"Come on, man! Can't we do this tomorrow?"

I turned a sideways glance at my moaning friend and sharply shook my head.

"This takes priority, so sit tight, and wait for your turn."

For a second, it looked like he would continue to argue, but then his girlfriend let out a giggle, and and dropped the topic altogether.

"Hihi. That tickles," Angie squirmed as Galatea put the adhesive sensors onto her scalp and chest. "It's also a bit cold."

"Just bear with it. It's not so bad," I said as I walked over to her side. "I've been getting tested like this every day for the better part of two weeks, and I'm still alive."

Angie nodded a tad sheepishly and tried to stay still. She was sitting between two big machines; one sleek modern device, and one boxy one right out of the lair of a pulp fiction mad scientist. I was very familiar with them, though not in this particular environment. Since our homunculus project took up the majority of the main workshop area, a lot of equipment had to be moved to make space, and the soul-testing apparatuses were now set up in their own chamber in the underground base. It took some time, so we had to postpone giving Angie and Josh their checkup until today.

The room gave off a sterile, medical air, with a tiled floor and walls, clean white furniture, and rather inoffensive abstract paintings hanging on the walls. It also had a padded bench by the left of the machines, where Josh and I were sitting while waiting for Angie to be tested. Last, and arguably least, there was a modular desk with a couple of monitors on the right side, with Mr Plague Doctor sitting behind it and hammering at the keyboard attached to the sleeker device.

He was wearing a white coat over his usual outfit and had a pair of large glasses, though I wasn't entirely sure about their purpose, or how he was planning to drink the steaming cup of coffee in front of him with his beaked mask still on. Putting the logistics of all of that aside, my attention was drawn back to Josh when he let out a lung-rattling sigh.

"Why the long face?" I asked out of courtesy, and he responded with another, somehow even deeper sigh.

"I know this is important, but couldn't we at least stop by home first? I mean, I dunno how I'm going to explain any of this to my parents, or where I've been in the past couple of days, but I bet they are worrying about us even now."

Just as he said, after the breakfast party was over, I sent Jaakobah and the Praetorian Guards away with Rinne and the Knights, and then immediately took the childhood friend couple to the base for testing. As it was already made abundantly clear, Josh wasn't happy about it, but his girlfriend didn't seem to mind. In fact, when she overheard what we were talking about, she joined the conversation from the other end of the room.

"Don't worry about that. I'm sure my mum and dad already told them what happened. Right, Leo?"

"Most likely," I answered with a light shrug. "I had Morgana and Agrawain give them a heads-up a day after you disappeared, so that they wouldn't needlessly panic."

"Hold it!" Josh suddenly exclaimed, looking mortified. "Are you telling me my parents know?!"

"About the kidnapping? It would be hard for them not to notice."

"No, not that! The part with the Celestials and the supernatural people!"

"Oh, that? Yeah, obviously," I told him maybe a bit too nonchalantly, because the guy looked at me like I just betrayed him. "Come on, pal. You're going to have a whole gaggle of weird bodyguards in ancient Greco-Roman outfits hovering around you for the next couple of years. It's easier to just let them in on the secret at this point than to come up with some harebrained explanation for all that."

"I know, but… Argh!" Suddenly, he hung his head and grabbed it with both hands. "It would've been hard enough to explain my disappearance, but now I'll also have to tell them about everything else, too? Man, this sucks!"

"You don't have to explain the whole thing," I stressed. "You can easily leave out the whole Deus thing and just focus on the basics. It's not that complicated."

"Easy for you to say that! You never met my parents. They would want to know absolutely everything and…" My friend continued to grumble, but then he suddenly let go of his head and sat straight, with a sense of alarm visible on his face. "Wait! Hold your horses! Do you think they know I'm dating Angie?"

"Why wouldn't they…?" I responded on autopilot, but then my eyes narrowed on their own accord. "You haven't told them yet?"

"We were looking for the right time, okay?" Josh griped.

"Dude, there's no way they didn't notice."

"Maybe, but we didn't tell them officially, and… Man, my mother's gonna kill me for keeping it a secret…"

"If you know that, then why did you keep it a secret?"

"Hey! You're the last person who can call me out on that, with all your secrets and schemes and Plan G-s! People in glass houses and whatever!"

"The context is very different though," I pointed out, and Angie let out a giggle.

"Josh was worried his mum would tease him if she knew," she explained with a gleeful grin. "She's been trying to get us together for years, you know?"

"Well, I didn't know," Josh fumed, causing his girlfriend to giggle again.

