Author's Notes:

Not a whole lot to say about this. It turned out better than I feared, but worse than I'd hoped. It definitely isn't the quality I'd like to produce after so many months without updating, but I finally had it ready and I figured that I might as well advance the story towards A's.

I'm thinking one purely TSAB chapter, one purely Earth fast-forward chapter, and (maybe) an interlude chapter, and then straight on to A's. Not the world's best pacing, but I don't want to get any more bogged down.


Chapter 11: Day by Day


June 4, 0065


Sometimes, bad things happen to good people. Not everyone deals with pain well.

Quint felt that that was a good summary of Megane's life recently.

"I used to be envious of how large her family was," Quint said sadly, reminiscing on younger, simpler days. "She always had so many people there to support her at her matches… Funny how things turn out."

It was the kind of funny that nobody laughed at.

Genya hummed thoughtfully. "Does she have anyone left who will help her out? From her family, I mean."

"Not really," Quint considered. "I mean, there are probably some relatives of the 'third cousin twice removed' sort, but… between the car crash, the fire, her granny's stroke, her aunt's heart condition, her cousin's imprisonment… Wait, what about… no, I think he's on one of those long deep space assignments… Maybe an uncle, can't remember the name, but I think he lives on a planet way out in the middle of nowhere…" She shrugged. "No one comes to mind."

"Well, we do have a spare bedroom. If you want to offer it to her…"

Quint smiled and gave her husband a peck on the cheek. "I'll talk to her about it in a few months, when she might appreciate it more. You know how she can get."


She had met him after her parents' funeral. Not immediately of course, but after a week or so (she had not been paying much attention to time back then) when she was marginally more capable. She had, she supposed, technically known him for a while as a neighbor, since they lived in the same housing complex, but beyond the normal exchange of meaningless pleasantries they had been nonentities in each other's lives. Moved in different circles – he was in search and rescue – and she had never bothered to get to know them.

So the first time they had really met was when he had recognized her, nearly unconscious, in the nearest bar. He had taken her back to her apartment to sleep it off, and had been surprisingly understanding about her sending him headfirst into a wall upon waking up to find an unfamiliar man sitting next to her bed.

It wasn't a great first impression, but after the first (extremely awkward) conversation they had talked more, and longer, and as time passed and she became more functional, they got to know each other a little.

A couple of weeks later, Megane went back to work, and found that Quint was in the hospital after nearly having her spine severed. It was an injury that Megane could have easily prevented, had she been there. But she hadn't been there. And Quint had paid for it.

(The nightmares started that night.)

There were two bright spots in what, at the time, felt like a dark period of her life, but looking back on it, the results were pretty good for her. The team stopped being Zest and Quint-and-Megane, and became Zest, Quint, and Megane. And Rob became a good friend to her, and eventually to the team. Her friends were… she did not want to say 'crutch', more a… stabilizing influence in her life. She found emotional stability, she cut back on her drinking, and as the months passed, laughter became more common than tears and joys outstripped sorrows.

(But the fear never faded.)

Progress was slow (her therapist disagreed, but it certainly felt slow) but steady. She wanted to overcome her stupid, irrational-

(In our line of work, everyone gets shot down sometimes, and not everyone gets back up.)

-Stupid, irrational weakness and so she forced herself to cope when she couldn't keep her eye on her teammates in battle. Within a few months, she had it stuffed in a distant corner of her mind like her fear of heights was.

(But never gone, just contained. Something she trained herself to ignore, but failed to excise.)

Things got better, though there were still ups and downs. Her family had withered, died, and disintegrated by inches as time passed, and one day she had looked around to find that she was the only one living on Mid-Childa anymore. She did not like to admit it, but there was a hole in her heart that her friends didn't always fill. What was between her and her friends was thicker than water, but it wasn't blood.

(What is wrong with me? Why does it matter? I would die for them, so why does it matter?)

Rob asked her out one day. She agreed, though a little frightened-

(Why am I always afraid?)

-Frightened that things would go sour and their friendship would be destroyed. But it never happened. It was hardly a whirlwind romance, but they grew closer. They did not fall in love as much as they gently drifted down to it, but that in no way diminished it.

They became lovers. Quint and Genya adopted Subaru and Ginga. Zest opened up more and learned to relax. The nightmares became less and less frequent. At work some cases ended badly, but most of the time they were successful. They were placed on the trail of Scaglietti, and while their continued failures were disappointing, they knew it was only a matter of time before Scaglietti made a mistake they could take advantage of.

