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China, the Bāyánkālā Mountains of Qīnghǎi, an hour before sunset (Toronto time: An hour after breakfast)...

"Welcome, honoured visitor, to the springs of Jusenkyō...Aiyah!" the guide who watched over Zhòuquán-xiāng then cried out on recognizing the beautiful Japanese girl who had just appeared in the mists that always seemed to drape over the valley of the Pools of Sorrow. "You are the Lóng de Péng'yǒu!"

A polite bow was made in acknowledgement. "Indeed I am, good guide," Inada Mizuho replied, grateful he spoke Japanese as she herself wasn't fluent in any of the common tongues of the Middle Kingdom even if she did recognize the Mandarin term for "Friend of Dragons". She held the Staff of Gihan in hand, its large focusing crystal pulsing as it sensed the power of the springs probe its controller in hopes of claiming yet another victim. "I apologize for intruding upon you this beautiful evening, but I have an odd requirement that I pray you may be able to assist me with."

He blinked, then sat upon a nearby rock, pulling out a pipe. "How could a humble guide like me assist someone like you?"

"Up in space, aboard the great starship Haida, an innocent man — an artificial being called an 'android', not to mince words — lies on the brink of death because of ten years of hideous mental abuse forced upon him by his witless sire and a society that mortally feared the very idea of original thought."

He smirked. "One of those who enslaved the Space Angels, you mean?"

"Exactly. This fellow was, in effect, made an overseer to the beautiful women who now serve aboard Haida and her sistership Yamato as their founding crew. I sensed that he was not truly evil. Nay! In fact, he was as much a victim as those he was meant to help keep in chains. Thus, he deserves a chance to live a real life as an Avalonian." She then gave him a wry smile. "There is, unfortunately, one small problem."

She waved towards the pools of Zhòuquán-xiāng. The guide blinked, then he nodded. "The great birthing factory of the Space Angels can only create women, not men. You desire to use the waters of the Nánnìquán to ensure his new body would be of his proper gender." He hummed. "You'll need the Zhǐshuǐtǒng to lock his body into its cursed form. No matter what, the magic of this place will not release the curse unless he parents children. If he does so in his 'cursed' body..."

"Forever he will be a man," she finished for him.

He nodded, then the guide pointed to one spring. "There is the Nánnìquán, Lóng de Péng'yǒu," he stated. "But be careful, lest you be cursed yourself."

Mizuho raised the Staff as its focusing crystal glowed...


The village of the Nǚjiézú, minutes later...

"«Honoured Guide!»"

"«Hello, Zhùpié!»" the guide stated with a polite bow of his head as a young woman who looked like a raven-haired version of Nǚ Shānpú came up to him from her post at the main village gates. "«I apologize for disturbing you this evening, but the Lóng de Péng'yǒu comes seeking the assistance of the Noble Tribe to save an innocent life.»"

Hearing that, Nǚ Zhùpié — "Spray" — blinked before her eyes fell on the young woman standing with the guide. Quick to sense she was one of the barbarians of the Northeast Islands of the Wa, the young warrior was equally quick to dismiss the guide's unbelievable claim that she could possibly be the Friend of Dragons, the mysterious woman who — atop seeking to accept the ancient philosophy of the great sage Zaraϑuštra Spitāma as her own faith — always appeared to defend magical beings such as dragons from human poachers; given the Noble Tribe's place on the very divide between the magical and the mundane, the tales of the many deeds of the Friend of Dragons were known to the Nǚjiézú.

She then looked into the other woman's pale blue eyes.

On seeing what lurked in those orbs, Spray felt her knees weaken as she found herself fervently praying she would never have cause to look into those eyes ever again in her lifetime!

What in the Names of the Goddesses has this one gone through?! she mentally croaked on seeing the horrid, bleeding pain etched in those young yet old orbs.

"«Zhùpié! What is it?!»"

Spray gulped, then she turned. "«The Lóng de Péng'yǒu comes here, Elder!»"

Surprised gasps echoed from inside the village walls, then the gates were opened to allow a grey-haired woman appearing to be in her early sixties to emerge. Seeing her, Mizuho was quick to note the distant similarity between this one and the stalker the warrior-maiden Shampoo — now wife/bond-mate to the living spirit of the Niángnìquán calling herself "Hayashi Kikuko" — had to deal with until recently. Noting the shame and pain in the elder woman's eyes, Mizuho could only shake her head; no doubt, the actions of this one's kinsman hurt her. Like her fellow elder and Shampoo's great-grandmother Cologne, she was dressed in ornate robes reflecting her station as one of the leaders of this small tribe of warriors.

She then sensed the elder's dark eyes fall on her for a moment before she nodded in grave understanding. "You are the Lóng de Péng'yǒu," she then declared in very good Japanese even if she used the Mandarin nickname for the visiting would-be warrior-priestess, which made the younger warriors in hearing range of this gape in awe on realizing that such an august person had come to visit them. "What brings you to our village, young lady?"

"I seek waters touched by this...Zhǐshuǐtǒng device, was it?" Mizuho then stated, stuttering the harsh Mandarin syllables, as she gazed on the guide, who nodded. "It is to give a new and free life to a poor man — one born of 'metal magic' as the mystically inclined on Earth would call such a process — who was effectively enslaved by the mad ones who also enslaved my adopted kinswomen who fled to this world months ago with the assistance of the Earth Angel and her siblings."

Liào Lǚoé — "Aloe" — blinked as her mind interpreted that, and then she scowled. Spray — who spoke good Japanese herself — then gaped as it hit her. "He's an android?!" she demanded.

"Indeed he is, Lady Warrior Spray," Mizuho stated. "And I apologize if I mangled your true name, but mastering the sounds spoken in this most ancient land has always been quite difficult for me." She inwardly smirked on seeing Spray madly blush on being called "lady warrior"; even if Mizuho couldn't as yet master things like languages beyond what she had learned in the dimension of her birth, she knew through her own beliefs that showing kindness and respect to others often went a very long way. "This fellow is an android, built to be the replacement son of a man from Phentax Two who lost his real child many years ago...but because he was built on a world whose artisans could create beings as human as you or I, his ability to think for himself — and even more so, create for himself! — so frightened his witless sire that powerful programming caps were slammed onto his soul over a period of ten years to render him nought more than a mere robot. No different than what his father's race saw the Avalonians as."

Gasps escaped both Aloe and Spray on hearing that, then the elder woman hummed before she blinked. "You went to Jusenkyō before coming here! You gained the waters of the Spring of Drowned Man, didn't you?!" As Mizuho nodded, she then chuckled. "So you need the waters touched by the Locking Ladle to allow this poor young man's new body to remain a man until he fathers a child and can truly live as a man."

"Indeed so, Obā-sama," Mizuho stated with a bow of her head, making Aloe blush on being called that by the visiting would-be warrior-priestess. "And given what the good guide of the Pools of Sorrow here told me of that particular device, I care not to deal with your neighbours nearby who actually possess it. Given their willingness to transform innocent animals into breeding stock for their warriors..." She shook her head.

Aloe laughed. "The Great Dragons have spoken of your kindness and willingness to defend their clutches and hatchlings from poachers, young lady!" she stated before she sobered. "They also spoke of the level of giri you feel towards your friends wherever you are staying now. How their fears stemming from whatever horror you all experienced before you came to our reality forces you to remain silent concerning even your own name to others." She then nodded. "You will have the waters of the Zhǐshuǐtǒng, Lóng de Péng'yǒu." Her eyes then sparkled in amusement. "With one small favour in return."

"Whatever within my power...as long as it does not threaten those I protect."

An approving nod from the older woman. "When the day comes that you no longer need to stay silent over who you are and how you came to be with us, come here to tell us your tale. I can see in your eyes that you stared the Goddess of Death right in Her Face before you transitioned to our reality. I know not why that happened...though I suspect that it was done in a way that is quite common in the land and time you hail from." Aloe smiled. "In the end, all I ask is that you appease an old woman's curiosity, young lady. Why would innocent women who have not been prepared for battle be made to die?"

Mizuho nodded. "If the Wise Lord allows it to happen, Obā-sama, it will happen."

Aloe nodded in return. "Let the Fates allow it to come soon."


Minutes later...

Mizuho teleported herself away from the valley of the Nǚjiézú with two sealed bottles of magically-touched waters in hand. As the guide parted from Aloe before returning to his hut in the valley of Zhòuquán-xiāng to resume his own timeless watch over the many cursed pools there, Mousse's grandmother was quick to see a look of contemplation on Spray's face. "«What is it, Zhùpié?»" the elder asked. "«You sense something about her?»"

She nodded. "«Indeed I do, Elder. Strange as this will sound, she feels familiar.»"

Aloe blinked. "«She's never visited the valley before in her travels.»"

Spray shook her head. "«No! It's not that! It's that...!»" She sighed. "«I saw it in her eyes. You were right, Elder. She's stared the Goddess of Death right in the face...and was yanked from Her Embrace by something that also brought her friends here. It reminds me of something...but I can't recall what it is.»"

The older woman hummed. "«Perhaps it's one of those translated manga you have imported from the Land of the Wa that you like so much,»" Aloe then gently scolded; Spray's mad passion concerning Japanese manga was a running joke to all of her kinsmen within the village.

Spray blinked — while she didn't care for the barbarians of the Northeast Islands of the Wa as a people, she did like a lot of their popular literature — then she hummed. "«Maybe it could be that...»"

"«What do you mean?»" the older woman asked, surprised by the serious tone in the young warrior-maiden's words.

"«It's been proven by our magical friends that what is real in one reality is fiction in another reality; the actual news of events between the realities being imperfectly transmitted between the veils that separate the different dimensions and timelines,»" Spray stated; like all in the village, she was fully aware of magic and had friends who now served in the Chinese Ministry of Magical Affairs. "«Perhaps it's possible that the Lóng de Péng'yǒu hails from a reality that is — in our eyes — a work of fiction.»" She then scowled. "«But which one? The potential choices are so many...!»"

Aloe chuckled. "«Think of that when you're not watching over the gates, Zhùpié,»" she then instructed. "«But if you do draw a potential theory as to the true name of the Lóng de Péng'yǒu, stay silent over it. Remember, she protects her friends who cannot protect themselves. Always respect that one fact about her, young lady.»"

