It was time for that feeling again.

I have encountered this situation a couple of times before, when, after a particularly tumultuous period, returning to mundane, everyday life suddenly felt uncanny.

"Brother! Hurry up! We'll be late!"

"What are you talking about?" I asked as I walked down the stairs, feeling slightly unbalanced. My school bag felt strangely unfamiliar in my hands, and while I couldn't have a growth spurt at this age, my usual uniform was feeling tight. Not suffocatingly so, but still uncomfortable, as if it was half a size smaller than it used to be. Ignoring the mild discomfort, I stopped in my tracks to take out my phone and check the time. "It's not even seven yet."

Penny, already wearing her coat over her winter uniform, stood at the bottom of the stairs and was giving me a disapproving look.

"We promised to gather everyone and go to school together! We have to get going, on the double!"

"Ease up, kiddo. We'll just meet up on the way as usual. Nothing to get so worked up about."

She was still frowning at me, but I focused on my other sister instead, who was also wearing her coat and was engaged in a conversation with an unusually dishevelled Tajana. She had the panda-eyes, and from what I gathered, she had a hard time sleeping under the same roof as me. It probably had to do with the whole 'scary reincarnated Archon' image I was playing up in her presence, though I didn't care enough to directly ask her or to ease her worries. If anything, her being wary of me meant she would behave herself better, which was a good thing. Considering that I was looking forward to another busy day, I didn't exactly have the time to pay much attention to her.

That said, I felt obligated to say something, so waved at the two of them, and I soon got their attention.

"Let's get going before Penny gets wrinkles on her nose from frowning so much."

"I won't! And I don't frown that much!" my knightly sister protested, drawing an amused giggle out of Snowy.

I was more focused on the young spymaster though, and after a long beat, I smoothly turned my head to face her and locked eyes with her.

"Behave yourself while we're away."

"Y-You don't need to tell me that! I always behave myself!"

She huffed and puffed, but I didn't give her more consideration than strictly necessary and headed to the front entrance to put on my outdoor shoes and coat. By the time I was dressed, my sisters were already on the other side of the door and waiting for me to join them, so I gave a nod to the cloaked Hrul (it was his shift today, and he came to the entranceway to see us off) before heading out myself.

"Ah, finally!" Penny exclaimed once I fell in line with them. At first I thought she was still going on about being late because of me, yet the relieved smile on her face spoke otherwise. "I finally feel like everything's back to normal, how it should be."

"So I wasn't the only one who thought that," Snowy commented with a smile of her own, and after a short beat, they both burst into giggles. I didn't get it, so it was probably some kind of inside joke… but the fact that these two were at the point where those were a thing also made me feel oddly happy, so I smiled along with them.

We headed down the familiar streets and rounded the usual corners. Our first destination, before anything else, was Judy's house, and while the street lights were still on, the sun was already lighting up the horizon. While in terms of the calendar, we might have been still in winter, between the longer days and the melting slow, I could already feel that we were at the tail end of it.

That made me wonder: Critias, while distinctly Western in the cultural and architectural sense, had a couple of Japanese influences wedged in here and there. In Japanese stories, especially in the school life and romance genres the Simulacrum already leaned towards, having a picnic under the blooming cherry trees was something of a classic trope. It was called 'sakura viewing', if my memory served right, and while it was fairly ubiquitous, I never bothered to look into whether it was one of the cultural tropes that we had on the island.

There were a whole lot of cherry trees in Timaeus, that was for sure, and our school in particular was surrounded by a small forest of them. Heck, it was named after cherry trees, so the idea that we would have a local equivalent of 'sakura viewing' didn't sound too far-fetched to me. One thing was for sure though; whether it was a thing or not, with this weather, we had a bat's chance in hell to see a single cherry blossom by Valentine's Day. It was a shame, because if we did, I could've used that as an impromptu date venue for the occasion. I was sure Judy would've appreciated it for the research value, but alas, I couldn't do anything about our climate.

But speaking of my lovely assistant, she must have been keeping an eye on the road for our arrival, as she waited until the moment we were right in front of their fence to come out. To be fair, I couldn't blame her. While the temperature was above the freezing point, I couldn't exactly call the air balmy.

"Good morning," Snowy greeted her before I had the chance, but my girlfriend barely acknowledged the presence of my sisters and beelined right to me, grabbing hold of my arm as if afraid that I would poof out of existence if she didn't clutch onto me.

"Good morning, Chief," she greeted me in her usual, deadpan voice, and then immediately buried her face into my chest. "I was missing this so much."

"Me too!" Penny declared, but when Judy turned a questioning gaze at her, she hastily sputtered, "A-Awawa! I meant going to school together, not holding hands! W-Why would I want to hold hands with Brother, anyway?"

"… You see, kiddo, it's because of these random tsundere lines that everyone keeps misunderstanding you."

"What are you talking—?"

Before she could finish her response, there was a new voice joining the fray as Judy's mom walked out to the front porch. Unsurprisingly enough, she was very consistent with her appearance, wearing a pink apron over her casual clothes and carrying a kitchen utensil in one hand. This time, it was a pair of heat-resistant black plastic tongs, and she used them to wave at me, both her mouth and eyes smiling in delight.