"Oh, come now, chum!" she called out to him with a wave of her hand. "Look on the bright side! Now that your mum and dad know, you can finally get your money!"

"Money?" Josh repeated after her, and a second later, his eyes lit up. "Whoa! You're right!"

"Of course I am! I'm always right!" Angie declared with a toothy grin and put her fists on her hips, causing one of the sensors to detach from her collarbone. "Ah! Sorry!"

Galatea didn't say anything, and just dutifully reattached the round, plastic pad onto her. Meanwhile, Josh was suddenly on cloud line, and muttering something about talking to Dad-in-law again.

It took me a while to work out what they were talking about, but once Abram was mentioned, I figured it was the tournament prize money Josh won back in December. Since he was still a minor, he couldn't open a bank account without his parents' consent, and he didn't want to explain to them where he got a million Jens out of the blue. Because of this, Dad-in-law was holding onto his money until he turned 18.

Speaking of which, I didn't know what he did with those elixirs he won either, but before I could ask, Fred entered the room with his trademark laugh in tow.

"Kihihi! Sorry for the delay, everyone!"

Our resident mad scientist was the same as always, though his unruly hair might've been slightly better combed than usual. He had a clipboard under his arm, and a mug of coffee identical to the one in front of Mr. Plague Doctor in his other hand.

"The test subject is ninety-seven percent prepared," Galatea stated even as she was fiddling with one of the adhesive pads on the back of Angie's neck. "One hundred percent."

"Kihihi! Marvelous!"

"How long will this take?" I asked as I stood up, and Fred gave me a confident smirk.

"Don't worry, boss! We had a lot of practice, so we should get this done in a jiffy!"

I noticed that he was suspiciously avoiding giving me a clear timeframe, but I didn't dwell on it and turned to Josh again.

"I'll step out for a bit. Just do as he says, and behave yourself."

"I'm not a kid," Josh fumed, but didn't argue any further than that.

Angie gave me a small wave as I left, and after leaving the side-chamber, I found myself back in the main workshop. The fact that it was taken over by Peabody, Sahi, and the Class Rep couldn't be any more evident, as things were surprisingly clean and organized. The center of the spacious room was dominated by the large glass tube hooked up to all kinds of machinery and filled with a translucent green liquid. It was very similar to the one I'd seen in Saahira's hotel suite, just bigger and even more elaborate. It was also empty, but if everything went smoothly, it wouldn't stay that way for long.

On my way across the workshop floor, I met a couple of Research Society personnel working on the project, and after exchanging a few basic pleasantries, I left the place and headed for the main hall. Or to be more specific, its lounge area, where I left the girls before accompanying the childhood friends to the test chamber.

It wasn't clear if it was because of our return, but the main hall was especially lively this afternoon. On my way, I passed by a group of male Squires, about half of them new Draconian recruits by the looks of it. They were idling around while discussing the highlights of their last Call of Honor session (they developed an avid local multiplayer gaming habit I absolutely blamed on Penny's influence), while a group of female ninjas and Squires were doing breathing exercises in the corner of the nearby training field (though it looked more like yoga to my eyes, and I wasn't sure their skin-tight outfits drawing the attention of the aforementioned Squires was accidental or on purpose). Looking a bit further, I also found Vurrok, who was… painting them?

As in, painting the scene with an easel and a palette and everything. Heck, he even had a Frech beret on his head! I mean, everyone needs a hobby, but that one was just unexpected. Strange sights aside, the main hall of the base was rather peaceful, and it felt less like a military base and more like the world's weirdest college campus with every passing day. And I was perfectly okay with that.

"Ue-sama!"

My peaceful musing were cut short by the sudden appearance of a certain tiny miko. Oddly enough, she wasn't wearing the usual shrine-maiden style outfit from the morning, but a tomboyish white T-shirt and jean shorts combo. Even stranger, she was accompanied by Odango Girl wearing a very similar getup, just with the colours flipped. They were followed by a few female Feilong clan members in formal martial artist outfits keeping an eye on Xiao, but when they saw me, they respectfully bowed and moved away to give us some privacy.

"Brother Leonard! We have an emergency!" the aforementioned tiny dragon exclaimed the moment she came to a screeching halt in front of me.

"Emergency?" I echoed her, and the girls nodded in unison

"Ue-sama! Tell us about Jaakobah-san!"

"… I thought I introduced him back at the banquet."

"No, not like that!" Odango Girl cut in while waving her hands. "We want to know if he…"

She trailed off, but Ichiko rushed in to pick up her slack.

