Chapter 8
Nothing dramatic happens for the rest of the week, with Fate staying hidden and no further Seed incidents to get involved in. This might be for the best, seeing as the TSAB's arrival in Cairo has hardly gone unnoticed, and humanity at large was abuzz with discussion on just who the latest group were.
Videos of the small glimpse obtained circulate on the net, courtesy of civilians with more bravery than sense having recorded the fight from within various buildings around the area, despite half-hearted government attempts at stopping the leaks. Egypt isn't much liking the attention, but by Lindy's analysis, they aren't sure what to make of it all.
Lindy isn't thrilled by the situation herself. The TSAB doesn't want to welcome another planet into their folds at this time—she isn't saying much, but I get the feeling she's worried what would happen—and therefore the Arthra is sitting in a high-dimensional orbit around Earth to prevent even the low chance of detection that might otherwise happen. She hopes, it seems, that we'll just be written off as another local mage group like Nanoha, Fate and the various Seed users mostly have been.
I can't say, one way or the other. I don't think I agree with hiding ourselves, but this is politics; not really my field of expertise.
There is one thing which has the both of us worried. Hayate is missing. Not 'missing' as in 'never existed'; 'missing' as in there are birth records, and five-year-old hospital records, but she's dropped completely off the map. There's one final note, explaining why: Her deletion from the defunct Yagami family register, due to out-of-Japan adoption. It doesn't mention by whom. Lindy has requested reinforcements, by automated courier, and if this takes long enough I may get to see what a TSAB troop transport looks like.
I wish I could remember more about her story. I've explained everything I can, again and again, but I'm sure that I'm forgetting parts. Maybe, if I did, I'd have an inkling of how to save them.
I also asked Shiro to make a phone-call to a number I gave him, but it wasn't connected. I can't say I'm surprised, but it's still a little disappointing. He's not as scary as I thought, though.
None of this has really affected me, invalid and confined to the ship as I am. I was expecting to spend the time since we arrived around Earth doing pretty much the same thing as on the way here—studying—but surprisingly, Nanoha and Suzuka are actually fun to be around. A little childish, of course, but at least once per day I find myself caught up in one of their games, and I've smiled more in the last week than the entire trip getting here.
But of course I still find the time for studying.
0––––––––––––––-0
Sitting in my room, I look over the instructions for the spell one final time, before sticking my thumb in my mouth and biting down till I draw blood. Letting the crimson fluid bead upon my skin, I smear it over the back of my hands, make the appropriate gestures, and
speak.
"False Life!"
The blood lights up, glowing crimson for a moment before expanding outwards into a faint, barely visible aura around me. Tingling spreads across my body, aches and pains from my healing wounds fading away to be replaced with a gentle warmth, like sitting by a fire on a cold winter's day. The small cut on my thumb shimmers, hardening into a bright red scab, and as I stand up and test walking around I find the book might have been understating, if anything, the effects this would bring upon me.
I feel like I could sprint a mile through rocky terrain and barely feel it, fight a pack of wolves outnumbering me ten to one without breaking a sweat, or even—
My stomach grumbles, hunger pangs setting in, and make me realize I hadn't eaten since breakfast somewhere in the realm of eight hours ago. Also that False Life doesn't allow you to ignore basic bodily needs, like sleeping or eating,
which may be part of the reason it wasn't more highly regarded back at the Academy.
To the cafeteria!
0––––––––––––––-0
Aerith, Nanoha and Suzuka are sitting at a table as I wander into the area, munching on snacks of their own, and I wave a brief greeting before beginning the task of looking for something to eat. Retrieving some bread and butter from a cupboard I begin crafting myself a sandwich, half-listening to the trio's chatter. They're talking about the best ways to balance mana consumption with spell stability, and surprisingly, Suzuka seems just as interested as Nanoha.
Cutting my meal in twain and sliding it onto a plate, I smile to myself. Some of the words they use are unfamiliar, but I remember having the same kind of discussion myself, back when I was their age. It's nostalgic. Though, I wonder when… was I already into role-playing games back then?
I slide into a chair, next to Suzuka, and begin eating my fill.
Yummy. I lose myself in the bliss of bologna. Is this bologna? It's a sandwich. The bread is kind of a long rod. I think it's probably bologna.
Anyway, it's yummy.
"—which is
exactly why the divine buster is so fast," Nanoha says. My ears perk up, and I focus on the conversation. Bologna can wait.
Um, to recap… they were talking about spell stability, and how Nanoha's aren't. Nanoha was claiming they don't need to be, that they aren't meant to last for more than a fraction of a second, and I find myself agreeing with that. There's a tension between spells being corrosive enough to breach the target's spell resistance, and being so corrosive to spellcraft that they won't make it there, but making it fast definitely helps.
Aerith gives her a skeptical look before replying. "It isn't power-efficient, though. How much of the mana are you wasting on propulsion and shielding?"
"Five, ten percent?"
