”How is she?” Nanoha asked with very worried face.
”Cried herself to sleep.” Fate stated, walking to the living room.
”What did you say to her?” Nanoha turned her tea cup slowly around.
”I said she shouldn't keep it all inside her and we would help her through it all.” Fate sat next to Nanoha. ”Then her head lit on fire and all those gems appeared.” She pointed to toilet. They had left the gems where they were as they had bad memories from touching them.
”I think we should call Miachell-san or Linque-kun here.” Nanoha reasoned and Fate nodded back.
”Linque is with Hayate, training leadership, so we should call Miachell first.” Fate rose up from the sofa and walked towards the toilet. ”I think we should clear this mess up.” She scratched her head, looking at the swarm of gems on the toilet floor.
”Watch out for the orange ones.” Nanoha adviced and called to Miachell.
”Let's see, let's see.” Fate looked around the crystal forest for orange ones but didn't find any. Slightly hesitantly she picked up a green one. ”Whoa.” She dropped the gem and backed away from shock.
”What was it Fate-chan?” Nanoha asked, running to her.
”It talks.” Fate responded, pointing at the green gem at her feet.
”Talks?” Nanoha repeated and picked up the gem. ”It does.” She smiled and repeated the word:
”Live.”
”Wonder what this does.” Fate said and picked up a red gem. Suddently in her eyes flashed a image of a white school and kids playing in the playground. Lanlai was looking this over the fence, smiling. ”Happy memory?” She deduced and dropped the gem back on the floor.
”She had all these in her head?” Nanoha said almost tearing. ”I can't even hold 5 green gems before the sound starts to hurt my brain and there's atleast 10 of them here.” She fell to her knees and dropped the gems in her hands.
Fate rubbed Nanoha's back almost tearing herself. ”11 green, 14 blue, 31 red, 1 pink and 1 violet.” She counted.
”What are you two doing?!” Angry voice of a woman demanded from behind.
”Miachell, you knew about this?” Fate asked, holding many different colored gems in her hand.
”Of course I knew about it!” Miachell said and slapped the gems out from Fate's hand. ”Do you know what you just did?”
”I don't. I really don't.” Fate turned her head to the floor.
”You just destroyed the only force keeping her sane.” Miachell said, gathering the gems. ”400 years of sorrow crashed onto her in seconds. No 11 year old can take that.” She used her cape to carry all the gems to the living room.
”Why did she have these in the first place?!” Nanoha yelled. ”Why couldn't she just cry it all out back then!”
”Imagine a situation. You're 10 year old and nearly everyone of your friends die.” Miachell paused for a moment. ”Now imagine the same thing happen over and over and over again. Then imagine that this all happened five minutes ago at the same time. That's the situation she's in now.” She sighed and began organizing the gems. ”How did you even manage to get her take them off in the first place?”
”I said we'd help her through it all.” Fate walked slowly to the living room.
”Did she start crying and then absurdly stop?” Miachell lifted her eyebrow.
”Yes she did...” Fate stuttered in amazement after realizing it.
”Junie...” Miachell answered with an unknown term, grinning.
”Junie?” Nanoha blinked.
”I'm sorry I blamed you. I think Junie did this.” She smiled strangely happy.
”Who's Junie?” Fate asked.
”Junie is one of Lanlai's forms... They have a strange relationship. I better not tell anymore.” Miachell looked deep within Fate's eyes to tell that she couldn't.
”I see.” Nanoha understood and changed the subject into something more pressing. ”What are these?” She pointed at the four stacks on the coffee table.
”Crystallications of magic. Selshin technology.” Miachell said and picked up a green gem. ”Voice gem.” She threw it to Fate and took a red one. The gem kept saying
”You are strong.” ”Memory gem.” Miachell forced it on Nanoha's hand next to her and picked up a blue one. Immediately Nanoha's mind got a memory of walking next to a boy. ”Thought gem.” She placed it to it's pile and grabbed a pink gem. ”Order gem.” Miachell placed the gem down on the table and looked at the last one with hate, greater than anything. ”PA gem.” She answered vaguedly while trying to break the violet one with her eyes.
”How could she take all this and still live normally?” Fate asked placing the green gem back to it's pile.
”Overuse. She was addicted to them. Originally the idea was to release them once she had matured enough, so she would have a chance to take it all.”
”Addicted?” Fate repeated.
”It's much less painful to complitely forget about a person than mourn for his death.” Miachell closed her eyes. ”But she was so social and we couldn't keep up with the gems.” Her voice wavered.
”What do these do?” Nanoha asked, inspecting a blue jewel in her hand.
”Thought gems generate or block certain thoughts. Most of these were used to block all thoughts of certain people. Voice gems repeat the same thing over and over again, it's much easier to listen to encouraging talk instead of think about dead people. It was mostly to derail her thoughts. Memory gems remind her of the good times and then there are the Order gems.” Miachell explained and picked up a pink jewel from the table. ”At one point, she was so suicidal that the book was about to run out of cores to resurrect her and if that had happened, Aren would have died and the book wouldn't be destroyed. This Order gem makes her unable to commit suicide.” She explained, placing it back on the table.
