The Simulacrum

Part 1

"Oh. Welcome back," my sister greeted us without any of the reaction a guy, his girlfriend, and a fluffy fox popping into existence in the middle of the living room should have elicited. Oh well, it was just a matter of time before my sudden appearances would lose their novelty, I supposed. It didn't mean I wasn't feeling a little disappointed, but I knew it would happen sooner or later.

"Did anything happen while we were away?" I asked as the still transformed Ichiko wriggled a little in my grasp. On the literal other hand, Elly was holding onto the tiny miko's clothes, while I was holding onto her in turn. I gently pinched her side to signal that we arrived, and after cautiously opening one eye, she let out a relieved sigh.

"No, nothing," Snowy answered in the meantime. She walked over from the windows and reflexively petted the tuckered-out fox in my arm, and she seemed to appreciate it quite a bit.

"The old guy?" I asked next, and Snowy paused for a second to give me a funny look, only for her hand to resume moving the moment she figured out what I was asking about.

"You mean the man who sneaked in? He didn't come back." Her words were accompanied by a slight shaking of her head, but then she added, "At least I think he didn't. I still don't know how he got inside the last time."

That was actually something worth considering, so I used my Far Sight on him without further ado, but he wasn't anywhere close to our neighborhood. In fact, he was currently quite conspicuously sitting in a train car and heading out of the city, no doubt towards to some secret hideout of sorts. But then again, if Rinne's description of their clan was to be believed, maybe he was just moving to one of the other towns on the islands to stay the night, because hotels were cheaper over there.

I only knew about the last part because she told me about how much money she could save like that, in excruciating detail, when we discussed the particulars and conditions of her eventual release. More on that later, but for the moment, I canceled Far Sight and told Snowy, "Just to be sure, please check the wards for traces of how he got in."

"Sure, and… sorry." Now it was my turn to look at her funny, and when she realized it, she temporarily halted her fox-petting efforts and told me, in a mousy voice, "I thought I warded the whole house, but apparently I wasn't thorough enough. I promise I will reinforce everything twice… no, three times!"

Apparently the fact that someone managed to completely circumvent her prized warding bothered her quite a bit. I mean, it wasn't like I didn't understand her; a man's house is their castle after all, but considering my history with uninvited intrusions upon other people's homes, I felt that getting too worked up over this incident would have been a tad hypocritical of me.

"If you think that's necessary, then I will leave it in your capable hands, but don't stress yourself too much over it." My words had little apparent effect on Snowy's mood, so I decided it was time to apply some of my patented Brotherly Headpats ™ to her noggin. "Cheer up, sis. I'll keep an eye on the guy and the moment I figure out how he got in here under the nose of your wards, I will tell you so that you can shut him down the next time."

"Um... Okay," my sister finally smiled, even if it was a little strained, and we would have probably left it at that if not for a certain furball suddenly speaking up in my hand.

"Baldy-kun must have used his shadow-walking jutsu!" She declared with an authoritative nod, which she immediately ruined by a long yawn and a drowsily muttered, "He was always really proud of that…"

"Hold on, what was that?" I blurted out as both snowy and I retracted our hands from the heads of our respective petting targets.

"It's ninjutsu!" Ichiko clarified absolutely nothing at all.

"How does that work?" Elly spoke my mind, though her version of the words sounded far less skeptical than mine.

"It allows the ninja to merge into someone else's shadow and follow them completely undetected!" The rotund fox explained it to us like it was the most obvious thing in the world. "It is the signature technique of the Kage clan, and every member has at least a basic proficiency in it!"

"Ah, so that's why they are literally called 'shadow clan' in Japanese," I murmured under my breath before quickly adding, in a considerably more critical tone, "That sounds markedly implausible even by magic standards."

"But it's not! Even Rinne-san could do it!"

"Oh, I believe you, I just find it logistically silly." Since not only the little fox, but even the two girls at my side looked unconvinced by my words, I decided to elaborate a little. "A shadow is not a physical thing. It's just an area where light from a light source is blocked by an opaque object, so 'merging' into one makes no logical sense."

Just to be clear, my objection was entirely rhetorical, as magic was quite illogical by definition. Not to mention, I had a bad habit of breaking even the supernatural version of 'common sense' of this world on a daily basis, let alone boring old physics, but I just couldn't help it voicing my disapproval of outwardly silly concepts like this. Unfortunately for me, Ichiko still seemed to take my words quite personally.

"Ue-sama is mean!" she fumed aloud while struggling in my hand, so I carefully put her down before she could accidentally fall onto her head or something. Once she was on solid ground, she immediately turned around to face me and declared, "I'll prove it! Shadow walking is a really real thing, and I will prove it!"

After saying so, she quickly looked around on the ground, looking for a sharp shadow, and once she settled on mine, she promptly strutted over and sat down on it. The girls at my sides were practically holding their breath in anticipation, and then... nothing happened. How unexpectedly anti-climactic.

"Uuuu..." the little fox trembled, twisted, and turned in circles, but no matter how hard she strained, nothing happened.

"Maybe she is performance-shy?" I wondered aloud, only for her to puff out her cheeks (I didn't even know foxes could do that...) and exclaim:

"I can do it, I just can't do it right now because I can't make the finger-seals!" she pouted with the vigor of a thousand sailors getting shore leave for the first time in months before abruptly bouncing up into the air to my eye level and yelling, "Just you wait, ue-sama! I will transform, and I will make the seals, and I will prove that I was telling the truth, and then ue-sama will be sorry!"

"Fine by me, just don't transform here in the open."

The sulky furball let out one last angry 'Hmph!' and dashed up the stairs without further ado.

"Wait, you left your clothes here!" the princess called out and hurried after her, leaving me alone with my unusually stern sister.

"Leo, you shouldn't tease her so much," she scolded me with her hands on her hips. "Young girls are delicate."

I was tempted to point out that said 'young girl' was technically the third oldest being I knew, with the second one being a Faun older than the English language, while the other was an incognito dragon who talked about the high middle ages like they were last year's fad, but in the end I refrained from doing so. Not to mention, considering how inconsistently mental ages were distributed among the people I knew, it felt too wonky to rely on a number deciding one's actual maturity. That said, I still objected to her accusation all the same.

"I don't remember teasing her at all. I was one hundred percent serious."

"Yeah, right," my little sister commented after an affectionate giggle, and as much as I wanted to exonerate myself, I didn't feel like fighting an uphill battle at the moment, so instead I moved the conversation in a different direction.

"Oh look, it's a forced switch in topics coming our way!" I pointed at the side, but she only gave me an odd look. … I missed Judy. She would have got it. Nevertheless, I soldiered on by waving my hand and saying, "Never mind. So, if we presume that the old beady baldy guy could really just hide in other people's shadows, when do you reckon he got inside?"

My dear little sister graciously ignored my failed attempt at comedy (hey, you can't win all of them), and after raising a finger to her chin and thinking for a few seconds she reckoned, "He could have used Elly's shadow, but then we should have realized when he left her shadow before you teleported to the secret base."

"So you think he entered after we we left?" I guessed, which led to an obvious follow-up question. "Did you leave the house at any point?"

The last syllable barely even left my mouth when Snowy snapped her fingers.

"That's right! I went out into the back-yard to take out the trash from the kitchen trashcan!"

"What trash?" I responded without thinking, but even though the question didn't seem particularly insightful, Snowy answered it all the same.

"The boxes of the food you ordered."

"Wait, but I didn't— Or do you mean the take-out I got for Karukk when he stayed over as my anchor? That was two weeks ago!"