"We want to know if he gets along with Rinne-san!"

Were they worried about Rinne after seeing the glum Celestial argue with her after discovering she could talk all along, I wondered? I had a different hunch, but for the time being, I presumed innocence and answered accordingly.

"Yes, they are. They've been supporting me in the Elysium, and so far, they worked well together."

"Oh no!" Xiao exclaimed with a hand in front of her mouth.

"Are you sure, Ue-sama? Are you sure they aren't just friends?"

"I wouldn't necessarily call them that," I told them, and I was starting to feel that my initial hunch was getting more solid with every exchange.

"More than friends?" the tiny dragon repeated after me with the wrong emphasis, and it was now the mini-miko's turn to exclaim.

"Oh no! We have to do something!"

"We have to! Otherwise, Brother Naoren will—!" All of a sudden, Xiao's eyes opened wide, and she clamped her hands on her mouth, as if she was about to blurt out a big secret.

"We have no time to waste! Thank you, ue-sama!"

With that, Ichiko grabbed the other girl's hand and they dashed away, closely followed by the group of bodyguards trying to keep up with them.

I waved after them, and after letting my hand down, I concluded the encounter with a shallow sigh. That sounded like a silly misunderstanding in the making… but it was none of my business, for once, so I promptly ignored the whole thing and continued on my way. I spared one last glance at the yoga-group in the distance, currently doing a head-stand with one leg stretched out vertically and the other horizontally in a ninety-degree angle. I had no idea how that was supposed to be a 'breathing exercise', but they were into it, and so were the guys idling at the sidelines and still pretending to be talking about who scored the most points in Call of Honor the night before.

I wasn't going to call out either group. Spring was definitely in the air, with Valentine's Day just around the corner, and this was a big group of healthy young adults with above-average looks (even by Simulacrum standards) we were talking about here. So long as it didn't cause any problems, I was willing to look the other way. Especially since I didn't want Judy to catch me staring and cause another misunderstanding.

But speaking of her, I soon arrived at the lounge area, where I was met with a familiar scene. My lovely assistant and my equally lovely princess were sitting at the bar, with Brang slipping into his role as the bartender once again and serving them to the best of his ability.

"Have you ever considered retiring and becoming a barista?" I jested on arrival, and the old Faun's lips parted into a toothy smile.

"[Nay, Blackcloak. There is still too much life in these old bones to consider such things.]"

"Can Fauns even retire?" Elly mused while sipping her colourful drink. She was out of her ball gown but didn't look one ounce less gorgeous in her casual outfit. As expected of her, really.

"I think we have more important things to discuss," Judy responded in a deadpan voice, and as I looked her over, I had to conclude that even after she took off most of her makeup and was no longer wearing any accessories, she was still damn pretty.

Was it the different context? Or just a side effect of me feeling lighter after finally leaving the Elysium? Or maybe Abram was right, and distance did make my heart grow fonder, even if I wasn't sure it applied to our situation, considering my nightly visits.

"Chief. You're spacing out. Is everything all right?" Judy asked with her head cocked ever-so-slightly to the side.

"If I told you 'I was lost in your eyes', would you laugh at me?"

My response made her blink, but then a moment later she got off her bar stool and reached out to put her hand on my forehead.

"You don't have a fever."

"Oh, ha ha ha. Funny."

"You can't blame me," she excused herself and pulled my head towards her. "You aren't famous for being randomly romantic." She planted a kiss on my lips, and then added, "I could get used to it though."

"What can I say? Spring is in the air," I told her a touch awkwardly, and after sharing another glance, I cleared my throat. "So, what did you want to discuss?"

Judy sat back down and Elly moved to the next seat over so that I could sit down between them. Once we were all seated (and the princess received her kiss as well), Judy drank half of her mocktail in one go and turned to me again.

"It's wonderful that you're back, Chief, but your return didn't solve our main problem at the moment."

"The Celestials," I said a touch dourly, and Elly spoke up to correct me.

"Actually, we were only thinking about the three directors," she said with a frown and started counting on her fingers. "Savir, Mensah, and Tsephanyah, right?"

"In that order," Judy commented with audible distaste. "The Angeline Route is progressing steadily at the moment, and it might be the last breather episode we would have before everything would come crashing down. We need to figure out what to do about them."

"Do we have to do anything about them?" I floated the idea, and my dear assistant imperceptibly frowned at me. "I meant that as in, right now."

