Watching her clones having such a good time with Rina and Yara, Lucy was very tempted to link her senses to theirs.
But could she really withstand that much stimulation? The kisses and hugs of the past hour had already put her self-control to the test, yet this was on a whole different level; just imagining what it would feel like to have her tongue in the mouths of both her lovers at the same time made her cross her legs.
At the same time, out of something akin to survivor's guilt, she was reluctant to disturb her clones and keep them from enjoying that moment in peace.
Maybe the first time one of her clones had disintegrated, the process had been relatively smooth; since her mind and her clone's mind had already fully fused beforehand, they had become a single person living in two bodies at once, so her clone had had no reason to panic any more than she did.
But this time, since her clones would be far away from her when their time ran out, things wouldn't play out the same way. Even if the end result was still similar to the previous time—that is, their minds fusing together rather than her simply receiving the memories of the clones—Lucy didn't expect that experiencing her body disintegrating would be pleasant at all.
Because of that, Lucy wanted her clones to form as many of their own memories as possible, so that when the so-called "return to the source" happened, it would be as meaningful as possible.
Of course, Lucy was aware that she was overthinking the whole situation. After all, she and her clones shared the same soul, so in the end, only the memories and thoughts from the following twelve hours would be different once they fused back into a single person; what was really the difference between that and simply living one day three times?
But that's what happens when you have to deal with things you don't fully understand. And it wasn't as if Lucy could be blamed; in the world she came from, not only was the human mind still shrouded in mystery, but almost nothing concrete was known about the soul either. In fact, some even doubted the very existence of a soul, claiming it was nothing more than a figment of the human imagination created to make death easier to accept.
Only recently had there been speculations about consciousness being tied to quantum physics, but those were far too complex for Lucy to understand. More precisely, she hadn't even looked into them herself; she had only come across them by chance while scrolling through short videos. Either way, since nothing had been proven, Lucy treated all of that as if it were fiction.
As for religion and other matters of spirituality, Lucy was convinced they were nothing but an elaborate scam designed to make the average person accept a disappointing reality more easily—or rather, to stop them from losing their minds entirely. After all, who would feel safe ruling over a world full of lunatics running amok?
Anyway, if there ever came a time when she could no longer accept reality, Lucy figured it would be better to believe in things she had made up herself than in the fantasies of others. For example, she found it amusing to imagine believing she was the reincarnation of Napoleon and spending her days planning the reconquest of France.
So, as someone who had always believed that death of the body meant the disappearance of consciousness until her reincarnation, Lucy wasn't mentally prepared for a skill that involved discarding bodies at will.
Perhaps she should have thought this through before creating the Blood Clones skill; now, even if she came up with solutions, there was no way to modify it anymore. Of course, there was always the option of using it as she had the first time, making sure that she and her clone stayed close enough that the skill would expire while they were together. But that would mean never using it to its full potential—and backing down out of fear was simply not Lucy's style. How could she present herself to the world as a ninja otherwise? Compared to the real lives of ninjas, for whom every mission could be their last, her situation was actually rather comfortable.
'Sometimes I overthink things. Wouldn't it be better to just enjoy the moment? This kind of prank is one of a kind in history; who else could recreate a moment like this? Even if someone had a skill similar to Blood Clones, I doubt they'd have two lovers as beautiful as Rina and Yara. Yeah, there's a good dose of charm involved here too… Anyway, I can't wait to see the confusion on their faces…', Lucy pushed away her melancholic thoughts that were keeping her from enjoying the show before her. Well, she had plenty of time to run through all those phases, since it took a while before her clones were satisfied.
Or rather, before they got tired. After all, kissing a very beautiful girl isn't something one gets tired of easily; the longer the kiss, the more addictive it becomes.
In the end, both clones finally signaled to Lucy that she could take over.
"Ahem, I see you're having a very good time…," Lucy said, trying her best to sound irritated.
Since she was highly amused by the confusion she was about to cause her lovers, her acting wasn't particularly convincing—probably only good enough for a second-rate TV show. Fortunately, Rina and Yara were not sober enough in that moment to notice the lack of genuine emotion in her voice, so the effect worked well enough.
