On the morning of her 13th decanting day, Rain woke up bright and early and excited, eager for someone else’s memories to be copied into her brain. The daylamps outside of the tent were glowing brightly, signifying it was morning as she pushed herself up to sit upright. “I’m an adult!” she cried at the top of her voice.
Other voices soon followed.
“I’m an adult!” Tomoko’s voice echoed happily from the next sleeping bag over, thrusting a fist into the air as she cheered!
“Legal adulthood, witches!” Chloe cheered from her own sleeping bag, a very thick and rugged one that she used when she and her big sister went out to go hunting outside of the town. “High-caliber weaponry!”
“I can finally get my heavy equipment license!” Mitsuki agreed, throwing both hands up into the air.
"I can drive!" Reiko cheered. "Freedom! Cruising between towns! Baking for new people! Learning recipes directly from people who know them!"
“I can apply for lab space!” Meiya cried. “There’s this experiment I’ve been meaning to do, but to do it safely I need a lab-grade isolated space and—”
Outside, Rain heard more and more voices calling out “I’m an adult!” and “I can go join the space service!” and “Yuri, let’s be best friends!” “Okay!”, and other happy declarations as their crèche-sisters in other tents also woke up, interspersed with cries of “Happy Decanting Day!” from older and younger sisters who’d joined them in their little campout.
“Would all of you poopers please be quiet!” Lorelei’s voice groaned from next to Rain. Her purple-haired crèche-sister had her hands over her ears. “It’s far too early for this and I was still sleeping…! Our appointment isn’t until nine…!”
“Sorry!” the six of them chorused.
“How is that supposed to help me go back to sleep?” Lorelei moaned, turning over so she was face-down in her sleeping bag and putting her pillow over her head. Then her hand reached out and felt around until she was able to grab Rain’s and put that over her head too.
Rain smiled fondly down at her crèche-sister and shook her head. There was always someone in each batch who wasn’t a morning person, or so their big sisters said, but that was to be expected.
Chloe reached out and grabbed her buddy from where he was lined up with the others buddies so they could chat and talk to each other while their partners slept, gently tapping Glass Heart’s touchscreen to wake him up. “Ugh, you’re such a big baby. Hold still…” The buddy came online, and Chloe’s red venefog began to stream out from the focus emitter on the back of the phone-shaped chassis. With a theatrical and polite gesture, Chloe directed the softly glowing venefog towards Lorelei’s head, where it spread out and formed a dome that draped all the way down to the ground and Lorelei’s shoulders.
Lorelei gave a grateful-looking thumbs up as Chloe’s sound-dampener covered her, her head still covered by pillows, and her breathing evened out as she presumably started dozing lightly.
Well, unlike her crèche-sister, Rain had no intention of missing a single minute of the first day of adulthood! Sure, there was still the upload of Kaede’s legacy, but that was later, and she was thirteen now. She carefully got out of her sleeping bag, doing her best not to disturb Lorelei, and quickly rolled it up and neatly packed it up as the others did the same. Thankfully, Lorelei had put her sleeping bag up against the wall of the tent, so it was easy to avoid her as Rain and the other five got dressed, putting on their clothes.
Rain made sure that her yellow knee-shorts weren’t wrinkled from being in her backpack, neatly tucking in her white blouse before buttoning up her yellow waistcoat-vest and pulling on her yellow hoodie. She’d foregone bringing one of her hats so she didn’t have to worry about it accidentally getting squashed, so her cat-ear hoodie would have to do. Everyone else’s clothes were equally distinctive, such as Tomoko’s purple dress, Reiko’s pinstriped skirt and blazer jacket, and Meiya’s wide-brimmed hat and long-sleeved shirt with lace cuffs.
She’d heard that Kaede’s legacy contained memories of cats. Rain was really looking forward to remembering that! Drawings and plushies of cats always looked really cute!
By the time that they were all dressed, Lorelei had finally woken up enough to give up trying to doze, sitting up and rubbing her eyes with a scowl on her face. As it was her normal scowl, no one paid it any mind, simply collecting their buddies and waiting their turn at the flap of the tent so they could put on their shoes or boots. Rain slipped her buddy into the slot on the half-sized vambrace on her left forearm, feeling the buddy click into place and lock in securely as she felt the familiar sensation of the AI’s nascent spirit synchronizing with her thaumaturgy.
