34. In Loco Parentis
The lights were dimmed in Hayate's quarters, allowing the huge holographic projector that dominated the room to display itself to best effect. The date in the bottom right corner was July 0077 by the Mid-Childan calendar, nearly two years ago, and the screen showed the cavernous main chamber of the TSAB Parliament, still with the squeaky-clean newness of recent refurbishment. It had once been not one room, but eight – floor upon floor of office-space for no less than three major and minor departments of the Bureau Army. When the civilian government had moved in after the military's loss of power in the Scaglietti Incident, though, it was decided that they needed a nice big space to contain their august deliberations (and, some less charitable commentators noted, certain members' egos), and so the office cubicles had had to go.
The result was undeniably impressive, with fifteen-metre-tall windows at either end painting narrow bars of light over row after row of blue leather seats. The walls were lined with rare woods from a hundred worlds, and adorned with paintings and inspirational mottoes from artists across TSAB space. Viewing galleries halfway up allowed the general public to see the proceedings below from behind ward-reinforced glass, assuming they were not fortunate enough to be given seats in the chamber itself. It was a testament to the glory of Mid-Childa and the might of the Time-Space Administration Bureau.
It was also the building's greatest weakness.
Any structural engineer could have told you that taking a big chunk out of the middle of a building would do that building's stability and integrity no favours, and during the creation of the chambers, quite a few had. They had been proven correct in the worst way possible when the Chaos demolition charges had detonated in the first stages of the invasion, effectively snapping the slender Government Tower in two at the waist and crushing thousands in the process... including over three-quarters of the parliament, plunging an entire interdimensional civilisation into mayhem.
It had taken weeks for the bureaucracy to catch up – Hayate was supposed to be preparing the First Expeditionary for the counterattack, but bits and pieces still kept popping up that should have been resolved long before. In fact, she had only just finished formally contacting the next-of-kin of her deceased troops, which had been about as enjoyable as one might expect.
There had been a few bad ones, not least Corporal Movano's parents, who had threatened and screamed at her until Signum was forced to eject them, but she still ranked the talk with Fate and Nanoha as the least pleasant. It wasn't that she'd known Erio and Caro longer than most of the casualties – the Eventide's voyage had been long enough for her to become personally acquainted with quite a few of the fallen, and that was discounting old friends like Sergeant Ibrahim. It wasn't the patent absurdity of a formal meeting with people she saw every day, or even the age of the casualties, though those were undeniably contributing factors. Rather, it was the way her two friends had reacted that had nearly broken her heart. They had been so very kind to her, asking how she was keeping up with the sort of solicitous concern that implied she was the one suffering the most from it all. That was another one she'd had to end early.
Six years before, she had participated in an investigation of a terrorist attack upon a school in the Clanagan suburbs. They had employed a crude, home-made bomb built around a small magical reactor, intended to collapse the building on its occupants' heads and fill the surrounding area with sorcerously-boosted shrapnel. She did not remember what the terrorists had stood for – something about denying rights to artificial humans, or perhaps the sort of anti-military paranoia that would turn out to simultaneously be horribly prophetic and sadly misdirected a couple of years later. Certainly, nothing worth massacring children over. There was one thing about the mess that she did recall very clearly, though. She had been standing in the rain, Vita forming a shield over her to act as a makeshift umbrella, as the recovery teams dug one small body after another out of the rubble. She had made a promise to herself that day not to allow anything like that to happen again, to fight tooth and nail to avoid seeing another young life snuffed out. Another one I couldn't keep.
On the screen, she saw herself take to the floor. The speech had been something of a necessity, an explanation of the military's goals and ideals after the true extent of its abuse of power had been unearthed during the battle against Scaglietti. Both politicians and the general public wished to be reassured that the frighteningly powerful armed forces of the TSAB existed to serve rather than dominate, and Hayate, as a rising star in the army and the person responsible for much of the unearthing, was the perfect fit for the job. Good grief, I look so young...
