Bernadetta perched herself atop the bridge to the Goddess Tower, her mind racing as she fiddled around with a tiny box in her gloved hands. Times of rest such as this had grown scarce since the start of the war, and even rarer still were times where the small purple haired girl willingly remained outside the personal sanctuary of her room. In the young Ms. Varley's mind, she was in the midst of the most important decision of her life as she nervously scanned the night horizon around her in hopeful anticipation.
"This has to go perfectly… This has to go perfectly…" she continuously whispered to herself in an effort to calm her nerves, tightening her grip on the container she carried to ensure it didn't suddenly fly open.
"Ah, Bernadetta." a soothing voice called out to her from the chapel's balcony. "Please, forgive me for arriving so late. Claude's war council simply didn't know when to let me go."
"N- no, that's okay Byleth; you didn't keep me waiting too long." Bernadetta slowly stood up from the side of the bridge, her heart now beating faster with each passing second. "Do… do you think we could take this conversation inside?" she beckoned to the imposing tower behind her.
"Of course. I have been rather curious to know what you wished to speak with me about ever since you threw that paper ball at me from across the dining hall earlier today."
"Well, y-you looked so busy at the time and I was really strapped for options, so-"
"No, I understand." Byleth softly interjected as he held the door open for his companion. "I have been meaning to apologize for not stopping by as of late, especially after… well, you know."
"That's… actually part of the reason I wanted to bring you here tonight." Bernadetta clasped her hands together with a downtrodden expression on her face. "Honestly, as panicky as I can be most of the time, I think I might be more afraid right now than I've ever been before."
"I'm sorry. I know I should have done more-"
"You have nothing to apologize for! Er, that is to say…"Bernadetta took a deep breath before looking Byleth dead in the eyes. "Witnessing so many of my old classmates die at the battle of Gronder really put things into perspective for me."
Byleth quietly nodded in understanding.
"I'm just starting to realize that if I had stuck around with Edelgard's empire… I probably would have died on that field the other day too. I'd have been scared… alone… and fighting for a cause I didn't even believe in."
"I'd imagine there were other students that must have felt the same way you did…" Byleth faintly responded, a look of guilt forming across his face as his former pupil confidently presented him with the closed box she had been keeping all night.
"I know… That's why I've decided I want to live without regrets." Bernadetta slowly opened the box… only to find that it was completely empty inside. "No… Oh, Gods… I- I didn't drop it off the bridge, did I?! Ugh, why now?! This is the worst possible time-"
"There's no need to worry." Byleth reassured the panicking girl before him with a warm smile. "I believe this is what you're looking for. It seems you dropped it right outside your door." he held out his hand to reveal an elegant, jewel-encrusted ring. "I'm… really happy for you."
"Yeah, it's... no, wait; you've got the wrong idea!" Bernadetta hastily shouted when she noticed her former professor's smile beginning to fade. "I… I got this ring for you, and nobody else!"
"You… would you truly…? Byleth's eyes widened and his mouth hung slightly open in response.
"I know this is usually supposed to be the other around and all, but I at least wanted to use this as a personal statement." Bernadetta shakily reached for her soon to be fiancé's hand. "You've given me so much to believe in and… I just don't know what I'd do without you. I want to spend every waking moment by your side from now on."
"Bernie… I'd love nothing more than to share my life with you."
"By…"Bernadetta quietly whispered with tender tears crawling from her eyes as she took hold of Byleth's other hand and leaned in for a kiss…
Bernadetta's blissful dream was brought to an abrupt end by the sound of a loud yelp and a resounding crash over by the window. Without missing a beat, she instinctively bolted up from her bed, grabbed a dagger she had been keeping nearby, and lit up a candle to find none other than Monica, whose body was bound by a rope and hanging upside-down from the ceiling.
"Uh… hi there. Would you mind helping me down from here?" Monica greeted, trying and failing to wave her hand at the utterly bewildered owner of the room.
"You!" Bernadetta angrily pointed her dagger at the redhead. "You thought you could just come back and finish me off while I was totally defenseless, huh?" she bent down to pluck her finger on a hidden tripwire situated just above the floor. "Well, I'm not having any of that tonight!"
"I don't know what you're talking about!"
"D- don't try to play dumb! You literally tried to kill me yesterday!"
"What, you're still hung up over my little forest ambush? I just wanted to play with you for a bit…" the redheaded intruder pouted with all the grace of a scolded toddler. "If it makes you feel any better, I didn't bring any knives with me this time… I've officially come in peace."
"You just wanted to… ugh…" Bernadetta sighed in exasperation. "What are you even here for?"
"Edie was really mad about that tiny scratch I gave you, so she wanted me to apologize."
"By breaking into my personal sanctuary in the middle of the night?! What is wrong with you?!"
