The Simulacrum

It was a cold and stormy night. The magnificent summer mansion of the esteemed Dracis family, built on a small private island South-East of Critias, was cut off from the outside world by the weather. No way on or off the island, and for most of the night, there was no electricity either, completely isolating the people in the mansion. One couldn't have asked for a better setting for a whodunnit story.

A small pool of suspects, a fixed location bereft of external influences, and there was no way for the culprit to escape. And of course, there was also a detective on the scene. A self-proclaimed one, but close enough.

"Thank you all for gathering here on such short notice, so early in the morning," Judy spoke solemnly in the middle of the candle-lit parlour on the ground floor of the building. While the setting said this was the 'summer mansion' of the family, due to various reasons mostly related to me cutting corners, the room looked identical to the one in canon. The one inside the Dracis mansion in Timaeus, I mean. The one with the big fireplace and the fancy divans.

My dear assistant was wearing a brown plaid wool coat over her casual clothes and looked over the people present. On the left, we had the Dracis couple along with a visibly excited Elly, backed by Melinda and Sebastian. On the right, there was Naoren, Zihao, and Rinne. Then there was me, standing in the middle of the room not too far from Judy, with everyone stealing glances at me.

Thus, our primary cast established, Judy also gestured in my direction.

"As you all know already, we're completely cut off from the outside, and we still have no electricity or lighting." For illustration, she pointed at the candle stick standing on the coffee table between the low-backed divans and padded chairs. "We can't even contact the police, because the island has no phone towers, and even if we could, they would have no way to come here until the storm clears up. Which could take days."

"Why would we want to call the police?" Naoren asked, sounding just a touch impatient, and as if waiting for him to do so, Judy dramatically pointed at him.

"That's a very good question! We have no reason to call the police, because nothing happened," she declared and then gestured at me again. "Despite all the circumstances lining up, and everyone here having ample motive and opportunity, the Chief is still alive. We must, therefore, figure out what happened. Or rather, what didn't happen."

Her declaration was underscored by the sound of the thunder and lightning from outside, and then a long beat later she let her arm down and turned to me.

"Something's missing. Chief? Props, please."

I subtly rolled my eyes, but in for a penny, in for a pound. I lightly touched the physical manifestation of the Simulacrum still embedded in my forehead, and not a second later a fancy rosewood pipe popped into existence between Judy's fingers.

"Good enough?"

"Yes, thank you." She flashed the tiniest of smiles and then turned back to the group. "This isn't just a regular mystery. This is… an un-murder mystery."

That was followed by another crack of thunder, and then she put the pipe into her mouth. Instead of sucking, she blew into it, which produced a couple dozen small, colourful bubbles. Because this was a family friendly un-murder mystery.

On a whim, I used the Simulacrum to also conjure up a deer-stalker hat that matched her cape coat and plopped it on top of her head. She took it in stride and, after readjusting her cap, she made a sweeping gesture with the stalk of her pipe towards the people in the room.

"Until we get to the bottom of it, everyone here is under suspicion." There was a momentary pause, then she pointed at the princess. "Except for Elly, because she's my assistant."

"Officer Eleanor, ready for duty!" My usually draconic (though not in this continuity) girlfriend jumped to her feet and skipped over to our side. "I did my research this time! I'll be a good Watson! I'll take notes, and… oh! Can I have one of those big handheld magnifiers?"

"Certainly. Chief?"

Judy looked at me expectantly, and I couldn't help but grimace a bit.

"I'm feeling a tiny bit exploited nowadays," I grumbled under my breath, but it was just in jest, and after touching my forehead again, a notepad and fancy magnifier glass with a wooden handle materialized in Elly's hands.

"Yay!"

"All right. Does anyone have any questions before we get started?" my dearest assistant enquired, and Mountain Girl raised a hand right away.

"Rinne doesn't understand. Rinne is Leonard-dono's retainer, so Rinne had no reason to exterminate Leonard-dono."

"That only applies to canon," Judy explained patiently. "You're one of the suspects in this continuity, so by definition, you must have a motive and reason for the crime."

"Or lack thereof," Elly added smugly, and my dear assistant nodded along.

"In that case, Rinne certainly has reasons to want to exterminate Leonard-dono."

Mountain Girl not only took a full one-eighty on a dime, but she now sounded like she was stating the obvious. I had to give it to her; she was pretty flexible like that. In the meantime, the next question came from Melinda.