"Two years ago, we discovered a conspiracy within the TSAB's highest levels," her projected self began. "The Bureau Council and its accomplices in High Command had funded sadistic human experimentation, arranged the murder of Bureau personnel, attempted to obtain illegal Ancient Belkan artefact weaponry, and unleashed the greatest terrorist threat against Mid-Childa and the multiverse at large in recent history. Ever since, the military's influence and purpose has come into question from all angles, and for good reason. Our fleet numbers in the thousands, and our personnel in the tens of millions. Even one of our smallest vessels could obliterate a small nation in a single shot, whilst I alone could bring this entire tower crashing down around us in seconds. We can read minds, teleport thousands of kilometres in the blink of an eye, and process the entire information output of this planet ten times over. What can contain us? How can we be prevented from overstepping our bounds?"
The camera panned over the viewing galleries as perturbed muttering rose from the members' seats. Everyone was there – Fate, Nanoha, Yuuno, Arf, the Wolkenritter, Sister Carim from the Belkan Saint Church, and even Admiral Chrono Harlaown and his family. Amy, his wife, was looking as radiant (and pregnant) as ever, and was watching the proceedings with an interest befitting her former role as an Intelligence operative. The children, unfortunately, seemed rather less enraptured, and the twins were in fact pulling faces at the camera until their father shot them a meaningful look. Back in the real world, Chrono was currently headed to Federation-space to check up on the stabilisation project in that universe, before deploying to the Great Wall in order to supervise the increasingly frequent skirmishes and scouting missions against Chaos forces near the Bloodhaven entrance.
It was no secret that the daemon-world would be the target of the counterattack. With the Suzumiyaverse denied to Chaos, it guarded the only remaining passage through the Wall. If it were captured, the enemy would be bottled in, allowing Operation Guardian to forge on to their home universe with impunity. Hayate had mixed feelings about going back, though. On the one hand, any course of action that resulted in even the slightest chance of retrieving Vita was pretty much mandatory. On the other, every piece of data and first-hand knowledge she had told her that fighting in an environment as heavily tainted by Chaos as Bloodhaven would not be fun in the slightest. The former trumped the latter, of course, but didn't make her any less apprehensive.
The younger Hayate was continuing her speech. "The answer is simple, honourable Members. It is justice. It is discipline. It is the extraordinary power we possess, allowing us to take the hard path, to preserve, protect, and redeem rather than merely destroy. Why execute when we can reform? Why kill when we can incapacitate? Why butcher when we can negotiate? Might does not make right – might demands right. This is why my purpose, and that of the new generation of combat mages, is to instil an unshakable code of courage, honour, and compassion in our recruits. That is why all are offered a chance at redemption, no matter what their crimes. That is why, people of Mid-Childa, we are your humble servants."
The apartment door opened, and she paused the recording, cutting off the rising applause from the speakers. Signum walked in, holding a steaming bowl that emanated a decidedly appetising smell.
"Reliving the past, Mistress Hayate?"
The colonel managed a smile. "Don't think I'm the only one. What happened to those logs from your training sessions with Private Mondial?"
The Wolkenritter stiffened. "Those serve a purpose. This does not."
"It helps me... remember. That's purpose enough. What's in the bowl?"
"Kartoffelsuppe. It is comprised of potatoes, sausages, and miscellaneous vegetables. You have not eaten yet, and it is my duty as a bodyguard to ensure your continued health."
Hayate accepted the bowl gratefully, careful not to let any of the contents spill, and fished around in the drawers next to the table for a spoon. "Thanks, Signum. Who'd you get to make it? One of the Catering staff?"
The tall woman averted her eyes diffidently, and held out a small metal tablespoon she had summoned from thin air. "It is of my own design. I have found it a valuable source of nutrients when Shamal was unavailable to provide us with sustenance."
"Wait – this was your fallback from Shamal's cooking?" Hayate asked, staring at the creamy liquid with newfound horror.
"The Knight of the Lake is our designated cook. She has insisted on this. Repeatedly."
"Oh? Some day, I'm really going to have to ask why she intimidates you three so much."
Signum twitched. "I must respectfully request that you do not, Mistress Hayate."
