The boy slept peacefully in his cot. He was onboard an airship, flying to the city of Mairtala to introduce the mysterious Reaper to Nova’s miserable headmaster, Foster. Unfortunately, the simpering toad Virgil came along too. She was not at all looking forward to having the two loathsome creatures together in the same room.

Was there a way to crash their ship into the ocean? Being eaten by a Leviathan didn’t sound bad by comparison.

She laughed.

Or, well, she meant to, but all she got was the vague impression of it. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d heard laughter from her own lips.

In fact, she couldn’t remember the last time she had lips. Her ThreadLine Arte could do many things, but she couldn’t figure out how Wickham controlled those other metafauna. The Ex Stone, on the other hand….

In any case, she found herself in a peculiar predicament.

Who was she? I’m Maia… right?

Was that it? Was she the infamous ex-Nova mercenary Maia Seishin? Her memories supported the idea, up until they didn’t. Maia was unlikely to remember looking at herself from the eyes of… her son.

Am I… the boy?

She looked down at him. He was a misty figure in a world of shadows. She could see faint yellow tendrils radiating from Wickham’s tag, the one Dr. Magnus called the Oracle Stone, sitting in his hand.

If the pit of disgust in her proverbial chest was any indication, she couldn’t be him either.

If she wasn’t Maia, and she wasn’t the boy, was she no one at all?

Perhaps she was someone else entirely, someone new. Is that possible? But where did I come from?

A process of a Vital Net? Given her antagonistic relationship with the boy’s that seemed unlikely. Could she be a side effect of Maia’s strange power? That was the only remaining option she could imagine. She didn’t know a great deal about artecraft, but conversation with Virgil suggested something like it was possible.

An intelligence born entirely of malhahons, and largely twinned from Maia Seishin. She supposed that made them something like sisters.

But who am I? What is my name?

A man, Dr. Magnus in fact, asked her that… recently. At the time she feigned an air of secrecy, but in truth the question caught her off guard. That was first time she’d been free since… ever. That she might be in need of a name was a novel concept. So far she’d put off the question, content instead to wander Esper with the ThreadLine Arte whenever the boy happened to keep it near to hand.

A recent discovery, concerning that same man, created for her an opportunity. One that would be much easier to take advantage of if she could introduce herself. Also, being a nameless ghost is lame.

Not long ago, in fact only a few hours ago by the boy’s reckoning, she had been thinking of… a friend. A young man she grew up with named Hitori Taira. He once made an offer to… her sister, and she refused. Instead, ultimately, she ended up crushing his dream with her own hands.

But that was Maia’s choice. What would her own have been? Even now, she could still picture him, still recall his handsome face, his warm smile. He was the point where she and her sister diverged. Maia would go on to fall in with that odious Virgil character, but to her, Hitori had not been so easy to let go.

Hitori would never be able to see the world he dreamed of, but it wasn’t too late for her to accept his request. He wanted her to join House Taira as its Captain, as his right hand. That is, to become Taira Hitori-Gensui. Maia was too soft, too rational, to get caught up in such a mad scheme, but she didn’t share that weakness.

She felt a fire burning in her, one that threatened to wake the boy, but she let it hang for a moment, to revel in it. She would do it. She would take Hitori’s cause, and the name Mihari—a traditional name for a House Captain, and one with a pleasant similarity to Hitori’s.

Her passion flared even higher, and the boy shifted in his bunk.

Mihari stilled herself. There would be time for jubilance later, for now, she had work to do. First, she needed an appointment with the much maligned Dr. Magnus. They had business to attend to.