Interlude: Chrono's Day Off

[...I think she's willing to trust me to help her, if she's telling the truth about the legitimacy of her project. She hasn't told me the details yet, but I don't think she's lying. She isn't difficult to read.]

Chrono took a deep breath. This was his third time listening to Scrya's message, and it didn't help his opinion of Scrya's prudence any more than the first two. On the one hand, it meant something if the girl was easy for /him/ to read. On the other hand, Scrya had no intelligence or interrogation training and might as well be as gullible as a child-that is, an innocent, inexperienced child with no capacity to detect blatant lies. Hmm. This was a poor simile, given that his impression of "children" was stuck somewhere between Reinforce Zwei and (though he would never admit it) Vita. Perhaps after Amy and he got married, they should babysit Fate's wards for her. For an Enforcer whose strongest cases centered around dealing with prepubescent children, he was horribly unequipped to deal with them.

Right, back to Scrya's new misadventure. Three rounds of listening to the message had led Chrono to the same conclusion: that it was best to leave Scrya alone and let him handle the incident. It was his library and his responsibility to deal with unauthorized check-outs. As long as nothing else happened to complicate...

The Aces were on vacation.

"Dammit!"

Right on cue, S2U pinged to indicate an incoming call. Chrono sighed. "Patch it through," he ordered, and S2U brought up a holoscreen.

"Heya, Chrono," said Amy. "Just calling from the office. I've got Hayate on hold for you. Something about that airport fire up on the northern coast."

Chrono began to massage his forehead. "Thanks, Amy. Put her on."

"Will do. Oh, and Chrono? Make sure to come home early and get some rest. It is technically your day off."

Chrono gave her a weary smile. "I'll do what I can."

Amy's face disappeared, and Hayate's popped up in its place. "Inspector Yagami, reporting in to Enforcer Harlaown. Have you received the report on the incident yet?"

Chrono shook his head. "No. Is there something about it that should be brought to my attention?"

"Well..." Hayate paused. "It's not the fire so much as what caused it. Our scanning teams detected Relic emissions from the airport just before the first explosion. There were multiple explosions, but the rest were caused by incendiary bombs. There was no trace of the Relic after that. Someone teleported into orbit at about that time. We don't have a way to a connection between the two events-the teleport happened shortly before the explosions." She paused again. "I thought you would want to know, for your ongoing investigation."

Chrono slapped his forehead and left his hand there.

"Um, Chrono? Are you all right?"

Chrono leaned back in his chair. "It's not you, Yagami, it's everything else. That mysterious teleport of yours was just Scrya on library business. He sent me a personal message to confirm it."

Hayate tilted her head. "Ehh? Library business?"

"A little girl took some of his books without asking, so now he's helping her with an archaeology project until she gives them back."

Hayate looked very confused.

"Look, just don't worry about it. You're on vacation. If you want the details, just go to Avenata yourself and ask Scrya about it."

Nanoha's head pushed into the camera frame. "Oh, so that's what he was up to. Maybe we should. I'm sure we can fit that and the hot springs into a week. This sounds way more interesting."

Chrono sighed. "Look, it's your vacation time. You don't need my permission to do something like that. Just keep the property damage down. No orbital bombardments." He paused. "I would hope that you three are prudent enough not to attempt it with your limiters on. Actually, if that's everything you have to tell me, I'm going to stop talking. You're past the point at which I needed to tell you these things."

"Okay, we'll catch up later!" Hayate closed the call from her end. Chrono took a deep breath. He just had to go and say something like that. Damn stupid universe and its stupid vacations.


Sooo...I posted this to the SB and SV threads a few months ago and kind of forgot to put it here. Oh well. The chronology still fits.

Chapter 9 is halfway~ish to completion. I'll try to get it out before too long, but senior year of college allows few promises.