"Fine, fine..." Gingerly, she brought a spoonful of soup to her lips. "My word. This is... actually pretty good. Very good, in fact. Could use a little more salt, but... Signum, have you ever considered practicing more? Diversifying a little?"
"That is not my allocated role. I am the Knight of the Sword, first warrior of the Wolkenritter. I would be better served in focusing my attention on better ensuring your protection, especially pending the Knight of the Iron Hammer's retrieval." Something almost like a twinkle entered her eye. "Furthermore, my current mistress is more than capable of attending to our culinary needs... when she is not occupied with reviewing outdated footage of her past pontifications."
Hayate had to smile at that. "I see. Well, far be it from me to tell you how to do your job. It's just nice to know that between you, Shamal, and Admiral Lindy, I've got at least one mother-figure who knows her way around an oven. Could you at least give me the recipe?"
Signum nodded, and began to retreat from the room. "As you wish, Mistress Hayate."
"Thanks again, Signum. Sorry for making you worry."
"That is also my allocated role." The door closed.
She returned to the soup, gulping it down with a ravenousness that made her realise exactly how hungry she had been before. It really was delicious – especially after she retrieved the salt-shaker from the kitchenette cabinet.
Once she had cleaned up and placed the bowl in the miniature dishwasher, she returned to the recording, to her younger self's assertions of the might of the Bureau and the right of everyone to a second chance. They were the principles she had built her career on, the truths she held above all others.
She just wished it wasn't becoming so hard to remember why.
Signum strolled towards the hangars, re-checking the information on the Eventide's ongoing refit for front-line combat. She made a mental note to ask for the return of the Kantian battlespoon when she had the chance – going to war without every one of her weapons at her disposal always made her vaguely uneasy.
"... Mother?"
It was said experimentally, as if testing out how the word sounded. She allowed one of her occasional smiles to creep across her face for a moment, before shaking her head.
Time to get back to work.
The smell of decay was a strange one, with a thousand different layers and textures that her dulled senses could nevertheless differentiate perfectly. Some were sweet and almost pleasant, whilst others were near-unbearably foul, but the rich, musty undertones were like a caress to the nose. It was curious, she thought, that humans tended to consider it such a deeply unpleasant concept. It was nature's means of cleansing itself, turning death into new life as the nutrients that comprised a corpse fertilised the soil around it. Ripe fruit, she had been told, were supposed to be the tastiest, whilst cheese was best when matured.
By any reasonable standard, she was extremely ripe. Her body was a mass of infections, tumours, and other diseases, cells dying and regenerating almost every nanosecond. Most of her nerve endings were gone, the few that remained sending out sporadic bursts of pain as if to show willing. Her cataracted eyes cloaked the world in misty white, and the fluids from her cracked and broken skin coated the floor of her lair.
On further consideration, the human attitude was perhaps not so curious. The juxtaposition between her current state and her original purpose, though, certainly was.
Though protecting humanity and bringing about the next stage of its development had always been a large part of why she was created, it had not been her sole directive until later. She had seen the pictures in her father's private quarters of a woman who looked curiously similar to her. She had heard him moan Her name when he touched her, and she had experienced the sudden, violent rages he hid from all others, when he ranted at her for not being that unknowable, perfect Her he wanted so desperately.
Of course, it hadn't lasted. His professionalism, his drive, would not allow it. She had been relegated to paramilitary and scientific matters more and more, whilst he found another woman to rekindle his memories of Her, however faintly. This seemed perfectly reasonable to her. She had failed him in one function, so it was her duty as his instrument to do her best in another. Admittedly, doing her best in this capacity would result in a higher risk of death or injury, but that was irrelevant. She could be replaced.
Then her brother had arrived from outside the city, and everything had changed.
At first, she had been terrified of him – a rather unpleasantly surprising experience, considering how unused she was to fear. Power had swirled around him like a cloak, carrying with it the distant, skin-crawling promise of mayhem. Everything he came into contact with changed, intricate schemes falling apart and people who had known him for weeks at best pledging undying loyalty. Then it had been her turn.
