Life's a Pay to Win Game

by swordmaster888

Eminence in Shadow and Mobuseka Crossover. I read some fanfics that had self inserts take over, and some stuff that was like Light vs Shadow. So I since I made the connection of Luxion Light and am not that fond of how the self inserts kinda make the original protagonist needless, here we are. I'm pulling from as many sources these stories have as I can

66. Omake 4

A/N: So I had used a poll on questionable questing and asked people what they wanted to see on the next omake chapter. Here's the results:

Leon and Co. vs Delta (doesn't fit in canon anymore)

Votes: 1 (3.4%)

Seven Shades Date Night (short interactions with each girl)

Votes: 9 (31.0%)

Royal Flush Date Night (Leon's harem)

Votes: 14 (48.3%)

More CooP game (would mostly revolve around the duel and raising Makoto)

Votes: 8 (27.6%)

Silent Dreams 2 (would include Angelica and the evil team)

Votes: 1 (3.4%)

Adventure Chronicles (some young adventure team shenanigans)

Votes: 2 (6.9%)

Guy Time (Leon and Cid plus other male characters doing stupid guy stuff)

Votes: 11 (37.9%)

What if? (Leon inviting Claire to teaparty, Sherry getting Necklace, Leon Sara Rault)

Votes: 4 (13.8%)

Other? (please comment it)

Votes: 1 (3.4%) btw who ever voted for this didn't actually comment anything, so I don't know what it was you wanted.

Tldr; The top three were Seven Shades Date Night, Leon's Harem date night, and Guy time. I'm pretty sure I can fit all three into the same chapter, so that's what I'm doing this time.

CooP game came in a close 4th place though, so I'll probably do another chapter after the blood moon arc.

As for when this chapter takes place… probably just before everyone went to Alzer unless stated otherwise I suppose… Er, I'm doing a frame narrative type thing so I'll just explain again after the chapter. But basically after New Years and Before Leon's engagement ceremony/wedding would be the best estimate. Probably after he talked to Mylene though.

Also, I recently bought the first three novels of The Eminence of Shadow. Hardcover to. I figured it'll help with writing the blood moon stuff in a bit. I gotta say that reading the light novels is so much more fast than watching the anime or game. Still peak though.

-P2W-

Following the battle with Fanoss, Cid and Leon had found themselves not doing much other than lazing around at their own respective temporary homes. And while the two of them had rather enjoyed the time spent among loved ones, eventually they'd find themselves growing a bit restless.

Suspecting it to be a result of the end of a war and having children on the horizon, there was one person both men had turned to for advice.

"Hm…" The patriarch of the Kagenou Barony scratched his chin, the sun shining off his bald head and nearly blinding both boys. "So you say that both of you are feeling… directionless?"

Leon and Cid nodded.

"Yeah…" said Leon as he rubbed the back of his head. "I don't really want to do anything, but at the same time I can't just sit around and do nothing but dote on Claire, as nice as it is."

"And I had my fun with the new years, but now I kind of want to do something new. But I know that if I do anything too big the girls will want to get involved, and since at least two of them are pregnant I'd feel bad about doing anything that's too active. Got any ideas, pops?" asked Cid.

Cid's father hummed and stroke his beard some more, turning his head and thankfully no longer shining the light in either men's eyes. "Tell me boys, how long has it been since you've spent time without your wives?"

Cid and Leon locked eyes, attempted to count on their fingers, and came up with zero.

"I… I guess none?" said Leon, a little surprised. "Unless you count the times I was unconscious…"

"There was that time we had a meeting to kill/subdue Lord Shadow…" Cid adopted a contemplative look, "but then again that was only for a couple of hours. We went right back to them after."

Cid's father chuckled. "Perhaps then, it'd be good for you boys to have some time to yourselves."

"Time to ourselves?" asked Cid with a tilt of his head.

Cid's father nodded. "Right. Don't misunderstand me when I say this; but even I need time away from your mother."

Well, considering she's always beating you up that's not a surprise. Thought both of the men and even Violet.

"I haven't been able to go too far away from home, as the pirate problem hadn't calmed down since the time of Cid's birth until about the… time we had that conversation during the Bushin Festival." Cid's father had skirted around it, but he had been referring to the brief time in which Cid had disowned himself and went under the name Kageno.

Unbeknownst to Baron Kagenou was the fact that after learning of the circumstances of Cid's neglect, Beatrix, as well as much of the shadow garden had been sent to the Kagenou territory and discreetly—and very, very, bloodily—took care of the raging pirate issue surrounding the territory.

"In any case, I'd usually use the opportunity to handle the pirates as a way to spend some time away from your mother and clear my head."

"Does his head need to be anymore clear?" asked Violet. "I can nearly see through it." Lord Kagenou turns back to the boys and smiles. This also makes the light shine from his head in their direction. "HIssss My Eye!"

As Violet writhed in (fake) pain, Lord Kagenou began to speak again.

"With everything you two boys had faced, and all the time you spend with your wives, perhaps some time simply spent with your fellow men could be a good mental reset." Suggested Cid's Father.

Not having any better ideas, nor much else to do at the time, Cid and Leon decide to take the Kagenou patriarch's advice. With a few messages through Luxion and the shadow garden they had managed to assemble every male friend they had. They did also briefly consider inviting their fathers, but both of the men were strong armed by their own into staying behind. New years is one of busiest times for the territories after all.

-Cid-

I wasn't really sure about all of what pops was saying, but I do figure that I've basically spent every moment with another girl.

"Oh? Should I apologize then?" asked Violet.

Nah, but my pops had a point.

I mean, I've kind of forgotten most of my mob desires given that because of the girls I can't really be much of one, but I do feel like doing something more mundane to balance everything out.

"True, being one of the two men to defeat Lord Shadow is just one of the most anti-mob like things a person could do. Not to mention how you had been the one to show up at the last minute to save the day on what was presumed to be Lord Shadow's stolen air ship." Pointed out Violet.

Gah, my mob heart. It's in pain!

"*Ahem*"

I turned behind my packed bag to see Alpha standing in the entrance of my room, her hip and eye cocked. I'd be pretty aroused at the sight if it weren't for the fact she seems disappointed with me for some reason. Also she's pregnant so I can't do anything. Like I know some people have sex with pregnant women but given how strong all of us are I'm a bit worried that we'd get a little too vigorous and end up hurting the baby.

"So what's this I hear about a guy's trip?" asked Alpha as she walked in, took one look and began to frown at me.

Ah right, I didn't say anything to her about it before hand.

Violet sucks in air through her teeth and rubs the back of her head. "Y-y'know, this is supposed to be a guy's trip, right? So really, I have nothing to do with this so…" Violet points her fingers to the side as she fades away. "I'm just… gonna go… Good luck cutie!"

With the traitor's disappearance I find myself facing Alpha on my own.

"Oh well…" I look around, like when I came up with the cult of diablos for Alpha and see one of the things Leon and Luxion gave us to help with the baby. I got it, I should blame it on them. "After talking to pops he recommended we take a week or so to relax, just us guys."

Alpha, still not pleased, continued "What, can you not relax around us?"

For added damage she gestures to her pregnant baby.

"It's not that!" I said.

-Leon-

"It's just that when I'm around you all I feel a sort… pressure to be my best self sometimes." I explained to the girls.

Through one of Luxion's many devices the girls had been able to talk to me and confront me about the guys trip they had learned about through Daniel and Raymond asking their own fiancés for permission to go. Lovestruck as they were, they also felt the need to do something stupid without having to look good in front of girls.

"Hm…" Livia pouted through the screen, somewhat hurting my heart in the process.

Angie shook her head, "I suppose I understand somewhat. I usually try to look my best whenever I know I'm going to spend more time with you."

"But…" whined Livia.

Iris, who was in the room with me, nodded. "Even father has his yearly hunting trip that he takes with some of his most trusted vassals. I suppose a guy's trip of your own isn't unexpected. And given you have many lovers I can't blame you for wanting some time without them."

"But couldn't you have given us a bit of warning?" Claire pouted as she tightly gripped my arm. "I spent all the time without you because of the Bushin festival and now you're going to go away? I thought I'd be able to have you all to myself and Iris for a bit."

"I get that, I do…"

-Cid-

I take Alpha's hands. "Look, it's just some fun among guys. And it's one week. I spend nearly all my time with you girls, is it really so bad that I want to spend some time with my guy friends too?"

Alpha huffed. "No… I guess not."

I kissed her on the cheek, to which she allowed, and then kissed her stomach. The kid in there kicked as a greeting, bringing an involuntary smile to my face.

I picked up my bag and headed out. Alpha had followed me all the way out the door, and I admit it made me reconsider a little. But I already said I was going to go, and it's not like there was anything too important right now, so I went.

Eventually Leon would show up with his ship to take me, Daniel, Raymond, Dan, and Luxion somewhere.

-P2W-

With no real destination in mind, Leon had left it up to Luxion to use one of the many records of places in Holfort that Leon had made thanks to his memories of the game.

"Wow." Marveled Daniel as they all tracked through the giant forest. "I can't believe you came across this place and did nothing about it until now."

Leon shrugged. "Needed to keep a few things up my sleeve just in case we needed a quick source of extra income or something. I figure that in this case it'd help unwind but stay active."

Dan chuckled, "Well, hopefully we don't find anything too impressive, or our girls are going to be pissed."

Leon chuckled, "Yeah, Angie was okay with me going up until she learned we were going to go on an adventure. After that she tried to get Cleare and Luxion to rat out our location so the other girls could tag along."

"Woah," said Raymond, "how'd you get out of that then?"

Leon shrugged. "Oh, well she's been feeling a bit sick lately so she had to let me go. I felt bad but she insisted I go away for a bit and that she'd been fine."

Cid, who was informed by Alpha that Livia and Angie were pregnant but were waiting for a special occasion to reveal that to Leon, let the matter be. "It's probably just the stress from dealing with the war's aftermath. We should bring her something nice if we find anything."

The other boys nodded at this, all having similar plans.

"Hermoine could use a trophy to show off, if we get anything flashy looking I call dibs."

"Elouise deserves something nice, if I can I'll get her some jewelry or buy her some on the way back."

"Nanna wouldn't mind some more bragging rights, so if I can preserve a monster after defeating it she'd love it."