"Let's look at this objectively." Judy put her drink aside and looked me in the eye. "Savir absolutely has to go. She tried to blackmail you, and she wants to control both you and Angeline."

"True, but at the moment she believes she has a solid grasp on me, and so she won't make any sudden moves."

"You can't know that for sure," Elly interjected. "And even if you're right, it's only true for the short term."

"She also isn't the only problem," Judy followed her up without missing a beat. "Director Mensah actively dislikes you because of your Abyssal connection. He cannot be trusted either."

"I'm not trusting him as far as I could throw him either, so it doesn't matter," I pointed out, but my girlfriends didn't give me an inch of ground in this discussion.

"Just the fact that you let him stay in his position is a huge concession," the princess told me, her expression unusually serious and her voice tinged with just a hint of outrage. "You can't be lenient with subordinates that betrayed you, or you'll come across as weak, and it will only invite more betrayals."

"They aren't exactly my subordinates though."

"Chief. You're Archon Polemos, the Second True Archon, and the equal of Deus. Yes or no?"

I eyed my dear assistant for a moment, but she remained steadfastly expectant, so I uttered a weary, "Technically, yes."

"That makes you the pinnacle of the Celestial hierarchy, so they cannot be above you, and they aren't your equals either. By process of elimination, that makes them your subordinates."

" Spot on!" Elly backed her up with a confident huff.

"Okay, let's say we all agree on that. What do you expect me to do? Get rid of them?"

"That would be the simplest solution, yes," Judy agreed, much to my surprise.

"One issue," I pointed out with a finger raised. "Even if I theoretically could do that, I have no one to replace them with. I could count the number of sane directors on two hands, so where am I supposed to find someone to fill in their shoes?"

This time, my girlfriend was giving me a rather unflattering look, much to my dismay.

"Chief. You don't need to find anyone. You and Angeline are the god-kings-in-anything-but-name-only rulers of the Elysium. You are their replacement."

"Exactly! That's why this Director Savir is so freaked out about the two of you!" Elly pressed on, going as far as to poke me with her finger. "She knows that you have more authority than her, and that's why she wants to put you in a check so that she can keep her position! That's why, now that you have the chance, you need to get rid of her!"

"Preferably, you should get rid of all three of them."

"Tsephanyah is technically our ally though," I pointed out. "And he's the least bad of the three, too."

"The fact that you call him the 'least bad' is the whole point!" Elly exclaimed, and my other girlfriend nodded along.

"He is someone whose idea of a conflict resolution was to have your friends brainwashed and use them to gaslight you into doing what he wants," Judy stressed and crossed her arms for further emphasis.

"[To mine ears, that sounds akin to the typical behavior of the white-winged ones,]" Brang added in a whisper, and even though neither of my girlfriends could understand him, they nodded along all the same.

"Chief. I know why you don't want to touch the Directorate."

"Do you?" I asked back, and Judy nodded.

"It's because dealing with all the fallout would be annoying, right?" Elly interjected, and my dear assistant nodded again.

"Precisely. You're the type who flips heaven and earth to get rid of something annoying you, but would rather swallow an indignity than kickstart something tedious. Such as directly governing the Elysium and interacting with its bureaucracy. Can you say I'm wrong?"

"… No, but you're oversimplifying things," I grumbled, much to the princess's secret amusement.

"Don't worry, Leo! We'll help you deal with it!"

"And once Angeline and Joshua are ready, you can foist the Elysium on them, and you can focus on the Draconic Federation and the Ordo Draconis again. It's probably part of her route, anyway."

"But to do that, you first have to get rid of the three obstacles," the princess emphasized once again, and I threw my hands into the air.

"Oh, fine! I get it, geez! I'll do something about them. Are you happy?"

"Tremendously," Judy stated in her usual deadpan tone while facing away from me, and it made it hard to tell if she was serious or not.

So, in conclusion, to make my girlfriends happy, I'll have to get rid of, or at the very least disenfranchise the three chief directors. To be fair, they had a point; since I was finally out of the Elysium, I no longer had to rely on them, and clearing them out would make things much easier for Angie as well. I couldn't quite understand how that factored into the Angie Route at the moment, but I was sure Judy would sooner or later send me over another fifty pages long dissertation on the topic.

Not even bothering to hide my exasperation, I ordered a drink from the ex-general to lift my mood a little, and a few minutes later, he delivered a mocktail in a huge cocktail glass, with a little paper umbrella and three long, swirly plastic straws. I had a feeling this was something the girls planned out in advance, because the moment the old Faun set it down in front of me, the two of them pulled their bar stools closer to mine like they were expecting this development.

