No sooner do we announce ourselves when we are taking off our shoes at home, than Dad replies, “Welcome home. Would you come into the living room, please.”

The four of us make our way in and take a seat. Once we have Dad says, “I didn’t expect a response this soon, but the government has assigned an arbiter to your case. We have an appointment with them on the 17th.”

Leaning forward, I place my arms across my knees and ask, “Daddy, I thought it was going to be heard by judges?”

He raises his arms in a helpless gesture. “It was supposed to be. In my opinion, the government did this to keep it quiet or this might be their way of saying whatever you want, you’ll get.”

I laugh. “I want quite a few things, so they’d best be careful with that.”

　◇ ◆ ◇ ◆ ◇ ◆ ◇

Wednesday morning, the principle calls an assembly where he informs everyone of the new rules concerning bullying. First offense will result in suspension for a week and mandatory counseling. Second offense will result in expulsion for the remainder of the year. Plus, you must be cleared by a psychologist before you can be readmitted. That may seem relatively minor, but considering that they are the only middle and high school in the prefecture you can see it’s a big deal. One thing he made clear to everyone. Harassing girls is not allowed in any form. Doing so will get the police called the very first time. It seems Mr. Fujita took what he was told seriously.

The rest of this week, I have many people who avoid me, although many more try to talk to me. Thankfully, my sisters, Ryu, and friends fend the majority of them off. As I said before, I have no need for a bunch of sycophants, which is what a lot of them seemed to be. I do speak to a few of them that make it past my lionesses as I jokingly call my sisters and friends and several of them seem to genuinely want to get to know me, rather than my persona as CEO.

I found out Thursday that a small fan club was formed to ‘support me,’ whatever the hell that is supposed to mean. Frankly, I find them more of an annoyance than anything else.

Apparently, our study sessions are proving their worth. Everyone said that Friday’s tests were rather easy for them. I’m looking forward to seeing their grades from it.

As an aside. One thing I always enjoy are the lunches that Amane and Asumi make for us everyday. Those girls are not only amazingly good cooks, but are phenomenal in their presentation as well.

This weekend, we, along with our friends and boyfriends, went to see a movie on Saturday and then on Sunday, we spent the whole day at Playland water park playing. Chinatsu and I learned our lesson from last time, so we wore our halter top bikinis. Hence, no worries about popping out of them or them coming off on the water rides.

Monday, most of the others seemed to have settle down, so school is a bit more normal, although there is still the annoyance of my fan club.

[Tuesday, September 17th]

Ryu stayed at his house last night, so it’s only Chinatsu and me this morning. So, after showering, bathing, dressing and doing our hair and makeup, we head downstairs to eat.

I won’t bore you with the basics this morning, but we eat, Dad calls the school to tell them we won’t be in today, and then head out to the justice center for our meeting. We announce ourselves, take a seat and a few minutes later, we are shown to a conference room.

Three men and a woman come in shortly and one of the men says, “Sorry that I'm late, as you can see, it’s a little hectic this morning. I’m Matsuo Tano and this is Saya Nishida. We've been assigned to be the arbiters for your case.” He then gestures to the two other men. “These gentlemen are Hayato Sugihara and Diachi Tsuda from the Justice Department.”

Dad introduces us and then Mr. Tano continues where he left off. “I have to apologize, but your case was dumped in my lap this morning, so I have the basics of what is being asked for. I apologize, but the person that was supposed to handle it was in an accident. Now, I’d like to keep this meeting as informal and pleasant as possible. Mr. Kobayashi, if you’d begin.”

Dad gestures to me. “It’s your show, Sweetheart.”

“Alright. I have several concessions I want from the government, so how about we take them point by point.” He nods. “First: I want to be able to marry my sister and before you say anything, you should already know that I’m adopted, so we’re not blood related.”

Mr. Sugihara interjects. “You know that under the law fertile women aren’t allowed to marry each other?”

How annoyed I am that he would even bother to point out something that’s patently obvious must have shown because he glances at Mr. Tsuda and then at my dad as if asking for help.

Dad asks, “Mr. Sugihara, should we reschedule this? I ask because if you had even skimmed the file it should be clear to you how important the government considers this. The simple fact that you two are even here talking to us should prove the point conclusively.” Dad tilts his head and looks at him piercingly for a few moments and then looks at Mr. Tsuda. “Let me guess. He dumped the file on you and never read a word of it. Is that about right?”

He shrugs. “We have a lot of cases to deal with.”

