Chapter 8: Albatross Necklaces
17 days earlier
Nanoha hit the ground, flinging herself into a roll to bleed off her momentum and desperately tried to bring her katanas up in time to block the next blow.
She needn’t have bothered, as Chrono’s attack was sheared in half by a yellow flash, spraying chunks of ice into the air. None of it landed on Nanoha however, due to the black cape held over her protectively.
“Thanks, Alicia,” Nanoha panted, leaning on her friend’s leg for a moment to steady her shaking knees.
“Anything for you, Nanoha!” Alicia grinned, patting Nanoha’s cheek with a black-gloved hand while keeping Bardiche in a defensive stance. “How about we switch?”
Nanoha rose, flicking a splatter of mud off her katana edge. “Teana?”
“Yup,” Alicia said cheerfully before flying forward, sending a Scythe Slash at Chrono, who countered with a hailstorm from his spear. The golden scythe sliced through Chrono’s attack and swung around to take off Subaru’s outraised fist about to smash in Signum’s head. Nanoha ran towards Teana, ducking around Signum’s fight with Reinforce and the now-incapacitated Subaru to engage Teana, the orange-haired knife fighter struggling to keep up with Nanoha’s quick strikes. Out of the corner of her eye she saw Alicia overpowering Chrono and darting past him to hold Bardiche out in front of her, summoning a crackle of yellow lightning that blazed from the magical circle at her feet.
Teana nearly sliced Nanoha’s face at her moment of distraction, prompting Nanoha to pay more attention to her own fight. She was just beginning a sequence of moves that would take Teana out of the battle when she saw Alicia stumble out of the corner of her eye, and Chrono raising his spear in her direction.
“Nanoha!” Alicia called, not panicking but mildly worried.
Low and fast, Nanoha knocked Teana aside and raced towards Alicia, passing her to knock aside Chrono’s spear—
White noise exploded in her ears as her face met the ground at high speed, losing all air in the process. Her body began informing her of what had happened even before the whiteness had cleared from her eyes and head.
Someone tripped me…Alicia?!
A hand grabbed her by the jacket and slammed her headfirst into a tree, causing Nanoha to slump, her vision darkening, as Alicia’s blonde hair turned pale, then silver. Reinforce picked up one of her katanas with a smile.
“Thank you, Nanoha,” the silver-haired woman said nonchalantly, her voice shifting along with her features until Nanoha was staring dazedly into her own voice, hearing the voice like a recorded version of her own saying, “You’re so helpful! I just need one of these, thanks.”
No! Nanoha struggled with the haze in her head, but when Reinforce stomped down onto Nanoha’s chest then backhanded her across the face she lay sprawled and coughing on the ground.
A short distance away, Alicia was sealing the Jewel Seed, Bardiche’s eye resting close to the shimmering gem. The blonde jerked as she saw movement approaching her, a wary eye on Chrono who was struggling under one of Carim’s spells, but relaxed when she saw Nanoha running up to her.
“I nearly have it!” She called out, turning her back to her trusted friend as she focused anew on sealing the Jewel.
NO!
“NO!” Signum screamed, her voice rising for the first time in Nanoha’s memory.
Alicia started to turn, but spasmed, gasping as a length of cold metal erupted from her chest, spraying red droplets onto Bardiche and the twinkling Seed. She grunted, wavering, as Reinforce smiled at her with Nanoha’s smile and spoke to her in Nanoha’s kind, soothing tone,
“Angels belong in Al—”
Alicia yelled, pivoting as she snatched up the Jewel in one hand, the light flaring between her fingers as the remnants of loose energy seared through her gloves and skin. Her other arm came up, elbowing Reinforce to the side as she flung the Seed as hard as she could towards Carim, who blasted Shamal aside and caught it with both hands.
“Signum, get everyone out!” Alicia shouted, her words leaving her lips on spurts of blood before her knees collapsed. Nanoha moaned as Signum hauled her over her shoulders, taking advantage of the stunned field as she barrelled forwards towards the motionless Alicia lying cradled in Carim’s burnt, bleeding hands. There was no way they could make it, not with Reinforce standing so close—but the murderer was laughing, laughing with Nanoha’s face while covered with Alicia’s blood.
