“Once we meet up with our legions,” Melkior continued, “I think it would behoove us to split into two groups. One group will remain in the field in order to keep an eye on the Revenants, and the other group will stay on the island in order to develop their skills as Dark Apostles. The legions are deployed in groups of two or three, so I think it would make sense for one person to stay with each legion group.”

Melkior looked like he was going to keep speaking, but Svenheim cut in. “Okay, now we’re starting to get to a place where it seems like you’re trying to tell us what to do. I think we can all agree to meeting up with the legions, but splitting into two groups is a bit more contentious. Why should we keep seven Apostles back at the Castle when we might need all of us to fight the Revenants?”

Several people tried to interject here. Kamil, Melkior, Katya, and I opened our mouths to speak. There were a few seconds of raucous noise with four people trying to speak over the others. Kamil and I were raising objections at the idea of “fighting” the Revenants, while the other two were trying to express the value of the strategy. Eventually, Katya’s voice won out over the other three, and the rest of us quieted down.

“We can’t have a debate every time we want to do something!” Katya, the Eight Dark Apostle, said. “This is essentially a military organization, right? We need to choose a leader, then.”

“Exactly what I was about to suggest, Katya, thank you,” Melkior said with a bow of his head.

“Oh, I agree,” Svenheim said. “Let’s choose someone to call the shots. We’ll agree to only challenge the leader’s decisions when we find them particularly objectionable.” As Svenheim said this, he looked pointedly at Kamil and me. To Sven, the two of us were the pacifist faction who didn’t want to fight the Revenants at all. I would have hoped for there to be more people on my side, but even Dendrite and Poldra had surrendered to the inevitability of conflict by that point.

“But who will be the leader?” Kamil said pointedly. By his tone of voice, he clearly didn’t believe that we could all agree as to who the leader should be.

“Svenheim should be the leader,” Kojiro said. Talwar and Araki stated their amenability to this idea within seconds.

“Well, that’s four votes for me,” Svenheim said lazily. “I suspect that will be more votes than anyone else can get.”

For a moment, I was terrified that Melkior would try to throw his own hat in the ring. Perhaps, Dendrite would vote for him because they had known each other for a while, but I doubted that Poldra would vote for him, and I knew that I would not vote for him. I didn’t like how comfortable he seemed to be with the massacre of tens of thousands of people.

“Crow…” Melkior said thoughtfully. “Yes, I think Crow should be the leader. She certainly has the most experience of any of us here, and I don’t think she has done anything that anyone else would find objectionable.”

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“Hold on…” Crow began to say.

“Yes, I like the sound of that,” Katya said. “I always like to see women in positions of leadership.”

“Crow’s got my vote,” I said. Better her than Melkior or Svenheim, I thought.

“Sure, why not?” Kamil said with his arms crossed.

“I would feel a lot more comfortable if we had an S-rank as our leader,” Null said quietly.

“It makes sense. I vote for Crow,” Dendrite raised a hand.

“Well, she’s definitely the best of our options,” Poldra said.

A veritable avalanche of support came down as the four low-numbered Apostles looked on in annoyance.

Once Poldra finished speaking, Melkior clapped his hands together once and said, “Great! Even without Crow’s own vote, we have a majority. Katya, Enzo, Kamil, Null, Dendrite, Poldra, and I make seven.”

As Melkior listed out the names, he counted up on his fingers to seven.

Svenheim slumped in minor annoyance before saying, “Whatever. It could be worse.”

“So, dear leader,” Melkior turned to Crow. “What is our first move?”

Crow sighed heavily. “I’m not actually a military strategist, you know. My job in the Scions was to handle granular troop movements and ability cohesion. Just because I know how to play the game, that doesn’t mean I’m any better a leader than anybody else.”

“You don’t want the job? That makes you even more qualified in my book,” Kojiro said with a smile.

“Fine,” Crow relented. My enhanced senses were telling me that Crow legitimately didn’t want to be the leader of the Dark Apostles. She wasn’t just putting on a show to make the other Apostles think she was a reluctant leader. “I don’t have a long-term plan, so we’ll just follow Melkior’s suggestions for now. We split into two groups of seven and six. Seven Apostles will stay here in order to develop their skills. Melkior, how should we split up?”

“I’m glad you asked,” Melkior said, gesturing back to the shogi tiles on the map. “There are six legion groups in the Free Cities area. Three legion groups are currently besieging the major cities, and the other three groups are stationed at choke points between the major cities. I recommend we deploy Svenheim to Osiris, Null to New Arcadia, and Kamil to Fulvang. These three will act as our primary negotiators when we make contact with the Revenants.”

Kamil looked legitimately surprised by this. “So, we are going to negotiate with them?”

Melkior looked pointedly at Crow before saying, “Well, that is my suggestion. You and Crow weren’t here when I laid out my long-term plan, but…”

Melkior then briefly described his three “plans,” each with increasing severity. Once again, the Fifth Apostle’s voice caught in his throat before he described the significance of “Plan C.” The Eight Apostle, Kamil, raised his voice in anger when he heard the plan.