Needless to say, Emperor Goto was not amused by what went down at Chain Link, and even worse, he had the gall to blame me for it.

“How could you even think it was my fault? I heard them say that they were looking for Akahime! She and Lucina can even corroborate that story.”

“To be fair,” Lucina said after I had finished complaining, “they just spoke about receiving information from Akahime’s friend, not necessarily wanting it.”

“See!” Gotoshi yelled, “I should have never trusted you in the first place. Nothing good ever comes of trusting Fallen like yourself!”

“Why the hell do all the world leaders I meet act like they have some aversion to discovering who a person is before trusting them! I never asked to be trusted by you!”

“You two are both stupid. Can we just get this meeting on?” Akahime sighed, and gave her father and I a pleading look.

“Sure.” I said, and whipped out a sonic knife from my toolbelt. I threw it skyward, and it found purchase in something invisible, which fell to the floor with a thunk, and started pooling blood underneath.

“What in the Starlord’s names is that!?” Akahime screamed, and Lucina walked up calmly to the still-invisible body pooling blood.

She removed the knife and the camouflage flickered out of existence, revealing a modified human body. He looked regular in all places save for the hands and feet, which had metallic disks implanted into them.

“Sorry that I didn’t give you any warning, Judgment warned me that we had a spectator as soon as we walked into the room, so I sent Goto a message. You performed admirably, sir. I am humbled to have acted alongside you.”

Gotoshi smiled and shook his head. “No, no, it is I who should be offering his thanks. My own security system missed the intruder, and just going ahead with the conversation and future plans would have been tantamount to tactical suicide since we don’t know who that man is affiliated with.”

Gotoshi pointed to Akahime and asked, “Are you sure you won’t become my son in law? I see in you the me from years past.”

I half expected Akahime to raise a protest, but I raised my brow when she didn’t utter a word. “No thanks, Gotoshi. I have a delicate balance with the Metronian royal family already, I wouldn’t want to upset that by taking a wife from another country.”

Gotoshi shrugged. “Fair enough, please tell me if you ever reconsider.”

“Will do.” I nodded back at Gotoshi, then looked around the room. “Speaking of the Metronians, where is Princess Reya right now, Gotoshi? From the message she sent to me, I would have assumed she was speaking to you.”

Emperor Goto laughed, and rested his head on his fist. “No, that girl is using the conference room to contact her family about something we discussed together. Worry not, I have several trusted and veteran guards escorting her, so she will be safe.”

I nodded, not caring too much about whatever business they had spoken of. Not like it was any of my business in the first place.

“You must have selective memory, Master. My data bank indicates that you are a member of the Metronian government, and a Paladin at that. Of course it would be your business.”

I slapped a hand against my face and sighed. “Judgment, would you mind not responding to my thoughts out loud. Now that you have a body, you need to be sure to make the distinction.”

“Oh. My apologies, Master.” The android held a hand over her mouth, and sent to me mentally, “This is quite the new experience for me, Master. To think that I would still be learning new things even at this point in my server cycle… I made the right choice in selecting you.”

What do you mean, ‘selecting me?’ Did you even have other choices? I tried pressing Judgment for answers, but a lack of response and a cough from Emperor Gotoshi drew my attention from the A.I.'s fidgeting form.

“Oh… so that damnable Queen has actually let you have a position of power equal to her own? I hope you stuck it to her real good, she can be quite a bitch.”

“I’m pretty sure I gave her son brain damage, if that counts.” Gotoshi roared laughing and fell over from his throne and onto the floor, which caused the corners of my mouth to rise.

“Excuse me, Emperor. You know my mother?” Lucina interrupted, causing Gotoshi to cease his laughter and return to his throne as if nothing had ever happened.

He turned to me first, “Good on you son! Way to give it to her. I bet she’s still up to her manipulating ways.”

Turning to Lucina, he answered, “Of course I do! When I was young, my parents sent me to one of your godforsaken universities. Your mother, Cindy, starlords save her soul, has been pulling the strings of whoever she can for the entirety of her life. She was doing it to the student council in university, and she’s continued it into her later years as a queen. I don’t hate your mother, dear, but I’m not too fond of her, either.”

Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

Lucina smiled at that. “Despite how you feel about her, she spoke quite fondly of you, you know? She called you the one man she could never wrap around her finger.”

Gotoshi smiled at that, and rubbed his chin. “Huh, is that so? I might have to take a trip over to the Metron Kingdom soon.”

“Dad!” Akahime shouted in exasperation, and Gotoshi returned a scowl of his own.

“What is it, Akahime? Do you know how long it’s been since I had sex!? Give your father a little breathing room!”

Akahime rolled her eyes, but Emperor Goto wasn’t finished. “Oh, and another thing! The next time you have sex, remember to disable your synced capture feature! I don’t want to have the maids telling me about the point of view sword swallowing that’s shown up on your tv because you decided to broadcast it.”

