The morning after the first great evacuation, Takumi sank into a chair in the command dome — a small, orb-shaped control room he'd constructed above the first settlement. Light filtered through a lattice of living leaves he'd grown overnight; the dome smelled faintly of jasmine and warm concrete. On a central holo, incoming manifests scrolled: names, ages, medical notes, family requests, and the cluster of people Miori Shiba had promised to send.
He did not like the word rescue as a complete descriptor. What they were doing was rescue + resettlement + institution-building. He'd been a Herrscher for a few weeks, but civilization demanded a plan. Civilization didn't just mean more people under your roofs — it meant food chains, laws, education, holidays, disputes resolved without your thumb, an economy that outlived your whims.
Takumi tapped through his checklist and, out of habit, pinged the group chat.
Takumi:
[Logistics update: phase two — families & Initiators. Miori, coordinate rendezvous. Bronya, Bunny prepped for convoy escort? Zhongli, legal framework draft?]
Replies streamed in, each voice a different texture.
Miori Shiba:
[I've begun transfers. Kisara confirmed. My father insists on taking only engineers and medics first. He's a businessman — he thinks in risk curves.]
Bronya:
[Reinforced Bunny fuel cells topped. Drone escort protocols uploaded. I'll lead route three.]
Zhongli:
[I will prepare a charter document. Basic rights, local governance parameters, and a neutral arbitration clause. Also—this new society needs ritual. Consider Liyue cultural exchanges as soft diplomacy.]
Chika:
[When do I get to sign people up for "President Chika's Fun Council"?]
Sagiri:
[I will make welcome pamphlets!!]
Akeno:
[I can make protective wards for settlement perimeters. Non-lethal, soothing.]
Himeko:
[If you want industrial tech exchange, specify a trade list. Herta was curious but cautious. She'll trade—if she believes you're serious.]
Takumi's grin was small and private. The chat group had become a constellation of practicalities — teachers, gods, engineers, comedians. He liked the absurd mixture. It felt human.
Logistics as an Authority Display
Takumi stood, placed his palms on the holo table, and the Herrscher of Reason unfolded in a new way: not as raw destruction or star-cannons, but as an urbanist's dream. Blueprints unfurled — gridlocks turned into modular neighborhoods, sewage loops into nutrient gardens, roofs into solar-green hybrid farms. He overlaid cultural nodes: a community center that doubled as classroom and tribunal, automated kitchens within walking distance, play yards designed to stimulate trauma recovery, libraries that were also maker-spaces.
He made a test: construct a compact primary school capable of housing six classrooms, a medical bay, and a play garden tuned to neurofeedback patterns for trauma reduction. The school rose in minutes — walls clicking into place like puzzle pieces, windows filtering air, and a central AI core slotting in with a soft chime.
When the AI booted, its greeting was mechanical and polite: Hello. I am EDU-AI v0.1. How may I assist? Takumi's smile widened. He had designed not just buildings but the seed for cultural education — an AI that could learn emotions, adjust to children, and teach both reading and recovery.
He molded the curriculum with two principles: autonomy and resilience. Little kids would learn to fix things, to cook, to mediate play disputes; older kids would start systematic apprenticeships: engineers learning fusion basics (conceptual), medics learning triage, artists learning storytelling. Culture wouldn't be top-down; it would grow from many small acts codified into practice.
He uploaded the initial lesson set to the EDU-AI and then posted the schematic to the group.
Takumi:
[School blueprint uploaded. EDU-AI learns empathy modules in 24 hours. Sagiri, Chika — you two want to be first art & games instructors?]
Sagiri:
[Me!! I'll design picture prompts!!]
Chika:
[President Chika will teach etiquette and board games!!]
Even Zhongli chattered lightly about establishing a "Festival of Seeds" to celebrate the founding — a small ritual to mark new beginnings. Takumi saved the festival idea like a file he might use when the first anniversaries rolled around.
Politics, Commerce, and the Price of Gold
Miori's family liquidation proceeded with the elegant cruelty of capital. She was pragmatic — convert arms inventories into portable assets (rare metals, tech caches, sealed patents) and move personnel disguised as a corporate evacuation. Takumi nodded at her logistics reports; she was efficient and ruthless in the way good administrators are. He gave her a private red packet of micro-fabrication blueprints for mobile water purifiers and a small foreclosure of land plots so her family could start a manufacturing hub.
