Rebirth

A moment later the spell is broken as she drops her hand and glances over, “Rowena, if you would? And please go ahead and move the space station back into its proper orbit since it's no longer necessary to be backed up enough for the message to be visible.”

Rowena nods, “Of course Creator.”

She'd very purposely chosen not to make the window looking at Mars double as a terminal screen, partly to counter any ridiculous accusations that she'd somehow faked it all, which is why a screen comes sliding out from behind a panel that opens up on the wall, though it only extends far enough to cover the half of the window behind her. It immediately flicks on, “I suppose I should briefly explain Rowena. She's a fully sentient AI I made, which is why she chooses to refer to me as Creator. Anyway, there are many pros and cons to Venus compared to Mars. I'll try to give a brief overview rather than bore everyone with details, though those are being released as I speak.”

She goes over them, short and to the point as she'd said as each point is added to the screen, a line down the middle with each half having a large label of Mars on one side and Venus on the other, which are themselves split into two more parts for pros of each and cons of each. She keeps it as professional as possible, but there's a not zero chance she's subtly throwing shade at how poor the plan Edward Clark has is and how little it's been thought out.

When she's done, she turns back to the reporters, who still seem a little dumbfounded, but have by and large regained their professional demeanors, “I have been working towards this steadily for years, with a good bit of what I've done being a part of it, the flying magic to get a space station moving without rocket fuel, the spell specifically designed to separate gasses like oxygen out of solids and liquids like water for getting a functioning atmosphere, and the thermonuclear fusion gravity control type magic sequences reactor for clean power.”

“As such, my official response to the invitation to Project Dione is this: I appreciate being given an offer for such an important job as trying to help with overpopulation, but as I already have a plan I've been working on further along for with what I personally feel is a better choice in Mars rather than Venus, I have to decline.”

“On a personal level, compared to my own, Project Dione feels more..." She purposely pauses to let them fill that in with the less polite things, idiotic, sloppy, inferior, "rushed. I do understand that the problem is something that must be acted on swiftly, but failing to properly plan heightens the possibility of things going wrong. That being said, no one ever stated that only one of our projects could occur, and it would be better for humanity overall if they both happen.

“Having said that, terraforming Venus isn't at all a bad idea, and if anything, I'd encourage Mister Clark to continue forward with his plan. Something I'm more than happy to assist with, even if I can't work on it personally, in the form of technologies such as the Teleport Gates and others that could possibly help as well as materials. Rather than being in competition, I would sincerely prefer if we assisted each other where possible, since both projects ultimately have the goal of bettering things for humanity as a whole. Circling back to the question of my response to accepting his offer however, I have zero intentions of abandoning a project ten years in the making right as its reaching fruition.”

Someone raises a hand and she gestures for them to speak, “Ten years in the making?”

Rowena is the one who responds, “I can answer that.”

She glances at her in question, and getting an approving nod, changes what's displaying on the screen to start showing videos of steps along the way. From her child self speaking to the orb that was Rowena's only form barring the golems at the time as she creates flying magic, to that same child building the first rocket as well as drones to go inside it using Rowena's designs, to a video from the cameras on the completed rocket as she removes it from the crate and has Rowena take it to space.

Rowena talks the entire time on each section, continuing to explain the process as the videos briefly show Rowena gathering up the previous space debris as the ‘rouge satellite’ and recycling the materials. Occasionally having to modify them since they aren't up to her standards and either adding to the rocket as it slowly becomes the space station, adding more drones, or just storing it after reprocessing for later use.

As the rocket turned space station takes off after gathering the last of the space debris, the video moves to only take to the top half of the screen, fast forwarding at breathtaking speed for most of it and only slowing down at key parts. Namely as it hits the asteroid belt and starts dropping off other Teleport Gates and drones for mining as it goes in a circle, which a sort-of top down view of a drawing of the solar system with a steady drawn circle with dots where each drop off happened is showing.

Eventually, it completes its circle at Mars and Rowena shows the video of her parking the Space Station behind it while explaining that they wanted to wait until it was in a good spot for the observatory to view for the reveal. Though, that wasn't to say that they'd wasted the time they were waiting, since they got started on installing the gravity generators spread out on the planet in what Rowena calculated were the optimal locations.

After that, with another glance to be sure it's fine, she starts going over the general plan for the terraforming as well, keeping it brief but making sure to let them know that details on that will also be released publicly for anyone to look over. As she explains, the screen shows a list of the relevant things Tōkōkuro Mihana has released over the years off to the side, but each turns green and locks in as its part of the plan is brought up.

She looks away from where she had been watching Rowena going over things idly as she finishes with a bow, turning back to the crowd of reporters, “Anyway, I am fully willing to hand control of the Mars Space Station over to an international body put together to manage it by the international community, but I do have some demands first. For transparency's sake, I will not be sending these through email, but actually be showing them here and now.”

As she says that, Rowena pulls up her list and she continues, “As you can see, these aren't things that are really for my benefit. That worldwide message was right if you ask me, so they are things like the reinstallation of the Geneva Conventions, and since we all know that as Mars becomes terraformed that it's not going to stay international property, I want a unanimous agreement on what the borders on Mars will be preemptively. On that note, for any nation who may try to drag their feet on agreeing with the rest on the proposed borders, I'd like to remind you that you get no new land on Mars until the agreement is reached. That being said, here is a projection of the sea level after water has been brought to Mars to assist with that.”

