Weren't most of the Number also held in a holding facility at first? Taking the girl from her mother at that stage might not have been the best idea, so they allow her to have a proper deprogramming and education with her mother, in a remote location. They even let her keep her summon, for pete's sake! It looks harsh on paper, but it doesn't seem to be in practice.
Game Theory (Nanoha fanfic)
- Thread starter Aleph
- Start date
I find it funny that this exact same discussion over the TSAB's corruption or lack thereof is going on over at TFF in the Nanoha thread.
TheLastOne
Person of impeccable tastes (for destruction)
The Fanfiction Forum. It's basically the Forum that picked up after the old Delphi forum died. It's 'moderated' by Hawk, who's basically dropped out of the fanfiction community, and it no longer accepts new members because of one troll who pissed Hawk off by continuously creating new accounts.
Basically, if you aren't already a member, you aren't going to be a member.
Basically, if you aren't already a member, you aren't going to be a member.
TheLastOne explained what TFF is. As for the discussion, it is about all the points you listed except for the Summoning issue.Gore17 said:
TheLastOne
Person of impeccable tastes (for destruction)
Hawk basically prided himself on never banning anyone, and he kept it up for years. Then this one asshole started running around posting scat images all over the place - real disgusting stuff. Hawk had to ban him, but he kept creating new accounts. Since Hawk only swings by occasionally, and he's basically dropped out of fanfiction, he decided it just wasn't worth the effort of vetting new accounts to make sure they weren't said asshole.
He's never bothered to create moderators under him, so the forum is basically dying out at this point. It's not surprising, most forums die like that after some years.
He's never bothered to create moderators under him, so the forum is basically dying out at this point. It's not surprising, most forums die like that after some years.
- Location
- The sixth circle of Hell (second on weekends)
- Pronouns
- She/Her
*steeples fingers*Angelform said:
All is going according to the Scenario.
I promise I'm not being manipulated by a future version of myself who's controlling the course of my life like a puppet so that she'll come into existence and the timeline won't be reduced to jelly.
Edit: Work started on Chapter 2, and progressing well. I would give an estimated completion date, but I really have no idea. Possibly maybe two to three weeks. I think.
So now we know that earthscorpion and aleph aren't the same person from different point in the timeline? Yay?Aleph said:*steeples fingers*
All is going according to the Scenario.
I promise I'm not being manipulated by a future version of myself who's controlling the course of my life like a puppet so that she'll come into existence and the timeline won't be reduced to jelly.
Note: The above statement may be a lie.
Edit: Work started on Chapter 2, and progressing well. I would give an estimated completion date, but I really have no idea. Possibly maybe two to three weeks. I think.
- Location
- The sixth circle of Hell (second on weekends)
- Pronouns
- She/Her
- Location
- The sixth circle of Hell (second on weekends)
- Pronouns
- She/Her
Hey, if it ever happens, we can be sure that it'll probably happen on SB.Angelform said:
I can, of course, neither confirm nor deny the rest of your statement.
"I can!"
You shut up. You're not even a character yet.
"But I'm going to be such an awesome one that I'm sending echoes back in time to ensure my own existence!"
Urgh. What henious crime did I commit to deserve you?
"You came up with me. Duh."
... touche.
Perhaps this will shed some light onto your question.AngryDesu said:
http://www.mangafox.com/manga/mahou_shoujo_lyrical_nanoha_strikers_the_comics/c003/9.html
- Location
- The sixth circle of Hell (second on weekends)
- Pronouns
- She/Her
... huh.green-link94 said:
*busily starts reading*
... I can use this. And this. And that. And... ooo, definitely that. Hee.
Thank you very much.
... wait. I should be writing up lecture notes, not reading Nanoha manga. Grah, dammit.
Chapter Two
- Location
- The sixth circle of Hell (second on weekends)
- Pronouns
- She/Her
Well, I said two to three weeks, and it's been exactly three weeks [1]. And since I do try to keep my promises [2]...Aleph said:
[1] Well, three weeks, eleven hours and twenty seven minutes. Cut me a little slack, I've been taking university courses.
[2] Unless it seems more amusing not to, of course.
Chapter Two
She was half-blinded, dizzy and confused, desperately looking round to find her opponent.[Sonic Move.]
Eyes widening with fear, she turned slowly... so slowly...
[Photon Lancer.]
The dead, mechanical voice spoke, each word like a block of iron dropping into place with military precision. Pain erupted from her chest, pangs of agony reverberating up and down her spine...
The pain was gone. She was hovering in midair, bound and restrained, helpless before the black-clad girl who stood on a circle of light in front of her. But something was different, something was wrong... she felt like those deep, burgundy eyes should have been filled with determination, or sadness, or hope. They should have been wide and open and full of emotion, drawing her in, silently calling to her.
Instead they were narrowed, vengeful and twisted with hatred. The blonde girl raised her weapon for a killing blow, the crackling scythe blade springing out with a hungry roar. The tip came down in an unstoppable attack...
She was standing on the ground, looking up at the source of the shots that had saved her from the enormous creature attacking her. But the staff that had fired them was slowly swinging round to point at her, cold eyes behind it regarding her as one would look at a cockroach in the kitchen. Golden light began to gather at the tip of the weapon...
Blue eyes snapped open with a strangled gasp. Nanoha jerked sideways and back, pressing herself into the mattress instinctively to get as far away from the phantom death-blow as she could. The awkward twist jarred her still-tender ribs and she hissed in pain
'Nanoha? Are you alright?' Yuuno's voice sounded, warm and comforting. She clung to it, still mired in the dregs of sleep, shivering as she hugged her pillow.
'... yes. J-just a little... a bad dream.' She tried to make her mental voice sound confident and self-assured, dismissing the lingering terror and pretending nothing was wrong. Had she been speaking out loud, she might have managed it. Unfortunately, she was not. The subtle brush of mind-on-mind as she replied told Yuuno all he needed to know about her emotional state, and he scurried over and up onto her bed to lick at her cheek in an attempt to provide comfort.
'It was that girl again, wasn't it?' Despite his questioning tone, it was a statement of fact. This was not the first such dream his charge had experienced in the fortnight since waking up in hospital. Nor, he had a nasty feeling, would it be the last. Tactfully responding to Nanoha's unspoken plea to talk about something else, he changed the subject.
'So. I heard your parents talking about a trip of some sort? What's did they mean?'
'Ah, yes. We're going up to a nearby hot springs resort we know well. We've been there before, we go every- ah, yes, you're not from Japan, are you? Well, we have a long series of consecutive holidays all strung together around this time of year, so we leave the bakery in the hands of store employees and all go on a family holiday. It's really nice. This time... ah... Suzuka-chan and Arisa-chan are coming...' Nanoha's mental voice became more uncertain as she mentioned her friends, both of whom had been highly suspicious in the two weeks since she had gotten hurt. Arisa in particular seemed to have forgotten or rescinded her agreement to allow Nanoha her privacy, and had only held back from forcibly interrogating the young mage out of concern for her health.
After a short, uneasy pause, Nanoha picked back up, 'Uh... anyway, yes. Um... I think mama and papa want to help me recuperate, because it's meant to be good for people who... aren't very well, spending time at a hot springs. We'll be there for the whole weekend, and then I have my last check-up the morning after we get back.' She glanced at Yuuno, smiling at his carefully-hidden concern. 'And it's a long way from the city, and nothing ever happens around there, so there's no chance of me running into any trouble.'
Marginally reassured, Yuuno nodded and shifted to nuzzle her cheek again. Giggling quietly at the ticklish sensation, she brought a hand up to stroke him, allowing herself to take a brief moment revelling in the warmth surrounding her, the lack of pain in her chest and the absence of anything attacking her -a combination that had been all too rare for the past fortnight.
"Mmm..."
Glancing over to make sure the door was locked, Nanoha stretched an arm over to her bedside cabinet to pick up Raising Heart. Resting the red gem in the palm of her hand, she twitched her fingers. The faint glow at the back of her mind brightened, warmth radiating from it to enfold her in a gentle embrace.
'Uh... Nanoha?'
The light within brightened further, flowing down her arm and coalescing under her fingers, guided by the simple equations she ran through in her head. Within seconds, it hit critical mass, and a sphere of soft pink light the size of a golf ball sprang into existence over her right hand. Responding to her commands, it hovered for a second before zipping upwards to circle above her head.
'Nanoha, what are you doing?'
'Well, I can't do any practice physically at the moment, with my ribs still sore. So I'm practicing my magical control instead.' The ball started to trace a figure of eight pattern, starting slow and slowly speeding up until it was almost a blur.
Nanoha closed her eyes to concentrate and another ball appeared, beginning its own figure of eight pattern at a right angle to the existing one. Yuuno spared a moment to be impressed - both projectiles were passing through the same space at the centre they shared at least twice a second, yet somehow Nanoha was keeping the pattern just right so that they wouldn't collide.
A faint grunt came from Nanoha, eyes still screwed tightly shut, as a third shot appeared. With a figure of eight on all three axes now, the mathematics was getting formidable. Keeping the shots slightly out of phase so that they didn't crash into one another made it even more so. Concern overrode Yuuno's awe, and he pushed against Nanoha's cheek.
'Nanoha, you shouldn't be straining yourself at all while you're still injured! Please, don't feel as though you have to train - stop and rest.'
'I feel fine, Yuuno-kun. And if I don't practice, I'll get rusty. Besides, if I don't do something, I'm going to go mad from boredom.'
Slowly, the entire whirring structure began to move in a wide circle as the origin point at the centre shifted. It looked like an atomic simulation, blurring projectiles flashing out in their orbitals at speeds that made it impossible to tell exactly where they were at any given time. The prone girl took a laboured breath as her lips moved soundlessly, and a second orbital-structure appeared about a metre from the first, drifting round along the same curved path. They followed one another, on opposite sides of a circle, the only sound in the room Nanoha's shallow panting and the whizz and whirr of the shots.
Yuuno growled, deciding he'd had enough. Focusing for a brief second, he lashed out with a barrier and green light flared. The shots disappeared with a sharp crack, and Nanoha gasped at the shock of the sudden cancellation.
"Yuuno-kun!" she blurted, hurriedly switching to telepathic speech when she realised she had spoken out loud, 'What was that for? I was practicing with those!'
'Listen to me,' Yuuno bit out, mental voice terse and tense with frustration, 'Overtraining will not benefit you. A week of bed rest will not make you rusty. If you continue pushing yourself beyond your limits - which you were, don't try to tell me otherwise - you will hurt yourself. You might even do permanent damage to your Linker Core. So lie down, tolerate the boredom and stop endangering yourself.'
'Yuuno-kun... look, I feel fine! I'm not overtraining-'
'You don't know that! You've been using magic for barely a month, you have no idea what straining yourself too much feels like!'
'I'd know if I were putting myself in danger! Please, stop holding me back! I'm not made of glass!'
'Why are you so adamant about this? What's so vital that you would risk injuring yourself and your own magic for it?! What difference will a few more days of bed rest to make sure you're healed-'
"I need to get the Jewel Seeds!"
