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[IamanElfCollaborator]

"She's also his adopted brother who's known him since he was a kid. I dunno about you, but having a crush on your totally-not-at-all-related-to-you older sibling, that's pretty anime."

[Strider03]

Shef gave a short laugh. "You're aware right, that Japan doesn't hold a monopoly on portraying incest in media? More importantly, you're aware that a crush means literally nothing? I didn't suggest there was anything more than a possibility of a crush."

"Anyway, I think the likelihood of a crush depends somewhat on how many years she's been taking care of him. Too many and it'd be unlikely, but I don't know, less than five perhaps, and it's definitely a possibility."

[IamanElfCollaborator]

"I dunno, the light novel industry has a lot to say about both of those things. And....I'm pretty sure she's taken care of Kouta since they were both kids. She's been doing that since before I met her, and I've known her a while."

[Strider03]

"Perhaps, I had no idea. Think you're taking my claims a bit far though. Crushes are pretty common in kids, even among vaguely related folks, and I'm not suggesting anything more than the presence of a possible brief infatuation of a kid going through puberty." His suspicion that Minato was pushing things past logic purely for the sake of the accusation that he watched too much anime was present in Shef's mind, but he didn't mention it aloud.

"Forget that. It's speculative, and even if it were the case, as long as nothing came of it, it's not our problem I suppose." He let out a small yawn, and resumed unpacking, refolding some of the clothes that had gotten slightly crumpled.

[IamanElfCollaborator]

"I dunno, man. I don't know what you do in your private time. Maybe you're like one of those otaku who collect figures of anime girls while we aren't looking. If nothing else, you've got to have a hobby."

[Strider03]

"That's fair." Shef didn't answer the implied question though, and remained silent for a few moments. Tossing down one of the pieces of clothing, he sat back on the bed, looking up at the ceiling.

"You ever feel like you're losing control of your life?"

[IamanElfCollaborator]

"Hm. Why do you ask?"

[Strider03]

"It's complicated, of course. To start in the easiest place, do you know the Thorn family? Danish, prominent godslayer family I hear. Expect you know them." Shef hesitated. He didn't care to explain everything to Minato, that would be simply asking for some form of irritation. So how best to start. . .

"You know their. . . I don't know, specialty?"

[IamanElfCollaborator]

"Can't say I do, actually. I've only heard of them through reputation."

[Strider03]

"Oh? Well there you go, that's part of it. Don't know enough about a set of things that are quickly feeling extremely relevant." Relying only on the small bits of info he could get from the AI, something that would never rival the benefit of real knowledge and experience.

"Well, anyway, their specialty is destiny manipulation, for preserving the awakened-ness in the line, or something. But that's the important part, the destiny manipulation. Got a small job with them a few days ago, protection at an event, and things have been. . . off? Since I got the proposal for the job."

"I don't think it's really the destiny manipulation, at least not directly. As long as the client wasn't lying afterwards of course, but I really don't know honestly. You know anything about destiny manipulation rituals and stuff?"

[IamanElfCollaborator]

Minato thought carefully.
"Destiny manipulation's kind of a misnomer. It's more "filling stuff with as much enhancements as you can to make it do what you want". Difficult, hard to do, but not impossible. What, exactly, happened?"

[Strider03]

"Well that doesn't make much sense as far as naming goes. How does that help with making sure there's awakened heirs?" Was this really the same thing? Shef supposed that with sufficient enhancements, one could mimic the appearance of having highly ritualistic odd requirements. But still, how would that be equivalent--or at least close enough that the person who named it wouldn't end up murdered in a ditch for their idiocy--of destiny manipulation?

[IamanElfCollaborator]

"Beats me, honestly. They didn't exactly share recipes with the Kumons."

[Strider03]

A nod. Disappointing, but nothing that he could get upset about.

"What exactly happened. . .Well, in broad strokes, I had three people--awakened or similar--show up in my house at seven in the morning. One through overestimating travel time, one by choice? And the final in response to the other two showing up. Barely two minutes after they showed up, I recieved word that the Thorn family wanted me to do a job, and that it'd require three in addition to myself, specifically three people not on this little team."

Shef knew this to be about as vague as he could get, but he found there was a limit to how much he wanted to share, even relaxed, somewhere secure like this.

[IamanElfCollaborator]

"Huh. Well, I've heard rumours about their abilities being waaaay beyond everyone else's to screw with destiny. Maybe they pulled some chance magic, made everyone show up at your place through coincidence. Again, I'm not exactly a magical expert, so I don't know how that works."