The Simulacrum

Realistically speaking, I should've just Phased over to the guys, but the dome was literally right over there, and so I decided to just walk for once. It also gave them more time to collect themselves, and by the time I got there, a vigorous discussion was already underway.

"Do we still need this?" Josh asked as he lightly tapped on the translucent silver power field on his left. "It's getting crowded in here."

"It's better to keep it up for now," the Matron told him in a dismissive tone that didn't quite manage to mask her exhaustion. Maintaining a protective barrier during this whole mess must've taken quite a bit of toll on her. I was honestly impressed by how well he held up, but then again, she was an OP main character, so maybe that wasn't too surprising.

…

Wait, she was a what?

My steps faltered as I ruminated on that. I was still having a tough time integrating all the info that got segmented into the various subsidiary-Leos, but as of now, I just had a distinct feeling that she used to be the protagonist of a previous scenario. Kind of like Rinne or Sebastian, now that I thought about it. Which would mean…

"Tsarah is right," Fidèle spoke in a strained voice, trying her best to stand on her own two legs despite her injuries. "We can't be sure about the intentions of the other houses."

Okay, so if the Matron was the protag of the Abyss-centered scenario I had been theorising about since forever, then Fidèle was probably her… rival? They did mention fighting each other, so that made sense, but I really had to look into this a bit more once we cleaned up this mess.

It was at this point that my dear assistant, looking about as exhausted as I'd ever seen her, raised a finger and said, "Speaking of the Noble Houses, Noir is dead."

The mention of that elicited a variety of reactions. The class rep clicked his tongue with an implied 'good riddance' to it. Josh, Elly, and Penny were surprisingly ambivalent about it, despite them being the ones who bore the brunt of his attacks. Deus, in contrast, looked pretty proud of herself, as if waiting to be praised for her coup de grace. Last, but not least, we had Snowy and the Matron, both of whom had complicated expressions on their faces.

Judy's words were probably aimed at them, too, because she soon continued with, "Does that make Neige the head of House Inanna?"

While I understood her reasoning, trying to get the old woman to commit and potentially streamline the succession of the title, it wasn't much of an immediate concern. As such, I punctuated my arrival into the dome with the words, "We can figure out that stuff later," and stopped next to Snowy.

"Ah, Leo…"

Before she could say anything else, I already put a hand on her back and gave her a few encouraging taps.

"How are you holding up?"

She let out a long breath and lowered her gaze, staring at the tips of her shoes.

"I'm… okay. I had a feeling… that it would come to this."

"Don't worry, I get it. He was a megalomaniacal prick that almost turned omnicidal at the end, but he was still your brother. It's fine to feel a bit disturbed right now. Let's all sit down and talk about it with a couple of cups of tea later, okay?"

"I'd… like that."

I rubbed her back a bit for further reassurance, then turned to the rest.

"How's everyone holding up?" My question made the gang and the others glance at each other, but nobody started complaining just yet, so I quickly moved the conversation along before they changed their minds. "I'm a bit late to the party, but I was caught up in a big situation on my end. You did a good job averting the end of the world as we know it, by the way."

"What about Bel of the Abyss?" the Shamash Matriarch asked in a pensive voice.

I responded with a careless, "Doesn't exist anymore," and was planning to move on, but the Matron cut in with a scowl.

"You mean he's dead," she insisted, trying to get an unambiguous yes-or-no response from me.

I mean, I didn't know how I could make my original response even less ambiguous than that, but even before I could voice my objection, my knightly sister let out a soft 'Oh!' and pointed at me.

"I get it!"

"You get what?" Josh asked with a critically raised brow. "What even was there to get?"

"Weren't you listening?!" Penny huffed and puffed and pointed at me again. "Brother said, 'he doesn't exist anymore'! Bel could travel through time—"

"Allegedly," the Matron chimed in, but my sister continued without stopping.

"— so if he was just dead, it would mean he could travel to the present from the past, and he could still be around! By brother saying he 'doesn't exist', it means he must've so thoroughly destroyed him he's completely gone from time!"

"You're…" 'overthinking this, Kiddo,' is what I wanted to respond with off the cuff, but then I bit back the second half and just shrugged. "… exactly right, Kiddo."

She exclaimed, "Awesome!" with a toothy grin, followed by a more contemplative, "It is frustrating that I could never give him a good stab, but I'm just glad he's gone! He was the worst!"