Silence. The words seemed to hang in the air, both of them breathing hard from frustration and exertion. Blue eyes bored into green as Nanoha stared Yuuno down, propped up on her arms where she had reared up into a sitting position with her last, verbal declaration. Standing on her lap where the sudden movement had thrown him, his fur bristled and his back arched angrily, teeth bared. The words sank in slowly, and both of them relaxed, muscle by muscle, on some unseen signal.
'You said how much damage they could be capable of,' said Nanoha tiredly. 'I... I've seen the kind of damage disasters can do. On TV, and in newspapers. The Jewel Seeds could kill thousands of people. Tens of thousands. What... what if they cause an earthquake? Or a tsunami? You said that a Jewel Seed can do really bad things like that when it activates!'
Yuuno closed his eyes briefly, feeling a headache coming on. The frustrating part was, he couldn't even blame her. The Jewel Seeds were an enormous threat, and had they been scattered around his own childhood home, he had no doubt that he would be as frantic as she was.
'And... and there's that girl, too. She's after them for some reason, and I think she really needs them. But if it means that lots of people will get hurt, then that's bad, and I can't let her get them. Only... she's better than me. Stronger, and more skilled, and... I can't win against her. Not like I am now. And that means I can't get the Jewel Seeds, can't make sure they're sealed and kept safe. So... please, Yuuno. I need to train. I have to.'
Yuuno made the mistake of looking up, and caught the full brunt of Nanoha's pleading gaze. There was thinly veiled desperation in her eyes, backed by the knowledge of just how devastating a large-scale natural disaster could be.
'... alright,' he conceded, 'alright, I'll help you practice more. But not now, alright? Right now, focus on healing. Wait for three days. Then I'll start picking up the pace of what you're learning. Agreed?'
'... fine...' Nanoha's tone was grudging, but accepting.
'And enjoy this weekend. You're going to the hot springs! That's meant to be a good thing, right?'
'Yeah, I suppose,' Nanoha smiled, her mood lightening, 'And I'll be with my friends, and Noel-san and Farin-chan are coming as well, and mama and papa and Kyouya and Miyuki, of course... it'll be really fun!' Her tone was cheerful by the time she finished, optimistic and upbeat. Relieved, though not entirely over his concerns, Yuuno settled back down to nap some more until the time came to get up properly.
'But... um... Yuuno-kun?'
'Hmm?'
'Arisa-chan and Suzuka-chan are still mad at me...'
Ah, yes. He'd forgotten about that little detail.
... drat.
...
The flurry, clamour and chaos of packing for a week-long trip for five people was thoroughly disconcerting to Yuuno, accustomed as he was to travelling relatively light and using magic to help with transport. After the second time he narrowly escaped being shut in a suitcase for the duration of the journey there, he retreated into Nanoha's room and hid under her pillow, with only a pair of dark green eyes and a small bump in the fabric revealing his presence. He stayed there stubbornly, refusing to come out, for most of the following day, even as the suitcases disappeared from the room and the frantic activity around the house stilled.
He was only drawn reluctantly out of his safe haven a little after noon, when Nanoha's voice called up from downstairs. "Yuuno-kun! Come on, we're leaving!"
After a few moments non-activity on his part, brisk footsteps sounded up the stairs and her brown-topped head poked through the door.
"Yuuno-kun..." Nanoha sighed in exasperation, "come out. We're leaving! It's okay, all the bags are packed away in the cars." She tried to coax the ferret from his pillow-cocoon, receiving only a few tufts of shed hair for her trouble.
'Yuuno!' she snapped in mild irritation, hands on hips. 'Come out of there right now! We need to leave soon, or we won't make it to the hot springs before it gets dark!'
"Nanoha?" came her mother's voice from downstairs.
"Coming, mama!" she replied, and threw an impatient glare at Yuuno, who grudgingly slunk out of the artificial den. She picked him up gently, despite her irritation at the wait.
"Thank you," she murmured to him, allowing him to scamper up onto her shoulder. "Though you took your time."
'I was nearly shut in two suitcases and a picnic basket,' came the flat reply. It was safer under there.'
Nanoha frowned. 'But there would have been food in the picnic basket,' she thought.
Yuuno gave her a level-gazed green stare. 'Yes. And also heavy plates. On top of me.'
'Oh. Um. It's lucky you escaped?'
The lack of reply seemed distinctly put out, somehow.
Once they got moving, however, the ferret's mildly traumatised sulk faded soon enough, and an hour into the journey he was happily sitting on Suzuka's lap, enjoying the attention of all three girls. Arisa and Suzuka seemed to have silently agreed to leave any irritation or arguments behind for the duration of the holiday, and a weight seemed to lift from Nanoha's shoulders as she laughed and chattered with her friends, the scenery blurring past the car windows as they sped down the motorway. Kyouya, Miyuki, Shinobu and the maids followed behind them in a second car - they had far too many people to fit into one - and Momoko was busy map-reading for Shiro, so Nanoha was left with plenty of time to think. Leaving Yuuno to Arisa and Suzuka, she turned to stare out of the window, gaze skipping from one lamppost to another, imagining a black mage-girl leaping from one to the next.
'Nanoha?'
Well-practiced by now, she didn't flinch at Yuuno's inquiring voice. 'Hmm?'
'You are going to make sure you take it easy this weekend, right? Nothing strenuous. Your injuries still haven't fully healed.'
'I promised, Yuuno-kun,' she replied calmly. 'I'm intending to relax and have fun on this trip. Nothing more. Nothing less.'
'I just... worry.'
'I know.' She turned to smile at him. 'It's nice to know you care so much. But you really don't need to, this time. There's nothing to worry about.'
'... alright.'
...
"Ahhh!" The ardent exclamation echoed from all three girls at once as they stared at the hot spring. Smooth, pale stone tiles surrounded the pool and wisps of steam formed a thin layer over the clear water. There were more inside, of course, ones that had been specially set up for bathing. This, however, was the first of the many springs in the area that visitors entering the resort saw, and the simple elegance of its design was chosen specifically to welcome and invite customers in.
"It looks so good! I can't wait to get inside!" Arisa grinned, impulsively grabbing Suzuka and Nanoha by the hands. "Come on, let's go ahead and get ready!" Momoko and Shiro traded smiles as they watched the girls race off up the path towards reception, following along at a more leisurely pace to check in. Behind them, Kyouya, Miyuki, Shinobu and the maids started unpacking the cars, following them in with bags and suitcases.
Curled around Nanoha's neck like a living scarf, Yuuno weathered the unpacking with no more than a mild shudder when he saw the ill-fated picnic basket that had almost trapped him. Unfortunately, he neglected to take into account how this position might make him vulnerable to less easily evaded torments until just a little too late.
'N-Nanoha... I really d-don't think I should b-be in here...' he stammered, keeping his eyes determinedly fixed on the wall in front of him and his back turned on the room full of scantily-clad girls changing for a soak in the pools. This was not according to plan. He'd almost have preferred another round with the picnic basket.
'Huh? Nanoha's voice was distracted, occupied as she was with disrobing. 'Why not?' Footsteps padded over to him, and somewhere across the room Miyuki squealed to the accompaniment of Arisa's mischievous giggles. Yuuno blocked his ears and tried to ignore the laughter and movements behind him.
'Come on, Yuuno-kun, demanded Nanoha impatiently, 'you can come in with me.' A hand closed on his tail, giving it a teasing tug, and he turned. Even as he completed the motion, he realised what a monumentally stupid idea it was, and cursed himself for a fool. Too late, however; he had already caught an eyeful. Mercifully, Nanoha was wrapped in a towel, hair falling loose around her shoulders and a light flush on her face from the heat in the air.
Immediately behind her, Shinobu was leaning forward slightly to unstrap her b-b-br...
Sporting a crimson blush vivid enough to be seen through his fur, Yuuno whirled back round, eyes screwed shut and hair standing on end. Frantically, he searched his memory for a rough layout of the room, aimed vaguely towards where he thought the door was, and bolted. Two painful impacts with the wall illustrated his bad aim, and he only escaped from Nanoha's lunging grab at him because of the warning cry of "Yuuno-kun, come back here!" she gave as she made it. His third blind dash for freedom, however, struck gold, and he squirmed through the slight crack between the sliding doors of the changing room and poured on the speed until he ran face-first into a fourth and very final wall. Behind him, muted by the closed door, he could faintly hear Nanoha bemoaning his flight, but thankfully neither she nor any of the others seemed inclined to pursue him.
After lying still for a moment, until the pain receded somewhat and the world stopped revolving, he judged himself safe in opening his eyes, and did so. A quick look around verified that there were no nearly-naked women in the vicinity. Or indeed anyone else. A more detailed look brought him to the secondary conclusion that he had no idea where he was.
Well. Drat.
Hearing male voices from nearby, Yuuno came to the somewhat dazed conclusion that any bearing was better than none, and started towards them, keeping a wary eye out for any more attempts to grab him. Moving in a slightly dazed wobble, it nonetheless only took him a minute or two to locate the source of the voices, and he pawed the sliding door open far enough to slip through with a strained squeak. Both residents of the hot pool turned to look at the source of the interruption.
"Isn't that Nanoha's ferret?" asked Shiro, looking over at the little tan-brown creature. Kyouya squinted a little to see through the steam, and nodded.
"Think so, yeah. What's it doing here, though?"
Shiro shrugged, shifting in the pool slightly. The movement turned him further into Yuuno's line of sight, and the ferret stifled a gasp. The man's chest was a mass of scar tissue. A huge scar stretched down one side of his torso, crisscrossed by smaller lines of surgery, as an ugly reminder of what must have been a horrific injury - easily enough to put him at death's door. On the other side, a wide blotchy patch spoke of either a huge bullet or, more likely, some sort of explosive round. In all honesty, looking at the sheer scope of the marks, Yuuno was astonished the man was still alive. Picturing the size and severity of the damage as it must have been when it was inflicted... he shivered at the sickening testament to the deadliness of mass-based weaponry. He'd only ever seen this before in digs, on long-dead bodies, piecing together causes of death from long-dried bones. Which, now that he came to think about it, were rather often related to the barbaric tendency for Belkan weapons to include mass-based features. That was one of the most distasteful elements of that now-extinct polity, in his opinion; much as he enjoyed the challenge of excavating ancient battlefields, he couldn't help but think of the wastefulness of the slaughter - especially when the Belkans had possessed magic, which meant that they didn't need to kill.
'N-Nanoha?'
'Hmm? Why'd you run off? And where are you? Arisa-chan's annoyed, she wanted to pet you! And she's really hard to calm down, too...' Nanoha's voice was preoccupied but content, though marked by a certain tinge of frustrated exasperation at her blonde friend.
Had Yuuno been thinking more clearly, he would likely have refrained from asking, or at the very least put it off until another time. But too many shocks in one day had sapped his wits and blunted his words, and he blurted out the first thing that came to mind.
