There was a loud thump on the door leading into the secluded office in the corner of the building, followed by stifled cursing. For now, the good old chair-under-the-doorknob trick was holding, but I didn't know for how long, and I really needed more time, because goddamit, Labcoat Guy was criminally disorganized. I've been searching for minutes, but I couldn't find what I was looking for in the mess of random papers in the old, rickety filing cabinet in front of me. I have, however, found the guy's childhood photo album. Why would anyone store that next to important documents was entirely beyond me.

"The door is locked," announced a voice on the other side, followed by another impact that made the entire doorframe creak.

"Wait, look. There's a shadow. Someone's inside," said another oddly wooden voice, no doubt a placeholder Magi dispatched to secure the premises.

"Stand back, I'll blast it open," declared a third voice, and that was my cue to leave.

Since I still couldn't find what I wanted, I decided to screw it all and, while making sure that I was still holding onto all the other miscellaneous yet possibly useful junk I collected on the way, I extended my Phantom Limb and Phased away without any further ado. A short yet long moment later, I arrived within the familiar confines of the main hall inside the secret base. My arrival was then announced by a loud bang, following which the piece of furniture I carried with me began to teeter on its edge before abruptly falling over with a deafening impact that echoed for several seconds in the open space.

After getting over my first surprise, I looked around and my eyes immediately met with about a dozen completely baffled stares directed at me.

"What? Have you guys never seen a filing cabinet before?"

My jest to ease the mood fell on deaf ears, so I opted to stop caring and simply walked over to the nearest Faun and dumped everything in my hands save for Onikiri onto him.

"Take these to the recreational area. I'll sort through them later."

"Was that Amelia's staff?" Judy asked as she walked over, still wearing the communicator-glasses.

"Yeah, I'm holding onto it for the time being."

"It's broken," she noted with a disinterested voice while still edging towards me.

"Stuff happened. I already promised her that I'll help her fix it."

"Very gallant of you," came the next comment, but then she suddenly pounced forward and grabbed hold of my free hand with a triumphant "Caught you!"

"Um… Yeah, you did. It wasn't very hard," I noted with just a hint of bewilderment. "For the record, I wasn't planning on going anywhere for the time being."

"Better be safe than sorry," she declared with an unnecessary amount of conviction, and then she dramatically took off her glasses and pocketed them before she reaffirmed her grip on my sleeve and began to pull me towards the benches. "Now come quietly and explain the situation."

"Sure, sure."

My compliance apparently didn't reassure her one bit, as she kept an iron grip on my arm until we arrived at the aforementioned benches, There, Rinne was still sitting ramrod straight with her arms tied behind her back, and Pip was still trying to do his grimmest guard impression behind her, but now we also had an extra addition in the form of a small girl sitting with her legs crossed. At first she seemed to be immersed in a conversation with Mountain Girl, but when our eyes met, she immediately perked up and began waving at me with a beaming expression. Thankfully she was actually wearing clothes this time around, namely one of my backup tracksuits I kept around as a makeshift disguise in case I needed to infiltrate somewhere in a hurry. This one was colored light blue, and it was a few sizes bigger than my normal clothes so that it could be worn over another outfit if necessary. Needless to say, it was so oversized on her that I was fairly sure she was only wearing the jacket, and yet it completely covered her.

Once we got closer, the overly friendly sword-spirit gave me a small bow while still sitting and addressed me directly.

"Welcome back, ue-sama!"

"Uh… yes. Welcome back?" Rinne followed suit, though her greeting was about as natural as a PVC pipe.

"Here we go Chief, round two," my dear assistant prompted me with a tug on my hand. "Introduce us."

I glanced at her, then at the still grinning little girl, and in the end I couldn't help but let a groan escape my throat.

"Are you serious, Dormouse? You're aware that she is a hundreds of years old sword piloting a Chimera who looks like a nine years old kid?"

"Yes, and you should be aware of what kind of world we live in, and that what you just described makes her technically legal. That's all the reason I need to be cautious. Now, stop stalling and introduce us as you did with her."