“Don’t try to bullshit a professional bullshitter. You’ve read the file, I can tell by the way you avoided answering the question. You simply don’t want to make him look bad since he’s probably your senior.” Dad looks back and forth between the two, then continues, “Now, we can continue with you being the lead here or you two can tell your boss why you couldn’t even conduct a simple arbitration and then they can explain that to many very angry, powerful people. I seriously doubt your ability to remain employed with the justice department when those very angry people are told the reason we walked out.” Dad’s smile is a little scary when he asks, “So, how do you want to proceed?”

Mr. Sugihara looks at him and asks, “Diachi, would you mind taking over?”

“Of course.” He looks at me. “Do you mind if I call you Sora?”

Smiling pleasantly at him, I reply, “No, not at all.”

“Sora, normally that wouldn’t be allowed for any reason, but we both know this is far from a normal situation or we wouldn’t even be talking to you. Can you explain why you want to marry her?”

I smile and shrug. “This is going to sound rather trite, but she’s my soulmate. She… completes me and I can’t imagine any sort of life without her.”

He looks at Chinatsu and asks, “And you feel the same way?”

Chinatsu looks at me as she answers him, “She’s the other half of me. We’ve loved each other since we were 4 years old. I knew the moment we met that she’s the one for me and I’d never survive without her.”

Mr. Tsuda looks at his colleague, who nods. “Alright. You two seem serious about each other, so we can agree to this.”

“That was easy enough,” says Mr. Tano. “Then, on to the next item.”

“Thank you. Next is our fiancé, Ryuichi Ueno. We don’t want to wait until we’re 18 to marry him, so we’d also like the right to have a polygamous marriage as well as be able to marry him when the three of us turn 16.”

“Sora, this one’s a little harder to approve.”

Frowning, I ask, “How is it harder?”

“A couple of doctors submitted reports saying that they would prefer you girls not put yourself at risk of being pregnant until you are 18.”

He hands them to me and I quickly read them.

“You did happen to see that we aren’t typical girls? And even if we were, it’s legal for us to have sex and even have children at our age.”

“That you’re atypical is the reason they don’t want to risk you and that’s not even taking into account your intelligence.”

Placing the reports down on the table and pushing it back toward him, I ask, “How can doctors that have never seen us even have an opinion? Especially since they don’t even mention the difference between physical and biological age.”

Mr. Sugihara cuts in, “What? Is there a difference?”

I roll my eyes. “Ugh! This is exactly why you should have read up on the case! For us, of course there is! There’s a huge difference!”

Dad gently touches my shoulder and says, “Sweetheart, calm down. Apparently, you’ll need to explain it to them.” He looks at the four of them and states, “You’d best reread the paperwork that came with this case. Everything about this falls under the national security act, so telling anyone anything about it will get you hung.”

They nod. Then I take a breath and let it out. “Okay. To explain: physical age is nothing more than how people naturally age with the passage of time. Biological age is completely different in that one's age is based upon the condition of your body due to the gradual accumulation of damage to various cells and tissues in the body. There’s far more to it, but that is the absolute basics. Do you understand what I’m saying?”

They both nod and Mr. Tsuda says, “I don’t think anyone could have explained it better.”

“Good. Now, physical age means very little when we are talking about us. Let’s say we agree to wait until we're physically 18 to get married and have children, alright?” They nod. “If we did, biologically we’d only be a month older than we are now.”

Their confused expressions beg for a more in-depth explanation. “Look, I’m not going to give a treatise on genetics and cell division, so in the simplest of terms, we age very slowly, as in a week for every year we’re alive. That means that it will be 208 years until we’re biologically 18.”

I pause and look to see if they understand. Thankfully, they seem to get my explanation because I don’t think there is a simpler way to explain.
“There is no way we are waiting that long to get married and have children. Do you see why I discount ‘doctors’ who didn’t even take those simple facts into account when writing those reports?”

“I do, but…”

I hold up my hand to stop him. “May I finish?” He gestures to continue. “About pregnancy, even if we got pregnant right this second, it poses no risk to us because our nanites would fix anything within moments of it happening.”

Mr. Sugihara looks baffled as he asks, “Nanites? What do nanites have to do with anything?”

I’m really getting upset here. People with no idea of our situation are allowed to have opinions and to make decisions about our future? Not to mention that I shouldn’t have to tell them what they should already be up to date on. This definitely doesn’t sit well with me. Turning to Dad in exasperation, I begin to say, “Daddy…”

He nods and takes over. “This isn’t getting us anywhere with the constant interruptions for explanations.” He glances at his watch and then back to them. “How about we take a long lunch and you take the time to read the file? We’ll meet you back here at 1:00. How does that sound?”

