There was a long drawn out pause after Carim finished explaining the chain of events as Hayate had told her long ago. Olivie was glad that she had taken a seat as advised by the other woman earlier. "T-that all happened…? It's too hard to believe…!"

"That's rather understandable. I wasn't certain what to believe myself when we first heard several years ago that the Master of the Book and the Wolkenritter would be moving to this world. We weren't sure what to make of them since our archives did carry some information about the Buch der Dunkelheit," said the Saint Church Director. "We kept our distance at first until we saw Hayate and her Knights work hard to serve the community over the years. It was enough to help quash our doubts and put our trust in them."

"You were familiar with their deeds?" asked Olivie.

"As the modern observers of all aspects of Ancient Belkan history and culture, members of the Saint Church are familiar with prominent figures and Lost Logia from that time frame. The Buch der Dunkelheit was quite infamous."

She frowned for a moment as she searched her memories for a religion that matched the description given to her. "Saint Church? I don't recall any such religion in my time."

"The Church is actually a successor group to the Yevon movement that started on Shutra at least a year before the end of the Unification War," explained Carim.

"Yevon…? So that's how it is…" She recalled that at that time period, the regular villages that were located in the immediate surrounding territory of Ingvalt's castle got battered by disastrous weather which caused major disruptions to farming season. It was enough to get her and Claus to make regular trips to various communities. While the Hegemon would be primarily responsible for overlooking relief efforts, she taught valuable life lessons to prevent the people from falling to their negative emotions. The continuous boosting of spirits over the months had led to the Yevon movement in which the affected villages that received those life lessons spread it to others.

"Indeed. At the end of the War when the Kaiser's final fate was discovered, the movement was reorganized into a proper religion and took the Sankt Kaiser as a messiah figure to worship."

Those last words then registered in Olivie's mind. "Wait a second… you mean?"

"Yes, you are essentially God," said Carim in that calm tone and a smile worthy of a nun.

"… … huh…" A beat… and then a sigh. "I bet that somehow, Claus had a hand in making me like that…"

"Ingvalt did have some influence in the Church's first year. But in any case, now that you understand the history of the Church, you should also understand that as the current Saint Church Director… I, Carim Gracia, can confirm that the Guardian Knights serve the side of righteousness." It seemed that right now, the Saint Church Director had things under control which helped to calm down Hayate's nerves. Ever since that other woman had entered the office, Signum and Vita had been keeping a close eye on her. Their body language indicated a sense of tension, probably because of the accusations that had been thrown at them earlier.

"I want to believe you," started Olivie. "… but if you have seen what I have seen, then you would find it difficult to believe they can change so easily."

Hayate was the first to find her voice to break the silence that followed the other woman's words. "What did you see…?"

"I clearly remember an extremely stormy day on Shutra. A village that was close to the Northern border had sent out a request for help due to their dam being overwhelmed by the storm waters which started flooding the farm lands. A small garrison had been dispatched to provide some relief to the people. While on my way back from a war conference, I decided to make a detour to that village and lend whatever support I could give. The poor weather and the muddy roads that my steed had trouble going through had played a role in my late arrival to that village."

The Lieutenant Colonel blinked in surprise. "A steed? You couldn't just fly there?"

"Shutra's environment had an effect on the flow of magic. Flying on the planet expended more energy than it was worth so ground transportation was the norm there," explained Carim quickly to Hayate.

"When I got there, I found many corpses among the wrecked village. Men, women, children, and the Hegemon's soldiers… even all the village livestock. And among the wreckage, I saw a glimpse of the perpetrators that were up ahead before they teleported away. At that point, I knew who they were and when I saw the results of their mission with my own eyes, an angry fire burned in my heart." She paused before turning her glare towards Hayate's Knights. "Tell me… do you remember how many pages those lives were worth?"

"Every time we appear before a new master, we lose all our memories of the previous summoning," said Signum in her usual calm tone.

This caused the other woman to smile coldly. "How convenient. With no memory, you don't carry the burden of your original sins."

