Author's Note: Yes, it's possible I took another month to get a chapter out. But... er... it's longer than usual! Really! (And yet it still couldn't fit everything I wanted into it! I have a problem.)

Actually? If we're being honest, I'm not sure how satisfied I am with this chapter. Maybe it's just me, but something seems... off about it. Maybe I was rushing to get it out when I realized how long it had been since last update.

Chapter 24: Burning Sky

"Mother, you can't really be serious."

"No, I really am." Lindy said cheerfully. She was clad in a typical field agent's Barrier Jacket. "And take a look at me! Aren't I cute? Though I guess this outfit really does look good on anybody."

"I... aren't you supposed to stay with the ship? You're in command." Fate said, trying very hard to think of reasons that Lindy should not... well, do this totally insane thing she was trying to do.

"No, Admiral Mizetto is. I am going out into the field. Ah, the life of a field operative, how I've missed it." Lindy said. Still cheerfully, in case you were interested.

"But... but..." Fate said, her brain having a little bit of difficulty coping with this bizarre behavior. "Mother, my... er, my other mother... you don't know how strong she is! She's at her full power again, and she could really kill you!"

"I'm sure she'll try." Lindy agreed, once again cheerfully. It was as if she had no mode other than 'cheerful' at the moment.

"I'm more worried that she'll succeed!" Fate protested. "She's an SS-ranked mage!"

"Technically that ranking is outdated and doesn't apply to combat ability. She might deserve higher." Lindy agreed. Cheerfully, of course.

"That's... mother, you aren't even a front-line combatant, and you don't even have a device! How can you think you could defeat her one-on-one?"

"What? Of course I... oh, that's right, I didn't show you." Lindy said, reaching into her pocket and withdrawing a small black card. "I... er... borrowed it."

"Oh, that's not the important part and you know it, mother! Some random standard-issue storage device won't change the fact that you aren't a combat..." Fate blinked. "Wait is that S2U...? Mother... please tell me you didn't steal that from Chrono."

"Borrowed! I borrowed it from Chrono. Without him noticing, admittedly, but still. It's just that it's an excellent piece of equipment, and since he doesn't use it anymore I really thought I should have something to give me that extra edge. I'll give it back!" Lindy said defensively, clutching the tiny black sealed device.

"... you know what, it's not important right now." Fate said, shaking her head as if to force her thoughts back on track. "Mother, I can't just let you go and do this. You don't know how powerful or how unstable she is, and she'll..."

Lindy placed a calming hand on Fate's shoulder. "Fate, please. I'm happy that you're worried about me, but I can take care of myself. And besides, it's a parent's job to worry about their child, not the other way around. I'll be fine, and I'll be right here to fret over you the next time you go on a dangerous mission." Lindy said. "All right, Amy. I'm ready to transmit whenever you are."

"Um... Admiral, I hate to agree with Fate, but I agree with Fate. Are you really serious about this?" Amy asked over the intercom.

"Quite so, Amy." Lindy said cheerfully. It was starting to get old. "Now, send me to the last detected location of the criminal Precia Testarossa, if you don't mind?"

"But..."

"Now, Amy." Lindy said. She no longer sounded all that cheerful.

"Yessir, sorrysir, rightawaysir!" Amy babbled, and Lindy disappeared in a shower of light.

"Amy." Fate said. "Prepare a transit for me, too."

"Aren't you supposed to be on sick leave?"

"My friends are in danger, and my mother is most likely walking to her death! I don't care!" Fate said firmly.

"Yeah, I guess I should have expected that. But what about Arf? Admiral Lindy said..."

"Yes, I know. That's why you're sending me to Arf. I'll help her get out of her situation, and then the two of us will head straight to the main battlefield. Is that understood?"

"B-but your mom said..."

"Now, Amy." Fate said. She sounded eerily like her mother. Eerily like both of her mothers, somehow.

"... Harlaowns are scary..." Amy said.

Precia's mind traveled the world. One, two, three, four, five... she thought, spotting out potential targets. This should be amusing for the twenty minutes it takes me to kill every last one of them.

High-end distance bombardment magics were perhaps her greatest asset, combat-wise. She could, with sufficient preparation, knock unshielded spacecraft offline and strike targets in different dimensions; she knew this because she had done so. Granted, such a feat would be impossible without the Garden of Time to assist in aiming and spell transfer, but striking targets in the same world, from a scant few kilometers away? By the time anyone realized what was going on and tracked her down, she'd already have thrown the course of battle irrevocably in her side's fav-

Precia sighed in annoyance at the tell-tale sound of an incoming teleport behind her. She turned and raised an eyebrow. "Only one? Somebody's overconfident."

"Oh, I don't know about that. I mean, it's so hard to tell the difference between 'overconfident' and 'just confident enough', isn't it?" Lindy asked. Cheerfully.

Precia blinked several times, in some combination of surprise and confusion. "To be blunt, if I was to be attacked by a lone idiot, I was expecting it to be a lone idiot I recognized. Fate, or perhaps the little white brat. You're... nobody." Though she hated to admit it, but there was something painfully familiar about the oddly cheerful woman.

"Lindy Harlaown. We've never met face-to-face, but I was the commanding officer of the Asura during the Jewel Seed incident." Lindy said. Ah, well, that explained it. She'd been on the Bridge of the ship when Precia had contacted it, of course. She was familiar because Precia had heard her voice before. Granted, Precia had not been, perhaps, in the clearest frame of mind at the time, so details were hard to come by, but this at least explained the nagging sense of deja vu. "And now I'm here to ruin you again, if that's all right? Wait... wait, I was supposed to say something, wasn't I? Oh, yes: You're under arrest. Should you not resist, you will have the right to defend yourself in a court of law. Oh, just listen to me! I've still got it, don't I? I sound so official!"

Precia blinked a few more times. Surprise was rapidly leaving the combination of emotions she was feeling, but confusion was still right there. "Are... are you serious?" She asked.

"Why do people get asking me that?" Lindy sighed. "Yes, I am quite serious, Ms. Testarossa, and you are quite seriously under arrest. Now, will you surrender?"

Precia considered this briefly. "Guess." She said, and flicked her fingers almost idly.

A solid wall of violet lightning slammed mercilessly into Lindy's hastily raised shield... and crushed it like a boot on a soda can, ripping through it to run across her staff and barrier jacket, tossing her through the skies in electric spasms. She somehow didn't fall from the air, but she was in obvious agony; the hands that held her borrowed staff were burned, her breath came in short gasps, and sections of her barrier jacket were visibly smoking.

Precia smirked. "I was expecting this to take a little effort, you know."

With visible effort, Lindy raised her head and brushed a charred lock of hair out of her eyes. "You're... still... under... arrest..." she gasped.

Precia rolled her eyes, and almost idly flicked her fingers again.

Most people had never seen Nanoha Takamachi fight seriously.

Not intensely, seriously. She fought with intensity all the time. Nanoha was strong and she liked to win, so fighting with effort was nothing to her. But fighting with serious intent to destroy, holding nothing back? That was basically unheard of. Really, the only thing that had ever seen it from the receiving end was the berserk defense program of the Book of Darkness, which should have said something about the situation that would actually push her to draw on that level of force.

First, the enemy must not be even remotely approachable. They must be something that not only refuses to see reason but is not even capable of seeing reason, something monstrous and inhuman that will only destroy and destroy and destroy until it is stopped.

Second, there must be innocent lives in danger. Her own did not count; these had to be other innocent lives. A whole world… her friends… even some silly little alien penguins that she'd spent a few minutes playing with, just for fun. She must have something to protect.

Should these circumstances be met, it is possible to see Nanoha Takamachi fight with true seriousness. It is, despite the brilliantly magnificent light-show that tended to result, not a pretty sight. She doesn't get any more powerful, or faster, or more intelligent somehow, no.

