Ryouga Shindai was not expecting this today. Ever since he had been defeated by Saber and Blades the last time, he had been working on increasing the speed of his Kaiji Erasure manoeuvre, as a counter to the speed of that Elemental Dragon book's power-boosting abilities. He thought that if he could perform the manoeuvre at sufficient speed, then he'd be able to keep up with that boost without trouble. All in the name of serving the Master's will. But then, Saber and Blades had entered the base in front of him through the Book Gate. "So, you fools thought you could come back here.", he stated, still putting on a mask of stoicism, as he pulled out his Ocean History book. "Well I'll show you the folly of your pursuit."

"Wait, brother." Ryouga was stopped in his tracks by the arrival of his younger sister, Reika. "If these two have entered the Southern Base willingly, they must have something to say."

"Right.", Saber nodded. "We wish to call a temporary ceasefire in order to access your library. We won't harm you, so you don't harm us in return. And then we'll be out of your hair."

Blades then stepped forward. "And as a gesture of good faith." He then placed their two Swordrivers, containing their respective Seiken, on the floor in front of Reika. "We'll be placing these in your care. When we leave this place, we expect them back with us."

Ryouga nodded at this decision, signalling for Reika to pick up the two Swordrivers. "What could you be after in our records that would beseech you to come here and make this truce?"

"I'm here to save an innocent life.", was all Saber had to say as he and Blades made their way to the library section. This got Ryouga thinking about the mission edict that his parents, themselves members of the order, had constantly espoused to him back when he was a child. But he himself had stopped agreeing with that state,ent when the lives of both his parents were lost in the Battle of Wonder World, orphaning him and his sister. Given Saber and Blades had also suffered losses in that battle, their continued idealism baffled him.

Back at the Northern Base, the creature inhabiting Mei Sudo's body had snuck in by asking to borrow Ogami's Book Gate, weakly claiming to have lost hers. Having entered the base, she was now trying to find her way to her body, which she could sense was in the library, without attracting the attention of Sophia or that Swordsman of Sound. They had presumably interacted with the human in her body and sequestered her in the library for her own sanity. Not that it mattered, as soon she would not have any sanity left to maintain.

"Mei-san." She was startled and turned around to see Yuri, who as far as she could remember, was supposed to be away checking up on some friend of his. "Why are you sneaking around? Surely you don't need to hide yourselves from our own allies."

"Mei" breathed a sigh of relief, realising that Yuri had failed to recognise anything off. "I… just want to work on a surprise for everyone.", she whimpered out. "But I need to make sure nobody knows I'm here until it's ready. Can you keep this a secret from the others?"

"Don't worry, Mei-san.", Yuri nodded. "I will keep your surprise hidden from our allies." He nodded and then headed off to the main room, which was conveniently the opposite direction to the main library. Sighing in relief, the impostor continued to her destination and flung open the door.

On the other side was her true body, housing the mind of the woman the Neko Megid was born from. "What?", the woman in Neko's body said in shock. "What am I doing over there?"

"Oh, this is simply an accident.", Neko smiled, as she pulled out the damaged Altar Ridebook that had spawned her. "One I intend to fix."

In the throne room of the Southern Base, Master Logos was updated on the situation by Reika. "The two Northern Base Swordsmen have offered us a ceasefire in exchange for information from our library.", Reika reported, holding out Rekka and Nagare. "They have allowed us to hold onto their Seiken as proof of goodwill. It is only right that we return them when they are done."

Master Logos was pleased to see the two swords, standing up and forcefully yanking them out of the hand of his subordinate. "Two more Seiken have found their way to me.", he declared almost theatrically. "Sabera, kill the two who wielded these."

Reika was shocked to hear this. "But they came in good faith. Surely we should allow them to leave when they find what they seek."

"Sabera, they are traitors to this Sword of Logos and defilers of my will. And they have been refusing to kill Megid recently, as I'm sure you're aware." He knew that this would hopefully sway her. Reika had no knowledge of the recent string of humans with a connection to Wonder World being farmed for new Altar Books, with the long held lie that the Megiddo were born directly from books being played on the Master's two personal tools.

"Y-yes, Master.", Reika said nervously. She had reluctantly accepted that the Master's will was absolute ever since she had been taken in by him after her parents' death. Though they had disagreements, they had become much more infrequent as time had gone on, especially with her brother Ryouga advocating she try to follow the Master's will. So Reika left the room, stopping 5 seconds afterwards when she heard the Master speaking to someone. She listened outside the door, so as not to attract attention.

"I assure you, Saber and Blades have been taken care of.", Master Logos' voice spoke. "All you have to do is live up to your end and get us into the Northern Base."

"Don't worry.", a new voice replied. Reika didn't recognise it, but she could tell it was bad news. "I have an agent placed inside the Northern Base. She can bring down the shield for an attack."

"A pleasure doing business with you, Storious." Reika was shocked by this. While she had never met him, she knew from second hand knowledge that Storious was the most dangerous and conniving of the three (now two) Megido commanders. If the Master was in collaboration with him… Reika left the scene quickly, making her way to the library.