Courtly Chronicles 1

Ah, this one didn't have the 1st chapter posted here. Fixed.

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[Tenya Deguchiya aka Argent Silver, age 58 38]

"What? You can't!" Lockdown protested. Really?

"Oh?" Tenya asked. "What's stopping me?"

"I'm valuable!" He insisted, truthfully. "You can't just throw me away for such a little thing, it's irrational." Tenya resisted the impulse to scowl, before changing his mind and glaring at the spoiled brat with the most baleful one he could muster.

"What kind of ethics organization do you think I'm running?" Tenya asked rhetorically. "You are valuable, yes, and we gave you the benefit of the doubt due to having no previous reports of such behavior."

"Exactly." Lockdown agreed. "It's all nonsense."

"You pressured an intern to have sex with you, Lockdown." Tenya said bluntly. "No one on the investigation team believed the report, and it was third hand, to boot." Tenya frowned deeply as he recalled this next detail. "They were so sure, some of the investigators had to be censured for pressuring witnesses." It was an unfortunately common problem, but procedure was important.

"So make it go away. That's your job, boss." Lockdown replied smugly.

Tenya intensified his glare. "That's not how we do things here." He said icily. "How you could work at my agency for six years and not know that baffles me. The code of conduct you signed on your hiring was not just red tape, it was a serious oath to hold yourself to a higher standard."

Lockdown stared blankly at Tenya. "Boss, you've read that thing, right? It doesn't let you do anything fun."

"I wrote that thing, you ignorant weasel!" Tenya yelled, losing his temper at long last. "If I had my way, you'd be in jail for a year or two so you could think about what you've done, and trust me, protective confinement would give you plenty of thinking time." Jail did Father good and it would do the same for Lockdown. Normally, Tenya would be concerned about his future job prospects, but Lockdown was genuinely a skilled hero with a damn useful quirk, so there were plenty of agencies not in good standing with Pillars of Heroism that would take him. Just none in the top ten. "But no prosecutor would touch the case without the cooperation of your victim… which we do not have. She petitioned me personally on your behalf, in fact." It was how Tenya knew about the case in the first place, as procedure usually kept a sidekick's employer in the dark during an investigation, and normally such a relatively minor scandal wouldn't rate his personal attention. But as it was one of his sidekicks, Tenya took a personal hand after that contact.

Still, one didn't need to be charged with a crime in order to be punished. "Now, once again: You are fired from the Silver Ring agency, effective immediately, for violation of the code of conduct. You are stricken from the rolls of heroes in good standing by the Pillars of Heroism organization, forfeiting all benefits thereof, and given your demonstrated lack of remorse, are not eligible for an appeal for five years." Really, the only reason it's even gotten this far was his total lack of remorse. If he was remorseful, it could have just been a probationary period along with financial penalties to be paid to his victim. But the Silver Ring agency has no place for people who think that they should be allowed to get away with crimes.

Lockdown returned Tenya's hostility with a defiant glare of his own, which made Tenya make a note to his media and infosec teams to watch out for the man breaking any of his nondisclosure agreements or spreading slander. "You're going to regret this, old man." He threatened.

"Unfortunately, you've still got a lucrative hero career ahead of you." Tenya said dismissively. "I know you've received headhunting offers before, " It was a point of pride that the Silver Ring agency paid more than most, so even valuable quirks like Lockdown's preferred to stay on rather than jump to other, less famous agencies. "you should follow up on those. I expect your new offers would be… less generous, but that is the nature of market forces." A hero who performs unethical actions diminishes their own value, and thus the demand for their services. Lower pay is the natural consequence of that, and also the entire point of the Pillars of Heroism. It did Tenya's heart good to see his works perform exactly as intended, even if some cleaning of the mechanisms was required in this case. Yes, petty attempts to wield the investigators as bureaucratic weapons is a problem, but that was far too much bias to be acceptable.

Once Lockdown turned and left, with some of his fellow sidekicks acting as security to handle the petty details of his departure, Tenya sighed and pressed a button on his desk, the window behind him opening up. This whole debacle created a small snarl of the patrols schedules, but it was easily fixed by him simply taking Lockdown's patrol personally and allowing his normal teammates to fill in for those who had to be retasked to escort the man, so it was time to get that handled. He didn't need backup, after all.