The younger warrior bowed. "«I will, Elder!»"


H.M.C.S. Haida, in orbit over Toronto, the wardroom, two hours later (Local time: An hour before lunch)...

"Commander Kakazu, it's an honour and a pleasure to welcome you aboard Radisson."

Azu Kakazu smiled as she shook the hand of the lieutenant commander who had taken her formal citizenship oath to the Crown, then taken her Oath of Allegiance to formally welcome her into the Canadian Armed Forces. As the others in the room applauded, two of the younger officers serving as part of the ship's company in the naval reserve division based in the city of Trois-Rivières on the Saint Lawrence River halfway between Montréal and Québec City moved to replace her basic epaulette slip-ons with new ones bearing the gold-on-medium blue shoulder flash of Navire Canadien de Sa Majesté Radisson. "It's an honour to be aboard, Commander Beaulieu," she said before she gazed at her new administrative commanding officer's rank insignia. "I hope you don't think I'll be coming by soon to take command of the ship."

Hearing that, Bertrand Beaulieu laughed. "Don't worry about that, Kakazu," the seventh commanding officer of Radisson stated as he made a dismissive wave of his hand; he would be turning over command to a new captain on Saturday. "The older NRDs will be allowed to have their COs become full captains or commanders so they would be dual-hatted as flotilla commanders for the new NRDs being formed thanks to your Terran-form sisters. While I won't serve in that capacity after I'm relieved, my successor will be promoted to commander sometime soon and assume administrative responsibility for not just Radisson but the NRDs being stood up at Drummondville and Sherbrooke, Saint-François and Estrie."

"I'm surprised they're not allowing officers like us to join up with the new units," Kakazu's bond-mate Azu Kakaru then mused. She had taken her oaths prior to her lover's; as the former mistress of the Yashi-class corvette that had been the mobile home for the Renning sisters, Kakazu had insisted on all her subordinate officers being sworn in first. Kakaru herself had just joined the ship's company of Navire Canadien de Sa Majesté Donnacona in Montréal; even though the bonded couples among the plank owners were permitted to serve together on Haida, commanders of other units of the Navy — indeed, commanders in the rest of the Canadian Armed Forces — were all leery on the idea of such couples serving together in the same home unit elsewhere. "It'll help them become fully operational a lot faster."

"Even with the few personnel who've transferred to help out, they're doing pretty good already," the captain of Donnacona, Lieutenant Commander Geoff Hamilton, chuckled.

"What about you, Commander?" Horan Vanna then asked. She had just joined the 6e Bataillon of le Royal 22e Régiment in Saint-Hyacinthe east of Montréal on the Trans-Canada Highway; her bond-mate Tenwan Caril had joined the 4e Bataillon of the same regiment in Laval to the north of Québec's largest city.

"I'll be brevet promoted to captain, Major," he replied. "The commanding officer of Donnacona will also serve as the captain of the Western Québec Flotilla, which will include Richelieu in Saint-Jean-sur-Richelieu, Barthélemy in Joliette, Lachute in the city of the same name and la Hulloise in Gatineau near Ottawa."

"If it's two NRDs in a flotilla, the senior officer will be a commander. Three or more NRDs will be commanded by a captain. Regional commanders will be commodores," Beaulieu added. "Except for whoever takes command of Qikiqtaaluk, though."

Sebone Shikuko blinked in confusion. She had, at her boyfriend's request, come to the wardroom to witness the swearing-in of all the older gynoids-turned-bioroids while he was busy down on the ground in Port Robinson arranging things for a few people. "'Qikiqtaaluk'?!" she asked, trying not to stutter out the strange syllables.

"The Inuktitut name for Baffin Island, Ms. Sebone," the captain of Radisson stated. "The new NRD we're forming up there will be based in the capital of Iqaluit." He then smirked. "Even though they're going to commission a new H.M.C.S. Baffin to serve up north — that'll be the name-ship of the new arctic patrol vessels the Avalonians are building for the Navy — they decided to use the native name for the new NRD since they don't want to use the old European name for the place."

"What was that?" Noberu Miyako asked; she was now seated beside her bond-mate.

"Frobisher Bay," the older man answered.

"Actually, they'll be using the old English name for the place as the name for the naval supplementary communications unit they're basing up there," Michelle Anderson noted. She had joined her permanent shipmates and the other former Urusian Defence Force officers in witnessing the oaths taken by the former gynoids. "Ditto with the NSCUs they're forming in Qausuittuq, Qamani'tuaq, Iqaluktuuttiaq, Kuujjuaq and Inukjuaq. All of them will be tenders to Qikiqtaaluk."

"Where are those places?" Noberu Miyako asked.

"Qausuittuq is Resolute Bay; that's on Cornwallis Island on the north shore of the Northwest Passage," Michelle answered. "Qamani'tuaq is Baker Lake; that's in the middle of the mainland part of Nunavut. Iqaluktuuttiaq is Cambridge Bay; that's a town at the west end of Nunavut. Kuujjuaq used to be called Fort Chimo; that's on Ungava Bay in northern Québec. And Inukjuaq is Port Harrison on the shore of Hudson Bay in northwest Québec, way up near Ungava Strait."

"That must make the admiral pretty happy," Elaine Cooper noted.

"What do you mean, Doc?" Romaine Xavier wondered.

"They're bringing back Conestoga as a tender to Prestonian. It'll serve as a reserve supplementary communications unit."

"Oh! That was the place Admiral Thompkins first trained at!" Del Ula exclaimed. She had joined H.M.C.S. Prevost in London, which was the naval reserve division that was providing support to the newly-formed H.M.C.S. Prestonian in nearby Kitchener. "Wasn't that based at an old girl's reform school?!"

"It was...but don't say that in front of the admiral, please!" Elaine warned as she held up a cautioning hand. "When she trained there as a third officer candidate, she could sense the empathic echoes of all the suffering and anger the girls who were incarcerated at that place before the war felt. It was a wonder to General Raeburn when she took her on as part of the War Hawks that the admiral was able to get through basic officer's training at Conestoga without going totally insane."

"What about my basic training?"

Everyone snapped to attention as Heather Thompkins walked in. After the admiral waved everyone at ease, Bren Tai said, "Doctor Cooper was telling us of what you went through when you did your basic officer's course at Conestoga, ma'am."

Heather blinked before she glared at Elaine, who made a warding sign with her hand to avert whatever curse or hex the older woman was about to unleash. "Didn't I once tell you to not say anything about that, Elaine?" she coldly inquired.

"That was my fault, ma'am," Ula said with an apologetic look. As Heather gazed on the silver-haired Oni-form Avalonian, the younger woman bowed her eyes. "I'm sorry, ma'am. But when I was talking to Commander White, he was telling me about the fun he and the others at Prevost were having helping Prestonian get organized." She waved to H.M.C.S. Prevost's captain, Lieutenant Commander Jeffrey White. "He told me about Conestoga being the base of your old service." She blushed. "Doctor Cooper just warned us not to speak too much about what happened when you were there."

Heather hummed before nodding. "So consider that a non-countermandable order from me, Lieutenant," she sternly stated before gazing at the others in the room. "That goes for the rest of you as well." As people in the room braced to attention, she said, "Believe me, while I can understand all your curiosity about what I went through when I was your age, I don't like reflecting on certain things. What I picked up while I was at Conestoga is one of them. Alright?"

"Yes, ma'am!" everyone chanted.

"Good! Now...!"

Heather then croaked out in shock on feeling something slam into her mind from aft. "ADMIRAL!" Elaine screamed out as she and several others moved to catch her from falling face-first onto the deck. "Lynn! Lie! Sien! Give me a hand here!"

Instantly, Lynn Kennison was at the doctor's side as she moved to mind-probe the older woman. Also helping Elaine were two provisional medical officers originally born as gynoids, Lieutenants (Navy) Uio Lie and Seq Sien. Their templates had been chosen for replication because they were fully-qualified general practitioners who had specialized in pediatrics; the real Lie and Sien had been killed during the recent purges due to their passionate and open support of the Imperial Round. Fortunately for them, the prior example of Terran-form Avalonian healers — usually hailing from the outer colony worlds of the Phentax system, where they gained their knowledge thanks to native doctors, nurses and other health care providers who saw the bioroids as living beings and not "mere machines" — and the good work they had done since the Liberation had paved the way for both Lie and Sien to seek out proper accreditation as MDs with the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Ontario after a residency period under Elaine's supervision as well as time working at either the Hospital for Sick Children in Toronto or McMaster Children's Hospital in Hamilton. Administratively, Lie had joined 25 Field Ambulance in Toronto while Sien joined its Hamilton-based sister unit, 23 Field Ambulance.

"A real powerful psychic burst," Lie reported after doing a light probe of the older woman's mind. She was an Oni-form with long sandy blonde hair and dark brown eyes. "It came at her totally without warning. She's trying to..."

"Don't probe too much, Lie," Elaine ordered as Lynn injected a stimulant into Heather's neck. "Her Occlumency training will overwhelm you if you're not careful..."

"I'm not...as clumsy as...that, Elaine...!"

Heather's eyes fluttered as the door to the wardroom swooped open to reveal an amused Luna Lovegood. On seeing the retired supreme mugwump of the International Conference of Magical Communities once more on her knees, the magical naturalist and news magazine reporter sighed. "Don't tell me!" she mused as she knelt before the veteran of World War Two, drawing out her wand as she performed some basic field healing diagnostics. "Let me guess. It's her again, isn't it?!"

"Yes...came straight from aft this time," Heather moaned.

Douglas Tremblay cursed before he walked over to a nearby dataPADD. Tapping controls to do a quick internal scan of the ship, the Army military police officer blinked as he waited for a response...then, when it came, his jaw dropped in surprise. "Admiral, we just had a bioroid sent aboard the ship in holding stasis," he said as he gazed on Heather. "Deck A9 Aft, Electronics Equipment Maintenance Room Fifteen." He then blinked. "Hey, wait a minute..."

"That's Mayumi's lab!" Jessica Miller exclaimed.

