“Good morning!”

Vivio Takamachi, twelfth seat of class Adelheid, first grade, was smiling as she followed the other kids up the big marble stairway. Her classroom was on the fourth and highest floor, but unlike the other kids the climb didn’t bother her; so long as she kept her glowing hands in her pockets, no one would notice the levitation spell she’d been using every morning since she’d learned how to cast it.

Nanoha-mama had told her not to fly in front of people from outside the base. She had told her that most people couldn’t fly at her age, and that she should keep that she could it a secret, but that seemed like a really silly reason; her friend Acchan knew a lot of big words that no one their age knew, and she didn’t have to keep them a secret. But Nanoha-mama had told her not to, so she didn’t… fly, that is. Nanoha-mama had never said anything against a little floating here and there.

There was probably another reason she didn’t think Vivio could understand. Nanoha-mama was Nanoha-mama, but she was also a grownup, and they did weird things all the time, like work and write reports and read long boring stuff and work and stuff. And work. They worked too much, she’d already decided, except Nanoha-mama since she spent her days playing fight with Teana-san and Subaru-san and Caro-chan and Erio-kun, and that was why Nanoha-mama was the best.

But grownups also sent her to school, and school could be fun sometimes. Not as fun as staying with Nanoha-mama or Fate-mama, but it was fun to play with other kids (well, she amended, with Acchan, Shaomi-chan and Micchan, at least, and sometimes Francis-kun and James-kun and Naomi-sempai and Ran-sempai, but not with Nishino-baka or Wenzel-baka or Yukari-sensei because she was a grownup too). Plus, some of the lessons were fun. Not maths, since that was booooring, and reading wasn’t much fun either, and magic the…theo… the stuff with the drawing of glyphs and things made her head hurt sometimes, but that was fine because it led to Practical magic.

And Practical magic, which happened once a week ever Saturday morning (tomorrow, she reminded herself with a small bounce in her steps), was fun. Even if they spent most of the time trying to make useless little balls of colored light, those that fizzled if you didn’t put enough into it and blew up if you went too far. She liked to go too far, because they always went bang in such an awesome way even though Yukari-sensei didn’t like it, since she wasn’t supposed to blow them up.

But it wasn’t her fault if explosions were awesome. And besides, Nanoha-mama and Fate-mama blew stuff up all the time, and their explosions were a lot bigger and awesomer, and Nanoha-mama’s were the biggest, so she was the awesomest.

Her classroom wasn’t far from the staircase, just a couple of doors away on the right wall, just in front of that weird stain on the floor that was shaped like a cloud. And her seat wasn’t very far from the door, just two rows away from Shaomi-chan’s seat and right in front of Acchan’s. Yukari-sensei wasn’t there yet, but that was normal. Acchan was there, and that was normal too. She liked to leave early even though she ended up having to wait, because that way she avoided seeing her parents—unlike her, Acchan had only one mama, but she also had a papa—not getting along.

Vivio frowned a little at that, not quite understanding the concept. If they lived in the same house and had a baby, didn’t that mean they loved each other? But if they did, why didn’t they get along? She had people she couldn’t get along with too, like Wenzel-baka, but that was because she didn’t like her. But Acchan’s papa and mama were her papa and mama, how could they not like each other?

She’d never shared those thoughts, though. Not even with Nanoha-mama. She’d never found an answer, either.

She was pretty sure it was one of those silly grownup things again.

Bah! Grownups!

----------------

Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha

~Through Troubled Waters~

Chapter 3: Interception

----------------

—Memorial Park, West Kuranaga, Midchilda—

—October 30th 0076, 0712 hours—

Built on grounds that had once belonged to an improvised ammunition factory deemed useless by the end of the war a few years prior to its creation, Memorial Park was a sprawling area covering a few hundred square meters east of The Wall. Originally sparsely forested and highly gardened, subsequent Kuranagan administrations had preferred to turn the somewhat lackluster flowery tourist bait into an even less glamorous but less maintenance-intensive wooden park; except for the couple of statues, monuments and the handful of billboards retelling bits of war history everyone already knew, there was no difference between Memorial Park and any other forested park in the city.

That wasn’t altogether a bad thing, Fate decided as she and Shamal strolled on a sleepy interlinking carved stones path framed on both sides by trees tinted in rich oranges and yellows, both from the morning sunlight and the seasonal changes of autumn. The occasional early bird twittered, but even the gentle breeze seemed louder. Fate took a deep breath, reveling in the cool freshness of the air and in the sweet natural smells around them; it was hard to believe that this park was in the middle of one of the most densely populated cities in the known multiverse!

It was altogether a very pleasant park, and Fate made a mental note to—

“…to bring Nanoha-chan here for a walk one of these days.”

“A—U—Uh?” was the only thing Fate could think of retorting while Shamal impishly giggled.

“That’s what you were thinking, weren’t you? I have to admit it is quite romantic, in a poetic kind of way…”

Pausing a moment to gape at the air like a shored fish, the younger blonde shot the doctor a sour glare. Curse her, she’d been right, too.

“I’m hoping you didn’t hear about that from Hayate-chan,” or a reckoning might have to follow, higher-ranked or not.

Shamal actually looked surprised. “Oh, Hayate-chan knows too? That’s nice,” no it wasn’t. It was anything but nice. She had just informed her enemies of each other’s existence. Damn it all.

“And for your information, we’ve known for a long time,” Shamal replied as the path took them to the rim of a circular plaza, in the middle of which stood a large stone fountain around a marble statue of a mountain Drake, one of Midchilda’s symbols back in the war era, “at least a few years, in my case.”

Fate stared at her in shock. “A few years?”

“Hm… something like seven years, maybe?”

The younger blonde choked. H—How… She’d only known it herself for four!!

As if to explain, the older woman gave her a motherly smile. “Fate-chan, I’ve been alive for a lot longer than you. Pining lovers, oblivious loved ones… I’ve seen that story play out dozens of times.”

And obviously she had nothing better to do now than torture those younger than her (making the entire world, except the Wolkenritter, a potential victim) with that knowledge… Wait. Hold on. “We? As in… the other knights too?”

Shamal nodded cheerfully, and Fate felt a little part of her curl in a defensive ball.

“Signum?” It was hard to imagine the stoic woman taking interest in someone else’s love life—

“She got very good at reading you, with all the sparring you do. She saw through you even faster than I did.”

Fate choked. Even faster? “Zaphira?” Surely the guardian beast wouldn’t…

“Only figured it out a little before Mobile Division 6 was formed, the big lout.”

Then… “…Vita-chan?” Couldn’t be, right?

“She was actually the first one to notice,” Shamal chirped, and then giggled at the face Fate made. “You made quite an impression on her, showing up out of nowhere to defend Nanoha-chan like you did way back then, when you first met. She thought it was quite romantic, like you were one of the knights from Mitternachtsschilde and Nanoha-chan was your Gabriele—”

“This is the place, isn’t it?” Fate interrupted. The last thing she wanted to imagine was the ferocious faux-little girl swooning over mushy Belkan plays. Or herself as the gallant and romantic knight cliché the ancient Belkans had loved so much, for that matter. She tried to dissipate the heat in her face and hoped vainly that her ears weren’t as red as they felt.

Shamal made an amused chuckle and glanced at the plaza. “Yes. There are plenty of other monuments, statues and the likes, but this is the only fountain in the park,” she said, though Fate already knew that, having been the one who’d found that information in the first place. It was nice of her to play along with Fate’s dodge, though. “So we have the place, what about the time? Stanz didn’t tell you that, did he?”

“No he didn’t, but…” Fate trailed off to look around the plaza. Maybe Stanz hadn’t noticed it, or maybe he just didn’t care, but such a big, expensive and especially nationalistic monument wouldn’t be left unwatched for any ill-intended ruffian to damage with impunity. There had to be… there couldn’t not be…

And there was, right there, skillfully hidden in one of the archaic and no longer functional electric lamp posts that framed the plaza, a little glint of glass on the pole, beneath where the lightbulb would have been.

A camera.

“Connecting. Signal accepted. Password Recognized. Connection complete. Accessing recorded data.” Bardiche reported, and an M2D appeared in front of her; her own image gazed back at her, while the Other-Shamal stared in surprise at the other-floating-screen the same way the real Shamal was.

“Scanning…” the image froze, then the faux-Fate on the screen turned away, then stared in shock at the impish doctor, then walked backward out of the frame. The rewinding sped up; the golden light dimmed and fell into night, then back into dusk, into full day. People, animals and weather flew by, almost too quick for Fate to even register them, but she knew Bardiche was still going at a speed he could keep up with. Another night flew by, then another, and another, until finally the screen froze again on a scene five days ago.

“Suspect Located,” he reported. The sky on the screen was overcast, but bright enough to tell it was daytime. The plaza’s only visitors were a pair of young men necking on the bench on the only path the camera could see, an old woman in a luxury fur coat walking her dog (a Midchildan Tetratail, very chic, though it appeared to be the one walking its master instead) and a young person in full trench-coat and hat crouching near the far edge.