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When you talked to some other heroes who were near retirement, you occasionally heard them express that there weren't as many villains as there were "back in the day". Tenya always kept quiet, but there genuinely were fewer incidents to resolve in a modern patrol than there were back when Tenya was following Hawks around. In a standard patrol with Hawks in the same city, there were usually between forty and fifty incidents in a single six-hour patrol. The danger of the incidents varied immensely, of course, but that figure only counted actions that required a report to be made, not smaller things like autograph signings, helping the handicapped or disabled carry their groceries, retrieving lost balloons, pets from trees, etcetera.

Now? Tenya wasn't covering any less ground, but on a busy day, incidents to resolve were still less than thirty. There had been patrols where incident resolutions were less than ten, which was unthinkable back when Tenya was a young man.

It was why Tenya didn't feel too bad spending his substituted patrol on the ground, walking the same path Lockdown would have walked if he could keep it in his pants. Sure, it was less efficient, and probably would embolden his detractors given how much time he had spent signing autographs in comparison to his usual patrols, but sometimes giving random people the ear of a top ten hero unearthed crimes that would otherwise stay quiet, which was reason enough to go fishing for them.

Tenya walked into the train station, keeping watch for pickpockets or just for harassment. Usually, this would create quite a stir, disrupting traffic, but Tenya had overlaid an illusion on himself making him look like a regular salaryman wearing a coat rather than as the hero Argent Silver. His size still drew the eye, but his height wasn't anything suspicious in this quirk-filled world, so it passed without much comment.

With a watchful eye, Tenya smiled when he found nothing untoward in any of the interactions he examined. It was an ordinary day, with ordinary problems. A place where a hero simply has nothing to do.

"Hawks would love to see this." Tenya found himself saying. About one in three heroes die in the course of fulfilling their duties, although that was disproportionately either those that were young and stupid, or too stubborn to quit when their bodies started to fail them. Hawks fell into the third largest category, making the choice to trade his life to save several others.

Ah, he was getting too introspective in his old age. Tenya resumed his scanning of the train station, noting that the next train was arriving within seconds, according to the display. He took a position near the tunnel the train would exit, a good spot with great sight lines for someone as tall as him. Once the train leaves, he'll move on. He nodded in acknowledgement to one of the traffic officers, flashing his hero license when the man looked like he was about to distract both of them by focusing on Tenya's loitering.

Tenya watched as the train unloaded it's passengers, and took on new ones. Some schoolgirls that looked uncomfortable and possibly afraid caught his eye, looking back towards the train they had left. Tenya started ambling in their direction, careful to not alarm them by appearing to focus on them. Instead, he focused his attention on where their attention was directed, trying to watch for whatever was the source of their discomfort.

Wait, was that Lockdown? Examining the mask-wearing black man's features, Tenya couldn't definitively say it wasn't Lockdown, but he wasn't one of those heroes that changed their hair when off the clock, so probably not. Diverting his attention to a teenage boy that was intensely staring at the schoolgirls as he speedily walked in the same direction they were, Tenya put the random civilian out of his mind.

Stopping in front of the teenager right as he was going to reach the girls, Tenya gripped his shoulder when he attempted to barrel past, reaching towards the schoolgirls who shrieked. Tenya dropped his illusion, and presented him to the girls. "Is this boy bothering you, girls?"

"Argent Silver…" One of the girls said in awe as the others nodded furiously. Similar murmurs erupted in the surrounding area, disrupting traffic.

"He's been following us since we left school!" the lead schoolgirl accused. "This isn't even our stop."

Tenya nodded in understanding. "Well, boy. I believe you owe these girls an apology for your rudeness."

Swallowing nervously, the boy's intensity had vanished entirely under the force of Tenya's grip. "S-sorry!" He shouted at the girls, bowing deeply.

"Now, I'm going to give these girls my business card." Tenya explained, flicking out one towards the lead girl. "You would be best served avoiding these girls in the future, understood?" The boy nodded frantically.

One of the police officers approached Tenya, and he gladly released the juvenile into their custody. Without speaking, it was understood that this was a matter of giving the boy a stern talking to and a ride home, as it was too vague of an action to bring to a prosecutor. Hopefully, he'll have learned his lesson with just the warning.

Job done, Tenya used a few voice commands to note the incident for his records. The train started to move out of the station when Tenya heard a shout of utter terror. Amplifying his reactions, Tenya turned and started moving towards the man that was shoved into the path of the train. Making a split second decision, Tenya flew into the path of the train, grabbed the man, used a vector formula to launch him out of the way of the train at safe speeds, and prepared to use the Silver Bunker variation, Silver Missile, to survive the impact and minimize damage to the train.

