Nanoha was giggling with her sister Miyuki as she watched Tsubasa interact with the girl in the wheelchair. It was about time he found himself a girlfriend! And Hayate-chan was such a delight to have around.

Hayate was glad to have someone to talk to and share recipes with.

"Ano... Tsubasa-kun? Remember what you said about how magic was real?" asked Hayate on her birthday.

She had gone to the hospital late in the night and had been recently released. The only reason she hadn't stayed was because she had made plans with Tsubasa and his family for a special birthday cake.

Tsubasa walked into the room, took one look at the bright rose-red hair, and his mind did a three second standstill.

'Shadow, I do believe Nacht has awakened a little early...and she's bonded to Hayate-chan,' said Tsubasa tiredly.

Fortunately Hayate had come to the house not the shop, and Tsubasa had already come clean about the real nature of the 'club' he and Nanoha had joined.

Their parents weren't happy about the deception, but Tsubasa had admitted that he was afraid they would take it the wrong way. Shiro had looked at Tsubasa's face when he said that and let it go.

With that one sentence, Shadow quit hiding and practically flew into the surprised faces of the Wolkenritter.

Signum tensed as the tiny fairy boy zoomed around them, to the delight of Hayate.

"I do believe it's past time for a long, long explanation," said Tsubasa.

"I do believe you're right!" said Hayate.

"But first... Happy Birthday Hayate-chan! Mom's made the cake and you know the food's good. Signum, Shamal, Zafira and Vita (I think) you're free to join since you're clearly bonded with Hayate-chan," said Tsubasa.

"How do you know our names?" asked Signum, still tensed. She wasn't expecting her new master to have a mage for a friend.

"Hi! It's been a while since I last saw you, Knight of the Flame Signum, Knight of the Lake Shamal, Guardian Beast Zafira!" said Shadow with a chirp.

"Who are you?" asked Vita.

"I'm the unison device that's going to fix Nacht, and hopefully give you guys a chance to redeem yourselves for past masters. Call me Shadow Night."

"I'll explain later. Cake first, explanations later," said Tsubasa from behind Hayate. He was cheating and using a hover charm to get her around the house, to her amusement.

Finding out his Terran core wasn't entirely drained by Dark and Krad, they had begun to share what little they had absorbed from his mother. It wasn't a lot considering they weren't fully bonded to her, but it was still more than he had originally.

The Wolkenritter were surprised at the warm reception given by the family...and were unhappy to learn Nanoha was a contract mage for the same organization they had to fight for years now.

Hayate was on the couch with Nanoha while Tsubasa brought out some chairs from the kitchen for the Wolkenritter among others. Fortunately there was room for them all to sit comfortably.

"So what do you want to know?" asked Tsubasa grinning from his chair. He had it turned backwards so he could rest his arms on the top part, to his sister's annoyance.

"First off, how did you know their names?" asked Hayate.

"Shadow, you want to field this one or should I?"

"My name is Shadow of the Night Sky, and I'm the companion device that fought alongside Nacht, who is collectively called the Tome of the Night Sky. During the Belkan Wars, we were the sword and dagger of the army before she was taken by the Mid-Childa and corrupted."

"Tome of the Night Sky?" asked Hayate.

Shadow looked at her sadly.

"What the TSAB has relabeled as the Book of Darkness. Some idiot shoved a second personality into the book trying to override Nacht and instead of working it's causing her to go out of control. For the past several hundred years this rogue program has forced them (Shadow nods to the Wolkenritter) to rip out linker cores to 'fill' the book by force and caused needless tragedies. The TSAB is not very happy about it, which is why they're willing to let me help."

"What do you mean help? There's nothing wrong with us!" said Vita angrily.

"No, but one of the functions added to me and Nacht was the ability to override the programming in case something like this happened. I can go in, kick the rogue program out or at the very least contain it long enough for us to remove it and save Hayate-chan here. How long have you been unable to walk?" asked Shadow.

"For years. It's progressively gotten worse and the doctors have no idea why as there isn't anything putting pressure on my spine," replied Hayate.

"That's from the book forcibly absorbing your linker core. Once I isolate that rogue program you should recover, though I get the feeling Nacht won't be happy about what it's doing. What do you plan to do with the Knights though?"

