There was nothing but silence among the group, they had come so far since the Jewel Seed incident and have pushed their teamwork to the highest level they could. They could not afford to mess this up, both girls knew that it was a matter of life and death and that failure to defeat him would result in a mission failure that none of them wanted to have nor could there be any redo as well. So as they waited and waited for their prey to come, they sprung their assault.
"HAPPY BIRTHDAY SOMA YU!" As both Nanoha and Fate alongside every member on the ship blasted the lights on to see a very surprised Yu, who was accompanied by a quietly smiling Chrono. As Yu took in the surprise with happiness as he dashed towards the girls thanking them both for the wonderful party that they decided to throw him on the ship, and it was beautiful.
The whole Mess hall was decorated in ribbons and streamers as everyone on the ship were either wearing bright colors, party hats, blowing noisemakers, or clapping for him. Everyone wanted to wish him a happy birthday, as Yu was well liked on the ship for being nice and friendly towards them. He was especially popular among the Enforcers for giving them a good challenging spar.
Either way, they were more than happy to pitch in the decorating in the Mess Hall for the little guy's birthday. While other crew members could do with a break and it just so happens that Yu's birthday gives them that excuse to party and have lots of fun as well. Though in all honesty, they liked Yu a lot as well and would have gladly help throw in that birthday party just because they respected the kid for his bravery on the battlefield.
Yu was honestly touched by the display before him. Here stands some of the TSAB's finest members and they all decided to help throw him a party for his birthday. Then there was Nanoha and Fate rushing up to drag him to enjoy the party that was set up before his very eyes. They both seem quite pleased with themselves of the set up they had for his birthday party right now.
Not that he could blame them of course obviously, if he had the chance to celebrate either Nanoha's or Fate's birthday with a wonderful surprise, he be quite proud of himself as well. There was just something about the two that just moved his attention to them.
With Nanoha it was her charming smile and adorable pigtails. With Fate, it was her beautiful amber eyes and her long silky blonde hair. Every time he spends more time with them, he felt his heart beat a little bit faster every time this happens. He wonders if this is the feeling known as a crush that he heard his parents and uncle told him that he will experience one day soon enough.
Ah well it did not really matter to him, they were bringing out the cake now and he was quite eager to try out the cake that they have prepared for his birthday. Oh my! It is actually triple layer of chocolate, vanilla, and strawberry with sliced fruits on top of the icing of the cake! Ah well anything that may have something to do with that though can wait later, there is good cake!
Nitoh could only smile as he took another sip from his cup of fruit punch as he saw Yu blow out the candles and seeing the two girls hugging him in excitement. He knew there was going to be more to that relationship, heck he can even see the blush on Yu whenever those two girls were being a bit close to him. He just wondered when those brats will finally get together though.
"A penny for your thought Nitoh?" He turned around and saw his girlfriend Lindy in a party dress for the occasion. She was wearing an emerald green dress that brought out her eyes, with heels and a purple necklace that contrasted quite nicely with her hair. In other words, she looked absolutely radiant today.
"Sure Lindy, what is it that you want to ask me about or get my thoughts on really?" He was quite curious as to what it was she wanted to talk to him about, their conversations were usually pretty fun to say in the least, ranging from philosophy, to poetry, and even reality in general.
Her smile then slowly started to turn into a neutral line on her face, "It is rather concerning to me Nitoh, the actions of the Knights as of late. They have yet to make any raid which I am assuming to be a consequence of the fallout from the threat that Phoenix posed to us and it is quite possible that the Book of Darkness might waken up soon." Now turning to him with a concerned look.
"It is just-"As she too a moment to pause and expanded her hands a bit as an analogy for how far out of depth she felt. "There is just so much going on and yet we have the ability to still smile and throw a party for Yu while there is a threat going on the outside with the failure being a lost planet. How is it that we still can feel so calm in such a situation like this and still celebrate?"
'Well that was a rather heavy question of her to ask.' Nitoh thought to himself before thinking about. How on earth were they able to still smile with the threat of their planet and home at risk for the most part really? But Nitoh realized the rather easy truth of why they were able to smile.
