The Simulacrum - Chapter 73~ Part 2

“… In summary, today’s date was a rather pleasurable experience. Four and a half out of five stars,” Judy concluded on our way home from the restaurant. We originally planned to come home by car, but since the weather was pretty mild and we had a hearty meal with calories asking to be worked off, we decided to walk instead. I’d like to say it was a romantic late evening stroll under the stars, but they were barely visible under the lit streets of the city, so it was semi-romantic at best. But back to Judy’s comment.

“Only four and a half?” I teased her with mock disappointment. “So harsh! How did we fail so miserably?”

My dear assistant promptly elbowed me in the side in response, eliciting a giggle from my other girlfriend.

“I had a lot of fun today,” Elly remarked between two chuckles. “Even the movie was good!”

“It wasn’t bad, but it’s the reason why I deducted half a star,” Judy responded in turn. “Why did we watch a martial arts movie of all things?”

“Because you don’t like romance movies, and it was the only decent alternative,” came my unabashed answer.

“Hey! This movie was romantic too!” the princess protested on my other side. “The way the protagonist battled through the palace to save the love of his life was really sweet.”

“True, but the kiss-slash-roundhouse-kick ratio was really low,” Judy countered, but seeing the princess was about to start pouting, she quickly added, “That said, I didn’t expect that the movie would put so much time and effort into the love subplot, so that was a pleasant surprise.”

“That just once again proves that you can’t judge a book, or in this case, a movie by its cover.” Judy gave me a tentative nod of agreement, so I decided to push my luck a little and added, “The same goes for people too, I suppose.”

My dear assistant sent me a sideways glance and asked, “You’re talking about men at the skating ring, aren’t you?”

“It’s still called a rink, but yes,” I answered with a smile as we rounded a corner onto the street leading to our neighborhood. “Who would’ve thought that they were just nice guys who were worried about you two and wanted to give you skating tips.”

“No Chief. They were definitely bad guys hitting on us,” Judy stated in an extra-deadpan voice.

“Don’t be silly,” I scoffed. “They were perfectly agreeable guys. They even apologized for bothering you.”

“Yes, they did, because when you showed up, you looked like you were about to cut their hearts out with the paper cup in your hand.”

“Whaaat? No, I didn’t,” I denied with an over-exaggerated expression of incredulity. “That’s just silly-talk! You’d need at least a plastic cup with a straw for that.”

Judy promptly rolled her eyes at my protests and stressed, “You might think it was funny, but we were scared by them, right, Elly?”

My other girlfriend didn’t react right away, so Judy forcefully cleared her throat to get her attention, at which point her cheeks flushed a little and she hastily said, “Sorry, I just remembered the faces they made when Leo showed up, and it was funny, and I spaced out a little. Could you please repeat the question?”

“Judy was just talking about how you were scared by those three random punk rockers approaching you, and she wanted you to reinforce her point.”

“Oh, I see now,” the draconic girl by my side muttered like she just understood something profound, only to then frown and blurt out, “I wasn’t scared. It was fun!”

“It was?” Judy muttered in surprise, the words apparently hitting her like an unexpected left hook.

“Yes,” Elly doubled down with a delighted smile. “The way you made fun of them was so funny I could barely stop myself from laughing!”

“Awww… So you protected the princess by heckling the guys? That’s sweet.”

I thought my comment would earn me some complaints from my assistant, but she remained suspiciously silent. When I took a closer look, I found her just a little flushed, and she ultimately told me, “Elly’s not so good at that kind of banter yet, so I overcompensated a little.”

“But if you had the presence of mind to do that, you couldn’t have been that scared,” I pointed out, which finally earned me an indignant huff.

“Maybe not that much, but it was still a tense moment, and I wouldn’t have dared to confront them if I didn’t know that Elly could beat them up if they tried to get physical.”

“So you compensated for each other’s weaknesses? Isn’t that just plain wholesome?” I asked one hundred percent innocently, but whatever answer Judy was about to give me was lost in the stunned silence as we rounded the corner leading into my street and we beheld the signs of destruction in front of us.

Even from this distance, I could see that the lamppost in front of my house was diagonally severed, taking down the power lines and all the other lights on that side of the street. The lamps on the other side of the road were still in working order though, which allowed us to see the full brunt of the damage done to the sidewalk in front of my house. Aside from the aforementioned lampposts, there were a couple of deep gashes in the concrete and the asphalt. Furthermore, even though the other poles were still standing, at least one of them had something that looked like claw marks on it, and one nearby traffic sign was bent by ninety degrees at the middle.