Though anyone looking once would only be seeing him (it was a little hard to tell) adjusting his footwear, Fate immediately spotted his other hand reaching into one of the bushes on the plaza’s south side. She glanced at the clock. 17:23, Twenty-fifth of Tenth.

It didn’t escape her that looking just a little earlier would let her see who had put the weapon there in the first place. It was really too bad they were about to destroy evidence against that bastard, but it couldn’t be helped; they had bigger fish to fry than Victor Stanz.

“Got him,” she said, and told Shamal what she’d found. The doctor nodded once.

“Then I’ll get started…” the air around her shimmered with a gentle green; her Barrier Jacket appeared. She took a focusing breath and started chanting, “Blick hinter den Vorhang der Gegenwart und in die dichten Nebel jenseits. Koordinaten: Vor Fünf Tagen um Siebzehn-Dreiundzwanzig, Reichwaite Einhundert Meter. Nebelbrise.”

Klair Wind materialized with a eager “Jawohl! Nebelbrise!”

Fourth Dimensional Tracking was the kind of technique that every law enforcement institution on Earth (or anywhere in any galaxy, for that matter) would have salivated about. By bending space-time, it was possible to create a very small connection between a moment in the past and the present, allowing the transmission of energetic data, which a device could then decode into visible light; it was, to put it in simple terms, a way to look directly into the past. The amount of magic necessary depended both on the area searched into and the “distance” in the past, but for someone with Shamal’s magic reserves, looking five days into the past over a hundred meters was child’s play.

It wasn’t perfect, however; space-time was delicate, and bending it the way 4DT did caused a fold that could never recover itself (…as useless as the concept of “never” was in this context; obviously time couldn’t be given time to fix itself). It was a one-time shot that prevented anyone else from searching the area anywhen a few “days” around the time searched. In short, if they hadn’t gotten the time right, they could have accidentally erased their trail for good.

This particularity was also one of the best ways to shield one’s self from 4DT; often seen in sensitive areas or military vehicles (such as the GDF’s stolen Groundhog-class APC) was a jamming module that could periodically throw a “flare” of warped space-time simply by using the same searching method they prevented. Doing so was “loud” and easily sensed, but Bureau experts had long ago figured out ways to camouflage the flares into a planet’s normal space-time displacement.

A pity, that, or finding those murdering thieves would have been a lot easier.

Glittering cables appeared between the device’s ring containers and its crystalline extensions, swirling into a circle to form a small portal. There was a brief flash in the circle, and Fate felt the world lurch indescribably as the fabric of space-time was bent irremediably.

An instant later, Shamal smiled in satisfaction. “It worked. I see him.”

“I assume it really is a ‘him’, then,” Fate noted.

Shamal nodded in confirmation. “His shoulders are too wide, and his center of gravity is a little too high… He’s moving away. This way.”

Following a days old trace visible only in space-time was an interesting experience, Fate had decided the first time she’d done so. Today, though, she decided that doing so in a public environment by following a woman in full barrier jacket who stared into a glowing portal was a little embarrassing from the curious stares they brought. Thankfully it was early, though.

It didn’t take long for anyone who’d ever read a modern mystery novel to figure out what they were doing, but that didn’t stop them from staring away. A sharp glare was enough to chase away the more daring among them who’d decided to try and take a peek into the portal. What, did they hope to see themselves into it? Honestly…

“He boarded a car,” Shamal said, stopping at a parking spot where currently stood a motorcycle that looked a little the worse for wear. She gave the license plate number and added, “there’s someone else in it, a woman.”

Fate looked. The woman in question (who sat in the passenger’s seat) was tall, svelte and quite attractive, the kind who’d walk into a room and pull every pair of eyes—including, Fate admitted, her own—on her like a magnet, but there was something about her that made alarm bells ring into her mind, far more than base female jealousy.

The man put the package in her hands, then boarded the driver’s side of the little nondescript, if derelict, car and gunned the engine.

“Lightning one to Long Arch, requesting flight permission,” Fate sent. A few seconds later, Lucino’s voice replied with approval. “Bardiche,” Fate ordered quietly.

“Set up.” And with a flash of gold, Fate was in her barrier jacket. Shamal had already taken flight and was following the trail a few meters above the road. Fate easily caught up to her.

Doing their best to ignore the stares they were attracting, the two flying women followed the car five days gone among the streets of The Wall and West Kuranaga, all the way to Midoria Highway, which they “took” southeast until the junction with the perpetually busy ten-lane Central Highway, which the red car took north. The plascrete practicality of inner West Kuranaga’s pre-modern buildings gave way to the artful nobility and ancient pride of Old Kuranaga, the section which had once been protected behind the now gone fortifications. The highway crossed the Kuranaga River, which sectioned the city in half and bordered the northeastern side of Old Kuranaga, and carried their trail into the business district of Highrise. There, the car left the highway and joined the ever-busy streets bordering the district’s numerous anti-grav skyscrapers.

The sun above their heads had finished its ascension by the time the glass and steel titans had given way to the high-density plascrete residences of East Kuranaga. It had started descending when the car left its darkening golden streets to roll into the underground parking of a nondescript apartment building in every way similar to the ones surrounding it.

The guardian in the portal, a graying old man with a crooked nose stuck in last week’s issue of Playmate, looked up, saw the parking badge on the car’s windshield and hit the button to make the blocking bar vanish.

The guardian in front of them, a five days older graying old man with a crooked nose stuck in this week’s issue of Playmate, looked up, saw them standing there in barrier jackets and dropped his magazine.

“Ah… can I help you?”

Fate smiled. “Probably.”

It had taken very little to convince the old man—who turned to be the building’s manager as well—to lead them to their quarry’s apartment; it turned out he’d been weighing the plus and minuses of reporting them for the few days (eight days, to be precise) since they’d arrived. In his own words: “I thought they were a strange bunch, packed up in the same room like that. For a while, I thought they might have been tourists—they had accents as thick as butter, though I got no idea where it came from—but they sure didn’t look like they were enjoying themselves… well, except that one woman.”

He also denied ever having seen Johanne Sikorski or either of the other two traitors.

He also claimed to have never seen them leave, but that they’d left without telling him at least three days ago. Considering the timing of the attack, which had occurred several thousand kilometers away later that day, Fate put it down to four days: it had to have been in the middle of the night, and the old man couldn’t be expected to check if each of his fifty or so rooms of tenants were still occupied every day.

The apartment in question was an otherwise completely normal three-roomer on the fourth floor of the building. Barely inside, signs of overpopulation were evident; beddings covered much of the hallway and the entire living room. The bathroom had also acquired a certain foulness; with a silent accord, both she and Shamal decided not to give more than a cursory glance inside.

Sole exception to this was, ironically, the bedroom; instead of being full and cramped, the relatively small room’s single bed had been covered with cushions and pillows, most of them so new they still carried a brand tag. Some of said cushions still had indentations, and Fate noticed that the shape was all wrong for it to have been a single person; one, two, three… at least four shapes, she counted, but many could have been erased or mixed up. She reached for one of the cushions and smelled it; beneath the overpowering smell of sweat, faint fruity and flowery scents floated in her nostrils.

Unless one of the men was particularly effeminate, this bed must have been where the women had slept. She raised an eyebrow; it was strange that so much effort and money had been taken to make the girls comfortable. Either what they had here were very gentlemanly thieves (she doubted it), or… or what?

She tossed it aside as unimportant, and after giving one last glimpse at the room, she joined Shamal and the old man in the kitchen.

“What kind of tornado went through here?” she asked as soon as she saw the room’s state over Shamal’s shoulder, ignoring the old man’s grumbles.

Shamal shrugged and moved aside, allowing Fate inside. A tornado disaster zone would have probably been cleaner, she decided after the first glimpse. Littering the floor were several twelve packs’ worth of empty beer cans, enough cigarette butts to fill the many cigarette packs carpeting the tiles, enough empty instant food packets to keep an entire class of Midchilda War University frat boys fed for a few days, but more interestingly, the ripped up remains of several large boxes marked with the logo of Farsight Technologies.

It took Fate a few moments to realize where she’d heard the name before, then it clicked; the power suits. She did a quick count and turned to the old man.

“You didn’t think that the ‘strange bunch’ picking up five big boxes of high-tech military equipment was suspicious enough to be reported?” she asked.

The old man appeared flummoxed. “I…I…” then he clicked his fingers in realization, “They must have done it on Sunday. I always go to fishing trips in Northwoods on Sundays to revive my old bones… I leave the door unlocked, you know, so the building’s people don’t get inconvenienced…”

Fate frowned and added it to her timetable. Sunday had been five days ago; still no conflicts. “I suggest you at least pick up an AI to check things out.”

He chuckled. “I’m afraid I’m not made of credits, ma’am.”

