AN: You are all lucky I love you guys and was like 'I already went through all the work to set up that beaten up tablet/laptop thingy last week… it'd be a hell of a lot easier if I'm just uploading a new chapter and that's all I gotta do...' because FF is still being a little bastard about switching to desktop on my phone.

Review Responses:

Diakron- That's fine! I don't really mind if people lurk in general, lol, most of you do, I was just a touch concerned because there wasn't any reviews at all so I was worried people may not like it, but the handful of responses I got say otherwise, so it's all good!

Zoran Dawn-Eclipse- I actually had to look that up, but it's not just coloration that's different, they look wildly different in general from the online pics I was seeing, so yeah, definitely not based on them.

She tore him to shreds. Actually, originally I planned for Mike to be brought in and him, Kazuto, and Shuraba to work together to find her with their bonds while Marzanna realized what the stone was via Lucifer and Pandora… but then Muzanna was like 'ooooorrrr. I can roll up while Dumbledore is trying to leverage his help to regain control of Mike.' So, the curse hiding her became a thing and that's what happened.

DA Exodus- I'm glad you enjoyed it! This has been sitting in my notes waiting to be sprung since 2017 so it's been hovering in the background, lol, so I'm glad people seem to be enjoying it! Is it a huge epic quest/arc? No. But I hope you guys have all found the storyline to be interesting! Nephthys is… a bit sad as to what her problem is, as you'll find out this chapter. Osiris was fun though!

jeremiahkelley93- Glad you enjoyed it!

darkjason78- Not that I can think of? I mean, Dante undoubtedly has them in the background, but there was really never any reason to give them to Marzanna, and we hardly ever see Dante fighting, but even if we do, they aren't supposed to talk. Best case for them possibly showing up, Dante ends up giving them to Mike to help boost him up to get a head start after they agree or something, but even then they wouldn't be likely to show up. Though you could absolutely imagine it happening, since I have had the vague idea that Dante might've but haven't given it much thought, and given they can talk, they might be a good choice to help Mike even while he's at school since the fact they can see and talk means he could plant them into the ground and practice with them watching and giving tips. If you're talking about their characters, definitely not, since this is after Temin-ne-gru.

Marzanna slowly opens her eyes to her own ceiling rather than that cell, feeling significantly better than she had when she got back home. She's unsurprised to find both Kazuto and Yui curled into her from either side.

As she raises a hand and cards through her mate's hair, a voice off to the side draws her attention to Shuraba, "Finally awake Mistress? Though Eva and Lily said it was to be expected given how badly off you were, everyone was starting to get worried at how long you've been out."

She blinks slowly at Shuraba as she carefully sits up, cautious of waking her mate and daughter, who were likely exhausted from the worry for her, "How long was it?"

Shuraba sighs, "Not too long in general, since it was only a day, but long enough from a full grown Nephilim to be somewhat concerning."

She nods slowly, then tilts her head, "My connection to you is still almost broken."

Shuraba nods, "Yes, Eva believes we need to touch to repair it, since it was also physical contact that initiated reabsorption between me and the other forms, but with your state being what it was, we were worried that it may strain you further, so after we discussed it, it was decided that we should wait until your body had decided it was recovered enough to wake."

She nods in understanding, then extends a hand over Yui's head. Shuraba doesn't hesitate to reach back and touch her palm. They both let out gusty sighs of sheer relief as their bond repairs itself in seconds, and the majority of the cracks on Shuraba's skin close up. When it's done, she can feel two signals vaguely in the distance.

When she turns her attention towards them, Shuraba looks thoughtful, "Nephthys and Osiris I presume. I suppose our bond being repaired was much better for our range than me simply reabsorbing the others."

She blinks at Shuraba in vague surprise, "I can understand why Osiris' attitude may make it more difficult to track her down since she wouldn't be likely to come back on her own, but I'm a bit shocked Nephthys didn't."

Shuraba shakes her head, "Actually, only myself, Arbiter, and presumably Osiris were in control of ourselves, it's assumed to be due to us being the core. The others on the other hand, where in berserk mindless rages. We managed to track down Eryx and Aquila and I reabsorbed them, and even found Nephthys. But when I started to reabsorb her, she came back to herself before the process was complete and ran off screaming that she couldn't for some reason."

She slips her eyes closed, but she's not getting much more than their location from them, so she sighs, "We'll have to see if she'll be more forthcoming when we head out for her a bit later."

Shuraba nods, "Mm. Hopefully, whatever is the problem will be easy to resolve."

She hums, then looks up from where she was gazing at her mate, "Also, given what you said about you all discussing whether you should reconnect our bond before or after I woke up, I assume everyone else can see you now?"

Shurba nods, "When they took you away, I instinctively reached for magic from Kazuto and Mike and seem to have, rather permanently, given us the ability to materialize our human forms properly rather than just in your vision. Eva thinks it's because of us changing into full sentience, which for the record, she says is not supposed to happen."

She blinks rapidly in surprise, "Huh. Wonder why it occurred with you guys?"

Shurab gives an elegant shrug, "After you were safe and they'd finished treating you, I talked with her about it more properly. Do you remember how your desperation had you reaching for Kazuto with all your powers?"

She nods, so Shuraba continues, "She, Alessio, and Vergil believe it's because you're Demonic and Angelic energies weren't kept separate, and due to the unpredictability of them mixing, ended up causing the strange, though thankfully harmless, by-product of me gaining full sentient, and as the main neutral core, it spread to the others."

She hums thoughtfully, "I see…"

A while passes in comfortable silence before the door to her room opens. Looking over she sees her mother turning to her with a relieved expression as she closes the door, a tray with food in hand, "Thank goodness. We were starting to get worried there…" Then she shakes her head, "How are you feeling, sweetie?"

She shrugs, "Better than I have in a while, given that paradoxically, accepting the Resurrection Stone got rid of that ghost chill I've been feeling."

