73: Preparations
"S-sorry, I just blurted it out." I say, scratching my arm nervously. "Flat-senpai kept insisting I use that nickname, and since I spent so much time with him…"
"I should have known his name would pop up…" Professor Velvet says, pinching the bridge of his nose. "Still, I should get through the other half of my introduction, since you probably don't know that part. Servant Caster - I'm Lord El-Melloi II, though I've been summoned as a Pseudo-Servant. My true name is Zhuge Liang, courtesy name Kongming."
What.
"Wait, you were El-Melloi II!?" I say, pointing at him. That… somehow isn't that surprising?
Right, Ahab's memories. Now that I think about it, I can almost see the Chinese strategist's wicked grin on his face.
The Professor raises an eyebrow. "Why are you… oh, that's right. From the information the grail gave me, the 'present day' is 2016. By this point, I suppose I'd have stepped down and given the title to Reines."
"So that's how it is…" I mutter. "Well, now that the summoning's done, I guess we should get everyone up to date - a strategist with no information is no use, right?"
"Hm. I'd not say no use. I've still got one or two tricks at my disposal. But information would definitely be appreciated." He nods.
Merry, from a largely ineffectual hiding place behind an overturned handcart - did she run there when the summoning started? - gives a small, hesitant nod. "L-lord Siegfried says he's listening as well, but he will remain dematerialized for now."
"I'm ready too." Says the Director, appearing on the comm unit once more. "We're routing to Mash's communicator as well."
…Alright. I'll put aside thoughts of Gareth for now. I need to make a good impression on new teammates after all. Calling up my courage and Ahab's spite, I trace my mind across everything I've learned of this exhausting singularity so far. And then, with a forced grin and a deep breath, I begin.
"Okay! To start with, this singularity was formed due to the sudden return of an evil version of Jeanne d'Arc, who summoned an army of dragons and Madness-Enhanced servants using a Holy Grail gifted to her by one of the demons of the Ars Goetia. With that, the timeline diverged enough that the planet began to summon Servants to counter the threat, and Chaldea observed a singularity.
As far as our allies go, we're spread pretty freaking thin. There's the group from Chaldea - Mash Kyrielight, Mordred Pendragon, and myself. We had linked up with Jeanne d'Arc, Amadeus Mozart, and Marie Antoinette, but we got separated during an encounter with Francois Prelati. I managed to kill the little bastard, but when his Reality Marble unraveled I was miles away in Lyon."
"What are we working with there? I can't imagine a Knight of the Round Table or a famous local Saint being weak, but as for the rest - who even is Mash Kyrielight, anyway?" Professor Velvet asks.
Galahad, I carefully don't say. There's not a chance in hell that I'll let Mash get overwritten this time around.
"Mash is a Demi-Servant. It's a similar deal to what you've got going on, but the creation process is different - anyway, whoever it is she's fused with is definitely a powerhouse, but he seems to be withholding his name from her on purpose." I explain. "As for the rest… don't worry, it's way worse than it sounds. Mordred sacrificed her sword at the end of the last singularity, and Jeanne says she was summoned without her offensive Noble Phantasm, her legend bonus, most of her abilities as a Ruler class Servant, and all of her memories of previous summons."
The Professor takes a long, long, drag of his cigar and closes his eyes, exhaling with an equally long sigh. "I see. Do we have any other cards to play? That girl over there mentioned Siegfried's presence, right?"
"Y-yes milord! I'm his m-m-master, Merry d'Lyon, milord!" She says, giving a sloppy curtsy. "But Lord Siegfried was terribly injured protecting the town, and so-"
"He can't even materialize, huh?" Professor Velvet takes yet another long drag of his cigar. "What a fucking shitshow."
"...Pretty much, yeah. What kind of timescale are we looking at for his recovery?" I ask.
"That's…" Merry trails off.
"Indefinite, it seems." Siegfried's voice emanates from nowhere. "My injuries were cursed, so I've been unable to recover."
I can do something about that, I want to say, but- I'm not sure. I still don't know how my [Gluttony] works, still don't have a name for it, even. I know that it killed me last time. I know that it didn't kill me in Fuyuki. How the hell does that even make sense!? Ahab's Harpoon killed me, but the curse of Angra Mainyu didn't? Isn't that unreasonable?
In any case, if it has a chance to kill me, I can't risk using it, not when it could reset me back into Prelati's trap.
