A/N: An embarrassing note, i actually spelt Nanoha's last name, Takamachi, as Takamichi. I realized my mistake when i was finishing up the fic and had to go back to change everything. Nanoha is going to kill me.

Omake (based off the sound stage of StrikerS and the doujin Nano once again i'm twisting it):

Gazelle: I thought i told you not to tell anyone!

Vanette: Oops, sorry! I just couldn't help it.

Gazelle: Why you litte-

Nanoha spots them arguing

Nanoha: Hmm? What's going on?

Ginga: Oh, it's about Gazelle's past. It's been getting popular amongst the young ones.

Nanoha: ...

Nanoha suddenly appears sulking and drawing circles in the floor in a dark corner

Nanoha: I- i see... so i'm no longer considered young.

Ginga: Ah-ah! Y-you're still very young, Nanoha-san!

FW: Don't carelessly use the word 'young' around the ace of aces.

Mahou Shoujo Lyrical Nanoha

5ive

chapter 3

Facing the Devil

Throwing her stringer knives at the incoming magic missile, Cinque managed to dodge the immediate danger as she threw herself into the alley way of the training grounds. She leaned against wall, using the short break to catch her breath. However her break was short-lived. Sensing danger, she looked up, and saw a pink orb of light floating above her. She'd been spotted. She rolled over just as a magic missile impacted into her last position. As usual, this training was harsh. She grabbed onto one of her stingers and stabbed it with all of her might into the wall before she turned around and ducked as her stinger exploded, leaving a hole large enough for her to get through.

Crawling through, Cinque re-evaluated her current situation. Her training with the Ace of Aces, Takamachi Nanoha had already reached the ten minute mark. The limit was thirty minutes. Her objective was to get past Nanoha's probes and missiles and reach Nanoha. Nanoha had fifteen probes looking for her, and Cinque had dealt with three. She turned around, and saw that the same probe who spotted her before had entered the same hole she crawled through. She turned and ran through the training building. She turned around one corner and summoned ten of her stingers. She fired the knives along the walls as she ran down the hallway.

The probe turned the corner to follow her, but her stingers detonated, causing the probe to explode, as well as the entire hallway to collapse. As usual, bad judgement on Cinque's part as she found herself running away from the crumbling ceiling. Spotting a window, she jumped through, curling her body into a ball as she smashed through the window. Rolling across the dirt as she hit the ground, Cinque scrambled to her feet.

Fourth probe down, another eleven. She did not have time to waste, hurrying along the path whilst using the shadows of the buildings to prevent herself from being spotted easily. Peering around a corner, she spotted a probe hovering in place. It hadn't seen her yet, and from the way it is positioned, Cinque guessed it must be a sentry type, placed in a key position to act as a look out.

"... As expected of the ace of aces."

Cinque mused to herself. Nanoha must be close. However Cinque cannot use this route. Destroying this sentry probe would only alert Nanoha to where Cinque would be. But there was a way around this. Knowing this good defensive strategy that Nanoha frequently used, Cinque deduced that these sentry probes were probably stationed in a ring formation around the caster. It was a basic formation but it was effective. A flaw that Cinque could exploit, was the fact that once a probe was destroyed, the caster would automatically assume an attack from that direction. Cinque spotted a ventilation hole in the building that the probe was next to. This could work.

Takamachi Nanoha, also known as the ace of aces, one of the three trump cards of the TSAB, and the white devil, was quite eager with this training session. For one, Nanoha rarely got to see some members Nakajima family, especially Cinque. Because Nove is Vivio's coach of sorts, Nanoha sees the fifth child of the Nakajima's regularly. Nove sometimes stays over for a meal or two as well. However Cinque and Ginga were rarely around. Ginga was the one who worked extra hard since their father was usually gone from his desk.

