"So, let me get this straight," Homura said as he cradled his forehead in his hand. "You're the alternate dimensional counterpart to Shirou's former lover from England, fellow apprentice with Troper to this nigh-immortal sorcerer I keep hearing about, and you're a magus that sometimes dresses like a magical girl?"

"I'm also incredibly good looking, too." Rin replied coolly, her eyes narrowing at that last comment. Apparently she had picked up a mannerism or two from Troper.

I sighed as Homura's eyebrow twitched. In a scene that was startlingly similar to yesterday's dinner, the whole household was gathered around the dinner table to bear witness to the latest crazy development in our lives, which today was the arrival of Troper's Rin. Given we knew most of the story from Troper already, we were still in the middle of dinner when Matsu brought up the part of her arrival that she found most interesting.

"So, why were you dressed up like that anyway?"the brain Sekirei asked. Her glasses glinted as an idea came to her. "Oh! I know! Is it maybe because Troper-tan is into that kind of thing, and Rin-tan had something special in mind after being apart for so long…"

Rin began to blush furiously. "Wh-what? No! I would never be dressed like that for something so perverse!"

"The short answer is that that the wand she was carrying forced her to wear it." Troper interrupted, trying to head off the conversation before things became more heated. It was worth noting that his cheeks had become somewhat red at the 'something special in mind' comment, though. "That was the short cut I was talking about last night. It's known as the Kaleidostick, and as one of Zelretch's creations, its capable searching through the multiverse very quickly and efficiently. Rin can use it to… triangulate my position. Well, no that's completely wrong as the infinite sea of possibilities isn't really compatible with Euclidian geometry, but it's a convent lie you can understand"

"I… see" I said, not trying to think about it too hard. "But still, why does it force her to wear it? And why are you the only one that can remove the cloths?"

Troper ignored the snickers from Matsu. "The Kaledostick is sentient and has a rather… unfortunate sense of humor. As for why I'm the only one who can remove it, well, let's just say that it tried to make me a Magical Girl. Once" He gave a predatory grin. "It knows better now."

"Whoa, scary bro…" Uzume said, leaning away from Troper a bit. She turned to Rin. "So, you're a magus too right? Can you do the same stuff he can?"

She scoffed a bit at this "No. I practice a far more traditional and logical form of magic than Shirou. He's the only person I know that's crazy enough to turn something like tropes into a form of magic."

"Oji-chan has trope swords!" Kuu-chan added enthusiastically, apparently deciding that my slightly older counterpart was something akin to a distant uncle.

"Well, technically they're sword tropes, but yes." Troper turned to Rin. "By the way, I'm going by the name Troper while I'm here to prevent confusion." He said, gesturing to me as he did so.

She snorted at this. "Of course you are. I bet you've already started making a page in your head."

He looked off to the side. "Maybe."

"There's no maybe about it. I've know you for years. Root, I could probably guess half the content myself from what I've heard so far. I'm guessing, harem antics, badass fight scenes, and hilarity ensues just for starters."

"Yes, though I wasn't about bring it up. The players don't like to be reminded of the Fourth Wall, after all."

"Page? And what a about a fourth wall?" Musubi asked, her head tilted to the side in confusion.

"I believe he's referring to the imaginary wall that separates the actors on a stage from the audience." Homura said, though his eyes narrowed at Troper a bit. "In simpler terms, it's what separates 'fiction' from the 'real world', and I must say, I don't like the implication that you're making about us."

"What implication?" Tsukimui asked, always ready to respond to any perceived insult.

"The implication that you're all just fictional character and this is just a story." Troper said with a sigh. "But I didn't mean it as insult. In fact, I'm just as fictitious as you are."

Rin gave an exasperated sigh. "Oh no, not this again. You know a think that's a load of crap."

Troper gave her a wiry grin. "And yet you've never been able to say my logic is faulty in the slightest." She just grumbled at this and he continued. "Anyway, it's like this: Given the nature of the multiverse, everything that can possibly happen will happen. This includes works of fiction: anything that can be imagined and written about, will be imagined and written about."

"What's your point?" Homura asked, his eye's still narrowed.

"If every story is being written, then someone, somewhere in the multiverse is writing your story." As one, the table blinked in surprise at this revelation. "To them, you are a fictional character. What that means is the barrier that separates the dimensions from each other is in fact the Fourth Wall."

"So you're saying nothing's real, Troper-kun? That nothing really matters?" Miya asked.

"Not at all. Everyone has a story, and every last one of them matters. It just so happens that each one has an author to go with it."

"Yes, but that's mostly a coincidence." Rin said, clearly believing that she was very real and not at all a character in some story. "So what if it just so happens that someone made up a story about you and by pure chance got all the details right? It doesn't mean anything."

Troper gave a shrug. "Perhaps. But if you know what kind of story you're in, you have a basic idea of how this will turn out, and I can tell you Genre Savvy has saved my life more times than I can count."

"Oh? And what genre is your story Troper-kun?" The landlady gave him an inquisitive look.

Troper gave a satisfied smile as he said "My story is an erotic comedy."