Vita growled and had to be restrained by her fellow Knight. "You damned…!"

"W-wait…! Those men were soldiers! They should know that wherever they get deployed that there's a risk of death! That's… that's what happens in a war zone!" Hayate had learned that lesson the hard way during the JS incident over a year and a half ago.

"Dying in the name of king and country is one thing. But to die a meaningless death for being in the wrong place at the wrong time while trying to aid disaster victims…" Her hands unconsciously formed fists as she trembled in frustration. "If I didn't try to seek retribution when their killers are in front of me, how can I face those men in the afterlife?"

"If your doubts plague you this badly, then I have no choice." In a flash, Signum summoned her sheathed Armed Device into her hand. "We shall settle this in traditional Belkan fashion: a trial by combat."

The other woman seemed pleased by that option. "My fists against your sword? I have no objection to that."

Hayate didn't like where this was going. "Why are you going through with this? Carim already explained-"

"If it is true in regards to this Knight living honestly and with compassion and warmth, then it will be reflected in her blade. After all, the true nature of a person can be found in battle." Olivie paused before chuckling bitterly. "Considering all the time that I spent in Shutra, I thought by now that I would be wise enough to think rationally and confirm the truth. And yet, I still rely on my fists to show me the way."

"… … then it can't be helped. Let us set some ground rules before you engage in your battle," said the Saint Church Director. "Hayate, please have Mr. Scrya meet us at Arena Four. I believe his barrier talents would be most useful in preventing excess damage."

"You're going along with this, Carim?"

"Considering that they're going to go through that trial by combat whether we like it or not …" A weary glance showed that both Signum and Olivie had inadvertently summoned a magical aura around their bodies in anticipation of battle. "It's best to try and keep things under control."

With both Carim and Hayate throwing their weight around thanks to their high military ranks, it wasn't too difficult to secure a location for the trial to take place. The combat training simulator that they got was roughly the same size as the arena where the Battle Tactics Symposium took place a while back. Considering the nature of one of the trial participants, security was tight with only a selected number of people cleared by Hayate to witness the event that would take place.

At the moment, everyone was assembled in the control room. Aside from the two participants in the trial, Hayate had summoned Yuuno and Shamal to lend their assistance as a Barrier Expert and as the Chief Medical Officer respectively. To say that they were surprised by Olivie's presence was an understatement but Hayate promised that she would explain things later to them so they kept quiet at the moment.

Shamal found being in this room a bit more unnerving, especially with the way that woman, who looked like a grown up version of Vivio, looked at her. Hopefully, this particular event wouldn't take too long and she can get back to her normal business.

"Contenders will start with visual contact 200 metres away from each other," began Hayate as she started laying down some ground rules. "The chosen battleground will be a basic open field so Yuuno-kun, if you please?"

"Sure." With the flick of the switch, the previously bare metal room changed into a grassy field complete with a blue sky and bright sun.

"You… recreated the land so easily? This is…" For a moment, Olivie looked like a kid who had witnessed the coolest thing ever.

He did his best to stay focused on Hayate and ignored the urge to start asking questions to the woman who resembled the last Sankt Kaiser. "I've finished setting up barriers around the simulator as well."

"Will these barriers hold properly?" asked Carim.

"Trust me; he's good with that sort of thing," said Hayate with a smile. "He kept damage to a minimum during that 5 on 5 Belka versus Mid battle when we were kids. Ah, those were good times!"

"I only remember passing out because of everyone going at maximum power without giving me a heads up," grumbled Yuuno.

"My hat got busted."

"At least your hat was still in one piece at the end, Vita," said Shamal as memories flooded back to her. "Mine got totally blown off! Although I did find it funny seeing some of Signum's hair stand up like that."

"I'm glad you found that amusing," replied Signum in a flat tone.

"Let's not get off track here! Anyways, how many rounds should there be? What will the time limit be per round?" Hayate snapped her fingers just as she remembered something else. "What about Life Points? Are we sticking with 3,000 per fighter? And we didn't even set spell damage parameters to calculate effects!"

