NGTM-R: It's not that Fate doubted Yuuno's compotence, she was just being her normal, worrywart self ^^" Also it'd be hard to block the suicide attempt since the gun was pressed right up against the guy's chin. There's no room to fit a barrier in there...

Anywho, this chapter is quite long and it is filled with plenty of Shari face time and lots of mostly made up science mumbo jumbo!


Even though Shari hungrily licked her lips before they started working, her and Yuuno didn't have anything to actually do other than sit around and wait for the computer to do its scan of the object.

"This part of it always sucks." Shari pouted.

And so with nothing to do, the pair pulled up a hologram and engaged in some games of virtual chess. While they manoeuvred their pieces, they also occupied themselves with idle chatter. They discussed topics like Yuuno's paper on ancient machines, Fate, the case, and other current events.

"Always feels weird getting back to work after the holidays." Shari sighed slightly as she captured Yuuno's pawn with her bishop.

"What exactly did you do for the holidays?" Yuuno inquired, capturing her bishop in turn.

"Every year I celebrate with Griffith's family." She explained while contemplating her next move. "His mom always makes a feast."

"How is Admiral Leti doing these days?"

"Oh you know her, the same as always." She grinned as her knight took Yuuno's rook. "Still getting wicked drunk whenever there's a party."

Yuuno chuckled, recalling the cherry blossom party from long ago. "She's an interesting drunk."

"Never a dull moment with her around." Shari grinned, but then frowned as Yuuno took her rook. She smiled again when she captured his bishop. "The look on Griffith's face as he tries to keep her in check is absolutely priceless too. He's so serious it's adorable."

Shari laughed then, the music of it making it easy for Yuuno's lips to upturn. The more time he spent with her, the more he enjoyed himself. She had merely been a mild acquaintance before, just Fate's aide, but now he could easily see himself considering her a friend.

Studying her a bit more, he noted that there was a rather modest beauty to her. While she may get overshadowed by standing next to her bombshell of a superior, she was still rather attractive in her own right. That, along with her sharp mind, boundless energy, fierce passion, and lively sense of humour, Yuuno mused that Griffith was definitely a man to be envied.

On that note Yuuno found himself thinking of the young woman he had just met hours ago. She too was also quite beautiful, her shiny, ink black hair in particular was stunning. It wasn't often the librarian encountered some one with hair like hers. The smile she had beamed at him earlier remained prominent in his mind's eye and he couldn't help but admire the strength behind it. She had been through so much in her life, yet she was still able make such an expression. The light in her crimson eyes were also…

"So what did you do for the holidays, professor?"

"Hm?" Shari's words snapped him out of his thoughts. "Oh, nothing really. I just worked and spent time by myself at home."

"Eh? That's no way to spend the holidays!" Shari admonished. "You're supposed to get together with others and have fun!"

"Yeah, well…" Yuuno scratched his cheek sheepishly as he moved his queen across the board. "I didn't have any one to get together with, so…"

"Hmmm…" Shari frowned in thought as she stared at the board. "Next year how about you come celebrate with us then?"

"Huh?" Yuuno blinked.

"Yeah! Griffith wouldn't mind, and I'm sure Admiral Leti would love to see you again. Mariel often comes to visit as well. You'd have lots to talk about with her."

Yuuno considered it but shook his head. "Thanks for the offer, but I wouldn't want to intrude…"

"Oh don't be like that." Shari waved him off with one hand, moved a pawn with the other. "The more the merrier!"

Figuring she probably wouldn't take no for an answer, he decided to play it safe. "Next year I'll consider it, thanks."

"Excellent." Shari grinned, both at his response and the move he just made. "Fu fu fu, I've got you now professor!" She chuckled evilly, wiggling her fingers in the air in what was supposed to be some sort of threatening gesture. She dramatically reached down, moving her queen in for the kill. "Next move will be check!"

Yuuno smirked. "Not if I do this." He moved his other rook along the now cleared path until it was in line with Shari's king. The king in question was surrounded by its subjects on all sides save for one, simultaneously leaving it open for attack and preventing it from fleeing. "Checkmate."

"Gah!" Shari dramatically threw up her hands. "You got me!"

"I knew if I left myself open you would fall right into my trap." He explained.

"I bet you have thousands of strategies memorized, don't you?" She pursed her lips. "And here I thought only computers were cheating bastards…"

"I won fair and square." Yuuno stated.

