The Simulacrum

"Are you, like, sleepy or something?"

The question made me open a single eye and glance at the girl in the driver's seat. Honestly, this was one of those 'just how the hell did I get into this situation again?' kind of moments. Like, if my life was a movie, this would be the part when time slowed to a freeze-frame, all the color drained from the environment, and I would cheekily monologue something along the lines of 'I bet you wonder how I ended up in a sports car speeding down the highway, driven by a circa fourteen years old girl. Well, it's a long story, so let's start at the beginning.'

Except I won't do that, because I was already annoyed enough by the whole affair without gratuitous flashbacks thrown into the mix. Also, I had better things to do at the moment.

"No, I was doing a thing," I told the incognito Arch-mage sitting next to me before closing my eyes again and returning to my Far Sight, or at least I would've, if not for the continued protests coming from my left.

"You're totally standoffish today. And not in a cool way."

"Less complaining and more paying attention to the road so that we won't be stopped by the police. How the hell did you even get a license with that body anyway?"

Sahi let out a small giggle as she turned at an intersection, and then she replied with, "I blew pixie dust into the face of the officer and, like, made them madly in love with me so that they wouldn't ask any questions."

I gave my driver the skeptical look to end all skeptical looks, and capped it with the words, "That's not funny at all, it's a gross violation of someone's free will, and you should be ashamed."

"Like, whatever. You have a Seducer for a little sister so, you know, people with glass houses shouldn't throw rocks and stuff." I didn't grace her with an answer, so she let out an indignant huff followed by a sulky, "You're no fun either."

I wanted to point out that after the recent incident, I doubted anyone would be in a humorous mood, but I refused to give her more attention, so instead I simply closed my eyes without a word. A short second (and one more indignant huff) later my point of view shifted, and I was once again looking at Josh and the class rep.

Due to my last second intervention, and some quick but aggressive negotiations afterward, I managed to get them out of hot water, but by the looks of it, they weren't entirely satisfied with the results, despite the fact that they just barely avoided spending the night in custody. In fact, the two of them were currently heading home on foot, with Josh sourly pushing his scooter by Ammy's side.

"Tonight was a mess," Josh broke the silence, and the class rep immediately nodded in agreement. "If Leo didn't show up, we would be in sooo much trouble."

"I think we are either way," Ammy responded with her face twisted into a sour grimace. "Unless he can somehow convince her not to tell grandfather about what happened tonight, we're going to be lucky if we'll only have to go under house arrest."

There was a long beat in the conversation, but then Josh let out a thoughtful hum and muttered, "I wonder what Leo said to her. I mean, she completely had us at her mercy, but then she just let us go and they stormed off without as much as saying goodbye."

"Maybe we'll learn it tomorrow," Ammy responded with a shrug, but then added, "Though, with Leo's track record, I doubt it."

"Yeah, he really loves his secrets, doesn't he?" He paused here, and I figured this was the perfect segue to bring up Ammy's own secret, but instead my friend hung his head and whispered, "Sorry."

Ammy froze mid-stride, but then she quickly shook it off and continued her step while asking, "What are you apologizing about?"

"Just... for not being very useful, I suppose," Josh confessed with a downcast expression. "I mean, I thought I could help, but I couldn't even stand up to Sahi, and—"

"To be fair, she is an Arch-mage, even if... disguised?" Ammy cut in to console the guy, but then her words ended up pretty uncertain by the end of it.

"That doesn't change the facts. Not to mention, I was the one who triggered the alarms in the first place, so all of this is mostly my fault."

"Wait, no. You only triggered the alarm because I slipped and you tried to catch me."

"Yes, but you wouldn't have slipped if not for me—"

Whatever he tried to say, I couldn't catch the end of it, as I was jolted out of Far Sight by the car coming to a halt. I opened my eyes, and considering that the first thing I saw was a fancy, multi-story hotel on our left, I figured we successfully arrived at our destination.

"Let's, go!" Sahi exclaimed as she threw the door open and jumped out of the car in the middle of the driveway.

I followed suit, though with slightly less vigor. The door on my side moved up at the press of a button, and while holding onto Cal made it a little difficult to get out, once I managed, I couldn't help but sneak another long glance at our ride. For some inexplicable reason, Sahi not only had a license even though she looked younger than my sister, but she was driving a freaking Lamborghini of all things. I was afraid she would be one of those comedically reckless drivers, but she was surprisingly careful, and with a beautiful car like this, she'd better be.

"{Horseless carriages have come a long way since I was last awake,}" Cal noted on the side, and I couldn't help but agree. Hell, they even came a long way since I first woke up on the island!

"Come, Leonard. I'll show you to my room." When Sahi finally noticed where I was looking, a wide smile spread on her face and she added, "It's totally nice, isn't it? Endy let me borrow it while I'm on the island! He always had a good taste for the finer things in life."

"I'm aware," I noted, earning me an even wider smile.

"The valet will take care of the car. Come on; let's not waste any more time!"

She came over and tried to grab my hand, so I casually dodged her attempt (much to her annoyance) and headed towards the main entrance on my own, with the flat of Cal's blade resting against my shoulder. I mean, it was already pretty conspicuous, and I figured that trying to hide it would only draw more attention to me, so I decided to wear it in the open instead and act like it was totally normal to walk around with a sword in public. You know? Refuge in audacity and stuff.

In retrospect, I might've overthought things a little, as the placeholder hotel staff didn't even bat an eye at my appearance. Either that, or they were just professionals. In fact, the only person in the entire hotel who questioned the presence of Cal was the incognito Arch-mage, and even she waited until we were inside the elevator to bring it up.

"So, like, I totally forgot to ask, but why do you have a sword?" the brown girl inquired while unsubtly eyeing the blade still resting against my shoulder.

"I was working on it at the time, so I brought it along," I responded a tad curtly, but she didn't seem to mind.

"Ooooh? So you're working on weapon enchantments too? That's totally wicked!"

I gave her an ambivalent shrug in place of a proper response and then proceeded to ignore her until we reached the top floor. The elevator doors opened to a spacious, clean corridor that was way less posh than what I expected from the hallway leading to the VIP suites. On the other hand, my appearance finally got a reaction out of someone, as the two guys standing guard in front of the farthest door instinctively stiffened in alarm the second they noticed me, only to stand down a moment later when Sahi's presence also registered with them.

"Welcome back, my Lord," the guard on the left, a tall man with a neatly cropped beard and a pair of tiny glasses greeted the girl at my side. Apparently, Arch-mages were called 'Lord' regardless of gender. Who knew?

"I have a guest tonight," she stated off-handedly, and the man looked me over from head to toe, his eyes only lingering on Cal for a second.

"Chimera Slayer," he greeted me with a nod, and his colleague did the same.

"I see that my reputation precedes me," I grumbled under my breath, drawing a wide grin out of Sahi in response.

"{You've slain a Chimeric Beast of the Abyss, young knight? Was it related to the little one living in your home?}"

"It's a long story," I whispered softly under my breath, and based on the lack of reactions, everyone must've thought I was only grumbling to myself.

Anyways, Sahi and I entered the VIP suite without any further ado, and it was about as big and fancy as I expected, though not especially lavish. I wondered if my frequent visits to the Dracis mansion were skewing my perception a little, but the thought was soon popped like a bubble by the Arch-mage proxy closing the door behind us.

