"… and that's the gist of it."

The silence left in the wake of my straightforward and not-at-all rambling description of the recent developments was about as deafeningly still as expected. My girlfriends already knew most of it, so they were the least affected, while the other end of the spectrum was represented by Penny, who was still stunned over dear Uncle Percy's involvement in the events. Everyone else was stuck somewhere in-between those two extremes.

I could understand that all of this was hard to digest at once, but we didn't have all day, so after letting the first shock settle, I lightly cleared my throat.

"So? Any questions?"

"Too many to count," Sebastian uttered in a voice flatter than the great plains and turned to Melinda by his side. "Correct me if I'm wrong, but we have already tested the boy, didn't we?"

"Naturally. I collected the blood sample myself."

Our local incognito dragon let out an intrigued hum and turned his gaze back to me.

"I think a second test is warranted."

"With all due respect, von Fraenir." The moment he raised his voice, everyone's attention was glued to Arnwald, especially when he stood up. Most likely for the sake of emphasis. "While I understand that you care deeply about maintaining the bloodline of the Dracis family, we must focus on the matters more immediately perilous first."

The two of them locked eyes for a second or five, and it resulted in the butler clicking his tongue and whispering something along the lines of 'Just once I try to lighten the mood, and this is what I get…'

Nobody was paying attention to him though, as Naoren used the opportunity to raise his voice next.

"I believe our first order of business must be dealing with the traitor in our midst. I'm sure Leonard already has something in mind."

"Kind of," I responded a tad awkwardly, as I didn't really have any concrete plan yet. It didn't stop me from offering an ad-hoc idea thought. "Right now, he believes he got away with it. Let him keep thinking that. Ideally, I'd want him to get as full of himself as possible, just to make his downfall all the sweeter, so it would be best if everyone could pretend to fall for his schemes, and keep him busy that way while I'm away in the Elysium, and—"

"Hold on!" Roland suddenly raised his voice and sprung to his feet, following Arnwald's example. "You're going back to the Elysium? Why?"

"I… thought I adequately explained that. They think I'm this Second True Archon guy."

"But you're not," Roland pressed on, and for a moment, I didn't know how to respond.

"Well, no, not in the strict sense, but I worked hard to make them believe it, and it would be a waste not to capitalize on the opportunity to infiltrate the Celestial high command. There's also this whole thing with the three factions, and I'm still trying to figure out who's the least dastardly bastardly of them, so…"

"Leonard. Stop." It was only at this point that I realized that Roland was glaring at me, and when I fell silent, he left Penny in Snowy's care and walked over to my side with heavy steps before grabbing hold of my shoulder and pulling me over. "We need to talk. In private."

His whispers were squeezed through clenched teeth, and for a second or two, I could only blink as I went through a whole gamut of internal reactions. First, there was this weird sense of irritation welling up from the pit of my stomach. Something about 'insubordination' and 'questioning superiors' and whatnot. That really didn't feel like something I would think, whether it came from my digestive tract or not, but then the much more immediate surprise overwrote it anyway, so I didn't bother to think too hard about it. That was followed by a wave of apprehension, but not even that lasted for only so long before my better judgement quickly concluded that Roland wouldn't have done something like this if it wasn't important.

As such, I nodded and turned to the jam-packed and I forcefully cleared my throat.

"Now then, how about we take a short break? We'll be right back."

Before the small crowd on the benches could even react, Roland already walked away, and I hurriedly followed after him.

"What is this about?"

He flatly responded with "It's not private enough," and led me towards the reception area with the teleport closet. I followed without any protests, and the moment we were inside, he closed the door behind us, before anyone else could've followed. We walked over to the other end of the room, and the moment we stopped, he raised a hand to massage his temple.

"So… is this about something the others weren't supposed to hear?" I prompted him again, and this time, I was rewarded with a frown and a hard-to-interpret groan.

"Partially." He fixed his posture and added, "Voicing one's disagreement with his superior during a meeting is counter-productive, and it's better to discuss the topic in private before forming a united front in public."

"In other words, you disagree with something I said."

Roland looked at me like I was a dimwit, and massaged his temple again.

"Yes. Yes, I do." He took a deep breath and crossed his arms with a solemn frown on his face. "Leonard. Are you even aware of the full implications of this situation?"

"I'm pretty sure I am," I answered maybe a touch too flippantly, as his brows immediately descended another notch.

"I'm not convinced. If you were, you wouldn't have made a suggestion like that."

