"War never changes; only the methods to its madness and the people that utilize them do. But this War…it's like the Warring Ages all over again. You can't escape the past. Doesn't matter where you look or what you say about it. It's starin' right at us, and we're forced to stare right back."

-Vita of the Wolkenritter to Takamachi Vivio, in the year 0086

Chapter Two

So It Goes

"A…Jewel Seed?" Was that what it was called?

Nanoha nodded. "Yeah. It's a Lost Logia that contains a tremendous amount of power. Used to hunt for them way back when I was a kid." Her fingers grazed the risen area of skin. "I never thought I'd get to see one again."

Ixpellia closed her eyes, savoring the older woman's touch: slow, careful, warm. A far cry from the kind of devil I had imagined. She flinched at a pulse flaring sharply in her temples and stumbled.

Nanoha stopped and caught her by the shoulders. "Are you alright? What's wrong?"

"I'm…I'm okay. It just…hurts a little. Sometimes it's worse." So much she wanted to dig her nails and claw it out, pry it from its bed of warm blood and frayed flesh and throw it as far away from her as she could. Thinking about it hurt, and the hurt made her feel sick and faint and raw like her throat, so she cast those thoughts aside. "I'll be fine."

"You don't look too good," said Nanoha. "Maybe you should lie down."

"Not here," Ixpellia shook her head. "I don't sense any more Mariages, but"—she looked at the puddles of napalm on the ground, still and stagnant—"anywhere is better than here."

Nanoha understood. She took the girl in her arms and held her, hoping for the pain she was going through would pass. Looking down on her, she took note of Raging Heart's ruby body nestled snug in the back of her hand. How did it get there and when did it happen? Why wasn't she able to call up her spells and Barrier Jacket when she needed them the most? She shifted the weight on her leg, relieving it of the pressure she was putting on it. This wasn't right. She shouldn't be aching this badly.

"Is there any place we can go and rest, Raging Heart?" she asked. "Somewhere close by?"

"Loading local map, please stand by." A moment passed. There was a disappointed flicker of light as it returned. "I'm sorry, my Master, most of the map did not load properly. Data corruption is likely. Shall I refresh?"

How deep did that corruption run? "No, leave it. What do you see?"

"There are woods to the north of our location. Deep within is a river to gather water, a thick copse to chop wood, and plenty of wildlife to hunt for food. Let us go there!"

"Sounds ideal. Ixy, do you mind if I carry you? It'll be a short trip if I fly us there. That way I can tend to both our injuries." She studied the girl's dirty, bloodied feet and felt a pang of sympathy for her. She's been running. How much ground did she cover to get them that way?

"Be careful, my Master. You are very low on mana."

She sighed. "Even that? Well, it should be enough to get us there. Are you ready, Ixy?"

"Yes, ma'am, whenever you are."

Nanoha hefted Ixpellia into her arms and activated Axel Fin on the way down the steps. Just as she was about to take off, she turned around and stared up at the obelisk. High above them it loomed, reaching into the heavens, beaten by weather and time but still standing strong as the day it was built.

In the back of her mind, something stirred. I know this place. Somehow, in some way, it resonated within her, like the last missing piece in a puzzle. But how is that possible? I've never been here before….

"Nanoha?" Ixpellia asked. The attentiveness in those bluish-purple eyes was intense. What was it about this strange monument that captivated her? What about it drew her here, in this crater of all places?

The person in question started, woken from her reverie. "Oh! Sorry, it's nothing. Let's get going."

They touched down in the area shortly thereafter. By then Nanoha's mana was running dangerously low, exacerbating the weariness gnawing away at the edges of her Linker Core. There was a fallen tree whose roots were splayed over the space where the ground plunged in a sharp decline towards the sounds of gurgling water. It was here Ixpellia was placed, her back to the sturdy wood.

"Thank you," she said. "I don't think I would've been able to stay on my feet much longer."

"You just sit there and relax," Nanoha told her. "This place seems pretty quiet, so I don't expect there to be any wild animals roaming about. I'll go a little ways out, see if I can scrounge together some stuff to tide us over and treat our wounds."

"That's fine. It'll…be some time before I produce another core." She put a hand to her throat. "I don't know how, but…the time between each production has gotten shorter."

"How soon should we expect another core?"

"Not within the next hour, that's for sure. But…I feel it'll happen sooner rather than later. At least if I fall asleep my body won't be able to produce, but as soon as I wake up…." She shook her head. "I can't have them lying around."

"Good idea. I don't know how far we are from the nearest town, but we wouldn't want anyone to be picking these up. Best hang on to them." She stood up and dusted off her tunic. "I won't be gone long. If you need me for anything, give me a holler."

The sun descended and the light slowly drained from the sky. Nanoha made several trips throughout the woods, slowly accumulating necessary supplies. A campfire was erected and rabbit carcasses skewered above the licking flames. Plants were crushed to paste and made into poultices to apply to Ixpellia's feet and her own cuts. Thick branches were sheared and hollowed to collect water.

