Isekai by Moonlight

[Lunaludus Scribex]

I would say, end the chapter where the story dictates it end, not the byte count. An extra-long chapter is far preferable to one that feels incomplete.

[Norgarth]

I'm quite willing to read really big chapters. After all, Drunkard's Walk chapters tend to be on the large side as well 8)

[hazard]

I have never been opposed to reading more words as long as the writing is good...

[Bob Schroeck]

I would be a massive hypocrite to complain about long chapters. <grin>

[robkelk]

I'm going to take these replies as permission to write what I need to... Thanks, folks.

[Labster]

It really depends on how fast you want preread feedback to be, Rob.

[robkelk]

* robkelk thinks "I have to figure out something to put into this three-month span in the story."

* robkelk notices the chapter is currently approximately 199 kb

* robkelk thinks "No, I don't. Even Rocky had a montage."

The first part of chapter 3 has already gone to prereaders as I finish writing the chapter.

And I suppose folks want anther preview. It's difficult to find one that isn't a massive spoiler, though...

Ami stood up, walked over, and slapped my face.

I caught my breath and said, "Thanks, I needed that." As I got myself back under control, I sighed deeply. "Everybody remember this phrase because you're going to be using it in place of swear words for the first few weeks: 'Stupid genre conventions'."

Makoto sighed. Ryou-san facepalmed. Ami quietly said, "That would only be helpful if we knew what the genre conventions are."

Oops. "Yeah. Right. Sorry about that."

[robkelk]

Chapter 3, at 218½kb, has gone to the prereaders. Which means my next post in this thread should be actual content.

Chapter 4 is at 37½kb.

[robkelk]

Author's Note: There is one scene in this chapter that can be seen to be not safe for work. The entire scene is in a spoiler tag.

---

We heard the Sailor Senshi approach the shrine. "I still can't believe they're gone."

"We all saw it happen, Usagi," As always, Small Lady was the rather blunt voice of childlike truth.

"That doesn't mean we have to accept it!" I didn't realize that Minako-san cared so much about us.

«We'd better let them know we're still alive before somebody says or does something she shouldn't,» I sent to the others.

"How are we going to tell Mizuno-sensei?"

Ami smiled at Rei-san's question as she stepped around the corner of the shrine's main building. "What are you planning to tell my mother?"

"Ami-chan! You're alive!"

"I'm sure she'll be happy to hear that, Usagi-san."

"Mako-chan!"

I let Ryou announce our presence as we joined the girls. "Don't forget us."

"Ryou-san! Robu-san! You're all alive! How?"

"That's a much longer story than you're probably expecting," Makoto replied.

Which is my cue to tell the story here in more detail than my dearest planned to tell it to our friends. Twenty minutes earlier according to Bunny-chan, or two years earlier according to Ami, Ryou, Makoto, and me...


Unfamiliar sky. Where were we?

Mind you, the sky was the same shade of blue as back home – either home, for me – and the clouds looked much the same, but there were two moons visible when I looked past Makoto's shoulder.

Oh, good. It wasn't a euphemism; we really were sent to another dimension.

Wait – "we" or just "Makoto and I"? Looking around quickly, I saw Ryou-san and Ami getting up off the ground... and Ryou-san favouring his left ankle. I quietly thanked whoever was responsible for a small miracle; we were still together. And it looked like I was the last to recover from our trip. Well, somebody had to be last.

"He's finally awake!"

"Yes, my dearest, I'm finally awake." I got to my feet as quickly as she'd let me. "Ami, you might want to borrow this." I pulled the first-aid kit out of my luggage and tossed it to her, then said, "Let's take stock."

"What, now?" Makoto asked as she took her own suitcase from me.

"Better to do this sooner than later. This isn't my first rodeo."

"No, it's your second."

"I love you too, my dearest. Okay, on the plus side, we're alive, so obviously the laws of physics in this dimension allow for life, and wherever this is that we landed can support life as we know it. We're together, which is a big plus. On the minus side, Ryou-san's hurt, what we're wearing and carrying is everything that we have," and that reminded me to check the smartphone that Sailor Pluto had told me to bring along, which was still in one piece, "and we don't know whether anything here is edible. Has anybody figured out where we are?"

"Outside?" Makoto answered with a shrug.

"In an open field," Ami added while wrapping a tension bandage around Ryou-san's ankle.

"On a planet that isn't Earth," I contributed, pointing at the two moons while checking whether my smartphone could detect a signal. As I expected, it couldn't, which meant there was no compatible cellphone tower in range. I shut it off as I asked, "Ryou-san, is your precognition giving you any clues?"

"Just an abbreviation, in English. T.S.A.B."

Isekai by Moonlight

Chapter StrikeR

I couldn't help myself; I started laughing. "Yep, Petz sent us to another dimension! One with dimension travel spells and dimension ships and dimension communication magic! Any other place and we'd have been in trouble!"

Ami stood up, walked over, and slapped my face.

I caught my breath and said, "Thanks, I needed that." As I got myself back under control, I sighed deeply. "Everybody remember this phrase because you're going to be using it in place of swear words for the first few weeks: 'Stupid genre conventions'."

Makoto sighed. Ryou-san facepalmed. Ami quietly said, "That would only be helpful if we knew what the genre conventions are."

Oops. "Yeah. Right. Sorry about that."

"Another minus," Ryou-san said as he walked over, testing his weight on his ankle before leaning on Ami's shoulder. "We didn't get a chance to eat lunch before we were sent to this dimension."

"I have some vacuum-packed dehydrated food, enough for one small meal for each of us, and some Tokyo tap water."

"I used some of the water to clean Ryou's ankle," Ami told me. "Do we eat now, or wait?"

"Wait," Ryou-san said. "My foreseeing is fuzzy, but I think we're close to being found by these T.S.A.B. people."

"How close?" Ami asked.

"Four times out of five, we're sleeping in proper beds tonight."

"You need some food if your ankle's going to heal," Ami insisted.

"I have two kinds of curry – sausage or pork," I said just before a low hum filled the air. "Or we can wait."

Sure enough, the hum was coming from what looked like a transport helicopter without rotors that was headed our way. When they got close enough for us to see the TSAB markings on the nose, I raised a bright orange forcefield – the largest I could manage – just above our heads. Sure enough, they saw it and set down nearby, at which point I dropped the forcefield.

As three people got out of the vehicle and headed our way slowly, I said to the others, "If they really are TSAB, they're military and they're here to help us. If they aren't, we may have to defend ourselves. But that looks like a military vehicle out of their anime."

"Transform, or not?" Makoto asked.

"Not," Ami replied. "But keep your transformation wand ready."

I moved to Ryou-san's side so that Ami could become Sailor Mercury if necessary.

Then the people who were approaching stopped. The one at the front, who was noticeably shorter than the other two, said, "Hello! We're with the Time-Space Administrative Bureau Ground Armaments Service, Antiquities Administration Department Mobile Section 6. I'm Second Lieutenant Vita. Did you see any signs of a dimensional disturbance in this area in the last half hour?"

I relaxed, but kept my knowledge of who they were to myself; "Antiquities Administration Department Mobile Section 6" was better known as "Riot Force 6", and we'd landed somewhere in the middle of Nanoha StrikerS or a close variant thereof. Since none of us were in the original story, this was quickly going to become a close variant if it wasn't already.

"We were in the middle of it, miss," Ami replied loudly.

"No need to shout; I have a spell running. And call me lieutenant. Did you cause the disturbance?"

"No, lieutenant," I said. "We are victims of it. Please, where are we?"

"You're in a recreational wilderness area just outside of Cranagan, on Midchilda."

For Vita's benefit, I sighed deeply and commented on something I'd realized just before Ami slapped me out of hysterics. "Oh, boy. Not only are we in a different dimension, we're in a completely different reality."

It worked. "What's that supposed to mean?" Vita asked with some suspicion.

"It's a long story, lieutenant. In short, we are most likely fictional characters in this world, just as you're fictional characters in the world I came from. We request sanctuary and medical assistance."

"We do?" Makoto asked.

"Unless you want to stay in this park until we starve," I replied.

"If it's a choice between staying here and getting in an aircraft, I'd rather stay and starve."

Before I could reply, Vita said, "I'll have to ask my superiors about the sanctuary request. We can help with the medical request. Nakajima, move in and find out what help they need, and why the taller woman has a problem with aircraft. Lanster, cover Nakajima. I'm going back to the transport."

I didn't bother telling her that she'd left her spell on when giving orders; she no doubt wanted to listen in.

It didn't take long for Nakajima – a dark-haired woman who was only a year or two older than us – to arrive; somehow she roller-skated on rough ground. "I'm Private Subaru Nakajima. Who needs help?"

"I do," Ryou-san said. "I've hurt my ankle. My name's Ryou Urawa," he added; obviously, Ryou-san had noticed that Subaru... Private Nakajima had introduced herself using the Western order of her name.

"I think it's a sprain," Ami added.

"And who are you?"

Ami looked at me (as I said, this wasn't my first rodeo, and she was smart enough to know that made me the closest thing the group had to an expert in the current situation), and I nodded. No point in being rude when we're asking for help.

"Ami Mizuno. My mother is a doctor, so I've learned some basic medical knowledge."

"Ah. Is anybody else hurt?"

Makoto and I shook our heads. "I think we're okay," I said, "but we haven't been through quarantine or your world's equivalent. Oh, I'm Rob Donaldson."

"No, I guess you wouldn't have been through the dimensional entry process," Subaru said. "The dimensional flux readings back at headquarters were off the scale – you obviously didn't come here by using a standard spell."

"We were banished from our home reality. And I'm Makoto Kino," my dearest finished the introductions on our side.

Ami picked up Ryou-san in a piggyback carry. "You asked that we go with them, right?"

"If they'll have us. Would you take our luggage as well, please? I'm staying with Makoto."

"We've already agreed to give you medical care," Private Nakajima reminded us as she took both suitcases from me. "Now, why does Ms. Kino have a problem with our aircraft?"

"The last time I was aboard an aircraft," she whispered, "it crashed and my parents died."

Subaru stopped cold. "Oh. I'm sorry about your loss." She turned her head to look at the aircraft and had a distracted look on her face for a few minutes. Then she turned back to us. "I'll come back after dropping off Mr. Urawa and Ms. Mizuno at our transport. We'll walk out to the nearest road, then make our way to our base on foot."

"Thank you," Makoto said with obvious relief.

"You are serious about not flying," Subaru said.

"We'll send a car for you," Vira said over her spell. "HQ wants to talk with you about your sanctuary request, and why three of you have the same names as characters from a quarter-century-old anime from a non-administrated world."

---

It took a while for us to make the trip to their headquarters by foot and car. We got to know at least a bit about both Subaru and our driver, maintenance specialist Alto Krauetta. By the time we reached Long Arch, Riot Force 6's headquarters, we were all on a first-name basis; the locals seemed to expect it.

At that point, Makoto and I were only a couple of hours late to board the train to Narahara.

"There's an Earth in this universe," I said quietly while squeezing her hand. "We might be a bit late, but we can still go."

"Thanks," she whispered back.

But we didn't go anywhere other than the infirmary, where an attractive blonde doctor who introduced herself as Shamal was just finishing using magic to heal Ryou-san's ankle. Then we all went into a quarantine room; the four of us, Dr. Shamal, Lt. Vita, Private Lanster, Subaru, Alto, and helicopter pilot Sergeant Granscenic.

I'd complain about stupid genre conventions, but I did that one to myself. At least they fed us.

An hour or so after we finished lunch and didn't get to know each other better because Vita discouraged chitchat, there was a knock at our door.

"Come in," said Vita.

The door opened to reveal a tall young man who appeared to be in his mid-to-late 20s and a short girl a couple of years older than us, both wearing the same brown uniform that Vita, Subaru and Teana... Private Lanster had been wearing when they picked us up. They were also both wearing glasses; I guess Midchildan medical magic wasn't good enough to fix eyesight. Or maybe they liked the look for some reason. "I'm Captain Griffith Lowran," the man said, "and this is Corporal Shario Finieno." The woman nodded slightly. "First, you've all cleared quarantine. Team Stars, Vice, Alto, you can get back to work now."

"See you later, I hope," Subaru said as she headed out with the others.

Once they were gone, Captain Lowran announced, "I'm legally required to inform you that this conversation is being monitored and recorded. I understand that your names are Donaldson, Kino, Mizuno, and Urawa; is that correct?"

"It is," Ryou-san answered. "I'm Ryou Urawa."

"I am Ami Mizuno."

"I'm Makoto Kino."

"And to complete the formal record, I'm Rob Donaldson."

"Thank you," Captain Lowran said with a bit of a smile. "You made an extraordinary claim when the forward team picked you up; that you were from not just another dimension, but another reality altogether."

"One that I believe this reality considers to be a work of fiction," I replied.

"Do you have any evidence to support your claim?"

"Before I answer that, who will have access to the recording of this conversation?"

"Only the members of Antiquities Administration Department Mobile Section 6."

"Then this highly personal question won't be heard by people outside of Riot Force 6. How is Vivio?"

Nobody said anything for a long moment, although the look of surprise on the faces of Griffith... Captain Lowran... turned into a look of concentration within a few seconds. My suspicion that he was in telepathic communication with someone else was confirmed when he finally replied, "Captain Takamachi tells me that Vivio is recovering from her recent ordeal. How did you know who Vivio is?"

"As I told Lieutenant Vita, you're just as fictional in my original reality as my three companions are in your reality. And Vivio is the one person at Long Arch who I couldn't have learned about through reading military records. I assume that her recent ordeal took place aboard the –"

"We believe you," Captain Lowran said before I could say something that was probably being kept secret. Although I had no idea how they hoped to keep a multi-kilometre-long flying ship like the Saint's Cradle secret. Or maybe it was Vivio's background that was being kept secret. Captain Lowran changed the subject, "And that explains why you requested sanctuary from us."

"We don't know how to return home," Ami replied, "and we have no other place to go."

"Can't we do something for them?" Corporal Finieno asked.

"Colonel Yagami would like some proof that they are who they say they are," Captain Lowran replied.

"That's easy enough," Ami said while slowly taking her transformation wand from her pocket. "Mercury Star Power, Make-Up!"

"You should have asked permission to do that first," I said after she'd finished her transformation sequence.

"Oh. My apologies."

"Did you know that you're completely naked for a second when you transform?"

As I handed my handkerchief to Ryou-san – I didn't want his nosebleed to stain the only clothes he had here – Mercury turned to Corporal Finieno. "Yes. Does it matter?"

Shario... Corporal Finieno... actually blushed. "Well, I suppose, if you don't care, then it doesn't." Then she turned to Makoto. "What about your transformation?"

"I'd rather not show it to a man who isn't my boyfriend," my dearest replied while taking my hand in her own. "I am completely naked for a second when I transform, after all."

"Colonel Yagami says that one transformation is proof enough," Captain Lowran said before that conversation could continue. "I'm to give you quarters here, and we'll talk tomorrow morning about what you can do in order to earn your keep." Corporal Finieno waved a hand and a screen appeared in front of her as if by magic. No, wait; "as if" didn't belong in that sentence. After a moment, Captain Lowran added, "Never mind the part about earning your keep. You're here as guests of Colonel Yagami."

"Thank you, that's very kind of him," Ami replied with a smile.

"Her," Captain Lowran corrected my dearer friend.

"I have to ask this because it's on the residence registration form," Corporal Finieno interrupted. "Who's your next of kin?"

"She is," we said in unison. Ami and I pointed at Makoto, and Makoto and Ryou-san pointed at Ami.

"That works." Captain Lowran commented as Corporal Finieno entered the data. "It actually makes things easier if you're a family."

"It does? How?" Makoto asked.

"For one thing, we can give you family quarters instead of splitting you up in the men's and women's wings."

"We appreciate that, thank you," Ami said.

---

The family quarters turned out to be a two-bedroom apartment, with a kitchenette, a combined living and dining room, and one bathroom. While it was cramped compared to the officers' quarters that were depicted in the anime, it was spacious compared to our apartments in Tokyo.

Each bedroom had bunk beds in it, so we decided to bunk by gender. Ryou-san called dibs on the lower bunk in our room before I could ask for the upper bunk. I never did find out who was in which bunk in the girls' bedroom.

When I unpacked, I noticed that my luggage had been searched. It had been re-packed, but not the way that I had packed it originally. I didn't complain; it was a reasonable precaution.

The next morning, we quickly realized that we needed more than just a roof over our heads and a couple of meals a day. Makoto and I had packed two changes of clothes each, one outfit suitable to wear to a memorial service and one casual outfit. That put each of us two outfits up on Ami and Ryou-san, who only had the clothes they were wearing. So that we wouldn't embarrass our friends, Makoto and I wore what we had on when we were banished to this dimension, although I (and, I assume, Makoto) wore clean underwear.

"So, what do we do now?" Makoto asked once we were together in the living room. "I don't see anything to eat in the kitchen."

"I still have that vacuum-packed curry," I replied.

"For breakfast?"

There was a knock at the door before anybody could answer Makoto's question. "Come in!" Ryou-san said.

The door opened to reveal Corporal Finieno, loaded down with bags. "Good morning! Colonel Yagami thought you might want something clean to wear." She handed each of us a bag. "Once you get changed, I'm to take you to the mess hall."

"Thank you," Ami replied as she accepted the bag with her name on it.

Fifteen minutes later, we were wearing our new, clean, clothes: emerald-green shirts or blouses, and black slacks or skirts, respectively. Ryou looked as clean-shaven as me, but that was because he had been given depilatory cream, not a razor.

We noticed that our girlfriends looked as well-groomed as we did. And, of course, the colour scheme was one that Makoto and I preferred when we dressed to match. "That looks good on you, darling," she said.

"It looks good on you, too, my dearest." We turned to our hostess. "Thank you for the change of clothing, Corporal Finieno."

She smiled. "Please, call me Shario. I'm only 'Corporal Finieno' when I'm on duty."

"Thank you, Shario-san," Ami said. "Why are we in a uniform?"

"Actually, that isn't a uniform. At least, it isn't a Bureau uniform. If you were wearing brown, white, blue, or black, you could be mistaken for TSAB personnel at first glance. Green shows that you're civilians."

"That makes sense," Ryou-san replied.

"Now, if you're ready for breakfast?"

"Lead on," Makoto said.

By the time we got to the mess hall, it was nearly empty; the only person still there, other than the cooks, was a very small female, less than a foot tall, with hair so pale that I thought it was white at first glance. "Shari! You're late!"

"Sorry, Rein!" Her name had two syllables with equal emphasis: Re-in. "Where did everybody else go?"

"The forwards are training, and Hayate and Griffith are doing the paperwork to explain our new guests to the general staff. Lucino and Alto are all alone in the command center."

"I'd better go help them, then. But our guests..."

"Hayate said I should take over for you. That's why I'm still here." She turned to us. "Hello! I'm Sergeant Reinforce Zwei. Everybody calls me Rein."

We introduced ourselves, then assembled breakfast from what was still available. There was enough rice, grilled fish, and miso soup left for three people; I ended up with – wonder of wonders – scrambled eggs, English bacon, crumpets, and knoutberry jam. Remembering that knoutberry was an English name for the fruit called cloudberry or bakeapple in various parts of Canada, I helped myself to as much as I thought I could get away with.

"I knew that somebody has to eat those or they wouldn't cook them," Rein said while looking at the crumpets, "but I've never seen anybody actually eat them before. Where are they from?"

"In this reality," I answered around bites, "Non-administrated world 97."

"I grew up on that world! But I've never seen those there."

"They're from England, not Japan. Earth is a pretty big planet, demographically speaking, and I suspect there are a lot more cultures there than there are on Midchilda."

She and I had a discussion about the differences between Earth and Midchilda over breakfast, mainly for the benefit of Ryou-san, Ami, and Makoto. The biggest differences were that Earth didn't have very much magic, but also didn't have a centuries-long war that ended less than a century ago. Much like historical events causing Tokyo to have almost as large a population as the entirety of Canada, Rein told me that Earth had about as large a population as the entirety of the TSAB-administrated worlds put together. With the population of the administrated worlds so low, it was no wonder that the TSAB hadn't made any public approaches to the United Nations, and it was also no wonder that there were still so many unpopulated areas within Cranagan's city limits.

When I mentioned my conclusions to Rein, she added the fact that Earth still used reaction weapons – everything from firearms to nukes – which were banned on administrated worlds. That meant that there wasn't as much of a power imbalance between the two sides as I thought despite Earth's lack of mages... and Earth was still a savage place in some ways.

None of us could disagree with her there.

---

We spent the entire day being debriefed by experts called in from the TSAB Midchilda Ground Headquarters. They were rather aggressive with their questions in the morning, but we knew that we didn't have any other options than "cooperate" or "get kicked out and starve", so we cooperated.

At lunchtime – we weren't allowed to eat with each other – Ami noticed the woman in charge of the debriefing team speaking with a short brown-haired woman in Ground Force uniform. When she described the woman later, I thought that she might have been our host, Hayate Yagami; considering that Hayate was in charge at Long Arch and the other woman was in charge of the debriefing, Ryou-san agreed that they were probably comparing notes.

And the fact that the debriefing team wasn't anywhere near as aggressive in the afternoon was another hint that Hayate had asked them to ease off.

But the debriefing went on so long that we missed having dinner with everyone else; it was "whatever's still left on the hot bar" for us once again. The tomato-ish-based stew that they still had was closer to lecsó than anything else I was familiar with, which I realized as I ladled some into a large bowl. "Careful," I said to the others as I grabbed some bread for my side dish. "This smells spicy."

"You of all people think it might be spicy," Makoto said flatly.

"That's right."

Everybody else avoided it.

Their loss; it had garlic and roasted paprika (or the local equivalents) in it, and the sausage was remarkably similar to a proper Hungarian kolbász, all of which gave it a slow heat instead of a sudden burn. Considering what had been available for both breakfast and supper that day, it was obvious to me that somebody in the kitchen liked Earth cooking.

The others went with Japanese dishes. It was no surprise that they had Japanese food available; three of the four highest-ranking people who lived on base grew up in this reality's Japan, after all, and one of them knew both how to cook and how to teach. What the boss wants, the boss gets.

---

When we finally got back to our apartment, we discovered a large jar of knoutberry jam on the kitchen counter, along with a note saying that nobody else ate it so we might as well. Note to self: thank the kitchen staff the next time I saw them.

We also found changes of clothing in our closets: three sets of green tops and black slacks each, although the ladies had a skirt replacing one pair of slacks. "Who chose this wardrobe, Chiba-san?" I groused.

"Mamoru-san would have given us green jackets, not green shirts," Ami pointed out with a bit of melancholy in her voice.

"Oh, right." And I regretted reminding her of home. Note to self: stop making my dearer friend sad.

---

The sun rose on the third day that we were in this reality, which we discovered was September 25, 0075.

"Why 'September'?" I asked Shario and Reinforce, who had saved us spots in the mess hall. "That's the name of an Earth month; I can't believe you came up with even a single component of our calendar independently." Of course, I knew the Doylist explanation from my original reality was that the people telling the story simply used the Gregorian calendar because it wasn't important to the story. I was curious what the Watsonian explanation was.

"I told you yesterday about the Saint King Unification War," Rein mentioned. "We lost so much knowledge then that we didn't even know what a complete Belkan calendar looked like for decades. And when the TSAB recruited a mage from your world, he just kept on using the calendar that he was familiar with, and it caught on because it didn't favour any one of the administrated worlds."

"Ah," I said. "So it's Admiral Graham's fault."

"You've heard of him?" Shario asked in amazement.

"We haven't, but apparently Robu has," Makoto said.

"Wasn't anybody listening in on my debriefing yesterday? I know that I mentioned I was from another reality where both Sailor Moon and Lyrical Nanoha are works of fiction."

"Before you go on," Rein interrupted, "we've agreed that we aren't telling Captain Takamachi that, in your world, this entire reality is named after her."