She just gets less friendly.

The six pink bullets snapped through the air, splitting to encircle the two cyborgs. All she really wanted was to keep them together so she could just wipe them both out with one shot. She accomplished this by sending the bullets shooting inwards and punching several fist-sized holes through their armor. Defensive efforts were made, but Raising Heart was in Excellion form, and another cartridge was easy enough to load. The defenses shattered, and the bullets began swarming around and between the two cyborgs like berserk hornets.

And, occasionally, swarming through them. They didn't feel pain, or fear, so there was only one way to really herd them in a specific direction, and that was to hit them in that direction. Good, good, that's right. Keep up the power, keep up the pressure, don't allow them even a moment to counterattack, push them onto the defensive until...

There. That should be close enough.

"Restrain!" Nanoha commanded, Raising Heart loading two cartridges as she did so. "Barrel Shot!"

The wave of energy, invisible save for the air and dust it disturbed, slammed into the two cyborgs. Both began to vibrate in place as they struggled futilely against the motion restriction spell, caught in place like flies in amber. Eventually, they most likely would have been able to break free, but for the moment they were still, and very, very close together...

Raising Heart was leveled in their direction, and three more cartridges slammed home. "I'm sorry. I really am." Nanoha said. If Chrono was right, she was doing them a favor, but... they'd been people, once. Even if the only thing she could do was apologize, she should do that much.

"Excelion..."

"... Buster."

Nanoha took a deep breath as she watched the cloud of smoke. Nothing emerged, not even debris... just to be safe, she sent the remaining spell bullets under her control ripping through the cloud. No impact of any sort; they were gone. Presumably destroyed, or at least damaged enough to merit extraction, then. She released the tension in her body, and let out a deep sigh of mixed weariness and relief.

That... had probably not been smart. All told, the price for ending this battle quickly had been nearly as much energy as she'd used in the final assault spells she'd launched at the berserk Book of Darkness defense program. Her hands were aching, her head was pounding, and she was down to her last five cartridges. True, she was now free to move on to the main battle site, but she might not be much actual help once she got there.

Speaking of... Hello, Asura? Nanoha thought. This is Nanoha. I'm ready to move on.

A little fatigue was no reason to quit, after all.

"Zafira!" Yuuno shouted in horror as the Black Cat struck home.

It became instantly apparent that something was wrong, though not quite so instantly apparent for whom.

The cyborg's blade sunk into flesh, but not the flesh it had been aiming for. For instance, it had been aiming for the throat of a wolf, and somehow it's blade was embedded in the stomach of a human.

Zafira smiled, blood running from his mouth. He didn't smile often; even in human form, his teeth looked far, far too much like fangs for the comfort of most people. Arf was chipper enough to not really care about this, but Zafira was a little more considerate... unless he was trying to be intimidating. "I have you now." He said, with just a hint of triumph in his tone. He then clasped his hands onto the bladed limb embedded in his abdomen, and ripped it off.

The Black Cat responded to this by drawing its remaining arm back to make another attack. Zafira could admit he was in a bad place; a gaping gut wound plugged only by the fact that the blade was still in it, and the enemy seemingly undisturbed by the loss of one of its arms. It occurred to him that perhaps he'd only managed to delay the inevitable... only for green chains of light to snare the limb as it was pulled back, a reminder that he was still fighting with a partner even if he didn't have a ferret on his head anymore.

Yuuno held his hand out. "You don't get away this time!" He promised.

That strange, sourceless electronic voice spoke once again, Defensive Skill: Magic Can-

It was at this point that the creature stopped talking. Not because it had decided to cancel the technique, but because the technique had been quite forcibly shut down by Zafira pulling the cyborg's own severed arm from his stomach and driving it through the center of the creature's chest, blade first.

Still, it wasn't a complete waste. A combination of the preemptively-ended antimagic wave and Yuuno's own need to get to his ally and make sure the Guardian Beast wasn't about to drop dead in the air allowed the remaining cyborg to break free. It fell back briefly, apparently to determine the best method to continue the battle now that it was on its own.

"Are you all right?" Yuuno asked. "No, that's stupid, you have a big hole in you. Hold still, I'll set up a healing barrier, that should help a-"

"Go..." Zafira rumbled, using one hand to hold his wound closed. "Go after the girl. I'll hold here."

"What? No! I can't just leave you alone here to..."

"I'll be fine. This thing is just a distraction. Leave me be and go stop the real threat, I will hold it here." The Guardian Beast said. "Don't worry. I'm not so weak that a threat of this level will be enough to bring me down..."

"That's insane! You should withdraw completely, I can handle him and..."

"And he isn't the real threat." Zafira said firmly, his tone allowing no argument. "We need as many resources as we can muster to go to that city and intercept the girl with the Logia, correct? I'd be little use, but you can still at least delay her."

"I... I..."

Zafira narrowed his eyes. "Go, before I get angry."

"... Fine. But you'd better not die." Yuuno said softly, flying away from the battlefield and onto the next.

Zafira's expression turned grim as he turned to the one remaining cyborg, his entire body taking on a white glow that only made the blood stand out more. "Well? Come on, then."

The scene, overall, looked a little bit like Hell must have.

It had started with Signum realizing that she would need a new strategy. She had confirmed that, if she drew on her fullest power and went all out, she could outmatch Amaterasu in pure strength. However, the other woman was still faster and, though she hated to admit it, most likely a more skilled (or at least more ruthless) close-combatant. Attempting to simply overpower her constantly would simply make her go on the evasive until Signum ran low on power. And so the Wolkenritter general had decided to think outside the box (the 'box', in this instance, being sanity) and utilize a strategy that Nanoha Takamachi had used to some effect against this same opponent. The girl had managed to bypass her enemy's superior experience by throwing the battlefield into utter chaos, creating a situation that rendered analysis useless. Such a scenario would hamper Amaterasu's combat instincts to the point of rendering them almost useless, bringing the two women back onto equal ground.

So she had shifted Laevatein into Serpent Form, extended the blade to its fullest, and swung her arm in a single wide circled, bringing half the forest down on top of them.

It had more-or-less worked; the trees falling at random, collapsing into each other, propping one another up and falling out of these fragile balances unpredictably, it had been a highly chaotic battlefield. Amaterasu was indeed too distracted by the rapidly shifting landscape to fight with the same level of concentration she'd been showing until now.

Then Amaterasu had laughed. "Oh, you are something else, aren't you? Not as rigid as I thought, willing to walk on the wild side! Then let's crank this up another notch, kitten!"

And then she'd set the whole damn mess on fire.

The already teetering, chaotic mess of dead trees was now crumbling in entirely different, much hotter ways. At any given moment, an ancient tree might finally give out and send vast chunks of burning wood crashing to the forest floor. The sky was flooded with embers, and thick smoke obscured the battlefield. It was, basically, madness.

And in the center of the madness, the two ancient warriors were truly in their element.

Signum and Amaterasu sprinted along the trunk of one of the half-fallen trees, the flames licking at their coats. Sparks rose from the clashes of their weapons as they ran, once, twice, three times before the tree gave out underneath them, forcing them to leap to safety in opposite directions. Amaterasu connected with another tree and leapt off it to reverse her course, even as Signum skidded to a halt amid the soot and burning debris the was rapidly covering the forest floor. The two women, their weapons burning even more brightly than the forest around them, crashed together in a monstrous explosion that only worsened the spreading blaze.

