Urusei Yatsura Fan Fiction ❯ The Ishinomaki Years ❯ The Dragon's Breath ( Chapter 1 )

[ Y - Young Adult: Not suitable for readers under 16 ]

Noukiyek City . . .

Regardless of time of day or season, it always seemed so misty in this part of the capital city.

"Perhaps the Empress' Spirit in Heaven is still crying over her lost kingdom."

Blinking after she verbally uttered the old wives' tale as to why this hilly part of the capital of Noukiios always seemed shrouded in fog, Shoono Asuza felt her cheeks redden before she took a calming breath. Then, on seeing there was no traffic coming from any direction, she moved to cross Kap'eng Street at the T-junction it formed with Honek Boulevard and Huning Street to her usual place for practice. It was past dawn; the bright orange-gold of Ch'uokyuk trying desperately to burn through the fog banks cloaking over the jagged peaks of Mount Hap'ung, Mount K'ap'ut' and Mount Utu to the far east. She was still trying to adjust to the twenty-six hour Noukiite day; getting up while it was still dark out so she could come from her flat to the imposing edifice of the Eukseu Gate, the main entrance to the Yekk'eng Palace, didn't tire her.

"Still coming here to play?"

Even if she had heard that question every morning since she started coming to this part of Noukiyek to practice her hobby with her Stainer replica, Asuza's breath caught in her throat before she turned to gaze on the white-haired man seated at a stone bench placed not several metres from the eastern of the three portals of Eukseu Gate which led into the main reception courtyard of Yekk'eng Palace. Taking a moment to ask herself again as to how a blind man -- his eyes were always closed and he used a well-formed stick of wood as a walking cane -- could sense her presence, she bowed. Even if she didn't like certain aspects of her birth culture's traditions these days, they had been drilled into her incessantly by her mother throughout her life and weren't easy to cast aside. "Heaven's blessings on you, Ojii-san," she greeted him in the traditional way, thankful that, when she was on Sagussa, she had a universal translator inserted in her brain that would allow her to speak in and interpret his native language and dialect. She then felt a touch of rebelliousness race through her as she added, "You always ask me that question every time I come here!"

He seemed to "look" at her with those closed eyes, and then a chuckle escaped him as he gave her an apologetic nod. "Yes, I have! I have!" He canted his head as if he was thinking of something. "So tell me, young one: Why DO you come to Yekk'eng-ak to practice with your violin?" He pronounced it in the Noukiite common way, "pai-o-rin." "Is there something about Yekk'eng-ak which inspires you?"

Asuza considered his question for a moment, and then she looked up at the gate's nameplate, painted on a lacquered wooden sign hanging some ten metres over the central portal. "The palace reminds me of another palace on my home world. It's called Kyoungbok-gung . . . " -- Asuza could speak some Korean, so she didn't find it hard to pronounce the final consonant sounds that were almost always absent in Japanese -- "It's in a city called 'Seoul' in a country called 'Korea;' they're our closest neighbours. I always thought it the most beautiful place on Earth. I always wanted to visit it, but many in my country don't look kindly on the Koreans. Every time I told my parents that I wanted to travel to Korea, they always refused me. It's rather foolish if you ask me, but . . . " A disdainful look crossed her face. "Who was I to judge? I hadn't even passed through my first year of high school before I went to Sagussa, and then eventually came here to Noukiios." She closed her eyes. "And I still don't know what I'm looking for."

The elder Noukiite had remained respectfully silent as he listened to the Terran's tale. He nodded as if in understanding. "You'll find it sooner or later, young traveller. But why leave Terra to travel to the World of Holy Reincarnation . . . " -- that was the common Noukiite euphemism for Sagussa -- "And then come HERE?" One of his eyebrows arched into the rolling hills of his forehead ridges, they almost all hidden by the shock of straight white hair that extended to his collars, covering most of his ears.

"Getting away from home and being forced into potential marriages with people I never could make myself like," Asuza answered as she walked over to place her violin case on the bench beside him. Opening it, she drew out the beautiful instrument, a replica made by a Japanese luthier who had studied the work of Jacob Stainer years ago. Placing it on her shoulder, she relaxed her chin on the lower bout near the tailpiece as she drew out her bow to warm up in the scales before she began to play in earnest.

As a medley of both modern and classical Earth music flowed from her instrument, her audience remained respectfully quiet. While a Terran violin didn't have the echoing twang of a well-tuned uyuat', an instrument whose sounds could -- as the old saying went -- make the heart ache and the soul weep, it still was pleasant. Even better since it was obvious Shoono Asuza was a passionate player. Though he was physically blind, the elderly man had other senses, honed over his long lifetime, by which he could call on to tell him many things about this young girl. One who felt caged by her upbringing, always yearning to spread her wings and fly free, chart her life's course as she wanted, not as others wanted her to be.

Before he could allow himself to relax and enjoy the music, he tensed as a strange feeling rushed through his mind. Were he of the habit of opening his almost-white eyes, he would have revealed the curious truth of his ancestry to the young Asuza; she seemed quite knowledgeable when it came to the civilized races of the local cluster and beyond. Before he could try to better focus his tracking powers onto whoever had just approached from the direction of Huning Street, Asuza's violin went silent. "Ojii-san . . .?"

"Yes, dear?"

"There's an Oni man passing through the gate into the palace."

The elder remained still for a moment, and then he rose with an economy of moment that hinted at years of martial arts training, his hand reaching over to grasp his burnt ironwood cane. "How was he dressed?"

"Defence Force uniform," Asuza hissed. "Some type of officer, I think, but I couldn't see his rank tabs. I was taught how to recognise them back when I was on Sagussa."

The elder nodded. It was quite rare to see any Urusian in Noukiyek; those who did live on this world resided on the Nachna Islands, located on the other side of the planet from Noukiios' two main continents. It was even rarer for a member of the Urusian military to be here; the Urusian Union's embassy was located on Kap'p'ak, one of the larger islands in the Pearl Archipelago (as the Nachna Islands were often called).

What would one of THEM be doing in this part of the capital, this early in the day?

Walking away from Asuza, his cane probed ahead of him as he passed through the central portal of Eukseu Gate into the courtyard beyond. That was walled off from the rest of the palace by a high square stone fence, it pierced on the north side by Sakchyo Gate. Concentrating, he focused his powers on the visitor, who was walking onto the Kaknu Bridge, which would lead him through the portals of Achnek Gate and right to the front doors of Achnek Hall. Remembering the history he had experienced in his nearly 350 years of life, the elder knew that it was within the beautifully-constructed walls of Achnek Hall where the second-to-last Emperor of Nehech, the Eukt'ach' Emperor (then known in his life as Emperor Enek) had held court.

Why was he . . .?

"Heaven's most sincere blessings on you."

He stopped just after he passed through Sakchyo Gate, his powers quickly telling him the young visitor was currently standing on the highest point of the arch of the Kaknu Bridge. Tightly gripping his cane, the elder relaxed on sensing that Asuza had followed him from the palace's main gate, she a metre behind him. He tensed once more on realising the young man currently addressing him was speaking in Noukiite, with a rich Ryekkyuk accent to boot. With that, he inclined his head, "And to you, young traveller." He turned his head to indicate Asuza. "The young musician from Terra tells me you hail from Uru."

"I do, though I claim kin in Kahuch."

Hearing that, the elder nodded. "You are of . . .?"

"The Freedom Five-hundred Clans. Yes, sir, I am." Staring at him, Asuza was quick to note that he was a raven-haired man with dark, inquisitive brown eyes, quite slender even for his race, appearing to be in his early twenties. "I am Hu-Ch'uchrakch'ut'a Chuyeh-Yut'uch."

While she had only been living on Noukiios for the past six months, Asuza had managed to learn how the naming system worked on this planet. The man had just identified himself to his questioner as Huhat'hu, a member of the seventh of Noukiios' super-castes, the so-called "Ten Orders." The long family name didn't strike her at all as being a proper Noukiite name; like Koreans, natives of this world most often preferred single-syllable names. The given name prefix indicated he was the sixth son. As to what his family name, much less his given name, meant in Japanese, Asuza couldn't guess; her translator didn't work that way.

She then jolted on hearing the elder chuckle amusedly. "You Urusians and your long names," he gently scolded the visiting officer as he moved to approach him, his grip on his cane relaxing.

Yut'uch bowed respectfully to the man approaching him. "Ours is a family name well earned during the Liberation War." His eyebrow arched knowingly. "A war you yourself fought in. With all due respect, sir, I know I now have the honour of addressing the Venerable Ye-Etech Chuch'a-Ik'a."

The elder didn't react, though Asuza was quick to note that his gnarled fingers seemed to tighten ever so slightly against his cane. She then jolted on seeing Yut'uch glancing towards her, a grin crossing his face. "You should consider yourself honoured, Ojou-san," he spoke out in accented Japanese as he moved to wave towards the elder. "Do you realise in whose presence you currently stand?"

Asuza took a moment to take that in, and then she glanced towards the older man who had been her only audience since she had started to perform at the main gate of Yekk'eng Palace. "'Venerable' . . .?" she echoed the title Yut'uch had used for the older man. That was the title normally bestowed to non-anointed members of the two highest of the Ten Orders, the Yekhu and the K'et'hu. Yet the man bore no caste tattoos; for most Noukiites, that was interpreted as meaning that he was a member of the local version of Japan's burakumin or India's Dalits, the Uohu. Yet to hear this visitor from Uru address him THAT way -- not to mention imply that the elder had been a veteran of Noukiios' Liberation War two centuries before . . .?!

"Wh-who . . .?" she stammered out.

Yut'uch's grin grew even wider. "Why, he's none other than the Venerable Neuch'ahi, Ojou-san."

Asuza's jaw dropped in shocked disbelief as the Urusian gazed on the elder, his eyes dropping low in profound respect as he added, "The blind wandering warrior who helped the Empress Consort T'yekhek escape from the Urusian Imperial assassins sent after her in 4795 by allowing her to flee into the Yekk'ap'." He gazed once more hopefully at the elder as he moved to kneel before Ik'a, his hand reaching out to the elder's so he could bestow a courtly kiss on the knuckles, as a righteous warrior would always do in the presence of one of the highest castes of the Ten Orders. "And the one who can certainly help restore Her Majesty to these beautiful grounds once more," he added as he looked up into Ik'a's impassive face.

Asuza remained silent as the elder seemed to take that in, and then he sighed.

"It's been a VERY long time since I was ever called THAT," Ik'a mused.

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Urusei Yatsura - The Ishinomaki Years

The Dragon's Breath

by Fred Herriot

pyeknu@hotmail.com

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First of a series of stories based on Urusei Yatsura, created by Takahashi Rumiko

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Based on the universe of Urusei Yatsura - The Senior Year, created by Mike Smith and Fred Herriot

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"You gaze into a sun that never sets, Marina-yu."

"Beats doing other things in this place, Nukyek-cha."

The middle-aged Noukiite woman amusedly tittered as she gazed on her seated companion, they currently on the flat heights of a mountain which overlooked a vast valley, it cut in half by a flowing river that came from another mountain to the south, then, after meeting up with a river flowing from the west, turned to flow off towards the north-east into the mist. Located in the point where the rivers conjoined was a beautiful city, vast by modern standards on any world Marina personally knew of. She had known ever since she had come to this place -- how long ago had it been? -- that the city was meant to represent Yekna, one of Noukiios' spiritually significant urban centres outside of Ryekkyuk. A place spared the ravages of the occupation forced on her companion's people during the last century of the Urusian Empire's existence.

A hand gently grasped the dusky-skinned Oni's shoulder. "Marina, come to the hut and make yourself warm," the Noukiite bade her with an inviting smile. "The fire is good and high and even if we can, in our own way, wish other things to happen here, it would take some time to take full effect."

Marina blinked as she reached up to gently grasp her companion's hand. "I don't mind the cold."

A chuckle escaped the other woman. "Which part of you is speaking now?"

She got an annoyed glare from Marina in return. A tomboyish woman appearing in her late teens, she had the luminescent green hair and twin horn-buds on her temples marking her at first glance as Oni-Urusian. But once one saw her Yehisrite skin colour, one would realise there was MUCH more to Marina -- "Marina of Dysos" was her baptized name within the Royal Kingdoms; elsewhere, she was known as "Muzuka Marina" -- than met the eye. An even closer look would reveal the elongated lower earlobes more common to Fukunokami than to other hominoid races in the local cluster. And, once you saw her auburn brown eyes glow a bright silver, you would also realise Marina's mother wasn't a pure Yehisrite. Currently, she was dressed in black leather pants and a tank-top T-shirt that wouldn't be seen as out of place on a half-dozen planets; her jacket, the twin to her pants, was back at the hut she and Nukyek currently shared.

"All of me," she replied as she gave her companion's hand a reassuring squeeze. "I may be Onifu AND Azhis'f, but I'm one person. That's the way I want to be, Nukyek-cha."

"I know that," Nukyek gently teased. "But don't forget, before the Venerable Neuch'ahi helped me flee Suchkyuk before the assassins could have their way with me, my exposure to other races was . . . "

Marina smirked. "Pretty narrow."

"Non-existent," Nukyek admitted. "I didn't even really accept the idea of other races before I was made to marry the Emperor and move to Yekk'eng-ak. They never really came to Suchkyuk in my time."

Three centuries ago, Marina mused as she tried not to smile. It had been quite hard for her to befriend Ei-Kyesak T'ich Yesu Nukyek -- known to latter generations as the T'yekhek Empress Consort of Nehech, wife of the Euk'tach' Emperor -- given the latter's lack of any experience with aliens of any sort before she was crowned Empress Consort and flung head ridges-first into the maelstrom of government in the last years of Noukiios' fourth and last worldwide royal dynasty. Given that Marina herself was part-Oni, of the very race whose members had tried to murder Nukyek back in the Noukiite year 4795 when her moves to block the Urusians from subverting her husband's government had become too much for the Imperial Round to tolerate, befriending the Noukiite noblewoman had just made matters worse. Fortunately for Marina's sanity, she had eventually succeeded given that it seemed that both were the only ones trapped in this timeless place.

It hadn't evolved beyond a pe'cha bond between them, though. Marina was admittedly open about her sexual preference -- and Noukiites had been quite tolerant of such things for many centuries -- yet Nukyek herself was still, in essence, mourning her long-lost husband and children. Atop that, given the sheer number of years between the time that Nukyek and the time that Marina had been embraced by the Dragon's Breath -- the Onifu-Azhis'f hybrid had come here in the time-frame of the Noukiite year 5103 -- one had to take into account the history Marina had been forced to help Nukyek catch up with. The Occupation, the Liberation War and Union Revolution, the founding of the Galactic Federation, the fall of the Yehisrite Imperial House and the founding of the Protectorate, the confrontation with the Ipraedies, the Vosian Civil War, to say anything of the long cold war between the Urusian Union and the Noukiite Dominion . . .!

"We'll get out of this place somehow," Marina assured her.

"Somehow . . . "

** ** **

"Marina-san . . . Mama . . . you'll be free soon . . . "

"Reiko-chan? Are you okay?"

A gasp escaped the slumbering eighteen year-old, Sagussan-enhanced Noukiite girl as she bolted up, her turquoise eyes wide as she scanned around her bedroom. They locked on the pretty blue-haired Tritonian teenager standing by her bed. "Yuri-chan?!" Moroboshi Reiko croaked out in shock before she shook her head, her hand reaching up to wipe the sleep away from her eyes. "What are you doing here right now . . .?"

"We came to visit you, that's what," Yuri noted as the door to Reiko's bedroom opened again to allow K'ech'chut'a Aya to step inside. "You've been acting like a hermit since that incident with Skelad Lara and your sister and her friends back in Tomobiki, so we came to get you back into the sun again."

"Yeah, Reiko-chan," Aya -- known to all her friends beyond her home world of Toshitto as "Willow;" her family name translated from Reiko's native tongue as "willow tree" -- added as she moved to pull the covers away and drag Reiko into the washroom. "You're starting to grow roots. Time to get up and get moving!"

Reiko moaned as she slumped back into bed. "Not in the mood, guys. Can we save it for . . .?"

"NO!" Willow and Yuri barked.

* * *

"Feeling a little better today, Reiko-chan?"

"Do I look like it, Aunt Mal?" Reiko wondered as she walked into the dining room to join her aunts, cousins and her two visiting friends for breakfast. "What's the news today?" she asked as she took her place. "Have Dad and Mom finally woke up and decided to move back here?"

"No such luck, Reiko-chan," Nokoko replied before she exchanged a knowing look with Mal. "Your father made a commitment to teach at Tomobiki High School. You know how much a stickler he is with commitments."

Reiko gave her a tired look. "Even for THAT place, Aunt Nokoko?"

Nokoko nodded. "Hai, even for THAT place. Besides, even if that sub-creature Skelad's in the Black Ocean now, the chances are there that some other lunatic might come along to try to wreck everything your parents did, especially when it concerns Sagussa. The sooner they strive to stay atop all that . . . "

"It would still be better for them to remain here," the Noukiite asserted.

Everyone else stared knowingly at her. "You could have moved down there to live with them, you know," Willow noted. "Even if you did accept the invitation to the Young Women's Academy, you still could have moved down with them so you could stay with them when you're not in classes."

"Even better, you might have decided instead to go to one of the universities in Tokyo," Yuri added. "Your Centre Test scores were high, remember? You didn't need to go to the Academy in the long run."

Reiko took that in, and then she breathed out before she reached over to pick up her bowl of miso -- spiced with red pepper powder to improve the taste, of course -- to begin eating. "Why are you guys going, then?" she asked her former classmates from the Ishinomaki Girls High School.

"Well, there IS Hiromi," Willow mused, a goofy smile crossing her face.

Everyone exchanged looks. Willow had fallen horn buds-over-heels for Fujino Hiromi, a raven-haired, brown-eyed native of Ise in Mie prefecture, during their first year together in high school. While they were engaged by Oni custom -- Hiromi HAD tagged Willow's horns during Golden Week the previous year -- they were still trying to figure out a way to make their relationship "official" here on Earth. They were a quiet, content pair of lovers, Reiko knew; they didn't move to stick their sexual orientation into other people's faces every chance they could. Even better, it seemed as if there was no one in the history of either girl who was willing to come out of the closet and pull them apart. If anyone deserved to make use of a promise necklace, the Noukiite symbol of an engaged couple, it was K'ech'chut'a Aya and Fujino Hiromi.

"What's Hiromi-chan planning to do anyway, Willow?" Nokoko asked.

"Study music and both dialects of Urusian under Suigin-sensei," Willow answered; Renning Suigin, a distant relative of Reiko's adopted maternal aunt Negau, was the Urusian language teacher at the Young Women's Academy. "Once we properly handfast, we'll probably move back to Toshitto and live there. They're looking for more Earth-language teachers throughout the Union, so Hiromi won't be out of potential jobs."

"That's good," Mal mused, and then she blinked on hearing the videophone ring. "Who could that be?" she wondered aloud as she walked over to the unit, located by the front door. Smiling on seeing the name on the display screen, she then activated it. "Moshi-moshi. Is that you, Sister?"

"Hai, Mal-chan, it's me!" Lum called back from Tomobiki. "Is Reiko-chan up yet?"

"Hai, she is. Reiko!"

Reiko walked over to the videophone unit. "You coming back soon, Mom?" she asked.

Lum jolted on hearing her adopted daughter's question, and then she sighed. "Reiko-chan, your father and I both have jobs down here now. We can't just quit and move back up to Oshika, you know . . . "

"I know! I know!" Reiko cut her off with a stern nod, and then she sighed. "So what's up?"

"I just got a request from Mendou Shuutarou."

An eyebrow arched. "That being?"

"You attending the first deployment voyage of the Koishii Moroboshi."

Silence. Reiko's gaze seemed to fade out for a moment as she considered what Lum had just told her, and then she shook her head. "Why me, Mom? Why not you or Dad?"

"We both can't get away from work and it's only for a week or two," Lum answered, she quick to note the tone of rejection in Reiko's voice. "You'll still be able to get back to Oshika in time to start classes at the Young Women's Academy. I already cleared it with Kin'ya-koochou. We'll make . . . "

"No thanks, Mom," Reiko cut her off. "Not interested."

With that, she cut the line with Tomobiki before her mother could reply, and then, with a tired sigh, she gazed at the others seated at the dining room table. "Not hungry," she said.

She headed back into her bedroom, the door slamming shut behind her. Everyone else exchanged worried looks. "Why's Reiko-chan so mad, Mama?" Katsura asked as she stared at Mal.

Mal gently breathed out. "She's upset that your uncle, aunt and cousin aren't living here anymore."

"We'll have to ask Donna and Nintaiko about Annabelle," Nokoko mused.

Mal nodded as Willow and Yuri exchanged pointed looks.

* * *

"She wasn't interested?"

Lum shook her head, her eyes glistening with tears as she deactivated the videophone. "Tcha . . . "

Ataru's hands fell on her shoulders as he leaned down to kiss her forehead. "She's mad."

"Hai, she is," the Oni breathed out, she closing her eyes. "I think deep down, she doesn't understand how we felt when we decided to come back to Tomobiki. I always felt like an uprooted plant when I was living in Oshika. I know you did, too, especially after you got over all the anger you felt at everyone here. Even Amora-chan is adjusting to living here, especially after she became friends with Sakura's daughter." Shaking her head, she added in a tired voice, "But for Reiko-chan, Oshika's the only real home she's ever known."

"Yeah, you sure got that right," he noted as he moved to gently wrap his arms around her neck, he leaning down to tenderly kiss her hair close to one of her horns. "You know, thinking about it now that it's long since done, we could've asked for Onee-chan's help when we had to deal with Lara. Any of Onee-chan's schoolmates could've psi-scanned Lara to find out what happened to Nassur and Benten. We could've even tried to ask Nicole to help out; I'm sure Onee-sama . . . " -- that was the common nickname applied to the ancient Crystal Palace, she currently anchored in an arm of Onogawa Bay close to the Moroboshis' former home, which served as the home of Moroboshi Nokoko's best friend, Nicole McTavish, and her family -- "Wouldn't have minded pitching in to help. If we did that, Aiotoga would be back together with her true family now."

"Tcha . . . " she whispered as she closed her eyes. "Still, after Nassur-chan and Benten started to contact me, I just . . .!" A shake of her head. "Oh, Lyna! It was just like how I acted before Icarus and everything started to go crazy!" Lowering her head, she moved to bury her tearing eyes into his shirt sleeve. "We acted -- I acted! -- like Nokoko, Mal, the others -- even Reiko! -- didn't exist!"

"I fell right into that same trap," he admitted, his own eyes glistening with shame. "Heck, if it really wasn't for me, we wouldn't have had Onee-chan and the others living beside us in the first place. If it wasn't for me, we wouldn't have had Reiko-chan living with us, being there when Koishii . . . "

Silence fell as they took time to vent their grief and shame over the things they did -- and worse, what they DIDN'T do -- in the recent matter concerning the late Urusian ambassador to Earth.

* * *

Unseen by either of them, a tomboyish brown-haired woman with caramel eyes behind stylish reading glasses was standing outside the door of Ataru's study in the basement of the Moroboshis' Tomobiki home. Taking a deep breath as she re-ran through what she overheard her future in-laws just admit, Fujisawa Mina turned to head back upstairs to re-enter the kitchen to monitor the pot of miso soup she had been making for the family before the elder Moroboshis would go off to work and Amora would head off to school.

And speaking of which . . .

"Mina-neechan?"

Mina turned to see Amora, she dressed in presentable clothes for a day of classes at Onigakkou Elementary School, standing at the doorway to the kitchen. "What is it, Amora-chan?"

"Why are Dad and Mom upset?" the younger girl asked.

Mina's sharp eye was quick to detect the flicker of a luminescent pink glittering across Amora's chocolate brown eyes. Empathy for sure. Much greater than what would be normal for a Sagussan, I think, she mused to herself before walking over to the water kettle to prepare some cocoa for the younger girl. "They're just remembering some bad things concerning the time they had to fight that evil woman who had you and the others kidnapped from school, Amora-chan."

"But she's dead," Amora said as she made a face. "Didn't Auntie Dakejinzou kill her . . .?"

Mina gave Amora a knowing look. "You're a little too young to talk about something as serious as that, Amora-chan," she tenderly scolded with a wagging finger, and then she moved to dump a packet of cocoa powder into a mug. There, she paused as she considered what else to say to the younger girl.