"Why is Milady above suspicion?"

"That's a very good question!" Judy responded first, but it was Elly who answered it.

She used her magnifying glass to point at the chambermaid and flashed a cute smirk as she declared, "The seventh rule of Knox says that the detective cannot be the culprit, and the fourth of Van Dine also explicitly applies it to assistants and other investigators!"

"We're only following the Knox Decalogue here," Judy pointed out, which took some of the wind out of her sails, but not for long.

"D-Doesn't matter! Knox's seventh is enough!"

One might've been tempted to ask what they were talking about, and so would I, had I not done my research as well. Judy wanted to do a murder mystery type of narrative for a while before I finally caved in, leading us to this scenario. Of course, I not only had to find a fitting non-canon continuity to make it work, but had to tweak it a little to fit the mystery genre, and one of the guidelines I used was the Knox Decalogue.

It was an informal set of ten rules created by a prolific author regarding detective fiction, and they were meant to serve as guiding principles for writers, aimed to create a 'level playing field' between them and the reader and give the latter a fair chance to solve the mystery before the final reveal. Most of them were pretty self-evident stuff, and the detective not being the culprit was one of them, as it's generally a pretty big ass-pull.

After all, the story is narrated by and told through the eyes of the detective, so for them to be the perpetrator, the author had to purposefully obfuscate information from the reader. In less fancy terms, it meant the writer lied and led the reader astray, which was considered unfair.

The other set of rules mentioned was Van Dine's Commandments, which were twenty similar rules for detective stories. There was quite a bit of overlap between the two, but we were only following Knox's rules. Or rather… well, let's not let the cat out of the bag just yet.

"Chief?"

"Hm? Yes, Dormouse?"

"Just to be safe, can you say that the detective cannot be the culprit in Red?"

I eyed my dear assistant for a moment and slouched my shoulders.

"I told you, we're not doing that. The whole 'Red Truth' thing is a fine meta-fictional plot device and all, but we're not poaching it. It would be rude and unprofessional."

She clicked her tongue but didn't argue. Instead, she addressed the group again.

"Before we get started, let's summarize the facts. First off, the Chief is alive."

"Which already breaks Van Dine's seventh commandment, so… I guess it's a good thing we're not following those?" Elly mused, but my other girlfriend continued on without paying her much attention.

"Everyone here had both the motives and the means to murder him last night, yet he's not dead. To narrow down the list of suspects, we must investigate each of you separately to determine who's responsible for the lack of the crime. We start with the servants."

"Technically, only Melinda counts as a servant," the princess pointed out and jotted down a few lines into her notebook. "Gramps is part of the family."

"True, and under normal circumstances, she would've been automatically excluded from the list of suspects, because the maid or butler being the culprit is a hackneyed solution."

"Van Dine eleven," Elly whispered under her breath, and… wow, she really did do her research, didn't she?

Meanwhile, Judy blew a couple more bubbles out of her pipe and looked Melinda in the eye.

"Your motive is very straightforward: jealousy over Elly's relationship with the Chief."

"Sensible," the braided chambermaid responded laconically, and that was the end of it.

"Now, moving on to Mr von Fraenir." The old man, who wasn't a dragon in this continuity, perked up at once. "You've been holding a grudge over the Chief's ploys resulting in the destruction of the priceless antique spear in your collection."

That wasn't a question, more like a dry statement, but Sebastian nodded along all the same.

"Indeed. I would be lying if I said I wasn't displeased by its fate."

"And last night should've been the perfect opportunity to take revenge," Judy continued, and Elly took more notes for her. "As for Mr and Mrs Dracis…"

"Ah, honey! It's our turn!" Abram exclaimed with glee. "I wonder what our motives are! I can't wait to hear them!"

"Calm down, dear," Emese chided him and placed a hand on his forearm, but she also looked oddly expectant.

"That's a very good question!" Judy declared, even though they didn't technically ask one. Was she trying to turn this into her catchphrase, I wondered. "Simply put, Dragonflame Records almost went bankrupt when it couldn't keep up with the times. The Chief's advice and visionary leadership allowed it to not only return from the brink, but turn record profits for the last two quarters, and you rewarded him with company shares. As a result, the recently established Streaming Service Department became the new face and most significant division of the company, which not only made his shares extremely valuable, but it now threatens your majority ownership of the company. This means you would've benefited tremendously if he was no longer in the picture."

