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Aboard the Avalon bioroid factory (marooned on Phentax Twelve), inside Gestation Tower #98, Wednesday 17 February 2010 (Japan time: Two hours after midnight)...

"DISOBEDIENT ROBOT! GIVE THAT BACK!"

An inhuman roar escaped the shapely teenage woman in the dark grey, full-sleeve gestation suit as she spun around, the two metre-long staff in her hand swinging with her to allow its glowing crystal head the size of a human skull to point at the wide-eyed elderly man trying to level some sort of pistol on her. Before he could come close to locking his weapon on target, the staff's crystal glowed bright white for a second before a bolt of energy lashed out to rip into his body just below his heart. A wild shriek escaped him as his body literally BURNED UP from inside out, leaving nothing behind but ashes.

Silence fell...save for the clatter of the man's weapon as it fell to the deck nearby. Not to mention the frightened sobs from the young man cowering close to the sliding double doors leading into this circular room...and the gasped breaths from the young woman who had — in her mind — been standing not seconds before in the middle of her hastily-made magical seal on Oki-shima, praying to her Master for His help to survive the most horrid thing ever devised by man to bring harm to his fellow man.

The Program.

Taking a deep breath as she felt a surge of raw power flood her from the strange bulky yet surprisingly light to her touch device now in her hands, Inada Mizuho straightened herself as she moved to look around. She was quick to recognize several things that clearly marked this odd place as some sort of laboratory. Even more so — much to the young woman's total horror — there were man-sized cylindrical tubes made of some thick type of glass...and each of them was mounted on top of machines that were as large as the family trunk her parents had in their bedroom back in Shiroiwa. Power conduits led from each chamber to heavy-duty wall sockets in the smooth curved bulkhead lining all sides of this room.

To Mizuho's complete outrage, all her female classmates were in twenty of those tubes.

Nine other tubes were empty.

And there was one tube that was on its side, the bottom end open.

No doubt, she realized, that had been where SHE had been placed.

But why...?

What in Fate's name WAS this evil place...?

Why...?!

WHY?!

Do not be afraid, Controller.

Mizuho perked on hearing that powerful male voice echo in her ears and in her mind. A strangled gasp escaped the young man nearby, making Mizuho's pale blue eyes snap over to gaze intently at him for a second before she looked up at the deckhead, noting this place was about double the height of any interior space she had been in before.

None will harm you. As you are now my Controller, I will not allow it.

Mizuho blinked, her eyes then focusing on the glowing crystal at one end of the strange staff she held in her hand. It had noticeably pulsed when those words had echoed in her ears. "Master...?" she gasped, her eyes tearing with delight.

No, Controller Inada Mizuho. I am known as the Staff of Gihan. It was my power that brought the souls of you and all your classmates through the Veil of the Te'a from your time period and dimension of birth in the Multiverse to this place and time that you have just awoken in. Also, I was used to scan your old body's genetic structures to allow the body you are now inhabiting to be as close of a clone as this bioroid factory you now stand on can create.

"'Bioroid'...?"

Mizuho's head snapped over. "Satomi!"

She then walked over to scan the computer terminal-like apparatus at the base of the tube holding Noda Satomi. Gazing at it, Mizuho blinked as she stared at the controls for a moment — which were marked not only in Japanese kana and kanji but strange square glyph-like symbols that made no sense to her whatsoever — before she snarled, "How do I release you...?"

The red button to your left.

Mizuho's finger instantly tapped the button. Hydraulics then echoed in the chamber as the tube holding Satomi lowered onto its back before the bottom plate opened with a gentle hiss! Once it was clear, Mizuho placed the Staff aside as she reached into the tube to pull Satomi out. Doing so, she was quick to sense the air pressure that was keeping her classmate suspended away from the walls of the tube. "Are you well, my friend?" Mizuho asked as she reached for Satomi's hand.

"MIZUHO-SAMA! BE CAREFUL! DON'T TOUCH SATOMI-SAMA'S SKIN!"

Both girls gasped in shock on hearing that shouted warning, then they gazed on the young man nearby. Noting he was about their age, they were quick to see that he seemed totally human...save for the elegantly tapered ears peeking out from under the bangs of his shaggy short brown hair. He was also dressed in what appeared to be some type of school gakuran straight from Japan, similar to the style boys who attended Shiroiwa Junior High School wore to classes. He was quite effeminate, almost to the point where he could easily disguise himself as a girl with the right sort of clothing and the right sort of physical posture. Mizuho paused as she gazed intently at him, then she blinked before nodding, reaching in to grasp Satomi's lower arms above the ends of the sleeves of the skin-tight bodysuit both girls now wore. With a pull, Class 3-B's resident brainiac was yanked clear of the tube she had awoken in and back on her feet. "Dōmo, Mizuho-chan!"

"No need for thanks, my friend," Mizuho stated as she reached for the Staff, then she headed over to the tube holding one of the two girls in her class whom she cared for most of all, Etō Megumi. "Do you understand what this device said just now?"

"I think so," Satomi said as she reached over to the folded pair of glasses that were on a table nearby. Slipping them on, she relaxed as her vision instantly cleared up, then she moved to tap the control to open the chamber holding Nakagawa Yūka in place. "When we would have died on Oki-shima, that thing snared our souls before we would have passed through that 'veil of the Te'a' it talked about and brought us to this place. These are cloned bodies we have now," she concluded as the tube holding Yūka fell onto its back and opened. "If I understand the word correctly, 'bioroid' is a contraction of 'biological android'."

"We're MACHINES?!" Yūka demanded as Satomi moved to pull her out.

No, Nakagawa Yūka, the Staff of Gihan automatically replied as the girls began to busy themselves freeing the others. Your new body is as organic as the body you inhabited before Sakaki Yūko poisoned you in an attempt to kill Nanahara Shūya out of her belief he was a 'demon boy' who threatened all of you in the lighthouse on Oki-shima.

Both girls jolted, then Yūka spun around to glare at a now-blushing Sakaki Yūko. "YŪKO NO BAKA!" she spat out as Mizuho moved to pull Megumi free of her tube. "What the heck possessed you to do something like that to Shūya-kun?!"

"Yūko-sama believed she saw Shūya-sama strike down Tatsumichi-sama..."

Eyes locked on the alien boy nearby for a moment. They were quick to see the sympathy shine in his eyes...though it was currently matched to a horrid realization that he clearly had not been prepared to experience. Considering that, Satomi blinked before she sighed. "You! Sit there!" she ordered as she pointed at the boy, then indicated a nearby chair. "If you somehow know about us — by the sounds of it, you do! — you know what we've just been through!"

In a flash, he was seated and looking very meek. "Hai, Satomi-sama!"

Satomi blinked before she smirked, then she moved to release Kotohiki Kayoko as Yūka moved to release Matsui Chisato and Mizuho finished pulling Megumi out before the former moved to release Minami Kaori and the latter moved to release Tendō Mayumi. "So we're alive and in some freaky laboratory in some other dimension now," Megumi said as she tapped the button to open Mayumi's chamber. As a passionate fan of Star Trek — it was one of the few American shows that had been allowed to be televised in the Greater East Asia Republic thanks to its universal message of peace and brotherhood for all species — she had a good idea what was going on right now. "Why are we here?!" she then asked.

You were drawn to this dimension because the man the Controller just terminated desired to create as accurate replicas of yourself and your peers as could be done, Etō Megumi, the Staff dutifully answered. The exact phrase the man used before I reached through the Veil of the Te'a to retrieve all your souls was this: 'Program them as if they were the real people themselves'. By what I could interpret of his inner feelings at the time concerning how accurate he wished such replicas to be, I logically concluded the best way to comply with that request was to bring your souls from the very moment in space-time each of you were about to expire and pass through the Te'a to here.

"What for?" Satomi asked as she finished pulling Kayoko clear, then she moved to the chamber holding Ogawa Sakura.

To be companions to a group of young Niphentaxians your age who are fans of what, to them, is a tragic fictional novel, movie and manga series based on your adventure on Oki-shima, Noda Satomi. It is called Battle Royale. As you are aware, that is the nickname of the legislation the government of the Greater East Asia Republic passed in the Third Year of the Republic to initiate Combat Experiment Program Sixty-eight.

"So they're...really them?!" the young boy asked.

That is correct, Geran dai-Farosh.

The girls paused as they gazed at him, then Yūka walked over to kneel in front of him, gazing into his dark brown eyes. "So you wanted a bunch of cute girlfriends, right?" she coyly asked as she reached over to tap his nose.