I was really way too tired for this, but if it would give her some peace of mind, I figured I might as well comply. That didn't mean I would do it happily though.

"Oh, fine. So, Dormouse, this is Azusa Ichiko, the ex-sword-spirit of Onikiri."

"It's a pleasure to meet you, Dormouse-san!" the tiny girl in the oversized jacked cut in with another shining smile, much to my assistant's annoyance.

"You see, she is my girlfriend," I told her, at which point her smile immediately disappeared and she gave us another small bow.

"Please forgive me, Dormouse-sama. I was unaware of your affiliation with ue-sama."

"Hold your horses for a moment," I called out with a steadily rising sense of exasperation, and waited for her to stop bowing before telling her, "Her actual name is Judy Sennoma, only I'm calling her Dormouse."

"Ah, I see. So it's Judy-sama's true name! Please forgive my carelessness." She gave another small bow, this time aimed at my girlfriend in particular, but when she noticed that she was giving her a harsh look, she quickly muttered, "Is… Is my address still wrong? Would you prefer Sennoma-sama? Or maybe Sennoma-ue?"

Judy kept staring at the clueless Ichiko for a few more seconds before her expression softened and she glanced up at me with a defeated look in her eyes.

"Is she always like that?"

"She's been like that since I first met her. Or rather, the third time I met her. It's complicated." That explanation obviously didn't satisfy her, so I added, "She's something of a moe archetype, and while slightly annoying, she's mostly harmless."

"If you say so."

I figured we were more or less done with the basic anti-harem countermeasures, so I lightly cleared my throat as a way to signal that we were moving on.

"Say, how about you two figure out the proper way to address you while I put this away?"

Saying so, I lightly waved the wrapped-up sword in my hand around to indicate what I was talking about, but instead of letting me go, Judy only clamped down on me harder.

"Before you do that, why don't you first explain the sequence of events that resulted in a sentient sword becoming a young girl?"

"Rinne would also like to know," Mountain Girl commented on the side, and she was so focused on the blade in my hand she even forgot to correct herself. My girlfriend didn't let up either, and for some odd reason even the tiny miko was looking at me with expectant eyes (even though she was, you know, there when it happened), so I figured I might as well get it over with.

"Fine. In short, Ichiko here originally wasn't a sword, but was put into Onikiri as a last resort. When she tried to 'merge' with me, I in turn interfaced with the enchantment housing her, we expelled the sludge surrounding her from the outside."

"Sludge?" Rinne muttered, and the little girl immediately provided an explanation.

"It was the miasma!"

"Yeah, and once it was removed, she stopped burning and became human-sized again."

"Wait, what was that about burning?" came the next question from Judy, who at this point was unreservedly taking notes on her phone.

"Right, I kind of skimmed over this part, but the first time we 'met', so to speak, she was this enormous, burning demon thing only wearing a pair of—"

"Kyaaa! Please don't reveal my shameful past!" Ichiko interrupted me with quite a panicked expression, but I could only shake my head in disbelief.

"You act like you have a shred of shame, you unrepentant exhibitionist."

For a moment it seemed like she wanted to object, but then she stopped mid-breath, and instead she leaned over to the tied-up woman sitting beside her.

"Psst, Rinne-san? What is an 'exhibitionist'?"

"Rinne isn't entirely sure," she replied a little absent-mindedly before proposing, "Isn't it the person who manages an art gallery?"

"It could be..." the smaller girl concluded with a thoughtful hum before turning back and pointing a hand at me, with about half of the jacket's sleeve limply dangling at the end, and declared, "I'm not a manager of art galleries!"

During the ensuing beat of silence, I seriously contemplated whether I should correct her or not, and in the end decided that it was simply too much of a hassle, so instead I just continued with my explanation of the events.

"So, as I was saying," I began, completely ignoring the tiny miko's still outstretched hand, "Getting rid of the sludge had some unforeseen effects, so she couldn't stay in the sword. Since the only other place I could put her was the body of the Chimera, I transferred her there. Then, contrary to my explicit instructions, she turned into a girl. End of story."

