[ Garden of Time / September 30, 0078 17:04 ]
Fate stared into the small fridge, trying to estimate for how much longer the supply of stale nutrient bars would serve her. If she rationed it well, she might be able to last another week. She picked one up and let the shiny wrapper fall into the pile already littering the floor. Her head had been hurting for the third day in a row, and she began to suspect it had something to do with her diet.
Somewhere in the dark depths of the Garden of Time, a motion of magic stirred. A dimensional transfer, Fate thought almost without emotion. Even across this distance, she recognized two familiar presences: one of the arrivals was Shari, the other… No, it could not have been him.
She made her way back to the throne room and watched dispassionately as they entered it from the other side.
"Have you come to arrest me, Nii-san?"
"No, Fate," Admiral Chrono Harlaown of the Dimensional Navy smiled. "I have come to bring you back."
"It's too late for me to go back."
"It is not." He cut her off as she tried to object and spoke faster: "Fate, listen to me: nobody but yourself blames you for anything. Only you still need to forgive yourself."
"…nobody blames me?"
Shari walked up from behind Chrono and stood next to him, looking directly at her.
"I testified for you before the Admiralty Board, and they have found no crime in your actions except dereliction of duty. You are still an officer of the Bureau, you know."
"Shari, why…"
"Because I hated what you have been doing to yourself. I love you, Fate. I thought that if I only were there with you, we would be fine. But I was wrong. You need to be part of something greater, something to give you a direction in life. You need the Bureau, Fate."
"And the Bureau needs you, little sister, now more than ever," Chrono followed up. "So please come back with us."
Fate hung her head and thought about it. Chrono took a step towards her, continuing to speak:
"You saved hundreds of lives on Vaizen, Fate. Just that alone is enough to make up for your entire absence. You left because the Bureau let the Cradle run unchecked. Now they are finally doing something. We are doing something. We will find the Cradle, we will destroy it, and we will make sure that no mother ever loses her daughter like you did."
"Vivio is not dead!" Fate jerked up her head.
"Fate, I know this is hard but…"
"No, no, no, Nii-san, you don't understand," a smile crept onto Fate's lips. "I talked to her on Vaizen. She is alive. Bardiche!"
She could see Chrono and Shari's faces going from an expression of skepticism to disbelief to hope as she played the short recording of a blonde girl with beautiful mismatched eyes.
"That… is definitely her," Chrono said when the recording stopped. "She looks much older than she should be and her memory seems distorted, but we don't know what she has been subjected to in these three years… Doesn't matter, we'll have plenty of time to patch her up after we get her out of there."
"Will we, Nii-san?"
"Yes, we will, Fate," he said adamantly. "As of this moment, my entire task force is a rescue operation. Will you help us now?"
Fate's lips trembled but she managed to get out the one word that mattered:
"Yes."
As the tears came, she lunged forward and buried her face in Chrono's chest. Everything that had pent up inside of her in the past three years was coming out in a wail, as her brother's strong arms embraced her and pulled her closer.
"It's OK to cry now, Fate," he whispered in her ear. "Cry it all out…"