Right as he finished with the vector formula, however, he caught a glimpse of that black man twisting his hand in Tenya's direction. A wild part of Tenya's mind, the one that occasionally thought it was over twenty years ago, thought it was Rock Lock stopping the train for him, but the sudden inability to remember how to calculate division made his murderer perfectly clear: It was the man's son, Lockdown, shutting off his quirk.

The last thing Tenya did while alive was point to the villain, in the hope that at least he wouldn't get away with it.

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Tenya found himself in astral space, with the stars around him blinking out one by one. Ah, perhaps he could get a message to Midoriya or Juubo…

"Give Me a break." Said an unfamiliar voice. What?

The new presence wore white flowing robes, and had the appearance of an old white man with a full beard and without a speck of color in his hair. "First, you reject My light. Annoying enough, but then you compound it by spreading your lack of faith, impelling My rightful flock to worship false idols. " Who is this man? Tenya decided to label him Existence X, for lack of a better term.

"I am The Lord, your God." Being X insisted. "I am The Creator of all you have known."

Hrm. Either this was someone with a very strange quirk, or he had survived and was hallucinating. Or something more philosophically exotic, but Being X didn't need to be the impossibility of the Abrahamic god in order to be some kind of ferryman for the dead…

"So many mortals have driven themselves completely mad, " Being X commented. "-thinking useless thoughts like those."

Of course the one that could invade his astral space could read minds. Why couldn't he? Still nothing outside the scope of some kind of telepathy quirk that's extending his final moments. "So what happens now? I was going to do something potentially productive until you interrupted." Tenya said.

"Your soul will go back into the cycle of reincarnation until transmigration." Being X replied.

"Sounds good." Tenya said. He lived a good life, after all. Sure, the ending sucked, but his contingencies were adequate. "Give me a moment to try and set things in order, though."

Chains suddenly seized Tenya's astral form, pulling him back and tying him to what appeared to be a crucifix. "NO!" Being X shouted thunderously. "You will not escape the wheel like those other cursed souls!" Oh? Well, they had already agreed that if souls existed, the vestiges of the previous wielders were likely that, so it wasn't that surprising to hear.

"Can't you stupid mortals give Me a break already!" Being X shouted, pulling at his hair in frustration. "Far from attaining salvation and reaching nirvana, without a shred of religious piety!" The crucifix tightened the chains as the self-proclaimed god continued to rant. "Mankind has gotten too detached from the truth! No sense of right and wrong at all, even though I issued the Ten Commandments!"

Being X was beginning to remind Tenya of a few of the more rural heroes his organization had to discipline, who vastly overreach their authority by trying to police things that they had no business policing, like heteromorphs or homosexuals. Yeah, it helped with their visibility and large portions of their communities supported the actions, but that didn't make the abusive parent parallels any less apt. "You're preaching a mixture of faiths, there." Tenya observed. "This is what happens when you let your subordinates run things for too long without leadership, your message gets diluted and they tear your structures apart in petty infighting. If there was one moral truth to the world…" Tenya snorted in derision at the idea that this lunatic was an actual deity, but he's taken more absurd situations as a given to make a rhetorical point before. "Then you would do well to ensure that a single coherent truth is available. Further, asserting that you exist and gaining exposure is essential to developing your brand. You've not done a single thing that was properly attributed to you."

"I gave power to Moses." Being X retorted. "And sent an aspect of Myself to spread the truth!"

"Mohammed or Jesus?" Tenya genuinely asked.

"Both!" Being X retorted.

"Okay, ignoring the part where those two beings spread different messages, " Tenya said tiredly, using his quirk to rub his temples. Tenya wasn't sure how they were different, but they did lead to separate religions so they had to be at least a little different. "That was still well over two thousand years ago. The development of science and rational thinking about the world erased any credibility you may have had. What have you done lately?"

"I awakened the power of the soul." Wait, what? "Letting each soul's individuality flourish into full bloom, so that they may shine brightly in My light."

"...Quirks." Tenya whispered, shocked. "You're taking credit for quirks." There never was a scientific consensus on the origin of quirks, after all…

"Of course." Being X smugly replied. "I am the Creator, all that exists is by the work of My hand."