But that aside, it makes sense now - in the last loop, I had wondered why Kongming hadn't prepared any measure to save Siegfried. But knowing about his cursed injury, and Kongming's personality…
"He's dead weight anyway, so I'll just let him die." - I'm sure he said something like that.
"Well, to try to save some morale, we have got one other group of allies - a group of Rogue Servants defending Paris at the moment. Captain Ahab, the young version of Elizabeth Bathory, Kiyohime, Charlotte Corday, Robespierre, Edward of Woodstock, and, most importantly, Saint George. Napoleon was around too, but Prelati talked him into attacking Orleans alone and he hasn't been seen since."
Speaking of allies disappearing, there's also that - Corday and Robespierre vanish tomorrow, followed by Kiyohime later in the night. Ahab had tried a little bit to figure it out, but ultimately Robespierre and Corday were useless anyway and wrangling Kiyohime without setting off her berserk buttons was impossible for someone as disagreeable as the old captain. In other words, he gave up after… just two tries!?
Seriously, Ahab, does that [Determination of Steel] skill of yours only apply to whales!?
And then there's Edward of Woodstock, who in every loop had ridden out to aid us against Chlodovech, despite Ahab's urgings, and in every loop had been killed by Lancelot.
"The Black Prince…?" Merry asks in utter disbelief. "Why… why him!? Why not Emperor Charlemagne, or King Clovis, or even … why did it have to be the one of the men who began this hundred year war in the first place!?"
"To be honest, I'm more curious about Napoleon." Professor Velvet says. "Who exactly are we facing in this Singularity - and how the hell did they manage to bring down Napoleon Bonaparte on French Soil?"
"I guess that's as good a segue as any." I say with a sigh. "Dark Jeanne summoned a whole bunch of Wyverns and Dragons, including Fafnir. Aside from that, there's a full set of Servants with Mad Enhancement - Berserk Avenger, Edmond Dantes; Berserk Saber, Chevalier d'Eon; Berserk Lancer, Vlad III; Berserk Archer, a cat-eared woman I don't know the identity of; Berserk Rider, Saint Martha; the second Berserk Rider, Chlodovech, King of the Franks; Berserk Assassin, Carmilla; Berserk Caster, Gilles de Rais; and True Berserker, Lancelot du Lac."
Professor Velvet takes a drag of his cigar, and exhales. And then he does it two more times, before finally finding a good response.
"Fuck." He says.
"Yeah." I reply. "We thought we picked off Carmilla in La Charite, but it seems she's still alive, with extra dragon traits like wings added on for some reason. Same with Dantes and Fafnir; it seems like the former's got a stupidly strong healing Noble Phantasm, and they're going to be popping up again. Even worse, Fafnir's learned his lesson from being injured, so he's going to be using hit-and-run tactics from here on."
"Ah!" Merry says. "Ridiculous healing… is he that kuhaha guy who attacked us this morning?"
"...Kuhaha guy?" Professor Velvet asks.
"Y-yes, milord! He was zipping around with great agility and kept laughing with a strange 'kuhaha' laugh." The girl says. "Lord Siegfried almost slew him, but the next moment he was unharmed."
"That's the one." I nod. "It seems like he's… I think he said he could 'escape outside of time', or something like that?"
"I see… I think Flat mentioned that there was a Dead Apostle with that kind of ability in Egypt once." He says. "The ability to attack within stopped time… how terrifying."
"...I think Flat-Senpai might have been talking about an anime there, actually." I say, scratching my head. "Regardless, I'm pretty sure that Dantes has to enter into the normal timestream again to attack, at least for an instant. If you can predict his location, your Noble Phantasm is definitely able to catch him."
"Hmm… In that case, we can probably make do. On that note… I suppose you have some kind of clairvoyance, Master?" The Professor asks, and it takes a little too long for me to realize he's talking to me.
"Man, hearing you call me 'Master' is way too weird… Can you just call me Subaru like normal?" I mutter, scratching the back of my head. "And I can't exactly tell you about it."
"It's something like that." The Director pipes up. "Whatever his deal is, it's got some sort of clause that will kill him if he talks too much about the details."
"...Troublesome." He notes, cigar shifting up and down in his mouth as he chews on the end. "Still it seems you can share events somewhat freely, so… what do we have to worry about in the immediate future?"