Lily lifts her head from where she'd been focused on the food to blink quickly at her in surprise for a moment, "Huh. I would think it'd be the opposite." Then she shakes her head as she hands a bowl of soup over, "Well, I suppose it isn't too surprising given the way it's latched onto you, but we did give removing it from your thumb a try. Refused to budge, and after a little bit it started getting arctic levels of cold, but I checked the temperature of your skin in the area with a spell out of concern, and I think it was only cold for us."

As she sips on her soup her mom continues, "Also, now that we have confirmation of its existence, Vergil and I followed its path backwards. Unsurprisingly, the Gaunt family, whom Voldemort was born to a daughter of and who owned that ring he turned into a Horcrux, was considered very mad, though it's difficult to tell how much is attributed to what since they were also incredibly inbred and very much pureblood supremacists, but it's not too surprising, given that the people the Stone calls back clearly can't be seen by others, and given how common twisting a ring over one's finger is, therefore turning it thrice, it would've made for generation after generation seeing dead people with no explanation and being told that they aren't there."

She sighs, "Actually, when we went far enough back to when the Stone was first made into the ring, since they still had it before that, we were going through their records before they started unintentionally using the Resurrection Stone constantly, and from what we could tell, they were a decent family before that. Certainly not pureblood supremacists anyway. So unintentional though it may have been, it was the Stone that made them mad."

Her mom shrugs, "We took a peak at your mind just to be safe, and we weren't seeing any negative effects, but we want to monitor you for a while just to be sure it was essentially seeing the dead, some of which may have been insane supremacists and the like, but constantly being told it was entirely in your head. Since being considered mad by everyone around you can often lead to madness."

She nods her understanding, "That's fair." Then she glances at her mate in worry, "You should also check Kazuto and Mike. They both have connections to my mind."

Her mom tilts her head, "That's a good point. Although, Kazuto didn't seem to see Ariana."

She shrugs, "And by the time Vergil had started making enough headway for us to sense each other, she had already said her goodbyes and left. So we have no idea how a complete soulmate bond or a twin bond handles the Resurrection Stone. They very well may be able to see the dead I call with it."

Her mom looks at Kazuto thoughtfully, "That's a good point. I didn't really pay much attention to the order of events, so it hadn't occurred to me." She gazes in thought for a few more moments, then shakes her head, "It's something we can look into later. He's exhausted from the worry of what happened to you and running around trying to find any hint to where you were."

She pauses, "Did you guys go to that base?"

Her mom hums, "Mm. They actually hadn't abandoned it yet, since things were still chaotic and disorganized. Hell, they weren't even sure you were gone. We captured the living Death Eaters irregardless of the fight they attempted to put up, then reported the place to the ICW as a terrorist base so they could slip in and finish the clean up since all the threats were neutralized and ready for pick-up."

She lifts her head from where she'd been gazing intently into her second bowl, body very keen on the food now that it's realized it's there from the first and its stomach has reminded her appetite that it hasn't actually eaten in a while, "... And how was Kazuto?"

Her mom sighs, "Worse off than the rest of us, which should tell you enough and is to be expected since you two are soulmates." She snorts, "Hell, I guess it wasn't all bad, since I think that actually seeing his clear dedication as well as him running around frantically has helped your dad and uncle Vergil accept him far more."

She lets out a small huff of laughter as she gazes at her mate, fully used to their unbelievable overprotective tendencies, "I'm not surprised."

Her mom laughs a little as well, then finishes moving the food off of it and collects the tray before she angles herself towards the door with a smile, "I'll go get more food, since the rate you're going through that I don't think what I brought will be enough."

She just gives her mom a sheepish thankful smile since her mouth is full.

She breathes in the air from the base closest to the signal that feels like Nephthys. Shuraba and Kazuto actually say it feels like her to them, even now that she's back and reunited with her Nephilim Blade, but it feels distinctly like Nephthys to her. Something her grandma had shrugged off as her probably being more sensitive to the differences between them by virtue of the form changes being dictated by her.

She stretches her somewhat stiff arms as she gets ready to head out with Shuraba and Kazuto, who, for all that she and her mate made strides in getting over their separation anxiety, had come screaming right back with her capture and they've been somewhat difficult to separate since she returned. Not that it was the only reason. If Nephthys' sanity had slipped from her grasp again, he could help her subdue her before reabsorbing her with Shuraba's falcata form that she had happily returned to her. Shuraba herself was materialized with them since none of them knew if she needed to be or not, or even if her human form had to be the one holding the weapon when the reabsorption happens.

When they're ready to head out, Kazuto and Shuraba don't hesitate to follow her when she takes off towards the signal. It isn't too long in the grand scheme of things before they're entering a small wooded area and soon finding Nephthys sitting under a tree, face pressed into her knees which she has her arms wrapped around tightly.

She jerks her head up, then shoots to her feet, "Mistress! You're ok!"

She nods, "Mm. I am. Well. Mostly, definitely gonna have to go back to Maki after the storm that was getting out of the Death Eater base. But physically I'm fine now."

She twists her hands, "That- That's good…"

She steps forward, "More importantly Nephthys, Shuraba said she found you before but you ran away." Nephthys finches, so while she hadn't particularly thought her expression was hard she actively tries to soften it, "Why Nephthys?"

Her Scimitar wraps her arms around herself with a shuddering breath, looking down and away in shame, "I- I can't."

She steps forward, "Nephthys, it wasn't any of you guy's fault that you were torn apart and scattered, and Shuraba has already reabsorbed most of the others-"

Nephthys squeezes her eyes shut as words burst out of her like a dam, "None of them killed people!"

She falls quiet briefly in surprise, and Nephthys' shameful expression gains a pained aspect, "I… when I was wandering. I came across a- a husband and wife pair from what I can tell. Living out in the middle of nowhere. In my berserk insanity, I- I-"

Her words choke out, and Marzanna starts to step forward, but at Nephthys' hard flinch and her pulling away has her aborting the motion, "And that's tragic, and we'll need to find where they were to make sure they don't just… rot there, but Nephthys, you weren't in your right mind. I don't know how it felt like to you guys, but Shuraba says she couldn't see so much as a spark of intelligence in your eyes, as well as Eryx's and Aquila's for that matter."