"To be fair, Bel didn't try to blow up the world," Josh chimed in. "Deliberately, too, the second time. I personally vote on Noir being the worst."

"Can you two please not fight about this right now?" the class rep interjected, her hand once against hovering around where her missing glasses should've been. "We have more important things to discuss!"

She found support from Angie, the Celestial girl letting out a loud, "Yeah!" only to change the direction of the conversation by gesturing at Snowy. "Don't you see you're being insensitive to Neige?"

"Um… I-I'm fine, really…" she insisted, and the discussion would've probably continued to keep going off the rails if I didn't clap my hands to get everyone's attention.

"Focus, guys." Once they did that, I turned to Judy, who had been looking at me like she had something to say for a while. "Dormouse?"

She took out her notebook and started going down a checklist.

"Bel's fate is confirmed." She then pointed at the back, just outside the dome. "The Axis of Evil?"

"They're restraining the patriarchs, I think," Angie noted with a hand shielding her eyes. "Why?"

"That wasn't what I was getting at," Judy insisted and levelled a stare at me again. "Chief?"

"They're very reasonable. Nothing to worry about."

She responded with a soft, "Noted," while Josh blurted out a considerably more incredulous, "Reasonable? Those guys?"

Anyhow, I glanced over, and Angie was right; the guys were out there and rounding up the beaten-up patriarchs. Not the Ninhursag one though; he was currently in a shouting match with his treasonous cousin on the ground, however many times removed. I once tried to figure out what the Ninhursag/Ninurta family tree looked like, but I gave up.

Oh, but speaking of which…

"Hareng, right?"

The blonde guy was in the process of sneaking away from the dome, but he turned around and pretended to be just looking around before flashing a smile at me.

"Ah! Lord Peacemaker! Please allow me to…"

"Good job with the chimera head," I said, interrupting him before he could start trying to flatter me. "You came in at a real clutch there."

"Ah… yes… erm… I was just at the right place at the right time…"

He sure was, and it took me pulling a whole lot of narrative strings at the very last second to get him there. That was one hell of a close call, and while I was ruminating on that, Josh punched Hareng in the shoulder. Lightly, of course. As a sign of… maybe not 'affection', but potentially approval.

"That was the head of a chimera? Damn. I have to give it to you, that took balls."

"Indeed," Deus interjected with a solemn nod. "It must've taken testicles of polished brass," followed by a light twitch and an indignant, "What is it, Girl? What is the problem? I just agreed with the Boy!"

While Angie and Deus continued to argue about the appropriate ways parts of the human anatomy could be referred to in polite company, Josh crossed his arms and nodded.

"You know, Hareng, after what you said back before we left on the train, I half-expected that you would slip away in the commotion and pursue your dream of becoming a fisherman."

The blonde guy tensed up and let out an awkward chuckle (mainly because that was exactly what he was doing before I narratively re-directed him at the last second), which then turned into a startled sound when the Ninhursag patriarch entered the dome, apparently done with his spat outside.

"What was that? About being a fisherman?"

"Ah, just a joke, sir! Just a jest, right?"

He sent a glance at Josh that said, 'I saved your skin, so help me out!', and my friend wearily obliged. However, I couldn't pay more attention to that corner, because Judy impatiently cleared her throat to get my attention again.

"Chief? What about the other Noble Houses?"

It took me a second to switch tracks and realise what she was asking about, but then a couple of fireballs flying over the crater high in the sky reminded me, and I shrugged.

"Not my handiwork."

"That wasn't what I meant, but…" She trailed off, and after checking her notes again, she poked her notebook with her finger and asked, "What about the implosion of the Abyss?"

"The what!?" Hareng exclaimed in alarm, and even the Ninhursag patriarch looked startled for a second. I didn't blame them, as this was the first time they'd heard about it, and as soon as the topic was raised, the class rep immediately barged into the conversation again.

"That's right! Grimmy is still trying to assess the situation, but it doesn't look good! You said you were going to ask an expert, so where are they?"

"Right, the expert…" I muttered as I looked over and raised a hand over my head. "Josh? Come over here for a minute. We need you."

"Need me for what?" he asked even as he walked over and came to a stop next to me.

"Technically, it's not you that I need, but Sillu."

"Who's that?" asked my dear assistant, and while I would've been happy to tell her, Josh cut me off.