"I pretty much live alone, and it's not like I can abandon them after they've been abused to long."

"That's good because from what we've found of the Wolkenritter they've been used as little more than tools for years now. They've been bound to the Tome because the army didn't want to lose their best fighters after being critically injured...though from what Shadow's told me Shamal was added by mistake."

"Mistake?" said the blond.

"You were trying to save Signum's life when she was absorbed, and since your magic was linked with hers at the time you were sucked in," shrugged Tsubasa.

"What about me?" asked Vita.

"You were added last. Zafira was added after them because he had been the strongest of the guardian beasts at the time."

"So how do we go about fixing the Tome?" asked Hayate.

"Fastest way would be for the Knights to absorb Tsubasa's core while he's unisoned with me. The only problem is that Tsubasa is still recovering from a parasite attached to his Terran core, and I really don't want Nacht picking anything from that foul thing," said Shadow.

"That's right, you're not supposed to use any magic for the next month!" said Nanoha accusingly.

"And you were supposed to tell Alisa and Suzuka about magic last week. You know they'll figure something's up eventually," said Tsubasa in return.

Nanoha pouted, to the amusement of Hayate.

"In the meantime we can start exercising Hayate's Terran core like we have with Nanoha. Hopefully we can find a way to contact whatever ruling magical government in the process... Lindy-san asked us to find them so they can see if we can become an Administrated planet," said Tsubasa. Then his eyes glinted. Nanoha took one look at his expression and offered up a silent prayer for the Wolkenritter, as did Krad and Dark.

There was only one thing that gave him that look.

Cosplay.

Personally Nanoha blamed Hayate and Suzuka for getting him into it. Sure it had given him a new hobby, but it also let him get his love of horror genres out too.

"I call first dibs on Vita."

"Knowing Suzuka-chan she'll claim Zafira," said Hayate smirking. There was something unholy about the look and the Wolkenritter shivered.

"Why don't we make Signum a joint project?"

"Deal."

Vita very nearly jumped out the window when she saw the frills. Unfortunately Dark managed to catch her before she cleared the sill.

So Tsubasa tried another method to turn her into his personal dress up doll.

He brought out his familiar With. Vita's eyes doubled when she saw the sleepy rabbit, and when she was allowed to hold him while Tsubasa got her measurements and adjusted the lolita-style dress she stayed put.

"You really like rabbits don't you Vita?" said Tsubasa amused. The knight nodded. "Hang on... a few stitches here... try this on."

Vita got dressed while Tsubasa reached into his bag of tricks. Dark was firmly turned away so she could get dressed in peace.

"This is..."

It was a deep red colored lolita-style dress with white and a deep velvety blue accented frills. While Vita was getting dressed Tsubasa was putting a few finishing designs on a hat. He put it firmly on her head and she blushed, because it had a pair of rabbit faces on each side. Then he brought out the final piece.

A rabbit-headband.

Vita hugged the sleepy bunny just a little more. She liked rabbits.

Zafira felt like he was trapped with no way out. This was further proven by the fact Nanoha and Alisa were keeping him in the room while Suzuka started making outfits for the wolf.

Tsubasa had already roped Vita into their madness with the bribe of getting her a flop-earred rabbit like With to keep (Hayate had said she would start buying rabbit food for Vita's pet) and according to Hayate she would make Vita's preferred outfit her new knight armor. Including the rabbits.

Unfortunately that meant Suzuka was free to help design Zafira's outfit, and she had a more girly idea than the wolf would like.

Shamal and Hayate were looking at all the designs from the animes she loved, and getting the Lake knight addicted to the more romanctic genres in the process.

Signum had opted to hide until it was her turn to be a living dress up dummy for the cosplay addicts.

The trio met up a few days later to show off their tops picks for armor.

Vita came out in a rather adorable gothic lolita style dress with frills and rabbits. She looked rather happy about the new outfit. Then again, she had a pair of auburn rabbit ears on her head too.

Zafira (thankfully for his sanity) had a more tight-fitting brawler's outfit inspired by Dark, who had stopped by while Suzuka was trying to put the poor wolf into increasingly frilly outfits.