But Fate had stopped listening and was already looking around. The apartment’s M2D system had been wiped clean, as expected. The phone hadn’t, however; an interesting oversight. A single call had been received and, after copying the number down (it later turned out to be a public number from somewhere near Central), she noted the time.

“Shamal, I need you to track again; October twenty-sixth—four days ago—at eighteen-twelve.”

Shamal nodded and tried, but the portal fizzled out as soon as it formed. She shook her head.

“Jammed,” she reported apologetically. “Looks like they know our tricks.”

“Hn,” Fate replied absently, not surprised at all; 4DT was known even among civilians, as it often ended up on telescreen series. Any professional worth their salt would know it and take measures against it as well. She mulled over what they’d learned so far.

The thieves weren’t Kuranaga natives, which really didn’t tell her much; Midchilda had plenty of languages and cultures, including a good dozen independent indigenous tribes (the nomadic Scryer and animist Lushe tribes came to mind). The phone oversight meant that they had little knowledge of how Kuranagan telecommunications worked—they probably had expected the M2D wipe to clear up that log—and since the same standards were applied everywhere on the planet, it meant they most likely came from off world altogether.

The power suits had been brought here without anyone noticing: the thieves had probably planted or bribed someone at Farsight Tech so it wouldn’t be reported. They’d known about the surprise inspection, the details of which Section 3 always guarded ferociously, even inside the Bureau itself—probably another bribe there, and the fish had to be pretty high up. They’d acquired a very specific poison, had known who to contact to get the distribution system, and with three traitors’ help, they’d hit a storehouse.

The entire thing was planned to a level that screamed of professionalism to Fate. Professionalism and money.

That, and betrayal. The entire operation depended far too much on the Farsight and Section 3 bribes and on Victor Stanz’s cooperation. They’d had to have some kind of insurance in every case to make sure someone wouldn’t end up tipping the police or the Bureau off about them.

Not bribes, then. Blackmail or treachery.

More treachery.

But why? And how far did this go? How long had this been planned for?

And why the phone call?

A signal? But if everything was planned so well, why would a signal be necessary?

Wait a second. Unless they’d specifically looked around Kuranaga for apartments with guardians who liked to leave their post predictably (and there was a limit to how far one could research before it started to become ridiculous!), they couldn’t possibly have known it beforehand. Yet, the suits had been delivered here, something that would have ruined everything if he didn’t have that habit.

Meaning, the suits’ delivery had been a last minute arrangement. There remained an element of improvisation in their plan, which might explain why the looting had been done so haphazardly; they hadn’t known the actual content of the storehouse. At some level, therefore, they’d been unable to get all the information they needed.

So, maybe… maybe if they hadn’t been able to map out Kuranaga’s MADAR system… if they hadn’t found the best, safest place for it, then… maybe the phone call was to hand out the drop-off point…?

She spent a few moments digging in the mess surrounding the phone, and sure enough, there it was; a notepad.

“Bardiche, map scan, analyze it for writing indents.”

An earth professional would have known about this and taken the time to write down on something else than the notepad itself. Midchilda and the worlds administrated by the Bureau, however, had been blessed with the convenience of M2Ds for at least a few decades, and very few people ever bothered picking up pens these days. A normal Bureau investigator would have probably missed it as well; it was at times like these that Fate was glad she’d been raised on a “primitive” planet.

“Yes, sir. Scanning. …scan complete. Writing detected.” A victorious grin appeared on Fate’s face. “Decoding… decoding complete. Message content: 35 2342 N, 73 1024 W.”

“GPS.” Shamal voiced Fate’s thought even as the younger blonde brought up an M2D. Before Griffith could even ask, she spoke: “Call the forwards and Nanoha. We might have them.”

----------------

“It’s a building near the western edge of the Dead Zone, sir,” Lucino Lilie reported, “we’re getting the blueprints now… looks like an apartment complex.”

First Lieutenant Griffith Lowran acknowledged her with a curt nod, trying and failing to make himself comfortable on the command chair.

Of all the times for Yagami-san to be away! Still, he’d taken the same command classes as she, in the same academy, and he was in fact even older than her. He could do this, right? Right. Yes he could. He would. She had picked him for this job, hadn’t she? She knew he could do this. He believed in her, who believed in him.

Maybe if he said it to himself enough times, he’d start to feel more confident.

Was this chair supposed to be uncomfortable?

“Send the data over to Star… I mean, Alpha one as soon as it’s here.”

“Yes sir. Sending.”

“The Alpha-Stars team is underway, Alpha one in the lead,” Alto Krauetta reported. She didn’t look bothered by the squad’s name change at all. “They’ll get there about ten minutes before Lightning one and Shamal-sensei.”

“Tell Vice to fly low and quiet, move the dropoff point some distance away… make it a hundred meters. Alpha-Stars will walk over once Lightning one makes contact. Let’s keep surprise on our side as much as possible.”

“Yes sir!”

Wait. Maybe they had scanners? Snipers? Maybe Vice should have flown slower instead, and the dropoff point on the building’s roof? How strong were they, would the Forwar—that is, would the Stars squad be able to hold their own? Maybe they should have been spread to prevent any escapes, leaving Nanoha-san, Fate-san, Vita-san and Shamal-sensei to do the fighting? Or…

The sound of the doors sliding aside cut through his nebulous thoughts. Asuna Marquette has just entered the command room. He scolded himself; he was the last one allowed to doubt himself, especially right now!

“Doctor?” He asked the section one woman, who froze into a crisp salute.

“Sir, I’ve finished the autopsy on the corpses we found in the woods. Brigadier-General Yagami wanted to have the results as soon as I was done…?”

“She’s away right now—conference at the HQ,” he added at her confused look. He hoped the meeting was going well; it seemed lately that these meetings wanted nothing but to de-evolve into sessions of “Question the purpose of Section 6” that forced her to defend not just herself, but everyone else who supported the move.

He took the report, but didn’t open it. “What did you find out? Is it really them?”

The young doctor nodded. “DNA and core signature scans confirmed it. Finding the exact moment of death was a little harder, but I managed to pin it to somewhere around thirty hours before sealing. As for the cause of death, it was a point-blank force bolt in the third cervical vertebra… the back of the neck,” she clarified. He nodded.

“I see.” So the accidental poisoning assumption had been wrong, and Sikorski and her accomplices’ deaths had been deliberate. Then… “Were there any sings of struggling?”

“It’s hard to tell,” she replied. “Some animal got to the bodies first, about twenty percent of their flesh was eaten, including most of their arms and legs. What was left didn’t seem to have contusions or injuries, but…”

But there could have been, just as there could have not. Right. “Thank you.”

“Sir,” Asuna saluted crisply again, then spun on her heels and left.

“Alpha-Stars is nearly the dropoff point.”

“Lightning one, ETA two minutes.”

“No signs of scans, no magical activity detected…”

“Passive scanners reveal nothing unusual, active scan on standby.”

Putting the report aside, both on the chair and in his mind, he focused instead on the ongoing operation.

Almost showtime.

----------------

Her distracted hand absentmindedly swayed the crystal-clear cup in front of her eyes, sending the liquid amber of fine Molavian wine in a merry dance. The strong afternoon sun pierced the recently converted cloakroom’s large window bay and refracted through the luxurious alcoholic drink and on the fabric of her regulatory brown skirt, but her mind barely registered it, just as it barely registered the liquid’s warm taste running around her mouth, focused as she was on her internal quandary.

The third trimestral meeting had adjourned just a few minutes ago, and Hayate could not have been gladder of that. In the two hours it had taken, she’d found herself having to answer seven pointed questions, attacks veiled just enough to appear legitimate and within the rules. This was a considerable number, considering the overall count had risen to fifteen, and that the heads of all six Sections had been present.

Thankfully, they had followed a predictable pattern; her opposition had decided, after the failure of their first attack, to organize their questions beforehand, and had taken a fancy to discussing it with her staunchest opponent, Lieutenant General Yvan Corsair—or Lord Grand Hollow on Midchilda—of Section one, eighth Battle Division. It had thus been very simple for Signum and Agito to acquire the information she needed (though means she preferred not knowing; there was a reason she’d sent the loyal and ruthless leader of her Knights to do it).

All things considered, things had gone mostly well, somewhat thanks to her foreknowledge. It didn’t seem, however, that the opposition was growing any weaker—one could actually have argued the opposite—despite what her backers had assured her. She was pretty sure the first two meetings of this kind had not been so exhausting, although it could be because this had been the first meeting since her Section’s actual activation. Still most of the questions had been easily dealt with.

Most of them.

One of them, from Lord Grand Hollow himself, had caught her by surprise. And it was the cause of her current thoughts.

“One of my analysts discovered some important information was missing from the post-operation reports of the Scaglietti incident, and as the head of Mobile Division six at the time, I would like to ask a precision about this to Brigadier-General Yagami, if I could,” his tone had been deferent, and although Hayate herself would have rejected it as being unrelated to Section six, the question had been approved anyway. He had continued, “Thank you your honor. Brigadier-General, I would like to ask a precision as to how exactly Jail Scaglietti managed to acquire something as… voluminous as the ship he’d used during that incident. None of your reports contained this, yet it could easily have led us to whoever was backing him, or if such a person existed.”

