Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

“Good morning, is our cute Mayor not here yet?” Coming from the entrance of the office a soft-spoken voice said, the figure of a small girl with short and light brown hair and an art notebook under her right armpit made presence.

“Oh, good morning Miss Shigure, it’s always a pleasure to have you pass by,” The little robot at the secretary desk replied cheerfully, “Our Mayor must be at her office today, she said she had paperwork to do.”

“Paperwork you say…? But didn’t we build you to take care of it?” Shigure asked while tilting her head, but the robot could only reply with a confused and silent shrug. After pondering for a brief minute, a malicious smile poured on her face, “This may be worth investigating,” then hurried to the stairs.

Quickly reaching the first floor, she’s stopped by a sign of “Do Not Disturb”  at the entrance of the Mayor’s office, “Eh…? This is getting more and more suspicious!” She voices out loud with a smile growing with naught, “Ready or not… Subaru, good morning!” She opened the door with a slam, forcing it with the creaking noise of a lock being broken to pieces.

There was a long, elapsing silence of surprise from the two, with a jaw-dropped expression. Shigure found the black-haired girl posing in front of the office’s mirror while wearing a scandalous two-piece dress of short asymmetrical skirt and long asymmetrical knee socks, white boots, gloves, and a miniature hat on top of her head; black, white, and yellow distinguish as the main colors of the cloth with its particular design.

Subaru stutters in a failed attempt to talk, fruitlessly covering her body with her hands, “I…” She tries her best, speaking hoarsely, “I can explain…”

“Oh my God, it’s so cute, it’s so cute, it’s so amazingly cute!”  The brown-haired girl screams over excitedly, to the dislike of Subaru, Shigure ran inside the office and started inspecting the dress minutely, “Where did you buy this? Did you order to make it? You look like an Idol! Are you finally going to hold a concert for your citizens!? The length of the skirt it's so nice! And I can even see your belly button!”

“Mama… you’re too close, calm down!” As Shigure just draws closer, the other is forced to distance from the hyped girl by pushing her face with both hands, “I didn’t do such a thing! It’s… hard to explain,” the words just don’t come from her voice, only an ashamed stutter.

“More than a  Virtual World  where you’re the Mayor of one of the most popular cities?” Shigure asked defiantly, with a fist on her chest and the other pointing to the window of the office, giving sight to a monumental and futuristic metropolis resembling Tokyo.

“Well, is just as complicated,” After a loud sigh Subaru replies, slowly regaining calm but still unable to reply to Shigure’s accusations, she snaps her fingers and next Subaru’s body is enveloped with light, the dress disappears, and with a blink, her usual set clothes of sport’s shirt, shorts and cap return to place.

“Eh, what did you just do?” Shigure wonders in disbelief.

“I’m not sure myself, that’s what I’m trying to explain!” Subaru shouts with a pout, snapping her fingers her outfit changes at will, each time followed by a sprinkle of white energy, with a lamenting sigh her expression grows tired and her back hunches, “How do I put it? Ah, I kind of don’t want to explain it, you’re going to use it for teasing material later.”

“Meeeee? Just what I’ve ever done to you to believe that?” The brown-haired one sways on her feet with naught and a playful tone, which only manages to make Subaru grit her teeth.

“Anyhow…” Subaru sighs once again, and sitting on the chair of her desk she scratches the back of her head, removing the cap, staring at the city through the window, “One day a couple of weeks ago I felt in the mood of dancing and singing…” she paused intentionally, slightly blushing while looking at Shigure with the corner of her eyes, it was barely half of the story, and her mother was far from delighted, Subaru grew redder. “To make things short!” She continues with a shout, trying to push the shame away, “When I was the most excited, dancing and singing to my favorite song, that dress appeared after a gleam of light, and, some kind of chain-breaking sound.”

“You… you mean as if you had unlocked it?” The voice of Shigure rapidly changed with seriousness and worry, joining Subaru to gaze at the city, “Does it mean it’s related to how this world works?” She asked her daughter, Subaru made a long humming noise before nodding, half sure of what she was asked of, “Does it mean you also feel stronger when wearing it?” She follows the questionnaire, Subaru nods again, then both sigh in disappointment.

“As long as it doesn’t mean something bad is about to happen… Just like last time,”  They whisper in unison.

Following the conversation, without a need to keep hiding in her office from her mother, Subaru kept explaining the story about what she believed to be the reason behind the apparition of that dress, but when Shigure asked,  “On a scale from 1 to 10, how cute do you feel when wearing it?”  the black-haired girl submitted to a squirm of boiling shame, unable to answer her and covering her face with her cap, she ran away from the office.

Chasing her into the avenue, people and androids around, would greet their Mayor with a small smile and wave of a hand, but Subaru continued with leftovers of embarrassment as Shigure kept side to side of her, stopping at a traffic light on red, an AD in a corner displaying Subaru’s smiling face with the words “Welcome to Yellow High City!”  could be read.

“Going back to our business Subaru, and this time I meant it,” Shigure spouted with an unintentional giggle, “Your theory about the dress implies the people who migrated to  Yellow High after the Crash incident may be the responsible for it? But who, how, why?” Her mother wonders while pressing the pedestrian cross button with her index.

“Well, I’m telling you this story because my brain is too stuffed with patrolling the city daily to have time for it, don’t you have any ideas mama?” The girl asks back, crossing her arms.

“Nah, you’re asking the wrong person,” Shigure said on a snap of awkward laughter, “You know I prefer to stay away from everything related with the Crash, I’m just an illustrator,” She halted for a moment, gazing left and right to the people around, machines and virtual humans alike, “But I have to admit Yellow High  has been a blast since the migration, things get lively every day, don’t they?”

“They do, and I like it… up to a certain limit,” Subaru mutters unsure of her words.

“By the way, I just realized we are taking a route different from how you usually patrol, did something happen?” At the change of light to green, they began to walk to the other side of the street.

“Yup, this is the most active part of the city since the migration, so lately I’m starting my rounds around this place so if anything bad or complicated happens I can get it done before the day ends,” She explains with seriousness, yet aloof thoughts.

“My, look at you, acting like a Mayor,” Shigure says playfully, taking the cap off the head of the girl and brushing her hair with her fingers.

“Huhu, you can compliment me more if you want!” Subaru straightened her back with a proud huff.

“So, what’s the new patrolling routine?” But Shigure ignores the wishes of the girl entirely, placing her cap back in place.

“Oh… Uhm…” The black-haired girl pouts, “Well, it’s ten of the morning, so the first place I need to check is…” At the corner of the avenue, she swings her head to the right, where the loud tantrum of a young woman can be heard from the distance, coming out from a candy store, “There she goes again… Luna!” The girl groans with annoyance and accelerates towards the store, Shigure following from behind with a confused expression.

“Subaruru…? Subaruru!” The pink-haired princess waved from inside the store, then turned back to the android behind the cashier machine and made a cunny smile, “Hahaha, you’re in trouble now nanora! Subaruru it’s here!” And before the girl could get inside the store and find out what it’s happening, Luna coughs on her right hand, and making a forced puppy face, she hurried to the arms of Subaru pretending to look for comfort, “Subaruru! That man is being mean to me nanora, he doesn’t want to sell me any candies!” She shouts with a distressed tone.

“I know this one, she’s the princess from Pink Castlessert ! She’s so tiny and cute like a doll!” Shigure excitedly says with an acute tone.  

“Oh my poor Luna, is that so?” Subaru replies with an uncharacteristic voice as if she were talking to a baby, yet at the very second she held Luna from both extremes of her cheeks and pulled them hard, “So, what did actually happen?” The black-haired girl now asks looking up at the android, with a whole new serious and displeased tone.

“Mayor Subaru… Princess Luna is once again trying to buy candies from my store with money from her zone, even though you already told her she needs to change the currencies first at our city bank…” The android explained with a tiresome sigh.

“C’mon, we explained this to you last week!” Subaru groans at the little girl swaying on her hips.

“But that’s a pain in the butt nanora! The queues are too long since the migration, and I don’t want to spend all day in those lines!” The girl screams clear and loud with a deafening tone to the people inside the store.

“W-why not just send your butler to do it always on the day before coming to Yellow High? You know, the little cow with the suit,” Shigure asks and frowns when covering her ears to protect herself from Luna’s tantrum.

The pink girl did pauses in shock looking back at Shigure, releasing Subaru, and taking a couple of steps back, she clapped her hands with a tiny gasp, “I didn’t think about that nanora!”

“You little piece of…” Subaru made a long exasperated groan, then walked to the cashier and handed him a small amount of cash with the imagery of ducks printed over the paper, “I’ll buy them for her… But just this time alright?!” She turned to the pink one with a nagging shout.

“Yay, Subaruru is the best!” Luna jumped to the table at the cashier machine and filled her arms with candies and caramel bars, then after thanking the clerk android, the three walked out of the store.

“But Luna, I’m sorry I just don’t get it?” Shigure thinks out loud with an index over her lips, the pink girl chooses to tag along with the patrolling, “Isn’t your zone supposed to be a literal kingdom made of candy? Why buy candies here?”

“That’s right, even the toilets of my castle are made of candy nanora, isn’t that hilarious?” Luna tells her with animosity when stuffing her mouth with milk candy, “But Yellow High  has different brands of candies than in my zone nanora, and as a connoisseur of sweets, princess Luna needs to make a research about the candies in other zones too!”

“I wish you used that passion to remember how to buy things in zones you do not own though,” Subaru groans, half angered, half happy, holding hands with Luna as they walk.

“Hey…! Subachan!” A new feminine voice interrupted them from the far extreme of the avenue, the figure of a girl in twin-tails wearing a fashionable outfit waved from the distance, then started running towards the group, skilfully dancing through the people, skipping through the white lines painted over the pavement, crossing the street while the red light was still on, irking Subaru, and frightening Luna, who hides behind the back of the black-haired girl, all while Shigure observes with a curious expression.

“Mat-Su-Ri!” Subaru nagged the girl as she drifted right in front of her face to meet, “How many times do I have to tell you to look both ways before crossing the street, you aren’t even using the pedestrian sign!” She stomped the sidewalk angrily with each word, Matsuri burst on a peal of laughter.

“You’re too serious Subachan, too serious!” Matsuri tries to sweep the complaints away with a huge smile and a wave of a hand, “Never mind all that silly nonsense, do you have the usual for me?”

“Eh… silly nonsense?” Even Shigure stuttered at her comment.

“Yes, I do,” Subaru replied with a shrug and a dry tone.

“You gave up too fast!” Shigure lands the comeback, making Matsuri and herself laugh, as Subaru takes off her cap and digs her left arm inside a seemingly bottomless pit, Luna remains quiet and wary, hiding from the back.

“Here, this pamphlet has the schedule of discounts on all clothing stores of the city this week,” Subaru hands her the paper, and Matsuri snatches it with another giggle and a spin of her ankles.

“Thank you Subachan! I swear, Yellow High  has the best discounts, I bought such a cute plushie the other day!” She held the paper with both hands, with a sweet smile.

“God, I wish you weren’t so cute, it’s hard to get mad with you when you act like that,” Subaru mutters embarrassed, looking aside with a speck of red on her cheeks, “Geez, you’re a senior, when do you plan to start acting like one?”

“Hehehe, it’s because I like when Subachan takes care of me!” The girl cheerfully hopped over the same place, turned to Shigure and both shared a little smile, then turned to Luna, who shook in nerves when their eyes met. Confused, yet uninterested, Matsuri gives her too a smile, then stands straight and begins to throttle on the contrary direction of the group, “Well then, see you next week Subachan! If I find something of your liking I’ll send you a message!”

“What’s up with you? She's just a virtual girl like you and me, she’s not a crash jeez,” Subaru questions under her armpit to the pink girl attached to her waist like a koala.

“Don’t you like the Mayor of the Orange Festival? She may be a little free-spirit, but she’s not a bad person for what I know,” Shigure adds and pats the head of Luna, “I’ve also heard the snacks of that zone are pretty good, have you never thought of visiting her zone?”

“I… have thought about it nanora…” Luna stuttered slowly reincorporating, making sure Matsuri’s silhouette has vanished from the sidewalk, “B-but… you know… of the rumors people talk about  Orange Festival  nanora, and the kind of things they do every day... right?” Luna implies while staring at the two.

“Ah, well, if you put it that way…” Shigure stutters nervously, scratching the corner of her cheek.

“Yeah… I guess that zone is a bit scary, even for me it may be too much living in a place like that,” Subaru joins over the awkward mumble.

Continuing over her little trip, further inside the right side of the city, a little cow with a butler outfit appears, and without uttering a single word, the butler takes Luna from the back of the neck of her dress and drags her away. The pink one explodes in a childish tantrum, begging for Subaru to help her, yet the girl and Shigure just awkwardly bid farewell to the princess, who disappears on the streets followed by the echoes of her acute pouts.

“Well, so far as now I can’t identify the person behind the reason for your… upgrade? Yeah let’s call it like that,” Shigure opens a new conversation, the two were riding a small and futuristic streetcar towards the center of the city, “I can’t notice anything out of the usual, it definitely is more active after migration, and you get visits from Mayors which zones weren’t affected by the crash, but besides that everything seems to be going like usual.”

“Well, yeah, you’re right about that, but,” Subaru leans to the side crossing her arms and making pouty lips.

“But?” Shigure gestures her to continue.

“Well, I’m not sure if they have anything to do, you know? But there are some Mayors who lost their zones after the crash living here on Yellow High,” She attempts to explain as much as she can.

“Really? I had no idea! Wow, this city sure gathered people from all places after the migration,” Shigure gasps in honest surprise.

“Ah, look, over that ice cream store, there’re two of them!” Subaru snaps all of a sudden, pointing through the window of the streetcar with her finger.

“Subaru, my girl, pointing is bad manners,” Shigure scolded her softly with a hand over her arm, then looked in the direction the girl was pointing. At the fancy metallic chairs and tables outside of an ice cream store in the very corner of the avenue from which the streetcar was passing by, Shigure sighted a dog-girl of brown hair happily sharing from her tall crystal glass, a spoon filled to the top with ice cream to the cat-girl sitting in front of her, the tails of the girls waving happily when feeding and being fed respectively, “... Aw, how cute, there’s even animal-girls in this city!” Shigure sighed with delight before the streetcar continued its way and lost sight of the couple.

“Yup, those are… wait for Uhm, I think the dog-girl is Korone? And the cat one is Okayu, they were the Mayors from Yellow Games and Blue Mayonnaise before they were destroyed by the crash,” Subaru mutters an explanation, tightly frowning as if using all the energy from her brain to remember the background of the two. As the streetcar was about to reach the station at the center of the city, the track was sandwiched by a maze of apartment buildings of many sizes and shapes, “Ah!” Subaru screams with a memory sparking her mind, locking her eyes to a specific small condo, she tries to point with her finger towards that place, but when listening to her mother’s loud and disapproving murmuring, she used the pinky instead of her index, then stutters, “That condo… the former Mayor from one of the Black zones lives there, she’s… a demon I think?” Subaru turns to Shigure unsure of her memory, “I think she is, she’s tall and blonde and pretty, even though she comes from a Black zone she’s the one who behaves the most… kinda like a shut-in,” Her lips twist awkwardly, “It’s kind of… a waste, she’s a such a pretty woman yet she spends most of her time in that condo.”

“Well, would you blame her? Although I can’t believe even Mayors from a Black zone are living here…” Shigure meditates about it with a hand on her chin, “If I too were of black properties wouldn’t like to go out on a yellow zone, much less after the image they receive now from the crash,” The girl explains meticulously to her daughter, and Subaru, after pondering the image Shigure proposed, gave another look to the condo, this time with remorse.

“Maybe I should check on her more often and see if she’s doing well?” She questions to self out loud.

Shigure smiles widely, with a silent nod she looks back at her daughter, “That’s my little Subaru, we’ll make sure to visit her when we come back from the center of the city.”

Chapter Text

When the sun of noon blazes bright in the middle of the sky, Subaru and her mother had reached the middle of the city. A place full of boulevards and stores of all types and sizes, crowds of virtual people, androids, and robots walking by, everyone recognizing and greeting the black-haired girl. “Woah, remind me to not ever come here at noon again, it’s so crowded I’m starting to sweat,” Shigure complains while shaking the neck of her shirt with a disgusted groan.

“Yeah, even though the right of the city is the place which gives me more trouble, this is the crowdest place of all, most of the stores and corporate buildings are here…” Subaru joins with an exhausted sigh, fanning her face, both trying to don’t bump with the people coming from different directions, yet their feet had just a narrow space to advance through the multitude.

“So, what are we exactly looking for here?” Shigure asked with hastiness.

“Well, it’s Wednesday, so I suppose she must be doing her usual grocery shopping around this boulevard,” The black-haired girl suggested while scanning her surroundings minutely, a small smile of anticipation slowly growing on her face.

“Uh, all of a sudden you started to get giddy, do you get along with this girl?” Her mother giggles at the comical face she’s making.

“We do get along but…” Subaru mutters and sways on the tips of her toes, her face turning to the side of the boulevard with the biggest supermarkets, “Is just that… whenever I see her… Miosha!” Her face sparkled with happiness, and without a second thought, she ran towards the wolf.

“W-wait, Subaru!” Her mother was abandoned on the spot.

“Oho? But if it isn’t our cute Mayor? Let me guess, are you patrolling?” Mio questions with a happy and melodious tone, her hands stuffed by supermarket bags, she slightly bids to put all bags over the sidewalk and takes Subaru’s face with both hands, caressing her softly, “My, my, every day so responsible, I’m so glad I met you.”

“Hehehe, you can compliment me more if you like…” The black-haired girl mutters in the pleasure of her care, her face melting over the wolf's hands.

“Of course, I’ll spoil you rotten, good girl, good girl,” She insisted, almost singing, tenderly caressing her.

“E-ehem…” Shigure interrupted the two with a cough and stared at Mio with an uncomfortable expression, “Excuse me… who are you?”

“Me?” The wolf stops with a tiny gasp, “I’m the former Mayor from  Black Midnight Forest, and you may be? Are you a friend of my cute Subaru?” Still with the girl over her hands, as if she were holding all her weight through her head, the black-haired girl had drowned in bliss.

“I’m… her mother,” Shigure spouts with trouble.

“Oh my, is that so? You sure are young for your age!” Mio shouts with an honest giggle.

“For my age…?” Shigure stutters with a bit of anger.

“Don’t take me wrong, here, let me start again,” She released Subaru, and the girl, still wearing a delighted and drowsy face, stood in place as if she were floating by the care given to her, “Pleased to meet you, I’m Ookami Mio, a former Mayor, your daughter has taken care of me since the migration, and I’m thankful of her every day,” The wolf pauses with a bittersweet smile, “I’m not sure what I would’ve done without her, I owe Subaru so much.”

“Aw c’mon, I didn’t do much, hehe… hehehe…” The girl mutters still in trance.

“I see…” Shigure manages to say in the awkwardness of the situation, coughing on her hand, and silently pulling Subaru’s right ear, slowly bringing her back to her senses, all while looking up to the wolf with a poker face,  “Another Mayor from a Black zone, although this one seems to be a tame person just like the demon Subaru talked about,”  Shigure thought and looked at her from head to toes, adding pressure to the ear pinching, to which Subaru was gradually reacting to in pain,  “I guess most of them are trying their best to carry a better image of how a Mayor from a Black zone should be, I myself should try to judge them less, this one especially, seems such a good person… although,”  She turned back to her daughter displeased, and finally pulled on her ear as much as possible, “When do you plan to snap out of it?”

“Ouch, ouch, ouch, ouchie!” Subaru complained and finally woke up, standing back in place with a red ear, but when she looked down at the bags, the girl again made a silly smile, and hurried to carry them all on her forearms and hands, “Oopsie daisy! Let me take this to your home Miosha!”

“My, such a reliable Mayor,” The wolf giggled with a little blush.

“I'm kind of starting to see what you are playing at…” Shigure mutters to Mio with baffled dejection.

“Haha, you noticed already?” Mio chuckles with guilt, looking at Subaru taking the lead by walking in front of them, juggling with the weight of the bags and trying not to trip, “Is not like I enjoy leaving everything to her, but sometimes I can’t help but tease her a little,” She giggles when watching the girl stumble with a man walking a puppy to his side.

“That dumb girl…” Shigure sighs and shakes her head, as the awkward silence sprouts when the conversation theme runs out, the brown-haired girl looks up at the wolf pensative, “Miss Mio, can I ask you a question?”

“ Miss?  No need to be polite with me!” She laughed with a gesture of the hand, “just Mio is fine, I’m not even a Mayor now remember?”

“Well, about that…” The girl calmly pauses, and the expression of her face changes with seriousness, “How… How many of your people survived after the crash? ” Shigure expected a negative reaction to her question, but Mio just closed her eyes, took a mouth of air, and faking a smile, she answered almost immediately.

“No one survived,” The reply forced both to pause once again, their eyes placed on the back of Subaru carrying the bags, “My zone was one of the closest to the crash, even while Sora tried to help us, there wasn’t anything she could do, although if it weren’t for her and Subaru… I…” When the tone of her voice began to quiver, she stopped mute, turning to Shigure and faking another smile, “But I promise you, I’m not making your daughter be the only source of my happiness, ok?”

“N-no, I didn’t think that at all!” feeling pity from the expression of the woman, Shigure dashes to shake her head and reply with a hand over her chest, “I’m sorry for making such a question, I… don’t try to involve myself with that event so,” She looks the other way in shame.

“It’s ok, no need to feel pushed, for what I care most people try to don’t get mixed with anything related to the  crash, besides…” Mio exhaled loudly, and with a clear tone of annoyance, she continued, “At the end of the day, we’re all data of this virtual world, I still don’t know how, but someday my citizens will come back… or so I hope.”

“Yeah, you’re right, maybe Sora will find a way to bring back all the people we lost at the  crash,” Shigure tries to agree with her, “Although it has been a while since the last time we heard about Sora, I wonder if she’s ok…”

“If we’re talking about the  Sky Hero,  she’s most likely ok, she’s Sora after all,” Mio tells her slowly coming back to her usual mood, as they finally walk out of the crowded and loud boulevard, reaching a small and silent interjection with tall buildings and a long metallic seat where the bus stop sign was placed, she stretched her right arm up and yelled to Subaru, “Dear, can you put my bags over the seat?” Her acute voice reached the other, and Subaru replied with a very exhausted yet smiling face and a thumbs up, walking towards the direction given, “Hehe, at the end of the day, I guess I can’t help but tease her.”

“As long as you don’t abuse that innocence of hers,” Shigure sighs awkwardly.

“Hihi, I did it as you asked!” Subaru says giddily as they all meet in front of the bus stop, “So, was I good?” She implied and extended both hands, gesturing to the wolf as if asking for a reward, breathing loudly from exhaustion with a sweaty face.

“Ah… about that,” Mio stutters understanding what the girl wants, scratching her cheek with awkwardness, “I’m sorry dear, I’m afraid I already gave all the cookies I did today…”

Subaru stood frozen, both facial expression and body remained still as if the words of the wolf had petrified her with disappointment, “... Eh…?” The Mayor asks with disbelief.

“Oh my little one, I’m so sorry I forgot about saving a ration of cookies for you, forgive me!” Mio tells her with a little reverence and a clap of her hands, praying for forgiveness.

“Eh…? You gave them all…?” Subaru continues thunderstruck.

“I’m so sorry, you see? Two of my little ones came to visit my house this morning, so I gave them cookies. I should have remembered you’re always looking forward to them, I’m so sorry!” Mio insists and struggles to fight from the desire of laughing at the face of utter disappointment from Subaru, “N-next week… I promise I’ll make you some next week so… ok?”

Subaru shrugged with a long and sad squirm, “Alright…”

“My little Subaru…” Shigure whispers with tenderness, stroking her left shoulder.

“Ma-mama…” Subaru cries with a childish tone.

“That’s what you get for selling your soul to someone who is not your mother,” Shigure looked at her with an expression of aversion.

“Mama!” Subaru cried louder, pursuing Shigure around the bus stop, asking for a hug.

“But Mio, who are these ‘little ones’ you’re referring to?” Walking in circles around the metallic seat to avoid the girl, Shigure questions the wolf.

“They’re a couple of cute girls I made friends with while the migration,” Mio replies while sitting over the seat, fixing her skirt, “I told you a moment ago didn’t I, that I wouldn’t let Subaru be the only reason of my happiness, I’m slowly making friends around,” She hums happily.

“Ehhh? I’m not enough for Miosha?” Subaru pouts still heartbroken.

“I’m the only woman you should be looking to be pampered from,” Shigure flicks her nose and pouts.

It happened while they were idly chatting, in stages foreshadowing a disaster, the air stopped flowing freely and began to be sucked by an invisible force from a street at the next block. Seconds it took for the three to notice the change of the air pressure, the seconds it took them to turn their heads to the next street at the left, a small gleam of yellow light ignited with a whistling sound. As their bodies were reacting instinctively, as the seconds passed by, the light coming from the street elevated to the roof of the buildings, Subaru’s ankles moved and twisted as if she had seen it before, without a doubt the girl leaped over Mio and Shigure. The light increased its brightness and form, both obscuring and blinding its surroundings, stealing all air and sound, then finally at the sixth second, it burst into an explosion of flames, destroying the upper part of two buildings, air, debris, noise, all being released after being compressed inside the light, the streets were filled with enormous clouds of dust. At the seventh second the ground quivered by the shockwaves of the explosion, for that brief second all the pavement shook like jelly, sparking alarms and sirens from cars and stores, destroying multiple crystal windows and creating a dangerous drizzle of small, crystal knives spreading with the clouds of dust. At the eighth second all noise went back to the respective owners, and the ringing ears of Mio and Shigure gradually started to hear the acute voice of a serious Subaru,  “Are you ok, is any of you hurt?”  But it was still such a small tone they were confused about what to answer. The black-haired girl slowly stood on her feet and gazed up towards the explosion, the buildings were still crumbling as they reacted, the girl’s clothes were covered in dirt from the cloud of debris, her left cheek was bleeding by the scratch of a crystal, but her mind was ignoring all of that, her priorities and her worries were placed somewhere else, with a silent decision, as people and machines ran away confused and scared, she removed the cap off her head and gave it to Shigure, then ran towards the zone of chaos, filled with anger.

“S-Subaru… don’t go alone! Wait for backup!” Shigure screams still scared, unable to stand up from the recoil of the explosion, dizzy as her own voice still wasn’t able to reach her ears entirely due to the ringing. But when watching the young girl disappear inside the street, Shigure huffed with fear, and pulling all her strength together, she stood back, and next helped Mio to stand, “If the police come, tell them Subaru is on the chase!” She shouted to the wolf unaware of her own volume, holding tight on her daughter’s cap, she ran pursuing Subaru.

“Shigure, wait!” Mio stutters in vain, coughing dust and sitting over the metallic seat now dirtied, “Wait… let me help too…” She tried to tell her, but the woman had inhaled too much dust and was collapsing on the bus stop.

When Shigure crossed the street and ran inside the block, she found Subaru gazing at the roof of the buildings, trying to find what her daughter was staring at, the screams of children, men, and women grow louder and stronger, as another couple of explosions happened on the following buildings, and the rain of debris continued falling over their heads, “Just what in the world it’s happening here?” Subaru mutters with bitterness, extending her right arm, a holographic screen appeared from thin air, icons of phones with names and numbers of the police and emergency services automatically starting on calls which were picked up by the respective chiefs almost instantly, “Sector 32-B, bring everyone available, hurry up!” She shouts to the screen with a voice full of anger and powerlessness, next she fiddled the screen with its palm showing a virtual voice assistant, “Give me access to all cameras from 32-B!” Subaru kept yelling out of character, her mother remained silent looking at her dealing with the strange situation.

“All the cameras from 32-B are currently unavailable,”  The assistant replied with an artificial tune.

“Say what?” Subaru turned to the screen in shock, her eyes were starting to get bloodshot.

“S-Subaru… what’s happening? Why are you acting so weird?” Shigure finally let her voice be heard, reaching the ears of the black-haired girl, who looked back at her mother with feral anger, “... Subaru…?” But the scared eyes of Shigure made her realize the tension flowing inside her body. While the ground shook, while people ran in fear, while the screams of victims trapped in debris echoed, Subaru closed her eyes and covered her face with the palm she was using to handle the holographic screen, gently breathing in, holding it, breathing out, and quickly pulling an honest smile back to her mother.

“Sorry! I got heated up all of a sudden, don’t worry, after seeing your face I feel better now!” The girl replied cheerfully in the middle of the disaster.

"Subaru… what a complicated girl you are,” Shigure chuckled and slowly walked up to her, they turned once again to stare at the destroyed roofs of the buildings, the explosions had entirely stopped, but there was yet damage in all the streets, as sirens of ambulances and firetrucks began to be heard on the distance, “Why only the roofs? And why do all the explosions look so weirdly placed, if it was intentional, it was badly done,” Shigure ponders out loud, meditating on the situation, and when she turned to her daughter, Subaru was now with a calm yet serious expression, holding a karate position, her eyes fixed to a silhouette inside the remains of the clouds of dust, “Subaru… what’s that?”

“If it was intentional… it was badly done,” Subaru repeated her words with a masculine tone, inhaling loudly and changing poses, making her hands into fists as a black figure slowly walked out the dust, “And it was done badly because the culprit has no conscience… nor soul.”

“Hiiii!” Shigure squirms in absolute fear, looking left and right, she runs to hide behind a block of fallen debris, “S-s-s-Subaru, is that what I think it is?” She questions horrified, pointing with a shaky finger to a person entirely covered by a dark essence sparking shocks of electricity, the person mourned and dragged its feet over the pavement, almost like a zombie.

“Yes… A  crash,” She answered without taking her eyes off them, and when the creature realized the presence of Subaru, its erratic movements stopped, the dark stains boiled creating steam, its hands grew into claws and a smile full of fangs greeted the black-haired girl, yet Subaru didn’t flinch an inch. The creature bent on the floor and stood in all fours, menacing and roaring like an animal, yet Subaru didn’t flinch, the creature laughed maliciously and leaped towards her, yet Subaru didn’t flinch, and at the very last second, when the creature was about to slash her with its claws, Subaru’s entire body sparked in white light, changing into her dress, the bright blinded momentarily the creature, and it was enough time for Subaru to run behind its back, effectively realizing an armlock from its left, she then kicked its knee pits and forced the creature to kneel, without losing a chance, Subaru kept the pressure of her lock, took its head with her free hand,  “Eat this!”  And with all her strength, she smashed its face against the pavement.

“Subaru, don’t let them get back up again!” Shigure shouts nervously from afar.

“I got it!” The girl replied exasperated, releasing its head, her hand closed into a fist and shone with yellow energy, “ Erase!”  She screamed with anger and fear, then smashed the creature from the back, the pulverizing shock blowing its head like a balloon and destroying a part of the pavement along with it, the rest of the body from the creature disappeared in the dust of dark energy, “Wow, I wasn’t planning to hit them that hard, as I thought this dress is amazing!” The girl shouted happily to herself, staring at her hands, she then looked back at her mother, and gave her a victorious thumbs up.

Chapter Text

“Wait, don’t move so much, your face is all scratched oh my God,” Shigure begs Subaru, with a wet napkin she was trying to clean her face. After the fight, the emergency services reached the 32-B area and proceeded to attend to all wounded, police aiding the first aid nurses as the firemen dealt with the huge pieces of debris blocking the streets and trapping people inside the buildings. As much as the Mayor wanted to help them, Shigure held the girl and obliged her to sit at the foot support of an ambulance with her, silencing her with a water thermos and minutely cleaning her face, Subaru was still wearing the odd dress, “C’mon, just take a break, let them do the rest!” Her mother insisted, yet the girl continued pouting and squirming.

“Hey you guys, don’t forget about the people on the roof of the third builf-” She attempted to nag the firemen, but Shigure once again shoved the straw of the thermos back inside her mouth.

“They’re professionals, they know what they’re doing!” The brown-haired girl insisted, and the emergency body members around couldn’t help but laugh at the mannerism of their Mayor.

Subaru finally gave up, and with narrowed eyes, she drank from the thermos, swinging her legs in the air, looking at the disaster made by the creature, her shoulders softened with melancholy, she removed the straw from her mouth, “I can’t believe a  crash  appeared here, I never thought it would happen again.”

“Thank goodness it appeared so close of us so you could deal with it, it seems they didn’t manage to infect anyone after being  corrupted …” Shigure paused and looked at the hole in the pavement which Subaru did with her fist, “Do you have any idea of which citizen you  Erased ?”

The girl didn’t react, nor she replied to her mother right away, she left the thermos to her right side in silence and took the napkin away from Shigure’s hands, pressing the cloth with one finger, she started to brush the dry blood from the cuts of her cheek,  “If we stop to think about that, we won’t be able to save anyone,”  She quoted with a strange voice, then looked back at Shigure and faked a smile, “Or at least, that’s what Sora used to tell me.”

“I see…” Shigure mutters, troubled at her expression,  “Is this what they call the sins of a warrior…?”  She pondered inside her mind, shook her head, and slowly caressed her daughter’s hair, “Well, what matters is that you did it while it was small, so their data must be being depurated at the  Gear  of the city right now, they will come back in a month or so, that’s what happened with the others, right?” The girl implies with a little stutter.

“Right, at least for the smallest ones, the data could be saved and the citizens were restored after some time, but just the smallest ones,” The mood of the girl continued sinking, hunching her back with concern, resting her face over her right hand, as a police officer approached with a nurse to retrieve equipment from the ambulance, the girls had to give them space, Subaru then called on the attention of the officer by pulling the corner of his shirt, “Hey, do me a favor and tell the security branch that the cameras from 32-B aren’t working.”

“Actually, Chief Subaru, we received a message from the security branch that the cameras from the 30-B to 35-B all stopped working minutes before the accident, they’re currently trying to bring the service back on,” The man replied with a sorry tone.

“Eh… but that’s…” Subaru frowned and gazed left and right at the mess done, “Those are all the streets where this happened…”

“Does it mean it was intentional right? To avoid having recordings of the accident,” Shigure joins the conversation with worry.

“Most likely…” Subaru sighed, “A recording of what happened would have been so useful,  crashes  aren’t supposed to create such huge explosions, much less a small one like that!” She squirms and scratches her head with both hands frustrated, “Nothing has any sense in this world geez!”

“Erhm, excuse me?” The voice of a woman interrupted her tantrum, from the other side of the perimeter made with yellow lines, a girl of short blue hair was waving her hand in the air, “Mayor… Mayor! Over here, if it’s a recording of what you need then I recorded the whole thing!”

“Oh, it’s that one again,” Subaru mutters with disdain, sighed again, then gestured to her to come in, the girl smiled happily and when the officer lifted the line for her, she ran towards the ambulance.

“Let me guess, another former mayor?” Shigure chuckles.

“Not even close, this one is a special case,” Subaru’s tone weakened with annoyance, the woman reached them with a small floating robot holding a camera to her side, “How’s going Achan? Did you come here for another of your video blogs?” She asked with a bit of sarcasm.

“You sure I am, who would’ve thought going to the center of the city today was going to be so rewarding!” She replied excitedly, “Today’s post it’s going to be so explosive!”

“.... Excuse me?” Shigure wonders defiantly as Subaru remains in frozen silence, “Do you perhaps mind rephrasing what you just said?” She forced on polite language.

“My bad… wrong choice of words, I’m sorry,” The woman made a small reverence and coughed on her hand, “Let me start over… Mayor Subaru, I happened to be around this area when the explosions happened, I’m not sure if it may be of any help for you, but you can use my recording if you want,” Achan then proceeded to press over the head of the little robot and a chip ricocheted out of it, handing it to Subaru.

“Thank you, let’s hope it gives us a clue of what happened,” Subaru gave her a small thankful nod and held over the chip with her thumb and index finger, when yellow energy flowed inside of the gadget, a holographic screen appeared and began to project the information inside the memory.

“So, what are you for Subaru?” Shigure questions the woman as the black-haired girl searches for the recordings of Wednesday.

“Me? I’m just a fan of Mayors of course!” Achan said proudly, pointing a thumb to herself, “My goal is to show the virtual world all the uniqueness of our Mayors who protect us every day from the dangers out of our  zones !”

“In resume, you’re one of those die-hard fans uh?” Shigure giggled with relief and sarcasm.

“The biggest of all!” Achan noded dodging the edge of Shigure’s words, “I’m also Sora’s best friend!”

“Eh, wait? That’s the first time you ever mention that though?” Subaru snorted with surprise and stared at Achan unsure of her words, “Why did you never tell me that?”

“Did Sora never tell you when you were with her?” Achan asks back just as confused.

“We didn’t have time to chit-chat at all, there was a  crash  going on, remember?” Subaru’s tone grows with bitterness, then the archive she was looking for finally appeared on the screen, “Ah, this is the one, let’s see…” She pressed over the screen and a video started to play, it began with Achan, holding a microphone and walking backward around the boulevard, narrating her findings of the day, talking about  Yellow High,  and interviewing pedestrians which bumped with her.

“You should try acting like a woman of your age Achan…” Shigure laughed at the recording of the blue-haired one.

“Laugh all you want, it’s all a worthy sacrifice to show how cool our Mayor is!” The woman huffed proudly.

“Uhm, you were on the other side of the block when the accident happened, this doesn’t help much…” Subaru thinks out loud trying to manipulate the focus of the camera, no matter how she forced the image from left to right, as the recording reached the moment of the explosion, the clouds of dust and the people running scared, the video had no trace of the culprits before or while the situation, “Thank you Achan, but it seems you couldn’t find anything either,” She sighed and gave the memory back to the woman.

“Is that so… what a shame,” Achan sighed along, then when silently observing Subaru’s dress from tip to toes, she tilted her head and offered the memory one more time, “Then, do you want to see the fight again?”

“Why do you ask?” Subaru wonders crossing her arms, and immediately everyone around her went quiet while looking at the black-haired girl, Subaru frowns at their odd looks and her eyes get fixed on the memory chip, “Wait for a second, why are all of you acting so weird all of a sudden? It was just a short fight against a  crash, nothing is interesting to see there!” She insisted with a shaky tone.

“Nothing interesting you say…?” Achan tilts her head further.

“That was anything but nothing interesting,” Shigure laughed louder than before, clapping her hands.

“Yeah Chief, how do I put it…” An android nurse whispers awkwardly, trying not to laugh.

“Chief, are you trying to say you don’t remember what you did?” A police officer implies.

Subaru kept quiet and gulped down saliva, she held onto the memory for a second time and displayed the screen, this time, quickly initializing the program and finding the video, fast-forwarding with a sweep of her free hand to the moment where Achan, hidden in a corner of the street behind Shigure and Subaru, recorded the fight with the crash. It started just as she could remember, despite she could only see the recording of her back, posing a defense martial art to defend herself from the incoming attack, the memory in her mind was just fresh, and the emotions invading her body, and the strength impulsing her muscles that moment, were very well marked in her brain, but the moment in which she changed to the dress happened, nothing of what followed next was something she could affirm to have done. As firemen, nurses and police officers reunited behind Achan and Subaru to look at the video, and doing their best to don’t laugh their lungs out, Subaru’s face quickly sparked with a deep red color of shame, and her arms and legs trembled from what her eyes were seeing.

“I wanna sleep a bit longer, but I can’t, today is Sunday!”  The Subaru of the video recording sang, with a happy face and voice, shaking her hips and gracefully dodging the attacks of the creature.

“W-what…. Just… what?” Subaru repeatedly asks, unable to think straight, steam coming from her ears like a boiling pot.

“Got fun things to do, so wake up! Let’s get started!”  Parrying the claws and swiftly making the creature chase her in circles, the Subaru in the video continued dancing and singing effortlessly.

“This is a lie… this isn’t me…” The red Subaru cries in shame, provoking everyone to laugh dastardly at her face.

“Subaru, don’t let it get back up!”  The Shigure in the video shouted, Subaru replied to her with a smile and a wink.

“I DID NOT DO THAT, I DID NOT DO THAT!” Subaru exclaims with a sharp and acute cry of embarrassment, the laughing spreading among the rest of the emergency services staff.

“Maybe you did it involuntarily?” Shigure suggests after managing to hold her laughter, rubbing her stomach, “Maybe the dress is the one who forces you to all of that? Although I have to admit, it’s a precious side of you, my dear Subaru.”

“Aw, geez, you’re all making fun of me, that’s enough, the show’s over, everyone gets back to work!” Subaru pouts and shuts the playing from the screen, quickly changing back to her usual clothes after light envelops her body, “And I’m confiscating this! This isn’t going to see the light of day again, hmph!”

“Subaru, don’t be like that, you looked so cute!” Shigure laughed helplessly, then dragged her body to lean in the arm of Achan, “Oh please tell me you have copies of that.”

“My, who do you think I am?” The blue-haired woman insinuated, discreetly showing Shigure a deck of memory chips on her right hand, “I’m the journalist of Mayors, I always come prepared.”

“I take it back, this dress is the worst!” Subaru kept crying with a red face, “Just who in the world gave this dress to me, geez!”

“Eh, I gave it to you though…?” Achan raised her hand, stranged by her question, Shigure and Subaru froze for a slight of a second before turning their faces to her, “... uh, what’s with that look? You didn’t know?”

“How was I supposed to know!” Subaru claims now changed from shame to anger, “How did you do something like that?”

Achan looked at her straight in the eye with a poker face, and digging her hand inside the neck of her shirt, she pulled a pendant with the shape of a cartoon bear, “I received this from Sora some time ago with instructions, she said it’s suppose to be a  power-up, and that I had to give it to all possible Mayors while she was away,” She twisted the head of the bear, and the plug of a drive appeared from its neck, “So some weeks ago I went down the  Gear  of  Yellow High City  and upgraded it to your  core data .”

“You did what to me?” Subaru asks in a scared shock, covering her body with both hands in embarrassment, “How did you get access to my  core data,  y-you perv!”

“I don’t get why you act so surprised, Sora said there was a message inside this thing explaining everything? I swear I thought you knew… sorry?” Achan shrugged uncertain of what to do, saving the bear drive back inside her shirt.

“Well, that message never reached me!” Subaru claims with a pouty face.

“Hey, little one, over here, why the long face?” All of a sudden the voice of Mio was heard, she was being escorted by a nurse robot inside the perimeter, helping Mio to breathe with a small tank of oxygen, “I heard you fought with a  crash … is it true, was there a  crash  here?” Taking mouths of oxygen, the wolf does her best to question her worry.

“Miosha…. well… yes, there was a  crash,  here but…” Subaru looked helplessly at her mother, but Shigure just gave her a shake of the head as a reply, “You, don’t have to worry about it, ok? I already got rid of it.”

“My, Subaru you’re always such a good girl, but you don’t have to push it that far,” Mio faked a tender smile and reunited her hands at the height of her chest, both people and robots giving odd looks to her, “See? Even if the problem was solved people would still look at me, they can’t help it, so it’s not worth pretending.”

“I’m sorry…” Subaru looked down with sadness.

Mio giggled softly and caressed her head, “There, there, I know you’re looking to do what’s best for everyone, this is something we the people  at the end of the spectrum  have to deal with it after the  crash .”

“...Ah! Subaru!” Shigure jumped from the foot support and quickly threw the baseball cap over the head of the girl and separating her from Mio, “I just remembered something!”

“My neck, you almost break it!” The girl complains adjusting the cap by the visor, “if it's about the explosions I haven’t forgotten about them, the culprit behind must be someone else!” She shouts back at the girl.

“That is important too, but that’s not what I was talking about,” Her mother shakes her hand in negation, then walks close to her ear and begins to whisper a couple of words.

As Shigure narrated a secret, Subaru’s eyes observed Mio from head to toes, then back at Shigure with surprise and excitement, “That’s a nice idea!” she bumped a fist in the palm of her hand then ran in front of the wolf, “Miosha, can you do me a favor?”

“A favor? Of course dear, everything for you, what do you need?” The woman says after another mouthful of oxygen.

“... Morning…?” A woman with a delicate tone of voice mourned, back on the right side of the city, Subaru and her group had knocked on the door of an apartment inside a condo, and the figure who greeted them not only had horns and the long pointy tail of a demon but was wearing a full red tracksuit, her long blonde hair was tied on the back of her head with a bun. Yawning and adjusting her glasses, she tried to stand straight while scanning the four women in front of her door, one of them called her attention almost instantly, “Aren’t you… the Mayor?” She screamed in horror and finally woke up, taking a couple of steps back protecting her head with her arms, “Is… is this it? Does this mean I’m going to get evicted? Please… Please at least give me a moment to pack all my novels and delete my Internet history!”

“Ah, this one is just as you described her…” Shigure sighs with a tiresome voice.

“Is this the former Mayor of  Black Lust City ?” Mio can’t help but join Shigure by thinking out loud.

“First of all, it’s almost two of the evening,” Subaru groaned straight and a gesture of her left, “Second, you’re Yuzuki Choco, is that right?”

The blonde demon stared at them through a small hole of her arm shield and shyly nodded, “Yes… as expected… you don’t want me here anymore, is it, right?” She insisted with a crying voice.

“Nothing about that, you see…” She waved her right hand, showing a couple of Mio’s supermarket bags, Achan, Shigure, and the wolf, all together repeated the same gesture, “I just came for a little visit… do you mind if we crash at your home and talk a little?”

The demon dropped her defensive stance, looked at the bags, caressed her stomach, then looked back inside of her apartment, switching on the lights, “It… its a bit cramped but make yourself at home…” Choco signaled them to come inside, and the group happily walked in.

Chapter Text

“Give it to me… you wasted our chance with that skinny guy, I’ll make better use of it so give it to me!” In a dark alley two figures rolled on the dirty floor, both wearing long dark capes with hoods, unable to recognize their faces, they were fighting for the possession of a small knife, which edge was emanating dark and vicious steam.

“N-No, please, give me one more chance! I’ll do it better this time, if we go back to tell her I failed she’s going to yell at me!” The other figure cried with a feminine voice, as the main figure pinned them down, all in a fight of strength to snatch the knife from the other.

“We are both going to get yelled at anyway, why did you have to stab that guy so close to Subaru!” The person on top groaned with anger, both were struggling with the other on the verge of crying.

“Please, you’re hurting me, I promise I’ll do better!” The one at the bottom begged while tearing up.

“...Tch, just give me that!” With a forceful swoop the one on top claimed victorious, stealing the knife from the other, panting in a mix of anger and exhaustion, they brushed their faces with the right sleeve of their cape and stepped back, as the other reincorporated on the floor, slowly crying with a long and small whimper of hurt, rubbing their face, “Would you shut up? I’m doing this for the two of us!” The figure with the knife shouts with disgust.

“But… What do you mean?” The one crying asked between hiccups.

“One way or the other we already failed, you, eyeless moron, so the best we can do right now is to create as much chaos as possible!” The one with the knife began to explain, walking back to the crying one and making them shake startled, but when the other extended their hand to them, the crying one snorted their tears and took their hand, slowly standing up, “She’s going to yell at us anyway, but if we tell her that we could destroy a big part of the city, she would forgive us for failing!” The individual with the knife narrates cheerfully waving their arms.

“Y-you’re right! She won’t be so mad if we manage to scare them!” The crying one nodded with small fists of courage.

“Plus…” With the index of the hand holding the knife, the other gestured with an evil smile, “We can also steal the credit from the explosions from before!”

“Eh… but won’t she notice those  crashes  couldn’t make those kinds of explosions, if she finds we lied to her just to humor her, then…!” Tears began to run through the bands on their face once again.

“You’re thinking too much, listen, ok? All it matters is that we leave this place unrecognizable from how it is right now, so let’s go and stab the biggest thing we can find around here, make them run berserk, and turn this city into their play zone!” The other insisted angered and anxious, with a silent nod, both of the figures ran to the exit of the alley and stopped right at the frame of the wall, hiding with discretion, they were near a small park full of trees, a fountain, people and androids walking freely around, “This is like the worst candy store, we need someone big and scary, urgh!”

“Say, what about that android?” The crying one suggests gently pulling a sleeve of the other’s cape, pointing to a corner of the park, there was a ten feet tall android dressed as a clown, inflating and delivering balloons to android and virtual kids with their parents.

“Jackpot, that’s our guy!” The one with the knife clenched their fist, unsheathing the knife with a smile filled with fangs, “That guy will be our salvation, hurry up and shut down the cameras of the park!”

“Are… you sure you don’t want me to help you? It’s my kitchen after all,” Choco tells Mio, a bit anxious, looking at the wolf moving freely around the place, washing the rice on the sink, and preparing pots with multiple things over the stoves.

“Don’t worry at all, I’m on my element right now!” Mio replies happily with a shake of the head and a clench of her fist, “Just sit and wait with the others! I’m going to make you a meal which will blow your mind!” The wolf insisted on confidence in her skills.

“If you say so… but,” The blonde demon turned behind her back, rubbing her left arm in the embarrassment of the situation. In her living room, Achan and Subaru were cleaning the curtains and windows and sweeping the floor, while Shigure was organizing the novels of the woman from her room over the unused bookshelves, “Girls… You don’t have to do any of this I… I can do it later!”

“Don’t worry Miss Choco, we are doing it because we want it,” Shigure replied first with a singing tone.

“Yeah, you’re a former Mayor, so I must make sure all of you are doing well!” Subaru joined with a smile and a broom between her hands, “Don’t think so much about it, just let us help you a little!”

“But… but…” Choco stuttered with red cheeks, while everyone kept insisting for her to take it easy, the demon made a loud pout and stomped the floor, “Fine geez, I get it ok?” She yelled while stomping her way inside the hallway of her apartment.

“Uh, where are you going?” Achan wonders with a duster on her left hand.

“I’m going to take a shower and change ok?” Choco screams with furious shame, “I can’t be walking around with this lame outfit while I have visits!” She screamed one more time, then disappeared inside the bathroom after a commuted giggle from the group.

Thirty minutes later the wolf had prepared a full meal of rice, soup, vegetable salad, and saury for the five, and they reunited in the now clean living room to eat and share the food over the long coffee table of the demon. Choco appeared just at the time, making all smile with joy after seeing her wearing a long skirt and a partially unbuttoned long sleeve shirt. “Miosha, your food is always the best, I could eat it forever!” Subaru spout with muffled cheeks stuffed with fish and rice.

“Subaru, don’t be such a kid, take some vegetables too!” Shigure nagged her daughter, taking a spoonful of salad from the big plate and adding it to the rice of the girl.

“Just so you know, I’m quite good at cooking myself, it's just that lately, I don’t have the energy to,” Choco mumbles, still embarrassed, slowly munching a bite of rice.

“I know what you mean, don’t worry,” Mio laughed innocently, “I too lost the motivation to do a lot of things after my  zone  was destroyed from the  crash ,” She paused with a sweet gasp and looked at Subaru with tender eyes, “But I allowed myself to trust people one more time, and the happiness they gave me helped me to stand back on my feet,” She finished smiling wide to the demon.

“I suppose…” Choco stutters with her cheeks growing redder, “I suppose I’ve closed myself to people after the  crash  and the migration…” She swallowed the food in her mouth and for a moment she placed the chopsticks over the plate, looking at the group with a bit of seriousness, yet with a gleaming red face, “I’m too trying to get back on my feet, so if you don’t mind being friends with a person like me, then you’re invited to come here whenever you want, next time, I’ll be the one who cooks for all you,” She ended with a small reverence which made the group smile.

“You bet I’m coming back, I’ve always thought Miss Choco is a really pretty lady!” Subaru exclaims swinging her chopsticks in the air.

“Subaru, I told you that’s bad manners!” Shigure nagged the girl for a second time, forcing her to push her arm down and making the others laugh.

“Pretty…? T-thank you…” Choco whispers with a deep blush.

“Subaru, if I may suggest,” Achan interrupted the conversation by raising her hand, “maybe this could be a chance to understand better of what happened earlier at noon, after all, we have two former mayors from  Black zones  here,” She implies by moving her hand to the demon and the wolf.

“Now that you mention it…” Shigure gasps in realization.

“Ah, about that? I guess it’s not a wrong thought, but at least  I  don’t know much about the theme,” Mio hurries to reply with a troubled face.

“Uhmf? What are you talking about?” A clueless Choco asked with her cheeks stuffed with salad.

“You see, about that…!” Subaru attempts to explain but suffocates with a piece of fish, chugs a glass of water, and tries again, “Puah! You see, is just that something weird happened today, the city was attacked by a small  crash and I don’t have an idea of how could have that happened! So we thought of asking any of you… two?” The black-haired girl stopped midway confused by Choco's expression, the demon looked down on the table and went silent, her glasses dangerously slipping through her nose, “... Choco?”

“... So that was it…? That’s why you came here?” The demon said lifting her face back up, hurt by their words, “You were playing nice with me, but in the end, you’re just going to treat me as if I were the culprit of the  crash , just like everyone else did!” She cried with anger and remorse.

“Cho-co!” Mio was the first to shout, holding the demon’s hand and shaking her head, “I know the timing of events doesn’t look like a coincidence, but Subaru has no ill intentions when asking you these things, so calm down, ok?” The wolf patiently explains to her as the rest remains silent from the awkwardness.

“You'll defend her…?” Choco asked Mio in disbelief.

“With my life,” Mio replied right away firmly.

The demon brushed off Mio’s hand and stared at the group with a judgmental look, reincorporated on her seat, and fixed her glasses, “But even if that’s not her intention, she still believes we know something about the  crash  doesn’t she?” She questions with a mournful tone, “That’s just how it is, isn’t it? We the people  closest to the spectrum  are believed to have that kind of knowledge just because we are of  black properties , while you and Sora are getting called  heroes  the rest of us continue being seen as the next ones to create a  crash ,” The blonde woman rambled with hate and sadness, taking a sip of her drink and doing a slight whip of her tail against the floor.

This time was Subaru who stopped in awkward silence, she too took a bit of her drink, and Shigure’s lips twisted helplessly as she saw her daughter quickly turn into an undesirable serious expression, “A  hero  you say…” The black-haired girl mourned with a raspy and masculine tone, “Did you know… there are other people besides Sora who are  far out the spectrum ?” She questions in the air yet looking directly at Choco, Achan and Mio halted their movements by the awkwardness of the situation, “And despite that, instead of choosing one of them, Sora asked for my help, and you know why she did it?” She questioned once again, this time with a bit of sarcasm, then pulled a guilty smile, “It was because I was the closest to her!” Subaru exclaimed with the saddest smile she could make, “There was plenty of people more capable than me, but she didn’t have time to wait for their help, and I was the only color  farthest of the spectrum  she could find, so she had no other option but to rely on me, and I had no other option but to help her,” Posing her hands over her knees, Subaru slowly stood from the floor, took her glass and drank a gulp of juice before continuing, “People  love  to call Sora and me heroes but the truth is… we were both so scared,” She laughed awkwardly, staring at the group, scratching her cheek, “Time was running out, the  crash  was running rampant over all  zones , no matter what we tried we could only delay the unavoidable, and rescue as many people and  Mayors  as we could,” She sighed and tried to calm down, but couldn’t help to force another smile, “They called her the  Sky Hero  and me the  Terra Hero , but… all we were doing that moment was to run here and there, confused and scared, hoping for the  crash   to stop and consume itself…” She sighed once more, facing at the window of the living room.

“Subaru!” Shigure jumps from her seat and embraces the girl from behind, kissing her left cheek, “You’re getting it all wrong, is not like people are confusedly calling you a hero, is that you  are  a hero, you may have been confused and scared, you may have been chosen by Sora just because there wasn’t any other option, but you did something no one else could or did at that moment,” Her mother explained softly, hugging her tightly, “A hero is not someone who does everything perfectly and right, a hero is someone who does their best to protect and save as many as possible, just like you did the day of the  crash , even after that, you told Sora you would open  Yellow High City  gates and allow enter as many people as possible, I don’t think Sora made a mistake choosing you, in fact, Sora must be glad to have chosen you that day.”

“Are you sure…?” Subaru asked with a crying tone, loudly snorting her snots without looking at her mother.

“I’m quite sure, that’s the difference between those of  White , they’re warriors, but you, you’re Subaru, you’re my little cheerful girl,” Shigure held on her right shoulder next and kindly forced the girl to turn around and face her, Subaru was doing her best to don’t bawl, hiccups struggling against tears and snot, “You’re so cute when you cry, did you know that?” Her mother suggests while pulling a napkin, cleaning her eyes, Subaru’s hands holding on her wrists, “Easy now, breathe slowly, let’s finish eating, ok?” She explains to the girl while guiding her back to the coffee table.

“C’mon… Now I look like the bad one of the story!” Choco pouted with disdain, groaning now unable to take any other bite, slamming the table with an open right hand, she stood and walked to the fridge inside her kitchen, brought a six-pack of draft beers and placed it on the center of the table, sitting again on the floor. She pulled one by one the cans out of the mesh and shared them through the table, although Shigure immediately took the one given to Subaru and replaced it with her glass of juice, “I’m just going to say it one more time to make sure alright? But I don’t know anything about how  crashes  are made or how could one have appeared in the city…” She opened the lid of the can with her long nails the sorbed a long sip of alcohol, “If I were to say, by the very little I know about when someone of  Black  is corrupted into a  crash , is that their corrupted system takes a long time to be depurated,” The demon took a chug of the can this time, smiling with delight and continued, “If there was a  crash  here, it means there must be remnants of the original  crash , and that remains is what is corrupting your citizens.”

“I’m… surprised you know something like that, even though I didn’t have that knowledge,” Mio stutters a bit.

“I just happened to read a lot, that is all,” Choco shrugs and takes a third chug of beer, “Even in this digital world, a  crash  is not something that happens often, so there isn’t much information available, and the few books which had anything about it in  Black Lust City  disappeared with the entire  zone  after the  crash .”

An acute ringing cut the conversation in half, and the women by one checked on the weird alarm and vibration coming from their phones, “Uh? Is this a state of alert message, why is it showing now?” Achan asks with confusion.

“Because the city only moved to a state of alert after the explosions,” Subaru answered with furrowed brows while inspecting her smartphone, fiddling the screen to read the details, “ We ask our citizens to stay away from the park 34 at the right side of the city in the zone 17-F, after the calls of emergency from people in the area witnessing explosions around, the emergency services are closing the area?”  Subaru read the announcement of the alert with shock and anger. Just like last time, the girl extended her right hand calling on a holographic screen and speaking through it, “Give me access to all cameras at park 34!” 

“Access granted by top tier Chief, displaying all available cameras of park 34, area 17-F,”  The assistant on the screen replied.

In front of the group, nine screens displayed all nine different cameras of the external surroundings of the park. Once again people and robots were running in fear, trees burning and sidewalks destroyed into pieces, the ground shaken by the echoes of explosions which were being muffled due to the quality of the cameras. In the camera in the second column at the right side, Mio’s jaw dropped entirely when she saw two figures fight against the other being recorded, “Eh… eh? That… That can’t be!” The wolf slammed the table with both hands making the food shake and almost fall from the tables, “S-Subaru, quickly, zoom this camera or something!”

“Or something?” The girl wonders at the look of her face, but the wolf only nods anxiously, Subaru does as told and removes the other cameras, focusing on the one selected by Mio. As the floating live recording of the camera expanded inside the living room, along with Mio, the group dropped their jaws at what they were witnessing. Two girls of odd clothes were fighting the other with long and sharp katanas, and every time they took a pause, muttering some words, and clashed furiously against the other, the resulting spark would explode in a burst identical to the explosion that happened to the buildings at noon, “Who are those two? Why are they fighting? They’re destroying the whole city with their fight!”

“Those little trouble makers, I can’t believe them!” Mio screams lost in fury with a face red as fire.

“D-do you know those two?” Subaru and the group together distance from the enraged woman with fear.

“Signal from the area 17-F has been lost, connection to all cameras lost, service currently unavailable,”  The assistant interrupted as the holographic screen turned the image into a cloud of static.

“Again?” Subaru shouts with even more confusion, just to be taken by the neck of her shirt by Mio, who dragged the girl out of the apartment, “W-wait, Miosha! Calm down! What’s happening?”

“You are going to help me spank those troublemakers!” The wolf screamed with bloodshot eyes.

