Devil's Wings 4

By HubiKoshi, Part 1 of 2, edited by Trooper1023

An "In Flight" omake from the EMIYA CLAN scenario.

Chiyo smiled as she saw Momoko-san behind the counter and received a smile in return from the affectionate and kind woman. She reminded Chiyo of her own mother, gentle and kind Chiho-kaa-san.

"Ah Chiyo-chan, how good to see you. Is Shinta-kun doing well? We haven't seen him lately."

"Don't worry Momoko-san, he is perfectly fine. He is just a bit busy with his training." Chiyo smiled at the memory. After Shinta was soundly defeated by Nanoha (Uncle Gil threatened to skewer him to a tree for falling for Nanoha's 'obvious' feint; 'You should know better than that by now! You, who actually sits and listens to my stories!'), he got a Training Fever and just kept challenging everyone in the house who was even remotely inclined to fight back. Unfortunately, it was starting to annoy the older ones, like Arika-nee-san and Haru-nii-san. Hopefully Shinta would get over it before Kaien-otouto or Keiko-imouto return from their school trips... Shinta challenging either of those two would result in the backyard needing to be completely redone. Fireballs and bullets etched with exploding runes were not good for the lawn.

"Oh, it's such a shame. Nanoha-chan misses him."

"I'll make sure to tell him."

"Oh, but if it would trouble him…"

"No, it's alright Momoko-san. Actually, he is training so hard because he wants to be able to protect Nanoha-chan one day."

"Oh my, how chivalrous of him."

Chiyo smiled and nodded, but winced inwardly. She didn't really want to lie to this kind woman, but Nanoha had begged her not to give any hint to her family about her involvement in magic. She hadn't wanted them to worry...

"Ah, but this wasn't the reason you came here, right? Who is this nice young lady you are with?"

Chiyo turned slightly and introduced the black haired glasses-wearing girl. "Momoko-san, this is Ayaka Nishizawa-san, a classmate of mine. Nishizawa-san this is Momoko Takamachi-san she and her husband Shirou Takamachi-san own this shop."

The girl flustered slightly and bowed her head. "Nice to meet you, Momoko-san."

Chiyo on the other hand smiled self-mockingly. Here she was introducing the girl professionally and yet she didn't even know her name an hour before.

"Likewise Ayaka-san. Have a seat Chiyo-chan and choose whatever you like."

"Thank you, Momoko-san."

The two schoolgirls sat down at an empty table and looked through the menus which were laid open on the table.

"You seem quite familiar with the owner, Emiya-san." Ayaka mused, bottom of her face covered by the menu.

"True. My little brother, the one who told me about Midori-ya, actually has a crush on their youngest daughter. They are both around 9 years old so it's rather sweet. We came here a couple of times and they visited our household so we are familiar with each other."

'Heh, crush. That was quite an understatement.' Chiyo smiled to herself. 'If Otou-san's theory about people with active magical circuits was right, her little brother will want to ravage poor Nanoha-chan before long.' With the amount of prana she had at her disposal Chiyo was quite surprised that all the Sekirei descendants in the household hadn't jumped Nanoha-chan the moment she appeared at the Emiya estate... though Rin-kaa-san seemed to have her own theories about that.

"You… have a rather large family, don't you Emiya-san."

"Yes, it's quite large." Chiyo kept her voice purposefully neutral. She liked this girl, and she hoped that she wouldn't have to be unpleasant to her.

"It must be... nice, to have such a large family. You can play with your siblings and go with them to various places. I'm an only child so I'm a bit jealous." Ayaka said with a giggle.

Chiyo relaxed as the conversation headed for safer waters, allowing her smile to return to her face. "Yes it is really fun, quite chaotic but really fun. Uncle Gil keeps telling us that we'll drive him to insanity, and sooner rather than later. But if he really is in danger of going mad, he never shows it. So the more mischievous of us keep pushing him more and more. You always know when to scatter by listening to him, because when Uncle Gil starts yelling, it's time to scram." Chiyo smiled fondly, she left out the fact that Uncle Gil's tantrums usually involved flying legendary weapons, but that was still ok. Every noble phantasm he launched from the Gates of Babylon was a perfectly deliberate miss. Uncle Gil was such a choleric and yet soft-hearted man.

"Uncle Gil?" Ayaka asked in confusion. "Another relative?"

"No, actually. Some years ago, our parents needed some help with the huge lot of us and they hired Uncle Gil. It was only a temporary measure but I guess Uncle Gil liked us so much that he decided to stay and keep watching over us... that is why we all call him 'Uncle'."

