This was written (bar a couple of scenes and a lot of tweaking) before Frankenstein called the Lord 'Lady' in that one episode.

It still works. I don't know if he was using a word meaning '(female) lord' in the Korean version, but even if he was noble translation powers have to be able to handle slang, so all of the nobles present would have heard 'flippant way to address a woman.' On the other hand, it's being used respectfully in this chapter, so a noble would hear 'lord.' Noble translation powers are much better than Google Translate, but they've glitched on honorifics in canon and how the Lord is addressed is clearly a button for the modern clan leaders, probably because of the traitors.

There were some technical difficulties with the file and keeping the versions straight, so I'm hoping this has all the current edits...

"I don't know what you're supposed to teach me," Rael said, twirling a hand with a movement that should have seemed idle, but Takeo had seen him summon Grandia.

"Honestly?" Takeo smiled. "I think it's because I only just now noticed myself. I'm sure he wanted us to help each other figure it out, so he didn't have to teach both of us separately."

"Hmph," Rael said, but seemed to accept that. "He is training me in how to analyze information myself. So I'm supposed to listen to your reports, then."

Well, no, if it was that, Frankenstein would be pairing the noble with Tao. Then again, if Tao was too energetic for Raizel? Takeo wouldn't want Tao and Rael in the same place without someone to keep Tao from… either provoking Rael or taking a page from Regis' book and manipulating him. Rael's buttons were big, red and easy to push, and Tao was a tactician as well as their electronics specialist. Show him a keyboard like that, and he wouldn't be able to keep himself from experimenting with all the buttons until he knew how to work it.

"What was that about you and Miss Seira?" Rael asked immediately after deciding that he was going to ask the enhanced human anything. Or rather demanded with a glare, because he had a soul weapon and was very willing to stab Takeo with it. The Kertia clan was the assassin clan, and Rael knew where Takeo slept.

"We were both trying to be calm and in the moment. When I sat down, I was thinking about the fact that it's always calming when he's there, isn't it?"

Rael nodded.

Takeo closed his eyes, smiling softly. "Just looking at him is calming, but I noticed that I still felt his calm even when I wasn't looking at him. I thought he was radiating calm, like a fireplace radiating heat, and then I noticed that he was. And so was Miss Seira. Frankenstein noticed me looking at him. When I've meditated with the Noblesse, I've tried to imitate that serenity." Takeo looked back up to meet Rael's eyes and frowned. There was a strange look in the noble's eyes. 'Was something wrong?' he asked with a tilt of his head.

Rael seemed to jerk awake, glare advertising that it was a very good thing for Takeo that he, a mere human, hadn't implied that a Kertia pureblood might not be okay. "So I should have been imitating his master's composure instead of Frankenstein's composure? But I have to stand guard: I have to remain alert for dangers." Dangers like, oh, enhanced humans, added his glare.

Takeo looked thoughtfully off to the side, pretending not to notice Rael's clear suspicion. "As a sniper, I had to focus on the target, but I also had to be aware of my surroundings in case anyone was about to locate me, and I had to listen and respond promptly to orders."

"Is that why Frankenstein never lets me do things one at a time? When I'm reading one of those letters, I have to think about three more things I need to do with what I'm reading," Rael griped, folding his arms.

Takeo nodded. "It's called multitasking. It's very important in combat."

That got Rael's attention.

"Doesn't your family have to think about both remaining undetected and killing the enemy at the same time?"

Judging from the look on Rael's face, he hadn't, but he wasn't prepared to admit that.

"What I think Frankenstein wanted me to learn is that now that I'm… sensing people, is there some way I can use that power without being intrusive? It's a power that nobles have had a lot longer than humans, so even if you weren't trained in how to read people like that, you might have a head start figuring it out on me."

"Reading people?" Rael asked incredulously. Not just surprise that it was possible, but the same disgusted disbelief the Union gave Regis, who just could not understand why on earth anyone would possibly have the bad taste to want to do things like that.