Chapter Text

The clashes of blades could be heard from the park, the metallic echoes were always followed by gusts of wind and sparks of friction, between a destroyed fountain, smashed and cut in half, two figures fought.  “The path of Rakshasa… Final movement!”  Distancing from the fox-girl with huge backward steps the little girl with horns recited. Wielding two katanas of black and red color on her right and left hand respectively, the ground below her feet was instantly destroyed by shockwaves fissures from the leap she took on the sky, lunging her blade to the white-haired girl with murderous intention, “ Soul cutting slash!”  The girl with horns shout, the black blade then poured a long trail of dark mist as gravity pulled her down, and when the face of a lamenting demon sketched at the length of the edge, the fox quickly broke her posture and hurried to dodge the hit, jumping to the left and rolling in the ground. The landing of the cut created a fissure with a whistling sound, extending through the bricked floor and tearing it apart, reaching the fence and slashing even the soil and bushes of the park, the trace of damage emulating a decomposing effect, as if it was sprayed with acid.

“What the hell, Ayame!” The fox-girl gasped in a mix of anger and surprise, “What in the world is wrong with you? You could’ve killed me with that!” She exclaims pointing at the destruction, stomping the floor with inflated cheeks, starting on a tantrum.

“That’s for you to know how serious I am about it!” The girl of red shouts with a menacing finger from the hand wielding the dark blade, “I am  not  forgiving you this time!” Her voice acute and furious broke hoarsely when dashing towards the fox once again, “Fu-Bu-Ki!”

“A-Ya-Me!” The girl replied with as much aggression, hilting her katana above the height of her head with the left and resting the point of the edge over the palm of the right hand, ready to intercept the oni, extending her legs for her body to equilibrate she receives the first hit with anticipation displaying a horizontal defense. Looking down at the floor she squats for a violent swoop of her right leg directed to the ankles of Nakiri, but the oni-girl had foreseen her by following Fubuki’s eye movements, quickly jumping to avoid being kicked, taking advantage of her weightless figure to spin in the air and swing her red sword against the fox, forcing Fubuki to once again leap away from her hit, “Now you’re just showing off!” she pouted and panted.

“Oh my, oh my, what is that? Are you perhaps tired my cunny fox-girl?” Nakiri snickered at her with her blades resting on her back as she slightly hunched, “Maybe your stomach is filled with something that wasn’t yours!”

“I told you I don’t have any idea of what you’re talking about!” Fubuki shouts back and stands by holding the hilt with both hands, “If you’re going to resource into those dirty tricks then two can play the same game!” At the rhythm of her words, her blade gleamed with incandescent white energy, but Nakiri wouldn’t wait for the fox to prepare, with a gentle skip of her sandals the oni’s body shoot like a bullet against her, the fox parries the attack with a shocked expression, “Keep trying to intimidate me all you want, but that only works with people who don’t know your weakness!” giving up on the exchanges of forces on purpose, Fubuki drifts to the oni’s left, hilting the sword like a bat and with an emotionless face, she swings an open hit against her uncovered back, but Nakiri continues reacting just at the time, twisting her ankles to turn half her body and receive the attack with her red blade,“Got you… White crescent moon!”  Fubuki’s blade shone again, pressing all her weight against Nakiri, a shockwave of energy shoot, this time, regardless of how much Nakiri tried to parry it, being pushed back by the energy, the oni has no other choice but to deflect the shockwave and send It towards the sky, the recoil violently sending her to the floor.

“That hurt… Fubuki you twerp, that hurt!” Nakiri cries and grits her teeth, tiny tears coming from the corners of her eyes as she rubs her right wrist.

“Oh my, oh my, are your hands perhaps too small to defend you against real attacks?” Fubuki snickered back, swinging her tail with a despicable giggle, “That’s what you get for messing with one of white, you silly oni.”

“Don’t call me that!” Nakiri whimpers while crying, stomping the floor, “Fubuki you’re the worst! I don’t care if you’re out of the spectrum!  I’ll make you pay for this!” Without stances or fancy movements, she just lifts her red sword in the air, the blade shinning with a red fire gleam as if had been exposed to high temperatures, “I’m going to burn you into crisps, Asura!” She blunts as the figure of a three-headed demon slowly sprouts from her shadow behind her back.

“A-a-a-Ayame! That may be going too far!” Bewildered of the creature growing meters in the air, the fox forces herself to quip with a gesture of the hand and furrowed brows.

“Stop…” Roaring with fury, a feminine yet hoarse voice interrupted Nakiri’s chant, both the fox and oni gazing to their left as a girl of short black hair wearing a fancy dress ran towards them at an incredible speed, surrounded by strange rays of light and music which seemed to have no place of emission, yet it followed her as she ran, “Hey, stop destroying my city!” After a jump and a flip, landing of the tip of her boots, Subaru exclaims with a smile and wink contrary to the tone of her voice.

“Uh, what’s with this weirdo?” Nakiri asks taking a step back with an aversion of Subaru’s face, the demon figure disappearing like dust on the wind as she loses focus, “Do you mind? We’re in the middle of something,” The oni complains.

“Ayame, get out of your zone more than just to annoy me, would you? This one is the Mayor of Yellow High City, this girl is the Terra Hero, can’t you tell? Seriously,” Fubuki explains with a fast and condescending speech, waving her hand around with sarcasm, “Erhm, Mayor? What can we help you?”

“Help me you ask? Of course, I would love if you two could stop making a mess in my zone,” Subaru responded with an uncharacteristic feminine and playful tone, with her hands behind her back and making little hops between steps as she explains, “Just why two Mayors with their zones came to Yellow High to make such a mess? Can’t you go and fight somewhere else?”

“The hell is wrong with this girl, say, are you sure she’s Terra Hero? I can’t imagine Sky Hero having to deal with that cute attitude all the time though,” Nakiri says with exasperation to the fox while pointing at Subaru who kept emanating colorful lights and pop music.

“There’s indeed something strange going with her…” Fubuki awkwardly whispers, sheathing her katana and placing the case behind her back, hooking it over the belt loop of her shorts, interchanging looks with Nakiri, the oni sighs disappointed and follows the fox’s mannerism, sheathing her weapons, “I apologize if we have been a bother for this city, is just-“

“A bother? Not at all, you have been something much worse!” Subaru cuts her with her playful voice, posing between sentences as if she were in a photo booth, “You have been destroying left and right everything around here, scaring my people and breaking private property, you bad girls!” Even though she was scolding them Subaru didn’t stop in her posing, with a melodious voice that went up and down the scale on purpose.

“Ah, that’s starting to piss me off,”  The fox muttered with a troubled expression, “It wasn’t our intention to provoke a fight in your zone, is just that-”

“I’m not leaving until she apologizes!” Nakiri yelled and interrupted her, “I’m fed off her mischiefs, I can’t stand it anymore; she has to apologize!”

“And I’m telling you, I have no idea of what are you talking about!” With her ears twitching at her grunt words of annoyance, the fox snarls back at the oni.

“I see, so there’s a misunderstanding going between the two of you, would any of you mind explaining to me what exactly is going on?” Subaru’s giddy smile was unshakable, still standing between the two of them she gently gestures them to explain, and for the third time, when Fubuki was getting prepared to answer, Nakiri middled with a frustrated shout.

“She ate all the cookies Mio did for us today, and is not the first time she does this!” The oni accused Fubuki with vigor.

“Excuse me… what?” Subaru’s entire body gleamed with light, and her clothes when back to normal, her smile was now forced, both the mysterious lights and sound vanished with the dress, “Come again… you ate all of Miosha’s cookies…?”

“Eh, you know Mio? More importantly, just what happened? What’s with the change of attitude, you’re scaring me,” Fubuki quips again uncertain of the black-haired girl's reactions, taking a step back the more the girl forces herself to smile.

“As I’m telling you, we came today to visit Mio as we’ve been doing lately, and every time we come she prepares us a batch of cookies… but then this girl right here!” Nakiri changed to an accusing tone, “Every time, she finds just the perfect way to take away my share of Mio’s cookies! It’s the third time this month and she never apologizes!”

Subaru didn’t say a word, but with a menacing aura she slowly turned her face towards Fubuki, “What do you have to say about that?” She asked with a poorly discreet voice of enragement.

“I… well… erhm, the air changed all of a sudden uh?” The fox stutters shaking the neck of her shirt due to the pressure from Subaru, “I… I ate my fair share! She’s lying, we both received our parts… and… Mayor Subaru?” Fubuki takes two more steps back, the vein in Subaru’s forehead visibly pulsating.

“Eh, eh, now what? Why is she so angry all of a sudden?” Nakiri slowly backs off, her hands making confused gestures about to defend herself or not.

“You two… MIDGETS!” Subaru screamed submerged in wrath, a shockwave of yellow energy spreading along with her words, “You came to my city, and ate Miosha’s cookies the ones I was looking forward all week…” Making a boxer stance, her fists gleamed with light, emulating two gauntlets; she launched her first attack to Nakiri with a straight.

“Woah there!” Nakiri laughed by reflex, in fear, she pulled a bridge over the bricked floor to avoid getting hit.

“You hurt Miosha with your fight! Mama too! The entire city is under a state of alert because of you!” Subaru continued with her ramblings of blind wrath, when her first hit failed, she quickly turned around with the leg work of a professional boxer and hurried an uppercut to Fubuki.

“Wait, Mio was hurt? Hey careful with that!” Fubuki fruitlessly questions the girl, jumping back to avoid her fist.

“How do you plan to pay for the repairs of the city?” Subaru screams preparing her next stance, her right gauntlet growing in size with the noise of a plane’s engine, “Why did you let a crash  run rampant in the city!”

“There was a crash  you say?” The white-haired girl asks baffled, “We don’t know anything about that, we swear, you need to calm down!” 

“HATOTAURUS!”  A new voice meddled, and a creature-like chimera, with the head of a pigeon and horns, shadowed the three girls with its enormous figure, picking Fubuki and Subaru with its giant right hand, and Nakiri with its left, the chimera carried the three girls as if they were ragdolls, then quietly placed them over the floor, in front of a disappointed Mio, “Just what in the world are the three of you doing?

“M-Mio… I can explain…” Nakiri stutters to be the first to talk.

“It was rhetoric, I don’t wanna hear it!” Mio shouted loud enough to silence her, Hatotaurus immediately smacking her in the back of the oni’s head with an open hand. “You, are, all, bad, girls!” Mio continued, each time she pointed one of them; Hatotaurus would smack them from behind.

“Owie…! Why me twice?” Nakiri cried.

“Your explosions put the whole city into terror! You suffocated me with debris!” Mio yelled at her, Hatotaurus smacked her a third time.

“M-Mio, if you allow me to explain…” Fubuki suggests with a shaky hand.

“You need to stop eating everyone’s cookies; I always make enough for everyone!” Mio interrupted her excuse in half, Hatotaurus smacked her, “You still have crumbs in your cheeks; don’t you have any shame?” The fox jumped startled, lightly brushing the tip of her finger against her cheek and confirming indeed traces of cookies on her face, gulping down no longer able to talk.

“Erhm, why I’m getting scolded too? I don’t get it at all,” Subaru wonders clueless with two bumps on the back of her head.

“Because instead of stopping them from fighting you went and tried to hit them too, just because of some cookies!” Mio huffed with exasperation, Hatotaurus delivered another smack, “You two…! You two made chaos in this city, apologize to Subaru immediately!” She angrily pointed to the fox and oni.

“Yes ma’am, we’re sorry, Mayor Subaru,” The girls whisper while sitting seiza style, cowed of Mio’s scolding.

“N-no, it's fine as it is… I already preached enough the two of you a while ago…” Subaru shakes her head.

“From a while ago…?” Nakiri tilts her head, “I wouldn’t call all those dancing moves and wink as preaching  though.”

“What...? I did that again?” The black-haired girl boils with red shame.

“Now you apologize to Nakiri for eating her cookies!” The wolf signals the fox, with a clap of hands to cut their conversation.

“Aye ma’am, I’m sorry, I did eat your cookies, please forgive me,” Like following a scripted situation the fox said.

“U-Uh… you’re forgiven…” Nakiri replied with her eyes fixed over Hatotaurus’ hand.

“Now…” Mio took a deep breath and tried to relax, with hands-on her hips she remained in lecturing mode, “So…? Which one of you was the one who made a crash and how?”

“Nah, like I was trying to explain Subaru a while ago, that wasn’t our doing,” Fubuki expresses with a nervous tone, “I’m out the spectrum and Nakiri’s Red is farthest of the spectrum, none of us have the knowledge or the skills to make a crash,” She insisted with a shake of the head.

“Guys…! Finally, you sure are fast!” Shigure whispers appearing from behind the group, exhausted from running all the way through; Achan follows some steps behind with a woman on her shoulder.

“Oh, finally indeed, what took you so long?” Mio asks slightly turning her head to Shigure, which points to the one person Achan is trying to carry to them.

“Uh… uh? Why are we in the park? Is cherry blossom season…?” A dizzy Choco asks absentmindedly, looking up to the trees with an open mouth, rocking over Achan’s shoulder with a can of beer on her free hand.

“… Everywhere I turn there’s someone who needs a scolding…” The wolf groaned massaging the bridge of her nose, “Then,” She sighs and turns back to the three girls, “If none of you brought that crash  here, then who did it?”

As if answering her question, a new uproar manifests in the same park, as the whole group of girls and women turn around, everyone silently gazes up the trees gulping down saliva, a clown-like crash walks over the bricked sidewalk. Each step of the creature emanated a corrosive dark mist, its legs and arms grinding with the sound of rustiness, its movements were long and heavy, but the destruction left by its fists smashing the ground and trees were making the entire park crumble and shake. “H-hey… Subaru… look down there…” Shigure suggests her daughter utter scared, and when the black-haired girl looks down, so does the rest. There was a virtual man collapsed on the ground in front of the clown, paralyzed from fear it was unable to move, extending one of its long fingers from its right arm over the head of the man, it was enough for a strange ray or dark energy to flow inside his body, corrupting it within seconds, the resulting crash slowly standing up from the ground, starting on a zombie walk together with another two small crashes which were following the clown from behind.

"Who... who wants a balloon? I'll... I'll make a balloon out of you!"

“Hahaha! We did it! It’s so big it already knows how to use its powers!” Sneaking from the bushes the hooded figure with the knife claimed victorious, “No matter what happens now, they’re not getting away with a simple fight!”

“If it already knows how to corrupt others, do you think it also knows how to use its Black? ” The blindfolded girl wonders while guarding herself behind their partner.

“Looks like we’ll soon find it out, today is not our lucky day uh? It hasn’t even been an hour yet and she’s already in the front lines,” The one with the knife says pointing at Subaru, running to meet the clown and stand in front of it to stop its march of chaos, as the others hurry to help the rest of the virtual people and robots around, escorting them out of the park, “But once again… whatever happens this time, that thing will make her suffer first!”

"Do... you girls... want a balloon?"

Subaru bit on her lower lip, looking at the three small crashes waving around the clown, “Why is this happening on my zone? ” She mutters powerless, recurring to her boxing stance the yellow gauntlets appear on her fists with a gleam of light. The girl takes impulse and protecting her face she dashes towards the four, using her legwork to avoid the claws of the first two crashes  in her way, making a little skip and landing with a spin, “Leave my people…” She screamed with fury, her legs extending across the bricked floor, her left fist shining bright with yellow energy as it swings all the way down and up, in a powerful uppercut which takes Subaru to stretch her entire body with the swung, “Alone!” Her fist, even though didn’t touch anything but the air, exploded with a burst of yellow energy and shoot against the face of the clown, creating a cloud of smoke from the impact, the black-haired girl goes back into her defensive posture and leaps backward from the range of the clown’s arms, “Did it hit… did it vanish?” But the creature was barely scratched, and the superficial damage over its face only increased the gruesome and terrifying look it had.

“Subaru… don’t do this alone! Wait for the police…!” Shigure begged the girl hiding behind one of the bench parks, after helping the people escape, her mother along with the rest of the girls and women were looking at the fight from afar.

"I'll make a balloon... out of your guts!"

“Uwah… so those are crashes uh? They look so scary!” Nakiri laughed with a contrary face of concern.

“Ayame, this is one of those moments where you sure should refrain from talking,” Fubuki nagged the one with a gesture of silence of her finger, “Although… this is my first time seeing one of those too… to think both she and Sora had to fight against hundreds of these things…”

“And just why are you two just looking over here?” Mio appeared riding on the back of Hatotaurus, “Didn’t a slay fox say a couple of minutes ago that we had two girls far and out of the spectrum?”  

“B-but, Mio, fighting a cookie snatcher is not the same as fighting one of those,” Nakiri was the one who replied nervously.

But her reply just makes one of Mio’s brow shake with a nervous tic, and when glaring at them with a passive-aggressive smile, Hatotaurus picked both girls up, and threw them onto the fight, “You girls keep care of Choco! We’ll take care of this!” The wolf signaled the other two as Hatotaurus carried her to the battle.

“Eh…? But no one needs to take care of me? I’m doing magnificently!” The blonde demon shout with a drowsy voice, drunken giggles resting over Achan’s lap, unable to get up.

“Truly magnificent,” Achan repeats with a sarcastic sigh. The blue-haired woman turned her eyes into the fight, Fubuki, Nakiri, and Subaru were countering the three small crashes in a one-on-one, parrying their hits with their blades and gauntlets, wary of their erratic movements and claws. Over the other side, Mio was taunting the giant clown from Hatotaurus’ back, making faces and sticking her tongue out to call on its attention, while the chimera, running in circles, jumped up and down to avoid being hit by the creature’s arm. “They’re having a rough time…” She meditates at the four girl movements, then turns to her right, where Shigure was hiding, the woman was a mess of nerves and awkward sounds, her body twitching while following Subaru’s movements fighting the creatures, “… Is this perhaps your first time watching Subaru fight against a crash ?”

“I… I guess it is… She already fought one this noon but even so…” The woman stutters all stiff, her fists clenching tightly, “W-what about you? You act like this isn’t your first time, did… did you see Sora fighting these things?”

“Not even once! This is my first time too!” Achan replied with a proud huff.

“I’m telling you to act like a woman of your age,” Shigure snarls with exasperation, “Just how are them suppose to beat them? I don’t get it, how does someone of color  fight against a crash ?”

“Oh please allow me to explain,” Achan continued as if Shigure’s words were something she had been expecting to hear all her life, fixing the rims of her glasses and pulling up imaginary sleeves from her arms.

“You just listen what you care don’t you?” Shigure snorts.

“As you may know, all Mayors possess the power of a color, this color, defines the energy which flows through each zone, and depending on the user the way this power materializes may vary,” Achan begins to narrate with a sharp and clean tone, ignoring Shigure’s attitude entirely, “ She pointed Subaru next, “Look at our Mayor, for example, the reason she was called Terra Hero is behind the use of her yellow,” Shigure nods firmly to the woman, as they watch the black-haired girl exchange her yellow gauntlets for yellow gloves and a belt on her shorts, as the crash lunges towards her, she swiftly counters its fist and sends it over the air with a judo movement, showing the dexterity of a professional, “Subaru hero’s name comes from her power representing virtual people sports, something they would refer to as human-like skills, while Sora’s white was something more… supernatural, to say the least,” She coughs at the last part.

“Alright, but that doesn’t explain to me at all how are their powers going to defeat those crashes!”  Shigure interrupts anxious of the fight, looking at the creature stand back on its feet and renew its attack towards Subaru.

“Indeed, as all how someone of color  summons their power is just to represent their mentality,” Achan nods with a calmed tone while the ground keeps shaking over the park, “To Erase  a crash  you need to be either far  or out the spectrum,” Looking down at Choco, who attempts to continue drinking from its beer, instantly takes it away from her hands, “As I was saying…” She takes a long breath and turns back to gaze at the fight, “Crashes are inside the spectrum, and for reasons we yet don’t understand, they’re made entirely of Black, to fight and Erase a crash, you use colors which are either far or out the spectrum, those powers work as a kind of antithesis, nullifying the crash and sending the corrupted data back to the Gear of the zone for depuration, here concludes my explanation,” The woman says with a satisfying exhalation.

“That explains why people are always wary of former mayors like Choco and Mio…” Shigure takes a brief moment to meditate on the information given, but as soon as she looks away, she hears Subaru’s whimper, exchanging fists against the creature, “But why is it taking her longer than the last one? No matter how much she hits them they’re not disappearing like before!”

“That’s due of two reasons,” Achan fixes her glasses one more time, “The bigger the crash  the smarter and stronger they are, so it takes longer for colors far on the spectrum  to deal the necessary damage to Erase  them.”

“But then, that means…” Shigure posed her eyes over Fubuki.

“Yes, just like Sora, Fubuki is one of white, she should have the power to Erase them,” Achan nodded.

“And the second reason?”

“Well, didn’t you notice? For some reason, your daughter is not using the power-up dress which Sora sent to her.”

“Subaru! What are you doing? Why aren’t you using the dress? You’re stronger with it!”

“B-because I don’t have any control over it, it’s embarrassing!” The girl shouts back with inflated cheeks.

“If you aren’t going to do it leave it to me, everyone, my chant is ready!” Fubuki growls to the group of girls in the battle stage, the girl had been dodging hits with her sword sheathed, muttering a silent prayer during the entire fight.

“You took too long! My hands are tired, these swords are heavy!” Nakiri cried, looking at Subaru and exchanging stares of agreement, they backed off to stay behind the fox.

“All clear here, whenever you want, Fubuki!” Mio signaled from the other side, with a pat on the shoulder of Hatotaurus, the chimera disappeared in a cloud of black feathers, the wolf running away from the battle.

The four figures slowly turned to the fox, which howled at them while unsheathing her katana, the blade was shinning with an incandescent white color, as if it had been polished up to perfection, “I may not be the Sky Hero, but I promise you this attack will Erase  you!” Following the movements of her arms, the air pressure drastically changed in a matter of seconds; as if the edge of the blade absorbed it all like a vacuum, “Crescent… White Moon Slash!” She shouts, slashing the air in diagonal with all her strength, creating a large and visible shockwave of white energy around eight meters long, carrying all the wind within. The attack managed to cut the first two small crashes in half, but when it landed over the clown, this one received it with its left hand, “It’s parrying it…? No, it’s doing something else!” Fubuki takes a step back surprised, the clown slowly emanating denser black steam from its hand, devouring Fubuki’s attack until there wasn’t a single trace of white energy, “What the heck… what was that? That’s cheating!”

“Yay!” The hooded figures clap their hands happily.

“But that… it already knows use to use Black ?” Mio questions to self.

“That thing ate Fubuki’s attack though!” Shigure complains to an intimidated Achan, the nervous mother shaking the woman by the neck.

“S-since they’re made of Black, they can use its power too… and the power of Black is to absorb other colors and momentarily make use of their powers,” Achan tries to explain while stuttering.

“They do what with what…?” Fubuki asks with sarcasm, but before Achan could explain her, the clown does it for her, summoning a long and giant katana from its left hand, hilting it with both hands, and lunging against Fubuki, who reacts to the arm swing and counters the hit, but the weight of the dark sword and strength of the clown overwhelms her, cornering her on a truce of power, unable to escape, “Someone… help… me!”

“Subaru, you need to use the dress!” Achan insists on the girl.

“B-but…!” The girl pouts awkwardly, looking back and forth to the fight and the woman, “It’s so awkward!”

“Subaru, stop doubting, Fubuki’s in trouble!” Mio growled from the other side.

“Subaru, use that thing from before!” Nakiri joined over the screams.

“But I don’t wanna…” Subaru cried with a red face.

“Subaru…!” Shigure jumped from her seat pointing behind the back of the girl, “Turn around, Subaru!”

The woman screamed her lungs out to warn her, but it was too late, the third small crash managed to sneak in the confusion of the fight and jumped against the girl when she was distracted. Yet when its claws were about to touch the scalp of her head, a cat-girl leaped into the stage, taking Subaru on her arms and jumping away with her, while a dog-girl fisted the crash on its face.

“Horayo! Don’t mess with our Mayor!” Korone woofs with a smug smile, waving her tail.

“Subaru, are you alright? We came when we saw the alert news, oopsie daisy,” Okayu explained with a soft tone when placing the girl back on the ground.

“The other mayors from the migration, but why?” Subaru asks baffled as the cat and the dog stand in front of her as a shield.

“You’re the reason we have been able to keep walking forward after the crash, of course, we were going to come and help you if you are in trouble!” Korone explained without looking back at the girl, hopping on the floor from left to right on the tip of her toes ready for the next attack of the crash,

“Your work and this city has given us so much, we aren’t going to sit and watch how these things ruin our new favorite place,” Okayu added making a fighting stance while siding beside the dog-girl, “Not that fighting is my good trait, but I’ll do my best.”

“Geez…” Subaru whispers with sarcasm, then slapping her cheeks, the girl turns to a serious expression, taking a mouth of air, “Fine, I get it! All I have to do is to wear that weird dress right! If everybody is going to count on me this much, I won’t let the idea of losing control stop me!”

“Erhm, Subaru, if all you want is to don’t lose control after transforming, then all you have to do is to pronounce ‘Bloom’  when concentrating your power,” Achan explains from behind the bench far in the corner, raising her hand with a poker face, everyone slowly turning their faces back to the woman with a mix of silent anger and revulsion, “… Now what? Why does everyone always look at me that way?” The woman asks Shigure with a clueless face.

“Another one who needs an earful after this is over…” Mio groans loudly; then extends her arms to call on Subaru’s attention, “Little one! I have an idea to counter the Black  of this crash, but you need to distract them and take Fubuki out of there!”

“Please hurry up, I don’t know how much can I…” The fox forces to say, but is surprised as the clown suddenly lifts the sword, “Fueh…?” With trembling arms and legs she looks up in confusion, but is just a fraction of a second as the clown once again strikes against her, the floor breaking below her feet from the recoil, forced to kneel to continue defending herself, “Hurry up please!”

“I’m on it!” Subaru yells and closes her eyes, taking a deep breath, her clothes begin to shine in a gleam of white energy.

“BLOOM!”

“Ah, finally! You’ve been using the shortcuts for activating Bloom  all this time I thought I would never have a chance to talk with you!” Suddenly being summoned inside of white space, Subaru is quickly interjected by a girl of long brown hair and star hair accessory.

“Sky Hero…?” Subaru mutters confused, with her body floating in the nothingness, wearing the odd dress, “Sora… Sora! Is it you?” She asked with a smile.

But the girl shook her head, “I’m just a recording Sora left over the Bloom system that she left for you,” The girl tells her with a smile.

“Bloom system?”

“The dress you’re wearing right now!”

“But, where is Sora? Why she sent me this?”

“You see, Sora is still trying to find a way to fully restore all the data lost in the crash, it seems that, along with her travel to find a solution, she found the Bloom  system.”

“Wait a minute, are you trying to tell me…”

“Yes, as long as you activate the Bloom  system, whoever had been corrupted will be fully depurated and fully restored once their data goes back to the Gear  of the city!”

“That’s amazing! But… wait, why would she send me this now, there’s not…”

“There are, right now, you’re still fighting two of them don’t you?”

“… Sora knew about the crashes coming to my zone ?”

“Uhm is not like she knew, is just that she had the feeling it would happen.”

“…”

“Oh please, don’t make such a long face, I know you don’t want to keep fighting the crash, but contrary to last time, now you have the chance to fight them without destroying the data! This time we have the power of  Bloom !”

“The power of Bloom …”

“That’s why, Subaru, keep the fort while Sora finds what she’s looking for, ok? The crash  accident is still far from over; it seems there’s someone else trying to break the equilibrium of the spectrum .”

“Someone else? But, the only ones who knew how to do that are Sora, me, and…”

“…”

“… That girl is still alive?”

“Sora doesn’t know yet, for now, all she wants you to do is to keep people safe, can you do that? Terra Hero? ” 

“… Yes!”

“I wanna sleep a bit longer but I can’t…”

After a couple of winks, Subaru’s conscience flows back to the fight, with a new smile, honest and bright, music and lights started to follow her around as she sang. She calmly walked towards Korone and Okayu who were fighting the small crash, and when touching each girl's shoulders from behind, their bodies shone with yellow, and their fists and kicks respectively, shoot with a strength which surprised the two, accidentally splitting the crash in two.

“Today is Sunday!”

“Wow; that felt as if someone put a rocket on my arm!” Korone shouts still surprised looking at her hand.

“Subaru, ready?” Mio signals the girl from the other side, and as she nods, the wolf throws a black feather over the air, summoning her chimera, which charges against the clown and realizes an armpit lock, forcing the android to drop its giant sword. Mio jumping over the back of Hatotaurus and summons Black energy from her hands, holding on to the back of the head of the clown, the creature quickly losing steam, “What is it? Feeling tired? This is what happens when Black  fights against another Black,” The wolf implies with a smug smile, “Our powers nullify each other, now you can’t absorb attacks!” 

“Got fun things to do, so Wake up! Let’s get started!”

Subaru extends her hands over the floor like an Olympic racer and dashes to pick up a shaky fox and her katana, taking her away from the battle zone and bringing her back to the group of women, “Thank you Subaru… but this isn’t over, let me help you beat that thing!” Fubuki snarls annoyed and hurt, the black-haired girl gave her a nod and stood up, “Uh? She can’t stop singing to talk? That power sure is weird but…” Fubuki coughs and uses the edge of her sword to stand, “I won’t let that thing get the last laugh! Ayame, you’re coming with me!”

“The seasons change as you go each new stage, voices join as one; we open the door and run without giving up!”

“Hehe, you girls are so lively today…” A drowsy Choco mumbles appearing from the side of Mio, her right hand emanating Black energy, “Are we playing tag now? Aren’t we too old for it…? But I want to play too,” She chuckled and smacked the ankle of the clown, “Like this right? Tag, you’re it big guy!” Then the blonde demon started to walk away.

“How did you get all the way here? That’s not how it works, hey, what are you doing?” Mio rambles anxiously, sweating and trying to keep her focus holding the clown, which swings and struggles against Hatotaurus to be released, “Stay put, you’re not going anywhere!”

“Let’s High Five our hands together, as we sing a melody!”´

Following the melody, with an unshakable smile, Subaru hopped through the floor and gently touched Fubuki’s left shoulder, and clapped hands with Nakiri, making Yellow flow through them.

“What is this? It feels amazing, alright, we can do this!” Nakiri laughs and unsheathes her katanas, the Yellow in her body turning into red and impregnating her blades with its aura, “Have a load of this! Twin Red Soul Cutting Slash !” She shouted while jumping in the air, her body freely spinning around, leading her direction with the weight of her weapons and sending two powerful slashes of Red energy against the clown, who parries it and tries to absorb it from its chest, creating sparks of friction.

“No way, does this mean it's Black it's stronger than mine? That should be impossible!” Mio gasps scared, using all her power to stop the creature from absorbing Nakiri’s attacks, “You girls need to hurry up!”

“We’re on that!” Fubuki answered leaping over the clown, her katana emanating white energy in the shape of a flame, “White Crescent Moon!”  She shoots the second slash, mixing with Nakiri’s and staying frozen over its chest without going through, “That thing is sturdy; it won’t give up!”

“On my mark, run GO! If it’s with you it isn’t hard!”

The black-haired girl kept dancing, this time she clapped hands with Korone and Okayu.

“Horayo!” The dog-girl screamed when fisting the air, her power shooting sphere of Yellow which takes the shape of a bubbly dog paw, getting stuck with the other two attacks, “Okayun look at that! It looks so darn funny!” She laughed out of control.

“You’re right, how intriguing, oh, I guess it’s my turn now right?” The cat wonders, using both hands she summons another sphere of Blue energy, making it shape as the paw of a feline and throwing it against the clown, like a pitcher with a baseball, her attack mixing in the combo still stuck, “Haha, mine did the same too!”

”Let’s High Five our hands together, as that memory becomes the energy for tomorrow yeah!”

Everyone turned around behind their backs, as they get to see Subaru bouncing a ball of bright Yellow energy over her ankles and knees, each bounce making it shine brighter, emulating the turbine of a plane, the animal-girls, and the oni quickly giving her space, understanding what is about to happen.

“Well let’s keep going! Me with you, to a Happy Lucky Life!”

She ran against the clown, bouncing the ball from knee to knee, and when it shone the most, she bounced it to her right foot and kicked it with all her strength against the clown. The Yellow sphere combining with the rest of the attacks and transforming into a rainbow sphere slowly drilling inside the clown’s body with a whistling turbine sound. Mio hurrying to run away from the back of the creature with Hatotaurus, launching one final Black sphere against it, all colors mixing in, tearing the crash apart, shattering into multiple fragments as they keep decomposing into dust by the rainbow of colors.

“We’re so grounded this time; she’s going to be so mad with us!” The hooded figure with blindfold cries while being dragged by the one with the knife around the ground by the cape.

“Stop nitpicking, we may have failed, but there’s still something we can use in our favor!” The one with the knife screamed at the other trying to shut her up, launching a kick on the air from exasperation, yet the second kick seemed to have smacked something into the nothingness, the bushes and a part of a tree broke with her kick, as she had torn apart like a piece of cloth, the insides of the torn emanating dark steam static snow like a TV without signal, without doubting she started walking inside the hole, “Not even us, and I bet not even her knew that the crashes resulting from this knife would be as strong as forcing the Terra Hero to ally herself with another five Mayors, once we tell her about how much they had to struggle trying to beat them, well be forgiving for failing… I hope,” The figure stuttered at the last part, using both hands to drag the crying one inside the hole, who kept crying and kicking.

“No, I don’t wanna go, I don’t wanna go, she’s going to yell at us, I don’t wanna!” The blindfolded uselessly struggled as her body sank against the hole and both figures disappeared into the nothingness.

“Alright, everyone, this time for sure, there’s another couple of batches inside the oven, so eat as much as you want!” Hours later at the left side of the city, the group of women reunited inside of Mio’s house, celebrating their victory and chatting, sharing drinks and cookies on the wolf’s living room, “And Fubuki, this time learn to behave yourself!” Mio nagged the white one, who whimpers with a silent nod and makes everyone laugh.

“For our Mayor Subaru, the  Terra Hero  of this virtual world!” Choco toasts cheerfully still drunk, with a beer on her right and a cookie on her left.

“Hurray!” The group followed her toast without many other claims, laughing at the drunk demon and having a long sip.

Nakiri filling her arms with cookies, and walking away from the white fox range then sitting with Korone and Okayu; just for the dog and the cat to tease her trying to snatch her cookies away.

“You sure must be proud of your mom,” Fubuki tells to Shigure with her mouth stuffed in cookies, both of them looking at Subaru chasing Achan around the living room, trying to take the video from the park away from the blue-haired woman’s hands, “I wish my mom were known around the virtual world as a  hero  too.”

“My, I’m not sure if to take that as a compliment,” Shigure giggled innocently, “You got it wrong, Subaru is my daughter, not my mom,” She continued between giggles.

“Oh, is that so? I’m sorry!” The fox chokes on the crumbs and coughs, taking a mouth of juice, “Is just that Subaru always has this cool mom aura, always taking care of everyone in the city, it made me think you were the daughter.”

Shigure peeked at Subaru with tenderness, taking a small sip of beer along, “I guess you’re right, sometimes the roles feel reversed.”

Chapter Text

“Uhm… Uh? Maybe in the other pocket… W-wait a minute! I swear I brought it with me this time nanora!” Luna fidgets when searching in the pockets of her dress, on the sides, on her hips, on the back, even on her chest, she can’t find what she’s searching for. The pink girl was standing at the front of a small crepe stall, her turn to make an order had finally come, and when the attendee tried to hand her the sweet dessert while asking for her payment with the other hand, Luna quickly turned into a handful of nerves, no matter how much she dug in her pockets, she couldn’t find her wallet.

“Miss Luna, please not this again…” The female attendee sighed while pulling back the crepe with a judgmental look.

“N-no, is not what it looks like! I promised Subaruru I would start bringing my wallet nanora, I even sent butler for the money exchange thing!” She reacted with nervous exasperation, there was a long queue of androids and virtual people waiting for their turn, yet she put a hand on her chin, closed her eyes, and began to meditate with a comical twist of lips, “Let’s see nanora, I got up this morning, my butler helped me with the dress nanora, he made me tea with my breakfast, and he put my wallet over the…” She stutters with red cheeks, crumbling on her posture, Luna stared at the woman as if she had seen a ghost, “He put my wallet over the hairdresser… I left it at home nanora…”

But the attendee didn’t react at all to her voiced thoughts, instead, she turned her eyes to the person behind the princess, “Next customer please!” She shouted uninterested.

“W-wait, didn’t you listen to what I said nanora? It was an oopsie, it was just an oopsie so!” Luna hurried to the edge of the stall stand where the crepe was being put, the attendee immediately taking the one the girl ordered deeper into the kitchen, “Please… I-I know, just call Subaruru! Subaruru will pay for me!”

“I’m sorry, but we have specific orders from Mayor Subaru to stop letting you buy food in our establishments on behalf of her personal monetary accounts,” With a cold attitude, the woman gestured Luna to fly away with a wave of the hand.

“But that’s… Why would Subaruru do something like that…? I, I haven’t asked that much, have I?” Her voice began to quiver with sadness, little tears forming in the corners of her eyes, the attendee gave a shrug, avoiding eye contact at all cost.

“C’mon now, I guess this is the moment where someone would say  ‘don’t cry over spoiled milk’  or something like that, right?” A familiar and cheerful voice interrupted, a girl of twin-tails walking in front of the stall, she extended her hand and gently cleaned the princess eyes with her thumb, “You’re too pretty to be crying like that, Luna,” Matsuri told her with a soft tone and a smile, then turned to the attendee, “I’ll pay her crepe, there’s no problem for it, right?” She explained pulling her wallet from her purse.

“I suppose, yes…” The woman stuttered, bringing back the dessert to the front, “Then, it’ll be five thousand ducks.”

“Five thousand?” Matsuri screamed with wide eyes and open mouth, turning to Luna, “Just  what  in the world did you order?”

“I…” The pink girl looked down at the floor in embarrassment, “The deluxe version, but… I only ordered it because I had the intention to pay for it this time…”

“I see,” Matsuri tried to reincorporate, coughing on her hand, her body turning back to the stall and pulling a ten thousand duck, “Then make it two deluxe versions please,” She then smiled at Luna, “I’ve heard you know a lot about the sweets of  Yellow High , I suppose the deluxe version is good?”

“Y-yes!” The princess clenched both fists with sparkling eyes, “These are the most delicious crepes of the city nanora!”

“Very well, Woah, they’re huge!” The girl gasps with surprise, as she receives two crepes of at least thirty centimeters large, stuffed with ice cream, wafers, fruits, and candies of many colors, “Can a little girl like you eat all of this?” She questioned Luna while handing her the large treat.

“Huhu, who do you think I am nanora?” The girl answered with a proud huff, smacking her chest and taking the crepe, “I’m Himemori Luna, the Mayor of  Pink Catlesser  nanora! I live in a kingdom of sugar; no sweet is too much for me!”

“I’m not so sure that’s something you should be proud of, but who am I to judge?” Matsuri chuckled, walking together with the princess out of the line as the attendee called on the next customer, in the plaza filled with people going out together, friends, couples, family, sitting over the bench and public tables, chatting and laughing, Matsuri grew with awkwardness when staring at Luna, the words wouldn’t come out from her mouth, “E-erhm… so, uhm…”

“You know!” But the pink one interrupted with a flustered face, “That what you did just now… was a very  ‘handsome boy’  thing to do nanora!” She stepped further into Matsuri’s space, breathing heavily with her cheeks sparking in red, “You’re Natsuiro Matsuri right…? Thank you so much for what you did!” She took another step, with a strange squirm of her mouth, and held over Matsuri’s hand tightly, “Would you like to sit and eat together with me nanora? I… I want to know you more!”

“Come again?” Matsuri instantly froze with the shock, her face boiling in red, stuttering like crazy, “I… Uhm… ye…” Her mouth closed tight like a zip looking down, shrugging, and nodding, “I do want to… thank you…”

“What’s with that reaction?” Luna giggled, then pulled her to the seats in a hurry, “C’mon let’s sit, or the ice cream will melt!”

They ran with bright smiles to a corner of the plaza, together with the rest of the multitude, they began to chat and eat together, as Matsuri spent all the conversation with a huge and unshakable smile. “But now that I think about it,” The girl of twin-tails changed on the subject of the conversation, after finally calming down she posed over the plastic table with her left elbow and the hand over her face, playing with a tiny plastic spoon she was using to eat the crepe, “Haven’t we meet before? Like, I swear I saw you hiding behind Subachan’s back two weeks ago, did I scare you?” She asked with a naughty laugh.

Luna halted on her movements when listening to her question, still with her mouth open unable to take a bite on the crepe, she pulled down and meditated on her words, slightly blushing, the princess nodded, “I’m sorry about that time, I… was afraid of you nanora, that’s why I hid,” She confesses with a pouty tone, “It was rude of me, I let the comments of others shape my opinion of you, but you’re a good person nanora, I know that now,” She explained with seriousness, exhaling with relief and finally taking a huge bite on her crepe.

“Don’t say things like that, it’s embarrassing!” Matsuri screeched with awkwardness invading her body, laughing and fanning her red face, “Just what is that you mean with the  ‘comments of others’ ? Are there people who speak ill of me? I didn’t know such a thing!” The girl leaned on the table forcing a giggle, half-joking, half-serious.

“No, well, you didn’t know?” The princess fidgets realizing she had touched a delicate theme, “Is just… people talk things about your  zone , they say you guys at  Orange Festival  are always having crazy parties nanora, and well, everyone has the idea that you’re all just as crazy…”

“That’s just all some silly rumors!” Matsuri laughed with sarcasm, shaking her head.

“Y-you’re right! Now that I know you, I’m sure of it! People were just saying lies, I mean… after all…” Luna blushed again, pulling a wide smile, “You’re a really good person nanora!” She made a gasp when a thought crossed her mind, then giggled with a redder face, “If you were a guy, I would even date you nanora… hehehe…”

“Aw, stop it! I can’t eat if you keep making me smile like this!” Matsuri shouted all red, gently smacking the shoulder of Luna, Matsuri’s skin slightly gleaming with a strange white aura.

“But it’s true!” The princess insisted, enjoying the way of Matsuri’s acute and shy laughter, feeling the itch of teasing her, “You have a cute face and a good sense of fashion nanora, and a nice figure, and, and you smell good and…” She kept bombarding her with compliments, Matsuri’s white aura glowing brighter.

“L-Luna, please…” The girl stuttered with a strange painful expression, as if she were going through a sudden migraine, still embarrassed from the compliments, yet her laughter stopped, and it was being replaced by a painstaking-like way of breathing, “Stop for a second… i-it’s too much…”

“Hehehe! Why so shy now nanora? I’m just saying the truth!” The pink one rocked on her chair, completely ignoring Matsuri’s mannerism, with her right index on the tip of her chin she stared up to the transparent ceiling over the plaza, “You also have a cute voice, and you act very like a handsome boy despite that you’re so girly!” Finally, when her eyes posed back on Matsuri, it was unavoidable for her to ignore it, as even the people around got their eyes fixed in Matsuri, she was shinning in white light, like a car halogen headlight being switched in the middle of the day. Incandescent enough, the princess laughed at the weird event, using her arms to cover her eyes, “Matsuri! What is that! Now you’re a literal sun, how cute!”

“Please…” But what the girl forced to say, with a hoarse and weak voice overwhelmed in pain, stopped Luna’s laughter entirely, “Luna… please  shut up  for a second…”

The girl frowned for a brief moment, stranged from the aggression and pain inside of Matsuri’s words, she lowered her arms, staring at a human torch confused; “You… you told me to shut up? Are you okay…? Matsuri?”

The girl of twin-tails nodded, with an arm over her forehead and one in her stomach, as if she were having a stroke, “I’m sorry is just… could you please stop complimenting me for a second?” She begged the pink girl, exhaling while gritting her teeth, as the light emanating from her body slowly began to fade.

“I’m sorry I just thought… you looked so pretty with that light I,” And almost reacting to her words, Matsuri’s body slightly lightened up.

“Argh!” The girl screamed in pain, panting loudly, sweating; “I told you to  shut up !” She screamed at Luna like a wounded animal.

“I’m sorry!” Luna replied shocked by her reaction, pulling back and covering her mouth with both hands, waiting for the light to completely disappear from the girl’s body, “Does… does that happens often?”

“Lately… for some strange reason, my body starts to shine whenever I’m complimented, and then there’s this strange heat…” Matsuri forces to explain, breathing loudly, she took her crepe with both hands and started to devour the parts with ice cream, “So refreshing!” She groaned with furrowed brows, her cheeks stuffed like a squirrel, “I’m sofi Luna, I didnf mean fo sfream af you, I’m freally forry!” She tried to explain while doing her best to don’t spit the sweet over the girl’s face.

“It’s fine nanora… I know you didn’t mean to… it must have hurt a lot to force you to say something so rude nanora…” Luna stutters still surprised by the entire event, no longer sure if she should laugh or not at the stuffed face of the girl in front of her, “But that’s so weird nanora, you’re  Orange  right? Does this happen to  Orange  people of…ten?” She attempts to ask Matsuri, but something new called on her attention. Right behind Matsuri, a girl was suddenly standing, with a shape identical to Matsuri, but its entirety was made of black, like a living shadow in the shape of a person, “Wha…” She frowned confused, she observed how the shadow poked Matsuri’s from the left, making her turn her face distracted, the shadow bit on the girl’s crepe and stole a part of her dessert, “Hey!” Luna violently stood from her chair, startling Matsuri still with muffled cheeks, in utter confusion about the situation.

“What, what? What happened? Who touched my shoulder? Do you know them?” Matsuri asked with a fast and surprised tone, looking at Luna walkout from the table and stand right to her side, “Luna…? Why are you making that face? Seriously, what happened?”

“The girl… it’s gone?” Luna voiced out loud while ignoring Matsuri’s voice, then turned her face, “Did… did you see that just now nanora?” She questioned while pointing at the shadow of the girl on the floor, “Just now… your shadow… y-your crepe…”

“Uh? What about my shadow?” Matsuri tilts her head, looking down at the floor confused, then back at her dessert noticing the huge bite, “Ah! Someone bit my crepe! Disgusting! Why would someone do something so mean to a stranger’s food? How I’m supposed to finish this now?” The girl complained loudly, confusing Luna even more.

Chapter Text

“Na na na, na! I want to be loved!”

“Matsuri…?” The pink one pulled on the corner of the girl’s elbow jacket.

“Na na, na na na! I want to be loved!”

“Is… is that a song? You have been singing it for a while though nanora,” Luna wonders with a stuttering tone. The girls had walked out the plaza inside a mall of  Yellow High , in an attempt to refresh their humor, looking at retail stores and helping Matsuri buying clothes, but the memory of what happened at the public tables is just fresh inside the mind of the princess. She observes the girl with worry, Matsuri happily humming a strange song with a smile, swinging her arms and legs as they walk together around the first floor of the mall, “M-Matsuri, can you hear me nanora? Ma… Matsuri!” 

The girl of twin-tails made a little startled jump due to Luna’s acute screech, quickly flustering, her eyes looked left and right, answering with an ashamed tone, “Was I… singing a strange song?”

Luna’s first reaction was to take a step back, as what happened in the plaza flashes once again inside her mind,  “This girl…”  She mourned inside her mind, and with a troubled expression, she nodded to Matsuri.

“Oh, I did? Was it awkward?” Matsuri scratches the back of her head with a blush, “I’m sorry… you see? Whenever I shine that bright, I feel all worn out, and then I start singing that weird song until I calm down,” She explained unable to looks straight into the pink one, overwhelmed in shame her free hand fidgets trying to hold her purse and shopping bags, “I’m… sorry… that song… you must be creeped out by now, don’t you?”

“This girl…”  Luna repeated inside her mind, taking a long mouth of air and with a hand over her chest, she closed her eyes briefly,  “This girl… she’s not crazy but… there’s definitely something strange going on with her… and yet…”  Looking once more at Matsuri, she took two steps forward, extending her hand, a confused and red-face Matsuri handed hers to the princess, “Don’t worry nanora… Everyone wants to be loved,” Luna giggled innocently, tenderly holding the girl with her fingers, they continued walking around the mall hall,  “Just what is this? For some reason, I want to protect this girl.”

“Ah… so you  did  hear,” Matsuri snorted acutely, looking aside from the shame, “So uhm… what do you want to do now…?”

“I was just thinking in accompany you nanora,” Luna answered emotionless, “Since I forgot my wallet, there isn’t much I can do today nanora, if it doesn’t bother you that I spend the nanora day with you… right?” She asked back looking up at her.

“Bother me?” Matsuri turned her face immediately with surprise, the words of the pink one pouring a huge smile on her face, “Is not bother at all! I love that idea, let’s do it! And don’t worry about the money, ok? I’ll pay everything!” She began to skip over the ceramic floor, childishly smiling, releasing Luna’s hand, almost as playing hopscotch, then spun back with her hands behind her back, this time with a bittersweet expression, “Thank you Luna… for staying with me, you’re so sweet…”

“This girl!”  Luna screamed inside her head, as her heart skipped a beat, running to catch with the other, “Don’t worry, after all, this virtual world is full of weirdos!” The pink girl said, making Matsuri laugh. As they turn right and stepping inside the escalator to get over the second floor, Luna’s mind was swimming over yet another worry, “But you know? About paying for everything… I’m not nanora sure if I can accept the offer,” She began to narrate with pouty lips, “After all; it seems Subaruru got angry with me for always making her buy me things…” She sighed, fiddling her fingers against, “I don’t know how to apologize to her nanora… should I get all the money I used from her and give it back nanora? Will she forgive me if I do that?”

Matsuri put a finger over her lips and silently pondered the girl’s question, then lay it out straight for her, “I doubt it, is not that you have a debt with her, is that you abused of her good side,” Her tone was serious yet void of malice.

“I see… you’re right,” Luna stopped walking, suffocating a hiccup as a desire to cry invaded her body, “Then… then what do I do nanora?”

“You just have to apologize, as you explained first,” Matsuri answered with the wave of a finger, “If you apologize to her, keep bringing your wallet, and visit her for more than asking her favors, she’ll most likely forgive you!” She caressed the top of Luna’s head, “That will mean a lot more than paying her back with money, don’t you think so?” Matsuri laughed, “You said it yourself; this virtual world is filled with weirdos! There are a lot of people in  Yellow High  who must be more of a handful than you!” Her laughter grew with playful sarcasm, Matsuri made a skip to pose behind the back of Luna, then pointed to a virtual man chasing people around the hall mall to gift them napkins, “Like that guy there! Or…” Her finger floated randomly around, falling over a female android trying to keep her three robot children from not pulling the flowers of the mall’s pot, “Or those little ones!”

“M-Matsuri, pointing is bad manners nanora!” The princess laughed nervously, trying to make Matsuri lower her arm with both hands, but the girl kept pointing at random people.

“Or those guys… or that girl!”

“Matsuri just, pfft… please, you’re embarrassing me nanora!”

“Or maybe… Oh, that one looks like one hundred percent weirdo, but cute!”

“Uh, who are you nanora talking about…?”

“Up there… over the edge of the third floor!”

“Ah, not here nanora? You’re looking at the skylight?”

“Yeah, around there, look… is an animal-girl?”

“Oh, you’re right, she definitely looks like a nanora weirdo; a dangerous one… is that a sword on her shorts nanora?

“Let’s find it out!”

“W-what? What if she’s dangerous nanora? Matsuri? Matsuri wait for me!”

“Uhm…” In front of a retail store with a sign of  “70% discount for all summer clothes!”  stood a fox-girl, with an exaggerated face of concentration making waves in the middle of her brows, her tail waving with an arrhythmical swing as her owner muttered nonsensical blabber, “But… this one here is…” She turned her head with a judgmental whistling, her eyes posing from a piece of swimsuit to another, mumbling, sighing, with her right arm holding a white paper bag, as the left scrounged inside its contents, bringing out a cookie, and devouring more than half with a huge bite, “But if I pick this one then…” She continued muttering with her mouth stuffed.

“What is it? Can’t pick up a swimsuit?”

“Yeah… I just can’t decide…”

“M-Matsuri… leave her alone nanora…! T-That sword is long!”

“It’s alright; can you look at that cute face stuffed with cookie crumbs and believe she’ll do something bad to you? But then again, why can’t you decide? Summer is still three months away!”

“Of course, that’s why I want to advantage of this discount…”

“T-that makes sense nanora…”

“I just can’t choose between this one-piece swimsuit and… this two-piece bikini…”

“Oho? They’re both so cute!”

“A-although the bikini one is a bit… thin nanora.”

“Well, there’s that too, but is just so cute… I’d like to try it on once on the beach…”

“To pick up guys?”

“Nah, is just that I want to try it… but if it could get me a guy that invites me a drink, that would be crazy hilarious, hah.”

“And what about the one-piece nanora?”

“That one is adorable, and I really want to try it on, but it looks like it would leave me weird tan lines all over my body…”

“Uhm, then you aren’t thinking about beach etiquette!”

“Beach etiquette, what is that?”

“Don’t you know? Well, remember this, since it’s also a woman’s etiquette, ok? You should always bring two changes of swimwear, one for the first days to tan your body, since you’ll spend it sitting in your chair, and that bikini is just perfect, is just thin enough for what you need! And a second one to have fun at the beach, to walk around the place, have a bath, and play in the water!”

“Ooh… I also didn’t know that nanora! Matsuriri knows a lot of useful things!”

“Matsuri…ri? That’s so cute, when did you add that extra syllable?”

“I thought you would like it!”

“I do…!”

“Ok, calm down you two… then, for what you’re trying to explain… I should buy both swimsuits?”

“Yes, that’s the idea!”

“I see, that’s actually something reasonable, I didn’t know there was something like beach etiquette…

…

… Wait a single minute, who are you two?”

Finally realizing that her voiced thoughts were being interjected by strangers, Fubuki turned on her back with a twist of her ankles and a face of surprise, hurrying to clean her left hand by sucking on her fingers, then wipe the crumbs off her face with flustered cheeks, “W-who told you to meddle over someone’s train of thought, that’s so impolite!” She waved a fist in the air with an acute voice.

“Eek!” Luna squirmed in reflex, hiding over an out of breath, laughing Matsuri.

“A million ducks! That reaction was worth a million ducks!” Matsuri clapped her hands, hunching with trouble to inhale, “You’re just so cute! What the heck, you’re the most beautiful animal-girl I’ve ever met! Not that I’ve met that many but…” She hunched even lower, her twin tails dangerously touching the floor. Matsuri used all her strength to stop laughing; then violently stood back up, wiping the tears in her eyes, “I’m sorry, it wasn’t our intention to bother you; we just thought you were cute! And that made us approach you.”

“A-are you in a jock or something…? Suddenly speaking as if you were trying to pick up on me,” The fox snarls wary of her comments, her right hand slowly posing over the handle of her katana, but after looking at the girls with detail, she breaks on her posture and stand properly, “You… shouldn’t tell a stranger  ‘cute’  so many times, it’s weird.”

“C’mon, c’mon, don’t sweat the little details!” Matsuri waved her hand up and down with a smirk, then took on the fox’s wrist, and with Luna still guarding behind her back, she pulled them both inside the store, “Now let’s go; let’s buy swimsuits for everyone!”

“Wait, just who are you? Wait for a second! I still haven’t decided if I’m going to buy them!” Fubuki snorts surprised at the girl’s attitude, bowing as a quick apology to the android employee at the entrance from the abrupt visit, dragged to the discount hall, she turns her face to Luna next, “Hey, I know you! You’re a Mayor like me! Who is this girl? Is she always like this?”

“Not at all! I’m actually super shy!” Matsuri replied instead, turning to Fubuki’s while grinning, “I’m Natsuiro Matsuri! And today I feel like I can do everything, thanks to you!” She finished by looking at Luna, muting the pink one with red cheeks.

“Is that so? Another Mayor uh…?” Fubuki thought out loud, then removed her wrist from Matsuri’s grasp, taking hers instead, and walking in front leading the march in the store, “Then I’m Shirakami Fubuki, and today I feel like buying those swimsuits!”

“Thank you nanora… no matter how much I insisted, you two ended buying swimwear for me too…” After thirty minutes of trying sets, and of running away from an obnoxious peeper Matsuri on the changing rooms, the girls finished their impromptu shopping in the mall, but Matsuri was yet far from satisfied. Smiling like she hasn’t done in all day, the girl led the other two over visiting all clothing stores on the third floor, trying out hats and purses, modeling heels with the girls, and stumbling all together to walk with them, mourning at failing on the search of pants with pockets. Returning to the first floor, they sat over a bench near a small pharmacy, Luna, and Fubuki at the left and right of a hyperactive Matsuri, who couldn’t stop chatting with the girls about clothes and discounts,  “This is girl sure is a handful… But at least nothing weird has happened in these past hours… plus,”  Luna pauses on her thoughts, silently observing the mannerism of the girl of twin tails, the way she giggles when crossing her fingers, the way her shoulders slightly shrug when embarrassed, the way she tilts her head when speaking directly to one of the two,  “Being with her is so much fun… I don’t want this day to end.”  She thought, then stood out the bench with a long and heavy jump, spinning back to the group, “I… I don’t want this day to end nanora, let’s do more fun things nanora!”

“Oyo? Looks like someone still has some gas in the tank!” Matsuri jumped out of the chair next, clenching her arm.

“You bet I am nanora! This day has been so much fun, what should we do next?” She locked her opposed arm with Matsuri, and almost instinctively, the two started on a skip walk in circles.

“You girls sure are a blast huh? Although I would be lying if I said I want to go back home now,” Fubuki was the last to stand, with crossed arms pretending a serious face, she walked into the two, breaking their childish jump, just to stretch her arms and take over Luna and Matsuri’s hands, the three now dancing running in one big circle, not minding being seen by the rest of the people inside the mall, “Subaru would get  so  mad if she saw us right now! What’s next? Where do we go now?” The fox laughed self-aware of how much they were calling on people’s attention.

“Let’s go somewhere really fun nanora!” Luna replied with laughter.

“That could be anywhere you silly!” Fubuki shouts back with a fluster on her cheeks.

“Then...! Want to come to my  zone ?” Matsuri asked with the same excitement of the two, releasing herself from the dance, taking a couple of steps back and fixing her hair, trying to calm down, “A place where the fun never ends, my  Orange Endless Festival !”

Chapter Text

The streets were crowded with people, the wind had confetti mixed within, and the music was cheerful and thunderous. At the very entrance of what seemed like a convention for multiple types of different celebrations, Matsuri was welcomed with a furious roar of virtual people.

“MAYOR, WELCOME BACK!”  The masses celebrated; voices of kids, men, and women were overwhelmed with excitement.

“… Jesus Christ!” Fubuki cried while pulling her ears down with both hands by reflex.

“Woah, they sure love you nanora!” Luna giggled forcefully, reacting just like the fox and covering her ears.

“Hello everyone! Did you have any problem keeping the fort for me?” Matsuri asked playfully, with a grin she put her left hand over her ear and hunched, anticipating their answer.

“WE WERE LONELY WITHOUT YOU, MAYOR.”

“Is that so? But don’t worry because I’m back to the fun! Today I brought some guests with me, so let’s show them our hospitality through and through!” The girl explained screaming almost as high as them, presenting the two girls by extending her arms at large.

The fox chuckled awkwardly at the hot-blooded welcome from the multitude, gradually standing with her back straight, she gazed once more at the scenario. There wasn’t a single car on the streets, as people claimed domain over it with food stalls, souvenir shops, and more. There were fast-food restaurants where the eye could pose, arcades, candy, and toy stores stuffed with children, who laughed and screamed without inhibitions. She turned left and spotted what looked like a water park on the farthest end of the city, gulping down saliva, she looked at her right, and immediately identified a roller coaster that seemed to travel far lengths into the city, spinning and twirling around. Fubuki took a deep breath with a doubtful look, a hoard of men and women running and bumping with them as they built a new food stall behind their backs as if their lives would depend on it, submerged in the overwhelming colors and noises, she tried to fix her hair, and brushed off a fist worth of confetti with her hand into the floor, “Luna, this place… maybe we should go… back?” She tried to whisper to the pink girl and quickly found out she had been left behind after the last wave of people, Luna and Matsuri were already walking inside the chaos of people celebrating, “Hey… Hey you two, don’t leave me alone!” Fubuki cried with a red face, dashing through the crowds to catch with the girls.

“Mayor, we still can’t decide what to do for tonight’s runway!” A woman hurried from the left and hijacked the group, handing a load of pamphlets to Matsuri.