Unlike those of Amora's generation, Mina did know a lot of things about the people whose spirits had possessed Lum in a successful attempt to expose Skelad Lara for the monster she truthfully was. Part of that knowledge directly pertained to the real ancestry of the young girl currently living in the house behind the Moroboshi family with the woman who was both a school nurse and the crown princess of an alien kingdom many light-years away. Sadly, THAT topic was, as far as Mina understood the matter, still verboten when it came to speaking of it in the open around any of Miyake Junba's friends, even Moroboshi Amora. Still, Amora deserved to know some things since it was haunting her parents' thoughts. Not to mention how much it hurt Amora's step-sister, the woman Mina herself now loved with every fibre of her very being. So . . .

"Amora-chan, your parents knew two very nice and brave people who were also very good friends to your Aunt Dakejinzou and many others here in Tomobiki, including Junba-chan's mother," Mina began. "They both disappeared many years ago, sometime after you were born in fact." A pause. "Your parents believed Skelad Lara knew something about what ultimately happened to them. But in their determination to deal with Skelad after they came to realize that she wanted to kill everyone living on Sagussa, they never took the chance to call on people who could've made their task a lot easier in the long run. Your Aunt Nokoko and Aunt Mal, not to mention the others in their school and McTavish-san, too." A deep breath. "And in their rush to come back down here and deal with Skelad, they forgot to take Rei-chan's feelings into consideration."

Amora took a moment to consider that point, and then she stared once more at Mina. "Is it because of Belle-neechan leaving her moms without telling Reiko-neechan where she was going?" she asked.

Mina nodded, though deep inside, she was seething with outrage over what Miyake Annabelle had done to Moroboshi Reiko. It was bad enough that Mina herself had been forced away from her best friend when they were in the last year at the Ishinomaki Girls Primary Academy, but to have Annabelle -- who had known Reiko even longer than Mina did! -- vanish like that just as the whole mess with Skelad started up . . .?!

I swear, if I ever see Belle anytime soon, I'll literally rip a strip right off her hide, even if she HAS Nendo-kata powers! Mina thundered to herself before she took a deep breath to calm herself down and not make Amora even more upset over what was happening around her. "That was the other part of it," she said as the kettle began to whistle. Waiting for it to boil over, she unplugged it and poured the water into the mug of cocoa, and then she moved to stir it before getting some marshmallows from the refrigerator.

"Will we have to move back to Oshika?" Amora asked.

Mina blinked as she considered that question, and then she shrugged. "I think that's what Rei-chan would definitely like to see happen," she mused before turning around to hand the mug to Amora. "But your parents have jobs here and they don't want to depend on your great-grandmother's money to earn a livelihood, for themselves and for you, too. So they'll probably stay here. But if I were them, I'd move real quick to make it clear that they haven't decided to just leave Rei-chan in the dust." She winked at Amora. "When she was your age, Rei-chan's temper was a pretty frightening thing to watch, Amora-chan. Now that she's got a lot of years under her belt, I wouldn't want to be on the same PLANET as she is when gets mad!"

Amora giggled before she took a sip of her cocoa. "Tell me about it!"

Both girls laughed.

* * *

"Willow . . . "

"Hmmm . . .? What is it, Hiromi?"

"Is that what I think it is?"

Willow blinked confusedly, and then she turned to see where her fiancée was currently pointing. Both were riding a local commuter train on the Ishinomaki line which connected that city with Onogawa, the usual place students attending the various Ishinomaki Women's Schools went to connect to rail transport leading to the rest of Japan. They had just passed under a tunnel bored into the eastern slopes of Maki-yama, emerging on the northern side near Owada village, where the line took a gentle westerly turn leading into Rikuzen-Inai station, the last stop before crossing the Shinkitakami River and entering downtown Ishinomaki.

To the train's southwest, in a gentle valley leading up to the local Buddhist shrine located near the peak of Maki-yama, there stood a building shaped almost like a miniature version of India's famed Taj Mahal, though it didn't have prayer minaret towers at the corner and it had one entrance pathway leading from its front doors, past twin sets of seven humanoid statues and an arched gateway with two more statues standing in front of it on both sides of the path, down to a road paralleling the tracks on the west side into Owada. Staring at it briefly before it disappeared behind the forest of trees cloaking Maki-yama, Willow gasped. "That was a Noukiite shrine! Tcha! What's one of THEM doing HERE?!"

"Let's find out," Hiromi proposed as the conductor's voice echoed over the speakers in the car, he announcing their impending arrival in Rikuzen-Inai.

As soon as the train stopped, the couple disembarked and passed through the gates. Once clear of the station, Willow shifted herself behind Hiromi, her hands slipping under the latter's armpits so she could boost her fiancée into the air as they soared towards Maki-yama. Minutes later, both landed on the pathway south of the railway tunnel portal. Shaking her arms to ensure they didn't cramp up -- much that she loved to fly around with her fiancée in her embrace, Willow hadn't yet developed enough physical strength to carry Hiromi over long distances in comfort -- the Oni led her Terran companion towards the shrine.

The entrance was well-marked: two nukhak cut out of pure marble stood before an archway-like gate decorated with alien dragon motifs, two of them surrounding the central sigil of the flag of the Noukiite Dominion at its peak. Underneath that sigil, written in flowing native script, was the temple's title.

"'Heaven's Gate Temple,'" Willow translated before she brought herself to attention. Arching her head back with her eyes closed, she clapped her hands over her face, and then she bowed her head as she intoned the ritual prayer a parishioner of the Noukiite faith always said on entering a strange temple's grounds.

Hiromi remained respectfully silent as she followed her fiancée past the gate. Stopping parallel to each set of statues, Willow brought herself to attention, clapped her hands, and then bowed as she prayed. Glancing at the statues to either side of her, each a twin to the one immediately across from it, Hiromi soon realised these were physical representations of the Seven Deadly Enemies of All, the devil-spirits priests of the Noukiite native faith railed against at every sermon they gave.

Once the final set of prayers were done, Willow moved to ascend the stairs leading to the front door of the temple hall. Turning to follow her, Hiromi gasped on seeing a woman in her early twenties, she dressed in fine white and jade green, awaiting them by the doors. Wavy silver-blonde hair that stretched to her waist framed a classically sculptured Noukiite face with a crow's feet of head ridges, the face itself pierced by deep golden eyes and decorated by the silver dots marking her as K'et'hu. Before she could ask herself how the Noukiite had been able to step out of the temple without their noticing, Hiromi gaped as Willow shrieked out in delight before she soared up to embrace the latter. "Niap'yeng!"

The priestess laughed as Willow nearly knocked her over, she giving the Oni kisses on both cheeks. "Hello, Aya!" she spoke out in accented but well-pronounced Japanese. "What brings you around here today?!"

"What are YOU doing HERE?!" Willow demanded. "I thought you'd still be at the seminary at Kuchch'ek!"

"I was anointed last year, then sent here to establish the temple," the priestess explained before her eyes turned to gaze on Hiromi, who had come up the stairs to join them. "Oh, excuse me!" she apologized before giving the Japanese girl a respectful bow. "Heaven's blessings on you, Fujino Hiromi. Welcome to Heaven's Gate Temple. I'm K'e-Nuk Yeho-Niap'yeng, the priestess of the temple."

Hiromi blinked, and then she nodded. "I'm pleased to meet you, Sister Niap'yeng," she returned the greeting, and then she gave Willow a look. "Former girlfriend you forgot to tell me about, Aya-chan?"

Willow gasped on hearing Hiromi call her by her baptized name -- the Terran only did that when she was VERY upset at her fiancée -- and then she rapidly shook her head as she waved the raven-haired girl off. Hearing that question, Niap'yeng laughed as she clapped her hands. "Oh, please, Hiromi-san!" she gently scolded the Terran. "There was nothing at all improper between Aya and myself when she studied on Noukiios. I was her language tutor; we were both living in Resuk at the time."

"I wrote to her when you tagged my horns and proposed to me," Willow added, and then she stared knowingly at Niap'yeng. "By the way, Nia, you STILL haven't sent me a promise necklace!"

The priestess winked. "Fortunately, I have one inside for the both of you."

Willow and Hiromi exchanged a look, and then they broke out in laughter.

* * *

"It saddens me to hear that, Lum-san."

Lum took in a deep breath, and then she exhaled before staring at her videophone screen; she was relaxing in her private office at Tomobiki High School. "I suppose given all the mistakes we made when the whole thing with Lara started up, Shuutarou, it's to be expected. Reiko-chan's never had much cause to like anyone Darling and I interacted with here in Tomobiki. In a way, it's the same distaste the Sagussans once demonstrated to all of you, just magnified and tinted with her own world-view."

"Which condemns us to being reborn as dogs after facing King Muchach's judgement when we die," Mendou Shuutarou concluded. The commander in the United Nations Defence Force was transmitting to his former classmate from his cabin aboard the U.D.F.S. Koishii Moroboshi, it currently in orbit over Tokyo.

Lum's eyebrow arched. "You've learned some things."

"Several of my classmates from the Defence Force Academy were members of the Freedom Five-Hundred Clans, Lum-san," Mendou explained. "One of them, Ch'uchrakch'ut'a Yut'uch, is a shipmate; he currently serves as the combat information officer. He's taught me many things about Reiko-san's people." A pause, and then he added, "As a matter of fact, he was hoping for the chance to meet her when she came aboard."

"When will you have to tell Sunda about it?"

Mendou took a moment to consider what to say. "I don't have to tell the captain about this right away, Lum-san," he admitted. Koishii Moroboshi and her crew, one-third of which presently were Terran personnel from a dozen navies, including the Japanese Maritime Self-Defence Force, had been dispatched to Earth in the wake of the Skelad Scandal in a drive to demonstrate the Urusians' better sides to their new allies, much like the R.S.S. Hasei'cha had done in the weeks prior to Sagussa's official "coming out" back in the summer of 1984. Currently, the battlewagon's captain, Hoth Sunda, was hosting the United Nations' Secretary-General, Boutros Boutros-Ghali of Egypt, and many national heads-of-state and heads-of-government in a detailed show-and-tell tour of the last Kashin-class warship built for the Urusian Defence Force. "We won't be scheduled to depart for border patrol near Tamamono for another week or so."

Lum nodded. "Well, that does give us some time . . . "

* * *

"I am saddened to hear P'yeknu is feeling this way towards her parents."

Willow and Hiromi were enjoying tea with Niap'yeng. "She's been moping about her parents moving back to Tomobiki ever since we heard that bitch Skelad kidnapped Reiko's sister and her friends just to force Reiko's mom to become Uru's Empress," the Terran said, her voice a little raspy after taking a sip of the red pepper tea her fiancée and friend were drinking. Much that she was striving to do her best to accept how a relationship with Willow would impact her life, there were still things Hiromi needed to get used to. The spicy cuisine being one of them. "Then you tack on what Belle did to her . . . "

Niap'yeng blinked. "Is there any indication as to why Annabelle left, Aya?"

"None," Willow replied. "She got her high school diploma when we graduated, then left Oshika the very next day. It was so sudden, it took us ALL by surprise. Belle didn't tell any of us anything. Weird!"

The priestess considered that for a moment. "Well, perhaps I can prevail on the noble folk of the Special Committee on Alien Activities to help try to trace Annabelle down," she noted before sipping her cup of tea. "If P'yeknu values Annabelle's friendship highly, having communications restored between them would do P'yeknu wonders. Granted, I'm not like a faith-healer I know who was also a Lost Star, Doctor K'u-Yi Yech'a-Tech, but I do understand things concerning matters of this nature." A pause, and then she took a deep breath. "But that is for the future. Dealing with P'yeknu's current mood is a greater priority."

"That might be a bit hard, Nia," Willow warned. "Don't forget, Reiko hasn't had to deal with a single Noukiite since the day you were all pulled out of the castle and sent to Magairu. Even if both of you were Lost Stars, meeting up with you again might not do much. I've never told her about our meeting each other when I was going to middle school; it never came up in conversation. You think Reiko would open up to you?"

"I must try," Niap'yeng said. "P'yeknu is one of us, Aya. Long before she became 'Moroboshi Reiko,' she was Subject 494 of the Project, just like I was Subject 309, Hanak'at' was Subject 16 and K'yechsungi was Subject 229 . . .!" Her voice was cut off as a geyser of tea exploded from Willow's mouth. "What?!"

"K'YECHSUNGI?!" the Oni shrieked. "WHY ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT HER?!"

Niap'yeng was nonplussed. "She's my friend, Aya. Why shouldn't I talk about her?"

Hearing the casual way the priestess was talking about her sister Lost Star, Willow's eyes went as wide as saucers, a typhoon of pure terror surging through her heart. "Is s-she here on E-earth . . .?"

"Of course she is . . . "

"WHAT?!" Willow started yanking on her hair. "NIA, ARE YOU CRAZY?!"

"WHAT?!" Hiromi demanded as she looked at her fiancée. "Who's this K'ye- . . .?!"

A cold wind seemed to blow past her. "We are K'yechsungi."

Willow nearly went stark-white before she slowly turned around to stare at the person who had just spoken out. Hiromi turned to see a blue-eyed Noukiite woman standing at the doorway to Niap'yeng's private apartment, she dressed in a form-fitting blue-and-silver sleeveless jumpsuit, her cleavage exposed to her navel thanks to a deep V-cut in the top. And while her hair was a glossy raven black and extended past her shoulder, centre-parted as it was with most Noukiites thanks to their forehead ridges, it was clearly obvious this girl was NO normal Noukiite. After all, Noukiites didn't have fanged canine teeth a vampire would admire, much less elongated elfin-like ears that wouldn't be out of place on the head of Shogai Dakejinzou.

Staring at this woman, Hiromi felt her heart freeze as K'yechsungi's gaze seemed to fix on her for a moment. It was no peaceful stare, the native of Ise then realised as the chill that just seized her heart spread all over her body. It was the stare of a hunter, a killer, a bird of prey who would not stop until she obtained what she wanted -- and she cared not a whit as to how she would obtain it.

If there was a Noukiite version of the Angel of Death, K'yechsungi was clearly Her Mortal Avatar.

Willow gulped as she moved to faintly wave at the newcomer. "Hey, K'yech. You're looking well."

K'yechsungi blinked, and then she gazed briefly at the Oni before she stared at Niap'yeng. "We will be away for a while exploring, Niap'yeng. Please inform Cha-yu if she inquires about us."

And with that, she walked out. Hiromi watched her go, and then she stared quizzically at her host. "What's with the 'we' she used? I know Noukiite caste tattoos and she wasn't royalty."

"She's got three souls stuck in her head."

Hiromi blinked several times before she stared at Willow. "How did THAT happen?"

"The Masters of Noukiios wished to create a soul-eater, a being who could suck out the living spirit of anyone she was sent to kill," Niap'yeng explained. "In K'yechsungi, they succeeded."

The Terran took that in, and then she breathed out. "Riiiiiiiiiiiiiiight . . . "

* * *

Having shape-shifted into her winged succubus-like form, K'yechsungi had taken to the air, she soaring over Maki-yama as she turned towards the general direction of Oshika. Already, the sin-eater's senses were reaching out from every point in her body into the Eternal -- what Sagussans called "Te'a" and Aimaiyites the "Ehn" -- they touching the many interesting mystical and psionic nexi within a fifty kilometre range of her. Of course, the greatest single source of power was the Crystal Palace currently sitting in an arm of Onogawa Bay, Her forest of diamond meson spires brightly sparkling thanks to the late morning sun. Thankfully, the Most Venerable One in the Bay didn't project Herself fully throughout the Eternal, so K'yechsungi didn't have to waste power in raising her own mental shields so she wouldn't be overwhelmed by Her Power. Thus, she was able to better concentrate herself on the lesser beings she could sense close to the Most Venerable One . . .

Including three walking down the road towards the Moroboshi home right now.

K'yechsungi blinked as her eyes focused on them, they walking line-abreast down the seashore lane. One was young and clearly Oni-Urusian, though his soul did possess a curious tincture to it, very much like how Willow's soul had felt to her. The second was Noukiite, though there was a powerful alien slant to him. And he was simply ANCIENT in comparison to the others. Part-Vosian? Part-Zephyrite, perhaps? And the third was Terran, a woman P'yeknu's age in fact. So what were these three doing in Oshika . . .?

Soaring down, she moved to get closer to them. Before she could land and morph back into her normal form, the ancient one tensed as he brought up a plain ironwood cane. With a flick of his thumb, the cane's top was lifted clear, exposing the glimmering metal of a well-forged sword. Before K'yechsungi could react, he spun around, drawing out his blade to point its tip at her throat. The movement was so sudden, the Oni and the Terran had staggered back from their companion, they clearly confused as to what would set him off.

* * *

In all his life, Ik'a had to confess, he had NEVER sensed someone quite like THIS!

THREE souls bound together in one single being, all linked together in a way which would make a pe'cha bond, a recognition bond or even a Sagussan-style bonding look incomplete in comparison.

Granted, all the souls did sense as being pure Noukiite.

Yet HOW . . .?!

"Who are you?" he quietly demanded as he slowly moved on the woman before him.

"Ojii-san, stop!"

Ik'a paused, his head snapping towards Shoono Asuza. "Child . . .?"

"That's Eyu-Teo Yecho-K'yechsungi," Asuza said. "She's one of the Lost Stars!"

K'yechsungi blinked on hearing the Terran's words, and then she said, "You know of us?"

"Your reputation, Lady K'yechsungi, is quite known on Noukiios," Ch'uchrakch'ut'a Yut'uch spoke up, and then he stared at Ik'a. "Please, Venerable Neuch'ahi, she will not hurt you, I think."

Silence fell Ik'a seemed to think about it for a moment, and then he nodded, his sword returning to its place in his cane before he relaxed, a friendly smile crossing his face. On hearing his nickname, K'yechsungi was stunned silent. "Neuch'ahi . . .?" she gasped. Then, as her wings vanished into her back, she dropped to one knee before him, she averting her eyes from the Venerable One's face. "We ask your forgiveness, Venerable. It was not our intention to make you assume we would seek battle with you."

A hearty laugh escaped him. "Now that my young musician companion has told me who you are, Lady K'yechsungi, be assured you have nothing at all to fear from me," Ik'a declared. "The tales of your many fights against the bandits in the mountains of Taktek near Ch'uonech has been all over the news-nets, even in the quiet part of Noukiyek where I currently reside." He nodded in the direction of the Moroboshi home. "I assume you're here to keep watch over the Empress' Daughter from whatever place you currently live in. I hope you wouldn't mind our imposing on your patrol territory so we could call upon her today."

K'yechsungi's eyebrow arched as she stared at him for a moment, and then she stood up to approach him. "'Empress' Daughter?!'" she quoted him. "Of whom do you speak, Venerable? We know of no such person."

"He's speaking of Moroboshi Reiko-san, K'yechsungi-san," Asuza explained.

K'yechsungi blinked. "P'yeknu? She is not related to any empress we are aware of. Unless you submit to the belief that P'yeknu's adopted mother Lum is the Empress of the World of Holy Reincarnation . . . "

"She is that," Ik'a acknowledged, and then a tired look crossed his face. "But the Lady P'yeknu's REAL mother is none other than the T'yekhek Empress, whom I saved from the assassins many years ago."

Stunned silence fell over the scene as the sin-eater took that in. "Wh-what . . .?!" she sputtered. "What is this you speak of, Venerable?!" she demanded. "Everyone knows the dog people slew the T'yekhek Empress prior to their forcing her husband off the throne! How could P'yeknu be the Empress' child?! All of the Empress' children -- the Kyaksai Emperor and his brothers and sisters -- they were killed by the dog people during the pogroms that nearly eliminated all the Eip'ihu from Noukiios!"

"What I'd like to know is how in Heaven's name you know I'm related to her!"

Yut'uch's shocked gasp caused Ik'a, Asuza and K'yechsungi to spin around just as an invisible fist grabbed him by the waist and catapulted him against a nearby stone wall. They turned to gaze in the general direction of the Moroboshi home to see a VERY angry Moroboshi Reiko standing by the front gate, her eyes glowing as she moved to put the telekinetic squeeze on the visiting Oni. Seeing that -- and remembering what she had heard over the years concerning the Noukiite-born adopted daughter of Moroboshi Ataru and his wife -- Asuza cried out, "Reiko-san, STOP! Put him down! He doesn't want to hurt you! PUT HIM DOWN!"

Reiko was distracted enough to allow the telekinetic grip holding Yut'uch in place to fade, making him fall face-first into the ground. Staring quizzically at Asuza for a moment, she turned back to the Oni, her legs propelling her towards him. K'yechsungi bolted over to block her path. "P'yeknu, STOP!"

Reiko glared at her, her eyes starting to glow ominously as she prepared to throw her sister Lost Star clear so she could press on her interrogation of Yut'uch. Before she could telekinetically reach out to toss K'yechsungi aside, the latter grabbed the former's hand and yanked it up to her face, pressing the fingertips into the mind-meld points on her skin. Before Reiko could realise what was happening, K'yechsungi dropped her mind-shields, allowing her thoughts and feelings to flow like a tsunami into her sister Lost Star's mind.

A gargled croak escaped Reiko as images she had for years banished to the darkest pit of her memory came surging back forth again. The castle of the Masters of Noukiios near Hakaech. The storm of mind-training she had been forced to endure for as long as she could remember. The times she had been taken out of suspension storage to test her growing metahuman powers, her telekinesis, telepathy and empathy. The time she was forced to perform the Hechye Tat' with Subject 153 -- No! She was Ae-K'ech Yecho-Euk now! -- for two of the men who ran the project. Then the silence before she woke up in her capsule in Tomobiki . . .

Different memories now. The same castle near Hakaech. The same mind-training, but added to that pain when three separate consciences -- from where, she never had any idea -- were forced into her mind. The testing, both physical and psychological, to hone her into the perfect human killing machine. The final shattering of the original soul of the girl then just known as Subject 229. Several instances where she was made to do the Hechye Tat', normally in the company of Subject 16, born as Eyu-Teo Yeho-Hanak'at'. Then the mass awakening in the castle, the image of a smiling Shogai Dakejinzou and Miyake Shinobu flashing in her mind. The voyage to the Abbey of Lyna on Magairu, where she remained alone until the day her friend's relatives came to retrieve their daughter. And got something more.

The day when Subject 229 became Eyu-Teo Yecho-K'yechsungi.

K'yechsungi's fingers tightened against Reiko's as the mind-meld faded, she moving to keep the other woman's hand close to her. "You were the one who saved us all, P'yeknu."

"K'yech," Reiko breathed out. "What are you doing here?"

"Protecting you from those who would object to you living your own life, of course. Just as we have done for others back in Taktek." K'yechsungi grinned as she stared at Ik'a. "And just as the Venerable One there protected the poor and destitute throughout the Occupation Period." She canted her head. "But we still do not understand how is it that P'yeknu could be related to the T'yekhek Empress!"

"She's one of my genetic mothers, K'yech."

K'yechsungi turned back to Reiko. "'One of' . . .?! P'yeknu, we don't understand . . .!"

"I'm a bioroid, K'yech."

Silence fell as the sin-eater tried to absorb that.

* * *

"So let me try to recap," Asuza breathed out as everyone relaxed in the living room of the Moroboshi home later. "You actually have TWO mothers and TEN fathers, Reiko-san?! Outside of your adopted parents?!"

"That's right," Reiko acknowledged that with a nod before she moved to sip her coffee. Atop the visitors just in from Noukiios and K'yechsungi, listening in to this conversation was Moroboshi Mal and hers and Nokoko's younger daughter, Haruka. The six year old -- a green-haired, brown-eyed, Oni girl who looked as if she could be a more tomboyish Mal -- was currently standing on the couch beside K'yechsungi, she intently examining the sin-eater's very strange ears, something she didn't expect to see on a Noukiite. "I don't know who it was who came up with the idea of mixing in the DNA of twelve of Noukiios' greatest heroes, emperors and sages to make me, but they did. That's part of the reason I've never thought about going back to Noukiios ever since my parents adopted me. If you've lived there for some time, Asuza-san, you . . . "

"Know grave-robbing is considered a capital crime," Asuza finished with a smile.

"It still would not change our opinions about you, P'yeknu," K'yechsungi noted.

"I had other reasons for not going back, K'yech."

"Those other reasons concerning your sister, Koishii."

Reiko's eyes seemed to harden for a moment as she glared at Yut'uch. "Yes, you could say that," she evenly declared. "I don't know what in Heaven's name persuaded Dad and Mom to agree to Grandpa Invader's stupid idea to name that ship after my sister in the first place. Koishii-chan's death hurt us all; it'll even hurt Amora-chan the day she learns the whole truth of the battle between Henry and Cassandra. And to name a warship after a baby who died after only living for five days . . .!" She stopped on seeing the visiting Urusian officer pale in shock. "What?! What's wrong?!" she demanded.

"I . . .!" Yut'uch sputtered out before he strove to get control over himself. "I'm sorry!" he apologised. "Forgive me, Lady P'yeknu, but I always heard it was a miscarriage . . .!"