"Well Lindy that really depends on what you perceive things to be as." Leaving Lindy a bit confused as he expanded on it. "You see for us Riders we have so much to deal with in our lives, we have friends to see, families to care for, and enemies to fight, and so on. But one of the major reason we are able to smile still is because we have hope." That caused her eyes to widen a bit.
"We just know that while we will never make it out unscathed for the most part, we can always rest easy knowing that we have still managed to protect the people and stopped the threat." Now rubbing his head in embarrassment. "So I guess what I am trying to say is that you have to have hope. And we Riders always have that in spades, because we know that things will end the best."
Now that Lindy was looking at him a bit bug-eyed he wondered of what he said was the best possible answer, till he heard her giggle. That giggle slowly became a small but serene laugh as she smiled about the whole idea and once she finished, she looked at him rather lovingly now.
"I can see that you do have a point Nitoh, after all who could claim that they stopped ancient evils and constant threats to the world over and over again other than the Riders of this world." She then smiled gratefully now. "But for all that we can do, none of us were able to bring back the dead like you have done and gave a crazed woman a chance to repent for her actions as she realized the depths of her folly like you miracles bringers have."
He knew what she was talking about, ever since the medical treatment that Presea received on their world, not only did they managed to cure her sickness, but they have also once restored her once broken mind to full capacity now. Then when she learned of her actions, the woman was horrified beyond comprehension as she saw the monster that abused her own flesh and blood.
She tried to commit suicide multiple times in response to her crimes as she realized that everything that she has done was just nothing short of monstrous. But once she saw just how happy her two daughters were and how they still love her on some level. She decided to live for the sake of atoning her sins. She realized that to take her own life would be cowardly and easy.
And as of now, she was a model prisoner and some of her lawyers and medical professionals thought that she might be ready for a parole and community services as one of the TSAB once more. Normally that would have taken years to get through but when one of the Grand Marshal was involved, paperwork tends to go by a lot faster. So if she continues this for about four more years, she will get her parole and her chance to do community services for her crimes.
And speaking of the Grand Marshal of the TSAB, he sent in his own birthday gift to Yu in the sense of his fourth and final Blood Warrior Ring. And once the party was over, Nitoh was going to send it to Yu so he can test it out with Nanoha and Fate. Then he will be prepping him for his combined Blood Warrior form to be able to use every aspect of the Blood Warrior to fight better.
But for now though, he was going to enjoy this nice fruit punch with his girlfriend leaning her head on his shoulders watching Yu get into the presents now. Then he smirked as Yu went bright red as both Nanoha and Fate hugged him as they gave Yu birthday kisses with everyone cheering one as they handed him two carved rings for his arsenal.
From what he could tell of the inscription, they were rings that were able to emulate their own spells such as Divine Buster and Photon Lancer attacks. He shudder at the thought that there were three little tykes of their power running around now. Perhaps he should not have bought them to the old man that used to carve and make the rings for Haruto back in the days now.
In hindsight, it was probably a very bad idea to introduce the girls to the one who made the foci for the Ring Wizard and suggesting that they could possibly put a bit of their own spells into rings. Now Yu has a beam spray and lighting blast attacks now, combined with his Blood Warrior Wind form makes for a horrifying opponent to face. He should not have done that.
He also was not the only one to come to this realization as across the entire mess hall he noticed the engineers that typically work with Devices and the Enforcers who would spar with the kids shudder more violently than he had with this reaction. He also noticed Lindy looking at him rather betrayed as her eyes desperately shouted out to him in fear and despair of events to come.
'Why did you think it was a good idea to give the smartest and most determined of the trio access to the most powerful spells that his girlfriends could use?' He honestly had no defenses as he just shrugged awkwardly and then Lindy just started crying a bit while moaning about how all the paperwork was going to be much longer now and how she needs to fix up all the damages.
Truly it was a bad day to be an enemy of Yu, or his superior/ caretaker in a sense. As even when they were far away, the Cloud Knights felt a very bad premonition and had chills going down their spines telling them that their goal was going to get even harder than it was before right now.