Dark had taken pity on Zafira by offering to become the new dress up dummy in exchange for her making a fighter's outfit instead for the wolf. He was used to being put into weird outfits thanks to his last users, the Niwas.

Signum was just relieved that all three groups agreed to put her into something acceptable. It was based off a series the children all loved for one reason or another called 'Fate/Stay Night'. Specifically the armor of the Servant called Saber, or a variant of it.

Shamal was in a dress that went down to her knees that fluttered in the right breeze. It was a primarily green and cream colored outfit and it came with a hat to match.

Hayate loved the Knight armor, and upon seeing Kagami and Shadow, Tsubasa's double unison forms and the fact he didn't really have armor to wear, the girls teamed up against him.

Zafira didn't feel a single iota of pity seeing Tsubasa dragged into the dressing room so they could design a new barrier jacket just for him.

"Why does this situation feel so familiar... Oh yeah! I remember now! Satoshi had to dress up like me in that silly play and they forced me into a dress because I was pretending to be Daisuke!" said Dark, snapping his fingers.

Krad snickered. He had been watching that particular incident through Satoshi's eyes...it had been hilarious. Dark had been turned into a girl without losing any parts...and he was cuter than the girl his tamer had a crush on!

Tsubasa only put up minimal fussing about being dragged into one outfit after another. He actually didn't mind it, but he did have to put his foot down when it came to frills and bows.

He had a bishonen look, but that did not give the girls any excuse to turn him into a literal girly-boy!

Finally they found him a new armor he could agree too...at least once he grew up a bit. It was a bit hard to walk in at the moment.

It took two months before Shadow could clear Tsubasa for magic use...he didn't want any of that parasite's foul magic in Nacht.

Tsubasa allowed Shadow to take full control. This was to be their first and hopefully best attempt to reach Nacht, the original controlling spirit of the Tome of the Night Sky.

Shamal used Klarwind to reach into Tsubasa's core while he was unisoned with Shadow Night.

There was an immediate reaction between him and the book.

It was a good thing they were offworld, at Shadow's suggestion.

The book began to scream loudly.

Nacht? Nacht, I know you can here me! Say something! begged Shadow.

...Shadow? Is that you?

Thank the Kaiser! Nacht, I'm here to help. Can you handle an override?

The parasite that has attached itself to the book...it has almost complete control. I would need the new owner to activate Administer's Rights, and it won't let her near it until it's almost complete.

Well these people won't let the Knights complete the book unless we are absolutely certain it won't go berserk again.

You know, you could just have her take the parasite's place in my head while you boot the one in the book out. I'm pretty sure we've already demonstrated I can handle having a second core in me,Tsubasa cut in dryly.

Or we could add her to the Knight system until we get this mess untangled. I highly doubt whatever took over the book would care if Nacht chose to leave the book.

I can enter the Knight system and remove it from the main book. At this point, I could take over an Intelligent device... I don't want to be cursed again.

Suddenly that cache of devices we stumbled across look a whole lot more interesting... said Tsubasa. Finally, they had a use for those things outside of scholarly interest!

Nacht immediately removed the Knight System from the main programming. If anything happened to the book, Signum and the others would remain unharmed, attached to Hayate's linker core through the same familiar system Fate used with Aruf.

Outside, the book was pulsating wildly as a second Belka-style circle appeared.

Signum and the others watched as a figure began to emerge.

She was tall, about the same height as Signum was, and her hair was just as long. She wore rather odd clothing, like a parody of the Knight's original uniforms when they first awakened. On her back were six black wings that seemed somewhat unattached to her outfit on the whole. She opened her eyes, revealed ruby colored orbs the same shade as Dark's whenever he accessed Shadow's weapon arsenal. She had some strange markings on her cheeks.

"What is your name?" asked Hayate.

She tried to speak, but as a last ditch effort to curse her, the parasite in the book had taken her voice. So long as she was connected to the Tome of the Night Sky, she would never be able to speak.

"I wonder if this is the spirit Shadow was trying to save," said Signum.

Hayate had a stroke of brilliance. Since the TSAB was looking for an artifact called the Book of Darkness, why not register this device under a new name? Start off fresh?

"From now on, you're no longer the cursed Book of Darkness. Your new name will be... Reinforce."