Suzume had a lot to say. Enough that her counseling session went a half hour over the initial planned time.

Fortunately for John, he had scheduled in a late dinner break from 6-7 PM so that he could process things and catch a bit of Alphy's first membership stream.

Unfortunately, he remembered that he didn't set up his account to be able to have memberships for any of the girls' channels.

Something somethin Googol account permissions.

But either way, that meant John had a bit of a break to relax and process things, as well as chart the path going forward.

The table had been cleared away, most of it packed in a to-go box for Suzume to finish since she spent so much time talking and barely any eating.

Honestly, it was always the quiet and seemingly normal ones who had issues...

Which made John not look forward to how the chat with Chihiro would go since she was the epitome of 'the quiet kid' in class considering her hobby of carrying around a definitely unlicensed and illegal firearm at conventions.

Did her dad know about that? Takashi must have known since he was probably where Chihiro got it. But the fact that she casually carried it around and seemed to know how to use it...

Well. John could unpack that later.

But for now, a quick status update on everyone.

Asako was fine. She still had a bit of repressed anger towards her dad and a lot of unprocessed grief that she wasn't acknowledging at the moment. But that was something that time would solve. Especially since she planned to go serious with Alphy (whether she realized it or not).

Alphy was fine too. Since she had started streaming, she and the Alfis were having a symbiotic relationship bettering both sides.

...Okay. It was a *weird* symbiotic relationship that looked a lot like a cult or demonic sect worshipping Alfi as a goddess, but overall, it was good.

John had seen worse. And from what he could tell, the Alfis only really acted weird when they were around Alphy, in her streams, or doing related tasks.

In their general day-to-day life, you would never be able to tell that one of the Alfis were a fan, or anything other than a normie.

Especially considering that they were all financially stable and in excellent physical condition all across the board due to the support network that they built for each other.

Anyway, Alphy was fine. There was still her habit of making emotionally devastating off-hand comments, but that wasn't really anything 'bad.' Just... emotionally damaging.

Mostly for John. Still, he'd take blows to the kokoro over having his daughter cry, so it was a non-issue.

Out of the Prototype girls, the real problem was Rin.

Despite her young age... or maybe due to it, Rin had developed a masterful coping mechanism to feign normality.

Focusing on the present, looking at only the good and ignoring the bad. Constantly being bombarded with intrusive thoughts, but gently pushing them to the side while she went about her day...

Not only that, but there was also the fact that she had instantly created Hana as a tangible split personality after John introduced her.

And that wasn't even *starting* to scratch the surface that was her expertly hidden violent middle and high school backstory. One that he immediately followed up on with Sakura only to find out that she definitely didn't know about it.

And also for Sakura to break down sobbing about her sweetie going through so much pain and suffering.

Fortunately, Yudi had returned from his long shopping trip and was available to babysit Aurora for a bit, so John politely asked Yue to help Sakura out. And also to check on Rin, who was currently sleeping back at her house due to the heavy emotional drain of fighting (literally and figuratively) her inner demons.

Definitely would be more issues in the future for Rin that would have to be dealt with though.

The fact that she had a really unhealthy parasocial relationship with the Ohana to the extent of treating the totality of her fans as a singular entity who she wanted to share her private life with... Yeah. Definitely needed to sort that out.

...Maybe John should open a school to take in troubled and talented children? The problem was the name...

Well, more on that later.

The Prodigy girls were mostly well off. Kai was doing a good job of managing their stress levels and schedules, so there actually wasn't much John needed to do.

Yuri had been a bit concerning because of the fact that she just dropped out of school right in front of the finish line.

John had given her a proper push though, and with Yuri's personality, she wouldn't stop until she had succeeded in her dream of being a world-class chef (cook?) and opening a world-class restaurant.

Shu was fine too. She had her head on straight, picked her objectives for the future, had an action plan, and already settled her potentially troublesome family affairs.

John would definitely give her 100% if he was grading the career planning for the girls.