Every single instance of those who suffered from malformed quirks flashed through Tenya's mind. "One thousand, seven hundred twenty-eight." Tenya said. "That is how many souls that I've seen witnessed with quirks so terrible that none at all would be preferable." And that also ignores more ordinary severe birth defects which are unrelated to quirks, which Being X is also implicitly taking credit for.

Being X waved it off. "Souls exceptionally far flung from salvation, so vile that the best thing for them is another trip through the wheel." Literally put onto the Earth to suffer and die? Intolerable. "You dare cast judgment on Me?"

"My literal job for half of my life was to ensure that heroes were actually heroic." Tenya retorted. "A rather large part of that was making sure they understood that becoming famous and gaining adulation would only come when they've earned it, and demanding it made them no different than a thug enacting a protection racket." Tenya scoffed. "On the balance, quirks made the world worse, that they needed heroes so badly to create the industry. I could have been happy in a world without them."

Being X grew to an immense size, thunderclouds forming around him in his rage. "It is clear to Me now that there will never be salvation from one so glutted on worship." You know, in hindsight provoking the being of unclear but still superior power, at least in the astral realms, was unwise.

"You have many sins to your name, of course." Being X continued, beginning to grin as he no doubt started to concoct a personalized hell to put Tenya through before tossing him back into Samsara. "You've killed people, of course." While some heroes do manage to completely avoid killing anyone, those heroes tended to be the kinds that don't really fight villains much or with exceptionally effective capture quirks. Tenya fell into neither category. "You didn't commit adultery, that's something, but you laid with a man as you would a woman!" Hey, that didn't count! Tenya was a woman at the time, and they agreed that it would never happen again. "You rejected Me as your creator, that's a big one…" No one sane has any need to accept a divine creator, it's not a useful thought to have! "What?" Being X asked, annoyed with what was presumably his too-loud thoughts. Tenya always did think that church was full of mindless drones passively accepting what they were told without thought, but that may have been more true than he knew, if this was how their god acted.

Given that Being X had stopped talking due to nearly bursting a blood vessel, Tenya decided to keep digging, in the hopes that he would be distracted just enough for Tenya to escape into One for All. "You call heroes false idols, but people call out for heroes instead of gods for one reason alone: Heroes answer their calls. Perhaps not all of those calls were heard, but they have faith they will be answered just the same, as they know with full confidence that a hero is on the way towards danger, to protect those in need. Why do they have this faith? It is because that faith is affirmed with each and every heroic act." Tenya grinned savagely to hide his fear, an old coping mechanism, but it worked. "Sure, heroes aren't perfect, they don't always make it in time, but they have a much better batting average than you do."

Now, quirk use in astral space was possible, but it was a little different. He couldn't directly calculate effects, but he could just will his quirk's effects into being, if it was something he was long familiar with. New uses were right out. So when Being X started moving his hands in a way that couldn't be anything but an attack, Tenya used his skin coating barrier before increasing the size, allowing him just enough space to slip out of the restraints and willing himself between the titan's feet as he obliterated the cross in a crash of lightning. Now, he implied he couldn't seize the souls in One for All, as he was angry about it, so Tenya looked straight at the still-shining star that represented that particular section of this realm and focused.

Unfortunately, it was not enough and Being X seized Tenya with one of his massive hands and pulled him near to his now carefully neutral face. "You were trying to anger Me." Being X observed. While true, Tenya used his best weapon for the purpose: the truth. "Perhaps faith is not something beyond you…" He threw Tenya into the darkness.

The last words he heard from that damnable Being X was utterly clear, despite the howling wind and encroaching darkness. "You shall be reincarnated in a world without heroes, among the faithful, in a place where your power is meaningless. Maybe then you'll know the value of My grace."

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[Sister Tabitha Wagner, circa 1918]

Times were pretty tough at the orphanage. Money was okay, a recent donation had allowed for a few extra rolls of cloth that the sisters could use to make clothing for the orphans, and the weavers gave them an excellent price, God bless them. However, there was a sickness going around, which led to quarantines of the districts that they usually purchased food from. The greedy merchants who found new customers were eager to raise prices to line their own pockets, even if it meant depriving food from the mouths of children and grabbing coins from the purses of women of God.

What's worse, the pious cobbler that fixed the shoes of the children every Sunday had taken ill, and despite fervent prayer on his behalf, he passed away, along with his apprentice. His will left everything to the church, a portion of which was directed towards the orphanage, but it was a pittance in comparison to the value of sturdy shoes for the children, particularly the ones old enough to start seeking work.

