On a certain day in August 2013, in Cocolia's Orphanage. Cocolia was conducting tests on the children of the orphanage.
Cocolia was a former high-ranking officer in the Soviet Union. She had achieved great military honors for the Soviet Union. After its dissolution, she married and had children in Siberia. She had a happy family and a lovely daughter. She also established an orphanage, taking in many orphans who were displaced by the collapse of the Soviet Union.
Every time she saw the children's smiles, Cocolia felt as if she had been healed. But the Second Honkai War destroyed all of that.
In the early stages of the Honkai outbreak, Cocolia exposed her superior, Colonel Alexei, for smuggling arms. However, Alexei colluded with the military tribunal, and she was put in solitary confinement for a month.
"To achieve the most important goal, one must give up some principles."
This was the last thing Cocolia heard from Alexei after being released a month later. A Honkai Beast destroyed the confinement cell and killed Alexei. Cocolia escaped in the chaos.
Unexpectedly, as soon as she got out, she understood the meaning of Alexei's words.
Not harming innocent people and children was once the bottom line for the upright and just her. But now, she was pointing a gun at a pregnant woman who had just lost her husband—Alexandra—threatening her to be quiet and obey her instructions.
The children of the orphanage still needed her. She had to escape from here at all costs.
That day, the entirety of Siberia was swept by the Honkai. In the instant the Herrscher launched its attack, more than 500,000 Honkai Beasts appeared on the Siberian plains.
Unfortunately, including Cocolia and the "hostage" Alexandra, less than a hundred people survived in all of Siberia.
When Cocolia rushed to the orphanage, she saw only a field of ruins. Her husband, her own daughter, the children in her orphanage—everything she had was turned to dust. She collapsed in tears before what was once the gate of the orphanage.
At that time, she didn't know about the Honkai, but she knew she had come into contact with the real world. On that snowy plain, she met Welt, understood what the Honkai was, and joined Anti-Entropy.
Cocolia secretly made a resolution. She would defeat the Honkai. She would avenge her children and ensure that no child would ever be displaced again.
Later, while leading troops to clear out Honkai Beasts in the snowfields, she came across a baby. Cocolia found her records in a house. Seele Vollerei was the baby's name. Her parents had been completely consumed by the Honkai, yet she had survived.
This made Cocolia realize that there were still many children displaced and on the verge of death on this snowy plain. Later, with the help of Anti-Entropy, she rebuilt the orphanage in the snow, naming it Cocolia's Orphanage. Cocolia took in many children who had survived the Honkai, giving them a home and hoping they could live well.
But it was clear that fate had begun to turn. The children who survived the Honkai all had good Honkai energy adaptability; they all had the talent to become Valkyries.
So, Cocolia placed them separately from the ordinary people. In Cocolia's Orphanage, she taught them combat and the use of Honkai energy. She would not ask the children to go to the battlefield, but she still hoped they could master the power to protect themselves.
But people change. Cocolia had changed too much in her quest for revenge against the Honkai. Although she could still maintain her original self in front of the children, treating them with the utmost gentleness, on the outside, to others, she had become a ruthless, unscrupulous, and cold-blooded witch.
As a radical within Anti-Entropy who conducted human experiments, Cocolia decided to sacrifice the few for the many, for the sake of the other children in the orphanage with poor Honkai energy adaptability. She decided to conduct the X-10 experiment to find a way to make the body fully adapt to Honkai energy, turning the children of the orphanage into a new human race that could survive in a world with the Honkai.
"Use your imagination, Seele. You can control it." Cocolia stood before a group of girls, instructing Seele, who was now a cute little girl.
Seele closed her eyes, concentrated, and began to use Honkai energy to shape mercury in the air into a huge scythe. But just as it was about to be completed, Seele opened one eye and sneaked a peek at Bronya Zaychik, who was still cheering for her.
*Mama Cocolia loves me very much, but she rarely praises Sister Bronya. I'll give this opportunity to Sister Bronya! Mama Cocolia will definitely praise Sister Bronya well.*
Seele quietly withdrew a portion of her power, and in the end, the scythe failed to form and shattered on the ground.
"I'm sorry, Mama Cocolia..." Seele was a little guilty and didn't dare to look at Cocolia.
"It's alright, it doesn't matter. Seele, this is just a test, don't be sad. Next."
Cocolia's eyes were sharp as a hawk's; she saw through Seele's thoughts in an instant. However, she wouldn't expose her, because she didn't want Seele to undergo the experiment. After all, Seele's personality was very gentle and timid; she always clung to her or Bronya. But these were all just excuses. It was simply because Seele was the child she had raised from infancy, and her favorite child was also Seele. Every time she looked into Seele's sea-blue eyes, Cocolia's heart would calm down. She always felt as if she had been redeemed.
"Seele is such a useless idiot."
The next one was Sin Mal. As soon as she came up, she mocked the previous Seele. Sin had heterochromia, with a gray left eye and a golden-yellow right eye. Her hair was also two-toned, the left half pink and the right half purple.
Sin then closed her eyes and began to concentrate on using her Honkai energy. After a short while, the mercury transformed into an exquisite clock.
The children around her showered her with praise, and our great Master Sin was now feeling a little smug.
"Hehe, this is a piece of cake for me from the Mal family. See that, idiot Seele?"
Sin Mal came from a Russian noble family. She lived in a villa, and her life was like a fairy tale. But one day, robbers broke into her home and murdered her parents in front of her.
In her despair, the Eyes of Sin that resided in her eyes awakened. In Sin's vision, people no longer had a human appearance but were transformed into the personification of their inner sins. A greedy person would become a twisted banknote, a gluttonous person a large, greedy mouth, filled with disgusting ugliness, as ferocious as the demons born from the seven deadly sins.
The sudden shift in her vision drove Sin mad. In her frenzy, she killed the robbers in an even more brutal way.
When people found Sin, they saw no sign of the robbers, only Sin holding a weapon and her parents lying in a pool of blood. The police found no signs of a break-in and no trace of the killer's body. The robbers Sin spoke of seemed to be a nonexistent illusion. Although it was hard for people to believe that such a young girl would kill her own parents, the rumors had already spread. Sin was shunned by everyone. Finally, two collateral relatives of Sin's took her in, enthusiastically taking on the responsibility of raising her. However, although everything seemed to have returned to normal, the original fairy tale was no more.