Honkai Impact: My Power Grows When Valkyries Fall For Me — Chapter 19

Chapter 19: The Eye Awakens

“…What?”

Bronya’s voice remained as placid and calm as ever, but Lucian felt the silk stocking constricting his neck loosen ever so slightly. It was just enough.

“Seele… Vollerei…”

Lucian’s lungs burned as he dragged in a ragged, desperate breath, the precious air a balm against his screaming throat. “Your sister…”

Bronya’s silver-gray eyes widened by a fraction of a millimeter, a nearly imperceptible reaction, before the pressure from her hands tightened once more, cutting off his airway.

“You have investigated Bronya so thoroughly,” she stated, her tone chillingly flat. “Therefore, Bronya must eliminate you.”

The stocking bit deep into his flesh again, and the suffocating darkness began to creep back into the edges of his vision, more violent and final than before. Lucian had gambled, thinking the mere mention of Seele’s name would give the emotionless assassin pause. He had been wrong. She hadn’t even hesitated.

“Wait—! I can save her… Cocolia is deceiving you!”

A raw edge of panic finally bled into Lucian’s voice as he forced the words out. In an instant, the relentless tightening of the stocking froze.

“What did you say?”

Bronya remained straddling him, her posture as a predator poised over its prey, utterly unchanged. Her gaze was a pair of cold, analytical drills boring into Lucian’s face, searching for the slightest twitch, the barest hint of deceit.

But she found none. All she saw was the raw, contorted aftermath of a man who had been pulled back from the brink of death, his face pale and slick with sweat.

Lucian fought to steady the frantic rhythm of his heart, each breath a painful, shuddering effort. “Cocolia told you Seele is lost in the Sea of Quanta, didn’t she? And that you need the experimental data on compatibility with the Gem of Desire and the Serenity Gem to safely locate and retrieve her. Is that correct?”

Bronya’s body went rigid. It was a subtle change, but Lucian felt it—the weight of her sitting atop him seemed to solidify, becoming heavier, more absolute.

“…How do you know this?”

“Trust me, Bronya,” Lucian rasped, evading her question. He had to keep her focused. “What Cocolia told you is only a partial truth. Seele is indeed in the Sea of Quanta, but the purpose of those experiments… it isn’t just about locating her.” He took another pained breath. “She’s using your love for Seele to advance her own research.”

Bronya’s pupils contracted minutely. Project Bunny still had Lucian’s wrists pinned to the bed with immovable force, but the stocking around his neck remained slack.

The room fell into a tense, suffocating silence, broken only by Lucian’s ragged breathing and the frozen standoff between them.

“Why should Bronya believe you?”

“What if I told you… I saw myself rescuing Seele in a vision?” Lucian managed a strained, bitter smile. “And just today, before you ever made your move, I knew you were coming for me.”

Bronya didn’t speak, her expressionless eyes simply watching him. After a few seconds of unnerving silence, she replied, “Bronya does not accept that explanation.” Her voice was a monotone, devoid of inflection. “Precognitive abilities lack any scientific basis. It is far more likely you learned of Bronya’s existence and mission through other intelligence channels and devised this story as a countermeasure.”

“Yeah, you’re right,” Lucian conceded, not bothering to argue. “It does sound pretty far-fetched.” He tried to shift his pinned right arm, but it was useless. The strength of Project Bunny was truly astonishing. “But I know more…”

He fought to keep his voice steady, the raw pain in his throat making him want to cough. “What Cocolia didn’t tell you is that because of the X-1 Experiment, Seele’s body has already formed an irreversible, deep entanglement with the Sea of Quanta. Relying solely on those Gems for location and so-called ‘compatibility data’ will never bring her back intact.”

“You have a method,” Bronya stated. It wasn’t a question. Not a single trace of emotion could be heard in her voice, but Lucian knew, with absolute certainty, that she was wavering.

She stared down at him, her gaze intense. “State your method. If it is feasible, Bronya is willing to work for you.”

“…I can promise you this,” Lucian said, his voice gaining a sliver of strength. “Within one year, I will bring Seele back to the real world, safe and sound.”

A year?

Bronya hesitated. According to Mother Cocolia’s plan, once the Third Honkai Eruption was triggered in Nagazora, she could see Seele almost immediately. But this man, her target, was asking her to wait an entire year? And that was setting aside the question of whether he was even telling the truth…

“How can you guarantee you will bring Seele back within a year?” she pressed.