Takeo remembered that the Central Order Knight hadn't had any idea his mind control hadn't worked, and neither had Regis when he tried it on Frankenstein and Raizel.

Did the younger nobles really not know that they could sense things like this?

"Perhaps we can start with you teaching me what you know? Maybe then I'll be able to explain it better." When Rael was able to freeze almost the entire school, and evacuate the area he planned to fight Regis, he must have been taught something about his powers.

"Reading human minds might be possible when you're so weak, but if Miss Seira and Sir Cadis Etrama di Raizel were doing something for my benefit and I didn't even notice…" Judging from his expression, Rael didn't quite want to admit that might be true, but he also didn't want to assume that the human was making fun of him and miss out. "Frankenstein ordered me to help evacuate the humans the next time there's a fight. If you can take care of it, then I can join Miss Seira more quickly. At least that way you'd be some help, even without a soul weapon."

Rael didn't have the temperament for a teacher, that was obvious, but it might have been Takeo's fault he grew frustrated so quickly.

It was just as easy for Takeo to reach into someone's mind as it was to feel the emotions they were broadcasting – of course, that would probably change the instant Rael raised his mental defenses. But what came as second nature to Takeo was all wrong according to Rael. "Try reaching for my memories instead… you can't even do that?"

"I'm sorry," Takeo said. "I sensed emotions first: maybe that's what comes easiest to me?"

"Reaching for someone else's emotions is…" Rael's eyes widened and he glanced around, shutting up before he could say anything along the lines of 'exactly what you'd expect from a disgusting human toy' anywhere Frankenstein might possibly hear him. "It's the exact same thing every time! How are you not doing it on purpose?"

Seeing Rael angry and frustrated with him, Takeo felt himself reaching again. Trying to, wanting to do something about that. Get him to calm down, make him feel better. Like patting him on the shoulder.

This time, instead of saying 'No, stop doing that!' Rael let it connect, and let out a huff, still annoyed but somewhat mollified.

Was it instinct to reach for emotions because Rael was upset? Blinking, Takeo realized the contact between them was still there, Rael hadn't brushed his metaphorical hand away. Maybe… If he tried reaching from there to what Rael wanted him to do?

He was supposed to try to make the noble leave the room, so… make him want to leave?

This time, the resistance was rock-solid, Rael refusing to budge just because some enhanced human wanted him to move. "Well at least you're trying to do what I told you to do, even if you're going about it all wrong," Rael said. "Changing someone's will is not proper conduct, even if they're Union." But, from that glare, Rael wasn't going to expect better from an enhanced human like Takeo.

Then Takeo found himself looking at a wall. He blinked, and turned around to see Rael. "I'm sorry, I didn't catch what you did."

"Obviously not, they aren't supposed to notice… Oh." Right. This time, Takeo felt Rael reaching not for Takeo, but for his body. The mental impulses that told his legs to move, his body to turn around. Not controlling every step like a puppet – that would explain how Rael could evacuate so many people at once when they needed to do different things to leave their buildings, instead of all of them performing the exact same motions! – but Takeo's body knew what it needed to do in order to turn around. Had the people Rael evacuated just driven home on autopilot, the same thing they did every day?

This time, instead of reaching for the sense of Rael, Takeo tried to reach for his body. Cerebellum? It wasn't any use, it felt like his hand passed through empty air, until it reached and wrapped around the… something that was Rael. His soul? Takeo frowned. "Let me try to find it."

"Letting an enhanced human rummage around in my soul…" The noble glowered but permitted it.

Rael was still simmering with irritation, and even knowing that it was beyond rude, it was instinct for Takeo to try to placate him.

"Stop that!" Rael said testily.

Takeo felt himself do it again, in response to feeling that the noble was angry with him. "I'm not doing it on purpose. I'm trying to reach for what you showed me, but every time I sense that you're angry, this power acts on its own. Like a reflex."

"Reflex… You mean you have trained this power before? Oh." Rael blinked. "Humans have reflexes without training them? Your bodies just… do things you haven't decided to do?"