The list slides to the side a little and the slowly turning image of Mars and its seas pops into the now empty space, “Additionally, I want there to be a fifty year grace period after terraforming is complete and a total ban while its in progress in which there is not to be war on Mars, as I do not wish to see countries fighting over territory almost immediately after the planet is viable enough to conduct them there. If nothing else the planet may be fragile as it adjusts to its new terraformation, and I expect the other nations of the international body to intervene and stop the aggressor, as well as hold them accountable in some way.”

“I don't care how it's decided, if you split it equally, if you go by percentages of land you hold on Earth and lay claim to a similar percentage of Mars’ land, or any of that, but it has to be unanimous. And to that end, so no one can claim that their government didn't agree because they were in conflict and there were changes by the end, any nation that is in the middle of internal conflict needs to have both sides come to an agreement with one another on who their representative is.”

“I don't care if you facilitate this by making peace or promising to split the new territory on Mars and turn it into two countries or any other agreement. That being said, I will remind you that if you do the last one, since you agreed on the representative, any new nation born from an agreement like that, given they had a say in the representative, inherits the agreement for things like the fifty year ban of war on Mars.”

One of the reporters with a distinctly American accent, presumably trying desperately to do something, anything to curb her plan, bites out, “Selfish much?”

She smiles at the crowd with humor, “If I was being selfish about it, I'd be adding a demand to Japan specifically to legalize polygamous marriage so me and my fiancé can marry our shared girlfriend we've been together with just as long as we've been in a relationship with one another.”

That gets a decent bit of laughter and someone calls out, “Japan should do it anyway as thanks for all you've done!”

She laughs at that, then shakes her head, “Anyway, I wasn't kidding when I said Mars will likely be too fragile for war for a while, because planets aren't thinking things, but even they need time to adjust to large changes. Such as terraforming. And also, if nothing else, I think it'd be wiser to poke around a bit cautiously on the potential repercussions before anything major happens.”

“Yes, as Rowena explained, this is supposed to use magic based equipment to terraform it to be like Earth when it comes to conditions like gravity and atmosphere and all that. But who knows what sort of repercussions things like large scale magic attacks will have on things like the artificial gravity that's being maintained and is not the planet's natural state. Because I, along with Ushiyama and Rowena, have done our best to design those not to do so, but while it shouldn't tear the planet apart, there would undoubtedly be some wild repercussions if the artificial gravity generators failed on only one region of the planet for some reason.”

There are some nervous glances and murmurs at the very idea and what that could cause, which she lets linger for a moment before shaking her head, “Anyhow. Once these are met, I'll hand over the rights to the Mars Space Station to the previously mentioned international body. Though as you can see by this clause, I'll still be leading the terraforming project, though that's just to make sure it's done properly. It's just that the Mars Space Station won't belong to me.”

“Neither will any of the previously mentioned artificial gravity generators. Though on the topic of agreeing to borders prior, one of those demands is treating the facilities they're at and the land they're on as international property so they can be inspected by teams set up by the international body easily to make sure everything is in order and they aren't being neglected. Again, see potential repercussions to the gravity generators failing on one region of the planet as reasoning.”

There are nods and murmurs of agreement at that, “I will say that even at that point I will not be handing over rights to the Teleport Gates around the asteroid belt nor the mining drones,” Multiple hands shoot up, “but that is by and large to preemptively stop the materials being sold at exorbitant prices. Additionally, I absolutely intend to just give the mined materials needed for terraforming to the project -which I'll remind you that I'll still be part of- over for free.”

The hands drop, “This is just to prevent the control of them being practically weaponized, being used in some sort of criminal scheme, or price gouging. Since it's free until the terraforming is complete, I've actually included a criteria list of when it will be considered complete to ensure that there isn't any nonsense regarding it just perpetually being deemed ‘incomplete’ to secure the materials for free. Furthermore, Rowena will be monitoring their use to ensure they're used for the terraforming as well as the progress to make sure there isn't any feet dragging from those trying to secure some of it for themselves regardless of her monitoring.”

She shakes her head, “That being said, some sort of agreement as to how we'll go about laying claim fairly to asteroids for mining will need to be reached prior, but I am not inherently against renting rights to use the Teleportation Gates for others who wish to set up their own mining operations.”

Someone raises a hand and she gestures for them to speak, “A bit of a side step, but won't that potentially cause a lot of arguments in and of itself? I've heard in the past that there's an asteroid that has a mind boggling amount of gold for instance.”

She responds dryly, “Which would be more likely to crash economies or gold value than anything.” She shakes her head, “That being said, I thought of that myself already. There's a reason I said I'd give the materials for terraforming and not that I'd give them all though, and that's because while I don't intend to keep it for myself, I already mined that asteroid.”

Someone else raises a hand, speaking after she gestures to them, “What do you intend to do with it if I may ask?”

She hums, “If I can find a way to go about it without crashing economies or something, while I don't personally have any obligation since it wasn't my assets that caused the damage and all I did was claim abandoned assets when I was harvesting the previous space debris for the Mars Space Station, I would actually like to use at least some of it to compensate the living relatives of those who suffered from the negligence of the space debris prior. Money obviously doesn't do anything for the pain of the loss, nor does it bring them back, but the damage that was done has been ignored for too long, and they deserve compensation.”

“Rowena has already been scouring the internet as a means of confirming those that would be eligible so there aren't people coming out of the woodwork with false claims, and she'll also be in charge of verifying all claims before the potential payout. Again, we would need to look into how to go about doing it without crashing economies and the like which along with compensation for damages to towns is why I said use some and not all, so there may be a delay.”

