Disclaimer: I don't own anything that doesn't belong to me.

…

It was another beautiful morning in Hive City.

As insects and drones flew through the air, and buildings shifted and transformed, and light and sound filled every corner of the vast metropolis, the alien city practically a living organism which breathed and pulsed as its inhabitants teemed throughout its streets and causeways and tunnels, the Mantis clan stronghold was a fixed point of tranquility, everything seeming to flow around the mountain that had been transplanted from the Japanese countryside and plopped into the middle of the city.

As usual, Mibojin and her daughter Kagami were having morning tea on the terrace of their apartment while Manti trimmed a bonsai tree in a planter nearby.

Also as usual, there were three settings, but only two were filled.

"What are your plans for today, Kagami?" Mibojin asked her daughter, taking a sip from her cup.

"After training, Mira and I will attend one of Scarabella's games. Afterwards, we will participate in the celebratory orgy, and then take turns railing her and being railed by her afterwards until we pass out from exhaustion, pleasure, and overstimulation," Kagami said calmly. "Is this permissible?"

"So long as it does not interfere with your training," Mibojin replied, pouring herself another cup.

Kagami nodded slightly. "… Does it bother you?"

Mibojin gave her daughter a look of surprise. This was not part of their morning routine. "Does what bother me?"

"That I have found love. I know it could lead me to… Distraction if I'm not careful," Kagami said hesitantly.

Mibojin blinked, puzzled. Where was this coming from? "While I may be incapable of such feelings myself, through the Buzzing I've experienced enough secondhand to know that is indeed a risk… However, you have remained diligent in your training, and found time for your duties and your lovers. That kind of balance is admirable, and just because I neither possess nor desire such balance in my own life does not mean you cannot have it yourself. You are my daughter, not my clone."

Kagami nodded slightly. "Thank you, mother."

There. The matter was settled.

… Mibojin didn't feel content.

"Were you… Expecting otherwise?" She asked awkwardly.

Kagami blinked. "What? No, I… It's just… It feels like it's been getting harder to predict you, lately."

Mibojin frowned in concern. "Has it?"

Kagami nodded. "Once, I always felt fairly certain I knew what you were thinking. Lately, however… Not so much."

"Well," Mibojin started. "You know one solution to that problem-"

"I will not wear a neural interface, even temporarily," Kagami interrupted bluntly. "We've talked about this."

"I know. I was merely making a point." Mibojin did not push further. They'd argued enough about this in the past. Kagami had made her position clear. "I will never force you into doing something you don't want to."

"I'm glad that you have accepted my choice, both in partners and as far as the sanctity of my mind is concerned," Kagami continued. "I've… Not always been certain you would have felt that way in the past."

Mibojin frowned. "Truly?"

"Yes. You have… Changed, mother," Kagami said hesitantly. "You… Emote more. Which is nice, but… It also makes it harder to tell what you are thinking. Before, you were consistent. Now… Not so much."

"What is she talking about?" Mibojin reluctantly found herself asking the Buzzing. "Have I really changed that much?"

"Well… Kind of?" Ariel said. "You're actually willing to talk to us and other people more, for one thing."

"And you've agreed to stop pushing her on the interface issue," Goro added. "Took me a while to drop it, remember?"

"You've started to get more argumentative with me ever since we got back from Egypt, rather than blindly obeying me and heeding my every word," Apista added.

"You actually paid me a compliment the other day," Shin said. "If we weren't always connected, I might've thought you were an imposter."

"We've all changed to some degree, for better or worse," Nushi said. "None of us are the same person we were when we all started out. Do you think the person you used to be would recognize who you are now?"

"And if you could go back to that person, would you?" Manti added.

Mibojin was fairly sure the answer to the first question was no.

The second… Well…

She wasn't sure how she felt about that.

"Is it… A bad thing?" She asked Kagami hesitantly. "That I have changed?"

Kagami considered this. "… You seem happier."

"I do?" Mibojin asked in surprise.

Kagami nodded. "Yes."

Mibojin frowned. "Was I… Not happy before?"

"I don't think you were sad, you just… Were," Kagami said vaguely.

This only left Mibojin even more concerned.

Not enough to keep from dodging as a hooded cicada erupted from where she had just been sitting, of course. "Today is the day, sensei!" Hood shouted, twirling a meteor hammer with one hand, a nunchuck with the second, her club in the third, and a katana in the fourth. "Today is the day I become your apprentice!"

