"See? You're here now, aren't you? And trust me—after all this time, I've never once made a mistake."
For once, Kasenhis actually showed respect for his elder, obediently leading Dumbledore to the sofa before turning back to continue tinkering with a silver skeleton in the corner that shimmered with violet light.
"This is your alchemy work?" Dumbledore asked.
"More or less. It's my integrated mana field amplification framework. Of course, I also built in some physical attack tools." Kasenhis spoke while still fiddling with the skeleton's spine, slotting in one delicate little block after another, some useful, some not.
"This is… an exoskeleton?" Dumbledore pressed.
Kasenhis shook his head. "That thing you have to wear and take off. Too much hassle."
"Then what—just a puppet? Like an iron golem?"
Again, Kasenhis shook his head.
"Then what is it?"
"An endoskeleton."
"???" Dumbledore shot to his feet. "Is that what I think you mean by endoskeleton?"
"Pretty much. Do you know what the world looks like to someone with OCD? Imagine a pure white space with a single little black dot—that would make them unbearably uncomfortable. But if it's a space already chaotic to the extreme, then it's fine. Like with the mantis blades—adding two extra parts to a whole human skeleton feels awkward. Might as well replace the entire skeleton; it's more fitting that way." Kasenhis explained.
"I ..emh.. don't quite agree with your methods," Dumbledore shook his head.
"Emmm… I get that. But if I asked you to lend me a hand, would you really refuse?" Kasenhis said, taking off his coat.
"Haah.. this guy.. sigh.. What else can I do?" Dumbledore sighed, pulling out his wand.
"Thanks. Actually, you don't even need your wand—just be ready to send me to St. Mungo's at the right moment." Kasenhis said as he pulled out a diamond sword and prepared to slash at himself.
"Let me handle this." Dumbledore stopped him. With a flick of his wand, all the lines Kasenhis had drawn on his body with marker pens split open with surgical precision under the guidance of magic.
"Oh, thank you very much." Kasenhis turned his back, hissing and gritting his teeth as he rubbed the opened cuts against the alchemical skeleton.
Shhhhhhhhhh—clack!
"...And then what?" Dumbledore asked, utterly baffled by what he'd just witnessed without understanding a thing.
"What do you mean 'and then what'? It's done." Kasenhis picked up a bottle of healing potion Snape had given him, tossed in some ice cubes, gave it a shake, and downed it in one go.
"Do you know what you just looked like?" Dumbledore said.
"Like what?"
"Like someone forcefully stuffing a second skeleton into his own body."
Kasenhis shrugged. "At least with this skeleton I don't need to use tiny blocks to cosplay the Levitation Charm anymore."
"I want you to promise me, Kasenhis. If you ever intend to engage in this kind of dangerous human alchemy again, you must tell me—or Severus." Dumbledore's tone was that of countless parents lecturing a teenager who had just begun to assert his own will, full of weary persuasion.
Kasenhis, as always, looked the same: "Mhm, mhm, sure, no problem. Won't happen again."
Dumbledore knew full well that not a single word he'd just said had actually entered Kasenhis' head, but he could only sigh and sit back down on the sofa. "Lucius Malfoy wrote to me. A man calling himself.. um.. Vicks has gathered some wizards under Tom's name, planning to cause chaos at this year's Quidditch World Cup."
Kasenhis slowly put his clothes back on. "And what good would that do them?"
Dumbledore shook his head. "On the surface, nothing. It might even look like a prank. But I don't believe that. I'm more inclined to think Tom intends to fish in troubled waters. The Quidditch World Cup… what is it there that he covets?"
"Harry?" Kasenhis suggested.
"Maybe. A diversion, perhaps? Best if none of you leave Harry alone at any time."
Kasenhis dropped another ice cube into his glass. "That's hard. You can't expect me to stand by and do nothing when innocent people are in danger, can you?"
Dumbledore calmly set his own glass in front of him and poured in some liquor. "You can take him along. Think of it as letting him experience the darker side of the wizarding world a little earlier."
Kasenhis reached over, reclaimed the glass, and took a sip. "Don't tell me the Ministry plans to play dead."
"Oh, I must at least show some responsibility for our ally Lucius. The more people who know, the greater the risk. You're the only one I've told." Dumbledore explained.
"I never knew you were this… meticulous," Kasenhis muttered.
"I've always been this way… Do you have confidence?"
Kasenhis nodded. "...I do."
"...And you're not planning to give me a little demonstration?"
"Uh…" Kasenhis raised his arm, and with a clack, a mantis blade shot out from his sleeve. "I tried Ender Slash before, but it wasn't very effective against magical beasts with high resistance or powerful wizards, so I upgraded this instead."
Dumbledore looked at him in puzzlement, but quickly caught on. He obligingly picked up a glass from the coffee table and cast a full-strength Protection Charm over it.
"I thought you were going to use me as the test target," Kasenhis muttered, retracting the mantis blade with a smirk.
"I may be old, but I'm not that stupid," Dumbledore replied dryly. He lifted the shielded glass and casually tossed it across the room.
In the next instant, a finely crafted piston-like mechanical arm shot out from behind Kasenhis, its blade piercing straight through the glass that had been reinforced with the Protection Charm.
"...That spell can withstand Fiendfyre without so much as a crack... And where exactly did you get that?" Dumbledore stared at the mechanical arm.
"It's been built into my skeletal frame all along," Kasenhis answered. Dumbledore circled behind him to check, and sure enough… the back of his clothes had been ripped wide open.
"Well, I'll admit—it does look impressive. Just a bit too reliant on alchemy, though... You only have one of these, right?"
"Actually, no. For mechanical arms this strong and this simple, I've got... nine more!"
"....."
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