“Set-up complete. Energy flow synchronized. Systems, fully online. Good morning, Rain. Happy Decanting Day,” her buddy greeted. She could vaguely hear similar greetings from all of her crèche-sisters’ buddies as well. Even Lorelei reached out to grab Domain and pull them into her sleeping bag.
“Good morning, Princess,” she greeted as she finished putting on her yellow and white striped socks and waited her turn for her shoes. She was wearing yellow slip-ons today, since big sis Alice said she would be spending time lying down while the memories were copied into her. “Did you guys have a fun talk last night?”
“Yes,” Princess reported, this time in private. Rain heard it as a pseudo-vibration in her thaumaturgy that she interpreted as sound. “Statistical and behavioral data was exchanged. Predictive data updated. Awaiting additional historical data to integrate into behavioral models. Prepared to integrate combat data and combat spell library.”
Ah, right. The buddies would be getting the data upload of Kaede’s buddy Lyrica as well, weren’t they? That had almost slipped Rain’s mind. “Ooh, I forgot about that! We’ll need to see how well we can add that to our repertoire.”
“Reminder: shoes.”
“Huh? What—oh, right!” Rain stuck her feet out of the tent and slipped on her shoes (bright yellow with white lines). The open flap let in the smells of food, a mix of MRE’s that had been packed the night before and were being reconstituted and reheated, or fresh foods being cooked right there. Rain’s nose could pick out steamed buns, frying sausages, frying potatoes, frying rice, frying notrice, and meat-stock on the boil, which was probably for some kind of noodle soup. “Ah, it all smells delicious!”
Rain stepped out of the tent, stretching her arms over her head before patting down her shorts for wrinkles. Mitsuki was helping Reiko do the same, checking her back and running a hand to flatten any wrinkles she found as Meiya helped Tomoko with her own dress as the latter tied a cravat to her neck. All around them were other tents from which other crèche-sisters were emerging as well. Everyone was instantly identifiable by their distinct clothes and color schemes, such as Kyle wearing a lime-green beret with a green-and-black checkered kimono that only came down to her knees, or Dana who wore a high-heeled boots with blue jeans, a plaid shirt with ‘Lumberjack Trainee’ on the back, and suspenders.
And then there was Jane, who was weird. She wore khaki knee-length shorts and a plain white shirt with her name and batch number printed on the back and left breast like a little sister who hadn’t picked what her look would be yet, her hair undyed and without any sort of notable jewelry. Yes, it was distinctive and it definitely helped identify her amongst all everyone, but it was so strange! It wasn’t like she wasn’t creative, Jane was an amazing artist with pencils and paints and yes even clothes design, but for some reason she wore the blandest and simplest clothes it was possible to wear while still being identifiable! She didn’t even have a distinctive haircut, going to get it styled on no identifiable schedule—rumor has it she did it based on a random number generator—and never coming out with the same haircut twice in a row! She also smiled all the time, which was actually pretty normal, but it was the kind of smile that said she knew a joke that everyone else didn’t, and she didn’t intend to share, which was really selfish of her.
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Jane was weird. Everyone loved her, and she was a great sister who would always have your back if you needed help, but weird.
Around the cluster of tents, the daylamps on the skylight above the public park were glowing the bright yellow of morning as everyone woke up to start the day. A few tents had already been taken down to make room for picnic blankets and low, kotatsu-like picnic tables, while some big sisters had set up camping stoves, electric grills, and even an oven someone had built out of vennplate, from which came the smells of freshly cooked bread. What had originally intended to be just a few crèche-sisters planning to camp out in front of the cloning crèche so they could be there first thing had grown to include all crèche-sisters in the same cloning batch, many of the big sisters raising them, big sisters they were friends with, most of the little sisters in the neighborhoods where they lived, and some of the lone buddies from the nearby memorial garden, who had shyly asked if they could join the festivities the night before.