"I'll go get ready! Please take a seat! If you want something to, like, drink and such, the minibar's over there!"

After sputtering that out, she all but dashed into the room at the far end of the living area. Since I had nothing better to do, I figured I might as well sit down and collect my thoughts.

Let's start with the reason why I was here in the first place: after Josh and Ammy were caught, I offered a simple deal for her. She'd let them go and sweep the incident under the carpet, and in exchange I'd take a look at her body-switching research and give her some pointers, free of charge. I expected that she'd drive a hard bargain, but my performance at the symposium must've left a deep impression on her, as she was almost suspiciously eager to take my offer and all but kicked my burglar friends out in her hurry to get moving.

Honestly speaking, I didn't know how (or even if) I could help her pet project, but even if I failed to do so, she couldn't exactly call me out on it, even if she tried to raise a fuss with Lord Grandpa. Not to mention, I doubted the old coot would throw his own granddaughter into prison over something like this. Josh was a different matter, but I still had quite a bit of leverage on the old man, so if push came to shove, I was confident I could get my friend out of the frying pan as well.

In other words, this was a situation where I already accomplished my main goal of getting my friends out of immediate trouble, and now I just had to play nice and coast along for a while. In the best-case scenario, I may even be able to put Saahira in my debt, which could pay some dividends later down the line. I mean, I've been kind of planning to play her against Lord Grandpa anyway, so this really was a win-win situation for me.

Anyhow, I was just about to grow impatient when the door in the back opened without a sound, and out walked an elderly woman draped in a thick, royal purple bathrobe. She was tall, yet thin to the point she was borderline emaciated. Her short white hair was damp, and her face had countless wrinkles framing a very prominent hook nose and a pair of intense green eyes that resulted in a sense of intangible dignity surrounding her. It reminded me of the first time I met Lord Grandpa in his study, and this impression lasted exactly until she walked over to me and opened her mouth.

"I'm sorry I made you wait. I, like, totally tried to be quick, but the suspension fluid is like tooootally grody and stuff, and getting it out of your hair is like, gosh, not in this life!"

I gave the outwardly grandmotherly woman a long, deliberate lookover, but since she showed no sign of joking, I exhaled a pent-up groan and uttered, "Is that seriously how you speak?"

"Like, what do you mean?"

"I... It doesn't matter. Let's get this over with."

Saying so, I stood up at once, but I was stopped by the Arch-mage after a single step.

"Calm down, Leonard. Chill. Let's, like, move over to my other body and discuss things first. Like, I don't want to spazz out or anything, but if you can do what I think you can do, then it would be the bomb. Like, seriously the bomb, so I'm totally stoked!"

Oh my god. Somehow returning to her normal body made her valley speak worse! How is that even possible? Not to mention, talking like that with her raspy, aged voice made it even weirder, almost creepy in a sense. It was like I was on the set of an especially low-effort episode of The Twilight Zone. The original black and white one, to be precise.

No, never mind. Let's not care about it. Let's just check out what she wants, take a look at whatever enchantment she needs to be fiddled with, and then go home and make some tea and grilled cheese to wash off the bad aftertaste of this day.

With that in mind, I allowed Saahira to lead me into the room where she came from, and for a moment I felt as though I accidentally Phased into Labcoat Guy's workshop. By the looks of it, this one used to be a bedroom, but it was completely rearranged, with the bed on one side and most of the furniture on the other. In the middle of the room, there stood an enormous glass tube on a round metallic pedestal. It was hooked up to an even bigger metal tank of some kind and it had various control panels around it displaying all kinds of vital information. I meant that literally, as one of them was a heart monitor. The glass container was currently empty, though based on a Far Glance in the past I wish I could forget, Saahira used to be floating in that thing while remote-controlling the 'Sahi' body.

Speaking of which, the latter was lying on the bed in the corner, seemingly asleep under a thin bed sheet, with only her head and bare feet sticking out. I couldn't see the ubiquitous glowy line extending from her head anymore, so it was obvious she was less 'sleeping' and more 'offline' at the moment.

I took in each part of the scenery, and after a long beat, I turned to the old woman standing by my side and simply asked, "So, what exactly do you want me to do?"

"First, let's sit and talk for a bit," she proposed and she pointed at the chairs next to the bed where the currently occupant-less body was lying. She didn't even wait for me to respond before she walked over, leaving me with little choice other than to follow after her. There were exactly two chairs, and by the looks of it, she put them there in preparation. She sat down onto the one right next to the nightstand near the bed, so by process of elimination, I had no choice but to take the other seat.

The moment I was seated, Saahira immediately turned to me and asked, "So, like, how much do you know about our research?"

I gave the smiling Arch-mage a sideways look, and a deep breath later I told her, "As far as I understand, you're trying to move souls between cloned bodies as a bid to sell it to the other venerable geezers of the Assembly as bootleg immortality, but you hit a roadblock, and so far you only managed to create this proxy body that you remotely control while your real body is floating in that tube over there."

By the time I finished, Saahira's smile turned quite stiff, as if she had to spend inordinate effort to keep it up, but rather soon it slowly morphed into a melancholic expression, followed by a similarly forlorn sigh.

"So you know that much, huh? Bogus. But then again, I guess it's totally obvious in retrospect. Like, you weren't even the slightest bit surprised when I showed up like this." She paused here as she tried to force the smile back onto her face, and once she more or less succeeded, she stated, "You're mostly correct, except for, like, a single point. Our… my research is totally not just a bargaining chip in Assembly politics."

"It's not?" I inquired with a single brow raised high. "Please don't tell me it's for the benefit of all mankind."

"Well, no, not really," she responded in the company of a soft chuckle that, after a moment, turned into a rattling cough, startling me for a moment. "As a matter of fact, my research is a little selfish. You see, Leonard… I'm actually dying." After dropping that bombshell, she was looking at me quite intently, but when I didn't give her the reaction she was looking for, she stressed, "Like, I'm literally dying. Totally. Like, even as we speak."

"Yeah, I got it. So?"

"So?" she raised her voice like my reaction was absurd. "I don't want to die, so this is very important to me, for sure!"

"I think most people would agree with the sentiment," I pointed out, only for the old lady in front of me to literally puff out her cheeks and start sulking, prompting me to raise my hands in surrender and yell out, "Okay, okay! I get it. It's very important and I'm going to try to help, okay?"

"You better," the currently not at all dignified Arch-mage grumbled before she pulled out the drawer of the nearby nightstand, took out a bunch of haphazardly piled up papers, and handed them over to me. When I gave her a quizzical frown, she simply told me, "It's the documentation for, like, eeeverything in this room."

"Oh. I see."

After saying so, I tried to skim the wad of pages in my hands, but even a cursory glance told me it was way over my head. As in, aside from a few snippets here and there, I couldn't make heads or tails of any of this. I've already run into this problem once with enchantments, where it turned out that artificers like Gowan saw and interacted with arrays very differently than how I did, but even so, there was at least some common ground. This? This might as well have been written in Mandarin. By a duck.

That said, I couldn't exactly tell that to my expectant host, so while I pretended to study the papers, I decided to distract her with some small talk.

"So, why are you dying?"

…

Okay, in my defense, I know I'm terrible at small talk, but hey, at least I was trying. Isn't that the most important part? Not to mention, while my host gave me a curious look, she didn't seem offended by my question.

