They gathered around the double bed where the sleeping figure of a girl could be seen. She was almost bald, just a thin cropping of hair covering her scalp. She had soft, smooth skin that would be a better fit on a baby. She was under a kilt duvet, her shoulders and arms exposed outside.

Aidan was in the middle of the group admiring the girl. On his right Sora, Pearl, Claire. On his left Cythrel and Astromelicus. For the princesses, it was the first time since the procedure three days ago they laid eyes on Dawn. Cythrel and Sora moved in to help care for her. They couldn't have any servants or academy staff seeing her here.

"What happened to her hair?" Pearl asked.

"Lumina's hair is safely stowed on her head, if that is what you mean. Dawn's hair had only three days to grow, you should see when she came back from the laboratory, it was glistening," Cythrel answered.

Pearl made a nervous chuckle at the image of a bald, wax-headed Lumina. Claire must've had the same mental image, but she shuddered and sighed instead. However the elf was right. Lumina's hair was indeed in her own head.

"Is it time to wake her up?" Aidan asked the Archmage.

"Go ahead. I am using Lifesight right now, there is nothing wrong."

Aidan focused on their shared soul and sent the signal to wake Dawn up. He felt her discomfort, and the few memories she built of the moment she awakened a few hours before. The haze in her eyes, the muffling of her hearing, the prickling sensation on her skin. She opened her eyes and it still hurt.

"Headmaster, please dim the lights," Aidan asked. "All her senses are jumbled. I don't know if everything is right. What is happening?" He added with fear.

Astromelicus checked the input from his divination spell once again and found nothing wrong. "This is normal. She is adapting to her new body. All of our test subjects experienced the same things. Student Dawn has a big advantage here because she didn't go the second half of the procedure. You have to re-learn everything. She is much like a newborn person in this sense. And another advantage, you can use your own senses to help develop hers. You haven't tried, but I think she isn't even able to speak. You'll have to train that too."

"There is one problem," Pearl pointed out. "Everyone expects Lumina to have her long hair. How are we going to explain a bald princess?"

"I believe I can fix it easily after student Dawn has recovered and is well-fed. I have already sent word to the castle, nobody is expecting to see either her or cadet Aidan for the next two days. You two are in the middle of a very important magical experiment, and this is not a lie."

Aidan raised his left arm and jiggled the mana-sealing bracelet. Different from the manacles that are locked in place, he could easily remove the pair if he wanted. "Speaking of magic, how long do we have to use these?" He pointed at the same kind of bracelets he could feel on Dawn's wrists, under the duvet.

"You can remove yours now and take off hers later when you are sure you can keep her magic under control. I'll leave you now to go fetch the magic affinity analyzer. We need to get a reading of her affinities after the procedure. I'll be back soon."

He removed the bracelets and felt his mana returning to his control. After receiving the bracelets from Aidan, Astromelicus left and it seemed that the sound of the door closing behind him was a signal to let all the girls crowd around Dawn.

 Claire commented with a hand on Dawn's cheek, "Her skin is so soft and smooth. So pliable, so good to touch," She pinched and pulled a cheek with an amazed look.

Pearl dove right in, "Let me see it. By the twelve, this is so soft it is aggravating! It is like a huge baby girl. I can't get enough of this."

And they began to poke and pull her cheeks, caress her arms and feel her hands. They kept commenting on how her skin felt. It was an endearing sight to see the four girls fawning over his other half, but Aidan was too busy fighting to process the sensation and match what he was seeing with what she was feeling.

"She is sweating too much. I'm removing the duvet," Sora pulled the covers, exposing the almost naked girl underneath. "Yes, sweating buckets. Pearl, can you help?"

Pearl glanced back at Aidan, asking with her eyes 'why did you let her sweat like this?' but the boy shrugged. He had no idea she was feeling hot under the duvet. It was like all her senses were scrambled and gave the wrong signals. But now that he knew what to associate with the feeling, it came as normal to him.

"Yes, of course, my darling." The princess answered, "But I think we should give her a bath."

"Evaporate."

"Is that a diaper?" Claire pointed at the cloth wrapped around her waist.

