Imperial Calender, Year 214…

Designation: Zebulb system, Hathoth Sector, Planet Korshan IV, 20 light-years from Terra…

Situation: critical.

In a vast plane of a sandy wasteland, an army of massive armored quadruped robots bedecked with multitudes of weapons encircled a besieged point as they rain endless fire upon it.

"Keep firing!" The leader roared as his tank mech unloaded a dozen more missiles upon the rock. "We've got them cornered! Victory is ours! AKRAN BAKARA! (Free translation from Belzerian language: Victory forever)"

"AKRAN BAKARA!" His men also saluted in their native language.

'Finally.' The commander of the alien army grinned. A week of siege that cost him over ¾ of his 100,000 armored divisions and he finally managed to reduce their 300 strong robotic army to this final 3. 'And I thought it was arrogant of these Novus Terrans to send a mere 300 to respond to our assault army… they managed to hit us hard and now I knew better… But I can do it! I can win!'

The thing is, what the commander didn't realize is…

The Terra Empire never did send 300…

"MOOOUU! What the hell!" A young female Novus Magius screeched inside her Valvrave, an identical copy to the first version of the Carmilla Hinowa, now a mass produced model for basic armored legion of the Empire's Rave Knights. "Sending just us 3 to handle an entire invasion force!?"

"The Queen thinks it's a good practice for us newly ordained Rave Knights!" A much calmer female Novus Magius stated. "Besides, she also sent her deputy to aid us, so she deemed us three more than sufficient." The two Novus Magius looked at their team leader. One using the Carmilla Mk. 2 model as befits her post. (The one used during the battle for the Moon)

"Well…" Takahi sighed. "I sometimes think Saki overestimated me a little bit."

"But, my lady!" The young Rave Knight girl chortled. "You were the first of her familiars! The first of us Rave Knights! The first she turned, or so we heard! You've been with her longer than any of us."

Takahi chuckled. These girls… so young and innocent. 200 years has a way of mystifying things, giving people romanticized imaginations of the event she would consider based on rationality. 180 years ago they still call her Saki's first lieutenant. Then the godmother of her child… children… …and grandchildren. These days, they call her the First Born of her Covenant. Or just the First Lady Knight, to be short. 'In a matter of speaking… they're not wrong…' "Come now. Even the almighty Golden Seven can still find themselves on a tight corner every now and then. That's what Saki tried to teach you girls."

"By throwing us straight into the grinder!?" Sure, they're all elite members of her covenant, the Rave Knights. They've learned her tricks, they've earned the right to pilot the Valvraves… but they're practically a novice at this!

"She believes in learning on the job. How do you think she trained me?" Oh yes. 200 years will not erase the memory when Saki first told her to go full throttle and crash landed her on an asteroid.

"We're honored to follow in your footsteps, milady."

Takahi chuckled. "Alright then. What say you girls we go straight to 3000?"

"3000…!?" The two girls gasped. "Milady, we barely managed to do 100!"

"I know. But… try to go further. Like… add an extra 50 to that number. It's training girls. You do that much, I'll do the rest. It's time to end this."

The girls gaped in awe. Their senior. An Elder Magius is truly in a different league altogether.

Takahi prepared herself to jump into action… until an energy reading stopped her on her tracks. "Oh… wait… belay that order."

"Eh?" The already excited girls blinked.

"Looks like we're a bit late. She's here."

"EH!?"

Said energy readings were also detected by the incoming alien army. It was a high enough reading that they all stopped on their tracks, significantly larger than the three Valvrave before them combined by a magnitude of hundredfold. Which only means… "One of those accursed Golden Seven."

The sky literally parted to make way for a Valvrave as it descends upside down slowly and majestically. At first glance, it bears a striking resemblance to the original old Carmilla. Except due to advances in technology, there are several… radical modifications that has been made, with its form being more refined, angelic even. And the Valvrave was colored in green, gold and several silver parts. But several things remained the same, namely, it maintained its back skirt multi leg propulsion system, though it's clearly far more advanced than its lesser variant: the legs are no longer attached to the main body by any visible joints or limbs, but they floated steadily behind the waist, as if they are being held there by some invisible joints.

Takahi sighed as she opened the transmission to Saki's com. The girl's ageless face appeared on the screen, smiling sweetly. "I had this under control, you know?" The first officer moaned jokingly to her best friend and Queen.

"Is that why everything's on fire?" Saki chortled. "I said negotiate, not devastate, didn't I?"

"I sent several of mine as an envoy first. I did it multiple times until they sent back my last one in pieces. I'm used to worse but it still hurts!"

"Indeed you do." Saki nodded. "Alright, let me talk to them."

Saki's Valvrave, Carmilla Mk. V swing around and floated upright as she faced the incoming army. And then she began to speak to them in their tongue, with perfect fluency. "Retreat to your hive colonies, Belzerian. Your government and our empire had signed a peace treaty. You're now invading our sovereign territory in violation of that treaty!"

"LIES! How could our proud country bent their knees-"

"We do not come to you as conquerors; we want you as our allies. We will respect your borders as long as you respect ours and in return we will both provide each other commerce and protection."

"My government is a shameless pack of fools! Why ask protection from an enemy we can conquer!? Look at your army! Your paltry 300! We slaughtered them all down to those 3!"

"And before you do, they butchered most of your army, it seems."

"There's no defeat in Belzerian vocabulary! Only degrees of victory!"

Saki rolled her eyes, now understanding why the Empire's negotiation with them went back and forth for several decades. She'd also like to add, they didn't notice a thing, did they? Like… the only carcass around as far as her eye can see… are that of the Belzerian walkers. No trace of the Belzerian's achievement slaughtering their army. "Takahi, how many were they before you go through them?"

"100,000."

Saki rolled her eyes. Even if they caught her off guard, no way that kind of paltry number gave her First Officer that much trouble… But then, she saw the two juniors, and she understood. "Oh, I see."

Takahi grinned. "If I interfere, they won't learn anything. I kept a safety margin."

"Right." Saki nodded. Of course, she remembered, she did send those two here to be baptized in battle. Considering the circumstances, they did quite well. "Alright. I'll take it from here." Saki turned back to the enemy forces. "This is your last warning. Return back to your nation, or I'll MAKE you!"

The commander answered the challenge. "AKRAN BAKARA! TAKE AIM!" The remaining thousands of the enemy walkers aimed all their weapons at the Carmilla.

Saki knew her request was denied. And so, she closed her eyes, concentrating. When she opened her eyes again, the pupils were dark neon green, and a massive markings that extend from her neck down to her whole body glowed brightly. Unlike when she was young, the web markings were colored in emerald green with golden glow. Also, they were more elegant in that the web like markings were made of rune markings. Similar rune markings also encircle her green glowing pupils. The retinal scanner swiped across her green eyes to confirm her identity.

The Gold and Green Carmilla surged with power across its veins. The neon green sense nerve turned gold and runes burst out of every seams and openings. Soon, the energy coruscated and intensified, their glow grew brighter and brighter, blinding the army. The commander switched his vision mode to deal with this intense blinding light and brought up the radar…

And then he saw it. The dot that symbolizes the Carmilla began to… multiply. 1 becomes 5, 5 becomes 12, becomes 36, 169, 625, 1789… and it goes on like that at increasingly explosive rate. When the light finally subsided, they were surrounded by at least… 1,000,000 Carmilla… and counting.

The only one who did not have their jaw on the floor or fell on their backs at this overwhelming sight was Takahi.

"Well?" Over 1,000,000 Carmilla, filling the sky, blotting the two suns of said planet, reverberated with the sound of the Spider Queen's challenge.

The fearless Belzerian present their terms of surrender within 5 seconds.

The two Hinowa girls couldn't stop chattering in awe even as they rounded up the remainder of the broken spirited Belzerian army and send them to evacuation ships en-route to Belzerian penal colony. The 1 million Carmilla had vanished, returning back to just a single green and gold Valvrave, on standby upside down in the sky while her pilot materialized down on the planet's surface.

"So… what so important that you abandon your one woman campaign in the Anubis expanse? Certainly not to check up on silly old me?" Takahi and Saki were out of their Valvraves and sit atop the rock on the field of this victory.

"No. The Ethrian government surrendered within hours after your son breaks open their fortification. No… I… I had a Stray." Saki rubbed her forehead. She seems pretty embarrassed. "Found and recovered safely, before you ask… by the Emperor. I'm in for a tirade when I get back."

"Oh." Takahi rolled her eyes. "Well, that's good. Strays are such a problem for us. Still, you found her. Good. But why are you grinning like an idiot right now? Had another child?"

"Of course not…" Saki smiled. "That Stray found something before the Emperor recovered her. The memories she gave back to me told me of a… an important find."

"What find?"

Saki whispered to Takahi's ears. "Oh." She nodded. "That is an important find."

"Yeah, well. So hurry along and clean this up. You're expected in the citadel as soon as possible. I'd imagine you want to be part of this expedition."

"God, yes." Takahi nodded in excitement. "When?"

"Patience. We've waited for so long. We can afford a little longer." Saki vanished in a trail of Runes and a joking smile, as the Carmilla went online once again and took flight, under the awed gaze of the Rave Knights.

"So… that was… oh my god… she… she was… here… and she just…"

"The Queen… the Queen is here… she's… so beautiful… so amazing…"

The two young Magius chattered their excitement. Takahi smiled, understanding how they feel. Given their duties that span galaxies, very rarely anyone can lay eyes on the Golden Seven to the point some had begun to consider them myth. "The Queen just gave me her evaluation of you two girls."

The girls gulped.

"And she said you need more training. Come on girls. Let's finish this quick. The Queen told me we were expected."

"Y… Yes, ma'am!" The two young girls saluted. "But that was… that was really the queen right? I mean… the way she… she's in a whole different dimension than us! Kinda put you in… perspective…" The girls now felt humbled and somewhat overwhelmed. The two of them could barely create a hundred, their senior can easily do thousands… and the Queen… she clearly didn't even break a sweat in doing… what she just did.

"Come now." Takahi smiled. "Your Queen may be pretty awesome now, but I'll have you know… she was once like you too. Probably even worse than you."

"No way!?"

"Yes way." Takahi repeated the story she probably had told to thousands of younglings under her care. "You think controlling a hundred is hard… there was a time when the Queen couldn't control even one."

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200 years earlier…

5 minutes after Cain's surrender…

The Dainslev is in the hanger, locked up with Cain still inside and under the watch of over a dozen Kagerou guns.

"What do you think?" Haruto crossed his arms as he watched the Dainslev from the hangar bridge, along with A-Drei, Kriemhild and Pino. "You think his surrender is genuine?"

A-Drei and Kriemhild merely shrugged. "Cain Dressel is a legendary hero of Dorssia. A cunning man, with little to no weaknesses. There have been instances and tales of him surrendering only to turn against his temporary allies. But he's also loyal to Dorssia. To the country and its people." A-Drei quickly added. "He partially retired to become an instructor in the Karstein facility, he taught us everything we know. He's L-Elf's teacher, and the one person he fears, above all others. That's what we knew of the man, anyway." All eyes turned to Pino. They all now know that Cain is a Magius. But no ordinary Magius it was because Pino herself had identified him as her consort and a prominent member of her court.

Pino looked incredibly calm, though her smile faded somewhat. "Are you going to lock him away, even after his surrender?"

"I'm sorry, but I…" Haruto shrugged. "I just can't bring myself to trust this man. No matter what he says."

"Good." Unexpectedly, Pino nodded without batting an eye. "Make sure you lock him somewhere under surveillance at all times and then you throw away the key. Because, if I know him, and I do, that won't trouble him, much."

A-Drei rolled his eyes. "I was under the impression that you will be a little bit more hesitant about it… this is your consort after all."

"It's precisely because Attlach is my consort that I told you to lock him away." Pino sighed. "Attlach learned the value of deception and misdirection at a far more intimate level than the rest of us. Before long, not even I can easily ponder what's going on in that head of his. But I can tell you this: he dislikes moving to the forefront. He prefer in the shadow, pulling strings. It's… awkward to say this, but… of all my subjects, all my friends in my court, I care about him the most after my brother… but he's also the least I trust. He knows this, yet he made no effort to change that. Rely on him if you must but never, EVER, trust him."

Well, if the Queen would go that far to describe her own 'beloved'… then there's no problem with locking this guy in the deepest darkest hole they can find.

Suddenly, Haruto phone rang. It was an unknown number. When Haruto opened it, unbelievably enough, it was Cain. "How did you get this number!?"

"I imagine Pino just finished telling you why you should lock me away and toss the key over the window or something." Inside the Dainslev, Cain completely ignored the question. "Which is fine by me. I know I won't earn your trust in a day. Especially after everything I put you through. Still, I did not surrender without condition."

There it is, the catch. Haruto frowned. "Name your terms?"

"Your wife."

"What do you want with my wife!?" Panic and rage rose up to Haruto's throat.

"I need to see her. In fact, I think we both need to see her. Like, right now."

"You didn't answer my question-!"

"By the time I finished explaining, it'll be too late. Your wife is in great peril, Tokishima Haruto! We need to see her, right now!"

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Saki flabbergasted in horror at the sight of her doppelganger, so much so that she fell on her back. "W… What are you?"

Said naked doppelganger merely tilted her head dumbly, as she smacked her lips seductively. She began to crawl lustfully towards her downed twin. Saki was so terrified she couldn't even found the strength needed to run. And finally, her naked twin is right on top of her, leering at her lustfully, pressing her breasts against her. Somehow, Saki couldn't even resist, not even when her twin grabbed her face, and brought her lips to hers.

The instant their lips touched, Saki's eyes widened and a flood of memories surged into her head. Of the depravity that had been committed, the memories and runes she had absorbed from all those 15 men… it's not just visions anymore… she really did it… no… her copy did it! All with her face, her body!

"NOOOO!" Saki screamed and kicked the girl away. The girl fell on her back, head first… but she didn't even squirm or moan in pain. No. She kept smiling lustfully in that crazy grin, and she even kept trying to crawl back towards her, still wanting to continue where they left off. "No… NO!" Saki scampered back in horror, but her crazy twin just kept crawling. She wanted to fight back, but her womb suddenly stinged her with pain, robbing her of whatever strength she had. Suddenly, she couldn't even muster the strength needed to drag herself back. And soon, the crazed girl is already right on top of her again. She pinned both her arms, her salivating mouth is dripping on top of her face. Saki cried and shook her head. The only thing she can do now is close her eyes and begged for help. "Haruto… Haruto help me! Haruto!"

Suddenly a firm hand grasped Saki's crazed twin by the shoulder and hurled her away from a terrified Saki. Much to Saki's joy, that hand does belong to her husband, who looked as unhappy as he can be. "Saki… are you alright, and who is that!?" Haruto roared over the sound of his still badly damaged Valvrave floating overhead.

"I… I don't know!" Saki weakly smiled. "But thank god you came."

Upon seeing Haruto, the Saki evil twin smiled even crazier as she crawled on all fours like an animal in heat towards Haruto. The teen Magius prepared himself to give that crazed clone a good whack away from his wife, until a foot pressed the slattern by the back and pin her to the ground.

That foot belonged to Cain. He had to use his foot because his hands are in cuffs. That alone gave Saki a bad vibe. "Now this… is one wild Stray." He smirked.

The couple frowned. Saki looked at the one eyed man, and she only knew, based on his white and yellow garb, that he's of Dorssian origin… but something… about him… she felt… something… familiar… "Haruto… who is that… and what is he doing here?"

"This is Cain Dressel." Haruto explained. "…and he's a Magius. Attlach. Spider Queen… which means he's Pino's consort."

Saki rolled her eyes. "You're… Pino's boyfriend?"

Cain chuckled. "Well, if you wish to call it that way." Just then, the Saki clone on his feet began to trash about again, and Cain put more pressure on his foot to keep her. "By the way, Ms. Rukino or should I say Mrs. Tokishima, do you mind be a love and put down your Stray for good?"

"Stray?" Saki blinked. "What's a Stray? And why did you call her mine?"

"Because… YOU… created this thing."

Saki's mouth opened aghast. "SHUT UP!"

"It's true." Cain smirked. "…and I must say… I'm impressed. Aside from the fact this creature practically has no sanity; I've never seen someone who can create so perfect of a Harvester, with flesh, skin, blood and all."

"Oi!" Saki finally recovered from her fright and found her temper again. "Stop talking in riddles Cyclops and tell me what the HELL is that thing!?"

"What she said." Haruto also want answers as to why that twin is sexually harassing her wife like that. The Valvrave also landed on the background. Inside it, Pino observed the situation closely.

"Hmmm… there's no simple short way of explaining this…"

"Then shorten it!"

Cain rolled his eye at the girl's moxy. "Alright. Quick and dirty. Mr. Haruto… you've had your share of your… attacks, yes? You might already know, that's your Magius self preservation instinct on overdrive. Now this… thing…" Cain gestured at the still squirming Saki twin. "…is your wife's version of it."

"W… What?" The couple jawdropped.

"Simply put, your wife suffered a severe shortage of Runes. And she hadn't fed for quite a while hasn't she?" The couple was still confused, so Cain continued his explanation. "When a Magius are in need of runes, an automatic self preservation mechanism will kick in, which results in aggressive feeding, this you know. But in certain subspecies of the Magius, that survival mechanism manifest in the ability… to create a Harvester." To make his point, Cain tapped the Saki twin with his feet. "This thing right here. A creature made of pure runes, whose sole purpose of existence is to collect runes in the stead of their creator so that the creator can then consume the Harvester, thereby recovering the runes that the Harvester had collected."

"What a load of crap!" Saki roared. "You're telling me I… what… created her…? I don't even know I can create clones of myself like that! And why the hell did she had sex with all those people!?"

"When Tokishima Haruto was overwhelmed by his Magius instinct to survive, did he show any control over his actions?" Cain smiled. "I think you subconsciously created her when you were sleeping. Your brain maybe asleep, but your body remained at work. It noticed that it's short on runes, you were starving, and yet you didn't feed… and so, this thing was born to feed in your stead. And you said she had sex? I wouldn't know about that, but Rune can get transferred via intercourse. Your Clones was born from your runes, your memories. So I'm guessing it deemed sex is the best way to gather them based on your personal experiences. Up until now, before your pregnancy, how exactly have you been having your fill of runes, specifically?"

Saki momentarily forgotten her anger and think… and she blushed in realization. The only time she bite someone as a Magius was when she bite Haruto. And in all her time as a Magius, she had her fill of runes by either drinking those awful synthetic runes… and by sex with Haruto. Violently. "So you're saying I'm short on runes… but how can that be!?" Saki barked to distract herself. "I withdrew from piloting Valvrave and hadn't used Carmilla ever since I got pregnant! Of course I haven't had a sip, why should I?"

"Actually, the fact that you are pregnant is precisely why you subconsciously created this Harvester." Cain tilted his head. "Human pregnancy is followed by several symptoms. Among them, increased appetite. Again, it is a self preservation mechanism, for the mother needs to provide nutrition both to herself and her offspring."

"What's the point!?"

"The point is, you're forgetting WHAT you are." Cain gets straight to the issue. "You're a Novus Magius. Half human, half Magius. You pay attention to your human side, you forgot to care for your magius side. It's not just about your Magius side…" Cain pointed at Saki's womb. "It's your child's as well."

And for once, the couple stopped being angry. "What?"

"Your unborn child… is, beyond a shadow of doubt, a Magius. A natural born Novus Magius."

Saki's mind was instantly overwhelmed with mixed feelings. For a moment, she forgets about the clone. Her child? A Magius from birth? She caressed her womb, feeling the life inside her, growing.

Haruto also didn't know what to feel about this. On one side, his greatest concern had been quenched. But then… what kind of being their baby would become? This is clearly an uncharted territory. "How can you be so sure our child will be a Magius?"

"I had my suspicions, Tokishima Haruto." Cain replied. "Ever since your… relationship with Rukino Saki was revealed to public, I kept a close watch on you two ever since. And now, I saw this Harvester, and my suspicion was confirmed. There are clear signs." And so Cain provides his analysis on the chain of events that lead to this: "Tokishima Saki is pregnant with your Magius child. In addition to the normal nutrients every normal baby needs, this particular baby, due to its Magius heritage requires Runes as well. Said Runes it took from your wife, until the supply grew thin. But Tokishima Saki didn't realize that. Not consciously. And so, subconsciously, and without her awareness, her body created a Harvester to collect Runes in her stead. And now…" Cain gestured at the crazed Saki clone beneath his feet. "Now… this Harvester had done its duty, and it wants to transfer all the Runes it has collected back to you, its creator."

"How is it that you knew all this, and Pino didn't?"

"She knew, to a certain extent. But she's not the expert on this particular Magius biology."

"And you are?"

"There's a very simple reason for that." Cain chose to demonstrate this by simply showing his Magius web like Mark, glowing beneath his eyepatch and his one eye glowed green. Saki was particularly disturbed when she noticed that Cain's Magius marking… is eerily similar with the one she bears. In fact, as if responding in resonance, her own mark suddenly appeared on her neck and her eyes also glowed the same color of green light. Cain's marking was somewhat different in that his markings were composed of rune encryptions that shaped the web like markings. "You see… I'm just like her. Rukino Saki and I belong to the same subspecies of the Magius. So when I say I know exactly what she's been through… Know that I'm telling you the truth."

