Reflections on a Maiden's Star - Erstin

...start from the first thing I remember? I would really rather not.

No, it's not that...look. Schwarz mind control techniques are not pleasant. That those freaks are still loose and maybe even off-world at this point is a sore spot. It's not like controlling magics. Those, the subject just feels kinda floaty and detached. I know, because they had to use them on me so I wouldn't freak out when I heard they were occasionally used when someone freaks out completely. I don't like even that much, but I guess it's better than having to break a delusional person's bones to get them to stop hurting people.

With Schwarz, it's different. They don't have magic, not really. And even if they did, the kinds of spells the TSAB uses aren't any good for what they use it for.

When I was a kid, my parents had me put through what's called 'deep cover' conditioning. They were fanatics to the cause, through and through, and to be honest...well, I'm not glad they're dead, but I'm not sorry either.

Yes, this is relevant. Because the first thing I remember after I woke up wasn't actually being concious of the world. No, that would be too easy. Miss Mikoto told me later she would have spared me this part if she could, but there's just no way for a person who went through what I did to function with so many parts of their childhood missing. I guess I kinda believe her too.

Because now, I remember every bit of what they did to me. After all, I had to live through every moment again.

You have no idea what extent they go to to screw with your head. It's kept out of all the official reports. People would panic. Even just a normal person who's meant to wake up one day and go on a killing spree needs weeks in what they call 'the tanks.'

Okay, okay, fine. What I really felt and saw it as was swirls of color. And voices, all around, telling me things. Back when I was doing it the first time I always just felt a little disoriented and I blanked out.

But Miss Mikoto made me remember every minute of it, and if she hadn't I would be a drooling vegetable. Maybe, if I was really lucky, I would be waking up in another five years in an asylum on an Administered planet, most of my life having been spent totally insensate and the best years of it gone.

The things that were most obvious were all the 'loyalty lessons' and pretty much the only things they allowed me to conciously remember. Under full influence of the conditioning you'll do anything for the Glory of Schwarz. Just after one of my sessions I would have cut disfiguring scars into my face, jumped off a cliff, or done just about anything else for Smith, the only Schwarz member whose face was allowed to be known.

Which is why I got so badly screwed up. They never had a chance to pull me back in to switch my loyalties over to the new Smith the way they did with the regular handlers. It would just have been a quick session, but I was stuck at school. So I didn't know who she was.

As for the rest of it...there was absolutely no aspect of me left unmodified. They made sure that not only my interest but my aptitude for given subjects at school was exactly as they wanted. I could study all the science I wanted, but I would always screw up on makeup or music, just a bit. Math and history were allowed to be okay, but I had to get questions related to religious conflicts right only in the most vague way. I would subconciously throw every combat I was in, so I could never score well in that class. When Nanoha brought up the scores overall I got into passing territory, since I just had to be worse than everyone else who was passing.

Then there was the religious indoctrination. In the name of Saint Kaiser, did you know I once worshipped an oil pump? All technology is 'sacred' to Schwarz, and I was no exception. Only the materialization of High-order Matter, or what you call 'magic', is considered truly divine though. By becoming even a Coral I would be the channel for God himself, ready to smite down the infidels who had twisted His creation to their false peace.

But the worst part was the exact degree of social interaction I was allowed. To this day I don't know if what Nina and me did in our dorm rooms was ever my choice. I know she was in my conditioning a lot, even before I met her, because the plan was always for Nina to be Nagi's toy. Was I just some reward to hand out?

I guess I'll never know. The answer to that question died with the first Smith, didn't it? Except that it doesn't really make what was done to me all the more sick, which really says something about just how thoroughly screwed up I was.

I will say that I'm doing just fine with my girlfriend right now. I do like guys, but Type-O nanos just don't mix with them and Aswald just can't afford the replacement treatment when a kid needs their first injections.

This wasn't a quick thing. Miya was in 'the tanks' for about three hours, because, really, even at school she was acting desperate. I don't think she's ever even bothered with deprogramming. Said no one can tell the difference except Nanoha. I really can't.