Her voice turns dry, “Once we have though, Rowena will announce the details on how we will go about it, so if you get any sort of emails about it prior or that don't line up with how she has revealed she intends to go about getting in touch, those are absolutely scams, so just delete them.” There's some chuckles, and she shakes her head, “Anyway, once we sort out the details, we intend to do the payout directly rather than handing it over to governments, mostly to ensure there isn't someone who decides to skim off the top.”

There are murmurs of approval at that and she smiles before shaking her head as she shifts the topic a bit, “Circling back to the conditions for handing the Mars Space Station over, as one final point, let me be clear that there is something of a time limit to agreeing to my conditions. I do intend to begin recruitment for pressing forward on terraforming, and if it gets up to halfway done before the conditions are met, the offer will be off the table.”

“At that point, regardless of whether you're an individual, a company, or a nation you will have to purchase land from the international Green Mars Organization I have set up with the cooperation and assistance of others.” Rowena brings up a list of names of those she and Asha reached out to, “Who will be in charge of the terraforming that we intend to work with the international body if you agree to the conditions to make sure that the jobs are given based on qualifications rather than any sort of favoritism or anything like that.”

There are more murmurs of approval at that as well, and she flashes a warm smile, “Now, any questions?”

Immediately hands shoot up, and she settles in for this part of the press conference, but she feels like she's done a damn good job at relaxing the atmosphere, and she's fairly confident any hostility due to her lack of official response to Edward Clark prior has been firmly swept away, so it's not likely to be all that much of a chore.

Well, not in the form of any of them -barring the two reporters who are probably working for Clark- being unpleasant anyway. She'd still genuinely prefer a quiet life. The moral aspect on their wrongdoings obviously infuriates her more, but outing her as Mihana was absolutely her second peeve with the Clarks, she'll absolutely admit that to herself and her soulmates.

Speaking of, while it's not likely to be unpleasant, she still can't wait for this to be over and to go back to the villa, which Sora and Miho have already promised to be at when she gets back to celebrate the setup portion of her terraforming plan coming to fruition. As well as, for her soulmates at least, probably the fact that now that it's public, it's not all on her shoulders with only Rowena for help.

Sora had promised he'd cook her favorite for dinner to commemorate the achievement, which she was absolutely looking forward to. Much like she was looking forward to what would inevitably go down in her bed later.

Even if it's her celebration, she'll have to show her appreciation and give them both the gifts she bought and some special attention in bed for giving her so much support with her project. Yes, they'd been exasperated when she started getting ideas after overhearing that information show talking about overpopulation years ago, but they'd still supported her however they could after she made up her mind and made it clear she couldn't let it go in good conscience.

He's staring at his father's back from where he's standing at his desk, hunched over with his hands laying flat. The silence is suffocating, but he doesn't dare break it. Without warning, his father suddenly shoves his hands to the side, sweeping everything off of his desk as he lets out a wordless shout of pure rage.

It admittedly alarms him, given he's never seen his father lose his cool, “Father-!”

His voice is arctic, “Do not test my patience right now Raymond.” He falls silent and his father punches the wall, hard enough that there's a smear of blood left behind from his fist, his voice a dangerous growl, “That absolute harlot.”

He hesitates, not wanting to anger his father even more, “What- What are we going to do father?”

He shoves his bloody hand back through his hair in aggravation, but Raymond decides it's probably best not to point out that he's smearing blood in his hair right now, given the way he's already aggrieved. He's still practically growling like an animal, “I tried to be merciful and gave her a way to live peacefully while dealing with the threat that she is. Pulling what she did though… She's left me no choice but to go with Igor's plan and just eliminate her.”

He nods meekly even though his father isn't looking for approval or anything like that.

She was at the Juumonji house, as while the employees and her siblings didn't exactly hold it against her given her father was a traitor to Japan, there was still a certain tension lingering in the house from the fact she'd turned against him. Ever since what the Tooyama -another clan from the tenth laboratory that the Juumonji has been close to- had been doing had come out, she's been at the Juumonji house semi-frequently. It kills two birds with one stone in getting her out of the house and giving Juumonji some company who understands that sort of betrayal.

Mari was with them, both to keep them company and to help distract them both from their troubles on the night the oddly timed press conference was happening. Her spine had straightened right at the beginning when Toshiko had come out on stage, practically confirming that she really was Tōkōkuro Mihana. Or, as is revealed a moment later, half of what turns out to be a team operating under the pseudonym.

Her breath was absolutely taken away at the reveal of the Teleport Gates, and she's so laser focused that Mari's approving murmur feels a million kilometers away, “I'd expect nothing less from Shiba, but it's good they were responsible about handling the release of something like this.”

Juumonji hums in agreement, “Indeed. While its current form isn't particularly usable for breaking and entering, they aren't wrong that there's no predicting how long it will be until it can be used for such.”

They chat about it for a few moments, but it halts immediately when the side by side of the video at the conference and what the telescope is seeing shows the same thing. One is just significantly closer. She can't help but suck in a sharp breath at it.

A Mars Space Station.

One which is already in position with the goal of terraforming Mars.

