Ragazza Magica Renza Veneti
Chapter Two: Roche
The gentle morning breeze wafted lazily through the bola'swindows, carrying with it the salty tint of the sea and the crisp frizzle of grilled fish from the neighbouring huts. Renza shifted lazily on her pile of blankets; the smell breaking her out of her dream state; her Jacket in a simple nightwear configuration to keep her warm. Then the Device on her wrist began to ping, and all hopes of sleep blew out with the morning breeze. She drifted awake, bleary eyes opening to processing the scene.
Hung opposite, her father snored in the colossal hammock hanging end to end. Made of an old ship's sail, she'd been told. Expensive stuff. One trunk-like arm dangled out to drag dust-trails on the hard stone floor. Even across the room, the man smelt cheaply of alcohol; his Jacket was still in its work configuration.
He never went out drinking like that, except when he was worried.
Renza sat up, already weary. The Kyubey's words still rattled inside her head.
"She'll be arriving in one week. Please make your decision before then."
He was worried about her, she knew. Editing his memories would certainly ease his pain. But she couldn't change being a Puella Magi; injuries had to be accepted as a fact of life. And with her wish...
Well, this was the best things could be.
Shaking her head to clear the traitorous thoughts and the last of the morning cobwebs, she rose. In an older time, she would have had to stagger, bleary eyed, to make her way to the communal shower, probably knocking her father awake in the process, but that was then.
This was now.
Silently and carefully, she padded barefoot under the massive hammock (her Jacket's fields protected her feet and softened the noise), mindful of the old man's need to sleep after a night like that. She took quick stock of the floor, spotted her bookbag, and managed to drag it out, completely silent, beneath the softly swaying hammock, manoeuvring it carefully past his dragging arm and into the light.
Puella perks, she supposed. They made mornings actually habitable. Setting it at the open doorway so she could find it later, she took quick inventory of the rest of the bola.
Windows; literally just holes in the wall, were set in each of the four walls, with the ocean to the door and the spires of Governance to the rear. The bola made for a haphazard, shamble of a mess in terms of organisation; her father's gigantic hammock took up most of the space, though he would take it down for washing once he awoke. Surrounding that in their one room of a house were all the things one needed for living; at the moment though Renza's main interest lay in the 'larder'; frozen racks of plain, greasy, paper-wrapped slabs; long and thin, tapering at both ends.
Fish, in other words.
She pulled out one of the smaller ones, defrosted it with the aid of her Device, and pulled a pair of knives down from their hooks on the wall. Filletting it expertly, she threw the skins, head and bone into the cold shill, intending to boil them for stock later. The knives went into the sink.
Outside was bright and orange, and the wafting smell of morning risers with similar plans met her immediately. The grill pad was out in the open, under a tarp shelter in the wall for the rainy days. Her Device plugged into the side, her linker core took a sudden tug and up it went, orange and steaming. The fillets slapped down with a sizzle. A scattering of common herbs finished things off; they only took a few minutes.
Once they were nice and steaming, she unplugged her Device and wrapped it back around her wrist. It was a simple, Governance-issued civilian thing, built mostly for children with 'survive the school of hard knocks' in mind. Kabupatenic, apparently, for all your chosen style of magic really mattered when you were an E-Rank, but their style of Devices had a reputation for being extremely hardy and difficult to damage, so she couldn't complain. With her father a Myedoan C-Rank, they could get away with having almost all the tools in the bola mana-operated.
Which was good, because mana was free.
She couldn't do or run everything in the bola herself; she just didn't have the reserves; but her father could, and in fact did; handling most of the tools whilst Renza saved her limited linker pool for when she needed it. It worked out fairly well, all told, and certainly saved them an awful lot of money they had no hope to spare. Nobody provided electricity out here; too expensive with all the safety requirements the water required. Flipping the fish with a pair of twisted sticks, she looked around to see who else was out this morning.
Their bola was literally on the coastline, for as long as it took for it to expand again. A white-grey dried mud patty covering over a combination of scaffolding, provided by the Saint Church, and as many long sticks and supports the original builders could find, built square and squat, surrounded by a walkway of the same construction and kept above the water on high, high stilts. She hadn't been alive to see it constructed. Somewhere underneath their boat - a small, ancient watercutter - hung suspended on ropes. Hollow steps in the wall of bola, gouged out of the mud-plaster and well worn with use, lead up to the flat, open roof, which had a tent cover they could put up for rainy days, effectively turning it into a second storey.
Out and about in their fellow bola (connected in an open maze of planks and walkways; no two were ever quite on the same level; all the slum-docks were a confused, colourful maze), the neighbourhood was waking up, greeting the morning, some taking the Saint's Prayer, others cooking, like her. The smell of grilling fish and the rising rancour of far-too-energetic children filled the air. She waved to their nearest neighbours, the twin sticks held in her mouth whilst she gathered plates from their storage crate.
A low, brassy groan came from the back of the bola, and a pair of heavy footfalls faintly shook the grill pad on its stilts. Her father was up. Good timing.
"Buenavassi, ma padre."
She held out a plate of grilled fish. Her father stood blearily, stooped in the doorway, before finally cracking into a soft smile.
"Buenavessera, mia belle."
The man sat down with a creak of the ancient flakboarding, taking the plate and one of the twisted sticks when offered. He inhaled the sea air and aromas with a deep, rumbling breath, looking out across the sea. Renza was already picking through hers; scooping fish up in the twists with deft movements.
For a few moments, they just ate, watching the birds. There were ships, of course (it was Valezorro; there were always ships), but the birds were more relaxing.