I spent months of my life from the time I could walk having these sessions. Not just a few hours for months, I sometimes spent several days at a time in there with no breaks for food, just until the point where I would pass out from thirst, then be brought back to health and tossed right back in.

Miss Mikoto used her magic to make me live through every single second of it again in two weeks, and I will be forever grateful to her for it.

Oh, that wasn't what you wanted to know? Well, you did ask. It might not be as flowery as all the pretty colors and 'yoou are getting sleeeeepy' stuff they do in the entertainment vids to represent mind control, but that's the reality. But, at the end of living through all of it again, everything went completely black, and I was left floating in a void. And then I saw, well, me.

I was naked in the void, and kneeling, with my Slave Crystal in my hands. The other me looked up. "Hello, Ersty," There was something off about her smile.

"...who are you?" I asked. I don't know how I knew she wasn't really me, but it was something in the eyes, the way she was looking at me. It was like she wanted me, but the same way a child wants a toy.

She grinned at me then, her thumb poised over the crystal. "I'm Erstin Ho. The way she was meant to be. I'm the tool, the weapon of Schwarz. The only part of you that was ever of value to anyone."

"NO! That's not true! Arika, Nina, they both loved me! Nanoha and Fate told me that I don't have to be a puppet!" I screamed back.

The other Erstin's grin grew even darker. "And all that just vanished when I pricked my finger. I took control, and for all that they 'mattered' to you, you tried to kill them."

I shook my head. "Th..that's not what happened! I tried to stop it! It was like I couldn't control myself."

She cocked her head. "I suppose that's true." She pricked her finger, blood running along the crystal. "Of course, I can take control of you whenever I like. Why don't you dance for me, Ersty?"

My arms suddenly jerked. I was holding some faceless Coral, suddenly, my limbs performing a simple waltz from class against my control. "No! STOP!"

"Oh, but why? Why should I stop?" The other 'me' laughed. "I could just take over full time. Leave you asleep in here, tell the witch who's been interfering I'm the real you, and no one would ever know the wiser. You'd just be dancing forever...well, maybe not." She looked at me. "If I'm really going to leave you here, I'd better make sure you never break free."

I didn't like the look in her eyes, even less than before in fact.

"STOP!" I shouted...no, more snarled. The phantom partner vanished, and I turned towards her. "You are not me! I am Erstin Ho...no, I am Erstin. Erstin Ho is a mindless servant of the Schwarz, and I am not that! MATERIALIZE!" My staff appeared in my hands. A quick swipe through the girl, and she was gone in a puff of smoke.

Yes, I'm done horribly mentally scarring the censors now. Honestly, if we want to stop bastards like this, it doesn't help if we sugarcoat what it is they do. It's not like I'm the only one who went through this.

All right. Schwarz isn't what we're here to talk about. So, when I actually woke up from that nightmare, what I saw was a pretty young woman with orange hair. Actually, I didn't know it at the time, but Meister Mai is about the Headmaster's age. You wouldn't know it looking at them side by side, though. Whether it was something about that extra-dimensional space, or maybe being life-linked to an immortal Crystal Princess. It's not just the nanomachines. Those help, but...

When you look at Headmaster Natsuki today, your eyes don't quite know what to tell you. She looks like she's barely out of her thirties, but it's something about the eyes. Back then, it was even moreso. She looked like she was in her twenties, but she had decades more experience than she really had. It changed her, made her cynical. Shizuru-oneesama was even stranger, like she was a wise woman living in a hut in the woods, a princess of a major kingdom and 'just one of the girls' at the same time. Maybe that's why everyone swooned over her back then.

Meister Mai actually looks the age she looks. And she's even healthier, if you get my meaning. She was a perky teenager, and I do mean 'perky' in a lot of ways, even though she was twenty nine. Very sweet and mothering, but she still seemed like a teenage girl.

. . . okay, Mai made an impression on me, I'll admit it.