"No," Reiko flatly said. "It wasn't."

The tapping of Ik'a's cane-sword on the coffee table caught everyone's attention. "I'm more than sure the Ch'uoeuk was kind and understanding to the newborn one's soul when it came her time to face him at the Two Portals," the ancient warrior intoned respectfully. "None the less, regardless of HOW you came into this life, Lady P'yeknu, the fact that you are the T'yekhek Empress' child is plain for all to see."

"May I ask a question?" Mal wondered as she stepped into the living room. As everyone turned to her, she stared at Yut'uch. "How exactly did you know that Reiko-chan's real mother is still alive, Yut'uch-san?"

"Because there was no body to bury, Venerable Mal," the Oni answered. "My ancestors were footmen to the Seq House." He stared at Reiko and K'yechsungi. "As you both know, Ladies, the Seqs held control over the Governor-General's office throughout the Occupation period. The information concerning the fact the T'yekhek Empress' body was never found was a well-kept secret from the general public, both Noukiite and Urusian commoner." A sly smile crossed his face. "But it was no secret from my ancestors. And they were willing to give up that information to the Provisional People's Congress when it was established in 4925. But when we eventually realised what the Venerable Neuch'ahi had done for the Empress, we felt it simply best to leave things be." He gazed knowingly at Ik'a. "If the chance came for the Venerable to help the Empress return to Noukiios, he would take it. We would help him, of course, but it would always depend on him."

Asuza stared at him. "Then why come see him at the palace now, Yut'uch-san?"

The Oni sighed. "Noukiios needs the Empress back, Shoono-san. The Eo are rising again."

Silence.

"How is that possible?" Reiko demanded.

"From whence do they come?" K'yechsungi added.

"Who are the Eo?!" Haruka asked.

Eyes locked on the young girl, and then Reiko reached over to draw her cousin onto her lap. "They were pirates from Uru's old colonies during the Imperial Age, Haruka-chan," she explained. "They didn't want to live under the control of the Imperial Round, so they moved to Machibusu to set up a breakaway state of their own. It wasn't too far from there to Noukiios, not to mention Uru and her established colonies, so they started to prey on our ships as well as going after Urusian, Zephyrite, Seifukusu and Fukunokami shipping. It got so bad that one of my fathers, the Suhek Emperor, had to order them to be eliminated. And one of my other fathers, Admiral Ye-Yi Chusu-Hachhich, was the leader of the Noukiite forces sent out to deal with the Eo. He died fighting them in the battle that eventually broke the Eo once and for all."

"Not an auspicious first contact between Urusian and Noukiite," Asuza noted.

"Agreed," Reiko affirmed with a nod, and then she turned to Ik'a. "So if Mama's still alive, where is she, sir? It's been over three hundred years since she vanished from Yekk'eng-ak. Where . . .?"

"The Yekk'ap', Lady P'yeknu," Yut'uch answered on his behalf.

Silence fell.

"What is this Yekk'ap'?" Mal asked.

"The Dragon's Breath," the Oni explained. "Spiritually, it's seen as the living expression of an agent of the Noukiite version of God, Venerable Mal. In reality, from what few studies have been done on it over the years, it's a shifting time-space nexus. It appears and disappears randomly; no one has ever tried to time its appearances since they're so rare. According to legend, it's said the Ch'uoeuk himself vanished into the Yekk'ap' when he felt his time ruling Ait'uch Nehech was over. It was from there that he eventually ascended to the Two Portals and became the servant of the Lord of Heaven, judging souls as they came before him from the Pool of Reincarnation. Yet, as to what really lies within the Yekk'ap' itself . . . "

He gave them a shrug. "In the Yekk'ap', one can live," Ik'a noted as he sat back in his chair.

"Ojii-san?" Asuza whispered as she stared at him with concern.

"It was the only chance I felt the Noble One could have when she was forced to flee Yekk'eng-ak," Ik'a explained. "Those who wanted her dead wouldn't give up, no matter how many of them I killed. Even if I had, by some Heaven-sent miracle, found some way to expose what the Urusian Imperials were ultimately doing to us, it would have still been too late to save Noukiios; the corruption that had descended all over the planet was just too great even for a strong Emperor or Empress to finally deal with." Tears appeared through his closed eyelids. "It was so easy for me to sense how those animals looked at the Noble One. She was not a living, thinking being to them. She was an animal, a creature that had to be put down like a rabid dog. When I fought them, whatever faith I might have had concerning the nobility of life died that day as well." His free hand clenched as he added in a hiss, "But it didn't have to die for her."

"Then there is no choice."

Eyes locked on Mal. "Aunt Mal?" Reiko probed.

The Nendo-kata-turned-Oni walked over to stare down at Ik'a. "Your duty to your Empress is not yet fully done, good warrior. You must return to the Yekk'ap' and return Reiko-chan's mother back to where she belongs." She looked over her shoulder at her niece. "And you have to help him do this, Reiko-chan. Even if the Empress never physically gave birth to you, you ARE, in part, her daughter. You owe it to her." She grinned. "After all, if you keep calling her 'Mama' in your dreams, you have to know the truth."

Reiko felt her cheeks redden. "You're spying on my dreams, Aunt Mal?"

"It's hard for Beloved and I to ignore them when you keep calling out 'Mama' all the time. And you always address Sister as 'Mom,' not 'Mama,'" Mal replied as Asuza, Yut'uch and Haruka began to giggle. Even K'yechsungi was smiling at this revelation. "Still, there is one thing I would like to ask," Mal continued. "Who is this 'Marina' you keep speaking of when you speak of your mother?"

Yut'uch and K'yechsungi blinked, flashes of recognition dawning in their eyes. "We have heard that name before, but we cannot recall when and in what context we did hear it," the latter admitted. "Yut'uch?"

"I remember hearing that name before, but I can't pinpoint it, either," the former stated.

"What if I told you her full name?"

Eyes locked on Reiko. "Whom do you speak of, Lady?" Ik'a asked.

"Muzuka Marina of Fukunokami, also known as Marina of Dysos," Reiko replied.

As Yut'uch's and K'yechsungi's jaws dropped in shocked disbelief, Asuza blinked in confusion and Ik'a's eyebrow arched in curiosity, Reiko added, "The one person who actually got away from Nassur."

** ** **

A sneeze. "Damn! Who's talking about me?!"

Groaning, Marina wiped her nose clear of the loose mucus that escaped her, and then she picked up the beautiful taiken-shaped blade before she began her daily sword drill. Unlike the more bulky, scimitar-like weapons commonly preferred by Yehisrites, to say anything of the chains Fukunokami traditionally liked to fight with, the eunuch's sword that had been presented to her by Nukyek after they became pe'cha seemed sensuous in her katana-like leanness. She was still perhaps one of the deadliest weapons ever made by mortals; local legend throughout the galaxy had long declared that a stone-sober Ip'ihu warrior had been able to cleave the lim'l of an equally sober Yehisrite executioner in half with one sweep of his sword.

Then again, was it really so surprising?

The average Yehisrite sword took a year at the most to properly forge.

A Noukiite seucheuchet' like Aeyek-hup'uk was usually FORTY years in the making.

Drawing Aeyek from her scabbard, Marina saluted her chosen target -- a simple tree denuded of branches and leaves in previous practices -- and then she began her kata. As she continued, the door to the small hut nearby opened to reveal Nukyek, she dressed in the clothes she had worn when she entered the Dragon's Breath ages ago (though for the Noukiite empress, time simply had no meaning here), the same commoner's clothes she had been hastily dressed in by the Venerable Neuch'ahi after she had escaped from Suchkyuk. Taking her usual seat on a fallen log so she could watch her champion prepare herself, Nukyek could only smile in contentment. While part of her wanted to return home -- hearing of all the horrors her people had been subjected to over the last three centuries had made her weep -- the other part of her was simply content to remain in this place with Marina at her side, unbothered by the outside Universe, friends bound together for all time.

A shudder quaked her before she shook her head. No! That was the coward's way out! If she ever did die and wound up facing the Ch'uoeuk at the Two Portals, he would be right in damning her to the lowest level of the Ten Orders for ignoring her responsibilities to her people, even if they didn't realise the level of malaise their lives had descended into. She HAD to go back! She HAD to remind them of what they could have if they only reached forth to seize it with their own hands. It was what the Fates had always wanted for her people. Why in the name of Heaven didn't more of them ever realise that in all their lives?

"Hey."

Nukyek jolted, and then she looked up to see Marina standing before her, a knowing smile on her face as she reached down to squeeze her companion's shoulder in understanding. "Part of me hopes this will last forever," she admitted as she looked into those auburn eyes. "Part of me just wants to go back home."

"I know," the hybrid whispered before she leaned down to kiss the Noukiite's forehead ridge.

With that, she returned back to her sword drill.

** ** **

"Energize."

"Aye, sir."

The technician tapped controls on the console before him. Within the teleportation chamber, light sparkled into existence as an inter-dimensional gateway was opened to Earth below. In seconds, the light vanished, freeing the people just whisked in from Oshika. Seeing who was there, Mendou Shuutarou smiled as he stepped out of the control chamber. "It's good to see you all again," he greeted Yuri, Willow and Hiromi, remembering them from the battle in the Tokyo docklands against Skelad Lara weeks before. He then blinked on noting the fourth woman present, she not familiar to him. "Er, Aya-san, who . . .?"

Willow quickly did introductions for Shoono Asuza. Hearing her family name, Mendou smiled as he bowed graciously to her. "I know of your parents, Asuza-san. They're from Tsuruoka, are they not?"

"Last I heard of them, Mendou-chuusa," Asuza replied as she returned his bow. "I haven't spoken to them for the past four years." She shrugged before she quietly added, "You ultimately found the strength within yourself to honour your family's desires when you married and helped give birth to your son even when your heart often felt like doing otherwise. It's a strength I've yet to find within myself."

The scion of Japan's richest family nodded understandingly. He knew Shoono Asuza had two brothers, Yasushi and Motomu, both of who would inherit joint control over their family's considerable clothing empire. Asuza's fate in life had been -- up until the point she "volunteered" to spend some years on Sagussa; Mendou still didn't know how she had got away with leaving Earth for THAT planet in particular -- to eventually marry into an equally rich family to forge a business alliance on behalf of her parents, Kikuo and Teruko.

"Perhaps it's a different strength that you're actually looking for, Asuza-san," he advised her.

"Commander, the next party's ready to come up," the technician reminded him.

"Thank you, Chief," Mendou called back as he beckoned the party clear of the teleport pad.

The command was given again to energize the system. Four more people arrived, three women and an elderly man. To Mendou's surprise, all four were Noukiites, none of them familiar to him. Before he could ask Willow what was going on, the doors to the teleportation chamber opened to reveal Yut'uch, he in his dress uniform. He watched as his classmate from the Urusian Defence Force Academy went to his knee before the silver-haired woman in the white-and-green clothes, he taking her hand in his own to place a kiss on her fingers. "Welcome aboard the Urusian Defence Force Ship Koishii Moroboshi, Sister Niap'yeng. Heaven's most sincere blessings on you and your party. You honour we unworthy ones with your presence."

"And to you, good warrior, we give thanks for your welcome and greet you in Heaven's name in return," Niap'yeng responded. "Have you informed your war-leader of the need of our presence before we proceed?"

"I have, Sister. She understands."

"Very well. Lady Hanak'at'?"

The crimson-haired, blue-eyed woman in the flowing robes to Niap'yeng's right -- save for the formal occasions like this, Eyu-Teo Yeho-Hanak'at' would dress in quite revealling clothes, like her adopted sister K'yechsungi -- walked up, she bowing her head respectfully. "Your wishes, Sister?"

"You and your sister will both serve as our noble companion's hich'ek while she is here."

Hanak'at' and K'yechsungi both bowed. "As the wise sister commands," they replied.

Niap'yeng turned to smile at Ik'a. "Of course, Venerable, I will not presume to impose on you."

"I don't intend to force myself on you either, Sister," the ancient warrior said with a demure chuckle before he seemed to "look" over at Asuza. "Ah, Asucha . . . " -- like most Noukiites, Ik'a found it next to impossible to properly pronounce "z"-like sounds -- "There you are. Care to be my eyes today?"

"Hai, Ojii-san," Asuza said as she walked over to slip her arm around his, and then she moved to escort him out of the room, they following Willow, Hiromi and Yuri to the guest quarters.

"Ladies, could you clear the pad for Miss Reiko?" the technician asked.

Yut'uch stood up as the other Noukiites cleared the teleportation pad. The system was energized yet again, allowing one more person to appear. Seeing her finally appear, Mendou smiled as he moved to greet her with a formal bow. "Reiko-sa- . . . " he began before his breath caught in his throat on seeing what four days work done by Niap'yeng and Hanak'at' had done to Ataru's and Lum's adopted daughter.

Gone was the tired, depressed, lonely look that had haunted Moroboshi Reiko's face since her parents and sister had moved to Tomobiki. Gone was the cloak of disorientation and confusion that had swamped her since her mother started having dreams concerning her old combat teacher from Vos and her best friend from Fukunokami. Gone especially were the Naihu black star tattoos that had been burned into her cheeks when she had been born, marking her as a member of the ninth of the Ten Orders. Replacing them were the golden suns of a Yekhu, marking her as being at the very top of the ancient social pyramid of that particular world. Even more, she was wearing the sweeping robes of a Yekhu who had yet to take a post in the priesthood, they coloured in velvet black and glittering gold, the shades chosen to mark her adopted parents' histories, as the animals portrayed on the tunic and trousers -- Sagussan windriders and sandpanthers, Urusian tiger-cows and landsharks, they watched over by Noukiite dragons and Nendo-kata -- immediately demonstrated.

As Mendou and the technician gaped in awe at how beautiful Reiko was, Yut'uch was moving to greet her. "Heaven's most sincere blessings to you, Venerable Ye-Nehek Yesu-P'yeknu. Heart-child of the Euk Hichheksuch Seuchhoukhek, the Daite'cha Moroboshi Ataru of Sagussa, and his soul-mate, the Crown Princess Lum of the House of Redet of Uru. Blood-daughter of the T'yekhek Empress Consort of Nehech and the Venerable Ye-Hit' Yecho-Huit'ch'uk. Spirit-daughter of the Most Venerable Inuch'ech, the Most Venerable Meiyo, the Most Venerable Yap'eng, the Venerable Ip'yoch and the Venerable Ch'uhuch. Sword-daughter of the Venerable Admiral Ye-Yi Chusu-Hachhich, Conqueror of the Eo. Soul-daughter of the Great Takchyek Emperor of Nehech, the Muine Emperor of Ep'ye, the Muine Emperor of Nehech and the Suhek Emperor of Nehech."

"I thank you, Warrior Hu-Ch'uchrakch'ut'a Chuyeh-Yut'uch, for your greetings and greet you in Heaven's name in return," Reiko replied as he placed a courtly kiss on her fingers. "Now that I'm here, may I be escorted to see your ship's noble mistress and war-leader so I may greet her properly?"

"This unworthy one would be honoured to escort you to her, Venerable P'yeknu."

"So be it."

Yut'uch rose and turned, offering his arm to her. Reiko slipped her arm around his, and they walked out of the teleporter room, Hanak'at' and K'yechsungi falling in behind her. Niap'yeng watched them go, and then she turned to follow before she stopped on seeing the stunned look on Mendou Shuutarou's face. Walking over, the priestess seemed to gaze intently at him for a moment before she leaned up to tenderly kiss his cheek. Gasping, the commander spun around to stare wide-eyed at her. Grinning, Niap'yeng turned to leave. "For that time in the mountains near Hakaech, my eternal thanks, Mendou Shuutarou. Excuse me, please."

She walked out of the teleportation room. Watching her go, Mendou seemed to be gobbling like a fish trying to breathe in open air. Seeing his distress, the teleporter technician noted, "Sir, she's just like Miss Reiko." As Mendou stared confusedly at him, he added, "Hakaech is the city on Miss Reiko's home planet where the Masters of Noukiios had their operation. That priestess was a Lost Star, too."

The commander blinked as his mind absorbed that information, and then he nodded. "Oh!"

* * *

In another teleportation room aboard the Urusian battlewagon, another column of light brought two more people into existence. One of them was dressed in the simple vestments of a Buddhist monk of the Joodoshuu sect, his shaved head glistening in the lights of the teleportation room. Standing beside him was a girl dressed in a kimono, it portraying a beautiful grove of apple trees inhabited by a small pack of tigers. The lights also reflected off the glasses both people were wearing. Staring at them from her position in the technician's control station, Hoth Sunda grinned as she moved to greet them. "Welcome aboard the Koishii Moroboshi, Brother Kaerimiru, Miss Mina. I trust the teleportation didn't hurt either of you."

"For one who's experienced Sagussan transporter systems, Captain Sunda, it's different, but not very much so," Megane Aisuru stated as he moved to bless his host. "The Buddha's blessings onto you and your fine crew. May this ship and all of you have the spirit of life young Koishii-chan was tragically denied when the Gatherer was lost." He smiled as he added, "And I bring profound thanks from Lum-san, Ataru and both their families for your willingness to assist them in helping Mina-san get back together again with Reiko-san."

"I'm more than happy to help, sir," Sunda said with a delighted laugh. She hadn't aged much since the day she -- then serving as the executive officer of the battlewagon Repia -- had born mute witness to the final incident that sparked the Imperial Counter-Revolution on Toshitto when her ship, commanded by an Imperial sympathiser named Tenwan Sakimu, engaged in a hopelessly one-sided fight over Mars with the Sagussan cruiser R.S.S. Ossa'cha. Her silver hair hadn't gained any grey in the temples and her face was relatively clear of laugh lines, her bright blue eyes sparkling with delight at this little game of subterfuge.

After nodding thanks to Megane, she turned to Mina. "I'll have one of the crew escort you to your quarters, Miss Mina. They're very close to Miss Reiko's, so things should go well between you two."

"Don't be so quick to promise that, Captain," Mina warned her.

Everyone laughed.

* * *

An hour later, after Sunda got the chance to meet Reiko and her party, the Koishii Moroboshi soared out of Earth's gravity well, turning her bow in the direction of Urusian space. On the battlewagon's bridge, located on the underside of the main hull forward of amidships, the bridge crew remained alert as she went into warp. Mendou currently served as the officer of the watch, with Yut'uch standing beside him. "E.T.A. Toshitto outer marker in two hours mark six, Commander," the helmsman reported after taking a look on her readout. "Once we clear the Slot, it'll be a seven hour speed run to the Tamamono outer marker."

"Thank you, Pilot," Mendou replied. He ordered the duty boatswain's mate to mark the departure in the log and to contact the captain when they arrived at Toshitto. Once that was done and noted, he stared at his old classmate to restart their conversation before the ship left Earth. "You're saying that Reiko-san was a bioroid created from the genes of all those people you mentioned in the teleport room?"

"It's true, Shuutarou," Yut'uch confirmed. "It shocked the hell out of ME when P'yeknu mentioned what the Sagussans found out when they investigated her ancestry just after the Final Tag Race in Tomobiki between her father and Mrs. Lum." Like most Urusians, Yut'uch found it difficult to speak Moroboshi Ataru's given name out loud since, in the Oni dialect, "ataru" meant "sex-crazed idiot." He could have tried to say the man's name using the Noukiite transliteration, "Ch'uk," but that would have confused Mendou in the end.

"I thought that on Noukiios, tampering with a grave earned you a quick date with the firing squad," the communications officer spoke up, he glancing over from his station.

"Normally, it does, Haran. But as far as Doctor Catty -- she was the one who led the investigation -- concluded, it could be possible to obtain other genetic samples from those people, thus leaving the graves undisturbed. During the Occupation, a lot of relics belonging to those people were hidden away in temples. Even if they were trying to break the Noukiites, the Houses never elected to destroy the major temples on a wide scale. The only times they did do that was when they wanted to teach special 'lessons' to the various resistance movements (not that any of those 'lessons' ever truly worked in the long term). But people on Noukiios were forewarned ahead of time whenever those things were going to happen, so nothing really was lost." Yut'uch blinked as he considered the matter, and then he nodded. "Oh, yes, I can see how P'yeknu was created in the long term. Whoever elected to do it really was thinking ahead."

Everyone on the bridge stared at the combat information officer. "You think the Noukiites might have had some clue about Mrs. Lum's husband and his date with the Sagussans?" the sensor officer asked.

"Pretty much so," Yut'uch answered with another nod. "On Noukiios, astrology is a time-honoured art form. And the star patterns aren't really so different between Noukiios and Earth. When you consider his connections with Zephyrus through the Lady Nagaiwakai, I'm sure that . . . "

"Wait!"

Everyone snapped over to the communications station. "Report, Haran-san!" Mendou ordered.

"Signal from Toshitto, relayed from Machibusu, Commander Mendou," the communications officer spoke up. "Distress signal from the area between Machibusu and Tamamono. It's a starship registered from Shingetsu, pendant number CTU-228-I. They report being attacked by unknown fighter ships, at least a dozen of them!"

People on the bridge tensed. "It's the Ip'ihu!" the helmsman snarled. "It HAS to be!"

Grim looks flashed across many of the Urusians there. If there was one word that could send chills down the backs of any native of Uru or any of her colony worlds, it was the dreaded name of the Wolf People of Noukiios, the "outcaste" part of their society. Based on the disputed colony planets of Okusei, Tunchusei and Kurrusei, the Ip'ihu -- the blood and spirit descendants from the last major resistance force to rise up in the final years of the Nehech Dynasty to fight the Urusians, the Ch'eksung Righteous Army -- had earned a bloody and brutal yet awe-inspiring reputation for ferocity in battle. That was especially true when they engaged elements of their opposite numbers on the Urusian side of the frontier between the Union and the Dominion of Noukiios, the volunteer colonial space militias of Machibusu, Tamamono and Baiseki.

"Is there any ship close to that vessel that could render aide?" Yut'uch demanded.

"Wait one," the communications officer said as he tapped controls to send a return signal to Toshitto.

"What's going on?"

Everyone turned as Sunda stepped off the elevator that connected the bridge to the main hull. "We just got a distress signal relayed to us from near Machibusu, Captain," the communications officer stated. "It's a civilian starship, pendant number CTU-228-I. They report being attacked by at least a dozen fighter ships, type and place of origin unknown. I . . .!" He paused as a new signal came in. "Update, Captain. The ship sending the distress call is the private yacht of Miss Aruka Insa of Shingetsu."

"A relative of Ran-san?" Mendou asked on recognising the woman's house name.

"Distant relative, Shuutarou," Yut'uch reported. "And one, I think, Mrs. Rei might not approve of."

"How so?"

"Miss Insa was very pro-Imperial, Shuutarou," Sunda stated. "She's our closest equivalent to the many conservative broadcasters you have on your planet; people like Rush Limbaugh and his ilk. Of course, in her eyes, any restored Imperium would have the Aruka House -- as the direct descendants of the Maidens of Aruka, of course -- as the First House, the ones to hold the throne. She herself's never been accused of anything illegal; she didn't really come into public prominence until after the battle between the Gatherer and the Eliminator." The captain breathed out, "But there is one other thing we have to keep in mind."

"That being, ma'am?"

"She was Aruka Popok's mother."

"He was Skelad Lara's number two man, Shuutarou," Yut'uch added. "He died the day before she did, cause unknown; according to the reports, the coroner didn't find a mark on him."

Mendou stared at him. "Really?"

* * *

"The ship belonging to Aruka Popok's mother was just attacked?"

"That's right, Sister," Sunda said before she took a sip of her spice tea. The Koishii Moroboshi was soaring at maximum warp for Machibusu. The battlewagon was based at Eiranha, the colony located between Machibusu and Uru. Like Toshitto, Eiranha was a space-borne Gibraltar for Uru's coreward colony planets: a nearly-impregnable series of ground fortresses backed by squadrons of spaceships which could make any attack from the direction of Noukiios a risky thing. "You must know who Miss Insa is. She complains about your people's settlements on Okusei, Tunchusei and Kurrusei, how your government won't bend an iota towards giving us 'our' colonies back. I even heard one particular Ip'ihu group has placed a bounty on her head."

Niap'yeng blinked as she took that in, and then she sat back to gaze intently at Sunda. The two were seated in one of the domed observation halls on the battlewagon's spine. Also present was Hanak'at', she serving as waitress. "Do you believe it is the Outcastes who attacked her ship?" she asked.

