Rebecca ended up being the biggest limitation on the party's timing. She could get the time off easily, since the MHD encouraged her to reach out to friends whenever possible, but flying in from Lei Feng would take nearly a week. Emily and Alanis were within a few days' flight of Earth with their unit, getting refit and resupplied for later deployment while training up a new round of replacements—ones who weren't completely raw recruits. Vira and Motya were already on planet, but Tracy Geyeller was unable to get away from her duties.

"I just got into artillery school," Tracy had said with an apologetic smile. "Close support, really, for magical girl offensives. I ship out at the end of the week, so…"

"Don't worry about it," said Emma, smiling back. "I'm glad you found something that was a good fit for you. We'll be in touch?"

"Of course."

When all was said and done, the party ended up being planned for exactly the day before Emma left for training. This left Emma with some time to use as she saw fit. Classes were wrapping up, leaving Emma with more free time than she knew to do with. It should have been a good thing, since it gave her time to spend with Ayane and Ryouta, but something about it left her restless and jumpy.

Which was how Emma ended up at the Cult's underground sparring ring with other members of the Knights of the Goddess for some training.

"Rumor has it that you've been getting some tips from Kyouko herself," said one of the older girls as the group set their soul gems into their protective cases. "You'll give us a good show, I hope."

"It's nothing special," Emma demurred, slotting her soul gem into the foam of her case and shutting the lid. "Just getting me up to standard. I'm still a beginner."

The other girl snorted. "Surviving Samsara isn't something a 'beginner' does. Let me see how you do. You and me, up there, for the first fight. I want to feel this with my own flesh and blood."

Emma bowed very slightly and considered the other girl's abilities. Her costume was heavy plate armor, conforming rather amusingly with certain stereotypes. Her magical girl weapon was an extremely large and heavy shield, its bottom curving into a sharp, wedge-shaped point that belied its supposedly defensive nature.

A tricky match-up, if Kyouko's advice was anything to go by. Emma would have a hard time getting past the shield, something made all the worse by the shield's sheer width.

"My name is Annabelle Montoya," said Emma's opponent, bowing back. "It is an honor to fight you. May the Goddess lend you strength."

Emma's TacComp had to supply the appropriate response: "It is my honor to be your opponent. May the Goddess grant you victory."

The other girls broke off into quiet whispers as the two fighters mounted the steps to the sparring ring, then took their places next to each other.

"This will be a standard magical girl fight," said the senior drill instructor, summoning her own weapon as she eyed the two of them cautiously. "Weapons and powers are unrestricted, but largely simulated. If real magic usage grows out of control, I will separate you. Are both fighters ready?"

Emma summoned her halberd. "Ready."

Annabelle nodded, then raised her shield. "Ready."

"Begin!"

Emma threw herself sideways as Annabelle crashed into where she'd been standing, shattering the ground underneath with a loud roar. The impact was accompanied by a pulse of magic that would have sent Emma flying if Kyouko hadn't pulled the same trick repeatedly during their spars together. The strength of Annabelle's blast was greater though—and not because Kyouko held back.

Emma grimaced. This would be a challenging fight.

Annabelle roared again, dashing forward. Emma dropped her halberd and flicked out a hand, her grip closing around the shaft of a Macedonian sarissa and planting its butt-spike into the concrete of the sparring ring. The tip dropped, leveling directly into the center of Annabelle's shield.

The sound of impact was like the crashing of a tsunami against an ocean wall. Annabelle reeled as the point of the sarissa tore through the front of her shield, nearly taking off her head as a cannonshot of wind exploded next to her ear. Emma's follow up halberd blow cleaved through empty air, the more experienced girl dodging the attack easily, but Emma had the advantage for now and she knew she only had one chance before Annabelle tried again. Piercing through another magical girl's weapon was hard enough—worse to try it when your opponent knew that you could pull it off.

The sparring ring vanished under a dust cloud as Emma hurled herself forward, attacking twice more in the span of a few seconds, each impact ending in a detonation that Annabelle was hard pressed to dodge. Even with experience and speed, the sheer destructive potential of Emma's attack left her off balance. The air was thick with magic, Emma's hair levitating behind her from the pure unharnessed power being unleashed in the match.

She could also feel the drain on her soul gem. She needed to win, now, or else she wasn't going to make it. The next attack had to stick.

Annabelle stumbled back once more, bleeding from more than a few places and pulling up a fresh shield in time to watch Emma's halberd point come screaming in one last time. With a furious shout, Annabelle brought her shield to bear and pushed back. The impact was like taking a cephalopod tank's main cannon in the face, with the ground splintering under both girls' feet as magic fought against magic in a screaming hurricane of certain death.

