Bronya
Silence was a language Bronya understood better than most. On a Saturday night, the corridors of St. Freya whispered with it, a soft, padded quiet that felt fundamentally different from the dead, empty silence of her past.
Through the insulated walls of her room, she could just about make out the ghost of Kiana's laughter. It was the sound of a life Bronya was still learning to inhabit, an anomaly she found more complex than any combat simulation.
Her own peace, however, was woven from logic and order. Her room was a testament to this, a pocket of absolute control. Light from three monitors cast long, cool shadows glinting off the polished armor of Project Bunny 19C.
The mech stood silent in the center of the room. Around its frame, holographic lines of code and shimmering schematics drifted like digital dust motes.
Here, in the clean, binary world of machine language, there were no messy emotions, no unpredictable variables. There was only the elegant flow of data. She was refining Project Bunny's particle emitters, a fractional adjustment of 0.03%.
Then, her peace was shattered.
A shrill, discordant tone cut through the low hum of her computers. On her central screen, a red icon pulsed insistently. Priority One Encryption. Source: Cocolia.
The flow of code in Bronya's mind froze. Her fingers hovered over the keyboard, suddenly still. Outwardly, her expression smoothed over, the faint traces of concentration wiped clean, replaced by a carefully constructed neutrality. She terminated the diagnostic, the beautiful, complex web of data collapsing into nothing.
With just a click, she answered the call.
The screen flickered to life, and the cold presence of Cocolia filled the room. Her silver hair seemed to absorb the light, her features carved from ice and resolve. She was Matushka. Mother. The architect of Bronya's life.
"Bronya," Cocolia's voice was like a sharp blade without inflection. "Report."
"Mother." Bronya's own voice was a soft echo. "The Bronya reports all systems are nominal. St. Freya's operational readiness remains at ninety-eight percent."
"I am not interested in Theresa's academy," Cocolia's reply was laced with a tone of annoyance, dismissing Bronya's new life with a single sentence. Her eyes, magnified on the screen, seemed to pierce through the camera, through the very walls of the room. "Report on the asset. The boy."
Bronya's gaze remained fixed. "Subject Kenji remains under passive observation, as per instruction. In the three weeks since the last engagement, he has demonstrated rapid regeneration from minor injuries and a baseline physical output exceeding that of a standard B-Rank Valkyrie by approximately two hundred percent. His energy's anomalous nature is still prevalent, it resonates with Honkai frequencies but lacks the corruptive properties. It appears to be a self-contained, stable energy source."
As she finished, she awaited her mother's response. Only to see her suddenly deep in thought.
Cocolia's expression was unmoved. "Still surface level data," she said, her tone laced with a trace of impatience. "The chip you implanted in his battlesuit could only do so much. His combat patterns are reactive, instinctual. What are his psychological weaknesses? His emotional triggers? How about the source of this power?"
"Insufficient data," Bronya stated, the words tasting like ash in her mouth. It was the truth, but it felt like a failure. "The Bronya has maintained distance to avoid suspicion. Direct interaction has been limited to logistical necessities. Psychological assessment requires proximity and stimulus. His file from Schicksal's Far East Branch is a dead end—mostly redacted or fabricated. Breaching The Principal's personal files have also proved meaningless. "
"We are getting nowhere with this," Cocolia's voice dropped, taking on a dangerous edge. She leaned closer to her camera, "Your passive observation is no longer sufficient. The situation is more delicate than I anticipated."
Bronya felt a familiar tension coil in her stomach.
"Continue your surveillance for now," Cocolia commanded, her voice returning to its familiar, authoritative chill. "But prepare yourself, Bronya. A more... proactive approach will soon be required. Remember, this data could be critical in saving Seelie… I will be in contact."
…
/ — /
The Anti-Entropy primary research lab hummed with the controlled thrum of advanced machinery. It was a cathedral of science, bathed in the blue-white glow of countless monitors and holographic projections.
Data streamed across transparent screens, spiraling DNA models spun in mid-air, and complex energy graphs pulsed like living things. Yet, for all its futuristic splendor, the air was thick with a palpable tension.
Dr. Li, a gaunt woman with perpetual shadows under her eyes, swiped dismissively across a holographic display. The intricate model of a human cell, infused with Kenji's blood sample, flickered and then dissolved, replaced by a stark, crimson alert: SIMULATION FAILED – UNKNOWN ANOMALY. Her lips pressed into a thin, bloodless line.
"Another dead end," she muttered, her voice brittle. Beside her, Dr. Chen, a younger man whose initial enthusiasm had long since calcified into weary resignation, merely nodded, his gaze fixed on a monitor showing cascading lines of quantum data.