The three of us shared a cautious glance and I told the girls, “I’m going to check things. Be on the lookout for trouble.”

They both nodded, and I immediately slipped into Far Sight and focused on the dot of my sister, and its direction told me she was in the house, along with two other marks. I glanced at her, and once my vision cleared and I got used to the darkness, I let out a shallow but distinctly relieved breath and told the girls, “Everyone’s fine, but let’s be careful, just to be sure.”

My girlfriends wordlessly agreed and we lined up in a single file, with me at the front and Elly at the back, so that we could keep our only non-combatant safe in case of an emergency. I didn’t want to Phase in the open, especially since I would’ve bet good money on Lord Grandpa putting long-range surveillance on my house after I rebuked all of his more direct attempts, but I still wrapped my Phantom Limbs around Judy and Elly, just in case.

Fortunately, I never needed to act on my precaution, as we made our way over to my front door without any incident. The front door was left unlocked, so I pushed it open, and a moment later I was greeted by the barely visible sight of my sister poking her head through the door leading to the living room.

“Ah. Welcome back,” she greeted me in a slightly strained voice as she came over to the entrance while holding a three-pronged candlestick with matching white candles on it. She was also wearing her maid outfit, so her appearance made me think that I accidentally entered into a period murder mystery. I quickly shook the idea out of my head before I accidentally gave the ubiquitous yet intangible Narrative any funny ideas, and I invited the girls in. Hearing the commotion, another person entered the vestibule in a hurry, and once she realized it was just us, she let out an unexpectedly relieved sigh.

“Welcome, Leonard-dono,” Rinne welcomed me with a deep bow, followed by two slightly shallower bows directed at my girlfriends. Today she was wearing a sweater and jeans instead of her usual pantsuit, which was rounded out by a fluffy kitten slipper. I had something like five different sets of these things, so I let her borrow one while she was staying over. Anyhow, Judy peeled herself out of her outer coat in the meantime, while the princess took one last cautious glance outside before she shut the door behind herself and let out a small huff, probably miffed by our date ending on a weird note.

“What exactly happened while we were away?” I asked the most pertinent question at the moment, and after a second, Snowy gestured for us to enter the living room.

“It’s… a long story. We should sit down first.”

“I agree,” Judy, well, agreed, if I may be redundant for a moment. “My legs are tired.”

I had no reason to object, and once we were inside the candle-lit room, we all but stumbled upon the owner of the third mark I’ve detected no too long ago in the form of Ichiko. She was wearing a white T-shirt and a pair of loose, bright red knee shorts, probably the closest thing she could find that resembled a Japanese shrine maiden outfit among Judy’s hand-me-downs, and she even had a fluffy slipper of her own. As I said, my house had a lot of these things for some inexplicable reason. Speaking of inexplicable, at the moment she was trying her best to light an unfamiliar blue kerosene lamp sitting on the table. Once she noticed us, she flashed a toothy smile and exclaimed, “Look, Ue-sama! I found this in the garage!”

Oh, great. First it was my kitchen, and now even my garage was starting to get filled with weirdly convenient stuff I’ve never seen before. For a moment I couldn’t decide whether that was a good or a bad thing, but considering I had more important things to worry about, I shelved the issue for another day. Elly seemed oddly fascinated by the lamp and quickly walked over to help the foxy miko light it, while Judy was considerably less interested in it, and instead she made her way over to the thermostat.

“It’s not working either,” she uttered after fiddling with it a little.

“I guess the furnace isn’t working if the electricity is out,” I responded, followed by the question, “Did you report the outage?”

“Y-Yes…” Snowy nodded before sitting down on the couch. “The utility company said they would send someone in the morning to fix the pole.”

“Let’s hope we won’t have to explain why or how it was cut cleanly in half,” I commented on autopilot as I also sat down on my usual seat and, after a deep breath, finally asked, “Now then, could you please tell me why the street in front of us looks like a warzone?”

“Allow Rinne,” the highly visible ninja proposed and, without waiting for an answer, she made her way over to my side and fell to one knee. I glanced at my sister, who didn’t seem to mind, while Ichiko and Elly were still occupied with the lamp, so in the end I gave Mountain Girl the go. She gave me a firm nod and began her explanation in an unusually serious tone. “The incident procured roughly two hours ago.”

“Rinne-san means ‘occurred’,” Ichiko chimed in from the side without looking up from her project, and I acknowledged both of them with a slightly impatient grunt.

