Haruto typed "Dorssian Royalty" into the image search engine.

The results he got all fell into one of three categories. Most of them were images of beautifully attired European autocrats in various formal settings. They stared at him, prim and unsmiling, their eyes bracketed by the marks that denoted them as members of the Dorssian royal family. The second group consisted of that really famous picture of Ulryk Dorssia in various resolutions. The third group...

...consisted of edits of female royals' heads shopped onto nude models' bodies. 'Gee, thank you, Internet,' he thought sarcastically as he hit back on the browser, quickly glancing across the room to make sure Saki hadn't seen.

Saki was on her bed, lying on her belly. Her long legs were curled up behind her back, toes pointed at the ceiling. In one hand she held a tablet and was utterly absorbed in waving a stylus over its surface. Her head swayed gently back and forth and she was humming a few bars of music over and over. Every now and then a few notes in the tune would change.

'She's lost in her own little world...'

Good. If she saw him looking at porn, he'd probably have to explain what he was doing. And Saki had enough on her mind at the moment. Haruto turned back to his laptop and frowned. That was always the problem with the internet. If you didn't know the name of the person you were looking for, searching for them could get a little difficult. There was always reverse image search, but he'd have to get the 'Licht' picture off L-Elf and scan it.

'Like that's gonna happen this decade. Probably can't trick him into letting me bodyjack him again either. ...Maybe if I took a picture and scaled it up? Doesn't seem like that'd work either. It's not like he just leaves it lying around.'

He typed in "Dorssian Royalty Child Pictures."

Thank heavens, no porn this time. But the results weren't any more usable. Now he had a bunch of confused-looking babies. Looking directly for a picture of the girl didn't seem like it was gonna work. He switched over to the text search engine.

'Okay, what can I deduce about the picture and L-Elf that might help?'

He was operating on the assumption that the 'Licht' girl was alive. From what he knew of L-Elf, the spy wasn't the revenge type. He was too practical for that. The girl was a Dorssian Royal, and she required 'saving.' That probably tied in to why L-Elf was a Royalist. He'd heard his share of Royalist sentiment while aboard the Tiberi, and while he didn't fully comprehend the Dorssian politics, he DID understand they were invested in restoring the Royalist family to power and removing Amadeus.

"And it appears ARUS cannot trust New JIOR either. So our relationship must be reexamined... we WILL be taking control of this Module."

In his memory, Haruto heard Secretary of State Wirral speaking again, his tone rich with threat. ARUS was not an absolute ally. Now, more than ever, New JIOR was dependent on L-Elf and the Royalists... but was L-Elf an absolute ally?

Haruto hated thinking that way about his friends. He thought he had a good understanding of L-Elf, enough for trust, anyway. And he still believed his trust was well-placed. His gut told him that L-Elf's pact offer was sincere. New JIOR's goals and L-Elf's goals (even if he didn't know exactly what those goals were) aligned, so cooperation made sense. But that wasn't going to cut it anymore. He'd only been painting by broad strokes, going by instinct on the matter. Now the situation had become so complex that there was no way to know exactly how L-Elf might react to ARUS' actions.

His instinctive guess about the 'Licht' girl wasn't good enough anymore. He had to know exactly what her relationship with L-Elf was. He thought for a moment more and typed in "Dorssian Royal Family Genealogy."

He clicked on the first result. As far as he could tell with his limited German, it seemed to be a detailed list of Dorssian Royalty with portraits and brief biographical information. Perfect. A little exploration showed him there were currently 61 living members of the Royal Family, 33 of whom were female.

'Time to exercise that clicking finger!'

Halfway through the list he found the entry he was looking for.

He'd gotten incredibly lucky. The picture was the same one from L-Elf's pocket: a small girl in a big chair with her pink hair in buns. Was that the only picture available of her or something? He looked at the name under the picture: Liselotte W. Dorssia. There was only one line in her biography:

Born 52 TC, July 11. 15th in line for the throne as of 71 TC, April 13th

'So that would make her nineteen years old.'

Haruto opened up a new tab and typed her name into the search engine. A few minutes later, he sighed in annoyance. Information on this Liselotte was extremely scarce, it seemed. The most he could find was some Dorssian conspiracy theory blog, which was beyond his ability to read. He machine translated the German into Japanese, and it seemed to be claiming she was either a recluse... or dead.

'But at least I know her name now. Maybe if I ask A-Drei about her? There's a chance he doesn't know about L-Elf's secret, so if I manage to frame it innocently enough...'

He tabbed back to the genealogy site, and on a whim, did a search for 'Gabriel.' That was what Uncial called A-Drei back on the Tiberi. He got back 2 results... but surprisingly, both were deceased. One died 301 years ago, and the other one 20 years ago. He went through the 28 living males, found both Amadeus and Uncial... but no one that looked like A-Drei.

