The Simulacrum
~Chapter 162~ Part 2

"Everyone, gather around."

I didn't need to say that twice, and everyone in the living room clustered around me at once. It was a second unofficial meeting after the one with the Abyssal envoys, though even less formal than that one. For example, the discussion at the restaurant had markedly less fangirling involved.

"But it looks really cool! And cute! It's cool and cute!" Penny declared while pointing at Snowy. She herself came home before us, and she was already in her indoor slacks and bunny slippers, contrasting hard with my other sister's prim and proper (and very red) attire. "How could you keep this a secret from me?"

"It wasn't a secret…" Snowy sounded a bit sheepish but didn't look uncomfortable even as Penny turned her around to take a better look at her from different angles. "It was just… Tajana came up with the idea at the last minute, and I just went with it."

That made me pause and send a sideways glance their way. If it was a spur-of-the-moment idea, then where did she get the red suit with the matching tie? Those don't grow on trees. Nor do other suits, but that wasn't the point.

I was just about to ask, but I didn't, because I was kind of afraid that the answer would be 'Oh, we just found it in your kitchen pantry'. That's not a joke; with how many absurd things were just 'discovered' there over the months, I couldn't deny the possibility.

"Hey, do you think I can also pull off the look?" my knightly sister mused while turning Snowy round and around like a spinner, only to suddenly stop her and grab her shoulders. "Oh, I've got an idea! What if I get a blue one? Then we'll match, and we can do this whole yin-yang thing!"

"Isn't that black and white?"

"Yeah, but Ms Yamako said that any opposing ideals or energies are the same, and they can also be harmonized, and I think we would look really good standing next to each other! Let's do it next time, and…"

"Penny, dear. Please don't pester Neige," Morgana commented from the couch, making her turn around on her heel.

"Mooom! I'm not pestering her, I'm just—!"

"You're holding up the discussion. Come here and sit down," Arnwald interjected sternly, causing Penny to let out a disheartened 'Uuuu…' and morosely walk over to the senior Knights' side.

Snowy followed after her in a hurry, and with Judy also returning from upstairs, we were ready to start the debriefing. There were six of us present in total: me, Judy, my sisters, our 'parents', as well as Tajana. Seven, if I counted Pip, who was on guard duty today, but I had a feeling he wouldn't contribute much to the conversation.

I waited for my dear assistant to get her phone ready, and as soon as she gave me the go, I inhaled deeply.

"All right. First off, let's bring everyone up to speed."

Saying so, I quickly summarized what we learned during the meeting with the envoys. Their stated motivations, their requests, and so on. Nothing much happened after the head of House Shamash left the scene, aside from Tracas taking a few more cracks at persuading me to take action as soon as possible, but I politely stonewalled him on that front.

Anyhow, it didn't take long to explain the situation, and I concluded it with a solemn, "… and then he left the restaurant, and I finally ate my beef stake in peace. That's pretty much the long and short of it."

"So they weren't looking for asylum after all…" Morgana noted with a thoughtful hum.

"Abyssal nobles. They're worse than the Celestials, if you ask me," Arnwald added, earning him a glare from Penny.

"Dad! You can't say that! Snowy's right behind you!"

"What? I'm not talking about Neige, but the people Leonard met."

"You still shouldn't generalize like that, right?"

"I agree with Sir Arnwald." To my Knightly sister's shock and horror, Snowy backed up the man's assessment. "I was expecting that they would have ulterior motives from the start, and yet even I was surprised by how brazen their request turned out to be."

"I admit, I was also taken aback by the situation." Tajana sounded uncomfortable to admit that, but then she also added, "I feel like I failed my duty as a spymaster. I couldn't even recognize Corbeau when she was sitting right in front of me."

"That's as good a segue as any," I interjected with a finger raised. "Before we discuss anything else, let's recap who we're dealing with." I turned to the young spymaster and addressed her directly. "What can you tell me about that woman?"

Tajana was startled by my request, but then she immediately straightened her back and set her mouth in a thin, solemn line. If I didn't know her already, she might've almost very nearly kinda-sorta looked dependable. If you squinted hard enough.