'What happened to your father? I've only ever seen wounds like that on dead bodies!'
A long silence followed. He could almost hear the frigid cold spreading down the telepathic link as Nanoha's mind turned to ice and glass, and it slowly occurred to him that he probably couldn't have phrased that any worse if he'd tried.
'Nanoha, I-'
'A long time ago, papa was a bodyguard,' Nanoha said quietly. Her mental voice was subdued, hesitant. A far cry from the happy, blissful tones she'd responded with only a moment ago. 'He was very brave, and very skilled at what he did. Nobody he guarded ever got hurt, and anyone who tried to attack them, he'd subdue quickly and easily.'
Despite himself, Yuuno was fascinated. He could hear the latent pain in Nanoha's voice, but her soft voice telling the story made it sound so interesting, and he was learning things about the man sitting a few feet away that he'd never so much as suspected. Even so, he fervently wished he hadn't brought the subject up.
'But his work made him enemies, and his clients were all very high profile, with a lot of enemies of their own. Eventually, one of the groups who opposed him got lucky. The only thing people ever said was that he was injured "in the line of duty".'
Quietly, at the back of his mind, the part of Yuuno that harboured his guilt over dragging Nanoha into the conflict over the Jewel Seeds, already on edge due to her hospitalisation, began to emit a steadily rising wail.
'He was put in hospital by the injuries. He-' Nanoha's voice hitched, 'he was so badly hurt. Miyuki-chan stayed with him all day, sitting by his bedside, begging him to get better. Mama and Kyouya were stretched to their limit working at the shop to cover our finances. For the longest time, we weren't sure if he'd ever fully recover.'
The wail was now a scream, splitting the back of his head open and making him feel awful for dredging all this up. He noted one point in curiosity, though, and followed the line of inquiry before he could stop himself.
'Where were you during this?'
Another silence. He winced, realising he'd inadvertently prodded another painful topic, and decided firmly to shut up from here on in.
'... I was fine. I mostly spent that time alone at home. It... it's a good thing, I guess. It's why I can take care of myself, right? And... everyone else was so busy. I couldn't ask them to look after me, not when they had so many more important things to do. I wasn't going to be a deadweight on them.'
Yuuno didn't know what to say. How could he respond to that? He waited, half in anticipation, half in dread, to see if she would continue.
She didn't. Unsure of whether to be disappointed or relieved, and mostly just feeling guilty, Yuuno returned his uneasy attention to the bath in front of him. Shiro and Kyouya were reclining in companionable silence in the hot water, letting the heat soak into their bones.
"So," said Shiro laconically, breaking the quiet, "how is Shinobu?" Kyouya jerked, head whipping round to stare nervously at his father. Shiro's eyes stayed closed, though, and he didn't move from his relaxed posture, leaning against the side of the tub.
"Um... good. She's... doing fine. Happy to be here with m- us."
"Good, good." Shiro's tone was utterly composed, as if he were talking about the weather, or what was for supper that evening. "She's a fine young woman. Your choice in friends is laudable."
"Uh... yes. Yes, I'm... glad to know her. She's an amazing person." Kyouya looked distinctly unsettled, though he was trying with limited success not to show it. His father hadn't moved an inch, and was still wearing the same blithe, unconcerned expression he had started the conversation with. Yuuno watched with a kind of mild awe at the ease with which the man was controlling the conversation.
"Well, I'm glad the two of you are getting along so well." Shiro cracked an eye open and smiled at his son. "Though I must say, we're seeing less and less of you both. I think this is the first time Momoko and I have been in the same room as her for over a month. Why not invite her along for supper? I'm sure your mother wouldn't mind cooking a little extra, and we'd like to get to know your friends a little better."
"Ah... okay? Yeah, that... that sounds like a good idea. I'll ask her."
Shiro nodded paternally. "Wonderful. Now, if you'll excuse me, I need to get out of this heat before I fall asleep." He stretched, yawning slightly as he did so, and climbed out. Pausing at the door, he glanced back at Kyouya.
"Oh, and... son?" he said, tilting his head. "Did you bring... you know?" He raised his eyebrows, and twisted his head slightly. Kyouya blushed bright crimson, outshining even the flush caused by the heat of the bath. Attempting to look anywhere other than at Shiro, he gave a minute nod.
"Good boy." The door slid shut quietly, and Kyouya let out a faint groan of mortification and dunked his head under the water, possibly to try and drown himself to erase the embarrassment. Wincing in sympathy, Yuuno quietly backed out of the room and left him to it.
...
The soft susurrus of birdsong and rustling leaves provided a pleasant background to the wash of water against the banks of the river and Shiro's quiet whistling as he walked along the riverside. There was barely a cloud in the sky, and the cerulean blue stood vibrant above the treetops as the warm rays of the sun beat down. He closed his eyes and took a happy breath of fresh air, revelling in the peace and tranquillity of the place.
Opening his eyes again as he rounded a bend in the river, he was unsurprised to come across Momoko, sitting comfortably on a fallen log a few yards downstream from a low bridge and watching the river flow past. She looked up as he approached, greeting him with a warm smile. He took a seat next to her, and they observed the burbling water in comfortable silence for a while.
"I spoke to Kyouya," he said eventually. "They're being careful."
"Good. I thought they were, but it's best to be sure about these things."
"How serious is he about her, would you say?"
She smiled again, maternally. "Very. More than he knows, at the moment. I'm proud of him. He's incredibly responsible for his age." A sideways glance with lidded eyes, "He's a lot like his father in that sense."
"He's certainly doing well teaching Miyuki," he mused, letting the compliment pass without comment. "She's getting better by the day, and he's learning a lot from teaching her - things he never really thought about when he was the one learning them. Soon she'll be good enough for me to take over her training."
"How long, would you say?"
"Hmm," he considered, "a few months, perhaps? It depends on whether or not she keeps to the learning curve she's been sticking to during her training so far. I'm mostly worried about Nanoha, to be honest."
"Yes, she has something going on. I'm not entirely sure what, but it started suddenly a little while ago. She's been..."
"Quiet," he offered, "reticent. Secretive."
"Yes, exactly. And she's been sneaking off in the evenings... I'm more than a little worried. Especially with whatever put her in hospital."
"She's not going to tell us, though. Not without some huge impulse prompting her to."
Momoko sighed. "Yes, I know. She's too independent, sometimes. She's trying to handle it herself, rather than bring it to our attention." She hummed softly, thinking. "If we try to push her on it, though..."
"She's as likely to clam up and pull away as she is to tell us, I know. What would you suggest, then?"
The wind rustled the boughs of the trees above them as she thought, leaning back and closing her eyes. Shiro waited patiently, gaze tracing over her face with soft affection, watching a strand of hair fallen over her mouth flutter as she breathed slowly in and out, mulling it over. He didn't try to rush her - whatever opinion she gave, she would give it when she was ready and not a moment sooner.
Eventually, she opened her eyes and nodded decisively. "I say we let her work it out on her own. For now. If any more... events, like the hospital, occur, then we move in and take action. Until then, I'm for keeping an eye on her and allowing her to deal with it as she sees fit. I'd prefer to see her come to us over it, if it's something important, but... unless she actively does so herself, I think pushing her into it would do more harm than good."
She paused, thinking. After a moment, she nodded again, "That's my opinion. She's a big girl, we can afford her a certain measure of trust."
Shiro smiled in amusement, "I thought you might say that," he chuckled, before growing serious once more. "I think you're right. I don't like leaving her to her own devices in a situation like this, but with no information, anything we try might make the problem worse." He scowled, annoyed at his relative powerlessness in the situation. Momoko laid a gentle hand on his, a wordless message of calm.
"You've taught her well, by example. As have I. Have faith in your daughter, she's able to fight her own battles." A slight expression of worry crossed her face, but only for a moment. "Of course, I'd prefer it if she wasn't fighting them at the age of nine, but..."
"Maybe she just needs to do something wrong," Shiro said, slowly, his attention distracted. "She's always been such a good girl, trying so hard. Maybe this is just a little rebellion and we're not used to it."
"Shiro." He blinked and looked up at his wife. "Trust her. This is a holiday. Relax, forget about the issue." Her lips quirked in a grin, "Have some fun."
After a moment's silence, he nodded, accepting the unspoken order to stop worrying at the issue. Searching for another topic of conversation, he looked around curiously. "Why this spot, specifically?"
"It just feels... comfortable. Like it's waiting for something. And there weren't any bushes around, and the grass looked soft." The smile on Momoko's lips became a smirk. One that could only be described as sultry. "And it's far enough from the bathhouse that any sound won't carry, and some way off the beaten track."
Shiro raised an eyebrow again, taking in the sultry smile, the light, figure-hugging dress she was wearing and the gleam in her eye.
"Well then," he said, a matching grin forming, "I suppose, in lieu of worrying, I best find some way to keep myself occupied."
Arms slid around his neck, pulling him down to the grass.
"I think I can come up with something."
...
Cheeks flushed and hair damp, Nanoha yawned widely as she left the changing room, clad once again in a light yukata. Similarly Arisa and Suzuka padded along beside her, slippered feet producing soft footfalls on the smooth wooden floor of the corridor. Stretching, Arisa yawned widely and giggled.
"Ahhh... this feels so good!" she exulted, "What should we do next? Ping-pong?" She looked around eagerly, as if expecting to see a table already set up for their use around the next corner, or standing outside on the stone paving of the patio.
"Ping-pong?" Suzuka hummed thoughtfully. "Eh... I really wanted to go check out the souvenirs..."
"Suzuka-chan, you always buy the souvenirs. They're not even high-quality, they're just tacky junk!"
The purple-haired girl looked reproachfully at her blonde friend. "Well... I still like them! They're pretty, and they give character to a place. You haven't really visited somewhere till you've bought the souvenirs home. Nanoha, which do you want to do, ping-pong or souvenir shopping?"
Arisa would likely have retorted, and Nanoha was about to add her point of view, when they were abruptly interrupted.
"Ahhh! So you're Nanoha! You look just like she said!"
Three heads turned in bemusement to the source of the outburst. And stared.
The first adjective that sprang to mind was 'tall'. The woman towered over them, clad in a white yukata with a simple brown star pattern. Looking up at her, the second and third adjectives to occur were both 'busty', and Nanoha found herself privately wondering how on Earth the strange woman was supporting those without overbalancing.
Her hair was a pale orange, and a red gem rested at the centre of her forehead - some kind of religious symbol, Nanoha assumed. The woman smiled, her canines flashing bright white against red lips, and Nanoha belatedly processed her comment.
"... eh?" she said eloquently, "... I look... like..."
'What, you don't remember? Strange. I would have thought injuries like that would be hard to forget.'
Nanoha froze as the foreign voice spoke into her mind. The woman's eyes gleamed feral blue, and Nanoha felt a chill go up her spine. There was no need to ask further, it was suddenly all too clear who the woman was referring to.
"... ohh," she breathed, eyes widening. "Is... is she related to you? We... ah... didn't get very much time to talk."