"You just made me move twice without my conscious mind deciding to move," Takeo reminded him, cocking his head to the side, feeling his hair fall and create a breeze against his white dress shirt. "If nobles don't do that, is that why I can't find anything but your conscious mind?" But then, how had Rael practiced reaching for something nobles didn't have with another member of the Kertia?

"You keep going straight for my emotions, ignoring everything else."

"But once I've grabbed hold there, I can reach for other parts of your mind?" Takeo frowned, trying to show Rael that he was trying to figure this out too, instead of being deliberately difficult. "But the instant I sense certain emotions from you, all of my focus goes back to your emotions. It was different when you trained?"

"Targeting a certain part of the mind is difficult. It takes decades of practice aiming to do it consistently, and reach the desired piece without touching one of the things that will alert them to your presence," Rael said. "That's why it's important to reach for something they may not be paying attention to when you're learning. You should be aiming for the body like Regis, but you're reaching for the part that any noble is going to defend. Why would you reach for something when we're going to know that you're there, unless you take over? But humans aren't strong enough to take over a noble's mind, or change our will enough we want you there, making us like you." Rael's grimace was pure eww.

Takeo frowned. Did that mean 'making nobles more like humans' or 'making nobles like humans?' Was that what this power was trying to do? Keep Rael placated so the noble didn't turn him into mincemeat with that soul weapon?

Frankenstein valued people's free wills – he wouldn't have designed Takeo's powers to do that, right? Especially when Takeo would be fighting the Union, and most of them weren't going to spare someone just because they liked them. It wouldn't be effective. "Perhaps it's because you're a noble that this is the only part I can find until I'm already in your mind. Do you think we should ask Frankenstein?"

"I'm not going to him the first time I have a hard time." From that red-eyed glower, Takeo could tell the rest of that thought 'and how you can't do anything right even when that would make me look bad.' "Obviously not, when I'm here to learn how to analyze you humans." So Rael would figure this out on his own.

Takeo hid a smile and didn't mention any resemblance to Regis.

"Perhaps a noble mind is too difficult for you to grasp. Maybe with another human you'll be able to find the right things so you don't give yourself away and get stabbed."

Sangeen and Yonsu were the first to the meeting site – they usually were. After seeing Tao's tactics against Cerberus, Sangeen was aware that it was a courtesy to send the KSA the location and let them arrive early to scout and be certain there weren't listening devices or traps.

"It's so that they can jump in from out of our detection range and make flashy entrances," Yonsu said, because wasn't it obvious?

Yeah, that was another reason. "Tao might be a lot more powerful than we are, but he's still mission control, Yonsu. And they're fighting people stronger than they are. The KSA is still occasionally contacted by the Union." That was their job, being at least some thin buffer between their country and the Union. They had to do what they could even if they weren't strong enough to fight the Union. "We're not the only ones who have to be concerned about an ambush."

"No," Yonsu corrected him, "they are the only ones who have to be concerned about an ambush. They don't need to ambush us. They have the power to take over the KSA any time they want." Just like the Union had.

The Chairman had flat out admitted it… and said he wouldn't because it wasn't worth the extra work.

"I can't stand having to be grateful that we're a waste of their time," Yonsu said, baring her teeth.

"Yonsu…"

"I'm not saying they're being insulting, I'm saying it's true! Research that can create enhanced humans like them, enough power that people who don't have to be afraid of the Union taking over their country have to take him seriously…" It was the KSA that was a national organization, with a country's resources! They should have had those capabilities. It was maddening how effectively the Union had managed to keep them from having a prayer of fighting back.

"Shut your mouth!" they heard someone order them, voice full of anger and contempt.