"Hold on! Hold the frick on! You know about Sillu? Since when? How?" his shock soon turned into outrage, and he scowled at me with an accusing finger in tow. "I knew it! You hear that, Angie? I called it!"

"Erm… No, but…"

"Do you mean about Leo having a plan he didn't tell us about?" Angie asked back before I could get a proper word in. "Well, duh? It was obvious."

"Not just that!" He scoffed back and looked me in the eye. "Since when did you know about Sillu, anyway, and when were you going to tell me?"

"What? What?" Penny asked on the side, deeply confused. "I don't get it? What's a 'sillu'?"

"Not a 'what', it's a 'who', and…" Josh started, only to stop and let his scowl be replaced by a troubled grimace. "Actually, since my sword broke, I'm not sure I can…"

"Is my presence requested?"

"Kyah!"

With everyone still being high-strung, it probably wasn't a surprise that the sudden appearance of a semi-transparent red-ish hologram person caused both Penny and my princess to nearly lunge at him. The confusion only lasted for a second, and then my sister let down her sword.

"W-Who's that?"

On the other hand, the class rep remained startled and she repeatedly gestured at the newcomer, only for Grimmy to also materialise in her own holographic glory and glare at Sillu, in stark contrast to her usual placidly mechanical demeanour.

"Statement: I have identified the source of interference within the Asphodelòs Sub-System. Attempting to bypass the anomaly."

At the same time, the red hologram also frowned at her and declared, "So you are the outside intrusion meddling with the operations of the Seven Altars. Cease your interloping at once."

"What's going on now?" Elly whined, sidling up to my side. "Things were scary for a while, but then Leo came back, and it looked like everything was going to be okay, but now things are getting strange again! I'm so confused!"

"Calm down, princess. It's just…" I wrapped my arm around her shoulder and was planning to placate her, but then I realised that explaining everything would take too long, so I just concluded the sentence with a flat, "… business as usual."

Meanwhile, Judy was taking notes, Angie/Deus were equally confused, Penny stopped thinking, and as for Josh…

"Hold on! Sillu? How are you…?" He looked at him, then at the discarded hilt of his broken sword, and the red hologram turned to him with an inscrutable expression.

"I welcome you once again, Nagiru, harbringer, throne-maker." He inclined his head in a way that wasn't quite a bow and then met his gaze. "Your confusion is understandable, as we didn't have the opportunity to discuss the deeper nuances of our connection. While the Namzaku you wielded was destroyed, I have imprinted the Seal of the Emperor upon you, so you may call upon me."

As he said that, something red flashed on the back of Josh's hand, but I didn't get the opportunity to get a good look at it, because Grimmy spoke up again.

"Request: The entity holds limited administrative rights. I require authorization from Administrator Polemos to—"

"I told you to cease your meddling, trespasser. The Seven Altars belong to the Emperor, and no other."

While that was going on, Elly continued to blink next to me and mutter, "I'm sooo confused," so I exhaled a shallow sigh and turned to the avatar of the Grimoire.

"Grimmy, please leave him alone. He's the local expert I was talking about, and we need him. As for you…"

I was about to turn to Sillu, but then Josh suddenly exclaimed, "Wow! Check this out!"

In his hands was a semi-transparent sword in the shape of his previous weapon, though at first glance it reminded me more of the Celestial arm-blade spell he used to wield before, just in a more complete (and differently coloured) form. More importantly though, I frowned at him and asked, "Josh? Do you mind?"

"Ah, right. Sorry."

Unlike me, his girlfriend (and Penny, who decided to completely remove herself from the conversation) seemed interested in his new toy, so they moved back a bit to the edge of the dome.

"This day is full of inexplicable occurrences," Fidèle noted, and oh boy, she didn't know the half of it.

In any case, I addressed the Abyssal hologram again, cutting right to the chase.

"Sillu?"

He acknowledged me with a shallow nod, followed by, "You were referred to as Polemos. Are you the descendant of—?"

"Doesn't matter, would take too long to explain, we have more important things to talk about," I cut in, then gestured towards the Mana Well, "Give it to me straight: is the Abyss still in danger?"

The hologram-man didn't look too pleased by my interruption, but still responded with a simple, "No. I have already restored the Seven Altars to their proper function."