But those problems, large as they are, paled in comparison to… Tanya. At first, she was such an ideal little girl, polite and quiet, but on her fourth birthday…

She changed so thoroughly. She smiled more, but they didn't reach her eyes properly. Her accent had suddenly completely changed, she no longer recognized children she's known for months, she forgot all of the nun's names…

The scary part was how quickly she picked all of that back up. As if she was suddenly replaced by a particularly unprepared but clever impostor, stumbling over every part of the life they had taken over, but quickly picking it back up with masterful acting skills.

There was really only one hint that Tabitha had noticed. On the first day, one of the first words out of her mouth was 'I have received my quirk'. It was such a strange statement, and after that one time she never spoke of it again, just like the other missteps. It meant something, Tabitha was sure of it, but she still prayed and walked over holy ground without care, so it clearly wasn't the work of the devil… But then again, they didn't really know of Tanya's origins, perhaps she was the child of witches? The Empire banned witch-burning forty years ago, but who was to say what young witches were like? Certainly no pious soul of God, that's for sure.

All she could do was pray for a sign on what to do about Tanya.

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[Inspector Harold Hofstadter, circa 1921]

Life in the imperial police sucked. First, those blasted magic detectors caused a massive personnel problem, as only C-class mages or higher could use the bloody things, and needed to be staffed 24/7. Then, when The Kaiser's Royal Magician himself came on his authority to 'upgrade the security' for his majesty's next visit, the new models started going off worse than the old ones ever had!

"What's going on!?" Harold asked the operator.

"I'm focusing, give me a minute." He said, fiddling with the device's various dials and switches. "Okay, someone in the middle of Berun's market is casting… a lot. Nothing explosive, but illusions aplenty." Harold was a little surprised these contraptions could tell even that much. They must have really gotten the newest models, the General Staff insisted that Berun become well-equipped, in case of… magical spies. Oh.

The Magician grinned as he saw the illusory display, apparently familiar with how to read them himself. "Apparently some jumped up spy hasn't caught the memo that you can't use magic to disguise yourself as a regular person anymore. Are they Francois? Albish? Oh the possibilities are exciting." He schooled his features, changing to a commanding tone. "I am taking charge of the operation to subdue this infiltrator. Get me your best men while I call the Army. If they have some mages to spare, we'll probably need them, depending on what kind of orb this spy is using."

Harold wasn't quite sure what was going on, but when the Royal Magician grabbed his sleeve and started dragging him outside, he did know that he was just conscripted as a walking badge and resigned himself to violently confronting a magician walking around in the middle of Berun. He just wished he could have phoned his wife first.

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The magical pain in the ass, who was properly addressed as Archduke von Goethe, was impatiently waiting for the Army to declare that they were in position for the surroundings. "Officer, what's the latest on the spy's movements." He commanded.

"Ah, they've finally left point Theta and are moving north." The scanner's operator replied.

The Archduke examined the map. "That would take them out of the market district."

"That's right, sir." They replied. "If I may speculate, they might be heading to their base. We may lose them if we don't act quickly."

The noble cursed before grabbing the receiver for the radio his subordinate was carrying. "How many do we have ready now?" He demanded.

The calm and collected Captain Becker replied: "We have five mages ready to sortie, sir." The man had asked for ten.

"That'll have to do. Go now!" The Archduke commanded before activating his own computation orb, flying off while presumably continuing to complain about the horrible response time. Harold's driver, having idled the car until now, kicked it into gear and started going down the streets, followed by the other two cars. He kept his attention on the radio, waiting for instruction on if the spy changed course.

The Archduke took point, front and center, completely unafraid of the nondescript man, moving in front of his daughter as the Imperial Aerial Mages pointed their guns at them. "Surrender immediately, and cease all magical emissions or we will fire, in the name of the Kaiser!"

Both the man and his daughter looked confused as they raised their hands in synchronization. The Archduke used his computation orb as a magical scanner, creating a miniaturized but still recognizable display. "I said stop those illusions immediately or you will be executed on the spot!" He shouted.

The girl jumped, and her nice dress suddenly changed into a simple white one, and the man she was with vanished entirely. What?

Even the Archduke looked surprised, but he once again examined his scanner, and Harold joined the man in staring at the solitary little girl, who looked no older than his own six year old daughter.

Eventually, the Archduke recovered enough to issue additional orders. "Place your computation orb on the ground and back away."