"Will you be safe on your way to school, belle?" He asked, voice rumbling and quiet.
"Si, padre." She said, focusing on her plate.
"I don't want you travelling alone for a while, understand?"
"It's alright; I'll be meeting Sam at the showers."
"Le Bien? Nn. Look out for yourself."
"Si; don't worry, padre."
"I'll always worry."
She patted his giant arm.
"I'll be alright, padre. I'm healing up fine."
Her father turned, horrified. "Mia belle, you were attacked..."
Renza grimaced. "You don't know that! The Ispettore are investigating it-"
"Renza..." the man breathed, hoarse. "Take this seriously! It's your life. Don't go risking it!"
She swallowed. Setting down her empty plate, she stood and enveloped his trunk of a neck in as tight a hug as she could manage.
It was only when he sat down she could even reach his head.
"I am, padre. It's okay. It was just an accident, and I'm fine! You're worrying yourself too much!"
The man rumbled, but relented in her arms, the sagging release actually lowering his shoulders a few centimeteres. She ran fingers through his tangled, coare flint hair, pushing her head into his craggy, wheatherbeaten shoulder.
"It'll be okay, padre. Trust me."
The 'showers' were less a communal shower, more a water purifier connected directly to the oceans sloshing below with a bunch of taps and piping bolted on, hidden behind masses of plasterwork and tiles. The Caglican Governance had always invested greatly in its water treatment services; with the aid of the Saint Church, they were readily available as a public good. Each cubicle essentially just a spout mounted high in the wall, set in a private alcove covered with a thick weaved curtain for privacy. Too high for her to actually reach, but the systems were mana activated anyway. Useless if you were one of the few unlucky ones with no mage rank at all, but cheaper, and even an E-Rank like her could use it. And faith, people could always ask; it wasn't like they were ever empty.
Though Jackets served as highly responsive day-to-day wear, it was still recommended people have something physical on underneath, should the worst happen. It wouldn't show through whatever you set the Jacket to, so general consensus was either something practical and warm or something that would stand out in an emergency - or of course both. It wasn't mandatory, just very, very strongly encouraged. They could save your life, so the pamphlets said.
More cynically, she knew, they helped EMTs identify the dead and critically injured at a scene.
In Renza's case it was a pair of Governance-issued, Saint's Church produced survival trousers and a thick, heavy overcoat, both bright orange and baggy in that 'one size fits most people' way, with reflective bands strategically placed so that most of them would be catching the light at any one time. It looked completely hideous and stuck out like a sore thumb, but then that was the point. After deactivating her Jacket, she had to fight her way out of that too so she could actually shower.
She stepped out again five minutes later running a rag through her hair, Jacket back on in its uniform setting. The rich, regal designs of the Basso Trari upper secondary school uniform - a dark, olive-green blazer and skirt combination - looked horrifically out of place amongst the drab whites and dusty curtains of the public bath.
Another person wearing the same uniform jumped out from the stall behind.
"Morning, Ren!"
She turned, smiling already.
"Buenavassi, Sam!"
Samara Le Bien grinned, water-slick hair slapping about her face as she took her by the hand.
"Shall we?"
Renza collected her book-bag. "Mhm!"
A local comune bus ferried them to the Basso Trari's gates, skiffing around between the bola until it had collected most of the other local girls whose parents could gather the coin for their tuition. Too long to travel just by watercutter and no-one owned a barca; comunes like this were funded by the Saint's Church. As was, for that matter, their positions in the Basso Trari itself; part of their fees and supply costs waived on the Saint's Charity in recognition of educational merit; a scholarship, in other words.
Somewhat inevitably, her group was nicknamed the Saint's Children. Opinions varied.
But Renza didn't mind. There was a reason she'd held off her prayer in the morning; they held them here in the Trari instead. Even Samara, who didn't see the point of it all, was still grateful to the Church.
The comune dropped them all off at the Water Gate in the gardens, a few fellow students and staff already waiting. She spotted Odette waiting at the side looking prim and proper... who actually did a double take when she realised it was them under all the drenched hair.
"W-What happened to you two, did you fall over the side?" She asked, fussing at Samara's blazer after helping pull them up onto the dock.
"Yes!" Said Samara immediately, before Renza could stomp her foot.
Odette sighed wearily. "Well... try not to next time; I'll dry you off before la Sorelle find you."
A glowing green triangle formed around the Belkan's hand as she prepared to cast a minor spell, only to be interrupted when Renza raised a hand.
"We didn't actually fall off."
Odette hung her head. "...I'd guessed that. Hold still anyway. Sengenden Winde."
Renza obliged, and was met with a warm rush of air blasting across her face, the triangular spell-cast spinning into a circular green-glowing blur. Any remaining water blew away or dissipated, the facial barriers of her Jacket protecting her skin from any potential burns. Odette wasn't putting any power into it anyway.
A low powered combat spell thrown out casually as a hair-dryer. Such were the convenience of C-Rank mage-knight cadets.
The rest of the crowd weren't paying them much attention. Though the comune had a deployable ramp for such purposes already extended (and, in addition, multiple signs stressing the usage of said ramp even the driver was ignoring), somewhere along the lines it had just become tradition to pull up the new arrivals when they reached the Gates.
Probably symbolic, or something.
In either case, the gathering was filled with greetings, consternations, 'how do you do's, friends pulling up friends, the usual hair readjustments necessitated after an open-topped comune ride, the supervising Sorella making sure no-one was swapping their homework, the desperate trying to get away with it anyway...
