"—moko? Tomoko?"
Someone was gently nudging her.
Tomoko found herself blinking her eyes, instinctively trying to raise her hand to rub the sleep sand from them only to find that her arms were stuck in something heavy. Her thoughts were disoriented, vivid dreams of fighting someone with sad eyes mixing with memories of talking to a big sister with sad eyes…
Gentle hands helped pull her upright even as Tomoko remembered taking pictures with some kind of oblong black and white creature—penguins, her still addled memory provides—in a white, cold place while some sort of three-legged war machine burned in the background. She shook her head, covering her eyes to try to focus. Someone was taking off the helmet on her head…
"She's disoriented," a voice said. It sounded like her voice… "Little sister, please open your eyes. Open your eyes and look into this. Please?"
Her mind latched onto the words, and she opened her eyes, find herself looking at a disheveled girl with long purple hair. She looked like she had been crying, and Tomoko instinctive reached out to—
Her hand grasped nothing but air, and Tomoko blinked in confusion, wondering what was wrong. The disheveled girl blinked, looking like she was wondering what was happening…
Wait…
Tomoko blinked again, finally able to realize she was looking at her reflection. The recognition anchored her sense of self, helping her begin to tell the difference between dream and memory…
"I'm here, Tomoko. I'm here…"
She felt someone holding her hand, and forced herself to look away from her reflection. Brown eyes met hers, and a familiar face framed by pale brown hair. For a moment, the dreams rose once more, until she saw a glint of white. It was a hairpin with white flowers on it…
"Mitsuki…?"
"It's me, it's me," her crèche-sister said reassuringly. Crèche-sister. Yes, crèche-sister. Not… "Can you tell me what we did yesterday?"
Yesterday? Yesterday, she had been…
Two sets of recollections came to her, both of them vivid. For a moment, both were real, and she felt herself torn—
The hand holding hers squeezed gently.
We. What we did yesterday…
"We went to the makerlab to finish putting together our tent," Tomoko said, finding herself struggling to remember something so recent. So much had happened between then and now… "Chloe told us how to layer the materials, and we all took charge of a panel and sewed the seams together…" She remembered the vibration of the sewing machine under her hands, how she set it to move slowly because she'd been worried of tearing the material. "Then we sewed it all together, and we had to unravel two parts because we accidentally sewed it while there was a fold, so it wasn't straight, and the other time we accidentally sewed it into one of the other panels…"
The words helped her center herself, Mitsuki's hand on her an anchor that kept her tethered to reality. The dreams remained vivid, but they were becoming less certain in her mind as she asserted her own memories. Tomoko was almost completely certain she hadn't spent yesterday filling a cloning tube with nutrient solution in preparation for making a prototype clone to make sure she understood all the steps of the process properly…
Tomoko cut off mid-word as she realized her own thought. Those had been the preparations to create Nikaede, hadn't it? The first clone, the one who'd betrayed Kaede and impersonated her. Her ma—big sisters had told Tomoko stories about her. The thought helped her put the dreams into context.
"Tomoko?"
Tomoko blinked. "Sorry. Ah, once the tent was finished, we rolled carbon fiber sheets into rods and machined metal fittings to get them to connect together. Then we test-fitted everything to make sure the tent assembled properly. After that, we made a carry bag for the tent, then went back home to pack up our sleeping bags and nice clothes for… for today."
She felt silent, and Mitsuki didn't press her. Now that she felt more steady and less confused, Tomoko finally focused on Mitsuki. The other girl looked haggard, and despite how reassuring her voice had been, her crèche-sister looked tired. There were tear tracks on her cheeks. "Are you all right?" she asked.
Mitsuki have her weak smile. "No," she said, and left it at that.
Tomoko didn't press.