Nephthys lifts her teary eyes, "But-!"

She shakes her head, "But nothing. There's a reason the phrase pleading temporary insanity is a thing. It wasn't your fault Nephthys. You weren't yourself, nor in control of your actions. Please. Just come home."

Nephthys lets out a shuddering breath, a conflicted look on her face before she slowly nods and holds one of the Scimitars of her form out. Without hesitation, she steps forward and touches Shuraba's Falcata form to it, and immediately Nephthys' human form as well as the second Scimitar of her weapon form begin turning into streams of blue light heading towards the Scimitar the Falcata is touching. Once it's all gathered, but before the Scimitar can drop to the ground it turns to a bluish smoke and Shuraba's weapon form sucks it up.

She sighs somewhat sadly, then glances back at Shuraba, for whom some of the cracks on her skin have disappeared, "Do you have the path she took to get to those people, or will we have to track them down some other way?"

Shuraba closes her eyes briefly, then nods slowly, "I have the path actually. Even if she wasn't in her right mind, she remembers the direction she was initially thrown compared to the direction she went, and from there I can tell roughly what her path was even if her memories are… broken fractures."

She nods, "Ok. We need to head back to use a different base to get closer to Osiris' position anyway, so when we get back you can pass that over to mom, and hopefully they can do the same thing of passing it to Vergil and having him create an illusion for Yui like you told me you did to get a rough idea of where the others went. Then they can send someone to confirm the location and report it to authorities if it hasn't been discovered already."

Shuraba nods and they head out, back towards the base. It isn't long before they're back, and it's significantly less time after that before they have her mom and uncle pulled aside behind a silence spelled room, since the fact she used hers and her mate's blood to make Yui's body means that she's genetically theirs too making her artificial body that of a Nephilim, and more mature due to her AI nature or not, they'd prefer to keep her away from things like this when possible. Anyway, once they have them pulled aside, and have explained why they silenced the room just to be sure what's going on isn't explained to Yui, they give them a rundown of the situation and quickly hand off the relevant info to help track down the poor couple that had just… been at the wrong place at the wrong time.

Once they have it all sorted out and her mom has assured them that they'll handle it, they head back out, and it isn't long before they're rushing away from the closest base to Osiris and towards her location. It takes a bit since the closest one they have is actually a bit away from her, but it isn't long before they locate her making her way through some woods.

She turns to them as they approach, eyeing her as they come to a stop, "I see you've returned from wherever they took you." She looks away, "I suppose it's a good thing, both that and that you didn't kick the bucket."

She snorts, "You've gotten even more rude I see."

Osiris grins meanly, "I've been enjoying not having to rely on you heading off to a problem to tackle it. Already knocked out three Death Eater bases and found at least one of the places they've been hiding Demons."

Her brow furrows, and Osiris rolls her eyes, "Relax. I didn't kill any of the little pricks, even if they would've deserved it." She shrugs, "If nothing else, they're more useful alive for pumping info out of. I bagged 'em and called 'em into the ICW."

She blinks in surprise at her Scythe, "That's… a little shocking coming from you. I mean, yeah, at minimum there's an argument for leaving them alive since you never know which of them will have useful intel until they're interrogated, but with how bloodthirsty you are and how much you prefer to just… jump right in, it didn't occur to me that the thought may cross your mind."

She snorts, "Yes, I'm bloodthirsty, and yes, I prefer action over thinking things through, but I'm not an idiot. Hell, though I didn't leave that part to the ICW, I even interrogated the Demons." She gets another mean smile, "Though, not in any way they would've done it. Why I'm going this way actually. One of 'em knew where another group of Demons was at."

She gains a thoughtful look, then turns back to Osiris, "That's useful to know, but you realize that if nothing else given that we don't know what long term effects it could have on you and the rest of the Nephilim Blade that you need to come back right?" Osiris' eyes narrow, and she pushes on, "Especially since while you, Shuraba, and Arbiter are in control of yourselves and the current theory is that being the three original core forms stabilized you, we have no way of knowing if that's permanent. You may very well lose yourself if you're separated for too long."

Her narrowed eyes return to normal as she gazes off to the side thoughtfully, then turns back with a determined expression, "On one condition."

Her brows furrow, "Being?"

Osiris plants her hands on her hips, "We may not be Devil Arms, but with all the stupid identity issues and other crap you've been whining about since you got out of Aincrad, prove you still deserve to be my wielder." Then she narrows her eyes at the other two, "That means her alone for the record."

She blinks rapidly at her Scythe, then holds out a hand to cut off Shuraba and Kazuto's protests as a mean smile of her own crosses her face, "If you wanna fight, you've got a fight." She casually cracks her neck, "Besides, while I've technically recovered, I've been wanting to stretch my muscles after I got locked up by those assholes for a bit."

Osiris' own mean smile comes back, "Good."

She nods, "Though I hope you realize that while Shuraba, nor any of the others for that matter, materialized form may not directly help me, since they are part of my Nephilim Blade, I will be using their weapon forms as I see fit. So unless you're going to get pissy that it counts as them helping me…"

Osiris shorts, "If you even remember to switch forms as the situation calls for it." She waves her hand flippantly, "It's fine though, as long as you're doing the fighting, it's good enough for me."

She nods again, and they both ready their weapons as the other two reluctantly back off to give them room. For a few moments, they eye each other, then Osiris launches forward at her. It doesn't connect even remotely though, as she uses the Trickster she usually has active as her prefered Style to teleport, or blink as it's usually shortened to, a good bit behind her and switch to Aquila and throws them at her. Given Osiris' remark about never switching forms anymore, she decides right then and there not to use Shuraba's form, though she does toss a mental apology at her, which is quickly brushed aside with a returned understanding of her proving a point. And though it doesn't have to do with her point she feels it may be best not to use Nephthys for anything but Demon hunting for a while as she recovers mentally, so she also resolves not to use her unless necessary.

As Osiris whirls with a snarl, batting the two aside and launching forward again, she calls the weapons back as she brings her hands up, switching to Arbiter after she catches them to swing it down at Osiris, who barely diverts in time to avoid it.