Mr. Tsuda answers for them. “That sounds fine.”

Getting up, we make our way out into the hall. I spin Chinatsu around and hug her tightly as I murmur in her ear, “I told you didn’t I? We can get married! You’re going to be my wife!”

She leans back, gives me a short, tender kiss. Her eyes almost sparkle as she runs her thumb along my cheek and murmurs, “And you’re going to be mine. I love you, Sora.”

I’m leaning back in for another kiss when Sofi lightly smacks my butt and quips, “Stop it you horny little love birds! Let’s go eat,” which, as you can guess, makes us giggle.

Grinning mischievously, I state, “That’s the pot calling the kettle black.” Taking my future wife's hand, we happily follow our dad as we make our way downstairs.

Dad takes us to an exclusive, read that as a very expensive, western style steakhouse for lunch, the Oishī. We sisters have never eaten here, but I have heard of it and if you go by what is said, the food is exactly what the name of the restaurant says, delicious.

The hostess seats us and we’re perusing the menu when an older gentleman comes over to the table and introduces himself, “Excuse me for intruding on your lunch. I’m Katsuo Yoshimori. You would be Sora Kobayashi, correct?”

Pasting a pleasant smile on my face, even if I feel anything except pleasant at the intrusion, I reply, “I am. May I help you?” While I think, ‘And so it begins. This is part of what we were trying to avoid.’

“I’m the CEO of the Mitsui Group and I’d like a chance to sit down with you to discuss a couple of business opportunities.”

“Mr. Yoshimori, I may be the CEO, but I leave the day-to-day operations to my senior vice-president, Mirai Kuroki. If you’ll set an appointment, I’m positive she’d be more than happy to speak with you about your ideas. If she feels that it has merit, then she’ll contact me and we’ll talk then.”

“But…”

I hold up my hand to stop him. “Mr. Yoshimori, I don’t know or even truly care how you do business, but as you can see I am with my family and I don’t do business this way. If you want to speak to me, you set an appointment with Mirai and we can go from there. If not,” I shrug, “we have nothing further to discuss.”

He flushes slightly, whether from anger or embarrassment I have no idea, nor do I care. “Of course. Thank you for your time.”

“You’re welcome. Enjoy your lunch.”

He bows his head slightly, then leaves and we return our attention to our menus. Even with the interruption, we enjoy a nice leisurely lunch. For dessert, we have some sumptuous cake with arguably the best coffee I’ve ever had afterward.

Back in the conference room, we take our seats, along with the others, minus Mr. Tano.

Ms. Nishida begins. “Welcome back everyone. I hope everyone had an enjoyable lunch. I apologize, but Mr. Tano was called away.” She looks at the men opposite of us. “You read the file?” They nod. “Good, so shall we pick up where we left off?”

Mr. Tsuda continues as the spokesman for his team. “Sora, I’m very sorry, but we consider it too risky to allow you two to marry Ryuichi Ueno at 16. If something were to happen to you, the loss for Japan would be immeasurable.”

Closing my eyes as I grit my teeth, I attempt to rein in my anger and lose the fight moments later. Eyes blazing, I’m shaking as I surge to my feet, slam my hands down on the table and rasp out, “I am not your fucking doll!”

Neither their surprised expressions, nor Mama crying out, “Sora! Language young lady,” even phase me.

Leaning forward on the table, I glare at them. “You act as if you own me and have a right to my knowledge! Well, let me explain this to you so that even you’ll be able to understand it! You don’t and you never will! Do you have any idea how little control you, or the government, have when it comes to me? If I want to get pregnant, I will! You can’t stop me without locking me up and what do you think that will cost you? One narcissistic asshole already cost Japan my mother and father! If you deny me this, you’ve lost me as well! While we’re at it, let’s talk about losing things! Do you want to know what your decision cost everyone? All research on adapting my nanites for men is on an indefinite hold! Read that as I will never, and no one at TGR will be allowed, to do any work in that direction and good luck with someone else cracking the problem! I will destroy the research and everything associated with the project. If needed, I’ll even close down TGR! There’s your damn loss!”

Breathing heavily with angry tears streaming down my face, I continue to defiantly glare at them. A few seconds later, I smile menacingly and purr, “You need me and you need my cooperation. Giving me a few things that mean nothing to you or those above you will go a long way. Keeping me, and by extension, my family happy and safe from those foreign assholes should be the only thing you’re worried about.”

Shoving my seat out of the way, I turn on my heel and storm out of the room with my sisters right behind me.