"Corbeau Kishar is a Seducer from House Nergal and an infamous spy and agitator. Now that we know that she's involved, it's absolutely certain that the Nergals are pulling the strings from the background."

Arnwald let out a soft scoff.

"If a spy is infamous, then they aren't a very good spy," he said, and Tajana hurried to explain herself.

"She's a master of disguises and infiltration. They say that before she was recruited by House Nergal, she used to be a legendary burglar who even dared to break into the main estate of House Gula. She's well known in the Abyss, but few have seen her real face, so I couldn't be faulted for not recognizing her right away."

"Judy could do it though," I pointed out, making her confident façade crumble with just a few words.

"Y-Yes, but…"

Before she could formulate a response, Judy poked my shoulder with her index finger and said, "Chief, please don't put her on the spot like that. If her disguise wasn't flawed, I wouldn't have recognized her either."

"But why was her disguise so easy to see through?" Penny asked, and when nobody answered, she amended, "I-I mean, she's infamous, right? You'd think she would do better."

I had some Doylist ideas on that subject, but we were having this whole meeting for the sake of Watsonian analysis, so I kept it to myself. In the meantime, Morgana ventured a guess.

"Maybe she's feeling more secure on Critias than she's in the Abyss, and so she got sloppy. Or…" She fell silent for a beat. "Or maybe it was on purpose."

"Are you saying she deliberately made her disguise shoddy so that we could recognize her? Why?" Tajana asked, sounding a touch incredulous, and Morgana asserted it with a firm nod.

"It's possible that they wanted to make you think you foiled their ploy and were in a favorable position. To lull you into a false sense of security."

"But that presumes that someone among us would've been able to recognize her," I pointed out. "They had no way of knowing that Judy would be with us, or that she would be able to see through her ruse."

"In that case, they most likely hoped that you would recognize her," Arnwald spoke confidently, and when I raised a confounded brow at him, he added, "You've claimed to be an information broker for a while, haven't you? Maybe they were betting on that you already learned about this woman's identity before."

"That's a distinct possibility," Judy noted that, literally, her fingers tapping so fast on her phone I could barely follow her motions. "In that case, what was their goal with this?"

"I think I have an idea," Snowy spoke up in the back. "Uncle… Sir… I mean, Percival talked about something similar in the past. By making your negotiation partner think that they have the upper hand, they would become more assertive and would be more likely to continue negotiating so that the advantage they gained wouldn't go to waste. You lose some leverage by doing that, but they're less likely to cut the negotiations short, so you have a better chance to achieve at least some of your objectives, even if at a higher price."

"So it's like a weaponized Sunk Cost Fallacy," I whispered, and while I wasn't one hundred percent convinced, it was as good an argument as any.

"Alternatively," Tajana cut in, adjusting her rimless glasses for emphasis. "Alternatively, maybe it was something else entirely. Maybe she purposefully made her disguise easy to see through to reveal to us that House Nergal is involved with the deal. In fact, she seemed to be at odds with Tracas of House Ashur, so maybe he wanted to hide their connection, and she used this roundabout way to reveal it for House Nergal's own purposes."

Did I ever mention that I really hated all this multi-layered back-stabbery? Because I did.

"We can speculate about her motives all night, but at the end of the day it will remain a speculation, so let's just move on. Since you mentioned the mafioso guy, let's continue with him."

"Mafioso?" Arnwald echoed me with a curious glint in his eyes.

"That Tracas guy. Designer suit, scarred face, Italian accent. He even had a fedora."

"Italian?" Tajana blurted out in surprise, sounding downright incredulous. "No. No, Tracas very clearly had a šutāiu accent."

"A what accent?" I asked back, and Snowy responded first.

"It's the southern part of the Abyss. People there speak with that kind of accent."

"And it just happens to sound exactly like an Italian one," I stated flatly, and she guilelessly nodded along.

