Chapter 21

This Chapter will attempt to foreshadow some stuff that is to come in later chapters.

Oh and to SpartanCommander Thanks for the review and the slew of ideas that you put down there. I went through and picked out the good nuggets of ideas that you brought up. Your review influenced a lot of the writing this chapter.

To the reviewer who wanted more Nora, she will be showing up in this chapter.

This chapter is a little light on action, but for character development it brings a lot to the table.

Kya used her powers to manipulate the water around her body as she danced in the abandoned weapons testing facility. It was strange as she let the tension fade from her body with each move of her hands and twist of her limbs. Over in the distance one of the Cloneblades watched her move as she sat fully armored on one of the lower ledges of one of the test buildings. In the past week Kya and the other Blue had learned about the situation involving the Cloneblades and their progenitor, the Witchblade Beta. So far Masane had been able to convince the IOA for some help with the situation they were now facing as the idea that there was a chance of performing a rescue operation to save the Cloneblade bearers that had been sucked into the dimensional rift she had caused months earlier. After a long debrief, Masane had been able to learn of the other locations of where some of the other NeoGenes had been taken since the mess. A few had been taken to facilities where they were being educated to be normal and not weaponized due to a similar kind of mess that had happened years earlier. The Witchblade had been angry at this, but had been taken on a flight to the complex had soothed the nerves of the being. Most of the adoption program for these young Cloneblades had been based on the ages when they had been found. The younger ones had been assigned to parents who had experience dealing with cloned or super powered children. Kya didn't know that many children existed who had powers or were cloned off of other individuals were running around on the surface, but it did make some sense that an organization like the IOA had come up contingency plan to deal with it when it occurred. Most of the information she had known of the surface world was a little out of date from the texts she had read, but the idea that there were families made up of a clone parent and superhuman one sort of made sense when you had a situation like this. Rex the clone and his mutant wife Nikka seemed to have been able to reign in the Cloneblade girl they had taken in. Other than the occasional temper tantrum the girl threw off, it was the experience those two gave is what made Masane want to check up on the other girls as well and learn of the other crimes committed against Homo Masamune. Masane would have to make time to do those checkups after this operation was done but that was on the to-do list at this time as she had to save the trapped Homo Masamune in the Other Realm first.

Most of the IOA staff that had been brought in to deal with the upcoming batch of Cloneblades made sense. She had at least seen five to six copies of the same woman in one of the offices and that had creped her out. How does one deal with the idea that there is more than one person that bears your face? Kya shook her head as she practiced the steps of her dance and focused her energies to calming her mind. But there was a feeling that there was something not being told after that Shiori woman showed up with that Maria girl. Whatever was going on, it was going to be big as the mood changed as they readied the several boats, assault craft, and helicopters that would be needed to fish the Cloneblades out of the water when they all came through the portal.

So far, Kya and the others had parked their craft at an undisclosed location under the water and come ashore. But they had taken several items with them just so that they could not be unarmed. But the simple water skins she had looped on the back of her combat dive suit were used for water dancing and didn't serve any operational purpose other than giving her something to relieve her stress with as they awaited final clearance to participate in the rescue mission.

That was when the Cloneblade girl started to move closer as she inched her way closer. Between their fordable combat capabilities the Cloneblades tended to act like curious children and were fascinated by some of the smallest things. And right now this girl's fascination was her. Kya let out and finished the sequence of her dance and returned the water to her water satchels.

"Like the Show?" Kya said turning towards the girl who promptly ducked and hid. Kya just grinned as she realized that this was the emotional skittish small blue and pink one she had seen on the video feeds. "You know, I can still see your leg." With that the leg was pulled out of range. Kya waited as she slowly worked her way over to a towel she had hung over the edge of a sign and started to pat herself down. "You know, from what I hear is that the Witchblade Masane went to defend you when you were in that dimensional void you and the others had been pulled into. I mean Kiani is spending so much time with Asagi that I am wondering I should ask her about why you have a scar on the back of your wrist?"

"Don't . . . ." A small voice called out from the distance. With that slowly the small form of the girl started to reveal herself as she came out from hiding. Kya watched as the girl's slender frame inched around the edge of the sign. "I will tell you." Slowly the girl moved to a point where she got to the edge and dropped down a good distance to the ground. Kya was surprised given the height of the girl who stood at least a head shorter than she was.