"I dunno, Edie asked me that exact same question too…" Monica thoughtfully pondered to herself. "You would have run away you saw me anywhere else, though! You're actually a lot faster than you look, you know?"
"This is getting ridiculous…" Bernadetta thought to herself. "Maybe this will actually be the best time for me to dispose of her before she becomes a problem."
"And how exactly do you intend to explain the sudden disappearance of a new student?"
"I could… dump her body in the river and make it look like an accident…"
"Yes, an accident that will inevitably be traced right back to you."Sothis sarcastically reprimanded."I believe your best course of action would be to keep her alive to extract valuable information from her. Perhaps you could even befriend her along the way."
"Wha- no! That's a terrible idea!" Bernadetta vehemently protested. "You can't possibly expect me to make friends with this raving lunatic!"
"Would you prefer to take your chances with the old librarian instead?"
"…Good point." Bernadetta reluctantly receded. "I still don't like the idea of this though…"
"Uh, hello? Bernie? You're kind of spacing out down there."
"You do not have the right to call me that." Bernadetta growled, her voice dripping with barely concealed venom.
"Geez, you sure are cranky tonight." Monica innocently shrugged to the best of her ability. "Was it because I interrupted your little wet dream? You were moaning your professor's name in your sleep pretty loudly. It was kind of uncomfortable to listen to after the first thirty seconds..."
"I must admit, that is rather disconcerting…"
"You stay out of this!"
"I think we're done for the night." Bernadetta firmly declared as she reached up to cut the rope hanging her unwanted intruder from the ceiling, causing her to fall to the floor with a forceful thud.
"Oogh, thanks Bernie." the redhead was met with a lingering silence as her unwilling companion wordlessly picked her off the ground and carried her over to the open window. "Oh, and before I forget, Professor Hanneman wanted to see you first thing in the morning!"
The next thing she knew, Monica found herself getting unceremoniously thrown out the window like a paperweight. "…Aren't you going to untie me?" she expectantly looked up at Bernadetta, whose hands were already lingering above the windowsill.
"No." the lilac haired girl flatly stated before slamming the window shut, breathing a sigh of relief now that she'd finally banished the invader from her room.
"There goes my sleep for the night… at least I won't have to worry about any more intrusions, right?"
"Hey, Bernie? What's all the commotion down here? I could hear you thrashing around from up on the second floor!"
Bernadetta's head whipped around in alarm as the voice of her house leader voice rung out from behind the front door. "Wha- Claude?! I- it's nothing, really! Don't come in, it's not-"the girl's warning fell on deaf ears as the man of the hour deftly unlocked the door, only to fall into the same trap as Monica the moment he set foot inside.
"…Would you mind explaining this to me?"
"I really need to make some changes to my security system…"
"This is most fascinating… it seems your wound from yesterday has completely disappeared!"
"Well yeah, it's nothing special…" Bernadetta bashfully rolled up her sleeve as Professor Hanneman excitedly paced throughout the room. "I've always been a fast healer, you know?"
"After seeing how deep that cut sunk into your flesh, I suspect there may be more to this miracle than meets the eye…" the esteemed crest scholar pondered aloud, much to his visitor's continued discomfort.
"I- it must have just looked worse than it actually was..."
"That may be so, but there is one surefire way to find out." Hanneman gestured to the device in the center of the room. "Please, hold your hand out over the Crest Scanner."
"Wh- why would you need to know that?" Bernadetta nervously asked. "You already know I have the Crest of Indech, don't you?"
"Indeed I do, but there have never been any reports of this Crest aiding in the body's natural healing process…" the aging professor held out his own hand to reveal the sigil of the Crest in question. "Perhaps it is possible that your particular Crest has evolved in some way… a mutation, if you would."
"So... that's gotta be it, right? Problem solved!" Bernadetta briefly glanced back at the door behind her, contemplating whether or not she should escape from the current conversation.
"I truly understand your unwillingness to reveal this sudden change in your body to the outside world." Hanneman looked up to the sky in contemplation. "But I must assure you; this information will be strictly confidential. Simply say the word, and I will ensure that no other soul ever gets wind of the truth of this situation."
"A- alright…" the purple haired girl reluctantly complied. "I need to affirm this for myself too."
Student and teacher alike immediately widened their eyes in astonishment upon the reveal of the two sigils that emerged before them.
"Incredible…" Hanneman's mouth had hung agape at the revelation. "Not only do you possess a second Crest, but you share the same Crest as your professor… "
"I suspected as much…"
"But how did I manage to receive the Crest of Flames?"Bernadetta curiously mused to the Goddess in her mind. "I thought Crests were only passed down through blood and the passing of generations…"
"True as that is, I believe this may have come as a side effect of my spirit migrating to your body…" Sothis noted. "Or perhaps it could have been transmitted through the transfer of bodily-"
"You can stop right there!" Bernadetta mentally scolded her companion as she slowly backed away towards the door. "Look, you'll promise you won't share this with anyone else, right?" she called out to Hanneman, her body already halfway through the entryway.