Douglas grunted. "Shit!" And with that, he was running out of the room, yanking out his communicator to send a message down to his people in Regulatory Flats...


Deck A9 Aft, five minutes later...

"What in Lyna's name is going on here?!"

Douglas turned as a very annoyed would-be ATIS technician stormed out from the nearby turbolift station, flanked on either side by two equally annoyed would-be infantry soldiers in full CADPATs with C7A2s at the ready. Noting the soaked hair and sweaty faces on both Triela Hilshire and Henrietta Croce, the military police officer was quick to conclude that both had come running up from the ship's gymnasium when they got the alert — no doubt, a psychic flash — from Asai Mayumi concerning something weird going on in her private work space. Following the three plank owners was a scowling Marc Duchesne. "Interrupt something, Sergeant-Major?" Douglas asked with a smirk.

"Yes, sir," the infantry battalion RSM said with a polite nod as Triela and Henrietta moved to take positions alongside Don Glas and the other members of the ship's security force, including eight of Haida's plank owners who were going to train as military policewomen after the turn of the year. They had formed two assault lines leading to the door of EEMR 15. "I just found out that while the new members of Number 1 Company are quite enthusiastic about serving in a new line regiment, they've fallen behind on basic drills." Noting Mayumi was accessing a bulkhead-mounted dataPADD next to the doorway to her sanctum sanctorum, Duchesne added, "Insane as this is going to sound to you, Captain, Miss Hilshire, Miss Croce and their sisters are in BETTER shape than the people I got from Valcartier...which surprises the hell out of me since the Première Bataillon is supposed to be heading to Kandahār this year. If we were deployed to Afghanistan, I'd choose to take the girls with me first!" He shook his head as the Avalonians sensed the mixture of annoyance and delight the former special forces operator now felt at the idea of getting the chance to personally hammer a whole bunch of lazy soldiers into a proper fighting battalion of the Canadian Army. "As soon as we get the drafts for Two and Three Companies here in the next few days, I'll arrange to drag them to Meaford for a month of combat drills. Hopefully, that will get them into shape."

"God, sir, you're cruel!" Don Glas chuckled. "What will you use for the OPFOR?!"

"I'm debating asking some friends from the 75th or CSOR to help out."

Rueful chuckles escaped the people around them as they imagined what an opposition force composed of American Army Rangers or members of the Canadian Special Operations Regiment — the Dominion's equivalent to the 75th Ranger Regiment in the United States — would do to a short battalion of Canadian Army line soldiers...before they all gaped as the door to Mayumi's workshop swooped open. "Mayumi!" Douglas barked out as she stormed in. "For God's sake, will you...!"

"It's alright, sir," Takizawa Kaoru said as she straightened herself. "Mayumi put in some sub-routines into the ship's internal security systems to tell her personally if something goes wrong in her shop. Whatever is in there is safe."

Hearing that, he sighed. "Alright! Stand down!" he ordered. As the other people relaxed themselves, he walked through the doorway into Mayumi's space to see the would-be ATIS technician standing in the middle of the room, fists to hips as she gazed forward. Looking that way, he then blinked on seeing the gestation chamber now sitting on the deck beside the diagnostic bed holding the still Sunmee dai-Kohl. As Duchesne and Glas came in, followed by Triela, Henrietta and Kaoru, the military police officer gazed on the ship's resident mad scientist. "What happened?"

Mayumi sighed as she walked over to stand at the foot of the gestation chamber, waving the others over. "Someone has just discovered how to make a male bioroid, Captain," she said as she indicated the still form inside the glass tube.

People gazed wide-eyed at her before looking themselves. "How's that possible, Private Asai?" Duchesne asked. "It's been stated again and again that the factory is not programmed to create male Avalonians. How the hell did THIS happen?!"

"That's what I want to find out before I even contemplate allowing tre'cha to happen in this case," Mayumi stated as she adjusted her glasses. "Though..."

"It seems that our mysterious sister templated him to serve as Sunmee's new body."

Eyes locked on Kaoru, who was standing at Mayumi's work desk. "How did you...oh!" Glas asked before the blonde tomboy held up a folded sheet of paper with Mayumi's name written on the outside. Noting she was holding the letter by one corner so as to not contaminate it with fingerprints, he nodded. Untrained though she was, Takizawa Kaoru was showing the right instincts...which only needed a good coat of polish thanks to the teachers at the Canadian Forces Military Police Academy in Borden to make her one fine officer of the law. He knew that she and her sisters would do their community college courses to give them diplomas in law enforcement after they returned to Haida; normally, this was done BEFORE prospective military policemen were welcomed into the Forces. "Scan that for fingerprints please, Kaoru," he ordered.

"I doubt you'll find any."

People spun as Luna Lovegood came in, followed by Heather Thompkins. "What do you mean, Lovegood-sensei?" Mayumi asked as the admiral walked over to kneel beside the gestation chamber, waving her hand to begin diagnostic spells.

"Whenever our wonderful dragon-lover has stopped poachers and other evil-doers, she leaves behind notes like the one your sister here has in her fingers," Luna said as she waved to the note in question. "Always written via some sort of computer. Nothing hand-written. And there are no traces of fingerprints or ANY other biometric signature on those notes — magical or non — to give us any trace we could use to track her down."

"Why would she be so cautious?" Duchesne wondered. "Given all the good that woman's done over the last few months, who would complain about her?"

"People who see dragons as no different than cattle or sheep, Marc," Heather stated as she allowed a scanning pentagram to appear before her. "Magical dragons native to Earth — if you haven't been briefed on them — possess human-level intelligence. While the ICMC instituted strict controls on culling of physical body parts when I was in charge of it back in the Fifties, there's always been a large underground market for such things, normally driven by the staleblood, inbred idiots in Europe who think they're superior to every other living being on the planet. Confronting a woman — a 'muggle' at that — trying to stop them from killing dragons while possessing power equal to Dean's would make a lot of people upset. 'Who gives the muggles the right to interfere with US?' and all that rot!" A snort escaped her.

"And if her friends aren't properly protected, they can be targeted in retaliation," Luna added. "Something tells me, however, that our dragon-lover and her friends have been through something quite worse. The one time I got very close to her, I couldn't ignore the aura of sheer PAIN she kept buried deep inside her heart...which was matched to a determination to ensure nothing would ever hurt her again by any means possible."

"And given how ignorant most dragon-poachers are to modern technology, confronting someone packing a Lawgiver or a Peacemaker — or whatever weird weapon our friend possesses — who can hit from far beyond normal duelling range for wands wouldn't compute," Heather finished before her eyes went wide. "Oh, ho! Looks like she paid Zhòuquán-xiāng a recent visit. Not to mention got hold of the Zhǐshuǐtǒng to lock the curse in."

"Nánnìquán, Admiral?" Luna asked.

The older woman returned that look. "What else would one use?"

Douglas perked. "Isn't that what Miss Miyamoto's friend got hit with, ma'am?"

"Ranma got dosed with the curse of the Niángnìquán, Doug," Heather reported; the ship's universal translator fields would make the Army captain understand what that word meant. "As Luna just surmised, Sunmee's new body here got the opposite, the Nánnìquán. Atop that, the curse was locked into place thanks to a magical artifact that a neighbouring tribe to the Nǚjiézú, the Màshǐké, presently possess. One splash of water touched with the Zhǐshuǐtǒng will block the body from being reverted back to its original form." She dispersed her diagnostic spells before straightening herself. "No doubt, our friend learned of the one way one can stay in a cursed form after being hit with a curse from Zhòuquán-xiāng."

By then, Kaoru had finished scanning the letter with a tricorder and was now opening it. A quick scan of the note there before she handed it to Mayumi. "Outside the Faravahar symbol that identifies our sister as a practising Zoroastrian, the letter's unsigned," the would-be military policewoman reported. "It confirms what you just reported...but there's an extra note added to it saying our sister's scanned Sunmee from afar and states it'll be safe to go straight to tre'cha with him."

"I'd rather have a mind-healer look at him first," Mayumi cautioned.

Heather nodded. "You feel safe in activating Sunmee to the standby state you had Lara in when we had her own the hangar deck yesterday so people can look him over?" she asked.

The younger woman smiled. "There was no physical damage to any of his operational systems, Admiral. When he was hit with that bolt of energy on Sunday, his internal systems automatically shielded his higher brain functions from any power overload by doing an emergency shut-down. After what we've seen of his mind, he'll be stunted emotionally because of the programming caps...but I think we can go ahead with the tre'cha after he's checked over one last time by Hitora, Commander Kennison and I. You as well, of course."

"Well, let's get him to Sick Bay," the admiral bade...


Sick Bay, after lunch...

"Oh, my! I never thought he was so handsome!"

Henrietta smiled before she gazed on Miyamoto Kasumi. She, along with Triela and all the plank owners who had volunteered to become military policewomen, had helped Mayumi transport Sunmee and his replacement body down from the latter's laboratory. The would-be doctor had just returned from Port Robinson; Ataru and his sister Negako were still down there as they worked with Maijima Karen to plot out the locations of new places of residence for all the people that had just joined Haida in the last few days. "Yes, he is that, isn't he?!" She then sighed. "I just hope she's right."

"The Vinur Drekar?" Kasumi asked.

"Oh, my! You like that term, too?!"

The eldest daughter of Tendō Sōun giggled as Luna joined them. "Of course!" she said as she gazed on the magical reporter. "The term sounds so exotic to me! Is it true that the Icelanders are actually descent from the Vikings?"

"Yes, they are...on both sides of the secrecy divide," Luna affirmed with a nod. She had felt an emotional kinship with Miyamoto Kasumi since they had met on the Hood when the Task Force had gone to Yaminokuni. Both women had lost their mothers at roughly the same time in their lives, which had emotionally scarred them very deeply. Both had to become virtual replacement homemakers for their widowed fathers...though Kasumi had faced the extra task of helping raise her younger sisters Nabiki and Akane along the way. And both had to gain some very powerful friends to help them fully recover from the loss of their mothers and move on with their lives. "But if you ask me, Iceland is what our American friends would call a 'mixed' situation. Since most normal Icelanders believe the Huldufólk really do exist to one extent or another, I really doubt that the Statute of Secrecy is needed there anymore."