"Oh, you know? It's terminal stage lung cancer. From, like, cigarettes and stuff," Saahira answered without the slightest hint of reservation. She probably mistook my surprise at her honest answer for ridicule, as she immediately raised her voice in an indignant tirade. "What? Like, cigarettes used to be way wicked back in my day! You kids today just totally don't get it! All the choice gals did it, and nobody wanted to be a Joanie, so of course I totally did it too! So what if it's, like, totally killing me now? Everyone can make some small mistakes, so I don't need you to judge me! Ugh, gag me with a spoon!"

"… Okay, I didn't understand half of that, but maybe for the better," I mused as I put the pages aside. "Let me get to the point then: is there an actual enchantment I can look at? Because to be honest with you, if you want me to fix your machinery or discuss theoretical nuances, I'm not your guy."

"Like…. um… there's the array on the artificial body, but—"

"Marvelous, give me a moment."

Saying so, I proceeded to escape my failed attempt at small talk and the annoyingly anachronistic old lady by focusing my attention on the motionless body lying on the bed. I wanted to get away from here as soon as possible, so I unceremoniously jammed my Phantom Limb into the only slightly glowing bit I could see on her body, which was a spot around her sternum, visible even through the thin fabric.

What followed was the usual experience of flying backwards through a river made of irrational numbers before I reached a familiar non-Euclidian space. It was, without a shadow of a doubt, the inside of an enchantment, and a fairly complex one at that. I've spent roughly ten billion years analyzing it (okay, maybe it wasn't quite that long), and once I had a proper grasp on it, I exited back into the alleged 'real world' and let out a pent-up breath.

"Okay, so here's what I gathered: this system of yours works taking an original soul, which I presume is yours, and then mirroring it into this body by using the enchantment on it as scaffolding, where the mirror-soul kind of slots into. Did I get that right?"

"That's… the jist of it," Saahira confirmed, if tentatively.

"Marvelous. So, I have some good news and some bad news. Let's start with the good one: your work is pretty clean and it's working as intended, at least if your intent was perfect remote control. In fact, so long as you plug any soul into it, it should work like a charm. However, here's the bad news: I don't see any ways you can actually put a soul in there. As in, this framework of yours has no mechanism to either accept or contain a genuine soul. Am I missing something, or did you really have no plan for how to transfer the soul between the original body and the new host?"

"You are… totally right," Saahira admitted with only mild reluctance. "It's actually where our research stalled. Like, we focused so much on perfecting the base arrays that control the body, we never managed to figure out how to move a soul from one body to another."

"Honestly, your body control system is not too different from the one Lord Grandpa uses, and that one could house a soul once I moved one over. It only needed minor changes to serve as a crutch until the soul properly settled in, so I think if I apply the same changes here, we could get it working, and why are you looking at me like that?"

The old Arch-mage kept blinking at me in confusion, but then she gathered her wits and uttered, "So, like, you can move souls?"

"I've only done it once, and I kind of had to cheat, so to speak, but yeah," I told her, and the moment I did, her eyes lit up with a mixture of hope and greed.

"Can you, like, do it again?"

"Well, I should be able to, but it wouldn't really help your research. I mean, my technique is unique and, as far as I know, it can't be replicated."

"Who cares about that?!" the old lady burst out as she balled her fingers into fists. "Are you telling me you could move me over to this body? Like, permanently?!"

"Erm… Yeah, I think I can," I answered even though I was feeling a little off-balance at the moment. "I can work around the issues with the framework, so it should be possible."

"Can you do it, like, right now?" came the next question, and for a moment I could only blink in confusion.

"I… guess I could, but I can't exactly guarantee it would be successful on the first try, and if something goes wrong, you could literally die," I pointed out, only to get scoffed at for my trouble.

"Leonard, I'm like, literally dying already!"

"I get it, but I think I should at least practice a bit before doing it live, especially since—"

"What do you want?" The sudden question from the Arch-mage shoved my warning back down my throat, and before I could properly react, she pressed on. "Like, is it money? Land? Titles? Political favors? I can get you all of those and more!"

I wanted to point out that we were already in the middle of making a deal, and that this was really reckless, not to mention quite sudden, but her expression told me she wouldn't take no for an answer.

"Would you just hold your horses for five damn seconds!?" I finally burst out once my patience reached its boiling point, and the overly excited Arch-mage immediately shut her half-open mouth with an audible clicking of teeth. After the room returned to silence, I took a deep breath to collect myself, and once I felt composed, I explained, "Listen, this isn't a magical appendectomy. We're talking about moving your entire consciousness, permanently, into another body without any safety protocols, controls, or precedents. If anything goes wrong, I'll have a dead Arch-mage on my hands, and I'm not in the mood to explain that to the authorities."

"So... you're not doing it? Like, no matter what?"

The way the old woman in front of me was giving me the desperate puppy eyes was frankly disturbing, but it was also at least somewhat effective, and after a few seconds I softened my stance into, "Not without a written contract absolving me of any potential responsibilities, signed in triplicate."

The moment I proposed that, Saahira's eyes lit up with childish excitement and she immediately jumped to her feet. Well, okay, 'jumped' might be a bit too strong of a word there, as she was still a frail old woman, but the vigor with which she rose from her seat was still a little impressive.

"Wicked! I'll go and get the papers! Don't go anywhere!" After saying so, she rushed out the door, at least as much as she could, and even after she closed it behind her, I could hear her ordering her subordinates to help her.

With the Arch-mage gone, a strange and slightly uncomfortable silence settled upon the room. It lasted exactly until I exhaled a drawn-out, exasperated sigh. When I got up this morning, I definitely didn't expect that I would be dragged into a situation like this, and Saahira was straight out creeping me out. A small part of my brain couldn't help but wonder: maybe she was never supposed to 'appear' in her original body, and that's why she had the whole 'overly excited 80's valley girl' chic going on for 'Sahi'? Or maybe she was just stuck in that decade and nobody dared to question her because of her authority? Either way, all of those verbal ticks and mannerisms were still kind of okay when they were coming out of a young girl's mouth, but when Saahira did them, it was just plain damn weird. But then again, the two were literally the same person, so I don't know what I was expecting.

"{Are you truly going to render help to this woman?}" Cal suddenly reminded me that they were still in my lap, and after a moment, I responded with a not particularly steadfast nod.

"She's pretty desperate, so now that the cat's out of the bag, I doubt she'd take no for an answer. Not to mention, having an Arch-mage indebted to me is never a bad thing."

"{I don't understand what putting cats into bags has anything to do with the situation, but... wait... Did you just say Arch-mage?!}"

"Yep," I confirmed it, and now that I thought about it, I never actually told Cal about whom we were dealing with.

"{She's an Arch-mage?! That woman?!}" They sounded about as upset as when they learned about me having an Abyssal for a little sister, and a loud groan later they added, "{It seems that even the Magi have fallen on dark times since the last time I was awake.}"

"You don't know the half of it," I told them off-handedly. "She's one thing, but the local Arch-mage of the island we're on is an old, conniving, alcoholic bastard who's addicted to convoluted conspiracies and putting surveillance spells on everything and everyone."

"{... That actually sounds like the average Arch-mage back in my time, young knight,}" Cal pointed out, and I couldn't help but let out a thoughtful 'Huh.' in response.

"In that case, maybe she's the only weird one."