Signum flung Nanoha down next to Carim and Alicia as she knocked aside Chrono’s attack with her broadsword, a pink-purple teleportation triangle springing up beneath them.
“Get her,” Alicia whispered, her eyes unseeing, her rosy face so pale the blood around her mouth looked dark brown. “Fate…”
“Alicia!” Nanoha begged.
“I killed the Black Angel!” Reinforce cackled, doing a girlish twirl. “I wonder who will have to pull Nanoha’s sword from her corpse?”
The ambient light from Signum’s teleport cast a warm glow over Alicia’s face, shining purple highlights into Alicia’s beautiful, still red eyes.
“I love you, Fate,” Alicia murmured, her voice thin and fragile. “Always have.”
Nanoha screamed, but her howl was lost in the void as Signum completed the teleport, winking all of them away.
***
Present Day
Hayate let out a breath, lowering the dumbbells in relief. She waited a few minutes to catch her breath before pulling herself upright, wiping her face with a towel. Part of her scolded, telling her that she still had another set to do, but the sight of Nanoha practicing her sword drills in the corner captivated her attention.
Nanoha’s entire body moved like a single unit, her strikes and kicks flowing into each other like a wave coursing down a rope, but with unexpected snaps once the wave reached the ends. A surprise thrust here or a sudden backhanded blow there, Nanoha was a wonder to watch.
“Huh,” Hayate said in surprise, noticing something slightly off about Nanoha’s style.
Slowing down, Nanoha switched to a more meditative drill, her eyes flicking sideways to look at Hayate. “What?”
“It’s nothing, it’s just…” Hayate observed her a little longer, then managed to put a finger on the discrepancy that had caught her attention. “Those swords look too long for you.”
Nanoha’s movements faltered, her sword points falling. She looked down at them, turning the blades in her fists. Taking a halting, shuddering breath, Nanoha continued with her exercises. “They are.” Her head jerked at the weapons rack on the adjacent wall. “Mine is over there.”
Yes, the shorter, new looking katana looked better suited to Nanoha’s height…Hayate looked back at Nanoha, but the other brunette was deliberately engrossed in her drills, facing the other way. Oh, touchy subject. She didn’t have to be so curt about it, but after Signum had told her and Fate about Alicia’s last battle, Hayate couldn’t blame her for being so off-balance. Hayate sighed and pulled her chair over, lifting herself into it then releasing the brakes.
After that tragic tale, was hard for Hayate to remain mad at them for their attitudes towards Fate. Damn, she couldn’t help but feel for Nanoha, even if she shuddered and wondered morbidly which one of Nanoha’s swords was the one that had killed Alicia.
Fate had vanished to god knows where, and Hayate didn’t have the strength to find her friend and see that wounded, broken expression in her blank red eyes. Over what, it was hard to tell; there were so many things Fate had reason to be upset about.
Hayate winced. The near confirmation of Nanoha’s feelings, for one. She had sent Zafira after Fate, hoping that he could be a sympathetic ear for Fate, who didn’t appear to want any speaking company.
“Hayate?”
“Carim!” The sudden emotional whiplash from brooding into absolute fuzzy delight made Hayate’s head whirl. And she had been teasing Fate about being head over heels…
“Um, I was wondering…” Carim smiled hesitantly, trying to broach a topic while sifting through all the unresolved disagreements between them. The blonde took a breath, then said quickly, “…if you wanted to go out for a bit? It’s kind of…down in the house. We could…go for lunch?”
“Who’s going to make lunch for all these cooking-deficient folks then?” Hayate sighed, her lips quirking at the thought.
Carim’s face fell. “Oh, um, that’s alright then, forget it—”
“No!” Hayate exclaimed a tad too loudly, startling Carim. “Um, I mean, I’d love to go out with you a bit, and for lunch!” She smiled, rolling over and brushing Carim’s hand in passing. “You’ve all managed to survive this long cooking on your own, right?”