Was A-Drei a fake? Uncial and the Royalists aboard the Tiberi certainly treated him like the genuine article... so did that mean there were 'hidden' Dorssian Royals? It made sense, he supposed. A-Drei WAS a secret agent, so his identity had to be protected.

'And if A-Drei is a secret Royal, the website's claim of 61 living Royals is probably wrong, and there's more running around than that.'

"Whacha lookin' at?" Saki asked from right next to him.

"Wah!" Haruto jerked upright.

"Dorssian Royalty?" Saki glanced at his screen. "Guess that Uncial guy impressed you."

"Yeah, I really liked his eyeshadow," Haruto joked. "Think I could pull the look off?"

Saki stared into his eyes for a moment, and Haruto found himself thinking just how very lustrous and purple her eyes were, and how they were so perfectly bracketed by her crooked bangs. Seriously, how could a hairdo be so uneven but still so cute? His heart beat a little faster... but then she looked away. "It's time," she said softly.

"Right," Haruto said, his heart rate slowing to a dull dread-filled throb. He looked around the room. "Where should we, uh...?"

"Over on the bed." Saki took his hand and guided him over. If she noticed his palms were clammy, she didn't react. She sat on her bed and pulled him down with her.

They sat there for a moment in awkward silence, their hands still entwined. Then Saki pushed back her hair from the side of her face, holding it out of the way and tilting her head to give him access to her slim neck. "Go for it," she said.

"Ah..." The fangs were in Haruto's mouth without him being aware they had appeared, the same way they always did when he was about to bite someone. He ran his tongue across the sharpened teeth, feeling their edges. In a moment, those points would slice through Saki's creamy skin, and something in him balked. He didn't want to hurt her, even if she was volunteering for it.

"Well, come on!" Saki sounded a little peeved. Haruto moved forward, opening his lips and breathing in the warm clean scent of her skin. She made a small sound of encouragement, and he put his mouth to her neck and bit down. The hot coppery salt of her blood filled his mouth-

-and then nothing.

He woke in Saki's body, lying on the bed half under his empty former body. He carefully extricated himself from... himself.

'These bodyjacking pronouns are gonna drive me crazy someday.'

He sat up, touching the side of his neck. The wound there was gone already. He looked down at his former body, the urge burning in him to quickly transfer back. But Saki had previously insisted it might be best if he stayed put for a while, so he got a good dose of... whatever it was he was getting from his victims.

"Ten minutes should be enough," Saki had told him. And he'd deferred to her because, well, who was the expert on vampires? So he sat uncomfortably on the bed in her body and stared at the clock. It was only his second time bodyjacking a girl, and he tried but failed to not think about the difference between their bodies. It wasn't just the obvious stuff like what was between their legs; there were other, subtle differences, like the slight but definitely noticeable weight of her long hair as he moved her head.

A while into his wait, Saki's phone buzzed as she got a text. He almost read it on reflex, but managed to stop himself. He glanced at the clock: only four minutes had passed, but the text felt like enough of an excuse to end the exercise. He quickly bit his comatose former body on the neck.

When he came to, Saki was just sitting up, looking confused. "What happened?" She asked. "Did we... do it?"

Haruto nodded.

Saki put her hand to her head. "Wow, that's disorienting. It went okay though, right?"

"Yeah," Haruto replied. "You got a text."

A smile appeared on Saki's lips as she looked at her phone. "Taylor got back to me," she chirped happily. "Production is a go!"

"Great!" Haruto said. "Are you feeling okay?"

"Mmm-hmm!" Saki gave him a sparkling grin.

She looked so beautiful that Haruto found himself smiling back. "If you feel anything wrong, even like if you're dizzy or something, lemmie know, okay?"

Saki's smile became mysterious. "Trust me, I don't think that'll be a problem."

"Professor Tokishima," someone said.

Soichi looked up from his pages of neat calculations and figures. There was a trio of lab coat-clad engineers staring at him. Kitagawa, Minami, and Kajimura. They were all holding clipboards. "What is it?" he asked, although he had a very good idea of what they wanted.

"There's something in Fabrication we need you to take a look at," Minami said. Her hands were pale where they clutched her clipboard and she was twitching.

Soichi was momentarily irritated with her. 'Showing that kind of nervousness will just make our captors suspect something, wouldn't it?' Sometimes he wished for better co-conspirators. It wasn't like he considered himself particularly good at the cloak-and-dagger business, but his years with his son had given him at least some experience on how to lie chronically-and more importantly, how to keep those lies consistent.