The two just sat together, still holding hands, the chamber quiet and subdued around them. Tomoko let her eyes wander around the now-dimly lit Testimony chamber, only one of every three ceiling lights still glowing at a much lower intensity. Other crèche-sisters were sitting in their now-open Testimony units, with many looking subdued. A few units over she saw Ai, the only other person in their production batch who didn't have normal magic, being tended to by Michelle and Amara, the former still holding a mirror up to Ai's face. Despite the distance between them, Ai turned her head as if she felt Tomoko's gaze, their eyes meeting across the room. Tomoko didn't doubt that Ai had received the same warning from the big sister about side effects of not being able to synchronize with the Testimony. Just having some kind of magic didn't exactly fix the problem.
Almost immediately, Tomoko looked away, guilt filling her at the mean and petty thought. It wasn't Ai's fault that she had been decanted with some sort of usable magic while Tomoko had essentially been a baseline human.
She and Mitsuki sat in silence, still holding hands.
It was some time before any of the crèche-sisters mustered the will to get up, put on their shoes, collect their buddy, and leave the Testimony chamber. Tomoko didn't see who it was, but she heard the footsteps and the door opening and closing. That seemed to be the signal as girls started forcing themselves to their feet, with many people using the now-quiet Testimony units and each other to stay upright. The big sisters who had been sitting unobtrusively in the room helped them get to their feet, offering more water and something stronger for those who still had headaches. In two and threes and growing groups, the Kaedekin—a term that suddenly felt more potent and meaningful as Tomoko thought of it—left the room quietly. More than a few went back to the restroom to use the sinks to wash their faces.
The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.
Save for some wet hair and a damp sleeve, Chloe already looked recovered, her usual confident smile on her face. She had Reiko and Meiya on either side of her, an arm around their waists to hold them close as she helped them stand. The two leaned against her, both still nursing a mild headache. One of the big sisters had given them some headache medicine, but it would be a while before it took effect. Rain was walking carefully with one hand on the wall, her steps tentative and clearly ready to lean on it as needed as she walked behind Lorelei, who was looking more displeased than usual as she used her fully extended staff as a walking stick.
Around them the hospital and cloning crèche continued as usual, its everyday sounds familiar from times they'd volunteered to assist. Big sisters who crossed their path stopped and made way for them, a sympathetic look on their faces. They knew. They all knew…
Of course they did. Everyone who became an adult knew, wouldn't they? Because all adults had Kaede's legacy in their head.
I'm sorry. I'm so… so… sorry…
Tomoko shook her head to clear the memory of the dream away. Everyone looked at her… and started shaking their heads as well.
… were they making fun of her? That was uncalled for! She hadn't even been doing anything funny!
"Sorry," Chloe said as if reading her mind. Sometimes Tomoko wondered if Chloe knew kind of special magic no one else did. "It's just… you had such sad eyes and…" She shook her head again. "Yeah, Kaede clearly had a strong reaction to girls with sad eyes."
Ah. She knew what Chloe was talking about now. Just the thought caused a dream-like memory to flash vividly in her mind, of a green-haired girl wielding purple vennlightning as she fought with Kaede in the air, their eyes meeting as the magical pseudo-electricity was blocked by Kaede's shields…
Mitsuki's hand squeezed, and Tomoko pulled herself away from more memories of Kaede and the girl fighting, talking, and in school together. She gave her closest friend a grateful smile as they finally reached the front door of the building. Outside, the daylamps were out their brightest, even as the skylights—and now she knew why they were called skylights—far above were still shrouded in Surcease's near-perpetual darkness. There was a breeze as the town's internal air circulation simulated the prevailing wind conditions, causing the leaves of the decorative alumbark trees to sway slightly.
At one end of the park, little sisters were playing tag in a field, glowing bullets of venn flying between them as plentifully as laughter as they tried to hit one another. Tagged little sisters let out cries of dismay and had to run back to the respawn tree to tag it before they could play again. Some distance away on another field, a few older sisters were doing some light sparring, light flaring as their buddies prevented any direct contact to keep anyone from getting hurt as they stayed within the confines of a circle of glowing vennlights. Tomoko watched as one long-haired girl parried aside her opponent's spear and caused the spearhead to stab into the ground before stepping on the haft to keep it in place as she swung her sword down on her opponent's head.
