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March 11, 1930

General Staff Office, Imperial Capital Berun

Every morning, shortly before lunch, one of the office secretaries came around to deliver the mail that had arrived earlier in the day, which by then had been sorted and bundled. Every morning, Brigadier General Erich von Lehrgen reluctantly took his own pile from her hands.

Most other men of his rank that he knew had assigned their adjutant to the task of sifting through what was and wasn't critical. Lehrgen had plans, eventually, to hand it off, but he hadn't yet found the time to actually instruct Ernst on how he liked to prioritize his incoming letters. It was a vicious cycle - going through the mail himself ate into his time and thus he never had enough time to sacrifice so that he might teach someone else to do it.

Overall, Lehrgen wasn't one to complain about the various impositions of being a general. Long hours, too many decisions, too much responsibility - occasionally, they bothered him, but infrequently, like an old injury that only throbbed on a hot summer day when it was about to rain.

Out of everything, his least favorite part of the job was dealing with his own mail. The higher he climbed, the more he got. A few items demanded attention, of course, but most everything of true importance came from another officer, hand-delivered separately from the rest.

The thing with being a general, and one in charge of Operations, no less, was that there were an unending number of people interested in what he could do for them. He wasn't exactly receiving many cards thanking him or wishing him well. Journalists hoping he'd leak classified information, politicians hoping for his support, industrialists hoping to sell him something - those were the letters he received.

The latter type he handed off to Tanya. She had an eye for smart financial decisions and read every minute detail in a purchase contract down to the meaning of using a semicolon or a comma. The others he had to take care of himself, penning rejections as gently as he could manage so he didn't open the paper the next day to find a scathing editorial written about him.

Today, he saw a familiar stamp on an envelope in his pile. It was one that he'd been expecting to some degree. There was only one man the Imperial Army who would be entrusted with the task of designing a single-core orb powerful enough to compete with modern designs. As soon as the total ban on production had been lifted, Lehrgen had been waiting to see if Doctor Schugel wrote to him. He wasn't unaware that the man might request the assistance of his subordinate to help test his newest creation.

Schugel wasn't an Army employee any longer, but his lab received enough government funding that it was only a façade of separation. That meant he could hire anyone he wanted, including people who, like Tanya, were ineligible for military service.

Reaching for a fresh sheet of paper from the stack he kept on a corner of his desk, Lehrgen began forming a reply. No, Schugel could not have Tanya, and no, he would not reconsider. The last thing he needed was Tanya back in a state where she might begin to miss the good old days.

He blew on the reply to dry the ink, then folded it in three and put it to the side. He'd have Ernst address an envelope later.

An hour afterwards, a few seconds away from stepping out for lunch, he received a call from General von Romel.

"I hear Schugel wants Degurechaff to test the newest orb."

"...yes, sir. But I'm sure he can make do with someone else if needed."

How Romel had found out was a question for another day. It was entirely possible that Schugel had simply annoyed the switchboard operators enough that they'd given up and connected him directly.

"She was the only one who ever managed to use the Type 95."

"Which we still have in our possession," Lehrgen objected. "She can only use one orb at a time, designing something else that only she can operate won't do us any good."

"But without the 95, Schugel wouldn't have figured out how to produce the 97," Romel countered. "We need a miracle, and if anyone can pull it off, it's the two of them."

"But-" Lehrgen began, wanting to contradict his superior's logic, stalling as he thought up a rebuttal.

"Is she working on anything critical at the moment?"

"Ahh...well…"

"I'll take the hesitation as a no," Romel replied, answering his own question. "Make sure you do pass that request along to her, Brigadier General."

"Yes, sir," Lehrgen sighed, hanging up and deciding that he'd skip lunch after all.

As soon as he got off the phone, a way around the dilemma occurred to him - if Schugel could be persuaded to withdraw his request, Lehrgen wouldn't need to defy his boss to prevent Tanya from getting her hands on a military-grade orb again.

Schugel was apparently in the middle of a stroke of brilliant inspiration when Lehrgen called, because it took him almost ten minutes to come to the phone, and the only explanation he received was that the staff was too afraid to interrupt him.

"Brigadier General!" Schugel cried, in his overly excitable tone, as though they were long lost friends. In reality, Lehrgen had met him only a handful of times for a few minutes each.