Rin punched him lightly in the side of the head "How many times have I told you not to say that, stupid? I refuse to believe that anything I'm a part of could be labeled as something as sordid as that."

Troper rubbed the side of his head. "Ok, ok, that's the genre I wish my story was. In reality, is more complicated than that. It tends to change depending on the people and circumstances around me."

"So… it's just like real life." I said, realizing that to him, real life and fiction were one and the same.

"Now you're getting it."

I was about to ask something else when I heard the door open. "Heeee~ey! Sorry I'm late for dinner Onii-chan! Shiina and I lost track of time patrolling the city!"

I barely stopped from shouting a curse. Shit! I thought. With everything that's been going on I forgot it was Saturday!That was the day Yukari would show up for dinner at the Izumo House. While she had heard enough about my past to know I had been involved in some dangerous things, she still didn't know about magic, and I wanted to keep it that way. However, that would be difficult with my alternate dimension counterpart sitting across from me.

I turned back towards him to tell him to hide, but when I looked in his direction, he had disappeared. Rin, who had been sitting right next to him, was blinking in surprise at the sudden vacant space next to her.

Before I could ponder this too much, my sister came into the dining room with her Sekirei. Before she could say anything, Kuu-chan quickly got up and rushed over to Shiina. "Shii-chan! Come sit next to me!" grabbing his hand, she pulled him back to where she was sitting and plopped him down right next to her.

"Hey!" Yukari began. "Why do you always get to-" she cut herself off when she noticed Rin. "Oh, did you get another Sekirei, Onii-chan? Her breasts aren't very big though…"

Rin sputtered at this "You-you're one talk, pancake chest!"

"Hey! They're not that small!" Yukari returned, her arms folding protectively across her chest. "I bet you're not nearly as good as Shirou's other Sekirei!"

"I'm not a Sekirei! I'm-"

"An old friend from Fuyuki City!" I quickly interjected before Rin said too much. "Her name is… Sakura!" I blurted out the first name I could think of. It would be really bad if my sister learned that this was Rin. Well, technically it wasn't the Rin that I had loved, but that was something else I didn't want to explain.

Rin looked at me briefly in confusion. I hadn't gotten around to telling her about what had happened at the Clock Tower, and I don't think Troper had given her too many details yet, so it was probable she didn't know about how my Rin and I were forced to break up. Even if she did, she most certainly wouldn't know my sister's outlook on my former lover who worked for the organization that had sent me into hiding. Fortunately, Rin decided to play along. "Yes, my name is Sakura Matou. I used to go to high school with Shirou."

"Really?" Yukari asked, suddenly very interested in a possible source of information about my past. Forgetting about Shiina, she hurried and sat herself down in Troper's vacant seat, looking at Rin with wide eyes. "Oh my god, what was he like? Was he as awesome back then as he is now? Was he always surrounded by women? Did he really participate in a brutal battle that was caused by an evil, shadowy organization?"

"Eh?" Rin said in surprise. She turned to me. "Isn't that last bit supposed to be kept a secret?" I rubbed the back of my head sheepishly, not wanting to recall the night that bit of information that was pried out of me.

Yukari let out a noise that can only be defined as a 'squee' and started to babble. "ohmygosh ohmygosh it really is true! Shirou really did fight in a bunch of battles and fought an evil orginzation and then joined the evil organization and then went to England with Rin and Saber and-" she went on like this for quite some time, extrapolating my past as she went. I really wished she didn't start doing that with Rin and Saber though. While her opinion of them had increased since I revealed the circumstances of our break up, her feeling on the mater were still colored by how much leaving them hurt me, and it easier to put a face on two women than a shadow organization when it came to blame. This resulted in her saying a few less-than-complementary comments about them to Rin, her eyebrow twitching furiously as Yukari did so.

Partway through the rant I suddenly thought to myself Who is she? Does she have blue hair! I blinked in surprise at this. What the… why did I suddenly think that? You didn't, I did, now does she have blue hair? Wait, I did? No I didn't! What the hell's going on here? Damn it, this would be a lot easier if we didn't have the same mental voice. What mental voice? What the hell am I thinking about? Oh for the love of… this is Troper and I'm using Telepathy!

My mind was blank for a second before I finally realized that something shaking was touching my foot. Looking beneath the table, I saw Troper huddled into a ball near my legs his hand on my foot. I then caught on to why my thoughts had sounded so disjoined. You can use Telepathy? I thought at him.

Not very well, now answer my damn question! Who is she and does she have blue hair?

I frowned at him. She's my sister and no, she doesn't have blue hair. Why would you ask that? You almost sound like you're scared of her.

With this thought, I felt his hand stop shaking and mentally heard a sigh of relief. Oh thank god, I thought she had found me. Sorry about that, it's just that there's this… girl I met in my travels that I'd rather not met again.

I blinked at this. By the sound of it, she seems something like The Blue.

Oh, I wouldn't say that he thought back. I like her a lot actually. She was almost like pure Crazy Awesome distilled into human form. It's just that she got a little too friendly, and, well… I'm not sure how, but I could feel Troper cringe. Let's just say I can never look at cucumbers in quite the same way ever again.

It may have been the mental connection, but this caused a chill to go down my spine.