“This one will do!” The girl cheerfully answered in a brief of a second, her fingers ran through the pictures with dexterity, swiftly pulling one of the pages and placing it on top, handing it back to her.

“Mayor, we need your sign for the Italian food stalls budget of this week!” A new man appeared from the right with a freshly printed bill and a metallic pen.

“Okie Dokie!” Matsuri replied with a comical voice, spinning the pen between her fingers and firmly signing over the paper with a loud noise of the pen ball tearing the paper with ink.

“Do these people never leave you alone? No wonder why you escape to Yellow High so often,” Fubuki snorted with sarcasm as another couple of women intercepted their walk.

“Matsuriri, you’re so cool nanora, they’re all speaking at the same time and you can keep with their conversations!” Luna complimented her with a voice full of amazement.

“This is an everyday thing, you get used to it!” Matsuri laughed with pride, “And… hold it right here!” She extended her right arm and stopped the other two girls, then signaled to their right. As the people moved aside, revealing they were still walking over another street, coming from one of the avenues, a marching band dressed with sparkling colors walked through with trumpets and drums, Matsuri checked on her wrist clock with a serious expression, then turned to a man of the staff, “Tell the marching band branch they’re three minutes too early in this street, they have to slow down a little!” She signaled with a commanding tone as if she were giving orders in live to death situation.

“Yes, Mayor!” The man responded with a soldier-like posture, running out of the scene.

“Three minutes early? C’mon, they aren’t the bullet train,” Fubuki snarled baffled by the situation.

“Nope, everything here needs to work with the precision of a Swiss clock!” Matsuri huffed with hands over her hips, “We pride in our name, we are the  Endless Festival, and we need to execute properly for it!”

“I’m kind of starting to see why butler gets so mad at me when doing my Mayor work nanora…” Luna stutters with guilt.

“Oh c’mon, that’s a comparison way off  the scale you’re doing right now,” Fubuki kept with the straight man routine, her tone full of baffled sarcasm as she stared at the man running off behind their backs, “This place sure lives to its name doesn’t it…?”

As if he were a quarterback, the man danced between the people with his arms in the air, jumping over puppies and children with almost mathematical accuracy. “Somebody…” Crossing from one avenue to the other, even in the almighty mix of laughter, music, and screams, a lamenting voice stopped the man on his tracks, “Somebody… help me…” The man heard once more, confused, staring left and right, until he sighted a figure extending an arm from the depths of a dark alley, “I need help…”

“Are you hurt? What are you doing in that place?” He asked while running to meet with the stranger, lost in his own thoughts, he walked inside the ally without thinking enough, facing a person covering their identity with a hooded cape.

“This place… is so loud… someone stepped on me… I don’t have any money and I’m thirsty…” The stranger mourned hoarsely, coughing and holding onto their neck.

“Ah, I’m sorry to hear that, it must be your first time here right?” He fidgeted with flustered cheeks, searching on the pockets of his jacket, he pulled a bottle of plastic with a vivid orange color liquid, “It happens often to the visitors, but don’t worry! There’s nothing that our Endless Juice  doesn’t fix!” He explained while handing the drink with an honest smile.

“ Endless Juice…  is it… safe?” The figure wondered, doing their best to incorporate and take a hold of the bottle.

“Yes of course!” He nodded energetically, taking a step forward for the stranger to get the drink, “One big chug of this and you’ll feel… reju…” The man chokes with saliva, with a trembling body; he looks down, as the figure slowly stabs him below the abdomen with an odd-looking knife, “venated?” He collapsed on the floor, and slowly his entire body began to corrupt with a dark mist.

“Ah, is that so?” The figure spouts sarcastically, with a firm and healthy voice. Sheathing the knife, the figure used the wall of the alley to stand properly, their cape moving slightly and opening up, showing the absence of a right arm. Taking the drink from the floor and removing the lid, sipping on it, “Uhm… certainly, this is some powerful energy drink,” They hissed with a bit of disgust, now holding over the bottle as if they were handling something radioactive, “I can’t believe blind idiot and fang idiot took them so much to corrupt people, how much it took me, five, ten minutes?” They blurted out loud, speaking into the nothingness, observing how the man completely formed into a crash  and stood back, “Then again, this place is full of small virtual people, none of them cut for an exemplar of a crash  who can use its black,” The figure sighed disappointed, taking another chug of the bottle, “Ugh… it tastes so weird, and it feels like I’m drinking a million volts, just what is this thing made of?” They wondered, yet took on an even longer sip, until emptying the bottle and throwing it on the floor, “Anyway, this mission was doomed from the start, ah, I hate so much when she screams at me,” They sighed scratching the back of their head from inside the hood, then stared at the crash, “And just what are you still doing here? Get a three and find your way out here! Go and find Matsuri, now!” They screamed to the creature, which nodded empty of thoughts, and slowly walked away.

“Over here we sell our most delicious hamburgers!” Matsuri signaled one of the stalls, running to the front of the line, where an employee greeted her with a smile and immediately gave her three hamburgers wrapped with thin paper, two of which she handed to the girls.

“Now we are talking!” Fubuki shouts with sparkling eyes and an agitated tail, tearing the wrap with her nails and taking a huge bite, pulling on the patty, “My God, this is heaven!” She squirmed happily with a hand over her face.

“And on this other extreme we have one of our specialties,” She ran to the other stall with the fox and the princess following behind, “Our orange ice cream cake! The sweetness of the cake and the refreshing acid taste of oranges, try it out!” Once again the girl was gifted with three samples, sharing two with them.

“I was needing this nanora!” Luna shout licking her lips and a menacing plastic spoon in one hand, quickly stuffing her mouth with ice cream, “You’re right! It’s so sweet and cold! It’s perfect for this weather!”

“Mayor Matsuri, Mayor Matsuri!” A woman staff appeared out of the blue, with her arms full with transparent plastic bags with clothes on the inside, “The preparations for the welcome of our guests are done; we can start whenever you want!”

“Seriously?” The girl hopped towards the woman and snatched the bags from her, “I’ve never done this with a guest; this is going to be so much fun!” She ran behind the back of the girls next and began to push them out of the street, “C’mon hurry up and finish those stuff; we have a schedule to make!”

“Matsuri calm down, the food will fall off my hands!” Fubuki shouted juggling between the meat and the cake.

“Just shove it all down nanora!” Luna replied for the girl, taking a bite of ice cream and adding a bite from the hamburger, munching it together and swallowing with one gulp, “Urgh… that wasn’t smart nanora…”

Matsuri continued guiding them from behind, taking the girls into the back of a wooden stage, further inside of a dressing room, where she scared the girls by switching off the lights.

“Alright girls, let’s get changed, clothes off!”

“C-clothes off nanora!”

“W-wait, don’t touch me, stay away from my tail, hey that tickles!”

“Matsuriri, what are these clothes?”

“They’re ceremonial clothes; this is how we receive my personal guests, not that I’ve ever gotten any!”

“How can you call these things clothes? I’m pretty sure that even under this darkness I’m half-naked!”

“M-me too nanora… my legs can feel the breeze…”

“It's too late to get shy, now tie this tightly below your tail!”

“Don’t touch me! Matsuri, back off, oh my God you’re wearing the same too!”

“W-wow… Matsuriri’s tushy is all-round nanora…”

“Don’t look at her tushy, and don’t say tushy, you’re a grown-up woman already!”

“Alright, it seems we are all ready to jump into the scenario!”

“What, no way in hell, I’m not going out in front of so many people with this thing!”

“Of course you do, Luna, help me with Fubuki!”

“NO! DON’T! WHERE IS MY KATANA? I’LL CUT YOU IF YOU DON’T LET ME GO!”

 “Let’s do it Fubuki, if we all do it together it won’t be embarrassing nanora!”

“NOOOOOOOO!”

With a tempo of four the scenario curtains’ split in half, with Fubuki, Luna, and Matsuri, on the top of a large wooden pyramid of Taiko drums, bachis on each hand. “Let the welcome ceremony of our guests… begin!” Matsuri screamed with aggression, wearing a set of an open sleeveless jacket, a fundoshi, and her chest wrapped with white bands, she furiously started to smack, rhythmically followed by the lines of men and women below the pyramid. Luna to her left side, using all her concentration to copy the movements of the girl leading the drums; Fubuki at her right, with shaky legs and arms, with tears in her eyes and red boiling face, unable to follow the situation.

“I’m never getting married now!” The fox broke into tears, now smashing the drum out of frustration.

“Don’t worry nanora! No one who knows you is watching this!” Luna screamed from her side, slowly synching her beats.

“But all of these people are looking at me! They all can see my butt!” Fubuki cried harder, smashing the Taiko furiously.

“We all have cute tushies, get over it!” Matsuri shouted at her, skillfully throwing the bachis on the hair and picking them up without looking up, “Heave-ho, heave-ho, scream that frustration out, Fubuki!”

“AHHHHHHH,” The fox howled as if she was being stabbed by the audience’s eyes, “STOP SAYING TUSHY, YOU AREN’T BABIES ANYMORE.”

“Heave-ho, heave-ho, you’re doing it nanora, keep it like that Fubuki!” Luna said now mastering the rhythm.

“JUST HOW ARE YOU SO COMFORTABLE IN THIS SITUATION, PLEASE LET A CRASH  EAT ME!” The fox howled once more, and almost as if answering her cries, the ceremony was interrupted by a heartrending scream, and the music of the drums slowly began to fade, as the three stared how the audience ran away from a strange black creature like oil distancing from a water drop. The more the creature approached the scenario, the louder the screams of fear, a crash was walking towards the Taiko drummers, everyone suddenly looking up at Fubuki with aversion, “Erhm… what? Don’t give me those eyes, it was just an expression!”

“I-is… that what I think it is nanora? Are those the things Subaruru fights?” Luna questioned with a horrified face, “What do now…? Do we call Subaruru? Yellow High it’s too far away from here nanora! She won’t make it in time!”

“We don’t need Subaru; I can handle a small one like that in a second…” Fubuki tried to calm down the princess, but when her hand reacted instinctively, moving behind her back, grasping the air, she coughed in surprise, “Crap, I forgot Matsuri took my Katana…!” She bit on her thumb looking at the creature almost near the scenario; then released a frustrated squirm, “Urgh! I hate this but I guess I don’t have any other choice, I will have to use that weird…” Her monologue was stopped by a shining bright coming from her side, as Matsuri’s fundoshi changed, and transformed in an asymmetrical dress, similar of the one of Subaru, but with a different color swap, “… Power… you… you can use  Bloom  too?” The girl didn’t reply, with her eyes fixed on the crash, Matsuri started on an elegant hop, going down the pyramid to meet with the creature, “Hey, wait for a second! Do you even know how to fight? You don’t have any weapons!” She yelled at her.

“Weapons…?” Matsuri repeated, slightly turning her face to the fox, and laughing condescending, “Who needs weapons?” She asked sarcastically, reaching the floor and walking towards the crash while shaking her hips.

“… Does everyone always lose control of themselves when using that power? God, I hope I never get to use it…” Fubuki sighed all exhausted, dropping her knees on the floor, “Why did I even tag along…?” She mourned with ears down.

“Matsuriri… she looks so beautiful nanora…” Luna whispered with a flustered face, tightly holding on her hands.

“Even if your face has more wrinkles than it did in the past, that's all right.”

Matsuri began to sing, slowly walking towards the creature as Fubuki and Luna stared from afar, and the citizens silently stared from the stalls and stores.

“Even if I can't play the guitar like I wish I could, my heart is overflowing with songs for you.”

A gentle smile poured on her face, as she faced the crash with melancholy, softly holding their hands, grasping their fingers.

“I can't sing as high as I'd like to…”

Her orange began to flow out of her body and through the creature, who opposed no resistance to the touch of the girl, almost hypnotized, interlacing fingers with her.

“But I hope that you'll nod along, and sing together with me.”

Matsuri’s energy whistles loudly like the engine of a plane, making large cracks into the creature’s body and burning it from the inside out; slowly disintegrating it.

“I don't need thunderous applause or resounding cheers…”

And with the sound of a cracking egg, the creature gently exploded with a smile, turning into dust and mixing with confetti in the air until completely vanishing, with furious applause from the citizens still around, celebrating her victory.

“Whoops! Looks like I’ll never be able to finish that song!” Matsuri chuckled faking innocence, sticking out her tongue with a wink.

Chapter Text

Traversing the city at almighty speeds when ridding the rollercoaster, the fox and the princess dove into an adventure led by Matsuri. “This is one of the favorites spots for tourists who come for the first time, the Jelly Street! All food stalls and entertainment are jelly-themed!” With a deafening voice fueled by the excitement, the girl explained the two.

“Why didn’t we start here first?” Fubuki hissed before swallowing a spoonful of cold lemonade jelly, her inflated cheeks jiggling as she munched, “This place is so quiet, and the snacks are fresh and easy to eat too!”

“H-how can you eat after a ride like that nanora…?” Luna painfully said while holding in her stomach, “M-maybe a nanora break will do…”

“Don’t worry Luna, if you feel sick or tired, there’s nothing that a good chug of  Endless Juice  doesn’t solve!” Matsuri bumped to her side, bringing a bottle out of her jacket and handing it to the girl.

“W-what’s this…? Like a sports drink?” Luna questioned while removing the lid. A sniff in the content was enough to make her squirm from the strong stench of chemicals, but feeling guilty when facing the eyes of the twin-tailed girl, she inhaled loudly and took a chug, “Mhm?” She released another squirm, muffled by the effervescent liquid flowing inside her mouth, with wide eyes of amaze the girl gulped down the entire bottle without breathing, “Give me the jelly nanora, I will face the jelly, I will eat the jelly, I will beat the jelly! Fuuuoh!” The girl screamed with renewed strength, shadowboxing vigorously.

“What the heck did you put in that drink?” Fubuki chuckled awkwardly.

Driving in go-karts over a thin and long bridge over the city’s buildings and houses, they raced the other up to their next destination.

“This is the Music Street! Here is from the march brand comes from, play all you want, don’t even worry if you break them!” Matsuri explained next, as always stretching her arms in the air, shouting and spinning around with her ankles.

“That’s not something the Mayor of the city should say to her visitors…” Fubuki snarled again, never used enough to the leeway girl, shyly blowing a small kazoo between her lips.

“This piano it’s s-so big, my feet don’t reach the pedals nanora!” Luna shouted unable to either use the instrument with her hands or feet, stretching with all her body from one extreme to other trying to dominate the full-size piano, stumbling over the stool, the music pages falling over her head.

Screaming and tearing up when being rocketed from a horizontal Double Shot, their trip around the lousy town started to wear them down.

“Matsuri, can we pause for five minutes... The blood hasn’t come back to my legs properly yet, it’s hard to walk,” Fubuki asked the girl while chasing her from the back, Luna at a longer distance behind them, but Matsuri, without looking back at her, just handed her a bottle of Endless Juice, “Uh… Thank you…? But seriously, let’s rest for a mo-“

“This street it’s called the Bubble Street! There’s an infinite collection of toys for us to shoot bubbles here!” Matsuri interrupted her violently with a huge smile.

The fox halted immediately, gulping down saliva frightened of the girl, but when Luna reached to her side, she snatched the bottle from her hands, getting ready to drink it, “Luna... no, this… this is exactly what the rumors about this place are all about, we… if she keeps going like this, we may die, we need to leave this place,” Fubuki whispered to her, leaning to the height of the pink one so Matsuri couldn’t hear.

“Not yet…” Luna coughed a reply, taking another chug of the drink, “Not yet nanora… if, if we can survive the day…”

“The day? C’mon, it’s barely the evening and she keeps making us eat trash food and ride attraction after attraction, I haven’t seen a single citizen on this place taking a break, all they do is drown on this strange beverage!” She whispered louder, bewildered by the little girl's decision to continue.

“Matsuriri is alone nanora…” Luna declared firmly, in an attempt to mollify the fox, looking at the back of the girl walking in front of them, “Haven’t you noticed? The things she says and does nanora, it’s all because she’s lonely… ” She looked up to Fubuki, “She hasn’t even asked us if we want to be her friend, she has been so alone all this time nanora, she doesn’t have the bravery for it, and this place overcompensates that loneliness nanora.”

“You…” Fubuki stuttered in shock at the serious and sudden speech, pondering what Luna said with a serious face, her ears twitching as eyes pose over the floor and Matsuri, “I see… that’s why you’ve been trying so hard from the start; you’re waiting for her to buckle up her feelings…” She sighed and curled her lips with disdain, taking back the bottle of juice from Luna’s hand, and swallowing the rest of the content, “… You see, I’m not a fan of hyperactive and innocent girls like her, but heck, everyone needs a friend!” Fubuki lifted her face and swung her tail, “Let’s befriend this girl!”

Riding jet skis through an artificial river, they circle the city, reaching the water park.

“You can do it Fubuki, go, go!” Matsuri cheered her up, at the top of a water slide hundreds of meters in the air, wearing their most recent additions of swimwear, clapping her hands waiting for the fox to jump inside the tube.

“You have to be kidding, do people really do this?” Fubuki asked full of sarcasm, shaking her head and tightly embracing a floater, cornered between the girls and the tube, until Luna dashes beside Matsuri and smacks the fox with her rear, pushing her to the slide, “NO! I DON’T WANNA!” She screamed in horror, trying to run the slippery slide, just to fall on her face and swiftly be carried downhill, her screams echoing all the way, “LUNA, YOU’RE DEAD TO ME.”

“Don’t be a baby nanora!” The princess shouted with her usual acuteness, willingly jumping inside the slide and dragging Matsuri by the wrist, “Let’s go together!”

“That’s the spirit, you’re amazing!” Matsuri laughed when being pulled, snuggling the other between giggles as they fall at dangerous speeds.

Watching the sunset reach its peak as they return to the point of start by flying over Delta Wings, the girls reach the landing spot, and together the three take yet another bottle of Endless Juice, gulping it down like a cold glass of lemonade after a long day under the sun.

“Oh! Matsuri, please our cute and perfect Mayor Matsuri, please save us from the crash !” A tall and muscled man dressed like Fubuki begged with a lamenting yet melodious tone. Taking on the night, the streets were illuminated by paper lamps and sitting at a special table at the front of an improvised scenario, the girls were watching a dramatization of the events that happened at noon, Luna laughing her lungs out, together with the rest of the audience, at the actor, to the displease of the fox, “Clumsy of me for separating from my katana when changing into this beautiful fundoshi! Please fight for the dreams and hopes of children!” The man continued as if praying.

“C’mon now… that’s not what happened at all…” Fubuki snarled with a pout, as Luna leaned her face into her shoulder, crumbling into a mess of giggles.

“Fret not my comrades! Matsuri is here to save the day!” The girl shouted interpreting herself over the scenario, being lifted in the air by a set of ropes, and being carried into the air towards a cardboard figure of a man’s silhouette painted in black, “Matsuri power!” She screamed now, flipping in the air and preparing a kick, gently bumping the cardboard until her feet pushed it hard enough to fall into the floor, the audience of the street answering with a powerful scream, enough to mute both the fox and princess who hurried to cover their ears.

“Matsuriri, you’re the best lalora!” Another man sang with a girly tone, dressing as Luna, she ran to the ankles of the girl when this landed, kneeling and looking up at her with daze and obsession, “You’re my hero lalora, there’s nothing you can’t do!”

“T-that’s not what I said nanora!” The pink one tried to complain, but her voice was drowned by the voice of the audience, which leveled up each minute, quickly turning into an overwhelming and uncomfortable mess of screams, “W-what’s wrong with them? They’re even louder than in the morning nanora!”

“MAYOR MATSURI IS THE CUTEST!” The citizens sang in one voice, both Luna and Matsuri reacting with utter fear.

“No, don’t do that!” Luna screamed back at the people, but none of them could hear.

“What is it? Why are you so pale all of a sudden?” Fubuki asked while gritting her teeth from the pain induced into her ears.

“Guys, please…! Not everyone at the same time, you know what happens when you do it!” Matsuri began to tremble, recognizing her skin gently starting to light up, with shaky hands she tried to calm down her citizens.

“MAYOR MATSURI IS BEAUTIFUL WHEN SHE SHINES!” The citizens blurted back.

“P-please…! This is not a joke, I don’t enjoy that feeling!” Matsuri shouted at them with trembling lips as her body lightened up, thrice faster than before.

“What the heck she’s…” Fubuki stood from her chair horrified, holding on to her katana by pure instinct, “Matsuri… Matsuri is jumping out of the spectrum, but that doesn’t have any sense! Matsuri is Orange !” She voiced out loud, now turning her face to the people, “Stop it… Stop it right now you idiots! That’s not a light show!”

“Please… it hurts… I can’t breathe!” Matsuri coughed, illuminating the scenario like a human lamp, the entire figure of the girl turned into white, her eyes, hair, and nails too were painted with the bright white energy, flames sparking from her body.

“That’s what is happening nanora? But why is it happening to her?” Luna cried to Fubuki.

“MAYOR MATSURI, IS THE BEST, MAYOR MATSURI, IS THE BEST!” The citizen sang with rhythm.

“ ENOUGH!”

The entire street stopped into silence, as Matsuri commanded with an almighty and omnipresent voice which seemed to echo from all places but none, releasing a shockwave of white flames which partially burned the top of the food stalls. Fubuki and Luna didn’t know what to do, scared of the entity floating in the air, but as silence reigned, Matsuri’s lights and flames, slowly leveled down, her feet landing back into the floor, and her figure returning to her usual self. “Hah… Haha… taadaa?” The girl was forced to say with a painful expression and a swing of her hips to the public, which replied with a furious shout of encouragement.

“They’re… applauding… did that juice turn all these people into a mass of idiots or what?” Fubuki snarls at the uncouth of the situation, looking up at Matsuri next, “Hey, are you ok over there?”

“I… Uhm… everything’s fine… is just… wew!” The girl huffed with large sweat drops over her face, swaying on her feet with a pale face, she turned and started to walk to the back of the scenario, “Just… give me five minutes to cool down…!” She pants with acuteness, disappearing behind the curtains.

“Matsuri, we have to help her!” Luna cried with a face full of worry, jumping from her chair and running through the mass of cheerful people, hurrying her way to circle the scenario, “The shadow… the shadow!”

“The shadow? What do you mean? Luna wait for me!” The fox yelled at her following from behind.

They dove into the multitude as if their lives depended on it, reaching backstage, kicking door after door to reach Matsuri’s dressing room.

“I want to be loved, I want to be loved, I want to be loved…”

But the scene waiting for them was one of horror, as Matsuri prostrates on the floor, biting her lower lip and digging her nails over each other arms to the point of bleeding, singing a strange and hasty song.

“I want to be loved, I want to be loved, I want to be loved…”

“M-Matsuri it’s ok… I’m here nanora…” Luna tried to approach her, but Fubuki stopped her with a trembling hand, “Fu… buki…?”

“I want to be loved, I want to be loved, I want to be loved…”

“You were right… her shadow…” The fox bit on her words, looking with wide eyes at the black silhouette of Matsuri’s shadow growing against the wall, slowly turning into a strange and huge version of the girl behind her back, with giant claws and a big mouth, menacing to eat the girl’s head, “N-no...! Stay away from her!” Fubuki finally snapped, drawing her sword and running towards the strange figure.

“Keep your hands off Matsuriri!” Luna cried next, running together with Fubuki, removing her crown from the top of her head and trying to stab the creature with it.

They jumped in unison, but their attacks were shallow, as their hits reacted over the shadow like hands trying to grasp smoke. They landed on the other side of the dressing room, and when they turned around on a second attempt to smack the shadow, the figure had changed completely into a more accurate version of Matsuri’s silhouette; the creature smiled at them and waved her hands,  “Thank you…”  They said using Matsuri’s voice, flattening and meandering back to the feet of the prostrating girl, returning to normal.

“That thing… thanked us?” Fubuki blurted, slowly sheathing her sword unable to process the events happening.

“Matsuriri… Matsuriri stop that nanora, you’re hurting yourself!” Luna yelled to the girl, completely ignoring the vanished threat she hurried to hunch near the girl and embrace her, rubbing her back.

“Luna…?” Matsuri asked hoarsely, her face covered with a messy and sweaty toupee, “I’m… everything’s fine… don’t worry…”

“How can you say something like that, nothing about this it’s fine, since when did you start jumping out of the spectrum and why didn’t you tell anyone of white? We could’ve helped you!” Fubuki scolded the girl as she slowly walked towards them.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about…” Matsuri replied with a painful tone, crawling in all fours she separated from Luna, reaching a mini-fridge where she took a bottle of  Endless Juice, her hands repeatedly losing grasp of the lid until she took it off, slowly standing she began to gulp down the beverage.

“Matsuriri… let’s take a break, please nanora? It’s late already, aren’t you tired?” Luna asked the girl, fruitlessly trying to hold her ankles as she wandered around chugging down the drink.

“Tired…? But there’s still so much to do!” The girl turned around with a corrupted smile, tears on her face, blood on her lips, juice on her chin, “The night calls for the night attractions! You haven’t seen anything of Endless Festival if you don’t visit us at night!”

The fox looked at her with ireful eyes, quickly dashing in front of the girl and delivering a powerful loud slap on her face, “Snap out of it, you’re going to break down for Pete’s sake!”

Matsuri held in her face bemused of Fubuki’s reaction, tearing up, she loudly sucked on her snot and forced a smile, “… C-c’mon, all tourists have to make the night tour at some moment… I’ll, I’ll g-guide you guys around!” She chuckled awkwardly between tears.

“Are you insa-…” Fubuki tried to howl, holding Matsuri by the neck of her shirt, but the whimpers of the small princess stopped her, Luna was crying on the floor.

“Lu…na?” Matsuri tilted her head, spun to the fridge, and took a second bottle of juice, kneeling back to the pink girl, “What is it? Are you tired? Here, you can have another of the-“ But the princess slapped the girl’s hand, throwing the bottle into a corner of the room with violence.

“What is wrong with you nanora?” Luna screamed with powerlessness, her face covered in tears, “I’m so tired…! My arms, my legs, my voice, my heart… my soul! I’m so tired... of this place, of that juice, of this people! Of… of you!” She screamed heartrending, bawling like a river.

“Of… me?” Matsuri repeated, slowly stepping back in shock.

Fubuki kneeled to the side of Luna and softly embraced the girl, Luna rested her face on her shoulder holding her tightly, the fox looked back at Matsuri with revulsion, “It is because of things like these that people call this place the Nightmare Festival! ” She howled at her, showing her fangs in a display of wrath towards the girl.

Five long minutes elapsed as the white one tried to soothe the princess on her arms, hugging her tight and tenderly caressing her back. None of them looking at Matsuri, who stood there with crossed arms and looking at them with awkwardness, blabber coming out of her lips, whenever she tried to phrase her thoughts she would always stop and bit her lips, frustrated not knowing what to say. “My… house…” She finally spouted at the sixth minute, “I… ordered to make preparations at my house… so you girls could stay with me at the end of the night… I…” She snorted loudly, cleaning her eyes, stroking her arms, her voice drowned with sadness, “I thought of… a sleepover… but if you’re that tired… then we can just sleep…” She finished, pulling yet the saddest smile she could boast.

“What in the world makes you think I want to stay in a place like this?” Fubuki quickly barked at her, protecting Luna with her arms she was ready to smear on the girl, but the touch of the pink girl tapping on her chest caught her out of the guard, she looked down at the girl, who shook her head with a bittersweet smile, took the wrist of the fox and slowly stood back up.

“Just for tonight… we’ll take your offer nanora,” Luna replied with a lecturing yet soft voice.

Chapter Text

In the middle of the night, Fubuki and Luna remained restless, together in the same room of a small house on the outsides of the city. Each one in a fancy and extravagant bed double of a king-size, surrounded by pillows of many shapes and colors, while wearing one-piece pajamas with the shapes of animals, Fubuki with a white cat-themed, and Luna with a puppy themed one.

The princess silently turned her face to the left where the fox was, with closed eyes and arms behind her head Fubuki attempted to sleep in vain, even so far out of the city, you could hear the echoes of a rave, and the bass making the structure of the dwell slightly tremble. Luna gazed up to the ceiling, decorated with huge plastic fluorescent stars, making the entire room look like the cradle of an abnormal-sized baby. Matsuri wasn’t there, as she was too ashamed of sharing the same room with them after what had happened, she went to sleep of her own, the princess looked at the third empty bed, sighing with melancholy, rubbing her eyes when the memories of hours before push her to tear up.

“Having trouble sleeping uh?” A familiar feminine voice suggests, with a finger playing with a flock of the girl’s pink hair.

“It’s hard to sleep… nanora… I don’t usually fight… or scream at people… and today…” Her body curled with an acute tone, tears quickly flowing from a pair of already swollen and tired eyes, “O-of all the people in the world I could have screamed… why it had to be her?” Luna asked with a broken tone, mixed in tears, her hands desperately hurrying to find the nearest pillow and squish it between her arms.

“There, there, no need to feel so guilty about it,” The voice whispered with a soothing tone, their hand slowly rubbing the right shoulder and arm of the girl from behind, “Sometimes fights are needed, I personally am glad you raised your voice back there, if you hadn’t, this night may have ended completely different,” The voice giggled with malice.

Luna felt a chill down her spine, finally remembering there should only be two people inside the room. The voice whispering in her ear was muffled with a strange tone at the end as if filtered with the static of bad reception signal. She drowned a scream, tears flowing through her eyes, this time in fear, and against all natural impulses, she tried to look around the person who eagerly caressed her arm and back, “Want me to sing you a lullaby?” The shadow of Matsuri suggested with an abnormal size smile that seemed to go through their head.

“FUBUKI!”  The princess screamed all pale, rolling and crawling out of bed as if her life would depend on it.

“I was waiting for you!” The fox replied from the other bed, quickly taking on an already unsheathed katana. Jumping from one bed to the other as Luna fell to the ground, Fubuki hilt her blade and tried to slice the shadow, but once again her weapon went through the figure without dealing damage, cutting the surface of the bed instead.

“Wow, violence!” The shadow laughed full of sarcasm, jumping on the bed and distancing from the girls, as their body took once again the shape of Matsuri, “Careful there, you pretentious fox, why don’t you save that pizza slicer for a moment? And keep your voice down, you’re going to wake up the real one,” The shadow explained with a condescending tone and a gesture of her hand.

“What are you, why did you try to eat Matsuri?” Fubuki asked the figure, ignoring their words entirely.

The shadow sighed, her eyes and mouth all seemed to go through their body, it gazed next at Luna while crossing their arms, “Hey, spoiled child, would you tell the pizza slicer to tone it down a little? I’m trying to have a conversation here.”

“S… Spoiled?” Luna gave a judgmental look at the figure freely speaking towards them; then shook her head with worry.

“C’mon!” The figure hunched with disappointment, their expressions were tightly bound to their words, “None of you can hurt me, and even if I can touch you, I’m weaker than the original, so can we please call for a truce?”

Fubuki meditated on her words this time, slowly stepping down the bed, looking for the scabbard of her katana and sheathing it, breathing loudly, “Then, I’ll ask once more, who are you and why did you try to eat Matsuri?”

“I’m Matsuri!” The shadow replied cheerfully, but that only provoked for the fox to draw her sword once more in a split of a second, the tip of the blade caressing the chin of the shadow from the other extreme of the bed, “Huh, always with the knife, literally,” The creature muttered with sarcasm and gesturing Fubuki to stop, slowly crawling to their side of the bed with its knees, the blade diligently following their movements, “You don’t like to hear that? But I’m Matsuri!” She tried to laugh the fox anger’s away.

“You aren’t, stop playing dumb,” Fubuki snarled at her, making distance from it as they stood to their side, making sure that Luna continues behind her back.

“Alright then… What about Ritsuma, does that makes you less angry? Seriously could you please put the pizza slicer back in the kitchen? You’re going to gulf someone’s eye with that,” The shadow fruitlessly mollified the fox with sarcasm, moving the blade out of her face by slowly pressing on it with the tip of a finger.

“Her name backward…” Fubuki sighed, trying to calm down and save her sword for a second time.

“Good girl,” Ritsuma giggled with satisfactory malice, “Now, for the question of what am I…” she pondered with a hand on her chin, “I’m simply Matsuri’s shadow! At least for now, I’m alive with free will,” She bounced back on her feet and sat at the edge of the bed.

“What do you mean for now ?” Fubuki questioned next, slowly calming down and moving the sword from her dexterous hand, recognizing there was no longer a threat.

“Easy now, there’s a lot to explain,” She figure suggests, palming the mattress, “C’mon you too, sit!” All her giggles were strangely fueled with ill intentions. Keeping their eyes on her, Fubuki and Luna did as tell and joined Ritsuma in bed, “First of all, the current situation, Matsuri… about her, she’s currently on the limbo,” The shadow started to narrate with a finger on the air.

“The limbo nanora?” Luna asked tightly hugging Fubuki’s waist.

“It means her Orange it’s constantly trying to go and jump outside and inside the spectrum,” Ritsuma explained, “That what you saw from before, her body emanating strange flames, was the part of her who wants to jump out of the spectrum, while I’m the part of her who wants to make her jump inside the spectrum,” The shadow stopped on purpose, almost foreseeing the interruption, she gestured to Fubuki, who stuttered with awkwardness at the creature skillfully reading her thoughts.

“Do… Do you know why this is happening? Normally, Orange people shouldn’t be able to do one or the other,” The fox managed to ask, but the shadow shrugged.

“I have some knowledge of my own, but most of my intellect is an exact copy of Matsuri, since she doesn’t know any of that, I can’t reply to you either,” Ritsuma shook her head.

“But…” Luna interrupted, “Why do both of those things make her suffer so much nanora? I don’t understand anything of jumping in or out but… why is it so painful to jump out the spectrum  nanora?”

“To become one of  White changes your personality entirely, after all, she’s going from a color to another, her life literally changes…” Fubuki replied to the girl with remorse in her voice, looking down at the mattress, “The same happened to me, I… for what people say, I used to be… gullible, but, Matsuri,” She lifted her face, “Matsuri’s reaction isn’t something I’ve ever heard or seen before, that was almost like…”

“The birth of a goddess?” Ritsuma insinuated with malice, touching the tip of her nose, “But as you may know,” Quickly breaking her posture, her legs sway on the air, “The requirements to jump  out of the spectrum  are higher than to jump inside, that’s where I appear!” Ritsuma giggled, pointing at herself with both index fingers, “I was born as part of the process for Matsuri to jump inside the spectrum! If you compare these processes as if they were creation and destruction respectively, then…!” This time the figure’s fingers posed over Luna.

“T-then that means…” Luna stuttered with flustered cheeks, trying to think as fast as possible, “It means that it’s easier for Matsuri to become someone inside the spectrum ?”

“Bingo!” Ritsuma clapped at her, “But there’s just this little detail, you see? The moment Matsuri jumps inside the spectrum, she’ll crash …” The shadow paused with difficulty, as a peal of evil laughter fought to come out from her mouth, “And well, I’m the first sign of this, I’m not only her shadow, but the physical representation of all her negative feelings and thoughts,” She sighed and began to rub the back of her neck, “My power comes from Matsuri’s negative thoughts too, so the more she’s under stressing situations, the stronger I become… if it weren’t for you two,” She smiled, for the very first time talking with the girls, it was an honest smile, “If it weren’t because you two stopped me that moment, I would have killed Matsuri, and turned her into a crash … thank you.”

“Wait then… you don’t want Matsuri to become a crash ?” Fubuki asked with bemusement, Ritsuma silently touched the tip of her nose, “I’m not following, isn’t that suppose to be your job?”

“Nope!” Ritsuma replied instantly, taking a leap out of the bed, dancing over the floor, “Just like Matsuri, I don’t have control of it, even though that I know what is happening, that moment I lost all my will…” The shadow made a spin, almost like a ballerina, then froze in the middle of the room over the tip of her toes, crossing her legs and extending her arms elegantly over the air, “It was like blacking out… and being forced to watch a movie from inside my body… and then… death,” She looked the moonlight coming from the windows and danced towards it, “I almost died today, together with Matsuri, that’s why today, I come to you,” She turned back to the girls and smiled, “I may be the representation of the worst things inside Matsuri… but I want to live, I’m alive now, if I save Matsuri, I’ll save myself too, so, isn’t it a nice deal? Save Matsuri… and I’ll never have to eat her head again.”

Fubuki and Luna looked at each other for a silent moment; then stared back at Ritsuma with serious expressions, “It smells too shady,” The fox told her.

“Doesn’t it?” She shadow smiled devilry, “But I promise, all I want to do is to keep living, even if it means to stay stuck as a shadow on Matsuri’s feet.”

“W-when did this start happening nanora?” Luna slowly came from behind Fubuki’s back, taking a couple of steps forward, “When did you start to… live? Do you have any memory of it?”

“Uhm, the effects weren’t always this strong you see? So I never was strong enough to obtain something as complex as consciousness and memory,” Ritsuma replied with a pouty tone, “I suppose all started to get worst when…” The shadow frowned deep on thoughts, lurking inside her head, “Yeah! A woman of blue hair walked to the Gear  of the city like a month ago or so, she was the one who upgraded Matsuri’s Core Data, with that strange superhero dress, since then, the effects grew stronger, that’s what allowed me to obtain free will and retain thoughts.”

“The  Bloom System  worked as a catalyst…?” Fubuki pondered out loud, “Then, will this stop if we remove the program?”

Ritsuma shook her head, “The effects will continue, you said it yourself, stupid, it’s a catalyst, not the reason that started it all.”

“S-stupid…” Fubuki stood back with surprise, “You may look like Matsuri, but you sure have a mouth.”

“Idiot, douche bag, stupid!” The shadow yelled at her with closed eyes, giggling playfully, like a teen playing with moral limits, eagerly looking to provoke a reaction, “I’m a copy of all bad things inside Matsuri, I learned all those words from her, she’s the one who thinks all that stuff, and it was passed down to me,” She laughed dastardly.

“Then… what she thinks of me…” The fox snorted with shock.

“Well, let me rephrase,” Ritsuma stuttered with ink of guilt, “I’m an exaggerated  and physical version of all those thoughts, she may have think of you once as a ‘stupid pretentious fox’  but is not like she’s fixed on that thought, get it?” She gestured awkwardly.

“W-what about me… nanora?” Luna asked gulping down saliva.

“Spoiled bootlicker child!”  Ritsuma laughed, pointing at the princess with her right arm.

“So Matsuri can have thoughts like that huh…?” Fubuki meditated, in the silence of the room and for the confusion of the other two, she broke her posture with a sudden chuckle, invaded by a strong laughter desire, clapping her hands, “So that’s what she thinks of us! That’s amazing!”

“Fubuki, you aren’t… mad?” Luna asked confused about her reaction.

“Are you kidding? And here I spent this whole time thinking she was so innocent and pure, Lord!” She laughed until losing her breath, wiping tiny tears from her eyes and slowly regaining composure, “But now that I know she can have those kinds of thoughts then… I like her even more!” The fox declared going back to the floor, looking at Ritsuma defiantly, “So, if we help Matsuri, what’s going to happen to you?”

“You don’t have to worry about me at all!” The shadow answered happily, “I all I want it’s to don’t die, and especially I don’t want to crash! As long as you take Matsuri out of the limbo  I will spend the rest of my life as a quiet shadow behind her back,” The figure then stretched her hand, “Do we have a deal? Will you save me, so you can also save Matsuri?”

Luna hurried between the two and took on the shadow’s hand tightly, “What do we have to do nanora?” She screamed in excitement.

“Not so loud, if you wake her up I’ll disappear!” Ritsuma giggles awkwardly while shooshing the pink one, “It’s one very simple thing; you just have to do what you had in mind to do from this very morning!” The figure suggested while posing.

“Eh… but what we wanted to do this morning was…” Fubuki stared at Luna in silence, recounting all the things they did through the day, then both reacted with a gasp, followed by a quizzical look, “Wait… is that all? Is it really so simple?”

The shadow nodded, “There’s obviously a couple of things you’ll have to polish here and there but yup,” She then sighed, “I’m not sure why did it start, but I know the reason that fuels it, it’s because she’s lonely, don’t you remember? The song she sings when she’s exhausted,” Ritsuma said pointing into the air, “I want to be loved,”  She quoted with a smile, “Once Matsuri’s mental health is back to a good spot, both the shinning Matsuri and me will disappear, and she will have the life she deserves.”

“And you will live through her,” Fubuki snarled, the shadow tipped her nose with a despicable giggle, “Very well, then let’s do it.”

Quietly coming out of the room, the girls walked around the dwell guided by Ritsuma. Taking them downstairs and into a far-right corner at the bottom of the house, she flattened and slid through the small gap of the door, and with an unlocking sound the knob twisted by the creature from behind. Walking even slower than before, containing their breathing, they went inside the room, where they found a fast asleep Matsuri, wearing a sleep mask over her eyes, with a bunny-themed pajama set matching the ones of the girls. “Alright girls, good luck!” Ritsuma whispered to them, pinching Matsuri’s nose all of a sudden and forcing her to wake up from suffocation, disappearing on a poof into the darkness when the girl violently sits on the bed and coughs.

“What… what the heck? Who's there? I’m the Mayor, don’t try anything funny!” Matsuri blurted using a bunny plush as a weapon between her hands, slowly removing the sleep mask with a thumb, her face ignited with red when looking at the two, “Ah… But… The lock, how… eh? Why?” The girl quickly decomposed with shame.

“No time for those questions nanora,” Luna interrupted her babbler with a gesture of the hand, quickly getting on her bed and under her blankets from the left.

“Luna?” Matsuri asked with loud acuteness.

“Yup, I’m super exhausted so we decided to skip all the sentimental dialogue and go directly for the kill,” Fubuki added next, circling the bed of the girl and jumping from the right side.

“F-Fubuki? What are you two doing? I thought you were mad with me!” Matsuri’s body trembled in embarrassment, as both girls invaded her personal space, taking on her hands, slowly approaching.

“Just stay right there nanora, here it goes…” Luna softly gave her a smooch on the cheek.

“Remember this, because I’m never doing it again,” Fubuki smooched her from the right.

“Oh my God, just, what? What, what, what, what?” Matsuri exploded with red, releasing acute and long squirms like a boiling teapot while the other two laughed at her reaction. She covered her face with the blankets, looking at them from the corner of her eyes, “What are you two doing… I thought you were mad at me…”

“We are nanora, definitely, still are,” Luna nodded with a comical expression and crossed arms, “But friends fight now and then, so it’s ok!”

“F… what?” Matsuri gasped in shock, shame being replaced with surprise at the clap of thunder.

“What she says, and we have a lot of things to discuss and do tomorrow morning,” Fubuki nodded next, then lied on the bed with a peaceful expression, “But this was supposed to be a sleepover between friends, and there’s no point of having matching pajamas if we don’t sleep together,” She snored loudly and rubbed her eyes, looking for comfort and warmth near Matsuri, “Now shut your trap, it’ll be a busy day tomorrow, but we’ll work it out… together.”

“Fubuki… even you…?” Matsuri wondered with an uncontrollable hiccup, covering her mouth as her body is possessed by a crying desire.

“Shhh, let’s sleep nanora, Matsuriri, forgive me but I need to sleep from this side just in case I need to use the nanora bathroom, ok?” The princess muttered with closed eyes, curling to her side, holding on Matsuri’s arm, “And… if I don’t sleep by your side tonight… I won’t be able to sleep at all so… ok?” She asked with a weak tone, quickly losing consciousness.

Matsuri’s head was filled with different thoughts, but the girls from left to right have already fallen into slumber, leaving all her doubts, questions, and worries unanswered. She took her time to understand the situation in the half-silent darkness of the room, the echoing bass and beats lost priority inside her ears, and all she could hear now was the breathing of the girls, peacefully sleeping on her bed. A smile poured on her face, and tenderly caressed Luna’s hair, with tears flowing on her eyes, slowly turning to Fubuki, she repeated the same gesture, the fox nibbling the sleeve of Matsuri’s pajama while sleeping, the girl now took a deep breath, still crying but with a smile from cheek to cheek she let her weight make her fall back into the bed, closing her eyes, “I have friends…” She whispered happily.

At the light of the next day, Matsuri called on the attention of her citizens when riding on top of a long pink truck, chauffeured by Luna’s cow butler and the princess over the passenger’s seat. Stopping in the middle of the street, the girl switched on a megaphone, “Good morning ladies and gentlemen! We have big announcements to make!” Her voice boosted by the machine, quickly exciting the people around her, a multitude forming in a matter of minutes, cheering and mumbling, “First of all, behold!” The girl screamed next, with her hand over her head, she swoops the air and a giant holographic screen appeared, “You all recognize that place right? It is our favorite building, the  Endless Juice  manufacturer!” She explained signaling the giant and cartoony edification with transparent tubes where gallons of the strange drink were bubbling and flowing, the crown of people cheering it up with a loud a furious roar for no apparent reason, “And, from this other side…!” She made the camera spin, capturing on-screen Fubuki running towards the building with a fighting stance, muttering a prayer, and preparing to unsheathe her blade.

“White Crestfallen…”  The fox howled leaping the air, as her body emanated a white aura that impulses her higher meters into the sky. Hilting the katana with both hands she raised it over the height of her head, and when curling her body, the fox began to spin in mid-air, increasing speed by the force of the white energy, obtaining a chill-inducing whistling sound similar to an industrial saw, “Full Moon!”  She said followed by a powerful battle cry, the girl swung the sword with all her strength, creating a circular razor the same size as her body. The energy fell in the ground and spun towards the building, each second increasing in size until it easily matched the building's height. With an astounding clattering noise of energy, concrete, and metal clashing against the other, the giant circular razor went through the building and instantly made it explode into a burst of flames and smoke, “Crap, it does look like a pizza slicer now that I think about it, now I won’t get that thought out of my mind.”

“Pfff, she…! She actually called it a pizza slicer!” Matsuri snorted while trying to don’t let her voice escape through the megaphone.

The citizen quickly turned on their back, as the light of the morning was briefly interrupted by the burst of flames in a corner of the city, feeling the sequels of the shockwaves on the ground, they stared at the pillar of smoke, from both the screen and at the distance, in shock of what the fox had done.

“From now on, the production and selling of  Endless Juice  are both forbidden and suspended!” Matsuri laughed happily, gesturing a peace sign with her free hand, the confused citizens could only make a poor clap of encouragement joined with a disappointed mumble.

“We are ready too nanora!” The princess shouted at the girl when pulling half of her body out of the truck’s window, looking up at Matsuri.

“Next, we have collaboration with Pink Catlesser !” The girl voiced through the megaphone, and from the inside of the truck’s cargo, and an army of soldiers purely made of candy started to walk out of the vehicle, yet instead of guns and rifles, the soldiers were armed with a variety of security instruments and protections, “By the command of Luna’s cow, these people will help us to implement new security regulations!  Endless Festival  will now become a more secure place where people can rest and stores close at normal hours!”

“Good luck nanora, we’re counting on you!” The princess told the butler, who stepped out of the truck with a nod and bounced into the floor. Pulling a whistle from inside its suit, the little creature blew it furiously, and the soldiers started to march at the command of it, running inside all stalls and stores, asking the owners of each establishment for legal papers, scolding the staff, and shoving helmets and other body protections to the children playing on the arcades.

“And lastly!” Matsuri said with closed eyes and a finger up the sky, “Raves will now be an once a month thing…! And none of these changes are up to discussion, that is all, thank you, everyone!” The girl clapped with a single smile, forcing the citizens to clap together with her, aware of this, she provoked them into a more furious celebration by clapping louder, with a grin, the citizen felt on her taunt, cheering and clapping as loud as her, helping the candy soldiers with the changes, while others remained staring at the huge explosion, silently tearing up, mourning the destruction of the juice fabric, “That should be enough, right?” Matsuri asked Luna when placing a hand over the speaker of the megaphone.

The princess looked at the screen on the air first, where Fubuki looked back with a smile and thumbs up. Next, she gazed on Matsuri’s feet, where the shadow stopped following the girl’s movements, and too gave her thumbs up to Luna, “Yes, that should be more than enough nanora!"

Matsuri frowned as she noticed the princess looking below her feet, “What are looking at there?” She chuckled awkwardly.

Luna replied with a toothed smile, “No-thing!”

Chapter Text

With sudden alarm, a huge cobber bell rang by a man over the crow’s nest of a ship, sparking a commotion on the main deck. 

“Hoist the foremast and mizzenmast! It’s a bright day so she’ll see us coming, be prepared!” A woman ordered with a fierce and powerful voice, as she elegantly paraded downstairs from the helm, “You two, the passengers! Nobody sits and watches here, they need people at the bow to help the hoist, go, go!” She said with aggression, turning left, where a couple of women were staring at the men run back and forth. 

“Wait, what? You didn’t say anything about this; this wasn’t part of the deal!” A woman of long blonde hair and pointy ears replied back with a clenched fist, yet the other woman silently took her from the shoulders and started to gently push her towards the bow, “Are you going to do as she pleases?” She asked her partner with awkwardness, pressing her ankles against the wooden floor.

“Don’t be like that, let’s help her just a little, I mean, isn’t it exciting, playing pirate games for a while?” The white-haired woman replied with an innocent smile.

“No, no, no, we’re too old for being part of these games!” The blonde one retorted uselessly, as the crew of men quickly handed her a rope, and together with the white-haired woman and another three men, they started to pull on it to hoist the sail, “I don’t know how much of this I’ll be able to tolerate…” The woman sighed while following the rhythm of the pulls.

Over a seemingly vast ocean with no sight of land around, the large ship rocks fiercely against the waves. At the top of the three masts, men diligently observed the rampaging waves of the blue sea with telescopes, pursuing a dark figure swimming underwater almost as fast as the man-o’-war.

“Captain, she’s trying to circle us to take on the high submarine current!” The man at the top of the crow’s nest screamed at the deck.

The woman with an eye-patch nodded; then extended her right arm on the air, “But we’ll stop her before she can escape this time! TURN IT AROUND!” She screamed her lungs out while frowning, every man over the main deck running faster than before, climbing on the shrouds as a life or death task, “PREPARE THE NETS, ALL THE WAY PORT!”

“All the way port!” The man taking the wheel at the helm repeated, driving as ordered; the huge vessel dangerously leaning to the left as it turns over the water.

“Nets are ready, release the nets!” The boatswain screamed, from the port side of the main deck, six men together rolled out a thick net made out of ropes, extending its width all along the outer body of the ship.

“At my order, fire the nets!” The woman screamed next, the six men divided into two groups, each one skillfully bringing and preparing two canons, using long metallic weights at the corner of the net as ammo for the barrels.

“Wow look, look! They’re really going to do it; they’re going to fire the canons!” The white-haired woman celebrated and shook on the shoulder of her friend, clapping and hopping over the same place.

“You sure are enjoying this whole thing…” The blonde one chuckled with sarcasm.

“Captain, she’s close, she’s trying to pass us through!” The man from the crow’s nest screamed.

“Fire the nets now!” The woman shouted, followed by thunderous explosions from both canons, shooting the weights on the air, which pulled and extended the huge fishing net like a blanket over the sea, “How’s it looking? Where is she?” She screamed back at the crow’s nest, walking to the port and pulling a telescope from her long jacket, scanning the net.

“By the way, what are we fishing, is it dinner?” The woman of white hair asked while joining the Captain from the right, happily holding her hands together with anticipation.

“Isn’t a bit too late to ask for that, Noel?” The blonde woman sighed with a hand over her hip, reuniting with the two, “Whatever it is, is not dinner, didn’t you notice? Both her and the men have been saying 'she'  for a while now,” She explained with a gesture of her free hand, “Seriously, what did we just help you do? I hope isn’t something bad.”

“We are pirates, my little dark elf; we are always doing bad things,” The eye-patch lady replied this time with a soft tone as her concentration was being used to register the waters.

“First of all, I’m a half-elf, not a dark-elf,” The woman groans back at her, “Second, I have a name, and it’s Flare if we have the respect to call you ‘Captain’, at least show some of that respect back at us,” She finished, almost screaming at the end.

“Flare, you should relax more, not all the time we can leave our zones and ride the ocean like this, especially when this is the last ocean available in virtual world!” Noel insisted on soothing her friend, with sparkling eyes she looked back at the net, “So? What did we get? Is it yummy?”

“Would it hurt the two of you to listen to other people’s conversation?” Flare mourned at the two, giving her shoulders up.

“Oh…!” The Captain gasped with excitement and quickly stepped a foot over the wooden fence, “Pull it up slowly… It looks like we got her this time!” She commanded swirling a finger on the air.

The boatswain nodded and turned to the crew with both hands over his mouth, “Pull the nets now, someone, bring the hooks!” He instructed the men who quickly ran along the deck. With Flare and Noel pulling from the right, and the Captain and boatswain from the left, they folded the net under the water and pulled it from the bottom, its contents filled with a small amount of fish and seaweed, to the surprise of the elf and the woman, there also was a small blue figure struggling with the nets, nibbling it with a mouth full of fangs.

“Eh…? She’s too small for dinner, but she’s cute!” Noel giggled fascinated by the girl which the men carefully handled out of the net with large hooks pulling on her clothes.

“Leave me alone…! You guys never learn, don’t you? Ouch, stop that it hurts!” The little one cried and fought against the nets and hooks with a just as tiny and acute voice, squirming when one of the hooks accidentally went inside her mouth and pulled on her cheek, stretching it long, “Pull it out you bilge rat!”

“Noel… just give it up, this is a pirate ship, they aren’t going to fish for us,” Flare gently smacked the woman behind her head, “So this is what we were helping you… despicable, is this some kind of mermaid? Just what are you going to do with her?” She looked up at the little girl shouting and struggling; being hanged by the hooks from the back of her clothes she was transferred from the net into a smaller one hanging on the mast, “Answer me… Houshou Marine,” The elf asked with annoyance.

“What am I going to do with her you ask me; well it is but a very simple…” The woman muttered with a naughty giggle, slowly walking to the little girl trapped in the net, then looked back at the two women with a perverted smile, “I want to kiss her! I want to hug her! I want to touch her and lick her and suck her and many other delicious things, ngh!” She confessed with a forced feminine voice, hugging herself and kissing the air.

“Ew, I take it back, pirates aren’t that cool,” Noel stepped back disgusted.

“They never were, to begin with…” Flare retorted looking at both with bedroom eyes.

“This is an everyday thing though,” One of the crewmen whispered to the women from the back.

“It's their favorite game of cat and mouse, you get used to it,” Another man added, the crew sharing awkward giggled between.

“Their favorite game… so that girl swims along with her?” Flare thought out loud.

“Nice joke right there!” Noel replied with finger guns at her, the elf giving a silent smirk back.

“Are you comfy up there, my beautiful shark-girl?” Marine approached the little blue one, licking her lips and making strange squeezing gestures with her hands.

“Of course I’m not! It’s all rope in the middle of the air,” The girl screamed back at her from up the net, her tail flapping aggressively and smacking the mast, “I’ll find my way to escape like I always do!” She continued, nibbling on the ropes trying to tear them up.

“Oh, c’mon don’t be like that!” Marine told her with a pouty tone, “Look, I even filled your complaints of the other day and put you a bag with things for you!” She pointed at a dirty old cloth bumping on the knees of the shark-girl.

“Oh… a!” The little one gasped, suddenly changing gears when her hand dug on the bag and pulled an apple from the inside, “Yay, you remembered, thank you, Captain Whitebeard!” She celebrated raising the fruit in the air with an arm then bite on it forcefully and repeatedly like a hamster, “I’m still not letting you pouching me though!” She shouted with muffled cheeks.

“I think you mean touching … And we talked about it, my name’s Marine,” The woman chuckles thrown off by her comments with furrowed brows.

“Right…! I won’t let you do that either!” The shark-girl took a pause from shouting at her, then continued devouring the apple until swallowing seeds and bones with one gulp, “Let’s see, what else we have here… a!” She pulled a couple of handmade raged dolls from the bag, “Yay, you fixed Mister Baldie’s arm! Now he can go back to his work at the human working thing! Po, po, po, po,” She happily cheered while making the doll walk over the rope, “Honey, I’m out to do human work at the human thing!”  The girl says with a comical twist of lips, imitating a masculine voice, “I know honey, here’s your lunch, good look at work, smooch, smooch!”  She replied herself with the other ragdoll, playing a feminine voice and making the dolls kiss the other.

“Oh my God, she’s so cute!” Noel squirmed fascinated, “I want to play with her too!”

“Isn’t she? She’s the cutest girl of the ocean; doesn’t it make you want to tie her tight in your bed?” Marine asked hands on her cheeks, mentally picturing the situation.

“… No, not that kind of playing, ” The white-haired woman snorted with a serious voice.

“Alright that’s enough; I didn’t agree to be a kidnapper so…” Flare interrupted the two, bringing a bow on her right and an arrow on her left, stretching her legs and aiming at the main rope hanging the net over the mast, “I’m afraid I won’t sit around and watch this pervert do as she pleases…!” She said swiftly releasing the string bow, the arrow flashing through the rope, cutting it in half, slowly tearing up due to the weight of the small one, until it breaks apart. The boatswain, being the closest of the girl, stretched his arms and caught her as she fell, then left it over the wooden floor.

“Hey, do you have any idea how long it takes me to make jails which she can’t escape so easily?” Marine barked at her with anger and surprise, then covered her mouth realizing her own words, sticking out her tongue next, “I mean… do you have any idea how long it takes me to make those cute nest of love for her?”

“You show your true colors so easily…” Flare sighed disappointedly.

“Boatswain, look! Marine fixed Mister Baldie!” The shark-girl told the old man with a huge, full of fangs smile.

“Good for you uh? Now you can play house again,” The man replied with a gentle tone, stroking the girl’s head.

“Boatswain your fingers are rough, it hurts!” The shark giggled with awkwardness.

“Ah well, that’s because of all the hard work we do try to fish you every day,” He giggled back.

“And… she escaped again, alright, the lucky idiots who betted that the landlubbers would release Gura, pick up your money, curses!” One of the men screamed at the crew, sparking a big and long commuted laughter, slowly the group broke on character, with a more relaxed and gun-ho attitude, walking around the deck, sharing and collecting the golden coins.

“You guys are making bets now? You’re the worst!” Marine screamed at them all red with a girly tone.

“Many things are happening right now I’m not sure where to start,” Flare muttered with an angry hiss, massaging the temples of her head with both hands.

“Boatswain, the rope itches me, take it off,” Gura asked using a childish tone while raising her arms up.

“I know, just give me a second,” The man laughed and kneeled on the floor, slowly taking the girl out of the net.

“I’ll help you too!” Noel raised her hand and hurried to aid the old man.

“My cute Gura, why don’t you ask me to help you too?” Marine wondered with naughtiness, sending her flying kisses.

“Because you’ll use it as an excuse to fondle me, so nope,” The little stuck out her tongue, “A! You’re new here! And you’re tall, and all white, and your chest is huge!” Gura told to Noel as soon as she turned on the woman. Once released, she ran around the girl, inspecting her looks, “But you don’t have the looks of a pirate…? I know, you’re a swashboober!” The girl said pointing at her with a finger.

“Gura, the word you’re looking for is ‘swashbuckler’, ” The boatswain whispered in her ear.

“That too, are you any of that?” She asked again.

“… I’m sorry; I’m not familiar with pirate jargon…” Noel stuttered when scratching her cheek.

“Wait, you don’t have a sword… that’s a maze? It’s a maze, I want to play with the maze!” The girl blurted and pulled on the lace strap on the hip of the woman, holding the weapon.

Noel giggled fascinated by the way her feet slipped on the wooden floor as she pulled, then gently helped her to release the strap and hand over her weapon, “Just be careful to don’t hit yourself, ok?” The woman told her in a motherly voice.

“Alright now, who was the saltwater puppy who put that hook inside my mouth, I’ll send you to dance with Jack Ketch!” The shark-girl yelled, with an evil and wide smile lunging the maze with both hands over the head, she jumped over a box and menaced at the crew, “Say your prayers now!” She jumped over a barrel next, chasing the pirates who ran away from her.

“These landlubbers are crazy! Who in their right judgment would give a weapon to Gura!” One of the men screamed in fear as he barely dodged a smack from the girl.

“Her name is Gura? Is just as cute as her!” Noel nodded with strange pride.

