Ch 276: Return to reality.

It happened without warning.

One moment, Sakura, wearing her Demon Lord disguise and the hooded robe giving her a neutral status with the NPCs, was leading her group toward the nearest gate of Israphel, intending to find Akira and the six adventuring Heroes before returning to Infermia.

The next moment, she was plunged into darkness, and strange sensations came from all over her body. She felt disoriented, and it took her a few moments before she realized that what she was feeling wasn't actually something new, she had just forgotten what it was like to have a normal sense of touch.

She brought her hands to her head, her fingers meeting plastic and metal. With a bit of fumbling, she found the release buckle and removed the helmet from her head. Her blurry eyes stared at the ceiling of what was obviously a hospital room.

There was also an unpleasant thing in her mouth and throat. There was a clear plastic tube protruding from her mouth, and when she grabbed it to get it out of her, she felt resistance and a slight pain in her stomach. In fact, there was another tube in her ass, and a catheter plugging her urethra.

Understanding that the oral tube was meant to give her food and that its end was likely inflated to keep it in place, Sakura searched for a valve, found it, turned it, and heard the short hiss of air leaking.

When she pulled on the tube again, this time, she didn't have trouble removing it, although it still felt very unpleasant. The catheter and anal tube used the same inflation trick, and she removed them the same way.

With a sigh, Sakura finally removed the heartbeat pincer from her right index, and looked at her hands. Her spatial ring had been removed.

[Mistress, we are back in the real world] said Medusa via their bond.

[Yes. Hopefully, everyone is doing well. Did you also have tubes coming from your orifices.]

[Yes, Mistress. I dematerialized and rematerialized away from those. There are two guards at the door of my room. And, is it only me, or do we have a status now?]

[A status?] blinked Sakura, and simply thinking about it make a blue-tinted window appear before her.

Name: Sakura Tohsaka

Age: 19

Level: 1

Exp: 0 / 1 000

STR: 10 (+97)

AGI: 10 (+156)

PER: 10 (+69)

END: 10 (+126)

MAG: 10 (+147)

CHA: 10 (+44)

Unattributed: 0

Personal Skills: Shadow Manipulation, Magecraft.

Shared skills: Automated Translation, Greater Healing, Hands of Nirvana, Improved Rest, Greater Cure, Negative Effects Immunity, Item Creation, Regeneration, Lie Detection, Night Vision, Teleportation (sealed), Augment, Shunpo, Fertility Control, Shared Infinite Lifespan, Hard Light Arsenal.

[We also have a daily quest, Mistress, giving us 3 attribute points every day for some light exercising.]

[I see it… And we have the location of the demonic pillar. Tibet, huh? It will be cold, but at least we'll get some nice views. I'll take pictures. Someone is coming.]

Sakura could hear the footsteps of several people coming closer, maybe alerted by the heartbeat machine.

The door opened, and two officers entered, followed by a nurse. They seemed surprised to find her already sitting in the bed, her tubes gone. Two guards could be seen beside them, taking a peek inside.

"Miss, you shouldn't have removed those tubes. You might have injured yourself by doing it without us." scolded the nurse, walking closer.

"No need, I am perfectly healthy, but thank you for your concern." shrugged Sakura as she shook her head and watched the most senior officer.

"A bit too healthy, actually." frowned the officer. "I am captain Shirono, and this is lieutenant Saru. Is your name Sakura Tohsaka?"

"That is correct. Although I'd prefer for this discussion to continue after I am properly dressed. What did you do with my personal belongings?"

"I need to examine you first, Miss." objected the nurse.

"…Fine." relented Sakura, not wanting to put the nurse in a difficult position. "But I do not want anyone else in the room while you do."

"I do not think you are in a position to make any demand, Miss Tohsaka, if that is even your real name. Now, you will tell me why the nurses couldn't pierce your skin with needles."

"Not in a position to make any demand?" snorted Sakura. "Has it crossed your mind that if I could withstand needles while I am unconscious, maybe I could do a lot more when I am awake? You do not have the power to force me to do anything."

Before they could reply, Sakura created a light hand and a pair of light shields, opened the door with the hand, and pushed the two officers out of the room. They were shouting in protests and incredulity when Sakura closed the door to their face and blocked it with a shield.

The Nurse was frozen solid, staring wide eyed at the door and the golden shield now blocking it closed.

When she unfroze, she backed away from Sakura, who started recreating a set of underwear and a school uniform.

"I can regenerate from any wound in minutes, so I really am healthy. But I won't object if you really want to take my pulse and so on."

"W-What? How?" stammered the nurse.

Sakura, having just removed her hospital gown and now start naked, pointed a thumb at herself.

"Divine Envoy, Agent of the Gods. We are here to kill a demon, then we will leave. Your government does not need to concern itself with us, and we will be gone within a few weeks at most."

"…A demon? Demons exists?"

"Yes." said Sakura, quickly dressing herself up I her newly recreated school uniform. "To be more specific, one single demon exists in your world, and not for much longer. So you do not need to worry at night. Where are we, exactly?"

"In… In a military hospital.' gulped the nurse. "You and the other two were transferred from the general hospital when…"

"When you noticed that we weren't like the others?" asked Sakura.

"Yes." nodded the nurse.

Sakura quickly finished dressing in her school uniform before removing the shield, and a half-dozen soldiers entered the room, aiming their rifles at her.

Before any of them could react, Sakura had cut their rifles into halves with as many golden swords. She looked at Captain Shirono behind them and sniffed.

"How rude, trying to walk in on a girl while she's getting dressed."

"You… How…"

"Let's make this simple, Captain." cut in Sakura. "Give me and my companions our stuff back, and get me or Asuka in contact with someone senior enough to make decisions in your government's name. This is obviously well above your pay grade."

She could tell her words angered him greatly, but after seeing the soldiers' stiff expressions, barely containing their fear, and the cut rifles, he wisely decided he didn't want to get involved any more than this.