"It's not just a dead end, Li," Chen corrected, his voice flat. "It's a wall. We've run every possible permutation, every known energy signature against it. Honkai, Imaginary, even simulated divine keys. Nothing matches. Nothing explains the… unnerving stability."
On a massive wall-mounted screen, a video call had been established. The faces of the two titans of Anti-Entropy research, Tesla and Einstein, stared back from across the digital divide.
Tesla, perpetually impatient, tapped a manicured finger against her chin, her usually sharp eyes now clouded with a rare frustration. Einstein, ever the calm observer, had a thoughtful frown etched between her brows, her gaze fixed not on the researchers, but on the inert holographic display of Kenji's basic cellular structure.
"So, to clarify, Doctors," Tesla's voice cut through the lab's hum, sharper than usual. "You're telling me that this boy's cellular structure is generating an energy output equivalent to a small Honkai eruption, yet there is zero cellular degradation, zero necrotic tissue, zero sign of mutation or decay? It's a… biological perpetual motion machine?"
Dr. Li flinched. "Precisely, Dr. Tesla. The energy conversion efficiency is nearly 100%. No waste product. No discernible fuel source beyond the biological processes themselves. His blood sample, even isolated, exhibits a self-sustaining energy loop that defies all known laws of thermodynamics. It's… impossible."
"Impossible is a word for those who stop trying, Li," Tesla retorted, though her usual biting humor was absent. "Rerun the quantum signature analysis. This time… Cross-reference it with historical data from the Previous Era. There has to be an origin point. This isn't magic, it's science we haven't understood yet."
Einstein finally spoke, her voice a quiet counterpoint to Tesla's intensity. "The stability is indeed the most perplexing factor. Honkai energy, by its very nature, is chaotic. Destructive. This… It's harnessed. Tamed. Almost as if it's a symbiotic relationship, rather than a parasitic one." She paused, her gaze drifting back to the simple cellular diagram. "Have you attempted to introduce any… external catalysts?"
"We tried minor Honkai concentrations, Imaginary energy infusions, even a controlled burst of Herrscher energy," Dr. Chen reported, shaking his head. "The sample merely absorbed it, like a sponge. No reaction. No increase in output beyond its baseline. It simply… is."
"And when you tried to extract energy directly?" Tesla pressed.
"It resists any attempts at extraction. Quite violently if I may add." Dr. Li said, a tremor in her voice. "It feels… alive. It locks down. Any attempt to forcefully draw out the energy causes the entire sample to go dormant, only to reactivate minutes later, completely unharmed. It's like it has its own inherent defense mechanism, a self-preserving will."
A heavy silence descended upon the lab, broken only by the soft whirring of machines and the distant, almost imperceptible hum of the Anti-Entropy fortress itself. Tesla sighed, a sound heavy with frustration.
"So, we have a boy with possibly limitless, untappable power, whose very cells mock our understanding of reality," Tesla summarized, leaning back with a rare slump of her shoulders. "And all you can do is confirm that he exists. Magnificent."
Einstein's gaze, however, remained thoughtful. "Perhaps… it is not about extracting the energy," she mused, more to herself than to the others. "Perhaps it is about understanding its nature. Its philosophy, if you will. This boy… he holds a secret that transcends mere biology."
Dr. Li looked from the failed simulations to the dismissive faces of her superiors. The weight of their inability pressed down on her, a physical burden. "We are at an impasse, Dr. Einstein," she confessed, her voice barely a whisper. "Without more direct, invasive study… we are effectively blind."
Her words hung in the air. Kenji's blood was an enigma, a biological puzzle box stubbornly refusing to yield its secrets.
And for the meticulous, logical minds of Anti-Entropy, that was a more profound failure than any explosion or catastrophic experiment. It was a challenge to their very foundation of understanding.
/ — /
Tesla
The video feed from Cocolia's lab blinked out, plunging the private observation room into a heavy, contemplative silence. The only light came from a single, vast holographic star chart that painted the walls in the faint, cold light of distant galaxies.
Tesla broke the quiet first, her voice dripping with contempt for Cocolia's findings. 'A self-preserving will,' she spat, the words dripping with a mix of awe and acidic contempt. "Her scientists are sitting on the single greatest biological discovery since the MANTIS project, and they sound like they're describing a stubborn houseplant. Pathetic."
Einstein remained seated, her fingers steepled beneath her chin. Her gaze was distant, lost somewhere in the swirling nebula projected on the far wall. "It is not their incompetence that concerns me, Frederica."