"I don't know what to think, to be frank with you," Sunda replied. "Unlike other Urusian leaders you might have met over the years, Sister, I don't have any sort of Imperialist leanings. You won't find any mention of the House of Hoth anywhere in my people's history; my family didn't even acquire a house name until after the Revolution. And personally, I don't understand this constant bickering over those planets my government seems to love to engage in with yours. Any fool with a proper history book could see the Ip'ihu and other Noukiite refugees were there first. And save for the fringe radicals in your society, there's never been a like call from Noukiyek City for us to surrender Machibusu, Baiseki or Tamamono to Noukiite control." Her eyes turned hard. "But what DOES offend me, Sister, is when people on nominally unarmed ships are hurt and killed by pirates. Which, if you strongly think about it, the Ip'ihu actually are."

"In that, Captain, I fully agree with you," Niap'yeng stated. "Except whenever the Outcastes move to defend those colonists on our worlds from attacks from the colonial militias from your planets." Seeing that Sunda didn't react to that counter-charge, the priestess smirked. "That's a good sign."

An eyebrow arched. "Excuse me?"

"If I said that to most of your peers, the first thing they would say in return is that there are NO colonial militias currently active on Machibusu or her sister planets."

Sunda smirked. "I don't particularly care for them, either."

"Are you willing to hear a secret, Captain?"

"That being?"

"For the last two years, the Ip'ihu have received help when it comes to dealing with the colonial militias," the priestess reported. "Do you wish to know where that help came from?"

"Where?"

"Sagussa."

Sunda's jaw dropped. "EXCUSE ME?!"

"It's true," Niap'yeng confirmed with a nod. "Ever since they were so kind enough to terraform six new colony planets for us four years ago -- adding to them four more planets last year -- the Sagussans have secretly deployed elements of their Rover intelligence force to our frontier with your people. The instant they spot any force leaving your planets and heading towards ours, an Ip'ihu group is scrambled to intercept and destroy them. As a matter of fact, last year was the first year in that long battle where NO colonial militia ship penetrated our frontier to attack settlements on our worlds, much less any ship moving people to our new colonies." A shrug. "It surprises me your people never realised that was happening."

The captain took a moment to digest that. "If news of that got back to Onishuto . . . "

"You will then have to ensure you tell them the whole story," the priestess advised her. "When Ambassador Hinoto came to us with the offer concerning the Rovers, they attached a very strong stipulation to whatever intelligence was shared with the Ip'ihu: Under NO circumstances were attacks against non-militia targets allowed. The threat of collateral damage in such raids was something the Sagussans found quite repugnant. In effect, any raids directed against your planets was to stop then and there."

Sunda blinked as she absorbed that news. Thinking about it -- as a captain in the Defence Force, she had access to top secret intelligence that the normal Urusian civilian never saw outside wild stories in the trash infonets -- she did realise that in the last couple of years, attacks by the Ip'ihu seemed to have been limited to the space around the disputed border between the Union and the Dominion. Not a single death on Machibusu or elsewhere as a result from a ground assault by alien starships had been noted for some time.

"So if the attack against Miss Insa's ship was organized by the Ip'ihu . . .?"

"It would be a fringe group who might have taken offence from her many broadcasts against our position concerning our older colonies," Niap'yeng finished. "They do exist, much that it shames me to admit it. Few in numbers, but they are there. I don't like the idea of this undeclared war between our peoples carrying on to the next generation; it doesn't serve Noukiios or Uru any good. It's time for peace to occur once and for all, with strength and respect for both sides. But that can't happen while your government keeps information concerning what's been going on these last two centuries secret from the general public." She took a breath. "Captain, you yourself were witness to the great leap forward your people took twelve years ago when they cast away Seq Yethis and his ilk. Do you want to look back at this time in your people's history and realise that the sacrifices made by Seq Yedris and her daughter, Dedron Sil and so many others were made in vain?"

Sunda shook her head. "No."

"I didn't believe so." A deep breath. "Your people suffered far too much centuries ago at the hands of the Seifukusu Dominion. Only Neptune suffered worse than Uru. We gladly acknowledge that; we always have. Your people have every right to be angry at what happened to your ancestors. But we've always felt that you took that anger and projected it over my people, most likely because you were jealous of the fact that we never had to submit to the Seifukusu when they rampaged across the cluster. Put frankly, Captain, my people have long grown tired of that. It's time for your people to grow up finally and accept the fact that the Universe can be a very cruel, harsh place. Look at this ship's namesake to see what I mean."

With that, she rose and walked out of the lounge. Sunda remained silent as the priestess departed. Hanak'at' remained in place, and then she smirked. "I should apologise for my friend, Captain. When she goes into 'sermon' mode, there's simply no stopping her. Anyhow, you have a good evening."

She rose and walked out. Sunda remained in place.

* * *

"The mother of the one we killed?"

"The very same person," Niap'yeng noted before she sat on her bed. Guest quarters on an Urusian battlewagon weren't very bad, though it wasn't as comfortable as like quarters on a Noukiite ship-of-the-line were. K'yechsungi was standing at the window staring at the passing star field. "Curious that her ship was attacked so close to Machibusu. What was she doing there, anyway? She normally doesn't leave Uru itself."

"There is more to this than we may first suspect, Niap'yeng."

The priestess took that in, and then she nodded. K'yechsungi had some precognitive abilities, though they paled in comparison to Niap'yeng's or any of the other Lost Stars whose gifts concentrated solely in the psionic realms. Despite that, there were things the sin-eater could sense the priestess simply could not; those senses had come to help K'yechsungi in her many battles with the bandits in her home province of Taktek over the last half-decade. To ignore her advice was foolish. "What might we be missing, then?"

"Yut'uch spoke of the Eo rising again."

THAT comment sent Niap'yeng's eyebrows right into her ridges. "Is he sure of it?"

"He implied it when he spoke of breaching the Yekk'ap' to rescue P'yeknu's blood-mother."

A hum escaped the priestess.

* * *

"Miss Reiko?"

Reiko blinked on hearing that voice, and then she turned to gaze on a young Seishin servicewoman standing at the doorway to her bedroom. "What is it?"

"You've been invited to a private dinner in the Number Two dining hall, ma'am."

A blink. "Who invited me?"

"I wasn't told, ma'am. But the message indicated that you definitely would want to go there."

Silence fell as she considered that, and then she sighed. "Alright, I'm coming."

Slipping on her overcoat, she followed her guide out of her room. They boarded an elevator, and then they headed forward to a place several levels above the main bridge. Arriving there, the servicewoman waved her into the mess hall, which normally served as the primary eating facility for officers of the Koishii Moroboshi's air wing. Seated with her back to the doorway was a single woman with neck-length brown hair, she dressed in a kimono. Reiko stared at her for a moment, and then she looked back to where her guide should have been. The woman was gone. "Alright," Reiko whispered to herself before she walked over.

"It's been a very long time. Hasn't it, Rei-chan?"

Reiko stopped on hearing that voice, and then her jaw dropped as the other woman's head slowly turned to allow her to gaze her way. Seeing those features for the first time in over six years sent a lump as big as Noukiios itself into her throat as the other woman stood up, she reaching up to gently adjust her glasses.

Only ONE person in her life had ever called her "Rei-chan."

"Minako . . .?!"

A laugh. "Well, it's just 'Mina' now, Rei-chan." And with that, Fujisawa Mina blinked as her eyes suddenly teared up before she moved towards her. "Oh, Rei-chan! I missed you so much!"

Reiko remained rooted in place as Mina flew into her arms, the latter's lips colliding roughly with the former's as her attempt at embracing her nearly sent the poor Noukiite collapsing to the deck.

* * *

"Did it work, Megane-san?"

Megane jolted on hearing that softly-spoken question, and then he turned to see Yuri standing nearby, a light smile on the Tritonian's face. Turning back to see Reiko and Mina squealing at each other as a reunion six years in the making got underway in earnest, the monk nodded. "Hai, it did."

She reached over to slip her arm around his as she moved to guide them away so they could give Reiko and Mina privacy. "That's good," she noted as she gazed fondly at him.

He didn't notice her look as they headed off.

* * *

A couple hours later, the doors to Reiko's guest cabin opened. Before Reiko and Mina could walk inside, noisemakers sounded off as congratulations balloons burst over their heads, showering the two in confetti as streamers marked with WELCOME BACK, MINA! flopped down in front of them.

"HEY!" both girls shrieked before they heard delighted laughter echo from inside.

"We're sorry, Mina-san!" Yuri apologized as she walked over to gently grasp Mina's hands. "We didn't mean to shock you, but we wanted you to feel right back at home!"

Hearing that, Mina blinked, and then she laughed before she allowed the Tritonian to embrace her. Willow and Hiromi, the only other two in the room, came up to embrace their friend and schoolmate. "It's good you're back together with Mina, Reiko-chan!" the Oni said before she kissed the Noukiite's cheek.

Reiko yelped. "Easy, Willow!" she moaned as she pushed her friend away. "My cheeks are still stinging from when Nia lasered off my old tattoos and gave me my new ones!"

"I'll just have to kiss them and make them better."

Before Reiko could react, Mina had slipped over to place a tender kiss on her cheek. "Hey . . .!" the former gasped in shock before the sensual softness of her friend's lips on her skin took her breath away. Blinking for a moment as her mind tried to process what she had just felt, Reiko remained still as Mina slipped over to kiss her other cheek over the new tattoo imprinted there.

Mina backed off to gaze deeply into Reiko's deep turquoise eyes. The latter quickly brought her mind back to the here-and-now, and then she stared unflinchingly into the former's brown eyes. Silence fell over the scene as they gazed on each other, and then Reiko reached down to grasp Mina's hands, allowing her psi-guards to drop ever so slightly so she could obtain a clear empathic "feel" of her long-missing friend.

Mina's heard was a storm of emotions, including a scar of pain and an equally deep fear. Concerning her parents, no doubt, Reiko quickly concluded, remembering what Mina had told her in the dining hall about the sixteen custody battles fought between Fujisawa Tatsuo and Teizou Hiroko over her after their marriage fell apart when Reiko and Mina were in their final year at the Ishinomaki Girls Primary Academy. But beyond that, there was one undeniable feeling currently exploding from Fujisawa Mina's heart: pure love.

And it was focused on one Moroboshi Reiko.

Reiko felt her eyes tear. "Mina . . . "

I want you, Rei-chan.

The Noukiite nearly leapt out of her clothes on hearing Mina's voice whisper in her mind, and then she caught herself on realising how much her psi-guards had dropped, almost all the way to the point where, if Mina herself was a Sagussan, a marei'cha bond could form. Relaxing herself as she firmed up her shields -- while knowing Mina's feelings was a clear bonus, she didn't want to be seen as invading the other woman's mental privacy -- Reiko gently tugged Mina's hands towards her, allowing the latter to approach.

Seeing their lips caress, Willow and Hiromi could only exchange a knowing look before they then sent a warning gaze towards Yuri. Quickly taking the hint, the Tritonian nodded as the three women quietly slipped out of the room, Willow closing the door behind them. Reiko and Mina did not seem to notice.

* * *

"Are P'yeknu and T'ichu well?"

Willow, Hiromi and Yuri cried out in shock on hearing that question, and then they spun around to see K'yechsungi standing there, her arms crossed and a neutral look on her face. "K'yechsungi-san! Don't DO that to us!" Yuri scolded the elfin-eared sin-eater as the air around her seemed to chill.

K'yechsungi appeared not to mind it. "We were tasked by Niap'yeng to serve as hich'ek to P'yeknu when she came aboard this ship. If P'yeknu now sees T'ichu as her heart-mate, that also concerns us." Her strange melodic voice then hardened into cold steel. "We ask again, Yuri: Are they well?"

Yuri felt an icy cold -- and for a Tritonian, this was truly a BAD thing! -- race up her spine as the sin-eater's dark eyes seemed to bore right into her soul. Before she could decide what to do, Hiromi sighed as she walked over to squeeze K'yechsungi's shoulder in reassurance. "They're fine," the girl from Ise said. "They just need a little private time to themselves now, so don't bother them. Okay?"

K'yechsungi blinked, and then she gazed into Hiromi's eyes for a moment before she smiled. This time, it wasn't the icy grins she normally projected. "You are touching us, Hiromi."

Hearing that, the Terran yelped as she yanked her hand away from the Noukiite's shoulder. "Sorry!"

The sin-eater laughed as she turned to walk away. "You need not fear us, Hiromi. It is a rare thing for anyone to desire contact with us, given the way we are." A wistful smile crossed her face as she gazed over her shoulder at Willow's fiancée. "It is a pity. Had not Aya made the nep'ch'uop'e-o k'ahenich-kach kyungheng to you, we might have actually come to think of you as our potential heart-mate."

She walked off. Hiromi blinked several times as she took that in, and then she turned to stare at her fiancée. "Should I be scared now, Willow?"

"Actually, that was Chai-yu's way of saying she likes you."

All three snapped around to see Hanak'at' standing close by, she relaxing against the bulkhead across from the closed door of Reiko's room, her arms crossed. "She actually can LIKE people?!" Willow demanded.

"She can," Hanak'at' replied as she gave the Oni a stern look. "Granted, before she came to Earth, Chai-yu was often treated by most people as being an Uohu in disguise, especially with the amount of bodies she could pile up whenever her hunger for souls got the better of her during all the fights she had with the bandits in the hill country of Taktek and she lost control of herself." A tired look crossed her face. "But give her the chance and she can be a very friendly person. All she really needs is someone who can try to understand her and help her deal with her hunger and her multiple personalities and she'd be set for life."

"I guess we shouldn't be so quick to judge," Hiromi noted.

* * *

Unseen by them, though certainly still within her sister's sensing range, K'yechsungi was leaning against a bulkhead, her eyes tearing. We never tell you how much we love you enough, Cha-yu . . .

* * *

"Ne, Rei-chan . . .?"

"Hmm . . . what is it, Mina?"

"What did K'yechsungi-san mean when she called me 'T'ichu?'"

Reiko paused, and then she smirked as she pulled up from kissing and licking Mina's spine to nibble one of her earlobes. "Well, when you changed your name from 'Minako' to 'Mina,' you changed the kanji from the 'three apples child' ones your parents stuck you with to the normal way that name's written, right?"

"Hai, Rei-chan . . . " Mina breathed out as she felt her lover's hands reach into her opened kimono top to start exploring more interesting points on her body.

"Well, if we went with the old meaning of your name, it would be said in Noukiite as 'Hoch'chuk'nu.'" Reiko pulled away from Mina's ear to direct her tongue's attention to a bared shoulder. "Going by the way you write it now, your name would be said 'T'ichunu' back on Noukiios. Or 'T'ichu' if you want to keep the '-ko' ending off your name. And that sounds a lot better to me, believe it or not."

Mina smiled. "I'm glad."

* * *

"Aya?"

Willow tensed, and then she turned to see Niap'yeng walk up to her, she accompanied by Megane Aisuru. "Yes, Nia . . .? Oh, hello, Megane-san! What're you doing here? Did you come aboard with Mina-san?"

"I did, Willow-san," the monk said as he bowed his head to them. "It's good to see you two again. And if what the honourable sister just told me now, I believe congratulations are in order."

"Eh?!" the Oni said as she gave him a curious look. "What do you . . .?"

"I told him already," Niap'yeng said as she pulled out a small case from inside her jersey.

Megane held out his hand. Placing the case there, Niap'yeng opened it to reveal a curious two-chain necklace, they hooked onto twinned heart-shaped pendants held together by a thin and fragile band of gold, each pendant holding a beautiful ruby. A promise necklace, the visible sign of an engaged couple in Noukiite society. Picking it up, Niap'yeng moved to gently secure it around Willow's neck, the latter bowing her head to allow the priestess to do just that. Once that was in place, Niap'yeng leaned down to tenderly kiss Willow's forehead. "Be whole and happy, Aya." She gazed on Hiromi. "I think she's yours, Hiromi."

"She always has been, Sister," Hiromi noted before she gently grasped her fiancée's hands. "Come along now, Dearest. We need to discuss a couple things in our cabin."

"H-hai," Willow stammered as she allowed herself to be pulled away.

Taking the empty case back from Megane, Niap'yeng slipped it into her top. "Sister?" Yuri asked.

"Yes, Yuri?"

"Would you happen to have another one of those by any chance?"

Niap'yeng stared quizzically at Reiko's friend from Triton, and then she noted that Yuri's eyes seemed fixed on Megane Aisuru, a funny smile crossing her face. Hanak'at' had also noted that. Much to Niap'yeng's surprise, Megane was oblivious about the Tritonian's stare. "I might," the priestess noted. "But if I might offer you a small amount of advice, Yuri, you might consider casting your eyes elsewhere when it comes to seeking out your heart-mate. The one you currently desire might be quite beyond your grasp."

Yuri smirked. "I prefer to think otherwise, Sister."

With that, she headed off, whistling some bars from Space Is Super-Weird. Megane watched her go, and then he hummed. "She shouldn't have any problems obtaining the one she desires," he noted.

Niap'yeng and Hanak'at' stared askance at the monk as he turned to head back to his own guest cabin. The Noukiites watched him go, and then they exchanged a look. "Do we tell him?" the latter wondered.

The priestess considered that for a moment, and then she shook her head. "No, not yet."

"Okay."

* * *

Sometime later, the Koishii Moroboshi emerged from warp three light-years from Machibusu, on the closest line of approach between that planet's star system and Tamamono's. The battlewagon's crew were at battle stations, her shields up and weapons primed, all her fighters armed and at the catapults, as she began a detailed sensor sweep of the area. On the bridge, Sunda stood close to the helmsman's station as sensor information flowed into the other bridge stations to give her a full picture of what happened here.

It wasn't that much.

"Are you sure this is the place where the distress call came from, Lookout?"

"Yes, ma'am!" the sensory officer reported after a quick glance at the readouts. "There are traces of many warp signatures in the area, coming it from every direction you could imagine. At least fourteen ships were involved in this mess, not counting Miss Insa's. Yet still . . .!"

"What is it?" Sunda asked.

"None of the ships show any distinct Noukiite energy sources."

Everyone stared at the sensory officer in shocked disbelief. "NONE?!" Yut'uch demanded for them all.

"That's right, sir! None!"

Confused looks were exchanged. Noukiite starships worked on a mixed format of solar sails and matter/anti-matter combustion warp drives; the easiest way to tell that a Noukiite ship was in the area was the distinct lack of ion particles that were sucked up by the sails to be funnelled into the reactors to create the warp fields. Only the Seifukusu Dominion used a similar process for their starships' main drive systems. "That's odd," Sunda hissed before she asked, "What do the warp traces indicate, Lookout?"

"A whole mixed bag of drive systems, ma'am. Mostly Urusian with some Fukunokami, even Ipraedies and Ellsian systems. If this is some sort of Ip'ihu trick, it's the most complex one I've ever seen . . . "

"It's not Ip'ihu."

Eyes locked on the captain. "Ma'am, can you substantiate that?" Mendou asked.

"Quite easy, Shuutarou," Sunda replied. "The Noukiites are many things. One of them that's not so well known is that they're very proud of their shipbuilding tradition. Not even the most devious Ip'ihu war-leader would sail on anything that wasn't built in a Noukiite shipyard, even a privately owned one. This was someone else's raid." She gazed on her bridge crew. "Now it's our responsibility to find out who."

"I think I've got a potential course, ma'am."

"Where, Lookout?"

"Course 088 mark 344. That would take us in the general direction of the Konton system."

People blinked confusedly. "Konton?!" Yut'uch demanded. "Konton itself is a Class H desert planet that's not claimed by anyone. There are only four other planets in the system and none of them would come close to being usable: it's got two Class Bs, a Class A and a Class E. It's a useless system."

Sunda's eyes narrowed. "That would make it perfect for some new group of pirates to start up," she noted. "Pilot, change course and take us towards Konton."

"Aye, ma'am!"

"Signals, a message to Squadron headquarters on Eiranha. Inform them of what we're doing."

"Aye, ma'am!"

With that, the Koishii Moroboshi leapt off into warp.

** ** **

He had no idea how long he had been in this place.

Reflecting on it as he tenderly moved to adjust himself on the bed, it had seemed a drunken blur. The assembled fleet of the Nehech Navy, fifty ships strong, in orbit over Seueukhek, then in the part of its vast orbit where it would form a direct line between Noukiios itself and Machibusu. Approaching from outside the system was what was left of the Eo Pirate Kingdom, a fleet nearly twice as big as his, yet each ship in the enemy armada nowhere as close to what had been constructed in the yards in Nichsuo over the last ten years, ever since His Majesty's command to permanently deal with these creatures had come.

Standing on the bridge of his flagship, he had grinned when the challenge signal had come from the Eo flagship. The usual demand of monetary tribute to the horn-head outcastes' sham of a kingdom on that gaudy pink world of theirs, an amount that could have, over time, emptied the Royal Treasury. Too bad for the Eo that the Noukiites, during the infighting of the period between the fall of Ait'uch Nehech and the rise of Ep'ye, had learned the bitter lesson that when one was made to pay Danegeld, one never got rid of the Dane.

The order to attack was given. The black flag signal was sent with it, guaranteeing that on this day, no quarter would be given or taken by the righteous warriors of Noukiios. The dragon ships rammed into the attacking fleet bows first, allowing the boarding crews to surge in and overwhelm the Urusians without needing to learn how to breathe vacuum along the way. As soon as the flagship had rammed into the enemy command ship, the boarding teams went over, he following in the second wave. Even if he was the Lord Admiral of the Stars, the Emperor's chosen war-leader in this conflict, he never liked leading from behind.

That decision had, according to the history books, cost him his life that day in 4606.

He knew otherwise.

"Don't tell them . . . I'm hurt . . . " he had told one of his battle adjutants when the stray energy bolt caught him in the side, penetrating his armour at its weakest point to flood his lungs with blood.

Then . . .

He didn't know what happened next . . .

The reddish fire.

The curious smoke that filled the hall.

The hoarse gasp from fiery Sen: "Yekk'ap' . . . "

And then . . .?

What had wise Pen said . . .?

"You will live, My Lord Admiral."

And then . . .?

"And we will be with you," brave Uin vowed.

Then . . .?

"Always," all three of them -- his concubines as well as his closest aides -- said together.

What . . .?

What had happened to them?

What had happened to HIM?

Where was he . . .?

** ** **

"Papa . . . "

Mina blinked as she heard that whispered word escape her lover's lips. Turning around in the bed, she found herself gazing at a tortured face clearly showing that Reiko was caught in a dream. It wasn't a nightmare; from what she remembered Lum once telling her about the Noukiite, whenever Reiko was struck by THAT, things tended to start flying around her bedroom. Yet she still seemed in pain . . .!

Gasping, Reiko bolted up, the covers tumbling away from her. Blinking as her mind fully returned to wakefulness, the Noukiite shook her head before she stifled a yawn. "Damn . . . "

"Rei-chan, are you okay?"

Reiko blinked as her mind interpreted that question, and then she turned to stare at Mina's face, it creased with concern. "Mina . . .?" she whispered, and then she leaned over to kiss her. "Sorry."

Mina reached up to cup her lover's cheek. "What is it, Reiko? What's wrong?"

Silence fell as the Noukiite considered what to say. In the time between the moment she had met Mina in the dining hall and the moment when their feelings for each other began to demand a more physical form of expression, she had yet to take a chance to explain the uniqueness of her origins. As far as Fujisawa Mina knew, Moroboshi Reiko was an orphan girl from Noukiios who had been seized by a brutal gang of child-slavers after her birth, subjected to DNA-altering experiments that gave her a vast array of psionic powers, and then she was brought to Earth from her home world by a kind Ipraedies when she was seven, to encounter Moroboshi Ataru in Tomobiki. Never once had Reiko told Mina she was in the very unique position to claim TWO genetic mothers and TEN genetic fathers, all having lived in different periods of Noukiite history over a span of four thousand years. Never had she told Mina that she was technically a bioroid, in essence no different than an Avalonian, grown for reasons she couldn't, even to this day, begin to guess.

Sighing, she leaned over to tenderly kiss her lover's lips before she moved to get dressed. "It's a really long story, Mina," Reiko explained as she slipped on her panties. Before she could reach for her trousers, the Noukiite tensed on sensing the battlewagon was slipping out of warp into normal space. "What the . . .?" she began before she looked out the window, and then her jaw dropped as the star field turned back to normal, it soon being masked by plumes of burning red energy.

"What is THAT?!" Mina called out as she stumbled out of bed, moving to stand beside Reiko.

Reiko was speechless for a moment before she muttered out, "Yekk'ap' . . . "

* * *

"The Dragon's Breath, Yut'uch?"

