy wall. After that, they pick up a fallen pilot named Manfred Albrecht von Richtofen.

Their next destination is Alexandria. The crew splits in groups of 2 to explore the city, and Bianka gets paired with Jimmy. There, Thales approaches them as they seem interesting and she gives them a tour. Jimmy gets kidnapped in the Great library, and Bianka gets Michelangelo and Champollion’s help to find out what happened to him. With the help of a girl named Neith, they arrive at a sulphur lake and have to wait for Michelangelo to send them gas masks.

Meanwhile, Jimmy wakes up in a prison cell and is greeted by a girl that introduces herself as Alice. She’s a machine made of human brains, and because her creator died recently she kidnapped someone to perform maintenance so she doesn’t die. While Jimmy teaches her how to do it herself, Alice tells him the story of “Alice in Wonderland”. The two of them fall in love while talking.

While this is happening, “Iron mask” meets the president of the city, Shelley, and she reveals herself as being the dimensional traveler Erwin Reanna Schrodinger. Schro tells her that the AI robots in the city are suspiciously advanced and Shelley reveals that she’s using the gem of reason to operate them (unrelated to the Herrscher of Reason). Suddenly, the machines go rogue and the city’s in danger.

The cause of the disturbance is a cyber attack caused by Faust, Alice’s creator. He planned to merge human brains together and achieve immortality, and was exiled from the city 18 years ago because of that. Schro deletes the program, while Bianka and the squad take control of the facility where Alice and Jimmy are. They find the bodies of Faust, his assistants, and the people they kidnapped from the Great library.

In the end, Jimmy and Manfred stay behind to help Alice which now runs the AI robots in the city as community work. The gem of reason was given to Shakespeare and her squad, which made the Durandal sword wake up and gain consciousness.

The sword tells them its story: it was created by a version of the previous era's people before the Mu continent fell. Because it considered the people of that era boring, it went to sleep until the paladin Roland woke it up. It also tells the story of how Roland got her heart broken, which makes Bianka mad that such an important person could be shaken by such a trivial matter.

The next day they hold a funeral for Faust and Schrodinger reveals her identity to the rest of the group. She found the Durandal sword at the bottom of the abyss after the physical form of her body got disintegrated. Since they couldn’t find a beacon to return to their original world, they made a random leap and arrived in this bubble universe.

The next location is the Yucatan peninsula, and the first thing they do is save a tribe from federation people. They meet the elder of the village and the oracle Eikenal. Bianka gets along with her but she then gets defeated by a spicy taco.

That night, Bianka is invited to take part of a ritual with Eikenal. When she entered the cave though, she saw her lying on the floor with a stake going through her heart. The Valkyrie tried performing a blood transfusion but neither Bianka nor Rita’s blood types were compatible with hers. All the young girl could do was carry Eikenal’s dying body out of the cave and hold her a funeral.

The next day they pay the federation a visit. The people there call them “nakom” (super human) and treat them with great respect because they got beaten up by Bianka the day before. The squad introduces bikes to the civilization and they meet the High priestess, Esther Zarathustra.

Esther invites them inside a building in a giant meteorite and she tells them the legend of The Serpent King Zahhak; only that now Gray serpent is also there as a witch. She says that the legend is actually true, and that she was artificially created by the Gray Serpent. Her father killed the witch and stayed in her den to study her magic, which is how he invented a serum that gave her superhuman powers and a device from the Previous Era called Genius. Esther used it and got sent to this world.

Since Gray Serpent’s power lets her gain the power of those that she eats, Esther puts Bianka and the rest to sleep with anesthetic gas to kill them. But, Rita is prepared for situations like these so she hid the Durandal sword and managed to kill Esther and save everyone.

Bianka wakes up on Rita’s lap and Bertrand, colonel of the French army, pops out of a lake. He’s also a dragon, and was imprisoned there by Esther. He tells them that when Napoleon Bonaparte got exiled on St Helena, a mad scientist moved the entire island with Genius to an unknown world. The scientist became a Honkai beast by drinking a serum and attacked the French army. Napoleon also drank from the mysterious liquid, but because he had a stigma he acquired superhuman strength instead. The emperor went on to create a new nation in this world, and was the one to activate the Honkai energy wall. The Durandal sword also found the gem of domination on Bertrand’s back, which can violate the direction of particles in a convenient way to violate the laws of thermodynamics. Bertrand resumed his story: Napoleon wanted to share his superhuman strength, which is why he erected the energy wall that was supposed to give everyone the same kind of powers. But, things didn’t turn out that way: only 10% received that power, the rest either turned into ash or, just like Bertrand, turned into beasts. Bertrand couldn’t stand seeing this and fled from Napoleon’s army, after which he met Esther and was trapped in the lake.