It only gets even more mind boggling from there. It was difficult enough to comprehend that Toshiko has been working towards this goal since she was a child who hadn't even reached double digits yet. But even if she was just following the blueprints, the sentient AI -Toshiko made a sentient AI?- had made, she'd still put together a rocket. Which is mind numbing on a whole other level, but to have such a well put together plan for the terraforming at that… The Teleport Gates around the asteroid belt for mining and quick resource transportation, the fact that some of those odder inventions of Tōkōkuro Mihana like the gravity generator that people had only been able to conclude were for things like if they made another Earth Space Station all had a purpose…

Mari starts laughing almost hysterically as the explanation plays out. She can't bring herself to tear her eyes from the screen though, so she ends up just tilting her head towards her, “Mari?”

Mari shakes her head, “Edward Clark was over there playing checkers, but Shiba has been playing three dimensional chess.”

Juumonji chuckles, “And since she was a child at that, so she had a ten year head start on him at that.”

She shakes her head, “I know she had that AI helping, but… She did it alone mostly too…”

Mari barks a laugh, “Yeah. And at that, I'm pretty sure she's only ‘recruiting’ now because it'd be a biiit difficult to terraform an entire planet on your own. If it wasn't for that, she'd have probably done it all herself and just handed over a terraformed Mars to Earth like a freaking fruit basket for someone in the hospital.” As the topic turns to the demands Toshiko has for handing over the Mars Space Station and shifting to working with the governments of the world, towards the end of that section Mari hums and adds, “Or rather, sold them land apparently. I mean, she's being perfectly reasonable if you ask me. On all counts.”

Juumonji nods, as serious as ever, “Quite, but will greedy countries like the NSU be cooperative?”

Mari snorts, “If they don't, as Shiba said, they get zero land if they don't play nice, not without potentially purchasing it from her anyway. And given she's not wrong about the dangers of a war on Mars since its Earth-like state would be maintained, they won't really be able to fight and take it either. They basically have to be cooperative if they want any part of Mars. And that's probably why Shiba said it had to be a unanimous agreement. Because it forces them all to be cooperative for this.”

Juumonji nods slowly, “They'll have to negotiate with each other for land rights, but in a way, Shiba is making them collectively negotiate with her.”

She nods slowly and they continue to watch even as it shifts to a full question section. Someone does ask the question that's been at the back of her mind practically since the Mars Space Station was revealed as to why Toshiko is attending high school in light of all this, but Toshiko brushes it off, simply saying she has her own personal reasons and refusing to say anything more on the topic.

She has nothing but the utmost admiration for Toshiko though, and she doesn't care if some people think she's wasting time at high school. Personally, given what she's seen of her relationship with Sora and Miho, it wouldn't surprise her if the ‘personal reason’ was she wanted to attend school with them in a little bit of normality.

He's just staring at the television. Having been informed by Sora that they'd probably want to watch it together, their little group had met up at Shizuku's house to watch the news broadcast.

At his side, Erika shakes her head, “I'm dreaming right? I have to be dreaming.”

Shizuku's response is slightly delayed from the way they're all in shock, but she manages to control her voice to her usual deadpan, “Would you like me to pinch or slap you?”

Erika shakes her head again, “How can this possibly be reality? Like, yeah, the moment Edward Clark said Tōkōkuro Mihana was a high school student we all started suspecting Toshiko, but this…”

Leo laughs, the teeniest bit hysterical, “Well. We all knew she was amazing but also a woman of mysteries.”

Erika whacks his arm with the back or her hand, “There's a difference between ‘I'm Tōkōkuro Mihana and yes, that means I was only seven when I made Loop Casting’ and ‘The previous is all true, and I've also been working towards getting everything set up for the terraforming of Mars for the same amount of time and now everything is in place so thoroughly that I just need to recruit people for the terraforming itself. And don't worry, I'm going to also reveal at the same time that I've invented honest to gods teleporting so it's more of a day job then any sort of major sacrifice or commitment’ and I cannot be the only one who knows that.”

He laughs, admittedly a little hysterical himself, his voice is an octave higher when he speaks, “No! No it's not just you!”

Honoka slowly turns her cup in her hands, “...We've gotta throw her a celebration party, right? We can't just ignore an achievement like this.”

That, of all things, seems to do away with the stupefied air as they immediately start talking about how to celebrate it. As he starts wondering what he should get her as a present to celebrate, his cheeks flush as he realizes while he was contemplating it, he kept mentally referring to her as ‘Mom’. He honestly wonders how long he's been doing it, since he hadn't even realized until his brain went to contemplating one of those necklaces that say ‘Mom’ on them and what sort of one he'd get if he did go that route.

He's thankful everyone is focused on throwing ideas around for a celebration party, since no one notices his red cheeks or the way he buries his face in his hands in embarrassment.

She's laughing in a way that the other Yotsuba would probably deem insane but she just can't help it! She knew Toshiko had some sort of huge project hiding in the background, but this!

Crushing that fool Clark's plans in such a spectacular way because she's already started on her own terraforming plan! And is not only much further along but even has the means to make it all too easy to head back and forth in the same day!

As the press conference mentions the asteroid that has an unbelievable amount of gold, she turns intrigued, but also has to agree with Toshiko that it could all too easily crash economies or at least the gold value. When Toshiko explains what she'd like to do with at least part of it, she doesn't hesitate, “Hayama.”

He responds as promptly as usual, “Madam?”

She waves a hand to the side, “I want you and Aoki to assist in looking into the best way to go about achieving Toshiko’s goal of compensating the previous space debris victims. And do make sure that Aoki isn't getting any foolish ideas about trying to take any of the money or interfere with her plans. Toshiko has achieved unbelievable things, and the Yotsuba have plenty of income, which is likely only to expand with new potential avenues this opens. As such, I will not tolerate any disrespect being given to her plan on what to use some of that asteroid for.”