"Okay . . . " Her voice sounded small as she kept armored up. There was something defensive about how she was getting as she looked down at the ground. "I got the scar when Darkness ripped one of the Dual Cloneblades from my wrist." the girl slowly rubbed her wrist remembering the pain and the fear present when she had been violated. Kya slowly reached out and took the girl's hand as the young Cloneblade rushed forward and hugged her.

"I . . . I didn't mean . . . know that . . . " Kya was at a loss for words as the pink and blue Cloneblade started to cry. For all the power that the Witchblade and its clones provided, the person inside of that armor was very, very mortal and could be very scared when they got hurt. With that Kya decided that just hugging the girl was the best thing to do for the time being to let her know that she wasn't alone right now. Kya kicked herself mentally as she realized that there was a lot she and the others didn't know about the Cloneblades and at this moment she had wished she had not spoken those words she had said. "It is going to be okay . . . It's going to be okay . . ." Kya said as she kissed the girl through the hair as she cried. For some reason the girl looked up at her through tear stained eyes that had gone from being black and green to Grayish Blue and White.

"You Think?"

"Yeah . . . I didn't mean to bring up a bad memory."

"No . . . Just it was a bad experience . . ." There as a long pause from the girl as she listened to Kya's heartbeat. "I miss my Maria . . ." With that the crying girl started to snuggle deeper between Kya's breasts. "She would let me sneak into her bed and sleep with her whenever I got scared after she became my friend back where we used to live." There was a slow reaching feeling Kya was getting on her lower body as the girl went down and started to squeeze Kya's buttocks with her fingers like a lover would. "I miss having cuddle sex with her. Things felt so right afterwards, just us in the bed lying naked next to each other and feeling safe in wrapped in each other's arms. She didn't mind me talking about baseball when we were like that or what my day was like." This was when Kya realized that this Cloneblade liked girls and was missing her girlfriend. "It was peaceful, nothing but us… then and there. I would sleep safe knowing she was there with me."

"Okay . . ."

"Do you want to have cuddle sex with me so that I can feel that way again? I don't want to be disloyal to her, but your body and how you move is the closest thing I have seen to having my Maria back." the Cloneblade said looking her in the eyes, in a pleading way that expressed themselves in volumes as sex and physical contact meant the same thing in her mind. Kya knew that this was going to be a long day as the girl snuggled her nose between Kya's breasts. The Cloneblade girl seemed to calm down as she listened to Kya's heartbeat. "I miss hearing her heart, the smell of her skin. I even miss the way her underwear would stink when she had her period." There were streams of tears coming from this girl's face at this time. "I want to by my Maria again and feel safe again." The girl leaned into Kya sobbing. "Please, can I sleep with you, just for a little while?" Kya could feel this girl's heart breaking within her arms. "Not really, I have someone . . . that I have been sleeping with." Kya realized that she had been spending a lot of time with Jayce, and in the last week or so they had shared a bunk together after a hard day getting equipment into place for this upcoming operation. But hearing herself say it, she sort of understood where this girl was coming from. That warm safe feeling one has in another's arms. It wasn't much but it meant the world when you were in love. With that Kya decided to help this Cloneblade channel her energies into something creative. That and Kya was feeling this girl's fingers work their way between her legs and towards her womanhood that was covered by her dive suit. Kya cleared her throat and got the girl's attention. "But what else makes you feel happy and safe other than that with Maria? I mean they are not always there but I do keep something with me while they are away. I have a shirt that I wear of someone I care about while they are away. It reminds me that there are there in spirit." Kya waited for a response from the girl. "Do you have something of your Maria's that you have with you?"

"A corset . . . it is a little big for me, but Maria used to wear it and she gave it to me as a gift." There was a long pause from the girl. "My boobs barely fit the cups of it, but I think she gave it to me because I liked how it felt on my skin . . . and the way it smelled of her."

"What else about it makes you feel connected to her?"

"It reminds me about making Maria happy while I was with her and that I liked her kissing my naked back."

Yeap, this was going to be a very long day, this girl didn't know the difference between sexual love and emotional love. To her they were one and the same thing. With that Kya decided that was going to change. This girl would learn what the difference was between love and lust was, and probably become a better lover for it. For Maria's sake. "How about we do something that will make Maria happy when we finally reunite you with her?" With those words the Cloneblade stopped her progression down Kya's ass and looked up at her. "Like what?" Kya took her thumb and wiped a few tears from the Cloneblade's face sensing that the sooner she directed this girl away from wanting to fornicate with her to something more productive the better she was off.