"Yes," confirmed Cythrel. "Little missy here will need to be potty-trained. I hope someone takes up that job, you know?" She also glanced back at Aidan.

It felt like every single fault with Dawn will be pinned as his fault. And he was awake for only one hour. At least he could now make sense of what she experienced for the last few days. The colorful shape was Sora. The small and energetic shape, Cythrel. And the big shape with the raspy voice, Astromelicus.

The girls crowded the bed a bit more to admire Dawn's new body and the furniture creaked under the combined weight of five girls. Aidan chuckled.

"One word and you will be flogged, milord," Pearl threatened with a glare.

Claire passed an arm underneath Dawn's neck and pulled her up into a sitting position. Sora held underneath an arm and they put her in a sitting position when a comment by Cythrel made them stop.

"I was asking myself for a while, but don't you think she shrunk?"

Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

Three heads turned to stare at the girl's bare body. Aidan rolled his eyes and sat on a chair. It was past due time to use his furniture emulation skill.

"No. I think they are the same volume as before," Claire pointed out. "They are just rounder, firmer, and forward-facing. They look more like Lumina's before the accident and her last growth spurt but bigger."

"S-ranker got an upgrade to double S then," Cythrel concluded with no small amount of envy. She then mimicked Pearl, "Such a development is utterly unfair, darling."

The person herself didn't seem to mind the mimicry, making those words hers, "I'm forced to agree, my dear. Maybe there might be more legendary fairy wings lying around."

Cythrel kept her Pearl impersonation, "As if. We can only dream, my friend. Alas, it would not bode well to wish an infusion of Underworld element unto a friend. If I must put our own predicament aside, I think her Sky-aligned blessing is a more fitting boon for all the duress she went through."

"Shut up, you are still growing, Cythrel" Sora jokingly shoved Cythrel aside and then realized she might've offended the nineteen-years-old princess. She met Pearl's eyes and made an apologetic face.

"Don't worry, darling. I made my peace with my own body long ago. I stopped growing around my thirteenth Spring."

Claire smiled at her fellow princess, "I think you are just fine, Pearl. Yours balance your figure well. I'm sure that if you could get a man's opinion he would say they are extremely beautiful."

Nobody looked at him, but Aidan would agree with Claire. The girls took very good care of their bodies, all of them.

"Bath time?" Pearl asked, blatantly changing the subject.

"Bath time," Claire agreed. "Should we remove the too-silent man first?" She pointed at Aidan, behind them.

Was Claire expecting him to speak up? There were less painful ways to commit suicide. Their eyes crossed and Claire scowled for a moment. Maybe he should have a talk with her. Something was up with Claire, it was what his intuition told him. An unexpected save would get him out of his musings, though.

"But this whole thing is to get them used to her new senses," Sora protested.

Cythrel made a contemplative face and spoke, "I suggest we just ignore him and abide by the three-fourths girl rule. It is not like any of your Highnesses will strip down and I'm sure that he will get bored from seeing himself naked for all eternity. He doesn't even react to the idea. Makes me wonder how Sora does to get him ready."

They were all looking forward to playing with Dawn like a new doll, but it was unfitting for the princesses to wash anyone. After some conference, it was up to Sora to wash Dawn. They picked up a wooden tub in a corner, Pearl filled it with hot water. Sora got down to her underwear and after removing the fortunately still clean diaper she washed Dawn. It worked to ease the prickling sensations. Dawn had a mild headache now, but her senses were working closer to normal now. There were no more overwhelming and unknown sensations. It would still take a day or two of work to fully restore the ability to process the sensory input.

It was only when they attempted to make Dawn stand up from the tub that the full reality of her new situation hit. Her legs wobbled like a newborn fawn, barely able to hold her weight. The muscle was there, but they were moving wrong. Random spasms shoot on her body and she flailed her arms in a vain attempt at getting a hold. With her wet body, she slipped away from the grasp of her helper and crashed on the ground.

