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Susannah leaned back in her chair. Her brow was furrowed and she balanced a pen on her lips.
She was contemplating deeply on what it all meant.
She had read the headline and stopped.
“Durandal the lost amnesiac twin sister of Kiana Kaslana,”
‘They were definitely—!’
Susannah didn’t want to judge, nor expose or rumor monger, the pair’s relationship. She had stumbled into an afternoon with Kiana, where she witnessed an intimate kiss between the pair. She thought back to the kisses she had received from Kiana thereafter.
“She was so sweet… I wonder if they didn’t know… or maybe it’s fine anyway…”
She spoke aloud quietly to herself. Her experience with Kiana lingered on her mind. Kiana had encouraged her to talk again sometime, but she had only known her own cowardice since.
The thought of being turned down mortified her to no end, so for now…
She filled out the paperwork in front of her with ease now that her thoughts had caught up with her.
‘Part Request 3A9 for Unit B1.77.9’
—
A few days later, Susannah arrived at unit B1.77.9, a Honkai early detection and warning system at the edge of Kolosten’s civilian outskirts. These units tended to be about four feet tall with concrete pylons in a protective formation, if vehicular traffic was expected nearby.
It didn’t look out of place next to similar utility boxes, so they were often right next to an area’s communications, power, or even sewage maintenance access. This unit’s advantage was the ability to cover a large area—if there weren’t interference variables.
Susannah stopped the small cart that she drove for jobs in and around Kolosten, some 200 meters away. She looked at the time: 11:24am. She placed what might appear to be an oversized traffic pylon down, and tossed inside the remote-activated Honkai flare.
Her first order of business was to test the unit’s detection ability. She looked around, walked about 20m away, and looked at the time again: 11:27am.
She had cleared this unit’s alarms for 11:30am until noon, so she patiently waited until the time ticked over. She pressed the small switch on the detonator at 11:31am.
The Honkai flare pushed up and outward a short-lived Honkai energy burst. The negative effects on the human body were limited to 5 meters for about 2 minutes after detonation. The diffuse energy would activate their Honkai early detection alarms at up to 300 meters. She readied her chemical flare gun: while no Honkai flare had yet caused an incident, precautions were taken in abundance.
After a few minutes of cautious observation, she heard the alarm sounding, and on her radio panel, sent the disarm signal. As the alarm continued to blare, she quickly checked the panel again and groaned.
She quickly ran to her cart and drove towards the unit—it was easier to find with the alarm blaring, at least. She ran up and inserted her key, and hitting the manual disarm switch, took a deep breath, and pulled her small megaphone to her mouth.
“Uh, we’re sorry for the disturbance, this was a maintenance test…!” Susannah looked around to see one old woman heading back inside her house.
Susannah set to work, reading the remote diagnostic tool’s alerts and clearing them one by one.
—
An hour later, she had finished. She cleaned up the area and noticed that there was a note and a small bag of cookies placed on the cart.
‘Thank you for keeping us safe, Valkyrie’
Susannah looked around, but she saw no one watching. ‘It was probably that old woman, huh…’
She smiled and held them to her chest. She didn’t usually feel particularly proud of the simple jobs, but this was something that was changing in her heart, little by little. She had an easier time now, due to some words ringing in her ears from a certain S-rank…
‘All Valkyries are beautiful. Your luster doesn’t come from hard-fought battles, but for something even more key: preparing for them. Without the Honkai alarm systems, there would be no one left to save. You are the first line of defense against the Honkai.’
Back at base, Susannah set the bag of cookies onto a small plate and put them on the small counter at the front desk, keeping the note attached.
She headed back to her desk and began working through the remote diagnostic logs. She saw Unit B1.77.9 reporting in with ‘All OK,’ and she smiled softly, but for just a moment. It was green, but many more units had yellow or red alerts that needed to be checked and repaired, and so her work would continue in earnest.
—
“Susannah,” a gentle voice came from behind and startled her. She turned to see none other than Captain Durandal, and she immediately stood up and saluted.
“At ease,” these words were murmured immediately, and Durandal placed something on the pinboard above her desk. Susannah looked to see what it was and realized it was the note from the bag of cookies.
Durandal spoke softly but clearly with poise. “I often see these on display for others, and your pinboard looked a little lonely. Forgive my willfulness, but I think you should wear it proudly.”
Susannah was in a bit of a daze when she realized Durandal had turned to her. “Oh, uh, yes, thank you, captain,” she fumbled the words out.
Before she realized what was happening, Durandal had reached towards her with her gauntlet and patted her softly on the head, twice, before turning around and heading back out with a small wave.
Susannah sat back down and immediately hid her now red face in her hands. She had barely registered it as it was happening, and she struggled to even recall the gentle gesture, but she knew it wasn’t a product of her imagination: she had received headpats from Durandal herself. She would’ve screamed if she was alone in her room, but she had to get back to work—so she took a deep breath, and resolved to scream it out later.
‘I haven’t… seen her do that before, have I?’ Her thoughts were slightly muddied, and her work was slightly harder as a result, but who would really blame her?