Many Paths

〈In the following text, 〈〉① indicates content redacted to those without security clearance. The number indicates the degree of security clearance required to access enclosed content.〉①

“I am not one to waste time musing upon the unknowable, but I confess a kind of morbid curiosity about the Incubators. It is hardly accidental that we know so very little about them—they prefer to hold all the cards, and always wear an unbeatable poker face—yet they have willingly informed us that we are manipulated to their benefit. We know that they hardly share Human values, so how can I ignore their secrets?”

“Thus I am left to speculate and guess. Their minds have always been inscrutable—their visible bodies are not only replaceable puppets, but do not even seem to contain the individuals. That is, if there truly are individuals; they wear their hivemind on their sleeve, though an Incubator can disagree with or even operate outside of the decisions of the collective, on rare occasion.”

〈“No soul mage has ever detected an Incubator soul, but they’ve consistently called unfounded any claim that they’re soulless. I suspect, to my unease, that they truly are individually ensouled."〉⑤

“Unlike some of my colleagues, I do not believe the Incubators are bluffing about their mastery of the physical realm. Only in exceptional circumstances do they display or discuss their full capabilities, but they seem to consider the material universe almost beneath them, or of no real concern, if it weren’t for that accursed Second Law!”

“Ultimately, what is most interesting about the Incubators is their sense of values. They have desires and preferences—valuing the universe and their own survival, if nothing else—and yet do not dare feel them too strongly. They claim to pursue a pure utilitarianism, but seem trapped in the semantics of a deontological ethic, only speaking truth and always obtaining consent.”

“One intriguing consequence of these values—one very relevant to us—is their laissez‐faire treatment of Humanity. Despite their stated prioritization of energy collection, they have done little to coerce Human development or expansion. There are arguments to be made about the effects of coercion on magical potential, but nevertheless, I do not think they tread as wantonly as they might.”

“We could have done much worse in terms of patron races. Much better, yes, but also much worse.”

— Akemi Homura, excerpt from A Life with Cause, unpublished manuscript found in personal files

Laws are a social contract between Citizen and State, written guidance for behavior—what the Sovereign expects of its people, and what the Sovereign promises in turn. Promises of restraint, fairness, cooperation, and justice.

But if that is all laws are, then if the Sovereign can become incorruptible, and the people can be guided to harmony with the State, then what need is there for rigid, imprecise, alienating law?

“That’s the theory anyway. In practice only authoritarians—infamously, several FA nations—have ever tried to implement such a society. Authoritarians, and Governance. It turns out, successfully omitting law requires the Sovereign to be pretty damn incorruptible.”

“Not even Governance truly has no written law. There are still the Core Rights, and beyond that a small corpus of steering rules, and beyond that a large body of ad hoc decrees, issued and retracted at various times as needed by Governance AIs. While these have a deliberately narrow scope, they are still useful as a source of precedent when deciding matters in court. And despite Governance’s attempts to portray its regulations as having no impact on everyday life, several exceptions are well‐known, particularly with the advent of the Contact War.”

“And of course, wherever the power of Governance to guide behavior wanes, written laws reappear, often in great numbers. The most burdened are the colonial governments and the military…”

— Clarisse van Rossum, personal blog post, MSY “Theban” community blogging platform

⌄·The lack of sapient species in the home galaxies is a blessing, allowing us to expand prudently without threat or competition|⌃·The lack of sapient species in the home galaxies is a curse, stranding us upon the shoals of our own perceptions

— Consensus/Truth‐seeking, Deliberations

Alright, you wanted time alone to talk, what is it? Ryouko asked, stepping back into her room on board the alien ship.

Obviously, they didn’t need to be alone to talk, but it made it easier to focus, and she could use a bit of an escape anyway.

I wanted to take a break to just stop and think, Clarisse thought, it’s very easy to get swept up in the flow of things, but for a situation like this, it’s critical to maintain agency. That’s part of what I’ve been programmed to do, sort through information in the background when your main attention is too busy, and then present it so that you can make informed decisions.

Okay, Ryouko echoed emptily, dropping down onto her cushioned‐waterbed‐thing. I’ll admit, I’ve been a little too overwhelmed to think about the implications of hanging out with Cephalopods. And a Cephalopod uploaded into a starship. And his noisy penguin pet. With emotions.

It had taken quite an effort to stop Feathered‐Defender from following her into her room. The bird seemed fascinated by Ryouko and Clarisse’s novelty, and thrilled to have people to speak with that also engaged in linear thought and emotion. In the end, they had been forced to schedule a time to reunite with the creature.

Right, and there’s plenty to think about there, Clarisse thought. But before we engage in that, I’ve been looking at some of the less obvious angles—going over your past memories, Governance records that you have on hand, trying to see if the aliens’ story checks out and what conclusions there are to draw. I’ve come up with some troubling thoughts about the alien faction prosecuting the war, Consensus/Thinker‐preserving.

I’m listening, Ryouko thought, putting her hands behind her head to stare up at the ceiling, a dome‐like structure she had asked to display a pale shade of blue.

Well, just before we ended up stuck here, Sakura Kyouko and some of her friends were engaged in an incident where they were attacked by a group of aliens at an asteroid. We are very lucky to have any details of that at all—we wouldn’t know anything if Chitose Yuma hadn’t told us.

That whole thing still confuses me, Ryouko thought, but at least the idea of a group of aliens trying to conduct diplomacy seems a lot more sensible now. Now that I think about it, I wonder if those alien diplomats were from /Ahimsa‐extending, or perhaps some other faction. It might be worth asking.

It might, Clarisse agreed. Once we’re sure what we’re dealing with. But there’s more to it than that. Review the files; they found a group of aliens on one of the attacking ships who appeared to be sensitive to demon attacks. They didn’t have time to resolve the mysteries of the situation, but after what we’ve heard here, the implications could be tremendous. If the faction fighting the war has gained emotions while in the Milky Way somehow, that would go a long way toward explaining why their behavior has been so unpredictable.

That unexpected chain of thought took much longer to untangle, and she even closed her eyes for a moment to think about it.

That’s worrying, Ryouko thought finally. Though there’s hardly much in the way of evidence to go on. Plus, how and why?

I don’t know, Clarisse thought. I can only speculate. But from what I understand, corruption of the preference‐specification system is as bad for them as breaking the TCF is for us. Among other things, no one is even supposed to want to. That’s supposed to be provable.

So should we tell them? Ryouko thought. It seems like the nice thing to do, but—

Right, the situation isn’t about being nice or not, Clarisse thought, agreeing with her before she could even finish the thought. It’s about what’s best for Humanity. Given that, I don’t know that we want to tell them. Do we trust them? Would we want to help them even if we did? The question is too loaded to analyze, for now.

We might have to wait and find out more, Ryouko thought, making an unhappy noise. That’s uncertainty I don’t like.

Moreover, it felt a bit rude, a feeling she knew was illogical.

There are other reasons to be cautious, Clarisse thought. Do you remember the blink interdictors we encountered at the pulsar?

How could I forget?

I’m inclined to think those weren’t deployed by /Thinker‐preserving. Azrael said that the Ceph using the device we found were also using stealth to hide from the other Ceph in the mines. But if not /Thinker‐preserving, then whom? It seemed awfully targeted, didn’t it? But there’s only one group we know expected you to be there.

It seems a bit strong of an inference to think these ‘Ahimsa‐extending’ were behind it, Ryouko thought. What, were they trying to capture me? What would be the point, if they knew where I would end up?

I don’t know. But it’s very strange that we found a telepathic packet explaining that they had used a blink interdictor. Explaining pretty much only to you.

Ryouko made a face, which she assumed the alien surveillance wouldn’t be able to interpret.

More echoes of Akemi Homura, perhaps.

Perhaps. But it seems we’re out of time, for now.

Lush‐Botanist was calling them to the ship’s engine room. There was something time‐sensitive they wanted her to see.

Ryouko pulled herself up using one of the poles around her bedding, and strode purposefully out the door.

By this point she needed no direction, and veered past the medbay to the open doorway that led to the engine core. The closer she got, the brighter her soul gem glowed.