"Well what makes Maria happy when you two are not enjoying each other with cuddle sex and heavy kissing?"

"Well she likes to dance . . . Spar, and play with her stuffed animals."

"And that was the reason that you were watching me?" The girl nodded several times like a small child would: "Okay, the first thing we are going to do is called mirroring. This should start you out with the basics of learning to dance."

"You are going to teach me to dance like you?" Kya could see that she was on the right path. "We'll start with the basics, and then given how you do, we'll go from there." Kya felt the girl's hug as in a way she had gained a student. Maybe this was for the best . . . The Witchblade had a lot on her plate so anything she could do to make things a little easier for this warrior in creating her legion all the better. With that Kya walked the Cloneblade out to the middle of the simulated intersection and started her instruction with the girl. "Okay the first thing we are going to do is start off with stretching. This should allow me to learn how flexible you are with your body and then we'll . . ."

Shiori as sitting on a hill in the other realm, given that there wasn't much scenery to this place that didn't feel like it was moving around. It just felt nice to decompress.

That was when Yagi showed up and sat down next to her and gave her a shoulder to lean on. In the time she had gotten to know the guy, he had a sort of older sibling affection for her and given the drinking contest they had gotten into with Muraki's hooch, well they had bonded as friends. Though Shiori did get away with punching Yagi in the arm from time to time . . .This was something she playfully did as a sign of sisterly affection between the two of them as he became her friend. When they talked they understood that in their old lives they had sort of the same jobs while working with their bosses. Though Yagi didn't lust after his employer as she did, but he did understood more about the process that had created the Cloneblades that her sisters wore, the X-Blades the former ExCons wore, the I-Blades the former I-Weapons wore and his Ultimateblade.

At this time feeling the living ground slightly heave under her heels in this strange twilight place, having someone to lean on and speak about the events she had seen meant the world to her. She felt safe talking about stuff to him and he wasn't freaked out by seeing her in her second phase armored form.

"So . . . I heard about you making contact with the other side?" Yagi said as he pushed up his glasses on his face. For some strange reason those items on his face had survived being brought here to this realm and made him seem approachable to the other blades living here. The guy looked like an armored tank in his full form, but with those geeky glasses… Well it makes him seem less threatening.

"Yeah . . ." Shiori sighed hard. The journeys between plains of existence took a lot out you and for Maria; she had pretty much passed out and crumpled into a pile in her mother's arms. Shiori, well after two hours of sleep, had to get up and move around. This pretty much included a trip to the bathroom to urinate, but going back to sleep was out of the question as her mind was racing too much to let her body rest for a little while. So she decided to go out for a while to clear her head. Turning over to see Yagi grin some she smiled back.

"Sorry, the trips take a lot take a lot out of you." Shiori said as she rolled a creak out of her neck. "I mean your body is catatonic here, but there you are astral projected into the fullness of things." Shiori felt her mind want to rest, but her body screamed . . . wake the fuck up and move around!

"So what did you hear?" Yagi said adjusting his feet into the ground.

"Well, they are getting the supplies together to fish us out of the water and prepping just in case any ExCons or I-Weapons show up." Shiori felt a hand touch her shoulders and start to rub slowly but firmly and the tension started to work itself free. "Thanks . . . " Shiori grinned then moaned as Yagi worked his thumbs into the worse spots of it.

"OHHHH . . . yeaaaahhhh. Where the fuuuucccc . . . . diiii Yuuuu . . . . leee eerrrr nnnnn theeeee zzzz?" Yagi grinned as the Buxom Cloneblade kept moaning through her words as her foot started tapping the ground like a puppy dog whenever a person finds and scratches that "good spot" on them that will make them your friend for life even if they only show up infrequently.

"From many hours massaging my mom's back after she came home after a long day of work back when I was a kid, it made her happy and she said that any woman who would take me a as a husband would be glade to have me." Shiori's eyes rolled back in her head as her body started to relax what control she had over it became soft gooey orgasmic putty in Yagi's magical hands.