Kasumi nodded. "Why was the Statute passed in the first place?"

"Well, rhabdophobia — it's also called 'mageiophobia' — was just too rampant in Europe at the time it was written up," Luna confessed. "Yes, with the appearance of the Steel Angels in the 1920s and metahumans like Elaine, Lynn and Maria in the 1930s — to say anything of the admiral herself in the 1940s when she became part of the War Hawks — it does sound a little absurd these days to keep the Statute going. Atop that, back in the 1600s, families like the Malfoys loved to interact with the royal court of England; some claim an ancestor of my 'friend' Draco Malfoy cursed Queen Elizabeth because she didn't want anything to do with him...though he wouldn't have got away with it since magicals were bound by oaths of loyalty to the Crown long before the Separation Act was made law." She then smirked. "Which proves what sort of hypocrites the stalebloods that backed Tom Riddle really are in the long term."

Kasumi hummed. "After I met you and Mister Boot, I've read about what you and your friends went through back in the 1990s because of that awful Riddle fellow and his friends. Didn't people like the Malfoys pick up on the fact that their leader was actually a half-blood? And a half-blood with a 'muggle' father?" She made quote-marks on saying that. "At least Harry Potter's parents were both magical even if his mother was a normal-born."

"The first generation of Death Eaters — Draco's grandfather Abraxas, for example — probably saw Tom's descent from Headmaster Slytherin as the main factor in acknowledging him as their spiritual leader," Luna answered. "They must have believed that because he was directly descent from one of the Founders of Hogwarts, the magical power of the Slytherin line would erase Tom's 'muggle' taint. If they knew of it, of course; Tom was always a very secretive fellow." She snorted before gazing on the still bioroid on the diagnostic bed in the recovery room; Sunmee was in a nearby isolation ward, being examined in detail by Maria Kennison with the help of Mayumi and a few others before he would be permitted to become a bioroid. "By the time the next generation came along in the 1960s, whatever clues might have been there connecting Voldemort to Tom Riddle had been eliminated. Albus Dumbledore knew the truth, but he always stayed quiet about it."

"Why?"

"Hard to say. Letting that information go public might have worked to erode some support from Voldemort when he started making waves in the 1970s, but I doubt it. After all, the Meretrice family in Rhosan Green knew the truth about him and they'd been pretty much cut off from normal wizarding society for years. There was too much in the way of mugalophobia driving their desire to 'purify' the wizarding world of normal influence." She snorted. "Of course, if they actually succeeded in driving the normal-borns and 'blood traitors' out of Britain, the ICMC would have gladly come in and crushed them. They didn't want to see the Queen call Admiral Thompkins and her friends into it."

Kasumi giggled. The sheer THREAT the War Hawks could present to any potential foe was enough to make even the most rabid attacker take pause before assaulting something or someone under the protection of any or all of the veterans of the 1st Canadian Specialized Warfare Unit. Given they were all physically in their late twenties — many credited Dean Raeburn's Power Jewel as the primary cause of their quasi-immortality — the veterans of Canada's first metahuman fighting team were quite capable of unleashing damage at a continental scale when provoked. Even more so, if the War Hawks were dragged into any sort of battle, not only would the attacker be DEAD after s/he was detected, those who supported such an attack would be hunted to the ends of the earth — and the galaxy, too! — by the Canadian team without delay, ensuring it wouldn't happen again. Given the ease by which the Prime Minister of Canada could have called Earth's Jewel Warrior back to official duty the previous summer if the Tag Race had gone totally south for Moroboshi Ataru, it amazed Kasumi that the leadership on Uru actually went forward with their "invasion" in the first place. Never mind the presence of Moroboshi Negako in Ataru's mind at the time — Kasumi knew of the "self-defence trigger" in the magic of the Promise of Bunka-gonen that made any lethal attack on the host of the Saikō Jinseijutsu a guaranteed suicide run — Dean Raeburn could have been back to Earth from wherever she was within MINUTES, tearing into the Kashin with the same brutal, deadly élan she demonstrated against members of Nazi Germany's Übermenschen Gruppe and metahuman agents of Imperial Japan's Black Dragon Society across Canada and the United States during the years between the attack on Pearl Harbour near the end of 1941 and the invasion of Normandy thirty months later.

Such arrogant, stupid people! the eldest Miyamoto daughter mused to herself before she tensed as the door leading to the isolation room opened. "Eh?!" she called out.

Everyone turned as the still-faceless Sunmee walk slowly out of the isolation room, a fibre-optic cable connected to the open programming port on his breastbone, that connected to Mayumi's dataPADD; he was being guided along by the would-be ATIS technician. As Henrietta guided Kasumi and Luna away from the android now approaching the bed bearing his replacement body, Lynn Kennison walked over to a nearby table so she could slip on a pair of meson-lined gloves. Just as he was about to walk straight into the bed, Mayumi keyed a control to stop Sunmee. "How is he?" Kasumi asked as she tried to use her empathic senses to scan the android, shivering on sensing next to nothing inside him.

"He's still a mess," Lynn breathed out as she walked over to stand next to the newly-formed bioroid's right side. "He's in there...but he's been suppressed for so long, I don't know what shape he'll be in when we shift his soul over to his new body. I sure hope whoever the girl was that created this bioroid is right on target."

"Are there Avalonian mind-healers in Canada who can help?" Luna asked the chief nurse.

"About three dozen to my knowledge," Elaine stated as she came out, a medical tricorder in hand. Uio Lie and Seq Sien followed her out, both with dataPADDs of their own in hand so they could make notes on what they were observing here. "Most of them are busy with the hybrid-only communities in the more remote sections of Ontario, Québec and the Prairies, though; I doubt we could get anyone up here to work with this fellow."

"Then again, there is basic intimate therapy, Doctor," Sien proposed. Another of the Seishin-form gynoids who watched over the Renning sisters for the last three years, she had neck-length chocolate brown hair and amber-brown eyes. "Even if he had been used in an 'overseer' role here, all Sunmee would have to do is mind-meld with any of the girls here — or on Yamato — to understand all the good that's been done to them and their sisters elsewhere. Atop that, his father is dead, so whatever 'mission' he was programmed to follow that brought him here really has no meaning anymore." She then giggled as she gazed fondly on Uio; they were bond-mates. "Then again, there is the marei'cha option as well."

"True," the blonde Oni-form Avalonian giggled in turn.

Elaine groaned as she exchanged an "Are they serious?!" look with Maria Kennison, who had helped her twin and the others examine Sunmee. As the intelligence officer based in Kingston tried to not roll her eyes at her friend's reaction, both Luna — who was quite empathic in her own way even if she wasn't an Avalonian — and Kasumi stifled back their snickers on seeing the chief medical officer's reaction to something that struck her as horribly unprofessional. "Well, I suppose there's no real time than the present to see if the Vinur Drekar is right about this situation," the would-be doctor from Japan noted. "Besides, Doctor Sien has a point. After I crossed over, I had my time of the month with Narumi almost within an hour. I'm sure one of the unattached girls here would be perfect for him. A pity Tori took you, Mayumi."

"It was the luck of the Te'a, Kasumi," Mayumi said as she tapped controls to make sure Sunmee remained in diagnostic mode to allow the tre'cha to go through as smoothly as possible. "But you're right about the possibility of one of the girls aboard netting him. Etta, you're pretty much single. You want to scoop this fellow up?"

"No!" Henrietta exclaimed. "I want to get through basic and trades training first before I worry about a bond-mate!" She then smiled as her cheeks slightly reddened. "Besides, there is Elsa!"

"'Elsa'?" Luna asked.

"Elsa de Sica, Luna," Kasumi provided. "She's another one of the girls aboard the ship who was physically based on one of the Gunslinger Girl characters when she was created. Tragic character; when her fratello rejected her love for him, she shot him in the back of the head, then turned the gun on herself."

Luna blinked. "Why?!"

"Gunslinger Girl is the story of child cyborgs turned into Terminator-like beings to do the dirty work of the Italian government," Henrietta stated. "My namesake there was a child who was the survivor of a hit on a family by some criminal gang. She was also raped and left for dead. When she was rebuilt as a cyborg, she had her memories wiped out and she was made to be slavishly loyal to her controller, Jose Croce; that's where I got my family name from. All my sisters' namesakes — Rico, Triela, Claes, Elsa, Angelica, Elizavéta, Beatrice, Silva and Chiara — were pretty much the same way." As Luna gaped in horror at her, Henrietta shrugged. "At least Sunmee's father wasn't a pedophile, thank Lyna!"

"Merlin!" Luna hoarsely exclaimed. "Is that a popular manga?!"

"Still being published in Dengeki Daiō; the story's been ongoing since 2002," Henrietta answered as she gently squeezed the English witch's shoulders, using her empathy to ensure Luna didn't give in to a sudden bout of nausea and throw up her lunch all over Sunmee's new body. "I even have 'little sisters' in Italy and elsewhere who WERE created as children...though they weren't sexually abused by their masters before the Liberation happened."

"At least there haven't been replicas of the Battle Royale girls created," Uio noted.

"Wasn't that a novel?" Maria asked.

"Later became a movie and a manga series, Maria. It's Darling's favourite manga," Uio answered. "It's in the ship's library, along with Darling's review of the storyline and characters."

"What was that about?" Luna hesitantly wondered.

"Imagine being told — when you were in third form at Hogwarts — that you had to either kill all your year-mates in a three-day running battle...or be killed in turn. That would be your ONLY way out of whatever 'arena' you were put in to 'play' this 'game': Kill or die. There can only be ONE survivor at the end," Elaine said. As Luna turned VERY pale on hearing that and the others gazed in surprise on hearing that from her, the chief medical officer smiled. "I saw the movie based on the novel in the original Japanese thanks to a friend of mine who has friends there."

"Who's his favourite character?" Kasumi asked. "I would assume Sōma Mitsuko."

"She's up there," Mayumi said, clearly not bothered by the weird swing the conversation around her had taken. "Mitsuko's too sexy for him — strange as it is for me to say that concerning Onii-sama! — and she's a child rape victim, too."