A usual start for a usual day.
The blast of air cut off and Odette lowered her hand, the spell-cast fading away. The back of her head still felt faintly damp, but Renza was hardly about to complain.
"All done!" Odette said smiling. "Shall we?"
Samara stepped in, head still vaguely resembling a wet mop. "Wait, what about me?"
Odette huffed. "You can go swim the canals you lying girl!"
"Eeeeh?!"
Renza giggled. "Let's go!"
"Eeeeh?!"
The morning service was as usual; the High Sister making typically ordinary faculty announcements before diverging onto social and religious topics. The central lecture theatre was tall and airy, a bright, well lit dome with shafts of sunlight playing in through the high windows. It was actually a little confusing, once you started paying attention to it; for some season, they only ever illuminated the centre stage. Renza, who'd been up there once on Puella business, knew the secret, but wasn't completely sure how she'd ever get away with telling it given there was no ground access. It wasn't quite as simple as holographics...
And yes, that meant the ceiling of the dome could only be cleaned by fliers. Back when the building was constructed, it was an intentional sign of prestige... and now, punishment for misbehaving air cadets. Of which there were five; the teachers doling out extra punishments for them just to keep the thing tidy had become something of a running joke.
Sitting in-between Odette and a freshly scolded (and dried; Odi had relented after a few minutes) Samara, she and the rest of the girls of the Basso Trari's current 9th Year classes sat at attention on the third level of seats ringing the central podium. Not alone; the entire stadium was filled, with the younger classes at the bottom and the elder rising higher.
"...And I hope," spoke the High Sister, closing off her lecture on one of the older Streben-Kaisers, "that all of you will go through with your day with the Mercy of Vollständigkeit in your hearts, and pay due respect in All Things."
The auditorium stood, and bowed, the room echoing with the clamour and thousands of voices reciting in tandem. "Within one world we are born as stardust, and though worth and improvement, we join Vollständigkeit to be born again as stars."
A little too far away for it to be visible, the High Sister smiled. "Then get to your lessons, all of you. And have a good day."
They managed to find each other after the shuffle and chaos of filtering out into the side corridors, and made their way to First Session, Samara dancing ahead with unpredictable movements whilst Renza and Odette maintained a steady, refined pace.
"Maan, I'm glad that's over!" Sam exclaimed. "There's so many of those bloodstained oldie farts; how are we supposed to keep track of them all?!"
"When anyone asks," Odette advised saintly, "smile and nod."
"Easy for you to say Miss Belkan Heritage; I can barely pronounce half their names!"
"The Streben are important!" Renza held up a placating hand, trying to stave off a full-blown Samara rant where the Sorella might hear her. "They symbolise a lot of things."
"Oh?" She huffed. "What was this one then?"
Renza replied without missing a beat. "Saxa I, Streben-Kaiser of Explorers. She lead the first Great Expansion of Ancient Belka in 084 P.A. She's commonly associated with exploration and discovery and ships' navigators, particularly on the border worlds."
Samara froze, boggling. "...How do you do that. Seriously."
"She pays attention, Sam." Odette giggled.
Renza shrugged. "The High Sister does a piece on her every year; Saxa's pretty popular amongst educators."
Samara's expression turned suddenly predatory. "Oh yaaah? What's this, little Ren has been hitting the books, has she?"
"Eh-?" Renza asked, missing a step.
"Look at you, racing on ahead without me!" Samara pounced, the walk to class abandoned in favour of attacking her smaller classmate's head. "But I'm not going to let you go that easy!"
"-Uwah!"
With dignity and grace, Odette rubbed her temples and quietly looked out the window. My, she hadn't noticed how nice the weather was today...
"S-Sam, stop it-"
"All that refined language, it's like you're trying to be a princess~!"
Was that a bird?
"S-Samara!"
"Hahaha! But little do you realise, you have no-one to impress but me! For you see, Ren is going to be my wiiii-"
"What a surprise! Two of the Saint's Children, acting like kids and forgetting their manners." A voice cut through, laden with scorn, arrogance and a distinct lack of actual surprise. Odette suppressed a groan. Oh joy, she knew who that had to be-
"Hey!" Samara accused, as Renza fell silent. "What's that supposed to mean?!"
Penne Lovelace sniffed dismissively, her golden curls bouncing with the movement, not even giving them any further attention. Instead, she had turned to Odette.
"Miss Camarr," she began imperiously, "as I have told you before, you should not associate with such common lunacy. I cannot begin to imagine what your parents must think."
"As I can believe," Odette replied, giving a stoic Belkan half-bow, "considering I have their full support."
Also known as 'Fuck You', for the lucky ones that didn't have to speak Rich. Technically true too; her family had met Samara and Renza in person before. Not for very long and Renza did all the talking but still. The twitch in Lovelace's eye was entirely worth it.
The haughty girl huffed, to no-one's surprise, flicking her hair and sweeping on past, clearly finding nothing here worth sparing her attentions upon. Odette watched her leave mostly to avoid looking at the face Samara was pulling. Laughing at a Lovelace's back was a bad idea.
"Um..." Renza began, breaking the silence. "We should probably get to class..."
There was a brief bit of mostly ladylike cursing as the other two checked their chronometers, and began rushing down the hallway.
In an entirely elegant fashion.
As was tradition amongst all schoolchildren when one of them returned from hospital, Renza got swamped immediately on her arrival; fellow schoolgirls crowding around her desk despite Samara and Odette's half-hearted attempt at a protective cordon.