"So you were listening in," Ryou-san said.

"It's part of my job," Shario explained. "How much do you know about our reality, Rob?"

"Not as much as you might think, but probably more that you're comfortable with. I know in general terms about the Jewel Seed Incident, the final Book of Darkness Incident, and the JS Incident."

Shario quietly said, "We're still cleaning up the JS Incident."

"Would you know where to find the Numbers that managed to escape from custody?" Rein asked.

"Sorry, no. All I know there is that you did... will take them all into custody and make it stick."

"That's reassuring, at least," Shario commented. "But we shouldn't tell anybody else."

"Getting back to the calendar," Ami said before anybody could start a pointless debate about whether to change canon, Not that I could, given what I knew. "what is the offset between the local calendar and the Gregorian calendar on Earth?"

Shario smiled at the change of subject. "That's easy. Add 1,941 to the Midchildan year to get your year."

"So it's 2016," Ami replied as she typed on the Mercury Computer... and that fact gave me an idea that required access to Earth's internet to turn into reality. "And the day offset?"

"There's no offset there," Shario answered. "Our New Year's Day is the same day as yours. Admiral Graham didn't use a day offset when he introduced your calendar to the TSAB."

Rein suddenly looked distracted, then stood up quickly. "Speaking of the Numbers, two of them have been sighted near the Hotel Augusta. We have to get to work," Rein said. Looking around, we could see that almost everyone else were also cutting their breakfasts short, including Shario. "Sorry!"

A few minutes later, we were the only ones other than the cooks left in the mess hall. Again.

"So, what are we going to do today?" Ami asked.

"I know it's a day late by our calendar, but could we hold a memorial for my parents, please?"

We did what we could to help Makoto cope with the anniversary of her loss, so far from the crash site and without a priest.

---

Things proceeded this way for almost a full week: we'd eat with Rein and Shario when they weren't busy with Riot Force 6 work, and in exchange for room and board, we'd answer their questions to the best of our ability.

Shario was interested in Makoto and Ami's Senshi gear, so we let her run some scans. It turned out that everything counted as Lost Logia, but somebody pulled some strings so that it was declared as the safe sort, and Ami and Makoto were allowed to keep it all. Hey, Shario is a "device meister", whatever that is, so she should know... and apparently the "somebody" was a lieutenant colonel who was in line for a promotion to full colonel. (The casualties in the JS Incident went all the way to the top.) I had to remember to thank Hayate for that, the first time that we actually met her.

Shario and her co-workers classified Makoto and Ami's transformation wands as limited Devices that could only invoke a Barrier Jacket transformation. Which, honestly, wasn't too far off the mark. Their communicators were less useful than the magical communications that TSAB used on a daily basis.

We had to fight tooth and nail to keep the Mercury Computer, though, because it was more powerful as a hand-held processor and scanner than anything the TSAB had short of a Belkan-style Unison Device. It took direct intervention from the base commander to let Ami keep it, and even then the Riot Force 6 techs insisted in scanning all of the hardware, software, and accumulated data.

Which is how Shario found the scans that Ami had taken of Makoto and me during the Missing Time. She immediately brought Shamal into the research.

"Interesting," commented the base's doctor. "It's a complete inversion of our telepathy."

"We can't do that any more, though," Makoto said before I could.

"And it only ever worked between the two of us when it did work," I added.

"Which means I can't get any scans of the process at work," Shamal said with a sigh. "My hospital scanners have better resolution than your handheld Device does." After a moment, she added, "Did it stop working when you started using the same kind of telepathy that we use?"

Makoto and I didn't say anything for a moment. Finally, my dearest said, "We... don't know how to do that."

«It's one of the most basic skills in Midchildan and Belkan magic,» Shamal thought to us. Not just Makoto and me; judging by their reactions, Ami and Ryou-san "heard" her, too. «Here, I'll teach you all how to send your thoughts to each other, and to any other mage,»

"I'm not a mage, I'm a precog," Ryou-san said.

«That should be close enough,» Shamal replied.

Three minutes later, we were sending our thoughts to each other as easily as we could speak with each other... and Makoto and I were so happy to be able to share our thoughts and emotions again that we were replicating our last moments together during the Missing Time. Shamal didn't seem to mind seeing us kiss, and in fact was scanning us after we mentioned that we were sending more than just words, but Ami and Ryou-san told us to get a room. Spoilsports.

---

The next day saw a change to our routine, or rather the start of a new routine. Ryou-san spent a lot of time in the infirmary, being scanned by Shamal in an effort to determine just how his precognition worked... with Shario taking copious notes.

The rest of us were invited to compare the ancient Silver Millennium fighting style with the Midchildan and Belkan styles. You can read that as "we were asked whether we wanted to take part in training." Considering that it was train or sit around doing nothing, we trained.

No, we didn't go up against Riot Force 6's Forwards on the first day of training. That came later. We did go up against Ginga Nakajima, Subaru's sister, who was on light duty because of what Rein referred to as "something that had happened during the JS Incident." (The poor girl. I think I've already mentioned that I hate the very idea of brainwashing. If I haven't mentioned that, well, I hate it a lot.)

We learned a lot just in the first day of training. Specifically, we learned that standing, posing, and announcing your attacks, the way that Sailor Jupiter and Sailor Mercury usually did, would get you killed in TSAB-style combat. We'd been lucky that our opponents so far were as unskilled in tactics as we were, which made me wonder how four of them from the Dark Kingdom had reached the rank of General in the first place.

Ginga explained that to me during the second day of our training, while defending herself against both Mercury and Jupiter who were trying to get one solid hit on her within five minutes. «From what you've been showing us, the Silver Millennium is even older than Al-Hazard,» she started while dodging a Shiny Aqua Illusion. «Historically, tactics have evolved quite a bit over the last three millennia, let alone the last ten or twenty. Your Dark Generals were no doubt very good at the time» – she easily evaded a Supreme Thunder as she sent that – «but their tactics didn't evolve alongside their opponents' changing tactics. If you had learned some modern tactics, you would have won your fights easily.» "Time!" She said that last to the ladies. "You lose."

"None of us have ever had any opportunity to learn tactics," I pointed out.

"We'll fix that," she replied as she roller-skated over to me.

"Rob," Ami said while catching her breath, "I apologize for all of the times that we called you an oni. Sergeant Nakajima is worse than you are."

Ginga smiled. "Why, thank you! And I'm only a Rank C mage; you should try going up against Captain Takamachi or Captain Harlaown some time after you've learned something about fighting. I can see why they asked me to train you to begin with." She turned to me. "Your turn. Begin!"

I put up a forcefield to pin her down, but she had a Wing Road ready first and got away from me before I could close the barrier around her. Rollerskating in three dimensions on that Wing Road – which I thought was unfair, but, remembering what Kunzite did to Sato-san, I said nothing about unfairness – she easily avoided all of my attacks... until I realized that her Wing Road limited her manoeuvrability and I wasn't leading my aim sufficiently. I thought that I almost had her, but time ran out before I could close my forcefield around her.

Once Ginga was back on solid ground, she turned to me and said, "You really need to work on making forcefields faster." Then she turned to the open air and asked, "How did they do?"

"Rank E, all three of them, except that they have more stamina than most Rank A mages," Rein's voice came from a video window that appeared in midair. The window pivoted to face us, and she asked, "Now that we know that, what kind of training do you want?"

We all thought for a moment. My dearest was the first to reply. "I have my Senshi magic for ranged attacks, so I'd like to concentrate on hand-to-hand fighting, please."

"Something Belkan for Ms. Kino," Rein said, "although we should also work on unlocking your other ranged attacks. Hayate tells me that you can do more than just Supreme Thunder and Sparkling Wide Pressure."

"Will I get to learn the nerve pinch?" Makoto asked.

"Belkan, not Vulcan," Ami said. Then she turned to Rein. "I'd prefer to concentrate on using my Senshi magic to its best effect. And, if I can, I'd like to learn some of your healing magic."

"We'll start you on a program of Midchildan training for use with the ranged combat and area-effect magic that you should already have from the Silver Millennium, Ms. Mizuno. And if you're good enough with mathematics, Shamal can teach you some healing magic."

Makoto laughed. "Ami and Robu are at least four years in advance of the rest of us when it comes to math."

"That might be enough, depending on the type of math," Rein nodded as she replied. "What about you, Mr. Donaldson?"

After a long moment, I finally said, "I don't know. I use my forcefields both offensively and defensively, including doing a little trick that I haven't shown you yet." I went invisible as I said that. "Oh! I can manifest my forcefields as sticks or staffs. Could somebody train me in stick-fighting?" I asked as I turned visible again.

"We can do more than that, if your forcefields are that versatile," Rein said. "For combat, we'll start you with the same Belkan training that we'll give Ms. Kino, plus some speed training, and we'll see where to go after that." She looked off-screen and added, "Did you get all of that, Shario?"

"I sure did!" Her voice came from the direction that Rein was looking.

«Why does Shario need to know our training programs?» Ami sent to Makoto and me.

«Dunno,» my dearest thought back. «Do you have any idea, darling?»

«Maybe,» I replied, «but if I'm right, I have one thing to say about it.»

«'Stupid genre conventions'?» both ladies sent to me.

«I'll thank you to not steal my line. And, yes.»

---

Ami, Makoto, and I spent the next month training. Shamal gave the ladies some telepathic assistance in unlocking their other canon attacks – Ami's Mercury Aqua Mirage and Mercury Aqua Rhapsody, and my dearest's Super Supreme Thunder and Jupiter Oak Evolution. Then Vita trained them to use the attacks by nearly beating the stuffing out of both of them repeatedly.

Ginga worked with me to get my basic hand-to-hand skill up to the bare minimum. Drawing on the martial arts skills in Makoto's brainprint helped me there.

Ryou-san was nowhere to be seen while we were training. And neither were Shario and Rein. We found out why on October 14, when he dropped four stacks of cash onto the dining table in our shared quarters. "All of this belongs to you, Ami," he announced.

"To me? But why?"

"While you've been training and when Dr. Shamal hasn't been scanning me while I used my precognitive ability, I've been negotiating a fair price for the scans that our hosts took of the Mercury Computer. And you own the computer."

I raised an eyebrow. "You're sure you got a fair payment for the data?"

"Seven timelines out of nine, this is what I could get without any hard feelings from anyone in the TSAB."

"He's sure," Ami told me with confidence. Then she turned to her boyfriend and added, "And you already know what I'm about to say, since you divided the money into four piles."

He smiled. "Ten times out of eleven, I know. But you should say it anyway, please, for Mako-chan and Robu-san's sake."

"If you insist," she smiled back. "Captain Lowran was right when he said that we're a family. Rob didn't hesitate to share his first-aid kit as soon as we arrived here. And mother..." Ami paused for a moment, then continued by sending us her thoughts while she cried quietly. «Mother already welcomed Makoto and Rob into the Mizuno family. I miss her. I miss everybody.»

Makoto hugged her sister in all but blood before Ryou-san or I could act. "We all miss everybody that we left behind. It's okay to cry."

The money sat on the table for a while while we all comforted Ami – the only one of us who didn't have any experience with being, to quote from the Bible, a stranger in a strange land. Once she had regained her composure, Ami said, "I'm sorry."

"Don't be," my beloved replied. "It's natural to miss your loved ones." We all knew how she knew that.

"Thank you, Mako-chan. This money," Ami waved a hand at the stacks on the table, "belongs to all of us. Each of you, take a stack."

"If you're sure...?"

"Yes, Rob, I'm sure."

With that, we filled our wallets and put the rest into safekeeping in our rooms. "We need to get you something to keep things in," I mentioned to Ryou-san. "We don't have practice tomorrow; I wonder whether we could go into town and buy luggage for both you and Ami."

"Rein already offered to be our guide if we wanted to do some shopping in Cranagan."

"And in how many timelines did you accept her offer?" I asked with a grin.

"Who knows? But I know that I accepted in this timeline," he replied with a matching grin.

---

So we went shopping in Cranagan. Ryou-san had negotiated a very good deal for the scans of the Mercury Computer; we barely needed to dip into our cash supply to purchase enough to turn our small apartment from a living space to a home, stock the kitchen for a few weeks, and get some clothes that weren't green or black. As much as I like seeing my dearest wearing green, it's possible to get too much of a good thing, and I like seeing her wear other colours, too. At Ryou-san's suggestion, we also bought large frame backpacks for all four of us. And we took turns distracting Ami from noticing the rest of us were also making some special purchases.

One nice thing about a magitech society like Midchilda's was that I didn't need to hide my powers. The flip side of that, of course, was that I ended up carrying everybody's purchases in a forcefield wheeled basket... until Ryou-san asked, "Is there some place nearby that we can drop these off securely?"

"What's about to happen?" I asked before Rien could reply.

"Six times out of seven, we're going to get involved in a take-down."

"You're civilians," Rein pointed out. "It's the TSAB's job to capture dangerous criminals."

"Who are they?" Ami asked.

"I don't know their names. All I'm seeing are numbers: 9 and 11."

"Nove and Wendi?" I asked. "Didn't Private Lanster take them into custody?"

"She did," Rein replied as she opened a video window to Riot Force 6 headquarters. "But they escaped during transport to a maximum-security facility." She turned to the video connection. "Captain, Mr. Urawa has foreseen two of the Numbers will be in our immediate area shortly."

"Stand by, Sergeant."

Rein left the connection open and turned back to us. "There's a parcel forwarding service a half-block away." She pointed as she said that. "There's no point in you needing to go shopping again. But it's still the TSAB's job to capture dangerous criminals, and the Numbers definitely count as dangerous criminals."

"So we can't help?" my dearest asked.

I smiled and replied, "Oh, I'm sure that somebody will remember any minute now that Captain Takamachi was a civilian specialist during the Jewel Seed Incident. I expect that we'll be allowed to help our hosts, darling."

"You know too much about our history, Mr. Donaldson," we heard Captain Lowran over Rein's video connection.

"How soon until we make contact with the Numbers?" Rein asked.

Ryou replied, "Maybe five minutes, maybe ten."

Captain Lowran sounded resigned to the situation. "We can't get anybody to you in time. Since you're willing to help, I'm temporarily adding the three of you who have combat experience to our roster, Acting-Private Kino, Acting-Private Donaldson, and Acting-Private Mizuno. Sergeant Reinforce, you're in charge of the squad."

"Yes, sir," Rein... Sergeant Reinforce acknowledged the order. "Mr. Urawa, please find a safe place to take shelter."

I asked, "Ma'am, request permission to accompany Mr. Urawa to the parcel forwarding service with the parcels, and return as soon as he and the parcels are inside."

"Granted. Make it fast."

"Hop on," I told Ryou-san while pointing at the pile of parcels. He did, I took him to the storefront at faster-than-human speed and dissolved the forcefield basket once we were there, and returned to the rest of the squad at flash-move speed. I was there and back within a minute, but that was enough for Ami and Makoto to transform to Mercury and Jupiter, and for Sergeant Reinforce to end her call.

"They're both high-mobility fighters," Sergeant Reinforce was saying. "Nove's abilities are similar to Sergeant Nakajima's. Wendi is a flyer. Can any of you fly?"

"We can jump long distances, but we've never been able to fly," Mercury replied.

"We'll see whether we can teach you later. Right now, we have to expect combat at any time. Mercury, keep scanning the area for hostiles until you find some."

She activated her visor and started looking around.

"Jupiter, concentrate on the flyer. Hit her with lightning if you can. Donaldson, you've come closest to taking down Sergeant Nakajima of anyone in this squad. Concentrate on Nove. Both of you, take them alive if you can."

"Yes, ma'am," we both replied.

Then Sergeant Reinforce had an idea. "How well do you learn during combat situations?"

Jupiter replied, "Mercury and I developed all of our spells during live combat."

"Good. And Mercury's an ice mage, like me. Mercury, according to your medical scans, you can handle Unison in your powered form. Are you willing to try?"

Without taking her attention away from scanning, she said, "I'm willing if it'll help."

"Can either of you scan for enemies?"

"If Mercury lends me the Mercury Computer, I can," I replied.

"Do it." She did, and I took over the scanning duties... which meant that I didn't see Mercury and Reinforce start a Unison because there was suddenly a ping on the sensors.

"Two targets incoming from Jupiter's left," I reported as I went invisible and started moving. "One ground, one air. Ground target is using an effect similar to Wing Road."

"She's your target, Donaldson," Ami said with Rein's inflections. I took a very quick look at my teammate to discover her hair had turned an even paler blonde than Bunny-chan's, the blue of her uniform was almost white, and she was floating about a half-metre off the ground. Looks like the Unison worked. I think Ami looks better as a brunette, myself. "Nove and Wendi of the Numbers, if you stop running and surrender without a fight, the TSAB will not add any additional time to your sentences because of your escape attempt!"

"Who are you supposed to be?" Wendi asked. "I've never seen Barrier Jackets like yours, especially not on TSAB personnel."

"We're Sailor Senshi," Jupiter replied.

"Really? You are? Hey, Nove, what's a sailor cinchy?" Wendi asked.

"No bloody idea," the other Number replied.

"Does it mean 'target'?"

"It might. Let's find out."

«They seem awfully sure of themselves,» Jupiter sent to me.

«Why shouldn't we be?» Wendi asked, showing us that our sendings weren't secure.

«Three of you couldn't take down one TSAB private,» I sent in reply as I raised two invisible forcefields on Nove's path. The first one didn't manifest until after she'd passed it, but she hit the second one. I quickly added more forcefields to turn the walls into a box.

"Ow!"

If that was her only reaction to hitting a solid wall when moving that fast, I was pretty sure she could handle some of the tactics that I'd used against Zoicite and Kunzite. I hit her with a forcefield battering ram, forcing her into the forcefield wall that she'd passed just before I created it.

"What's attacking me? Who's attacking me?"

I didn't answer. Let her keep wondering. Instead, I added a floor to the box.

"Air Liner!"

Oh, no, you don't. I put a lid on the forcefield box before she could get airborne, sealing her in.

As she headed up just far enough to hit her head on my forcefield, I wrapped the whole thing in a second forcefield. By the time she realized she was trapped, I had added a third forcefield layer. «I think I have her, ma'am,» I sent specifically to Sergeant Reinforce.

«Oh, you think you have me, do you?» Nove sent. "Gun Shooter!" A half-dozen energy balls formed around her fist.

Remembering Usagi-san's wish at the end of the Missing Time, I added yet another forcefield layer... which was a good thing, since she shot the energy balls in all directions, completely destroying the first layer of forcefields that I had set up. So I added one more forcefield layer to replace it. «Give up, Nove. I can set those up as fast as you can knock them down.»

She tried again, only proving my statement. «Damn it. Wendi, run; they've got me.»

«I'm not leaving you behind! Aerial Cannon!»

Aw, crap – Wendi was willing to attack her sister's position just to free her. And now that I had time to split my attention, I could see a few electrical burns on her flying surfboard, showing she wasn't having it all her way in combat. That meant she might not have been in full control of her abilities. And our orders were to bring them in alive. Wendi might trust Nove's ability to survive, but I added one more forcefield – a visible one, this time – to be on the safe side.

"Jupiter Coconut Cyclone!"

"Frigid Dagger!" That came from Ami and Rein in Unison.

The combination attack was enough to shock Wendi enough to cancel her own attack. She fell off the board.

"Weichstütze!" And a net appeared under Wendi, breaking her fall. "Frierenfesseln!" A ring of water formed around Wendi, suddenly freezing.

I added a forcefield around the ice cage, and kept adding forcefields to Wendi and Nove's restraints until I couldn't any more. Thanks to the stresses of Ginga's training, my upper limit was higher than it had been at the end of the Missing Time for much the same reason that a muscle gets stronger when it's exercised, so that took a couple of minutes... and in the process I finally noticed that Nove and Wendi were the same age as Makoto and Ami, and Wendi was cute. Hey, so I have a thing for redheads; good thing that one has already laid claim to me. «I'm at my limit,» I finally reported.

Mercury returned to normal as Mercury and Sergeant Reinforce stopped the Unison. "Good work, everyone. Where is Private Donaldson?"

"Right beside you, ma'am," I said while dropping my invisibility.

"Ah. Going invisible was good tactical thinking."

Then we noticed that Mercury was still floating a half-metre above the ground. "Er... request permission to remain airborne, Sergeant Reinforce."

"Denied. No flight within city limits without prior permission. City by-laws."

"Yes, ma'am," Mercury replied as she touched down for the first time since combat began.

"Good work in picking up that skill while we were in Unison, Private."

"Thank you, ma'am."

"And all of you stop calling me ma'am! I'm a sergeant! Mou!" Rein complained adorably as TSAB forces finally arrived to take Nove and Wendi into custody again.

---

When we returned to Long Arch, we were paid for one day's work as recruit Ground Armaments Service privates and mustered out of the service.

The three of us pooled the wages and split them four ways. If it wasn't for Ryou-san's warning, we wouldn't have known enough to be able to capture Nove and Wendi, so it was only fair. Besides, as Ami had said the day before, we were family.

During training the next day, Ami demonstrated all three of the spells that Rein had cast through her while they were in Unison... while hovering three metres above the ground and correcting Rein's German on the fly. Pun not intended.

And on the way back from training, she couldn't keep her feet on the ground. I almost called her attention to that, but I heard her singing quietly, "I'm walking on sunshine, whoa, and don't it feel good?" She had been feeling down for too long; the change in her mood made all of us happy. So we let her have her fun.

---

A week after Ami showed off her flight capability, it was October 23 by the local calendar... or September 10 by the calendar back home.

So of course we gave Ami a birthday party.

We invited Rein, Shario, Shamal, Ginga, and Vita. The base commander dropped in for a few minutes, too; this was the first time that any of the four of us got to meet Hayate. But she couldn't stay for very long; she had to attend a meeting at HQ, so essentially all she said to us was hello. And she took Rein, Shamal, and Vita with her. Ah, well, the burdens of command, and all that.

So it was just the six of us. And Shario smiled as Hayate and her knights left. We didn't know why at the time. I should have. Stupid genre conventions.

We didn't do very much – we chatted about our predicament, we had cake (and we had cake left over because so many people had to leave early), and we gave Ami the presents that we had picked out for her when we were in Cranagan. Ryou followed my example and gave his girlfriend a necklace; his gift had an amethyst the same shade as Ami's eyes as a pendant. My dearest gave her all-but-sister a cookbook, and I gave my dearer friend a chess set – there was a small community of chess players in the TSAB and some of the civilians on Midchilda had picked up the game – and an apology that I wasn't likely to give her a good match... at which point she reminded me that I was as skilled at chess as she was as of the last time I took a brainprint of her.

So we played chess. Just because I had her skill didn't mean I had her experience or her patience; she won after sixteen moves.

Then we had sandwiches for supper. Of course. It was a cross between a stupid genre convention and a reminder of home.

---

Then we went back to training for three months. Well, Ami, Makoto, and I trained, Ryou-san spent his time at the base, submitting to Shamal's scans and helping Shario figure out how the scans related to his precognitive ability. Apparently, the three of them were making great strides in understanding how precognition actually worked, which up until then had been one of the great mysteries of ancient Belka.

As for the rest of us, it was gruelling training by our standards, five days out of seven, although Ginga was barely working up a sweat at first. One day out of seven, all four of us sat in a briefing room and were taught what we could learn out of books: Reinforce Zwei taught us logistics, Vita taught us tactics, and Hayate taught us strategy... which she admitted she was using as a refresher for her upcoming promotion exam.

"Still," I commented on January 14, "you're being very kind to teach us these things, Colonel Yagami. Not just strategy, all of what you and your staff are sharing with us."

"Mr. Donaldson, it's the least we can do for you," she replied with a smile. "Well, it's the least we can do for Ms. Kino and Ms. Mizuno; you and Mr. Urawa are getting a free ride."