The buddies had been welcomed, of course. Everyone was glad that they were finally ready to move from the loss of their partners and start socializing again, and encouraged them as best as they could.
By the time Lorelei trudged out of the tent—“Good morning, Lor’!” Rain greeted her—wearing her blue jeans, blue shirt, and blue witch’s hat to pull on her boots (which were not blue), everyone was in the middle of doing morning warmups and stretches. They couldn’t push themselves too hard, since they were wearing their nice clothes, but it was enough to get them fully awake and limbered up for the day (Chloe had done vertical-splits, which made Rain’s muscles feel overextended just looking at her). After she took down the tent and packed it up, Lorelei joined them, groaning and muttering the whole time as she went through the simple exercise routine. When they were done, Lorelei was finally fully awake, and looking slightly less grumpy.
After that, they’d all sat down to a light breakfast made by all their big sisters. The breakfast was light to keep them from having to make an emergency purge in the middle of getting the memories uploaded, but that didn’t mean it wasn’t tasty and filling, even if it wasn’t quite as full as they wanted.
“Trust me, you don’t want to be too full when you’re in the Testimony getting memories uploaded,” big sis Alice told them as they looked forlornly at their plates. “Don’t worry, we can have a big lunch afterwards when you get out.”
“With cake?” Reiko asked, and everyone perked up eagerly to hear the answer.
The big sisters exchanged fond looks. “Yes, with cake if you want. You can even help bake it.”
“Yay!” Reiko cheered. She liked baking.
Everyone focused on her eagerly.
“Chocolate!” Rain said instantly.
“A mousse!” Mitsuki cried.
“Whipped cream!” Meiya suggested.
“No whipped cream!” Lorelei countered instantly.
“Why do you hate whipped cream?”
“It’s tasteless and pointless!”
“It’s sweet!”
“No, it isn’t!”
Chloe and Lorelei were still arguing about the merits and lack thereof of whipped cream—Reiko was pointedly staying out of it, although she was smiling like she knew something they didn’t—when the cloning crèche opened, although that still meant their appointment was two hours away. The big sisters coming in to work waved at them and shouted congratulations and encouragement, as well as half-joking requests for them to work at the crèche now that they were old enough to do so.
A big sister also appeared and set up a folding table and chair off to one side of the cloning crèche entrance, placing a large bento box on the tabletop and sitting down. She looked vaguely familiar, with her large round glasses, yellow lab coat, black hoodie, pink skirt and black-and-red-striped thigh-high socks, but what really drew Rain’s attention was the sign she made with amber-colored vennlight: ‘Thirteen is too early. Ask me why.’
Curious, Rain walked over to do just that, greeting the big sister with a bow. “Hello, big sister! What’s your name?”
The big sister looked up and smiled. Well, probably smiled. The expression was a little strange, the way Chloe’s smiles sometimes were, like she was smile while smelling something bad at the same time. “Little sister. I’m Chisame, and this—” she restored at her large, round glasses, and only then did Rain notice that the big sister’s buddy was part of her eyewear, “—is Onion.”
“Rain,” she introduced herself, and held up her left forearm, “and this is Princess.”
Chisame nodded, then looked past her. “And you are?”
Rain blinked and looked back to find Tomoko standing behind her.
“I’m Tomoko,” her crèche-sister said, a wide smile on her face as she held up her own buddy. “And this is Madison.”
“Nice to meet you all. Happy decanting day.” The big sister reached over and pulled the lid off the bento. It was full of cookies: chocolate, butter, notrice and berry, and what was probably nutbutter. “Have a cookie as a present. And get some for your sisters too.”
“Thank you, big sister!” the two chorused, the two of them picking out cookies, and with Princess’ help Rain made a vennplate box to put them in.
“You’re welcome. So, are you here to ask me?” She gestured at the sign she’d made.
The two young girls nodded. “Why is thirteen too early?” Rain asked.
“And too early for what?” Tomoko added.
“Well, I think that thirteen years is far too young to get Kaede’s legacy shoved into their brain,” Chisame said, surprising the two girls. “Don’t get me wrong, I think you girls are all responsible enough to be adults and use the spells in the legacy. But I think the legacy might be too much for someone with only thirteen years of memories of their own.” She watched them carefully as the two glanced at each other. “Would you like me to go on?”
