…

Chapter 2: Future Planning

Part 1

-Hello, this is our first meeting, isn't it?-

'What…who is that?'

A curious voice filled Kamito's mind, one that sounded friendly and warm.

-I would like to introduce myself, but that is not possible at the moment. But I know who you are, XXX.-

'What?'

-I will see you soon. You are my hope of correcting this anomal…-

At that moment, the curious voice cut off, and Kamito knew no more.

Part 2

Pain was the first thing that Kamito felt as he came too, and as his vision came back to him, he found himself in an abandoned construction site of all things. His body hurt in various places, but checking himself, there was nothing serious that needed to be attended to.

'Thank goodness for small mercies… Now, just what the heck happened?'

Thinking back, Kamito remembered Central Park Exploding, the woman with the weird eyes, and the fight with those girls who sort of looked like they were from that Infinite Stratos novel he read back then. Then the part where he was taken away by the woman so quickly that the force made him pass out came back to him, and rubbed his aching ribs, now knowing what was the cause.

'Ow…well, I don't see that girl anywhere now. Just…what was she anyway?'

Getting up, Kamito took a look at his surroundings, with the only thing that looked out of place was the crater off to the side. Taking a closer look, it resembled the one at the park, but much smaller.

'Did that Empress woman do this?'

A conspiracy theory welled up within Kamito that connected Empress to the spacequakes, but he had more pressing matters to get to; namely where the heck did he end up. A construction site was the last place he expected to end up.

Taking out his phone, Kamito was about to look up the GPS when he saw that he had a text message from Greyworth. Grimmacing at the text, he opened it up and was prepared for the worst.

-Ristorante is closed for the day. Spacequake was close to restaurant, so area has been closed off at the moment. Business should resume by tomorrow.

-P.S. Where did you run off to, young boy? You better not be dead, or worse.-

Kamito gave a snort as he closed the message. Switching to the GPS, he checked his location and was shocked to find himself in the area close to the FDR Drive and the Brooklyn Bridge. With Ristorante closed, it was gonna be a long trip back to Upper Manhattan where he and the girls lived.

'But first, I better contact the girls.'

[…Hello?]

"Hey Akeno, it's Kamito. Is everything alright?"

[Yes, both Kurome and I are alright.]

"Kurome? So she was with you the whole time?"

[Yes. Though she did drop her phone in Central Park when the Spacequake alarm went off. I hope it's still there.]

"Right…then I'll see both of you later."

[Okay Kamito. Bye bye.]

"Bye."

Cutting the connection, Kamito called Akame's number, and he got an answer, except it wasn't Akame who answered.

[Hello hello, you've reached the smoking hot Akame's number!]

"…Who the heck are you?"

Kamito's eyes narrowed as he quickly made his way out of the construction site, having heard people approaching. What happened next made Kamito wonder for his sister.

[Leone, give my phone back.]

[No way, a guy just called you! Who is he, your boyfriend? Did you get over Tatsumi already that quickly?]

'Tatsumi?'

[That's most likely my brother Leone. Now give me back my phone.]

[Brother huh? You never mentioned having a brother, only a little sister and a cousin of sorts. Why, is he one of those 'I am ashamed of my sibling' deals?]

[Leone. Phone. Now.]

Despite Akame's flat tone, Kamito could tell she was getting angry, and apparently the one on the other end called Leone could tell too.

[Oya oya, scary~ 'Kay here, I'm gonna go and see what Chelsea's up to.]

"…Akame?"

[…Hi Kamito, sorry about that.]

"It's no problem, though I can't help but wonder about your friend's words about me."

[It's not what you think. Leone and the others saw a picture of me with Kurome and Akeno by accident and I had to explain things.]

Kamito was a bit surprised that Akame sounded like she responded with a bit of haste, but smiled nonetheless. For some reason, he asked something in a teasing voice that he wouldn't normally say.

"Well, you're not at least a bit ashamed of me, are you?"

[…I will never be ashamed of you Kamito, not after what you did for me and Kurome.]

"…Sorry, I don't know why I said that. I'm just letting you know I might be home late."

[Alright. Is there anything else?]

"No, I'll see you later. Bye."

[Bye.]

With a click, Kamito cut the connection as he looked up to the sky. As he kept walking towards the nearest subway station. He had this strangest feeling he was being watched, but shook off the feeling as he focused on getting home.

'Hmm, maybe I should pick up a few things along the way.'

Part 3

"Well now, I guess we don't have anything to worry about."

"You're right about that Iffy. I'm glad that person is alright."

Up on a nearby rooftop, IF and Compa watched as Kamito left the area looking no worse for wear. The former in particular looked inquisitive as she watched him until he left her vision.

"Hmm, I wonder what Empress' intentions were…"

"Iffy?"

"It's nothing Compa; c'mon, let's head back to base. We have a visual profile of him, so we can look up his identity. And for the last time, it's IF!"

"Ah, wait for me!"

IF took off in a huff, leaving Compa behind to catch up to her. The pair didn't say anything else as they RTBed.

Part 4

"Tch, beaten again!"

The one who spat this, the redhead of the veiled group, punched her locker in frustration. Without her visor, one could see that she had ruby eyes that matched her hair.

This woman was the leader of the Spacequake Response Team, aka SRT, stationed on the Atlantic coast, who went by the name Claire Rouge.

"Claire, is everything alright?"

"…I'm fine Rinslet. Just frustrated that Empress got all of us."

The blonde woman with blue eyes, Rinslet Laurenfrost, looked at Claire in concern as she winced every now and again. Despite being healed with medical Realizers, she still felt an echo of pain every now and again.