"Oooh! Classic corporate backstabbing! I like it!" Abram declared with a hearty laugh.

"As for you three…" Judy moved on to the trio on the other divan. "Mr Feilong's motives are straightforward: your plans to perform a corporate takeover on the weakened Dragonflame Records were predicated on your engagement with Elly, and since he dashed those plans, you held a grudge against him. The current situation was perfect to capitalize on that!"

"Hm. I'm not going to lie, that sounds a little flimsy to my ears," the bespectacled patriarch grumbled. "I admit that we have a reputation for holding grudges, but not to such an extent, and…"

"Excuse me!" Elly suddenly interjected with a hand raised over her head, stopping both Naoren's protests and Judy's explanation. "I don't think Naoren can be a suspect. Knox's fifth rule says that there shouldn't be a chinaman!"

"… Pardon?" Naoren blurted out in shock, and so I inserted myself into the scene for a moment.

"It's an old trope. In detective stories of yore, Chinese or Asian people in general were used as something of a plot device. They were either the obvious culprit or a mystical sage who would effectively solve the case for the detective through some esoteric oriental wisdom or something. It was a little bit racist, a little bit predictable, but most importantly very trite and overused, so avoiding the trope was enshrined in the rules."

"Is that so?" The young patriarch murmured with his arms crossed and fingers on his chin. "I admit I'm not a purveyor of detective fiction, but it sounds rather too specific…"

"It can't be helped now," Judy declared and turned to Elly. "We can't do anything about the Feilong family's nationality, so we have no choice but to cross the fifth rule off our list."

"Uuu… I don't like it, but I guess we really have no choice…" Elly groaned and scribbled over something in her notebook. Meanwhile, my other girlfriend moved along to our next 'suspect'.

"Ms Yamako also holds a grudge."

"Rinne does?" she blurted out, and Judy dramatically pointed at her with her pipe.

"That's a very good question!"

Yep. She was definitely trying to make it into a catchphrase. She circled the stem of the pipe for a second before putting it back into her mouth and exhaling a low huff.

"Ms Yamako used to be the head of her clan until the Chief took her position by invoking an old rule related to the ownership of the founder's sword. However, were he to die under mysterious circumstances here, she could've recovered her position in her clan."

"But Rinne doesn't mind Leonard-dono being the head of the Kage clan…"

"Not in canon, but you do here," Elly chimed in, and after a long beat, Mountain Girl nodded along.

"In that case, Rinne does."

"Didn't we already have this exchange once?" It was only an idle question, but everyone was looking at me funny, so I added a slightly grumpy, "Never mind," and slinked back into the background.

"What about me?" Zihao raised his voice last, and certainly least. I mean, I didn't want to be mean, but I had no idea what he was doing here.

"That's a very good question!" Judy once again bit down on the lip of her pipe and folded her arms. "You're jealous of the Chief because he has two girlfriends, while you have none."

Her response was followed by a long, long silence only occasionally broken by the sound of wind and thunder.

"Wait, that's it?" Zihao protested with undesrstandable dissatisfaction. "What kind of motive is that?!"

"A simple one," Judy answered flatly, and Elly hurriedly backed her up.

"Yes. Simple is good."

"I still don't like it," the guy grumbled with audible distaste. "Who ever heard of killing someone over something that nonsensical?"

"Which is why you're our primary suspect for the non-murder of the Chief," Judy noted dispassionately, followed by another stream of bubbles from her pipe. "Out of everyone present here, you have the weakest motive, and therefore you're the most likely to be responsible for the Chief's continued survival." She paused for a beat and turned on her heel, facing the door leading out of the parlour. "But let's not jump to conclusions. First, we must inspect the scene of the lack of crime for clues pertaining to the identity of the culprit whose actions led to the Chief being alive. Follow me."

"I'm right behind you!" Elly did so excitedly, and the rest of the group followed after them. Sebastian and Melinda were holding a candlestick each for illumination as we wandered through the spooky hallways of the summer mansion. It was pretty atmospheric, all things considered, with the occasional thunderclaps and everything, and the girls seemed to really enjoy the mood. Which was all for the better, since this whole scenario was for them to have fun.

"Here we are. The Chief's room, where the murder didn't take place," Judy spoke with gravitas and opened the door. Once everyone was inside, she directed their attention to the entrance. "As you can see here, this is not only a low-security door without a latch or chain on the inside, but the locking mechanism…"

There was a dramatic pause while she waited for Elly to examine the lock with her magnifying glass, and my girlfriend let out a startled gasp.