She hears the usual shift of clothing that implies he's bowing to her back, “Understood Madam. I will personally keep an eye on Aoki to make sure he doesn't step out of line.”

She nods, then shakes off the brief spike of bad mood at the very idea of someone putting their dirty hands into Toshiko’s plans. It's not hard, since if anything, she'd struggle to hold onto the mood if she wanted to, given how much Toshiko is shining for the whole world to admire tonight. Her future sister in law may be the one with the name, but she's like a brilliant star tonight.

She hums in satisfaction. Sora and Miho have come to visit the villa in Izu and are staying the night yet again, and they'd just finished with some fun a little bit ago. It admittedly kept them up late, but who cares. Tomorrow is Sunday, so it's not like her beloved soulmates need to leave her early to get to school or anywhere else on time. Both in the spicy sense and in the sentimental sense, they have nothing pulling them away from warming her bed in a lazy morning tomorrow. She technically has some things she's supposed to do for Green Mars and the like, but that shouldn't take very long and isn't scheduled until her afternoon.

It's probably a good thing she hasn't dozed off yet from her place sandwiched between them, resting her head on one of Miho's breasts while Sora spoons her from behind given the massive spell she feels start to take hold above her current residence.

She shoots up from her laying position the moment she sees the spell over her roof, startling her husband and wife back into full wakefulness. One that is very much a hostile spell -not that there had been any doubt- given the sequence she speeds through reading makes it clear that it separates water, even the vapor in the air works, and is meant to ignite the gas to make an oxyhydrogen explosion.

As she starts to Decompose sections of the spell, she purses her lips, probably just for countering things like Gram Demolition or her previously unheard of Decomposition, the Sequence is duplicated over and over in layers, and she can't Decompose them fast enough to halt them completely, just buy time.

Unfortunately for whatever bastard who's casting this, she's long mastered splitting her attention, given the way she'd had to learn it to deal with Tommy Boy, his Death Munchers, protecting her people, and controlling her regular Patronus and Patronus fire Dragon and what she was seeing through its eyes. And it's certainly not a skill she's lost given she's spent years controlling her Mihana H3, working and conversing with people, even while going about her day in her actual body.

So she's absolutely capable of continuing to cast Decomposition, and even split her attention in multi-casting it and at accelerated rates with her Occlumency casting to slow it down a lot, even as she traces it back through the information dimension with the connection to its caster.

She's somehow not surprised in the slightest to see that it's one of the ‘Thirteen Apostles’, Igor Andreevich Bezobrazov, which makes this magic his Strategic Class Magic Tuman Bomba presumably. Prying in as deeply as she can with telepathy, she doesn't have time to go through his memories and just sends the whole lot to Rowena through their telepathic connection for storage and later review and just starts slowing him down on that end as well. He's connected to some weird ass massive CAD though, like the size of a pipe organ (1), though the size makes sense given from what she can see, he's connected to other magicians through it and borrowing their magic calculation area.

It seems to cause them suffering at a glance, which in a messed up way, makes her glad that the limpness of their Eidos selves implies they're… spiritually dead or whatever you wanna call it. Their brains function and are in perfect health but nobody is home. She hadn't paid much mind to it back when she first met a magician with that sort of Eidos data, the man who tried to hit the bus during her first Nine Schools Competition that is since she was a bit distracted, but on a second closer look and after those run ins with the Parasites and their effects drew more attention to it, she can't help but notice that ‘membrane’ around the Eidos proper looks rather… unhealthy. And there's something new she's never even noticed buried deeper, like trying to see glass underneath glass, that looks like it's been damaged over, and over, and over again.

Nevertheless, it means she doesn't potentially have to feel bad about any collateral to people who were forced to do this attack against her.

It isn't too hard to find something critical that fit her criteria and damage it with her Decomposition. Her criteria being making it look to any potential investigation like the explosion was some sort of critical equipment failure due to a combination of maintenance issues and overstressing the machine because she was fighting back enough that they were in a stalemate. It may very well get someone killed from the fact they didn't keep up the maintenance right, but given the level of understanding they'd need to do maintenance to begin with, they absolutely knew what those girls were going through, so she had zero qualms throwing them under the proverbial bus.

She manages to keep her gaze locked in the area long enough to confirm both his and the girls’ deaths, and also note that from their genes, the girls are likely clones related to him. After that though, it becomes too difficult to keep a lock due to how much information is between her and there in the information dimension due to the distance in the physical world.

Well familiar with her expression of concentration, neither Sora or Miho had said anything before, but the moment she shakes herself out, Sora pipes up, “Trouble?”

She snorts, “It's been dealt with. Igor Bezobrazov was casting what I assume was Tuman Bomba over the roof of the villa. Turns out, if that was Tuman Bomba, the secret of what it does is that it separates water in the designated area, even vapors in the air, into oxyhydrogen gas and detonates it.”

Miho looks alarmed, “But you said it was dealt with right?”

She gives them a dark smile, “He wanted an explosion. I gave him an explosion. Just not here.”

Sora barks a laugh, learning over and kissing her in amusement, “It's definitely what he deserved, that's for sure.”

She hums, “Sorry for waking you two.”

Miho shakes her head, expression somewhat helpless at their casual discussion of murder yet unable to disagree since it was absolutely self defense, “Don't worry about it sweetheart.” She reaches out to tug her down stubbornly, something Sora seems to be more than happy to get behind, “Now, let's go to sleep if it's over.”