“Right and wrong,” Carim brightened, laughing. “We’ve survived, but that’s because I was the one who cooked most of the time.”
“They’ll be fine,” Hayate returned playfully. “I bought instant noodles and tv dinners.”
“I warn you,” Carim deadpanned, putting her hand on one of Hayate’s handle bars as they left the house, stepping out into a perfect sunny day. “Signum’s managed to ruin instant noodles before, and Nanoha blew up a microwave once.”
Hayate laughed, breathing in the scent of fresh cut grass happily. “You’re just making that up! I’ll give you the microwave, but there’s no way you can ruin instant noodles.”
They began to bicker the point, their examples growing larger and more ludicrous that Carim had to hang onto Hayate’s chair laughing, as they made their way into the park. Silently enduring the shivers as Carim’s breath brushed against her neck, Hayate grinned and lifted a hand to guiltily brush Carim’s silky hair to get her attention.
“Say, Carim,” Hayate hummed, guiding them off the sidewalk and towards a park entrance. “We haven’t had time to just talk for a while, huh?”
“Things have been pretty hectic lately,” Carim agreed. “But you understand, right?” She looked mildly distressed, her hand sliding from the handles on Hayate’s chair to the brunette’s shoulder. “The whole Jewel Seed thing…but now you and I get a bit of a breather, since there’s some time…” she trailed off.
“Want an ice cream?” Thankfully, Carim looked so blindsided by Hayate’s loud, out-of-the-blue question that she missed Hayate’s wince. Hayate berated herself silently as she led them over to an ice cream stand, Carim’s hand still on her shoulder—was there nothing more obvious and desperate than offering to buy ice cream?
“I’m surprised that you seem to know your way around this neighbourhood pretty well,” Carim commented, switching to a safer topic in wordless consent as returned the ice cream man’s greeting. “Vanilla—Hayate?”
“Chocolate.” Despite being lower to the ground, Hayate beat Carim in paying the man, giving her blond companion a cheeky grin. Carim took the two cones though, and turned to hand Hayate hers with a raised eyebrow.
“Now how are you going to move while holding that?” She asked in amusement, although a note of genuine interest coated her teasing words.
“Easy!” Smiling, Hayate held out her other hand as she explained. “You give me yours, and then you push me around until we find a nice spot.”
Carim laughed, passing her cone over. “You had that worked out so quickly, do you do this often?”
“Fate and I had worked it out a long time ago,” Hayate said smugly, already taking a few licks of her ice cream. “She can’t very well walk with both, since she needs one hand for Arf.”
“I see,” Carim said, and as she pushed Hayate along she looked around for a nice spot with a bench or tree for Hayate to lean against. “So do you two get—hey!”
“Yes?” Hayate wiggled her eyebrows suggestively as she took another bite of Carim’s vanilla cone. “What are you going to do about it?” She licked a melting dribble, grinning wickedly.
Scowling, yet unable to stop watching, Carim mock-threatened, “I know where you sleep!”
“Oooh,” Hayate purred, nearly making Carim crash them both into someone passing them. “Do you?”
Carim could feel her face get hot, and she quickly steered them down towards a bench by the small pond, rolling Hayate to a stop beside the bench and taking the two ice cream cones back. Hayate was still smiling up at her as she lifted herself out of her chair, her arms flexing with toned muscle as she settled onto the park bench, and Carim felt something inside her chest flop over. Quickly, she lifted her hand and took a bite out of Hayate’s ice cream, causing that warm expression to fade into indignant outrage.
“Hey! Taking advantage of a handicapped person’s lack of extra hands, shame on you! What’s next, taking candy from a baby?”
“Indirect kiss,” Carim said off-hand, and hid her pleasure at watching Hayate blush and begin to stammer. She gave Hayate her cone back, sitting down beside the brunette so that they were close enough to brush sleeves if they moved. “Distracted by that? Come on, that’s such a kid thing…”
“Did you use to do that as a kid?” Hayate asked, licking her ice cream in contentment.
