The Simulacrum

Critias had its own Chinatown. This wasn’t news to me, considering that’s where I first managed to track down Mountain Girl. However, I was still a little stumped by the literal pagoda in the city outskirts, where the Eastern Draconians set up their lodgings. Though again, the Dracis had a huge-ass mansion in the middle of a perfectly ordinary picket-fence suburban neighborhood, so maybe I was overreacting.

But let’s ignore the ostentatiously Chinese outside, and focus on the ostentatiously Chinese insides of the building instead. In one of the spacious, richly decorated chambers near the top of the pagoda, a pair of brothers were sitting on the ground, their legs crossed and eyes closed. They were shirtless, and the older one had his hands pressed against the younger guy’s back. Based on the colorless light undulating around them, they were in the process of doing… well, something. At last, they both let out long breaths and the light show quietly died down as well.

From what I gathered, the two of them were 'cultivating', which in this context meant using the power dormant in their bloodline to strengthen themselves and learn magical martial arts. I expected they'd be sparring, or doing those fancy dance-like movements, but instead the duo spent most of their time cross-legged and meditating, and while they were obviously doing something productive based on all the invisible light they kept generating, I hadn't the foggiest idea about what it was. As for why I had a hard time deciphering their actions even though I had a mark on that Zihao guy? Well, I kind of ran into an enormous blind spot that I never had to deal with until now: they were speaking Chinese.

Now, in retrospect, that made perfect sense. They were among themselves, so they would naturally use their mother tongue in private, but I was so used to everyone, from Abyssals to Celestials, just defaulting to English that their entirely reasonable behavior left me stumped for a good while. In short, while marking Naoren was still on my priority list, this discovery pushed its necessity way down.

Anyhow, after training, the Draconian brothers had an argument, and the words 'Lenore', 'Dracis' and 'Blackloak' came up a couple of times, but since I didn't speak Chinese, I had no clue what they signified. At least from their body language and tone, I could tell that Naoren was telling off his younger brother, and the latter was grudgingly accepting the lecture, but that was all I could gather.

So, since there was nothing to really see here, I got out of Far Sight and stretched my back on the bed before sitting up with a soft huff.

"Are you done, Dormouse?"

"Just a minute," my dearest assistant answered from in front of my PC. "I just have to apply the transition effect to all the slides and save it, and then we can leave."

"Neat."

We came home after a deceptively uneventful day at school, and while waiting for the others to arrive, Judy decided to make a few slides to illustrate today's discussion, and I lent her my PC for the time being. Snowy, Josh, and Angie were already downstairs, and a quick Far Glance told me Elly and the class rep were already on their way. I would've done a quick roll call on the usual suspects, but Judy beat me to the punch by pushing herself away from the PC desk.

"I'm done. We can go now."

"Not everyone's here yet, so there's no need to hurry."

"In that case, I'll go and refresh myself in the bathroom."

"Why? You look perfectly fresh to me already?"

Judy gave me a flat look and stressed, "It's a girl thing, Chief."

"Oh, that? In that case, do as you see fit."

She let out a soft hum and left the room, leaving me all alone. My first reflex was to continue the roll call, starting with my self-ascribed Celestial contact, but after some consideration, I stood up instead and took the seat Judy just vacated in front of the computer. Opening the hub, I checked the newly submitted reports, and near the top of the list, I found the one I was looking for. Mike was a bit of a goof, but he had a solid work ethic it seemed.

Well, until I actually read the contents, that is. Put simply, his account of the events transpiring at the Draconian banquet was spotty at best. I skimmed the paragraphs, and most of them were just a headcount of the attendees. It only mentioned my altercations with the guests in passing, the tournament announcement was described in just two sentences, while Ammy was suspiciously missing from the recounting of the events. If I had to guess, he just got so focused on her the rest of the ball barely registered with him, and then he overcompensated when writing the report by pretending she wasn't even there.

Since I was here already, I also checked a few other recent reports and resolved an argument between two of the regulars about some tag definitions. There was nothing really noteworthy here, so before I closed the browser, I sneaked a peek at my own high-priority file, just in case there was any kind of change. A quick scroll didn't show anything new, aside from my file being cross-referenced with Bel's due to our 'connection'. There were a lot of holes in the latter, probably due to the Celestial healer not giving a full report thanks to the idea I planted in his head as Bel. In any case, so long as they weren't suspecting me, and I was still on their 'befriend for mutual benefits' list, everything was fine.

"Elly just arrived," Judy announced as she came back in, and I acknowledged her with a nod before I shut down the PC and got up.

"That leaves only Ammy." I checked on her dot, then added, "She's in the neighborhood, so I think we can start preparing."

Judy nodded and sidled up to me before she grabbed hold of my arm with a proud hum. In retrospect, telling her about the misunderstanding Naoren had about our relationship might not have been one of my most prudent decisions… but on the other hand, the way she was acting right now was kinda cute, and it only made Elly more fired up to show her affection as well, so maybe it wasn't such a bad thing after all? History will decide.

Anyhow, we walked downstairs hand in hand, and the princess also attached herself to me the first opportunity she had.

"Hi, Leo. Did you miss me?"

"We just parted at school less than two hours ago," I pointed out, but a beat later I added, "That said, the answer is naturally yes."

My draconic girlfriend giggled and went for a full hug, which I bore like a champ. In the meantime, I looked over the group in the living room. Snowy just let the newly arrived class rep in, with Ichiko pattering around them in her fox form. Angie had already raided my pantry, as usual, and she had a box of cookies in her hand while arguing with her childhood friend. Speaking of Josh, even though he got his face healed already, he was still wearing an adhesive Band-Aid across the bridge of his nose, and with his sleeves rolled up, he was steadily becoming the spitting image of a hot-blooded shounen protagonist. That was probably a good thing, right?

"Hi, Ammy," I greeted the newcomer, pulling the girls along in the process.

"Hello. I'm sorry for being a little late; I had to organize some of grandfather's documents."

"I thought you no longer had to do paperwork," Josh commented on the side as he stood up, and the class rep slumped her shoulders in response.

"Things are just especially busy because of all the Draconians on the island." I thought that was the end of it, but then she directed a sharp gaze at me and added, "Also, we still have to deal with the other Schools bombarding us with requests about you. At this rate, you might become a topic at the Assembly."

"That sounds annoying," I grumbled, and she reflexively tweaked her glasses.

"In that case, you shouldn't have caused a stampede during the last Symposium."

"I never intended to. Things just kind of spiraled out of control."

"That seems to happen a lot around you, huh?" Josh quipped, and as much as I wanted to deny it, I couldn’t find the words.

In the meantime, Ammy let out a soft sigh and shook her head.

"The gears of bureaucracy grind slowly, so I don't think you have anything to worry about for the time being, but there's a distinct chance you might have to attend a hearing in the future."

"Because of my enchanting?"

She nodded solemnly and explained, "Some voices in the Assembly want to make sure that what you're doing is based on your own abilities and nonreplicable. If it wasn't, they'll try to use the monopoly act of the nineteen seventy-eight charter's preservation laws to force you to share your techniques."

"Force?" Elly echoed her with a strong hint of disapproval, and the class rep shook her head.

"Sorry, that's not quite the right word. In practice, it would boil down to imposing sanctions on you and restricting the Schools from doing business with you until you comply. It was an Assembly law put into practice to ensure that certain breakthroughs wouldn't be lost when their developer maintained secrecy to the point they took it to the grave with them, but it's mostly used like this."

"How about we worry about this later? I think right now we have a bigger fish to fry," I pointed out, and the class rep hurriedly nodded along.