Barely even acknowledging the force with which they were thrown apart, they rushed back into melee range. Amaterasu stepped slightly back, just out of easy melee range, whipping her spear around her in long, graceful curves that appeared slow, but moved with deceptive speed to slash at any seeming vulnerability. But if Amaterasu was all curves, than Signum was brutally efficient lines, moving exactly as fast as she appeared to be, sealing off those vulnerabilities the instant Kagutsuchi struck at them and pushing the spear back, only to have it be spun around and brought in another arc at another target. Neither woman could land a strike, and neither would retreat. In the end, the duel was only halted by the environment once more, as a burning trunk slammed into the ground between them and forced them apart once more.

Signum, without a moment's hesitation, drew her arm back, Laevatein loading a trio of cartridges and bursting into flame. The burning blade segmented, whirling around her like an angry snake. "Hiryu Issen!" She snapped, sending blade and flame alike crashing into the obstacle in front of her. The already unstable tree shattered as the attack plowed through it, to reveal... nothing.

"Your aim's a bit off, kitten!" Amaterasu said jovially, shouting to be heard over the inferno. Signum could not see her, but it was fairly obvious that problem was not mutual. Ah, so she was being watched from hiding, which meant death was around the corner again...

Signum grinned, stopping only when she realized she was wearing a smile and angrily forced it from her lips. The problem, she realized, was that something disturbing was happening.

She was finding she didn't actually hate Amaterasu.

The woman had the personality of an animal in heat; a poisonous animal, no less. She was, if not outright insane, than at least dangerously close. She was, frankly, a monster. A different sort of monster than Signum had once been and that Amaterasu was so cheerful to see she no longer was, perhaps, but a monster nontheless. Signum had little doubt that the woman would indeed derive a sort of sick pleasure from killing her. And yet, Signum was still honestly having a good time.

Part of it was that the issues Amaterasu had forced her to confront were things she should have addressed before now. The nature of her changing personality, the cost of her devotion to Hayate, the loss of her former ruthless edge... the fact that bringing these up had 'gotten to her', however briefly, meant that she should have dealt with them long ago and that she owed her opponent for forcing her to confront them. But more than that...

The woman was an equal. Perhaps even a superior, possibly the first genuinely better fighter that Signum had dueled in centuries. If Fate had been a worthy enough opponent for their battles to inspire joy, than how much more was derived from this? From the sensation that she might well be outmatched and the slightest error in her form could end in death? Had there been no consequences other than her own safety riding on the outcome of this battle, Signum felt she would have been laughing openly, joyfully exchanging blade techniques with her opponent and walking the knife's edge between life and death with no fear in her heart. As it was, she was finding it harder and harder to keep a smile from her lips. She was doing so, however. God knew the last thing she needed was to give any hint of approval to the incessantly flirtatious twit.

Keeping her guard up, moving through the ash and smoke to try to lose her pursuer, Signum waited with bated breath for the moment the attack would come. She knew it would happen... the other woman was most likely watching her through the flames this very moment... every single one of her senses was working on overdrive to determine where, exactly, the assault would come from.

And as a result of this hyperawareness, Signum became painfully aware after nearly two full minutes that nothing was happening.

Where is she? Is she toying with my mind again? Trying to make me slip up out of nerves, or...

Or...

Damn.

No attack was coming, because Amaterasu was gone. The lunatic had run away, and she was going for the Gate while Signum tromped through a forest fire!

Taking to the skies and bursting through the smoke in a rage, Signum took off at full speed behind the now-visible but rapidly shrinking red dot in the skies. That little... argh! After all of that... that constant talk about how obsessed she is and all those ludicrous mind-games, she just leaves before settling our match without even a word? How could I have been thinking anything even remotely positive about her? She is the most unlikable, twisted, obnoxious woman I have ever met, and when I catch her I am going to beat her into a bloody pulp!

She knew how much these thoughts made her sound like Vita, but at the moment it was hard to care.

Much further ahead, and her lead growing by the second, Amaterasu smiled wickedly. Aaaaah... how sweet! She's coming after me, even though she knows I'm too fast, and there's no way she'll manage to intercept me before we reach the city! She must be furious. I hope she doesn't calm down before she catches up... it will be totally worth bowing out of our dance early if I get to see her eyes sparkling with fury. So cute when she's angry...

Whoever said you couldn't mix work and play had obviously never met Ammy.

"Fate, I know that you're not going to listen to me." Hayate said.

"Or me." Shamal added.

"But we really don't think you should be doing this."

"I'm listening to you," Fate said. The fact that she was standing the teleport center with Bardiche activated and her Barrier Jacket fully equipped made it clear that she was not listening, of course, but she was a polite girl. "But I'm still going."

"Fate, you're really not at your best." Shamal said. "You do need rest and time to heal, even if you don't feel like you do."

"I know, really." Fate said. "But the fact is, the people I love are in danger, and I can help. If that means a little risk... that's nothing new to me."

"We could stop you from going. Cutting off the transport would be easy enough, you know." Hayate said, simply.

"If pressed, I can teleport myself there." Fate said. "I'd prefer not to waste the energy, but I will if you make me."

"All right... if you absolutely can't be convinced, then I'm going with you." Hayate said.

Fate's eyes widened. "But you're...!"

"Not too much worse off than you are, at the moment. We can watch each other's back."

"No." Shamal said softly. "I accept that nothing I can do will stop Miss Fate from leaving. I imagine that even if I made it an official medical order, she would ignore me and accept the consequences later. But you, Hayate, will not be going with her."

"Shamal," Hayate said, not unkindly, but in a tone that brooked no argument. "I will not be left behind while all of my friends and family are putting themselves in danger..."

"It isn't that, Hayate. I'm really not trying to protect you... well, not only trying, anyway." Shamal said apologetically.

"Then what are you trying to do, Shamal? Because if you can't give me a convincing reason why I need to stay behind while everyone else is in danger, then I'm leaving right now." Hayate said firmly.

"Hayate... they still need Rein on the ship, so she has to stay here. And you can't walk without her."

"... ... ... ... ..." Hayate said.

"Sorry." Shamal said.

"... ... ... ... ..." Hayate said.

"Well, then. I'll just... be going." Fate said into the awkward silence, stepping onto the transit pad and disappearing in flecks of white light.

"Shamal?" Hayate said.

"Yes, Mistress?"

"This sucks."

"Yes, Mistress."

"Whoo-hoo!" Arf said, grasping the cyborg's ankle and swinging it around like she was doing the hammer toss.

It was possible she was having a bit too much fun. But hey: a hyper-charged adrenaline rush will do that to a girl.

Once she felt she'd built up enough force, she hurled the black figure with all her might, directly into the ground. The other one hadn't been moving since the last big blast she'd slammed it with, so with any luck this would be the end: it would hit the ground hard enough to render something internal too smashed-up to work, and that's that.

... nah, that would have been too easy. Arf thought in some combination of amusement and annoyance, watching as her buddy began attempting to dig itself out of the soft jungle soil she'd buried it in. Should have known better. Need to basically rip them to pieces, don't ya?

She smirked, and gathered golden light into her palm. Well, that's workable. Clutching the ball of lightning in her fist, she went into a dive, her fist held back to deliver one Hell of a jab.

The Black Cat managed to right itself and get out of the soft soil that had been holding it... too late. Much too late. A massive cloud of dust and leaves was kicked up as Arf hit home like a comet, striking the disoriented cyborg with far, far more force that it had hit the ground with.

A couple of things went wrong then.

It wasn't that she didn't destroy the Black Cat, no! Ha ha, that guy was totally screwed. In fact, she hit it with so much force that its upper body basically exploded in a shower of metal and plastic shards which vanished shortly afterward as the debris was reclaimed. It's just that she might have possibly hit with a little too much force. And, well, it was basically a rainforest, now that she wasn't in the part that was on fire anymore. The soil was wet, and soft, and she was crashing into it really, really fast. It took nearly five minutes to dig herself out. Getting the mud out of her fur would the work of hours. But still, she managed to get out with minimal difficulty.