"I will make calls. Please do not move from this room."

"Thank you." nodded Sakura before turning to the nurse. "You should go as well. I do not mind if you repeat to him what I told you."

"Huh, yes, thank you." nodded the nurse, before not quite running out of the room. The soldiers also retreated hastily after collecting the rifle parts on the ground.

When another nurse returned a few minutes later with her belongings, Sakura thanked her and verified the content of her spatial ring. Nothing had been removed.

A few minutes later, there was a knock at the door, and both Medusa and Asuka entered.

"I hear you're making a ruckus already." grinned Asuka.

"I guess I could have been more diplomatic." nodded Sakura. "I just do not have much patience with people who think they can order me around. Only Senpai and Noah-sama can do that."

"Maybe your experience within that VR game rubbed on you a little as well. Well, I don't really mind. So, what did you do, aside from destroying a bunch of their weapons to convince them to give us back our belongings?"

"I asked for either of us to be contacted by a government official." shrugged Sakura. "I wanted to ask them to arrange a flight to Tibet a few days from now, and to get off our back until then. And in return, we'd give them either information or some trinkets to study. I mentioned that we were the agents of several gods, here to kill a demon, but nothing more."

"Yeah, I can roll with that." nodded Asuka. "When Medusa told me you both got a System, I called Noah. This is thanks to Akeno, one of her quest rewards. Every current and future member of Noah's faction gets a System and their own attributes now, as well as an easy daily mission to grow them. However, yours are capped at 500, while those of the seven Champions and their seven original representatives like Akeno and I are capped at 1000."

"I see." nodded Sakura. She felt a tad of disappointment that she would never be able to quite catch up to Akeno, but at the same time, was glad to have gained another way to grow stronger.

"The others should be gathered into one or two hospitals at most, probably those near the school, to facilitate family visitations." said Medusa.

"Yes. I intend to visit them as soon as we get an agreement with the government. We need to have 'The Talk' with them.

"Yes. Let's hope they won't make us wait too long…" sighed Sakura. "You have the Sanctuary and your Red Empress, right, Asuka?"

"Yes, I checked." nodded Asuka. "It's a bit too early to check the new channels, but the rescue of the students will likely be mentioned in the news soon…"

…

Asuka, Medusa and Sakura had to wait about an hour before the officer returned and asked them to follow him to meet a diplomat. They quickly gave a short demonstration of some of their abilities, making comments about some of their combat applications.

The implied warning was something the diplomat didn't miss, and after learning about the reason for their presence in Japan, they quickly came to an agreement. Sakura, Medusa and Asuka made ten magic items, ranging from self-sizing clothes to swords for the government to analyze, and agreed not to do anything violent. In return, The government would arrange for a flight to Tibet with a private jet a week from now, would help keep them away from the press, and wouldn't try to impair their freedom of movement.

An hour later, the girls reached the general hospital where the other victims of the incident were still under observation. The first person they wanted to visit was Shuuko.

Sakura knocked on the door.

"Enter." said a voice from inside, and Sakura recognized it. She opened the door, but was surprised when she saw two young women sitting near Shuuko's bed. Sakura could tell at a glance that they were close relatives to Shuuko, as they had similar faces and the same golden eyes and black hair.

One was visibly younger than Shuuko, with a shoulder-length bob of black hair. She was dressed in a black office suit with a white shirt and a yellow ribbon around its collar tied in a bow.

The other was older than Shuuko, dressed in another black suit and light blue shirt, whose collar was untied. Like Shuuko, her long black hair was bound in a high ponytail, with a slightly asymmetrical hairstyle giving the right bangs framing her face more length and volume than the left ones. A badge was pinned on her suit.

Overall, the two young women gave Sakura the impression of a college student and an office lady.

Sitting on the bed was Shuuko, still dressed in a hospital gown.

"Hi, Shuuko. I see you have company. Should we come visit later?" asked Sakura.

"Let me introduce you." said Shuuko with a smile. "Those are my sisters, Kanna, and Emi. Kanna, Emi, this is Sakura Tohsaka, the one who helped me the most keeping the other students from inadvertently killing us, as well as Medusa Tohsaka and Asuka Himejima."

"It is nice to meet you." smiled Sakura.

"Likewise." replied Emi, standing and offering a hand to Sakura, who shook it. "We are very glad that this incident was resolved without tragedy. Shuuko told us that you became her ally and support almost from the first day. Thank you very much, Sakura-san."

"Yes, thank you for helping nee-san return to us. We owe you one." added Kanna with a smile.

"Well, I was hardly an uninterested party, so I do not think thanks are necessary…" said Sakura, glancing at Shuuko.

"Even so. How about I invite you all to lunch soon? Shuuko has been very sparse in detail about what she did in that VR game, and I would like to know more about it." said Emi, a slight mischievous gleam in her eyes.

"Oh?" smiled Sakura. "Did she tell you how we met, for example?"

Behind Emi, Shuuko was frantically shaking her head while mouthing "no!" and making a cross with her arms.

"She didn't. Please do tell." smiled Emi.

"When I first saw her, she was part of the kitchen's staff, and she was being scolded a lot for spacing out instead of sweeping the floor. And she was all apologetic, shouting 'I'm sorry, I'll do better!' and so on. It is when she made a dogeza that I knew she was a real person like us."

Emi turned to Shuuko with a smirk, and Kanna didn't bother hiding her chuckle while Shuuko groaned, blushing.

"Sounds like a story I would like to hear. But for now, Kanna and I will take our leave. We'll return tomorrow, Shuuko."

"Yes. Be careful on the road. One of us in the hospital is already enough."

"Sure. See you later, Nee-san." nodded Kanna.

The sisters said goodbye to Sakura, Asuka and Medusa as well before leaving.

"Sakura, don't." warned Shuuko.