As for Cinque, Nanoha had heard that the second daughter of the Nakajima family was often out on cases. In comparison with the rest of the family, Cinque hardly meets up with Nanoha. The young ace meets Subaru quite often these days due to the latter's need of more intense training sessions. Nanoha did find it odd that Subaru didn't use the normal training regimes set by her own department, but Nanoha was always glad to help out. Dieci and Wendi also happened to pop by every so often with Nove, and the three would also request for sessions with Nanoha.

The N2R team, as they called themselves, were quite effective as an emergency response team, and Nanoha found that they were able to use much of her techniques and strategies that she planned out for them. Coming back to Cinque, Nanoha felt quite excited for another reason. She had not seen Cinque fight often, and each time Nanoha does a training session with Cinque, she always pleasantly surprised by how the latter is capable of executing complex strategies. Cinque is small and has a weaker frame than her sisters, yet in return she has one of the most cunning strategies that worked well in her favour.

It was perhaps due to her nature as one of the earliest to be born amongst her sisters, and also as one of the leaders of the Numbers back during the JS case that she was able to produce such amazing results. Nanoha could not wait to analyse the data from this mock battle and think up of more strategies and techniques to train with Cinque. The thought of that just made her shaking with excitement. So far, Cinque had done extremely well. Nanoha had relentlessly chased after the cyborg for a full ten minutes, and Cinque managed to get rid of four probes within that time frame whilst dodging around seventy missiles in total.

But after the fourth probe went out, Nanoha lost sight of Cinque. Now what was that girl planning to do? Nanoha thought of different scenarios, each playing out in full detail in her mind. Nanoha was, at the moment, a crazed military addict who found extreme joy in this mock battle. That also meant that she was letting down her guard in her giddiness of excitement, a lot.

"Now where would you come from, Cinque-chan..."

Nanoha looked through the screens of her look out probes. Each were still guarding their specific area. A rough ring formation with a slight gap at one end. Nanoha left that gap on purpose, seeing if Cinque would try to take advantage of it. It was, obviously, a trap since Nanoha had stationed two probes right after that gap and poised five of her magic missiles in that direction.

Though it may be a trap, Nanoha found that a lot of trainees would still try to go for it in desperation. But would Cinque fall for this? Nanoha's attention suddenly turned back to her probes. Five probes from different points all disappeared at the same time. She looked up, and saw smoke rising from those five points. Cinque was coming.

"Delayed explosions to mask which way she's coming from, 70 points... she's coming."

Nanoha recalled her remaining probes to form a tighter perimeter around herself. If there was one thing she knew about Cinque's style of fighting thus far, it was that Cinque was an expert at infiltration. No matter what sort of defences were in place, she would be able to find ways to get through. Even though Nanoha was hovering above the ground about three storeys up, she was sure that Cinque, a mage without aerial capabilities, would be able to find a way to reach her. Nanoha then noticed something. Littered all over the ground below her were certain objects that reflected glints from the sun.

"... ! Stingers-"

Nanoha barely had time to pull up her protection barrier as the ground literally exploded. The stingers that were planted caused a large amount of flying debris, and the sheer force from the explosion cause Nanoha to be slightly rattled. The smoke and dust from the explosion were covering the entire ground. Was she using this as a smoke screen? As a precaution, Nanoha sent ten of her magic missiles to rain down on the ground, causing slightly more damage to the already destroyed training grounds.

BOOM

Nanoha only managed to catch a glimpse of what happened from the corner of her eye. The wall of the third storey of the building she was next to exploded right next to her, and Cinque jumped out throwing a stinger at Nanoha.

'Protection Powered'

Nanoha's device, Raising Heart automatically brought up a barrier before Cinque's stinger could connect, but the knife still exploded, sending the ace retreating quite some distance away. Cinqe landed onto the training grounds floor, looking back up to check on Nanoha. The ace of aces was slightly rattled, but was still fine. Her barrier jacket had slight burnt marks on it. Nanoha was very surprised by how complex Cinque's strategies were, and how quickly they were executed.