Saki looked fiercely at Cain. The very thought that she and this one eyed freak is the same breed made her felt nauseated. But then, as her eyes landed on her crazed twin at his feet, that disgust increased tenfold. "And… this… Harvester… what do you want me to do with her?"

"Finish its job. It had collected a large amount of Runes in it. Now you'll just have to claim it."

"And if I don't want to?"

"That would be highly unwise." Cain rolled his eye. "Left alone, a Harvester will continue doing what it's been doing. Eventually, it will become a Stray. Our terminology for a Harvester that went rogue."

Saki looked at Cain, and then to this twin of her, squirming mindlessly. Somehow, the sight of this guy's foot on top of her naked self just made her sick to the stomach. "First, get your foot off my girl." She started.

"As you wish." As soon as Cain removed his foot, the Harvester scampered towards Saki on all fours. Saki knelt down and looked at this mindless twin of hers in the face. Seeing that empty eyes and that smile devoid of meaning or emotion, suddenly, rather than disgust, Saki felt something else entirely. "Haruto… I'm going to… bring her to our apartment. I'm going to lock her in there with me so that I can keep an eye on her."

Haruto blinked, and he nodded. If his own wife has decided this, then so be it. "Alright. Whatever you want."

Cain clearly disapproves, but he does nothing to show it but his words. "Don't be clouded by sentiment, Rukino Saki. Humans have three basic instincts: to eat, to sleep, and to procreate. This thing is just a physical manifestation of those Instincts with no mind and rationality to inhibit them. There's no soul in it."

"By your own words, I created her." Saki is growing mighty tired of hearing Cain referring her likeness as something rather than someone. "So I'll decide how best to deal with her. Agreed?"

"As you wish." The One eyed Magius didn't argue further.

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Chapter 11:

The Calm after the Storm

The next day…

Takahi kept a ready albeit weary eyes as she scanned the surroundings where the Behemoth was last sighted. After the explosion, she volunteered to lead the search party using a Kagerou while Carmila underwent repairs. Everyone wanted to tell her it's impossible, but they wisely held their tongue when they saw her expression. Personally, Takahi need not her aides or anyone tell her what she looked like: eyes red from her endless crying when she saw her close friend heroically died in a nuclear explosion.

The only reason she stopped crying, because there's another one who cried harder than she was. The little sister of the belated. She herself understood. That was a gigaton level nuclear explosion. 50 times stronger than the largest conventional megaton nuclear bomb ever tested in history (AN: The largest to date was the Tsar Bomba at 50 Megaton). Nothing on this earth can survive that.

But still she kept searching. For something. Anything. Whatever's left of Satomi so that she can preserve it, as proof of the sacrifice he's done. Her friends had begun to give up, and even her Valvrave are starting to give up as well.

"Ninomiya-sama…!" Eri is gasping. "Ninomiya-sama we've been searching for 16 hours straight since yesterday… please… you must rest!"

"We can continue again after you recover, even just a bit! We… We will continue in your stead while you rest!" Lily stated… with baited breath.

So she says, but they sounded more exhausted than her. Takahi snapped in realization, Lilly and Eri are still human. They have not the stamina of Novus Magius like her. "Alright. Lilly, Eri, go back to base. I… I still want to search around for a few more hours, and then I'll come back."

"NO! We'll go wherever you go, Takahi-sama!"

But before the argument went any further, the Carmilla's computer console suddenly began to hum loudly. "?" The green Valvrave's computer went haywire, the monitors were filled with popping up windows and streams of encryptions. Someone is downloading a huge amount of data into the Carmilla. When the download was completed, Takahi checked her system, only to find that download had tweaked her sensor, which detected an energy surge at a coordinate on her vastly expanded starmap. "Eh?"

After a moment of contemplation, Takahi finally decided to follow that coordinate. When they arrived at the location, all they found was a giant ball of yellow crystal the size of a Valvrave's chest. Encased within the crystal, is a mechanical sphere with many tubes encapsulating its surface. Takahi had seen it many times every time the Carmilla underwent maintenance. "A Rave Engine. The Original unit… Behemoth's…"

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The first thing Kriemhild did after yesterday's debacle was to quickly find out how the hell Arus soldiers can infiltrate so deep into their perimeter. Her first investigation sees to it that she raided the Arus Starbase. The moment she laid eyes on said base, she knew right away she was right.

The Starbase was devoid of people. No signs of battle or destruction so prevalent on the other two Starbases. Which means there's almost no resistance. Kriemhild never trusted the Arus. So she had posted some of her men to spy on them and to report to her directly first sign of trouble. When they never reported she thought it was because the com tower was down yesterday.

A room full of gunned down corpses revealed where her men disappeared to.

"Well… for one thing…" Kriemhild surmised as the forensics closed the body bag on one her men. "We're already at war with Arus in the first place." She reported to her superiors.

"A Destroyer of the latest model, elite trained strike teams… this is something only Jeffrey can authorize." Shashinami Ryuuji surmised. "I knew he's still alive somewhere out there… but this is…"

"Well, you know how he is, the old codger." The Old Dorssian Emperor sighed. "More businessman than a president. He invested enough to bankrupt a small country on the VVV project. Now… his investments suddenly… well… I was gonna say turn against him… but… what these children had done is already far beyond that." Brokering alliance between two different species? Establishing foothold and infrastructure? Providing sanctuary? And to think they first conceived them as super soldiers. These children are building a nation of their own.

"But ordering an attack on civilians… this sort of thing… Has he lost it?"

"Whatever the case, after what happened yesterday, the world won't stay quiet."

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"Basically, we'll retrofit the rune drainer capsules, reverse the flow." Kibukawa began explaining. "Instead of draining runes, it'll flood the capsule with runes. We're doing to these poor kids the same thing we did to Inuzuka Kyuuma." So the doctor explained to Jin as the shattered body of Nao was put into the pod. And she's not the only one. Many of the Kagerou pilots severely injured during yesterday's event were placed inside said capsules which contains highly concentrated Rune rich atmosphere. It seems, not only they kept the patient alive, it also stimulates regeneration. Regrettably, this method only works on Novus Sapien or Magius. With the former, the regeneration also occurred very slowly.

"But she'll heal, right?" Jin gulped. "She'll be back as she was, right!?"

"What you need right now…" Kibukawa added with a firm uncompromising tone. "Is patience. That method has been proven, was it not? And while it is proven… we also know… what happens when you rush it. Yes!?"

Kibukawa's tone demanded no backtalk or argument born from impatience. And Jin dared not to rebuke him. Kyuuma's case was enough proof.

Yesterday, Kyuuma spend the whole day inside his Osiris, helping their forces secure the perimeter. His new physique as a Novus Magius and the advanced life support system inside the Osiris ensured he can keep going without eating. He only took off the armor when Aina had been recovered from the wrecked Amon Ra and regained consciousness.

"Inuzuka… senpai…" Aina smiled sweetly to the Osiris' blank face helmet.

"Aina-chan." Kyuuma smirked. "Hold on. I'm getting out of this thing." The Osiris pneumatics hissed as the giant armor collapsed away from Kyuuma's body. And it also revealed the treatment was a success. There's scarcely any sign of Kyuuma's injury that once marred his body. In every way, the boy has healed completely… or so it seemed.

The first of the symptoms was the coughing. The minute Inuzuka stepped out into the open, he starts coughing. Lightly at first but it quickly escalated to the point he fell on his knees, spitting blood into the ground with each motion.

"To the Amon Ra Rave engine! Now!" Pino quickly instructed.

The recently reborn Novus Magius body was once again put inside the core of the Valvrave. Pino and Kibukawa quickly performed a full diagnostic, and Pino easily arrived at a horrifying verdict. "It is as I feared… it was too soon."

"T… Too soon?" Aina gasped in horror.

"His internal organs haven't fully healed yet. They're functioning… but they're very weak. They're incapable of performing a life sustaining function strong enough to keep his body going for long outside rune rich environment."

"We… Well… we can fix it right? Some medications or… or… some… implants…" Aina grew more terrified when she saw Pino's expression soured.

"No, Aina-chan. Inuzuka-kun was transformed into a Magius when he's still severely injured. Thusly, part of the injuries was carried over to his immortal body – the defect became a permanent part of the body. It won't regenerate. It can't regenerate." Pino couldn't bear to look at how devastated Aina become with this explanation. "Implants or organ donation won't work either. His body will simply treat it as a foreign injection and forcibly reject it out. As it stands… I fear Inuzuka Kyuuma may have to live in a Rune rich environment, like in a Rave Engine… until I… until we can find a way to heal him."

Aina collapsed to her knees, completely shattered in tears. 'What have I done?'

00000000000000

As Cain walked past the plexiglass cells in cuffs and chains wearing an inmate clothes, he fell under the disbelieving stare of his fellow brethren. Cain ignored all that as he addressed his warden, Haruto. "I'll be more than understanding if you're angry with me because I showed what happened to your wife. But I figure I need to show you a gesture of goodwill. To show you that I really meant it, when I say I wish to pledge my allegiance."

"Indeed. And I'm grateful." Haruto replied. "But having sampled a daily life with your student plotting behind my back, I felt it is best that I take a leaf out of Pino's book on this one."

"Ah… you're talking about L-Elf yes? My greatest creation. Where is he? Have you drained him dry?"

"No, and I never will."

"Hmm… and here I thought, after surpassing humanity, you understand what it means to be a Magius."

"There's more to us than just draining people to grow stronger, okay? Even one of you recognizes that."

"So I noticed. It's amazing you managed to turn one of my finest most decorated officers to your side." Cain's words began to stir temper around the captive Magius. Already Haruto can hear words of traitor among the lines. Ashra is upstairs, managing the prison security with her two aides. After what she had done, Haruto felt she no longer have to spend her time behind a plexiglass cell. He can't say the same to the other Magius, so the lock remains.

"Anyway, I'm still waiting." Cain suddenly stopped.

"Waiting for what?" Haruto also stopped.

"Waiting for the question that has been hanging at the tip of your tongue ever since we parted from your wife."

Haruto rolled his eyes. 'Is this guy an Esper or something?' "Terms of surrender… you're asking to see my wife… specifically? Why?"

"To confirm a suspicion." Cain turned around. "And I've just confirmed it."

"That my wife is pregnant with a Magius baby?"

That statement silenced the unrest amongst the Magius prisoners in a heartbeat. Suddenly, Haruto can feel that Cain was no longer the center of attention, rather, he is. He looked around, and he saw all Magius just looked at him with eyes wide in disbelief.

"…What?" Haruto found this attention as out of place as it is unsettling.

"Do you realize the significance of that baby, Tokishima Haruto?" Cain smiled confidently. It seems this is exactly what he wanted to happen.

Haruto looked questioningly at the one eyed Magius.

"Centuries since the death of the last Matriarch, we believed we are dying. That without the means to procreate, to replenish our ranks, everyone believed there's no future left for us but extinction. And to make things worse, the last Matriarch, our very own Queen, returned only to damn us to extinction. We've lost all hope." Cain smiled in triumph. "Until today. Until you revealed to them, that you just sired the first natural born Magius child in centuries. You're welcome by the way."

"Excuse me?"

"These Magius prisoners won't trouble you anymore. In fact if you let them go, I damn well guarantee you, they'll be more than happy to march under your banner and fight to the death for you and your kin." Cain smiled. "You've given them hope… and you just got yourself an army of Gods loyal to you to replenish your depleted ranks of Demigods."

Indeed, as Haruto turned to look at the prisoners staring at him, he began to notice a spark lighting up in their eyes. Those eyes that looked like a dead shark are now burning with spirit once again. Cain kept talking because he was goading him to reveal the existence of his Magius child in front of these hope starved Magius. They always said that Novus Magius will fight to the death for the sake of his child… Never crossed his mind that saying can extend to the Magius side as well.

But Cain did. With just a few properly picked words and perfect timing, he was able to sway all these hostile Magius to their side with little to no effort. Haruto gulped. He's starting to understand why someone like L-Elf would fear him so much.

"Now, which way, Mr. Tokishima?"

"Which way to where?"

"We ARE going to the Supermax Cell adjacent to L-Elf's cell, do we not? That is where you're taking me?"

"I know you taught L-Elf that prophetic deduction thing." Haruto groaned. "So could you please just knock it off for a minute? It's annoying." Haruto pushed Cain to the prison elevator.

A card slide and the elevator went down.

"Hmm… how did you managed to keep him here? I recall I taught him to get out at a place like this in less than 5 minutes."

"I know." Haruto had no doubt he could. "What you'll have to understand is… your student is… a broken shattered shell of a man he once was. A-Drei and I have given up trying to stir him back up but… maybe… just maybe…"

"Oh? Now, this I need to see."

The door slid open, revealing the supermax prison. It's but a narrow bridge with multiple cell cubes. These prisoner cell cubes are transparent, no blindspot, its prisoners are given a small cubicle with a bed, enclosed in thick but transparent crystal wall on all sides. The cube cell was held suspended in the air by cables holding it aloft above an abyss. "Clear Fossil composite armor? 8 feet thick." Not even runes can penetrate that. It was clearly designed to lock in Magius.

As they move along the incredibly narrow bridge where two people can barely walk side by side, the warden and his prisoner arrived at their destination. L-Elf is still where he left him. Still brooding inside his cell.

"You're still alive. I'm impressed." L-Elf started, his back still turned against Haruto. He had no idea Cain was right behind him.

"I brought you a visitor." Haruto started. Cain noticed the humor of the situation and mischievously kept his silence.

"You've brought me plenty of visitors."

"This one is different."

"Humor me."

Cain knew his timing and took it. "What a disgraceful state, L-Elf."

L-Elf jumped upright in less than a second, recognizing that voice. He turned around and, to his disbelief, his teacher. His unbeatable, invincible teacher, wearing prisoner's clothing and in chains.

"That bewildered expression on your face." Haruto shook his head. "It makes me bringing your teacher all the way here personally really worth it. At least I know some part of you is still alive."

L-Elf was rendered utterly speechless.

"Indeed, Tokishima Haruto. Perhaps you should leave me here with him, for a moment? That cell in front of him is mine, yes?" Cain was referring to another box shaped cell identical to the one holding L-Elf. "But I don't see an entrance?"

"Yeah. Give me a moment." Haruto moved to a panel. He pressed his thumb on a dna scanner, and the cell cube moved in closer to the bridge. Funny thing is, Cain couldn't see any lock or key. "Is it DNA imprinted?"

"Just for the cell conveyor." Haruto grabbed a handle, and then, just like that, Haruto pushed a giant slab in, revealing a slit of a door.

Cain quickly understood. "Clever… very clever. The lock is for the conveyor, but… to open the slab there's no machine, no electronic key or any system… just brute strength… it'll take 20 men to push that giant slab in, but there's isn't enough room from 20 men… only a Magius brute strength can open it? Ingenious."

"No." Haruto had just finished pushing the slab fully to reveal the entrance to the supermax cell. "It's dumb. An idea so simple and dumb you genius types would easily figure it out, but to do it… different matter entirely. That was the idea with him." Haruto gestured to the still shocked L-Elf. "We're tired of thinking convoluted means to lock you up only for you to think convoluted ways to get out of it. So we dumb down a bit. Now in you go. And you can remove those shackles now, I know you've already unlocked them in the elevator."

Cain smiled and flexed his shoulder. And just like that, all his bindings and chains just fell off him as if they were never locked. And yet, Cain obediently walked into his cell without resisting. Haruto pulled the slab and it's 'locked' again. One press of Haruto's thumb and the cube moved back to its position, hanging over the abyss.

"Now… you two. Be nice." Haruto left the two Dorssian super soldiers in their cells, facing one another, one seem to wish he's anywhere but here, while the other seems to be the only one in this entire base who wants to be here. He climbed out of the supermax and back to the regular cell complex. As he walked past the much calmer prisoners, Haruto had to bask himself in the awed stare of reverence from the Magius. Though it's a 180 degree change from the hateful look he used to get, it's not exactly welcome. Anyway, that's not his concern right now.

Cain looked at L-Elf's terrified visage, and started with: "Charming friend you have."

00000000000000

After a long while, Takahi and her cohorts finally returned with the Rave Engine in tow.

"Label me impressed. Point blank Gigaton explosion, and the Rave Engine remained intact." A-Drei rolled his eyes as the crystal encased reactor was placed in the hangar for all to see.

"The Rave Engine is the most alien component of a Valvrave." One of the technicians explained. "Their component does not correspond to anything in the periodic table. That thing is literally out of this world and pretty much the only thing we can't reproduce or fix if damaged. But… it's the heart of the Valvrave. The core of its construction. As long as the engine remained intact, a Valvrave can be rebuilt no matter how many times it is destroyed."

Meanwhile, Pino had already gone inside the Rave Engine, checking it for any compromise in its structural integrity. She popped her head out of the still crystal entombed engine. "She's fine. Everything checks out."

"How long will it take to rebuild Unit-03?" A-Drei asked.

"Well, Valvraves and Kagerous are built to be modular. One component can be used for the other. But there are some parts in Valvrave that made them unique to Kagerous, especially after their upgrade… Behemoth is… almost one of a kind. Which means some of them will have to be rebuilt from scratch." Pino run the estimated numbers of time. "It… might take a while. I could say the same with the other units. The Amon Ra is virtually in pieces, Carmilla could barely stand, and Valvrave's systems need a total overhaul… The only one that can function properly is Malefic and… ah." Pino stopped when she realized the slip in her tongue.

At the mention of the purple Valvrave, Takahi made a disgusted scoff and left Pino hanging mid sentence. A-Drei sighed. Great. Nothing like a dissension among their pilots to compound the damage inflicted by this recent incident.

00000000000000

Between avoiding her twin's sexual advances and keeping an eye on her so that she didn't wonder of and, lord forbid, maybe rape somebody she shouldn't have, it was a sheer miracle that Saki managed to drag her naked nymphomaniac of a clone into the apartment with little to no accident.

Once she managed to push her in, the clone immediately roll around and jumped into bed, snarling and chuckling in excitement. Saki used that chance to lock and bolt the door. Here's hoping she's mindless enough to not know how to use keycards. And just to make sure, she also locked the window, closed every opening to the outside world to make sure she won't escape anywhere. Once Saki is certain that she had sealed off every exit, she returned to the matter at hand.

She looked at that mindless clone, lying in bed, laughing and snarling without rhyme or reason. One look, and she began to admit: 'Maybe this is not such a good idea after all…' But then, striking her stronger than her doubt, was the reason she did this. The first time she looked at her, she remembered what her clone had done, what she tried to do… and it disgust her to no end. Who wouldn't be? But as that one eyed Dossian explained it, with each word, somehow that disgust turned into pity and understanding. Suddenly, Saki realized she's about to watch a history repeating itself.

A history of a daughter who did not choose to be born the way she is, starving for the love of her parents, who rejected her out of disgust over what she is. Her mother despises her for her growing popularity outshines her. Her father, knowing what she is on the inside, left her. When Saki suddenly realized she's about to become a mother, she swore she will not be like her pitiful excuse of a parent. Whatever her child will be, she will never abandon it. Now, perhaps this is not what she had expected, but by all indications, she did 'gave birth' to this… girl. When Cain told her to… consume her… she realized, that if she allowed her disgust to cloud her conscience, she'll be no different than her parents. But to kill her is also out of the question. Nothing to it… she had to take responsibility.

Now, long term: she had to make this evil twin of hers stop fucking everybody on sight. But for now… "Alright… let's start this nice and easy." Saki carefully approached her crazed clone. Her eyes locked with hers. "Now, can you understand me?"

"Tee-hee-hee?" She just smirked… and then she closed her lips with hers again.

Saki was pretty caught off guard, but in an instant before the clone's tongue can slither in, she managed to push her back. Just the same, some memory managed to find its way, the memory of a blowjob. 'Oh God…' Saki spit an imaginary vomit several times into the trash can. "Okay… this is gonna take a while…"

And for some few hours, the sound of screams, laughter and pretty much all kinds of hell break loose in that room. Including several sounds of… indecent nature…

Finally, a panting Saki, her hair in disarray, face and neck full of kiss marks and hickeys, her clothes half undone, resolved to hog tie her still crazed clone in a futomaki. Wrapped in the futon, she wriggled and squirmed like a limbless worm. "Alright… okay…" Once Saki made sure this Stray clone of hers can't move anywhere, she carefully approached the stray from the front. "Now… let's try this again." She also made sure she kept her lips out of her reach. "Do you understand me? Nod if you do, shake your head if you don't." Saki went so far as to demonstrate how to do it.

It result in only a monkey see monkey do response, the clone only repeated what she does with that same blank smile.

Saki sighed. "…okay… let's try something a little extreme…" She caressed her cheek softly, and the clone clearly enjoyed it… and then she slapped her hard. Her smile slightly faded. But she went back to that empty grin again almost immediately. But her cheek visibly reddened. Saki repeated the treatment, gently caressing her cheek, alleviating the pain a bit… before she delivered another harsh slap. This time, when the clone recovered, the smile began to fade. Mindless or not, the pain was clearly felt.

"Alright… nod, if you want me to do this…" Saki caressed gently. "Shake your head if you want me to stop doing this." And Saki slapped her again.

The clone didn't seem to understand… but then, her fading smile showed that the pain in her cheek began to register on what little consciousness she has. And like every other living organism, pain is something she dislikes.

"Do you want this?" Saki caressed her cheek, she obviously liked the feeling, and she just enjoyed it. But she didn't nod her head, and Saki raised her hand. "Shake your head if you don't want this!" But she didn't understand. And so the slap arrived. But this time… perhaps due to her frustration or annoyance over the lack of progress, Saki slapped her clone a tad too hard. Blood trickled down the corner of her mouth, and the girl's expression grew visibly frightened.