"Of course," he said, falling in with the three. They made their way down two levels from his office, to the cavernous room where the custom parts for the sub-units were being constructed. At the entrance, they each took a hard hat and a pair of goggles from the rack, as well as ear plugs... but instead of inserting ear plugs, they all slipped the yellow foam tabs into their pockets. The roaring machinery in the room was incredibly loud, and Soichi winced, hoping he wasn't setting himself up for hearing loss later on in life. That would be annoying.

'But there's no helping it. This is the only place where we can be sure there's no listening devices monitoring us...'

"What did you want to show me!?" He had to shout to make himself heard.

"Right here!" Minami yelled back, gesturing to a stack of alloy plates. But the next words out of her mouth had nothing to do with her hand motions. "The rocket sled will work! There's a piece of sub-unit three's armature we can use as a chassis and I think I can siphon off enough materials to build it!"

Soichi nodded and made his own playacting gestures toward the plates. There was no way they could evacuate ALL the JIORan staff. So it was to be the four of them. Although Soichi had no illusions about what he was prepared to do: if something went wrong during their escape-if it came down to himself or any of the others, he would have to make sure he himself survived, even if the othersdidn't.

'I, Tokishima Soichi, am the only one here who is indispensable.'

Despite everything that had happened, he still believed firmly in that idea. No, rather it was because of what had happened. Who else among the VVV Project staff could really appreciate what was going on with the Dorssians and Prue? If any one person had to survive, it was him.

But there was no point in letting the others know these sentiments. Instead he merely gave Minami a thumbs up. Kitagawa was up next, and he informed them he'd succeeded in planting a cobbled-together camera in one of the grav tractors that brought in equipment and supplies. After he retrieved the camera, he saw that the exit of their underground prison lay in the middle of a stretch of pine forest. The taiga.

It wasn't any more than they'd expected, really. There were endless tracts of empty forest in Dorssia, perfect for the kind of hidden factory-base they were in. In a way, it was actually beneficial for them: once they escaped, the forest would hide them from their pursuers. But it would also be important to procure supplies.

Supplies would be the difficult part. Unlike the materials, which they could simply steal from the Dorssian project, their only source of food was through the cafeteria-and that was run by Dorssian staff. Still, Soichi believed they'd overcome that obstacle, even if it came down to hoarding parts of their meals.

Kajimura was saying maybe there was a way to bribe the cafeteria workers when he abruptly closed his mouth. Soichi turned to see a Dorssian machinist walking by. The man caught them staring at him and frowned. Kitagawa gave him a sheepish smile and a wave and the man moved on.

Minami looked petrified. "May-maybe we should talk later," she suggested. Soichi and the others nodded.

Gratefully, he took his leave of Fabrication. His ears were still ringing and he wanted to have some peace and quiet in his office with his work-but instead he found his feet taking him to the hanger. The Dorssian guards at the entrance let him pass unchallenged-they knew who he was by now, and he wandered down the length of the busy room until his gaze fell upon the giant humanoid figure at the far end.

'Unit Two. No... Not Unit Two anymore. Now it's...'

Dainsleif. That was what the Dorssians were calling it, and it now bore only passing resemblance to the black Valvrave he'd known. The JIORans had fixed the damage to its chassis and the Dorssians had painted it white and gold and added all sorts of embellishments to its frame. He thought it looked rather gaudy. Still limbless, it sat upright in its cradle like an enormous infant. It reminded him for a moment of the absurd backpack carrier he used to haul baby Haruto around in, long ago. Those had been the irksome days before the boy was old enough to take care of himself, but strangely enough, Soichi felt a twinge of nostalgia. In truth, those had been simpler days.

'But it'll be walking before long.'

His gaze moved to the spot beside Dainsleif, to the skeletal chassis of the half-complete sub-unit being put together in its own cradle. The Dorssians called it a 'Tanzer.' The smaller mech was only half the size of a Valvrave and one-third of the mass, but he'd seen the blueprints for it and knew it bristled with armaments, both conventional and Hard Afterglow.

There were four of the things planned, and he'd been the one to design their power sources, a kind of half-baked device that functioned like an extremely inefficient RAVE Engine which accepted Runes from Dainsleif. No Mirror RAVEs, these; rather than utilize the broadcast technology that wirelessly transmitted energy from Unit 01 to the rest of the Valvrave fleet, the Tanzers required a direct Hard Afterglow connection to Dainslef.

He'd made the Tanzers' engines as crude as he dared, but the Dorssians had a basic level of technical knowledge that he was wary of. If he screwed up the designs too obviously there was a chance they would see through his plotting. As he'd previously experienced in their Module lab, they knew things about Runes which they should not have. Nowhere near what the VVV Project team had learned after studying Sample Prime for decades, of course, but enough to suggest that they'd had their own Rune project for a while. Soichi had previously had suspicions, but now it was almost a given that the Dorssians had found their own wreckage at an unknown time in the past.