As she stepped to the threshold of the walkway that led to the core itself, an elegant spheroid suspended in its chamber, the ship addressed her:

μ·We are approaching the central galactic black hole, our pathway to Andromeda|μ+·You had requested to be present for transit events|ν·Apologies for interrupting your rest, but there is important information to convey

Before she could ask what the ship meant, she felt an incoming telepathic request—the ship was asking to share visual data.

When she assented, the room faded into the background, overlaid with a vision that left her dazzled—the stars and nebulae of the galactic core laid out across her field of vision, not just visible but labeled and cataloged, a deluge of information across her mind that even Clarisse struggled with.

Then the chaos pulled away, the telepathic link pulling her towards the object directly in front of them, approaching rapidly.

While the core was invisible in the EM spectrum, Sagittarius A☆ was positively luminescent in every other way, whether it be the multi‐solar‐system‐sized accretion disc that glowed burning hot, or the massive gravitational signature, or the effect it had on her soul gem. Regardless, the readouts made clear that the surrounding space was occupied, by an enormous wormhole stabilizer and all that accompanied it.

The ship answered the first questions that came to her mind.

μ·As an inspection ship we have right‐of‐transit here|μ+·We are not declaring you as a passenger|ν·I strongly advise refraining from any reality‐warping activities for now, to avoid detection|ξ·Your species' attack on the pulsar space‐time evulser has forced them to construct more defensive emplacements

Ryouko immediately clamped down on her soul gem emissions.

||ν?·Is that really a possibility| she thought.

||ν·Yes‒6%, if /Thinker‐preserving has developed improved reality‐distortion detection technology|

If they really had that kind of technology, they would be better at detecting our MagOps, Ryouko thought, keeping it to herself.

She still couldn’t help but feel a bit anxious, but as she paced around the engine room, they decloaked and were scanned by a patrol ship without incident, a variety of sensors passing over the surface of their ship with a sensation that she felt as a slight tingle.

According to Lush‐Botanist, she had a secondary stealth module, not the usual kind used for war: more of a smuggling device, suitable for concealing the passage of an unusual species. She could sense Clarisse furiously taking intelligence notes on every passive sensory channel she had.

Perhaps just as interesting was the idea that the aliens would even have a smuggling device, but as she had been learning, Cephalopod society was less totalitarian than she had expected—inter‐Tentacle agreements often allowed or assumed a certain degree of deception, especially if one side’s core values were at stake.

∈?·You said you are an inspection ship|∈?·Does inspection refer to the pref‐spec‐verification you mentioned earlier she asked.

The ship replied:

·Yes, though that is a functional status, not a description of my physical design|·Yes: both to confirm adherence to their binding‐preference‐alteration‐agreements with us, and to satisfy standard Consensus requirements upon /Thinker‐preserving

|?·You have agreements with /Thinker‐preserving

|∈·Many, covering sundry matters—such pref‐arb is common|∈·Regarding the conflict with your species, we pay them considerable resources in exchange for observance of certain moral customs—for example, not taking any prisoners

Ryouko boggled. It made a twisted sense, if you assumed your opponent had uploaded backups of their population. Indefinite imprisonment was cruel compared to losing a short span of memory, as /Ahimsa‐extending had previously seen it.

|·Inspection has been difficult, however, and we have lost several of our inspection ships to Human attacks throughout the war, starting from the very beginning and most recently at the pulsar|+·Your testimony will be essential evidence in proving the fraud against us we have long suspected

Ah, a more practical reason that they care, Clarisse thought.

Ryouko chewed on those words, as the black hole loomed larger and larger before them. It tugged at her, a sensation similar to Asami preparing a singularity, and the pulsar mines.

She did her best to swallow the sensation. Not now.

It wasn’t the black hole that held her attention now, but the circle of stars that loomed in front. Against the total darkness of the event horizon, it looked like a window to the stars.

Which it was, quite literally.

She was close enough to see the edges of the sphere pulsing, the ship’s core pulsing with it, and she could feel her soul gem trying to pulse in turn–though she was doing all she could to keep the light from streaming out.

At the same time, another thought had occurred to her:

She was going where no human had ever gone before. Was this not her wish?

So, did Nakihara‐san really say that she was shown Shizuki‐san was still alive? Mami asked. I know Chiyo‐san does her best, but the media can get a bit hyperbolic.

Yuma watched Kyouko react uncomfortably. She would have thought Kyouko was behind the stories in the MSY media about Nakihara Asami, but her reaction suggested otherwise. And Yuma considered herself very good at reading Kyouko.

It was relieving, actually. She really didn’t want to tell Arisu that Kyouko was having trouble accepting the death of her, and Mami’s, mentee.

She did, and I believe her, Kyouko replied finally, giving Yuma a narrow‐eyed look. She said some other things too.

Yuma winced inwardly.

She checked Mami’s face. Instead of reacting with polite skepticism, or the careful neutrality Yuma displayed herself, Mami appeared thoughtful, even accepting. Just how much had they gotten to her?

Well let’s hear it then, Mami thought, glancing back at Yuma. The details might be interesting.

Kyouko seemed reluctant to speak, almost like she was embarrassed.

And embarrassed she might well have been, given the spiel she then relayed, avoiding Yuma’s gaze the whole time. Asami claimed that Ryouko had made contact with some sort of “gentler” Cephalopods, and was, apparently, already cruising along with them through wormholes at the center of the Milky Way.

She had never heard a more fantastic set of claims, but there was a disturbing element to it: intelligence about a less genocidal group of aliens did exist, in the form of the recordings from the asteroid mission, but was classified beyond Asami’s reach. How then did she know about that?

It might have lent credibility to her claim, but as Yuma looked around at the others—Kyouko and Mami nodding along like they were discussing vital intelligence—it seemed all too possible that she had simply been told, or the information otherwise leaked. She would have expected more from her friends, but who knew what influence they were under?

No, she was overthinking it. Shizuki Ryouko knew about it, so did everyone with her at the pulsar when Yuma had sent the data. It would make perfect sense for Asami to know about.

She was grateful for that; the other possibilities were too unpleasant. She had contingency plans—Mami’s role in the military was too powerful to ignore the risk of compromise—but she preferred not to think in such directions.

She gathered herself. For now she had to focus on the threat in front of her—the mysterious Ribbon.

It had been moved out of its previous location—an unceremonious tent—while the Cult worked on reconstruction. Ostensibly, they wanted to build the old church back up again as soon as practicable, but the move also provided a convenient excuse for Kyouko to briefly close off access. The Cult had seemingly been very cooperative, even allowing Yuma to help design the interim Ribbon hall.

Yuma had set both mundane and magical equipment in place to examine the Ribbon, and was straining herself to detect what magic she could on it. Thus far, there had been nothing.

She still felt trepidation. She had always shunned coming here, worried about lending credence to Kyouko’s beliefs, and about what the trip might do to her. It was a fear that, in retrospect, made little sense. If the Ribbon were truly that dangerous, what had she been doing letting it lie at the heart of the MSY for twenty years? Her actions were inconsistent.

Had been. Now Mami had gotten sucked into all this. That made all fears more justified, but it was only proper that she finally trust in her friends’ abilities and at least take a look at the thing.

After plenty of screening.

I know what you’re thinking, Yuma‐chan, Mami thought, scrutinizing Yuma’s face. But I’m not crazy. Just take my word on that. Come on.

They both knew just those words wouldn’t be enough, but she stepped forward into the room anyway, keeping her metaphorical eyes peeled for any sign of trouble.

She found it immediately, the familiar white‐and‐red form of an Incubator resting on the transparent case containing the Ribbon, bypassing all of the shielding that Yuma knew to be there.

Yuma’s eyes darted around the hall, searching for any suspicious traces, magic or otherwise. There were a few rows of old‐fashioned, uncomfortable‐looking pews, with plain wood paneling that Kyouko had insisted on, and Yuma’s large, obtrusive metal surveillance equipment, glimmering with enchantment—but nothing that shouldn’t have been there.

Kyubey jumped to the floor, passing effortlessly through the shielding.

I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised to see you here, Yuma thought, as it moved in front of her feet, forcing Yuma to step around it as she approached the Ribbon.

It is useful to check in at times, the Incubator thought. Both on this artifact, and on you. My ability to predict you three’s behavior has been waning of late, and I do not wish to lose valuable contractees. But, I’m sure you’ve been scolded plenty.