Leon and Cid began to count on their fingers.

Angie should like some kind of treasure, Livia too. If I find some new weapons then I should definitely get them for Iris and Claire. Clarice and Deirdre are a bit more difficult though. Maybe if I find some nice flowers?

Alpha and Beta probably wouldn't mind whatever I got them so long as it was interesting, but Epsilon and Gamma would definitely want something shiny or expensive looking. Delta would be more interested in a monster corpse than anything, as would Eta now that I think about it. Zeta's pretty into history, so if I get anything like some old pottery or a journal she'd probably like it. Hm, I should probably get something for Nu, Victoria, and Lambda.

Maybe even Rose and Alexia, if only so they don't start asking me to take them on a separate adventure. We're friends, but taking princesses on an adventure is bound to cause headaches.

The other men noticed Leon and Cid's contemplations.

"Hey, guys." Said Daniel, catching the two men's attention. "I've been meaning to ask, how do you do it?"

"Be specific with your next words or else." Threatened Cid.

Raymond put his hand over Daniel's mouth and continued, "I think he means how do you juggle so many different girls in a way that keeps them happy. We struggle with just the one sometimes."

"Ah, yeah. I get what you mean. Even with Nanna being my one and only, I can't help but worry about saying one bad thing and ruining things forever. I can't imagine how much pressure you guys are under." Said Dan.

Leon and Cid looked at each other. Then shrugged.

"I don't know what to tell you." Said Cid.

Leon rubbed the back of his head, "Yeah, I kinda just let everything happen and it turned out for the best."

The other three boys looked at each other upon hearing that, and then shrug. They all then continue to walk in the forest they had found until they come across a lake, still a bit frozen over thanks to the cool air.

Looking down at it, Cid has a stray thought.

"You know." He said as he gestured behind him, "There was a boulder we passed a few minutes back that'd be really satisfying to toss into there."

The other boys all nodded and so decided to double back.

When they reached the boulder and began to roll it back to the frozen lake, Daniel couldn't help but open the conversation back up.

"Hey, since we're going to be at this for a bit." He said in between helping turn the boulder, "do you think you could walk us through what it's like to actually date that many girls?"

"You seem oddly curious." Said Leon as he shoved.

Daniel shook his head, "I think I'm about the right amount of curious. Elouise was too honestly, she's just too nervous about asking anything of all the highly ranked people."

"Uh well, if all you want is a date then…"

-Cid x Alpha (Alice)-

I guess I should use an example from before she was pregnant then, considering that during she kinda hasn't had her aunt leave her side once.

So this story was around… when Leon was training us for the god of war tournament. I remember it had been a long day of training but Alice still had a bit of energy left over, so she had wanted to go out. I chugged one of the stamina potions Leon gave me and we went out.

It was already sunset at the time, but since it was May it was still pretty nice outside. Luna's business had also recently created a location in Holfort at the time, so we had some money to spend.

After some time I noticed that Alice had been thinking about something so I got her attention.

"Lost in thought? If you have any worries, I'd be happy to listen." I said.

Alice turned to me, seemingly have forgotten that we were walking next to each other. "C-Cid!?" she cried out before correcting yourself. "A-apologies. It was nothing serious."

"You sure?" I asked, I even grabbed her hand.

Oh, nice move.

Thanks? Anyway, I continued. "You know you can tell me anything, right?"

Alice smiled at me "thank you."

"Huh? For what?" I asked. I mean considering our relationship it should just be expected that I'd worry about her, right?

This just made Alice happier for whatever reason, as she began giggling. "Hehe… You really haven't changed in that regard, have you?" She'd collect herself a bit. "Apologies, we were on a date weren't we? It's mean of me to zone out like that."

I shook my head. "It's no big deal."

She shook hers in response, "No I… hm. How about we go someplace else?"

"Sure." I responded. "Let's go someplace that fits the mood."

I ended up taking her to a café that I heard some of the other girls talking about. Alice is the type to be satisfied by just about anything I give her, and almost never asks for something specifically for her, so I did my best to focus on something I knew that girls liked.

After we were sat down, Alice had praised me for my ability to find such a place. I thought it was a bit weird honestly, as it wasn't much.

Well, specifically she said: "Your local intel-gathering is as impeccable as ever. Or… is there some clue in this café related to the Cult?" But I'm not explaining that to the guys.

I recall I responded that "Nope. It's just super popular right now, so I thought I'd come by and see what all the fuss is about."

After all, side characters always line up for popular venues.

"Alright, I understand." Said Alice with a slight smile. "Let's enjoy this time together to the fullest. I won't let your thoughtfulness go to waste… okay?"

I didn't really get what she meant, but I figured she just meant that she liked the place so I responded with, "O-oh sure…"

Alice perked up at this, her smile positively beaming at this point. "Let's order something to drink first. As for the pancakes, which do you think is good? Let's take a look at the menu together, Cid."

Honestly she seemed positively giddy at this point, so I guess she really liked pancakes ore something. It's cute, Alice rarely acts like the other girls her age, so her focusing on something like this was nice to see.

And so we ended up enjoying a rare moment alone together.

In fact, when we walked home that day she ended up curing around my arm. To mess with her, I ended up swinging my arms in big arches like I used to when we were kids. She was surprised at first but then in an act of rare adorableness she ended up swinging our arms even harder than I was.

We walked the entire way back to my dorm like that.

-P2W-

The other boys all smiled at Cid's recount of his time with his girlfriend.

Almost as much as they smiled when they finally launched the boulder into the lake, shattering the ice and creating a large ripple effect that effectively cleared the lake.

Afterword, the boys had gotten hungry so they went after some deer they had seen. They had rations, of course, but the idea of hunting down some deer on their own was rather enticing to them all.

With some well timed shots, they managed to land a clean shot on a couple of bucks that had been trying to fight each other.

As they began to prepare the two animals for dinner, the conversation from earlier had continued.

"So, Cid told us what dating one of his girls was like," said Raymond, "what about you Leon?"

"Oh, my turn then?" he asked.

The other boys shrugged.

"It'd help pass the time at least."

Leon shrugged in response, "Fair enough."

-Leon x Olivia-

Guess I might as well go with the one off dates like Cid then. Well, the first one that comes to mind is Livia. This was during the summer break. I have a story for Angie around then too, but let's start with Livia.

So, Livia and I both started low in the social ranks, right? Her a commoner and me the third son of a baron. So I figured that after everything the two of us had went through in the past couple of months, a time where we were back to that, just us, would be good.

Makes sense.

Right? So, I took her on a tour of my family's territory.

That… seems like the opposite of what you just said.

Oh, well it wasn't like a normal baron's tour, although I have no idea what that'd actually be like, but instead a tour of everywhere that I usually went in the territory.

So like, we started by going through my family's fields, right. Just some standard crops, I pointed out all the places I used to hide from my father whenever I got into mischief, and even waived at a few of the old ladies who used to help me hide.

"Oh my, sir Barfort, who is this lovely young lady?" teased one of the grannies.

I remember grabbing Livia by her waist and pulling her in close, winking with a wide grin as I answered "She's the future mother of my 20 children."

"Mister Leon!?" whined Livia.

20?

When Livia met my little brother a couple of hours prior she had said she wanted 20 children. I did not forget, and I made sure she knew that.

Something she demonstrated by doing her usual impression of a tomato as the grannies and grandpas laughed at her.

"Well now," one of them cackled, "don't let us stop you!"

"You checking for a nice spot or something boy?" said one of the more pervy grandpas.

I laughed back as I held Livia closer, she was so embarrassed that she couldn't do anything but make those little whining noises as she burrowed into my chest. "Nah, I was just going to bring her around. Show her my usual haunts here and all that."

With that we waived and headed off. From there I took her to my favorite spot to take a nap. A nice spot on a hill near a cliff. Not a particularly steep one, like I know I fell off a couple times but all I got was a sprain.

"You know, this spot is kind of special." I said as I sat down.

As she knelt down and moved me so my head would be in her lap, neither of us having to talk about whether or not I'd want to or not—

Because you obviously were going to say no.

Haha, yeah.

Anyway, she asked me, "How come?"

"This hill is one of my first memories of this new world. It's where I realized for sure that I had crossed over." Looking at the floating islands, some distant monsters, and the sky that didn't have a star I recognized whenever it was night, it was the thing that set in for me I wasn't in my old world anymore. (A/N: In actual canon, Leon wakes up on this hill when he dies in his last life. I made up the fever thing in case you forgot.)

Livia held the hand on my chest as I looked to the horizon. With the other she parted my hair so that it wouldn't cover my eyes and stroke it gently. Although I couldn't exactly see her face due to—well you know—I could tell she was smiling gently in that way one would expect someone called the Saintess would.

"Then this must be one of the most important and beautiful places in the world." Said Livia. She leaned down and gave me a hug. "Thank you."

"For what?" I asked.

"For coming here. For staying here." Livia's voice cracked a little, "For… for everything. Thank you so much, Leon."

I leaned over and hugged her waist. "Thank you for staying with me even after learning that I did."

I then picked up Livia and lay her down next to me.

She giggled happily, snuggling into me as we basked in the sun and the open air. We ended up sleeping for a few hours like that, I think Angie had to come and find us after.

-P2W-

As Leon finished recounting his story to the men in front of him, he opened his eyes to see Daniel and Raymond taking notes.

"Whatcha doin' there?" he asked.

"Oh, well I was running out of places to take my fiancé to. So I figured I'd take the opportunity to write down some date ideas." Said Raymond.

Leon couldn't help but laugh, "I literally just said that all I did was take Livia to one of my favorite napping spots."

"No." corrected Dan, "You took her to one of the more important places in your life. I remember when I took Nanna to the places I used to practice my sword strikes she was moved emotionally as well. It may mean nothing to you, but looking from the outside it's clear that it was way more important than you could realize."

Leon rubbed his nose. Is that what it looked like? I mean I guess it was sort of important.

"Well, we still gotta wait for the deer to bleed out, Cid, you mind keeping the ball rolling." Asked Daniel.

"You guys going to want us to walk though what a date is like for all of our girls then?" asked Cid.

Raymond shrugged. "Might as well. Don't really have much else to talk about."