And then Rob's commander knocked on Megane's door one day, and told her that they should go inside and sit down for this. And then… quietly, kindly laid out the story. She managed to choke back her tears long enough to thank the woman for telling her in person even though she was just his girlfriend. She lost the fight and broke down crying when the woman told Megane that Rob would have wanted her to.

Megane was an utter wreck after that day. Quint and Zest refused to give up on her, working together to make sure she was looking after herself. But where she had made a slow, steady recovery after the death of her parents, she now faltered. Everything from her friends' inexhaustible patience to the despair she felt was a reminder of what she had lost. She felt Rob's absence everywhere, and the bitter similarity of her state to how she had been when they first met was salt on her wounded heart.

(Why am I so weak?)

She forcefully threw herself back into work a mere two weeks later, forcing herself to improve in appearance if not in truth. To a surprising degree, it was effective. When she was sparring with Quint or doing paperwork or backing up Zest as he crushed the defenses of one of Scaglietti's hideouts, she felt better. Not good, but better. She channeled her energy into all of the parts of her life where Rob had been peripheral. Her job and her training, in particular, Rob had never been fully involved in. There were fewer memories turned bitter.

But while to all outside viewers her recovery was swift and fairly complete, Megane knew she had merely patched over her weaknesses. Her pregnancy forced her to acknowledge the black hole of fear and despair in her heart, but she could not just… fix herself. And in spite of knowing that she was fueling a vicious cycle, she couldn't help but hate herself for her failure.

(What kind of mother am I?)

Zest, Quint, Genya, Subaru, Ginga… they became a lifeline. They were strong where she was weak. Like the sun, it hurt to look at them, and it burned when she got too close, but she could not live without them. She shied away, but allowed them to pull her in. If she told them of her troubles, her fears, her pregnancy, her self-loathing, her life would be easier and better. She would have help, help that she desperately wanted, but… wasn't it safer to manage on her own? No, that was stupid. They weren't going to die or anything.

(I hope.)

She'll tell them tomorrow.

After all, she can trust them with anything.

(She just has to trust them.)

She'll tell them in the morning.

(The nightmares always change her mind.)

It never happens. There's always a reason not to, and as much as she wants to let them in she wants to keep them out. But Quint finds out anyway because she's Quint and her life can't go out of control because it was never in control so it just goes out of control in another direction. But it is better? Maybe? It should be definitely, but Megane can't find her footing.

(How do Zest and Quint keep theirs?)

When am I going to stop being afraid?


Megane set aside her pen, and looked at the two and a half pages of writing on the table in front of her with disgust. Writing in a journal was supposed to help her get perspective or something, but she didn't really think it helped much. Admittedly, she had not really listened when the therapist had told her about this stuff, and she hadn't seen him in a couple of years, and she was pretty sure she was doing it wrong. But first person always sounded so whiny. With a snort, she crumpled the pages up, tossed them in the air, and vaporized each with a magical projectile.

Rule one of being Quint's friend: never, ever leave anything embarrassing lying around. This definitely qualified.

Yielding to the inevitable, she turned her attention back to what had prompted her writing. Megane fiddled uncomfortably with her planner, one of her few non-virtual organizing tools. She stared at the date circled in pencil. It was the next time Harlaown was scheduled to be in charge of the night shift, and thus the next time Quint and Zest would have a free evening to spend with her.

Before she could talk herself out of it, she sent a message to the clinic to set up her next appointment for that day.

"…Now I just have to ask them to come with me," she spoke aloud to herself with forced cheer. "Easy enough, right?" If only.

When am I going to stop being afraid?

Megane glared at the pen she had written with, then gave up the effort. Inanimate objects were very resistant to intimidation.

"Might as well start now," she said reluctantly.

She grabbed her device and her keys and set off for work. On the way out the door, she lobbed the pen towards the trash can out of petty spite.

She missed.


"Nervous?" Arf asked somewhat rhetorically. "Don't worry, you'll do fine. Just stick to the story, and don't hesitate to use telepathy if you need help."

Fate nodded. "Please take care of Bardiche for me," she said, handing her familiar the device.

"He'll be in tip-top shape in no time," Arf promised.