"Swap!", Rina and Yara broke away from Lucy's clones, immediately taking defensive stances; since until then they were sure they had been kissing Lucy, they wondered if they had been caught in some illusion. After all, what better time would there be for someone to attack their group than when two of them had their guard down?
But looking closely at the Lucy in front of them, breathing heavily with lips glistening from their mixed saliva, they could find nothing out of place, so their attention turned warily to the Lucy who had just arrived.
There were many species of demons with skills to change appearance, so it was not surprising that they considered the second Lucy to be an impostor trying to confuse them.
"What, it only took a few minutes for you to forget your girlfriend? I just stepped away for a moment to decorate a cake, and what do I find when I come back: each of you holding a catgirl in your arms…" Lucy said with her ears drooping, a cake appearing in her hands—one very similar to the one they had shared at Rina's home, during the visit to her grandmother.
How could Rina not recognize the cake? Even putting that aside, there was nothing suspicious about this second Lucy's behavior. So now Rina was very confused: how could she tell which of the two was the real one?
Yara, who had not been as distracted as Rina by the sudden appearance of the cake, paid closer attention to Lucy's words and noticed something odd: what did she mean by "each of you holding a catgirl"? Did that mean Rina was in the same situation too?
It didn't take her long to verify her suspicion; looking toward Rina, who stood a few meters away, she spotted another Lucy at her side, in exactly the same state as the one in front of her. Realizing how much had been happening around her without her noticing, she couldn't help but scold herself inwardly; she really was becoming useless when caught up in passionate kisses.
But it was easy to deduce from their mirrored actions that the two Lucys they had been kissing were working together. And something was off about the Lucy who had just arrived as well: couldn't she tell that the two catgirls next to Rina and Yara looked exactly like her?
Moreover, the whole situation was absurd. Other than making them panic, what possible goal could someone have in creating such confusion?
And it wasn't like she had never seen multiple Lucys at the same time before. Sure, her so-called substitutes were far from this realistic—their vacant stares gave away the fact that nobody was really "home" in their heads—but it wasn't impossible that Lucy had found a way to improve them, maybe by combining skills, as she herself usually did to create stronger abilities.
Considering all this, Yara was convinced Lucy was behind this prank.
"Very funny, Lucy! First you kiss us until we're almost fainting so we let our guard down, and then you start making fun of us…", Yara addressed the Lucy she had just kissed, assuming by default that this one was real; there hadn't been even the slightest difference between this kiss and all the others they had shared before—her movements and the taste of her mouth were exactly the same. Also, with their bodies pressed together, she had clearly felt Lucy's body heat and heartbeat; no lifeless puppet could mimic that.
But suddenly, a thought struck her: if she had been kissing the real Lucy, that meant the one next to Rina was a fake. So how come Rina hadn't noticed anything strange during her own kiss?
Leaving aside the fact that a lionkin's senses were much sharper, Rina had been with Lucy for far longer than she had, so she should be far more familiar with her.
Drawn by Yara's words, Rina also realized she wasn't the only one in this situation. After analyzing everything again with that in mind, she too concluded that Yara's deduction was correct: who else but Lucy could be responsible for such a mess?
"Lucy!!!" Rina was furious. She regretted that every time Lucy had pulled a stunt, she had let herself be swayed by those big eyes and had taken no action against her.
And now look where that had led: Lucy had completely gone overboard.
But it wasn't too late to fix things; Rina was already planning to bite Lucy's ears until they lost half their fur.
"Yes?" all three Lucys answered almost simultaneously, creating a chilling effect; it didn't sound natural at all, more like something straight out of a ghost story.
The only good thing was that Lucy was so beautiful it took some of the creepiness away, allowing Rina and Yara to keep their composure. Still, seeing how similar all three Lucys' reactions were, they realized this was far from over, because they had no idea how to tell which Lucy was the real one.
And they could already imagine the smug look on Lucy's face when she later complained that her girlfriends couldn't even recognize her. No wonder she wasn't trying to hide that she was behind all of this—because the real challenge was only just beginning.