That alarmed Saki that she just went a little too far. "Oh no." Saki quickly reacted by caressing the girl. "Oh dear, oh my… Are you alright, are you hurt? What am I saying? Of course you are!" She caressed her cheek, gently swiping away the blood from the corner of her lips. As she did this, their eyes meet. And as the clone watched Saki's concerned face, something began to change.

Saki already removes the blood from her lips. "Alright… let's try this again." Now she's caressing her gently. "Now… nod if you want me to caress you."

And to Saki's surprise… she eagerly nodded. And as promised, Saki continued to caress her cheek as the clone purred dreamily, just like a kitten. "Now…" Saki's hand suddenly left her cheek and rose up again, preparing to slap. "-if you don't want me to slap you, you have to-"

And she shakes her head before Saki can complete the deed. Saki breaks into smile, and stopped. Still, the now much more alive clone looked hopefully at Saki's hand, wanting her to caress her again, and so she nodded, furiously. Saki went back to the promised caressing. "That's my girl." Finally. A start.

00000000000000

"You want me to… train you?" Ashra repeated to make sure she did not mishear.

"Please." Haruto bent his head down. "You were right. I knew next to nothing on how Magius do battle. As I am now, I'm just a human who can heal fast and take more hit than normal. But… yesterday, I realized there's more to us than just moving joystick and pressing the trigger of a giant robot. And I fought Cain, he won wasn't because his Dainslev is better than mine… he knew how to use it as a Magius and as a human. I need to learn to do something like that."

Ashra remembered how easily Haruto copied her finger laser technique and it still made her feel a bit uneasy. Still, the boy made a compelling point. Talented he may be as a Magius, a talent unpolished and undisciplined is just as dangerous as the lack of it. Both to himself and to others around him. "Truth be told, there's an easier way to answer that request."

Haruto immediately guessed what it was. "I know… but… if I do that…"

"Why? Were you worried that I will lose the ability once you absorbed it?" Ashra shrugged. "Don't worry. I've stored some backups." Rasa waved behind Ashra to emphasize this. "If I forget it, I can just relearn it again."

"Backups?"

"Pointers. Diaries. Reminders. It's a good habit to get in to. When you reach my age you'll find your memories a wee bit stretched. Remember: Runes are information particles. When you use them in a battle, they consume memories. If you're not careful… you may end up losing your important memories."

"Right." Haruto was really grateful that Ashra point this out to him. But again, this wealth of experience showed just how suited she is in teaching the Novus Magius what they sorely lacked. They know how to live as humanity, but they know very little of what it's like to be a Magius. "I'll just have to drain you right? I know it's faster… but please, I prefer we do this right and take the long slow way around."

"Why?"

"Well…" Haruto scratched his cheek, searching for the right words to say. "If one ran too fast, one tends to drop things along the way… but if we slow down a bit… we can still pick up things that fell behind."

Ashra tilted in confusion. "What do you mean by that?"

"Ah… well…" Haruto grew somewhat awkward. "Well… if I learn it the slow way, I might be able… to… understand it fully… better… ah?"

Ashra's two retinues looked awkwardly at Haruto. Ashra was the one who catch on first. "Were you hoping to rely on the process of trial and error? To see if there's a flaw in my fighting style and then if there's room for improvement?"

Haruto shrugged and nodded.

Ashra frowned… and then she remembered her conversation with Pino yesterday before she gave her the Kagerou…

Flashback:

"Humans are so strange." Ashra observed the Kagerou as she put on her pilot suit. "They seek perfection, yet when they grasped it, they found imperfection… failing to understand they're one and the same: the fruit of their own labor."

"That's the nature of humans." Pino calmly assembled the Kagerou, slightly modifying it for Ashra's use. "But in their failings, they continuously made improvements. That's how they advance as a species. That's how they grow."

"But… if it's like that… they'll chase perfection forever! But they'll never grasp it! They'll die before then!"

"And yet our universe was swallowed by theirs." Pino smiled. "We're static, they continue to grow. It's that simple. It's their nature. But… that doesn't mean we can't use that to grow as well."

Flashback ends.

'Humanity's ability to grow endlessly… means an endless amount of new information, new knowledge, perpetual new improvements… when Magius can grow knowledge endlessly on their own, they'll have no need of absorbing Runes from other beings. Queen Pino… is this… what you meant?' Somehow though, she had a feeling that's not exactly it… Nevertheless Ashra nodded. 'Maybe teaching these young Magius will give me the answer.' "As you are now, Tokishima Haruto, you're not ready to endure my training. You're not strong enough. Yet. Jeay."

Jeay stood at the ready.

"Make him strong enough."

00000000000000

Back to Saki…

"Alright, now that we've established a start, let's put some clothes on." Can't have her likeness walking around naked in public.

Thankfully, the clone is exactly the same as her, so all her clothes should fit. "Alright… let's put it on."

Saki untied the clone, and thankfully, she's a lot more docile this time around. She seems to be quite wary of Saki slaps. But she's eager to please her if it meant gaining her caresses. And so she obediently let Saki dressed her up.

Saki gave her one of her white maid clothing. And then, so that it'll be easier to differentiate them, she tied a bundle of her hair on one side in a pony tail style. "There. Done."

The Clone sits dumbly. Saki crossed her arms to admire her work. It's rather strange. Seeing herself like that, and yet this likeness is not her. She's like a doll. "Now… let's move on to the next step… we know you can speak… albeit only that creepy tee-hee-hee…" That jerk Cain said she's just a baser instinct with no mind… but, in the end… her earlier experiment showed the clone was capable of rudimentary intelligence… she's practically an overgrown baby. And like any baby… she can be taught stuff. It'll just gonna take a while. "Alright… let's try something simple." She looked around, searching for something… she only found the keycard. "Alright, let's try this. This is a card. Card."

The Clone just dumbly looked at the keycard. She simply nodded, wanting a caress.

"Hmmm…" Well it worked so well the first time. "You want this?" Saki caressed the clone again, and she smiled so wide. "Then repeat after me. Card."

The Clone still hadn't say anything.

"Card! C-a-r-d! Card!" Not giving up, Saki kept repeating it up close, giving the clone a view of how her lips move to voice the word.

"C…"

"!"

"C… Kado?" She spoke!

"Getting there. Card." Saki nodded. "Card!" She repeated.

"Ca… Car… Card…?" The Clone struggled and choked the word out. And as a reward, she gets the caress she liked so much.

"Card. Yes, that's good. Card." Saki handed the card to the clone. The clone dumbly looked at it, and she instinctively took it.

"Card." The Clone held the first object she called by name for the first time. "Card. Card. Card!" And she kept repeating it over and over.

"Right… next… next… urmm…" She grabbed the first object her hand could reach. "Pillow! Pillow!"

"P… P… Card?"

"No. Pillow! Pillow!"

"Picow… Pil… low… Pillow?"

"That's right." Another caress. "Next is, next is… uhh… you… umm…" Saki looked wildly. "Bed!" Saki slapped the bed where the Clone sat.

"B… bed!"

"Chair!"

"C… Chair!"

"Phone!"

"P… Phone."

The clone's learning. And she's catching things up faster and faster. Saki is starting to ran out of things to call out, and then she pointed at a "Mirror!"

The Clone stopped when she saw herself and Saki in the mirror. "M… M…"

"Mir… oh." That's right. They're exactly alike. If one didn't know better, one can easily mistake them for twins. The Clone tilted her head, seeing her own reflection. There are… two of them staring back at her. And then she realized it was a reflection, one of her, the other of… She looked at Saki. "Mirror?"

"Yes. Mirror."

The Clone tilted her head strangely at Saki. "Mirror?"

And then Saki understood. She thought she (Saki) is called Mirror. "No, no, no. I'm Saki. Saki."

"?"

Saki pointed at herself. "I'm Saki. Saki. Sa-ki!"

"Sa-ki?"

"That's right. Sa-ki." Saki pointed at herself. The Clone began to catch on. This 'mirror' is Saki.

"Saki." She looked at Saki, then to Saki's reflection in the mirror. "Saki." She touched Saki's reflection in the mirror. And then she trailed to her own reflection. "Saki?" But funnily, this 'Saki' is different with the one next to her.

"No, no, no… it's… you."

"?"

"Ah… that's right… you don't have a name don't you?" Saki frowned in thought, thinking a good name… "Alice. Yeah. That's your name. Alice." Saki couldn't think of a better name than the woman who once helped her during her brief tenure as an idol.

"Saki?"

"Here. Saki." She pointed at herself, "Alice." She pointed at the clone.

She didn't get it the first time, but Saki repeated it for her. "Saki." She pointed at herself. "Alice." She pointed at the Clone. "Saki" She repeated the process. "Alice." The Clone is still a bit confused. "Saki…" Saki pointed at the clone, waiting.

"…A…li…ce?" she repeated slowly.

"That's right. I'm Saki." She pointed at herself. "And you're Alice." She pointed at the clone.

The Clone is starting to get it. She pointed at herself. "Saki." Then she pointed at Saki. "A-Li-ce."

Saki chuckled. "No, no, no. here let me say it again." She grabbed the clone's hands. She pointed the hand at the clone. "Alice…" then she moved her hand to herself. "Saki. Saki, Alice." And she repeated it several times.

Finally, the clone is starting to get it. She timidly pointed at herself. "Alice…" She pointed at Saki. "Saki." Saki nodded and caressed the girl as a reward. And then, as if finally understanding her newly given name, the clone grew more confident as her eyes grew more alive. "Alice." She pointed at herself. "Saki." Then to Saki. "Alice, Saki. Alice, Saki!" She repeated it again over and over in excitement. "Alice! Saki! Alice! Saki!"

Saki laughed sweetly at the childish excitement of her clone. "Then, it's decided."

The newly christened clone, Alice, smiled.

"Nice to meet you, Alice."

"Saki!" and Alice showed what Saki perceived as a form of gratitude the only way she knew:

By giving Saki another deep passionate French kiss.

'Oh no, not again.'

00000000000000

Before long, Haruto had changed to his training Gi as he stands timidly on the arena within the gym. Raizo and Yusuke stood behind him at the ready.

STOMP!

Jeay's bodybuilder of a foot shook the arena as he entered it while cracking his fingers, the sound of which reverberated across the room. And already Haruto is starting to have second thoughts.

"Yosh. You humans have a saying: A healthy mind resides in a healthy body! In order for you to even hope of surviving Lady Ashra's training regime, we must first work on that flimsy stamina of yours. Are you ready?"

Haruto swallowed a gulp, once again wondering if this is really a good idea. But then he also noticed Raizo standing at the ready behind him. "Raizo? What are you doing here?"

"Well, I heard you want to train to get stronger, Aniki. So there's no friggin' way I'd be left out!" Raizo grinned. Though that grin quickly faltered a bit when Raizo let down his bravado a bit for some sincere sorrow. "Sides… because I wasn't strong enough yesterday, that Renbokuji went and blew up in the sky and I just watched. I… I don't wanna go through that again."

"Raizo…"

That was when Raizo suddenly roared. "ANIKI! HEAD'S UP!"

"Huh?" Haruto turned around and a gigantic fist is right in front of him. He managed to duck just in time, the punch scraped a bit of his hair. The very shockwave from the swing pushed Haruto off his feet and throw him to the ring cables. The cable catapulted him back straight to Jeay's welcoming lariat.

A sickening crack of a neck bone being snapped clean off filled the gym. Haruto fell on the mat with his head twisted over 180 degrees.

"OI!" Raizo roared. But Jeay didn't seem fazed and merely shrugged it off.

"First lesson in Magius hand to hand combat." He nodded to Haruto. "Stop thinking you can die so easily."

As if to prove his point, Haruto chose that time to get back up. It took him a while to realize his head is on the wrong side of his back. He grabbed his head, and with a cracking twist, put it back on where it should face. Haruto crackled his head to the side, just to make sure all the joints are back in its place. "…okay…"

"Lady Ashra ordered me to train you children." Jeay snorted as he walked around Haruto like a butcher ready to cut a piece of meat. "Doesn't mean I have to like it. However, I don't like to do things halfway. I'll teach you the same way lady Ashra taught me. And I only have one rule."

Haruto had just got back on his feet when Jeay explained his one rule:

"Learn fast or die!" Jeay demonstrated this by sending another earth shattering punch at Haruto's head.

Haruto did indeed learn and he know to dodge those punches as far away as possible. But he wasn't prepared for a side swipe swinging to his chest. He put up his guard with his crossed arms, feel his arm bones crushed to dust beneath his muscles before he was once again send flying to the cables. The process repeats, and this time, Jeay's right punch shot him through the cables, quickly rip it apart when its elasticity can no longer tolerate the force which sent the poor boy into a crater on the wall, with most, if not all, of his chest ribs shattered.

Everyone training in that gym paled in fright. Were they training or were they trying to bring down the building?

Raizo was torn with jumping into the ring gave that trainer a piece of his mind or check what becomes of his aniki. Haruto made that decision for him.

"Ouch." Haruto had only enough strength to say that one word. His whole body hurts like hell. "R… Raizo… I… I think my back's broken. Get me out of here so that my punctured lungs can regenerate without the ribs getting in the way-cough!"

As Raizo and several others tried to pluck the plastered Haruto off the wall, Jeay deemed it the right time to teach the next point. "Second lesson: You won't always have your Valvrave to protect you. And while it's a good thing you can heal fast, it is better if you don't get injured at all."

When Raizo finally get Haruto standing, his lungs had regenerated to allow the boy to speak without vomiting blood. "I can't imagine why." Other than the fact that immortal or not, it still hurts.

"Your regeneration is limited by the amount of Runes you have. Sadly our regeneration is grossly inefficient. Sometimes we lose more than we heal. If you ran out of runes while you're still injured, the injury WILL kill you." Jeay rest on the ring pole as he watched Haruto get back up on his feet, but clearly out of breath. "As I was saying. You won't always have the Valvrave to protect you. So you're gonna have to learn to toughen up."

00000000000000

When Billy finally met face to face with the infamous Tokishima Haruto in person, the first he get was a solemn thank you from the first of the Novus Magius having protected his childhood friend. After which, one thing led to another and by the beginning of the next day (today), he's assigned as Shoko's personal bodyguard-slash-secretary-slash-errand boy. And at first, he couldn't be more excited.

10 seconds into the job, that enthusiasm began to wane.

See: Super Nuclear explosion in space. Two Valvraves in a titanic deathmatch on the moon. These sort of things added more panic to the already hectic state of the world. The Leaders of the nation around the world demand answers. They are being buried by letters requesting/demanding a meeting with the Prime Minister of New Jior to explain the situation.

"Uhh… Ms. Shashinami… we have letters and request of meetings from the heads of states… they all want to meet in regard of the Valvraves-"

And how does Shashinami Shoko respond?

"BLAARGH! Boring! Meeting this, meeting that! Valvrave this, Kagerou that! Same thing allover again, it's boring! Boring! BORING! You meet them!" Shoko growled.

"What!?" Billy gaped. "B-b-b-b-but how… w-w-w-what!? W-ww-w-why!?"

"I got other matters pressing my attention right now! So stop bothering me with trifles!"

"Other… matters?"

"Yeah. I'm presiding over a riceball making contest! So tell them ministers and sinisters to bugger off!"

Billy was rendered utterly speechless and pretty much helpless. First day on the job and he was quickly introduced to Shoko's brand of country management… which include a list of nonsensical activity that filled her whole day's timetable and whose importance didn't even make sense to everyone but her.

Presiding over riceball making contest: that was at 5:30 AM. Then…

6:30: build a game room

7:30: accept game challenges in the game room, kick ass and take names

8:30: host a spelling competition in the kindergarten

9:00: Host a highway painting competition, goal: set a record for the largest longest street painting ever made.

11:30: Preside over the Master Chef the Moon Competition, with 300 participants, including herself!

13:00: kick some more asses and take some more names in the game room

14:00: Visit Kyuuma in his new Rune Hyperbaric chamber and talk to him on get rich quick schemes (AKA placing bets on matches and horse racing)

15:00: get rich quick schemes failed, talk with Akira to hack the stock exchanges and transfer (think the highest astronomical number you can think of) credit dollars to their account – which she did. (Billy: 'Holy shit why hasn't anyone arrested these girls?')

15:15: Berate Akira to not make a habit out of this.

15:15:10 seconds: Talk with Kyuuma again on investments schemes now that they got the capital.

15:30: and so on

Xx:xx: and so forth

Current: Commandeer the army on a search and rescue operation: Mission: rescue a set of very rare plamo toys.

Seriously… if he hadn't seen and known better… he'd think Shoko was just playing around all day. Because that's all she did in her nonsensical timetable.

But here are the facts.

The Riceball making contest provide enough food for the whole module while the supply and food factory are being fixed. The Game room allowed some of the citizens to relieve some stress. She galvanized the people to use it by accepting challenges. With people flocking to the game room, the streets are less used. She hosted a spelling competition in the kindergarten to invite the children to the so called Highway painting tournament. Because to paint those giant pictures on the street, said street had to be cleared of all rubbles and obstacles. Which means it has an added benefit of clearing the necessary infrastructures for long run operation. The Master Chef was to cook lunch, of course, but also to create a product which they can mass produce and then sell. Reason: funding. What else? They're waging a war, and it's expensive! Hence, the get rich quick scheme.

And now, the search and rescue operation failed to yield the intended results of the rare set of plamos… but it did unearth, among other things, 3 pickaxes, 4 cardboxes full of med kits, 2 jackhammers, 12 power cells, 10 usable albeit half banged cars, 3 bulldozers, and cleared an access to a fully functioning underground subway station which still hold a whole set of monorail train in mint condition. But no plamo. All in all, a complete mission failure. Yep.

Billy waved the grateful moon colonist goodbye before he caught up with the grumbling and upset Prime Minister. "Prime Minister, don't be so upset. You did a good job today."

Shoko still pouted as she dragged her feet most unwillingly from that site. "But those plamos are sold only in the Moon! You can't get them anywhere else!"

Billy chuckled as he checked Shoko's activity list. At this point, he also noticed that… in all that activity the word 'rest' was not even mentioned. "Ms. Shoko, ma'am, don't you think you should… take a rest. You did a lot today, don't you think?"

"…not enough."

Billy stopped on his tracks when he noticed Shoko had also stopped. She was looking at the view of the city, its many skyscraping office buildings and the smaller neighborhood that surrounds it. The officer building had all its windows shattered, several of the houses collapsed. "We started this. We started this and look what happened. We dragged the whole world into it. The Council. Novus Magius. You were better off without all that. But it still happened anyway. You people have lost more than what you've gained, and before this war ends, you will probably lose a lot more. So until it ends, I'm gonna work my ass off to make sure you get… maybe not all of them, but some of them back."

"…" Billy nodded.

Shoko chuckled. "Oh well! What's next on my agenda!?" And she's already back on the move.

"Umm… well… in that case… during that 'expedition' I have another… 65 International delegates for you to completely ignore."

"And I will. Probably. Definitely. I think my presence is needed in the Junkyard. We could host some… Made-Your-Own-Plamo-Out-Of-Junk-Competition… hmm… no, that name is too long. Any ideas?"

"…uhh…" Billy smiled nervously. "Junk-mo-competition… maybe?"

SLAP!

That was Shoko giving Billy a good gung ho slap on his back. "Nice one! Right then! Junk Mo Competition, here we come!"

And this is why he'll doubt he'll be quitting this job anytime soon. Because Shoko just taught him there's no such thing as having too much fun doing the right thing.

00000000000000

She learned to speak words. Good. Insofar, Saki had taught her to say the names of every object she gave her. She doesn't know how to form sentences yet, but at this rate, she'll do just fine.

She learned to know what she like and don't like. She like getting caressed, she dislike getting slapped. Fine. And then there's this three basic human needs: Sleep, Eat, Sex. But what Saki fails to understand is: what is it with Alice's fixation on sex!? Yes she gets that from her mother who happens to love his husband very, VERY much… But what happened to eat and sleep?

"Or maybe… you just don't know how to eat or sleep… hrmmm…" One quick trip to the kitchen and Saki returned with a piping hot TV dinner burger steak with some sunny side up egg and mashed potatoes and braised broccoli on the side. She placed it in front of her nose, and she's clearly interested. She wanted to reach it, but her hands are still cuffed to her chair.

Saki dare not to un-cuff her… but she want to first test her reaction. So first she demonstrated what to do. She took a fork and plucked a piece of the burger, putting it in her mouth and munched it contently in front of her face. Alice just stares at her with her mouth hung open until Saki swallowed the burger with a visible and audible gulp. It seems Saki managed to stimulate her appetite. "Saki?" She called.

"You want this?"

Alice's eyes brightened. "Saki! Saki!"

"This is burger. Burger. Bur-ger."

"Bu… Burger. Burger!"

"Yes." Saki plucked a piece and slowly put it in Alice's mouth. At first, she was shocked at how hot it was. And she accidentally spit it back out. "Now that's not very nice!" Though Saki knows she does share the blame for not blowing it first till it cools. The next piece, she blew it until it' is cool enough and when she put it in her mouth again, it worked better than the last time. Alice happily munched the burger in her mouth, relishing in its deliciousness. And then, as the burger's taste grew thin, and then, she remembered what Saki did, and she swallowed it.