"That's right. Sorry, I got caught up in the topic."

"No biggie. Let's just get going."

I filed the possibility of such a hearing in the overstuffed cabinet at the back of my mind and proceeded to ferry everyone over to the secret base without a hitch. By the time I was finished with the last round-trip, the main hall of the base was getting a little rowdy, and we found the whole population of the secret base, from Fauns to Knights, all clustered around the operations meeting segment of the place, the one with the big dry-erase board.

We walked over, and the quartet of Brang, Fred, Rinne, and Arnwald welcomed us in turn. Those four were in charge of their respective groups, and while we never made it official, they were acting like department heads when I wasn't around. I didn't mind their self-organizing one bit, as it took dealing with the running of the secret base more or less off my hands, and considering how much I've already had on my plate, I welcomed their initiative.

"Is everyone present?" I asked out of courtesy, even though I could tell that a few faces were still missing.

"More or less," Fred answered as he followed my example and looked over the small crowd. "Verne said he would finish his job soon, but he probably lost track of time again. No, wait. There he comes."

"Shall we scour the complex for stragglers, Leonard-dono?" Rinne inquired, and I shook my head.

"No need, let's just get started."

Everyone nodded along, and after seating the gang in the first row purposefully left empty for them, I walked up to the dry erase board and forcefully cleared my throat to get the crowd's attention.

"Welcome, everyone, to our first general meeting. Before we discuss the recent events, let's hear the operational report of the base first."

I gestured for Fred to come up, and after an unusually awkward 'Kihihi…', he took stood by me and fiddled with a bunch of papers in his hands.

"I suppose we should start with a report on our recent achievements," he began and shuffled his notes. "First off, just last week we officially inaugurated our second mana-reactor. Operating at ninety-six percent efficiency, it now supplies the workshop with both electricity and water, making us functionally self-sufficient." There was another pause here while he looked for one of his notes, but then his face lit up. "Kihihi! Speaking of the workshop, the bio labs are now functioning at full capacity, and with the testing chambers scheduled to be operational by the end of the week, we can start on the prototyping and optimization of our new General Purpose Mana Enhancement Undersuits! We're also happy to announce that our first, homemade industrial oven design is already installed in the main kitchens, as per head chef Pip's request. I speak for the entire research department when I say that we're eagerly looking forward to tomorrow's lasagna."

There was a long round of applause, causing the wolfish Faun in the back to awkwardly scratch the back of his neck. In the meantime, Fred signaled that he didn't have much else to say for now, so the duo of Rinne and Arnwald took his place.

"On our end, I must say our accommodations are more than satisfactory, and both us and our squires resumed our training regimen in preparation of our liege's future plans," the Knight with the epic sideburns stated, but then he turned to Mountain Girl. "However, as I have already discussed with the commander of our esteemed comrades, the central training grounds have proven to be insufficient for our needs."

"Rinne concurs with Arnward-san's assessment. We are currently maintaining a strict schedule for the dojo's usage, but if the number of Leonard-dono's subordinates keep expanding, we believe such arrangements would no longer be practical."

"Because of this, we have put forth a request for a new expansion, and our liege approved the excavation and construction of a new training area with enough space for both our interception drills and the Kage warriors' vertical mobility exercises. The construction will begin next month, and is scheduled to finish by the end of January."

That earned another round of applause, mostly from the Knights and the Fauns. I glanced at Brang to see if he had anything to add, and when he shook his head, I took center stage again.

"Thank you for your hard work. Now, let's discuss the recent events and how we're going to proceed forwards. Dormouse?"

My girlfriend stood up, and my other girlfriend quietly encouraged her from the back as she headed… to Galatea, and handed over a USB drive to her. While the androidess fiddled with that behind her neck, Judy finally walked over and stood right next to me. As in, close enough where our shoulders touched. Maybe she was a little nervous in front of the crowd?

Either way, she remained glued to me as she produced one of those pen-sized laser pointers from her pocket and gestured towards Galatea. Soon, the lights dimmed in the entire main hall, and from a small trap door on the ceiling, a projector descended. I… didn't remember ever seeing that on any of the requisition forms. Or anyone installing it, now that I thought about it. Could it be…? Was the secret base really becoming my kitchen, version 2.0, where convenient things just appeared like they were always present?

…

Nah, I probably just missed it. Not everything had to be some kind of convenient simulation shortcut. I hoped.

Anyhow, once the projector turned on, using the board behind us as a canvas, my dear assistant cleared her throat and began her presentation.

"Good afternoon, everyone. Let me briefly explain the current situation." She gestured with her finger, and the first slide, packed with letters, appeared behind us. "Our current goals are as follows: the unification of the Draconian clans, the dissolution of The Knightly Brotherhood of the Most Heroic Bloodlines, and creating a new law-enforcement organization out of the latter to serve as an internal peacekeeping and police force for the former."

Judy made another gesture, and a new slide came into view, this one with a large diagram with my face in the middle of a series of interconnected bubbles with various people's and organizations' names written in them.

"To achieve this goal, the Chief will serve as the linchpin to tie everyone together. Our main obstacles to the plan include the members of the Brotherhood currently unaccounted for, as well as the recently arrived Eastern Draconians led by the Feilong clan."

Another slide followed, this time showing three photos.

"The key members of the Feilong clan are Naoren Feilong, Zihao Feilong, and Xinji Feilong, in order. For now, we must maintain cordial relations with them, so we request that you refrain from antagonizing either of them. As for the progression of the negotiations and future plans, you'll be notified on a need-to-know basis. As of now, there are two developments which indirectly concern you all."

The projection behind us changed to the picture of a high-class casino, and I took the opportunity to insert myself into the presentation.

"This is going to be the venue of the grand auction that'll be held two weeks from now. In case we want to put something up for sale, the items have to be registered before the end of this Friday, and the list will be made public on Sunday." Turning to the gaggle of mad scientists, I emphasized, "So long as I vouch for them, my father-in-law assured me that anyone can participate both as sellers and bidders. In other words, if you wish to bolster your operating funds, this is a great opportunity to do just that."

My words caused quite a stir, predictably enough, and Fred, in particular, waved to me to get my attention.

"Yes?"

"Kihihi! I'm just curious. Are you also going to participate, boss?"

"Should I?"

My thoughtless words made the buzzing scientist fall silent for a while, and a long beat later they all rose in unison to vehemently declare some variety of 'Yes!'

"Come on, boss! Don't kid around," Fred continued once the clamor died down a little. "If you put up some of your handiwork for sale, you're going to make a killing!"

"That's right!" the man with the high-tech plague doctor mask exclaimed. "It doesn't even have to be revolutionary! Those fools from the Assembly would pay a premium just because your name's attached to it!"

The rest of the crowd loudly agreed, so I raised my palms to calm the flood of encouragements and relented with, "Fine, fine. I'll think of something, but you guys should also do the same."

"Kihihi! That goes without saying!" my chief mad scientist declared, and we left it at that.

"Good. Now then, once the ledger is finalized on Sunday, I'll get you a copy, and you can all look it over. If there's anything that catches your eyes, inform me, make your case, and if your argument is convincing, we'll add it to the list of items we'll be bidding on during the event. Any questions?" Everyone remained silent, so I turned back to Judy. "Please proceed."

The next slide was, unexpectedly, a series of connected brackets, most likely serving as an illustration, and after sneaking a glance at me, Judy took a deep breath and addressed the elephant in the room.

