Takumi woke with a soda can slapped between his palms and a constellation of half-used blueprints blinking on the wall of his villa. Himeko's red packet had arrived in the middle of the night like a comet—dense with orbital schematics, propulsion notes, and a dozen pocket theories on directed-energy systems that read like a love letter to applied apocalypse. He'd promised Himeko a careful negotiation with Herta; instead he'd drunk the knowledge down and built.
Now the world above him looked different.
He stood on the balcony and stared at the sky. Above the thin blue, a ring of compact hardware hummed faintly where nothing had been before. Satellite housings, communication relays, and three slender barrels that would have been ridiculous on a lesser morning—now loomed like quiet gods.
He had used the Herrscher of Reason.
Not as an armory, not as a god of ruin—but as a carpenter of consequence: logic, blueprints, law-made-physical. He had unfolded orbital lattice, fed the space with folded laws of motion and welded atoms into exacting geometry. Where flotsam of broken satellites and debris had once spun, Takumi's Reason Authority opened void-gates that plucked junk from orbits into imaginary space storage; the useful remained, reorganized into coherent utility arrays.
The phenomena itself was intimate: the air above the city shimmered, a thin skin of reality rearranged. Dust motes paused mid-fall; a bird's wing beat in a fraction slower; the hum of radios dipped and then steadied. It was the kind of reality-breath that felt like the universe flexing and remembering it could be remade.
Takumi's chest fluttered. A warm, intoxicating whisper rode the pulse of the Cocoon: You can fix everything. You can make order of chaos. You are architect and arbiter. For a moment a vision of absolute order unrolled behind his eyes—cities arranged like clockwork, an economic lattice without hunger, a civilization tuned to his will.
He closed his eyes, tightly, and said out loud to no one: "Not yet."
Not yet was a rule he had been repeating lately—three small words to cage vast appetites. He capped the activation and left a watch protocol: no firing mechanisms should be enabled without unanimous board approval and a containment vote. "We build deterrents," he told the empty air. "We do not become a weapon of our own making."
Then he returned to the group chat to check whether anyone had noticed the sky's new jewelry.
Takumi:
Morning. I built a few relay and defense platforms — purely defensive. Also… satellite cannons. Don't panic, they're off.
The chat flared with reactions.
Fujiwara Chika:
SATELLITE CANNONS!? WHY SO EXTRA?! 😱✨
Sagiri:
You built what in the sky? (;ﾟДﾟ) I hope they shoot confetti not cities!!
Bronya:
Are they legal? Did you register with anyone? Is there an orbital council?
Zhongli:
Remarkable. Be mindful: grand gestures attract attention—both benevolent and malevolent.
Akeno:
Ara~ I want to see fireworks from it. Just once. For aesthetics.
Himeko:
Firing code is strictly controlled.
And you used my satellite specs? You absolute madman—impressive work.
Takumi:
Himeko-neesan, your notes were delicious. I added restraint logic and governance layers.
Himeko:
Good. Do not fire them without my approval. Also bring snacks when you visit orbit; the view is amazing.
Takumi grinned. He liked the small domesticity of their chatter—someone joking about snacks while a planet-canon hung above his head.
He did have justification: Himeko's data had unlocked methods of tight-beam guidance, modular reaction chambers, and communication redundancy that let him do more than chew up old junk. The Herrscher of Reason let him fold the instructions into reality with a barely-conscious filing motion—map, fold, manifest.
He summoned a simulation in the library-lab: three barrels, each with a fail-safed aperture, power routing aligned to inertial dampers, and a control matrix that would refuse a firing input unless a five-member council authenticated a multi-key. He named the keys: Takumi, Bronya, Himeko, Zhongli, and a rotating public auditor (a SEED-run audit node).
It felt right.
And terrifying.
There was a subtle psychological effect the Herrscher left on him. When he made the orbital array into existence it was as if invisible hands put a crown at the base of his skull. The Cocoon thrummed with approval at the civilization-building potential; but more quietly, the Herrscher's cognition tasted the possibility of absolute answers. A voice in him that had been a whisper now suggested experiments that were immoral but efficient. He had to wiggle his fingers and feel each Authority settle back in its cradle.
He went down to the Academy while the satellites rotated lazily above, their small solar sails shimmering. Students milled about—Chika directing a small irrigation choreography and Sagiri fussing over a talisman printout that would decorate tomorrow's snack festival. The campus smelled like warm dough and ozone.