"Well, I guess there's all the logistics of the war and taking care of it all…"

Cid shivered in disgust. "Eugh, no thanks. That sounds horribly boring."

"Well…" said Leon, "Might as well gush about our girlfriends then. If we're going in order of when we met them, Natsume would be next wouldn't she?"

Cid nodded. "Fine I guess. Let's see, a date with Natsume…"

-Cid x Beta (Natsume)-

I couldn't tell you exactly when this was, as it's honestly kind of a frequent event. But one day I remember walking in on Natsume crying about having to meet a deadline. I was baking some cakes as an experiment of new products for Mitsugoshi, so I was giving them out to everyone.

"Ahahaha!" Laughed Natsume wildly, "I love deadlines, I love them sooooo much…! Ahahaha!"

She was tearing at her hair and throwing her papers everywhere. From what I could see as they fell and what others I stepped on, there was just page after page of ideas that were scribbled over when she couldn't take them anywhere. So, like approaching a animal that's going crazy I carefully walked up to her and placed the cake next to her.

"Eh…?" she then slowly followed up the extended arm to meet my face. "C-c-cid!? Eh?!"

She then tried to hurriedly cover up all the scribbles she had made so far, quickly realized that there were papers all over and tried to gather them up, which meant that she eventually just slipped and fell on her face. Which is funny because that's the second time she's done that in front of me.

"You okay down there?" I asked.

"Mm-hm." Natsume didn't bother to get up, just let her muffled voice come from the ground.

I put the cakes down on the table and slowly helped her up. She was a little teary so I sat her down on my lap so I could rub her head. Usually Luna's the clumsy one, but the other girls all have their moments. Luna can just walk it off with a smile on her face even if she falls down a flight of stairs, but the other girls will freeze up, so I needed to dote on her for a moment.

I pat her head as she slowly ate a cake. "So, I'm guessing you've been having trouble meeting a deadline again?"

Natsume froze but then slowly and sadly nodded.

"No matter what I do I just keep going back to stuff I've already written. I can't seem to come up with anything new and my editor isn't of any help. I don't know what to do…" whined Natsume. She then seemed to realize I was holding her still and began to fret. "uh, but I'll get over this easily enough. Don't worry about it. I'm just a little-"

I placed one hand over her mouth and shushed her.

Bold move. I think I'd be forced to sleep outside if I tried that.

Well I mean Natsume really likes when I take charge. So don't just follow what I do blindly.

Anyway, what I said to her was, "We all struggle sometimes Natsume. It's perfectly fine."

Natsume ended up tearing up at my words and put the cake down to snuggle into me. "It… it's just so frustrating sometimes…!"

"I know." I said as I pat her head and held her waist.

"And my editor is just so unhelpful! All she says is 'it doesn't feel right' or 'you need a little more oomph' what the hell is oomph!?"

"Heck if I know."

"I know right! Ugh!"

In frustration Natsume ended biting my collar for some reason. She then backed off right away, but I grabbed the back of her head and…

Uh, well let's skip forward a bit.

No problems here.

Yeah that's for the best.

Don't blame you.

I ain't sharing anything about my girls further than that either.

Yeah, so anyway after we got dressed again Natsume started to panic again. "Ah wait! Now I have even less time to work on this! What am I going to do!?"

I pat her head and reassured her.

"You know, you got your love of stories from me reading you all those stories when you were younger. I'm probably not as a talented of writer as you, but I could help a bit with at least one story, right?"

For whatever reason this made her extremely happy. To the point that her ears started to wiggle.

-P2W-

"Huh, did this story ever see the light of day? I think I'd recall a story that was written by Miss Natsume and her fiancé." Said Daniel.

Raymond nodded, "Yeah, Hermoine would probably go crazy over something like that."

Cid shook his head as he started to take down one of the deer with Dan's help. "Nah, we didn't even publish it."

This surprised the other boys as they started a fire to get their dinner ready.

"Really? What happened to it then?" asked Leon.

Cid blushed a bit, "She uh… she kept it for herself. Said it was too important to actually share it."

The other boys all crooned in Cid's direction. """"Ooooh~""""

"Shut up!" shouted Cid in response. "At least I can keep her happy!"

The other boys all chuckled in response.

After finishing off the deer they realized there was still some left. So they aimed to make it into jerky. Given that it'd take a bit, they started to talk about what boys usually do.

How big of an animal they could take in a fight.

"I'm telling you horses are way more dangerous than you'd expect. If you can't use magic it's a done deal, you might as well just not do it." Said Raymond.

Daniel shook his head, "Nah, you just need to use a rope or get in from the side. Hell break one of their legs and your golden. Most deaths from wrangling them comes from the fact you're trying to not kill them."

"Well I guess if all you want to do is kill it that's a nother thing." Said Dan as he nodded with both eyes closed. He then opened one and smirked, "But what if you had to do it bare handed. No tools."

"Oh I'm not going anywhere higher than a dog." Said Raymond.

"Yeah, maybe a big dog, or something about that size. Anything else It's a wrap for me." Said Daniel.

"I feel like I could still take a horse." Said Dan, his face entirely serious. "But it'd be close. One slip up and I'm done for."

Cid hummed, "Well if we still have our own defenses I can maybe take like, a snake or something. All most of them got is their bite but with magic reinforcement that's not doing anything to you."

The other boys all chimed in.

"What that totally still counts as using a tool!"

"Cheater!"

"Be real man!"

"I think I could take a bear." Said Leon, getting everyone's attention. "Not like, a big bear. Like a black one. No but a brown bear. Just put in a head lock, boom done."

Knowing how strong Leon was, everyone considered it.

"Like no magic reinforcement whatsoever?" asked Daniel.

"Not sure really." Said Leon. "I mean I've at least seen Claire do it, but I don't know if…" Leon saw their eyes light up in curiosity. "Okay. Guess I should tell the story?"

-Leon x Claire-

So this was actually a little bit ago. See, Claire and Iris had been separated from me for a bit thanks to the bushin festival, so when we were reunited she wasted no time on trying to monopolize mine.

This meant constant sparring, eating all of our meals together, spending the night together, etc. Well, one day after we breakfast we got wind of how some bears that were in hibernation season were suddenly called out of it and causing problems. From what I could gather it was because of the fight with Fanoss and those giant monsters they summoned causing all sorts of problems with the environment.

[You mean what I had gathered master.]

Okay, yeah sure.

Bottom line was that Claire thought it'd be really fun to go and hunt a couple of bears ourselves. Funnily this was because Marie had once boasted to her that she used to 1v1 bears back in her territory even in the middle of winter.

"We're going to go get at least ten bears! That'll show her!" fumed Claire.

"Okay, sure." I said. "But why do you have to drag me by the scruff of my neck? I agreed to come with you."

Claire stopped in the middle of her stomping and let go of me, then helped me up to my feet.

"Sorry, force of habit. This is usually how I got Cid to go places with me." She explained.

I pinched her nose, hearing her adorably squawk in surprise, and replied, "Yeah, well I'm not your brother okay? You don't have to drag me into anything."

"Leon…" she whispered.

"Even something as dumb as hunting bears with just the two of us and some healing potions." I said, deliberately ruining the moment.

"Leon!" she huffed, attempting to kick my butt in a burst of rage. However I just moved out of the way. This led to her kicking a nearby bush instead and sending it flying straight to where a bear actually was.

Wait, before you go any further. How long did you wait to speak?

Until I could do it properly. She drags you by the neck pretty hard.

Sorry, I used to try and complain a bunch so she'd get annoyed and leave me alone. She just got better at dragging me by the neck so I couldn't speak up.

Makes sense. Anyway, with the bear showing up the two of us immediately leapt into action.

"Alright this is just a test so I'm still going to use a sword. I'll cut off the paws first." I said.

However Claire had already lept high into the air, wrapped her legs around the bears head, and with a quick "RAH!" snapped its neck.

As the bear fell to the ground I took a good look at my girlfriend's legs.

-P2W-

"Ew." Said Cid.

"I mean, I don't blame you. That does sound pretty impressive." Said Dan.

Leon shook his head. "No, the disgust is deserved. My next response was to ask her to do that to me if she ever felt like killing me."

Everyone threw their plates and cups at Leon.

Well except Daniel.

"…How'd she respond—hrk!" Daniel had asked until Cid gave him a jab in the side.

"Actually she got pretty upset about me insinuating that she'd ever hurt me." Leon then laughed sardonically, "So she then chased me around with a sword. We actually got most of the bears that way. Me running away and either one of us cutting them down when they got in our path."

Everyone laughed at this.

With their meals done it came time to start setting up the tents. As they all agreed to set up their own individual tents, they needed something else to pass the time.

"Cid," said Leon as he started hammering away at the stakes, "Your turn."

"What you guys want a bed time story?" asked Cid sarcastically.

"Need something to pass the time." Said Leon with a shrug. Never thought about how much I'd miss YouTube and the random video essays I'd put in the background while I did stuff. I'd take an AI generated fake as hell story at this point… Note to self: see if Luxion can write stories.

Cid rolled his eyes.

"Okay fine, let's see…"

-Cid x Gamma (Luna)-

So, Luna as the owner of Mitsugoshi really likes to spend money on people she cares about. As fellow men, you probably understand what I mean when sometimes this makes me feel bad.

Oh yeah totally.

Mhm.

Absolutely.

I love them but when I get too much love I can't help but feel like I'm being tortured.

Right? So when Luna walks up to me giving me the best wine, food that would cost someone their entire lifetime to try out, etc. I eventually have to look in my self and decide, maybe I shouldn't just accept anything she gives me. I recall that I told myself that the next time I saw her, I'd say no.

And that's where you fucked up.

Yeeeep.

She walked up to me with some clothes, which I honestly didn't like the look of, and asked me if I wanted to have it after she calmly explained to me that each part of the outfit was at least 10,000 zeni each.

Needless to say, I felt bad again and told her. "Um… you know you don't have to keep giving me this much stuff, right?"

Immediately, and I mean immediately, she started to tear up.

"You… *sniff* you don't like it…?" she said as she held up the outfit. "I had it made… *sniff* just for you…"

Oooh…

I wasn't sure what to do honestly.

"It.. it's not that I don't like it." I said with all the caution of someone trying to disarm a bomb seconds away from going off, "It's just… a bit much."

Oooh…!