"Berserk Saber will arrive in Lyon tomorrow morning to finish off Siegfried. I don't think she'd be able to beat him normally, but as he is…" I trail off, and he closes his eyes in thought. "Fafnir and Dantes could show up at any time, too. The bulk of the Wyverns have… probably withdrawn to Orleans with Dark Jeanne, I think. Dantes and Fafnir could have as well, but they're both fast enough that location doesn't necessarily matter."
"...When did you say Fafnir had been wounded, again?" Professor Velvet asks.
"Um…" It had happened before my reset point, right. How long… five minutes, maybe? Taking into account the time I spent unconscious… "It can't have been much more than two hours ago. Why?"
"...Just a theory. I need some more time to think about it, I'll let you know later." He answers. "Is there anything else I should be aware of?"
I stop to ponder. I feel like there's one more thing I'm missing…
"-Wait!" The Director blurts out. "I was too busy thinking about other problems earlier, but… how the hell did you show up in the first place, El-Melloi!?"
"El-Melloi II," He corrects. "And what do you mean by that, Olga Marie?"
There's something in his tone of voice, something that was missing when he was talking to me, that should have been there. But I can't quite figure out what that is-
"I mean how were you 'Zhuge Liang', the one to come out of that summoning ritual!? Our catalyst was a holy shroud provided by Jeanne d'Arc! There should be no way for a Chinese tactician of all things to pop out!" She shouts. "And that's 'Director', to you!"
The Professor closes his eyes, a troubled look flitting across his face, before it vanishes and stern eyes gaze back at her. "You can't answer that for yourself?"
"Of course not! How should I know-!"
"You're smarter than that, Olga Marie." He chides, and realization dawns. I get it - this attitude, I missed it in him because he didn't recognize me. The attitude of a teacher, drawing out the best in his student. "I'll give you a hint. What was the history of that holy shroud?"
"It was created by Jeanne d'Arc, earlier…today…" Her head falls into her hands. "Ahhhh! I'm so stupid! It's in a singularity! It's an object that won't even exist outside of that point in time, which is where the Throne of Heroes is! Of course we got someone random, we might as well have not been using a catalyst at all!"
"...Seven points. Rather than 'no catalyst', it would be better to say that the catalyst was set to 'zero'. A summon not taking any catalyst into account, not even compatibility with the summoner. In some sense, it was just leaving the whole process up to luck and the will of the planet. All in all, not the worst circumstance." He explains patiently. "But that raises the extra question - just how tired are you, Olga Marie? This kind of mistake is unlike you."
She blinks, and stares at him with a bizarre look on her face. "...Do we know each other? In your timeline, I mean?"
"We met on the Rail Zeppelin. Some unfortunate events unfolded, but it ended with you striking up a friendship with… I suppose she's the current El-Melloi III. You ended up joining my class at the Clock Tower as well."
"...What about Chaldea?" She asks, strangely distant.
He shrugs. "It doesn't exist. Your father was never able to find the funding he needed."
"...I see." She says. A few moments pass, and then she lets out a breath. "I'll go try to get some sleep. Romani, you're in charge until I get back."
Her display cuts out, and a familiar fluffy-haired doctor pops up. "Well, that's… Listen, I'm going to go after her. I'm not any good with battle plans anyway, so… ah, why not. Cu Chulainn, you're still lurking around in spiritual form, right? You take charge until I'm back."
"Finally!" I hear a rush of spiritron particles, and Caster's face replaces Romani's.
"Have you just been… waiting in the command room this whole time?" I ask.
"Obviously. Where else would I be hanging out?" He says with a grin.
A/N:
Three months, schmee months
(No but seriously I'm very sorry for the delays)
Obviously, Cu should be workshopping mystic codes with Da Vinci.
But that's boring, so he's watching our boy fight instead and badgering the command staff to send him in despite his injury. They were going to do it in the last loop, because an injured servant is better than none, but the generators came down with a fatal case of ILOVEYOUILOVEYOUILOVEYOU so they couldn't power a rayshift.
17 day late Christmas Omake:
-This is the story of something that never happened.
To start with, there's no room for seasonal events in a story crawling by at a pace like this. And, furthermore, the tone is way off base, and the story includes several characters that have no business showing up this soon.
But with all that said, it's that magical time of year again, when the pagan kings of northern Europe would invite their courtiers to feast with them on horse meat and blood and also just slather horse blood all over the place because apparently Odin is really into that kind of thing. That time of year when all good Christians were forbidden from eating horse meat in AD 732, because looking like a pagan is a big no-no, and even today most of those northern European cultures are quite ant-horse meat. That magical time of year where no person from the Americas would have eaten horse up until the Columbian exchange, primarily due to American horses going extinct around 7900 BC.