"To be precise, it's a New York Italian accent," Judy noted with mild disinterest, but it told me she shared my initial reaction, and…

Oh, god. Please tell me this wasn't another one of those 'retroactive background in-filling' situations, where the Simulacrum moulded the world to make sense in retrospect. It could be that, because my first impression of him was that of an old-school gangster, he was given the matching accent, but then to have that be internally consistent… I might've just given faux-Italian accents to a whole swathe of Abyssals by proxy.

Or maybe I was just overthinking this.

"Let's just put that aside and talk about the man, okay?" My prompt made everyone nod along. "So? What do we know about him?"

"Tracas Birtum Ashur of House Ashur is, or rather was, fourth in line in succession," Judy spoke up before Tajana or Snowy could get a word in. "He's a bit player who's known for being a hedonist and he spent little time in the Abyss. He avoided getting caught up in Noir Irdu Inanna's surprise attack on House Ashur because he was on Critias at the time, and since all other claimants are missing or presumed dead, he's now the second in line for being the Lord of the House."

"Was he involved with the Celestial Intelligence Network?" the spymaster in our midst asked, and my lovely assistant shook her head.

"Not directly, no. House Ashur's dealing with the CIN were only known to the head of the House and his closest confidantes. Since Tracas was something of a black sheep, he wasn't involved in such clandestine matters."

Arnwald let out a hum and crossed his arms.

"Which might be the reason why these Nergals want to put him at the head of this 'Noble House'. That way, they can claim that the Ashurs are no longer involved with the Celestials."

"But they plan to put him on the throne through the help of…" Morgana started, but then fell silent and glanced at Snowy behind the couch. "Do they have thrones?"

"Not really, no. Only the Emperor of the Abyss is supposed to have a throne, but it's been vacant all this time."

"Until Bel of the Abyss laid claim to it," Penny pointed out, followed by a furious groan. "Will that villain ever cease with his wicked schemes?"

It took some effort not to react to that, and even more of it when Judy, Morgana, and Snowy all looked at me at once. For now, I managed to maintain my poker face and waved to get everyone's attention.

"Putting what Bel's doing in the Abyss aside, can we conclude that the Nergals are using Tracas and House Ashur?"

"Or they are using each other," Snowy chimed in. "That's how deals in the Abyss usually go."

"Noted. Then, what about the third guy?" I asked, but then paused for a moment and amended, "Or was it a guy?"

The answer to my question came from Judy this time, and she sounded just a tiny bit unsure of it.

"If you mean Fidèle Basmu Shamash, then no, she should be a woman in her late eighties."

"And she somehow remote-controlled a guy," I deduced, but Snowy was looking at me like I just said something silly. "Or did she?"

"No, it was closer to possession," Tajana told me dourly. "She's one of the few pure-blooded vampires of the Abyss, and—"

"Excuse me," I cut in, feeling the back of my neck tingle. "Could you repeat that?"

"She's… one of the few pure-blooded vampires of the Abyss?" the spymaster restated, looking more than a bit confused by my request. "Did I say something wrong?"

"No, it's just that…" Shaking my head, I turned to Judy. "Dormouse? Could you please refresh my memory? Since when did we have vampires here?"

"Since the beginning." Her flat response was less than adequate, and realizing that I wasn't jesting, she put her phone down for the moment and launched into a proper explanation. "Vampires, or 'vamps', are a sub-species of Abyssals similar to Seducers."

"Oh, joy…" I whispered in mild exasperation. "Which type? Nosferatu, Dracula, or the sparkly kind?"

"Um… Excuse me? I don't follow," Penny tried to interject from the back, but I was only listening to Judy.

"Neither. They are more like body snatchers than can turn into mist and possess people."

"Do they drink blood?"

"No, but they're pale and they're hurt by sunlight."

"Garlic?"

"I have no information on that."

"Do they die when their hearts are skewered with an oak stake?"

"… Who doesn't?"

I had a snappy comeback on the tip of my tongue, but she had a point, so I conceded and turned back to the rest of the group.

"Okay, so she's a 'vampire'. Got it. Do we have an idea about why she got involved in this deal?"

I glanced around, and when my eyes landed on Snowy, she let out an ambivalent sound.