'Why are you here?' she sent, scrabbling to keep up with both sides of the conversation - the innocent, verbal replies that her friends could hear, and the darker undertone of telepathy. 'Is she nearby? What do you want here?'
The woman smiled, affecting a casual, unconcerned air. "I'm her guardian, technically," she replied, obliquely answering Nanoha's verbal and telepathic questions in the same breath. "We're in the area for something else, and she thought she saw you, so she asked me if I could take a look and carry a message - she's very busy at the moment, lots to do. Anyway, she just wanted to let you know she was sorry for having to run off so quickly. Maybe next time, hmm?"
Her mental voice took a softer tone, almost kind. 'She also wants to apologise for using so much force. Please understand, we can't accept failure in our mission. There's no need to be alarmed at our presence, we're just doing a routine search of the area, looking for any dormant Lost Logia. We haven't found any yet, so you have nothing to worry about.' Her eyes flashed in the light and narrowed as a hint of threat crept back into her manner. 'So stay out of our affairs, and we'll stay out of yours.'
Nanoha gulped. "Ah... yes. Maybe next time. Um... if there is a next time. Uh... one more thing? I- I don't think I ever caught her name?"
The woman raised an eyebrow. "Hmm? Haha, such a silly girl. Ah well, I'll let her introduce herself, if the two of you meet again. She waved cheerfully, strolling away, and disappeared around a corner.
All three girls stared after her for a moment or two, still slightly stunned at the abrupt, seemingly random encounter. Arisa was the first to recover her voice.
"... Nanoha." Her tone was mildly confused, with a tinge of ire, "Who was that? Was she drunk or something? Who on Earth just randomly walks up to complete strangers and starts talking?!" A vein throbbed in her forehead as she continued ranting, "And how did she know you? Who's the 'she' were you two talking about? What's going on?" Despite the phrasing, there was no doubt that the fiery blonde wouldn't tolerate Nanoha trying to evade an answer.
Nanoha looked between the two faces - Suzuka's, curious and mildly concerned, and Arisa's, annoyed and impatient. She laughed nervously, one hand straying up behind her neck in faint embarrassment as she thought fast. Quickly running through her options, she concluded that her best bet was the truth. Well, some of it.
"I met... a girl," she said carefully. "A little while ago. She was..."
Blonde hair blew back in two vivid streamers, blazingly bright ribbons against the dull, monochrome surroundings. Deep red eyes looked piercingly at and through her, boring into her soul. The black metal of the staff seemed to suck in the light around it, a hole cut into a starless sky, with a single golden eye blazing hard and dispassionate at its head. It lowered, ominously, and crackling yellow light gathered at its head before leaping out at her like a striking snake, fangs bared and accompanied by the terrifying hissing crack of a lightning bolt splitting the skies...
"... powerful. Forceful. Very... driven."
There was a pause as both girls absorbed this with dubious expressions. Nanoha was still staring off into the mists of memory, and thus missed the slow, terrible look of realisation that spread over Arisa's face, like the gradual, unstoppable shift of a burgeoning landslide. This was unfortunate, because much like a landslide, Arisa's realisations tended to be somewhat indiscriminate and overwhelming for anything that got caught in their way.
"Nanoha... have- have you got a crush?!"
"Wh-what? No!"
"Ha! You're lying!" Arisa scowled further, "How dare you get a crush on someone without introducing her to me! Who is she? And how did you not even get her name?"
Desperately seeking an escape route, Nanoha turned to Suzuka, only to be met by a disappointed frown. "I'd like to meet this girl too, Nanoha-chan. You could have at least told us about her. Why keep her a secret?"
"But... look, it was just a chance meeting! I don't have a crush!" A vaguely nauseated look passed over her face. "Anyway, I'm nine. Crushes aren't till... later." At least, she thought so. Certainly, they seemed to come somewhere before Kyouya's age, given that he was dating Shinobu. When they started, she was less certain on, but she was fairly sure it wasn't this early. "Anyway," she added after a moment's thought, "... she's a girl. Girls get crushes on boys, not girls." She nodded, secure in her logic.
Arisa narrowed her eyes, advancing half a step forward, finger prodding at Nanoha to emphasise her words. "Is she a bad influence? Has she been pressuring you into things?" She stepped back in shock. "Did she give you alcohol? Force you to drink? Or smoke?!" She grabbed Nanoha's shoulders and stared at her intensely, as if she would be able to see traces of either on her friend's face.
"Arisa! No! Stop it!" Nanoha tried to wriggle free, flailing her arms to bat away the stubborn blonde's hands and backing away. Arisa followed, lunging at her again, and Nanoha dodged to the left. Executing a particularly dexterous manoeuvre which left Arisa hanging on grimly to Suzuka's arm and Suzuka standing on Arisa's foot, she trotted away down the corridor before they got themselves sorted out.
"I think I left Yuuno-kun back near the baths!" she called back as she made her escape, "Go on without me, I'll go get him then catch up with you two later."
Arisa and Suzuka stared after her in annoyance. "She's definitely up to something," said Arisa, in tones of fervent conviction. She slapped a fist into her palm.
Suzuka nodded, frowning in irritation. "But how do we get her to tell us what it is?"
Arisa gained a speculative look.
"No," said Suzuka, before she could voice the idea. "Whatever it is, no."
Arisa pouted. "Fine. Then I say we give her a few days to calm down, then confront her about it. And guilt-trip her."
"... that could work."
"It had better." The blonde gritted her teeth, fists clenching in frustration. "It's driving me crazy, knowing she's up to something - probably dangerous -and not being able to do anything about it."
Suzuka tilted her head, considering. Purple locks fell across her face, and she absently brushed them aside. "Well," she ventured, "she didn't deny knowing whoever this 'she' person is. Maybe we should let her parents know about it?"
"... huh. Good idea." Arisa grinned, happy to have found something to do, some way to act. "Let's go!"
...
Later that night, Nanoha lay awake long into the night. She had barely registered the story Farin had told before bed, and the soft breathing from Arisa and Suzuka, to either side of her, went unheard. She wasn't sure what time it was, other than 'way, way after bedtime'. Sleep wouldn't come, though. Too many thoughts bounced around her head, refusing to die down and give her the peace of slumber.
She was here.
That scared her, if she was perfectly honest with herself. The girl had been terrifyingly fast and powerful, and her ribs and back throbbed painfully just at the memory of the blast that had felled her. What was the girl doing here? That woman had said they were scouting the area, looking for Jewel Seeds. What did they need them for? So many unknowns... Nanoha shifted restlessly, dislodging Yuuno from his place resting against her cheek.
She apologised.
Granted, by proxy, but still. That was... confusing. She really didn't know how to feel about that. It confirmed her initial guess that the girl was a good person at heart, but... in that case, was it right to fight against her? Should she take the woman's advice, and just keep her nose out of the Jewel Seeds from now on? Should she stop?
...
Could she stop?
People could be hurt by the Jewel Seeds. It was a minor miracle that, so far, people hadn't been hurt by them. Property damage was all that had been inflicted so far, but how long would that last? Didn't she have a duty, an obligation, to put whatever effort she could muster into protecting her home and her fellow citizens? What right did she have not to fight? Power brought with in the implicit acceptance of using it responsibility, and for the cause of good. Otherwise, she had always been taught, you didn't deserve to have it in the first place. Even as it was, she hadn't earned the magic she wielded so easily - hadn't worked for it like her father and brother and sister did with their fighting and training. She had been handed it on a silver platter, and what, so far, had she done with it? Her fight with the dark-clad girl had clearly shown that however much gifted she might be, she certainly wasn't living up to it in action and deed.
Would her family be proud of her if they knew she had this potential, this talent, and was wasting it? Would they support her in walking away from it, squandering her abilities? She chewed her lip thoughtfully, mulling it over.
'Nanoha?' Yuuno, apparently woken by her restless tossing and turning, nudged at her cheek. 'What's wrong?'
'... I met a- a woman, today.'
There was a pause. Yuuno, as far as he was able to with the somewhat limited facial expressions of a ferret, looked confused.
'Um... I'm not sure I-'
'She was magical! Uh- that is... she could use telepathy. And she's connected to... to that girl. Her guardian, she said. She was... um...' Nanoha considered. 'Threatening' wasn't the word she wanted to use, but it rang fairly close to the woman's attitude. Still, something made her choose her words more carefully. '... intimidating. She said they were in the area looking for Jewel Seeds, and that... that we should - well, I should - stay out of their way. Um. And also said that the girl apologised for using so much force on me, and that she was sorry she had to do it, but that she couldn't risk failing her mission.'
Yuuno stiffened at the first sentence, and bristled further as Nanoha kept talking. He seemed to calm down slightly as she finished, though, and his oval eyes narrowed in thought, giving his face a sleek, aquiline look. 'When was this?' he demanded.
'Uh... just after we left the baths.' She shot him a faintly accusing look. 'You had run away, or you'd've been there.'
'Tell me exactly what happened,' he said, ignoring the accusation, and listened as Nanoha stumbled over a more complete explanation haltingly, stopping her a few times to ask for clarification.
'What are they doing here, though? he asked, once she had finished. 'Scouting the area... I'm not sure I believe that. Or that she 'just happened' to catch sight of you, and recognise you.' He hummed quietly in thought as Nanoha's eyes widened, having not considered that. He was right, though. The chances of the girl happening across her by sheer chance, while searching for something entirely different, were astronomical.
'Nanoha... listen,' Yuuno's voice took on a serious tone, and he faced her determinedly. Insofar as she could read his body language, he looked resolute and faintly guilty. 'I've been doing a lot of thinking, these past couple of weeks, and...' his eyes flickered to her chest, and her still-bandaged ribs under them, 'with this latest revelation that she's apparently... stalking you, maybe ever coming back to finish you off, I think you should-'
'Yuuno!' Nanoha's voice was fierce, her eyes flashing angrily as she sat up, 'Don't even think of telling me to stop!'
'It-'
'If she's stalking me, then she won't cease to do so just because I stop going after the Jewel Seeds! She might even decide she doesn't trust me, and make sure I can't! And the Jewel Seeds themselves won't stop activating if I step down - and don't pretend for a minute that you can seal them on your own, any more than I could! We're partners, Yuuno, and I'm protecting my home by doing this! It's the right thing to do! I'm not going to stop just because it's dangerous, and you can't make me!'
A brief silence fell, as both mages considered this last point.
'... technically, I could just bind you to the floor every time a Jewel Seed activated, and put a barrier around Raising Heart to stop you activating it,' Yuuno pointed out.
Nanoha shot him a withering glance. 'You wouldn't dare.'
There was an awkward silence.
A tinge of uncertainty flickered across her face, a slight edge of nervousness entered her voice. 'You... wouldn't dare. Right?'
Yuuno relented. '... no. No, I wouldn't.' He could see it in her face, much as he hated it. She needed this, needed to be useful, needed to be doing something important. Needed a purpose. Looking at this amazing, vibrant girl, so full of potential that it almost terrified him to think of what she could become... it was all too easy to see her losing her way, becoming quiet and withdrawn, unable to find a purpose that called to her, kept from her true place in the world. A bird with the potential to soar through the heavens, kept crippled on the ground with broken wings.