In hindsight, allowing her surprise to show on her face had been a serious mistake. The look on his face was one of thinly veiled satisfaction, as he’d finally been able to get under her skin.

“I’m afraid none of my investigators found anything relevant to this question, sir,” she’d replied, and she mentally kicked herself in hindsight. Although his rank was technically higher than hers, she was a Section Head, thus her authority outclassed his; if anything, he should have been the one calling her “Ma’am”! “Scaglietti seems to have covered his tracks well, and even the Numbers were unaware of whether or not he was receiving help.”

“What a shame,” His reply hadn’t quite been insolent, but only just. “We were merely curious to know how a ship of its size and armament could have been powered by a single D9 core, or how it could have remained active after the core’s destruction at your subordinate’s hands.

“Not,” he had quickly added at the frown the head of Section 1, Grand Marshall William Meadowbrook, had shot him, “that we believe any part of the report was a fabrication, of course,” Hayate made an annoyed sound as she remembered that part; if anyone hadn’t believed he’d been trying to hint that her report had been faked, they had then. “But merely because if this possibility exists and more potentially hostile factions are aware of it, then there remains the possibility that a similar incident could happen.”

The cup’s edge met her lips and a tiny amount of its content flowed into her mouth, burning her tongue with its strong fruity flavor. The way the explanation had been worded made it sound reasonable at first glance, but thinking about it again made her realize it was anything but. Scaglietti had been a rogue scientist, known to work for hire to whoever could give him what he needed. However, he’d also been an arrogant rogue scientist, the kind who ferociously guarded their secrets to prove and preserve their superiority over lesser mortals. It would have been easier for one of his associates to pull the tooth of a chicken than to gain any kind of technical knowledge from him.

That Corsair would ask specifically about this had raised alarms in the back of her mind. It wasn’t, however, the truly alarming part of what he had said.

“I’m afraid I don’t know anything about this that was not included in the report,” she’d lied, as there had been quite a bit left unsaid on those files, “If that is all, we can proceed to the next question—”

“As a matter of fact, I do have another question,” he had interrupted. Hayate had been somewhat pleased to see the frown reappear on Meadowbrook, and to hear the sharp hiss of breath from Chairman Hester Lexcen, next to her on the seat of Section 4 at his breach of protocol. Yet again, however, he was not reprimanded, as her own words had (stupidly) included an opening for him, and at her reluctant nod, he continued with an arrogant smile, “We found a piece of a post-operation report from one of your forwards at the time, ah… Ah, yes, Teana Lanstar, about the artificial mage they’d found with a relic… Was the way she’d gotten herself in this situation ever found? And what about her genetic sibling’s identity?”

“No,”she’d replied, this time not quite managing to contain the surprise that crept her voice, and she pursed her lips remembering the victorious glint in the man’s eyes. “I’m afraid she does not remember how she got there. And as for your other question, I’m afraid that’s still a mystery as well, and DNA tests have proved inconclusive.”

And that was the problem. Mentioning Vivio right after the Cradle’s disproportionate power? And her “genetic sibling”, the proper term for the source of genetic material of an artificial mage? Never mind that through his whole speech, his eyes had been staring at her in challenge. This hadn’t been a question, but that wasn’t a surprise. It hadn’t been an attack either, not quite; there was nothing in his question that could have hinted on incompetence, nepotism or whatever other vice they wanted to paint on her as this week, nor had it aimed at anything that could breach Section 6’s raison d’être.

What his words had been had to be a threat. He’d told her, if not directly in those words, that he knew.

Knowledge of the Cradle had been carefully censored out of every report she had submitted to the Bureau, and she knew the same had been done by Chrono Harlaown. Except for a select few members of the Church, Chrono, herself, Fate, Nanoha and, of course, little Vivio, no one had an inkling of what the Cradle truly was.

And for a good reason, as the ship in question featured prominently in St. Monarch scriptures. The story, if her memory served her correctly, went that the God-King, ruler of the heavenly kingdom of Alhazred, was one day attacked by thirteen of his most trusted generals, one led by ambition and avarice, the others by fear of him. After defeating them, the Lord ordered them killed for their transgression, but His compassionate daughter, hearing the pleas and cries of those weaker men, had convinced Him to punish the twelve, henceforth known as the Misguided, by banishing them to the world under, with Herself and Her children to guide them and their children.

The Cradle had been Her ship, the ship She had used to carry the Misguided down on the world, and which the scriptures claimed would eventually be used to carry those faithful to Her teachings and to Her children, the Belkan royal line, back to His side.

While, thanks to the emergence of 4DT and archeology by observation (unstable as it was over long temporal “distances”) very few holy men and women still advocated a literal interpretation of the myth, finding the Cradle was still roughly the equivalent of discovering Noah’s Ark and the Garden of Eden at the same time. That someone like Scaglietti had found it and managed to make it fly (without, as far as anyone but those in on the secret believed, the presence of a member of the officially defunct Belkan Royal Family, one of Her descendants), and that the Bureau had been forced to atomize what amounted to a more than priceless sacred artifact…!

Every conformist on the planet would have demanded Chrono’s head if they’d only known. And quite a few other heads as well, hers included.

And as for Vivio, it wouldn’t be much of a stretch for those same people to make the connection; her abnormally large magic potential—even for an artificial mage (that they hadn’t been able to censor away without bringing Midchilda’s Child Protection Services down on their heads)—was public record for anyone who bothered to make the effort to look, and it had been impossible to hide that she had been rescued from the ship. Add to it that members of the Belkan Royal Family were written to be the only beings in the multiverse capable of making the Cradle move, and you ended up with a tightly bound but easily unraveled nest of secrets that should never find themselves unearthed, for Vivio’s sake among others. Knight Carim herself had assured Hayate that no one would find out.

But then, out of nowhere, there came L-G. Corsair, hinting that he had found out, that he did know and could easily topple everything down on everyone’s heads just by speaking up, unless she did what he wanted her to. He hadn’t made his demands yet, but she knew it was only a matter of time until she found herself on the bad end of a rather cruel case of blackmail. She wished she could say she would not do what he wanted, but faced with the trouble and danger the truth would bring to those she loved…

No. She wouldn’t be able to say no, and she knew it. And until he made his move, the only thing she could do was find out how he’d learned, plug the leak, and then find a way to keep him quiet. Without more information, however, there wasn’t much else she could do.

A throbbing pain in her mouth and the faint coppery taste of blood pulled her out of her thoughts and made her realize she’d been biting her lip in worry. She forced herself to sigh, took another, longer, sip (and winced as the alcohol burned at the fresh self-inflicted injury), put the quarter-full cup down on the table and tried to clear her thoughts by looking around. Until recently, this cloakroom, Section six’s private cloakroom, her cloakroom, had been little more than an extra storage room, and it showed in how spartanly furnished it was: except for the elegant reclining chair she was sitting on, the small coffee table in front of it and the three-seat sofa on the other side, the seventy-some square meters room, all colored of woody browns and creamy beiges, was completely empty.

It was traditional that the current head of the room’s Section put up only one ornament in the room during his or her stay, without once removing anything. Supposedly, it was supposed to be a way for the heads to humble themselves knowing the kind of shoes they stood in, but Hayate found it to be a silly custom; the room of Section 4, whose head changed every half-decade to ensure a fresh influx of ideas, had to look like some kind of museum after over seventy-five years of service. As soon as she had some time to herself (which wasn’t likely to happen anytime soon, she admitted to herself), she’d already promised herself a complete renovation job, and to hell with tradition!

She could start by moving the chair to the outer wall, for one, although maybe the sofa would look better there. The windows were much too high for her tastes, too, and could use some heavy curtains on the upper half. Maybe something in blue, although she was partial to burgundy, and—

Someone knocked on the door. Hayate glanced at the clock and noted that she’d only been sitting there for a handful of minutes.

“Who is it?” she called, and smiled when a familiar voice replied,

“It is us. May we come in?”

“Come in, come in!” the door opened and the leader of her Knights, Signum, stepped through, with Agito and Reinforce Zwei fluttering over her shoulders. The latter happily glided over to her side while the normally stoic pink-haired woman gave her one of the private warm smiles she had never allowed anyone but Agito to catch sight of (intentionally, at least). Hayate returned it warmly, motioning for the sofa. However, Signum did not move from the door.

“You also have a visitor,” she announced, and moved aside as Admiral Harlaown revealed himself with a light wave, his lips curved in a friendly smile.

“Chrono-kun! I haven’t seen you in… in…”

“I think it was after the post-op party, before you got it into your mind to throw aside seventy-six years of good old tradition to get better toys,” he replied, his amused tone devoid of any sting. She shot him a raspberry anyway and invited him to the sofa as he closed the door behind him and Signum took her seat.

