The day had started out normally for Schach Nouera. Waking up, engaging in morning prayers, breakfast and then morning combat practice with the younger Sisters. But it had taken a strange turn when Carim had called her into the office and dropped some bombshell news in that the Church currently was housing another Kaiser: the last known member of the bloodline, Olivie Segbrecht.

'Another Kaiser…' The thought had been unreal to the nun.

There were two reasons she had been informed. One was that another trusted character can help support the Kaiser while she transitions to living in this time frame and help keep the cover story going. As for the second reason…

"I seem to recall that when the younger Kaiser had wandered off on her own in the complex about two years ago, you had immediately assumed the worst and confronted her with Windenschaft. Now imagine what would happen if you were to repeat that same action with our other guest."

Yes, she could certainly see the Director's point. A confrontation like that would only lead to a trip to the intensive care ward and blow this latest secret wide out into the open which is something that is not desired at this point.

Schach had wanted to know what Olivie was like since it was obvious that Carim had met the Kaiser previously. Otherwise, she would not have been sharing this information. But that question had to wait since both women had to attend to their morning duties.

The nun had managed to stay focused enough not to let the news distract her from her usual routine. She still was able to go through her combat and etiquette lesson plans. And she was still sharp enough to detect misbehaving students and discipline them. By late afternoon, she had already sent Sein to potato peeling duty again and confiscated a DSAA Inter-Middle Registration package that Chantez had managed to sneak in. 'Honestly, that girl…'

"ASTEION, FIGHTTOO~!"

It wasn't difficult for Schach to pick up that shrill cry from the lounge up ahead. Obviously, someone was neglecting their duties to watch one of those Belkan fantasy drama programs on television. Putting her best stern look on, she stepped into the room and got close to the individual seated on the couch to administer a verbal scolding. "What do you think you're do-"

She had been cut off quickly as the blonde haired female seated on the couch suddenly turned around with total excitement in those green eyes. "Come, sit down and watch this with me! We're getting close to the best part where Tio has to outsmart Greven to save his friends!"

"Shouldn't you be focusing on your chores?"

"I know but as soon as I got a glimpse of this program with Asteion, I couldn't help it!"

"I don't believe that I have seen you around before. Are you new?" Perhaps that explained the lady's poor etiquette.

"That's right! My name's Elina Higgins."

The name sounded familiar and it took the nun a moment to remember the alias that the Director said was being used. "Elina… Higgins? Then you must be…!"

"Ah, so you know about that little secret," said the other woman as her left eye briefly turned red to reveal its true colour. Before Schach could move back to properly greet the Kaiser with a low bow, her hand was held in a firm grip. "Now, remember that I'm supposed to be someone else here so there will be none of that. Do you understand?"

"Er, yes."

A sunny smile appeared on Olivie's face before the disguise spell went over her left eye again. "We can talk a bit later after I finish this program. Is that okay with you?"

Once again, the same response came from Schach. "Er, yes."

"Good!"

The program came to an end after another ten minutes. Ten minutes in which Schach felt quite awkward. It wasn't just the fact that she was sitting right beside the last Saint King. It was also because said King was a total fan of the Asteion stories and clearly demonstrated that fanaticism.

'There's no way the last Saint King could be this childish!' This was the mantra that Schach kept repeating in her head to maintain her grip on the Saint King's image that she had held for many years.

"That was fun!" Olivie leaned back on the couch. "So what did you think of that episode?"

"Uh…" She really wasn't sure how to respond since she really didn't pay attention to the show.

"What is that?" Without warning, the blonde woman's hands stole away the papers that Schach had been carrying earlier.

"Ah! That is…!" She totally forgot to throw out Chantez's registration package from the DSAA. "That's just a registration package for a combat tournament. It's called the Inter-Middle and it's very well known around here for younger mages between 10 to 19 years of age to demonstrate their skills."

"So this Inter-Middle Tournament is what you people use to assess combat talent these days?" asked Olivie as she continued flipping through the pamphlet. Even though she couldn't read a word of it, some of the photos showed different young girls engaging each other in magical combat.

"Yes, it is."

She paused for a moment as her eyes took on an odd gleam. "You know, I can probably pass for someone around 19 years of age."

"What?! You cannot be serious about entering the Inter-Middle! It's not a tournament for seasoned warriors!"

"But come on!" whined Olivie. "All those exotic and new fighting styles are out there just waiting to cross fists with me!"

"And going out there in public using your combat style and magical powers would defeat the entire purpose of trying to keep you concealed for the time being! We have to abide by the Director's decision on that!" Schach was really hoping the other woman would see reason.

"It really is too bad. Then again, it wouldn't be appropriate if we older folk interrupted the fun of the younger ones."

Thank goodness for small miracles. "That's true. The younger mages should be the ones to get this valuable experience."

"In that case, perhaps I should get Touma to participate. It will be a good way for him to get a true taste of battle and I can get involved as a coach or something!" She noticed the clock's display. "And he should even be coming back from school any minute! I'll go ask him now and get started on filing these papers!"

"Huh?! Wait…!" This isn't the outcome that Schach had envisioned for this particular conversation.