I raised an eyebrow in surprise. "Oh? What makes Makoto and Ami so special? To you, I mean; I already know why my girlfriend and our best friend are important to me."

"Have you ever seen a Sailor Moon stage show, Mr. Donaldson? Nanoha, Fate, and I did when we were still living on Earth. Nanoha insisted because it was based on an anime that her parents let her watch in reruns. If it wasn't for your girlfriend and your best friend, and the characters that followed them like Hanasaki Momoko, Kinomoto Sakura, Harukaze Doremi, and Misumi Nagisa, Nanoha would never have imagined becoming a transforming heroine when she met Yuuno-kun, and then I would never have met her, or... well, you told us that you're already familiar with the last Book of Darkness incident. So I owe them indirectly for simply being able to live my own life today. And the TSAB as a whole owes them for the existence of our best combat instructor."

"If you think you're paying back a debt, you really don't need to do that," I said.

"Don't be silly," she replied. "I'm not going to kick you out and let you starve, as long as Antiquities Administration Department Mobile Section 6 still exists." She stopped smiling. "Which will probably last until the end of March, now that we've captured Jail Scaglietti and the surviving Numbers. As for paying back a debt..." Her smile returned, but this time it was a sly smile. "When's the next special event that the four of you have planned?"

If she was thinking what I thought she was thinking, that would be a stupid genre convention. Yes, I've learned the futility of trying to fight those. I can still highlight them in my own mind. "Adjusting for the offset between your calendar and ours, Tuesday is Makoto's birthday."

"That's perfect! Be sure to invite both me and Shario to the party."

Yep. Stupid genre conventions, all but guaranteed. "We wouldn't dream of slighting either of you," I replied. "Should we invite Captain Takamachi and Captain Harlaown as well?"

Hayate sighed deeply. "I know that they'd both love to meet you, but they'll be testifying against Dr. Scaglietti all week."

"That's a shame. Well, Ryou-san's birthday is eighteen days after Makoto's."

"I'll keep that in mind. Oh, would you like to go into town tomorrow, and maybe do some shopping?"

I grinned. "It's as if you read my mind. I'll need somebody to distract Makoto and Ryou-san at appropriate times, of course."

"Of course," Hayate replied with a grin of her own.

---

We went into town the next day, but Ami didn't do very much shopping. One of the shopping arcades had a chess contest – a local master... sorry, "meister"... versus all comers, playing them all at once – and she decided to take part. The exhibition was scheduled to take two hours.

When the rest of us came back three hours later, all of the competitors other than Ami had lost their games. Ami and the local meister looked to me to be near the endgame; both players were down to their king and queen, one rook, one bishop, and four pawns. Needless to say, there was quite a crowd around them.

I looked through Ami's brainprint to get a better idea of how she might handle the situation she was in, then noticed something that nobody else in the area could know. They were definitely at the endgame. «I wonder whether she's spotted it yet,» I sent to Makoto and Ryou-san telepathically.

«Spotted what?» my dearest asked the same way.

Ryou-san smiled. «I suspect she has, whatever it is. Nine times out of eleven, she wins.»

«Which matches the game that I know that she knows about: Reshevsky vs. Fischer's sixth game at the Interzonal Palma de Mallorca, back in 1970 by Earth's calendar. That's a grandmaster-level game. I keep forgetting that Ami ranks as an International Master back home because she won Japan's Junior Chess Championship.» And I keep forgetting that, because the rules changed in 2004; she'd be a Grandmaster by the rules that applied in 2022.

Less than a half-hour later, Ami had won. She collected both a handshake from her opponent and the prize money from the event organizers... and I let her know, quietly and by telepathy, that I had found everything on her shopping list.

---

We were getting to the point where we could defeat Ginga half the time during practice, so they threw the Stars forwards up against us the next day. Yes, the three people who had found us the day we were banished to this reality: Vita, Subaru Nakajima, and Teana Lanster.

We had our heads handed to us within three minutes.

Mainly because, like always, we fought as individuals and they fought as a team.

Vita told us exactly what we had done right, and what we had done wrong, then told us to get up and try again.

It took them five minutes to beat us the second time.

Another litany of our deficiencies in combat, another match, and another defeat, this time in four minutes. Not that we were counting – we didn't need to count the minutes, because Vita counted them for us.

Eventually, Vita outright ordered us to use telepathy to coordinate our actions during combat. Things stopped being so one-sided after that... and telepathic communication let Ryou-san offer advice during the matches, which closed the gap between Team Senshi and Team Stars even more.

By the end of the day, it was taking nearly a half hour for them to defeat us. We took that as a moral victory.

---

Then it was Tuesday – Makoto's birthday.

We had planned a quiet celebration after training. Hayate ordered us to move the celebration up to lunchtime, and hold it at the base.

We found out why when we gave my dearest her birthday presents. Ryou-san gave her a scarf, Ami gave her a math textbook, and I gave her a bracelet that was similar to the one I had given her on White Day and she hadn't been wearing when we were banished to this reality.

Then Hayate and Shario dragged us off to the infirmary to give their present to Makoto... and their presents for the rest of us.

I was expecting something like this from Hayate, given our previous conversation and the existence of stupid genre conventions, but I didn't realize how far she'd gone. "Your medical scans indicate that three of you can use Unison Devices. So I pulled a few strings."

Shamal looked up from her desk and added, "To be exact, the two ladies can Unison while in their Senshi forms. Mr. Donaldson, you can always use a Unison Device." By telepathy, she added, «And I'd like to speak with you in private about why.»

Oh, that wasn't ominous at all.

But Shario wasn't about to let me follow up just then. "You four can come out now!" At her invitation, three miniature humanoid figures the size of Rein and a small box the size of a 1990s-vintage calculator or 2020s-vintage cellphone floated over from where they were hiding. "Meet your new partners."

The box said "Hello" in English with a female voice that reminded me of Kawasumi Ayako-san, but I wasn't sure whether she was intended to be "Ayachii" playing Melfina, Lafiel, Mahoro, Kay, or someone else. "I am an Intelligent Device optimized to assist to determine which possible future is most likely to occur." Ah, so she's supposed to be Ayachii playing Chikage, odd grammar notwithstanding. She floated over to Ryou-san and said, "I ask of you, are you my master?" Or maybe she's supposed to be Ayachii playing Saber... unless she's just a smartass.

"I suppose I am," Ryou-san replied in Japanese, completely missing the reference.

"What is my name?"

We all looked at Ryou-san. He didn't hesitate; obviously, our precog friend had seen this coming. "Your name is Kasandara."

"Her name's Cassandra? I don't believe it."

Ami grabbed a pillow from the nearest bed, and threw it at me. The pillow, not the bed.

The two female Unison Devices laughed – the sea-green-haired one politely with her hand in front of her mouth, the electric-blue-haired one – who was wearing a sheathed katana scaled to her size – more openly. (Yeah, sea-green and electric-blue. Stupid genre conventions.) The male Unison Device, who was wearing similarly-scaled paired swords, floated over to me and took the pillow from my hand, casually tossing it back to Ami. "Please don't mind my sisters, sir. They're still young." His voice reminded me of Suyama Akio's for some reason, and he also spoke English.

"You're only one day older than the rest of us!" the one with the open laugh pointed out, also in English, in a voice that reminded me of Yokoyama Chisa-san playing Ryoko from Nadesico.

He ignored her. "I gather that you're my partner. Have you chosen a name for me yet, Mr. Donaldson?"

"I didn't even know I was going to be meeting you today, let alone naming you." Then I had a thought. "Your sister with the hearty laugh; who is she supposed to be partnering with?"

"I'm right here, you know! I'm Ms. Kino's partner."

Oops. I turned to her, bowed, and said, "I'm sorry that I treated you like a thing." Then I quickly sent to my dearest, «Remember when you saw an image in my mind during the Missing Time and thought that you wanted one of the mechs?»

«I still want a mecha. But what does that have to do with... oh, something about them reminds you of characters from that show?»

«Their swords and their voices, yes, including the title character's voice.»

«Sure, why not?» Then Makoto turned to her Unison Device. "I'm Makoto. Do you have a name yet?"

"Nah, you're supposed to name me."

"Then your name is Sakura."

"I ain't no cherry blossom girl, sister!" But she said that with a smile.

Ignoring them for the moment, I turned to my new partner. "And your name is Ichiro."

"Thank you, sir. It's good to finally have a name."

That left one Device unnamed. We all turned to Ami, who asked, "Is it really a good idea for us to accept such precious people as our partners?"

"Ms. Mizuno, I assure you that I will serve you willingly if you will have me," the last of the Devices said – again, in English – in a voice that reminded me of Han Keiko-san, of all people... or, I realized quickly, of Luna.

I wasn't the only one to notice the resemblance.

"Oh, how can I reject you now?" Ami said while giving her partner Device a hug; her homesickness that I thought was under control was showing through. "But how can I accept you, either? I'm still hoping that we'll be able to go home some time soon, and I'm sure that you won't be able to be healed if you're hurt there."

"Thank you for caring about me, Ms. Mizuno. If it means that I am able to assist you, I will happily take that risk."

"Er," Shario held up one hand in a may-I-speak gesture. "I'm a Device Meister."

"How does that help?" I asked.

"Well, I could go with you if you ever find your way home."

What brought that on?

"No, you can't," Hayate said quickly and sharply. "As your commanding officer, I forbid it. Earth of the 1990s is nothing like Midchilda of the 0070s. You'd be homesick in a week."

"Ladies," I interrupted, "we're getting sidetracked. Ami, are you ready to introduce us to your new friend yet?" I phrased it that way on purpose.

She sighed in resignation. "I still think that it isn't fair to put you at such a risk, but you won't let that stop you, will you?" Her Device shook her head. "Then I accept your offer, as long as it's an offer of friendship, not of service."

"I would be happy to be your friend, Ms. Ami."

"You remind me so much of two people back home who care for me, my friend Luna who mentors all of the Sailor Senshi, and my dear mother." I couldn't see how aside from her voice, but I wasn't the one who was homesick. Ami was. "So I give you the name of the mother of Mercury in Roman myth, spelled the Japanese way. Hello, Meia."

"Thank you, Ami." I noticed that, even though we were speaking Japanese and they were speaking English, there was no language barrier between the Devices and the rest of us. Just like Nanoha and Fate with Raising Heart and Bardiche, I realized. It's obviously a genre thing, so chalk another one up to stupid genre conventions.

Meia turned to me. "Mr. Donaldson, shall we return to the question that Ami and Corporal Finieno raised?"

I nodded. "We're going to have to settle that, one way or another. Even if we don't find our way home, there's no way that the TSAB is going to pay for your maintenance and repairs after Riot Force 6 is disbanded."

Nobody liked that, but nobody said anything about it being untrue, either.

"We can give you a basic field maintenance kit, but it takes years to become a Device Meister," Shario said. "It took me over a half-decade to learn everything."

"Could that information be transferred to one of us by telepathy?" Ami asked.

"It would take years, since telepathy works as fast as speaking," Shamal pointed out.

"Robu could do it in ten minutes."

"Makoto!" I wasn't happy about that statement. "I don't know whether I can still take a brainprint. And even if I can, it would be an intrusion on Sergeant Finieno's privacy."

"'Brainprint'?" Shamal asked. "Can you still do that? I want scans of the process."

"I don't know, and you have scans of the process, copied from the Mercury Computer," I pointed out.

"I want high-resolution scans of the process."

"I suppose I have no choice, then," Shario said. "The good of the service comes before the needs of any one of us."

I sighed. Deeply. "And we do need the knowledge. I'm sorry, Shario."

My dearest saw how much this bothered me. "Can we start with Robu updating the brainprint he has from me? Assuming he can still take one. If it doesn't work, then we drop the whole idea."

"I'd appreciate that," I added. "I already know that Makoto and I don't keep secrets from each other."

Five minutes later, I was seated with scanners positioned all around me. "What a way to spend your birthday, my dearest."

"As long as I'm with you, I don't mind, darling." And she touched her forehead to mine... and her thoughts started flowing in. Unlike the first few times I'd taken or updated a brainprint, though, I actually saw flashes of some of Makoto's memories as I copied them. A few minutes later and we were done.

"As long as we're updating our backups..." Ryou-san started.

I didn't really want to, but I couldn't play favourites, even though everybody already knew that my dearest is my favourite. "Sure, why not." And he took Makoto's place for a few minutes, and again I saw some of the memories that I was copying as I copied them. Then it was Ami's turn, and at the end of that process I knew second-hand what it was like to be in Unison with Rein. "Are we done?" I asked hopefully as Ami vacated the chair in front of me.

"Not yet," Hayate said, who had not forgotten why we were doing this in the first place. "I'm not happy about this either, but you do need the knowledge. Volunteers only at this point, and Mr. Donaldson has the right to say no. And since I won't ask anybody to do anything that I won't do myself..." She sat down in front of me.

"Are you sure, Lieutenant Colonel Yagami?" I put a bit of stress on her rank as I said it. "You'll be letting a civilian, no, a foreign national, know about every classified operation you've ever taken part in. I get everything from your mind, not just your surface thoughts."

"And who will you tell?"

After a moment, I said, "Probably nobody who isn't in this room."

"That's what I thought. We just touch foreheads for a few minutes?"

"It's closer to ten minutes for a brand-new brainprint."

"Then let's get it over with." And she touched her forehead to mine.

Twelve minutes later because Hayate didn't completely trust me the way my friends did, and we were done. I knew what it was like to spend years in a wheelchair, and to see friends die in front of me, and to see them restored, and to go through years of physiotherapy... and I also knew what Hayate, Nanoha, and Fate did together in private.

"That's quite a deep blush, darling," my dearest commented as she offered me her handkerchief.

I accepted it and stanched my nosebleed. "Er, yeah. I did warn Colonel Yagami that I'd get everything from her mind." From the startled look on her face, it was only then that Hayate finally realized what that meant, and she blushed almost as deeply as I did. As Hayate stood up, I asked, "Shario, are you sure you still want to do this?"

In response, she sat down in front of me. "I'm sure. Go ahead."

And eleven minutes later, I had yet another girl forever on my mind... and I had seen something very interesting when I made her brainprint. But I was too exhausted to do anything about it just then. "That's my limit for the day," I insisted with a yawn as I stood up, took three steps to the closest infirmary bed, and fell into it.

---

When I finally woke up, it was morning. "How are you doing, sir?"

"Never better, Ichiro," I replied in English, just to see whether he'd have any problem with it. It appeared that he didn't. "It's just that taking a brainprint is mentally tiring, and I updated three brainprints and took two new ones... yesterday?"

"Yesterday, yes, sir."

"Oh, good. And you don't need to call me 'sir'. You aren't my butler, or valet, or subordinate. I trust that we're going to become friends, and I prefer to be on a first-name basis with my friends."

"Yes, sir. Rob."

"Is that as close as I'm going to get?"

"For now, yes. I'm sorry. I was designed to be your assistant. much like Sergeant Reinforce was designed to be Colonel Yagami's assistant. It's going to take me a while to learn how to treat you as a friend."

At this point, Shamal walked in. "Good morning, sleepyhead," she said.

I switched back to Japanese to match her. "Good morning, doctor. You said something yesterday about wanting to talk with me?" As Ichiro got up to leave, I motioned to him to remain.

Shamal went from teasing to all business. "Yes. Your medical scans turned up something very interesting. You've been rejuvenated by a process that we don't recognize. And that process remade you at the genetic level."

"I knew that I've been rejuvenated, but the rest of that is new. Are you saying that I'm not the same person I was before I was plucked out of my homeworld and dropped almost into Makoto's lap, missing by one apartment?"

"I can't answer that for sure, because I don't have any scans of what your body was like before it was remade, but I suspect that you're still the same person. Just younger and much more resilient."

"Then how do you know that I was remade at the genetic level?"

"There are still residual traces of magic in your cells."

"Ah. Well, whatever happened, it was over a year ago, and I'm still alive and well. Do you want to run scans on me to try to figure out the process?"

Shamal shook her head. "That won't be necessary. I have all the scans I need. Do your friends know that you're older than you look?" she asked with a stern look on her face.

In complete seriousness, I replied, "They do, and they've known since before Makoto became my girlfriend."

Shamal relaxed. "Good. As long as they knew what they were getting into, I don't see an ethical issue here."

"Midchildan ethics and your ethics aren't necessarily their ethics, though, sir," Ichiro mentioned.

"True. Makoto and I have been dating and fighting beside each other for over a year, though, and we haven't found any situations where our ethics clash."

"In that case, I withdraw my concern," replied Ichiro. "The two of you obviously have compatible ethics if you haven't found any major issues after that long."

Then I realized that Shamal's scans might hold a clue as to who was responsible for taking me from my old life and dropping me into Makoto's life. "Doctor, are there any hints as to who rejuvenated me?"

"Only one. The residual magic's colour is purple."

"That isn't much of a hint, Dr. Shamal." Then I had a thought. "If you don't mind me asking, what colour are Ami's and Makoto's magic?"

"The same colours as their Barrier Jackets' accents when they're in Senshi form; blue and green, respectively. Does that matter?"

"It might," I replied. "One never knows what might be important."

As Shamal gave Ichiro instructions to keep me quiet for another day, I pondered what I had been told. Only one Senshi had purple uniform accents... but she wasn't awakened as of when we had been banished from our home reality. More importantly, why – and how – would Sailor Saturn rejuvenate me? She never showed any signs of going beyond simple healing in the anime. Then I thought of Jupiter Coconut Cyclone and realized the anime's limits were merely suggestions in the Sailor Moon close parallel that my dearest and I lived in.

Unless it was somebody other than Sailor Saturn who did the job, of course. But, no, conservation of detail and the stupid genre conventions wouldn't allow for that.

Would they?

---

We spent the morning in the infirmary. Shamal scanned me six ways to Sunday – that's a phrase that I picked up back in my home home reality from some American friends – while I demonstrated all of my abilities, except for the brainprinting which she'd scanned the day before.

"Interesting," she finally said. "Your defensive fields, your flash move, your invisibility, and your carrying capacity; they're all manifestations of your forcefields. If you were using magic, we'd call you a Barrier Mage, but you're using an Inherent Skill instead."

"I've been pretty sure for a while now that all of my powers are based on forcefields," I replied. "Frictionless forcefields for fast movement, light-bending forcefields for invisibility and disguises, and so on."

"Except that they aren't," Shamal said. "Your brainprinting is nothing like your forcefields. It's as if that was grafted onto you."

"Hmmmmm..." I said eloquently. "Do you have copies of Ami's scans of Makoto and me from what we're calling the Missing Time?"

Shamal nodded. "I do, and I've already compared them to my scans. Your ability to read her mind has the same power signature that your brainprinting ability does."

"And she was the first person who I ever brainprinted. What about her ability to read my mind?"

"She didn't have that ability."

"I assure you, doctor, she could read my mind."

Shamal shook her head. "But not on her own. Her electromagnetic abilities let her switch your power on and off, and acted as an amplifier."

"Of course! That's why we could only read each other's minds; we were working together!"

"Exactly," Shamal smiled.

"So why can't we still do that?"

"That's a good question. Did something happen that would cause her to not trust you?"

I thought for a moment, then realized it's all Usagi-san's fault. "Yes, her memories were reset along with the rest of the world when Sailor Moon defeated Metaria, and I rather abruptly gave her back her memories by copying her brainprint back to her without warning. She didn't talk to me again for half a week."

"There you go. I wouldn't be surprised to learn that she doesn't want to use that ability any more, even if only on a subconscious level where she doesn't completely trust you."

"And with the telepathic ability that you taught all four of us, we don't need to use the mindreading version of brainprinting." Well, that was one minor mystery cleared up... assuming Dr. Shamal's diagnosis was correct, which raised its own issues. The idea that my dearest didn't trust me completely was somewhat disquieting – if Shamal was right, what else had I misunderstood about my friends? But that wasn't something that she could help me with. Instead, I changed the subject. "Say, what time is it, anyway?"

"Lunchtime. Let's go eat."

We made our way to the mess hall, where we found Colonel Yagami, Rein, Shario, and Ryou-san. Rein waved us over to join them once I had lunch – pasta and a salad, which seemed to be the Forwards' favourite meal here. Colonel Yagami and Shario found it difficult to meet my eyes.

"Was it something I said?" I asked.

"No, it's something that I said," Ryou-san replied. "I mentioned just how much you know about each of the ladies now, and that everything that they've ever done or thought up to yesterday isn't private any more. Sorry about that."

Colonel Yagami added, "And that means it's rather silly to not be on a first-name basis, since you know literally everything about each of us, except for Rein."

"Just because a memory is in my head doesn't mean I've looked at it, but I do admit that I saw some of your most precious or most traumatic memories when I made your brainprints. Colonel... Hayate, you have reserves of emotional strength that I could never match, and you're blessed to have Captain Takamachi and Captain Harlaown as friends."

"Thank you, Rob. You don't mind that I...?"

It was pretty obvious to me where she was going with that, now that I knew how she thought. "Your life, your body, your rules. As long as everyone involved consents and nobody hurts anybody else. I suspect I'll never be in a similar situation, given how my girlfriend can be the jealous type, but I'm not you." Before I turned to look at my fellow refugee, I added, "Stop blushing, Ryou-san."

Sure enough, his face was red. "My birth culture isn't as open about romance as either of your cultures are, you know that."

"Stop teasing your friend," Shamal insisted. "It isn't good for his blood flow."

Remembering what I'd seen in Shario's brainprint as I made it, I took a quick look at her. She was beginning to blush, too. Nobody else appeared to notice, so I pretended that I didn't, either. But she surprised me by speaking up anyway. "And you shouldn't tease an old maid that way." And that comment puzzled Ryou-san.

It puzzled me for a moment, too. "Aren't you younger than Hayate, though?"

"Don't make me say it, Rob. Please."

Don't make her say what?

Rein of all people broke the awkward silence. "There's nothing wrong with not being married at your age, Shari. You're a professional with a career in front of you."

Ah. "I'll say it again," I added. "Your life, your body, your rules." Then I remembered from Lyrical canon that, if Lindy Harlaown was typical, Shario was right to worry about her prospects in this culture; when Lindy was Shario's age, she had already given birth to her son Chrono.

And Shario was only two years older than us... and Makoto and I were waiting before taking our relationship to the level that Shario desperately wanted to find somebody to take her to. By the standards of both Ryou-san's culture and mine, there was a major issue here concerning Midchildan mating customs.

I needed to go through her brainprint carefully and find out whether my suppositions were correct before saying anything, though.

Ryou-san looked like he was about to say something to Shario, then stopped. Instead, he turned to me. "Robu-san, the ladies' logic applies to me, too. More so since we've actually known each other for a while. And I know Ami would prefer that we all become closer. Can we drop the honorifics?"

I thought for a quick moment – not about the request, but about the timing of it. Then I realized Ryou-san... Ryou was changing the subject to protect Shario. "You know, you're right. And I'm sorry that we didn't do this sooner, Ryou."

"Is this a good thing, sir?" Ichiro asked me.

I nodded. "By Ryou's culture, it is. We're acknowledging in public that we are as close as brothers."

"Congratulations!" Kasandara offered.

Then I noticed that Hayate, Rein, and Shamal had distracted looks on their faces. Sure enough, they stood up in unison and grabbed their trays. "Sorry, the four of us have to get back to work. There's an emergency situation and we've been asked to help." Shario – presumably the fourth person that Hayate had mentioned – followed them promptly.

"I hope things turn out well," I replied as they headed for the door. After they left, I turned back to Ryou. "And I have some serious thinking to do for the entire afternoon. Sorry."

"Don't be, Robu. Nine times out of ten, what you learn is something we need to know."

"More accurately, thirteen of fifteen," Kasandara corrected. "That is one of thirty below your statement, my master." Okay, her grammar was better than Raising Heart's, but it still wasn't quite right. I wondered why.

