I coughed as I stood in between Himeko and Mei.
"I'm sure that this is a misunderstanding…" I spoke softly, looking at both sides.
Can't let these guys get into a fight.
I don't want my house to be destroyed… AGAIN.
"There is no misunderstanding here." Mei's eyes remained glued onto Himeko. "I don't like how this ant is staring at me."
Hearing that, I felt a cold sweat run down my back. I glanced at Himeko to see her gripping her broadsword harder.
No no no.
Gotta stop this!
My 5090 was on the line here!
I zipped next to Mei. "C'mon now… why are calling her an ant anyways? Don't you normally call them monkeys or mortals?"
In response, the purple haired girl snorted.
"She has red hair. And she's wearing red. Therefore, she looked like a red ant to me."
Me: "..."
Bronya: "..."
Himeko: "..."
"I… feel that logic makes a bit of sense?" Kiana's voice came out from behind.
That made Mei smile as she turned to look at her. "I see someone shares my good taste in jokes… even if you are a bit mentally cha-"
"Why does everyone keep saying that about me?!" Kiana interrupted as she jumped up to her feet. She ran in front of Mei and placed both hands on her hips. "You're not planning to get jumped by us as well right?"
Err Kiana…
You're redirecting her anger!
That protects my 5090 but that might not be very beneficial for you….
It seems that our friendly neighbourhood 5090 rescuer realised that as well as her face paled. She coughed into her hand. "I mean… you're not here to jump that lady with us right?" She hid behind me, using me as a shield against Mei's unamused glare.
I pulled Kiana behind me as I gave Mei the brightest smile I could.
"Let's forget about what she just said, okay? Let's talk about the beautiful, wondrous and brilliant you!" I tuned up my glaze to the maximum. "Don't bother yourself with all these other things! I want to hear the details of your supercalifragilisticexpialidocious ability just now!"
"What?"/"What?"
"Supercali-fdhsu- whatever…" Smoke came out of Kiana's ears from behind me. "Is… that even a word?"
"The Bronya has read the full Oxford dictionary before. The Bronya regrets to inform that Gojo, for once, is not making things up in his schizo mind…"
"Hah what a nerd she is…" Kiana whispered into my ear as she looked at Bronya with a side eye.
"Kiana… I said the word first…"
"Err oops?"
Himeko raised a hand at my words as well. "I think I heard that from Homu Poppins before…"
"Yup!" I confirmed cheerfully. "From the song y'know?" At the same time, I glanced at Mei.
Himeko seemed pretty content to not fight Mei if she didn't have to for now. I just had to keep our lovely tsundere Herrscher from stirring up some trouble with her words.
At this point, Mei's head was tilted to the side with a smile on her face as she watched me continue my BS. She placed a hand on her chin as she just nodded at my words.
"What a… interesting choice of words."
"Ah hem…" I coughed as I raised a finger. "You seemed to have performed a minor grammatical error. Are you sure you don't need a checkup?"
"I think I'll be fine." Her expression didn't even change. "But you wanted to know what I did?"
I nodded and then pointed to Himeko from behind Mei. "And what she did as well."
"What she did?" Mei laughed. "Merely a crude ripoff of the might of a Herrscher…"
I leaned closer to hear more, but she just stopped at that moment and looked at me in amusement. "I would say more… but you have not offered me the delicacies I've asked for?"
"Isn't having the chance to show off enough?" I asked in exasperation.
"No."
I remained silent for a moment before I sighed.
"...I'll get you your caviar later…"
She clapped her hands in delight. "Wonderful. Now, continuing where I left off…" She pointed at Himeko with her thumb. "That mortal used a ripoff of an ability that we Herrscher's possess as Apostles."
?
Apostles?
I didn't interrupt, but I noted that internally.
"I have the ability to stop time through something called a Global Time Fracture." The other Mei explained patiently with a finger pointed up like a teacher to me. "The version she used is one that is merely localised and is overall inferior."
"Wait!" My eyes widened in realisation. "You guys have time stop?"
"The Bronya believes it is more of a spacetime deceleration."
It was pretty obvious who added that.
"And you didn't think it was necessary to tell me that?" I complained.
The gray haired girl looked away and shrugged.
"Gojo never asked."
"Wait!" Kiana suddenly cut in. "If Mei can do timestop… doesn't that mean she could have done all sorts of weird things to Gojo without anyone noticing?"
"..."
"..."
"Kiana.. You have a very interesting mind."
During all of this, Himeko just watched all of this barely veiled interest. Honestly, I saw a kindred spirit of a person who was watching the best drama of the year at the moment.
But when she noticed that all eyes were on her now, she just coughed and covered her mouth, speaking to Kiana and Bronya.
"She seems kinda biased to him, no?"
"Yup."/"Yup."
And then all of them suddenly screamed out and jumped a few steps back. A hint of smoke and purple lightning appeared around the places there previously were.
"Do not take my generosity as a reason to blaspheme, you stupid mortal."
"What about us then?!" Kiana complained. "Didn't we stop being called that last time too?"
"Oh you two." Mei waved her hand. "I thought it would be amusing."
"IT ISN'T!"
At that, Himeko let out a laugh despite her rear end likely stinging from quite a shock. "Honestly though! You're really an angel compared to most things I've heard about Herrschers!" Her body relaxed as she leaned on her blade which was stabbed into the ground. "I thought you would be a tentacle monster or something!"
"I know right! I thought the same thing too!" I punched my palm.
"Can the normal Mei come back though?" Himeko asked, "Or are you in full control of swapping?"
"Wouldn't you like to know?" Mei answered with a smile.
Huh?
Wasn't that what Himeko said to me previously?
As if on queue at this time, her eyes returned to normal again.
And you know what that meant?
My house is safe!
HAHAHAHAHAH
I was a bit disappointed to see Herrscher Mei so soon though. I was quite scared of a few things, but I can't deny that I found each and every meeting we had very fun.
Well… maybe not every time…
"Ah? Did she take over again?" Mei blinked in confusion.
In response, I patted her on the shoulder.
"Yeah. She can time stop too."
"She can what now?"
"She's gone ay?" Himeko sighed as she slid to the ground. "I'm not going to lie, I was kinda afraid I needed to go all out for a moment."
I walked over and held out a hand to pull her up. "Told you she was fine."
"And I believe you." She took my hand. "I'll still need to report this though, I hope you understand. This is very important news to us that we have another friendly Herrscher."
I assume the first one was the Welt that Ryoma previously talked about then.
I probably didn't kill the real Welt now that I think about it. Ryoma's descriptions of how strong he was made me think that I was probably fighting a fake.
Was it a clone? Or just an impersonator.
Who knows?
Ryoma was a bit secretive about how the guy looked like, which was understandable but sucked for me.
As Himeko got up, she dusted herself off.
"I'll leave for now then." She told me. "I'll report all of your requests, but I can't confirm anything…" She glanced at Kiana. "Especially the latest generation GPU in production right now…"
Oohh…
Kiana!
You're such a genius sometimes!
Damn it! I should have done that too!
Bronya seemed to agree as she stared at Kiana with wide eyes.
Himeko's departure was met with goodbyes from all of us. I could tell that the girls actually was quite fond of the lady, no doubt due to her heartfelt speech earlier on.
Perhaps her being a bit goofy at times as well did help though.
I looked at the girls who were still slightly bouncy with tension from the fight earlier.
"So guys… want some shawarma?"