"I think that was it," she told me, sounding somewhat unsure herself.

That was bad enough, but on second thought, this whole scenario made even less sense. The ninja maids were very reliable when it came to getting rid of all the trash in my house so far, so how the hell were literal boxes left behind? Was the narrative really this determined to have me meet the old guy today, and here in my house in particular? And if it was, then how the heck could it plan so far ahead and keep some boxes from getting spirited away for two weeks just to get Snowy outside for a minute?

But wait, were the boxes even there in the first place, or did they just materialize out of thin air the same way they tended to disappear via theoretical ninja maids when no one was looking? But then why would it be those in particular instead of just random household trash? Or more importantly, was the narrative always this sloppy with its maneuvers, or was I getting better at recognizing these odd discrepancies?

…

Well, considering that it was quite improbable that I all of a sudden became smarter and more perceptive overnight, I reckoned I would put my money on the first option. However, before I could start considering all the whys and hows and generally just go even deeper into this rabbit hole, I was interrupted by a rush of footsteps thundering down the stairs. I glanced in the direction of the sound, and before I knew it, a certain barefoot little girl wearing a familiar, billowing green dress (and nothing else) came to a screeching halt in front of me.

"I will now prove it to ue-sama!" she proclaimed while crossing her fingers in front of her chest, determination all but burning the air around her. That said, at the moment there was one question that I had to ask, even if I knew it would kind of ruin her moment.

"Why do you have your dress on backwards?"

"Ue-sama shouldn't mind that!" she answered with a flushed face, though whether that was from embarrassment or concentration, I couldn't tell for sure. Speaking of concentration, she was making a series of odd signals with her hands, interlinking her fingers into awkward positions and holding them for a second before moving on to the next one. I figured these were the 'seals' she was talking about, and after the fifth or sixth one, I began to notice the faint yet unmistakable shimmer of magic around her. Snowy also seemed to be intrigued by her movements, so we quietly watched as she made one gesture after another, and at last she finished with a loud, "Now watch!"

We did so, and she quickly disappeared from our sight all the same. Or, to be more precise, it appeared as if she fell right through the floor, kind of like how a frozen lake swallows someone when the thin ice breaks under their feet. At the spot where she was standing, the ground was even rippling like water, except not really, because the actual floor remained perfectly flat, yet the shadow was still rippling. It was… kind of screwy, to be honest.

"Ooooooh…" I was jolted out of my confusion by my sister's reaction, half surprised and half filled with admiration.

"Spatial magic?" I blurted out, and she immediately agreed with me.

"Most likely some kind of pocket space," she mused as she crouched down to take a better look at my no longer undulating, perfectly normal shadow. I would have liked to look at it a little closer as well, but I was afraid that shifting my position, and therefore my shadow, would cause a problem, so I only observed her observation. "Or maybe she created a tiny Restricted Space instead? Fascinating…"

"What? What did I miss?" Elly asked as she came back downstairs and stopped by our side, only to suddenly grab onto me and let out an alarmingly adorable sound when the tiny miko suddenly stuck her head out of my shadow

"You see, ue-sama! I told you it was really real!" she exclaimed with a delighted grin.

"It sure is," I granted her, which turned the smugness dial of her smile up to eleven. I only found that attractive when Elly did it, so I let out a dismissive grunt and asked, "So, for the record, what would happen to you if I suddenly moved now?"

"I would stay in your shadow and follow after you," she told me, her expression not even wavering in the process.

"And what if my shadow disappears?" I pushed on, and she thought for a long second before answering.

"Then I would still follow you around from the shadow world, but I wouldn't be able to leave until you had a shadow again."

"Understood, and another question: what would happen if I pointed a flashlight at you right now, with your head sticking out?"

"I… I don't really know," she admitted, but then her eyes suddenly opened wide with a flat 'Oh', and she added, "So that's why the old scrolls always taught that ninjas should move quickly in and out of shadows!"

"Meaning it could be dangerous if you get caught only partially exposed," I concluded, and she promptly nodded. I admit, I was intrigued by this 'shadow-walking' thing and its practical uses, and I was almost tempted to poke my undulating shadows with one of my phantom limbs, but in the end I realized that it was probably a bad idea. I had no clue about how my extra appendage would interact with this 'ninjutsu' thing, and if I accidentally dispelled her technique, I could possibly behead Ichiko. I was fairly sure that would have been fatal, whether she was inhabiting a Chimera body or not, so for the time being I put aside any experimental plans and told her, "In that case, please come out."

The tiny miko didn't argue, and instead her whole body rose out of my shadow like she was standing on an elevator. Once she was completely out, she did a small hop, possibly to completely detach herself from the rippling shadow, after which it returned to normal again.

"We are going to experiment with that one later, but for now, we have three other things to take care of," I stated as I put a hand onto the little girl's head, which immediately withered her victorious grin. By applying a tiny, tiny bit of force, I carefully turned her towards the stairs and very gently told her, "Now then, Ichiko. Please go upstairs, turn your dress around, and kindly put on some goddamn underwear, will you?"

"Yes, ue-sama! Certainly!"

After hearing that, I unceremoniously let go of her head, and she immediately darted up the stairs without even looking back. I decided this was as good an opportunity as any to dramatically dust off my hands. Elly seemed to be confused by the gesture, but I pretended I didn't notice her frown and turned to my sister instead.

"Now then, after seeing this shadow-walk thing in action, do you think you can come up with a countermeasure against it?"

Snowy stood back up and silently faced me for a few seconds as she considered my words, to the point she even did that thing where she put one elbow into her hand and held her chin with the other one. Since that was the universal signal of 'I'm thinking really hard right now', I patiently waited for her to come to a conclusion, and after a series of 'Uuu's and 'Hmm's, she finally came up with an idea.

"I can't say for sure without trying out first, but I think by adding some specialized authentication-checks to the formula specifically tied to each of us personally, I might be able to shut someone out even if they are hiding in a separate space. I might need to inscribe some identification sigils on everyone, but it should be doable, depending on the nature of the pocket space and how it intersects with realspace, but so long as Ichiko helps with the tests, I should be able to manage. Somehow. I think."

"You are the expert, so I will leave this project in your hands. Just remember, don't stress too much about it. It's best you view it as a challenge."

"A challenge?" she repeated after me, and a short while later she let out a determined grunt and clenched her fists. "I'll do that!"

"That's the spirit!" I cheered on her while quickly tousling her hair.

"What's the third thing?" the princess injected herself into the conversation, and I only just noticed that she was still holding onto me. In my defense, she did that a lot, so I was kind of used to it and took it for granted.

"Third thing?" I whispered as my mouth once again moved ahead of my brain, but it didn't take long to realize what she meant, and I hastily added, "Oh, that. I remember now: Judy should be about to get here any moment now, so I figured we should get the snacks."

"It's already that late?" Elly muttered as she glanced up at the wall clock. It soon turned out to be meaningless, as the sound of the doorbell made all of us switch our attention towards the front of the house, the princess even adding a quiet "Speak of the devil."

"I'll let her in," Snowy proposed right away.

"Ah, no need, I'll get the door," I offered, but was summarily ignored as she was already out of the room by the time I finished. "Or maybe not. Oh well, in that case, I guess I'll get the snacks for the evening."

"I'm on it!" my girlfriend suddenly declared as she let go of me and headed into the kitchen, leaving me all alone and just a little bit baffled. At the end of the day I simply shrugged my shoulders and began walking towards the front door anyway, just in time to catch Judy slipping out of her fur-trimmed boots and into her very own doggie-slippers by the coat rack.

"Hi, Chief," she greeted me a tad unenthusiastically, much to my surprise.