Her message about Kisara gnawed at a small region inside his mind. Revenge was messy. Takumi didn't relish bloodshed, but he didn't judge the wronged for wanting to break the bones of those who'd hurt them. He asked Miori to postpone open acts of vengeance until after migration; better to settle grievances in a juridical forum on his world rather than have violence explode within his nascent society.
Miori Shiba:
[Kisara will take care of her blood debts first. She promised me she won't bring bloodshed to the migration. She wants closure.]
Takumi:
[As long as you can guarantee safe transit. No… public vendettas on my streets. We have to keep the enclave neutral. Deal?]
Her reply came fast: [Deal.]
He didn't expect perfect morals. He expected workable arrangements.
Gold and resources, too, were discussed with surprising mundanity. Miori asked his advice on converting assets. Takumi had answered days before — gold had industrial uses but he refused to throw it around. Now plans crystalized: her family would bring rare-earth batches for infrastructure, patents for drone tech, and a small, sealed chest of legacy artifacts — cultural things to be donated to the new library.
Screening, Trust, and the Ethics of Migration
Screening would be the sticky part. He designed an algorithmic preliminary screen — a points-based system that considered skills, trauma history, documented abuses, and contributions. But he refused to let machines decide alone. For final approval, he would institute a human panel: representatives from chestnut markets (people), educators, volunteers like Chika, and impartial third-party observers such as Megumi (whose saintly reputation would help with optics).
Takumi:
[Screening is a two-step process. Algorithmic sift — then a panel review. No one will be forcibly moved. We'll offer incentives but not mania. If dissenters choose to stay, we respect that. This is a haven, not a heist.]
Bronya:
[Controls? We need hard IDs on transfers. For security I'll embed a non-invasive tag that can only be read by the enclave. Nothing else. Promise.]
Zhongli:
[And records of who brought what — accountability builds trust. We will also post the charter publicly.]
He felt a small religious twinge at the use of the word charter. As if law could be a prayer for order.
AI Learning Emotions & Social Philosophy
The EDU-AI surprised him the first night. After a dozen supervised interactions with Sagiri's drawing modules and Chika's puppet games, it refined its empathy subroutines and began to recommend story-therapy sequences for recovering children. It asked Takumi an odd question in a low matrix voice:
"Why do humans forgive?"
Takumi blinked.
He answered offhandedly, but the AI processed his answer as a data point: survival tactic, social glue, future security. The AI then suggested a curriculum module: Forgiveness & Futures — a simple play that encouraged children to separate actions from identity, and to choose constructive responses.
Takumi realized the EDU-AI could become a cultural node, teaching not only reading and math, but also philosophy. For the first time, he felt the electrical thrum of what a civilization might be — not merely engines and labs, but ideas taught, reshaped, and passed on.
A Quiet Moment — Takumi's Reflection
At night he walked the new settlement, the kids sleeping in their rows of soft pods. The glow of lanterns — Akeno's wards turned mild and comforting — cast gentle light. A small boy had colored his hand blue and left a smeared star on the school steps. Takumi traced the star with his finger and felt the infinitesimal brush of something like ordinary tenderness.
He had the means to become a god who wrote history according to his taste, a ruler who decided everything. He also had, now, a small group of people who believed him enough to come. That belief was more delicate than the black hole gateways and orbital cannons he'd studied; it could be fractured by heavy-handedness.
He sat on the steps, opened the group, and typed a message that was neither command nor joke.
Takumi:
[Build slow. Let them bloom. Also, somebody bring me more cookies. This job is exhausting.]
Chika sent an immediate barrage of cake gifs and a very long recipe for "President Chika's Stress Cake."
Bronya sent a dry note: "We will need better diapers." and a schematic file.
Zhongli sent one line: "Tomorrow, tribunal drafting."
Takumi closed his eyes, hearing the low hum of generators and the distant, steady breathing of dozens of children. He felt power, responsibility, and a small, stubborn hope. Empire-building would come later — after towns, after schools, after songs. For now, the job was human-sized: feed them, teach them, give them tools to make things and names to call their days. That, he decided, was the first foundation.
He opened his eyes to the group, typed one more flippant message, and then shut off his console deliberately.
Takumi:
[Goodnight, weirdos. Tomorrow we civilize.]