Cinque must have planted those stingers onto the ground when Nanoha was looking at the direction of the earlier explosions that took out five of her sentry probes. That must have meant that Cinque had already gotten past the sentries when she detonated her stingers. But why waste the energy? Nanoha floated down to the training grounds floor to join up with Cinque, who had a rather apologetic look.

"A-are you alright?"

Cinque asked, clearly worried and stressed out about the entire thing. Nanoha looked at herself, and noticed that her barrier jacket was certainly burnt and torn. But nothing a good rest won't fix.

"I'm fine, Cinque-chan. Don't worry about it. I was quite surprised by the tactic you chose. If you got past my sentries, why did you still waste energy to blow them up?"

"Oh, it is common in some infiltration missions that you have create a diversion or distraction to let you slip past. I knew that even if i got past those sentries, escaping your detection would be near impossible. So i set off a delayed explosion on five points, and using that moment of distraction to plant a second distraction. The second set of explosions did slightly more than i expected, i didn't think you would use some of your shots to shoot the ground."

Cinque admitted. As Nanoha thought before, Cinque was very good at infiltration. However, for a mere infiltration, she sure is rather loud in her approach. Still, Cinque's reasons for them were well justified. If Cinque had not planted the second distraction, Nanoha would have been better prepared to defend and possibly retaliate Cinque's attacks. Nanoha cancelled her barrier jacket, as did Cinque.

"I didn't expect you to plan so far ahead, though. I'm impressed."

"Aha ha, it was only because i had to be very sure of my chance. Since it's Nanoha-san i'm facing, i have to bring out everything i have."

"You're pretty strong enough to face me without so much though. Let's discuss this more over lunch."

"Ah, yes."

Looking over the records, she still could not find the clue she needed. The different testimonies were all collected and all possible evidence were processed. But still something was missing. She pulled out another screen that depicted the scene with the highest concentration of 'sightings'. If she remembered correctly, that area was close to a sewage plant. Could there be toxic fumes being emitted from that place that caused hallucinations? The witnesses were mostly people who lived and worked in that area, and it seemed unlikely that all of them were drug users. Whatever was there, she needed to find it.

She leaned back in the chair, taking a break after pouring over all of the information for the past two hours. Nakajima Cinque felt like she was really pushing the limits of her body. In the morning she had a mock battle session with Takamachi Nanoha, and that was really pushing it. Cinque had exhausted nearly all of her energy reserves in that one mock battle alone, and now she may have to head over to the Clanagan medical centre to check up on her body's frame. She should give Mary a call to get an appointment done.

Nanoha had revised some tactics with Cinque over lunch, though the two mainly spent their lunch time chatting about other things, like how Vivio was doing, Cinque's work and about the other Numbers. After lunch, Nanoha had to return to her office, and so Cinque used the free time to use Ginga's terminal to continue her investigation. It seemed that Nanoha's training session proved a little too tough for Dino and the others in her department, so they were all given the afternoon off. That would be useful.

She looked up at the clock, noticing it was already getting late. Ginga had left earlier saying that there was something special she wanted to get for dinner. Cinque wasn't sure what that something special was exactly, but she sure hoped that her older sister didn't get lost. The last time Ginga went off to find 'something special', the eldest daughter of the Nakajima family ended up lost until Wendi found her. Cinque smiled back on that rather interesting memory. Ginga was surprisingly a ditz when she became too excited and lost her concentration.

"... Guess i'll go there then."

Cinque decided. Thinking of Ginga also reminded Cinque of one more person. Turning the terminal off, Cinque headed out of the building. Ginga wasn't here to give her ride, so she guessed she might as well take the public transport. The ride to her destination was rather uneventful, and in fact it was unusually empty. Usually around this time the transports would be packed with people getting home. Maybe something was going on that she didn't know about. Or maybe she was simply thinking too much about it. After a few more stops, she got off.

As usual, this place was quiet. A vast contrast compared to within the city. She walked down the rows of stone markers, silently wondering why she came here. It been some time since her last visit, having been made busy with work so often that she rarely manages to get time to help her sisters with N2R work. She stopped right before a certain marker. A grave for her deceased sister.