"Detective Judy! This mechanism is completely missing a bolt!"

"Indeed!" It was easy to tell that my lovely assistant was really into this role, because she was much more animated than usual. "Since this is, first and foremost, a summer home for the Dracis family and friends, it never had any reason to install locks within the building! Therefore, there's literally no way to securely shut this door, meaning…"

"Meaning?" Elly echoed her, so Judy struck a contemplative pose, followed by blowing one big bubble out of her pipe.

"Meaning this isn't just your run-of-the-mill non-murder mystery, but an open room non-murder mystery!"

That was just asking for even more dramatic flair and, honestly, I was also getting into the mood, so I stealthily adjusted the Simulacrum to create a bright lightning flash and thunderclap outside the window. It slightly startled everyone, but it also had the intended effect, so I was satisfied with how it turned out.

"What does that mean?" Emese asked the question on the collective minds of the peanut gallery… *cough* Excuse me, I meant to say 'the ring of suspects'. That was definitely what I wanted to say.

"It means that anyone could've entered this room with the intent to murder the Chief without any obstacle, making the lack of murder even more mysterious!"

"Oh! How exciting!" Abram not only exclaimed but even rubbed his palms together in anticipation. "So? What's next?"

"That's a very good question! Now, we must gather clues to figure out why the murder didn't take place! Assistant Elly!"

"Aye, aye, Ma'am Detective!"

The princess went as far as to mimic a salute, and the two of them began to scour the room for evidence. It didn't take long for them to gather everyone again, and this time Judy had a satisfied smirk on her face. By Judy standards, I mean.

"With the data we collected, we can reconstruct the scene of the lack of crime. First off, I would like to bring your attention to our first clue." She gestured for Elly, and she pushed over a food trolley from the corner of the room. On it sat a fine porcelain tea set, though the pot's contents were obviously cold by this point. "This was the tea from which the chief drank last night. Do you notice anything peculiar?"

"No, I can't say I do," Sebastian noted with mild confusion, and Judy immediately pointed at him with her pipe, obviously waiting for him to speak up.

"It's only natural, since the reason why there's nothing out of the ordinary with this tea is exactly due to Mr von Fraenir's unwitting interference!"

"I don't follow…" Naoren spoke a touch guardedly, so my dear assistant barrelled on.

"It's elementary, Mr Feilong. For you see, it all started with your plan! You approached Melinda, whom you knew also harbored a grudge of jealousy towards the Chief, and you provided her with a new and experimental heart medicine developed by Feilong Pharmaceuticals!"

"Wait a minute… Judy?" Elly interrupted her just as she was about to gather steam, and after leafing through her notebook for a while, she showed it to her and pointed at a specific line. "If it's an unknown experimental drug, then doesn't it go against Knox's fourth rule?"

"It might be, but we can't do anything about it now. The evidence is incontrovertible." She gestured at the teapot again. "Since I had a feeling something like this could happen, I brought a simple chemical testing kit with me."

"You had a feeling? Isn't that in conflict with Knox's sixth?"

"Elly, please. I'm trying to explain what happened here. Can we discuss this later?" my dear assistant insisted, and my other girlfriend readily capitulated. "So, as I was saying, Melinda put the drug into the tea, which at this over-dosage would've caused heart failure indistinguishable from a natural heart attack! However, she couldn't have expected that Mr von Fraenir already placed cyanide inside the pot in advance! Not only that, but the drug provided by Mr Feilong had a large dose of hydroxocobalamin in it, a type of B12 vitamin, which formed cyanocobalamin once it came into contact with cyanide, and it just happened that the temperature of the tea was perfect for this new compound to break down most of the active ingredients of the heart medication into harmless chemical constituents!"

"Okay, now I'm entirely sure that this goes against Knox's sixth rule. We already broke the fifth and the fourth, so… isn't this bad?"

Elly's concerns were left unanswered as Judy barrelled on unabated.

"Now, I bring your attention to these still-damp bathrobes." He presented said garments with some flair and made sure that everyone could see them. "They are proof that the Chief took a shower last night. Suffering from a headache and heart palpitations caused by the trace amounts of cyanide remaining in his tea, he chose to freshen up and left the room. It was at this time when someone else made their move."

She walked across the room and pointed at the wet floor.