There was a verse she had discovered some time later, during the assimilation of data she used to pass the time after her ascension. 'So I commend the enjoyment of life, because nothing is better for a man under the sun than to eat and drink and be glad. Then joy will accompany him in his work all the days of the life God has given him under the sun.' That was what he had advised – to celebrate her time, however brief, on this world, and do things because she wanted to, rather than because they were her purpose. It had taken her some time to wrap her head around the concept, but once she did, she embraced it with gusto, dancing through the refuse of the slowly dying world around her with a smile on her face. For the first time in her life, she was experiencing freedom, and she rather liked it.
There were, naturally, caveats. It was only reasonable that she repay her brother for opening her eyes, which unfortunately involved even more chance of injury. In fact, two of them had been fatal, including a particularly nasty one in which one of her bodies had been turned into an ambulatory bioweapon factory. Nevertheless, she had failed to understand what was going on until it was too late, until she had already taken it into her head to take both the repayment and the unfettered hedonism to their logical endpoint, and become one with her brother in the same way she had with their father.
One more messy and painful demise later, she had a rather better understanding of her new purpose... specifically, that she still had one. Living life to the full and doing what she wished were all well and good, but only insofar as they served her new master's goals. She was still someone's instrument – the conditions of her use were simply somewhat different. It was almost liberating, in a way. She was back to a model she understood, rather than flailing around in the dark.
Indeed, adhering to this purpose proved extremely fruitful. It took a while for the deaths to stop, and ascending was not exactly an immediately pleasant experience, but being invested with the power of an ancient deity was something few could complain about... particularly if they had as relaxed an attitude to their bodily integrity as she did. Better still, her brother had begun to invite her to his bed of his own volition.
Then the pattern of her life reasserted itself once more.
Her brother became increasingly distant as the years passed, spending more time around his other two chosen consorts, and she had seen the expression on his face when he laid eyes on her true form. He had tried to explain that it was simply because the essence she had been imbued with was the antithesis of his, but she knew the truth. As with his father before him, her imperfections meant that she was simply incapable of meeting his needs in that manner, and as with his father before him, she chose to further assist him in other areas in order to compensate. It was simply a matter of efficiency.
From then onwards, she had been responsible for most of the routine, miscellaneous work not directly related to the others' grand project. She had helped rebuild the world's shattered infrastructure, feed its starving populace, and, when she had the free time, capture and torture the various incarnations of her father and his associates across the multiverse.
Despite her brother's best efforts, she bore the man who had created her little in the way of ill-will. Working for his son was still greatly preferable, but at least he had had the decency not to disguise her purpose behind a veil of misguided philosophy and empty compliments – a trait she had found to be rare and much-appreciated. It was just that the sessions presented an opportunity to learn a number of interesting facts about the tolerances of the human body, and the others appeared to enjoy the recordings of them immensely. That was enough reason for her.
If it hadn't been for the voice, in fact, her life might have been entirely uneventful.
It began speaking to her shortly after her ascension – deep, friendly, and jovial, with the same phlegmatic undertone as her own voice. She had not mentioned it to her brother, of course. He probably had enough doubts about her value as an instrument without her adding more of her own accord. Despite that, it had not suggested inadvisable courses of action or the like, as she had been told mysterious voices in one's head were wont to do, but rather asked for information about her life, such as there was. She had been hesitant to provide it at first, but after her increasing isolation began to take hold, such qualms had largely vanished. Betrayal or no, it was... nice to have someone take some measure of interest in her. Nevertheless, she did wonder why an entity apparently operating from within the confines of her cranium needed to hear about her from her own mouth.
It's a simple matter of context, the voice had replied. I may know the factual details of your past, but I don't have a very good idea of what you thought about them and how you reacted to them. I'm afraid I haven't interacted much with humans on a personal level before, you see.
"So how do you wish me to answer your questions?"
A rumbling chuckle. Why, truthfully, of course. It's always worthwhile to have a little more truth around, don't you think? It can be so hard to find, sometimes.
On that point, she had to agree.