"The second recent development is the announcement of a martial arts tournament, sponsored by clan Feilong's grand elder Xinji. According to the preliminary discussion held at the banquet last night, it's going to be a double-elimination tournament. Each Draconic clan is allowed to nominate up to two participants, with Lord Endymonion's School given two more spots as special guests. The winner will receive a set of valuable elixirs, as well as a one million Jens provided by Abram Dracis."

"Elixirs?"/"A million?" Rinne and Penny exclaimed in shock, but quickly quieted down when they found themselves in the center of attention.

"Is that Zihao guy going to participate?" came the next response from Josh, and I shrugged.

"I don't know. Probably, but it doesn't really matter."

"It doesn't?" Snowy whispered on the side, and I gave her a huge nod.

"Nope. You see, if I can help it, there won't be any tournament to begin with, so the whole question is moot."

"Why not?" Josh spoke up again, and his sudden question threw me on a loop.

Sure, I knew why I absolutely wanted to avoid a tournament arc, because it was a tired old cliché and all, but how was I going to explain it to them without talking about tropes and how long, predictable, and boring these things tended to be? In the end, I decided to just ignore the dilemma altogether and emphatically stated, "Because it's dumb."

"That's not an answer."

"Just take it and move on, okay? Nobody wants to do this thing anyway."

"And what if I do?" Josh pressed on and provocatively crossed his arms.

"You what?"

"I asked what if I actually want to participate in this tournament. What then?"

It took me a few long seconds to understand that my friend was entirely serious, and with a sinking feeling, I slowly realized that my anti-tournament-arc countermeasures might have hit an enormous roadblock right at the starting line…

The atmosphere in the hall was tense. Not quite as tense as a piano wire, but closer to a suspension bridge cable. The kind that wasn't likely to snap, but when it did, all hell would break loose. We locked eyes with Josh for several seconds, until I inhaled deeply, straightened my back... and dropped my shoulders with a groan

"Oh, come on, man! Don't do this to me!" My earnest plea fell on deaf ears, so I did my best to regain my momentum by asking, "Can you even tell me why you want to have a tournament?"

"Why don't you?" my friend shot back with a single brow raised high.

"Because it's a tournament!"

"That's still not an answer," Josh stubbornly stood his ground, and we would've probably continued to stare daggers at each other if not for my Snowy meekly raising her hand.

"I... don't really understand why it’s a bad thing either."

"Same here," Angie echoed her sentiment with a huff.

"Can you explain?" Ammy piled on, one hand already at her temple and tweaking her glasses.

With the front row arrayed against me like that, I had to admit I was stumped for a moment.

"It’s because... How should I put this...?"

"Do you even have an answer to that?" my dear, if currently just a touch trying, assistant whispered to me, and I sent her a disapproving frown in return.

"Hush, Dormouse. Let me think," I whispered back, and after successfully collecting my thoughts, more or less, I explained, "Listen, tournaments are just bad news, okay? They are long, drawn-out affairs that are entirely predictable and bring things to a halt."

"Bring what to a halt again?" Angie pressed me, drawing a shrug out of me.

"Everything."

This time nobody responded, but the funny looks they were giving me felt a little prickly. It was at this point that Judy grabbed my hand and tugged on it to get my attention.

"Give it up, Chief. If you keep going like this, everyone will to realize your aversion to tournaments is irrational."

"No, it’s not," I denied flatly, but my girlfriend squeezed my hand harder.

"Then can you logically explain everyone why we should avoid this one?"

I exhaled through my nose and leaned down to whisper, "I can’t, because it’s a meta thing."

"Then can you explain it to me?" When I didn’t respond, she stressed, "I’m in the know, so you should be able to tell me."

"It’s just a cliché, okay?" I responded just a touch indignantly. "It’s a dead horse of a lazy plot-device that temporarily stops the main plot. It's what writers do when they want to showcase a bunch of characters and their abilities without any of the legwork of creating a scenario where it would happen organically, and most of the time it ends up as just cheap filler that nobody really cares about."

"How is that applicable to our situation?"

"What do you mean? It is a tournament arc. It's just going to be an absolutely mind-numbing series of battles mostly featuring newly introduced Draconians, and it's guaranteed to drag on forever. I mean, who in their right mind would want to see a bunch of one-note people they don't even really know just fight, fight, and fight for who knows how long, without any stakes?"

"Then don’t watch them."

I was about to press on, but then her response registered with me and my response turned into a baffled, "Excuse me?"

"I said, 'then don't watch them'. While it's certainly a trope, we aren't a passive audience. Nobody is forcing us to view the fights. What's stopping us from just ignoring them altogether?"

"That’s... erm... I mean..."

While I was definitely on the cusp of coming up with an elegant, all-encompassing, and completely foolproof response to her words, Josh ran out of patience and interrupted our hushed discussion.

"You know, back when Robatto over there kept ambushing us with the Sprockets, you told us not to worry about it and just use them as an opportunity to train and prepare for more serious threats. You said it was good for us, because it was real combat, but without any serious danger. How is this tournament any different?"

"That’s right" Penny joined the fray by standing up and pointing at Josh. "This guy might be annoying, clueless, and a bit of a dimwit, but he hit the nail right on the head this time!"

"Stop undermining my point with your approval." Josh glared at her, and then faced me again. "We’ve been training for like two and a half months by now. Isn’t a sanctioned tournament like that the best opportunity to see how much we've improved? It's not only a great learning experience, but there are even rewards!"

"Yeah! One million Jens!" Angie exclaimed. "That might not be a big deal for you, but it's huge for us lowly commoners!"

I ignored the friendly neighborhood Celestial's complaints and mulled Josh's point over in my head. I really wanted to deny his words, but after weighing the pros and cons, I ultimately couldn’t. Judy also seemed to be on the other side of the fence about the topic… and so did practically everyone else, now that I thought about it. Was I the weird one? Was I really the only one who saw this as an unsavory development?

"Okay, I admit, you’re not wrong, at least on a technical level, b—"

"Then let’s do this!" Josh exclaimed with a satisfied hum, and my hand rose to massage my temple on its own.

"Why the heck are you so fired up anyway? Are you really that desperate for the reward money?" I griped, and my friend froze up like I just poured cold water on him and hastily averted his eyes.

"No. I mean, yeah, that kind of money would be life-changing, but my life changed quite enough lately, and… I have other reasons."

I waited for him to elaborate, but apparently he didn’t plan to, as he kept avoiding my gaze. My eyes skimmed over the rest of the crowd next, and to my mild dismay, I found that more or less everyone shared Josh’s enthusiasm for the competition. On one hand, I knew that I should’ve been happy that our resident protagonist finally asserted himself, but I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t a little peeved by the moment he chose to do so.

Was it the Narrative again? Was it making everyone excited at the prospect of a tournament just to spite me? Or maybe it went even deeper than that? Maybe the tournament was more pivotal to the so-called Plot than I originally imagined? But then again, considering half of our group consisted of knights, ninjas, and a magically engineered race of warriors, maybe it was just them itching for a fight. Or maybe everyone was just out to get me, and the only way to prove I wasn't paranoid was by burning the whole world down?

…

Nah, it was probably either the Narrative or that Watsonian explanation. One or the other.

"Just give up, Chief," Judy advised me, and I couldn’t help but sigh.

"Fine. You win," I admitted just a touch morosely. "You can have your tournament."

"Yes!" Josh cried out, but fell silent again when I held out a palm at him.

"However, let’s be clear on a few things. I won’t participate. I won’t bail you out if you get over your head. I won’t watch the matches, I won’t listen to them, I don’t even want to hear anything about them unless absolutely necessary. Do you copy?"

"Um... Yeah, I got it," Josh replied a tad uncertainly, but then all of a sudden Judy grabbed the reins.