"It won't be the same next time!" The brunette declared. Before they could start another game, there was a knock on the door. "Come in!"

The door slid open and the pair were surprised to see Miyako poke her head in.

"Ms Suzuki?" Yuuno blinked. "What are you doing here?"

"Uh, well," She chuckled nervously. "I finished the map, and Enforcer Takamachi told me I could find you here, so…"

"Did you need me for something?" He asked.

"No, I just wanted to see what you were doing…" Miyako's red eyes fell to the other girl in the room.

"Oh, let me introduce you." Yuuno rose. "This is Fate's aide, and an expert device technician…"

"Shario Finieno." She said, holding out her hand. "But everyone calls me Shari."

"Miyako Suzuki," The other girl returned the gesture. "Nice to meet you."

"Ditto." Shari smiled. "As for what we're doing, we're just sitting on our butts until the computer finishes its scan."

"Oh." Miyako glanced over to the computer's screen. "It says it's done."

"Really?" Shari turned around to see that the word COMPLETE was flashing on the display. "Huh, I guess we were too preoccupied to notice." She said, rubbing her eyes as she made her way over and sat in the chair. She tickled the keyboard and caused some data to pop up along with a 3D model of the weapon.

"So what did it find out?" Yuuno asked as he stood behind her.

"… A whole lot of nothing." Shari frowned. "Guess I spoke too soon when I said this equipment would do fine…" A graph enlarged. "Here's the spectrum analysis, but it doesn't match with any material in its database. As such…" The model filled the screen and began to rotate. "All we can get is the outward appearance. It doesn't know what frequency to use to be able to get a cross section."

"So what exactly does that mean?" Miyako asked with a tilt of her head.

"It means we don't know what it's made out of and we can't see inside it without taking it apart." Shari simplified. "But there are no visible screws or anything, so I don't think we can dismantle it without destroying it completely."

"… Why don't you just destroy it?" Miyako pondered. "It's dangerous, right? Why bother to study it in the first place?"

"To find out what secrets it could hold." Yuuno explained. "There's no telling what it could tell us about those who made it, and maybe the technology within could be used for good. It's also possible there could be more of these out there, so knowing how it works and what it's capable of is a vital asset."

"Hm… I see." Miyako smiled at him. "I guess what you do is really important, then."

"R-Really?" He flushed a bit. "I guess so…" Bringing his mind back to the task at hand, he asked Shari to display all the data again. She did so, and he studied it closely, checking it against the knowledge contained in his own mind. He got a hit.

"I know that spectral pattern!" He declared. "It's Orichalcum."

"Really?" Shari blinked. "That legendary metal?"

"It's not as legendary as you think." Yuuno said. "We find it scattered in ruins all over the universe. Yeah…" He mused, walking over to where the gun hung suspended in a field. He put a hand in and ran it along the artefact. "This texture, it's definitely Orichalcum. That means we'll need to use a frequency of 30 exahertz in order to penetrate the surface and get an internal view." Yuuno walked over and keyed in the values himself. A few moments later another model appeared on the screen. "Yeah, there we are."

He felt gazes on his back and turned to see the girls staring at him.

"I don't know what you just did but it sounded impressive." Miyako said.

"Where can I get one of you for myself?" Shari chuckled.

Yuuno blushed at the attention. "Err, I didn't do all that much…"

"Being all modest again…" Shari turned to study the x-ray, which consisted mostly of a mass of wires and conduits. "Looks like some one spilled spaghetti in here… Hm…" She knit her eyebrows together. "Well there's the main storage unit, and here's a vent for the excess energy… But it's odd, there's no connector for the wielder to pump their magic into, and I have no idea what these things are." She gestured to circular objects that lined the interior of the gun."

"You don't know?" Miyako blinked. "Aren't you supposed to be an expert or something?"

Shari smiled humourlessly. "I specialize in modern technology. This ancient stuff is a little beyond my expertise."

"But not yours, right?" Miyako turned to Yuuno.

"I've studied ancient artefacts like this for most of my life, so it would be right to call this my area of expertise." Yuuno nodded. "I'm also the head librarian of the Infinity Library and have seen plenty of schematics and the like in books there. As such, I do know what those are."

"Do tell." Shari prompted.

"They're Peripheral Energy Congregators. The reason there's no device to gather mana from a mage is because it doesn't need one."