She blinked. There's… something… uplifting in this activity… as well as leaving her craving for more. She opened her mouth again with pleading eyes.

Saki smiled. "Clever girl." Soon, the girl also found her like and dislike of the food. She likes the fluffy and juicy burger, she loved the melty egg as it mixed with the meat, she liked mashed potato, and she ate the broccoli and wrinkled in dislike. But pretty soon, she ate her fill of burger. Two whole plates of it. Hers and her mother's.

And then, a loud burp later, and she felt… her eyes are getting heavy. Her mouth suddenly involuntarily opened up as she let air in. And then… finally, unable to hold in anymore, she let her heavy eyelids to close. Before long, Saki can hear her snoring.

Saki smirked. "Eat, check." She held her sleeping face, and one can see her smiling in her sleep. Like an innocent little girl who had her fill and dreamed of the next meal to come. "Sleep… check."

She uncuffed her and carried Alice's sleeping figure to the bed. As Alice snore without a care in the world, Saki covered her in a blanket. And… for some reason, Saki felt it a good idea. She tucked in next to Alice's sleeping figure. "Sweet dreams, child."

00000000000000

"Apply a thin but dense layer of runes on your skin. Like this." Jeay demonstrated this by showing that covering his originally dark skin is a thin layer of yellow runes, composed of innumerable tiny hexagonal pieces. "You know of the hard light you call Solid Afterglow? That is the unique property of Runes in comparison to all other known energy source. It's neither liquid, solid, or gas: it is whatever you want it to be. A rune Hardlight's shape and form obey your imagination. Imagine you're wearing a skintight suit of elastic metal armor allover your skin."

Haruto nodded as he tried to imagine a suit of armor. 'Suit of armor, suit of armor…' The runes began to flow out of his pores. It was colored in dark and red, just like the color of the Solid Afterglow when he's in his Valvrave. And then, the runes began to coat his arm, like a red colored plastic bag enclosing said arm. Worse, said arm couldn't move a muscle.

Jeay rolled his eyes seeing Haruto's pitiful excuse of armor. He suddenly closed his distance again, fist swinging. Haruto instinctively answered with a punch of his own.

The two fists collided with obvious results. Haruto was sent flying out of the ring with a severely broken arm, his bone sprouted out of his skin.

"WHAT THE HELL!?" Haruto screamed in anger to stop himself from squealing like a girl.

"Is that what you humans call armor or is it just you?" An unrepentant Jeay merely rolled his eyes.

"I'M NOT READY YET!" As he said this, Haruto's broken bone sank back in and reconnected as his wounds regenerated.

"You think your enemies will wait for you to be ready?" To make his point, Jeay charged in again for another strike. "I told you: Learn fast or DIE!"

Haruto's right arm has just fully regenerated and he just managed to generate a very thin layer of rune armor coating said arm when he brought it up.

The impact threw Haruto spiraling uncontrollably to the air with a shattered arm for the fourth time that day, landing him violently on a weight lifting bench, crushing it upon impact. If there's anything different with this one, is that Haruto didn't get back up having lost consciousness and Jeay's fist was knocked back a step.

"Hm. I actually felt that." He also saw his main student had just fainted. Probably for the night. So he turned to the next student, being Raizo. "Alright. Come up here tough boy, you're next."

Raizo gulped, now wishing he's a better listener.

00000000000000

Personally, Kyuuma didn't find his current circumstances to be that much of a hindrance. It's the same as before in that he's still limited in his mobility. The only difference that made his condition is much more bearable is that at the very least, he's back in his own body and he can do whatever he wants without worrying he'll damage someone else's body… provided he stayed in this surprisingly vast chamber of Rune rich environment.

Shoko did everything in her power to make his room less of a prison, more of a personal chamber. They brought in sofa, laptop, tv, even a bed, and a refrigerator to make his… isolation as comfortable as possible. Best part, they gave him unlimited access to WIRED internet! He can keep track with the situation of the world and doing his online business without problem, including playing in the Stock Exchange market. They do in need of massive funding to pay their war. Thing is, he still needs a word of mouth or follows internet online chat to know of what's going on outside his blessed door. And that's not enough.

And what's going on right now, based on what Shouko told him, is that Aina entered a serious period of depression, crying endlessly in the corner of her room, locking herself in as she blame herself for his ordeal. And that was when he's starting to feel the bad side of this isolation. The walls he can live with. But he wanted to be there and hug the girl he loved and tell her nothing's wrong. He thought of rushing out… but he can't survive more than 5 minutes in open air, not without walking out of his room wearing a 3 meter tall heavily armed and armored suit.

And so Kyuuma had no choice but to spend his time in his bed, brooding his helplessness. Until… at one point, his laptop began to beep.

"?" Kyuuma checked, and to his horror, he found that beeping was his firewall being breached by a remote hacker. "Oh my god… what are you trying to…" Too late, his laptop began to hum and the hacker is currently downloading a huge amount of data on his laptop. It only last a minute, and the intruder was gone. Kyuuma quickly ran a full system diagnostic… and they came out clean. The Hacker didn't damage anything… but said hacker did install something on his computer.

A software that'll give him unrestricted access to all CC TV cameras and speakers allover the base. "Hullo?" at first, Kyuuma didn't really get it why would anyone put something like that in his computer… but then, he suddenly realized this is exactly what he needed. He turned it on, and as expected, one of those cc-cameras had Aina's figure in its sight. He turned on the speaker.

"Aina?"

He can see her winced in shock when she heard her name being called. By his voice, of all voices.

"Aina, it's me."

"S… Senpai?" He doesn't need the crystal clear HD video to know her eyes were as red as they can be. She had been crying non stop. "H… How… where?"

"I'm in my room." Said Kyuuma. "…can we talk?"

"…" Aina didn't show any signs of moving.

"Please. I want to talk with you." Kyuuma pleaded. "I… I really need to talk with you? Please?"

In the end, Aina managed to get all the way to the entrance of Kyuuma's room. But, just one more step and she… stopped, having second thoughts.

Kyuuma knew right away that she's going to leave if she's not pushed. So, to give her that push, there's only one thing to do. Kyuuma rushed to the door and opened it, startling Aina. "Aina-chan! Don't leave! Please!"

The shocked Aina looked at Kyuuma's state. From the outside he looked spotless, but on the inside… Her eyes watered again remembering what and who led him to this state. "I… I'm so sorry senpai… I… I won't bother you anymore!" She turned around and rushes away, but Kyuuma quickly chased her.

"Aina-chan, wait!" Kyuuma barely make it out of 10 steps from his room and he already collapsed. His organs are failing: lungs choked, heart is failing, even his brain began to shut down… "A… A… Aina…"

Hearing her senpai's baited breath and choked words made her stopped and turned around to see Kyuuma is on the floor. "S… Senpai! H… Hurry up and go back to your room!"

"A… Aina…" And yet it looked like he's insisted on clawing his way towards her, no matter what.

Aina had no choice but to relent and helped Kyuuma back into his room. She put him in bed and she's about to leave but Kyuuma held her back by the hand. "Please… don't leave…"

"I… I think it's better if I leave." Aina squeaked.

Aina was quite insistent. In fact, it seems no matter what Kyuuma said or do, she would still try to leave… if the mysterious hacker did not strike again. This time by shutting the door right in front of her face and locked it tight.

"Eh?" Aina tried to open the door several times to no avail. She had no choice but to stay inside. Aina finally decided to sit… but she did her best to stay as far away from Inuzuka as possible.

"Aina-chan…?"

"No… just… don't." Aina turned her face away. "I'm… sorry."

"!" Inuzuka paused… and then he finally noticed a stream of tears flowing down Aina's clearly reddened eyes.

"I… I know it's all my fault. I'd rather just… go. I'll never… show my face in front of you again if you want-"

"Aina!" Inuzuka can't stand it anymore and grabbed Aina by the shoulder. And before she can protest, he brought his lips on hers.

Aina was initially surprised… but then… eventually she gave in, and she even dug deeper still. The passion mounts until their tongue burst through their lips into each other's mouths. But just before things escalate further, Inuzuka parted for a moment. He needed to make a few things clear. "Aina… you saved my life. And for that this life is yours. From now on… till the end of time. I will protect you… forever and ever."

"Sen-… Inuzuka…" Aina's face had already gone beyond blushing at this point. When their lips finally met again, there's no stopping it anymore.

00000000000000

Seeing the two are finally getting in, the hacker smiled and turned off the monitor to give the new couple some privacy. But when the monitor turned off, she gasped when she saw a reflection of someone she did not expect peering at her from her back.

Akira turned and saw A-Drei looking at her with a disapproving eye. "I don't mean to be blunt, but I thought your experience with your brother had taught you more than enough?"

Akira didn't say a word but she turned back to her monitor and start working again in silence.

A-Drei looked around the Malefic cockpit and saw empty cans of synthetic runes. She's been guzzling them nonstop. It fueled her to continue working nonstop since yesterday. Considering the fact it knocked Rukino Saki to her knees the first time she had a sip of this thing, the fact Akira had drank almost a gallon without any signs of mental instability is quite something.

But this was not the result of some talent or skill born from experience… this was the result of an overwhelming sense of self loathing. No one, not even Ninomiya Takahi, blame Akira for the death of her brother harsher than Akira herself. And this is how she deal with her guilt: Singularly focused in her work, helping her friends whichever way she could. That singular focus provides some form of outstanding mental fortitude needed to survive the maelstrom of memories that came from drinking this much rune in her system. She's not taking any chance of another shortage like before.

But providing sustenance for the Magius side is one thing, the sustenance for the human side is quite another.

Akira kept typing into her monitor when a firm hand stopped her frail ones. "That's enough of that."

"…?"

"You should rest. You can continue later."

Akira shook her head.

"…please."

Now that… is something she did not expect to hear… from A-Drei of all people. Akira also sensed something odd in his tone and when she looked at him, he saw a mortified and pained look.

"Your brother saved my life. I owe him a debt, and… he told me to look after you in his stead. So… please."

She felt her heart wrenched when she saw him pleading like that. She finally nodded and turned off the Malefic computer. But then she turned to the Cardbox and already A-Drei see a problem. "You… do realize wearing a cardbox isn't hiding right?"

Akira hesitated. She just can't bear the thought of walking out of this shell WITHOUT her cardbox.

A-Drei can see that as plain as day. "If you still can't walk without that thing on top of your head, try compensating it with this." A-Drei tossed in a piece of clothing on Akira's lap.

It was a scarf. A normal grey colored and plain as day scarf.

Akira quickly put it on. It was long enough to make several circles around her neck, but not long enough to cover her whole face, But it does gave her a measure of comfort she used to have with its more ridiculous looking cardbox counterpart.

And with that, Akira finally dared herself to walk out her cockpit, with A-Drei at her side… though she still need some help. A-Drei had to let her holding on to the back of his clothes as they made their way around. When they've arrived on the cafeteria doors, A-Drei was at the front, and Akira was struggling to keep herself hidden behind his back, much to the white haired Dorssian's confusion. Still, she's improving in that she no longer wears that cardbox.

"You do realize you can't hide behind me while eating right?"

"…" She merely nodded. Putting aside she's still scared to death at this whole going outside thing, going for a meal with A-Drei wearing a scarf given by that same person… it made her think this is all quite worth it.

Suddenly, the cafeteria door slides open and out walk Takahi and her friends.

Akira's heart skipped a beat.

"?" Takahi noticed A-Drei standing awkwardly. "You…?" And then she noticed a flock of red hair behind the Dorssian soldier. And she immediately knew who it belonged to, and her face wrinkled in anger and hostility. Even A-Drei can sense the thick enmity shining in the lady's eyes before him. At the same time, he can feel Akira's finger grasping his clothes even tighter as her whole body shook in fear.

Akira winced and she buried herself deeper into A-Drei's back. And yet, even with A-Drei stoically stood in front of her, she can somehow feel Takahi's disgusted stare piercing through her defender. And yet, as before, as always, Takahi says nothing and turned away, leaving the two in silence.

When Takahi's back finally disappeared around the corner, A-Drei turned to see Akira… and as expected, the shut in Hacker looked like she wished to be anywhere but here.

00000000000000

And so days passed with the wounded inhabitants of the Moonbase deal with their injuries the best they can. In many cases, such as the aforementioned people, they chose to drown themselves in their work.

But then again, inevitably, as busy as they are, some of them will eventually meet with one another.

"Oh."

"Ah."

"Well, well…"

"My, my…"

After several days of burying themselves in their own task, by sheer coincidence, Haruto, Saki, Shouko, and Pino met at the cafeteria. Everyone but Pino was carrying a tray of food, besides carrying other items that pertains to their task. Haruto was carrying half a dozen cans of runes. Shouko carried a folder full of file. And Saki… she's carrying a bag full of books… and stuff. In the end they decided to sit together and shared everything they've been doing in the last few days.

Haruto looked like he's suffering immense pain on his jaw every time he chewed his food.

"Are you sure he's training you and not turning you into a punching bag or something?" Saki looked in concern.

"It's important. Ouch." The boy winced when his recently recovered jaw stings a bit. "What happened to Satomi must never happen again. Saki, you knew what I was like when I was overloaded. I never imagine its effects when we're inside a Valvrave, never thought it would be that explosive."

Haruto, Saki and Shoko halted to a momentary silence of mourning. "…how's… Akira?"

Shoko bit her lips. "…well… she kept herself busy inside the Malefic." Haruto gave her a look, but Shoko immediately followed. "No. She learned her lesson. She's been guzzling Synth Rune to keep up. Or so I'm told."

"So you're… told?" Saki frowned. "I thought you're her BFF?"

At this, Shoko smiled so wide, that her earlier mournful look seemed like a lie. She looked around and… sure enough… "Look to your 6 o'clock."

Haruto and Saki turned around and they saw A-Drei calmly eating his soldier ration of a lunch. And in front of him, eating a bizarre mixture of snack… is a feminine figure who had… the entire upper portion of her head covered in a scarf safe her mouth and a slit for her eye to see what she's eating. But that red hair and that grey long sleeved T shirt is unmistakable.

Haruto and Saki rolled her eyes. "…Akira… and… A-Drei? Seriously?" They clearly didn't see THAT coming.

"3 times a day, same dark corner. Same person. Same time. Without a fail." Shoko grinned mischievously. "To call it an improvement is an understatement, wouldn't you say?"

"You don't say." Saki rolled her eyes. "Are you sure she'll be okay? I mean… she's not in shortage anymore is she?"

"No. As I was saying, she's been drinking Runes at regular basis." Shoko nodded. "A-Drei told me he'll keep an eye on her diet as well."

"Tell him to keep watch over how much Runes Akira put into her system." Haruto spoke from personal experience. "Having too much runes is also as bad as too little of it."

"Even the most ancient of Magius can fall victim to an Overload every now and then." Pino also added a cautionary note.

"I know. Which is why this training with Ashra is so important. I need to learn how to better control our powers. We can't ill afford another accident like that." Haruto bitterly looked at his plate of food. "…how are the Valvraves?"

"…well… It's going to take a little while. Even with the Moon's production capability. That being said, I'd like to do some improvements when possible. Akira has been… sending me some blueprints she hacked from the Magius database. It's an earth based tech developed by the Council that allow efficient integration of human and Magius tech. If I can apply that to the Valvraves… I… may be able to stabilize the Valvrave power flow, making sure something like that overload won't happen again."

"Speaking of powers…" Saki frowned. "That boyfriend of yours told me that he and I were of same sub-species of Magius. Which brings us to the case of how I had the power to create that clone of mine." This time, Saki gave Pino a glare. "A while ago you called Haruto a Vailvire Magius. I'm gonna assume that's part of what he meant. You said to be continued… I think I deserve the next episode now, if you don't mind?"

Pino can see Haruto and Shouko's eyes turned to her. The Magius queen rolled her eyes. "I was waiting for a few more decades or so to explain… but… I suppose, given the circumstances…" Pino rubbed her frown. "A Magius has several phases throughout its eternal life. When they were first born, Magius are called Younglings. Children. And there's no difference between one and the other. As they grew older, like humans they underwent some stages of changes, like puberty. They became Elder Magius. An elder Magius differed with the younglings in that they develop secondary traits that divide the Magius race into subspecies based on that characteristic. There are 6 in total." Pino pointed at herself. "The covenant of Seven Rainbows was the ruling body of the Magius, composed of 6 firsts of each Subspecies. Cain… as in Attlach, was the first of his kind." Pino rolled her eyes to Saki. "Your kind. Actually. The Arachabus Magius strain."

"And this means… what?"

"Arachabus strain possesses the ability to create clones of themselves with limited sentience to use as workers and harvesters. The process is similar with how cells split themselves into two. I think you call it… mitosis? It's a cell cycle process by which chromosomes in a cell nucleus are separated into two identical sets of chromosomes, each in its own nucleus. In general, mitosis (division of the nucleus) is often followed by cytokinesis, which divides the cytoplasm, organelles and cell membrane into two new cells containing roughly equal shares of these cellular components. Mitosis and cytokinesis together define the mitotic (M) phase of an animal cell cycle-"

Smoke rising up from the listeners' heads. "Umm… moving on." Saki decided to cut to the chase. "That doesn't explain how is it that I ended up being related to that one eyed freak. No offense. What? Am I some… distant descendant or something?"

"No. It's more like… because you were using a Valvrave built from a piece of his." Pino pointed this out by generating an image of Carmilla and Dainslev side by side. "When I designed the Novus Sapien, I did not care what kind a Magius you'll turn into. So the base designs of a Novus Sapien possess the potential to be whatever subspecies of the Magius they could be. Carmilla was built using one of Dainslev Mech limb as a base. Granted, it has been completely restructured from inside out… there's little remained of the original unit that formed the core… but… traces of Attlach's genetic code still remained in the catalyst. When you became a Magius, the genetic sample was transferred into you. Hence, you displayed traits similar to Arachabus strain."

Everyone rolled their eyes.

"It's the same story with the other Valvraves. They were built using a fragment of my friends' Valvrave. As such, a figment of their DNA is still alive. It's not an exaggeration to say because of that, the Valvrave should not be treated as dead machines, but a living organism. They have consciousness of their own. They don't talk or move… but they're alive. Have you ever wondered why the Valvraves always changed color into reverse every time it's not the first pilot who's in command? Because the Valvraves are choosing. It's choosing who they consider worthy of them."

"But I chose Carmilla out of a whim." Saki rolled her eyes skeptically. "I don't feel like she chose me or something…"

"Is it a whim? Or is it a homing instinct? Or is it because Carmilla wanted YOU, and not Haruto, to become her pilot, that she triggered in you a liking towards her? Think about it. In that hangar, you were granted the choice of four, and instead of Hikaminari, Hiuchiba, or Hiasobi, you chose Hinowa. What are the chances?" Pino smiled wisely. "Sometimes, Order and Chaos are not exactly separate. Sometimes they're one and the same." Pino chortled in excitement. "That's what Attlach used to say anyway…"

Shoko suddenly asked. "Wait… speaking of which, where is he right now, this AttlaCain?"

"I locked him in a separate super-max cell right in front of L-Elf's." Haruto answered.

"WHAT!?" Shoko was greatly alarmed. 'L-Elf is with him!?' "Haruto, why did you put Cain in the same room with L-Elf?"

"I… I just don't know what to do with him anymore." Haruto sighed. "Not even A-Drei can get through to him. Cain was L-Elf's teacher. Maybe he can knock some sense into him." Noticing Shoko's distress, Haruto quickly added: "I locked them both inside two separate cells, made entirely of transparent Clear Fossil. The best thing they can do is either talk one to death or engage a glaring contest."

"But… didn't Pino said this Attlach-Cain fellow can create clones of himself? You know, he could… put a clone in a prison while the real one move around allover the place!?"

"It's a distinct possibility…" Pino shook her head in glee. "But there will be visible differences. Cloned essence of an Arachabus will be significantly less independent than the original host, they're practically zombie! They're monotonous, incapable of speech and any higher form of thought was reduced to nil. They can only think of one thing at a time and they can't stray far from their creator. And I'm pretty certain this Cain is the original Attlach." Pino confidently stated. "I know this, because he arrived here with the Dainslev. I gave the Dainslev a full system check, and they all green across the board, including its multitudes of Anti Stray countermeasures. Only the original Attlach can make that thing move or stop." Pino sighed. "Still, we're talking about the most cunning of the Magius, so I'll keep an eye on him."

"Stray…" Saki was reminded of Cain's term for Alice.

As they move to this topic, Pino grew more excited by the second as she turned to Saki. "Speaking of strays, I'm very surprised when you told me your clone has a flesh and blood, and it even has intelligence to learn you say? Of all the changes a human biology can do to a Magius, this is the most intriguing, by far."

"Alice is learning quite fast." Saki explained her progress with her clone. "She can speak words, we've established a form of communication, but she had yet been able to form sentences. I still won't let her out of my room. She's still too… dangerous." She made a quotation mark. "Which is why I bought all these books with me." Saki nudged the bag filled with books. It's a storybook for children, with pictures and alphabets.

"I'm not going to say I condemn what you're doing, Saki-chan." Pino nodded. "But I can't condone it either. Strays are ugly business. The tales of an Arachabus being killed by a Stray is not unheard of." Haruto's eyes widened in horror as he glanced with concern to Saki.

"Saki… Are you sure this is a good idea?" Haruto didn't entertain the thought of his wife being killed by her clone as amusing. "Don't you need some help?"