"... It's been awhile, Due."

Cinque knelt down by the grave stone, placing a single lily stalk in front of it. The previous JS event had taken the life that Cinque had known since her birth. And it took the life of a sister. Cinque did not really know why she came here, but a thought within her had somehow managed to convince her that her answers to the case could be found here. Answers to her case an perhaps something a little more.

"I wonder if things would have been different if i had been with you all in the final battle. I wonder what would have happened if the TSAB didn't have the kind people who accepted us even after what we did. Where would our lives be if the doctor hadn't guided us to war?"

Cinque had many thoughts, many doubts throughout her entire life. Under the doctor she questioned the validity of the war but did not go against the wishes of her creator. When she was captured and spared, she started to ask what was the purpose of her life, why were those who defeated her so forgiving, and for what reason was she still alive? For her sisters, perhaps. Striving to hard to support her family, to prove her worth in the TSAB and to finally earn her place. But was that really all there was? Working constantly made her forget it, but she still kept a single feeling within her.

Like a heavy weight pressed down upon her chest, this unknown and uncomfortable feeling that was nagging at her. She asked Mary at the Clanagan Institute about it, though she didn't manage to get a good answer. There was nothing wrong with her body, and there didn't seem to be any faults with her internal circuits. It was this feeling that made her uncertain, unsure.

Flashes of images of places she had never seen, or faces she never knew. Emotions that weren't hers, thoughts that intruded when they shouldn't be. But she did not show it. Not when she still worked under the doctor, not when she was kept in the rehabilitation centre, not when she was accepted into the Nakajima family, not when she worked on cases. Not ever. Perhaps only here, before the grave of her sister, that she would be able to admit it. To the world, and to herself.

"... Have i done enough? Have i made sure that the other girls have all found their places? Am i allowed to rest?"

"Not now. You have yet to cut the ties that bind you to the past."

That voice. Cinque turned around and saw a face that she never expected to see here. Tre. The older cyborg wore a set of casual clothes, a t-shirt that hung loosely on her right shoulder, a pair of jeans with sneakers and cap to cover her head. Cinque materialised three stingers in her hand but Tre raised a hand to stop Cinque, shaking her head.

"This isn't the place to fight. Not in front of Due."

Cinque hesitated, but complied with Tre, making her stingers disappear. But what Cinque wanted to know was-

"You wonder what am i doing here. The gears of fate have begun to turn, Cinque. The doctor and the rest of us are back. I will not attack you now out of respect for Due, and i will give you a warning. Though i do not know what the doctor is planning to do, what i do know is that his first target would be you and the rest of our sisters who turned over to our enemies."

"What? But-"

"I do not know why the doctor would do so, nor do i question it. I will warn you only this time, Cinque. If you want live, then run. Run as far as you can. The darkness will come."

"... And if we don't?"

Tre blinked a couple of times, before smiling.

"I thought as much. If there was one thing you refused to budge on, was the younger ones. Protecting them may be noble, Cinque, but this is why you cannot move on. You are constantly being held back. By your past, by your deeds, by your guilt. Do not waste your life, this is my last advice as an older sister."

Tre turned and left her alone by the grave. Cinque wanted to stop her, wanted to know why, why was the doctor and the others doing this? Was it because they chose to side with those who stopped them during the JS case? Was that the reason? But didn't they deserve to make their own decisions? Cinque could only clench her fists tightly till her nails drew blood from her palms. The questions that she wanted to ask would not form.

The darkness was beginning to loom over her. A fight against the doctor. Now wasn't the time to think about it. She knew what action to take. She wouldn't budge on on her decision. She will protect what she had earned. Her family, her friends, her place in Mid-childa. No matter who came, she will fight. The unwavering determination fuelled by bitter self-hate. She hated her useless self, her powerless state. She hated the decisions she made, but she would see through them no matter what.

"If it is a war you want, doctor... it is a war you will get."