As she moves to swing at her, she switches to Eryx, meeting the blade of the Scythe with one fist as she lashes out at her human throat with the other, forcing Osiris to quickly backstep to avoid the blow.

Using the small bit of distance, she quickly switches back to Aquila and launches an Orbit move, forcing Osiris to quickly move back more and more as she deflects what she can while she herself pushes forward.

Just as Osiris starts to get into the flow of it though, she calls them back again, timing it to leave her off balance as she moves to deflect again, swiftly switching back to Eryx as kicks off the ground to launch herself forward faster than the steady advance Osiris had grown used accustomed to during Orbit to punch towards her face.

This time Osiris doesn't dodge in time and is launched back to skid across the ground. Even as Osiris flings a hand down to push herself into a flip to get back on her feet, she blinks away again, not behind her from where she was and the direction Osiris will be facing after the flip, since that's the direction her gaze was currently in due to the flip, but off to the side as she simultaneously switches back to Aquila, though this time she keeps her in her hands as she closes the distance, knowing that even if Osiris turns fast enough that the lack of Arbiter's large ax form will have her expecting another punch, and that the direction of the sun means her own shadow falling in front of her will make it harder to tell what weapon she has.

As soon as Osiris is facing the direction she had been in, she quickly flicks a look to the sides and clocks her to her left, and sure enough, she brings her weapon form up to block her left hand, ignoring the right that's sort of tucked into her stomach. And leaving herself wide open to a stab from that hand straight to the gut.

She's fast enough to react to the burn of pain that it doesn't go too deep, then touches the wound, before smiling at her, "Sneaky brat, Aquila is supposed to be thrown, not a melee weapon."

She smiles right back, "And your Scythe form is large enough that it's not meant to be spun over your hand, but I used to do that with you." She shrugs, "I've flung Arbiter at enemies too, and she's not meant for throwing."

She looks away mildly amused, "Honestly, I think the only one of you that I haven't gotten… creative in the use of is Eryx, but she's kind of a set of gauntlets sealed into fists, so there isn't much room for that."

Osiris barks a laugh, "True enough."

Then they both go back to circling each other as they both eye the other up. This time, she makes the fist move, switching to Eryx as she launches forward and pulling back an arm to swing an uppercut, other hand held across her stomach hovering close by.

As she closes and Osiris brings her weapon form to divert it with the blade though, midswing she switches to Arbiter immediately grabbing onto the handle with her other hand to help the swing.

She gets one brief moment to take in Osiris' eyes going huge since they both know that the sheer weight if nothing else makes Arbiter hit significantly harder if a good momentum can be built up. Which she had from starting the swing with the significantly lighter Eryx instead.

The swing of the Scythe, meant to divert Eryx, may not be enough to do so against Arbiter, but some quick last moment changing from Osiris does keep the swing from cutting into her, which while predicted is good since she wasn't trying to kill her, since they still don't know what effect that'll have.

Even if it doesn't cleave into her though, it still launches her skyward, and she quickly switches to the lighter Aquila as she moves towards where her Scythe will land.

When she does, and tumbles a little after doing so, she falls upon her, quickly pinning the weapon form that she'd managed to hold onto under her foot, and as Osiris whips her head in that direction with a snarl, she throws one of Aquila's blades right next to her head.

Osiris freezes up reflexively as she turns back to her to eye her holding the other in a ready position.

After a beat of staring each other down, Osiris snorts as she relaxes, "Where'd that spitfire go after Aincrad?"

She huffs back, "I didn't go anywhere. I just had some shit to work through and then I had to work with Uncle Vergil and the others to get used to switching again." She narrows her eyes, "Which you know given you saw those training sessions. Now, you gonna try and fight me if I free your weapon form and help you up or what?"

Osiris snorts again, "Relax. I know when I've lost."

She lifts her foot off of the Scythe form, then shifts back to Shuraba and offers the hand not holding her Falcata. Osiris clasps it. Once she's back on her feet she brushes herself off before straightening, "So? How's this work?"

She shrugs, "Just need the weapon forms in physical contact." She starts to lift Shuraba then pauses, "Just… leave Nephthys alone." Osiris blinks at her, nonplussed, "Like I said earlier, the others were in something of a berserk rage and she… happened across a couple innocent people."

Osiris blinks again, then looks away, "Just because I hate you getting pouty at killing people who deserve it doesn't mean I'm cruel. Or at least not that cruel. But yeah, I'm probably not the best person for her to be around right now anyway."

She nods and finishes bringing Shuraba up. Osiris touches the blade with the tip of her Scythe and much as Nephthys had turns into streams of blue light that get absorbed by her weapons form which in turns to smoke when her human form is gone and in turn is absorbed by Shuraba.

Kazuto approaches with somewhat raised eyebrows, "Y'know, you guys told me you were working on relearning to switch the weapon forms, but I didn't really realize how different your fighting looks when you're properly switching instead of just occasionally using one."

She shrugs, "It can't really be helped. I've been getting much better, and I was even switching weapons back during that attack of Hogsmeade we were present for, though given you had your own opponents I'm not surprised you didn't see it, but… Well, switching weapons like that wasn't really viable in Aincrad, so for two whole years I was just fighting with a Falcata."

He nods as they turn to start heading back, "Fair enough." Then he tilts his head, "Though, I should probably start joining your sessions. For one thing, we don't want my presence having you habitually falling back on just a Falcata, because yeah, I was at Hogsmeade like you said, but I'm sure you were just distractedly keeping tabs on me out of the corner of your eye and through the bond like I was."

She nods then looks over at Shuraba with a smile, "It's good to see you without those cracks."

Shuraba nods with a smile of her own, "It's good to be back in one piece."

She hums, "Yeah, I'd imagine so." Then she glances over as they walk, "Out of curiosity, do you feel your hold on your materialized form slipping?"

She tilts her head, "No. Could be that the energy from Kazuto and Mike hasn't been used up, but given that it rightly should have at this point, as well as the fact the others materialized, I'm more inclined to believe that the idea we gained the ability permanently is correct."