After a day of rather awesome birthday for me, I finally decided to take Nanoha and Fate to see Hayate. It made me feel a bit guilty that I have not been spending as much time as I usually do, but that was the fault of the Cloud Knights and as soon as I could, we were going to put away the Cloud Knights away for good and hopefully prevent the activation of the Book of Darkness.
Though for some reason Nanoha and Fate were pouting a bit when I talked about Hayate in detail. Guess they were annoyed that I did not take them to see her anytime soon, though in my opinion at least. Those girls will get along famously with Hayate, especially if their reaction to wanting to see me in cosplay were by any indications of their actions and intentions to me.
"So Yu, what can you tell us about Hayate and her hobby of creating and designing clothes?" Nanoha asked as I tried to think about it. Well there was much to talk about her hobby, obsession is more likely, as it is one of the things that she is quite skilled in for sure, and could have become a professional fashion designer in his honest opinion.
"Well like I said before, Hayate is an extraordinary fashion designer of sorts. She typically based most of her outfits based on anime and manga that she reads, most of the time the clothing she made for females can be…questionable at times, but regardless she is a superb designer of sorts."
They looked a bit impressed by how talented Hayate was at designing fashionable clothes for sure. Then I continued on, "For males though, Hayate only has me as her main model of sorts as I am kind of the only guy friend that she knows. She had me in various outfits from medieval outfits, to doctor outfits, to Catholic Choir boy clothes, to even a butler's uniform at times."
He then instantly knew he did something wrong when he heard the two girls tripped over nothing, as he then saw a rather feral look in their eyes. He sighed as he continued on, "Hayate keeps pictures of the outfits that we typically model in, so if you want to you can look through her photo album to see what kind of outfits I have worn over the years with Hayate as the main designer. Just please keep the squealing to a minimum please. Hayate needs her rest you know."
The two girls eagerly nodded as they then started fantasizing Yu in the butler outfit he mentioned. The two girls would find themselves tired and sweaty from the training with the TSAB only to come to a delightful sight of Yu serving them smoothies in a butler outfit. "Greeting Mistress Nanoha and Fate. I have prepared the dinner for you. Now would you like dinner, bath" As he then pointed to himself quite slowly and deliberately. "Or how about me?"
Meanwhile back in the real world, Yu was slowly movingly away from the two girls as he saw them turn bright red for no reason while noticing that they were drooling a bit as well. He did not want to know what it was they were fantasizing about, it feels much safer for his sanity that way.
Before he continue on his way to the room where Hayate was while keeping a wary eye on Nanoha and Fate as they finally snapped out of whatever it was they were daydreaming about. They were now embarrassed that they spaced out over their fantasies and tried to apologize to Yu, who only made it worse by chuckling a bit at them for daydreaming a bit before reaching the room Hayate was in.
"Hey Hayate I'm here." Yu said smiling only to freeze at what he was seeing beforehand before recovering his composure before smiling again, only this time a lot more strained. The reason why he was in a complete loss of his composure? The Cloud Knights were there, and not only that but they seemed close to Hayate, which means that she's the owner of the Book of Darkness.
But Hayate did not catch on as she was more than happy to see Yu. "Yu! You finally brought those other friends you were talking to me about!" She cheerfully chirped as both Nanoha and Fate were finally introduced to the bedridden girl that Yu has befriended long ago. While Yu was keeping a close eye on the Cloud knights while they too were doing the same with him as well.
For Yu, it was hard to reconcile with the fact that these Cloud Knights were the ones that served Hayate. But maybe he shouldn't be surprised when he saw Vita here with Hilda, who he strongly suspects to be Signum, not causing any damage to the patients that have any latent magical powers. It was only tempered by the fact that Hayate is unaware of the actions that they done.
But still, considering how much trouble they caused and the excruciating pain they caused him all those months ago with their Book. He was still glaring at them with cold rage, as they nearly caused his longest partner, no his other self, to nearly die because of that. It was one thing to do something to his personally, it was quite another to do anything to the ones he treasured a lot.
