Bronya wasn't sure if it was just her imagination, but the moment Seele turned her head toward Shu, that suffocating, dangerous aura completely vanished.
Still, Bronya firmly believed that something was profoundly wrong.
Sure enough, a second later, Seele spoke, her face adorned with a perfectly flawless smile.
"Big Brother Shu, please don't laugh at Sister Bronya and Kiana. Right now, Sister Bronya and Kiana are targets that require intensive care and protection."
What the heck?
"'Targets that require intensive care and protection'?" Even Shu failed to keep up with Seele's train of thought, instinctively repeating the phrase.
"Sigh..." Seele let out a helpless sigh, sat down on the sofa, and cupped her face in her hands, squishing her cheeks slightly as she began to complain in a muffled voice.
"Sister Bronya simply doesn't know how to take care of her own body. If we let her continue abusing herself like this, eventually, her body is just going to break down.
"And if Sister Bronya dared to stay up all night playing games today, she might decide to stay awake for several days straight in the future. What if Sister Bronya suddenly dies from sleep deprivation?"
Actually... if it's just sudden cardiac arrest or a sudden collapse of bodily functions... that isn't really a major problem for me...
I just need to use [Wish] to repair her body, and she'll essentially 'respawn.' To quote a certain frog-faced doctor, as long as I get to her within three days...
No, no, no! That's definitely still a very serious problem! At the end of the day, 'sudden death' still contains the word 'death'! I'm only thinking this way because I'm in a good mood and have a high tolerance right now.
If this were me from before, just hearing Seele say the word 'die' would have spiked my blood pressure and caused me to mentally scream in panic.
After his logical and emotional hemispheres brawled for two rounds, Shu mirrored Seele's sorrowful expression and sighed in perfect synchronization. Ironically, they looked more like the fellow sufferers than the two terrified girls trembling on the sofa beside them.
"If Sister Bronya continues to disregard her health like this, then Seele will truly have to consider implementing certain... measures against Sister Bronya."
Bronya's spine slowly straightened. She didn't even dare to breathe too loudly.
Kiana tilted her head, preparing to mock Bronya for being a hypocrite. But before she could speak, Mei emerged from the kitchen, wearing her apron and carrying two plates of food.
"If Kiana continues to misbehave, I'm going to have to implement certain measures against her as well." Mei completely agreed with Seele's sentiment.
When dealing with bad children who refuse to learn their lesson, strict punishment is the only answer. Don't give me that "let generational trauma end with me" nonsense. What needs to end are the toxic tactics of guilt-tripping and emotional suppression.
If a kid needs to be disciplined, you discipline them. If you saw your own kid acting like a little demon, you'd probably hit them harder than your parents ever hit you.
"Waaahhh—!" Hearing Mei's icy tone, Kiana instantly transformed into an air raid siren, wailing in a pitch that transcended physical space.
However, likely because she knew she was entirely in the wrong, Kiana wailed for a good minute without uttering a single excuse. Eventually, she quieted down and curled up into a tight ball, desperately hoping the universe would forget she existed.
Mei completely ignored Kiana's dramatics.
Did people honestly believe Mei was the type to blindly spoil Kiana and agree to her every whim? That was Cecilia's ecological niche, not Mei's.
If Mei's personality were truly that soft and submissive, events like the Nagazora rooftop domestic violence incident and the Finality Crater battle would never have happened.
Is she a demure, domestic housewife?
Actually, she's faking it.
Consider this: up until now, out of the four people in the multiverse sharing this exact face—excluding a certain someone who gets lost trying to find the kitchen—Mei is the only one who actually knows how to cook.
And considering that lost Emanator has no sense of taste, and referencing Cecilia's canonical cooking skills during the Second Eruption... she's highly likely to be a kitchen hazard as well.
Furthermore, Mei herself once canonically stated that her own cooking used to be terrible...
The conclusion is glaringly obvious.
They say the way to a person's heart is through their stomach. In order to capture Kiana's stomach, Mei forcibly overrode her own fundamental inability to cook and successfully disguised herself as the perfect, domestic wife...
You can actually see the warning signs right there. If, back when Kiana had first stolen a bite of Mei's lunchbox, she had possessed the culinary refinement to realize Mei's cooking was genuinely terrible, she might have recognized Mei's sudden transformation into a master chef as the terrifying warning sign it was.
But she didn't.
Although the Kiana Shu knew hadn't suffered as much hardship during her wandering years as the original Kiana, she certainly hadn't eaten well.
After all, the Kaslana bloodline was a culinary disaster in its own right. Compared to her own cooking, Mei's mediocre rice balls probably tasted like a Michelin-starred meal.
As the saying goes, the highest-tier hunters often appear as the prey. Poor Kiana had been thoroughly played by Mei, genuinely believing she was the dominant "Top" right up until the Nagazora rooftop incident.
Though, to be fair to Kiana, she was the one who initiated the romance. Mei's true role was the intensely possessive, yandere "heavy woman" whose obsession spiraled wildly out of control once Kiana won her over.
But classifying relationship dynamics was a job for the Dementors. Right now, in both appearance and reality, Mei was the absolute, uncontested Top of this household.
"This time, it is only an Anti-Addiction minor lock. Seele hopes Sister Bronya will learn her lesson."
Seele paused, a hint of dangerous, suffocating sweetness seeping into her tone.
"But if Sister Bronya chooses to bypass it, it will prove that Sister Bronya cares nothing for Seele's worries, nor for her own health.
"If that happens, Seele will have no choice but to employ more... physical methods to restrict Sister Bronya's range of movement."
Seele, your phrasing is incredibly alarming.
This time, it wasn't just Bronya; even Shu was sweating bullets.
Physical methods... She doesn't mean strangling Bronya unconscious and calling it 'shock therapy' for sleep deprivation, does she?
Are kids these days really playing this rough?! Even with my ability to act as the ultimate safety net, you can't just play around with things like that!
"Big Brother Shu, Seele obviously can't stay by Sister Bronya's side every second of the day, and Sister Mei can only keep an eye on one person at a time. Therefore, I'd like to ask for your help."
Huh? You want me involved?
"I'm listening." Shu took a sip of his water. He absolutely refused to admit Seele's demeanor was making him nervous.
"I'd like you to help me supervise them," Seele said, pressing her hands together pleadingly, her eyes full of sincerity. "Your words carry far more weight than Seele's. Everyone is much more willing to listen to you.
"From now on, if they ever dare to stay up late again, or secretly play games, please promise you will tell me immediately, or directly confiscate their contraband. Will you promise Seele that?"
Shu: "..."
He glanced at the two quivering "quails" on the sofa, entirely ignoring the final, desperate glimmer of hope in their eyes.
"Sure." He agreed with completely effortless ease, entirely unbothered by the fact that he had been an active accomplice the night before.