The imperial princess’s face lit up crimson, and she was clearly fighting her urge to run out of the room. “We need to get back on topic.” She said through gritted teeth, and I nodded in agreement.

“Akahime is right, we need to start planning out our next move. We still don’t really know what the Tengu are after, but maybe looking at the data bank of the android will help us out.”

My words got the attention of those present in the room, and, after dismissing his aides from the inside of the throne room, we began to review the information we collected.

“Judgment, can you project the display of the footage from this android’s point of view?” I asked out loud, for the purpose of clueing in the relevant parties.

“Understood, Master.” Judgement replied to me mentally, having learned from our conversation before. The robot’s forehead opened, revealing a small projector. Judgment turned to the nearest wall, and began projecting a video.

“Take it, you filthy slut! Tak-” Judgment complied with my mental order to stop the playback, and I face palmed.

Looking around, I could see Lucina averting her gaze and Akahime looking at me with an eyebrow raised. On the bright side, Gotoshi seemed somewhat interested in the video.

“Judgment, please scrub through and delete footage aside from the clips containing any relevant information.” I ordered, and Judgment was more than willing to comply.

The android nodded in confirmation, and a blur of motion played through on the projector, as Judgment combed through this android’s entire life in a matter of seconds.

“Search complete, Master. Playing the relevant files.” Judgment’s voice hummed in my mind, and a video began playing on the wall once more.

“Listen Yatomura. I expect you to deliver that man to me, alive. I need him!” The perspective of the android was distorted behind a pair of lenses. If I had to guess, it was probably the same gas mask that Boss was wearing before we took her into custody.

She was in a dimly lit room, and looking at the real Yatomura’s back, along with a fit looking man standing in front of him. The man was wearing a fox mask which covered his whole face.

It was somewhat comical to see a hulking man such as Yatomura being admonished by a smaller entity. A sentiment that the Yatomura in the video seemed to reflect as well.

“Alright, don’t get so uptight, Gedo. If you really want a piece of ass that bad, I can always give you an android like Boss, here. The ADAM line just released-”

Yatomura stopped as the air was choked out of his lungs by the smaller man. “If you want to keep your voice box, I would suggest stopping there. I’m not a pervert like you who can fuck a cold, soulless flesh box, much less one like you who plasted his favorite anime heroine’s features on its face.”

Yatomura struggled in Gedo’s vice-grip, and the leader of Tengu leaned in closer to the bulky mechanic. “In the first place, the Faceless Demon has something I want, something very important to our cause. I don’t want his body for anything filthy like the braindead way you swing your hips at night.”

“Do I make myself clear?” Gedo’s fox mask moved in closer to Yatomura’s face, until their noses were touching. “Do I make myself clear?”

Yatomura was limp by this point, an observation which the sex android Boss so casually pointed out. “Secondary User Gedo, it appears that Primary User Yatomura is unconscious. Shall I call the medical staff to the meeting room?”

“Oh, shit, is he really?” Gedo let go of Yatomura, and the man’s body fell limply to the ground. “Eh, he’ll be fine. What’s a little oxygen starvation when compared to someone’s manliness?”

Gedo moved closer to Boss, who remained in place as per her programming. “Listen closely, and relay this information to Yatomura once he wakes up you pile of scrap.”

“As you command, Secondary User Gedo. Initiating recording mode.” There was a whir as Boss’s parts moved around, and a camera protruded out from her forehead and into the video’s screen.

“Why the hell did that man register me as a user?” Gedo sighed, and looked at Boss for answers.

“I have a playback of that moment. Would you like to view it, Secondary User Gedo?” Gedo looked disgusted, and stared at Boss.

“Was this conversation had during intercourse?”

“Yes, Secondary User Gedo.”

“Then no. Relay the following message for me: Your orders stand. Find the Faceless Demon and retrieve his Judgment program for me. His powers make him a threat, as Teramoto’s research showed us. Make sure you don’t wear any devices connected to the Judgment cloud. We don’t know the exact effects of his hacking, but we can be sure that you will be debilitated for long enough that he will kill you.”

“Message recorded and stored in the memory bank. Will there be anything else, Secondary User Gedo?”

“Yes, please stop calling me that. Just call me Gedo, or Boss. I can’t stand being second to anyone, especially not a wanton pervert like Yatomura.”

“Orders received. Secondary User Gedo’s user identification has now been changed to ‘Boss.’ The name, ‘Secondary User Gedo’ will be terminated from usage.”

“Good girl. Oh, and one last thing. I’ll give you the location where I want you to drop off his body. Make sure to delete this after telling Yatomura. Its-”

The clip stopped, and the projector returned back inside of the androids head. “That is all the information I was able to salvage Master.”

Judgment stopped talking, and suddenly all eyes in the room turned to me. I returned the gazes of Lucina, Akahime, and Gotoshi one by one, and then closed my eyes in thought. After opening them, I looked directly at Gotoshi and asked, “So, got any ideas?”