When Signum saw the boy and his friends enter, she was cursing quite heavily in her mind. Now that the TSAB know they are here they will have to stop these people from reporting them and find a new safe place to hide. But neither dare do something while the girl was in the room with them. Both girls seemed too preoccupied with her to notice the stare down that's been occurring.
She had to admit though, that boy's glare was quite ferocious in its own way, though she swore she could see a blue armored woman with night sky-like hair with a black suit underneath it all, her long eyelashes beckon them to come closer to know all, her eyes furious with rage as though the night trembles in her wake, her delicate looking expression looks like a warrior maiden from Norse Legends, and her spear a simple looking weapon at first, now seen closer is engraved with wondrous runes and the top of it emitting their coming death.
Safe to say the pure amount of hate aimed at their direction made it quite clear who this being was, especially since she stood protectively over the boy. 'So that is the Phantom of Warlock, the being which is the source of all of Warlock's magical ability.' Signum thought as she and her fellow knights sweated a bit in her presence. She felt very intimidated by this Phantom's power.
But their attention was diverted when Hayate called out for Yu, who redirected his focus on Hayate while the girls seemed to have taken his place in watching us. Seeing how those two kids act around each other and seeing how much brighter Hayate gets when Yu's around, made me feel guilty for what we have to do to feed the Book of Darkness, and keep our secrets.
But hearing them laugh at how Yu was in an embarrassing getup of a Greek Warrior helped took things off the edge around us. But I knew this wasn't done as he mouthed to us 'Rooftop after we leave.' He was going to want an explanation, and we were going to have to silence him and his other friends to keep our secrets.
But for now though he was going to keep the peaceful atmosphere that occurred around us. He then moved towards the two girls before he whispered something into their ears before they both nodded as we talked to Hayate. So for now we enjoyed the last bit of peace we had till our mistress had to go to sleep soon enough. Then we departed for the rooftop.
There we were on the rooftop with the Cloud Knights, I did not really trust any of them, and so I had my Defend Ring on my person as we stared each other down. "So Signum the Blazing General is actually Hilda, the caretaker for my friend Hayate." I called out and she nodded towards me, causing me to sigh at the ridiculousness of this situation before me right now.
He was silent for a bit, before regaining his strength to speak once more. "How long have you guys been active for? At the very least from what I last remember it was about two months before I left."
Signum was quiet till Vita spoke up. "We were activated just about four months before you left if that helps." To which I nodded towards her in thanks which she pushed off like it was nothing.
I took a deep breath before I spoke the question that bothered me the most since I found out about them. "Is the Book of Darkness related to the continual decline of Hayate's health? What is happening to my friend right now?" It just couldn't be a coincidence that her decline at the same time these guys showed up.
The Knights all looked down confirming my suspicions about why Hayate keeps getting sicker every time I see her. For the first time in a while I felt intense rage seething through me. The kind of rage I haven't felt since the ending of the Jewel Seed incident, but I calmed myself.
"If the Book is responsible for Hayate's continual decline in health then why are you people still trying to gather energy for the book then?" I noticed that they tightened the grip on their clothes and even saw some clutching their Devices really hard causing me and the girls to be a bit weary.
"Because. Because the only way to save Hayate is to gather enough magical energy to power the Book of Darkness." Causing both Nanoha and Fate to gasp while I narrowed my eyes even further as Signum explained it even further in depth of what happened and what not.
She then explained to us about the true nature about the Book of Darkness and why they had to gather energy as quickly as they could as the Book is sapping out Hayate's life energy to power it. In theory it would have worked, except that none of the recorded cases on the Book ever reported a user still alive after activating it.
In other news they were desperately chasing a fake dream that has no chance of succeeding. The cursed Book only has the capability to destroy! If it activates then Hayate will surely die from activating it, they cannot afford to activate the Book of Darkness!
"You guys don't understand!" I yelled at them while they looked completely impassive. "There are no recorded cases of the users of that Book ever living once it activates! What you guys are doing is chasing a fake dream! One that will only result in her death!"
Then Vita dashed towards me with her hammer out as I used the defend ring to block it, but the force knocked me back a bit as Nanoha and Fate rushed in to help me but Zafira and Signum went to deal with them, knocking them back as well.