Aidan rushed to her side and touched her to use Healing Light. He felt a surge and it was like they connected deeper than before. Dawn was not injured by the fall, but with his hand touching her, She was able to stand and move. The feeling was the same as when they were back at the hospital, and Dawn could not think properly without touching each other.

"It is the same thing as before when we were on the run. If we touch, our minds work better." Aidan explained holding hands with Dawn. "I know what I have to do, but Pearl, could you help once more?"

The small princess nodded and used her Steam magic once more. Aidan kept his magic sight on to try and learn the spell. He saw Pearl pink mana wash over the magic diagram built in front of her and make the water over the girl's body change into vapor.

"Evaporate."

Sora came with a simple but comfortable one-piece dress and put it on the girl. Aidan had to let go of her hand for a moment and she wobbled again. Fearing something else, Aidan used his personal diagnosis spell as his squirrel-kin mate left to get her own clothes back own.

"Soul Reveal."

Linked by their soul, any spell with the Soul descriptor would affect both. The effigies of his male and female halves appeared. Dawn's effigy was not the perfectly melded metallic sheen brown from before. It was a darker tone and it was disjoined from her body, Somehow cutting and regenerating her whole body piece by piece caused a dissonance between her physical and metaphysical selves. Another worrisome fact was her affinity orbs. They shrunk into the realm of the B-tier. The damage was easy to fix, however. In the days they would need to restore her understanding of her senses and movement, he would use Soul Restoration in spell form on her. Enacting the ritual might compromise the fusion further because of the energy overflow coursing through the soul tether from her to him like what happened when they overcharged the ritual to heal Pearl.

And speaking of fusion, the spell also allowed Aidan to examine his own effigy. The band of fused soul, colored in the Cosmos Element was bigger than before. The process was irreversible and unstoppable unless they were separated. Lumina's golden occupied half the head, the right part of the torso and the right arm only.

Claire looked at Adain with both hope and despair in her eyes. "Is this Lumina?" She breathed heavily, trying to keep her feelings in check, "There is so little of her left. Wait just a moment more, sister. We'll soon be together."

Pearl hugged Claire and whispered something about Brody in her ear. She nodded but was visible that she was shaken by the sight of her sister's soul.

Aidan took Dawn in his arms and dismissed the spell. "I'm sorry, Claire. It is better if you don't know, but I have good reason to not weaken both of my bodies right now." He sighed and tried to see if the princesses could give him some respite, "We are tired, could I ask you to visit at another moment?"

Before Claire could fully process what Aidan said, Pearl took the First Princess of Yutis by the arm. "Of course, we understand. We were not aware it was so taxing for you, forgive our intrusion. Our best wishes for your recovery, my dearest friend."

Aidan was with both of his arms busy holding Dawn and they tried to touch Pearl with her free arm. It was more of a feeble slap but Dawn was able to grab Pearl awkwardly, "You are not intruding. It is really heartwarming to know you care. We are grateful for your visit."

Claire and Pearl gave their goodbyes. Aidan carefully placed Dawn on the bed and sat next to her, holding her soft hand. Sora sat behind him, with her back to the headboard. She embraced and pulled Aidan in. Cythrel laid herself on the other side. He looked at the two girls.

"We have a long way to go. Dawn can't even speak right now."

Cythrel looked up and across, putting all three bodies in her line of sight. "What can we do to help?"

"We are back to the same situation as when we were at that Goblin-something inn in Elmhill. The fastest way to heal her will be with lots of physical contact." Aidan removed himself from the bed and without putting much thought in the act started to strip down before an elf with widened her eyes.

"Wow. Really? Are we doing it now?" She was excited and scared at the same time. And for some reason, she started to wriggle out of her uniform.

Aidan realized his folly and held a hand in front of him. 'Why am I doing this with Cythrel in here?' The words almost escaped his mouth but he knew he would hurt her. instead, he would put the ball in her side of the court.

"Cythrel, why are you trying to undress?"

"Aren't we getting lots of physical contact now?" she asked, bashful. For all her teasing, she was still afraid of the real deal.

Aidan fixed his uniform back and held a hand to stop Cythrel, "Change of plans. Nobody undress anymore. Before that, the three of us need to have a serious conversation."