"Hi, Dormouse. Why's the long face?"

"Just a little tired," she told me as she made her way over to my side and gestured for me to lean closer. Once I did so, she immediately planted a quick peck on my mouth before letting out a sigh and explaining, "Mother decided to decorate the living room for the holidays."

"In November?" I blurted out in surprise, eliciting another sigh in the process.

"Don't ask, because I don't know either."

"Decorating?" came the next question from my sister after she locked the door and checked the wards. Diligent as always. "What kind of decorations?"

"Mostly garlands and mistletoe. I somehow managed to convince her that it was really early for the Christmas lights, but she wouldn't budge on the rest." She paused here for a second and then continued with a quiet, "It's hard to say no to her sometimes."

"Well, your mother is certainly an enthusiastic person," I granted her, and we left it at that.

"So, did something happen since we last talked?" she inquired a little half-heartedly, but before I could give an answer, we were mildly startled by a thumping sound coming from upstairs.

"It's probably Ichiko," Snowy concluded a tad morosely before turning on her heel. "I'll go see if she is all right."

"You do that," I responded, though considering that we were talking about someone in a regenerating Chimera body, I sincerely doubted she could hurt herself.

I waited for her to reach the stairs, and once I was sure she was out of earshot, I turned back to my girlfriend and answered her previous question.

"We visited the base, Elly's in charge of Labcoat Guy's contract now, I almost accidentally became the head of the Kage clan, and it turns out Ichiko is actually pretty strong. In other words, nothing much."

"Hold on, what was that second-to-last thing about becoming a head of a clan?" Judy interrupted me with a pair of narrowed eyes that were right out of the class rep's handbook.

"It was a misunderstanding, possibly narratively influenced, but I managed to dodge it, so there's nothing to worry about," I reassured her, only to receive a disapproving huff from the direction of the kitchen.

"I still have no idea why you are so hell-bent on turning them down," the princess grumbled as she entered the room holding a tray filled with chips, crackers, and other assorted snacks we prepared beforehand. "Also, hi Judy."

"Hi, Elly. Did you have a nice time with the Chief?"

"Believe it or not, he was actually really sweet today," she declared with a satisfied grin, but then her expression withered as she continued with, "But more importantly, an entire ninja clan wanted to pledge their loyalty to him, and he turned them down!"

Judy turned an inquisitive look my way, no doubt expecting an explanation, so I gave it to her.

"Apparently the Kage clan's inheritance system runs entirely on the possession of Onikiri. One of their elders came here, and since I had the sword, he tried to make me the clan head, but I threw him out in time because it had the fingerprints of the narrative all over it."

"And that's the other thing!" Elly raised her voice, cranking up her disapproval levels to the point where they were getting dangerously close to sulking territory. "I don't understand why you two are so opposed to this narrative thing! It just delivered a free ninja clan into your living room! I would think that's a good thing!"

"Calm down, princess. I told you, getting involved with it while we don't understand how it works is just asking for trouble. Not to mention, even if it wasn't involved, I do not approve of any socio-economical structures based on sharpened pieces of metal. It's on principle."

"No, that's just an excuse," Elly stated, now in full-on sulking mode, only to ultimately close her eyes, shake her head, and add, "Fine, do as you want. I apparently cannot change your mind, but if there is going to be a situation in the future when a clan of ninjas that can hide in people's shadows would be really useful, I'm absolutely going to rub your nose in it."

"Slow down please," my dear assistant raised her hands along with her voice, and once she was sure she had our attention, she said, "I can't really follow this conversation. For a start, how exactly did you reject them?"

"I threw the elder out and then returned Onikiri to Rinne. Oh, I also let her out of custody so that she can show the elder that she has the sword again. The Fauns should be escorting her outside as we speak."

"I see," Judy whispered under her breath before turning to Elly. "You said something about hiding in shadows. Was that literal or metaphorical?"

"It's actually literal, and it's as weird as it sounds," I explained. "They can jump into people's shadows and hide from even wards. That's how their elder got into the house, and apparently every member of the clan can do it, even Ichiko."

"She can do that? That's useful for a bodyguard," Judy cut to the heart of the issue right away, and I nodded in approval.

"Yeah, though she can only do it while in human form, because she needs her fingers for it."

"Why? Does she need to draw some kind of sigil like Neige?"

"No-no," Elly denied as she shook her head. "She held her hands together like this and… Um… Leo, could you hold this for a moment?"

As she said so, she tried to hand the tray she was holding over to me. I had a couple of questions in the back of my mind, such as why she wanted to demonstrate the hand seals, or how she even knew about them when Ichiko already disappeared by the time she came downstairs, but all of those were overruled when I tried to take the tray and completely fumbled it. My left hand had no problems, but my numb right hand was just a bit too slow, and the tray slipped right through my fingers.

Thankfully the snacks on top weren't too heavy, and nor were they poured into the bowls yet, so I managed to catch the tray without spilling them all over the room. Still, my clumsy display made both my girlfriends fall silent as they stared at me.

"I'm okay, my hand just slipped," I told them maybe a bit too hastily, as their eyes only became more suspicious in response.

"Chief, there is something wrong with your hand," Judy noted, not even bothering to phrase it as a question.

"Now that you mention it, Leo's been favoring his right hand all day today," Elly threw some more fuel onto the fire.

"Would… you believe me if I told you that it's just the dark dragon sealed in my right hand that's acting up?" I asked with my best disarming smile, but it had about as much effect as a watering can in the desert.

"What does that mean?" the princess muttered, but Judy quickly shut her down.

"Don't think about it, it's just a terrible attempt at a referential joke."

"Oh come on, it obviously wasn't just an attempt," I grumbled, but neither of them appreciated it, so I ultimately confessed. "Fine, I admit my hand is slightly injured."

"Please elaborate," Judy much less asked than demanded, and after a long beat of vacillation, I decided that since the cat already poked its head out of the bag, I might as well let it out altogether. As such, I told them Angie's diagnosis and how she promised she would help me get professional help, but even that didn't seem to reassure my girlfriends one bit.

At long last, the two of them shared a meaningful look, and before I could react, Judy yanked the tray out of my hand and used her chin to gesture for me to go inside.

"Chief, sit down and stay put please," she requested before turning back to the princess and asking, "Does your family have any healers?"

"No, but we have a lot of contacts," Elly responded without missing a beat, and she already had her phone in her hand by this point. "I'll call dad; I'm sure we can get at least one of the healers who tried to treat mom onto the island, lockdown or not!"

"You do that. As for you Chief…"

"Sit down and stay put?" She gave me a nod and urged me to move by poking me with the tray in her hands, and I couldn't help but let out a breath of exasperation in return. "I figure that means today's discussion about the narrative is canceled?"

"Yes," she responded in no uncertain terms as we started walking.

"I suppose that also means cuddling time is also off the table," I grumbled, but for that, I received a very emphatic and simultaneous 'No' from the both of them.

As I sat down, I couldn't help but note that while my girlfriends were protective of me as usual, I still had a hard time wrapping my head around their priorities from time to time. At least my evening wasn't completely ruined, I supposed. Well, at least until five minutes later.

"I talked with dad," the princess told me with an upbeat smile. "He said Sebastian is coming over to take a look at your hand. He also said he wanted to talk with you about a certain spear."

"Oh. Goodie," I groaned, once again reminded that one shouldn't count their cuddles until they happened…

Part 2

"That's why I told Leo that he should use his reality-warping ability to come up with a new thing everyone would want to buy," the princess remarked on my left, slightly leaning forward while sitting on the couch so that she could look Judy in the eye. "Then we would invest in it, wait for the demand to rise, and then monopolize the market. Easy money!"

