I am glad most of the voters realize the benefits of specialization!
Sorry, Brainy, we are getting someone who'll be doing the thinking for us! It's more tiring than two back-to-back workouts, and who could refuse getting twice the stats for the same amount of effort?
[x] Ask if she needs someone to beat up whoever beat her up
A stray thought leads you to study for once: Chiaki had brought up stuff that was pay to win in Our Bloody Valentine (and by extension, Fall From Grace) just...existed in this world. If you studied, you could find about it for realsies! No selling your soul or emptying your PayPig account for vertical advancement, you were going to do it the old-fashioned way.
Everything makes more sense with a concussion huh?
In order to learn more about this world, you hit the books like a particularly boring punching bag. In order to do so, you headed to the family library, which is where you are now; your little legs kick air in a chair that belongs in a throne room. Around you is a book collector's wet dream; you're not a bookish kind of person, but the smell of parchment and lovingly worn leather makes you nostalgic for after-school practice.
It makes sense why this nerd haven does it for you; the Claudius estate has one of the best libraries in the land. Justine says the only thing preventing it from being the best is "fair play". You don't really get it, but you think it might be how you never went all-out until the last event during Sports Day.
...Right we were ridiculously capable even back in the real world.
You're starting to wonder how Grace developed into such a shitheel with such a cool mom, but then you realize having parents with clout and money turns kids into monsters back in the real world. You can only imagine how much that gets amplified with magic and literal nobility. Also the God-Empress blood. That's probably a thing.
Honestly there's a reason nobles being well heeled tends to be the exception rather than the norm.
You look into a mythic history of the God-Imperatrix: a being who fell from the sky like lightning, with words beyond understanding and tools from a distant star. One who bent the elements to her will and could make matter from fairy dust. An invincible hero with golden hair who slayed the Witch-King and their Ebon Generals.
...It kinda reads like a trashy isekai, now that you think about it.
... Whose to say it isn't? I mean you two are here, and magic is a thing. Maybe there's some funny time shenanigans, and time passes slowly in Japan for time here. So when they released the games, someone was writing fiction depicting events based on conditions in the kingdom they recently visited.
I can comprehend the knoiwledge of the heavens!
***
The elemental magic is pretty standard, but you pick up on the God-Imperatrix speaking in tongues. As you do, that command line bit your magic teacher said sticks out at you. The God-Imperatrix was the first user of Enchantment magic and the one to give it to the people. She enchanted her whole body without runes, using what looks like snippets of code from how they're written out in the texts you're reading.
...Is this a form of chanting that bends reality to do what you will? Or more staring hard at reality and browbeating it till it does what you want.
You know a little code from messing around with website design, but being a code monkey wasn't as fun as touching grass, so you just let Chiaki do the heavy lifting. She was way better at it than you, anyway. You think she'll be able to figure this Enchantment stuff out too, if you hand her the book. Once she does, that's one step closer to enchanted fists!
You excitedly start playing with your own golden hair, now styled into a bouquet of ojou ringlets. It thrums with magical power in tune with your heartbeat.
This is probably a *really* fancy looking sight. Our hair is now quite long and probably floor length, or at least would be if it wasn't styled. Looking like spun gold and shimmering in the air, we're probably inviting comparisons to the God-Imperatrix who was noted for her own golden hair. Inviting those comparisons I mean.
"I wonder if I can be a hero..." you muse to the air.
You hear someone mutter "No more heroes..." in response.
You walk over to the responder: a petite, bedraggled looking girl with her hair done in ornate, rust-colored twintails, pouring over dense alchemical tomes. She's got a school-nurse-special eyepatch on, the other eye has bags heavy enough to make her look like the wrong end of a fight. Brass tubes and vials of a grey-black powder are strewn about her table, alongside cups filled with varying amounts of a deep brown liquid you think is coffee.
At first I thought this was a reference to a fellow reincarnate, but given the context of her injuries, I suspect she's saying that as she doesn't believe heroes exist.
The girl doesn't notice you, but you notice what she's reading: mathematics and physics that not even college you could fully grasp. It's heavy stuff, and this girl look younger than you are now.
Keep in mind that mathematics has advanced a lot. Calculus was discovered in the late 1600s. This probably means that math in this world is a bit more advanced due to the nature of enchantment, or at least Grace didn't take any advanced math courses in high school.
Someone who looks this needy and bedraggled definitely has a bullying problem. In the chalkboard jungle of primary school, the strongest eat and the weak are meat. So it went with you and Chiaki, so it goes here.
Look at her: the shiners, the standoffish, don't-touch-me body language, the nerd books; she's got victim written all over her. The school shooter vibes she gives off don't hurt, either.
You don't want to see someone become a school shooter, just like in primary school. So you're gonna go and do the same thing you did then.
You crack your knuckles and your neck. "If you need the bullies who did that to you beat up, just point me at 'em."
