John hadn’t been aware that they had a punching bag in the bus, but he was really happy that he had something he could hit at the moment. Despite being convinced that he had made the right call and the best he could with the situation, he was feeling a general frustration that only time and violence could properly exorcise. Since the primary target of that frustration, William Brighton, wasn’t available, this piece of leather had to do.

“Your form is actually pretty good,” Metra commented from the side lines. The First of Wrath was sitting on the couch, a sour expression on her face. Defeat of any kind bothered her more than anyone else in the room, and that was quite something given the other contenders. Salamander was zapping through the television channels, repeatedly tsk-ing at all of the programs she couldn’t stand. In a nearby armchair, Siena tried to read a book but never got more than a page done before she raised her gaze to stare at her surroundings. From the bathroom, a slow and quiet song of aggressive lament could be heard from a slime that took a cold bath. Aclysia wasn’t directly bothered by their loss, but John’s bad mood influenced her enough that her cooking was a louder process than her usual grace would have made it.

Gnome, Sylph, Eliza, Beatrice and Nia seemed to be alright with the situation. The first was trying her best to cheer people up, the second was too happy-go-lucky to care, the third just moved on, the fourth was passively driving, and Nia might have been bothered but she didn’t show it. Priding himself on understanding the often-enigmatic pariah, John guessed that she saw no sense in getting angry about their current situation.

That left Rave, who he had left in the bedroom. Even after she was healed, the Gamer’s girlfriend hadn’t woken up, but Copernicus was around to clue them into what had happened. By the end, some of John’s frustrations lay with her. For reasons he kept until she woke up. Her sleep was doubtlessly induced by the post ‘lightspeed punch’ exhaustion.

As for where they were heading, the answer was obviously home. There was nothing left for them to do and any prolonged stay was just likely to complicate things. That aside, he would have enough to do with the politicians. Several people would take offense with him taking such drastic actions. Further, there was a risk that his loss would be perceived as a weakness by rebellious elements. That he was as strong as before hardly mattered if the unrest was widespread enough. The last thing Fusion needed at the moment was internal instability.

His fist slammed hard enough into the magically reinforced punching bag that the thing swung backwards. When it came back at him, he caught it with both hands. Then he saw movement in the corner of his vision and he turned his head to see Rave step into the room. She was as naked as the rest of them, at least that was normal.

“Hey,” she said in a timid tone.

“You finally woke up,” John said and couldn’t help but be relieved. “Been about three hours. I know you usually pass out after you use that attack, but that was still worrying.”

“Moira got me good, what can I say?” Rave gave him a weak smile in return, obviously happy that he and the rest of the room weren’t overtly angry at her. “Cappy got me up to speed… I really screwed up, didn’t I?” The suncat strut across the room to the kitchen, seemingly unbothered by things.

“Yes, you did.” John didn’t mince his words. They weren’t in the kind of relationship where they had to sweet talk each other’s mistakes. Having a harem this large meant that everyone had to have the kind of patience that let them hear and accept the honest truth. “If you had just ran away or decided to follow a battle strategy that was focused on delaying rather than winning, in line with our overall goal, we would have gotten out of there as planned. This loss, and the fact that the Golden Rose gets to execute whoever fails their rigid understanding of justice, is on you.”

“Yeah…” Rave hung her head in shame. It was rare to see her like this, so incredibly vulnerable and small. From the moment he had met her, the techno lover had always acted larger than life. Right this moment, she was incredibly small. With just a few more words, he could seriously damage her ego, if he so desired.

Of course he didn’t desire that outcome whatsoever.

He walked over to his girlfriend and put his arms around her. Like a helpless kitten sheltered from the rain, she snuggled against his chest. “It is what it is,” he mumbled, gently scratching the back of her head. “It’s not like I did everything perfectly either. Perhaps I could have ended the battle much earlier by focusing on defeating William rather than go after evacuation.” That plan would have been based on a gauge of Lord Brighton’s strength that he didn’t have, but it could have worked out regardless. “Let’s sit down.”

“Alright,” Rave mumbled and walked alongside him to the couch. There, Gnome was quick to sit down on the Lightbearer’s other side and Eliza awkwardly approached, only to stand nearby and look helplessly. “Ya looking kinda lost there,” Rave pointed out.

“I want to fucking cheer you up, but I don’t know how!” the blood mage exclaimed. “Seeing you sad is so fucking unnatural, I don’t want it.” Pressing her lips together, Eliza suddenly looked angry. “Listen to my selfish cunt face, exclaiming how I’m bothered because you’re sad. Fucking shit, I’m the worst.”