Bertrand becomes the Federation’s new ruler and they hold a ball game similar to soccer to celebrate. At night, Rita tells Bianka the story about how she became a Valkyrie but the younger girl falls asleep mid way through.

A few days later they continue the search for the gems and arrive on the ABC islands. They find a statue of Jingwei and are confronted by soldiers from the Republic. One of the soldiers is Roland herself, though she appears to not remember the Durandal sword at all. Roland asks for their help to fight off the Honkai and Bianka and the rest accept. They embark on the Caledonia and in a video call they find out that Michelangelo is actually a spy from the republic. They talk about the Huaca tunnel: a formation that goes through the center of the world. It turns out the Huaca tunnel is actually the Ether anchor itself, and that the Ether anchor is a failed prototype of the “Moonlight throne” (aka Selene) made 50,000 years ago. It’s purpose was to act as a “space waste treatment plant”, with it’s energy volume being around that of the 1st or 2nd Herrscher.

Roland also tells them about the Republic’s problem: Napoleon is sending Honkai beasts to attack, and they have no way of communicating with him and sorting things out. Roland was getting along great with the crew, and Bianka became jealous that she can live her life without knowing what her old self was like.

Then they arrive in South America and take the train going through the Huaca Tunnel. They are greeted by Anne Charles Darwin, the daughter of the person who wrote “On The Origin of Species”. It is revealed that the original Anne is dead, and she’s just an afterimage created by the Ether Anchor. They also meet Ilona Draculesti, who doesn’t rely on the ether anchor to exist as she’s been drifting in the Sea of Quanta for over 500 years.

The Durandal sword feels the presence of the gem of love, and they find out it belongs to Shigure Kira, now an idol of this world. The gem gives Kira the ability to sing and act well: she’s awful without it. Kira accepts to give them the gem, but they have to promise to bring it back after they’re done with it. They watch a video about the history of the Republic that ends with Sophia Henry Thoreau telling them that she has a gift and that she’s waiting in the capital of the Republic.

So, they take the train to the capital and Kira follows them. She has a heart-to-heart with Bianka, where they talk about Otto, Cecilia and the way they choose to live their lives. When they arrive at the capital, Kira tells them she has a secret they’re going to find out about soon, which intrigues Bianka. Rita tells her about Shub-Niggurath, one of Kira’s comrades, which has been reported dead for 4 times. At the time, Otto told her not to worry as there will always be a few “travelers” between the Valkyries and think about the big picture.

They meet with Sophia, who explains that they already have a plan of attack but they need Bianka to carry it out. The first phase has a 99% success rate, and for the 2^nd she can’t put it into numbers. Bianka said she’ll decide after they retrieve the gem of prosperity from Rapa Nui island.

Two days later they arrive on the island and meet Caravaggio, who guides them to the top of the mountain. There, a Honkai energy vortex is present, making breathing difficult, and in the center of it is a person. It is Sanada Yukimura, who's been crystallized in a vegetative state for 7 years after stopping a flood of Honkai energy connected to the Ether Anchor. Since the world needs the gem, Caravaggio attempts to shatter Yuki but Bianka stops her. Schrodinger tells them that there is a way to save Yuki: Bianka can use the Durandal to force the Honkai energy out of her body, and suck it all in herself. But, if her resistance is weaker than Yuki’s, she’s will die.

Bianka succeeded, but fell asleep for a while. She mumbles something in her sleep, dreaming about talking with Ragna. Rita stays by her side the entire time, and she remembers the first time Otto told her about Bianka: he told her to always stay by her side, even when Bianka realizes that the overseer isn’t the sweet man she thinks he is. He gave her the documents of 4 people who suffered similar fates: Theresa, Reanna, Eleanor and Octavia. She also remembers Ragna telling her maids are invincible, similar to when people say “mothers are invincible”. Rita recalls reading a passage in the book “Catcher in the Rye”, about catching children that play in a field of rye when they eventually reach the cliff, a book which belonged to the Valkyrie Reanna that has long betrayed Schicksal. Rita sees many similarities between herself and the owner of the book, and ponders whether Bianka would still be lonely if Reanna was still alive.

Bianka wakes up, and at the edge of the bed she sees Rita sleeping. She used to consider her a freak, but regardless of what Otto told the maid, now Bianka knows that Rita values her as a person more than the mission at hand.