Then Vita came approaching me as she reequipped her usual outfit on, and I noticed that she was tearing up. "We came so far to do what we need to do, so don't get in our way. Soon Hayate will recover and come back to us." As she clenched her hammer tighter as Yu saw the pained face.
"We have tried so hard, we are almost there." As she then looked straight at me with an expression of pure rage and anguish as she lifted her hammer with every intent to end me as I got out my last blood Warrior Ring. "SO GET OUT OF OUR WAAAY!" As Vita slammed into me.
Vita was breathing really hard right now, sure she knew that it was the only way to protect Hayate. But then she realized that she just killed her only friend. …oh god, what was she supposed to tell her? How is she ever going to face her ever again? What has she done?
Change Now! Blast, Blast, Blast, Blast, Blast, Blast!
Then she quickly looked up as something was soaring out of the sky and much to her continued annoyance and surprise. It was the Warlock equipped in a green armored form with wings on his back and holding up two bladed bow-guns aimed at them.
Then Warlock begun to spoke up "While it is true that Hayate's life depends on completing the Book, and as her oldest friend I do not wish to see her harmed at all." She noticed that his hands were shaking a lot actually, meaning he found this difficult to do.
"I know the feeling of being powerless when you wish to help someone so much that you curse the fact that you cannot do more." He agonizingly shout out to them, and to the side he could see her constant opponent looking down in sorrow and understanding, possibly meaning she was the one he was trying to help out more.
He looked down further and his back straightened out as he stared her down " however, I will not allow you to complete the Book! For completing it means seeing Hayate die. And I absolutely refuse to see any of my friends die!" Warlock snarled out as he then begun to blast the Cloud Knights all down with rapid fury of air bullets.
They all quickly dodged out of the way while Zafira dealt with the blonde haired child, Vita found herself to be dealing with the pigtailed haired girl once more as she saw Signum rush up to the skies to deal with Warlock. She can only pray that they succeed here and not fail her.
Yu was not at all in a very good mood as of now, he was fighting the Blazing General who was able to ignore and dodge most of his attacks. And he was pushing away her blade by the usage of his twin bow-guns bladed forms. Luckily, he was fast enough to match her in this form as well.
They were matching each other blow for blow as they flew around in the cold wintery night as they clashed once more in the pale moonlight. He flew around and used his bind rings to slow her down, which it did, then he charged his bow-guns again and blasted her which she barely managed to deflect it using her sword's powerful fire manipulation to take the blast for her.
She then blasted full force at him with a much more dangerous looking sword of which he barely dodged as she cut through this air. She then tuned up the heat and was blasting out fiery slashes at him as he kept blasting them apart and flew around them to prevent any possible advantages she could use to take him down, of which he has no intention of doing at all.
Their weapons clashed once more as they struggled to overpower one another, as sparks from their weapons flew as they struggle for domination. "You have improved vastly since the last time we had fought Warlock, no. Soma Yu." As they then backed off away from one another.
Then Yu charged his weapons again and blasted them at Signum who kept cutting through them, but with a bit of increased difficulty. "Thanks for the compliment, I did have a lot of practice and sparring with superior mages and warriors since then. Mind surrendering and ending this fight?"
She shook her head, as her face took on a very determined look. As they kept trying to blast each other down with magical attacks over and over again. "I refuse to do so, I and my companions have come this far to save her. Once the Book is restored Hayate will no longer be in danger." As she took a kick from me and landed on a nearby building as she try to use her whip sword on me.
I floated over her as I glared at her behind my helmet. "You and I both know that the Book won't do that at all." I spat out as Signum continued to look impassive. "The Book will only destroy her and destroy this world and thus all that you were fighting for will be in vain." She then jumped upwards towards me as we continued to fight each other once more to the final end.
"It doesn't matter how much you judge or criticize it. We won't listen to you!" That pissed me off to no end.
"Are you deaf?! If you continue what you are doing then-"before I was cut off again by her.