“At that time, an unknown enemy attempted to infiltrate Leonard-dono’s abode, but she was thwarted by Sister-san’s onmyodo.”

“She means my wards,” came the next correction, this time from Snowy.

“Describe the intruder,” I requested, and Rinne immediately complied.

“A girl about the same stature as Sister-san. She had red hair and used a western sword. Sister-san also attempted to draw her into the Land of Twilight to avoid damaging Leonard-dono’s house, but she somehow resisted it.”

“I’m… fairly sure she means a Restricted Space,” my sister commented again, this time a tad more uncertainly.

“I got it,” I responded, my words intermingled with a drawn-out sigh. “Did she try to attack you?”

All of a sudden, Rinne’s solemn appearance crumbled as she conspicuously glanced aside, immediately skyrocketing a suspicious brown up my forehead.

“She… didn’t actually attack us. Not really,” Snowy noted, and when I glanced at her in turn, she hastily explained, “She couldn’t pass through the wards, so she was mostly just shouting outside and demanded that I come out and talk to her.”

“Did you?”

“I… thought I would be safe as long as I stayed inside the warded area, so I only walked out to the front porch,” my sister sheepishly admitted.

“Rinne followed after Sister-san,” Mountain Girl added, suddenly back in her serious mode.

“Okay, let’s cut the chase: if she couldn’t pass through the wards, and she couldn’t be taken into a Purple Zone, that means that one of you…” I purposefully paused here as I directed a long, pointed look at the huntress still kneeling in front of me, and once I felt she was sufficiently pressured, I continued with, “… had to go out to pick a fight with her, doesn’t it?”

“Rinne-san did not pick a fight!” Ichiko butted in while jumping to her feet, nearly putting out the lantern they’ve spent so much time lighting if not for Elly’s quick reaction. “The girl called Neige-ue all kinds of nasty names!”

“That’s right!” Rinne followed her up, obviously relieved that she had backup. “As Leonard-dono’s retainer, Rinne must protect not only the lives of the members of his household, but also their honor! Rinne could not stand idle while someone bismarcked Sister-san’s good name!”

“Rinne-san wanted to say ‘besmirched’, but otherwise she’s correct!” the little miko doubled down. “Claiming that Neige-ue wasn’t ue-sama’s true sister and she must’ve used vile methods to seduce ue-sama! How shameless! How outrageous!”

When she got to the ‘no true sister’ part, Snowy visibly twitched, but before I could act in response, Judy was already by her side and patting her head. Since she was taking care of that, I continued to focus on the conversation at hand by adding, “So because of that, you attacked her.”

“After a warning,” Ichiko pointed out in hurry.

“But you still attacked her and caused a lot of collateral damage.” Both Rinne and Ichiko fell silent, and I kind of wanted to let them stew in their own juices for a while, but Elly was giving me an impatient look, so I decided to stop beating around the bush. “Still, I can’t fault you for trying to protect Snowy, so let’s just chalk this up as a learning experience. Next time, be more mindful of your environment.” The little miko nodded repeatedly, while Rinne only let out an affirmative grunt. “Speaking of which, I hope you weren’t seen by anyone.”

“Rinne doesn’t think so.”

“Good. The last thing we need is the Magi or the Celestials pestering us for breaking the masquerade. Next question: I figure the girl managed to get away, otherwise you would’ve mentioned capturing her. How exactly did she manage to do that?”

“She was fast,” Mountain Girl told me, and no matter how long I waited, she didn’t elaborate any further.

“Fast? Is that all?”

“Yes,” she asserted with a serious look. “She was weaker than Rinne, but she was much faster, so we couldn’t manage to land a clean hit. Once she disengaged, we didn’t give chase.”

“So she was faster than you…” I reiterated, and she reaffirmed it with a nod. “Was she wearing any armor?”

“No. She only had a sword,” Ichiko noted on the side, and I let out a soft ‘Huh,’ in response.

So, just to summarize: the Knight girl came to my house while I was out, picked a fight with Snowy, the ninja woman and the fox girl decided to teach her a lesson, but she outmaneuvered them and managed to escape scot-free, and did all of that without the benefits of wearing her full gear. That… sounded more than a little troublesome, but on the other hand, at least nobody got hurt. My evening plans were pretty much torpedoed by the lack of electricity, but that was small potatoes compared to how things could’ve turned out. Actually, that reminded me of something.

“So all of this took place in real-space, right? Why didn’t you call me?”

“We… didn’t want to disturb your anniversary,” Snowy spoke up without looking me in the eye.