"It damn well should!" Tesla whirled on her, her red coat flaring. "Cocolia has her hands on a boy who can apparently rewrite the laws of physics with his blood, and her top minds are stumped. She's not going to just let that go. You know her. When she can't solve a puzzle, she smashes it with a hammer to see what's inside."
"Precisely," Einstein said, her voice a low, placid river that did little to cool Tesla's fire. "Cocolia is predictable in her ruthlessness. This boy, however… is not. What Li described was not a simple biological function. It was a conscious act of self-preservation on a cellular level. It's a will that supersedes the observer." She finally turned her head, her gaze meeting Tesla's. "The energy did not simply absorb our tests. It… judged them. And found them wanting."
Tesla stopped her pacing, the profound strangeness of Einstein's words sinking in. "What are you suggesting, Lieserl? That his cells are sentient?"
"I am suggesting," Einstein said slowly, choosing her words with the care of a physicist defining a new law, "that the power is not merely in him. It is fundamentally, intrinsically, him. A symbiotic relationship, as I said. They are one and the same. To try and extract it would be like trying to extract the soul from a body without killing it."
The implications hung in the air, heavier than any physical weight. Tesla's frustration seemed to cool, replaced by a chilling clarity. "And Cocolia will absolutely try to do just that," she whispered. "She'll dissect him, piece by piece, if she thinks it will get her closer to her goals."
"Which is why we cannot allow her to continue this research unsupervised," Einstein concluded, her logic as sharp and clean as a scalpel. "Her methods are too crude for something this… delicate. She is trying to use a crowbar on a lock that requires a key we have not yet imagined."
Tesla walked back to the console, her expression grim. "So we intervene? Welt would have to authorize it. Taking this away from her would be an open declaration of internal war."
"No," Einstein countered softly. "A declaration of war would be messy. And Cocolia thrives in chaos." She offered a small, ghost of a smile. "We will simply provide our own… independent oversight. Quietly. From a distance."
Tesla's own lips curled into a sharp, predatory grin. "You want to spy on her."
"I want," Einstein corrected, turning back to the star chart, "to understand. Cocolia is looking for a weapon. I am looking for an answer."
/ — /
Bronya
The call ended.
Bronya's room plunged back into its default state of near-total silence. Cocolia's face vanished from the screen, but her words echoed in the air.
For a long moment, Bronya remained motionless, her small frame a statue before the glowing monitors. The mission parameters scrolled through her mind, not as a mother's plea, but as a series of logical objectives.
Primary Objective: Acquire raw combat telemetry and biological data from Target: Kenji, under conditions of extreme stress.
Constraints: Maintain cover. Avoid alerting St. Freya's authorities.
Her fingers danced across the keyboard. Hacking into St. Freya's central servers again was a fool's errand. Theresa's firewalls were… surprisingly robust. A direct approach was required. The data had to be sourced from the target himself.
'How?'
She pulled up Kenji's student profile, a file she had already compiled and cross-referenced countless times. His entire life at St. Freya was a predictable, almost monotonous loop of classes, meals, and training… She slowly realised, 'Training.'
He was a training freak. An addict. His obsession with it was his most glaring, exploitable weakness. Proposing a spar wouldn't be suspicious in the slightest.
A few more keystrokes and she had bypassed the low-level security on the academy's training schedules. Kenji's calendar for the following day was completely open, he didn't even have the private training sessions with Himeko. The opportunity was perfect.
But there was a variable she needed to account for. Two, in fact.
She minimized the schedule, pulling up old security footage from the campus grounds. There he was, walking with them. Kiana and Mei.
They were his shields, his emotional anchors. They were, in the cold calculus of her mission, a hindrance. Approaching Kenji without their consent would raise immediate alarms. Kiana's impulsiveness and Mei's sharp intuition were risks she could not afford.
The solution was, therefore, not to circumvent them, but to co-opt them.
The Bronya would not need to lie. She did need to test Project Bunny's close-quarters combat subroutines. Kenji, with his anomalous speed and power, was the ideal test subject.
Framed that way, as a mutually beneficial training exercise, Kiana would likely see it as a fun challenge. Mei would see it as a safe, controlled way for Kenji to let off steam.
The plan solidified, everything falling into place.
She closed all the windows, the lines of code and tactical data dissolving into blackness. All except one.
A single image remained, illuminating her face in its soft glow. A photo from the orphanage, a rare moment of unguarded happiness. Her own small, tentative smile next to Seele's bright, innocent one.
Her expression hardened, the last vestiges of warmth receding from her features, replaced by the cold, unwavering resolve of the Silver Wolf of the Urals. The doubt, the hesitation, it was all just noise.
This was the only thing that mattered.