"Leonard! It's been ages! How have you been?"

"Good morning, Mrs. Sennoma," I greeted her back with a wave of my own. "I've been away for a while, but now things are back to normal. I'm happy to see you are healthy as always."

"Oh, please!" she giggled and dismissed me with a gesture of her tongs. "Why are you so formal? Just call me mom-in-law, like you do to Emese." Before I could respond she put one hand on her hip and the tongs on her lips, and let out a thoughtful hum. "How about you join us for dinner tonight? Let's catch up!"

"Mooom," Judy responded with a drawn-out moan. I had to give it to her absurdly youthful mother; she was one of the very, very few people I knew who could get a genuinely non-deadpan reaction out of her. "I told you, Leo is busy right now. Don't impose on him."

"She's right, I'm afraid," I spoke apologetically. "As much as I'd love to taste your cooking again, I'm swamped with schoolwork and other obligations at the moment. Maybe next week?"

"It's a promise!" she declared resolutely and twirled the utensil in her hand. "Give me a day's notice, and I'll whip up a feast for you! The cubbies can come too!" That referred to my sisters, and while they were taken aback by the offer, they soon nodded in agreement, causing Judy's mom to smile warmly at them. "I won't hold you up any longer. Have fun at school, Sunshine!"

Mrs. Sennoma punctuated her goodbyes by blowing a kiss at Judy (or at least, I sincerely hoped it wasn't me), and closed the door behind her, leaving us momentarily stumped.

"Your mom is certainly something," I noted, and my girlfriend let out a muffled noise. Her face was still buried in my chest, though this time, I felt it might have been due to embarrassment. I had no idea why; most people would've probably loved to have a ball of positive energy for a mother, but I guess they were just incompatible.

In any case, I held Judy close to me and we started walking. Contrary to my expectations, everyone remained silent, and even Judy was wordlessly resting her head against my shoulder with a blissful expression (by her standards). Like this, we rounded another two crossroads, and as if we rehearsed ahead of time, we encountered the other half of our group right about the halfway point between my house and the school.

Josh, Angie, and the class rep idled together at the edge of the sidewalk, while my dear draconic girlfriend didn't wait for us and approached us first.

"Hi, everyone!" Her greeting was as energetic as I expected, and the moment she was in arm's reach, she immediately grabbed hold of my free arm and rubbed her cheek against my shoulder with a sigh. "Ahh! Everything is right in the world again!"

"You're being melodramatic," I told her, but it didn't stop her from rising to her tip-toes and planting a peck on my face. Her lips felt especially hot on my cold cheeks, and as if she just remembered something, Judy let out a flat 'Oh, right,' and mirrored her action on my other cheek, making both Elly and my sisters giggle at the sight.

Even while horsing around like that, our legs didn't stop, and we soon reached Josh and his… well, I used to call them the 'entourage', but it was hardly appropriate at this point, was it? Elly was with me, the class rep was already dating Mike, my sisters were off the table, and Josh was one hundred percent tied to Angie, both on a mundane and metaphysical level. The days of the oblivious harem protagonist and his many female friends felt like a distant memory, but I couldn't say I was particularly dissatisfied with how things turned out.

The same couldn't be said about a decidedly haggard-looking Joshua, but to be frank, I had a feeling his dissatisfaction had little to do with the dissolution of the battle harem group interactions.

"Morning," Angie greeted us with a toothy grin, looking extra-lively next to her fatigued boyfriend. "You guys look adorable!"

"Same for you," I teased her back, pointing at the way she had her fingers interlinked with her boyfriend's, and she let out a bashful titter.

"Good morning, everyone," the class rep greeted us next, and by the way she was looking at me, I had a feeling she had something to say to me. I decided to get ahead of whatever was on the tip of her tongue.

"In my defence, I tried really, really hard to be nice to Mike, but he was stiff as a wooden plank the whole time. I'll try to be nicer next time."

Ammy blinked in surprise and pushed her glasses up the bridge of her nose.

"Did you develop the ability to read minds too?"

"Nah, I just know how yours work," I answered with a cheeky smirk, and she shook her head.

"I wasn't going to complain though; he sounded really happy on the phone last night." She paused for a moment, apparently unsure if she should ask in the open, but in the end, she did so anyway. "Also, what is this 'quest' you gave him?"

"I think he's overselling it a little," I replied, this time without the smirk. "I just asked him to pick up a mutual acquaintance of ours. You know? Because I'll be at school today?"

"So you really did ask Moose to come to the island," Judy noted on my right, and I had no choice but to shrug.

"I told you."

"I wasn't sure you were serious. I'm also not sure we need another Celestial agent on the island."

"Another one?!" Josh blurted out, sounding downright mortified. "Don't we have enough of them already?"

"Boo! I'm a Celestial too, you know?" his girlfriend poked him in the side. "Don't be a bigot!"

"I'm not a bigot! I'm just fed up with all of them giving me the stink eye for dating this airhead over here!" the guy exclaimed and poked her back. "As if I didn't have a rough enough time with my parents already!"