She nods, as she stretches, "That's cool. Both because it means you guys have more options to entertain yourselves while I'm doing things like research as well as the fact that now that the recent… incident has been sorted out that I'm sure grandma will wanna talk to you guys. Maybe poke and prod a bit if you're willing."

Shuraba shrugs, "I trust Eva enough not to mind, but given I have no way of knowing what will transfer over to the others, it may be better to make sure everyone is alright with it first."

She nods in agreement.

She sighs in satisfaction as she finishes the paperwork so that she and Kazuto can patent the new Demon Detector V1, mostly so that no greedy assholes can scoop it up and start charging stupid amounts for it.

Technically, they hadn't done it themselves, but Yui was insistent that she hadn't done too much beyond saving them time in reworking the runes in the program on Kazuto's laptop, and her family had also insisted on them taking credit, since while they'd helped boost the range, it had been them that had taken the idea and gotten the groundwork for something viable.

Timing being the weird thing it can sometimes be, while they'd of course been involved with polishing the idea, especially since it also acted as a practical lesson herself and Yui on Runes, since it was more in the hands of the older generations, they had shifted their primary focus to the Teleport Gates and had proudly finalized V1 of that and gotten the patent, as well as signed an agreement with the Yuuki family for RCT to begin manufacturing them and rolling them out as government provinces purchase their own, after a demonstration and inviting a group from the ICW as well as select members of the press, not because they were aiming for ones that won't talk shit about them or anything, on the contrary, they were selected because they were honest and had reputations for being so, and therefore would write honest news on them and their impressions, to follow them through from the Japan Gate to America, though only after showing, and proving, that the connection between the doors was temporarily shut down.

Needless to say, after that not only had it gotten raving reviews, but after various governments had run their own safety tests, one of the benefits of magic was being able to find out if there were long term side effects without having to wait for that time to pass, not because they don't trust the Sparda family to have done their due diligence, which they had, but partly due to legal necessity and partly because they themselves encountered them run their own tests rather than take them at face value because they don't claim to be perfect and there was always a possibility they missed something even without taking into account that it would likely make their people feel even more at ease that having it backed by the Sparda's reputation to hear their own country had run tests as well.

It hadn't taken long, since everyone damn well knew they'd be better in general than portkeys, not only since it meant there wasn't a necessity for constantly enchanting long distance portkeys, which some murmurs about the loss of jobs had been met with it being pointed out that not everyone was good at apparition and the gates could only take one to set destinations and that if anything it should just shorten the expected wait time to get them.

Of course, as they're being set up, only certain ones were authorized to work for international teleports, primarily so customs could be set up on the other side to make sure everyone coming through was allowed to be there, and to keep anyone from teleporting in then just apparating away, anti-apparition wards had been set up. Priority on the rollout was to supply one to each country first, then start distribution amongst the provinces inside them. The notable exception was the UK, which had also not been invited to the demonstration and requests for them denied after they got wind of it, as they had zero desire to make it easily available to Voldemort and his lackeys.

The rollout had started just a week before. Which meant she and Kazuto had suddenly gotten credit for two different crowning achievements in the same month.

Needless to say, they were rather proud of themselves, and so had everyone else been. It had led to one hell of a party at her house with Kazuto's family and their friends invited.

There would probably be another later, but for now, with the paperwork for the new patent turned in, and a copy of it with a date of when it was submitted handed back by the wizard in the patent office, she heads off and quickly floos over to Asuna's.

Her friend, having been expecting her, greets her warmly before taking her to meet with her parents. Yuuki Shouzou smiles at her, "Kirigaya-Sparda-san, it is a pleasure to have you over, though I must confess to being interested in why you asked for the meeting."

Beside him his wife nods a greeting which she returns as she answers, "Well, you recall that Kazuto and I asked you to hold onto our portion of the profits from the Teleport Gates while we finalized something else?"

He nods, "I do. I presume it's about that?"

She nods back, "It is. We have to wait for the patent to officially go through of course, but given the facilities your company has, we were hoping that once it does you would put our portion of the profits towards making something else for us."

He raises an eyebrow and she hands over the copy of their patent being received, reviewed, and authorized, his eyes widen as soon as he sees the title at the top, "This is-"

She nods again, "The Demon Detector Version One. We're wanting to implement them worldwide to help locate Demons coming through, possibly even before anyone else realizes they're there, given that as things currently stand, no one knows they're around until they start making trouble. With its current range, we wouldn't be able to cover everything and there would still be gaps of course, but if we can get them to cover the majority of populated areas at minimum…"

Shouzou gives her a serious look, "The Yuuki family and RCT would be honored to be in charge of such a task."

She smiles, "I was hoping you'd see things that way. It's why Kazuto and I made the choice regarding our portion of the profits that we did though, given that there will be a necessity for a lot of industria effusio crystals even before the work to put them together… well, we were hoping our portion would cover it without making RCT suffer a loss, since we aren't looking to sell these, as while contracts for Hunts make sense given that Hunters need to have their needs taken care of, with the fact magical governments have created open contracts for the elimination of hostile Demons, then it comes back to the basics, which is that people shouldn't have to purchase their safety."

Shouzou nods gravely, "I can appreciate your attempts to prevent RCT from suffering a loss over this, but if costs run over what your portion of the profits from the Teleport Gates can cover, RCT will gladly cover the rest, loss or no. Something like this is too important to be concerned over such petty concerns as it not being profitable."

She smiles warmly, "I'm glad you see it that way."

He smiles back, and they get down to discussing the nitty gritty details.

She watches the raid of the players in the distance, "Y'know. While I can understand why some people would enjoy it, personally for me, moving things to the real world with AR takes a good bit of the enjoyment out of a nice fight with no stakes."

Kazuto nods from where he's standing beside her watching the raid himself, "I know what you mean. Because yeah, no one will die here, but fighting in real life…"

She nods. On her other side, Asuna sighs a bit, "I can see why it wouldn't really vibe with you guys given you already fight here in the real world, even if I personally don't."