“Do wha—no,” Carim shook her head. She focused on her melting ice cream, mentally counting her breaths until her instinctive tension eased in her shoulders and chest, and answered, “I didn’t have much of a normal childhood. Even as a child I already had some magical ability.” Normally, she would have left it there and gone off on a different train of thought as a distraction, but Carim found herself confessing, “Boys and girls don’t like it when you keep crying because you can see all the inescapable bad things that will happen to them.”
“Bad things?” Hayate frowned slightly, pausing in her ice cream consumption until a dribble slipped over her fingers. Carim wiped it quickly with a napkin, distracted by the warmth of Hayate’s hand through the thin paper. After a slight pause Hayate continued, “You mean when you used your tarot cards?”
“I didn’t use them as a kid,” Carim explained. “That happened when I learned control, although I still couldn’t change the contents of my premonitions. But at that time I would touch someone and see things, or just hear their voice and end up knowing their future.” She shrugged, regretting somewhat that she had even started this conversation at the concerned, searching expression on Hayate’s face. “I’m a lot better at it now, after working with Yuuno and the Tome of the Night Sky.” Changing the topic, as she had drifted back to that topic they had tacitly agreed
not to discuss, Carim asked quickly, “So Hayate...what was your childhood like?”
Hayate took a large bite out of her cone, justifying her long pause as she chewed and shivered at the brain freeze. After swallowing, Hayate said lightly, “I lived with my uncle when I was a kid. He wasn’t home much, so that’s how I learned how to cook and stuff. I can’t remember that much about it, honestly.”
“Do you—” Carim stopped awkwardly. “Um…you know what, never mind—”
“You’re asking about this, right?” Hayate thumped her chair with her free hand, then stuffed the rest of her ice cream cone into her mouth, wiping her hands on the napkin Carim held out to her. “I’m surprised that it took you so long to ask. I’ve been in it for a long time. I got sick when I was little, and it damaged my spine before I got better.” She shrugged, laying her hands on her limp legs. “I actually can’t really remember ever
not being in it, so it’s not like I’m that troubled by memories of what I could have had, eh?”
“Um…” Carim didn’t know how to respond to that.
“Anyways, when my uncle died the bank took the house, so I ended up moving into a place with Fate. Which was
much better than my uncle’s house, let me say, since we installed things to make it easier for both of us to get around.” Hayate smiled, turning so that she faced Carim, their arms touching now. “Until, of course,” she teased, nudging Carim’s arm gently, keeping the body contact, “these crazy people dragged us off into a world of magic and trouble…”
“As I recall,” Carim said dryly, not moving at all, “you were the one who insisted on coming along.”
“Is that what happened?” Hayate feigned disbelief.
“Yes, and then you conned me with puppy-dog expressions until I stayed to talk with you.” Carim trembled slightly when Hayate put a hand on her wrist.
“As I recall,” Hayate said, a new tone in her voice, “I then started to—”
Carim sprang up, dislodging Hayate’s hand from her arm. She looked down, shaking slightly, knowing that her cheeks must be burning red. “Um…we should head back, I’m sure that everyone would be starving by now, and you’re the only real cook…”
She heard Hayate giggle. After transferring herself back into her wheelchair, Hayate took Carim’s hand and put it on the back of her chair, smiling warmly at her before they started back towards Precia’s house.
Right before they reached the front door Hayate grabbed one wheel, spinning 180 degrees suddenly until she came to stop in front of Carim, facing her and grinning so widely her blue eyes positively sparkled. “So, do you kiss on the first date?”
Carim froze, and blinked, hearing her own puzzlement in her voice. “Date?”
“Ah, never mind,” Hayate smiled, her expression abruptly mild and filled with polite friendliness. But her whole body language had changed, turning as forcibly relaxed as Nanoha’s whenever Nanoha had a bad day she was trying to hide from everyone. “I was just having some fun. You know, pretending.”