And… I blink, remembering the light from Nanoha's Divine Buster; you could see it from orbit.
That was only ten percent?
"Which is that much less power to break her shields with, assuming you hit, and it won't last if you try to guide it. Fate is good at dodging, isn't she?"
"So what should I do?"
Aerith nods, but I interrupt before she can say anything.
"There are as many solutions as there are schools of thinking," I say. "You have power to spare—"
Boy does she have power to spare. "—so you could keep doing what you're doing, and that'd work. You could convert it all to elemental magic, or you could make the spell form its penetrators once it's already at the target."
They blink at me, only just now realizing I'm there, and a tiny corner of my mind laments the fact I was ignored. The rest is more impressed they got involved enough to tune out the world about them, especially when Aerith's topic seems… a tad
advanced… for people the age of Nanoha and Suzuka, who have never even been schooled.
Aerith must be good with kids if she can dumb it down enough for them to follow.
Nanoha makes a face. "I don't have an affinity, though. First thing Raising Heart checked."
"Ah…" Aerith starts, surprise widening her eyes as she stares at me, before with a small shake she refocuses. "Yes, that's also a solution Mizuki, although not one we tend to use much anymore. Any kind of active EMCM will stop it from working, and shielding sensitive spells like that from active barriers takes even more power than shielding from its own penetrators."
"Does Fate have one of those?"
"A barrier jacket?"
Ah, so that's a 'yes', then. I shrug. So attack spells have to be brute-force… does that leave much in the way of options for me?
"Disorienting illusions?" I suggest, sketching an owlbear in mid-air. "Fate won't escape if she can't tell which way is up."
Aerith frowns, her answer coming slower this time. "That could work. Normally you'd need to fool her Device as well, but Fate might not be used to such conditions if she is as untrained as she seems. The problem is, so is Nanoha; illusions need years of training to use effectively."
"—But Fate is awesome!" Nanoha interrupts, her eyes wide. "I've never even come close to beating her!"
I suppress a grin.
Aerith groans. "Now, look…"
"Can't Raising Heart do it for her?" I say. "It does everything else."
Aerith flashes me a grateful look, and explains. "Not if it's going to fool anyone. Despite the name, an 'intelligent device' isn't truly intelligent. In particular they're bad at understanding people, which is partially deliberate…"
The girl gets slower and slower as she continues her explanation, enthusiastic expression faltering as she speaks, before trailing off entirely in favour of just staring at me. She jerks a moment later, realizing what she was doing, and blurts out a question before her mind-to-mouth filter reengages. "Why are you glowing?"
I blink, looking down at myself, and realize I probably should've expected questions of this sort. The aura's not exactly subtle. "False Life. It's a spell I cast on myself earlier, to get me up and moving instead of collapsing in exhaustion after half a day, and the glow's kinda a side-effect—it's either a visual indicator the spell is still in effect, to aid clerics and the user, or leaking mana from my mucking the spell construct somewhat; not sure which."
"False Life?" Suzuka echoes, frowning. "Sounds kinda bad. Why's a medical spell got a name like that?"
"Because it's not, strictly speaking, a medical spell? It's under the Necromancy branch." I reply loosely, shrugging. "We can't really learn those, actually. Only clerics can. There's a few spells allowing us to ape the effects, False Life being one of them, but they tend to be less effective in general or come with other costs attached, so it's just better to get healed normally."
Reactions to this news lean towards general uncertainty and worry, and it occurs that I might have been better off avoiding mentioning
what False Life was classified as, per se. It's got a divisive nature for a reason, after all.
"Oh, but don't worry," I say. Best to try and head off preconceptions at the root. "Despite the name I didn't turn myself into a zombie or anything. I'd actually have no clue where to even start, seeing as Necromancy in general is blanket banned at school; there were even a few long arguments on if they should even teach this one to us. Anyway, the spell's called what it is because it literally imbues you with 'false life'—the magic patches up wounds and supports bodily functions while active, preventing your wounds getting worse and allowing you the same range of motions and actions as if you were uninjured—but as soon as it ends you're back as you were. Or worse, if you got hurt in the meantime."
"Zombies?" Aerith asks, weakly, before she shakes her head. She's gone a little pale. "I
thought you seemed a bit more energetic than usual, but—you can't just—"
"Why not?" I look towards her, honestly confused. "It's got a bit of a bad rep, sure, but the spell's really handy. Very popular amongst adventuring parties when they go off to fight monsters, lets 'em battle on even when the Warrior found his arm hanging on by threads of skin and bone. Long as you heal up via cleric, it's fine, and it's not like it hurts just to use it. I'm not planning on going into battle anyway."
"Threads—" Ah, now she's gone all white. I eye her dubiously—she's a soldier, right? "
What if the spell fails?"
"Then I'd go back to feeling like crap and probably fall asleep right away…" I yawn. Drat, I was hoping it'd fix that. "I'd go back to feeling like crap, anyway. It doesn't stop healing, if anything it should help. It means I can move my arms without tearing anything, and I can—"
Yawn. "—act like normal. Mostly."