So it was that she relayed a bare-bones summary to the voice, pausing to fill in details wherever it asked for some clarification. There were some points where it seemed to get rather angry, much as her brother had, though the reaction was rather more puzzling in this case, less a case of frustration at an instrument being misapplied, and more... well, she wasn't quite sure what. When she asked, the voice just got very quiet and asked her to continue the story, dismissing the matter as irrelevant when she tried to apologise for upsetting it.
Eventually, she decided to ask after it in turn. "What is your purpose?"
To preserve my own existence, and spread my influence in the universe, it replied simply. Also, to find out what the human dish called 'haggis' tastes like. I am informed that it is one of the multiverse's greatest mysteries.
"I see." With half a dozen questions answered at once, she decided to leave it at that – and order either a haggis or something closely resembling it from wherever the Divine Kitchens had walked off to that week.
Despite learning all that she deemed relevant, the voice's interest in her remained undimmed. It asked enthusiastically after the latest modifications to her mind and body, and when she noticed how pleased it was when she reported some of them to be beneficial, she decided to describe them all that way... even the genuinely uncomfortable and unpleasant ones. It was not as if her own comfort had much value, after all. Fortunately, it had not caught on to her lies – in many ways, it seemed even more clueless about humanity than she was.
If there was one purpose it had beyond what it had already stated, then that appeared to be making her life easier. It would make wry comments to her as life passed them by, reeling off barely-comprehensible anecdotes and unflattering commentary on her associates that nearly made her swallow her tongue to keep from laughing out loud on more than one occasion. She might still have been a pariah, but at least she wasn't a lonely one any more.
That made the voice's sudden moment of seriousness one day all the stranger.
I don't want you to die, it had said quietly, after she had stopped giggling at a remark regarding the (negligible) military and sartorial value of one of the other consorts' latest attempt at an armoured corset.
"That is an untruth," she replied. "My removal would be the most efficient means of facilitating the spread of influence you state to be your purpose, as you are quite aware that I am an imperfect instrument. Furthermore, the circumstances of my death are entirely outside my remit. I have already mentioned how much I dislike attempts to disguise one's motives with false sympathy, particularly of such a transparent variety. Please do not do it again."
It honoured her request, and though things were somewhat chilly between them for a while afterwards, they eventually returned to normal. When it apologised several days later, though, she had a feeling that it was not exclusively for the conversational gaffe.
She could never understand it – as an instrument, she existed to be used. Kindness was a means of control, a loan requiring repayment. Why bother hiding it? Why pretend to be concerned for her wellbeing beyond whether she was capable of fulfilling her masters' requests? There was no need to sugar-coat it – she knew perfectly well what her purpose was, and if nobody had yet shown any real hesitation in exploiting it, it would be illogical to assume that anyone else would. Not that she blamed them, of course – to respect an instrument that had repeatedly failed to match its masters' needs was equally illogical.
That was the reason why now, when the voice made a long-anticipated request of her in a tone that clearly expected – indeed, hoped for – a refusal, she replied with four simple words.
"That is acceptable, Grandfather."
It was the last thing Rei Ayanami ever said.
The being who had replaced the young goddess opened his eyes, sat down in the dank, wretched lair, and waited. Patience had always been his watchword, and the complexities of the current situation demanded that he exercise caution and restraint, and only make his move at the most opportune time. Going off on a murderous rampage (and wasn't it funny how he thought of it as 'murder' now?) fuelled by rage, grief, and crushing self-loathing would accomplish precisely nothing.
Even so, it was very, very tempting.
Author's Notes: Two down, two to go. This, my friends, is what happens when you attempt to fix someone's extensive psychological problems by inducting them into a religion that basically feeds on emotional imbalance. As with the TTGL/Bokurano business, it seldom ends well.
Given that the person responsible for most of the culinary disasters in the Nanoha-verse is the (mostly) non-combatant medic, whilst the best cook is also capable of nuclear-level devastation and even the White Devil herself is the thoroughly competent heir to a bakery, it is only logical that Signum should have some moderate talent for food preparation. See? I think about these things.
By the way, well-made kartoffelsuppe is indeed rather tasty. I advise giving it a go.
Join me once more when the next update appears, in which we encounter space battles, galactic politics, and ruminations on the flexibility of dress-codes in public buildings!