Be careful in touching him, Nakagawa Yūka.

She paused, stopping herself just in time. "Why?!"

Your new body possesses considerable psionic capabilities, the Staff explained. A tactile form of telepathy and a receptive form of empathy are two such capabilities you possess now. If you actually touch him, you will be able to interpret his thoughts as easily as you can read a book. Further, upon your enduring what is normally referred to as the 'Awakening', you will also develop a subconscious ability to sense the Power of the Te'a within all around you.

"And this 'Te'a' is?" Satomi asked as the others moved to get everyone else free.

The eternal echo of the Power that sundered the Primal Atom thirteen billion years ago and allowed the Multiverse to exist as it is now, Noda Satomi, the Staff answered while the Shiroiwa girls busied themselves. The race that created the Avalon bioroid factory we are aboard now and devices such as I believed such a Power was divine in nature. Thus, their term for that Power; it translates in your language as 'That Which Is Above mortal understanding'.

"It's like our belief in the Kami, you mean," Kayoko stated as she opened the chamber holding Nakagawa Noriko.

Correct, Kotohiki Kayoko.

"So where are the guys?" Kaori demanded as she moved to release Yahagi Yoshimi from her chamber. "What about them?!"

This factory has one limitation, Minami Kaori. It can only create female bioroids.

Silence.

More silence.

Still more silence.

And then...

"I just can't imagine any of the guys — even Shō-kun — as GIRLS!" Yūka stated.

People gaped at her — even a wide-eyed Geran — then they laughed...


The Lighthouse Beacon of Freedom
by Fred Herriot

C&C by Rose Ash, Sonic0704 and Rashaan Butler

Anecdotes from Abraham Lincoln derived from The Wit and Wisdom of Abraham Lincoln: A Book of Quotations (2005), written by Bob Blaisdell.

Based on Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter, written by Seth Graham-Smith; Ikkitōsen, created by Shiozaki Yūji; Urusei Yatsura and Ranma 1/2, created by Takahashi Rumiko; and Battle Royale, created by Takami Kōshun (as interpreted by Taguchi Masayuki and Keith Giffen).

Including characters and situations from Love Hina and Mahō Sensei Negima, created by Akamatsu Ken; Koihime Musō, created by BaseSon; the works of Tom Clancy; Forever Knight, created by Barney Cohen and James D. Parriott; Gettysburg: A Novel of the Civil War and its sequels, written by Newt Gingrich and William R. Forstchen; Shin Seiki Evangelion, created by Gainax and Tatsunoko Production; Sekirei, created by Gokurakuin Sakurako; Hellsing, created by Hirano Kōta; Kōtetsu Tenshi Kurumi, created by Kaishaku (Ōta Hitoshi and Shichinohe Terumasa); Sayonara, Zetsubō-sensei, created by Kumeta Kōji; the Indiana Jones franchise, created by George Lucas; NOëL, created by Pioneer LDC; The Patriot, written by Robert Rodat and directed by Roland Emmerich; Harry Potter, created by Joanna K. Rowling; Dominion, created by Shirō Masamune; Buffy the Vampire Slayer, created by Joss Whedon; Highlander, created by Gregory Widen; Stargate SG-1, created by Brad Wright and Jonathan Glassner; the combined works of Yamatogawa; and Bubblegum Crisis, created by Youmex.

Sequel to Phoenix From the Ashes by Fred Herriot, which is derived from the fanfic The Bet: Crippled, written by Gregg Sharp. This story also contains characters and situations from the fanfic series Urusei Yatsura: The Senior Year, created by Mike Smith and Fred Herriot.


WRITER'S INTRODUCTION

This story is pretty much the "up to date" version of The Children of Oki-shima, first written in 2012-13 before I began revamping the whole storyline of Phoenix From the Ashes to make it better and delve into a lot more detail during a long period of medical leave that eventually ended with the amputation of my right foot just before Christmas of 2013. The main part of this story begins just days after the end of A Nice Quiet Place; the teaser occurred about 4 1/2 months prior to the start of Phoenix From the Ashes, a day before Avalonians at Hinata-sō begins. This story is a multi-series crossover as you'll note in the credits, but I'm rating this one primarily as a crossover between Battle Royale and Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter. The story after this one will concentrate more on the interaction of the Program players with the cast of Sekirei even if some of those characters appear here. The revamping of this story will affect the Wizards and Avalonians stories I wrote as side-stories to Phoenix From the Ashes; they will be redone. As always, writer's notes appear at the end of each chapter.


WARNING

Since I'm including people who have been literally brought forward in time from a dark period in American history, the language some will speak will be offensive. I mean this not as an insult to those who would be offended by such words, but as a demonstration on how much humanity has evolved since the 1860s. Please be advised.


Her Majesty's Canadian Starship Haida (in orbit over southern Ontario), the ship's auditorium, Monday 19 July 2010, middle of the morning watch...

"You're a fan of John Williams, Mister Kiriyama?"

Kiriyama Kazuo blinked before he gazed over his shoulder at the smiling drum major of Haida's in-house band, who just got off watch; even if he was a musician by trade, Chief Petty Officer 2nd Class Stuart Colvin still had to perform his duties as a professional sailor when aboard a ship. "I have discovered since my rebirth that his music is quite soothing, Chief Colvin," the most successful player in the Shiroiwa class' run through The Program stated as he swept into the theme for Star Wars. "It is a slow discovery for me. Are you aware of the exact circumstances each of us endured before we faced The Program?"

"Sped-read the translated manga when we learned about your classmates after Miss Noda and Miss Inada saved Mister Moroboshi in Queenston on Wednesday," the native of Bancroft in southeast Ontario answered. "It's a pity that you didn't get any sort of psychological help after your accident. Never mind what Miss Sōma went through." Feeling the emotionally cold stare this man could unleash on all that attracted his interest fall on him, the thirty-three year veteran of the Canadian Forces smirked. "A pity you're intending to go ashore as soon as possible. You kids need a chance to unwind and relax yourselves."

"That is true," Kazuo stated. "Sadly, our presence here is starting to influence the original crew of this ship in a way Noriko is afraid might cause more harm than good. You'll have noticed all the original crew are now considered 'D' rank among tōshi such as Ataru's sister Hiromi and her lovers. With that comes an increase in martial arts skills and the potential influence of the 'fate of the magatama' that forced Hiromi to persuade her countrymen from Hàn China to become Avalonians. Given how much they have done for us since we came aboard, it is simply proper to impose ourselves on you no more than necessary."

"Ohayō gozaimasu, Kazuo."

"Ohayō gozaimasu, Toshinori."

Colvin looked over his shoulder as the physically shortest of the Shiroiwa boys walked up to the raised stage in the auditorium. In Oda Toshinori's hands was a beautiful replica Stradivarius, personally created for him by his would-be lover Yamaguchi Shiroko before the Hifuto virus that had been used to kill the young teenager from Ziegler's Cove for her "defiance" of the "one true faith" nearly overwhelmed her, forcing Kawada Shōgo to place the poor girl into effective cryogenetic storage until their rescue scant days ago. Mounting the stage, the more handsome fellow — looking on him, Colvin wouldn't definitely describe the scion of one of Shiroiwa's richest families as "froggy" by any sense of the imagination — with the centre-parted brown-black hair and the dark grey eyes bowed politely to his classmate, then moved to take his place. In an instant, the beautiful melody from the piano was augmented by the soulful tunes from the violin, making a rendition of the theme to one of the most popular movie series ever created that even the master composer from a suburb of New York City would admire.

Shaking his head as he watched the two boys go at it, Colvin then perked on sensing someone come into the auditorium. Looking over, he nodded in greetings to Chief Warrant Officer Marc Duchesne, the regimental sergeant-major of the First Battalion of the Canadian Guards and the third senior-ranking non-commissioned member of the combined ship's company. As the silver-haired infantry soldier from Saguenay in eastern Québec sat down in the front row of chairs to listen to the music, Colvin sighed as he turned back to watch the performance. Everyone on Haida was worried about these kids. After the crap they went through in The Program — tagged onto the problems many of them had before they faced the horrid choice of kill or be killed — it would need a whole damned ship's company's worth of psychologists to try to fix it up.

Without guarantee for success...


Atop the ship's hangar, that moment...

Cloaked in an energy bubble that kept her alive and warm in the surrounding vacuum, the only Japanese-born Zoroastrian from another dimension could only smile as her metasenses picked up on the beautiful music from the auditorium.