"Ask yourself: where did all this water come from? The answer is obvious: someone sneaked into the room through the window, letting the rain and wind in. Someone who wasn't aware that the door would be unlocked. Someone who's well-versed in scaling buildings and entering rooms undetected."

"Ah! Was it Rinne?" Mountain Girl blurted out, and by the sound of it, she was also caught up in the momentum of Judy's explanation.

"Precisely! Ms Yamako sneaked into the empty room, unaware that the Chief was out. However, in the dark, someone else entered through the door. Someone who knew that it wouldn't be locked and that its occupant would be asleep at this hour, making it the perfect opportunity for an assassination. And that was…" She held the tension for a moment, then whipped her hand towards our in-laws. "Mr Dracis! You decided to strike in the middle of the night, but you also didn't know that the Chief had left the room. Instead, you encountered Ms Yamako in there, and you were unable to recognize each other in the dark!" At this point, she rapidly pointed out a bunch of small things, like a cut on the curtains and a cracked wardrobe door, before addressing the group again. "As you can see, there are clear signs of a struggle here, and after realizing that neither of you could quickly overpower the other, you both retreated from the scene, without the Chief any wiser about what happened!"

"I have a question," Naoren interjected, raising a hand to get Judy's attention. "According to this theory, both Lady Rinne and Clan Head Abram entered the room at once. Isn't that too much of a coincidence?"

"That's a very good question, and not at all! For you see, they were both waiting for the candles in the Chief's room to be snuffed out, indicating that he went to sleep, before they made their move."

"But if he was lying in wait, wouldn't he have seen Leonard leaving the room?" Elly pointed out, and for a moment, Judy looked stumped. It only lasted for a heartbeat thought, and then she reassumed his confident detective act and pointed at the princess with her pipe.

"Why, it's elementary, my dear Elly," she spoke bluntly and made a vague gesture across the room. "The Chief used a hidden passage to exit the room without anyone being the wiser."

"Hold on! That's a no-no!" Elly protested while waving her notebook around, sounding as incensed as she'd ever been this morning. "Knox's third rule explicitly forbids any secret passages!"

"It's an old mansion, so it's not impossible," I chimed in to help out my dear assistant. "The mansion in canon also has concealed servant corridors."

"Y-Yes, but… How would you even find something like that? They're secret! You can't just…!" She walked over to the nearby bookshelf to demonstrate, but as soon as she put her hand on it… "W-Whoa!"

The shelf, along with a portion of the wall, turned forty-five degrees and revealed a dark, yawning passage.

"A-A-Awawa! That was a complete accident! You can't rely on accidents like that! And… that also breaks Knox's sixth rule all over again! Oh, no…"

In the meantime, Judy let out a vindicated hum and looked over the group.

"So, to reiterate: Melinda, Mr von Fraenir, and Mr Feilong accidentally cancelled out each others' plans, which prompted the Chief to secretly leave the room to get a cold shower, which allowed Mr Dracis and Ms Yamako to mistake each other for the Chief, all the while Mrs Dracis was providing an alibi for Mr Dracis. That leaves only one person unaccounted for, and that's you, Zihao Feilong! Or should I call you…" Judy dramatically pointed at the younger Feilong brother and called out, "Bel of the Abyss?"

"Wait, whaaat?" Elly moaned while holding her head.

"Oh. So you have discovered my identity," Zihao spoke in a decidedly Bel-ish manner, and then he reached under his collar to pull off the rubber mask covering his face. "What gave it away?"

"I have detective privileges," Judy stated firmly and puffed her pipe. "Since the detective's point of view is always objective, I can automatically see through all kinds of deception and disguises."

"Ah, I haven't thought of that. A rather surprising turn of events, this turned out to—"

"Stop! Halt! Say no more!" Elly yelled out while making a big X with her forearms. "This is all kinds of wrong! This twist breaks Knox's first, second, and tenth rule at the same time! You can't do that! You can't just resolve a mystery like that! Where were the clues?"

"Oh, right here," Judy responded plainly and took a piece of paper out of her pocket. "This is a note I found at the site of the non-crime. It says, 'It was me, Bel of the Abyss. I was the one who did nothing. Ha. Ha. Ha.'…" She stared at the page for a moment, then shrugged. "After applying deductive reasoning, it's clear to see that Bel of the Abyss was the culprit all along. Case closed."

