"Is the enemy of my enemy my friend, or the enemy of my friend my enemy?"

"What?"

"Or the enemy of my enemy my enemy?"

"What did he say?"

"The enemy of my enemy is my enemy."

"He said the enemy of his enemy, is his enemy."

"Oh."

- Dick Tracy

"I work, let's say, for the government. We've decided to give you a second chance."

"What do I do?"

"Learn. Learn to read, walk, talk, smile, and even fight. Learn to do everything."

"What for?"

"To serve your country."

"What if I don't want to?"

"Row 8, plot 30."

- La Femme Nikita

"Now, understand, Commander. That torpedo did not self-destruct. You heard it hit the hull. And I was never here."

- Admiral Greer, The Hunt for Red October

"If that thing had nine lives, she just spent 'em all."

- Randy Quaid


Akane's nanomachines were broken, but her tiny cooing child was perfect and precious in every way. The white wicker rocking chair swayed slowly on the carpet as she gently bent her knees. The seat was small and sparingly decorated, a modest arrangement meant to keep her comfortable while she rocked her baby, but right now it felt like her own mini-throne.

The empress's head was covered in a white hood decorated with laces and thin gold veins. This was common finery for new Cardair mothers. It kept her forehead cool and provided some privacy for her flushed face. The fringes of the former handmaid's veil obstructed her peripheral vision, but that just helped her focus all her attention on the child in front of her. The future in front of her.

After ages of tragic strife and political instabilities, Princess Kazuko Krau-xeku had finally arrived in Cardair.

This was the first time Akane was truly free since her graduation. Her natural brown eyes had returned the moment Kazu rendered her nanomachines inactive. Shizuru would no longer be able to control her no matter how hard she might try. Although, maybe being able to decide exactly when Akane should become inactive was part of Shizuru's strategy all along. She may have even had a final say on the baby's gender as her last act inhabiting Akane's physiology.

Akane didn't mind. She was long past her younger days stressing out about when she'd be allowed to retire. Her life in Cardair had given her something she'd never felt before: A strong sense of faith. And with that faith, she'd decided early on that things were just going to happen for her and Kazu the way they were meant to happen. The wait was worth it.

Kazuko had the same bright brown eyes as her mother. She was completely free of nano-influence, as well. No matter who the princess grew up to be, she'd always feel safe and at home anywhere that shared the light cream and white colors of her cradle room. The colors of her tranquil kingdom.

The small reading table beside Akane held a folded letter from some enamored new grandparents in Florince. Grandparents who at one time years ago thought they were sending a daughter to Garderobe to become the house servant of a local noble, then thought she was becoming the personal servant of their nation's king, then had their hearts crushed when she abruptly disappeared from public view and they thought they would never hear from her again, only to reappear and become empress to an entirely different nation, spreading peace between her new home and the one she left behind. They praised the Columns for being her guiding light through all of her humanitarian achievements.

Akane never gathered the courage to tell her parents exactly how it all happened. How could she even phrase it without sounding completely absurd?

"Dearest Maman et Papa Soir, it's so wonderful to hear from you. But you must understand, Kazu did not kidnap me at the graduation years ago. We eloped. He's not the one the Columns had to tame. I was. I accidentally committed several war crimes and a few lesser treaty violations when the lovestruck emotions swelling from my heart got the better of me, and Lady Blythe arrested me to bring me back to my senses. I only became one of Cardair's Otomes as a reduced punishment to avoid an execution by my fellow ladies. And then a really weird Column showed up and installed a nano-override in my brain to make sure I would follow my duties completely. Most of the things I've been doing for the past year were my Mistress directing me in the name of Legislative Redemption. It's my understanding it was entirely me who kissed Lord Kazuya at the altar when I became empress, as Mistress Viola insisted she would stay out of my thoughts so the ceremony could go to me completely and be lawfully binding. But I have a difficult time determining who's who inside my head some days. It might not even be your own daughter writing this letter to you. Despite the uncertainties, I always remain hopeful I'll be released from my Indentured Servitude soon. I will update you posthaste when my retirement is authorized and hopefully you'll have some grandchildren on the way. Lovingly yours since the Dawn of my life, Akane Kx."