"Now remember the plan," Shirou said. "If you are attacked, put a barrier in place immediately, and get outside of the building as fast as possible. It is much easier to explain away impossible disappearances than shooting energy blasts. Also-"

Arisa interrupted nervously. "You don't really expect an attack, do you?"

"No, but it can't hurt to be ready."

Suzuka called out from the street: "I can see the bus!"

Momoko quickly finished handing out lunches to the assembled children. Nanoha, Fate, Yuuno, Suzuka and Arisa would be arriving as a group today, so Arisa as class president could help ease the two newcomers into school life. Which mostly meant 'keep people from questioning Fate and Yuuno too closely'.

"All of you have our numbers, so don't hesitate to call," Momoko instructed. "Try to have fun, and stay safe."

"Bye Mom, bye Dad!" Nanoha chirped on the way out the door, Fate following with a shy wave. Yuuno and Arisa, spurred on by Suzuka's increasingly hurried cries, quickly pursued.

They joined Suzuka on the sidewalk, and quickly made their way to the bus stop, arriving just in time. They piled in and spent the ride in silence. There wasn't much to say – or perhaps there was nothing to say that could be said on a bus. Either way, they sat there quietly.

Riding the bus to school, watching cars and pedestrians going through their daily motions, the three Japanese girls found the normality strange after the preceding events. The world had narrowly avoided destruction, the city had even more narrowly avoided being wiped off the map, and there were still over a hundred people missing, not to mention the thousands (or millions, according to some estimates) of tons of hill country that had been misplaced… and yet it was business as usual.

They didn't know if that was a good thing or a bad thing.

It was an oddly familiar sight to Yuuno as well, both because he had passed through Cranagan from time to time, and because he had seen everything before as a ferret. Being able to see Uminari as a human without having to sneak around while being more than a foot long was… different, yet similar. He ran over his 'biography' a few more times in his head. People probably wouldn't start asking questions if his story wasn't quite consistent, that was one advantage to being nine years old, but no sense taking chances.

Fate stared quietly at her bag the entire time, and tried not to think about being trapped without her device, surrounded by strangers, in a moving metal-and-glass cage that was surrounded by hundreds, no, thousands of other similar deathtraps, none of which she had any control over. She didn't even have a seatbelt, like in the Takamachi's car. She was quite proud that she didn't even scream once on the way to school.

Soon enough, all too soon, or perhaps not nearly soon enough, they arrived.


"My name is Fate Testarossa."

'Am I doing something wrong? Everyone is staring at me.'

'No, they're just interested in you because you're adorable,' Nanoha assured her, causing her face to flush. 'You're doing great.'

"My Guardian and I have moved here recently, and the Takamachi family has been kind enough to allow us to stay with them. Please take care of me." Fate bowed to the class and did her best not to meet anyone's eyes.

Yuuno stepped up beside Fate. "My name is Yuuno Scrya. I am also staying with the Takamachi family. Please take care of me." He bowed.

The teacher was swiftly persuaded by Arisa's well thought out suggestions (and absolutely not by the fact that her family was filthy, filthy rich and she was a rather terrifying little girl when she wanted to be) and once Arisa's competent nine-year-old claws grasped the seating chart the class was dictatorially shuffled around so the five of them were in the back-left corner of the room, such that Nanoha, Arisa, and Suzuka had desks that put them between Fate and Yuuno and the rest of the class.

Soon the lesson was underway. The first subject? Mathematics, or so it was claimed. Fate and Yuuno exchanged glances upon seeing the rudimentary algebra on the board.

Well, at least they were assured of good grades.


When she got to the Arthra, Megane found Zest and Quint already at work. "Ah, sorry I'm late," she said sheepishly.

"Traffic?" Quint asked.

"Yeah, there was a wreck on the overpass." Megane hesitated. "…Would you guys like to come with me to my next check-up?"

"Sure!" Quint chirped immediately.

"If you would like me to, certainly," Zest said with a smile.

Megane paused to register that, chuckled, and gave Quint a hug. Zest wasn't big on physical contact, so she decided to spare him one.

"You two always leave me worried about nothing," Megane huffed good-naturedly when she let go.

Quint rolled her eyes. "You know we would never refuse. You worry too much. Just tell us when and where."

And that was that.


Chrono grabbed a few hours of sleep once Nakajima and Grangeitz arrived, and he felt much more human when he returned.