"Which part? The one about Percival, or the one about going back to the Elysium?" Instead of answering, he was only giving me a disapproving glare, the kind that you would see on the face of a teacher when you told them the dog ate your homework, and it automatically put me on the defensive. "What? It's not that complicated. Just let Percival think that he's turning people against each other within the Draconic Federation for a while by playing along with him. In the meantime, I sort out this whole Celestial situation on my end, and once he thinks he's firmly in the saddle, I swoop in and wipe that smug grin off his face, dragging him down just when he's at his highest point for extra emotional and mental damage and everything. It's really not all that complicated, especially compared to my previous plans."

"… Leonard. Are you actually listening to yourself?" Before I could answer, Roland let out a low growl and raised his voice. "This isn't a game! You are needed here and now."

"I'm sure you can manage without me for a while."

My dismissive response was met by Roland's nose flaring up and his face gradually turning redder and redder.

"No, we can't!" Raising his voice even further, for a moment I was seriously worried he was about to throw a punch at me. "This situation is already teetering on the edge of going completely out of control! Your presence is the linchpin that ties us to the Draconians! The longer you're missing, the harder it will become to keep the entire Draconian Federation together!"

"Everyone who counts already knows I'm back, so what does it matter?"

"We aren't running a hobby club here! We have to think about all our allies, the lesser Draconian families in the Federation, as well as the families not yet affiliated with us, and then we didn't even consider the Assembly! If you really were kidnapped by the Abyss, it would be one thing, but to voluntarily follow the Celestials into their realm? What were you thinking!?"

Now it was my turn to raise my voice, and I stood my ground by straightening my back and mirroring his glare.

"How many times do I have to repeat myself? I used the opportunity to infiltrate the Elysium precisely so that I could get ahead of these kinds of ambushes in the future! It's all about long term gains!"

"It's an entirely meaningless concern when what you did might've already irreparably damaged everything we had built up here!"

By this point, we were both yelling, and after glaring at each other for a while, Roland let out a pent-up breath and held his forehead in his hand before continuing at a more reasonable volume.

"Listen. I'll be honest with you."

"Weren't you already?"

"Stop that, and pay attention," he growled and pointed at me. "We are in a precarious situation. The Assembly is already under the impression that the entire Draconic Federation is just a grand ploy by the Celestials. We can't let them know that the Brotherhood was manipulated by the Celestials, we can't let them know that you were taken by the Celestials, and we absolutely, categorically can't let them know that you were a major Celestial leader hidden in plain sight all along."

"For the record, I wasn't until two days ago."

My well-meaning correction earned me a scoff in return.

"Do you think they'll care for the nuances?" Roland growled and crossed his arms again, this time holding his right elbow in his left hand, the fingers on his right pinched around his chin, and then followed it up with a deep breath. "On second thought, we really were under the thumb of the Celestials all this time, so they aren't entirely wrong. In fact, since you are both the King of Knights and this 'Archon' at the same time, we technically still are."

Noticing the piercing glare he was directing at me, I hastily raised my palms.

"Hey there. Don't overthink this. Just because the Celestial Directorate thinks I'm the second coming of their long-dead founder, it doesn't mean I'm actually a Celestial or care about their interests. At the end of the day, I'm still me."

"If you don't care, then why do you insist on returning to the Elysium instead of remaining here to sort things out with us?"

This time, it was my turn to groan, and I also crossed my arms for good measure.

"It's like the third time I had to explain this. Listen, I need to understand the politics and factions of the Celestials, and to do that, I have to keep playing the role of Archon Polemos a while longer. I can't just up and disappear from the Elysium without a word."

"Why?"

I opened my mouth, but I couldn't find the answer right away.

"It's… because I already got myself into this situation, so I have to make the best of it."

"No, you don't. What you have to do is to fulfill your obligations to the organization you created with your own hands first. You have no such obligation to the people who tried to kidnap and brainwash you."

"I'm not arguing with that, but technically speaking, wouldn't using my newfound position to steer the Celestials into a potentially more amicable direction also count as doing my job? Not to mention, there's a lot of tension and enmity running in their leadership, so if I just left the Elysium overnight, it would cause a lot of unnecessary chaos and collateral damage."

"Why are you even concerned with something like that?"

"What the hell do you mean by that?" I bit back, feeling genuinely irked. "Of course I'm worried that I might start a civil war!"

"So what? It's a Celestial matter. You aren't responsible for what they do."

"But I am! I mean, what if innocent Celestials get caught up in the crossfire?"

"Leonard." Roland's voice deepened into a growl, and his glare pierced right through me once again. When he continued, he emphasized every individual word. "They. Are not. Your. Responsibility."