It all ended in a symbiotic way where all parties involved walked away better off than where they started, so why even linger on the more distressing parts of it? The past shouldn't be used to hurt us. It should be used to teach us.

By the time she regained control of her mind and was ready to live out the rest of her life as an ordinary noblewoman with no supernatural ability, Akane was thinking completely like a Column. All of Kazu's perfect, beautiful children, and all of his children's children for at least the first couple generations, would be raised with his wife's knowledge and experiences.

The peaceful dream life Akane lived today had been hard-earned and nearly slipped out of her reach many times. She'd participated in her final difficult mission as an Otome only a little over a year ago.

Schwarz remnants had broken into Cardair's royal vault in a renewed effort for conquest. Because they were considered only the lesser half of Schwarz that managed to escape prosecution after Duke Nagi's failed coup several years prior, their faction was called the Greaves.

The leader of this faction, and the inheritor of Nagi's original position in the cult, was a man named Wattarl Ishigermin. His background was colorful, to put it simply. Embittered mural artist in Windbloom, turned failed Presidential candidate in Aries, turned freelance chemical terrorist in Cardair. If there was anything positive to say about him, it's that he would try anything to stay relevant.

The Greaves were after a collection of invaluable fossilized dragon scales stored deep underneath Cardair's main castle. No living eyes had seen these scales in the past fifty years, but they were believed to be from the same dragon that had earned the Dragon King his infamous war name so many decades ago. Ishigermin's goal was to mix a sample of the scales with his paint ingredients and created a new compound so corrosive, not even the most powerful forcefields and nano-seals in the world would be able to withstand it. In theory, it could be used in liquid form to melt whole towns in caustic floods. It could be converted to aerosol form and smother whole kingdoms with deadly miasma.

If Ishigermin's group obtained the scales, it would have been seen as a complete failure by the crown to protect one of the kingdom's most sacred artifacts. It would likely lead to another conflict on Cardair soil, and it could trigger a new age of chemical warfare unprecedented in this world.

Akane flew down the spiral staircase past Lord Kazuya's kitchens, past Lord Kazuya's basements, past Lord Kazuya's dungeons, past Lord Kazuya's catacombs, and toward a subterranean branch of the castle that hadn't been disturbed by a single living breath for decades. Along the way, she passed legions of Kazuya's knights and guards fighting desperately against endless cultists wearing clay masks and wielding torches shaped like giant paint brushes. Akane stopped to help where she was able, and saved countless Cardair defenders from ambush.

Her glowing blade tonfa could cut through anything and anyone who wasn't Materialised like paper, but all of her efforts focused on reaching a single destination: The palace sub-chapel.

"Akane, I can…" Shizuru's voice started to say. It came from inside her head instead of from her GEM.

"Shut up, Shizuru! I'll fix this myself!" Akane's luminous purple eyes flickered as she yelled into the empty air. The Columns were never going to leave her alone if she let them think she was dependent on them for every single mission.

"White Puma is taking charge of the operation." Shizuru's voice said again, but this time it was coming from Akane's GEM. "Columns I, II, IV, and V are currently holding the higher floors. Better deploy White Unicorn to her location. Mauve Cobra, out."

"Green Widow here. Please tell me none of you other girls are letting yourselves be seen in the castle? I'm mostly sticking to the rafters." Nao's voice clicked in from another frequency.

"Black Flying Fox reporting. The eastern wing is secured. I've been in Stealth Cloak the entire time. These clowns think I'm a bunch of Puma's wind tunnels blasting through them." Sara's voice joined the conversation.

"Blue Nightingale checking in. I sent Samba Boy in to do all my fighting. I'm making him act like he's one of Ishigermin's gizmos going haywire. I already wrote that detail into the debriefing." Mahya's voice added.