"Don't what?"

"Don't try to enslave my sisters. I can see it in your eyes."

"I am only appreciating their beauty. Did your parents visit as well?"

"No. And I wouldn't let them enter the room if they did." flatly said Shuuko.

"Complicated family dynamics?" asked Asuka, sitting on one of the seats near the bed.

"You could say that…" sighed Shuuko. "I may as well tell you. At the age of fifteen, Emi was already more a mother to Kanna and I than my own mother was. She was parentified. She couldn't go out meet her friends or do things normal girls do at that age, and had to deal with most of the house chores. And our parents also took most of her paychecks when she started to work, claiming she needed to repay them for providing her with a roof and food all those years."

"She endured it until she was twenty-one, then fled our home, using what little she had managed to save up to rent a small apartment... I resented her at first, but when it became my turn to be forced to do the housework and cooking and take care of Kanna, I understood why she had left. I would have done the same, and maybe sooner."

"Eventually, Emi managed to help both me and Kanna leave that house. She let me live in her apartment for a while until I got a job and enough saved up for my own place, and Kanna, who just finished college a few months ago, is still living with Emi and has started working as well."

"I sympathize." nodded Asuka. "My own mom passed away when I was four, my father remarried quickly, and he basically treated me like a baggage he couldn't wait not to be responsible for anymore. But Sakura had it the worst."

"Let's not start this, Asuka." sighed Sakura. "Rather, Shuuko, did you receive news from NNT?"

"Yeah. The culprit has been found and arrested." sighed Shuuko. "A senior developer who held a grudge against me because I turned down his invitation to dinner, and for scolding him a lot for his shoddy work. Some people really are crazy."

"I see. According to some people we spoke to earlier, all of our classmates are safe. Although we did report on Souma's actions, trying to kill us." said Sakura.

"I mentioned his case to my colleagues as well. Needless to say, he's not just fired from his part-time testing job, but blacklisted, and if we have our way, not just from the company, but the whole IT industry. No one wants to work with that kind of lunatic."

"Good." nodded Sakura.

"So, how about you tell me about who you work for, now that we are outside?" asked Shuuko.

"That is coming. But I do not want to repeat the story and present the evidence ten times, So we'll organize a meeting in a quiet place with the relevant people… probably tomorrow." replied Sakura.

…

Erin, clad in skintight black leather pants and a red T-shirt, entered the Sanctuary in the living room, walked down the stairs to the basement, and knocked. The answer came immediately, and she entered.

Noah was laying in the bed, being straddled by Lumine. She was naked, aside from a black leather collar around her neck and her arms being encased by a black leather armbinder.

She glanced at Erin with a flushed face, then returned her attention to Noah and resumed her up and down movement.

"Hi, Erin. Is there anything wrong." smiled Noah, seemingly not embarrassed at all by the situation.

"Sorry to interrupt your fun, but I just received a message from Athena." smiled Erin. "She's requesting my presence and yours, in your study, in fifteen minutes. No one else is allowed to attend."

"I see." nodded Noah, He gave a gentle tap to Lumine's left butt cheek, and she got off him with some reluctance.

"Sorry, Lumine, but duty calls."

"You better come back quickly to finish this. I was close." grumbled Lumine.

Erin smiled gently as she watched him untie her. As expected, she was much more compliant than just barely a day ago outside of the Sanctuary. Not that she didn't fully understand Lumine. No woman could resist Noah's attentions.

"Want to join us in the shower?" winked Noah.

"Why not? But we'll have to make it quick. I do not know if the 15 minutes we were given referred to inside or outside the time dilation." smiled Erin, starting to remove her clothes.

The three of them showered and quickly fixed their appearances.

"So, Lumine, I take it you are now willing to cooperate with us?" asked Erin as they entered the shower.

"With him." corrected Lumine. "We came to an agreement. I will do what it takes to make the Abyss Order stand down. In return, he and his girls will go easy on them, only killing when absolutely necessary, and they will help me bring about a future for this world where the mortals aren't toys for the Archons and Celestia. And if that woman falls into our hands, her butt is mine."

Erin nodded, not needing to ask who Lumine was referring to.

"From what you told me, Erin, you have asserted control over the Mondstadt and Liyue Regions, right?" asked Noah.

"Control is a relative term. Ningguang and Jean are still the highest authorities over there, but they both fully agree with my general goal. I haven't touched the other regions yet. I focused most of my attention on the Evangelion world, since the population is a lot denser, and there's a lot more to do."

"Yes. Lumine and I also talked about the Fatui." continued Noah, referring to the underlings of the Tsarista, the Cryo Archon, the fiction's main antagonist. The Tsarista had sent the Fatui and their leaders, the Harbingers, to the other regions to obtain the Gnosis that gave each Archon their power, by any means necessary. She was, along with the Unknow God and the Traveler's sibling aka Lumine, one of the three main villains of the original game, although there were a few hints that she was just misunderstood.

"I will soon go to Teyvat with you, and with many others. We will capture every female member of the fatui we can get our hands on. The Mirror Maidens, and the Cicin Cryo and Electro Mages. We'll make you your own personal army to help you manage that world."

"And you'll get hundreds, or maybe thousands more sex slaves." grinned Erin.

"Yes, there's that, too." nodded Noah, trying to sound virtuous. "A side benefit only, completely not my main objective with this move. Although I must admit that there is something sexy to the Mirror Maidens always wearing those wide blindfolds covering most of their faces, and I am curious about what the Cicin look like under their masks and cowls."

"You unsatiable beast…" said Erin, shaking her head and thinking she should have expected it. "Still, thank you, it will be a lot of help long term, and the bloodshed will be kept to a minimum."

"Sure. Lumine, I won't keep you there while we are away, due to the time dilation."

"Yes. I'll go visit your home while you meet Erin's Goddess." nodded Lumine.