They whirled, Sangeen ready to summon energy knives, to see a teenager in pinstripes, his arms folded and red eyes glowing. Another noble? "You think we're safe and can spend all the energy we want on you? The Union's fleet fired on Lukedonia and killed some of Mergas' guard, then even dared to land troops a month ago! A century ago, the traitor clan leaders in the Union wiped out all of Miss Seira's clan, and most of that brat Regis'! As for the enhanced humans you think are so strong, those brats needed him to spend his lifeforce to save them, and the Chairman is watching his master die, while you parasites think that you're entitled to our protection when it's you humans who founded the Union!"

They hadn't heard the noble arrive, but this time they heard someone landing on the ground behind them. "…You'll have to excuse Rael." When they turned to see the sniper from Ye Ran's school security, a moment after Takeo smiled at them in greeting, the noble blurred to place himself three paces in front of Takeo, and one to Takeo's left.

It ended up looking not like he was guarding the enhanced human, but the enhanced human was there as his retainer or staff.

The gunman's calm didn't seem ruffled by the noble treating him as a subordinate, but again he was used to Tao. And when someone like the Chairman called a noble Master…

"Agents Sangeen Ahn and Yonsu Na of the KSA, this is Rael Kertia," Takeo said, nodding towards the noble, "a pureblooded member of the Kertia Clan and younger brother of Lukedonia's Minister of Intelligence Sir Rajak Kertia, head of Clan Kertia. While Rael's actions always reflect on the Kertia Clan-" Takeo's polite smile didn't waver, but that had to be a reminder to Rael, "-he is not in South Korea as a representative of Lukedonia. The Lord granted Sir Rajak's request for his brother to be apprenticed to Chairman Lee, so he is currently a member of our household. The Chairman told me to tell you to direct any complaints to Tao, not Miss Seira."

"Sir Seira J. Loyard," Rael corrected him, turning to look at him.

"My apologies," Takeo said, smiling, and it wasn't hard to tell he was humoring the noble, just a little. "But to be sure I'm using the proper courtesies, not Lady Seira?"

"Lady Seira?" The noble took a step back in shock, face pale. "That's the same thing as Lord! Even the traitors wouldn't dare… Implying that Seira would…"

Takeo winced. "Good thing I clarified that now."

"Right," Rael said, calming down. "Weak trash like this doesn't matter, but what if you said that in front of the clan leaders? My brother might kill you for the insult to the Lord, and my brother doesn't want to offend someone our father acknowledged, even if Frankenstein is a human. For it to happen over another human toy…"

Yonsu's eyes narrowed. "Human toy?"

Rael flushed: at least he had the grace to realize those words were offensive as hell, but, "Well, that's what they were to the Union! You humans keep letting the Union toy with you, letting them use you to kill the people who protected you!"

Takeo cleared his throat. "He asked me to tell him if you were behaving with the proper courtesies," he said apologetically. "You know I can't lie to him."

Rael blanched again, then straightened. "Tell me when I have to come back and talk to these humans," he said, and vanished.

"That was a noble?" Yonsu asked, eyebrow raised. He couldn't be more different from the three Sangeen had observed in class.

Takeo's face grew more serious. "He was orphaned at a young age and has his reasons to hate anything to do with the Union, and most enhanced humans are Union, but that doesn't excuse his behavior." He frowned, looking sad for a moment, before his eyes hardened like a soldier giving a report. What was his position before he left the Union, an enhanced human like this? "The Kertia and the Landegre were the clans who handled most noble affairs in the outside world until the Landegre were attacked. Rael's spent a hundred years knowing the Kertia Clan was the Union's next logical target, and his brother isn't much older than Rael is. Even when Rael was convinced he didn't care anything about human lives, he still used his power to evacuate the area before getting into a fight." Takeo bowed formally. "You're enhanced humans, but you weren't made by the Union and you're determined to protect your country. Like the Kertia."

"We're not here to assist you with some kid's therapy. I thought this was about…" Sangeen saw light dawn in Yonsu's eyes. "You're telling me he's the new emergency asset?" The reason they were called out here?

Takeo nodded. "Officially I am, but Rael is training me and since he'll be accompanying me, if you could also train him in whatever procedures you work out… We don't know when, or where, the next attack will come, and if I'm free to help with evacuations, my first priority would have to be the school."