"I see!" Shari's eyes sparkled. "That makes sense! Therefore these channels here bring power to the main battery and store it there for use at any time. And these objects here must be brakes to prevent the gun from overloading!"

"Right, and here you have a gyroscopic flux motor that keeps all the energy in motion so it never loses its charge." Yuuno added. "From the looks of things it'd say its storage capacity is well over nine thousand megajoules."

Shari just gawked. "… I think I'm in love."

Yuuno laughed. "Well I hate to break it to you, but I'm afraid your new lover is going to be sealed away permanently once we're done with it. With this kind of payload we can't let it fall into the wrong hands."

"Um…" Miyako shyly raised her hand. "Sorry for being the dumb one in the room, but could you explain what you just said so I can understand it?"

"Oh, I'm sorry." Yuuno grinned sheepishly. "Basically this gun doesn't draw mana from a mage, but instead it takes energy from the surrounding environment and fires it."

"I guess you could call it a hand held Starlight Breaker." Shari mused.

"That's pretty apt, actually…" Yuuno chuckled.

"So the thing is just as powerful as Hummer claimed it was, then." Miyako mused.

"Yup." Shari nodded. "But come to think of it, it is strange…"

"What is?" Yuuno asked.

"It doesn't appear to be active at all right now." She explained. "There's no mana in the storage unit either… Is it broken, or does it just not work?"

"Hm…" Yuuno pondered. "Ms Suzuki, do you know anything about this? What did Hummer do to active it?"

The girl thought for a moment before shaking her head. "I don't know. He just brought it back to the base one day, saying how great it was and how with it he'd finally topple the Bureau."

"… And everyone believed him?" Shari arched an eyebrow.

"That's the thing with Hummer." Miyako shrugged. "He says things with such energy and conviction that you can't help but think everything he says is true. That's how he's been able to gather so many followers: when he says he'll take over the TSAB, others think it's inevitable. He could claim to be the second coming for the Saint Kaiser and no one would question it. So he never demonstrated the gun's power because he didn't need to."

"That's usually how charismatic leaders function." Yuuno stated. "So was it all just a bluff? I don't think so… It's made out of Orichalcum, which isn't something you can obtain to make a fake."

"Hmm…" Shari rotated the 3D model on screen. "Then there should be something… Aha!" She pointed to an area that had what appeared to have several buttons under the surface. "There's a key pad hidden here!"

Yuuno went to the gun and took it from its field. He rolled it over in his hands until he found the area in question on the side. "There must be some way to access it…"

Miyako joined him at his side. "I don't suppose saying 'Open Sesame' would…"

To the surprise of all those present, there was a faint whirring sound before the panel slid open, revealing ten buttons marked with Arabic numerals.

"… Wow, you mean that actually worked?" Shari gasped.

"… I guess so…" Miyako whispered.

"Hm… Close." Yuuno commanded, causing the panel to do just that. "Open." Again the orders were followed. "So it's set to our language… And I imagine that by inputting the proper numeric sequence, we can active the weapon."

"Wanna try randomly pushing buttons?" Shari suggested with a smirk.

"No, we don't know if we might set off some kind of defence system." Yuuno said.

"Then how can we…" Shari cut herself off with a yawn. "Oh, I'm sorry."

"Tired?" Yuuno smiled softly with a glance at the clock. "Wow, I guess it did become quite late."

"I'm fine." Shari waved it off. "Just the all nighter I pulled last night catching up with me. Griffith was in desperate need of my services and kept me up the whole time."

"Oh…" Yuuno flushed. "Well, maybe we should call it a night, then."

"Nah, I should be good for awhile longer." Shari insisted.

"I think I'll head off to bed, though." Miyako said, making her way to the door. She paused once there and looked over her shoulder at Yuuno. "I'm not sure of my way around here, so could you walk me to the room they gave me?"

"Huh?" Yuuno pointed dumbly at himself. "Me? But I'm not too familiar with the base either, plus…"

"Please?" She asked, those wistful eyes pulling him in.

"It's okay, professor." Shari chimed in. "I'll be fine on my own for a few minutes."

"Okay then…" Yuuno scratched the back of his head as he put the gun away before following Miyako out of the room. They made their way down the silent hallway, most of the base inactive at that hour.

"So…" Miyako broke the silence. "That was really impressive, the way you figured out how that gun worked."

"Thanks, but I couldn't have done it without Shari's help." He replied. "Yours either. You took a big risk but thanks to you we were able to get the artefact, and just now you figured out how to get the keypad open."

