Chapter - 46
Cecilia remained silent for a few moments
"He...he doesn't fight for humanity, he fights for his personal interests alone, and he's willing to sacrifice and kill anyone..." The Empress concluded "No one is safe around him"
"Then why did you leave Theresa behind?" Cecilia asked "Why did you leave me behind?"
Anastasia widened her eyes at the sudden question "Because...leaving was the right thing to do, I couldn't force to leave your lives"
"Did you asked us how what we thought about it? Maybe we would have followed you"
"Do you really think so? You would have followed me into the complete unknown? You would have been happy to abandon the possibility to see Siegfried again?" Anastasia shot back
"Maybe I wouldn't have...but Theresa...she would have followed you to the ends of the universe without questioning you" Cecilia replied "You know...since you left, many stopped trusting her, they treat her as a spy..."
Anastasia crossed her arms "Maybe it's true, leaving you two behind was a bad move...but now, everything has changed, I'm no longer what I'm used to..." she said before staring into Cecilia's eyes "Join me Cecilia...not as a soldier...nor as an Astartes...join me as a Sister" she said as a brooch depicting two crossed spears appeared in her hand "Join me as Cecilia Schariac, as Primarch of Spears of Terra legion. Your family will be safe, Sieg would follow you no matter what, and Kiana will never be experimented on"
"So she did notice" Magnus whispered looking at Anastasia's back of the neck, where the imperial stigmata was glowing brighter than ever
Cecilia was shocked and looked at the brooch as if it was going to bite her "I..."
"Think about it, Primarchs are rare Cecilia but also extremely needed" Anastasia said as she got up
"where are you going?" Cecilia asked
"the house that Sirin was kind enough to create for me in this illusion" the Empress replied as she started walking to the exit
"Wait..." Cecilia called stopping the other woman to stop her tracks "Why don't you stay here? For once there is no one chasing us..."
"Welp we should go" Kitten said
"For once, I agree with you" The Emperor said
"No please" Cecilia said looking at the group "I wish to know more of...you all..."
"Terrible decision, really" Magnus remarked
The rest of the night was spent talking, Cecilia heard the stories of everyone before going to check on Sirin. Anastasia and the others simply sat down in the living room, for the first time in a lot of time, Anastasia slept.
It was very early in the morning when she woke up looked at the clock and saw that it was 6 AM, which meant that no one was awake, she looked around herself, The emperor and the others were gone probably because they needed to do stuff in their universe and couldn't be always there to watch her.
Anastasia made her way to the kitchen and started making some breakfast for everyone, without thinking about it, she used her vectors to help herself a bit...everything was quiet until she felt observed
Sirin was standing next to the stairs, staring at the flying objects. Anastasia froze in place, she was sure that Sirin was probably considering what to do when suddenly "Are you even human?" Anastasia blinked a few times confused "Those hands coming from your back"
The Empress was sure that her vectors were at a frequency which made them invisible but she needed to defuse the situation...and so she let her body morph back to her original appearance, pink hair, red eyes and horns "I...don't know"
Sirin looked fascinated and sat down on the table "Do they know?"
"Who?" Anastasia asked
"The people you work for..." she replied
"those who tortured me or those you saw?" Anastasia asked causing her to raise an eyebrow "I was three when I was found, I killed my parents with these...vectors and the policemen who tried to put me down"
"Why did you killed them?" Sirin asked tilting her head
"There was...a voice inside my head...whispering to kill them...and I did" she replied "Then they sent some special soldiers and shot me here" she continued touching her right horn "When I woke up...I was being experimented on...then tortured...then tested...then experimented on and so on for twenty years"
Sirin widened her eyes "And then?"
"I was brainwashed" Anastasia replied "I was turned into their loyal dog, with my memories wiped out, I was used to destroying their enemies and be happy about it...then, my father arrived, he freed me and put me in front of a choice"
"What choice?" she asked
"Kill them all and become the monster they depicted me as or be free from them forever" The Empress replied "Now, they live in fear that one day I will come for their lives"
"Why didn't you kill them? What about the voice?" She asked shocked as she got up and stared into Anastasia's eyes
"I was free, no voices, no orders" Anastasia said calmly "I didn't want to give them the satisfaction of seeing me stepping on their level, they are no longer in the position to do anything to me because I don't need to even move to make them get shot by my soldiers"
"Why? Why don't you just destroy them all!? You're not human! YOU ARE SOMETHING SUPERIOR!" she replied
"They were superior to me and so they tortured me, they were superior to me so they experimented on me, they were superior to me and they brainwashed me" Anastasia said sternly "If being superior means being like them, I'd rather be dead"
Sirin slowly sit down and Anastasia walked in front of her and knelt down taking her by her hands gently "Sirin, I hope you'll never go through what I went through"as she said that she placed her hand on Sirin's shoulders "but if that happens, don't let it dictate how you live your life, don't let it keep you from being happy because once you taint your hands with the blood, you'll not be able to live a happy life" she said as her hair returned blonde, her horns disappeared and her eyes returned golden
Sirin remained silent for a few moments "What if I don't care about others?"