She hums, but doesn't resist or protest. She sends Rowena a message asking her to monitor the area and make sure she's awake if anything else happens, but after getting confirmation, she's more than happy to enjoy her wife's lovely breasts under her head and her husband's not so curvy and plush but equally lovely in separate ways chest muscles pressed against her back.

She wakes up to an email that quite frankly pisses her off. Not at the sender, Kazama did nothing wrong, but at him revealing over the email that Kyouko had personally secured, an email sent an hour before the attack it should be noted, that his commander, Major General Saeki Hiromi had received intel that pointed to the attack happening.

The bitch had decided not to warn her and let things play out and just observe.

Kazama was a man that was normally too loyal to the military to go against Saeki's intention to not reach out, but after everything she'd done as well as the fact he considered her a friend it had been crossing a line for him. Hence, he'd gone behind her back and attempted to warn her as soon as he had an opportunity.

It wasn't Kazama's fault she hadn't seen the email.

It hadn't stopped there though actually. Saeki had broken his trust so thoroughly with that move, that he'd let her in on another piece of intel that he'd been debating if it was even worth filling her in about since by the time he heard, it wasn't relevant anymore. As it turned out though, Saeki had been trying to put together some sort of international agreement to force Strategic Class Magicians to register with the International Magic Association. Which sounds all well and good at a glance, but that opens up far too many avenues for taking control of them and their lives.

Which is actually what Saeki was aiming for. The agreement would have made it so that the Strategic Class Magician's country would be responsible for keeping them under control. Which is already shaky territory since while an argument could theoretically be made that it was to make sure none of them go off the rails and on the attack, potentially on innocent people, but again is risky given the avenues it opens. That's where the previous attempt to do all this stops even pretending to be a good thing. Because it outright places an exception on any Strategic Class Magicians who hold political power or are a representative of their government. Of which there are precisely two that she knows of. 

Clara Schmidt, the Thirteen Apostles member from Germany, who only runs a research laboratory in a university, and is one of the people capable of Ozone Circle which had been a joint research project.

And herself.

Saeki had been so angry at her being named the Yotsuba Heir and no longer not having an exception, that she'd ended up ranting to Kazama and ‘spilling the beans’ as it were. Namely that she wanted to remove her from the Yotsuba Clan and force her into her command as her subordinate.

Kazama had straight up told her to do what she wanted with the intel. He'd respected Saeki once, given the help she'd given him prior. But she'd shattered that completely and utterly with her recent actions. He only requested she keep his name out of it and make sure the leak can't be traced back to him.

She sends him a response, thanking him for letting her know and promising that regardless of what she chooses to do, since she hasn't decided yet, she'll make sure he isn't caught up in it.

She taps the desk idly in thought. Given she's trying to do things like rip people's freedom away even after the changes the world has started experiencing in light of her global message and the subsequent revelation of the actual differences between an active and inactive magical, compounded even further by her revelations on the development of magicals, she has to admit it's tempting to just kill such a toxic presence that could very well set the world's progress back with the sort of nonsense she's pulling. The problem is, after a quick look at her history with the Great Indochina War, which is actually where she met Kazama and built a rapport with him, she'd gained some notoriety and respect. Which means she could very well become a martyr and her messed up beliefs may gain strength from that if she does have her killed.

So then. The best way to deal with it is to expose her for the monster that she is. To that extent, straightening up she reaches out telepathically, <I know you're busy, but I could use a little help Rowena.>

The response is immediate, <I am here whenever you need assistance Creator. How can I help?>

She smiles slightly at her loyalty, <Major General Saeki Hiromi is crossing moral lines in my opinion, but while killing her would technically be the most thorough route, there's too much of a possibility of her becoming a martyr and her beliefs spreading and gaining strength after her death. Beliefs that would set the world's societal progress back a good bit. As such, I've concluded that the best method to handle her is to expose her to the world. I need you to dig up everything you can.>

Rowena is just as passionate about pulling this universe's version of humanity out of the dark hole their past has put them in as she is, so she's not surprised in the slightest by the vicious delight in her voice, <With pleasure Creator.>

There was no reason to make it a mental message, but it seems like the person who sent one out worldwide before was going to have to make a reappearance. It's perfectly believable. If they have the skills to hack into Tōkōkuro Mihana's files, the military has little chance after all.

As she'd already decided before, she wasn't making it a mental message, but she does have Rowena hack basically everything with a screen in Japan. That androgynous voice speaks through everything capable of producing sound, and also puts up captions just for those with hearing problems and the like, though she actually hadn’t been the one to write the script for this. And since it wasn't a message that just had notes to make sure she didn't get swept away by her emotions and forget something, it wasn't impromptu either.

Miho had insisted on being the one who wrote the message Rowena was delivering with Hei and Misaki's mixed voice, just having her okay the revelations she'd be dropping, “Hello again. I am here today, just broadcasting digitally to Japan this time, to warn you of the absolute monster in your midst, though she's very good at projecting anything but her real self.” The black screen gains an image of Saeki, “This is Major General Saeki Hiromi. Some of you may already be familiar with her actions during the Great Indochina War and be confused as to how she could possibly be a monster in any capacity.”