Noah nodded, and they focused on quickly washing themselves.

Once they judged their appearances to be acceptable enough for meeting a Goddess, Noah took Erin's and Lumine's hands and teleported with them out of the sanctuary, then into his study with Erin.

"I'll prepare tea." suggested Erin, and Noah nodded.

As soon as they were done, Athena appeared in the study. Lilith was with her.

"A-Athena!?" shouted Erin, her jaw dropping, unable to believe her eyes.

…

Noah, too, gave a double take at the sight. Lilith was wearing a beautiful white and gold dress and was giving off the same divine aura as he expected, although she had toned it down, and smirked at both Noah's and Erin's expressions.

Athena, however, was almost naked. She wore a collar, chastity belt and bra, as well as high-heeled shoes, and nothing else.

Moreover, the collar, belt and bra were translucent purple as if they were made of amethyst and decorated with floral patterns. Those patterns did not, however, extend to Athena's nipples or crotch, and Noah could see her lower lips spread about the base of a shaft. He didn't have a view of her back but suspected that another intruder impaled her rear as well.

For an instant, he considered using Promise to confirm it and get a good view of her from every direction, but chased away the thought in a hurry. He still wasn't fast enough, however, as Athena sent him a sharp look and Lilith winked while mouthing a 'yes'.

Athena was blushing, her arms bound behind her back by black metal bands around her wrists and above her elbows.

If Athena was also giving off a divine aura, hers was currently charged with lust, and it affected Noah badly. He generally had a good control over his body and had developed some resistance to sexy scenes, but he desperately tried to think of anything else to prevent himself from growing hard.

Not that it would fool any of the Goddesses.

"Thena here lost a bet, and she's mine for a week as a result." smiled Lilith. "At least a week. I am making her experience a wide sample of activities, and today is exhibition day."

"Ah!" exclaimed Erin, understanding, and remembering Athena once mentioned she was going to have an 'interesting week'.

"Ahem. I understand. Welcome, Lilith-sama, Athena-sama." nodded Noah. "Would you like some tea?"

"Gladly." nodded Lilith, sitting on the sofa and tugging on the leash connected to Athena's collar.

The brunette Goddess sat beside Lilith, a small moan escaping her mouth when sitting made the plugs enter her more deeply.

Erin's hands were slightly trembling as she served tea to Athena and Lilith, who accepted their cups with thanks.

"We won't stay long." smiled Lilith. "And since I want all the attention to be on Thena, I will let her explain. And feel free to stare as much as you desire. She won't do anything about it."

"Thank you." replied Athena with a tone that wasn't thankful at all. She took a deep breath and looked at the girls.

"Erin, Noah, you were told previously that Akeno, Asuka and the others would have to act independently until the Grand Quest was resolved, and that we Gods wouldn't interfere aside from giving them side quests to make things more interesting."

"Yes, Athena-sama." said Erin, and Noah nodded.

"This non-interference rule of the Great Game was meant for us Gods to be strictly impartial during the competition stage of the Great game, while Akeno, Asuka and the others contested against each other for leadership, and to encourage their growth by not holding their hands."

"However, now that the competition is over and that the girls are starting to become strong enough to stomp over any situation they encounter and deal with everything with brute force, we can take some limited actions to push things in directions that will be more interesting for us watching."

"How so, Athena-sama?" asked Noah.

"We are balancing two goals. We want your subordinates to act in a way that will minimize the loss of innocent lives in those worlds, of course. But we also want for them to adapt to the settings of those worlds, because watching our subordinates just openly take over by force is something we have already seen many, many times, and we have grown tired of it."

"Yes, Noah, I know you plan to do just that in the next world cluster Lilith is preparing, but this one is based on a Xianxia, so you are expected to act that way. There aren't fifty ways to manage people who only respect strength, face and family. But the worlds of the Grand Quest allow for more original methods, and we want to encourage their use."

"To give you a concrete example, building Knightmares and using them to fight Britannia in the Code Geass world was a good thing in our view. Akeno openly using her powers to fight the Knights of Rounds was… still good as she achieved world peace while not killing a lot of people, but also somewhat boring to watch."

"Are you asking for us to talk to them and tell them to be more discreet about their abilities?" asked Erin.

"Yes and no." replied Athena, squirming and sending a glare at Lilith. Noah could hear a faint hum and was careful not to take his eyes away from Athena's face. "We won't interfere with their free will, as long as they do it with good intentions in mind and are careful about collateral damage... But…"

"What my hot and bothered friend wants to tell you is that for a few very specific worlds Akeno and company will eventually enter, we want to provide them with some limited support, so that they will have the option to act more in accordance with the world's setting if they wish, rather than having no choice but to go all supernatural from the start." smugly said Lilith.

"It is as she said." nodded Athena. "We will not allow you Champions to enter those worlds or send a few more of your subordinates. With all the… very proactive recruiting they have done, they aren't exactly lacking available manpower anyway... But we have two large construction projects for Erin, as well as Tabane, Ernesta and Camilla, and we will send over what they will create. You can also involve Da Vinci or other people, of course."

"What projects, Athena-sama?" asked Erin.

"The first, will be to create a machine able to fight both on land and on sea. Mostly on land. Its tonnage must be somewhere between one hundred thousand tons, and two hundred fifty thousand tons."

"That's huge!" said Erin, her eyes wide. "One to three EVA's worth of weight!"

"Yes." nodded Athena. "But this world has war machines within that weight range. Now for the rest of the specifications you need to meet. The machine you will build must be able to move at a top speed exceeding five hundred kilometers per hour. Its primary weapons must be able to breach at least twenty meters of steel armor. It must have many secondary batteries and sensors to deal with salvoes of incoming missiles or artillery shells, and normal tanks and infantry."

"I think I know what fiction this world is inspired from, Athena-sama." frowned Noah.