“Very considerate, but imagine how much more it would’ve disturbed us to find out that you got injured while we were having fun.” My point made her disposition even worse, so I cushioned it a bit by telling her, “There were three of you this time, and apparently you had things mostly under control, but if something like this happens in the future, don’t worry about being considerate, or at the very least call me after the fact so that it wouldn’t be a surprise when we get home.”

All three of them nodded in unison, so for the time being I decided to drop the issue and focused on my girlfriends. The original plan was for them to stay over the night. Since we won’t have school tomorrow, we planned to play around, discuss meta-things with Elly, and stay up until late. Now, while I admit doing all of that in a candlelit room had its charm, the lack of electricity meant I couldn’t use my PC, which in turn meant we had no access to either my notes or the funny videos I downloaded and planned to watch with the girls.

In the end, I figured I’d postpone thinking about this for the time being, and instead I addressed Rinne again, mainly as a way to gain some extra time.

“Do you still want me to take you over to the base again?”

She was a little surprised by my question, but quickly nodded and stood up. I already promised her that I would Phase her over, and I also had to pick up a few things from there, so it was hitting two birds with one stone. Three, if we count gaining some thinking time as well.

In the meantime, Mountain Girl picked up Onikiri, changed shoes, and returned to my side, so I stood up as well. Since everyone present already knew about my Phasing ability, I didn’t have to bother with the whole ‘magical teleport closet’ thing, so before we left, I quickly addressed the rest of the group.

“I’ll be right back. Do you want me to bring anything back from the base?”

I only asked out of courtesy, but to my surprise, Judy actually had a request.

“Please bring over one of the board games Angeline left there.” I must’ve looked a little confounded, as she quickly clarified, “This is our first anniversary. I refuse to let a power outage completely ruin it.”

“I second it,” Elly agreed with a fiery look in her eyes, and while I was pretty sure Angie already took the most interesting looking games from Lord Grandpa’s ‘gifts’ for her own, I didn’t exactly have much of a choice in the matter when faced with the determined expressions my girlfriends were giving me.

As such, I gave them a nod, and then stepped up to Rinne, wrapped her up in my Phantom Limb, and a moment later we appeared in the main hall of the secret base. The Fauns, like Judy, proved to be remarkably adaptable to my sudden appearances, as us showing up in the middle of the training area barely raised any brows. I left Rinne to her own devices, and after a quick round of greetings, I walked over to one of the storage rooms.

By freak coincidence, the same one housed both the board games and my actual reason for coming over. In the corner, there were two unassuming paper bags. I picked them up, and after making sure their contents were intact, I took them over to the table with the board games. At first I tried to choose one, but then I figured I didn’t exactly have to, considering I could take the whole stack home with the exact same effort, meaning none. Thinking so, I picked them all up, made sure I still had the paper bags, and then unceremoniously Phased back to my living room.

“That was quick,” Judy noted as I put the boxes onto the table, careful not to disturb the lamp serving as our main source of light at the moment.

“I didn’t have anything else to take care of over there,” I responded, only just noticing that Snowy and Ichiko were missing. I vaguely gestured in the direction where my sister was sitting until now, and Judy immediately picked up my meaning.

“Neige and Ichiko are in the kitchen. She said we had a metal kettle and she wanted to try making tea with it on the stove.”

“Ichiko said she was an expert of tea ceremonies, so she tagged along,” my other girlfriend added as she walked over to my side and took a look at the games in front of us. “Which one are we going to try out?”

“Whichever you want, but first…” I paused for a few seconds as I carefully placed the two paper bags on top of the tower of game boxes. The moment I did so, Elly’s eyes lit up with curiosity, and even Judy looked pleasantly surprised, so I lightly cleared my throat and told them, “Since this is our first anniversary, I figured it was only proper to give you some gifts for the occasion.”

“Aw, Leo! You didn’t need to!” the princess cooed as she caught me in a hug, though the way she was eyeing the gifts told me she didn’t mean it. My other girlfriend remained perfectly silent and only looked at me expectantly, so I didn’t waste any more time and picked up the first bag.

“This is for you, princess.”

She practically snatched the bag out of my hand and opened it up with a huge smile on her face, which turned a little perplexed when she retrieved the large, white mug from inside. It only lasted for a moment though, as once she turned it around and saw the writing on it, she exclaimed, “A matching teacup!” and gave me another hug.

