Morning broke over Mitakihara like a curtain lifting from a stage. Emma watched from the hotel's rooftop garden as a golden beacon slowly lit up the eastern sky. Rolling banks of fog wound their way between the buildings, lapping gently against the metal and glass escarpments that humanity had built upon the foundations of time, while the city's people paused in the moment of stillness that lay before the dawn. Those working put down their instruments, those at play put down their drinks, and even those for whom the passing of stars was hardly worth a memory now turned their eyes to the horizon as the Sun rose over Mitakihara.

"Can't sleep?" Ayane whispered in Emma's mind.

"No," Emma answered, brushing back a lock of hair in the morning breeze. "I thought I'd take a walk."

"You could have woken me."

"Did it bother you? Sorry."

"It's fine, I guess. I just didn't know where you were. The roof is a long ways away."

"Sorry. I'll wake you next time. I just thought…"

"I know. Ryouta's really cute when he sleeps. He sounds like he's purring when he snores."

Emma smiled and tucked her hair back again. "He does."

"Are you coming back to bed?"

"No, I don't think so. Not yet at least. I might go for a run."

Ayane made an exasperated sound. "Of course you are. Let us know when you get back?"

"Of course."

"See you later then."

Emma looked around her, at the city and everything that stretched above and below. The fog was already fading, uncovering the lowest towers and the structures that stood atop and between them, the minarets and lanterns of the evening before standing, dark now, between fingers of mist. Above, the morning light shone brilliantly off the polished glass of the tall spires that reached up towards the sky. She looked down over the side of the hotel to the far away ground, which lay obscured behind mist and shadow and the swirling images of nights long passed. Any sensible person would be afraid of the deadly fall, but instead a giddy feeling swelled up in Emma's chest as she watched the fog part, revealing the pipework below.

She jumped.

The wind wrapped around her as she transformed with a flash of blue, carrying her upwards and flinging her towards the transport tube network where she landed with a whisper of magic and a shout of joy. She could go faster than any transport pod, here, though she couldn't fly herself. She didn't need to. Her magic would steady her feet and send her through the sky.

Support pillars whipped past her as Emma blew through the city, jumping between buildings and leaping off of drones as she bounded across channels and through gaps. She flew across squares and dived through fountains in sprays of mist, her soul shining bright and guiding her true through the twists and turns of the city around her, until at last she came to a stop on a tower on a hill overlooking the sea.

It was beautiful. It was something that she had never seen before, shut-in that she was, or if she had she could not remember it now, in this moment, with the wind in her hair and the light of the new dawn.

She had missed this. It wasn't something she'd appreciated, this calm. This… lack of noise. Just a moment in time without something pulling at her. Time to let herself be, and not worry about where she was next needed or what she needed next to do. It wasn't a lack of stress, per se, though her MHD psychiatrist would certainly call it that. After all, she had to go on patrol later, and had classes she was taking, and the Soul Guard was presumably getting back to her today or tomorrow about her application. And on top of all that, she needed to go see her parents later and visit the office. Calling all of that "less stressful" was a bit missing the point.

It was just that combat, at least the combat Emma had been in, was an endless, high-intensity grind. There was never time to just… watch the sunrise. Part of her worried and fretted, wanting to do *something* and not stand still, but now that she'd had a taste of peace, she found herself wanting more.

She hoped the Soul Guard accepted her. The duties that came with the Soul Guard weren't low-intensity, Goddess knew that, but they gave her time to step away from combat and reorient herself. Something, it turned out, she desperately needed. Maybe, also, she could balance her time with her parents' expectations. Somehow. It'd be hard. But she could, with a little help, get through it.

Ryouta eventually woke up, something which turned out to be both surprisingly cute and hilarious. Ayane indulged herself in carrying Ryouta to her room's sitting area while ordering breakfast, then sent Emma a text telling her to be back before breakfast arrived.

Emma's trip back was substantially less vigorous than her trip out. She did, however, elect to run up the side of the hotel rather than take the elevator.

"Emma, you dweeb," Ayane half-scolded as she opened the window to her hotel room. "You couldn't have taken the elevator like a normal person?"

"Where's the fun in that?" Emma asked, scooting through to land on the couch. "It's a good warm-up for my patrol later, after all."

Ayane rolled her eyes.