Which was when the second thing went wrong, as a grenade detonated roughly a foot and a half away from her, and Arf learned a very valuable lesson about combat: just because you hit something with a 'big blast' and hadn't seen it since then, didn't mean it was dead.

The blast flung her like a rag doll; her auto-defenses were up and enough to keep from being, well, dead, but she was still not in the best shape. Slamming head first into a tree with bruising force didn't help the situation much. Further, her sensitive ears were ringing madly from the sound of the blast so close, combining with the other problems hitting her to leave her disoriented... and as a result vulnerable.

She never did find out why the creature didn't finish her off from a distance after catching her so cleanly. Perhaps that had been the last of its ordinance, or perhaps she'd managed to damage it enough that it wasn't certain of its targeting systems with any weapon that didn't have a giant blast radius. Perhaps it simply had a surprisingly sadistic sense of humor for a mindless machine. Whatever the reason, when the time came for the coup de grace, it extended one of those vicious blades and lunged.

Oh... this isn't good... Arf thought, seeing as the blade came in. Everything seemed to be moving so slowly, yet for some reason she couldn't get out of the way. It was like everything, even her perception of time, was suspended in some sticky fluid. I guess maybe I got a little overconfident. I suppose by myself, this was too much to ask...

The red blade came forward, excruciatingly slowly, but unavoidable. It was fortunate, then, that she didn't have to avoid it.

Arf suddenly felt the extra strength that she'd been running on the entire battle suddenly flood out of her limbs in a rush, leaving her feeling drained and dazed... but what actually caught her notice even more than that was that one thing among the entire world appeared suddenly to be moving at a perfectly normal speed among all the slow-motion.

A glowing golden blade tore through the air... and through Arf's assailant. The creature fell back, leaving an arm behind to fall to the jungle floor. The girl with the golden scythe was too quick for it, though; by the time it had managed to retreat to the distance it sought, she was already behind it, having looped past it . If it had backup, or if it had been in perfect working condition, maybe it would have been able to pose some sort of threat to her. But it was alone, and it was damaged.

And then it was in two pieces.

Fate smiled at her Familiar. " " She said.

"Huh? Fate, I can't hear you." Arf said.

Fate winced. Arf you're shouting. Are your ears all right?

I... kinda got caught off guard there. I've got some ringing, I won't deny.

Are you all right? I'm sorry it took me so long to get here, but there was a fire where I landed and it took me awhile to track you down...

Ah. Yeah, there was that. Napalm or something. But really, it wasn't too bad. I'm... here, try talking to me out loud.

"C-n y- h-r m-?" Fate asked.

"Alm..." Arf began shouting, before switching back to telepathy, Almost. Maybe with a few more minutes. But beyond the ears, I feel pretty good now that I've cleared my head. I can keep going. Can you? I thought you were on medical leave.

Well, I certainly hope I can, because we're moving on to Rienne as soon as the Asura can send us, and I'm going with you whether you like it or not. Fate thought.

Arf smiled at that. Don't worry. I've been by your side long enough to know I can't argue through that thick head of yours, Master.

... ... I'm choosing to take that as a compliment. Fate thought.

Chrono fell back.

It wasn't a trap, this time. Or rather, it should have been a trap, but Tsukuyomi had, unlike either her brother or the Black Cats, seen it coming. The delayed bind he had placed in his former location shattered, and left him with nothing to lure her into as he barely dodged yet another attack spell that he had no hope of repelling.

The battle was going, overall, poorly. Chrono's fighting style revolved around skill, rather than power. He fought with traps, deception, luring the opponent into conditions favorable to himself and unfavorable to them. But with this girl, he just couldn't. Her elemental affinity was the perfect counter to his own, but more than that, he just couldn't wrap his mind around the way she thought. Attempts to predict her actions or deceive her almost invariably showed that not only had she seen through it, she had prepared a countermove that he then had to see through, and some of them were just insane.

Right now, for instance.

His initial plan had been to take a hit... one hit, a minor one. He would play this up, pretending to be wounded more severely than he actually was, and fall back. In the space he had vacated, he left a delayed binding spell. But far from trusting this to be the end, he prepared a second trap, knowing that she would anticipate the first: another spell was waiting around the first, a much less intense version of the cold explosion he'd used to defeat the two cyborgs. Should she see the bind coming and try to loop around it, she would be walking right into some nasty frostbite.

So what she had done, rather than the logical course of pursuing a fleeing and wounded opponent, was instead loop up and round the battlefield while simultaneously directly a missile of liquid through the traps he'd laid. The binding sparked uselessly around an unbindable target, and the other spell... well, freezing water didn't work so well here, as she'd proven once already.

And then, to make matters even worse, when the interaction of light and water died down enough to allow him unrestricted vision, there were two of the girl coming after him.

Not too horrible, though; he'd known she was an illusionist. The obvious solution was that one of the girls was real, and one was fake. But then, the obvious solution was almost certainly a trap, wasn't it? Most likely, both of the girls he saw were illusions, and the real one was behind a veil of some sort. But invisibility magic was never perfect, and she would leave some sort of...

There. A shimmering in the air, just barely perceptible. That was her, and that was where the real attack was coming from. Chrono raised his staff and said, "Durandal, lock on targets! We'll take out both of them in one go!"

"Stinger Snipe." Durandal obliged, charging a bolt of azure light that could be directed at will. The beam flashed out after one of the two blue-haired girls, blasting right through her and causing her to vanish in a burst of silver light. Smiling at this expected development, Chrono redirected the beam toward the second girl... only to suddenly reverse the course and send it rushing towards the veil in the air he'd spotted.

It was perfect. She would assume that he had been targeting her second illusion until the last second, and most likely had been in the middle of preparing her own attack in the meantime. She'd be caught totally off-guard, and most likely knocked out or at least seriously damaged by the direct hit to come.

He continued thinking that right up until his spell rushed harmlessly through the veil, dispelling it to reveal nothing inside but empty air.

Chrono had only a few seconds before the silver-white chains snared him, pinning his arms to his sides, to realize that he'd made a very serious error. A counter bind... The shimmering in the air was an illusion, it just wasn't hiding anything. And while I was so 'cleverly' seeing through her 'trick'... she nailed me.

The other girl, the one he would have sworn was a second illusion, floated before him; a ball of silver light glowing in the tip of her staff. "Very good. Your skill at magical control and your tactical abilities are both excellent. However... it is possible to overthink things, don't you agree? Making the air shimmer is much easier than creating two perfect independent illusions of myself. Sometimes the simpler explanation is correct."

She raised her weapon, and released the ball of silver light gathered in her staff as a coherent beam aimed directly at the defenseless mage's heart.

Lindy just barely dodged the bolt of crackling death and struck back, S2U releasing a blast of coherent blue-green light at her command.

It was less than useless. Precia's automatic defenses repelled it without even the slightest effort, the bolt bouncing off a dissolving into flecks of light befeore Lindy's eyes. Not that Lindy had really been expecting it to work, but it would have been nice to be surprised in this case.

Precia let out a small, sharp, laugh, and swung her staff, sending a wide-angle wave of light after her target rather than a beam. With no way to dodge, Lindy was forced to try defending this time, and her shields... almost... held. For perhaps the fifth or sixth time, Lindy tumbled through the sky her nerves on fire as sickly lightning coursed through her body.

It was obvious to anyone who saw the situation that Precia was dominating the encounter. Lindy could not even harm her, and was equally helpless to repel her attacks. Precia honestly seemed to be mostly toying with the other woman, deliberately letting off attacks just slow enough to be dodged, just weak enough to be survivable. Playing with Lindy like a particularly sadistic cat with a a particularly durable mouse.