"Yes, Captain," the combat information officer replied as the bridge crew stared in awe at the sea of burning plasma before them. The Koishii Moroboshi had de-warped on the outskirts of the Konton system, she moving to launch her patrol fighters to sweep the area for Aruka Insa's ship and/or her attackers before she would probe all the way to the only possibly habitable planet in the system for a more detailed search. The battlewagon's bow was struck by an errant torrent of energy just as she completed egress from hyperspace, keeping the air wing on the catapults for the time being. "From what previous examinations of this thing have said, it's a space-time nexus gate, like the Outland Nebula near Elle, the gateway to that strange dimension Mrs. Lum's sisters-in-law emerged from thirteen years ago, just after the Tomobiki Spirit-War."

"But where does this thing lead into?" the weapons officer asked.

"That's the mystery of this place," Yut'uch reported. "No deep probes into this phenomena have ever been sent by anyone, at least to our knowledge. Since it doesn't seem to run on any sort of set timetable between appearances, no one's ever really desired to try to find out more about it."

"That's not surprising," the sensor officer warned.

"Why do you say that?" Mendou asked.

"The area around this place is very heavily disturbed, Commander. Scans from any of our systems only seem to be stretching out a total of fifty kilometres from us. We're practically blind here."

"Great!" Sunda hissed. "What was the last recorded time this thing appeared?"

"Three hundred and twenty-six years ago, over Noukiios."

The bridge crew turned aft to see Ik'a standing at the landing to the turbolift. Sunda blinked, and then she sighed. "Sir, we're at battle stations right now. Please, could you . . .?"

The ancient warrior held up a hand, that move silencing the captain just as swiftly as if he had told her to be silent. With that, he walked forward, placing himself in a position beside the helmsman's station as he seemed to "gaze" into the heart of the burning caldron many kilometres off the "Koishii Moroboshi's" bow. Watching him, Yut'uch wondered if Ik'a was using his tracking powers in some attempt to . . .

"She is there."

Everyone blinked. "Who, sir?" Sunda asked.

Ik'a smirked, and then he "looked" at the captain. "Lady War-Leader Sunda, do you consider yourself an honourable person?" he asked, a touch of amusement in his voice.

Surprised by that question -- to say anything of the formal-sounding title the elder Noukiite just addressed her by -- the captain took a moment to answer. "I would like to think I am."

An eyebrow arched. "That is good. Would you like to see the long hostilities haunting relations between our peoples to finally come to an end, once and for all time?"

People on the bridge exchanged confused looks. Watching his shipmates, Mendou Shuutarou was quick to sense looks of agitation from some of the officers present, people he -- having been told this by Yut'uch over the months they had served together -- knew tended to have more negative feelings when it came to the Noukiites. Hoth Sunda, fortunately, was not one of them. "I would gladly welcome such a happenstance, sir."

Ik'a's grin grew wider. "Wonderful! Then how would you like to help me in a rescue mission?"

Sunda gaped. "A rescue mission?! Of who?!"

"My real mother, Captain."

Eyes snapped aft to see Reiko standing there, she dressed in her dress trousers and an undershirt. Fujisawa Mina, hastily dressed in her kimono, stood beside her. "Miss Reiko?!" Sunda gasped on seeing her, and then she blinked as the newcomer's statement repeated itself in her mind. "Your real mother?!"

"Reiko-san, with all due respect, both your mothers have been dead for centuries!" Mendou declared.

Sunda's jaw dropped to the deck. "'BOTH MOTHERS?!' WHAT ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT?!"

Mina grinned as she stared at her lover. "You want to explain this one, Rei-chan?"

"Guess I have to," Reiko muttered under her breath.

The explanation took about ten minutes. As Sunda was told everything, Mendou got the sensor officer to prepare some deep space probes to send into the Yekk'ap' so that an up-to-date scan of the phenomena could be archived for further study. Once that was done, Ik'a made his own confession. Hearing what the aged warrior had done 326 years before, everyone on the bridge crew save Yut'uch were stunned speechless. Mina walked over to gently brush the old warrior's hair away from one of his ears -- tapered, just like a Vosian's -- to make everyone better comprehend what happened and why. Finally, the communications officer moved to recap: "So when you realised there was simply no way to protect Miss Reiko's mother from the assassins the Seqs and the Pochiks sent after her, you found yourself able to actually open a portal into that thing . . . " -- he pointed to the Yekk'ap' -- "To allow Miss Reiko's mother to escape to safety."

"That I did, young man," Ik'a replied, nodding.

Mendou stared at his friend. "Yut'uch, you once told me your ancestors served as footmen to the Governors-General of Noukiios during the Occupation. Did they know about the Empress' disappearance?"

"They did," Yut'uch admitted, he scratching the back of his head as an embarrassed chuckle escaped him. "When there was no trace of Her Majesty's body found ANYWHERE on Noukiios -- and once you took in the fact that the Venerable Neuch'ahi was involved in dealing with the Empress' would-be killers -- it was easy to put the rest of the story together. Of course, as to how he did it . . .?"

Before anyone could say anything, the ship shuddered violently as something hard slammed into her shields. The klaxons blared as the sensor officer spun around to gaze into his screen. "Incoming fire from multiple targets, Captain! Five -- no, SIX! -- corvette-class ships, coming at us from starboard, bearing 197 mark 28!" He then gaped before staring at Sunda. "Captain! They're U.D.F. surplus ships!"

"WHAT?!" Sunda demanded.

The Koishii Moroboshi shuddered again as more plasma fire and missiles came streaking at her. As Sunda ordered the flight deck to prepare to launch fighters, Mendou barked for weapons to be aimed at the incoming targets. Ik'a moved back to join Reiko and Mina by the elevator just as the first pair soared over the battlewagon's spine, their weapons firing down to punch into the main hull, they stopped short of their targets by the larger ship's shields. The impact shock was still considerable, the kinetic force driving the battlewagon down towards a particularly large tendril of the Yekk'ap'. As the helmsman tried to get the ship back on course, the long guns on the Koishii Moroboshi opened up on her attackers, sending them scattering in all directions just as the sensor officer announced more ships were coming in. Their origins were also quickly concluded. "More surplus ships?!" Sunda demanded. "Who ARE these people?!"

"Most likely, they're the Eo!" Ik'a advised.

Sunda's head snapped back to allow her to stare wide-eyed at the aged Noukiite. "THE EO?!" she screamed out. "But they were wiped out by your Admiral Yi years ago . . .!"

The battlewagon shuddered again as another weapons volley slammed into the shields. "Looks like someone decided to pick up the banner again, Captain!" Reiko grunted.

"Reiko-san, get Mina-san back into the main hull!" Mendou called out. "This is no place for you!"

"I'll take them!" Ik'a promised.

With that, he guided Reiko and Mina onto the elevator pad to take them updeck.

* * *

As the three passengers left the battlewagon's combat control centre, one of the attacking fighters approaching the Koishii Moroboshi from aft starboard seemed to dip for a moment, her plasma weapons lashing into the burning sea of the Dragon's Breath. In seconds, the area hit by those weapons exploded in a violent geyser of energy a hundred kilometres long, that catching the battlewagon right at the stern. The shields protecting the vital engine spaces were overwhelmed by the impact, they collapsing enough to allow the energy to rip open the Koishii Moroboshi's main hull from amidships starboard right to the fantail. The main drive core of the battlewagon was torn free from its housing to spiral away from the Yekk'ap', the loss of all atmospheric pressure killing most of the engineering crew as they were flung into the unforgiving vacuum. Thus, deprived of her main power source, the Koishii Moroboshi began to drift ominously downwards and to her port -- right towards an oncoming wall of energy that seemed to be blooming from the Yekk'ap'.

* * *

As power failed throughout the ship, Reiko and Mina cried out as the elevator stopped, it caught between decks. Ik'a, who was physically blind and thus not frightened by the sudden absence of visual light, tensed as he felt the motion stop, and then he asked, "What happened?!"

"The turbolift's stopped!" Mina screamed. "What's going on?!"

The battlewagon around them shuddered again as more missiles struck home, they no longer stopped by deflector shields. As the sounds of the explosions began to fade, an ominous creaking nose began, that causing all three of them to tense further. "Wh-what's h-happening?" Mina stammered.

"Explosive decompression," Reiko warned, a strange sense of calm coming down on her as she moved to hold her lover close to her. "Without shields, any hits would rip the hull right open."

Mina heard that, and then she blanched. "We're gonna die . . .!"

"Not necessarily."

Both gazed in the general direction of Ik'a. "What do you mean?!" Reiko demanded.

"There's one possible escape route," the aged warrior noted. "I never got the chance to answer young Yut'uch's question as to how I managed to see your mother safely into the Yekk'ap', child." A deep breath. "There's no 'set' way to open the gateway into the Yekk'ap', P'yeknu! As far as I could figure out in the years after I helped your mother get to safety, you need a very strong emotion to key into it. Is it a gift from the Lord of Heaven? I can't say." A shake of the head. "Still, as far as I could . . .!"

"Reik- . . . MMMFPTH!"

Ik'a paused as he heard Mina's voice get cut off, most likely by Reiko passionately kissing her. He jolted as he felt a second set of brainwaves suddenly appear from behind a curious veil in the blackness of his inner eye vision. A set of brainwaves that was so intense, it reminded him of that day so long ago, when his determination to see an innocent women safe from the howling assassins sent after her seemed to open a rip in the very fabric of Reality Itself into the beautiful Place Beyond . . .!

As pain started to thunder in his mind, he sensed something else coming.

* * *

At that second, a storm of energy burst from the heart of the Yekk'ap' to slam into the Koishii Moroboshi on the port side, right above the bridge. The blow was enough to rip the ship in half.

* * *

"REIKO!"

Moroboshi Ataru surged up, his left eye glowing star-bright as something seemed to catapult him from Lum's arms and out of their bedroom. Lum herself was nearly flipped out of bed by her husband's movements, but she quickly recovered as she used her flight powers to save her head from a nasty blow on the floor or the dresser. "Darling!" she called out after him. "What is it?! What's wrong?!"

No answer; Ataru was already running downstairs three steps at a time. As Lum flew out to pursue, the door to Amora's room opened, a teary-eyed girl staring fearfully at her mother as her eyes began to glow a very pretty pink. "Mom! What's wrong with Dad?! He's hurting bad!" she sobbed.

Lum stopped, she moving to embrace her, her own mind reaching out to shield Amora's from whatever it was that had just possessed Ataru, sending him down into his private study in the basement. "It's alright, Amora," she promised as she flew down the stairwell to the main floor. "It's going to be . . .!"

The back door flew open. "ATARU!" Miyake Shinobu called out as she surged inside, her eyes wide in blind panic after feeling the psychic backlash nearly overwhelm her through the bond she shared with her former boyfriend. Without hesitation, the nurse/crown princess moved towards the basement to see what was happening, she followed by Lum, who was still cradling a now-sobbing Amora in her arms.

In the study, which had been installed in the house after Moroboshi Muchi and his wife had moved out to take up retirement in an apartment in Hachiouji, Ataru flicked on the small transmitter unit that served as his direct link with the Galactic Situation Room, still located deep within the Chamber of Eternity in the hills east of Sagussa's capital city. He remained in place as he waited for the signal to go through, the glow in his left eye fading as he began to mutter something incomprehensible. By the time Shinobu had run in to join him, the screen before him flicked on, revealing a very welcome face. "Galactic Situation Room Duty . . .! OH!" Seikou Mie gasped on recognising who was calling in. "Ataru! What in . . .?!"

"Mie, where's the Hasei'cha right now?!" he cut her off.

The flightmistress jolted, she tensing on hearing the panic in his voice, and then she calmly answered, "She's on a trial deployment under Eluza's command near Crossroads. Why . . .?!"

"Send a signal to them right away!" Ataru ordered. "They're to go to the Konton system! Something just happened to the Koishii Moroboshi and Reiko-chan! Get the order out NOW, Mie!"

Mie took a second to absorb that, and then she nodded. "Right away!"

She turned to bark orders to her co-workers. Ataru watched her go to work, and then he sagged to his knees, the adrenaline that had started to thunder through his body fading. Shinobu grabbed him before he could pass out on the floor, and then she shifted him to the chair by his work desk. By then, Lum was at the doorway, she still comforting a sobbing Amora. "Darling!" she pleaded. "Is Reiko-chan . . .?!"

Shinobu waved her silent before she leaned down to touch his face and probe his mind. A second later, she suddenly inhaled as the colour drained from her face. "Jesu Cristo . . .!"

"WHAT?!" Lum screamed out.

The nurse staggered back from her bond-mate, and then she dropped to her knees, her eyes tearing before she turned to stare ashen-faced at Lum. "He sensed Reiko and Mina . . . "

Her voice trailed off before a sob burst free from her lungs, her hands flying up to her face as she curled into herself. The Oni took that in, and then her eyes rolled into her head as she passed out. Hearing that, Amora shuddered as she mumbled "Onee-chan . . .!" before she wailed.

** ** **

There was the smell of sweet peppers in the air.

It was late spring, she knew.

Sweet pepper flowers were in bloom . . .

Wait!

Sweet peppers?!

She hadn't smelled anything like that in years.

Where . . .?

"Reiko!"

Reiko's eyes flew open as she found herself staring into a bright blue sky, the orange-gold tinge of a familiar home star reflecting in her eyes to her left and up. A groan escaped her as a hand came up to shield her eyes from the light, and then she blinked as Fujisawa Mina's head appeared in her vision, concern etched in the Terran's features. "Mina . . .?" she rasped before a sharp jolt of pain lanced through her head. "Oh, DAMN!" she croaked as she turned onto her side, her hand reaching for her temple. "What . . .?"

"Don't move!" Mina told her as she took her torn kimono sleeve and placed it on the right side of her lover's skull above her ear. "You hit your head on something when we came to this place! Stay still!"

Reiko whimpered as she felt the fabric press against her hair, that turning into a content sigh as Mina rolled her onto her back, she keeping the improvised bandage in place. Her head still ached as she started to pick up a ringing noise in her ears. "Oh, damn . . . " she hissed. "My head feels like it was thrust inside the Great Bell of King Hekch'eng in Yekna in the middle of New Year's celebrations!"

"Don't talk, Rei-chan," Mina urged. "Just relax!"

"Hai . . .!" Reiko groaned, and then she blinked. "Mina?"

"Yeah?"

"How long were we out?"

Mina shook her head. "Can't tell. I just woke up a few minutes ago -- I *think* it's a few minutes ago! -- and saw what happened to you!" She looked around. "We're in some sort of high plateau somewhere. Mountains ranges all around us, but there's a valley to the east and north. Haven't had much of a chance to look around. It's not on Earth; the sun's more orange and it doesn't hurt my eyes as much to look at it."

Reiko took a moment to consider that. "We're on Noukiios."

Silence.

"NOUKIIOS?!" Mina gaped at her lover. "How in the name of the Kami did we get HERE?!"

"Don't know . . . " Reiko breathed out before a fresh flash of pain surged through her mind. "Damn!"

"P'yeknu! T'ichu!"

Mina looked over, and then she yelped in delight on seeing K'yechsungi run up to her. "Hey!" she cried out as she waved her hand to get the sin-eater's attention. "Over here! Reiko's hurt!"

Slowing down as she reached out mentally to probe Reiko's mind and body, K'yechsungi smirked as she looked back. "Cha-yu!" she yelled. "P'yeknu is hurt! We need you!"

Mina watched, her eyes tearing in relief, as Hanak'at', she followed by Niap'yeng and the others who had come aboard the Koishii Moroboshi from Earth, ran up. Arriving at her sister's side, Hanak'at' stared intently at Reiko for a moment, and then she moved to kneel above her sister Lost Star's head. "Move your bandage away, Mina!" she ordered as the air around her right hand began to crackle with energy.

Megane was quick to notice. "A healer's touch?!"

"Not really, but it'll do for now!" Niap'yeng confirmed. "Quickly, Han!"

"On it!" Hanak'at' promised.

As soon as the torn sleeve was cleared from the gash in the side of Reiko's head, Hanak'at' brought her hand down to hover over it. Reiko cried out in more pain as energy emitting from the older Noukiite's hand surged into the wound, that cauterizing it instantly. As soon as the blood was prevented from flowing out again, Hanak'at' relaxed, she taking Mina's improvised bandage to place it once more over the wound. "Hold it there, Mina," she ordered Reiko's lover. "We don't have a healer with us right now and P'yeknu's healing abilities still need a chance to kick in and start working."

"Hai!"

"Is this everyone who got clear of the ship?" Willow asked. "What happened, anyway?!"

"Were we attacked?!" Hiromi demanded.

"We were."

Eyes locked in K'yechsungi. "Who?" Megane demanded.

"Yut'uch warned us about this possibility before we boarded the ship," the sin-eater answered as she gazed intently on the monk. "The Eo have risen again."

Seeing Megane's confused look, Niap'yeng launched into a quick explanation as to whom the Eo were. At the end of that, he took a deep breath before covering his face with his hand. "It never rains but it pours," he muttered under his breath, and then he looked around. "Where are we, anyway?"

"Let me go up and look around," Willow volunteered, and then she flew off into the sky.

"Don't fly too far, Willow!" Hiromi yelled after her.

The Oni complied, she coming to a stop about twenty metres above the ground. Taking a moment to look around the countryside, she stopped as she looked somewhere to the north, a cry of shock escaping her as she pointed somewhere in that direction. With that, she flew down to land beside her fiancée. "We're on Noukiios! This must be Mount Chuch' we're on; I could see Yekna off to the north of us!"

Niap'yeng took that in, and then she turned towards the east. "If we're close to Yekna, that means it's not so far from here to K'ap'ang-hu." She pointed in the general direction of one of Noukiios' most famous halls of worship. "I know one of the clerics assigned there!" She turned to K'yechsungi. "K'yech, fly over there and find Brother Syoek. Mention my name to him. He'll be able to get aide!"

A nod. "We will go!"

With that, the sin-destroyer morphed into her winged form, and she flew off. Watching her go, the others breathed out in relief. "So how did we get to Noukiios in the first place?" Yuri asked. "The last thing I remembered was when those missiles struck the ship when we were close to that nebula."

"We may not be where we think we are," Megane warned.

"Hey! I DID see Yekna!" Willow reminded him.

"He's right, guys . . . "

Eyes locked on Reiko. "Keep quiet, Reiko," Mina urged.

A shake of the head. "No, I can't, Mina!" she spat. "You don't understand! This isn't Noukiios . . .!" She winced as another stab of pain flashed through her head. "We're inside the Yekk'ap' . . .!"

Silence fell as everyone stared at her.

* * *

As an avian would fly, it was about fifty kilometres between the peak of the South Mountain of Yekna to the main gate of the K'ap'ang Temple. While she was a long-time resident of Taktek and Yekna was located close to the border between the northern and southern parts of the province of Yekhek, K'yechsungi knew the way there like the back of her hand. Part of the Lost Stars' programming was a complete download of all geographical, historical and cultural knowledge concerning their home world, that copied from the memories of hundreds of people so the girls could be as rounded out educationally as possible. It was surprising given that the Masters had intended for their slaves to be sold off throughout the local cluster. But after they were freed by Moroboshi Ataru, it became of great benefit, especially as the 499 girls who were sent to the Abbey of Lyna on Magairu returned to their home world and strove to get their lives put back together.

Landing at the bottom of one of the stairways leading into the main temple itself, K'yechsungi paused as she took a look around. The place was utterly pristine, yet there seemed to be something missing from it. Taking a moment to consider that, the sin-destroyer's eyes widened as it hit her: people. There were no people anywhere on the grounds. Given that K'ap'ang Temple was BOTH one of Noukiios' most well-preserved historical sites AND a functioning temple for the faith of her people, there should at least be several of the large company of clerics assigned here, not to mention the regiment of groundskeepers and guides who helped keep the place clean. Where were they? Had something happened to . . .?

K'yechsungi tensed on feeling a presence within the temple itself. Relaxing, she focused her senses on a person within Ch'uoak Hall, the great meditation room. Morphing herself to her "normal" form, the sin-destroyer performed the traditional prayer on entering a strange shrine at the foot of the bridge which had been built to bring parishioners from ground level to the level of Ch'uoak Hall. Ascending the stairs, she repeated the prayers midway up, and then again at the apex. Another set of prayers were performed before she passed between a pair of pagoda-like structures guarding the gateway to Ch'uoak Hall, and then she did the same one more time at the very doorway before she slipped off her boots and walked inside to look around.

"Heaven's blessings on you, stranger."

She turned to see a blue-haired, blue-eyed woman with reading glasses standing before the sculpted image of the Ch'uoeuk at the Two Portals, the latter having turned herself around to stare at her. Quickly noting the pre-Occupation style of clothing this woman currently wore, K'yechsungi tensed on seeing the more intricate caste tattoos on her cheeks. The simple designs used these days on Noukiios came into vogue after the Liberation War, when the restrictions concerning facial markings had vanished with the Urusian Imperials. What this woman currently had on her cheeks were something dating from the late middle years of the Nehech Dynasty, which effectively matched her clothes -- to say anything of the old-style particle laser pistol in a holster on the floor beside her feet. Also present was a sheathed eunuch's blade. No doubt, the other woman had been praying before the Two Portals when K'yechsungi had stepped inside.

The sin-destroyer bowed her head. "We thank you for your greetings, noble warrior, and apologise to you for disturbing your prayers. But we seek aid for a good friend who was wounded on Chuch'-huch when we were brought to this place by means we do not understand. Is there a healer about?"

The other woman's head canted slightly as a flash of confusion appeared in her eyes. "Your words are very strange. I know not your accent." Her eyes narrowed slightly as one of her feet slid closer to her sheathed sword. "And I also know that no one born of this world possesses ears quite like yours. So unless you can explain these things to me, I might be forced to take stern action against you."

K'yechsungi tensed as automatic reactions within her body began to prime her for the transformation into her winged form, and then she caught herself. Seeing bat-like wings grow out from her back would, no doubt, convince this woman she was possessed by some evil spirit. Clearly, that wouldn't lead anywhere positive for either of them, to say anything of helping P'yeknu. "Before we answer, may we ask you this?" she asked. "Of which year since the time the Ch'uoeuk formed Ait'uch Nehech in Ryekkyuk do you hail?"

The other woman blinked. "It has been 4606 years since that great day, stranger."

Ah! THAT explained it. "To you," K'yechsungi replied. "To we and our friends, it has been 5121."

Silence.

"What . . .?!"

"It's true."

K'yechsungi's head snapped around to the main entrance. "Niap'yeng!"

The priestess, who had been flown to the temple by Willow so as to not risk use of her teleportation powers within the Yekk'ap', nodded as she moved to stand beside the sin-destroyer. "Heaven's most sincere blessings on you, fair warrior," she bowed her head to the other woman. "I am K'e-Kyekip' Nuk Yehoch' Niap'yeng, humble servant of the Lord of Heaven. This is my honoured friend, the Lady Warrior Eyu-K'ep'yek Teo Yechoch' K'yechsungi." An eyebrow arched. "May we be so honoured with your name, good warrior?"

The other woman grinned. "I appear to be kin with your strange friend, Honoured Sister. I am Eyu-K'ep'yek Teo Yeip'e Pen." She gave them a courtly bow. "Heaven's sincere blessings on your both." After reaching down to scoop up her pistol and sword, she asked, "Is this true then, Sister? What my kinswoman just told me? That somehow, I have been moved through time to the Sixth Millennium?"

"In a way, yes," Niap'yeng stated. "From whence my friend and I hail, it is the year 5121."

"She hails from the year 4606, Niap'yeng," K'yechsungi stated.

"Ah!" the priestess breathed out with a nod, and then she blinked as the significance of that date came up in her mind. "Were you at Seueukhek? The final battle against the Eo pirates?"

Pen's eyes widened on hearing that statement, and then she breathed out, "So we defeated them!"

"Not just defeated them, but annihilated them," Niap'yeng affirmed. "Or so we believed until scant minutes before we were brought into the Yekk'ap' after our ship was attacked and destroyed."

"The Yekk'ap'?!" Pen gasped, and then she sighed. "So I AM within the Yekk'ap'!" Worry crossed her face as she walked over to grasp Niap'yeng by the shoulders. "Wait! If you found me, have you see my friends?! Have you seen the Lord Admiral?! Our ship was overcome by the Yekk'ap'; it was the last thing I clearly remember before I woke up within the walls of this temple! Have you seen them?!"

"No, not . . .!" Niap'yeng moved to answer, and then her eyes went wide in shock. "WHAT?! Are you saying Admiral Ye-Yi was with you, too?! But he was killed when his ship . . .!" Her voice trailed off as it hit her. "Oh, my . . .!" she breathed out as she stared at K'yechsungi.

The sin-destroyer's eyebrow arched. "It appears to us, Niap'yeng, P'yeknu's father also lives."

Silence.

"WHAT?!"