. . . right, waking up. Mai was leaning over me, purple eyes and orange hair, cut into a page cut. "Oh, good. I was getting worried." She was holding a cold towel to my forehead. "You're Erstin, right?" she asked me.

"...y-yes." I sat up. "Who are you?"

"Tokiha Mai," she replied.

I gulped. "Wait, you're the Tragic Meister?"

Mai looked at me really strangely. "I'm what now?"

I'm sure by now everyone who's going to be hearing this knows the legend, so I'll just say that when I told it to her she seemed amused.

"People will believe the silliest things," she said. "Well, I guess it's true that I got lost in the Sprite's Forest here...and then I lost the Fire String Ruby, or half of it. I got caught in one of Mikoto's traps, and she confused the Ruby with a berry...and, well, that's how I got a Contract."

Yes, I stared at her. Wouldn't you? "...I don't think that's how these things work..." I tried to point out, but she just shrugged back.

"It's how things turned out. At first I tried to escape, but I've gotten used to it. Besides, Mikoto said I'd be needed soon, and if we're finally getting guests she's probably right."

I stared at her for a moment, wondering what she could be going on about, before it clicked. "...wait, 'Tokiha Mai?' Not, 'Mai Tokiha?' You're from Zipang?" My jaw dropped. "Your brother's been looking for you all these years! That's what he was in Windbloom for!"

"...oh dear, it looks like my little secret's out,": Mai blushed a bit. "Well, anyway, you've been asleep for two weeks, so you must be hungry..."

"...I'm not that - " suddenly my stomach grumbled like Arika's. "...okay, maybe a little."

Mai grinned. "Come on, this is an occasion worthy of some ramen."

Y'know those 'Mai's Ramen' stands all over the Adminstered worlds these days? How they're pretty much one of the most popular fast food places in the known universe? Cheap, really good, and not too likely to kill you?

Don't you believe it. It's probably her recipie, but nothing, but nothing, is as good as the real deal.

I was still pretty depressed. I mean, everything I'd just gone through in my own head was still fresh, but it also felt like I'd just woken up from a really bad dream. I was still coming to terms with what I did.

And I guess I still am. No matter where I am in the universe, I drop everything in time to get back to Earle once every year. On the day of the Artai assault on Windbloom. Aoi and Chie deserve that much from me...not that I can give them what they do deserve. I can just live on and hope they forgive me.

But...if food can make you forget, even for a moment, then Mai's ramen was enough to actually get me to take notice of my surroundings. If you go to the Black Valley today, you wouldn't really recognize the place. It's all tastefully done, with absolute attention paid to preserving all the important details. Even Mai's outdoor grill and stove is integrated into the outdoor restaurant so seamlessly people don't realize you can actually buy food there at first. But a tourist attraction is a tourist attraction. Back then...well, two people lived in acres and acres of wilderness, with nothing but sustainable animal populations and the occasional combat cyborg for company. It was...quiet. Peaceful. Serene even.

Mai smiled at me. "Are you feeling better."

"A little." I said, giving her my best smile. "Mai...is it possible...can I...stay here?"

Mai chuckled. "As long as you like, Erstin. Time doesn't even seem to reach here, does it?"

"Not at all," I smiled back. "Oh, I'll help out, of course."

Mai grinned. "I'm the official Meister here. I can keep things running. Plus...well, I'm sure Mikoto wants to talk to you."

"Who is Mikoto?" I asked.

And I was answered right away. "Me!" I jumped and turned around, looking down into a golden pair of eyes set atop the most mischevious cat-smile in the whole world. "Glad to see you're back with us, Erstin. Do you have a new last name in mind, or do you want me to find you one of those too?"

I blinked at her. "Huh?"

"You're not Erstin Ho anymore, right?" she told me. "Well, you're not going to get away with just a first name, you're not that famous. So, what do you want to call yourself?"

I blushed a bit. "I hadn't really thought about it yet."