"Say say, Veneti, are you really okay?"
"I'm fine!" Renza replied, trying to follow several conversations at once. "It was just an accident-"
Another girl, tall and richer with ambiguously Caglican features looked naïvely horrified. "Y-You mean you weren't attacked by gangs?"
"I- what? No-"
Yet another leaned in over her desk. "Yeah, what even happened anyway; these two won't tell us anything!"
(Odette rolled her eyes.)
"It was an accident! Some people found me so-"
A hand slammed down, two solid rings rattling on the desk surface, leading to an arm, leading to a tall, wiry frame and a face, Castillan, framed with slate hair cut pragmatically short. Renza blinked. The face she knew but the name kept stubbornly out of reach; hiding on the tip of her tongue.
"Ah-"...
Amber eyes watched her with a mix of suspicion, wariness and an odd degree of scorn. The girl leaned forward. Finally, something clicked; Natalie Pincette, another of the Saint's Children. But she lived on the other side of town closer to Castilla what was she-
"Are you sure it's wise, coming all the way out here?" The girl asked softly, commanding silence from the rest of the group.
Renza stared at her in genuine confusion.
"I... what do you mean?"
Natalie held her gaze for a few moments, clearly searching for something in her face. It didn't last long though before she gave an almost inaudible huff and stalked off... just in time, as it turned out, for the Sorella to arrive and start the Session. Renza blinked as the taller girl left, the crowd forced to disperse before anyone else could ask questions.
What had that been about?
She shook her head and tried to concentrate, pulling out her textbook and setting it to the appropriate page.
The First Session passed as normal - Galean Literature; at the moment the works of Venier the Great. Renza didn't really have time to dwell on the oddities of the morning; Venier at least was genuinely interesting, and his works fun to pick apart even if you'd read them before. By the Second however, her attention began to lag. Advanced Matrices was never her strong suit. E-Rank.
It just didn't come naturally, and she found the concepts hard to grip on, as other things began to swirl from her subconscious.
As the Sorella covered the basics of perspective and isometric projection, Renza set down her stylus, eyes unfocused on the textbook in front of her.
"This is your life! Don't go risking it!"
...Things were getting out of hand, weren't they? Daemons. The Puella. Her wish...
It was like trying to balance on an infinite array of tipping boards; like building a house of cards on a rocking boat. If she fought, she would put herself at risk and worry her father; if she did not, all of Valezorro could be in danger. Yet she didn't want to hurt him; couldn't hurt him, if any of this was going to be worth anything. If she focused on her studies, she could exhaust herself and people could die because she wasn't there to save them; if she did not, she could lose her place at the Trari and how could she ever explain that?
She'd been holding it back but... it was just getting too big to ignore.
Her life as a Puella and her life as a human being; both were increasingly at odds. How was she supposed to handle all this alone? Her life after this? Exams, getting a job? The future?
And... well, she could die, couldn't she? She'd almost died. That couldn't be ignored, not even before this incident, no matter how hard she tried. She could die and her father would break and...
Her head swam, as the classroom faded away. She managed to catch herself before her head hit her own desk.
Sitting alone in the middle of a class, Renza kept still as the world slipped back into focus. The Sorella, discussing homogenous space. The textbook, displaying the wrong page. Odette, giving her an odd look. Everything felt real; everything felt here and now.
Everything here was immediate; she had to concentrate on it.
She picked up her stylus and flicked to the right page. She was a schoolgirl right now; that's how she should behave.
...She needed talk to Roche. Roche always helped.
They'd sat their barca on the roof of an office block, the Judiciary vehicle temporarily displaying civilian markings. Valezorro didn't have many spaces for air-landings, given the low percentage of drivers that could take advantage of them, but Governance still encouraged their use anyway; it freed up surface-level spots for the lower rankers, and the requirements to make a barca fly in the first place were expected to drop as the technology improved. Neither of them were actually at the point for complete flight, but Freiderike had enough power for it in small bursts. That the Judiciary got the latest in barca technology was always a plus.
Domhnall sighed, scanning faces in the crowds with a weary sense of lethargy.
"So what did Director Pascal say?" Freiderike asked from the driver's seat.
He shrugged. "Observe and wait, basically."
Freiderike, for her part, was lazing on the steering wheel. The person they were observing had gone inside and wasn't expected out for at least a few hours; not particularly inspiring attentiveness in the two Ispettore more used to fieldwork than subject tailing. And, to be frank, upper secondary schools just weren't that interesting.
"That's it?"
"He wants to keep things off the records until we know what's going on. Information security."
Since anyone else tailing the schoolgirl in question would almost certainly be under cover somewhere unless they were a complete idiot, their observation was essentially a waiting game. Wait for Renza Veneti to exit the nest, and see what predators followed her.
Their office block was at the apex of the point formed by the Trari's two landlocked faces. From here, they could watch both Land Gates simultaneously. Best possible position. Still boring. The third and final Gate, on the other side of the building, was the Water Gate by which they highly doubted anyone would be leaving, but he had Diarmuid managing a small flock of drones over there anyway. The Trari actually rose up higher than the stubby office block they were sat on, blocking most of Valezorro from view and leaving them with an exciting display of stone, stone and more stone. All the gardens where on the opposite Water face for irrigation purposes.
"Almost lunch break, isn't it?" Freiderike asked the air.
Domhnall grunted. "Diarmuid?"
[Cúig nóiméad agus daichead is seacht soicind, mo Rí]
"Five minutes." He translated unecessarily.
Freiderike sighed. "Think she'll make an appearance?"