Cal silently agreed, and since the well of conversation dried up, and I had nothing better to do, I decided to take a second look at the enchantment I'd be working on. Just to be on the safe side. As such, I extended my phantom limb and dived into the crest on the occupantless body next to me.

I spent quite some time analyzing the arrays this time around, and while doing so, bits and pieces of the papers Saahira had me skim through suddenly started making a modicum of sense. Let me try to give a footnotes version of how it currently worked. It was actually pretty simple, all things considered: first, there was a connection leading to a separate enchantment, probably the one in the big machine on my other side, which would scan the 'original' soul in real-time. Then the results would be sent over to this array, which would then 'emulate' a soul inside it. I called this a 'mirror soul', though they called it something else in the documentation. I liked my terminology better.

More importantly, once the connection was established, the body of the 'original' would be put into stasis by a separate mechanism, while the mirror soul would act as a proxy to control the new body. Now, if the goal was only to serve as a way to remotely pilot an 'empty' body, then this system was way too robust and overcomplicated, as just transferring the bits responsible for motor functions, or even just emulating brain signals would've been much, much simpler. However, as far as a proper system for soul transfer was concerned, I'd easily consider it a successful… pre-beta built. Something like v0.3.4. And now I had to take it to v1.0 in one sitting.

But back to the actual enchantment in question. The 'crest' on the Sahi body's chest could be divided into three parts: the one responsible for creating and maintaining the mirror soul, the one responsible for synchronizing it with the original, and finally the control system which allowed the mirror soul to actually inhabit and operate the body. There were a couple of other sub-systems, such as the ones responsible for keeping the body alive in a vegetative state when it wasn't controlled, or some mandatory anti-tampering arrays, but at the end of the day, those three main parts were my primary concern.

Now, let's start with the obvious: if I were to Phase Saahira's soul over the way I did with Ichiko's, then there's no need for the first two parts, as there would be no mirror soul, and there was nothing to synchronize either. As for the control module, I was pleasantly surprised to learn that it was eerily similar to the enchantment used to control the dead Chimera. Either the idiom 'great minds think alike' was more true than I expected, or there might've been some magindustrial espionage at work. Either way, it was really helpful, as the familiarity meant I shouldn't have too much trouble adapting it the same way as I did with the tiny miko.

In fact, I went so far as to lay some groundwork by disconnecting the unnecessary parts and tweaking the control arrays for a better fit. Whether by coincidence or the Narrative's affinity for tight timing, I just finished my prep work and exited from the enchantmentscape to rest a bit when Saahira returned with a bundle of faintly glowing contract papers in her hands. She walked over without a word and simply handed them over to me, though her eyes said she was eager to get started.

"Give me a moment. I want to read this, just in case you put in a clause about an engagement into the fine print."

"Oh, like, please! That was totally just a joke!" the elderly lady protested with yet another unnervingly girlish pout, so I swiftly ignored her and focused on the contracts in front of me. By the looks of it, they were written with a fountain pen, and as for the contents, they were perfectly fine, maybe with the exception of one single sentence.

"Are you sure you want to promise 'unconditional support'? Isn't that a little too broad?"

"Like, don't worry about it," the Arch-mage dismissed me with a wave of her hand and sat down on the chair next to mine. After making sure that all three contracts said the same thing and there were no hidden clauses and fine print at the bottom, I let out a defeated sigh.

"Are you entirely sure you want to go through with this?"

"Like, doy?"

It took me an embarrassingly long moment to figure out that her word meant agreement, so I stopped procrastinating. After my contract with Fred, I was well aware of the procedure, so I used the tip of Cal to prick my right thumb (much to their protests), and after spreading the blood a little, I used it to stamp all three of the contracts with my fingerprint. I confirmed that the contract took effect by observing the way the glow around the papers intensified for a second, and then I handed one page back to her and pocketed the remaining two.

"Wicked! So, do you, like, need any tools? Materials? Something to drink?"

Now that she brought it up, I was actually feeling a little parched, but I shook my head anyway and told her, "No, I don't."

"Awesome! So, should I, like, get back into the life support tank?"

"If you mean that glass tube over there, then no. It would only hinder the process."

"Really?" She sounded skeptical, but when I glanced at her, she hastily added, "I mean, like, I don't doubt you or anything. You're the genius artificer, so if you say so, it must be totally true!"

"I'm not a genius," I pointed out a tad wearily. "I just have access to some tools you don't and... why am I even making excuses to you?"

"I don't know," she told me one hundred percent sincerely. "So, do I have to get undressed?"

"No, but it would probably help if you were unconscious. It would make the transfer process more—"

"Okay!" Saahira exclaimed with almost childlike glee, and before I could even finish my sentence, she muttered a short chant and then slapped her own forehead.

A blink of an eye later her whole body went limp, like a puppet with its strings cut, and as her arm fell down, she almost tumbled out of her chair as well. I put my hand on her shoulder to steady her, and after the first shock died down, I couldn't help but let out a baffled, "Huh. So that just happened."

"{Did... did an Arch-mage of the Magi just knock herself out in front of you?}" Cal spoke up, their voice more than just tinted by denial.

"By the sound of her breathing, it's more like she put herself to sleep, but in practical terms... yes."

"{... Young knight, please be honest with me. Are we in a fever dream? Am I still sleeping in my stone?}"

"Unless we are both sharing one, I'm about ninety percent sure you're not," I told the sword before putting it aside so that I could straighten the unconscious body of the old lady, and once I was sure she wouldn't slip down her chair, I picked Cal back up and added, "Can swords even have fever dreams?"

"{I don't know! Can I? I really wish that was the case, because then nothing making sense would make sense!}"

"Oh, sweet summer child... sword... whatever. You've yet to scratch the tip of the iceberg."

"{... Is it too late to go back into my stone?}"

"Waaaay too late," I answered with a thin-lipped smile, and once our conversation was over, I stretched my fingers and took a deep breath in preparation for the magical equivalent of a brain surgery only using my bare hands.

"Oh well, here goes nothing…"

Moving a soul was tricky. That might've been the understatement of the century, but it wasn't untrue. Here's the thing: the giant metaphysical yarn balls I called 'souls' weren't just the intangible consciousness of a person. Each soul I've interacted with so far contained everything about the being in question. Memories, current thoughts, information about their bodies and metabolism, even the connections they had to other people. In many ways, it would've been more accurate to say that the soul was the actual person, while the body was just a representation within this Simulacrum thing where we currently lived. Maybe quite literally, if some of my early theories turned out to be true.

In fact, let's recap something: so far, I've discovered three 'layers' of the Simulacrum. The 'physical' layer was at the top, and it was the part with all the buildings and cars and chemicals and atoms and everything else that everyone interacted with all the time. Under that was the 'supernatural' layer, and it existed to break the rules of the top layer when it was called upon. For example, if someone wanted to cast a fireball, instead of creating an actual chemical reaction, the spell would cause the supernatural stratum to 'push' into the physical one and cause the phenomena by temporarily overwriting the rules of nature. By the way, this meant that all magic was technically reality-warping regardless of origin, but this was a purely academic distinction.