"Isn't your family rich enough already?" my other girlfriend responded with a hint of exasperation while her soft fingers never stopped poking and massaging my numb hand.

"You sound just like Leo!" Elly complained, and she even puffed up one of her cheeks. Probably for emphasis. "I know you are probably unfamiliar with how things work in the industry, but when you are running a big business, you can never have enough money!"

"Careful Elly, your oujo-archetype is showing," my dear assistant spoke a little half-heartedly, then she gestured for me to get my attention. "Chief, can you feel this?"

Saying so, she pinched the back of my hand, and so I was obliged to immediately twitch my shoulders and tell her, "Yeah, please stop."

She did so, but then her eyes slightly narrowed with a tiny frown and she emphatically stated, "No you can't. I already pinched you once while you were paying attention to Elly, but you didn't react at all."

"Erm… you are just really bad at pinching?" I jested, but to say that my audience wasn't receptive would have been an understatement.

"Do you want me to have her pinch you next time?" she asked while pointing at my other girlfriend, and this time I didn't have to play into twitching my shoulders.

"No need, I confess, I really didn't feel anything, I'm sorry," I rattled off in a flat voice, which made Judy let out a satisfied breath through her nose and she poked my hand again.

"Apology accepted."

"… Then why do you look like you're still mad that I got injured?"

"I'm not mad because you got injured," she corrected me with a small huff as she interlinked her fingers with mine. "I'm mad because you tried to hide it instead of getting treated as soon as possible."

"I… can't really argue with that," I muttered a touch dejectedly, and my other girlfriend immediately let out a giggle at my expense. "That said, it's not exactly a life-threatening wound."

"Maybe, but what if there was an unexpected crisis, like the Knights showing up again and you would need to fight them, but you can't hold a weapon because your hand is not working as it should?" Judy retorted and I shrugged my shoulder right away.

"My cover is still intact, so they won't pick a fight with me yet, and even if they did for some crazy reason, I could still Phase circles around them without having to fight them head-on." My reasoning didn't seem to fully convince her, so I also added, "Not to mention, I have one of them marked, and occasionally check on their whereabouts, so I would know if they were in the neighborhood."

"True—" Judy began, but then the rest of whatever she wanted to say was pushed aside by the princess suddenly raising her voice on the other side.

"Hold on, you two! You actually have one of those 'mark' things on one of the knights!?"

"I see you have told her about that as well," my assistant noted a smidgen peevishly, apparently none too happy about being interrupted like that.

"I told her about practically everything, in broad terms," I explained, only for Elly to grab hold of my free hand and yank on it to get my attention back.

"Please answer my original question! Do you really know where they are right now?"

"Well, not all of them," I answered as I carefully shifted my hand in her grasp so that we also had our fingers entwined. It was to balance things and stuff. "Right now the goons are still in hiding out of town, while the named ones are preparing a new base within the city."

"Then what are we doing here instead of taking the fight to them?" the princess inquired in a voice that made it sound like she was expecting a really good reason for such apparently baffling behavior.

"As we just discussed, I'm currently not in combat-ready condition, so what exactly do you expect me to do?"

"I don't need you to do anything!" I might have had an odd expression on my face at this point, as she soon let out a long sigh and covered her face with her free hand. I'm not going to lie, being on the receiving end of a facepalm was quite unpleasant. At last, she let her hand down and looked me in the eyes. "Leo, do you remember the thing we discussed about leadership over at the base?"

"You mean the part about delegation and stuff," I followed up, already seeing where she was going.

"Precisely! You could have the Fauns deal with them! Or if you don't want to get them involved yet, you could just tell us and let dad and Sebastian handle it. Oh, wait, I know! You could even use your very own ninja clan to deal with them… if you had one, that is!" She paused here for a long, triumphant beat, but then soon muttered a dazed "Wow, I didn't think it would come up this soon…" right after that.

I glanced over at Judy, and once we wordlessly communicated for a second or two, I turned back to Elly and told her, "You see, princess, it's not that simple. While they are definitely a threat and a thorn in our side, we can't really get rid of the Knights just yet."

"And why's that?" she asked back, and this time it was Judy who answered her.

"Remember what just happened the other day, with both Doctor Robatto, the Knights, and Rinne causing a scene at the same time?" Elly nodded in response, and Judy continued with, "According to our current theory, it was caused by the Chief's actions triggering the narrative to rush things, thus piling multiple arc climaxes on top of each other."

"Theoretical arc climaxes, to be precise," I added.

"Don't you mean 'to be semantic'?" Judy countered back, so I flashed an irreverent grin at her for a second before resuming the conversation.

"Either way, we are afraid that if we struck them down, then it could potentially lead to the narrative compensating by pulling even more factions into the fray, and we can't really deal with that while we are still reeling from the fallout of the latest battle."

"Wait, let me see if I get this straight," Elly cut in with a frown that was bordering on an outright glare. "So you refused the chance to get your very own, personal army of sneaky ninjas at your beck and call only because the circumstances led you to believe the narrative wanted you to do it, but you do not want to take down the accursed Knights because it would inconvenience the narrative? No offense, but that sounds really inconsistent to me."

"Not really," Judy came to my rescue in the company of a frown of her own. "The knights are a dangerous element, but one that we are already aware of, so even if they schemed against us again, whether on their own or by the influence of the narrative, we would be prepared. However, if we take them out of the equation, it would lead to the narrative to involve some other opponent, which could potentially pose more danger."

"In other words, keeping them around so that they would serve as convenient bad guys for the narrative to use in the future is actually beneficial to us, precisely because I can monitor their movements. As they say, better the devil you know than the devil you don't."

"I get it, but… It just feels so wrong," Elly grumbled but didn't press the topic any further. Instead, she threw us a curve-ball by going in a different direction. "Why do you think this 'narrative' wanted to give Leo his own ninja clan?"

"We don't know, and that's the problem," Judy answered with a shrug. "Also, you seem very attached to the idea."

"I mean, they are ninjas?" the princess responded a little uncertainly, but then doubled down with a determined, "Who wouldn't want to have ninjas? They are cool."

"Are they?" I teased her with a purposefully provocatively raised eyebrow. "They dress in black pajamas and get beaten up all the time in action movies."

"I'm not talking about those kinds of ninjas, obviously," she told me with her mouth already set in the embryonic form of a pout.

"To be fair, Chief, ninjas can be fairly impressive," Judy rose to my other girlfriend's defense this time, much to my surprise.

"Are you talking about the historical variety or the highly visible magical ones?"

"The latter," she responded with a nod. "Our native ninjas seem to be that variety, and that Rinne woman proved to be very destructive."

"Right?" Elly joined in with multiple nods of her own. "Imagine having an entire army of them!"

"That would be terrible," my dear assistant suddenly switched gears. "Have you never heard about the inverse conservation ninjutsu?"

"The what now?" I blurted out. At this point my assistant gave me a disappointed look, so I hastily excused myself by saying, "It sounds familiar, but I can't remember the details."

"It's what happens when multiple ninjas are in the same vicinity," Judy patiently explained while using her fingers to illustrate. "One ninja is a dangerous enemy, three ninjas are a slightly less dangerous team, five ninjas are goons, any more than that are just cannon fodder."

"Oh, so it's kind of like how one Faun is a dangerous combatant, but five of them are pretty easy to handle. Now I think I remember the trope," I commented, but for some reason I was receiving flat looks from both of my girlfriends in return.

"Chief, I think you are the only person who could ever say that."