"Doctor Schugel."

"So, when can I expect to see Degurechaff's face again?"

"Doctor," Lehrgen began rubbing between his eyes where he felt a headache forming, "I know you've had success with her in the past, but is it entirely necessary to use her for this?"

So far as he was aware, Tanya's inborn mana concentration was just about average, and it was only the Type 95 that made her so overwhelmingly powerful. The only thing she was unusually talented at when it came to actual combat was the ducking and weaving that made it look like she was leading the deadliest of all dances.

"Only she'll do," Schugel replied dismissively.

"We have a number of mages who are more powerful serving as part of our regular Army," Lehrgen reminded him. "It would be much simpler to reassign one of them to your lab. And they might have a better aptitude for a single-core orb than someone who barely remembers using those models."

"It's not a matter of power, General," Schugel breathed, in an oddly fervent whisper. "Only a blessed disciple who's heard the voice of the Lord will guide us to victory."

It took all of Lehrgen's willpower not to burst out laughing before he muted the receiver. The way Schugel said it, it was as though he'd expected any reasonable person to understand that logic. The man's conception of Tanya as some sort of holy maiden was so hilariously backwards that Lehrgen idly wondered if Schugel would answer "orange" when asked what color the sky was. Her nickname wasn't the Angel of the Rhine for a reason. If there was someone whispering in her ear, it definitely wasn't God.

After a few more iterations of Lehrgen politely asking whether they might find a substitute and Schugel refusing to be the least bit compromising, he gave up. The man was as stubborn as Tanya was when she wanted something.

Passing by her office several hours later, en route to the coffee pot, he heard her muttering crossly to herself and paused for a moment. That she was given to talking to herself didn't unduly concern him. He did that every once in a while himself. She really ought to take more care, though, with what she said when her door was half-open.

"I'm going to fucking murder him," Lehrgen heard, accompanied by the sound of pacing.

Whoever this unfortunate was, he could only pray it wasn't him. He didn't think he'd done anything recently that would anger her so, but there was always the possibility that she'd found out about some of the choice commentary he'd used about her in the past. Suffice to say, whoever it was, things weren't looking good for Tanya's moral progress. This was the opposite of the direction they needed to be going.

He listened for a few seconds, as the details of how this murder was going to be carried out grew increasingly explicit. He had to give credit where it was due: the woman was inventive. Once she reached the point of, "I'm going to rip out his intestines and strangle him with them," he decided to interrupt her.

She halted in place when she noticed he'd walked in. He didn't even have to ask.

"How was this deranged buffoon of a scientist allowed to reopen his lab?" she yelled, shaking the stack of papers she held in her hand, the same ones he'd handed her at the end of their afternoon meeting, along with a warning that a pet project of Romel's might supercede her current assignments.

Well, I guess she'll do the work of rejecting the request for me, Lehrgen thought with a wry smile. He'd make Tanya break that news to the doctor. One place he did not want to be was stuck between the two of them. One or the other would certainly shoot the messenger.

He couldn't for the life of him deduce why she hated Schugel with such a passion. The man was brilliant, if a bit touched in the head, but on that count, the two should get along perfectly. Birds of a feather and all that. Lehrgen found him…trying...to deal with, but had never had the least thought of wanting to commit some sort of violence against the doctor over it.

"I think General von Romel is simply worried that we'll only have you and the Type 95 to rely on unless he gives Schugel leave to work as he pleases," he soothed, before Tanya marched up to the other man to shout at him too and got them both in trouble. "As it stands, you're the only useful mage in the country."

She froze and blinked a few times. After a few seconds, she visibly forced herself to relax, which let Lehrgen do the same. She could hate Schugel all she liked, so long as she did it peacefully.

"I was afraid of what I was walking into when I heard you plotting a gruesome homicide. Is he really all that bad?" Lehrgen asked curiously.

"Sir, please understand, if you knew how many times he tried to kill me, you'd agree," she huffed, making a fist that crumpled the edge of the papers she was holding.

Good, Lehrgen thought, congratulating himself silently for having handled the situation so well. From the looks of it, she wasn't feeling at all favorably towards agreeing to spend a few weeks in Schugel's presence, but if Romel called to ask why, she wouldn't yell his ear off.