Bronya pinged the chat five minutes later, direct and cool.
Bronya:
What did you get from Himeko? I want details. Spill.
Takumi typed slowly, choosing words like instruments.
Takumi:
Propulsion notes. Beam guidance. Satellite defense architecture. A small set of orbital engagement protocols (locked). A lot of meta-physics engineering. I've baked a governance cap into any firing system.
Bronya:
Good. Don't centralize control. We should set audit nodes and multiple fail-safes. If Herta ever pressures for test data, do not give unilateral access.
Her last line carried a weight. Everyone in the group knew Herta's curiosity bordered on acquisitive obsession. Takumi felt the old smile return: cunning, but measured.
A small human moment intruded: Chika and Sagiri found him tinkering with a test console in the lab and immediately crowded around with snacks and curiosity—Chika insisting he let her paint a tiny decal on a test drone, Sagiri offering to illustrate a mascot for orbital safety.
"You really did it?" Chika asked, eyes glittering.
"Yeah," Takumi replied. "It's... defensive. And locked until the board votes."
Chika puffed her chest. "Then if anything bad happens, we can just—uh—throw snacks at it?"
They both laughed. Takumi felt the laugh like a balm. The godly urges receded.
Later, in a private channel with Bronya and Himeko, the conversation turned operational and sharp. Himeko's avatar flared with energy.
Himeko:
If you're going to host interstellar-grade hardware, you must account for cross-world electromagnetics. The Honkai signature in this world interacts strangely with directed EM fields. I've included dampers but you should expect anomalies.
Takumi:
Noted. I built in a variable-frequency field isolation net. Also added a Void buffer so debris goes to imaginary storage.
Bronya:
I want logs. Immutable, distributed. I'll host replication servers for the audit chain.
They arranged keys, cryptographic hashes, and SEED-mediated watchlocks. For hours they bickered over decimals—safety thresholds, legal clauses, what would constitute a quorum. It was bureaucratic and oddly comforting: civilization by committee.
At midnight Takumi unrolled a small test outside. The orbital cannon bore a non-lethal payload: a nano-cloud that would dissolve macro-debris into harmless micro-powder, then direct it into a capture lattice. He initiated the sequence; the barrel breathed like an animal. The math hummed through the cocoon. The barrel sighed and released.
The cloud blossomed like a phantom blossom at the edge of the atmosphere. Sensors blinked. Junk disintegrated into ordered dust. A satellite core bobbed and was captured. The sky quieted.
Takumi watched the telemetry and felt his hand shake only a tiny amount. The Herrscher's temptation returned—build faster, build more—and he pushed it back. He logged the event, sealed the audit trail, then sent the report to the Academy board.
SEED-1 (log):Leader emotional state: focused. Slight tremor in hands—indicator: excitement.
He closed his laptop and opened the chat. The others were saying things in half-jokes and GIFs.
Akeno:
So when is the first fireworks display?
Zhongli:
When governance and safety coincide.
Fujiwara Chika:
When Takumi buys snacks for everyone with orbital coupons!!
Takumi:
First diplomatic round: decide the council composition. Second: vote on action thresholds. Third: snacks.
Bronya:
I'll draft the charter. Bring me a blueprint of audit access.
He felt the small, human satisfaction of bureaucracy. The Cocoon's hum softened into a steady purr—not contentment, exactly, but patience.
Before bed, Takumi walked to the library-tree's terrace and rested his hand on the bark. The satellites were a ring of quiet guardians now, built from Himeko's knowledge, Bronya's audits, Zhongli's sanctions, and a dozen tiny human votes. He had done something enormous and terrifying and deliberately small at once: he had made power accountable.
He whispered to the dark, to himself more than anything: We will build slowly. We will teach better. We will not become the hazard we fear.
Above, the orbital barrels cooled, their apertures sleeping. Below, the Academy slept. Somewhere beyond the edge of the world, the anomaly pulsed once—small, inscrutable, patient. Takumi felt it like a distant heartbeat and, for the first time since he'd arrived on this ruined planet, answered not by making more weapons, but by drafting more lessons.
The next morning would bring council votes, audits, and a new set of missions for students at the Academy. It would also bring Herta, perhaps, and the negotiation dance. For now, under stars he held in balance, Takumi closed his eyes and let the quiet of responsibility settle like a blanket.