Ryou smiled. "I think you can see more possibilities than I can, Kasandara. Please continue to correct me unless we're in a situation where every second matters."

"Yes, my master!"

---

The more I pondered that afternoon, consulting relevant parts of both Hayate and Shario's brainprints, the more I thought that Midchildan society was messed up with regard to mating customs. The Saint King Unification War ended three generations ago; there wasn't a huge requirement to re-populate the planet any more, even with the number of neighbourhoods and cities that were still empty. But they were still expecting people to be married at Makoto's, Ryou's, and Ami's age. Well, mine, too, now that I've been rejuvenated. And they were expected to have children at Shario's age.

My first conclusion was that this culture had some serious issues. But I remembered that line that Heinlein had quoted from Act II of Caesar and Cleopatra about the customs of one's tribe, and kept my mouth shut. Insulting our hosts was a quick ticket to getting kicked out, and that meant the four of us would be homeless and starving. Besides, I still had my middle-age outlook on life even if I had a teenage body, and I was all-but-engaged to a teenager, so this pot was not about to comment on the kettle. But I could still think it.

My second conclusion was that I'd erred slightly regarding what I thought I had seen when I made Shario's brainprint. Yes, she was looking for a mate. Yes, she was het. Yes, she saw us and liked what she saw. Thankfully, no, it wasn't me that she was looking at. Sorry, Ryou, but in this case I'm willing to throw you under a bus and hurt Ami's feelings if it keeps Makoto happy. Ryou's a good friend, Ami's my dearer friend, but Makoto is my dearest.

And, yes, we needed to know this. How was Ryou, who still became flustered at the thought of Makoto and me kissing let alone the thought of him kissing Ami, supposed to handle the fact that a very smart and very cute (glasses notwithstanding) woman who's only two years older than him wanted to bear his children?

Heck, how was Ami supposed to handle that?

And how was I supposed to tell either of them? This was Shario's secret, not mine.

At least now I knew why Shario was so flustered when Ami transformed in front of everybody the day we met. She thought that she'd have to be willing to show off her own body if she wanted a chance with Ryou. Of course, she didn't have a chance with Ryou, but she didn't know that. And that gave me an approach to help resolve the issue.

I asked the dorm's resident manager how to set up a short and non-urgent meeting with Shario, and she offered to take care of that for me.

---

Shario was able to make time for me before the evening meal.

"Thank you for seeing me on such short notice, Corporal Finieno."

She looked surprised at my use of her rank. "Is this an official visit, Mr. Donaldson?"

"Part of it is, yes, so I thought we should start formally. I have two requests to make of the TSAB, one of which I expect will be much easier to answer than the other."

"You may as well start with the easy one, then," she smiled.

"All right. I request copies of the TSAB Ground Armaments Service's combat training manuals."

"Why?"

"So that we can take them home and train the other Sailor Senshi. Assuming that we can get home."

"Well, let's find out whether we can help you there." She touched an illuminated spot on her desk and a video-conference window appeared in front of her. "Captain Lowran, Mr. Donaldson is in my office. He just made the request for training manuals that we expected one of our guests to make."

"Granted," Griffith replied immediately.

"Thank you, sir." The video-conference window closed on its own. Shario turned back to me. "We don't have printed copies of our manuals any more. I can download to your Unison Devices our manuals for basic combat, basic magic, basic magical combat, basic squad-level tactics, advanced hand-to-hand fighting, advanced stick fighting, advanced sword fighting, and advanced combat while flying. Are there any of those that you don't want?" she asked with a grin.

I grinned back. "I'm sure that we can find uses for all of them." Then I realized she'd said 'Unison Devices' and lost my grin. "Kasandara can't have copies, as well?"

"Kasandara is optimized for precognition," she replied. "She'd have trouble with teaching."

"Ah." That might also explain why her grammar skills were weaker than those of the other three Devices. But I didn't have a chance to ask about that.

"You mentioned having two requests...?"

I nodded. "The second request connects to the justification I gave you for our first request. Would the TSAB be able to help us find our way home? You do have dimensional travel already."

Shario sighed. "And that's the other favour we expected you to ask us. If you had coordinates for your homeworld, it would be a trivial matter to put you on a dimensional cruiser, even if the trip took years, but without knowing where you come from, we can't even begin to look for a way to send you home."

"Coordinates?"

"Our coordinate system lets us identify any place, down to the size of an inhabitable planet, anywhere in the administrated dimensions by using a string of sixteen hexadecimal quadruplets."

"Now that you mention it, I do remember seeing that system used once in the anime. But it's only sixteen quadruplets?"

Shario nodded. "Yes, I'm positive it's only sixteen. Why?"

"Because, not long before my friends and I were banished, I was given a string of sixty-four hexadecimal quadruplets by somebody who I suspect is a kami."

"Oh?" Shario was suddenly very interested. "Do you remember them?"

I grabbed a pen and a sheet of paper from her desk, and wrote down the entire string. "Here you go."

She looked at them for a long moment. "The last sixteen are our coordinates for non-administrated world 97."

"Are you thinking what I'm thinking, Shario?"

"I think so, Rob, but where are we going to find a dimensional transit meister at this time of night?"

I looked out the window. Sure enough, it was still daytime. Then I saw the smile on her face.

"I studied Earth – our Earth – during the Eltrian Formula Incident, and I am friends with Colonel Yagami, Captain Harlaown, and Captain Takamachi. I've picked up a few of your pop culture references over the last half-decade."

"Ah. If you don't mind me asking, how does a corporal get to be friends with a colonel and two captains?"

"Hayate sometimes says that ranks for mages are ornamental in the TSAB. We've known each other for years, and our ranks don't get in the way of that."

So the TSAB wasn't as military as I thought it was. Good to know. "I see. But getting back to my request..."

"I can't see TSAB being interested, but we might be able to help you on our own. I can't promise anything, though; the only dimensional transit meister that I know is busy with other things."

"That's more than I expected at such short notice, Shario. Thank you."

"You're welcome, Rob. Is there anything else you want to talk about?"

I nodded. "This is something personal. I spent some time looking through your memories. Aarse-Port looks like a great place to grow up, by the way."

"I thought so, and so did Griffith," she smiled.

"But it's your more recent memories that I wanted to talk about."

"The ones about the four of you?" she guessed with a bit of trepidation in her voice.

"Yeah," I replied as kindly as I could considering what I had to tell her. "When Ryou said that Ami was his next of kin, he wasn't joking. They love each other, and the memories that I copied from both of them just before I copied your memories agree that they plan to get married once we're back home." Seeing her expression at that news, that looked so much like Usagi-san and Makoto's expressions when they discovered Motoki-san had a girlfriend, I added, "I'm sorry."

"It's okay," she said bravely. "Do they know?"

I sighed. "Maybe. Ryou is a precog, after all, and I know from personal experience that he can use that power to foresee what people might be about to say. If you planned to confess your feelings for him, he has a good chance of already knowing it."

"Oh. I'd better talk with him, then."

"Thank you, Shario."

"Thank you for stopping me from making a fool of myself, Rob."

---

Shario didn't join us for dinner... but Rein mentioned that she wanted to see Ryou for a few minutes.

So he and Ami paid her a visit after we ate. After they got back to our apartment a half-hour later, nothing more was said about the matter.

Ever.

---

And that was the last relaxed day that we had for a while. Makoto, Ami, and I trained with our new partners fighting by our sides for a week, then we spent a week training how to simply live in Unison with our partners, then we trained for two months how to fight while in Unison. By the end of that intensive training – and it needed to be intensive – all three of us were able to fly while in Unison and use both our own and our partners' abilities in combat as easily and quickly as breathing.

It was odd seeing the ladies in Unison. Ami looked like she'd stepped straight out of some of her fan art, with her normally black-with-blue-highlights hair replaced with Meia's sea-green locks. My dearest went from auburn to electric-blue, which I suppose was appropriate. Me? Thanks to Ichiro, I finally had the jet-black hair of an oni straight out of Japanese legends. And the equivalent to a Barrier Jacket that the two of us designed was essentially a second skin, the brick-red colour of a legendary oni, which meant what was previously a disguise was now my combat outfit. Of course, that didn't stop me from wanting a better solution, remembering the Lieze sisters' skills with disguise.

As for the skills we learned in training, Ami became good at both her Senshi abilities and basic Midchildan healing magic. She was also the best of all of us at tactics, as befitting an International Master at chess. After I casually mentioned Naru-san's ability to create gemstone weapons on the fly, Rein and Ami modified Rein's Frigid Dagger spell to create a full-sized ice sword that Ami could use in combat, and Sakura and Ichiro taught Ami the basics of sword fighting. And Ami spent a lot of time with Meia simply enjoying the ecstasy of flight, in Unison or beside each other.

Sakura taught my dearest the basics of both flight while in Unison and sword fighting while beside her. Sakura also taught Makoto how to channel her Senshi powers through a sword, turning them into close-in effects. For that, she needed a physical sword. She went through three cheap swords before before learning how to control the amount of electricity flowing through the metal, then received from Hayate a high-quality blade that was for all intents and purposes an ō-wakizashi. No, it wasn't another big expense; there were literally warehouses filled with old swords from the days of the Saint King Unification War, and Hayate had one of her staff choose a good sword from that supply. Apparently, Wide-Area Search magic works wonders when looking for high-quality items in warehouses filled with average items... and putting "Japanese style sword" and "W.A.S." together hints that it was Captain Takamachi who carried out the search, although I never got a chance to confirm that. Anyway. My dearest sent a Jupiter Oak Evolution attack through the blade, Sakura looked happy at the result, and the two of them called the blade Donguri-no-ken – Japanese for "acorn sword" – to forever remind them of how they had tested the blade.

Ichiro and I could fly while in Unison, but like Makoto I couldn't fly on my own. When we were in Unison, though, I could fly faster than the others; being able to wrap myself in an aerodynamic forcefield helped there. Ichiro also taught me how to manifest twin sticks using my forcefields and fight opponents with them, starting with batons and working up to staffs that were as tall as I was. He also taught me the basics of how to fight with one stick. Then he taught me how to flatten the sticks and put a sharp edge on one side, turning them into swords... and then my sword-fighting training started in earnest. By the end of the second month, he declared me to be "barely acceptable".

Even Ryou picked up the basics of TSAB ground fighting when he joined us. Kasandara couldn't help him there, except to warn him of where attacks were coming from; the two became better at pure defence than any of the rest of us without a forcefield, despite being ground-bound. When I asked them about it later, Kasandara told me that she was able to process all of the immediate futures at once, and through their own telepathic link Ryou was able to pick the most desirable future – the one where they don't get hit – more easily than he could on his own.

Once we completed those two months of training, we were given the standard promotion tests over two days. Ami and Makoto officially jumped three ranks from Rank E to Rank B. I only managed Rank C. Ryou managed Rank D simply by outlasting his attackers without taking any damage. Of course, defence aided by precognition was an entirely different kettle of fish from offensive combat, so his ability rank isn't really comparable to ours.

And the day after the tests... that was the day that Antiquities Administration Department Mobile Section 6 disbanded, as in canon. No, we weren't allowed to attend the ceremony. And that's why our training after we received our partners needed to be so intensive; we weren't getting any more after those two and a half months.

Well, we weren't getting any more official military training. Ichiro, Sakura, and Meia had all of the training manuals that Hayate and Shario were willing to give us, after all.

We quickly realized that we needed to find a place to live and a way to earn enough money to pay for the necessities of life. We didn't want to keep relying on Ryou's ability to play the stock markets with a substantially-better-than-average success rate – it wasn't fair to him or to Kasandara – but none of us could come up with any alternative.

We ended up relying on the kindness of our new friends again; Ginga offered to let us stay at the Nakajima residence in Anberse, a town in the 22nd district of Midchilda Central that was close enough to Cranagan to be considered a suburb. Since none of us were idiots, of course we accepted. We made an impression on Ginga and Subaru's father, Genya, when we offered to help out around the house... and it was a large house.

But before we moved in, Hayate offered to take us along on her vacation.

Back home.

We all leapt at that opportunity. Uminari might not be Minato, but at least they were both in Tokyo.

Before we left, Hayate exchanged half of our money for yen. It was only then that I realized just how much the TSAB had paid for those scans of the Mercury Computer; I was wondering what I could spend five million yen on in just two weeks. Then I realized that even five million yen might not be enough for my shopping list. Luckily for me, Ryou also realized what I wanted to do and was willing to help out.

It was just the six of us in Tokyo: Hayate, Rein, and we four exiles. We spent the first day familiarizing ourselves with local culture; 2017 Tokyo was both familiar and foreign to my friends from 1992. Then we spent a day in Shibuya, buying clothes that weren't green tops and black slacks or skirts. Center Gai was our friend here, even without an Atelier Lucent in this reality. While everyone else noticed that its absence disappointed me, they didn't ask me why. And that was good, since that meant I didn't have to decide which promise to break by answering that question.

After our one-day shopping trip, Ryou and I excused myself and headed to Akihabara while the ladies and Ichiro visited the Tokyo Skytree. They had fun hearing what Hayate knew and was willing to say about the Eltrian Formula Incident. We worked.

The first thing we did was pick up the bare minimum of computer gear for everybody: a laptop each running the newest version of Windows 10, a multi-terabyte external drive for each laptop, one external Blu-ray drive to share between the four of us, and a wi-fi router for my apartment back home. Ryou insisted we also get some 56k modems so we could communicate with each other and 1992's version of the internet, and suggested that our favourite electrokinetic might benefit from a backup drive kept in a Faraday cage. My laptop was relatively under-powered compared to the others since I had a much better one back in our home reality's Azabu-Juban. Oh, and I also bought copies of some movies and TV series to watch with my friends, and some music including all three of BTS's Japanese albums at the time to rip to the laptops and my phone. Ryou also bought a laser pointer for some reason that we couldn't figure out at the time; all he said was that it might be useful later.

Then we went to an internet cafe, plugged those drives into two of the laptops, and plugged the laptops into the fastest connections we could rent for the day. Then I downloaded every operating system patch that was available, and followed that up with the bare essentials for what we'd need back home: all of Hitoshi Doi's on-line Sailor Moon encyclopedia, all of Project WikiMoon, all of The Sailor Moon Wiki, and what had been written of Shadowjack Watches Sailor Moon. The last for the episode analyses, of course, not "A Stormy Relationship". That, I planned to share with Ami and Makoto when they needed a good laugh.

All of this, of course, was in accordance with our TSAB training to take any advantage we could get in a fight. The fact that I've wanted to do this since I realized that I could, half a year ago, was beside the point.

And, yes, taking advantage of knowledge gained outside of the reality that I'd found myself in was also a stupid genre convention. It was almost as if I was home.

Once that was done, I grabbed the latest available stable versions of LibreOffice, GIMP, Thunderbird, and Firefox, with the source code where it was available. Unfortunately, LibreWolf wouldn't be released for another half-decade, or I would have pulled that back instead of Firefox. I followed those downloads with everything at Google Fonts that had Japanese character sets, the DejaVu fonts, the Worldwind database and SDK, the Red Cross and St. John Ambulance first aid manuals for Ami, a set of screensavers because screen savers are expected in 1992, a few public domain landscape images from Wikimedia Commons for the others to use as desktop wallpapers – I still had those photos of my dearest admiring the roses at Jindai Botanical Garden on my smartphone – and as much of the Virtual Gramophone and Project Gutenberg as I could squeeze in – including the cookbooks for my dearest – while we still had access to the connection. Hey, I may as well make doing homework that much easier for everyone by assembling a reference library and the tools to use it. And, just for the fun of it, I grabbed all of Four King Hell that was available; I figured that Bunny-chan would get a kick out of it after she met the Senshi of the Outer Planets. Of course, I'd have to explain to her the concept of an abandoned fanfic once she reached the end of the series.

In the meantime, Ryou was trusting in his precognitive ability to find and download information that would be useful once we were home: the 9/11 Commission Report, Wikipedia's lists of earthquakes by year and their in-depth pages on the 2011 Tōhoku earthquake and the associated nuclear disaster in Fukushima, scholarly analyses on how the internet could have been designed to significantly reduce spam and fraud, lists of successful companies' IPO dates, and other documents that I didn't ask about at the time. Once he ran out of useful notes to supplement his power, we coordinated on what we downloaded from Project Gutenberg so that we didn't pull back any duplicate books. And, just like my guilty-pleasure download was Four King Hell, his was Dungeon Keeper Ami. Mind you, considering how scarily-competent that story's version of Ami ended up, maybe there wasn't any guilt to downloading it after all.

We grabbed a couple of convenience-store bentos for lunch and kept the downloads going while we ate. My lunch was a double order of inarizushi. Try as they might, nobody on Midchilda knew how to make it properly; they kept insisting on adding things to the rice and fried tofu. Ryou had a more balanced meal, but, hey, getting only the food that I really like just once wouldn't hurt me.

Once that was done, we had enough time before needing to head back to Hayate's place to look at the used camera stores, and I'm glad that we did. Ryou found two working Nikon F90 cameras – top of the line and $1500 new in 1992 (and in 1992 dollars) – for the equivalent of $50 each. Of course I bought them both. It cost me more to buy a camera bag and a couple of inexpensive auto-focus lenses so that I could actually use the cameras than it cost for the cameras themselves. I also grabbed the last few rolls of 24-exposure and 36-exposure Fujicolor 400 film that they had in stock – it was just going out of production in 2017 – because the film was available in 1992, which meant I could get the rolls developed once I got back home.

All of this assumed that we were going to get back home, of course. I let myself admit to myself that this wasn't a sure thing even as I spent the money. Of course, I know now that we made it back, but I still had my doubts then.

Once we got back to Hayate's house that evening, Ami and Meia were kind enough to help me configure all four of the laptops while Hayate and my dearest made dinner. After a half-year of Midchildan meals, some of which were Japanese-style, actual katsudon was a treat.

Meia also cast a stasis spell on the film so that it wouldn't deteriorate before we got home. Assuming we would get home, of course.

The day after that, I kept a promise that I'd made to my dearest. Hayate, Ami, Makoto and I Unisoned with Rein, Meia, Sakura, and Ichiro, respectively; Ami picked up Ryou in a piggyback carry; I turned us all invisible; and we flew to a particular parking lot near Narahara. We could have flown all the way, but it was more respectful to walk the rest of the way to the Flight 123 Cenotaph, where Makoto was finally able to pay her respects to her parents.

---

When we got back to Hayate's house that evening, Shario was waiting for us, along with a young blond man Hayate's age who we hadn't previously met. "Yuuno Scrya," he introduced himself. "I'm pleased to make your acquaintance."

Shario added, "Yuuno is an archaeologist and the librarian of the Infinity Library, which means he has access to all of the knowledge that we've been able to recover from ancient Belka and older civilizations. He's also a dimensional transit meister, and he holds a security clearance with the TSAB."

"I'm sure that there's a fascinating story about how you managed to gain all of those skills and permissions," Ryou said.

I carefully did not reply that it was the story about how Captain Takamachi learned about magic and the TSAB – the Jewel Seed incident. It wasn't my story to tell, and not only because we still hadn't met Nanoha.

But it was Yuuno's story, and he was good enough a storyteller to tell it. Not everything, though; he didn't mention that Captain Harlaown was known then as Fate Testarossa and was Captain Takamachi's antagonist at the time. He just mentioned that their main opponent was looking for Al-Hazard.

"Which reminds me of why I'm here," he added after giving us a sanitized version of the first season of Lyrical Nanoha. "I was looking through some of what we know about Al-Hazard in relation to that favour that one of you asked Shario about."

When I saw that the others looked puzzled, I replied, "My request for any assistance you could give us in finding our way home."

"You asked for that and you didn't tell us?" my dearest asked.

"I didn't want to get anybody's hopes up."

"I can understand that," Yuuno commented, drawing everybody's attention back to him. "I found a fascinating mention of a level of... over-reality, for want of a better term, that is home to the gods."

"Do gods really exist?" Hayate asked.

Yuuno shrugged his shoulders. "The ancient Belkans believed that the Al-Hazardian people believed in gods, plural. And so do many other civilizations. There are a lot of triunes in the religions described in books in the Infinity Archive, including the one where I found that reference. These gods tend to be the most powerful in their pantheons when they work together."

"Like the Fates or the Norns," I replied.

Yuuno-san nodded. "Those are two examples from your world, yes. Rob, may I examine your neck, please?"

"Sure," I replied, puzzled by the apparent non sequitur.

He did so, then walked back to where we could all see him. "I expected as much. There's another example of a triune of gods from your world: Nanoha-san's country calls them 'Mihashira no Uzu no Miko'."

"Amaterasu Ōmikami, Tsukuyomi-no-Mikoto, and Susanoo-no-Mikoto," Ami said, listing the Three Precious Children.

Yuuno-san nodded in agreement. "You're familiar with them. That saves us some time. The mark on the back of Rob's neck looks like an ancient Belkan, or possibly an Al-Hazardian, sigil associated with their version of Susanoo."

I hadn't realized that I had a mark on my neck, but I knew instantly what he was referring to. "I did receive it at the Hikawa Shrine where Rei-san lives," I said. Yuuno-san looked confused. "It's one of an association of shrines to Susanoo."

Hayate looked thoughtful. "So there are gods, or at least beings with godlike powers," she commented.

"Looks like it, yes," I replied. "And if they live in a reality above other realities, maybe they can see the other realities the way that we can see maps in an atlas."

"And perhaps they can provide coordinates of those realities," Ichiro added thoughtfully.

"I'm working on the assumption that they exist and can provide that information," Yuuno said, "Although all I can say for sure is that without the string of coordinates that Shario said you received at that shrine, there would be no way for us to find your home reality."

"But with those coordinates, there's a chance?" I asked.

"Does that mean..." Ami started, hope obvious in her voice.

"... that we might..." Makoto continued, just as hopeful.

"... be able to go home?" Ryou finished. He's a precog, "hope" is something foreign to him. But he sounded happy.

"I'm not going to make any promises to any of you," Yuuno-san replied in all seriousness. "But my staff and I should be able to at least find your home, and we might be able to communicate with somebody there if we're very lucky. Actually sending you home, even assuming we can contact your home reality... that might take more magical power than any of us can gather. And it probably won't happen this year, if it ever happens."

"Changing the subject slightly," my dearest said, "isn't Susanoo enshrined at Rei's shrine in his aspect as a patron of marriage?"

Ami giggled. "That would explain why all of the Sailor Senshi want to find boyfriends. We've picked it up from spending so much time at the shrine."

I looked at Ryou, got a smile and a nod in reply, and said in mock-annoyance, "Oh, so the two of us are just tools of the kami, are we?"

"I don't know about romance," Yuuno-san said before either of the ladies could complain, "but it looks to me like you were a tool of Susanoo, Rob."

Considering that I had said that I didn't care what the kami did to me as long as Ami, Ryou, and Makoto were safe at home, I wondered whether I was still his tool. Or, I wondered, somebody else's; after all, I still didn't know who took me out of my original universe.

---

Yuuno didn't stay longer than overnight. He was just visiting to give us that all-important news, and to get some sleep between connecting flights. We convinced him to have dinner with us, and we introduced Shario to the delights of a sukiyaki party. It was only after the meal that my dearest told Shario that sukiyaki was something we usually only ate as a family... which caused Shario to blush as she stammered out her thanks.

As for Yuuno-san's flights, they were a dimensional flight from Midchilda and an aircraft flight to China. He was here to explore the Xianren Cave.

Yes, this reality's analogue of the source of that "corrupted Xianren Cave energy" that powered Touhi-chan. Here, Xianren Cave – which was presumably not corrupted – is the home to the oldest pottery in existence, dating back twenty millennia.

Yes, it was even older than ancient Belka or Al-Hazard, according to Yuuno-san. And that meant that the Silver Millennium predated Al-Hazard, as well.

We didn't need to make a report on what Touhi-chan had said; we had left the Mercury Computer switched on and it had recorded everything. And TSAB already had copies of everything in the Mercury Computer's databanks.