Precia shook her head in bemusement. "Really, now? Are you actually surprised? You attack me, alone, with offensive abilities that are… mediocre at best. What exactly were you expecting to happen, here?"

Lindy wiped blood and sweat from her brow as she considered this. "Well… something along the lines of…"

Lindy-vision!:

Lindy arrived on the battlefield, looking frankly stunning considering she's actually given birth to a child. No, really, she was a total babe. How does she keep that figure? Looking around, she said, "Time to find Precia!"

And she found Precia, who wasn't nearly so pretty as Lindy. Lindy and Precia stared into each other's eyes. They were both Fate's mom, but only one of them was good, which made the coming battle symbolic. Maybe it was symbolic of motherhood, and how a real mother is the one who cares for the child, not the one who gives birth to her (or in this case, grows her in a cloning vat). Yeah, that sounded good.

"I'm here to beat you," Lindy said.

"You won't." Precia said.

And then there was a fight and Lindy won.

"Ha ha!" Lindy said.

"Darn!" Precia said.

And then Precia was arrested, and had to go to jail and wear a prison jumpsuit, which made her look even less attractive. So Lindy was the winner and also prettier by a lot. And she and Fate were mother and daughter forever and ate ice cream.

Back to Reality!:

"Something like that?" Lindy said. "I was really hoping for that, to tell you the truth."

Precia blinked a few times and raised her hand. "I'm going to murder you now." She said.

Lindy smiled once again, this time in victory. "I'm sure you'll try." She said.

"Steel Bind." The storage device said. A silvery-white binding chain snapped itself around Precia's staff and the arm that held it, binding the mage into place.

Precia blinked. It was a simple spell, shattering at the slightest effort of will. "What was the point of…?"

"Restrain, the judgment of those on high. Look down upon my foe and stave off her assaults." Lindy said.

"Chain of Heaven."

A much brighter chain burst into existence, wrapping around the woman's entire body and pinning her arms. And Lindy's chant continued without pause: "Hold back the darkness. Repel any who would seek to do me harm, seal them off from the world in an endless void..."

"Prison of Silence."

A sphere of translucent blue light joined the chains, further burying Precia in layer upon layer of binding spells. Damn... even for me this will take some time to break... Precia thought in annoyance as the magical prison grew steadily more complex. Clearly, she had underestimated this woman; her skills might not have lent themselves to combat, but she clearly knew sealing and binding very, very well. Still, it would only be a matter of a few minutes to escape this net and...

"Now, confine. Draw my enemy beyond time and space and lock them forever outside the flow of reality; trapped for eternity in an unchanging prison of glass." Lindy said, continuing the steadily growing bind without pause.

"Crystal Seal." The staff said, trapping Precia inside a faceted crystalline shell that appeared on the outer layer of the other binds that already held her. It had reached the point where the woman could no longer even be clearly seen with the naked eye.

Lindy smiled at her handiwork and levelled S2U. "That ought to hold you for a bit, I'd think. Now, how did this go? Gather, the light of justice that shines 'cross the heavens. I am the bringer of judgment upon this evil, and her guilt is clear and deserving of punishment. Scatter the darkness and let the criminal before me be bathed in the light of law, forevermore."

"Eternity Breaker."

The blast of pure white light screamed through the skies and smashed into the bound Precia, briefly obscuring her with the intensity of the beam.

The beam exploded violently, leaving behind a shockwave that ripped through the air and a cloud of smoke that left even the results of the blast impossible to see. But it was a breezy day, particularly at the altitudes that the battle was taking place at. The smoke cleared quickly, however, revealing that Precia…

Wasn't even scratched.

"Ouch. I believe you tousled my hair." The archmage said, a smug smile firmly on her lips and violet lightning dancing between her staff and her free hand.

"Not good..." Lindy muttered.

"Look on the bright side. I'll admit that was a fairly impressive bit of binding right there, even if the follow-through couldn't back it up. I've decided that you're worth taking seriously." The black and violet electricity grew rapidly in intensity, wrapping around Precia's body like a second skin. "You should be proud. Your death will be the sort of magical display people write books about."

The blast made anything else Precia had thrown the entire battle seem tiny and pointless. Dodging was impossible, and deflection was something beyond impossible.

Lindy stood unmoving, as certain death approached.

There were many kinds of battle to enjoy.

Fate was fun to fight because she was such a child. Susanoo felt almost like a proud parent, watching her grow and develop her potential before his eyes. And she was so unwilling to kill that he could easily match her effort and fight at the pace she set, so the battles tended to be more like an amusing little exhibition of spells and techniques than a real fight.

Signum had been fun too, for the opposite reason. She was a better than him, at least as he was now, and he'd been forced to fight with a brutality he usually preferred not to use just to keep up. Being pushed to his limits and beyond... that was amusing in a different way than 'mentoring' Fatie, but it was interesting all the same. She'd have been a worthy kill, no shame in ending that battle with blood. To do less would have been dishonorable.

But Vita might have been the best yet.

They were so perfectly matched it was almost creepy. He had more access to bombardment and assault magic, but it hardly mattered because she was faster than he was and would not allow him to leave melee range. And so the fight, as it had for most of it's duration, boiled down to 'hit each other really, really hard'. And it was fun. He didn't have to think, he didn't need any fancy plans or strategies, he didn't need to keep his eyes constantly moving because she could move faster than they could follow and might come at him from any angle. Not that all of those things weren't fun too; just that there was a great deal of joy to be found in a pure, simple test of strength, and Vita offered that quite well. Once again, he was having so, so much fun. He didn't miss his full power; worthy opponents were so much easier to find with the handicap!

Vita drew back, her hammer eating another pair of cartridges and shifting it's shape to one he hadn't seen before. Screaming "Gigantform!", Graf Eisen change into a weapon almost as large as it's wielder (not that this was too hard, but still).

Susanoo gathered power into his axe, preparing to utilize one of his favorite tactics, detonating a distance attack at point-blank when he impacted with the newly gigantic hammer. That should be a good gauge of its power; if she repelled him easily, he might have to shift to his own final drive. He hoped not; it would be hard not to kill her if he used it, and he had decided by this point that he didn't feel like doing that, even if Ammy wanted him to. He didn't really need to anyway, there weren't any more Gates to worry about, so if he left her alive for future rematches, who would even care?

The two warriors spent another few, painful seconds gather their power and sizing up the opposition, before charging in with wild abandon. Vita's face was set in a scowl, Susanoo's in a childish grin. They closed the distance between them in a fraction of a second, drawing back their weapons for the (most recent) titanic clash to come.

And then reality brutally intruded.

Susanoo watched in confusion, uncertain as to what had just happened. One moment, Vita had been charging him just like always, and he was rushing to meet her. The next, the air behind her was burning, and she was falling, and he was already swinging his weapon...

Her guard totally broken, Vita took the full force of the attack spell with only her armor to defend her. Briefly suspended by the energy tearing into her, she fell like a puppet with her strings cut, limp and lifeless.

He dove, catching the girl in his free arm, and moving to find someplace to set her down gently. As he did so, he saw the cause of why her charge had broken prematurely: the back of her armor had a hole burned cleanly through it, and the flesh beneath it didn't look much better. And there, floating in the sky, her weapon pointed in their general direction...

Amaterasu smiled at her handiwork, the tip of her spear still casting off red sparks. "You know, before we started facing these people, I'd never shot a small girl like this in the back. Now... twice in as many weeks. Times have changed, eh?"

Without a word, Susanoo descended, picking a building that looked pretty sturdy and setting Vita down on top of it. "You'll be okay, I think... your armor seems to have absorbed a decent chunk of the damage, and at least you're tougher than most. Try not to die, okay? I'll do my best to make sure this roof doesn't come under fire. If you can hear me at all, then signal your people for a withdrawal as soon as you're able to move."