“I didn’t want to give the impres—” Carim hesitated, looking uncomfortably into Hayate’s steady, nervously patient eyes. Swallowing a few times to wet her dry mouth, Carim said, “It was fun hanging out today.”
One of Hayate’s eyebrows dipped downwards in a brief frown before her face smoothed over again. “Yes, I had a lot of fun too,” she said slowly. When the pause turned into an awkward silence, Hayate started to wheel away. “Well, I have to—”
Carim lunged out, grabbing onto the back of Hayate’s chair. “Um…we should do it again sometime,” she said quickly, wanting Hayate to lose her dejected posture and brighten up again. Then she let go and swiftly walked away, missing Hayate’s utterly baffled and disconcerted expression as she watched Carim go.
***
CRACK!
“Damn,” Nanoha grumbled, glaring at the broken pell lying in three pieces on the training mat. Her body had been warning her that she needed a break, but she had been ignoring it stubbornly. If she stopped then the thinking would start again, and once she started thinking she would start remembering. Nanoha lifted the largest piece of the pell upright, but no, it wasn’t steady enough for her to continue beating on it. She could always switch to the punching bag, but there was something more satisfying about hitting wood that made her feel like she was pushing her limits.
No one had pushed their limits more than—
Nanoha flung the chunks of wood into the corner, panting from the exertion. But then her legs gave in, dropping her into a forced sit on the training room floor. Putting her head between her knees, Nanoha breathed deeply, trying to steady her pounding heart.
“I wonder…will you scream like Alicia did when I put three feet of steel through her chest?”
Oh god. Nanoha gasped, feeling her sweat drip down her cheeks, tracing the paths of tears. Fighting Reinforce had made her entire body electric with emotion, her motions frenzied with rage and hate until she had found an opening and knocked the silver-haired woman down into the sand. But just as she brought her sword to Alicia’s murderer’s neck Reinforce had changed again, staring back at Nanoha with stunning red eyes and an achingly familiar smile, stopping Nanoha’s blade at her throat.
Reinforce/Alicia smiled, her voice Alicia’s voice, all throaty and full of amusement even if her features made Nanoha flash-back to the sight of Alicia’s corpse, pale and staring with still, haunting eyes. “Ah, Nanoha, I know how much you wished that I would say this to you—”
Nanoha interrupted her. “You know nothing about me. How dare
you defile Alicia’s memory.”
To her horror, Reinforce/Alicia had laughed, her every motion sending another spike into Nanoha’s heart. Then she had turned her red eyes to Nanoha’s, saying liltingly, “Really? I can only change into the form of someone who’s alive.”
Ice-chills froze Nanoha’s muscles. Reinforce/Alicia grinned, that familiar half-smile that Alicia was so fond of, and lunged forward. Nanoha jerked her katana to the side, narrowly missing impaling the blonde on her blade, and Reinforce’s form shifted, laughing the whole time, into an orange wolf and leaped away.
“PRECIA!” Nanoha screamed, barging into Precia’s workroom without knocking or having cleaned herself up at all from the battle. The moment they had rematerialized at headquarters Nanoha was gone, running towards Precia’s workroom with the same sentence echoing over and over inside her head.
I can only change into the form of someone who’s—
“Nanoha?” Precia looked up from her research texts, mildly annoyed but mostly surprised.
“Where’s Alicia’s—where’s Alicia?” Nanoha demanded, nearly shouting.
Precia’s expression flickered before settling on confusion. “Why are you asking now—”
“I want to see her.” Nanoha gripped her katana hilts; she would never use them on Precia, but still her hands clenched around her weapons, her muscles tense and resting on a hair-trigger. “Where is she?”
“Nanoha, what happened?”
“I need to see her—” Nanoha collapsed onto her knees, shaking so violently she had to brace herself against Precia’s desk. “I know she’s…but how else…”
“Nanoha,” Precia said soothingly, getting out of her chair to embrace Nanoha gently, stroking her hair. “Alicia’s dead.”