"I think it's best if Saki-chan is left alone, Haruto-kun." Pino answered. "A Harvester main instinct is to feed on anyone NOT her creator. If she sees Saki is with company, her first instinct would be to feed on him/her. Granted, no one has ever attempted what you're trying to do right now, Saki-chan. Traditional response to Strays was always deadly force. The Magius being killed when the Stray attacked back in self defense. Raising a Stray as your own though… I… Is there some compelling reason that you can't just… drain her? You are in need of Runes, Saki-chan. If it's too much to drain her to death, perhaps you can consume the runes from this… Alice… a little at a time?"

"You… oh right… I haven't told you where and how she 'gets' it right?" Saki began explaining, in a low tone, that her only problem in receiving Runes from Alice is because she fucked 15 people to get it. She knew this because Alice managed to insert snippets of her sex-capade every time she managed to get to her. Saki finished her explanation in front of a steaming, red faced Haruto and Shoko with a statement. "Around me, she's docile, most of the time and her libido is manageable, but not yet contained. The point is… She's like that because she gets it… from me. I'll admit that much. And I don't mind getting runes from her. If it's just me, I can…" She steals a worried glance at Haruto. "…I can probably endure it… but… what about my child? What would become of him/her?"

Pino nodded in understanding. "You are wise to not just consume that Harvester. Indeed, we still don't know what would happen to your child if you just consume whatever chaotic cocktail of memories that Harvester had amassed. Very well. In that case, until we find a solution, I think it's best for now if you receive your rune supplement from Haruto, at daily basis. Family relation does ease the transfer and lessen the danger."

"I'll do that." Saki want to slap herself silly for forgetting that point. True, Haruto is her husband now, the father of this child, which pretty much makes them a family.

"As for the matter of this Stray…" Pino rubbed her chin in deep thought. "If it's not too much trouble… can I have a DNA sample of that Stray for study? Like… hair, blood, fingernail, skin scrape, etc."

"Sure."

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"What are you doing here, really?" L-Elf finally can't stand it anymore and asked the billion dollar question.

"Ah, several days and the silent treatment is finally over?"

"What do you want, really?"

"Maybe I just want to keep you company."

"Cain was my teacher. You're just a parasite." L-Elf growled. "I want to know what you want."

Attlach smirked. "Well… Cain and I had 92% compatibility. We're practically one and the same at this point. It was always difficult for us to find a suitable host."

L-Elf frowned. "Is that what I am? Why you created me? To be your suitable host?"

"You were." Cain shook his head. "You were my greatest student. My greatest creation. I look upon you now… and what a great disappointment you turned out to be. I've shelved the plan to the trash can for some time now."

"The Sakimori kids." L-Elf scoffed. "That's why you're here? You're searching for a new vessel." And already the Dorssian super soldier looked like he already lost interest. "Disgusting parasite."

"And you judge me now?" Cain smirked. "Look to the state of your own affairs before you talk about others, Michael. You seek to use Tokishima Haruto and his kin for your own ends. Look what becomes of you now. Just a showcase. A broken willed pet in a cage kept by the very creatures you sought to domesticate."

"Your attempt to provoke won't result in anything."

"I didn't have to try. You started it. And you're way too easy to provoke." Cain chuckled. "Lieselotte was it?"

L-Elf's eyes glared with fire and daggers of hatred at the mention of that name.

"I was her caretaker for several hundred years. The warden of the… imprisonment our Queen bestowed upon her, of which she willingly endured." Now Attlach took over. "Oh yes. I've always known about your attraction to her. I let you play the heart stricken prince trying to save the damsel in distress, because I see that motivation pushed you. Enabling you to gain the strength to survive. But in the end… I see I should've stopped it before it festers and rot."

"Shut up."

"Did you seriously think, for one second, that you two can be happy together? A human life is fleeting, Michael. We are eternal. Your whole life is but an eyeblink to us. She understands this. And so she pushed you away."

"Shut up!"

"She'll stay the same forever. You'll be reduced to a wrinkled old bone. And someday, your envy will turn your love to her… into hate. How many companions do you think she had before she met you? What, you think you're the first one? The first one to fill the gap in the lonely heart of her solitude?"

"SHUT UP!" L-Elf punched the Clear Fossil wall, and only succeeded in breaking the bones in his fist.

Attlach was as unforgiving as ever in his remarks. Each word increases the scale of L-Elf's hatred of him. Yet Cain took it in his stride. "It's your fate. The fate of your doomed love. Curse it, hate it, embrace it, it won't change anything. It won't change what you are, and what she is."

"Just… shut up!" L-Elf punched vainly against the glass wall, and did nothing but add to the severity of his injury. L-Elf turned his back from his teacher and refused to say anything, anymore.

00000000000000

Ever since then, Haruto and Saki had a new routine.

In the morning before they depart to their respective duties, they found themselves a dark corner, where they put Pino's advice to practice, immediately.

And yet… perhaps because they just can't help themselves, being two teenagers still very much in love with one another, they always started it off with something they can't seem to get enough of each other.

A deep passionate kiss.

Saki plunged her tongue into Haruto's mouth as she held her head in its place. Haruto did the same, exchanging saliva with his beloved once again. They engulfed themselves in each other's scent, smothered each other's body, and they would've drowned themselves in passion like they usually do… but blessed rationality kept things under control.

When they parted, a trail of that saliva breaks into droplets as the couple regained their breath. Along with it were a few sparkles of green energy particles.

"Well…?" Haruto rolled his eyes.

Saki sighed. "…and here I was hoping I can gain something without biting you or taking our clothes off." She smiled. "But I guess… biting is the only way."

It's not that Saki did not have her share of biting people… but… given the other available options, she really didn't have much choice. Saki frowned. "…you know… I… I still find this… act of draining from you to be somewhat… I just…" She tucked her head into Haruto's chest. "…Alice… the things she did… she did it with my body, my face… because she copied a part of me."

"And you think because she's a part of you, and it's practically you?"

"…" Saki shivered slightly. "I… I couldn't do it. I saw her, and I saw myself. If I took her in, what she did will become what I've done. I…" She gazed up in tears at Haruto. "I… If I took it… you'll be disgusted at me, won't you?"

"Maybe. But you could've just absorbed her, and kept the memories of what she had done to yourself, and I'd never know. Even if our son grew up to be a… pervert or something… you could just chalk it up to… maybe bad parenting on our part?"

Saki glared angrily at Haruto. "You're terrible."

Haruto grinned. "Come now, you know I didn't mean that?"

"Of course I knew you didn't mean that!" Saki playfully hit Haruto's chest. "I'm upset you're trying to extract some confession out of me like that! You don't have to do that, you know!"

Haruto hugged Saki lovingly. "Sorry." But he still wants that confession.

Saki gave in into his arms. Taking a whiff of his scent, Saki smiled. "…in summary, my parents sucked. And I don't want to be like them. As I said… when I saw Alice, I saw myself. I saw… a chance. A chance to do better. Alice is practically my daughter. Whatever her flaws, I won't abandon her, not like my parents. This is my chance to prove… that I'm better person… a better… mom."

Haruto smiled as he tightened his hug. "You've outgrown them. You're already a better person. I'm really proud to call you my wife."

Saki smiled wider. 'God, thank you for choosing this man as my husband.'

"Proud as I am… please… this Alice matter. I'm worried. Let me help." Haruto opened his neck. "You know the drill."

"Alright then. Biting it is." Saki opened her mouth and her fangs protruded out before they sank into Haruto's neck.

Haruto closed his eyes, calming his nerves as he felt something get sucked out, leaving a blank in his head.

After several seconds that felt like hours, Saki finally retracted back, dizzied and bewildered. "This… is this okay? I mean… I'm practically draining your memories here… and yet… I had a strangest memory of… cooking recipes for a… Thailand style ramen? Did you take class on cooking or did you feed on a cook?"

"One of those people in the Synth Runes must've been a cook. Yes." Haruto chuckled. "And it's okay. I picked up the memories very carefully. It should be safe. Besides, you fed on my ramparts, the inner walls should be fine."

"…excuse me? I fed on your what?"

"What, oh, sorry. It's just something I learned with Ashra. It's a method to manage the multitudes of memories you get from draining runes. She called it the Method of Ioci. You visualize the insides of your head; create some imaginary physical location where you store your memories. I heard people used it in memorizing championship. Magius use it to manage our memories. It's our… memory palace… In my case, I imagine a castle of books. What you just drained out of me is the memory I put in my… outermost wall. In short… they're expendable and my first line of defense. It's only the outermost defenses, keeping my more precious memories intact." Haruto looked incredibly excited. "It's amazing. We're learning new stuff about Magius every day! Maybe you should come once in a while. Who knows, maybe there are some of the things they taught us could be of help to you!"

"Uh-huh…" Saki pouted.

"…what?"

"Nothing… it's just… it seems like you're having so much fun with this… Ashra." Saki's giving him a glare. THE glare.

"Ahh… I swear to God, it's not what you think!" Haruto is officially in panic. "Seriously! She's practically an ice! I'm not… I… urhh…"

"…pfft…" And Saki couldn't stand it anymore and plant a giggling kiss to calm his husband's panic. "Relax, you dummy. I'm just acting."

Haruto sighed. "Please… Saki… next time you're acting up to scare me halfway to death, please remember… you're the actress not me."

Saki laughed mischievously. She just got herself a new arsenal of teasing Haruto, no way she'll stop now… or ever.

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Apart from his new daily routine with Saki, Haruto's training with the Magius went quite well, if he says so himself.

When Ashra came to check his student's progress, she got her answer when she saw Haruto made a punching bag out of an unresisting Raizo who stood stoically receiving punch after punch to his abdomen. And the teacher Jeay, merely sat limply on a chair.

"Jeay… what are they doing, and what are YOU doing?"

"Apologies, Lady Ashra." Jeay winced. "I need some time before my ribs healed. The children are getting better in forming their rune armor. In particular, this Raizo here wishes to refine his Rune Armor even more. So he asked Haruto to punch him again and again until his armor gives… to see how long he can last, and how tough he can be."

Ashra rolled her eyes at Jeay's injured state. 'It's barely a week… and these children had caught up with Jeay already?!' "I take it they're diligent students, then?"

"More than diligent. They are determined. I gave them a training program, and they add a huge load on that program. As a Magius, they progressed by leaps and bounds… But the point is… if it's one on one, I can deal with them… but if I'm going to spar with both of them at the same time, milady… I'll be gambling with my life here."

"Hmm…" Ashra nodded. "Alright then. Tokishima Haruto!"

Haruto was about to send another one of his red colored punch at Raizo's enduring chest when he stopped. He turned to Ashra. "Yes?"

"From here on out, you'll be spending your time training with Rasa now." Ashra gestured at the small framed girl next to her. Rasa smirked mischievously at Haruto.

"Nice to meetcha!" The little girl grinned wide.

00000000000000

Saki returned back to her room, and, as a precaution, she peeked first.

And all the sudden, the first thing she saw was her adopted daughter, right in front of her face, welcoming her with another French kiss.

Thankfully, Saki had become adept in knowing this sort of surprise attacks and she stopped her lips before they made contact. "Alice! What have I told you about the kissing thing!?"

"Saki! Saki!" Alice laughed and jumped back in excitement.

Saki entered the room safely, carrying her stuff in.

"Saki! Saki! Burger! Burger! Burger!" Alice squealed excitedly, hoping Saki is bringing her favorite burger.

Saki did bring her that, and more: the story books. Alice had learned much. She can communicate. She can talk only single words and convey what she want with gestures and hand movements. So far, it's all about telling her what to do and what not to do. But to get to the next step, it's high time she taught her sentences.

"Alright. We'll read this storybook, and then we'll eat burger. Deal?"

"S… S…"

"Story book. Story book!"

"Story… book?" She tilted her head at the book. It was titled Rapunzel. Not Story Book. She looked in confusion. "Story… book?" She tilted her head dumbly.

Saki chuckled. "Now see… this is called a Story Book." She paraded the item. "Rapunzel is the title. Okay?"

She tilted her head dumbly. No, it's not okay. She didn't understand a thing.

"Sigh…" Saki shrugged. "Right. Right. Let's just read it slowly, okay? Let's see…" Saki opened the book in front of Alice. Seeing the many colorful pictures inside it, and the child minded girl was quickly enamored to the any new beautiful thing in front of her. Seeing she gained her undivided attention, Saki began to tell the tale.

A long time ago, there lived a girl with a beautifully long golden hair…

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"What's wrong? Feeling a little… under the weather?" Rasa cackled naughtily as she sat… on top of a completely brutalized head to toe Haruto.

Rasa is pretty much the exact opposite of Jeay. Both in their mentality and training program. Jeay hit hard and he can take hard. Rasa hit light, but she can do like… a hundred of them in an instant. So they hurt just the same. Jeay talk when he needs to and his sense of humor inexistent. Rasa can't seem to resist cracking joke and insult for every second she's wide awake.

"And here I thought you'd be a bit of a challenge after you've impressed Jeay. Then again, that bull headed brawn for brain is easy to impress." Rasa even tapped her foot on Haruto's face several times. "I know it's a bit too much to ask of a half brained half breed like you, but at least make it a challenge for me."

And seriously, it's grating on his patience.

"Too much protein diet, that's the problem with the kids these days. All the junk food and fast food… and the grease! The trans fat! Sheesh! Well, I like donuts, really, so who am I kidding? You know, the Dunkin Crème, Dippin Krusty, I personally liked that Tiramisu taste. I think it means pick me up! Because people can't resist to pick it up because they look delectable and because they're so sweet. By the way did you know donuts are getting sweeter and sweeter these days!? It's true! They're getting sweeter and the bread gets thinner. I think they used to be denser, but do you know-"

And she's a total motormouth. Unless someone tries to shut her up, she'll never. Ever. Stop. Talking!

"GRAAAAAAAHH!" Haruto had to roar and fight back or she'll drive him crazy. He swing his fist wildly but hit nothing but empty air.

"My, oh my… temper, temper." In the time it took for Haruto's hand to reach millimeters away from her cheek, Rasa had disappeared and procured a magazine from the library (some 3 km away from the gym) for her reading while she sat some distance (across the room, some 200 meters) away from the fuming boy, with some crackers for a snack to boot. "You won't get anywhere with your training like this, Mr. Tokishima." Rasa no longer smiled as mischievously as before. Instead, a more solemn smile graced her face. "Look at you. So wild, so feral. You fight no different than an animal, no finesse, no control."

"…" Haruto's anger vanished in an instant, seeing the truth in Rasa's words.

"You've learned how to strengthen your exterior. Now you have to learn how to improve your interior. And to do that, you have to learn something completely different." An expressionless Ashra watched at the corner with a knowing look, having foreseen this will happen.

"And… what exactly I have to learn?"

"Meditation. The calming of mind." Rasa grinned. "I thought it was something you humans invented? Look it up in the dictionary, it's more useful than all those comic books! Oh, did you know-"

Ashra quickly cut Rasa off. "The second phase of Rune Manipulation Mastery is to master its flow on the inside."

"And believe me, it's a hundred times harder than the exterior! It's like trying to see the water inside a coconut without breaking open the coconut… or, or… like trying to squeeze water from a mop without squeezing the mop! Or, or…"

Ashra shut her up again with another cut. "Now… Rasa and Jeay has been beating the living day out of you, pushing your regeneration to its limits. How are your rune levels? Your memory Palace?"

Haruto closed his eyes, gathering a measurement… And he saw this by seeing the state of his fortress in his mind. It's simple. He imagined it as a massive castle made of stories of library racks. Information and other trivia that serve no particular use to him were stored at the outermost walls. The more… crucial and important memories are stored at the inner part. And seriously… all his walls are down, he's down to his inner ramparts – one last defense before it starts touching his inner core. "All time low. I could use a juice-"

"No." Ashra shook her head. "That's just perfect."

"Perfect?"

"The point on this training, is internal efficiency. You have to make the most you can with what little you have. The training will be so much easier when you're nearly depleted out of runes."

"B… But… if I ran out of runes in the middle of training, it'll start consuming my memories!"

"Good. Now you have a very compelling reason not to screw up then." Ashra crossed her arms indifferently.

'Oh right… Learn fast or die.' "Okay… before we start… if you're here, Ashra-san… who's watching over the prisoners?"

"I asked some help from one of your kin."

"I see." Haruto thought about it for one second, and then: "…which one?"

"FOCUS!" And Rasa had to interrupt with a squeal, and a kick.

Training begins.

00000000000000

Shoko's busy running the country, Akira's well cared and looked out for by her new one eyed guardian. And as far as Marie's duty in the ministry of internal affairs goes, what that Magius lady Ashra requested doesn't fetch very far from the responsibilities of her post. With Haruto is enduring a new routine of getting his ass kicked in the gym in a superman fashion (or so she had heard), someone had to look after the Magius prisoner. It wasn't hard, she'll just have to distribute packages of food and several cans of Synth Runes to each cell. The Magius lady had also assured her that the Magius prisoners are significantly calmer since Cain arrived, so Marie shouldn't be in too much of a danger.

What is less clear for Marie, is why is this trust in her from the Magius lady. Ashra was very specific when she said she was looking for HER. Her and no others.

Personally, Marie didn't think much of it. All her friends are busy, and everyone had to do their part, no matter how simple or as insignificant as pushing a trolley full of food and cans and distributing them amongst the inhabitants of this prison. Ashra was right about the prisoners being more docile. Everyone polite, everyone nodded in gratitude albeit they didn't say a word about it. But then, she arrived at the cell of a particular 15 people. She absent mindedly dropped the Synth Rune on their cells and that's when the trouble starts.

"Hey, we don't drink this crap!" Thankfully, the team leader noticed the mistake before any of his subordinates opened and drink it.

"Ah… right… sorry." Marie blankly apologized. "I think we still have water here…"

But as Marie slipped in the water glass, one of the 15 human prisoners looked at her face… and he bawled back in horror. "What the!?"

"?"

"H… H… How are you still alive!?"

As luck would have it, while Alice had drained their memories of their encounter with the nymphomaniac Harvester, they still remembers events that preceded it… chief among them, that they shot Marie in the head and buried her body in the trash bin. So naturally, they were somewhat horrified when they saw the girl is alive and walking distributing food and drink in front of their very eyes.

"Why can't I be alive?" Marie frowned questioningly.

"B… But… we… we shot you! We shot you straight in the head! We put your body in the garbage! How… How did you…!?"

At the mention of that fact, a flood of memories invaded Marie's mind and thoughts. And then she remembered. Remembered everything. Remembered the pain of bullet that pierced through her forehead. Last she checked, death tends to happen when you shoot someone on the head. So how the hell did she survive that!?

"Well, of course she'll survive that." One of the Magius prisoners snickered flatly. "She's a Magius." The other Magius prisoner also nodded off.

Marie's eyes widened in disbelief.

"No."

Everyone turned to the clearly shocked and shaken Marie.

"No… I'm not." Marie's blank and flat expression began to crack. "I'm a human! I've… I've never been to a Valvrave before! How… How could I…" She began to claw her hair.

"Then, how come you're standing here?"

And the all too real memory of a bullet to her head crashed in again. But then, that reality was contradicted by something she had no memory of: she had never been 'bitten' by a Valvrave before. So how come she's a Magius? But if one speak of a lack of memory, Marie came to realize…

She never had any memory before she arrived at Sakimori high…

Which… means… 'W… What… who am I?'

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Before long, days turned to weeks.

The progress of her training with Alice went much better than she had hoped. Day after day, Saki kept bringing her more storybooks, and she learned at incredible rate. Before long, she can start reading storybooks on her own without Saki reading it for her, and Alice is already quite capable speaking in sentences. Though her mentality is still that of a 5 year old. Albeit a very smart one. Alice learned the joy of reading stories and was quite eager to read more and more. Saki made multiple trips to the library, returning back with more books, much to her joy.

But like every growing children, she eventually grew bored of merely reading. Saki can tell. Alice began to understand her current circumstances. As happy as she is in this room with Saki, it is not the whole world. And the books had taught her enough for her to be curious of the outside world. The outside world which Saki denied her. And she began to notice this.

How did Saki knew this?

3 times Saki left her to find more books for her ever increasing appetite of storybooks, and when Saki returned, she found Alice is busying herself by reading her favorite story book, Rapunzel, for the nth time.

How is it so? Well, this Rapunzel story speaks the tale of a Princess being locked up in the tower by a sorceress hag in a tower. Sounds familiar?

Saki knew the story, and while she knew she's no angel, she had no intention to be compared to a hag. But Alice does begin to compare herself to Rapunzel… and the many other damsels in distresses that was in imprisonment in many of those fairy tales. And the last Saki checked, those princesses always waited for some prince charming to help them out. But if her daughter is at least half the woman she is, Saki knew for certain Alice won't wait for some prince. No, eventually she'll affect her own escape.

Thusly, the pre-emptive measure that needs to be taken is…

"Alice. Today we're going outside."

It took quite a bit of an effort for Saki to keep her daughter clone's excitement under control. When she calmed down a bit, Saki used that chance to lay down a few ground rules. "Alright. Alice, listen to Saki now. There a few rules when Alice walk outside."

Alice nodded.

"First… and foremost… Alice must never do 'that' without my… Saki's permission." Saki made the quotation sign. That is their agreement. Once Alice had a measure of understanding of communication, the first thing that Saki taught her is to categorize everything sex related to 'that' word, with the quotation mark.

"No matter what, Saki?"