"That sounds like what the doctor said the Jewel Seed is doing to me," Suzuka says. We look at her, and she tilts her head. She waves her right arm, which goes glitchy and translucent for a fraction of a second. Um… "This arm isn't actually real, it's made of mana. Same with my other wounds mostly, though I
guess mana is real? That's why she couldn't remove it, though."
Aerith, if possible, goes paler. I'm more filled with curiosity—mimicry of False Life's effects, but more powerful, with an indefinite timespan? Or perhaps it's just being recast instants after it expires, constantly, by the Seed in Suzuka's palm? The urge to experiment itches within me, but… the risk of the girl dying because I poked at the wrong thing is a bit too high; ah well.
She's edging a bit away from me, too. I give her my best smile, and squeeze her shoulder.
"Don't worry, Suzuka. We'll figure it out," I say. Right, got to be big-sisterly here. It's a novel sensation, but I do like the girl.
"…Okay?" she says. "…Nanoha-chan! Don't cry, I'm fine, really!"
I look to Nanoha, who's looking between us, her lower lip wobbling and tears filling her eyes. Oh, oops. I'll have to make it up to her.
And then, a few days later…
0––––––––––––––-0
"I'm sorry! I wasn't thinking!"
I wince at the look of disappointment on Lindy's face. I wince again as Nanoha digs her claws a little tighter, but make no attempt to pry her off. This is turning into a theme, and it isn't one I like.
"You
drugged a member of my crew. And you tried to drug a nine-year-old." Lindy says this in a flabbergasted sort of voice, shaking her head as if she's trying to make the world make sense. She sighs. "Then you traumatized your friend. And nearly set them both ablaze. Could you please explain, just
why?"
I… may have done these things, yes. I'm still not sure how I managed the fire.
Aerith is looking half-asleep, giggly and staring into the air. I owe her an apology. Nanoha is teary-eyed, clutching my side like I'm the only safe spot in the world, which is ironic, frightening and
horrifyingly shameful. I owe her all the apologies. And a cake. Per week. And a hug. I feel awful.
"We were sparring…" The excuse sounds pathetic, and I lower my head. "I'm really sorry! I… Nanoha won
every time. She's good, but—" Lindy's glare intensifies, despite Nanoha's tiny nod. "We agreed on the rules so it'd be more fun! I'd attack, she'd just defend.
But she won anyway. So, I just thought—"
"You thought,
what? In.
Detail, Mizuki.
" Her tone brooks no excuse.
"I thought, I'd try a little harder…"
0––––––––––––––-0
Nanoha POV
I look at the girl standing across from me, bandages wrapped around much of her upper body and just barely peeking free of the neck of her shirt. Her pockets bulge with scrolls of paper, rolled up sheafs poking their heads free, as another one crumples from its position in her hands. She's smiling, leaning back on the balls of her feet casually, a faint red glow barely visible around her in the bright overhead lights of the training room.
"Um," I start, eyes drifting to one of the bandages slowly, stained maroon from old dried blood. "You sure you'll be fine, Mizuki? I know I'm the one that asked, but—"
"No worries!" She interrupts me with a chirp, "'long as we stick by the rules everything'll be fine. I'm not a bent twig about to snap just from moving too hard, no matter what Aerith happens to think at present." The woman herself frowns, off to the side, and Mizuki throws her a teasing grin before looking back. "We all set, then?"
Clutching Raising Heart's staff, I shift my feet, try to dispel the nervous butterflies of fear that something will go wrong, and nod. A counter appears in the air between us, courtesy of Aerith, and the numbers fade away with a low tone and shimmer; 3… 2… 1…
A loud beep heralds the start of the match, and Mizuki vanishes from sight as I raise a barrier around me. A moment later she reappears, Raising Heart providing visuals while my own are blocked, standing just where I saw her and looking at the barrier curiously. She reaches out, poking it, before nodding in confirmation of something and crumpling the paper held in her grip; immediately she vanishes.
'Raising Heart?'
"
Searching, my Master," the Device thrums in my mind, vision flickering a multitude of different shades as we flip through the EM spectrum rapidly. A low hum fills the air as a radar pops into view in the lower corner of my vision, pinging through the room in search of the girl; the only one we pick up is Aerith, standing by near a wall. Echolocation results in much the same thing, sound waves bouncing off nothing but the far walls, and I frown and glance about nervously, hoping to spot her in the corner of my eye.
I drop the barrier. I can't keep that up forever.
Moments later it becomes a moot point as the world grows blurry, fog springing into view and filling the room in an instant. A thick grey haze reduces visibility to almost nothing, I'm barely able to see my hands before my face, and there's something slightly acidic about it, stinging my lips. I turn, hearing a muffled cry from where Aerith was standing. There's nothing—
No, there's something. I can't see her, but I remember how she feels. Gunpowder-blue, fizzy and scary to touch, too lively by far
, sparkling just like the lights I can almost see. One drips away from the floor and flashes across my face, a blinding pixie of golden energy whose wings leave shimmering, sad, black-and-white dust trails in my path, and I want to cry. I reach out a hand, half-consciously, to try and catch it.