“So what have you been doing?” she asked as soon as he was seated, “And how in the world did you ever find the time to meet me like this? I want your trick.”

He chuckled. “Well, as you’ve probably heard from mom already, I was given the twelfth fleet,” she giggled at his nonchalant tone and the roll of his eyes; Lindy had been positively ecstatic about the news and had proceeded to both announce it to everyone she knew and embarrass her son in front of said everyone.

Not that there was anything glamorous about the twelfth fleet. Only a small fraction of the navy’s massive tonnage served in the Intervention Fleets, the Main Branch’s equivalent of mobile divisions and an Earth Navy’s Task Force; most of it was assigned in “fleetlets” of eight to ten ships (plus a small screen of destroyers and light cruisers), like the twelfth fleet, and served mostly as a point of origin and emergency show of force for I.D. patrols. And as the patrol fleet count was in the hundreds—inevitable, and in fact insufficient, considering the infinity of ID space the Bureau had to patrol, perhaps the single unusual point of Chrono’s command was that its number was only in the double-digits.

It certainly wasn’t like he’d been given command of one of the very few Guardian Fleets—which, despite counting hundreds of hulls under the same command, made up less than a tenth of the navy’s overall tonnage (and over eighty percent of the navy’s scarce heavy elements).

However, it was his first long-term command, and since he’d done so in record-breaking time, at only nineteen years old, Lindy Harlaown had every reason to be proud of her son. Even if said son wished she was a little less jubilant about expressing that pride!

“And as for how I found time,” he continued with a theatrical glance at his wristwatch, “I just made some.”

“Meaning, people are waiting for you,” she accused.

“Meaning, people are soon going to be waiting for me,” he corrected, grinning shamelessly. “There’s nothing going on that my flag captain and staff officers can’t handle anyway, and we’re not due for departure until tomorrow morning.”

“So you’re leaving the last minute preparations to your underlings. You heartless tyrant, I’m shocked and appalled,” she jabbed playfully, and he chuckled in response. “So, what did you ditch your poor overworked slaves to see me for?”

“I was on my way back from talking to Knight Carim—she’s going to want to see you soon, by the way—when I saw those three,” he motioned at Signum and Agito and pointedly stared at Rein, “storming their way over here like a pack of angry saberwolves.” His grin softened into that patented “big brother” smile he reserved only to Fate and herself. “I take it things didn’t go too well for you?”

Hayate winced. “You could say that.” And she told him, as well as the pair of unison devices and her knight (who, although she was not allowed to listen in on the meetings, seemed to already be aware of the general gist of what had happened), of the “questions” Corsair had asked her and what she believed it meant. His joviality vanished about midway through, and her three subordinates took on faces with various degrees of dismay.

“Ghh, that damn bastard,” Agito was the first to speak up. Or, more accurately, snarl up.

“If he does know about Vivio and the Cradle, then he has to know how people would react to knowing she’s essentially the divine daughter,” Signum voiced, using the (archaic) term for the crown princess of Belka. And she was right, a corner of Hayate’s mind noted; seeing as the entire clan had been wiped out at the end of the great war, by isolation as executing someone with nigh-invincible automatic defenses turned out to be notably difficult, Vivio having their blood in her veins and the ability to use the ultimate defense was good enough to qualify her for it in the minds of most.

It was probably a good thing the kingdom of Belka didn’t exist anymore, Hayate decided as her mind wheeled away from the complications this would have brought.

Unfortunately, it did nothing for the religious implications.

“I don’t think we can assume he’ll have a sudden bout of guilty conscience. From what you’re saying, Hayate, he looked pretty happy to arm that warhead over you,” Chrono sighed, passing a hand through his short black hair. She nodded in confirmation.

“He’s a bad person desu!” Reinforce declared while stomping her tiny foot in mid-air, drawing an eye roll from the older and more jaded unison device, and tension-lifting chuckles from the humans around her.

“Well, we can’t do much about it except keep an eye on him, for now,” Chrono said, repeating Hayate’s thoughts without knowing it.

“The real question,” Signum voiced, crossing her arms and legs with a thoughtful frown, “is how did he find out? The list of people who do know is pretty small, and I can’t think of one I wouldn’t turn my back on in combat.”

“I can,” Agito sniped while her limbs crossed unconsciously to mirror her partner’s pose. “Scaglietti and the Numbers. And any one of ‘em would love to get back at us for the beatdown we gave ‘em.”

Hayate frowned at this (even as she noticed and approved of the little device’s inadvertent pronoun usage). Apparently, in her mental shuffling, she’d put Scaglietti and the Numbers, or at least those that remained, far enough out of her mind and into the “dealt with” section that she hadn’t even considered them. There was a reason for the vast majority of them, though.

“Scaglietti isn’t a danger,” she said. “The guards stationed in high-security prisons aren’t rotated unless there’s an emergency, and Lady Carim has already assured me that those assigned to him are both reliable and firmly in her camp. No matter what he’d say, they wouldn’t tell a soul except her.”

She noticed Chrono made no reaction to this, despite the disproportionate amount of influence for her rank this hinted in the blonde paladin. She herself had no problems with it; had anyone else meddled in the Bureau’s organization like this, she would have felt at least a little uneasy, but Lady Carim was a good friend of hers, and she knew her intentions were good. Sure, she bent the rules, but why worry if she didn’t mean any harm?

Shaking away those stray thoughts, she continued, “Major Nakajima’s squadron is still stationed in the low-level facility where most of them are locked up, since Ginga-san is leading their reeducation. Security is tight enough to let him hear anything they say and send, and he’d have told me if anything had slipped out, but…” Her frown deepened and her hand reached for the wineglass. “Unfortunately, that’s not all of them.”

“And definitely not the worst ones,” Chrono agreed.

“Uno, Tre, Sette and Quattro…” Signum sighed.

“The right-hand maiden, the yes girl, the yes girl’s follower and ‘specially the sneaky bitch,” Agito colored with a snarl. “The lot of ‘em know as much as Scaglietti, and they’d just love to royally screw us up.” She crossed her arms and legs, levitating a few inches above Signum’s shoulder, and sighed to herself, “I still don’t get why they weren’t executed.”

“No capital punishment for civilians,” Hayate smiled at the old complaint. Among the rules of the Bureau, this one was the one Agito and Signum—and the rest of her Knights as well, for that matter—had the most trouble with. That wasn’t very surprising, considering how both of them lived on warrior codes that seemed to have been pulled ahead from a couple of centuries in the past (though one could argue that it had). She was well aware that both of them considered leaving someone as dangerous as Scaglietti and his most loyal cronies alive, if imprisoned for life, was the epitome of stupidity.

And if Agito’s guess about Corsair’s leak was right, then they just might have been right about that as well.

“Carim didn’t mention the Numbers, though,” Hayate continued. “I assume she arranged for reliable guards there too, or at least to have a way to check if anything leaked out, but with everything going on…” she sighed. “It’s possible that Corsair managed to sneak a few of his subordinates in the guard roll without Carim spotting him. Not likely, but I think it’s our best bet. Since he didn’t do this last time despite the thorough trouncing we gave him,” she noticed the small hint of a smirk that flashed across Signum’s stoic face, and the shameless grin that covered Agito’s, “we should check any guards that were changed in the months since then, to see if they’re part of the eighth battle division—”

“You mean I should check,” Chrono interrupted scoldingly. “You have quite enough trouble in your hands at the moment.”

Hayate blinked, then frowned at the agreeing (and treacherous) nod from Signum. “But aren’t you supposed to be leaving tomorrow?”

“I am. Mom isn’t. If I sic her and her connections on this, you’ll have the leak begging to eat in your hand and deny everything he told Corsair within a week at most.” He smiled kindly and stood, “you worry about those stolen Lost Logia, and let us watch your back a bit. Okay?”

Hayate wasn’t convinced, but felt herself nod slowly while she stood as well to accompany him. His smile took an air of satisfaction.

“Good, then I’ll get right on that. And if you need anyth—” he was interrupted by the strident call of an urgent message ringing through his storage device and the apparition of an M2D.

Responding to his mental command, the screen allowed the connection and the image of a woman, just a bit older than Chrono himself, in the deep blue and white uniform of the Bureau’s navy and the single star outline of a commodore adorning the badges on her shoulders. Deep violet eyes almost-glared at Chrono under shockingly crimson bangs, and one of her hands was barely visible along the lower edge of the screen, nervously playing with the thick French braid she’d slung over her shoulder.

“Admiral, where are you?” The young woman, who Hayate guessed was Chrono’s flag captain, asked. “You were supposed to be here ten minutes ago. We’re scheduled to leave in only thirteen hours and the initial patrol assignments haven’t been worked out yet!”

“Then, Captain Riva, shouldn’t you be getting working on that?” Chrono asked calmly. Admirals did not, by nature, apologize to their subordinates, flag captains or not. “I’ll be back soon enough, I just had some important business to complete. I should be back within… oh,” he made to check his watch, “twelve hours or so. Harlaown out.”