"NO MATTER WHAT!" Obviously. Definitely. "If Alice didn't do as Saki says, Saki will never take Alice outside again!"

And Alice nodded furiously.

"Rule number two, Alice have to listen to what Saki says, agreed?"

Alice nodded again.

"Alice follow these two rules. Saki will be happy. If Saki is happy, Alice can go wherever Alice wished. Pinky promise?" That's their way to seal the deal.

"Pinky promise!" Alice hooked her pinky to Saki's.

"That's my girl." And Saki reward her with that cheek caress she loved so much.

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Training with Rasa progressed at a much slower rate than with Jeay given the difference in difficulty. The goal is internal enhancement. Jeay's training allowed him to enhance his physical endurance by fortifying his extremities with Runes. Rasa took it a step further by fortifying her inner muscle fibers, enhancing her strength… or in her case, her speed. This is the purpose of the meditation. To manifest and manipulate Runes when one generate it externally is easy. But to manage it internally requires the calm of mind and no small amount of concentration, hence, the meditation. This is also why Ashra denied Haruto the refilling of his runes. In internal management of runes, what is necessary is the quality of control over the amount being controlled. One does not need that much runes to fortify one's muscle strands. In fact, like she said, the training is so much easier when one had little rune to spare. It also hurt less when his runes burnt his muscles. Against all odds, enduring the endless chattering of Rasa and no small amount of muscle burn (literally), Haruto managed to accomplish this stage after days turned to weeks. His first sprint at an F1 formula speed was a success… or one should say, partial.

The thing is, one can move so fast that their reaction time didn't have time to catch up. That's what happened the first time when Haruto ran through a wall faster than he can say 'ouch'. This brings their training to the next stage.

The way Ashra put it, is that he had to lace the electricity coursing through his nervous system with Runes. Based on Ashra's and Rasa's testimony, it'll enhance his senses and reaction time to unbelievable level. The whole world will look like they were in slow motion or even standing still. It will also grant him a new wealth of senses, such as the ability to actually see and sense runes in people. Naturally, it's significantly harder than the former, and with a bigger of risk of his synapses being burned if he gets the dosage wrong. They'll regenerate, but when your nerve endings get burned raw… even when the pain is gone, the memory of it was enough to make him feel them allover again even in his nightmares. But this too, with some effort, Haruto mastered, even though he had to endure Rasa's grating blabber for almost 24/7.

The problem now is about moving on to the next stage: he had to learn how to do both. It already took everything he got just to do one without the other, now he had to do both. Ashra and Rasa had prepared a gauntlet of obstacle course, with branded Ashra's style of do or die: run into a corridor covered in laser fence going on and off, a narrow ropewalk above a pool of acid, escape a room filled with gas while having bullets fired at you at every direction… etc, etc…

Haruto looked at all this obstacle course and realized, as patient as Haruto could be, there's the point where the student became impatient with the teacher.

"Look, why don't you just teach me how to do that laser finger stuff!?" Haruto growled. "I mean… I know how to do it! I remember how to do it! And I can! You've seen it!"

"You're the one who said you wanted the slow way around." Ashra shrugged.

"I… I just don't see… the connection…" Haruto panted on his knees. "Feels like… I want to see forward but you told me to look left and right at the same time!"

"Then do it."

"…what?"

"You've said it. You can do it, and I've showed you how I do it, and you claimed you know how. Then do it." Ashra grabbed a basket ball. She gestured Haruto to show this is the target she wants him to shoot down.

Haruto nodded, and he readied his fingers. He remembered what he felt that day. He'll just have to imagine it with his bare hands now.

Ashra quickly tossed the ball up, and Haruto quickly reacted and pointed his finger. He can see his finger lighting up…

And then, just like that, his whole hand suddenly exploded in a burst of fire. Haruto roared in pain holding on to the stump where his hand used to be. The feeling of his nerve ending being burned were amplified a hundredfold after he felt the sheer heat of his flesh melted off his bones.

"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARGGHH!" The boy understandably screamed harder than he ever thought possible. Haruto screamed again and again, holding on to the smoking stump where his hand used to be. The smell of flesh burning filled the room, much to Rasa's discomfort. Everyone in the gym stopped whatever they're doing and looked in horror at the boy screaming his brains out. The paramedic rushed in to help, but they were stopped by an angry stare from Ashra.

Beyond that, Ashra did nothing. She wants Haruto to go through the course till its end. When the screaming stopped, She waited still, rather patiently too, as Haruto's hand began to regenerate, followed by nerve endings, muscle fibers and synapses reforming, and finally, when the skin grew back, a catatonic Haruto lay on the floor, twitching.

Now Ashra knew her student is ready to learn the most important lesson of all: patience is virtue. "Now you see why I had you trained with Jeay first?"

"W…. Wh…" Haruto's eyes still twitched. But seeing his lifeless eyes are looking at her, she'll just assume he's giving her his undivided attention.

"You think you know. This technique of mine produces output with intensity that can burn human flesh and bone, my own included. In a Valvrave, you are protected by a giant armor, you channeled that energy through a sturdy exoskeleton of metal. Human body is not metal. So you need to use Jeay's body fortifying technique to toughen your flesh. But Jeay's iron skin will plug the outlet for the Runes. It'll blow up in your face. So, you'll have to use Rasa's internal control to turn the rune armor to a beehive structure. You have to create a balance: allowing enough room for the Runes to circulate to a fortified exhaust without compromising the endurance of the armor."

At this point, Haruto looked like he's reaching his limit. By Ashra's calculation, he'll lose consciousness in 3… 2… 1… and…

Haruto's head dropped as his consciousness take flight.

Now she let the paramedic to rush in and help the downed boy. Before they took him away, she had one last message: "When he wakes up, tell him he can have the rest of the day off. Tomorrow his training will be intensified."

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Saki had begun to consider the idea of handcuffing Alice, the first five minutes they exited the apartment.

Alice's pent up curiosity exploded in full when she was finally let loose unto the open world. And like every child, she craves to satisfy her curiosity as fast as she could.

Fortunately, Saki could barely keep up with the pace. She even managed to have some fun doing it. She felt a remarkably pleasant feeling as she saw how happy Alice is as she's finally introduced to the new real world. It amused her to no end watching Alice became incredibly excited when she encountered things as ordinary as a doll vending machine or even a balloon vendor.

Then again, Alice is practically a newborn baby, and after being locked up inside her room for weeks, she'd imagine everything would look like something out of fairy tale fantasy world for her. She excitedly ran back and forth between the thing that she had never seen before and back to Saki to ask what it is. And seeing that everything is new for her, it's a perpetual activity that happened every few minutes. Malls. Window. Dress. Sun. Sky. Car. She asked about practically everything. And yet, just as she never tire to ask every question that filled her childish innocent mind, seeing the innocent happiness in Alice made sure Saki never tires to answer whatever she asked of her.

But that's hardly Saki's concern. Her greatest fear was that the moment Alice saw people walking around her, she will lose control of herself and attack them. That's why, with Pino and Shoko's blessing, the street is completely cleared of people for today. There shouldn't be any people within 15 mile radius. Alice can go wherever she likes and Saki can give her whatever she wants. Chief among them: a handful of balloons, a book… and an ice cream. Oh yes. The all important ice cream. Alice liked burger, but she can't be eating burger all the time. She should at least have SOME variety.

"Saki, what's this?" Alice tilted her head dumbly at this three colored towering spiraling object atop a brown cone. It was almost as tall as her head. "Saki? Burger?"

"No. No burger. It's called Soft-cream." Saki gave one to Alice, and kept one to herself.

Alice carefully took it and held it the same way Saki held hers. But she still had no idea what to do with it… and she eyed this alien object suspiciously. Saki then demonstrated how to eat it by licking the softcream from bottom to top in one swift move.

Alice blinked, and then she mimicked her as well, licking the soft cream in on swift move. The first that strike her tongue was the biting cold. But then, as the soft cream began to warm up in her mouth temperature she began to feel the sweet taste. And as expected… she liked it. Alice happily licked her softcream again and again in excitement. Before long, the once towering softcream had been reduced to half its height, and Alice's mouth was completely smeared by cream. But when you ate your ice cream too fast, you'll get brain freeze. Alice stopped licking when she felt a stinging pain on her head. It shocked her so much, what's left of her ice cream fell from her grip as she clawed her head to hold the pain. "Saki! Alice's head hurts!" She shook her head, signing she dislike this pain. She thought this was from Saki, and she shook her head hoping 'Saki' will stop hurting her.

"That's what you get when you ate your ice cream too fast. You should slow down." Saki chuckled as she quickly caressed Alice. "Just wait it out, and the pain will subside."

Alice momentarily enjoyed the feeling of being caressed, and just like what Saki said, the pain dissipated before long. "Ice cream. Cold. Weird. But Alice… likes the sweet." Alice looked at the ruined soft cream at the floor with longing evident. She tilted her head, and Saki just knew she was contemplating to lick them off the floor. Damn if she's gonna let her do it. "Here." Saki gave Alice her softcream.

Alice took it dumbly, but she looked at Saki questioningly. "Saki?"

"You can have it. But this time, eat slowly. Okay?"

And Alice nodded and take another lick at the ice cream, and her excitement doubled over as she ran around all happy and jumpy.

Eventually though, Saki knew over excitement will create a lack of caution on Alice part, especially when she's carrying around a three story ice cream Saki just gave her. Seeing her running around all excited, and Saki knew she's looking at an accident in the making. "Alice! Take it slow! Don't go too far now!"

But Alice was momentarily deafened by her excitement. She rushed around the corner, expecting Saki will soon catch up but then…

BUMP! Kersplat!

"Ow!"

"Eh?"

Saki quickly rushed around the corner and behold… an accident. Alice just bumped into a little boy, both were smeared with ice cream allover their clothes.

Saki can feel her heart skipped a beat. She thought she had requested the streets to be emptied just for today… it seems not everyone get that memo. And of all people, it had to be a boy. Alice looked blankly at her cream drenched self, and then to the boy who looked like he was more surprised than she is.

Saki gave a worried glance at Alice. She's looking at the boy, with an unmistakable look of longing. But then, she quickly blinked, and muttered to herself. 'Don't do 'that'. Don't do 'that'. Don't do 'that'. Saki said Alice mustn't do 'that'!"

"…Alice…" Saki smiled lightly. It seems, to Alice, Saki is still her whole world. Her desires and personal wish can be suppressed as long as it means obeying her wish. With this, Saki grew more confident in what she's doing, as she gained an epiphany of understanding and acceptance in what Alice had done. She didn't do it because she wants to or because she likes it. No. She did it because no one has ever taught her to do it differently. Children who grew up in a happy family and children who grew up in a twisted one will have different morals… they can't choose their parents. This feeling is something only someone like her can understand. "That's why Saki told you to slow down!"

Alice mournfully looked at how the ice cream is messed up, again. "Saki… Alice is sorry…"

"It's not me you should be apologizing to." Saki shook her head as she turned to the boy. "You alright?"

The boy was initially bewildered seeing two women with the same face, but then he quickly get back up and he seems to be in a hurry to run for some reason.

"OI! GET BACK HERE YOU LITTLE THIEF!"

Three teens came running towards them, all wearing Sakimori student clothing, though Saki didn't recognize them. Still… thief huh? Anyway, they look really angry… and hostile. Enough that Alice reacted by crawling behind Saki, hissing angrily. Like an animal, she can feel hostility with her gut.

The boy tried to run, but by that time the teens had caught up with him. "You little creep! You dare try to steal from us!?" One person is holding the boy off the ground while the other immediately surrounded him.

"I wasn't stealing!" The boy denied. "Let me go!"

"Where is it?" The person clearly didn't buy it. His arm raised and balled to a fist, poised to strike. "Where is it!? Give it back or I'll bash your head off! You hear me!?"

"Tch. Boys, there's no need to be that excessive don't you think?"

The two arguing party turned and jaw dropped when they saw Saki was holding the item that is the center of the argument.

"I mean, it's just one bloody melon bread." And Saki had already taken a big bite out of the oh-so-precious bread.

"AH!" The thief and the victim gaped. "THAT'S MINE!" And they yelled in unison too. They looked at each other, both contesting that claim with their glare. All point is moot because said bread just got eaten by someone who wasn't even part of the case.

Alice eyed in excitement as she looked at Saki munching the bread, she seem to enjoy it. Like every child, she too wanted to have a taste. "Saki, Saki! Burger?"

"No." Saki split the bread in two and gave the other half to Alice. "This is called Melon bread."

Alice took it, eying it for a moment with gleaming eyes… and without a care of everyone's helpless stare, wolf it down happily. Within a span of a few seconds, all that's left of the bread were crumbs in Alice's hands and happy face. "Melon bread! Delicious!"

Saki smiled happily seeing Alice enjoyed the experience. "Now, now. A girl shouldn't have eaten so dirtily." Chuckling, Saki wiped the crumbs off Alice's face.

As this innocent scene unfurl, the initial and main party directly involved with that Melon Bread was completely ignored in the background. And they don't like that. "Oi! What the hell, girl!?" The Sakimori Student growled as he tossed the boy thief down to face the one who had enjoyed the spoils.

Saki, still holding on to that bitten half of the Melon Bread merely smirked. "Three 18 year old big boys ganging up on a little kid over an issue of a melon bread. That's quite overkill, wouldn't you say?"

"That's none of your damn business!" But then, the boys looked at Saki, and Alice behind her. And they recognize her as Saki, the idol who had taken the world by a storm. They had no idea she had a twin, but it's no question both are quite a looker. A foul smirk found its way to their mouth. "That melon bread is mine! But since you and your twin had all but scarf it down, aren't you gonna pay us back?"

That foul smile did not escape Saki's eyes and she knew where it'll lead. After everything she had done, everything that has happened, one either had to be utterly ignorant or a bunch of idiots of gargantuan proportion to try something like that with her. But then, she realized… they weren't eying at her… they were eying at Alice. Over. Her. Dead. Body. "Alice!"

"Yes, Saki?"

"Remember what Alice promised? Alice said Alice will do what Saki say?"

"Yes."

"Good. Now, close your eyes and ears. Do not open it until Saki say so. Okay?"

Alice nodded. And then, she plugged her ears and closed her eyes as tight as possible. Saki step forth, her earlier motherly and mischievous look was gone. Replaced with her war face. The sort of face she made when she's in her Carmilla and all ready to unleash hell. "Unlike my husband, I had no patience to explain sense to you idiots." The three thugs suddenly realized the girl is asking for a fight. But then, there are three of them, and by the look of it, only one of her. They've heard how the Novus Magius are strong and whatshit, but seriously…. they can't be THAT strong!

Their enthusiasm was as plain as day, Saki realized a fight is inevitable. And so, the first thing Saki did before it started was phone a friend. "Hello? Moshi, moshi? Takahi? It's Saki. Are you still guarding the perimeter, as I requested? Well, I think you've missed a few." The three bullies looked all confused and bewildered at first. "Well, it's just that… I got mugged see… So I want you to send me an ambulance with three gurneys… What? No, no… It's not me… it's for the muggers. Three stooges. The whole set." The 'three stooges' sent an angry glare at her. "A couple of bruises, some broken bones… possibly some punctured lungs… maybe even some acute brain trauma…" Angry glare gone out of the window. "They got hit by a truck see. Just hurry up okay?" Saki closed the phone and tossed her melon bread to the air.

A few excruciating screams, jaw crushing, horrid bone breaking, and crotch cracking later…

"And how many times exactly did they get hit by this… imaginary truck here?" Takahi asked as she oversaw the dragging of three censored object that almost didn't resemble the human they once were into the ambulance.

"Ooh, dunno." Saki happily munching the last of her melon bread with Alice behind her and the sulking boy next to her. "I've lost count."

Takahi rolled her eyes. As the ambulance left them towards the general hospital, Takahi turned back to Saki, and then her absent looking clone standing next to that wild haired boy, holding hands. "…that… 'thing'… are you sure about this?"

"On the scale of 1 to 10?" Saki smiled. "11. Yes. I'm dead sure. And it's not a 'thing', her name is Alice."

"Just be careful you're not raising something you can't put down."

"Worry about yourself for now Takahi." Saki shrugged. "You, like me, was 'bitten' by Carmilla. You and I are the same subspecies of Magius. I'm trying to say that this can, and probably will, happen to you too, sooner or later."

"You mean I can create clones like you?"

"Keep watch to your rune levels and you can prevent it. Trust me. Though I'm enjoying it to a certain extent, you don't want this to happen to you. Not if you don't know what you're doing." Saki rolled her eyes to Takahi. "I haven't exactly figured out all the tricks either." As the two looked at the blankly smiling Alice, they also looked at the wild haired boy. Unlike before, he doesn't seem to be in a hurry… which is a given since he lost his prize. "What's your name?"

"What's yours?" The boy snapped.

"Now, now!" Takahi took an instant dislike of that boy by virtue of that rude tone. "We just saved your life. A little show of gratitude and respect wouldn't go amiss?"

"She didn't save my life, she stole my bread!"

"And you stole it from them. If you're the least bit competent, you could've prevented me from stealing it from you." Saki smirked wide. "A tip from a professional: there's no honor among thieves."

"It's not for me!"

"?"

"…who are you stealing for?"

"…my friends." The boy continued. "…my brothers and sisters."

Saki and Takahi looked at each other. "…there are more of you?"

00000000000000

The three stooges were carried to the General Hospital, where Rion immediately tend to their injuries. When asked what sort of accident these goons underwent, Lily and Ery, knowing full well the story that resulted in those well deserved injuries, didn't try too hard to be specific with their explanation, hoping to prolong their suffering. Despite Takahi's growing friendship with Saki, they're still not exactly a fan of that particular Novus Magius, but they dislike sexual harassment on female kind even less.

"Meh, they're probably got hit by a truck…" Lily murmured in a bore.

"Oh, no, no… I thought they fell into the drainage of septic tank?" Ery added halfheartedly.

Nanami rolled her eyes in confusion with this obvious lack of concern. Then again, she does know these three. Back in school, they were consistent trouble makers. The long list of troubles under their names made even Raizo looked like a saint. Fortunately, Raizo was also the only one who can keep them under check. It's the strong follow the strongest thing. Nanami didn't really follow this school gang news very well, but she had heard that ever since Raizo declared Haruto his Aniki, some of his underlings had initially lose respect of Raizo for bending knee to that 'scrawny kid', though it all changed when they saw just how powerful the scrawny kid really is. And so the protest was silenced.

But in the last few days, there has been a renewed outbreak of violence between students. The fuse of their tempers seems to grow increasingly short as of late after Satomi's death. "Girls, I can guess they're not exactly likable fellow, but I would appreciate some clarity of the situation here…?"

Lilly and Ery nodded and they began explaining on how it started, and how it ended.

"Really?" Nanami rolled her eyes. "All that, because of a Melon bread?" Some of her sympathy waned. "A bit excessive don't you think boys?" She glared at the three bullies who can only moan painfully in response.

"Well… that's what you get when you're angry." As if reading her train of thought, Kibukawa glide in on his floating wheelchair.

"Kibukawa Sensei." Nanami blinked. "What exactly do you mean, angry?"

"…this… recent incident." Kibukawa sighed. "After that debacle, I've been noticing a bunch of Sakimori kids stealing a glance at the Valvrave original units. They didn't push it any further because of the Biometric Scanners and all sorts of countermeasures Pino had put in there, at Haruto's request. You had to be a hacker of Akira-chan's level to break through, bless her. Only awakened Novus Magius can get in there." Kibukawa smiled wisely as he glanced at the three bullies beaten to the ground. "They're angry."

"Angry because of the casualties? Of so many of them died?" Nanami frowned. "No offense, Sensei… but… with respect… the students had really gotten used to that right? I mean…" Nanami rolled her eyes at her own bold choice of words. "I mean they've lost many before… what's differentiate this and then?"

"The difference is that they began to understand that these losses could've been averted." Kibukawa sighed. "When we first revealed to them that they have been experimented upon, they clearly felt disgust and horror. With Haruto keep showing them the terrible price they pay for what he gained. At first, the prospect was understandably frightening. But then, as tribulations after tribulations were overcome, insurmountable odds surpassed, the fear suddenly turned… to envy and longing. Suddenly everyone notice the gains over the consequences, and those who thinks the gains supplant the cost aren't few anymore. And then… that accident happened… we're one Novus Magius short… and many died defending the starbase back then… as well as the many more severely injured… The only ones who survived without a scratch are those who had Haruto's 'gifts'. The desire to become like him grew even greater. The problem is, Haruto denied them that."

"For good reason!" Nanami barked. "Imagine people like them turned into Novus Magius!

"At any rate… this will happen again, I fear. Unless you do something about it." Kibukawa turned to Haruto, face and eyes as red as rage after he caught heard what they were trying to do to his wife. He looked like he's one second away from exploding… but then he took a deep breath. And he's all calm and composed.

"…Saki… is she alright?"

"She's fine. I mean, look at them. They look like they got hit by a car."

"Maybe they should got hit by a freight train instead." One can see Haruto balling his fist. And indeed, and if he was there, that would be a freight train indeed. The thing about getting hit by a freight train though… there's no way they'll survive.