She glances up at you and back to her book. "Not being bullied..."
You nod. "I understand if you don't want to snitch. It's admirable, even! But you can't just get kicked around, you know?"
She puts down her book and glares at you with dirty blue eyes. "I'm not getting bull-"
You meet her glare with a guileless smile, your hair flowing along your face to its own wind. "Then how about I have your back? Y'know, in case you do get bullied." You give her an exaggerated wink to show you understand what's really going on.
Her glare falls slack, you can see gears turning in her head.
<Sensible> "We might be mistaken on her being bullied..."
<Sporty> "But she looks so noodly..."
<Emo> "If she wasn't being bullied before, we're bullying her now..."
You see her eyes light up. She smiles in a way you can tell she doesn't smile much. "Someone watching my back would be Sophia-sent! Especially with those golden locks."
You realize she's buttering you up and thinks you're an idiot, but you also realize that she is in some danger you can help her in. Which means you were the best kind of correct: technically correct!
You pat your drills, the hair caressing your fingers at the touch. "Flattery will get you everywhere."
She chokes a little, realizing you aren't quite as dumb as she thought you were.
"Who are you, anyway?" The girl asks.
"Who am I? Who am I?!" You puff up your chest and stick your nose high in the air. "I'm...your new friend!" You laugh and give her a goofy smile.
The girl looks at you like you've grown three heads. "...You confuse me."
"I get that a lot," you say. "But it helps to be close to someone who has your back. Keeps them from stabbing you in it. N-Not that I'm going to stab you in the back!"
The girl frowns, scrunching up her face.
You shyly shrug and put your hands up. "I won't stab you in your front, either. I swear on the Claudius name, or something."
The girl slams her hands on the table hard enough to knock the coffee-like drink out of her cup. "Claudius...YOU'RE Grace Claudius?!" She stares at you in wide eyed, slack-jawed astonishment.
<Emo> "Well not exactly...we're more of a going nowhere college student wearing a Grace Claudius suit."
<Sporty> "The girl looks a nerd, but not enough of a nerd to get that."
You play with a lock of hair. "Yep, eheheh..."
"I heard horror stories about you from my attendants, lesser nobles all." Her hands creep towards the most dangerous looking of her vials. "That you were a tyrant and a bully, sadism incarnate. And you're offering to beat up my bullies?"
"Well yeah," you say plainly.
You can almost see steam coming out of her ears. "Did you hit your head? Are you a changeling? Is this some kind of prank?!"
***
[Dialog Point! What do you say?]
[ ] Funny story, I did hit my head!
[ ] I'm atoning for my past sins by helping as many people I can.
[ ] Does it really matter? You have a Claudius offering friendship; you'd be a fool to turn it down.
***
"Putting that aside," you say, putting aside an invisible box. "You should give me your name. It's only proper since I gave you mine."
"Schwartzwald," the girl says. "Tanya Schwartzwald."
Oh, you remember her! She's the mad scientist-
<Brainy> "ALCHEMIST! Don't sully the good name of science with this superstitious claptrap."
<Sensible> "Now now, Brainy. Without Alchemy, we wouldn't have modern science."
The Brainy you stares pure hate at the Sensible you.
As you were saying, Tanya Schwartzwald is the morally suspect alchemist who Grace mercilessly bullies in Our Bloody Valentine. A lowborn girl promoted to landed gentry at the age of 12 due to her advancements in the alchemical arts. Tanya being lowborn, Grace had a special displeasure towards her, which spurred the villainess towards the most petty cruelty. Valentine got Grace's loving hatred, Tanya got the coldest disdain.
By the time Our Bloody Valentine's Saga of Tanya the Devil route ends, Tanya had developed modern firearms using a combination of her knowhow and Valentine's spirit arts...Firearms she would use to go school shooter on Grace, her friends, and her family. You vividly remember the CG of her lighting a cigar with the flames from your family's estate.
You gulp. Those vials she's reaching for are probably volatile and possibly lethal. You don't want to catch a Bad End this early into your young life!
***
[What Do You Do?]
[ ] Make your case that you're not that Grace anymore.
[ ] Sell your friendship as something that'll make her untouchable.
[ ] Give her a hug.
[ ] Stay cool and get her to talk more about herself.
[X] Funny story, I did hit my head!
If that isn't the Grace our MC has become I don't know what is.
[X] (Write-In) So, I've heard you make things that go boom. That seems fun!
And yes, this does sound fun. Might get Tanya into as much trouble as being in Grace's bad books, but still, fun.
[X] Funny story, I did hit my head!
[X] (Write-In) So, I've heard you make things that go boom. That seems fun!
Each day one step closer to enchanting Grace's fists.
Imagine someone booting the game and dealing whit this version of grace, the semi-feral sun knight that while not malicious are fully capable to punch your head off. The vampire chick will hear superboss music.