Both women from the modern day were blasted down by Pen's shriek of outrage as an aura of mad jealousy exploded from every place in her body. "WHAT MADNESS IS THIS?!" she screamed. "ARE YOU SAYING MY SWEET KYESUO ACTUALLY FATHERED A BABY?! AND I WASN'T THE MOTHER?!" Her angry look then melted into twin waterfalls of tears as she leapt over to grasp Niap'yeng's hands in her own. "Sister, tell me, please! Was it Sen?! Was it Uin?! Did he manage to have babies with them?! TELL ME! TELL ME!"

Niap'yeng was shocked speechless by Pen's outburst. Staring at her distant relative as she began to wail in what could only be seen as a dead-on imitation of a politician from Taktek named Ae-Techch'e Chusu-Neach -- whose antics in the Dominion Assembly made most Noukiites wonder what sort of hallucinogens his electorate take with breakfast -- K'yechsungi didn't know whether or not she should laugh or walk out of the hall to vomit. "We think P'yeknu might not take well to this revelation," she muttered to herself.

* * *

"Yekna was never THIS quiet . . . "

Ik'a remained still as he took a moment to sweep around him with his tracking powers. He hadn't frequented the ancient city in years, but it had all come back to him. He was close to the monorail station, a few minutes' walk from K'achseuk Temple. Yet, even in whatever time period this strange replication of Yekna was meant to represent, there should be people around here. Where were they?

And where was the Empress now . . .?

Wait!

Ik'a tensed as his tracking powers suddenly locked in on a person somewhere to his east. Within K'achseuk Temple itself, he immediately realised, no doubt standing close to the great bell that had been forged during Noukiios' Three Kingdoms period. Without hesitation, he turned to head to a nearby pedestrian tunnel that would take him under the monorail line that connected Yekna to Niap'yeng's hometown of Resuk in the north and the great spaceport city of K'ahuch to the south through the industrial centre of Kap'huch. It wouldn't take him too long to get over to K'achseuk Temple so he could find who was there.

After some minutes of walking, he slowed down on sensing that whomever he was tracking now had stepped out of K'achseuk Temple and was heading his way. Tightening his grip on his cane-sword, he slowed himself down until he felt himself within polite speaking distance of the other. "Hello there!" he called out.

A woman gasped, that sound followed by the sharp hissing noise of a sword being drawn from its scabbard. Ik'a's hand yanked up his own weapon as his other hand snapped over to draw it, he ready to act. "Wait!" The ancient warrior paused as he heard the other sheathe her weapon. "I will not draw arms against one who cannot see me, even if you seem ready to do battle with me," she noted in a pre-Occupation accent that hinted she was from the northern continent. "Who are you?"

"A wanderer," he greeted her with polite but wary neutrality as he relaxed his grip around his weapon. "A prisoner of the Yekk'ap', just as you, fair warrior. Have you seen the T'yekhek Empress, born as Ei-T'ich Yesu-Nukyek, about these parts? She became a prisoner of this place, not long, I suspect, after you did."

"I have never heard of such a name," the woman replied, and then she quoted him, "'Ei-T'ich Yesu-Nukyek?!' What type of name is that?! That's no proper name for a Noukiite!"

Ik'a tried not to hiss out as he realised his stupid blunder. In the wake of the Urusian Occupation, the naming conventions on Noukiios had been simplified into a two-name format, each name possessing two parts: caste rank-family name, birth order rank-given name. Before the Occupation, it was a five-part/four-name format: caste rank-clan name, family name, birth order rank and given name. And he had been BORN during the time that naming style had been in effect! "Forgive me, good warrior," he apologized to her. "You might probably know her as Ei-Kyesak T'ich Yesu Nukyek. I myself am Ye-Hichaina Etech Chuch'ap' Ik'a."

A delighted laugh escaped the woman before him. "You're Hichaina Etech?! We're neighbours! I'm Eyu-Hichaina Aech Yeyeh Uin! Heaven's blessings to you, Venerable!" With that, she walked over to slip her arm around him as she placed a tender kiss on his cheek, her free hand brushing up against his hair to expose his ear. "Ah, any Etech always has those!" she chortled before she tenderly kissed the tip of his tapered earlobe. "So I am in the Yekk'ap', am I?! It feels as if I have been here for only a day! What of our home?! Did we finally win against the Eo?! I was with my friends and Lord Admiral Ye-Echtech Yi when we fought them over Seueukhek, but then the Yekk'ap' took me to this empty version of Yekna! What happened?!"

Ik'a turned to "gaze" at her in disbelief, his jaw dropping to the ground in shock. "You fought with Admiral Ye-Echtech Yi at Seueukhek?! That was five hundred years ago!" He paused. "Oh, dear . . .!"

A sharp intake of breath from his companion made Ik'a wince. "Five hundred . . .?!"

He moved to pat her hand. "It's alright, Lady Uin. This will . . . take time to explain."

Silence fell for a moment, and then she breathed out, "You have my attention, Venerable."

* * *

"'S funny . . . "

"What is it, Marina?"

Marina was standing on her usual perch gazing at the empty city in the valley beyond their private hut. Nukyek had come out to stand with her when she saw the hybrid's eyes glow for a second. "I felt as if I could sense some people here. Both in the town and off towards South Mountain." She pointed towards downtown Yekna, and then towards the bulky mountain way off to the southeast of their position. "It was just for a few seconds, and then it faded out on me!" She shook her head. "Or did it . . .?"

"Are others here now?!" the Noukiite asked as she gazed on her companion. "Could it be . . .?"

Marina shook her head, and then she went still before her eyes started to glow again. Spinning around, she snap-drew Aeyek-hup'uk from her scabbard and took a ready stance before Nukyek. "I can sense you there!" she snarled towards the woods stretching to the west of the hut. "Come out now! Keep your . . .!"

"Wait!" a woman with a much older accent than Nukyek's called back. "I mean you no harm!"

"Let me see you!"

The bushes rustled for a moment before a strawberry-blonde Noukiite woman with golden brown eyes stumbled into the clearing. She was dressed in the old-style battle armour of a shipborne warrior, she packing a eunuch's blade and a pistol belt with weapon. Her caste tattoos, like Nukyek's, were intricate compared to the more simple designs Marina was more aware of. As soon as she was clear of the bushes, she paused to take a look around before her eyes focused on Marina and Nukyek. She jolted as her eyes locked on the hybrid's horn buds before she snap-drew her sword and pistol. "Lady, stand away from that creature!" she snarled as she braced herself, her weapons sweeping around to bear on target.

Seeing the pistol bear on her, Marina dived away from Nukyek, she hoping that whoever this girl was, she wouldn't think of trying to blast away the empress as she was moving to put her down. The other's battle skills didn't disappoint the hybrid as bolts of energy began to eat up the ground behind her. "Shit . . .!"

"STOP! LEAVE MY FRIEND ALONE!"

* * *

"Megane-san, you heard something?!" Yuri asked.

"Gunshots!" the monk stated before he pointed to the north-northwest. "That way!"

"K'yech, go!" Niap'yeng barked.

K'yechsungi was off. "That sounded like Sen's pistol," Pen stated.

"Your friend?" Hanak'at' asked.

"Aye!"

* * *

"That was gunfire!" Ik'a stated.

"That's definitely Sen's pistol!" Uin called out.

"A friend of yours?!"

"My co-lover and one of the Lord Admiral's battle adjutants!"

"Oh, dear . . . "

* * *

"Someone shooting . . .?"

Grunting, he slowly moved to shift himself off the bed.

* * *

For Eyu-Hachtech Kaech Yech'uh Sen, time seemed to freeze as her mind interpreted that shouted statement from the noblewoman she had been trying to protect. "What . . .?" she gasped as she turned to stare wide-eyed at Nukyek, her arms nearly letting go of her pistol and sword in shock.

She jolted on sensing someone running at her. The pistol was neatly sliced in half by Marina's cut as her elbow slammed Sen right in the gut, just below the lower edge of her chest armour. The air flew out of the Noukiite's lungs in a rush, she nearly doubling over as Marina vaulted up, using her shoulder as a battering ram against Sen's chin to send her flying onto her back, the warrior's sword flying out of her hand. As she collapsed to the dirt, the hybrid soared over to plant a foot where she had elbowed Sen, she dramatically twirling around Aeyek-hup'uk to plant the blade's tip right against the carotid artery. Sen's eyes flew open as she felt that sharp tip touch her neck flesh, and then she gulped on feeling empty air in either of her hands. Marina stared down at her with a daring smile. "Don't even think about it, lady!"

"Marina, stop!" Nukyek said. "She doesn't understand what you are to me! Let her up!"

Sen blinked, and then she turned to gaze on the noblewoman just as Marina slowly pulled her weapon back. Seeing Marina wasn't going to press it, Nukyek walked over, she kneeling down to pick up Sen's own blade as she moved to return it to its owner. "Here you go."

Sen jerked as Marina stepped off her, and then she slowly sat herself up, her hand reaching over to take her sword back before she got up. "What is happening here?" she wondered before staring like a lost girl at the noblewoman. "I don't understand! Lady, how could you possibly like . . .?!"

"Good warrior, I above all others on Noukiios have no reason to like Urusians in general," Nukyek cut her off, and then she turned to smile at Marina, who seemed to relax on feeling her pe'cha's gaze fall on her. "But there is much more to the Lady Marina of Dysos than you can possibly begin to suspect."

Sen's jaw dropped. "Taisos?!" she tried to speak the Yehisrite principality's name in the Noukiite common style, and then she gaped wide-eyed at Marina. "She is part-Yehisrite . . .?"

"And part-Vosian and part-Fukunokami, too," Marina confirmed before her eyes glowed. "What the FUCK . . .?!" she snarled out as she moved to get closer to Nukyek.

"So there you are."

Sen and Nukyek cried out on seeing a woman standing at a rock projecting from the cliff overlooking Yekna. A Noukiite woman with ears like a deformed elf's and deeply scalloped bat-like wings. Just as Marina was able to shift herself protectively in front of Nukyek, Sen doing the same, the newcomer looked over her shoulder as the sound of another Oni flying towards them became audible. "Aya, return to Niap'yeng and inform her we found the Empress as well as Muzuka Marina." She turned back to gaze on Sen. "Oh, and tell Pen that we have located one of her companions, but there's no sign of Admiral Ye-Yi . . . "

A muffled thump! echoed from the upper floor of the hut just as Willow came up to hover beside K'yechsungi. "Huh?!" Marina blurted out before her eyes started to glow again as she looked towards where she and Nukyek had been staying since they first came into this place. "Who in Purgatory's name is THAT?!"

K'yechsungi looked herself with her powers, and then she smirked. "Also tell Niap'yeng and P'yeknu we found the Admiral," she added as she gazed once more on Willow, her grin growing ever so wider.

"Tcha!" the Oni chirped back before she soared off towards South Mountain.

** ** **

"It's been a bit of a while, Shuutarou."

Mendou Shuutarou seemed to stir for a moment before he cried out in shock as his eyes flew open, and then he bolted up from the diagnostic bed he found himself in. "Where . . .?!"

Dark hands fell on his shoulders as he found himself being forced back to lay down. "Relax!" a certain Tookonokooen-born doctor with tapered ears and lavender hair said as she leaned into his field of vision. "You're lucky we were able to warp back into the galaxy to rescue you and your crew!"

Mendou blinked several times, and then he gasped, "Pony-san . . .?"

Another familiar face came into view. "It appears to be a bit of old home week, as they say it on your planet," Eluza declared. "You're aboard the Hasei'cha, Shuutarou. Ataru called us when he sensed something happen to Reiko and told us you were in trouble. If we were fifteen minutes late . . . "

"Enough, Dearest!" Pony scolded her bond-mate. "He doesn't need to hear THAT!"

Mendou took a moment to take in what the fleet shipmistress and the civilian doctor -- if what he remembered of Sagussan rank insignia was right -- were talking about, and then he breathed out, "How bad?"

"Your ship's a total write-off," Eluza grimly reported. "Split in half just aft of the bridge; it was a complete burn-through by what Patty reported when she looked at the damage. Engine assembly was blasted off earlier on. We're trying to retrieve the flight recorders now, but I doubt they survived."

Mendou slowly nodded. "Casualties?"

"Two hundred and seventy-nine survivors," Pony answered. "Your captain was one of them."

The Terran commander blanched when he heard that number; the Koishii Moroboshi normally carried a peacetime compliment of 1400 officers and men. "Two hundred and seventy-nine . . .?" he hoarsely exclaimed before closing his eyes. "Gods!" he hissed out as his eyes began to tear. "Who DID this to us . . .?!"

"We're having the Rovers look into it now," Eluza stated. "Get some rest, Shuutarou."

With that, the fleet shipmistress walked out of sick bay, she inwardly glad Catty and Pony were currently being helped by not only a team of nurses from the Defence Fleet Medical Unit (including Mie Seikou's twin sister, Hotaru, and her bond-mate Setsuna), but almost the whole contingent of the Koishii Moroboshi's own medical staff. She boarded the turbolift for the research frigate's command bridge, she closing her eyes as she ran through what she did know of what just happened outside the Konton system.

Hoth Sunda had responded initially to a distress call from a civilian ship owned by a known Urusian conservative infonet broadcaster, Aruka Insa, which had been sent from somewhere near Machibusu. Arriving there, they found that the ship had been in some sort of altercation with at least fourteen other vessels, they then heading off in the direction of Konton. Heading to Konton, the crew of the Koishii Moroboshi encountered a time-space nexus known to the Noukiites as "Yekk'ap'," the Dragon's Fire. As they were moving to investigate the phenomena, two squadrons' worth of surplus Urusian Defence Force corvettes attacked, pressing it all the way to wrecking a state-of-the-art capital ship and murdering most of the crew.

Most of all, Moroboshi Reiko and a considerable number of her companions, including four natives of Noukiios, PLUS Shoono Asuza and Fujisawa Mina, were missing.

The doors swept open to reveal the frigate's spacious command bridge. Standing there, along with most of the usual suspects from the old Hasei'cha, was a massive Oni in the uniform of an admiral in the Defence Force, he accompanied by his wife; the Kashin, which had been en route to Eiranha from Uru, had diverted to Konton when the Hasei'cha had put out an all-call message concerning the Koishii Moroboshi.

"How bad is it?" Invader asked.

"Bad," Eluza stated as she waved Lum's father and mother to relax in the trio of central chairs in the middle of the bridge. "Sunda lost all but 279 of her crew when these people, WHOEVER they are, attacked her. We've no motive for the attack, no possible idea as to who orchestrated it or why . . .!"

"And worst of all, there's no sign of Reiko or any of her friends," Spea forlornly added as she and Amy looked up from a scanner on the starboard side of the bridge. "Not even any trace signs of DNA."

"They could still be alive, you mean?" Mrs. Invader said.

Spea and Amy exchanged a look before shaking their heads. "We can't say either way, ma'am," the latter warned. "Even we know next to nothing about the Yekk'ap' and what it can and can't do."

Rumy looked up from another station. "It appeared so infrequently during Henry's search for all of us that he never thought to deploy Rovers to investigate it during the few times it DID appear," she added.

Eluza and the Invaders took that in, and then tired sighs escaped from them all. "When was the last time this thing supposedly appeared?" the fleet shipmistress asked.

"Noukiite common date 4795; it was over Noukiios itself," Rumy answered.

Invader blinked as he heard that, and then a grunt escaped him. "That's odd . . . "

"What is, Dear?" his wife asked.

"That was the year Empress T'ich died."

Mrs. Invader and Eluza stared at him. "What would that have to do with this?!" the former asked.

The doors leading into the bridge snapped open. "I can explain that, sir!"

Heads came around to allow everyone to gaze on a bloodied but unbowed Ch'uchrakch'ut'a Yut'uch, he having staggered to the bridge with Hotaru's help. "I'm sorry, ma'am," the nurse apologized. "But the commander wanted to come up here and report to the Admiral directly. He said it was VERY important."

"You should be in bed, son . . .!" Invader stated.

"No time, sir!" Yut'uch cut him off, and then he pointed at the view screen displaying an image of the boiling Yekk'ap', with the Kashin and the wrecked pieces of the Koishii Moroboshi hovering off the Hasei'cha's bow. "Your granddaughter and her friends are all alive, sir! They're in . . .!" He gargled as blood started to seep into his throat; a broken rib had punctured one of his lungs. "They're all there, sir!" he croaked out before he collapsed against Hotaru.

The nurse screamed out for intra-ship beaming right back into sickbay. As they vanished, Lufy walked over from the watchmistress' station to stand close to her former commanding officer and the Invaders. "All inside that thing?!" she wondered as she nodded back towards the image of the Yekk'ap'. "Lyna's Blessed Soul! Is this another freakin' version of the Outland we're dealing with here, Eluza?!"

The fleet shipmistress hummed. "Good question . . . "

"Eluza!"

Eyes snapped over to Rumy. "What is it?" Eluza asked.

"We're picking up a broadcast signal from the direction of Konton. It's on every civilian frequency, plus most of the known military frequencies from Uru and Fukunokami. It's visual, too."

"On screen!"

The image of the Yekk'ap' vanished, it replaced by what appeared to be a simple room, either in a planet-side building or aboard a ship. A black pennant with a red-gold-and-white alien symbol on it was draped behind the simple chair placed there. Seated on the chair was a beautiful middle-aged Seishin-Urusian woman with jet-black hair and light blue eyes, she dressed in very ornate robes. While she was unknown to Eluza, the look the woman had on her face reminded her very much of Seq Yethis the day he declared Toshitto free of the Urusian Union, officially launching the brief Imperial Counter-Revolution that was blasted into radioactive dust courtesy of the Sagussan Navy and the combined might of Earth's atomic powers.

Invader and his wife had no problems recognising her: "INSA?!"

The woman seemed to smile. "This is the Empress Insa of the Eo . . . "

* * *

"So what were that madwoman's demands?" Hoth Sunda asked.

She was currently seated in the Hasei'cha's main meeting room, along with the Invaders, Mendou Shuutarou, Eluza and many of her old senior crew. It had been an hour since the broadcast from Konton had begun; it was still repeating itself over various frequencies. "She declared Konton to be the home world of her 'people,'" Rumy reported. "Also made territorial claims on BOTH sides of the Urusian-Noukiite frontier. No surprise here, Okusei, Tunchusei and Kurrusei were on the list." The scientist held up a finger to emphasise her next point. "But she ALSO added onto it Machibusu, Baiseki and Tamamono."

"That definitely will NOT happen!" Invader snarled.

"What else did they demand, Rumy-san?" Mendou wondered.

"Moroboshi Reiko."

Silence.

"WHAT?!" Sunda and the Invaders screamed.

"Why Reiko-san?!" Mendou demanded.

"Because she blames Reiko for the death of her son, Popok," Rumy replied. "And if anyone from Sagussa attempts to interfere, Insa promises that she will make use of knowledge and equipment she was secretly able to obtain from Skelad Industries to launch a direct attack against Sagussa itself. Not to mention anyone else who gets it into their heads to interfere with their pursuit of 'justice!'" she spat out.

"Didn't Kuk Numon promise she would get rid of everything Skelad tried to create?!" Sunda asked.

"Some things obviously slipped through her grasp," Eluza reported. "Unfortunate."

"And because of that, we can't take a risk of trying to do an end-run around her to save Reiko and her friends," Shildy added. "Right now, the safest place for them to be is inside the Yekk'ap'."

"We don't know what goes on inside that damned thing, Shildy!" Lufy objected.

"Can we send Rovers into them?" Spea asked.

The intercom chimed before anyone could answer. "Bridge to Eluza."

"Go, Rabby," Eluza called back.

"We just picked up two ships having arrived from the direction of Konton," Rabby reported. "One of them appears to be Aruka Insa's personal starship. The other one, though . . . "

"What is it, Rabby?" Shildy asked.

"Admiral Invader, it's your old personal cruiser."

Silence fell over the scene.

* * *

"This is true?"

"It appears to be so, Mister President."

Standing at the windows of his personal office, which opened up onto the beautiful expanse of Yekk'eng Palace, the President of the Dominion of Noukiios, Doctor K'u-It' Chusu-Ch'uonak, blinked as he took in what his prime minister had just reported, and then he slowly shuffled around -- the President was lame thanks to a botched assassination attempt during the long dictatorship of one of his predecessors, General Eyu-K'ung Chuip'-Neksai -- to give Colonel Eyu-It' Chusu-Nekrip' his full attention. "The Eo?" he breathed out as he remembered the history lessons about those monsters. "From where did they come?"

"From what we know, most of the people who might become 'subjects' of this lunatic were members of the various colonial militias from Machibusu, Tamamono and Baiseki," the prime minister reported. The former military officer had helped establish the modern extra-territorial intelligence force, the Nakkuk-nekk'ek'a, when he was still serving as a military officer during President Eyu-K'ung's first term in office. To this day, he kept an open ear on any sort of intelligence, especially when it concerned anything about Uru. "At most, the best estimates put the total population of this 'Eo Kingdom' at a million. And we do have detailed surveys of Konton, first dating from the Occupation and regularly updated by the Ip'ihu." Even if mainstream Noukiite society tended to shy away from speaking about the Outcastes in a positive way, Nekrip' knew how vital they were to the Dominion's defence. "If this whole thing came together, it could have only happened in the last year or so. No doubt prompted because the Maidens were so nice to let us use their Rovers to put a stop to all the raids over the border while we were shifting populations to the new colonies . . . "

A hum escaped Ch'uonak as he nodded in understanding. "So once they were deprived of their normal sport of attacking defenceless colonists, they decided to make a scene in some vain hope of provoking us." He turned to look outside his window at the city beyond. "But why demand Urusian colonies as well as our older colonies? That's bound to upset Lana, as much as what Yethis did twelve years ago . . . "

"They've lost all support from the more conservative elements in the Urusian Congress," Nekrip' coldly cut in. "When we shut the border down once and for all, whatever use the colonial militias had with those idiots in Onishuto effectively came to an end. That, tacked onto what Skelad just did . . .!"

The president sighed. "Is there a potential threat still against the Maidens?"

"Can't be ignored," the prime minister warned. The Nakkuk-nekk'ek'a had exchanged hard intelligence data with the Sagussan Intelligence Ministry since the Dominion and the Fifth Republic established relations.

Ch'uonak smiled as he glanced over his shoulder at his number-two man. "Do you have an idea how we can help the young Venerable P'yeknu and her friends get away from the Yekk'ap'?"

Nekrip' grinned. "The Shipwright-prime contacted me just before I came to see you," he said. "As soon as she got updated intelligence from the Hasei'cha concerning what's now going on near Konton, she dispatched the prototype under automated control to get them out of that thing."

The president tensed, and then he sighed. "Couldn't be avoided."

"Agreed."

** ** **

"Is he okay?"

"Not good," Hanak'at' said as she gently shifted Ye-Echtech Yi Chusu Hachhich onto his right side. "He was shot through the right lung; if he continued to lay down on his back any longer, he would have eventually drowned in his own blood. Cauterizing the wound only ensures it doesn't flow out of his body. We have to get the lung repaired and quickly before he dies." She looked over to see Reiko asleep, her head cradled in Mina's lap. Noting one particular physical point of similarity between the famed admiral and her sister Lost Star, Hanak'at' smirked. "You can tell she's his daughter, alright."

"Only in their hichheksuch-euch, Lady Hanak'at'," Pen stated. Everyone was relaxing on the summit of South Mountain. K'yechsungi and Willow were both currently asleep, their heads lying in Fujino Hiromi's lap; the two had exhausted themselves carrying Hachhich, Sen, Uin and Ik'a to this location so everyone could be together while they tried to figure a way out of this place. Marina, who had carried Nukyek, was still awake; she was clearly in better shape when it came to carrying passengers with her flight powers.

After saying that, the blue-haired woman gazed fondly on Marina's companion. "In all other ways, she is clearly her mother's daughter. Would you not agree with me, my friends?" she asked Uin and Sen.

"Aye, that I would," Uin, a silver-haired, grey-eyed woman of the same age as her fellow veterans of the Battle of Seueukhek, noted. "Tell me, Lady T'ichu: Do you share?"

Mina's head jolted up in shock, and then she shrieked out, "WHAT?!"

Reiko's moans turned her lover's attention back to her. "Ladies, a humble request," Niap'yeng pleaded as she gave them a look. "You already share a bed with P'yeknu's father. Leave her to T'ichu."

"Agreed!" Mina hissed out as she glared them down. "I DON'T share!"

"Smart thinking, Mina!" Marina said with a smirk. "Rei's one pretty gorgeous lady!"

"Marina," Nukyek trilled as she glared at the hybrid with a look that would have had the servants at the Yekk'eng Palace running for the hills. "Are you attempting to play matchmaker with MY daughter?!"

"No, Nukyek, I'm just defending Mina's right to hang onto her!" the hybrid answered.