"'Child rape?!'" Luna gargled.

"In the manga storyline — which is what Onii-sama is familiar with — her stepfather made her a sex toy after he married her mother when she was nine," Mayumi provided. "When she finally had enough about three years later, Mitsuko arranged for a Yakuza kobun to kill them both...but by then, the damage was well and truly done. She became a teenage prostitute and formed her own little girl-gang with Shimizu Hirono and Yahagi Yoshimi. When she got sucked into The Program, she decided she was going all out to win the game. Unfortunately, she ran across Kiriyama Kazuo, who was quite mentally damaged in his own right and proved invulnerable to her many delightful physical charms." She shook her head as she finished the last bits of programming into Sunmee before reaching over to unplug her dataPADD from his chest.

"So who IS Ataru's favourite character from that story?" Maria asked after using her telepathy to get a quick look into Mayumi's and Henrietta's minds to see their memories of the manga.

"It's a tie between Inada Mizuho and Noda Satomi," Mayumi reported. "Mizuho because she's the most unique of the characters; Onii-sama is always attracted to the unique characters. And Satomi because she's something of an unknown; the writer of the original novel and the writer/artist of the later manga series didn't delve too deeply into her. That makes her a woman of mystery to Onii-sama. He's always wished the secondary characters were better covered in the manga; after all, it did go on for fifteen volumes." She sighed. "Then again, the original story pretty much concentrated on the two survivors of The Program — Nanahara Shūya and Nakagawa Noriko — as well as Kawada Shōgo and the two 'villains' of the piece, Kiriyama Kazuo and Sōma Mitsuko. Onii-sama's always had something of a love-hate relationship with that series. Great characterization, but all save two of a class of forty-two third-year middle school students get killed off at the end." She snorted as she moved to close Sunmee's programming port, then pulled his face mask from her smock pocket to put that where it belonged. "What's worse, almost all the fan fiction stories written on that series either covers variations of the basic storyline...or little vignettes set before the main story happened. There's only been TWO stories written on the Internet — at least to Onii-sama's knowledge — that have shown more than just Shūya and Noriko escaping that island."

"Then again, that was the whole point of the story, Mayumi," Henrietta noted as Luna shook her head at the idea of writers actually thinking up of storylines like that to put out to the reading public. "I always saw it as a perfect portrayal of the dash for success people in Japan feel these days when it comes to moving up in life. First to pass into high school, first to pass the Centre Test, first to pass into Tōkyō University, fighting tooth and nail to get to the top of the pecking order..." She breathed out. "It's a pity The Hunger Games came out recently. Given that Battle Royale came out in film in 2000 and the manga series was published between then and 2005, it would have probably made quite the big hit in North America."

"The massacre at Columbine High School in Colorado happened in 1999, the year before the film came out, Henrietta," Lynn warned as she gently flexed the new bioroid's fingers to make sure they could absorb Sunmee's soul with ease. "I remember there was something really bad that happened at a school in California in 2001. Then there was the Virginia Tech massacre in 2007 and something that went down in Illinois the year after that."

"Doubt there'll be more of that — even in the States — with Avalonians around packing Lawgivers," Elaine noted. "Some maniac shows up with a gun to kill kids...and he or she'll be hit with stun shots fifteen ways before the first round is fired."

"Wouldn't be too sure of that. Especially in the States, Elaine," Kasumi warned.

A rueful nod from Haida's chief doctor. "Good point..."


The bioroid factory, the top level of Gestation Tower #98, that moment...

"I'M one of Ataru's favourite manga characters?!"

Inada Mizuho tried not to smirk as she gazed in amusement at her classmate. She had been using the Staff of Gihan to monitor events concerning Sunmee dai-Kohl when her friends came up from their own quarters to join her. "Do you doubt the wise Lady Mayumi's words to that end, Satomi?" she asked.

A madly-blushing Noda Satomi was trying not to either scream out in frustration at the would-be warrior-priestess' continued adherence to her argument about what would NOT happen come the first anniversary of their rebirth aboard the factory the day of the Liberation...or pass out in embarrassment at the idea of someone as handsome and as nice as Moroboshi Ataru of all people actually thinking of a shy, insomniac bookworm like HER of all the girls in the Multiverse as a "woman of mystery"! "Well, there's no disagreeing with Ataru's incredible good taste," Nakagawa Yūka mused as she gave her fellow "lighthouse girl" an amused look. When it came to the one overriding question about the Shiroiwa Junior High School seniors from 2000 and their place in this universe, Yūka was neutral even if she deeply hoped Mizuho was right about their NOT being forced back to the dimension of their birth come the next February. "And seeing as how the manga didn't really cover the lives of many of us past Noriko-chan, Mitsuko-chan, Shūya-kun, Kazuo-kun, Shōgo-kun and Shinji-kun, I can see why Ataru would be intrigued by someone like Satomi-chan here. Much less Mizuho-chan!"

Laughter filled the domed chamber that served normally as Mizuho's private quarters overlooking the vast "weather deck" of the bioroid factory, with Earth in the far distance "ahead" of them and the Moon looming at their "backs". "Speaking of which, given how much Taguchi-sensei loved to be graphic about Mitsuko and what she went through, I'd be personally embarrassed if that was me!" Yahagi Yoshimi noted as she finished polishing her toenails. Like Yūka, the "little sister" of Sōma Mitsuko's gang was neutral in the debate concerning their staying or being forced to go back home. Unlike the class clown however, Yoshimi found Mizuho to be a little too weird for her tastes...and that didn't cover the fact that the former was scared to death of the Staff of Gihan even if the seventeen millennia-old device had been used to actually SAVE HER LIFE! Going back to the Greater East Asia Republic in what the government viewed as "Republic Year 56" — despite the awful risks — did seem comforting to her since it was familiar territory.

"It was pretty graphic, wasn't it?" Mitsuko absently hummed as she filed her fingernails...before she giggled as Shimizu Hirono embraced her from behind. "Hey! Hirono!"

"You ain't sellin' yourself, Mitsu!" the spiky-haired tomboy warned as she glared at her gang-sister. "Even if I have to fuckin' use mavan'shagh on you to make you my bond-mate! After all the crap you've been through, I won't stand for it!"

The sultry raven-haired beauty with the ice blue eyes grinned on sensing her friend's passionate desire to not see her slip back into the behaviour that earned her the English nickname "Hardcore" on the streets of Shiroiwa before she leaned back to lean her head on Hirono's shoulder. "You'll never take my trust away," she whispered.

The others in the room smiled on hearing that childish voice escape her. While it was glaringly obvious that Mitsuko would need a LOT of psychotherapy to repair the years of damage her soul had taken thanks to her paedophilic stepfather and a mother who had sold her father out to the authorities for actually daring to DEFY the needs of The Program when it came to his old junior high school senior homeroom class in Takamatsu back in the late winter of 1990, a lot had been done to heal those wounds over the previous five months. After they had all been clued into the true horror of what Mitsuko had endured thanks to the gay Niphentaxian teen who had effectively seen them saved from what lay beyond the Te'a, the Shiroiwa girls read copies of the Battle Royale manga in the bioroid factory computer mainframes...then, for the most part, spent an hour worshipping at the altar of the porcelain goddess thanks to the nausea they felt on realizing how badly hurt "Hardcore" Sōma really was. After that, they got together with an understandably-nervous Mitsuko and — much to the former prostitute's public embarrassment and private amusement — dreamt up all sorts of unbelievable horrors they would want to unleash on her stepfather for doing something so ugly to her at age NINE! Suggestions ranged from Sakaki Yūko's variation of the "death of a thousand cuts" concept using dull steak knives coated in curare poison to Chigusa Takako's idea of borrowing an Italian Mafia theme of making him a "turkey" by skinning him alive and stuffing the skin and bones like some hunting trophy...with his living brain still INSIDE his feather-filled skull!

Mitsuko liked Mizuho's suggestion of using the Staff of Gihan to yank her stepfather's soul through the dimensional veil, inserting same into a female clone body — NOT Avalonian, of course! — then dumping him in the seediest part of Bangkok to be raped by every sex tourist that came along. Even better, "she" would be kept immune from sexually transmitted diseases and would be made to relive all the times "she" was raped in "her" dreams until it finally drove "her" totally mad.

That evoked the "big cry" all the Shiroiwa girls had when it came to realizing what they had just been through, which soon was followed by their moving to learn everything they could about their new place of residence and what being there meant. It was around that time, Mizuho remembered, Satomi made her discovery about the laws of inter-dimensional travel and came to believe that their stay aboard the bioroid factory was limited to one solar year. That — stacked onto the feelings of rejection and abandonment all of them, even Mizuho, felt towards the adults back home that ALLOWED them to be sucked into The Program — fuelled a growing paranoia about being discovered and being sent back to the universe of the Greater East Asia Republic without any support or means to defend themselves. No matter what Mizuho tried to do to make any of them see otherwise, the other Shiroiwa girls wouldn't accept ANY suggestion towards making open contact with anyone outside the bounds of Tower #98. Not even Moroboshi Ataru...whom many of the girls were understandably attracted to after what they had witnessed in February and March concerning his actions on the factory.

Because of that, Mizuho herself — so as to not alienate her friends when they desperately needed help the most — had to be VERY circumspect when it came to her many trips to Earth and Nerio to observe life here. While the others DID support such trips as it expanded their own understanding of this dimension's Earth — and did understand where their classmate was ultimately coming from when it came to using the Staff's cosmic power to help those in need, especially when it came to such things as protecting dragon hatchlings and other vulnerable creatures from poachers — they insisted on such trips being BRIEF...especially when one factored in a certain ninjutsu grandmaster's ability to sense out things via Earth's many ley lines, twenty of which intersected not two kilometres from her family dōjō in Tomobiki!

They didn't push the would-be Zoroastrian warrior-priestess too far on that point, though.

Now being quite powerful empaths thanks to their new bodies, they all knew that Mizuho was starting to get VERY tired of constantly being made to defer to their own paranoia.

If they pushed her TOO far...!