The moment passed, and both girls staggered backwards as the conflicting energies collapsed in a thunderclap of wind. They raised their weapons once more—

"ENOUGH!"

Red chains wrapped themselves around Emma and pulled her into the ground, the impact making her see stars as Kyouko strode over, magic blazing.

"Disgraceful!" the drill instructor shouted, apocalyptically furious. "Utterly disgraceful, the both of you! I don't care what excuses you have, it is never acceptable to attack another magical girl that way!"

"My apologies," Annabelle murmured, bowing her head shamefully. She too was chained down by Kyouko's magic. "I— I forgot myself. I am ashamed."

"As well you should be!" the drill instructor yelled. She wheeled on Emma, pointing a sword like a drill baton. "And you! Sinclair! I should have you demoted for that display! What were you thinking of, employing battlefield attacks like that? If Kyouko wasn't in the building, I would be recovering two fucking corpses!"

Emma wasn't really able to move while chained down by Kyouko's magic, but the drill instructor apparently took her silence as acknowledgement of her chastisement.

"Now, before we get too carried away," Kyouko said, leaning on a spear. "I will say that nobody was really in any danger. Emma's magic can't get through Annabelle's shield, and if Emma got hit by the shield she'd go down basically instantly. Girl's basically a glass cannon. So I think you can let them off a little easy, Drill Instructor."

The drill instructor sniffed imperiously, but bowed. "I defer to your judgment, ma'am."

"Very well," said Kyouko. "As for you two, it is true that you can't fight each other like that. We stay within the bounds of our simulated powers so that we're not slagging our bodies for no reason. It's not good for you to get hurt, or to hurt others, to the point of body loss. You're both coming off of front line combat rotations, so it's understandable that you're still on edge, but you need to keep your heads better in the future, alright?"

Emma hung her head. Losing herself like that wouldn't be acceptable in the Soul Guard. She was lucky Kyouko was being lenient with her, because if this had been Soul Guard training… "Yes Kyouko."

"Yes ma'am," said Annabelle, bowing her head again. "I will meditate on my sins."

"Alright, off you go then," said Kyouko. She turned to the drill instructor. "Now, since I'm here already, do you mind if I stick around? I'm avoiding work at the moment."

"I— if you wish, ma'am," said the drill instructor, bowing again. "It would be an honor."

"Cool, cool, then in that case who's up next?"

Emma did end up with a minor citation on her file. She scowled at it unhappily, absently swirling her sparkling water in the HSIS conference room where she was supposed to be meeting the person managing her stake in the company. The title they'd come up with was "Steward", which Emma thought sounded pretty snazzy. As to what that actually meant, well, that was what this meeting was supposed to be about.

The door opened.

"Ah, I see you're already here," said a man a little older than Emma, hair pulled back into a low ponytail. He bowed deferentially. "My name is Robert Hastings. How are you doing, miss?"

"My name is fine," said Emma, standing and returning the bow. "Is it just going to be us two today?"

"Yes, barring any particularly troublesome questions," said Robert with a small smile. "I'd like to go over the major terms of the agreement for management of your shares of the company."

Emma took a deep breath. "Alright then, hit me."

"The central clause of the agreement is that, nominally, I will be given fifty percent of the shares you currently own," began Robert. A diagram appeared over the conference table, showing a flowchart of ownership. "These shares are, of course, technically under the guardianship of your parents until such time as you reach age of majority. As you are a magical girl, this complicates matters significantly, and the relative autonomy your sister operates under generates considerable precedent that must be followed."

"Is Anna really that unusual?" Emma asked, taking a sip of water. "She's always been better than me at this sort of thing, of course, but…"

"Most individuals of your age group are not managing 15% of a company's operations and investments, no matter how small the company," said Robert. "No matter how you spin it, it is an impressive accomplishment. It is the reason why the various matriarchies keep trying to send boys, and girls, her way, though without much success."

"…Interesting," Emma said slowly. Anna had not mentioned that particular detail. "Good for her, I guess?"

"Quite," said Robert dryly. "The upshot is that if you were to clearly have less influence than her, some very interesting questions would begin to circulate."

Emma grimaced. "Ah. So what does this mean for me then?"

"You will have to at least appear to be her equal," said Robert. He flipped to the next slide, now showing a tree diagram of responsibilities that he and Emma shared. "Politics and optics aside, Governance requires that all owners of a company be directors in some respect. For publicly owned entities, what a director even is becomes somewhat vague, but for private companies like us it's more specific. The most important consideration is that in order to qualify as a director, you must have a 'significant impact on the way the entity does business'. Generally speaking, that means that as long as you have the authority to make a decision that can either make or lose the company allocs, you're a director. Now, of course, there's a lot of ways that you could manipulate that wording, but given the consequences of failing a Governance audit, nobody really plays that game."