The girl briefly looked confused, before zeroing in her gaze at the one the Archduke was holding, still projecting the display image of the magical scanning spell. A very tense moment passed as she didn't move a single muscle. Eventually, she shrugged. "I don't have one!" She shouted, clearly terrified.

The Archduke shared a glance with one of his mage-guards. "Impossible!" He responded.

The girl's fear became tinged with despair, as she suddenly started glancing around, probably contemplating her chances of running. Schafer, the prick, shouted a warning. "You can't escape, you spy!"

She froze once more, but understanding dawned upon her face as if she only now knew why a bunch of men were pointing guns at a random little girl. Harold had a sinking feeling that they had made a mistake. "My name is Tanya Degurechaff, I live in St. Magnus orphanage just down the road! I'm not a spy, I promise!" Only now did tears start to shed from her face, as she begged for her life.

"What are you doing!?" a woman's voice shouted. Harold turned towards the sound, and saw an absolutely incensed nun stomping towards the collected soldiers. She was a severe woman, old but broad, waving a sturdy cane menacingly. "Twenty men all pointing guns at little Tanya! There's no possible way for her to have gotten into that much trouble with Mr. Schwinebauer, and where is he?"

The Archduke looked completely dumbfounded at the situation, so Harold decided to intervene. "I apologize, but there's been something of a rather severe misunderstanding."

"I should hope so!" The nun replied. "You'll all be needing plenty of prayer and penitence to make up for something this boneheaded, that's for sure."

Tanya burst into messy tears, theatrically rushing towards the nun and gripping the nun's skirts in a way that just reminded Harold of how his little sister used to when she wanted to get him into trouble. "Sister Neumann, Mr. Schwinebauer was just taking me back to the orphanage, when these meanies came and pointed guns at us! He told me to run while he held them off, but they followed me!" She looked straight into the nun's eyes, although Harold couldn't see her expression. "Do you think Mr. Schwinebauer is going to be okay?"

The nun bought the lie hook, line, and sinker. Mother always fell for Nina's lies too. "Well. We'll see about that, Tanya. I'm sure God will watch over him, wherever he is." Her expression became thunderous as she turned her attention back to the collected men. "Now, put your guns away and leave. I suggest you go straight to the confessional after work, if you know what's good for you." She pointed to the obviously in charge Archduke von Goethe. "You. Stay."

The officers and military men hesitated, but started to put away their guns. The Archduke sighed and waved dismissively at them. "Return to base, all of you. I can handle this." Naturally, his personal entourage didn't move to do anything except follow their boss, but Harold quickly took the excuse to get back into the car and leave this crazy place.

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[Major Erich von Lergen, circa 1923]

Kaiser Wilhelm III's parties were, as usual, dreadfully boring to attend. In the army, even though rank was important, you knew it was earned, for the most part. Most were open to good ideas, and being able to contribute to various discussions on practical matters made you many friends.

"Brother, you shouldn't be so dour." His sister Agatha chided, hiding her smile behind a fan. "These are exciting times at court, you know! Being one of the few military officers in the room that aren't in the direct line of sight of the Kaiser, you're going to be very popular today."

"Of course." Erich replied. There was a reason he had gathered as much information as possible on the Norden incident before leaving for the train station. "I've already heard five wrong rumors, you know."

"Accurate rumors are rarely any fun." Agatha said resolutely. "So feel free to mix in some exciting nonsense, they'll eat it up." And Agatha wondered why Erich didn't like attending these parties.

True to Agatha's promise, Erich was inundated with middle-ranked nobles, his peers, wanting the juicy details of the Norden incident. He told them an incomplete but mostly accurate version of the truth. First, a fresh mage officer was deployed to command an artillery battery. Then, that officer, while watching the border and spotting for an artillery exercise, got ambushed by some Legadonian mages. With the fresh-faced officer's removal, the artillery battery was easy pickings for the mages, and the Empire's sovereign territory was promptly invaded and occupied by a Legadonian battalion. Whether it would escalate into a full blown war was still unknown to anyone of Erich's rank.

Personally, given that his inspection schedule had doubled since the incident, Erich was pretty sure there would be at least a small war over the incident. There was the occasional whisper in the General Staff's offices when he returned from inspection tours of the military academies that the army was in danger of weakening from the lack of real opponents rather than just war games.

If Legadonia wanted to stir up trouble, perhaps to cover up domestic problems, the Empire would gladly kick their teeth in and settle the current disagreements on territory. At least, that was what Erich thought would be the prevailing sentiment among the General Staff. But in the end, the decision on how severe of a response Legadonia would get was up to the Kaiser.

