Chapter 3 begins here. Standard disclaimers apply. Comments and criticisms are always welcome.

- Chapter Start -

For a while, no one moved much less spoke. The only sounds registered were the faint ticking of the clock and a slight clinking noise as Yuuno set down the two plates of food he had prepared.

On unsteady feet, Hayate rose from her seat and approached the computer display. Her footsteps felt heavy like iron slabs were tied around her ankles. She reached out to the image of the silver haired beauty, not entirely believing what she was seeing. "How? When? This isn't an illusion, is it?" Hayate questioned in a near whisper.

Seeing that his friend's legs were about to give out beneath her, Yuuno tossed aside his reservations about the situation and hurried to her side. The brunette collapsed into his arms, but her eyes remained fixed on Reinforce's image. He shot an apologetic look to the woman, indicating that he had not planned for this to happen. He was knocked to the floor as Hayate violently turned around to face him, landing on top of Yuuno with tears in her blue eyes.

"Haya-" He was cut off when she grasped his shirt in both hands and tried to pull him up to bring him up to face her, a task she was unable to accomplish.

"Yuuno, tell me what's going on." Her voice trembled. "Tell me this isn't a horrible joke..." The exhaustion and lack of food combined with sudden and severe emotional stress finally took its toll on the commander. Hayate's eyes trembled before closing, her hands losing their already weakened grip. Her body slumped against Yuuno's, having surrendered to sleep against its owner's will.

Reinforce had watched the whole scene unfold with widened eyes and a shocked expression upon her normally collected countenance. She reached out, only to find herself hampered by the lack of physical body and the bindings of the computer. It was horrifying, in a way, to be unable to comfort someone who was so close to your heart, yet only feet away. Her surprise and terror turned to a look of severe sadness.

Yuuno slowly wrapped his arms around the woman atop him, brushing her hair in a comforting manner as silent sobs shook her sleeping form. "Shhh... Its alright..." He spoke in a soft tone, trying to calm his friend. "Rest now."

It was with some difficulty that the blonde managed to go from a prone position beneath the brunette, to standing with her held in his arms. "What are you...?" Began Reinforce upon snapping out of her daze.

"I'm putting her to bed. She needs rest and I'm not a very comfortable mattress." Responded Yuuno without humor. "I'll be right back."

He carefully took Hayate to his bedroom in a princess carry, her soft sobs having passed leaving only the marks of tears and a runny nose upon his shirt. He placed her on the bed then set about making her comfortable. Yuuno removed her socks and then undid her tie and hairclips, eliciting barely a twitch from the passed out brunette. After pulling the sheets over Hayate's tired form, he stroked her hair once more and then left the room, closing the door behind him.

"You are a good man, Yuuno." Commented Reinforce when the librarian returned. She watched him set aside the tie, socks, and hairclips so they wouldn't be forgotten later.

Placing saran-wrap over Hayate's lunch, he put it away in the refrigerator. While his head was still in the large storage unit, he spoke to Reinforce, loudly enough that he could be heard from the distance. "What are you going to do now? There's no way to conceal your return now."

"It is... far sooner than I would have preferred, but I will not hide from Mistress Hayate any further." A pause in which melancholy consumed the device's features. "I should have had you contact her immediately."

"You should have." Reinforce winced at the harsh reply. "And I'm just as guilty for not trying to convincing you to do so or doing it myself." Picking up his own lunch plate, Yuuno went over to the computer desk and sat down. A severe expression was on his normally genial features as he silently took a bite of the sandwich.

Chewing methodically, Yuuno's mind was mulling over the events that had just occurred. Never before in all the time he'd known her, had he seen Hayate so distraught. While he'd heard about her reaction when the Wolkenritter had been killed by Graham's familiars during the Book of Darkness Incident, he was not witness to it. It was heartbreaking to see the normally playful and composed Hayate in such a state.

"Yuuno... About earlier. Your theory for freeing me from this digital prison." The statement brought the man out of his thoughts. Reinforce continued one she had his attention. "I would like to try it. No... I WILL do it. There is no trying at this point. I will make it work, one way or another." There was steel in her voice and resolve had banished her melancholy. "Mistress Hayate is my family, the Wolkenritter as well. I left them once before and I will not do it again. Defense Program be damned. Should it dare return, the I shall tear it apart with my bare hands."

Yuuno's eyes remained fixed on the impassioned woman before him. "Alright." He spoke after a few moments of silence. Leaning forward, he continued, "We'll do this. I promised that would help you, after all. Also, for Hayate."

Reinforce nodded. "What will we have to do?"