"Yes, it is that one." nodded Athena, reading his thoughts. "We want you to create an Object. You can expect your opponents to be armed with…"

Athena suddenly yelped and sent another glare at Lilith.

"Stop this, Lili! We're having a serious conversation!"

"That's several times now that you fail to refer to me as Mistress, Thena." smiled Lilith. "I'm extending your penalty by three days. And since Noah remembers enough of that fiction to give Erin a good idea of what is needed, we do not need to tell them more."

Athena sighed, but nodded.

"Athena-sama, can we also create the logistics and repair vehicles for it?" asked Noah.

"Yes, as long as they are unarmed. There are laws about it over there. You can create the whole logistic train for your object."

"Athena-sama…" asked Erin with a hesitant voice. "…Will you be, okay? Can I do anything to help?"

"It's fine." smiled Athena. "Lili and I go way back, and this isn't the first time we're doing this. And there has been a few times when I was the one holding the leash. Just make sure you two never breath a word to anyone about my current… attire. Or lack thereof. We're blocking the other gods' view right now."

Noah and Erin nodded immediately. They weren't stupid enough to blab about that even without the warning.

"Another infraction, another day." nodded Lilith. "Noah, Erin, when we are done here, I will also remove from your memories any knowledge of what Athena is wearing. We do not want the other Gods to find out by reading your memories."

"We understand, Lilith-sama." nodded both Erin and Noah.

"Moving on before the week turns into a month, we want you to create an Object of your own, along with a user and maintenance manual. When whoever gets the short straw enters that world, we will send them over. An Object is far too big for us to want them to build one on site. And, still in the spirit of not simply overpowering the opposition, you are not to add an AT-field or a Blaze Luminous shield to it. Make it at least take some moderate damage if the pilot mess up badly enough."

"We understand, Athena-sama, Lilith-sama. I look forward to the challenge." said Erin, and Noah nodded.

"Great." smiled Athena. "The second mission, has less stringent requirements. You must design and build a large flying battleship, and maybe a handful of smaller escort ships, at your discretion. The battleship must have enough internal space for several dozens of tank-sized vehicles, and a factory for parts, ammunitions, and for creating said vehicles using the local technology as a base and improving on it. We plan for the team that will be in that world to receive the battleship a few weeks after their arrival. I think you will have time to complete both projects by then."

"I see." nodded Noah. "We will create a mothership, but it will be up to the girls over there to design and build the ground combat vehicles."

"Exactly. Your subordinates will be given a quest to subjugate one disgust…" Athena jolted again and looked at Lilith with an aggrieved expression.

"No more details than strictly necessary to provide the needed support, Thena." reminded Lilith.

"…I mean take over one nation, while repelling the attacks of another. They can expect to face swarms of lightly or heavily armored ground vehicles armed with rockets and kinetic weapons like chain guns, howitzers, and railguns."

"And if you also make it capable of reaching orbit and fighting in space, we will very likely use it for another world as well." smiled Lilith.

"Another Gundam world?" asked Noah.

"Not one based on that franchise, but a very similar one, with a bunch of what you would so aptly call 'bullshit mechas', so do not hesitate to go for overkill on the battleship's specs. And for the battleship and escorts, you have no technology restrictions. Go wild." smiled Lilith.

" 'Bullshit mechas'?" asked Erin with a raised eyebrow.

"Mechas with ridiculous physics-defying powers who might as well be in the supernatural category." smiled Noah. "Like the EVAs, although they aren't really mechas, or the drill-armed mechas from Gurren Lagann, most of Iron Saga's SSS-rank mechs, or the Martian Kataphracts from…"

Noah paused as he saw the smile on Lilith's face grow a little wider.

"Bingo." grinned Lilith when she saw that Noah had noticed. "Like Akeno told you, you really are an otaku, Noah."

"It served me well so far." shrugged Noah as he rubbed his chin thoughtfully, and Lilith chuckled.

"And as expected of my Champion, your first thought when you realized it was that world is not about the Kataphracts or the difficulties the girls might face, but rather making a mental list of new girls to add to your harem."

"Well…" shrugged Noah awkwardly. "Can I pretend that it is because I am confident in their capabilities and not overly concerned about their safety?"

Both Goddesses smiled as they shook their heads at him.

"To be honest, I would have told you about the Aldnoah Zero world even if you had not guessed." said Lilith. "Considering how many of your girls tend to favor close combat, it wouldn't be fair of us to expect them to face something like a mecha that disintegrates anything it touches, or another that freezes everything within hundreds of meters, without prior warning. And we will arrange for your side to have a few 'bullshit mechas' of their own. Let's say, like the Deer Stalker RxR and its pilot?"

"…You are spoiling me, Lilith-sama." grinned Noah.

"As long as it serves the purpose of making things more interesting. Akeno or Jinah would be able to crush the vast majority of Aldnoah's mechas by themselves and without prior knowledge, but where would be the fun in that? Now, what needed to be said has been said, and we will take our leave." nodded Lilith. "Thank you for the tea, and keep up the good work, Noah, Erin."

"Thank you, Lilith-sama, Athena-sama." said Noah.

"We will work hard!" promised Erin, fired up.

The two goddesses disappeared, and Noah let out a slow breath.

"Looks like you'll be busy for a while." smiled Noah.

"Yeah. It will be fun. I hadn't had an opportunity to use my engineering talents since I made the Red Empress for Asuka. At some point, I will request some help with creating the materials. I can't just create a hundred thousand tons plus of matter just by myself."

"Sure. When the time come, mobilize as many of the harem members as needed. Those projects take priority over anything but what we do in our worlds."

"Yeah. So, tell me about those Objects. I'll squeeze you dry about the Kataphracts after we are done with it."

Noah nodded and used Hard Light arsenal to create a visual illustration of a few Objects he remembered.

