Talks

After dropping off Welt Yang and Siegfired Kaslana, I teleported back to Einstein as she was busy cleaning up remnants of honkais in the area.

"I'm back. I did ask somebody to contact you, so you figure out the location after. Were you able to contact Otto Apocalypse?"

"Not yet. You took less than 10 minutes, and as you might know, we are not in the best of relationship with Schicksal to contact their overseer in that short of a time."

"Eh, just make sure he hears word "Kallen", and he will be calling you in a heartbeat. Until then, I'm going to go somewhere warm since I don't have to deal with these honkai beasts." As I turned around to go somewhere, Einstein grabbed my shoulders, stopping me with her strongest grip.

"Where are you going? You're not going to help out?"

"Come on, you can handle them all, can't you?" I really wanted to rest after coming back from death, rescuing 2 guys from middle of nowhere, and delivering them from Siberia to North America then coming back. And I did all these without even fully adjusting my body.

"Still, you can make it shorter, right? So, help out, and I'll give you a warm place to rest and good foods to eat. Let's get this over with and deliver us to the place you dropped them off, then you can have get some sleep until that bastard contacts us back. Deal?" I considered my option as orphan with no family or place, nothing in my pockets, and body that should be taking in nutrition (though that can still be substituted).

"Throw in some money. I'm penniless."

"Deal." As soon as her words rang out, my shadows extended to the honkai beasts, ate them up, then proceeded to cover Einstein and the mechas, and teleport to the same base I dropped the other two.

"Here we are, so give me my food, money, and bed." Einstein seemed to be somewhat shocked at first, but then proceeded to look around. After realizing where she was, she started to type her tablet, then looked back at me.

"You were wasting so much of our time when you could have just done all that in an instant?" Now she was just pissing me off.

"Look, young lady, I don't know about you, but I had long day today. After dying from honkai overexposure in an experiment, I came back from dead just like less than an hour ago. Then I realized a sister-like figure went mad and want to destroy humanity for the pains and suffering caused by the supposed protector of humanity, then proceeded to rescue someone who wanted to KILL her before she actually killed other people, then teleport back and forth from Siberia to this base that I don't even know the name of. I had to do this while this 4-years old body can adjust to what I'm doing. So does that explain to you why I really don't want to give a crap about anything right now?" As Einstein looked at mutedly, she was barely able to nod.

"Good, now can you please give me some foods and and bed to sleep, or do I need to grab them myself and go somewhere I can be at peace?" Einstein gave me one last look, then turned to her tablet again as she spoke.

"Hey, this is Lead Researcher Lieserl Albert Einstein. Prepare foods and lodging for 2 people. Make sure to prepare plenty of them. Bring the mechas to the hangers, and don't forge to contact Tesla. Just tell her we are at 052 base. If she asks anything, tell her to come and hear it herself. Also, turn off all cameras for the path we are going to take. Bring over foods to Meeting Room 5 and leave us alone until Overseer of Schicksal contacts us or Tesla comes." Then she took her earphones out and put them in her pockets.

"We will get the foods and bed ready for you. They won't take too long, but until then, can we talk? Follow me." Then see her walk in what seems to be pretty thick door, I just shrugged and followed her. After 5 minutes of walking through corridors, we arrived at a big room with walls and table covered in glass, all of them most likely being screens.

"Take a seat." She said while indicating toward the left side while she went to the right of the table, side near where the doors were. Taking a pretty comfortable synthetic leather chair in cool room, I looked toward Einstein as she brought up holograms to take a look.

Seeing that she wasn't saying anything, I decided to close my eyes and get some rest. However, when I thought I could rest, bits of past that I tried to leave behind came back to my mind.

'DIE!'

'HAHAHAHAHAHA! Why am I alive? Why the fuck am I still alive?!'

'I'm in a great mood, I might just cut off your head and be done with it.'

'Why?! Why won't you die?!'

'What do you want?'

'Please kill me. Please just let me die.'