"No. The Trari has its own canteen. Given what's happened I'd doubt she'd want to spend her lunch breaks in the city any more."
That had been an odd thing to find out from the staff. As of three months ago, she'd started leaving the premises on most breaks. It wasn't against the rules as long as you weren't late back, but it was still generally frowned on to do it to excess with no good reason, which Miss Veneti seemed to lack.
The more they'd looked, the more 'three months ago' seemed to be cropping up a lot around the Veneti girl. Diarmuid had flagged it almost immediately, of course, but a simple reading of the data in person was enough to make it stand out. As much as he didn't particularly feel need the need to pry into her circumstances, it was just one of those things too obvious for an investigator to miss.
It also felt a little too familiar, but he tried not to dwell on that.
And, well, all the points were just too disparate to really mean anything. There was clear evidence something happened back then, but what it was or what it meant was beyond him. It didn't fit any of the usual profiles for child behaviour - or at least, the kind of behaviour the Judiciary had to pay attention to - so he didn't really know what to make of it. Mercy, maybe she just got a boyfriend; probably a smart one given the jump in her grades. The increased incidence in hospital visits was worrying though; all injuries, never sick. Even her drunkard of a father had noticed that. Almost worth pinging a message to the Church over, but not quite yet. If it was the Tosca, the Churchwouldn't be able to do much anyway; that legal right had been transferred over to the Judiciary.
Lost in his musings, he almost missed it when Diarmuid emitted a tinny little beep. The accompanying telepathic kick was hard enough though.
Freiderike stared.
[Feicim Iníon Veneti, mo Rí.]
Over the South Gate, Diarmuid projected a small mental triangle, zooming in to generate its own window, better displaying the features of one Renza Veneti walking out onto the boulevard without a care in the world.
Domhnall stared. "...What."
The moment crashed between them; the sheer impossible stupidity of seeing Renza Veneti leaving the safety of the Basso Trari and walking away like a regular, ordinary pedestrian and not a young bastard heiress being shot at by the mob. She wasn't even watching the streets; she was looking straight ahead, that sort of dream-ish autopilot look, like she had far greater, far more important concerns than being a Castillan bastard hunted by the mob.
Freiderike releasing the land brake kicked things quickly back into gear.
"Drop me off in that alley and I'll tail on foot." He ordered quickly. "Follow her by air and try to get an idea where she's going; use the drones as you need. Diarmuid? Follow her orders. Ping the Order of the Watch for a tapping request on Veneti's Device."
He detached the bulky black box from his forearm and passed it over; Freiderike snapping it to her glove-Device with a familiar clunk.
[Sea, mo Rí.] Diarmuid said, after the transfer.
Their barca hummed to life with a squealing whir; Freiderike dumping mana into the anti-grav pods to make the car rise and float sideways off the roof; dropping down into the side alley in a carefully controlled descent. Domhnall dropped out of the side as soon as they were low enough, and the barca 'whummed', releasing a faintly audible burst of mana as its pilot kicked the anti-grav into pushing it back up to the sky. He didn't watch it go; Freiderike knew what she was doing.
Switching his Jacket over to something inconspicuous, he hustled out of the alleyway onto the boulevard, hoping for a glimpse of blue hair somewhere up ahead.
"Going hunting again, Renza?"
She didn't bother shaking her head, just sent a 'no' back in response. She had no idea where the little Incubator was after all.
"I'm visiting a friend."
The response was a non-judgemental telepathic 'hmm'. She wasn't quite sure how that worked.
"Why, are there more Daemons around?"
"I haven't seen any."
She spotted the shadow of a creature on the rooftop of an opposite building, staring down at- oh wait no that was an actual cat. Running off chasing birds. This time she really did shake her head.
"Where are you anyway?"
"Trailing the Ispettore."
She blinked, weaving past a man pushing a pram. "Oh, how's that going?"
"Problematic. They have split up; one is in their barca, the other is following you on foot."
She tripped.
"Wait, they WHAT?!"
"They have split up; one is-"
"Why didn't you tell me sooner!?"
She could almost imagine it tilting its head in fake curiosity. "About what?"
"That I'm being followed of course!"
"You never asked-"
Now she wished she knew where it was just so she could strangle the damn thing.
Sitting in the back seat of a barca jumping from rooftop to rooftop in short, controlled bursts whilst failing to parse the stream of furious multilingual telepathic cursing passing through its head, the Incubator reflected on how it didn't really understand humans.
Passing a father pushing his pram, Domhnall played the innocent Chaoim tourist gawking at all the Valezian architecture whilst watching Renza Veneti stumble for a moment. Leg injuries were always a pain.
Of more interest was the pair of stocky men, their Jackets passing them off as delivery workers, who were also walking this road. Compared to Veneti's half-distracted wandering (must have been a telepathic conversation; he really wished those tapping requests went through faster), these two moved with a purposeful but even gait, matching hers perfectly. Freiderike had flagged them from the air and Diarmuid had confirmed they were originally sitting in a café until the very moment Veneti appeared.
Sweet Kaisers, they were amateurs. Blue hair screamed 'Valezi' too; he barely needed Diarmuid's background reference check to tell they were Tosca.
Veneti you really are a complete, inattentive idiot...
"Domhn," Freiderike came through on mage telepathy, "the tapping request came through. We've identified the tails as well; one of them is wanted for questioning regarding a robbery case."
"Perfect," he sent back, "tie them up."
"My pleasure."