"Yes, they are! They are my people!" I yelled out, and only after the words already left my mouth did they fully register with me. After a long beat, I unclenched my fists and raised my palms again. "Hold on. That came out wrong. I meant to say they are Polemos's people. You know how I have a bunch of his memory fragments swirling in my head? Things get blurry sometimes. It doesn't mean I think they are more important than you guys, but… honestly, most of them are blameless in all of this, and letting the entirety of the Elysium get caught up in a conflict wouldn't sit well with me anyway."

Roland levelled a flat gaze at me and continued to scrutinize my face for a while longer, but at last, he let out a resigned sigh and uncrossed his arms, followed by a shake of his head.

"I understand. I thought something like this was going to happen."

"Well, of course. I already told you about the memories."

"No, not that." For emphasis, he reached out and poked me in the chest. "I'm talking about that bad habit of yours, where you try to resolve every single situation without any casualties, even if you need to pile lie upon deceit upon trickery to do it. I understand that your heart is in the right place, and it would be almost admirable if it wouldn't cause all of these outlandish situations all the time."

What Roland just said sounded dangerously close to accusing me of having Chronic Hero Syndrome, but before I could object to it, he retracted his finger and thoughtfully pinched his chin again.

"I also know that you're stubborn as a mule, so I probably won't be able to convince you to change your mind even if I spent the whole afternoon arguing with you."

"Hey. That was uncalled for."

Ignoring my protest, our dear Mr. Griffon quietly hummed, deep in thought, and ultimately levelled a pair of dispassionate eyes at me.

"Let's aim for a compromise. You can go ahead and try to bring the Celestials into the fold, but we absolutely have to stabilize the situation on the island first."

"I'm not bringing anyone into any fold. You're sounding like Elly right now."

"I'm sure she must've also noticed the pattern already." His response was rather detached, and a moment later he sank back into his thought while gently tapping on his chin. "Back to the previous point: To stabilize the state of affairs, we need two things; the traitor has to be removed from our midst, and we have to prove to all our affiliates that you're still alive."

"The latter shouldn't be too hard," I posited, slowly entering into scheming mode myself. "A ransom note could work. Maybe make it a video, so that it's obvious that I'm still breathing? We could even have Rabom and Karukk loiter in the background for extra legitimacy."

"I'm not so sure about that. There's no telling how the Celestials would react to something like that if it reached their ears, and we wouldn't want them to reveal the truth, either by accident or on purpose. Percival is also a rogue element in this scenario. We might have to consider taking him out of the picture first."

"Do we? Can't we at least give him a little more rope to hang himself with?"

"Leonard. Take this seriously."

"Ugh, fine," I grumbled as I threw out all my old plans. I really wanted to do the thing where I waited until he got really, really conceited and then smack him down in the middle of some kind of 'I am the senate!' speech, with all the catharsis it would've implied, but it was apparently never meant to be. "So we just have to take him out of the equation, right? Let's use Bel."

My suggestion made Roland shudder and level a skeptical gaze at me for the umpteenth time.

"… Are you serious?"

"Why? Percival's cover story was that I got kidnapped by the Abyssals. Let's turn it around by getting him kidnapped by an Abyssal for real. I mean, from the outside perspective. I'm not really an Abyssal."

Roland narrowed his eyes, looking even less convinced than when I started.

"Getting both the true and the provisional leaders of the Ordo Draconis kidnapped one after the other would undermine our authority a good deal, wouldn't it?"

"Not really. I mean, we can use Bel's reputation and just go 'Well, how were we supposed to stop that?'. Considering all the groundwork I put into the character, it would be weird if he wasn't involved in this kerfuffle, wouldn't it? Not to mention, I can't think of any better alternatives. Revealing that he's on Celestial payroll and arresting him over that would be counter-intuitive, not to mention it would end up hypocritical when I return for good, and I don't think we have another option."

"Assassination," Roland uttered with a straight face, taking me aback long enough to further add, "He's officially still recuperating. We could blame a slow-acting Abyssal poison for his demise."

"Wow. Dark." He frowned at my deadpan response, and so did I. "No, that won't do. As much as I hate the guy's guts, he hadn't done anything deserving the death penalty so far."

"In some places, espionage and treason would warrant the death penalty."

"Yeah, but then I would have to sentence myself to death as well, wouldn't I?" I pointed out, and that finally made him reconsider. "Not to mention, it would make Penny even more distraught than she already is, so let's just kidnap and detain him for the time being." At last, Roland acquiesced with a deep nod, so I launched into the planning phase right away. "I'll put you in charge of the preparations. Enlist Morgana and Agrawain; they are already familiar with the location and layout of the back-up base in the dockyard district. Have them put together a holding area there."