The next morning, he received the papers back, and when he gave them a perfunctory scan, he had to put them down and lay his head on his desk in defeat. The proposal was accepted and signed at the bottom.

Damn, he cursed. He never would have thought, after that display, that she could cool her head enough to go along with Schugel's demands. It was a mistake to have tried to bring her vicious tirade to an end. Once he'd snapped her out of it, she'd applied her dispassionate logic to herself just as stringently as she did everything else.

With a quiet groan of misery, he brought his head back up, eyes landing on the burgeoning pile of papers that never left the trays on his desk. With Tanya gone, he wouldn't have near the capacity to keep up with them.

March 17, 1930

Elinium Labs, Kruskos Air Test Base, Trelbin, Imperial Province of Brandenberg

Kruskos Airfield, also known as the last place Tanya ever wanted to return to, came into view as her car approached. The Lowlands, the Southern Continent, even Stalyngrad - without a war going on, there was no reason to avoid them. But Kruskos was still the home territory of the Empire's most dangerous citizen. Her only hope was that she had enough name recognition by now that Schugel would have to think twice before killing her.

From the beginning, her right to refuse this assignment had been a false choice. The Imperial Army needed Schugel. Schugel was irrationally convinced that he needed her. If he threw a tantrum and refused to work until Tanya got there, it would just extend her already untenable position, which her superior had so kindly made clear. Until they designed a new orb, she was the country's last resort in the event of disaster.

A reasonable man of science wouldn't hold up research because he couldn't use a specific lab rat. To anyone expecting Schugel to behave reasonably, well...there was nothing to say but good luck. At this point, it was better to just get it over with.

"Tanya!" Schugel screeched, as soon as she entered his lair.

"Doctor."

"What a tragedy," he said, with a shake of his head, putting his hand on her shoulder. "Because of our enemies, you can no longer wear God's creation."

"The real tragedy is that they forgot to ban you and your rockets from the country," she retorted, brushing his hand away. As neither of them were Army employees any longer, she couldn't be bothered to give him any deference.

Worryingly, a few tears formed in Schugel's eyes.

"I knew it!" he declared. "I knew you would bring the wisdom of the Lord with you."

Honestly, she had no idea what nonsense he was going on about. All she'd done was insult him, and this was the result. He needed to go see a doctor. Or - he was a doctor, so more specifically, his brain needed to be donated to science so that a real professional could examine what had gone wrong with it.

Clearly, losing the war hadn't done anything to shake his faith. Before he started telling her about how it was all God's plan or whatever, they should get to work.

"Do you have an orb for me or not?"

Proudly, he handed the latest model over to her. She wanted to deny it, but the truth was, Schugel's orbs were works of art. Every manufacturer's model looked basically the same from a distance, but once you were close enough to see the interior, his handiwork was unmistakable.

The design was elegant, but looking at it, there was nothing special. It was just a fancier-looking version of the Volcker Type 13 everyone had been issued standard at the beginning of the war. She'd have to add blatant patent infringement to Schugel's list of misdeeds.

Evidently, he couldn't contain himself when it came to symbolism. He'd modified the standard mana receptor port into the shape of an upside-down cross. It was a nasty habit to force others to hold onto religious trinkets.

"Give it a try," he ordered, a wide smile on his face.

Since she knew the maker, she could only wonder what sort of defects lay beneath the surface. Even if it looked normal, she couldn't help but be apprehensive about something as simple as activating the core.

"Internal temperature stable," one of the other scientists confirmed, once a healthy flow of mana was running through it.

"Output within parameters," said another.

Tanya couldn't relax just yet. The Type 95 hadn't usually destabilized until she was already perilously high in the air. The real test would come soon. And she wasn't doing that one without a parachute and protective gear.

Once she was suited up, she lifted off, her feet leaving ground as she rapidly rose.

Flying was, in a word, thrilling. No matter that her history of being in the air was poisoned by a number of unpleasant memories, there was nothing quite like flying under her own power. It was the ultimate form of freedom.

Her orb wasn't giving any signs of misbehaving, so she ascended just the way she was accustomed to until the air started feeling thin.

Checking her gear, her altitude was only 4,500 feet. She might have gone up in a matter of seconds, but really. She was out of shape if she had to take a break this low.

