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

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

"No, nothing," Snowy answered in the meantime. She walked over from the windows and reflexively petted the tuckered-out fox in my arms.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The sulky furball let out one last indignant harrumph and dashed up the stairs without further ado.

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

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

I was tempted to point out that said 'young girl' was technically the third oldest being I knew. For the record, the second one was a Faun older than the English language, while the last was an incognito dragon who talked about the high Middle Ages like they were last year's fad. That said, considering how inconsistently mental ages were distributed among the people I knew, it felt too wonky to rely on a single number when trying to guess one's actual maturity. It didn't mean I wouldn't object to her accusation though.

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

"Suuure," my little sister commented, and her stern attitude soon gave way to an affectionate giggle. As much as I wanted to exonerate myself, I didn't feel like fighting an uphill battle at the moment, so instead I moved the conversation in a different direction.

"Oh look, it's a forced switch in topics coming our way!" I pointed at the side, but she only gave me an odd look.

…

I missed Judy. She would've got it.

Nevertheless, I soldiered on by waving my hand and saying, "Never mind. So, if we presume that the old beady baldy guy could really just hide in other people's shadows, when do you reckon he got inside?"

My dear little sister graciously ignored my failed attempt at comedy (hey, you can't win all of them), and after raising a finger to her chin and thinking for a few seconds, she reckoned, "He could've used Elly's shadow, but then he had to leave it before you teleported to the base, and there's no way we wouldn't have noticed him."

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

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

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

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

"The boxes of the food you ordered."

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

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

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

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

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

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

"Why do you have your dress on backwards?"

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"Yes, ue-sama! Certainly!"

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

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

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

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

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

"A challenge?" she repeated after me and clenched her fists. "I'll do that!"

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Judy turned an inquisitive look my way, no doubt expecting an explanation.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"It's actually literal, and it's as weird as it sounds," I said, followed by a quick description of Ichiko's previous demonstration.

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

"My thoughts exactly. Too bad she needs her fingers to use it."

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"You do that. As for you Chief…"

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

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

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

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

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

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