It rubbed at its ear with a paw, one of the many mannerisms it had presumably copied from cats.

As for the artifact, well—who knows what you will see?

Yuma wondered at the strange comments—and then the world shifted.

In the literal blink of an eye she found herself outdoors, the glare of the sun pricking at her eyes.

She should have jumped immediately, evading faster than possible whatever force or magic had surprised her. Her magic should have ensured it—and if not that, her human side should have jumped in startlement.

Instead, nothing, which she found incredible even as she stood there, blinking.

Regardless of what she thought of the Ribbon, the immediate conclusion was obvious. Still, she exercised diligence, scanning everything about her surroundings as rapidly as possible: no, there was no sign of any teleportation magic or otherwise that had been applied to her, and yes, she was completely cut off from the network, and all telepathic connections, including the connections she had been maintaining to MG and Atsuko Arisu. In fact, all one hundred percent of her consciousness was present and centralized, which shouldn’t have been possible without her volition.

She also recognized where she was. These were the rooftops of old Mitakihara, the one of her childhood. She had run these routes often, with both of her childhood teams.

Though the exact place she was standing… she had rarely ever seen it from this angle. Here, next to a billboard that was usually a political ad, on top of a popular cake shop Yuma had often ogled from a distance—

It was the first place she had ever seen Mami, Homura, and Kyouko.

That meant…

She looked up, past the political billboard, towards the roof of the dance club across the street. There a woman stood, in a giant white dress—not the least practical costume Yuma had ever seen, but it didn’t miss by much.

The woman waved, and it seemed to Yuma that she was looking at an optical illusion—her mind insisted that the hair just kept going and going, but somehow it didn’t seem to block anything. And she couldn’t focus on the face.

She had learned as much as she could from just observing, she decided.

“I take it you’re this Goddess I’ve heard so much about,” she said, projecting her voice across the gap. “Don’t just nod along. I want to hear you say it.”

“I am the Goddess, yes,” the woman said, in a pleasant voice that carried suspiciously well. “Well, that’s what they call me. I haven’t really argued it, since it’s a reasonable way to interpret things. I would keep going, but you don’t really want to chat with me, right?”

Yuma did her best to conceal her reaction, both externally and internally—she had a carefully prepared plan for the scenario she found herself in, and one of the key points was to limit how much the “Goddess” could manipulate her—or “chat”, in her words.

“I want you to prove to me that you really can predict the future,” Yuma said, sticking to her memorized lines. “I’m not ordering you around, of course, but I think if you can prove yourself to me we’ll be more useful to each other.”

“I really prefer the more conversational approach,” the woman said, sounding genuinely disappointed.

Sparkles of light fell off her towards the ground. Yuma… didn’t think they were meant to represent tears. It didn’t matter—she wouldn’t budge.

“But I do understand,” the woman continued. “You know all too well how dangerous someone with future‐sight can be.”

That would have to count as an acceptance, Yuma thought.

“First, I want you to verify that you’re not Mikuni Oriko, nor some surviving plot of hers,” she said.

“She’ll be overjoyed to hear you still think so highly of her,” the woman said, “that such a possibility is yet worth ruling out. No, I am not.”

Indirectly verifying Mami’s claim to have spoken to Oriko, assuming any of this could be trusted, Yuma thought, before she could suppress it.

She couldn’t let her mind be led off‐track. It was tempting, so tempting to accept this entity’s friendly overtures, but there was no way she could trust apparent emotional cues under the circumstances.

The other woman brushed at her robes with one gloved hand, creating another distracting shower of light.

“Alright, well in that case,” Yuma said finally, “to probe exactly what kind of future‐sight or clairvoyance you possess, if any, I’ve arranged for a set of particle physics experiments to be performed before, during, and after my visit to your Ribbon. The results should exhibit pure quantum randomness, so no one should be able to predict the results, not to mention the experimental noise on top of that. Would you please provide the results of these experiments?”

The woman closed her eyes, smiling vaguely—or, that was the impression Yuma got, despite being unable to see her face properly.

“In all this time, I’ve never had anyone ask for anything so abstract, nor so loaded with physical implication. But even though I know you’ve thought about that, you ask for a lot more than you know, and I’m not going to say I’m happy about it.”

She paused, making sure Yuma absorbed those words, before continuing:

“However, if we’re going to do this, let me suggest an approach to you. I can provide much more detailed data than you have asked for, and I have the power to ensure that you remember what I say, no matter what. What do you think?”

Yuma found herself at a slight loss. She had contrived for the interpreted experimental results to be easy to remember even without implant support, a list of binary and categorical answers. She hadn’t anticipated a scenario like this. She was supposed to ignore all unnecessary proposals, but…

“If I decline?” she asked, tersely.

“Then I read out the simplified results to you, like you planned,” the woman said.

The easy answer was no, Yuma knew. But the truth was, she was interested in learning if the woman—the entity—could do what she claimed. The experimental design didn’t depend on Yuma remaining uncompromised—a wise precaution, considering that this “vision” apparently involved having her senses hijacked and her consciousness captured.

“I accept,” Yuma said.

Yuma heard the voice in her head then; the woman wasn’t even moving her lips. What she found imprinting itself on her mind was indeed elaborate, with full numerical precision and details. And though it shouldn’t have been possible, she could remember every last digit.

Yuma did her best to hide her surprise, keeping her face straight and focusing on her surroundings for a moment—the fluffy clouds, the smell of the bakery and fuel exhaust below. She realized that it wasn’t the full spectrum smell gifted to her by her military‐grade implants—it was the smell of memory, how it had smelled to her as a child.

No, it was better than mere memory.

“I have also set up an unrelated test,” Yuma said eventually, returning to her script. “I have asked various individuals I am working with to generate a set of secret code phrases, and would like you to tell me what these phrases are. If needed, I can tell you who they are or just how many there are.”

“No need,” the woman said instantly. “Here you go.”

She repeated the previous feat, words imprinting themselves on Yuma’s mind.

The woman was unnervingly confident, and Yuma could feel the doubt creep into her mind—not doubt in the woman, but doubt in herself. She had prepared practically for the scenario where the “Goddess” was everything Kyouko promised, but she was starting to realize she hadn’t prepared emotionally. The implications were massive.

She could still remember Homura telling her about the afterlife, when she was young and talk like that made her feel better, whether she believed it or not. She had thought she had left such things behind her.

Yuma clamped down on her thoughts then, aware she had leaked so, so much to any mind‐reader who might have breached her defenses. As this woman obviously had.

There was only one more test, perhaps the most creative one. There was a magical girl she trusted, Rose‐Merline Béliar, who claimed to be able to talk to furniture. Yuma had asked her to talk to a particular set of lava lamps in the near future, asking them about trivia. In principle, their responses would not only be unpredictable—they’d be a product of magic.

“Surprisingly sage replies for novelty furniture, if rather off‐topic,” the woman said, once the final answers were delivered. “Now, if we’ve taken care of business, I’d be glad to host you a while longer. Surely you can stay around a bit; I can transition us somewhere nice?”

“I’d like to leave,” Yuma said, shaking her head more forcefully than she’d intended. She had never had any intention of staying longer than she had to, and doubly so now—not until she had her thoughts sorted out.

The woman waved, as Yuma’s vision started to fade.

“Bye bye then. I do appreciate you showing up for my birthday parties!”

Yuma was left with the smell of cake in her nostrils.

The others around her hadn’t reacted yet—Kyouko in particular still had her head down in prayer—and a quick check showed that her external connections, telepathic or otherwise, were back online, and her consciousness was back to being distributed exactly as it had been before—which again, shouldn’t have been possible.

As tempting as it was to immediately send messages to everyone confirming their code words, she forbore. She needed to get out of the area and have herself aggressively screened first. The teams were already on standby.

She wouldn’t lie to Mami and Kyouko, but ideally that conversation could be held afterward—at least until they were away from Kyubey, whose smug impression seemed to suggest he knew exactly what had happened.

As if reading her mind, Kyouko stood up, glanced at Yuma, and reached for the Incubator.

“Alright, you little snoop, get out of here,” Kyouko said, picking the creature up by its front paws. “This is private business.”