She let herself hang in the air for a few minutes, until the oxygen level felt normal again.

"What's the altitude limit on this?" she asked, when she felt ready to go higher.

"Should be 7,000 feet, ma'am."

How nice it was to be addressed by a respectful signaller instead of shouted at by Schugel. He must have been busy basking in the glory of the Lord or something, because he hadn't tried to make her do anything impossible yet. She could gain height at a reasonable pace from here on out.

Barely over 5,000 feet, she ran into her first problem. She'd known it was bound to happen eventually. She couldn't go any further. It wasn't a matter of oxygen, just propulsion. Still, if she'd made it this far without anything going wrong, she had to start wondering if she was dreaming, and she hadn't even woken up to start her first day at Elinium yet.

No - she didn't need to wonder. The next thing the radio signaller told her was that she had permission to descend back to 4,000 feet and go through a set of standard spell-building exercises. There was no doubt about it. Her mind had escaped into an unrealistically pleasant fantasy as a coping mechanism.

A single-core orb couldn't handle spells with the complexity Tanya was used to, so she got most of them right on her first try, even though it had been two years. The lab put her through her paces as far as maneuvering around, so the exercise was somewhat reminiscent of the rigors of basic training. But, by the time she'd touched down for lunch, nothing had exploded on her yet.

Tanya handed over the orb so it could be recalibrated. This was how a lab with a prototype was supposed to work. Safely engineered tests and incremental improvements based on the data that was collected. She was really moving up in the world if the personnel at Kruskos were afraid of harming her.

After lunch, it was the same old thing, except she made it about 500 feet higher before gravity tied her down. The next day and the day after were much the same. Finally, someone must have given Schugel a good talking-to. She'd been concerned for no reason.

Of course, when Being X is involved, that wouldn't be the case, Tanya muttered to herself shortly after she finished her lunch on Friday.

I'd much rather have gotten a layoff notice, she thought glumly. Giving out bad news on a Friday afternoon was the preferred way for HR reps too afraid to answer hard questions to let go of employees. Schugel apparently took the same strategy with his own company.

"Now, if you give a firm press here," Schugel instructed her, "you'll open another port."

He already had two of the damned orbs hooked together. He was too grandiose to stop there. Now that he was confident that he'd calibrated the individual cores correctly - she hit maximum capacity yesterday, and reconfirmed it that morning - he wanted to skip ahead to another quad-core with nothing in between.

Tanya knew she'd had a good reason not to like the cross design on the bottom of the mana receptor. That was exactly the piece that locked into the side of another orb. If he put all four of them together, they'd interlock into a sort of grid.

"Excuse me, Doctor," Tanya said calmly. Despite her tone, she didn't feel calm. It was more like she was too dumbfounded for other emotions. "Don't you think testing two at a time should be the next step?"

"Nonsense," he replied. "Fear not, the price of failure is only eternal paradise."

Riiight. Seeing as how she had already died once, Tanya considered herself somewhat of an expert in the field. She was more confident than ever that promises of heavenly bliss were the work of some brilliant con artists. Nothing was more lucrative than selling a product you never had to deliver. That aside, if Schugel would like to take a trip to the afterlife to see for himself, she'd be more than happy to personally send him on his journey.

"I'm not sure the Army will accept that when you tell them I won't be coming back," she warned.

"My child. If you pray earnestly to our Savior, he will not turn his back on you."

Hold on. She didn't need to bring anyone else into this. Being X never mentioned any family members, so they could keep their distance. Even if someone like Jesus started off alright, after two thousand years of living with Being X, he would have to be a total nutcase.

"Maybe next week," she said, faking a yawn. "For now, my stamina won't handle more than dual-core."

On the plus side, Schugel accepted that excuse. Regardless, she was still a guinea pig for a new style of multi-core orb. She considered making a quick call to her office, but if the top brass disagreed with Schugel's methods, they wouldn't have sent her here to begin with. Even if she got Lehrgen to take her side, he'd made it clear enough that Romel wanted this done.

Reluctantly, she walked back onto the test field. Before she even got off the ground, the orbs went haywire.

"You're doing it wrong!" Schugel shouted, having taken control of the radio himself.

"Doctor, you can't expect me to get it right if you can't tell me how it's supposed to work."