“Alrighty, just shut up and come here, ya adorable mess,” Rave demanded and opened her arms towards the blood mage. When she didn’t oblige immediately, the Lightbearer said her name, “Eliza,” in a commanding tone and a moment later held a pretty little psycho in her arms. “There ya go, now I got something to stress-squeeze,” Rave joked and repeatedly tightened her hug.

John leaned over and gave both of them a kiss on the cheek. “We’ll live, we’ll learn, we’ll move on, right?” he asked.

“Ja,” Rave responded with a slightly wider smile. It vanished when she spoke up again. “Still though, this is a really bitter pill. I really thought I could take her this time around. She didn’t seem to be really serious until the very end…”

“She looked pretty battered,” John said, to cheer his girlfriend up a little. That it was the truth made saying it a whole lot easier. “I wouldn’t say that it was a narrow victory on her side, but it definitely wasn’t easy either.” He resumed scratching the back of her head. “That aside, as much as it pains me to admit, this is probably for the best.”

“Whaddaya mean?” Rave asked, the slur mostly born from confusion. “Me losing sucks. It sucks hard.”

“Well, it’ll motivate you to train harder, so that’s good,” he dared to answer with some small banter and she rewarded him with a chuckle. “No, I mean in terms of Fusion’s overall situation. It is probably for the best that we lost, on multiple levels.”

“Okay, and why’s that?” the predictable follow-up question came. “If you’re just saying this to cheer me up, imma punch ya.”

“No, I mean it,” John assured her. “We actually find ourselves in a better diplomatic, logistical and long-term stability situation because of this outcome.” He took a short pause to give the other girls a moment to stop whatever they were doing and listen to his explanation. “Let’s start with the diplomatic angle. The Order, despite our differences, isn’t exactly our enemy. If we had won, we definitely would be hostile afterwards. We would not only have snatched away an objective they bled for, we would have done so under the nose of the majority of their forces. That breeds widespread resentment. The opposite way around, because it was only us in opposition,” he gestured at the room at large, “we won’t have any forces inside Fusion calling for hostile actions to be taken towards the Order. The motivation just doesn’t exist this way around.”

“I think this Lord Brighton hates you though…” Gnome put into the room.

“Honestly, given our characters, I think that was inevitable,” John told her. “People like him just make me want to mock them. Anyway, I don’t think it actually matters too much if he hates me as long as he thinks I’m powerful and not as bad as people he wants to burn. Given that he was willing to give me quite good terms, I think that much is safe to say. Also, Moira is more reasonable than I thought initially, and she seems to hold a lot of sway over the organization at large.” He gestured for Aclysia to bring him something to drink. “All around, why my relationship with the head may have turned out to be pretty bad, the Order itself shouldn’t be overly negative towards us. Unless any of you did truly atrocious things on the battlefield, it should, at worst, be salvageable. If we had won, we could be in a cold war right now.”

Aclysia returned from the kitchen with a glass of water. “We sadly ran out of orange juice earlier,” she reported.

“That’s alright,” John said.

“Can I have a beer?” Rave asked. “Need something to smooth over the disappointment.”

“Affirmative,” Aclysia said and expectantly looked at the rest of the harem. Within moments, other alcoholic orders came flowing in. It maybe wasn’t the healthiest way to digest a defeat, but it was certainly a way. “I will prepare everything shortly.”

John sipped on his water and then continued, “On the logistics side, we have two aspects to consider. First is getting enough judges into the area to finish the judgements in a reasonable timeframe. Fusion’s legal system is pretty efficient by necessity, but several hundred demons, all of which have incentive to lie, would still take several weeks to reach a verdict on – at least. Hitched to that is the need to move a defensive force into the area. I said the war with the Golden Rose would have gone cold, but it could also be that they would have aggressively chased after the warlocks and demons.”

“We could have just moved them away,” Sylph blabbered. “Take them from here and move them over there. Over there being somewhere in Fusion.”

“Yo, airhead,” Salamander chimed in. “Did you already forget about the memory loss? If we did that, we wouldn’t just have demons that are incentivized to lie, we would have demons that don’t know if they did anything that we find objectionable.”

John nodded. “We would basically just be prodding them for what they find instinctively acceptable to do and that’s not exactly grounds for any penalty. We’d get an alright grasp on their nature, maybe, but who knows how much demons are affected by the nurture side of things. We haven’t even unravelled that field of psychology for humans and we are talking about several species of demon here.” He rubbed his forehead. “Moral situations get even muddier if you consider that some who are absolutely vicious killers at the moment could become completely harmless and upright members of society following the memory wipe. The demons that were summoned to New Libraria will keep the memories of the time before, but those born there will essentially die and someone new wakes up in their bodies. Might be that the new person is almost exactly the same in terms of character. Very hard to say.”

