The Simulacrum

~Chapter 153~ Part 1

"Thank you, Brother Leonard, and I must apologize."

Naoren's words were soft yet clear, crisply audible over the hustle and bustle of the city night stretching out under the penthouse suite's balcony. The girls were inside, helping Rinne change out of her muddied and stained clothes, and Zihao left after realizing that they wouldn't be doing any more martial arts practice today, and since it was just the two of us, Naoren took the opportunity to pull me aside for some male bonding. Or so I figured.

"Apologize for what exactly?" I asked back without taking my eyes off the landscape of Timaeus, and he fell into a pensive silence.

That kind of response was normally just rhetorical, meant as a roundabout way to say 'Nah, don't even mention it', but not this time. I meant it, because he absolutely messed it up and was in dire need for introspection. Case in point:

"For failing to properly communicate with Lady Rinne, despite your repeated insistence."

"That's a start," I spoke light-heartedly and gestured for him to continue.

"Also… I feel I should apologize for allowing the heat of the moment to rob me of my rationality. If you weren't there as a voice of reason, I might've made a grand mistake."

"Yes, that was also quite silly," I noted before falling silent again. I was planning to let him wrack his head over whether there was anything else he could recall, but it never came to that.

"Chief, don't be vindictive, or people will start disliking you," my dear assistant said as she walked outside.

"I'm not vindictive, I'm just helping Naoren self-reflect."

"It is quite all right," the young patriarch came to my support with a soft smile and an even softer sigh. "This misunderstanding certainly rested on my shoulders."

"You see, Dormouse? Even he agrees."

"Don't be silly Chief." She walked over to me and linked our arms. "This development was following the template, so it wasn't his fault."

"Hm? What do you mean by 'template'?" Naoren uttered in a low voice, mildly confused by our exchange.

"Don't worry about it. It's just our lingo."

"Yes, but what does it mean?"

Before I could respond, Judy tugged on my arm and answered in my stead, even as she was unsubtly trying to pull me back inside.

"It means that once certain misunderstandings take root, the following developments become inevitable." She purposefully glanced up at me. "At least that's the case unless an external factor forcefully intervenes."

"And I'm truly thankful for Brother Leonard serving as such an 'external factor'," the young patriarch told us with an accompaniment of air-quotes, a clear and unmistakable indicator that he had been spending too much time around Sebastian over the past couple of weeks. But I digress, especially since he soon let his hands down and added, "You have intervened for my sake not once, but twice. I will not forget this debt."

"I wasn't doing it for your sake per se, or anything."

"Chief, stop being tsundere and come inside already. We need help."

"Then say so instead of just tugging at my arm." Judy gave me a flat stare that said I should've been able to realize what she wanted already. Putting her on hold for a moment, I turned back to Naoren first. "Are you also coming inside?"

"No, I think I'll need more fresh air to… calm my nerves before I face Lady Rinne again."

"Hah. I never pictured you as the nervous type," I jested, and a mildly annoyed frown settled on his brows.

"Not everyone can be as decisive and confident in the matters of the heart as you are, Brother," he stated solemnly, and while I pointedly wasn't looking at Judy, I could totally feel her eyes boring into my forehead and transmitting the words 'If only he knew…' to me. Meanwhile, he let out another long breath and added, in a near-whisper, "As I have already said inside, before anything else, I'm a man, and I have my own… weaknesses."

The words 'I could tell' were on the tip of my tongue, but Judy pulled on my arm again, so I didn't dally any longer and the two of us headed inside. As soon as I closed the sliding glass door behind us, I stopped and locked eyes with my girlfriend.

"So? What do you need me for in such a hurry?"

"We need a nominally unbiased third party's opinion on Ms. Yamako's outfit."

"Just that? For a moment, I thought it was something serious."

"It is a serious matter, Chief. We're aiming for the trope where the girl captures the male lead's heart by dressing up and making him conscious about her looks. If everything works out, we'll get to see the calm and refined Mr Feilong blush to the tips of his ears and stumble over his words. It's a romance story staple."

"He's certainly not calm today though. Also, didn't she dress up for the banquet already?"

"That was completely different. Please, get on with the program. This is important."

I eyed my dear assistant for a while, but she remained completely stone-faces. More so than usual.

"Correct me if I'm wrong, but you seem disproportionately invested in this."

"Why shouldn't I be?" she admitted without any reservations. "I prefer the kinds of trope-governed situations where nobody is getting hurt, nobody is scheming any nefarious plans, and nobody is traveling through time."

"… Are you still on about that?"

"Hush."

To be fair, I didn't want to get into another argument about that topic either, so I acquiesced with a shrug, and the two of us leisurely headed towards the side room where Elly was still in the process of treating Mountain Girl like a life-sized dress-up doll. Or so I imagined, at any rate.

The distance was short, but just enough for another brief discussion, so I shot one more question at her.

"You mentioned a template on the balcony. Which one were you referring to?"

"The development between Mr Feilong and Ms Yamako," she answered readily and even slowed her pace for the sake of a full explanation. "Originally we had an arranged marriage plot tied to a villainess sub-plot, but since you forcefully cleared up the female lead's misconception, it changed the template."