He shuddered. The only way she would learn to fly, though, was if he let her out of the nest. She had a point, much as he didn't like it. He couldn't seal the Jewel Seeds on his own - the very first one had taught him that lesson. Painfully. It had taken Nanoha to rescue him from that, picking up a Device for the first time in her life after responding to his weakened telepathic cry for help. And within seconds of doing so, she had destroyed the monster and sealed the Seed.
And now that he thought about it, they had only gotten more powerful since then. The tree, the cat... both were far stronger than the first one. Perhaps it was just that they had warped pre-existing things, rather than creating a form from whole cloth, but instinct told him that there was something more. Regardless, it was at least certain that he had no chance of sealing the remainder of the Jewel Seeds without Nanoha's help. For all that she was a civilian, an innocent; with no responsibility or duty to risk her life in lending aid... he had no choice but to ask it of her, and for no reward or recompense.
Hanging his head in shame, he acceded. '... alright. I... you're right. And I can't thank you enough for your help, I couldn't... I don't know how to... I...'
A warm hand on his head cut off his fumbling attempts at expressing his gratitude. Looking up, he felt like he was staring into a sunbeam as Nanoha smiled happily at him, her whole face lighting up.
'It's okay, Yuuno-kun. I'm doing this because I want to, okay? Don't worry. Together, we can face anything.'
After a moment of stunned silence, his eyes slowly creased upwards in a smile, and he began to return the sentiment.
'Yeah. As long as we work together, nothing is too-'
The sharp chill, like ice and glass slicing through the core of him, cut off his optimistic reply with all the suddenness and finality of an executioner's axe. From the widening of Nanoha's eyes, and the choked gasp she let out, she had felt it too.
Somewhere in the forests around the resort, another Jewel Seed had activated.
...
The cool wash of the water sounded loud in the silence of the night. It played against the banks and over the bumps and dips in the riverbed. Above it, the tree boughs swayed in the breeze and the leaves rustled gently in an ever-present low murmur.
Fate and Arf sat on the bridge, watching the humming Jewel Seed in the water below. While it was tempting to try to seal it now, its harmless appearance was deceptive. It was undergoing the last cycle of drawing in ambient magic before it activated - any more power now would only give them a harder fight. As it began to glow, Fate stood, balancing effortlessly on the narrow handrail.
"Bardiche," she said, tonelessly.
Golden radiance blossomed, and enveloped her with wings of storm and lightning. The familiar, comfortable feel of her Barrier Jacket clothed her, and her magic swirled within her, exultant at the chance to be used again. As the brief burst of euphoria faded, she felt Arf put up a barrier, shielding them away from any outside interference.
As she touched down, clad in her Barrier Jacket and with the comforting heft of Bardiche calming her with its cool presence in her right hand, she looked at the enemy she faced, which was just finishing its own transformation. Eyes narrowing, she sunk into a combat stance, ready to move, and awaited its first move, aware out of the corner of her eye of Arf doing the same thing.
It was like nothing she had ever seen before. Seventy seven perfect, flawless orbs of solid ice, each the size of a human head, orbited in a wide sphere, refracting and reflecting moonlight in unpredictable patterns as they moved with no apparent means of propulsion through the air. They cast a soft radiance as well, emanating from the core, a pastel glow of blue-violet that mirrored the Jewel Seed from which they had come.
At the heart of the sphere, a central ring of seven - these ones deeper, darker, their colour the navy-indigo tint of a rainbow's trailing edge- span in a ring around the Jewel Seed. It shone in the dim light, a malevolent radiance illuminating the surrounding area for hundreds of yards with a light that cast no shadows. It was balanced at the exact centre of both sphere and ring, on a fountain of boiling water that steamed and-
... no. Wait. Fate's eyes widened as she took in the scant droplets falling off the edges of the flute-like column of liquid, which turned to ice as they fell and flash-froze chunks the size of a fist when they hit the river water. That wasn't heat, it was cold. A cold so intense that steam was flaring from the surface as water vapour in the air condensed into freezing mist, while the fountain itself crackled and hissed as the super-cooled water fought to solidify, only to be effortlessly forced to keep flowing by the power it bore aloft.
Kept tense by anticipation, Fate waited for it to make its move. But it didn't. It merely hung in the air, orbs floating in their predetermined paths around it, the soft hum of their movement adding a counterpoint to the rush of the river and the rustle of the leaves.
"... hmm," noted Fate, when it became clear that the thing wasn't going to attack.
"Shouldn't it be... I dunno, frozen solid, at that temperature?" asked Arf. "I mean, it's freezing the river where the droplets land, so-"
She caught the flat look that Fate cast at her, and rubbed the back of her neck sheepishly, her canines flashing as she grinned. "Oh, right. Jewel Seed. Gotcha."
Fate considered the Seed again, eyes roaming over it in evaluation. "It's still unstable," she decided, "not yet at full power." Bardiche came up in a two-handed centre grip, solid and simple, easy to adapt both to offense or defence. "Cover me. I'm sealing it."
"Ahh! Of course, Fate-chan! I'm sure you'll have no trouble!"
Phantom fingers traced her skin as she faced it, delicately probing every inch of the surrounding area. She supposed this served as the thing's senses. Setting Bardiche into sealing form, its blade locking out into the glaive configuration and four wings of light bursting from just beneath its head, she decided to start off light and test the Seed's defences with a probing attack before she really committed herself.
Setting off at a run to her right, along the bridge railing, she let loose a volley of lightning - a simple spell, low power. She didn't really expect it to work, merely to show her the kind of defence she would need to get past to seal the thing.
She was startled, therefore, by the sheer vehemence of the response. With a screech like fingernails down a blackboard, the sapphire blaze resting on the fountain pulsed, and the nearby orbs in the outer shell contracted to block her lightning, which scattered harmlessly off them. As quickly as they had clustered together to form a shield, they flew apart again, as if pulled by springs back into their geometric places in the sphere. Just in time to let the counterattack through. A volley of razor-edged ice shards whipped out at her, blurring through the air and slicing clean holes through the trees and soil they hit as she dodged.
"Fast," she muttered in surprise, and fired another volley of Photon Lancers to draw its attention. While effective as a shield, its clustering of the orbs in one place to defend itself opened gaps in the rest of the shell. If she could move fast enough, she could exploit the weakness to get an unblocked attack on the central ring - perhaps even the Jewel Seed itself. Bracing herself as the golden projectiles arced in, she prepared to move...
A sharp, staccato series of cracks split the air as the fountain spat a dozen or more pellets of super-cooled water on improbably curving trajectories. Fate's eyes widened in brief horror as they intercepted her shots, blasting into and through the fragile balls of contained lightning only to continue homing in on her.
The Seed wasn't finished through. With a blinding flash, another volley of ice-shards shot out. But this was no loosely-knit reactive counterattack. This was a wide spray, at chest-height, that covered at least a sixty degree arc in either direction. The shards were closely packed, too, leaving her nowhere to dodge and no way to avoid the dense spray of lethal ice.
Hissing in a mixture of fear and frustration, Fate willed golden wings into existence at her ankles, and desperately threw herself upwards. Just in time, as the deadly hail scythed through where she had been standing scant fractions of a second before.
"Arf!" she barked, half order, half cry for help.
Orange chains came to her rescue, dozens of them lashing out and wrapping around the orbs in the outer shell, anchoring them to the ground in three or four different places, then pulling taut to prevent them from moving. Evidently, Arf had made good use of the time the Seed had spent focusing on Fate.
It did not react well. A screech of anger cut the air to no avail, as Fate soared upwards. Snapping Bardiche into its scythe form, she plummeted from the heavens, a crackling, blazing blade of energy slicing down in a lethal blow towards the undefended Jewel Seed.
Had she not been focusing intently on her target, and by proxy the area directly under it, she might have missed the boiling of the water below it. As it was, she barely managed to throw herself out of the way as the river...
... erupted.
A pillar of frozen water slammed skywards, propelled with terrible force as the Jewel Seed shrieked in fear. Spikes, hammer-blow chunks and solid panes of ice flew up around the central ring, and then exploded outward in a furore of violence.
Outside the outer sphere, Fate skidded to a halt, eyes wide and face pale, breathing harshly from panic and exertion. Turning, she warily regarded the spinning ring of deep indigo orbs orbiting the Jewel Seed as the blocks and pillars of its desperately improvised defence crashed back down into the river. On the other bank, Arf tightened her grip on the magical chains that bound the orbs in place, muscles bunching against their strain.
A brief silence ensued as the combatants watched each other warily. Perhaps a minute had passed since the fight began. Faint, intangible threads of magic brushed across Fate's face, and she scowled as she realised how the thing had been reacting so fast to her. "Of course..." she murmured, "Arf! It can feel everything around it! Don't ever assume it doesn't know exactly where you are!"
She had scarcely finished the warning when the stalemate was abruptly broken by a flurry of water bullets and razor shards of ice. Compared to the brutal, panicked fury of its last attack, or the wide, cutting spray it had tried before that, it was a comparatively weak attack.
Unfortunately, it was directed at Arf.
The familiar cried out in fear at the oncoming attack, throwing herself out of the way into the undergrowth. Another volley forced Fate onto the defensive, preventing her from coming to her familiar's aid, and with a convulsive wrench, the Seed took advantage of Arf's distraction to rip itself free from the bindings, shattering the glowing chains like glass as the shell began its elegant rotation once again.
Fate could swear that the low hum, like a finger on a titanic wine glass, sounded somehow triumphant. "Fine," she said softly. "Arf!" she raised her voice, "guard me!"
An orange-topped head, bedecked by tufted ears, popped out of the bushes. "Right!" called Arf, scrambling over and bringing up a shield between Fate and the creature.
One foot forward, the other braced back. Hold Bardiche at the chest; use the upper body to brace it from the recall. Compress the power, force it into the limits of the spell, pull up the crackling electric song from within...
Crimson eyes focused on the centre of the sphere with almost enough intensity to melt stone.
"Bardiche!"
[Thunder Smasher.]
Arf's shield flickered out just as she fired, and the blast crashed into and over the paltry defence offered by the orbs of the outer shell like waves breaking over the side of a rowboat, capsizing it in an instant. Only it wasn't water that flooded the inside of the sphere, streaking across the short distance to the inner ring. It was condensed magic, lightning-aspected, which seared and burned and blazed.
The Jewel Seed screamed.
The steam began to clear, and from what Fate could see, the numbers of orbs in its outer shell had been drastically reduced. Its perfect order was broken, its calm elegance shattered.