“I’m Gawr Gura, the former Mayor of  Blue French Fries, and now I have a maze!” The girl said to the woman while posing with the weapon over her shoulder and her hand on her chin, “A! Another one, your blonde hair is so pretty! Is that a bow? Can I use it?” Her attention now drifted towards Flare, stopping on her pursuit of the men she dropped the maze on the floor and hopped towards the elf.

“G-Gura, don’t you want to play with my saber…?” Marine suggested with envy.

“Captain, please give it up with the double meaning jokes,” The boatswain lectured her, palming her shoulder.

“Wait, I did mean my saber though?” The woman screamed back at him, pointing at the hilt of her weapon with red cheeks of shame.

“Alright, now you pull with all your strength, keep your back straight and aim carefully…” Flare happily instructed the girl after borrowing her bow and quiver, Gura pointing at the men hiding at the bow from the aim of the shark-girl, “That’s the way; make sure to don’t hit any vital organs, ok?”

“I’ll try my bestie!” Gura replied and released the string, feeling the recoil pulling her body along the arrow misfired and hit over the foremast where a man was hiding, making him squirm acutely when the arrow neared penetrated his skull, “Wow, this thing is hard, can I try again?”

“Of course you can, make them pay!” Flare clenched her right arm and pushed the back of the girl with the left.

“Second round now, come over here and be my next bull’s eye!” The shark screamed at them, pursuing the men around the deck, but suddenly her feet pressed on the brakes, “Wait just a minute…?” She spoke with a concerning expression, stumping towards the two girls, “Who are you two? You aren’t pirates at all!”

“You’re noticing it now?” The boatswain wondered and laughed it off.

“It’s a pleasure to meet you, Gawr Gura, I’m Shiranui Flare, the Mayor of Green Mystic Village, ” The elf elegantly greeted the blue one with a theatrical posture.

“And I’m Shirogane Noel, the Mayor of White Kingdom Heights,” The other woman added after picking up her maze from the floor.

“Wow! You’re someone of White? That’s so cool!” Gura shouted extending arms, “The last time I saw a White  was when Sky Hero saved me; do you know her?” The girl hurried to meet with Noel.

“Actually, we do, and right now, I’m escorting Miss Noel on a mission that Sky Hero entrusted to her,” Flare responded instead with a sweet tune.

“Seriously?” The shark screamed even louder, “That, is, so, awesome, you’re a superhero now!” She complimented her while shadow boxing on excitement, “What kind of mission, would you tell me?”

But Noel giggled while swinging her finger, “It’s a secret!”

Chapter Text

“So you’ve set in a mission commanded by Sky Hero, but since most zones on this side of the virtual world are corrupted, you had to cross through Red Looting Sea and that’s how you met with Marine… a!” Gura rephrased on Noel’s explanation. The little one, sitting over the boatswain's lap, was stuffing her mouth with a strange puree from a wooden plate, as the white-haired woman spoon-feeds her, “Boatswain, you added cinnamon to the apple puree this time, I give you four stars!” She replied with a spurt of food coming out her lips while looking up to the man and extending her fingers up.

“We stopped to replenish supplies a couple of days ago, and I thought you would like a bit of spice, but just four?” The man explained with awkwardness as the girl sways over his legs, trying to clean her mouth with a handkerchief, “That was when we met these lads.”

“So? Did I get it right this time?” After getting her mouth cleaned she now gazes back to Noel, pointing at her mouth, gesturing the woman to keep feeding her.

“Yes, that’s exactly it! Alright, your reward,” Noel congratulated her with a small clap of her fingers, dipping the wooden spoon inside the plate, “Open wide…” She suggested taking the spoon to the height of her mouth.

“Aaaa!” The girl happily opened her mouth and chomped on the spoon, almost breaking the stick in half, traces of fangs over the utensil showing it wasn’t the first time, squirming happily by the flavor, “I want pear puree next time!” Gura claimed, removing the spoon from her mouth and poking the chin of the man with it next.

“Gura… you remember I’m a pirate right? I’m not your personal chef,” The man sighed with a little blush.

From one corner, biting her lips and groaning acutely, an envious and frustrated Marine approached the group discreetly, hunching to the blue one, “Say, little Gura, don’t you want that I spoon feed you too?” She asked with exasperation in her voice.

“Nope, I’m good thanks for asking,” The shark replied apathetically.

The woman drowned an even louder groan of powerlessness; then directed her attention to the man, whispering in his ear, “Did you remember to add the special sauce on her food this time uh?” She questioned with perversion, her eyebrows making naughty innuendo.

“Captain, with all due respect… what in the seven seas?” The boatswain snapped.

“Hey, pay attention, I’m still here!” Flare claimed from the other side of the deck, firing an arrow which Marine barely manages to avoid by squatting down and screaming in surprise, “The practice isn’t over, come back!”

“If you’re so eager to get your ass whooped over the plank…” Marine slowly stood back up with angered eyes and gritting her teeth, unsheathing her saber, “Then I’ll gladly give it to you! Don’t come back crying when I make you jump naked in front of all these men!” The woman declared, with her boots stomping over the wood she dashed to intercept the elf’s bow before she could fire the next arrow.

With just the mainmast hoisted, the ship now gently rocked the waves under the bright morning. And with the woman, the girl, and the boatswain as spectators, Flare and Marine were warming up on the deck by petition of the elf, after most of the crewmen renewed on their usual activities and abandoned the place. Yet the proposition of an indecent punishment for the loser caught the attention of some, and nasty rumors could be heard around.

“I’m afraid you’re wasting your time, can’t you tell the only reason I accepted such a shameful bet is that I will win?” Flare snarled back at the Captain with condescension, parrying her saber with the upper limb of her bow, holding it with both hands like a sword. Yet when the elf slowly released her left hand to take an arrow from the quiver as her next movement, “Eh…?” She felt an overwhelming pressure from the saber, twisting her right wrist and forcing her to leap a couple of steps back, “Crap, that was careless of me; she could’ve broken my hand with that attack, where did all that strength come from?”  But she didn’t have time to ponder. With Marine taking a firm step with her right leg over the deck, with a serious and silent expression, she pulled back her arm and aimed at the chest of the elf, holding the sword horizontally, Flare reacts faster this time, and before Marine can strike, she takes an arrow from her quiver and shoots, forcing Marine to deflect the missile and break her posture, making it easier for the elf to stand the swung of the blade with her bow, and push the woman back with a fierce smile, “This woman… her strength is not a lie… but I’m not going to accept her!”  She screamed inside, panting and taking another arrow.

“Hehe, what is it, quiet all of a sudden? I sea, you got spooked of my krilling movements!” Marine laughed it off with her feminine tone.

“Pfff hahaha! Nice one!” Gura snorted from the other side, spitting food and rocking over the man’s lap, the boatswain and Noel hurrying for her to don’t drop the rest of the food, Marine silently clenching her fist at the reaction of the girl.

“Gura, don’t laugh at the jokes of this pervert!” Flare yelled at the little one with red cheeks of shame.

“Oh my, looks like Gura is getting… schooled!” Marine shouted next, Gura laughing harder, another silent fist clench.

“F-Flare! Keep at it, you can do it!” Noel forced a cheerful scream when watching her friend struggle, waiting for the shark to calm down and continue feeding her, “So tell me, Gura, how come you aren’t with the rest of the former mayors in  Yellow High ?” She tried to make the little girl change her focus from the fight.

“I’m glad you ask, there are two reasons for that!” The girl took on the question with a serious face, taking the wooden plate with the left, she stood over the man’s legs and gestured with her right hand, the boatswain holding her from the hips so she doesn’t fall.

“Hook, line, and sinker! Oh, I should share this joke with Flare later,”  Noel giggled on her mind, she filled the spoon with puree and fed the shark once more before she could start to explain.

Gura quickly savored the bite and gulped down, “You see, the first reason is the most obvious and is that I needed a sea!” She extended her arms gesturing to the outsides of the ship, Noel and the boatswain protecting their heads so the puree doesn’t fall on them, “As much as I’m accustomed to land at this point, the sea is the sea! My inner shell always wants to enjoy this!”

“Oh… I sea!” Noel replied with a stuttering second of doubt, both from trying to feed the fidgeting girl and trying to land a pun, “And what is the second?”

“The second is, well...” The shark suddenly broke on character turning all serious, crossing her arms with the plate in the middle of her arms, falling on deep thought while unconsciously taking more bites of food, “That place  Yellow High … they have so many rules… Mayor Subaru was always yelling at me… whenever I opened a hydrant on the street to get refreshed? Schooling! Whenever I tried to sleep at the aquarium? Schooling! Whenever my teeth felt itchy and I bit over someone’s car tire? Schooling!” Gura complained joined of acute pouts.

“You prefer this place more then…” Noel gasped uncomfortable, picturing the situation in her mind.

“Yup, this place is always on kelp! Everything gets out of sand now and then!” She paused to swallow another bite and continued, “Since Marine doesn’t do anything of her job as a Mayor,  Red Looting Sea  is the favorite no-rules place for a girl like me; I get to fight pirates every day!” She said happily, taking on the spoon and using it to stab the air energetically, adding sound effects from her mouth, “Marine is the coolest when she’s not being a pervert!”

“At least you’re aware of what she is…”  The boatswain and Noel whispered with dejection.

“What the heck… this isn’t happening!” Flare gasped with baffled exhaustion, kneeling over the deck, arrows spread around the deck and masts, her quiver almost empty, the Captain looking at her with a smug smile.

“So tell me, dear elf, are you the pink kind of girl?” Marine questioned with perversion, “Or perhaps you’re the darker kind…? You know? It looks like I’ll find it out in a while! Doesn’t seem like you’re going to last long anyway,” She giggled satisfied, resting the back-side of her saber over the shoulder, walking right and left, looking down at Flare with thirst, “My men are going to be so happy with me, we’ll all enjoy the moment you strip, through and through!” She laughed loudly with great malice.

“There’s no doubt… this is the woman that Sky Hero asked us to recruit for our mission, she’s on another level…”  Flare mourned fisting the wooden floor, looking back at her quiver meditating her next moves, then looking at her bow and her surroundings, “And yet…”  The elf stood back, dusting off her clothes and preparing the arrows, “I refuse to accept a pervert who chases girls as you do!”

“Oho? What is that all of a sudden? Are you hiding some kind of resentment against me?” She laughed dastardly, and when taking a long mouth of air, she flipped with seriousness, menacing the edge of the blade against Flare, “This Sea is only for the strong, if you don’t have what it takes to make  me  kneel, then don’t come here to my ship trying to judge me!” She screamed at her with anger before running towards the elf in a straight line, “You’re ten years away from power to tell me how to live!”

“You fell for it, now you’re mine!”  Flare thought with a victorious smile, quickly preparing the first arrow, pointing at Marine, then turning right at the last second, shooting the arrow and preparing a second, “What about this? I put those arrows on the masts on purpose! I didn’t want to resort to these kinds of tricks, but I refuse to lose in front of Miss Noel!”  She thought next looking at the sharp metallic tip ricochet against two arrows, circling from Marine’s back and aiming at her blind spot with the eye patch. Flare then used the second arrow to fire at the boots of the woman, forcing her to stop at least for a brief second inside of the killer zone.

“Is that all you got?” Marine gave her a deafening and angered scream, stopping right before the arrow hits her boot; then holding her hat she quickly turned and sliced the first arrow in half, “Did you think I wouldn’t see that coming? That’s the difference of experience between you and me!”

“I see… you’re used that people would aim at your blind spot, so you’re always wary of it… I should’ve realized that sooner, hah!” Flare mourned while inhaling, then exhaled with exhaustion and laughter, fixing the hair on her head, she walked in front of Marine and extended her right hand, “Your skills are remarkable, Houshou Marine, I admit it now.”

But the Captain softly slapped her hand away, with a devil smile from ear to ear, “Thank you dear, but I don’t want a handshake, what I want is you, in your birthday dress, for my crewmen’s entertainment and mine of course,” She explained with a smirk, swirling her finger around.

“Can… we please forget about that?” Flare stuttered taking a step back in fear.

“Boohoo! Be a good loser!” The shark screamed from her spectator seat.

“G-Gura, don’t be like that! She’s talking about being naked in front of lots of strangers, that isn’t nice!” Noel retorts with great worry, looking at her friend trying to speak her way out of the punishment.

“But we all respect bets here, we're always betting?” Gura replied with confusion tilting her head, “And that’s Marine's favorite bet, every virtual people who have lost has paid her properly, even me,” She casually confesses, pointing at herself with a thumb.

“… Come again?” Noel shrieked when processing the information.

“Even me,” The boatswain mourned with shame.

“Oh for my colors…” The white-haired woman violently got up from the box she was sitting and ran between Flare and Marine, “One more chance… Give us one more chance!”

“M-Miss Noel…” Flare gasped alleviated, the elf was ready to remove the lace ribbon on her neck.

“One more chance uh? And what are you willing to wager in exchange for another try?” Marine said licking her lips, “What if you also join over the stripping bet? You can fight me two-on-one, but if you fail, both of you will have to strip and jump the plank out my ship for a good soak,” She explained next, embracing her saber between her arms delighted of her proposition, “But you should decide soon, the water is less cold in the morning after all.”

“Wait, Noel, don’t! This woman is toying with us, don’t fall for it!” Flare shouted at her with fear.

The claims and propositions once again made echo around the ship, and gradually the men were coming out from their tasks and silently staring at the commotion the women were making.

“Flare, everything will be alright,” Noel whispers to the elf behind her with calm, with dexterity she took the maze from her hips and juggled it between her fingers, opening a battle stance, “If that’s how you want it then so be it, but remember that this time you’re fighting one of White,” She warned the Captain with a serious face, her body is enveloped by a thin, white aura.

“Noel… you’re even going to use your color against her…?” Flare stuttered in shock and stepped back, angered for what she pushed her friend to do, she plucked as many arrows from the floor as she could. Wiping her face from dirt and sweat with the left sleeve of her clothes, the elf stood beside the woman, enveloping her body with a green aura.

“Hahaha! You’re going full throttle, I like your spirit!” Marine shouted at them with excitement and thirst, leaping a couple of meters away from them by a twist of her ankles, she hilted on her saber, and prepared to intercept the two, “That will just make it a greater humiliation when you feel the breeze of the seven seas between your thighs!” 

“I have a bad feeling about this, Miss Noel,” Flare whispered at the woman, with concern, preparing an arrow that flooded with green energy.

“Aw, you’re worrying too much!” Noel replied unconcerned, then looked at the shark-girl, happily waving at her, “Gura, I’m going to give you a spectacle of how one of White fights, so wish me luck ok?”

“Uh… Didn’t you hear us before?” But Gura just crossed her arms with a puzzled expression, “Sure, I mean, I can wish you good luck? But sorry, you aren’t going to win!”

“Eh… Come again?” Noel felt a little chill on her skin.

“I say that you may be one of White, but nobody ever wins against Marine, sorry!” The little one shouted back.

“… It can’t be that bad, right?” Noel, now feeling the nerves invading her body, asked the elf with doubt.

“I’m sorry Miss Noel, but frankly, this is a dire situation…” Flare tried to explain between whispers, pretending to get her bow ready for the fight, “This was supposed to be just training to confirm Sky Hero’s request, but I fell victim to her baits, hook, line, and sinker all right…” She shook her head with regret.

“Aw, I wanted to tell her that joke…”  Noel pouted on her mind.

“For starters, she has been fighting while wearing that heavy jacket over her arms,” The elf described with slight gestures of her eyes, signaling Noel, “Next is that no matter how much I made her move around the deck, even while it sways with the movements of the sea, I didn’t get to make her hat fall,” She sighed, growing with anger, “Not only that, but the most humiliating parts are that she has two guns tied to her hips, which she never used against me, I also never managed to force her into a point she would remove the eye-patch on her face, and lastly…” She paused with furrowed brows; then sighed with powerlessness, “Up to this point, she has yet not used her Red  at all against me and despite that, she pushed me to the border of exhaustion…”

“Why are all adults always like that? Geez,” Gura pouted out loud, sitting back over the lap of the boatswain, “There’s always  someone who thinks they can put a stop to  the hero no one talks about, and all they do is get their face brushed against the plank,” She crossed her arms and curled her lips with comical anger, “Boatswain, why everyone thinks they can win Marine?”

“Our Captain does a good job at earning people’s resentment, that’s a given,” The man replied with strange, uncomfortable laughter, “… But at the end of the day, nobody can win against the Blaze Hero, ” He finished with a smile.

“The hero who fought for three days and nights against the crash who wanted to corrupt her zone and shortcut towards the most important zones of virtual world…” Gura whispered with her eyes fixed on Marine, growing a speck of red on each cheek, “While Sky and Terra were saving lives, she halted and destroyed the main force of the crash, if it weren’t for her, no one would have a place to migrate to… Blaze Hero… ” She finished with a tickle in her voice.

“Uhm… What about a parley?” Noel asked Marine full of nerves, unknown of the conversation of the spectators, she was growing with second thoughts after the explanation of Flare, “W-what about if instead… Flare just gives you a little peek?”

“Why only me?” The elf screamed with a full red face.

“Someone suddenly knows pirate jargon! But a peek you say? No, no, no, excuse moi…” Marine declined with a playful voice and a swing of her head, then hilted on her sword and jumped at the two, “I WANT IT ALL!”

“Geez, fine, let’s give our all! Flare, cover me!” Noel quickly instructed her friend, running towards the Captain and intercepting the lunging of Marine’s sword with her maze,  “What the… she’s strong!”  The woman gasped in her thoughts, taking the maze with both hands as she felt the pressure trying to make her kneel.

“Miss Noel, here I go!” But before the elf could fire her next arrow, an eruption on the left side of the sea interrupted the fight, a huge explosion of water quickly rained down over the deck, now forcing everyone to stare at a huge black mass swimming at a worrying speed against the man-o’-war, “What in the virtual world… is that… a crash ?”

The cobber bell rang once again from the crow nest.

Chapter Text

“Wait, wait, wait, almost there… more delicate you, incredible doofus! Wait, what are you doing? No!” From the other side of the ship where the blast of water happened, a hooded figure tried to command a strange and dark fin in vain. Soaked in water, kelp, and seaweed, the figure juggled its weight over the tip of the fin while looking for a chance to reach one of the apertures for the cannons, but when raising the lid, the giant fin pushed them without warning, creating an acute, swooping sound as their body gets stuck on the frame, “I said to be delicate! You’re supposed to be super smart because of your size… curses, I can’t tell if this gap is too small or I’m getting fat,” The hooded one sighed and tried to calm down, patiently pushing their hands out the gap, holding on the frame, and using it as a support to push the rest of their body inside, rolling over the ballast of the ship, “Phew… Alright, I can keep eating donuts,” The figure said with calm while posing victorious, then shoved their right arm in the pockets of their clothes, bringing a couple of glasses which were fixed in the darkness of the hood. The figure now turns to the window, lifts the lid, and looks down at the waters, “And you…! Go get that sea ass of you working already, there’s one of White inside this ship!” And following the screaming commands, the fin sank back in the sea, and an enormous figure, at least twice the size of the man-o’-war, swam below the ship. With disgust the hooded one began to remove the seaweed from their clothes, with acute sneezes from, “How is possible for that water to be so cold under such a bright day? Oh, whatever, let’s get this going…” Another sigh of disappointment and lament, this time, when digging on the pockets of their clothes, the figure brought a small and odd-looking knife, “Let’s see… should I look for them like blindfold and fangs do? Or should I try with the honey trap that one-side does?” They monologue out loud, with the tip of the knife poking their chin.

“I’ll be right there! Is just that I heard a strange noise here down at the… ballast…” The figure’s speech is interrupted by one of the pirates, looking at them with a puzzled face as they go down the stairs, “Wha-… A stowaway…? Hey you, you picked up the worst ship to sneak in,” The pirate explained with a tiresome voice, pulling up a small and curled knife from his rusty pants, approaching the hooded one, “Hands where I can see it and nothing bad will happen, heck, I’ll even do you a favor and put you in our prison without the Captain knowing, God knows what would she do to you if she- Hey!” He ducked at the split of a second, when almost three meters close of the stranger, this one shoot the black knife at them with dangerous precision and strength, the weapon jiggling up and down with its tip stuck inside of one of the main pillars of the ship.

“Oh well…” The hooded one sighed in a peculiar mix of disappointment and relief, then ran towards the pirate, jumping right in front of him and drifting left, avoiding a punch from the man and using his arm as a support for a second jump, propelling their body against the pillar where the knife was stuck, plucking it out and standing back with a battle stance, “Now that you saw me I can’t let you get back to the deck, so for now…” They said with high composure; then jumped at the pirate, their knives clashing against each other, “I guess first we’ll do it my way!”

“Woohoo! The sea’s railing now, amazing, but what gives?” Gura screamed in a daze, stretching her arms in the air feeling the sudden drizzle.

“I think you mean raining, and this isn’t natural, can’t you hear the bell ringing?” Marine replied once again thrown off by the girl, then gazed at the crow’s nest, “What was that, report to me!”

“Captain, there’s a strange marine creature below us!” The man shouted to the deck.

“That’s not anything from the ocean, it’s a crash!” Flare hurried to the side of the woman for an explanation, “We need to get ready or else-“

From inside the waters, a huge a chilling roar was heard, and a sudden and strange force smacked the ship from below. The impact being so strong the boat floated a couple of meters in the air before returning to the sea, Flare, Marine, Noel, and the crewmen hurrying to hold on the first thing they could get a hand to, struggling against the involuntary sway, “Weeee!” Everyone except the shark- girl, ultimately ignoring the danger of the threat, sat on the deck and playfully slipped through the wooden floor, but when she heard the second roar of the creature, she paused from her giggles and frowned with bemusement, “Uh… have I heard that groan before…?”

“Would you look at that, seems that thing I stabbed in my way here is intelligent after all,” The figure inside the ballast kept on their voicing thoughts, holding on their knife with both hands, as the entire body of the man they were fighting with, stood stuck from the middle of the abdomen and waved in the air, like a meat stick, “To think they would guess what was happening inside and help me by throwing this man’s body directly against my knife like this, ah, how relieving, even if my mission fails, she won’t yell at me… hopefully,” They stuttered at the end. Dropping the wounded man on the floor as his body was being wrapped into darkness, then digging their hand inside the hood, with a clicking sound, the figure pushed the rims of their glasses back up, “Now… let’s find a cozy place where we can hide and wait for the rest of the pirates to come and find us, shall we?”

“I want every man ready; it is a crash, everyone, to their battle stations, now!” Marine commanded and the men reacted back to their serious mood, giving the woman a shout of affirmation they divided into groups, walking down the stairs inside the ship, opening the lids from both extremes; getting ready the canons at the gun deck and the swinging canons at the main deck, another group climbing the shrouds to hoist the sails and keep them tight, “Passengers get out our way this time, is not pirate games anymore!”

“What are you talking about, get out the way? I’m far from the spectrum and Miss Noel is out of the spectrum, asking us to stay away from this is just foolery,” Flare claimed with aversion to the woman’s orders.

But the claims of the elf were briefly silenced when the sunlight disappeared from the sky. Everyone turned on their backs for a silent moment of disbelief, as a giant crash of the shape of a shark jumped out of the waters blocking the light. As gravity pulled the creature down, the splash of water generated huge waves which made the ship stumble all the way left, almost making it flip. “I won’t forgive anyone who falls from this ship, did I make myself clear?” Marine screamed at her men, pulling her saber and stabbing the wooden floor, using it as a support to hang, Flare firing an arrow to the mainmast with a rope tied on its end, knotting the other extreme of the rope on her right hand and holding Noel from her left, the white-haired woman picking up the shark-girl from her hood, all while Gura kept looking back at the waters and the crash with a melancholic face.

“You heard the Cap…! Whoever falls in the waters just because of that puny thing, will lose their right to call themselves a ‘pirate’ again!” The boatswain added to the rushing blood situation. With defiant and silent stares the men agreed between, hanging with hands and nails to the first thing they could find, groaning and howling while trying to keep their weight inside the ship as the boat slowly posed back, and the draft equilibrated them over the sea.

“It can’t be him… right…” Gura doubted what her eyes were seeing; with a strange gasp, she covered her mouth.

“Gura, I’m sorry dear but you are in the way! Do you think you could get inside the ship until this is over?” Noel asked the girl with hastiness and worry, kneeling to her side, but Gura didn’t respond, her eyes were fixed on the crash, “Gura…? Are you listening? It’s dangerous to be out here now!”

“Kid, please listen to Miss Noel, hide where is safe while we deal with this!” Flare joined from the other side, holding over the blue one's shoulder’s but once again she didn’t reply, “Can’t you hear us? Are you scared? We will take you inside then!”

“No, wait just a moment!” Gura finally shouted, shaking Flare’s grasp away and running towards the wooden fence, chasing the dark fin with her eyes, “Please don’t be you, please don’t be you, please don’t be you…” The girl begged with strange despair in her voice.

“Gura, you’re in the way, that place is dangerous!” Marine joined in the concerned shouts as she looked at the girl from afar, stuck in the middle of the deck while displaying orders left and right. But now even the woman had her eyes fixed on the creature. For the horror of everyone on the ship, the crash started to change forms and grow in size, steady and slowly, putrefying the waters around its body, the corrupted monster took on the shape of a giant, muscled man with the head of a shark, fins on their arms and back, composed of nothing but black, its limbs seemed to easily touch the bottom of the sea, and began into a slow and terrifying march towards the ship, “… Gura… isn’t that…”

“Bloop…” The shark whispered with a chirping voice, tears quickly flowing from her eyes, “Who… Bloop? Who did that to you…? Bloop, can’t you hear me? Bloop!” Her hands tightly holding on the fence, slowly breaking the wood from the pressure of her grip, “How did you get out of your bubble? I… I don’t understand… why would someone do something like this? Bloop! Who did this to you? Answer me!”

“What’s happening? I’m lost now, what is Bloop?” Noel asked while turning her head left and right.

“Gura’s friend, Bloop, and she were the only survivors of their zone, but now…” The boatswain tried to explain with remorse, looking at the creature approaching them.

“I want all those batteries ready, load the heavy bullets!” After a frustrated groan Marine turned back to her men and ordered, extending her arm.

“What? M-Marine, didn’t you hear me? That’s Bloop! Bloop is not your enemy!” The girl screamed at her with tears on her face.

“That’s not Bloop anymore, it’s a crash!” The woman shouted back while looking down at the girl, “I’m sorry but I’m not letting any of those things reach the other side, I’m sinking it to Davy Jones’ locker,” Marine explained defiantly.

“Marine, would it hurt you to be a little gentle; that was her friend!” Flare shouted at her.

“What is wrong with you?” But Gura interrupted the elf, screaming even louder, she ran from the fence and stood a couple of meters from the Captain, aggressively waving her arms up and down while crying, her words losing pitch as they drowned in her tears, “You can’t do that…! You know you can’t do that! If you Erase him he’s never coming back! My zone… my Gear! They’re all corrupted! If you Erase him and send his data to that place… He’ll end stuck! He’ll never come back to me! The Gear is not going to depurate him!”

The crew over the deck stopped frozen, Flare and Noel, and all the men around were looking at the Captain, who groaned and stomped over the floor, “What are all of you looking at? We didn’t wave that day and we won’t wave now, I said to get the friggin’ artillery ready! We’re sinking the crash!” Marine screamed without looking at anyone in specific, the men renewed on their operations with nervousness of the woman’s anger.

“Marine, there’s no need to be so insensitive!” Noel yelled at her.

“Marine!” Gura hurried to hold on to the Captain’s jacket, the woman doing her best to avoid looking at the crying girl, “Please just… I know! Give me a chance, m-maybe I can talk with him, I’ll… I’ll try to calm it down!” She stuttered arguments between snot and tears, trying to stop the woman.

The Captain clicked her tongue with disdain, and violently turned at Gura “If we don’t get rid of him now he’ll just corrupt us too! Everyone on this ship, can’t you see it?” She screamed at her.

“Bloop is… BLOOP IS MY FRIEND!” Tightly holding on the skirts of her clothes, the little one screamed, so acutely, so loud, this time the entire ship went into silence, “BLOOP IS MY FRIEND! THIS MEANS HE’S YOUR FRIEND TOO! WHY DON’T YOU UNDERSTAND?!”

The Captain held onto her voice for a slight of a moment, recognizing finally the cries of the girl. Turning her whole body to Gura, with a more composed attitude and tone, she began to talk, “… Here in Red Looting Sea, we don’t have a Mayor, we don’t need something like that, and we don’t have rules, we don’t need those either,” She began to narrate, like quoting the verse of a text.

With loud huffs, Gura cleaned her face with the sleeves of her arms, and pulling herself together she continued the woman’s speech, copying the same tone, “Yet we here respect three things, bets, deals, and promises.”

“Flare… what’s the difference between the last two?” Noel whispers into the elf’s ear.

“I’ll explain you later, later!” Flare whispered back.

“You have only one chance… if you can’t manage to snap him out of that nasty crap before he reaches us, then I’ll blow him into bits,” Marine finished with a serious face, extending her right arm.

“It’s a deal then,” Gura answered snorting her snots, handshaking with the woman, and instantly walking in opposite directions, Marine walking back to her crew, Gura running to the plank of the ship.

“Gura, wait for us… we’ll help you!” Noel told the girl with a nervous fidget, pursing her along the deck, Flare giving a look of contempt to Marine, later following the other two.

“Captain that was nice of you and all but… do you really think she’ll make it?” The boatswain hurried to Marine’s side, covering the volume of his voice with a hand.

Marine looked back at the small one, who stood at the verge of the plank extending her arm, a trident being shoot from the depths of the waters with a life of its own for the girl to catch it mid-air, “… She won’t, but, if she doesn’t try it… she will never believe me,” The woman sighed, then lowered the tune of her speech, “Prepare the ship scabbard… I’m going to use my Red for this.”

“Say, Gura… What are you exactly trying to do?” Noel asked with doubt while looking at the girl prepares the trident between her hands.

“I’m not sure myself to be honest…” She replied with an acute and frustrated hiss, “If I use my Blue I’ll end erasing him so… for starters I’ll try talking with him!” Gura finished with an anxious hop over the plank, then waving her trident on the air, the shark-girl manipulated the water from below, making it float near her face and shaping it in the size of an oversized megaphone, “Bloop! It’s me, Gura, can you hear me?” Her voice increased many levels through the watery gadget and blown up in the air slightly muffled.

“Flare, get ready, we’ll protect this girl if anything happens!” Noel told her partner when getting her maze ready, her body flaming with a white aura.

“At your order Miss Noel!” The elf nodded and prepared an arrow, summoning her own color over her body.

But the creature didn’t reply to the girl’s voice, keeping its march towards the ship and dangerously getting close, “No, Bloop! Stay away! It’s for your own good, can’t you hear me?” The girl shouted at him, running out of steam, her throat was being hurt by the effort she was trying into making her voice reach him. Frustrated she summoned a giant sphere of water and pointed it towards the crash, “Don’t come any closer please! Bloop… snap out of it!” In the last moment, her body gleamed with just a speck of Blue, the energy flowing inside the sphere and shooting it at the giant, which finally halted on its throttle when the water splashed on its body.

For a moment they all stared at the huge figure with a little bit of hope because of that splash of water. It seemed to act erratically, bringing one of his long arms over their face, acting as if suffering through a migraine, “Her voice… it seems to reach her!” Noel gasped with amazement.

Yet the moment of hope dissolved over the salty waters – GRAAARGH! – Shouting as if enraged, the creature fisted the waters with both hands, gradually losing its temper and turning savage. The black steam coming from its body began to spurt heavily on the air and waters, and when extending its right arm in the air, the crash summoned a giant version of Gura’s trident.

“As expected of that size, they know how to use its Black…” Flare muttered with a little tremble, looking at how the giant began to hold over the trident with both hands and posed it over its head, ready to slam it against the ship.

“No, Bloop what are you doing! If you attack us I won’t be able to protect you, don’t do it!” Gura begged the creature, but this one ignored her entirely, and lunged against the ship, the size of the trident producing a heavy and chilling sound as it cuts the air and falls over them, “BLOOP!”

“Good muscle…” With nimbly movements, Flare embraced Gura and jumped away from the plank and back in the deck, being replaced by Noel, who prepared her maze and slammed it against the tip of the trident when this reached the ship. In conjunction with power the weight of the giant trident, combined with the strength of the crash, was pushing the whole ship slowly under the water, yet at the same time, it was pilloried by a single woman pushing it back with all her strength. With a fierce expression filled with nothing but wrath, Noel, propelled by her White, swung the trident away, “Day!” The final clash resulting in the creature being pushed away, stumbling against the waters and trying to don’t lose their equilibrium, “Flare, your turn!”

“You made your friend cry, it is really no trace of your old self in there?” The elf snarled at the creature when shooting her arrow. Leaving a trace of green energy as the missile flew in the air, crystal clinks were heard, the tip of the arrow ricocheted in the air and around the body of the creature repeatedly, no longer following rules of physic, and creating straight lines which seemed to corner the giant being, “Now… be bind!” Flare screamed next, with her left hand holding a green energy rope connected to the web made by the arrow, she pulled forcefully, and thus the energy tightly tied the crash.

“Bloop… Bloop!” The shark-girl attempted one more time, “Please… stay like that and don’t do anything else, it’s for your own good!” Still, the creature refused to listen to her pleadings, and with another deafening roar, the crash broke and absorbed the green energy trying to keep them down, “Bloop…”

“Wait… if they absorbed my bind it means…” Flare bit on her lip with guilt, she didn’t need to finish the sentence, as the creature postured with both arms, and a large bow made of Black formed on its hands, “Crap… I screwed it up!”

“Very well… Playtime’s over…” A feminine and serious voice interrupted, the girl and Noel slowly turning to Marine, who slowly unsheathes her saber while the men pull and twist levers on the mainmast, all of it unleashing a strange scabbard connected directly into the ship. The woman silently paraded behind the mechanism, looking right at the creature, with her body emanating Red, “Gura… I’m sorry; please don’t think badly of me…” She mourned on her mind, slowly bringing her saber and placing it upside down, to fit the blade inside the scabbard, “PREPARE TO FIRE!” She howled with a murderous intention, her energy reacting to her anger, flowing in and out the ship, enveloping it entirely with a thin, red aura.

“Gura, hurry up and come with us, I’m sorry but there’s nothing we can do!” Flare said to the girl while pulling on her wrist, together with Noel they took her away from the border of the ship and hid behind the mizzenmast.

“Bloop…” Gura whispered with a broken voice, extending her arm as if trying to reach the creature, sunk in sadness the girl had no strength to move and was being dragged by the women.

“FIRE AT WILL!”

The scream came from the woman like a beast prepared to kill its prey.

“FIRE AT WILL!”

The command was repeated by the boatswain, and from left to right, up and down, a column of flames exploded from the canons with destructive, yet harmonious blasts. The balls, shot at dangerous speeds and soaked in Red, quickly destroyed the limbs of the black bow, along with the arrow, the rest of the missiles smashed on its head and right shoulder, penetrating and tearing its body apart with grievous wounds.

The second column of batteries followed next, while the creature stumbled on its feet, it tried to protect itself from the shots, covering its body with its arms. Regardless the second wave of bullets was loaded with a brighter Red than the first, almost anticipating its movements, the huge ammo looked small when reaching the creature, but it was successfully tearing its body apart by the borders, burning it, going through it, blast after blast filling the deck of the ship with smoke from the shots, impregnating the air with the unmistakable stench of gunpowder and heat, the creature stood no chance against the shoots from the ship, which after the third wave it no longer seemed to be prepared by the men at the ballast, but by the screams of fury from the woman on the top of the deck, flushing tides of Red inside the ship.

“SINK AND BEGONE FROM MY OCEAN!” 

The fourth, the fifth, and the sixth wave of shots reduced to the almighty and hunk body of the creature into a crumbling corpse, filled with holes like cheddar cheese. The giant began to sway in the waters, weakened and fatally wounded, their arms collapse when the joints from the shoulders were blown off by the bullets and fell in the ocean, releasing a dying scream as an eighth and ninth wave pierced through the main structure of its body, leaving nothing but the head with lamenting screamings swaying in an attempt to don’t fall, until it was smitten into pieces by a final, tenth round of fire.

“Flare… That woman…” Noel whispered while thunderstruck, “I’m one of White… yet that woman is way stronger than me…”

“The Blaze Hero must be a name given by this peculiar bombardment… Certainly, it was nothing but a faint dream of us to believe we were going to win a warm-up session against her…” The elf nodded while gulping down saliva.

“That’s why make sure to don’t let her remember about our bet,” Noel said nervously.

“Of course, my lips are sealed,” Flare nodded again, “But now, what matters is…” She suggested looking at Noel, then gazing back at the little blue bag inside her arms. She covered Gura from the scene until the last moment, saving it from the morbid spectacle of destruction; still, she was turned into a ball of sad cries and whimpers from the thunderous sounds of the blasts, “Gura… You can come out now… it’s over…”

“Gura!” Marine screamed from afar, the moment she removed her hands out the saber, the ship immediately lost its bright red color and returned to normal. The Captain ran and met with the small girl, quietly kneeling to her place, Flare gave space to Marine and crawled away from the two, “Gura… I’m sorry… I had to do it…” The woman slowly explained, trying to stroke the top of the shark's head, but Gura reacted like a hissing cat and slapped her hand away.

“You… you!” Gura blurted while gritting her fangs, releasing an acute and long whimper of frustration, “You’re an idiot… I hate you!” The girl screamed at her with tears on her eyes, then desperately ran starboard and jumped out of the ship, inside the water, leaving Marine silently rubbing her smacked hand, forcing a bittersweet smile.

Chapter Text

Aftertaste of the short yet terrifying crash battle washed off people’s mouths inside the man-o’-war, the limelight of the evening was placed over the Captain. The three women were surrounded by a circle of men, cheering and singing, stomping the wooden floor and clapping their hands with rhythmical malice, as Marine danced, deceived, and played with the other two around the deck, dodging arrows, parrying hits.

“When I was just a little lad, or so me mammi told me!”

The boatswain was leading the song with a great deep voice. Those who didn’t sing were either whistling or shouting overwhelmed in excitement, throwing a fist in the air whenever their Captain swiftly avoided a combined hit of the elf and the woman.

“That if I didn’t kiss the gals, me lips would grow all mouldy!”

“Flaaaaaare, you promised you wouldn’t remember her bet!” Noel yelled with a frustrated cry, distancing from both the Captain and the elf, trying to take a pause to breathe, sweat drops on her face, holding awkwardly over the maze with both hands. Her body was flaming with White, yet it wasn’t enough to match the eye-patch lady who refused to go all the way against them, “I don’t want to strip in front of all these men! I don’t wanna!” She cried powerlessly, swinging the maze in the air with childish movements.

“Away haul away, the good ship is a-bolding!”

“I didn’t, I swear to the spectrum I didn’t!” Flare screamed from the other side of the circle just as ashamed and frustrated. Panting loudly, her hands trembled when preparing one of the last arrows inside her quiver, infusion it with Green, “It’s already hard to face this woman who ridicules us by trying to fondle us as we fight, and now we have to deal with this singing, this is too one-sided!” 

“Way haul away; we’ll haul away, Joe!”

“Come hell or high water, I would never forget a bet which has two beautiful naked landlubbers at stake!” Marine replied to the two with a sneer, then licked the edge of her blade, and swung her hips and saber to the melody of her crewmen’s song, “Now face me, you so-called friends of Sky Hero, today hers and your reputation will stale!” She laughed abrasive, and then with a toothed smile, she leaped away from Flare’s arrow and used the same impulse to jar against Noel. Ignoring the arrow which kept ricocheting against the floor and masts behind her heels, forming a small web made of Flare’s Green, The Captain kept pressure against the woman who could no longer counterattack, all her energy was being consumed in just parrying the hits of the thirsty pirate.

“Miss Noel, here it goes…!” The elf signaled her partner while tightly holding onto the end extreme of the thread, ready to activate her trap.

“I was waiting for it!” Marine replied instead with a huge smirk. With violence she stabbed the floor, abandoning her saber, then ran towards Noel and gently embraced her from the hips with her right arm. By the moment Flare had pulled on the thread the action was done, and the two were tied tightly by the trap, as Marine smiled widely, with her arms caressing the back and sides of Noel, this one grimaced with horror, “What if we kiss a little?” The Captain suggests with forced feminine tone and duck lips.

“Ew, ew, ew, ew!” Noel shook her face with repugnance and using the little bits of strength left inside her body; she drowned a whimper and pushed Flare’s thread with her forearms until tearing them apart, crawling away from her with despair. She reincorporated with relief and finally clenched a fist in the air, “Flare, what the hell are you thinking?”

“Noel, you could’ve used that chance to give her a head butt and knock her out!”

“Don’t ask for the impossible! How can I think of something like that while I have her breathing on my face?”

“What is it uh, just what is it? Teamwork is crumbling apart! The women who claimed to be far and out the spectrum don’t know how to deal with someone who doesn’t even need to use their color against them!”

“Shut up you horrible perverted woman! How you dare to use my trap to be ensnared on purpose with Miss Noel?”

“You can chide at me all you want, but the truth is that you wanted to be the one tied with her, don’t you?”

“S-shut up, that’s not true!”

“I’m tired of this woman, if you want us to use our colors with such crass, then I’ll give it to you! I won’t be sorry if I break your ship along the way!”

“We are all out of cards Miss Noel, our pride is on the line now, do it!”

“Oho? Are you going to use a secret move or something? Your body is like a bonfire of White! Go ahead pretty girl, go crazy!”

“WHITE HAMMER OF THE GODS, I’LL SPLIT EVERYTHING IN HALF!”

“Is that it? Once again experience comes to shine! If you lunge your arms so high while preparing your chant…”

“Miss Noel, be careful!”

“You left this beautiful chest wide open…!”

“…!”

“…!”

“… Wow… they’re softer than how they look; you’re a fine lady that’s for sure, warrior of White!”

“…”

“… N-Noel?”

“… DON’T TOUCH MY BOOB! DON’T TOUCH MY BOOB! DON’T TOUCH MY BOOB!”

“Miss Noel, don’t! She’s taunting you to break your chant! Please focus!”

“Then why don’t let her touch your boob instead uh?!”

“Well… that’s…”

“For starters, we’re in this situation because of you and your silly pride, why couldn’t you just practice normally?!”

“…I have no excuse; I failed you, Miss Noel…”

“I give up…! Is that what you wanted to hear don’t you? I give it up!”

“So willingly!”

“B-But Miss Noel!”

“This fight is never going to end, she has been making us fight for more than twenty minutes now, I’ve had enough of her touching me already, let’s get over with this nightmare!”

“Miss Noel?! What are you doing?!”

“Can’t you see it? I’m stripping!”

“In front of all these men?!”

“Do you see any other way out of this situation? If so I want to hear it, if not then start undressing too!”

“… Be as you may, Miss Noel… I’m never getting married now…”

“Ahahaha! To think you both will be reduced to this, how delicious, what a moment!”

“Shut up! Oh God all of them are watching us…”

“Hurry and prepare the plank for these fine ladies… Oh my, oh my, that lacey underwear is so girly for women of your age!”

“I told you to shut up! Just watch and shut up!”

“Such fine curves, such smooth skin, let me see everything, no piece of cloth left before jumping off!”

“We have to take our underwear too?!”

“I meant eve-ry-thing! C’mon, I doubt you want to continue fighting in such attire!”

“Flare, I’m never forgiving you for this!”

“Noel, I’m so sorry!”

“Look at that! The mystery if the elf was dark or pink is finally solved!”

“For the love of everything please shut up!”

“Now walk parade along the plank and jump! C’mon jump, jump, jump!”

“The water looks so cold…”

“You go first, hey!”

“Fueh?! Miss Noel?! Wait; don’t push, ah, no, ack!”

“There goes the first one… That was some adorable jiggling!”

“I swear the only reason I’m jumping is because I won’t get to hear your voice underwater!”

“And there goes the one of White; certainly you’re the better of the two, what a magnificent jiggle!”

Splash after splash, the men erupted into a furious celebration, catcalling, cheering, whistling, and throwing nasty flirts to the naked women. Trembling with cackling jaws while floating on the cold waters of the sea, they had to wait for the multitude to calm down and feast on their perverted victory until Marine ordered to release a rope from the mast so Flare and Noel could climb their way back on the ship. When everything was said and done, and the women were shaking like newborn baby birds under layers of cloths, Marine scanned the deck with confusion, noticing a wane amount of her crewmen were missing from the spectacle.

“H-How can the water be so c-c-cold!” Noel cried with a little snot on her nose.

“T-The ocean h-has something c-called densi-sity…” Flare tried to blabber an explanation.

“I don’t wanna hear another word from you!” Noel replied while pulling a firm tone, then going back to her shaking and squirming.

“Yes, ma’am…” The elf answered making a puppy face.

“And so two of the warrior's allies of Sky Hero, were defiled with public humiliation,” Marine said stepping in front of them with a diss and a sneer, “Feeling like growing a kink out of this situation?” She suggested with a movement of her brows.

“J-just how can a w-woman be so strong… a-and y-yet so wicked on the mind…” Flare mourned when fixing tightly the cloth around her body.

“That song will be stuck on my mind for the rest of my life…” Noel added gradually regaining composure, stroking her shoulders over the cloth, then looked up to Marine, “A bet lost is lost… but you know we have orders from Sky Hero to recruit you, as much as I hate it you’re smarter… and stronger than me, having you on our side would be beneficial.”

“Yes, yes, I heard it through the grapevine,” Marine answered miffed of Noel’s words, scratching the back of her head, “The hero of the skies is in look for a way to recover all the lost data of the people and zones from the Crash,” She clicked her tongue next, “All but a fantasy.”

“You… don’t believe in Sora’s words?” Flare questioned her in a mix of disbelief and tremble.

“I mean, what can she do all on her own? That woman is always trying to do everything the hard way, I doubt she can solve something so convoluted alone,” The Captain shrugged.

“S-Sora is not alone! She has Noel and me, and…!” The elf tried to retort, but before she could explain longer, the white-haired woman placed a hand over her shoulder and shook her head.

Marine twisted her lips with sternness at the almost slip of words from Flare, sighed, and continued, “And how does exactly all of this is of any matter to me? For three days and nights, I fought without a second to rest, erasing those nauseating crash things, for those three days and nights; I fought together with my men, under the thought that someone had to do it…” She began to narrate with a lecturing voice, hands on her hips, her eye closed, growing with discomfort, “And then one day I was known as the Blaze Hero, and the very next day after that I was just the hero no one talks about, they gave me a reputation and sank it right after when they got to know that, contrary to Sky and Terra, I was a pirate,” She shrugged once again.

“Are you saying… you’re refusing to collaborate with us just because of some silly resentment?” Flare wondered with indignation.

“You are the last person who has the right to judge me because of resentment, dear elf-girl,” The Captain laughed it off, “If Sky Hero were smarter she could’ve just given you both something to bribe me with!”

“To bribe you…” Noel meditated on her words for a brief minute; then lifted her head with a gasp, “But we do have something to bribe you!”

“Oho… and what would that be? Do you want to offer me your hand in marriage?” Marine joked full of herself.

“If you help us… and Sora finally recovers the lost data, Gura’s zone… Blue French Fries, it would be back online, and as soon as the Gear begins to work, Bloop could be depurated,” Noel said to the woman in a mix of assertiveness and seriousness.

Marine took a step back, then forced a smile, defying the white one, “Oh my… That sure is a low blow from you…”

This time it was Noel’s chance to smirk, “Deep down, you would do anything for that girl, wouldn’t you?” At the end of her words, the tip of marine’s saber was just three centimeters away from Noel’s nose, yet this one didn’t flinch at the sudden draw, instead, she kept on her teasing, “That girl said you’re the coolest when you’re not being a pervert, so why not live up to her expectations? If you bring her friend back, she may forgive-“

“SHUT UP!” Marine screamed and cut her from talking, the sword on her hand suffered from a sudden shake, “Don’t you dare to use Gura as a way to ransack my services!” She screamed next and turned her back on them, stepping away and taking deep breathes, trying to calm down, “We’ll be reaching the port by night… Once we set foot on the mainland, I want you two out of my zone, don’t ever come here again, go tell Sky Hero to look for somebody else,” She said lastly with an emotionless tone.

But Noel just shrugged apathetic of the woman’s speech, “If you want to spend the rest of your life as a pervert, not my problem,” She silently berated on her. Gazing around the deck, she tilts her head, “Flare… is it me, or the amount of men is decreasing?”

“Gladly, Miss Noel, it probably just means they just got tired of us, we should be grateful and not ponder so much about it,” Flare explained with a nod of the head.

“I guess you’re right… although it kind of hurts me at the same time,” Noel pouted, then turned on the boatswain who had been silently and nervously inspecting the waters with a telescope, feigning to don’t be peeking over the women, “Say… boatswain?”

“Y-Yes Miss Noel?” The man gave a startled jump, stretching his back like a scared cat, forcefully compressing the telescope.

The woman extended her hands, giving a small sight of her nudity from under the piece of cloth, “I’m still cold, can you come here and hug me?” 

The man gulped down saliva at the hearing of her request, Marine drowned a quip from hearing the conversation, “Come again…?”

“M-Miss Noel?” The elf joined baffled by what she was hearing.

“Is like… you know? I’m just so cold, and after being seen by everyone there’s no more shame in my body left, so do you mind come here and warm me up? We can even hug under the blankets, I don’t care anymore, I just want to get rid of this cold asap,” The woman explained with a girly tone combined with traces of her trembling, extending her hands up and down, teasing on the man.

The boatswain took a step ahead, then stopped, confused and with shaky hands, “… Is this a joke…?”

“C’mon, don’t make me repeat myself, its embarrassing!” Noel said this time playfully, gesturing with hands, “Come here, come!”

“If… if Miss Noel doesn’t mind it, then…” Flare stuttered for a moment, on a state of deep thought, then resumed by joining with the other, extending her arms and looking aside, “I wouldn’t mind a hug too… I’d like to warm up fast… come… with us…”

“Then… don’t mind if I do!” He answered with awkward and cheerful laughter, as the women giggled with a little blush on their faces, slowly lifting the cloth they were using to cover their naked bodies.

“Boatswain!” But at just one meter of cuddling with them, Marine called from him with a shout from the other side.

“… Yes, my Captain?” The man turned slowly, muffling a frustrated and large groan while holding over the tips of his toes, biting his lower lip.

“Don’t you find it weird no one is on the deck anymore to enjoy the view?” Marine suggested, still without looking at him or the women.

“Now that you say it… it is strange but, that means more for me right?” He joked nervously and took another step, centimeters close from the women’s fingers.

“Boatswain!” But Marine shouted once more, “Do you mind going down and find out what is happening?”

“Like… right now…? But, Captain you see…” The man stuttered between cries and groans, looking at the back of her boss and then at the happy and willing faces of Flare and Noel, “I’m kind of busy right now…”

“Boatswain!” She screamed for the third time, but this chance, she joined it with a strange and natural, feminine tone, “Please…”

“Curses… when she speaks with that voice…” She muffled an acute screech, then stomped the floor, “Would you wait for me a couple of minutes, my fine lads, I’ll be back in a jiffy.”

“Nah,” Noel replied right away, lowering her arms, “If you go you lose this one-in-a-life-chance, I don’t have any intention to offer something like this twice, right?” She asked turning to the elf.

“Indeed, we may have been stolen of shame, but we still have pride, if you go now, I will never offer you such a sweet deal again,” Flare teased with a wink, and then both she and the woman laughed at him.

“Curses… Curses!” The man cried with tears in his eyes, running towards the stairs down the ballast while the women giggled at his misfortune.

“Hey,” Marine said to them, menacing with the saber, “Don’t flirt with my crewmen, much less with my boatswain.”

“Eh…? Are you in love with him or something?” Flare questioned, both she and her partner had their arms up in the air by reflex of having the blade at the height of their faces.

“Calm down! I just wanted a hug; I’m not even into older men!” Noel pouted.

With a red boiling face, the Captain sheathed her sword and huffed with annoyance, “What a day! You know what? I’ll go to my cabin and take a nap, and hope that when I wake up you two are out of my ship at the port!” She screamed with fret; then stomped all her way to the back of the ship up to her room.

“Eh? What about us? What do we do in the meanwhile; do you know where our clothes are?” Noel asked with concern and exhaustion.

“As if I care!” The Captain said, slamming the door of her room close.

Chapter Text

With a bottle of amber liquid on her right, and two crystal glasses on her left, Marine walked out of her cabin with a sleepy face. Yawning silently, she faced the lone deck in the middle of the night, not even a lamp had been lightened, yet the ship had reached the port and was docked at a corner of the bay, distanced from town, “… What a half-assed job… Did they leave to the mainland to hit on women and drink already? Maybe those two landlubbers put them on the high spirits after all…” She pondered in the silence.

Placing the bottle and glasses over a wooden box she toured around the deck, and with a handmade Zippo of rope and metallic nuts, she ignited the lamps of the ship. “They left me alone… Oh well, I wasn’t in the mood to chase skirts anyway,” She sighed and yawned, went inside her cabin once more, this time to bring one of her chairs and put it in front of the box, “Boatswain! Are you still here? Would you like to drink a little?” She asked looking at the stairs guiding the insides of the ship, yet no one gave her a reply, “I guess he’s gone too…” Her face began to grow bittersweet, “And the passengers are gone too… start the morning with a party and end the night with silence… I see…” She laughed it off with tiredness, crossed her legs, and removed the cork of the bottle with a spurt of strength, poured four fingers of the amber liquid inside one of the glass, and holding it by the tips of her right hand; she took a sip, “Gura…”

From the starboard behind her back, a small splash of water was heard. “Ugh… Hmm… Ouch!” And pretending to don’t hear her fidgeting noises as she tried to stealthy climb up the ship, Marine allowed to Gura get on the deck without being seen. The little shark looked firmly at the figure of the woman from the back, with swollen eyes and a snotty nose; she dug her left arm inside her hood from the back of her head; then pulled a banjo, which she held with both hands. “Uhm… Ehem!” She cleared her throat to make her presence be felt, but the Captain replied with a gesture of her liquor, without turning back on her. Provoking on the shark, Gura silently walked towards her, until being face to face, she made a huff of anger and sadness, looking at the woman, then looking at her instrument, and after loudly slurping her snots; she began to play. 

After three long minutes of strumming, with the music of the banjo being joined by the gleam of the lamps, the breeze of the night and the soft rock of the waves making the vessel sway, Marine’s bittersweet smile began to fade, losing composure, “I was the one who erased you friend… so why are you playing the ‘I’m sorry’ song to me?” Marine wondered with a heartbroken giggle.

“Because I’m sorry,” Gura replied with her firm yet childish tone, “You did what you had to, I’m sorry to have called you an idiot… and to have said that I hate you…” She paused to snuggle on her banjo and look down at the floor, “You’re always so nice with me… you let me live in your zone, and you sewed me Mister Baldie and Miss Housekeeper to play house, you’re always taking care of me…”

The Captain giggled with a little blush, taking a sip of her drink before replying, “Did you forget though? That what I want the most is to have you tightly put on my bed?” She suggested, changing the position of her legs, “You should just stop hanging with me, I’m just a pervert pirate.”

“That’s… That’s not true!” Gura lifted her face and took a step in front of the woman, “Marine is… Marine is a cool person, I know it!”

“How can you be so sure of it…?” Marine chuckled with condescension.

“B-Because… lately, all your traps…” She implied and such made the woman cough on her drink with a small startle of surprise, “All those nets have always a broken piece of thread, and I know you do it on purpose… because you hope for me to escape…”

Marine held on her chest with the left, trying to breathe back and clean her mouth, “I… I don’t know what you’re talking about…”

“A!” Gura shouted, pointing an index to the woman with furrowed brows, “You’re drinking again, we talked about this!” The shark complained.

“It’s apple cider you silly,” Marine answered while palming her lap, the shark reacted with a huge smile, dropping her banjo and climbing over the legs of the woman to sit with her, “You made me throw all of our rum some weeks back after you complained we always reeked of alcohol, remember?”

“Can I have some?” The girl questioned without paying much attention to the woman’s explanation.

“Of course,” Marine chuckled again and shook her head, pouring the liquid over the other glass, then clinking hers with the girl’s, “To the bottom…”

“And repeat!” Gura finished for her; then together gulped down their glasses until emptying, “Woof! That sure hits the spot!” The shark shouted with a hiss of satisfaction.

“Look who is acting like a drunk one now,” Marine said when flicking her nose.

The woman refilled the glasses in silence, looking together at the calm sea night, they sipped on the drinks. “You’re not a pervert…” Gura said after long minutes of silence elapsed by, “You’re just scared, there’s no need to hide it.”

“My, my, and since when are you so good at looking inside of me?” Marine suggested while slowly stroking the girl’s head.

“I just know it… You were always a bit nasty, or so I heard, but you only started to act this deranged after the Crash incident,” The girl began to explain while looking up at her from her lap seat, “After you got to hear that the girl who caused the Crash was someone who had a color before turning with Black and corrupting, that was when you started to act like a freak as if every day would be the last day of your life…”

“Seriously now… to think you of all people would bring this conver-…” But before the Captain could start on another of her condescending giggles, the blue one turned to face her, and silently hugged the woman, burying her face on her chest, “… Gura?”

“But you don’t have to live like that, you aren’t going to crash as that girl did,” Gura kept explaining to her, slowly hugging her tighter, “Because… You know? The reason why that girl crashed… was because she was alone…” Her tone getting weaker muffled by Marine’s chest, “But… You have me… you’re not alone, I’ll always be with you so… calm down… please?”

For a moment Marine stood silent, caressing the head of the girl without reply, brushing her hair with the tips of her fingers. Her smile completely fades, and as her body started to tremble, Gura held her tighter, then hand she used to brush her hair was now being used to hold her face and cover her eyes, as the woman struggled with all her inner strength to don’t let her tears come out, “Can… can you promise me that… that you won’t let me alone?” She asked hoarsely.

“I can, I mean…! We even have the right stuff for it!” Gura replied with a fanged smile. Between giggles the two took on their crystal glass, crossing and locking their arms with the other, “I, Gawr Gura, promise to be your loyal friend, pirate-style!” She cheered before chugging on her drink.

“You’re just so cute…” Marine whispered endeared with her gestures, joining her for a sip, “Why is that you’re only this cute with me when nobody is watching us?”

“Because it’s… embarrassing to do it in public…” The girl muttered with shame.

“Ngh! You’re super cute!” Marine snuggled the girl happily, “Then since we are making promises, I’ll make you a promise back,” She gestured with her free hand, then gazed at the port, “I promise you that I will help Sky Hero on her mission, for my friend to recover those she had lost, I’ll use all my strength,” She forced a smile, and drank the beverage.

“Marine…” Gura gasped with amaze and flustered cheeks, drinking along, “T-Then…!”

“What, more promises? If we keep it like this it’s never going to end,” The woman said holding her laughter.

“Is just… if you really can bring my zone back online and… Bloop is depurated… if you do all that then I will do… whatever you ask…”

“Whatever I ask you say?! Then I can finally tie you tightly on my bed for an entire week?!”

“A-a week you say…? That’s… too much, what about just one hour?”

“An hour will do, an hour will do!”

“Oh, Uhm, ok then, but please calm down… don’t make me turn back on my words…”

“O-Ok… is just, the mental picture is so delicious…”

“Marine…”

“But now that I think about it, this is gonna be awkward, first I’ll have to find those landlubbers again, and later I’ll have to apologize to them… did you see where they went when they left the port?”

“The port…? Marine, no one has left this ship in the entire night though?”

“… Come again?”

“I found you sleeping in your cabin hours ago, and since the ship was already at the port, yet no one was coming out of the deck, I pulled it the last stretch missing, set the anchor, and tied it down!”

“It was you…? Then… Where’s everyone?”

Gently removing the shark-girl from her lap, the woman stood from her chair and walked around the deck, filling a chill on her spine, “Don’t tell me… are my crewmen doing nasty things with the landlubbers in their quarters?” The woman thought out loud, biting her nails in a mix of envy and worry.

“Marine… you know? May they be lawless pirates and all… but they aren’t like you,” Gura groaned back at her with disappointment, rubbing her face with annoyance.

“Eek! Don’t come any closer, stay away you disgusting thing!” The two heard a feminine cry from the insides of the ship.

“See?!” Marine claimed to the shark, pointing down below their feet and biting harder on her nails.

“And as I’m saying…” Gura groaned louder.