"Theoretically, the mana can loop between the cores to prevent the second one from overheating."

Theoretically. The place to talk about theoretically was in a classroom or a lab. Theoretically, cars should stop for pedestrians, but everyone still looked before stepping off the curb.

She could understand what he meant - the second orb in the chain was where the excess mana pooled - but that didn't give her much help in figuring out how to reroute it. When the cores had been contained within the same shell, the process had happened almost automatically, but with two distinct devices, it wasn't as simple.

Well, I have to give it a few real tries before I report back to Romel that it's impossible, Tanya sighed, waiting for the orbs to cool down before she ran her mana through them again. This was going to be a long month.

March 24, 1930

General Staff Office, Imperial Capital Berun

Unless they'd been out at an all-night party, no one who was having a good day was ever on their third cigarette by eight in the morning.

Exactly at the hour, Erich von Lehrgen picked up the phone and began dialing. The morning paper still sat untouched in front of him, unfolded because he'd intended on reading it, but had been unable to maintain the concentration necessary to do so. Every few words, his mind would drift back to worry over what sort of tragedy he'd unwittingly authorized, and whether he'd completely ruined any chance that his opinion would ever be trusted again.

Impatiently, he drew smoke into his lungs as he waited for someone to pick up the phone on the other end. A question had been burning a hole through his stomach all weekend. He'd almost phoned Tanya's apartment so that his mind could be freed, but had decided against it. He didn't want to start a habit of personal phone calls between them.

"Brigadier General von Lehrgen for Tanya Degurechaff," he said, as soon as it was answered.

"Sir?" she asked, a few minutes later.

"Just calling to check how things are going," he said, clearing his throat awkwardly.

"Miss me already?" she asked cheekily.

"Is it as…bad…as last time?" he asked, rolling his eyes at her last comment despite the seriousness of the inquiry he was making. This was what had kept him awake at night.

He didn't know exactly what had possessed him to do it. Something about her vehemence over another assignment to Elinium Labs, something about the way she'd said, "if you knew," some sort of morbid curiosity, he couldn't say. All he knew was that he'd put in an application to review the records from her testing of the Type 95 less than an hour after he'd received her signature on the paperwork he'd given her.

It had taken until this past Friday for someone to dig them out of the archives, but they were duly delivered to him, and after he was finished work for the week, he'd locked himself in one of the rooms that had the necessary equipment to watch the recording.

What he'd seen had almost made him heave up the lunch he'd eaten several hours earlier. He'd had to force himself not to turn his head away as over and over again her arm was shredded down to the bone, she sustained burns that melted her clothing into her skin, or a small, crumpled body was picked up off a field and carried to a medical tent when the parachute failed to open and she hit the ground hard enough to shatter bones and rupture organs.

Somewhere in his mind he knew there was little difference between this and having agreed to send her into battle. But firefights she'd often survived unscathed. At Kruskos, she hadn't stood a chance.

He remembered receiving her requests for transfer back to the front like it was yesterday. At the time it had come as no surprise to him. He'd approved it as quickly as possible, thinking she was itching to get back to those skies that rained blood, worried what she'd do if they didn't allow her to indulge herself. It had taken a few tries to push it through, since she was the best candidate for testing, but he'd never stopped to wonder if there was another reason behind her repeated letters.

All she'd been trying to do was escape what was torture by even the most narrow definition of the word. The Rhine Front had been unquestionably preferable to that. He'd gone home Friday shocked that she hadn't gone through with any of her plots to murder Schugel. Quite frankly, the man deserved it. The mad genius was too useful to lose, but after this call Lehrgen planned on going directly to Romel to suggest that some oversight of the doctor's methods be put in place.

No matter how low his opinion on Tanya's fitness to be called a human being had been at the time, he never would have allowed it to proceed in good conscience had he been aware of the gory details. The sorts of things he'd seen in that footage were the type you wouldn't wish on your worst enemy. He may not have felt much sympathy for her then, but he liked to think he would have drawn a line somewhere, and cruelty on that scale would have been over it.

"...no," she said after a second, in response to his question, dragging Lehrgen away from his memories. "I was worried at first, but after some adjustments this weekend, everything's stable. I won't bore you with the details, but he had to restrict the input to the primary core below its technical capacity to get it right. I didn't know he had it in him to make something normal. It's just slow going trying to calibrate it correctly."