Once again, Soichi was disturbed by the prospect that the Dorssians knew something he didn't. The Tanzers were intended as drone units, and he supposed that the Dorssians were developing software to drive them. He knew that their military made heavy use of drones, so attaching drones to Dainsleif was a reasonable development for them. But a drone's AI should not be able to use Hard Afterglow-based weaponry-it was a fundamental limit of the Rune technology that as far as he knew was insurmountable. But the Dorssians were clearly moving forward as if they KNEW such a thing was possible.

'Is it Prue? Something to do with Prue? It must be.'

If the Tanzers worked as intended, they would actually pose a threat to the Valvraves. And that made his head whirl. His destiny to create the next step of human evolution was under threat, something that he'd never thought possible. His only comfort was the small flaw he'd engineered into Dainleif's Overdrive system. It was a flaw he thought subtle enough to not become apparent during testing. And even if it was found, it would probably be shrugged off as an accident.

He didn't like settling, but he would give to his son whatever advantage he could for when Unit 01 finally met Dainsleif. That would have to be enough.

"Professor Tokishima." A voice broke into his thoughts.

Soichi turned around, feeling an annoying wave of deja vu as he saw three people headed for him. Dorssians this time. There was a pair of soldiers, and the person walking in front of them was...

'That woman!'

Soichi cringed half a step back, a chill running down his spine. Just as before, aboard the Dorssian Module, the small bronze-skinned woman in the crisp suit filled him with inexplicable terror. Why?

The two guards stopped a respectful distance away as the woman swept past Soichi. She only had eyes for Dainsleif sitting in its cradle. She stood there silently for several minutes, drinking in the sight. Finally, her black eyes slid to him. "It's so small," she complained, an accusatory note in her voice as if blaming him.

The familiar criticism took the edge off his fear. He'd heard similar lines from military people for years, and the woman's mundane comment helped reinforce his old notion that the rich people who funded the VVV project were all the same. They lacked the vision to really appreciate the Rune technology.

"Look..." he dredged up her name from memory and launched into his standard speech for these situations. "Daitya-san. Size isn't everything. The unit is as large as it needs to be to support the weapon and propulsion systems. Frankly anything else just makes the unit a bigger target, and we don't want that, do we?"

Daitya had no reaction to his spiel. Instead she switched to a completely different topic. "The last time we spoke, you promised me something. The time for you to make good has arrived."

Soichi thought back. "The activation mix?" He asked hesitantly. At the time it seemed safe enough to promise to duplicate it for the Dorssians because they weren't likely to get their hands on a sample. But now...

In reply, Daitya withdrew a plastic capsule from her pocket and held it out. Within it were a few drops of a very familiar dark fluid.

'How did she get THAT?'

Soichi's fingers trembled as he reached for the capsule. He had the sudden and bizarre premonition that when he touched Daitya's skin, it would be ice-cold. But when his fingertips grazed her palm, her skin felt normal, warmer than his own. He snatched the sample quickly anyway, wanting to minimize contact with that hand. He held the capsule for a moment, briefly thought about just destroying the thing once he was alone-

"There's more where that came from," Daitya said, as if catching onto his thoughts. "But it wouldn't do to waste what you have."

Those intense eyes bore into him. He swallowed hard against a dry throat. "No, of course not."

'Better to just give her what she wants... pick and choose my battles. If the escape plan works, and we get away from all this...'

"I look forward to your results." Without waiting for an answer, Daitya turned and walked away, her guards trailing a discreet distance behind.

Soichi eyed the vial sourly. Yet another change to his schedule...

Akira tapped away at her console, shifting between several windows at once. She was feeling much better now that she was on the Module again. Even the ARUS soldiers crawling over the place didn't really bother her much. She supposed the security of just being back home outweighed the occupiers' presence.

She had finally gotten that motion tracking program working. It was busy monitoring the ARUS soldiers and dumping the video files to Little Witch's drives. She'd watched some of those feeds for a while before getting bored: the ARUS soldiers mostly did mundane things like stand around and eat and sleep and go to the bathroom. And in their free time they talked or surfed the web on their phones.

'At least back when I was watching the students they'd do something weird every now and then... or have sex...'

Over in a second window she was working on decrypting some ARUS communications. She'd previously broken a military code much like this, but of course they'd changed encryptions since then. Still, it would be easy enough to turn the trick again.

'Just gonna take a little time. Now if only I had some way to keep track of what those Royalists are doing...'

There were no cameras in the Valvrave machine shops. Or if there were, they were on a separate network that Akira couldn't access. It wasn't exactly like she thought the Dorssians were sabotaging things down there or anything. They were probably up to the same mundane things as the ARUS troops, sure, but it'd be nice to actually confirm that.