It should not, in retrospect, have been so surprising when three orbs flew out of the dispersing cloud with sledgehammer force. Hurriedly bringing Bardiche up to guard, Fate swerved out of the way of them and prepared to smash any more that came toward-
The sound from behind her couldn't be described in words, exactly. It was the sound that would be produced by a page full of text being deleted, or a beautiful painting being wiped clean, or a gorgeous sculpture being returned in an instant to raw blocks of stone. Every ounce of her considerable willpower was strained to keep from looking round in shock, but she resisted nonetheless. Instead, she tensed and leapt upwards, glancing down on her way up.
A segment of the forest was gone.
Not destroyed, reduced to kindling by the terrible force and momentum behind the orbs. Not broken or smashed, frozen or cut. Just... gone. A sphere about a metre across had been cut cleanly out of the undergrowth - the curve passed partway through the trunks of a couple of trees, mirror-smooth and absolutely perfect. A wide, shallow crater showed that the effect had worked just as well on the ground as the wood and foliage - and indeed, the boundary was so perfectly absolute that she could even see leaves that had been sliced cleanly in two, along a glass-like boundary.
Wide-eyed and hyperventilating, Fate fought to get her hammering pulse under control. She had been intending to parry that! She didn't have time to suffer a mild heart attack from terror, though, because the scream of pain and rage was only increasing.
Once again, the surface of the river erupted. This time, however, it was not a single outburst of ice as a last-ditch defensive measure.
It was a maelstrom.
A whirling, roaring, screaming waterspout laced with razor ice and violet lightning exploded from the water, engulfing the central ring in a split second and expanding in mere heartbeats until it was at least a dozen metres across. The remainder of the outer shell, defence taken care of, quivered in the air and struck, firing like cannonballs toward the two mages. With twin curses, they split up, dodging frantically.
The next few minutes were hell, plain and simple. The orbs were relentless, hounding them without pause or respite, biting metre-wide chunks out of the landscape wherever the struck. After the third time she barely escaped intact, Fate flashed over to Arf, who was having marginally better success in keeping the things away with her barriers, and dropped into her arms.
"Arf," she said urgently, "can you keep them away from both of us? I need to charge up a spell."
The Familiar's eyes hardened. "They won't get close," she vowed fervently. Fate nodded gratefully and entrusted herself to her friend, closing her eyes to better concentrate. The orbs were Arf's problem now, worrying about them herself would serve no purpose. Her job was to charge up a very large amount of mana in a very short time.
Inward, she dived. Down, down, deep down, into the core of herself. There, eternally twisting and snapping, she beheld her magic - or at least her own visualisation of it. It was a crackling electric power, an enormous mass of lightning that never earthed itself, snapping and striking in all directions. A contained storm, held at the heart of her, wild and feral and savage.
Holding the images of her sister - so vulnerable, so small - and her mother, with perfect control and more magical skill than she could ever see herself gaining, Fate Testarossa straightened, a cool wash of imperial command taking over her face. The storm flew towards her - or perhaps she fell towards it - its electric, sparking surface boiling and turbulent, bolts of brilliant incandescence arcing from one point to another, blazing like a miniature sun.
Fate didn't so much as flinch as it bore down on her. 'You are mine,' she said, and her voice was certain. 'You are part of me. You do my will. Now help me.'
It engulfed her, but it did not burn or sear. It felt warm, protective, safe. A blinding radiance, exhilarating and elated, that shone from her heart, blazed through her eyes, and flowed in cascading torrents down her arms to feed her weapon.
[Thunder Rage.]
Lightning struck, and for a moment it seemed as through the world was engulfed in blinding brilliance. The Jewel Seed screamed again, but its protests were weaker. Its own defence was its undoing, as cruel lightning conducted through the very super-cooled liquid with which it made to defend itself. The vicious claws raked over it, shattering its defences and stabbing into the heart of its power, shredding it. For a brief moment, the maelstrom was frozen in time, lit from within by a blaze of fire and lightning that refracted off every piece of ice within, a second sun born in the night within a column of water and mirrors, which cast its deadly, beautiful radiance across the entire forest.
The moment passed, and the column collapsed. Water washed over the riverbanks from the sudden downpour, lapping at the trees and pooling in the shallow craters. The few remaining orbs - all seven central ones, and perhaps four or five of the outer ones - fell to the ground, inert. The Jewel Seed, diminished and defeated, floated passively in the air, deceptively fragile and small for something that had been so dangerous mere moments ago. Breathing hard, Fate reached out with Bardiche, slowly.
The sealing was easy. The Jewel Seed's power was shattered for the moment, it put up no resistance. Barely had the faint flare of light finished licking at her hands, however, when Fate heard a sound from the forest track off to her left.
She turned, Jewel Seed forgotten. There was never really any doubt over what the source of the movement was.
Red eyes stared into blue, and for the second time in as many weeks, Fate found herself face to face with Nanoha Takamachi.
...
Shakily, Nanoha emerged from the trees, eyes wide. She had caught the last few moments of the fight, panting from the exertion of running to the source of the magical emanations she could sense. She had not expected to find the blonde girl locked in a pitched battle with... with...
Gulping, her eyes traced over one of the nearby craters. It looked like a bite had simply been ripped out of the world in a split-second flash of colour, the edges of the yard-wide sphere of nothingness as smooth as glass, no matter whether they sliced through wood, stone or soil. She imagined briefly what such an effect would do to a human body, and shuddered.
A soft movement returned her attention to the girl in front of her, who was now staring at her intensely. Cool mist was rising from the river as water vapour in the air was condensed by the intense cold. Moonlight gleamed through the branches above, casting shifting shadows over the scene in ardent hues. Perspiration beaded on the girl's brow, her slight frame trembling with heavy breathing. Despite the clear exhaustion she showed, however, Nanoha almost found her even more intimidating than the last time they had met.
Endlessly deep, the burgundy gaze regarded her with a trace of wariness, and... was that a faint hint of confusion?
"... leave."
Nanoha blinked. "... no," she replied, reflexively.
The girl sighed. "The last time we met, Takamachi-san, I hurt you. Gravely. I do not wish to do so again." She fixed Nanoha with a piercing look, one which perhaps held a hint of beseechment. "Please leave".
"Nanoha." She wasn't sure why she blurted it out, but pressed onward rather than stumbling over her tongue. "Not Takamachi-san. Call me Nanoha."
"... Nanoha-san." Her voice was soft. "My name is Fate Testarossa."
"Fate-san..."
Bardiche came down to point at her, Fate's grip firm and steady despite the faint trembling of her upper arms. Whatever Nanoha had been about to say cut off abruptly, and she took a wary step backward, bringing Raising Heart up defensively.
"Nanoha-san, I have given you a warning. If you do not leave - now - I will be forced to attack." Her eyes were sad, but resolute. "Understand. I must gather the Lost Logia. I cannot fail in this."
"Why? If it's for a good reason, maybe I can help! Please, just... explain! Can't we talk it over instead of fighting?"
Arf began to growl something, but Fate cut her off with a wave, turning back to regard Nanoha warily. "I... can't tell you the details," she began, slowly. "If I did... suffice to say that I cannot, not without knowing that you would not stand against me. As I said, I cannot fail. But... do you know what it is like, when someone close to you is hurt, and there's nothing you can do?"
The words struck like a hammer, and Nanoha actually twitched in physical shock. Shakily, she nodded, expression fragile. Fate raised an eyebrow at the unexpected impact the words had made, but continued unaffected.
"This is something I can do. Must do. And I can't allow you- or anyone else - to stop me from protecting my family. Do you understand?"
Another nod, wide-eyed, vulnerable. Raw empathy shone from Nanoha's eyes, and every line of her stance spoke of a common knowledge between them, an understanding of what it felt like to be in that position. A faint flicker of hope ignited in Fate's chest. This might actually work...
"Then you will concede?"
Nanoha so very nearly said yes. Her heart cried out for the girl's plight, demanding that she show sympathy. But nonetheless, a tiny part of her mind hung back, not opposed to Fate herself, but imagining in vivid colours the devastation the Jewel Seeds could wreck if misused. Fate might want them for a good cause. Perhaps even the best. But that didn't change the fact that if she made a mistake, dimensions could shatter and worlds could be laid to waste.
'Nanoha. We don't know if she's telling the truth,' Yuuno thought to her urgently. 'And even if she is, we have no idea how she's planning to use the Jewel Seeds! She could be planning anything with them! We can't be sure she knows what she's going, and one wrong move could-'
'I know, Yuuno-kun,' she cut him off sadly. 'I know. I just... wish there was some other way.'
'... me too. I'm sorry, Nanoha.'
Rather than answer him, eyes glimmering with tears, she shifted Raising Heart upward slightly toward the dark-clad girl balanced on the bridge rail. The movement was minute, but the message was clear.
"... I see." Fate's tone was sad - as sad as Nanoha's mental voice had been. "In that case, I apologise. But my family comes first. Always."
She was moving before the sentence was finished. Fast though she was, Yuuno was somehow faster, and a barrier blossomed out from his place on Nanoha's shoulder to block her path. She twisted in midair, bringing Bardiche back over her shoulder for an overarm blow as she adjusted her course. A simple evasion and she could end the fight cleanly and with one strike, hurting the stubborn girl as little as possible. Maybe even damage her Device a little to discourage her from coming back.
She wasn't expecting the barrier to keep going, the emerald pane of force accelerating forwards to plough into her like a runaway truck, sending her flying backwards across the river and into a tree.
Arf and Nanoha stared in pure, unadulterated shock for a second, before the former screamed in rage, her body bulging grotesquely and exploding out in a frenzy of hair and claws and teeth. The giant red-orange wolf that stood in her place as it finished howled in mad fury, but her telepathic voice was razor-edged with focus.
'You dare hurt my mistress, you little brat!' Leaping high into the air, she came down on Nanoha - or more specifically, Yuuno - with claws outstretched and jaws snapping and frothing for blood.
'Nanoha! You take care of the girl! I'll handle her Familiar!' ordered Yuuno, leaping off her shoulder. A dome-shaped barrier flickered into existence around both of them just in time for the enraged wolf to slam into it, throwing up sparks of viridian fire as she bore down on it with all her might. Cracks began to appear in the hastily-cast shield, but Yuuno was already casting again. Arf noticed the steadily rising updraft too late, and was only able to let out an impotent howl before both animals dissolved into green bars of light that flickered and vanished.
"A forced... teleportation..." Unsteadily, Fate got to her feet, holding her ribs gingerly. "Your friend is powerful, I'll give him that." Her eyes narrowed, "I've told you my motives. What do you two want the Lost Logia for?"
"Huh? No, you have it all wrong! We don't want them for anything! We just want to keep them safe and stop anyone else from using them! They're really dangerous! Please, Fate-san, I don't want to fight you!"
"Hnn. If you want to stop anyone from using them, that makes us rivals." The black metal of the axehead glinted ominously in the moonlight. "A fight, then. One Jewel Seed to the winner."
"Fate-san..." Nanoha seemed to realise that further talking wasn't going to help, and her expression firmed. "Alright! If you won't talk, I'll fight you!"
