And now things get action-y again as the Starshot crew head for Hinamizawa.

DISCLAIMERS:

Mahō Shōjo Lyrical Nanoha (Teana, concept of Intelligent Devices, some magic) – 7Arcs

Higurashi no Naku Koro Ni (Shion, this world and several of its occupants) – 07th Expansion and Studio Deen

Shuffle! (Kaede Fuyō, Rin, Asa & Ama, Sia & Nerine, Primula) – Navel and Asread

Erika's New Perfume (Marie, Sarah, Erika, Timmy, Veronica) – Deviant-Art artist Lance the Young

Mai-chan's Daily Life (Mai, Kizuna) – Waita Uziga

Star Wars (Ahsoka, Cody, Rex) – George Lucas, Lucasfilm

Halo (Forerunners, UNSC, Sangheili Alliance) – Bungie and 343 Industries

StarCraft (multiple mentions of characters, events, and devices) – Blizzard Entertainment

Naruto (jutsu, abilities) – Masashi Kishimoto

Mahō Sensei Negima (spells, abilities) – Ken Akamatsu

CHARACTER HEIGHTS:

Teana Uchiha-Lanstar: 5'6" (1.67m)

Shion (LEGALLY NO SURNAME): 5'7" (1.7m)

Kaede Fuyō: 5' 3.7" (1.62m)

Marie Swanson: 5'3" (1.6m)

Mai Kitagawa: 5'3" (1.6m)

Ahsoka Tano: 5' 3.4" (1.61m) (excluding montrals)

Kizuna Kawamura: 4'8" (1.42m)

Sarah Swanson: 5'11" (1.77m)

Erika Swanson: 4' 7.5" (1.41m)

Tim Randall: 4'10" (1.48m)

Veronica Swanson: 5'9" (1.75m)

Rin Tsuchimi: 5. 9.8" (1.775m)

Asa Shigure: 5' 4.2" (1.63m)

Ama Shigure: 5' 3.5" (1.613m)

Lisianthus "Sia" Eustoma: 5'3" (1.6m)

Nerine Forbessi: 5' 0.5" (1.54m)

Primula: 4' 11.4" (1.51m)

Rika Furude: 4'5" (1.35m)

Keiichi Maebara: 5' 8.5" (1.74m)

Reina "Rena" Ryūgū: 5'4" (1.62m)

Mion Sonozaki: 5' 6.5" (1.68m)

Satoko Hōjō: 4'8" (1.42m)

Satoshi Hōjō: 5'7" (1.71m)

Hanyū: 4' 11.5" (1.51m)

-BOOK 8 START-

Rika Furude sighed as she meandered through the town, feeling too tired to keep up her "happy little girl" façade for the public right now. The weight of time on her shoulders felt heavier than ever, the memories of her various failures flashing through her mind.

Time and time again, repeating and repeating, an endless cycle of bloodshed, terror, insanity, and death… it was enough to drive anyone to madness. How Rika had avoided completely losing her mind long ago was a mystery even to her. Watching her friends succumb to the Syndrome and tear each other – and themselves – apart, and she still hadn't the slightest idea who or what was truly behind all of it.

Around 17 cycles back, space-time had "hiccuped", and ever since then events had been moved 27 years forward in time. Now Rika's year of birth was 2001, not 1974, and the others matched. The people she knew and didn't know were pretty much still the same, and Hanyū had confirmed they were indeed the same souls, the same people. They just had access to technologies and other developments that the original iterations did not. Hanyū couldn't understand it; Rika didn't even bother to try. Events still played out in the same way – clan histories, the dam project, and other things; Dr. Irie was no closer to developing a cure for the Syndrome as he was before the change. Rika had spent the first few cycles getting rather absorbed in the movies, shows, and video games that this time-twisting made available to her, but the novelty wore off about eight cycles in, as each iteration continued to meet the same gruesome end. She still had no idea why, and no clue as to how to stop it. The killing and suffering continued unabated.

The incident with Shion three months ago had been completely out of the blue. That she had blown up at her family hadn't been too much of a surprise. That she'd denounced the Sonozaki Clan, cast aside her last name, and then left the planet via a dimensional distortion, however… Hanyū hadn't been able to confirm anything other than that there were humans wherever the distortion had taken Shion, and there was a slight possibility that said humans were far enough in the future that FTL travel existed.

When Rika looked at it, the disappearance of a member of her core group may cause even more trouble in the long run. Satoko now didn't have Shion as her elder sister-figure, and Mion was not taking the whole thing well at all. Every attempt Rika made to repair the damage, to take their minds off of their wayward member, ended in failure.