As had been done since the night after she had bonded with the man she loved more than Life itself, Inada Mizuho deliberately kept herself away from Moroboshi Ataru the previous evening to give some of the other women who had selected him as the one who would make them women a chance to sleep with him. Many since the night of their bonding were the emotionally younger gynoids of a group of 242 such beings that Mizuho had brought to Earth nearly a week ago to help protect two effectively orphaned Urusian children from their mad sire, who wanted them dead to ensure his clan wouldn't become "class traitors" and turn against the Imperial Round that had ruled that planet for centuries. Ataru's other lovers were some girls from the Shiroiwa class and a couple of the Kōbe girls who had taken interest in Earth's tag race champion and the last host of the Earth Angel and the second-last emperor of the Latter Hàn. Last night had been Sōma Mitsuko's turn to spend time with a person she definitely rated as a "man"...but Ataru had done something really special not just for the lady known as "Hardcore" in the streets of Shiroiwa, but her would-be boyfriend Takiguchi Yūichirō. With the help of the manga fan's would-be lover from Ziegler's Cove, Naitō Junko, Mitsuko had engaged in a wonderful orgy that sated her chronic need for intercourse...and gave the "doll" side of her nearly-sundered soul the chance to fully make up with Yūichirō after she fatally wounded, then raped him on Oki-shima out of some mistaken belief that having sex with him would keep him alive and at her side. Right now, the quartet of lovers were still asleep in Ataru's cabin a dozen metres to forward and port from Mizuho's current position. Her co-wife Noda Satomi had elected to sleep with one of Ataru's other gynoid lovers, Skelad Lara, in her own guest room.

"Um, ma'am...aren't you cold?"

Mizuho looked right into the small control bubble where the landing signals officer for 448 Space Utility and Support Squadron would position himself to help guide the starship's four Lockheed-Martin CSV-194 Star Flare heavy cargo shuttlecraft for landing and takeoffs. Standing inside the space was a smiling master seaman, one of the reserve marine engineer technicians currently assigned to Haida from H.M.C.S. Queen in Regina, John Fitzpatrick. "I am well, Master John," Mizuho assured him, using the power she inherited from the Staff of Gihan to project her voice through the vacuum into the observation booth. "I just require time to meditate on things I've always watched over since I came to Earth."

"Nothing bad, I hope," the father of two then asked.

"Nay, not yet, but the Dark One is always ready to cause mischief whenever the chance presents itself. I am always watchful."

"What about your boyfriend and girlfriend?" he then asked as he gave her a worried look. "Everyone saw Ataru together with Miss Sōma, Mister Takiguchi and Miss Naitō in the aft wardroom last night. And Miss Noda was with Miss Skelad."

"Satomi and I are aware of what is going on with our husband, good sir. 'Tis an unfortunate yet tolerable aftereffect of what Mitsuko's thrice-accursed stepfather and mother unleashed on her after her brave father was forced to flee for his life after he failed to save his homeroom class from The Program ten years before we all faced that horror. We're rather lucky these days when it comes to Mitsuko's desire for intimacy. These days, she only desires carnal congress once a day. After we got over the initial shock of what happened to us back in February, she was as willing to be passionate as Master Shibamata Yōichi's gynoid lovers were to him before my beloved and his sister rescued him from that madness."

John winced. "Damn! Is there any hope for her?!"

Mizuho shrugged. "We're prayerful, sir."

"Aye, ma'am..."


The observation lounge, that moment...

The Rail-Splitter could only shake his head as he turned his attention away from the conversation his new and wonderful young friend just enjoyed with one of this good ship's many stokers who was performing his engineering rounds.

God truly is testing us all...

Thinking of that, Abraham Lincoln smiled as he reached into his jacket pocket to draw out a small pocket knife that he had kept over the years since an odd day in the 1840s when he had been approached by a stranger and given said knife...and all because he was physically uglier than the one who had the knife in the first place! "This knife was placed in my hands some years ago with the injunction that I was to keep it until I found a man uglier than myself," he remembered that fellow explaining the gift to him when he spoke of that encounter to his official portrait painter, Francis Carpenter, back in 1864 at the White House. "I have carried it from that time to this. Allow me to say, sir, that I think you are fairly entitled to the property."

"You sure went through some strange things, Mister Lincoln."

Lincoln perked, then he smiled. "Good morning, Miss Shore."

Walking towards him now was a woman in the multi-grey shaded Army Combat Uniform, the insignia of a private in the 202nd Cavalry Regiment of the South Carolina Army National Guard on her jacket. Sitting down beside the man she had once viewed as the devil of all devils and the primary reason she gave up her humanity to become one of the undead in the late autumn of 1862, Dahlia Shore could only shake her head at the bitter irony of it all. The deacon's daughter from Centerville in Anderson County had given up everything to fight for Southern freedom from what she saw as Yankee tyranny...but she never suspected until her rebirth as one of the "crystal-bloods" how much "Uncle Abe" had sacrificed himself to see America kept whole in the face of Adam Sewell's mad plan to create a "nation of vampires", sustained with the blood of millions of African slaves.

It's no wonder Daddy found the truth of that war so hard to take, the raven-haired beauty with the blue-grey eyes sighed as she felt the older man place a comforting hand on her shoulder. "Um...Mister Lincoln, there's...well, something..."

"What is it?"

Dally sighed as she gazed out towards the starship's bow. "Back after Chikamauga, I found a North Carolina boy. He'd been gut-shot, too far gone to be even saved our way." She tried not to wince as the waves of guilt that had been surging up from her soul since her body-swap days before nearly threatened to overwhelm her in the face of what had befallen her friends during that time. "As I was comforting him while Belle was trying to find a doctor, he confessed he remembered his ma telling him about a time when she got sick with the typhoid when she was living in Kentucky. How you and your ma cared for her when she was recovering. Bobbie — that's his name, Bobbie Jenkins — always said you were good people." She shook her head as tears flowed down her cheek. "Never wanted to believe anything he said about you, but Bobbie was my age. You didn't want to say anything bad to someone who was about to face the Lord after dying for his state and country. But..."

A sob then took her, making Lincoln draw her into her arms. Footfalls soon echoed from the entrance to the lounge, making the near-immortal former president turn to see Chigusa Takako standing there, a worried look on the track-runner's face. Beside her was the handsome fellow that Takako had long lusted for since the day she had saved him from bullies when they were both children and not yet to face the horrors of The Program: Sugimura Hiroki. Like all the Shiroiwa and Kōbe students now aboard Haida save for Inada Mizuho, they had shed their replica school uniforms and donned the dark blue Canadian Forces naval combat uniform, their epaulettes bare of rank slip-ons and their names in both Rōmaji and kanji on their right breasts. Hiroki himself current held a beautiful durasteel bō staff that had been fashioned for him by one of the Niphentaxians who had restored him to life; he had been practising in the gymnasium when he sensed his new friend go visit the Rail-Splitter. As Takako felt her own eyes tear on sensing how Dally's pure innocence had been totally wrecked thanks to the hidden side of America's most tragic war, the young wǔshù master turned his head away to hide his own sympathetic tears.

"You remember the prayer you had Bobbie say when he died?" Lincoln asked.

Dally hiccoughed. "Y-yes..."

"Let's say it together."

The deacon's daughter nodded before both clasped their hands...

Now I lay me down to sleep,
I pray the Lord, my soul to keep,
If I should die before I wake,
I pray the Lord, my soul to take...

Dally shuddered again as pained sobs escaped her, causing Takako to race over to gently embrace her. Lincoln smiled at the track runner while the deacon's daughter wailed nearly-incomprehensible apologies to a whole host of people that she had been made to wrong back in that dark decade, then he shook his head as he stood, moving to give his new friend some room so she could vent out her anger and pain at being used and abused like she had been. Walking over to gaze out into the starry night with the Moon hovering in the near distance, the bright light of the Avalon bioroid factory hovering before the craggy face of Earth's natural satellite, he shook his head as a cauldron of white-hot anger suddenly surged up from deep within his heart. Stunned at the sheer level of fury Dally's suffering just unleashed in him — something he hadn't experienced since the dark years of the Score and Four between his "death" in Ford's Theatre at the hands of John Wilkes Booth in the spring of 1865 and the saving of his very sanity by Dean Raeburn in the foothills of northeast British Columbia in the summer of 1889 — Lincoln gritted his teeth as he focused his mind's eye on an image of the man who had deliberately awoke twenty-four innocent girls from their eternal slumber and forced them into a time that was so different from what they had been used to dealing with.

Halbert Golden.