That time of year when every Persona Protagonist faces their climactic battle, a bit of information that the author was unaware of prior to his unannounced hiatus two months ago with the release of Persona 5 for PC. I'm sure that's just a coincidence, though.
That's right. It's Christmas time. And as anyone who's familiar with FGO will tell you, that means it's time for me, the author, to violate all the traditions and magic of the holiday season, for the sake of comedy.
Grab a glass of eggnog, huddle under a blanket, and relax, with this heartwarming(?) tale.
The Santa who Judges the Sinners, Part 3
-My face hurts. The wind is way too strong…
Slowly, I sit up, prying one eye open to gaze at my red-hatted companion, and the sea of clouds below us. Still not a dream, huh?
"Baru! Don't pass out aga~in! We've still got a long night ahead of us!" Typhon says over the howling wind.
"Can't you just take me home now? I'm so tired…" I complain. It feels like we've been at this for years…
"Maybe when you finally escape Orleans, Baru."
"Ah, so it'll continue forever, then…"
"Anyway, the next person we need to visit is a little girl named Merry!" Typhon says
"Is it really okay to use such a recently introduced Original Character here…?"
"Little Merry's letter to santa says:
'Oh Saint Barbara, Saint Louis , Saint Mark, Saint Nicholas, any Saint that is listening, please intercede for me! I'm surrounded by pagans and there's blood everywhere and they're drinking it and one of them is staring right at my hiding place, please, please, please send someone to deliver me from this trouble!'"
"What the he-ck, that sounds scary!" I shout. "Also, are we ever going to get an actual Santa letter, or is that just part of the joke?"
"[White Whale, Compact Model], descend-!"
White Whale-kun lets out a cry, and we plunge down below the clouds once more.
We crash through the front door of a wooden temple-looking building with a thunderous noise. The scent of blood is already reaching my nostrils as Typhon calls out into the cloud of sawdust and wood splinters.
"Santa is here! Prepare to perish, sinners!" She shouts, and as the dust settles, I can feel the eyes of half a dozen sinister-looking buff men resting on me. Two shirtless men, one with brown hair and horns and one with blonde hair and tattoos pause in the middle of an arm wrestle. A bearded blonde with eyes like a dead fish slowly lowers a glass of wine from his lips as he raises an eyebrow. A man in a hooded blue cloak pauses in the middle of smearing what looks to be blood on one of the walls and glances in our direction. A man with gray hair combed into a wave of forward-facing spikes adjusts his glasses, which glint sinisterly in the firelight. And a man with long gray hair and a glowing emblem on his chest - wait, that's Siegfried, isn't it!?
Okay this is fine. We just invaded the party of a bunch of scary heroic spirits. No big deal. After all, Typhon is powerful, so-
"Hmm? What's all this commotion?" A red-haired woman calls out as she enters from an adjoining room. She's wearing an apron and holding a ladle in her hand- "Oh, aren't you the cutest little thing! Come to the kitchen with me, I'll get you some sweets."
"Santa demands cookies!" Typhon immediately runs over to her. Oi, hang on-!
"Now, now, that's not the right way to ask for something.~" The woman replies, leading Typhon away by the hand.
"Ah-" I try to protest my single source of protection leaving.
"Please give Typhon some sweets, Onee-san~!" Typhon says
"Mm, mm, that's right!" The woman nods, and they disappear through the door into the kitchen.
A solid five seconds of awkward silence follow as I stare at the room's remaining occupants, sweat cascading down my brow, until finally -
"Kid, what the hell?" Asks the man in the blue cloak - hang on, that voice is-!
"Cu Chulainn!?" I blurt out.
"Yeah. Yule is a festival for Odin, so since I've got some links to the guy, I ended up getting dragged into being the head priest for this mess…" The Caster says with a small shrug. "But listen, even if you're usually my master, I can't exactly let this kind of thing slide, you know? Showing up uninvited is one thing, but you broke the door down and everything…"
…
"I'm very sorry, please forgive me!" I shout, bowing at a perfect 90 degree angle.
He pauses, glancing towards a large wooden statue of a horned man, and closing his eyes for a moment.