"Sounds reasonable. I'll make sure to have everything ready by tomorrow."

"No need to rush."

Roland nodded and moved on right away.

"What about the second point then?"

"Let me see…"

While I was still considering my options, Roland voiced his own proposal.

"How about we soften the blow a little, and instead of some kind of ransom message, we introduce the Celestial connection early?"

"… Please go on."

"Let's say that one of the Abyssal houses tried to kidnap you, but then during the battle, a group of Celestials backed you up. You are already well-known for not discriminating when it comes to your allies, so I don't think anyone would question that part. After that, we could claim that you are in hiding and working with them to track down the Abyssal conspirators. If it's only that much, the Assembly wouldn't object too much, and we could keep them occupied with chasing a non-existent Abyssal threat on the island while we regroup and reorganize."

"That sounds solid to me. We could even use Percival's fancy holographic communicator to make it look more legit. Oh, and it could also be tied into the plan with Percival and Bel. I already established him as hostile to the Abyssal Houses, so we could say that he took Percival because he thought he had some kind of connection with the kidnappers." Pausing for a second, I let out a soft 'Huh?', and whispered, "We're laying the blame on the Abyssals thick, aren't we?"

"They do serve as convenient scapegoats, and you could hardly say that they don't deserve it."

"Hey, let's not generalize. I mean, yes, some of them are grade-A assholes, but the majority of them are actually just normal people like you and me."

Once again, Roland's eyes narrowed into a disapproving squint and he emphatically stated, "For goodness sake, Leonard. Please don't tell me you have some grand plans for them as well…"

"What? No, of course not," I denied on the spot… though now that he mentioned it, technically they were the victims of Deus and Polemos, and then vilified for centuries, and I did have an 'in' to their power structure through Snowy, so…

"Leonard?"

"Hm? Ah, it's nothing. I was just lost in thought for a moment. Where were we?"

He was still looking at me suspiciously, but soon dropped the issue and moved on.

"I think we finished with the planning."

"Good. In that case, let's head back. I bet everyone's getting nervous by now."

"In a minute, but first, we have one last thing to discuss."

I already took a step, so when he said that, I had no choice but to awkwardly shuffle back and meet his gaze again.

"Yes?"

Roland stared deeply into my eyes for an excruciatingly long second, and when he opened his mouth, his voice was soft, yet firm.

"Listen, Leonard. Normally I wouldn't say this, considering you're the King of Knights and this might come off as questioning your authority, but I think this is something that needs to be stated outright. This incident has once again proven that you're too impulsive.

You're young, and you have strange and unique powers at your disposal, so in a sense, I can understand it. You think you can solve everything on your own and always rely on your abilities to save you in a pinch, but you have to understand that your actions not only have serious consequences, but you're now accountable for an entire organization. You're responsible for thousands of people's lives, including mine. You have to be more mindful of your actions.

Imagine that this memory-transfer procedure you described was successful. It could have not only rendered you, for all intents and purposes, functionally dead, it would've put the lives of your fiancées, your sisters, friends, your allies, and all of their families at risk."

"It wasn't—" I attempted to deny him on reflex, but I couldn't quite squeeze the words out of my throat.

He… wasn't exactly wrong in his assessment. One wrong move could've resulted in not only my personality being overwritten, but an ancient, warmongering Celestial warrior-king in everything but name getting unleashed on the world with all of these powers, with potentially my knowledge about the Simulacrum and the Narrative on top.

Heck, even just absorbing tiny bits and pieces had some unintended side effects on me, and although I got out of the situation mostly unharmed and in a prime position to exploit things, I did cause a lot of head- and heartache to everyone around me. Maybe, just maybe, the 'S' in my middle name didn't stand for 'safety' after all…?

Anyhow, I really couldn't argue with Roland on this one, so I tried to best not to sound too sheepish when I told him, "Well, you're certainly not wrong, but in my defence, this particular situation really went off the rails and out of my control."

"I can grant you that, and I understand. All I ask is a little more prudence."

"I can promise to try?" I proposed with, what I hoped to be, a harmless smile.

"I guess that has to do for now," Roland responded with just the barest hint of trepidation, and after one last long beat, we turned towards the door at the other end of the room in unison.

Roland just gave me a lot of things to think about, but it had to wait. First, we needed to conclude the emergency meeting, have Fred take a look at my head, and I really wanted to squeeze in a brief talk with Penny and a considerably longer meta-discussion with the girls before I had to return to the Elysium. All in all, this was promising to be a long day, and with all that food for thought to ruminate over, an even longer night.