Yeah, as you can guess she immediately started crying.

"S-sorry… I didn't realize I was bothering you… I'll just give this to someone else… maybe auction it off." She cried as she slowly walked off.

I caved in.

Don't blame you.

Yeah totally would've when she started sniffling the first time.

I probably would've never brought up the discomfort honestly.

Took it to my damn grave.

"I'll try it on if you want me to!" I shouted, trying to salvage the situation.

With that she lit up. I was then forced into an outfit that fitted high nobility, but I would never want to be caught dead in.

"H-hey… uh…" I said as she took a dozen photos with her camera, "this is… nice… but it's not my usual style."

Luna took a second to stop taking photos while drooling to look at me. "Hm… I guess you're right. It's a lot more poofy and not as combat ready as your usual uniform or simple vest and dress shirt… but isn't it nice to try something new? I love seeing you in new clothing. I just want to see you in everything I can!"

I grit my teeth and bared it. It was better than her crying, but I did tell her I wouldn't be wearing anything like that in public. She at least didn't mind that much.

-P2W-

With Cid's story coming to an end the boys hit the hay for the night.

When they woke up the next morning they were disappointed for two reasons.

1. Sleeping without your gf/gfs after having done so for months on end is much more difficult than one would expect.

2. Well…

"Aniki!"

"Oh dear god no." said Leon as he came back from using the bathroom.

To his, and the other boys' horror, the five heirs had shown up.

"How did you find us?" asked Cid.

Julius smiled proudly, not understanding that Cid wasn't praising him but instead questioning who he should be mad at. "After we found out about your trip Marie had pointed out a few locations that you'd go to. So we just asked around to where your ships had gone and found you here!"

The non idiot boys, debatable as that description was, all groaned.

"So what are we doing?" asked Greg. "Conquering a dungeon, finding new lost items, fighting some new monsters?"

Leon shook his head, "We're mainly just relaxing. There might be a treasure here, but nothing life changing as far as I can recall."

If I remember correctly, this island was the one you went to for a bit of exp and gold grinding whenever you got too low. There's a chance of some random drops of collectable stuff, but nothing too crazy. Leon thought.

"Yeah, and something tells me you wouldn't find being near us too relaxing." Said Cid.

"Oh? I can assure you we're all used to camping out." Said Jilk.

Cid shook his head with a smirk. "We've been talking about our lovers to pass the time."

Julius and Jilk flinched.

"O-oh is that so…?" said Brad, a bit unnerved due to not being able to talk about any such thing. Sure, he did have Marie now, but he didn't exactly have anything to brag about special to himself, at least nothing that could be shared among company if he ever wanted it to happen again.

"Oh yeah, and now it was my turn to talk about Angie." Said Leon, catching onto what Cid was talking about.

Julius looked like he swallowed a lemon.

-Leon x Angelica-

So I brought this up earlier, but I had a story about taking Angie to my territory during the summer right after the duel. This was the day after I had a moment alone with Livia. Angie and Deirdre decided that they should each get a moment alone, and even though Deirdre was a new edition to our relationship at the time, I saw no reason to say no.

So, I showed Angie around the farm areas. She kinda didn't like the idea of going around the farming areas due to all the worms and stuff, so I off handedly mentioned the farms. As the Redgrave's have several horses on their territory she was used to the sight and smell of such areas and agreed to go there before we'd go back to my private territory in the afternoon.

…I didn't know that.

Of course you wouldn't. And thank the saintess for that, can't imagine how I'd have managed to win her heart if it wasn't for you ignoring every down to earth thing about her, haha!

…

Anyway, since Livia probably told her about how I took her to a place important to me regarding my multiple lives, I took Angie to the first place I had been in when I crossed over.

"Here…?" she had questioned as she saw the little bed in the middle of the barn. "You were… here…?"

She didn't appear disgusted, rather, she was curious about the circumstances that brought me over. Heh, it's kind of cute but she also didn't let me get too close, as if she was afraid I'd somehow go back if I got too close.

I rubbed the back of my head, "Yeah… I had a super bad fever at the time. Nearly got me according to my mom and dad. My siblings were taking care of me since the two were preoccupied."

"Preoccupied." Angie almost demanded with her voice, "What on earth could take up the attention of a parent when their child's life is in danger!?"

This was before she met her, so I had to explain. "My father's legal wife was there that day. Zola."

With that Angie turned her burning anger into a simmer, still angry on my behalf but clearly concerned about how I talked about the old hag.

Holding my hand she carefully asked, "…that was the woman that tried to sell off you and your little brother, correct?"

"Right. Whenever she came over she'd make me and Nicks sleep here or in the shed. The shed's actually a lot more comfy, since dad tried to trick it out a bit to resemble a small house instead of just a tool shed. But it had a hole in it at the time I crossed over so I got this tiny cot here." I said, explaining a bit about what my childhood was like until I went on my adventure.

Angie was silent for a moment, her hand running over my mine. "This Zola…" she eventually said, her voice quickly turning scalding in tone "Is she still around?"

I quickly took her into my lap and began to run my hands through her hair to try and calm her down.

"Hey, none of that. I don't want you getting blood on these well kept hands." I said as I took them both and kissed them gently.

She grumbled a bit but nestled into me cutely, "We can't just let her get away with all of that though…"

I smiled. "Don't worry I have a plan on making sure she never messes with me again."

"Oh?" said Angie, her face brimming with intrigue.

"Well, Zola's no doubt going to come here after learning of my ascension to the throne. Probably going to say some stupid stuff about putting her son on the throne instead of me." I then smiled with a face that promised mischief. "I'm going to show her what the other people who had fought for the throne had to face."

-P2W-

Leon cackled at the memory of Arroganz peering through the window behind him, scaring the absolute shit out of Zola.

As his laughter died down, he looked at the face of the prince who he had been hoping would be uncomfortable enough to leave. Unfortunately, Julius seemed rather pleased.

"I'm glad that you two get along so well after everything." Said Julius. "Although I don't think I could ever truly love Angelica, I don't want to see her unhappy either, at least not as I had when I was younger and foolish."

"Now you're just foolish." Quipped Cid.

"Right!" said Julius.

Daniel, Raymond, and Dan all counted down from three.

"Hey!" barked Jilk, "Just what are you saying!?"

Cid and Leon could only laugh, with the other three of the five idiots joining in.

Knowing that they'd spend more time trying to get rid of the five idiots than actually getting anything done, the boys just resigned to letting them tag along. Although this had made it for Daniel, Dan, and Raymond to actually relax given the difference in status, Leon constantly beating up the five heirs had been chicken noodle soup for their lower class souls.

In a rare moment of clarity, Greg would eventually turn to Cid, having remembered he existed.

"Hey, Kage-something right?" asked Greg.

Cid, somewhat thrilled that there was still some people that didn't know him that well, responded well enough. "Kagenou, actually."

"Meh, I was close. Anyway, you're the guy that has a bunch of therianthrope wives right? How are you alive?" asked Greg.

Everyone stopped in the middle of what they were doing.

"What… what do you mean?" asked Cid, although he had a pretty good idea on what Greg had meant.

"I mean, whenever I met a tribe of them, I saw that they were a might makes right type of society. Something I can respect for the most part, but you don't seem all that strong. So, like, how does that work?" asked Greg.

Brad, who was still recovering from his latest deck to the face, chimed in. "Hm, but wasn't Kage-whatever strong enough to help Leon fight Lord Shadow? I mean, I know that it was mostly Leon doing all the work, but still. We would've likely lost the war if it weren't for his timely intervention."

Cid, not wanting his praises to be sung anymore, decided to go ahead and answer.

-Cid x Delta (Sara)-

Well my relationship with Sara isn't like one would expect. In a lot of ways she's sort of like a pet dog.

Whoa what?

Hey now, hear me out. I'm the one in a relationship with her, I know how she works. And look, I respect her as a person, she just forgets she is one sometimes.

For example…

Ah, there was one time that I had found an actual dog. This was back before the academy was destroyed and a little after Alice came back.

As I recall this was also a bit after we had most of our faction win the god of war tournament. But before Leon left to go set up for taking over the throne.

I had been on my way back to my room when I found a white fluffy dog in the bushes. I wasn't sure what to do with it, but I didn't really feel like leaving it alone.

When I got back to my room that day, Alice had been a bit concerned.

"A dog?" she asked, already looking it over.

"I found it outside. I think it has an owner but I couldn't find it." I also felt strangely nostalgic for my own dog Requiem, so I couldn't wholly leave it alone.

"I see… should we look into it then?" asked Alice. "It has a collar but the id tag seems to have been torn off."

I shook my head. "The owner will come up sooner or later. For now, let's just make sure it doesn't get lost again."

Wait, wasn't this a story about you and your therianthrope lover?

Yeah, did the dog magically turn into one?

What? No. You read too many fairy tales.

Anyway when I was taking care of the dog several people showed up. Claire showed up for like two minutes, leaving once the dog licked my face in front of her, Alexia was making fun of me saying that it was strange for a pooch to have a dog—

Bruh what?

Don't worry about it.

Eventually, Sara showed up.

"Grr…" she growled at the dog, who didn't seem to care. "It's unfair that you're the only one getting patted! Sara will kill you and she will sit on Cid's lap!"

Alice, who was still in the room and scares Sara, immediately whacked her over the head.

"Sara! No! Stay!" she commanded.

Sara immediately heeled. It was funny but the doggy had begun snuggling up to my leg while Sara was indisposed.

"But…" whined Sara.

Since I wanted Sara to calm down a bit I looked through all the stuff I had bought to help take care of the lost doggy. Eventually I landed on this giant bone that the doggy didn't seem to like.

"Here, how about you take this? You like chewing on giant bones anyway right?" I asked.

Sara, rather than being insulted or anything, had beamed.

I'll admit I thought she was cute so I immediately started patting her head. Her tail started to swing so fast that she accidentally knocked over some of the stuff in my room.

-P2W-

As Cid finished his story the others couldn't help but question his strange relationship with Delta.

"Hm… from what I remember every time I saw her, Sara's probably really okay with all that." Said Leon. "I always thought she was excitable, and a bit… simple—no offense."

"None taken, it's accurate." Said Leon.

"Oh, so Sara's a bit slow?" Noted Brad.