His declaration caused the group to breathe a bit easier, but I wasn't quite satisfied with the answer, so I turned to the other hologram.

"Grimmy? Can you corroborate that?"

"Response: Negative. The anomalous entity is interfering with my attempts to diagnose the Asphodelòs Sub-System's integrity."

Now I turned back to Sillu.

"Can you stop that?"

He frowned at me and shook his head.

"No. The Seven Altars belong to the Emperor, and no other. I may answer your question, ally of the Nagiru, but you may not command me."

Oh, great. So he was the obstructive bureaucrat type. Lovely.

"Okay then. Josh?"

"Yeah?" the guy responded from the back.

"Come back, please. I need you to appoint an Emperor real quick, and then you can go back to testing your new sword or whatever."

"Aw, man! Why are you—?"

Whatever his complaint might've been, he couldn't finish saying it, because Sillu declared, "The Nagiru has already chosen the Emperor."

"I did?"/"Has he?" Josh and I blurted out at the same time, and the hologram nodded as he lazily raised a hand and pointed… right at Judy.

"Excuse me?" my dear assistant uttered in mild confusion, but then the transparent man pointed again.

"Not you. I'm indicating the Emperor."

We all turned to look at her, and… Wait…

"Are you talking about Ollie?" The question escaped my mouth before I knew it, and it caused the boy clinging to Judy's legs to tense up. Sillu didn't answer, only stared at him with the same placid yet insistent expression. "Hey, Beansprout? Can you come over here for a moment?"

"Y-Yes, Uncle…" he mumbled as he self-consciously skurried over to my side. The way the hologram's hand moved to keep pointing at him erased any remaining doubts.

"Wait, stop, time out!" Josh called out, his sword gone and holding his hands in a 'T' shape. "When did that happen?!"

Sillu turned to him in turn and uttered, "You have appointed him, Nagiru."

"When?!"

Meanwhile, Judy recovered her wits and posited, "It was likely during the time we distracted Noir to allow Elly and Penelope to rescue Amelia."

"I mean, that makes sense, but…" Josh began, only to cross his arms and scowl again. "No, it still makes no sense! Miss Fidèle was here, too! She would've made infinitely more sense!"

The hologram man squinted at Josh and said, "He was the only qualified male of proper lineage present."

Oh. Oooh. Of course, this guy was made literally millennia ago by Bel of the goddamn Tenebrous Flames. As far as I could recall from the history lessons, egalitarianism wasn't exactly big back then, let alone women in positions of power. I had no idea what else we were expecting.

"Never mind that," I said as I ruffled Ollie's hair. "Can you please ask the red uncle to kindly cooperate with the nice golden lady over there?"

This whole situation was clearly too much for the kid to process, but since I was the one asking, he still nodded and looked Sillu in the eyes.

"M-Mister Red Uncle!" he began, pointing a tiny finger at him. "P-Please don't be mean and do what Uncle Polemos says!"

The hologram-man hesitated for a second, but then he cupped his hands in front of his chest and inclined his head, deeper than he did for Josh beforehand.

"As you wish, Emperor."

Seeing that, Ollie let out a relieved breath and looked up to me with a smile that said, 'Look, I did well! Praise me!', so I did just that and tousled his hair a bit.

"Thank you, Beansprout. Nice job."

"Hehe!"

Meanwhile, Grimmy let out a few short hums, kind of like an old-timey computer whirring under a heavy workload, and she soon stated, "Report: I have full access to the Asphodelòs Sub-System now. Requesting permission to isolate the anomalous entity."

"Grimmy!" This time, it was the class rep who spoke up first, and she glared at her semi-transparent companion. "Stop trying to pick a fight and tell us if we're still in danger or not!"

She responded with a flat, "Processing," followed by several seconds of tense silence. Then, "Report: the Asphodelòs Sub-System is currently meta-stable. The catastrophic system malfunction is no longer imminent. Estimated time until standard operating stability is reached is thirty-three hours and twenty-seven minutes."

Well, now it was time for everyone to let out a proper sigh of relief, and Penny to declare, "We did it! I think!"

"Y-Yay?" Snowy muttered, and even though she was trying her best to follow the conversation, it was obvious she was just as lost as the princess and was just happy that the immediate crisis was averted.

"My… um… Peacemaker?" So, it was only natural that Chayson, the de facto team leader of the Axis of Evil, chose this very moment to descend from the sky and bang on the silver dome. "We have a serious crisis on our hands!"