"In that case, I believe it’s time to discuss who will to participate."

"Do we have to?" I objected, but the annoyed glance Judy was giving me made me roll my eyes and add, "Fine, do whatever you want. I’ll be over here, wondering about where everything went wrong."

I was summarily ignored by my dear assistant. She cleared her throat and gestured for Galatea, and the projected image on the whiteboard changed into a different set of brackets divided into two parts.

"I'm now going to explain how the double elimination tournament is going to be structured." She used her laser pointed to highlight the upper brackets and continued, "Since every Draconian family, plus the local School, will have two slots, the number of contestants will be even. The first round of matches will be decided by drawing lots. The winners move onto the next bracket, while the losers enter the second branch. For the sake of simplicity, let's call these the upper and lower branches. During each round, winners in the upper branch progress to the next round, while losers move to the lower branch. Winners in the lower branch progress to the next round, while losers get eliminated. Are we clear so far?"

The majority of the audience nodded, which was apparently satisfactory enough.

"Since the Dracis family can nominate two contestants, one of them is obviously going to be Elly. As for the other, I propose we nominate Penelope."

"Excuse me?" I blurted out in surprise, and Judy emphatically nodded.

"Since our ultimate goal during the conference is to convince the Draconian families that it’s possible to work together with the Brotherhood of Most Heroic Bloodlines, having Penelope participate would serve as great advertisement for the cause. I believe you also mentioned that her Uniformer will be complete in a few days."

It took me a long moment to realize she was talking to me.

"Yeah, but it will be prototype version 0.9 at best. I still have a hard time replicating the physical enhancement arrays without the whole enchantment collapsing in on itself."

"Is it going to be usable?"

"Sure, but even if I jury-rig it, it’ll be at fifty percent of her original gear's effectiveness at most."

Judy turned a questioning gaze at my newer sister, and she declared, "I can work with that!"

"Good. I already floated the idea to Emese yesterday, and she said she’ll convince Abram. I believe that covers the Dracis family’s participants. Now, let me explain the third party contestants."

She aimed her pointer at the bottom brackets and told everyone, "For a double-elimination tournament to work seamlessly, the number of participant should ideally be a number to the power of two. That way, each round has an even number of contestants, and the brackets are ordered cleanly like this. However, since that’s not likely this time, grand elder Xinji proposed the following: third party participants can enter the tournament through a referral process, but they do so by filling out the ranks in the lower branch. In practice, it means that for them, this would be functionally a single elimination tournament. The question is this: who’s going to participate this way?"

"I guess that’s my ticket," Josh said and raised a hand. "Who else is coming?"

"I will," Ammy raised her hand, throwing me on a loop.

"Come again?"

"Grandfather said the School isn’t going to participate, so I have to enter as a third party competitor."

"That wasn’t why I was asking," I pointed out, but my comment was lost in the cackling of a certain mad scientist.

"Kihihi! You hear that, Galatea! One million Jens! Imagine all the new equipment we could buy! Imagine all the rare materials we could purchase!" Seeing that his android assistant/daughter/whatever remained completely unmotivated, Fred exhaled a sharp sigh and wearily added, "Imagine all the exotic fish you could get then."

Galatea’s eyes lit up at once.

"Imagination in progress. Forty-seven percent, seventy-nine percent, one hundred—" She paused and clenched her fists. "Master, I request authorization to participate in the tournament."

Fred responded with a simple ‘granted’, though with much less enthusiasm than before.

"Kin we an' a' participate?" came the next question from the big oaf in the back, and I categorically denied him.

"No way. I’ll have enough trouble getting Penny’s Uniformer working, I won’t have time to finish yours too."

Mr. Minotaur let out a displeased ‘Bah!’, and my sister gently patted his shoulder.

"Don’t worry, Duncan. There’s always a next time."

"No, there won’t be if I can help it," I griped under my breath, and Judy gently nudged me with her elbow.

"Hush, Chief. Stop being a party pooper."

"Watch your language, young lady. Also, I maintain my constitutional right to be miffed by this entire situation."

My dear assistant rolled her eyes, and completely disregarded me in favor of addressing the crowd again.

"Does anyone else want to participate? Rinne?"

Mountain Girl in the back twitched in surprise when she was directly addressed, but quickly shook her head.

"No. If Leonard-dono does not wish to take part in the contest, Rinne must follow his example and also decline."

"You really don’t have to be so considerate of the Chief."

"That’s right!" Angie cut in with a knowing smirk. "He might play tough, but Leo is a big softy. If you tell him you want to join, he’ll groan and moan about it, but he won’t stop you. I guarantee it."

"Hey!"

My protest was completely ignored, as everyone was focusing on Rinne’s reaction. She glanced left and right like a startled cat, and after her eyes settled on me, she straightened her back and declared, "Thank you for your encouragement, but Rinne still doesn’t wish to compete."

"Well, I don’t mind," Josh noted with a shrug. "One less adversary to worry about."

"Aw. I really wanted to see her fight for real," Penny complained in the company of an exaggerated sigh, but she bounced back and turned to the front row. "Hey, Snowy? What about you?"

My other sister jolted in surprise, and so did I. I mean, since when did Penny start calling her Snowy? Granted, they were in the same class, and had plenty of opportunities to socialize, but the informality still struck me as an odd development, though not necessaries an unwelcome one. Sisters getting along with each other was a good thing, after all.

In any case, my Abyssal sister waved her hands around in a panic and exclaimed, "No-No-No! I don’t like fighting!"

Ah, thank goodness. A rare island of rationality in this sea of annoyance. After making a mental note to give her a whole apple pie later, I cleared my throat and backed her up.

"You’ve heard her. That’s a about as clear as a no can get."

"Aw. I really wanted to see her fight for real too," my other sister echoed her previous complaints word for word, but as far as the others were concerned, they seemed more relieved than anything else.

"Good. I mean, if Lili participated, things would’ve been a little unfair."

"Right. It’s best to at least keep up the appearances of a fair competition," Angie followed up Josh’s comment with a big nod, and Ammy also huffed in agreement.

"I’m also not sure how well the Feilongs would’ve taken if we tried to enter an Abyssal Lord into the competition," the princess added, and when everyone gave her odd looks, she hastily defended herself. "I-I mean, she is! Maybe not in name, but definitely in that league!"

"So she couldn’t have entered the tournament even if she wanted to?" Penny muttered in disappointment, and even my other sister started awkwardly fidgeting in her seat.

"Snowy?" I spoke up a touch forcefully, suppressing the commotion without really meaning to in the process. "For the record, I want you to know that so long as I’m around, no one could stop you from participating." I noticed that Judy was giving me a ‘I don’t get it. Why are you encouraging her now?’ kind of look, to which I responded with a ‘I’m doing a big brotherly thing here’ kind of eyebrow before concluding my declaration with, "Conversely, if you don’t want to do something, just remember that there’s nobody on, under, or above this island that could try to force you to, and get away with it."

"I... Thank you, big brother."

Snowy flashed me an immensely satisfying smile, and even though I was a little worried my other sister would get jealous, she was giving me a thumb up instead. So did the princess, now that I glanced at her. Those two were on the same wavelength at the weirdest of times.

"Anyone else?" Judy asked, probably out of courtesy and, to my dread and trepidation, Karukk raised his hand. He probably noticed my mood, as he tried to back down, but by this point the others also followed my line of sight to him, and he had no choice but to come forth.

"Asking for sure. We can’t fight. Can we?"

"I sincerely doubt it," I told him flatly, but before I could move the conversation along to get this whole topic over with, Penny, let out a loud ‘Ah!’ and snapped her fingers.