"Silver Wolf reporting. I've been coordinating with some of the housecarls. But they're good people. They'll know how to act once I'm out of here, if they care at all about their Otome's reputation." Natsuki.

"Didn't we vote you to be the Spare Fang?" Nao.

"Yes. That's why I'm on my way to the substructure exactly two minutes behind our star. I'll finish this if…" Natsuki. She couldn't bring herself to complete her own thought.

"It's not going to happen." Shizuru. Reassuringly. "She won't let it happen. Not when his life depends on hers. Damn girl can be more stubborn than me."

"She better not let it happen. This is my only chance to make up for all those times I bullied her!" Mahya. Starting to lose her temper.

"She's gonna be fine. If we pull this off just right, it's gonna put those two over like a million bucks, and it's gonna net us that straggler we've been chasing around forever." Sara.

"Hey. I was her Pearl Number Four in the Academy and I was picked as a Column the same time she was having her little cross-country adventure. I want to see a decent wrap-up to this thing more than any of you." Nao.

The GEM radio chatter switched to a different speaker who wasn't one of the Columns.

"Crone Zero authorizing White Unicorn for cleanup duty," Sister Maria's harsh authoritative voice crackled across the channel. "Just cover our kitten's tail and stay clear of her claws. Remember: No matter what you do, all enemy casualties must be traceable to her. Stop looking so nervous. You'll be fine, dear. Just do what you do best. Hide."

After a pause in the transmission, Maria's digitized voice made one more statement:

"We would crush these feeble Greaves under our boots if we fought them on open ground. But this isn't a trivial victory meant for us. It's a salvation meant for Cardair. May Big Sister Monica be with us today."

Akane's canines bit her lower lip as she continued flying down the spiral stairs. That last message conflicted her. One part of her thought it was touching how Maria still put so much devotion in the Otome who used to be her mentor when she was just a little girl five decades ago. Another part was thinking "Yeah. Thanks for reminding me how things turned out for the last Cardair Trias One who tried to play the hero. That's exactly what I need to be thinking about right now."

This Monica was a Cardair Otome who'd been skewered in half by her best friend, a lower-ranking Trias Two, in a field battle when she was 17 and Maria was around 14. The friend only secured a hollow victory for a Florince Master named Marc Antoine, as both ended up losing their lives in same war within the same year as Monica.

This dark passage in history illustrated every Otome's greatest fear: Becoming close friends in the Academy, and then being bound into the service of opposing nations after they graduated. For Akane, that fear permeated down into a much more personal level. She only held the same Trias rank as her predecessor fifty years ago, served for the same kingdom, formed her contract with the same line of adolescent emperors with short life expectancies, and had a similar background where her superiors tried to rush her through graduation.

There was "jinxed," and then there was "every possible force in the universe is working to make sure this turns out badly for you." Was everyone just testing her to see when the odds would catch up with her? And they wondered why she fled from her first contract with her Meister GEM still attached to her ear.

As an Otome raised in and (until she met Kazu) planning to serve under Florince banners, Akane always sympathized with Sylvie's side of that old story. As an Otome conscripted into Cardair's royal guard, she was living the Monica side. It felt like she was on a journey into the underworld pulling double-duty for both of those tragic fighters wiped out before they really had a chance to live, while the Columns were upstairs pulling quintuple-duty for her own sake.

The staircase finally ended and Akane flew through a set of open double doors. Completely alone, she streamed past small mountains of glaring gold bullions and religious artifacts. She flew through another set of double doors and entered the chamber that housed the terrible thing that could make everything in the previous room completely worthless.

Two people had reached the storage altar before Akane: Wattarl Ishigermin and his champion, Tomoe Marguerite.

An ex-Otome herself, Tomoe had a grudge to settle with Garderobe. She'd been outright expelled from the Academy for multiple infractions related to Nagi's attempted coup, and she was not honorably retired.