"Like I said earlier, we are going to require that you be supplied with an external mana source to get your linker core back up to its original levels of production." The librarian re-stated his theory from earlier. "This won't be anything like what was needed to fill pages for the Book. It'll be periodic donations of mana from someone. I'm more than willing to provide my own power and I'm certain everyone else would be as well. I'm fairly confident that the Wolkenritter and Hayate would be able to give you mana most closely synchronized with your own."

"How will you transfer the mana into my... prison?"

Yuuno leaned back into his chair, ignoring the half-eaten lunch on the desk. "Since spells are really nothing more than mana put through a specific set of equations. It'll be a matter of making an equation that your prison can interpret and send the mana to you in a usable way." Sighing, he ran a hand through his long, blonde hair. "It'll just take some time to develop, unless..."

"Unless what? Is there something that could hasten the process?" Oh, how she wanted to be free of this realm. Now, more than ever. Reinforce could once again be with her family.

"I have been working on some new barrier theories, but I'm not sure that it would be worth the delay to see if they'd help or not." He admitted honestly. "I'm also not certain I could handle all the equations by myself even if it did work."

Reinforce blinked. "You do not have a device of your own?"

"I was the former owner of Nanoha's Raising Heart, but situation forced it into her hands and it was pretty much hers from then on. I can say that Raising Heart is definitely in better hands." He replied with a feeling of nostalgia, recalling his first meeting with the little girl who would later grow up to become one of the TSAB's most powerful and feared combatants.

That was something unexpected to Reinforce and only opened up more questions for her. But those would have to wait for a later time. For now, they would work on more immediate concerns. "Then let us get to work."

Yuuno nodded and proceeded to polish off his lunch with renewed vigor. "I'll work on the equation. I want you to go over information from the Belkan era." The silver haired woman nodded her head in agreement. "When we first sealed you, we didn't have access to the Infinity Library as we do now. It was a barely functioning mess with fifty years of backlog. Now..." A wicked grin graced his features.

Using Yuuno's remote access to the Infinity Library, with an accepted excuse of it being a personal project to any messages asking what was going on, Reinforce began pouring over the well organized stacks of data. Meanwhile, Yuuno himself was surrounded by a massive array of glowing green symbols, shapes, and equations, working hard at crafting a means for mana transfer.

They were hard at work for the better part of six hours, a mutual drive kept pushing them forward. Neither took a break. Neither wanted to take a break. It was only the sound of a dull thump that penetrated their concentration, most owing to the fact that it came from behind Yuuno's bedroom door.

Reinforce and Yuuno shared a look before the man banished his work and went to the door. Steeling himself, he slowly entered the room. "Hayate. Are you up?" He asked in a soft voice, just in case she hadn't awakened. A groan from the side of the bed answered him. It seemed that the brunette had fallen out of bed.

"Wha? Where am I? Yuuno?" Hayate questioned groggily, not really awake yet. She pulled herself back onto the bed and lay there, facing the ceiling in ruffled clothes. "I had the weirdest dream... Reinforce was alive and she was living in your computer." It seemed that the earlier events were too surreal to seem true to the young woman.

"Hayate," Yuuno approached the bed and sat down next to her. "That was not a dream." She sat up immediately, eyes widening and words on the tip of her tongue. They were silenced as he grasped her shoulders in a firm grip. "Calm down and let me explain. Please, Hayate." She nodded slowly, not wanting her voice to betray her.

With careful words, Yuuno began explaining the situation to his childhood friend and the reasons behind not contacting her immediately. He did not allow her to ask questions yet, holding up a hand to stall her until he was finished. "...and that's our current plan of action."

Hayate felt conflicted. On the one hand, she wanted to slap him for not telling her immediately, despite understanding his reasons. On the other, she wanted to kiss him for what he was doing for them.

She settled for wrapping her arms around Yuuno and hugging him with everything she had. "Thank you, Yuuno... thank you."

Returning the hug, he smiled. "Don't thank me quite yet. There's still a lot to do."

"...Still" Hayate seemed like she wanted to say something else, but wasn't quite sure what.

"Would you like to meet her?"

"Yea. I'd like that." She nodded into Yuuno's shirt. It would be difficult, but now she would be ready. That is, ready as she ever could be in such a situation.

"Come on then." He broke the embrace and helped her off of the bed and took her to the door. Knocking on the door separating the bedroom from the rest of his home, he called out to Reinforce. "Reinforce, we're coming out."

Yuuno opened the door and Hayate stepped into the living room where Reinforce's computer was. For the second time that day, blood red met dark blue.

It was Reinforce who broke the silence. "I'm home, Mistress Hayate." Home is where the heart is and the heart is with family.

"Welcome home, Reinforce."