Once we learned that, we began to understand just how valuable that data was and why Ami had been paid so well for it.

---

After we saw Yuuno off at the commuter-rail station that connected directly to Narita airport the next morning, we had a quick discussion as to what we were going to do that day. Shario announced that we couldn't stay past tomorrow; Hayate's presence was needed back on Midchilda. We ended up making a poor decision; we went looking for places that we remembered from home, in order to show them to Hayate, Rein, and Shario.

We didn't see any signs of anybody who could have been Rei-san or Yuuichirou-san, or children of either of them, at the Hinata Shrine. The high-rise that Saeko-basan's employers had purchased for staff housing appeared to be a privately-owned condo building with no connection to Juban Daini General Hospital. The apartment building that Makoto and I lived in had been torn down and replaced with a newer and larger building, if it ever existed at all in this reality.

We didn't bother looking at, or for, Kuritsu Juban Chuugakkou. As nice a place as this world was, we already knew that it wasn't home.

Ami wasn't the only one feeling homesick that evening.

---

Before we left, I got a small stack of inarizushi "station lunches" to take back to Midchilda. Thanks to some unexpected dimensional eddies between Earth and Midchilda slowing us down, we ate them on the transport instead; we got back to Cranagan only an hour before we absolutely needed to be downtown. Which meant all eleven of us instead of just the TSAB personnel ended up at Ground Armaments Service headquarters. As soon as we realized that we were going to be late arriving at the spaceport, we changed into our best outfits or formal uniforms during the dimensional flight. And despite all seven of us getting the VIP treatment at the airport in order to clear us through customs quickly, we made it to G.A.S. HQ with only six minutes to spare.

We were left in the care of somebody who we knew from Riot Force 6. "Dr. Shamal, what's so important that Hayate..." I remembered where we were just in time, "sorry, Lieutenant Colonel Yagami... needed to be here in person?"

"Her presence is required at a formal promotion ceremony," she replied. "The top brass decided that it needed to be here and now so that the public could see it. And that's why it's happening here instead of at TSAB headquarters in dimensional space."

Remembering why there were openings in the command organization, and that any competent military would be happy to take measures to keep those reasons secret, I simply nodded; there was no need to show off my knowledge of the events of Nanoha StrikerS in front of TSAB personnel. "Whose promotion ceremony is she attending?"

Shamal grinned like the cat that ate the canary. "Her own."

Ryou smiled in return. "I can see why she needed to be here."

Then we had to stop talking, because the ceremony was about to begin.

I could see why they insisted Hayate was present for the photo op. Of course the ceremony was a photo op; TSAB had some major public relations work to do after the JS Incident. And Hayate was the most photogenic person on the stage, both before and after receiving the half-cape that was part of a full Colonel's uniform.

She wasn't the only one to receive a promotion; Vita was promoted to full Lieutenant during the same ceremony. We applauded at the appropriate times.

Captain Takamachi refused the promotion that she was offered, just like in her canon, so she wasn't present. Besides, according to Shamal, she was busy with adoption paperwork. Captain Harlaown wasn't up for promotion (or on-planet), so she wasn't present either. And, with everybody in Riot Force 6 being assigned to other duties, at that point it was unlikely we would ever have the chance to meet anyone in the unit who we hadn't met already. Stupid genre conventions.

During the celebratory party after the ceremony, we discovered that it wasn't just officers who were promoted that day. Shario was quite happy to show off her brand-new sergeant's stripes, and Subaru was just as happy to let people see her corporal's stripes. "Teana was promoted to corporal, too," she told us, "but she had to leave right away to take her new position as Fate's assistant."

"So she's on the path to become an Enforcer," Sakura said with approval.

"Which career path are you following?" Ami asked Subaru.

"The only one that's worth following," she replied. "Disaster Prevention."

We all smiled, except for the one of us who didn't have a face. "That's a good career," Kasandara said instead.

I added, "Here's hoping that you save so many lives that you can't count them all."

"Thanks," she said. Then she grinned and added, "But I can count really high!" Then her grin went back to being a smile. "Dad told me that you're moving in with us for a while. I don't have to leave until tomorrow, so I'll take you home with me."

"We appreciate that," Ryou replied.

"We'll follow you home, but you can't keep us," Sakura added as Shamal caught our attention.

«Hayate asked me to find the eight of you,» she sent to us. «She's asked to see all of you in private.»

«We mustn't keep the colonel waiting,» Makoto sent back. «We'll be right there.»

Subaru noticed the distracted look on our faces. "Is something wrong?"

"We don't know," Ami said as we headed for Shamal. "Colonel Yagami wants to see us. We'll see you later."

A few minutes later, and we were in a quiet room with our friend in high places. "Congratulations, Colonel." Ryou said formally.

"Thank you. I'm sorry that I had to cut our vacation short, so I've pulled a few strings and managed to get these for the eight of you." She gave us ID cards with our names, photos,... and honourary ranks. Kasandara, Ichiro, Sakura, and Meia were all listed as retired ensigns, while Ryou, Ami, my dearest, and I were listed as retired second lieutenants. Obviously the TSAB did things differently than the services back home did, in that they made a fuss over retired junior officers' previous ranks. "Those ID cards can get you past TSAB checkpoints if you have legitimate business on a base, and if you are on a base, you can use them to claim junior officers' mess privileges. You don't get paid, though, unless you want to sign up."

"Thank you, but we're already pledged to Neo-Queen Serenity," Ami said with a smile to show that she intended no insult toward the TSAB.

«Neo-Queen?» I asked privately.

«Makoto told me that you mentioned that name to Chibiusa, so I read ahead in that WikiMoon download you made,» she answered just as privately. Of course Ami read ahead.

Either not knowing or not caring about our aside, Hayate said, "I expected you'd say that. This isn't much, but it is something that I can do for you before I have to accept a command in the Sailing Force."

"I'm amazed that you did this much for us, ma'am," Ichiro replied.

"Hey, she likes Mako-neesan and Ami-san," Sakura replied. And that was when I became aware that she was calling my dearest her big sister.

«You could learn something about relationships from your sister, Ichiro.»

«Yes, sir.» Before I could correct him, he added, «Rob.»

«That's better.»

Turning my attention back to Hayate, I realized that somebody had asked what her next posting was.

"I've been offered command of the Wolfram. It's a new ship."

"I'm sure that it will be a good ship, with you in command," I said.

---

Once we were mixing with the other invited guests again, Shamal pulled me aside for a moment. Again. "Some people you haven't met yet would like to talk with you and me some time soon. When can you spare some time?"

"Did they say what they want to talk about?"

"Brainprints."

Ah. So these were TSAB people who wanted to talk with me. I still owed them for Hayate's hospitality, so I thought it best to at least find out what they wanted. "After we move in with the Nakajimas, pretty much any time. How much time do you need me for?"

"An hour or two, maybe half a day."

"Is the day after tomorrow too soon?"

"No, that's perfect. Thank you."

Once I was back with the others, I asked Makoto, "Want to spend some time with me and some strangers the day after tomorrow?"

She grinned. "Of course I'll be your bodyguard, darling."

It felt good to be at the stage of a relationship where the two of us knew what we were leaving unsaid.

---

A few hours later, Subaru took us home.

Her home, not ours, unfortunately. But it would turn out to be our home for the rest of our stay on Midchilda.

It was a large estate in Anberse, west of Cranagan. But, then, with all of the small towns left empty after the Saint King Unification War and the high-mobility magic that the TSAB possessed, why shouldn't somebody who could afford the upkeep have a large estate in the suburbs?

We only met the family head in passing that day – Major Genya Nakajima was busy commanding Ground Forces Unit 108, and he didn't have time to talk. Subaru and Ginga mentioned to us that Unit 108 was a criminal investigation unit.

I kept the NCIS references to myself. He was a Ground Armaments Service officer, not a Sailing Force officer.

Since Genya had been called away, Subaru showed us to our rooms in our home away from home. Two bedrooms with twin beds, to begin with. And somebody had put Ami and Ryou's luggage in one room, and Makoto's and my luggage in the other.

After a lengthy discussion of how her culture's morals in this matter didn't match those of the cultures that any of us came from, she was kind enough to move us to a set of four single-occupancy bedrooms. When we asked her why the Nakajima family had so many guest bedrooms, she asked in return why they shouldn't; Anberse still had as many empty buildings as Cranagan.

As I was unpacking, I noticed that I still had those four vacuum-packed dehydrated curry lunches that I'd bought in Minato – Bishoujo Minato, not Lyrical Minato – a half-year ago. According to the labels, they were still edible, so I gave them to Subaru as a taste of her ancestral home and a token of our thanks.

After we were settled in, we talked with Subaru about how we could at least not be a drag on the household. She gave us a list of what her father hoped she'd be able to help out with when she wasn't on duty with the Gulf Special Rescue Unit. Whatever that was.

The first line on the list was "cook". We all knew what my dearest was going to be doing. Ryou and I split the jobs that needed strong backs and stamina, and Ami took charge of organizing the estate's library... after she found some translation magic.

The day after we moved in, Genya joined us for dinner and pronounced it "intriguing". It wasn't anything special, just katsudon, but despite his Japanese heritage he'd never had it before. We talked about modern Japan for hours, bringing him up to speed on his ancestral homeland... or, at least, the 1990s Bishoujo version of his ancestral homeland.

---

Genya was kind enough to give me and my dearest a ride into town the next morning, where we met Shamal at Ground Armaments Service headquarters. He went off to carry out his duties, while Shamal escorted us into a deep, dark part of headquarters.

We quickly realized that it was going to be one of those meetings. Even if we hadn't, the fact that nobody we met introduced themselves would have clued us in – this meeting never officially happened.

One of the people we met – a woman with glasses and brown hair – said, "We understand that you have Rare Skills that we might be able to make use of."

Before either of us could reply, Shamal said, "Colonel Yagami has already asked them whether they're interested in joining the Bureau."

"And we said no," Makoto added.

"That's a shame," said the other person we met that day, this one a male with black hair. "Antiquities Administration Department Mobile Section 6 gave you quite a bit of support, both financially and logistically, including supplying you with three Unison Devices and an Intelligent Device."

We already knew that telepathic messages weren't secure from all other telepaths, so I didn't send one. Instead, I squeezed Makoto's hand. She took the hint and said nothing.

Luckily, Shamal answered the implied question, so there wasn't an obvious pause in the discussion. "The materiel, training, and funding provided to them and their companions was approved as fair compensation for the information that they provided to us." And I found the thought that Shamal was calling Ichiro, Sakura, Meia, and Kasandara equipment instead of people to be somewhat disquieting... especially considering that I thought that she and Rein were friends.

"Perhaps we could convince you to assist us another way," the woman said. "Would you be willing to provide us with some of your undifferentiated stem cells?"

"Our what?" asked my dearest.

I turned to her and said, "The cells that are the easiest for somebody to make a clone from," I replied. Then I turned back to our interlocutors. "Are you planning on using them in Project FATE? Because I have serious ethical issues with leaving a younger copy of myself behind when or if we leave here."

"That's supposed to be top secret," the man complained.

"You obviously didn't read Yagami's reports about them, or Scrya's report about their origin point," the woman replied, somewhat accusingly. "They're from a different reality, and much of what we know about them comes from a work of fiction." Then she turned to us. "Presumably you know about us the same way, Mr. Donaldson."

"Presumably," I replied, without mentioning that I had all of Hayate's knowledge somewhere in my head. If they didn't already know that, then they didn't need to know. Then I finally recognized the woman, probably because I was thinking of Hayate's memories and she was in them. "And, since you're no longer keeping our names secret, might I offer my condolences on the recent death of your father, Commander Gaiz."

She looked shocked for a moment, but quickly got her reactions back under control. "Thank you. And it was foolish of me to use your name. I can't blame you for not liking the idea of being copied, though." She thought for a moment, then asked, "Is there anything that we could bribe you with, in order to get your cooperation?"

"Do you know how to send us home?" Makoto asked immediately.

After a moment's pause that I wasn't sure how to interpret, Auris Gaiz replied, "No."

"And you've already made it clear that it isn't in your interests to send us home just yet, even if you could," I said, taking a guess that turned out to be correct.

"Mind your words," the man said.

Commander Gaiz laughed; an unpleasant sound. "He's right. We don't want any of them leaving just yet. But we can't stop them. What we can do is explain the project that we want your help with."

"I was wondering when you were going to get to the matter of my brainprinting ability."

"According to Dr. Shamal's reports, you cannot put somebody's memories into somebody else's mind."

I wasn't keeping that secret from anybody who knew that I had the ability. "That's correct."

"Can you place them into a synthetic intelligence?"

I raised one eyebrow in surprise. "That's... an intriguing idea. I've never tried."

"Why not?" asked the man, who I still didn't recognize.

"I've never had access to a synthetic intelligence..." Then I realized where this conversation was going. "At least, not before I met Meia, Sakura, and Ichiro. But they already have personalities; I suspect that the process wouldn't work on any of them." I certainly hoped the process wouldn't work on any of them – that would be evidence in favour of them being hardware instead of people.

"We'll get you a blank Unison Device to experiment with," offered Commander Gaiz.

"If you deliver blank Devices to Major Nakajima's residence in Anberse, I'll get them," I replied, making it clear that I wasn't about to stay in their headquarters while I carried out the experiments, and that I expected more than one blank Device to experiment with.

The man looked upset, but Gaiz answered, "We'll do that later this week. Now, we expect that the three of you will not speak about this to anyone. Dr. Shamal, you can treat that as a direct order from headquarters. Colonel Yagami isn't here to shield you from proper procedure any more."

I was surprised to hear that they considered headquarters issuing orders directly to a single person to be "proper procedure".

"Yes, ma'am," Shamal replied stiffly.

Gaiz turned back to me and Makoto. "And we expect both of you to sign secrecy agreements about this matter."

"And if we refuse?" my dearest asked.

I could tell that she disliked the idea of a non-disclosure agreement as much as I did. "There's no need to be combative," I said before anyone else could reply. "If they don't trust us, I'll just stop the project here and now."

"We must insist on this," Gaiz insisted. "Your world has a saying: 'Trust, but verify'."

I chuckled, surprising Makoto. "That isn't what the saying means, but I take your meaning. All right, I'll at least read the contract that you want me to sign."

Two hours later, we had all signed a contract that we were equally unhappy with, but at least I was getting paid for my time, Makoto and I got to tell Ami and Ryou what we were doing, and we didn't have to work at headquarters... but they did get to keep surveillance cameras on me while I worked.

---

While Makoto and I were in Cranagan, Ami discovered some textbooks in Genya's library. Sure, they were a generation old, but they were still useful; high-school math doesn't change from year to year, after all, unless somebody's dumbing-down the curriculum, and nobody had done that with these textbooks. We set up a schedule that included all four of us studying at least some of what we would have been learning if we were still in Azabu-Juban: math from the discovered textbooks and the textbook that Ami had given Makoto for her birthday, English and Japanese literature from the books I had downloaded from Project Gutenberg, geography from the Worldwind data I had downloaded at the same time after Ami and Meia wrote a front-end for it, and P.E. from Ichiro and Sakura – which meant combat drills and sword-fighting practice, although Ichiro surprised us by knowing more than a few different formal dances that he was willing to teach us. A few of them went well with some of the waltz music that I had downloaded.

Yes, the sword-fighting practice meant that Ryou became sufficiently proficient with a sword to be trusted with "live steel" after a year, although we had to borrow one from Major Nakajima for him to use. Ami and I could create our own weapons from ice and forcefields, respectively – and our partners trained us both until we could do so reliably, quickly, and most importantly silently – and my dearest already had Donguri-no-ken. These weren't the only abilities that Ichiro and Sakura taught the group to use silently; by the end of August, Mercury and Jupiter were no longer calling out their attacks' names on a regular basis, although – like Hayate's magic – their spells were more precise if they did.

Ami continued to learn Home Ec. from Makoto. So did Ginga on weekends, and Subaru when she had time off and spent it at home. In return, what amounted to full-immersion training in Midchildan English when the Nakajima girls were home helped Ryou and my dearest lose the rough edges in their own conversational English skills.

I was worried that we wouldn't be able to keep up our history studies, until I discovered that Ryou had downloaded the official curriculum while we were in Uminari. Ami and I taught the others what we knew of the pure sciences and computer sciences. Music and fine arts... was off the table other than those dances that Ichiro knew, until I realized we could use the collection of music on my smartphone as source material for the activities of a Light Music Appreciation Society, which was better than nothing. Although I did justify going out and taking photos with my cellphone as being practice in artistic composition of scenes.

Ryou taught himself, with Kasandara's help, to play the stock market without being caught as a precog. Ginga and her father gave both of them the occasional tip on what was and wasn't legal to do in Cranagan's bourse. We gave Ryou the money we had left from what Hayate had paid Ami for the Mercury Computer's data and what the TSAB was paying me to work on brainprinting a Device, and he gave us back whatever cash we needed whenever we needed it. Needless to say, we quickly stopped worrying about money... which Major Nakajima appreciated once he was sure that we weren't breaking any laws.

We also set aside some time for keeping in touch with the neighbours; with Major Nakajima and Ginga in Cranagan for work so much and Subaru posted elsewhere on Midchilda, they were our only contacts with the outside world half the time. Ami and I ended up tutoring some of the local children, which got us invited to stay for dinner on occasion, and of course we returned the invitations.

And, almost a week after we moved in and on a day when all of the Nakajimas were at work, Shario paid us a visit.

"It's good to see you again!" she said at the door. She was in civilian clothes, and carrying a large case.

"It's good to see you, too," Ami replied. "May I take that?"

Shario shook her head, and quietly replied, "I can only give this to Mr. Donaldson."

"Ah, so this is a business visit," I said. "Come on in and we'll talk." She did, and we did. "Do you know what's in this case?"

She nodded. "Commander Gaiz told me."

My first reaction was that TSAB security wasn't what it should be, then I realized that Shario was a device meister and already aware that I could take brainprints, so she had a good chance of figuring it out anyway. But did Commander Gaiz know that? I'd never know. "Do you know what I'm supposed to do with it?"

"See whether you can make them think like us," she said.

Close enough. "And are you here to help?"

She shook her head. "I wish I could, but I have to get back to headquarters. I can only stay for an hour or so."

"Long enough for a cup of coffee," Ami commented. "We still have a bit from when we visited Earth."

"Thank you, but no. Coffee makes me nervous."

"The caffeine in coffee makes everybody nervous," I replied with a grin, to put her at her ease. "It's a nervous system stimulant. It just hits some people harder than others."

We didn't make coffee. We did have a discussion about what was in the case: TSAB security surveillance cameras that Shario told us (with a wink) to set up ourselves, the completely-stocked Device field repair kit that Hayate had promised us, and – according to the packing slip – four doll-like unprogrammed Unison Devices. They reminded me of the uncustomized dolls from Angelic Layer. And there were six of them, two with tags saying they were faulty.

When I noticed that, I looked at Shario and raised one eyebrow while pointing at the discrepancy. "Sergeant?"

"I'm under orders."

"From Commander Gaiz," Makoto guessed.

Shario shook her head.

"From Colonel Yagami?" asked Ami.

As Shario nodded, I realized that Hayate really didn't want this project to succeed. Why else would she give us faulty hardware? I wondered how she found out about the project in the first place... then realized that she's the type of commanding officer who inspires loyalty in her troops, so she no doubt had some unofficial back-channels to draw on.

Ryou must have come to the same conclusion that I had. "This whole project that Ami and I aren't supposed to know about is intended to see whether Robu can create a Rank SS Unison Device, isn't it?"

"I'm not allowed to say," Shario replied quickly.

"And they don't want a Unison Device that has no mage ranks at all, right?" Ryou persisted.

"Nobody would want that," Shario said with a smile, suddenly figuring out where he was going with his questions.

"So if Robu was somehow able to produce the Device that Commander Gaiz wants..."

I interrupted Ryou. "And I have no guarantee that I can do anything of the sort, even if I have everything I need; I just promised that I'd give it a try."

Ryou went on as if I hadn't said anything. "...but the Device had no mage ability at all, then the project would be declared a failure. Eleven times out of thirteen."

"Thirty-three of thirty-eight," Kasandara corrected him.

Ami smiled. "It would be best if Rob had the most up-to-date information set possible, though."

Shario lost her smile as she turned her chair to face mine. "I suppose so. We mustn't give anybody the chance to say that we didn't do our best."

Five minutes later, I had updated my copy of Shario's brainprint, discovering in the process just who Hayate's back-channel into this project was. That's wonderfully naughty of you, Sergeant Finieno. "Sorry about this," I whispered as we finished.

"It's okay," she whispered back. "Ami's right; we had to do our best." Then she glanced at her wrist and said in a more normal tone. "Oh, look at the time. I have to get back to headquarters."

"We'll set up the cameras as soon as Major Nakajima lets us know which room we can use as a workroom," I replied as we both stood up. "And it really was good to see you again, Shario."

---

After we told Genya and Ginga as much as we were allowed to, our hosts let us set up a workshop in a relatively small outbuilding in the back yard. When I had the chance to mention this to Minako-san after we returned home, she called it my shed at the foot of the garden where I could putter around. I was thinking of it more as a man-cave, myself, even though I did hang a sign saying "Midchildian home of Project Binky" on the front door. If I can't keep it hidden, I can at least practice misdirection. Even if nobody here got the reference.

Inside, it was a small house of its own, resembling our studio-style apartments back in Azabu-Juban, with its own kitchenette and washroom... and a small room that was obviously intended to be a bedroom. We brought a bed in just to keep up appearances, and set up a workbench and the tools in the large room. Then Ami helped me set up the surveillance cameras so that they had a good view of everything except the bedroom and washroom. She was very careful to make it look like there were no holes in the surveillance zone while still giving me some privacy.

I'd swear that I'm a bad influence on her, but in this case, the genre convention of "corrupting the innocent girl into helping keep secrets" wasn't stupid. She knew as well as I did how many intelligent beings would end up as military slaves if Rank SS Mage Unison Devices became a reality. I had to keep at least some of my experiments out of the TSAB's watchful eyes. Besides, sometimes it was simply easier to concentrate while I was stretched out on that bed.

Then I spent three hours a day, five days a week, for most of the next five months on the experiments, consulting Shario's brainprint for her skills so often that I was a device meister for real by the middle of August. Ichiro and I worked them in around our studies and socializing with the Nakajimas and their neighbours.

Teal Deer, the experiments didn't work, and by the middle of August I had three burned-out Devices – two of which were the faulty ones that Shario had slipped in with the good ones – and a series of headaches to show for it. No matter what I did, I couldn't get a Device to accept a brainprint. And some of the failures were so spectacular that they blew out long sequences of the serial numbers in the devices' chassis. I can't imagine how that happened. Oh, and while I was having all those problems, Sakura was teaching Makoto how to apply her powers with pinpoint accuracy. A coincidence, I assure you.

Even so, the setbacks got me annoyed after a while. It was a good thing that we did have our studies, so that I could devote at least some of my time to something that didn't leave me frustrated. Watching the movies and shows that I had picked up on Earth also helped us pass the time. Makoto and Ami finally found out who Rubeus Hagrid was, along with being introduced to such luminaries of fiction as Samantha Carter, Mal Reynolds, and Veronica Mars.

This continued to the middle of August, when Ami reminded me that the local August 20 was July 7 back home. I was about to turn sixteen. Unless Minako-san was right when she pointed out that I hadn't been reset when Bunny-chan defeated Metaria, in which case I was about to turn seventeen, but I said nothing about that because I didn't want to annoy my dearest any more than she already was. We still had almost half a year before she turned sixteen and I would be willing to take the next step in our relationship.

So we went to the beach for the weekend. Genya had to work, unfortunately, but Ginga and Subaru joined us for both days, the younger of the Nakajima sisters taking the opportunity to show us where she worked. That took a half-day, and thanks to the ID cards that Hayate had given us we were able to get lunch at the base mess. Riot Force 6 had better cooks.