Before the girl could insist, Flare and Noel jumped out the stairs from inside the deck with a face of horror. Now, all dressed up, the women were fretting and panting, holding on their knees from the sudden scare, “What the heck, we were taking a nap and when we woke up your entire crew had turned into crashes!” Noel blurted trying to stand properly, coughing and swallowing saliva, “We need to get out of here; this ship got corrupted!”

At the end of her warning, sounds of steps were heard from inside the ship. Steady and slowly, a hoard of crashes climbed the ladder, mourning and waving like zombies, they began to spread around the ship and surround the women, “Crap... I couldn’t notice from inside the ship but there’s just too many of them! What are we going to do?” Flare hissed with anger, there weren’t more arrows on her quiver.

“Don’t fret Flare, first we need to calm down, hey, Marine, do you have any emergency…” She turned her face to the last position where she saw the woman, she couldn’t find anyone, not even the shark-girl, “… Boat?”

“Hey, you landlubbers, why are you still up there?” A woman screamed from below the ship, forcing the elf and Noel to hurry into the wooden fence with faces of awkwardness, “You know the ship is docked right? Just jump over here!” Marine suggested them with a tilt of her head.

“O-of course we knew, we just were joking!” Noel quips with embarrassment and leaps out of the ship.

“We were just checking how alert you were!” Flare added jumping next.

They looked in silence, from the port, at the ship filled with crashes that moaned and screeched at them. Infested to the brim with corrupted virtual people, they attempted to lunge at the women, yet many of them stumbled and fell on the sea, having to climb back to the ship and repeat the process, “In many different levels… this is so sad…” Flare muttered with dejection.

“My men… all of them…” Marine whispers with a lamenting tone, looking at the creatures trying to hurt them with their claws from the distance she sighs. Gura silently held in her left hand; grasping the fingers of the captain.

“Whoever was behind of all of this, it wasn’t a smart one,” Noel said looking at the spectacle, with hands on her hips, “We were going to dock, so we could leave them trapped on the ship at any moment, seriously, the idiot behind this wasn’t thinking through enough.”

“I did think enough about it! I did, I did, I did!” The hooded individual screamed on their cape, hiding from the group behind a couple of wooden boxes in the port, “Everything was going on perfectly, is not my fault that the shark-girl had come back and pulled the ship all the way to the port!”  They kicked the rocky floor with great frustration, “This is so unfair! Not even blindfold and fangs failed this much, God, I’m going to be so grounded when she hears…!”

“So, what do you want us to do?” Noel turned to Marine, “If it’s too hard for you, I can Erase them instead, contrary to the big guy from before, these guys are from your zone, so they’ll be depurated.” She explained when pointing back at the ship with a thumb.

“It’s fine…” Marine shook her head and walked up to the verge of the cantile beam, “I’ll take care of them myself, is the most respectful thing to do,” Then she turned back and kneeled to the height of Gura, gesturing her to approach, the girl does as told with a confused look, “Could you do me a couple of favors first?”

“Sure…? What do you need?” She asked with a finger on her mouth. After being whispered a secret on the ear by the Captain, she nodded with uncontrollable laughter and jumped inside the waters. Marine unsheathed her saber and swiftly cut in half the chains of the anchor, and the extreme connected to the ship was quickly caught by the small hands of the shark-girl, who pulled the entire ship away from the port until being almost a hundred meters away. The girl returned to the port and shook her soaked body like a puppy, “Brrrrrrr! Alright, everything’s done!” She told Marine with her trident in one hand.

Then woman, with a flustered face, hunched to the girl while staring at the confused faces of Flare and Noel, “And… my Rilakkumas?”

“I took them all and squished them inside my treasure chest!” Gura whispered back, with thumbs up and a wink.

“Very well then…” She giggled nervously; then coughed on her hand trying to regain composure. With melancholy drawn on her face, she looked at the man-o’-war from the distance, “… And here I was thinking about how to bid farewell from all of you… “ She began to say, using both hands to remove her jacket and her hat, “We fought hell and what was beyond that during the crash, it was because of all of you that I got known as the Blaze Hero…” She dropped them both over the floor, then unfastened the belt where the scabbard of her saber was resting, throwing it on the floor too, “We’ll have to say goodbye for now, but I hope that when I come back after I make my promise with this girl… so will you,” She removed the eyepatch from her face and let it fly away by the breeze, she untied her twin tails one by one, and firmly took on her guns with both hands, raising them in the air, her yellow iris shinning like a golden coin, “Let’s all drink until we throw up that day… until then… Bloom!”

“What the… what in the seven seas is that?” Gura asked protecting her face with both arms, looking at how the body of the woman shines and is wrapped with light, turning her outfit into an asymmetrical, two-piece dress, “Wow… You’re really a superhero…”

“So that is how the Bloom system looks like…” Noel stuttered, “I guess it suits her but it looks so… childish… I’m sorry for Sora, but I don’t think I’ll be using that any soon,” She laughed while looking at Noel, “Although it would look so great on her!” She thought with a little blush.

“Certainly, we are too old for such clothes,” Flare giggled uncomfortable, “Although it would look so great on her!” She thought faking disgust.

“Little Gura, would you help me with the chorus?” Marine asked her with tenderness.

“Really? Yay, let’s beat the bad boys with music!” She nodded with a huge smile, then ran behind the woman with her trident and prepared a stance.

Marine looked one more time at the ship from the distance; then pointed at it with both guns.

“From now on, I’ll depart on an adventure, with direction into the unknown…”

She began to sing with a sweet tune, from a hundred meters in the middle of the night, her first shoot flew all the way through the sea to the ship, a small bullet soaked in Red which blown up the head of a crash with a loud – BANG – noise.

“Thing such as love, and lovers… I’ll search for them, on this grand adventure of mine!”

Her heels danced with elegancy along the rocky floor, as she delivered a rain of shoots towards the ship, the sky of the night being illuminated by the rays of Red her bullets let a trace on the air.

“Hoihoi, ahoy, hoihoi, ahoy! Hoihoi, ahoy, hoihoi, ahoy!” Gura happily sang from behind the woman, following the rhythm of the loud blasts of music that seemed to come from her dress. Absentmindedly, the shark-girl just swung her hands up and down from left to right with all her strength, “Hoihoi ahoy, hohoi of hoi!”

“That day I stared into the unknown, that place I admired filled with the things I desired…”

After lowering the number of crashes wandering over the deck, she changed her aim and shot one of the many lamps hanging over the masts.

“Yet it was an impossible story, as much as I requested to dive in that world…”

As she spun in the port, she destroyed all the lamps, which fell on the floor sparking in flames, setting the ship in fire, the sails of the ship set ablaze, illuminating like giant torches.

“But I’m tired of being filled with regrets…!”

The intensity of her shots grew with her voice, and the bullets began to tear huge holes in and through the bodies of the crash which appeared on the canon windows and the deck.

“Go, go, Captain, go!” Gura cheered with a large scream.

“Let’s set sail!”

The woman cheered together with the shark, and the three-barrel guns of the Captain began to spin with a speed of their own, sparking in flames with the whistling sound of an engine.

“Yozoro!” 

“Let’s all reunite and sing together! Our goal is the unknown!”

Her shots increased in bright, destruction, size, and speed, as a literal rain of flames poured on the ship, destroying everything into bits.

“Ahoy! Hoi hoi!”

“If you’re going to do it then let’s do it now! If it’s with you I’ll go wherever in the world!”

The mainmast floated in the air for a couple of seconds after being split in half by one of the bullets. The large piece of wood falling on the ship, adding damage to the main structure, burning in flames of fire and Marine’s color, destroying everything in sight.

“Hoi hoi, anywhere in the world!”

“I know when the day comes, my dream will come true! To run and fly, to reach that unknown world!”

With Gura to Marine’s side, she swung on her trident and a large whirlpool summoned behind the ship, taking the man-o’-war, burning and collapsing inside the waters as the woman fulminates every crash left on board, while the others are Erased by the Red flames.

“Hoihoi gogo! Hoihoi gogo!”

“Aaaaand, you thought you could win that woman in a warm-up?” Noel implied to the elf with a menacing thumb.

“H-How many times do I have to say I’m sorry…” Flare pouted like a scolded puppy.

With another gleam of light, Marine’s clothes returned to normal. And after picking up her things, with Gura’s fingers in the other hand, she walked to the women, and flustered when trying to voice her thoughts, “… The offer… is still open, right?”

Flare and Noel looked at each other and smiled with relief, the white-haired woman extended her right hand, “Welcome to the Sky Hero’s special forces, The Rainbow, we’re glad to have you.”

“Oh God, that’s possibly the worst name in the world,” Marine said with mocking laughter, handshaking with the woman.

“I’m part of The Rainbow too right?” Gura jumped on the handshake with both hands, slightly floating in the air by hanging in their arms.

“Of course, the more the merrier!” Flare nodded when taking the girl from the hips and lifting her over her shoulder, “Are you ready for our secret mission?”

“Yay superhero secret mission!” The shark screamed with excitement, fisting the air, then mediated in the words of the elf, and looked down with confusion, “What was the mission again?”

“Now that I think about it, you didn’t tell me either…” Marine added rubbing her chin, the group started to walk towards the town.

“Well, you see, about this secret mission,” Noel gestured with a playful index, “We’ve been sent to look for a detective!”

“A detective?” Gura and Marine tilted their heads in unison.

Chapter Text

“Uhm… how strange… the knife is refusing to yield?”

In the desolated plains, from the borders of a demolished city, two women were arguing.

“What’s taking you so long…?”

“Master…! Give me a second, this zone seems to be too old, and the connection for the warp is not responding!”

Their voices came from the inside of an abandoned station similar to the one for trains. Forsaken of care, the place was claimed by nature and rust, broken mechanical stairs, doorless office rooms infested with the smell of antiquity and mold, large hallways without light bulbs only illuminated by the gleams of sunlight penetrating through the small holes in the roof, multiple and broken TV screens, with cables hanging over the air spilled like guts.

“… Does it always take you so long? I’m getting tired of waiting.”

“F-For some reason this time… Is taking longer than usual! The knife is at fault; usually, it doesn’t take this long!”

The tip of a knife could be seen floating in the middle of nothing, from a place that seemed to resemble the train platform. But instead of the commuted vehicles, the platform was formed by a line of multiple, futuristic, yet destroyed and out-of-service portals, separated by control panels from each one. The ghost knife was at the top from one of these doors, with tiny sparks of friction, fruitlessly trying to slice down space.

“I don’t get it; usually all you guys do is to use your hands or feet to make a warp portal; so why today of all days you choose this method? I’m starting to lose my patience…”

“I… I’m so sorry Master, we usually have to do it with the knife first when is an unexplored zone, so later we can be able to warp on our own!”

“And it usually takes you this stupidly long amount of time?”

“Is… I… The zone…”

“You’re so useless, stop blaming the knife and zone for your own ineptitude!”

“I’m sorry Master…”

“I’ve had enough of waiting in this creep space, move! I’ll do it myself!”

“W-wait Master, give me one more chance! I’ll open the portal for you!”

“I said to get your ass out of my way!”

With the sudden bursting noise of electricity, the knife sliced the air. Tearing apart physic laws, as if everything around that space was a curtain with the print of a platform, a hole was made into reality, and from its insides which looked like TV static; a hooded figure was kicked out hole by a long leg.

“Ouchie… You made it Master… The portal is open, now we should be able to use our hands next time…”

The hooded one clapped and celebrated while hiding their pain, the other figure slowly coming out from the hole. One of their hands held over the frame as their legs slowly stepped outside, before the rest of their body would come out from the portal, the blade of a scythe appeared first and holding on the other extreme of the huge weapon, a tall woman dressed in black and with a translucent and old veil on her head shown up. The woman of long pink hair and eyes looked at the crumbling station with revulsion, stepping forward into the place, the end of her heels poured a tar-looking liquid as she walks, spreading around the floor and putrefying its surroundings, “So this is the place…? What a disaster, couldn’t you find a better zone for me to corrupt?” She sighed with discomfort, using the tip of her scythe as a hook to pull the hood of the figure on the floor and force them to stand up.

“S-she insisted that this should suffice for your first zone…” The hooded figure stuttered, trying to fix their hood to hide the bandage covering their eyes, “This zone is a ghost town, there’s no Mayor in charge and not a single virtual person around,” With both hands at the height of their neck like a squirrel they explained, “She said that Master Calliope should start with something easy.”

“Tch, that girl is always being condescending on us…” The pink-haired lady hissed. Sharing a silent look with the hooded figure, they began to walk out of the station, each step of the woman leaving a bituminous trace of Black infesting the entirety of the building, “I hope this isn’t just to test my power, the Gear of this zone is still working?”

“Y-yes!” The hooded one nodded with enthusiasm, “Once Master Calliope has completely corrupted this zone, the Gear will become yours, and it will boost your Black for the next phase!”

“Huh, that astute… what a cheap way to do things, as always,” the woman said with disappointment. Once they stepped out of the station, Calliope gazed at its surroundings. Plains made from the leftovers of a pulverized, small town, a wilted and grim mountain at her left, ruins of houses and streets at her right, far on the distance, kilometers deep on the zone, the remains of a forsaken city could be spot, “… So? What I’m supposed to do now?” She asked with a loud tone stressing annoyance and unpleasantness.

“Well uhm, Master Calliope…” The figure of the hood stuttered with fear of her voice, fidgeting their fingers and compressing their body with shame, “Just… stand…” they whispered with absolute fear while prostrating, anticipating the reaction of the pink-haired lady.

“What?” Calliope asked defiantly, menacing with her scythe, “Blindfold… what did you say…? Am I supposed to only stand here?”

“Hiiiii!” The other screeched at the curved blade surrounding their body, “Master Calliope powers still need nourishment, so for now, you will have to wait for your natural corruption to fill this zone!” They responded with a quick and nervous speech, pointing with both fingers to her feet, as if guiding a plane to land, “Right there, right there!”

“My natural corruption, but that…” Calliope meditated on her words when looking below her feet at the ponds of dark liquid expanding through asphalt and concrete, deteriorating everything it touched, the woman clicked her tongue and howled with anger “Are you out of your freaking mind?! That will take an entire week! Do you think I have the patience to stand here for seven days until the entire zone gets corrupted?” Once again she pointed the scythe at the hooded figure.

“I’m sorry…!” The other kneeled on the floor and prayed for mercy, “I told her you weren’t going to like this plan at all! But she insisted that we should continue keeping you under the radar! I made the calculations myself, and it only would take three days for this ghost town to get corrupted! Please Master Calliope, please be patient!” They cried with despair in their voice, rubbing their hands, facing the floor with fear and shame, they dug their hands inside their cape next, and pulled a dirty paper bag stuffed to the point of being torn, “I even packed you food and videogames for the next three days, see? I know is not what Master Calliope wishes, but these are our orders, please understand!” They cried once more, showing lunch boxes and a small console game inside the bag with a trembling smile.

Calliope exhaled loudly examining the contents of the bag by digging the tip of her weapon in it. She turned her face once more to the desolated place, gradually being covered by gray clouds and suffocating the light of the morning, then sighed when looking down at her feet, and the pond barely expanding tens of meters away from her, “… Is it enough food for three days…?” She asked with composure.

The hooded one gasped with a smile of relief and jumped back on their feet with a nod, “Yes! I even brought your favorite games!”

The tall one stared at the other concerned about their change of moods, then lowered her weapon and stabbed it into the ground, “What about you?” She asked when approaching the figure.

“… Pardon me?” The blind one tilted their head.

“Did you bring food for you?” She questions again with a little blush.

A second gasp came from their mouth, this chance joined with flustered cheeks, “She’s so cute…” They thought, then waved their hand with an awkward giggle, “Don’t worry about me Master Calliope, did you forget? I’m dead! And dead virtual people don’t need to eat at all!” They explained between giggles, scratching the back of their head.

“Right, because I killed you,” Calliope spouted emotionless.

“Did you? I don’t remember!” The other giggled with absolute innocence.

“That’s enough; stop that giddy attitude already, who told you that you could be so talkative?” The tall woman snapped with sudden anger, clenching a fist to the hooded figure with ireful eyes.

“I’m sorry, please don’t hit me!” The other cried covering their head with anticipation.

Huffing with exasperation, Calliope broke on her menacing posture; then walked back a couple of steps inside the pool of corruption which had been spreading as they talked, “Blindfold, I’m going to sleep, give me my chest pillow!” She ordered while slowly sitting in the dark stench.

“Yes, Master Calliope!” The other answered with a smile, quickly running behind the back of the lady. Sitting over their legs in the dark ground, they fixed their cape and dusted off their clothes, showing a feminine figure, her chest being used as head support for Calliope once she sat on her lap and closed her eyes, “Are you comfortable, Master?” She asked with a naughty giggle.

“Your chest always suffices as a pillow,” The woman nodded, “Now keep your mouth quiet, I’m going to try and sleep the first day away,” She said fixing their head on the chest of the hooded figure until finding comfort. Relaxing between breaths, she slowly curled, as the other woman tenderly caressed her face and brushed her hair.

“Say… Blindfold.”

“…”

“… Blindfold?”

“…”

“Don’t be stupid, you’re allowed to talk if I’m directing myself to you!”

“I’m sorry! What do you need, Master Calliope?”

The woman surprised the hooded one when her right hand, held on her face, her Master caressing her cheek with the same tenderness she was giving back, Calliope remained with closed eyes.

“… You are my friend, right?”

“My, you shouldn’t ask, Master, of course, I am, what a silly question, hehe!”

“Is that so…? But sometimes… it doesn’t feel like so…”

“…”

“Whenever I look in my memory for the times I spent with you… is like my mind is… discombobulated… everything gets so messy inside me the more I lurk about it…”

“Is that so…?”

“I’m certain you’re there in my memories but is like… there should be another person in those memories… it feels as if you’re replacing that person.”

“Master must be exhausted; after all, you crashed recently, I know well, I’m Master Calliope’s friend… there isn’t anyone else but me…”

“… You aren’t lying to me, right, blindfold?”

“Of course not, Master…”

“I’m feeling sleepy now… Don’t you dare to wake me up, no matter what happens, alright?”

“Your orders are my volition, Master.”

“This useless girl… She’s lying to me, there’s no question about it,” The woman thought while feeling the arms of the hooded one embrace her with warmth, “But even when I know she’s lying to me, I can’t really get mad at her… what is this feeling in my heart? Whenever I’m with her…” She mourned inside her mind, feeling her consciousness slowly fading into the dream realm.

“Right… this feeling is not of friendship or love… it’s of guilty…”

“Who are you? Why are you here? This place should be a ghost town!”

“Right… because long ago… I killed this girl… right?”

“Stay away from my Master; I won’t let you lay a single finger on her!”

“Did I…? I don’t remember beheading her or slicing her and yet… it feels like is my fault that she’s dead…”

“My Master is going to corrupt this zone, there’s nothing you can do about it!”

“Ah right, yes, that must be it, that’s why I let my shadow eat my head that is why I broke down and corrupted… It was my fault… I killed her…”

“Ugh… My arm… two against one is unfair!”

“That’s why I’m following that girl’s orders… Because I want to get stronger… Because I killed her…”

“Master… I know you told me to don’t wake you up but… I need your help…”

“Why is she always so fricking loud? Wait… I can’t feel her arms any longer… where is she?”

“Master, please… Help me…”

“Blindfold? Blindfold!”

Feeling that her body had been left abandoned on the ground, Calliope woke up with sudden fear, loudly breathing when her eyes opened, violently sitting in the ground, “Ha…!” She held in her chest with one hand, trying to pace her breath. When her consciousness had finally come back, when searching for the hooded figure, she found that the ponds of black tar were being contained by a dam made of ice pillars, “Blindfold, where are you?” She screamed with traces of numbness on her body, hurrying to pick up on her scythe and search for the girl.

 “I’m… right here… Master Calliope…” The figure cried with a painful voice, the girl had been standing a couple of meters away from her sight. Gazing at the plains, and surrounded by ice pillars, the girl hilted the corrupted knife upside down, with tears pouring through the bandages on her face, panting with exhaustion, her left arm was missing along the sleeve of the cape, the girl had tied a knot with the torn up clothes over it, “You finally… woke up…” She laughed between sweat and tears.

“… For how long was I sleeping?” Calliope wondered while examining the deteriorated state of her partner, without pointing it out, slowly walking to her side with a serious face.

“At least six hours…” The hooded figure whispered, sweeping the sweat off her forehead with their remaining limb.

“What happened to your arm? Where did all this ice come from, it’s halting the corruption process…” She asked next, void of care or emotions for her wounded partner. Lowering her scythe and placing it behind her back, she put her free arm over her hip when looking down at the other.

The girl rubbed her nose next, and after breathing back her snots and swallowing her desire to continue panting in pain, she signaled to a woman in the other extreme of the circle of ice with the dark knife, “That elf… appeared a couple of hours ago, it seems she can control ice and... Blue…”

“The user of a color? In this ghost town?” Calliope followed the direction where the blade pointed and got to confirm it with her eyes. An elf of blue long hair, blue jacket, and black midriff was standing at the other side, holding a long sword made of ice, “… Blindfold…” She approached the other with concern.

“M-Master…” The other whispers, looking at the pink-haired lady extend her arm; she smiled and leaned her face, hoping to be caressed.

“You… Useless!” But instead, Calliope slapped her face with sudden rage and a thunderous echo, “You said this was a ghost town! Why can’t you do anything right?” She howled at her.

The hooded figure faced Calliope with confusion, and as her face began to swollen, her tears flooded through the bandages like a fountain, “I’m so sorry… I’m sorry I’m useless…” They collapsed on the floor, crying like a child and rubbing their bandages heartbroken.

“What is it now… a quarrel between allies?” The elf questioned from the distance while swinging her sword, “You… aren’t you Mori Calliope? Why are you to the side of a crash? What’s the meaning behind these actions?” She judged with an almighty tone.

“Right back at you, are you the Mayor of this place? Why did you rip the arm of my subject?” Taking on her scythe with both hands and stepping in front of the hooded figure the lady asked, “Why did you stop the corruption?”

“I’m not… regardless, I’m not going to let you… wait, did you say corrupt?” The blue elf bit on her tongue with fret and took a step back, “You… what have you done? Is this corruption your doing?”

“Want to find out?” Calliope asked with a vicious smile, this time she stretched her legs and hunched half of her body, ready to leap against the woman, “She may be a useless one, but I can’t sit around and let you chop off my subjects!”

“Master…” The hooded figure coughed between tears, “She wasn’t… there’s another…”

“Another?” Calliope quickly turned her head with confusion.

“She must be talking about me!” With an artificial tune, a flying gadget with four small propellers and a camera shouted from over their heads, playfully swinging around the disaster of ice and tar.

“… A drone?” The tall lady wondered with anger and bemusement, reincorporating to rethink the situation, her eyes quickly scanning her surroundings in the search for the pilot.

“Master Calliope, be careful!”

When a small yet bright shine of light ignited far away from the rocky mountain, the hooded one jumped over Calliope and pushed her in the floor –BANG – The sound of a bullet echoed next, and the whistling of the missile followed seconds after, with almost surgical precision, the girl of bandages avoided the shot, which hit on the ground, leaving a grievous crater. 

“Tsk… get off me, you reek of blood and sweat!” Calliope screamed with disgust, forcefully throwing the girl away from her body, making her roll around the floor like a rag doll.

“I just… I have to… protect Master Calliope… if I don’t… then she…” The girl coughed with dirt on her face, holding onto her wounds.

“An enemy in front of us with the power to manipulate ice…” The lady muttered with a new serious expression, with her eyes moving from the elf to the drone, “Another hiding in the distance and attacking us with long-range attacks… while the elf covers close and mid-range attacks…” She closed her eyes for a couple of seconds; then turned to the girl of bandages, “You, just for how long you’ve been fighting these people?”

“Three hours…” The crying girl answered; then slowly tried to stand, “You said… you said you were going to sleep the day away so… I was trying to get rid of them… on my own…”

“You fought two random enemies on your own, for three hours… and all of it while trying to don’t wake me up…?” Calliope asked with amusement in her voice, and quickly released a peal of laughter, “Hah, incredible!” She fixed the hair on her face, and while still laughing, and ignoring the threats in front of her, she turned on her back and walked towards her wounded partner, “You may be incredibly useless… but you’re definitely strong, for it, you deserve a reward…” She smiled devilry, extending her left hand soaked with Black energy.

“Master Calliope…” The girl gasped with a croaky voice, leaning her face, this time, the pink-haired lady did caress her, while slowly introducing her thumb between her lips, Calliope smiled when the dark essence poured inside the mouth of the girl.

Chapter Text

At the top of a file of rocks in the wilted mountain, an anemometer gently spun by the gusts of cold and sterile wind. Centimeters close to the gadget, the barrel of an M82 rifle could be seen, poking through a camouflage sheet and extending through by half of a meter, pointing down at the battle in front of the portal station. “Uh… Wait for a moment,” A feminine voice wondered from the insides of the sheets, “… What the heck?!” A bewildered scream came from the bulge, and next a woman with ears and tail of a feline, wearing a dark jacket and top with white stripes, hurried its way out the camouflage with an expression of concern and disbelief. She fixed her hair first, gulping down saliva from the nerves, then sat back to hold over the precision rifle and look through a pad, the images that the drone was transmitting to her, this time containing a gasp of surprise, growing with anger and fear, “Wait, wait, wait, wait, I did not sign up for this, that’s cheating!” The lion-girl groaned out loud, while she observed through the screen how the tall woman with the scythe, poured Black inside the body of the wounded girl, and a new limb started to grow from her chopped arm until completely forming anew.

“You’re… retrieving third-party data from your own Gear?” The elf asked while fretting, with her voice being fueled with fear, the sword on her hand trembled, “That’s not depuration, that’s… the forbidden art of restoration… You… You crashed?” The woman bit on her lower lip tightly, trying to overcome the shake of her legs with pain, “Answer me… Mori Calliope!” She shouted next, her voice quivering by the scene.

The woman of long pink hair ignored the screams until fully restoring the arm of the girl with bandages. Standing back in her feet she turned to the elf with a long and teethed, depraved smile, posing defiantly and with elegance in front of her while holding the long blade with her arms, “What is it, just what is it? Did you perhaps wet yourself just now?” She asked with mirth, then releasing her right arm from the weapon, she pointed with a thumb to a large and scorched scar which surrounded all her neck, as if her head had been separated from her body and later put back by welding the skin together with a blowtorch, “Is just like you fear, I crashed! There’s no greater feeling! Why don’t you let me show you?” She teased with dastard laughter.

“But… Master Calliope…” The hooded figure stuttered from the floor.

“Shut up! The cat is out of the bag now so I’m going to get rid of them before they escape, stop retorting or I’ll chop your arm again!” Calliope screamed at the girl with angered eyes, then took a loud breath, and glanced back to the elf, “So where were we? Oh right… Could you please be a good girl and remove this ice? If you do it I promise I won’t hurt you… not so much,” She laughed with evil intentions. Holding on the large scythe by placing the edge of the blade at the height of her knees, the tall lady used the reflection to discretely observe the inert mountain to her side, “But if you don’t, we can always do it the hard way… I’ve been dying to test the extent of this new power I acquired, you see?” She kept on pretending, intimidating the elf while slowly stretching her legs around the floor, then at the sight of a spark of light coming from the mountain, Calliope snapped; “Fool me twice!” She screamed with anger, swaying the scythe behind her head then violently swinging the blade below her waist, she reflected the bullet aiming at her legs, the missile destroying the drone when ricocheting, sending it back.

“Whoops!” The lion-girl shouted awkwardly from her spot at the mountain, embracing the rifle with her arms she has barely a fraction of a second to leap away from the bullet and roll in the ground, the anemometer and her hiding spot being pierced through and destroyed to pieces, “She found my nest, and sent the bullet back with just brute force…? Seriously, what did I get myself into,” She asked to herself vexed in adrenaline and fear. Taking the rifle by the strap she tied it on her back, and when running in all fours from a rocky path in the mountain, she picked up a military bag, took a jump, and stood again, interchanging the position of the rifle with the bag, quickly reloading the weapon with a dexterous movement of her right arm, and with the speed of a professional, while the empty cartridge still floated in the air, she aimed at the tall woman from the distance and shoot. But just like before, the pink-haired woman successfully reacted from the distance and reflected the hit, yet this time, with unnerving calm, the lion-girl started on a throttle down the mountain, avoiding the reflected bullets as if was nothing, she continued with series of fast shoots with the rifle, “It’s a duel now if you want to fight me face to face you’ll soon find regretting it!” She howled showing her fangs, making her way out of the mountain while keeping pressure from afar.

“Tch, child’s game, come on and show your face!” Calliope groaned from the station, with swift movements she pirouetted with the scythe, reflecting all shots.

“Hey you, ice elf, can you still hear me?” The voice of the lion-girl asked from the ground, the blue-haired woman scanned the corrupted soil until finding a scraped part of the drone with a small speaker.

“The sniper in the mountain…?” She wondered still with trembling legs, “I… I can hear you, what do you need?”

“I need you to snap out of it, that’s what I need!” The feline groaned from afar, “I don’t know who are you but it seems we are here for the same reason and we’re in deep trouble right now!” The gadget kept spouting, the elf looking at the woman of black clothes easily countering the long-distance shots, “I don’t want this woman to corrupt me, and I bet you don’t either, so pull yourself together and get back to fighting! I’ll cover your blind spots!”

The elf bit on her lip one more time, and hardened the grip on her sword. “I…” She whispered when hilting her ice sword up in the air, “I won’t let another crash event happen!” She shouted next, and her body gently gleamed with Blue and snowdrops, the weapon growing on large and width on her hand, transforming into a double-edge sword, dazzling in the frost. The elf hilted the weapon with both hands and leaped into the fight, jarring against the scythe of Calliope.

“Huh, wetty can still move?” The tall lady mocked on the serious and silent expression the elf was giving, “Get out of my way, I’m busy right-“ She tried to snarl at her, yet Calliope was forced to jump to her right to avoid another bullet, and the second after when she landed, she had to parry a strike from the sword, “… I see, so it was with this mischievous double team that you managed to chop off the arm of my subject? Pathetic!” Calliope howled, striking a head butt against the elf, taking advantage of the startled enemy to make a flip and kick her in the middle of the stomach with the heels.

“Gurgh!” The elf coughed, stabbing the dark ground with the sword and use as support to stop her body from falling, “Do you… have any idea of what you’ve done?” The woman finally spoke, the hit on her abdomen brought her back to her senses, “You… you’re a threat to the virtual world, we will stop you right here, right now!” She menaced and plucked the sword from the floor, enveloping her body with Blue, the air started to grow colder around the two. Leaping against Calliope, exchanging thrusts with a loud metallic clatter, jarring their weapons against the other, dancing through the contaminated ground trying to slice and stab the other, the elf gestured with the index and middle finger of her left hand, up and down, summoning a sprout of ice which trampled Calliope’s right ankle, “I got you now!”

“Useless displays of effort…” The tall woman muttered with annoyance, feeling how the rest of her body slips the moment she tried to walk away, as her foot was bounded by ice. She flipped her scythe, and just like the elf, she stabbed the weapon in the ground for support. With half of her body in the air, she used her left arm to intercept the swung of the elf blade, her limb instantly being slashed in half with a sharp slicing sound.

“You’re insane… you let your arm be sliced?” The elf asked in shock, taking a step back.

“Are you really going to ask something like that? Then I suppose all that blabber of taking me out is nothing but an act of stroking your own shoulder,” Calliope pilloried her when reincorporating, using the end of her scythe to smash the ice on her feet, then enveloping her body with Black, her chopped limb growing back, clothes and rings included, the woman gestured with her new limb to check its functionality, then gazed at the elf, “You’re nothing but cheap words, you tried to take me down but the moment you fatally wounded me you get scared?” She laughed condescending, joined by a shake of her head Calliope screamed, “Did you think I was going to be as easy as blindfold uh?! I’ll make sure you both regret to have come here to mess with me!”

“Right back at you!” The voice of the feline shouted, this time not from the speaker of the destroyed drone. Forcing the elf and the tall woman to turn their heads to the mountain, at least fifty meters away from them, the cat-girl slowly walked towards the dam of ice pillars. Unloading the rifle, she discarded the weapon when running out of bullets, simply throwing it away with a straight face. Bringing her bag to the front by hanging it on her right shoulder, she started bringing different metallic pieces, assembling them with efficiency without even looking at it, her eyes were fixed in the lady of pink hair, “I don’t have the slightest idea as of why you did something as stupid as crashing, but you picked a fight with the wrong lion!” She roared with fury, after a couple of twists with the sound of clanks, the woman aimed at Calliope with heavy and long machine gun M249, still without looking at her weapon, she showed skillful movements when bringing a line of bullets from the bag and connected it to the gun, securing the locks and lifting the weapon to the height of her shoulders, “Now eat iron and powder!” She pressed on the trigger, releasing a rain of bullets with a thunderous sound, “I’m here face to face as you asked, don’t run away now!”

“What is it today; I’m surrounded by useless women!” Calliope said with malice, placing her scythe on front of her body and making it spin like a propeller, the woman shielded from the rain of shots, “All you’re doing is to struggle in vain, and for annoying me this much I’ll make sure to kill you in the most displeasing way!” She threatened while using her focus to deflect the bullets.

“You shouldn’t use such a word in vain!” The elf berated behind her back, lunging her ice sword with both hands, “Do you think you can joke about death just because of being the reaper?” 

“Do you need to spot the obvious?” Calliope snarled back, forced to jump away from both the shots and the blade, the woman began to run around the dam while being chased by the bullets from behind her feet. Seconds later joined by the elf, she tried to smack her away, yet the blue-haired woman protected her body by summoning an ice-shield which surrounded her left arm, “I’m the only one in the virtual world who knows the weight of those words, I can use them lightly if I fricking want to!” She forced while interchanging hits with the woman, she couldn’t stop running, being pursued by the relentless aim of the lion-girl, “I’m getting fed up of both of you… come forth, MORTY!” With her body flaming with Black energy, she used the end of her scythe to stomp the floor, releasing a large shockwave of dark energy which kicked the elf away and forced the feline to duck and dodge, stopping the shooting. The ground started to shake, and from the thick pond of tar in the ground, a decomposing skeleton, steaming with a dark mist crawled over the surface, of at least seven meters tall, the morbid creature dug its bony hand into the pond and pulled a scythe similar of the one of Calliope, yet four times the size.

“No, Master Calliope! Your power is not ready yet; your energy is going to run out!” The girl of bandages cried to her from the entrance of the portal station.

“I’ll get rid of them before it happens!” The woman replied with an angry shout; then commanded the creature, “Claim the souls of those who dared to defy my power, Morty, kill them!”

Each step of the skeleton made the ground tremble – GRAAARGH – the monster lunged the giant scythe, forcing for the elf to propel her body away with a pillar of ice, the hit leaving a large hole of destruction extending in the ground, forming clouds of dust.

“I don’t fear you!” The lion-girl roared, this time placing the machine gun on her right, shoving her left in the bag and bring a resized Fort-50DP shotgun, with a twist of her wrist she flushed the forearm and loaded it, then with both guns she started to shoot the grim creature, “You, the elf, hit me with a Blue ice!”

“With… my ice?” She stuttered with a quizzical look.

“Just do it, hit me with a big one; believe me it’ll work out!” The lion insisted.

“A-alright, but, don’t blame me if you end frozen!” She shouted uncertain of the feline intention. Taking multiple and fast steps away from the range of Calliope and Morty, the elf summoned a cube of ice the size of a hairdresser over her head, soaking it with Blue, “Here it… goes…!” She pushed with all strength; then shot the block against the lion.

“Nice pass, I’ll take care of these two from here…” She closed her eyes and said with calm. Removing her fingers from the triggers, she lifted both guns in the air while wrapping her body with Black, by the moment the block of ice falls over the lion; her Black stopped it millimeters away from her shoulder, slowly absorbing it into the dark essence, black frost started to cover part of the lion-girls face, “Let me show you how one of Black really fights…” She licked her lips, and when pointing at the creature, her guns didn’t shoot bullets, but multiple pieces of black ice, which stuck on its body and spread like undergrowth, slowly halting the movements of the monster, freezing it in place, “What is it, just what is it? Are you perhaps feeling a chill in your bones?!” She mocked Calliope with familiar dastard laughter.

 “Black properties…? I was being helped by someone close to the spectrum?” The elf asked with furrowed brows and hands over her mouth.

“You sunuva…!” The tall woman hissed with wrath, the Black in her body started to flow like flames, “But two can play the same game!” She glanced at the pillars of ice making the dam then runs towards the closest to her, “I’ll fight ice with ice!”

“It seems that you think things will be…” A new voice interrupted in the middle of the fight. A couple of meters close to the pillar, a new girl with an intricate cleavage dress flashed from Calliope’s blind side, “Dead icy for you… but think again!” She laughed aloof of the current battle’s heat; she wore a jester hat on one of her feline ears, strange glitter with poker card symbol figures below her eyes, she stopped Calliope by jarring a large circus ring, the extreme clashing with the blade of the scythe had been lightened with fire, “Hehe, now icy goes!” She happily shouted next, holding onto the ring with both hands she took a sudden jump through the hole and delivered a powerful double kick into the blade, pushing the pink-haired woman away from the pillars.

 “I swear… WHAT’S WITH ALL OF YOU COMING FROM EVERYWHERE LIKE COCKROACHES?!” The woman had lost all her temper, hissing like a beast Calliope stood back in front of the frozen giant skeleton, “IT WASN’T SUPPOSE TO BE LIKE THIS… I…” Yet the tone of anger in her voice suffered from a sudden change, “I NEED THIS PLACE… I NEED THIS GEAR, WHY ARE ALL OF YOU MESSING WITH ME?! THIS WAS SUPPOSE TO BE A GHOST TOWN,” and it was mixed with an inkling of sadness and powerlessness.

“Master Calliope…” The girl of the hood whispered aghast.

“Please, don’t give me the crocodile tears now, you’re the one who crashed, not us,” The lion-girl replied with a click of her tongue and disgust in her voice.

Realizing the tone of her words, Calliope gasped with shame on her cheeks. She closed her eyes and took on a long and deep breath, gently snapping the bones of her neck from side to side, taking on an even longer second breath, the woman giggled, “Hah… hehe… hehehe…” After several seconds of her trying to regain her composure, she failed, “HAHAHAHA, THAT’S RIGHT, I’M THE ONE WHO CRASHED!” She screamed her lungs out, extending her left arm in the air, “WHICH MEANS I CAN DO THIS!” And after a snap of her fingers, the frozen skeleton disintegrated, and the Black essence in which it was composed enveloped Calliope like a cloud of gas. At the swing of her scythe, the cloud was dusted away, and her figure reappeared with a two-piece asymmetrical dress of black and gray, with a long and torn up skirt reaching her feet, her veil had also grown in large and stains.

“No! Master Calliope that’s going too far, we don’t know how much your body can stand that form!” Cowed in fear, the hooded one screamed from the platform.

“Is that… the Bloom system…?” The lion-girl asked thunderstruck, slowly the three women in the battlefield started to step away from the dam, as the quantity of tar expanding in the ground multiplied, and the dress of the tall-lady polluted the air with a black-looking gas.

“The Bloom system you ask? That’s but a cheap kludge in front of this power…” Calliope laughed it off, preparing her next attack with the scythe, “If what Sky Hero created is the Bloom system, then this power’s name shall be… yes, the Wither system!” She said between her angered spits.

The lion-girl, with her body still fused with the dark frost, shared looks of anxiety between the other two women, joined with a commuted and reluctant nod, they hilted their weapons and faced the tall woman, endeavor and fear at the same time.

“Very well…” Calliope said with a sneer as a beat of music started to come from the dress, “Shall we start?”

“Dead beats lurking now, dead beats lurking now, dead beats lurking now, dead beats lock it-…!”

But when her power sparked with the highest Black, the woman coughed blood in the middle of her singing. Her scythe slipping off her fingers and growing pale, collapsing with a hand on her chest, as if she were suffocating, “No… Not now! I was so close…!”

“This is our chance, we take her down here!” The lion shouted to the other two who nodded and started to run towards her.

“Not so fast!” The hooded girl said after landing in front of the collapsing Calliope with a high jump. With both arms and using all her strength, the girl of bandages lifted the tall woman’s body over her right shoulder, and used her right hand to keep her finger into the air, “I’m sorry Master, we will try again in another zone, ugh!” With a loud whimper, she pulled down her arm and made a hole into reality, quickly jumping inside and disappearing with the woman from the battle zone, the hole slowly closing, and the tar in the floor gradually evaporating.

“She… She’s finally gone!” The lion blurted with exhaustion, letting her body drop on her knees, dropping her guns, she moaned and sighed rubbing her shoulders, the Black energy and the frost on her face crumbling and fading, “That got scary for a second… thanks for the backup you two, whoever you are!” She fell belly-up on the ground, laughing between tiredness and pants.

“So cold of her, I couldn’t even use my best puns!” The feline of the jester hat bantered with a pout, blowing off the flames in the circus ring, compressing it with both hands, and shoving it inside her cleavage, “And well… what are you guys doing here?”

The elf tilted her head stranged of her question, she looked down at the exhausted lion, and both of them looked at the jester with the same confused expression, “… I could ask the same to you, why are you here?”

“Why don’t we ask the one who is hiding?” The lion wondered still pummeled in the ground.

“There’s still someone else here?” The elf asked with a little giggle. Recovering her calm, she fixed her skirt when sitting close to the lion-girl, giggling at how she breathed with exhaustion.

“I have a perky nose you see…” The other said between gasps, then turned her head to the right border of the ice dam, staring at a formation of rocks, “Hey, the girl that has been hiding behind those rocks for like three hours! You can come up now, the threat is gone!”

The elf and the jester turned their heads to the rocks. With a loud stutter and trembling legs, a girl of blonde hair tied in Chinese-style double buns, a white and orange jacket, and outfit with cleavage walked out, hands on her head and hunched back, “… T-the evil girl is gone now?” She asked with a cackling jaw.

“She’s gone, but her stench remains,” The jester laughed while deriding on Calliope, pinching her nose with disgust and stealing a giggle from the elf.

“Then… Can I ask something to all of you?” The blonde one asked with fidgeting fingers, “… Do any of you know why are we here?”

Chapter Text

“Just a bit more Master Calliope, we’re almost home!” In the middle of the nothingness, a hooded girl told to the wounded one over their shoulder. She seemed to walk through a large hall which walls, floor, and ceiling were completely made of TV snow, and as difficult that could be to walk in such an environment messing with the sense of direction, it wasn’t a bother for the girl with bandages over her eyes, “Alright, we’re here!” She stopped with certainty, even though from left to right it was all snow, but with confidence she shoved her hand into the snow, tearing apart reality with a pull, stepping and stumbling of what looked like the insides of old castle quarters’.

Inside the spacious and rocky room which smelled like mold an old, another two figures were sitting, building a castle with poker cards between the two, using more than four decks for it, “… Uh? Yo, blindfold, that was fast, did you and Master already corrup that ghost town?” The hooded figure in the right said, stopping their card architecture to glance at the girl while stretching their back, revealing a missing arm and a feminine figure from under the cape, “Wait… that’s the Master!” She shouted next, hurrying to step up from the dirty floor and assist her friend.

“Oho? Look who but our Master ran back with her tail between her legs, kehehe,” The figure in the left said with malice, showing a large set of fangs, this one didn’t stand up but looked at the other three from afar, distracted building their card edification.

“Fangs, how can you be so nasty? Ah, thank you one-side,” The girl of bandages spout from scolding to gratitude, as both hooded girls took on Calliope’s body and gently placed her over an old bed at a corner of the room, near doorless windows giving sight of cloudless night, “Master Calliope encountered the enemy, and she exhausted all her energy until there was nothing left, I had to take her out the battle because she started coughing blood! What do we do?”

“You’re gonna ask me?” One-side snorted with surprise, “Also how did she exactly encounter an enemy? Didn’t you say it was a ghost town?” The girl judged her explanation by placing her remaining limb over her hip.

“Well… for some reason… a group of girls…” Blindfold stuttered while looking down at the floor.

“Useless as always, aren’t you?” The girl sighed with a shake of her head, making the other turn mute and kneel on the floor, holding on their head and sadly whimpering, “Argh, and you cry for everything on top of it, grow a thicker skin!”

“But… but is my fault that Master is…” Blindfold trembled in a mix of snots and tears.

“What is it, what is it? I heard on a ruckus what’s going on?” A thin wooden door opened from the other extreme of the dirty room and a fourth hooded figure appeared, wearing an apron from inside the cape and holding a skillet and spatula on each hand, you could see the reflection in the crystal glasses coming from inside the hood, noticing a collapsed Calliope resting on the bed this fourth girl sighed with worry, “Oh dear, blindfold, what did you do now? I’m barely recovering from the last earful, don’t tell me you got us another scolding…”

“I swear… it wasn’t my fault!” The girl cried even harder, joined with gross noises of squeezing snot, “I don’t know where all those girls came from!” She insisted this time, releasing on a tantrum.

“All of you are insufferable…” Calliope finally said with a hoarse voice after recovering consciousness, turning belly up on the bed and with stains of blood in her mouth, she panted and held on her head with her right forearm, muffling a screech of pain by gritting her teeth, “Why are all of you worrying about yourselves when your Master is in this position? Group of useless girls, hurry up and fix me!” She groaned at the three.

“But even if you tell us to fix you…” The girl with the apron tilted her head with disdain.

“That isn’t our area of expertise,” One-side finished the other girl’s sentence, “Why did you use all your power, to begin with? She told you to wait for your body to get accustomed to your crash!”

“Glasses, one-side! Don’t speak that way to Master!” Blindfold nagged the girls with worry, biting her nails.

“I swear… when I put my hands on all of you…! Argh!” Calliope attempted to threaten the girls, but the moment she raised the volume of her voice, her body released a shockwave of Black and the essence then began to pour out her body like a small mist, “W-what… what is happening to me?”

“Oh, would you look at that? Your body is generating Black of its own!” Interrupting the group, the girl with fangs appeared with a sneer. Dropping the weight of her upper body over the mattress, she looked at Calliope with a naughty smile, resting her face on her hands, “Aren’t you glad Master? You are now a full-fledged crash! Now you have to hang in there until your body gets used to your new color!”

“I see, so that’s what is happening…” The girl of the apron gasped and placed the spatula on the tip of her chin, mediating, “It makes sense, after all, Master Calliope’s color wasn’t originally Black when she crashed.”

“M-Master!” Blindfold hurried to hang on her left hand tightly, with tears pouring out of her bandages she smiled to the tall lady, “Please hang in there, Master is strong so this will be but a hay fever!”

“Probably, definitely,” The girl of fangs nodded, then brought a deck of cards from her cape, and with a long nasty giggle, she flipped it upside-down over Calliope’s body, “And in the meanwhile… if you all excuse me, I will have a little revenge for all the times Master has been mean to me, kehehe,” She enunciated and proceeded to start the making of a castle of cards over the stomach of the girl.

“Fangs… you little dirtbag! You like being tortured by my hand that much, uh?” Calliope groaned at her, panting and sweating, unable to move, she was at the mercy of her own subject.

“Fangs… that’s definitely going too far…” One-sided spout trying to hide a giggle.

“I do not, and I do know,” Fangs replied to each one by glancing on them, “And is exactly because of that I’m doing it, when are we going to get a chance like this again?” She insinuated with a firm teethed smile.

“Uhm… then I too must fall to temptation,” One-side said and picked up a card from Calliope’s tummy, “Are we going to make a castle or a house?”

“Let’s make a skyscraper!” Fangs replied with a burst of laughter.

“O-oh my God, you girls, stop that!” Blindfold yelled at them with a crackling jaw, “Glasses, tell them something, hurry up!” She begged the girl of the apron, pulling on her cape.

“… If it’s a skyscraper, it will need a firm base,” Yet the girl of glasses ignored the one of bandages, and joined the other two, helping to set the cards over the suffering woman.

“Urgh, once I’m back on my feet, I’ll kill the three of you!” Calliope screamed with frustration, twitching on the bed from the pain as the dark substance emanates from her body.

“Again? Good luck with that,” The three girls mocked her threat in unison.

“M-Master look at me, just look at me!” The girl of bandages signaled to the tall lady, “Please look at how good blindfold is behaving! Please remember that I was on your side when they were picking on you!” She nervously claimed with a finger pointed to herself.

“Hah, boot licker,” One-side dissed on the girl.

“You may not be in their side… but you aren’t stopping them… either, are you?” Calliope coughed with anger.

“B-but… they’re three… and I’m just one…” Blindfold replied with a guilty, tiny voice.

“What’s with that excuse now…?” Calliope retorted while coughing blood, “Just a moment ago you were fighting… two strangers on your own…”

“But that was… different…” Blindfold shook her head.

“Once I’m recovered… you will pay too…” The tall lady declared with a murderous look. To the end of her words, blindfold stopped with a silent gasp and observed her master with pouty lips, then separated from the grasp of her hand and took a couple of steps to join the group of girls, “… Blindfold… what are you doing?”

“If you are going to give me a licking regardless of what I do, then I will join too!” She replied with an acute and childish pout, picking on cards from the sides of the bed to help the group, “I’m going to build a room for myself here!”

“Atta girl, I like your rebellious spirit! We are all dead already, no need to fear the reaper!” Fangs congratulated the girl with a hissing and mischievous laughter, “Very well, your room can be on the fourth floor, I’ll make mine in the fifth!”

“… Enjoy it while you can… ball of runts…” Calliope coughed once more, hiding a blush of shame from her cheeks with both arms.

“Nene it’s your turn!”

“Me again? Uh… let’s see… Is there something fun I can use around? Something with ‘g’ around… Oh, I found it, gum! And… Uhm… Puah… I guess it’s past their expiration date… yuck.”

“Stop using words of things you see on the floor and stop shoving them in your mouth!”

“But I’m not good at this game… and I’m kinda hungry too…”

“My turn, it’s my turn! Let’s see with my eye, my little eye in this land of rubbish… Magazine!”

“Oh, you’re right, and it looks like a dirty one!”

“Polka not you too…”

“This place is filled with trash alright, it is what you would expect of a ghost town, though I didn’t know such a place existed… Hey, that really is a dirty magazine, stop looking at those ads you ball of pervs!”

“Ah, Polka you dumbo, now I have to pick a word with ‘e’ on it!”

“Don’t be so mad Lamy, just use something you see on this place!”

“Please don’t.”

“No, no, wait, I can do this no need to cheat, I know I can… Uhm… Equivocalnesses!”

“…”

“Pff…”

“The heck is that word, are you a scrabble player or something?”

“Is worth 34 points!”

“Oh, so you do play it.”

With careful yet aloof steps, the group of girls was walking towards the remains of a city in the middle of the zone. Having shared their names, but unable to answer the question that all of them pondered, they decided to look for answers inside the place. But between all of the carefree attitudes, the lion-girl couldn’t help but feel wary.

As she wryly kept playing word-chain with the group in automatic pilot, her mind chauffeured over many thoughts with her eyes fixed on the girls, “That blonde alien really came all the way here and instead of fighting she hid behind the rocks… Not that I will scold her for it, I guess that means she isn’t the combative type but…” She meditated while looking at the girl swinging a wood stick in the air, happily and playfully kicking and poking the trash she found in her way, “That is a problem because it throws away my theory that we were all called here because of our fighting skills,” She shook her head and glanced at the elf next, who walked closer to her side while scolding the alien and the jester, “Then there’s this girl, which doubles down my theory, even more, she’s an avatar of ice but, her heart was wavering all the fight against Calliope, even if she’s strong she doesn’t want to hurt anyone.”

“Polka, don’t use obscene words for word-chain!” The elf shouted with a small pout on her cheeks, then leaned over the lion and embraced her left arm, “Can you believe those girls? They’re like children, hmph!”

“And she’s definitely cute!” The lion-girl shouted on her mind with red cheeks, then stuttered until voicing her thoughts, “Say… are you always this close with strangers?” She implied when looking at the elf’s polished nails snuggling on her arm.

“Ah… ah!” Suddenly sparking with a red face, the elf took a couple of steps away with nervous hands, “I’m sorry I didn’t notice at all that I was that close! Oh my God, how embarrassing!” She held on her face with the tips of her fingers, “Is just… you know? Back there in the fight… You helped me and gave me the little push I needed to stand, although in the end, I felt I was kind of pulling your leg, I’m thankful that you were there with me, Miss Botan,” The elf finished with a small smile.

“No well, erhm…” Rubbing her nape the lion-girl looked down on the floor, joining in the reddish embarrassment, “No need to thank me for such a thing, and all I did was to scream at you too… also, just Botan is fine,” She averted her eyes to the right and slightly leaned her left arm to the elf, “And… it doesn’t really bother me that you…” 

Forgetting about the other two girls entirely, they shared ashamed eye stares and clumsy, chopped words. Until the elf, slowly walked back to her side and held onto Botan’s arm once again, “How strange… for some reason, even though we’re knowing each other for the first time… it feels as if this is something I do with you often,” She giggled nervously with a finger covering her mouth.

The lion nodded, “Me too… for some reason, it feels… natural.”

“Fuuuu, hey, would mommy and daddy stop making us feel like the third and fourth wheel of the bicycle?” A small feline asked from the ground with a miniature jester hat, using the voice of Polka.

“What is with that one-sided treatment?! She never addressed us with ‘Miss’ at any point!” The alien added with a loud pout.

“You don’t get the ‘Miss’ treatment if you both act like pipsqueaks!” Lamy replied to their claims with a swing of her head and a huff.

“Ah, is that so! Then we won’t hang with you guys anymore!” Nene yelled when crossing her arms with jealousy, “C’mon Polka, let’s keep playing word-chain just the two of us!”

“She’s right, she right! No biased love, no biased treatment!” The feline growled from the floor then started to run in front of Nene, “Let’s go girl, I’ll guide you!” She meowed to her.

“Well, at least I don’t have anything to worry about the alien and the elf,” Botan sighed inside her mind going back to her analyzing thoughts, “One is too clumsy to be a threat and the other wouldn’t even kill a fly, and if she did it, she would make them a funeral ceremony,” The lion chuckled at the mental picture, and made the elf tilt her head confused about her laughter, “Ah… but, regardless they don’t seem like bad people, the one who continues bothering me is… that fennec,” She thought with a growing serious expression, staring at the backs of the other two girls strolling in front of them and deviating from the path, slowly being left behind.

“Oh look, another dirty magazine; wow this place is so full of them, what kind of zone was this?” The feline said and picked up the magazine with its mouth, placing it near the feet of Nene.

“You’re right, is another dirty magazine!” The alien laughed while using the wooden stick to open it from a random page.

“We were walking and all of a sudden she went and said ‘I’m tired of going with two legs’ and turned into that fennec, without a doubt the weirdest one of the group, and for some reason, the more I think about her as someone I’ll have to fight against at some moment…” She paused on her theorizing, feeling a chill all over her fur, “For some reason, the thought of fighting her is big ‘nope’… something tells me she’s the last virtual person I want to pick up a problem with… and yet… AND YET,” She groaned next and clenched a fist in the air, while she and Lamy were walking on a straight line towards the city, Nene and Polka blindly walked inside of one of the demolished buildings and stopped at the top of a destroyed first floor to peek on an old and dirty magazine. It had been almost half of a kilometer the two had been left behind, “Hey, pipsqueaks! This is the third time you get lost, you the alien girl, stop following that fennec; she has no idea of where she’s going!” She screamed with annoyance.

“Ah… again?!” After realizing the height of their position and the distant echo of the lion-girl words’, Nene turned in the huge hole on the building and pushed her head to the elf and lion far in the distance, “I’m sorry, please wait for us!” She begged with fluster on her cheeks then turned on the feline, “Why do you keep going in the wrong direction? This is embarrassing, stop saying that you’ll guide me, you don’t know where you’re going!” She silently screamed at Polka.

“Aye… sorry…” The little jester replied with ears down and a whimper.

“Wait a moment there… Something doesn’t add up here!” The lion finally realized, then stopped walking abruptly, turning half of her body back, waiting for the alien and the jester to group back. Inspecting on the pockets of her skirt, she pulled a keychain with two strange rectangles tied to the strap, the frames were made of metal and its inside was of crystal, one was black, the other was purple, “For starters, how did you girls get to this place? We were all in the portal station so all of us saw it,” She began to narrate with a firm voice, turning completely when the other two were just a couple of meters away from her and the elf, “To reach someone else’s zone there are but two ways, the first is to walk by foot from zone to zone, but none of us are cavemen, and you would only do something like that if it’s a zone in the middle of corrupted ones,” She gestured with a hand and a twist of her brows then continued, “The second is the most common, to use the portal station of each zone… yet the station here is completely devastated, there’s no way that any of us could have been used it so please… don’t lie when I ask this…” With remorse she proposed, then lifted her keychain up the height of her face, “I have no idea why, but for some reason I have the pocket portal of this zone, which is a thing only a Mayor has, and only a Mayor can give to others, since they’re a direct access to the city they’re linked with, you don’t usually gift a pocket portal in such carefree way… yet all of you have one of these, right?”

When the jester went back into her animal-girl form, together with the alien and the elf they shared a bewildered look from the words of the lion, each one scrounged in their belongings without sharing a word. From their cleavage, from the pocket of their jacket, from the insides of her hat, the three girls pulled a keychain similar to the one of Botan, each one had a portal pocket of their own color, and the four had a second portal, purple colored, “Alright… this is getting creepy…” Polka mumbled with shock.

The lion silently turned to gaze at the city, “Why do we all know this place? Why do we have pocket portals? Why we appeared on this place to fight Mori Calliope?” She inhaled loudly on the sterile wind and put the keychain back in her skirt, “I don’t know the answers to these… but I have a feeling we may find what we’re looking for in the Gear of this city.”

Chapter Text

In the middle of the city, the ruins of buildings and stores fought against the pass of time and erosion by holding large traces of its main structure, showing but a glimpse of what may have looked like when it was at its best days. “Then again, do you have any idea of where could be the Gear of this city?” Lamy asked the lion, the group of four had been walking over the asphalt leftovers of the streets.

“Honestly, just like the rest of this day, I was expecting to feel a hunch about where to go, but for some reason that strange feeling is not reacting when I think about the Gear,” Botan replied while gazing at the crashed windows of an abandoned building, “My Gear, for example, is underground of my zone, like most of Mayors do, what about you girls?” She asked with a friendly tone.

“Mine is also underground, I don’t like the idea of people peeking at the Gear mechanism, much less the place where my Core Data is stored,” Lamy explained with a troubled smile, “Though that didn’t stop that blue-haired woman,” She thought with a little pout.

“Mine is underground too, never thought of moving it elsewhere, to be honest,” Polka blurted with hands behind her head, her eyes gazing at the destroyed roofs of the buildings rising over their heads.

“Eh, everyone puts the Gear underground?” Nene asked with a large moan of disbelief, then huffed and straightened her chest proudly, “Mine is at the top of the city, for everyone to see how cute their Mayor is!” She said full of herself.

“You sure have guts for that…” Botan stuttered from the surprise and looking at the alien from head to toes another thought crossed her mind, “Say Nene, I’ve been wondering this for a while but… do you have any fighting skills?” She asked with honest curiosity, making the entire group stop on their tracks, she turned to look at the girl properly, “You know, just in case something happens, like Calliope appearing again.”

“Ah, y-yes!” The question crumbled apart her proud posture and made her fluster, “I’m really sorry for that time, I got too scared to react, but if it’s necessary, I’ll fight…” She insinuated stretching her legs on the floor and slightly hunching her back, squirming trying to focus her power, with her body gently being covered with a light Orange, the buns on her head were replaced with ear bears, and her hands were covered by huge, fluffy gauntlets resembling bear paws, “Like this! Quiver to my power, rawr!” She roared innocently then surprised the group when she leaped with flashing speed and smacked Botan’s face with her right gauntlet, yet the item was so fluffy and soft by its materials, it made an almost silent – Pof! – Sound, Botan looked at her with a straight and concerned face at the feel of the soft gauntlet sweep on her face, “Haha, how’s that!”

“… If something happens, just stay behind us,” Botan said emotionless, making the elf and the jester laugh.

“Hey!” The alien complained flustered, gritting her teeth she delivered a soft rain of fists against the lion while gleaming in Orange, “Ora, ora, ora, ora! Take this, and this, and this!”

