Kuryoukyo

Cy looked like he saw a ghost. Well, that wasn’t too surprising. It must’ve been a hell of a week for him. He got hunted down by during people at Kurt’s estate, confronted by Edric’s men, abducted by aliens, the death bell rang for him, watched his mate get blown up, found him as her, got sent back down to a pirate ship, attended a ball before being shoved into the future. It must be overwhelming. Yet, Max couldn’t help but feel giddy with excitement from him getting to experience what life had to offer with cooperative innovation.

“We need to talk,” his voice was stern.

“Yeah, sure. Is there a room we can use?” Max asked while she fiddled with her hair again. Her eyes were looking down absentmindedly at the people typing away at the computers. Max only stopped twirling when she realised Edric wasn’t replying. “There isn’t a meeting room or something?”

“Now that June’s back, we need to have our mandatory initial meeting.” Max found it so much easier to keep a neutral face. Back in the old body, it would have taken effort to conceal the annoyance she was feeling. Meetings could always be delayed or postponed. He should know, Edric often got too caught up in things to attend them anyways.

“It can wait five minutes.”

“You don’t have any propositions to write up?” Edric gave her a knowing look. Paperwork was never Max’s favourite.

“I’ve been good,” she insisted. “I did it before the party in case June showed up.” It was a long shot she would pop up, but a pleasant surprise. It was natural that if June was in this world, she would be curious by the sudden appearance of a shared sub-goal. The wanted poster pointed her in the right direction, and the party gave her a sure location for potential trouble. It felt great to see the gang back together. “Surely, I can sneak away for five minutes. Besides, it looks like Elder Aris wants to talk to you.” Max nodded to the man showing a distinct emotion depending on what he was looking at. Edric caused anger. Max caused confusion; he was probably still coming to terms with the new body. Cy caused… comfort? Security? It was a little unclear. What was certain was he felt fear from seeing the technology around him. “Maybe you two should catch up?”

Edric didn’t look too pleased, but he quickly hid his feelings in front of the others. Well… he thought he was doing well at hiding his disdain for Elder Aris. “I’ll give him an introduction to…”

“Maybe explain the alliance documents and get him to sign it?” Max offered as a suggestion while jumping down off the platform before picking up some of the stacks of papers by a computer. Looking down at her, Elder Aris’s emotions towards her was moving from confusion to irritation. “And make sure to explain the benefits of joining, especially for Tsujuma. Cy, come sign this.”

“No.” Max was a bit surprised at how cold he was being. Maybe because he didn’t have his hood and was feeling a bit anxious in front of the others? “We need to talk first.”

Max nodded along. “Reasonable. Let’s get going.”

“Meeting room 3 should be free,” Edric offered as an idea.

“Good idea,” Max quickly teleported back on the stage. Man, it felt good to be able to use internal magic again. She began gently pushing a willing Cy by his shoulders. The actions caused a few sneaky eyes to gape in surprise. “Come on, Cy. Let’s get going.”

“But where are we going?” He asked, confused. “Where is meeting room 3?”

“Well, it’s obviously not in this room,” Max chided playfully. She was now pushing him past the rows of computers.

“I don’t think we should be leaving them alone,” Cy whispered. He was clearly meaning about the tense situation behind them. “Elder Aris might have a go at him.”

“And Edric will handle it peacefully if he doesn’t want his precious set up torn apart,” Max whispered back. The door opened for them, but she didn’t stop pushing until they reached a small door, which required being opened manually.

“Wait… This is a meeting room?” Cy looked perplexed before being shoved into a tiny room filled with cleaning equipment.

Max scoffed, “This is obviously a broom closet.” She pulled the closet door shut behind them, as runes began to spread from the door handle where she had touched. By the time she was done, the door and room were covered in dully glowing runes. This was a private conversation between friends.

“Why are we in a closet?” Cy asked while looking at a vacuum, which had been reinvented by one of the followers.

“Because meeting room 3 is going to be filled with listening devices and spells if that’s the one Edric is offering.”

“You don’t trust him?” There was a tone in Cy’s voice. Max couldn’t place the exact meaning, but it was obvious they were on the same wavelength.

“I trust him with me but not with you.”

“Even though he tried to kill you?”

“Ah, we talked it out so it’s water under the bridge now,” Max quickly minimised Cy’s concerns. “You know he saw me tattooing myself at Darius’s house, so he assumed I would be ready in case someone tried to bump me off.”

“His assumption justified the attack at Kurt’s Estate?”

Max thought for a second about the best way to explain how their organisation thought. “Sometimes you need to make sacrifices for the greater good. You need to look at it from his point of view. Killing me meant the completion of a random sub-goal and a penalty removal for everyone. If I manage to come back, then hallelujah Vilja’s back and she tricked the system into giving everyone benefits. If I didn’t, then I’m a martyr who died for them and Edric was planning on spreading the story about my death. Either way, our followers would be even more devoted.”

“And if we had won?” Cy asked, his tone showed it was the most likely outcome if his death date hadn’t suddenly changed.

“My strength wouldn’t be questioned anymore,” Max shrugged. “Well, these days, there aren’t too many people questioning anyway.”

“What about June?”

“June? What about her? Did she not give you a warm welcome?” Maybe June’s way of doing things was too distasteful for him? Even then, there were a lot of rules and regulations in place, so Cy shouldn’t have to worry while he had Max’s backing. “Is there something you see in her fate?”