"I know," Mikoto said, suddenly turning serious. "You're not thinking about a lot of things. And you're almost out of time." I turned pale as she continued. "There's a war out there, a real war. And like it or not, you're involved right now, in every way..."

"Mikoto, you're being rude!" Mai scolded her.

Mikoto chuckled nervously. "Sorry, but it is true. Now, me, I could care less. If you really want to sit this whole thing out, my little retreat's open to you. I'll even train you as my successor, if that's what you want. Or I can give you what you need to fight, the way you were trained, on any side you want. Makes no difference to me. But we're going to have company in four days. It'll make a difference to them."

I went pale as Mai stared blankly at her Master. "Company? Who?"

Mikoto shrugged. "Oh, a few hundred refugees. I set up extra traps and started up the generator, and if that doesn't work I can use some of my other tricks. You just worry about cooking for them." That said, she turned back to me. "Oh, right. They'll be here in four days...so I'm giving you two to decide."

"TWO!" I started gulping for air. "Why only two?"

Mikoto grinned. "It'll take you a whole day just to figure out how to say what you're going to say...and if you decide you're going to fight, you're going to need another day to get what you need..."

I blinked. "I thoguht you said you'd give it to me.."

"Nothing's free!" Mikoto chirped back.

I guess what you'd like me to say is that I didn't need time. That I played the part of the heroine and stood right up and did my patriotic duty.

Like I hadn't just killed a good friend and the mother of one of my best friends.

Okay, you can edit that part out if you want to. But the fact is, I was barely ready to function on my own. Mikoto didn't seem like she knew what she was asking.

She did, and that was what made it all the more infuriating in hindsight.

Soo...yeah. On the one hand, what I just said. I'd killed Aoi, betrayed everyone's trust, and by all rights I should have died that night. Or been left a drooling idiot for the rest of my life. Chie would have probably called that 'justice.'

But, what I kept going over in my head, was 'what can I do about it?'

Aoi was dead. It was my fault. And 'dead' is something they can only fix in storybooks. Even Project F and its' successors can't claim that holy grail of modern medicine, and I know just how far forward the Nano-soldier projects actually propelled the state-of-the-art in that.

I couldn't fix this. To try would just have put me back in a coma. So what could I do?

I knew Mikoto wasn't lying. The Valley would have been the perfect place to just let the world, the war, and my friends pass me by. I wouldn't have to think, wouldn't have to struggle, I could just meditate on my sins and maybe find some peace that way.

I could leave. Wander the deserts. Realistically, I'd be dead in a matter of days (I still don't know how Arika could do that with how easily distracted she was back then.)

I could become an Otome. Get right back on the horse and let someone else do all my thinking for me again.

...yes, that notion didn't last long.

I could use my Royal Slave to join the war effort. That was just as sure a path to death as becoming a wanderer, but I might do some good before I went crazy and had to be put down.

I considered that one a lot longer than I did the Otome angle.

Or...I could take Mikoto's offer. I had already worked out she had something I could really use. It wouldn't be a super-powered Meister Gem. My nano-augmentation never took the way it did with Arika or Nanoha or some of the others. I'd never get the most out of that. That left a new kind of Slave. I didn't like the idea of forcing another sentient creature to do my fighting for me again, but it was all I had. It was what I could do.

I walked up to Mikoto as the sun was setting on the first day. "...where are those things you said I could have? I...I want to fight!"

Mikoto was curled up on a branch in the shade. No, you heard that right. She likes to do that. Amazing balance and flexibility. Well, she is a Cat Goddess. She opened one eye and looked at me. "Oh. That was fast. Didn't expect to see you again for another few hours, and full of questions." She looked me up and down with that eye. "Well, I can see you're serious. No sense putting it off." She hopped off the branch and led me to the most imposing structure in the Valley.

You've seen the place today. The giant, natural obsidian tower that looks like a mountain from up close, but far away looks like a black version of the Shinso's Tomb? Well, it's not classified any more, so I'll let you in on a secret - that's exactly what it is. The entrance is the only part that seems man-made, sandstone doors as tall as most people's houses, with pillars carved directly from the rock face surrounding it.