Cid immediately turned to Brad and unsheathed his sword. "Okay, for that, you die."

Brad unsheathed his own sword and began to fend off Cid's assault.

"Shouldn't you stop him?" demanded Jilk of Leon.

Leon though, had begun cheering on his brother-in-law, "Get him Cid! Get him!"

Jilk turned to Julius in the hopes he'd speak up. However,

"Show him his place Brad!" jeered Julius.

"My money's on Brad." Said Greg.

Dan shook his head, "They're fighting with swords. Cid's trained with Leon since they were adventurers, not to mention his own sister. Cid's got this."

Chris nodded, "Brad's never been the best sword fighter. If it goes down to experience then Kagenou likely has more."

From there Cid had chased Brad down in the forest, their duel only ending due to them collapsing from exhaustion.

As Leon collected money from the others having predicted the outcome of Cid being the last to fall, Chris chimes in.

"Come to think of it, weren't you also courting the new sword instructor? Princess Iris of Midgar." Pointed out Chris. "Did she not also train Kagenou? You'd think he'd have fared a bit better with all three instructors at his disposal."

Leon nodded, "Oh, yeah. His first fiancé's aunt is also Beatrix."

"Like the goddess?" questioned Daniel, figuring that his friendship with the lad was already so strange. That may as well be true.

Cid, who was pretending to be worn out from chasing Brad, shook his head. "The long time tournament winner elf lady."

A chorus of 'ohhhh's' sounded out.

"But speaking of Iris," said Cid, wanting to take the attention off of him, "It's your turn next, right?"

Leon shrugged. Figuring that with both Cid and Brad too exhausted to do anything he may as well take a brief pause. Some of the other guys were also tired from following after the duo as they ran through the forest anyway.

-Leon x Iris-

Like with Claire, much of my relationship with Iris is based upon training. I won't explain too much, but she really seems to enjoy the process of getting stronger through her own efforts.

But it should go without saying that at the end of the day Iris is still a princess.

I remember a couple of days ago I had taken Iris out on a date since I hadn't seen her for a bit. It had been a bit of a public-ish date. Given my victory over Fanoss her father had figured it a good time to really cement my position as her lover. As such he had thrown a small party.

Something tells me it wasn't really that small.

Nope, honestly the population of the Kagenou territory might not have been enough to fill the attendance roster. Which, honestly, given how shortly he arranged the party it had been a bit of a surprise. In any case, I had to suffer through shaking hands with all these people I had known next to nothing about.

My saving grace had been Luxion who floated nearby and Iris who was all but glued to my side whenever she wasn't trying to get Alexia to start an international incident by the nature of being her. However, thankfully Alexia eventually got bored and retired for the night, which left me alone with Iris.

After everyone had taken their turns of trying to lick my boots given my victory over Fanoss and Lord Shadow, as well as the establishment of New Holfort, I all but carried Iris off to some empty terrace in the castle.

"How goes your first ball King Leon?" teased Iris.

I made some kind of spluttering sound, feeling like a balloon having the air come out as Iris laughed at my shenanigans.

"Give me a monster, an armor, or some noble to punch and I can do it" I said as I slumped over the railing, Iris patting my back but still giggling in my direction, "But oh my god…! Dealing with all of those guys while trying not to agree to anything or start anything was exhausting!"

"It is, I'm honestly pretty grateful you were here." Admitted Iris.

I turned to her, less than pleased. "Why? Because you didn't have to suffer through it instead?"

"Indeed." Beamed Iris, "I'm starting to see why my mother always forces father to come despite his usual insistence on doing nothing."

"Uh huh, glad I can be of service now and in the future dear." I said sarcastically.

Iris however smiled gently and then softly kissed me on the lips. "May that be a long future indeed."

"…I feel like I need a bit more of reward."

"Oh?"

"One kiss for every guy I had to deal with."

Iris giggled again, appearing more like the girl in her early twenties than the sword instructor or the princess of Midgar or even the leader of the Crimson order. "I suppose that much is fair."

-P2W-

Leon smiles fondly at the memory, holding a genuine smile that won't come off.

Julius then ruins it, stating, "I suppose I should thank you for taking those duties off my hands as well then."

"You come near me and I'm punting you over the cliff." Threatened Leon.

Julius, figuring that Leon was kidding took a single step closer. Leon, being a man of his word had charged in and kicked Julius so hard in the stomach that he went over the cliff and into the lake below. Unfortunately, Julius grabbed on to the closest thing as he flew, that being Raymond. Raymond then tried to grab something as he joined Julius' path off the cliff, which was Daniel. Daniel then grabbed Brad who grabbed Jilk who grabbed Chris who grabbed Cid who grabbed Dan who grabbed Greg who finally grabbed Leon.

This made everyone fall off into the lake. Which thankfully hadn't frozen over again since the ice had broken from the boulder the other day. This did leave everyone cold and leave them susceptible to hypothermia, so as everyone glowered at Julius for causing this over the fire while they dried off, Cid decided to pass the time with his next story.

-Cid x Epsilon (Shiron)-

So uh, I guess maybe it'd be fun to talk about Shiron? She's the most 'girlfriend' like of all my lovers If I had to say.

Girlfriend?

Oh uh, it's a term Leon taught me. It's like another word for lover, but more casual.

Oh, I get what you mean then. Like a romance that isn't quite serious yet still meaningful.

Right, close enough anyway.

So, we had this date pretty recently. Sometime in between when we came back from Fanoss and now basically.

I think she showed up to try and help me take my mind off of things considering how worrying of a time it had been after the war. Alice already had basically everyone doting on her at the time but Shiron was a bit worried about how I felt about everything I think.

Anyway, she ended up taking me out dancing. Shiron's a pretty popular songstress, and most of that involves her playing instruments, but she's pretty good at the other two things. She just hasn't needed to practice them as much as the other stuff. So we borrowed this machine from Leon's ship, uh the…

Oh, the karaoke box?

Yeah that.

Oh and the virtual whatever helmet thingy. I wanted to try and see if she'd be good at that game where you hit blocks at the timing of the music.

Was she?

I'm getting to that.

So, while Leon was busy hanging out with my sister we borrowed the stuff with Luxion's permission. I took it to one of the rooms in our private residence and got to playing.

Now, believe it or not, but Shiron's love of playing instruments comes from me showing her how to play the piano when we first met. So, I thought it'd be fun to have a small music based competition with her.

After I had introduced her to the basics of the machine, I found that there was this option to have singers go back and forth with the karaoke box. Basically, that you each get the choice of one song, then the machine chooses a random one for you two to compete over.

Shiron got this one happy-ish love song. Polaris in the Night, I think.

How'd she do?

The machine gave her a near perfect score. Not sure what kept her from getting a 100, maybe the way she had looked into my eyes during singing a couple of times and got embarrassed while singing?

That sounds adorable.

It was honestly, kinda regretted not having this date on The Einhorn or something because then Luxion could've recorded it for me. Anyway, my turn was next. I got this heavier song that was super intense, I think it was titled "Blue Flash" or something. I didn't do as good as Shiron, but I wasn't bad I think.

So that left us with a tie breaker, so Shiron and I had to sing this song called "walking on sunshine." I have to admit, we got pretty competitive near the end, but it was cute seeing how happy Shiron was when she eventually won.

So, having to protect my honor—

What honor?

Shush.

So, to protect my honor I challenged her to the helmet game thingy. The stakes? First one to beat Nee-san's score.

Wait, is that why Claire and Iris said they were going to spend the time we were here playing that?

Haha, yeah. Shiron and I got really into it at one point.

"Shiron, we've been at this for a couple of hours." I said deep into the game session. "Are you sure you wouldn't want to just make out or something at this point?"

"No." growled Shiron. "I'm not going to allow anyone to be better than me with any instrument."

"It's not even an instrument though? It's just a game." I tried. However, Shiron just shook me off.

I will say that as soon as she won she immediately ripped the thing off, slamming it on the floor so hard that it cracked, and then jumped me for a celebration.

-P2W-

"I guess as soon as Iris and Claire beat her score you're going to get drained then." Daniel said to Leon.

Leon looked at Cid. "I'd thank you if it weren't for your sister being one of the girls."

Cid just waved him off. "It's fine, I get what you mean."

[Master, it should be okay for all of you to don your clothes once more and move on.]

With that, all the boys got dressed, the hypothermia no longer an issue.

"Alright, we've been here for a couple of days but we haven't been really doing much. How about we have a competition?" proposed Leon. "Us five versus you five."

The five idiots seemed to ramp up at the idea.

"Oh? Aren't things quite stacked in our favor this way?" noted Brad.

Greg chuckled, "No offense to you guys, but everyone on this side is a Bonafide adventurer. Meanwhile you and Kage-whatsit are the only ones on that side to go anywhere serious right?"

"Hey now," said Dan, "even I have braved a few dungeons along side those in Lady Clarice's retinue."

Raymond nodded, "And mind you, before we had gotten engaged to our lovely fiancés we also had to storm some dungeons to earn money for the tea parties."

"If anything," said Cid, doing his best to act like a mob over in his head, "things may be stacked in our favor. Not yours."

"Oh, those are real fighting words!" shouted Greg in excitement.

"Here's what we'll do then." Said Leon. "Every day for the rest of the trip, we'll all try to fight as much monsters as possible." This is the exp and gold farming area after all. "the group with the most to show, both in money earned and other monster drops is the winner."

"What are the stakes?" said Jilk, clearly interested.

"Winning group also gets half of the losing group's stuff." Explained Leon, sending all the men present into a fervor.

"Oh, you're on!" shouted Julius. "I hope you don't regret this later Aniki!"

"Stop calling me that." Said Leon flatly, "Anyway. We'll get started… now!"

Leon shoved Julius over and kicked Jilk in the back of the leg.

"Cheater!" shouted Jilk as he did his best to get back up.

"Says the cheater that broke Clarice's heart!" shouted Leon as he dragged Cid off as though he were Claire and the other boys followed after.

"That's a low blow!" shouted Jilk as he recovered and went in the opposite direction of Leon's group.

"Oh, is Clarice next then?" noted Cid as he was dragged like a sack of potatoes, not moving to stop Leon due to being used to the treatment.

Leon shrugged as he took out his rifle and shot a monster. "Sure why not."

