*Three years later*

"What do you mean, he isn't moving?" I growled out, keeping my eyes on the horizon, frustration building. Not at the people at the other end of the call, no. They had nothing to do with that. Instead, it was at the person who had decided now, of all times, to deviate from his schedule. The giant axe-wielding lunatic attacked Leanbox like clockwork or tried to, anyway. After the first time, I tended to do everything in my power to intercept him before he got into Leanbox's airspace.

Sadly, despite his slavish devotion to attacking on a schedule, there was hardly any real way to exploit it. Managing to hit him hard enough to get him to retreat typically took a whole lot out of me, and chasing him back into the graveyard even without that fact was foolish. Not until now, anyway.

The plan was simple. Wait for Judge to leave as he usually did, put on a little song and dance, smoke and mirrors, give enough time for Histiore's agents to get the sharecite to the Goddesses, wake them up, then evac. I'd drop the biggest rock I could find on Judge's head, have him come home to the fact his prisoners were no longer prisoners, and I get to go home and take a long nap. Ideally after a significant amount of hugs.

But the one time I wanted Judge to do something was the one time he chose not to. The bugger tried to kick down my front door at least once a month, forcing me to do my best impersonation of a surface-to-air missile launch system to slap the flying chunk of metal out of the sky. Either something suspicious was going on, or he was for some reason on very different marching orders. Had there been a leak of some sort? That was unlikely. Chika and I were the only people in Leanbox who knew of this plan, while the only ones in Planeptune were Histoire and the assigned agents, who were supposedly close friends of Purple Heart herself.

"That's what I said. He's still here, and he doesn't seem to be intent on going anywhere anytime soon," one of the voices spoke softly as if to keep her voice hidden. "Is there anything you can do from here to get him to move? To provoke him, or something?"

I scowled. I wasn't exactly going to show up in the graveyard myself. I'd rather not challenge Judge when he had the home-turf advantage, after all. As much as that stunk, I knew I wouldn't be able to match him, especially if I ended up provoking other things lurking in the graveyard. But Judge was able to match me while I was in Leanbox. Two regular people, even high-level people, would never be able to activate the crystal in enough time.

"How close is he to Vert and the others?" I asked, pulling back on my bow. It would be a long shot, but I had the strength for it. I just needed a target. I needed to know exactly where Judge was, so if I didn't hit him, it would be close enough to get his attention.

And not catch anything or anyone else in the blast range.

Poking the bear from this range probably wasn't the best idea, but unless we had anything else, there wasn't a whole lot I could do to get his rear in gear, and there was no way we were restarting the whole operation, given how much planning it took to even get those agents into the Graveyard in the first place.

Yeah, it wasn't according to plan. But what was the saying? No plan lasts more than five seconds of contact with the enemy? Unfortunately, it seems as if that time was now upon us.

I grinned as I received the rough coordinates, fire wrapping around my arrow. Sure, it wasn't going to be my little ace in the hole, no need to start off with something like that, but I was certainly going to do a fair bit more than just tweak his cheek. The name of the skill was technically Heavy Flaming Explosive Snipe, but I had something else I liked to call it.

Caladbolg. That's what it basically was, after all. I released the arrow, the shockwaves echoing through the air as the arrow took off like an intercontinental ballistic missile.

"Parry that, you filthy-!"

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"What is she saying?" Compa whispers, looking towards IF.

"Something about parrying this," IF whispered back, but keeping her eyes on their current obstacle, CFW Judge. Green Sister was weird, but at the same time, she was more than willing to offer help to such a risky mission. She hadn't gone to Leanbox ever since the crisis, so what she had heard was largely secondhand. The picture painted by her contacts was a confusing mess. If for no other reason that everything she heard was often times contradicted by another piece of information from a completely different source.

Suddenly, Judge looked up, IF did her best to follow his gaze. Had he noticed something she hadn't? There was a flash of green, then Judge vanished in a fiery explosion. IF's eyes widened. That had to have been one of Green Sister's attacks! There was nothing else it could have been! A single attack? That had, no, that wouldn't be enough. It looked like it was enough, and it might have been enough. If that was enough to destroy Judge, then Green Sister would have tried to liberate the Goddesses themselves a long time ago, even just her sister alone.

As if to prove her fears, booming laughter came from the cloud of smoke kicked up by the strike. Dust and smoke began to dissipate, Judge not even looking slightly worse for wear.

