“Evan Bro! Evan Bro!”
The voice floated down the hall, oddly familiar a inexplicably out of pce.
And then, a blur of blonde hair practically tched onto the staircase railing, barreling doweps with the speed and coordination of a caffeine-fueled squirrel. It squealed, “Evan!”
“Nemo?” Evan chuckled, eoo amused by the chaos desding upon them. “Doh the m study?”
The “blur” revealed itself to be a tiny girl—blonde hair, blue eyes, practically a pint-sized replica of Evan. “Yep! Praise! Nemo good?” she chirped, her spee uable whirlwind of enthusiasm and questionable grammar.
“Who is this, Evan?” Matthew asked, blinking like he was seeing a magical por doll brought to life by a rogue mana spell.
“Good Nemo,” Evan said casually, as though that expined everything, while giving her blonde head an affeate rub. “I haven’t told you guys yet, huh? This is my little sister, Mnemosyne di Sator. We call her Nemo.”
An, Matthew, and Bir exged loaded looks, each trying very hard not to visualize a certain bright e fish with an unfortunate fin situation. It was a battle they were losing.
“Her speech pattern is still a mess. Is tut not enough?” Mante murmured, watg his you with an expression somewhere between pride and abject horror.
“I’ll think of something,” Bunny whispered back, her tone a quiet but determined I’m-this-close-to-unraveling kind of reassurance.
The three 12-year-olds, ever the experts in adult subtext, heard every word. Their minds spiraled into the great abyss of specution, undoubtedly nding on a spiracy theory or two.
“Greetings!” the pint-sized whirlwind announced grandly, pointing a chubby por fi herself as though delivering her own thesis statement. “Nemo! Three!”
Mante and Bunny visibly twitched. It wasn’t just a flinch—it was the kind of simultaneous rea that only long-suffering parents achieve. They looked like they weren’t sure whether to ugh, cry, or throw themselves into the abyss at the sheer absurdity of their you child’s… unication style.
The duo shared an expression of shared misery and relief, as if saying, “At least she’s trying. Kind of.” Meanwhile, Nemo, entirely oblivious to the existential crisis she’d triggered in her parents, just smiled like she owhe pce.
But then, a tiny, uling puzzle piece clicked into pce for the trio of teens. Nemo had just announced—loudly, proudly, and with no small amount of dramatic fir—that she was three. And if memory served (and it usually did when it came to juicy details), the madam had only retly recovered from a three-year-long ic illness.
The timeline was, as they say, iing.
Could it be? Was Nemo’s birth somehow tied to that mysterious illness? The possibility loomed over them like the ominous final boss in an RPG—something just a little too big and too personal to deal with right now.
And then there was Nemo herself, i and silly as a baby duck waddling into traffic. The way she mangled her words and poi herself like she was making a presidential address was… endearing, sure. But also? ing.
Most kids her age could string together sentences without sounding like they’d just lost a battle with autocorrect. But Nemo? Nemo seemed stuewhere between “adorable toddler” and “magical struct prototype iesting.”
It made sehough, didn’t it? If there was something unusual about her birth—something unnatural or even dangerous—it would expin a lot.
It would expin why Mante and Bunny had been watg her like she was aionally-charged grenade about to go off. It would expin the shared wince when she spoke, as though every word she said chipped away at their carefully-structed posure.
The three teens exged gheir unspoken thoughts swirling like storm clouds. Nemo wasn’t just an etric little sibling. But rather an expanding lore of the Sator. And while part of them wao ugh at how ridiculous the se was, another part felt the quiet, solem of it all.
Because if they were right—if Nemo’s birth really had e at a cost—then her parents’ reas weren’t just uandable. They were heartbreakingly human.
No. Of course, the teens had gotten it all wrong.
Man and Burn weren’t ed about Nemo’s speech because they thought something was “wrong” with her development. Oh no, their s ran far deeper—and far riskier—than mere parental worry.
They weren’t fretting over the adorable little disaster’s coherehey were panig because Nemo wasn’t even their child.
Nemo was a struct. A living, breathing doll of pure magic, cobbled together by Man’s genius and, frankly, her questionable life choices. She wasn’t a toddler with slow speech development. She was a magical marvel masquerading as a three-year-old. And that “three” she’d so fidently yelled? It ractically a miracle.
Because if these privileged brats—er, young nobles—figured out the truth, it would all e crashing down. The ruse, the carefully crafted facade of “family bliss,” and, most importantly, their own 12-year-olds feeble safety.
You didn’t just let people find out you’d created a magical strud decided, “Yeah, let’s raise it like a kid. No one will notice.” Especially not when said “kid” yelled out silly-almost-normal-but-not-normal-enough-phrase.
Man’s craft had beeiculous, of course. Nemo’s current form was as close to human as magic could possibly make her, perfectly matched tnitive and unicative quirks—or so she’d thought.
But then she had to go and yell “three,” throwing her into a quiet panic spiral. Was she pretending? Could she lie? Or was it sheer luck that she’d chosen a hat made sense in text?
The thought that Nemo might be capable of deceit sent a pleasant chill down Man’s spine. She wasn’t sure whether to feel proud of her creation’s cleverness or utterly terrified that her struct was already outperf its design specs all ain.
Meanwhile, Burn looked calm oside but was inwardly cyg through twelve stages of existential dread. What if Nemo decided to yell “three hundred” ime, si was her real age?
What if she started spouting things like “I’m made of magic!” in that same chipper, oblivious tone? Could a struct even blurt out a fession? Knowing Nemo, it seemed entirely possible.
Well, if it happens, it happens. Not like he couldn’t fix it. Still, ging the pn now would be a colossal, loopiour—exactly the kind of mess Burn hated dealing with.
Nemo’s presence was crucial. She had to witness Man’s perspective of the loop ahat data back to herself in the one.
But keeping Nemo as her inal form—a radiant floating and talking hss entwined with a coiling snake—was not an option. That would be akin to walking into a masquerade ball dressed as a giant blinking neon sign screaming, “Suspicious as hell!”
“We should invite Master Vd and Isaiah for the session,” Bunny—Man—said thoughtfully, already crafting the perfect excuse.
“This campaign has been successful so far, and we include the kids in a milder version to help Nemo’s unication skills.” Transtio’s sult the experts before this situation spirals further into absurdity.
“They’re good with kids,” Mante—Burn—added, nodding in solemn agreement. “Let’s bring them along.”
The teens, meanwhile, were utterly blindsided by this revetion of ued wholesomeness. Here were Nemo’s amazing parents, w tirelessly to help their daughter thrive despite her “developmental difficulties.”
They eveablets as a tool for education and bonding! This wasn’t just good parenting; it was -level. And if Nemo’s older brother, Evan, had turned out so kind and cool, clearly these parents were onto something magical—literally and figuratively.
For now, though, Emperor Burn and the Infich Man had unknowingly secured themselves a pce of respe these kids’ hearts. Ironically, the very thing they wao avoid—standing out too much—had happened anyway.
“So, shall we start today’s activity?” Man scooped Nemo up with the practiced ease of someone holding both a child and a potential PR disaster. She turo Bir, fshing a smile so polished it could blind.
“Yhness, do follow us to the training ground. At st, I’ll get to withe magic my dear son ’t stop raving about.”
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