The window vanished, strangling Captain Riva’s indignant splutter of “Twelve h—”. Then, at Hayate’s condemning mock-glare, he said,

“She’s good. I know she can do this with both hands tied behind her back, and she likes having someone watching over her shoulder far too much for her rank. And besides…” the corner of his smile quirked in a smirk, “she doesn’t know it, but she’s listed for rear-admiral sooner or later. I’m just giving her some valuable experience.”

“I’m impressed, Chrono-kun,” Hayate replied, feigning amazement while her knight and the pair of unison devices looked on in amusement. “What dedication! To go this far to give her a valuable example of what not to do must certainly take courage from you… unless, of course, it’s just that you’re being lazy and want to spend some down time with Amy and the twins before you go.”

Chorno mock-recoiled. “Miss Yagami, I am shocked and appalled that you would think so little of me.”

“It’s true, though.”

“Lies and slander we will duel over!”

“I’ll sic Rein-chan on you,” she ‘threatened’, and the aforementioned device took a boastful pose on cue.

He gave her a shocked look. “You would not dare.”

“Or Shamal.”

“You fight dirty,” he declared darkly. The pair “glared” at each other for a few moments, then chuckled as one. Chrono finally gave a glance at his watch, for real this time, and sighed when he looked up. “I’d better be off, anyway. I told mom I’d visit her before I left, and that’s one rendezvous I wouldn’t ever dare being late on.”

Chuckling and nodding in agreement, Hayate accompanied him to the door. Once outside, he gave her a sharp salute and a fond smile. She returned both.

“Godspeed, Chrono-kun.”

“Same to you, Hayate. And tell sis and Nanoha-chan I said hi for me, will you?”

She nodded. “I will. Now off you go, so you can’t tell Lindy-san you’re late because of me.”

“Curses. Foiled.”

And he left, leaving a laughing Hayate to shut the door behind him. She was still chuckling when she returned to her seat under the amused gaze of the three other women. After inviting her knight to take a drink and taking a quick sip from her own glass, she met her eyes.

“So, what about that other thing I asked you to find out? I trust there was no problem?”

Signum paused in the middle of raising her glass to her lips.

“Agito looked into it for me,” she looked at her device, who’d been locked in a staring contest with Rein.

Agito looked away with a grunt of irritation—and a victorious cheer from the other device—to reply, “It’s like you thought, boss. She wasn’t in the list. I had to look pretty far to find it, though; the forgery was almost perfect, but they missed her graduation picture. Or rather, that she wasn’t on the graduation picture she should’ve been on. Whoever did it got sloppy.” She flittered over Signum’s glass, dipped her hand in the alcohol and brought it to her lips with an air of utmost decadence. The pinkette didn’t even blink.

“As for who did it,” she continued, “I couldn’t find it. The forgery was too big for it to be anything but an inside job, though, and it’s elaborate enough that it almost has to come from pretty high up on the food chain. ‘couldn’t find what her orders are, though, but we know for sure she’s not what she says she is.”

“I didn’t really expect you to find her orders, anyway,” Hayate replied, “and I can already make a good guess about them anyway.”

“Then are you going to confront her about it?” Signum asked.

Hayate hummed about it for a few moments, then shook her head negatively.

“There’s no need to. If she’s here to evaluate me, telling her I know might lead her to believe I’m only acting for her benefit. If she’s here for some other reason, she’ll tip her hand sooner or later. Since it was an inside job, it’s not like I can expect her to actively move against us while we’re on a job as important as this one. All and all, there probably isn’t much danger in letting her do whatever she’s being told to… at least for now.”

Signum didn’t look convinced, but nodded slowly.

----------------

“She’s late.”

Eloise Méhari paused in her cleaning of her knives to shoot a sour look at Vincent Veyron, whose deep baritone had just broken the almost-silence of their hideout. Veyron was a huge man, the burly type she could easily imagine getting into and winning bar fights at the drop of a hand. His arms were like trunks, never mind his legs, and his hands seemed big enough to grab and crush her head if he felt like it. She herself wasn’t small, at a hundred and seventy centimeters, but he topped her by a whole head. His square face had a weird scar under his left eye, and his nose had definite signs of having once been broken and never reset properly. All and all, he was a very impressive man, and it was such a shame for him that his magic had never developed accordingly; he was, at most, a D-class mage.

Of course, only she knew that, and only because she’d extracted that little secret from him during a moment of post-coital weakness. He probably hadn’t even noticed.

“We know she is,” Eloise sighed and tried to make herself more comfortable on the terribly rigid surface of the diallium chest in which the few Lost Logia they weren’t carrying on themselves remained sealed. Her thick legs crossed and uncrossed in discomfort. “But if you plan to have a talk to her ‘bout that, then I wanna know in advance.”

“You sayin’ you’ll stand up with’im?” Fritz Sherpa twanged from where he lounged on what had once been a support pillar, a lecherous grin on his scarred lips. She a glare at his one-eyed face.

“Fuck no, but someone needs to bury his ass, and if I leave it to one of you worthless slimes, he’ll be stinkin’ up the place for months,” she replied. Snorts ran across the room, and Veyron’s face took on an interesting shade of puce that did nothing to make him more attractive.

The laughter froze when he pointed “his” Lost Logia, a magic cannon that had a lot in common with old war-era shotguns, straight at her.

“You sure you wanna mess with me, poulette? You know where you’ll end up.” His dark grin took a lecherous air, “hell, you might even like it.”

She replied with her own salacious grin and reached in her pocket for “her” lost logia, which she triggered. The next thing he knew, she was behind him, lips breathing at his ear, and one of her knives was delicately caressing his carotid artery.

“Sorry Veyvey,” she whispered, “but your… gun… isn’t big enough to take a second shot at me.”

“Oi, both of you, knock it off,” André Camargue called from where he sat against the wall, ignoring the catcalls. He was their unofficial “leader” and official voice of reason in most things. “Méhari, stop using your toy. You’ll get us detected.”

And immediately after saying that, Carmague, as well as a good portion of the wall, vanished in a flash of pink.

---------------

The thieves’ chosen hiding spot was a typical war-era apartment, like the vast majority of what could be found in the Dead Zone. Wartime resource crunching and an incredible need for housing had favored residences with a lot of room for a lot of people, very few walls, and a design simple enough to be mass-produced. It wasn’t quite a loft, however, as the materials’ poor quality had forced the designers to add a certain number of support pillars at claustrophobically close intervals, which now stood precariously cracked and worn, if not outright shattered, by time and disuse.

None of this registered on Teana’s mind as the forwards erupted into the room in the wake of Major Nanoha and Captain Vita’s opening volley. The only thing she understood was that there was a lot of room to get range into, a lot of inconvenient cover spots for the thieves to use, and a lot of thieves. Because many of them had still been wearing their armors, or at least pieces of them, the opening volleys had been less efficient than she’d hoped; of the original dozen, only two had been definitely taken out. Two more had been winded, but enough to stop them from calling up their barrier jackets before her squad arrived.

This left ten opponents, whose power armor and Lost Logia made them even tougher than they should have been, against their two front-liners, herself in close support and Caro acting as the firewall and back support. Major Takamachi, Captain Vita and Enforcer Harlaown soon arrived to help out—with dramatic effect—but the end result was the same; as much support as she and Caro could give, Erio and Subaru were easily separated forced to fight alone.

On the bright side, they were definitely able to hold their own. Subaru’s ground speed was enough to keep her out of the hands of her massive opponent, who couldn’t be less than two meters tall, and Erio’s two opponents were finding out that the little boy was a surprisingly dangerous target. As for the higher ups, they could and did handle over half the enemy’s numbers. In fact, there was only one enemy who wasn’t engaged one way or another, and Teana frowned as she realized he had a Lost Logia. From the looks of it, it was a ranged weapon, and he was probably just waiting for Erio or Subaru to give him a good shot. She aimed.

“Piercing shot!” Cross Mirage barked at her command, and the orange blast flew forward, impacting first against the surprised man’s shield, then drilling its way through (huh! That had never worked with Nanoha-san, what a surprise) to impact against his armor where his collar bone was hidden. The man staggered, wincing, then shot her a hateful glare and—

—and turned around, running straight for the exit.

Well, that was fine. Caro was there to stop escapees like that. When she looked back at her allies, though, she found they were having a lot more trouble than she’d expected. The massive man had successfully grabbed Subaru’s unarmed arm and was wrestling with surprising success with her mechanical strength, and Erio’s two opponents seemed to have caught him in a bind. They’d need Caro’s support spells, and if she sent her to chase after that man…

Never mind that, with a ranged Lost Logia and a lot of room and a lot of cover, a target as big as Fried would be an easy target and could get seriously hurt.

This ran through her mind faster than she could realize it did, and before she knew it she threw herself at the exit.

“One of them’s escaping, I’m going after him. Keep boosting Subaru and Erio, Caro!” she broadcasted as she crossed the doorway and erupted in the hallway beyond.