“Focus, Nene, you can massage all of us later,” Botan suggested with boredom on her voice.

“I… Uhm… okay…” The alien replied when muffling a frustrated pout. But when gazing behind the back of Botan, at the corner of an avenue something called on her attention, “Uh…? Girls, look at that!” She signaled with her huge gauntlets making the group, including the lion giggle, this time, she sparked with red from the shame and returned her hands and ears to normal when stopping the flow of her color, “Not me, not that! That!” She insisted, pointing behind the heads of the group and throttling towards the sign, “That mark in the sign… that’s my handwriting!”

“So uhm… you put carrots with faces on your writing?” Polka questioned when following the girl with the group and noticing the strange figure drawn with orange.

“I do!” Nene replied cheerfully and absentmindedly.

“Wait, so you were here before?” Lamy asked next, tied to the arm of the lion.

“I… I don’t remember in the sightless, but I guess I did? I mean, I can recognize my own handwriting…” She thought out loud, half-sure of her speech.

Botan silently stared at the mark and noticed but a tiny limb in the figure, signaling the arrow in the sign, she peeked on the street and gasped with furrowed brows, “Girls… there are more of those…”

“… I see, so it’s like Hansel and Gretel, right? Let’s follow the bread crumbs!” Polka said with enthusiasm when noticing the multiple carrot graffiti over different spots of the street. 

Placed over bricks of the buildings, lamps, windows, and even on the sidewalk, the group crossed the street following the carrot marks around. Turning right once and left twice, they seemed to walk into the deepest part in the middle of the city, and the more they did, the more the city in itself obtained a better shape, all the structures around were without a doubt empty of people, but they had been conserved with care. The last carrot mark was placed in the entrance of one of the most conserved streets, the girls walked with strange anxiety on their faces, until stopping at the front of an entrance of a bar between two bricked buildings. With its stairs guiding to a door below the sidewalk, suddenly everyone turned to the lion with a silent look, “I know, I know… well… I too have the same feeling of excitement although I don’t understand why…” She groaned and glanced over her head to the neon light ad of the bar’s name “Blueberry Lemonade” and a figure of a cocktail, “That name sure sounds familiar… let’s go, if we’re lucky, this is where the Gear is,” She told the girls and together walked down the stairs inside the place.

The lion opened the door feeling the pressure of a well-oiled door closer and the delicate smack of a bell. Following the rhythm of restoration on the city, the lounge room interior was in a perfect state, filled with leather sofas and darkened by thick wine curtains, with a little and polished wooden stall in the left side which seemed to have been a place that sold cigarettes and poker cards, as the stench of tobacco and tiny torn envelope leftovers remained. But none of the girls were interested in it; instead, they were walking into the depths of the room, from the other side of the curtains, following a bricked and cramped hallway up to another door. “Uh… uh? It won’t open?” The lion spout when fruitlessly twisting the knob and pushing in.

“Ah, Botan, that door’s hinges are tricky, you have to pull it first and then push it,” Polka told the lion with a tiny gasp, then stopped frozen with utter confusion of her words, as the rest of the group looked at her with the same face, “… Uh? How do I know something like that…?”

“You know? It feels like this is going to continue happening, so we should make us the idea that today is going to be a constant déjà vu,” Botan groaned displeased, then opened the door as instructed.

One by one they walked in. In the absolute darkness of the place, their bodies moved beyond the meaning of sensory memory, recognizing they weren’t walking in a room but into a small, metallic platform with long stairs taking them even deeper into the bar, “But Botan, you seem very used to this for some reason,” The voice of the elf echoed into the obscure space giving the impression she had separated from the group, at the flick of a switch and the buzz of electricity, the room’s light was turned on by Lamy, who was at the farthest end corner of where the stairs ended, her fingers were still over the switch panel, the group had walked inside a club, “… I can’t help but feel a bit scared of these memories on my head…” She paused looking down with a bittersweet smile.

“Yikes, this place is crazy,” Polka said with wide eyes, looking at the fancy tables and seats surrounding a small stage illuminated by headlights, two box seats at the left and right at least five meters up in the walls.

“Well, I’m someone close of the spectrum, I’m kind of used to these strange feelings,” The lion shrugged.

“Then is it true? About what they say of people like you being able to hear the spectrum,” Nene asked with confusion and curiosity.

Botan scratched the back of her head with awkwardness, “I’m not sure if what I hear is the voice of the spectrum, but sometimes I do hear voices, just not all the time,” She stressed a bit nervous about the girls’ looks.

“Leaving our jagged memories aside, this place is in good shape,” Polka interrupted by walking between the tables and turning right where the bar stand was placed, she delicately swoops a finger over the surface of the wood table and rubbed off the dirt by pressing the thumb against, “Every wooden furniture has both a layer of varnish and a bit of dust, which means someone did maintenance to them not so long ago and abandoned this place…” She paused for a moment and looked up to the line of liquors behind the table of the bar, then with both arms pressing on the frame, she pulled her body around the width of the table to peek in the other side, noticing bar utensils and the gentle buzz of a mini-fridge, “Electricity works too… and the stands are full of bottles without open and-“ She attempted to continue her monologue, but Lamy stopped her with a scream.

“Those liquors…! They’re all mine!” The elf complained with anger in her voice, for the first time in the trip she separated from the grasp of the lion and hurried to the bar, “These are all things I bought at least a year ago! I’ve been looking for them for ages! Who put them on here?” She crossed her arms with a pout.

“For starters… do you need this much alcohol? Do you have a problem with drinking?” Botan wondered with awkwardness and worry.

“Eh…? Not at all! Is just that I like to store them, so, um, yes! So I can have a collection to choose to depend on the situation!” Lamy fidgets with a red face trying to explain.

“That sounds like a drinking problem though…”  The other three whispered with an unfazed expression.

“Not a drinking problem, a drinking hobby! A hobby!” The elf retorted with a violent swing of her arms.

“Anyway…” Botan gestured with her left in the air, “Polka is right about this place condition, now, let me confirm one more thing…” Without explanation she paused, and took a little jump inside the stage, she walked behind the curtains until finding a little metallic box in the wall, and after inspecting its contents thoroughly, she released a loud groan, “Annnd yup, I did the electrical installation of this place! The cables are put and labeled in the same way I would and with my handwriting…” She said without looking at the girls, closing the lid of the box with a small slam and returning to the group.

“Sooo what now? Do any of you feel like the Gear is hidden on this place?” Nene asked the girls, but all of them replied with a long and unsure humming, “Should we look on another place? Or maybe-“ She tried to take the lead, yet Polka interrupted when she climbed into the stage and turned on a digital jukebox, making music beat from the speakers positioned at the corners of the stage, the headlights gradually changing colors along with the music, “Polka?”

“What, aren’t we going to use this place? I had the feeling we would?” She wondered with a little blush on her cheeks, hurrying behind the curtains to bring a microphone stand and a mike, placing it at the center of the stage.

“Fueh? But what about the Gear?” Nene asked with bemusement.

“We have plenty of time to look for it, now let’s have a little fun!” Botan replied from the box seat at the right of the club.

“Eh?! When did you reach that place? I can’t even find the stairs!” The alien gasped while nervously searching for the ladders left and right.

“She’s right, is not like we’re under the clock or anything so…” Lamy added from inside the bar, dexterously mixing liquors into a long crystal glass with ice, “What do you girls like to drink? Leave the preparation to me!” She said with enthusiasm, clenching her arms.

“Eh…? Eh? Eh?!” Nene stood in the middle of the three, baffled by the swing of moods, gazing at the lion sitting with a leg hanging in the air of the frame from the box seat, the jester preparing the tune of the mike, and the elf scrounging in the search of lemons and salt in the mini-fridge. She meditated for just a fraction of a second with a serious face; then turned on Lamy with a huge smile, “I want something sweet, I’ll bring the drinks to the others!”

The jester started on the entertainment with an engaging, melodious, and hilarious speech, making the lion in the seat box laugh her lungs out. With Nene sitting to her side when finding the stairs and giving her the cocktail prepared by Lamy at the bar, they stood silent when Polka suddenly started to sing, the three girls enjoying the melody of the fennec-girl voice with looks of adoration on their faces. Contrary to before, once Lamy finished on the bar, she climbed the left stairs and sat in the seat box contrary to where the lion was, yet they felt it as natural and smiled at each other from afar. They applauded to Polka once finished, and so the girl took on the small crystal glass left at the border of the stage, walked off, meeting on the stairs with Nene who excitedly ran towards the stage, the jester went and sat to the side of Lamy as the alien took on her time to sing. With calm and with joy, the four took their turn to stand in front of the others and sing, being clapped and clapping, being laughed and laughing, but when the four finished singing, with Botan and Nene in the right and Lamy and Polka in the left, they looked at each other with an anxious and confused face, unsure of why after five minutes, the stage was still empty.

“But I already sang though?” Nene said out of the blue as if she could read the thoughts of the others, “Uhm? And all of you sang too right? So why…? Eh…?” She massaged the temples of her head trying to squeeze an explanation from her brain.

“Still, it feels as if we are all waiting for someone else to step there and sing?” Polka joined in the scrambled thoughts.

“… The Mayor of this city, perhaps?” The lion said with a hand on her chin, and everyone turned to look at the lonely mike with troubled faces.

“So we all knew the Mayor of this ghost-town… and used to meet with them at this place?” Nene asked in the air, but nobody knew how to answer.

“La… lala?” Lamy confused the group even more when mumbling a strange melody, “Eh, is just… it feels like the song that should be playing right now goes like that…? Lalala… la la, la, la la la…” She said humming a rhythm.

“Lala…” Botan joined closing her eyes, following the pace of the elf.

When the elf and the lion managed to find the proper rhythm, Polka joined third in the humming. Nene joining last, the four singing the same melody, yet with different levels in their voice, closed eyes and happy faces, they hummed for two minutes, then gently finished with a long exhalation, the girls turned again to the mike in the stage, this time with a bittersweet smile.

“Ah… I know where the Gear is!” Polka screamed breaking on the peaceful silence, jumping from her seat and leaning on the frame of the seat box due to her flash of realization, “It’s not here… it’s under the summer house!”

Pursuing the memories in her brain, the jester rocketed out of the bar, mixed in the adrenaline, the alcohol, and the anxiety, without waiting for anyone to agree with her the animal-girl raced her way out the streets of the city. As if her life depended on it, she ran between loud pants, the group of girls slowly catching with her as they abandoned the city.

“How do you know where the Gear is while we can’t?!” Lamy asked from behind with exhaustion.

“I’m sorry! It was supposed to be a secret!” Polka screamed without looking back.

“A secret? What do you mean!” Botan asked next, sprinting from the streets to a dirt road.

“I’m not sure myself; it feels as if it was a secret I promised to keep from others!” Polka responded with an exhausted tone just like the others.

They chased the jester on the dirt road and dug inside a forest.

“… At the small river, we turn left!” Polka said when gazing at the flow of water, jumping over rocks and turning as instructed, but reaching her limit, the girl slowed down at the feeling of the muscles on her legs tensing up.

“And then… hah… at the dead birch tree, we turn right…” Nene added hoarsely, as they quickly walked past a huge and white tree without leaves in a clear of the forest, she shared looks with Polka, and nodding together they led the group.

The clear made a path through the forest as they followed, “Finally at the tree rocks, we keep walking forward up to the summer house…” Lamy finished with composure, as they faced three rocks placed all over the other in an odd form, “I have the feeling all these clues were made so Polka wouldn’t get lost,” They laughed at her comment. Using their arms to protect their faces, they dug in a thick and tall brush between the trees, and after walking a stretch of ten meters, they came out into another clear, finding an abandoned and rusty summer house of two floors.

Undergrowth was attached to the corners and the pastel paint colors were peeled by layers of tones in the wooden tables. In silence the group approached the front door of the house, this time; Botan took on the lead once again and twisted the knob to get inside. Contrary to the bar, the place was adorned with dirt and dust, most of the furniture was broken and cracked, and thick threads of spider webs made Polka shrink and tremble behind the shoulders of Lamy.

“Why is it… but the dusty look of this place…” Nene stuttered with a face of concern, bringing a handkerchief from her jacket and using it to cover her mouth.

“Fills me with guilt…” Botan finished her thought, sighing, “If we are the ones responsible for that bar being in such a good state… why didn’t we do the same for this house too?” But before anyone could answer her question, she turned to the trembling Polka, “Where the Gear at?”

“In the… basement,” The jester replied nervously with her eyes fixed on the webs on the ceiling, “But you know… now I have a strange knot in my stomach… as if it’s something we shouldn’t open…”

“I see… Gosh, how many times are we going to keep having this feeling,” She sighed once more, then glanced at the stairs guiding to the first floor, “Let’s investigate a little first…”

The moods in the faces of the girls wane when they climbed the stairs and found a large hallway filled with rooms. They separated almost naturally as if something was calling out to them, each one swoops a finger or a hand at a little wooden table in the door, their names are written on each one. Botan was the first to open the door with her name, “This is getting ridiculous now…” The girl mumbled with disdain and a click of the tongue, the room was adorned with an aesthetic which identified the placed as decorated by her, she walked to an old wooden desk, with marks of scratches which fit on the size of her nails when she compared them, pieces of guns and ammo that she recognized as her belongings.

“I thought I had lost these clothes… I guess they were all here…” Polka mourned with sadness from the room with her name over the door, inspecting the closet and the dresses with her fingers.

“Say…” A torn-up voice halted the thoughts of the group, the acute tone came from the room with Nene’s name written on the door, “This house… this house belonged to the Mayor of this place, did not?!” She ran from her room with tears on her eyes, stomping on the floor with anger and bitterness, “This house…! We used to live and visit this house… we all, we all used to be a group, this was our favorite place!” Her voice quickly raised in levels of aggression and powerlessness, Botan, Lamy, and Polka coming out of their rooms looking down at the floor in shame, “And it feels that I got mad at this before too! It feels that I had to scream this feeling before, to the three of you! Why is this place crumbling into pieces while that bar is staying in such good shape?! Why we decide to forsake this place?!”

“Ehehehe…”

Fueled by fury, the alien girl was about to deliver an angered speech to the three of them, ready to point at them without inhibitions, wrathful eyes. But at the sound of a strange giggle, the four girls contained their breathing with a thunderstruck expression, feeling a chill invading their body; they peeked to a window in the hallway, spotting a wooden kiosk at the backyard of the house.

“Ehehehe…”

They ran with despair out of the house from the back door to the yard. Lamy was the first to reach the kiosk, she slammed the door open and once again the group of girls froze in place. There was a crystal table occupying the majority of space in the kiosk, five delicate and intricate chairs of steel, but what called their attention the most, was the porcelain tea set spread around the table, with freshly brew, hot boiling tea on each cup, a vertical tray with small slices of cakes and another filled with cookies in the center of the table, together with the teapot, the sugar, the jam, and a very thin flower base made of crystal, holding two yellow lilies inside.

“Who… just…” Botan tried to voice her thoughts while fighting against a desire to tear up.

“Do you think it was…” Lamy joined on the shaky comments, already with a tear running across her face from the left, walking in front of one of the chairs, sensing the warmth of the hot tea by touching the cup with the backside of her hand.

“After getting drunk on the bar… we come here and drink tea, to sober up and chitchat… or at least that’s how it feels…” Nene spouted caressing the steel border of the chair, unable to pull it and sit, looking at the fifth chair in the middle of the kiosk.

“I’m… I’m tired!” Then Polka suddenly screamed, smashing the table with both arms and making a couple of the cups fall and drip its content on the floor, “What the hell is this ghost-town? Just what is happening here?! What is this guilt inside of me?! Why can’t I stop crying?! It feels like I’m going insane!” Slam after slam, she screamed powerfully, a cup fell and broke, a fork and a spoon clank on the ground, a small porcelain plate crashed into bits. The girl prostrated on the table, hiding her face with both arms, howling, crying with anger, stomping the floor in frustration.

“Honestly now… you stole the words out my mouth,” Botan said with tears running out her eyes, tightly crossing her arms, “Why do I suddenly feel so guilty…? It is because we forgot about this place?”

“Maybe… Maybe we were using the bar because we couldn’t face this house…” Lamy added in tears while trying to clean her nose.

“I can’t do this anymore…” Polka lifted her face and looked at the group with empty eyes and an emotionless face, “If we don’t leave this place, we are going to lose our minds…” She whispered when walking to the door of the kiosk, then stopped with a foot over the grass, “I don’t know why all of a sudden I had the desire to come to this zone and protect it from that woman… But I’m not doing it again, I think I’ll go crazy otherwise… goodbye girls, it was… nice to meet you all, even if it was for a while…” She finished holding on an arm with shame, then walked out back to the dirt path.

Chapter Text

“I’m sorry, I’m really sorry please forgive me!” One-side exclaimed when running through the hallways of a bricked castle, chased from behind by an enraged Calliope whose body emanated large amounts of Black energy. The girl drifted skillfully in the corner and turned left as the tall lady just accelerated and walked over the wall instead, menacing with her scythe in arms.

“Is too late…” Calliope groaned before jumping from the wall, flying in the air and holding over the scythe, like a pickaxe, “For apologies now!” She screamed at the girl and swung her weapon down, stabbing the cloth of the hood and sticking it on the floor, making one-side flip on the air from the sudden stop and have her body be slammed on the floor. Calliope walked to her side and smacked the back of her head with a fist, “You thought you could run away from me uh?!” She smacked her again.

“At least until you would forget about the whole castle thing…” The girl shamelessly explained while rubbing her head.

“As if I would forget my subjects making fun of me,” She spout and plucked the scythe from the ground, taking one-side from the hood and dragging the girl around the floor back to the dusty old room, “Just one of you left… and then I’ll finish some pending business,” She blurted with an angered smile.

“Pending business you say… Eh? Master, don’t tell me, you’re planning to go back to that ghost-town?” One-side asked with a little gasp of surprise, turning to look at the woman.

“If she finds out that I let my identity be discovered, we’re all going to be in trouble…” She explained with a hiss, “I need to go back to that place as soon as possible and kill all the witnesses, then I’ll corrupt that zone and make it mine, that should be just enough power for the second step, after all…” This time the woman smiled with satisfaction, looking at the energy flowing on her hand, “This sensation is much greater than last time, I feel like I can do everything.”

“Good for Master I guess, now you don’t have to borrow Black from her,” The hooded girl shrugged.

At the kick of her right heel, she opened the door of the room and with a swift movement of her arm, she slammed the hooded girl over another two, beaten up girls, “Ouch…! Ah, hello there gals, I’m back,” One-side said with an exhausted chuckle.

“C’mon dudette, you didn’t even last five minutes out there!” Fangs complained to the girl with her face and head all covered with bumps.

“She seems to be the less injured of the three though,” Another girl with bumps on her head added, holding a broken pair of glasses between her hands.

“Now that only leaves you…” The tall lady suggested and turned her face to the girl of bandages, who had been sitting at the corner of the bed, “Atta girl, staying put while looking how your sisters are punished… One has to commend such submission,” She said with malicious laughter.

“That’s not as much as submission as that eyeless moron having a crush for you though…” Fangs whispered with revulsion.

“M-Master said to wait here while the others are scolded so… I did as order…” Blindfold says with a speck of red on her cheeks.

“Very well… now…” Calliope walked in front of the girl with a perverted smile and hasty respiration, ready to hit the girl, she raised her arm on the air slowly, giggling with joy at the instant reaction of fear from the girl.

“Eep!” Blindfold fret and squirmed, covering her face with both arms and protecting her body by raising her knees to the height of her chest. But Calliope stood immobile for a couple of seconds, her dark aura dissipating as she looked at blindfold with a judgmental look, “… Master…?”

“Your arm…” The tall lady said with furrowed brows, staring at the limb she had previously restored, “What the hell is wrong with it?”

“Ah…” The hooded girl shakes nervously and covers the arm with the cloth of her cape with shame, but still, she couldn’t hide, that the thumbs on both arms pointed in the same direction, “Is just… Master Calliope you… you gave me the wrong arm... this is, the left arm, and… you gave me another right arm…”

The pink-haired woman muffled a scream of surprise with wide eyes, her weapon falling on the floor as her hand could no longer hold on to it. “Oh my God! I’m so sorry! Give me just a second, I’ll fix it right away!” She apologized with a crimson face and an uncharacteristic, acute voice, nervously wrapping the arm of the hooded girl with Black, making the limb disintegrate, remaking it from scratch, “How the heck did I put you the same arm, how can I be so stupid!” She insulted herself out loud.

“Ah… must be nice, being the favorite,” One-side said with a face of disgust.

“D-don’t worry Master… after all, you are just getting used to your restoration power,” Blindfold answered with a giggle, “At the end of the day, she’s so cute,” She thought while smiling.

The woman controlled the dark energy with both hands, as if she were sculpting with clay, and after a couple of minutes, the left arm had been fully restored. “Alright… that should be the correct one this time,” Calliope sighed still with a bright red face, “How does it feel?” She asked with a little stutter.

“Thank you, Master Calliope!” The other replied with animosity, kneeling in front of the girl to take on the scythe with both arms and hand the weapon to the tall lady, “It feels as good as new,” She smiled innocently, “She even forgot to hit me, hehe!”

“I-it’s that so, then, fine, now stop smiling, don’t make get mad at you again,” Calliope said slowly regaining composure, coughing on her hand from the shame and taking back her weapon with a nod of the head.

“Just go get a room for the spectrum’s sake,” Fangs hissed with annoyance.

“Actually, this is Master Calliope’s room,” The girl of broken glasses said.

“Then, should we be the ones leaving?” One-side asked the other two.

Calliope glanced back at them with a blush on her face and ireful eyes, “Do you want another smack that badly?” She threatened them with a fist, silencing them immediately, the woman now turns her head to the girl of bandages, “Let us depart, we have a group of girls to kill,” She suggested to her, and with a gentle gesture of her right arm holding on the scythe, the tip of the blade made a hole in the air, tearing reality apart with a hole just large enough for the tall woman to fit in it.

“Incredible! Master can now make warp portals of her own!” Blindfold exclaimed with excitement and clapped, the group of beaten-up girls from the other side joining on the clapping, yet with less enthusiasm than her sister, “So we’re going back to that ghost-town? This time for sure, Master calliope will win?”

“Yes, that’s the plan,” The woman nodded with an evil smile, and without saying anything else, she and the hooded girl walked into the hole, disappearing from the room.

“Stupid place…! Stupid pocket portal! Why does it have to activate at a specific point of this zone? Whoever designed these things is going to know me!” in the middle of the ruined city, a little fennec fox with a colorful hat complained, angrily hurrying its way out of the debris and dirt between snots and tears. The little animal took on several jumps over the pieces of smashed concrete from a building to cross a street and turn into another decomposed avenue, swinging its tail erratically, its paws stepping with hastiness, “Why… just why do I have to feel like this? Why did I even come to protect a place I don’t remember…! A person I can’t remember!” She meowed with frustration, and just as the feline was about to turn again into another block, a large blade appeared out of the blue, slicing the air, the fennec released a shout of surprise with a startled jump, “What the… Wait that’s… Oh no…” She slowly backed off with a wary expression, as the blade sliced a hole into reality, and Calliope walked out of it, followed by the girl of bandages.

“… A cat?” The tall lady said with a quizzical look.

“It’s so cute! Master Calliope, can we keep it?” Blindfold asked while approaching the feline, ready to kneel and grab the small creature, “Come here kitty, kitty!”

“Keep your hands away from me!” The fennec said with a menacing hiss surprising the two, scratching the left hand of the girl with its claws and leaping a couple of meters away from them, slowly turning into an animal-girl, “I’m not anyone’s pet to keep!” Polka howled with bitterness.

“Hyaa!” Blindfold cried at the scratch, rubbing on her hand.

“You little…” Calliope muttered looking at the thin lines of blood slowly pour from the skin of the girl, “Well, well, I don’t even have two minutes on here and you already found a way to grind my gears…” The lady said while trying to laugh her anger away, aggressively taking on the hand of blindfold and cover it with Black energy until the scar disappears, “But I guess I should at least thank you, for saving me the time to find you,” She laughed a second time, this chance on an attempt to assert dominance, “So? Why alone all of a sudden? Where are the other two girls? They’re going to miss how I corrupt this city.”

“Don’t get cocky, I’m more than enough to have you with one foot in the grave,” Polka replied angrily, preparing a battle stance as she made a set of poker cards appear on her hands, “The hell are you saying? This is no time for puns! This isn’t your fight anymore, run away! Just run away from here!” She screamed on her mind.

“Huh… I guess you would think that” Calliope mocked on the jester, then prepared with her scythe on both hands and her body covered with Black, “But things will be different this time, and I just happen to have a large amount of stress I need to steam out my body…” She insinuated with murderous intentions.

“I’m dead tired of that cunny attitude, you’re not the only one who is full of stress right now,” Polka replied, as both women started to take slow steps around the other, the body of the jester gleamed with Red, “Stop, stop, stop, stop it, stop that, I said STOP!” But her thoughts remained contradictory, “Stop talking, stop acting like a superhero! Why are you going to keep doing this? To protect a place you can’t remember? To make up for the house you neglected? Guilt from someone you can’t even remember?!” The feline smeared herself, vigilant of the tall lady's movements, “Stop moving, run away, run away I said! Why my body doesn’t want to listen? Stop moving as if it’s natural…!” But then, realizing on her words, she lost focus of the enemy in front of her.

“It’s payback time!” Calliope screamed noticing the way the jester averted her eyes, leaping on the girl.

“But… what if it is natural…?”  The last thought crossed her mind in the second she countered the blade with poker cards.

“Alright… this should be enough,” A tired loin-girl said with a huff, she had been sitting on the ground of the basement of the summer house, meticulously placing a gray-looking clay on the borders of a cold and metallic door with a futuristic design and multiple, digital locks to the side of the frame. “Now we just…” She muttered immersed in her own thoughts, with the alien and the elf silently looking at her prepare a line of cables merged in the clay which reeked in oil, she next took a small gadget with a led screen from her bag, connected the cables on the clay on it, and switched the item on, instantly releasing an acute and artificial beep sound followed by tiny red bulbs over each clump of clay, “Let’s go back to the ground floor, we don’t want to be here when this thing explodes,” She explains to the girls after taking her bag and fixing the strap on a shoulder, revealing a thick cartridge holding meters of cable between the gadget and the door, Botan walked backwards while gradually releasing the cable from the cartridge on the floor.

“Is that safe, won’t it blow up the entire house?” Nene asked the lion as she and the elf climbed the stairs first.

“This is but a smidgen of C4, just enough to break that door in half,” The lion explained, taking on the rail of the stairs she spun and slowly climbed her way up while releasing the cable, “The house will probably shake a little due to its old structure, but nothing bad will happen.”

“Do you… really want to do this?” The elf asked next with doubt in her voice, “I think we should follow Polka’s hunch that we shouldn’t walk inside the Gear of this zone.”

“I know but… I’m tired of feeling that something here is missing, and this may be the only way to find out what that is,” Botan replied with a shake of the head.

“Why do you think Polka was the only one who knew where the Gear was though?” Nene wondered with a finger on her mouth.

“She said it was a secret that she had to keep from others,” Lamy quoted looking up at the ceiling, “Maybe we have not only commuted memories, but also individual memories of this zone… and the Mayor of this place,” She suggested when turning her face to the other two girls.

“But if you’re right about that, then it probably means Polka was the closest of the four to that person…” Botan said with dejection, inspecting the screen of the gadget one more time, she flipped a piece of plastic with her thumb and revealed a small, metallic lever, another beep sound with a red light, “… Should I really do this?” She questioned with a groan, making the other two girls express helpless stares to her, “Hah, I guess none of us has an answer to that.”

The lion-girl breathed loudly with remorse, and when she was about to flip on the lever, an explosion occurred, making the ground and the summer house tremble in the short spasms of an earthquake, “What…! That wasn’t me!” She hurried to switch the gadget off and disconnect the cables, looking down at the entrance of the basement to confirm her own thought, the girls fought together to don’t fall over the floor.

They ran out of the house and looked everywhere in the sky of the evening sun, looking for a trail of smoke, for the traces of an explosion, “Girls, look at that…” Nene pointed towards the city, as a strange edification rises with a flag on top, “Is that…?”

“That’s a circus?” Lamy wondered and gasped when she realized, “Polka, she’s still here!”

“But why is she, wait a moment, do you girls also feel that?” The lion blabbered mixed sentences, stroking her left arm, “It’s the same sensation I felt when Calliope appeared…”

“Then it means that Polka is fighting her!” Nene shouted, then ran towards the city.

“Wait, what do you think you’re doing?!” Botan asked from behind.

“Isn’t it obvious? We have to help her!” The alien screamed back, her silhouette quickly disappearing inside the bushes of the forest.

“Help her? What is she talking about, is she going to tickle Calliope with those gauntlets until she gives up?” The lion asked with sarcasm.

“She just… ran into the battle just like before, without thinking about that,” Lamy giggled and walked to the side of the lion girl, holding her hand, “She may be a weak girl, but she doesn’t think twice about helping people, don’t you think we should follow her example?”

“… I guess there’s no other solution, is it?” Botan replied to the elf with absolute reluctance, fixing the straps of her bag in both shoulders, “As long as we’re in this zone, we won’t let that woman do as she pleases!”

“Ohohoho! Ahahaha!”

As the sun hid behind the ruins of the zone, the laughter of the jester echoed greatly from inside of a large and red tent, extending by forty meters over the crumbled buildings. “What in the world is this power… how is it possible for her to do something so absurd!” Calliope said with clenched teeth, she ran around the stage of the circus, in parallel of a parade of animals with jester hats, she stared over the trapeze ropes with despair, hanging puppet performers made of wood, “Where did you go?! Show your face stupid fennec!” She screamed with fury, angered by the headlights pointing at her face.

“Ehehehe! Ihihihihi!”

“Master, please calm down, ugh, I can’t find her, where did she go?” Blindfold cried powerlessly, the girl climbed over the circus seats with a knife on hand, without looking twice; she was stabbing the puppet audience in the search of the fennec, yet the dolls didn’t even flinch to the cold feel of the blade, they all clapped and whistled to the entertainment on the stage, “These things aren’t even alive! The knife doesn’t corrupt them!”

“Uhuhuhu! Ahahaha!”

“I told you before didn’t I?” The voice of the jester was heard from the speakers around the circus stage; then the headlights illuminated the post over the center of the circus, showing the animal girl effortlessly juggling her weight over a trapeze rope, “That you weren’t the only stressed one! Now, why not play with me for a while? I’ll show you the correct meaning of a deadbeat, hahaha!” 

“Don’t wave your luck that much…” Calliope muttered at the girl, enveloping her heels with Black, preparing to leap over her direction, “I’m the friggin’ reaper!” She shouted at the jump, preparing to chop in half the body of the jester.

“Ah, is that so? Sounds like a dead business to me,” Polka closed her eyes and shrugged, fixing her left foot from below the rope and her right pressing over, she let her weight pull her body down, hanging on the air she easily avoided the slash of the woman, “You also are bad at fighting!” The jester exclaimed with a smile while hanging like a bat over the rope.

“As if I was going to spend my time messing with you!” Calliope replied with a strange smile which confused Polka, the woman flipped on the air and placed the scythe behind her back, making Black flow through the blade she impulses her body to the nearest window hole on the tent, “I’m not planning to spend any other minute…!” The lady attempted to say with a victorious tone, but at the blink of her eyes, when the middle of her body had passed through the window, at the next second Calliope found herself back in the circus stage, with half of her body stuck inside of a canon with the inscription of “Human Bullet” in it, “Not this crap again! Let me out of this circus!”

“Let you out you say? But we’re barely starting!” Polka laughed from the other extreme of the stage, suddenly wearing a baseball uniform with a jester hat symbol, she took on a gum rubber maze and placed it over her shoulders, aiming at the woman stuck in the canon, a puppet behind her back acting as the catcher, “Two balls, two strikes, can we make a home run this time?” She said with a wink.

“And I keep telling you to stop betting on your luck!” Calliope screamed as the canon shot her body against the fennec with a loud explosion of smoke, “Not this time!” She incorporated in mid-air, drifting on the ground by pressing her heels against, she prepared her scythe and swung it against the body of Polka, chopping it in two, “Finally, I got you!”

But once again, at the wink of her eyes, the woman realized the body of the girl had been replaced by a puppet with a digital countdown starting on “3” over each eye, “Blegh, you failed again, good luck next time!” The puppet said with an artificial tune similar to Polka.

 “Once I put my hands on you!” Calliope screamed fueled by adrenaline, covering her face with both arms, but once the countdown reached “0” the puppet exploded in confetti, “Sunuva… ONCE I FIND YOU I’LL PEEL YOUR SKIN WITH THIS SCYTHE, ONE LIMB AT A TIME!”

“Uwah… so scary,” The fennec giggled faking fear, disguised as one of the puppets of the audience, dressed in a formal suit, and a little mustache over her lips. Looking at the pink-haired lady continue uselessly trying to run away from the circus just to find her body stuck on the next attraction, being laughed at by the rest of the puppets in the seats, she slurped on a paper cup of soda and stuffed her mouth with popcorn, showing no trace of worry at the fight, “Pfff hahaha, this girl is so dumb!” She smacked on her knee with a peal of long laughter, looking at Calliope be pursued by the penguins in the parade with jester hats.

“Polka, hang in there! The help’s here!” A voice shouted from out of the circus, and aggressively going through the curtains of the entrance, Nene stumbled her way inside, “Oh…! Wow, look at all those animals! There’s even a real bear!” She gasped with adoration at the giant grizzly with a jester hat riding a monocycle, “Wait, no, focus Nene, that’s not why you came here for!” She nagged herself, slapping both cheeks.

“… Nene, is that you? Hello! What are you doing here?” Polka greeted the girl leaning from her seat.

“Polka? Are you okay? I thought you were in trouble!” The alien yelled at her with a pout of her cheeks.

“Crap, Nene, you sure run fast!” The elf gasped out of breath, trotting her way inside the tent, followed by the lion-girl seconds after, “What the… it really is a circus spectacle?” She asked out loud, then spotted Calliope over one of the trapeze ropes, chopping the puppet artists with despair and fury, “… Guess is not, where is Polka?”

“Over here! C’mon, guys get a soda of your favorite flavor and popcorn, seat, and relax! This is going to take a while until she realizes I’ve been sitting here for the past twenty minutes,” Polka chuckled with malice, and with a flip of her fingers, a puppet with a cart of candies and drinky rushed to the side of the girls, stuffing the arms of the three with snacks, “Hurry up! This is the funniest thing; gosh that girl sure is dumb!” She laughed terrifyingly; the girls didn’t know what to answer to her.

“… I guess this is what my instinct was trying to warn me?” Botan pondered out loud, reluctantly walking with the rest of the girls to the seats with Polka, observing a frustrated Calliope being forced to jump through a ring of fire in the middle of the air, “… Good thing I obeyed my instinct.”

“Polka, are you okay? What’s up with those clothes, and the mustache,” Lamy giggled when inspecting the clothes of the girl, sitting to her right, Nene sitting to the side of the elf, and Botan joining last from the right, the four sat looking at the tall lady being played by the puppets of the circus, three of them feeling anxiety and confusion, the jester observing the mess with absolute calm.

“This is my super disguise, that girl has been looking for me for ages after all,” Polka pointed to the seats at the other extreme in front of them, where the girl of bandages was making her path by furiously stabbing puppets.

“I thought you had left this zone by this hour, you said it was making you insane…” Botan added with a nervous tone, unsure of what to do with all the snacks on her arms, unable to digest a single candy at the look of the events happening in front of her eyes.

“So it was, but then it occurred to me,” The jester sighed and leaned on her seat, closing her eyes with a smile and taking a handful of popcorn, she swallowed and continued, “That instead of thinking about all these strange feelings and memories as something that was being forced on me, I should think about them as if it were natural.”

“Nafural inf waf waif?” Nene asked with her mouth stuffed, a donut on her left and a corn dog on her right, both half bitten, she hunched to slurp from the straw of her soda cup as the other three looked back at her with amazement, she gulped it all down with the beverage, “What? I’m hungry!”

“I can’t believe you can eat in this situation…” Botan stuttered with sarcasm, then turned to Polka, “But following Nene’s question, natural in what way exactly?”

“Natural as in all of these jagged memories and odd feelings had been always part of me,” Polka replied with a grin and closed eyes, “This place that we want to protect even while we don’t remember why, this person we were so attached to even though we can’t remember them… The moment I decided all of it was natural, I felt so much better!” She opened her eyes and quickly hunched with hands on her face and elbows on her thighs, “For some reason, we’re here, and for some reason, that person was dear to us, and if what only remains are these ruins and those incomplete feelings and memories… then it should be enough because I decided so!” She finished with a happy smile.

“To protect a place we can’t remember…” Lamy whispered with a small smile and a blush on her cheeks.

“And the memory of a person we don’t know… just because we decided to…” The lion added and sparked in a little burst of giggles, “Honestly… if you think about it that way, it makes you feel so much better.”

“…” Nene tried to mumble something, but her mouth was oversaturated with food, she munched slowly and swallowed down as there wasn’t anything else to say.

“That aside, how are we going to deal with Calliope?” Botan spouted as if the theme had ended, pointing at the lady on trapeze ropes with her nail, “Once she realizes we’re here, she’s going to get so pissed, not to say that Whiter power from before is dangerous.”

“We’re still four against one, though, there has to something we can do!” Nene said with an encouraging tone and clenched fists, “… I know! We can use the Bloom System, right? Depuration versus corruption!” She waved her fists in the air.

“That sounds like the only ace we have on hand,” Polka nodded with a smirk.

“I guess we all will have to thank that annoying fan of Mayors for adding that program into our Core Data,” The lion chuckled with a shake of the head.

“But… is there a song that the four of us know and can sing together…?” Lamy wondered looking at the group, and after a brief silence from the girls, they all gasped in unison, looking at each other with flustered smiles, “Oh my… hahaha, I guess we do know a song that the four of us can sing!” She giggled innocently.

“… Uhm is that…?” Blindfold mumbled as if she were squinting her eyes from under the bandages, gazing at the seats in front of her, “Master Calliope, she’s right there! All of them in that place!”

Facing to the other side, the lady of pink hair didn’t reply right away, yet her body slowly emanated Black energy from all sides, the denser it got, the more the lights of the circus faded away, her heels began to drip tar into the ground, decomposing the floor and its surroundings, “Finally…” Calliope whispered with an enraged voice, the stronger her dark aura flowed out of her body, the stronger the tent of the circus shook, the puppets and the animals escaping from the stain and gas that started to corrupt the stage, the clothes of the woman turning into the large asymmetrical dress, as she finally faced the group of girls with music coming out from her clothes, “WHO IS READY TO GET SKINNED ALIVE?”

“Whoops, time’s over, looks like we’re doing this!” Polka exclaimed and jumped on her seat; looking at the girls they all shared a serious nod.

“Bloom!”

“Rise and clap your hands together! So we can be heard across the sea!”

“Clap your hands as they echo!”

“Clap your hands, clap your hands!”

“Make it shine, the light of our future!”

Surrounded by gentle gleaming, colorful lights, the beat of the song the girls sang came from the dresses of the four. Botan, Lamy, and Polka in the front, facing the reaper with a performer stick, an ice sword, and a pair of Berettas 92S respectively, Nene stayed at the bottom singing a countdown while following the rhythm of the music, “Nene will guide the song and we’ll protect her from that woman’s attacks, no role is more important, we work together!” Bright in Black the lion said to the group, loading her guns.

“I see… so you plan to counter my song?” Calliope laughed condescending, “BUT YOU CAN’T COUNTER SOMEONE WHO CAN ADAPT!” She howled and hilted her weapon at the group sending a slash of Black energy dividing them along with the circus.

“I’m not asking for much do me a favor and die, kill ‘em with the bass!”

“As expected, that power is bigger, she’s merging her song with ours?!” The lion said once she landed over the circus seats, running on the top of the frames while shooting bullets wrapped with Black against Calliope, “The more we let her sing the more we have to lose, let’s finish this fast!”

“Killing, is, so, much, fun!”

But the reaper was faster, her rhythm intoxicating the main song, she quickly caught up to the lion and engaged in a close fight with her, giving Botan short time to aim and shoot as she had to parry the attacks of the blade and gradually walk backwards, looking for distance, fruitlessly shooting at Calliope’s feet to make her back off, yet the bituminous liquid and gas coming from her body absorbed her attacks, “Of course is bigger than yours, so much I can even do this!” She threatened the lion with a vicious smile, and making her left hand into a finger gun, she started to shoot bullets against the lion, forcing her to run away from her, “How does it feel to be chased by your own guns?!”

“I don’t need a break today!”

“Hence while be breaking the break!”

“What time is it? It has been six hours!”

“Just what… are you feeling?!” Botan squirmed unable to follow the lyrics, pursued to the point of stumbling, she was plummeted into the ground by a swing of Calliope’s scythe, the tall lady had gotten over her body and was asphyxiating her by pressing the hilt of her weapon against her neck, “S… screw you…! Black should negate another Black… how did you absorb my power?!” She roared while using all her strength to push the hilt away with both arms.

“That woman… she’s only going for Botan! She’s acting so different from before!” Lamy shouted with worry, summoning an ice sword and shield she prepared to run to the aid of her friend, but the girl of bandages stopped her, standing in front of her and menacing with the dark knife, “You…”

“I’m sorry, but you will have to wait your turn to fight Master Calliope!” The hooded girl cried.

“Not in my circus!” Polka yelled, quickly jumping from a trapeze rope and bouncing on the hooded girl’s head, the jester forced Calliope to separate from the lion to avoid being kicked by her heels. “Botan, can you keep going?” She asked her gesturing a hand, helping her to stand back.

“Thank you, I can, but…” She nodded rubbing her throat, looking at the circus gradually being contaminated to its fullest, turning next to the reaper ready to launch her second attack, “This is bad, she’s not only faster and stronger than before, but she's also calmer and smarter, she… she was trying to asphyxiate me to dead…” She mourned with angered eyes, bringing her Berettas again and changing the cartridges, “We need to attack her between the four at the same time, it's a matter of time for her corruption to break this circus apart!”

“But I won’t give you the chance!” The hooded girl replied from the other side, exchanging thrusts with the sword of Lamy.

“Murder is so fricking cute!”

“Kill ‘em with the bass, ‘til we get ‘em to say alright yay, what a beautiful murder!”

“Your resistance is futile, and once I’m done with all of you, I’ll corrupt this zone, and I’ll make sure not a single piece of this trashcan of a ghost town remains!” She laughed at them, interrupting their chatter as she flashed in the middle of the girls, shooting at Botan with her finger and making her run away while parrying the jarring of Polka’s circus ring with the scythe on her other hand.

“Dead Beats, listen up! It’s whatcha want? Me comin’ in the night for ya!”

“Doing my way in hell ‘cause in here it ain’t a-”

With a flashing speed, covered in Orange energy, Nene stopped the attacks of Calliope by holding on her wrists with her bear paws, “This is not a trashcan…” the blonde girl muttered angrily.

“Soft… no wonder why they told you to stay at the back…” Calliope snorted with sarcasm, gradually making it into a battle of attrition, pouring her Black around her arms to press against the alien.

“Nene no!” Lamy yelled with worry, she tried to run to the girl, but once again the girl of bandages stopped her, “I’m… getting tired of you!” She followed with a pissed-off expression, summoning a pillar of ice which instantly trapped and froze the legs of the hooded one, “Nene… Nene, hang in there, I’m… coming…” But the elf didn’t move a single step, bewildered just like Botan and Polka, at the look of the silhouette of a demon made of Purple stand behind the alien, gently holding her elbows, helping her to resist the strength of the woman, “Who…”

“This isn’t… A TRASHCAN!” Nene screamed her lungs out, with ireful eyes, using all her force, she pushed Calliope away, the Purple silhouette disintegrating and covering the Orange aura of the girl, “Because she’s gleaming on her stage… because… I want to see you more!” With tears in her eyes, the beat of the song resounded with her lyrics, releasing waves of two colors around the ground, repealing the tar substance, and reaching the other three girls, mixing the strange aura with their main color.

“What the… Purple?! Where did that color come from, that doesn’t belong to any of you!” Calliope howled at them.

“It does… it belongs to us!” Botan replied with a fierce smile, and together the four girls, with their mixed colors jumped at the reaper.

“1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 do it!”

Nene smashed the stage with both hands, her gauntlets making the floor shake from the hit, the color wavelength disintegrating all the tar into fragments of dust, obligating Calliope to escape into the ropes.

“It’s the ending of the end, even now, that little I can tell...”

Botan sang when jumping on the rope from behind the lady, the bicolor bullets couldn’t be absorbed by the Black of Calliope, she had to confront the girl with her scythe, as she now dexterously attacked her with half of a meter in distance between the two.

“But I haven’t had enough yet; I still can swim a bit more!”

Welding on two ice swords the elf jumped from the other side, jarring blue and purple blades against the scythe, easily dancing on the rope, avoiding the bullets from her partner, the two started to pressure the reaper.

“Give me crazy! Or maybe lazy?”

And when the tall lady felt she was regaining her side into the fight, Nene and Polka jumped from the stage. 

“Dimension mixing with blue for something wholly new to happen!”

The alien smacking the face of the reaper with a powerful straight punch, the jester smashing her stomach with a bowl pine, both of the girls using the same impulse to kick her on the back of the head, plummeting her back to the ground of the stage.

“Master Calliope, no!” Blindfold screamed from the jail of ice. Suffocating her squirms of pain, the girl desperately smashed the ice with the knife and her right hand, breaking it with brute force, she ran to reach the lady and tumbled with her own feet, falling to her side, “M-Master… forgive me for this…” She whispered between loud pants, embracing the knocked out woman between her arms she made both of her bodies roll in the ground, until she dug a hand in the stage and made a hole into reality, both of them falling into the abyss of snow and disappearing from the circus. 

“They sure gave you a throughout beating uh…” The girl whispered looking at the wounds of the woman. Sitting in the nothingness, she pulled the upper body of Calliope over her lap, slowly caressing her swollen face and hair, in the absolute silence of the obscure place, her feminine voice echoes, “I hope you forgive me for taking you away from that fight… I wouldn’t forgive myself to lose my Master in such way…” She pauses by giggling oddly, “It’s all okay… I’ll put the blame on me, we will try again in another zone, I’ll make sure this time, to pick something easier for… you…” She halted in her monologue at the touch of Calliope’s hand caressing her cheek, “Master…”

“I’m sorry blindfold… I failed you…” The lady whispers exhausted.

“… Don’t worry about it, Master,” Blindfold replied with a devilry smile, “After all, you’re still keeping your promise, right?”

“Y-yes!” The lady hurried to reply, this time holding on to the face of the girl, “I’ll become stronger… so I can save you…”

The hooded girl giggled again, this time, her voice was slightly muffed by an artificial tune, “I’m counting with you, Master.”

At the bright sun rays of the next day, Lamy, Nene, and Polka were standing in front of the dead birch tree. The girls were all wearing aprons and scarves on their heads, completely covered in dirt and dust, each one holding a different cleaning instruments, Lamy holding a phone call from her smartphone with her free hand, “How is it going… what did you find?” She asked into the mike.

-         Just like I thought… The Core Data of the former Mayor of this zone it’s gone, there’s no even a bit of information that suggests a single virtual people lived here – 

Botan replied from the basement of the summer house, inside of a cold room filled with processors and monitors, she had a mini laptop connected to the system, trying to read the dense code lines showing on the screen.

The group of girls sighing in disappointment, the call was being held on speaker mode, “I see… and what about the tree?” Lamy asked next with a pout.

-         Well, it seems that is the only birch tree of this zone, so it shouldn’t be difficult to… Oh! Found it, that was fast, alright, everybody cross fingers! –

The eyes of the girls fixed on the white tree, and at the pace of Botan’s words, the trunk and branches decomposed on energy, reforming it again, this time, the tree extended its limbs full of vividly, egg-shaped green leaves.

“Say… was this necessary?” Nene wondered pointing at the tree with a thumb, “I mean, nobody else knows this place so no one is going to scold us from messing the coding of this zone, but why this tree?” She insisted with a twist of her lips, completely lost.

“Oh Nene,” Lamy giggled at her expression together with Polka, “Don’t you know the meaning of birch trees? There’s no reason to have one of these if it’s dead!” She exclaimed cheerfully.

The alien tilted her head and stared at the tree with furrowed brows, deeply meditating in the elf words until realizing, “… The meaning of a birch tree! You’re right! Oh but, why not do the same with the house?”

“Because it wouldn’t feel the same if we don’t do it the hard way,” Polka replied this time, stroking Nene’s shoulder, “Now let’s go back, there’s still a lot to repair.”

Hanging on the call, the three girls followed the known path back to the summer house. Stopping at the settled rocks and digging inside the bush, then walked onto the clear and met with the lion-girl at the front of the door, which too was dressed in apron and scarf, her clothes covered with dirt of many layers and tones from the cleaning. The four girls spent the entire morning cleaning and painting the summer house from the inside out. Taking out the broken pieces of furniture and helping Botan to make new ones, aiding Lamy to patch and sew the curtains of the windows, keeping Polka on sight so she wouldn’t paint the wall of the house with circus colors, keeping another eye on Nene as she had shoved an entire foot inside the cans of paint at least three times.

“Ah… what a day! I didn’t think this would take the whole morning! I was tempted to finish everything by modifying its code in the Gear several times!” Botan groaned when walking inside the kiosk, removing the apron and sitting in one of the chairs with Nene and Polka.

“And that is why we’re told to don’t use the Gear those ways,” Lamy scolded the lion, reuniting last with the group as she held a hot boiling teapot in her hands, placing it in the middle of the table between the cakes and cookies for her to sit.

“Then these yellow lilies have a meaning too?” Nene asked the jester with boredom and tiredness on her face, poking the petal of the flowers with the tips of her fingers.

“Yes it does, now stand straight, we should have manners at the time of eating,” Polka replied with a smirk, rubbing the back of the girl.

“Now, now, let’s not act like calm people all of a sudden," Botan insinuated with sarcasm. When Lamy finished pouring tea on each coup and shared the desserts between the plates, she sat with the rest of the girls, and the lion pointed at Polka with the steaming cup in her hand, “I think the girl who broke most of the porcelain with her tantrum should do the toast, isn’t it fair?”

“Gee, how many times do I have to say I’m sorry for that?” The fennec pouted with red cheeks as the girls laughed at her. She coughed on her hand and stood from her chair, the others followed her mannerism; she lifted her cup on the air and put it close to the fifth cup on the fifth empty spot, “Ehem…! For this place and person we can’t remember… for this place and person who brought us together again… and for a future in which the memory we can’t remember keep bringing us together… We say thanks to you, to the person we don’t know, for all the things you probably did for us… we say thanks to you,” She finished softly, with a bittersweet smile, clinking her cup with the one on the table.

“We say thanks to you…” The lion joined with a small clink.

“We say thanks to you!” Nene added cheerfully, almost dripping her tea.

“We say thanks to you…” Lamy gently finished, almost without making a sound.

“We love you.”

Chapter Text

On a cloudy morning of a Tuesday, the alarm of the metal detector at the south portal station of Yellow High City rang, for the surprise of the officials present at the gates. “Can I ask for a manual search?” A girl of short blonde hair asked the official as she crossed the other side of the detector. The young one wore a shoulderless white blouse with a short black skirt tied with straps and a long zipper, stockings and heels, a patched-themed beret, and a trench coat of the same design.

“Not even five minutes in and you’re already calling out attention!”

“Making a first impression is always needed.”

“We’ll be doing a manual search!” The virtual man with a police uniform shouted to the ones over a desk at his left, with a handheld detector he signaled the girl to walk forward and separate from the rest of the line.

“I hope you’re happy, now you’re going to get thoroughly touched by a man.”

“And the bad part about that is…?”

“Wow…”

But an android woman with a police uniform appeared, and the man exchanged the handheld with a nod of the head, as he took a step back. “Eh, I thought you were going to do the search!” The girl pouted with a feminine tone.

“Yikes, you’re actually aiming at the officer? When did you become so sassy?”

“Calm down woman of little faith, everything is part of the plan.”

“No, well…” The virtual man stuttered with a blushed face, “We have gender rules here Miss…” He coughed on his hand at the look of contempt from his android partner, “… Can I have your ID papers please?”

“Of course!” The girl smiled wide and with the tip of her thumb and index finger, she dug her polished nails inside of her cleavage and pulled a thin and large pencil-like, metallic tube, handing it to the male official as the android waved the handheld around her face with a displeased look, “Here you go.”

“Darn, have you always been this naughty?”

“You’re worrying too much.”

“Thank you…” The official hands trembled for a moment, as he took an extra fraction of a second to take on the pencil and press on a button, a digital screen projected and a picture of the blonde girl appeared from thin air, along with a long paragraph of information, the official stuttered once more, this time with surprise when reading the titles of the log, “The Mayor of Yellow Tea Town? My goodness, sorry for taking your time this much, Miss Watson!” He shouted with a little bow of his body.

“Don’t worry, don’t worry at all!” She chuckled with a waving hand, “In fact, I wish my portal security were as attentive as you guys, and just Amelia is fine.”

“A semiautomatic Smith & Wesson… caliber nine millimeters, loaded” The android interrupted on their chatter when meticulously pulling the gun out the strap on the left side of the girl’s chest, “Miss Watson… do you have the papers for this?”

“Oh… let me see…” She muttered absentmindedly, pulling on the white blouse to inspect her chest with a pouty look of her lips, making the virtual man gasp and avert his eyes to the other side, as Amelia continued searching inside of her clothes without much thought, “I guess I left those at home.”

“We’ll have to confiscate this then, we’ll place it on a vault and you will be able to claim it later with a ticket, I’ll go make the papers for it,” The android sighed and tied the handheld by a strap on her left wrist, next she proceeded to unload the gun, pick on the bullet and release the cartridge, she placed the disabled weapon under her right armpit and held on the barrel, the bullet, and magazine with her left, swiftly removing the handheld and gesturing it to the virtual man, “Finish the manual search.”

“Wait, me?!” He gasped with a red face, pointing at himself with the index.

“I need to deliver this, and Miss Watson doesn’t mind, right?” She asked with a cold tone.

“Of course not,” Amelia giggled innocently.

As the android walked away, the man took on the handheld with reluctance, glancing with disdain and red cheek to the willing blonde girl stretching her arms in the air with a wide, teethed smile, waiting for the man to proceed.

“Miss Watson, I’m… going to start ok?”

“I told you to calm me Amelia, go ahead!”

“Alright… Miss Amelia…”

“Heh, so polite, yes Mister Official?”

“Did you bring anything else that will react to the detector? I’ll start with the left arm…”

“Nothing that crosses my mind, I left my hand clock and phone on the basket at the other side.”

“But your ID reacts to the metal detector too, did you forget about that? Arms up…”

“I guess I did, you know how is it when you use your breasts as pockets, hehe.”

“I… do not.”

“Say, is being a portal security official a big deal? If I remember well, mine has a pretty high authority level on their IDs.”

“W-well, yes, I believe is the same for all portal zone officials, that’s what the regulations ask for each Mayor… ok, nothing on the back, can you remove your trench coat?”

“Aight, anything else I need to take off?”

“… That much is fine…”

“Hehe, you have such a cute face!”

“… Thanks… did you bring fruits or animals that we should be aware of?”

“Three pets, I didn’t forget the papers for those though, they were already inspected, I’m itching to pick them up you know, those poor little ones trapped in those cages, I want to leave them at the hotel as soon as possible you know?”

“That’s understandable, I will hurry up with the check-up then… uh…”

“…? What happens?”

“Well…”

He looked down awkwardly, as Amelia giggled when waving her long legs, “I see,” She giggled with a little red on her cheeks, “Well, as you can notice, I’m wearing stockings, so there’s nothing to inspect on there…” She whispered with an uncontrollable smile pouring from the corner of her cheeks, slightly leaning on the man to reach on his ear, “But nothing stops you to check on my thighs if you want to,” She said with a low tone of voice, blowing air into his ear and giggling.

“Would you please stop that?”

“You still can’t see what I’m doing?”

“Miss Amelia…” The man looked at her with a suddenly serious face, handing the metallic pencil to the girl with annoyance, no longer flustered, “I’m a married man.”

“HAHAHA, HE GOT YOU!”

“You’re enjoying this too much don’t you think?”

“Is that so? That right now was a nice reaction!” She snapped with a burst of laughter, smacking the chest of the man with the back of her hand, “I sure wish to tell your wife you’re a good man then, sorry for making your working hours this painful, honest apology,” Amelia finished with a smile.

The man huffed and fixed his hat, staring back at the girl with a smile, “Thank you, and sorry if I sounded a little rude back there, the searching is done Miss Amelia, you can now pick on your things.”

They departed from each other with a wave of the hand, and the girl abandoned the portal station with a large cart with small luggage and three pet cages. She pushed the cart up to the taxi cabs and was helped by an android, taxi man, who chauffeured her to the nearest hotel. Amelia quickly registered in the reception and took on the elevator, releasing her two hunting terriers and cat, to the disgust of the attendee and receptionist, instantly climbed over the hotel bed to sleep.

“I suppose you left the papers of your gun on purpose?”

“Yup.”

“Why?”

“Because when you disarm a person in the public view, you feel like a threat has disappeared, and people stop looking at you.”

“… So you did it to reduce your presence? You’re quite smart.”

“Always been.”

“Don’t get cocky now; care to explain what was all that flirting with the man now?”

“D’aw, are you feeling jealous? That is a first, also, are you taking a break or something? You’ve been quite talkative this morning.”

“You’re avoiding my question.”

“Indeed, I am, detective novels wouldn’t become popular if you explain every little detail from the beginning after all.”

“So now this is a detective novel? Of what kind exactly? Now that I think about it, by the moment I came to check on you, you were dressing up to leave to this zone.”

“Oho, did you enjoy the view of this naked cutie?”

“Please, I’m not like you, and you keep avoiding my questions, you’re quite good at that though, I have to admit.”

“Mommy, that girl is talking alone,” A small robot boy walking in a plaza pointed at Amelia with his finger when walking with his mom.

“Just don’t look at her sweetie…” The android mother replied, pulling on his wrist with a nervous walk.

Amelia stares with pouty lips at the mother and kid trotting away from her, sighing, she pulled her phone from the trench coat and placed it on her right ear, “I keep forgetting to pretend to be on a call when talking with you…” She said looking down at a small pond of water accumulated on the bricked floor of the plaza, staring at her reflection in the water, which for some reason, contrary to the original, this one didn’t hold on a phone nor was following the gestures of Amelia, instead, the reflection placed a hand over her mouth and giggled condescending.

“So, I suppose all this hurry means someone submitted an investigation request?”

“… The spiciest of all yet, I’m looking for the belongings of a dead person.”

The girl replied to the speaker while looking at the reflection, then lifted her head and continued walking through the plaza, as the reflection of her body continued walking by her side through the ponds of water, still without following any of the gestures from the original source.

“That wouldn’t be the first, what makes this search so special?”

“For what my client said, this person committed suicide.”

“Oh…”

“It seems my client was attached to this person, and so they want to recover any belongings this person could’ve left behind before killing themselves.”

“This person lived in Yellow High?”

“That I don’t know yet.”

“Then what are we doing on here?”

Amelia paused looking at the clouded sky, walking out of the plaza and slowly stepping inside of a seemingly crowded avenue. She fixed her glasses with a serious look, going through the people without uttering a word to the reflection following her on the windows until she slowed down in front of a large and fancy edification labeled as “Town Hall” at the front.

“Ame…?”

“The person my client was so attached to, seems to be related to the crash event, down to worst, the person we’re talking about was the original crash.”

“… And… what could be these ‘belongings’ your client wants you to retrieve? Ame… you’ve done several dangerous things since I’ve known you, but this is perhaps the most absurd of all.”

“I’m not sure yet, but I want to find it out, how can I reject to investigate one of the most dangerous things that have happened in the virtual world? I wouldn’t be able to call myself a detective if so!”

“Alright I get it, let’s go back a few steps first ok? Why Yellow High?”

“… Because the security of Sky Hero’s zone is beyond any of my infiltration skills, of course.”

“So instead you decided to sneak over Terra Hero’s zone… do you believe Mayor Subaru has what you’re looking for?”

