Sunlight slipped through the gap in the curtains, laying a bright ribbon across the carpet.
Su Yu sprawled on the sofa in the most hopeless, deadweight posture imaginable. His injured leg—wrapped up like a giant cocoon—was propped high on the coffee table. He held his phone in one hand, the screen's glow tinting his pale face.
Su Yu: How's the device coming along?
After sending the message, he switched to his notes app out of habit and began piecing together—like a jigsaw—everything he'd "pried loose" from Kiana's scattered memories the night before.
The maze-like overpasses of Nagazora City.The rooftop of Chiba Academy, charred black by lightning.The silicon-like patterns on a Honkai beast's body…
His phone buzzed.
Mei replied.
Mei: The core control module is already soldered. I'm calibrating output power parameters now. As long as you don't demand it also brew coffee, it should be ready in three days.
Su Yu: That fast? I thought it'd take a week.
Mei: Kevin said you're in a hurry—like you can't wait another minute. And… I'm personally interested in this kind of "non-human suppression technology," too.
Mei: By the way, you still haven't given me the key parameter—target's exact weight and body size. Without that I can't set the current threshold. If I set it too low, it won't work. Too high… I'm not responsible for collecting the body.
Su Yu lifted his head. His gaze slid past the mess of design drafts and landed on Kiana, curled up on the other end of the sofa.
The girl hugged a cartoon cat mug filled with steaming milk.
"Hey."
"Hm?" Kiana looked up like a startled rabbit, eyes still a little dazed.
"How much do you weigh?"
Kiana froze. Then her guard snapped up instantly.
"Hah? Why are you asking a girl's weight? What kind of creepy question is that?"
She sounded fierce—already showing that familiar Kiana-brand tsundere edge—but for some reason, Su Yu felt strangely reassured by it.
"Dr. Mei needs the numbers to make the anti-rampage collar," Su Yu sighed, wearing a perfectly righteous expression. "Unless you want to be fried into a roast suckling pig—or have it do absolutely nothing—you'd better tell the truth."
"…."
Kiana went silent for a few seconds, then muttered through her teeth, as if forcing the words out.
"Forty-seven kilograms."
"Height?"
"One-sixty-three…"
Su Yu immediately sent the data to Mei, then added a note:
Su Yu: She looks light on paper, but her muscle density is probably way higher than a normal human. Her strength output is ridiculous. You saw how she used me as a dumbbell last night.
Mei: I saw. It was honestly impressive.
Mei: So I tripled the default current strength.
Mei: Biologically, it won't be life-threatening, but the instant paralysis should be enough to make her temporarily lose mobility.
Su Yu stared at the message for a long moment.
Mei didn't ask anything else. She didn't even ask why he wanted to put a limiter on Kiana.
He took a slow breath, then typed two words:
Su Yu: Thank you.
He tossed the phone aside and dragged his attention back to the tangled mess of his notes.
"Next," he said, "I'm going to walk you through our plan."
Kiana's gaze lifted from her mug to him.
"What plan?"
"The format."
Su Yu drew a shape in the air with his finger.
"The tech tree in this world is kind of… skewed. Higher than I expected. VR headsets and holographic projection are basically cheap consumer products already."
"So what we're making is an immersive holographic game."
"A holographic game?" Kiana blinked, clearly unfamiliar with the term. "St. Freya has holographic combat sims. Like that?"
"Similar, but not the same." Su Yu considered his phrasing. "Normal people can't play a Valkyrie-style combat simulation. Their bodies just aren't built for it."
"But they can step into the battles you Valkyries actually lived through."
Kiana nodded slowly, a spark passing through her mismatched eyes.
"Isn't that… better? Then they can truly feel what happened. What that world went through."
"Exactly. The immersion and emotional buy-in are basically nuclear-grade."
Kiana didn't ask how he planned to build it, and Su Yu didn't explain. He couldn't exactly say he had a cheat code running in the background.
Honestly, he felt like someone copying infrastructure blueprints: as long as he handled wiring and raw materials—collected enough "inputs" to keep the production line moving—the system would do the rest.
He only had to think about where to lay the cables.
The one who drafted the blueprint—the system—had a lot more to worry about.
"Then are we collecting materials again today?" Kiana looked at him.
"Yeah. Originally I wanted to take you to see Griseo again." Su Yu patted his notes. "The response to Three Years of Sakura was great, so I'm going to commission Griseo to keep drawing our manga."
"Manga?" Kiana perked up. "What arc this time?"
"The Third Honkai Eruption."
Kiana paused, then nodded. That was where her fate—hers, Mei's, Bronya's—had begun.
She was curious too.