Then the image is replaced by a video of Saeki murmuring to herself in her office regarding not acting on the intel of an incoming attack on Japan from Igor Bezobrazov, “This is also, Saeki.” That's followed by the video of Saeki's temper tantrum at not being able to force the magician behind ‘Material Burst’ under her command, “So is this. And let's play devil's advocate for a moment and assume she had good intentions with the agreement she was attempting to set up so as to gain control of the magician behind ‘Material Burst’ widely known as Mahesvara. Let's ignore the dangerous doors to things that would practically be slavery and say the intentions for forcing Strategic Class Magicians to register with the International Magic Association were good. Let's say the same is true for forcing countries to keep their Strategic Class Magicians in check and under control are also true, except oops!”

The papers with her signature on them on the agreement are pulled up this time, “That all falls apart when you see this clause!” The one mentioning the exception to any Strategic Class Magicians who hold political power or are a representative of their government is highlighted, “Because if it was genuinely a matter of keeping Strategic Class Magicians from doing damage with little to no reason, this clause wouldn't be in there. This clause which only left out Miss Claudia Schmidt, and funnily enough the magician widely known as Mahesvara until recently. And you know, it's generally not known who Mahesvara is, but more than a couple country's militaries have figured it out, and it makes it all the more messed up when you realize who Mahesvara is. So here's some classified military documents.”

They pop up, revealing that Mahesvara, who's military codename is actually Obara Ryumi is Shiba Toshiko, “And it gets better. I'd like you to take a look at the time and date stamps on both Saeki's temper tantrum at no longer being able to use that agreement that would see Lady Shiba under her control as well as her decision to do nothing, not even give out a warning regarding the incoming attack. The temper tantrum was after she became the Yotsuba Heir, and the attack was about a week after Lady Shiba revealed the Mars Space Station and the Green Mars Organization. Which, given that attack absolutely came from Igor Bezobrazov, this was absolutely retaliation.”

Another video pulls up, currently paused, “And that's not supposition, given the revelations in this.” The video starts playing, revealing Edward Clark and Igor talking about Project Dione and the revelation during the conversation that the help it would give to humanity was more of a beneficial side effect. Its actual goal was basically banishing select individuals, such as the magician behind Material Burst, “Let's play devil's advocate again shall we? Material Burst -and yes, to the Americans and the like who inevitably see this later and have been calling it ‘The Great Bomb’ the magic’s name is Material Burst- can be rather terrifying especially when you take into account it can be used on any physical matter. But let's look at the only three times it's ever been used.”

They all have time and date stamps, and the reel starts with video clip from her explaining how she was marking the bullets to Kazama and Shigeru, then from a nearby city camera shows the explosion, before a clip of her apologizing that she couldn't save the ones the memorial was for before chastising Yuki after his callous confusion about the fact that no she couldn't be everywhere at once, but there is a moral obligation to try to save the innocent and those of moral fiber would inevitably feel guilty for those they failed to save. Then it jumps forward to the Yokohama Incident, and her order to destroy the GAU's ships.

The voice that's been talking comes back, “And we actually circle back around to what sort of monster Saeki is!”

The next clip shows her ordering Kazama to tell her to hit the fleet at port to send a message, followed by her utter refusal given the civilian casualties it would cause, and her sort of proxy argument with Saeki through Kazama before deciding that if she demands a message she'll send a different one. Namely hitting the fleet after it leaves port on its way to Japan and leaving that burning message in the sky to serve as the ‘message’ Saeki had ordered be sent.

As she continues, the image flicks back to and zooms in on the projected damage radius of what Saeki had tried to order her to do and lingers there, “Given this, I hope you all understand just how much of a monster, of absolute trash in the form of a human Saeki really is. And I also hope you see that out of anyone who could have had this power, Shiba Toshiko was likely the safest, most responsible hands it could've been in. So I hope you see and understand just what sort of trash not just Saeki, but even Edward Clark and Igor Bezobrazov really are, and on the flip side, just how good a person Shiba Toshiko is. Also, one last side note on Shiba's character.”

Another clip is pulled up, this time of her complaining to Sora and Miho about the Mahesvara nickname for no other reason than how disrespectful it is to the practitioners of Hinduism. But also how she can't really say anything since either they'd try to twist her words to try to say she's insulting Hindu practitioners, or they'll try to use it as an insult against her, which also insults Hinduism since she isn't bothered for personal reasons. So the only ones it insults by treating it as an insult are them, and she'd only signed her warning message to the GAU with that name because that's what they knew her by.

They'd have been utterly confused if she signed it Obara Ryumi, “Yeah. Real freaking monster there, let's just ignore the way she absolutely took a risk when she knowingly and willingly defied a Major General's orders to avoid unnecessarily civilian casualties. And yes, for those who have done the math and know her birthday, that does mean she was thirteen when she first used Material Burst. But for those of you who may think that makes her a monster for developing it so young, here's another secret. There is an internal argument about Shiba Toshiko within the Yotsuba.”

“See, the younger generations adore her. The majority of the older generations on the other hand, decided she was a monster the same day she was born because they had a method to tell if someone had born specializations and used it on her. Actually, funnily enough, they stripped her from the family that same day and she was only reinstated when she was seven. Which is relevant, because faces except Toshiko’s have been redacted out for the sake of their privacy, and the voices have been altered for similar reasons, but here's this to chew on.”

Another clip, this time taken from her rooms when she was talking with the kids that first time, starting from Katsushige commenting on his father always saying she was a cruel heartless monster and ending on her pointing out that people sometimes make the very monster they're afraid of to justify their actions.