It’s time for them to carry out the plan: Bianka is to use the Durandal sword and literally cut out the Europe portion of the world. Because the structure of this bubble, such a thing is possible. Bianka is nervous about it, but Schro has a talk with her. She tells the young Valkyrie that she should learn to enjoy the process more than the end result, and even though Schro doesn’t like Otto, she proposes to ask Sophia to give her the data about the Ether Anchor.

They arrive in Chile. Kira and Sophia give Bianka the last 3 gems and the Durandal sword takes its true form. Shakespeare tells her what actually happened with the Durandal: she found the sword many years ago, but because she wasn’t worthy enough the gems scattered all across the world and Durandal lost it’s memories of the incident. Only when she met Schrodinger and they found the gem of courage could they continue with the plan. Next, Sophia picked up on the energy fluctuations when Bianka and Rita arrived in the world with the help of the ether anchor and sent Shakespeare to meet up with them.

Bianka gets ready for the operation. She takes off, and merges with the power of the holy sword. She begins to slice the root of space: at the core of the Ether anchor, space from different dimensions were cluttered together like vines. She lost count of how many she cut. The Honkai energy within her was boiling in her veins, but she knew she must hold on. A starry sky appeared in the distance, the horizon of the bubble world.

She did it. The slicing operation was complete.

Bianka gives Roland the signal. Anne opens fire, and the sky clears up. Everything seemed to be going well, until a strange monster appeared.

The monster was a gate-like thing with tentacles, and it had already been rapidly pushing back the Republic’s forces. Champollion came forth on the battlefield, and revealed herself to be Napoleon Bonaparte himself. He’s now only a corpse of the monster he became, and the moment he touched the gate a white light enveloped everything.

Bianka wakes up half asleep, with Rita giving her injections of diluted Holy Blood as a treatment. She regains her energy, and Rita explains what happened: Champollion was another version of Napoleon Bonaparte, and she readjusted her body composition with the Ether Anchor to turn herself into a weapon and eliminate the evil Napoleon. Now Schrodinger has discovered strange Honkai crystals appearing and they go there to assess the situation.

On the way there, they meet up with Roland who is heading to meet with Sophia to discuss countermeasures; the world is still unstable from the prior events. She also tells them that Kira might have been corrupted.

When they arrive, Kira looks like she’s been half engulfed in a black alien. She explains what’s actually happening: that is indeed an alien life form called “Niggurath”, just like the Shub-Niggurath Valkyrie they know. The alien life form is able to replace its host’s damaged tissues with healthy ones, which is how Shub was able to live after being reported dead 4 times.

However, when the 2nd eruption came and Shub died for real, the Niggurath lifeform chose Kira as its new host. After she lost her consciousness, she woke up in this world and could feel Niggurath’s feelings even if it isn't a complex life form. After going through the 2>nd Honkai war, Shigure doesn’t want to go back again.

Then, after a shockwave, Kira looses consciousness and was saved by Niggurath. Schrodinger was also able to quantize and avoid fatal damage. Instead, the one who was corrupted was Roland herself. They need to get to the Huaca tunnel control center fast, and Bertrand comes to help with that. He’s felt a strange shockwave from Yucatan and came to check what happened. Bertrand picks up Bianka, Rita, and the Durandal. Manfred also comes in and transports Kira and Schro in his plane.

When they get there, Roland isn’t really Roland anymore, and they call themselves “La Niña”. They’re the subjects Napoleon transformed into beasts, merged into a hivemind. While the team was wasting time with them, La Niña synchronized themselves with the Ether Anchor, becoming the “Son of God” itself. Bianka eventually defeats them, but the disintegration of the world bubble begins. Schro tells them there is a way for them to save the world: Bianka can use the Durandal and seal the Ether Anchor within herself, becoming the “God” of this world. The young girl wastes no time thinking about it. She uses the sword, seals the bubble within herself, and Rita uses Genius to escape.

Fours years later, Bianka and Rita come to visit. They’re rehearsing one of Shakespeare plays. Ten years have passed in the bubble universe. Miguel has grown old, so has Jimmy, who’s of course in a romantic relationship with Alice. Rita now calls Bianka “Durandal”, as a form of respect for the sword. Durandal tells Shakespeare that hopefully one day, they will connect the bubble to the Imaginary tree and solve it’s problems. The story ends with Rita teasing Durandal, telling her that she was actually really into the scene where she asks her to sleep together. Durandal blushes and tells her to cut it off.