"Um… I'm not sure. Vamps are very, very rare, and they practically never leave the Abyss because of the sun. On top of that, she's the head of House Shamash, and house heads also never leave the Abyss."

"Didn't your brother do that?" Penny blurted out, but then her eyes went wide and she sputtered, "I-I mean, not 'Brother' brother, but the other one! That one who used to be your brother!"

"Noir," Morgana said, and my knightly sister repeatedly nodded along.

"Yes, that bastard!"

Seeing that she was getting a bit too worked up, Snowy put a hand on my other sister's shoulder to keep her in check.

"That was different. Back then, we were looking for the Herald of the Emperor, and he was here so that the other Houses wouldn't try to snatch him up. In case we found him, I mean."

"And now he declared himself to be this 'Herald'," Arnwald whispered, followed by some other grumbles about Bel of the Abyss, but we moved on.

"In other words, she must have a really good reason to be on Critias," I concluded, and both Snowy and Tajana nodded along. "Do you think she was also part of the deal between Tracas and the Ashurs?"

"Definitely," the young spymaster insisted without delay. "There's no way she would appear, let alone show herself in public in the company of those two if she wasn't directly involved."

"What are the chances of her wanting to take down Bel 'for the common good', as she put it?"

That question made everyone pause, and after sharing a few glances between each other, Judy spoke up first.

"We don't have enough information. The Hub has comparatively little information on her, so I can't speculate on her motives."

"In the Abyss, she's known for her integrity, if that helps," Snowy spoke hesitantly, while I thought long and hard about it… and decided to give up.

"How about we shelve that thought for the moment, and focus on something else?" I proposed and linked my fingers in my lap, signifying that it was the crux of the conversation. "In your opinion, what is their true agenda?"

"Do you mean the reason why they approached you like this?" Morgana asked back, and when I nodded, she lightly tapped on her chin. "They know that you rescued the Fauns from this prison, but there's no reason for them to think you did it personally. Since they're requesting you to rescue the child from the same place and expect you to do it in person, I think we can assume that whatever their true goal may be, the Ashur leader is just a pretext. A means to an end."

Arnwald nodded along with an approving bend in his lips as he gazed at the focused woman by his side.

"So what you're saying is that their objective is to get Leonard in the Abyss, even though it would be absolutely preposterous."

"Yes. That's why they created this justification and were quick to offer money, land, and authority in exchange."

"Hah! Like that would work on Brother!" Penny exclaimed with a grin, looking at Snowy for approval, and my Abyssal sister mirrored the gesture, albeit a bit less enthusiastically.

"It obviously didn't," Tajana spoke up next, only to fall silent for a while after. In the end, she straightened her back once more and firmly declared, "I think I have an idea."

"Let's hear it."

Following my prompting, she gulped hard.

"I think… this is all about Bel of the Abyss." She let that linger in the air and then continued with much stronger emphasis. "Think about it: The only person who has ever shown to be capable of matching Lord Bel was you. During that dragonblooded house's banquet. They're probably just as helpless against his powers as the rest of us, so the three Noble Houses cobbled together a desperate plan to somehow get you into the Abyss, hoping that you would deal with Lord Bel for them!"

"Lord Bel?" Arnwald whispered with a squint, but she didn't respond and kept her focus on me.

"That must be it. They're trying to deal with their problem using a borrowed blade, pitting you two against each other. If you manage to defeat Lord Bel, then it would deprive Noir of his support and make his title of Herald meaningless, while if you were to be defeated, it would pull both the Draconic Federation and Elysium into the war on their side!"

Snowy was apparently thinking along the same lines, because she thoughtfully added, "And even if Leo doesn't encounter Bel and successfully finds and rescues the young head of Ashur, it would be yet another desirable scenario for them. Even on the off-chance that you fail, they would just have to find someone else to assassinate him."

"Meaning the only way to avoid playing into their hands is by outright refusing their deal," I concluded and while everyone was nodding along, Penny leaned on the back of the sofa and let out a long sigh instead.