At this point, it was almost a surprise to find out that one among that bunch was sane, practical and willing to actually communicate with them.

"The Chairman also asked us to help you train your mental defenses."

"That would be a help," Sangeen said, more than a little relieved after that last conversation with this bunch. "Our doctor didn't know much about what he was talking about." What he'd said, and the implications! They needed that kind of knowledge for the KSA to get the power to protect their country, and couldn't dare try to take it. Not with someone like Tao on the other side, just casually mentioning that he was going to be keeping an eye on them because it really would be not good if the Chairman caught them stealing from him and he wouldn't want Sangeen going and getting himself killed after going to all that trouble to rescue him from Cerberus, right?

"There are two kinds of mental attack you need to worry about," Takeo said, looking off into the distance over the side of the rooftop. "Humans and nobles have different styles of mind control. Human-style is… I suppose I can understand how the Chairman didn't know. He's not someone who would ever think of doing something like that, and he was fighting nobles, not other human psychics. How human powers work is… Something everyone needs to know about, if the Union can make someone like Yuri. If Rael said that humans were parasites… I can't really say that he's wrong." The modified human shook his head. "No, if the Chairman already knew he wouldn't have put Rael in a position to find out."

"When he already didn't like humans much," Sangeen said, frowning. This was getting worrying. "Yuri, the blond with Cerberus? Always smiling, was trying to rein the rest of them in a little?"

Takeo's head snapped towards him, eyes focusing. "You didn't think he was on your side, did you?"

Both of them stared at him. What? Yuri was Union. While Yonsu was still staring at him, because what the, Sangeen scowled. "We were ants. He just had something else to use a magnifying glass on."

Takeo winced, but still looked a little relieved. "That's the Union… Yuri was infiltrating and then backstabbing different factions in the Union because he could make them trust him and think he'd been on their side all along. Noble mind control overrides someone's will and emotions. They can order you not to move, or breathe, or remember what happened, but they don't change anything. You saw Shinwoo Han fight?"

"He's good," Yonsu said.

"He's fought for his life, and other people's lives, against enhanced humans," Takeo said, shocking both of them. He smiled at them apologetically. "Out of all the children in the school, you had to pick two of the ones who were already endangered because of us. We're all very protective of those kids."

They remembered M-21 demanding how could they take away those kids' chance at a normal life. A 'safe' life. And even if that was an illusion, if this country could be taken over by the Union at any time and without KSA agents none of them were safe, it was still that which made Sangeen and Yonsu accept leaving enhanced humans in a school.

But even if these three weren't there to endanger the kids, he and Yonsu were right, too. Just having enhanced humans somewhere put them in danger from the Union.

"He's fought enhanced humans?" Yonsu asked, folding her arms skeptically.

"They were only toying with him," Takeo said. "But he still tried, and had that experience. Watching him, I think the memories are still there where he can use them, but he can't get at them or the Union would take him. It was the Chairman who did it, but he still learned his techniques based on nobles. Noble psychic powers can flood someone else's mind with their emotions, but they don't change the target's emotions. The Chairman agrees that since it comes naturally to humans, it would have been easy for the Union to stumble across the capability in one of the mass series tests."

The ones where they kidnapped a hundred people at a time and odds were that none of those poor bastards were going to make it out of the lab alive. Not that it was that much better for them to emerge indoctrinated to serve the bastards who kidnapped them, help the Union oppress humanity.

The KSA and other agencies had scrambled for any information they could get. They'd known that nobles existed: the Union was gearing up for a war with them, and that meant propaganda. Propaganda wasn't meant to be secret, it only worked if it was big and obvious… and probably the Union wanted it to leak, to remind everyone that if the Union could conquer a country of gods, then they could walk all over any human nation that got uppity.

Mind control was supposed to be one of the capabilities of nobles (or noblesse, or vampires – Lukedonia's representative had said they preferred to be called nobles), but if the Union might be able to brainwash people into loyalty without hauling them into a lab first?

