Chapter Text
Anya doesn't make it as an imperial scholar. In fact, she doesn't get to the next year of her primary education at Eden at all.
The scandal she helped to uncover didn't make anything better. The Cecil hall kids became pariahs overnight, she had to learn such words as whistleblower and traitor. The other students as well as teachers weren't too kind to their circumstances or age, after all, if not for their snooping around Eden would have stayed the same.
The police and Ministry of Education investigation storm was brutal. The officers questioned teachers. The ministry representatives sat in all the lessons, making notes.
Anya knew her papa had done his best so at least a few faculty members kept their job, but a lot of people were fired. Not even the ones who plotted bad things, others as well. The army of ministry observers was present at the classrooms and in the hallways at all times, glaring at the kids. Madame Schlag didn't even need to do anything.
And today, today Anya got her seventh tonitrus. For being late. She knew what that meant.
Just one more, and it all will be over.
Getting a tonitrus was just a matter of time. Everyone had them now — the second son, for falling asleep during the lesson, and for arguing with her in the corridor, Connie for "cheating" at a test, even Becky, because she forgot her homework once.
"Mama, I have to tell you something."
Yor frowned, tense. Everyone in the house was, since the day commission over Eden came to an official conclusion and recommendations were posted: a strict zero-precedent policy on rule breaking, no matter how minor, observing administrators, teacher evaluations and second-grading of papers by a ministry official.
A friend of Dominic's worked there, and the clerks at the Ministry hated the tripled workload. While some were quietly spiteful, others were openly exited at an opportunity to get back at the stuck ups and their kids.
Then the tonitruses started coming, one after another. Number three and four on the same day, and even more in the following semester. Anya had a good month, but that streak was over apparently. And she was so sorry! But she didn't want to go back to the orphanage. She didn't!
Yor crouched down next to her daughter and prepared to hear what she suspected would be more bad news.
"Of course Anya."
"I..." the girl shut her eyes and put forward her palm, with a glistening lighting bolt there.
"Oh darling," without hesitation Yor opened her arms to the girl, who immediately jumped into them with a wail. "I'm so sorry."
Not for the first time she wondered about the steadfast belief Loid had about Anya's education. Of course, generations of powerful and wealthy families went there, and that could be a good start in life. But what exactly was he hoping for his daughter, to become a minister, open up her own business empire? Or meet a rich future spouse? Was that how he and his wife met — but no, he said he received some humble schooling at a village school just like her (before the war and the hunger and Yuri's cries put an end to her studies). He must have worked especially hard to enter a university and finish it. But still, Eden...
The inspection has shown a lot that the parents and the teachers didn't know of.
The harassment amongst the Imperial Scholars, children desperate for approval and even more limited opportunities blackmailing each other, sabotaging projects, trying to get each other expelled. The rest of the students weren't much better, the cheating and bullying came to light in all the halls, scholarship students were doing homework in exchange for money for their more well-off peers. And the tests and exam system was so brutal, that the kids went to unbelievable lengths to not get expelled for academic failure.
And of course, all kids of horrible treatments non-elite students received. Destroyed and lost possessions, being locked in rooms to miss the schoolbus and walk home alone and who knows what else.
It was a large school, so some bad behaviour was to be expected but Yor didn't want Anya to face all that just to appease her father's ambitions.
Loid meant well, of course. But he was a man, and men in Ostania always had a lot of ideas.
From the other mothers she knew kids weren't nice to Anya and her classmates, more than once her daughter came home with her schoolbag dirty and wet, all her books ruined, and torn dress. She said she fell into the fountain, and fearfully asked if that made her a bad girl.
The Shopkeeper was most displeased with her for thinking always about Anya now, but how could she not worry? Hemlock tried his attack again, and she didn't hold herself back this time. He was still recovering.
Yuri suggested they transfer Anya to any other school in Berlint. Loid was steadfast though, and Anya begged to stay with her friends. At that age a change in shcool, in the middle of the year was something awful, they said.
Yor wouldn't know. She only finished seven full grades, unable to look after Yuri and do her part time jobs and study at the same time. She had to go to the evening school to get her diploma, after they moved to Berlint.
Still, Yuri came from the very same background and went to University. Now he had a well paying position in the diplomatic corps. So clearly any fancy school wasn't necessary to become a successful adult!
"Mama," Anya left the embrace, "lets go to papa's room. I need to show you something."
"Anya?" They both knew entering the parent's rooms was a Big Rule, and it never got broken. "What do you need from Loid-san room?"
But the girl was already marching in there. The door wasn't locked, and why would it? Anya never tried that and Bond knew better than to try and press any doorhandle. The girl stepped inside, and went to the wardrobe.
Yor took on her more serious tone, one used for bedtimes and preparing things for the next school day. "Anya-san we have rules for a reason-"
Anya hauled a large case , locked by a pin-code, and without hesitation opened it.
As she was about to scold her for real, the insides of the case caught her attention. A portative communicative station. Field-medical kit. Guns and ammunition to it. Fake papers.
"This is for peace, a mission," Anya concluded gloomily, looking inside the case. "And Eden is also for peace." The child lifted her huge tearful eyes to her. "Anya knows about mama, too."
"Anya...?"
"But Anya with tonitrus is not an asset." She sniffed." I don't wanna go back. Please don't send me back."
Her shock at the identity unmasking would need to wait. She had a daughter to console.
Loid Forger came home later than usual, after a mission that took too long. Handler really appreciated his discharge from hospital.
"I'm home! Sorry I'm late but I brought–" he was met by an edge of long sharp knife pressed to his throat.
A woman that looked and sounded like Yor, but surely not her, because Yor couldn't handle a potato peeler without crying, held him at death point.
Anya peeked from behind a corner, her huge eyes tearful.
"Mama, please don't hurt Papa!"
The assassin's face softened, but the hand holding weapon up to Twilight's neck didn't waver.
"Please don't worry, Anya-san. Your papa will behave, and I will too." To her husband, she pressed. "Sit down, Twilight-san. We have things to discuss."