"I'll prepare a file about the Kataphracts… I don't remember much technical data about the Objects, actually. Some of those Objects move by spreading a non-toxic, biodegradable fluid on the ground and levitate over it using electrostatic. Others use a mix of air pressure like a hovercraft and giant tank tracts. Others still use huge mechanical legs."

"They can be equipped with floats to go over water. They have various means of forward propulsion, from creating air pressure using lasers to… simply moving their legs. Objects are basically one huge, heavily armored sphere containing the nuclear reactor, cockpit and other critical systems, with propulsion methods and one or several, huge, anti-Object weapons grafted to it. And dozens upon dozens of secondary batteries pointing in all directions.

"As far as weapons are concerned, if I remember correctly, they use railguns, coil guns, lasers, and plasma. That's the standard for them."

"Now, almost every Object also has its own quirk. One called the Grasshopper has huge legs behind it to perform a sudden burst of acceleration and get into an opponent's back, while another is a giant artillery gun with an advanced sensor suite and cloud-seeding missiles able to pinpoint the location of an enemy Object from the radar echoes bouncing on a cloud cover. Then there's this one who sends a giant battery in orbit using a laser space elevator, and the battery is used to power an orbit-to-ground laser satellite to kill Objects from above."

"Those are quite the impressive feats, all of them." nodded Erin. "But we'll do better! I already have a few ideas!"

"I will make another Sanctuary. One with a lot of space inside." said Noah.

"Thank you. I'll go see Tabane and the others and we will start on the design. See you later, Noah. Lumine is waiting for you."

Erin disappeared, and Noah considered for a few seconds. He had a hunch about the second world Athena had described, with one disgusting nation, and ground-based enemies using slightly futuristic-weapons. Thinking about the goddess, he suddenly realized that he couldn't remember what she had been wearing, but shrugged it off. It didn't matter.

Shaking his head, he though about Lumine. Her training was already almost over. Just a little more, and she wouldn't bat an eye at the terms of the slave contract.

He still decided to give her some more time to explore the island and get acquainted with her new sisters. Right now, for some reason he couldn't quite figure out, he felt a strong desire to visit a certain black-haired goddess in the basement, and have a good, long and hard one-on-one session with her.

…

Sakura found Uiko in her hospital room, alone.

"Hi, Uiko." smiled Sakura. "How are you doing?"

"Hi, Sakura. I am fine" nodded Uiko, dressed in street clothes. "We're being discharged tomorrow, and I can't wait to return to school. We'll have to work hard to make up for the lost time."

"Yes. We've been here long enough already."

"Did you come to fetch me for that meeting of yours?"

"I did. But before that, I want to talk to you about something. It's about what we experienced in that game." said Sakura, sitting near Uiko on the bed.

"…That game, huh." sighed Uiko. "It doesn't feel like just a game, after everything we experienced in it… Say, Sakura, will you play it again once it is released? Do you have mostly good, or bad memories from it?"

"Almost entirely good. I had a lot of fun, and I never really felt in danger."

"You didn't? Ah, we probably didn't find out about the trap we were in."

"No, it was for another reason. I experienced more dangerous situations before, so my sense of danger is dull. What about you, Uiko? Would you connect back into it if you could, assuming it wasn't dangerous, and you could log off at any time?"

"…I would." nodded Uiko, blushing. "Did Ageha, Ririko or the others tell you, about… what happened to us?"

"About you becoming the Demon Lord's pet?" gently asked Sakura.

"…Yes." said Uiko, blushing further.

"They didn't need to. Which bring us to the reason I wanted to talk to you in private, Uiko." smiled Sakura. "Look at my shadow."

"Huh?" asked Uiko, confused, but looking down at Sakura's shadow, who seemed far too dark. And a black ribbon rose from it.

"W-W-What is this." blurted out Uiko, jumping away.

"You don't recognize it? I'm saying that the Demon Lord Rin was me, Uiko." said Sakura with the same gentle smile.

Uiko's eyes widened as far as they would go, and then she gasped.

And then she fainted.

Sakura grabbed her with her ribbons and carefully laid her on the bed, sighing. She used Greater Healing to kickstart her system.

"Earth to Uiko." teased Sakura as she regained consciousness.

Uiko's eyes fluttered for a moment before she opened them again, and inspired sharply as she saw Sakura.

"I was right to do it in private rather than in front of the others. Will you be okay?"

"How do you want me to be okay?! Are you really Rin-sama?"

"That is correct. Do you want this Demon Lord to tell you in detail how I comforted you before I tied you spread-eagled, blindfolded you, and had my way with you for the first time?"

"No!" shouted Uiko, blushing fiercely.

"Black Knight Anna was Medusa, too."

"…Wait, what she told me about Rin's past, was it all a lie?" asked Uiko with a betrayed expression.

"…No." sighed Sakura. "Medusa told me later that she had revealed a lot to you about my past. She only changed a few details to make it look like it was part of the game's lore. I'm not sure I approve of her doing so before clearing it with me first, but what is done is done. I really was adopted by another family when I was very young, to be used as nothing more than a tool for the patriarch's ambitions, and my new elder brother had his way with my body for years. Until I was saved by Senpai."

"And… And your shadow, how could you make it solid like this?"

"Because I'm a Magus. Another word for a magician. This is part of what I am going to explain to everyone. I just wanted to tell you in private first because you are prone to fainting, and because I wanted to apologize to you. I am sorry for hiding my identity from you, Uiko. I had good reasons for doing so, but it doesn't change the fact that I misled you."

Uiko nodded slowly, considering Sakura.

"What reasons?"

"It's a long and complicated story, and we'll be late for the meeting if I tell it now, but I will during the meeting. I'll just give you a very short version. Asuka, Medusa and I were asked to join your class to save you all, but I was required to do it by acting as the Demon Lord. I intended to reveal my identity to you and Alice after my return to Infermia, but we got out of the game before it happened."