Mikoto marched me right up to those doors and grinned. "Normally, I use this to send my servants to where I want them to. The doors don't open, the threshold just serves as a useful focus. These doors shouldn't be opened lightly." She turned and looked at me totally seriously for the first time. "Erstin, no joke - the things I keep at the bottom of this temple are too dangerous to let out without very good reason. There are two things I want you to get. The first, you should know it when you see it. The second...well, there are many, many guardian spirits that I keep in this place. They're the precursors to Otome, very powerful beings. I know I didn't get all of them when I went out looking, but I got the most powerful. They're not human, they have no sense of morality as you would understand it. And they seek to leave this place. They will try to tempt you into bringing them with you."

"...right," I said. "I won't listen to them."

"Actually," Mikoto clarified. "I want you to chose one, and bond with it. You're the only human in this age to have successfully called and controlled a Slave and survived. That strength of will should enable you to control one of these spirits. But...think carefully about what you are offered. There will be no going back on your bargain. And, if you choose too unwisely...there are some spirits that should not

be let out of here for anything."

I gulped. "How will I know which one I should pick?"

"If you pick wrong, I'll kill you." Mikoto was smiling again, but the smile didn't reach her eyes as she skipped over to the door and opened it. "Now, in you go!"

What could I do? I took the invitation and stepped into the cavern beneath the Black Tomb.

There are a very small number of people who have been in that cavern and been allowed out again. Most of them work for the TSAB and are sworn to secrecy. With the number of Lost Logia Mikoto was keeping locked up there, that's entirely understandable. And if you asked Mikoto directly what was in there, she'd probably just lie to you and tell you it's where she kept the ramen spices.

Except that wouldn't be a lie. The first thing I went past was a rack of ancient, exotic spices, all perfectly preserved in metal jars.

The rest of the place was just even more weird. Broken bits of machines that were so far gone I couldn't even guess at their original function was most of it. Later I was told that they were actually more functional than they looked, and if I'd touched one of them the wrong way they might have put themselves back together and gone on a rampage.

But the real treasures...oh, I still remember those first few side-caverns. Filled with piles of gold and silver coins, enough to make anyone rich. Exotic jewelry of all kinds. Mikoto likes living simply, but you don't live as long as she has, being as active in the world as she is, and not pick up stuff along the way. I'm thinking she inherited some of it too, from the fact that she's one of the original desecndents of the Twelve Kings.

No, I'm not telling you which one. That would be telling!

And after that...the armory. It was a big door, like a vault, that opened when I got close to it. Inside there were all sorts of things. Giant energy weapons to swords. But in the center of the room, there was one thing in particular set up to draw the eye.

It was a robe, long and made out of white, filmy layers of shimering, exotic fabric. Rather, white silk fibres interwoven with exotic metals forged to glistening and drawn into ultra-thin threads, like Fate's Zipangi outfit. Only this covered everything, at least ten layers thick. It was on a dummy holding a sword thrust several inches into the pedastal.

It was absolutely the most beautiful thing I'd ever seen. Ignoring the weapon, I stripped out of my school uniform right on the spot and tried it on. It was just the most perfect fit, I absolutely loved it. There were lightweight shoulder-pads to make it look vaguely warrior-esque, too, that just seemed perfect for me. I folded up my uniform and left it there to pick up on the way out.

But, beyond all the wonders and horrors, the best and worst was at the very bottom, in an archway at the back of the treasure vault.

The Temple of the Childs.

The walls of the temple were carved into a perfectly smooth sphere, about a mile across in all directions. Every inch of it was covered in silvery runes, inlaid by some process Mikoto still won't tell me about. And each rune shed a soft light, illuminating the whole cavern very dimly. The only other feature of the room was a rock bridge, suspended in mid-air half a mile long, to a simple altar on a large platform directly in the middle. With no better ideas, I walked along the bridge to the altar. The wind kept whipping around me, just hard enough to give the impression I might fall off with even a single bad step, but nothing happened. I reached the altar and looked down on it. Laid out on there was a pattern with crystal spheres about the size of, well, a marble, with a glowing star in the center of each.