The Greaves had armed her for this final confrontation. At least, they attempted to using the rudimentary binding materials available to them and some spotty reverse-engineered nanotech. Tomoe's "Robe" looked like a cheap papier-mâché imitation of a real Robe, and it held up just about as well.

She came running toward Akane with a psychotic scream (with no flight abilities, naturally). The more sturdy Otome sidestepped with a small half-pirouette and sent the lousy imposter crashing ten feet away with a single shoulder block. The same move likely would have killed her if the Pure Heart Malachite Robe was more strength-focused than speed-focused.

Tomoe's "Robe" dissolved and reverted into ratty-looking cutoff jeans and a chemise top before she finished hitting the ground. Her bootleg GEM (which was probably engineered as well as a leftover lollipop ring held on to her ear with some masking tape) shattered into a billion microscopic pieces. Her contract with Ishigermin was severed, assuming she even managed to form a real contract with him to begin with.

Tomoe rolled away grumbling. The Columns would arrest her for her latest series of infractions once the current danger was resolved, and they probably weren't going to offer to commute her to a lighter sentence the same way they had for Akane.

Akane turned toward the altar. Now it was just her and the art freak.

She launched full speed at Ishigermin as he was trying to pry open the tabernacle holding the scales. Akane thought she had him, but she made a small slip in her judgment. Ishigermin grinned toward her as he abruptly reached for something else in his supply bag.

His arms came back out with two comically oversized paint tubes fused together into something resembling a shotgun. And Akane was charging straight at its double-barreled line of sight.

"Let's see how your nanomachines like some of my Elements, bitch!" The artist exclaimed in hysteria.

Ishigermin squeezed the trigger. Two streams of magenta-colored acid went flying toward Akane's head.

"No. Your story deserves a happier ending, little sister." A woman's gentle voice echoed from somewhere beyond the material world.

Time stopped. Akane and Ishigermin were completely frozen mid-action. The room spun in a swift three-dimensional semi-circle where Ishigermin remained in the same spot on the central axis and Akane rotated behind him. Time resumed.

Suddenly, for no fundamental reason anyone could explain, Akane was looking at Ishigermin's back. She was still racing toward him with the same amount of kinetic energy wound up in her tonfa, but now she was coming from the complete opposite direction. She held both of her arms together to form the shape of a spear and thrust her blade-covered wrists into his spine faster than he could react.

How the hell did she do that?

Ishigermin painted the floor red with the blood spilling out of his stomach and mouth. Akane was initially thankful to still be alive, but she blinked in confusion as her combat adrenaline wore off.

"Wh-what… ?" Ishigermin painfully sputtered over his shoulder with his last breaths. Akane had the exact same question.

The deranged art curator dropped to the floor dead. Threat neutralized.

Akane shook her head in bewilderment, but she soon had her answer. Her amplified microphone ears picked up the weak hum of an atmospheric ion distortion. She glanced toward the spot where Ishigermin surely would have killed her if she hadn't randomly warped to the other side of the room.

A cloud of swirling rainbow light hovered over the chapel floor. It was like the metaphysical equivalent of a funhouse mirror. Beyond the edges of the illusory portal, Akane saw Yukariko Steinberg—Garderobe's mid-level support teacher—wearing her rarely seen dragoon-styled Robe. She was at least five years Akane's senior.

Akane's GEM recognized the signal from Yukariko's GEM (albeit somewhat distorted from the light-bending effect) and auto-tagged her as DAZZLING MIRAGE LAPIS LAZULI—FRIENDLY in Akane's optics. The teacher awkwardly waved at Akane before extending her index finger in front of her mouth and curling her lips in a silent "Shh!" shape.

It was the same spiel as always: The Columns were never here. Garderobe has no knowledge of the events that transpired in Cardair today. As far as we're aware, Emperor Kazuya successfully resolved the matter with his own resources, and we commend him for his selfless efforts to keep all of his neighboring countries safe. We hope to see you next week at our semi-annual gala.

