The open air felt good on her skin again. Days of being confined to a single stuffy bed had not been one of her most joyous experiences in life at the TSA, and the hospital gown felt uncomfortable and unwanted on her person, sticking to her body in several places where the sweat from the fever still remained. If Shamal had her way, she would be stuck in that bed for the rest of the day, but that would be unbearable.

Vita turned her face to the sky, wandering out through the hospital doors for the first time all week. The fever and vomiting had not troubled her since yesterday, and she had been desperate to get out of the ward from the first day she had been admitted. Even now she was having to sneak out by herself. If Shamal got wind that she was gone, then she'd be slammed back in that ward before you could say Wolkenritter.

But this...was not what she had expected to see. Bureau mages on high alert, sniffing around for the first sign of trouble. Chunks of the walls of the vaults in pieces at the far end of the Bureau. Bodies taken past her to the intensive care unit, crying out about an attack. Talk of monsters and mutants appearing.

"What in the world happened whilst I was in hospital?" Vita muttered out loud, almost wishing someone would come out and tell her. It wasn't fair. The first real piece of action that happened to the TSA for a long time, and she had to miss out. She blamed Shamal's bad cooking, for lack of any other reason.

Nobody had been to visit her for a while either, which miffed her just a little bit. Even the forwards, although Caro had sent her a card made out of ice-cream which had, once again, melted. Were they all so busy that they couldn't even see her for five minutes? Even Signum...

There were shouts and scream in the distance. Vita shook her head to clear them away, too disgruntled to care. It was hard enough getting a good night's sleep when you weren't used to the unnervingly soft beds of the hospital which were supposed to make you relax, but with Vita they always confused her into being -

"Stop that creature!"

Vita looked up in mild surprise. The shouts and screams were real. They were coming from the guards and soldiers rushing up from the main compound.

"Finally, some action," she said with a somewhat feral grin, and prepared to go into full combat mode. No matter how minor the situation might be, she needed to get the adrenaline rushing through her once more. "Let's go, Graf Eisen!"

Nothing happened. The great hammer failed to respond as she failed to undergo any kind of transformation whatsoever.

"I said, let's go, Graf Eisen!" Vita repeated impatiently.

Still nothing. The yelling of the guards was growing louder. Whoever they were chasing was drawing nearer to the hospital. Vita scowled and inspected her device critically. There shouldn't be anything wrong with it, but Graf Eisen wasn't even speaking to her...

"Graf Eisen?" she said worriedly in a low voice. "What's wrong?"

Her device quivered in her hands and spouted a few lines of indecipherable gibberish at her. It sounded like a mixture of German and winding static, as if Graf Eisen couldn't speak properly. Vita's face fell; she didn't know what was wrong with it, but it definitely wasn't good. She needed Mariel to look at Graf Eisen as soon as possible if she was going to make any headway here at all.

First I catch food poisoning for no reason, and now I can't transform? Is the world just out to get me today?

She steeled herself for action nonetheless; her fists and reflexes were still pretty good in any case. But then Vita heard the shouting pass her by completely, fading away into the distance. The guards must have found whatever they were looking for. She was still somewhat curious about what all the fuss was about, but then shrugged it off. Hayate and the others probably had it all under control.

But it was then that she heard the hoarse, raggedy breathing in front of her. It was accompanied by some kind of hissing noise, and at first Vita didn't know what it was. Then it was followed by a violent hacking cough, making her stop in her tracks for just a moment. It sounded like whoever was making the noise was just round the corner.

Whoever that is, they sound really sick, Vita thought to herself. She hesitated, wary of investigating any further; if she caught whatever infectious disease they had, that would mean another long week imprisoned in hospital.

"Hey," she called out, "you okay?"

There was a strangled gurgle and then Hayate stepped out of the shadows, collapsing as blood dripped between her fingers at her waist. Her other hand was clutched around her throat, clawing frantically, gasping for breath as blood soaked the base of her neck.

Vita cried out in alarm and caught the mage in her arms before she hit the ground.

But the instant their skin made contact, the body she held transformed dramatically. The skin turned scaly and reptilian, metamorphosing along its entire length so that hands and feet shot out into sharp talons. Her eyes turned dark-green and a pair of graceful wings were revealed to be closed in at her back.

What the...?

"Srethis needss...medicine..." the lizard croaked, its breath a feeble effort through faded lips. A deadened look entered its eyes as its body folded up, becoming limp and helpless, its muscles ceasing movement completely.

