The distant roar of a motorcycle echoed outside. A silver-and-white mechanical beast pulled up alongside Kaito's ride. Bronya propped the bike up with one leg and removed her helmet, allowing her silver hair to cascade down like a waterfall.
If Kaito really was letting "relationship issues" interfere with work, she wasn't going to let their shared camaraderie as fellow bikers get in the way.
She'd dock his pay so hard it would hurt.
It was exactly 7:05 AM when Bronya knocked rhythmically on the door.
"Who is it?"
Kaito pushed the door open, and the sight of the beautiful girl standing there made him blink in surprise.
"Boss, please don't tell me you moved in next door."
Her status was way too high for that; no matter how you sliced it, Bronya was a genius producer.
"Where's your sister?"
"Just took her medicine. She's asleep."
Bronya held out a fruit basket. Kaito took it, intending to go wash some for her.
In the meantime, Bronya had already willfully pushed open the door to what looked like the bedroom. The room was pink, clean, and filled with a mysterious, pleasant fragrance—but it was empty. She let out a cold smirk.
Good thing her initiative had always been top-tier; she hadn't been fooled by Kaito's nonsense.
"Didn't you say your sister just fell asleep?"
Where is she? Did she vanish into thin air? Or did she transmigrate? But you usually need a truck for that.
Kaito took a bite of an apple and pointed toward the other room. "In my room."
"Your room?"
After politely closing the first door, Bronya pulled open the second one. Inside the slightly messy but organized room, a stunning young woman was indeed lying in bed. Even in her sleep, she didn't look particularly well.
Bronya froze. "Are you sure this is your sister?"
She looked at Kaito, with his black hair and brown eyes, then glanced back at the pink-haired sister who looked suspiciously like a certain popular streamer.
"Not biological. Sis picked me up next to a trash can when we were little."
"The paperwork for my household registration was a total nightmare later on," Kaito grumbled, handing Bronya an apple.
His casual tone meant it took a moment for the weight of his words to sink in for Bronya.
An orphan?
"Here, this is the psychiatrist I booked."
Kaito handed over his phone. He'd booked an appointment with a veteran doctor named Fal. He didn't intend to let his sister be "practice material" for a rookie. Call it discrimination against new doctors if you want, but he was sticking to it.
Bronya hesitated. Kaito hadn't been lying; things really were a mess at home.
"Why is she sleeping in your room?"
"Sis spent the night sleeping in the hallway. I didn't think too much of it when I found her there this morning."
"Why was she in the hallway?" Bronya found this even harder to understand.
Kaito pointed to his head.
Fine. The universal explanation—normal people couldn't possibly understand the logic of the mentally unwell.
"Get some rest, then. I was originally planning to hold a meeting once everyone was present to discuss the protagonist's character design."
Bronya patted Kaito on the shoulder. As a standard, professional company, they allowed for personal leave. If it weren't for the fact that they were slammed with work lately, she wouldn't have made this trip personally.
Protagonist design?
"If it's the Previous Era, I actually have a great recommendation."
That flawless pink color flashed through his mind, along with eyes that were pure sorrow mixed with a hint of murderous red. But that kind of design wasn't quite right for a protagonist; it was better suited for a secondary lead.
"What kind of design?"
"Raiden Mei."
Bronya: "..."
She almost lost her composure for a second.
Who? The Raiden Mei who already had a happy ending in Part 1?
"That's too much of a distraction from the new setting. It would trigger a backlash easily."
Bronya shook her head and took a bite of the apple. It felt tasteless.
Kaito pondered for a moment, then shook his head. "Boss, in your past games, Raiden Mei's character growth was always something people criticized."
This was an eternal debate on the forums. However, back then, Bronya had been too young and "green," so the attacks against her lacked a bit of staying power.
"Now is the time to wash away that shame."
"We choose her at her most vulnerable, most 'green' state before her growth. We have her search through history, learning about the cruelty of the past through constant battles. Finally, standing on the shoulders of everyone from the Previous Era, she witnesses everything and participates in that final, doomed conclusion through a mental simulation."
It sounded risky—like it could be dismissed as just another "Honkai DLC"—but Bronya was starting to feel tempted.
Of course she wanted to! What creator wouldn't want to take their past flaws and make them perfect?
But she hadn't dared to suggest it because it was so prone to drama and could easily end in a total failure. And the Honkai IP was something she absolutely could not discard.
"But the growth and the cruelty have to be kept separate. We'd need one or even several absolutely tragic characters to act as a foil, otherwise, it'll just turn into 'Mei's Personal Growth Story' instead of a cruel Prequel."
"If all else fails, we can just bury it as a hidden plotline—treat Mei as the dark thread that ties everything together from start to finish."
Kaito was like a mind-reader, constantly upping the stakes, tempting her logic, and bolstering her confidence until she was hooked by the past.
"Just take care of your sister. I won't count these next few days against your personal leave, and you'll still get paid."
A "devil's proposal" is always tempting. Just as an emperor's attendant always knows how to make the emperor happy. Though the analogy was a bit off, Bronya was genuinely excited.
As for how to balance the line between a DLC and a Prequel, that wasn't something they could decide in a casual chat. The writing team wasn't just there for show.
As for her?
She was going back to the company to officially set the new direction, perform the final review, and... contact Mei.
Thinking back, she had put all her best friends into her games before, which had quite an impact on their lives. Fortunately, Mei was very easy to talk to.
Seeing his boss about to leave, Kaito suddenly remembered the most important thing.
"Boss, by the way, is the new project missing a lead manager?"
Damn it, it was his sister's fault; her situation almost made him forget his promotion.
"I'll be handling it personally!"
Bronya turned back, her clear eyes shimmering. Her cold face showed a rare trace of a smile and confidence.
It was as if the "Chosen Bronya" of the past had returned—no longer the "Useless Bronya" who got knocked out in the top eight or top sixteen every year.
Kaito let out a sigh. Well, that's just great.
He returned to the room. After confirming his sister was still asleep, he put the helmet back on, ready for another hack-and-slash round.
The real-world frustrations were piling up; only the feeling of going "Musou" could help him fully relax.
As his consciousness sank, the scarlet red on the screen was incredibly vivid. His health regeneration was painfully slow.
His mangled body crawled unconsciously across the ground. The moment his awareness returned, Kaito instantly reconstructed his body—but this time, it was no longer a body of flesh and blood.
"Flesh is weak, but steel is eternal."
He was still in the same city ruins as before, though the boss seemed to have vanished after her sudden power-up.
"Whatever. I'll just play it safe and farm for a bit."
At the very least, he'd control his "Hive Mind" to devour every single experience point in this city first.