Well, summoning a legendary hero from the dimension outside time and space counted as hiring as far as telling this story was concerned. The second part was true though, many years after summoning, Rin-kaa-san and Otou-san offered to release Gilgamesh back to the Throne of Heroes. 'And he just laughed in their faces, saying that without him around, their pack of rambunctious little mongrels would overrun them within a day or less. Though,' Chiyo suspected, 'his rejection of the offer likely had something to do with well over a dozen pairs of pouting puppy-dog eyes aimed at him like arrows.'

"Your dad fathered a large number of children with so many wives, no wonder he needed help."

Chiyo's smile faded, eyes focusing at the suddenly uncomfortable raven-head. "Please, do not judge my father." Her words were calm, but almost frighteningly cold.

"Ah, I'm sorry! I didn't mean it like that, I'm sorry Emiya-san." Ayaka answered in a slight panic.

Chiyo blinked, then touched the other girl's hand reassuringly and smiled gently. "It's me who should be sorry. I shouldn't have been so quick to take offense."

Ayaka nodded gently, still a bit unnerved by the sudden change in mood, even as it changed back quickly enough.

They chatted away some more, a more relaxed mood returning as two slices of delicious sweet cake were delivered. Chiyo enjoyed the time with the earnest, shy girl but she started looking for some excuse to leave. Her usual training regimen couldn't wait forever.

"I'm back, Kaa-chan!"

Chiyo turned her head to see the youngest daughter of the Takamachi family enter the shop and smile happily at her mother. A ferret, or to be more precise Yuuno-san in magical ferret form, was perched on her shoulder. The small girl with two pig-tails wanted to say something but suddenly stopped.

Chiyo felt something in the air change. She had only a couple of magical circuits, the result of her mother being just a normal person to her father's status as a magi, but she inherited his keen sense for magical interference. Whereas her father sensed by 'smell', Chiyo felt it on her skin. A powerful wave of magical power washed over her making her skin crawl. Nanoha must have noticed it too because she took on an expression of concern.

"Um, sorry Kaa-chan, but there is something I forgot. I'll be back soon, okay?"

"That's fine, Nanoha-chan. See you later." Her mother, oblivious to the magical interference just waved at her daughter as she ran out of the shop.

"Is something wrong, Emiya-san?"

Chiyo looked back at the girl in front of her, concerned expression adorning her face. "Ah, no, nothing wrong. I just remembered I had something else to attend to. I'm really sorry but I'll have to go. I'll pay at the counter and you can enjoy as much cake as you want, okay?"

"Ah but…" Ayaka hung her head slightly, setting her fork down beside her slice of cake.

"I really have to go. Maybe we'll come here some other time?" Chiyo offered the girl who nodded slightly, then got up and moved to the counter to pay for the snacks.

As she handed several bills to Momoko-san, the woman leaned forward and whispered, "Going to help my daughter?"

The shock was electric. 'How can she know!' Chiyo thought, looking over Momoko's seemingly guileless smile. The teenager nodded hesitantly, and Momoko's smile widened fractionally. Then Chiyo was out of the shop at a run. She started heading in the direction from which the feel of magical power came, while shaking off the questions about how much Nanoha-chan's mother really knew about what was going on...

Suddenly another wave of magic washed over Chiyo and the world became... gray, that was the only way she could describe it. Someone had set up a boundary field to keep normal, unpowered humans out of the coming combat zone. She approved of that.

Finally, Chiyo saw them. Two girls, one a redhead in white dress with a white-golden staff and another a blonde clad in black clothes, her weapon a black halberd. Both were buzzing through the sky like fighter planes, exchanging magically empowered strikes and bullets of kinetic force in pink and yellow, each attempting to blow the other out of the sky. Chiyo smiled, the blonde was very good, obviously an experienced combatant, but Nanoha-chan was no slouch herself. It made Chiyo proud that her assessment of the redhead's instincts wasn't wrong.

At street level, Yuuno-san was staring down a large red-furred wolf. It hurt to admit it but Chiyo couldn't really help Nanoha-chan up in the air. A ground battle, however, was a completely different thing.

Chiyo reached deep into her mind, where the source of her magical power resided. Two swords hung within the almost-tangible darkness, motionless and silent. Her will embraced them, took them in phantom hands. And then, surrounded by darkness, they moved. Metal ground against metal, sparks flew, and as the swords slashed outwards the darkness exploded with light.

'Slash open, my Path!' As the light filled the darkness, her body was filled with power, and just as the sparking swords banished the darkness, her strength would repel those threatening her precious family.

Her mind shifted attention to the pendant Rin-kaa-san had made for her, pushing prana into it. Light flared in her hands.

HubiKoshi's original version is at http:/ forum. fanfiction. net/topic/88086/42932494/7/ post #306.