"That was just dumb luck, though." The girl chuckled. "What you did took brains and clearly you have a lot of those."

"Err, thank you Ms Suzuki…" Yuuno's face reddened. He really wasn't used to receiving so much praise at once.

"You can call me Miyako, Mr Scrya." She said.

"Okay, you can call me Yuuno then." He said back.

"Well then, Yuuno…" She looked down bashfully when she said it. "Can I ask you a question?"

"Sure."

"Enforcer Takamachi told me that you didn't have a girlfriend. Is that true?"

Yuuno reel back a bit. Why would Fate have told her that?

"Yes, it's true…" He said, slightly slumping his shoulders. "Why do you ask?"

"I was just surprised, that's all." She said. "I mean, I may have only known you for a short time, but I can tell you're a really good person."

"How can you tell?" He blinked in curiosity.

"It's just something you pick up on the street." She shrugged a shoulder. "You learn to tell if some one is genuinely being kind to you or if they're just acting so they can use you. You're the first man in a long time that has been truly nice to me, and I figured that some other girl would have claimed you already…"

"I think you may be viewing me too highly…" He smiled derisively. "I've never had much luck with women. Those I've been close to have all turned out to be lesbians, and I guess I'm too effeminate to attract other girls. Maybe it's my hair?" Yuuno pondered, reaching back to touch his ponytail.

"I think your hair makes you look very dashing!" Miyako stated firmly. "It makes you look like a prince! When I first saw you I thought that you were my prince charming, come to save me like in those fairy tales my mother would always read to me."

Yuuno just looked at her with wide eyes, causing her to look away and blush.

"Sorry, you must think it's weird for some one my age to still believe in fairy tales." She sighed. "But sometimes believing in them were the only thing that kept me going. I always held onto the hope that someday I'd be swept away by someone and taken somewhere that I could be happy. I really think that person is you."

"I-I see…" Yuuno stuttered. "But I still don't think…"

"No, I'm sure of it." Miyako shook her head. "You're kind, smart, capable, and handsome too. I… I really think I've fallen for you…"

Yuuno honestly didn't know what to say. This was the first time a female had shown genuine interest in him and had accepted the things many other girls had turned away from. He felt his heart beat rapidly, a comforting warmth spreading through his entire body. This alien sensation was anything but unpleasant and made him feel lighter than air. This must be what people described as 'having your head in the clouds.'

"I know we've just met and all," Miyako continued. "But after this is over, would you like to get together, you know, so we can get to know each other better?"

"O-Okay." Yuuno stammered out. "I… I would like that."

"Really?" Miyako beamed. "Thank you, Yuuno!" In a flash, she had leaned up and pressed her lips to his cheek. "I can find my way from here, so I'll see you tomorrow. Good night!"

"Good night…" He called after her as she disappeared around the corner. He just stood there a few moments before heading back, all the while resisting the urge to skip there. 'So that's why Fate sent her to the lab.' He realised. Suddenly the image of his friend giving him a thumbs up appeared in his head.

He had never felt so ecstatic before. Did everyone feel this way when they had some one who liked them? Would he ever be able to wipe this grin off his face?

Returning to the lab, Yuuno's expression softened as he saw Shari sleeping at her console, her head resting on her arms. Chuckling lightly he shed his suit coat and draped it over her shoulders.

He sat at another console and accessed the library's files again. The high he was currently on would never allow him to sleep, so he figured he should get some searching in. Perhaps he would be able to find the key to activating the Lost Logia somewhere in the ancient writings.

Eventually he came across a passage that stood out to him. It read 'The Light of God is brought forth by the three pronged code of battle.'

"Code of battle?" Yuuno wondered. "What could that be?"

He cooked that thought in his mind until he finally fell asleep.


I know the newest Force chapter has made Griffith/Lucino canon, but bear in mind I had this fic planned out long before Force came around.

While I did look up some stuff on wikipedia, a lot of the sciencey things are made up and probably horribly inaccurate, but please ignore that

About the prince bit, when Fate's new barrier jacket hair style was revealed, I kept seeing people go on about how Fate was like Nanoha's prince. Naturally my thoughts were "Uh... Yuuno's had that hair cut a lot longer, so how come he's not a prince too?"

Finding out some one is willing to go out with you really is a great feeling. I've only had the pleasure of experiencing it once, and even though it probably didn't actually count, I still fondly remember the feeling.