"Thank you very much!" Off Olivie went, giddy as a school girl to get her son registered for the tournament.

And once again, Schach was forced to go back to her mental mantra to keep her sanity.

'There's no way the last Saint King could be this childish!'

A few weeks later, Touma found himself in front of a mirror to see his new look. His attire for his upper half of his body consisted of a white dress shirt and a black vest covering most of his upper torso except for the arms. A pair of grey dress pants and black dress shoes made up the rest of the outfit and he also had a pair of black fingerless gloves.

"Fufufu… my special little man is looking very sharp here!" He felt his mother's arms rest on his shoulders, admiring the work that she had put into creating this barrier jacket for the boy. "Vivio-chan, what do you think?"

"Umu! Onii-chan looks cool!" Vivio gave her own sign of approval complete with the thumbs up gesture.

"So this is my Knight Clothing? I guess this explains a few things that I was seeing for the past few weeks."

"Like what?"

"Like your recent slip ups in Mid-Childan language class. Seriously, how do you get 'I do you school buses' from 'I come to school by train'?" asked the boy in a curious tone.

"Ahaha…" Olivie decided to switch the subject before Vivio start asking more on that particular language faux pas. "I made sure that this outfit maximizes mobility and speed for your movements so you should do fine at the preliminaries."

"It really took two weeks to design this?" Touma knew that there was more to it.

"Well, I did end up designing two sets of Knight Armour before realizing that those would not be appropriate for the upcoming tournament." She turned back to take out two rolled up scrolls and unravelled them for her son to see.

The first one had a white cape along with predominantly black coloured armour over a black bodysuit. The black helmet had a V shaped green surface along with a horn at the top. "Oi… that would have made me look like some dark magician or something."

"That's true and I was certain the cape would have gotten in the way of combat so I scrapped the Exodus armour design." Her eyes moved over to the other picture of a silver spandex suit with chest armour, silver gauntlets and a silver helmet complete with a large green surface to cover the facial features. "The Silberkrähe armour is a far leaner design but I think it's borrowing too many aspects of that other super hero show that's on nowadays and I didn't want to give that odd of an impression."

"Uh huh… and that's how you came to the conclusion that an outfit resembling a school uniform works," said Touma.

"You should see what some of the other contestants are wearing," replied his mother. Seriously, what's with that girl in that DSAA pamphlet wearing only a strip of cloth made out of thick cotton underneath that big jacket of hers? Whatever happened to decency when it came to protective wear for mages and knights?

"Mom, you didn't answer my question earlier about whether all this really took two weeks to put together. Because I know that designing a barrier jacket and putting it together isn't exactly something that hard to do."

"That's true," nodded Olivie before she produced a small box from her dress pocket and handed it to the boy. "I had quite a bit of help from the Church in building the device when you said that you wanted to continue combat training relying mainly on your fists instead of some other weapon like a sword or a staff."

"So that's onii-chan's device?!" Vivio looked pretty excited. "Take it out and show us!"

Touma opened the box and drew out a shining ruby which was sculpted like a dragon's scale. "If it was just built, then I need to do a Master Confirmation Rite."

Olivie nodded. "That's right. You will have to give it a proper name too."

"I do have one in mind. After all, the rules said I would need a device so I thought up of a few names." With that said the boy held out the scale in his right hand before initiating the ritual and conjuring up a Belkan Triangle beneath his feet. "Confirming master: Touma Avenir. Your formal name shall be Drachenklaue, nick name Ddraig."

"Roger."

Immediately, the scale changed shape to fit over his right hand, wrist and part of his arm to form a red armoured gauntlet with golden spikes on the side and a green gem on top of the hand. This caused Vivio's mismatched eyes to widen in excitement. "Cool!"

"This has been a bit overdue but congratulations on reaching the age of adulthood," said Olivie before embracing her son. "And 'Dragon's Claw' is a very appropriate name for it. Good to know that you're getting more comfortable with learning Belkan."

She moved back to give the boy some space to examine Drachenklaue. "I wonder if I can pull off your Shining Finger move with this device."

"Who knows? You'll just have to train hard and try that technique when you feel ready."

He paused a bit before noticing a very interesting component on his device tucked away closer to the wrist section. "And is that a cartridge system there?"

"I had it built in there so in any future extreme emergencies, you can have access to a little extra power. Obviously, this system will remain locked down until I am convinced that you have physically and mentally matured enough to use such power wisely." Olivie then gave a sunny smile. "I did add one more special feature to your device. Drachenklaue, level one please. "

The green gem glowed once before Touma felt his whole body become heavier and his magical energy drain away. "W-what is this?"

"A little something to drain your physical and magical stamina. By bearing this load, this will help to increase your growth! Ah, I wish I had something like this when I was your age but back in my day, we only had the AMF condition training in the Cradle and had to wear external weights."

"How long is this supposed to last for?" grunted Touma.

Olivie snapped back to reality upon hearing that question. "As long as I see fit. Once you get comfortable with your current level, I'll continue to increase the load. So how about we go outside and start today's training?"

"Maybe you should start with Vivio first today instead of me. I just need a bit of time to get used to this new feeling."