She was half-anticipating the lunge, and turned even as she made the declaration. As she had counted on, Fate appeared behind her, Device scything down in a hammer-blow, the crackling energy scythe spitting sparks at her. Nanoha barely got Raising Heart up in time, and the shafts of the two polearms crashed against one another, jarring her arms but arresting the deadly scythe blade's fall.
Defending hadn't worked last time. Taking a chance, Nanoha pushed onto the offensive, forcing Raising Heart forward and pivoting it around the point of contact between the two staves to bring the heavy, ring-shaped head around into Fate's face. Fate reeled backward, stunned at the sudden aggressive tactic. The native girl had used a shooting Device as a blunt instrument!
[Divine Shooter,] announced a cool, pleasant female voice, and Fate cursed inwardly as half a dozen pink bullets sped towards her. Nanoha was not, it seemed, letting up on her offensive. Her back and ribs were still aching from the forceful paired impact of barrier and tree, and she was starting to run dangerously low on magic after the prolonged fight with the Jewel Seed barely moments ago.
Well then. That just meant she would have to start using less gentle options.
Dodging upwards, she cast a shield and allowed the shots to break against it. Reaching the pinnacle of her upwards flight, she hung in the air for a moment. The view was incredible, silver-tinted canopy in monochrome and sepia tones stretching out in all directions, broken only by the punctures in the treeline left by the Jewel Seed's spiteful attack. The river ran between the trees far below, a mirror-like snake winding through the forest, and off in the distance she could see the hot springs resort, rising up like a squat, blocky hill from the surrounding woodland. The stars above were a sprinkling of light through the heavens as she turned, and the cool, clean air of the night was sharp against her face and in her breath.
Then the moment passed, and she fell, Bardiche drawn back, a silent wraith descending from on high like an avenging angel.
Nanoha saw her coming, of course. The girl wore a stubborn expression - she was probably aware that Fate's reserves were running low, and confident in her ability to win if she could just hold out long enough. Gritting her teeth and bracing herself in midair, she thrust Raising Heart upward and cast a barrier above her.
Just as planned.
Blue eyes widened in shock as Fate blurred past her, missing the barrier entirely, skirting just around the outer edge. A black edge lashed out, the space between axehead and shaft hooking Nanoha's leg and running down until it caught against her foot, where it found itself unable to move any further down.
So instead, it pulled Nanoha along with it.
Slowing her dive to a standstill, Fate anchored herself and heaved, using the entire length of Bardiche as a lever to physically hurl the girl she was dragging around and down, adding even more force to her already-impressive velocity. At the bottom of the arc, a mental command was enough for the blade to spring straight, flicking out into its glaive configuration and allowing the screaming girl to fall freely, caught completely unaware by the unconventional manoeuvre.
Which she did. Briefly.
As the dust from the crater cleared, Fate landed. Standing over the prone form, she held her glowing blade to Nanoha's throat and stared down at her, one foot resting lightly on her chest.
"Yield."
Pain singing in her still-unhealed wounds, Nanoha stared blurrily up into the blade of lightning frozen bare millimetres from her throat. Her vision swam, the force of the blunt impact reverberating through her body and turning all her bones into rods of red-hot steel. Or possibly jelly. They hurt like the former, but felt like the latter, so she wasn't entirely sure.
[Pull out.]
The red gem pulsed, and expelled a blue gem from its depths, the surface rippling like water as it emerged. Nanoha mouthed something in protest - exactly what was hard to say, as she had no breath with which to verbalise it. Fate deduced the likely gist of what she was trying to ask, though, and removed the blade from her throat in a smooth motion.
"Your Device obviously cares about you," she noted. "It's trying to protect you in the only way it has left."
Pained though they were, Nanoha's eyes still held a faint tinge of disappointment. Well, that was her problem. Fate plucked the Jewel Seed out of the air, storing it within Bardiche along with the one still hovering passively above the river. Noticing a couple of the inner orbs, dark blue and blemish-free despite the magical fireworks that had been going off near them, she took them as well. Mother might be interested in studying them, and if not... well, she could probably find some use for them.
"Goodbye, Nanoha Takamachi," she said. "I have not hurt you badly this time, but if you continue to insist on interfering, I may not be able to avoid it in future." Sending a mental prompt to Arf, she took to the air, flying up and over the treetops briefly before setting a course for home. Nanoha's friend, the ferret, would ensure her safety, even if she wasn't able to get back to the resort on her own. Regardless, Fate had what she had come for.
Left alone in the clearing, body aching and lying once again on her back after a humiliating and concrete defeat, Nanoha stared up at the sky and allowed a few lone tears to run from her eyes.
...
Step. Drag. Wince. Step. Drag. Wince. Step. Drag. Wince.
Nanoha slowly, silently, stubbornly limped back toward the resort. Yuuno watched with concern, but after her vehement refusal of his first offer to help her beyond the light Physical Heal spell on her sprained ankle - which may have helped her to stand without screaming, but definitely not fixed it completely - he kept silent.
Step. Drag. Wince. Step. Drag. Wince.
Each step, followed by the accompanying shuffle as she rested as little weight on her injured ankle as possible, sent a faint flicker of pain across her face, but she gritted her teeth and ignored it as best she could. She needed to get back to the lodge and into bed before anyone noticed she was gone, and that meant that she had to hurry. Granted, it was the middle of the night, but that didn't mean Farin or Miyuki might not look in on them while going for a midnight snack, or something equally disastrous.
The lights of the hostel came into view, and Nanoha gratefully slipped into the building and snuck through the hallways until she reached the room she was sharing with Suzuka and Arisa. Slipping inside, she disrobed as quickly and quietly as she was able, hissing in pain a few times as she jarred her ankle. Yuuno stood guard outside the door, ready to give warning if anyone approached.
And yet, as mist-damp clothing fell softly to the floor, and bruised, battered ribs were hidden under pyjamas - she would have to be careful getting changed the next morning, to keep Arisa and Suzuka from seeing the fresh bruises - thoughts of pain, or discovery, or even the Jewel Seeds themselves were not what occupied Nanoha's mind.
"Do you know what it is like, when someone close to you is hurt, and there's nothing you can do?"
She did. Oh gods, she did. That time, when her father had been in hospital, her sister spending every second of free time she had by his side, her mother and brother stretched to their limits in coping with the bakery... and what had she done? Not much. She had learned to look after herself, made sure she didn't require supervision, freed up more time that didn't need to be spent caring for her, who needed it least.
But the feeling still lingered. She wasn't helping. Just minimising the difficulties she was adding to her family's plate. She had told her mother once, young, serious and earnest, and Momoko had kissed her forehead and hugged her, and told her that it wasn't true, that she was being incredibly brave and helpful. Nanoha had been mostly convinced, but she still wished she could have done something.
"This is something I can do. Must do. And I can't allow you- or anyone else - to stop me from protecting my family. Do you understand?"
Could she oppose that? Was she right to? This was nothing like any of the stories she'd read, where the bad guy was obviously bad, and the good guys were obviously good, and the heroes always won and everyone was happy. This was confusing, and difficult, and... and...
... and didn't Fate deserve to win as well? Didn't she deserve to protect her family, to help her loved ones? Whose cause was more worthy?
Troubled, Nanoha lay down and hugged herself into her bedroll, keen on getting to sleep as soon as possible so that she could stop thinking such uncomfortable thoughts. Yuuno scampered over, mentally assuring her that nobody had come near the room while she was changing, and that he hadn't seen anyone as she was sneaking back in, either.
Neither of them noticed the figure on the bedroll to Nanoha's right. Like Suzuka, Arisa's body was relaxed, her breathing slow, her head half-buried in the soft, luxurious pillows.
But unlike Suzuka, her eyes were wide open, and her expression was as hard as stone as she watched her friend suspiciously.
...
Wreathed in a golden aura, Fate touched down gently on the roof of her penthouse, Arf following close behind. The flight back had been, if not tiring, then at least long, and the sun was peeking over the horizon. She wanted nothing more than to get to bed and enjoy a nice morning spent catching up on sleep.
Naturally, she was three steps into the apartment when Bardiche gave off the high-pitched series of chimes that signified an incoming communication. Groaning, and muttering words she probably shouldn't know under her breath, she tossed the two deep violet-blue spheres of ice to Arf for her to take care of, put the triangular yellow talisman on the table and pressed it once, accepting the call.
"Fate-chan!" Linith's warm voice sounded happily in greeting, "How are you? Have you been eating and sleeping enough? Run into any problems?"
Despite her tiredness, she couldn't help but smile at Linith's enthused, friendly manner. "Fine, yes and no, respectively. It's good to hear from you, Linith."
"You too, dear. Though... no problems at all? Not even a brown-haired little mage in white, with a ferret-companion?"
"..."
"Precia-sama told me," Linith answered the unspoken question. "Honestly, Fate-chan. You should tell me these things! I might be able to offer some advice!"
Fate blinked, startled, as a thought occurred. "Actually, you might be able to help. I ran into her again today."
"Oh?"
"Yes, and got two Jewel Seeds out of it, but that's not-" Fate had to pause for a moment to allow Linith's exuberant congratulations to subside, before continuing, "-that's not really important. Mother said I could tell her a little about my motives, to see if we can get her to join our side, and... she reacted so strangely. Strongly, too. I can't figure out why."
"Hmm..." Linith's voice sounded thoughtful over the connection, and Fate could hear the faint sound of tapping as she considered. "Have you considered hiring a private detective to look into her background? The funds we generated should allow you to cover something like that with relative ease as long as you don't get too carried away. How much have you been spending, anyway?"
"Not much. Food, rent. A few books."
Linith clucked disapprovingly. "It's been two weeks, Fate. You're not expected to spend every waking moment on the job, you could stand to spend a little time and money on yourself."
"..."
The familiar sighed - this was an old argument, and one that she'd never won in all the times they'd had it before. "Urgh... like mother, like daughter. Anyway, yes. A private detective is just someone who will investigate something for a client, after being paid a suitable fee. While you personally might have trouble hiring one, I'm sure Arf's adult form could. Or you could hire one by phone - I showed you how to use the phone book, didn't I?"
"Yes."
"Wonderful, then! Tell them that you suspect she might be a relation, and that you'd like to know about her family history and childhood. That should be sufficiently vague as not to arouse any suspicion, and get you the information you need." She hesitated, apparently uncertain as to whether to continue. "Ah... speaking of the attempt to gain her sympathies, you didn't... injure her again, did you?"
"..."Fate shuffled her feet, gaze dropping. "... may have sort of slammed her into the ground," she muttered.
"Oh, Fate," Linith sighed, before perking up slightly. "Oh well. You weren't to know. Just something to keep in mind for the future."
"I will. And... um... she did say she didn't want to fight me. And seemed sympathetic. So I am making some progress. And no, I didn't tell her any details, just that I was protecting my family."
"Wonderful. Well then, I'll go and tell Precia-sama that you've claimed two more Jewel Seeds and made inroads with the Takamachi girl. I'm sure she'll be very proud." Fate perked up slightly, and smiled. "And... have you just got back from this?"