“…”

Lucian was at a loss. He had no proof. He truly couldn’t prove he had the ability to bring Seele back from the Sea of Quanta. His promise was nothing more than a desperate delaying tactic, a bluff to buy himself time.

But that single moment of hesitation was all it took. It was a fatal crack in his confident facade, and it was enough to erase the fragile seed of doubt he had just planted in Bronya’s mind.

“You are deceiving Bronya.”

The icy words were a death sentence, accompanied by the sudden, fierce tightening of the silk stocking. This time, there was not a shred of wavering in Bronya’s gaze, only cold, resolute purpose.

‘Shit!’

Lucian’s mind went blank with shock. But in the next split second, before the darkness could claim him, his right eye erupted with a blinding, golden light, completely without warning.

The light flooded the room, reflecting off Bronya’s stunned face. In that instant, the world dissolved around them, and they found themselves together in a boundless, pure white space.

‘Huh?’

Lucian was the first to react. The suffocating pressure on his neck vanished abruptly. Air, clean and cool, filled his lungs. His vision, which had been tunneling into blackness, cleared completely.

Then, he saw Bronya.

Their positions hadn’t changed. She was still sitting on him, but the stocking that had been her weapon was gone from her hands. Project Bunny, the menacing mech that had pinned his arms, had also disappeared.

After the stocking vanished, Bronya froze for a moment, her own mind trying to process the impossible situation. Her first instinct was to re-summon Project Bunny, but she found the connection was simply… gone.

“What have you done to Bronya!” she demanded, her voice sharp with anger. But as the words left her mouth, she froze again. She felt… something. A change within herself. An emotion.

It wasn’t strong, but it was clear, distinct, and utterly alien.

‘But… the emotional module in my brain… it was broken long ago…’

Lucian looked up at her, taking in the flicker of genuine astonishment on her face and the subtle, chaotic storm of feeling deep within her eyes. He tried to sit up, but Bronya gave him no chance.

She slammed her hands down on the pristine white floor on either side of his head, pinning him beneath her again. Her fierce gaze locked onto him.

“I didn’t do anything,” Lucian said, his voice laced with a note of genuine helplessness. “I don’t even know what I did…” He gestured with a slight tilt of his head, the focus of his right eye settling on her face. “It was my eye. It seems it dragged you in here this time, too.”

Bronya’s gaze shifted to his right eye. The eye that had just been blazing with complex golden patterns now appeared completely normal, a calm and deep brown. She couldn’t discern anything unusual about it. Just as she was about to resume her interrogation, a voice echoed from the white void behind them.

“Sister Bronya?!”

The voice was clear and bright, yet it trembled with a deep, soul-deep longing. Lucian felt the girl pinning him down go completely, utterly rigid, as if turned to stone.

Bronya whipped her head around, her long, silver-gray hair cutting a sharp arc through the sterile air.

Lucian struggled to turn his head as well, following the sound.

Deep within the pure white expanse, a petite figure stood. A young girl with short, deep blue hair was walking towards them, barefoot, her pale ankles stark against the featureless white backdrop.

“…Seele?”

Bronya’s voice was a whisper, a fragile thing carrying an unmistakable tremor. The moment she heard that voice, she had forgotten everything else—including the fact that she was still pinning Lucian to the ground.

“It’s me, Sister Bronya.”

Seele walked right up to them, her gentle eyes taking in their strange tableau before she offered a smile that was equal parts sweet and sorrowful.

Bronya’s throat felt tight. She stared at the girl, now so close, at those eyes so achingly familiar.

But her body… it was translucent, like an image projected onto smoke.

“Seele… is it really you?” Bronya asked again, her voice cracking, as if she couldn’t bring herself to believe the vision before her was real. And how could she? Why would Seele, lost deep within the Sea of Quanta, appear here so easily?

She reached out a trembling hand, wanting to touch Seele’s face, to feel her warmth, but her fingers passed directly through the girl’s translucent form.

“…?”

“Mhm, it’s me,” the girl’s smile remained gentle, but her gaze shifted, landing on the boy still trapped beneath her sister.

“Sister Bronya,” Seele asked, her head tilting in innocent confusion. “What are you… doing?”

“I…”

For the first time, Bronya was uncharacteristically at a loss for words. She glanced back down at Lucian and only then, through Seele’s eyes, did she realize how utterly compromising their position was.

She was straddling his waist, her hands planted on either side of his body, pinning him down. The bedding that had once been between them was gone, leaving them in direct, intimate contact in this strange, empty world.

“Wait, Seele! It’s not what you think!”