"That's right. I wouldn't want to fight two of them at once, let alone all five like you do during training," Elly stressed, sounding generally worried about by standards.

"Well, okay, maybe it's not so straightforward, but the principle is—"

Before I could finish that thought, the sound of a car stopping in my driveway made me stop in my tracks, and the three of us shared a long glance between each other.

"I'll go and let him in," Judy finally proposed and stood up, just around the same time Snowy showed up at the top of the stairs.

"I think I've heard a car. Is someone coming over?" she asked while making her way down, and my dear assistant quickly explained the gist of it to her. "I see. Should I prepare something to drink?"

"Calm down, sis. You don't have to serve food and drinks to literally everyone just because they come over," I told her before suddenly being reminded of something, so I asked, "How's Ichiko?"

"She's fine," Snowy responded with an unusually amused smile. "She is still in the corner, reflecting on what she's done."

"Good. Tell her that she is to stay there until dinner."

Snowy nodded and headed back upstairs, no doubt to keep the little fox company. As for why she was in the time-out-corner, it mainly had to do with her affinity for accidentally knocking furniture over, and let's leave the description of the incident at that. It's better that way.

Meanwhile, my dear assistant let in our guest and the two of them entered the living room without further ado. To my utter shock, surprise, and borderline bamboozlement, the old man wasn't wearing his usual butler's uniform. Now, what he was wearing wasn't any less dapper either, an outfit composed of a spotless white double-breasted jacket with gold buttons, a white pair of trousers, and black shoes and tie for contrast. He even had a fancy carved walking stick with a dragon head, for crying out loud, and worst of all, he made the whole thing come together and look good! How inconsiderate!

My gripes with making me feel underdressed aside, Sebastian glanced around my living room with a curious look, and once his eyes finally settled on me, he simply stated, "How unexpectedly austere."

"Well, hello old man. I'm happy to see you are as delightfully snobbish as ever."

"And I'm glad to see that your injury hasn't affected your ability to spew insufferable witticisms at all."

With our friendly greetings done and over with, he casually walked over to my side, closely followed by the returning Judy, and once he was standing right in front of me, he carefully looked me over from head to toe.

"The pleasantries aside, you seem to be in considerably better health than when we met yesterday."

"Let's just say I had a good night's sleep."

"I see," he said less than half-heartedly (so, maybe quarter-heartedly?) before letting out an overdramatic sigh. "Since I was practically forced to attend to you during my precious off day, I would appreciate if you didn't take up more of my time than strictly necessary and present the injury I must examine."

"Wait, you have days off?" I blurted out in surprise as I stood up and extended my numb right hand. "I thought you were married to your job."

"Isn't it only natural that even I would have my own life aside of being the family's 'steward'?"

He naturally added those annoying air quotes of his to the last word, then he handed his walking cane over to Elly and grabbed hold of my outstretched hand.

"And since when are you a medical expert anyway?" came my next question, and Sebastian responded with an annoyed glance.

"For your interest, over the centuries, I have seen and treated more injuries than you could feasibly imagine. Why, I have even earned a doctorate in medicine as a past-time!"

"Was this back then when those fancy beaked plague doctor masks were still in vogue?"

"As a matter of fact, yes." There was a long beat after he said that, and I was just about to ask him if he was serious when the old man let out a muffled chuckle and added, "I'm kidding, of course. That was only my first doctorate. My most recent one is only a decade old."

"You have multiple doctorates, huh? That's surprising. I would have expected you couldn't find time for such things between your busy schedule, polishing your various collections, and pretending to be a butler."

"I'm not pretending, and such occasional endeavors are indeed important," the old man countered a tad morosely. "Once you lived as long as I, you would find that refreshing your memories every few decades works wonders for breaking up the gray monotony of one's daily routines."

"Speaking of which, I'm surprised you could ditch your alleged job for today. I figured you'd be up to your neck in busywork after the recent attack," I rolled the conversation along as casually as I could, but the old dragon still responded with a derisive snort.

"Don't be daft, my boy. We don't yet know the current whereabouts of the accursed knights, and as for the damage done to the mansion, we have contractors for these kinds of things." He paused here for a moment, also halting his rough examination of my hand for the time being, and asked, "Could it be that you thought I would personally oversee such trifling matters myself? Have you never heard of the practice of delegation?"

Here is that word again. At this point I couldn't help but wonder if it was their family motto or something.

"So, in that case, what were you actually doing in your free time?" I moved on, and after compressing my hand at a couple of places, he readily answered my inquiry.

"Why, I was on my way to the bowling alley for my weekly practice."

"You are bowling?" the question slipped out, and for some reason both of my girlfriends looked at me funny for a second.

"Of course," Judy noted with a solemn nod, and Elly also agreed quite vehemently.

"You didn't know?"

"I can't say it came up in conversation, so no, I didn't."

"Speaking of subjects that never came up in previous discussions," the old butler mused aloud while handling my hand a tad more roughly than before, "I can't remember ever allowing you to take any item from my local collection. As a matter of fact, I can distinctly recall explicitly denying any such requests."

"Oh? Nice segue, old man."

"Thank you. So, where is my spear?"

The question wasn't an unexpected one by any means, and after a few seconds of feigned consideration, I replied with, "Inside a volcano," only to then hastily amend, "I'm kidding, I'm kidding! Also, my fingers don't bend that way!"

"You would be surprised how flexible the human hand can be." That dry reply earned him a fiery glare from the princess, so he stopped trying to tie my fingers into a knot and continued in a slightly more amicable voice. "But putting such trivia aside, when can I expect the expedient return of my property?"

Now, as I said, knowing the old man and his insistence on keeping his stupid, temperamental magic pointy stick in his collection even against basic common sense, it was only a matter of time before he would 'politely' insist on retrieving it from me. Because of this, I naturally already had the whole discussion mapped out in my head and ready to be deployed at this moment.

"It's really not as simple as that. First off, the Knights invaded your home with the express purpose of recovering the spear. That means they must have learned about not only its existence, but its precise location."

"Are you trying to tell me someone has infiltrated our ranks?" the incognito dragon guessed, and I nodded in the affirmative.

"Precisely. As such, even if I return it to you, there is no guarantee that its location won't be leaked again. More importantly though, at the moment they are under the impression that the spear was stolen by a certain Bel of the Abyss before they even arrived at the mansion."

"Bel of the Abyss? Who is that?"

"That's me. I mean, my disguise at the time. Don't think too much about it, I didn't do so either back then."

"How come I'm not even a little surprised," the old man snarked back at me, but I graciously let the words pass by.

"So, as I was saying, currently the existence of the unknown element called 'Bel' is causing them to be cautious, but if the spear suddenly returned to your collection, and the Knights caught wind of it, they might start getting funny ideas, like orchestrating another attack before we are ready to crack down on them."

That comment finally made a crack in the old man's stern expression and elicited a small, intrigued rise in his brows.

"Can I presume that you already have plans for such an occasion?"

"You most certainly can!"

I mean, to be perfectly honest, I only had an incredibly vague idea at the moment, but who was I to dare and stop him from presuming things! That would have been just plain rude.

"And I also presume you want to hold onto the spear until such a time comes."

"That's the plan, yes."

Sebastian looked me in the eye for a good while, probably gaging just how serious I was. At last, and to my utter, if somewhat pleasant, surprise, he let the topic slide with a simple "I'll keep you to your word."

To say that I wasn't expecting him to agree so readily would be an understatement, and it took me an embarrassingly long time to tell him, "You do that."