Breakfast was simple but effective. A cart with a wide selection of condiments and a large pot of savory rice porridge arrived. Opening the lid released a cloud of fragrant steam.

"You make the porridge with chicken broth," Ryouta said as they dug in around the coffee table. "You have to do special settings on the synthesizer. We just cooked it with real meat on Samsara, it's actually less effort if you have a supplier that does home delivery."

"Do you do a lot of farming on Samsara?" Emma asked. "Motya's family grew grapes for wine, if I remember right."

"Yeah that's typical," said Ryouta. "I'm not sure how much farming there is, exactly, but it's not rare like it is here on Earth. Lots of hunting too."

"Hunting?" Ayane asked. "Really? I'd have thought that Samsara's ecosystem would still be naturally regulating."

"Only, like, far away from human habitation," said Ryouta, stirring this porridge thoughtfully. "Someone had the bright idea to save a bit of time and energy by not tagging all domestic poultry back when the colony was founded and resources were tight. It turns out that Samsara is a very nice place for domestic turkeys to run wild…"

"Turkeys…"

"It was a bad decision," said Ryouta with a sigh. "People started noticing pretty fast, but exterminating an invasive species is impossible, as I'm sure you know, Ayane."

"The reason is because it's incredibly hard just to find them," explained Ayane as Emma turned a questioning eye towards her. "Turkeys, at least, are easily seen, but even then it's never going to be easy trying to track them down. With turkeys, as you kill them, the remainder learn new behaviors to counter your actions. You'd only be able to fully counter them by having a strategic AI analyze their behavior, but even if you could find one these days, you still need good data, which we can't actually get."

"Because the turkeys aren't actually chipped," said Emma, rolling her eyes at the situation. "That's amazingly annoying."

"So it's always open season," said Ryouta, shrugging. "Honestly, it works pretty well. Wild turkey is pretty good."

"That could be an interesting date, going hunting," Ayane mused, tapping a spoon against the side of her bowl thoughtfully. "Could we do that sometime?"

"…I mean, it'd be easier to do in VR," said Ryouta after a moment. "Like, you'd have to get special permission to travel to Samsara and register for licenses and all that."

"VR is fine," said Ayane with a shrug. "Can we do that today?"

Ryouta blinked at her. "Uh, s-sure? You have the passes for it, right?"

"You coming too Emma?" asked Ayane.

"Nah, sorry, you two go ahead," said Emma, reaching over for more porridge. "I've got some stuff I have to take care of."

The offices of Hashimoto and Sinclair Investments and Securities were in a tall high-rise nicknamed "The Spire" on account of its very thin profile. The black needle stretched upwards, pointing towards the sky in a manner that would be more appropriate for a spy agency from a thriller-vid than a mundane office space. It wasn't even that exclusive—anybody could rent a block of desks for a reasonable number of allocs. Emma suspected that one of Governance's many architects had gotten cheeky one day and put together a design that spoke more to the oddness of their sense of humor than to their practical engineering skill.

"Didn't bring your girlfriend with you?" Anna asked as she buzzed them in. "Or your boyfriend? Mum and Dad would have been interested in meeting them."

"Doesn't seem like a good time," said Emma, shrugging and stuffing her hands in the pocket of her hoodie.

"You don't think so?"

Emma gave her sister a raised eyebrow as they reached the lifts. "Do you?"

Anna shrugged. "Could be worse. I don't think we're going to do anything crazy today. It's just going over some finances."

"You'd think so," said Emma, frowning. "And yet…"

The elevator dinged as it arrived to escort them upwards. They rode in silence, Anna distracted by something on her implants while Emma counted the number of spots in the tile of the elevator's floor.

The elevator dinged again.

"Oh, Anna, I was just about to send you a message," said a passing analyst. "It's looking like Syklon's going to be able to pull through after all. Do you have a moment today to go over the analysis?"

"Sure, let me get my sister situated," said Anna. "Did changing suppliers work for them?"

"Uh, yes, or at least it did something positive," said the analyst, blinking at Emma before focusing back on Anna. "I'll forward you the data tables and we can go over them later."

"Sounds good, thanks Holly."

The analyst nodded, glancing at Emma one last time before heading off.

"…sounds like a busy day," Emma said after a moment.

