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ArabicHonkai Impact: My Power Grows When Valkyries Fall For Me — Chapter 18
Chapter 18: Bronya
“It seems you’ve caught the attention of Anti-Entropy.”
Lucian’s brow furrowed, a flicker of surprise in his eyes. He knew his association with Schicksal would eventually put him on Anti-Entropy’s radar, but he hadn’t expected it to happen this quickly.
“An assassin? What were they like?”
“Silver-gray hair, didn’t look very old. Twelve or thirteen at most,” Siegfried replied, stroking his chin thoughtfully. “But their skills and equipment were no joke.”
Lucian raised an eyebrow. “And was there a rather large hovering mech accompanying them?”
“Right, you know them?” Siegfried’s head bobbed in a nod.
Hearing the confirmation, a strange sense of relief washed over Lucian. ‘I thought Cocolia might send a Joyce clone over, but it’s just Bronya.’He immediately checked that thought.’Wait, that’s not quite right either.’
After all, if Siegfried hadn’t been there to intervene, the outcome could have been grim. The image of being strangled by a pair of white stockings flashed through his mind—a danger he now knew was very, very real.
“You could say that. I’ve studied some of Anti-Entropy’s files before,” Lucian said, deflecting. “Where is she now?”
Siegfried spread his hands in a helpless gesture. “Ran off. Since I’m still a wanted man, I didn’t give chase.”
Lucian nodded, his gaze steady on the older man. “Let’s talk inside.”
Back in Lucian’s apartment, Siegfried plopped down on the sofa without a shred of ceremony, his gaze habitually scanning the surroundings.
“Didn’t notice it last time, but kid, how can your place be so… lifeless?”
Siegfried gestured around the room. While all the necessary furniture was present, it lacked any sense of a lived-in atmosphere. It felt more like a temporary safe house than a home.
Lucian didn’t respond immediately. He locked the door, then walked over and pulled a chair to sit opposite Siegfried.
“That’s just a spy’s discipline, okay?” he said, dismissing the observation. “Forget about that. What brings you here today?”
Siegfried shrugged, a weary helplessness in the gesture as he leaned forward slightly. “Of course, it’s for my poor, unfortunate eldest daughter…”
“You’ve accepted reality that quickly?”
“Come on, whether she even acknowledges me as her father is another matter entirely…” Siegfried shook his head, then pulled a folded test report from inside his coat. “I used some old connections, managed to get a few strands of Durandal’s hair.”
He unfolded the paper. “And yesterday, the results came back. She really is Kiana.”
As he spoke, Siegfried’s gaze fell to the report in his hand, and his voice grew low and heavy with emotion.
Lucian simply nodded. Seeing the complex storm of feelings warring on Siegfried’s face, he asked gently, “So, what do you plan to do?”
“I don’t plan to do anything,” Siegfried said, his voice quiet but firm. “The fact that she’s alive is already the best possible outcome.” He placed the report on the coffee table, his head tilting back to stare up at the monotonous light fixture on the ceiling. “She has her own life, friends, the power to protect them, and a conviction to fight for.”
He continued, his voice laced with a bittersweet pride. “She’s already obtained all of these things on her own. There’s not much I, as her father, can do to help her now.” A soft, melancholic sigh escaped his lips. “It’s just a bit of a shame, not getting to watch her grow up.”
Lucian watched him, the cold, sterile light from the ceiling casting stark shadows across Siegfried’s face, making him seem far older and more weathered than he was. Listening to that quiet confession, Lucian found he had no words to offer. For a long moment, the only sound in the room was the low, steady hum of the air conditioner.
Finally, Siegfried let out a slow, measured breath.
“Alright, enough of that.” Sensing the heavy atmosphere that had settled over them, he sought to change the subject. After a moment’s thought, his gaze sharpened, landing on Lucian. “By the way, your eye… it hasn’t been quite right lately, has it?”
Siegfried sat up straight, his piercing gaze fixed on Lucian’s right eye. “Those golden patterns… they’re appearing under normal circumstances now?”
“Yeah,” Lucian confirmed. “Ever since I came into contact with the Judgement of Shamash last time, they haven’t disappeared.”
At the mention of the Divine Key, Siegfried’s eyebrows shot up. “And you’re still alive and kicking?”
“It was this eye. It healed the injuries I sustained.”
“Healed?” Siegfried repeated the word, his tone edged with disbelief. “You’re saying the damage caused by Shamash… was cured by your eye?”
Lucian nodded. “That night, I was burned by its high temperature. My whole arm was crippled. But when I woke up the next morning, the wound had completely vanished, as if I’d never been injured in the first place.” He paused, then added, “And ever since then, the patterns in this eye have never faded.”
Siegfried was stunned into silence for a moment. After some thought, he shrugged, a helpless grin touching his lips. “Honestly, if I didn’t already have a bit of trust in you, I’d really think you were making this all up.”
He stared at Lucian, his focus unwavering. The complex, diamond-shaped patterns in the youth’s right eye were clearly visible, embedded in his pupil and shimmering with a faint metallic luster.
“I don’t really understand this stuff either,” Siegfried said at last, his voice laced with resignation. “Frankly, I don’t even understand the changes happening to my own body. But… you should be careful.” He held Lucian’s gaze for a moment longer before shaking his head.
“Of course.”
Siegfried pushed himself up from the sofa, stretched his back with a groan, and turned towards the door. “I should get going. Be careful yourself. Anti-Entropy still has their eyes on you.”
Lucian nodded. “You watch out too. Don’t get caught.”