By his personal, and admittedly unrealistically high, standards, the case was moving far too slowly, and he wished that he could have spent the past couple of hours more productively, but given the importance of this case Chrono knew it was better to lose a few hours of daylight and be rested than to miss an important clue due to tiredness. Still, he mourned the loss.

The three investigators were talking among themselves when he entered the shared workspace, though Nakajima left her teammates upon seeing him.

"Sorry to make you wait," Chrono apologized.

"No apology necessary," Nakajima waved the thought away. "I've got my notes," she fingered her device, "and if we hurry we should arrive at about the same time as the Liese twins. You got everything you want?"

Chrono nodded. "I'm good to go."

"Then let's not keep them waiting."


Spells snap out one after another, magic forming small packets and launching as quickly as she can manage. Testing, probing, trying to work past the shimmering plane of hexagons, Nanoha flitted about, never staying in one place for more than a second. If she could keep it up, remain on the offensive…

A tricky bit of timing allowed Nanoha to converge eight balls of mystical plasma on the same point of the shield. There was a moment where the opposing forces clashed, then Nanoha's attack broke through to hit the target behind it.

Nanoha frowned. 'Are you sure about that shield strength, Raising Heart?'

'Uncertain,' the device responded. 'My analysis suggests that Precia's consistent use of attacks to counter Divine Buster indicates comparatively weak defenses. Data is limited, but I am confident that such an attack would have an effect.'

Nanoha hummed a mental acceptance. If Raising Heart thought so, the feminine device was probably right. But Nanoha didn't feel that this was sufficient improvement. That little trick was definitely going in her playbook, but it alone wasn't likely to win a fight with Precia. She needed to increase her control and number of bullets, and ideally make her attacks faster. And if she used mana-collection as much as possible, that would help compensate for the overwhelming surplus of raw power Precia had.

Well, she had an idea that might help with at least a few of those things.

'Could you open a workspace, pleas?' Nanoha asked. Obligingly, her field of vision flickered and changed. 'Thank you. I want to make a new spell. I'll need the formulas for Starlight Breaker and Divine Shooter please.'

'Yes, my master. What do you wish to name this program?'

Nanoha considered. Nanoha considered 'Starlight Shooter.'


Hayate set aside Signum's gifts (Sun-Tsu's The Art of War and Hersey and Blanche's Situational Leadership) and smiled at the knight. She was very proud of herself for not giggling at how very Signum the gifts were. As she scratched Zafira's wolf form behind the ears she looked at her family.

"Thank you for everything, but you really didn't have to go to so much effort for me," she protested weakly. She was too buoyant at the moment to effectively chide them in any way, and she was actually quite pleased with what they had done, so the knights were completely unrepentant.

"To us, you are the most important person in existence," Signum said. Zafira waffled in wordless agreement.

Hayate took a moment to register that, because it was said with such absolute normality that she could not immediately understand it. Who just drops a bombshell like 'Say the word and we will conquer the world for you' or 'You are the only person on this planet that we actually care about' or 'If we kill enough people we will probably manage to find enough Linker Cores eventually and then you would probably be able to fix your legs and, by the way, that war torn country in Africa would probably never miss several hundred thousand people'? Signum, that's who. At least once a day. Well, to be fair, she never actually said it like that, but Hayate could read between the lines.

And there was a horrible realization in the fact that even if Signum wasn't implying that (which Hayate was very sure she was) the Wolkenritter would literally do anything she told them to do.

Anything.

The worst part was that Signum didn't seem to be a sociopath, or whatever sort of 'path' it was that cared obsessively about very few people and not at all for everyone else. Signum had empathy. She didn't act the way she did because that was how she was, she acted that way because she felt she should. And Hayate didn't understand why.

Looking over to the kitchen to distract herself, she watched Vita and Shamal as they made onigiri in preparation for lunch. Hayate was a little worried about that, but she had taught them to make onigiri before. Sure, they made a horrible mess of things the first time they tried… well, anything… but once they learned how to do something they never had the same problems again.

Different problems, of course, were entirely possible.


It was the first break of the school day, which meant that it was interrogation time. Arisa had attached herself to Fate like glue, which was probably the only thing keeping the poor girl from having a nervous breakdown. Fate was nice, pretty, nervous, and obviously foreign-looking, which more or less equated interesting. So while Yuuno had four or five children asking him questions, Fate had most of the class.

"Back off!" Arisa scowled. "One question at a time!"

Nanoha watched to see if she needed to do anything, but Arisa soon had the situation well in hand.

