(Chapter is a bit rough, since I was more focused on pushing out a chapter than editing anything. Also I suck at writing in general so it would have been rough either way. Last exposition dump, I swear. If you have any questions or anything, just drop them here)

July 30th, 2015

“So, Mr. Kurogane, I apologize for dragging you all the way out here for this, but I had to. Is there anything you would like to say to your brother before you leave?” Major Takakawa asked Hiro.

“I’m still not certain that’s him…” Hiro said, eyeing Tetsuo’s new body up and down.

“Kurogane Hiro, born July 16th, 1964, hates the smell of cheese, first girlfriend was a Nishimura Chisato at age sixteen, you pissed your bed until you were twelve-” Tetsuo started listing off things he knew about Hiro until Hiro put up a hand to cut her off.

“That’s enough, I believe you, and her name was Nakamaru Chie,” Hiro said, a little pink-faced with an expression that suggested annoyance, but mostly showed, once again, anger. The bed-wetting tale was definitely not the source of the anger, even when Hiro was a teenager, he was mature enough not to get embarrassed by childhood stories. He was definitely angry about something though.

“Why are you so angry?” Tetsuo bit the bullet and asked.

“Why am I so angry? Why don’t we start from the beginning then? When dad died you didn’t even blink let alone cry. Dropped right out of high school and ran off to the army,” he started saying, on the verge of shouting.

“What was I supposed to do? Mom couldn’t support both of us selling fish,” Tetsuo shot back, not even coming close to raising his voice while trying to justify his decisions.

“That’s just the issue, you’re like a robot, so detached from anything resembling human emotions. You do what you think is right without considering what others might feel. You didn’t even ask anything about mom. She killed herself you know, a while after you died. She couldn’t take losing her husband and her firstborn, she felt guilty using the death gratuity. In your case, we didn’t even have a body. The government wouldn’t tell us shit. She didn’t even know why you died,” Hiro said. His face was half fury and half resignation. Years of emotions that he thought had long since simmered down were now boiling up again and he was struggling to put it in words.

“Hiro… I’m sorry,” Tetsuo said. She felt a lump in her throat as a mix of feeling came out, though she said nothing else.

“Sorry? That’s it? I tell you that mom’s dead and all you say is sorry? You can’t even be bothered to look sad. Always with your robot pokerface.”

“Hiro, I-” Tetsuo started before getting cut off by Major Takakawa clapping her hands together.

“Alright you two, let’s not start a scene here. You’ll have plenty of time to spit fire later. Is our previously discussed arrangement still fine with you Mr. Kurogane?” She said, asking Hiro.

“Yea, that’s fine. After all, I am the only family Tetsuo has left,” Hiro said bitterly as he left the hospital room.

“Previously discussed arrangement?” Tetsuo asked.

“After you leave- Well, it’s all explained here,” Major Takakawa handed Tetsuo what looked to be a clip-less clipboard. Tetsuo took it from her and examined it. There was a brightly lit screen on it and it felt like it weighed a ton in her thin arms. That being said, it probably did not weight much more than the glass of water she struggled to lift earlier.

“What is this?” Tetsuo asked.

“That, my dear little time capsule, is a tablet computer. Several hundred times more powerful than anything you had in the 70s. One Megahertz CPU? Try Gigahertz. Welcome to the modern age little Tatsuko, and it’s simply controlled by- Oh? You’ve already got the hang of it,” She grinned, watching as Tetsuo easily and intuitively scrolled up and down the document using the touch controls.

It was a profile of a girl. There was a rectangle at the top with the words ‘Picture TBA’ in it. Next to it was a name, Yomohiro Tatsuko, age fifteen, birthdate of February 15th, 2000, height of 149cm, no weight listed, black hair, black eyes. The place of birth was listed as Tabaruzuka Village. Apparently Yomohiro Tatsuko was currently in the hospital after she contracted a life-threatening illness that had to be treated in the city. She would be discharged to a distant uncle in the area by the name of Kurogane Hiro.

“So this is supposed to be me? I thought I was supposed to be thirteen,” Tetsuo- no, it was Tatsuko now, asked.

“You catch on quick. Well, I guess it would have been fairly obvious considering who Yomohiro Tatsuko would be living with, but yea, that’s you. While your body is thirteen, we figured you did not want to sit through middle school again. On the other hand, you never properly finished high school and you need to catch up on the going-ons of the last thirty years so the higher ups figured that putting you in high school would be ideal,” Major Takakawa said, explaining the reasonings behind the mismatched age.

“I got my GED though, when I was in ranger school,” he said, recalling the accelerated education he received during training. Major Takakawa shook her head and chuckled.