"Brother! I have a great idea!" I had sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach, but it wasn’t like I could just ignore her at this stage, so I took a deep breath and, against my better judgment, I gestured for her to speak up. "Why don’t we have a tournament too?"

"... What?" I let slip, but the excited girl continued on without paying me much attention.

"That way we could have us, the Fauns, and Rinne, and even Snowy compete! We can use the training arena here!"

"Now wait just a—"

"Question!" Josh cut me short while raising his hand high into the air. "Can someone competing in the Draconian tournament also do it in our internal tournament as well?"

"I don’t know..." Penny responded with a frown, then glanced at me. "Brother? What do you think?"

"You..." After forcefully swallowing down my initial response, I took several measured breaths, and ultimately settled on. "You can do whatever you want. You can organize it however you want. In fact, you can do anything you want."

"Really?"

My sister’s eyes lit up in excitement, so I raised a palm and emphatically stated, "However, there are a few rules."

"I’m listening!"

I wanted to make the first rule ‘Stop being excited!’, but thought better of it, and instead settled on, "First, I’m not getting involved. Second, don’t even try to get me involved. Third, do it when I’m not around, so I don’t even have to see it."

"O... kay?" Penny agreed a touch hesitantly, so I nodded and gestured for Judy to take the limelight again, and she did so after giving me another sideways glance.

"Let’s return to the topic of the Draconian tournament then. In conclusion, Elly and Penelope will be entering in the upper branch, while Joshua, Amelia, and Galatea will enter as sponsored third-party contestants in the lower branch."

"I guess that Zihao guy is going in the upper part, huh?" Josh mused with a determined expression, but then it crumbled when his childhood friend poked me in the side with a finger.

"Why do you keep asking about him?"

Josh appeared stumped for a moment, but then he gruffly crossed his arms and declared, "No reason. I just wanted to make sure I understood the rules."

He didn't say anything else, stoically bearing Angie's pokes, and when no one else spoke up either, Judy closed the meeting.

"The topic of the internal competition will be discussed next time, once Penelope tallied up the participants and decided on the time and venue."

"I'm on it!" our appointed tournament-organizer exclaimed with boundless enthusiasm.

"As for the main event, we'll discuss our preparations on an individual basis. Does anyone have any comments or recommendations?"

Since the hall remained silent, the gathering was officially brought to a close, the lights came back on, the projector disappeared into whatever trap-door it was hidden behind on the ceiling, and I pulled Judy off to the side. Nobody followed us, since the core of our group was too busy with discussing their plans for the tournaments, so I drew her assistant out of sight, and once I was sure nobody could hear us, I let out the mother of all groans.

"You see, Dormouse? That’s what I was talking about. Tournaments are like cockroaches. You let one get away, and before you know it, they are everywhere!"

"You complain, Chief, but we both knew this one was inevitable," she told me flatly, but then after some pondering she added, "Or rather, the first one was inevitable. The internal one was up to you, and you agreed."

"I didn’t agree," I fumed. "I was backed into a corner, my big brotherly character exploited, and left without any choice in the matter. That’s not agreement."

My dear assistant looked entirely unconvinced.

"So what are you going to do? Are you going to sabotage the tournament arc anyway?"

"I can't," I admitted in defeat. "I mean, technically, I could. I came here with this whole plan at the ready. It had all kinds of sneaking around and clandestine sabotage operations and just a hint of Bel of the Abyss, but at this point it would do more harm than good."

"I agree. The presence of the tournament arc confirms that the information you gathered during your out-of-body experience is reliable. If you sabotaged the tournament, it could tip the people running the Simulacrum off about a leak, and we can't risk that over something this silly."

"What? No, that's not what I'm talking about," I denied on the spot. "I mean, sure, it's a valid concern in principle, but those star-people and their plans can go to hell for all I care. The reason I can't do anything about the tournament arc is because of Josh."

Judy remained silent for a while, and I could practically see her connect the dots in real time before she let out a thoughtful hum.

"You're right. His behavior was very peculiar. Do you think he's being influenced by the Narrative?"

"I'll be damned if I know, but in any case, this was the first time since forever that he stood up to me and took initiative on his own. The fact that he did it over a bloody tournament of all things is mildly infuriating, but it's still a step in the right direction for him to reassert himself as a protagonist."

"That explains the main event. What about our internal tournament then?"

"I told you already; I was backed into a corner there. I couldn't let Penny down. Plus the Fauns. And Rinne looked pretty interested too, even though she tried to hide it. In fact, why the heck is everyone so hyped about tournaments anyway?"

Judy let out a soft chuckle, a rare even in and of itself, and told me, "Admit it, Chief. Even you're at least a little interested, and just went ballistic on principle because you think it's a cliché."

"I don't think it's a cliché, it is. It's also boring, gratuitous, and completely predictable." I stressed, but she remained visibly unconvinced, so I muttered an exasperated 'Fine,' under my breath and held out my hand. "Can I borrow your notebook for a second?"

Even though she always used her phone, Judy still had her old-timey spiral pocket notebook on her, just in case, and she handed it over to me without any hesitation.

"What do you need it for?"

"To prove my point," I answered as I flipped to the last page and used the attached pen to jot down a couple of lines. After I finished, I closed the notebook and handed it back to Judy with the words, "Don't look up what I wrote until the end of the tournament."

"Is that a challenge?" she inquired with an unusually amused voice. "I'll take it."

"Just don't be surprised when it proves once and for all that tournament arcs are the worst, most useless thing ever invented since the air-conditioned motorcycle."

"Yes Chief, I'm already aware of you dislike of the trope. There's no need to repeat yourself," Judy complained while she put the notebook away, but then she looked me in the eye and said, "Just bear with it for now, and then we'll engineer a different arc after it."

"Engineer?" I repeated after her. "Do you have something planned?"

"Since it's still in the middle of winter, going to the beach is out of the picture, but we looked into things with Elly, and we think a hot springs episode should be doable."

"Oh, come on. That's such a fanservice-magnet cliché," I grumbled, but then I mulled it over a bit. "That said, on second thought, spending a few days away from the usual suspects and relaxing in a hot bath under the stars might not be so bad."

"… You just imagined the three of us together in a mixed bath, didn't you?"

"No, and even if I did, you can't prove it," I told her flatly, and my dearest assistant slowly shook her head with just a hint of a smile and grabbed hold of my arm.

"Come on, let's go back before the others think something's wrong."

While I would've liked to point out that there's plenty of wrong with the current developments already, I didn't want to appear too obnoxious about this, and obediently followed my girlfriend's lead. And for the record, no, I definitely didn't wonder whether Timaeus's hot springs even have mixed gender bathing options. Not at all.

School, as always, remained a constant stake anchoring us into our everyday lives, whether there were any annoying tournament-arc shenanigans or not. Speaking of which, since I just reminded myself of the source of my current headaches, I let out an obligatory sigh and slouched even further down in my seat.

The class just ended, and I honestly couldn’t tell what subject we had. Not because I was so out of it, but due to the whole class being worked up into a pre-school-festival fervor, at least as much as that was possible for placeholders. Because of this, every class had been just Mrs. Applebottom coming in, discussing individual roles and plans for the concert, everyone would get moderately excited, then the class would end, she’d leave, only to return after the break and continue where we left off.

"Why the long face?"

I glanced over at the princess sitting in front of me and shrugged.

"Lots of things on my mind. I’m also getting a little burned out by the school festival talks."

"Now that you mention it, is it just me, or was the discussion going in circles?"

"Not just you," Judy commented the moment she arrived at our desks. "The class discussed the concert plans three times, the advertisement campaign four times, and the Christmas ball six times."