Barcas landing in the middle of a pedestrian zone were not a common sight. Well, barcas landing in the first place generally wasn't common, given the low ratio of flight-capable barcas to sufficiently powerful mages. Even so, it happened enough on cheap crime dramas for everyone to tell it was a Judiciary intervention before Freiderike had even displayed the colours. A barca landing in front of you had just become social code for 'Hi, the Judiciary would like a word'. Especially when they seated four.
That the two deliverymen looked more confused at this than anything else was a curious sign. Interesting; this might actually go peacefully for once.
She kept her glove-Devices on anyway.
"Excuse me, would one of you be Markis DeLamont?"
The obvious answer was 'yes', or they wouldn't have been pulled over, but hey. Politeness.
The man on the right raised his hand, looking a little bewildered. Freiderike took pity and offered an easy grin.
"We just need to ask you a few questions about a robbery in your area, if you'd be so kind?"
Renza watched with the rest of the crowd. Barcas landing in a pedestrian zone always disturbed her; not for the Judiciary thing but that creeping possibility they might one day land on someone.
Sure, it hadn't happened yet, but they'd only started being able to fly in her lifetime and that... wasn't saying a lot. No-one had ever quite expected it. Or, for that matter, fully figured out what to do with it.
"Kyubey, what's going on?"
"I can't say. It appears to be political or otherwise related to law enforcement."
...Well, fair enough, she couldn't make sense of it either. The poor Incubator probably didn't stand a chance. Was this how the Judiciary normally operated...?
"...Do you think they want to ask me questions off the record?"
"I wouldn't know."
She watched the barca, now flying the Judicial colours, lift off and start hopping back in the direction of the Judicial District. Part of her wondered how popular the vehicles would be if the ancient Valezians had been fond of slanted roofs.
"...I guess it was just coincidence then."
Renza put the event out of her mind, and headed for the nearest café. She had something to do, after all.
Huh. Domhnall hadn't pegged her as a crepes lover.
He followed anyway.
One thing she had never known about before was that the Basso Trari kept tabs on its students' devices during school hours. Apparently it was a legal right of educational institutions or else it would have been listed in the student guidebook. Either way, one of the things she'd had to handle after that slightly disastrous battle on the boulevard was the faculty asking about her Device deactivating during the period she'd been in the Barrier.
She'd passed them along to the Ispettore, of course. Claiming they'd have a better idea than she did.
In truth, she wasn't fully sure what caused that. Certainly 'Linker Magic', as she'd come to call it, seemed to fail in the Daemon Barriers but the only real source of information on that had been Kyubey, and Kyubey's explanations were always... spotty. Confusing. Daemon Barriers were completely different from the Mid-Childean kind which was rather obvious really, but.
...How had it put it again?
The 'Linker' field of Barrier spells existed to temporarily time-shift everything with a certain magical signature. Under the legislation of the Time and Space Administration Bureau, all magic use was to be strictly non-lethal, and Barriers served to allow high-rank mages to operate to their full potential without fear of collateral damage. It was a Military / Police thing.
She'd never been in one herself. All she'd seen on the TVs was they made everything turn dull and grey. Frankly they looked a little boring; crime dramas always spruced them up a little.
Daemon Barriers, though...
Any given Daemon emitted what they called Miasma; an unnatural distortion against the world that... how had the Incubators put it? "Created an environment favourable to Daemons". Enough Daemons - and thus enough Miasma - and that condensed fully into a wholesale Daemon Barrier; their own private pocket dimension where even the laws of physics could be fully rewritten to their advantage. Anything relying on complex systems - like, say, modern dimensional magic - would just break down, as the natural laws they were built around simply no-longer held true.
Puella Magi like herself were supposedly exempt from this - their Soul Gem apparently counteracted the problem; she didn't pretend to understand how exactly - but at E-Rank, it was hardly her problem. Bigger was that the Miasma exuded would fog people's minds; put them in trance like states. They would never realise what happened afterwards - she'd tried interrogating someone once; it was like their brain had just started making things up to fill the gap - which made the Puella's lives considerably easier, but it also left them mindless and defenceless against the Daemons themselves, which was... no good thing...
She shuddered. That was the rule she was glad Puella Magi were exempt from. If Daemons were adapted to hunting humans, Puella were adapted to hunting Daemons. A small mercy, if nothing else.
But a Daemon could spawn from any outpouring of grief in the world. Draining the lives of their captives they could spawn more Daemons. From the grief and sorrow over their captives' deaths, they could spawn more Daemons. It was a sick, and terrible system... and one that could rapidly get out of control.
Which is why she had to keep up the patrols. Right now, she was the only line of defence.
In Miasma, luckily, her Device still reported where she was, even if it was no-longer present on her person when she transformed (she hadn't figured that one out yet either). In a Daemon Barrier, though... well, 'where you were' in a Barrier was something of an abstract question...
It had been something she'd never paid attention to before, and now it was coming back to bite her as the faculty trawled back through their records and started finding numerous holes. And asking numerous questions. She really should have seen that coming... at least the Incubators could guide her through diverting their attention, having seen and helped thousands of other girls with the exact same problem.
...Though if they'd warned her about that in advance, that would also have been nice. 'You never asked' indeed...
The solution, when she'd hit on it, was rather obvious. Just take the thing off and leave it somewhere clandestine. She wasn't supposed to be able to do that (they normally registered when you took them off, for exactly the same reason she was doing it), but hey. Contract perks.
An indoor café and some duct tape later, and her Device was neatly hidden on the underside of a table. It helped it was only the size of a large watch after all. Then all she had to do was head to the toilets and slip out of the window. And no-one would ask where she'd been going, especially if she really was being tailed.