Lincoln only knew the Welsh vampire who had been a resident of Tennessee before the Civil War by reputation. A rather dapper fellow for one of the undead, he had been a plantation owner with hundreds of slaves that he could feed on virtually at will. He had supported the transformation of Rachel Thornbridge's small troupe of "sidesaddle cavalry" into hidden shock troopers to make the freedom of the Confederacy a reality, having personally interviewed all the girls and given them the full "truth" of what was happening before they were turned. That horrid choice forced on Rachel and her friends ultimately cost thousands of lives in the eighteen months that followed, until the start of the Atlanta Campaign when the president had to order their destruction in the wake of the downfall of Golden's principal and the hidden power behind the Confederacy, the five-millennia old Adam Sewell, just before Gettysburg. Sadly, that was a time when the "other" way of saving a vampire — using mesonium to burn away the poison that had turned a corpse into one of the undead, then flooding the rejuvenated body with new life energy to make one truly live again — was totally unknown...even to the man who had been Lincoln's ultimate saviour, the one responsible for ensuring the legend of the Rail-Splitter would haunt all magical beings in North America to this very day: The twenty-five millennia old master of the ebony shade of mesonium and the man called the "Undying Lord" by all who knew of him, Rittmeister Josef Wilhelm Freiherr von Taserich of Rügen in modern-day Mecklenburg-Vorpommern.

Fortunately, being with Dally allowed Lincoln to get a good sense of what Golden looked like...so if the chance came...

A hand gently squeezed his shoulder. Perking, the former president looked over to see Hiroki gaze with concern at him. "It just never seems to end, Mister Sugimura," Lincoln then stated. "The curse of warriors such as we."

"We can survive it in the end, sir," the young wǔshù master advised.

"Hopefully..."


Tomobiki, the Moroboshi home, that moment (local time: An hour after supper)...

"You shouldn't be surprised, Oji-chan. After all the times both you and your wife tore into Ataru for things he never was responsible for or didn't understand what he was doing, you should have expected this to happen."

Hearing that cold admonishment from his son's former girlfriend, Moroboshi Muchi tried not to openly wince. Both he and Miyake Shinobu were relaxing in the new common room set up on the former road allowance of Kita-Teibō 4-dōri, sited to the southeast of the original family home he purchased years ago, shortly after his marriage to Yamaguchi Kinshō. Seated beside Shinobu was Moroboshi Negako, who was giving her last host's father her normal cold, neutral look. "You need not concern yourself anymore about what is happening here, Muchi," the ninjutsu grandmaster evenly declared. "Your continued fretting about things that are no longer your concern is as annoying to Ataru, Hiromi and Tariko as Kinshō's constant verbal abuse has been." As Muchi winced on hearing that, Negako shook her head. "Do not deny it anymore, Muchi. You will not win sympathy from anyone in Tomobiki. If you do not wish to see your job threatened because your employers might consider you a public embarrassment and terminate your employment to prevent scandal, it is best for you and Kinshō to accept what has happened and retire at once to the home you wished to own in Hachiōji." That earned her a shocked squawk. "The news of your new daughters-in-law and their friends is getting out in the public media. The Heavenly Sovereign made it clear that all Program players rescued by Mizuho and Satoko's group are to be welcomed with open arms within Japan. All will be done to make them feel at home here to help them recover and contribute to OUR country, not the country that so readily rejected them all."

Another wince rocked the second-level executive currently employed in one of Japan's larger communication firms, Marubishi and Company, headquartered in Shinjuku. While he had not really got any flak from his co-workers concerning all the insane antics that haunted his son since the day Redet Hensō had come into their lives the previous summer — that was thanks to the subtle two-way "notice me not" field that had been placed around Tomobiki to prevent people from trying to probe too deep into what was going on there, plus stop bouts of xenophobia from unleashing a disaster — the constant fear of being singled out due to what his son got involved in constantly haunted him. While the expulsion of Hensō and her friends from town hadn't backlashed on him badly, his superior Asagaya Hisayo — maternal aunt to Tariko's second bond-mate Hayashi Kanami — had warned him that his superiors were taking note of what others were saying about relations inside the Moroboshi home and were fretting over how it would reflect on Marubishi. If that became an excuse to fire him...!

"If you move to Hachiōji, we will make it clear to your employers that you are doing so out of respect for the feelings of Ataru's bond-mates and their friends given what they recently endured," Negako stated in that eerie way she had when it came to almost literally reading other people's thoughts through their ki signatures. "After all, as I have reported to the Heavenly Sovereign, it became tradition in the Greater East Asia Republic for parents to emotionally pull away from their children when the chance came for said children to participate in The Program. Mizuho, Satomi and many others now have negative feelings towards the upkeep of filial piety because of that and will be quite extreme in dealing with potential instances of child abuse they encounter." As Muchi winced again, the ninjutsu grandmaster smiled that icy smile of hers. "Satomi warned me that if you or Kinshō do anything to hurt Ataru even from a distance, she will not hesitate in killing you." Seeing him turn stark-white at that, she added, "As you will recall from the manga, Satomi has killed before. She is no stranger to such an act."

As he sputtered in horrified disbelief at that dark threat, Negako's almost-black eyes flicked to her left. That was the signal for the two hidden Kuromoroboshi ninja to sweep in, knock the salaryman unconscious, then whisk him off the property for the final time. Shinobu didn't react as Ataru's father vanished, then she took a deep breath. "Idiot..."

"You are not surprised at this."

Ataru's former girlfriend and the bond-mate to his twin sister shook her head. "Not really." She came back from Connecticut as soon as the news came about Ataru meeting up with The Program players to make sure all was well with him. Tariko and Kanami had refused to come with her. The latter was spending time with her great-grandfather and the former was afraid that she would be distracted too much by the sight of people like Inada Mizuho and Noda Satomi — who were also Tariko's favourite Battle Royale characters! — to think straight around them. By dealing with those people "by proxy" through the bond she shared with Shinobu for the foreseeable future, Tariko hoped she wouldn't make a total fool of herself when she met her new sisters-in-law. "Can't believe I was so damned blind when it came to how they treated Ataru. Why...?"

"Something I have noticed and Mizuho has also taken note of," Negako stated as she waved Shinobu into the old recreation room built weeks before to join the original Moroboshi home to the former guest house now being used by Hiromi and her extended family as their private quarters. "As you will know, there are twenty ley lines that intersect under the Tarōzakura Hill. Because of the mystical confluence of energies that normally gather in this town, spiritual oni were attracted to it as soon as Hensō took up residence here, using her, Jariten, Rei and Damasu as unwilling mortal avatars so they could gain power as all 'divine' beings are want to do. Even with their removal from Tomobiki, those oni and other such creatures are still seeking to influence things here. Your body-swap effectively broke their influence over you, as it did for all your female peers in Class 2-4. Because of that, we have instances like Shūtarō's behaviour once he learned of Ataru's bonding on Thursday morning."

"Mizuho-san's killed a demon already when he confronted the monster that hurt all the people in Negi Springfield-sensei's home village back in Wales," Shinobu noted. "The oni and everything else are scared of her coming here."

"Indeed. In addition to that, there is Mujaki to concern ourselves with."

That made the other woman gape. "Mujaki?! That dream demon that came to class once?!"

"The same. He met with Hensō a week before the incident with Elle at a local aquarium, then began to desire to give her a 'good' dream. Since she was 'taken away' from Tomobiki thanks to Ataru, he has been manipulating the dreams of others to make them try to lash out at him for his 'hurting' Hensō like that. Naturally, that will quickly earn him Mizuho's wrath."

Shinobu stared at her, then she moaned. "Since I'm an Avalonian, the way I dream is directly influenced by the Dreamscape. Ataru's an adopted Avalonian now by blood-transfusion thanks to Tariko and he has the Cyborg's power as well. Mujaki can't strike at him or any of us, so he's going through the guys to make them behave like they did before we found out the truth about Hensō." She shook her head. "Dear God, is this EVER going to end?! Why do things like that happen to us?!"

"It will eventually end, Shinobu," Negako assured her. "That masking screen that kept the world's attention away from Tomobiki also affected the ley lines and how they transmit magical energy across Earth, which made the incidents that befell this town during Hensō's stay here more acute than they would have been under normal circumstances. However, with their removal in January after you were transported back to Earth by Kuohu and Kyekkyek, the ley lines are healing. Eventually, beings like Mujaki will move on elsewhere. If Mizuho does not kill him as she did Wilhelm Herrman in Mahora."

Shinobu looked sick. "They don't need more blood on their hands, Negako-san!"