Finally, there was the bottom stratum. I called this layer the 'firmware', and it was the bedrock upon which the whole world was resting. As for why I'm musing about this right now… well, aside from buying some time to steel my nerves before the magical operation I was about to perform, it was because this was very relevant to the current situation. Simply put, a soul was technically in the supernatural stratum, and because of this, it could directly interact with magic and enchantments. However, in practical terms, it was much closer to being a part of the bottom stratum. This meant three things; it was much harder to interact with one, doing so could probably tell me a lot more about the underlying structure of the Simulacrum, but it didn't, because it was hard to interact with one. Also, redundancy is very redundant.

Seriously though, I've wanted to experiment with souls for a while now, but doing so always ran into two big roadblocks: I'd need a sapient guinea pig to experiment on, which was nine different flavors of unethical, and more importantly, messing with them was not only the most mentally exhausting thing I could do, but also incredibly dangerous to the subject, something that being mentally exhausted certainly didn't help. My analogy about it being like brain surgery wasn't just a joke: even the smallest accidental change could lead to all kinds of terrible results, with memory loss or impaired motor functions being but the more harmless ones. Needless to say, my conscience wasn't entirely okay with risking something like that until we exhausted literally every other venue of research.

However, just moving a soul from point A to B was comparatively simpler and less dangerous. Well, at least for me and my Phantom Limbs. Speaking of which, I decided it was time I stopped stalling and got on with the procedure. The first step was fairly straightforward: I had to access Saahira's soul. That was something I could simply accomplish by plunging a Phantom Limb into her and finding her creamy center. Metaphorically speaking, of course.

Doing so took only a few short moments, and before long my disembodied point of view was staring at the familiar sight of a giant yarn ball made of countless shining threads wound together. Speaking of which, I wondered if everyone's souls looked the same. So far I've only interacted with Emese's and Ichiko's, plus Cal's semi-soul, now that I think about it, but they all more or less looked identical. But then again, I technically wasn't 'looking' at anything, because all of this was just a conceptual space my brain interpreted into audiovisual data, but thinking about this for too long always made my head hurt, so I didn't.

Anyhow, the Arch-mage's soul was right in front of me (however little sense that made in a non-Euclidian space), and so I did the same thing as when I transplanted Ichiko by carefully extending my Phantom Limb, which somehow felt both infinitely long and wide at the moment, and wrapping the whole ball in it. It was so simple and straightforward it was almost anticlimactic, but you won't hear me complain about it.

Now, the next step was…

…

Wait, what's the next step? I tried to recall the process from the last time, but to be honest, I was feeling a little unsure about the sequence of events. I did remember getting a little detached halfway through, probably because I was so pinpoint focused on getting everything done quickly and cleanly, but in retrospect, while I could recall my actions, I couldn't say the same about my exact reasons for doing them. Or exactly how I did some of them, though I had a couple of vague ideas.

I spent a while mulling over this, and I finally remembered a specific part I kind of skimmed over: with Ichiko, I stabbed Onikiri into the body of the Chimera because… um… I think it was so that they occupied the same space so that moving her would be… easier? I think that was it.

Now, that was a bit of a problem, because I couldn't exactly use the same method with Saahira and her proxy body. However, just as I was about to get nervous, I suddenly got a new idea: back then, I only had one Phantom Limb. Now I had two. Couldn't I use that to my advantage?

Thinking so, I tried my best to slowly retreat from the vicinity of the soul while also keeping it wrapped up, and after a few tries, I managed to very slowly back away until I was outside… except not. How should I put this…? In short, I was still inside the space between spaces and looking at the enclosed ball of strings, but at the same time, I was back in my body and looking Saahira's unconscious face. The whole experience was a little trippy, but oddly enough, it didn't feel 'wrong'. I mean, technically whenever I was using Far Sight, I was at two places at once, and I had experience sharing my attention between multiple copies of myself during Dominance, so maybe those already prepared me in advance, but this somehow felt subtly different all the same.

Anyhow, I didn't dwell on this for long, as I quickly used my other Phantom Limb to enter into the enchantment on the other body on the bed, and an unusually short time later, I was inside the now-familiar framework designed for housing the mirror soul. I've already modified it a little, so by my reckoning, it was ready to accommodate a real soul as well. Still, it never hurt to be careful, so I double-checked everything. I mean, I've got a contract saying I wouldn't be held responsible even if Saahira died or became a cripple due to the transfer, but I wanted to avoid such an outcome by all means.

Once I checked everything, I mentally prepared myself, and… checked everything again. Then for the third time. After the fifth time, I was almost confident enough to Phase it over, but I figured checking one more time could never hurt, so I did it three more times. And then one last time. For luck or something.

Then, at last, once I was sick of even just looking at the arrays anymore, I steeled my nerves and, without any further ado, I… checked everything again. … Nah, I'm kidding. I Phased Saahira's soul over. For real. It was… a fairly unceremonious affair, especially after all that build-up. In a moment, the empty place inside the framework was filled up by a multicolored ball of light-filaments, and once it appeared, the entire enchantment came to life at once. So far so good.

I watched as the various arrays connected together, and the soul settled in with remarkable ease. If I had a lung at the moment, I would've probably let out a relieved sigh… except it would've been too early to do so.

All of a sudden, the space itself around me shook with something that my brain interpreted as the deafening noise of enormous rusty slabs of metal sliding on each other. It was so overwhelming that for a moment I even forgot to think, but once I belatedly gathered my wits, I rushed in to figure out what went wrong. My Phantom Limbs lashed out like two feelers, touching every part of the enchantment to find the error, but no matter how hard I looked, I couldn't find any mistakes. That meant…

"Shit, the soul…" I muttered, sending waves rippling across the very space around me. I ignored the phenomenon and focused my attention on the ball of yarn at the center of it all, and to my immediate alarm I found it… well, crumbling was not the right word. You'd think unraveling would work because of my analogy, but that wasn't quite it either. Whatever was happening though, it definitely wasn't a good thing. Worse yet, I had no idea what the problem was!

"Shit! Think, Leo! Think! How did you do this the last time?!"

My words sent even more ripples across my vision, but I was too frantic to really care. I needed to find out the problem before the soul in front of me completely disintegrated, and I had to do it fast. I needed to remember how I did it. I needed to focus. Focus.

…

And so Leonard Dunning did so. In retrospect, it wasn't so hard. All it required was looking at the problem from another angle. A different perspective, if you will. Once he did so, Leonard quickly understood what the problem was. The ************ of the *********** ********* in front of him was losing its coherence due to the physical body no longer matching the parameters recorded in it, creating an incorrigible incompatibility.

Leonard couldn't help but chuckle. Certainly, it would be incorrigible for the ********* ****, but for him it was… On second thought, didn't he already have a term for them? 'Submerged Ones', was it? A crude facsimile, just like they are, so it will certainly do.

Leonard's minds might have wandered, yet his ********************* moved with confident, lazy movements as they indifferently dug into the ************. With each motion they cleaved, they tore, and they dug out everything unnecessary before discarding the pieces. There was no need for him to care about the refuse; it would soon dissolve and return to the shapeless dream of the stillborn sun. Such things were of no concern to him at the moment.

As he thought of that, Leonard's movements gradually slowed down until they came to a halt. The process was still incomplete, and every second was precious beyond belief. Leaving the task unattended for any amount of time would have been remarkably negligent, so he did the responsible thing and stopped it. It was that simple. Now that he was no longer beholden to the inconvenience of linear time and cause and effect, he pondered for a while.