There were places for fourteen spheres, two in the center, six along the edges. Five on the edges, and the two center spheres, were both missing.

"Hello?" I called out, a bit uncertainly.

Suddenly, the wind started to whip up even more, blowing my hair around and up. My feet lifted a few inches off the platform, and my eyes locked on the far wall. Suddenly, I saw things in the wind, a strange fog taking the form of bizarre creatures from my nightmares.

WHOCALLSTOUS? It was a cacophany of voices, none saying anything intelligible, but together the words just formed in the air.

What would you have done? "Erstin!" I called back.

WHATDOYOUDESIRE? WHYSEEKOURPOWER, MORTAL? The not-voice wasn't unkind, exactly, but it seemed impatient.

"I...I want to help my friends!" I explained. "There's a war. But I'm a bad Otome, and I can't use a Slave for a war. But..but...I want to fight!"

The spirits swirled even faster, and then several forms became more solid. The spirits seemed to be discussing things, but eventually, I could see three of them clearly.

IamKagutsuchi, theCleansingFlame, the first one, a dragon with green eyes spoke. Joinwithme, andyourfoesshallbesweptfromthisworldinpurifyingflame

The second spirit, a warrior in dark armor, stepped forward. IamMiroku, theBlackKnight. Joinwithme, andallwhoopposeyoushallbecrushedbeneathourheel

The third, seeming meeker than the other two, appeared last. It was a strange tree, with a single eye, that looked upon me with genuine compassion. IamDiana it told me, the weird, alien voice at contrast with the feminine name. TheTreeofWisdom. Joinwithme, andIshalltellyouallyouwishtoknowofthisworld.

Pah, Miroku countered. Shedoesnotneedtoknowwhatliesbeforeher, onlytosmashthedarktowerandtakeherplace,

Howlikeyou, Kagutsuchi said. Knowledgewillnotprotecttheweak, norwillitrestoretheright. Destructionofallisnottheanswer. Icanhelpyou, girl.

Miroku looked away from me to regard the dragon. Youareweak, andsoft. Sheneedsonlypower.

Diana spoke to me again. Icannotinfluenceyourdecision, girl, butchoosequickly.

I weighed out my options. I knew I had to choose wisely. I will admit, the easy fix Kagutsuchi and Miroku were offering had its' appeal. But I remembered what Nanoha had taught us with the wargames. That it wasn't who struck first, or who struck hardest, who won. These beasts were imprisoned here, they weren't as invincible as Miroku was trying to proclaim. And fire, I knew, could turn on me and burn me.

There was only one real answer.

"Come forth...DIAAAANAAAAAAAAA!" I screamed as the wind tore my voice from my throat. The spirits whirled around me, and then, suddenly, I was being thrown from the Shrine, landing hard on the piles of treasure. I don't know how long I laid there, but when I looked up, one of the spheres was resting on my chest.

It took me four hours to climb my way back out of that place. I was limping, grabbing onto my side hard, and I was still grinning like a look the whole way. I didn't even realize at the time I'd left my old uniform in the vault.

Mikoto was waiting with the spices for me. Her eyes actually widened in surprise when she saw me. "What? What is it?" I asked her.

Mikoto looked at me for a very long time, and I got really worried. She did say she'd kill me if I picked wrong after all. I think I nearly fainted with relief when she said, still very shocked "I thought you'd take the sword."

"...oh," I said weakly. "...I don't know, this just...felt right..."

Mikoto grinned. "Nah, it's okay. I think it suits you. Now, Mai's been keeping the ramen hot, just for you..." She let me lean on her and pulled me out into the night. When I looked up, I saw the moon and Maiden's star shining down on me...the first time I'd ever really looked at them at all.