Of course, Mizuho wouldn't even THINK of abandoning her classmates — especially the girls that, in another time and place, she once passionately viewed as the "warriors in waiting", Etō Megumi and Minami Kaori — to fend for themselves while she gave in to her own passions and sought out the man in whose embrace she would live the rest of her very long life. Despite the chants in HER inner soul that demanded she go to Ataru as soon as possible and offer herself to him as his true soul-mate, her sense of responsibility concerning her friends — magnified by her mastering the Staff of Gihan when she struck down Geran dai-Farosh's evil grandfather while the Liberation was happening — was ironclad and she would not abandon it. Driven by the Zoroastrian creed of "Good thoughts, good words and good deeds", the former Dungeons and Dragons role-playing gamer saw making good and happy lives for her classmates — and eventually ALL the Program players once their souls had been brought across the dimensional veil, they were given new life on the factory and allowed to live in a Japan that NEVER had reason to evolve into the Greater East Asia Republic in the first place — as the most vital task which had been set before her by the Wise Lord, Ahura Mazdā Himself.

She HAD to succeed in that task!

Not even her inner desire for Moroboshi Ataru to become her marei'cha — no matter how much it often hurt her these days — could come before finally seeing the others truly safe and sound.

Still...

She tried not to smirk as she ignored the others chatting away behind her as she focused on the barely-visible beacon of light over Lake Ontario that marked Haida.

Thanks to what Henrietta Croce and Asai Mayumi were talking about, she knew of another way to make the others finally accept some things about their immediate futures.

And while it DID take rather crass advantage of the attitudes towards the one profound thing most teenage girls often fantasized about — even in a place like the Greater East Asia Republic — it would work.

"...Ataru sees the rest of us."

Mizuho perked. "What was that, Haruka?"

Tanizawa Haruka was the tallest of the Shiroiwa girls. A striker on the girls volleyball team, she had been the one who had urged the others to participate in daily calisthenics exercises to stay in shape in reflection of what was enforced on elementary and middle school students in the Republic...no doubt to prepare them for The Program in case their class was called to do their "profound civic duty". Even the stocky and once-overweight Yūka had trimmed out quite nicely because of the hourly regimen they subjected themselves to every day. Haruka was also one of the first two of their group to have experienced the "time of the month"; she was now bonded with former class iinchō Utsumi Yukie, whom she had admired for years. "I was just wondering about where the rest of us fit on Ataru's list of favourite manga characters," the green-eyed girl with the bob cut brown hair mused. "I mean, if Battle Royale IS his favourite manga..."

Mizuho tried not to cheer. "I can tell you that, my friend," she declared as she gave the other woman a knowing smile.

Silence.

More silence.

Still more silence.

And then...

"HOW?!" the others all screamed out as they stared wide-eyed at her.

The would-be warrior-priestess smiled. "Late on Wednesday evening last, just after the Lady Negako went off on the doughty Kirkpatrick to Yaminokuni to see her beloved Lady Kaga restored to true life, I teleported myself into Ataru's bedroom; this was before our good sisters came to unite that house and the old guest house together to accommodate the Great Emperor's expanding family and allow the Ladies Shikuko and Miyako a chance to live with Ataru in comfort." As the others gasped in shock — they all knew their classmate had become quite audacious over the last few months, but THAT was pushing it! — Mizuho gazed on them. "In my explorations, I found an interesting book Ataru had in his desk which contained a master list of all his favourite manga characters. Since he had driven Lady Hensō out some months before, he didn't see need to secure things like that in his personal safety deposit box at the local branch of Inshin Bank."

"Mizuho!" Kaori screeched in outrage. "You can't go looking into Ataru's diary! Look what Hensō and Ataru's stupid mother did to him all the time! How could...?!"

"Kaori, please!" Mizuho snapped back as she glared at the freckled girl with the braided black hair and the blue eyes behind glasses, that making Kaori wilt. "I would never DREAM of violating Ataru's private words and thoughts like that! Yes, I should not have gone into his bedroom uninvited...but given that the majority of us — myself included! — have dreamt of when he would take our maidenheads and make us women, my curiosity got the better of me." She then glared at Hirono. "And before YOU complain, Hirono, I'm much more careful than that, especially given the Lady Negako's power and skill!" As the blonde girl with the deep brown eyes flustered in embarrassment, the would-be warrior-priestess sighed. "I noted earlier on — just before that attack on his home by the Urusians and their Niphentaxian allies — Ataru had shown Shikuko and Miyako some of his personal artwork. I was curious." She held up the Staff. "Show her, my good friend."

If the ancient Sagussan weapon could smile in amusement, it would. As you desire, Controller.

The others blinked as a holographic image appeared, that showing a beautiful pencil-and-India ink sketch of Hirono on the streets of Shiroiwa — as she had been portrayed in the near-realistic style Taguchi Masayuki employed in the manga — with the Colt Python .357 Magnum revolver she had been issued with when she had been sent out to kill or die in one hand. She was shown in a leather flight jacket, form-fitting jeans and a T-shirt with the movie wreathed "BR" insignia on her chest, that crossed out with the universal circle-with-diagonal slash prohibition sign. "Damn...!" Mitsuko's nominal number two breathed out as her pale cheeks reddened in embarrassment.

"Did he do all of us?!" Takako demanded.

"Aye," Mizuho said as she sent the Staff a mental command.

More images flashed before her classmates. Takako in hunting clothes, holding the crossbow that Niida Kazushi had tried to use on her on Oki-shima. Kaori as an idol singer like her beloved Kenzaki Jun'ya, singing her heart out on the stage in front of a band. Yūka dressed like one of Santa Claus' elves with a bunch of children in the park, she handing them colourful balloons. Yoshimi as a fashion model, showing off something that clearly had to have come from the late Yves Saint Laurent. Haruka in a tastefully-designed bikini, serving as a lifeguard at the beach, calling out to someone with a bullhorn. Yūko in casual clothes, praying before an altar, the Christian cross in the background. Megumi in trendy clothes, walking down the street chatting on a cell phone. Mitsuko in the jean jacket, short skirt and T-shirt combination she had worn on Oki-shima, killing a whole bunch of snarling humanoid monsters with her kama scythe. Kusaka Yumiko and Kitano Yukiko as police officers directing traffic, yelling through bullhorns. Fujiyoshi Fumiyo working at a gardening store, picking flowers for a customer. Utsumi Yukie in a pullover sweater and jeans, cheering at what appeared to be a baseball game. Matsui Chisato in relaxed business clothes, looking as if she was a reporter for a major news agency. Kanai Izumi playing in a game of basketball. Tendō Mayumi in a trendy skirt and blouse, serving as an announcer at a sports game. Kotohiki Kayoko in the Chinese clothes of a master of wǔshù, fighting with the same type of bō staff her boyfriend often used. Ogawa Sakura in trendy clothes on the streets shopping, looking as if she was the happiest woman alive. And their group's ashi'cha and the female survivor of their class' run through The Program, Nakagawa Noriko, who was depicted in normal clothes working at the Charity House, cooking for the orphans who lived there.

The images were then dispersed. "Oi, Mizu! What about you and Tomi?!" Hirono asked.

Mizuho smirked. "Given that Satomi and I rate the highest of all of us on Ataru's list of favourite 'fictional' characters, his pictures of Satomi and I tend to slur more to the erotic than what he did for all of you. I'd rather show Satomi in private."

"He has wet dreams of you two?!" Yūka teased as Satomi blushed.

"I honestly can't answer that, my friend. But I will say that when it comes to Satomi, Ataru's portrayals of her tend to lean towards the 'naughty librarian' or similar themes," the would-be warrior-priestess said, trying not to smirk on seeing Satomi's cheeks redden to the Don't Point That at MY Planet! stage. "As for myself, I..."

"You're probably shown either as a character from Dungeons and Dragons...or as a real priestess," Megumi noted; even if she did find Mizuho's passion a lot to take, they were friends and Megumi gladly defended her even from Yūka's teasing.

"Alright, that's enough."

Eyes locked on Noriko. The Elder Mother of the Shiroiwa girls had long since stopped blushing every time her classmates did that to her whenever she moved to take control of things. Deep down, she would have preferred to allow Yukie to be the ashi'cha given the latter's determination to stand and fight when she gathered the other "lighthouse girls" together after they were sent out of the school building on Oki-shima. There was no actual extra psionic power when one was made Elder Mother of a group of Avalonians...but there was a strong moral dignity to the post, which Noriko felt she really hadn't earned the right to possess; unlike her friends, she hadn't dirtied her hands in The Program until she used a gun to stop Kiriyama Kazuo from hurting Nanahara Shūya near the end of those three hellish days on that damned island.

"It's suppertime and some of us have kitchen duty," she said as she rose from Mizuho's bed. The bioroid factory ran on Greenwich Mean Time; the holographic chronometer on the transparent aluminum dome showed the time to be 6:14 PM. "Mizuho's had a long day helping Sunmee-san get his life back, so let's let her rest up. Call us when food's ready, Yūko."

"Hai!" Yūko called out as the others rose.

They slowly streamed out of the room, heading down to the recreation level set above the uppermost of the thirty separate gestation decks within Tower #98. The last of the group to move to leave was Noriko herself...who paused as she gazed back on the would-be warrior-priestess who saved them from the slavery their new sisters elsewhere had endured — however brief such a period would have been given that the Liberation was launched at the very hour of their awakening inside their gestation tubes — and had protected twenty scared young women from a universe that was both wondrous beyond belief and dangerous beyond reason. Mizuho was gazing towards Earth and the Haida. Noriko never understood what was it about the Canadian starship that always attracted Mizuho's attention.

Or was it someone...?

If...

Masaka! she mentally gasped as her skin paled. Why on Earth didn't I see it before?!

"I will be his. He will be mine. The Wise Lord has told me that already, Noriko."

Noriko's cheeks reddened at being sensed out — Mizuho, thanks to the Staff, had developed an almost-cosmic level of empathy — before she bowed her eyes apologetically as the other woman gazed her way, her pale blue eyes tearing slightly. Before she could stammer an apology, Mizuho made a wave of her hand to activate a privacy screen to the lower floors. "We will stay, Noriko," the would-be warrior-priestess said with a tired sigh as she gazed once more into space. "To next February and beyond to the end of our very long lives, we will stay. Even if we choose to go back to forever destroy that perversity calling itself a 'republic' to stop The Program forever, we would not be able to remain there."