"Why are you making it so complicated?" asked Olivie from her spot.

"Eh?"

"I don't exactly know all this Life Point stuff and how you compute damage calculation but back in my day, there are only two rules in a fair trial by combat. One is that it ends when the opponent surrenders or is completely incapacitated and two, no blows that are lethal in nature. There, that's it!"

"Uh…"

"That works for me," said Signum.

"… fine, we'll do it that way but Shamal will be on stand by for any serious injuries." Carim hoped that this would allow them to get things going. "If you two are ready, please step through the door to the field."

The two silently left the control room and made their way to their respective starting positions. On her end, Signum summoned her usual Knight Garments and her device, Laevatein. In a smooth motion, she withdrew the sword from the scabbard and waited for her opponent.

"Realize, Ehrgeiz!" The dress that Olivie wore vanished to allow the blue battle garments to settle around her body before silver metallic armour formed around her chest area and silver footwear covered her feet. Each arm had a gauntlet, made out of the same silver metallic material as the armour, phase in and wrap itself around the appendage with the length running from just above her elbows to the tips of her fingers. Her blonde hair was tied in a tight bun thanks to a rather large blue ribbon.

With her armour settled and in place, she got into her stance. Her left leg up, her left arm stretched out with the palm facing skywards while her right arm was bent back so that the back of her right palm hung near her face. "Sankt Kaiser, Olivie Segbrecht—attacks!"

Signum held up her blade just as her opponent charged at her with a burst of speed to rival that of Testarossa. "That is well. Knight of the Sword, Signum Yagami meets battle—!"

One would think that the orientation session with their new combat instructor would go pretty easily. A simple breakdown of what they would learn over the next few weeks plus a light session to show off what abilities they had to their teacher.

Instead, they were all subjected to a gruelling training session in a combat training simulator where their objective was to tag their teacher with whatever they had in order to end the exercise. It sounded simple enough. But considering said teacher was the infamous Ace of Aces, that task proved to be most difficult.

"Come on, this can't be all that you have!"

'That damned devil…' was the shared thought of most of the new students. With the amount of intense training that she often gave to her recruits, it was easy to see how she earned that other nickname of the White Devil. Unless they had a stroke of luck soon, she was going to work them to the ground for the next thirty minutes and pretty much leave them all exhausted.

Fortunately for them, Lady Luck did smile their way. Just as someone made a last ditch effort to use an attack spell, a tremor was felt through out the simulator for a brief moment. This caused the trajectory of the spell to shift just enough to graze the tip of one of her hairs.

"D-did we…?"

Nanoha gave a small smile as she made her descent and deactivated both Raising Heart and her Aggressive Mode Barrier Jacket. "I got tagged so today's exercise ends in your victory. And because you all did so well and gave it your hardest, I'll let you off early today!"

A tired but joyful cheer came from the students. "Thank you, Instructor!"

While they shuffled off the field to head for the showers, Nanoha sent a telepathic call to the building's administrative centre. "Excuse me?"

"Yes, Captain Takamachi?"

"I felt a light tremor a few seconds ago in Combat Training Simulator A. Can you pinpoint where that might have originated?"

"Just a moment…" There was a pause until the operator got back to the Captain. "That apparently came from Combat Training Simulator B."

Nanoha's eyes widened as she realized that was right next door to her own simulator. "Who's in there?"

"The only information I have here regarding that chamber is that a combat evaluation is being run there under the supervision of Major General Carim Gracia and Lieutenant Colonel Hayate Yagami. There's no further information such as who is participating in the exam."

"Thank you." Shutting off the telepathic connection, Nanoha stood in the middle of the chamber to collect her thoughts.

Were they people she knew? Maybe she could talk Hayate-chan into getting those powerhouse recruits into her class. After all, in order to create tremors that even she could feel from her spot must mean that there were very powerful combatants in that room going at it inside. It was exciting just wondering what powerful mages those new exam participants could turn out to be.