She hums then glances over at Asuna, "How's Yuuki?"

Her brow pinches again, "Well, that Healer I slipped in with a new 'test treatment' to subtly use magical healing is keeping her alive." She sighs sadly, "Though Tani-san told me that if I hadn't brought her in, Yuuki probably would've died sometime last month."

She winces slightly, then reaches out to squeeze Asuna's shoulder, "She isn't though. And while you may have had to convince your parents to pay for research to focus specifically on that, it's not the first time the magical world has attempted to make our cures not so… obviously from our world and conceal exactly what they are, or even take our knowledge of how to do it, to come up with out right non-magical cures. There's been plenty of successes in the past, there's no reason to assume it won't work this time."

Asuna sighs as she pushes some of her bangs behind an ear, "I know what you mean. I just… it's frustrating." She smiles tiredly at her, "I can understand your family's take on how outdated the Statute is in this more modern era significantly better now, even if it's somewhat selfish of me, but you're right non-magicals are much better educated and open minded nowadays, and we have a cure, and not just for that either-!"

She squeezes her shoulder again, "I know Asuna, I know."

The other woman sighs, but before the conversation can continue any further, Klein cheerfully calls out to them, "Oi! Are you three done talking and gonna come help or what?!"

Kazuto flips him off with equal cheer, "Oh fuck off!" Klein laughs and her mate glances at them and once he gets nods, turns back to him and continues, "But yeah, we're done!"

As they move forward towards the boss, her brow furrows, "That being said, it's still weird that SAO bosses are appearing here. I mean, Kagachi the Samurai Lord was the boss of the tenth floor, so it's absolutely an SAO boss…"

Kazuto nods, "Mm. Which means the rumors are true…"

Asuna dodges a blow from Kagachi, "Why though?"

Her mate's brow furrows, "A good question."

The fight continues for a bit before someone launches a rocket at Kagachi. The nimble boss dodges it easily, and the rocket continues on, looking like it'll hit Yuna, that virtual idol that came out with the AR gear Augma. She doubts it'll do anything to her, so she's a little surprised when another player deflects it away, at least until she realizes it's going right back at Kagachi, which she assumes was the goal.

The explosion pushes it to its knees and it falls to the ground as its health falls into the red and instigates a phase change, causing it to materialize a second katakana, and the player who had deflected the rocket calls out, "Follow me."

The player is surprisingly nimble himself, given that while he just twists out of the way of the first of the two beam slashes, or whatever you wanna call them, he flips over the second to rush past the boss with a slash of his weapon.

Asuna rushes past him as he continues on, pushing the boss back with some quick stabs, right into the waiting Klein and a couple members of the old Furinkazan. He tries to hit them a few times, which is either blocked by shields or deflected by weapons, before he turns to throw another beam slash towards them and Asuna. The unknown player dodges and closes again, getting a few good hits which drives it to its knees again only to get Asuna's rapier right into its back.

It freezes briefly before exploding in blue particles. After a second or two, an 'MVP' cursor pops up above Asuna as she and Kirito make their way over to her casually.

Klein huffs a laugh, "Man, you guys hardly did anything!"

She shrugs, "I've told you, Kirito and I don't care much for this AR craze. We'll help out a bit since you guys are into it, but we'd prefer a good VR anyday."

Another player approaches with a somewhat surprised expression, "To be honest, I was a little confused why you two are here if you weren't gonna help much but weren't pulled back enough to be out of agro range to watch, but I guess that makes sense. Still, VR? Those things are dangerous y'know?"

She snorts, "I was in SAO." His eyes widen and she smiles a little tiredly, "And I was unlucky enough to be in the four percent of players that were snatched by that creep Sugou."

He stares for a minute, then shakes his head, "Then…how could you possibly prefer VR to AR? At least here no one can trap you."

She snorts, "Because it isn't the fault of the technology that it was abused a couple times."

He tilts his head, "I guess…"

She snorts again, "You don't think phones are dangerous every time some psycho uses them to set off a bomb, right?"

He glances away, "Well, no, but…"

She shakes her head, "And also, for the record while I don't know about that guy who left, the rest of my group are also former SAO players, and while only Asuna here was in that four percent with me, we all met back up in Alfheim after Sugou's bs was revealed."

He looks around with wide eyes then lets out a quiet, "Oh…"

Asuna enters the conversation at that point, "He was."

She turns to her, "Hm?"

Asuna tilts her head, "That other guy. He was in SAO too. He murmured the term from there for switching who's being the forward attacker when I was passing him."

She blinks, then looks in the direction he'd gone, "Huh. An agility type in SAO who was frustrated at not being half as agile as he used to be there?"

Asuna shrugs, "Maybe? Who knows."

She hums.

Her brow is furrowed as she strides down the hospital hall quickly with Kazuto. It isn't long before they're arriving at the hospital room to find Dale, one of their friends from Furinkazan.

However, when they get there the lack of familiarity when he gazes at them in his eyes confirms what they were told when a Healer, intrigued by a case of targeted memory loss, got in touch about someone wearing a necklace that marks them as a friend of Sparda was found.

He doesn't remember SAO. Worse given the complete lack of familiarity, it seems like he doesn't remember anything since before SAO launched. Including the stuff from when they got free.

Klein, who had went to check on him first since after the Healer took over as an expert in memory loss had told them it may be better if someone he knew from before the memory loss came to see him first, steps a little closer with pinched eyebrows, "Come on Dale, you really don't remember them?"

The overweight brunette, though he's been taking advantage of the Augma to try and get a handle on it, looks up at Klein in confusion, "No? Should I?"

Klein's pinched look becomes more pronounced, "You remember what I told you before? About SAO?"

Dale shrinks in on himself, "... That Kayaba turned out to be a psycho and turned it into a trap of a death game?"

Klein nods, "Yeah, we met them there." He smiles, though it's a bit strained, "Actually, Kirito here was the one who was in the beta who taught me the basics of how to fight in SAO, and then I taught you guys? Remember?"