"Ah, Nanoha?" One of her classmates asked. "What happened to your arm?"

Nanoha froze. She had, somehow, nearly forgotten about that. She looked down and, yes, the splint was visible underneath her uniform, though not nearly as visible as a cast would have been. She rubbed the back of her neck and suppressed the urge to laugh nervously.

"Ah, it got banged up, so I can't use it for much right now. It'll be fine in a couple of weeks, I think." Please don't ask more, please don't ask more please don't ask more-

"That's good, it would bad if you couldn't do sports for the rest of the summer."

Oh thank goodness.

"So how did those two end up living at your place?"

Nanoha told more lies in the following fifteen minutes than she had in the previous five years.


"Are the walls… moving?" Quint asked uncertainly, once they were high enough up not to be overheard by the librarians. It was very slow, but… She wrenched her eyes away and looked back to the Liese twins.

"Oh, is this your first time here?" the catgirl with the shorter hair (Lotte, Quint reminded herself) sympathized. "Yeah, it can be a bit disconcerting. This place is practically a Lost Logia."

"By which she means that the only reason it isn't is that the TSAB had it commissioned… several decades ago at this point, I think." The long-haired one (Aria) said. "The architect was one of those half-insane genius types. So not only does this place grow as books get added to it, it somehow adds books and bookshelves all by itself. Not to mention the way everything in here ignores gravity."

Quint flinched at the reminder, involuntarily looking down. She was not afraid of heights, but it was very uncomfortable to know that your ability to not fall to your doom was entirely dependent on something beyond your control. The floor below her was far enough away that if whatever floating power this place had failed she would probably break a bone or two. Well, obviously she would cast Wing Road if that happened, but it still wasn't very nice to think about.

"So why aren't we looking through the stacks on the ground?" Quint asked. The nice, literally nailed down bookcases on the floor of the library were where she would have wanted to start.

"Because those are actually in some semblance of order," Aria replied. "The librarians can look through those much faster than we can. But some of the shelves up here have never even been touched, much less sorted."

The ground mage wrinkled her nose. "So, just out of curiosity, Harlaown, what are the chances that there's something useful in here?" Quint asked the Enforcer floating beside her.

Harlaown shrugged. "The chance that there is something useful? Almost certain. The chance of us finding it? Significantly smaller. This place literally has a copy of every non-classified document ever handled by the TSAB, every academic paper and book published on the Administered Worlds since the creation of the library, and quite a bit of other things that fits whatever criteria the Infinity Library uses when it does whatever it does to get its hands on these books. So, on the plus side, we have all of the written knowledge of dozens and dozens of worlds. On the minus side…"

"…We have to search through all of it." Quint finished.

The four of them looked around. While the floor could be seen far below them and the ceiling far above them, and the side of the building they had entered from was only a few hundred meters behind them, before them and off to the sides there were bookshelves as far as the eye could see. Either the Infinity Library was big enough to have a horizon or the space inside was twisted enough to imitate one. Quint wasn't sure which possibility was worse.

"Well, we might as well get started."


"We're ready to go!" Shamal announced cheerfully as she finished the final onigiri and put it in the box with the others. Vita put the lid on and picked it up. It was large enough to cause the girl trouble, were she human, but since she wasn't she didn't even have to put any effort into it.

Signum rose to her feet and nudged Zafira into motion as Shamal packed a few last minute odds and ends into her purse.

"So, off to the park?" Hayate asked Signum.

Signum suppressed a grimace. Hayate was deferring to her. Again. She thought longingly of dimly-recollected battles in war-torn lands when she had a simple objective and a clear chain of command. Picking up on her thoughts, Zafira whacked her leg with his tail and gave her a disapproving look.

"That's the plan," Signum smiled at Hayate, suitably chastened. She shouldn't think such things. After all, this kind of peace was ideal for Hayate, and that was all that mattered.

Hayate, not being as unobservant as Signum might have wished, sighed. She was obviously going to have to do something, but as good as she was at understanding what Signum was saying, that did no good if Signum didn't talk to her about the problem. She might be spending every waking (and, now that she thought about it, sleeping) moment with her new family, but they were still so new, there was so much she didn't know, didn't understand.

An odd, but increasingly familiar, sensation let her know that another page in the Book was being filled. She rubbed the Book's cover absently with her thumb, and wondered idly when the Book had snuck back onto her lap again. If it could speak, what stories would it tell?