Siegfried waved a dismissive hand over his shoulder, pulled open the door, and his figure quickly vanished into the shadows of the hallway.
After Siegfried left, Lucian walked to the window. Under the dim indoor light, the golden patterns in his right eye silently swirled.
For some reason, an intense sensation of being watched suddenly prickled at the back of his neck.
The feeling didn’t come from outside the window or from behind the door; it was emanating from inside this very room.
Through the faint reflection in the glass, Lucian could see the patterns in his right eye beginning to glow.
Then, a scene erupted in his mind, carrying with it a chilling, suffocating cold.
A silver-gray-haired girl with an expressionless face had him pinned to the bed. Her slender yet powerful fingers were wrapped around a length of white stocking, which was tightening, deeply and inexorably, around his neck.
His vision blurred and darkened from the lack of oxygen. In his ears, he could hear Bronya’s utterly emotionless voice.
“Die.”
The Lucian in the vision struggled violently, his hands clawing uselessly at his own throat, seemingly trying to speak. But in his field of view, Bronya’s eyes were like a bottomless abyss, reflecting his own gradually unfocusing pupils.
“…!”
The next moment, Lucian froze, the scene in his mind slowly fading away.
He looked at his reflection in the glass again. The golden patterns in his right eye were glowing fiercely, like molten gold flowing within his pupil, bringing with them waves of stinging pain.
‘What… was that just now?’Lucian clapped a hand over his aching right eye. The suffocating sensation from the vision still lingered at his nerve endings, a cold and terrifyingly clear memory.’Is it… foresight?’
He immediately spun around, turning his back to the window. The stinging pain and the glow in his eye were slowly subsiding, but that creepy feeling of being watched had not diminished in the slightest.
His gaze swept over every corner of the living room—the shadows behind the sofa, the space under the table, the dark corners near the ceiling. After a full scan, he found nothing unusual.
‘Can’t find her…’
After the fruitless search, Lucian gave up trying to locate Bronya’s figure. He was acting now, putting on a show for the assassin he knew was hiding somewhere in the shadows.
He walked to his desk as if nothing was wrong, sat down, and turned on his computer. The screen’s pale blue light washed over his face as he opened a video website and began watching absentmindedly.
After about twenty minutes, he turned off the computer, rubbed his temples, and muttered to himself, “A bit tired. I’ll rest early today.”
Then he got up, walked to the bathroom to wash up, turned off the living room light, and entered the bedroom.
The bedroom door closed with a soft click.
The living room returned to silence, the only sounds the low hum of the air conditioner and the faint, distant noise of traffic from the street below.
In the bedroom, Lucian lay on the bed with his eyes wide open, staring at the dark ceiling.
He wasn’t asleep.
The stinging pain in his right eye had subsided, but the feeling of being watched still persisted, a constant, unnerving pressure. He knew Bronya was still nearby. Maybe she was in the living room. Maybe she was perched outside the window. Or maybe, she was already in the bedroom with him.
Lucian slowly closed his eyes, took a deep, silent breath, and exhaled just as slowly.
His right hand slid silently under the pillow, his fingers closing around the cold steel of the pistol he had retrieved from the bathroom earlier. He knew this thing probably wouldn’t be of much use against Bronya, but at the very least, it gave him a tiny, almost negligible sense of security.
2 AM.
The bedroom door slid open without a sound, leaving a dark crack in the frame.
There were no footsteps, no sound of breathing. A silver-gray figure floated into the room like a ghost.
Silver-gray spiral pigtails, vacant gray eyes, a face devoid of all expression. Bronya hovered by the bedside, her gaze fixed on the “sleeping” youth.
Then, right in front of Lucian’s feigned sleep, she slowly, deliberately, took off the white stockings from her legs. Holding one of the soft lengths of fabric, she leaned down.
Lucian’s eyelids trembled slightly.
He felt the mattress dip, just a little. He felt the girl’s icy fingers brush against his neck. The stocking’s material was soft yet tough, coiling around his throat like a cold snake in the darkness.
Then, just as he was about to make his move, the girl’s voice whispered from beside his ear.
“Stop pretending. The Bronya knows you’re awake.”
In the next instant, Bronya exerted her strength, yanking the stocking tight. The sensation of suffocation surged through him, immediate and absolute.
Lucian’s eyes snapped open. In the darkness, his purple pupils contracted, and the golden patterns in his right eye erupted with a blinding light. He tried to reach for the gun under his pillow, but a huge mechanical hand materialized from thin air, slamming down and pinning his arm to the mattress.
Expressionless, Bronya climbed onto the bed, kneeling on top of him. The white stocking in her hands dug deeply into the flesh of his neck.
Lack of oxygen began to blur his vision. He could hear a gurgling sound coming from his own throat. He had acted too late. He had planned to engage with her before she made her move, but his timing was disastrously off.
“Cough… stop… Bronya…!”
“Although you look quite pitiful like this, the Bronya cannot let you go.”
Bronya’s gray eyes watched him, her expression unchanged, the force in her hands not relaxing in the slightest. The suffocating pressure flooded Lucian’s consciousness like a merciless tide. His vision began to darken, the sounds in his ears becoming distant and muffled.
His consciousness started to scatter. With what little strength he had left, Lucian’s left hand shot up and grabbed Bronya’s wrist. The girl’s wrist was slender and her skin was cold, but her strength was astonishing.
“See… Seele…!”
Just before the darkness consumed him completely, Lucian used the last of his strength to force the name from his throat.
And upon hearing it, Bronya’s movements clearly, unmistakably, paused.