"Teee reeeeccccciiihhhh Reeee naaaaa . . . .. theeeee zzzz . . . Plaaaaaaaaaa eeeee zzzzzzz." A drooling tongue came out of Shiori's mouth as she started to slump against her knees. If they got out of here, she would offer up to be a test dummy so that she could teach him the pleasures of Lesbian love making on a woman's parts. Shit… she would tell him where to touch a woman to make them orgasm… Check, he knew that part already with where his fingers were working on her back… Hell she would be the wing chick to help hook him up with whatever woman he wanted to be with at whatever bar they went to for the returning to the mortal world after this.

Fuck, this felt great.

If she wasn't so much into girls, she would have mounted the Yagi and shoved his man parts into her and not gave a damn. Pooping out Yagi faced babies didn't seem like a bad aftermath for feeling like this all the time. If Riena learned this . . . Shiori wouldn't leave her or the bed for days being wrapped in Riena's entangled naked beautiful limbs.

"Yeah . . . add that to the list of things that I need to do when we get out of here." Yagi slowed down as Shiori started to compose herself as she wiped away the large amount of drool seeping from her mouth. "So, how is Lady Soho doing?" Shiori just looked worried at Yagi's question as she sighed resting her face on her knees and groaned before shrugging herself back to normal and the near orgasm she felt on her flesh.

"She is doing well." Shiori brushed her mouth with the back of her hand. "Mostly, since Maria has given up her position as leader of the Cloneblades to her, things have been fairly in control." Shiori's shoulders sagged. "I was expecting more of a power struggle with the First and Second Generation sisters for continuing Father's work. But I don't know . . ." With that Shiori saw Nora looking over the edge of the hill. "Though considering Nora over there was one of Father's favorites . . ." Shiori motioned a hand over the orange armored figure looking at them from the top of the hill. "But since we were brought back to life, I think she got de-bitched and had the stick surgically removed from her ass by Darkness and Angelus is what makes me worried about what else they did to her given that she has been watching us from a distance over the last few weeks." Shiori said as she rubbed her neck some as Yagi dug his knuckles into her lower back around her Venus Dimples which made her spread her toes out in relief as she sighed. "I think that a few of us got more than we bargained for when we got slapped back together and were faced to look at who we were and some of our past actions." Shiori said as she bleached out the bad taste in her mouth with her tongue from the tension being released from her body.

"Yeah, I see that too among some of the former ExCons and the I-Weapons." Yagi said seeing Nora's red armor more clearly now. "It is like, most of the badness that we were got yanked out. I mean there are a few of the guys that had criminal records feel like they have been redeemed. While a few of the others look like, well . . . Nora there." Nora getting the feeling she was the topic of conversation started to come towards them.

"You two are talking about me right?" Nora said a bit nervous as she sat down next to Shiori, at this moment Shiori got a good look at Nora's face. Her appearance had changed quite a bit. It was as if several years had been taken off of her.

"Well not exactly, but what happened to you is." There was a long look at the ground away from them as Nora leaned against Shiori as if those words meant a lot to her. Like the huge question that had been hanging in the air about her was brought out into the open.

"I remember things . . . That I wasn't a nice person . . . " Nora sneaked over and sat next to Shiori. The spider armored girl with her blond hair pulled back from its over one eye tail and horns to being pulled back behind her head and kept in place with a woven headband of hair. The appearance made her look more like a spider as a result but right now Nora looked more like a scared young woman in a cheap comic book convention costume. " . . . that I served a really bad person that took advantage of people." There was a huff out of the girl. "I really sucked at being myself. I mean I was so competitive about getting ahead and didn't realize that I was being used." With that Nora hit the ground with her fist so hard that the ground heaved upwards reacting in pain. Shiori and Yagi braced against each other as the hill jumped a few times before settling down.

"Crap, I hate that." Shiori said as she looked around as the 'hills' moved some before heaving up or dropping down some.

"Yeah . . . The ground here is a group of living creatures and I don't want to know what they eat." Yagi said as one 'hill' belched before it spun around and sat back down in the distance. Nora rolled over on her stomach and with armor's spider legs started to rub the hill's back like a big giant hand. After a moment the hill relaxed and started to sag underneath them before becoming normal again.

"How did you do that?" Shiori said as Nora's spider legs retracted back into her armor.

"I watched Yagi rub your back and realized that if that made you into a drooling puddle, well . . . it worked…" Nora said flicking her hair back into place. Nora no longer looked like the queen scary bitch that Father used as his aid, This Nora was younger, smarter, well rebuilt from the ground up. That and the lack of blue lipstick made her look . . . Well better and lest like the aid to Father she had been.