What the hell is this creature? Vita wondered, cradling its weak body and in two minds about what to do. It must be the one that the guards were chasing. Why did it look like Hayate? What's going on around here?

If this lizard was an enemy of the Bureau, then she shouldn't be associating with it. Maybe she should be attacking it. But Vita's instinct told her that that wouldn't be right. The poor thing was dead on its feet. Someone – or something – had hurt it badly. Whatever it was, it needed help, and fast.

"I knew I chose the wrong time to get food poisoning," she said grudgingly, carrying Srethis back towards the hospital. Shamal needed to see this. Of course, Shamal was going to lynch her for leaving the hospital anyway, so she might as well do this with dignity.

Deep within the inner laboratories of the TSA Engineering Division, hundreds of mage devices lay locked away, housed inside rows and rows of transparent cabinets which stretched from the ceiling all the way down to the floor. A power link maintained the electrical connection to each and every one of them, as engineers monitored every device and the supplication of their individual abilities. Some were cased in bubbling-test tubes, and some were handled carefully with the most delicate precision, looking as if they would shatter under the barest impact.

Every device used by the mages of the Bureau began its life in these laboratories. For it was here that they were manufactured, studied, researched and given form. Maintenance and development of such powerful weapons was part of the TSA's key budget, and the importance of such a division, especially now, was crucial to the everyday life of any mage.

Mariel examined the casing of the device which was occupying all of her attention right now. As head of the Engineering Division, she had had ample experience with hundreds of devices and was a professional with her work. It was no wonder that the task of maintaining Nanoha's device had been given to her.

But even so, she was finding herself at a loss.

"Raging Heart," she said, staring through into the cabinet as the red orb glinted dully, as unresponsive as it had been for the past twenty four hours when the engineering team had brought it into her care. "What is this nonsense?"

Raging Heart had been completely depleted of all magical power when Mariel had examined it. Undamaged in any way, with all working system still up to speed, it had not been too difficult to help the orb on the way to recovery. But then the error messages started to come up. Raging Heart's internal program was requiring extra components. Installations of new parts – parts which seemed to be completely alien.

She scrolled down on the data screen of the backlog for Raging Heart and highlighted the warning segments.

Error 825: Oguba S7982J required for main body functionality.

Error 826: Oguba S7982Z required for main body functionality.

Error 827: Oguba S7982T required for main body functionality.

Error 828: Oguba T4937K required for chronological accentuation path functionality.

Error 829: Oguba K3821P required for chronological bypass timeframe functionality.

Error 830: …

They went on down the screen, all the way to Error 1305. Mariel recalled that this was not the first time that Raging Heart had received a so-called upgrade – no, the first time had been during the Book of Darkness incident, when the ability of Velka-type weapons had been installed into Raging Heart and Bardiche to combat the Wolkenritter, who they had been fighting against at the time.

But Raging Heart was not asking for Velka-type abilities, or any ability that Mariel was familiar with. The components listed on the screen on front of her were...unheard of. Mariel had never heard of anything called "Oguba" before.

Chronological bypass timeframe functionality? Mariel was, for once in her work, utterly bewildered. What in the world could that mean?

Whatever Raging Heart's requirements were, they weren't something that the TSA were able to get hold of. After all, the TSA presided over a great many worlds in many systems by now. Mariel had gained a formidable amount of knowledge into the components required for certain devices. And yet what she saw on the screen now was just...could it be absolutely nonsense? It didn't seem like it, somehow.

She'd made a detailed check of every component in their database. Still nothing, nothing remotely close to the requirements. Mariel was at a loss. The news around was that Nanoha had woken up. She couldn't just turn around and tell her that her device had gone bonkers.

I need to talk to Chrono about this, Mariel thought, striding away from the monitor and out of the laboratories completely. Or Yuuno-kun at the very least. Maybe this is something new that they've discovered. She didn't place much faith in that hope, however.

The crystal reflected the lights in her eyes once more, dancing as they did across the edges of a surreal landscape that none of them could see. It didn't seem very pretty to Exoria, especially when they really all looked the same as red to her. She was tired of playing. Tired of games which nobody else was playing.

On this occasion, however, she was not alone. The superior was there in the sky, pushing her down constantly, then pulling her back up, always with that same cold attitude. It was beginning to get to her. Of course, she wasn't really in that sky, but talking of games...