-Leon x Clarice-

So one of Clarice's main things is her love of air bike riding. So when she learned I'm pretty decent at it, she had wanted me to show off at one point at least. If I remember correctly, this was during the Bushin festival. It was only a couple of hours instead of the usual entire day I would devote to a date sadly because of how busy it was. But that was part of the fun honestly.

I remember that I had woken up, helped Iris prepare for her match, and then as soon as I walked out I found myself dragged off by Clarice.

"Where are we going?" I asked.

Clarice smiled at me with an iron grip on my arm, "We're going to have a quick date."

"Okay." I said. Suddenly, Clarice stopped.

"You're… you're not going to ask what I wanted to do? Or like, say you're busy?" asked Clarice in a tone of voice that made me feel like I could pick her up and break her like glass.

"I mean, I am busy. But I can make time for you." I said. At the time I think I was worried about what Rose was doing and Cid's whole deal with his parents, but I couldn't just spend the whole day worrying about it. "What'd you wanna do?"

Clarice bit her lip. "I… we're going to go on a quick air bike ride. I uh, I want you to drive."

"Oh, cool." I said with a smile as I let her lead me to where she had parked.

As we got on, and she hugged me from behind to probably hide her blushing face, I made one good realization.

What's that?

I wasn't wearing one of Luxion's suits. So when she hugged me I got to feel her clinging on my back.

Ah, one of the greatest things about driving an air bike. I'm not ashamed to admit I often would take Nanna out for the same reason.

Let me guess, you'd give her your jacket so you'd cover up your real goal

You know it.

Hah, nice. I'll have to try that out in the future.

[Master, that padding is there for your safety.]

But what of my joy Luxion?

[You seemed to have plenty when Lady Clarice asked you two to swap positions 30 minutes in.]

Oh yeah. Halfway through me driving around Clarice asked me to swap.

"Wow, it looks like you aren't perfect at everything?" she mocked.

I laughed, "Oh, okay. So what should I had driven like then?"

"Here, swap me." Said Clarice. She then vaulted over me despite the fact that we were still in the air and landed in front of me. I scooted back a bit to give her room, but she then strategically only moved her shapely rear back.

Oh that's devious.

A classic move for female air bike riders too. I proposed to Nanna the week after she did that to me the first time.

Right, so I had to hold onto Clarice's hips as she started to make really aggressive and sharp turns. Meaning that she was all but grinding up against me, and if I wanted to not get whiplash I had to lean in and only make it worse.

I made out with her so hard when we finally stopped.

-P2W-

With a smile, Leon finishes his flash back with a cut through a spider looking monster and the remark of "We didn't even land either. I had to do my best to stay stable on the air bike."

Daniel and Raymond, in between sips of some mana potions, thought about Leon's story.

"I should get an air bike." Said Raymond.

Daniel turned to Dan. "How much are they?"

Dan chuckled as he cleaned his weapon. "If all you want is a good way to make out with your fiancés then you're better off just renting one. Lady Clarice has been thinking about running a service to help men woo ladies this way. I'll teach you a few tricks if you'd like."

"You're the man Dan." Cheered Daniel.

"Heh, I like the sound of that." Laughed Dan.

The boys then went on to continue their depletion of the local monster atmosphere from there on.

However, about midway through they began to notice a few things.

"Hey, is it just me or are the placement of the monsters a bit… weird?" asked Raymond.

"Weird how?" asked Leon, also feeling like something was a bit off but chalking that up to the nature of the island.

Dan nodded, "It almost feels like the monsters were placed here. Sort of like how in a dungeon you can tell where they're going to spawn."

"Right, I felt that too. But monsters that spawn outside of a dungeon just do so randomly after they've eaten, no?" said Daniel while scratching his head in confusion.

Hm… a sinister plot behind what appeared to be a fanservice heavy episode is rather interesting. If I were to have the plot move forward though, how would I do it? Though Cid.

"You got any ideas Cid?" asked Leon.

Cid shook his head. "Nothing concrete. We better meet up with the other boys for now. They might have noticed something too. As stupid as they are, when it comes to adventurer related business they tend to be strangely competent."

The boys had all agreed to this.

However, on their way back Cid couldn't help but recall something like this happening before.

Hm, didn't something like this happen before with Zeta? I'll probably have to share a censored version of the story with everyone else but if I remember correctly…

-Cid x Zeta (Lilim)-

It had been a day like any other, sometime after The Goddess Trials. More specifically it was about after the time I had ran all the way back with the girls after warping to that place with the dragon.

If I recall I had dragged Zeta around with me before everyone had may their way back because I wanted to try and find a new dragon. Zeta had insisted that we go by ourselves, and I could guess it was because she was feeling super affectionate considering we had our first night together not that long before. Since that night had also been shared with Victoria she probably wanted a night with just the two of us.

The day had started out easy enough, I asked her to bring me to a random location like she did with Eta to find the dragon. She ended up choosing a place that obviously had her best interests for a date in mind.

By that I mean it was a place with a large lake in the middle of it, and as soon as we got there…

"Okay, so this is the place you asked for. But I can't exactly show you the weird stuff till later in the day. So for now…" Zeta handed me a fishing rod and laid down on my lap.

"Hm? Awfully presumptuous of you to ask your master to do all the fishing for you." I teased.

Zeta, having the advantage of being a cute cat girl looked up at me and cheekily teased back, "I'm not asking my master. I'm asking my lover to pamper me."

Not wanting her to have the last word, I cupped her cheek with the hand not holding the fishing rod and said softly, "Hm… I guess Lilim is feeling a bit needy then?"

Lilim immediately sat up with a red face but I forced her back down by using the hand on her face to kiss her forcefully. She melted against me and then leaned back into me. When I forced her back onto my lap she took my hand, and then softly bit into it.

"Jerk." She said as she bit my thumb. "that's not fair."

"What's not fair," I said with a small blush on my face, "Is sucking on one of my fingers when your face is so close to the crotch."

Lilim hummed at this. "I guess maybe I should suck on something else then."

Then later that night when we ate fish and Lilim had regained feeling in her legs, she ended up guiding me to a hiding spot.

From there we watched as a light flashed from the same lake we had been fishing in, then monsters began to spawn from some kind of weird pattern at the bottom. It was hard to tell exactly what was happening, but it kind of reminded me of the power of the magic flutes the Fanoss princesses would use.

A light would flash and then a new monster would come out. They were all the floating fish variety that were popular in this region, and if anything they seemed to hate being in the water. As though they'd drown. Which was kind of funny thinking on it, there being fish that could drown.

"So, Lord Shadow, what do you think this is?" asked Zeta.

"What do you think it is?" I returned, given I had absolutely no idea.

Zeta nodded, "You agree then. This has the cult's finger prints all over it."

"Something like that." I said.

Zeta continued off of my halfhearted adlibbing. "I agree, although it resembles the cults handiwork, there's something a bit off about it, right? After all if they could always spawn monsters this easily it makes no sense why they wouldn't regularly do it, especially when we attack their important bases."

"A power lost to history and corruption no doubt." I concluded. Based on the setting it just made sense, after all the flutes—things regarded as lost items—were the only ones of their kind.

Anything that could cause such weird mana fluctuations that would summon monsters like that would need to be something from a far more advanced civilization. Like, the same tier of people that made Luxion. Although, if I had to guess they'd be on the opposite side of whatever Luxion was on given that he's so anti magic and all that stuff.

I ended up telling Zeta to keep this close to her chest for now though. After all we didn't have too much to go on, and just saying this now wouldn't help anyone at the moment.

-P2W-

"So you're saying that while on a fishing date you saw monsters spawned by magic circles, and never thought to bring it up?" Leon asked Cid.

Cid shrugged his shoulders. "I don't know what to tell you. I just figured it was a Fanoss sort of thing, something we kinda knew based on what she did during the first attack. I didn't realize it'd be such a big deal until just now."

Dan nodded, "I suppose that if you're used to staying near Leon your sense of normalcy is just thrown out of the window. I can't blame you for not realizing how important it was at the time."

"Who knows then," said Raymond, "It could be that the origin of monsters is so difficult to cement since people always just have the same idea. That 'I thought that's just what everyone else knew' or something along those lines."

Daniel shuddered. "Let's save the conversations that shake the foundation of the world for later. Any of you guys see the five idiots?"

Cid looked around using his magic sense, from that he was able to tell that the five idiots were off to the west of the boys. However, they weren't exactly alone.

"Do you guys smell smoke?" asked Dan.

"That can't be good. Luxion, how close is the Einhorn? We might need to evacuate." Said Leon.

[I can get it here within minutes should the need arise, same with any armors if you feel the need.]

With that the boys nodded at each other and rushed off to where the fire had been, knowing that had to be where the five idiots were.

As the boys rushed off, Leon couldn't help but recall Mylene, and think about how concerned she'd be for Julius.

-Leon x Mylene-

You know? I can admit that my relationship with Mylene is at least a little strange. Both of us are grown enough to acknowledge it. And after I proposed to her, we kind of had to acknowledge things as much as possible anyway.

"So… if we were to count both lives, you'd be about my age then?" asked Mylene, doing her best to re-equip the pilot outfit she changed into shortly after I had proposed to her. She still had to show me that easy access zipper after all.

I nodded. "I died in my twenties in my last life, or I guess at least the one I remember the best. And now I'm 19 so that'd land me at about 30-ish." I looked over at Mylene. "Although you could tell me you're in your twenties and I'd believe you. Especially considering how flexible you still are."

Mylene giggled and swatted at me. "Oh hush, we're done for the day okay?"

"Just being honest. Not trying to start again. Though I wouldn't say no." I said with full honesty, putting my hand on her thigh.

She didn't stop me, but did put a hand on my arm to say not to go any further. "Well I'm going to have to say no. I may look young thanks to my magic control but I am still in my forties. You can't expect me to go as long or hard as some of your younger lovers."

Hm. Come to think of it didn't all the milf hentai I used to read say something about women in their forties having libidos that matched men my age or something?

"Leon-kun. Hand." Said Mylene through a blushing face. "Just my thigh okay?"

"Woops, sorry." I said as I realized I was trying to reach for the zipper. Not that I really needed to considering I ended up ripping the suit like it was a pair of yoga pants between me and a horny housewife. Hm. Now there's a thought.