"Yeah, Syklon's got some weird stuff in their supply chain that shouldn't really be there," said Anna, rolling her eyes as she gestured for Emma to follow her. "They're a turboelectric propulsion startup that's supposed to be specializing in small-scale stuff for, say, motorcycles. Why in the world they're buying from a bulk raw materials producer who normally sells direct to Governance for *battlecruiser construction* I have no idea. Their business strategy doesn't involve transitioning to military contracting any time soon."

"Maybe they're trying to make contacts?"

"Go to a trade conference?" Anna asked rhetorically. "If you didn't waste all your money on this sort of contract, maybe you'd be able to afford it?"

"True."

"Anyway, Mum and Dad are waiting for us in Conference Room B," said Anna. "Are you… ready? Or do you want some time?"

Anna shifted awkwardly.

"Now who's being pessimistic?" Emma asked, stepping past her sister with a droll expression. "May as well get this over with."

Conference Room B was frigidly cold, even by magical girl standards. Emma's father was glaring at the thermostat when they walked in while her mother leaned against the wall next to him, drinking a rapidly cooling cup of tea while reading something on her implants.

"There's a drone in the system working on it," said Catherine Sinclair as Anna flinched backwards at the temperature. She took a sip of tea and flicked her document shut. "We're about to move somewhere else. How are you two doing?"

"Fine," said Emma, glancing over at the thermostat with her implants. "What did Dad do?"

"I just changed the temperature," James Sinclair said with a frown. He threw his hands up in frustration. "It's just a setting! This thermostat is stupid!"

"We know dear," said Catherine soothingly, patting him on the shoulder. "We'll find somewhere else to talk. I think Conference Room F is open?"

"Yes, I think so," said James, sighing and gathering his things. "Sorry Emma. You'd think that in this day and age we'd have figured out air conditioning…"

"I could tell you some fun stories from the sims," Emma said dryly, looking up at the air vents in the ceiling. Condensation misted out of them, and for a moment they flickered the dull green of cephalopod poison gas. Emma swallowed. "B-but that's probably something for later."

"I'd like to speak to you later, alone, if you're available," Catherine texted to Emma as the family re-embarked in search of a conference room. "You have patrol, today, I think?"

"I can check if anyone's free to take my slot," said Emma. "My shift has a lot of girls on it anyway, so it shouldn't be too big of a deal."

"If you could that would be good," said Catherine. "Thank you."

"No worries."

Emma sent the request into the system as the James stuck his head into another conference room. "Right, this seems fine."

"Today, I'd like to go over the current state of affairs for HSIS and make a few plans for the future," said James as they sat down. A holographic image appeared above the table, introducing a presentation. "This is going to be kind of dry, so I apologize ahead of time."

The presentation was indeed dry. Emma ended up zoning out and letting her TacComp record the conversation, pulling her attention back when something particularly notable came up. The company's finances were holding steady for now, but only through a series of lucky guesses and extraordinary efforts. It wasn't wise to depend on that for much longer; something needed to change. Ayumi's wedding placed serious pressure on the Sinclairs to reposition themselves more quickly, accelerating plans in ways that made life more and more difficult. And this wasn't even getting into the Burnside-Sinclair Matriarchy knocking on their door.

"We'll have to consolidate a lot of our major resources and start putting out feelers for expansion," Anna said as the presentation concluded. She blinked through a few sheets of data on her implants. "It's going to take time to lock down against the initial incursion, and afterwards we can't allow 'lack of adequate growth' to be the reason our valuation tanks. I can put together a few ideas and we'll go over them later?"

"That sounds like a good idea," said Catherine. "I'd like to speak with Emma about this privately. We'll meet later for lunch and go over your ideas, Anna?"

Anna and Emma glanced at each other, but nodded.

"A strategy talk isn't the best excuse," Emma texted to her mother as they walked towards Catherine's office.

"No, but I talked to your father about this and he was okay with it," Catherine texted back.

"Why didn't you tell Anna?"

"It didn't seem relevant," said Catherine. "Should I have?"

Emma thought about that one for a moment.

"Maybe, maybe not," she eventually replied. "I don't know that she could have done anything."

"I thought so too. Maybe it would have been better anyway."

Emma shrugged as they entered Catherine's office and shut the door behind them. "Maybe. I'm not too good at that sort of thing. What did you want to talk about?"

Catherine gestured across her desk. "Have a seat."

Emma sat. "…Did you actually want to talk about strategy?"