Just last week, two men on the outskirts of the village had succumbed to the Syndrome and killed each other… though investigations discovered that the two in question hated each other, and the incident that acted as a trigger probably would've resulted in bloodshed even without the Syndrome. When Rika had caught a peek at the police photographs of the bodies, she had, for a brief flash of an instant – seen them as two of her friends. She took this as a sign that her own mind, after so many repetitions, was finally starting to unravel from the accumulated strain.

Hanyū had expressed her concern more than once that Rika was starting to show signs of an eventual breakdown, but the time-trapped girl dismissed the fretful ghost's worries. Rika wouldn't break down. She couldn't afford to. Doing so would mean that everything & everyone would be lost once and for all, so she could not allow herself to break. She utterly refused the possibility that she may not have a say in the matter, that one day she will break and give in despite her best attempts otherwise, that it was a matter of "when", not of "if", that she simply couldn't keep going for too much longer.

So she would keep going, keep moving forward for as long as she could, no matter how much pain was involved. With every repetition, she'd keep looking for something – anything – that showed even the tiniest spark of hope. Even if she ended up having to sacrifice herself in the end, so long as her friends survived that was acceptable. She would fight, she would bleed, she would die, but she would never, ever stop.

No matter what it took, she would find a way to break this curse.

-SCENE BREAK-

Rika opened the door of the house she & Satoko (and Hanyū, but she was a ghost so it didn't fully count) shared. Her little friend was out & about with the others at the moment, so the house was quiet and empty. As she walked into the living room, she jumped in surprise at the sight of a black-cloaked figure – around half a foot taller than Rika, from the looks of it – seated on the couch. The figure raised its hands up in a defensive position upon sighting Rika.

"Easy, Furude-san" said the voice of what sounded like a young girl. "I mean you no harm. I came to deliver something to you."

"What sort of delivery?" asked Rika in her "true", deep tone, as she noticed the odd emblem hanging from the front of the figure's cloak – a white top half of a heart, with the bottom replaced by a spiked, upside-down cross. The girl walked up to Rika in response, close enough that Rika could make out the red irises of her eyes beneath the hood, and handed Rika a dark-blue box of sorts with rounded edges and blue & green "Tron lines" running along and across it.

"This contains detailed audio/video recordings of the happenings in various other realms… including the one that Shion-san ended up in."

At this, Rika's eyes widened.

"H-How is that possible?" Hanyū wondered aloud, standing behind Rika.

"I have my ways, Hanyū-san" the cloaked girl replied, surprising the other two.

"You can see and hear her?" "You can see and hear me?"

"Yes. I don't have the time to explain how; I must get back to the realm I've been staying in with a couple of companions there. However, know this: I am your ally, and an ally of the group Shion-san has become a part of. There is a grave threat coming. When it arrives, I shall stand at their side against it. And… I am certain that Shion's new friends have what it takes to break the cycle you two are trapped in."

Rika was struck silent.

"Get your core group together – your friends, and anyone else you think deserves to know – and find a place to watch the recordings together. They've been enchanted with a temporal distortion spell, so you'll be able to view the entire, several days' worth of footage while only a handful of hours pass outside the distortion field, and the field has been fine-tuned so your bodies will think that only said hours have passed; you'll not need to worry about food or sleep so long as you are all within the field. …That being said, this is a one-time-use thing, so make sure that everyone you want to see it is present."

"…Thank you" Rika said with a polite bow several seconds later, accepting the device. It was then to Rika's surprise that the figure smiled, stepped forward, and gave her a hug.

"W-Why are you…?"

"Because you really, really need a hug after all you've been through."

Rika quickly decided "the hell with it" and accepted it, feeling as if the warmth turned into hope and strength within her. This was one of the figure's more obscure and yet quite useful spells: through physical contact, she could restore a person's willpower, hope, and strength to keep going. Her reason for choosing to do it via a hug was merely a personal preference (and, mental age aside, Rika was just so cute and sad-looking that she needed this hug, in the figure's opinion). After about a minute, she broke off, and softly rested a hand on Rika's head.

"It'll get better" she said warmly. "I promise you that. No matter the darkness, there is always a spark of hope."

"I know" Rika replied softly. "That spark's all that's kept me going for this long…"

"I have to leave now" the taller girl said. "Gather those you wish to learn of what has transpired. I've got to get back to my other duties. Be strong, Rika-chan. Help is coming."

With that, the girl turned around and walked into a swirling black & violet portal that then closed itself. After a minute of simply standing there, Rika got her shoes back on and headed toward the door.

"Come on, Hanyū" she said. "Let's go get the others."

-CHAPTER END-

And yes, the cloaked girl who helped Rika is the same individual who fought alongside Teana and Negi against Ruin in Book 5.