Warmth.
Indescribable warmth.
Softness.
Like sinking into the finest clouds.
And a tightly wrapped, immensely reassuring sense of being held.
This was all Baida could perceive at the beginning of her new life.
She felt as if she were waking from a long sleep, her consciousness viewing the world through frosted glass—blurred and hazy.
She struggled to lift her heavy eyelids.
Her field of vision was a mess of fuzzy halos and shifting, patchy shadows.
“Uh…
ah…” She tried to make a sound, but could only squeeze out a few meaningless, soft syllables from her throat.
She attempted to move and discovered she now possessed an incredibly tiny, soft, and uncontrollable body—a baby’s body.
“I…
I really turned into a little baby?!” Baida’s consciousness screamed, but outwardly, she only flailed her limbs a few times involuntarily.
“So this is the effect of [As an Older Sister]?
Starting off with reverse aging, huh?”
She clumsily rolled over, the simple motion nearly exhausting all her strength.
As she turned on her side, she saw another small figure wrapped in soft swaddling clothes beside her.
That child was also a baby, but with strikingly eye-catching grayish-white hair, as soft as newborn violets, plastered gently against her forehead.
Most astonishing were her eyes.
Unlike the dazed confusion of a typical infant, they were clear, bright, and carried an almost sharp focus.
In her tiny hand, she held what was less a book than a thick metal plate covered in dense formulas and structural diagrams.
She was reading it with great interest, her small brow occasionally furrowing then relaxing, as if contemplating some universal truth.
“Herta…”
No confirmation was even needed.
A surge of closeness and emotion, rooted deep in her blood, instantly flooded Baida’s consciousness.
It was her!
The genius girl who had made her heart ache with longing on her phone screen!
Now she lay beside her, defenseless, tiny, and soft.
She was her little sister!
Baida instinctively, with all her might, reached out her stubby little arm toward that direction, making “Ee…
yah…” sounds, trying to touch her.
Just as her fingertip was about to touch Herta’s swaddling, a flood of memory fragments rushed into her immature, not-yet-fully-developed brain like a broken dam:
She was Baida, Herta’s twin older sister.
Their parents were researchers of some renown in a certain field on Blue.
Her little sister Herta was an astonishing genius, different from ordinary children from birth.
Before she was even one year old, she could already clearly recognize characters and read professional literature.
As for herself…
Baida…
memory fragments flickered, showing that even now (physically around five years old?
But the timeline of memories was somewhat chaotic and blurry), she was still babbling, unable to speak even the simplest words clearly.
All the researchers, doctors, and even servants who came into contact with her privately considered her mentally delayed—a “fool,” a “pitiful burden attached to the genius girl.”
A particularly clear key memory surfaced:
The scene was a bright, futuristic room.
Their young parents, wearing white lab coats, had expressions of guilt and resolution.
They seemed to have decided to keep the genius Herta with them to personally teach and nurture, while entrusting the “slow” Baida, who might “affect” Herta’s development, to professionally hired caretakers.
(T/N: Yo, wtf.)
However, just as the mother tried to lift Baida away from Herta’s side, Herta, who had been quietly playing with (or perhaps studying) a complex geometric object in her hands (not an ordinary toy), suddenly stopped.
Her clear eyes followed her sister being carried away.
At almost the same moment, Baida, being carried off, seemed to have lost the most important thing in her life and began wailing with heart-wrenching sobs, her tiny body struggling desperately, tears falling like broken beads.
The despair in her cries was enough to break anyone’s heart.
The parents had no choice.
They tried another approach—the father would take Herta instead.
But just as his hand was about to touch Herta’s swaddling, the one-year-old Herta’s eyes flashed with a cold light that was utterly unfitting for her age.
In a blink, she snatched the metal ID badge from the chest of a nearby servant, and with its not-so-sharp edge, she slashed hard across the servant’s arm as he tried to stop her.
The servant cried out in pain and let go.
Taking the opportunity, Herta, like a nimble little dumpling, rolled out of the servant’s arms (luckily she wasn’t far from the ground), not even caring about the fall.