"Good," Lehrgen said, letting out the breath he'd been holding, "good. I – I didn't know, Degurechaff. I swear to you I didn't. I looked up the archive footage last week. If I'd known, I never would have passed along the request that you go back to Kruskros. And for the record, I don't think most of your other superior officers knew either."

They'd heard rumors that not everyone survived a stint at Elinium. They all had. But the part of the Army that handled weapons development had never been candid about what they had to have known they were turning a blind eye to.

"I - ohh," she said with surprise, a surprise that hurt to hear in her tone. "Well, I appreciate the concern, but I'm happy to report that in this case it's unnecessary. Unless he starts asking me to work on the quad design again, in which case..."

"If things change, I'll have you out of there as soon as you say the word," he promised her.

"Thanks, sir, though I hope for my own sake it won't come to that."

A few weeks later, Tanya was returned to his care.

The Empire could now boast a working version of a new orb. Technically, it only had one core. They would be produced individually, leaving the inspectors none the wiser. The trick was, these orbs could work in tandem, so if and when it came to it, a mage would be issued two and they would be calibrated to resonate with each other. Schugel might be deranged, but he could get the job done.

"Is everything alright, sir?" Tanya asked, twenty minutes into their first meeting of the month.

Lehrgen shook himself. She'd caught him staring. He'd been trying to see if she showed any signs of being abnormally stressed or tired. Regardless of what she'd said about letting him know if things got worse, he didn't trust that she had a healthy concept of when it was and wasn't appropriate to complain.

"Just wondering if you were free this weekend," he told her.

He was practically drowning in work without her help. An extended week in the office would do wonders for his pile of papers, but he didn't want to ask if she was still exhausted.

"If...if you don't mind, Serebryakov will be released from the hospital Friday afternoon, and I told her I'd be there."

Furtively, Lehrgen looked at the mess of documents on the table in one corner of his room. He'd had to put them off to the side where they didn't look so imposing. They can wait, he thought, tamping down the anxiety that had popped up instantaneously when he thought of how many people were awaiting responses. He finally had a chance to do the right thing for once.

"Then take a long weekend," he offered. "Thursday through Tuesday. Get her situated somewhere comfortable."

"Are you sure that's alright?"

He just nodded in response. The word yes wouldn't come out of his mouth. Being so far behind on work was very far from alright.

April 27, 1930

Vilmersdorf, Imperial Capital Berun

It wasn't far between Lichterfeld and Vilmersdorf. Barely more than a ten-minute taxi ride, or a few stops on the U-Bahn. It was busier in Viktoriya's neighborhood than it was in Lehrgen's own - the streets were populated by shops and apartments instead of endless rows of single-family homes - but all the same, it was safe and clean, any impecunious residents tending more towards the starving artist type than the criminal sort.

The spring afternoon rather pleasant, Lehrgen had elected to make the hour's walk from his home instead. A bit of flânerie never hurt anyone in moderation. After the winter, anything that offered a reasonable excuse to leave the confines of home and office was welcome.

All the trees along the way had been in various stages of blooming. He'd given himself an extra hour to stroll through the botanical gardens along the way. He couldn't remember how many years it had been since he'd remembered to stop by at the right time of year.

He'd even done away with his uniform for the day. Despite the fact that they were designed for physical exertion, they weren't the most comfortable form of attire, liable to make the wearer stuffy in the warm sun.

Of course, Lehrgen would never think of dropping in on a woman unannounced, so Viktoriya would be expecting him. He'd called a few days prior to ensure the visit wasn't unwelcome.

Ostensibly, he was there to check in on her and see how she was getting on in the new apartment, ask if she needed anything beyond the financial assistance he was already providing. He'd asked Tanya a handful of times whether there might be a good time to give her a quick hello in the hospital, but she'd never gone through with arranging anything.

He didn't know Viktoriya well enough to spend much time fretting over her health, but she'd always given him the impression that she would at least give a courtesy call to him if the situation were reversed, complete with cookies or the like.

Lehrgen wasn't coming empty-handed himself. He'd picked up an array of tulips from the nearest store, though they wouldn't come as a shock to the woman receiving them. He'd asked if there was anything he could bring, and she'd apologetically explained that heading out on her own to shop was still stressful, so if he didn't think the request too odd, that she'd like a reminder of spring while she was homebound.