"Indeed, they do not. But Mizuho is very adamant when it comes to seeking out and destroying all forms of druj that she learns of per the tenets of her faith. Given how much she protected her peers since February, Noriko and her friends will support Mizuho's efforts to that end." Negako then smiled as she glanced to the northwest. "Enter, Yūko!"

"Gomen nasai, Negako-sensei!"

Shinobu blinked in surprise on noting that the ninjutsu grandmaster hadn't reacted whatsoever to being called by that honorific, then she looked over to see a cute and slender girl a little shorter than her, possessing stringy dark brown hair and nearly black eyes, walk in from the direction of the family dōjō. Back in her replica seifuku that had been prepared for her by Fujino Shigeki's friends, Sakaki Yūko bowed deeply to the ninjutsu grandmaster. "I'm sorry to intrude on you."

"You volunteered to begin the necessary requisitioning of supplies?"

"Hai!" the daughter of one of Shiroiwa's town councillors said as she leaned down to kiss Negako on the cheek, then she sat down beside her. "Yūka-chan will be here later today to make sure all the food Shinobu-san and her friends brought in is properly stored so we can enjoy it. We still have to get all the stuff we've accumulated out of Tower #98 so that others on the factory can use it...even if we'll be using the gestation rooms to create the new bodies for all the other players."

"Starting with the male members of Shōgo's old class, I believe."

Yūko nodded. "That was the plan. After we get them over here and help them recover from their 'episode', we'll go after Mitsuko's cousin's class from Ritsurin, then we'll create a lottery to randomly pick classes to bring them over."

Watching her speak of this, Shinobu could only shake her head at what the younger girl was so casually talking about. Much that she herself was an Avalonian and had the full ability to do soul-shifting if or when she needed to do such, the idea of moving the living souls of over a HUNDRED THOUSAND PEOPLE across the dimensional barriers and forward in time from the universe of the Greater East Asia Republic would cause anyone to pause and gape in disbelief. Yes, it was the right thing to do given how much all those poor kids had been literally thrown into a voracious meat-grinder that just kept going without any clear reason save "keeping up the scare" and ensuring none would move to overthrow the "harmonious republic", but...!

Thinking on that old tactical maxim from one of the American Civil War's most successful generals on the Southern side, Shinobu then shook her head as she recalled the OTHER little wrinkle now in everyone's life...


Hōya Airport Memorial Park (on the border between Tomobiki and Musashino, 2500 metres south of the Moroboshi home), that moment...

"You sure we're safe here, Belle?! We're in the middle of a city that doesn't seem to want to END! I think we should be in the mountains west of here than setting up a camp in the middle of all this damned noise!"

Hearing that complaint from the second lieutenant of the Anderson County Amazons, the second-in-command of the vampire "sidesaddle cavalry company" that had been the hidden nightmare of the Western Theatre of the American Civil War could only grin as she gazed through a beautiful pair of binoculars towards the curious sight of a lighthouse of all things sticking up from the cityscape north of their position, no where close to any seashore. The group of four South Carolinian teenagers had set up their camp in the memorial park set aside to pay tribute to Hōya Air Base, a deactivated United States Air Force landing field that had taken up half the territory of modern Tomobiki before the Yankees withdrew in 1954 and turned the property to the local government for re-development. Outside of the slightly-rectangular grid pattern in the streets that still marked Tomobiki, there was no sign of the original airfield; when the Mendō and Mizunokōji families moved back into their ancestral home town, they constructed new private airport facilities on the western and northern limits of Tomobiki bordering Higashikurume and Niiza respectively. The park usually was the place students from Butsumetsu High School and the Butsumetsu Girls Middle and High School often frequented to relax and make out with lovers; since it was the start of summer vacation, the park was pretty much empty. Perfect to allow four daywalker veterans of America's most bloody war to camp out and scout the terrain before they would make their move to destroy the cruel monster who had unleashed the crystal-bloods on all of Earth.

"The people going to the schools near this park are enjoying their summer break, Tabitha," Annabelle Maxwell stated as she gave Tabitha Walters a knowing look. "They're more interested spending time with friends in those large market buildings in the centre of this town and other places than coming here. As long as we keep the ward stones charged, we'll be safe here."

Hearing that observation from the deacon's daughter from Pendleton, the stagecoach owner's daughter from Townville snorted. "Still don't like it," she snarled out as she crossed her arms.

Belle's light grey eyes twinkled in delight before she slipped back on her reading glasses; the new body she used had been created by that wonderful man from Georgia to magically replicate her original body to the last detail, including the shortsightedness she normally possessed. Grateful that the hidden allies of Halbert Golden had been able to get hold of modern binoculars which could compensate for poor eyesight, the native of Pendleton shook her head. "How soon will Harry be back?" she then asked, looking around. "We sent her out hours ago to scout the terrain. She should be back by now..."

"Belle!"

She and Tabitha turned as a very tomboyish girl came up to them, effortlessly dismounting her nightmare after dropping the special cloaking screen daywalkers like them could use to mask their presence from potential prey. Harriet Hunter was one of the privates in the Amazons. A native of Iva, she was the daughter of the local saloon owner before the Late Unpleasantness began. Possessing wiry short black hair similar to what Africans normally had on their head, her grey eyes were also behind reading glasses. "What took you so long, Harry?" Belle then asked. "We sent you out three hours ago."

"Sorry about that, Belle," Harry apologized as she sat on the bench beside the two "officers" of her company. "Got distracted by the smells from the restaurants in the market area. Some of the most heavenly things you could ever enjoy. It was so distracting, I had to stop in one of the open lots and relax or I'd lose my disguise and everyone would see me!" She shook her head. "I'll say this about our hosts: They are not wanting for food or anything in this day and age. Just like home..."

"That ain't our home anymore, Harry!" Tabitha darkly warned. "I ain't going to live in no country with no nigger as president! It's just as bad as when Uncle Abe was president! Look what he was ready to do to us all!"

Harry grimly nodded as Belle sighed. The Amazons had been told in very ugly detail about what happened to the Rail-Splitter when John Wilkes Booth tried to kill him to avenge the Confederacy's final defeat in 1865. How some undying monster from Prussia of all places found a way to save the lawyer from Illinois from his just appointment with Satan after all the bloodshed he unleashed, then turned him into something no vampire or other creature of the night could best in battle. According to Halbert Golden, the casualties unleashed on America's undead population during the "Score and Four" had been several orders of magnitude greater than all the losses during the Late Unpleasantness itself. If that banker's daughter from Canada hadn't found a way to pull Abraham Lincoln out from the dark madness Josef von Taserich plunged him into, there would be no vampires alive in the world today regardless of type. And while the so-called "demon-possessed" were nothing more than simple rabid animals that needed to be put down, other hunters of the night could control themselves.

Shaking her head, the deacon's daughter tried to ignore the growing squeaks of conscience her heart was making about this whole situation. Back in Belle's day, there was a certain order of things in the South. Despite it not being anywhere close to perfect, it kept the peace between the races and between the different types of humanity. Despite the screams for abolition from the North, the South was strong enough to keep things in place...until Abraham Lincoln became president. Once that happened, the plantation gentry among normal humans and the vampire elite of the South bonded together to create a new union, sure their way was the only way to keep the peace in the South and force the damned Yankees away from them.

It didn't happen.

What hadn't been suspected before it was way too late was the fact that almost all of America's magical human population in the South were pro-Union and more than happy to support Lincoln's campaign to help the Colligatio Nosferatu put down the rebellion under Adam Sewell's leadership. Thinking on what befell her and her friends at Rocky Face Ridge in 1864, Belle shook her head as she took a moment to recall what she had seen during the Amazons' time on the front lines helping people like Joseph E. Johnston keep back the hordes of Ulysses S. Grant and William Tecumseh Sherman. While dealing with normal Yankee soldiers and slaves was one thing to the teenage vampires from the Palmetto State, the hit wizards who surged into the field had been an unwelcome surprise to Sewell's supporters, never mind what thousands of squibs who donned Union blue to serve as sharpshooters in protection of all the Yankee armies in the field ended up doing for Lincoln's satanic cause.