"Leon-kun… if you really need to I guess we can… but I'm not going to be able to move…" whispered Mylene, not resisting my wandering hand again.

"Not on purpose." I said as I ended up moving my hand to her shoulder instead. "Honest. I just find you irresistible for whatever reason."

Mylene giggled and nuzzled into me. "You know… I think I get what you mean…"

I kissed the top of Mylene's forehead and enjoyed a moment of quiet.

"Hey… Leon-kun, do you… do you ever have dreams about other lives? I think you mentioned a dream about being Lea, and obviously there's your memories of Hiro."

"Hm… nothing concrete exactly. But… sometimes I get these… feelings. Like a sense of déjà vu when I come across certain things or people." I explained. "I know there's probably some memories of other lives I'm missing. After all this whole reincarnation things is strange enough, and between me and Lea there's at least 500 years of possible life times. Not to mention any in any other worlds, given Hiro."

Mylene nodded. "I… I wonder if there was a lifetime where we just had each other. Not to say I hate our current relationship, but the idea of us being the same age… having been together at the same time."

"And at the end of our lives I would promise to be the knight like the queen you always were to me."

Mylene sits up, locking eyes with me as I cover my mouth, the words seemingly having come out of nowhere.

"I got one more in me."

"Mylene?"

"Erica and Julius always wanted a younger sibling."

"What about Jake?"

"Bastard that never let them get close. I care for him, but he never did any of us. Anyway," Mylene started to tear off what was left of her outfit. "Promise you'll keep an eye out for Julius and Erica, and I'll do the thing with my tongue again."

"Uh."

"I'll wear the cow outfit you wanted too."

"Deal."

-P2W-

As fun as it would be to traumatize Julius I feel like talking about all the stuff I have Mylene do for me would be a step too far… as long as he never brings up what he gets up to with Marie anyway. Thought Leon as he and the other boys finally arrived to the five idiot's location.

When they got there they saw the five idiots back to back, fending off monsters and bandits alike.

"Bandits?" questioned Daniel.

"Wait, look closer. None of the monsters are attacking the bandits." Pointed out Raymond.

"Then these can't be regular bandits." Concluded Dan. "But who are they."

"The cult of diabolos" Leon realized. "Just look at the sigil."

Upon closer inspection the boys could see the familiar looping pattern seen on the cult members. Given that the only ones who ever got close and personal to the cult members were Leon and Cid it made sense that no one had been able to figure it out until now.

[Master, should we not intervene and stop things from getting any worse?]

"First, we should try and figure out where the monsters are coming from. After that we can join up with them." Leon turned to the other boys. "Any of you guys have experience with disrupting magic circles? With how they're underwater, I don't think just scratching them out would be enough to get rid of them, if the weathering hadn't done so already."

"I-I can." Said Cid. Time to implement Mob-fu move 544628… or was it 491968? Er anyway Mobfu move: Mob has this one talent that is only useful this one time!

"You can?" asked Dan. "That seems pretty complicated."

"Because of my condition I've gotten pretty used to disrupting magic and its formation." Explained Cid. At this everyone realized he made perfect sense.

"Then we know what to do. Dan, Daniel, Raymond, you guys will go around and flank the enemy to give the boys a chance to break free. Cid, you and me will go after the monsters. I'll buy you time as you disrupt magic circles. Luxion, if there's any ships that is off loading these guys then go ahead and make them unable to go anywhere. We need to figure out what else they might be up to."

With that everyone nodded. Luxion in particular seemed rather elated as he floated off.

As soon as Leon and Cid reached the first magic circle they were faced with a few monsters, but nothing a few well timed Mazio chants couldn't take care of.

Cid quickly got to work, with a glance he realized that the process needed to destroy the magic circles would be pretty simple. However, he didn't want to make himself look too competent by just destroying it immediately. Not to mention that the stakes would be even better if things got close.

To help pass the time, Cid recalled the last time he helped experiment with something like this.

-Cid x Eta (…Eta)-

If I remember correctly, the last time I had experimented with disrupting mana circles was when I was with Eta. It was during one of the times I had gone to Alexandria if I recall correctly.

"Cid…" whispered my lovely little psycho scientist in her ever quiet tone of voice. "could you… research something with me…?"

"Oh? It's rare of you to have a specific request from me. Shoot." I said.

"I want to learn… how to… disrupt a spell…" explained Eta, doing her best to shoot me some puppy eyes.

I laughed. "You want to try and figure out how to disrupt I AM ATOMIC don't you?"

"…No…" said Eta, showing me the part of her face covered by her hair rather than meeting my gaze.

Unfortunately for her, even I wasn't sure how to do that. The only person who would was Leon, who figured out how get rid of the strings I used to protect myself by sucking up the strings with a black hole. But that wouldn't happen till way after this date.

"It's a bit too obvious to tell when you've done this ever since Nu was first recruited." I pointed out, the reports of her brief rebellion requesting more funding going through my head.

"…Shouldn't you… humor me… anyway…?" Eta pouted, trying to pull the girlfriend card.

I shook my head, "There's no point if I just tell you how. But I have been wanting to figure out how to disrupt mana anyway. If only to figure out how to counter Luxion's tech. Which reminds me, how's things been going with Arroganz?"

"I've managed to get it up and running again..." Eta happily informed me before wilting a bit. "Although… it can't do much other than walk."

"Hey, don't feel too bad. Arroganz is the best of the best. It's also nothing like the contemporary ones, so I can't blame you for basically having to rediscover the wheel so to speak." I pat Eta on the head as I explained how proud I was of her.

Eta's ears wiggled happily and she even inflated with pride a bit. She's always been a bit conceited. But she's cute so it's fine. I think. I mean her ego doesn't really go any further than her budget will allow anyway.

"So, how should we try this then?" I asked. "Do you want me to make some magic circles and have you try to disrupt them?"

"That would be a good starting point…"

From there the two of us went to the training center. Many of the recruits had stopped their training to watch the two of us.

It was a simple back and forth. I would try casting a spell, then Eta would do her best to make me unable to cast it. This also resulted in her getting more movement than ever before, given that if she couldn't stop or redirect my spell she'd have to dodge. Whenever she got too tired—i.e. every 5 minutes or so—we'd swap so that I'd do the same.

"How…*pant* do you….*pant* keep figuring it out… so quickly…" demanded Eta as I stopped yet another Ziodyne spell.

The fun thing about this whole magic disruption business is that we had to start by making each of the spells go down a grade first. But here's the thing, I still remembered Eta's specific mana pathways.

Because I was the one to cure Eta of her mana overload, I basically had the key to her mana output. This wouldn't really help me with Luxion unless I got access to his blueprints. But even Leon doesn't have those so no dice.

"Hm." I said, feeling a bit bad. "Eta. I want you to try something."

"Lord…Cid…?" questioned Eta.

I took Eta's hand and placed it at my solar plexus. "I want you to attempt to overload my mana."

"Wh…what…?"

"I'm able to disrupt your spells due to how familiar I am with your pathways. I had been the one to cure your possession after all. So if you were to over load my mana and then cure it-"

"No!"

I felt my eyebrows shoot into my hairline as I heard Eta start shouting at full volume.

"No! No! No!" Eta began hitting my chest in apparent outrage. I looked around to see the numbers all having evacuated as soon as Eta shouted. "You… you can't ask me to do that…!"

"Eta…?" I questioned, a bit confused. "It's fine. I trust that you wouldn't let things get bad."

"No!"

"I don't see what the big deal is, you've tried to kill me before with poisons and stuff."

"That's…! that's different! You can't ask me to… to…!" Eta looked up at me with tears in her eyes. "If… if you ask me to continue this then… then I'll tell Alpha!"

"Now wait a sec." I said in a panic. "Let's not do anything we'll regret here."

-P2W-

I ended up needing to dote on her for the rest of the day so she wouldn't rat me out to Alpha. Thought Cid as he destroyed another magic circle.

"Okay, that should be the last one." Said Leon. "From what I can tell the others managed to make their way to the ships. You ready to destroy some cultists for good?"

Cid nodded, "Are we going to try and bring them in alive?"

"If we can, but at this point I'm not sure that's a good idea. At least considering…" Leon looked over to the several cultists that had tried to blow themselves up to destroy the others.

Cid and Leon then ran over to where they had seen the others go. When they had, they were met by the sight of several sunk ships and what appeared to be the elite group of the cultists. Most of the enemy consisted of the 1st children, those who were essentially mindless zombies. But there was one person there who seemed in charge and lucid.

"You…" said the man, outraged, "How in the fuck did you manage to choose this place? This was supposed to be a secret location that no one would notice until it was too late! My plan of spawning an endless army of monsters was perfect! Yet you managed to show up here just to stop me!"

Leon, realizing that this man was the only source of information, chuckled. "Oh? Did you think it was a mere coincidence?"

Cid looked at his friend. No way…

"You…! You knew of my location didn't you!" screamed the man. "You knew that I was planning on unleashing my monsters on the trade route ships and ruining the kingdom for what they did to me! You knew of me, Ian De Vill!"

"Of course, did you really think I just chose a random island? I knew of your foolish plan all along." Said Leon as he slowly got closer to the crazed man, Cid enthusiastically watching his accidental 'eminence in shadow' performance. "It was so easy to figure out each miserable and idiotic step."

"You knew of the sacrifices."

"Yes." No.

"You knew of my banishment."

"Obviously." Not.

"You even knew of the cult's plans to attack Mitsugoshi!"

"It was the first thing I figured out." Damn really?

"But there's no way you knew I was going to start the attack today!"

Leon, figuring that was all he needed to know, readied his sword. "A king doesn't take any action without considering the consequences. Luxion!"

With Leon's shout the Einhorn appeared from above and began to fire its missles again, ending all of the monsters in the vicinity with ease and even all of the remaining 1st children. All that was left was the man known as De Vill, Ian.

With a swipe of his sword, Leon knocked him out. All the boys cheered at having stopped the evil plot, exchanging high fives and celebratory chest bumps.

"What was all that by the way?" asked Jilk as he approached Leon. "That was rather out of character for you."

Leon shook his head, "Oh, I was just copying Lord Shadow."

"You were what?" asked Jilk with some surprise.