However, before we could engage in this staple, if a little bit unorthodox, example of couple shenanigans, I noticed a small group heading towards us. Led by a cackling Fred, they quickly made their way to our side.

"Are you done already?"

"Kihihi! Of course, boss! Didn't I tell you we had a lot of practice? Everything went smoothly, and the preliminary data is already here!"

With a triumphant grin, he shoved the clipboard he was carrying under my nose, and my eyes immediately glazed over when I laid them on the tightly packed numbers and graphs in front of me.

"Can you give us an abridged version?"

"Most certainly!" Mr. Plague Doctor, still wearing his oversized glasses over his beaked mask, stepped forth and presented Angie like an old-timey circus ringmaster. "The data shows that the young missy over here has not one, but two minds in her!"

"… We were already aware of that," I pointed out, but it couldn't douse his enthusiasm.

"I might not have been precise enough, so let me try again." This time, he readjusted his coat and glasses, and explained, in a slightly less flamboyant tone, "It would be more accurate to say that she has two consciousnesses compressed into one. There is a mostly inert base layer, which we presume belongs to this fabled Deus we heard so much about, and we have her consciousness growing on top of it, kind of like an extension!"

The childhood friend couple looked rather apprehensive, so I gestured for him to get to the important part.

"That mostly checks out with what I'd seen. The question is, is that a good thing, or a bad thing?"

"Kihihi! That's the tricky part, boss!" Fred exclaimed and, pointed at a graph on his clipboard, as if I was supposed to understand what that meant. "In terms of sheer volume, as much as such a term could be applied to souls, the base layer should completely overwhelm the top layer, yet it doesn't happen! Care to guess why?"

"I'm not in the mood right now."

Fred didn't mind my comment and grabbed hold of Joshua.

"It's this guy!"

"Yes!" Mr. Plague Doctor elbowed his way back into the conversation. "This young man's astral construct is a marvel! A natural wonder! It's a one-in-a-trillion mutation that we might never see in the history of mankind ever again!"

"What they are trying to say," Galatea spoke up in a weary voice, "is that Joshua Bernstein's ability to re-sequence and reproduce the characteristics of other races originates from the quality of his soul."

"Exactly!" Fred grabbed their reins again, and roughly patted and increasingly confused Josh on the back. "His soul not just replicates whatever mystical bloodline is introduced into his system, it filters out what it doesn't need and refines what it wants!"

"And because of this!" Mr Plague Doctor cut in by literally pushing Fred out of the imaginary limelight. "Because of this, he directly absorbed parts of the missy's consciousness, but only the base layer, and incorporated them into his own consciousness without overwriting any already existing elements! It's astonishing!"

"But that's not even the most important part!" Fred pushed and clawed his way back to the forefront, and as annoying as their struggle was, Elly was entertained by it, so I graciously allowed them to continue. "Kihihi! You're never going to guess it, boss!"

"I'm not even trying, so just get on with it."

It once again fell on Galatea's shoulders to be the voice of reason (or at the very least, the voice of understandability), and she walked around the scuffling men to deliver the final assessment.

"According to Master's analysis, it would be accurate to describe the situation as the two of them sharing three souls, with the Deus data acting as a bridge between them and forming a metastable coupling. Preliminary assessments of the data also indicate that it's the main reason behind the Deus data layer remaining inert."

"That's right!" Fred exclaimed even while he was holding the other man in a headlock. "And that's why we should continue the tests regularly!"

"It's also recommended," Mr Plague Doctor added in a relatively easy-going voice, despite the circumstances, "That to further stabilize the connection between the two of them, they should continue to reinforce it by engaging in whatever process led to the absorption of her base layer of consciousness."

That was, apparently, the last word on the topic, and the lounge area fell silent, to the point we could hear the squeaky sounds Brang made as he cleaned the girls' empty glasses. At last, Josh raised a hand, as if we were in school, and blurted out, "Okay, so… Could someone explain all that in a way we could also understand?"

Angie repeatedly nodded in agreement, and after another long beat, I let out a low chuckle.

"What they are saying is that, if you want to make sure Angie's inner Deus stays in control, you should regularly exchange fluids."

"Exchange…?" Josh echoed me with a puzzled look, but then his eyes opened wide and he glanced at the girl at his side. Coincidentally, Angie did the same thing at the same time, and when their eyes met, they both twitched, then flushed red, and then sheepishly averted their gazes.

Yep. Spring was, without a doubt, in the air.