"We won't listen to you! If you continue to stand in our way like this, then regardless of your ties with Hayate; I will cut you down!" As she sheathed her sword and got into a ready stance once again. "If it means discarding our honor to protect her smile we will do it! If it means giving up our lives for her, we will do it! So for those reasons we can't stop here now!" she shouted while crying.
…! This woman, how dare she acts so presumptuous thinking that she knows the best about what's the best for Hayate! Hayate would never want any of this, if she learns that they done it, she would have been upset. If they destroy the world for her sake, she would not have been able to live with herself and commit suicide! "SIGNUM!" I yelled with such force it took her aback.
Signum was rarely surprised by such events in her life, such was that of living for thousands of years or so as a Knight. But this boy confused and intimidated her a bit. Such as when he started glowing blue with power and in that boy's knightly visor grill he could see red eyes for sure.
"SIGNUM!" He roared with such force, "HOW DARE YOU THINK THAT IT IS WHAT HAYATE WANTED. SHE WANTED TO ENJOY LIFE AS LONG AS SHE CAN, IF SHE LEARNED WHAT KIND OF SINS THAT HAD OCCURRED BECAUSE OF HER NEED TO LIVE, SHE WOULD NOT HAVE BEEN ABLE TO LIVE WITH HERSELF! HOE DARE YOU THINK OF YOURSELF AS KNOWING WHAT'S BEST FOR HER! TONIGHT I WILL CRUSH YOU AND MAKE YOU SEE THE TRUE FOLLY OF YOUR ERROR SIGNUM!"
As he flew even faster than she did, and then he started using his legs and started kicking her at such a rapid rate that it was astonishing that it came from such a young boy like him. But she was having a hard time trying to dodge all of that and tried to retaliate only to hit nothing.
Then he started to form massive balls of energy and released hundreds of tiny air bullets all zooming towards me. There were too many I cannot dodge them all! Then one air bullet hit and it stung very badly. Then when I notice some of the bullets hitting me, some were like a drill, others were like a chainsaw. …the boy is very cleaver I will give him that much to him.
He seemed far more relentless and far more brutal than he typically is as I felt his kick to my back as he then flew before I could hit him. It seems that comment about our loyalty to Hayate pushed him over the edge and he was fighting, to the best of my knowledge, without any form of restraint right now.
Heck, he even tried stabbing her with the bladed part of the weapon once he gets close enough, and just to make it really annoying he used the teleport ring and the bind ring a lot to slow her down and confuse her. This boy was a very dastardly warrior that has no normal limitation.
Then came one of his newest rings that she never seen before but knew to fear immediately when she heard the chant Divine Buster, Now! She scrambled to get out the way but much to her horror she has been already been bounded by his bind ring once more as she face the green wave.
Good lord, that hurt a lot, scratch that. It hurt really badly, and she wanted to know how the heck did he managed to get that kind of Ring out for usage. Good thing is, he was a bit tired out from his usage of that ring. But her instincts were screaming at her and she barely dodged a magic shot.
From their supposed allies, the masked ones, only that there were two of them staring at her as one of them snapped their fingers. "Damn it we missed our chance to take out the Blazing General." It seems that their temporary ally turned out to be their foe after all.
She could not hope to take them and Yu on, but it seems that he really did not like them at all as he started fighting them off. "Wait boy listen to me we are actually on your side so stop trying to hit us!" one of them tried to scream out, but he wasn't having none of it while she dealt with the other mage right now.
"ANYONE WHO SIDES WITH THE BOOK'S AWAKENING IS NOT MY ALLY OR FRIEND!" He roared at him, "Besides you made yourself to be a backstabber, why should I take your word for it? Only a fool places their trust in a backstabber." He hissed at them, she really could not blame him for that train of thought.
She really hoped that things don't get any more complicated than it already has right now. But she unintentionally asked Murphy to make her life more miserable, and boy did it made her very miserable. As a flaming object headed towards them and all jumped out of its way to safety.
Then out of the crater came out a monster that honestly terrified her to no end, as it came out seething and burning with rage as it every trembled before its might. "Honey. I'm home! And it's time for the slaughter of the century."
Yu could only say several things right now. "Well frack, he's here." A sentiment that she very much agreed with at the current moment.