"Well, they're in for processing. Management'll probably have to let the second one go; we've nothing to actually book him on."
Domhnall leaned back in his seat - a creaky wicker thing - pretending to be reading something on a mental Device projection. It was a fairly common expression where tourists were concerned; looking up maps, day plans or just random curiosities. It also meant the serving staff would wait until he'd 'finished', which made things less confusing when coordinating with Freiderike wherever she was in the city.
"One's enough; it's a starting point. Anything from Diarmuid?"
"One second-" There was a pause, presumably as Freiderike consulted the borrowed Device. Telepathy wasn't audio after all, so it was just silence to him. "No. Nothing on drones. What about your end?"
Domhnall sighed.
"Followed her into a café. Want anything?"
Fred hmm'd. "They do any pastries?"
"The Belkan kind." The Boredom was starting to creep back in again. The rest of the cafe-goers looked completely ordinary, no-one else sat at Renza's table, no-one had followed them in (so far) and equally no-one had followed her into the toilets. Not a lot to go on. "Look a little average though."
"Eh, probably'd still beat the station cafeteria. I'll take two."
"Two it is."
"I'll be back about half an hour. Sodding paperwork"
Domh smirked. "Don't break the penpushers."
Freiderike laughed bitterly through the connection in a way that made him feel terribly sorry for anyone on the other end. Slumping forward, he dropped the 'look' and waved a hand, signalling the staff. Since Veneti was apparently just taking her lunch break as a lunch break, he couldn't see much point in not getting some himself.
Vaulting the rooftops of the Commercial District and heading into the centre, Renza took advantage of her natural speed. It was the fastest route and (without her Device to clock speeds the Trari would ask awkward questions about) probably the best disguise too; people on the streets wouldn't get much more than a blur and fliers were pretty common around here. She even passed a few who waved hello... probably; at this speed it was hard to tell. Her Puella outfit didn't stand out that much in the world of configurable Jackets and she was travelling too fast to be ID'd; she probably just looked like an off-duty duty air cadet. She kept up her momentum as the heights of the buildings steadily rose; her target never out of sight on the Valezorro skyline.
The Basilica Vaillieu had been built in a cross configuration; the immense central tower - visible from all of Valezorro back in the Dawn States - and four grand halls. Each hall wide enough to fit an entire marketplace were anyone was willing to try, and long enough to require underpasses being constructed several centuries ago to ease the flow of traffic; the Office of Transportation and the Saint Church were constantly batting heads about trying to expand them. Their steeply pitched Belkan roofs, dated all the way back to its original construction, rose up several stories all on their own, meaning the spires on the regular supporting buttresses couldn't be seen on one side from the other.
The target spire in question was not particularly noteworthy. The sixteenth spire from the tower to the end of the Western Hall, on the left hand side; it had nothing to set it apart from all the others, just a regular stone and tile old-Belkan needle. Whilst the tower was cleaned regularly, the Hall spires were only passed over once a year, mostly to check for structural defects, and on a predictable schedule; there were just too many of them for the Church to realistically do anything more. So far they'd yet to find what it made it special, and she knew when she would need to move it for a few days when the time came. Or maybe they'd see it and leave it be; she wasn't going to risk it finding out.
The spires of the Halls were actually their own miniature towers; an ancient holdover from the Church's early leanings (not many remembered the Basilica used to be a fortress and the Church never took pains to remind people). The old shutters had long since been removed and the ways in from the Halls sealed centuries ago, turning what once would have been a hidden sentry post into nothing more than decoration and a nesting place for birds. They'd learnt to avoid this one though; the room smelt cool, clear and dry; more of dust, rain and stone than anything else. She'd run out of the old perfume.
Compared to the Basilica it wasn't much of a shrine, but she knew the one it was dedicated to do wouldn't want anything more.
Renza slipped in silently through the room's only opening; the ancient, worn down viewing slit. The only route to this abandoned sentry hole was either by flight or through reinforced acrobatics that should only be possible to an A- or extremely high B- Rank mage in the first place... or by the application of hook, rope and a whole lot of patience and time. Thus, the Church considered the old watchtowers closed to vagrants; those of the organisation that even knew they were there.
The Church had never heard of Puella Magi.
A small pile of blankets took up one side of the room, cold, ragged and stiff with age. They reached from one end of the room to the other easily; the sentry-hole was a space smaller even than her bola; barely larger than a closet at the Basso Trari. They were still more comfortable to sit on than the stonework floor.
Faded blankets aside, the majority of colour in the space came from the window - where Valezorro continued its hustle and bustle under the golden light of noon - and the small but carefully chosen collection of trinkets. Not too many; their owner never knew when they'd all need to be collected and thrown together into the mass of blankets so she could find a new place to sleep during the day, though maybe they would have increased given the security of this little find.
Taken individually, each one made very little sense.
An old clock - actually mechanical; some old Galean thing made from copper and brass - probably worth a small fortune to collectors if it wasn't so miserably battered and broken. It pointed the time with its hands rather than simply telling you on request, and Renza was pretty sure it was supposed to have two instead of only one, slightly crooked in the middle. It was frozen permanently just past 'IX' and she didn't know how to make it turn itself again.
A small collection of stones and precious metals; rubies mostly, she'd always had a thing for that colour. Earrings, patterned beads, random stones that just caught her eye one day. And then there was the actual jewellery, which had to have been lifted from somewhere. Renza had never asked. These pieces had always been the most transient; most likely to be left behind. Or, for that matter, sold. Puella had to eat, too, and stealing wasn't exactly 100% reliable.