He wasn't though. Still, it was a good sign that at least one of the girls had everything squared away.

As for Suzume...

Well. John just listened to her vent a lot.

He had been wondering if everything was alright with her considering that she was the physical reincarnation of Zhuque and that there might be issues due to the fact that said reincarnation crossed extradimensional boundaries for it to happen.

For the most part though, Suzume was well-adjusted. She had a lot to vent about though.

A lot.

Somewhere in that venting session though, Suzume had said that she planned to finish her studies and go to university in the future.

Since Suzume had clearly put a lot of thought into things... as evident by her hour and a half long rant, John wasn't worried about her.

But that left the last member of Prodigy. The odd one out who was the more 'cultured' individual in comparison to her relatively 'normal' genmates.

John finished writing up his notes on his tablet and then checked the time.

6:45 PM. Fifteen minutes after Suzume left, and fifteen minutes before Chihiro was scheduled to arrive for her meeting.

Since that was the case, John decided to sit back and relax for a bit before it was time.

A quick platter of cookies and lemonade for general refreshments when Chihiro arrived. Shutting the curtains since it was dark now and increasing the light a bit more to compensate for that.

When John finished those preparations, he sat back in his chair and pulled out a cup of coffee to sip on while he scrolled through social media.

Mirror Corp was hiring for an overseas subsidiary... Hm. Was Titor planning to tackle Face- VisorTome?

John remembered reading somewhere that they were developing a new VR headset too. Something about a meta universe that would be like an augmented reality thing.

It was pointless considering the huge success and crazy specs of the NERV_GEAR, but if they were offering up their necks in a losing battle...

Let's see. Next...

It looked like the 'smoke in the water' tactic of releasing AI generated voice clips of Hana and photoshopped screenshots of fake Hana accounts with the Tweeter space was working.

#HanaHomura was trending again, but everyone was just wild mass guessing if it was a marketing scheme or a mistake.

John would have to make it the first by coordinating a short live concert with the girls using the IDOL bodies soon. Maybe he could rent out a local cafe or something...

Betty's game was still trending. It was good to see that his daughter was succeeding in her independent life.

Some other random hashtags, some more random stuff on the 'for you' page of Tweeter...

Had to remember to fix that algorithm at some point. And ban all the weirdos using Tweeter for criminal activity...

Actually.

John pulled out his phone and sent a quick text to Jenny about a mass Tweeter purge and to coordinate with Titor on it.

People would definitely complain, but considering John could float the entire world's economy until the end of time if he wanted to-

*ding*

A soft chime. The elevator arriving at John's office for the hopefully last time today.

The moment the doors opened, Chihiro walked out.

And she looked like a mess.

Her crimson glasses were smeared and askew. Her usually straight dark blue hair was frazzled. Her eyes were bleary and red, and she was stifling a yawn as she walked over.

Then there was the fact that she was wearing literally just a single oversized white t-shirt that would have left nothing to the imagination if it wasn't an extra thick one...

Oh wait, she was wearing a pair of mismatched white and blue fuzzy bunny slippers too, so the shirt technically wasn't the only thing she was wearing.

But still.

John could already feel a headache coming on from Chihiro's 'I'm only here because I need to be here' attitude.

Even so, he put on a smile and gestured towards the cookie and seat across from him. "Thanks for coming Chihiro."

Chihiro yawned and walked over, hopping onto the chair in front of John.

Of course, that meant that she indirectly flashed him.

Fortunately, she had the decency to wear *something* down there.

As to what, John erased it from mind so as to not anger his wife.

But still, wasn't Chihiro like... sixteen? Rin's age, right? And she was acting like this...

John took a sip from his coffee, hoping the caffeine would help with his headache.

It didn't, but if John believed in it real hard, maybe...

"Yeah, yeah." Chihiro grabbed a cookie and took a bite before waving it around. "So what are we talking about? I'm a busy woman, you know? Comms, fan arts, streaming..."

Hoo boy. Well, let's see how this goes...