"Something like that," said Catherine Sinclair, leaning back in her chair and fixing Emma with a piercing look. She folded her legs and lay her fingers against each other, steepling the tips one by one until they braced her face like the buttresses of an ancient church. She was silent for a long time.

"I've been a bad mother," Catherine said finally, sighing and letting her arms drop. "I should never have pulled you out of football in London. Your father has his hand in that, yes, but at least for my part I could have tried to push back. I took the easy way out, and abused my power as your mother to make you do what I wanted you to do. I've always thought that way, you know. Treated the people around me as resources. Humans, yes, but still resources. Humans have to be managed, you have to make them happy and want to do the things you want them to do. It's exhausting."

Emma shifted uncomfortably and was suddenly very glad that she was alone. Her mother didn't… open up like this. Ever.

"It was strange, when your father and I decided to have children," Catherine continued. "We wanted two. We're still not sure why, but it was important to us that we have two. Maybe it was because we each wanted to have influence over one of you, to fuel our egos, but I like to think I'm not that terrible of a person. I didn't— you and I weren't supposed to have this kind of antagonistic relationship. I remember when your father and I were talking about it, we had fantasies of taking you and your sister visiting places and seeing things that most people only ever saw in vids. Instead…"

Emma swallowed, leaning forward to rest her elbows on her knees and press her forehead against her hands.

"As a family, we're very good at what we do," Catherine eventually said with a sigh. "I don't mean business. We're good at making decisions and, when the chips are down, to take that leap of faith that is necessary to come out on top. It also means that when we fail, when a bad decision is made, that we fail very hard. You and your sister are the greatest things that have ever happened to me, and to your father, and I took you for granted when I should have made sure that you knew that I loved you."

Emma pulled back in her seat, startled, and was transfixed by her mother's fierce stare. "…Really?"

"Yes," said Catherine. "I just wish that it hadn't taken a wish for me to realize it. I'm sorry, Emma."

"It's alright," Emma said quietly. The two of them stared at each other across the desk for a long moment, wrapped up in their own thoughts.

"This is a contract releasing your assets in the company to your sister," said Catherine, flicking the document across the desk. "You never wanted to be part of HSIS, right? I wanted to give this opportunity to you."

Emma looked down. "I, Emma Sinclair, do hereby and completely transfer my shares and other assets to my sister, Anna Sinclair," she read out loud. Emma pushed the document back. "I can't accept this."

"I can absolve you completely if—"

"What I mean is," said Emma, "that I can't— I'm not leaving HSIS."

Catherine blinked at her. "What?"

"I came in here today prepared to do what I could to help," said Emma, swallowing. "I've talked about it a bit with Anna, and spent some time thinking about it myself. It's a pain, and I can't make it into my entire life, but…"

"I cannot promise you that I will treat you differently, if you work here," said Catherine. "As my daughter, I have failed you, but as my employee, I expect differently. Think very carefully about this choice."

"I'm expressing interest, not making a commitment," said Emma. "And besides, transferring my shares entirely would be too extreme. There are other ways that we can solve this problem. But we're still family, and I still can help, a little."

Catherine closed her eyes again and took a deep breath. "If this truly is what you want, then I will support you," she eventually said. "We will need to discuss many details, and not all of them will be pleasant. Are you ready to do that now, or would you like to wait a little?"

Emma shook her head. "Let's get it over with as soon as possible."

"Very well."

"The biggest problem is your relationship with Ryouta Shizuki."

Emma sighed and crossed her arms from her seat at the head of the conference room table. "Yes, I expected as much."

"What this ultimately means is that you must be compartmentalized and kept out of our high level discussions," said Ian Ward, the general manager of HSIS's day-to-day operations. He was tall and strongly built, an ex-rugby player that had come over from London when the company moved. He, and much of the other high level management at HSIS, had been called together with the rest of Emma's family to the only conference room that could accommodate a dozen people and give them enough space to work effectively. "It's… not an ideal place, for an heiress to be."

Emma waved a dismissive hand. "Information security is important and I got the ego beat out of me in basic training, so I don't care. How does this effect HSIS?"

"It makes us look bad, and it'll be an ongoing scandal as long as you're dating him."

Emma sighed and leaned back in her chair, letting her head droop across it's back. "I suddenly regret my life decisions."

A chuckle rippled through the room.

"It could be worse," noted one of the executives. "Actually defecting to the Shizuki Matriarchy would have been worse."