Noriko sighed. Like many of the others, she had been neutral in that argument...even though she found it a lot easier to accept Satomi's explanations than Mizuho's die-hard faith. Also like the others, Noriko thought the current mistress of the Staff of Gihan often came on pretty strong when she let her passions overtake her. Still, giri and ninjō both demanded that the woman's viewpoints had to be heard and respected...even if it was hard to fully agree with them. "Mizuho, even if...!"

A hand was raised in acknowledgement. "I sometimes wish the other haijo-ju were available for you to possess so you can see things as I do," Mizuho confessed. She had an idea where some of those devices were, but hadn't gone out to find them given her own duties for the people she was protecting. "Be reasonable with yourself, Noriko. You've seen the Te'a with your mind's eye since your Awakening just before Geran left us to find the Genesis Wand so our male classmates could live again without the necessity of enduring sex-changes. Have you not allowed yourself to extend your senses to those other dimensions we can perceive if we push ourselves? Even back home to Shiroiwa?" She gazed on the other woman. "You still are worried about your brother, after all. Yes, I'm sure the Americans would have publicly reported that you and Shūya 'died' on the freighter the Staff found you on after Shinji's aunt helped you escape Oki-shima — which would guarantee his release from custody — but your love for your brother is very strong."

Noriko blinked before she nodded. "Hai, I do think about Kinji-chan a lot," she breathed out. "And I wish I could fully understand what you see, Mizuho-chan...but..." She shrugged as her green eyes teared. "Even if we can stay, would he...?"

"After what we watched him do?" Mizuho asked with a wry tone. "Risking his very SANITY by constantly being in the presence of such misery? Working himself to death sixteen hours per day to make sure no one killed themselves to make that agony go away?! Only letting his anger go when those fool pirates from Konton came here on the Ides of March to kidnap our sisters?!" She shook her head before waving towards Earth. "My friend, right now, he's on Earth outside the Rose City of Ontario preparing a new home for his former wife, a woman who spent over six months — even if she herself was not fully in command of her own mind — totally wrecking his life to force him to become her perfect husband! After we came here and learned that those fools in Tomobiki had reverted back to their 'normal' worldview even after learning of the Lady Lum's sufferings — when dearest Ataru would have well been within his rights to do it! — he didn't ONCE give in to his demons and unleash the Cyborg on them; note that NONE of them, not even his parents, suffered when the Konton pirates attacked and he went to slay them! Even after I effectively forced him to literally RAPE twenty-three innocent women over the last day because they were built as sex gynoids, he's working to help THEM get lives for themselves even if ANY of them — Nay! ALL of them! — would become his mistresses in an INSTANT!" She sighed. "We are not like the other replicas of fictional characters Geran's people created over the years, Noriko! We are the REAL PEOPLE! And when Ataru learns of us and learns how we were made to come here from the embrace of the Wise Lord — as it WILL happen given we are human and can make mistakes, even I! — he will move HEAVEN itself to make sure we are safe!"

She sighed as she moved to sit on her bed, setting the Staff aside. "I mean this not to hurt you, Noriko, but I have to say this: On Oki-shima, you never ONCE gave up hope of surviving, much less encouraging us to survive! You were no different that Shūya in that regard! Are you going to cast shame on all HE tried to do for us just because we came to a place where we could be at peace and truly LIVE our lives and you can't accept it as such?!"

Noriko gasped on hearing that as her heart beat loudly in her ears. "Mizuho...!"

"Go! I wish to be alone."

The other woman blinked before sadly nodding. She soon stepped downstairs as Mizuho gazed through tear-filled eyes once more towards Haida. "Please do not hate me, my beloved Ataru...!"

To be continued...


WRITER'S NOTES

1) As I stated in the writer's notes to Part 1 of Phoenix From the Ashes, all references to places, persons and objects from China that appeared in Ranma 1/2 will be addressed by their proper Mandarin names and not the Japanese versions. Hence, we have terms like Zhòuquán-xiāng for "Jusenkyō", Nánnìquán for "Nanniichuan" (and Niángnìquán for "Nyanniichuan," of course), Zhǐshuǐtǒng for "Chiisuiton" and Nǚjiézú for "Joketsuzoku" or "Chinese Amazons".

In line with that, I created the term Màshǐké to represent the Musk, who first appeared in the Ranma manga story "The Guest at the Cat Café" (manga episode #246). While no Chinese characters were used for the name of this tribe as the name itself was a pun on the physical smell of an animal's body, I chose the characters 罵始殼; these characters represent "curse", "beginning" and "skin" respectively...which reflects on the Musk tribe's obsession with using the waters of the Niángnìquán spring on animals to allow new mothers to pass on the attributes of their former selves onto their offspring.

As an aside, the names used for the fellow tribes-people of Nǚ Shānpú (Shampoo) mentioned here are based on the many other Ranma fanfic stories I've read over the years that have dealt with the internal workings of the Noble Tribe far more deeply than the original manga or anime ever did.

2) Canadian Forces unit and operation notes:

N.C.S.M. Radisson is one of the youngest of the Naval Reserve Divisions. The unit was first commissioned in the city of Trois-Rivières ("Three Rivers") in 1986 in the major expansion of the Naval Reserve that also saw N.C.S.M. Jolliet (first mentioned in Part One) commissioned in Sept-Îles.

There has never been an N.C.S.M. Saint-François commissioned in the Canadian Navy. However, there WAS an H.M.C.S. St. Francis (pendant I93) — named after the St. Francis River that forms part of the international border between Québec and New Brunswick on the Canadian side and Maine on the American side; this is a tributary of the Saint John River — that served from 1940-45. This vessel was an American Clemson-class "four stack" destroyer commissioned originally as U.S.S. Bancroft (DD-256) in 1918 and was gifted to Canada in the Destroyers for Bases Agreement negotiated between the leaders of Britain and America in the summer of 1940 that freed fifty destroyers from the United States Navy for use by the British and Canadians as escorts while allowing the Americans to take rent-free leases on land in Newfoundland, Bermuda and in the Caribbean for ninety-nine years. Because the new NRD being christened Saint-François (French for "Saint Francis") is named after a different river than the one the old St. Francis is named after — the Rivière Saint-François flows through the city of Drummondville into the Saint Lawrence River from a small lake of the same name near the town of Thetford Mines — the new NRD will NOT inherit the battle honour Atlantic 1941-43 from the old ship.

The name for the new NRD to be based in Sherbrooke, N.C.S.M. Estrie, is taken from the new French term for the Eastern Townships of Québec. This was, until recently, a predominantly English-speaking section of the province whose ancestors were refugees from the American Revolutionary War that had fled north after 1783.

The new NRD for the town of Joliette northeast of Montréal, N.C.S.M. Barthélemy, is named after Barthélemy Joliette (1789-1850), a notary and businessman who was a prominent political figure in Lower Canada (modern-day southern Québec). The city bearing his family name was established by him as "Industrie" in the 1820s. In the universe of this story, the name was chosen to prevent confusion with N.C.S.M. Jolliet in Sept-Îles.

As with Estrie and Barthélemy, there has never been an N.C.S.M. Richelieu commissioned into the Navy. This particular NRD is named in tribute to the Rivière Richelieu, which drains Lake Champlain on the border between New York and Vermont into the Saint Lawrence downstream from Montréal. The river was named in tribute to the legendary priest Armand Jean du Plessis, Cardinal-Duc de Richelieu et de Fronsac (1585-1642), the chief minister of King Louis XIII (1601-43) during the early years of French settlement in modern day Québec; it was Cardinal Richelieu who was one of the senior patrons to the first governor of New France, Samuel de Champlain (1574-1635). Most people these days would recognize Cardinal Richelieu as the nominal villain in Alexandre Dumas' famous 1844 novel The Three Musketeers.

However, there WERE both an H.M.C.S. la Hulloise (pendant K668) and an H.M.C.S. Lachute (pendant K440) that served in the Canadian Navy. The former ship served from 1944-45 and again from 1949-65. La Hulloise was a River-class frigate named in tribute to the city of Hull on the eastern shore of the Ottawa River opposite the national capital; the name "la Hulloise" was used for this ship as there was an American vessel named U.S.S. Hull (DD-350) then in commission and the Allies wished to avoid any confusion between the two ships. La Hulloise was decommissioned at war's end, but brought back into service four years later to serve as a training ship. In 1957, she was rebuilt into a "Prestonian-class" format to update her electronics and weapons systems, then returned to service for eight more years under pendant FFE-305 before being finally declared surplus and scrapped. Because of this link between the original ship and the new NRD, N.C.S.M. la Hulloise would inherit the original ship's battle honours. The latter ship served from 1944-45. Built as a Flower-class corvette, Lachute was one of several hundred such vessels built in British and Canadian shipyards to eventually serve as the escort workhorses of the convoy system that kept the United Kingdom alive during the Battle of the Atlantic, the longest engagement of the war. Decommissioned at war's end, Lachute was sold to the Dominican Republic in 1947 and renamed Cristobal Colon. She would remain in service until 1978, but would be wrecked the next year thanks to a hurricane. As with the new la Hulloise, the new Lachute would inherit the original ship's battle honours.

A sistership of la Hulloise was H.M.C.S. Prestonian (pendant K662). Prestonian was first commissioned in 1944 and served until war's end. Decommissioned and placed in storage, she was brought out again in 1953 for conversion into the new escort frigate format which would take its type name from her; she gained the new pendant number FFE-307 as a result. She served in the Navy until she was finally decommissioned in 1956 and scrapped. As with her "sistership," the new NRD named H.M.C.S. Prestonian would inherit the battle honours of the original ship.

H.M.C.S. Baffin (pendant T275) was an Isles-class trawler that had been commissioned in the Royal Navy when she was built in 1942, but was transferred to the Royal Canadian Navy even if her crew were British. She served on mine-sweeping duties out of Halifax until war's end, when she was returned to full British control. H.M.S. Baffin would remain in service for two more years until she was decommissioned from military duties and became a civilian cargo ship that sailed on under several civilian names until 1983. The new Arctic patrol ship mentioned here — to be given pendant PCA-601; the hull classification symbol "PCA" means "Patrol Corvette, Arctic" — would inherit the old Baffin's battle honours, of course.