He had an indistinct yet inescapable sense of loss. It was as if he misplaced something important. Was it an item? Or maybe a memory? Could it be one of his minds? He did feel like he was supposed to have more of those, but wasn't entirely sure. It was hard to count minds to begin with, and he wasn't certain he could do it at all at the moment. That was somewhat disconcerting in and of itself.

He also wondered why he was so concerned with the ************ in front of him. It was an awfully small one, so it couldn't be that important. There really was no reason to be so worked up about it, but he still felt obligated to do so. Maybe it was just his nature. Seeing things crumble apart made him feel… it was an emotion. Not quite sadness. Closer to sympathy. A feeling of kinship. Maybe if he had all his minds, he could recognize the feeling, but they remained staunchly misplaced. It was quite vexing, but at least that emotion was still clear to him.

If it was truly his nature that compelled him, it would certainly illuminate many things. It would also explain why he wanted to cease bloody pussyfooting around and get back to work.

… Huh. 'Bloody pussyfooting'. Where did that come from? Somewhere from the inside, but it wasn't exactly one of his minds. Whatever it was, the urge was clear and to the point, so Leonard soon allowed the flow of time to resume its bothersome course in its single, unalterable direction. With it, the movements of his ********************* also resumed, and as they continued their work, the ************ he was operational on finally started to reach its desired state. It still needed some references, so he reached out towards the false surface to collect them, without paying too much attention to such a simple task.

Once everything was in the right place, Leonard placed the ************ into the receptacle carved into the illusionary **************** of the ******. It fit well, but it didn't mean it could do better. It was but a trivial task to adjust the ********** and the ************ so that the ******** and the *** could be perfectly synchronized with the **********************. Quite self-explanatory.

Satisfied with his work, or at least as satisfied as one can be with such a minor, inconsequential task, Leonard shifted himself back into the manifestation sitting on the chair inside the thoroughly rearranged hotel room. His complexion was unusually pale, and even though his eyes were open, they were vacant to the point they appeared glazed over. He took a deep breath as he forced his vision to return to his head, then he took another breath, long and deep, followed by another, and then he… I took a breath. And then I immediately jumped to my feet with a roar.

"What the bloody hell was that?!"

In retrospect, jumping up like that probably wasn't the best idea, as I was immediately assaulted by the worst vertigo I ever experience in my life, followed by my legs giving out and my butt subsequently touching down on the seat again, in the same position where I began.

"{What? What happened?}" Cal asked in a mixture of equal parts confusion and concern, but it took me a while to answer them, as I was currently being assaulted by the second-worst headache I've ever experienced in my life.

"The weirdest goddamn experience ever," I hissed out through my clenched teeth. It took me a while to realize, but my right hand was gripping the sword's handle so hard my fingers were turning white. I didn't even think my injured hand could grasp like that, but more alarmingly, I had a hard time making it stop. Not that I tried for long, as I had more important things to worry about.

For the moment, I put what just happened aside. I felt that it was both incredibly significant and really, really disturbing, but I first had to make sure that moving the Arch-mage's soul was a success. I took a couple of measured breaths to center myself, and once I felt composed enough, I gingerly reached out towards the body sitting next to me. First I put my hand in front of her face, and… no airflow. Just to be safe, I tried to read a pulse on her wrist, but while her skin was still warm, I couldn't sense anything more.

"{Is she dead?}" Cal inquired with a sound that sounded surprisingly squeamish considering it was a freaking sword we were talking about, but I wasn't going to cast that in their teeth.

"Deader than a Norwegian Blue."

"{… I… don't follow.}"

I glanced at the sword in my hand, and a short sigh later told them, "Remind me to teach you about Monty Python one of these days."

"{Is that a kind of snake?}"

I didn't respond to their inquiry, but instead focused on the girl under the blanket. I was a little hesitant at first, but I slowly extended my hand and touched her cheek. I planned to give her a light slap to try and see if she was alive, but to my relief (and momentary surprise), I didn't have to do anything of the sort, as the moment my fingertips made contact, her eyes popped open and she gasped in surprise.

"Saahira?" I asked a touch more timidly than I intended as I retracted my hand, and after blinking a few times, the girl on the bed glanced at me.

"Yes? What happe—?" She got that far before she noticed the lifeless body on the chair next to mine, and her eyes opened wide as saucers. "Oh my gosh! Did we succeed!?"

"By the sound of it, I'd say we did," I told her a tad morosely. "Also, I'm having a bit of a headache, so please don't shout."

She completely ignored my request as she sat up with a loud, "Oh my gosh! OH MY GOSH! I can't believe this!" Doing so naturally also made the bed sheet fall off her torso, making me blink in surprise. However, before I could say anything, the girl on the bed completely threw off the sheets and jumped to her feet. "This is totally wicked! I feel so great! And my body is, like, totally amazing! So light! And I can totally feel the carpet under my feet now!"

To demonstrate, she began to walk around in circles in front of me. I would've asked if she had a problem with her sense of touch beforehand, but before anything else, I had to point out the elephant in the room.

"I'm happy that you're happy, but could you please put on some clothes first?"

"Why? Am I, like, distracting you?" Saying so, she struck a pose and sent me a coquettish smirk, and after overcoming my first surprise and reminding myself that there was an old lady inside that body, I let out a long, exasperated sigh.

"Great. Just what I needed. Another exhibitionist in my life."

"{Wasn't she an Arch-mage?}" Cal butted in, audibly baffled by my comment. "{Or is she also managing an art gallery? Is it some form of false identity?}"

I glanced between the still posing naked girl and the still confused sword, and ultimately told the latter, "I can tell you're going to get along with Ichiko," before closing my eyes to massage them. As for whether she would also get along with Saahira… Considering how I just entangled her with us, I had a feeling that was something I'd find out one of these days as well, and I wasn't necessarily looking forward to it.

The face looking back at me in the bathroom mirror had definitely seen better days, but on the bright side, it was nowhere near as awful as I expected it to be. … Wait, that wasn't a silver lining at all! Not even low expectations could make me brighten up, so I cupped some water in my hand and splashed it over my mug, and… nope, it still wasn't looking or feeling any better. It was time for more drastic measures.

One shallow groan later I reached into the nearby cabinet and popped a painkiller into my mouth. I doubted some commercially available medication would help my infernal headache, but at this point I welcomed even the placebo effect. I washed my face again and then closed my eyes. Doing so provided momentary relief, and also allowed me to think.

Yesterday was easily in the top five of the most messed up days I've had, and considering it's me we're talking about, that certainly said something. That said, as much as my head was killing me, I gained a lot. Now I not only had the support of the sword that would, theoretically, allow me to gain control over the Knights and nip that entire plot thread in the bud, but it could also heal my injured hand. That also had the welcome side effect of giving me an independent option for recovery and thus allowing me to completely ignore the Celestial secret agent on the island.

Well, okay, not 'completely', as he was a new variable, so I used my Far Sight to keep an eye on him. Not that he was doing anything special so far; he was mostly just checking out lodgings for rent in the city, which was considerably less nefarious than I expected. But then again, as much of a bad reputation Celestials had in the supernatural circles, they actually weren't that bad, and for now, I was on their 'to be befriended' as well.

But putting the unnerving guy aside, yesterday I also gained an ally in the form of the Arch-mage Saahira, complete with an actual contract and everything. That sounded great on paper, but I wasn't entirely sure she was reliable, considering that when we parted, the only two things she could talk about were arranging her own funeral and enrolling in our school. I didn't really mind the latter, to be honest, but I hoped she wouldn't try to enter our circle and would rather stay as an annoying side character.