Saturday afternoon, though, we drew almost every eye on the beach. No, not because I was there. The technophiles or whatever the equivalent term is in a magitek society were interested in the Unison Devices, half the ladies were interested in Ryou, and most of the men were interested in the four biological women in our group.

Ryou, Ichiro, and I wore swim trunks, not that anybody noticed what Ichiro and I wore. Kasandara, being nonhumaniform, didn't wear anything as usual. Sakura and Meia wore one-piece suits that looked remarkably like school swimsuits from back home, in their partners' signature colours.

Subaru, being on-call because she was still close enough to her base to respond to emergency alerts, wore a navy-blue bikini top and denim Daisy Dukes, with her Device, Mach Caliber, on a cord around her neck. So, basically, a very abbreviated version of her Barrier Jacket. Her sister Ginga wore a black bikini and a short-sleeved purple jacket along with her usual hair ribbon. Ami wore a white side-tied bikini with blue trim, which almost made me jealous of Ryou for being her boyfriend.

But only almost, because Makoto wore an emerald-green bikini top and trunks that were even shorter than Subaru's Daisy Dukes, with a white belt. She also wore her hair loose, which was the first time I'd ever seen her with her hair down.

She wore that swimsuit again the next day, on my birthday. I have no idea what anybody else wore on Sunday. Or what they did, either; I'd be surprised if Ami didn't go swimming, but I really wasn't paying attention to anybody other than Makoto.

---

It was three days before the anniversary of our being sent to this dimension when Ichiro made a suggestion that in hindsight should have been obvious.

"Sir... Rob, I can't help but wonder whether we've been going about this project in the wrong way."

I snorted. "Five months of poor results does indicate that, yes."

"True. If you'll allow me, I'll re-state the goals of this project."

I sat down and gave him my full attention. "I'm all ears."

"They aren't that big," he replied with a smile. "But we're getting distracted. We, and especially you, have been given a task by the TSAB: copy a brainprint into a Unison Device. As yet, you have not been successful in downloading the mass of information which is organized in a biological manner into a synthetic, or more precisely cybernetic, mentality processor."

"You're telling me that there's a formatting problem. I figured that out a month ago. But what can I do about it? I'm a biological intelligence, and so is every person who I've been able to take a brainprint from."

"Have you considered applying a protocol-transformation filter?"

"Where would I get a ... Oh, no. Oooooh, no. We've never done anything with brainprints while in Unison. We have no idea what it would do to you."

Ichiro smiled at my comment. "Thank you for considering my well-being, Rob. I took the liberty of asking Kasandara about the matter, and she told me that there would be no adverse effects to either of us in seventeen out of twenty-one timelines."

"That's good to know. But those four in twenty-one other cases worry me; they're approximately one-fifth of the possibilities. Ryou has in the past thought that that wasn't good enough to be sure, most recently just before we were sent to this dimension."

"I'm willing to take the risk, sir. And Kasandara also told me that if we don't try today, we won't have the chance to try again without breaking the contract that you signed."

I sighed deeply. "You know me too well. Okay, we'll strike the bell and bide the danger." And we went into Unison.

«Now that we can't be monitored,» I thought to Ichiro, «is there anything that you want to tell me that you don't want the TSAB to overhear?»

«I can't imagine what I could possibly want to keep secret from the TSAB, sir. Rob.»

«Do you want this project to succeed?»

After a pause, Ichiro thought, «I don't know. It would be an enormous boon to the TSAB to have powerful Unison Devices. But the terminology that your memories say Dr. Shamal used leaves me disquieted.»

«Especially considering she's a synthetic intelligence, too, if what I know about this reality is accurate. Ichiro, there's only one reason I can see for Shamal to call you materiel.»

«I agree. Commander Gaiz must have insisted on it during an earlier meeting.»

«And it looks like Gaiz is the one who's driving this project.»

Neither of us thought anything coherent for a moment. Then Ichiro thought to me, «I dislike the idea of mass-produced Rank SS mages being used as hardware.»

«As do I, even assuming we can create a synthetic mage by uploading another mage's brainprint into a Device. We aren't Ancient Belka; we don't have the knowledge that they had when they created the Tome of the Night Sky, assuming that they're the ones who created that Device. And I don't want the TSAB to get hold of a synthetic Senshi or precog, either. So let's see what we can do with Shario's brainprint.»

«Is that fair to Sergeant Finieno, Rob?»

«Maybe, maybe not. But she does know that this is what I intended to do all along, and she let me update her brainprint after I let her know that.»

«Ah. In that case, shall we proceed?» I could hear the smile in Ichiro's thought.

It took us nearly two hours before we were both happy with the dataset that we were going to attempt to download into our fourth blank Unison Device. The actual copying over took fourteen minutes; longer than a biological brainprint transfer, but not unreasonably so.

A few seconds after we finished, Ichiro and I broke our Unison, just before there was a knock at the door. "Hi, darling! Hi Ichiro! I brought you some clean handkerchiefs; Ryou insisted... Oh, wow!"

Makoto was looking at the Unison Device, which was morphing its external appearance so that it more closely resembled a miniature version of Sergeant Finieno. My dearest wrapped a handkerchief around the little Shario's body as if she was protecting the modesty of a Barbie doll.

Of course, the Device was far more than a Barbie doll. She opened her eyes and said, "Woah, I feel a bit dizzy. Did something go wrong with the brainprint, Rob... EEK! You're a giant!" Then she realized what she'd said. "No, I'm a Device, aren't I?"

"That's right," my dearest said.

"Eek! You're... no, you're not. I have to get used to this. Where are my clothes and my glasses?"

I raised an eyebrow in surprise. "Do you need glasses?"

"I've worn glasses all my life. I feel naked without them."

"If I may, sir," Ichiro said, "I'll make a set of glasses for Ms. Finieno from some wire and clear plastic."

"Yes, please do," I replied. "And can I impose on you to make an outfit for Shario-chan, my dearest?"

She raised an eyebrow, copying me. "'Shario-chan'?"

"I like it," Shario-chan said. "It's still my name, even if I'm not the me who grew up with it."

I sighed. "It's your name for as long as the TSAB will let you keep it. I have to give you to them, along with the three Unison Devices that I pretty much destroyed while trying to create you."

"Yeah, I remember being told that. I hope we're going to be able to keep in touch."

"So do I," Ichiro replied. "But I don't plan to count on it. Requirements of the service, and all that."

---

And then we discovered why we wouldn't be able to continue the experiments. Major Nakajima mentioned over dinner that he was going to serve as the parole officer for some of the Numbers, and three of them would be moving in with us shortly.

We very quickly arranged to dismantle my workshop so that the parolees couldn't figure out what we had been doing in it. And some very polite and insistent TSAB officers showed up to take charge of Shario-chan and the three burnt-out devices. It took a few minutes to convince them that we weren't giving up the tools; Riot Force 6 had promised that we would be allowed to keep them. I got the feeling that Commander Gaiz would have preferred to take the tools from us as well, but she wasn't going to outright countermand Colonel Yagami's orders. We pretty much insisted that they take their cameras; those, Gaiz would have been happy to leave behind.

Once they were gone, we very quickly packed the tools into their carrying case and put that case with the computer hardware that Ryou and I had bought to take back home. I was close to filling my backpack with all of that hardware.

---

And then it was the anniversary of the day we had arrived, a day that Subaru was home on leave... and the day that Nove, Dieci, and Wendi moved in.

The Numbers bowed to us once they were out of the car. "Thank you for taking us in," Deici said.

"It was my pleasure," Major Nakajima replied. "Please call me Genya. These are my daughters, Ginga and Subaru."

"We've met," Subaru said flatly.

Genya caught the unspoken message immediately. All three of these newcomers were directly involved in Ginga's capture and brainwashing slightly over a year ago, after all. "Girls, there's no need for that. I'm their parole officer and they have nowhere else to go; so they're living here with us."

"Father, do you know what they did to me?" Ginga asked.

Before Genya could reply, Wendi bowed deeply and said, "I've read your victim impact statement. I humbly ask your forgiveness for what I did to you and your sister." After a short moment, the other two bowed, but not quite as deeply, and they didn't say anything.

Ginga finally replied, "I can forgive you for what you did. But don't expect me to forget."

"Me too, on both counts," Subaru added. Then she turned to her father and asked, "Do they have to live with us?"

Genya nodded. "If we turn them away, then we'd also have to turn away your other friends," he said while gesturing to us.

Ami took that as our cue and stepped forward. "I'm Ami Mizuno, and this is my friend Meia." Said Unison Device bowed in greeting.

"I'm Ryou Urawa, Ami's boyfriend, and this is my friend Kasandara." As Kasandara made her greeting, I wondered why Ryou mentioned his relationship with Ami... until I heard Wendi sigh deeply.

What is it with Ryou and cute girls? I might never know. "I'm Rob Donaldson, and this is my trusted companion, Ichiro."

"I'm pleased to meet you, ladies," he said.

Before my dearest could introduce herself, Nove shouted, "Hey! You're the assholes who recaptured Wendi and me!"

"Guilty as charged," I admitted with a slight bow of apology.

"And here I was starting to think that you were cute."

Hearing that, Makoto quickly took my arm in hers. "I'm Rob's fiancée, Makoto Kino, and this is my friend Sakura."

"Hi," Sakura said quickly to the Numbers while waving once. Then she turned to my dearest. "'Fiancée'? Since when?"

"Well, I hope so," Makoto said before turning to me. "We are going to get married, right?"

Ichiro quickly read the mood and moved away from me, giving me room to walk over to Makoto. Sakura figured it out almost as quickly, and gave me room to stand beside my dearest.

"That's the most unorthodox marriage proposal I've ever heard, Makoto. And my answer is yes." Lacking a ring, I swept her into a hug.

As we kissed, everybody applauded. Even Deici, who from what I'd seen of the anime I expected to keep her emotions to herself.

It may have been an unorthodox marriage proposal, but it turned what was becoming a tense situation into a shared moment of happiness. And the two of us actually saying that we wanted to spend our lives together felt good.

---

My dearest... my fiancée and I went into Cranagan the next day, carrying a rather large amount of cash that Ryou had the foresight to have ready for us. You have to respect a precog who uses his powers for other people's benefit.

We came back without the cash, but with wedding rings in our pockets and engagement rings on our fingers.

We realized later that we should have waited until Mako-chan's grandparents had their say, but at that point we were still half-expecting to be living on Midchilda for the rest of our lives. And it wasn't as if we were short on money.

And I discovered when we got home that Midchildan women and Earth women had something in common. Everybody dropped everything in order to admire my dearest's ring.

---

Then we had a discussion over what to have for dinner. Makoto suggested curry, but Subaru said that the vacuum-packed curry that we gave her was too bland.

Then I volunteered to make curry for the two of us.

After we finished dinner, she asked for my recipe. Nobody else could understand why she liked spicy food.

---

The three newest members of the household quickly discovered that it was a rare day when all three of the Nakajimas were in residence, and days when none of them were present weren't particularly rare. Out of sheer boredom, they ended up joining us in our training and studies.

Which is how Makoto ended up learning Wing Road from Ginga and Nove, once she figured out how to morph her Sailor Jupiter uniform to include in-line roller skates instead of ice skates. I think I've mentioned how much my dearest... my fiancée loves skating.

The day that she mastered forming a pathway in the sky, she took me on a quick skate. I couldn't find roller skates on short notice, so I inverted the trick that let me do flash moves and put frictionless forcefields on the soles of my shoes instead of surrounding all but my soles with that sort of forcefield. Sure, she had to pull me, but neither of us minded. After all, I'd realized back in Azabu-Juban that I wanted to spend the rest of my life with a woman who's stronger than I am.

We headed out of town the day after that so that we could practice our high-mobility techniques. My fiancée made a picnic lunch for all of us.

"Are you sure we have enough food?" Nove asked while Makoto unpacked the picnic basket at lunchtime.

"Oh, don't worry about that. Ami eats like a bird," my dearest replied with a smile.

Just then, Ami swooped down and grabbed a sandwich from the top of the pile that Makoto had already set out and flew back into the air with her prize, followed by Wendi who missed grabbing her own lunch.

"Case in point," I added.

Nove ignored me. "Gotta admire her accuracy." «Hey, Wendi, you suck at that game!»

«I'd care about your taunts if you were up here with us, big sis!»

«Here I come!» "Air Liner!"

Which left Makoto and me alone together. I pulled her away from the base of Nove's version of Wing Road and into a hug, then rested my forehead against hers. Not to update her brainprint, but so that I could think to her with some hope of privacy. «Dearest, how much do you trust the Numbers?»

«Don't they have a family name other than that?»

«Maybe 'Scaglietti', but I think they'd rather distance themselves from him. If things here go the same way as in canon, Genya's going to adopt all three of them and another of their sisters, and they'll have his family name after that. But right now, they don't have one.»

«Those poor girls. I know what it's like to have no family. But, to answer your question, that doesn't mean I trust them yet.»

I almost nodded, but I would have had to break contact with her. «Yeah. So I can't do anything with those two unprogrammed Unison Devices yet. Even if they didn't see me doing the brainprinting, there's no way they couldn't meet the people that the Devices would become if I'm successful.»

«And then we'd be in violation of that non-disclosure agreement we both signed. Speaking of trusting them, why does Nove make me more uneasy than the others do?»

«You mean besides the fact that she thought I was cute?» I quickly added, «Don't worry on that score, my dearest. You're the one that I love and plan to marry. As for Nove, the backstory of the show we've been dumped into says she and Subaru were both cloned from the same person.»

«Oh! Yeah, that's what's been bugging me. They have almost the same voice and build.»

«And the differences are because they aren't the same age.»

Just then, Ryou cleared his throat, and we broke our hug. "Hi, Ryou! Sorry about ignoring you. How long did we keep you waiting?"

"I just got here, Robu. Is lunch ready?"

"Your girlfriend already grabbed hers," I said with a smile. "If you call everybody, we should be ready to eat by the time they get here."

"Four times of five," Kasandara confirmed from Ryou's pocket.

So he did, and we were as good as my word; Makoto had the last of the drinks ready by the time that Nove made it back.

---

Training and studies and odd-jobs for pocket change proceeded. I won't bore you with the specifics.

One of the things that I had to teach Makoto, Ami, and Ryou was how to navigate Windows 10. It was so different from Windows 3.1 that they all had some trouble with it at first.

Which lead to a short conversation about a month after the Numbers moved in.

"Darling", my dearest asked while looking up from her laptop, "why do all of these episode analyses keep saying 'The Other Four Sailor Soldiers Are Useless This Season'?"

Ah, she'd found her copy of the Shadowjack Watches Sailor Moon threads. "I thought you didn't want to know your own future," I said.

"That was before I died because I didn't know my own future. Now, I want to know."

"That makes sense. Well, the anime creators did add a lot of plots to the show that weren't in the manga, and they didn't want to give you any abilities that the manga would later say you didn't have, so they played it safe and didn't let you do anything at all."

"You aren't going to be like that, right?"

I sniffed in disdain. "Mako-chan, you already know what I think about cleaving to canon so closely."

She grinned. "Yeah. You cleave from, not cleave to."

"And you're getting a lot better at English," I said with a smile.

"You can thank Sakura, Ginga, and Subaru for that."

I nodded in agreement, not mentioning that she'd been immersed in the language for over a year.

I remember that it was a few days after that discussion that Ami revealed – at her own sweet-sixteenth-birthday party – that she'd hacked her transformation by transforming instantly without her wand. I had no fears that she was going to end up being useless, this season or any other.

Apparently, Meia and Ami had spent a week and took the Senshi transformation sequence apart, treating the spell as a program and analyzing it subroutine by subroutine, and worked the inefficiencies out of it. Including the part that left the Senshi naked for a second during their transformation. The fix was so simple, once they'd figured out what the problem was, that it was easy to teach to Makoto.

Ryou was quite happy that his girlfriend wasn't flashing him every time she transformed. Makoto said that she wasn't happy that she wasn't flashing me, but I could tell that she was joking. I was happy that they could now transform while moving, and Ami was happy that she was able to modify somebody else's spell. Nobody else thought it was a big deal, but they were Midchildans who were used to magic, not Japanese who aren't.

Then she created a spell of her own, displaying the classic 「やっと来たよ。」 message on a magic screen that was floating in the air.

Her second try at a spell from scratch, a month later, was far more ambitious. She wrote a healing spell just to see whether she could. And I ended up becoming her guinea pig, because I had tripped over a tree root while flash moving during a practice.

"I don't know whether this is ready, Rob. I've never tested it."

"Go ahead and test it on me, Ami. I think my leg is broken!"

So she did, and my leg stopped hurting. However, I was very hungry after she finished; apparently, healing burns through a lot of calories.

"That's to be expected," she said when I mentioned it. "Magic doesn't give anything for free."

I was so hungry that I was willing to eat bland Japanese-style curry that night... and I didn't consider the ramifications of Ami's statement just then.

---

It wasn't until the week after Ami first used her healing spell that I finally had a chance to ask about Ami's statement. And I only had that chance because Hayate was visiting after the Wolfram's shakedown cruise and wasn't allowed to talk about work, and there were only so many things we could say about her letting her hair grow longer. So, after my dearest complimented Hayate on her longer hair and Hayate admired Makoto's engagement ring, we talked about magic.

"It's simple, the way that Yuuno explained it to me," Hayate said. "There's a metaphysical balance of some sort, and practicing magic tips that balance. He's seen it in every culture that he's ever investigated."

"How can metaphysics know what a single person is doing?" Makoto asked.

"It isn't the universe reacting to the mage," Hayate answered. "It's the mage reacting to the magic. Some people get drunk with power and tip the metaphysical balance to selfishness. The people we fought during the Eltrian Formula Incident and the JS Incident were like that."

"We were, weren't we?" Wendi asked rhetorically.

Hayate didn't answer, possibly from politeness. "Other people get consumed with selflessness and will do anything, including die, if it helps somebody else."

"Like Usagi-san," Ami said.

"Ami, you did give your life for others when you stormed the Dark Kingdom," I pointed out. "And so did Makoto. And Ryou was host to a youma."

Hayate nodded. "If the anime I saw about you is correct, all of the Sailor Senshi ended up dying at one point or another."

"All of them?" I asked. "When did Uranus and Neptune die?"

"When their pure hearts were shot out of their bodies. Pluto brought them back. I think." Hayate paused for a moment, as unsure about what actually happened there as I was. "The important part is that they were willing to make the sacrifice. Nanoha is like that, too; she'd give her life for Fate, or me, or Vivio. And that reminds me of the people who had to give up something in order to become mages."

"I gave up my home reality," I said aloud without meaning to.

"And I gave up the ability to walk for years, and almost gave up my life," Hayate replied. Then she turned to face me. "How much magic have you learned, Rob? Or are you just talking about your Inherent Skill with forcefields?"

"Forcefields and brainprints, not spells," I admitted.

"Maybe you should try learning some magic."

"Maybe I should. Disguise magic would be a good choice, assuming we ever get home. Somebody died once because an enemy recognized me." Ryou raised his eyebrows at my comment, but said nothing.

"I can teach you 'Mirage Hide' later," Hayate volunteered. "I learned it from Admiral Graham's familiars."

"I've never known you to use disguise magic," Makoto commented.

"I use it all the time, at the beach. Do you think somebody who was in a wheelchair for half her life has legs that look as good as mine seem to when I'm in a swimsuit?"

"We've never seen you in a swimsuit," my dearest said.

"We'll have to fix that while I'm on leave," Hayate replied. Why she wanted to go swimming at the beginning of winter escaped me, but Ami looked happy at hearing the idea. Then I remembered that Earth's calendar didn't necessarily correspond to Midchilda's seasons. Silly me.

I decided to give my fiancée an ego boost, not that she needed one. "My dearest, if you wear that green number that you wore on my birthday, I'll still have no idea what Hayate looks like in a swimsuit."

She leaned over and gave me a quick kiss. "I knew there was something I loved about you, darling," she teased. Then, without looking away from me, she added, "And stop blushing, Ryou."

---

Later that evening, Hayate taught me "Mirage Hide". It's quite a versatile disguise spell, and I was able to learn it easily thanks to my skill with matrix mathematics transformations.

I also brought her up-to-date on the Unison Device project. She appreciated my decision to give Commander Gaiz a Device with Shario's personality and skills... and utter lack of magical ability. Then she asked what happened to the other blank Devices. I let her know that one of them was burned out, and the other two were stored safely with the maintenance tools she had given us. Then I asked whether I could update her brainprint, so that if I used it on one of those two Devices, she'd know what was happening without needing an explanation.

She agreed, and a few minutes later I knew what it was like to command a dimensional cruiser during its shakedown cruise. It wasn't something that appealed to me.

Then she excused herself. She wanted to be well-rested for our trip to the public pool the next day.

I wondered briefly what it would have been like if I had been sent directly to her world instead of Makoto's. But only briefly. She's a military commander; we probably would never have met if Makoto and Ami weren't along to pique her interest in us.

---

I still have no idea what Hayate looks like in a swimsuit.

---

We went back to our routine after Hayate returned to the Wolfram. (I carefully did not ask whether her ship had a sister ship named "Hart"; either she wouldn't get the joke, or she'd be offended by it.)

Ryou had become about as good as he was going to get, both at day-trading and at building a portfolio that was a good long-term investment. At least, according to his precognition, it was. He'd gotten good enough that even Genya and Ginga trusted him to invest their savings.

My fiancée decided that she wanted to use her Senshi magic in ways other than long-range, but farther away than what she and Sakura could channel through Donguri-no-ken. Which meant that I got to be her sparring partner while she developed an "electro-quarterstaff". Not that I minded being my dearest's sparring partner. We even came up with a kata for her to practice her fine control, and we made sure she'd practice her control by saying the words we agreed to: "Ho! Ha ha! Guard! Turn! Parry! Dodge! Spin! Ha! Thrust!" Makoto really didn't want to end up hitting herself in the face with her electro-quarterstaff.

But sometimes she did, so, by the end of the calendar year, Ami and Meia had developed a spell that was optimized to heal electrical damage.

Me? Beside the staff fighting, Ichiro continued training me in swordplay, and the two of us refined the Mirage Hide spell to make me look more and more like a legendary oni.

Ginga, Nove, and Makoto also got into the habit of having Wing Road races. My dearest didn't mind ... too much ... that she never won a race; after all, the others had years of practice that she didn't. Besides, Deici took potshots at my fiancée more often than she shot at her own sisters. Not in anger; her Enormous Cannon was a course hazard. Yes, Deici called her cannon "Enormous Cannon", which made us feel better about the name "electro-quarterstaff".

---

I mentioned the end of the calendar year, because it was when the next big change happened in our lives.

Genya brought another Number home to live with us. His prerogative, of course; it was his house and he was their parole officer. Her presence did change the dynamics of the household, though.

"Hello. I'm Cinque. I'm happy to meet you," she said formally. She was still wearing the prison-issued outfit that the other three Numbers had been wearing the day they arrived in Anberse, the only customization being the patch over her right eye.

We introduced ourselves, then she turned to her sisters and they got caught up with each other.

In the meantime, Genya talked quietly with us. "There's a reason that Cinque wasn't paroled with her sisters."

"Is it something that we need to know?" Ami asked.

"I think it is," Major Nakajima replied. "Her crimes included murder."

"Does she want to reform?" I asked, knowing full well from what I remembered of Lyrical Nanoha canon that she did.

"She says that she does," Genya replied, "and I have no reason to doubt her. But this means that I'll be working from home more than I have been in the past."

Which I thought was a good idea, realizing that he'd been using us as surrogate parole officers to keep an eye on Nove, Deici, and Wendi when they first got out of jail. The TSAB really did things differently than how I remembered governments did them back home. Either home. But we got a free roof over our heads in exchange for being volunteer parole officers, so we couldn't really complain.