"Well, poop. They got us good, didn't they?" I raised a brow at her outburst, and she looked just as bewildered by it as I felt at the moment. "W-What? I mean, that means we have to play along! We can't just let a kid die!"

"Penny, dear." Morgana reached over and put her hand on the back of Penny's. "We just learned of his existence. We aren't obliged to do anything."

"B-But now we know! And we're the good guys, right!" She glanced around for support, her eyes ultimately settling on me. "Brother! The Ordo Draconis no longer exists to just fight Draconians, but to figure out who the bad guys are and defeat them while sparing the innocent! If we let a child whose father just recently died be stuck in a dungeon, it would be a betrayal of our values!"

"Penny… does make a good point for once." Arnwald's words made my sister cry out 'What do you mean 'for once'?', but he ignored the outburst and continued on unabated. "While I'm against sending our forces into the Abyss, let alone you, if we don't do anything, it could be used to paint us as hypocrites in the eyes of the rest of the World of Mystics. While that's nothing much in the grand scheme of things, it doesn't sit well with me."

"Don't worry, dear," Morgana cooed and this time she grabbed Arnwald's hand before sending me a meaningful glance. "I'm sure Leonard already has some kind of plan in mind to deal with this situation."

"Do you?"

The question came from Penny, but everyone else in the room seemed to share the sentiment.

"Not yet, but I'll think of something," I told them a tad wearily and stood up. "Thank you for all your valuable insight into this matter. Let's close this meeting for now. I need some time to consider our options."

"No need to thank us for something like this," Arnwald responded with a stock phrase, while Morgana's response was slightly warmer.

"We're a family now, so it's only natural that we should deliberate things and support each other like this."

"Yeah!" Penny piled on by grabbing Snowy's hand and raising their arms over their heads. "Family for the win!" It was at this point that she was seemingly reminded of something and she fully faced my other sister. "So, about that blue suit…"

Their return to that tangent fully signalled the end of the talk, and so the senior Knights got up and walked into the kitchen, Tajana and my sisters disappeared into her room (which meant that there may or may not have been another brightly coloured suit in Penny's size in there), while Judy finished typing on her phone and looked up at me.

"Chief."

"Yes, Dormouse?"

"Make sure nobody sees you down there."

That made me blink and cock my head to the side.

"How did you know I was planning to scout out the situation first?"

"Because I know you," she responded flatly and looked me over. "Also, you should change your clothes first. You look really good in this one, but it makes you recognizable."

"Good point." I was just considering what to wear when I suddenly got a new idea. "Maybe I should hide in plain sight? Pudding-kun can't stay in the Abyss for long, but if it's just for a short trip, I can use him to disguise myself. In fact, maybe I should try to infiltrate Castle Inanna and make contact with you-know-who, and then…"

"Chief." She grabbed onto my shoulder without warning and lightly squeezed it, though considering how inefficient she was at inflicting harm, that was probably supposed to be an iron grip. She pulled me closer, I complied, and once our noses were almost touching, she sternly commanded, "No. More. Alter egos."

"But… It would be just a disguise for the—"

"Bel of the Abyss was supposed to be a disguise too, and look at all the chaos it caused."

"That's a fair point, but…"

"No buts. And no disguises either."

We locked gazes for a while, and my loss was determined from the start.

"Fine, fine. I'll be just sneaky then."

"Good."

I thought that was the end of it, but then she suddenly leaned forward and locked lips with me. Our kiss lasted for a couple of seconds, and when we parted, I couldn't help but feel a bit confused by the mixed messaging.

"What was that for?"

"Nothing special. You were just close enough," she responded with a hint of a smirk and let me go. "Now if you excuse me, I'll go and document the saga of the colorful pantsuits." She inclined her head towards Tajana's room, and added a quiet, "Stay safe."

"Will do."

Nodding, she walked to the left, I headed upstairs to get into something less conspicuous, all the while lamenting my dashed plans to disguise myself and do some mischief while down there. I could've even given it a funny name, like Antonio Balderdash, the dashing roguish Abyssal phantom thief. Alas, it was never meant to be…

…

Or was it?