"Wow... I kind of zoned out, but I didn’t think it was that bad," Elly whispered, and then gestured for me to lean closer and asked, "So, are things always that repetitive when placeholder people are involved?"

"More or less," I whispered back.

"Was... I also that bad?"

"You’d never been a placeholder," Judy pointed out as she joined our conspiratorial huddle.

"But I’d been chatting with the girls in the past, and I never noticed going in circles, but I must have, or I would’ve noticed that we were going in circles."

"That’s circular reasoning, but in any case, I don’t remember you ever doing that."

"If anyone should be worried about that, it’s me," Judy followed me up, and after some thinking, I shook my head.

"Actually, I don’t remember you ever doing that either. You were pretty weird in the beginning though."

"So I’m weird," she repeated after me a touch peevishly.

"Past tense, past tense. You were," I stressed.

"So what am I now?"

"Eccentric?" I blurted out the first thing that came to mind, and my dear assistant imperceptibly narrowed her eyes.

"That means the same thing," Judy responded flatly.

"No, it’s not. Being eccentric is endearing. Being weird is just weird."

Elly let out a giggle at our expense, but then she cocked her head to the side and asked, "What about me?"

"You’re a dragon-blooded princess of a rich record magnate family living in a mansion with a steward and a chambermaid. You’re eccentric by default."

"Which means I’m endearing," the princess concluded with a smug smirk, and I couldn’t help but chuckle.

"You sure are."

"Sometimes, I’m almost jealous of your positivity," Judy noted on the side, and I had to agree with her. Then she glanced at her phone and said, "Thirteen minutes until next class. Restroom?"

"Restroom," Elly proclaimed and stood up at once, and while at first I thought it was some kind of codeword, the two of them excused themselves and left the classroom in a hurry.

Now, I knew there was a joke here. Or was it just a trope? Meme? In any case, there was this old thing about girls going to the restroom in pairs or groups being mystifying to boys, and this situation reminded me of it. I don’t think I’d ever heard a proper answer to it either. Though again, if I really wanted to, I could always just find it out with my Far Sight, but I really didn’t want to violate my girlfriends’ privacy over something silly like that. Being left alone on the toilet was one of the less talked about inalienable human rights, but it was one all the same.

To take my mind off the mystery of the girl’s toilet time, I turned around and tried to strike up a conversation with Josh, but the guy was nowhere to be seen. Instead, I was met by a group of four staring down at me.

"Leonard S. Dunning!" the guy in the front exclaimed with a dramatic flair only hampered by his flat delivery.

"Oh, come on," I grumbled as I faced the four amigos. "I’m really not in the mood for this right now."

Mr. Bowl Cut completely disregarded my objection and crossed his arms.

"We are here to stage an intervention before you walk down the path of the loathsome Joshua Bernstein!"

We locked eyes for a while, but they refused to get the message, so I exhaled hard and prepared myself for yet another non-sequitur infodump courtesy of the four creepy weirdos. These guys had been doggedly following Sahi as of late, roleplaying as her lackeys (or at the very least I sincerely hoped it was just roleplay), and so I adopted a live-and-let-live approach in regards to them, precisely to avoid situations like this.

"Playing around with the hearts of innocent girls when you’re already in an enviable relationship with one of the goddesses of Blue Cherry High is unforgivable!" Mr. Spiky burst out with indignation, and his comrades nodded in unison.

Could this be about Judy? While we didn’t exactly announce our polyfidelitous triang relationship to the whole wide world, we weren’t exactly subtle about it either, so if someone were to notice, it had to be these relationship-obsessed bozos. However, before I could directly ask, Mr. Bedhair stepped forth.

"Leonard S. Dunning!" he echoed my name, still using my nonexistent middle initial. "What is your relationship with the school’s new goddess, Penelope Pendragon?"

"Oh, you meant Penny?" I blurted out, but after a moment of thinking I had to admit, "Yeah, now that I think about it, it’s obvious she’d show up on your radar sooner than Judy."

"Answer the question!" Mr. Bowl Cut warned me with an extended finger, and no matter how I looked at it, he could’ve learned a thing or two from his new idol when it came to accusative pointing.

"Sister," I stated a touch dourly, and the group shared a confused glance.

"You have different surnames," Mr. Bedhair pointed out, and I rewarded him with a shrug.

"We have different fathers."

My technical truth dealt a big blow to the guy, but Mr. Spiky took his place at once.

"Then how come you never come to school together?"

"She’s not living with us at the moment."

"Then... Then..." Mr. Crew Cut opened and closed his mouth like a fish out of water, but then he suddenly raised a hand and declared, "Tactical meeting."

With practiced motions, the four huddled together by bending down and linking their arms. It’s the kind of thing hand-egg players would do on the hand-egg field when discussing how to best slam into the opposing team next round. Did that have a name? I figured I’d look it up later, but it wasn’t exactly pivotal information, so I pretty much expected I’d forget about it.

Anyhow, while the four amigos adopted the pose to keep things confidential, they neglected to tone down their voices, so I could hear everything they said.

"Do you think she’s really her sister?"

"Goddess Penelope gets along really well with goddess Neige. If they were sisters, it would explain much."

"Indeed. We must continue our observations to make sure."

"I agree. Does it mean Leonard S. Dunning is off the hook?"

"He’s the luckiest bastard on Earth, but that’s not a sin."

"A concur. Being related to two of the goddesses is truly lucky, but so long as he doesn’t monopolize them, it’s too early to brand him just yet."

"Are we all in agreement?"

The four of them nodded at the same time and broke their circle to face me again.

"You are hereby granted probation. Make sure you don’t become another enemy of every red-blooded male in this school," Mr. Bedhair declared, and Mr. Bowl Cut nodded along.

"We don’t need another Bernstein."

"Yeah, sure, whatever." I waved them off, and after another glare, the creepy cohort left through the door at the back, more or less in lockstep.

With them gone, the classroom suddenly felt empty. Probably because it was, as I was sitting in it by my lonesome. Well, okay, technically there was a placeholder girl cleaning the blackboard, but besides her, totally empty. This state of affairs lasted for a grand total of fifteen-ish seconds, as after poking her head past the doorframe to look around, Elly came back and made her way over to me.

"Is everything all right?"

I blinked at her question and responded with, "Sure. Why?"

"I saw there was a small crowd at your desk."

"Oh, that? Nah, those were just the weirdo squad. You know; the guys who were selling panty shots and stuff a while back?"

"What did they want with you?"

"Nothing serious. They just annoy me sometimes with awkward exposition. I’m used to it, and they left quickly this time around."

Elly glanced back and forth between me and the rear entrance, and asked, with one hundred percent sincerity, "If they’re bothering you, do you want me to rough them up?"

The offer caught me off-guard, and after the first surprise, drew a chuckle out of me.

"Nah, that would just cause more trouble than it’s worth."

"Never say that! Standing up for your family is never too much trouble! It’s the Dracis way!"

To punctuate her words, Elly took up a fighting pose and jabbed at the air a couple of times. I’m sure she wanted to seem intimidating, but no matter how I looked at it, her shadowboxing like that was closer to cute. Kind of like a puppy trying to intimidate a bigger dog, except in her case, I knew for a fact that she could break someone in half if she was serious. Didn’t make her one iota less adorable though.

"Easy there, princess. No need to get so worked up."

"I’m not worked up," she denied it with just a hint of a pout. "If anything, you’re not worked up enough!"

"About beating up annoying side characters?" She didn't respond, so I gave it some more thought. "The tournament?" I ventured another guess, and she firmly put her hands on my desk.