The blended voice Rowena was borrowing snorts, “So for those who are pointing to the fact she had such a terrifying Strategic Class Magic at such a young age as proof that she is a monster, she's not the one who thought to use it that way. She's the one who took the burden of using it onto her far too young shoulders to protect all the innocent people that were shortly about to be in range of bombardment. She's the one who used it a second time on a ship on orders to prevent it from regrouping and landing somewhere else. She's the one who defied a Major General's orders to strike at port to minimize casualties and limit them to military as much as possible.”

“As I said at the beginning of this. There is a monster in your midst. It very much isn't Shiba Toshiko though. You may wanna force the government to do something about the real monster. Even if you don't though, here's a more personal message: After everything you've done, I am absolutely a fan Lady Shiba, and after everything you've done, screw you Saeki. And given Saeki's track record of wanting Lady Shiba to strike at port, she's the last person I would personally trust to have command of Lady Shiba, who seems to be capable of managing when to release her power just fine.”

Probably to cut down on any possible accusations that she's the one behind the broadcast, Miho and Rowena had timed it for when she was with Sora, Miho, and Hoshi out having lunch publicly. It makes it a bit uncomfortable given the stares and whispers, but she can't deny that there was a good reason for it. Now she gets why Miho had insisted on writing the message this time though, since she wouldn't have tried to put herself nearly in such a good light. She'd have just put things into perspective to justify her choices and left the mentions of her at that.

She studiously ignores those around her staring and whispering, and worse the awed looks some of them have, and holds back desperately on the stink eye she wants to give the amused and satisfied Miho. Miho likely wasn't going for something like forcing her into the spotlight like Yuki does, and was more just trying to drive home the fact she was a good person, so she can't bring herself to be too mad at her wife.

She sighs quietly under her breath. The increased fame wasn't appreciated, even if it wasn't her intention.

As she watches the evening news of former Major General Saeki Hiromi's arrest in satisfaction, she gets a call on her mobile terminal. Seeing its Kazama, she answers with a smile, “Kazama, to what do I owe the pleasure?”

His lips twitch, “I just wanted to thank you for leaving me out of it like you promised.” His eyes gleam in amusement, “Though, while I admittedly already suspected, you realize you've outed yourself to the military at least on being behind the previous messages, don't you?”

She gasps dramatically and places her hand against her chest, “Me? I would never. I mean, what could I possibly hope to get out of that anyway? Certainly, it sends an anonymous message which makes people a little more likely to listen to it since they don't automatically link it to a specific country, but anyone with morals who wanted to see the world better itself would benefit from that, so that doesn't say anything. The only thing personally related to me was bringing up that paper on the difference between active and inactive magicals. And yeah sure, I'd been sitting on it a while because I was concerned that just releasing it unprompted would have people think it was propaganda or maybe a manipulation tactic to try to counter the anti-magician sentiment that was rising and no one would even look into it to verify it independently, but that's just a coincidence I assure you. The only thing I may have had to do with it was tipping off an acquaintance to look into her.”

Kazama's shoulders shake in amusement as he shakes his head, “You can be ridiculous sometimes Toshiko, I hope you realize that.” Then he sighs as his humor fades and his brows furrow, “Honestly, given everything she was doing, part of the reason I was so hesitant to reveal it was because I half expected her to suddenly suffer a heart attack or something once you were clued in.” His expression darkens a bit, “And honestly, given the things that were revealed, I can't even say she wouldn't have deserved it…” He shakes his head, seeming to force the darker thoughts out from the way his expression lightens, “That being said, I can't say I'm dissatisfied with the way you handled it, even if you just happened to fill in an acquaintance of some sort.”

She hums, “I won't lie, I did contemplate killing her, and the main reason I chose to go a different route was the risk of her becoming some sort of a martyr and her beliefs setting the world's recent progress back.”

He shakes his head, “Even so.” His lips twich, “Pass along my thanks for the way this acquaintance of yours handled it.”

She chuckles, “Will do. Have a good night Kazama.”

He nods back, “You as well Toshiko.”

It really wasn't the intended effect, but in a strange twist of events, the GAU had done practically a complete one eighty on their opinion of her after it was revealed she was the only person who had granted them any measure of mercy when it came to striking down the fleet that was heading for Japan in her refusal to strike while it was at port. They'd come to respect her enough that they also respected the fact she couldn't stand being called Mahesvara, if purely due to the disrespect it showed towards Hindu practitioners.

And speaking of, there's been an awful lot of buzz online from said Hindu practitioners, mostly in the form of their respect for her rising in light of her respecting their religion and how disrespectful the Mahesvara nickname was, even if she herself wasn't a practitioner.

Those two weren't the only groups the revelations had hit the hardest and caused to respect her even more after the Mars Space Station and Green Mars Organization unveilings, though they were quite possibly the loudest online.

On the flip side, it wasn't just Saeki who was being dragged over the proverbial coals. Edward Clark was too, and so was Igor Bezobrazov, whose death had in fact been ruled to be a critical failure stemming from her fighting back against Tuman Bomba. But in light of everything, including Rowena pretending to be a NSU based leak about what Argan(1) -Igor's massive CAD that used his genetic clone relatives as basically bio machines- did and how it functioned, other than those in the NSU who were upset at losing their Strategic Class Magician, practically no one was upset about his death. If anything, most people's mindset was more ‘he did it to himself’ since his death was ruled to be related to her fighting back against him building his magic and things going horribly wrong and causing an explosive system overload.

With luck, that'll be the end of this whole saga, but given Raymond Clark wasn't linked to the conspiracy and had firmly been on his father’s side, she had a bad feeling it wouldn't be.