”What about the violet?” Fate asked, pointing at the violet jewel.
”...Personality Alternation gem... It kept her cheery...” Miachell's voice dripped guilt and shame.
”Personality... Alternation...” Nanoha and Fate stuttered, deeply shocked.
”Her smile was something I just didn't want to see dissapear.” Miachell wrapped the gem tightly in a cloth. ”But... that was not her.” She murmurred and her hand turned into a strong paw. With a furious roar and crushed the gem into dust, smiling satisfied of the result. ”I'm glad there was a way to remove it.” The violet sand fell through her slender fingers.
Nanoha watched the dust fall on the rug, not caring how it would take forever to get out from there. ”What are the side effects?” She inquired, worried, and dropped the sensitive case.
”Keeping a Thought gem over a day causes it to scream until taken off. Most of her time she took them off and placed them back again. Now she has something to do I think she just withstood the screaming. The rest don't have any.” Miachell flexed. ”Try not to let her kill herself.” She said and rose up from the couch.
”You're just going to leave?” Fate accused.
”Junie wanted you, Fate, to take care of her.” Miachell stopped next to the blond woman and pat on her shoulder. ”And that is something I was denied from."
”But we're almost complete strangers...” Fate reasoned but, in reality, she wanted to take care of Lanlai.
”Strangers?” Miachell blinked and stopped on her tracks. ”You saved us from that eternal trap. If you said that I could fly, I would jump out from the highest building. My trust towards you is unbreakable and my debt to you infinite. We might be strangers, but I don't care about that and neither did Junie.” She walked to the door. ”This is just another thing we can never repay.” She finished without looking at the two and left the room.
Fate and Nanoha stayed silent for a long time before Caro peeked out from the bed area.
”Is Lanlai-chan going to be okay?” She asked with worried look.
”Yes, she will be okay. She just needs to be around her friends now.” Fate walked to the girl and pet her head.
”Okay.” Caro nodded and walked to the girl, trashing in the bed.
”Junie... why did you do that...?” Lanlai muttered in her sleep. ”I trusted you.” She gripped the sheets and bit her teeth.
”It's okay.” Caro put her hand on the girl's forehead. She stopped moving instantly and tears began flowing from her eyes. ”Ah... I'm sorry.” Caro lifted her hand and the trashing and mumbling continued.
”She is comfortable around you.” Fate gestured Caro to continue.
”I know.” Caro smiled and placed her hand on Lanlai's forehead again. ”I know...”
____________________
Two girls walked side by side window shopping in the sun heated streets of Cranagan. They chatted of pointless things all day and attempted to avoid everything close to their work. This wasn't the time for such chat. There was something in Teana's mind. She had revealed of what happened to her in the temple but Linque had told her that Subaru had something in her mind as well.
”Um... Subaru.” She attempted to catch the attention of a woman intensely imagining what she would look in the car on display.
”Yes, Tia?” Subaru answered still gazing the luxurious car. The two had wandered to the crowded downtown area of Cranagan.
”I heard from Linque-san that you had something to think as well. So I was just wondering.” Teana's voice wavered.
”Let me see...” Subaru stopped her fantasizing and reminenced of what happened in the temple. ”Not really but I was pretty rash back there.”
”Rash? You didn't tell me anything.” Teana raised her voice but not enough to draw attention from the stream of people walking by.
”It wasn't that much. I just duelled Linque-san and accepted all or nothing gamble.” Subaru waved with her left hand and held her right behind her head like it was nothing.
”That is much! Tell me what happened.” Teana demanded.
”Fine. First he kinda cornered me and Vita-san to the center with these strange lights, they are dangerous, don't touch them. After that was done he showed off some fancy moves and Vita-san landed a giant swing directly in his head.” Teana gestured to continue. ”But he didn't die. He casted some spell that made him invulnerable for 7 minutes. Then he showed even more cooler moves and his swords turned into these strange green thingies that were unstoppable and moved as fast as lighting. Then we ran around the room for some time until I managed to nail a kick in his groin.”
”That's pretty cheap.” Teana snickered.
”Uhu.” Subaru nodded proudly. ”Anyway, this made his blades dissapear and he was back to normal, so I decided to duel him. I lost surprisingly but he didn't kill me. He wanted to use some supermove on me, so we gambled which would come first: 7 minutes or his move. Vita-san interrupted this and almost got the strike instead so I blew air to his ear and he lost his concentration and lost to the damage caused to him.” Holding her laughter, she finished the story.
”Well, I don't find anything out of the usual Subaru.” Teana pondered. ”Maybe she wasn't just used to people like you.” She patted her friend, satisfied.
”Indeed.” Subaru smiled at the comments.
”Was there really nothing else?” Teana asked once more.
”Nothing, nothing.” Subaru waved Teana's questions away. ”Don't let it bother you, I don't either.” She lied with a smiling face. Truth was that she could never forget what had happened in that temple.