It explodes, tilting the world around me. I frown in annoyance. Another flitters by, whooshing behind my head, and I spin about and try to snatch it free—
"Warning! Hallucinogens detected in the area. Deploying countermeasures."
Only for it to vanish, like it was never there, as a sharp ringing tone burns through my head. The air clears in a small bubble around me. Raising Heart thrums, warm under my grip, and I find myself blinking and shaking my head at the sudden difference—it's like, one moment the swirls of fog were the most important, most
meaningful things in the world, and the next I'm blinking away spots with a hand extended towards an illusion. That… I don't think Fate ever did that before. She'd never. ...why am I thinking about her?
"Careful, master!"
Which is when I nearly slam my head into the wall, no, ground. I'm practically upside down.
The world flickers a moment later, as I'm about to thank Raising Heart for the save, and the little amount of light remaining through the fog's distortion vanishes entirely. I blink into the pitch darkness for a second, an impenetrable gloom so thick that I might have thought I'd gone blind if not for Raising Heart's overlays, only to yelp when it's replaced by blinding beams stabbing into my eyes as everything goes white. Tears flood my eyes and I scrunch them shut, raising a hand to block at the same time as the glare rapidly de-intensifies into the normal foggy gloom, which blinks in and out a few times every second. Raising Heart sends me a mental
ping of regret.
Misty vapour twirls around my feet, blurry and indistinct through my tears and the rapid light changes. I gulp as it thickens, rising up through the air, and faint, almost indistinguishable whispers murmur things I can't make out at the edge of my hearing. Every time the light blinks out I swear I can see humanlike shapes, their forms growing firmer and more distinct each time. It's like a stop-motion movie, but it might be the spots in my eyes.
"Raising Heart, do you hear that?" My heart beats rapidly. There's nothing…
right?
The light blinks out, and stays out this time. In the sudden darkness I see a humanlike figure, its arm stretched out and nearly at my chest. I yelp, jumping backwards, and stumble and fall on my back.
Humanlike figures lean down towards me, barely visible in the absolute darkness, only to disappear the moment the light blinks back into view. I crawl rapidly backwards. Another change, and they're back, arms outstretched and closer this time, that ever-present low whispering still barely heard throughout the area.
"—Protection."
This time I really scream. But with Raising Heart's reaction, the scream is locked inside a pink bubble around me. I slump back against it, conscious that I'm wasting time, but
needing a time-out. My heart is racing almost painfully fast. The inside of the bubble is calm, the air clean, and I'm slowly,
slowly calming down. The mist is swirling outside. I try not to look too closely. That is
not a young girl dragging her way towards me…
"Did you hear it?" I ask again. "That-that
whispering?"
"No whispering is present, my Master."
None? I feel myself relax, shoulders loosening from unnoticed tension, and watch the misty girl shiver into nonexistence. These are illusions, right, of course they are, nya, ha… Nothing to fear, they can't hurt me, if anything all I need to do is take a step forward and wave my arm through them. I drop the bubble and do just that—
There's a tug on my boot as I try to move, the floor refusing to release me from its grasp, and when I look down I find strands of white encasing my boots and the ground around them. Spiderweb? Since
when? The strands shimmer, climbing higher as I watch, and as they clear the boot and cover my ankles I try to tear them away so I can get free; my efforts prove useless at anything but sticking my fingers to them, so now I'm in a
worse position bent in half towards the ground. I tug, hard, and bite my lip in pain as the sticky web tries to tear my skin off. I wonder if burning it would be cheating.
"Screeee!"
A shockwave pierces through the fog, a wave of noise battering at my ears, made all the worse by my inability to block it out. I keep tugging at my boots, trying to tear my hands free so I can block out the sound, and amidst the ringing echoes thrumming in my ears the faint chittering of tiny legs and mandible whisper. A black dot crawls over my boot, a tiny spider barely bigger than my fingernail, and despite all my instincts screaming to hit it I ignore the bug like the illusion it is.
Then it bites me.
I flinch at the tiny impact, thumping against my jacket and barely felt in the first place. But I
did feel it. Struggling, I angle Raising Heart towards the bug, trying not to freak as it grows-ever closer to my face, and flick it away with the tip of her staff. A few seconds later, just as I'm beginning to calm down, it returns with its friends.
Scurrying across the floor, the tiny dot of a spider crawls rapidly towards my boot in the lead of an army of bigger brethren. A black carpet of exoskeleton, clicking mandibles and hairy legs, palm-sized bugs reflecting my horrified gaze in their beady multitude of eyes. Raising Heart starts pulling double duty as a bludgeon, spiders going flying backwards through the air as I let out a small shriek of panic.