Yukariko's floating window vanished in a single blink. Akane wondered if she had only imagined her.

"Yuka-… Unicorn," Maria's voice cracked through the shared communication channel. She sounded shaken with disbelief. "I'm detecting normal vitals from White Puma. She… Is she still alive?"

"Yep!" Yukariko buzzed from another corner of the bandwidth. "There wasn't really anything for me to clean up. She really did a number on that creep before I even got there."

"By Divine Grace," Maria gasped like she was on the verge of crying. "The Founder was right. We've broken the pattern."

The old Otome veteran now addressed Akane directly over the channel. Akane thought she heard a sniffle.

"I'm so sorry for doubting you, Puma. It's my fault for picking the wrong match for you when you were my student. Please tell your Master I congratulate him on reaching his 22nd natal feast."

Akane almost forgot. The Greaves had raided the castle in the middle of Kazu's birthday party.

"It's not a problem. Sisters in need, right?" she replied to Maria with a very real, very tired sigh. If she were in a more pushy mood, she probably would have said "You're workin' for me now."

Akane would have to bring some extra attendants downstairs to clean up the body, the scattered tools, the shotgun, and the minor damage to the altar and tabernacle. Her only priority right now was taking Ishigermin's bodyguard into custody so she could be handed over to Garderobe.

Akane's tonfa flashed out of existence to free up her arms. She grabbed Tomoe off the floor and held her wrists behind her back.

A deal had been made where the Columns would look much more favorably on Akane if she brought Tomoe in alive. Who better to catch the unrepentant crook than another remorseful crook willing to sacrifice anything to reform herself? The fact she'd basically saved the whole planet with minimal assistance just sweetened the deal, and it did wonders for the Krau-xeku regime's international image. The only thing Kazu's reign still needed to seal its permanence was an empress with a solid history of leadership and strong public adoration.

Akane had just accomplished all of those things.

She pushed the miserable grumbling woman through the chapel doors, dragged her through the treasure room without letting her greedy hands touch anything, and pushed her through the doors leading to the spiral stairs.

Just before Akane left the vault herself, two seemingly arbitrary objects shined in the corner of her eye. She turned her head toward the source of the light, and her eyes focused on a young boy's velvet-bound adventure book sitting in the shade of a large gold bardiche shaped like a crescent moon.

"You two rest easy now. Kazu and I will take care of things from here," she said toward the heirlooms. She finally smiled with peaceful confidence.

Akane's thoughts returned to the present. She was resting on a rocking chair with her new daughter wrapped in her arms.

The door to the nursery quietly opened. The emperor of Cardair walked into the room and closed the door behind him while making his best efforts not to make a sound.

Akane's veil dangled over her eyes from the angle Kazuya was looking down at her, but he could still see her curled mouth. Her expression looked incredibly tired, but happy.

"How are you two doing?" the emperor asked barely above a whisper when he reached his wife on the rocker. "It looked a little scary there for a minute."

"You worry about me too much, Kazu." Akane playfully brushed her maternity hood back to reveal her slightly longer shoulder length hair. "I've gotten through tougher fights before. This girl just gave me a little workout."

The empress looked down and made some soft cooing sounds back at her daughter. The rhythm was gentle enough that it started putting the little girl to sleep. Her tiny newborn eyes popped back open once she sensed her father standing above her.

Akane carefully handled the emperor his most fragile and valuable creation wrapped in a fuzzy cream blanket. The little girl's babbling became more energetic as she was rocked in her father's arms.

"My very own daughter," Kazuya said proudly. Triumphantly. "A child with my own name who can finally give Cardair a clear future. The senior chaplains will probably complain it's a girl, but nobody listens to them anymore."

He looked down at his googling baby while perking his lips like a clownfish. He faked a falsetto voice like he'd just taken a whiff of helium.