"I see," Judy whispered under her breath while typing, only to look up and say, "I have two questions."

"Only two?"

"For now."

"Go figure," I whispered under my breath, sighed, and told her, "Ask away then."

She lightly nodded, and after another glance at her phone, she began with, "You said that she turned into a girl 'against your instructions'. Does that mean she can turn into something else?"

"Why don't you ask her?"

Following my advice, my assistant turned a pair of questioning eyes at the small girl, and the moment she realized the attention was on her, she instantly brightened up.

"Ah, you see, Sennoma-ue..."

"Just Judy will do."

"Oh, then Judy-ue, you see, my maternal grandmother was a pureblood kitsune, and even though I wasn't able to do it when I was alive..." At this point she abruptly paused and began to wave her hands around while spluttering something among the lines of, "I mean, before I was Onikiri! I don't mean I'm dead now! At least I don't think I am... But anyway, this body is much more suited for the transformation arts that grandma taught me when I was alive, or not dead, or... not not alive?"

To her credit, my girlfriend's deadpan expression didn't waver for even a second, and once Ichiko fell silent, she only glanced up at me with the word, "Kitsune?"

"Japanese fox-girls," I replied off the cuff, but it only made her imperceptibly furrow her brows.

"Japanese? As opposed to what?"

"Chinese fox-girls?" I proposed, only to then roll my eyes when she continued to give me a skeptical staredown. "Don't look at me like that, it's a thing. I think they are different subspecies of the same phantasmal species."

"So it's like the difference between western dragons and eastern dragons."

"Yeah, sure," I agreed, though for the love of me I couldn't recall what she was talking about.

"Noted," she, well, noted before continuing with, "And how exactly did this whole 'I moved her from the sword to this dead monster' process work?"

"It's, uh... Kind of complicated. It had to do with the supernatural stratum and the customizing the controller enchantment in the Chimera and then Phasing her from one body to the next and then jiggling her back and forth on the q-axis until she stuck, and a whole lot of other unintuitive crap. I'll tell you the process in detail after today's madness is over."

"Fine," she relented, if a bit grudgingly, and once she finished typing on her phone, she put it away and turned her attention to the two in front of us. "What are we going to do about these two?"

"Honestly, it depends. First, I have a few questions for them." When they heard that, both Rinne and Ichika gave me expectant and yet simultaneously worried looks. I inhaled a deep breath, and by the time I let it out, I felt clear on what I wanted to ask. "All right. So, just to make sure we're on the same page, I want you to remember this: you guys broke into our base, injured my sister's retainers, and caused a lot of collateral damage. I think just the fact that you were only disarmed and captured is lenient enough, let alone all the trouble I went through to help you out."

That last comment was obviously aimed at the ex-sword, and she repeatedly nodded her head in acknowledgment. Mountain Girl also followed her example, but that was neither here nor there.

"In short, if you want to stay in my good graces, I ask, and you answer with perfect sincerity. Are we clear on that?" They agreed in unison, so I immediately posed my first question. "First off, you're now aware that attacking us was wrong, right?"

The two briefly glanced at each other and soon mumbled a disheartened "Yes," more or less at the same time.

"I can't hear it."

"It was wrong," Rinne stated in a low voice, following which Ichiko added a similarly disheartened, "Sorry."

"Good. Next, I want to know just how much each of you was responsible for that." I paused for effect here and focused on Mountain Girl. "If I recall correctly, you mentioned something about 'becoming one', but I can distinctly remember the two of you talking to each other when she was still inside the sword."

"Oh, that's easy!" the physically and mentally younger yet objectively way older girl exclaimed after a giggle. "It's like… uuuu…" I waited for her to actually explain herself, but she just crossed her arms and no matter how long I waited, she didn't speak up.

"Let Rinne try." This time we focused on the other captive, and after a moment of thinking she told us, "It's like taking two eggs, and breaking them into the same bowl. The whites become one big pool, but the two yolks remain separate."

"Yes, that's it! See, I told you it's easy!" the mini-miko exclaimed with so much enthusiasm one would think it was her who came up with that. "Rinne-san's analogies are much easier to understand than ue-sama's."