How unpleasant, Kyubey thought. I would prefer to stay.

Yuma watched as Kyouko physically tossed the protesting Incubator out the door, which slid shut a moment later. Sure, it might listen in, but the Incubators generally respected being thrown out of places.

Kyouko clapped her hands together.

I can tell something happened, she thought.

Yuma, who hadn’t tried to hide anything, knew it was all over her face.

I was hoping to wait, she thought, sighing. But since you got rid of Kyubey, yes, sure, I admit it.

She took a moment to look over the others—Kyouko looked happy, almost eager, while Mami just looked relieved.

Then Yuma shrugged her shoulders, curling and uncurling the hair she was still keeping long.

I prepared for this contingency, she thought. And had a battery of questions ready. After this, I’m going to go verify what I can. Here.

Now that everything was over, it didn’t hurt to share the protocol with Kyouko, so to speak, leaving out the actual questions and responses.

The girl snorted a moment later.

I don’t know how offended the Goddess was by all this, but I am offended for Her, Kyouko thought. I wouldn’t like being interrogated by someone I’m trying to help.

I didn’t get the impression that she would be bothered by that kind of thing, Mami thought, shrugging. Though I thought I got harsher treatment…

And that was all I did, Yuma thought. I asked her to keep it short. If all works out, I’ll come back later.

Kyouko’s face scrunched up, and she opened her mouth to say something further, but they were interrupted by a scratching noise at the door.

I do have more business with you three, if I’m not interrupting, Kyubey thought.

Kyouko and Yuma glanced at each other.

It was nothing important, Kyouko thought. Let’s see what the little snitch wants.

The Incubator bounded into the room as soon as it slid open, settling into a slow walk.

You threw me out before I could suggest it, but I was going to offer to go check if Shizuki Ryouko was really where Nakihara Asami claimed her to be, Kyubey thought, coming to a stop in front of Mami.

We never previously thought information from alleged visions very credible, it continued, but recent events have given us pause.

Where Nakihara Asami claimed her to be? Kyouko asked, before either of the others could react. That hasn’t been reported anywhere. Just what have you been up to?

It was mentioned to me by Simona del Mago, Kyubey thought, tilting its head. After all, we are a party capable of rendering certain kinds of assistance.

They took a moment to digest that, before Kyouko continued:

What’s stopping you then? Why are you even asking? I can’t say I’m a fan of you getting involved in our business.

Indeed, Kyubey thought, licking one of its paws. That is one of the reasons for delay. I thought you would appreciate being asked. More importantly, though, performing this check would cost a meaningful amount of energy. If we were to report the result to you, we would want compensation.

Compensation, hm? Mami echoed.

By this point they had been around the Incubators enough to know what they meant—but also that it was never wise to put words in an Incubator’s mouth. They were all too happy to let you think you were right. Better to make them say it.

Yes, the Incubator acknowledged. Both of us are well aware of the value of the information. In exchange, we would like access to whatever information you have on Akemi Homura and those who may be working with her.

Yuma observed the surprise on the others’ faces. It wasn’t a completely unprecedented offer; ever since the MSY had shown itself to be an organization of value, the Incubators had made a great show of respecting their practices, or at least pretending to. On rare occasions, they made offers like this, trading something of small value in exchange for a peek at the MSY’s secrets.

But it was usually small, so small that it was difficult to be certain if the Incubators really cared about either side of the deal, or were just putting up an act. For them to barter information of real value meant they might really care.

It bothers you that Homura has been able to hide from you, Yuma thought.

There was a lengthy pause before Kyubey replied.

Yes, it bothers us, it thought.

Well, I might just have to give Homura some credit, then, Yuma thought. But snide comments aside, I think we can consider your offer. It’s only fair that we take some time to review just what kind of information we’d be parting with.

Of course, the Incubator said.

It sat down on the carpet, looking up at the three of them expectantly, before Kyouko picked it up again and headed for the door.

I still don’t think this is called for, it protested, as Kyouko set it down outside the door, gently this time.

Yuma waited a beat, taking the time to check on her arrangements. She had placed security teams around the site, with the job of screening the area for anyone, magical or not, trying to probe their location. Several sweeps had already come back clean, but she knew better than to trust that—the sweeps would continue for a while yet.

That reminded her that she had something else to talk about.

Look, regardless of what comes of my experiments, she began, turning towards Mami. I have to warn you that your recent changes in military policy haven’t gone unnoticed. Kuroi Kana already has her suspicions, and doubtless Governance does too. If anyone were to put the pieces together between that and your visits here…

I’ve thought of that, Mami thought, cracking a slightly crooked smile. I haven’t done anything I couldn’t otherwise justify. It would be a problem if someone tried to draw the real connections, but it’s all deniable.

I’m not sure about that— Yuma began.

She paused, pointing at her ear to signal an urgent incoming call. The most recent security sweep had reported back.

“We have a perimeter breach,” one of her security teams sent.

Yuma froze in place, reaching a part of her mind out to assess the situation.

One of them had found something—no, someone—trying to conduct an active magical scan of the area. Was it possible after all that this “Goddess” was a fake?

That thought died the instant she heard the voice.

“No, no, sorry!” Chiyo Rika said, her voice coming through the comms. “You got me! Well played.”

Yuma released an audible groan.

What is it? Kyouko asked, nudging Yuma with an elbow.

Yuma sent her and Mami a rapid summary of the situation, and Kyouko echoed her groan seconds later.

“Yes that’s right, leave her be,” Yuma transmitted. “We’ll deal with her separately.”

She could only imagine the grumbling that would cause, but Rika was special. Rika could make them pay for any overzealousness.

Not to mention, there had to be something else going on here. Rika had apparently chosen to surveil them herself—one of the only ways their security could have been broken—but that meant she already knew something was up. How?

At least they would have their chance to find out. Rika had already sent the meeting invite. She just hoped it wouldn’t be too bad.

A few hours later, they made their way to the meeting site, a nearby MSY location that Rika had chosen as neutral grounds.

Maison Yuno had been founded in 2130, during the height of the MSY’s pre‐Unification Wars years. On the outside, it had been a standard posh, somewhat European‐style eatery, exclusive enough to feature known chefs and require connections to get in, but careful never to become too notable.

On the inside, of course, it was an MSY hideaway, used to hold get‐togethers and meetings in a secure, deniable location, whenever a standard office building wouldn’t have been appropriate and a working dinner or lunch was.

“You’ve had this place secured, I trust,” Yuma asked, a moment after they stepped through the door of their private room.

“As have you,” Rika said. “Not that anyone would dare. I have my connections here.”

“But you checked anyway,” Yuma said.

“But I checked anyway,” Rika confirmed.

Yuma took a seat across from Rika, politely partaking of the fried yuca sticks already in place in front of her.

There was a further exchange of pleasantries—a passing of food, some courteous questions, Kyouko working her way rapidly through the yuca sticks—all while they read as much as they could off of each other, which frankly wasn’t much. They had been political allies once, back when that had meant quite a bit—but that was centuries ago, and these were contentious days.

“Alright, Chiyo‐san, let’s not drag this out,” Mami said finally. “What’s the meaning of you spying on us? How much did you see?”

Rika crossed her arms, meeting Mami’s gaze.

Finally, Rika spoke.

“It’s in the public interest to know what’s going on with that Ribbon. You know that the perpetrators of the recent attacks posted claims online that the Ribbon is corrupting the core of the MSY leadership.”

“Surely you don’t believe that,” Kyouko said, visibly, and deliberately, rolling her eyes.

“Of course not, but it’s making waves in the more conspiratorial tendrils of the Grapevine, and it’s spreading by word‐of‐mouth among the general public too. So it’s in our interest to dispel what we can. There’s only more buzz now after my story about Nakihara‐san. So, you can imagine what we thought when we heard Ribbon visitation was shut down for ‘reconstruction’, and my girl on‐site started reporting they couldn’t breach the privacy screen.”

There was so much that could be said to that, Yuma thought. The foremost of which was “How does that give you the right to breach the privacy screen?” But the confrontational approach had never worked with Rika. Her views were her views, and you found a way to either work with her or fight with her. Her time as Speaker had only made that tendency worse.