"Finally! You finally developed the courage to strike at me here!" Judge howled, launching himself up into the sky.

"That was our signal?" Compa asked as IF nodded. There wasn't anything else it could be.

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"I'm guessing the operation was a success?" Chika beamed at me.

"Better than we feared, worse than we hoped," I groaned out. Even leaving my HDD state did nothing for my soreness. Tangling with Judge was never fun, even on a good day. And me lobbing a shot into the graveyard made the bloodthirsty brute even more crazy than usual.

"I heard the explosion," was the understatement of the century. Leanbox heard the explosion, and I was a bit ashamed that the population knew it was coming on the 15th of every month.

As tough as Judge was, it was enough to get him to back off. Which I wasn't going to complain about.

"I'm sure a decent part of Lastation heard it," I said, crossing my arms. Was that why Black Sister still hadn't returned any of my calls?

I wanted a bath, something nice and warm to soothe my muscles. There wouldn't be one until later tonight, sadly, as even after all that, there was still paperwork to be done.

I figured that defeating crime would prove to be an administrative process, rather than one that involved punching people in the face, but I couldn't get in on the few times face-punching became necessary. Cave had that form of stress relief dialed in, unless things got really, really bad.

This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it

And it was my job to prevent things from getting that bad in the first place. Which required a lot of paperwork. If it wasn't for the fact I no longer aged, which was a blursed concept even on a good day, my carpal tunnel would have carpal tunnel. Yes, the amount of paperwork I had to fill out was that bad. It would be a miracle if I got out of this without being buried in papers at least once.

"I'm guessing things didn't entirely go according to plan?" Chika gave me a nervous look.

"No. Out of all the times we needed Judge to be predictable was the one time he didn't, while there was a secondary complication with the away team," I pushed myself up, grabbing a map from the desk, alongside a few figures. Three white, alongside two of black, green, and purple. The larger figures I place at the graveyard, as Chika winced.

However, I moved the figure representing Purple Sister to Planeptune. Sadly, they had only been able to free one of the prisoners. But, that had its symbolism. Even if we didn't save all of them, the fact that Planeptune had a place on the board was, promising. A win was a win, and the nations did have more strength united than we did individually. Shame most of my peers didn't seem convinced, but maybe Purple Sister would have success.

The four nations, working together, had faced great threats in the past, and had won. I had no doubts that they could do so again. But with Purple Sister in play, there was a balance, in a sense. The ASIC had been undercut as well, as a raid, even if partially successful, had shown that with proper planning and coordination, they could be beaten.

"So, only Purple Sister was freed. That's disappointing," while I didn't wholly agree with Chika's sentiment, given our hopes, it seemed like a paltry victory at best. Part of the reason the mission was known to Chika, Histoire, her two agents, and myself. While a flawless success would be a massive victory, there is no doubt the ASIC would have heard of such plans if we announced something like that, and it would make even a minor victory seem like a crushing defeat.

"It disrupts the ASIC's plans, and could help Planeptune get back on its feet, which should cost the ASIC some of its shares," I said, scratching my chin. "And I have no doubt Histoire has plan b's and plan c's waiting in the wings."

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And the next few weeks hadn't proved me wrong. Histoire did have a backup plan, and Purple Sister had already done a lot of disruption, mostly by not taking no for an answer. After I'd managed to get Leanbox secure, I'd mostly been forced to sit back and be defensive. Between making sure the economy didn't collapse, deals with industry that made Leanbox only nation where most businesses could still make a profit, and keeping a good standard of living by aggressively reforming criminal elements as well as undercutting conditions for crime to spread, the ASIC was forced into more and more drastic actions that continued to put the Public Relationship ball right in my court.

But I hoped that the other Candidates would come to me once I extended the offer, something that they never did. It grated my gears, but at the same time, I didn't want to step on their toes. Purple Sister was willing to, however, but in a surprisingly good way.

Of course, Histoire informed me of the next stage of the plan in advance. The Mascot Characters. I'd never heard of them before, but with a world like this, they were hardly outrageous. Histoire believed that they could be used to restore the Goddess's power, or in our case, empower us. Each nation had one, and only one, and they were old as well.