She scrambled on all fours toward Baida, who was still wailing in their mother’s arms, and with all her tiny strength, clamped onto Baida’s leg, burying her face in it.
Her silent but unshakable—even fierce—posture made her refusal crystal clear.
In the end, looking at their two daughters—one crying so hard she might pass out, the other showing with action that she’d fight anyone who tried to separate them—the researcher parents sighed in defeat.
They gave up on raising the sisters apart and decided to keep them both by their side.
The memory ended.
Baida’s (baby version) little head could barely process all that information.
“Wow…
so I could cry that hard when I was little?
And Herta, my dear, you were that fierce at one year old?
To avoid being separated from your sister, you straight-up slashed someone?” Baida’s consciousness was going wild with commentary.
“But…
well done!
My good little sister!
That’s right!
Sisters united, unstoppable!”
She carefully assessed her current state.
“Hmm…
[Strength Enhancement] doesn’t seem to have kicked in yet.
Still a weakling.
[As an Older Sister] is active—identity secured.
[The Foolish One’s Strength] and [I Reckon It’ll Work]…” She thought hard.
“Seems…
I am a bit muddled; thinking doesn’t come quick, but I don’t feel particularly stupid?
Oh…
wait…” She recalled the “fool,” “burden” remarks in her memories, and the reality that at five years old she still couldn’t speak.
“Case closed!” Baida’s consciousness was on the verge of tears.
“The skills aren’t making me stupid—they’re just confirming that I was already stupid to begin with, right?!
Are these skills’ side effects just letting me be a fool with peace of mind?!
System, come out and let’s have a chat!”
While her inner drama was in full swing, outwardly she just blinked her big eyes, drooled a little, and stared blankly at Herta beside her.
Herta seemed to finally snap out of her “reading” for a moment.
She put down the heavy metal plate (heaven knows how she even lifted it), turned her little face, and those clear, focused eyes looked at her “dazed” sister.
Their eyes met.
Baida’s heart (consciousness) skipped a beat.
Herta looked at her without much expression, then extended her small, tender finger and gently poked Baida’s squishy cheek.
“Ee…
yah…” Baida instinctively made a sound.
Herta tilted her head, seemingly thinking for a moment, then also opened her small mouth and uttered an extremely clear, calm, almost research-oriented syllable: “Ah.”
Baida: “???” Is she talking to me?
She tried to imitate: “Ee…
bah…”
Herta wrinkled her little nose, as if unsatisfied with her sister’s unclear pronunciation, but then reached out her little hand and grasped Baida’s outstretched finger, holding it tight.
That small, warm touch was like a current of warmth, instantly hitting the softest part of Baida’s heart.
Fool, burden—none of it mattered in that moment.
“It’s worth it!” Baida’s consciousness cheered.
“Just being by her side is worth it!”
She held Herta’s little hand back (using all her strength), then laboriously scooted her body closer, like a clumsy little koala, wanting to be nearer to her sister.
Herta didn’t resist.
Instead, she leaned closer to her sister.
The two small bodies nestled together, sharing each other’s warmth.
Herta went back to reading her “heavenly book,” while Baida contentedly leaned against her sister, smelling the faint, pleasant scent of baby formula on her.
This start…
besides being a bit “stupid,” was practically perfect.
She looked at Herta’s delicate profile, her soft grayish-white hair, and that expression of focus beyond her years.
Her heart swelled with the desire to protect.
“Don’t worry, Herta.” She made a silent vow in her heart, even if it seemed ridiculous coming from a “foolish” baby.
“In this life, your sister will always be by your side, protecting you.
No matter what others say, I’ll be your warmest, most reliable…
cushion!”
Sunlight streamed through the window, falling upon the twin blossoms nestled closely together—quietly and beautifully.
The story of Baida (the foolish older sister version) and Herta (the genius younger sister version) had officially begun.
And perhaps, in the distant future, that image of a stunning girl dressed as a magical girl with an adorable magic hat had its roots right here—in this moment, in this unique warmth born of blood and companionship.