"Hush, you." After chiding her, the overly friendly little girl fell silent and I considered their words for a while. "So, does that mean that while you retained your sense of self, you also partially merged together?" The two of them mulled over my words and then nodded more or less at the same time. "Okay, so which one of you was responsible for all the raving about killing and blood?"

There was a very, very long moment of silence hanging in the air until Ichiko meekly raised her hand.

"That… was mostly me," she confessed in a meek voice, but a second later she forcefully added, "But it was the miasma's fault!"

"The miasma, huh? Okay, then who was responsible for all of those rude comments?"

"That… that was also me," came the next disheartened answer from the smaller girl. "But, but the…!"

"Yes, yes, it was the miasma, I get it," I cut in with a sigh. "Final question: who was responsible for being a glutton?"

"Oh, oh! That was definitely Rinne-san!" Ichiko declared in high spirits, much to her previous wielder's chagrin.

"No, Rinne wasn't!"

"N-Nonsense! How could I be responsible when I couldn't even eat? I was a sword, baka! Swords don't eat!"

While the two argued, Judy subtly tugged on my sleeve to get my attention.

"Chief, shouldn't you be asking another question from them?"

"… Sorry, but I don't know what you mean."

My dear girlfriend gave me her deadpan 2.0 look, which was at least twenty percent deadpanner than its predecessor, and after sending one last glance at the commotion by our side, she stood on tiptoes and whispered, "Ouyay ouldshay askyay ichwhay oneyay asway interestedyay inyay ouyay."

"Wait, what are you…?" I blurted out by reflex, only for things to finally click together a second later, "Oh, right. Pig Latin. It's been a while." After muttering so, I spent a few seconds untangling her words, which resulted in a tired sigh on my end. "Do I really have to? You've already set the basic anti-harem countermeasures, and considering all that happened today, I don't think pushing it even harder would be effective. Please let it go for the time being."

It was also around this time that I was starting to get fed up with the argument unfolding in front of us, so I pointedly cleared my throat, and when that didn't work, let out a not particularly loud yet quite forceful "Cut it out, you two!"

Half a second later, our one and a half captives were both sitting ramrod straight and looking forward, with an innocent expression that would've given newborn pandas a run from their money. I considered my options for a while longer, and in the end decided that even if she was no longer super-creepy, letting Mountain Girl loose was not a good idea, and as for Ichiko… well, she might've looked cute as a button at the moment, but let's not forget that she was technically a Chimera, or rather, about a third of one, as bits and pieces of the other half were still lying on the ground near the training area. Either way, letting her go was not a good idea.

"I've decided what to do with you two. Mountain Girl?" The currently somewhat lethargic huntress slightly perked up when she heard me calling her nickname, and I looked her straight in the eye before telling her, "I'm sorry to say, but until things calm down a little, I'm afraid I have to insist that you remain our guest for the time being."

"I understand."

The way she immediately conceded took me aback for a second, but I was already on a roll, so I acknowledged her with a curt nod and turned to the mini-miko, who for some odd reason was looking at me with positively sparkling eyes.

"What about me, ue-sama?"

I opened my mouth, only to close it again, and then some more mulling over later I decided on telling her, "For a start, I believe you still owe me for putting up with all your nonsense and even helping you out in the end, so—"

"Do I have to work? I'm fine with that! I'm good at cleaning, and small tasks, and cooking, and… uuu… maybe not cooking after all, but anything that requires attention! Mother always said I had a great eye for details!"

For a second or five I didn't know how to react to her interruption, but at the end of the day I decided to just shrug a tad indifferently.

"You know what? Sure. Do you want to pay back the favor? Start by helping me find the incriminating evidence in that filing cabinet."

"Understood, ue-sama!"

She jumped to her feet without any further ado. Even though she was still only wearing the tracksuit jacket, it actually reached down to her ankles, so there was no danger of another flashing incident. She did look gosh darn comical though, but it didn't stop her from nimbly skipping past us and rush towards the cabinet I surreptitiously appropriated without even waiting for me to explain what she should be looking for. I let my shoulders droop in resignation and gestured for Pip to listen up and then pointed at the still seated Rinne.