“That sounds like some shit we should be happy not to have to deal with,” Eliza stated.

“Kind of,” John agreed. “It also leads into the third category. See, the thing is that Fusion would release someone in case of shaky evidence, because our principle is the preservation of the innocent,” he reached for the water and took a huge gulp to oil his vocal cords. “The Golden Rose,” he continued, placing the glass back down, “leans towards the punishment of the guilty. This means that they will enact their punishment even if the evidence isn’t 100% clear. Little as I like it, we benefit from their overly cautious approach because the demons that ultimately reach us will, almost guaranteed, be only those who are truly innocent. There will be fewer of them, there won’t be unconvicted murderers on our streets and we won’t have to deal with any of the long-term drawbacks.” He sighed again. “We’ll benefit from our neighbour’s overzealous judicial practices. Welcome to statecraft where the power over thousands of lives meets harsh reality and bad decisions.”

“Yet you don’t seem that bothered at the loss of life,” Siena pointed out.

“Because of Immanuel Kant’s order of maxims,” John said and knew that he now owed a whole different explanation. “Kant suggested that people should live their life according to principles that could be applied to the entire society, or maxims as he called them. Classic example would be ‘do not kill’, that’s something everyone interested in a working society can agree on. ‘You have the right to self-defence’ is another one. Obviously these two can clash, so you have to assign an order of priority to your principles. Are you willing to break with the principle of ‘do not lie’ if the lie you tell is going to save a life, is a classic dilemma there.”

Aclysia returned to the table with a salver full of beverages. Beer was distributed to everyone who wanted it, including John, who finished his glass of water and exchanged it for the bottle. “Thank ya, Aclysia,” Rave said.

“You’re welcome, Jane,” Aclysia stated and stood next to the table for a few seconds. Then she said, “Let it be known that I dislike that you disappointed our John… and that I fully understand… and that I’m angry… and that I forgive you.” The weaponized maid sighed. “I apologize, this situation is making me feel a confused cocktail of emotions.”

“Ya can berate me a whole lot in private after we get home, if ya like,” Rave offered with a serious expression. “I deserve it, so you can pour your heart out.”

“Appreciated. I will consider it. Your understanding of your failure strangely infuriates me, so I will retreat to my sanctuary.” Aclysia turned towards the kitchen. “Lunch will be ready in approximately ten minutes. We’re having leek soup with homemade bread.”

“Sounds fantastic,” Rave told the weaponized maid and then looked over the rest of the harem. It was an open offer to throw their own statements at her, but nobody else took it. Maybe they would have to dwell on their own thoughts on this for a little while longer before they had sorted this out. For his part, John was willing to let this go, even if the bitter aftertaste was still fresh. “Tiger, ya were going on about philosophy?”

“Right.” The Gamer nodded and ordered his thoughts. It was a very involved answer. “One of my highest maxims is that ‘one should preserve life’. In conflict with this is that ‘the guilty need to be punished’. In the mundane world, the death penalty is arguably unnecessary. With how difficult it is to detain Abyssals, particularly the more powerful ones, it becomes downright necessary.

“Now, the fact that New Libraria was crawling with people that are abominable is hardly a secret. My attempt at getting them under my jurisdiction was made to act in accordance with my principles, not because I like the people. Everyone is motivated to save people they approve of, there is nothing outstanding or surprising about that act. I acted because it was the right thing to do according to what I believe in. At the end of the battle, that wish to preserve life clashed with the maxims of ‘one should strive for their personal happiness’ and ‘one should conduct themselves in a way that builds trust’. These maxims interact with each other to formulate not just the person I am but who I want to be.

“I dislike the unnecessary death of those I would have deemed innocent, but those potential innocent lives aren’t worth losing yours, Jane. Not according to my hierarchy of maxims.” He took a sip, lowered the bottle again, and slowly turned the cold glass between his two hands. “I suppose that you could say that I just care more about you than them and that principles get thrown out of the window because of that. I like to think that I’m better than that. Maybe I’m not. Maybe this is just one long justification for me breaking with my principles to preserve something I couldn’t live without.” He let out a long sigh. “I’ll have to think about that more. Fact of the matter is that I’m not that sad about having failed because the people I failed, I didn’t know and I didn’t like. I certainly think Galku deserves what the Golden Rose did to him.”

The Demon Lord had screamed, to the best of his ability, at John for how much of a failure he was. In the middle of that tirade, William Brighton had shoved his sword through the ancient warlock’s skull. A swift end for an absolutely awful person. All John could have grieved for there were the aeons of knowledge inside the scrambled brain.