She was almost afraid to find out. But whatever her family's past might be, they were here with her now, and that was all that mattered.


It was lunchtime, so the five of them headed up to the roof to eat. Nanoha, Suzuka, and Arisa had made a habit of eating there for several reasons, the most relevant for today being that relatively few students were willing to go up all of those flights of stairs. This allowed them a good amount of privacy.

"…I'm still having trouble with all of the spices people on this planet use." Fate admitted as she slowly worked her way through her rather plain meal. "Linith did her best, but she could only do so much with all of the food stores in the Garden being canned, preserved, or frozen. When Arf and I first arrived on Earth, I made the mistake of tasting that green, paste-like substance that goes with sushi-"

"Wasabi," Suzuka supplied.

"Yes, that was it," Fate smiled at the dark-haired girl, then shuddered at the memory. "It was not a pleasant experience."

"How about you, Yuuno?" Arisa asked between mouthfuls.

"I've been all over the place, so I've eaten similar foods before," Yuuno said. "As far as I'm concerned, most food is good. I can't stand insects though."

"Insects?" Suzuka asked dubiously. "Like cicadas?"

"No, there's no real point in eating insects unless they're at least the size of your hand. There has to be enough flesh under the exoskeleton to make it worthwhile." Yuuno made a face. "Regardless, I wouldn't recommend it. Earth has pretty good food, though there's an awful lot of rice."

"That's because we mostly eat Asian food," Arisa informed him. "There's a fair bit of variety between cultures. English food has a lot of meat and potatoes, while food from continental Europe has more breads and pastas. Indian food generally has lots of spices, though it isn't always spicy. I'm not sure about Africa and the Americas… Anyway, there's lots of stuff. Pretty much every country and region has a specialty of some sort."

"Even Antarctica?" Suzuka asked 'innocently'.

"Fried penguin." Arisa said without missing a beat.

"Ah, I really need to learn more about Earth's geography," Fate apologized. "I don't know where those places are."

"Don't worry too much about it," Suzuka advised. "Nanoha can show you a map later."

Nanoha blinked at the sound of her name. "…Ah, yes, just remind me when we get home."

Arisa poked her. "Stop zoning out! What's up with you?"

"Nothing!" Nanoha insisted. "I'm fine."

Yuuno frowned thoughtfully. This seemed familiar- Wait a minute. Yuuno leaned over and looked into Nanoha's eyes, ignoring her protests. And sure enough, there was pink tracery glowing in her pupils. "Are you running a simulation?" He asked incredulously.

"No, I haven't finished streamlining Starlight Shooter yet," Nanoha replied unthinkingly. "I've managed to get it working, but I really want to make sure it is as close to the level of Divine Shooter as I can make it. I want to optimize my efficiency, but not at the expense of combat utility. Maybe if I-" her brain caught up with her mouth and she looked around. Yuuno had his head in his hands, Fate looked interested, Suzuka had a deadpan look on her face, and Arisa was twitching uncontrollably. "I get the feeling I did something wrong, but I'm not sure what."

Arisa smiled. It was not a nice smile. "Allow me to educate you on the proper time and place for such pursuits. Hint: not while talking to your friends." She loomed malevolently over Nanoha and yanked on one of her pigtails. "And another thing…"

Fate shivered. "Arisa is scary."

Suzuka smiled and patted her hand consolingly. "Don't worry, she's not really dangerous, she's just a tsundere."

Yuuno and Fate looked at her blankly.

Suzuka sighed. "Ah, right, magical people from other planets. We really need to introduce you to the wonders of anime."


Doctor Sachie Ishida, head of neurology at Uminari University Hospital, was pleased to find that her fears about Hayate's suddenly appearing relatives were unfounded. Well, she still was not entirely convinced that they were actually related to each other, much less her patient, but she had no proof and no reason to do anything with her suspicions. She was a doctor, not a detective. And after seeing Hayate alone for the past few years she was relieved to see someone care about and for her.

"So you plan to stay here permanently?" Ishida asked Shamal.

"Mm," Shamal swallowed her mouthful before answering. "Yes, we don't intend to let her go back to living alone. She has looked after herself quite well, but she's much too young to be forced to do so, especially when she can't walk. We've tried to contact her guardian, but Mr. Graham has… well, we haven't heard from him since the…"

Shamal gestured skyward, and Ishida nodded in understanding.