Oh, wait. I almost forgot that I gained something else out of yesterday's madness. Let's do a count, shall we? One hand, two hands, one Phantom Limb, two Phantom Limbs aaaaand… yes, a third one. This last one felt, for the lack of better words, 'stubbier' than the first two, and it barely had a range of about thirty centimeters, but it was undeniably a new extra ethereal tendril thing.

Now, here comes the million Jen question: why did I grow a new one? Just messing around with an enchantment couldn't explain it, as I did that a lot and didn't start growing extra appendages, which meant one of three things: it was either because I seriously overexerted myself, because I interacted with a soul again, or because of that weird semi-blackout I had in the middle of the procedure where… I don't even know what happened. It was just weird and really hard to remember.

I really had to discuss all of this with Judy. Elly too, I supposed, but as much as I loved her, I doubted she'd be able to add much to the conversation. She was too new to this whole meta-narrative thing we were doing. Anyhow, I was just about to step away from the sink when there was a knock on the bathroom door.

"Leo? Are you still in there?"

"Yeah, but I'm already done. Give me a moment."

Saying so, I hastily combed my damp hair and buttoned up my shirt, and once I was in a semi-presentable condition, I opened the bathroom door, only to catch my sister in the middle of yawning with her mouth wide open. When she noticed, she quickly covered it with her hand, and I couldn't help but chuckle.

"Did you stay up late, sis?"

"I… a little," she answered a touch sheepishly, and based on the circles under her eyes, she was probably underplaying it a bit. Once she noticed I was staring at her face, she quietly added, "I got a little caught up sketching. I could do so many different things I couldn't before, I kind of… lost track of time." I was about to nod understandingly and step out of the way to let her in, but then she also added, "Technology is amazing."

"It sure is," I responded in the company of an amused chuckle, and this time I actually got out of the doorway.

I could hear Snowy close the door behind her as I walked down the stairs, and in the living room I found a strange scene. Ichiko, still in her little girl form, was sitting on the couch with a couple of tools next to her, including several different kinds of cloths, unused coffee filters, some kind of waxy substance in a small metal jar, and even a red plastic bottle with a spout. Maybe even more importantly, she also had Cal in her lap, and she was very carefully wiping its cross guard with a cotton swab.

"Morning."

My greeting made the tiny miko twitch in surprise, but when she realized it was just me, she immediately flashed me a toothy grin.

"Good morning, ue-sama!" I was just about to ask her what she was doing, but she readily told me by raising the sword from her lap to show it off to me. "Look, look! I'm doing maintenance on Cal-san!"

"I'm… sure they appreciate it," I answered, a little taken aback, but then I sharply exhaled to center myself and pointed at all the other things she was surrounded by. "Where did you get these?"

"These were all in ue-sama's tool room!" she told me, and by that, I presumed she meant the empty garage. "I couldn't find choji oil, but there was this bottle that smelled familiar, and it works just as well!"

"I think that's sewing machine oil," I told her a touch absent-mindedly. Honestly, I was a little surprised by this, as considering the track record of my house, I imagined that she would discover all kinds of super-specific sword-maintenance tools in a random box in the corner, so finding something so mundane and actually plausible instead felt like a bit of a letdown.

Anyhow, I shook the strange feeling off and continued on my way towards the kitchen, only to stop right under the doorway as I remembered something and turned back to her.

"You remember that you're on bodyguard duty from today onwards, right?" I asked, and the little girl on the couch repeatedly nodded her head in response.

"Of course, ue-sama! By the time Judy-ue gets here, I'll completely take care of Cal-san!"

"We're still early, so there's no need to rush. Just make sure you won't cut yourself."

The small miko gave me another big nod, and with that, I finally entered the kitchen. My fridge was full, as always, and the cupboards were also completely stocked even though I've never bought any ingredients since the day I first woke up. As much as it initially weirded me out, the intangible and improvable yet supremely dedicated presence of the ninja maids became an integral part of my life that I'd definitely miss, and not just because of the convenience.

Anyhow, my head was still killing me, so I decided on a simple breakfast consisting of the unhealthiest looking breakfast cereal I could find on the shelves, and after filling my stomach with a full bowl of sugar-coated chocolate marshmallow bits (who even comes up with these things?), I felt fairly content to start another school day.

Then there was a guitar solo. I directed an ever so slightly displeased frown at my trouser pocket, but since my head still hurt and my choice of ringtone wasn't helping it, I had no choice but to fish my phone out of it. I checked the caller ID, and after taking a deep breath, I accepted the call.

"Morning, class rep. Is there a—"

"Leo, we need to talk," the girl on the other end interrupted me with a voice that was both hushed and frantic at the same time. "Meet me at the arcade in the shopping district in half an hour."

"You want to meet up? Why can't you..." tell me over the phone?', I would've asked, if not for her immediately cutting the line. She was apparently in a hurry, but when I Far Glanced over, I found Ammy inside the guest room in Josh's house. She was a little disheveled, but otherwise looked perfectly safe and sound. I checked on Josh and Angie as well, just to be on the safe side, but those two were still sleeping under their blankets. Oh, right. It was still pretty early, wasn't it?

Anyhow, since the class rep sounded really adamant, I decided I might as well go along with whatever she wanted, so I put my cereal bowl into the dishwasher, went back to my room to get my uniform jacket and my bag, and then headed out. When the foxy miko noticed I was already dressed, she gave me a curious look, so I stopped on my way to tell her, "I'm going to meet up with Ammy. Please tell the girls that I'll meet them in school."

"Understood, ue-sama! We'll see you there!"

I disregarded her overly energetic response and walked into the entryway, and after putting on my outdoor shoes and my usual coat, I braced myself, and unceremoniously Phased away. Of course, since it's been just a few minutes since we talked, Ammy was still in the middle of getting ready to move out, and since I wasn't in the mood to wait for her, I simply teleported into Josh's guest room. I saw no reason to tiptoe around anymore, as both she and Josh have already seen that I could teleport 'again' yesterday.

"So, what exactly did you want to talk about?" I opened the conversation a little blandly, but to be fair, my head hurt and I really wasn't in the mood for theatrics. In retrospect, maybe I should've at least announced my arrival, if for nothing else than to avoid the class rep nearly jumping out of her skin and barely stifling a scared yelp.

"L-Leo?! What in the name of Sofia are you doing here?!" she burst out the moment she gathered her wits, but before answering her, I first sat down. As usual, Phasing when I was already suffering from a headache was quite unpleasant.

"You told me you wanted to talk ASAP, so I'm here. So, what happened?"

Ammy eyed me quite suspiciously for a moment, probably hesitating whether to ask since when could I freely teleport around again, but at the end of the day she dropped the issue, readjusted her glasses, and very straightforwardly told me, "Listen, you're in trouble."

"… What is it this time?"

"Arch-mage Saahira is dead," she stated with the emphasis that implied she was dropping a bombshell, and I let out an involuntary 'Huh.' in response.

"Where did you hear that?"

"Pascal called me a few minutes ago to tell me. The whole School is in an uproar right now!"

"Really? Wow, I imagined your grandpa would try to keep it under wraps for at least a little while."