And then he took off like a bullet, screaming to a halt in front of his elder sister. "What do you think you're doing?" he snarled.

"Winning, Susa."

"Dammit, Ammy, she was mine! How dare you inter-"

"Do not finish that sentence, pup." Amaterasu said coldly. "I'm doing what needs to be done. Tsuku's on her way right now, and we're moving on the last Gate as a unit. This is neither the time nor the place for you to goof off. Victory is all that matters."

"No. No, I'm not going to back down just because you're trying to be scary." Susanoo said, his tone calm, precise, and positively glacial. "This isn't a war. No formal hostilities have been declared. In a field like that, with an enemy fighting to the death, that's where your behavior belongs. This was a fair duel between knights, and you've sullied that. I'll ignore it for now, because we have a mission to complete. But I will not be letting this one slide, Amaterasu. When we get home... there are some things I need to say to you."

Amaterasu drew back her head as if bitten. Oh, my. I haven't seen this mood in awhile. With the frantic energy that he normally exuded, seeing Susa so calm and focused was... well, she wasn't the only one of her siblings who could be a little scary. When the smiles and goofiness stopped, that was when you really had to start watching Susa closely. When he seemed calm on the outside, that was actually a sign that he was really angry, and Susa really angry could be... difficult. I'm lucky we do have a mission. Without our Master's orders to worry about, he might have actually attacked me.

She suppressed a shudder, and not entirely of fear. Seeing her brother with those icy eyes, so calm on the surface but a raging storm inside, barely able to restrain himself...

So cute.

"I'll look forward to it." Amaterasu said truthfully. "But for now, stay by my side and don't complain. We have incoming company, I know that, but Tsuku should be here soon, if nothing goes wrong... and gods, why did I just say that? 'If nothing goes wrong'. You'd think I'd have learned not to tempt fate by now..." Amaterasu sighed. "Let's go find Tsuku before something goes wrong."

Tsukuyomi's bolt was literally feet away from the target when something went wrong.

The bolt of pink light burned across her path, striking her own spell and blasting it aside before it struck. Instantly she spun to assume a defensive posture, knowing full well what she would see when she turned...

"Sorry about that." Nanoha said. "I didn't want to interrupt your fight, but I couldn't let you hurt my friend."

Tsukuyomi turned to the city to her back. The boy would not be breaking free without for at least a few minutes; all she had to do was briefly distract the girl and she should be able to get enough distance in order to get within striking distance of her final objective. But... if she wasn't able to get far enough away and Nanoha followed her too closely into the city, she could intercept the Driver before it reached the destination.

And any battle between the two of us would cause considerable collateral damage. If we get caught up in a residential district...

"Vacate the area. This is not a conflict you should be pursuing at this time." Tsukuyomi said.

"You tried to hurt my friend." Nanoha said softly.

"I told you: I have a mission to accomplish. Perhaps now you'll believe what I am willing to do in order to..."

"But that blast? I felt it's power when I deflected it. It wouldn't have killed him." Nanoha continued. "You could have used a lethal attack. Why didn't you?"

"I..." I don't know. By all rights I should have; he is an enemy combatant and his death would have removed any possibility of him returning to the front before the end of the encounter. So why didn't I stop to make sure he was...? "... there was no reason to. This is the final Gate we can target. Whether we get it or not, there won't be another one of these conflicts. Eliminating your unit is no longer a priority."

There. It was not exactly the truth, but it served as a plausible reason.

Nanoha smiled softly for the first time since her arrival. "You're still a bad liar." She said.

"Wh-what do you...?"

"You didn't kill my friend," Nanoha said. "Because you didn't want to. Because even though you were supposed to... you saw that you could get what you wanted without it, and you chose that option. The same reason you're trying to make sure that we don't start a battle in that city, isn't that right?"

The girl's smile widened. "I was right about you. You might have some rough edges, but you really are a good person deep down. You prove it a little more every time we meet."

"You... you..." Tsukuyomi said softly. "What is wrong with you? I just... I just can't understand how you think."

Nanoha smiled even more brilliantly. "That makes two of us, then, because I know there's a lot about you that I don't understand. But I think if we keep trying... maybe that will change. And so I'm going to keep going, even if you don't want me to."

Tsukuyomi blinked. "Then... if you're going to ignore my wishes... I'll ignore yours too." She said, raising her staff to signal the end of discussion.

"Well... that's one way to deepen our understanding." Nanoha said. "Chrono! Stay back, all right? This is between me and her."

Chrono looked down at the glowing chains he was still tightly wrapped in. "That won't be as much of a problem as you seem to think." He admitted.

Lindy smiled with a certain amount of evil at the incoming wave of guaranteed death, and raised her hand. A small blue image, almost like a playing card made of light, appeared in front of her palm. The wave of violet lightning slammed into it... and was somehow drawn in, vanishing utterly into the tiny projection. "Ah. Took awhile, but I believe I have you down, now. You're a tricky woman, you know."

Precia's eyes widened. "How... what did you... there is no possible way you could have deflected that much energy!"

"I didn't deflect it. It's just that it was the first spell I could completely steal. I got pieces of all of them, though... would you like to see?" Lindy asked.

She snapped her fingers, and the world went mad.

Spreading from the small 'light card' floating in front of Lindy, a dozen or more identical magical constructs shimmered into existence and spread to encircle Precia. As soon as their movement ceased, they began to practically scream with magic; dark, twisting energy that leapt between the 'cards' in rapidly increasing intensity. The skies around Precia were a twisting, warped mass of blues, violets and black, lightning crackling through everything. And among the twisted space, strung between the cards like connect-the-dots, she could see… just barely…

Runes? A spell field?

She couldn't have possibly been planting sealing spells across the area for the entire battle. And yet, there they were, and what they were sealing was...

Her magic! Trapped among the sigils and flowing between the cards in an insanely complex and powerful field of magical seals, was an absolutely monstrous amount of Precia's own magical energy.

And to make matters far, far worse, it was visibly growing more and more unstable.

I need to kill her, right now! Precia thought in a panic, raising her staff and calling down a lightning bolt from the sky above. A powerful, fast spell that would easily have ended the woman's life... had it not sharply diverted its course, disappearing into the growing cloud of wild magic surrounding the archmage.

"Told you I had you figured out." Lindy said, dusting herself off and brushing some blood from her lips. "Now, since we have a little free time, let's talk. You seem to have underestimated me, Ms. Testarossa. Don't feel too bad; a lot of people do that. Apparently I give off the impression that I was granted an Admiralty for my sparkling personality rather than any sort of skill. Really, you'd think they'd look at Chrono and realize the flaws in that logic… he got his looks entirely from his father, but he must have inherited something from me, right?"

"The binds… and the shields, and the attacks…" Precia said, eyes widening in horror. "Every single one of them had a secondary spell built into them, just so you could build this without me noticing... how could you possibly…?"

"Oh, you really are a genius. Yes, that's exactly it." Lindy said warmly. "As for how it was possible... did you know my children think I have some huge, overreaching plan for this whole engagement? I keep telling them I don't, but they don't seem to believe me." Lindy continued almost conversationally. "I decided, just this once, to leave the big picture up to Admiral Mizetto. As for me, I spent a solid week doing nothing but thinking of a way to deal with you.

"It was a conundrum, I admit. You've seen for yourself that I don't have much in the way of offense; I did my time as a field agent, but I was never the front-line attacker my children are. So I was forced to consider... how exactly does a mage like me, whose offensive potential is frankly barely notable in comparison to your ludicrous powers, stop you? Here's the answer I came up with. You see, you've made it apparent that you don't really remember me, but when it was time to seal your Garden of Time, I'm the one who melded with it and shut down its central power source."