"Oh, oh!" As if waiting for the topic to come up, Elly raised her hand to get Josh's attention. "How did it go? Did they take it well?"

"No, of course they didn't!" Josh continued to gripe with his free hand on his forehead. "I had to spend half the night explaining all this supernatural crap to them, just to give them the context, and by the end of it, even I was confused by the whole thing, and all of it took so long that I completely forgot to bring up the prize money. Or to tell them that we're dating!"

"Wait. Your mom and dad don't know?" the class rep's ears perked up at once, and the rest of the girls were following on her heel.

"You kept it a secret? Why?!" Penny exclaimed, sounding outright mortified, and even Snowy looked startled by the revelation.

"I didn't keep it a secret, I was just waiting for the right time to tell them!" Josh defended himself with the same line he gave me before. "Except now that I didn't get around to it after everything else, they will think that was trying to keep it a secret from them, and then I won't hear the end of it."

"Here, here, buddy." Angie let go of his hand and patted him on the back. "It'll be fine. At most, your mum will just make you wash the dishes for a month. It's no big deal."

"If it's no big deal, then help me out!"

"I can't. I have Deus hands now. I have to keep them soft and pretty for the sake of all Celestials, so I can't wash dishes."

"… Is that going to be your go-to excuse for everything from now on?" Josh asked with a skeptically raised brow. "By that logic, I can't do the dishes either, because I have twenty-seven percent 'Deus hands' too!"

"In that case, you can do seventy-three percent of the dishes."

"And what about the rest?"

While the two slowly descended into one of their customary little spats, the class rep signalled me to pay attention to her again. When I turned to face her, she readjusted her glasses, and asked, "This new Celestial agent. Does Grandfather know about him?"

"No, but he shouldn't be bothered by him. He's not a big deal, yet."

"Yet?"

"The Chief is doing one of his schemes again," Judy noted.

"Really? What is it about?" Elly inquired, eyes full of expectations, but I had to let her down.

"I'm not one hundred percent sure either," I admitted just a touch reluctantly. "It all depends on how competent and trustworthy Moose ends up being in person. I hope he'll score high on both metrics, but to be honest, at this point, I'd take any Celestial not suffering from chronic backstabbing disorder in a heartbeat."

"And then?" the princess pushed me further, resulting in a shrug.

"I'd delegate some stuff to him, so I can focus on my own thing."

As expected, just a mention of the word 'delegation' made my draconic girlfriend smile with glee. The same couldn't be said about the class rep.

"So, you are using Michael to get in contact with an agent you want to use for some non-descript 'stuff', without the notice of the rest of the Celestials on the island. Did I get that right?" I didn't respond in one way or the other, but she still let out a thoughtful hum and concluded with, "You really are a Celestial, aren't you?"

"Excuse me?" I blurted out, but she remained stone-faced.

"It all makes sense in retrospect. You have strange abilities, you scheme all the time, you advanced your agenda by making deals, pitting factions against each other, or subjugating them through surgical strikes, and you remained hidden in the shadows until you were ready to reveal yourself. It all checks out."

She nodded to herself and stared me in the eye, but when I still didn't respond and only gave her a flat stare back, she quickly became visibly flustered.

"Erm… Leo? That was a joke. Please deny it."

"No, no. What you said actually makes a lot of sense," I admitted. "Not the Celestial part, but the rest was more or less spot on."

"Ammy isn't good at teasing people," Elly noted with a stifled chuckle, causing the class rep to turn on her heel.

"We should get going, or we'll be late!" she declared and then dragged the childhood friends along. For the record, the two of them were still debating what they would do if he got sentenced to the grievous punishment of 'dishwashing', but I was happy to see them so relaxed, so I didn't mind.

But speaking of which, there was something that had been bothering me for a while. Or rather a lack of something. Where were the Praetorian Guards? I was expecting at least one of them to loiter around us, probably dressed in a stereotypical spy trench coat and pretending to read last week's newspaper, but there was nary a sign of them anywhere. However, whatever foreboding feelings I had were soon washed away when the princess and Judy started talking about today's classes, and while listening to them, we soon reached the gates of Blue Cherry High.

Once again, I was hit by that strange feeling of discrepancy. As I laid my eyes on the large building at the top of the hill, I couldn't help but feel out of place. Yet, the sensation only lasted for a second or two, and by the time we were welcomed by Armband Guy at the gates, it had mostly abated into a faint nuisance in the back of my mind.

"Good morning." He greeted our whole group as one, and then he specifically singled me out and uttered a deadpan, "Dunning," after that.

I nodded back at him and was just about to ask him why he didn't have the incognito arch-mage glued to him this morning when he gestured towards the gymnasium attached to the main building.

"The special assembly starts in fifteen minutes. Be sure to be there on time."

"Special assembly?" I echoed after him and glanced at the class rep, but she seemed just as stumped as I was. As such, I turned back to Pascal. "What's it about?"

"The new staff," he answered with audible distaste, and suddenly the last puzzle piece fell into place.

"Oh crap," I groaned under my breath, and if my hands weren't occupied by my lovely girlfriends, I would have buried my face in them. "Why do I feel like our peaceful school life just went down the gutter?"