The Legion stepped forward onto empty space which bore its weight quite comfortably and fixed Exoria with the unnerving gaze of half-human and half-machine. Exoria wasn't sure how much human was left.

Off to one side, the last member of their organisation stepped out of the portal with considerable difficulty, especially considering that they had the wrong number of beds. Their face transformed into a smile when they saw Exoria, and then a grimace, and then turned into a giggle which caused them to double up into hysterics.

"Where did you go?" the Legion said.

Exoria growled in-between her teeth and refused to answer. The laughter of the alien on the other side of the crystal was irritating her. She wasn't feeling exactly like a pacifist right now.

"My Legion," came the female voice from above them, as the lights continued to dance and flicker, like the score of a musical symphony. "And Ungore. Thank you for bringing them back again."

Exoria scowled. She wasn't overly fond of the hooded alien which insisted on speaking through the wrong organs and laughing far too hard at things that weren't funny. It struck a nerve in her, especially the way they spoke to her. And now they had been dispatched to fit her mistake. If only she'd managed to take care of Hayate, maybe this wouldn't have-

Ungore's head swooped back up all of a sudden as it got to its feet. For a moment Exoria thought it was going to start mocking her again. She already felt like killing something now that her powers had returned.

"Where's Srethis?" Ungore said instead, drawing itself up. As always, it was clothed in red, green, purple, blue and just about every other colour in existence. Exoria always thought it looked like a clown. "Are they on a mission?"

The female voice from above said, "You need not concern yourself with that reptile anymore."

"Really? Really? Really." The hooded alien blinked twice, spun its head round and flung one arm to the side, then picked up its other arm with the first arm, flopping over to one side. "Oh! But I do concern myself, oh Superior-san, program, yes. Yes I do. Hey! Legion. Where's Srethis?"

The Legion cast an uncaring glance towards the tall creature. "In the custody of the Bureau, if they are not dead yet."

"Oh! But that's bad." Ungore shut its eyes, then flicked them open again to stare at its arms, a vein twitching in what little could be seen of its shadowed face. "Bad! Sincerely. But Superior-san is going to go rescue wonderful Srethis, right?"

"No, Ungore," the voice from the lights said patiently. "We talked about this. Srethis was not guaranteed a safe return. Their cost to this organisation was highly - "

"Oh, but don't say "was", Superior-san, was, "was" is in the past! Let's say is!" The alien was chattering excitedly, as it always did when something happened that set its emotions alight. "Because you see, don't you, don't you, that dear Srethis cannot live without its medicine. And since only we supply such - "

"A calculated risk," the superior's voice snapped down, cutting Ungore off in mid-sentence. "Srethis cannot help us any further. It was quite appropriate for them to leave us this way. After all, they refused to accept Oguba's powers - "

"They weren't the only one!" Ungore cried, holding one limp arm by the other, and waving it at the shining lights. "The Legion - "

The splinters of light went dark. "No," the woman's voice said sharply. "We will say no more of this. Srethis was weak enough to be captured by mere humans. The decision has already passed you, Ungore. We need your skills, not those of a reptilian acrobat." Slowly, the lights returned to semi-brightness again, wavering over Ungore's futile gesture towards them. "Now. If we are able to get started here, there is the matter of our client to discuss - "

"Did you mean me, Superior-san?" came a child's voice out of the darkness, accompanied by the barest sound of footsteps.

The rest of them were suddenly hushed into silence as a little girl came into view, her small shining smile drawing them in. Her hair was drawn back along her neck, long and beautiful, with a small necklace around her neck. She wore an ordinary brown jacket, seeming out of place in this world of impossibilities and time travel. Like Exoria, she always seemed to be unarmed.

It was her eyes that told you that there might be something wrong about her. For her eyes were empty of pupils and were jet-black, black as the holes within that threatened to suck you in forever.

"Hello, Client-san," the female voice said somewhat respectfully. "I am pleased to report that the arrangements have been made successfully."

Our client, Exoria thought. She doesn't often come to visit, but when she does, she always wants something.

The little girl beamed, the smile not quite reaching her eyes. "That's wonderful! Wonderful, Superior-san! Oguba is pleased. All of you have done me a great service. I really am glad for such friendships such as yours, Legion-san, Ungore-san, Exo-chan!"