"What would your mother think of you? Or your friends?"
"What if I can make them understand?" the girl asked
"That's called brainwashing" Anastasia replied as she got up and gave her plate full of waffles
"is...mother also? like you?" Sirin asked as grabbed a fork and knife
The Empress shook her head "No...we are not connected by blood, we were both adopted by Ceasar"
"I see" Sirin muttered "And she knows about the experiments?"
"Yes...she was also...being experimented on" the other replied before smiling "But she's retired now, thanks to you and Kiana, you saved her life...I don't think I should have said that though...don't tell your mother please"
Sirin smirks "Well that will depend on how willing you're to make more waffles"
"Wow, do you know that's illegal to blackmail someone?" Anastasia said with a fake offended tone
"I'm a bad girl" the girl replied smirking before Anastasia made her more waffles
The two of them remained alone for a quite some time, but they didn't speak, Anastasia starting humming a bit while Sirin ate her waffles while thinking about what Anastasia told her, about Cecilia and then of her mother.
A strange feeling of fear gripped her heart...what would her mother think of her after all she has done...what her friends would think of her really? The ones she revived were just modified copies of them...then she noticed that Ceasar and the others were gone
"They had to go" Anastasia said as she placed more waffles in front of her "Their job almost never ends"
"What about yours?" Sirin asked tilting her head
"I took a few days off the see you all"
"Oh my! You're already awake?" Cecilia suddenly said interrupting the two "And you made breakfast!"
"Good morning Cecilia" Anastasia said offering some waffles "Want some?"
"sure!" the woman replied as she sat down with them "I heard you talking, mind telling me about what?"
Anastasia smirked "That's a secret between aunt and nephew" she said winking at Sirin, who just looked smugly at the pouting Cecilia
The three of them had breakfast, after quite a while, both Kiana and Siegfried woke up and after a brief meal they immediately rushed to play games on Kiana's brand new DS4
"Well since your sister and old man are too busy playing, why don't we take this time to head to the mall for some serious shopping?" Cecilia proposed causing Sirin to choke on waffles
"Kyaa! Mall? Shopping? Really?" Sirin asked
Anastasia smirked as she showed off her black credit card which caused both of Cecilia's and Sirin's to sparkle "I'll take care of paying"
"Well then! It's decided! We'll try emptying Ana's credit card!" Cecilia stated as Sirin nodded in agreement "Let's go change ourselves!" she said before storming upstairs with Sirin
Anastasia chuckled before picking up her phone which was ringing "Mister Yang" she said answering the phone "It's good to know that you're still alive"
"Empress" Welt replied with a calm tone "I'm glad to see that you're still you, the voices on your account seemed to be trustworthy"
"I'll take that as a compliment" Anastasia replied crossing her legs "Mind if I ask you what your plan is?"
"Me and my colleagues have prepared a Selene which should be able to suppress the Honkai energy for a while, during this time we'll extract the Herrscher cores" Welt explained
"Remove the death core" Anastasia said calmly "Try the others only after that, I will help Einstein with that"
"So you knew huh?" Welt replied with a serious tone
"I'm still in contact with my sisters, I'm aware of what is going on outside, soon my Sister Najenda will defeat the Judgement-Class Honkai, this would trigger a reaction within Sirin which would end our operation inside of here...but I already severed that contact and replaced it with a fake one" Anastasia explained "Now I need to recover her"
"You still think you can save her?" Welt asked sighing
"I'm sure of it" Anastasia deadpanned "She needs one last push, I've been applying my psychic powers on her mind to remove the Herrscher's influence on her since we made contact with her, she needs one final push...a dangerous situation...and a sacrifice must be made...but I can't do it, or all the work would have been for nothing"
The sovereign of Anti-Entropy remained silent for a few seconds "...tell me what you want"
"You'll know soon enough...for the safety of humanity, this conversation never happened, this job will be your own idea, and she'll blame you for what will happen" Anastasia clarified
"...I can work with that" Welt replied "Good luck Empress, I will try to not be too hard on you"
Anastasia hung up and sighed as she waited for Cecilia and Sirin to come down, it didn't take a while for them to show up "Ready?" she asked with a smile as the two nodded "Sirin why don't you try your new bike? Me and your mother will follow you"
Sirin's eyes sparkled as she nodded vigorously before heading out. Anastasia and Cecilia followed her and saw the girl hopping on her bike, already wearing the outfit Anastasia gave her, and drove off.