Which becomes another scream when the big brothers of
these spiders join the race, the first of them dropping onto my face from above and turning my sight into nothing but fuzzy, hairy darkness and skittering for a single horrifying moment. It's whacked away in an instant, my skin crawling madly as I shudder, and as my breath hisses in and out through my nose I take in the thing's size.
It isn't a cute and tiny little spider, like the first. It isn't a garden-variety spider like its reinforcements. It isn't even one of those horrible giant ones I saw in Australia. This one, and the siblings dropping to the floor around it on strings of shining gossamer while I stare in horror, match
small dogs in size.
And, I note with a whimper as they clack their mandibles angrily, they look really pissed-off right now.
They swarm me, the spiders, using the sheer number advantage they've got in combination with my stuck-to-the-floor position to leap across my shoes and crawl further up my body. Spiders wriggle into my boots, tiny fangs nipping at the bare skin under my socks and failing to penetrate the barrier jacket, while their larger brethren attempt to scale the sheer fabric of my dress or leap down my neck into the depths of my shirt. Webbing sprays across me in big, sticky strands as the largest spiders attempt to cocoon my limbs together, succeeding despite my struggling attempts to knock the numerous projectiles and insects away.
Barely a minute later I'm almost completely immobile, Raising Heart pointed vaguely towards the ceiling as spiders swarm across it, taking tiny nibbles of the metal to see if it's tasty. White coats my body entirely, pinning my arms to my sides, and tiny spiders crawl across my wide-eyed, horrified face putting the finishing touches on the webbing sealing my mouth shut. I can only make muffled noises and struggle feebly, they haven't left any room at all for me to move.
Clicking backwards, they swarm down off me, triggering a series of violent shudders as they go, and order themselves into a vague series of rows before me; stubby, fuzzy legs wave towards the ceiling, mandibles chattering, repeating their behavior over and over as they stare at something above me.
Straining, I try to turn my head, the muscles in my neck burning as they fight against the webbing. There's a faint snap as the strings give way slightly, giving me a bit of leverage, and I follow the gaze of the spiders in morbid curiosity to see what's got them abandoning me like this.
Once again, when I find out, I wish I hadn't.
An absolutely
giant spider is descending from above, each fuzzy limb as tall as I am. Black, beady eyes reflect my cocooned form in their sight, mandible slowly opening and closing silently as the behemoth of a bug trails its way down on a thick line of webbing from the ceiling, and I suddenly realize what made the web that stuck me to the floor. Drool beads at the corners of its mouth, dripping down slowly past my eyes to splatter on the floor below, and my heart attempts to hammer its way out of my chest. It doesn't make a single sound. Tears stream from my eyes.
I… I don't want to die.
Raising Heart, please! I scream through our mental link, feeding mana to the Device as quickly as I can. A pink glow begins swelling around her tip, angled directly at the spider by nothing but pure luck, and tiny particles of mana drift through the air as I rush the calculations in sheer panic. Her shaft is sweaty, hard to grip, and I feel it slipping slightly in my hand despite the webbing gluing us together.
Finally, it's done, mana collected and shaped, and I open my mouth to scream the command—only to scream for another reason as fire
erupts in my palm, flames bursting into life around Raising Heart and eating through the webbing binding us together in an instant. She clatters to the ground, mana winking out as she goes, as the flames chase each other up white, stringy webs along my arms and torso; in but a few scarce seconds I'm ablaze, a burning human torch beneath the spider overlord, flaming webbing hissing and popping as it drips free in oily strands around me, within my clothing, in my hair and
everywhere.
Rolling against the floor in the barest recollection of fire safety drills, I try to extinguish the flaming webbing stuck to me, protected from the pain and danger by my jacket but no less panicked than if I'd really been on fire. I clunk into something—Raising Heart's shaft—and snatch out a hand towards it, metal hissing as my flaming palm encases it, and jab my Device skywards frantically to blast the spider to kingdom come.
...But it isn't there.
As the flames die down, so does the fog and light effects, and sprinklers spring to life to the tune of fire alarms. I curl into a ball on the wet ground, clutching Raising Heart despite the blisters while I wait for the next horrible thing.
Mizuki reappears a few meters away, looking extremely nervous as I slowly look upwards and stare at her.
It… wasn't real? I wasn't going to die?
There's a cough from my left, then another, Aerith giggling at nothing I can see while she crawls along the wall.
I, I…
I think I can still feel the itching. I…
I lunge at Mizuki, sobbing miserably and dragging her down as I clutch at her for dear life.
0––––––––––––––-0
Mizuki PoV
Nanoha insists that I did nothing wrong.
It's strange how bitter that makes me feel. Here we have this kid, so much younger than me, and her first reaction once Lindy starts chewing me out? "Don't be mean to Mizuki!" Perhaps luckily, Lindy has Aerith to judge me for too, so they didn't end up arguing. It's just that I think I
wanted to be chewed out.
