January 23, 2008. Siberia.
Shiraha was wrapped in a thick down jacket, standing at the edge of the temporary camp Anti-Entropy had set up.
"So cold."
He glanced at Nee-chan beside him, still dressed so thinly, her snow-white thighs exposed. For a moment, he felt a pang of envy. Being a ghost really is great, no fear of cold, no fear of heat.
Elysia clasped her hands behind her back and suddenly bent down, her starry eyes curving into crescents. "Want to touch?"
Shiraha didn't hesitate. He reached right out and pressed his hand against Nee-chan's cheek. Her body temperature was still slightly cool.
Elysia smiled, her dimples showing, and didn't move. She dared to joke like this precisely because she knew Shiraha so well by now, knew exactly what kind of personality he had. At such a young age, he definitely wouldn't do anything too out of line.
He still had to farm affection points. As for what he planned to do once he'd farmed enough... Elysia chose not to think about that for now.
"Nee-chan, wait just a few more years for me. I'll definitely bring you back."
Shiraha offered his daily reassurance, giving Nee-chan confidence, and giving himself confidence too, then let go and quickly withdrew his hand back into his sleeve.
He retreated fast. Had to prevent Nee-chan from grabbing his hand again and holding it. It was far too cold out here. If they could avoid holding hands, better to avoid it.
Elysia hummed softly, no real syllables to it, just a light, lilting sound as she followed the little bundled-up figure ahead.
"Conditions are a bit rough. If Shiraha finds that his Nee-chan can't pick up any trace of Siegfried, we can head back to a nearby outpost first."
"We in Anti-Entropy also have an Executive stationed in Siberia."
Tesla, for her part, was used to this. She was an ordinary person too, but having been blessed by the Abyss Flower, her resistance to the cold was a fair bit better than the average person's.
Shiraha nodded lightly. "It's fine, Tesla-senpai. I can handle it."
He wasn't too concerned about Cocolia's orphanage. There weren't any real prodigies there, aside from Seele, that was. And Seele, in the early stages, was Cocolia's precious treasure.
Having confirmed this was indeed his Honkai Impact 3rd, Sin was just a background cameo. The Twins were fairly mediocre too, their upper limits only raised later through MANTIS surgery.
As for Bronya?
In 2008, Bronya was probably still living with her uncle, taking on military contracts as an assassin.
Tesla breathed out plumes of white vapor. "A while back, someone reported spotting an unfamiliar man in this area. He had a little white-haired girl with him."
"Should be Siegfried."
But "should be" was all it was. Russia in the Honkai world was a wretched region, wars raging nonstop, mercenaries swarming everywhere.
The simplest example: right now, Bronya and her uncle were also that exact same combination. And that combination was actually very common in present-day Russia.
Shiraha nodded. "Nee-chan says she's already working on it."
Elysia was off to the side, leisurely admiring the scenery.
The one actually doing the searching was Grey Serpent. He had a vast number of bodies. Once a task was posted on the Grey Serpent network, someone would always provide information.
In the biting cold, Tesla jogged back to camp. When she emerged again, she had two popsicles in hand.
"No rush to eat them. At this temperature, popsicles melt very slowly."
Shiraha nodded with half-understanding. Dr. Tesla really was... quite interesting.
No wonder she'd go for a younger man later in life. Though by the time she went for him, the "young grass" was already old grass too.
Biting into his popsicle, listening to his own teeth wail in protest, Shiraha walked deeper into the snowy woods.
His phone still had signal. The delinquent senpai had sent him a new location.
Shiraha noted the position, his expression turning pained. "No good. I can't finish this."
Elysia blinked. So?
It's just the two of us out here right now. Are you expecting me to eat it?
Oh! Right!
Shiraha raised his hand. Elysia blinked again. Shiraha's voice was innocent. "Nee-chan, if you don't eat this, the popsicle's going to go to waste."
Searching for someone was truly a very long, drawn-out affair. Shiraha had to find some amusement for himself and along the way, some for Nee-chan too, even if that amusement was just a little flirtatious.
"Eh~ Eh!" Elysia had just been about to tease the child when a flash of something from the corner of her eye caught her attention, a little girl. Her voice pitched upward abruptly. "Shiraha, stop feeding me for a second! I think I just spotted a promising seedling!"
She held the popsicle in her teeth and, after triple-checking that the girl who'd just flitted past around the corner was bare-legged, her excitement instantly spiked.
Think about it, in this frozen wasteland, even an S-rank Valkyrie would usually wear thick clothes, unless she'd entered combat mode or a berserk state. But that little girl who'd just walked past, she really was bare-legged! Could it be?! Could it be?!
She's a ghost too!
Shiraha paused. "A promising seedling? A Stigmata?"
Uh. Elysia froze. She hadn't actually sensed any Stigmata power. Then again, Stigmata wasn't something you could just casually detect.
The situation with Mei before had purely been because she'd encountered her previously.
"Where's this promising seedling?"
Shiraha noticed that Nee-chan had put on that blank little expression again. He understood instantly.
After all, you could always trust Elysia. But "always trusting Elysia" wasn't exactly something you could rely on either.
"Over there. She seems to be heading to the market."
Anti-Entropy's outpost wasn't in the middle of nowhere. Though this region was chaotic, the expected marketplaces did exist.
Schicksal was also searching this area. But the land here was currently in such upheaval that even Schicksal's operations had been forced to scale back considerably.
Shiraha took another bite of his popsicle, finished it off in two or three quick mouthfuls, and ran straight in that direction.
Elysia opened her mouth, then closed it. Well never mind.
This land truly was in utter chaos. Soldiers peddled arms on the side, the rich hired assassins on a whim, and guns and hard liquor were everywhere you looked.
Shiraha scanned his surroundings as he ran. Nee-chan followed right behind, her long hair streaming in the wind. She pointed at a rice shop.
"In an era like this, can a shop that only sells rice actually stay in business?"
Elysia murmured to herself. It seemed this era wasn't all beautiful after all, there were places like this, utterly devoid of beauty.
Shiraha didn't quite know how to explain it. In a world without a Second World War, the land of Russia had instead become the vessel for the writers' malice.
During the Second Eruption, it was explicitly recorded that fewer than a hundred people survived on the Siberian Plains. And among those hundred-odd survivors were Cocolia and Alexandra.
Beyond the Siberian Plains, the affected population ranged from thirty to a hundred million. Though after Cecilia's sacrifice, the final death toll stopped at just three thousand.
Other places would have to wait, wait for the Third Eruption, and then for Wind, and Ice, Star-Rock, Domination, Binding, one Great Eruption after another, to finally forge the post-apocalyptic ruin-punk that would become the city of Nagazora.
"I'm not yet full-grown."
Shiraha's voice wasn't heavy, but Elysia responded with a soft "Mm."
"Both Schicksal and Anti-Entropy need to get lost. If we want to reshape this world into the one we dream of, neither of these two organizations can do it."
Schicksal needed little elaboration. Shiraha didn't care what tragic motivations Otto harbored. In the world Nee-chan and he longed for, there could be no place for someone willing to sacrifice the entire world for a single person, who just so happened to have the power to do so.
This was his world.
As for Anti-Entropy, aside from the main core, not a single branch was clean. And World Serpent? Not even worth mentioning.
Elysia smiled sweetly. "Then if Nee-chan stakes everything on you, Shiraha... will you find that troubling?"
Shiraha tugged his scarf up a little higher. "I've said it many times. Nee-chan doesn't need to treat me like a child."
"As for Nee-chan" He smiled too. "Don't even think about slacking off. I'm definitely hauling you back."