"Still, that's pretty broad."

"I've always speculated that this is intentional," said Robert with a wry smile. "It's a little more friendly than it used to be. Around the end of the Unification Wars, the EDC didn't really allow you to run a business independently, even, so this is a step up."

Emma furrowed her brow. "They just… did everything?"

"Not quite. Full control would be too much, of course, especially with the circumstances of that time period, but you didn't do anything much without the EDC having a say. Once they handed control over to Governance things eased up, a little."

"Huh. That's interesting, I guess. It's hard to imagine."

"Yes, I agree," said Robert with a shrug. "It's the past now, I suppose. The legacy of that is the current wording, which allows for a fairly flexible management structure. All companies are subject to Governance auditing on a monthly basis, so it works out in the end. For us, the structure being proposed is for me to handle the day-to-day operations of your shares as well as provide strategic direction for the fifty percent that I would 'own' outright, while you would provide strategic direction for the fifty percent that you own outright. At the end of every month, your performance will be reviewed by the Board and, if you seem to be doing well, some of my shares will transfer to you."

Emma squinted at the flowchart. "I'm not sure what I can do for that. I'm not exactly well versed in this stuff."

"Well, I think you will surprise yourself," said Robert. He flipped to the next slide, which showed a chart of the assessment criteria HSIS used when examining investments. "It's certainly true that it takes a certain talent to find hidden gems in investing, but actually assessing each company is a very systematic process. You'll notice that the criteria HSIS examines are based substantially on supply chain and logistics."

"…huh. I guess that's why Mum and Dad pushed me towards that."

"Most likely, yes. The arrangement, in the best case, would be for you to gather information on a company, conduct a preliminary assessment of how suitable that company is as an investment, and provide a report before the end of the month detailing your progress and recommendations."

"That sounds doable," said Emma. She pulled up an informational document on the specifics of each assessment criteria and winced. "Well, somewhat doable. This is a lot."

"Well, the good news is that as a magical girl, you have access to time dilated simulation," said Robert. "It's a bit of a depressing use of it, I agree, but well, you can use the reserved time to go on a date afterwards?"

Emma raised an eyebrow at him. "I see that the news has spread."

"We do all follow the magazines…"

Emma sighed. "You're not wrong. It'll be good for us."

"Best of luck in that regard," said Robert. He flipped to the next slide. "On that topic, specifically, we hope that this particular business arrangement will make it more doable for you. While you still are doing something as part of HSIS, since I'm in charge of the actual conduct of business, and ultimately answerable to your parents and not you, you are, from a practical perspective, unable to do more than make non-binding recommendations."

"Which you're allowed to ignore," said Emma, nodding along. "And that way, the Shizukis are shut out, while not actually being shut out."

Robert nodded, smiling. "Precisely. That covers the major points, then. From here it's mostly details about how exactly we'll go about doing all this, so I'll send you the packet now. If you agree to the broad strokes here you can go ahead and sign. There's nothing surprising in the rest of the agreement, just some legal boilerplate."

"This all looks fine," said Emma, flipping through the document to verify the contents. "Let's get the details figured out then."

"Very good. If you'll turn your attention to this diagram…"

Emma met up with Mikoto late that evening in one of the MSY's many clubhouses scattered across the city. They were the remnants of the MSY's days as a secret society before the war, a place where magical girls of all ages could meet and relax without having to worry about secrecy. That had changed slightly, with the clubhouses turning into magical girl exclusive bars that catered to different age groups. Mikoto and her patrol squad had specified one of the bars that catered to new contractees, ages twelve and below, and the place was so saccharine that Emma's teeth hurt when she walked in.

"You seem lost," the bartender drawled as Emma flinched back at the wave of colors that greeted her as she walked in.

"I'm here to meet a mentee, actually," Emma said, glancing around the carnival fairground themed bar and wondering if Mikoto really enjoyed hanging out here. In fairness, it was set up like a recreation center combined with a coffeeshop, with supplies for boardgames and buildgames filling a series of shelves along the walls, while the bar was really a combination soda fountain, ice cream bar, and pastry case full of delicious looking pies and cakes. Main seating consisted of several semicircular booths upholstered with comfortable-looking sofas and masses of pillows so that groups of girls could cluster together around one table. The corners held a few secluded nooks and buildzones if you really wanted to be alone, but the room was clearly set up to encourage being part of a group. The whole place was festooned with bright, pastel colors in diamonds and triangles, contrasted starkly against dark, polished wood and gleaming, polished chrome.