Tassels; strips of cloth dyed red and blue, bearing prayers in Belkan script inked on both sides then wrapped together into a rope and hung from above on hooks they'd hammered into the ceiling. The Belkan was scratchy, but serviceable, and Renza had had to help with the grammar in places but their prayers were well meant. Requests to Elisabet II, the Streben-Kaiser of Victory, for aid, and - naturally - pleas to the Sankt-Kaiser Olivie, the Mercy of Vollständigkeit, for her wisdom and peace. These had been a relatively new addition; the origin of the ink and strips was plainly obvious. She'd asked Renza to get them after all.
Probably the most plain looking and yet also most memorable was the battered old box - black, probably covered in felt once - taking up an entire corner. It contained a cheap, frankly tacky tea set, the sort the markets hawked to tourists during the summer season, and was a considerable pain to haul around whenever their owner had to move. It had been that girl's favourite possession, and she'd never left it behind. Kaisers, Renza had offered to get her a new one once and she'd been outright affronted.
The room would have contained more, at one time; mostly food and money; but for now, this was what it was. Apart from a few extra tassels dangling from the ceiling - blacks and whites this time; using the blues and reds just didn't feel right - the only addition was a framed photograph. It sat atop the old black box next to a small silver casket, barely larger than a snuffbox.
The photograph was cheap, but the frame wasn't. She'd had to go through some lengths to get it. To say nothing of the casket; that silver was genuine.
Elbows on knees and chin in hands, Renza sat and gazed at the picture, looking back at the memory frozen in time.
They'd gotten a passing tourist to take it; it'd been hilarious. A wonderful trick. Poor old guy had absolutely no idea what to make of them; one a young girl in Caglican Blue, hair and all, her costume peppered with white lace, grinning and posing for the camera with a undersized zweihander axe that looked too real and gleamed too brightly to be a shrunken down replica of a museum piece; the other taller, with vaguely Castillan features, dressed in blazing yellow; a tomboyish bolero and white cravat over a black undershirt that somehow managed to work despite being patently ridiculous. How that hat had always stayed on Renza never knew; she wished she could have saved the feather. Whilst Renza's axe was smaller than it should have been, the arbalest the yellow girl posed with was almost comically too large.
(She summoned smaller ones in day to day life, of course; it had just been funny at the time).
Renza sat, smiling sadly, as the tassels clinked in the faint breeze.
"Ich hatt' einen Kameraden, einen bessern findst du nit."
She sighed after finishing the prayer.
"Made any stars yet, Roche?"
She shifted uncomfortably on the stiff fabric.
"I'm doing fine; Valezorro's surviving with just me. Kyubey says he might have a few new contracts lined up; I'll try to teach them well. Won't let them do all the dumb things I did back then... I. I... screwed up a bit earlier; if you saw it, you'd probably scold me. There was only fourteen of them and I ended up in the Serenità again; I'm alright now... but I've worried everyone." She giggled. "Kyubey is even having to call in a subcontractor to clean things up. You always said you wanted to meet one!"
Renza slumped down, hugging her knees.
"Odi and Sam are alright; they still remember you, you know. My father's worried though and I'm not... sure how to deal with it. I... I'm brushing it off as best I can and I don't want him to worry but..."
She looked up at the hard, flat picture. The glass frame shone in the afternoon light.
"...this is going to keep happening, isn't it?"
She dropped her head.
"This is going to keep happening, and I'm going to keep worrying them and..."
She shivered.
"I'll a find a way. I can make it somehow, I'm sure. It's what everyone would want after all. It's just... I don't know how... I don't know if I can tell him or..."
She pumped her fist.
"I'll keep fighting though! I will protect this city! I'll keep fighting; I'll get better and I won't get hurt again, you'll see! Kyubey will find some new girls to take the slack, it's just a bit busy right now!"
She laughed.
"So don't worry, Roche. It'll be alright."
Smiling at the picture and silver casket set atop that battered old box, she rose, dusting herself off gracefully. One foot on the watch-step, she paused half-way through squeezing through the view slit; looking back into the room - significantly darker now she blocked most of the sunlight. She smiled at it anyway.
"See you in the stars."
And then she was gone.
She'd managed to dry her face before she slipped back into the toilets.
...Something wasn't right about this.
"Freiderike, what's the location on Veneti's Device?"
"Still in the café; why?"
Something he should have spotted earlier, stupid stupid-
"She went straight into the toilets and hasn't come out since. Never even ordered."
There was a pause, before Freiderike's response came back sounding distinctly unnerved. "She's still in the café according to the tap. Device is still on too."
Old memories; old tricks. He shouldn't have forgotten about this. "Is it moving?"
"...No. One second."
There was a lull, probably Diar- "Diarmuid says the signal hasn't moved at all since she entered."
No-one ever suspects the schoolgirls.
Domhnall stood.
"Now what?"
"Have Diarmuid deploy drones; search the surrounding area. How close are you?"
"Two minutes ETA."
He walked across to the table the Veneti girl had sat at. Still unnocuppied, not that that mattered. A quick glance at the underside revealed a bulky black shape. It pulled away with the rip of packing tape.
"I have her Device." He told Freiderike. His partner's response was about what he'd expected.
"What the fuck is this girl playing at?!"
"No idea." Probably.
"You want me to put up a General Order? I can-"
"Hold that."
Renza Veneti stood staring at him in the doorway.
"She's right here."