"Nora . . ." Shiori moved over and traced the face of her sister NeoGene's face. "What happened to you after you were . . ." Shiori knew that whatever was going on with Nora wasn't her . . . and the feeling in her gut screamed . . . this happened to you too . . .

"I remember fighting Riena for a young NeoGene Hybrid that had gotten away from us five years ago . . ." There was a blank stare for a moment . . . "I remember fighting Riena . . . ." Blank stare . . . "I remember fighting Riena . . . ." Shiori quickly slapped Nora out of the loop before she started again.

"Oh, my God . . . . You don't have any memories after that fight . . . " Shiori looked scared as the Orange armored Cloneblade started to process this. The look of confusion came over the girl's face. "Compete… No… Don't compete…" Nora said as she started to work through her memories. "Witchblade… Obey… Witchblade…. Father…" There was a shake to the girl's head as she started to retrace her steps through the castle of her mind and started to realize that it had been remodeled. "Obey Fa… No…. Obey Witch…..blade." Shiori looked over to Yagi who came over and placed a hand on Nora's shoulder. "List your directives…." Yagi said in a comforting voice to Nora whose eyes locked onto him. "Can you list your directives for me Cloneblade Nora?" With that Nora started to speak like an automated system. "Obey Witchblade's commands. Preserve one's life unless ordered otherwise. Do not let Witchblade come to harm even at the cost of one's life." Nora looked confused. Yagi looked concerned as she said this. "Nora… how long have you known these directives?" Yagi said touching the Cloneblade's wrist. Nora looked confused as she started to kick backwards until she collided with Shiori.

"Yagi, what is it?" Shiori said as she reached over and wrapped her arms around Nora's body. That was when Yagi looked up to the top of the Hill and Shiori followed his line of sight to where he was looking. "So you figured it out!" A female voice said. Shiori knew the armored female was Cleo, the human host of Angelus. Next to Cleo stood Tobias, the human host to the Darkness, a guy that could scare the crap out of you that you would know what you had for breakfast a month ago. "What did you do to Nora?" Shiori called out as Nora shook in fear in the Cloneblade's arms. "A few things that you don't want to know about…" Tobias said walking down the hill. Yagi armored up completely and raised his weapon to defend the two girls from harm. "What did you do to her?" Shiori demanded from the avatars of the two divine beings. There was a long sigh from Cleo who took and sat down on the hill. "To make a long story short. We rebooted her after doing a rebuild of her mind." Cleo said looking at Nora.

"What in Hell does that mean." Shiori formed up her armored scythe with her arm and placed it to Cleo's neck.

"The Nora here, isn't the same Nora you knew from before." By this time Tobias sat down next to her.

"Nora's body isn't the original . . . It is a clone. Now like some of you, we had good templates to work with to do a regrow on. That wasn't so bad. But in Nora's case most of her personality got wiped when she died. The only information we had was the impressions that her Cloneblade had of her, so we reproduced her personality from that" Tobias added to the conversation. "With you Shiori, and a few others we had a few problems." With this Cleo took up the topic at hand.

"Shiori, your blade didn't want to constrained. So it rebelled out of the chamber you were in and ran." Shiori traced her stomach as she remembered the image of her entrails hanging out of her body.

"I remember being found a field . . . then . . ." Shiori reached to touch her blade and remembered what they had said. "You had to replace my blade." Shiori said softly.

"We did . . . your blade had a psychotic break and we had to replace it with one of the blades that had been removed from one of the dualblade users. Her name was Aoi . . . " Shiori recognized the name.

"That was Maria's girlfriend . . . I have one of Aoi's blades!" Shiori remembered seeing the girl when Maria came to tears as she reached out to take her into her arms. So much emotion like Shiori herself felt for Riena. Shiori became deep in thought as she felt her Cloneblade attempt to hug her close in affection.

"Yes, and we are glade that we were able to stabilize the link between you and your blade." This was when Cleo took over the conversation. "When restoring Nora here, because the personality template we had available was based on the impression it left on her cloneblade. Well you can see the result." Nora traced her features with her hands.