On one hand, I was glad that things proceeded smoother than expected, but on the other, I was a little peeved that I never got the chance to use all the other arguments I prepared in advice. I was actually looking forward to how he would react to my version of the Chewbacca defense, but apparently it was never meant to be. Such shame, much sad.

"I can't help but feel that we have veered wildly off the original goal of this meeting," Judy broke the ensuing silence, her voice so dryer than a powder house. "How is the Chief's hand?"

"Oh, do you mean this, young lady?" the old fart asked while he grabbed me by the wrist and used my own hand to wave at her. "Almost entirely ruined by some kind of internal injury. What exactly were you doing that resulted in… this?"

"It's a long story involving a gluttonous ninja, an undead Chimera, a magic sword, and a naked little girl," I told him with the absolute, solemn sincerity such a description deserved, and after spending a short while trying to figure out whether I was pulling his leg, the old dragon apparently decided to stop trying to make sense of what I just said and he unceremoniously let go of my hand.

"That sounds like quite a tale, but maybe for another time. Back to young miss Sennoma's question: his injury is serious, but not impossible to heal. I will tell the patriarch to contact one of the internal injury specialists we contracted in the past to examine the matriarch's wound. He is not on the island at the moment, but given the right incentives, he should most likely be made available in but a few days' time. Until then, I recommend that you take care not to aggravate your hand's condition by channeling any form of energy through it."

"I… don't even know how to do that," I admitted with a hint of confusion, which was then mirrored by the old butler's reaction.

"Then how did you receive this internal injury?"

"I already told you. Also, is it just me, or is our definition of 'internal injury' different?"

"Possible, in case you are unaware of how the term is generally used," he responded off-handedly, and when he didn't elaborate, Elly came to the rescue.

"Internal injuries happen when you are trying to channel mana or other energies, and your body cannot handle them. To us, it usually happens when failing to properly transform to our Draconic form."

"I see, so our definitions are indeed different…"

"That might be, but it does not change my advice. Make sure you do not exacerbate your injury." At first I thought he would leave it at that, but then he abruptly added, "In the worst-case scenario, we might have to ask my eastern brethren to reconstruct your hand from the inside. Their focus on harnessing the internal energies granted by our blood naturally grants them a deeper understanding of the injuries caused by such practice, but the price of their help might be higher than you would want to pay."

"Why did you bring that up?" Elly asked with a hint of alarm in her voice, followed up by, "Wait, are you implying they are coming to the island?"

"Who?" Judy asked the obvious question, and when Sebastian nodded with a schadenfreude-laden smile that didn't touch his eyes, my draconic girlfriend let out an enormous groan, with her shoulders slouching to an almost comical degree in the process.

"The Feilong clan," she uttered like the words themselves tasted sour, and when she realized we were none the wiser, she hastily elaborated. "They are a big Draconian clan in eastern Asia."

"They contacted the patriarch very recently, with the intention of expressing their sympathy over the damages caused by the accursed knights, and they offered to visit us here on the island. They plan on holding a conference in regards to more effective countermeasures against their attacks, with the unspoken agenda being the formation of a united front by bringing our families closer."

"Oooooh… I see where this is going," I muttered in a state of tropey enlightenment. "Let me guess: they want to have a political marriage to cement this alliance."

Based on the way Elly angrily averted her eyes, I was spot on, and when I glanced at Judy in turn, her eyes told me 'That is totally a plot hook, and that means that the next arc is starting with the arrival of these Chinese dragon people guy clan men', or at least something along those lines.

"The current scion of the Feilong Clan, Feilong Naoren, is quite taken with the young heiress," Sebastian pointed out. He didn't even bother to hide the way he was looking for a reaction on my end, but to be honest, I didn't really feel bothered.

"I see. What did you say, when are these Asian Draconians supposed to arrive here?"

"They also have their own problems to deal with, and while there have been no agreed-upon schedule, in my estimation they could only mount a visit in late November at the earliest."

"So we have almost an entire month until the next arc. Very generous," I whispered, but did so loud enough to make sure Judy could hear it. That, of course also meant that Sebastian could pick it up as well.

"My boy, is it just me, or you don't seem too bothered by the appearance of a rival?"

I gave the old butler a flat glance, followed by an equally level, "What? Do you expect me to start feeling sorry for this guy whom I never even met? I'm a nice guy, but I'm not that nice."

"I'm… afraid I can't follow. Why would you feel sorry for him?"

"That's my question," I echoed him with a purposefully exaggerated sigh. "For example, would you feel sorry for a man who tried to get across a wall by repeatedly walking into it? People who are attempting the impossible out of bull-headed idiocy deserve no pity in my book."

"I see…" Sebastian whispered under his breath, though his tone said that no, he didn't. Either way, he didn't seem to want to press the issue, and instead he reached out and took his fancy walking cane from the princess and pointedly tapped it against my floor. "I believe I have fulfilled my obligations towards the patriarch in this instance, so if there is nothing else to discuss, I believe it is time for me to bid you farewell and head towards my destination."

"And by that you mean the bowling alley," I noted, and he unabashedly confirmed it with a nod. "Fair enough then, have fun."

And just like that, Sebastian left without any further ado or pleasantries, much to my relief. After he did so, the three of us once again sat on the sofa, so that my two girlfriends could each monopolize one of my arms. Once we felt comfortable, Judy went ahead and summed up the situation, with her trusty note-taking phone in hand.

"In conclusion, our best bet for fixing the Chief's hand is the healer Abram can contact for us, while the second-best being the newly introduced eastern Draconians."

"Also don't forget about Angie; she promised to look into an alternative too," I pointed out, and she diligently made it part of her notes.

"Either way, until a proper professional gets to look at your hand, you shouldn't use it recklessly."

"I don't plan to. Didn't you hear what Sebastian said? We are apparently getting over three weeks of breathing room at minimum until the next plot-hook arrives."

That immediately flared Judy's interest and her fingers began dancing on her phone's screen once again.

"So you also think they are shaping to be the focus of the next arc. Along with the knights, I presume?"

"More than likely, though Lord Grandpa and the Assembly isn't completely off the table either. But on the bright side, these Chinese Draconians at least don't seem overtly hostile, so I figure the main source of the conflict related to them should be about the whole political marriage thing."

"If that is the case, then their sudden arrival might be aimed at you in particular. It is possible that the narrative is going to divide its attention just like last time, and you would end up with your own plot."

"Or my own problems to keep me busy and away from Josh's main plot, but the effect is the same," I pondered before finally nodding. "If that is the case, then Josh might get entangled in the plot-threads related to the Assembly delegation sent to the island, or with the knight of the unnecessarily long name, while I would only have to deal with Elly's Hopeless Suitor archetype and the resulting drama."

"Just make sure it's not too melodramatic. Also, be on the lookout for possible Romantic False Leads among them creating misunderstandings by slipping through the planetoid-sized holes in your anti-harem defenses."

"Oh, ha-ha. I'll have you know, my anti-harem defenses barely have any holes larger than a pick-up-truck, thank you very much." I was about to continue, but it was around this time that I noticed that Elly looked like a fish out of water, so I attempted to draw her in with a subtle, "Yes, princess? Did you want to say something?"

"No… I mean…" There was a long pause here while she collected her thoughts, and in the end she timidly asked me, "Do the two of you always talk like this when you discuss things?"

"Only when the narrative is involved. Or theoretical harems trying to come into existence."

"Mostly the former," I emphasized.

"I see… And does it really not bother you? Naoren, I mean?"

"What's a Naoren?" My mouth moved before my brain once again, but Judy quickly came to the rescue.

"He is the aforementioned Hopeless Suitor."