Something that Erich thought was odd as the day went on was a young girl, perhaps the same age as the eight year old Princess Alexandrine, the Kaiser's oldest daughter, was present, when children that young usually had their own separate party so they didn't cause trouble.

She had blonde hair and blue eyes, an intense gaze, and was constantly attended to by an Akitsushiman attendant that was simply a giant, looming behind her and sufficiently in-tune with her desires to act occasionally as a second pair of arms, the unnatural precision causing the hairs on the back of Erich's neck to rise in alarm.

"Agatha… Who is that?" Erich asked during a lull in his popularity.

Glancing over in the vague direction he had pointed, she immediately understood who he was referring to. "Oh, That's Tanya von Goethe. The court magician's daughter."

Things were beginning to make a terrifying level of sense. Archduke von Goethe had many rumors circulating about the blashphemous extent that he studied and pushed magic, and turning a Akitsushiman man into some kind of mindless golem protector was exactly in line with them. "...and the man?" He asked, not really wanting to know if he was right but compelled to ask anyway.

"Also Tanya von Goethe… sort of." Agatha explained. What? "It's just an illusory puppet she makes, she's some kind of incredible genius, and can do things with magic that others just can't."

Now that didn't make any sense to Erich. While he was far from an expert, inspecting academies required Erich to be somewhat conversant on the subject. The entire point of the computation orb was to make magic something that could be done as a science, with industrial might and collaborative understanding… there wasn't any such thing as a spell that could be done by only one person, it was nonsense.

"That's ridiculous." Erich said about the topic.

Agatha scoffed. "Hey, you want to talk about magic theory with her, go on ahead. You won't last four sentences."

Determined, Erich moved on to do just that. Granted, one couldn't just walk up to someone of her status, but Eric still remembered the metaphorical dance of the court as well as he did the literal ones.

Eventually, he found himself introducing himself to the young lady, whose eyes lit up from their earlier bored indifference. "It's nice to meet someone new for a change, Lergen." Taking her words as a command, the other people around her took a step away, to give them a one on one conversation. "I must ask: What products of the rumor mill have you heard that drew your interest? No one talks to someone of my apparent age in one of these unless their curiosity has been piqued."

Erich's eyes were drawn to the intensely interested man behind the girl, mimicking her demeanor, if not her direct mannerisms. Perhaps there was some truth to the puppet spell… "Ah, I heard that you could perform magic that no one else was capable of… and that doesn't make any sense. I inspect the military academies, and computation orbs standardize the spells in ways that make that impossible."

Tanya giggled at the accusation. "Ah, you had a scientific curiosity then. Much better than most alternatives, I assure you."

Suddenly, the man started speaking in Tanya's place. While the pitch was clearly different, the accent (vaguely Pullskan?) was otherwise identical. "The simple explanation is that I do not need an orb, so my magic is largely incompatible with your more primitive systems." Primitive? "Assuming that current computational trends continue, I estimate my most complex formulas could be translated into a usable spell script by the end of the century. I'll be doing my best to speed that along, of course."

Tanya resumed speaking with her own voice. "For the Empire!"

Suppressing a shudder from the uncanny transition, Erich decided to ask for the answer out of the horse's mouth. "What's with him?" A bit blunt, but eccentricity was a difficult opponent to fight at the best of times.

Tanya smiled sweetly at him. "The more complex explanation is that I'm not nine years old." She stood at attention along with the man behind her, bowing in a way that didn't make a whole lot of sense in courtly etiquette. "My name is Tanya Degurechaff von Goethe, and my quirk is Past Life Recall." While that sort of made sense, the weight placed on the word quirk made Erich think he was missing something. "The gentleman behind me is a memory of my past life, brought forth with my magic to remind people who they're talking to."

The man bowed in exactly the same way as Tanya did. "Deguchiya Tenya desu." He spoke at a higher pitch than normal, so that weird word at the end was probably Akitsushiman. Didn't the eastern countries use their family name first?

The man continued speaking, in German this time: "I was fifty-eight years old when I died and was reborn as Tanya here. While a separation can be useful, in truth we are one in the same, and underestimate that cute face at your own peril."

Erich didn't know what to say. "Are you using the recording formula to do that? How?"