Yonsu cursed, taking the words right out of her husband's mouth.

"Yeah," Sangeen agreed. "We need a way to counter that." Yesterday.

"Sangeen," said his old friend Takeo. "Agent Sangeen An. Can you tell me what's wrong with this picture?"

Well, that was obvious. "You're better at handling a gun than this." Pointing it at someone's head was no, even if of course Takeo would have made sure it was unloaded in advance.

Takeo frowned and tried again. "I need you to try to think, okay? Focus. Something's not right."

Oh this had to be… it was some kind of training exercise.

"If I asked you to take this gun from me, point it at your head, and pull the trigger, would you do it?" Takeo asked.

"…For purposes of the demonstration?"

"Good, you're remembering that this is a demonstration… at least I hope that's good, instead of the mind coming up with justifications for doing what it wants to do…"

"I thought you had some idea of what you were doing?" Yonsu demanded.

"It's probably a better idea that I don't," Takeo said apologetically. "I'm not very strong yet, and your husband is an enhanced human, so I think this is his best chance of pushing through. If he can't, then I can call home. I'm probably missing something obvious – the Chairman wouldn't have sent us without a warning if the most obvious practice was going to do permanent damage." He turned back to Sangeen. "Imagine it's not a demonstration. If I handed you my gun, loaded, and told you to shoot yourself in the head…" What then?

The Union. His wife. His country. "I'd rather make sure my body's destroyed, but it's better than being taken alive."

"Are you kidding me?"

"I barely… Oh," Takeo realized, slit-pupiled eyes blinking. He looked sad and distant for a moment, and Sangeen wanted to say something to cheer him up. "He crushed Tao's communication device so we wouldn't try to save him, even though that could have diverted the Union's attention from the KSA, and you, to us." He met Sangeen's eyes again. "We need you to snap out of this," Takeo told him. "Something's wrong. I'm not your partner, I'm not your wife, I'm not even from your country even though I live here. I may have helped save your life, but I'm an ex-Union assassin who works for a mad scientist who jokes about killing and replacing a branch of your government. And nonhumans. With mind control powers."

That made his brow wrinkle, even though he was trying not to do that. He already looked way too much older than Yonsu because of some complications with the modifications. Was Takeo saying they were on the same side, or they couldn't trust him?

But if the Union could impersonate M-24 well enough to confuse people like them, then Takeo could be replaced, or even Yonsu. They'd come up with protocols for that tactic: he had to keep an eye on Yonsu, because spotting it would be the only chance of getting her back. If Takeo… but he wouldn't be the best choice for spotting Takeo, he had his own team… "Right, got it," he said, rubbing his face. "Instant 'of course' I know you and can trust you. Won't be hard to spot it again. You're sure that's what that Yuri used, though? I thought they didn't trust anybody in the Union, wouldn't it have stuck out like a sore thumb?"

"I was trying to make it obvious," Takeo said, relaxing a little. "I just hope you can learn to spot it when it's not ham-handed. I haven't tried this on anyone but Rael and Tao, but… I hope that was too easy. I know the Chairman said that even the Union's enhanced humans would be helpless if pureblood nobles tried to infiltrate and assassinate them, but that was…"

"You're modified for this and I'm not. An enhanced human versus an unenhanced human, of course it's not a fair fight," Sangeen said, shrugging, because life sucked and the Union were bastards keeping everyone else easy prey. "So that kid's an evacuation asset because he can make everyone listen to him when he tells them to leave?"

"He can make everyone feel his decision for them to leave, like it's their own will," Takeo said.

"And I guess he wants humans to get lost all the time, doesn't he?" Yonsu said, folding her arms. "I know all of this is the Union's fault, but you people are scary."