That had been what sealed the Amazons' fate in the very early morning of Wednesday 11 May 1864. Squib sharpshooters who supported the all-black 7th Cavalry Regiment (Magical) of the United States Coloured Troops — most of whom were foreign mercenaries from Europe and the Middle East who had gladly flocked in droves to America to avenge the deaths of thousands of their distant kinsmen, whose ancestors had been legally traded for barter by the leaders of the tribal states of Africa to people from America centuries before! — bombarded the Amazons' campsite at the north end of the rebel lines with silver bullets that incapacitated them before dismounted war wizards swept in to finally finish them off. Despite the efforts of people like Tabitha Walters and Dahlia Shore to save all their friends, overwhelming uses of Fiendfyre attacks eventually burned them all to ashes; their souls had been saved thanks to special mesonium crystals prepared by Halbert Golden months before to ensure they could be recovered and allowed to serve the forces of freedom again when needed.

And by God, they were needed NOW!

It was bad enough to see how much this beautiful and ancient land have been horribly corrupted by the Yankees in the wake of that awful war over six decades before which had nearly burned everything down from Sapporo to Naha.

It was much worse now that the crystal-bloods were doing everything to influence the long-suffering people of this land into directions no sensible person in the land regardless of who he or she was would truly want.

And the man responsible for this?

Tomobiki's most hated citizen bar none, Moroboshi Ataru.

Oh, would he EVER die for his crimes against humanity...


Narita International Airport, an hour later...

"Mister Sturges? Mister O'Connor?"

Hearing that polite voice call out to his companion and himself as they stepped out of the customs station after getting off the last nonstop British Airways flight from London Heathrow, the middle-aged man in the well-worn travelling clothes smiled as he walked over, hand out. "Mister Gandolfini?!" Henry Sturges greeted with a delighted smile.

Antonio Gandolfini smiled as he warmly shook the London-born now EX-daywalker's hand; his mage sight was quick to detect the changed aura that marked Abraham Lincoln's former teacher as what was known as a "Terran-adopted Avalonian". Save for the considerable amount of silver in the raven-haired man's hair, he didn't look any different from the many magical pictures taken of him over the years. "A delight to meet you both at last," the Rome-born half-Japanese senior field agent of the Kantō Magical Association stated in English; his normal cover made him a teacher of history at the Mahora Academy. He then warmly grasped Liam O'Connor's hand. "How exactly are Mistress Summers and her flock?" he wondered.

The Irish-born "scourge of Europe" known more commonly as "Angel" grinned. "They're doing fine. We hope to have the formal ceremony in a month, but a lot of demons and vampires are getting agitated about what's been happening worldwide. Buffy and the others are constantly in the field; it was a miracle that she was able to spare some time to visit when Dally Shore was captured." With that, they headed to where the luggage carousels were. "Just need to get some overnight bags."

"Understandable, sir."

As the three walked over to await the former vampires' personal belongings, Gandolfini whispered a spell to create a "notice me not" field around them so they could converse in private. "Our people are out on the streets trying to track down Major Thornbridge and her friends," the history teacher and war mage stated. "There's been no signs of them, but Marshal Yomigawa has allowed us to make use of special spells she devised to help track down stray nightmares that haven't been registered by any magical ministry. We think they're in the Tōkyō area, but we can't get it more narrower than that."

"Have you asked Lady Negako to help out?" Henry asked, quickly sensing the obvious hole in that plan. "Even if they're using ebony mesonium crystals to mask themselves from outside detection, Lady Negako is experienced and knowledgeable enough to pick out the 'blank' spots in the surrounding ki fields, then get close enough to visually detect them."

"Given that they're all in war golem bodies, they won't need blood to survive," Angel added as he reached for his overnight bag. "That helps them be even more stealthy; no bodies to leave behind that would lead us right to them."

The others nodded as Henry retrieved his own bag...


Nerima, the Hōya Market on the border with Nishitōkyō, an hour later...

"My, Ellie-chan! You certainly do have an appetite, don't you?!"

Hearing that observation from the middle-aged man now serving her a third bowl of miso rāmen, the stocky teenager with the long, straight dirty blonde hair and the sparkling blue-grey eyes under reading glasses could only beam. "It's such good food, sir, I couldn't resist having more," Eleanor Reese said with an impish smile to her current host, which made the other people gathered there to have a supper gaze at the native of Belton in South Carolina with a mix of admiration and attraction, especially if they were young men just freed from hours of evening juken and wanting to get a quick meal into them before they headed home for the night. Sensing those appraising looks made the daughter of the Belton town station master for the Columbia and Greenville Railroad blush as she concentrated on enjoying the wonderful noodle broth she had been given.

Unlike the other members of her present "fire team" (to borrow the modern military term for her group now camped out at the southern end of Tomobiki sent here to scout out the local terrain), Ellie had dressed in modern clothes: A pair of blue jeans that embarrassingly hugged her hips and legs closely and a button blouse that really didn't do much to hide her considerable bust. Thanks to her vampire metasenses, the woman who had been born in the fall of 1846 could sense all the boys around her mentally undressing her to imagine what was underneath. While she hadn't worn the hoop skirts and other voluminous clothing that plantation gentry such as her own commanding officer Rachel Thornbridge often wore back in the old days, the first sergeant of the Anderson County Amazons had once been able to cover herself up more than what modern girls did now.

While she was inwardly very flattered that all the boys found her quite attractive, she knew that it would be very stupid for any one of them to try to become intimate with her as their own inner lusts were now urging them to do.

And no, it wasn't because she was a vampire.

Unlike many of the others in her company, Ellie fully understood the one big vulnerability of her current war golem body:

Having blood injected into her.

While she was grateful to be able to eat normal food again after eighteen months of nothing but blood, the first sergeant of the Anderson County Amazons knew that if she DID drink anyone's blood, she ran the risk of being enslaved by the person that gave her those life-giving fluids. It would be infinitely worse if it was an Avalonian that did that to her, given the high levels of mesonium that could be found in a bioroid's blood. And God save her if a monster like Abraham Lincoln or his own principal Josef von Taserich found some way to enslave her using their own blood; the amount of mesonium in their veins and arteries was said to be so great, there would be nothing left of Ellie's conscious soul if she did anything to drink from THAT!

Besides, since she had awoken in this body in Jonesboro over a month before, she hadn't had any urge to consume blood.

While part of her was concerned, the other part of her — the core of the brave girl who wanted to fight for Southern freedom from Yankee tyranny yet was too young to disguise herself as a man to tote a rifle, yet was happy to team with Rachel to create their company of "sidesaddle cavalry" — was quite happy at the current set of circumstances she found herself...

Wait.

Oh, dear.

It was HER again...

Musubi Ayako.

A naïve, innocent alien-born woman-child of about the same physical age as Ellie yet totally inexperienced in the ways of the world — though she was NOT an Avalonian even if she was quite powerful in her own right — that the station master's daughter first met at a bathhouse in Nerima two weeks ago while searching for her intended, her "ashikabi".

On seeing the pretty, quite busty brunette with the eyes of pure milk chocolate for the first time — especially in the nude! — Ellie had thought her the prettiest girl she had ever encountered in either of her lifetimes.

"Ellie-san!"

Ellie looked over, then blinked on noting that Musubi wasn't alone. "Evening, Ayako," she called out with a wave, indicating the free seats at the yatai she had been relaxing at while scouting out the area around Tomobiki to find good places to camp out while they waited for the chance to kill Moroboshi Ataru. "Who're your friends?" she then asked as she gazed upon the tomboyish redhead with the chestnut eyes, then the more severe-looking woman with the soft silver hair cut short and shaggy around her angular face, that pierced with grey eyes under reading glasses similar to what the station master's daughter wore. Fortunately for those who might get curious, all three were dressed in civilian clothing that flattered their well-toned and exercised figures while still hiding all the more sinful details. Thinking on that, Ellie then remembered that bastardized Shintō shrine miko dress Musubi had been wearing when they met at the bathhouse, clothes that the alien-born metahuman fighter stated had been designed perfectly for her so she could endure an upcoming tournament she was determined to win.

Musubi giggled. "These are two of my sisters, Ellie-san," she said as she sat down right next to Ellie, then made introductions.

"Honoured, Eleanor-san," the studious Kochō Akiko said with a polite bow of her head while the more athletic Katsuragi Hisako gave her a shy smile. "Have you been long in Japan? I do recognize your accent."

Ellie smiled. "I came here about a week before I met Ayako, Miss Akiko. So what are you doing? Still seeking your intended?"