"Take her to one of the smaller rooms for the time being. You can unbind her, but make sure she's still under strict surveillance." I paused here while looking for another Faun, and eventually I settled on Vurrok. "As for you, please take this sword off my hands and store it somewhere else."

I held out the hand holding the wrapped up Onikiri, and I don't want to sound too dramatic or anything, but it took way more effort than expected to peel my fingers off the grip. They were throbbing like hell as well, so that probably wasn't good. I bore it with a stiff upper lip so that I wouldn't worry Judy, and once the Faun received it with almost reverent motions, I gently pulled Judy along and headed towards the filing cabinet and the little girl currently spelunking in it. We got to about halfway there when she suddenly jumped to her bare feet with a comically over-exaggerated look of awe on her face and she immediately dashed over to our side.

"Look, ue-sama! Look! I found this evidence! I'm sure it's incredibly incriminating!"

Proclaiming so, she pushed the thick rectangular book in her hands towards us and opened it wide so that we could take a good look. Judy, after overcoming her first surprise, leaned forward to scrutinize the contents for a short while before she looked back at me.

"Who's that?"

"Labcoat Guy, I presume," I answered off the cuff, following which my girlfriend resumed her scrutiny of the polaroid photos in the album.

"He looked surprisingly cute as a kid," she mused, but I let her comment in one ear and out the other as I tapped on the enthusiastic little girl's head with a single finger.

"This wasn't what I was looking for. There should be a magically enchanted piece of paper in a brown manila folder in there. It's hard to miss; it has a big, red thumb-print on the first page."

"Oh, I see!" she muttered while rubbing the spot where I poked her, even though this time I was fairly gentle. "I'll go find it!"

Just like that, she snapped the photo album shut and skipped back to whence she came from, and clumsily dragged one of the drawers open, which was actually pretty difficult considering that the cabinet was still sitting on its side.

"She's certainly enthusiastic," my dearest assistant noted in a tone that was just a touch disgruntled. "One would almost think she's trying to get into your good graces."

"Well, she probably is," I answered, only to finally notice the way she was looking at me, and subtly roll my eyes. "It's not for the reason you think though."

"Really? So you can tell me what I think?"

"I can only guess, but I'd bet it's something harem-related again."

All of a sudden she squeezed my arm and exclaimed (or at the very least raised her volume a teensy bit), "Impressive. Keep this up, and soon you may not only attract a lot of women but actually understand them."

"Oh, ha, ha. Very funny."

"Thank you, I practice a lot," Judy quipped back without a shred of shame. "But if it's not related to your harem protagonist aura, then why else would she be this eager?"

I instinctively wanted to point out that, unlike Josh, I didn't actually have any such aura, but getting bogged down in another silly argument about that wouldn't have been particularly productive, so I swallowed my indignation.

"Probably because she wants to prove herself useful so that I won't turn her off."

"Does that mean you already turn her on?"

I let the silence linger in the air for a moment, and then I turned a pair of stern brows towards my girlfriend and firmly warned her, "Dormouse, please stop doing that, or I swear to god I'll flick your forehead so hard even our theoretical future kids will feel it." I kept up the pressure until she finally averted her eyes with a click of her tongue, at which point I clarified, "Before I put her in the empty Chimera, we made a deal, and I jury-rigged an off-switch onto the enchantment so that I can put her into suspended animation if she doesn't behave herself."

"So you have a form of control over her? That sounds somewhat like a familiar," Judy pondered aloud, followed up by an especially deadpan, "You're not allowed to have her call you 'master'."

"I never planned to do that to begin with," I protested, and it was around this point when our slow, meandering, hand-in-hand walk reached its destination.

In front of us, Ichiko already took out all the documents from the already half-open drawer, and at the moment she was trying, and failing, to pull out another one. She struggled with it for a while more before she let out an angry huff and looked around. When our eyes met, she perked up for a moment, but then she hesitated and she conspicuously looked away and continued her search. In the end her eyes settled on Karukk, who was still keeping an eye on her, as per my instructions. Once their gazes met, it immediately made the proverbial light-bulb lit up over her head with an idea (whether good or bad, only time could tell), and she pointed a flappy-sleeved hand towards the Faun.