“Ah—Y-Yes!” Caro replied.

“Hey wait, Tia, I’m—Gh” Subaru’s reply was cut off from her distraction. Erio didn’t reply.

She knew Subaru was worried about her, and hoped she wouldn’t let it distract her too much. Her piercing shot could go through his shield, and confusing, cover-filled, cramped environments were the illusionist gunslinger’s best battleground.

She’d be fine.

She hoped.

----------------

The massive broadsword fell down on Strada’s shaft like a wrecking ball and Erio grunted with exertion as he angled it downward, barely moving his fingers away in time to avoid the diverted blade. His opponent, an ugly scarred man with only one eye, made a grimace as he was forced to step backward to avoid a vicious slash from the spearhead, but Erio had no time to push his attack that a volley of knives flew through the air right in front of his face.

He barely had time to think, a humbling experience for a speed fighter backed by several boost spells—Caro, sitting on Fried’s back in the sky, was really outdoing herself this time. He’d already been forced to ignore a report of some kind from Teana-san, there’d just been no time for him to register it.

His opponents were not that tough; Nanoha-san and Fate-san were both much harder to defend against, and he’d already managed to nick the man’s armor twice. The problem was that the man still wore the top and legs of his body armor, which meant that not only were all of his hits powered by an extra level of magic, but that anything short of a direct powered hit with Strada’s blade wouldn’t as much as bruise him.

Unfortunately, that was a hit that his other opponent would not grant him; although she seemed to have only a handful of knives at any given time, she’d already thrown over two dozen at him, each time with humbling accuracy—his barrier jacket had already been cut at a few places with contemptuous ease, hinting that these were enchanted blades. He’d already come pretty close to hitting her twice, now, but—

Erio avoided the massive broadsword and their combat moved toward the wall. Trained battle instincts immediately noted that the woman was now stuck between him and a pillar. Muscles moved before he’d even fully realized what he’d seen—

“Sonic move!”

—the room blurred, and the next thing he knew, Strada’s blade ripped a hole in the pillar. Knowing more than sensing the next attack, he threw himself aside, spear still in hand, barely in time to avoid the volley of knives that clattered against the damaged plascrete.

The woman was ten meters away, not even phased by the speed she’d moved at.

How was she doing that?! The obvious suspect was the Lost Logia in her hand, a weird medallion thing with a chain hanging from it, but what was it? Teleportation? Hyper speed? Time stop?

Considering the knives he’d avoided just thirty seconds ago were missing, he was leaning toward the latter two—

Sword!

The weapon crashed on Strada’s shaft once again, only this time Erio’s position wouldn’t let him divert the blow. He winced and grunted at his arms’ protests.

Where were the others? He looked, very quickly.

Nanoha-san. Duelling three foes in full body armor in a short range projectile battle. Apparently winning, though it was hard to tell. Knowing her, she should be able to help him soon. Busy.

Fate-san. Locked in battle with an unarmored male using some kind of blade of light. A foe was coming from behind her, but if he judged her position right—and he was—she already knew he was there. Busy.

Vita-san, steadily drilling through a foe’s Jewel Seed-powered shield. Busy.

Subaru-san, grappling a man in powered armor. Losing… she looked distracted by something?

Caro, casting a boost. Probably aimed at Subaru. Busy.

Teana—

He wasn’t able to find her in the short time he had. And while he’d been looking, the woman had gathered up her knives and was getting ready to throw them at him. There were too many targets, and they were much cleverer than training drones; while Nanoha-san had done her best to prepare them for this, it was difficult for their undersized Section to bring enough strong mages to help them train.

No choice, then. Time to cheat a bit.

“Strada! Cartridge Load!”

“Jawohl!”

And that’s when the mechanism jammed.

----------------

“Fortunately, it’s not as bad as it looks,” Shamal explained gently while giving the finishing touches to the bandages wrapped around Erio’s arm.
Teana had never admired the doctor as much as today; the way she had made a straight human arm out of the black and blue mess it had been was nothing short of miraculous, even with magic involved. The little boy had remained admirably stoic while his wounded limb was being set back, probably thanks to a mixture of a Fate-grade calming spell and a large dose of shock. He’d been lucky his barrier jacket had been so strong, or he would have had a stump instead of a healable mess.

No casualties, one lightly wounded, the mission report would list on their side. And Teana knew, both from herself and from the looks Captain Vita was giving her, that this time she really had screwed up. She averted her eyes from the faux-girl’s.

She should not have left the battle to go after that guy. She, the commander of her squad, should never have left it to fend for itself, especially not without leaving a clear chain of command behind. And she definitely should not have gone after a man armed with a weapon of unknown power with no backup. At the time, it seemed like the most logical course of action. In hindsight, turned out to be a mistake that had nearly cost half her squad—including herself—their lives.
She glanced at Subaru and wondered if the plainly visible look of guilt in her eyes came from the fact that she had also left Erio behind, or if it was because of what she’d done—of what Teana had forced her to do with her reckless actions.
She figured it was the latter, from the way Subaru was looking at her hand and the faintly pinkish tint of her freshly washed skin.

The mission report would list this as the operation’s result: Eleven captures, one kill.
A brilliant success.

She felt sick.

----------------

“…and then, and then sensei said I used it right!”

Nanoha-mama smiled at her, her hands running a comb through Vivio’s dark blonde locks while the little girl told about her day. She always had a lot of things to talk about since a lot of things always happened at school, and Nanoha-mama always did too, about a meeting or a story or something funny happening during training.
Today, though, it seemed she wasn’t completely focused, but Vivio didn’t mind. She knew something had happened since Nanoha-mama had been the one to fetch her at school herself instead of sending Zaphira-san or Shamal-san, and Nanoha-mama was always busy with training usually. She also wasn’t saying much. Plus, she actually smelled a little sweaty.
That never happened either.
Plus, Fate-mama still wasn’t back; she was ‘finishing everything’, Nanoha-mama had explained, without giving more details.
It was probably boring grownup things again. Yeesh.

“That’s good,” Nanoha replied. The comb ran over Vivio’s bangs and the little girl’s face scrunched up as they tickled her nose. “And what about your friend, the one you’re helping a lot? Did she manage it?”

“Acchan?” Vivio blinked, and nodded a little, “she did it in the end, but it took her a while. It wasn’t that complicated, though, just a channeling matrix.”

Nanoha-mama made a face. Unknown to Vivio, she was actually thinking over the kind of maths a matrix like that required, and exactly how far ahead this was of earth’s grade school curriculum… as well as how hard it had been for her to figure them out without Raising Heart’s help…

The door made a soft chime, and Vivio almost ended up with comb pins in her eyes when she bolted upright. It opened and revealed Fate, who was immediately assaulted by a six years old (arguably) bundle of “Mama!”. The tall blonde picked her up and, after greeting her properly with a big hug—Vivio noticed she also smelled a little sweaty, but mostly like that weird not-bad not-good smell during thunderstorms—spoke to Nanoha.

“The storehouse confirmed it, we got everything that was stolen. Nothing’s missing.”

Nanoha smiled. “Great! That means it’s all over? For us, I mean?” Fate nodded.

“Yup, finding who else was involved in this mess is up to Section 2, our job’s all done. All that’s left for us now is the trial, and Hayate assured me that we merely mortal officers won’t be bothered with that, since there’s really no denying they’re the ones who did it,” she paused in mid-step, then added, “Well, there’s the trial, and then there’s the paperwork, which we will be bothered with.”

Fate giggled at the grumpy air Nanoha’s face took. “Oh, pooh.”

“Oh, come on. It’s not that bad. You just sign a few forms, fill a few more, and try to resist sending the whole blasted lot of it into orbit without teleportation! And ok, so some of us here might have trouble with that last bit…”

“You mean all of us, don’t you?” Nanoha grinned impishly.

“I was excluding Vivio here,” Fate said, and Vivio made a surprised and delighted squeak as she was bounced in her blonde mother’s arms, “but on second thought, she just might do it to her homework one day.” She raised her voice an octave and said, “‘I’m sorry sensei, I did my homework but my divine buster ate it!’”

“Mama~!” Vivio protested half-heartedly.

Nanoha giggled (“Nyahaha,”), and Fate joined her, both in laughter and on the sofa. The little girl delightedly pried herself from her mother’s arms and lay herself down on both their laps. Nanoha’s comb resumed its motion, and Fate closed her eyes and finally allowed herself to truly relax. For a few moments, she closed her eyes, pushed her full weight into the plushy seat and enjoyed the way her muscles thanked her warmly and the sounds of her family. Yes, as Nanoha had said, it was all over. The thieves were caught, the lost logia had been recovered, and no one had been injured seriously.

The stray thought almost made her groan in irritation. As it was, she sighed, then opened her eyes to glance at Nanoha. The other woman’s violet eyes were looking at her in amusement, as if she was privately following the thoughts coursing through her mind.