Tanya nodded with another wide smile. "Ah, you understand. Yes, the recording formula allows the replaying of events stored in the memory of the computational orb. Specifically, a compressed format of memory of the mage that's using the orb. As I'm not using an orb, I can just use my own memories."

"But you couldn't possibly have a memory of yourself saying that." Erich pointed out.

"Correct." Tanya replied. "The only part that my memory projection is covering is the illusion's texture map. The underlying skeleton of the model is using an emulation of my own posture, with the occasional extra input from myself to desync the animation whenever I'm about to do something particularly feminine." Blast, she lost him within two sentences of magic theory. "The voice is just taking my voice, relocating the source, and applying three separate modifiers to approximate my old one."

Moving away from the fiendishly complex terminology that may or may not be completely invented… "So you're actually Akitsushiman?" He asked, trying to understand.

"No." Tanya replied. "Ignoring the fact that I am not who I once was… the Akitsushiman Dominion is not my Nippon. This is not the same timeline that I was originally born with, that much is clear."

Now that was interesting. "Timeline?" He asked.

"Ah yes. The names of everything are different than they were in my timeline. While normally I would attribute that to time washing away such petty historical details as old names of other countries, Akitsushima was never a name of Nippon." So she was from the future? That had… potential. And she was just telling everyone?

"Why are you telling me this?" Erich asked.

"People don't generally believe me, for one." Tanya said, scoffing. "They think my magical skill has caused some level of delusions, where I can't tell the difference from stories invented while playing with dolls and reality."

Tanya huffed, allowing her memory to continue her speech. "I might even be worried about being shoved into an asylum if it wasn't for the fact no prison can hold me. They know I'm sane enough to be useful, which is all they really need to know."

Erich's morbid curiosity was driving him now, more than anything else. "So what did you do in your old life? A powerful mage, clearly, but to what end?"

"That's a complicated question that would take hours to fully explain the context of my profession." Tanya deflected, and wasn't that something? "The simplest explanation is that I was a policeman who also did firefighting and other forms of disaster relief. I also ran a non-profit business on the side." Erich thought about what he knew about the capabilities of an aerial mage and thought about how that would translate into law enforcement and firefighting. That… sounded like overkill, honestly. Unless maybe the criminals were also mages?

"Your story seems pretty elaborate." Erich commented. "Why aren't people believing you?"

"You're getting the edited version where I gloss over the parts that sound ridiculous." Tanya said bluntly. "For example, while I was indeed quite large, I did not suffer from gigantism. I was merely a tall boy who exercised regularly and ate very well, and there were plenty of people I met over my life that met or exceeded my height. My pituitary glands were of normal function." She smiled mischievously. "That's among the tamest of the parts where I meet outright disbelief."

Erich knew he was going to regret asking this, but… "What's a pituitary gland?"

Tanya looked chastened for a moment. "Ah, I apologize. Malfunctioning pituitary glands cause gigantism, which is the important part there. Continual growth spurts until something gives out from the strain." That wasn't so bad, Erich could follow that. "Back to my original point, I was a very successful man with great fortune in life, with the sole exception of my violent death, so many of the details seem more like fabrications to make me seem more glamorous than I actually was. Boasts, in other words. With that seed of doubt in place, they dismiss the whole thing as an elaborate hoax."

"And you're not worried about me thinking the same thing… why?" Erich asked.

Tanya shrugged. "What are you going to do? If you disbelieve me, you're just going to join the throng of others." She gazed directly into Erich's eyes for the first time, and the depth of that gaze… this was no little girl. "If you want to know more, we'll have to do this another time. I believe you mentioned you inspected the military schools?" Erich nodded, despite himself. "Next month on the twelfth, I have a presentation to make to the Dean of Magic at the War college, along with a few others. Is General Rudersdorf in your chain of command?" Erich nodded once more. Granted, there were a few people between him and General Rudersdorf, but his job meant that there were less of them than normal for his rank. "He'll be there. I'll tell him to bring you along, it'll be fantastic for your career. Either way, I can respect an academic perspective."

Tanya turned away, which signaled the other nobles in her orbit to cease eavesdropping and start back up the previous conversations. Erich returned to his sister, not sure what to think of the intense gaze of the man behind that small child.

What was worse? An aberration that proudly proclaims their monstrosity like Tanya? Or would it be worse if she were a monster in the skin of a little girl, lulling all around into a false sense of security? In a way, projecting that intimidating image behind her was a warning, that you stand before a dangerous being, which you ignore at your peril.

Erich needed some chalk tablets before bed that night.