And in this case, Rika had the strong hand. They all knew it.

“It is precisely because of the claims Nakihara‐san made that we are here,” Mami said, closing her eyes for a moment. “You know I have never been one to put much stock into what comes out of the Cult, but have your sources told you about the details? Not just that Shizuki‐san is alive, but all the other critical information. About her making contact with a supposed alien faction, one that is perhaps interested in diplomacy? Such a thing could change the course of the war, if true. I had to see for myself.”

One might think that Mami was being reckless, leaking so many details, but they had already agreed to say this much; they wouldn’t mind reading about it in the news tomorrow, even if it raised questions about their ability to keep Governance secrets.

Plus, Rika could perhaps be convinced to keep the secret herself, and it gave them an avenue to gauge her reactions.

“That’s why it had to be done quietly,” Mami continued. “That, and the rumors you’ve been talking about. None of this information is certain, and if Yuma and I appeared to be putting our approval on what comes out of the Cult…”

She let her voice trail off there, assessing Rika’s reaction. The woman’s face had clouded at the mention of an alien faction, and she was clearly considering the matter. No Ancient was easy to read, but to Yuma it seemed Rika genuinely hadn’t known, and was thinking hard about it.

That raised Yuma’s optimism, just a little.

“Important information, if true,” Rika said finally, putting a hand to her chin to make a pensive gesture. “But obviously only if true. I can certainly see why you held onto it. But what did you find out in the end? Do you put stock in it?”

It should have been very easy to lie. They had considered it: they could just say that they were seeing if there was anything to Kyouko’s claims, and thus far they hadn’t found anything. It wouldn’t be wholly convincing—why did both Mami and Yuma need to be there?—but it would be difficult to prove otherwise. From there it would just be a matter of convincing Rika not to run with the unverified information Mami had just discussed.

But if they lied and Rika knew it, it would alienate her—and frankly, she probably wouldn’t believe the lie. Better to tell her at least some of the truth.

“We didn’t receive any specific verification of Nakihara‐san’s claims,” Mami said. “But it’s become clear to me that the Ribbon is a magical artifact of some potency. I wouldn’t rule out its potential accuracy.”

Rika sighed, rubbing her forearm with one hand.

“I appreciate the honesty, so I’ll return some of my own. It’ll save us time anyway. Your privacy screens were pretty good, but I’ve honed my clairvoyance more than you know. I only just managed to intercept anything, but I did catch the fact that Mami‐san is concealing Ribbon influence on some of her decision‐making.”

She turned her head away.

“To be clear, I don’t like revealing personal information, particularly embarrassing information, just for the equivalent of a gossip column, but I think people have a right to know if the Chair of the General Staff is making decisions based on alleged Ribbon visions. Especially given the recent allegations and conspiracy theories.”

Just like that, the stakes became clear.

Mami didn’t attempt to hide her dismay, which would have been pointless. Instead she crossed her arms and closed her eyes.

“As I said, the Ribbon has some clear potency, and yes, I have experienced what seemed to be a vision. Some of the information I received from that, and from a vision of Shizuki Ryouko’s, has already proved credible. Nakihara‐san’s claims about the Cephalopods are also more grounded than they sound, in light of other non‐public information derived from the recent incident near Yenisei. I could get you an off‐the‐record look—you would see that preparing for the possibility of communication with the Cephalopods is perfectly reasonable. In fact, I made that decision well before Nakihara‐san’s vision, and independently from the Ribbon. The chain‐of‐inference on that is a matter of official record.”

“I am here because I agreed to help test the magical qualities of the Ribbon,” Yuma said, making sure Mami didn’t sink alone. “That is what all the equipment is about, if you saw that. While I believed what Mami‐san said, we agreed it would be useful to make sure everything checks out. I should even be able to measure the accuracy of some predictions.”

In fact, most of those predictions had already been verified, pending only a few particle physics experiments that were still being performed. But she certainly wasn’t going to reveal that to Rika just yet—better if she thought they still needed time.

As for the implications thereof… it seemed Homura was more sane than she had ever thought.

“It’s not like they’re members of the Church or anything,” Kyouko complained, completing the trio. “If anything, they don’t give the Goddess anywhere near enough respect.”

“What are you afraid of?” Rika asked, almost before Kyouko finished speaking. “You can guess what my position is, but if I understood what exactly the concern was, I might be able to help ameliorate things. Just implying to me my story might be bad for the MSY isn’t going to cut it.”

“We’ve discussed some of the implications amongst ourselves,” Yuma said. “We’re not ready for public disclosure. If this is made public, the ideas and rumors it would start might be a tidal wave, and all we’d have to counter with is Mami‐san’s word and a few of my measurements.”

“As I said, I’ve done little that would be unreasonable given existing evidence,” Mami said. “But appearances matter. My position on the General Staff is crucial for the credibility of the MSY as a whole. We have expended a great deal of effort building relationships and trust with the military and Governance, and I wouldn’t want it thrown away.”

Rika pursed her lips, taking a moment to think.

“I understand,” she said. “But if the issue is one of managing the implications and maintaining trust, then I don’t think this is so serious it cannot be managed with a bit of planning. You mentioned taking measurements, Chitose‐san?”

“Yes,” Yuma answered. “I have a few teams working on it, as you saw, as well as some magical and mundane instrumentation. That still needs some more time to fully work out. It’d be a lot of detail to go into, but…”

“I would want to know at least some of the details, yes,” Rika said, anticipating the point.

She took a breath.

“Look, I don’t want to seem unreasonable. I haven’t heard enough to make me want to keep your secret, but I’m not going to dump this on you wantonly. I’ll hold on to it for a week, make sure you get to say your piece in the story, and be sympathetic. If you want to disclose everything yourself or hold a press conference, we can coordinate timing, as long as you don’t preempt me.”

It was a reasonable offer, provided they accepted the fundamental concession Rika was proposing, of abandoning secrecy.

“Give us a moment,” Yuma said, tilting her head toward the others to signal they needed to confer.

We would have had to go public about it at some point anyway, Mami thought, without turning her head.

I know, but in a week? I would have preferred a year, Yuma thought. As I said earlier, I want the situation to calm down a bit first.

It could be worse. I still think it would be better to drop this news while everyone is still shocked from the TCF breach and everything else going on, Mami thought.

We don’t need another PR hit after the clones thing, Yuma thought. Governance might use this to distract from the TCF breach.

And we can make sure that doesn’t happen, Mami thought. A week is plenty of time to negotiate. We can probably massage this into something neutral. After all, if we’re right, it’s good news for the war.

That’s if nothing else happens, Yuma thought. We won’t have control of the situation.

Can we honestly say we do even now? Kyouko thought. We’ve lived with crazier shit than this. I know what you both think of the Church, but we can be ready to do a positive PR push, all positive anecdotes and stories. Try to make ourselves look better, since y’all are going to be dragged in with us. More to the point, do we really have a choice?

They didn’t; the rest was prevarication.

“Fine, we accept your terms,” Yuma said.

Clarisse van Rossum had never been a fan of the Mitakihara Armory.

Was it conveniently located, just underground of central Mitakihara? Yes. Was it a major Church of Hope hub, complete with a well‐populated dormitory and plenty of amenities? Yes.

But she was far past the target age group—speaking conservatively—and, more importantly, she just wasn’t a fan of underground bunkers. This one had been scooped out of the earth as part of Governance’s hurried early war fortification efforts, and all the renovations since had failed to really hide that. As someone who had more experience with underground bunkers than most living, she didn’t care to be reminded of the experience.

Which was part of why it was so galling that the Church had been forced to the Armory, occupying a section of the dormitory block.

As she stepped inside, she took a moment to inspect the drawings pinned to the tunnel walls, a reliable indicator of the mood of local residents. There were depictions of the recent battle near the pulsar, paeans to the recent dead, and a few drawings of Shizuki Ryouko, very much alive.

She stepped inside, scooting out of the way of a passing drone, a small flat platform trudging along on eight mechanical legs, bearing a large potted ficus on top. They were very popular among local residents, wired into and capable of responding to the needs of the plants themselves, which was reasonably charming until you found a pair of them shoving each other over access to the best light.