When all was completed, and the rabbits were turning a savory brown, Nanoha sat down. Ixpellia stirred, emerging from a spell of deep slumber. She rubbed a hand across her eyes.

Nanoha smiled. "Hey. Sleep well?"

"Mmm, yes." She stretched an arm above her head and yawned. "Something smells good."

"It's rabbit. Should be about ready to eat." She plucked the branch from the fire and touched it, then recoiled. "Best let them cool off first, nyahaha."

They ate in silence. The first stars in the sky appeared as diamond-like pinpricks. There was the faint trill of birdsong, heralding the night. Grasshoppers rubbed their legs together, far and apart and somehow very close by.

Fresh wood was fed for the fire, renewing the nimbus of light encircling them. Ixpellia drank the last of the water in her stub of branch and set it down beside her. "It's so quiet," she said. "To be honest, it's almost…surreal? Yes, very surreal." She drew her knees up to her chest and hugged them. "Back then, during the Unification War, the world was full of sounds. We barely had time to catch our breaths or a moment of peace. It wouldn't last long, not when you can hear the screams of the wounded and dying from your place in bed or out on the field in a tent, but…even then, for me, I found it hard to enjoy. Silence, on Galea, meant something was about to happen."

Nanoha looked up from her place, her face awash in flickering orange and red. Something about the way the flames danced in her eyes told Ixpellia she was not paying attention, not necessarily ignoring her but detached enough to be immersed in her own thoughts. "The Mariage?"

Ixpellia did not respond. She watched a piece of bark whiten and curl at the ends.

"Sorry, I didn't mean to…you know…."

"It's alright. It's in the past. Except…sometimes I wish I could stop producing cores altogether. That's another thing that bothers me; I don't even know how or why I am this way. My body is of flesh but the rest of me, the ability to build cores off the energy inside me, is almost like that of a machine. A battery."

"Did you ever look into it?"

"I remember some instances when the fighting had died down, but everything after that is all muddled." She touched her fingers to the makeshift poultice on a foot and slid them along her heel, round her ankle, and up her leg. "I don't feel like a machine. Machines don't have blood. So what does that make me?"

"You're you, Ixy," Nanoha said, and smiled. "My mana is powerful and very destructive, but I'm very much human and most certainly not the demon the mages at the Navy make me out to be. No horns or tail on me, I think that'd frighten folks even more." She bowed her head, lifting the rabbit to her lips. "Don't worry, Ixy. I'm sure there's something we can do about those cores."

"Do you think so?"

"It's possible." Nanoha tore a chunk of meat, chewed thoughtfully, and swallowed. "Cranagan got hit pretty hard during the War. I'm still surprised the Großartig Kaiser didn't target it from the very beginning."

"Wait," Ixpellia perked up, "what war?"

"The Great War. You were still asleep when it started." Nanoha stared at the rabbit, now all bones and bloody organs, then tossed the skewer into the fire. She leaned back on one hand, the other with Raging Heart thrown across a leg. "It was eight years ago. I was getting ready to punch out at work when Hayate called me to see her at once. You've heard of her, right?" Ixpellia nodded. "I hadn't seen Vivio since early morning and I wanted to leave, but she said it was important and couldn't be ignored. So I got there as fast as I could, and when I did I asked her what was wrong."

Her eyes hardened, or maybe they softened? From this angle Ixpellia could not tell. "My friend, Fate, was killed in an ambush on a charter ship heading for Mid. Her, and everybody onboard…by the time they realized what was going on it was too late. They didn't stand a chance. Someone managed to send out a distress signal before the vessel was destroyed. Maybe it'd been Fate, maybe it was someone else. There had been attacks in dimensional space going on for months…but that act…that was the last straw. In a matter of days, the Bureau declared war on the Großartig Kaiser." She sighed. "Eight years of my life, fighting, without my best friend at my side. All because of that…pretender."

"Who was the Großartig Kaiser?"

"Just a punk. I didn't care if the bastard was a clone like Vivio or a real King like you. All that mattered was keeping Fate's memory alive long enough for me to run Raging Heart through that dark heart." She lifted her bejeweled hand and clenched it tight. "And I did."

"I'm sorry," Ixpellia said, and meant it. She wanted to say more, but she could not bring them to bear. Her gaze, her posture, the cold steel lining her voice, it would not be enough, and she let it be.

"Thank you," said Nanoha, and she was quiet.

Minutes passed. Ixpellia moved to supply wood to the fire, but Nanoha shook her head and gestured for her to remain seated. So she did.

"If…you don't mind me asking," Ixpellia began, "where else did this Großartig Kaiser attack? If Cranagan wasn't considered an important target, surely he…or she…struck elsewhere. When I went to sleep, was I in any danger?"