"Don't call me Exo-chan," Exoria hissed under her breath, not caring if she was heard or not.

The client's dead eyes shot over to her for a moment, and her heart skipped a beat. Then the realisation that she was being intimidated by a little girl came over her, and Exoria felt rage well up inside her, glaring back at the client in equal measure.

"I see," said the little girl after a few moments, still staring at her. "Oh, Exo-chan, I still consider you my friend. Why don't you return the gesture? Don't you trust me?"

"I might trust you more," Exoria said daringly, "if your allies were more reliable."

Srethis, Ungore and Grylmark. They never used to be here before she came. Of course, neither did I...

"I can vouch for all those who enter into a contract with the great Oguba," the girl said quite seriously, the smile still on her young face. "Oh Exo-chan, are you angry with me?"

"Grylmark never turns up!" Exoria shouted angrily, though in actual fact that was the least of her worries. Creepy dead girls and annoying aliens were certainly higher up on her list. "If you want our services, then why do you send us someone who never makes an appearance? How are we supposed to run an assassination organisation properly if we don't know what he's doing half the time?"

The Legion had turned its face away from her, but Exoria was sure that it was in agreement with her own thoughts. But their machine side wins them over. They just don't have the guts to stand up to her. Hell knows why, when I'm the one who was the best suited with Oguba's powers.

"Now, now," the little girl said soothingly as if the outburst had been nothing. "You should calm down, Exo-chan. I understand your frustrations - "

"She's in love," Ungore said behind its hood, with suppressed laughter.

Exoria's face went a violent shade of red. She wanted to kill that creature on the spot.

"No fighting! Please!" the girl pleaded, spreading her arms openly. "Hear me out, please. I can tell you all from the depths of my heart – no, from Oguba himself – that Grylmark is as trustworthy as any of you. I ask you not to doubt another great friend of mine."

"We are getting nowhere here," the superior said, its voice rolling down from the sky impatiently. "Client-san, if we could wrap up our business quickly..."

The client stared up at the lights for a moment and then nodded. "Of course, Superior-san, of course. My friends, I offered Oguba's power to you as payment for your services. And you have all done everything I asked. The death of Takamachi Nanoha is necessary for the existence of Oguba to continue. Of course, her revival is equally necessary, but there is no reason why she would not wake up in view of the events set in motion. The brain of Jail Scaglietti, along with the Lost Logia, will serve as an excellent offering to the great Oguba. For all this, my friends, I thank you." She bowed gracefully. "Our agreement, then, is done. From here on, we shall part ways."

She turned around and started to disappear into the darkness.

"Wait just one second!" Exoria said, not expecting this. "You're just going to leave?"

The little girl paused and turned around, surprised. "Of course. We have finished our business, Exo-chan, haven't we?"

"But..." She couldn't believe that the client would just come all the way here just to tell them that everything was wrapped up. There had to be something more. "But does this mean we'll lose Oguba's powers when you go?"

"Of course not, Exo-chan!" the girl exclaimed, her lips folding into a radiant smile. "The great Oguba does not bind you or hold you down with unnecessary constraints. The powers of time-travel are a gift to all of you. Our business is finished here. Oguba bids you good luck in the future to use your powers as however you see fit." She turned to leave again. "It is my wish that whether you use them for good or for evil, if you believe in those kinds of things, that you still enjoy the most out of our partnership."

She began to disappear once more, the darkness closing in at her back.

Long seconds of silence passed at her departure. Exoria glanced towards the rest of their group – towards Ungore and the Legion. They both seemed just as uneasy as she did. Nobody in their kind of business ever gave away anything for free. There was something wrong here.

Then the footsteps came back all of a sudden, and she was back once more.

"I'm so sorry," said the client, stepping back into view once more. "I just remembered one little thing that needed doing. It's nothing that special, but you know how time travel is? Don't you?"

"What is it, Client-san?" the superior's female voice asked. They had been surprisingly silent throughout the proceedings beforehand.

The little girl smiled bashfully. "I just need a little favour from you wonderful people. Just do one more thing for me, set my conscience at ease, and Oguba's work will be complete once-and-for all. Let's say it can be the topping on the cake. And seal our friendship just how it should be!" She looked around hopefully. "How about it?"

I don't think I did the best job on this chapter, like didn't focus enough on Nanoha and everyone else, but the next chapter will answer a lot of questions. I might be updating a bit quicker but I'll see how it goes.