"Mom, can this butterfly also lead us to the future Father once spoke of?"
"Mom, don't go— Who are you? Don't... don't!"
The girl jolted awake from the hospital bed.
Looking up, she saw a brightly smiling older sister holding her hand.
"You're awake! The surgery was a success. You're already a beautiful girl now."
The Great Magician lifted the girl's hand and lightly brushed it against her cheek.
"Mm. The smoothness passes inspection. Expert's craftsmanship is quite good..."
The girl stared at Vill-V in confusion.
"You are...?"
"What's this? The classic amnesia arc? Well, you were unconscious for a whole month. It's normal for your memory to be a little scrambled."
[Magician] Vill-V conjured a mirror, reflecting the girl's appearance.
Ashen-white long hair.
Snow-white eyelashes that curled slightly upward.
A refined profile and a perfectly shaped face that made her features exquisitely delicate.
Her eyes shimmered like shooting stars, carrying a sacred radiance.
Her silver strands flowed like threads of moonlight, enhancing her beauty and purity, as though she were a goddess descended from the heavens.
[Expert] Vill-V brought over a tablet and pulled up the data.
"You didn't expect your appearance to change this much, did you? Honkai energy eroded your entire body. Your genes collapsed. We put in quite a bit of effort to restore you to a human state."
"I won't explain the process. You wouldn't understand it anyway. I'll just give you the conclusion."
"The scars from previous experiments, the skeletal deformities—all of that has been repaired."
"In other words, misfortune turned into fortune. You've reverted to how you looked before MOTH experimented on you."
"Although the Honkai energy has completely disappeared, your muscle and bone strength have been preserved."
"Your brainwave frequency has already exceeded normal human ranges. How it will affect your thinking is still unknown."
Seeing the confusion deepening in the girl's eyes, Expert stopped her prepared explanation—the comprehensive report on Ido's current condition—and frowned slightly.
"Did Scholar tamper with something strange again... Or did Id secretly feed you something you shouldn't have eaten... What do you still remember?... Never mind. Let Lecturer talk to you."
[Lecturer] Vill-V spoke in a steadier, gentler tone.
"Do you... feel uncomfortable anywhere?"
"No... I feel fine."
The girl's voice was soft and sweet, entirely lacking the stubborn sharpness she once had.
"...That's good. Here, have some warm tea. You just woke up. Take it slow."
Lecturer poured a cup from a thermos and handed it to her.
The girl took a sip.
"Mm... it's bitter... I don't like it."
Lecturer sighed.
In the past, Ido had been deeply impressed by Lecturer's "special nourishing authentic bitter melon juice." One sip would immediately make her stick out her tongue, then gulp down three bottles of water, declaring the juice poisonous.
"Do you remember your mother?"
"...Are you... my mother?"
All right. She remembered nothing.
"And your name... do you remember that?"
"..."
The girl suddenly clutched her head, her expression contorted in pain.
"Mm... so many voices... so many voices talking..."
Fragments flickered through her eyes.
Burning flames.
Herself running.
Men in white lab coats discussing something.
Lecturer quickly pulled the girl's small head into her chest and stroked her hair gently.
"Take deep breaths. You'll calm down slowly. I'll tell you a story. It's about a bluebird traveling through a fairy-tale world. Today it met a new friend, a little rabbit. They..."
Guided by her voice, the chaos within the girl's consciousness gradually subsided.
After she fell asleep again, Lecturer tucked the blanket around her.
I was too impatient. There's so much I want to say... but we'll take it slowly...
Over the following days, Lecturer frequently visited the amnesiac girl. She brought gifts, checked on her well-being, analyzed her current condition, explained basic common knowledge, and told bedtime stories each night.
When the girl's mental state had recovered significantly—enough that she could even play with dolls—Lecturer finally asked:
"Have you decided on your name?"
Just as Otto had done with Durandal, Lecturer believed that the girl's painful past was not what mattered.
She had endured a Honkai disaster.
Then her parents died.
Then she was taken by MOTH for experiments.
Each of those experiences could completely alter a person's life—let alone that of a seven- or eight-year-old girl.
Those experiences had shaped Ido's stubborn and obstinate personality.
Now that she had forgotten...
Let her begin anew.
Lecturer decided to follow Otto's example and allow the girl to choose her own future.
Hugging a Homu doll, the girl murmured softly:
"Projekt Bunny..."
???
Lecturer was stunned.
"Projekt Bunny," when transliterated from Siberian, meant "Bronya."
In other words, the name the girl had chosen for herself was Bronya.
So she wasn't Ido, nor the future goose—she was the duck after all!
Damn it. 8 > 50000. Hua's suffering day was about to arrive ahead of schedule in the previous civilization.
"Can you tell me why you chose that name?" Lecturer asked, pretending ignorance.
The girl buried her face in the Houu doll's head and said softly,
"Because... it feels familiar. Warm... It smells like Mom."
Vill-V immediately began investigating.
Sure enough, in dark web archives, she found traces of activity by the "Silver Wolf of the Urals" in the Ural Mountains and a ghost city. More detailed information was unavailable online, but this at least confirmed the existence of the Silver Wolf of the Urals in this world.
Most likely, the Silver Wolf of the Urals was Ido's mother.
No wonder she possessed such outrageous marksmanship.
No wonder she could tear apart her suddenly zombified husband with her bare hands, suffering only minor injuries herself.
No wonder she endured Honkai erosion far longer than ordinary people—while others would already be lying flat on hospital beds, she had managed to flee across vast distances with her daughter while evading MOTH's pursuit.
Yet in MOTH's experimental reports on Ido, there was not a single word mentioning the Silver Wolf of the Urals.
They had likely suffered a humiliating defeat at her hands and erased her existence from the archives out of pride.
Unfortunately, the true previous civilization counterpart of Bronya had already died in the Second Honkai Eruption.
Otherwise, Vill-V might have had a real thigh to cling to.
If Mei's counterpart, Dr. Mei, could uphold MOTH against Honkai, then Bronya's counterpart should have been no less formidable.
But for now...
At least there was a small leg to hold.
Vill-V looked at the girl before her—now restored to how she appeared before enduring MOTH's cruel experiments.
The more she looked, the more familiar she seemed.
Indeed, she strongly resembled Bronya from the Honkai game.
Vill-V could not help but feel fortunate.
To think she had managed to pick up a little Bronya in this previous civilization world.
Perhaps it was Bronya who had brought her that luck.
Otherwise, her fate would have been to die in obscurity within a MOTH laboratory.
Now, as she wished, she would inherit Bronya's life.
No.
This was her own life.
From this day forward, everything about Bronya would be written by her own hand.
—
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