Precia's stomach fell. Of course. Of course. Of course. That voice...! Fate, the girl in white, everyone else present on the Garden was with me when the central core deactivated! There had to have been someone else, and... I heard that voice more than once...! The Garden's Core had been a Lost Logia not unlike a Jewel Seed, but one that she'd personally programmed and painstakingly attuned to herself, to increase general research efficiency. She had... at the time it was sealed, her mind had not been all it could have been, but someone not in the group that confronted her had spoken to her as well, taken credit for sealing it. Her memories of those final moments were somewhat blurred but... but it was the same voice. If this woman had been able to pierce the security and seal the Garden of Time, then...

"A mage of your skill, this should tell you two things," Lindy said, continuing as if she had read Precia's mind, "First, I have had opportunity to study your magical style and signature in detail that few others have. Second, that my own magic is particularly adept at sealing and directing energy. Once I realized this, I then came up with a plan, and spent several days doing nothing but preparing the spells I would need to carry it out." Lindy said. Her smile vanished as she raised one hand, the energy surrounding Precia beginning to churn even more violently. "This field of wards has absorbed every last speck of magic you've used since I encountered you, and frankly you've released more energy in a few minutes than I could manage in an entire day. So much I can barely contain it, which is fine because I won't have to for very much longer. It will break free shortly whether I want it to or not... and with this much, about the only thing I can do is decide what direction it will travel in once it's released. It shouldn't take a genius to deduce which one I've chosen."

Oh, no. Precia thought numbly. She poured every ounce of power she could muster into her shields, knowing that if this woman was telling the truth it most likely wouldn't be nearly enough…

"At this point, I suppose I should be telling you something appropriately neutral and law enforcement-esque. But I've already used 'you're under arrest', and frankly speaking I'm not neutral toward you at all." Lindy said, raising one hand above her head. The runes in the air briefly gleamed, then began to dim. "Fate... did you see her, after your encounter? Did you look at that girl, broken in the dirt after what you did to her? Because I did, I saw my little girl lying half-dead in a hospital bed, and I saw the burns on my son's body from when he tried to save her and you tried to kill him for it. What mother could possibly be neutral after that?" Lindy asked softly. "You tried to kill my children. Did you think I wouldn't take it personally?

"Burn."

Lindy's eyes were two chips of ice as she brought her raised hand down in a sharp chopping gesture.

The pillar of violet lightning split the heavens.

Fate and Arf descended on Rienne, ready for combat. "Mother!" Fate said, "I'm... here to... I'm..." She said, trailing off into silence from the sight in front of her.

"Holy crap." Arf said.

What they saw was Precia Testarossa... in a sense. She was on her hands and knees, on the ground, in the center of a massive expanse of shattered and burned earth. Blue runes floated serenely through the air around her in a sort of web, and she did not appear in any hurry to get up. Her dress was basically ash, her skin was reddened in the places it wasn't outright burned, and she was actually smoking or even on fire in spots. Basically, she looked as though she'd been at the center of a particularly precision bombing run.

Lindy turned to the two new arrivals and smiled warmly. It looked really, really wrong considering her own wounds and the general situation. "Oh, my, what a considerate daughter who comes to save me, even after I made it clear she should not. Thank you for coming to help me, dear, but it seems that I have the situation mostly wrapped up. If you could proceed to another battle site? I believe I have this one under control, so we should reinforce the battle sites closer to Ravenna."

Fate blinked a few times. "Um... but I should... M-mother..."

Arf tugged on Fate's cape. Fate, I really, really don't think we should argue with her right now! She thought urgently.

Perhaps you have a point... Fate admitted, once again looking at the crater Precia was lying in. Could she make one that big...?

Remind me to never tick your mom off again. Arf thought.

Signum was beginning to worry. She was finally catching up to Amaterasu, she could sense that even if she couldn't yet see the woman, but that appeared to be for the worst possible reason: Amaterasu wasn't running from her anymore. Worse, she had rendezvoused with her brother,and Signum had few illusions that she'd be able to defeat them both at once without help. And Vita was, disturbingly, not answering her telepathic summons. Zafira was, and he claimed to be pinned down but otherwise fine; Signum knew him well enough to detect the strain in his tone, but for the moment she had to take him at his word. For the moment, she contented herself with the knowledge that they were both still alive, even if the only way she knew Vita to be alive was that if she were not, Hayate would most likely be screaming in her mind right this moment. And if she wanted to keep them that way, she should deal with the problem as soon as she...

Something strange nipped at the edges of her consciousness. She extended her senses, searching for the source. Ah... someone new was approaching her intended targets at high speed. Was that Testarossa?

Wasn't she on medical leave? And if she was approaching this battle at less than her absolute best, then...

Signum desperately tried to wring any additional speed she could out of her flight before her former rival got herself killed.

Amaterasu sighed in annoyance. "Of course, another complication. Kitten's catching up, and I'm picking up two more incoming. Seems like they'll be here in... ooooooooh, animal girl! It's the cute animal girl! I was hoping to get to know her better, maybe this won't be so bad. How does my hair look?"

"What are you happy about? Isn't this just 'another complication'? Let's get this over with and meet up with Tsuku." Susanoo said.

"Ugh, still in a bad mood? That was five minutes ago, Susa. Live in the now." Amaterasu said. "Hey, look, the other one with her is your new little girlfriend! That ought to cheer you up, right?"

"... you don't touch that one." Susanoo said calmly. "You don't. I can forgive you for the last interruption, eventually. But this kid is so naive she makes me look like a ruthless psychopath, all right? So don't kill her. I'll stop you if you try."

"Ha! And here I thought I was just teasing you, Susa. I'm starting to think that you do have a thing for this..." Amaterasu began, before the girl in question pulled up to them far more quickly than she would have thought possible. Best to watch for that... and... oh, my, Arf was even cuter in person than in an image. And that outfit covered like, nothing... this merited a closer inspection...

Amaterasu found her... um... tactical analysis cut off slightly by the other girl speaking. "Susanoo... it's been awhile, hasn't it?"

"Yeah, it has, hasn't it? We didn't really see each other last time, at least not close enough to talk... Look, Fatie, I'm happy to see you again, but you should go. Things are getting more serious, here. When it was just those old soldiers I looked past it, but you're way too young to end up dead on some world you've never even heard of." He responded.

"I thought by now, you'd know me well enough to know I can't do that." Fate said gently, a tone contrasted sharply by the fact she immediately dropped into a combat stance, Arf backing her up. "We both have duty to perform, don't we? So you have to find your Gate, and I have to stop you. All we can do is what we have to."

"Oh, my..." Amaterasu said, now fully noticing Fate for the first time following this speech. The older woman seemed to have not really noticed her in favor of ogling Arf, but now her eyes were firmly glued to Fate and seemed to be analyzing her.

Fate was ready. She'd spoken to Nanoha. She knew she was about to get deluged with ideas for costumes that probably weren't, in her friend's words, 'entirely wholesome'. She could take it, she'd faced worse.

But instead, Amaterasu visibly blushed and turned away from her, muttering under her breath. "This... this isn't good. This isn't good at all. Susa, this is a really serious problem."

"What is? What's wrong?" Susanoo asked.

"I... gods I was just teasing you before, but... come on, is this girl really ten years old? That disturbingly sexy barrier jacket aside, isn't she a little too... a little too much for a girl her age?" Amaterasu said bluntly. "I didn't really think you had a thing for her, but now that I actually see her up close, if you do like her it's kinda hard for me to blame you, and that's really not good because she's obviously way too young! I mean, not just her clothes and her body but her hair, even her cute and quiet personality... it's like she was designed from the ground up specifically to appeal to perverts!"