"But why?"

"Like I said, it's complicated, and I will explain it to everyone. And we should go now." said Sakua, looking at her watch.

Uiko nodded and stood slowly, heading for the door.

Sakura followed, and they entered the elevator.

"…What happens now, to us?" asked Uiko with a soft voice.

"That will depend on you, Uiko." replied Sakura, patting her head. "I would love to have you long term, both as a little sister, and as a treasured pet. I would love to teach you magic, with all the perks that come with it. A thousand years from now, I will still look like a young adult, and I would like for you to be by my side even then."

Uiko nodded, but didn't reply.

The elevator reached the second floor, where Asuka had pulled strings to reserve a conference room.

She and Medusa were already inside, as well as Megu and Ageha, Ichinon and Ririko, Izumi and Naru.

"We're still waiting for Shuuko and her sisters, and then we can begin." nodded Asuka as they sat around the table.

"Her sisters?" frowned Ageha. "I thought this was about finally telling us who you work for, and why you want to recruit us."

"That is the case." nodded Asuka. "But Sakura also wants to offer them the chance to join in on the fun, and Medusa and I are fine with it."

"While we are waiting, I have another small confession to make." sighed Sakura as she looked at Izumi. "We have seen each other quite a lot inside the game, even if you weren't aware of it. The Demon Lord Rin. That was me wearing a disguise."

"…Hah?!" exclaimed Izumi, gasping. Then blushing.

Before he could reply, someone knocked at the door and opened it, and Shuuko entered, followed by her sisters.

"Sorry, it took a while to convince them to come." said Shuuko.

"It's fine. Thank you for coming." smiled Sakura.

"Shuuko told us that it was important." frowned Emi as they took seats. "It better be. I am missing work right now, and that will hurt my chances for the next promotion! My rent won't pay itself!"

"You and Shuuko really are sisters." chuckled Sakura. "This is without a doubt the greatest opportunity of your life, Aikawa-san. Money won't ever be an issue to you again if you seize it."

That certainly caught the attention of all three Aikawa siblings.

"Alright, let's begin." sighed Sakura. "To give everyone the same starting point, I will resume what we already told some of you. Asuka, Medusa and I work for a group of very powerful individuals who learned about what the culprit of that incident intended to do beforehand, and they sent us to integrate class 2A to save everyone from inside the game."

"They could have simply alerted the authorities, but that would have been boring to them, and they were confident in our ability to keep everyone safe. And to make things even more interesting in their eyes, they ordered me to play the role of the Demon Lord, with Medusa as my second, and for Asuka to be a secret informant among the Heroes. They arranged for me and Medusa to start with high-level accounts and disguises. They are also the ones who gave NNT a hand to get us out yesterday, as far as I am aware. They probably decided their fun had lasted long enough, and we have a more important job to do."

"What could be more important to do than saving a whole class of students, and me as well, though?" asked Shuuko.

"Saving more people. And when I say more, I mean by several orders of magnitude." shrugged Asuka.

"Now, please watch carefully." said Sakura, lifting her right hand.

The students as well as Shuuko and her sisters froze in complete shock and disbelief as her mana coalesced into a gold ingot, and Sakura placed it on the table with a dull thud.

"Yes, this is real gold. I will talk a little about myself, and how I became who I am today, before speaking about the situation as a whole, and the reason you are all gathered here today."

"I am a Magus, what you would call a magician. Yes, magic is actually real, and doing something like turning my internal energy, or mana, into solid matter is now child play for me. At the risk of sounding immodest, I am quite strong. You may think Demon Lord Rin in the game was powerful. From my perspective, it was a downgrade compared to what I can do in the real world. And of the three of us, I actually am the weakest."

"I was born in the Tohsaka family, a family of Magus for ten generations who practiced Magecraft in secret. The Tohsaka specializes in Crystallomancy. We take precious gems like diamonds and rubies and imbues them with mana to obtain various effects, like turning them into mana batteries, or making them detonate with more power than a hand grenade. Since we couldn't create matter from mana back then, practicing Crystallomancy was prohibitively expensive, as I am sure you can imagine, and the Tohsaka family was on the poorer side, compared to most Magus families who had accumulated assets worth billions."

"There is also a peculiarity with the practice of Magecraft, which is that there can be only one heir by generation. The core inheritance cannot be divided or shared. My parents had two daughters equally gifted in Magecraft, me, and my elder sister Rin. Rin was chosen as the heir, and our father, who was cold-hearted and obsessed with the pursuit of Magecraft, decided to have me adopted by the Matou family, who had produced only one offspring able to use Magecraft, and he was deemed too mediocre to carry the Matou's heritage. At least, that was the official story, and maybe the version my father believed. The real motive of the Matou patriarch, as I learned much later, was far more sinister."

"The patriarch, Zouken Matou, was by any metric anyone could use an evil man. A Magus who had lived five hundred years by transferring his consciousness into a specially made insect able to enter a human's body, latch to the spine, and connect itself to the nervous system to hijack it. And he intended to make my body his next vessel the moment I reached adulthood, making me a prisoner of my own body."

"An insect?" asked Ichinon with an incredulous expression.

"Yes. The Matou is a family who specializes in the use of magically engineered insects. I won't expand on what happened to me as a member of the Matou family. I will just say that I wouldn't wish one day of what I experienced to my worst enemy, and it lasted twelve years before a powerful Magus named Akeno Himejima found me, purged all the parasites off my body and healed me, helped me deal with the various traumas and reconnect with my sister, and killed Zouken Matou."

"Really?" said Asuka with a sniff. "I can think of one guy you would wish to experience some of the pain he caused you."

"Right." conceded Sakura before looking at Ririko. "Ririko, you asked me before why I didn't want to send this dear brother of mine into jail. The reason is that, mediocre or not, he knows enough about Magecraft to be untouchable by the legal system. He would simply hypnotize the cops and judge to be cleared of all charges. When our mission is done and I can return home in… maybe two or three years, at the rate things are going, I will find him, and make sure he can never rape anyone ever again."