Laughter flowed over the scene, and then everyone blinked as the image of Ch'uokyuk in the sky overhead seemed to darken for a moment. "What in Koori's name . . .?" Yuri gasped as people looked up.

Eyes turned heavenward as a dark shape seemed to eclipse that bright sun for a moment. That shape soon melted into the bow's-on view of a sleek-looking starship possessing the hull of a racing schooner and solar sail masts projecting from the tops, both sides at the middle, and from the keel. At the very front end of the ship was a beautiful dragon figurehead, its maw open as if it was about to spew forth a storm of fire to douse whatever had angered it. "A Noukiite scoutship?!" Asuza gasped.

Everyone who could move stood up to watch as the scoutship seemed to come to a stop over Yekna's downtown area for a moment before the bow turned towards South Mountain. The ship slowly sailed over to come to a stop due east of their location, invisible retro-thrusters ensuring she was holding position. Then, a hatchway opened on the ship's side as a laser gangway formed, reaching out to come to a landing right next to the sleeping Reiko. Everyone stared at it for a moment, and then Marina sighed.

"Look's like our ride's here, guys."

** ** **

"Something flew INTO the Yekk'ap'?!"

"I think so, Eluza," Rumy reported. The Hasei'cha and the Kashin were currently a light-hour away from the Dragon's Breath, they being trailed by the two Eo ships. While firepower-wise, neither of the pirates' vessels would survive a shooting match with either the Sagussan frigate or the Urusian battlewagon, a live-time broadcast from Aruka Insa -- she either on Konton or aboard one of the ships -- warning them not to try any "tricks" lest Sagussa itself suffer the consequences had effectively ensured any examination of whatever it was that had soared into the Yekk'ap' would be delayed. Even more, Rovers were reporting other Eo ships were seeding the area around the Konton system with replicating mines, similar to what the Zephyrites employed to keep their frontiers secure. "It came from the general direction of Noukiios itself, but it was travelling so fast -- even by OUR standards! -- that I couldn't get a clear lock on it."

"Must be this 'secret' project Yuu and her friends are involved in," Lufy noted.

The fleet shipmistress took that in, and then she nodded. Given her current position as Inspector General of the Sagussan Navy, she had access to a lot of highly sensitive materials dealing with a wide range of subjects. And while every Sagussan knew the Fifth Republic had willingly helped terraform ten new colony planets for the Dominion of Noukiios, only a select few in External Affairs, Intelligence and Fleet Engineering were privy to all that was going on concerning every aspect of that project. All she did knew were the names of four Daishi'cha who were directly involved: Yuu, the first Elder Mother of Sagussa; her bond-mate Mio, the first Sagussan to have also Crossed Over and become a Nendo-kata; plus Izuminodokyuu and her bond-mate Yui, two of the Classmates Clique who had been involved in the first contact with Newgrange. All four of them currently resided on one of the new Noukiite colony planets, Hukusei.

"What did you scan from it, Rumy?"

"I think it was a Noukiite ship, probably a scout-class vessel," the scientist replied. "But its speed was WAY over what is normal for a Noukiite ship of ANY class we're aware of!"

Eluza hummed as she considered what she had just been told, and then she looked at Amy. "Alter course into Noukiite space," she ordered. "Let's circle around our pursuers and double back to the Yekk'ap'."

"Hai!"

Hasei'cha heeled over to starboard, she turning coreward towards the general direction of Kurrusei.

* * *

"She's trying to probe back through them, Boss."

"I see that," Invader grunted as the bridge crew of the Kashin -- they currently augmented by some of the surviving crew of the Koishii Moroboshi -- watched the Sagussan frigate disappear into Noukiite space. "Let's do the opposite of what she's doing. Pilot, turn us in the general direction of Oyatsui!"

"Yes, sir!"

The Kashin banked port towards the frontier with Fukunokami space. Behind her, both Eo ships seemed to pause for a moment, and then they shifted starboard in pursuit of the Hasei'cha. The sensor officer on the Urusian ship noted this, and then he called over to Invader, "They're both going after them, Boss."

"Okay," Invader said with a smirk. "Cloak the ship, then take us back towards Konton."

In a second, the Kashin vanished from sight.

** ** **

"Admiral . . .?"

A pained moan escaped him as light seemed to shine through his closed eyelids.

"Admiral?!"

Dark brown eyes snapped open as the middle-aged man with the pony-tailed, grey-streaked black hair, moustache and goatee lying now on the diagnostic bed found himself staring at a metal deckhead covered in exposed pipes and other conduits. The colours around him were a mixture of whites and soft pastels, worlds different from the surgeons' cockpits he was normally used to on spaceships. Taking a deep breath, he moaned as an ache seemed to burn through his right side, where he had been shot. Before he could say or do anything more, a familiar face appeared in his line of sight. "Hello, Kyesuo," Pen gently hailed.

Hachhich blinked for a moment, and then he rasped out, "What happened? Did we win?"

"We did," Pen assured him. "But it was with cost. Much greater than we could ever have dreamed."

The admiral took that in, and then he tensed on seeing another woman approach. A silver-haired girl looking distantly like Uin, though her cheek tattoos were simple silver dots. She was dressed in fine silver and jade green cloth, she projecting the demeanour of a priestess despite her youth. "Heaven's blessings on you, Venerable Lord Admiral," she greeted him in a curious dialect whose origins he found almost impossible to pinpoint. "Even if you were prepared to face the Ch'uoeuk the day you confronted the Eo over Seueukhek, it pleases me very much -- as much as it does your concubines . . . " she added as she gazed on Pen, who had the decency to look sheepish, before she turned back to him. "To see you alive and well."

Hachhich took a moment to absorb that, and then he said, "I was shot through the lung. By all rights, I should have faced the Ch'uoeuk at the Two Portals for the Final Judgement. How did . . .?"

"The Yekk'ap' saved you, Venerable Lord Admiral," the newcomer reported. "It is a place beyond what we understand of Space and Time. In effect, it kept you, not to mention the Ladies Pen, Sen and Uin, out of the normal flow of time until a chance came that we could have rescued you. That we have done."

"Many years have passed outside the Yekk'ap', Kyesuo," Pen added.

"How many?"

"Over five centuries," Pen reported. "It's the year 5121."

Silence.

"Fifty-one-twenty-one . . .?" the admiral gasped, his face almost white, and then he winced as fresh pain lanced through his lungs, his face reddening with agony as he tried to keep breathing even though doing so was making his chest burn like nothing else he had ever experienced. "Damn . . .!"

"Calm yourself, Venerable," the newcomer urged. "You're alive, but you're pushing it right now. Fortunately, medical science has developed enough to allow us to heal you, but it's still too soon."

He gritted his teeth. "It might have been better for me to have died . . . "

"Don't say that, love!" Pen cried out. "Your task isn't done yet!"

Hachhich stopped as his concubine's statement surged through him, and then he turned to stare at her. "What did you just say . . .?" he demanded, his voice shot with pain.

"The Eo still exist," she reported.

* * *

Sometime later -- within the Yekk'ap', even the Sagussan-designed chronometers weren't working -- a door leading into a very advanced pilotage platform opened, revealing a healthier-looking Ye-Echtech Yi Chusu Hachhich, he dressed in simple, yet flattering robes provided for him thanks to the ship's clothing replicators. Stepping onto the bridge, with Pen and Sister Niap'yeng behind him, he stopped to take in the measure of the other people who had, for one reason or another, been trapped by the Dragon's Breath.

Uin and Sen, he knew of, of course.

With them were two other Noukiite women bearing the more modern tattoos of his lovers' very own level of the Ten Orders, one of whom had the most curious-shaped ears he had EVER seen on anyone.

An elderly Noukiite man with the pointed ears of a Vosian, his eyes closed to mark his blindness, he possessing the bearing of a very experienced warrior, a well-crafted cane-sword in his hand.

A green-haired Oni-Urusian girl who gave him a respectful bow, she currently standing beside a humanoid girl who appeared to be like one of the Fukunokami. Without the odd-shaped ears.

A blue-haired native of the moon of Neptune.

Another girl like the Oni-Urusian's companion, though possessing long brown hair instead of short black, she looking as if she was a bard.

Yet another young woman of that same race -- Wait! Wasn't there another race living in the same star system as Neptune? -- she with short brown hair and glasses, standing close to the command chair.

A man, most likely of the same race, younger than Hachhich himself but older than the majority of those here now, with glasses and a shaved head, he standing beside the Tritonian girl. He, wearing clothes hinting he was a religious official, moved to give the admiral what looked like a blessing.

Another Oni-Urusian woman with a sword and dressed in black leather from neck to toe, she possessing the darker skin of a Yehisrite and the look of someone experienced in fighting for everything she had.

And finally, two blue-haired Noukiite women, one seated in the central chair on the pilotage, the other standing behind her chair. Both looked as if they could be twins save for the seated one being older and bearing the proper caste tattoos and robes of Nehech royalty . . .

And the younger one having been born with Hachhich's very own head ridge pattern!

Taking a moment to absorb what he was looking at, the admiral gazed at Niap'yeng. The priestess was giving him a reassuring smile. "It is all true, then?" he asked.

"It is," she reported.

Nodding, he moved to stand before the seated woman, and then he dropped to one knee as he reached for her offered hand. He leaned in to kiss the Ring of State the empress had on her finger; it was the one piece of jewellery she had kept with herself when Ik'a had whisked her away from Suchkyuk. Gazing up into her eyes, he asked, "May I know my liege lady's name so I may give my loyalty to her?"

Nukyek sighed. "Using the standard style our brothers and sisters use these days, I am Ei-T'ich Yesu-Nukyek, Lord Admiral. When I 'died,' I was given the posthumous name 'T'yekhek.'" She smiled as her eyes turned up to the younger girl standing behind her chair. "And while we were both born many years apart in different parts of Suchkyuk, it appears someone believed we both were worthy enough to -- through our very own DNA taken from personal belongings preserved carefully over the years -- help give birth to this beautiful woman standing behind me now. In the new style, she is Ye-Nehek Yesu-P'yeknu, Lord Admiral."

Hachhich took that in, and then he stood up to gaze intently at her. "The good sister has told me that you have lived most of your life on a different planet than ours. Is that true?"

"It is," Reiko replied.

"And thus, that explains your family name."

"Yes. In the language of my father, I am called 'Moroboshi Reiko.'"

Hachhich blinked, and then he tried to mimic her name. "'Moroposhi Reik'o?'" he said, and then he shook his head. "Truly odd! I prefer 'P'yeknu' instead; it SOUNDS normal!" As amused snickers escaped his battle adjutants, he nodded. "Was what the good sister also said about the man who welcomed you into his family as his own true? That he is the Euk Hisehek?"

"He is that," Reiko admitted, a shy smile crossing her face.

The admiral considered that for a moment, and then he looked around the pilotage. "And it was the Maidens themselves who built this ship for us?" he asked.

"They did," Reiko answered, and then she shrugged. "I . . .! Damn!" she hissed before she started to laugh. "I don't even know what to call you. EITHER of you!" she added as she stared at Nukyek. "When I dreamt of you, I called you 'Papa' and 'Mama,' but I don't think I could make myself do that now . . . "

Hachhich roared with laughter. "Don't worry about it, P'yeknu!" he assured her before he stared at his adjutants. "I wasn't expecting to become a father until the war with the Eo was over and I could take my lovers to my estate in Nichsuo so we could enjoy some peace and I could write my poems!" He stared at the woman in the captain's chair. "And much that I would not presume to speak for Her Majesty, I believe she would like to make her own decision concerning what relations she has with you on her own time."

"I would," the empress stated before she stood up. "But before we decide to deal with matters of that nature, there is the urgent matter of our leaving the embrace of the Yekk'ap'. Unfortunately, this new generation of Eo have decided to make that task difficult for us." She looked over. "Marina, would you please replay the message that was saved in the communications unit when this ship was sent here?"

"Sure thing," the hybrid said as she walked over to tap a couple controls.

The view screen at the front of the pilotage switched on, revealing the image of a chestnut brown-haired Gomianite-born woman, she dressed in her normal work jumpsuit. "Hello, Reiko-chan, minna," Yuu greeted them. "This is a warning we're containing with the Odyssey when we send her out to you . . . "

The message took twenty minutes to replay. Hachhich remained silent as he took in the information Sagussa's first Elder Mother had obtained through her contacts in the Noukiite central government. At the end of it, he grimly nodded before he turned to gaze on Niap'yeng. "So this self-professed 'Empress' of the Eo seeks P'yeknu's head because of her slain son," he muttered as a hand came up to stroke his beard. "A son legitimately accused of acts of sedition and treason by the government of his people."

"Most likely," Niap'yeng noted before she gazed knowingly at K'yechsungi.

Willow quickly noticed that look, and then she blanched as it hit her. "Nia, you mean you . . .?!" she sputtered out before she pointed at the sin-destroyer. "You made HER kill Popok?!"

The priestess was nonplussed. "Did you honestly expect me to simply stand back and let the little puppy try to kill P'yeknu, Aya?" she wondered as she indicated Reiko with a wave of her hand.

"What's this?!" Reiko demanded.

K'yechsungi explained, "Skelad Lara's assistant, Aruka Popok, conspired to slay you, P'yeknu, because he feared -- rightly so -- your re-baptism as a Yekhu would generate public acceptance on Noukiios and elsewhere of the Naihu Emancipation -- and with it, the Ip'ihu Inclusion -- the Council of Sages and the current Dominion government in Noukiyek wishes to initiate in the next year."

Marina blinked as she took that in, and then she stared at the sin-destroyer. "Lady, if you think even the moderates on Uru are going to accept THAT, you're crazy!"

"Who are these Ip'ihu?" Hachhich wondered.

"Outcastes from the Ten Orders, Lord Admiral," Niap'yeng explained, and then her eyes fixed on Nukyek. "Spiritual -- and in many ways, blood -- descendants of many of the Ch'eksung Righteous Army that rose to destroy the initial attempts by the Urusians to subvert your husband's rule, Your Majesty."

"Why have they been declared outcastes?" the empress demanded.

"Because after the Liberation War, they couldn't bring themselves to slide back into their ancestral castes, Nukyek-cha," Marina explained. "Most of the early Ip'ihu were Naihu before the Occupation began."

"What is the matter with being Naihu?" Pen asked.

"After the Liberation War, the Naihu was changed into a class of chattel slaves, Pen," Reiko answered. "It was one of the many 'reforms' the Urusians forced on us many Noukiites eventually came to accept." She shrugged. "When I was created, I was baptized as a Naihu." She ignored the stunned looks on Hachhich's and Nukyek's faces as she nodded towards Niap'yeng. "When Niap'yeng, Hanak'at', K'yechsungi and 496 other girls were kidnapped from their families after birth, they were re-baptized as Naihu, too; we were all part of a special esper-slave project started by some businessmen to help promote labourer commerce between Noukiios and other planets." A snort. "If it wasn't for my adopted father, the chances were there I might've been sold off to some Urusian Imperial prince like Seq Yethis; the Masters were even considering selling some of us off to them." A shake of the head. "Stupid idiots."

"Are these monsters still alive?" Hachhich asked, his voice flat with outrage.

"They were all killed by the Euk Hisehek, Lord Admiral," Niap'yeng reported.

Marina nodded in approval. "Good man."

"Indeed," Nukyek added. "When I have the chance to speak to the Most Venerable One, I will thank him for the justice he brought to Noukiios the day the child born of my blood was freed from such beasts."

Reiko giggled. "I think you'll make Dad blush right to his toes if you EVER call him THAT!"

Laughter echoed through the Odyssey's control platform. Uin walked up to her lover and leader, bowing her head respectfully. "My Lord Admiral, the ship is extremely well armed for her size and class," she reported. "The weapons are all controlled by combat computers with reaction times far in excess of anything we're used to. They were programmed thoroughly with intelligence on the Eo and their predecessors by both the intelligence agency of our home world's current government and the Maidens. All sail controls are likewise automated. We can pilot the ship ourselves right back to Noukiios if we so wish."

Hachhich took that in, and then he nodded. "Stations!"

Pen, Uin and Sen headed over to the helm, weapons and sensory stations respectfully. "Want help?" Willow asked as she approached the admiral. "I'm good with small ship work."

"You will help aid in the deaths of your fellow Urusians, child," Hachhich warned.

Willow's eyes narrowed dangerously. "I wouldn't claim backstabbing slime like THEM as 'Urusians,' Venerable," she hissed as her body began to glow with the plasma bolt powers she had been born with. "They decided to walk away from my people because they couldn't stand the fact that we wouldn't be sheep to the Imperial Round anymore. They're traitors to my people, Venerable, just like their predecessors you had to deal with were traitors to my people. I won't weep over ANY of them!"

The admiral took that in, and then he nodded. Willow headed over to help with navigation. "I'm in on this, too," Marina said as she walked over to help Uin with weapons.

"Marina . . . " Nukyek began.

The hybrid stopped as she winked playfully at her long-time companion. "Hey, I vowed I'd get you back home, remember?" she scolded before she turned back to the station she stood before to examine the controls.

"We're all a part of this, Admiral," Megane spoke up. "We'll get the medical station ready."

"There might be need of a boarding party, too," Ik'a warned.

"We would like that."

Eyes locked on K'yechsungi. "Why, Lady?" Hachhich asked.

The sin-destroyer smiled. "When we feasted on Popok's soul, we found the taste most enjoyable," she stated. "We now wish to see how his mother's soul will taste to us."

People paled as they took in her words. "We best do as she asks, Venerable," Hanak'at' warned.

"Why?!" Reiko asked.

The red-haired Lost Star smirked as she gazed on her questioner. "When Chai-yu gets to be like that, P'yeknu, she won't be happy until she's satisfied."

"If we are not appeased, we become irritable," K'yechsungi added with all honesty.

Wary looks were exchanged. "I think we best keep it in mind, Admiral," Nukyek warned.

"Indeed," Hachhich breathed out, he nodding.

** ** **

"Boss . . .!"

"I see them," Invader growled. "They're not giving up, are they?!"

"By the looks of it," Sunda muttered as the bridge crew of the Kashin stared at the boiling image of the Yekk'ap', it now several kilometres off the cloaked bow of the battlewagon. Target icons on the tactical screen over the main view ports indicated the two Eo ships that had tried to pursue Hasei'cha had actually doubled back to keep close watch over the Dragon's Breath just in case the Sagussans or someone else attempted a rescue. "Any sign of the Hasei'cha, Lookout?" she asked.

"None, ma'am," the sensor officer reported. "If they're cloaked, they're running totally silent."

The captain and the admiral exchanged a look, and then they nodded. Cloaked Sagussan ships, for the most part, could be picked up by the traces of tachytron radiation -- energy produced by the intermingling of parallel dimensions -- emitted from their main engines and power dynamos. If Hasei'cha was near, it was most likely Eluza was approaching at sub-light speed, keeping to standard impulse drive, which could effectively be cloaked without chance of detection. "Alright, then," Invader growled. "Let's . . . "

"Wait!" the sensor officer yelped. "New contact!"

"Where?!" Sunda demanded.

"It's coming OUT of the Dragon's Breath itself, Captain! Noukiite scout-class ship!"

"WHAT?!" Invader screamed. "How the hell did they . . .?!"

"Sir, the Eo ships just spotted them!"

Eyes locked on the tactical screen. "Who is that, anyway?" Mendou Shuutarou demanded.

* * *

Sailing serenely out of the Dragon's Breath, the Odyssey seemed not to care as the two cigar-shaped Urusian-built craft -- both ships still coloured in orange-gold with tiger stripes despite their currently no longer serving anyone loyal to the government in Onishuto -- turned towards her. In the wake of the solar-sail scout's departure, the Yekk'ap' seemed to glow bright white for a moment before it vanished from space. No reaction from the Odyssey as her dragon's head prow turned in the general direction of the Ch'uokyuk system as the gallants and staysails, the elements of the ship's drive system needed to cut in warp, began to deploy. By then, the smaller of the Eo ships -- Aruka Insa's former yacht, a vessel about half the size of the personal cruiser once owned by Redet Invader before he had it decommissioned in the wake of the Imperial Counter-Revolution -- had swung onto a parallel course, it closing in on the Noukiite ship from port aft.

* * *

"Concussion missile tubes loaded and primed, ready for one-second silent running before targeting scans begin and they arm," Marina reported. "If these bozos get any closer, we'll have to reprogram them."

"Keep them as they are, Lady Marina," Hachhich ordered.

"Main plasma cannon primed and ready, but conduits to the emitter are closed to prevent being detected by enemy ships," Uin added. "However, if what the computers report about the enemy craft is true, they're probably attacking us blind. Even with the Yekk'ap' closed, local space is still greatly disturbed."

"What of our scanners, Sen?" Reiko asked.

"Operational; the computers are compensating for the many disturbances in the space-time fabric," Sen noted. "We're even getting life-sign scans on both enemy ships. This is worlds better than what we had back at Seueukhek," she added as she gazed on her lover. "The smaller one has about fifty aboard her. The larger ship has at least six hundred. If we're going to board that second one, the odds aren't good."

The admiral took that in, and then he smirked. "She's on the smaller ship."

"How can you be sure?" Reiko asked.

"She's arrogant, this Aruka Insa," Hachhich stated. "She believed right from the start that by taking you 'hostage' thanks to the Yekk'ap', she could make the Maidens do her bidding." He pointed to the image on the forward view screen. "The other ship used to belong to your mother's father, correct?"

"Yes."

"If she only joined the Eo recently, she wouldn't be used to any other ship than her own."

"IF she's out here," Reiko warned.

"She is here."

Eyes locked on K'yechsungi. There was a feral grin on the sin-destroyer's face; her eyes were locked on something off Odyssey's port side. "On which ship, Lady?" Hachhich asked.

"The closer one to us," K'yechsungi replied. "She is angry, that one. It excites us."

"Excellent," Hachhich purred.

* * *

"Building techniques are mostly Noukiite, but the weapons and other equipment's clearly ours, Eluza," Rumy reported. The cloaked Hasei'cha was right behind the two Eo ships; thanks to her greater speed and her ability to slip in and out of tachytron space, the Sagussan ship had moved past the pirate vessels and positioned herself very close to the Yekk'ap', thus taking a chance to do a detailed scan of the phenomena to ascertain how they could rescue Reiko and her friends from its embrace. When Odyssey emerged and the Eo ships began to follow her, it had been child's play to give pursuit without detection. "She's got gallants and staysails ready to deploy right now, yet . . . " Her voice trailed off for a second. "Odd."

"What is it, Rumy?" Lufy asked.

"The gallants are turned around, Lufy!" the science officer reported. "If they deploy . . .!"

* * *

"LET FLY!" Hachhich barked.

* * *

On the Odyssey, the gallant sails, connecting the topmast to the side masts in rectangular bands, rolled out. In normal operation, the absorbent sides, where particles would be drawn in for funnelling into the reactor spaces, would always face the direction of the bow. This time, however, they were facing aft. Once they started to glow as particles were drawn in, a breaking effect came into play, stopping the scout ship just as her pursuer soared past, the bridge crew not realising what was happening until it was too late.

Hatches on the scout ship's flanks opened as a phalanx of six concussion missiles raced out, their targeting scanners and cobalt warheads activating a second after they cleared the tubes. The first pair detonated on hitting the Eo ship's deflector shields, creating enough kinetic energy to overload the generators and collapse them, thus allowing the remaining four to race past and strike home. In a curious replay of what had happened to the Koishii Moroboshi many hours earlier, the engine spaces were blasted away as half the ship was vented to the outside vacuum. The ship began to drift to port as all primary power was lost, plunging the still-habitable sections of Insa's yacht into darkness.

As her crew quickly saw what happened, the larger Eo ship was made to turn immediately to bring its forward weapons to bear on the Odyssey. Before the order to fire could be given, space behind her fizzled into the tan bulk of the Hasei'cha, her own particle guns and concussion missiles bearing on target. As the first salvo from the Sagussan frigate slammed into the Eo ship's shields, Kashin appeared to her port, her long guns already deployed and bearing on target. After several more salvoes from the attacking warships, the shields of Invader's old cruiser collapsed in a shower of sparks and energy. Two concussion missiles from Hasei'cha and a storm of photon torpedoes from Kashin mercilessly pulverized the cruiser's defenceless hull, making her warp drive detonate in a billowing flower of antimatter gone insane.

* * *

A moan echoed through the smoke-filled space as the sound of transporters echoed from aft. As the few crew who had not died from the impact of Odyssey's attack began to stir, footfalls echoed on the deck.

"What do we do with them?" a woman with a mixed batch of accents asked.

"They are pirates," another woman, clearly Noukiite though speaking with an old-sounding accent, answered. "The Ch'uoeuk will be more than happy to decide their fate."