"Who's daddy's cutest legitimate heir? You are. Yes, you are!"

The girl made a funny babbling sound that may have been an early attempt at giggling, or a hiccup.

"What do you think about training her as my heir?" Akane asked in equal parts optimistic and curious.

"Kazuko? An Otome?" Kazuya slowly answered as he thought. There was a pinch of heartfelt stress in his voice. "I'm not sure about that. Not after some of the close calls I had with you. I'm already worried enough about that Yayoi girl we appointed as your replacement."

"She can make the choice for herself." Akane now spoke with full optimism. "We'll just have to be careful so she doesn't grow up feeling compelled to become one."

"Are you kidding?" Kazuya chuckled once. "Otomes are a little girl's entire life. She'll never be able to go shopping without seeing action figures of you in five different scales."

"Don't worry," Akane nodded to show she was already thinking about that. "I'll teach her all the dangers involved, too. One step at a time. She'll have a little head start over most of the other girls in her class."

"What about her Master?" Kazuya asked. "Even if she becomes an Otome, she's the Crown Princess first. She needs to stay close to her own country."

"We'll just commission her as your Otome if she wants to enroll. That way everyone will know where she's going when she graduates. I bet you'll still have plenty of life in you in 16 or 17 years. That arrangement is working out well for Ahn Lu and her dad."

"An Otome who's the daughter of the emperor?" Kazuya asked inquisitively.

"Why not try an Otome who is the emperor?" Akane said it like she was joking. Or was she? "You don't have to die to pass down the throne, Kazu. After everything you've done for this country, no one would blame you if you abdicated from old age."

"Ah. Don't get your hopes up, Akane." The emperor grinned along with his wife's playfulness. He bent his elbow so he was rocking his baby at a more flat angle. She was falling asleep again. "No whipper-snapper youngin' is gonna steal my kingdom if I've still got the strength to rule it myself."

"I'll just have to focus more on draining it out of you, then." Akane suggestively narrowed her eyes as she reached to Kazuya's arm and pulled the blanket around her daughter's ears. "Maybe I'll make a new baby every time so you end up out of energy and drowning in heirs."

"I'm not sure how well that's going to work for you. You'd have to turn into a real tornado in bed to wear me out." The emperor smirked.

"Ree-ow." The empress smirked back.


Author's notes: I really should stop resolving every Mai Otome storyline with babies, but it's just too adorable. Plus it totally syncs up with Shizuru's Morgan la Fey vibe from the first chapter in a… weird self-parody kind of way.

"Blue Nightingale" is also the nickname I use for the Xeku Zwei from Gundam Sentinel. Because look at the actual MSN-04II Nightingale, then look at THAT thing.

It should be noted: Fiar Grosse (the last ill-fated Cardair Otome immediately before Akane gets Nikita'd into that position) wore the exact same Robe design Monica wears in the flashbacks. The flashbacks also depict Sylvie fighting with foldable Wolverine claw things that work like tonfa, and I THINK she's going for the same real world reference as Akane, because Akane has kind of an Egyptian Queen Cleopatra vibe in her cat Robe, and the name of Sylvie's Master on her memorial pillar is literally just the French form of Mark Antony. And Argos XIV, the '70s anime villain looking old dude who gets replaced with Kazu? Totally Degwin Zabi in a Renaissance fair costume.

It has recently been brought to my attention (i.e. reading a Wikipedia page for 10 seconds) that Akane was from Cardair to begin with in the anime continuity. Well fuck that bullshit, son. I ain't goin' back and fixin' my shit when the entire "theme" I was going for is dependent on Kazu-kun and Aka-kitty being from separate countries that hate each other. It's Romeo and Juliet if Juliet was also classified as a nuclear device.

Yeah, their kid has the same name as the teacher from Madoka. Yeah, the teacher from Madoka has the same Japanese VA as Akane. Fight me bro.

I think I'm gonna go listen to "Heartbeat" by Red 7 now.