"Even so, killing is…" hesitated Ririko.

"Sakura didn't mention it before, but Shinji Matou did more than torment her." pointed out Medusa. "He once set up a magic array affecting his whole school and intended to completely drain the life force of over a thousand students and staff members, for his own selfish reasons."

"Ah, yes, there was that too." nodded Asuka. "We stopped him before anything worse that people fainting happened, and they all recovered after a day of rest. The Magic Association covered it up with a gas leak story."

"Now, let's speak about our backers, our goals, and the opportunity you have." said Sakura.

For almost half an hour, Sakura talked about the Gods, their Champions, the parallel worlds and Solomon's Demons, the threat to this world, and the work they did. She 'forgot' to mention, however, that being an Agent also meant being a member of Noah's harem. She spoke about her experience in the previous worlds, and what some of the other teams had encountered and the crises they had solved, and gave practical demonstrations of their abilities.

"And that is where you guys come in." said Asuka when Sakura paused. "We offer you the possibility to become Agents just like us. If you do, we will teach you Magecraft and many more things. The work is guaranteed safe, since we will be revived by Noah even if we manage to get ourselves killed despite our power. And Sakura already mentioned the immortality perk. None of us will ever grow old."

"So you guys are, like, super-heroes?" asked Megu.

"Yes." nodded Sakura. "But unlike super-heroes who act selflessly, we are well compensated for what we do, with many perks that no billionaires could hope to obtain. And we do not wear spandex costumes."

"A great plus in my book." snorted Ageha with a deadpan expression.

"An immortality spent being tools for the Gods, being sent endlessly from one world to another, that doesn't sound very appealing." frowned Shuuko's little sister.

"I understand what you mean." nodded Sakura. "But us being sent over like this isn't endless, and if you join, you likely won't be involved in fighting the Demonic Pillars. We already have more than enough Agents or Agent Candidates in Chaldea willing to volunteer. Once all of Solomon's Demons are dealt with, we will stop being sent to other worlds, and our task will be to focus on taking care of those under Noah's responsibility."

"The Agents already doing so have no quota to fulfill, and they decide how many hours per week they devote to work. They could take it easy and work only fifteen hours a week, and no one would scold them for it, because just fifteen hours would still be enough for them to heal hundreds of people from terminal diseases, and Noah isn't arrogant enough to think he can solve everything. All Lilith, Athena and the other Gods asked for their Champions and subordinates is to be a positive influence on the worlds under their purview, nothing more."

"It seems a little too good to be true, really." said Emi, frowning. "Okay, you have superpowers and stuff. But why are you so eager to recruit us? It smells fishy."

"Having more Agents means that the workload for each Agent will be lowered." shrugged Medusa. "Besides, we have become friends with most of you, and we wish to share this opportunity with you. It is always a little difficult for us to leave a world, knowing that we will never again see the friends we made."

"But are you not afraid that we will misuse those powers?" asked Ichinon.

"No." shrugged Asuka. "First, we do not offer them to just anyone, despite what you may think. Shuuko's sisters are here because we trust her, and we know each of you well enough to trust you. Even Ageha wouldn't do something truly evil. Besides, you would have to be an absolute idiot to abuse those powers while acting as a representative of a deity. If Noah doesn't punish you himself, they would."

"Speaking about Noah, is he a good guy to work for? How does he look?" asked Megu with an interested gleam in the eye.

"I have his picture on my smartphone." said Asuka before handing it to Ageha, the one sitting closest. She raised an eyebrow at the picture, stared intently, and passed it around.

"Whoa, he's the stuff of dreams!" gasped Megu on the side.

"He was made into a Demi-God by a Goddess, and she improved his looks, so of course he is handsome." nodded Asuka.

"Sakura… if you really work for an almighty Goddess… can you ask her to…" asked Izumi.

"To give you the same thing I gave you inside the game?" smiled Sakura.

"…Yes, please."

"I could see it coming, so I already procured the medicine you need." nodded Asuka, standing and walking toward Izumi.

She placed the wooden box on the table in front of him.

"This is a gift from us, so you can keep it even if you decline our offer. However, Izumi, you should be aware that this is something of a poisoned gift." warned Asuka. "If you use it, you won't be able to hide for very long that your body has become that of a girl. There will be no end to doctors and other unsavory guys wanting to study you, and they won't be satisfied by you saying you became a girl by swallowing a magic pill. That means that, if you want to live peacefully and without worry, you will have to come with us."

"I understand. Thank you very much." nodded Izumi, carefully opening the little box. Centered inside the inner padding was a small, round blue pill that seemed to shine with its own inner light. He stared at it for a few seconds, then closed the box and put it into his pocket.

The classmates, as well as Shuuko and her sisters, had many more questions, and Sakura and Asuka answered as best they could, until the time they had reserved for this conference room came at an end.

"It's time to wrap this up." sighed Sakura. "You now all have a good idea of what we do, what we offer you, and we do not require an answer today. You have until the end of the week to mull it over, before we go to Tibet and trash the Demonic Pillar. If you have any more questions, we'll be happy to answer them."

…

A while later, inside their Sanctuary, Sakura changed into her black leather and latex favorite Mistress attire and Medusa stripped.

"Master, are you really going to let them go if they decline?"

"No." smiled Sakura, selecting a leather harness from a cabinet. "It would be better if they joined willingly and used the remaining time to collect mementos and say farewell to their families. But if they fail to understand just how great a future we are offering them, we will make the decision for them and take them just before leaving this world. They will forgive us after we drown them in pleasure."

"Yes, Master." smiled Medusa. She had no objection to this. She was fond of most of the girls and wished the best for them, and the best meant making them agents, willingly or not.