To be precise, it was the exact same type of mug Judy and I used, except hers said ‘I <3 My Family’. I hoped she would like it, and based on her smile, I choose her gift right. That left only one more bag, and I was about to take it over to Judy, but she beat me to the punch and walked up to us instead, so I only had to hand it over to her.

“Happy one-month anniversary, Dormouse.”

“Thank you.”

After saying so, she cautiously peeked into the bag, and her eyes opened wide(r) in surprise. She gingerly reached into it, took out her gift, and then gave me a strange look, so I gently pushed Elly out of her bear-hug and stepped closer to my other girlfriend, and took her hand holding the large, cream-colored clip bow into my own.

“Say, Dormouse? Do you remember our ‘hair theory of importance’?” She nodded, though she apparently still didn’t know what I was getting at. “I couldn’t help but notice that lately you kept putting yourself down. I wanted to give you a gift to remind you to… well, what I’m trying to say is that this is my way of telling you that you are important to me, and I want you to feel important as well. Please turn around for a moment, and I’ll help you put it on.”

She obediently did so, much to my surprise, and for a moment I felt a little nervous. I asked Angie to help me shop for hair accessories, and she even let me practice putting on a bow like this one, but doing it live was a bit more nerve-wracking. Still, I recalled the instructions, pulled back Judy’s hair a bit, threaded it through the bow, and then snapped the clip so that it would stay in place. I only noticed that I was holding my breath when I finished, so I quickly let it out and grabbed hold of Judy’s shoulders to gently turn her around, only to freeze for a moment.

“Chief?” my girlfriend asked in an unusually wavering voice made even more shocking by the tears in the corners of her eyes. “Can I hug you?”

“Erm… Sure. You—” ‘don’t need to ask for permission for that’ is what I tried to say but was interrupted when she actually gave me one. I was so surprised by such un-Judy-like behavior that for a moment I could only blink in a daze. Once I gathered my wits, I sent a glance at my other girlfriend, but she was only giving me a thumbs up while grinning. That said, as unexpected as Judy’s reaction was, it wasn’t a bad one, so I let the tension drain from my shoulders and returned her hug. The moment only lasted for a few short seconds though, as she separated from me when we heard Snowy and Ichiko returning from the kitchen.

“Sorry. I just became emotional for a moment,” my dearest assistant mumbled while wiping the corners of her eyes, and I could barely stifle a laugh.

“I don’t think this is something you should apologize for.”

“What’s that?” the little miko suddenly wedged herself into the conversation the second she arrived. “Judy-ue has a bow now! Pretty!”

“Thank you.”

My sister was a little more reserved about the situation, as she sent me a glance that asked if everything was all right. I gave her a smile that said that there’s nothing to worry about, so she let out a relieved breath and put the tray in her hands onto the table.

“We brewed some green tea,” she stated, and my Draconic girlfriend was by her side in a nanosecond.

“That’s great! Now I have my own family mug to go with it too!” Saying so, she proudly showed off her new gift, followed by a haughty and yet incredibly cute laugh. Seeing her so happy over such a small gift made me reconsider the common wisdom of rich girls being high maintenance. Though again, maybe it was just her.

Speaking of gifts though, Judy finally collected herself, and after reaching to the back of her head and touching her new bow, she looked at me and whispered an unusually timid, “Thanks, Leo. I really appreciate it. Both the gift and the meaning behind it.”

“You’re welcome,” I told her with a toothy grin.

“If you told me there would be gifts, I would’ve prepared something as well.”

“No need. Just having you around is the best gift I could ask for.” Elly let out another giggle in the back, but my dear assistant was only giving me an odd look, so I uttered a curious, “What?”

“You’re doing unexpectedly well today, Chief. You managed to give us romantic gifts and be nice without ruining the mood even once. It’s almost impressive.”

“Well, let’s just say I’m putting in some extra effort,” I said a tad modestly before putting my palm onto the boxes by my side and stating, “So, what do you guys want to play? We still have a couple of hours until bedtime, so we might as well have as much fun as our current lack of electricity allows.”

“This one, ue-sama! Let’s try this one first!” Ichiko proposed right away while pointing at the most colorful box, and since there were no objections, I figured we might as well start there.

And just like that, our anniversary date ended on a cozy note, our little group huddled around a candle-lit room and playing games together like one big, happy family… which we kind of were, now that I thought about it. In short, even though we ran into a small hiccup near the end, things turned out really well, so for the time being I ignored the Knights, the supernatural, and even the Simulacrum and its nebulous narrative, and enjoyed myself, because even I need some time to unwind from time to time.