Dale shakes his head slowly, as he gazes at Kazuto with furrowed brows, "No…" Then he looks back at Klein, "Or, not directly anyway? You were telling me about it earlier when the doctor wanted to see if it'd help me recall memories…"

Klein's smile trembles slightly, "Right… Um. So Kirito here, Kazuto really but we all just kept calling him Kirito since that was the screen name we got used to, but Kirito taught me the basics of SAO, then the two of us met Hanna and then Kayaba revealed his death game insanity… Um, it wouldn't have been fair of me to ask two people to watch over eleven other people while trying to keep themselves alive at the same time, so we went our separate ways and I went to track all of Furinkazan down, so I could show you the basics Kirito taught me. We took a bit to cautiously get used to them so we wouldn't die, then we took off and started grinding and stuff. Caught up with them later. They're our friends Dale. They fought alongside us repeatedly. Kirito had risked his life IRL trying to save me."

Dale's brow furrows further, "No, I'm sorry, but…"

A woman in a medical coat steps forward, "Kirigaya-Sparda-San? May I speak to you? Both of you actually."

She nods, and they glance back one more time as they walk back out of the door, catching the tail end of Klein telling Dale more stories to try and jog his memory. She turns back to the woman just in time to see her subtly flick her wand right before she feels a faint buzz of magic over her skin.

The woman sighs and rubs as the bridge of her nose, "We spoke on the phone earlier, I'm Healer Nakano, and the one who took over your friend's case after I saw he's officially a friend to the Sparda. Kumamoto-san, ah, Dale-san as you'd know him better by… as you've noticed his amnesia has gotten worse."

She squeezes her hands into fists, "... Healers like yourself are allowed to petition to use Legilimency if they can prove reasonable cause, have you gotten it?"

Nakano sighs, "Yes, and it was granted, but it's the oddest thing I've ever seen, it's like… Memories are sometimes compared to movie reels, because when someone who isn't a practiced Occlumens thinks about what they should have done enough times they basically push the old frames out with a new modified set of reel frames. The original still exists, but it's removed and buried."

She nods, "Mm. I've been studying Occlumency since I was a child, so I'm familiar with it, and Kazuto has been learning since he officially became a Switch, so…"

Nakano gets a faintly relieved expression, "That will make this easier then. As you know, when you pull out a memory for a pensieve, it's more that you're making a copy. Due to the particulars of it, the original becomes softened and more distant, but it still exists." She nods again, "On the other hand, when a memory spell is used, it's similar to when non-Occlumens think about what they should have done too often, and the memory spell similarly pushes the old memory out of place so the original becomes lost to the conscious. Even magical attempts to remove a memory more… just bury it very very deeply. But Dale-san…"

She twists her fingers, "It's different for him?"

Nakano's face pinches, "It's like someone cut that part of the reel away. Worse, without the structure to tie it to the rest of his memories so he can hold on to them the ones after it are slipping away." She rubs at her face, "Thankfully, that's more akin to the memory loss we're used to, which is why I've been having Klein-san continue to try and jog his memory, but despite that back there, he's actually been talking about things that happened after SAO at my request."

She bites her lower lip, "Is there nothing to be done then? If it's been cut away completely…"

Nakano shakes her head firmly, "No. I refuse to believe that. It's impossible to delete a memory entirely, so it has to be somewhere." Her brow pinches, "That being said, given that it seemed to target his SAO memories first, I convinced my superior to request the old SAO task force to, if not give us their information, to check on all the old SAO players. They hadn't noticed before, but the prompt led them to finding over a hundred SAO players with similar memory loss cases."

Her eyes blow wide, and Kazuto lets out a shuddering breath, "Then… someone is targeting old SAO players specifically."

Nakano nods, expression tight, "Yes. Hospitals in the area have had their systems updated with SAO player names and have been alerted that if anyone is brought in with memory loss to contact Kikuoka from the old SAO task force immediately."

She twitches, still a bit upset at him about dragging Kazuto into the Death Gun mess given that at the time they didn't know what method he was using and if Kazuto would be safe. Though, she does acknowledge that it's a bit hypocritical of her, given that she's never protested Kazuto becoming her Demon Hunting partner, though she'll argue until she's blue in the face that at least the danger there is known, and even without the danger being fully known she hadn't hesitated to join him, both to protect him as well as innocent people.

She crosses her arms faintly, as she mumbles, "At least he's making himself useful."

Nakano gives her a somewhat troubled look, but Kazuto waves her off, "Ignore my wife's grumbling. We're familiar with Kikuoka and he annoyed her quite hard a bit ago."

Nakano's lips twitch in a somewhat tired smile, "That must've given him a bit of a heart attack, given I was informed that he's a squib so I'd know I could speak openly when he asked what was going on over the phone."

She shrugs, then gives a bit of a smirk, "Might have made him a bit nervous the last couple months, yeah."

Nakano laughs brightly for a few moments, then wipes away tears as she starts getting a hold of herself, "I'm sorry. That likely wasn't very appropriate but to be honest with the mounting concern for the situation stressing me out, I think I needed that."

She shakes her head, "It's fine Healer Nakano. Everyone needs a good laugh every now and then." Her gaze moves back down the hall, "Especially when the going gets tough."

She looks over the news stories on her phone in grim satisfaction as she walks with her mate, who was looking over the same. It had taken more than a little digging, retracing their steps and the like, which had not been easy, and cross referencing their cases, but after a couple day, she and Kazuto had managed to definitively prove that it was something about the SAO bosses appearing in the AR game Ordinal Scale had some connection to it.

Kikuoka had been somewhat uncertain about releasing the informed, not because he was enough of an ass to risk the SAO players, but out of concern of what another bad story may do to the technology in general, but it had only taken her, Kazuto, and Nakano making it clear that they would go to the press with it and were really just giving the VR department the chance to shade the fact that they'd been so busy with other things that they hadn't noticed what was going on before. And at that, they had only given them that courtesy because they did do good things, like the fact it had been them that had tipped them off about GGO for instance.