"We were out classed by Empress again. We will need a new plan of attack, Claire Rouge."

A new voice came from behind Claire, and she turned to see Ellis Fahrengart, the woman with dark red eyes and blue hair in a ponytail approach her. Beside her was Fianna Ray Ordesia, who had black hair and purple eyes and was looking a bit tired.

"I know, I know. I'll come up with something after I give my report."

"Before you do, I need to know, was there someone else with Empress?"

That question from Fianna made Claire frown as she thought back to their encounter with Empress. She remembered giving orders and Rinslet firing off prematurely, but between that, she did see someone else standing before Empress, but she was too far away to get a good look at the person.

"Yes, there was someone else there. Ugh, that's not good. Did the vid-cam catch anything."

"Sorry, but there was a bit of interference from Empress, so the picture's a bit fuzzy."

Claire pinched the bridge of her nose as she gave a sigh. It was one more thing she didn't look forward to reporting. Though having a civilian come into contact with Empress was a possibility; with the Spacequake alarm, the possibility was very low.

"Ugh, out all the SRTs in America, it just has to be ours to have this problem…"

"Claire?"

"It's nothing. I'll go and report to our superior now."

Part 5

"Oi Kamito, did you hear? The Boss hired new waitresses."

"Really now? That quickly? Didn't the previous ones just quit yesterday?"

"Yeah, but from what I've heard, the boss actually knows these girl from awhile back, so it wasn't hard for her to get in touch with them."

It was a few days after the Spacequake incident and things in Ristorante were back to normal. Like the Spacequake never happened normal. Anyways, it was around past six in the morning that Kamito and Tigre were talking, when the latter brought up the subject of the new waitresses.

"You know, you seem way too interested in these new waitresses. Does Elenora know what you're doing, Tigre?"

"Hey now, it's not like that! I just find it weird that Greyworth managed to find replacements so fast, even if she did know them back then."

Kamito conceded that Tigre did have a point. It was strange that four of the waitress quit shortly after the Spacequake happened, though their reasons were legit and the fact they all left at the same time was pure coincidence. It was even stranger that Greyworth managed to find replacements barely a day later. Usually it would take between one to two weeks at most. He was about to say something when Greyworth walked in, followed by Marteau and Liliana.

"Ah, there you two are. We have new waitresses coming in and I think it's time for a meet and greet before we open, don't you think?"

"If you say so Greyworth."

It was well known among the chefs that Kamito didn't really treat Greyworth with much respect, and that the latter actually didn't mind. All they know is that it had something to do with the boss knowing Kamito's mother for a while now.

The four chefs followed Greyworth to the main part of the restaurant, where they found four women waiting for them. Kamito looked at each of them with a bit of a frown as he had a feeling that he had seen them before, but couldn't place it at the moment.

"Alright everyone, these are our new waitresses. From left to right we have Claire Rouge, Rinslet Laurenfrost, Ellis Fahrengart, and Fianna Ray Ordesia. Girls, these are the chefs that you'll be working with on your shifts. The head chef Marteau, Tigre Vorn, Liliana Kranjcar, and Kamito Kazehaya."

The new waitress bowed as Kamito's eyes widened slightly as he finally placed where he had seen them before. In his mind's eye, he placed black visors over their faces and they matched perfectly with what he remembered.

'These are the girls that fought with that Empress woman a few days ago. What are they doing here?'

Kamito was a bit in thought when Claire went up to him for a proper introduction.

"So, Kamito huh? I guess we'll be working together."

"Huh? Ah, yeah, we will. Nice to meet you."

'…If these are the girls that I saw a few days ago, why do I still have that nagging feeling of having met them before?'

Introductions went well enough, though Fianna flirted with Kamito pretty heavily, much to the amusement of Tigre and Marteau. Interestingly enough, Liliana and Rinslet got along well, with them hitting it off by trading cooking tips.

Part 6

"Kamito, dinner's ready."

"Alright Akame, I'm coming."

Back at the Kazehaya residence, Kamito thought of his work day as he stretched in front of his computer. The new waitresses were very competent on the first day, that Kamito and the others thought that they must've had prior experience. He even heard Rinslet brag that she had a maid in her employ that she based her performance on, though he did wonder why Rinslet was working as a waitress if she had a maid in her employ.

'Still, are they there because of me? But Greyworth hired them because she knew them, so it could be a coincidence…'

Kamito's thoughts turned to Empress as he tried to recall every detail about her. She had an otherworldly beauty of her, but there was one thing that Kamito realized that he didn't notice before.

'She looked lost, like she didn't know what to do. As Nanoha would put it, 'Her eyes looked so lonely.' Probably would've tried to befriend Empress if Nanoha wasn't fictional.'

However, with Kamito seeing the link between the new waitresses and Empress, he felt that there was some sort of conspiracy at work. He knew for a fact that Empress was connected to the Spacequakes, seen that she caused one before his eyes.

'Could never believe that floppy scientific explanation for the Spacequakes anyway.'

"Ah, Onee-chan! Kamito is make porn of you on his computer!"

Kamito nearly jumped at Kurome's shouting voice, but quickly got annoyed when her words clicked, and he turned to see Kurome smiling mischievously. He fumed to the point that he slipped back to Japanese as he got out of his seat.

"Oh imouto-chan, I'm gonna teach you not to spread lies like that!"

"Hah, come and catch me, Nii-san!"

A small grin crossed Kamito's lips as he chased after his laughing little sister. He didn't realize it at the time, but someone was watching him from a distance, her pale blue eyes locked on to him before he left his room. Her eyes lingered on his room for a moment longer before she turned and vanished.