The near-namesake of Baffin, H.M.C.S. Qikiqtaaluk, takes its name from the Inuit name applied to Baffin Island, which is Canada's largest island and the fifth-largest island on Earth. The name "Qikiqtaaluk" is also applied to an administrative region of Nunavut which covers almost all of the Canadian Arctic archipelago within the newest territory of the Dominion.

A tender is the Navy term for a detachment from a ship; this would also include the "ships" of the Naval Reserve.

H.M.C.S. Prevost was first formed as the London Division of the Royal Canadian Navy Volunteer Reserve (RCNVR) — the precursor formation to the modern-day Naval Reserve — in 1938 and commissioned under its current name in late 1941. This particular NRD was decommissioned in 1964 due to defence cuts, but recommissioned in 1978 and serves to this very day. The ship itself is named after H.M.S. Lady Prevost, a Great Lakes war schooner commissioned into the Royal Navy in 1810 and captured by the Americans during the Battle of Lake Erie on 10 September 1813. She was commissioned as U.S.S. Lady Prevost shortly afterwards and served until war's end in 1815 when she was burned and sunk at Erie, Pennsylvania. She was later salvaged, repaired and sold at auction to become a merchantman.

When she was in commission during World War Two, H.M.C.S. Conestoga was based at the Ontario Training School for Girls. This institution was first established in 1933 as the first provincially-run reform school for incorrigible and delinquent girls from 12-18. Those sentenced to this institution were found guilty of a whole gamut of charges, ranging from minor crimes to being seen as "unmanageable" under the Juvenile Delinquents Act, 1908 for reasons such as truancy, drug use, alcohol use and "sexual immorality". In 1967, the facility was renamed the "Grandview Training School for Girls", serving as such until closure in 1976. Many former residents came forward with accusations of physical, sexual and psychological abuse by the staff; these revelations wouldn't be made public until 1991 when two former residents were persuaded by their psychologist to reveal what they endured to the media. Police investigations later forced compensation to be paid by the government to three hundred victims; the government officially apologized for what happened at Grandview in 1999.

A Third Officer in the Women's Royal Canadian Naval Service (WRCNS), which was the Royal Canadian Navy's women's service division, was the equivalent of the standard Navy officer's rank of Sub-Lieutenant (NATO rank code OF-1).

23 Field Ambulance's Toronto-based sister unit, 25 Field Ambulance (25 FD AMB), was first established in modern format in 1977 and is descent from "16 Field Ambulance," which served in Siberia as part of the Allied intervention in the Russian Revolution from 1918-19, then was reformed and served during World War Two in Canada itself.

A flat in the Navy is the traditional term for a section of corridor connecting various spaces. The term Regulatory Flats indicates the area where the Regulating Petty Officer (RPO) — the non-commissioned member of a ship responsible for discipline — and his staff have their offices. On Haida, Warrant Officer Don Glas of the Air Force serves as the ship's RPO.

The Canadian Special Operations Regiment (CSOR) is a fighting element of the Canadian Special Operations Forces Command (CANSOFCOM) based at Petawawa. First established in 2006 and effectively descent from the old Canadian Airborne Regiment (CAR) and its predecessor units dating all the way back to World War Two, CSOR is capable of conducting and enabling a broad range of missions, including direct action, defence diplomacy/military assistance and special reconnaissance. CSOR was heavily involved in operations in Afghanistan.

The 1re Bataillon, le Royal 22e Régiment was the last major Canadian combat unit to serve in Afghanistan as part of Operation: Athena, the Canadian contribution to the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF), which was established in the wake of the 11 September 2001 attacks on New York and Washington as a way of removing all fundamentalist controls over that nation and its people. The battalion and its associated battle group were based in that country from October 2010 to July 2011, when Operation: Athena was finally halted.

The Canadian Forces Military Police Academy (CFMPA) is, as indicated above, the home training establishment for members of the military's in-house law enforcement service. This school was first established at Unification in 1968 as the "Canadian Forces School of Intelligence and Security" (CFSIS) at the site of the old Canadian Provost Corps School in Borden, being the joint training establishment for military police and intelligence personnel under the auspices of the Security Branch of the Forces. A separate Intelligence Branch was established in 1982, but CFSIS remained the joint training school for both branches until 2000, when a new Canadian Forces School of Military Intelligence (CFSMI) was formed at Kingston. With CFSMI's establishment, CFSIS was given its present name.

3) Translations: Première Bataillon — First Battalion; OPFOR — Opposition Force; Tre'cha — Literally "the passing on", this is a term that is applied both to a process similar to what Spock did in Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan to preserve his soul (katra) from being lost AND to a process by which a person's soul is shifted into a replacement body; Fratello — Sibling; Mavan'shagh — Literally "time of no secrets", this is when a Sagussan drops her mental shields to expose her very soul to a potential bond-mate (doing this — as demonstrated in The Senior Year story "Mie's Story" — normally leads to the person having mavan'shagh performed on her bonding with the person doing the mavan'shagh); Wǔshù — Literally "martial art", this is the catch-all phrase for all Chinese fighting disciplines; — Japanese version of a quarterstaff, measuring 180 centimetres (70.8 inches) long on average; Ashi'cha — Elder Mother; Iinchō — Literally "committee chairman", this is the term applied to the person elected to represent a class of students in a school student council; Ninjō — Literally "human compassion", this is the feelings and virtue that both complements and opposes the value of giri (as described in Part Two), thus showing that even the most duty-bound person is not without personal feelings.

4) The Faravahar is the most familiar symbol of Zoroastrianism. This sign depicts a disc mated to the wings and tail feathers of a vulture (a sacred animal in Zoroastrian belief). From the disk emerges a fravaši ("guardian spirit"), who is normally depicted facing the viewer's left. In the modern interpretation of this symbol, the Faravahar acts as a visual reminder of a believer's true purpose in life, which is to live in such a way that his/her soul progresses towards a state of Frašōkərəti ("making wonderful/excellent") and joins Ahura Mazdā after death in Heaven.

5) The names of phobias are based on Greek terms; phobia is based on the Greek phóbos ("mortal fear"). Hence, I devised the following terms to describe what was spoken of by Luna Lovegood in her conversation with Miyamoto Kasumi:

Rhabdophobia combines rhabdos (literally "rod" or "staff"...which can also be used for a magical wand) and phobia. I find this term to be more eloquent than "manaphobia" (or more properly, mageiophobia, which uses the Greek term mageía ["magic"]) to describe a fear of magic by normal people. In the truest essence, this is the fear of magic being done using any sort of physical medium, like a wand.

The opposite of rhabdophobia is mugalophobia. This word combines múgalos (literally "field mice") and phobia. Múgalos was the term translators of the Greek edition of the Harry Potter novels used to represent the English concept of "muggle".

6) In the universe of my Icemaidens stories and the universe of these stories, the Separation Act, 1692 was the law passed by the Wizard's Council of the United Kingdoms of England and Scotland — then the ruling body of all magicals in the British Isles; it would be reformed in 1705 into Her Majesty's Ministry of Magic — that accepted the International Statute of Wizarding Secrecy as the law of the land. To ensure the Separation Act was accepted by all, the Magical Royal Proclamation, 1692 was issued by the ruling monarchs, King William III (1650-1702, ruled Britain from 1689 unto death) and his wife and co-ruler Queen Mary II (1662-94) to put the magic of the Crown behind the Separation Act and make it binding law as well as the cornerstone of the Magical Constitution of the Realm. In the universe of my stories, a Magical Royal Proclamation — and its equivalents in other nations — would be the supreme magical law of the land.

As an aside, the rumours concerning an ancestor of Draco Malfoy cursing Queen Elizabeth I (1533-1603, ruled 1558 unto death) are just rumours; as Luna Lovegood noted above, magical bonds of loyalty to the Crown even before the Separation Act codified such in the Preamble would have stopped such a thing before it got out of hand. The rumours — as mentioned at the Pottermore website and noted in the Harry Potter Wikia — stated that Draco's ancestor put a jinx on the Virgin Queen to ensure she would never marry anyone because the Queen refused his advances.

7) The other would-be infantry soldiers mentioned here are, as noted above, based on adult-form replicas of the child cyborg characters from Gunslinger Girl. Given names, middle names, family names and patronymics — as in the case of Elizavéta Aleksánna Baránovskaja, AKA Petrúška; the patronymic means "daughter of Aleksándr" (the Russian version of "Alexander") — are based on either the characters' full names from before their conversion into cyborgs or the names of the fratello who take charge of them after their conversions.

Dengeki Daiō is a monthly comic published by the ASCII Media Works group; this was the group that published the original Sister Princess stories at the turn of the millennium in a sister publication, Dengeki G's Magazine. Other manga series that appeared in Dengeki Daiō includes Azuma Kiyohiko's famous works Azumanga Daiō (1999-2002) and Yotsuba&! (2003-ongoing). Gunslinger Girl was first published in May 2002; the series finally wrapped up in September 2012.

8) As I only know the details of the story of Battle Royale through the American English translation of the manga series as done by Keith Giffen, released by Tokyopop almost at the same time the manga was published by Taguchi Masayuki, the interpretation of the characters who appear here is based on that version of the manga...though I do spice elements of the movie and novel as referenced in the Battle Royale Wikia website into these characters, such as Noda Satomi's insomnia.

As an aside, the two fan fiction stories referenced by Asai Mayumi in the scene in Haida's Sick Bay are two stories written by Technomad that are marked as favourites of mine at this website. The first is Heads is Heads; this is where Kiriyama Kazuo's coin toss comes up heads and he chooses to resist The Program. The second one is Folie a Deux, where Yamamoto Kazuhiko and Ogawa Sakura turn out NOT to be the sweet and perfect couple they appear to be in the original BR. I definitely recommend both stories for those who are ultimately tired of reading BR fan fiction stories that simply translates the original theme of the novel/movie/manga into a different setting or different nation.