"Oooooh, that guy? Should it bother me? I mean, it's not like he has a bat's chance in hell at coming between us, so I don't see why I should stress over it."

"That's true, but what if the Feilong clan tries to use their influence, or pressure you, or—"

"Princess, please," I cut my increasingly frantic girlfriend off with a broad, reassuring smile. "Do I strike you as the kind of guy who would let himself be pressured or intimidated into anything I don't want?"

"Um… No?"

"And there is your answer. You have absolutely nothing to worry about; even if they try to pick a fight with me, I have many, many ways to make them reconsider their plans. As my other lovely girlfriend has put in the past, I'm a man of many talents, and making the bad guys regret they ever crossed paths with me is just one of them. If you don't believe me, just ask Crowey!"

I finished my speech with another reassuring smile, and once Elly calmed down a bit, I quickly turned to the other side and whispered, "Hey, Judy?"

"Yes?" my dear assistant responded just a touch suspiciously, but I ignored her tone and quickly continued.

"I just remembered this, so please remind me in case it slips my mind again: the itching powder I bought a while back is about to expire."

"And where exactly do you want to use that?"

This time she didn't even try to hide her suspicions, so I figured I might as well tell her the truth.

"Weeell… Let's just say that a certain Abyssal Lord has finally recovered enough to move around in his room on his own, so I believe it is only appropriate that I would visit him to deliver a gift on this occasion. Without his knowledge, of course."

Part 3

"Moooorning guys!"

Our little group composed of my girlfriends and Snowy came to a stop when a familiar voice called out to us. When I glanced towards the source of it, for a moment I was afraid I was going to be tackled, but the energetic Celestial somehow managed to stop on a dime right in front of us. It actually took me a second longer to recognize her than usual, and not just because she was wearing our school's winter uniform.

By the way, we were all wearing those right now, and while the boys' uniform looked the same, except with a longer jacket and thicker materials, the girls switched to a longer skirt, black leggings, and boots. Speaking of which, why didn't the boy's uniform include boots? Was it some kind of egalitarian ploy enforcing that at least one part of everyone's legs should be cold? Because I personally would have been perfectly fine with letting girls wear pants if I could put on a pair of warm boots in exchange…

But let's put the egalitarian conspiracy on hold for a moment and focus on Angie, and why she looked different. First and foremost, she currently had a cute, fluffy beret on her head, which certainly wasn't part of the uniform code, as none of the other girls were wearing one. I quickly concluded that they should though, and made a mental note about getting one for everyone the next time I take Snowy shopping, but that was beside the point. Back to the girl in front of me: under said beret, she also had her hair in a loose braid ending in an implausibly large red ribbon. That was certainly a new look for her. She also might have had some makeup on her face, though I wasn't entirely sure about that bit.

"Morning, Angie," I greeted her back, and she gave me a wide grin in return.

"Glad to see you are up and running already!"

At this point she apparently wanted to pat me on the shoulder, but then she realized that my arms were, as usual, reserved by my girlfriends, so in the end she turned the gesture into thumbs up.

"I actually entertained the idea of staying home on a sick leave, but…" I began, only for Judy to finish my sentence for me.

"But we are going to have career guidance this week, and missing it would be bad."

"What she said," I granted with a shrug, eliciting a giggle from both Angie and the princess. "So, where's Josh? Did he sleep in?"

"We are not joined at the hip, you know?" Angie grumbled for a second, only to let a chuckle a beat later and add, "Nah, he just has to run some errands. He should catch up to us soon-ish."

"In that case, we might as well move along," I proposed, and the hyper Celestial immediately fell in line beside Snowy.

"I like your new hairstyle," my sister noted, earning yet another toothy smile in return.

"I know, right? We had a sleep-over last night, and Ammy made it for me!"

That stray comment immediately had my interest tickled. While I admittedly didn't check on them that often, I was pretty sure that I didn't see Amelia anywhere near their neighborhood through Far Sight.

"The class rep slept at your place?"

"Yeah," Angie confirmed. "She came over after dark because there was some kind of big party at their house, and her grandpa sent her over so that she would not be bothered by the noise or the guests or something. I didn't really get it, but we haven't had a sleepover in ages, so it was still awesome! We ate Josh's emergency cookies, we watched that new kaijuu movie I talked about last week, and we checked out all the board-games we got from Ammy's gramps!"

"You had a sleepover with Josh?" my dear assistant inquired with a critical look in her eyes, but our Celestial friend immediately (and suspiciously vehemently) denied it.

"What? No! Don't be silly! He just stayed over until we went to bed, that's all!" After declaring so, Angie cleared her throat and quickly changed the subject. "But speaking of which, we totally have to try out one of the board games next time we all get together! It's this game where you have these character sheets, and you level up, and you roll your dice to see if you manage to attack something or climb a wall and stuff, and there is even one player who plays as the evil wizard whose job is to play as the monsters and set down traps and plan all kinds of nefarious schemes behind this really cool folding screen!"

"Sooo… It's like a tabletop RPG, but it's a board game."

Hearing my reductionist guess made Angie pause in her high-spirited tracks, and after a long moment of consideration, she gave me a huge nod.

"Yeah, kind of like that, and it's really cool, and we should really, really try it! Ah, and if we do, I already called dibs on being the evil wizard!"

A lite-version of a tabletop game DM'd by Angie of all people? That… actually sounded decently entertaining, especially with enough junk food and soft drinks involved.

"Consider me convinced. Let's backtrack a little though; you said the class rep slept over at you, so why isn't she here with you?"

"She is with Josh. He is running those errands for her."

I let out a small 'Oh,' in response and left it at that, and with the well of that topic seemingly drying up, Angie turned to my sister, and the two of them quickly got enveloped into their own little world as they discussed various girly things, such as Angie's makeup or how Snowy should also try changing her hairstyle.

As for my girlfriends, they remained silent as they continued to hold onto me, leaving me a lot of time to observe my surroundings. First and foremost, the air was quite chilly, though I didn't feel it too much since I was warmed by two sides at once. The placeholders lingering on the streets, on the other hand, were apparently feeling it, as a lot of them looked borderline frozen as they monotonously walked along. Well, most of them, at the very least.

The wage-slave types, the office ladies, and the other assorted placeholders going to their work all seemed to be a little under-dressed for the weather, but on the other hand, I could see a couple of students from our school who were also happily wearing our winter uniform. That said, the division wasn't so clear-cut, as I could see a couple of adult placeholders who were also dressed with enough layers to make an onion proud, so maybe the way they clothed themselves also depended on their 'development level'?

This naturally only made me once again question the priorities of this 'simulacrum' thing we apparently lived in. On a side-note, Judy looked into the word, and it apparently had to do with some French philosopher and hyper-reality and some action movies about being plugged into machines or whatnot, but long story short, she decided that we should use it instead of 'the world' in the future for the sake of clarity, and I was fine with it. Elly got lost at the hyper-reality part of her explanation, but I'm sure she was in agreement too.

Anyhow, while I was considering these things, I noticed the familiar sound of a moped closing in on us, and in a couple of seconds, Josh's ride caught up with us as he honked the horn, as if we could even miss his arrival if we tried. He was also in his winter uniform, plus safety helmet, and behind him, the class rep was holding onto him for dear life, her arms clenched around his waist like vices, though he didn't seem to mind.

"Hi, guys!" my friend greeted us with a grin before looking over his shoulder and adding, "See, I told you we would catch up with them in no time."

It seemed like Ammy only just realized that they came to a stop, and after glancing around like a rabbit in the fox-pen before immediately letting him go and jumping off the seat.