"By 'female lead, you're referring to Mountain Girl, right?"

"Of course I do. Who else could I mean?"

"I don't know, but it never hurts to ask, especially when things are this volatile." She clicked her tongue, apparently unable to argue with that. "So? What was the template?"

"Class difference romance."

"… That's a thing?"

Judy stopped and gave me a skeptical look.

"Of course it is. It's one of the oldest romance plot templates, where two lovers are separated from each other by their societal statuses, and it's resolved either by the reveal that the lower-class character had a secret legacy, or sometimes by the higher-class character forsaking their wealth and status for love and personal fulfilment. You should know this."

"Well, excuse me, but my research was more focused on genres that were directly relevant to our well-being," I huffed, but Judy didn't relent.

"If Emese and Abram weren't so doting, you would've had a class-difference romance with Elly," she pointed out, followed by a thoughtful hum. "You even fulfilled the secret legacy part, though only in retrospect."

"There's nothing new under the sun." Following that thought-terminating cliché, we continued to walk, and walk, and... "Was that why Naoren was ready and willing to step down as the patriarch?"

"Probably."

"Uh… this just once again proves that carelessly mixing the genres is just a recipe for disaster. If Yseult dropping out of the Draconic Federation would've been bad enough for future-me to resort to including it in a retcon, just imagine the kind of hell Naoren abandoning his position would've sparked."

"And it's why you have to be more up-to-date with the tropes of genres other than shounen harem battle stories."

"Why do I have a feeling this is a preamble of you giving me even more homework in the form of romance novels?"

"Recommended research material, Chief. Please mind your terminology."

"Sure, sure. Also, I couldn't help but notice that we've circled the living room something like four times already."

"Five and a half."

"Even more reason to feel silly. Let's get on with it; I'm already running a bit late on my meeting with Yseult."

Late in a 'theoretical' sense, of course. If push came to shove I could just Phase over directly, so I wasn't in a huge hurry just yet. I also had a few other things I wanted to discuss, such as whether or not a random stray thought of mine caused Rinne to turn into a catgirl, but that was for later, when we had more time and privacy.

By the by, I sincerely doubted that's what happened, not only because it would've introduced a terrifyingly unpredictable variable into our already complicated lives, but because I had circumstantial evidence to the contrary. It was why I went out of my way to question Rinne about her relation to cats and other related topics, and everything pointed to the conclusion that her Japanese-cat-yokai-creature-or-whatever ancestry was always a thing and it just never came up in conversation beforehand. And no, I wasn't just trying to rationalize away the possibility of my reality-warping narrative powers going haywire. Or at least I hoped I wasn't.

For the moment, we finally entered the side room (it wasn't quite a 'guest room', considering this was a hotel suite), where Elly was in the process of playing with Rinne's cat ears.

"Ah! Here you are! I just finished combing Ms Yamako's hair!" she greeted us in a hurry, and it took some effort not to smirk at her.

Sure, princess. Sure. That was the only thing you were doing. Not that I couldn't understand her; while I was fairly lukewarm on cats as pets, and downright arctic when it came to catgirls as a thing, I had to admit that the twitching triangular ears on top of my personal ninja's head were at least a little intriguing. In a scientific sense, of course, and nothing more.

"Chief? What is your opinion on nekomimi maids?"

"That you really should stop trying to give me weird new fetishes," I answered flatly and turned my full attention to Rinne.

She was garbed in a Chinese-syty dress, similar to the one she wore during the banquet just a few days ago. The red and white outfit could be best described as a modernized and simplified version of those fancy ancient robes heroines would be wearing on the covers of Chinese martial arts fantasy novels. On one hand it was kind of loose, with fancy tassels, detached sleeves, and decorative folds, yet at the same time it also hugged her figure and had slits to show off her legs. She also had some proper makeup on her face this time around, and even more importantly, she was acting the part of the fidgety maiden with a crush.

Okay, so maybe that last bit wasn't entirely accurate, but was still acting more natural than her completely wooden performance during the announcement of her engagement, so it was a step in the right direction. Also, the way her cat ears were shifting between lying flat on her head and suddenly perking up in response to the slightest noise was rather amusing.

"How does she look?" Elly levelled the pivotal question at me, presenting Rinne like a piece of art, and so I felt obliged to slip my arm out of Judy's grasp and adopt a thoughtful art-critic pose, with one arm crossed in front of my chest and pinching my chin with my other hand.

"Hmmm… It's a rather novel mixture of traditional styles and modern sensibilities, harkening back to the…"

"Chief, take this seriously," Judy scolded me, so I let out a breath and started over.

"Eight out of ten. She's fine."

"Is that good enough?" came the uncertain question from Elly, and my other girlfriend was just as stumped.

"We forgot to calibrate the Chief." She tugged on my sleeve, and directly asked, "What's a ten on your scale?"

"A ten? The two of you on stage during the concert at the cultural festival," I answered without any shame or hesitation.

My girlfriends shared a complex look and spoke up at once.

"Sound good to me!"/"Good enough."