"You can do that?" Emma asked, turning in the swivel chair. "What happens, do they just adopt you?"

"Apparently there's more paperwork involved, but that's essentially correct," said the executive, shrugging.

"Maybe we could get Catherine and James adopted in then," said another executive dryly. "At that point, there'd be nothing to fight about."

This drew another laugh around the table and made Emma and Anna make deeply disturbed faces. The idea alone was just… gross.

"Okay, seriously though, why can't you spin me off into a separate division?" Emma asked, leaning forward again and gesturing to draw on the projector. "Make it something reasonably important sounding, and just make sure that I don't fuck it up somehow."

"The easiest way is to just say that your sister is managing it for you while you're at war," said Ian, "but that puts a substantial load on Anna, who has enough on her plate already."

"Mimic the military and put a warrant officer in place," said Emma. She flicked an image at the projector, drawing out the basic chain of command in all magical girl infantry platoons. "There's lots of magical girls who are terrible combat leaders. Our job is to make sure we recognize it in ourselves and pass command to the platoon warrant officer if that's the case. The situation we face here isn't that different."

There was a brief silence. "…well, as business models go, that's probably reasonable," Ian eventually said. "I would perhaps express it differently to the public, but it's essentially doable."

"Do you have someone in mind?" asked James.

"There's a few, mostly young bucks who could use an opportunity to shine," said Ian. "We can make the arrangements and then get everyone together to get to know each other within a few days."

"Then it's settled," said Catherine. "We'll put something together on a trial basis. Ian, can you coordinate the efforts? James and I should recuse ourselves for bias, but whatever you need in resources, just let us know."

"Of course."

"In the broad view, you know, all this fuss over HSIS is a bit petty," said James as he spiked a slice of tomato in his salad during lunch. He glanced out the window at the veranda, where Emma was taking a call on her implants. "In the end, this is all a struggle for power and influence, neither of which is really that important. If all we cared about was allocs, then turning over as much of the business as we could to the Shizuki Corporation would be completely reasonable. Unfortunately, perhaps, that's not what this is about."

"The truth is, there are other things more important," said Catherine. She sighed. "It's easy to forget that, when you're focused on the goal."

"You two are being awfully grim today," Anna said, raising an eyebrow and stirring her quinoa bowl. "What's gotten into you?"

"Well, Emma will be going back to the front soon," said James.

Anna winced. "Ah. Right. I forgot."

"Sorry."

"It's just, how do you give up something that's such an important part of you when someone tries to take it away?" James continued. He sighed, glancing at Emma again.

"I think— I mean, it wasn't a good call," Anna said quietly. "But I think that, all things considered, Emma does forgive you. We just have to move forward from here."

James snorted. "You're not wrong," he said. "Very smart. Just like your mother, Anna."

"Dad…"

Catherine laughed and patted her husband's hand. "It's not often you get a second chance. We'll make the best of it."

The family returned to eating, pushing the dark thoughts away for the moment. Emma returned a moment later, grinning broadly.

"So that was the Soul Guard recruiting office," she said, sitting down. "I've been accepted into the program."

"Oh! Congratulations!"

"That's wonderful Emma!"

"Thanks," said Emma. She tucked a lock of hair behind her ear. "I— yeah. Thanks."

"So what happens now?" asked Anna. "You mentioned more training or something?"

"Yeah, it's a week long of additional training," said Emma. "Nothing too crazy. Soul Guard are good but they're not, like, Grenadier Platoons or Aerial Assault. If I do any of that, it'll be after getting some experience as a regular Soul Guard officer."

"They're like the magical girl police then?" asked James. "I hadn't realized that was necessary."

"Well, a magical girl's ability to subvert implant controls is well known at this point," said Emma, suddenly looking uncomfortable. "So, er, well, you do need someone who can stand up to a magical girl, you know?"

"Ah, yes, that makes sense," said James. "When will training begin?"

"A week or so," said Emma. "It basically supplants my immediate deployment. Afterwards I'll do a tour on an inner colony to get used to standard Soul Guard operations, before transferring to the front."

"That's good," said Catherine. "Your father and I were worried about you. Any delay in your schedule makes us feel that much better."

"We should celebrate," said Anna. "Maybe get some of your friends together?"

Emma nodded and smiled.

"We should. I'll make a few calls."