That is a sly reference to Einheart you detect. In much older drafts of the story that eventually became In The Service/A Numbered Existence, Einheart's first time attacking Vivio was taken as a serious attempt on Vivio's life and her bodyguards of the moment responded with lethal force. I have decided to save her for further use however.
Otto: Of Children and Monsters
It was no longer possible to have Vivio attend public schools. The problem was very simple: ever since she had acquired Wahrheit, it had become nearly impossible to keep people from pestering her about the Sankt Kaiser reincarnation deal. She had even been attacked by a classmate, to which Wahrheit had not responded well at all. The weapon was old, and it was powerful. Wahrheit had been created for a Captain of the Royal Guards at the height of the Belkan Empire's power. No one was entirely sure of what it was capable of, but they already knew the sword was essentially capable of operating unassisted; it could attack, defend, move, and even cast magic without being held.
This had alarmed a lot of people. Partially because they were capable of decision and hence in theory capable of deciding to turn on their masters, and partially because they were computers and could thus be tampered with to make them go nuts, Intelligent Devices were universally not capable of moving about on their own. To make matters worse, it was a Lost Logia on the level of the Book of Darkness. Wahrheit had been made for a Captain of the Royal Guards just before the fall of the Belkan Empire and incorporated technologies and techniques that no one alive understood.
Wahrheit also really didn't like Vivio's new magic instructor, appearing to recognize them. Otto wasn't entirely sure about them either. Could you really trust a Reinforce? Even one with their magic sealed? Drei was softspoken and polite and if her seal broke able to devastate cities with her pinky finger. And Vivio and Wahrheit together were headed for that level pretty quick, and Vivio was still growing.
The weight of Otto's responsibilities rested uneasily on her shoulders. She felt small and frail in this company of city-killers and people who could fight starships unassisted. And all too prone to error. Teaching Vivio, watching Drei. It wasn't enough to be just superhuman for a job like this. You needed omniscient gods for this sort of thing, proof against error and mistakes and failure.
It didn't help Sein didn't seem to feel the pressure, or at least feel it the same way. Then again, it would be very like Sein to not contemplate the costs of failure. Sein was the antithesis of Jail or Uno, a means and not a results person.
Drei was far too nice to be a planet-destroying superweapon. Otto had not yet once heard Drei raise her voice or even seem angry, despite the great restrictions placed on her. The Reinforce clone had a measured way of responding to things, but not one that gave the impression of care; Drei considered the possibilities and then did whatever she felt like. This just happened to be usually polite and soft-spoken.
On occasion, usually about the time people started to think Drei was a really nice and kind person who'd never do anything wrong and never hurt anyone, she'd say something that reminded them she had presided over the destruction of planets. Otto halfway suspected Drei did it on purpose, that the Reinforce clone actually enjoyed confusing people with her contrasts.
There were ugly truths in life. One of the ugliest, as far as Otto was concerned, was that Vivio had to learn to fight at this age. She was not unaware of the irony; Otto herself had learned to fight from the first moment she was conscious. Otto had accepted her lot in life; she was a Combat Cyborg, the name explained it. Fighting was what she did, what she was good at.
Vivio would probably be good at it too, someday, if she took after her mamas. But Vivio could also be good at other things. She was a clone of the Sankt Kaiser; she had the ability within her to do anything her forebear had done, and the Sankt Kaiser had been many things to many people: a solider, stateswoman, bringer of order, creator of hope, revolutionary, redeemer, life to the dying and death to guilty. Vivio could be so much more than a fighter.
But only if she lived to be. And New Belka's known hate for the Sankt Kaiser meant they'd almost certainly attack Vivio if they learned about her. The good news was that with Wahrheit, and it's ability to turn her back into her adult mode, Vivio actually had a chance to defend herself if a group of Rogue Wolkenritter came knocking.
Learning to fight meant learning to cope with fighting. "That first time, how did you feel?" Vivio asked. Her own first combat was rather hazy in Vivio's memory, which was probably just as well for Vivio's development as a sane and well-adjusted person.
Otto paused. "I felt...sick. Ashamed, honestly." She'd never talked about it before and the words poured out regardless of the fact she was dimly aware she should not be burdening Vivio with this confession. "I am not sure if it grew easier with time, or if it was the nature of those I fought, that mattered."