“That’s not good, it’s every Japanese teenager’s dream to have a fulfilling high school life. Property of the government or not, even you deserve that much, right?” The major smiled as she clasped her hands together.

“What are you even talking about?” Tatsuko asked.

“I’m just saying, you’ve been given an opportunity to live through a rose-colored high school life with all your adult maturity, wisdom, and experience, That’s not an opportunity most- no, anybody has ever had.”

“I don’t exactly know a whole lot about modern high school culture,” checking the date on the tablet computer so find out that he had been out of commission for thirty four years. Forget about modern high school culture, he barely even knew anything modern at all.

“Don’t worry about it, you’ve got two nieces to look after you. One of them is even the same ‘age’ as you. It’ll be fun,” she said, dropping something Tatsuko was not quite prepared to accept. Her brother had been married and had two daughters. Even though Major Takakawa joked about her having adult wisdom, Tetsuo died when he was twenty-three. That was barely an adult at all.

Tatsuko flipped through the information rather quickly, opting to memorize key points rather than every little detail. Most students probably were not going to know that the Berlin Wall fell in 1990 but most would know what it was and that it marked the end of the Soviet Union. Even back in 1981 there were signs of the Soviet Union being unable to hold itself together so it did not come as too huge a surprise to Tatsuko. Attacks on the world trade center leading to an extended war in the Middle East surprised Tatsuko a bit, considering how, when she was still a he, it was the Russians being bogged down by the Afghans.

One thing in particular caught her eye though. SALT, the strategic arms limitations talks that had been discussed when Tetsuo was still alive had actually managed to come out with something. Most countries had begun to limit the amount of nukes they had, though that was irrelevant to what else was attached to those decisions.

The hero ranking system. Starting from the bottom, a D-class hero was someone who could do the work of a SWAT team alone, a C-class hero could do the work of a special forces unit alone, B-class could do the work of a team of C-class heroes, and an A-class could serve as a nuclear deterrent. Lastly, there were S-class heroes, thirty-eight of them worldwide. Each of them had the power to cause fusion-bomb level disaster and were kept under strict control. The United States had sixteen of them, the Russians had nine, China had five, Japan had four, though those were counted towards the US total as well, India had one, Pakistan had one, and the European Union had six. Each S-rank’s identity and location, under START, was required to be public knowledge. One of the names in particular stood out to Tatsuko.

Stolen novel; please report.

“You’re an S-rank hero?” she asked the woman sitting by her bedside.

“Yeap. 1st generation Magical Girl and later, 5th generation Super Sentai, S-rank hero Major Takakawa at your service,” she said.

“The Frozen Empress of Japan’s Four Heavenly Kings?” Tatsuko read aloud.

“Oh god, don’t remind me. As much as I love my country’s culture, their obsession with things that come in fours is incredibly embarrassing. Elite four, four gods, four heavenly kings, ugh it’s all super chuuni,” she said, sighing.

“Chuuni?” Tatsuko asked, hearing yet another strange term.

“Chuunibyou, eighth grader syndrome. You know how when you’re younger and delude yourself into thinking you’re special regardless of whether or not you actually are and end up doing embarrassing things you regret when you grow older?” She asked.

“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” Tatsuko replied, shaking her head. Though if she remembered correctly, there were some people who acted like they were going to be super sentai when they were growing up. Of course, the second generation of Super Sentai only had five teams.

“Must be a generational thing,” Major Takakawa said, leaning in and staring at Tatsuko.

“What is it?” Tatsuko asked. If she was uncomfortable being stared at so intensely, she was not showing any of it.

“You’re taking all of this awfully well.”

“Considering my other option was being dead, I don’t really have anything to complain about,” Tatsuko shrugged. She had left the document page on the tablet and was now flipping through screens and apps.

“Well, I have to leave soon, there’s an icon on the homepage that’s a circle with a sideways triangle on it. It’s got a bunch of videos in it. Your homework tonight is to watch through all of them,” Major Takakawa got up to leave. She chatted with the nurse for a bit, then headed out the door with her, leaving Tatsuko alone with her tablet. An upbeat j-pop beat started playing and a some large-eyed anime girls appeared on the screen.

“Gooooood mooooorning!” 7am the next morning, Major Takakawa burst into Tatsuko’s room. Tatsuko woke up with a start, dark circles beneath her eyes and a tablet in her hand plugged into a wall charger. She was exhausted, but she groggily performed a salute.

“Hm, you look awfully tired, when did you sleep last night?” Major Takakawa asked.