She frowned, taking a moment to trawl through her thoughts. No, that wasn’t her own nostalgia, but someone else’s, a ghost memory seeping in from her magic.

She took a moment to savor it, honoring the dead in one of the ways only she could.

Then she pressed onward, past the new passive security checkpoint and a pair of girls who were politely staring, then through Kyouko’s already open office door, which slid closed a second later.

Her eye lingered on a framed drawing mounted on the wall–abstract specks of colored light on a dark background, signed “Kishida Maki”.

Then she turned towards Kyouko, who was seated in a cushioned chair away from her desk, one leg draped over an armrest, eyes flickering over something unseen.

“Some very interesting things in the news nowadays,” Kyouko said, without preamble.

“Indeed,” Clarisse said. “Almost too much to go through. In other times, a lot of this news would be the big news of the day. Instead, it’s just another bombshell to the pile. For some of these, that might even be a good thing.”

For instance, the true story of how Yuma had killed Oriko was setting parts of the internet astir, but not much more than that. Given how much she knew Yuma hated being laid bare to the public like that, she could only imagine she was breathing a sigh of relief.

Kyouko smiled crookedly.

“I don’t think this one will be going away so easily,” she said.

Clarisse smiled thinly, strolling over to the chair in front of Kyouko’s desk, even if Kyouko wasn’t currently seated behind it.

“You mean Mami and Yuma receiving visions from the Goddess,” she said. “Yes, given the implications for the war effort, I can’t imagine that smoothing over quite so easily.”

She paused for a moment.

“I can only assume you’ve talked it over with them. They’ll have to be ready to handle the reputation hit. Some of us have suffered much worse.”

She knew Kyouko caught the point—some of them, like Nadya, had died recently. Next to that…

“They’ll deal with it,” Kyouko said briskly. “They’re old enough for that. Far more important will be the Church’s policy moving forward. All of this will bring a lot more publicity down on our heads, good and bad, and the crux of it will be how we present our Goddess.”

Clarisse met Kyouko’s gaze, letting a rhetorical beat pass. They both knew the real contours of this conversation: tomorrow the Theological Council would meet and discuss the future of the Church.

“Many on the Council will want to use the opportunity to evangelize,” Clarisse said. “They will not care so much what the mundane world as a whole thinks of us, as long as there are some mages who will be convinced to give us a try. Montalcini already thinks our current approach is too quiet. She will say that this news is a sign of the Goddess’s intent to be known, that she has finally blessed us with credible proof of her existence. We can seal the deal with a generation of converts when Shizuki Ryouko returns.”

“And what do you think?” Kyouko asked.

“That if the Goddess truly cared about racking up believers she’d make it a bit more obvious than this,” Clarisse said. “I know her better than most, and there’s always an angle—some way of looking at it—that leads to the general good. The way this played out suggests that she thinks there’s something important for the public to know, not that she wants more followers.”

“It’d be pretty obvious what that would be then, right?” Kyouko said. “She wants the world to know about Ryouko and the other aliens. That has to be it. It’s easy to see why that could be important.”

“I agree,” Clarisse said.

Kyouko dropped her leg, leaning back into her chair for a few seconds. A robot skittered out of a tube at the foot of the wall, bearing a tray from which she grabbed a chocolate wafer on a plate.

“It’s not just that, I think,” she said, tapping the wafer against the side of the plate. “I don’t believe we should just be a reflection of the Goddess’s intent. I don’t think She even wants that of us. We should be trying to make our own impression on the world—and if we really screw it up somehow, She’ll work around us.”

“That’s your opinion, yes,” Clarisse said. “There are some on the Council who would disagree. The wisdom of relying on the Goddess to bandage up our mistakes is, perhaps, unclear.”

Kyouko rolled her eyes.

“Spare me. I know you agree with me. You have a better insight into the Goddess than anyone. Almost anyone.”

“Well, what is the impression you want to make, then?” Clarisse asked, brushing aside the context. “That’s where this is going, isn’t it?”

“Right,” Kyouko said, clenching and unclenching one hand. “I didn’t found this Church just to spread the good news of the Goddess, but to try and do some good, especially after the early war. It was the only thing any of us could do, try to tinker around the edges. You get more done than getting yourself killed at the front, but not a ton more than that. Now we have the chance to do much more than that.”

Clarisse tilted her head slightly.

“You want to try to end the war.”

“The information in the recent visions is quite clear,” Kyouko said. “If you wanted to, you could view it in despair—that the aliens are intergalactic, that they have colonized the Sagittarius black hole, that they have more resources than we could ever imagine—but that’d be a useless way to look at it. A species with internal politics is one that can be negotiated with, maybe even made friends with. If we can just push the assholes in front of us out of the way. I’ve spoken with Mami; her thinking is the same.”

“Not an easy proposition,” Clarisse pointed out immediately, having already thought about the matter. “At the moment we have no clear way of reaching these other aliens, no way of knowing what they want, and no way of contacting Shizuki Ryouko. There’s no obvious way forward.”

“But that doesn’t mean there’s nothing we can do,” Kyouko said. “We can prepare the ground, make sure we’re ready when the opportunity comes, and it will come, or else there’s no reason the Goddess would do any of this.”

She paused, making sure Clarisse was following, then continued.

“That means taking Yuma‐chan’s data, convincing whoever we can that what we know is valid, that Ryouko is alive, and that Mami is not crazy to be studying the aliens more carefully and preparing for diplomacy. At the very least, we can convince Governance to take the possibility seriously. After all, it’s not like the vision is the only evidence—the data from the asteroid implies much the same thing.”

Clarisse considered the matter for a moment.

“So in the short term, that actually doesn’t look much different from evangelization, just with a different ultimate goal, and differently textured arguments. We will still have to convince Nakihara‐san to work with us, for instance.”

“Yes, but we won’t focus on just magical girls, like some on the Council want. Our mundane relations, and our relations with Governance, will be important. And for that, we have a trump card.”

Clarisse raised an eyebrow.

“And what would that be?”

Kyouko leaned over.

“Did you know that a Version Two Tactical Computer, built into the spine of a magical girl, is capable of receiving visions?”

Asami really didn’t want to see Ryouko’s parents right now.

Walking up to two people who clearly loved Ryouko deeply, who had been mourning their child for over a week, and telling them that actually, according to “a vision” you had received from “a Goddess” of a cult they distrust, Ryouko was still alive—and no, there’s no physical proof whatsoever…

It was almost an unbearable notion.

But when Tomoe Mami herself showed up at her door and broached the notion—ever so carefully, it was all her choice—she could see the painful logic, the necessity of it.

She didn’t really have a choice. She had lived with Kuroi Nakase, had been treated like a daughter, had watched her try and flip eggs for them. There were obligations, especially considering what she had done to her own family. Now that Ryouko was alive again, the universe was no longer in debt to her—perhaps the opposite.

Mami had been careful not to frame it that way, but Asami understood what was unsaid. In the end, Ryouko’s parents had loved her for fifteen years, and they deserved to know if their daughter was still alive.

More practically—and this Mami had pointed out—given the rumors spreading through and from the Cult, there was a need to prevent some kind of unfortunate incident involving Ryouko’s parents, however that might arise.

So she found herself standing nervously outside one of Mitakihara’s skyscrapers, gathering herself on the arrival pad before heading up to Shizuki Kuma’s apartment. The walk was short, only a dozen feet or so to the doorway, then a brief ride up the already‐waiting elevator, but the others had decided to wait here to give Asami a chance to catch her breath, so to speak.

Those with her were MSY royalty: Tomoe Mami and Sakura Kyouko. Mami seemed a bit tense, in a bit of a hurry—or maybe it was her imagination.

Kyouko showed the most emotion, tapping her fist against the glass‐and‐steel railing rhythmically, the distant sun visible only as shimmer through all buildings and skyways around them.

On the ride over, Kyouko had explained that she was the one who had first introduced Ryouko’s contract to her parents. Asami could understand not wanting to see them again under the circumstances.

It still felt strange to her, being around these people as if they were her mentors, but she was important too, now.

That was what she told herself, at least.

“Ready to go?” Mami asked, finally.

Asami felt a jolt of nervousness, but nodded anyway. She was as ready as she was ever going to be.

They made their way into the building, and she found herself glad that the hallways were deserted.