Nanonha pondered this for a moment. "As far as I can recall, you weren't. We had your body placed in the Grand Cathedral for about…six years. When the Großartig Kaiser's army breached through Mid's planetary defenses and St. Hilde's Academy was bombed, the Church moved you to an undisclosed location, fearing it would come under attack. It did…but by that time you were long gone." She smiled mirthlessly. "I think the faker was looking for you; what for is anybody's guess. At least, that's what I heard. Most of the stuff you hear on the front lines is rumors and heresy."

"What about Vivio? What about Subaru? What else happened while I was asleep?" There were so many questions she wanted to ask!

But she could see the weariness on her face and the discomfort showed as she fidgeted. "It's getting late," she said. "Get some sleep. I'll take watch."

"Aren't you tired?"

"I'll be alright."

There would be no arguing with her, so Ixpellia threw her spit into the fire and spread out on the grass. The last thing shesaw before darkness took her was Nanoha with her neck craned back, staring up into the open canvas of heaven.

Nanoha watched the rise and fall of Ixpellia's chest, the easiness in which she breathed and how still she lay. Even outside the cycle of hibernation, she slept like the dead, befitting her title from an age long past.

"She reminds me of Vivio, you know," she told Raging Heart. "On those days where Nove pushed her and the kids through grueling exercises and training regimens, especially before the Intermiddle, she was out right away. Sometimes I went into her room and stayed there for a while because she hardly ever moved."

"We raised her well," said Raging Heart.

"Indeed, and all that hard work kept her alive during the War. Even after St. Hilde was destroyed and she was in ICU, she still kept fighting. I wonder if she's alright."

"I am sure she is."

"Well, actually, she should be. She was stationed in Cranagan when we launched the assault on the Großartig Kaiser's keep. Do you think she'll still be mad at me when I come back?"

"There is no doubt in my systems, my Master!"

"Nyahaha, that's what I thought. But I know she'll forgive me; war can drive a person to great and, quite often, very crazy things."

"Your charge was very suicidal."

"I was ready to die…but not before I took the fool King with me. That much I had to do, for Fate's sake. For everyone who died."

The firewood hissed and popped. The river chuckled, and there was a splash as something broke its surface.

Quietly, Nanoha got to her feet. After checking there was enough wood to keep the fire going and Ixpellia was still asleep, she made for the tree line.

"Where are you going?" asked Raging Heart.

"There's something I need to see," she answered.

When she was well into the forest, she drew on the ambient magic in the air to support the low mana in her Linker Core and activated Axel Fin. The sky rushed to embrace her, and her heart soared to reciprocate. She realized it was the first time she had flown like so—among the stars and the great, panoramic black of night—since the War began. No errant spells. No gunfire. No warships. No mages picked off by enemy turrets and falling to their deaths. It was wide and void and at peace.

The obelisk loomed ahead, a stark white exclamation point in the middle of the land. Nanoha descended in an avian glide and landed short of the steps. She climbed them and stopped before it.

"Master?"

"Hush," she said. She got down on one knee. The plaque was dusty and grimy and cracked in places, spotted in fingerprints and smeared by someone's hand. Did Ixy do this? Nanoha wiped the gunk away and ran a hand along the tunic to be rid of it.

What she saw shocked her. "What the…?" There were words, and they read as such:

TAKAMACHI NANOHA

BORN 0056 - DIED 0089

NOT ALL DEVILS ARE EVIL

NOT ALL KINGS MEN OF PROSPER

"What…What is this?" Nanoha shook her head in disbelief. "That's not true! I'm alive! I breathe, I eat! I got cut by the Mariages' blades! The dead don't bleed!"

"Master…"

"If I were dead, I wouldn't be sitting here talking right now. If I were dead, my skin would be hard and my limbs stiff like a mannequin's." She swallowed, throat dry and heart pounding an erratic timpani rhythm. "If I were dead, I wouldn't have been able to save Ixy. So why is this here?"

"Perhaps," Raging Heart began, "the remnants of the Bureau could not find your body among the wreckage and presumed you had died. It is not uncommon for mistakes to be made after combat is over."

"So why go through all the trouble in building this monument? Why not put my name on the Tomb of the Unknown if they couldn't find, let alone identify, my remains?"

"I could not tell you, my Master. It could have been Commander Yagami's decision to make, maybe Lady Vivio's, as she is your next of kin."

Nanoha laughed and ran her fingers through her hair. "I could've been resurrected. I mean, just because it's unheard of and takes a load of mana to pull off doesn't mean it hasn't happened before. Ixy is called the Flame King of the Dead; she probably tapped in some of that ancient Saint King magic without realizing what she was doing and brought me back from the grave. Wherever my grave is."

"It is…hard to say, but it is within the realm of possibility." The device flickered uncomfortably. "Anything is possible, Master."

Nanoha stood and turned away from the obelisk, calling forth Axel Fin. "Whatever the case may be, I'm back. Or maybe I never died in the first place." She shrugged. "I don't know. I just…I don't want to think about it." Not right now. Perhaps not ever. It was like trying to understand where an endless knot started and where it ended, and the thought forced her to stifle a manic giggle. "Let's go. I don't want to be stay here."