"Of course I’m talking about that! It’s been ages since so many clans participated in one, and this is going to be the biggest in recent history! Why aren’t you excited?"

I sent a sideways glance her way, then looked around, and since the classroom was still mostly empty, I let a shallow sight slip and told her, "It’s a meta thing."

"Is it? How do you know?"

"Mostly because it’s a cliché, but..." I paused for a moment and decided to quickly summarize my out-of-body experience to her. Elly listened to me attentively, and I concluded with, "In other words, this not only has the Narrative’s grubby fingerprints all over it, but it also means it was totally planned out by some shadowy star-people or what have you."

"Was it?"

"Well... yeah? They talked about it even before the Chinese Draconians came to the island."

"That doesn’t mean they planned it, only that they knew about it ahead of time," she pointed out, stopping me in my tracks for a moment.

I tried to recall the discussion I've witnessed, and while I was a little fuzzy on the details by this point, so I shrugged.

"Okay, I’ll give you a ‘maybe’, but that still doesn’t change the crux of it. It’s still a cliché and a forced development."

My draconic girlfriend eyed me for a while, and when I didn’t respond, she stifled a groan and put her forehead in her palm.

"I’ve noticed this before, but you’re way too focused on this ‘meta’ thing and tend to miss the forest for the trees."

"Ouch, princess. You hurt my pwoor wittle fwe—"

"No! Don’t make a joke out of this. I’m serious."

"Erm... Sorry?"

My girlfriend nodded, only to then bury her face in her palm again.

"This is like the ninja clan situation all over again! You're too focused on viewing things through the lens of these tropes and plot devices, and once you identify one, you just automatically try to avoid or sabotage it before you even consider it from a practical standpoint. I mean, you already have that thought experiment thing you do with Judy. You know? That Sherlock Holmes one."

"... You mean the Doylist and Watsonian interpretations?"

She snapped her fingers and exclaimed, "Yes, that's it! Why don't you apply that to this situation?"

I tried to refute her on reflex, but held back and closed my eyes to organize my thoughts instead. She might be onto something. Because of what I’d overheard in that not exactly dark not quite a room place, I only viewed the upcoming tournament arc as a nuisance forced on us by the Simulacrum and its shadowy machinators, and I completely forgot to interrogate the trope in our context.

So, from a Watsonian perspective, how did the tournament fit into the web of people and motivations?

This question required some pondering, but the break was almost over, so I looked Elly in the eyes and told her, "You gave me some food for thought. Thanks, princess."

"Don't even mention it!"

She flashed me a silly grin, and seeing that our classmates began streaming into the room like clockwork, she took her seat. I was just about to start rethinking my approach in earnest, but then she turned around in her seat and waved to get my attention.

"So, have you changed your opinions on tournaments yet?"

"Still considering things, but I sincerely doubt it'll happen."

"Sooo... Does that mean you're still not going to watch?"

"Not if I can help it."

"Not even my matches?"

My initial reflex was a hard ‘No’, but seeing the upturned gaze she was giving me, I softened it into a much less definitive, "Maybe the semi-finals."

"Do you think I'll get there?"

"Obviously."

My princess beamed a blinding smile at me, but by this point, Mrs. Applebottom also arrived, and so she faced forwards. By the looks of it, things were about to continue in the same, repetitive manner as before, but I no longer minded it.

"Don't make a scene," Judy warned me sternly, then a brief pause later she rose to her tiptoes and gave me a peck on my cheek.

"... I'm not going to lie, I think I'm getting mixed messages here."

"It's for good luck," my other girlfriend declared, and pecked me on the other side.

"Well, I admit I feel lucky, but I don't know how that applies to the current situation."

The girls ignored my gripes, and this time Ammy came to the front to tell me, "Grandfather is under a lot of stress lately."

We locked eyes for a long moment, and I uttered a dour, "I'll keep that in mind," in response, acknowledging the unspoken implication of 'don't heckle my old man, or you'll have to deal with me' in her words.

"We'll see you back home," my dear assistant added while she simultaneously reached out to fix my collar. Elly followed her example, and began straightening my uniform as well. I had no idea why; I was only going to meet Lord Grandpa. It's not like that was a special occasion worth fussing over.

By the by, the 'we' in that previous sentence referred to the entire gang standing behind them, just outside the classroom. They’d made plans to train and work out the brackets of our internal tournament today, and since I was going to the base to get some enchanting done anyway, it made sense to meet up in my house first.

As for why I wasn't going with them, it was thanks to an invitation by Lord Grandpa, delivered by Armband Guy during lunch break. On a side-note, the guy looked unusually haggard, which I naturally blamed on the tournament too. It was a safe bet, and it proved that besides being predictable, annoying, and superfluous, tournaments were also a health hazard.

My grumbles aside, Josh unsubtly poked the clock on his his Magiformer in the background, which in this case probably indicated that time was a-wasting and they should get going. I more or less agreed with his sentiment, and bid everyone goodbyes before we went our separate ways.

After a few steps, I threw my bag over my shoulder and let my thoughts wander again as I made my way over to the underground School. I already checked with Far Sight, and I knew Lord Grandpa was in his study instead of the principal's office, and while I was tempted to just Phase over and get this over with, I had to preserve my mental resources. I still had to move the guys to the base later, work on Penny’s Uniformer (among other things), and potentially even take another dive into the space between spaces to see if I could glean more info about the Simulacrum. Since all of these were running on my mental fortitude, it was best to play things safe and preserve it at every opportunity.

Anyhow, walking around was good for the blood flow, getting oxygen to the brain and things like that, so decided to use it to collect my thoughts and summarize the results of all the thinking I'd done during school hours.

So, before anything else, let's try and look at my current bugbear as objectively as I could. First off, what exactly was a tournament arc to begin with? In short, it's a plot-device, or arguably a 'plot-scaffold', where a whole arc is built around a big competition. It wasn't necessarily a martial arts battle tournament like the one (pardon, ones, plural) brewing at the moment. It could be a game, or even something less obvious, like a cooking competition.

To qualify as a tournament arc, a couple of things had to be present. First off, it had to be a clear competition with winners and losers. Next, it had to involve either individuals or small groups, like sports teams, directly competing against each other. In other words, a hundred people running a marathon wasn’t one, even if technically everyone was competing with everyone else. Finally, it had to be the main focus for its duration, with high stakes for the main characters.

Next, let's see what tournament arcs do in the context of storytelling. In short, they can exist for three reasons: either as the framework that enables the hero and the villain to face each other on more or less fair terms, as a convenient way for the writer to introduce, establish, or justify the power-ups of characters, or as filler content where characters and their individual abilities can be thrown at each other for flashy fights to keep the audience engaged while not really progressing the plot. In our case, I had a feeling the coming tournament was a mixture of all three, with Naoren's brother serving as Josh's rival, the battles serving as a way to introduce a bunch of new Draconian and third party combatants, and as for the flashy padding aspect, the less said, the better.

Now that we're clear on that, let's focus on the important questions, such as why we're having the big tournament in the first place. For now, let's ignore on our own internal one, as it seemed to exist just to sate everyone's curiosity about the power-rankings in our fledgling little organization.

"Hi, Leo!"

My thinking was forcefully interrupted just as I left through the back entrance of the school building by the voice of a certain brown girl. It took me a second to figure out where it came from, but then I gave a lazy wave in her general direction. By the looks of it, she was in the process of dragging Armband Guy around, as usual, and the two waved back at once. Well, Sahi did. Pascal just limply nodded at me. Anyhow, they were on the other side of the courtyard, and seemed busy, so after acknowledging each other's presence like that, we continued on our merry ways.