A bouquet was a small price to pay given that he had somewhat of an ulterior motive in visiting.

He knew Viktoriya at least somewhat shared his opinions on both Tanya's ability to induce terror and her fitness for civilian life. Their motives may have been different - Viktoriya would want to see Tanya happy for her own sake while Lehrgen feared what might happen in the future if she weren't - but in the end, they could both agree on the same outcome. He'd come to ask Viktoriya if she'd be willing to make somewhat of an unusual effort to encourage her friend to acquire a few hobbies beyond networking and drinking coffee, both of which were related to her primary source of current joy: working for the Army.

He gave his name to the doorman, who let him pass without further issue. Belatedly, Lehrgen realized that with flowers in hand, he probably looked like he was picking up someone for a date. Not that it really mattered what anyone else thought. Viktoriya knew that wasn't the case.

Brightly lit and with a breeze coming in through the open window, his first impression of the stairwell he walked up was favorable. He'd been a little concerned about leaving Tanya to her own devices in choosing an apartment for Viktoriya after seeing what she'd chosen for herself, but apparently when she wasn't spending her own money, she did alright.

He knocked twice at the door, and as soon as it began to open he put his gift out in front, presenting the fragrant tulips first, which meant they went right under the nose of a woman they were not intended for. The person standing in front of him was none other than the one he'd planned on having a strategy session over. She did not look amused by either his presence or the fact that he'd just presented her with the spring's best flowers.

"What a surprise," she said, leaving out the word unwelcome, which she so clearly wanted to say.

She hadn't moved from the doorway. It blocked him from entering, and she didn't look like she was of a mind to invite him in.

"Sorry, Tanya!" Visha exclaimed from somewhere behind her friend. "I didn't realize you'd still be here, I forgot to mention anything."

"I see," Tanya said, stepping aside. "And to what do we owe this visit?"

He'd like to remind her that it was in fact his name on the lease, but he had a feeling that wouldn't go down well. It was out of the question that he mention his real intention for coming over either.

"Just stopping by for a quick hello," he replied mildly. "Wanted to see how things are going."

"I'll keep you updated," she stated flatly.

"Would you like anything to drink?" Viktoriya asked from her place on a couch, reading the tension and trying to break it.

"Just water, thank you," he replied. "I won't overstay my welcome."

Tanya went into the kitchen, though not without a glance back at the two of them.

"I think she's getting the wrong impression..." Viktoriya said, looking down at the tulips still in his hand and scratching the back of her head awkwardly.

No surprises why, Lehrgen thought miserably.

"I'll just-"

"Please don't tell her what I said," Viktoriya begged. "I don't mean to hurt her feelings. I must seem very helpless right now, I'm sure she's just being overprotective."

It wasn't really his business, but for Viktoriya's sake, he hoped Tanya wasn't planning on hovering over her like an extra-deadly older brother figure forever. The poor girl would end up alone in old age on accident. He liked Viktoriya's company well enough, and wasn't blind to the fact that she was exceedingly comely, but even if he had any intentions towards her, the thought of having to pass through the gauntlet of Tanya's trials would put him off.

Knowing Tanya as he did, it was impossible to imagine she'd do anything other than try to hold interviews for the position of Viktoriya's boyfriend. Anyone who made it that far would be subjected to quarterly performance reviews, and if a progression to fiancé or husband was desired, they'd need to undergo a follow-up fitness assessment.

Tanya returned momentarily, water in hand, both in a glass for him and in a vase for the flowers, which he passed over to her when she motioned for them.

"So," Lehrgen said, clearing his throat, "moving in went alright?"

"Very easy," Viktoriya confirmed. "Tanya just stopped by this morning to pick up some groceries and get another lesson in Rus. We lost track of time."

"Oh," Lehrgen replied with surprise, "you never mentioned you were learning."

"I'm not very good yet," Tanya muttered.

"I think you're just delaying because you're afraid I'll move on to teaching you to bake once you've mastered it," Visha said, with a devious wink.

Tanya made a noise of protest in the back of her throat.