"That's not the point! Leo, you were the last person seen with Sahi, so if they start investigating, you're… wait." Ammy suddenly paused, and after tweaking her glasses a little, her eyes opened wide. "You already know this, don't you?"

"Of course I do," I told her without any pretenses, and her eyes opened even wider in return.

"Please tell me you don't have anything to do with her death…"

"I actually do," I answered truthfully, but seeing the blood drain from her face made me let out a sigh and add, "Don't panic. She's not actually dead, and even if she was, I have a contract absolving me of any responsibilities."

The class rep repeatedly opened and closed her mouth, but couldn't find any words to say for a while. At long last, she pushed her glasses up the bridge of her nose and demanded, "Tell me exactly what happened."

There really wasn't any reason to hide this from her, so (maybe against my better judgment), I gave her the footnotes version of the events after I parted with them, a few minor details notwithstanding. She listened intently, occasionally nodding, rarely flabbergasted, yet always scowling.

"… and so she said she'd keep the successful transfer a secret until the Assembly politics settle down, and in the meantime she'd stay on the island and enroll in Blue Cherry High. She said that last part was so that she could live up to her part of the bargain, but if you ask me, it was probably just to annoy me and rub her success to your grandfather's face. The end."

By the finale, even the class rep had to sit down to digest everything, and after a short spell of silence, she exhaled a lung-rattling groan.

"You know, if anyone else told me even just half of this, I'd call them a brazen liar and a shameless lout, but when it's coming from your mouth… Sheesh." I couldn't help but chuckle at her expense, earning me one of her patented glared, with the menacing tweaking of her glasses and everything. "This is no laughing matter!"

"I'm not laughing," I told her while completely ignoring the facts, and after quickly clearing my throat I added, "By the way, this also means that whatever secret you wanted to cover up is also going to stay hidden for the time being."

"That's… good," Ammy responded to me, but her words didn't have her heart in them. Following that, the room remained silent for several very long seconds, right until she gave me an unusually uncomfortable glance and asked, "Do you… know?"

"Do I know what?" I asked back by reflex, but by the time the words left my mouth, my brain already figured out what she meant. "Oh, wait. Do you mean your secret?" She nodded, so I promptly told her, "No, of course not."

"… Really?" I raised a skeptical brow at her question, so she hastily raised her hands and sputtered, "I mean, you're an information broker and you seem to know everything, so I thought you would've already figured it by now."

"I admit I'm curious about just what kind of deep, dark secret is worth going through all this trouble for, but if you don't want to tell anyone, I'm willing to respect your privacy."

"I… Thanks, Leo. It's not really a 'dark' secret though. It's rather… personal." I thought that would be the end of this particular topic, and I was just about to move on, but I paused when I saw the conflicted look on Ammy's face. I decided to wait and see what was eating her, and after a few short seconds, she apparently came to some kind of resolution and she gestured for me to lean closer. "Please promise me you won't tell this to anyone else."

I was genuinely taken aback for a moment, and I could only utter an uncertain, "Are you sure?" She nodded right away.

"Yesterday, when Sahi was about to reveal my secret to Josh, I was really scared, but at the same time, I was almost relieved that I would no longer have to hide it anymore. I've been thinking about that moment all night and… I think I want at least you to know."

"Me?" I asked by reflex, even pointing at my face, yet she nodded once again.

"You're the most responsible for keeping us all safe, so I think it's something that you should know. I also think that it would make me feel a little better to share it with someone." She fell silent for several seconds after saying that, during which I presumed she steeled her nerves, and after exhaling a long, shallow breath she told me, "Leo, I'm actually not human."

There was another long moment of silence following after that, though this time it was more due to me being confused about her confession. "We know. You're a Magi."

"No, not like that," she denied right away, and quite vehemently. "I mean, I'm not a real Magi either. I'm… I'm an artificial human." I had a feeling that this was supposed to be another one of those dramatic 'DUN-DUN-DUNNN!' moments, but I honestly didn't get it. She probably also felt my confusion, as she quietly added, "I am a homunculus."

Aaaaaand no. Still no 'DUN-DUN-DUNNN!' What was I missing?

"You're a homunculus," I repeated after her, and she nodded at once, and I… I still didn't get it. "Okay, I understand that, but why is that such a—?"

"Ammy? Are you awake?"

Before I could ask why this was such a big deal, I was rudely interrupted by Josh opening the door to stick his head inside, only to freeze the moment he noticed me. After an awkward beat, he pushed the door wide open and said, "Hello, Leo. What are you doing in our house?"

"Oh, you know? Discussing what happened last evening and stuff," I answered a little absent-mindedly, feeling more than a little flabbergasted by how the guy could walk into a room with people in it only wearing his teddy bear print boxer shorts while showing not even the smallest hint of self-awareness. Though again, considering how Angie would literally climb into his bedroom every other morning to drag him out of bed, maybe he was just used to being lightly dressed around girls.

"Neat," my friend stated, apparently taking the whole situation in stride. I figured after all the various mundane and supernatural crap he went through in the past two months, it would've been weirder if something like this fazed him.

"I'll go and wash up! We should get ready to go to school soon!" Ammy declared all of a sudden, and before either of us could get a word in, she stormed out of the room, leaving only the two of us to linger in the awkward silence.

"So… did you teleport in here or something?" Josh asked while scratching his head. "I would've woken up if you used the front door."

"Yeah, I was in a hurry because there's a bit of a kerfuffle going on even as we speak. Long story short, you guys are no longer in trouble, but things became complicated like usual. I'll tell you the details on the way to school."

"Oh, okay then," he responded after a quick yawn, only to then stop in his tracks and add, "Hey, Leo? Do you have a free afternoon one of these days?"

"I… don't exactly have a timetable, but sure, unless another incident happens, I could probably make the time. Why?"

"I just want to talk," my friend told me in an unusually downcast tone, and when I opened my arms, he rolled his eyes and added, "Not like this. I mean a proper talk, with just the two of us. I have a lot of things on my mind and I want to get some of it out."

"In that case, how about we go to the arcade one of these days, just to two of us?"

"… Why the arcade?"

"I just recently got reminded of it," I admitted, and after a moment of hesitation, Josh shook his head.

"Nah, it's not private. My parents won't be home all week, so how about you come over one of these days and we play a few rounds of Street Kombat, like in the good old times?"

I very nearly questioned when his parents weren't away, but considering this kind of thing came with being a protagonist-type, I realized it was kind of a moot point anyway.

"Sure," I told him without much thinking, and to be perfectly honest, I could actually use some winding off like that. I was also a little curious what Josh wanted to talk about so badly, but I figured it probably had something to do with his 'defeat' the previous day.

After hearing my answer, my friend gave me a thin-lipped smile that didn't exactly reach his eyes, and excused himself so that he could also get dressed, leaving me all alone with my headache. Well, on the bright side, at least things were quiet…

"Eeeeeeek!"

"Ah, sorry! Sorry! I forgot you were in the bathroom! My bad!"

… until Josh accidentally opened the door on Ammy as she was getting out of the shower.

"Aaaah! Josh, what is Ammy doing in your bathroom!" came the next exclamation from the neighborhood Celestial. She probably arrived through the windows while Josh was with me, I reckoned.

"Wait, calm down! I can explain!"

"Close the door! Close the door!"

…

Harem protagonists with their stupid (and loud) ecchi events, am I right?