"You there! Evil minion of the underworld!"

The hapless 'evil minion' could only blink in surprise at first, after which he glanced my way. I lightly shrugged my shoulders as a way to tell him to react however he wanted, and so after a bit of hesitation, he looked back at her and pointed a finger at his own chest.

"The little one talks to me?"

"Yes!" the little girl exclaimed in apparent delight as she put her hands on her nonexistent hips. "Come, minion! O-kami-sama tasked me with a mission of the utmost importance, and your brutish muscles are in need! Hurry and help me raise this cabinet!"

At this point Karukk sent me a more overt glance, and after some consideration, I gave him a nod. The guy let out a tired sigh, but otherwise didn't complain, and obediently walked over to the filing cabinet and easily upended it so that she would have easy access to the drawers. Ichiko flashed me a triumphant smile, followed by a quick bow at the still slightly confused Faun, and then she immediately resumed her search.

It was only when she was once again completely absorbed in her 'job' that Judy tugged on my hand to get my attention.

"Did Doctor Robatto really put the contract he made with Lord Endymonion into a shabby place like that?"

"I figure he was going for a 'hide a forest in the tree' kind of approach."

"Chief, I'm fairly sure that's the other way around."

"Whatever, I'm tired. Cut me some slack."

"Fine, but just this once," she responded, her previous cheekiness back in full force again. "What are you planning to do with the contract if it's really there?"

"I plan to engage in some aggressive negotiations with Lord Grandpa and Labcoat Guy, and I need the leverage."

"With both of them?"

"At the same time," I answered, and after closing my eyes for a second for a quick Far Glance, I added, "The latter is already being escorted to the School, so I'll wait until he's there."

That said, since I was already using Far Sight, I figured I might as well take a quick peek at the others too. Mike was… in a taxi. Does that mean that more than half an hour has passed already? Either way, he wasn't followed, so that's good. The Class Rep was still holed up at the bottom of a stairwell, presumably near the exit of the emergency escape tunnel, and she was furiously texting to someone. One blur of the scenery later I was looking at Josh and the others, who were all out of their Magiforms and were sitting in a black minivan along with Pascal. They all seemed thoroughly uncomfortable, but on the other hand, they weren't cuffed or otherwise bound.

The same could not be said about Labcoat Guy, who was in something that looked like a modern version of a yoke, while his fembot companion had it even worse, with her legs chained, arms tied back in an honest to goodness arm-binder, and a thick, magically glowing metal collar around her neck. Not only that, but they were each surrounded by two men in black, complete with old-school sunglasses and those ear-pieces with the coiled wires.

Overall, while the situation wasn't ideal, at least it was no longer wildly out of control. That was progress, I supposed.

"So, what's the plan?" Judy's question made me raise a brow, so she clarified, "I meant to ask, are you going to use your new identity to strike up a deal with them?"

"Nah, that's not going to work," I told her with a sigh. "It might still work on the Knights in the future, and I can probably make it work with the Celestials as long as I can make sure Mike doesn't report anything incriminating, but Labcoat Guy already saw me before and after I put the mask on. If I show up wearing that, he would immediately spill the beans."

"That means you are going there to negotiate as yourself?"

"Well, kind of." She looked unexpectedly curious, so after a few short seconds I gave in and told her, "Lord Grandpa was the one who pushed the title onto me, so let's see how he likes when Leonard Blackcloak the Chimera Slayer pays him a visit…"

If we were at a sitcom's set, this would have been the ominous moment when the DUN-DUN-DUUUUN! music played. Instead of that, there was a loud metallic crashing noise ringing out not a moment after I finished speaking, as the little girl in front of us accidentally toppled the cabinet. Then, it was followed by a flustered "Aaaah! Evil minion, help! It fell over again!"

…

That's for setting the right mood, I supposed. Oh well, at least I tried.