As he lifted the unconscious man Leon began to explain. "I can't really explain it, but for whatever reason Lord Shadow always seems to know everything, as though it was all part of some plan of his. So, I thought if I pretended that I knew everything already then things might go my way. And what do you know, it did."

Cid walks up to Leon and pats him on his free shoulder. "You really are my best friend."

"…Thanks? You too man." said Leon as Cid walked off in the direction of the Einhorn.

With that everyone would begin to make their way to the ship. The five idiots had even joined them, given that they had only been dropped off earlier. Leon gave Ian de Vill to Luxion for imprisonment until they could hand him off to the authorities. And by authorities, I of course mean either the Crimson knights or Mitsugoshi's private militia.

As Leon thought about all the torture the poor man was likely to go through, he was briefly reminded of his fiancé Deirdre and her… proclivities.

-Leon x Deirdre-

I looked at the assortment of objects presented in front of me as though I was either being geared up for a mission of most importance, or given that it was in three separate boxes, about to be sent on a Pokémon adventure.

Although given my choice of a box of whips, chains, and handcuffs of increasingly concerning difficulty. I should also mention that before I was allowed to walk in the room she had forced me to wear that one outfit that was half vaporized by Lord Shadow after the bushin festival.

"So…" I said as I looked up from the boxes to Deirdre's expectant face. "You don't even want to go on a date or something first?"

"I have needs dear Leon." Deirdre informed me as though she were guiding me through something I couldn't understand. Although to be fair, I didn't exactly understand this.

"Like… I know we've done stuff together already."

"You have fucked me silly yes."

I look at the noble lady in front of me slightly embarrassed. I find that she has no shame in her face whatsoever. In fact she seems as though she was simply talking about the weather.

"…I wouldn't say that…" I said.

"I definitely would." Said Deirdre with a smirk that she was hiding behind her fan. "I'd say a lot more too."

I nodded then glanced down to the rather intimidating display.

"Is… is this just for fun or…?" I mean there was a lot.

Deirdre takes a good look at me. "Yes… I feel like it'd be obvious that I am quite satisfied with your previous performances. I only wish to try something new…" Deidre walks up to me and grabs my arm, making me look at her as she gazes up at me gingerly. "You don't have to do anything if you don't want to."

I smiled and kissed Deidre on the forehead, "No, it just caught me a bit off guard." With that Ithen moved to her neck and collarbone. I enjoyed thoroughly how she began to softly laugh. She started with her little 'fufufu' type laugh, but that wasn't' what I was looking for. So, I started tickling her.

"Fufuf, wait… *snnrk* wait Leon…" Deirdre's stomach immediately starts moving, letting me know she was about to start laughing full on. "OHOHOHO! LEON, DON'T OHOHOHOHOHO!"

Music to my ears.

"OHOHOHO! STOP! OHOHOHO! IT!" cried Deidre as I had her writhing in laughter, feebly attempting to fight me off. "OHOHOHO! NOOO! OHOHOHO! I'M GOING TO PEE! OHOHOHOHOHOHO!"

Not wanting to have her do that—and if I'm honest possibly awaken to something that I'd never be willing to try—I decide to let go. Deirdre pouts at me so I lean down to give her a kiss once she caught her breath. However-

Click*

I looked to see my arms bound in front of me.

"I hope you're ready." Said Deirdre, her face flush.

"Bring it." I smirked. Then I realized something. Deirdre hasn't actually done this before. "Uh, but let's set some ground rules."

"Oh, of course." Said Deirdre.

Looking back it was rather nice that us cooling off to communicate didn't stop us at all. If anything I got so fired up halfway through that I broke the handcuffs in half.

-P2W-

As Leon and Cid came back to the Kagenou territory from dropping off the others, they found themselves greeted by Alpha and Claire.

"Hey boys." Said Claire as she ran up to give both a hug before shifting to solely Leon as Alpha greeted Cid.

"I imagine that you both have a lot to talk about given you were gone for a week." Said Alpha.

Cid and Leon looked at each other. Then shrugged.

"Nah." Said Cid.

"Not really." Said Leon.

.

.

.

A/N: God. I thought this was going to be a third of the size. This was meant to be an omake but I ended up making one of my longest chapters. I guess that's what I get for merging three chapter ideas with two of them being anthology type things.

I'll be honest I crossed over the Stupid guy stuff idea with the two date night things just because I wasn't sure I actually could make a chapter of the doing stupid guy stuff.

Also, I probably will do another chapter like this after Alzer. That one would have the Polaris girls (Alexia, Rose, Nu, Lambda, Victoria, Kai/Omega, Foxtrot, Violet/Aurora, and Yukime) and the straight flush (Noelle, Louise, Yumeria, and Cordelia… man Leon's harem is way smaller. Like I knew that but damn it's different when you type it out.)

Hopefully this anthology of fluff chapter was nice. I do plan on doing the chapter still. Although I guess I'm going to probably start updating Wednesdays now? That's not set in stone, it just seems to be where I usually end things now for whatever reason.

Now that I think about it I guess this is sort of like a volume end bonus considering we just finished Mobuseka's volume 4 and 5 events? Anyway, since this chapter ended up being the length of a full length one, I'll go ahead and answer the comments too.

SB

MWKillKenny84: Lmao, yeah. Ideal is one of the best villains in the series so the red alert is warranted.

Azure the Dragon Lord: lol. I hope that I can deliver a bit on the future stuff. I will say that Leila's other life will serve to make her more interesting/ understandably redeemable.

Rendfire: Leila has always been the type of person to only hear things that back up their own beliefs. So I feel like it was the correct choice to have her focus on Leon's threat rather than what could actually make her life better. As you said, it is fair that Leon could destroy the world if he wanted. It's like how Leon's preparing to kill Lord Shadow should the need arise.

I mean, Cid could be wrong. But also Jilk is wrong 9 times out of 10 about the value of stuff where as Cid is usually 50/50. Unless it's funnier that Cid's wrong, then he's wrong every time.

Elle died way earlier in canon, so I figured I should do my best to send her off in a way that made sense and got respect. Given the shorter nature of the chapter I thought it the best, also went well into the foreshadowing. It's weird what you decide to lead into each other as you write.

Right, that's one of the weirdest things about Mobuseka: you only really learn what happens to Leon and his wives (and a little bit of Marie). Like you don't even get a sentence saying "Cordelia continued to serve Angelica" or anything for the other minor characters. They usually just disappear after a while.

I didn't think badly of Colin, I recall seeing on reddit that was his ending. Also it's kind of understandable that even though he was a kid and never going to go anywhere with Noelle, he still felt a bit complicated about it. Although it's kind of funny to learn that Livia was the one to set Colin up with the protag of the 4th game given what the ending of the LN showed of Livia tagging along with Leon when he went to the 4th game's country.

It is a funny image to think about Cid learning how Mana doesn't go past space. I'll probably get to it in the John Smith Arc if not the Earth Arc.

I figured you were just joking, but I saw a chance to explain things so I figured why not. Glad you enjoyed the explanation.

QQ

Bladist: Huh. I do recommend finishing Mobuseka if you ever get the chance. Honestly Serge's return is where things got good for me again.

Serge and Leila's search for Ideal would begin the next chapter. Although I might change it a bit to keep it interesting.

Yeah, reading Elle's canon death made me tear up a bit too. I had to include it at one point.

Yep. Not too concrete on how related, but If you know Nishitani then Hime Nishimura should make the earth arc more interesting.

I mean, I can't have a crossover and not have the boys fight at least once. Especially with actual stakes.

ShirouGin11: I mean Cid is one of the people from Old Humanity.

She is related to Akane. Still hammering out the details for how I want it to go down specifically though.

Dad Jokes absolutely are a mob skill, it's probably on Cid's bucket list of things to do as a dad.

Uh, well, I mean. Leon will go through some emotional stuff, but uh… *looks at John Smith arc*

Josephindomictus: That's pretty close honestly. Won't get too far into explaining it though.

Posang: Glad someone remembered that! I do plan on playing with the Guardian's crest a bit, but I feel like leaving plant manipulation to Yumeria is what kept her relevant for a while.

I didn't realize that I had Leon have more pillow talk. I'll try to have Cid do it since that's really all I can show I guess.

Ao3

Wolfpaladin: At the very least, the miscommunication actually does things. Most of the time it just causes drama, but given the political nature of Mobuseka it makes sense here rather than say a regular romcom.

"Hime Nishino ? YOU SON OF A" That made me laugh out loud for a few minutes, not going to lie.

You're right, the timing of things given Leila's back story is what makes the things interesting but complicated. So nothing is too set in stone just yet.

RIP Elle.

It was indeed foreshadowing.

Oh and the Merce thing is a maybe for a reason. It's just one of the few interesting angles to approach things from if I wanted to add a new girl that didn't overlap completely with the others.

Danwatch: Yeah, but it was about time given her fate in canon. This was really the best chapter to do it.

I won't spoil it, but honestly no one's called out Hertrauda's pairing correctly yet.

She's gotta hit rock bottom somehow, even if she's gotta crash land there.

Lol, love the name game everyone plays.

Oh no, I said Leon wouldn't fight Delta.

Totntotbt: "Walking Ghost Phase" I love that. Also yeah, Leila is socially and mentally stunted due to trauma. Kind of like Cid in a way if you think about it.

I feel like Serge getting killed off the way he did was justified but also a little bit of a let down. I think him having to live in prison was more fitting of a fate. So I'll explore him more at the very least.

I kinda want to revisit Cid's family, if at the very least for John (he's also called Requiem, which is the name I've been using.) It'd be kinda funny to have Cid reunite with Minoru's family only because he wants his pet dog again.

Leila's honestly pretty interesting to explore. I hope I can do it correctly. But yeah, she's in need of a wake up call… I guess she really does mirror Cid in some ways, at least in this fic.

Oh the 2nd Lieutenant is Noelle (the human)'s past life. It's learned about in the volume 6 or 7 post story. More on that later (next chapter even I think).

Hm, that seems more in line with my kind of stuff. I'll keep that persona idea in mind.

BOY4_GOW:

1. Yup, Leila's fate is all the more foreboding than anyone's.

2. Ideal was a military type, where as Luxion was built for migratory stuff.

3. Lmao, was wondering if anyone was actually going to get faked out for a sec.

4. Heh.