"Don't worry," Visha continued, laughing at her friend's miserable face. "I'm good enough for the both of us. And if I taught you, you might stop visiting me."

"That's not true," Tanya protested. "That's not the only reason I come over."

"I know," Visha smiled. "But it is one of them."

Proving her point, Tanya snatched a cookie off the plate on the coffee table and took a bite.

Lehrgen had never had much of a sweet tooth, but he picked one up himself and then stood up to leave. Viktoriya didn't need any guidance from him. She was already working wonders. Tanya had actually seemed offended by the suggestion that she valued the other woman's friendship less than her baked goods.

"I'll head out too," Tanya said, standing up and brushing her pants off. "Let you have some peace and quiet."

In awkward silence, they descended a flight of stairs and left the building. They'd go different directions once there, but for now, she was likely headed to the same U-Bahn stop he was.

Just before they were in sight of the station, the smell of freshly-grilled wurst caught his nose, and a pang in his stomach reminded him how hungry he was. With the hours he'd been keeping at work during Tanya's absence, it hadn't left him time to buy groceries. He'd had nothing besides a few snacks all day.

"I don't have any dinner at home, so I'm going to grab some here," he said, nodding over at the food stall.

Instead of bidding him good evening and continuing on her way, Tanya stopped.

"I'm sure Visha would have been happy to host the both of us," she said, smiling as though she wasn't trying to drive the point home. "Unless there was any particular reason you wanted to speak with her without me there…?"

Lehrgen's heart skipped a beat, mind immediately jumping to the conclusion that whatever strange intuition she had been gifted with had clued her in to the fact that he'd come over to discuss Tanya herself.

No, he berated himself a second later, I just made her think I didn't eat because I was planning on inviting Viktoriya out with me.

He motioned for Tanya to come with him while he got his food. This would cause nothing but trouble if he let it linger and become a sore point between them.

"It was just a friendly visit," he mollified, once they were seated on a bench stabbing at a tray of sliced wurst together. "Just wanted to make sure she was getting on alright. And see the place I'm renting."

"I wasn't trying to say you can't visit," she sighed. "You just surprised me is all."

"She mentioned on the phone that she was sad she wouldn't be well enough to visit the park nearby until next spring," he lied, avoiding the truth that Viktoriya didn't want told. Her exact words to him had been I don't think Tanya cares about little touches like that, so I feel silly asking her.

For lack of a better word, it was oddly endearing that Viktoriya was still so concerned about impressing her former superior that she was less embarrassed to ask him to do it.

"I thought it would be nice," he continued. "I didn't mean anything else by it. Just to be clear, I'm not...ahh...interested."

Although if I were, it would be none of your damn business anyway, he muttered internally.

"Alright, if you say so," Tanya agreed, sounding entirely unconvinced.

He couldn't really blame her. No matter what he might say, a single man showing up at the home of an attractive single woman just before dinner, flowers in hand, made his explanations sound like a hastily-formed excuse.

Well, if she wouldn't take his word for it, there was another avenue he could try. Tanya was the sort of person who put logic above all else. He could expect her to understand that as his most useful employee by a wide margin, he wouldn't do anything that would endanger the peace of their working relationship.

"Anyhow, even if I were, I wouldn't ruin things between us by getting involved with your friend."

"I-" she started, drawing in a breath of protest.

"It's fine," he stressed. Whatever she was about to say - I don't mind if you two are together, I didn't mean to come between you, or something of the sort, it wouldn't be the truth, just a harmless lie meant to soothe any hurt feelings he might have over the implication that she would try to stop the relationship. That she cared enough to worry about losing her only real friend to him meant more than anything else. "I know how it looked, so I didn't want you going on with the wrong impression."

"Thanks," she said, with a sheepish smile.

The rest of their meal was finished in companionable silence, as was their walk to the subway under the setting sun. Another potential disaster with Tanya averted.

A/N It's sort of played for laughs in the LNs, but it goes into enough detail that it's clear Tanya got fucked up badly by the Type 95 a fair number of times before it was stabilized. The descriptions are pretty disturbing when you really think about it. Lord Kelvin's story Paragon delves into it really deeply if anyone's interested.

B/N For clarification's sake, since this story pulls from the LNs, Tanya only has an average amount of mana, as opposed to the anime/manga, where she is more exceptional.