"We're hoping he's alright, but he is getting on in years and…"

"You fear the worst," Ishida said understandingly.

"Yes. There has not yet been any change to the funds he provides Hayate with, but given the situation we have to assume that there will be no more forthcoming." Shamal sighed. "It would be nice to be proven wrong, and we have no solid reason to believe otherwise, but Hayate is too important to us to take that chance. Once Hayate's house is repaired we will see what we can do about finding work in the area."

The doctor smiled. "I'm glad you are willing to go to such lengths to help her. I'm not really supposed to have favorites, but I do like Hayate. She's just such a sweet girl. It's nice to see her so much more upbeat than usual."

Shamal smiled broadly. "That's good to hear. It's hard to know how she's really feeling sometimes, because she internalizes a lot of it."

Ishida smiled back. She really was liking these 'relatives' more and more.


Megane groaned in disgust as she pulled up another wall of text. "This is ridiculous."

Privately, Zest couldn't help but agree. "We can be fairly sure the data is complete, at least." He offered, trying to put a better spin on it.

"There is such a thing as having too much information on a person of interest." Megane hissed. "I never thought that it would happen, but it has. At this rate we won't finish this investigation for another decade. We need more people! Two is not enough, especially considering that we also have to assist the Arthra, regularly meet with both navy brass and ground forces brass, and help out with the non-secret half of this case!"

The impressive part about Megane's rant was that she did not even pause in her work to give it.

Zest sighed. "I will try to get a team of accounts assigned to look into Admiral Graham's finances. We can pass that off as routine, so I can probably sell it to our superiors. Would that help?"

"I've been drowning in tax law for the past eight hours. At this point I would take a team of drunken squirrels." Megane paused, then groaned. "If we do get those accountants, I just wasted my time today, didn't I?"

Zest had been thinking the same thing, but knew better than to agree out loud.


"We're home!" Nanoha called out as she passed into the entryway, Yuuno and Fate following behind her.

"Welcome home," Momoko answered. "How was your first day?" She asked Yuuno and Fate.

"I don't think there were any problems," Yuuno shrugged.

Fate nodded. "Arisa helped keep the students from asking me too many questions."

Momoko smiled. "Good to hear, but what I really meant was 'Did you have a good time?'"

Fate thought about it. "I guess? It was less scary than I expected, being in a room with so many people I didn't know. …I didn't have a bad time."

Yuuno agreed. "Some of the classes were interesting, but I already know a lot of the material."

"Ambivalence is perfectly alright," Momoko assured them. "Goodness knows I wasn't always eager to go to school when I was your age. Let me know if anything is troubling you. Now, why don't you go see Arf? I think she finished with Bardiche, but she should still be out back."


Quint suddenly halted her search spell, catching the attention of the other three mages.

"What is it? Did you find something?" Lotte asked.

"No, something just occurred to me," Quint said contemplatively. "So, the Infinity Library collects all of these books, modifies itself to store them, and blatantly disregards the laws of physics… but it doesn't sort itself? Or have a catalogue? Or some way to help it serve as a functioning library rather than a giant filing cabinet?"

"Oh, it uses a very simple sorting method," Aria informed her dryly. "It stores the books in the order it collects them. New books are in the back, old ones are in the front. So, technically yes, but it doesn't help us in the slightest. The librarians have a good system going, but that only helps with the books they've managed to sort. No catalogue either, sorry."

Quint sighed, and moved on to the next shelf.


When Hayate and the Wolkenritter got back to the apartment, the sun had set. The food had been good (and not poisoned, and nobody had noticed Shamal checking), they had made a good impression on Dr. Ishida (and with minimal outright lies), and Hayate was happy with everything, including her presents.

And nothing had exploded.

All in all, the Wolkenritter were quite pleased with how everything turned out.

Once inside, Hayate called them to her, one by one, and gave each of them a hug.

"Thank you for being here," she whispered.

"…Never want to be anywhere else," Vita spoke for them, cheeks burning.

And it was the truth.

(And hours later, in the depths of the night, as Signum stared sleeplessly skyward, thinking. Not all problems could be solved with Laevatein's edge.)

[And if the Book of Darkness could speak, the story it would tell might be this: If you are lucky what you don't know will only kill you.]

[but it isn't lucky and it can't speak and no matter how loud it SCREAMS no one will hear it until the end of the world]

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