"No, it's not!" Elly pouted defiantly and snatched the paper out of my assistant's hand. "You can't resolve a mystery with a clue that wasn't presented! That goes against Knox's eight rule, and… On no! We broke all the rules!"

"Not all of them," I pointed out on the side.

"Yeah. You still have Knox's seventh rule, you know?" Bel added on with a cackle, making my princess blink in surprise.

"R-Right! And that's…" She hit up her notebook, and after a long beat, she let out a weird sound. "Eeeh? The one that says that the detective cannot be the culprit?"

"Precisely!" Bel exclaimed with a clap. "So, let me ask this: why would the esteemed non-victim sleep in this room alone when he had both of his fiancées present? Drumroll please!" He raised his hands and waited for several long seconds, right until sending an annoyed glance at me. "I said, drumroll, please?"

"Oh, fine," I grumbled and manipulated the Simulacrum to create a rapid drum beat.

Bel wiggled his fingers, and just as the drumroll ended, he spread his arms wide open and exclaimed, "The answer is obvious! He wouldn't! Both the detective and her assistant were present in the room, and they were the ones who kept him safe and accompanied him to the bathroom! It was you, all along!"

"But then… Oh no…" Elly muttered in shock and horror as she stared at her notes. "That means all the rules are broken! This is no longer a detective mystery story! It's…"

Before she could finish it, the whole room, and everyone in it, began to shake and waver, and before I could even say supercalifragilisticexpialidocious, the whole world popped out of existence, leaving me alone with the girls in a not-bright not-chamber.

"And that concludes the Simulacrum's stress test," I stated glibly, only to flinch when Elly kicked my shin.

"You jerks! Why didn't you tell me about this!?"

"We were looking for genuine reactions to a complete narrative decoherence," Judy stated, still wearing her detective outfit and blowing bubbles. "Also, the Chief thought it would be funny."

"Hey, don't pin this on me! You were the one who suggested that we prank the princess with this."

"Pics, or didn't happen," she shot back defiantly, so I pointed at my forehead.

"You know that I can literally recreate the scene, right?"

We locked eyes for a while, and she flinched first.

"Fine. I might've also thought it would be funny." She stepped up to my other girlfriend and grasped her hand. "Sorry."

"You're both jerks."

Seeing that she was still sulking, I also stepped closer and hugged her to my side.

"Don't be mad. It was just a little joke. You know what? Let's put the real murder mystery story aside for now, and do something you'd like first. Do you have any requests?"

My princes continued to sulk a bit more, but it didn't take long for her to thaw under our combined appeasing efforts, and she eventually said, "Let's do magical girls."

"… Pardon?"

"Magical girls," she repeated even firmer for the second time, with a flame burning in her eyes. Figuratively, of course. "I want to see Judy in a frilly magical girl outfit and doing transformations and everything!"

"I… If you really want to…" My dear assistant hesitated, but Elly already considered that a sign of agreement and was looking at me with a provocative grin.

"And Leo…"

"Y-Yes?"

"You'll be our mascot!"

"… Do I really have to?" My hopeful question immediately made her descend into a pout, so I hastily showed my palms in surrender. "Fine, fine! We do what you want."

"And then a normal detective mystery after that," Judy proclaimed on no uncertain terms, and I had no choice but to nod along.

"Yes, yes. We'll do that, and…"

Just then, all three of us flinched when the not-bright not-chamber around us trembled and twisted. It only lasted for a moment, and then it was back to normal as if nothing had happened.

"What was that?" Elly whispered as he snuck closer to me, her previous provocative attitude completely gone, and Judy did the same.

"That? I'm not sure, but…" I raised a finger to the Simulacrum in my forehead, and after a few short seconds of consideration, I exhaled a surprised breath. "Oh? Nothing to worry about. Just some stuff happening in canon. It has nothing to do with us."

"Are you sure about that?"

I flashed a reassuring smile with a confident, "One hundred percent positive," in tow, and once my girlfriends calmed down a bit, I jerked my head towards nothing in particular and asked, "So? Murder mystery?"

"No. Magical girls," Elly responded bluntly, drawing a resigned sigh out of me.

"Oh well. It was worth a try."

And with that, I manipulated the Simulacrum and we all disappeared from the not-bright not-chamber. I had no idea what the canon was up to, but it was clear it was something major. It was none of my business, but still, I wished canon me the best of luck. After all, we all had our crosses to bear…