Ryouko’s father stood up to greet them at the door as they arrived.

“Thanks for having us here at a time like this,” Mami said, bowing slightly.

Kuma nodded, pointing the group towards the sitting room, where Nakase was already seated, watching them over a cup of tea. She nodded at Asami as they met eyes.

“Good to see you again,” Nakase said.

“Good to see you,” Asami echoed.

She also greeted Ryouko’s grandfather, Kuroi Abe, who evidently had leave to be here for the funeral.

Lovely, even more relatives to embarrass herself in front of.

They took their seats, and all except Kyouko politely demurred the offer of synthesized cookies.

“Alright,” Mami began, once they had settled down. “Let’s begin. There’s no need to make this more complicated than it has to be.”

There was a long beat of silence.

“Go ahead,” Kuma said, holding his own cup of tea in both hands.

He cast a glance at Asami, and she could feel his curiosity. Neither he nor Nakase had likely worked out what this was about, or what it had to do with her.

“We’re here because you’re very soon going to start hearing people from the Cult of Hope claiming that your daughter, Shizuki Ryouko‐san, is still alive,” Mami said. “This won’t just be the usual social media noise you can filter out, but something more serious and ongoing. As you may know, the members of the Cult occasionally receive what they claim to be prophetic visions. Recently, there’s been one that claims your daughter is alive, and this information has already leaked into rumor and media. We thought it would be unconscionable not to warn you about this in advance.”

Asami couldn’t help but shrink into her seat as the two parents reacted, first with shock, then with confusion and wariness, glancing back and forth between everyone involved.

“It would also be remiss of me not to mention that I have had a vision myself,” Mami said. “So I can vouch for their likely veracity. That too will be in the news soon enough.”

It was an impressive show of composure, delivering incredible‐sounding information in a perfectly serious tone.

Kuma’s face had frozen into a mask of incredulity, but Nakase seemed to take in the message, blinking a few times. For his part, Abe seemed merely thoughtful.

“You mean Ribbon visions?” Nakase said emptily. “Ryouko‐chan had told me she had a couple, though only some of the details. Asami too…”

She looked towards Asami, whose eyes widened.

Kuma cut in before either of them could say anything.

“The Cult talked up quite a storm about saving us all when Prometheus was attacked, so I learned a bit about these vision claims,” he said. “To be frank, I’ve been pretty skeptical. Besides that, no one ever told me Ryouko‐chan claimed any visions herself, nor did I think someone as senior as Tomoe‐san was involved in any of that.”

Mami absorbed the sharp look, then replied:

“Well, I wasn’t. But besides the personal experience, I have evidence that at least some visions are quite true, and that includes what happened at Prometheus. We even have experimental evidence, if you’d care to review it. But the most important thing here is probably the source of the vision claiming your daughter to be alive, Nakihara‐san here.”

It took a few seconds for the parents to absorb that last fact.

“Experimental evidence, that’s a new one,” Abe said. “None of my Cult member friends seem to have much of the sort.”

He shrugged, a bit sheepishly, at the expressions of surprise from Ryouko’s parents.

“I’ve had my share of contact with the Cult while in the military,” he said. “Some of the devout ones have very interesting stories. Actually, a couple have already reached out to me claiming Ryouko‐chan was alive, but, well, I didn’t take them seriously. I’m sorry, but the ridiculous rumors about Ryouko‐chan sometimes… I thought this was just more of the same.”

Nakase turned back towards Mami.

“Well, we will definitely want to take you up on your offer of evidence, but…”

She looked inquiringly at Asami, who took a breath. They had agreed that Asami wouldn’t have to say anything, but Asami found herself holding her hand up to stop Mami from speaking for her.

“No, I’ll do it,” she said. “If I’m going to believe it, I need to act like I do, not hide in a corner.”

She wasn’t really sure if she believed that, and she could read the skepticism on the others’ faces, but Mami nodded.

“Alright. I’m not sure I agree with that reasoning, but it is probably better if you say it.”

“There’s always been a Goddess, or something, who shows up to talk to us—me and Ryouko—whenever we visit the Ribbon in the Cult headquarters. Both of us have talked to her, and she’s quite powerful. Ryouko said she claimed to be behind a lot of things, particularly related to her. She had good evidence too. We never really talked about it in that much detail with you, because well, Ryouko never seemed comfortable with it.”

She could feel Nakase’s eyes on her, and she didn’t look up. It wasn’t as if they had lied, not really.

“I’d be lying if I said I didn’t know there was more going on,” Nakase said. “But it seemed better not to ask. So, this woman told you Ryouko‐chan is still alive, and you believed her? I think the details are important here.”

Asami felt herself tensing up, and took a breath to calm herself.

“She’s apparently ended up on an alien ship, heading through a wormhole in the galactic core,” Asami said. “Supposedly, these aliens are ‘gentler’.”

“Ceph, gentle?” Kuma asked, with plenty of skepticism in his voice. “No, before that, you say they took her on a ship?”

“Before that, should we believe it?” Nakase asked. “I’m… I don’t want to get my hopes up for something like this. Why would you even tell me something like this? What am I supposed to do now?”

The suddenly angry tone of her voice tore into Asami, leaving her briefly speechless as she bit back a wave of emotion. What kind of response was that?

A response she recognized, she thought. That exact thought had been in her mind when she had first talked with Simona.

“I’ve looked into the topic a bit myself,” Abe said, looking at his daughter. “Claimed visions rarely prove to be wrong, but they’re also rarely falsifiable to start with. What Mami‐san and Nakihara‐san are talking about seems different. I—”

He seemed to think better of what he was about to say, stopping there.

“I can’t honestly tell you if you should believe it,” Mami said, intervening. “We just thought you should know, and that this was the superior option to letting you hear about it from some well‐meaning acquaintance or a stranger on the street. It might have been better if none of this had gotten out at all, but the media got hold of it. At that point the choice was made.”

Kyouko cleared her throat, interjecting into the conversation for the first time.

“I’m sorry about that,” she said. “The reporter was literally hanging around outside, we couldn’t stop them from learning what had happened with Nakihara‐san. We might have considered releasing the news anyway, but we would have at least told you first.”

There were a few moments of silence.

“You all believe it,” Kuma said.

“Yes,” Mami and Kyouko said, almost simultaneously.

“Yeah,” Asami echoed.

“We’re still going to attend the funeral, with your permission,” Mami said, “and we won’t undermine it or let the media derail it. After that, how much you want to hear from us is up to you.”

Ryouko’s parents mulled over that, but Nakase spoke first.

“Do you think it would be possible to see one of these supposed visions? We could pay a visit to the Ribbon ourselves, and take a look.”

Mami looked at Kyouko, who visibly grimaced.

“Even if I could tell you who the Goddess will and won’t see, which I can’t,” she said, “every vision so far has involved a magical girl. In fact, our current rules bar non‐magical girls. I could probably push through a special case for you pretty easily, given, um, your past, but I honestly wouldn’t expect anything.”

There was a moment of silence.

“This has just made everything much harder than it was before,” Nakase said. “But… I don’t know. Should I feel hope? I don’t think you know the answer to that.”

She turned to Asami.

“Will you still be going to the funeral?” she asked. “I can imagine it would be difficult to sit through, but I can’t imagine—”

“Yes, I will,” Asami blurted out. “I don’t want to give anyone the wrong impression. I’ll just… sit in the back and not say anything.”

In truth, until that moment she hadn’t been able to make up her mind if she wanted to go.

Nakase seemed to consider the matter for a moment, then put the tea she had not been drinking aside.

She glanced at Kuma, clearly exchanging some kind of message with him.

“Well, we can look over the supposed experimental evidence in a bit, once you send us the files, but for now—”

She looked pointedly at Asami.

“—you say you had a vision about Ryouko‐chan. Why don’t you tell us about it. All the details.”

Asami sucked in a breath.

“Alright,” she said.

Finally, an update had arrived in Simona’s case.

Simona knew what the hold‐up had been, of course. Clarisse van Rossum had kindly informed her.

Normally, crimes as straightforward as hers—dereliction of duty, insubordination, and several counts of assault, all well‐attested—would be tried and judged by the appropriate AIs within days. Governance prided itself on its efficiency, after all. Unfortunately, her case had been caught in a bit of political tug‐of‐war.