With that thought in mind, she swiftly headed towards the exit so she could try and catch the action. There was no way that she would let a chance like this to grab new students pass up!

"It's hard to believe that second grade is almost over! We had so much fun over the school year," exclaimed Vivio as she headed to the school gates after the end of another school day at St. Hilde Academy of Magic.

"That's true," replied Corona Timil who walked beside her. "Did you decide what you wanted to do?"

"Hm?"

"For your sorcery classes next year! I've gotten an idea of what I want to try but I wanted to know if you have something yet."

Vivio paused for a moment as she considered it. "I'm not sure what I want to do or what can I do. I want to try so many different things…" She trailed off as she saw her Saint Church escort for the day, a person with short brown hair and dressed in a butler uniform, waiting for her at the gate.

"Greetings, Your Majesty. Miss Corona."

Vivio's cheeks puffed out. "Isn't there anyway I can get you to stop calling me 'Your Majesty', Otto?"

"Unless another member of your bloodline appears, then no," replied the cross-dressing Number with a small smile.

"Then I wish someone like that could appear so that I can be a normal elementary school student!" shouted the young Takamachi with a fist pumped into the air for dramatic emphasis.

Otto carefully masked her amusement. "Are you done? We have to head back to your mother's office and it's going to be a long trip."

"Ah, yes! Mama's promised that we'll go out for dinner today after she finishes work!" Vivio went up ahead before waving goodbye to her friend. "I'll see you at school tomorrow, Corona!"

"Take care! See you tomorrow!"

"So Mom's fighting someone right now?" asked Touma as he followed Subaru towards the Combat Training Simulator.

"I really am sorry for letting things get out of hand," said the Corporal in apology. "I couldn't have imagined why she picked a fight with First Lieutenant Signum."

"This Signum… is she really strong?"

She nodded once as memories flew back of that graduation duel between the Forwards and their seniors. "Oh, yes. She's really good at dishing out a lot of damage and enduring anything that comes at her."

"Ah, cool. I'm glad that Mom's able to finally go all out on someone." Upon noticing the somewhat odd look from his escort, the boy went on to explain. "There's no way she would be able to get a proper workout if I'm her sparring partner. I'm not good enough yet."

'She's finally able to go all out? Just how strong is that woman…?' Subaru never really paid too much attention to history. All she remembered from her elementary school history lessons was that the Sankt Kaiser's strength had virtually no equal.

"Subaru?"

The familiar voice of her idol snapped Subaru out of her thoughts. "Nanoha-san? What are you doing here? I thought you were still with your class!"

"We finished early since they worked extra hard so I have a little bit of spare time on my hands and when I heard that Hayate-chan was running some sort of combat test in the Simulator next door, I wanted to take a look!" The tactical instructor then noticed the child. "Who's that boy with you?"

"Um… I'm Touma Avenir."

"Ooh, aren't you a cute one? I'm Nanoha Takamachi."

"It's a pleasure to meet you, Miss Takamachi," replied the boy politely.

Nanoha had to bury the urge to pinch his cheeks or ruffle his head and instead focused back on her former subordinate. "So where did he come from?"

"Administrated World 3: Vaizen. He's just moved to the city with his mother," answered Subaru.

"Where is she now?"

"She's in one of the Combat Training Simulators with-"

Now that caught Nanoha's attention very quickly. "She's one of the participants in Hayate-chan's combat test? How good is she?"

"She's gonna kick that Sig… that Siggy person's butt!" declared Touma proudly.

"So she's facing Signum?" Upon seeing Subaru nod in confirmation, the other woman lowered herself so that she was eye to eye with the boy's face. "Touma-kun, can you tell me how strong she is and how she fights?"

"Nanoha-san, what are you doing?"

"Nyahaha… there's nothing wrong with getting a little bit of information on a future student~!"

Subaru could only ponder just how those plans would change when Nanoha found out who the boy's mother really was.