"Rinne doesn't quite understand what's going on, but does Leonard-dono really think that Rinne is pretty?"

Oh, that was a dangerous question to ask of a guy with his girlfriend in the room, let alone two of them, but I had a stock phrase ready.

"Pretty enough to stun the guy on the balcony."

"Rinne can do that by delivering a decisive blow with the sheathe of Onikiri already."

…

Ah, right. She was one of those 'A beauty so long as they keep their mouth shut' character types, wasn't she? How could I forget? Anyhow, with my approval secured, the girls were ready to get their shipping operation underway (though, in my opinion, it had already sailed). That was my cue to move on to my appointment.

"I'll try to talk some sense into Yseult, and then I'll come back to pick you up afterwards. Be good guests and try to make sure things don't go horrifically and inexplicably wrong."

"That's my line," Judy pointed out, but I shrugged her off and got ready to Phase away.

"I love you too, Dormouse. Now, if you excuse me, I'm already late and…" My words trailed off into silence as I focused down on my mark, turning into a stumped, "Huh."

"What? What happened?" Elly skipped over to my side in a hurry. Maybe she thought I wasn't feeling well. In any case, I raised a palm to stop her, and it only made her more confused. "Did something go wrong already?"

"Maybe." I Far Glanced over, and it only made my frown deepen. "Stay here, and don't come outside." I pointed at Rinne, and she looked unusually startled by my finger. "I'll call you when the coast is clear."

With those words of warning, I turned on my heel, left the side chamber, marched through the large living room, and stopped in front of the glass door leading to the balcony.

"… is uncalled for!" Naoren complained with a stony expression and a finger on his glasses.

"This was the only way to be sure," a different yet familiar voice declared, and while her upper body was hidden from my vision due to her spread-out alabaster wings, it didn't take a mystery novel detective to deduce the identity of the new 'guest'. "It was impossible to talk to you in person when Dunning and his men were hovering around us during the Council meeting, so I took my chance."

"I'm telling you, this is inappropriate, not to mention entirely unnecessary. Brother Leonard was planning to meet you today to clear up the misunderstandings in private."

"Yes, I know, but I don't want to hear anything from him." She scoffed and flapped her wings, finally allowing me a chance to take a proper look at her.

She was, to my mild astonishment, wearing black biker leathers. The kind Morgana would have on her when taking a joyride with Arnwald around the neighbourhood, except they were cut to accommodate her draconic features. She even had an aviator cap and googles custom designed with holes for her horns. But that wasn't the weirdest part.

"UFO?"

Startled, I turned to my left and found Judy peeking at the scene while hiding behind my back.

"Didn't I tell you to stay put?" I whispered a touch animatedly, only to stop when I was bumped by a butt from the other side.

"No, you told Ms Yamako to stay in the room," the princess answered in her stead, trying to squeeze by me and squinting to take a better look. "What is that?"

"A UFO," Judy insisted with a straight face.

"No, it's Yseult Albion wearing an artifact of some sorts that projects a disguise of some kind or something. I think."

If I sounded unsure, it was only because I was.

"So, not a UFO."

I sent a sideways glance at my dear assistant.

"Why are you sounding disappointed?"

"You have to admit, after all the supernatural beings we've seen in the Simulacrum, space aliens are the next logical step."

"We're two weeks early for April Fools', so cut it out and let me listen."

"If you want to listen to them, why don't you use Far Sight?" came an entirely reasonable question from Elly, and I had no choice but to be truthful.

"Because that way, I can't dramatically interrupt them to reveal my presence at the right moment."

"Oh."/"Makes sense."

Momentarily disregarding my girlfriends, I tuned my ears to the outside, where Naoren and Yseult were already in the process of building up to a heated argument.

"… we've left too many things in his hands, and he's manipulating you!"

"I told you already, you gravely misjudge Brother Leonard's character!"

"Do I? Or are you so attached to your 'grand draconic unification plan' you're willing to look the other way? What happened to your principles?"

"My principles? What about yours? Purposefully tricking someone like that is—!"

"Dishonorable? Puh-lease! At most, I stood Dunning up for an evening! It's hardly the end of the world, and it was the only way to ensure that he wouldn't interfere! By knowing where he is, I can be sure where he isn't!"

"What am I, a cruise missile?" I muttered in mild annoyance.

"I don't get it," Elly quickly admitted, while Judy patted me on the back.

"Don't worry, Chief. I got it."

"Is it a trope, or…? No wait. It must be one of those 'meme' things, right?"

In her hurry not to be left out, the princess raised her voice just a bit too much, and when I looked back, both Naoren and Yseult were staring at us. Took them long enough, though maybe it was the fault of the glare caused by her disguise reflecting off the glass of the door.

Whatever the case might've been, we were discovered, so there was no reason to hide anymore. I walked over and theatrically pushed the door open.

"Yseult! Good evening. I see you were so eager to talk, you couldn't wait for me to get to your mansion. How nice of you to drop by." Letting the silence linger for a beat, I stepped aside and politely gestured for her to get inside. "Come. Take a seat and let's have a chat, shall we?"