I think Lindy sensed that, because she ended up ordering us to get some sleep. She also ordered Nanoha to talk to the ship's psychologist later… which turns out to be Aerith. She doesn't have to order me to apologize again. How did I not even realize that, indoors,
mists spread?
And then…
Nanoha ends up on the couch again, clinging to a betrayed and angry Suzuka. She doesn't end up asleep, not really, and I certainly don't. I can only imagine what her dreams are like, and I don't really want to. Spiders, of course. I picked the spiders because I'm
scared of spiders, and I don't much care for ghosts either.
She's stoic while she's awake, but starts whimpering and shivering whenever she closes her eyes. Each and every time, Suzuka's glare gets harsher. We don't talk. We have nothing to talk about, not really—not anymore. A week's acquaintance and possible friendship, destroyed in barely a minute.
I feel sorry for myself, but more than that, I'm feeling sorry for Nanoha. I
suck. I haven't done anything this
stupid since I was still a teenager.
So when she eventually closes her eyes and stays asleep, despite her nightmares, I brave Suzuka's glare and my own misgivings to sit down on her free side. Maybe, between the two of us, she'll feel a little bit safer.
Feeling someone's warmth always makes me feel a little better.
I don't know if it helps, but she stops shivering, and even Suzuka stops glaring quite so hard.
I don't get a good night's sleep. None of us do, not even Suzuka. There's a strange sort of camaraderie in that, even if she's Nanoha's best friend and I'm the reason she's having to do this; we're both trying to help right now. I spend most of the night cursing myself, honestly, and drifting in and out of unconsciousness.
This situation is also why we end up in the Midori-ya the next day, all three of us.
Not how I wanted to say hi.
0––––––––––––––-0
"I'm very, very sorry!" I bow deeply, ignoring the sting in my side. "I didn't mean to hurt her, but I was foolish and thoughtless. I'll take responsibility, I promise." Inwardly, I'm wondering why Kyouya would think my promises are worth a thing.
Midori-ya seems like a nice place to live—small, but cozy—if it wasn't for the crowds of people outside and the police line keeping them from getting in. I was shocked by that, but given that it happened, I'm not surprised that Nanoha's father isn't here. I know what he does, even if Nanoha doesn't. So I'm apologizing to her brother instead.
He's almost as big as their father, but not as filled-out.
Handsome instead of rugged, I guess.
"I'm sorry too!"
Kyouya gives me an unreadable look, but focuses on Nanoha before speaking, "And… why are you apologizing as well?"
"The fight was my idea," the girl says in a composed tone. There's the Nanoha I was expecting from the show, I suppose; just when I didn't want her.
I sigh. Kyouya sighs as well, and Nanoha manages a few seconds before her face falls.
"Even if it was, that doesn't mean you share any of the blame." Kyouya starts, frowning, and glances over at me. "Mizuki should've known what was considered too far for a sparring match, as well as what wouldn't prove hazardous to people besides her opponent. Her actions here very much indicate she didn't."
"I'm fine!" Nanoha protests, crossing her arms with a frown. There's a thump from outside, shadows flickering across the windows for a moment, and she squeaks and clings to Kyouya's arm; a second later it's released like it burned her, and she shuffles away a few steps. "I'm
fine, honest. It might've got a bit out of hand, yeah, but we're both to blame!"
"Nanoha, you're obviously not—" Kyouya cuts off, seeing her stubborn, mulish expression—and the faintly trembling legs she is very much trying to hide—and sighs again, rubbing his head. "Just… wait here a moment, I'm going to fetch mum."
He walks out the door, back into the storefront section of the house, and I faintly hear a quick, muffled conversation. A few moments later Momoka emerges, still wearing the Midori-ya apron tied around her waist, bereft of the warm, friendly expression I've seen on her every time we've met thus far. Now her face is terse, thin-lipped and wary, and the guilt churning in my stomach intensifies at the sight.
"Mizuki." She nods at me, a quick motion, and looks her daughter over carefully with a keen eye. Nanoha flinches for a second, intimidated, before her expression hardens again and she sets her jaw mulishly. There's a silent standoff between the two, mother and daughter locking gaze, before she turns to look at me. "Kyouya tells me you have something to say to us?"
"I…" I falter, staring into her gaze, words deserting me for a moment. "I'm really sorry for what I did! It was an accident, I take full responsibility, and shall never do it again! Please forgive me!"
My plea ends in a bow, as deep as I can go regardless of the painful twinges my injuries cause, and I hold it there motionlessly. It feels like forever before I get a response, staring at the floor as my stomach roils—they hate me, they have to hate me, gods I was so
stupid—but it must've only been a few seconds later when Momoka gave a reply.
"You're forgiven." A reply in the flattest, most emotionless tone of voice I've ever heard. I flinch, and keep staring at the tiles in my bent position as she continues. "Nanoha, go upstairs. You're forbidden from doing anything but staying here—"
"What? But, the…"
"—
for the rest of the week," Momoka continues, over her daughter's objection. Her tone conveys arguing is pointless, doomed to failure. "Suzuka's already up there, waiting for you, and you can expect her parents to be along shortly."