She had a third window cycling through random camera feeds, just for her amusement, and for a moment she caught a glimpse of something that bemused her. She tapped the window to keep it from cycling, and stared at the tiny screen. Rukino Saki was in one of the Home EC rooms, taking something-in-a-round-pan out of an oven. She was wearing a pink apron and a pink handkerchief on her head. On the counter near her were eggs, flour, and milk.

'What is that, a cake?'

Saki cut around the sides of the pan with a knife, slapped a plate over it, flipped the whole thing over, and then lifted the pan off, leaving herself with a cake on a plate. Akira was impressed despite herself, and as the idol went to work with a tube of frosting, Akira found herself wishing idly she had the time and inclination to make cakes from scratch like that. Generally she felt that sort of thing took too long.

'Wonder what kind of cake Thunder likes...?'

She rolled her eyes. There was one of those idle thoughts about Thunder again. They'd been increasing in frequency for a while now, and often she found herself jumping to thoughts of him from completely unrelated topics. It had been troubling at first, but now she was getting used to them. Especially since he brought her dinner. She imagined herself feeding him a bite of cake and smiled to herself.

'Am I developing a crush on the big guy? Maybe a little.' It was her first time experiencing this sort of thing and after an initial short-lived knee-jerk reaction to try and deny it, she found herself indulging in it. Thinking about Thunder made her feel warm and fuzzy, and that was certainly a thing she could use more of.

On the screen, Saki had stacked two rounds of cake together and produced a passable facsimile of the Dorssian flag on top using icing. Akira thought that was rather odd-she'd assumed the cake was for Saki's own use or the pilots or the ministers or something like that. But that was a strange decoration for a cake meant for JIORans.

'Maybe it's A-Drei or L-Elf's birthday or something. Well, whatever.' Akira lost interest in Saki's baked goods. She changed the camera feed, looking for a familiar towering orange hairdo...

'There we go!' She found Thunder in the staff room that she'd heard a few people calling the 'Pilots' Lounge.' He and A-Drei were clearing the furniture from one side of the room and putting down gymnastic pads. It looked like they were setting up some kind of workout or sparring area. Akira fairly drooled a little as Thunder picked up a cabinet, his biceps flexing nicely.

'Ah... his arms are so big...'

Saki wandered down the hallway, holding her cake in both hands.

'Was it down at staircase D-3 or T-3?'

She had never been down to the Valvrave machine shops before, and was just a little lost. This deep down, the halls were completely empty of other people. At least she had the yummy smell coming from her freshly-baked pastry to keep her company.

There were four secret VVV machine shops onboard Module 77, none appearing on official blueprints. Otamaya-kun had explained to her once about how each of the shops produced a specific series of Valvrave parts (or something like that, Saki hadn't been paying full attention at the time). Three of the shops were for chassis components, hard light generators, and weapons systems, respectively. Those three shops were all in use, busily producing parts to repair the Valvraves' battle damage. The last machine shop normally produced engine and drive components, but now was in use for quite a different purpose.

Saki's target was this fourth shop. It took her some wrong turns, but eventually she reached her destination. The personnel entrance to the shop was just a standard hatchway, no different from those found anywhere else on the Module. She glanced over at the sign at the end of the corridor to confirm she was in the right place.

'Yup. This is it.'

She took a deep breath, summoned up a cheerful smile, and knocked, her knuckles clanging against the metal door.

The door slid open almost immediately, and a young man with dark hair stared at her in surprise. He was wearing the Sakimori boys' uniform, but the face that peered from above the collar was caucasian.

"Was? Sie... uh, you are Saki Rukino, the sing- pilot?" The man said, beginning in German but quickly switching to highly accented Japanese.

"That's me!" Saki turned up the charm of her smile, and the young man swallowed hard. His reaction pleased her; she was willing to bet that this one was a fan. She thrust her cake toward him. "And this is for you!"

The young man took it by reflex, blinking down at it and then back up at her. "Die flagge... uh, sorry. My Japanese is very bad. The word is...?"

"Kokki," Saki said. The German word was similar enough to English that she could figure it out. "Can I come in?"

"Uhm, I must ask my..." The man looked over his shoulder and called out in German. A few moments later someone responded, and he nodded back at Saki, stepping back to make way.

Saki stepped into the room. She expected the machine shop to resemble a factory, but it looked more like the server room of a software company. There were a few robot arms and assembly lines, but most of the room was filled with computer towers and terminals. And people, of course. A few dozen that she could see, scattered around the chamber, all staring at her and all dressed in Sakimori uniforms.

'Of course, none of them actually are students.'