The other two nodded as the crowd around them quieted down to eavesdrop. Given the recent presence of aliens beyond the Avalonians in neighbouring Tomobiki and the crazy antics once centred on Fūrinkan High School since the man now called "Hayashi Ranma" first come to town in April, people living in this part of Metropolitan Tōkyō had long developed an acute hyper-sense when it came to the unusual and unique. They knew something was WAY off about Eleanor Reese even if her incredible good manners and polite speech made her seem quite harmless even if people quickly realized she was a fighter of some sort. They also knew Musubi Ayako and her sisters were aliens of an unknown species who were referred to as "sekirei" as a group, marooned on Earth centuries ago to be later found in cryogenetic storage by the current president of Mid-Bio Informatics based now in Kōtō, Professor Minaka Hiroto, while he had still been studying at Tōkyō University. But since none of them seemed interested in starting a fight or anything like that, no one had complained to anyone in authority. After all, given Moroboshi Negako's presence in Tomobiki, any serious threat could be dealt with right away if necessary.

All one had to remember was what went down on the night of the Ides of March...

"Hai, Ellie-san, we are," Katsuragi said with a tired sigh, her voice possessed with a tone of melancholy that made Ellie instantly think of all the times people had complained about the chronic depression that haunted the Rail-Splitter throughout his normal life and even now that he was effectively near-immortal. "So far, nothing. Except for the many 'sub-optimal' ashikabi that Akiko here finds, not to mention the creeps that want to tilt the Plan out of whack."

She nodded as the owner placed a bowl of tonkotsu rāmen before her. "I don't agree to it as well, Hisako," Kochō noted before she smiled as the yatai owner gave her miso rāmen, then prepared local-style rāmen for Musubi. "But it's our lot in life."

"You shouldn't be forced to fight just to have a good husband, Miss Akiko," Ellie noted. "Or good wife if you're inclined that way. Once you meet your intended, get married, then settle down and have a family. It's only proper."

Hearing that statement from the native of the mid-Nineteenth Century and veteran of America's most devastating war, Kochō tried not to grin too much. Thanks to her technokinetic and technopathic abilities, the younger of the two "brain sekirei" within the only living flock of pure-blood sekirei alive on Earth today knew exactly what the woman Musubi was now convinced was her destined one actually was, when and where she came from and what had brought her to Japan in the first place. Her ability to mentally link to the Internet allowed her to also get into the MagicNet used by all magical beings on Earth as well as the HyperNet used by Earth's constantly-growing Avalonian population. The revival of the Anderson County Amazons thanks to the late Professor Maimon Mishneh had made front page news in American magical dailies like the New York Ghost and the Chicago Coven; that had been accompanied by outcries by members of the Magical Congress of the United States to have the teenage daywalker vampires-in-war golem bodies rounded up and destroyed, which flew totally against Professor Mishneh's posthumous call to Inada Mizuho to see the twenty-four South Carolinians restored to true life as Avalonians.

One of that group, Private Dahlia Shore of Centerville, had already done that.

Now it was time for First Sergeant Eleanor Reese of Belton to do the same...


Nearby...

"Are you SURE you want to come down here, Miss Kasumi? Given what that dang fool father of yours was planning to do...!"

An amused giggle escaped the older woman dressed now in Canadian Forces naval combat dress without any rank insignia on her shoulders even if the flag of Japan was on one arm and the United Nations Earth Defence Force blue flag was on her other arm, an H.M.C.S. Haida baseball cap on her forehead to partially cover her long dark brown hair now done up in a simple ponytail. "Thank you so much, Dally-chan, but I'll be fine," Miyamoto Kasumi stated as she gave Dally Shore a reassuring look. "Much that there were few people in Nerima who bothered me when Ranma-kun was there, I do have many acquaintances and friends in all the local markets. I want to pass on my new address to them. You can relax yourself now."

Hearing that from the eldest daughter of Tendō Sōun, the deacon's daughter from Centerville sighed. She was in Army Combat Uniform, though she switched the state flag of South Carolina and the service tape of the 202nd Cavalry Regiment's home service for the Star and Stripes and the service tape for the United States Army, her black beret perched properly on her head and her long hair done in a simple bun at the base of her skull. "Well, if you think it's safe, all the world to you, but still..."

"Dally?!"

Dally gasped on hearing that familiar voice, then she spun around...

...before her jaw dropped. "Bridget?! What in God's name are YOU doing here?!"

Approaching her now from the side alley where she just dismounted her now-invisible nightmare in was a very slender girl appearing to be a year older than Dally. Possessing dark brown hair straight and long down to the level of her breasts, her dark brown eyes peeked through a face almost as hawkish as Dally's. Seeing her even if she was in modern clothes of slacks and blouse in lieu of the butternut-and-grey uniform the Anderson County Amazons wore when in the field, Kasumi quickly realized this was Bridget Moore, a native of Pendleton whose father had fallen on the second day at Shiloh in 1862, killed in the massed counterattack launched on P.G.T. Beauregard's army by the forces of Ulysses S. Grant and Don Carlos Buell in the wake of the tragic death of Albert Sidney Johnston the day before thanks to a shot fired from behind by a Confederate soldier who didn't note where he was aiming. That had embittered the tavern owner's daughter against the Yankees, making her want to hunt down Grant and his ilk to avenge her father. Ever since her rebirth in Georgia, Bridget had gladly supported whatever Rachel Thornbridge believed was necessary to stay alive and active in this strange and terrifying era. "Weren't you told?!" Bridget demanded as she took in the modern combat uniform her younger friend was wearing. "We all came here to...!"

"TENDŌ KASUMI!"

Kasumi gasped on hearing that thunderous voice, then turned...

...before a ghastly image nearly overwhelmed her field of view. "YOU WILL COME HOME RIGHT THIS INSTANT AND MARRY RANMA-KUN!" the demon head of one Tendō Sōun bellowed just as the very frail-looking "master" of Musabetsu Kakutō-ryū charged at her, his fist cocked to strike her down and make her submit.

Stunned that her comatose father had somehow recovered from the sight of his precious dōjō shot to pieces by Shimizu Kaho of J.S. Yamato over a week before, Kasumi didn't react fast enough to avoid the blow soaring at her forehead.

Dally Shore wasn't so affected.

With a snarl, the deacon's daughter snap-drew her Model 1840 cavalry sabre from its scabbard, then spun around, unleashing a brutal cross-cut that slashed across the older man's face to rip through both his eyes and carve out a good chunk of the bridge of his nose. A pain-filled shriek ripped through the air as his demon head attack instantly dispersed and he collapsed to the street. Luckily, Bridget had also reacted, yanking Kasumi clear of the crazy man's fist before he would strike her down; having been in and around Nerima in the last two weeks, the tavern owner's daughter had heard the horrid story of what had befallen such a sweet girl like Kasumi and her sisters due to some fraudulent marriage arrangement to a very nice country boy named Saotome (now Hayashi) Ranma. As the would-be doctor nodded her thanks to Bridget for what she did, Dally spun around and plunged the tip of her weapon into Sōun's lower right back, where his liver was. His howl of agony was cut off as that hot jab of steel in his body overwhelmed him, then he collapsed in an unconscious heap on the asphalt.

Seeing her friend do that, Bridget blinked in confusion. She had been quick to pick up the mineral water-like scent around Dally that marked her as a crystal-blood, never mind her wearing the modern Yankee army uniform with the Stars and Stripes on her right arm. But seeing her act just like she had done many times during the Late Unpleasantness instantly convinced the tavern owner's daughter that her friend from Centerville was still HER in the body of an Avalonian...and clearly, the would-be doctor from Nerima was now under Dally's protection if what she had done to Kasumi's moron father indicated anything.

Footfalls then heralded the arrival of several police officers and a considerable crowd from the nearby Hōya Market, all of whom look outraged at what nearly had happened to Nerima's most well-liked resident. Among them was one familiar face to Bridget and Dally and three alien-born girls Kasumi now knew of thanks to a recent encounter Inada Mizuho had on Kamikura-jima near the Beyonēsu-retsugan southeast of Aoga-shima in the Izu-shotō south of Tōkyō Bay. Girls that Kasumi knew well.

"Kasumi-san! Are you okay?!"

Kasumi giggled. "I'm fine, Ayako-chan!" she assured before Musubi Ayako came over to warmly embrace her, grateful that the sekirei's incredible strength wouldn't affect her now that she was in an Avalonian body in lieu of her birth-form.

"What happened here, Kasumi-san?!" Katsuragi Hisako demanded.

"Her dang fool father decided he couldn't stand the fact that she finally saw him for the Yankee carpetbagger he was, Miss Hisako," Dally answered, which made Ellie Reese and Bridget Moore hiss in anger at such a description. By then, several Avalonian volunteer police officers led by Ozaki Leona were moving to get Sōun into stasis so he wouldn't bleed out from the wounds the deacon's daughter from Centerville just unleashed. "Looks like he was playing possum and waiting for the chance to beat Miss Kasumi down so he could force her to marry Mister Ranma even if he's now effectively married to Miss Mimōko."