Haruto understand this. Something Ashra said: when you wield this much strength in you, the last thing you want to do is let your emotion guide your punches. Cause the moment you do, you'll do something you'll regret. All those time spent on meditation and enduring Rasa's blabbering were not wasted… but the moment he heard what three mere bully tried to do with his wife… he was one breath away from losing control. And that's what scares him. Even with training, he almost lost control when he heard his loved ones are imperiled. These hotheads were trying to brutalize a kid in an overkill gesture over the issue of a single melon bread. "…I want this curse to end with me. Me and no one else's. But…"

Kibukawa nodded. Understanding Haruto's plight. "Haruto-kun, come with me for a minute."

"?"

Kibukawa brought Haruto to his room as he hover to his desk. He briefly turned on his PC and copied some data into a memory card, which he handed to Haruto.

"…What is this?"

"Back during the experimentation, my duty is to oversee the psychological profile of the students as they live their day to day activity in school. Among them, we blacklisted several individuals with psychological profile too volatile that we would've banned them from undergoing the transformation into a Novus Magius altogether. We factored various aspects such as parentage, environment, behavior and various other psychological factors to predict possible future psychotic breakdowns on the test subjects once they underwent the transformation." Kibukawa smirked. "In summary: the overly rebellious and undisciplinable type that would have trouble taking orders. The folder is named Blacklist."

"Kibukawa-san… are you seriously considering the idea of giving the other Sakimori students this curse?" Haruto frowned as he looked at the black memory card in his hand.

"If you recall… we designed everyone in the Sakimori High to BE super soldiers. Just something for you to think about. Besides, that data isn't exactly reliable anymore."

"How so?"

"Because… of how you turned out." Kibukawa smiled. "Just so you know, your name was at the very top of that blacklist."

Haruto rolled his eyes.

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What the boy had said brought a realization to the two Novus Magius. The Dorssians, under the Council's orders put everyone unable to become soldiers into the rune drainer, that would most likely include many children as well. But children, unlike adults, can't possibly produce that much runes, seeing they haven't had that much knowledge and information in them.

With the assumption the Magius would prioritize on 'fattened' prey AKA adult ones… that would mean a lot of overlooked kids. And seeing just how many adults drained dry that they DIDN'T managed to save in time… that would mean a LOT of orphaned kids.

"…where are they?" Takahi asked out of genuine concern.

The boy remained silent. Clearly, after what he went through with the last batch of teenagers… he had some trust issues. He pretended he didn't see them, glancing around… catching sight of that cool green robot…

"You wanna have a ride?" Saki offered… and grinned.

10 minutes later, up in the sky within the Carmilla's cockpit…

"So. Ren? Was it?"

The awestruck and significantly more cooperative boy nodded.

"Ren." Saki nodded. "I'm Saki. The one piloting this cool robot is Takahi. And that's Alice." Alice smiled blankly.

"Now… what are we looking for here?" Takahi looked at all the spires jutting out of the half ruined city. "Are we looking at some… abandoned building?"

"No." Ren shook his head. But he didn't continue and remained vague.

"No." But Saki can easily guess. "I'd say the sewers. It must be like a maze down there. Plenty of places to hide. And yet… if you knew the system… it can take you anywhere you wanna go… whilst avoiding detection." Saki further deduce… "And I further deduce… our little friend here must've used the sewer access north of here. One pretty near to the water recycling facility near the artificial river, where processed recycled water are being dumped into the public utilities."

Ren looked at Saki with some measure of shock. As do Takahi. "And what's the basis of that deduction?"

"Did you smell him?"

"Yes. And he didn't smell anything funny. If he lived in the sewers I expect him to be pretty smelly… and yet…"

"Exactly." Saki grinned. "Only recently processed water has no smell. So he must've been living there for quite some time."

Takahi is officially impressed. "Mark of experience there, Saki."

"I don't always dance up in the stars, you know? I used to drown in the mud for a time."

"Alright. River cistern it is." And Takahi turned the Carmilla to the river.

0000000000000000

Haruto went to the Hospital Roof. Usually, he prefer the school roof for some peace and quiet, but seeing he personally throw his own usual favorite peace and quiet spot into the hole, he'll have to make do.

Haruto looked at the black data bundle in his hand. This little box thing is essentially a pocket PC. One click…

Holographic monitor, holographic keyboard, even holographic hardrive, all interfaceable with his hands. "Alright then… let's see what do you guys have on me?"

Subject: Tokishima Haruto

Status: Active

Novus Status: Awakened

Psychological Analysis: Due to the circumstances of his 'birth', Subject is to be treated with the most extreme of caution. Insofar, the mental conditioning applied to his memories remained intact. But should he ever be awakened, Subject may gain access to memories of extreme and violent nature that it may well put his sanity in jeopardy. Subject did not show the psychopathic tendency nor signs of mental instability it used to have, but perhaps it is best that he did not awaken at all.

Result: 4F (FAILED)

Haruto rolled his eyes sardonically. 'Me? A Psychopath? Well… clearly, I see now that this is CLEARLY somewhat unreliable, eh, Kibukawa-Sensei? Let's see who else in the list.'

And to his surprise… skipping those names he did not know, many of those at the top 10 are those who had become Magius. Shoko was at the second. Like him, he saw that Shoko was also a subject to mental reconditioning, but apparently, hers are far less severe than his… and hers hold… and permanent. It kept her psychological profile that she has more redeeming values if she were to be awakened… but extreme discretion is still a must.

And then… Skipping several names he did not know, Raizo at the fifth for being the ego driven musclebound bully character and volatile temperament, Akira at the sixth for being insecure, as well as poor physical fitness due to her unbalanced diet. And then there's his wife at the 8th for being considered… what was this… absolutely uncontrollable, unpredictable, lack of respect to authority, and quite possibly unstable due to familial background…?

'Well… at least they get the first three things right.' Haruto smirked. And there are plenty more. But Haruto began to understand why these names made it into the list.

Mental instability and lack of self control is only… half the reason why these children went into this list. The rest showed that these Children in the Blacklist are those who are generally perceived to be critical and inquisitive. They were trying to turn them into soldiers. They want something that, when given the order, the only response they want is yes sir and no sir. If they want them to shoot the target, their only question should be how many times. In short, they want weapons. And they don't want their 'weapons' to ask too much question about the morality of what they're doing.

'Still… this list isn't exactly inaccurate…' Haruto found those three goons Saki manhandled a little earlier: lack of self control, ego driven character, history of excessive violent tendencies… "Hrmph…" Definitely NOT someone he would let into a Kagerou much less a Valvrave!

That was when Haruto sensed someone staring at his back. He turned and saw Jin hanging by the door. "Got a sec?"

"Jin?" Haruto frowned. He quickly turned off his portable hardrive. "Yeah. Sure."

Jin took a seat next on the floor next to Haruto. He seems a bit… different… compared to the last time they had conversation. The last time he was kinda full of himself… and now Haruto detected a hint of humility. "So… what can I do for you?"

Jin bit his lips… took a deep breath… and finally started. "There's no easy way of saying this… so I'll just be blunt. Can you turn me into a Novus Magius?"

"…" Somehow, Haruto wasn't so surprised at that request.

"I know what you're going to say. I'm going to be a memory sucking monster and etc, and etc." Jin nodded. "Now… before you started that tirade, I want you to know… I really HAVE thought it through. The good and the bad. Especially the bad. And I've seen what you've been doing in the last few days and how hard it is. And I'm ready to go through the ropes until I met your approval, if that's what it takes."

"But why?"

Jin shrugged. "Against all odds, Nao's mending. She's healing well. The technology and experience on Inuzuka had let us accelerate her recovery process… but at this rate… she'll be turned into one as well, won't she?"

"We don't know that." Haruto replied. "Who knows? Maybe she'll heal enough it won't be necessary."

"In sure hope so." Jin followed hopefully. "But… we never knew what might happen, don't we? We're in the middle of a war. I could die tomorrow or today, lord knows. So could she."

Haruto was about to say that's not going to happen… but then he remembered what happened yesterday. Satomi sacrificed himself to protect them all, and he could do nothing but watch. He may be an immortal and the strongest of all Novus Magius, but let's face it… he's just one guy. Even with all his powers and his immortality… he can't save everyone.

And yet… because he knew just how powerful this thing he had… the immortality… the strength… if he were to spread it around… does he not worsen the problem rather than solving them? Hence his conflict.

"You looked like you're not ready to give me a simple yes… and yet you don't seem like you wish to say a no either." As if reading his mind, Jin friendly nudged Haruto's shoulder. "…if you need time, I'll give you some. Just… don't make me wait too long that it'll be too late okay?"

Haruto nodded blankly, with his head full of thoughts.

00000000000000

"Oh… dear…" Takahi rolled her eyes.

They've arrived at the cistern in question, they followed it straight into the sewer network, as pointed by Ren. When the sewer pipes get smaller, they had to leave the Carmilla behind and continue on foot. But in the end, they found it.

A small encampment made of junk and trashes… and whatever else its inhabitants can find. When they first arrived, they thought it was abandoned. But when Ren came to view, one by one, its inhabitant revealed themselves. Most of them are children, with some elderly mixed in. What they were surprised with… was the number. They were… rather a lot of them. How did they miss this many people?

"We were always here." One of the Homeless explained. "Long before the Dorssian and all those alien army things came. These sewers have always been our home. Even though every now and then cops came and drag a few of us into the cell for our vagrancy. But most of the time, they knew we didn't make any trouble, so they left us be. Didn't bother checking us in."

"But then, the kids start showing up. That's where we knew of what's been happening up there. And then those Magius came. They use these tunnels to move around those nasty brain pods. Ren here, we manged to bust him out of those nasty pods… but he had lost most of his memories. And there were many after. We decided it's best if we bunker down here. Ready ourselves…" The other homeless showed what they've prepared… a stock of rifles and some ammo. But far from enough to stop what the Dorssians or the Magius can muster against them. But perhaps something is better than nothing.

"But… we've secured the Moonbase months ago. The situation up above is secure! It should be safe for you to go up there, no?" Takahi followed.

"That's not the issue, Takahi." Saki replied. "The issue here… Dorssian, Arus, Jior, or whatever… regardless of who's in charge, these folks had problem with authorities."

"Why?"

"Why!?" Saki laughed at Takahi's apparent 'naivety' and ignorance to what she would consider common sense. "Down here, in their world under the sewers, laws and rules of the world set up by those with silver spoon up their asses means nothing. Those who looked down on others from their ivory tower didn't care if there are people who choose to live down here. We don't have anything down here… but in here… we're free. In here, we're kings."

Takahi rolled her eyes, not understanding that logic whilst the other homeless vagrant also sneered and laughed as they see Saki in a whole new light. They can quickly tell which of the two ladies grew up in the streets and which grew up in privilege.

"Be that as it may, surely we could provide them with proper lodging. I mean… we have a lot of empty houses up there, don't we?"

"We nearly had a gigaton nuclear bomb wiping us out of existence just recently. I don't think up there is a good place for them right now."

"What wassat? Nuclear wha-?"

Takahi ignored the homeless' horrified gasp. "Regardless. From the health standpoint, a sewer is no place for children to grow!"

"At least down here, they don't have bullies who nearly squash their face just because of a damn Melon bread."

"But still-"

"Okay!" Saki get the message. "Okay. Alright. You're right. You're quite right."

"I am?"

"Yes." Saki shrugged. "Seeing you're so concerned about them… YOU take care of them."

"WHAT!?"

"By the power vested in me as the Minister of Public Relations, I hereby grant you, Ninomiya Takahi all the authority needed to manage and ensure their welfare."

"If you wanna talk about ministry, let me remind you that I too am a Minister. I'm a Minister of Foreign Affairs! This is way outside my area of expertise!"

"That may be. But given our current political situation, our foreign policy at the moment is shoot everything that shoot us. And other countries are too scared of us to come and meet us. And let's be honest, Shouko's been managing our foreign affairs way better than you ever could."

Takahi's gaze flattened to a resignation. "This… is seriously one screwed up nation we're in."

Saki smirked.

As the two girls continued their argument, Ren watched all this as he stayed next to a completely oblivious Alice. "I gotta say it… your mom's pretty bad ass."

"Hm?" Alice looked to Ren. "What's Mom?"

"What's-" Ren rolled his eyes. "She IS your mom right? I mean… at least I think she is given how she dotted you…" That's what Ren surmised given the way Alice behaved like a five year old clinging around the more mature Saki. Granted, he had never heard of a baby this big…

"What's Mom?" Alice repeated, now more curious than ever.

'She… really don't know huh?' Ren shrugged. "Mom… is… the woman who gave birth to you. That's what they told me anyway. They say there's also a 'Dad' to go with it."

"Mom… Dad…?" Alice blinked hearing this concept for the very first time. And then she looked at Saki in a completely new light.

00000000000000

In the end, it is decided that Takahi and Saki will both share the responsibility of managing and refurbishing a nearby orphanage. Takahi will also assign her two aides, Ery and Lilly to the job. Meanwhile, Saki will talk directly to Shouko for the funding the next time she sees her.

As Saki and Alice returned to their apartment, Saki had to admit… today's 'field test' was a resounding all around success apart from the accident with those jerks.

"Saki… what's 'Mom'?"

Saki stopped on her tracks as she turned to Alice. It seems she looked like this question is eating at her mind.

"Mom… is someone who gave birth to you. Someone who'll cook your meals and… uh… tuck you in your sleep and uh…" Saki gulped. What else should a mom do? Because in her experience, the word 'Mom' translate to that maniacal woman swinging scissors at her.

"Does… Saki is… Alice's Mom?"

And suddenly, Saki snapped back to reality. Everything she's done… everthing a mother should've done… that's what she's been doing, didn't she? She looked closer at Alice, and the girl looked… scared? Uncertain of herself.

"…yes." Saki answered with a smile. "Yes, Alice. I am your Mom."

Alice's terrified look immediately turned into happiness. And for a moment, it turned back to uncertainty. "Can… Can I… hug you?"

"Hug?"

"Ren… said… Mommies are someone who hugged you… lovingly… or… something…"

Saki blinked… and then she smiled. "Alice."

"?" Alice looked up and saw Saki opened her arms in waiting. "Here, here!"

Alice timidly approached Saki until she reached her arm's length… and as soon as she's within her reach, Saki pulled her close into her arms. Alice was momentarily shocked… but then the comfort sinks in and she reveled in it. "…can I call you… mama?"

Saki smiled sweetly as she nodded.

Alice couldn't be happier.

But then, one innocent question is quickly followed with another. "Ah… Ren also said… there supposed a 'Dad' to go with it?"

And Saki choked in utter shock. "Dad? Aah… Dad… huh?"

"?" Alice smiled innocently and curiously at Saki's flustered expression.

'Dad… huh? Well… technically speaking… she does have one… But…' Saki take one more look at Alice's glowing innocent eyes. '…well… why not?' "Yes. You do have a dad. In fact… I think I'm going to bring you to see him tomorrow. So be on your best behavior, okay?"

"Umh!"

00000000000000

It's been approximately a little over a month after his surrender. Her job in restoring the Valvrave to working condition had progressed well enough that she can finally left it to automated assembly. Which means Pino can finally made the time to visit her… boyfriend, as Saki so often put it.

The whole supermax facility was designed so that not even a Magius in their ethereal form (such as herself) can get in there. So she had to do this the manual way. Which means going through the front desk, across the cells, and into the special elevator, led by Ashra. As the physical magius left the ethereal ones, Pino can have a better look at what becomes of her people.

And Pino felt more miserable she ever thought. She remembered the time when her people were once mighty and proud. Look at them now. Caged. Like an animal in a showcase. A part of her told her that… this is well deserved. Her people brought this upon themselves when they start playing God with the fate of another race. But then again… it's her creation of the Novus Magius who brought them low. And yet…

Pino chuckled inwardly at the irony. Her people despaired over the fact their future seem to be sealed in extinction with the death of the Matriarchs… and yet… their greatest enemy, the beings designed to destroy them… is now their only means of salvation. Now they watch and wait. If Saki's unborn child is proven to be a healthy Magius, then it's more than just the birth of a single child… that means all Novus Magius has the potential to produce a whole new generations of Magius. That means their future restored. Of course, this was the future as Pino had envisioned. 'Sigh… Though… honestly… I was hoping that their birth would occur at… a far better circumstances…'

Ashra led her to the elevator and accompanied the Queen as they descend down into the prison. And there she saw… him. Attlach. In his new body. "Attlach."

"Highness." Cain smiled.

"It's been a while. Is what I would like to say… but… 20 years. 20 years I have returned to this planet… and I barely heard a word of your presence. I thought you were dead."

"As did I, Highness." Cain bowed. "But I always believed you would come back to us, eventually."

"I'll be blunt. How is it… that you let the Council to fell so off course? You who prided yourself to always know everything when no one did."

"I have no excuse other than… my hubris. I suppose."

Pino rolled her eyes. "Well… somehow I'm not surprised. You were the first Magius who learned how to… lie. I guess it's only natural that they lied to you… in turn." And this is why Pino trust her consort the least. Magius are beings with collective consciousness. They're individuals, but their minds and emotion are connected in a hive mind network system, allowing them to share thoughts and emotions. It literally translates that it's virtually impossible for a Magius to hide their intentions (I.E. Lying) to one another. And yet, Attlach somehow learned how to shroud his mind from his kin, even from her, if he so chooses. By his own admission he'd never hide anything from his queen… and there hasn't been any information he hadn't shared with her… that she know of. And yet… his expertise in subterfuge and cunning is exactly the reason why Pino chose him to stay in the first place. Never thought it'll go downhill this bad. "What did I tell you? You keep too many secrets and those secrets will bite you in the back some day."

"Highness… I'm afraid I must interject you there." Attlach raised his hand. "When I say hubris… I meant my arrogance… in underestimating just how much cunning these humans are capable of."

Pino rolled her eyes. "What are you saying?"

"We've underestimated their capacity for violence. The lengths they can go through in order to defeat us. We've paid that hubris when they butchered the last of our matriarchs damning us to extinction." Cain looked at Pino. "With respect… I think you too… have underestimated human resourcefulness."

"What do you mean?"

"My lady… you've been here for 20 years. I've been with them for 200 years. I… we… watched them grow. We MADE them grow. They are a far different race than they were then when they're still living in straw tents and swinging around pitchforks. And in all that centuries… we learned something. Humans are a far more deceptive race than I am. They have no collective mind, and therefore, they can easily hide their intentions. That alone grant them a measure of creativity and cunning at a far more intimate level than I ever could. I mastered subterfuge for 200 years… humanity mastered and perfected the art of deception from the moment they first existed as a race. Sun Tzu, Napoleon, Odysseus… heck, they even have this proverb: martial art is the art of deception. You're amidst a race who's one their most important way of life… is to lie and deceive."

"Get straight to the point."

"Haven't the lesson of Kagerous tell you anything my Queen?" Cain smirked. "You teach them our technology, and then they've 'cracked' the rest ON THEIR OWN. What's to stop them to do the same with our BIOLOGY?"

"I gave them only what they need. NOT everything."

"And that's where you betrayed the fatal flaw of Hubris. You think that without your help, they won't get anywhere. They won't dare to deviate from your set course. That is precisely the hubris that laid us this low. We set them up on a set course and we think they won't even try to deviate. And yet… they have that ingenuity. The will to rebel… and the creativity."

"Hold it there, we're talking about their owns sons. Their own children! Their offsprings! Their future! Dare they risk-"

"I came from a country that raised child soldier and teach them to shoot on sight anyone they don't recognize by face. That gentleman behind you is a fine example of their product."

Pino bitterly glanced at L-Elf, still sulking in his cell. "A product in which you had a hand in creating."

"I do what I do best: I adapt. I lived in a society where that sort of brutal ingenuity is not only needed… they were encouraged. But highness… you're missing the point." Cain continued. "Did you honestly expect someone of Tokishima's Shoichi caliber would just… fall in line and do what you say?"

"This is his own son… we're talking about here."

"Exactly the point." Cain pressed his face to the wall to make his point. "I suggest you go and see what he had wrought unto this world. Your future… or… something else."

And to say Pino was disturbed… would be an understatement.

00000000000000

On the next day…

"Argh?" Haruto paled.

"Eh?" Shoko blinked.

"Whoa…" Pino rolled her eyes.

"Tee-hee!" Saki chuckled.

On their next meeting, as Saki had promised, she brought Alice along. Everyone, as in everyone in that room (not including the one Saki met on the way) gawked at the sight of two Sakis in that room. As if one wasn't enough 'trouble' (in many ways) to deal with.

"Everyone, meet Alice. Alice, everyone!" Saki smiled.

"Nice to meet you. I'm Alice." Alice politely introduced herself, exactly like how she and her mom rehearsed it last night.

Pino was more shocked than anyone. 'Are you serious? Flesh, blood… even sentience and self identity!? This is way beyond even what Attlach are capable of!' She quickly covered her shock with feigned admiration. "Label me impressed. You've taught her a lot, Saki-chan."

"Sugeee!" Shouko, being Shouko, is easily impressed. "This is like… Kage Bunshin? Like that ninja thing in the comic?"

"It's still work in progress… but It's worth it." Saki smiled.

Alice just ignored the 'grown up' conversation and she kept looking around the cafeteria with hopeful look. Hoping to find which one of these many pair of eyes looking her way belonged to her 'dad'.

Saki quickly noticed her antics. Well, she shouldn't keep her in suspense for too long. "Alice."

"Yes, Saki."

Saki smiled and then she pointed at Haruto. "THIS is your Dad."

"WHAT!?" Haruto's jaw dropped.