Manga Story

London Holiday

Fall 2015. Durandal took care of the Honkai outbreak occurring in Dubai. Back at the HQ, Rita receives a mission in London and Durandal chooses a holiday as a reward for her hard work.

It turns out Durandal also chose London as her holiday location. Rita gives her a tour then they split up. When they meet again, Durandal sees that Rita’s been harmed and tells her that she doesn’t have to take on the mission alone. She then meets the B rank Valkyrie Susannah at the airport, who swoons over her.

The next we see of Durandal is when she follows Rita to Arthur’s tomb. She’s attacked Stan but she one shots him. But, she’s defeated by Stan’s cuteness and decides to take him with her. Durandal reveals that she’s been following Rita because Otto ordered her to.

They eventually find the 2^nd Divine Key, but it’s guarded by an Elf that’s been given 1% of Kevin’s power. Durandal has some trouble with it, and as a last measure the Elf tries to hurl the divine key into the sea of quanta. The Valkyrie uses her powers and eventually returns with both the Elf and the Divine Key.

Second Key

While firing the Second Key for the first time, Durandal is sucked into a bubble universe inside of it. She meets Su, one of the pioneers that helped create the current era civilization. He tells her that she needs to sacrifice herself to save humanity, but Durandal resists. She’s in the circle of karma, and any attack that she makes is returned back. Su can’t beat her this way, so he decides to have her take part in his trials instead.

Durandal is to experience the events Su has gone through. All the people relevant in his life are replaced by the ones Durandal holds dear. In this world, she’s a doctor responsible for finding a cure for the Honkai sickness. At first she’s too scared to up the dosage for the fear of killing the patient, but when she’s attacked by a Honkai beast she realized that the patient’s going to die anyways. She passed the first trial. In the aftermath, she got infected but Otto from this world used Ragna’s antibodies to save her.

Durandal joins MOTH and the 8^th Herrscher launches his attack: people who see a certain keyword on the internet enter a comatose state where they all share the same dream. So, Durandal is hooked to a machine and sent to stop the Herrscher. She’s shown an ideal reality, where all the people she loves are alive and happy. Durandal resists the temptation and manages to collect enough data for Dr. MEI to kill the 8^th Herrscher. With this, she passed the 2^nd trial.

In the 3^rd trial, she has to choose to stop Rita from carrying out Project Stigma. However, Durandal says that she’s never seen her in greater pain and that her only wish is to stay by her side and support her. This causes Su to lose his cool and Durandal takes this opportunity to break out of her dream and attack him.

Durandal tells him that his life is filled with too many rules, and that they have the right to choose their fate. Su is moved by her words, and he gives her the Seed of Sumeru, which gives her a new battle suit and allows her to control her bubble better. Su also gives her a leaf with useful information to deliver to Otto.

Game Story

The first time Durandal appears is when she breaks a fight between Rita and Fu Hua, during the Battle of Schicksal. She lets Fu Hua go and fight the Herrscher of Void, saying that she would’ve done the same if she were in her place.

Later on, Durandal appears in a North African city helping with the tests of the 2^nd divine key. She’s tasked with eliminating the quantum shadows that appear after firing it. When she receives Rita’s report from Arc city she leaves to give her a hand.

When she gets there, Durandal catches the falling Kiana Kaslana with the power of the Abyss Flower. She defeats Mei and tells her that she likes the look in her eyes, but she has to become stronger if she wants to save Kiana. Rita also apologizes for failing the mission, but Durandal tells her not to worry about it.

Back at the base in North Africa, when Kiana wakes up, Durandal takes her on a walk to test the 2^nd divine key as ordered by Otto. Kiana tries to leave but Durandal stops her and tells her to defeat her if she wants to escape. Kiana loses but Durandal’s impressed that she can use the Edge of Taixuan, so she moves on with the experiment. She has Kiana fight the quantum shadows and eventually strike the giant hole in the sky. With that, the experiment concludes and Kiana loses consciousness.

When she wakes up, she asks Durandal why she’s supporting Otto, to which she replied that it’s the only organization that protects the people against the Honkai. When they're attacked by World Serpent, Kiana escapes. Durandal approaches Kevin, and they have a short fight that’s interrupted by Otto.

Past Identity

In Chapter 28, Act II, it is revealed that Durandal is the original Kiana Kaslana. In the mission to save K-423, she was hit by debris and fell from the aircraft they were using to escape. She was grievously injured, but Otto didn't need to create a Soulium body for her. He did however, use Soulium to aid in the healing process. Otto removed all her memories and she woke up an "orphan". She chose the name Bianka Ataegina.