There's a pause, a single moment of resistance, before with a quiet grumble I hear Nanoha concede and walk away. Finally bending upright, I see Momoka looking at me coolly, silently, and guilt roils inside me once more.
I'm totally not forgiven. Murmuring an apology once more, I brush past her, shifting back into the shop proper before slumping into a puddle across a free seat.
Kyouya's staring at me. Standing by the till, manning the shop in Momoka's place, apron loosely tied around his waist; a customer approaches, drawing his attention away, and my head thunks down onto the table softly. They don't like me anymore, I just know it. They didn't know me well before this, of course—we'd only met like twice so far—but whatever impression I'd had on them beforehand, my actions in that
cursed spar have almost certainly permanently coloured perceptions towards the negative.
My eyes feel heavy, lids drooping down as exhaustion rears its head once more, and I try to dredge up the motivation to keep awake. Snoozing after a heartfelt apology really, really won't help their impression of me.
Not that it's salvageable.
I swear, if I could turn back time, go back to before that fight began, I would… I would…
I would…
0––––––––––––––-0
"-and I'm pretty sure she has a horrible fear of spiders now. And that her mother hates me." I slump, hugging my knees, and stare down at the grass far below. The cliff cuts away smoothly, a sheer wall of slate and brown rock, ending in a sea of green slowly billowing in the winds far beneath us. "It's not like I meant to do it. And she was fine with my suggestion, too!"
"Hmm..." Freyja hums quietly beside me, legs dangling over the edge, before placing a warm palm on my shoulder. I look up, and find her frowning at me. "Well, yeah, you mucked up there, regardless of your intentions. Impossible to claim giving someone arachnophobia is a
good thing, really. That said—" she continues loudly, seeing my face crumpling, "—you're still a child yourself, and children make mistakes. You're not about to make this particular one again, right?"
I sniffle, and make a motion which could vaguely be determined as a nod.
"Well then!" Freyja whacks my shoulder, making me flinch, and grasp the grassy ground tightly to prevent sliding off the cliff. "If you know you mucked up, and won't do it again, I'd say you're fine as you are. Make amends like how you've been doing, bribing her with hugs, cakes and apologies, and she's sure to forgive you eventually.
Probably."
"She refuses to blame me in the first place," I mutter. I really wish she would. "And a kid?" Frowning, I look myself over, my small childish hands and thin, lanky body, just barely poking its toes into puberty. "I sure don't feel like one. My head's a mess, a mix and match jigsaw puzzle of memories scattered across my mind, and some of the pieces either refuse to fit, contradict other pieces or outright vanish occasionally. Like our talks. Why can't I remember those when I'm not here? Are you doing something?"
"Nope, not me." Freyja shrugs, leaning back in a stretch, and plops onto her back on the grass. "I've got no reason to have you forget our little talks, and if anything motivation for the opposite; how can I have a follower who doesn't remember me, hm?" She pouts for a moment, before grinning. "So, yeah, odds are it's something you did, and from my poke about in your soul earlier I
can confirm it's slowly improving. All you can really do is wait for it to sort itself out, honestly."
"Geh." I join her on the grass, flopping down with a grumpy sigh. "It's got an odd way of improving, if you're right. My old memories of Nanoha seem to be getting more indistinct with time, not less—I'm
sure I've forgotten something about Hayate's situation, it's barely fluttering out of reach whenever I try to think, but try as I might I just can't remember. It's really annoying."
All Freyja offers is a small shrug in the grass, a faint scent of cherry floating by my nose as she crushes something beneath her, and I sigh. No use worrying, nothing's gonna change, but goddamn is it hard not to mope about it anyway.
"Well!" Freyja shifts upright after a few moments, clapping her hands, and looks down at me. "Changing topic from this mopy business, I've got two pieces of good news for you. News number one—I know what's been up with your magic recently, and why you keep casting spells with no idea how or why. Wanna hear it?"
"...It's something you did, isn't it?"
"Nooo~", Freyja hedges, swapping from exuberant to nervous in a second, "not quite. Well, actually yes, but also no—I'm not preventing you casting arcane magic or anything! I'm just letting you use clerical spells too. Only when you're half-asleep at present, because of the whole 'does not remember me' thing you've got going on while awake, but once that clears up you'll be able to do it at will."
"Huh."
I take a few moments to digest this. And then a few more. There's nothing
inherently wrong with this, I guess—more magic to learn isn't something I'll refuse—but a few problems come to mind nonetheless.
"So… how am I going to learn clerical magic with no teacher? Or books to study? It's not like I can just wave my hand over something and it puffs into being in a cloud of smoke, right?"
Freyja's silence is telling.