“If not everything, she must have at least a lead of what I’m looking for.”

“Are you thinking this clearly though? If the person you’re looking for was the original crash then it didn’t commit suicide, not to say their belongings are in the most corrupted zone of the virtual world, a step in that place would crash you in a matter of seconds.

Just who is this client of yours and why did submit such a strange investigation request? You’re Watson Amelia, a member of The Rainbow, and they’re basically asking you to do something which can be considered betrayal among your group, especially towards Sky Hero.”

“That’s but a funny thing to say.”

Amelia shook her head with silent laughter, stepping on the stairs of the hall.

“A detective is loyal to their friends, but they also have to turncoat now and then!”

“Amelia no!”

“Being a detective always comes in first, and if that means making The Rainbow into my enemy, making Sky Hero and Terra Hero into my enemies, then I would gladly take it head-on! Plot twists like these are what make detective novels so interesting!”

“Oh gee, here we go again… and so, what do you plan to do?”

“I’ll get inside of Terra Hero’s Gear, and backup any information she has about the crash event.”

“Aaaand how do you plan to obtain such thing?”

At the top of the hall, the girl stopped with a proud huff, pulling from her cleavage a long vinyl strap, tied to an ID digital card with the face of a familiar virtual man printed on it, showing it to her reflection over a cobber duck.

“Pff… Amelia…”

“Now shall we start? On this amazing detective chapter of my life!” 

Chapter Text

Thirty minutes near noon, inside of the maze of halls and offices of the Town Hall, Amelia stood vexed in anxiety and confusion. The digital lock on the door she tried to open rejected the stolen ID card code with a double beep and a red light. “Eh… but, eh?” The girl blabbered aghast, bouncing on the entrance of the door, vigilant of the people walking near the extremes of the hall so they don’t notice her presence.

“… Everything ok there? You’re starting to sweat.”

“I admit this wasn’t in my calculations… maybe the official reported his ID when he noticed he lost it?”

“That sounds logical, yet, everybody knows the paperwork it takes to report an ID card as lost, you know? Bureaucracy.”

“Then why it doesn’t open?! This door requires level four authorizations, I can’t access the Gear otherwise!”

“Calm down dear, your plans never come as you want, remember? This isn’t the first time.”

Amelia’s hand trembled with powerlessness for a couple of seconds; the girl took a silent nod and mouth of air, regaining composure.

“That’s it, feeling better now?”

“Thank you, you’re right, time for plan B.”

“And that would be?”

Searching for the cameras on the ceiling, she fixed her glasses and beret and walked out the hall avoiding as many of them as possible. Coming out the first floor, the place was overwhelmed with employers and visitors, androids, virtual people, and citizens from other zones doing lines for papers or visiting offices for seals or to deliver papers. She continued mixing with the mass of people and climbed the stairs up the third floor, flashing and avoiding the cameras near the individual space of Subaru’s office. Amelia made her way up to a hallway without lights and filled with dust, the doors of the offices didn’t possess an ID card reader but keypad locks.

“Amelia, what are we looking for in this old place? You’re going to trigger your allergies.”

“I have the feeling that I may find that person around here…”

“That person…?”

The girl suffocated a gasp when noticing one of the doors had been left slightly open. Amelia brought her phone and toggled her flashlight app, slowly pulling the knob to walk inside the office without making any noise; she tapped on the screen and prepared her camera next. A little naughty giggle coming from the right side of her cheek at the sounds of a feminine muttering and the noises of paper and card boxes being pulled and thrown away, she took a couple of steps back and executed a short leap to the corner of the office, stomping on the floor and aiming the lens of the phone towards a hall made of thin and metallic stands, filled with multiple labeled boxes, “Looks like I found a bad girl!” She laughed when landing back on the floor with a thunderous noise, furiously tapping the shutter of her phone, taking on pictures.

“Eep!” A woman of short blue hair screamed and jumped like a startled cat, falling on the floor with her buttocks, a box stuffed with papers stuck over her head, covered with sheets, she struggled to remove the card box helmet, “I swear, I wasn’t looking for Mayor Subaru three sizes or anything like that!” She hurried to shout and excuse herself, crawling on all fours over the floor, bumping with the metallic stands as the box stood fixed on her head.

“Looks like my seventh sense tingled in the correct direction, greetings, Achan, long time no see,” Amelia said with a calm voice, stepping away from the woman and keeping on taking pictures of her as she crawled on the floor.

“That voice… is it?!” The woman stood from the floor excitedly, “Without a doubt, is the Mayor from Yellow Tea Town, Amelia Watson!” She desperately pulled the box out of her head to confirm her claims, gasping with a childish smile and hopping cheerfully, “Yay, my hearing skills are top-notch!”

“Ough… is the woman who snuck into our Gears to put Sky Hero’s program.”

“And now, she’s our plan B.”

“…!”

“Would you look at that? Looks like I found someone lurking where she shouldn’t,” Amelia suggested playfully, turning the screen of her phone to the face of Achan and waving it on the air, showing the gallery of pictures of the woman searching on sealed papers.

“I… I can explain,” The blue-haired one gulped down saliva.

“No need to, this is blackmailing after all,” The detective said next, turning off the screen of her phone and saving it on her trench coat, “I’m in the need of a person like you today, so how it sounds for you the proposal of exchanging favors?” She asked while swaying on her ankles.

Achan took another gulp with furrowed brows, slowly stepping back as her face turned serious, “… I can’t let you spread around those pictures, can I? Mayor Subaru has forbidden me the entrance to the Town Hall after all,” She sighed and raised her hands in defeat, “If I get what you’re trying to say, you’ll delete those once I help you with what you need?”

“You’re good at thinking fast, that’s exactly it,” Amelia nodded with a satisfied smile. When Achan pulled on a pair of rusty chairs, the girls sat on the dusty old office to talk, for Amelia to explain her situation, but when she finished talking, Achan exploded in laughter and the detective looked at her with sternness, “… What part of my story was funny?”

“Oh, well, is just… pfft,” The woman attempted to explain, but she had to muffle another laugh, forcing her mouth shut and holding in her stomach. After half of a minute of her trying to calm down, taking on her glasses to clean the crystal against the cloth of her shirt, she spouted, “What you’re looking for it is indeed classified info inside Subaru’s Gear, but the part about being related to the crash incident and the original crash it is true and quite off the mark at the same time, I’m laughing because it seems your client seems to be mixing up things.”

“Are they? I have the feeling the one who thought it was related to the original crash was no one else but you.”

“… Yup…”

“Amelia…”

“Let’s pretend I said nothing.”

“Then again, for the way you’re talking about it, it seems you know what I’m looking for,” Amelia gestured with her right.

“Just rumors more than anything, Sora told me about it once before,” The woman replied with a calmer tone, fixing her glasses over her nose, “It was a really sad thing which happened here in Yellow High and barely days before the crash incident, the story got mixed in the citizens’ gossips and now some believe the person who committed suicide was the original crash, but nothing more away from reality, honestly,” She shook her head with disdain.

“Then what did happen in reality?” Amelia asked judgmentally.

“Well, it’ll be easier if your read the data log from it, I don’t know all the hots from that story because I’m not interested in digging about dead people’s past,” She shrugged apathetically and stood from her chair, “We need to get going, let’s get your info before-“ Achan tried to explain, but at the artificial ringing of a loud bell, the woman groaned, “Lunchtime…”

“What is it, what happens at lunchtime?” The detective asked with a tilt of the head.

“For an hour and a half, all the offices close for the employees to take a break and lunch, which means from this point onwards until one and half of the evening, the stairs and halls are desolated, and every office is filled with Town Hall employees,” Achan explained with pouty lips, then pointed at a metallic mesh on the ceiling of the office, “In those conditions, we need to use the ventilation system, gladly we’re going down, so it’ll be easier than climbing, come here and help me,” She gestured to Amelia, pulling the sleeves of her sweater and fixing her hair with a thin gum.

“… Just how many times you’ve sneaked on Subaru’s office?” The girl chuckled with sarcasm, kneeling in front of Achan, she interlaced both hands and placed them at the height of her stomach. The blue-haired woman nodded and put her left feet over the detective’s hands, and with just an office clip, she removed the main screw from the mesh and turned it around, revealing a hole big enough for her to fit effortlessly, Achan held on the borders and with the impulse of Amelia’s hands, the woman easily pushed half of her body inside the ventilation, later using the strength of her upper body to pull her legs inside, “Ah, hold it there, I’ll be with you in a jiffy,” Amelia pointed with her index, bringing her phone and quickly sweeping over the screen.

“Deleting the pictures already?” Achan asked hopefully when turning her head on the hole.

“You wish, I’m preparing plan C,” Amelia snorted and turned her back on the bemused woman, opening her contact list she started on a call. When the sound of someone picking the phone from the other side, the girl lowered the tone of the speaker and muttered a couple of words, silently nodding at the tiny voice replying to her, she hanged on the phone after three minutes, then extended her hand to Achan, “Let’s do this fast, if I end in bed tomorrow because of my allergies, you’ll be in trouble,” She threatened the woman inside the ventilation, who reluctantly took on her wrist and helped her to climb inside the hole with her.

Crawling with their elbows and knees, the couple of girls took on the dark, long and sweaty sprint inside the ventilation system, “Miss Amelia, forgive me to ask, as I’m not sure of my position in your investigation, but there are a couple of doubts in my mind right now,” Achan said with a strange polite speech, the girls were mindful of their voice and steps, illuminating their way ahead with the flashlights of their phones, Amelia looked down on the mesh she crawled through and confirmed the explanation of the blue-haired girl, a great absence of clients and citizens, only employees and security guards.

“It’s ok, it's not like I’m the devil or something, you can ask me, what’s going through that stalker’s head?”

“Stalk… did you just insult me while saying you aren’t the devil?”

“Oopsie, hehe, but seriously, what’s up?”

“You said you were preparing ‘plan C’, is not pleasant to me, but I guess that means I’m your plan B?”

“Elementary, my dear Achan!”

“What happened to plan A?”

“That… I stole an ID from a man who works at the security on the portal station, since they have authority access just like in my zone, I thought it would be useful, but alas, the doors didn’t open at all.”

“Ah… sorry about it, that’s in a way, my fault.”

“How so?”

“You see, I thought of the same thing, so I too stole an ID card from a portal station member like five weeks ago, and when Subaru found out she modified the station staff members’ authority access so they couldn’t do anything on here.”

“… Seriously now, how many times have you sneaked on here?”

“Hehe, as much as you can imagine, I know this building from head to toes, Mayor Subaru will never be able to completely ban me out of here, not until I get her three sizes!”

“Wouldn’t something like that be saved on her Core Data?”

“That information has a hard encryption, but there are more ways to find such details, like hospital check-ups or costume requests!”

“… You’re quite the scary woman, you know that right?”

“Right back at you.”

“Uh? What do you mean?”

“Well, how do I put it? Just, what is a member of The Rainbow trying to do by illegally retrieving information from the crash? It is scary to think you’re doing something Sora forbid everyone to do.”

“Sometimes rules need to be broken for the sake of your own goals, you more than anyone should understand what I’m talking about.”

“I guess…”

“Say, are we close to that door? It’s really difficult to crawl on this cramped space.”

“… Cramped? But I fit on here just fine, what are you talking about?”

“That’s because you’re plain and don’t have any curves! C’mon, I’m sweating like a pig on here; please tell me we’re back to the first floor already!”

“…”

“What?”

“…”

“Achan…?”

“…!”

“Ouch! Did… did you just kick me?!”

“And here comes another!”

“Ouch! Hey!”

In the middle of an empty hallway on the first floor, the girls started to fight each other inside the ventilation system, until Amelia fell with a thump on the floor after a kick of Achan, “If you don’t like it then start drinking soy milk!” Amelia waved a fist to the woman who silently pulled her body out the hole.

“It’s so easy for the women who already have ‘em to spout that nonsense,” Achan sighed condescending with a shake of her head. She stared next to the door of the halls with hands on her hips, “Miss Amelia, I need you to wait on here and check nobody comes as I pick up the info you need inside the Gear.”

“How long do you think that’ll take?” The detective replied right away, placing their fight down into their list of priorities, she followed on the woman who pulled a keypad from inside her shirt, connected one extreme to her phone and the other to the ID card reader, “… Wow, like in the movies…”

“The security system has a vulnerability Subaru is not aware of and I’ve been using to get inside without being detected,” Achan explained as she tapped on her phone, “Basically I’m making the system believe this lock is no longer a card reader but a keypad, then introduce an admin password to open the door,” She finished while fixing her hair with elegance, “As for how long it’ll take me, let’s say ten minutes, I already know in which part of the Gear is the information of the crash incident.”

“Uh… wait a second there,” Amelia gestured, “You said the case I’m investigating got mixed in because of gossips, and just gossips, so why is that information being put together with the crash incident?”

“I said it was both true and off the mark, I also said you would understand better by reading the log, but I guess I should at least finish one thought,” The woman replied without looking at the detective, skillfully moving from her phone to the keypad and introducing a long series of numbers, “The information about that suicide was archived with the crash incident because many of the things which happened about that case were borderline or straight up connected with crashing,” She finished and lifted her head, smiling at the sight of the door opening with a heavy piston noise, cold air coming from the inside.

The blonde girl meditated on her words for a second, noticing the way she phrased it was odd, “… Did you say crashing instead of crash?” She wondered with doubt.

“I’ll be back in ten minutes and then we need to ran out here, Subaru is inside the building after all,” But Achan didn’t get to listen to her question, and quickly went inside the room, as Amelia peeked from the outside, she looked how the silhouette of the woman disappeared when walking down the stairs inside of an illuminated and cold corridor.

“I guess everyone places their Gear underground, don’t they?” Amelia spouted in the air, leaned her back against the wall of the hallway, and left the door slightly opened, using the breeze to refresh her body from the heat.

“Well, would you look at that? It seems your seventh sense wasn’t entirely wrong, you still have a spicy case on hands, and are also committing a crime.”

“You’re worrying too much about the crime part.”

“Of course I do! I don’t want you to end in jail!”

“I’ll apologize to Subaru once this case is solved, don’t eat your nails over this.”

“… Amelia, are you ok? Your voice sounds tense all of a sudden.”

“Is just… It took me too much to realize it; but I was so excited about it that I childishly theorized the reasons behind the suicide of a dead person, unapologetic and without touch.”

“…”

“I’m a detective; I need to reason with evidence, not with my imagination alone.”

“I’m going to be honest with you Amelia, if you’re trying to be respectful towards the person who committed suicide, the best thing you should do is to stop this investigation.”

“Ah…”

“But, you still have to fulfill the wishes of your client, so I think the best you can do right now, is to look for a gray line, somewhere you don’t feel the way you’re feeling right now.”

“You're right... Thank you… I can always count on you to calm me down, hehe.”

“Always here for you.”

“You’re taking a long break now, are you planning to tag along in my head during all the investigation?”

“That’s the plan!”

“Heh, oh you…”

With a silent smile and a spark of red on her cheeks, the girl shared nods with her reflection on the phone, and saved the gadget inside of her coat, “That said, isn’t it ten minutes already? Where did Achan go?” She asked out loud, digging her fingers on the space between the door and the frame, enjoying the cold breeze.

“Hey, Amelia, turn around, someone’s coming!”

She reacted with feline instincts, turning her face at the same speed she ran inside the door, peeking from the aperture to two figures approaching on the hallway, “Thank you oh my gosh, I sure can’t count with my ears to alert me from trouble.”

“It’s too soon to be grateful dear, look who are those…”

“Shuba shuba shuba, finally, the dumbo of Achan bit on the silent alarm I put at the entrance of the door in my Gear!”With strange and malefic laughter, Subaru said, gesturing with fingers and wearing an expression just as nasty.

Amelia looked on her feet with wariness, and facepalmed at the look of a thin red light on her ankles, “Achan…!” She groaned with clenched teeth.

“My dear, how many times I’ve told you to stop laughing that way? It’s creepy…” Shigure sighed with a motherly tone, “Seriously, that woman just pulls the worst of you, let’s get her redhanded already so we can arrest her for a while.”

“Shuuuuba shuba shuba shuba, I’ve been waiting this moment for ages!” The girl said ignoring the pleas of her mother, laughing oddly and dastardly.

“Of all the things which could’ve happened today!” Amelia bit on her thumb.

“What are you doing inside here? You’ll end like a popsicle,” Appearing from the bottom of the stairs Achan said, gesturing a small USB drive to the detective, “The information you asked, can you please delete those pictures now?”

“The pictures aren’t your problem now, but her!” The detective silently screamed at her, pointing at the two figures walking to the door with an index.

“Her? Let me see… Oh,” Achan gasped with surprise.

“Don’t give me that, what are we going to do now? Where do we escape?!” Amelia continued shouting, losing her temper.

The woman looked at the nervous face of the blonde girl and then at Shigure and Subaru, standing just a couple of meters close to the door, Achan meditated for just four seconds, then sighed with a disappointed face. “You owe me a big one now…” The woman said when placing the USB on the hands of the girl, and after using her left hand to push Amelia’s shoulder and force the girl to take a couple of steps inside the stairs, Achan breathed loudly and kicked the door from the inside with all her strength, then jumped right in front of the two girls, “Oh… Oh my, oh my! I’ve been found, and just when I got the spiciest pictures of Subaru’s swimsuit!” She shouted with a straight tone, entirely faking her reaction.

“You did?!” Shigure asked with an excited clench of her fists.

“You little piece of…” Subaru groaned with a waving fist, as her body gleamed in light and her clothes changed into the asymmetrical dress, “Forget about getting jailed… I’m going to punch you back to the analog era!” She screamed infuriated with flames in her eyes.

“Yikes!” That was all the blue-haired woman could say before running away from the enraged girl, who chased her along with her mother inside the building.

“… I don’t like to owe favors though…” Amelia whispered while shyly coming out of the door, glancing at Subaru gradually turning the Town Hall upside down as she tried to get her hands on Achan, “… But I guess I’ll solve that later.” The detective said then started to run on the borders of the hallways, mindful of the cameras and the employees coming out of their offices confused about the commotion Subaru and Achan were building until she made it out from the main door, “That was close, so close, note to self, prepare plan B and C before starting on plan A.”

“Congratulations, from this point onwards, you’re a criminal of Yellow High and a traitor of The Rainbow.”

“Stop the mom preaching please, where did it go the girl who said was going to tag along with me?”

“It doesn’t mean I’m going to give a blind eye to everything you do today.”

Taking on her phone, the girl kept arguing with her reflection on the streets, as she made Yellow flow inside the USB and project the contents inside with a holographic screen, she started to read the information that Achan picked for her, “I see… the case is about a woman… no job or family, the police believes she suffered from clinical depression and committed suicide because she didn’t treat her sickness properly, it does sound like a typical suicide case… and the dates match close of the crash incident… I’m starting to see how people added one and one together on this,” She paused in front of a clothing store, staring at the reflection who peeked on the screen with curious eyes, “Excited much?” She judged with a giggle, the reflection instantly flustering and looking aside, Amelia resumed her walk, “Finally what Achan tried to explain… it seems this woman was fixed with occultism and otherworldly beings, things about shadows and the equilibrium of the spectrum, the apartment where…” She held on her respiration for a moment, her eyes going back to the first line of the paragraph and reading minutely, “… Then how do they know it was a suicide? Who was the lazy ass who decided that!”

“Amelia? What’s wrong, what did I miss?”

“This investigation was closed as suicide because of the evidence on the woman’s apartment but…” She clicked her tongue with anger, “The body was never found… Even though the crime happened in that place, it wasn’t found, which means…”

“This could be not a suicide, but a murder case.”

“We need to check that apartment.”

Chapter Text

Back in the room of the hotel, Amelia was taking on a lunch with her pets. The bellboy delivering the food cart was left with a small amount of duck cash for a tip and the image of a woman, two dogs, and a cat eating together from the same plates, as they sat on the edge of the bed, and the girl looked at the TV with her mouth stuffed.

“This is revolting… Knock me when you’re done eating, I’m out.”

“Uh, sure, if I remember to,” Amelia replied uninterested, “D’aw, thank you, Bubba!” She looked down next at her dog, who took on a chicken leg with its muzzle and placed it over the plate of the girl, she took it without doubt nor reluctance, and started to eat it, “Ah, Mikki, can you pour me some water?” She gestured to the other dog without looking at her, and the pet replied with a swing of her tail a small bark, taking the handle of the crystal jar between her teeth and splashing water all over the cart until finally filling the glass, once again Amelia didn’t hesitate to take on the drink and sip on it, “Phew… that sure hits the spot!” She burped and sighed in relief.

Taking on a handkerchief to clean her mouth, the girl stood from the bed and walked to the hairdresser of the hotel room, picking once again in the USB that Achan gave to her, making her color flow inside the gadget and reread the information. “The apartment is not so far away from here, I guess I can reach there by foot, looks like I won’t be needing plan C after all,” She meditated with calm, and as she sweeps the texts on-screen with a finger, the phone at the corner of the night table rang, with a puzzled look, the girl approached and picked on it, using the speaker to fix her hair first and later place it on her ear, “Yes? Who may be?”

- You need to get out there! Subaru found about you! –

Amelia separated from the speaker bewildered by the voice shouting through it, with doubt; the detective placed it on her ear one more time, “… Aren’t you my client? How do you know I was here? And what is this about Subaru finding me out?”

- The duck police are coming close to the hotel, hurry up, you don’t have much time! – 

“And as I’m saying, how-” But the phone call ended just that fast, and the girl was left alone with her pets and a multitude of questions. Amelia slowly walked to the windows on the side of the street and opened the curtains, she leaned her face against the glass and scanned the avenues minutely, until noticing from her left side, a group of police cars joined with the ever-growing sound of their siren, “Aw crap,” She blurted with hands on her head, then the phone rang for a second time, this chance, Amelia ran to it, jumping over the mattress of the bed as if she were on a steeplechase, she answered at the third ring, “What is it now?!”

- … Uh? Am sorry, I’m talking to the guest in room 702? –

The girl coughed with shame, noticing it was the voice of the receptionist who attended her in the morning, “Yes, is who you’re talking to, is something the matter?” The girl asked feigning composure.

- Miss, it has been informed to us by the police of the zone that our guest has been a participant in an illicit act, we beg you to stay in your room and wait calmly for the response of our zone forces, as we don’t want any scene that may damage the image of our hotel, we’re sorry for the inconvenience, but we hope you can understand, goodbye. – 

At the sound of the call abruptly ending, Amelia pulled the speaker from her ear and slammed the phone against the night table, “… And they hope I just sit and wait to be arrested? Don’t worry about your hotel, worry about me!” She screamed with anger, then awkwardly switched gears when noticing the startled look of her pets, “Oh my gosh, I’m so sorry, I didn’t mean to scare you guys!” She nervously gestured with both hands, forcing a smile, then held on her chest next and closed her eyes, breathing loudly, “Calm down Amelia, you have this, remember what she always tells you, your plans never come as expected… so look for an alternative,” She nagged herself while breathing, at the look of her dogs coming to her feet and whimper at her, she giggled and softly caressed their heads, “Everything will be ok, we still have the plan C,” she explained to the dogs, who replied with a second, confused whimper.

“Can you guess why I’m mad at you today?” A small and annoyed voice said from the other side of the hotel door, making Amelia gasp and smile, she dashed to the knob and opened the door excitedly.

“Is it because I ate your pudding this morning before leaving?” The detective replied with a smirk to the tall woman of short, messy black hair with undertones of red, office clothes, and glasses in front of her, “Hello plan C!”

“… First of all…” The woman groaned with absolute annoyance, walking inside the room with two large bags on her hands, she left both over the mattress, with one of them producing a strange noise, she turned on Amelia, “I didn’t know you ate it, that is now two reasons for why I’m mad at you today,” She lectured on her, slightly hunching, menacing with her right index, “Second… Plan C? Does it mean two of your plans failed already?” She asked with concern.

“Yup, and I’m already thinking about D and E, it’s going to be a long day after all,” Amelia nodded, then peeked on the hall outside the room, before finally closing the door and facing the woman, “So why are you mad at me today Enma?”

“Of course, because when I was making my way to here, I saw on TV a camera recording of your back while getting inside Terra Hero’s Gear, now you have the entire city and their grandmas looking for you; care to explain why is my boss suddenly doing federal crimes?” She asked with an angry hiss.

“It is part of today’s job, I’m trying to finish as soon as possible, but I have to be honest, I didn’t think it would get this troublesome,” She expressed while rubbing the back of her head, releasing awkward laughter on an attempt to mollify the woman in front of her, “That aside, I’m glad you’re here, just looking at your face makes me feel calmer, you said the recording only shows my back? They don’t know who they’re chasing?”

The woman stuttered at the gentle words of the girl at the same time she snorted at the annoyance of her perky attitude, “Indeed, they showed the recording on screens and then said they had gotten a clue that a person resembling your description was at this hotel, so I pressed on the gas to reach first before the police could, not that we have much time left,” The lady explained while pointing her finger in the air, pointing with a serious face to the loud noise of the sirens coming from the ground floor.

“I know, even I can hear something that loud,” The girl nodded then glanced at the bags over the bed, “Did you bring everything? Even her?” She asked while looking at one of the bags whose contents seemed to struggle.

“As you said, the security on the portals being so professional and strict just meant that border security was lacking, they didn’t even check on my luggage when I came here with my car,” Enma explained while approaching the bags, her heels loudly smacking the floor, she took the left strap of the struggling bag and slowly opened the zipper, “Finding her wasn’t a problem either, I found her on my way here, hiding from the police,” The woman continued, then revealed the figure of a scared and tied Achan, with a white sock inside her mouth, furiously screaming at the two, Enma helped her to get out the bag and slowly removed the sock, “Careful, breathe slowly or you’ll puke.”

“Puah! Ugh… What the hell… you again?! Why did you kidnap me?! We’re even, I helped you escape!” Achan exclaimed with drool on her cheek, shaking like a caterpillar, using all her strength to remove the ropes on her ankles and wrists.

“We’re even you say? Oh my dear Achan, didn’t you know? Today I’m in turning coat mode!” Amelia laughed at her, “Which means the only woman who I won’t lie to is her!” She smiled with finger guns, pointing at Enma, “Because she gets fricking scary otherwise!” She shouted next on her mind.

“Wait a minute… are those police sirens?” Achan wondered when noticing the loud noise, “Oh God what did you do now.”

“Calm down woman of little faith!” The detective huffed with a renewed humor, sharing looks with Enma, who nodded and started to open on the second bag, “We’re now going to develop plan D!”

“This one is mine, don’t you dare to lose it,” The office lady said when throwing a small SIG nine millimeter to Amelia, who caught the weapon along with a magazine, quickly loading the gun and placing it on the holster near her chest, Enma then pulled a katana from the bag, fixing it on the belt strap of her skirt.

“W-w-what the…! What are you both planning to do?! Are you thinking of fighting the police?!” Achan asked with a clacking jaw while looking at the women dress up in arms.

“Breath for a second,” But Amelia didn’t reply, shooshing her instead, she dug her hands inside the bag and pulled a leather case, spreading it along the bed, she revealed a set of syringes and multiple and small, crystal bottles with tiny inscriptions labeled on each, “Oh whoops, wrong one,” She laughed then dug her hands on the bag again, pulling a wig with the color and shape of Enma’s hair, quickly brushing it with the tips of her fingers.

Achan gulped down saliva, horrified, “What… what is going to happen to me?”

“Would you zip it for a minute?” Enma snarled at her.

“Calm down you girls, let’s see… ok, we’re ready, let’s start on plan D,” Amelia clapped her hands, and with a serious face she walked in front of Enma, her hands reaching the neck of the woman’s shirt, she started to unbutton her without saying a word, her body gradually gleaming with Yellow.

“I see, we’re doing that?” The office lady asked, unfazed by the detective who was undressing her, she looked down on her blouse and held on the zipper of Amelia’s skirt, pulling it down slowly.

Achan sparked in red, quickly flipping her body around and slamming her face against a pillow to blind her eyes, “What do you think you’re doing now?!”

“Isn’t it obvious, we’re going to exchange clothes!” Amelia answered with a straight face, completely removing the buttons of Enma’s shirt.

“The act of disguise is but one of many abilities of a detective, didn’t you know something so simple?” Enma asked condescending, after pulling down on her zipper, she went back to the ribbon over the girl’s blouse and untied it, “I’ll dress as Miss Amelia and draw the police attention to me, so that way she can escape from here without being noticed.”

“And do you need me here for that?” The blue-haired woman asked next with her voice being muffled on the pillow.

“Elementary, my dear Achan, as you’re my most important, plan E,” the detective said gracefully when pulling down the skirt of Enma.

“For the third time today, Subaru, you need to calm down, let them do their work; they’re the police, not you!” Shigure scolded the girl angrily; down at the streets of the hotel, her mother had been holding on the girl by the armpits, as she screamed on a tantrum, fighting to get released from her grasp.

“But I want to get her! That woman was inside my Gear the same day Achan was too! People need to learn to stay away from it, with punches if necessary, mom, please let me go!” Subaru cried powerlessly, pulling desperately, her legs waving in the air as she failed to release her arms.

“People are going to talk if they see the Terra Hero punching citizens just because of a whim!” Shigure insisted, and forced the girl to sit with her in the back seat of a police car, “Hurry up and get that woman, I don’t know how much longer I’ll be able to keep this one in place!” The girl exclaimed to a police officer who nodded at her.

“We have cordoned the hotel, how is squad one doing?” The virtual man asked through a transmitter.

“Squad one here, we’re on the fifth floor already, getting near room 702…?” The android replying from inside the hotel paused from their reply, together with another four officials dressed in bullet vests and helmets, stared confused at a couple of dogs and a cat, walking away from the hallway, “… Anyway, the receptionist gave us the key; we’re ready to enter whenever you say chief.”

“Permission granted,” The man outside replied after pressing on the transmitter, “We need to do this asap, Mayor Subaru is losing her patience down here.”

“You heard the chief, let’s do a clean job!” The android said to the group, saving the transmitter behind his pants and making gestures with his fingers, the bellboy appeared from the bottom of the group, and with a nervous look he hurried to slide the card through the reader until a green light appeared on the knob, the android made a gesture of the head and another officer took the bellboy from the shoulder and pulled him away from the hallway, “This is the duck police of Yellow High, the hotel is cordoned and there’s no place where to escape, keep your hands on the air and don’t resist the arrest!”

“What’s with all that noise? I’m in the middle of a job conference right now!” Enma exclaimed with annoyance, coming from the room next to the ones the police were aiming their guns at, surprising the group.

“Miss, stay inside, is not safe!” One of the virtual men shouted back, hurrying to push the woman into the room by pressing his back against the door.

The android looked at the group of officers one final time before raising his hand in the air and aggressively wave it down, “Now, now, now, now!” He screamed with a grave voice, the official to his side opened the door with a fast pull of his arm and ran inside the room, followed by the other three officers and finally, the android, “One hostage, living room clear!” The android screamed at the sight of a tied Achan over the bed, one of the officials hurried to her aid and quickly untied her; the android ran to the closet and opened it, checking the clothes with the tip of his gun, “Where did she go?”

“Bathroom clear!” One of the officials said from the other extreme.

“Terrace clear!” The third one shouted from the outside of the crystal windows.

“Under the bed, she’s under the bed!” Achan cried with fear in her voice as she was being taken out of the room by the official.

“Tch, Achan you snitcher!” Amelia exclaimed from under the bed before rolling out and jumping on the official and the blue-haired woman, using their bodies as ladders without a second thought, bouncing her way out the room and dashing with all her speed out the hall.

“Suspect is on the run, I repeat suspect is on the run!” The android yelled into the transmitter, and with the other three officers he ran out the room, chasing on the detective.

“It’s all fine now, think you can go back to the ground floor on your own?” The fourth official asked Achan with a calm voice, helping her to stand back on the floor.

“My legs are still trembling, but I think I’ll be fine, thank you…” The woman nodded with a hoarse tone, the official guided her to the other extreme of the hall and pressed on the elevator button for her, with a salute he quickly separated from the woman and ran to the other extreme where Amelia and the other officials went.

“Is it over? What a way to interrupt my conference…” Enma muttered when peeking the outside of the hall, coming from the room without closing the door; she started to walk in direction of Achan.

“Miss, you forgot to close your…” The official pressed on the breaks for a moment, trying to warn the office lady, but at the look of a large katana swaying behind her hips, the man frowned, “… Door? Is that a sword?” He asked out loud, freezing the woman in place, which didn’t reply to him. The official slowly turned and opened the door of the room entirely, finding an android tied with a sock on its mouth, screaming for help, the official snapped and pulled on his transmitter, “We have another suspect, a woman of black hair with glasses on the fifth floor, she’s armed, I repeat, she’s armed!” He dropped the transmitter and pointed at her with his gun, “Freeze, there’s no way to run!”

But the woman didn’t listen to his warning and dashed to the elevator, her eyes fixed on Achan, “Don’t you dare to!” She howled at her.

“Oh my God!” Achan shook with a chill on her spine, furiously pressing on the button of the doors, “Close, close, close, close please!” She cried with tears in her eyes, the doors finally closing when Enma was barely a meter of distance, she squirmed at the slamming noise of the office lady’s body against the steel, Achan sighed with a hand on her chest, crumbling on the floor, “God… what did I get myself into…”

“What? Two suspects?! What do you mean?!” The chief on the ground floor questioned, then from both extremes of the hotel, women broke and jumped from the windows of the left and right side, rolling on the ground and facing the officers guarding the sides with a sword and a gun respectively, “Never mind that… capture them! They’re the suspects!” The man pointed at them.

“Why did you let yourself be seen!” Amelia screamed from the other side, shooting at the feet of the officials as she ran to the backside of the hotel.

“Right back at you, what kind of strategy was this?!” Enma judged from the other side, too running to the back of the hotel.

“Follow them; don’t give them the chance to escape!” The man ordered the officials from both extremes, as he joined the group chasing the black-haired lady. He tried to pursue the woman, but the detective quickly met with her, and halted their chase by shooting near their feet, both of them quickly jumping inside of a pale yellow Volkswagen which engine had been already started, “Crap, get away from them!” The officer squirmed and hurried to jump, the office lady took on the steering wheel and drove the car inside the sidewalk, scaring the officials who had to escape from being slammed by the car, “I can’t believe this…! Everybody to the cars, we’re starting on a chase!”

“So? Did you learn your lesson this time?” Shigure asked a depressed and scolded Achan near the police car, holding a frustrated Subaru with an arm lock, “Just look in all the trouble you ended being pulled to just because you couldn’t stop getting in the Town Hall illegally!”

“Yes ma’am, I got the clue this time…” Achan nodded with an exhausted voice, “I’ll stay away from that place for a while… I… I had enough heart attacks this morning alone,” She explained on the verge of tears, then slowly started on a zombie walk out of the street, “Now if you excuse me, I want to go back to my apartment and sleep, maybe when I wake up this will be all but a dream…”

“Mom, let me be part of the car chase!” Subaru cried from the seat with fluttering legs.

“You need to stay put here, you have a police force for a reason!” Shigure looked down at her, then turned her face to the silhouette of Achan distancing from the hotel, the girl tilted her head stranged, “Say Subaru… didn’t Achan look different to you?”

“Uh, uhm? Different in what way?” Subaru paused on her tantrum and looked at her mother confused.

“Like… I’m not sure how to say it, but, she looked well-endowed?” She pondered with a hand on her chin.

“Mom… you’re talking like a perv again,” Subaru frowned.

“You know what? Never mind what I said, must be my imagination,” Ashamed of her daughter’s reply, Shigure shook her face and cut abruptly on the subject.

Far in the next block, Achan straightened her back and calmly looked left and right, after confirming the absence of police officers, the woman walked with a smile.

“I’m back! Are you done with… erhm? What happened in the last forty minutes I was gone? Why are you wearing the clothes of the stalker, Amelia?”

The blue-haired woman giggled, she brought a phone from the pockets of her pants and faced at her reflection on the crystals of the buildings near, “You missed in one hell of an idea I had at the very last moment!” She laughed, “But I’m running out of plans, I need to elaborate plan F and G while getting ready my visit to that apartment… ugh, Achan clothes are so tight, its hard to breathe with these pants,” Amelia complained, fixing her blonde hair inside the wig, trying to stretch the sides of her pants in vain and pull down on her shirt, as her chest made it so her navel was visible when walking.

“Aw, does that mean I missed your voice mimicking?”

“You sure did, I was sweating buckets when trying to deceive Shigure and Subaru, gladly; they still don’t know it’s me they’re chasing.”

“Hold it for a second, does this mean Achan is wearing your clothes? That won’t help you at all, that woman is not the same size as you.”

“Yeah, I realized that, so I made Enma disguise as me instead.”

“Oh, Enma is here? Tell her hi from me when you see her again!”

“I will!”

“Wait, then, where’s Achan?”

“She’s disguised as Enma.”

“Ah… that still can be pictured as baggy clothes, to be honest…”

“Pfft…”

“Hahaha…

So are you going to the apartment next, how are you planning to get in?”

“I was checking the info channel of Yellow High while I was having lunch, apparently, the landlord of the building where that woman committed suicide is still looking for someone who has the guts to get into that apartment and clean the crime scene.”

“… Really now? After seven months that apartment hasn’t been cleaned up?”

“As sad as it sounds, is good news for us, because it means the belongings of that woman haven’t been touched, and whatever of value my client is hoping for I’ll be able to find it there.”

“And you still have a murder case to solve.”

“Yup, I could check on the info of the case with more detail in the hotel, and things got interesting, this murder case is a sealed room case!”

“Sealed room…? Like the ones Lupin The Third tries to solve?”

“Like the ones Amelia Watson tries to solve!”

Chapter Text

“We want to see! We want to see!”

Inside a clothing store, a woman and a little girl clapped with rhythm.

“We, want, to, see! We, want, to, see!”

They sang between excitement and a desire to tease, waiting for the woman inside of the changing room to come out. “All right… knock it off, I bet your voice can be heard in the entire mall…” Flare replied from the inside of the curtains to the chorus with an ashamed and tiny voice. Slowly pulling opening from left to right, the elf walked out wearing a one-piece dress of black and gray vertical lines, joined with a black cropped jacket, a black beret, and a pair of small black boots, “H-how is it?” She shyly asked, holding onto the corners of the frilled skirt.

“I give you five stars, you look like a model!” Gura shouted with a giddy smile, wearing a short blue dress over a white shirt, her trident and Marine's saber tied to the strap of her purse.

“That skirt length…! Your legs are so long and pretty, my colors, I’m so glad we came here!” Noel exclaimed with delight, furiously taking pictures of the elf. The woman of white hair had too changed on attires, wearing a shoulderless white cotton sweater with a plaid black skirt and boots, “Can’t believe Marine picked these clothes for you, the fashion sense of that woman is quite on the spot!”

“Huhu, of course, it is!” The voice of the Captain suggested from inside of one of the changing rooms, aggressively opening the curtain, she appeared modeling a red, intricate gothic Lolita dress with a small hat over her head, shaking her hips with arrogance, “I’m from head to toes a full-fledged woman! My feminine skills aren’t to be underestimated!” She firmly flaunted.

“Well, I guess I’ll be buying this one, let’s go to the cashier,” Flare spouted with a calm voice, completely ignoring the eye-patched woman.

“You’re right, we still have a lot to do,” Noel nodded, too dismissing the presence of Marine, taking Gura from her left hand she walked with the girl and Flare to the cashier of the clothing store.

“Erhm… aren’t you going to compliment my clothes too?” Marine asked with a puzzled look.

Holding everyone’s clothe price codes in one hand, Noel handed a credit card to the android cashier and paid for the group's new outfits. Ignoring the woman in the Lolita dress trying to catch their attention by dancing and seductively parading around the floor, the group walked out the store with their old clothes folded in bags, “Even though I hate to admit it, this dress… rocks,” Flare confessed looking at her reflection over the crystals, “But was it really needed? This is not an undercover mission, I can’t help but feel bad for using Miss Noel funds like this,” She sighed.

“Ou countre! My dear elf!” Marine answered by jumping in front of the group, frowning with a pouty face, quickly fed up with the women ignoring her, “A woman must always take care of her looks, no matter the occasion or the situation, we must look elegant!” She postured with an exaggerated mannerism, childish smile, silently observing the group, still waiting for what she had been missing.

“I get it, I get it, my gosh, you can be such a child sometimes,” Flare groaned and looked at Marine from head to toes, “I hate to admit it, but you look spectacular, that’s what you wanted to hear, right?” She asked with an angry tone.

“Say, do you have to always phrase that way? We’ve been traveling for weeks now, why not lower your guard a little bit?” The Captain said with a forced, feminine voice, dashing in front of the elf and trying to lean over her chest, but Flare just takes a step away, making her stumble in the air.

“To be honest… We should give her a bit more credit, she has been behaving pretty well these past days,” Noel nodded with a smile, “Those looks suit you, Marine, you look attractive.”

“Don’t I?!” The woman said while posing, easily fueled by the one-line sentence.

“Miss Noel, I’m a bit hurry…” Gura interrupted the woman by pulling on her skirt.

“And talking about well-behaving!” Noel giggled to the shark-girl and took on her hand, “For this educated cute Atlantian who tried to mean ‘hungry’… what if we cheat a little and have a snack instead? If you promise to eat your dinner later,” She proposed looking down at her.

“Seriously?! Yay, then let’s get something I haven’t tried yet, let’s go, let’s go!” The girl exclaimed happily, bouncing on her sandals and flapping her tail against the tiles of the floor.

“What about some churros? I haven’t tried that myself, I heard they’re quite good!” Flare joined from the right side, taking on Gura’s free hand, together with Noel the women playfully lifted her over the air.

“Yay, let’s go try those then!” The shark laughed as her body swayed in the air with the improvised swing, tightly holding back the women’s hands, “You’re acting like a mama and papa again!”

“Knock that off, Miss Noel gets weird ideas when you say stuff like that!” The elf laughed together with Gura, pointing at the bright red face of her partner, “See what I mean?”

“I… do not…!” Noel mumbled with flustered cheeks, suffocating a high-pitched squirm of shame.

“Hey… if they’re mom and dad… where do I fit?” Marine wondered with a concerned look, pointing at her face with her gloves.

“Uhm…” Gura meditated by pressing her index between her lips; then gasped when the answer flashed on her mind, “You’re the cool single auntie!” She pointed at the Captain.

“Was it necessary to add the ‘single’ part?!” Marine yelled.

Going down the stairs to the ground floor, the group sat over one of the public tables at the entrance of the mall. With Marine bringing a small card box filled with drinks and Flare bringing another with a freshly fried ration of the long and sweet snack, the group was chatting while enjoying their break, “What’s with that strange look on your face? You’ve been with that weird smile for a while, did you remember something funny?” Flare asked after a while of the eye-patched woman silently giggling with adoration, resting her face over her hands, the eyes of the Captain were fixed on Gura.

“Me… huhu… I don’t know what you’re talking about...” The woman sang back at her, there was perversion in her tune, “Gura my dear, you’re dripping again… huhuhu…” She suggested the girl with a sudden, nasty grin.

“Oh my God, don’t tell me…” Flare frowned and turned onto the shark.

“A! You’re right; this food is tricky, thank you!” Gura said holding the churro with both hands, flipping it horizontally and to the sides, looking for a way that the chocolate sauce wouldn’t fall on her plate and clothes, licking the sweet drops stretching in the air, “Whoever thought about making this sweet it’s a genius!” She said turning it upside down, opening her mouth to catch the flooding excess of chocolate.

“You’re so disgusting… the moment I lower my guard this is what you do?” Flare mourned with a clenched fist at the uncouth Capitan.

“What, I’m not allowed to use my imagination?” Marine whispered at her with mirth, “If you were to ask me, your friend right here is the most risqué of the two,” She signaled to the side where Noel was sitting without removing her eyes from Gura.

The elf turned reluctantly to the white-haired woman, and stood completely silent and with red cheeks at the look of Noel slurping on the churro. “You…” Flare spit with shame, calling on the attention of her friend who innocently sucked on the snack, the voice of the elf finally coming back to her throat, “Miss Noel… that’s not how it works, you’re supposed to bite it…”

“Oh really? Thank you! No wonder it was taking so long to melt in my mouth!” Noel chuckled and quickly munched on it, “Hmnh! Is so much better this way!” She celebrated with her mouth stuffed.

“You should’ve taken a picture before warning her,” Marine suggested when bringing her phone, never turning her head from the scene the shark was giving to her, ready to photograph the girl.

“Don’t… don’t put those kinds of ideas on my mind please…” Flare said looking down at the floor, with a red face when noticing her hands were instinctively moving towards the pocket of her phone until the Captain stressed on it. She pinched her hand and violently took on Marine’s phone, “I’m confiscating this until Gura has been done eating,” She lectured on the woman while panting in shame, “I swear, the more I travel with you the more it feels I’m walking down on the pervert hole…”

“It’s a nice cozy hole if I’m allowed to say,” Marine giggled with no trace of guilt.

“Urgh, is impossible talking with you!” The elf smacked Marine on the back of her head with the phone.

“Oh no!” Gura screamed out of nowhere, jumping on her seat with an anxious expression, listening to the small sirens in the distance, “Oh no, oh no, oh no!”

The group of women looked at the girl with bemusement, “Gura, is something wrong?” Noel wondered.

“Is the duck police, we need to get out here!” The girl replied with a scared tone, pointing towards the direction of the noise, “If we don’t, they’re going to school me!”

“Gura… you know you haven’t done anything for the police to yell at you right? You need to calm down!” Flare explained while gesturing with both hands.

“But they know it… they probably know I was nibbling a car’s wheel some hours ago!” The girl confessed in panic.

“Gura…” The group sighed in unison.

“Dear, they aren’t coming after you, calm down ok? They’re doing a car chase,” Noel explains while petting the shark-girl head, gently helping her to sit again.

“… A car chase? Like in the movies?” The girl wondered still a bit agitated, taking a chug of her soda to calm down, “… They aren’t looking for me?”

“Yes, I just saw it on my phone a while ago,” Noel nodded, “Apparently, is someone who is trying to avoid getting arrested.”

“Is it a bad guy?” Gura questioned, taking another sip of her drink.

“Well, probably, why else would they chase someone in a car around the city?” She shrugged then turned half of her body back to the increasing noise of the sirens, noticing the people bringing their phones and walking at the edge of the sidewalk, waiting for the moment the chase passes near the street of the mall, “Being that said, it has taken them really long to trap that person, I didn’t think they would reach this part of the city.”

“Uh… Marine?” Flare called on the woman, as she stood from her seat without explanation and walked into the middle of the street, “… What are you doing?”

“Superhero stuff,” She answered with a straight face.

A couple of kilometers close to the mall, everyone could distinguish the loud engine of the yellow Volkswagen running away from the group of police cars. Just that way, everyone’s eyes turned on Marine next, as some people pointed at her with their phones, others started to shout at her to get out of the way, the woman didn’t pay attention to one or the other, and pulled a gun with her right from her waist, aiming at the car.

“Hey, that won’t work! The engines of those things are on the back!” With honest worry, the elf shouted at her, but the Captain moved her aim according to the advice, and made one single shot towards a light post, making the bullet ricochet, penetrating on the back of the automobile and creating a small explosion of smoke and flames, the little yellow car losing steam as it reaches the mall center, “… Are you for real now? Why is this pervert of a woman have to always be so cool?” Flare questioned in the air with disdain, as the public clapped and cheered when looking at the car slowly stop at five meters of Marine, with a bigger explosion of smoke from the engine.

“Superhero-car-stopping-time! Oh yeah!” Gura celebrated when running with the woman, and together with Marine, they pulled a handmade police-like badge with the symbol of a rainbow, draw with crayons and a surplus amount of glitter which dripped over the asphalt. The shark ran and jumped over the top of the car’s cap and pointed the badge at the driver, “Alright you bilge rats! This is The Rainbow! Haaaaaands where I can see it!”

“Gura! When did you make those badges and why didn’t you make some for us too?!” Noel complained with a childish pout from the sidewalk.

“Miss Noel, your list of priorities never stops to surprise me,” The elf commented with sarcasm.

Slowly and coughing because of the black smoke, the driver’s door opened, and Enma, still disguised as Amelia walked out from the car, “I may be dammed, or maybe on heaven? I can’t retort such a cute girl trying to arrest me,” The woman said with a smirk and a calm tone while dusting off her clothes, then gesturing both hands in the air, “Do you want to handcuff me before, or after I buy you some ice cream?” She asked next.

“Ice cream?!” The little shark smiled wide at the offer.

“Hey, the only one who can flirt with Gura is me!” Marine dashed in front of Enma with a pissed-off expression. With just a slight of a second to react, Enma pulled her SIG from the holster and aimed at the woman, Marine changed stances just at the same speed, smacking Enma’s wrist with hers, both losing the chance to shoot the other as their arms lean forward and twist, racing to pin down the other with an arm lock and failing at the same time. They dance over the asphalt, one aiming at the head, the other reacting by stepping forward and lock their opponent’s main hand, the shot misfiring into the asphalt or the air, the public quickly running away in panic as they change roles and repeat their mortal dance, “Give it… A BREAK!” Marine howled in anger, by the moment Enma tried to aim at the Captain for the fourth time, this one turned her body and smacked her elbow directly on her neck, and as the disguised woman lost her tempo and her breathing, Marine delivered a kick into her stomach, making Enma fly on the air for a tiny second, plummeting into the ground next.

“Enma…! Are you ok?!” Achan asked with fear in the clothes of the office lady when she managed to open the door of her seat and run out the car, just to have Gura jump over her back and smash her body against the asphalt, “What the… what is a kid doing here?!” She groaned as her wig and glasses fell.

“Wait you two, just hold it for a second!” Noel screamed at the two, running with the elf towards the car.

“That’s the detective we’ve been looking for!” Flare added with hastiness.

“Wait… she isn’t…” The white-haired woman pushed on the breaks, noticing a different eye color on the detective who silently sits on the ground with a hand over her stomach, “Enma… what are you doing dressed as Amelia?”

“Miss… Noel?” The woman groans in pain, slowly incorporating and coughing saliva, “There’s… a long and proper explanation for this,” She mumbled, then pointed at the police cars which had finally reached the scene, “But first… do you think you can help me out with this?”

“Finally the day has come! I can’t believe it took seven months but my savior had finally come!” A blonde woman with a ponytail and wearing a full tracksuit said with despicable laughter, gently smacking the back of a woman of short-blue hair, dressed with an apron and stuffed with cleaning equipment, and a couple of big, yellow gloves, the two followed by a couple of dogs and a cat, “Honestly, I thought I would never be able to rent that apartment again if I didn’t manage to find someone to clean it, you’re my salvation!” She laughed again, as the two walked inside an apartment complex of twelve stories.

“Why is that all landlords are like this?”

“She’s quite the stereotype indeed.”

“Uhm, did you say something?” The woman in the tracksuit asked when they reached the elevator, pressing the button.

“Nothing really, just thinking out loud,” Amelia chuckled awkwardly, inspecting the looks of the reception, “You said I can keep whatever I want from that room right?”

“Oh? I like that greed!” The landlord nodded with a teethed smile, “But just as much as you can carry on your hands all right? Whatever you can’t take with you today I need you to throw it in the trash,” She explained with a movement of her index as the doors of the elevator opened and everyone got inside.

“Miss, do you remember anything about the woman who used to rent that apartment and how she was?” Amelia asked inside the large rectangle with a looped, summer-like song in the background.

“Uhm, I suppose you would be interested in hearing about that like everyone else,” The woman groaned and crossed her arms, showing bitterness at her question, “That woman… always paid with cash, always at time, I didn’t really have problems with her but…” She clicked her tongue, “She was quite the loner and difficult to approach, the last days before she killed herself, that was when she started to act weird,” The landlord narrated with obvious disdain, when the elevator panel marked the ninth floor and opened the doors, Amelia and her pets followed the woman on the hall, “All of a sudden she got into wicked stuff like rituals and black magic, the neighbors complained they always found her talking to her shadow and discussing with it and then… poof! She was gone!” She exclaimed with honest sarcasm.

“The gossips say the police couldn’t find her body,” Amelia nodded to her story, pinching her left arm, holding herself from the landlord’s mannerism.

“Yeah nobody knows what truly happened to it, but it has been seven months now, and that apartment doesn’t smell… at least not as much to say someone is dead inside it, so I’m sure she’s not on this building,” The landlord said then stopped with Amelia at the sixth door of the left side.

The detective observed minutely at the keypad on the lock of the door, similar at the rest in the doors to the sides, yet this one was sparkling with a shine of steel, “This knob is new?” She asked with curiosity.

“Ah, yes, these things are impossible to open from the outside once there’s someone in the room,” The landlord shook her head while bringing a small agenda, looking for the code of the door with the index rubbing through the pages, “The firefighters had to ax the knob to enter the place, they didn’t even pay for it! I had to go to the basement for a replacement and call a handyman to install it,” She narrated the events with an eye roll and sarcasm, introducing a serial number and finally opening the lock, “I still don’t get how that woman managed to lock the apartment this way after leaving… alright, this is as far as I tag along with you,” She frowned with hands on her hips, “Gossips and rumors are just that, but forgive me, at the end of the day there’s still a bit of doubt inside me, whatever is inside there, I don’t want to have anything to do with it… I’ll come to check on you in a couple of hours to see how you’re doing,” She turned on the subject, looking down at the trio of animals around Amelia’s feet, “And, please clean whatever they do, pets aren’t allowed inside this building.”

Amelia hesitated to reply, but the reflection on the door shook her head at her. The apartment was a six by six meters place, with bricked walls and wooden floor and ceiling, small kitchen space in the entrance at the right, a bedroom and bathroom at the right corner, a tiny living room in the front left, and a disastrous library with a desktop computer at the bottom left. “You guys know your thing, spread out,” She commanded her pets, the dogs quickly started to sniff on the floor, and slowly walk inside the apartment, the cat climbed to the kitchen and its naked steel beams up to the ceiling to investigate.

“Hey, did you notice…”

“Yeah, I can see it too…”

The detective muttered when looking at the left side of the apartment, with a face of disgust, she placed a mask on her mouth and walked to the right. Amelia entered the bathroom first, checking the small metallic boutique and finding a variety of antipsychotic and antidepressant medicines, she closed the lid and hanged out the mirror, bringing it with her. “I guess people are quite superstitious, this place looks exactly like in the pictures, nothing has been moved since the last time the police was here,” She voiced out loud, placing the mirror over the wheeled chair on the desktop and carrying it around, both Amelia and her reflection observing with worry to the large stains of dry, black blood spread around the bricked walls, books, and floor in one single line, almost at the height of the detective’s neck, “Carotid blood…” She whispered while holding on her throat.

“It’s quite the amount… the murderer must have pierced a knife through the woman’s neck… all the way.”

“It seems like it… well, shall we start?”

She snapped her neck with a single twist and pulled on her gloves, still dressing as Achan the girl started to clean the place while observing minutely the details of the blood.

“So… ?”

“So?”

“Sealed room mystery.”

“Oh right, well is just as what you can see, plus what the landlord just told us. The doors of these apartments can’t be opened from the outside once the tenant is in the room, so it sparks the question of how did this woman die, and if it was a murder, how did the killer get in and how did they escape.”

“I see, well, it’s time to see that detective mind of yours into work!”

“I’m on that!”

After cleaning the floor with a broom, Amelia took on a wet mop and sprayed disinfectant over the window to remove the line of blood, after three minutes of not being able to get rid of the black, dry stain, she changed the mop with a brush, successfully cleaning it.

“Hey, is it ok to destroy the evidence you should be analyzing?”

“The landlord is going to come back in a while; we have to make it look as if we’re cleaning.”

“You’re right.”

“I know I said this may have been a murder, but if it really was, the culprit really wanted this woman dead, there has to be some dedication to kill someone living on the ninth floor, get rid of the body, and leave no major evidence.”

“Aren’t emergency stairs around? You know, those you have to use when there’s a fire.”

“There’s just one, and is on the other side of the building, the culprit could’ve used it to access the floor’s corridor, but they couldn’t be able to access the room from the outside.

But your idea isn’t incorrect, just incomplete; they could’ve used the window for example.”

“… But if the emergency stairs are on the other side, how can you reach a window on the ninth floor?”

“Using the apartment below this one, on the eighth floor, the police records show no one living in it the month of the crime.”

Amelia took on a heavy lever on the window and pulled on it with all her strength. The crystal slowly swayed, the part below went inside the room and the upper part popped out.

“It’s difficult… but if all the windows are like this one, then the culprit could’ve used it to get inside this room, although going back to the eighth floor with this method sounds even harder, the culprit must have used the door after killing the woman… but…”

“The door is locked from the inside, and that can only happen when someone is and remains inside the room.”

Wiping the sweat off her forehead Amelia sighed, sitting over the wooden floor she spotted one of the books stained with blood, she picked on it and quickly read through, “This is… the thing the records and the landlord were talking about,” She holds on the book with both hands and looked at the many others, handing on the stands of the library and the small mountain on the floor, “They all seem to be about the same… shadows and the equilibrium of the spectrum.”

“I wonder where this woman found such reading selection… these are quite the delusional, dark stories.”

“Is that so?”

“Yeah, like this book you’re reading right now for example. Stories about people whose negative emotions fed their shadows until they obtained a life of their own, then the shadow try to push them inside the spectrum, making the crash.”

“The process of crashing…”

“It’s all but a myth, there are no records to confirm it, we don’t even know how the original crash ended the way it did, and I wouldn’t go as far as to advocate for it.”

“Well, it isn't really part of what we’re investigating… For now, let’s leave this book aside and clean it a little before giving it to my client.”

“What about the rest of the books?”

“They seem to talk about the same over and over, just one is enough, let’s throw the rest.”

With Bubba and Mikki bringing on the books, Amelia placed most of them in the trash bags she brought; it took four of them until the library was completely empty. She crawled below the desktop and checked the connection of the cables, then started it up, and an idea sparked in her mind.

“Why are you smiling?”

“I just remembered Achan.”

“Amelia?”

“No, not in that way, I just remembered what Achan did in the Town Hall, what if the murderer did the same?”

“Oh!”

“What if they used the same tactic, and mocked the security system by adding a new type of lock like a card reader? They could’ve walked in and out the room and the system would’ve sealed the room from the inside despite no one being in the apartment.”

“And how did they walk out the building without being noticed?”

“Elementary my dear, by using the same method I did hours before at the hotel.”

“… You mean by changing your clothes with someone else? But… Oh…”

“After killing the victim, the culprit must have dressed up like them, and walked out.”

“Wouldn’t the landlord or neighbors have noticed it wasn’t her? Is not like we can suggest the victim and the culprit had the exact same body constitution.”

“Nah, is much simpler than you think. Disguising as another person comes down as imitating the main characteristics like hair and eye color, tone and way of speech, and of course, clothes. Sure there are things you can’t copy, like height and any other specific body or facial characteristics, yet if you do it good enough, even the familiars of the victim would have taken at least five to ten minutes to realize the person they’re facing is not her. Finally, you have to remember she wasn’t a friendly person, so is most likely no one could have noticed someone else dressing like her.”

“Amelia, I’d like to congratulate you and say you solved the case, but…”

“Yes?”

“I think the keypad isn’t connected to anything, is just a simple security knob.”

The detective ran back to the door and checked the knob, the frame, and the hinges.

“So?”

“You’re right… is just a simple keypad… by not having processors or Internet connection you obtain a stronger security lock, you can’t mock a system if there’s no system, to begin with… Crap… I thought I had it…”

“Don’t give up yet, there has to be something you haven’t thought about.”

She glanced at the screen of the computer, still initializing, “Gee, I wonder from what year is that scrap,” She complained and gave another look to the place, in an hour and a half the girl had been in the apartment, most of its contents were already contained inside of trash bags.

“Arf! Woof!” Bubba called on the attention of the girl from the corner left, slowly coming to her with something on his muzzle.

“Yes, what did you find?” She kneeled to the pet, extending her hand, Amelia went completely mute, as the dog handed her a small and translucent, crystal prism pyramid with ancient inscriptions carved in it.

“Amelia… what is that thing?”

“Well… if my memory doesn’t fail me… it’s a miniature version of The Spectrum.”

“… Come again? Like, the actual Spectrum? The thing that gives life to the virtual world?”