"Fair 'nuff."

Aruka Insa's deep blue eyes fluttered open as the hissing noise of swords leaving their scabbards echoed throughout the bridge. As she tried to move her arm towards her holstered pistol, grunts and cries of mortal pain began to assault her ears as the boarding crew began their gristly work. She knew what that declaration meant. Piracy, since the days of the Emperor Hechne and that damned admiral who had wiped out the original Eo, had always been treated as a capital crime offence by Noukiite authorities.

Her fate was sealed.

Still . . .

As her left hand shifted towards her belt so she could get at the remote control so she could use her ship's self-destruct mechanism, a VERY sharp sword came down to punch through her wrist. Insa shrieked as she tried to roll away from whoever just cut off her hand, her voice then being cut off as someone or something grabbed her tightly by the throat to yank her straight up, holding her well off the deck.

"Peace be with you, Aruka Insa," a strange woman's voice hailed as the wounded Urusian's eyes fluttered open to gaze on the shadow-cloaked image of a dark-haired Noukiite woman.

One with ears just like Shogai Dakejinzou's.

A cold fist materialised in Insa's heart as she realised who this woman was.

Eyu-Teo Yecho-K'yechsungi. The Bandit Slayer of Taktek. Sin-Eater of the Lost Stars of Noukiios.

A portable light was activated, allowing the scene to be lit up even more. Insa shuddered as her eyes turned left, she finding herself gazing on a grinning green-haired Oni woman with the skin colour of a Yehisrite, she dressed in black from neck to toe, a blood-tipped eunuch's sword in hand. Insa felt a lump in her throat as the Oni moved to lick the blood off the shining blade's flanks, her dark brown eyes smoking with sensuous joy as she moved to trace that blood over her lips. "Doesn't taste too bad," she noted in that queer voice with its odd mix of accents. Some parts Oni, some parts Yehisrite . . .

"Muzuka Marina . . . " Insa rasped.

A silver-haired Noukiite woman stepped up to stand behind Marina. "You're known, Lady."

"Yeah, Uin, 'fraid I am," the hybrid admitted, and then she gazed on K'yechsungi. "Hungry, K'yech?"

"We are," the sin-destroyer purred as she leaned up to gaze into Insa's face. "You accused our friend P'yeknu of the death of your son Popok, Insa. You did not know the truth. It was WE who killed him, not P'yeknu. And for the insult delivered onto our friend and to us, we will now punish you."

Insa's eyes went wide as K'yechsungi's mouth stretched open, a hissing noise escaping her.

* * *

"The tactics were incredibly sound," Sunda noted.

"That they were," Invader agreed. The Kashin and the Hasei'cha were hovering some distance from the Odyssey and Aruka Insa's crippled yacht. "Any scans of what's going on inside, Lookout?"

"Scanners still hazed up somewhat, Boss," the sensor officer reported.

"Hasei'cha might know what's going on," Sunda stated.

"Okay, then. Signals, open a . . .!"

"Boss!" the communications officer barked out. "Signal from the Noukiite ship."

"On screen!" Invader ordered.

The tactical screen at the front of the bridge flicked off for a second before turning back on, it showing the image of a bald Terran man with glasses. "Aisuru!" Mendou Shuutarou gasped on recognising his old classmate. "What's going on here?! How on Earth did you . . .?!"

The monk raised his hand to stop his friend's tirade. "Relax, Shuutarou. We're alright."

"Wait a second, son!" Invader cut in. "Reiko-chan's not trained in any sort of ship-borne warfare tactics! How the devil did you get the drop on these bastards, anyway?!"

"It's okay, Granddad," Reiko scolded as she leaned into the camera's angle of view. "We had help!"

"Reiko-san!" Mendou breathed out. "But still . . . "

"You addressed this one as your grandfather, P'yeknu?"

Noukiite voice, female, old accent. "Yes, I did," Reiko said as she looked behind her.

Megane stepped aside as a regal visage walked into view. Seeing her, gasps echoed through the Kashin's bridge as people recognised who she was -- or if they didn't realise who she was, they were quick to see the many similarities between Moroboshi Reiko and this woman. Invader's jaw nearly hit the deck in shock as his eyes took in the newcomer's features, and then he sputtered out, "Empress T'ich . . .?"

Reiko glared him down. "Granddad!" she snapped. "That's not how . . .!"

"Enough, P'yeknu," Nukyek scolded her as Invader's arms snapped up to shield his face from his angry granddaughter's glare. "He can be taught the proper forms at another time." She turned back to Invader. "Lord Redet, under the Piracy Laws enacted by our noble ancestor, the Suhek Emperor, your countrywoman Aruka Insa, the 'Empress of the Eo,' was put to death in answer to her many crimes against both our blood-child, the Venerable Ye-Nehek Yesu-P'yeknu, as well as your many countrymen who were lost when our blood-child's late sister's namesake ship was destroyed. If you want her body back, you may have it, as well as those of her servants we found on her ship, all of whom were dealt with as piracy should ALWAYS be dealt with."

"I . . .!" Invader began, and then he rapidly nodded. The Noukiite empress reminded him a little too much of his own wife when she was on a tear. "On behalf of the Urusian Union, I thank you, Your Majesty, for your assistance in this matter. We'll be more than happy to deal with what's left of that lot!"

"Excellent." Her eyes narrowed dangerously as she then pointed a warning finger at him. "And know this well, so you may inform your President Lana, Lord Redet: my people's patience at your people's infantile unwillingness to behave as RESPONSIBLE beings should when dealing with the other civilised races in this galaxy has ALSO come to an END! Whatever Eo remain on Konton are YOUR responsibility, not ours. Do with them what you will, but make it VERY clear to ALL your kind: the planets our lost children settled in the wake of the ILLEGAL annexation of Noukiios by your pathetic empire have always been, are, and will always be, OURS! Any further action against my people because of that will have the SEVEREST of consequences!"

She turned and marched out of the camera's range. Reiko watched her go, and then she turned back to gaze at Invader. "You okay, Granddad?" she asked, a wry grin crossing her face.

"Ah . . . s-somewhat," the admiral stuttered.

"Reiko-san, your mother is a very formidable woman," Mendou noted.

"Hai, she is that," Reiko breathed out, and then she smirked. "Oh, by the by: now that you've met one of my mothers, now it's time for you to meet one of my fathers, too." She looked over. "Sir?"

Invader's jaw hit the deck. "WHAT?!"

Everyone else's eyes nearly shot out of their skulls as the fierce visage of a grim Noukiite warrior appeared to Reiko's right, she side-stepping over so he could gaze on the "Kashin's" bridge. For many of the officers, this man needed no introduction; even if he was Noukiite, his tactics in the First Eo War were always studied at the Urusian Defence Force Academy. "Admiral Yi . . .!" Sunda gasped.

Hachhich's eyes locked on her for a moment. "You were the war-leader of the ship named after P'yeknu's lost sister, were you not?" he asked, his voice neutral.

Sunda blinked, and then she nodded. "Yes, sir . . . "

His face creased as an approving smile crossed it. "The Venerable Sister Niap'yeng told me that you dealt with P'yeknu with honour," he said. "We were more than happy to avenge the deaths of your good crew when we dealt with Aruka Insa and her pirate friends." He laughed. "And when the day comes, I'll gladly invite both you and the Fat One there . . . " -- he nodded towards Invader -- "To my estate so I can introduce you both to the sweet joys of etahena and we can tell all our war stories!"

"HEY!" Invader yelped. He was NOT fat!

Reiko stared at him. "Granddad, you HAVE to loose some weight!"

Snickers began to escape many of the bridge crew as Invader tried to hide himself yet again from his granddaughter's condescending look. "I look forward to that day, Admiral," Sunda vowed.

Hachhich waved. "I'll remember that, Captain!"

The airwaves echoed with relieved laughter.

* * *

"How is he, Shinobu?"

"Resting now," Shinobu stated as she pulled her hand away from the dozing Ataru's face. The Daite'cha of Sagussa had been moved back into his bedroom so the nurse could examine him more. "Did you manage to call Mizuno-sensei so she could come over here to examine him more?"

Lum nodded. "Tcha! She should be here . . .!"

Her voice was cut off on hearing a transporter beam echo through the house. "Eh?!" the Oni gasped as she flew out of the bedroom to hear footsteps echo from the stairs. She stopped on seeing who was leading the small procession that had just beamed down from orbit. "REIKO!"

Reiko lightly smiled as her sobbing mother flew into her arms.

To Be Continued . . .!

**** **** ****

SERIES INTRODUCTION (MK III) or WE'VE COME A LONG WAY BACK TO THE BEGINNING!

March, 2007 . . .

It has been a VERY long time since the basic ideas concerning this series started to come to me when I was in the midst of my second teaching job in the Republic of Korea, way back in 1997. Considering how this series had actually begun, I suppose it's not so surprising that it's had so many starts and stops since I wrote the first version of School's On way back when.

Unlike many of the other concepts introduced in The Senior Year, the idea of Moroboshi Reiko was something of a late addition. Mike Smith and I had pretty much fleshed out most of the other ideas that went into The Senior Year well before we started writing out the series in good and putting it out over the Internet in early 1996. The idea of an alien child Ataru would adopt as his own, a child from a world which didn't enjoy good relations with Lum's people, was something that came to me just as we were about to start rewriting The Senior Year from script to prose format. It didn't take me long to flesh Reiko out for her first main appearance in Arrive Reiko-chan, then insert her into future stories.

Unlike many of the other characters in the series, I never took the opportunity to talk things over with Mike about Reiko during the many times I drove from Welland (my hometown) to Niagara-on-the-Lake (Mike's hometown) so we could brainstorm the plots and ideas for what eventually became The Senior Year (to say anything of our first planned sequel series to TSY, Twenty Years Later).

However, it would take my nine-year odyssey to Korea to flesh out the world and people she came from.

This series has had two starts since it first began appearing in the R.A.A.C. files. First was, as I said in the beginning, back in 1997 when I was teaching in Kwang'yang. That lasted for about two years (by then, I was in Kyoungju) until I pretty much lost interest and switched my fanfic writing attention over to Illusions. The second start came years later, when I had run out of steam with Illusions and decided to try it again. That only lasted until my mother's death in 2001, when I lost heart for a while until the events of 11 September 2001 led me down into writing Lonely Souls. And now, after getting osteomyelitis, losing a toe, finding out I was diabetic, and having to come back to Canada from Korea, I'm at it again.

Someone -- Muchach or Lyna, maybe? -- must be telling me something.

How long will this one last?

Who knows . . .

**** **** ****

WRITER'S NOTES:

1) This story occurs in the weeks after the TSY story Towards The Unstoppable Future.

2) Quick pronunciation note about Noukiite terms: if an apostrophe follows a consonant, it's spoken with a lot of force behind it, as if you were snapping the sound. Noukiite vowels are the same as in Japanese, but when one encounters words spoken in Ryekkyuk dialect, one encounters different "o" and "u" sounds. The o' sound is similar to the "o" in "hot." The u' sound is similar to the "ou" in "could."

3) To better understand Noukiite names, one must know two things: the caste prefix before the family name and the birth order prefix before the given name.

Caste prefixes go as follows (listed by their place in the Ten Orders):

Ye- . . . Yekhu (priests and priestesses)

K'e- . . . K'et'hu (mobile missionaries)

Ei- . . . Eip'ihu (royalty and nobility)

Eyu- . . . Eyukhu (learned scholars, police and soldiers)

K'u- . . . K'uot'hu (healers)

T'u- . . . T'up'hu (rural trades)

Hu- . . . Huhat'hu (urban trades)

Ae- . . . Aekhahu (civil servants, politicians)

Na-. . . Naihu (indentured servants)

Uo- . . . Uohu (the "unclean" trades)

Ip'ihu usually use the prefix Ip'- as part of their names.

The birth order prefixes go as follows (classic readings in square brackets):

Yesu (first daughter), Chusu (first son)

Yech'a (second daughter [Ye'chap']), Chuch'a (second son [Chuch'ap'])

Yeho (third daughter [Yehoch']), Chuho (third son [Chuhoch'])

Yecho (fourth daughter [Yechoch']), Chucho (fourth son [Chuchoch'])

Yech'u (fifth daughter [Yech'uh]), Chuch'u (fifth son [Chuch'uh])

Yeyeh (sixth daughter), Chuyeh (sixth son)

Yeip' (seventh daughter [Yeip'e]), Chuip' (seventh son [Chuip'e])

Yeye (eighth daughter [Yeyech']), Chuye (eighth son [Chuyech'])

Yeu (ninth daughter [Yeuse]), Chuu (ninth son [Chuuse])

Yeyep' (tenth daughter), Chuyep' (tenth son)

4) Ye old list of terms and translations, appearing in the order they were first introduced:

Noukiyek . . . Noukiios' capital. Over the years, it has been called Aip'yohek, Suchhek and Suchkyuk. During the Urusian Occupation, the city was renamed Yekhek, which simply meant "capital city."

Ch'uokyuk . . . Noukiios' home star, a Class K1V sun (Sol is rated as a Class G2V).

-ak . . . Name suffix for a royal palace.

luthier . . . Proper term for a violinmaker.

uyuat' . . . twelve-string zither.

Kap'p'ak . . . Largest of the Nachna Islands.

Ryekkyuk . . . Largest city on Noukiios' northern continent, third largest on the planet after Noukiyek and K'ahuch. The birthplace of modern Noukiite culture; Ryekkyuk has the same spiritual resonance to Noukiites as Mecca has to Muslims. On Noukiios, to speak with a Ryekkyuk accent (in the local dialect, the name is pronounced Ryoggyuk) is seen as the sign of a very sophisticated person.

Kahuch . . . Island near Kap'p'ak.

Yekk'ap' . . . Literally "fire of the Dragon," but calling it the Dragon's Breath wouldn't be too far off.

-yu . . . Term of endearment, the Noukiite version of "-chan." This is used with names ending in a vowel; for consonant-ending names, Noukiites use the term -u (i.e. P'yeknu-yu, Niap'yeng-u).

-cha . . . Common Yehisrite and Vosian term of endearment.

Yekna . . . The old capital of one of Noukiios' ancient "three kingdoms," Hichp'u. Located in the southeast part of the southern continent. Yekna ranks second behind Ryekkyuk when it comes to spiritual importance to Noukiites; it was here that Inuch'ech based himself as he began to codify the modern faith.

Onifu . . . Oni-Fukunokami hybrid. A rare type of cross-race child in the local cluster, but appearing more frequently as trade between Uru and Fukunokami increases.

Azhis'f . . . Vosian-Yehisrite hybrid. The most common type of cross-race child in the local cluster; the first Azhis'f began to appear 1500 years ago. The word itself is Yehisrite in origin.

Kyesak . . . Ancient name for a ward in modern Noukiyek City. In the pre-Urusian Occupation name tradition, a person was identified by family name (the second name in Nukyek's case, T'ich) and clan name (the first part, after the caste identifier prefix), which was normally a geographic name.

pe'cha . . . Vosian psionic version of a blood brother bonding, which normally signifies very close friends. Nassur had such a bond with Benten (until he recognised her), Lum and Miyake Shinobu.

Centre Test . . . More formally, the National Centre Test for University Admissions (Daigaku Nyushi Centre Shiken), the first step university applicants need to take to pass into post-secondary education. Many universities also run a separate admissions test, but all students in Japan must pass the Centre Test first to gain admission to university. The current test format came into effect in 1990, replacing the Common First-Stage Examination (Kyootsuu Daiichiji Gakuryoku Shiken), which was implemented in 1979. The Common Examination would be what Ataru and Lum would have had to pass to get into teacher's college.

nukhak . . . Village guardian. Totem poles placed at the main entrance of any substantial Noukiite settlement as a way of warding off evil spirits from beyond the village walls.

Kuchch'ek . . . Major centre of education on the southern continent.

Resuk . . . Industrial city on the eastern coast on the southern continent, located northeast of Yekna.

Cha . . . Elder sister. Unlike the Japanese use of the term "onee-chan," the Noukiite term is only used for either blood or adopted relatives. "Younger sister" is translated as Chai.

Taktek . . . Province on the mid-west side of the southern continent.

Ch'uonech . . . Capital city of Taktek.

Hakaech . . . City in the northwest part of the southern continent, south of Noukiyek. The castle of the Masters of Noukiios was located near this city.

Hechye Tat' . . . Maiden's Dance. A very erotic dance usually done by a prostitute for a potential lover.

Ait'uch Nehech . . . Noukiios' first worldwide kingdom, existing from its foundation to 403. The latter dynasty that existed between 3162-4813 was named in honour of this ancient dynasty.

lim'l . . . Yehisrite battle-axe, standard edged weapon of a member of the Imperial Corps of Executioners. It incorporates a hook-shaped blade that actually does the beheading when used properly.

seucheuchet' . . . Eunuch's sword.

Aeyek-hup'uk . . . Righteous Love. All eunuch's swords are considered female, so it is seen as gramatically proper to refer to one of them as "her."

hich'ek . . . Page. Traditional title for a personal or executive assistant to one of the higher castes on Noukiios. Marina could be seen as Nukyek's hich'ek as well as being her friend.

Euk Hichheksuch Seuchhoukhek . . . King of the World of Holy Reincarnation. The Noukiite title pertaining to Moroboshi Ataru's job as Daite'cha of Sagussa. It's normally shortened as Euk Hisehek.

Joodoshuu . . . The Japanese title for the Pure Land (or Amidist) sect of Buddhism (Note: I'm guessing this is Megane's [and before him, Cherry's] specific sect).

marei'cha . . . Literally, "the one with whom you have a child." Commonly called "bond-mating." The Sagussan psionic equivalent to a marriage bond on Earth and many other planets.

nep'ch'uop'e-o k'ahenich-kach kyungheng . . . Literally, "never broken promise," though it is normally translated as "the promise never to be broken." The oath of life-bonding on Noukiites, which is normally used by partners willing to start a family. It could also be applied to lifelong friends.

Seueukhek . . . Ninth of the ten planets of Noukiios' solar system (Noukiios is the third world), commonly known in the rest of the galaxy as Suagsei. A Class J gas giant about the size of Jupiter.

Nichsuo . . . Seaport/spaceport in the southern continent, west of K'ahuch.

Chuch' . . . South. North is k'ang, west is he and east is ch'ek.

-hu . . . Name suffix for a temple.

Yekhek . . . Province on the southeastern and south-central side of the southern continent. Yekna, Resuk, Kuchch'ek, K'ahuch, Nichsuo and Kap'huch are all located in this province.

-huch . . . Name suffix for a mountain.

Kyekip' . . . Pre-Occupation name for Resuk.

K'ep'yek . . . City in Taktek.

Hichaina . . . City at the northwestern corner of the north continent. In Noukiite history, this was where the first contact with the Zephyrites and the Vosians occurred.

Echtech . . . A ward in Noukiyek City.

Hachtech . . . City on the southern coast of the south continent, though not in Yekhek province; this is one of the major cities of the southern part of Nechp'u province (which occupies the southwest portion of the southern continent, with Yekhek to the east and Taktek to the north).

Tookonokooen . . . Planet located in the exact centre of the triangle formed by Vos, Yehisril and Ipraedos. A neutral world with a semi-tropical climate, its native inhabitants are dark-skinned Vosian-like people who have a culture similar to Haiti's African-descent population.

Nakkuk-nekk'ek'a . . . Central Intelligence Agency.

hichheksuch-euch . . . Literally, "crowns of Heaven." Popular euphemism for a Noukiite's head-ridges.

Koori . . . The legendary founder of the modern Neptunian/Tritonian royal dynasty, a relative of Oyuki's.

etahena . . . Red pepper wine.

5) Historical figures (Note on Noukiios year dates: Year 1 is equal to 3126 BCE on Earth):

Muchach . . . First worldwide king of Noukiios. The year he brought the warring states together under one rule is always signified as Year 1 of the modern Noukiite calendar. He was born 46 years before that time (shorthanded as 46 BM [Before Muchach]) and finally died in 34. Over time, he was elevated to demigod status and given the posthumous title Ch'uoeuk (literally "great king" but also meaning "king of kings").

The Eukt'ach' Emperor . . . Second-to-last ruler of the Nehech Dynasty, reigned from 4769 to 4802, when he was deposed at the instigation of the Urusians for his son, Hachnek. He died of "natural causes" in 4819. His birth name (using the modern style) was Ei-Yi Chuch'a-T'yekk'eng and his reigning name was Enek.

The Kyaksai Emperor . . . Nukyek's fourth son with her husband. The last ruler of the Nehech Dynasty, reigned from 4802 to 4813, when the Urusian Empire annexed Noukiios and he was deposed. He died of "natural causes" in 4822. His birth name was Ei-Yi Chucho-Teng and his reigning name was Hachnek.

The Suhek Emperor . . . Emperor of Noukiios during the time of the war with the Eo pirates. He reigned from 4565 to 4617. His birth name was Ei-Yi Chuch'a-Heeuch and his reigning name was Hechne.

Ye-Hit' Yeho-Huit'ch'uk . . . Considered one of the most wise women in Noukiite history. Her birth name was Ye-Hit' Yeho-Ihech; "Huit'ch'uk" was her pen-name. She lived from 4183 to 4275. She was Yap'eng's mother.

Inuch'ech . . . Acknowledged as being the founder of the modern Noukiite religion; he was the one who wrote the first version of the standard holy text, the Scriptures of Heaven. His birth name and many details of his life are unknown; he is known to have been a native of Yekna. He lived from 912 to 986.

Meiyo . . . A respected Noukiite philosopher who lived in the middle years of the Nehech Dynasty. His birth name was Ye-Yi Chuye-Seuk. He lived from 4205 to 4270.

Yap'eng . . . Son of Ye-Hit' Yeho-Huit'ch'uk and chief philosophical rival of Meiyo. His birth name was Ye-Yi Chuho-Yi. He lived from 4208 to 4277.

Ip'yoch . . . The writer of a collection of tales centred on Noukiios' "three kingdoms" period of history; he lived during the middle years of the Ep'ye Dynasty, from 3005 to 3092. His birth name is lost to history.

Ch'uhuch . . . A philosopher of the latter years of the Nehech Dynasty, who strove to adopt the ancient beliefs of Noukiios into an era where interaction with aliens was becoming commonplace. His birth name was K'u-Nek Chusu-Yungyek; he was a faith-healer. He lived from 4472 to 4553.

The Great Takchyek Emperor . . . The one seen second only to Muchach as the most reviered monarch in all of Noukiios' history; the title "the Great" is always applied to him. It was during his reign that technology began to allow Noukiites to travel into space and progress beyond the industrial age that marked the Ep'ye years. His birth name was Ei-Yi Chuho-Ch'u and his reigning name was Honek. He reigned from 3214 to 3259.

The Muine Emperor of Ep'ye . . . Founder of the third worldwide royal dynasty after Muchach's. As dynastic founder, his reign era is not given another name. His birth name was Eyu-Eok Chusu-Ech and he reigned from 2019 to 2072. The name "Muine" itself literally means "Great Beginning."

The Muine Emperor of Nehech . . . Founder of the fourth worldwide royal dynasty after Muchach's. Again, as with the previous ruler given the name "Muine," he was never given another specific reign era name. His birth name was Eyu-Yi Chuho-Hekyo and he reigned from 3162 to 3201. The Takchyek Emperor was his grandson.

King Hekch'eng . . . One of the kings of Hichp'u, who reigned from 1195 to 1237. The bell built in his honour Reiko speaks of was actually commissioned by his son and completed during the reign of his grandson.

6) For those who might not be familiar with all the minor characters who appeared in the TSY storyline, the Hasei'cha crew first made their appearance in the main TSY stories Spirit-War Tomobiki and Mie's Story. Hoth Sunda appeared in Great Father Ataru Stage Ten: Revelations. Yuu and Mio were introduced in the TSY Tales of the Daishi'cha side story Truth and Consequences. Izuminodokyuu and Yui appeared in Newgrange. And the "Mizuno-sensei" Shinobu speaks of is none other than Mizuno Ami, a.k.a. Sailor Mercury, whom Ataru and Lum first met in the TSY/SM crossover Lonely They Who Guard...

7) Invader's personal cruiser was the ship that appeared in the fifth movie, The Final Chapter. The Kashin is the ship that appeared in the first television episode and the first movie, Only You.

8) The Special Committee of Alien Activities (S.C.A.A.) is the United Nations agency that administers all general contacts between Terrans and non-Terrans. You can probably guess who they're based on.

9) The planetary classification system used here is the same one introduced in the Star Trek reference manual Star Trek Star Charts (ISBN 0-7434-3770-5), written by Geoffrey Mandel. A general note on those classifications is available on Wikipedia under the title "Star Trek planet classifications."

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