And now everyone tensed up again. What was this, a roller-coaster?

Anyhow, I pushed Ollie back towards Judy and then gestured for the Matron to let him in. She looked peeved, but after humming for a bit, the big guy with his big wings could pass through the barrier, and he rushed over to my side. It sounded urgent, yet he still took the time to politely nod to Judy and the others first, and to gawk at the holograms for a bit, before finally letting the cat out of the bag.

"The fighting in the city stopped. They must have noticed that the battle has ended, and they're all heading towards the ruins."

"As expected," the Matron scoffed. "They must be planning to strike us down before we have a chance to recover our strength and reap all the benefits for themselves."

Fidèle argued, "We can't be sure of that, but… It would be prudent to act on the assumption for now."

"Let them come!" Penny declared and hefted her zweihander for dramatic flair. "We faced worse; we can take them on!"

"Yeah!" Josh agreed and summoned up his semi-transparent magic sword thing again.

"That's the spirit," came the third note of agreement from Deus, plucking at the string of her bow.

"Excuse me, but… the enemies are numerous," Chayson objected while adjusting his mask.

Judy prompted him with a flat, "How numerous?" and he let out an awkward grunt.

"Uh… At least a couple hundred combatants. Maybe a thousand, even?"

That made the trio's rising heat of enthusiasm freeze over right away, giving Snowy the chance to ask, "But… how is that possible?"

"That's a good question," Fidèle agreed as she tried to stand tall, only to wince in pain. She got over it fast and continued with, "House Gula and House Enlil stationed a few companies of their Fauns and rapid response teams here, but if what he says is true, it would mean the majority of their armed forces would be present here. There's no way they could deploy all of them from the front lines in such a short time."

While she was skeptical, the Matron looked more annoyed by the news than anything else.

"I recommend we retreat. It shouldn't be difficult to evade their pursuit, and we can regroup and strike them down later."

"But what about our men in the city?" The Ninhursag patriarch raised a valid point. "Not to mention my wife and daughter!"

"They should be safe," Fidèle noted. "I expected the Lord of Inanna to aim for the Mana Well, so as soon as the Rampart was erected, I sent them away through an escape tunnel."

"There was an escape tunnel?" Hareng blurted out, followed by a muted, "Damn…"

"Nevertheless," the Shamash Matriarch pressed on, her eyes trained on the edge of the crater we were standing in. "We cannot leave our loyal soldiers behind and run away on our own."

"They're soldiers," the Matron argued. "It's their job to hold the line."

"You see, Tsarah? This attitude is the reason why you—"

"Ladies?" I cut in with my palm raised. "Can you please stop? Just let me handle this, okay?" Before they could respond, I turned to Judy. "Dormouse? Mana Well."

She nodded and reached into her bag by her feet, retrieving a familiar (if currently inert) blue cube.

"Thank you." I accepted it and then handed it over to Ammy with the same motion. "Class rep, Grimmy. Work your magic. Literally, if you have to."

Ammy gave me a sideways look, but didn't argue. Grimmy did too, though she looked like she wanted to say something, so I beat her to the punch by pointing at the other hologram.

"Work with him to figure out a way to get things done." Using the same finger, I gestured at my sisters, "Girls? Stay here and look after Judy and Ollie, just in case." Next, my hand swung towards the others. "Josh, Angie? Back up the class rep."

"What about me?" Elly asked, looking both eager and yet a little apprehensive.

"Help the Axis of Evil haul the patriarchs into the dome."

"Oh? Are we taking them hostage?" the Matron asked, sounding oddly approving of my decision, and while that wasn't my intention, I was too tired to correct her assumption, so I pointed at her and Fidèle next.

"You two, stay put and rest up."

"What about you, Lord Polemos-Dunning?" the Shamash Matriarch asked, and so for the last time, I pointed at the edge of the crater, where I could already see some figures moving in the distance.

"I'll go and buy us a few minutes."

And with that, I Phased away without another word. Honestly, Fidèle's previous observation wasn't off the mark. It made no bloody sense for all of these Abyssals and Fauns to be here, meaning the Predator… Pardon, Benjamin must have put them here during our scuffle, just to mess with me. So yeah, now I not only had to deal with the mess I caused, but I also had to fix his mess too. As if I didn't have enough problems already…