That reaffirmation made Nanoha break into tears, burying her face in Precia’s shoulder as she gasped, sobbing violently. Precia hummed, rocking them back and forth until Nanoha managed to control her tears enough to stand, sitting on the edge of Precia’s desk while the older woman resumed her seat.
“What’s this?” Nanoha asked, her voice hoarse. She picked up Precia’s notebook and frowned, reading incredulously, “Jewel Seed energy outputs? Mechanism of opening Al Hazard? Precia!”
“We shouldn’t lie to ourselves,” Precia told her, calmly moving a stack of books to the side. “We should prepare our plan for thwarting the Wardens when they try to open Al Hazard. The Seed went to them, I’m guessing?”
“Yes,” Nanoha admitted, and relinquished the notebook when Precia gestured. “But there are two more left, if we get both—”
“Nanoha,” Precia interrupted, her eyes stern and unamused. “I know her. We should develop a plan for when the Wardens get all the Seeds they need to open Al Hazard.” She flipped through a few pages of her notebook. “Sealed Jewel Seeds are inert, but they are usually stored inside a locked Device of some sort, whether it is as exalted a Device as Bardiche or some degenerate model, that is controlled by a wielder. There are a few ways of extracting these sealed Seeds, one of the simplest being to reduce the wielder into a helpless state and then taking the Device and—”
“Stop,” whispered Nanoha. “Please.” She stood shakily, stumbling over to the wall and putting a hand out to steady herself. “I can’t right now…” Lifting her head, Nanoha asked once more, her tone already hopeless. “She really is—”
“Alicia’s moved on to a different world, Nanoha. I’m sorry.”
And Nanoha knew, at that moment her heart broke all over again.
***
Fate heard the door open, and the tread and hinge sound of Hayate’s chair rolling quietly into the room. She appreciated the consideration as she could tell from the warmth and breathing rhythm under her hand that Arf was deeply asleep, recovering well from her injuries. Although she had been speaking, there was a difference between a smooth human voice and the thumps and rubber squealing of a wheelchair.
“Were you telling Arf a story?” Hayate’s voice came barely louder than a whisper. A lump of warmth left Fate’s side as Zafira trotted over to greet his master, low subvocal whines in his throat.
“I was,” Fate responded in an equally soft manner. “Come, join us.”
She sensed Hayate wheeling over, although her friend didn’t get out of her chair Fate heard the metal echo of her brakes notching into place. Zafira had settled again somewhere in that vicinity, although close enough that Fate could feel the silky brush of his tail against her thigh whenever he wagged his tail.
“I was just telling Arf the story of the First Black Angel,” Fate said, gently stroking Arf’s ruff. “The First Black Angel descended from Al Hazard to watch over Earth, representing the power of wishes and dreams granted to her by Al Hazard. She protected the world, performing miracles for those who needed them, and guided the ones she didn’t help to make their own miracles. She was beautiful and kind, and people all over the world loved her.
“But some people were jealous of the power she had, and they sought to possess the power to create miracles and make their wishes come true. They wanted the power she represented, and so under guise and treachery, they killed her, daring and succeeding in defiling an angel. When she died, betrayed, her heart broke and split into 21 sapphire pieces, all of them as blue as her moonlight-touched hair and deep, loving eyes. These 21 pieces of her broken heart, the Jewel Seeds, flew into all the corners of the Earth, taking with them the power to make wishes come true and the key to unlocking the wonders of Al Hazard that mortals were never meant to know…” Fate paused, petting Arf tenderly when the huge orange-red dog shifted, whimpering, before she settled again under Fate’s touch.
“Her heir’s duty is to protect the First Angel’s heart, the Jewel Seeds, from being used to defile her last wishes.” Fate let out a breath, her soft voice turning impossibly softer, edged with sadness. “Al Hazard wasn’t meant for us.”
“For no one, no reason and no desire, can the Black Angel renegade upon her sworn duty.” Turning her blank red eyes to Hayate, Fate smiled, a sad, resigned half smile.
“Over the centuries, we are caught in this tragedy that repeats itself over and over again.”