Takeo frowned, looking down as he tried to think of how to put something. "When we first met Rael, we were useless against him," he said, still looking thoughtful. "The Chairman thought our health was more important, so he barely enhanced our strength at all before the next time we fought Rael. We didn't win that second time, but with better tactics we pushed him hard enough to do something he did not want to do, and we survived it, at least long enough for the Chairman and Sir Raizel to arrive. M-21 was part of a numbered series, but Tao and I were also created by the Union to be disposable. They thought we were weak… No, they intended for us to be weak and helpless in the end, but we fought a pureblood noble with a soul weapon and lived.

"Then Miss Seira told us that the Chairman was human, and a human like us once fought two noble clan leaders at once and survived. After that… we could believe that it was possible people like us could survive taking on Cerberus." Rescuing Sangeen. "To say that we're scary… Thank you," he said, smiling. "Someday, perhaps, we'll be able to scare the Union."

Wait. "You said you survived?" Sangeen asked, worried. "He tried to kill you?" It was one thing to be concerned for an ally, and worried that the noble was potentially dangerous. It was different to hear that an old friend nearly died – he was still reacting that way to Takeo, even though he knew to watch it.

Takeo shrugged. "When you meet an enhanced human, isn't the natural assumption that they're from the Union?"

Yonsu nodded, conceding his point.

"He was friends with Regis and Miss Seira when their families were slaughtered by the Union. I can understand why he wasn't happy to come here and find enhanced humans anywhere near them." Takeo winced. "And we should have listened to the Chairman. Enhanced humans appearing in Lukedonia at the same time as Sir Raizel can't have helped."

Well, this was an opportunity for Intel. "Helped?"

"The treason charges. The Union framed Sir Raizel, claimed that he was the ringleader of the traitor nobles, when they thought he was too dead to defend himself. He went to Lukedonia with the Chairman to clear matters up and assist Miss Seira and Regis' grandfather, but we were worried about them and stowed away." He winced again, embarrassed in hindsight. "They might have thought he was leading a Union invasion. Maybe they did think that at some point, before it was straightened out. There was a great deal of confusion, which was probably the idea," he realized. "They must have wanted to pit the Lord and Noblesse against each other, if the Noblesse did return. The same way they accused the Chairman of all sorts of crimes hoping the nobles would take him out for them. Thank goodness everything was straightened out before the Union fleet saw that the barrier was down and tried to invade with unenhanced troops."

"What happened?" Yonsu chimed in.

So this was why they normally didn't meet with Takeo without Tao, M-21 or both there. The man definitely was the type to answer questions helpfully – and they were intelligence agents. It was their job to take advantage of that. Even with allies. The better intel you had on your allies, the lower the risk of a misunderstanding causing the alliance to break.

He still felt a little bad about taking advantage of Takeo being a nice guy. Damn. Hopefully it'd wear off soon. Or maybe he should hope the effect lasted long enough for their doctor to get some data off him on it.

Takeo sighed. "The Central Order Knights wiped their memories of Lukedonia so they couldn't give intelligence to the Union and sent them back, I'm afraid. I wish those people didn't end up back in the hands of the Union, but I can't blame the Lord. What would they have done with those people if they kept them? They have a clinic for treating humans who fall through when there's a glitch in the dimensional barrier, but what could they have done with prisoners indoctrinated enough to think they could conquer nobles without enhanced humans?"

Sangeen had done enough training exercises as the KSA tried to develop anti-enhanced human tactics to know just how crazy that was, and their exercises were many against one (or two) opponents of Sangeen's caliber, because that was all they had. Unenhanced humans against a trained military unit of nobles much stronger than he was, with probably centuries of experience? When Lukedonia must have known an invasion was coming for a century, the way South Korea knew it was only a matter of time?

Throwing human lives into a meat grinder: that was the Union for you.

"Can't they just…" Yonsu gestured at her head.

"'We don't fear eternal sleep: we only fear being forced to do things against our wills,'" Takeo quoted someone. "The nobles who aren't traitors have very strict laws about mind control. To nobles, what Rael does is different in a way that's immediately obvious to them, but anyone who tampers with or restricts someone else's will is eliminated. The mind control that comes naturally to humans is will-tampering by noble standards – I'd have to be enhanced to be more like a noble to use whatever Rael's using."