"The schools...will be joined..."

"There are no schools, Sōun. How many times must you hear this?"

Hearing that, Kasumi sighed as she gazed over her shoulder while a portable oxygen mask was placed over what was left of Sōun's face, a general anaesthetic being put into him to render him unconscious for transport to Nerima General Hospital so he could be permanently sedated and made safe. "Ojii-san. Negako-san," she greeted the two grandmasters standing nearby, both currently gazing without any pity at the fallen "master" of the "Tendō-ryū". "Our mistake."

"Do not blame yourself, Kasumi," Moroboshi Negako assured her. "You could not sense how much Sōun held in reserve even with his falling so far out of practice. Nor could you sense how desperate he was to see his dreams made real."

"Panicked when he saw that the house was torn down and everything of his was gone after he escaped the mental institution," Happōsai noted, shaking his head. "Idiot..." He then gazed with a critical eye at the woman who had effectively sliced Sōun down with the dispassionate élan any truly experienced fighter could project when needed. "Nice work, Dally-chan."

"Fool carpetbagger begged for it, sir," Dally noted as she drew out a cloth from her jacket pocket to wipe her sabre down.

A pair of hands suddenly took the cloth, making the deacon's daughter gaze into the wide eyes of one Kochō Akiko. "Um..."

A beautiful and inviting smile was now on the information mistress' face. "My ashikabi...!"

Bridget and Ellie both gaped on hearing that, then they blinked on confusion as Dally's cheeks reddened considerably...before the deacon's daughter felt her heart lurch badly on sensing the aura of pure desire bursting from the silver-haired sekirei's heart and soul. Shaking her head as she felt her vision narrow to focus only on the woman who would soon gladly call herself "Akiko Shore" once they formalized it elsewhere, the native of Centerville gulped before a sense of pure bliss overcame her.

"Aren't you the prettiest thing...!"

Hearing that and sensing the acceptance in the heart and soul of this reborn veteran of the hidden side of America's most tragic war, Kochō grinned in delight before she leaned up to swamp Dally's lips with her own.

A second later, a massive bloom of ki exploded from the sekirei's back, forming a beautiful aura of energy wings in a peafowl-like halo that flooded the information specialist's body from head to toe with sheer power!

"Angel...!" Bridget croaked as she and Ellie gaped in awe at that sight...

...before twin cries of orgasmic joy caused them both to spin around as Musubi and Katsuragi collapsed to their knees, their own cheeks as red as cherries as they felt the aura of raw, naked passion from their sister nearly cause their own tama to energize and make them leap over to claim the deacon's daughter from Centerville as their own destined one.

"AYAKO!"/"MISS HISAKO!"

As Dally's fellow cavalry troopers moved to comfort the two dazed sekirei, Negako shook her head.

Regardless of their true planet of origin, nothing beat human foibles for their sheer entertainment value...

To Be Continued...


WRITER'S NOTES

As I've said before in other stories related to Phoenix From the Ashes, I'll try to concentrate the actual explanations and notes specific to each chapter of the story without a total rehashing of what was written in the main story. Please at least scan the writer's notes in PFTA and the side story A Nice Quiet Place to understand better some of the concepts introduced here.

As for this part...

1) I base this story's interpretation of the character from Battle Royale as they were depicted in the translated manga by long time Legion of Super-Heroes writer Keith Giffen (born 1952). However, while I tend to base descriptions of everyone's looks on how they appeared in the manga, I will modify the looks to better reflect a wonderful artist and fan of the story know by the pen name "Mute Massacre" or "Catspine". You may find his work at the Deviant Art website under the former name.

2) Military unit notes:

Her Majesty's Canadian Ship Queen is one of the Royal Canadian Navy's naval reserve divisions (NRDs), the "stone frigates" who can help augment manning shortfalls in regular Navy units both ashore and at sea. Queen was first established as a "half-company" of reserve personnel (averaging 50 all ranks) in 1923. Said unit remained at that level of strength until it was made a "tender" (detached sub-unit) to the west coast Navy base, Her Majesty's Canadian Ship Naden, in 1941, then commissioned under its current name the following fall. Like several of her sister NRDs, Queen was "paid off" (decommissioned) in 1964 due to massive budget cuts and falling crew enrolments, though she was recommissioned in 1975. The ship's name is the English translation of her home city's name, Regina in Saskatchewan.

Hōya Air Base is my own creation. I use this as a plot device to describe why Tomobiki always had something of a Western-style grid street pattern when viewed from above in the Yatsura manga and anime. In the universe of this story, Hōya AB would be a landing strip that supported the American occupational forces in the wake of the end of the Second World War.

3) Whether or not the anecdote in the third main scene actually happened can't be confirmed. However, it was something Abraham Lincoln spoke of to the man who did portraits of him, Francis Bicknell Carpenter (1830-1900). That particular quote comes from a remarkable book of quotes from Lincoln that can be easily purchased through Kindle or other e-reader book providers, The Wit and Wisdom of Abraham Lincoln: A Book of Quotations (2005), written by Bob Blaisdell.

4) Whether or not Private Bobbie Jenkins from North Carolina really lived, I can't say. He's most likely a character from the wonderful team of Newt Gingrich and William R. Forstchen, who composed a trilogy of alternate history books that took a look at a different outcome of the battle of Gettysburg. Abraham Lincoln was depicted having meeting a dying Bobbie Jenkins in the second book, Grant Comes East: A Novel of the Civil War, first published in 2004. I felt it was worth reusing here.

5) As I've said several times before, all magical anecdotes from Canada and America are explained in Magic and Canada. This includes a note about the 7th Cavalry Regiment (Magical) of the United States Coloured Troops (USCT) in the Civil War.

6) Translations: Rittmeister — Literally "ride master", the German army title for a cavalry captain (NATO rank code OF-2); Freiherr — Literally "free lord", the German noble equivalent title to a British baron; Kuromoroboshi — Literally "black meteor shower", this is the name of the shinobi force that protects the matriarch of the Moroboshi Clan (as first introduced in The Senior Year); Druj — Literally "lie" in Avestan, this is the catch-all phrase that indicates all forms of evil or anything that goes against the divine word as put forth by the Prophet Zaraϑuštra, aša ("truth"); Juken — Literally "taking an examination", this is the "cram school" concept where students go to private facilities to practice on important examinations to ascend to higher institutions like university; Ashikabi — Literally "plant bud", this is the term applied to those with sekirei ancestry who could awaken a feather's powers; Beyonēsu-retsugan — Bayonnaise Rocks; Izu-shotō — Izu Islands.

7) For those who don't know, the maxim "keep up the scare" was quoted by General Nathan Bedford Forrest (1821-77).

8) Quick Yatsura character note: Mujaki first appeared in the Yatsura manga story "Waking to a Nightmare" (manga chapter #31). He was also the antagonist of the second movie, Beautiful Dreamer.

9) Negima character note: Antonio Gandolfini first appeared in the "Mahora Festival" arc of the manga (manga chapters #72-168). His given name is my creation. And no, I don't think he's full Japanese with a family name like that!

10) The Columbia and Greenville Railroad was a broad gauge (5 feet) railroad that connected the city of Greenville in the upstate region of South Carolina to the state capital in Columbia. One of the stations on that route is Eleanor "Ellie" Reese's home town of Belton, not far from the county seat of Anderson County. The railroad operated from 1852-80, when it went into receivership and was reformed as the "Greenville and Columbia Railway"; it was eventually merged into the Southern Railway network in 1894 after being leased for nearly a decade by the Richmond and Danville Railroad. During the Civil War, the Columbia and Greenville remained intact until William T. Sherman's troops invaded the Palmetto State in 1865, wrecking 12 miles of track. These days, most of the track is abandoned; the station house in Belton now serves as the town museum.

11) As I did with the characters of Ikkitōsen in Phoenix From the Ashes, I revamped the names of characters from Sekirei to give them "given" and "family" names. Since the leaders of Mid-Bio Informatics (MBI) want to pursue a modem of stealth when it came to the execution of the Sekirei Plan before they won control of Tōkyō (as noted in the manga), the idea of having girls like Musubi (#88) and her sisters walk around with just ONE NAME doesn't make any sense; after all, having a single name like Happōsai would possess indicates a rōnin, a very ugly state for a native of Japan to be in. To make it easier for me to compose their names, I took the given name of their voice actresses as they were indicated in the Sekirei Wiki website.