So, where was I before this intermezzo? Right, potential reasons for a tournament arc.

The first and most obvious answer was the one I operated under since the topic first came up: it was artificially created just to have a tournament arc, for the already mentioned reasons. I figured it was likely the work of the four enigmatic entities I ran into in null-space, and after I wrote it off as such, I completely forgot to inspect the whole kerfuffle from a Watsonian perspective. The fact that it took Elly to remind me hurt my pride as a semi-professional trope saboteur, but then again, while she was certainly a little silly from time to time, she certainly wasn't dumb, and being corrected by a smart person felt much less irksome.

Anyhow, Watsonian interpretation. Here we go.

First and foremost, let's take a look at the organizers. The Chinese Draconians holding it made internal sense based on what we knew about their modus operandi. Now, whether they were holding it because they were competitive and loved dueling, or their love for duels and competitiveness had been established beforehand to justify the tournament, was a different question entirely, but I was slowly starting to lean towards the first option.

As my discussions with Sebastian and Brang had indicated, the Simulacrum either had a long history, or it had a very extensive simulated background. My current core hypothesis was focusing on the first possibility; in my opinion, the Simulacrum wasn't constructed just for Josh's battle harem plot, but it was an already present 'world' where plots could be injected. In order to keep something of this size consistent, I figured retroactively changing the personalities and priorities of an entire branch of dragon-people would've been counter-intuitive.

But then again, we somehow ended up kicking the whole world into the information age in the span of a few weeks by total accident, so what did I even know about consistency?

That was a long tangent, but back to the tournament: the one who organized it was the grand elder of the Feilongs. I'd already had a strong inkling that he was a baddie based on the tropes associated with his archetype. Now, there was still room for some subversion, but based on his behavior during the banquet, I sincerely doubted he would turn out to be a nice, misunderstood guy. For now, let's ignore all the Doylist explanations for the event, and focus on why he would propose it.

The first thing that came to mind was some kind of power play between him and Naoren. Based on the snippets I'd caught, the internal politics of the Feilong clan seemed to be delicate at the moment, most likely some variation of the classic 'conservative elders vs. young innovative leader' trope. Not important. The key thing in this whole situation was that the elder in particular focused on organizing the event, going as far as to use his own elixirs as rewards, meaning he wanted to claim full credit.

Speaking of rewards, said elixirs were apparently a sought-after product of Chinese alchemy, and they were universally useful for all supernatural folks, either as a life-saving medicine, or as a source of power they could use to power up. It was correspondingly precious as well, and if Elly was to be believed, it was more desirable than the money Abram threw in as a gratis.

What this told me was that he wanted to attract as many participants as possible. Why? What was his end-goal?

"Good afternoon. Please come in."

I was suddenly jolted out of my train of thought by the voice of the arch-mage, and I stared blankly at the open door in front of me. By the looks of it, I was so lost in my thoughts, I completely zoned out and came here on autopilot.

Shelving my musings on the upcoming arc for the moment, I took a deep breath to center myself and gave the old man sitting behind his mahogany desk a thin-lipped smile.

"Afternoon. I've heard you were looking for me."

"I hoped I would not have to, but I am afraid I ran out of options." He waited for the doors to automatically close behind me before letting out a long sigh and downing a glass of carbonated water. "Please, sit."

"I'd prefer to stand, if you don't mind," I responded with a casual shrug, all the while making sure that my slowly mounting irritation wouldn't show on my face too much.

"In that case, suit yourself."

"I'll do just that," I declared with a smile and theatrically glanced around. "By the way, I love the thing you did to the place. Very functionalist."

I wasn't just heckling the guy; the new design of the place felt much better than before. Gone were the fancy cabinets and towers of documents, replaced by simple white furniture. Even the carpet and the ceiling tiles were replaced, with only the big desk in the middle and the grand portraits of the previous arch-mages remaining as they were.

"Certain changes were necessary," he told me plainly, and I nodded along while my phantom limbs sneakily explored the new additions to the complex enchantment array covering the entire room, inside out.

"Oh, is that what I think it is?" I uttered in surprise and flashed a smile. "You packed not one, not two, but three separate illusion-breakers into your security suite? I'm almost flattered."

"The fact that you could discover so much with but a simple glance is simultaneously astounding and terrifying."

The deadpan response of the old man drew a small chuckle out of me and eased some of my tension.

"And that, I take as a compliment." For a moment I was tempted to Phase behind the old man, just to freak him out, but then I recalled the look the class rep gave me not too long ago, and thought better of it. Instead, I casually walked over to his desk and asked, "So? Why did you ask for me? Is it about that enchantment embargo Ammy was talking about?"

Lord Grandpa gave me an odd look, but then he firmly shook his head.

"It is not something you should concern yourself with for the time being. I do not believe there is a single member of the Assembly who would be foolish enough to propose such sanctions at the moment."

"But they would in the future."

"Possibly. It is certainly hard to say, but so long as the winged ones are backing you, you should rest calm."

After mulling his words over for a second, I let my brows descend into a frown.

"So you're saying I don't have to worry about it 'for now', because I have the Dracis on my side. That implies that in the future, I might not have them anymore."

"Alliances in the world of mystics can be fickle things," he told me with a stiff smile that didn't touch his eyes.

"Do you know something?"

"Nothing that you absolutely need to know about."

I paused a bit longer this time, my initial frown slowly morphing into a glare, and added, "Are you seriously trying to yank my chains, old man? I think I made myself very clear on the topic of shady conduct..."

"That certainly was not my intention," the old coot told me in a hurry and raised his palms in surrender. "It is just my own opinion based on my decades of experience."

My flat stare continued for a while longer, but he didn't say anything else, so I took a step back and said, "Fine, let's just sweep this under the rug for now, and let's return to the initial question: why did you call me here?"

The old arch-mage visibly steeled himself, readjusted his tie, and plainly told me, "I have two things to discuss with you. The first one is in regards of Lord Saahira."

"What of her?"

"I would like to request your help in convincing her of a certain matter."

"Stop beating around the bush, and tell me."

Lord Grandpa exhaled hard, linked his fingers on the desk, and uttered, "She wishes to participate in the upcoming series of martial bouts."

My eyes blinked on their own, but then it was my turn to sigh and mutter, "Of course she does. I've heard the School got two participation spots in the main group, so what's the problem?"

"The issue is the fact that the sudden demise of Lord Saahira is still under investigation. If she were to appear as Sahi, and publicly use her signature spells, it would raise quite a few eyebrows in the Assembly."

"And that's a problem because...?"

"Because we are still in the process of verifying the authenticity of her last will and testament, which would allow her to smoothly inherit her own wealth and possessions, including all of her materials and equipment required to continue her research."

"Oh, gotcha. So if Sahi shows off her magic hands in public, it would cause issues."

"At the very least, it could result in a second investigation into her background."

"And despite knowing this, she still wants to participate?"

"I am convinced regaining her youth has reawakened her old habits. She had never been the most level headed or reasonable of people."

That was kind of rich coming from this guy, but I ignored the snide comment trying to claw its way up my throat and said, "I'll talk with her, but that's all I promise. I don't really like getting involved in other people's business unless I absolutely have to."

The old man gave me a classic 'Is this guy serious?' glance, but quickly suppressed it and cleared his throat instead.

"Please do. Now, let me address the main reason why I requested your presence."

"Please do," I echoed him on purpose, but he ignored me and instead tapped on his desktop before addressing me with a solemn voice.

"Tell me, Leonard. How much do you know about the Conduit of the Grimoire?"