Hesitantly, Rain nodded. Tomoko frowned, but didn’t leave.
“Now, I’ll be clear, I’m not saying shouldn’t get the legacy someday,” the big sister continued. “It’s important, and lets us skip a lot of school. But I don’t think a thirteen-year-old has enough memories to be able to make sense of it all without getting their brain changed to think like Kaede, especially with what’s in the last three years. Those are the years where the Earth gets attacked by aliens a bunch of times, where her city almost gets blown up… those are the years that were so bad she thought it was a good idea to make us, when she would normally have thought that making a clone army was unethical. It’s a lot for someone who doesn’t live a life like that to take in. Kaede hadn’t really been able to think through everything that happened to her up to that point, and we’re just… shoving into all into your heads. And I think you’re not ready for it yet. Not without your brains getting really messed up.”
The big sister sighed as Rain and Tomoko looked at each other in distress. “Sorry, I… I haven’t really had a lot of chance to practice telling little sisters about this. I just don’t want any of you to go through what I went through when I turned thirteen. I don’t know if what happened to me is normal or not. I mean, I’ve known since I was a girl that my brain is one of those that came out randomized by a lot, so maybe it was that, but… well, there’s always one or two little sisters in every batch who are a little weird. If they’re weird like me…” She shook her head, her face set in a grimace, as if her tummy hurt a lot. “I just don’t want any of you to get hurt.”
Rain didn’t look at Tomoko. She stayed very still, staring at the spot above the big sister’s head as she thought of Chloe and Jane. Finally, she said, “Did you get through it okay?”
Big sister Chisame nodded, the grimace softening like she’d managed to burp. “Yeah, I did. I had my sisters. But it took me… three, four… five years? About that long before I could be sure that my decisions were my own and not because that was just what Kaede would do.”
Tomoko frowned. “But… shouldn’t we do what Kaede would do?”
The big sister gave her a long look. “There’s a difference between doing what Kaede would do because it’s what she would do, and doing it because it’s what we think we should do. Your big sisters teach you that, right?”
The two of them nodded.
There was that strange smile again, like she was smelling something bad. “Do you two understand why?”
They started to nod… and stopped, frowning.
Chisame sighed. “And that’s why thirteen’s still too young. Sorry girls, I’m just not good at this yet. Do you have any other questions?”
Rain shook her head, but Tomoko said, “If thirteen is too young… then when is old enough?”
"When you understand why you need to do something because it's what you think you need to do, and not because it's what Kaede would do."
“But… how would we know what Kaede would do without her memories?”
The big sister sighed again. “I’m working on that. I have a proposal for some new classes in the school that could help, but I still need to write down the textbooks and make the classes… but if I can prove its needed and it works, then…” She shook her head. “Sorry, sorry, those are my problems.”
Rain frowned. “Is there anything we can do to help?” she asked.
The big sister gave her a kind of sad look. “If you’re still planning to get Kaede’s memories put in your head—” she sighed a third time as the two of them nodded enthusiastically, “—then ask me again when you feel better.”
The two blinked. “Feel better?” Rain asked.
“Joie will explain it before you get into the Testimony,” she said. “Which would also be a good time to tell her you want to hold off on getting the legacy until you’re a bit older, but that’s up to you. If you do though, call me. It would be nice to know if this is actually working.” She gestured at her sign, and for some reason the movement looked tired. “Now, get going, you two. You’ve got cookies for your crèche-sisters, right?”
Rain glanced at the cube of vennplate with the cookies inside it. “Ah, right. It was nice meeting you, big sister Chisame, Onion! Thank you for the cookies.”
“Happy decanting day,” Chisame said again, as the two bowed at her again before turning to head back to the others.
Still, Rain glanced behind her, watching as the big sister slumped down in her seat and pulled a cookie from the bento box, chewing on it like she just needed something to do and not because the cookie was tasty.
Which was kind of sad. Everyone enjoyed the cookies when they handed them out.