"-sorry, that's not good enough. Should have gone for the full dogeza, kid." Cu Chulainn sighs. "Well, it's still enough for me to just kick you out instead of actually killing you or something."
I laugh nervously, glancing back at the howling snowstorm outside the temple. That's no good. Seriously, just looking out there is enough to make me imagine a giant cat spirit glaring at me. I let out an involuntary shudder.
"Oh, and that girl hiding behind the statue there-" He starts.
"Kyaaaa!" Said girl lets out a piercing shriek as she charges out from behind it, dashing for the gaping hole in the wall where the door had once been. "I'm gonna die I'm gonna die I'm gonna die-!"
The room's other inhabitants make no effort to stop her, and an instant later she vanishes into the blizzard.
"-I was going to say 'take her with you', but I guess she left on her own." He shrugs.
A brief silence follows, and I glance back into the blizzard. "Could you maybe give me a coat or someth-"
"Ūruz." He intones, and a wave of force seizes me, flinging me into the cold night.
A few short moments of flight later, I crash into the still running girl, and we both tumble into cold, wet snow.
This is bad. This is all kinds of bad. I'm seriously going to freeze.
"Aaah! Aaah! No, no please!" She starts screaming again, and my teeth smash together painfully as her fist meets my jaw, knocking me off of her. "Let me go! Help, help-!" Wisely, I roll away from her flailing legs, just barely dodging being knocked prone again.
"For the love of- calm down, Merry!" I shout, and the girl pauses, opening her slightly-too-large eyes and staring at me.
"H-how do you know my name?" She asks.
Cu remembers me, but she doesn't? How the hell does any of this make sense!?
Well, other circumstances aside… "I guess you could say we heard your prayer…?"
"A-are you an angel!?" She blurts out
"I'm not." I retort, crossing both arms in front of me. "It's way more disappointing than that."
"Huh?" She tilts her head.
"I'm a reindeer."
An awkward silence follows.
"I-is that so?" She asks eventually.
"Please don't look at me with such pity in your eyes."
…
Another freezing gust of wind tears my attention away from my flaming cheeks. "Right, we should-!"
"Ohoho!" A new, male voice calls out. "I came, I saw, and what did I find - two more fellows kicked out of the celebration. Then that makes us allies, compatriots, friends-!"
Emerging from the blizzard around us, carrying a bright, warm torch, with a laurel wreath on his head, is quite possibly the fattest man I have ever seen.
"Allow us to introduce ourselves! I am Saber (for some reason), Gaius Julius Caesar, leader of the Yuletide Crashers Alliance!" From the blizzard, two more individuals emerge.
A teenage boy with red eyes and gray hair speaks quietly. "Caster, Sieg. I'm not even technically a heroic spirit, but please take care of me."
Of course neither of us are really paying attention to them, because the third member of their party is far too bizarre. With a horse's body, and a man's upper body… it's a centaur right? This is a centaur, right? But that head…
"It's a horse?" Merry asks.
"A horse? Where!?" The horse-faced centaur asks, looking around.
"She means you, right…?" I can't help but ask.
"Hm? No, that's ridiculous. I'm not a horse." The horse insists.
"Th-then what are you?" Merry replies.
"I'm Lu Bu."
"I-is that so?" She says, and then glances at me.
"No, that reindeer thing was just a joke! I didn't know something like this would happen, okay?"
"So, tell me, my new friends - who are you and what are your abilities? I'm certain can fit you into my grand plan to infiltrate the party."
"Um, Merry d'Lyon! It is an honor to meet you, Lord Caesar!" Merry says with a small bow. "I'm good at repairing and washing clothes!"
"...And?"
"I can… cook and clean…?" She continues.
"...Can you though?" I ask after a moment's thought - after all, when we first met, in France…
"That's… I don't have, much experience, but I'm willing to learn!" She says.
"Hmm, inexperienced, but a self-starter.. hang on!" Caesar says. "This isn't a summer job interview, why are you only listing mundane skills? Aren't you a servant?"
"No, Lord Caesar! But I admire Mademoiselle Valour, the Governor's maid a great deal. I'd like to be like her someday!" Merry responds.
"Ah, basically, we're both just normal humans." I interrupt before Caesar can get any more confused. "I can use some magic, and I've got a couple command spells, but that's about it. And Merry is just a normal girl… I think. Probably."
"Oh lord forgive me, for consorting with witches - ah!? What do you mean you think? I'm just a normal girl from Lyon!" She protests.