Matters of military law involving magical girls were the province of the Special MSY Military Law and Code of Conduct, whose provisions were the subject of constant supervision and negotiation by the General Staff and an MSY liaison. The compromise was that, generally speaking, Governance could fine, demote, and revoke privileges to its heart’s content, while the MHD remained in charge of rehabilitation.

In this case, however, Governance’s view was that the MSY had handled Simona rather poorly—both with regard to her information about the TCF breach and her placement into the pulsar mission. They were thus unwilling to let the MSY take clear control of her again. Not without further assurances, at least.

She had been summoned in‐person to Mitakihara’s MSY district, to a nondescript low‐level floor labeled on her map only as “administrative”. There, she would meet with the MSY liaison, who would update her on her case and when she could expect her sentencing. She would be assigned a magical girl escort for the trip, naturally, and the message had gone on to remind her that Governance and the MSY reserved the power to use coercive force and mind‐reading at any time.

But she was used to all that, she thought, as she stepped into the polished marbled entryway of whatever building this was, silently shadowed by her escort. She hoped she was at peace with it.

The woman who appeared on the other side of the atrium seemed to have gone out of her way to fulfill every stereotype of a pre‐Unification Wars lawyer. Her appearance was naggingly familiar, though, and unless Simona missed her guess…

“Shizuki Ume, at your service,” the woman said, bowing in her direction. “I’ve been advocating for you with Governance.”

Ah, of course, Simona thought, verifying the woman’s assertion on her nomenclator. No way Ryouko’s relatives would stay out of this.

This one wasn’t a magical girl, though.

The woman gestured at her to follow her into the building, handing her a tablet as they turned to walk. Simona could see at a glance that it displayed her personal information, the details of her situation, and what seemed like references to legal documentation for the MSY and Governance. Nothing she didn’t already know.

“I’m sorry for the delay,” the woman said. “The world has been in quite the uproar recently, of course, but that’s no excuse. I hope you’ll find that the outcome is worth the wait—I fought hard for it, given your unfortunate circumstances.”

“My unfortunate circumstances,” Simona repeated, displeased.

“Yes,” Ume said. “Multiple of them. You were rushed into service without proper training or acclimatization to military command structure. You were deliberately assigned to a girl you were in love with, compromising your judgment. And then you were deployed into combat! That was outright illegal, you know. The Special Magical Girl Conscription Act is very clear in specifying a minimum of thirteen years of age for combat involvement—there’s no exception for girls who had their mental development accelerated. There’s clear precedent in several cases dating back to just after the Unification Wars.”

Simona raised an eyebrow, taking in the barrage of words.

“I don’t believe any of that is mitigating, but I can swallow my pride, I suppose,” she said, trying to ignore the usage of past tense regarding Ryouko. At least the woman was astute enough not to offer her condolences.

“You claimed there was good news?”

“Yes,” the woman said. “You’ll see, once we get to our destination.”

Simona waited for the conversation to continue, then decided she was fine with the silence. They couldn’t be that far away, or they would have landed on a different floor, or at least taken an elevator.

Indeed, it was only twenty seconds later that they stepped through an open doorway, and Simona was forced to raise an eyebrow at the occupant—well, avatar of an occupant.

“Hello again,” Chitose Yuma said.

It took Simona a moment to confirm who she was looking at, doublechecking with her nomenclator. Yuma wasn’t in her usual form, the form Simona had met in the catacombs of Paris, but one at least five years older. Though, in her current state, post‐pulsar mission, Simona was still the physical elder—for as much as that mattered.

Perhaps the MSY had won control over her after all. But why was Chitose here personally? The last time they had met, Simona had had cards to play—this time around, she didn’t know that she had anything the woman wanted. Perhaps she held a grudge? Simona had, after all, all but betrayed their previous deal.

She didn’t get ahead of herself, waiting for Ume to take a seat and gesture her into a chair as well. She had been told there was good news. In situations like this it was better to take your time, using the silence to think and prepare yourself.

The party with the stronger hand often uses silence as a rhetorical weapon, to elicit a reaction they can use to gain even further control. This, at least, you can deny them.

Lessons from her training. Akemi Homura’s lessons, though she hated to acknowledge that.

She had also been told to avoid interacting with the truly old. Winning the exchange just wasn’t worth the effort. Not that she typically had a choice.

Yuma smiled slightly, knowingly, and Simona remembered that her escort was probably reading her mind.

Yuma leaned back in her virtual chair.

“As you’ve deduced,” she said, “I’m here to offer you a plea deal. Governance will offer you one as well. Now, in the greater scheme of things, given your circumstances, neither the MSY nor Governance are all that interested in making an example out of you. So, the question is simply who you want in charge of your compensatory service and rehabilitation. Personally, I’d rather you worked for me than let Governance garrison you on some frontier colony world. You owe us more than that, I think.”

Simona considered the situation. It seemed that she yet had some power, after all. Governance and the MSY had apparently compromised, leaving to Simona the decision of who to gift her chains. And Yuma wanted them.

Or, so she wanted Simona to think.

Simona cracked a smile.

“I had been thinking a D&R stint wouldn’t be that bad. I’ve heard that the wilderness can be quite spectacular, depending on where you go.”

Yuma tilted her head, acknowledging the joke.

“Still, it’d be a waste. You’re the only one Akemi Homura has deigned to send us from whatever organization she’s running. We’re going after the same enemy. I won’t say working for me will be similar, since it’ll be much less undercover, but I think the conditions will be more to your liking.”

Simona pulled herself up in her chair, making her body language clearly say that she was thinking.

There really wasn’t anything immediately objectionable about Yuma’s proposal. Indeed, Simona wanted to continue her mission—it had been her whole life, and she was rather invested in its outcome. There was also a certain professional satisfaction that came with doing work she was good at—she had never hated the work itself, just the lack of choice, and what it had done to her most important relationship.

It wasn’t the same as being able to be with Ryouko again, but it was better than being thrown off the playing board by Governance.

Well, assuming that was even possible. For all that she despised Homura for how she had been used, she knew that if one of Homura’s agents were to swoop down and pluck her out from garrison duty, she still wouldn’t say no.

The question was: What didn’t she know?

“I’m interested,” she said, knowing there was no point in pretending otherwise for leverage. “But what are the other details here? Would I be working just for you? Who else is involved?”

Yuma sent over a briefing, about a new MSY task force formed under the Intelligence subcommittee. It sounded almost aboveboard—a welcome change from her previous experiences—though she wasn’t sure how she felt about the involvement of some of the girls she had met on Adept Blue. It wasn’t that she hated them, but, well, who knew how they felt about her now?

At least it would save her having to explain things again.

Yuma had also sent over the full plea deal she’d be taking. Forfeiture of all current financial assets and any income beyond basic Alloc distribution for two years, eighteen months’ probation under Governance, and indefinite weekly MHD sessions until she was deemed “healthy”. How merciful.

Yuma watched her for a few seconds as she thought.

“There’s no catch here, Del Mago,” she said. “At least not one that I intend. You’d face the same financial penalties and probation with Governance’s offer, and you want the extra MHD attention we’d give you.”

“Do I?” Simona asked. “If I’m going to be asked to accept Shizuki Ryouko’s death, I doubt I’ll ever be deemed ‘healthy’.”

Yuma smiled vaguely, and Simona couldn’t decide if the woman was amused or smiling ironically.

“I can take care of that part,” she said. “I wouldn’t worry about it.”

Simona considered asking for more details, but was interrupted by an incoming stream of secure files.

“Here. Your potential first assignment,” Yuma said.

Simona stayed silent as she reviewed the files, detailing what had already been discovered about Valentin’s operations in Argentina—specifically, the ones that had resulted in the birth of Simona and her cohort. That kind of illegal work had left a trail that even Valentin hadn’t been able to fully conceal, and there was still much to dig into.

She took a deep breath.

“I’m in,” she said.

“I’ll go tell Governance they’ve lost, then,” Shizuki Ume said. “Politely, of course.”

Yuma smiled unsettlingly, face framed by now very long hair that shimmered slightly in the light.

“Welcome to the team.”