A short, solidly built middle-aged Dorssian woman who looked conspicuously out of place in her girls' uniform stepped up to Saki, her back ramrod straight. The tips of her short blonde hair were dyed bright pink. Even so, she couldn't have looked less like a student if she tried. "What are you doing here, Miss Rukino?" She asked in decent Japanese.

'Probably the commander.' Saki put on her ditziest smile. "I came to thank you guys for looking after the Module while we were out," she chirped. "And to give you guys this cake! I made it myself!"

"Uh, okay?" The Dorssian gave Saki an appraising look and Saki could see the other woman's mental evaluation of her drop by like fifty points. "The flag IS a nice touch."

"Isn't it just?" Saki gushed.

A look of exasperation appeared briefly on the Dorssian's face. "I... thank you on behalf of the Royalists."

The Royalists were starting to crowd around them now. Here Saki saw the same eclectic mix of ethnicities that she'd seen before among the Dorssians. A few looked confused. Another few, mostly the younger ones, were looking at her cake with anticipation. But most wore calculating expressions as they tried to figure out her purpose here.

'What's up with those things they're wearing?'

As Saki looked around, she noticed several of the Dorssians were wearing little chunks of colored crystal, mostly on necklaces, but a few had bracelets, and one woman had one as an earring. The crystals came in all sorts of twisty shapes and all hues of the rainbow. The necklaces they were hung on were similarly mismatched. There were bits of leather thong, chain, and even a bootlace.

'They don't look like valuable gems at all... more like those crummy knick-knacks you find in novelty stores. But why would a bunch of Royalist soldiers wear such cheap jewelry? Some kind of unit insignia? But they look kitsch. That's not like Dorssians... they're all about looking stylish.'

The Dorssian commander stepped closer. "Is there anything else?" she asked softly.

Saki searched the other woman's face. She was probably thinking that L-Elf or Haruto or someone had sent Saki with some sort of message. After all, a hidden agenda like that was probably easier for her to contextualize than an idol randomly bringing them a cake. She smiled at the commander and tilted her head slightly. "Nope, nothing else!"

The Dorssian commander blinked. "Then you should be on your way."

"Uhm, okay..." Saki did her best to look hesitant. She fidgeted a little. "Only, uh... I got a little lost coming down, and it was kinda spooky. It's so empty around here! Do you think one of you could walk me back up?"

"Mein Gott im himmel..." The Dorssian muttered, not quite under her breath. She wore an expression of naked disgust now, and Saki could just see her wondering how such a bratty little girl managed to best the Dorssian Navy on so many occasions.

'Great. The more they underestimate me...'

"I can take you," the young man from the door spoke up. He'd passed the cake on to someone else. There was a good-natured whistle from another young soldier, and someone else said something in German, their tone slightly ribbing. The young man shot something back in German in the same tone, and a slight laugh went around the room.

"Retten ein stuck kuchen fur mich, ja?" He said to the others.

"Orvar wird zwei stucke des kuchens haben!" Someone else laughed.

The soldier grinned back at them, then looked to the commander. She nodded curtly, and the soldier turned to Saki. "Let's go," he said in Japanese.

A short while later, Saki was walking through the corridors with the Dorssian, who was named Orvar, as she found out. He was much more comfortable now than he'd been earlier, and he chattered on in broken Japanese.

"Do not let Oberst scare you," he said. "She is... unruhig? Thinking of coming fighting soon. With ARUS."

"You think it'll come to a fight with ARUS?" Saki asked, more to make conversation than anything else. She was trying to figure out exactly how she was going to do this thing.

"Possible," Orvar said. "But do not worry. We will help you. We fight like hell, ja?"

"Mmm, that you guys do," Saki said, thinking of when she and Thunder tried to take down L-Elf. She didn't have much confidence in handling Orvar in hand-to-hand either, even if he wasn't a super-duper secret agent like L-Elf. She needed an edge.

And, right in front of her, she saw her chance. Every few meters along the corridor, there was an airlock which could be shut against depressurization. Module-dwellers rarely thought about them; they were just a feature of the landscape. But as they crossed one now, Saki deliberately tripped over the low edge of the recessed door and allowed herself to fall heavily on her face.

"Scheisse!" Orvar knelt to help her up. "Are you okay?"

And there was his hand, right in front of her. Saki lunged and bit down.

Saki sat up in Orvar's body a moment later, glancing over at her own form still lying on the floor.

'Should I pull that out of the way? Nah, nobody's gonna come down this way in the next five minutes... Might as well just wait here.'

She worked through a few motions with Orvar's body, enjoying the soldier's easy strength. As she'd told Haruto earlier, it was probably best to stay jacked for a few minutes to make sure they got enough of whatever they were stealing. She couldn't be perfectly sure that was how it worked, but it felt like a safe enough assumption.