As the fragmented past came back, and I reached deeper and deeper into the past, a sudden shake got me out of the nightmare.

"You okay? You were frowning and sweating a lot." Einstein looked at me with concerned eyes, making me look at her bitter smile. Past that I let go is something that I could never abandon, now it's coming back with spite.

"It's okay. Just remembered some bad things." While it was obvious what she was thinking when I said this was different from what I was actually talking about, I wasn't about to correct her.

"Sorry, I guess you do need to take a rest. Do you need psychiatrist? Honkai corruption is a traumatizing event." She said as she looked at me on same eye-level.

"It's fine. Let's just get this over with, and I can have some food and bunker down." She hesitated a little, but when back to her seat on the opposite side, then brought up a report in front of me.

"Alexander Zaychov, also called Alexey by other children, experiment number 243. 4 years-old, brought in from Shaska village about 40 miles from the experiment site. Most of the people in the village died due to honkai exposure, leaving only 8 children. They showed signs of honkai adaptation or resistance, and survived. Upon learning of this, Schicksal researchers brought you guys for experiment. Is this correct?"

"I don't know about the distance, but yeah, other things are correct."

"Then were you close to Sirin Fedorov, or had any personal connection to her?"

"She was like an older sister figure. In a village that small, everybody knows each other." Hearing this, Einstein asked next question as she leaned on the table.

"Can you tell us any weakness she has?" At her question, I only gave her bitter smile.

"I'm sorry to say this, but we need anything we can use. Sirin Fedorov, currently the 2nd Herscherrer, has escaped our best chance at stopping her before she kills people in the rest of the world. She has fled to moon, and right now, we don't know when she will come back to massacre people."

"I know, but I don't think anything I have about her could help you. All I knew about her was before she became 2nd Herscherrer, when she was just a cheerful child who loved her mom, and was in pain during the experiment. Not the one who wants to, and has the power to massacre humans." At this, it was Einstein's turn to make a bitter smile. Before she could say anything further, I told her what I was going to do.

"Don't worry about her. After I meet up with Otto, or in about 10 days, I will finish my preparation, and stop her. After that, world won't have to worry about her destroying humanity in her quest for vengeance." Einstein did not say anything for a while, then barely said her next word.

"How?"

"How are you going to do that? Actually, how did you teleport and even kill those honkai beasts? Who are you? Are you actually even human? How could a human have those kind of powers? What do you want exactly?" Einstein vented as if the floodgate has opened. Her words rang aloud her confusion, worry, distrust, and most of all, fear. Fear that possibly, humanity is now facing something other than Herscherrer, an unknown, that could possibly be even worse.

"Am I a human? For now. Do I consider myself, human, sort of. How could I do what I did? Secret. How am I going to stop her? Secret. What do I want? Simple. Happiness." I laid my small back on this obviously backrest oversized for me. As I looked at Einstein on her eyes filled with mixed emotion, I continued languidly.

"Lieserl Albert Einstein, I'm not a beast that wishes to prey on humanity, nor a monster who delight in the suffering of mankind. Quite the opposite, actually. I like people. I wish them happiness, though some category are not included in that. Though I might not fit the bill of typical normal human, I am a person who love, laugh, despair and cry. And I know that as much as there is horrible people who would do something far worse than what was done to me, Sirin, and other children, there are those who still wishes for happiness of such children, and even sacrifice themselves for it. So I am not going to randomly go around killing people, nor will I let Sirin do such things. She is a good girl, and she deserves to stay that way."

The room was filled with silence afterwards, with just us staring at each other. Then, on the side, hologram appeared showing a man in his 20s.

"Lead Researcher, I've brought the foods and ... is everything okay?" After a pause, she replied as she closed her eyes then put her back on the chair.

After he brought in the foods and left, both Einstein and I ate in silence. Finishing them, I stood up as I went toward the door.

"Where is the place I can rest?"

"The guy who just came by will lead you." She replied without turning toward me, resting her body on the chair.

"Then, good night." I left the room as lights turned off.