"You have my word, Bern-" the crest scholar looked up to find that his visitor had already fled the scene while he was buried within his own thoughts. "A shame. I still had so much more to ask of her…"
"That concludes our lesson for the day." Byleth announced, clasping his textbook shut just in time for the school bell to ring. A small satisfactory smirk crept onto his lip for his perfectly timed conclusion. "Now then, I'd like to remind everyone of our upcoming mission at the end of the month. Seeing as how this will be the first real taste of combat for many of you, I want to make sure you're all physically and mentally prepared for what's to come."
"We're only going out to fight a couple of bandits, right? How hard could this possibly be?"
"Unlike our fellow students at the mock battle, these bandits won't hesitate to put an axe through your skull, Hilda."
"Morbid as that explanation may sound, Lysithea is entirely right." the professor calmly explained as he paced throughout the classroom. "Make no mistake, this will be a life or death battle, but I have full faith in your ability to make it through this. With that… you're all free to go."
Bernadetta simply remained hunched over in her seat by the back of the room, fiercely scribbling onto a spare sheet of parchment even as the rest of the students readily fled the class.
"…What are you drawing there, Bernadetta?" Ignatz's voice suddenly asked from behind, startling the girl right out of her seat.
"Uh, nothing! Nothing at all! I'm just finishing up my notes for today's lesson!" Bernadetta hastily folded up her material in response.
"Ah, sorry, I probably shouldn't have snuck up on you like that." Ignatz sheepishly apologized with one hand on the back of his neck. "There's no need to be so ashamed of your sketch, though. I thought it looked really good and-"
"You did?! Oh crap, you need to forget you ever saw that!"
"Why is that? It didn't seem like you were making anything inappropriate…" the olive haired student pondered in confusion. "In fact, I feel like I've seen that somewhere before..."
"L-look, it's nothing important, alright?" Bernadetta nervously stuttered as she hastily packed her belongings and made a beeline for a door. "It's just some dingy little emblem I saw in a book before… a quick distraction to help take my mind off th-" the girl's words were cut short when she bumped right into her professor, who had suddenly decided to idle right in the middle of the doorframe.
"It seems you dropped this just a moment ago." Byleth calmly informed, firmly grasping his student's discarded parchment in his hand. Before Bernadetta could utter a word of protest, he nonchalantly unfolded the paper, his brow rising in amusement as he recognized the familiar sketch within. "Ah… it seems you've taken an interest in the symbol on my uniform."
"Ah, so that's what it was!" Ignatz's eyes lit up in realization. "That truly is an intriguing mark, Professor. Is there some sort of story behind it?"
"AAAGH! You weren't supposed to see that either, By!"
"By…? Is that a nickname for me?"
With another scream of embarrassment, Bernadetta shut her eyes, and a blinding flash of colors weaved through her vision. When she opened them again, she found herself shakily hunched over her seat once more. With her fellow students clamoring to leave class yet again, she hurriedly packed up her belongings, this not being sure not to leave anything behind, before scurrying off to blend herself in within the crowd.
"What did I tell you about abusing my power for petty reasons?!"
"I- I'm sorry, it was an accident this time!" Bernadetta held an open book over her head as the Goddess within her mind harshly scolded her. "Look, my entire body's been feeling really weird ever since I arrived in this era, and it only gets worse whenever I see his face!"
"I suppose I should have seen this coming…" Sothis sighed in vexation. "If I were to hazard a guess, this may have come as another side effect of your adult mind being thrust back into a teenage body, but you will need to learn to control yourself better from now on."
"I- I know that…" Bernadetta lamented as she separated from the crowd. "We should be fine as long as I can continue to undo my missteps, right?"
"I'd much prefer if you didn't have to rely on that so heavily in the first place…"
Meanwhile, Byleth remained idle in the Golden Deer classroom, his hand raised to his chin in deep thought as he examined his surroundings with a slight sense of bewilderment.
"There's that strange sensation again. Time itself has suddenly leaped back without warning… yet I know for certain that I haven't made use of this power since I first met with the other house leaders…" he took another look around the class to find that it had been completely cleared of students this time around. "What is the meaning of all this…?"
Well now, I must say I've been pleasantly surprised by all the positive traction this story has been receiving, and for that, I must thank everyone who's progressed thus far.
As some keen-eyed readers may have noted, the mention of Erebonia in the previous chapter was indeed a direct reference to the Legend of Heroes games. For the sake of avoiding any unnecessary confusion, I'm not planning on incorporating any direct appearances from the series characters, but it is certainly something that will continue to be referenced in the future. For what purpose, you may ask? Well, that remains to be seen.