So humans could be made more like nobles, the way the Union used genes from other species. Not that they had much of a prayer of getting a sample from the nobles without being obvious about it. They'd managed to get Lukedonia's ambassador to accept refreshments on a later visit to negotiate with the KSA, and nothing. Whatever nobles were, they didn't shed dead cells. That would make sense if their cells were immortal as they were. If they even had cells.

If Rael was going to be coming to the new building, they'd have the opportunity for some discrete scans – the budget they'd gotten was enough for all the bells and whistles. Which made sense if they were telling the truth, and they wanted the KSA able to protect their country and its civilians.

"The Chairman wouldn't like that – he loathes the idea that humans are weak, so the only way to be strong is to abandon humanity. The Union told us that failures are failures, that the strong are superior, but they lie. If you think that we're worth being scared of, then that just proves that they're wrong. About us, about you. The Union tries to make us believe that strength makes them untouchable, but they tried to trick others into killing the Chairman and Sir Raizel for them. If strong people can still be harmed by the 'weak,' then the Union can be brought down no matter how strong they claim to be."

Takeo closed his eyes, and when they opened Sangeen saw a hard light in them, and knew that he was looking at the assassin the Union manufactured, their own crime determined to come back to haunt them. "I may be weaker than the Elders, but that doesn't mean that I am inferior to them. They tried to make me forget that people's lives aren't worthless: we will make them remember it."

Takeo's being overly forgiving/making too many excuses for Rael's behavior here, but Rael has the rest of the household trying to make him grow the heck up or else, so it's good to give him some evidence that once he does grow the heck up people will actually forgive him and give him the time of day - Seira's a lost cause, he's rubbed dead family in her face for his own profit way too many times. Rai is also doing his best to help Rael become someone he doesn't need to execute- it would have been good if he could do more than interrogate the clan leaders all those times they visited (eg. give parenting advice).

Humans and nobles are both psychic, but humans need to worry about calorie expenditures and starving to death. So noble psychic control could function by broadcasting a stronger signal, while humans just don't have that kind of energy to spare. Think shotgun vs. scalpel.

The need to conserve energy is responsible for a couple other quirks of natural human abilities referenced in the fic – nobles emit energy that can be sensed over reasonable distances. Using our energy fields to tap that energy was a lot more efficient than generating it ourselves. This means that human psychic communication is a lot more powerful with a noble in range to take advantage of… and energy can be absorbed as well as reflected, so having a noble nearby would boost everyone's healing factor, not just that of their contractors. This fits nicely with the three species using energy in different ways, and that speciality also lets us get more power out of contracts, another example of humans evolving in response to how nobles were part of our environment.

This would explain why Shinwoo's eyes look like they're glowing in one panel of a later fight scene - he's a martial artist, and he's been sitting in class with three nobles for weeks. By this point he's built up one heck of a charge, and while he can only channel so much of it at once, at minimum it means he can perform at the limit of what the human body is capable of without his body breaking down (thanks to the healing factor). So his abilities are beyond what the Union would be expecting, but not to the point where it'd do them any good to haul him into a lab. He's not modified, this is just what baseline humans can do plugged into a power grid.

However, when one species evolves to take advantage of the presence of another species in their environment and that species goes extinct, it is very bad. When the nobles left, humanity took a hit to our ability to communicate with each other (and get along), our lifespans (people accumulate knowledge and skills) and our disease resistance (early cities were death sinks without the germ theory of disease). In-universe, look for a century when every single early civilization broke down worldwide, and you'd have when the nobles were ordered to Lukedonia. This fed into the 'the humans need (to be ruled by) us' mindset of some. Because without nobles around, it turned out humans were a hell of a lot more likely to have communications break down and start killing each other. However, that's certainly not because a species specializing in cooperation needs a species that didn't go and ask the Previous Lord why he was doing all that to tell us how to do our thing.