"Uwaa…" Alice looked at Haruto's shocked visage with gleaming hopeful eyes. Alice crawled in closer and closer until her nose is just inches away from Harutos lips. In fact they make physical contact… if Saki didn't catch Alice's overeager being by the collar.

"Haai. Alice, sit nicely here for a moment with Grandma Pino and Auntie Shouko, kay? Papa and Mama need to talk things out for a moment!"

"Grandma?" "Auntie?"

And after leaving Alice in Pino and Shouko's capable hands, Saki wrestled Haruto to the corner for a little parent talk.

"Saki… what… what is this about me being Alice's father?" Haruto choked a bit.

"It's technically correct, ya know." Saki defended herself. "You knocked me up and in the process I had to create her… And Pino was the one responsible of turning us into what we are, and Shouko's practically your sister, so Grandma, Auntie and Dad fit just right."

"But… is this okay for you to bring her here? I mean… what if she…"

"She won't. I've taught her not to. And she's a good student." Saki nodded. "Remember those three goons? Yesterday she could've… I don't know… rape them in public, but she didn't. She held vast and rein her animal instinct. I told her that she's forbidden to do any of 'that' without my consent. And insofar, she showed she'd do anything to please me, including obeying my orders to the latter."

"…" Haruto looked at Alice over his shoulder. Even though she was having fun with Pino and Shouko entertaining her, he can feel her stare boring through him.

"Haruto… Alice is just a child at heart. And in this case, in a literal sense." Saki explained. "She did wrong the first time, yes. But that's because she didn't know that what she did was wrong! She can be better! I can teach her to be better. We can!"

Haruto was completely taken a back. 'Talk about a 180 degree change of heart…' If he recalled correctly, Saki initially held nothing but disgust for her nymphomaniac of a clone. "…okay."

Saki smile brightened in an instant.

"So… what do you want me to do with her?"

"Here's a tip. She loved being caressed by the cheek, and she dislikes being slapped." Saki pointed a finger. "And when I say Love and Dislike… I do mean in a biblical sense. She'd do anything. ANYTHING to get caressed and not get slapped."

"That sounds more like malignant brainwashing." Haruto sweatdropped.

Nevetheless, the two young parents concluded their parental get together on that note and turned to face their unexpected 'child'. Haruto timidly approached Alice, looking at him with that… gleaming puppy dog eyes. Seeing that innocent eye, Haruto had no choice but to admit that his wife was correct. He remembered when he first saw the girl, and she was like a lust incarnate. Now, Saki had done her work on her, and she's like a different person altogether, all dressed up and polite almost to a fault. Only one thing remained the same: her eyes. Before and after, there's no malice in there. No evil or corruption. This is just an utterly misguided innocent child that still had no idea on how the world works.

"Hello, Alice. I'm… your dad…?" Haruto choked, not sure if the word came out right. Alice's eyes gleamed ever more brightly, as if she's seeing the most amazing thing in the world.

Pino and Shouko, already pretty much smitten with this little Saki Jr. glared at Haruto's rigid tone. Saki gave Haruto a glare of encouragement that Haruto can clearly feel based on this chill running down his spine.

Haruto sighed and he slowly stretched out his hand towards the girl. Alice at first was somewhat curiously seeing her father's hand reaching toward him. But then his palm finally reached the top of her hand and she can feel his firm hand patted her silken black hair several times. A new sensation filled her senses. This is completely different with that loving cheek caress her mama gave her. It's less soft and yet she felt some kind of… security. Safety in that firmness. It was as if… even if a thousand of those hateful slaps came her way, this firmness will protect her.

After a while Haruto's hand left her head, leaving a very flustered but very happy Alice. "Papa!" And in her happiness she sprang up and gave her papa a very tight hug.

"W… Whoa! Alice! Calm down! Calm down! Whoaa!"

It took a while for Alice to calm down, but even then, she want to keep clinging to Haruto, much to Saki's chargrin. The thing is, as much as she want to remain with her dad, she also want her mom at her side. In the end, Alice happily sat inbetween her parents, munching her beloved Hamburger with relish.

Shoko catch the picture with a finger box. "You know… if Saki Junior isn't all grown up, this would be picture perfect!"

"Agreed!" Pino also approved. "Is this what you were like when you were little, Saki-chan?"

"Not really…" All Saki remembered of her childhood was a daily routine of constant shouting between her parents which always ended with stuff being thrown. Alice's first sensation of pain was getting slapped. Her first sensation of pain was having a stray shot of a flying vase struck her by the head. "Still… as I was saying… we're making great progress here. Oh… here." Saki pushed her package. "What you asked: Blood sample, hair, finger nails, the whole package."

"You do realize I can't touch it right?"

A few seconds of thought and… "…oh." Saki slapped her head at this little oversight. "Right."

Pino chuckled. "Just put it in the scanner in the lab later. Kibukawa will help you."

"Right." Saki growled.

"Tough times?" Shoko added.

"Kinda…" Saki turned to her adoptive daughter. "But it's been rather worth it."

"Well… here's something to turn that smile even wider. Takahi had told me about those orphaned kids you've found in the sewers. We've began refurbishing an orphanage. It should be fully operational within a week."

"That's wonderful." Indeed, Saki's tired smile grew brighter. "And how's your day going?"

"Ehh… Same old, same old." Shoko gave a tired smile. "It's just… I'm a little concerned right now. It's just… it's been a month after that last incident, things has been a little too… quiet. And I'm worried. And with the com tower is still being fixed we have no way of knowing of what's happening out there… other than from local news."

"I say patience." The four turned as A-Drei suddenly joined the conversation, with Akira at his side. "Kriemhild and her team have been working around the clock to bring our com tower back online as we speak. It won't be long now."

Akira murmured beneath her scarf. "Gretel. Damaged. Can't use." The Radar familiar was crushed when the rooftop of their starbase collapsed on it the other day.

"The Valvraves are mostly inoperable and many Kagerous has been destroyed. We managed to fill the gap using Dorssian royalty forces… but… we're severely outgunned."

"I'm doing everything I can to reconstruct the Valvrave. They're largely completed and they can be finished without my supervision… and Kagerous are easily replaced. Fortunately our factory's automated assembly was largely intact." Pino frowned as she can easily catch sight of Haruto's gloom look. "…the pilots… though… Kagerous are Valvrave… it took a Novus Magius, or a Novus Sapien to pilot it. And only Sakimori High students can do it."

"Yes. About the pilots…" A-Drei raised a finger. "I've seen the footage. Could the change in the pilot's species affect a Kagerous's performance THAT much?"

"Valvrave was designed for Magius use in the first place. And Kagerou was reverse engineered from the Valvraves. Discounting the earthmade parts, it is still a Valvrave."

A-Drei frowned… "Is there some way we can… boost the Kagerou's performance? Make it so that Novus Sapien can use the Kagerou as well as an actual Magius in there? Because if what I saw in that footage was any indication… we barely touched the full potential of these weapons. And we really need that kind of strength if we are to stand a chance against our future skirmishes."

"Are you seriously suggesting we turn every single one of students in the Sakimori High into Novus Magius?"

"We cannot deny the fact that Kagerou functioned better with a fully awakened Novus Magius on board and we clearly need that kind of performance to even up the odds." A-Drei looked at Shouko as if she's out of her mind. "However, we have yet to reach that point of desperation. And no, I do not believe we can just turn everyone into a Novus Magius. We need to screen them out. Pick up only those we can trust. Those who are worthy."

"And who will pick who are worthy?" Shoko began to heat up. "You?"

"Please hold your argument, Shashinami Shouko. As I said, the situation isn't quite so dire that we need to be that desperate. What we need… is data." A-Drei responded. "As I understand it, you kept data pertaining to the psychological profiles of all students in the Sakimori High. Analyzing that data would give us a better perspective. At least that would allow us to draw up some list of potential candidates."

At this, Haruto's eyes visibly widened. The bulge on his pocket where that particular memory card was kept seems to swell uncomfortably on his thigh.

"And this doesn't change the fact that we need new pilots. ASAP. And we only have the Sakimori Students to pick from. Most of which are untrained and undisciplined. Unreliable at best."

Haruto's mind drifted back to the whole cohorts of Magius settling in that prison. Potential reinforcements that could easily more than double their current fighting strength… And everyone had seen just how powerful a single original Magius can be inside a Kagerou. Imagine an army of them! "It… doesn't have to be a Novus Sapien or Novus Magius in there…" Haruto blurted in his musings.

Pino's eyes widened. She quickly understood where Haruto's getting at. Cain clearly had planted that same idea into his head.

A-Drei caught on. "You're talking about putting the Magius prisoners in the Kagerous? That is even more insane than what I've suggested. Why on earth would they fight for us? After everything?" A-Drei frowned in suspicion.

Haruto and Pino caught sight of each other… and they realized: they know why. And yet… they dare not to contemplate about it. Largely because… the one who suggested it was… the most questionable 'ally' they had. And the risk is far too great. "No. No we can't." Haruto quickly shook his head. "You're right. That was… that was a council of despair. I'm sorry. What was I thinking?"

And yet, A-Drei detected that Haruto was conflicted over something. "What are you hiding, Tokishima Haruto?"

Haruto frowned. He looked at A-Drei, thinking as what Kibukawa said to him echoed in his thoughts. 'We're not soldiers… but that's what they created us to be. And we are at war…' Haruto decided to first test it. "I'm sorry… it's just… the other day, a friend asked me to turn him into a Novus Magius."

"Who? Someone we know?" Shoko asked.

"Yeah. It was Jin."

"And how did you respond to that request, Tokishima Haruto?"

"In all honesty… I…"

"Let me guess. Just like that time when I asked you about the choice between human and Magius… you're being indecisive. Again." A-Drei shook his head. "Only this time… in this case… I kinda agree with your indecisiveness. It's not easy."

"But why?" Shoko asked. "I mean… He's your friend, right?" Shoko's offhand remark earned her a look from A-Drei… and surprisingly, Haruto as well. "What? Haruto, don't tell me you didn't trust your own friends?"

"Personal feelings don't factor into this, Shashinami Shoko! You can't decide something like this on the basis of being 'friends'!" A-Drei interjected. "You're all civilians. Undisciplined, even less self control. What do you think will happen when people like that get their hands on the power of a Magius!?"

"You're referring to that incident with the three students?" Shouko frowned. "Look, so some of us had… a short temper. Fine. Put them on a brig, let them let loose some steam in there for the rest of their natural life if needs be and we'll never let them get anywhere near the cockpit. But that doesn't mean…"

"And what is your basis for giving Hinomoto Jin that privilege?"

"Jin's spilt more than enough blood and sweat in battle to earn it. He even nearly lost Nao in the process of defending us! You know? His girlfriend?"

"So you're saying we should all just give in to frenzy and grant just about every Mourntale and Sobstory that came our way the absolute power of immortality?" A-Drei glared heatedly at Shoko. "Absolute power corrupts. Absolutely! Especially in the hands of an undisciplined and not to mention volatile civilians!"

"That's not the point and you know it." Shoko roared. "And stop treating my friends like they're some kind of… freak!" The tension between Shoko and A-Drei is reaching boiling point, and Akira grew somewhat frightened, unsure who to root for if the two came to blows.

"ENOUGH!" Haruto resolved the situation by slamming the table with his fist to gain attention. Only… he did more than just produce a loud sound.

He split the metallic table in half.

Gaining not only A-Drei's and Shoko's undivided attention… but also everyone else's in the room.

Haruto cleared his throat to regain his bearings. "Shoko. Look. This… is different. And… I'm afraid… I had to agree with A-Drei on this one." Haruto choked when he saw Shoko giving him the glare. "Spending this last month with Ashra… training with her… I've learned more and more about a Novus Magius… about Magius. And if anything… all I came to understand just how powerful we really are… how powerful we could be. And the thought that sort of power being abused is just… dangerous… to say the least."

Shoko sighed. "Haruto, I'm not big on indiscriminately transforming everyone, but still…"

"Neither do I. And neither do A-Drei." Haruto shrugged at A-Drei. "So let's get that one point across and bury the hatchet, shall we? Caution and time. That's all we're asking, Shoko."

Shoko's glare lightened somewhat. Though it somewhat hardened when she landed her gaze at A-Drei's stubborn features, her vexation fade completely when she saw a rather frightened Akira at A-Drei's side. And so she gave in. "Fine. You win. Your way. Because… I trust you, Haruto. Just make sure it remains… your way."

Haruto nodded and smiled in assurance. He turned to A-Drei. "Any alternative besides… what we just… discussed?"

"Well…" A-Drei scratched his head. "Putting aside the human factor, it is also a fact we need to improve the Kagerous' performance somehow. Queen Pino, Akira has been giving you specs of the various Magius tech that the Council has been keeping. Is there nothing in there that could do that?"

"Actually, Kibukawa and I have been in the talk on expanding the Familiar Drone Project. You might want to get a look at it?"

That's enough for A-Drei and that's also enough for Shoko to leave this argument at that note. Of course she also takes one more look at what Haruto had done… "…and you better clean up this mess. Pronto!"

Haruto rolled his eyes. "Right." But as soon as Shoko was out of sight, Haruto quickly whispered to A-Drei. "Meet me near the simulator at your earliest convenience. Come alone."

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After Haruto cleaned up his mess… a problem arise on his end to fulfill that promise with the one eyed Dorssian Soldier.

Namely: Alice had grown quite attached to him… to the point she just won't let go. "Saki… help me out here…"

"Now you know what I have to put up with for the last month?" Saki grinned. "There, there, Alice…"

Alice looked at her Mom's kind smile added with that kind caress. And she finally let go… but she's still somewhat reluctant. She was afraid that… if she let go now, her newfound Dad would disappear.

Haruto sighed. "She acted as if I had been gone all her life."

"For your information, Love, she was born a little over month ago and she just gained self awareness even more recently. And you were never there. So yes. You had been gone all her life."

"…you're guilt tripping me aren't you?"

"Does it work?"

"I hate this side of you." Not that Haruto didn't enjoy it.

"Consider it a chance to go back to your room once in a while. Ever since you've been training with Ashra… you barely had the time to go home."

Saki's pleading eyes literally mimic that of her daughter. That means double dose of puppy dog eyes. And that is just too much firepower to handle.

And so, Saki and Alice dragged Haruto into their room. And Haruto get a taste on what Saki went through in full. Namely, he had to read stories (again, Rapunzel), cook Burger, and finally watch TV together. Fortunately, Alice was too tired after all the excitement that had happened today of meeting her father for the first time. Before long, she felt sleepy and before her parents knew it, she had fallen asleep, clinging to both of her parents' arms in her slumber, and in her dreams.

"I can see why you grew so fond of her." Haruto gently patted Alice's black hair. "Good training."

"Training? Oh… yeah." Of course. Pretty soon, she's going to have a real son. A real baby. This experience indeed makes a good simulation when their actual child born. "So this is what it feels like to be a… family."

"It's… not bad." Haruto also smiled. But then, that smile faded when he remembered what he had to do. "Saki… can I… uhh… leave you two for a minute? I need to go for a second… and I promise I'll be back."

"Yeah. Sure."

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Before long, Haruto arrived at the promised spot, and as expected, a rather irritated A-Drei was already there, waiting for him. "You're late."

"Evidently. It's out of my control."

"Alright… What so important that you wish to give it to me."

And for a moment, Haruto was once again assaulted by doubt… but then, he finally made his decision. He pulled out the black memory card from his pocket and showcased it to A-Drei.

"What is that?"

"It's the data that you need." Haruto kept his hold on the black Memory as A-Drei's widened eye never left it. "Including a list of candidates that… according to this data, SHOULDN'T be a Novus Magius."

"Oh?"

"You've said it yourself. Personal feelings don't factor into this. I see this list and I see the names of people I've laughed and cried with. There's no way I'm not emotionally compromised by this. You… on the other hand…" Haruto shrugged uncomfortably. "You're a soldier. And… while we lived civilian lives, we, my friends and my family… we were made to be soldiers. So… I want you to look at this list… and see what I can't see." And so Haruto gave the memory card to A-Drei.

"Are you sure you just want to give this to me? Lord Knows… I may do what L-Elf did… I may assemble my OWN army of super soldiers with this."

"Absolute power corrupts absolutely. Your words." Haruto smirked. "And you of all people knew the danger when entrusting one man with too much power."

A-Drei nodded, understanding what Haruto asked of him. The boy had indeed matured significantly compared to how he first saw him. Still. "L-elf ever told you're too naïve and trusting?"

"Every. Damn. Time."

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Pino always heard the word headache when humans are faced with problems they can't solve. If she could have that sensation, she'd imagine her head would be bursting right now.

When she first saw how her Novus Sapien can successfully turn into Magius, she was as proud as a mother could be. All her hard work paid off. But then, one by one, the Novus Magius are falling apart. If not physically then mentally. She may talk big about spreading this 'gift' to all humanity, but after what she witnessed, what Attlach had said… she really need to take a rain check on this and slow the hell down.

Saki's complex survival mechanism… the rate of growth displayed by the children… none of that were within her projections when she designed them. As in… of course, one day she knew they'll get there… but not this fast. She knew this was uncharted territory when she first started this. She knew there will be unexpected results beyond her prediction. But… as far off as it could be from her forecast… that doesn't explain how it can be THIS far off. Haruto was special, but that was because she had a personal hand in his creation. And she thought Haruto will be the only exception… but… clearly that was not the case.

"Authorization 125756889. File name: VVV project, Novus Sapien genome map."

The Cyberspace responded and provided Pino with the information she requested. And in this case, that information pertains to all the modification she made to the human basic genome structure that would turn a normal Homo Sapien into a Novus Sapien, and eventually, Novus Magius. This information, based on what she had heard, people would kill to get. The secret of immortality, so they say.

Pino scanned all the changes she made. "Let's see… hyper regenerating telomere, check… variable Z chromosome, check… septa-helix DNA chain… check… this one check, that one check… everything checks… out… exactly as I designed them to be… Or… so it would seem." She needs to benchmark this. "Computer, bring me… the current Genome Structure of all recorded awakened Novus Magius and unawakened ones as well."

And then, the data for Haruto, Shouko, Saki, Yusuke, Raizo, Takahi, Akira, Aina, Kyuuma, and the rest of the Sakimori students opened up before her. "Alright… barring Haruto and Shouko, compare the current biometrics of these subjects… with the basic biometrics based on the original schematics. Highlight any unknown factors."

The computers quickly do as requested. Though, even with the supercomputer aboard the Valravn, it still going to take a while. At first, one by one, everything checks out. Akira, Kyuuma, and the others… they checked out. But then…

Anomaly detected.

"What was that?" Anomaly was detected when the computer checked Satomi's biometric. And then, one by one, that report increases as the computer checked Raizo, Yusuke, Saki, Takahi, and Aina. "What is this?" As she brought up their genome mapping, she noticed there are indeed great changes in their genetic structure. Not enough to disturb their bodily functions as Novus Magius, but those are changes she did not planned. But something else still bugs her. "Why only them? What's the difference with these two groups?" Pino thought long and hard… and she found no answer… until her eyes landed on Haruto. And suddenly, she had an idea. "Computer… compare the biometrics of the anomalous subjects… with the genetic structure of Tokishima Haruto."

The computer quickly performed as instructed, and the result was immediately shown. Pino blinked, and somehow, the picture suddenly became clear. The computer gave the percentage of similarity between the compared genetic structures. Raizo: 67% similarity, Yusuke: 64% similarity, Aina: 65% similarity, Satomi: 22%, Takahi: 25%, Saki… 96% similarity… "They're… changing? They're becoming… just like Haruto?"

And then she realized the link that connected these test subjects: they've all been in contact with Haruto's runes. Yusuke, Raizo and Aina were fed by Haruto. And Saki… well… with the way things are, her percentage is hardly surprising. But Satomi and Takahi… if she recalled correctly neither of them had ever been in contact with Haruto's runes… On second thought… they have. Just not directly. Behemoth was chockfull of Yusuke and Raizo's runes, both of which have been stained by Haruto's runes. When Satomi piloted the Behemoth, the runes mingled with his, and thus he was… for the lack of better term… infected. And Saki had received ample of Haruto's runes via sexual contact, some of which is within the Carmilla when she relinquished it to Takahi.

"So it's back to Haruto…" Pino rubbed her head. "Override Authorization: SIX6SIX6SIX6. Open project file: Proto VVV."

The computer quickly buzzed as they produce the data. Unlike the previous file, this one only had two subjects.

The first of the Novus Sapien, whose genetic blueprints became the basis for the rest. Tokishima Haruto… and Shashinami Shouko. Shouko, in the end, chose to be human, so she's safe and irrelevant. The problem now, is Haruto. She designed him… but with the complications that arise, there are parts of it which she wasn't exactly privy of… "Alright… let's see now… Computer… do… the same thing I did to the previous subjects, only this time… compare Haruto's original blueprint… vs his actual one."

And the computer did as requested, and Pino quickly get the results. And what she found was…

"What on earth-!?"

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Cain finished his meditation early. After all… as he had foreseen: today's the day.

His cell suddenly moved in closer to that bridge… where a very tense Haruto and Pino were waiting for him.

Cain smiled behind his cell, knowing the question that's about to escape the young Magius Lips.

"Cain…" Haruto slammed his fist against the cell as he gritted teeth in barely maintainable fury as he uttered the question.

"Where. Is. My. Father!?"

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Well then people… the poll is over. And by overwhelming Vote… We're officially going up to space. Enjoy the ride in the next chapter… as soon as they're done.