"…For the record, none of what you saw in there was what you thought it was."

"I see."

"…No, I mean it."

"Oh, I believe you."

"You don't sound like it…"

"Oh? Don't I?"

"No, you don't. You sound stoic and passive about it."

"Wouldn't that indicate that I believe you?"

"To you? Maybe. To literally anyone else, you're pulling a lot of sarcastic sass right now."

"'Sarcastic sass'? With all due respect, Naoto, do I really seem like the type of person to portray such an emotion?"

"N-No, but-"

"Even in a situation in which I walk in on a friend playing por-"

"IT'S NOT PORN! IT'S A DATING-SIM-PUZZLE GAME!"

" . . . Yes. Of course it was."

"TH-THERE, y'see?! You're being sarcastic and sassy! Right there!"

"Was I?"

"YES, HIBIKI! YOU WERE!"

"Even if I was, it does not change the fact that you were playing-"

"IT'S NOT PORN!"

Tager walked into the office with a heavy sigh. In front of him, his boss was tinkering with something that looked like his own left forearm…was it his left? He couldn't tell, the thumb and pinky finger were removed.

With no response to the door opening and closing, Tager greeted the professor. "Kokonoe, I'm back."

"No shit, Sherlock, I heard the door." She put down the blowtorch, took off the mask and turned to him, "Report?"

Sassy as ever. "The signal you forwarded was Nox Nyctores Nirvana. Carl Clover escaped, but Bullet is in pursui-"

"IT'S NOT PORN!"

Kokonoe paused in response to Tager's pausing. "…Yo, Tager. Y'alright?"

Tager simply sighed, "Remind me why you hired Naoto Kurogane?"

Kokonoe immediately went back to the Tager-arm as she replied, "Obvious. We have someone with an Azure Grimoire on our side that ISN'T Ragna. Ergo, no need for that asshole."

"You say that like anyone with a Grimoire is expendable."

Kokonoe just gave him a half-hearted glance. "I mean, we got Lambda back, didn't we?"

"Thanks to a Continuum Shift, but that's-" Tager rubbed the back of his neck, "You're really just gonna take advantage of the unexpected?

"Tager, if you haven't noticed, the Master Unit's been undergoing glitches lately. A LOT. And I dunno what goes through your head when you hear about 'a God with glitches', but personally, I'm taking every chance I get with our operations, especially as of late. So if God's gonna throw something in my lap, I'll happily take it like a kid on Christmas day."

Tager just sighed. There was no getting through to her once her mind was made up. And it wasn't like she was harming the boy or anything.

"And on the topic of recruits, I need to you to head to the Kaka Village in Kagutsuchi."

Say what now?

"With everything that's been going on, I think I need to build my own numbers." The pink-haired professor continued.

Tager looked at her with some amount of concern. "I thought you and Kagura merged his faction of the NOL and Sector Seven."

"We have, but there're still some…disagreements. Namely with other officials, the higher ups, Hibiki-"

"Captain Kohaku?"

"Let's just say he assumes I do everything out of my self-interest."

"…Don't you?"

"When did you get so sassy? Anyways, haul ass."

Tager quietly chuckled. He did enjoy teasing his boss from time to time. It kept an air of personality in this cold and possibly psychotic laboratory. "Roger." He turned to leave.

"Oh, and Tager?"

"Yes?"

"If you see Lambda on your way out, tell her to stop bringing bugs into her room."

"…I thought we had a garden."

"Yeah, where do you think she's getting them from?"

That particular thought brought a small smile to Tager's face. The robot girl found a hobby.

Kokonoe face-palmed, "I swear, she's turning into a fanatic."

Tager turned back to the door and moved out with a small snicker. "Says the one raising her."

"Subject identified as gastropoda, mollusk. Analyzing anatomy…"

Azrael never felt less patient.

"…analyzing…"

He could be fighting someone right now.

"…analyzing…"

He could be fighting Ragna Tha Bloodedge right now.

"…analyzing…"

He could be fighting Kokonoe or Tager right now.

"…analyzing…"

He could've broken out and searched for an even greater opponent.

"…analyzing…"

If emotions were strength, he could tear through reality and face the Master Unit itself.

"…analyzing…"

He could hunt down Izanami and beat her air-like body until he got bored-

"Analysis complete."

Yet NO. He was stuck with the most deadpan Murakumo Unit because his Drive prevented him from fighting anyone unwilling to fight back, and she just happened to be the first thing he saw! So he tailed her and got stuck in a hedge maze she escaped to! And he couldn't leave because it was someone's bright idea to cut a hedge maze that only she knew how to navigate, and he was TERRIBLE WITH PUZZLES!

"Target appears to be lacking in Vitamin C. Requires sustenance."

Azrael could not be more annoyed. "Well looky-here, neither of us have an orange on us. Guess the bug's gonna get scurvy and CAN WE FIGHT NOW?"

Lambda nonchalantly turned back to the mollusk, "Subject is officially labeled 'Tartar The 14th' for further address."

The harbinger pinched his temples. "For the love of - wait, fourteenth?"

The blonde android ignored him. "Objective complete. Returning to base."

"FINALLY!" Azrael threw his hands in the air. He hadn't felt this level of happiness since a certain pink-haired professor used a giant mech and blasted him to kingdom-come.

Tager ran as fast as he could (which was not much) and threw open the door to Kokonoe's laboratory. He was hunched over, gasping for air, out of both running and fear.

Kokonoe just blinked at him."…Who died and haunted you?"

"K-Koko…Kokono- *Wheeze*" Tager raised an index finger, indicating a moment, "Kokonoe…you are aware Azrael's prison door is wide open, right?!"

And everything stopped. Kokonoe, eyes widened and pupils shrunk, scrambled through her desktop to pull up the security feed. And sure enough, the Red Devil was right. She swapped through the camera feeds, muttering "shit, shit, shit" at the speed of an Uzi pistol, until she finally found him.

"…Oh, it's fine."

"What's fine?!"

"Azrael's with Lambda."

"…HOW is that a good thing?!"

"She's on standby mode. And by that, I mean on break."

"Again: HOW?!"

"She's not fighitng him anytime soon. They're in that hedge maze in the garden. And I modified it. Without the right map, she's like Noel: Directionally challenged."

". . . Current map invalid. No matches found."

"So…"

". . . Lambda is lost."

"OH MY FU-"

A/N:

I don't know where I'm going with this. Maybe a plot will just wash up shore later down the road, but hey, this is comedy…right? Right? I'm funny, right?! AM I?!

Yeah, pro'lly not.

A'ight, that's enough for now. See ya.