“… She’s dangerous.”

Ah, so that was it. Max tried to give Cy a reassuring smile but didn’t realise how it was indistinguishable from her normal expression. “You don’t have to worry about her. Whatever Darius told you or you saw in her fate, June won’t do anything-”

“You don’t believe me?”

Max felt torn. Cy had proven himself time and time again, but she had known June for many lifetimes. If he was talking about Edric, Max would believe him in an instant. On the other hand, she largely suspected Cy’s negative feelings towards June stemmed from a difference in ideologies. How far should they be allowed to go for innovation? Cy must have a clear limit. Max had a looser definition. It could be argued June had no concept. “I believe you. I’ll keep her in check, but you need to tell me if there’s anything in particular to watch out for.” The idea appeared to satisfy Cy, who gave a nod of agreement. “Any other concerns?”

He was fighting with himself for a while before settling on a word. “Pronouns.”

Pronouns? Max couldn’t believe her ears. “What do you mean by pronouns?”

“Elder Aris wants to know what pronouns to use around you.”

It took Max a second to remember she had swapped bodies. The question caused her to laugh. “Oh, I don’t care,” she said in between giggles. “Us lot change bodies all the time. One lifetime male, the next female; the idea of gender and pronouns get thrown out the door a lot of the time. He, she, them, xe, it-”

“He’s probably going to go with ‘it’ if you tell him that,” Cy cracked a smile from watching Max, causing the remaining tension in the room to subside in an instant. “You should have seen him when you went to... go help Juniper.” Max was kind of glad Cy didn’t describe what she was actually doing at the time. She tried to act calm and close the door quickly behind her, but from their faces it was clear they saw everything. It couldn’t have been a good impression for local people. They had different perceptions on the idea of ‘life.’ “He was really lost and kept mixing them up while referring to you.”

“I bet. Have you got any other questions or concerns?”

“On a similar note, do I call you Vilja or Max?”

“Max.”

“But everyone here calls you Vilja?” Max rolled her eyes. “You don’t like the name?”

“Edric ruined it for me,” she admitted. Vilja was Max’s original name for this body, but now seeing the engravings of wheat everywhere was a bit too far for her. Originally, the meaning of Vilja was “will,” but in another world the meaning was “grain.” It was a bit of a cock-up. Luckily, she had been renamed. Max was a nice, neutral name for any gender. “I was thinking of sticking to Max for a bit, like how BB always goes by BB.”

“It’s a bit generic.” Max frowned. “What about June? That was her name previously, right? Is she always June?”

“June for a female body, and July for a male one,” Max explained simply. “She often gets confused by other names and will ignore you if you call her anything else. Any more questions?”

“The people here recognise who you are.”

“Mn.”

“So have they seen you before?”

“Why do you think they follow me?” Max teased before giving a hyperbolic voice. “I fight against the system, challenge the five-star stories, and most importantly, I can defy the system and rise from the dead at will. Or at least that’s the narrative Edric spins, he always propagates it as some kind of miracle.”

“But it’s just runes?”

“Yep, just a fancy trick of remaking an old body and getting my soul or whatever-you-call-it to jump into the new vessel. Easy-peasy… but not always successful. Sometimes there’s a bit of a time gap between my iterations, but that just adds to the mystery and rumours.”

“Why?” Poor Cy looked genuinely confused. Were there no religions in this world with the idea of Jesus or Lazarus?

“Because it makes it look like I can do something unexplainable. Same with five-stars, everyone is going to be hearing about how we were successful and they’re going to think it’s another miracle. More miracles, more faith, more control June and Edric has for the organisation’s purposes; I just got to do my part and help spread the lie.”

“They think you’re a miracle?” Cy smirking at the idea. One day, he was watching Max shovel up cow dung on Bessie’s farm, the next she was the second coming. “What’s going to happen now?”

“Pretty much the same thing as last time. Did Darius tell you about it?” Cy’s expression showed he had heard a little. “We’ll start doing recruitment drives to bolster our numbers, get the ‘rememberers’ to work with replenishing our data, bring back a few old favourites when it comes to inventions… The hoover behind you is a good example.”

“What does it do?” Cy touched the hard plastic with curiosity.

“Sucks up dirt. It’s kind of like an easy-to-use brush and dustpan.”

“A brush and dustpan are difficult to use?” Cy asked, confused. Max could only shrug. “What else are you planning?”

“Get a few alliances set up with the natives, so we don’t interfere with each other too much. We’ll probably have to do it with the aliens too, then Juniper’s story will be sorted. It should fulfil the goal of aliens and humans being unified, but it’ll be under our people’s control.” Cy begrudgingly nodded. Could Max interpret it as a sign her plan would work? Finally! She was regaining control over the completion of that sub-goal. “Once things are logistically sorted, we’ll start using the Athena computer to calculate everyone’s goals and sub-goals to give the highest rate of success for all the stories belonging to our followers.” Max suddenly held her tongue. Last time they got together, what happened next wasn’t pleasant, but it had been a one-off event.

Cy appeared to struggle with talking about his last concern. “There’s something else I’m worried about-” Tap, tap, tap. There was a possessive saviour at their door.

The two exchanged a glance. It was easy to guess who was impatiently urging them to open the door. Someone must’ve snitched about how they didn’t go to meeting room 3.