"I'm never riding with you again!" she declared with an angry huff, following which she straightened her clothes and greeted us with a modest, "Good morning."

While we returned the greetings, Angie let out a small chuckle and exclaimed, "Oh, come on, Ammy! It surely wasn't that bad! I love riding shotgun with Josh!"

"You can only ride shotgun in a car," Judy pointed out but got dismissed with a nonchalant 'Semantics!' from her.

In the meantime, the class rep tweaked her glasses a little and responded with, "Of course you enjoyed it! He is a menace on the road, and you are just the type who would get a kick out of that!"

"In my defense, I usually don't ride that recklessly," Josh noted a little sheepishly as he removed his helmet, revealing his bed-hair for all to see. Or in this case, was it helmet-hair? "I only ran that curb because we had to catch up to them."

"Now, now, buddy. Don't be modest," Angie teased him a bit. "I'm sure you enjoyed those bumps as well."

"Well, I didn't not enjoy them, but…"

I let the childhood friends and their thinly veiled innuendos well enough alone and focused on the slightly disheveled class rep instead.

"I've heard you had a sleepover because your gramps had a party. What's that about?"

My direct question earned me a displeased grimace and a sharp, "Wouldn't you know that better than me?"

"Hey, I can't be everywhere at once."

"But you could if you had an army of ninjas," my draconic girlfriend whispered to me, so I did the only reasonable thing and tickled her side with extreme prejudice.

"Will you stop bringing that up already?"

"Never!" she yelled out defiantly between two giggles, much to the class rep's confusion.

"What is that about?"

"It's a long story, kind of irrelevant," I responded after one last assault on my girlfriend's vulnerable side. "So, why was there a party at your house?"

Ammy glanced around for a moment, and once she was sure there were no rogue elements who could overhear us, she leaned closer and told me, "Grandfather arranged it for the investigators from the Assembly. Arch-Mage Saahira herself came over as the leader of the group, so he told me to stay at a friend's place until the investigation blows over."

"Does that mean you are going to stay over tonight too?" the energetic Celestial suddenly elbowed her way into the conversation, forcing the class rep to let out an ambivalent grunt.

"I don't know yet, I have to speak with grandfather again first."

"You are free to stay at our place any time," Angie offered right away. "We still have half a box of cookies left!"

"I don't know what those two things have to do with each other," Josh grumbled while pushing his moped beside us. "Also, those are my cookies you are talking about. I have been keeping them sealed for an emergency for months."

"Silly Josh, those have already been communalized! Those are our cookies now! Didn't you already agree last night?"

"You didn't give me much of a choice in the matter…"

"No take-backsies!" Angie declared with an impish grin, eliciting a long groan from my friend that said he knew he shouldn't have even tried to argue, but then he glanced at me next.

"Hey, Leo? Since you are filthy rich and all, can you maybe help out a guy whose supplies are being pilfered by a one-woman communist regime?"

"The revolution will not be vilified, but it will gladly take any additional snacks the bourgeois might want to provide!" Angie added on, and I couldn't help but shake my head.

"Behave yourself, and we can talk about it."

"Sir, yes sir!" the hyper Celestial exclaimed with a mock salute, making her childhood friend promptly roll his eyes.

"And that's how the Angie regime has fallen and became yet another tale of capitalist money corrupting everything. Oh the humanity."

"Oh the humanity indeed," Angie agreed, and the two of them proceeded to continue espousing their historically questionable allegories as they fell back to the end of our procession. In the meantime, Ammy took Angie's place next to my sister, and after looking our group over, she addressed me to get my attention.

"Say, Leo?" She waited for me to look at her, and then she asked, "Did you leave the little girl at your house, or at the base?"

"You mean Ichiko? Nah, she's in Judy's shadow at the moment."

Ammy looked a tad flabbergasted for a moment, but before she could ask for clarification, a small head rose out of the ground near our feet and she was greeted by a loud, "Good morning, Ammy-san!"

"W-What is that?!"

The class rep recoiled back in surprise, while the childhood friend duo let out gasps of amazement at the same time. As for me, I simply raised a leg, and threatened to stomp on her head instead.

"I told you not to come out while we are in the open. What are you going to do if Judy's shadow gets erased by a headlight and you get bisected?"

Hearing my words made the little miko shudder for a second before she immediately disappeared out of sight with a mousy "Sorry!", leaving the members of the group who hadn't already experienced this spectacle completely stunned.

It was Amelia who first managed to break out of her stupor and, after some hesitation, she pointed at the spot where the little girl's head used to be just a second ago and asked, "Did… she just merge into the ground?"

"Into Judy's shadow, but yes. It's a ninja thing."

"I presume you are going to explain this in detail."

"Sure, but later," I answered while using my chin to point (since my hands were still occupied) towards the gates at the top of the hill.

"Lunch break?" she asked.

"Lunch break," I answered.

And with that, this particular conversation was concluded without any fanfare. That said, we naturally didn't stay quiet for long.

"Hey, Josh. I just thought of something," Angie spoke up, drawing our attention to her. "I thought you couldn't leave your bike on school grounds. What are you going to do with it?"

"Oh, that?" my friend responded without the slightest shred of worry. "We are kinda-sorta friends with Pascal now, right? I'm sure he'll let me take it inside if I tell him this was an emergency."

"I'm not so sure about that," Ammy commented in a quiet voice, but he willfully ignored her and redoubled his efforts to push his ride up the hill.

"Come on guys, it's going to be fine. Let's hurry up or we are going to be late!"

"Late from what? Career-consultation?" I grumbled, and Judy gave me a stern look for my trouble.

"Yes, Chief. It is important."

"Maybe, but is it important for me in particular?" I asked back. "I mean, I don't think I need any counseling to become a philanthropist millionaire record magnate."

"Not all of us are as rich as you are, Chief," she countered in her monotoniest monotone, but I already had my answer ready.

"Are you sure? Let's count: I have a lot of money, so as long as I don't blow it all, I don't have to worry about getting a nine-to-five job. Elly is even richer than me, and she is going to inherit her family's business, so she is also out. You are going to marry into the family, so you can either help manage the company or do whatever else you fancy. Snowy is also part of the family, so the same applies to her. Ammy lives in a mansion too, and her grandpa practically owns the island, so I don't think she has anything to worry about. As for Angie and Josh…" I paused here for a long moment, and then concluded with, "Well, I'm already sending foreign aid to fuel her regime, so Angie's going to be fine."

"I'll be the la Presidenta of my own island republic, except we are going to have cookie-plantations for days!" the subject of my comment declared without missing a beat, drawing out an exasperated sigh from my dear assistant in the process.

"What about me then?" Josh cut in, and I didn't even need to think to tell him:

"Ask Angie if she needs a right-hand man to oppress the disenfranchised cookie-plantation workers?" He didn't really appreciate my answer, so in the end I decided to be more serious. "Listen, Josh. You really don't have to worry about a thing. Considering it's you we are talking about here, I can guarantee that the world is going to end up revolving around you in one way or another no matter what you'd choose to do."

"You think so?" His response, joined by his display of virtuoso eyebrow-raisology, felt a little uncertain at first, but when I didn't add anything else, he continued with a sheepish, "Well, thanks, dude."

"That wasn't a compliment, but a warning," I amended, but by then we already reached the top of the hill, and my friend dashed ahead to talk to a certain Armband Guy by the school gates. And just like that, another ordinary school day began in our beloved Blue Cherry High.

Also, just for the record, I wash my hands of any responsibility for Angie actually writing 'dictator of a banana-republic' on her career counseling pamphlet.