There was another assumption she was making, one that was MUCH less safe. That namely, what they took could be transferred from one Kamitsuki to another. That she could feed on Orvar now, and then the energy or whatever could be transmitted to Haruto later when he bodyjacked her. Despite any kind of evidence, she felt pretty confident about this one, just like how she was confident that Haruto could get back into his old body by biting.

'That way I should be safe from negative side effects of the feeding. And if I try to spread it out over several people, the impact should be less severe on them too.'

At the end of the day, Rukino Saki just wasn't that big of a martyr.

The world spun dizzily around Yamada, and with a solid thump, he found himself on his back on the mat again.

"Not quite," A-Drei said, extending a hand. Yamada took it and A-Drei helped pull him up.

'Almost had 'im that time.' Yamada eyed A-Drei, going over the sequence of events in his head. 'Gotta watch out for that beast of a kick. But I saw it just now! He dips just before. Shifts his weight onto his back leg. If I can catch him while he's off balance from that...'

"You got another one in ya?" He asked the Dorssian, already sliding into his stance.

A-Drei grinned. "Yeah, I think so." He moved into a ready posture of his own.

Yamada kept his eyes locked on A-Drei. The Dorssian prince's fighting style was a crazy modification of Sambo. It was a style that he'd heard of but not much about, other than it incorporated some JIORan styles. True to what he'd heard, some of A-Drei's moves did indeed resemble Judo, and others were reminiscent of Jujutsu. But some were quite alien. The mix of different moves made Dorssian secret agents hella scary in CQC.

'But the best way to get better is through practice!'

A-Drei came at him with a whirlwind of blows. He dodged them, went for a sweep, but A-Drei slipped away. They squared off again briefly, and Yamada went on the offensive. He managed to get a brief grasp on A-Drei's arm, but the Dorssian twisted out of the hold. Yamada watched as A-Drei took a step away, and then dipped-

'THERE IT IS!'

He turned slightly, intending to catch A-Drei's leg and then throw him with a hip sweep. But the expected kick never materialized. Instead, A-Drei slid to the side and threw a punch that solidly connected with Yamada's midsection.

"Ooof!" The breath left Yamada in a gush and he staggered back.

'Shit, a feint? He figured out that I was watching for the kick? He's damn good...'

He managed to somehow evade the follow-up strike, but then A-Drei kicked his leg out from under him. He twisted desperately as he went down, managing to turn his momentum into an awkward roll and scrambling back to a foot and one knee. A-Drei came at him and he reached out reflexively, surprised to catch A-Drei's arm at the base. His leverage from his half-standing position was awful, but using brute strength and height to make up for his lack of skill, he managed to take both of them down to the mat. They rolled around, and somehow Yamada ended up on top with A-Drei in a shoulder lock.

"Give!" A-Drei said. Yamada released him, then rose and pulled him up.

"Nice one there," A-Drei complimented.

"Thanks." Yamada frowned as a sudden thought occurred to him. He wasn't the suspicious type, but... "You didn't lemmie just win that one, didja?"

A-Drei snorted. "Please," he said. "I'm not that much of a nice guy. Plus it's not a good idea to give trainees an inflated idea of their skills. Real good way to get them killed. I wasn't expecting you to grab and throw me from that bad of a position."

"Me neither," Yamada admitted. "That was mostly luck."

"Sometimes luck is the only thing that determines who's left standing," A-Drei observed. He bowed to Yamada.

Yamada returned the bow. "What, you done?"

"Yeah," A-Drei laughed and massaging his shoulder. "I'm just a tired, bruised up mortal. Can't go all day like you guys."

"Alright," Yamada said. "Hey, thanks for sparring with me, man!"

"No problem," A-Drei responded. "You might have to put these lessons into use soon, with how things have been going lately."

"Yeah," Yamada agreed soberly. Not sure of what to say, he glanced around the room awkwardly. It was a pretty cozy little place, and getting fixed up pretty well. Someone had cleared away the two dead potted plants near the entrance and put in a new set. Plastic, yeah, but not bad-looking. Plus it was way more accessible than the room down below in the guts of the Module they'd used before. He might like it even better if it weren't missing one tiny thing.

'Akira's still back down in the hanger. It'd be pretty sweet if she came to hang out here...'

Yeah, like that was gonna happen. Yamada didn't quite understand exactly how it worked, but he got the feeling the lounge was way too far away from Little Witch for Akira to feel safe. Too bad. He would have liked to know what she thought of the place.

'Oh, well.'

He picked up his phone from the table where he'd left it before their session and turned it on. To his surprise, it buzzed almost immediately. He checked it to see the latest in a string of texts from Kengo.

素敵ステーキ: (29 minutes ago) hey man ur on ARUS tv again!

This was followed by a link to ARUS Golden News streaming.