“Erio is fine too,” she said. Nanoha nodded. Apparently, she’d been expecting that.

“I know, Shamal told me as soon as she had the verdict, seeing as I’m his training instructor,” she explained. “No straining while his arm finishes healing. I need to make them work on teamwork a little more anyway.” She grimaced. Fate knew she wasn’t too happy with how today’s mission had gone.

Fate nodded. “So, the old hostage trick?”

“Reverse princess rescue,” Nanoha confirmed with a nod, and Fate’s lips twitched. It wasn’t quite a smile, and Nanoha noticed. The comb stopped moving. “If you have something to say, go ahead and say it, Fate-chan.”

Yes, indeed, Nanoha knew her just a little too well sometimes.

Fate sighed and spoke. “It’s about Erio. I—”

Nanoha raised a hand and stopped her. “You want me to teach him ranged magic, or at least something other than melee combat. Am I right?”

Entirely too well. She’d evidently been expecting that too. Fate just nodded, a little glad she didn’t have to explain… but also aware that, with the way Nanoha had spoken, she was opposed to the idea.

She knew Nanoha just as well, after all.

“I don’t think it’s a good idea,” Nanoha said, true to form. “You know as much as I do how bad he is at channeling. If I were to try and equalize his skills, I’d have to sacrifice his weapon training, and ultimately that would be bad for him. I know,” she raised her hand at Fate’s rising objection, “I know that makes him a one-trick pony, and I know how dangerous that can be. But that’s why the Stars-L—Alpha-Stars squad exists as it is. Each of them are poorly rounded, very focused fighters. Individually, that makes them vulnerable, but as a team, they’re a lot stronger than their levels would imply.”

There was a distinct note of pride in her voice. Some of it was pride in her students, but an ugly thought, born from her ire at Erio’s injury and of the day’s stresses, rose in Fate’s mind that much of it was also pride at herself and at her work. Fate felt something uncomfortable rise up under her collar bone.

“You and I both know that’s only true if they’re allowed to work as a team,” she burst out. “Erio got hurt today because they didn’t. When Strada got stuck he had nothing else to rely on—he could have been killed, Nanoha!”

Vivio made a startled squeak at her exclamation. Wide red-green eyes turned her way.

A frown fell over Nanoha’s purple eyes. “You don’t need to tell me that—” she began, but Fate cut her off.

“Well apparently I do, since you don’t want to give Erio the kind of skills he’ll need if this happens again, just to avoid messing up your pet project—” she cut herself off there, knowing, both from herself and from the anger that suddenly appeared in Nanoha’s eyes, that she had spoken too much.

“Do you really believe that’s how I think of them? Do you really think I’d risk my students’ lives just to prove a point, Fate?” The blonde winced at the lack of honorific, and at the rising volume of her first and best friend’s voice.

“Erio may not be my adopted son,” Nanoha said with a calm slowness that belied her anger, “but I care about him as much as you do, just like I care about Teana, Subaru and Caro. I told you my reasons, I told you why I’m doing what I’m doing. Don’t you dare, just one second, think that I’m heartless enough to think of my students like a damned pet project.”

“I—I’m sorry, I—” a scathing look from the brunette cut off Fate’s apology. The young woman stood, hoisting their mortified daughter in her arms. After gently lowering her on the sofa, Nanoha declared,
“I’m turning in early. Goodnight, Fate.”

And she walked to their bed, climbing up the short flight of stairs through the sound dampening field, without looking behind.

Fate sighed. The back of her head bumped softly against the seat cushion.

“Damnit.”

----------------

A shuffle of bedsheets

“Nee, Tia, are you awake?”

…

A sigh.

“…right. Good idea.”

----------------

“Welcome back, General, how did it go?”

Pausing in the midst of hanging his light coat in the closet, Lieutenant-General Yvan Corsair glanced at the other end of his office, where his secretary walked around her desk to meet him. If the question was a breach of protocol, he paid it no heed, instead allowing a cultured smile to cross over his lips. His eyes unintentionally roamed over her shapely form, something he hadn’t been able to do until recently.

“Very well,” he replied, turning to face her—the closet door slid shut with a silent hiss. “It was just as your friend said, miss Köln. She reacted like I had just sent my brigade to walk over her family crypt. You simply have to tell me what this was all about.”

A slow smile appeared over the woman’s crimson lips. This was new as well; Kölm had been his secretary for the last three years, and in that time he had never seen her wear so much as eyeliner. She had always struck him as a cold, impersonal woman who was somehow immune to his charms, until her sudden turnabout just… oh, how ago had it been? A week, maybe two?

It was fascinating, really, the kind of change falling in love could do in a woman. It had only been a matter of time, his mind thought proudly, until he ran through her defenses, and he felt fascinated by the gem he had uncovered under all that ice.

“I’m glad to have been of service to you, General,” she said. Her swaying steps took her well within his personal space. One of her manicured hands reached up, teasing his chin with the smoothness of her skin as she adjusted his collar. Her breath was warm against his throat as she continued, “and I’m sure my… friend will be more than glad to continue helping us as well.”

He smiled. Ah, her mystery friend. What an interesting fellow he (or she) was. He wasn’t stupid enough to blindly accept just anyone’s help, even for a good cause like putting the Harlaown’s nepotistic little protégée back where she belonged. In fact, after the way Yagami had reacted to his attack, he would have been extremely suspicious as well; whatever Yagami was hiding, she was apparently terrified of anyone else finding out. How this mystery collaborator found out was only marginally less important of what his ultimate aim was…

But miss Köln trusted him, and Köln was a very, very smart woman, born from a proud line of Midchildan Bureau officers whose loyalty was second to none, and while he wasn’t one to put too much importance in lineage (despite his own noble ancestry), his every impression of her so far told him she was a chip off the old block.

So, if she trusted that mysterious friend of theirs, then he could do no less than to trust her about that. It wouldn’t be the first time he’d received anonymous help; their ally was probably too close to Yagami’s clique to risk revealing himself.

His hand found hers and caught it gently, then brought it to his lips. “And I look forward to receiving more assistance from him, make sure you tell him that, miss Köln.”

“I’ll be sure to relay the message,” she breathed into his ear, “General.”

His arm sneaked around her waist. “Please, miss Köln… call me Yvan.”

Her smile grew and her arms snaked around him. “It would not be proper unless you return the favor…”

“If you say so… Cortina.”

And as his nose buried itself in her long hair and his lips found her neck, he completely missed the predatory grin that appeared on his secretary and lover’s face.

----------------

Fate was aware that looking directly at the glowing screen in the darkness of the abandoned office area couldn’t be a good idea for her eyes, but at the moment she couldn’t bring herself to care. She couldn’t bring herself to care much for the reports in front of her, either, but paperwork had this dreadful/wonderful way of putting her right to sleep, and sleep was all she wanted at the moment. Unfortunately, the sandman seemed hell-bent on refusing her that luxury; her mind refused to clear itself, preferring instead to pepper her with endless admonitions.

Pet project… she’d be lucky if Nanoha ever forgot she’d said that. There was even a voice in the back of her mind that feared never getting forgiveness, the irrational, naïve part of her that was all that remained of the girl who fought for the Jewel Seeds so long ago. As much as she told herself Nanoha didn’t have a bone of implacableness in her (at least, as far as slights to herself were concerned, friends were another matter entirely), that little voice refused to stay down.

She sighed and closed her eyes. Her hand found her aching temple and rubbed it; it did nothing but aggravate the pain. Her fingers ran through her blonde locks and tugged at the few tangles they found there. Giving them up as a lost cause, and giving up her thoughts as an unfairly stacked cause, she tried once more to force as much of the post-op reports into her mind as possible. She scrolled down quickly with a mental note of the few parts that required her signature, finally stopping when the thieves’ pictures came up.

They didn’t look like much, she decided after a short look. It was hard to believe that this was the bunch gutsy enough to break into the raison d’être of the GDF. In fact, looking at them, it was easier to believe they were the bunch they’d caught with their pants down around the loot waiting for their pickup. If it wasn’t that every stolen Lost Logia had been recovered, Fate would have assumed them to be a decoy, but…

The pictures returned to text, and Fate was about to resume reading when she realized something. With a frown, she scrolled up, all the way to the first, then back down again, each time looking at the faces carefully.

When she finally stopped on the single female of the group, Fate’s suspicious frown had steeled into worry.

“Wait… something’s wrong here…”

End Chapter 3: Interception

Chapter notes:

This chapter was a particular pain to write. First the fight scene didn’t want to work resulting in a general reshuffling of scenes, then the politics scene came up (and I’m only partially happy of how I handled it), and a character and plotline I decided was superfluous actually vanished mid-way through.

At one point, the discarded scenes I usually leave written between this part and the main text body was several pages long.

Still, I think I managed to cram everything I wanted to in here, so I guess…

Special thanks to Hotaru-chan for German help. You’re a lifesaver~! Danke, arigatou, merci, thank you! ;)