How would Griseo draw the first meeting between her and Mei?
"But…" Su Yu patted his injured leg. "This leg needs a few more days. And you need rest too. Last night was… a lot."
Kiana didn't argue.
And she didn't expose him, either.
Sometimes, choosing not to call someone out was its own kind of kindness.
"So," Su Yu said, pulling her back from her thoughts, "we'll start with the easier part today."
"What do you mean?"
Su Yu set his phone down and leaned forward, looking at her seriously.
"Kiana."
His tone turned more formal.
"What kind of person do you think you are?"
Kiana froze.
"…What?"
"What kind of person do you think you are?" Su Yu repeated.
"Your personality. Your traits. Your strengths. Your flaws. How do you see yourself?"
The question was too big—like a bottomless pit.
Kiana opened her mouth, then found she couldn't answer.
"Why are you asking this?"
"Because what I'm making isn't just a game. It's your biography." Su Yu's voice stayed calm. "As the protagonist, your character sheet matters."
"Kiana Kaslana is the main character of the entire story. I need to know who she is. Only then can I put a living, breathing soul into data."
He paused, then added, "Sure, I can summarize based on what you've told me. But I want to hear what you think."
Kiana lowered her head, staring into her milk.
What kind of person am I?
She hadn't seriously thought about that in a long time. Thinking about it only made it hurt more.
At the end of that world, she had only known she was a "disaster."
A monster parasitized by the Herrscher of the Void.
A sinner who had killed the teacher she respected most.
A worthless burden who didn't even deserve air.
But those were labels she had carved into herself.
Su Yu wasn't asking for that.
Before she became a "disaster," before that thing woke up—
What was the Kiana who climbed walls and skipped class at Chiba Academy like?
"…I don't know," she whispered.
"I haven't thought about it in a long time. If I do, it just hurts more."
Su Yu didn't speak.
He simply leaned back against the sofa and waited—giving her time to rummage through the wreckage.
The silence stretched.
The wall clock ticked steadily. Sunlight crawled slowly across the carpet.
Finally, Kiana spoke.
"…Idiot."
"Hm?"
"Mei says I'm an idiot."
Kiana's lips curved with self-mockery.
"Impulsive. Reckless. Never thinks before acting. Doesn't know how to do anything. Fails every exam. Still insists on charging headfirst into everything, yelling like I'm invincible."
"Sounds accurate." Su Yu nodded. "Especially the impulsive part. We got a live demo last night."
"…You don't have to agree that fast," Kiana snapped, glaring at him.
Su Yu just smiled, not bothering to deny it.
"And?"
Kiana thought for a moment, like she was counting her sins on her fingers.
"…I eat too much. If it tastes good, I want to stuff it in my mouth."
"I've learned that one thoroughly. Especially your devotion to high-calorie food."
"…Loud. I can't stay quiet."
"Confirmed. Your volume is outrageous."
"…Can't cook. I can blow up a kitchen with instant noodles."
"Then you're perfect for me. I'm actually good in the kitchen."
Kiana lifted her head, irritated.
"What are you trying to hear? You want me to list my flaws so you can laugh?"
"I want to hear what you think the real you is." Su Yu's voice stayed serious.
"Not these surface labels. I mean your evaluation of your own soul."
Kiana's expression stiffened.
Her soul…?
She lowered her eyes to her hands—hands that weren't holding a weapon—and went quiet again.
"…I don't know," she said, her voice faint, as if it came from far away.
"I only know what kind of person I want to be."
"What kind?"
"Like Dad."
Her gaze softened.
"Like Siegfried… He looks unreliable most of the time, but when it matters, he can protect everyone. A hero."
She hesitated, then added, "I'm still… so far from that. So, so far. I can't even protect myself."
Su Yu nodded, oddly satisfied.
"Then that's enough."
"Enough?" Kiana blinked.
"Character-building isn't about stacking pretty adjectives." Su Yu picked up his phone and started typing. "The most important thing is motivation—what the character fights for, what she most desperately wants to become deep down."
"Once you have that core, everything else—being greedy for snacks, being an idiot—those are just the flesh that makes her lovable."
He looked up and gave her the same smile he'd worn on the rooftop the other night—annoying, shameless, and somehow painfully warm.
"An idiot paramecium who wants to be a hero… I think that's a great setup. Better than any flawless savior."
Kiana froze.
She stared at that smile and felt her heartbeat trip—like it missed a beat.
She turned her head away and buried her face in the steam rising from her milk, not wanting him to see her expression.
"…Who are you calling an idiot? I take back what I said earlier."
But the tip of her ear, peeking through her white hair, quietly—slowly—turned red.
....
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