Mibojin smiled thinly, flicking her wrists and causing kunai to slip out of her sleeves and into her hands. "That is what you say every day."

"And this is the day it becomes true!" Hood replied, charging towards her.

"Do you think she will actually pass the test this time?" Kagami mildly asked Manti as she drank more tea while texting her girlfriends incredibly graphic promises of the things she was going to do to them later.

"Perhaps. She has been training very hard," Manti observed, not turning away from her bonsai. "She's been getting closer with every attempt." She brought a blade down, taking with it a sprig from the miniature tree. "Still, I don't think today will be the day. She's not there just yet, she still has yet to fully train her body to move without thinking so as not to give her opponent forewarning of what she's doing in the Buzzing. It would take a miracle for her to pull it off at this stage."

An arrow whizzed through the air and embedded itself in the table, much to Kagami's mild irritation, because it would leave a mark. Noticing there was a letter attached to it, she removed the scroll and unfurled it as her mother and Hood continued fighting around her.

"What does it say?" Manti inquired, hopping onto her shoulder. "It looks to be in some sort of code."

"Yes, so that nobody but the intended recipient can read it," Kagami said, unlocking her phone and checking her texts. "Let's see, I got a text from an anonymous number earlier with a single phrase… Just as I thought, it's the encryption key. I'm fairly certain I already know what it says, but just to be sure…"

Her eyes darted across the page. "Just as I thought. Mother! We have been invited to this year's Shurikon!"

"Ah, I was wondering when we would be getting an invitation, it's getting to be that time," Mibojin commented, running up the wall above her while throwing Shuriken at Hood, who was buzzing through the air around her, moving with astonishing agility for an insect her size.

"Shurikon?! That's the big annual global ninja conference, right?!" Hood exclaimed in excitement, divebombing Mibojin, who flipped over her, landed on her back, and forced her into a collision with the wall, shaking the ancient fortress and causing dust and stone to fall to the city below.

"Yes, ninjas from all over the world, and beyond, will be in attendance," Mibojin said with a hint of what almost sounded like anticipation, more than a little excitement pulsing throughout the Buzzing as she wrapped an arm around Hood's nonexistent neck and stabbed her repeatedly in the shoulder. "Kagami and I have attended every year since she was old enough to throw a Shuriken. We have made many fond family memories there."

"Awww, I wish I could go!" Hood lamented, flying erratically to try and shake Mibojin off before reversing and attempting to slam her into the wall. "Can I come?"

"Unfortunately," Mibojin said as she twisted her body over Hood's shoulders just before she could hit the wall, grabbing the chain of the meteor hammer and wrapping it around her neck, pulling tight and cutting off her airflow, causing the cicada to start choking and falling from the air. "Only family members and apprentices can serve as plus-ones, neither of which, I'm afraid, you qualify as."

"Then I just… Gotta hit you once… Before it starts!" Hood gasped, trying to crush her between her four arms.

Mibojin nimbly avoided the crushing hug, tangling the chain through her limbs to bind them, then leaping off just before Hood smashed into the terrace. "You are, regrettably, a long way off from that."

Kagami, still translating the letter, gasped. "Mother, I've been given VIP status!"

Mibojin smiled faintly at this, pride and approval emanating from her as Hood shattered her chains with a mighty cry. "Ah, it's about time. This is long overdue. Now, at last, I can show you everything Shurikon has to offer-"

"And your VIP status has been revoked!"

Mibojin's head snapped around, staring at her daughter in disbelief. "WHAT?!"

And in that moment of distraction, Hood struck, lunging at Mibojin, tackling her to the ground and pinning her beneath her massive weight. "Yes! I got you! Now I'm officially your apprentice! Shurikon, here we come!"

Everyone stared at her. "What? Everything goes in a ninja battle!" Hood insisted. "It's not my fault she got distracted!"

"She has a point," Manti conceded. "Deception and pragmatism are an important part of being a ninja. Congratulations, Hood. You are now a ninja trainee in earnest… Though I do wish it had come under different circumstances."

"Yes!" Hood cheered.

"My VIP status… Has been revoked?" Mibojin whispered, stunned more by this revelation then the very heavy cicada crushing her ribs. "Does… Does it say why?"

Kagami winced. "It does. You're not going to like the answer."

"Tell me," Mibojin insisted.

"It's because… You're a Bugranger."