"I am not me . . ." Nora said a bit scared as she swallowed down her pride to process this new information. "But my memories . . ." Nora looked at her hands then collapsed in defeat against Shiori . . . "They are not my memories are they . . . They were this woman's." Nora looked at Yagi and sighed and looked at Shiori as she slowly started to trace her finger into the ground and spelled out her name. NORA . . . After a moment she added an 'H' at the end "I am Norah . . . a clone." In a way those words brought about some comfort to the NeoGene. "I am a clone . . . of a bitch . . . that doesn't mean that I have to be a Bitch." With that Norah held up her arm and started to squeeze the muscle of her bicep with her free hand. "I need to work out more." Shiori realized that this clone was making up her own mind and decisions of who she wanted to be. Yagi turned to look at the two avatar hosts before them.

"So how much did you Robocop our minds to fit your new parameters to obey the Wtichblade?" Cleo and Tobias shrugged.

"Just enough that you wouldn't have the desire to harm the Witchblade with your own formidable powers." Tobias said Cleo took over.

"Hey . . . I didn't like the idea, but considering that you all have clones of the Witchblade attached to you, we had to do something to prevent you all from going on a slaughter spree if one of you decided to have a temper tantrum."

"So the programming is behavioral to protect others?" Shiori said realizing the situation before them and her own very violent past as she remembered the man she had murdered in an ecstasy induced fervor.

"Sort of . . . consider it a safety net for both you and your Cloneblades so that can keep each other in check." Cleo said touching Shiori's arm.

"So what about the former Ex-Con and the I-Weapons . . . do they have the same safety net as well?" Yagi said remembering his own Fraternity buddies he had been living with for the last few weeks.

"They do . . . and like you Yagi, the amount of control that you have is based upon that connection you have with others around you." Cleo added.

"Hey . . . Because of this mess we have a civilization of Witchblades running around." Tobias added. "We had to do something to make sure that you didn't kill each other for power. Angelus and Darkness learned this the hard way centuries ago, so put some pecking order in was the best thing we could do." Tobias leaned back and sighed. "Hell, I want to break out of this place with you guys and bring Cleo with me." Norah looked at Tobias and realized that they were all wanting to get out of here.

"You want to come with us!?" Norah said realizing that these two hadn't come here to harm them, but to make a deal.

"Why?" Yagi said looking at the two beings.

"Because, me and Cleo got sent here when we were children. We practically grew up here. When The Witchblade punched a hole through the realms . . . Well . . . take a guess. There is so much out there we want to do. I don't mind siding with you all to bail out of here if it meant helping you all make a home where we felt safe." With that Tobias offered his hand to Yagi.

"Okay . . . But what about Darkness and Angelus . . . Wouldn't they be pissed if you bailed on them?" Shiori said looking at the two.

"Shiori, they have carved out this realm as their home after they got stuck here and I got the feeling that even if we did bail out of here, they would want us to report back about what their kid, the Witchblade was up to." Cleo said flexing her angelic wings out of her back before yanking an errant feather out from her wing and started to play with it to give her hands something to do.

"Okay, we will think about it, but remember when we bail, we all bail together . . . Understood!" Yagi said flexing into his full armored form which impressed the two avatar beings.

"We understand . . ." Tobias said as Cleo nodded in agreement.

"Now let's plan our jail break." Shiori said taking Cleo's father from her and started to writing on the ground and Nora lending ideas of how to sneak these two out past their parents.

Asagi leaned into the hot tub full of ice. Every muscle hurt, ached, and screamed as the cold water hit her flesh. She felt zapped of energy. She didn't care if she was clothed or not. Whatever strength she had to peel off her unitard had been used instead to dump the buckets of ice in here before she laid inside of it. After a long moment the coldness started its magic and it felt great as muscles unclenched and built up endorphens flooded her brain causing her moan in pleasure. This was better than the time she found out that using an electric toothbrush other than brushing your teeth brought about this level of pleasure.

Kiani was right... sometimes you needed some perspective on your life... and having a decent sparring partner wasn't so bad who knew a thing or two about having a hard life. That was when Kiani walked in and sat down by her outside of the tub. There was so much she had learned from this seasoned warrior about life that Asagi felt safe for once in her life.

"Hey girl." Kiani said bringing up a chair to sit next to her in the tub. "So resting from our sparring session?" Asagi nodded as she sloshed some water up between her breasts to work some more soothing coldness along her flesh.

"It feels strange..." Asagi said as she lay in the water. "I mean... you didn't so much hold back when we spared... but you wanted to see how I could improve." there was a long pause from her as she thought about the words she would speak. "You didn't talk down to me. You talked to me... As a person... Not a thing! Even when I was in my full combat form, you kept making me get better. Taking breaks... Showing me sword moves... Foot Positions... Blocks... and talking not all strength lay in the blade, but the warrior's heart... and timing."