"Is that alright with you, Vivio?" asked the older woman.

"Sure, let's go!"

It was only the three of them at the training courtyard at the Church that afternoon. Schach's classes had already finished for the day so that left it free for the trio to use. Both Olivie and Vivio had changed to appropriate workout attire with the latter in her Adult Mode so she could channel higher levels of magic. As for Touma, he had started doing some warm up exercises now that he had gotten used to the limiter placed on him.

Ever since the first meeting back at the simulation arena, Vivio had devoted more of her free time towards her training in magical combat. The Strike Arts classes helped with basic physical conditioning so any time spent with Olivie was focused on learning more about the power that ran through her blood and the combat techniques used by the Belkan royalty. Considering the requirement of using high speed parallel processing to maximize the effectiveness of the style, Olivie knew that Vivio had her work cut out for her.

So to ease the younger girl into learning that style of martial arts, she started with Kaiserfarbe manipulation which is one of the key skills to master. What made it different is the way the aura manifested itself to create projectiles, shields and other effects. Instead of using a standard linking process with pre-determined formulas, emotional triggers and willpower played a larger factor in getting the magic to work.

Vivio tried to remember the words that Olivie had mentioned to her and began focusing. As she concentrated, her magical aura slowly came to life around her. 'The part of me that leaps at every joy, that shakes when I'm scared, that hurts when I feel loss…'

"Once you have a good feel of where that energy is coming from, take control of that energy, guide it and form it into your hands. Then slowly release it," instructed the older woman from the side.

With a small grunt, Vivio managed to start forming a small ball of magic just above the palm of her hand.

"Now try shaping it into another form."

Another moment passed with the only sound coming from the younger girl's hard breathing as she continued her exercises. It didn't take long until the ball of magic dissipated and Vivio collapsed to her knees, releasing her Adult Mode. "It's… no good!"

"Let's take a break then." Olivie grabbed a water bottle and handed it over to Vivio but the younger girl didn't take it. "Vivio, what's wrong?"

"I'm sorry. You've been trying to teach me for so long but…"

"You've only been learning from Mom for two weeks. Aren't you being too hard on yourself?" asked Touma in a curious tone from his spot.

"If Ollie-chan taught Nanoha-mama or Fate-mama, they would probably understand what she's saying quickly," replied Vivio glumly. "And I bet that Ollie-chan learned quickly when she was training at my age."

Touma's attention turned to his mother. "Is that true, Mom?"

"I guess that's true. I do remember mastering some new special techniques at that age. The one that sticks out the most at the time is Phoenix Kicken since it's a very fast kicking combination sequence to pull off. What made this memorable to me was my instructor telling me that I had to go 'ATATATATATA!' constantly while performing the move and use a 'WA-TAH!' when going for the finish."

Olivie going down memory lane really didn't improve the mood of the younger girl. "So in other words, Ollie-chan probably would have learned that quickly. Maybe I'm just not good enough to be a strong fighter. Especially if my Linker Core…"

"What do you mean?" asked Touma.

Vivio paused to remember exactly what she had been told a few months ago. "When I saw Dr. Shamal for a checkup earlier, she said that my Linker Core's natural development had been hurt because of the forced insertion and destruction of the Relic and that my magical point maximum output had been reduced by around ten to fifteen percent. Nanoha-mama thought it had been her fault that I ended up like that."

"Is that so?" Now Olivie at least knew why Nanoha had reacted the way she did when she approached the other woman on taking Vivio as a student. "Still you shouldn't be discouraged, Vivio. All martial artists face all sorts of adversities and doubt themselves at many points through their life but they persevere. If you don't give up, I know you'll discover that deep down you've got the heart of a warrior."

"How can you possibly know that? Why do you think I could possibly have what it takes?"

"Because you remind me a lot of a child I used to know who had the eagerness and drive to learn the martial arts. She has the same eyes as you and her own little handicap as well and look how she turned out," said the older woman with a smile.

Vivio's eyes widened and she stared at her teacher in surprise. "You…?"

"Touma, please come here." The boy nodded and moved towards his mother before taking a firm grip of her elbows, already knowing what she would do. "Freilassen."

Mini Belkan triangles appeared near the space just above her elbows before the limbs separated from her upper body much to Vivio's shock. Olivie now stood in front of her with only stumps for arms. "You… had no arms?"

"That's right. The artificial limbs here were made by my friend Myrddin based off the original idea that Jeremiah had. He really did a great job with these!" The limbs that were held by Touma matched the skin colour of the older woman perfectly and the size of her hands and fingers were also correctly proportionate to her body size. "Although, it felt really weird having arms again for a bit since I trained for years just to use kicking moves. I had to play quite a bit of catch up!"

"Do you want these back now, Mom?"

"If you don't mind." Touma lined up the limbs again before Olivie spoke another Belkan command to reattach them properly. "Binden."

"… you had no arms at the beginning and yet…" Vivio got up, reactivating Adult Mode in the process before taking the same stance as before. "Ollie-chan, I'm sorry I questioned your confidence in me! I promise I won't disappoint you and I'm going to perfect this technique if it's the last thing I do!"

"Do your best, Vivio!"