素敵ステーキ: (6 minutes ago) you gotta check this out!

素敵ステーキ: (40 seconds ago) man ur gonna miss it!

素敵ステーキ: (7 seconds ago) its over but you can check out the vod

And another link.

Intrigued, Yamada pressed the second link. It led to a video on the ARUS Golden News website. He waited impatiently through the opening ad, and got a middle-aged ARUS newscaster who introduced himself as Burnett. The face looked vaguely familiar, and Thunder thought he might have seen the dude before. Or at least, his 'do. It was certainly more memorable than his face, with curling tips that reminded him a little of Haruto's haircut. But...

'Boring! This ain't what Kengo wanted to show me. Skip!'

He skipped around until he was looking at a very familiar smartphone clip, showing a crowd of students under an overcast sky. As he'd seen plenty of times before, the gunshots rang out and the video tilted crazily to the sound of screams. There were a few frames of his orange 'do bobbing as he went down, but that was it. He sighed, slightly annoyed. Getting shot by that ARUS guy wasn't exactly his crowning moment of glory, and he wished the clip hadn't been publicized so much on the internet... He'd been linked to it WAY too many times already. And now ARUS News was showing it too?

The clip looped, and Yamada was about to close the video, but Burnett started to speak on a voiceover. "Many of our viewers are no doubt familiar with this footage. The late Senator Figaro firing on unarmed children cannot of course be defended under any circumstances. However..." The reporter paused dramatically as the Yamada in the clip fell yet again. "Golden News has recently obtained information which puts his actions in a more complete context."

"What are you watching there?" A-Drei asked, coming over to see.

A new clip started. This one was also taken by a smartphone, but it showed the students now cheering beneath a blue Module sky. The camera jerked around wildly, blurred, then focused on a towering black and red mech, a tiny brunette figure lifted in one outstretched hand.

"You, the ARUS Senator there!" The on-screen Shoko called out, her voice made tiny by distance. "We can't let you take the robot. But please fight together with us!"

"What is this?" A-Drei asked. "I've never seen this footage before... is this fabricated?"

"Nah, it happened," Yamada replied. "After dat mess with ARUS, Shoko said we should keep a lid on this, cause people in ARUS might not understand, y'know? Like they'd think we was working with Dorssia or some shit like that."

"In that case!" Shoko yelled, "we'll give this robot to Dorssia! Glad to have you on our side, Senator!"

A-Drei winced.

Burnett returned to the screen, his expression dire. "As you can see," he pronounced, "Senator Figaro's actions, reprehensible though they may have been, were nonetheless made under duress. While it is a certainty he overreacted, he was also under much more pressure at the time than we knew previously. He had no way to know if the JIORan threat to deliver their Valvrave technology to Dorssia was a bluff, and had they made good on it..."

"Hey, waitaminute!" Yamada yelled at the face. "Dat ain't how it went down! The shooting shit happened BEFORE Shoko said this stuff!" He looked over at A-Drei. "But dis guy's making it seem like it was the other way 'round!" A chill went down his spine as he realized what was happening. "Shit."

A-Drei pulled out his own phone and pressed something on quickdial. "There's something you need to see," he said into it.

CHAPTER 20 END

AN: Thanks to Chulaind, Redhazard, and Christemo for beta reading!

And thanks to everyone as well for reading! Hope you enjoyed!

So I feel like I can see where they were trying to go in episode 21 of the anime with the media reveal and everything, but the way that it happened within like... everyone in the entire world turning on New JIOR after 3 minutes of broadcast time was just... dumb. And then having the two leaders declare world peace simultaneously and this miraculously heals like decades of hostility and suspicion between the two countries instantly is just... people don't work that way! Just... agggh! Especially in an age where photomanipulation and CGI exists, people should not have looked at the footage of Saki regenerating from her lethal wound and gone 'BAKEMONO DA! OH SHIT SPACE VAMPIRES EXIST!' They SHOULD have gone 'what is this, like a viral ad for Saki Rukino's new movie? Is that what New JIOR is doing with our aid money? Well I'm totally not donating to them anymore!'

But that being said, I don't think the underlying concept is inherently bad. The execution of it in the series was... silly. And maybe that was due to time contraints or having to wrap up their plot in less episodes than they thought they would get or whatever. But hey, let's do something with it! :D

Language note! I don't speak German, and I must apologize for any unintentional manglings of the language I may have done! If you speak German and you want to send any corrections to me via PM, I will fix them!

Also! I don't do Judo or Sambo or any other martial art for that matter, so if I've mucked anything up about these, please let me know and I will fix them as well. Once again, terribly, terribly sorry.

Here's to seeing you guys in the next chapter! And as always, updates on my writing progress can be found in my profile.