“Sometime after five am…” Tatsuko replied, feeling guilty. The tablet actually ran out of power about four episodes in and the nurse had to help her charge it. Tatsuko marathoned through the twelve episode magical girl anime, as per her orders, but immediately afterwards, she began exploring other aspects of what the tablet could do. She actually managed to learn that her former comrades were alive, though retired out in the countryside, so that was a relief at the very least. Deciding that she would ask Major Takakawa for their phone numbers later, she ended up spending nearly 8 hours on wikipedia, catching up on as much as she could before she passed out from exhaustion.

“You ought to take better care of government property,” Major Takakawa said, jokingly reminding Tatsuko of the somewhat disheartening fact that she did not technically have human rights.

“I figured that this body has slept for so long that one more night would not make too much of a difference,” she replied, trying to justify her late night. Major Takakawa ignored it and changed topics again.

“So what did you think of the anime?” She asked, making Tatsuko go over her homework.

“It was… amusing, I suppose. Childish and colorful. I don’t know, I didn’t enjoy it very much,” Tatsuko said, fairly bluntly. She did not really have much of an opinion on it as it obviously was not something that was geared towards someone who was a twenty-three year old man.

“That was my favorite show when I was a kid, it actually inspired the creation of the magical girl program you know,” Major Takakawa sighed. It seemed like she was really hoping Tatsuko would enjoy it to. Tatsuko decided to try saying something that might make her feel better.

“So do I get a magic talking animal companion or something?” Tatsuko asked.

“Well, no, you won’t. They opted to just have the senior generation, in other words me, teach you magic rather than learning it through a magic companion like we did. That being said though, I did bring Minerva with me,” Major Takakawa opened up a window and a little owl flew in. And then it started talking.

“You must be Yomohiro Tatsuko,” the owl said, a mature female voice coming from it as it perched on the medical equipment by Tatsuko’s bed. Tatsuko did not show any surprise at the owl, just kept her usual expression on.

“And I suppose you’re Minerva. I’m guessing you’re here to test my magic or something?” Tatsuko asked, managing to remember what Major Takakawa said earlier.

“Straight to the point, I like it. Just let me saunter over there and unlock your mana pool,” the owl said before hopping onto Tatsuko’s head. The tiny weight of the owl was still enough to make Tatsuko’s weak neck muscles struggle.

“Ah, right, then. Hmm, right. Okay.,” The owl said, doing its best sorting hat impression. Not that Tatsuko would understand that reference to begin with.

“Oh knock it off will you? Let’s not waste more time that we have to,” Major Takakawa snapped at Minerva. The owl made a sound that sounded like the clicking of a tongue.

“You were so much more fun and cuter when you were still B-rank,” Minerva said, annoyance and nostalgia mixing in the tone of her voice. A faint blue glow surrounded Tatsuko and Minerva and it steadily began to grow stronger. The weight of Minerva on her head started to vanish as Tatsuko’s physical strength also seemed to grow.

“Woah,” Tatsuko said, showing a genuinely surprised expression on her face. She stared at her hands as she felt power flowing through them.

“Blue aura, is she an ice attribute as well?” Major Takakawa asked Minerva.

“No, she seems to have a fire-attribute, but that’s not from her magic. She has latent pyrokinetic abilities, likely from her previous life. Her magic doesn’t seem to have an elemental attribute at all, though it is sizeable indeed. She would be B-rank at minimum, I wouldn’t even be surprised if they listed her as A-rank right off the bat,” the owl said. Tatsuko’s eyes widened in surprise. Without any mana pool training she was already A-rank? As Akakabuto, Tetsuo had only been C-rank, at least that’s what wikipedia listed him as since the ranking was done after his death.

“Can you tell what her magic attribute is at all?” Major Takakawa asked again.

“No, it’s out of my specialty. I’ll have to take a mana sample back to the lab for analysis, we’ll know by tomorrow. If I had to wager a guess though, probably some sort of light-attribute, though it’s still strictly non-elemental. If we had an American or European companion spirit, they would probably be able to tell right away,” Minerva explained.

“So you’re saying you’re useless?” Major Takakawa said, teasing Minerva.

“Don’t get smart with me girl, I’m a specialist and a world authority on elemental magic. Be amazed that I could even awaken her magic power at all,” Minerva shot back, furiously waving its wings and spreading some feathers around.

“Yes yes, oh wise Minerva, thank you for your wonderful service,” Major Takakawa sarcastically thanked her. Minerva flew back out the window with a ‘harumph’ and Major Takakawa turned back to Tatsuko.

“How are you feeling?” she asked.

“Stronger,” Tatsuko replied, curtly.

“Your passive physical boost seems to be in effect. Try walking,” Major Takakawa said. Tatsuko complied, pulling herself out of the hospital bed. The ground felt unsteady under her feet. She wobbled a bit and Major Takakawa had to catch her, but she was definitely walking under her own power.

“Excellent, this will bring you up to spec much more quickly. Your training will begin tomorrow.”