"No, that's clearly not the case - you've somehow found your way back in time to Ancient Germany, and that aside, your face-" Sieg starts to say.
"I was born with this face, you scoundrel!" She shouts.
"Hey, don't judge people just because they have eyes like a dead fish!" I shout at him.
"Don't insult my eyes, you shifty-eyed boy!" Merry turns on me.
"We have the same eyes!" I retort.
"What I was saying was, her face is strangely similar to that King Clovis I back at the party." The red-eyed boy continues.
"The hell, Chlodovech was there? I didn't see him." I say.
"The blonde, bearded middle-aged guy." Sieg says.
"Are you sure? In France, he was summoned as a kid."
"Well, Servants can take different forms depending on the circumstance of their summoning, after all." Says Caesar with a laugh. "This charming girth of mine is simply the result of my class - I'm sure that had I been summoned as Rider, you could see my chiseled jaw the same as my marble bust!"
"And I guess Lu Bu wouldn't be a horse if he was summoned as something else, right?" I say, nodding.
"O-of course not! I'm not a horse in the first place! I'm Lu Bu!" The horse whinnies back.
"A-anyway, that's impossible!" Merry says. "King Clovis was a good Christian ruler. There's no way he'd take part in that barbaric pagan ritual!"
"Speaking of which, isn't Caesar a pagan too? Why aren't you freaking out about him, huh?" I ask.
"Well, Lord Caesar is one of the Nine Worthies, after all." She says matter-of-factly. "I don't know much about him, but all the nobles say he was a good man!"
"Just because some stuffy French nobles look up to him…?" I mumble. I really don't get this girl at all…
"Ahem!" Caesar coughs. "Returning to the point, you wouldn't happen to have a Servant with you, Mister…?"
"Ah, I forgot my introduction!" I say, striking my signature pose. "My name is Natsuki Subaru! Not only am I clueless, I'm also completely separated from my Servants!"
"What's that pose about…?" Sieg asks.
"It… doesn't mean anything. My dad just did the same pose when introducing himself to people, so before I knew it I was doing it too."
"Haha! Well, nothing wrong with having a family tradition, nothing wrong at all." Caesar laughs jovially. "But with that in mind, I believe we're back where we were before, my friends. Terribly outnumbered."
"Like I said, if you can keep the dragonslayers occupied, I can probably deal with the rest." Sieg says.
"Indeed. But even with Red Hare supporting me, there's not a chance I can take on Siegfried, Sigurd, and Beowulf all at once." Caesar sighs.
"Red Hare!? Where?" Asks the horse who seems to in fact be Red Hare.
"Wait, are you seriously that much of a big shot that you can take on Chlodovech, Cu Chulainn, and that guy with the horns all on your own!?" I ask.
"When you say it like that, I feel much less confident." He says. "But to make a long story short, some stuff happened, and now I'm Fafnir."
"...What." Does not compute.
"It's called the [Evil Dragon Phenomenon]. People who exhibit overwhelming greed just sort of transform into Fafnir naturally, apparently." The self-proclaimed Evil Dragon says. "Though in my case it's a bit more complicated."
"I guess that explains how both Siegfried and Sigurd can have killed Fafnir." I sigh. "To be honest, I don't even want to get into that Yule party, but they sort of stole my ride, so it can't be helped. Typhon is… well, she isn't strong, exactly, but Sigurd cheated on his wife or something, right? She should be able to take him down. We just need to find a way to smuggle her out of the kitchen."
"It's an iron age German kitchen, though. There's no way any men will be allowed in there." Sieg notes, and slowly turns to stare at Merry.
"N-no! Go back there… I can't!" She wilts under his gaze. Yeah, she doesn't strike me as someone who can tell a lie to save her life. Someone else will have to handle the infiltration, which means…
"In that case… I suppose this looks like a job for Natsumi Schwarz."
"Actually, Baru, we're out of time! It's already January!" Says Typhon, appearing from nowhere.
"Eh!? Hang on! The author procrastinated that long!?" I shout.
"Sorry, Baru! You'll have to wait until next year to disguise yourself as a woman!"
"C-c-crossdressing!? That's sinful!" Merry gasps, scandalized.
"I can't say I approve either…" Caesar mutters. "Caesar cannot be associated with the methods of Clodius."
"Hmph! In that case, it can't be helped - I'll have to disguise myself as a horse!" Says Red Hare.