---

The day after she moved in, Cinque had found a trenchcoat – with the same armour that our backpacks had – that was the colour of her platinum hair. She was also quick to join our training sessions, teaching Ichiro and Sakura the basics of knife throwing, and learning basic TSAB hand-to-hand fighting from all of us... which she needed a week after she moved in, when Subaru came home on leave. Cinque was at least able to defend herself until we were able to pull Subaru off of her.

I can't blame Subaru for disliking Cinque – she was the Number who was in charge of kidnapping Ginga, after all – but nobody wanted her to send Cinque to the hospital. It finally took me putting Subaru in a forcefield box, and then Genya reminding his daughter that she'd lose her post with the Gulf Special Rescue Unit if she was charged with a crime, to get her to calm down. She announced her intention to get her own apartment, though.

Which Genya thought was a good idea. He mentioned later that it was long past time that his daughter lived on her own for a while.

As for what we thought of what was going on in the household, it was Nove of all people who approached me.

"I'm surprised you want my opinion on anything," I said.

"Well, you're not going to sugarcoat what you tell me, the way Ami or Ryou would."

"What about Makoto?"

"I've seen some of the show she and Ami were in. She thinks with her fists, like I do, so I've got a pretty good idea of what she'd say. And I gotta say I'm surprised you'd want to marry somebody who isn't book smart; you don't look the type to want a girl like me or her."

I sighed and shook my head. "You must have seen the early episodes. Later in the show, she shows that she isn't at all stupid. But you already know that from training with her."

"I didn't say she was stupid, I said she wasn't book smart. But I don't want to talk about her. I want to talk about that asshole Subaru."

"Am I still an asshole, too?"

"Yeah, you're still an asshole," she said with a smile, which she quickly lost. "But Subaru's a complete asshole."

I sighed deeply. "You're going to have to learn to at least tolerate each other. I don't know whether she's ready to do that yet, though. Are you?"

"I haven't said a damned thing about her beating Cinque to a pulp back when we worked for Scaglietti, or trying to repeat the process yesterday. But she didn't even give Cinque a chance to apologize, the way we did when we showed up here."

"Er, Wendi apologized. You just bowed."

"You think Deici and I should apologize to Ginga and Subaru separately?"

I nodded. "It wouldn't hurt. And it would show that you're willing to take the first step in bridging the gap between you."

"I'll think about it." Nove almost stood up, then said, "Hey, as long as I got your ear..."

I raised an eyebrow. "What's up?"

"I got another year of parole to get through, then I get to do whatever the hell I want with my life. All I know is fighting. You got any ideas?"

I was about to say no, then I remembered what job she took in canon. "Why not do something that lets you fight for a living?"

"Can't do that. I don't want to join the Tee-Sab, and the pro fighting leagues won't take ex-cons."

I shook my head. "I wasn't thinking of you being a professional fighter. It's more like you could teach other people how to fight. Maybe open a dojo."

"What's a dojo?"

"A school where people learn a particular style of fighting and the skills to go with that style."

"Oh, a gym! Maybe I could do that. Thanks; I'll give that some thought, too." After a quick moment, she added, "And maybe you aren't an asshole after all, Rob. But you're still a jerk."

"Happy to help. And thanks, Nove."

---

Possibly NSFW

Then I remembered what day was approaching quickly, by the calendar back home. I made myself scarce after dinner each night, letting the others know that I had some serious thinking to do. Ryou and Ami got the hint immediately, but my fiancée didn't figure it out for a few minutes. «What do you need to learn from everybody's brainprints, darling?»

«That's a surprise, my dearest.»

«This better be worth it.»

«I think it will be. »

Then I spent a few nights doing something that I suspect any other teenage boy in my place would have done ages ago: I looked through her brainprint to find out what she liked when she was alone. To my amazement, I discovered that she hadn't experimented that way at all, at least not as of the day we'd met our companion Devices. Neither had Ami beyond the basics. Shario was a bit more adventurous in her personal time. Hayate, though... yeah, I ended up blushing again. Oh, boy, did I end up blushing. But I learned a lot about what she liked and didn't like during her private time with a very small number of very loving people.

Of course I couldn't practice any of this, not without Makoto. And there was a very good reason why I couldn't ask her to help me: this was going to be her birthday gift.

And I hoped that Makoto remembered what I had told Saeko-basan when she had asked why I was still a virgin.

I discovered on January 17 that Ami remembered, when I met her in the kitchen that morning.

"Haven't you been keeping track? It's December 5 according to the calendar back home. And ever since you both mentioned it to mother before we were banished here, I know exactly what Mako-chan wants for her sixteenth birthday."

"Trust me, Ami, I've been keeping track, and I'd be very surprised if she hasn't." I couldn't resist teasing her a bit. "And just think, Ryou's sixteenth birthday is only eighteen days away." Sure enough, that comment got my dearer friend to blush slightly. "Now, I believe my dearest awaits my presence. If you'll excuse me...?"

"Have fun," Ami said with a knowing smile.

I quickly made my way to my dearest's bedroom and knocked on the door. "May I come in?"

"Please do, darling." I opened the door to see Makoto. She was wearing her usual hair tie and ear studs, a sheer babydoll négligée and panties, and a smile.

Yes, my fiancée remembered.

"Oh, my. You look even sexier than you do when you're naked, my dearest." I closed the door behind me... and that is all that anybody will learn from me about the rest of that day, except that we were both very happy at the end of it.

---

Needless to say, Makoto and I were in very good moods the next day. And over a year's worth of TSAB training and the equivalent from our Unison Devices had left us both sufficiently physically fit that we weren't even tired.

Ichiro and Sakura quickly brought us back to reality with an extra-gruelling training session. "This is what happens when you skip a day, sir. Rob," Ichiro corrected himself before I could comment.

"We routinely skipped two days out of seven when Riot Force 6 trained us," I complained. "It's called a weekend."

"And just look at how soft you are," Wendi joked, looking at Ryou. And me, but mostly Ryou. No, neither of us had obvious six-pack abs; Dr, Shamal made sure that we had what was a healthy amount of muscle tone and fat for us instead. But our muscles still showed.

And it was amazing how quickly Ami and Makoto closed ranks with us after Wendi's joke.

«My dearest, I would have expected you'd know how much I love you after yesterday,» I sent specifically to her.

«I know,» she sent back, «but I've lost everybody else who I ever loved. I don't want to lose you, too. Please let me call you 'mine'.»

«Only if I can call you 'mine' as well.»

«It's a deal!»

Sakura didn't know we had a discussion going. "He's right, aniki. They're only human, they need some rest."

Makoto and I shared a smile at that comment.

"I suppose I can scale back the intensity of the training sessions," he allowed. "I understood that, if we were going to move to our companions' home reality, we were going to end up in the middle of what the TSAB would classify as an Incident, and everyone needed to be ready for that."

"Oh, we are," Ami replied. "What Ginga and Vita and Hayate and all of you have taught us has prepared us for almost anything."

"Our friends do still have room for improvement, niisan," Meia added, "but what they need now is to learn how to maintain their existing skills. I see no reason to train them to be ready for new skills at this time."

Ichiro thought for a moment. "If everyone is agreed on that...?" We all expressed our approval with Meia's suggestion. "Then I will go easier on everybody. Except for the young ladies with numerical names," he added with a slight smile.

"Bring it on!" Nove declared.

The next day, she was cursing at herself for having said that.

---

Then, two weeks later, it was February 5 by the local calendar and December 23 by the calendar back home – Ryou's sixteenth birthday. Meia and Kasandara spent the day and night with Sakura and my fiancée, the way Sakura and Ichiro had spent Makoto's sixteenth birthday with Meia and Ami.

While Ryou and Ami were busy, Cinque asked me why his name was spelled "Ryo" in WikiMoon. We spent a couple of hours talking about close parallel timelines, and how the things that I knew from canon might not be the same as what had actually happened or would happen in either Ryou's home reality or this reality. She appeared to like the idea that she still had free will.

The next morning, I couldn't resist a bit of teasing... that didn't go exactly the way I expected.

"Good morning, Ryou! Good morning, Ami! I trust you had a pleasant evening last night. Stop blu-..." I stopped in surprise. "Wait. Ryou, you're not blushing."

"I'd be surprised if he was," my dearest said. "After our two friends kept me awake half the night," she added with a grin.

Ryou still didn't blush... but Ami turned deep red. Heh. It's always the quiet ones.

---

Life went on, in the routines of training and socializing. Genya was present for most of it since Cinque was finally part of the household.

My dearest was the first to realize that the four of us refugees were present in order to help the Numbers become more... human, I suppose is the best word for it. Not that they weren't human to begin with, for all that Scaglietti designed them to be combat cyborgs, but there was a difference between being able to blend in with a crowd and being able to attend a party without being bored. And we were teaching them how to do the latter.

Deici expressed an interest in chess after she saw Ami beat me at a game, so we taught her. Her usual poker face helped her with the social aspect of the game. Speaking of poker faces, we also taught the Numbers some card games, including poker. Ryou and Kasandara were forbidden to take part, because the precogs never fell for our bluffs.

Instead, Ryou shared what little he knew about running a business with Nove, and Makoto taught her what she knew of Jeet Kun Do as an example of a martial art with a definite style. It seemed Nove had taken my advice to heart.

Cinque taught Ami and Sakura how to throw their Frigid Daggers instead of relying on magic to propel them. And Makoto taught Cinque how to cook past the "keep body and soul together" level.

Wendi taught Ryou and Ami about combat banter; the questions she had asked during our very first fight were at least partly intended to make us angry. And Makoto and I taught Wendi how to hold her end of a conversation, using many of the same skills that she used in combat.

And I turned them on to the music of BTS. They liked both the band's energy, and the idea that people could make art with their voices.

Their first test in acting like normal people was in late March, when we received visitors. We were expecting one; we got two.

"Hi everybody! It's been a while!"

"Hi, Shario!" Makoto said before everybody else. "What's new?"

"You are looking at the first TSAB sergeant to have an assistant! I brought her along."

"Hi everyone!" came a voice from her pocket.

"Shario-chan!" All of our Devices floated over and helped her get out of the older Shario's pocket. "Still can't fly, huh?" Sakura asked.

"No, and I don't think I ever will. What's new with– is that a ring on your finger, Mako-chan?!"

"Well," I said to Ryou and Genya, "they won't be interested in us for a few minutes."

At least the Numbers expressed an interest in Makoto's and my romantic life, whether they actually had an interest or not. They passed their first test in socialization.

We spent a couple of hours catching up, and then we introduced Genya and the Numbers to the delights of a sukiyaki party... which took another hour and a half. Even Deici smiled when Shario told them that this was something that usually only families did. Genya smiled at that, too, and I could see that he was thinking about something.

Did we just push a canon event into happening early? If we did, then that was a stupid genre convention... for whatever genre I was living my life in. And just maybe the Numbers would become the Nakajimas earlier than in canon.

Shario and Shario-chan finally got the four of us alone while Wendi and Nove washed the dishes and Cinque and Deici had their weekly parole meetings with Genya. "We're here because Commander Gaiz asked us to speak with you."

"Ordered, you mean. What does she want this time?" my dearest asked sourly.

I could see from the look on her face that Shario only pretended to ignore Makoto's tone of voice. "She's still looking for tissue samples from you. All four of you."

"I'm not going to let her run me through Project FATE," I declared.

"I have no idea what Project Fate is," Shario replied.

"Neither do I," added Ryou.

"Does it have something to do with Captain Harlaown?" Shario-chan asked.

"You don't need to know," I said. "It's bad enough that I know what little I do about one of TSAB's top-secret projects. Anyway, she won't be getting any stem cells from me."

"Or me," Makoto announced.

Ami looked like she was about to say something, but obviously thought the better of it.

"I was told to expect that answer," Shario said quietly. "And I think I'm beginning to understand what Project Fate is, putting together some remarks that Fate and Nanoha said when we were still children with what you just said."

I sighed deeply. "Well, I'm not employed by TSAB at the moment, and my NDA only covered the creation of Shario-chan. Do you really want to know?"

After a moment, Shario and Shario-chan both nodded. "I think I do," Shario said.

"So do I," Ami added. No surprise there; I've known since just after the Missing Time that my dearer friend hates not knowing something.

"Alright," I said quickly as I put a soundproof forcefield up around all of us. "Anybody who doesn't want to know, please leave now."

Nobody left.

Then I told them what I knew – how Project FATE was designed to bring into existence a child with the memories and personality of a dead person, that it was created by Jail Scaglietti in order for him to take control of the Saint's Cradle, and how Captain Testarossa, Private Mondial, and Vivio – all of whom had been part of Riot Force 6 in one way or another but we other than Shario had never met – were brought to life by the project.

Nobody said anything for a moment.

"I can see why you don't want to be part of that," Ryou finally said. "How do they get the personality of the dead person? And would we have to die for the process to work?"

"I don't know the answers to either of those questions," I admitted.

"Who is Vivio a clone of?" Shario-chan asked.

"Ask Captain Harlaown. She knows. She might even tell you." That was one of my true-but-misleading answers. I knew as well, but given how Makoto reacted to strangers back home knowing that she was famous, I thought that Vivio didn't need to go through life being known as a clone of the last Empress of Belka. She was her own person, not a relic of the dead past.

Then Nove walked through the soundproof forcefield. "Didn't you jerks hear me? I asked twice if you want some tea."

"Sorry, Nove," I said. "I have a hush hood up."

"I didn't know you could do that!"

"You never asked. I don't want anything right now, thanks anyway."

Everyone else declined as well, and Nove left us to our discussion. I made the forcefield less permeable once she was out.

"So, no, I'm not going anywhere near Project FATE," I confirmed.

"Commander Gaiz expected that you'd say that," Shario replied. "Are you willing to provide reproductive cells?"

"Ova and sperm?" Ami asked. "I don't see an issue with that."

"I do," Makoto said. "First, who's going to control them?"

"Me," Shario-chan said.

"Okay. I trust you. Second, don't you have to pretty much wreck one of my ovaries to get the eggs from it?"

Shario looked horrified. "Is that how it works on your homeworld?"

"Our home reality is a quarter-century behind this reality on the technology curve, and we don't have magic to assist our medical procedures," I pointed out.

Shario tapped her forehead in a 'silly me' gesture. "Oh, right. Dr. Shamal can take only as many – or as few – ova as you tell her you're willing to donate, without destroying an ovary."

"Can we visit Earth again, please?" Ami asked. "I need to buy some medical textbooks."

"And download the online content that goes with them," I added. "I'm pretty sure that at least Gray's Anatomy has online videos now."

Before we could discuss that further, Shario said, "Make a list and I'll have the station on non-administrated world 97 get them for you."

"How much will we owe you for that?" Ami asked.

Shario and Ryou replied in unison, "Donations of ova and sperm." Ryou continued alone, "I'm willing."

"If it's for Ami, so am I," my dearest added.

Then everyone turned to look at me. "Sure, why not? Mind if I add a few things to the shopping list? We're out of nanami togarashi." Everyone else, except for Shario and Shario-chan, facepalmed. "Hey, it's not my fault that Subaru uses it every time she visits."

---

We had the list put together the next morning, at which point Genya drove the four of us to GAS headquarters in Cranagan. The Devices stayed behind to continue the Numbers' training.

Teal deer, we gave our list to Shario, she volunteered to help extract Ryou's cell sample, Ami quickly declined that offer on his behalf, and he and I retired to separate rooms while Ami and Makoto saw Shamal. Afterwards, Shario-chan collected all of the samples and put them into stasis, then under lock and key.

We spent the rest of the day playing tourist until Genya was ready to head home.

Then we returned to our routine, thinking nothing of what we had given to Shario-chan.

---

It wasn't until April 29 that our order from Earth arrived. Shario and Shario-chan brought the package over personally. In addition to the medical texts and some groceries, Shario-chan gave us a set of "thank you for bringing me into existence" gifts – we each received another external data drive for our laptops, these ones with Midchaildan magical capacity. I don't know what information the others got, except that Ami got both Gray's Anatomy and Grey's Anatomy apparently because somebody wasn't sure which one she wanted, but mine contained the entire Internet Archive and Project Gutenberg as of March 2018 with plenty of space left over.

I quietly let Ami know that all I wanted for my birthday was a search engine for my drive. She told me that she'd see what she could do, as long as she got a copy of the data.

Shario also shared some freshly-declassified footage taken at the Coastal Airport 8 fire six years previously. Even I was impressed; I believe I've mentioned that 2D images don't compare to real life, so seeing the actual events of part of the first episode of Nanoha StrikerS was an eye-opener. We hadn't previously seen Hayate in action, so watching that footage and realizing just how powerful she was was a surprise. And it was the first time that most of us had a chance to see Captain Harlowan and Captain Takamachi in action at all. Halfway through, during one of the scenes featuring Captain Takamachi, Ami asked, "Do you remember when we were fighting cardians and I mentioned that I couldn't picture a transforming heroine based on Gundam imagery?"

---

We continued our training, and Ami and Meia continued to create new spells. One that Ami was particularly proud of was "Hyperspatial Sphere Generate", a defensive spell that her manga counterpart used once when their Dark Kingdom attacked. Well, she was proud of it until Ginga told her that it was a re-creation from first principles of the standard-issue  "Temporal Force Field" spell that hid magical effects from public view. I like and respect my dearer friend, but sometimes she needs to be reminded that she's human and thus fallible. Better she learns that now when she's unknowingly re-creating spells, than later when she's a doctor.

Ichiro and Sakura finally gave Makoto and me permission to fight each other with full-power manifested weapons, as long as Meia was nearby with healing spells ready. That was when I discovered why he uses two swords; I needed twin force swords to block my dearest's electro-quarterstaff.

Deici got to the point where she was beating me at chess, too. Either she was a very quick study, or I wasn't as good as Ami was letting me believe I was.

Wendi and Ami spent a lot of time just flying. Sometimes they'd come home happy, sometimes they weren't speaking to each other. I was never brave enough to ask whether they had been talking about Ryou on the days when they weren't happy.

Cinque spent more time with Genya and Ginga than I expected her to. They got along remarkably well.

Nove actually learned to temper her tendency toward coarse language when some of the local children came over for tutoring sessions.

Ryou and Kasandara made money. They were at the point where they were treating it like a game, which made me worry that they were Flanderizing themselves... but they were also plowing the proceeds into both our accounts and what the Nakajimas had let them invest, so I couldn't complain too much about how they chose to live their own lives. Subaru wasn't going to have any trouble making mortgage payments on her new apartment for a few years, even on her TSAB salary.

And of course we kept up with our studies. The Revealing Of The Lunches was rather boring, though, since we all had whatever Makoto made that day for lunch.

Our routine continued until June 23, when Ryou made an announcement.

"Good news, everyone! Kasandara and I are having trouble seeing the future!"

"Why is that good news?" asked Ami.

"Because I had exactly the same problem with my precognition before Sailor Moon fought Metaria, and before Petz sent us here."

It took a moment for the rest of us to figure out what he meant. When it sank in, my fiancée squeed with joy and gave me a hug, which I returned when I put the pieces together.

Ami asked, "Does that mean we should start packing?"

Ryou shook his head. "Not yet. If the pattern remains the same, we still have a few months before I leave this timeline."

I added, "But it might be a good idea to start choosing what we want to take with us."

---

The next day, we went into Cranagan to get large-capacity backpacks – the ones with frames that spread the weight over the wearer's entire back. The backpacks we bought a year ago on Lyrical Earth weren't big enough, and the Midchildan versions could safely hold slightly more mass while being both armoured and lighter than anything we could get back home. We had so many things that we wanted to keep, including Ami's chess board, Makoto's sword care kit, and all of that computer gear that I bought a year earlier.

Ryou also accepted delivery of what looked like a lawyer's briefcase, the kind on wheels – if you've ever seen Read or Die, it looked like the case that Yomiko Readman took to bookstores – that he had had custom-made to hold something extremely heavy. When I asked, he mentioned that he needed something to carry the precious metals he was planning to buy when he liquidated our stock portfolios.

Even without fully-functioning precognition, Ryou was still thinking ahead. But, we discovered later, not far enough ahead.

---

As Ryou and Kasandara had more and more trouble foreseeing events, they slowly converted a large fraction of their stock portfolio to cash, which we ended up spending on various things that we wanted to take with us. Ryou mentioned that there would still be a sizable investment left after we had bought everything that we could take with us.

After a long discussion, we decided to give the remainder of the portfolio to our friends in the Nakajima family. Including Cinque, Nove, Dieci, and Wendi, none of whom even knew about it, let alone had contributed to it. If Nove wanted to cleave to canon and open the Nakajima Gym, she wouldn't have any problem finding seed capital.

Genya pointed out that most of the money used to purchase the portfolio belonged to us... originally to Ami, but she had shared it with us back when we were still living at Long Arch.

Ryou pointed out the existence of both metal-rich asteroids like Psyche and TSAB's space-capable dimensional cruisers. He'd discovered that gold was used in electronics and electrical applications on Midchilda because they had so much of it; they considered it to be a rather pretty industrial metal, but our home reality considered it to be a precious metal. We were going to come out ahead and still leave a gift for our hosts.

So we visited an industrial supply company and filled his reinforced wheeled briefcase with gold... and then realized that he had made a mistake. Even transformed to Sailor Jupiter, Mako-chan couldn't move it at all. The silly thing massed 800 kilograms when full.

The staff at the industrial supply company had a laugh at our predicament. That was apparently a common first-timer's mistake.

So we purchased some smaller containers that my fiancée could move when they were full and she was Sailor Jupiter, and an extra-heavy-duty motorized cart with treads. We didn't want to leave ruts in the ground when we moved the cart, which we would have if the cart had wheels. And because we had the cart, we could carry another 200 kg of gold home.

Yes, a megagram in total. 1000 kg. One metric ton. I commented to my fiancée that, assuming we were going straight home, she'd have no trouble affording a Kuritsu Juban Chuugakkou school uniform.

The four of us also each carried a handful of gold wafers that we put into leather pouches so that we could safely carry them in our pockets, but even adding them all together, they amounted to a rounding error to the big load. Still, having something that we could immediately offer to the kami in residence at Rei's shrine gave me some psychological comfort.

---

And then it was August 20, or July 7 back home. Yes, my birthday.

Ami gave me that search program that I had asked for. Ryou gave me another gold wafer and told me to spend it in whichever world we ended up in a little over a month from now, which meant that his real gift was confirmation that we were going somewhere before the end of local September. My fiancée made a spicy curry for me.

And Yuuno-san showed up to give all of us something that I couldn't use directly. "I'm pretty sure that this is the spell that you want, but I don't have enough power to make it work. Are any of you Rank A?"

"Not officially," Ryou replied, "but I think we won't be disappointed if Ami casts it."

"I'm willing to try," she said.

Yuuno-san nodded. "It will take a while for me to teach Mizuno-san the spell."

We took that as our cue to go do something else, in order to give them some privacy... but Yuuno-san motioned to us to stay. "Please, I'd prefer to teach this to everyone."

So we did. And he told us the spell's aria. And I laughed my head off.

"Sorry," I said once I got myself under control. "I've heard those phrases before, all from the same work, but not in that order."

"Will that keep you from being able to cast the spell?"

I thought about Yuuno-san's question for a moment. "I suspect my lack of power compared to the ladies would be a bigger impediment. I'm only Rank C."

"You may as well learn the spell, Rob," Ichiro suggested. "Perhaps one of your friends in the reality you came from will be able to cast it."

I nodded in agreement. "I suspect that there's at least one who has the raw power, yes, but does she have a sufficient grounding in the math?"

"Hush, you two," Meia said. "Ami is casting the spell."

I turned my attention to her as she said, "-al Pathway!" I'd missed almost the entire spell.