"It does get easier." Drei put in. "It can become too easy, if you let it." And that would be the other ugliest truth, that Drei existed. It was perhaps cynical of Otto, but even in a very imperfect world things like Drei, planet-killing magical abominations, should never exist. It came down to the fact that Otto simply could not conceive of a situation in which something like a Reinforce was necessary. Maybe convenient, but doing something because it was easiest was a hell of a way to go about a topic like destroying planets.
Not that Otto disliked Drei personally. It was more of the concept of her. "Sein?"
"Busy." Sein replied distractedly, watching the group of other students of the church passing about thirty feet away. The other Combat Cyborg took her duties as a bodyguard very seriously since Deed had left. It had been she who had pried the other child off Vivio when the fight broke out, and Sein had not done so terribly gently either. "The classes shouldn't be out at this point in time, and I didn't recognize that teacher."
"We haven't had any new ones." Otto observed worriedly. They were Combat Cyborgs. They always remembered a face. "Illusion?"
"A very good one if so." Drei put in. "I could even smell grass on their shoes. Illusions don't do that normally." Actually, they didn't do that at all. At least that Otto knew. It was, she reflected, quite possible that Drei had encountered illusory magic no one else currently living had ever seen. It was also possible Drei hadn't smelled anything and was lying, but if they were up to that point then Otto considered this job many different kinds of doomed already, and dying would be a blessing compared to witnessing first hand the consequences of failure.
Otto shook it off. Things weren't yet bad. That she knew about, anyways.
Out in public with these two made Otto's skin crawl. Because other people's skins crawled, mainly. Drei either could not nor would not make any effort to disguise herself, and the tall silver-haired visage of a Reinforce was among the most easily and widely recognized people in the universe at the moment.
With the minor problem with all that recognition was that it frequently caused momentary panic, considering the Rogue Wolkenritter problems. Otto caught a flicker of motion and a flash out the corner of her eye and started to turn.
"Arnage, no!"
Stabbing a sealed mage with a Divider would probably have still been a decent idea, if it had been most other mages. They wouldn't have been able to get over the stabbing part to make use of the unsealing part. Not this one. It took a lot more than getting stabbed just once to stop a Wolkenritter.
Black wings unfurled from Drei's back, a perfect replica of Hayate's own black wings, which Otto had seen once or twice. Drei's Barrier Jacket was a high-collared vest and long pants to armored boots, all in an ash grey. The vest appeared to be of a thick, hard-wearing fabric. The pants, too, suggested heavy material, not form-fitting but intended to provide some protection to go with mobility.
"That," Drei said crossly to Arnage, "was not appreciated." The next stab glanced off her Barrier Jacket. The Dividers cut connections between Linker Core and spell or construct, and so Barrier Jackets normally were no defense. But trying to cut the flow of magic from a Reinforce was like trying to cut a hole in the ocean with a butter knife. It didn't work, and it was profoundly dumb to try.
Arnage's bloodlust might not care, but Otto did, and approximately seven seconds after the first stab the Combat Cyborg hit Arnage like the slightly more than 113 kilograms worth of titanium alloy Otto was. The impact of a simple bull rush at speeds closer to cars than people broke several of Arnage's bones and sent her flying. A second Huckebein appeared, crouching over the first, as Otto advanced.
They had made a mistake, letting some of the Huckebein get away. "I can't let you do this." The second Huckebein seemed much more controlled. "You killed the rest of my family, and I'm pretty okay with that actually. But Arnage is all I've got left, cyborg. Over my dead body."
Both of them, here, now, the mistake easily corrected. Otto grinned savagely. "That is acceptable."
A hand came to rest on Otto's shoulder.
Otto turned sharply, expecting Sein. Instead she confronted a person who could not exist. The features were Vivio's adult form, but the eyes, the expression, were someone else's entirely. The sheer, inflexible will of the stranger hit Otto like a physical object. She had to avert her eyes from theirs; holding their gaze produced a distinctly unpleasant sensation, like being drowned, Otto's sense of self feeling like it was slipping away in the face of the stranger's brutally focused will.
The voice was not Vivio's either, older, more mature, with a confidence and an utter conviction Vivio did not have. Even Jail at his most maniac had never sounded so assured; it was as if the stranger was pronouncing the fundamental nature of reality, not the way she saw things. "You are a knight of Belka, and you will not strike a man who has not raised a hand against you."
She had been in her grave nearly four generations. But across the years, in spite of death itself, this could be no other but Olivie.
When Otto turned again, the two Huckebein were gone.