"That is something I picked up from my first Swordmaster." There was a sigh from Kiani and Asagi understood. It is not every day that you know the issue at hand that isn't spoke, but exists there in a person's history. "But knowing that you know my past... and I mean my entire past... Stuff that I haven't told my own children about tells me that you understand what I mean." Asagi felt a little worried about this but seeing the warm smile on Kiani's face spoke volumes to her. With that Kiani reached into the water and took Asagi's hand in her own.

"I have been lied to so much in my life... that having this power to see the truth..." Asagi exhaled at the realization of this.

"Changes things..." Kiani said looking at the girl with unspoken understanding.

"I feel like, I have met a kindred spirit. Not exactly the same experiences... But feeling the same way from like pains, same hurts.." There was a slow nod from Kiani as she rubbed the top of Asagi's head with a soothing hand of water that washed out some of the sweat and dirt from the NeoGene's hair.

"Having a little insight into knowing that there is hope for beings like us who have had our paths bathed in pain."

"Yeah..." Asagi said squeezing Kiani's hand in understanding. "Like ... what a mother should be teaching her children even if we didn't truly have one." Asagi had up and said it. Mother... She looked scared at Kiani and nearly withdrew her hand before Kiani reached and grabbed her. "I would be proud to have you as a daughter... Asagi of the Children of the Masamune ." Kiani said in that moment feeling pain and all Asagi reached up and hugged Kiani and started to cry. There wasn't much that needed to be said after that as Asagi found a mother she had so wanted in her short life.

"Are you going to be my aunt Miss Asagi?" A voice creaked out and over in the corner was standing little Killa and Rhioko. In a way seeing the little Blue child in her traditional aquatic garments and Rhioko wearing her mock Witchblade armor made sense given the bonds that were being forged at this time. Killa inched over to her Grandmother who motioned for her to continue coming over to the hot tub where Asagi lay.

"If your Grandmother will accept me?" Asagi said as she winced through moving as several blocks of ice dug into her side as they crunched as she moved in the tub.

"You want to join my family, even if I am not human?" Kiani's voice cracked some under the weight of this decision.

"Human or not, this is the way I feel." Asagi said as she reached out of the tub.

"Well, I wouldn't mind you joining the family." Kiani said as Killa inched over to Asagi.

"Are you going to be my aunt?" The girl said looking at Asagi's ice water soaked body worried.

"Well... Not Aunt... but more like a cousin." Kill reached out and took Asagi's hand and shook it a little.

"Okay..." The girl said before walking over to her grandmother."Grandma... mind that you read a story to me." Asagi grinned.

"I wouldn't mind listening too." Asagi added given that she was now leaning over the edge of the tub. Rhioko who was watching all of this looked at Asagi and grinned.

"See... I told you it would work out." the girl said as she moved over to give Kill a hug. that was when buzz started to come from the small purse that Rhioko had slung over her shoulder. Unzipping the purse, Rhioko fished out a small child-size phone that looked like a turtle and flipped it open. "It's mom... " Rhioko said as she listened to her mom talk on the phone. Kiani's grinned some at this little image played out.

"I was the same way with Killa's mother the first few years." There was a bit of sadness in her voice and she picked up Killa and placed the girl on her knee. "So much I did wrong, but so much I got right." with that she blew a kiss into her Granddaughter's hair.

"What do you mean... So much wrong and So Much right?" Asagi said looking at Kiani.

"You will know when you become a mother." Asagi reached out to touch Kiani but stopped as Killa offered up her hand sensing somewhat what Asagi's powers were.

"Here, you use your powers on me." With that Asagi felt Kill's childhood before her and started to cry as she for once experienced a semi-normal childhood through her eyes and Killa started to see tears of joy come across Asagi's face. With that NeoGene and Blue grinned in unspoken understanding of what a Mother's and Grandmother's love could be.

Well I hope that you have liked this chapter so far.

I have planned for the next chapter to be more Masane based so stay tuned for that.

Oh and Rhioko's costume is based off of a model figurine that I found online at Figure- . I was thinking of her using a dark blue uniard and building up from there. Most of where that costume came from will be mentioned in the next chapter with Masane learning more about her role as being a leader.

Please Review, I enjoy hearing from you all.

Hearns