The familiar sights of everyday life finally grounded Tomoko. This was reality, where the sky was black because of spiritstuff enshrouding the planet, nearly everyone could fly, and no one outside of those in the space service had ever seen the sun (which had an actual name instead of being just 'the sun'). Blue skies, bright days, cats, dogs, superheroes, monsters that stole souls and happiness and hope… they were things of memory from a world that had been left behind a long time ago.
"So!" Chloe said brightly. "I don't know about you girls, but I'm officially and unofficially an adult now, so there's an appointment with my gunsmith to get my new grenade launcher I can go to now. You girls wanna come with me?"
"Chloe, why are we here and not at the weapon lab?" Reiko asked as the seven of them stared at the storefront Chloe had led them to. Sandwiched between a food bank and garden supply depot was a place that enthusiastically declared itself 'Sophie's Arsenal Workshop'.
"Because big sis Sophie really likes what she does, and they stopped letting her sleep in the weapon lab after she basically lived there for a week," Chloe said. "So she applied for a storefront with attached apartment, had her friends help her put together the machines and tools she needed, and started her own place. My big sis is one of her friends, so I've been coming here for nearly all my gunwork since I was ten. Big sis put in a request for an under-barrel grenade launcher and an under-barrel shogun for me a couple of weeks ago as a decanting day present." With a grin, she patted the dark red rectangle on her back, her rifle in its collapsed form. "Now I can legally take possession of it and fit it into Glass Heart's rig. Come on, big sis Sophie sees us." She waved at the big sister smiling at them through the storefront windows, and skipped to the door, pushing it open to the sound of a bell.
Everyone else followed her with polite curiosity, looking at the various pieces hanging in the front half of the store front to either display the big sister's skill, because they looked nice, or because they were interesting. There was bolt action rifle with a silvery alumbark stock, a boxy thing that seemed to be some kind of railgun, a sword hilt that had a gun built into the crossguard that lacked a blade, and what the label next to it declared was a 'fully-automatic combat grenade launcher with a large capacity drum magazine'. Just looking at them made her wrists hurt to think of the recoil they must have—ooh, pistol drum magazines! How was the balance on those?
The back of the storefront was equipped like a weapon lab. There were 3D material printers, CNC machines, a lathe, a reloading press, a venecite grinder, bins full of empty shells in various sizes and metals… they were all crammed into a space that was far smaller than what Tomoko has used to when working with weapons. Given that there was a sealed cabinet labelled 'Venecite. Keep Heat Sources Away' in the same room, she hoped the material printers had very good cooling for when they printed with molten aluminum. A radio next to the venecite cabinet was tuned to a news channel, which was talking about the apparent cessation of hostilities between the Frontier Cooperative and the Shinkamrai Hegemony according to the latest decoded transmissions the space service had managed to pick up and made available.
"Hey, Chloe!" Sophie said as she turned off the radio, standing behind metal counter with a glass case underneath that contained various kinds of bayonets for attachementt to a standard under-barrel rail. "Happy Decanting Day!"
"Thanks, big sis!" Chloe said cheerfully. "I'm here to pick up and fit my new tubes?"
"I'm going to need to have White Dragon see some ID to confirm you're authorized!"
Chloe reached up to her chest pocket and unclipped Glass Heart. "My authorization's right here!"
Sophie pulled out her own buddy, and the two off them tapped the two together. Completely unnecessary, since the two buddies could communicate across the planet, never mind from arm's length.
"Authorization confirmed with Quiet Rise town database," White Dragon said. "Client Chloe is officially an adult. All general acquisitions are now authorized."
Tomoko watched as Chloe straightened, the smile on her face growing very pleased, and resolved to do something that would require having her ID checked as soon as she could.