But I didn't miss seeing the spell's effect. A pinpoint in the air in front of Ami started glowing, before expanding to a ring... three millimetres in diameter. We couldn't see through it, but we did smell a hint of wood smoke from the portal.

I turned to Ami, about to ask whether she could make the portal larger, only to see her face covered in sweat.

"I've smelled that wood somewhere before," my fiancée commented.

"Who said that?" we heard from the other side of the portal. It was said in Japanese, and I thought I recognized the voice.

We all switched to speaking Japanese.

"Jii-san? Is that you?"

"Kino-chan? What are you doing here? And where are you? Rei left a quarter-hour ago to see you off."

I did recognize the voice! He was the kannushi of the Hikawa Shrine that we usually visited... or, as we knew him, Rei-san's grandfather. And, apparently, only a minute or two had passed in our home reality since Petz banished us.

We all grinned widely, for obvious reasons. Except for Ami, who was concentrating on keeping the spell going, but even she smiled.

Makoto kept talking. "We aren't actually at the shrine, jii-san. We're using magic to speak with you."

Then I heard that gruff voice that I had heard the last time I had visited the shrine, but in my head instead of in my ears. «I will tell you what is going on later, Hino-san. Trust Kino-san to know what she is saying.»

Turning to Makoto, I could see she'd heard that thought as well. I nodded and sent, «You can trust him, too, my dearest.»

"Donarudoson-kun? Where are you? Are you with Kino-chan?"

I didn't expect him to be able to receive my sending; it was strictly short-range communication. Then I realized that the portal was essentially two-dimensional and he was practically in the same room as us. And I also realized that him recognizing my voice meant that we had connected to our home reality, not a close parallel of it; I didn't know of any other version of Sailor Moon that had me in it. "We're in another reality altogether, Hino-jiisan. We are alive and well, and trying to get home. It's good to hear your voice, sir."

Ami whimpered from the stress of keeping the portal open.

"We don't have much time, sir," Makoto added. "We're going to have to find somebody else who can open a larger portal. I hope that we'll be in touch again very soon..." Makoto stopped talking as Ami finally couldn't handle the stress of keeping the portal open.

As the portal collapsed, Ryou caught his girlfriend in his arms and helped her to the most comfortable chair in the room.

Then we all cheered. "We can talk with home!" my dearest cried.

"If we can find a more powerful mage, maybe we can go home." Ami added.

"We know the most powerful mage in the TSAB, folks," I pointed out.

"She's on a cruise right now," Ami pointed out.

Ryou smiled. "I don't need my precognition to read the posted cruising schedules. Hayate should be back on Midchilda a month from now."

Yuuno-san smiled. "I'll ask her to make some time for you."

---

Yuuno-san taught us all the spell, and copied his notes to our laptops. Yes, all of them. The more copies we had of the spell, the less likely we were to lose it.

And, by that logic, we taught it to all of the Unison Devices, even though none of them could cast it.  Ami was the only one of us who could.

I looked at the math in Yuuno-san's notes and sighed. I could barely follow it; there was no way that Makoto or Ryou could cast the spell without a lot of tutoring in university-level math.

And that meant that going home was likely a one-way trip. If my dearest couldn't handle the math, there was no way that Bunny-chan could, and I seriously doubted that Rei-san or Minako-san had the necessary power.

Everyone agreed with me when I mentioned my conclusion. Nobody suggested that we not leave, or that our companion Devices stay behind.

Meia pointed out that we needed new clothes; we had outgrown the ones we were wearing when we were banished. So Ryou pulled some more money from the stock portfolio, we went into Cranagan, and we spent a half-day being measured for tailor-made replacements that looked like our old clothes but were made from Midchildan fabrics and had reinforced pockets for our companions, some of our gold, and Ami and Makoto's transformation wands.

They would be ready in a month – the day before Hayate was due in.

---

But Hayate arrived a few days early. She brought Shario and Shario-chan along with her.

"Yuuno told me what happened on your birthday, Rob. Congratulations!" Hayate offered.

I smiled. "Don't congratulate me; all I did was turn another year older. Yuuno-san and Ami did all the hard work," I said in Japanese.

Shario switched to the same language. "Why aren't you speaking Midchildan?"

"We have to get into the habit of speaking the language of the place we'll be living in," I replied. "Why are you here early, by the way?"

"Officially," Hayate said, "to give you, the Numbers, and the Nakajimas mage rank promotion exams. Unofficially, to distract the Nakajimas and the Numbers from you and Ichiro for a day."

"Why would they need to be distracted from us?" Ichiro asked.

"Because of the NDA that Rob signed."

Ah. "I'd better unpack those two blank Devices that I don't have, then," I smiled.

Hayate smiled back. "After you update your record of my mind."

A half-hour later, I had updated brainprints from both Hayate and Shario, and Ichiro was unpacking the two blank devices from the field maintenance kit. Then Shario put me through a mage rank test which ended up the way that I expected, with me remaining a Rank C mage. Ichiro tested as Rank B.

The next day, everybody took their tests. Ami cleared Rank A, as we expected from her being able to open a pinprick portal to back home.

Funny; I'd been in or near Cranagan for two years and Tokyo for less than one year before that, but it was the Azabu-Juban neighbourhood that I thought of as home. Of course, so did Makoto, and home is where the heart is.

My fiancée tested as rank B, just like last time, and our Unison devices also tested as Rank B. Except for Kasandara, who was Rank D. I didn't see any of those tests; Ichiro and I were busy.

Just like last time, we started with organizing Shario's brainprint in order to implant it into Shario-chan II. This time around, we had clothing for her; not a TSAB uniform of any sort, but a simple jeans-and-blouse outfit with a pair of zero-prescription glasses.

Then we took three hours to put together the brainprint for the other Device – which of course we called Hayate-chan. We had clothes ready for her, too – that sweater, skirt, and tights outfit that she wore so many times in A's, which still looked good on her twenty-year-old figure.

"So this is how Rein feels when she's working with everybody else," Hayate-chan said as she woke up and looked at Hayate and me. "I didn't expect to be this small."

At that point, Shario and Shario-chan walked in. "I've finished all the mage rank tests!"

"All but one," Hayate replied while motioning to Hayate-chan.

A half-hour later and we'd discovered that Hayate-chan also tested as Rank B. "Maybe that's a hard limit for Devices," she said while looking over the results.

"I'm tempted to agree," Shario said.

"I hate to say this, but..."

Hayate-chan interrupted me. "We have to hide so you don't get in trouble with the TSAB."

"Yeah. Sorry about this. It should only be for a few days."

---

Then it was September 21, and time to pick up our tailor-made clothes. We had a discussion before we went into town.

"Midchildan money is just waste paper back home. We may as well spend it all," I suggested.

"Or give it to our hosts," Ami suggested, as she sorted through her own pocket change to leave behind all of the Midchildan money and the Japanese coins dated after Heisei 4.

"Oh, we wouldn't dream of it!" Ginga insisted. "Go shopping, and don't forget to buy souvenirs for your friends back home."

My fiancée facepalmed. "Souvenirs! I knew we forgot something!"

"We could give everyone some Midchildan money," Ryou suggested with a smile. Ami threw a pillow at him.

When we mentioned that exchange to Shario-chan and Hayate-chan, they gave each other a meaningful glance, and I guessed that somebody was going to get a better souvenir than she ever expected. I wondered who Hayate-chan was going to choose as a partner.

But we went into town first. The souvenirs that we picked out ranged from kitsch to cliché to classy. Ami picked up a few diamonds for her mother. Ryou bought some gems for Naru to examine, and for seed capital to go along with the gold we already had. My dearest bought some actual seeds – apparently, our home reality didn't have blue roses, which were popular with TSAB admirals here.

"Do you have any place to plant those?" I asked as the gardening shop's clerk put the pack of seeds into a stasis spell. "I doubt there's room in your apartment for them, alongside the potted plants that you already have."

"Darling, we're going to have enough money to move into a proper house with a proper garden," she reminded me. "These are for then."

Once we got home, we spent the rest of the day packing, leaving only changes of clothes for the next two days not packed. Our motorized cart was loaded down almost to its rated load. Donguri-no-ken and its care kit; clothes that fit; electronics and media; my camera gear in its own camera bag; Ami's chess board and pieces; assorted souvenirs, keepsakes, and magitech; and literally a metric ton of gold were all packed securely in assorted backpacks, briefcases, and bins. Ami and Makoto had to transform to Mercury and Jupiter in order to magically fuel the cart's motor, so we weren't worried about anybody walking off with it.

---

We went back into Cranagan the next day.

All of us – Genya, Ginga, Subaru, Cinque, Nove, Deici, Wendi, Hayate, Reinforce, Shario, Shario-chan (the original), Ichiro, Sakura, Meia, Kasandara, Ryou, Ami, Makoto, and me. The TSAB members were in uniform, the four of us who had been banished were wearing – one last time as a group – black slacks or skirts and green tops, and the Devices and Numbers were wearing their best outfits.

We posed for a set of commemorative photos, individually and in groups. We all knew that we'd never have this chance again.

Then Ryou showed that he was ready for this even without working precognition, and let Shario-chan II and Hayate-chan come out from wherever they were hiding. We got photos of both Hayates and all three Sharios together, and all of the devices except for Rein with all four of us who were expecting to leave soon. Then the two Devices who needed to keep hidden went back to being hidden and I got copies of all of the photos downloaded to my cellphone.

Then, over the last fancy meal we had in the Lyrical reality, we told the Numbers about the stock portfolios that we had made for them. Wendi and Cinque thanked us first, followed quickly by Nove and Deici. We also let Genya, Ginga, and Subaru know that they each had slightly larger portfolios that had the money they had trusted to Ryou to invest plus a share of what we didn't have room to take home. Subaru got the housewares that we weren't taking and the last of our nanami togarashi, so that her new apartment wouldn't be completely empty and her food wouldn't be at all bland.

And nobody mentioned that Subaru and Cinque sat at opposite ends of the table... which was probably for the best.

---

And then it was September 23 by the Lyrical calendar – the second anniversary of the day we had arrived here, and the day that we expected to go home.

By mutual agreement, and to keep anybody in TSAB who might report back to Commander Gaiz on what we were doing until it was too late for her to track us, we chose to leave from the place we had arrived. We used the last of our local money to rent a heavy-duty truck and hire a driver; our Japanese money was in our pockets, along with a few small gold wafers.

We were all wearing the duplicates of the clothes that we had been wearing when we were sent to this dimension. Makoto and I had our best clothes in our suitcases; we were going to need them for our train trip as soon as we got back home. I helped Mercury and Jupiter move our cart with forcefields to smooth the path from the road to where we had arrived on Midchilda.

Shario-chan was riding in Ryou's shirt pocket. She enjoyed the view. Hayate-chan helped Mercury and Jupiter – I had to get used to calling them that again when they were transformed – by sharing some of her magical power and scouting for anything that they didn't expect to block the path.

And then we were there.

Jupiter transformed back to Makoto and relaxed on the ground for a moment. I sat down beside her. "Any regrets?" I asked.

"No," she answered. "At least none that I didn't have two years ago. I wonder how my grandparents are going to handle having a foreigner in the family?"

"We'll cross that bridge when we get to it."

"We're going to get to it after the ceremony tomorrow, assuming Ami's right about time not passing back home while there's no portal between the worlds and we get back just after we left."

"That's another bridge that we'll have to cross, if she's wrong."

"Yeah." After a moment, she asked me, "How about you? Any regrets?"

"Well, we never did get to meet Captain Harlaown or Captain Takamachi. But that's a small thing."

"Which of them do you think would fall in love with Ryou?" she asked with a grin.

"Neither," I said. "In their canon, they end up with each other. So Ryou doesn't have to worry about them."

Before my dearest could reply, Mercury walked over to us and smiled. "We're ready."

We both stood up, and Makoto transformed to Jupiter as we walked over to the others.

"Last chance to change your minds, everybody," Ryou said.

"Although we're only accepting Devices as passengers, not biological people," Mercury added, looking straight at Wendi when she said that.

"I think I speak for everybody when I say we prefer to stay with you," Sakura said.

Ichiro, Meia, Shario-chan, and Hayate-chan all nodded in agreement, and Kasandara said, "She speaks for me."

"Then let's do this," Hayate said, just before Makoto gave her a hug.

"Thank you for everything. And good-bye."

"Yes, thank you for everything, all of you," I added. "We wouldn't have survived here if it wasn't for all of you, let alone thrived."

"You guys..." Hayate started, then after a quick pause, added, "Don't make me cry before I cast the spell." She took her usual stance for when she cast spells, then lowered her arms and turned to face me directly. "Rob, you know that I have to speak an aria in order to have full control over my magic."

"Yes, because you have so much raw power. Why are you mentioning this now, Hayate?"

"Because of the aria that Yuuno wrote. Please don't laugh."

"Laugh? At something that would finally get us home? Who the hell do you think I am?"

She grinned. "Oh, you've already heard the aria!"

I smiled in return. "Yeah, Yuuno-san taught it to all of us, even though nobody in the group except Ami can actually cast it. If it still matters, I promise."

"Thanks." Only then did she chant the spell. "If there's a wall in our way then we smash it down! If there isn't a path, then we carve one ourselves! Pierce the heavens! PANDIMENSIONAL PATHWAY!"

---

Next chapter: Return, Revenge, and Rough Times for Everybody

Original text and original characters are copyright © 2022-2023 by Rob Kelk. "Rob Donaldson", "Ichigo Aoyama", "Meia", "Sakura", "Ichiro" and any representations thereof are copyright by and trademarks of Rob Kelk. "Kasandara" and any representations thereof are copyright by and a jointly-held trademark of Rob Kelk and Ian McLeod. Please contact Rob Kelk if you want to use Ichigo Aoyama in your own stories.

Sailor Moon and the characters thereof are copyright © 1991-1997 by Naoko Takeuchi, TOEI Animation, Kodansha, TV Asahi, and their licencees, and are used as allowed under section 29.21 (1) of the Copyright Act of Canada, R.S.C., 1985, c. C-42.

Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha StrikerS and the characters thereof are copyright © 2006-2007 by Masaki Tsuzuki, Seven Arcs, and their licencees, and are used as allowed under section 29.21 (1) of the Copyright Act of Canada, R.S.C., 1985, c. C-42.

"Atelier Lucent" is an original element based on Sailor Moon. It should not be confused with the real-world "Lucent Atelier" in the USA or "Atelier Lucente" in Italy. The author makes Atelier Lucent available to anyone who might need a name for Sailor Pluto's clothing studio.

Lyrics from "Walking on Sunshine", written by Kimberley Rew, performed by Katrina and the Waves, copyright © 1985 by Katrina and the Waves, are used as allowed under section 29.21 (1) of the Copyright Act of Canada, R.S.C., 1985, c. C-42.

Quote from Fate/stay night, copyright © 2006 by Type-Moon and their licensees, is used as allowed under section 29.21 (1) of the Copyright Act of Canada, R.S.C., 1985, c. C-42.

Quote from Pinky and the Brain, copyright © 1995-1998 by Warner Bros. Animation and Amblin Television, is misquoted and used as allowed under section 29.21 (1) of the Copyright Act of Canada, R.S.C., 1985, c. C-42.

Quote from The Magician's Nephew, copyright © 1955 by C. S. Lewis, is used as allowed under section 29.21 (1) of the Copyright Act of Canada, R.S.C., 1985, c. C-42.

Quote from "Robin Hood Daffy", copyright © 1958 by Warner Bros. Pictures, is used as allowed under section 29.21 (1) of the Copyright Act of Canada, R.S.C., 1985, c. C-42.

Quote from Futurama, copyright © 1999-2003,2008-2013 by The Curiosity Company, is misquoted and used as allowed under section 29.21 (1) of the Copyright Act of Canada, R.S.C., 1985, c. C-42.

Quotes from Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann, copyright © 2007 by Kazuki Nakashima, Gainax, and their licensees, is used as allowed under section 29.21 (1) of the Copyright Act of Canada, R.S.C., 1985, c. C-42.


My thanks to my prereaders, Brent Laabs, Robert M. Schroeck, and Heather K.

[Shepherd]

Wonderful chapter. Now that the entire dimensional adventure is complete and the story has been told to the rest of the senshi, it'll be interesting to read about the reactions and consequences.

[robkelk]

Oh, the dimensional adventure is complete, but it hasn't been told to the others yet. That's the second event in the next chapter... and will be happening off-screen so that I don't bore everybody.

(The first event being Makoto's Obon trip, of course.)


Oh, yes - I can uncover one of those spoiler sections on the relationship chart now.
   

And I believe I mentioned souvenirs...
   

[Lunaludus Scribex]

It's been too long since I've watched StrikerS--I kept mixing up Shario and Caro in my head, which got a bit awkward when they started talking about marriage and age expectations.

Great chapter!

[Norgarth]

My knowledge of MGLN is purely second hand, so I'm sure I missed some of the subtler stuff, but I enjoyed the chapter. Just took me a while to work my way thru it. 8P (time management skills? what are those? :p)

[Labster]

I liked it! I'm a prereader so Rob knows what I think, but yes it was fun.

Mainly posting here because I thought a certain thing I read was relevant: Book Review: Safe Enough? Definitely fun for thinking like Ryou: "Two times out of eleven, we need to evacuate everyone from Tokyo Prefecture." (Incidentally that's a real thing that almost happened in 2011.)

[robkelk]

Y'know, if this had been published two weeks earlier, it would have made it into Chapter StrikeR, somehow... because I can totally see Vita saying it. So assume something happened during one of the "we trained for months" paragraphs that would lead to something like this being said.

The Register: Who, Me? Hacking a Foosball table scored an own goal for naughty engineers

At the following morning's training session, the trainer was not in a great mood. "I'm ashamed of you," he thundered. "You've let me down, you've let the company down, and you've let yourselves down!"

"How dare you get caught!"

Oh, yes: early first-draft of chapter 4, including notes that need to be turned into text, is at 93 kb -- about where I expected it to be even though Rubeus isn't dead yet.

[robkelk]

OMAKE

"I spent two years on Midchilda on August 11."

"The place is that boring?'

"No, it was because of a timey-wimey thingy."

[robkelk]

This story's flowing out of me, to the point where I might need to kill my darlings. Have an early teaser for the next chapter.


Usagi-san thought for a quick moment, then removed her hand from my dearest's shoulder. "Okay. But I'm coming along to watch."

"So am I," Ichigo-san announced enthusiastically. "I've never seen Sailor Jupiter fight before."

(fight scene redacted)

Ichigo-san quietly announced, "I never want to see Sailor Jupiter fight again."

[robkelk]

The story's really been pouring out of me... to the point where I've had to do a chapter split. I'm not going to promise another chapter before Labo(u)r Day, but right now I'm not going to rule it out, either. The first draft of the split chapter 4 is currently at 197 kb.

Have another teaser.


Three days later, and I knew what was about to happen when half the class – including Ami – called in sick.

It was the worst possible scenario, as far as everyone's sanity was concerned: we'd skipped straight to "Venus Minako's Nurse Mayhem".

Insert scare chord here.

The next day, there was a sign in the school lobby that told all students who had managed to come in to take a seat in class 1 of their year. When the bell rang, class 2-1 contained Sakurada-sensei, Ichigo-san, Minako, Ryou, and me. And Ichigo-san and Sakurada-sensei were wearing masks. There was plenty of room for social distancing, which we adopted as soon as I explained the concept.

"I'm the only second-year teacher who made it in," she announced after taking attendance. "And that's only because they begged me. I'll be in the nurse's office if you really need me. Everybody, the entire day is study hall."

After she left, I said, "Okay, I was vaccinated against influenza back in 2022. How are you three still standing?"

"Kasandara has been steering me away from infection vectors," Ryou explained.

"If I let a little thing like the flu slow me down, I could never be a field researcher," Ichigo-san said.

"I never get colds!" Minako announced proudly.

We all looked at her as if she'd grown a second head. Finally, Ryou said, "That isn't something to be proud of."

[robkelk]

Chapter 4, all 245 kb of it, has gone to the prereaders.

Chapter 5 is at 16 kb.

My next post here should be Chapter 4.

[Vulpis]

Reading through this, neat story. Though I can't help but comment on part 2, specifically about the bit about not being able to imagine a transforming heroine with Gundam imagery...someone obviously hasn't seen G-Gundam. Specifically Nobel Gundam. :-)

[robkelk]

Reading through this, neat story. Though I can't help but comment on part 2, specifically about the bit about not being able to imagine a transforming heroine with Gundam imagery...someone obviously hasn't seen G-Gundam. Specifically Nobel Gundam. :-)

I trust you noticed (or will notice) the bit in Chapter 3 where she lampshades that.

Updates:

• I'm still waiting for one pre-reader to reply. I've been promised more than a few notes.
  
• Chapter 5 is at 65 kb.
  
• I have a lost of trope updates for the story's All The Tropes page ready to go.
  
• I've taken a page from Bob's book. Just like Drunkard's Walk has a planned sequel Girls Girls Girls, now Isekai by Moonlight has a planned sequel named after the final line of Calvin and Hobbes. 'Ryou grinned. "It's a magical world, Rob ol' buddy... Let's go exploring!"'
  

[Vulpis]

Reading through this, neat story. Though I can't help but comment on part 2, specifically about the bit about not being able to imagine a transforming heroine with Gundam imagery...someone obviously hasn't seen G-Gundam. Specifically Nobel Gundam. :-)

I trust you noticed (or will notice) the bit in Chapter 3 where she lampshades that.

Updates:

• I'm still waiting for one pre-reader to reply. I've been promised more than a few notes.
  
• Chapter 5 is at 65 kb.
  
• I have a lost of trope updates for the story's All The Tropes page ready to go.
  
• I've taken a page from Bob's book. Just like Drunkard's Walk has a planned sequel Girls Girls Girls, now Isekai by Moonlight has a planned sequel named after the final line of Calvin and Hobbes. 'Ryou grinned. "It's a magical world, Rob ol' buddy... Let's go exploring!"'
  

I'll have to re-read 3, then, as I missed that. I ended up reading out of order...3, then catching up on 1 and 2.
Meanwhile, as an aside, I do wonder if I should be bothered that the transition from 2 to 3 happens on my birthday? :-) Granted, that's a 1 in 365 thing (well, 1 in 366 for some years), but still...

[classicdrogn]

Arg, dammit, I'm remembering noticing a continuity error (someone does something for the first time twice) but not what or who or when, just that it was across two posts.

No, wait, it's when MC uses his invisibility "on two people for the first time" after hiding all the other Senshi while Usagi met Dark General Whichever earlier. It would still count as a first as the two of them are moving around doing things vs the group having been stationary, but reads like the earlier incident was forgotten at first glance.

With that being the only thing I have to complain about, it's safe to say I like the fic overall and think it's good

[robkelk]

Arg, dammit, I'm remembering noticing a continuity error (someone does something for the first time twice) but not what or who or when, just that it was across two posts.

No, wait, it's when MC uses his invisibility "on two people for the first time" after hiding all the other Senshi while Usagi met Dark General Whichever earlier. It would still count as a first as the two of them are moving around doing things vs the group having been stationary, but reads like the earlier incident was forgotten at first glance.

With that being the only thing I have to complain about, it's safe to say I like the fic overall and think it's good

Would you believe I did it on purpose? Okay, maybe not. It's the "moving around" bit that made it a first, yes.

[robkelk]

Updates:

• I'm still waiting for one pre-reader to reply. I've been promised more than a few notes.
  
• Chapter 5 is at 65 kb.
  

I've heard back from that prereader, and as a result a few scenes need some attention. At this point, I feel confident in making the promise: Unless I get hit by Truck-kun or something equally traumatic happens, chapter 4 should be up before Labour Day.

Chapter 5 is now at 64 kb - I excised a duplicate, poorly-written scene about finances, and added a somewhat-better written new scene about figure skating. (Did you know that Usagi has a cameo in Naoko Takeuchi's earlier manga The Cherry Project?)