Kikuoka had understood right then and there, and within an hour there had been a breaking news warning telling SAO players to stay away from Ordinal Scale for the time being, as for reasons yet unknown, SAO bosses were making appearances and how over a hundred former SAO players that encountered them had subsequently lost their memories of everything since SAOs launch. They had gone on to explain that other SAO players that had encountered SAO bosses in Ordinal Scale had retained their memories, but as the exact link between the two was yet unknown, for safety reasons SAO players were being warned away. They had followed that up with a reassurance that no non-SAO players had been reported to have experienced it, and thus while the link between the two had yet to be identified, it was classified as some sort of danger of SAO players encountering SAO bosses in Ordinal Scale rather than a danger of the Augma itself.

In the two days since, the internet had been blowing up with questions as to why encountering the SAO bosses was causing memory loss in SAO players, but thankfully it had gotten both the warning clearly spelled out for SAO players as well as reassurance to everyone that it wasn't the Augma's fault.

From the posts on the site the government had set up explicitly for SAO players to be able to talk to people who got it as well as reconnect with people they had met inside, it had become clear very quickly that the SAO players were taking the warning seriously. Some were even questioning if they should stay away from the Augma entirely until the reason could be tracked down properly, but given it had only happened in the presence of the bosses, it was currently still being considered safe to use in general as long as they stayed away from Ordinal Scale specifically.

She smiles, "Ha. Bet whoever is behind this is steaming mad that SAO players aren't falling into their trap anymore."

Kazuto looks over with a tired, wry smile, "Tell me about it."

She hums, "Makes me a bit suspicious of that concert everyone in the SAO school got free tickets for since it has to be someone in the company doing it, but… Well, without any proof, since it's just a suspicion pointing it out isn't going to get anywhere." She sighs, "Man, with all this nonsense happening at once what with V-Mort and Demons and now this, it seems like there's never enough time."

He hums, then slows to a stop. She turns back to him, "Kazuto?"

He stares down at the ground, fingers slowly clenching and unclenching around his phone. Right when she's starting to think he's gotten so lost in thought that she needs to prompt him again, he starts slowly speaking, "Time… I… wanted to ask you about that actually."

She tilts her head in bemusement, "About time?"

He shakes his head slowly, "About Quicksilver specifically."

She blinks rapidly, "Ah? What about it?"

He lifts his gaze finally to stare at her with conflicted eyes, "... When you were gone… Dante got mad at the lack of results at some point and flipped a table. I guess the stuff on it was important or something, because Nero suddenly turned into a silver streak and was standing off to the side with all of it set back on the ground in what seemed like an instant. He got all mad at Dante and chewed him out, I don't really remember the details, just that he got his frustration but he shouldn't have done that."

Her brow furrows, "Ok? What about it."

His fingers tighten on his phone again, "Something about it… I pulled Nero aside later and asked him exactly how fast it was. He was a bit vague, so I just got to the point. About whether or not Quicksilver could beat the series of events of the NerveGear sensing it's being removed from someone's head, sending off the signal, then the electromagnetic pulse going off."(1)

She… flinches. She thinks she knows where this is going now, "Kazuto-"

For once, her mate cuts her off, "And he said!" He pauses, "He said it had occurred to him, but he didn't think that alone was enough. And then Mike came back and you two started talking and at some point it occurred to him that if you activated the Royal Guard Style he was confident you could've survived. And he told me that he outright met with you, just him and Mike and proposed it." His face tightens, "And you turned the idea down."

She glances away, "Well, a good chance of survival isn't a guarantee-"

He purses his lips, "He said that was brought up by Mike. And that you brushed it off because you're a Demon Hunter. A Sparda. A Nephilim. Guarantees of survival are rather rare. A good chance of survival is often good enough."

She meets his eyes again, but she doesn't say anything this time. He swallows thickly, "He said you turned it down and made them both swear not to mention the idea to the rest of the family because- because-!"

She sighs, "Because I refused to abandon you."

His eyes squeeze shut. And after a moment a breath shudders out of him, before he croaks, "So it's true then. Everything that happened after mid March that last year is my-!"

She steps towards him quickly, "No."

His eyes fly open, "But-!"

She narrows her eyes at him, "Kazuto no. It isn't your fault. I made my decisions. Me. You may have been the reason I chose what I did, but that doesn't make it your fault."

He bites his bottom lip, eyes teary, "But-."

She cuts him off again, "Are you saying you would have abandoned me if our positions were reversed?"

He rears back at that hard, "No! I would never- That's- No."

She smiles at him, "That's my point Kazuto." She lifts a hand to his cheek to cup it which he leans into almost desperately, "I wasn't about to abandon my husband and soulmate. You didn't even know of that second one at the time, but you still would've made the same choice as I did if our positions had been reversed."

He presses his face into her hands harder as he tries to blink away the tears, "... Ok."

She smiles and thumbs some of the tears that had escaped away, "Good." Then she smiles as she turns, offering her hand, "Now, I'm pretty sure we're supposed to be going to get food that your swear up and down is 'to die for Marzanna! Really!' and it certainly isn't going to scarf itself down."

He smiles weakly as he accepts her hand, "Yeah. You'll love it."

She leans into his shoulder, "Just as long as there isn't anything weird like those frog legs you convinced me to try."

He laughs, somewhat weakly, but it's a laugh and that's good enough for her for now, "No, nothing like that, promise."

She leans up and presses a kiss to his cheek, and for once he turns to catch her lips before she can pull away instead of getting embarrassed about the public affection. She sincerely doubts his issues with it were magically gone, but it's a step in the right direction. That's good enough for her for the time being.

(1): So this. Really comes down to how you interpret Quicksilver, as game play just has things slowed down around you, but… one could easily argue that the fact you can see things in motion, even if slower, is to keep the game play interesting and it may very well actually be fast enough. My Muse decided to be an asshole and point out the potential plot hole, then fix it two seconds later with a somewhat… tragic explanation, so. I figured it closes any possibility of the question of why they didn't just use Quicksilver, as well as giving you guys the somewhat tragic explanation as to why.