"... yes?"
"Then get to bed! You can call Precia-sama to make your report when you wake up! Oh, and eat something first, or you'll go hungry."
"I will. Thank you, Linith."
"No need to thank me, Fate-chan. You're doing a wonderful thing out there, and I'm very proud of you. As is your mother. Take care of yourself, alright? Love you."
"Love you too, Linith. And mother."
With a soft click, the connection closed.
...
Back at the resort, Nanoha long since asleep, Yuuno stared up at the moon from the windowsill, eyes tracing over its craters and pockmarks, marking the similarities to others he'd seen, on other worlds far across the dimensional sea. He missed Mid-Childa, and the comforting glow of its twin moons. He missed his clan, his digs and the masses of other magic users. He missed the TSAB and the knowledge that there was always a safety net there for him if something went wrong, one that was conspicuous only in its absence out here, on this strange, alien world, where there was nobody to call for help and the only mages were a lone native girl and a hostile expeditionary force that was after the same thing as he was. Only for rather different reasons, it seemed.
Mostly, though, he missed the feeling of boredom.
This world might only be a barbarian Unadministrated World, but it had been nothing but terror since he arrived. Right from the word go, the fight with the Jewel Seed monster had shown him that he was in way, way over his head. Since then, he had been alternately terrified and horrified in equal measure.
He glanced backwards over his shoulder at the sleeping girl behind him. Much of the terror had been related to Nanoha. Dry-mouthed fear whenever she fought, stark terror when he had seen her limp form falling bonelessly to the ground like a rag doll after the first round with the Testarossa girl, a low, nagging worry in the pit of his stomach while she had been incarcerated in hospital.
But the fear was as much of her as for her. Her learning curve was... he had no other way to put it, it was terrifyingly fast. She had first picked up a Device less than a month ago, and already she was flying, exerting fine control over shooting attacks and, if he wasn't mistaken, unconsciously speeding her own healing. She was progressing at a pace that, to his knowledge, was far faster than she should be.
Irritably, he shook his head. No, he was imagining things. She was powerful, yes, but Raising Heart was doing much of the work. Most mages trained on simple Devices, mass-produced, with heavy safeties and little in the way of fine control or precision. Raising Heart was a custom-built showpiece, a specialist Intelligent Device that happened to match her innate talents perfectly. That was all.
Still. It was as much what she wasn't learning as what she was. Her skills with magic were excellent, but she wasn't learning the theory to go with it. Fundamentally, she had no idea what magic couldn't do. And that was worrying, because she was doing things just because she thought magic should be able to do it; with no greater context for what Mid-Style's strengths were. Raising Heart was making up for her mistakes, for now, but in some ways that only added to the problem. She wasn't gathering the learning experiences, where a trainee would normally find that their Device couldn't handle something, and resolve not to do it in future. There was no organic process of discovery, finding out what was and wasn't safe in a controlled, comfortable environment. And her core was large enough that, despite it being a terrible way to solve problems, she was tackling challenges in a... a cunningly brutal way that he was beginning to associate with this world, using brute force in everything, even her finesse. She'd hit the Testarossa girl in the face with Raising Heart's central intelligence core, for crying out loud, with no concern for how she could have damaged the Device! Granted, it was probably just because she'd seen the other girl using her more melee-focussed Device as a weapon like that, but nonetheless.
It was a problem of culture, more than anything. A problem he should really have foreseen. She was just a child, one who had never known about magic until he dropped into her life and handed her an Intelligent Device. He was fairly sure she was spending every hour she could learning more maths from Raising Heart. And the problem with that was that in focusing only on what she could do, she was neglecting to learn about what she shouldn't. She knew nothing about the mistakes of the past, the horrors that magic could inadvertently bring about. Despite knowing how dangerous the Jewel Seeds were, she didn't seem to have drawn the connection between them and the small red orb that rested so innocently in the hollow of her throat. Any magic could be dangerous, and a fully operational Intelligent Device fed by what he estimated to already be an AA rank mage, even with barely any training...
... but that was the other problem. He couldn't tell her too much. For one, there wasn't the time. To give a proper history lesson - which was certainly something that he could do - would take time that they didn't have, not with that other girl out there, who was just as strong as Nanoha, and far better trained. That was in itself suspicious, because you didn't just find 9-year old mages of that rank. Was she from some other non-TSAB world? But she used orthodox Mid-style, albeit in a more combat-focussed stance. And... how was he meant to start on something like that? He'd just have to make sure he made clear to Nanoha how dangerous magic could be if misapplied, and hope that nothing else went wrong.
Yuuno sighed, feeling suddenly very weary, and very unsure. Laying his head down to rest on his paws, he stared out at the alien sky and waited for sleep that wouldn't come, feeling like he was his age for the first time in a long time.
He was getting the horrible feeling that he was in even further over his head than he had thought he was.
...
It also depends on how expensive his treatments were. If he had to undergo expensive treatments constantly for several years, the money would have gone fast. Hell, he might have required multiple organ transplants, large amounts of medicine etc. If complications arose, it would cost even more, and if they had to call in specialists, the cost would shoot through the roof.
Very nice chapter, great job!
The things Nanoha's friends and family will do promise to be interesting. I'm betting either the secret gets out a lot earlier, quite possibly with Yunno's obviously un-ferret-like actions being the catalyst.
I'm betting Nanoha will team up with Fate once Fate's full story is given out, even if Yunno doesn't agree, and definitely fighting against the TSAB. Unless you decide to be extremely evil, Fate and her whole family will probably come out of this alive and helping. (then again, Earthscorpion is helping out here, and I don't know your writing well enough to determine how well your characters survive) This will make for a very interesting season 2 once/if it gets that far without the butterflies completely taking over.
Something to consider, as long as they can get their act together fast enough and don't make that giant explosion/dimensional distortion, the starship will not come. This obviously changes a ton of things.
I find it funny how I'm focusing much more on Nanoha & co, as opposed to the enemies since they're the real focus (IMO) of the anime and the ones who were directly changed. It just seems to me that the enemies will become the TSAB, as they try and stop poor Fate from resurrecting her sister due to their outdated beliefs on magic...
The things Nanoha's friends and family will do promise to be interesting. I'm betting either the secret gets out a lot earlier, quite possibly with Yunno's obviously un-ferret-like actions being the catalyst.
I'm betting Nanoha will team up with Fate once Fate's full story is given out, even if Yunno doesn't agree, and definitely fighting against the TSAB. Unless you decide to be extremely evil, Fate and her whole family will probably come out of this alive and helping. (then again, Earthscorpion is helping out here, and I don't know your writing well enough to determine how well your characters survive) This will make for a very interesting season 2 once/if it gets that far without the butterflies completely taking over.
Something to consider, as long as they can get their act together fast enough and don't make that giant explosion/dimensional distortion, the starship will not come. This obviously changes a ton of things.
I find it funny how I'm focusing much more on Nanoha & co, as opposed to the enemies since they're the real focus (IMO) of the anime and the ones who were directly changed. It just seems to me that the enemies will become the TSAB, as they try and stop poor Fate from resurrecting her sister due to their outdated beliefs on magic...
Alternatively, it all fails, Precia, Arf and Linith die, and Fate is left with a completely broken life, with the knowledge everything she did was pointless, as reviving Alicia was in fact impossible, and that the TSAB was in the right. Hell, if she finds out how Precia was manipulating her, she could very well snap and become a full on villian worse than even Precia.
And seriously Yuuno, it was war, every enemy they killed was one more the enemy had to replace, as if they let them live, they would gain more and more experience, while the number of enemies increase. If they let everyone live, then the conflict will just get bigger and bigger, and capturing them diverted resources from the front lines. I understand your distaste of killing, but if you can't understand why, then you fail as a scholar. Though you are a child, so perhaps that is the cause?
Also, is it weird to talk to a fictional character like that?
And seriously Yuuno, it was war, every enemy they killed was one more the enemy had to replace, as if they let them live, they would gain more and more experience, while the number of enemies increase. If they let everyone live, then the conflict will just get bigger and bigger, and capturing them diverted resources from the front lines. I understand your distaste of killing, but if you can't understand why, then you fail as a scholar. Though you are a child, so perhaps that is the cause?
Also, is it weird to talk to a fictional character like that?
- Location
- The sixth circle of Hell (second on weekends)
- Pronouns
- She/Her
Actually, Nanoha did notably better in this fight than the last one (ie, she actually managed to make Fate dodge, and Fate had to try something unconventional to beat her). It's just hard to see because she still got crater-stomped.ggs said:
Yes, the Jewel Seed may have borrowed slightly from Exalted and Evangelion (ES suggested it slag a mountain, and that Nanoha should then stand up and shoot it in the Core). In fact, our running nicknames for the two so far are "GIGAKITTY" and "Chibi-SWLIHN".
I'd tell you what the next one is set to be called, but that would be hilarious levels of spoilers. I will, however, say that in canon, Nanoha and Fate played Jewel Seed hockey in episode six. This chapter was paralleling the hot springs episode, which was eposide... five.
Oh, and bleagh, formatting. If you point out where the errors are, I'll fix them.
- Location
- The sixth circle of Hell (second on weekends)
- Pronouns
- She/Her
... urk. Damn, I missed that.ZeroTWolfram said:
*hurriedly goes and ninja-edits*
Khaos
Baguette, wine and cheese
Hmmm, it has always seemed to me that in the OTL, a single Jewel Seed turned into a monster was a walk in the park for Fate.ggs said:
Optimistically, with a determined look on her face, and an overpowered magical staff in her hand. You know, her normal way.Happerry said:
Indeed. And this seed is one that canon!Fate got to before it activated properly. In this case, it (as her mental dialogue went) was in a state that just throwing more energy in as soon as she found it wasn't a bright idea, so she actually had to fight it.ggs said:
The fact that this is a postmadokaist fic, which has seen that, yes, the monsters of the week can be made cool and unique and evocative, also helps. Nanoha took us away from tired Monster Of the Week format, and made it all about the magical girls beating the crap out of each other; Madoka showed us that you can use the cool monsters as a backdrop to the character drama. And also make the monsters cool and even beautiful-in-an-alien-way.
I wonder what this says about the Book of Darkness, if we get that far.
I find this allegation slanderous! I also write cute, hilarious things! People don't always die!notgreat said:
*goes back to killing millions in AEE*
In its normal form, GIGAKITTY is technically actually NANOGIGAKITTY. And as we saw, NANOGIGAKITTY was a deadly, proud huntress, who almost caught the Ferret of Doom, who slew the Leaf of Foul Taste, and who chased bravely after the Sunlight Patch of Temptation. They may have defeated GIGAKITTY, but the threat of NANOGIGAKITTY is still out there, waiting for her time.Aleph said:
And she has the word "nano" in her name. And if sci-fi has taught us anything, it's that "nano" makes things more powerful. Like Nanoha. Just like "quantum", or... *gasp*, "chrono".
Duh duh duuuuh!
Nanochrono. The most powerful ship in dimensional space.