"You're kidding me. That's actually how it works?" I gape, looking at her, and cast my mind back to double-check. Whenever we visited a cleric for healing, they laid their hands on you, mumbled something quietly, and then you got healed; I'd always assumed it was a ritual like my own magic, once I began studies, but… it wasn't? A sudden surge of intense jealousy flashes through me, at all those disciples and how little work they must need in comparison.
"That's how it works, yup." Freyja nods, a smile pasted on her face, and she pokes me in the chest. "All you gotta do is think of me, focus on whatever you want to do, and provided it's not past your limit odds are it'll end up happening. With the appropriate levy of mental exhaustion attached, that is."
"And if it is past?" I wonder, morbidly curious.
"If you lose control of the power, it will hurt you," she says, giving me a serious look. "I'm doing my best to help; normally clerics need years of training for this, but there's only so much I can do at this distance. Push for something too far out of your reach, and the pound of flesh demanded in return might be literal."
…. Right then. No resurrecting the dead for me, no sir.
"You said you had more good news?" I cast about wildly for another topic, something to shift us away from the serious doom and gloom this one became. "What was it?"
"Oh, that." Freyja grins, shifting upright, and taps me on the back. Her finger depresses slightly, an odd sensation coming over me where she's touching, before it springs back a few inches. "I was gonna say you've got your wings now, is all."
… Say what?
I feel about behind my back, just as she did, and come across a duo of strange lumps beneath the cloth of my shirt. They twitch as I poke them, sensation striking me with each touch, and my shirt flies free of my chest a few moments later so I can take a closer look.
Once the concealing cloth is gone, and my neck is twisted painfully far behind me, the little lumps are revealed in all their fluffy, white glory. Wings. Tiny, white feathered wings, barely budding from the tips of my shoulder-blades, lying flat against my back and twitching briefly as my fingers run over them. I can feel from them, a shiver coming over me as my fingers brush against small feathers, and throw a disbelieving, shocked look at the goddess watching me fondle myself in amusement.
"Wings. I, you, how, why?" I can barely get the words out, let alone make them coherent, with how much my jaw is trying to detach from the rest of me.
Freyja just chuckles, smirking as she watches me. "Ah, this'll never get old. I swear, everyone reacts the same when they first notice—it's just so
fun. Anyway, you've got wings because you're a Valkyrie now, remember? I
did mention this when we first talked, after all."
All I can do is splutter at her.
"Now, there's a few things I should mention about them," Freyja starts, that smirk still spread wide across her face as she paces around me. A finger reaches out to poke a wing, making me flinch, and she continues. "First off, they're a representation of your transformation, and shall grow larger over time and as you come into your own as one of my chosen warriors. Second, it's limited to dreamspaces like this for now, as a consequence of the distance we're separated by—as your connection with me grows, this'll change, and eventually they'll manifest in reality as well.
"Third," she grasps my hand, leading me over to the cliff, and gestures vaguely with her remaining one at the grassy plains far, far below us. "You can totally fly with them right now. Especially considering there's no annoying cloth getting in the way of them unfolding anymore."
A blush strikes me as I recall my half-undressed state, swiftly chased away by disbelief when her context catches up.
"No I can't!" I splutter, shaking my head madly as I do. "They're tiny! Miniscule! No way is the wingspan big enough to support my weight, and even if they were that large I'm too heavy to fly, besides! Birds have hollow bones for a reason!"
Freyja frowns. Then she tosses me off the cliff.
"Aaaaaagh!" Wind whips into me, freezing air battering my bare skin as I plummet downwards in gravity's unforgiving embrace. My arms flail wildly, trying to reach out for something, anything to grip, but Freyja's tossed me too far—the cliff is a good twenty metres away, and sheer terror and panic kind of prevent clear thinking on how to change that problem.
Green rapidly enlarges as I plummet to my doom, a solid shade soon to be stained red as my panicking form belly-flops against it. Air presses against my back, catching briefly under my folded feathers before whooshing around and past them, and I try my hardest to concentrate on the sensations in desperate hope it'll save my bacon.
Trace the connection, muscle group there, another one there, try to flex my shoulder like
so—a wing twitches, snapping half-open in an instant, before being forced the rest of the way in a painful wrench as the wind blusters against it. A scream rips free of my mouth, pain tinting sight red momentarily, and my headlong plummet turns into a spiral as the sole opened wing alters my trajectory.
It's not enough to slow down, if anything just making it worse, and as the world spins and twists in what feels like the fastest, quickest rollercoaster I've ever been on I attempt to swallow vomit and focus on the second wing. The ground rapidly approaches, tiny green blades of grass shining in the early morning light, dew sparkling faintly as it reflects my horrified face—
Before with another snap and painful jerk I'm soaring upwards, my spiral evening out just in time as I brush so close to the grass blades tickle my belly. As I rise higher into the air, gliding on the remnants of my momentum as it slowly bleeds away—much like my heartbeat—Freyja meets me in midair, floating on large, glorious white wings of her own.
"See?" She remarks, arms folded as she watches me approach. "Told ya you could fly."