"Wh-what?" Fate asked. Specifically to appeal to...

"It's... I don't know. I know I said I could support you, but I don't know if that's really true anymore now that it seems you might really go through with it!" Amaterasu said. "I mean... she's so...! Oh gods, I'm having dirty thoughts about her now. I shouldn't be, but I can't help it! Guilt, Susa! I'm feeling guilty for fantasizing about someone, and that hasn't happened since that time I fell for the High Priestess of the goddess of Chastity!"

Fate blushed candy-apple red. W-w-w-w-what is she thinking about? She thought, having a little trouble forming words at the moment.

"Oh, gods..." Susanoo said, looking ill. "Well, I guess one way to make me not angry at you is to make me disgusted at you instead."

"B-but... the things she's saying are actually... isn't that really bad, Susa? Like, isn't she talking about things that aren't... legal?" Fate asked.

The air instantly went dead silent.

"Fate..." Susanoo said softly. "Did you just call me...? You called me Susa. You did."

"Um... I guess so? Is that a problem? It just slipped out, I didn't mean to..."

"Ya-hoo-hoo!" Susanoo crowed, pumping his fist in the air, his foul mood apparently forgotten. "That means the master-apprentice bond is complete!"

Under normal circumstances, Fate would have been a little discomforted and annoyed by this sudden proclamation, but honestly at the moment it was sort of a relief. He was better to talk to than his sister. Much better. "Er... I guess I did call you by your nickname, but that doesn't mean I'm your..."

"No, no, it's good! I'm happy that you're coming out of your shell a little! I guess we can chalk it up to my brilliant teaching skills." He said, nodding in satisfaction. "Yeah, I'm awesome."

"You haven't really taught me anyth-"

"We'll need to do something special, something to commemorate this occasion. Hmmm... well... I know! Fatie is actually kind of a lousy nickname, you know? It's longer than your real name! So we'll do something about that, and think you up a better one! Fay? Fa? Argh, Fate is too hard to nickname for!"

"Well, then don't, pl-"

"So let's go to Testarossa! Rossa? No... no, that sounds strangely like a man's nickname to me for some reason." Susanoo said mysteriously. "You need a girl's nickname. Like... erm... oh! I got it, I got it! Tess! You can be 'Tess'!"

"Erm... couldn't you just call me 'Fate'?" She asked, in mild exasperation.

Susanoo's face fell. "You... you don't like 'Tess'? I thought it was pretty."

Oh. Now I feel like I kicked a puppy. Fate thought. "Um... I suppose 'Tess' isn't bad."

"Yaaaaaaaaaay!" Susanoo cheered, again pumping a fist into the air enthusiastically. "Victory!"

"Oh gods." Amaterasu muttered. "They're... they're cute together. This just gets worse and worse."

Susanoo narrowed his eyes at her. "Do not project your perversions onto the pure and noble art of nicknaming. I just got back into a good mood and you're already ruining it."

"Right. Right. I have to accept this." Amaterasu said. "All right, Susa! For real this time, I will support your efforts! Good luck at finding love!"

"... ... ... and there goes my good mood. Being your brother is like a second job. A job where I have to pull out my own teeth." Susanoo grumbled.

"Finding..." Fate said. This again? "But you're... it's... nothing personal, you're very nice, but aren't you... really, really too old for me? Like... hundreds of years too old?"

"Gee, thanks, Tess. Thank you so much. You could have said 'aren't I really, really too young for you', but instead you chose to showcase my oldness. Thanks a ton." Susanoo said dryly.

Arf, who had basically been watching the show and wishing she'd had some popcorn, snickered.

Amaterasu sighed. "You have a pretty laugh, you know that? Like bells."

Arf blinked a few times in confusion. "Er... thanks?"

The edges of the time barrier chose this moment to explode briefly as a mass of magical energy slammed its way through them and into the slightly out-of-phase reality. Signum, sword drawn, entered the battlefield in the manner she entered most battlefields: ready to hurt somebody. More ready than usual, even. "You." She growled upon seeing Amaterasu. "We're not finished yet. ... Ah, hello Susanoo."

"Hiya!" He said, totally ignoring the general tone of the situation. He was good at that.

"Oh, this is a problem." Amaterasu said, looking back and forth from Arf to Signum. "I was sort of hoping you two would never meet each other."

Before you ask, yes, Ammy was just as good if not better at ignoring the general tone of the situation.

"Wh-what?" Arf asked, still not sure what was going on or why this woman was acting so weird. It is important to remember that Arf is, technically, younger than Fate. She couldn't fully be expected to understand why the woman had been looking at her body with the general air of a shark spotting blood in the water. Even if she, intellectually, realized that she was totally smoking hot, and occasionally even used that to her advantage, sometimes she didn't quite piece together that maybe her (again) smoking hotness was the reason someone was staring at her with unnerving intensity. She just enjoyed attention and didn't question it. It's a dog thing.

"Okay... look, Kitten. You know I love you."

"I know you're obsessed with me, yes." Signum said.

"Semantics. My point is, my affection is real. But the thing is, I'm just not a one-woman woman. I've lived for a long time, and I've developed very cavalier attitudes towards romantic encounters. So you need to know right now, there will be other women. And men. And occasionally one of each at the same time, or two of one, or several of each in varying combinations, and of course you can be one of the women involved in any of those situations, and..."

"What she's trying to say is that she's sort of a whore." Susanoo said helpfully.

"I am not! Whores act like this for money. I'm in it for the thrill of the hunt." Amaterasu protested.

"... I suppose you have a point."

"Thank you for appreciating that distinction." Amaterasu said primly. "Okay, Kitten, I guess my real point here is that I plan to take that lovely animal girl as my lover at some point in the future. Can you accept that and move past it in our relationship?"

"What?" Arf gasped, just now catching on to the real 'point' of the 'conversation'.

"We don't have a relationship!" Signum snapped.

Amaterasu sighed and patted her brother on the shoulder. "You're not the only one who has love troubles, Susa. Be happy you only have one girl to worry about."

"I don't have any girls to worry about! Well, except for you, and that's not the good kind of worry!" Susanoo protested.

"She doesn't have any girls to worry about either!" Signum pointed out.

"A problem I'm trying to fix." Amaterasu agreed.

Fate, trying very, very hard not to show how deeply uncomfortable the entire situation had made her, raised a trembling hand. "Can... can we please just... arrest you now?"

Amaterasu sighed in annoyance. "Oh, right. Combat and such."

This could be bad, Ammy. Tsuku checked in with me a bit ago. Susanoo said. She's in combat again, and not making much headway. I'm pretty exhausted, and it seems the last of our loaned Cyborgs have gone to the big scrap heap in the sky, however. I think Precia was here, but I haven't heard or felt anything from her in awhile.

"Ah. Well, if the situation is down to just the three of us, then we need to step it up, I guess." Amaterasu said. She closed her eyes. "All right then, I think we've played too much. Forgotten our mission. Susanoo, take point. Break through and go to Tsukuyomi, immediately."

"What about you?" He asked.

Amaterasu responded by exploding.

"Whoa!" Susanoo said as his sister's body suddenly burst into brilliant light and flame. When the sudden display cleared, her weapon had shifted into the jagged, multi-pronged monstrosity she'd been wielding during their first encounter, her Barrier Jacket shifted into the same red plate.

And more to the point, Signum noted, her eyes had that same, painfully familiar chill. The spot where Amaterasu had impaled her in their first battle throbbed. Ah. There's the one I remember.

"Me? Well, I was thinking I might kill everybody in my field of vision." She swung her spear experimentally, and it threw off licks of flame. "For a start."

Author's Note: Why, yes, I am leaving you on a cliffhanger. Again.