Chika had not exactly been forthcoming with the information of where the one in Leanbox was located, other than a vague description of "it's too dangerous there, even for you". Which, while obscure, is not exactly a particularly long list of areas. I was pulling a reasonably decent level by this point, so there weren't a whole lot of places left in Leanbox that could be considered 'dangerous' to me anymore.

The plan was to see if I could find the location, work with Purple Sister and whoever else it was that showed up and grab the mascot with the power of teamwork. Because if it was really beyond me, then combining our efforts would certainly pay off.

Of course, like everything I've found over the past several years, it was easier said, than done. I already had plenty of respect for what most people considered paper-pushing bureaucrats. Without plenty of people helping move said paper around, I would have ended up swamped long ago. Chika helped too, in an overall manager role, but that still left me with precious little free time.

Free time that was now mostly being spent on this project, to not a whole lot of results. I needed sleep too, and I managed to resist the siren song of caffeine thus far. No reason to give up now. Numerous maps, old tomes full of myths, and even just pictures and snippets of anything that looked abnormal, so I could pin down a location for the mascot.

That project was starting to look like one of those conspiracy boards, the ones with all the thumbtacks and the strings. Unfortunately, it was the only way I could organize my thoughts on the matter. It also meant whenever I looked up from other paperwork, I was met with my mad writing and chicken scratchings. I might have to ask others for help with the project, given the circumstances. But Chika was the one who likely had the most information. And the big book of Leanbox myths I had wasn't proving any use, either.

Maybe it was a more local tale, rather than some sort of grand, nation-scale epic? I wouldn't want such important history to become so lost. However, there was security to be found in obscurity, as much as it made my job harder. And if it was making my job harder, then the ASIC was likely also not having a good time of it. What holdouts remained, anyway.

Though there was reported suspicious activity near the border, and not one of the usual border runs, either. No games, no pirated disks, and no lost or left supplies. A single-person infiltration. Who were they, and under whose orders? There had also been a few pings of a particular wanted individual within the city itself. Which was odd, to say the least. She went to ground about a good two years ago, if I remember correctly.

Could she be the one that returned? If she was, then I almost felt bad for her. Almost. She joined the ASIC of her own volition, and I tried to offer her a way out. She ultimately chose to double down. I'd been nothing but honest and forthcoming with her from the moment we met. I told her I was planning on messing things up, after all. I never mentioned who it was or what I was planning on messing up.

That was provided it was her, after all. There had been false positives, and my agents in the ASIC camp had not mentioned anything. Then again, it wasn't like she was high enough rank to be worth mentioning in the first place.

Of course, it wasn't like she had forgotten me one bit. My existence as Green Sister, or at least, my human guise, was still not public knowledge. And I preferred it that way. It gave me the ability to operate on my own if I felt the situation deserved it. But she? She very much remembered my face, and drew enough dots, as if my cover job didn't make that clear to any member of the ASIC after that.

Sure, it could cause problems, it wasn't like I was that hard to track if you were a person who knew the secret, and Chika had her methods, but there were sometimes I just, preferred to see things firsthand. Get a feel for what exactly was going on by interacting with Leanbox's citizens myself. Even if they didn't know I was the one in charge. It felt good doing that.

Letting out a sigh, I moved the signed paperwork from one pile to another. I wasn't sure what went wrong, but there was a shift. A tweak. One that set off an almost comical rumbling sound.

"Don't you dare!" I said, but it was too late, the stack of papers washing over me like a tidal wave, covering me in a massive pile of documents.

Maybe it was time for me to take a brief break. Surely, there had to be something going on to serve as a brief distraction.

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And there wasn't, at least, nothing that I could tell. The streets were clean, and the city was as bustling, with nearly as many people out and about as there were during my first time visiting. I hadn't done a perfect job, but at the same time, I'd kept crime to a minimum and tried my best to give everyone a good standard of living.

Still, I was thankful that poster was going down. I understood the need for propaganda, but that one in particular never made me feel, comfortable. There were plenty of ways to convey strength, actual strength, then just beating like an authoritarian. Maybe it was just how Gamindustri in general was.

Getting out like this helped clear my head, but it was time to start heading back. Paperwork wasn't going to fill itself out. I wish that were true, and there was probably a way to make it so, but I wanted to at least try and double-check to make sure everything that made it up to me was in order. That was part of my responsibility, after all.

I turned around, preparing to go back to the Basilicom, only for my eyes to widen in surprise.

"Nepgear?"

"Hinum?"