"Ah, that explains it," said the bartender. He pulled a glass out from under the counter and flipped it twice in his hand before plonking it down. "Something bitter to cut the sweetness then? Iced coffee with a shot of almond cream?"

"Sure, that sounds good," said Emma.

Mikoto's group of magical girls had colonized a semicircular booth in the back of the house. The three of them were playing some manner of boardgame when Emma wandered over, coffee in hand.

"Hey! Emma!" Mikoto said excitedly, waving her over. "Thanks for coming."

"Of course," said Emma, leaning up against the table and looking over the three girls. "I wasn't going to miss a night out with my mentee just before I started new training. How're things going?"

"They're great!" said Mikoto. "Me and Lily and Tabitha just did a patrol the other day and pulled off a super cool combo."

"You guys are working well together then? That's good."

"Yeah! I'm glad I met them."

That was pretty sweet, and Emma took a sip of her coffee as the other girls flushed.

"I-idiot, don't say stuff like that!" Lily said, punching Mikoto gently in the arm. "I— thanks, I guess, but it's super embarrassing!"

"Aw, Lily, don't be like that!" Mikoto said, looping an arm around her teammates and pulling them in for a group hug. "Being tsundere isn't cute you know!"

Emma suppressed a laugh and took a still photo on her implants as Lily squawked and Tabitha struggled weakly to wiggle out of Mikoto's arms.

"Mikoto's in a mood," Tabitha sent over telepathy at Emma. "Sorry about this."

"Don't be, I'm glad you guys are close," Emma thought back, settling into a brightly colored seat. Huh, it really was very comfortable. "Magical girls need to look out for each other, you know."

The conversation turned to meaningless things. Bits of gossip and complaints about instructors and occasional breaks where Emma was called upon to answer questions about magic that she honestly wasn't entirely sure she was the right person to ask about but that she tried to answer anyway. Eventually they got tiramisu, which was creamy and decadent, and turned to heavier topics.

"So, um, Emma, we were wondering," Lily started when Mikoto had left to go to the bathroom. "W-well, I mean, I guess just me and Tabitha were wondering what it was like for you on Samsara? If uh, if it's not too much to ask."

"Mikoto's already told us about what it was like living there when it happened," Tabitha added. "We were, um, curious, I guess."

Emma sat back in her seat and put her fork down next to her half-finished tiramisu.

"It's— if you don't want to talk about it—" Tabitha began but Emma waved at her.

"It's fine," Emma said. She looked up at Tabitha and Lily. "Did you want to know anything specific?"

"Um, not really?" Lily said. She fiddled with her silverware. "It's just, you know, all three of us will be deploying when we turn thirteen, so…"

"Well, nobody can really say anything for certain about the war," said Emma. She sighed slowly. "Everyone knows at this point that there's going to be a counteroffensive to pay the squid back for Samsara. It's just a question of when and how hard we hit. You have to remember that I deployed half trained, and that makes things different."

"Was it— were you afraid?"

"Of course," said Emma. She smiled bitterly. "I was scared a lot, and I didn't always know what I was doing, and… and I lost a friend."

Tabitha and Lily looked away.

"I… I'm sorry," said Lily. "I shouldn't have asked."

"Don't be sorry," said Emma. She picked up her fork again and poked her tiramisu with it. "I'll be alright, eventually. Honestly, my training cohort did really well. Out of the girls that deployed, we only lost about ten percent."

The table fell silent, Lily and Tabitha looking down at their plates grimly. Ten percent wasn't exactly a small number, and normal attrition rates for fully trained girls were better, but not by much. It meant that almost everyone from Emma's cohort knew someone who had been killed in combat. It meant that, at least these days, being a magical girl wasn't about demon hunts and milkshakes. It meant that one day very soon, Lily and Tabitha would be asked to fight, and that there was a very real chance of them or Mikoto or one of their other friends dying in a field somewhere on a distant planet far from home.

Emma sighed.

"Anyway," she said when the silence became too much to bear. "I wouldn't get too worried if I was you. Honestly, at least in training, war was pretty boring. A lot of hours waiting, followed by a few minutes of action. You'll probably get through training fine and do a garrison rotation like I was supposed to. By the time you've gone through all that, you'll be ready. You'll even wonder why all this scared you in the first place."

Emma put on her best encouraging smile as Lily and Tabitha looked up at her. Emma wasn't sure if she believed that, but Lily and Tabitha did, or at least hoped that it would be true.

And for now, that was enough.