“It is exactly like it, up to the smallest detail… but just a second, you’ve never seen The Spectrum? Do you never assist to the Grand Salon whenever Moona calls on us?”

“… I don’t really like such commuted crowds so…”

“Well, look carefully, this is how the Spectrum looks like, it is so identical… I wonder if…”

“Amelia…?”

“Let me try something, just in case.”

The detective closed her eyes, and her body gleamed with a faint Yellow. By the moment Amelia glanced again to the prism, she had but to drown a scream of surprise, her color was being sucked on by the prism, and in the core of the pyramid, the energy was turning into Black. Amelia stopped instantly with panicked breathing, calmly placing the object on the wooden floor she quickly stepped away from it.

“… That’s not what The Spectrum does… right?”

“… Not at all, The Spectrum creates colors, which are the source of life of this world, but this thing… this thing absorbed my energy and degraded my color all the way down the spectrum into Black… Just where in the world this woman found such a thing? The applications you could give to this in the wrong hands…”

“What are you going to do with it? Are you planning to give it to your client?”

“I guess I should… My client is probably a civilian… and civilians can’t use colors, there’s no risk in that aspect, it seems this prism absorbs color to work, and without it, it’ll be but a simple toy in the hands of the common citizen… I hope.”

“Phew… look at that, you sure are motivated to work aren’t you?” The landlord appeared from the corridor with a white mug of coffee, “Here I brought you something since is getting dark, but it seems that you’re almost done, did you pick what are you going to take from here?” She asked handing her the hot beverage.

“Yes,” Amelia nodded and took on the mug, sipping on the drink she let its warmth slowly bring composure inside her body and continued, “One of the books that woman had and… this little pyramid here,” She pointed at the object on the floor with her eyes, “And if there’s something of value in her computer, I’ll take it too.”

“I see, it seems you aren’t as greedy as I thought you’d be, your hands won’t walk out here as stuffed as I thought,” She said with a smile, looking with delight at the overwhelmed in trash bags, yet clean apartment.

“Miss, forgive me to point it out, even though I’m the one who accepted in the job,” Amelia spouted displeased, “But you don’t seem to have enough respect for the woman who used to live on here.”

“It’s hard to, it has been seven months,” The landlord shrugged, “But well, that goes back at you too, I mean, you wouldn’t be taking anything from this place if you had respect for her,” She shrugged again, “And once you take out all the trash I will have the father from the nearest church to bless this place, just so the neighbors will stop annoying me, and maybe, just maybe I’ll be able to rent this place again.”

“Sorry, it wasn’t my intention to say it like that, but you’re right, I guess I’m in the same boat,” Amelia mourned and took in another sip.

But the landlord just sketched a kind smile and gently patted her head, “Don’t eat your head over it, having respect for the dead is one thing, but a dead person is a dead person, they don’t get a saying to what we’re doing here… now, I’ll be back to my place, take everything when you’re done, you can even carry them in the elevator if you want, ok? The trash truck passes by around these hours,” She instructed her before disappearing again.

“That woman is quite something…”

“Yeah, but she didn’t really say anything out of the ordinary, in fact, she gave me an idea.”

“How so?”

Once the coffee had cooled a little, the girl took on larger sips; she walked to the window and looked down on the sidewalk and the pavement of the street.

“We’ve been thinking this up to a certain point, yet we’ve been missing a couple of details.”

“And they are?”

“Respect for a dead body.”

“Come again?”

“All my theories so far about this murder happened to work under the premise the culprit took the body with them and disposed of them somewhere else, but, who says the murderer had feelings, sympathy, or guilt whatsoever for the crime they did?”

“Uhm…”

“What if, just what if, the culprit had no feelings, nor respect for the dead body of the victim?”

“I think I know and don’t what you’re going to say now but, go ahead.”

“What I’m trying to say is… what if once the culprit killed the woman, they put the body inside a couple of trash bags, jumped out the window with them, and used the dead body as an airbag to mitigate the slam against the ground floor?”

“That’s…

That would actually explain…

But that invokes another problem.”

“And that is?”

“The window space is not enough to jump, and is difficult in itself to just climb out of it, the culprit couldn’t have used that method if they also had to carry a dead body with them to use as a pillow.”

“Crap… you’re quite good at debunking my theories.”

“I’m just trying to help you!”

“I know you do, but now I feel quite lost…”

“Is like I always tell you, your ideas never come as you plan, so think an alternative, hey the computer finally started!”

Having the chair occupied by the mirror she was using to conversate with her reflection, Amelia slightly crouched in front of the computer and together with her pets, she started to inspect the contents in the hard disk. “… Oh for my colors…” But the list of archives just gave a chill to the detective and made her mascots run away and hide behind the furniture. Amelia, with a hand on her mouth, and wearing an expression of revulsion and surprise, clicked on a series of videos, from clue to clue, the records showed the past woman living in the apartment, laughing, talking, screaming to self, nonsensical conversations, constantly pulling on her hair, crying, smashing her head against the keyboard as if she was suffering a nervous tic, all the videos were the same, and she could only talk about how her shadow was planning to kill her, in other videos, the woman talked as if she were the shadow itself, talking about methods of how to kill her. “… I’ve had enough…” The detective whispered while massaging the temples of her head, she closed the videos and turned off the machine, “But…” She started to walk in circles, breathing loudly, then stopped in front of one of the trash bags and started to unpack the books stained with blood, “… I finally know what happened to this woman.”

“Are you ok dear? You don’t really need to explain it to me now, why don’t you finish cleaning and we have this conversation later?”

“No, it’s fine, I can do this.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yeah, and I need someone to explain this thought while the proper words are on my mind.”

“Very well… I’m all ears.”

“Have you ever heard of the dissociative identity disorder?”

“… Yes, the theory that a person may be able to have split personalities, a dominant one and a submissive. The submissive side is always in control of the body, but when exposed to situations of anxiety or stress, the dominant personality takes in… but is more of a clinical myth than anything, there’s no evidence something like this could happen.”

“But what if this woman believed to suffer from DID?

“So she auto-suggested herself into the thought she had another personality?”

“Probably by consuming the stories of these nasty books, she also suffered from clinical depression, so a person like her was actually quite susceptible to fall for these things.

She convinced herself that just like in these books, the negative thoughts on her mind gave life to her shadow, it seems she picked the parts of the book she liked the most, as she wasn't a user of color, and the stories always marked that as needed quality for your shadow to start corrupting... Yet for her, that shadow was planning to kill her so she could crash. But a part of her was still conscious, enough to know all of this wasn’t real, yet… that part of her was the main protagonist of this… suicide…”

“Suicide?”

Amelia silently nodded as she placed back the mountain of books in place. Following the order of the bloodstains, she had built a ramp with the books, aiming in direction of the window.

“Under the thought that her shadow wanted to kill her… that evening, she stepped in this part of the apartment, possibly over a bag and weight slightly tied to a part of the window and the beams of the ceiling, then… she took on a knife, and, probably while in an overdose of her antidepressants, she cut her neck with all her strength, from left to right, leaving that grievous stain of blood.

Later when her dead body fell in the ground, the weight did the rest, she probably was holding or stepping on it, when she could no longer hold it, the weight closed the body inside of the bag… and pulled the body out of the apartment from the window.”

“But people would have noticed that! Everyone would’ve noticed a trash bag on the street!”

“Not this one.”

“Why not?!”

The detective gestured in the air, to the noise of a claxon; then dragged the chair where the mirror was placed to the side of the window, leaning her reflection so it could look down at the truck on the ground floor.

“That day was Tuesday too… she probably settled it so her body would fall directly inside the truck of turn…”

“…”

“At the end, it was like Achan implied, just a sad story which happened here on this city.”

Chapter Text

“Say… was it smart to eat all of that for dinner?”

“Probably no… I can’t help but remember the case now and… ugh, my mind is a masochist.”

“Amelia…”

With the end of the day darkening the sky, the detective walked out a small dinner with a hand over her stomach, containing her desire to burp. “Fine, I get it you guys, stop whining, you’re acting as if I don’t feed you at all,” She complained to the trio of pets diligently following her, with their eyes fixed on the bag of leftovers she held on her left.

Walking out of the crowded streets and turning in an alley between two buildings, she took the plastic package out of the bag and opened the lid, placing it on the floor for her pets to jump over it, “You sure were hungry huh? The case is over now you guys, but I still have things to do, would you mind going back to Tea Town on your own? Ah, and if you find Enma in the way, tell her I’ll be back later,” She explained to the pets with a forced smile and troubled tone, holding her mouth as if her supper were to come out just from talking, her pets gave a couple of barks and meow respectively as an answer. Amelia renewed her way into the streets, wearing an orange wool sweater and denim pants with sports shoes, the reflection on the windows of the buildings judged the choice of clothes with a silent look of contempt.

“You know, when all of this is over, I want you to have a proper shower with tomatoes and ammonia.”

“Do I look like a Caesar Salad to you?” 

“I can’t believe you’re using the clothes you found in the closet of a dead woman…”

“What was I supposed to do? One more hour using Achan’s pants and the blood in my head would’ve clogged.”

“… At least mind your fashion sense a little…”

“You can take feminine points out of my card today then; these were the only clothes of my size.”

“Fine, I guess I’m overreacting…”

Crossing two blocks Amelia stepped inside of a neighborhood of apartment buildings, all of them made of red bricks and steel.

“Hey, I’m sorry if I’m pestering you too much but…”

“Not at all, what happens?”

“Are you going to give those things to your client…? That book and… The pyramid.”

“Oh man, are you going to ask me something like that when I’m already this close to the point of encounter? You’re only going to fill me with doubts.”

“You should have at least some doubts Amelia, giving that book is something… but do you want to give that pyramid to a civilian?”

“It’ll be ok; they don’t have to know what it does.”

“But what if they already know, and they were waiting for you to find it, and retrieve it to them?”

“They’re still a citizen, if they can’t flow color into it, is completely useless for them.”

“Ok, then, I’m definitely overreacting, I know I am, but I’m going to say it anyway… what if it really is a citizen, but they’re working with someone who can use a color?”

The detective frowned at her reflection, with the book under her armpit they stopped in front of a pedestrian walk in red, pressing on the button of the post, “You’re implying that there’s a Mayor in the virtual world who is attempting to do something nasty,” She voiced at the other Amelia in the crystals, with just a tiny amount of people in the streets, she didn’t bother to pretend to be on a call.

“I just want you to think of all the possibilities, is rude of me of implying something like that, but that pyramid has me filled with nothing but anxiety.”

“… You’re quite cute when you worry this much, and when you start acting this way is when I finally realize I’m not taking your advice seriously… please calm down a bit first.”

“Ah… geez… was I acting like a worrywart that much?”

“Quite.”

“Fine, my bad, I’ll calm down…”

“For starters, I think we’re both overreacting, like yes, this thing absorbs color and degrades it into Black, but what is the worst that can happen? I doubt this thing works exactly like The Spectrum. Maybe is just a strange toy of the past, and degrading colors is the only thing is worth of.”

“Uhm, that doesn’t sound so weird… maybe is just a toy used to show how a color can tone down into the spectrum until becoming Black, gosh, just thinking about it that way lifts a weight off my shoulders…”

“Right? This case had us both at the edge of our nerves, but all is left is to deliver these things and go back home, oh, avenue 37, this is the… place…”

Stopping in front of an abandoned, four-story building; the detective meditated her next movement at the sight of the doors and windows sealed with wood planks.

“… Don’t worry; I’m not going to point it out.”

“Thank you, but well, it seems you weren’t overreacting in vain, if my client wants to meet me inside of such a place then there’s something going on, gladly, I came here an hour before scheduled.”

This time Amelia brought on her phone, pretending to be waiting for someone on the street and sneaking behind the abandoned building when no one was on the sidewalk to notice. “Ok, time for detective burglar mode I guess,” Finding a backdoor only blocked by a rusty old chain and lock, Amelia took the flashlight of her phone over the dark alley until finding a steel pipe. She introduced the pipe through the hole of the lock and pressed against the door, patiently, the girl put her left leg over the steel pipe, feeling the pressure of the chains pulling back her weight, breathing in through the nose, and exhaling from her mouth when kicking the pipe down and splitting the lock in half.

The apartment building walls on the ground floor were destroyed, only the main beams remained, everything else was covered with a thick layer of gray dust and dirt, “I can’t even start to imagine how hard must be Subaru’s current job as a Mayor for her to forget this thing here cries for a remodel…” Her voice echoed in the emptiness and made spider webs quiver, she paced her breathing with furrowed brows at the look of the dense dust particles easily floating in the air, “Yup, tomorrow my allergies will eat me for this,” She shook her head and walked inside the place.

“What are you planning to do? Are you searching for traps or something like that?”

“Not looking for them, making them, have you never seen ‘Home Alone'?”

“Pfff…”

“First I need to look for, oh, there are some, lucky,” She sang when finding a set of plastic chairs piled up in a corner, with a grimacing face, the detective put both hands in the dusty frame of the first chair and detached it from the rest, breathing slowly to don’t create another cloud of dirt, “I shouldn’t have thrown those gloves…” She mourned when picking on the second, “Now, the place with most light is… of course, right at the other side,” She voiced with sarcasm, even her steps created a slight mist, she placed the chairs facing one against the other, under the artificial lights from the adjacent building going through the windows.

Slowly and meticulously, she rubbed her hands to wipe the dust off, trying as much as possible to don’t let it float in the air. “Now, the most important thing I need right now is…” Scanning the border wall with the flashlight, Amelia’s eyes spotted a couple of curtains protecting on a large mirror with a frame of gold which seemed to be partially scrapped by someone who wanted to smuggle it away, “Uhm, this one is perfect,” She nodded with a smile, placing the phone between her lips, she dug her hands around the belt strap of the denim pants until pulling a small knife inside of a holster. Without a single doubt, she stabbed her right thumb with a vertical line, saved the knife back inside the pants, and with the left-hand holding in the curtains she started to write a strange language with her blood over the crystal.

“Huh, so you’re planning to call me over?”

“Well, yes? Just if things get too scary… does it bother you?”

“Not at all, on the contrary, I’m glad you’re thinking of all possibilities, I bet the kid of ‘Home Alone’ would’ve loved to do something like this too.”

“So you’ve seen the movie!”

They laughed in the solitude of the building. Licking the thumb inside her mouth, she held in her stomach when spotting the door of an old bathroom, as if checking her gastric acids from the outside of her belly; then returned to the chairs. Sitting on the chair facing the door from the back of the building, she placed the book on the chair against, reuniting her hands and slowly inhaling, the detective closed her eyes with a troubled smile.

“Amelia dear, are you ok?”

“I’m just here thinking in a way to apologize to you… for making you see all the things you had to see today… that woman…”

“… You know, Amelia? There’s a song known from your people which I quote say ‘the reason you smile when sad is because your heart has grown bigger than yourself’ and I think it quite fits right now.”

“… Whatever that has to do with my apology?”

“Hehe, for some reason I knew you wouldn’t get it. But if it really is necessary to explain, I just find it endearing that, after having to deal with such a case this day, instead of worrying for your own sanity, you’re worried about mine, and it is exactly because of things like these that I’m always checking on you, you’re so irresponsible with your own well-being…”

“Ouch, here comes the mom preaching.”

“No, not today… if anything, why don’t you come to my place tonight when this is over? I…

I want to make sure you don’t have nightmares tonight…”

“You’re worrying too much…”

“…”

“Fine, fine, don’t be like that; I’ll go to your zone as soon as possible.”

“Thank you.”

Distracted by the conversation, Amelia sighed loudly; then hurried to cover her mouth with the neck of her sweater when feeling the cloud of dust she lifted with the blow of air.

“And, I have some pills for your allergies too.”

“That’s relieving to hear haha…”

“Heh…”

“Say…”

“Yes, dear?”

“I’m getting a little anxious… would you calm me down?”

“Eh…? Well, I can try… let’s see… What happens when a strawberry gets run over crossing the street?”

“Come again?”

“Traffic Jam.”

“…”

“What do you call a pony with a sore throat? A little hoarse.”

“…”

“What does garlic do when it gets hot? It takes its cloves off.”

“Pfff…”

“Wanna hear now a joke about paper? Never mind… it’s tearable.”

“Oh for my colors…”

“What’s the best way to watch a fly fishing tournament? By live stream.”

“Enough… enough! Holy mother… if you make me laugh so hard I’ll end swallowing a cloud of dust…”

“Well, it worked, didn’t it?”

“Yes, thank you.”

At the sound of the rusty hinges in the door chirping when being opened, Amelia’s laughter stopped with a serious face, as a hooded figure with a large cape appeared from the other side, “Oh, you’re finally here, I was getting sleepy…” She tried to spout with a casual tone, yet the seriousness of her face just tightened when another three figures, all wearing capes followed from behind the first, “… Greetings? If you had told me we were going into the forest to visit granny I would’ve prepared my hood too,” The detective stressed in a sarcastic tone, slowly standing from her chair.

“Stop right where you are,” The first figure said and quickly pulled on an oddly-looking knife, aiming at the girl, “You’re alone, aren't you?” They asked next, sharing a gesture of head with the group, the other three walked to the girl, one of them taking on the book, the other two checking the clothes of the detective.

“Yes, you’re my client, aren’t you? Is this necessary? I just came here to deliver what you wanted, there wasn’t a need for bringing an army,” Amelia answered to the figure with an inkling of annoyance from having her body palmed, “Also… do you want to hear about what happened to your friend?”

“My friend…?” The figure wondered with a tilt of the head, then giggled with malice and sarcasm, “Oh right, that’s what I told you, didn’t I? Don’t worry about that, I already know it was suicide,” They said with a swing of their free hand, waving it on the air, “More importantly, I see you brought one of the books, let’s check it out…”

“Hey glasses, she just has a hand clock and a phone,” One of the figures said gesturing both objects with their hands and displeased tone.

“I see… where did you hide the pyramid?” Glasses wondered while sitting on the free chair, quickly checking the pages of the book, Amelia stood silent, “What? You’re surprised I know about it? Well, we have plenty of time, we’ll take the answer out of you,” She implied as the other three figures forced Amelia to sit back on the chair by the shoulders, gesturing back her clock and phone.

“Amelia… I know I saw you hiding the knife between your buttocks, that was smart… and we’ll talk later about that, but where did you put the pyramid?”

“…”

“You’re being too cautious just for a couple of trash... ugh…” Amelia mumbled when holding onto her mouth, “Can’t we finish this fast? I’m not feeling well of the stomach, the pyramid is here so don’t worry about that either.” The girl explained then placed her other hand over the stomach, gradually growing pale, “You know what…? I may need to use the bathroom after all…”

“Ew, if you throw up in front of us… let her go, I don’t want my cape dirtied in someone else’s food,” Glasses gestured with disgust. As soon as the grip in her shoulders softened, Amelia, with a green face, held in her mouth with both hands and strange burping noises, running like a horse to the dirty bathroom, followed by throwing up noises seconds later, “… Anyway, it seems this book works for us…” Glasses expressed with a troubled tone, trying to ignore the barfing sounds as much as possible, “It has a lot of unnecessary crap, but the most important things are here.”

“Yes, yes, good for the Masters they obtained the book they were looking for,” Fangs interrupted her monologue with a hiss, “But what about us, where did that puke-tive put the pyramid?”

“Don’t worry, we’ll take the answer out of her with a couple of punches in just a moment,” One-side replied, “It won’t take long, especially if she’s feeling so sick, hey, did she finish?” She asked next turning on one of the figures checking on the girl shoving her face inside the toilet.

“How… How I’m supposed to know?” Blindfold wondered trying not to look on the detective.

After flushing down the toilet, blindfold helped Amelia to sit back on the chair; just this time fangs and one-side tied her hands from behind with a rope. With the group of hooded women reading the inscriptions in the book together, Amelia took the chance to slowly take on her knife and cut on the ropes on her wrist, “Alright, you got what you wanted, can I go now? There’s tea and a couple of anti-allergic pills waiting for me,” She explained while spitting on the floor the leftovers of puke inside her mouth.

“Well, you going to wherever you’re going to depends on your willingness of giving me the pyramid… you took the time to hide it for a reason right? But we’re four against one here… And we’re not the common folks you can beat with a fancy karate fight, so think it better before lying to us, detective… where did you put the pyramid?” The group looked at her with a silent, threatening aura.

Yet Amelia shrugged, hurrying to cut down the rope, “Who knows?” She rolled her eyes with sarcasm, “It may as well be on the serving waters by now,” She laughed.

“Uhm… what does that mean?” Glasses wondered, closing the book and leaning on the chair.

“… You…!” But fangs reacted seconds later with rage inside her voice, furiously stepping in front of the girl and taking on the neck of her sweater, “You… imbecile! You ate the pyramid, and puked it on the toilet?!”

“Bleagh!” Amelia laughed at her with malice, sticking out her tongue still with small traces of green mixed with her saliva.

“Blindfold are you for real now? You were the one watching on her, how didn’t you notice?!” One-side smacked the head of the girl, “Hurry up and search for the pyramid, now! That toilet is old; it must still be inside the pipe!”

“Ouchie… eh? I, are you saying I have to shove my arm inside of that pipe? W-with that woman’s puke?” Blindfold grimaced and easily tears up, “No please…”

“Hurry up and do it, you eyeless moron!” Fangs screamed at her.

“Eeek!” The girl squirmed and ran scared into the bathroom, opening her cape and pulling the sleeve of her arm, slowly shoving it inside the toilet as her entire body trembled with overwhelming disgust, “Ew, ew, ew, ew, ew, ew!”

“Fangs, move,” Glasses ordered.

“No, I’m going to smooth this girl’s face into jelly with my fists!” The other menaced, preparing her arm.

“But that won’t give us the pyramid back, right? You need to calm down,” Glasses insisted, somehow successfully getting through the infuriated one, who released Amelia’s neck and stepped back, “That’s better; we’ll all have a turn with her once blindfold gets the pyramid.”

“I… I t-think I can feel it!” The girl in the bathroom yelled while vexed in the excitement and disgust, “Gosh this is so… this feeling is so disgusting… Uhm… oh, oh! I got it, I got it, guys!” She said pulling her arm out with one loud and disgusting swoop, with her arm covered with a smelly substance and traces of food, she happily brought the pyramid to the group, “Glasses hurry up, hurry up!”

“At least clean it for the spectrum’s sake!” The girl groaned and took on blindfold’s cape, using it as a mop over the arm of the girl and the pyramid, still showing reluctance, she took on the prism with the tips of her fingers, “Oho? Would you look at this? It’s pitch black, this idiot thought was being smart but it seems it absorbed her color while inside her stomach, hah, you ended making things easier for us,” Glasses narrated with despicable laughter, then after whispering a couple of words in a strange language, the pyramid gleamed on the Black aura and increased in size for at least thirty centimeters, “Now… would you make us the honor?” She handed the pyramid to one-side.

“Gladly!” The girl shouted excitedly, and immediately smashed the pyramid against the floor, shattering it into dark pieces of glass, “Ah… that felt so good…”

“… Are you serious?” Amelia frowned with honest confusion, stopping for a moment on the rope escape, “You… just broke it? Just like that?”

“A toy like that has but little uses for grown-up women like us you know?” Glasses shrugged, and one by one, the detective observed how the group pulled a piece of wood from their capes and kneeled around the shattered pieces. With concerning and nasty giggles coming from her mouths, Amelia bit on her lower lip and hurried to cut on the rope faster than before, as she observed how each girl was helping the other to create an improvised knife by placing the largest shattered pieces inside the wooden handles and tying them with rope, “For example, did you know you could use the fragments of these things to make a blade that corrupts everything it stabs?” The hooded girl implied dastardly.

“Finally, we won’t have to fight again about who has to use the knife next,” One-side nodded with satisfaction, looking at her new blade.

“What do we do with the rest of the fragments?” Blindfold asked happily.

“Just put it on a bag of yours, I bet we can merge them inside of Master’s scythe,” Fangs suggested with an index over the air, the girl of bandages immediately looking for a dirty sack to stuff it with the rest of the crystals.

“Well, that was scary for a moment, I almost thought you ruined our plans… shall we pick up from where we were? What was that again?” Glasses blurted faking innocence, pressing the tip of the blade against her finger, “Oh right… I think we don’t need to explain it to you, right?” She giggled with the other three figures approaching the detective.

“Yeah well, sorry to break it to you but…” Amelia spouted with nervous respiration, adrenaline flowing through her veins, she broke on the remains of the rope with brute force, and surprising the group, she jumped and rolled on the floor to the right, hurrying to pull down the curtains of the mirror, the detective made a quick cut on the palm she had previously stabbed her thumb before, then smacked the bleeding wound against the crystal, “You’re messing with the wrong person!” And then, as she closed her eyes and took on a mouth of air, the reflection on her mirror, the silhouette showing the nape of the girl and the back of her head, slowly turned into the group with a wrathful expression and reptile eyes, all lights turning into red, the ground slowly trembling, the reflection extending her hand in the mirror, hair turning into tentacles, Amelia shouted a phrase in Latin.

“Gloria antiquis usque ad unum…”

When the group hurried to intercept the blonde girl, the eyes on the reflection shone, and violently sprouting from below the ground of the building, tentacles took on the necks of the four girls, strangling each one against the steel beams.

“Amelia, are you ok?” The reflection in the mirror asked without removing her eyes from the girls.

“Yes… you showed up just in time, is just as you thought… this client of mine was up to no good,” She shook her head and took on the knife, ripping the left sleeve of her pants she quickly tied her bleeding hand with the cloth, then glanced at the group of girls which legs trembled in the air, “Hey, calm down a little there, don’t do something you’ll regret later.”

“It’s alright, I’m calm, I swear,” The reflection answered with a contrary, hasty tone, “I’ll just strangle them until they pass out…”

“Pff… Pass out you say?” Fangs laughed it off and all of a sudden, the group of girls stopped fighting against the tentacles, all of them laughing at the detective and her reflection, taking on their knives, “Sorry to break it you now… whatever the hell you are, but we’re dead already, we don’t breathe, to begin with!” She exclaimed and swung the knife in the air, together with the other three, they stabbed the knives into the tentacles, piercing through until they started to corrupt, releasing the girls back on the floor.

“Hey…!” Amelia screamed with worry, turning to the mirror and back to the group slowly incorporating in the ground, the lights returning to normal, her reflection vanishing in a cloud of dark energy when the tentacles sank back into the ground, “Are you ok?! Hey, talk to me!”

“I’m… I’m fine! T-those blades… they really were corrupting my tentacles, but, I cut them down before it could reach me…

Amelia… I’m sorry… you’re alone on this.”

“Very well, I suppose you don’t have any other weird trick to show us, right?” Glasses implied while playing with the blade on her hand, “And excuse me if I can’t hide my happiness, I’ve never had the chance to stab a Mayor… I’m itching to start!” She roared like a beast, preparing to attack.

“Is this day never going to end?!” Amelia screamed in frustration, she ran with all her might towards the door, but blindfold quickly caught with the detective and swinging the knife with a fast swoop, she sliced her back with a diagonal cut, Amelia dropping on the floor, four meters away from the door, “Urgh… you’ll pay for this…” the wound on her back slowly started to corrupt.

“AMELIA!”

“Yay, that felt amazing!” Blindfold bounced on the floor with a giddy smile, “Can I do it again, can I do it again?” She asked with a childish tone.

“Hah, I definitely like this sadistic side of you more than when you’re licking Master’s boots,” Fangs chuckled while petting the head of the girl, “But wait for your turn ok? There’s enough time for everyone to have fun.”

“AMELIA GET BACK ON YOUR FEET!”

“Fangs is right, after all even I want to have the chance to check on this new knife…!” One-side interrupted on the giggles of the girl of bandages, quickly running between the two hooded girls she kicked Amelia in the abdomen, forcing her to lie on her back against the floor, “Blindfold doesn’t really get it, it feels even better if she looks at you while you do it!” She exclaimed next, stabbing the knife in the right thigh of Amelia.

“AHHHHHHGH!” The detective screamed with a heartrending voice from the wounds, as one-side plucked the blade with a spurt of blood coming from her arteries like fountains, and the borders of the wound starting to corrupt, Amelia’s body started to shake, breathing loudly and forcefully.

“AMELIA, FIGHT, YOU CAN DO IT, YOU NEED TO GET OUT OF THAT PLACE!”

“Oh? That was a nice scream, oh well, mind if I copy you? Kehehe,” Fangs asked with hissing laughter, without waiting for an answer she plunged the blade in the left tight, twisting the weapon into the artery, laughing even harder at the look of Amelia’s face, her deafening screams, and the tears on her eyes.

“AMELIA, I BEG YOU; YOU NEED TO STAND UP…. YOU NEED TO GET OUT THERE!

I… I KNOW, YOUR CLOCK, YOU JUST HAVE TO TURN BACK TIME, AMELIA, HURRY UP!”

“Where… did I put it again?”

“ON YOUR LEFT POCKET, IS INSIDE YOUR PANTS!”

“Say, what happens when you corrupt a Mayor again?” One-side calmly asked to glasses as the girl reunited with the group surrounding the bleeding detective on the floor.

“Just like it happened to Master, the entire zone of this Mayor will corrupt from inside the Gear and bring it down, I bet that place right now is falling into pieces,” Glasses explained with malice, and at the look of Amelia’s left hand slowly moving inside her pocket, she thrown her knife and stabbed her hand, piercing her skin, kicking the back of the weapon's hilt, pressing the edge through her hand “Were you trying to do something right now? Well not that it matters… normally, we would just cut your neck and you’ll crash in a blink, but that… that won’t be funny at all for us, right?” She laughed devilry.

“AMELIA… AMELIA!”

“Say… can you hear us? You can still hear us right?” Blindfold asked playfully, kneeling near the head of Amelia, poking her cheek with the tip of the knife, the light in the detective’s eyes started to fade, “Say, you can hear me right? In what Thanatos are you in right now? Can you tell? In what Thanatos are you in? Can you see the garden of flowers already? Would you pick one of them for me? I still remember their scent; they smell incredible; can you take one of them for me?” She giggled uncontrollably, slightly cutting the cheek of the detective.

“Oh I love you so much right now,” Fangs says delighted of the girl of bandages, “I wish you were always like this, but she's on Keres right now, not Thanatos," She patted her head again. But the group paused for a moment from their torment, as they saw Amelia use all her will to shove her right hand into the pocket, bleeding from her wounds and her mouth, corrupting, she pulled on the clock, opening it with her thumb, trembling, blabbering nonsense, “What are you trying to do with that watch? Hey guys, this idiot is starting to talk alone, maybe we overdid it.”

“AMELIA, HURRY UP, AMELIA!”

“… How did this work again…?”

“THE SMALL HAND, TURN IT ALL THE WAY DOWN WITH YOUR THUMB!”

“… Like this?”

“YES, YES DEAR THAT’S THE WAY, HURRY UP AND PRESS ON THE BUTTON TO THE SIDE.”

“…”

“AMELIA, AMELIA PLEASE YOU CAN DO IT.”

“… I feel cold…”

“NO, AMELIA, DON’T THINK ABOUT THAT, FOCUS, FOCUS ON MY VOICE, YOU CAN DO IT, PRESS ON THE BUTTON.”

“… I’m sorry…”

“AMELIA!”

“… I… I love you…”

“AMELIA! NO, DON’T YOU DARE TO DIE ON ME AFTER SAYING SOMETHING LIKE THAT! AMELIA WATSON GET BACK ON YOUR FEET, PRESS THE BUTTON!”

“…”

“AMELIA! AMELIA!”

“…”

“… AMELIA!”

“…”

“… Amelia… please… don’t do this to me…”

“…”

“Amelia…”

Chapter Text

On the bright morning of a Friday, the rays of the sun fell over an almighty castle-like city. Harmonizing its medieval setup with futuristic corporate buildings, malls, and stores, old and new, nature and technology, working together to resemble a gigantic attraction for kids where hundreds of thousands of people with bunny ears in their heads happily lived in.

The visitants were gladly welcomed just by stepping out of the portal stations, depending on the point of view; they met with the lucky or unlucky situation of being pampered by the attendees of the multiple establishments of the zone.

“Good morning peko, isn’t it a great day to hit the arcades peko? Young miss may come out as a peko millionaire today! Here you have a set of tokens that you can use in our most popular casino peko!”

With unabashed energy, the bunny people followed the visitors around.

“My, are you new to White Peko Land? Then you’re on your lucky day peko! This week we have a set of gifts for our first visitors peko, which include our newest carrot energy bar, soaps, towels, and a map of our most popular peko tourist spots, restaurants, and shops!”

They would stuff their hands with free merchandise and gifts at each step they took wearing a huge and practiced smile.

“Hey, you the boy out there with that wimpy face peko! You look quite out of energy, am I peko wrong? Why not try our newest type of vegetable juice? It’ll recharge your energies, the first one comes on the house peko! And here is a 2x1 coupon that you can use at any of our shops selling this new drink peko!”

With a silver tongue, they would engage in problematic and slay ways to obtain the attention of people, one way or the other they wouldn’t give up without managing to sell a place or a product.

“Say, are there any public bathrooms out there?” A hooded figure asked one of the enthusiastic employees with a feminine tone, holding a balloon of carrot and bunny figures on the left, and an orange ice cream cone with bunny ears on her right.

“Of course, our zone has prepared for any eventuality peko!” The young woman with bunny ears replied, she was giving out pamphlets and spraying soap bubbles with a bubble gun to the kids passing by, jumping and extending their hands trying to catch them, “In this plaza we have a five stars rated public bathroom, it is right at the bottom, don’t forget to rate it in our Yelpeko after using it!” She finished with a smile, shooting bubbles on the face of the hooded one.

“Hehe, you’re so nice, thank you!” The girl giggled at the touch of the bubbles bursting over her face, then placed the threads of the balloons under her armpit to search for something inside of her cape, “I know, I have something just for you!”

“Oh really peko? Usually, we aren’t allowed to accept those kinds of peko things from visitors, but if you’re so willing how could I reject…” The woman bounced to the hooded girl, eagerly extending her arm with anticipation, but in a matter of seconds, she stopped mute with wide eyes, along with the rest of the people walking in the plaza. With a deafening and heartrending scream, a woman pointed at the employee and the hooded one with a face of horror, as the young bunny woman had been stabbed on the left side of her abdomen with a large and odd-looking knife, “… peko?” She stuttered, drooling blood, she tried to hold onto the knife, but the figure just pushed it deeper inside her guts, her legs giving up to the acute burst of pain invading her body, and the blade gushing out of her body with a horrifying sound as she plummeted into the ground, “… But… Why…?” She blabbered as her body started to corrupt.

“Not sure… I just felt like it!” The girl replied with a strange innocent smile, giving sight to the bandages over her eyes, the crowd of people around finally reacting to the sudden gruesome scene, forming a stampede out of the plaza, multiple screams, and alarms of sirens, the hooded one licked on the blood in the edge of the blade and next took a lick of the ice cream, thoroughly savoring it together inside her mouth, “Uhm… not bad… not good either…” She meditated with a serious face.

“Hey, who told you to start without me!” Fangs screamed from afar to the girl, together with Calliope, they approached the girl in between the commotion, “And you did it in front of everyone? Is this your growing confidence, or just being an eyeless moron?” She asked with a judgmental tone, wearing custom bunny ears over her hood, gift bags over each arm.

“Oh c’mon don’t you think is a little unfair all those people are so happy every day while we’re dead?” Blindfold asked back with a sarcastic tone, taking a bite of the ice cream cone next.

“Maybe her confidence did grow…”  Calliope and fangs thought together.

“What is done is done, and today is not an undercover mission, our goal is but one, no need to be hiding around the bushes like cowards,” The tall lady explained calmly and caressed the head of the girl of bandages through the hood, the three of them looking at the wounded woman fully turning into a crash, stand from the floor and start on a chase to the runaway visitors and citizens, “We are bringing this place down, nothing else matters.”

“There’s no time to rest with Master here at all…” Fangs sighed with a disappointed tone.

“You shouldn’t play with my good humor, word of warning,” Calliope said nonchalantly, with her feet quickly spreading a large pool of tar around the ground, she gazed up towards an elevation dividing the city into multiple levels, a modern castle at the top of the zone, “Huh, the Mayor of this zone must love to look at people from below her feet, citizens included,” She commented with dejection, “What was that girl thinking when she sent us here? I thought she was going to pick another zone for me to corrupt, and now she changed plans this sudden…”

“Master…? Are you worried about failing again?” Blindfold asked with a tilt of the head.

Calliope silently looked at her for a brief minute; then smiled fiercely, “I have no intentions to let you see such a lame side of me again… This time, I will win,” She declared.

“Ok, ok, we better get going before starting on that weird S&M thing going on between you two,” Fangs interrupted with tiredness, pushing blindfold away from the shoulders with both hands, as the police forces started to appear in the streets of the plaza, both hooded figures dropped on their accessories and gifts, confronting together the defense forces.

“… Do we really act like that often?” Calliope asked into the air with a small blush over her cheeks. Quickly being surrounded by police forces with military gear and bunny ears, the woman shook her head and hilted on her scythe with both hands, enveloping her body with a Black aura, “You see? I’m no longer fond of the sight of weapons pointing at me…” She roared with devilry smile, swinging her weapon over her head, the blade of the scythe now shone with a strange dark light, as if tiny fragments of knives had been weld within and formed a saw, “But don’t worry about it that much… one way or the other, today none of you will survive!” She screamed defiantly, stepping in and provoking them to shoot.

On the giant floor above from the thunderous sounds of bullets and explosions, a sea of bunny people kept running away from the chaos and the menacing tar and little crashes attacking people. “C’mon… dear please move! I, I’ll buy you another one later ok? This is not time to be worrying about dumb things!” Inside of the tumult of people, the sirens, the screams, the despair, the panic, and the cold sweat, a woman scolded her child with hastiness and hurry, in the middle of the street, she tried her best to convince the little girl, gently pulling on her wrist for her to keep moving, but her daughter wouldn’t follow an inch.

“But… but…!” The little bunny-girl whimpered with her big eyes flowing rivers of tears, looking down at the fallen ice cream cone dripping over the asphalt, “I’m sorry… I swear… I was trying my best the hold it… I’m sorry, I’m sorry!” She cried helplessly and heartbroken, the girl kicked the floor in a childish tantrum.

“I’m telling you for the love of God, is not the time for that!” She screamed at her daughter losing patience, pulling harder on her wrist, “Hurry up, before someone steps over… us?” But a hand on her shoulder stopped her with wide eyes, turning her face to a girl with large bunny ears, braided blue and white hair, wearing a black office suit, “… Mayor…?” She gasped in absolute confusion; the girl walked past the mother and kneeled in front of the little one.

“Is frustrating, isn’t it? To have your mommy buy you such a peko great ice cream and have dropped it on the floor,” She narrated with a calm and sweet tune, slowly caressing the head of a crying girl, “Let me guess, you’ve been helping your mommy with the house chores a lot, and you were waiting for this reward all week, don’t you? That’s why you’re so angry to have dropped your cone, right?” She asked most gently, caressing her face with the tips of her fingers when the little one nods, “There, there, we know it wasn’t your fault,” She explained next bringing a handkerchief from her suit, slowly cleaning the snots and tears of the girl, “Much better, calm down, would you tell me your name?”

“Ki… Kimiko…” She stuttered with clenched fists, trying to breathe her snots with a pouty face, “Are… Aren’t you Miss Pekora peko? T-the Mayor?” She asked next with a giggle as Pekora tried to clean her nose.

“Yes I am, I’m glad you recognize me peko!” She replied with a grin, pressing her handkerchief on the nostrils of the girl, “Aight, be a good peko girl for the Mayor and let that out,” Pekora instructed her calmly, the girl loudly blowing her nose on the handkerchief, “Good girl peko!”

“Is hard not to recognize you peko, you appear in almost all ads of the city,”  The mother thought with a troubled face, “Miss Pekora, thank you peko, but if we don’t hurry to the portal stations now…” The woman tried to explain, but the girl just gestured her right, asking her for a pause.

“Say, Kimiko, I was just craving an ice cream myself, would you join me for a while? Let’s eat ice cream together peko!” Pekora proposed with a clap of hands.

“Really?!” The eyes of the little one sparkled with excitement, instantly nodding to the Mayor.

“Mayor, Mayor!” A man of bunny ears similar to the one of Pekora interrupted, running to meet with her, exhausted and sweated, holding on his knees to breathe, “The people… Are finally reaching the portal stations but, they’re falling into panic really fast! What do we do, where do we sent them?!” He asked nervously.

“Ah, I forgot about that, re-program all the portals and redirect them to Yellow High City peko,” The bunny-girl easily replied, folding the dirty handkerchief and carefully saving it in a pocket of her suit, standing up and taking the hand of Kimiko.

“But, are you sure we peko should do something like that?” He insisted between pants, “Without asking Mayor Subaru peko?”

“This is an exodus peko, I have no time to kindly ask anyone to accept my people, I’m sure Subaru will understand peko,” Pekora replied with a hand on her hip, turning her face to the mother of the girl, “Now, shall we go?”

“W-where? Miss Pekora, are you really thinking… on a situation like this peko?” The woman questioned aghast.

“Let’s go, mom, the Mayor is inviting us peko, let’s eat ice cream together with her!”The little one said pulling on the dress of her mother with a huge smile.

“Mayor… Mayor!” Another woman in a black suit appeared, waving a hand in the air while pulling a couple of suitcases along with her, “What are you doing peko? Why aren’t you at the Town Hall guiding the evacuation?” She asked with forced breathing, leaning on the man trying to regain her pace.

But Pekora once again ignored the mix of hurry and worry from the adults around her, and invited one more time for the mother of the girl to join, forcing her to come along. The group walked in the contrary direction of the multitude, Pekora always minding that the little one wouldn’t be kicked or smacked by those escaping with fear, distracting her with an improvised song about ice cream. At the entrance of a mall center, Pekora instructed the man of bunny ears to attend at the abandoned ice cream cart parked on the sidewalk, giving a cone to both the little girl and the Mayor, they sat on a small bench with the nervous mother to devour the cold snack, as the other two adults in black suits had to deal by their own with the multiple distress calls from the emergency services waiting for instructions of the Mayor, “So, how is it the ice cream peko? I see you got a liking for our newest peko brand of carrot and orange flavor?” Pekora asked playfully.

“Yes! It’s sweet and acid at the same time, I like it a lot peko!” The girl replied with a renewed humor, swinging her feet on the bench, “And this bunny-shaped with cookies for ears makes it really cute too peko, did you invent all those things yourself peko?” She asked with her mouth dirtied in cream.

“So do I peko!” Pekora huffed proudly, “I’m glad that you like it, I’m always thinking of new ways to make delicious snacks for the children of my zone!” She exclaimed next with a smirk, “So tell me, Kimiko, how old are you? In which grade are you peko studying?”

“I’m nine, I’m in fourth-grade peko!” The girl answered with her fingers on the air.

“I see, your fingers are stretchy peko, do you play the piano?” Pekora asked next with curious eyes.

“Wow, you could tell just like that peko? You’re really amazing peko!” Kimiko giggled uncontrollably, “Yes, I play the piano in the music school peko, I’m the best of my class peko!” She huffed imitating Pekora, stealing a chuckle from her mother who had been silently staring at the two with fidgeting fingers for a while, “I-I’m not lying! I’m really good at it!” She insisted with pouty cheeks.

“I see, then, would you play something for me one of these days peko? I’d like to hear you playing,” Pekora explained with a smile.

“It’s a deal peko! I’ll play you a song to thank you for the ice cream peko!” The girl replied overwhelmed with excitement, jumping over the bench, “Mom, she really is like in the ads peko! Mayor Pekora is cool and sweet peko!”

“Hmnh… she definitely is…” Her mother stuttered at the girl’s mannerism, her mind was placed elsewhere, growing with worry at the silence and solitude of the city, most of the people had abandoned the second level already, “I guess she’s really like in the ads…” She whispered with doubt.

“Tell me, Kimiko, do you like living in this city peko?” This time Pekora’s question called on everyone’s attention, the adults frowned looking confused at the mayor who smiled at the little girl, posing their eyes next to the level below with concern.

“Yes peko! Peko Land is the best city in the virtual world!” She replied and gave a couple of bites to the cone, “All the kids in my class love this city too! We’re always grateful for the sweets and arcades Mayor Pekora creates for us peko… but,” She paused on her happy yelling, with her voice turning with bemusement, “Why all of a sudden we have to leave, did something happen?”

“Nothing serious, we’re just doing a huge remodel peko, that's why we need to put people in a secure place so they aren’t harmed peko,” Pekora explained with absolute calm, showing not even a trace of doubt in her voice.

“I see peko…” Yet Kimiko sighed with a twist of lips, unsure of the Mayor’s reply, “… When can we go back?”

“Uhm, that will take a while…” Pekora said slowly getting up from the bench, dusting off her pants, “But I promise it won’t be for a long time peko!” She exclaimed next, forcing a smile and petting the girl’s head, realizing she had finished her ice cream, “And when everything is done, let’s eat ice cream together again, alright?”

“Uhm!” The girl nodded and rubbed her head against Pekora’s hand, “I will train a lot with the piano until then peko!” 

Calling on a police patrol, the mother and daughter said goodbye to Pekora, as they were escorted by the officer to the nearest portal station, Kimiko waving her hand at the bunny-girl from the back seat until disappearing on the distance. “Let’s go back to business peko…” Pekora sighed displeased, snapping her fingers, the man and woman ran to her right and left side respectively, the man bringing a pad, the woman opening the suitcases and building a changing room out of thin steel pipes, “Report to me the current situation peko,” She ordered while getting inside the changing room, removing her tie and jacket.

“Up to this moment, we have lost the first floor of the zone peko,” The man explained while reading the information on the pad, “The 150 officers who peko answered the first distress call and showed on the crime scene have crashed peko, we have pictures of the individuals responsible, one of them appears to be the Mayor who disappeared months ago, Mori Calliope,” He swoops a finger on the images in the screen making them float in the air, pushing them inside the changing room for Pekora to see.

“To think a lot of us were worried about the whereabouts of that woman… the hell happened to her peko? Gloves!” She thought out loud and extended her hands out of the curtains, the bunny-woman quickly giving her a pair set of black gloves and next handing her a bunny leather suit before the Mayor would ask for it, “What about the exodus?”

“Yes, the portals had been all redirected to Yellow High as you asked, they’re all functional, currently we have successfully evacuated five percent of the citizens,” He answered firmly.

“We need to move faster, they’ll be reaching this level soon,” Buttoning a white jacket over the bunny suit, Pekora stepped out of the changing room with her hair braided in twin tails, “You two should get going soon, I will take care of things from this point, did you guys call The Rainbow?” She asked without looking at the two, walking towards the edge of the floor where the stairs to the level below were settled.

“We called through their private line, but nobody ans- wait, what?! Mayor, do you plan to face those people alone?” The woman asked with baffled surprise.

“If you stay here you’ll only slow me down,” She said with a straight tone, “They didn’t pick up… Well, I suppose Subaru will contact them once she notices what’s happening peko,” She sighed and started to stretch her arms and legs, the three bunny people looking down at the floor below. Hundreds of meters under, the first level of the city had been completely corrupted, only crashes and tar could be seen, “Now leave, don’t be so stubborn about it peko.”

“But, Mayor…” The man stuttered and gritted his teeth, “Are you sure you can do this alone peko? Can you win?”

The bunny-girl chuckled, “Win? Don’t be such a kid, saying words like those; there’s no way to win a situation like this peko…” She calmly said facing the corruption below, “Do any of you no longer remember the crash event? Sky and Terra are called Heroes that’s a peko given, but they didn’t fight against the crash as much as they saved people, after all, those zones continue corrupted, don’t they?” She turned to her men with a bittersweet smile, “Peko Land is lost already peko, so just like they did, you guys should focus all of your energy on making sure the rest of the citizens safely leave this place.”

“But Mayor… Are you giving up, just that fast peko?” The woman frowned, “What… What are you planning to do?”

“Of course, the only thing that can be done in a situation like this peko!” She declared with a smirk, gleaming with White and smacking her fists together, “I worked for many years and invested blood and sweat on this zone peko! For everyone to be happy and have fun, for adults and kids to smile peko, and I’m not giving it up without a fight!” She stepped forward into the edge of the floor, showing an enraged face, “I’m going to fist, kick, bite, smash, hit, slap, and destroy all and everyone who dared to choose my zone as a place to corrupt peko! Until the last moment, I will cry and kick with all my might, I’m Usada 'The Trickster' Pekora, and nobody is going to get my zone without paying the price first!”

Chapter Text

In the lowest level of the colossal attraction-like city, explosions of flames could be seen followed by Machiavellian laughter. On the floor flooded with the bituminous liquid, a girl of bunny ears fought against three, followed by a hoard of cleaning robots of cylindrical shape and half of a meter of height. The machines, decorated with bunny faces on top, slowly and steadily removed the tar from the floor with circular brushes on its feet, all of them gleaming in White.

“HAHAHAHAHAHA”

“Tch, she makes it hard to tell who the villain here is!” Fangs groaned while leaping meters away from the bunny-girl and inside the pool of tar, glaring at the handful of comical machines quietly removing the stench from the floor, “And those things…! Where the hell did she bring them? She knew we were coming?” She hissed and extended her right hand on the air, “Get those things down now!” She commanded the crashes swaying around her, who followed her command absentmindedly, crawling to the machines and smacking them with their fists, but even the zombie-like army was being swooped inside the cleaning bots from their feet, crunched by the brushes, depurated into clouds of dust, “This is ridiculous!”

“I’m really happy now though!” Blindfold shouted from the other extreme, using both hands to stab the top of the head from one of the machines, each thrust barely scrapping the metallic surface of the robot, “For the first time in a while, is not my fault our plans are failing, it’s yours!” She giggled and quickly crouched on the floor, avoiding a burst of White which almost takes her head, “You were the one who said this Mayor was the weakest of the warriors of White, not me!”

“And like a stupid… I went and believed on her word!” Calliope howled in the middle of the battlefield, exchanging blows of energy with the bunny-girl, shaking her off with a swing of her scythe she took a couple of jumps back, meditating her next move while circling her, “You said even though she was one of White, she’s mocked for being the weakest of the group, that this was going to be a piece of cake!” She gave a death stare to the girl of fangs, vigilant of the enemy in front of her.

“I see peko, so those rumors are still peko fluttering around? You should’ve made more research before facing me peko!” Pekora laughed condescending, noticing that behind her back one of the cleaning robots had stopped moving, she broke on her fight stance and stretched her right hand behind her back, making White flow inside the machine, and bringing its functions back to life, renewing on its cleaning procedures, “These are but the automated cleaning robots that the beautification service uses at night to clean the streets peko, I just modified them to work with my color as the power source and cleaning agent to depurate your disgusting liquid peko!” Patting the little robot once it was refilled, she redirected the aura back to her body, and hopped back against Calliope with a double kick, “And here I thought I needed help from Subaru or The Rainbow peko, you’re nothing like the first crash event!”

“Get off your high horse!” The tall lady howled with anger, intercepting the kick with her scythe, she tried to slice Pekora’s feet by the ankles, but the bunny-girl stepped over the blade and jumped in the air, taking the impulse to spin and prepare a powerful kick with her left leg, this time Calliope intercepts her ankle with the hilt of her scythe, holding the weapon with both hands, the clashes of their energy, producing shockwaves of air, “Even I can tell, if it weren’t for those stupid robots, things would be different, you’re just a weak rabbit struggling in vain!”

Being ricocheted by Calliope pressing against the force of her kick, Pekora landed on the clean floor, chuckled at her screams with a shake of the head and a shrug, “You just don’t get it, don’t you peko?” She asked keeping on her condescending attitude, “I am, without a doubt, the weakest member of the warriors of White peko,” Pekora smiled fiercely, pointing at herself with a thumb, “And is because of being the weakest what makes me last member of the warriors you want to fight peko!” She exclaimed, once again gleaming with White, dashing in front of the reaper, clenching her fist at the height of the shoulders, she started a rain of kicks, keeping on pressure, as Calliope blocked the hits with her blade, Pekora keep spinning, bouncing and hopping, kicking her with both legs, pushing her back, “The weakest always makes sure to find a way to survive peko! I adapt, grow and fight back, just like these robots, just like this fight…!” She kicked the scythe with all her might, making the steel of the weapon jiggle and vibrate with a metallic echo, pushing Calliope several meters away, “Mori Calliope… I’ll make you regret the day you thought of rivaling me peko!”

 “And I said… Get off your high horse!” The reaper howled with a hoarse tone, with her body flaming with Black, she swung her scythe on the air and created a large shockwave of energy, shooting it against the bunny, “Who the hell cares, just shut your stupid mouth, your laughter and your voice are unbearable!”

“You will never grow if you can’t accept critics peko!” The bunny-girl replied doing a backflip and avoiding the slash of energy which sliced and destroyed four of the cleaning robots behind her back, landing on the tar, she focused her energy to depurate the space where she landed, then slowly brought a pair of futuristic-looking, white heels with a carrot print from each side of her jacket, “For starters, just what the peko hell happened to you? You’ve been away for months, and now the first thing we know from you is that you crashed peko?” She asked aghast, pressing the point of her left foot against the heel of her right, slowly removing her shoes, “Where have you been peko? The phoenix-girl has been looking for you for ages! Don’t you care even a little of how you made her peko feel?” She accused her half-heartedly, speaking her way to make the reaper lost focus of the fight and wear the fancy heels.

“Who…?” Calliope questioned with honest confusion, the words of the bunny-girl managed to get through her, the tall lady gradually lowered her weapon, and the flames of Black on her body dissipated, “What… the phoenix-girl…? Who are you talking about… uh? Why is… my head…” She blabbered and held on her face with the left, gritting her teeth as if she were suffering from a strange migraine, “Ah…? What’s happening… what are these memories?” She frowned with trembling legs, loudly panting from a sudden shake of pain.

“Didn’t you hear her; she said to shut your stupid mouth!” Blindfold cried with an enraged tone, together with fangs they jumped close to Pekora hilting their knives upside down, violently swinging them around to force the bunny-girl to bounce away, the girl of bandages hurried her way to the reaper and embraced her tightly in her arms, “Master Calliope, hang in there, don’t listen to the words of that woman, she’s just trying to confuse you!”

“That reaction… she’s brainwashed or peko something?” The bunny thought while avoiding the swings of the other hooded figure, struggling to wear the right heel still hanging on her hand, “Whatever it is, she’s not doing this entirely on her will peko, but she’s still a crash… I don’t have time to worry about you while you’re trying to corrupt my zone peko!”  She thought with frustration, shaking her head, “Enough with the stabbing peko!” Pekora cried next, kicking fangs away and throwing the heel on the air, she crouched on the floor, and with a flip she dexterously wore the missing pair, standing on the tips of her fingers she slowly let her legs back on the floor, reincorporating, “I need to use the Bloom System if I want to depurate her, but first I need to get rid of her peko minions, ugh, where did she find these girls peko? Their ragged clothes and their arms are filled with holes of bullets, but they aren’t bleeding nor are slowing down! Are they perhaps… dead peko? … No, what I’m thinking about, that is impossible!”

“Blindfold…? Why… my head hurts this much? Who is the girl she’s talking about?” Calliope questioned with a hurtful moan, a drop of sweat running through her face.

“There’s no need to worry for things of the past, Master,” Blindfold replied with a naughty tone, not letting her go from her arms, the girl of bandages gently caressed the scar of Calliope’s neck with the tip of her knife, “Did you suddenly forget the promise you made with me, Master? Aren’t you going to save me?” She asked pressing the tip over the scar.

“My… promise…” The reaper stuttered closing her eyes, slowly calming down and regaining the strength of her voice, “Of course… I wouldn’t forget such a promise… Tch, what in the world was that the stupid bunny-girl did? Why the mention of a person I don’t know made me feel like this?” She questioned frustratingly, shaking the hugging girl away and using the scythe to lean her weight and stand properly.

“She’s called ‘Trickster’ for a reason Master, is just more of her antics against us!” Blindfold pouted innocently, preparing her knife and standing next to the reaper, “She’s just trying to make us lose the notion of time while her people run away from the zone; we must get rid of her if we want to make more crashes!” She declared energetically.

“Ugh, I guess such an obvious plan was plain right to see through peko,”  The bunny thought while frowning, slowly removing the buttons from her jacket and igniting with White, “Change of plans then, I need to contain the three of them and separate her from her minions at the same time peko… And I just know the perfect way for it!” She stomped her heels on the ground with a cunny smile as an idea flashed on her mind.

“Enough of these silly games… I hate people who struggle against the unavoidable like you the most!” With a deafening shout, Calliope pointed her weapon at the bunny with ireful eyes, “The warm-up ends here, I now going to absorb every drop of your White until there’s nothing left! I’ll bring this place down by taking your head!”

“Oh, my, oh my, how terrifying peko, I’m doomed against your black properties… as if!” But Pekora just slapped her threat with more of her condescending laughter, throwing off her jacket on the floor, standing only on the black-leather bunny suit, the tones of her aura began to tilt from one color to another, “It seems you’ve never fought a warrior of White peko, so let me gladly make you a quick PSA of what are we…” She mumbled with a teethed smile, bidding with her hands stretched on the ground, posturing like an Olympic racer on the starting line, her White suddenly changing into a light Purple, “Capable to do!” She exclaimed and started to run, instantly disappearing from everyone’s sight, reappearing the next second in the middle of the air, half of a meter close of Calliope’s face, giving her but a fraction to protect her face with her scythe from the incoming kick.

“What the… You changed colors?!” The reaper groaned trying to repel the bunny’s kick, yet the girl disappeared before she could even swing her weapon against, “And she became faster…? No, is almost as if gravity were no longer affecting her body!” Scanning the contaminated floor, she tried to suffocate her angry hisses of frustration. Noticing the way the tar left traces of the steps and drifts of Pekora, she started to use the marks on the floor to block the furious rain of seemingly invisible kicks, fighting to regain space, “Blindfold, Fangs, what the hell is happening!”

“What, do we have to explain to you every single thing? Do we also need to explain the alphabet too?” Fangs asked with frustration, being instantly kicked back by the blurry image of the bunny-girl whenever she tried to step inside the battle zone and aid the reaper.

“Fangs!” Blindfold and Calliope screamed in unison.

“Alright, ugh, you both are so annoying!” The hooded figure screamed back, running to hide behind a crash, just for Pekora to quickly blow its head with a kick and making it disintegrate, “If black properties are the power of Black to absorb color, then white properties are the power of White to replicate colors!” She shouted at the reaper from afar, unable to aid her master, she stepped away and returned to destroy the cleaning bots with the help of the other crashes.

“On top of it, she not only replicates the color, but also the power of the user she copied that color from!” Blindfold added from the other side, the girl fruitlessly trying to approach the reaper.

“Like my power, just that she doesn’t need a power source… she’s the source!”  Calliope muttered while blocking the hits, quickly understanding the situation she has been pinned in, the tall lady wrapped her body in a Black sphere and made it burst into an energy wave, forcing Pekora to stop in the relentless delivery of kicks and show her silhouette again, landing back on the floor, “But being fast won’t be enough to escape from my new power… I’ve learned a lot of new tricks since my last fight you see, you’re not the only one who adapts!”

“But I not only can become faster peko!” The bunny insinuated with a smirk, quickly lifting her left leg over her head, her colors changed once again from Purple back to White, and from White to pastel Pink, “I can also become stronger…” She cried switching gears from haughty to rage, smashing the ground with her heels, destroying ten square meters around her, depurating the tar and crumbling the bricks of the ground, “Peko! Not to say I made these heels to focus the color into my feet peko!”

“At least now I can see you!” Calliope shouted while leaping at her, starting on a close-ranged battle with the bunny. Dancing with the other, the reaper spun her body while swinging her scythe, up and down, throwing the bunny off tempo, forcing her to constantly duck and jump away from the blade, stopping by pressing on her heels and spinning in the other direction, never letting Pekora take a moment to breathe or to step away from her. For each kick she received on her face or her stomach, muffling her moans of pain, sucking up the feeling of her bones slowly cracking from the new devastating blows of pink energy, it gave Calliope the time and closure to slash Pekora’s legs, gradually making deep bleeding wounds on the bunny-girl, tearing up the cloth of her pantyhose, “See…! Hah, you’re nothing but cheap talk!” The reaper laughed, cleaning the blood coming out from one of her nostrils with a thumb.

“I’ll be dammed, she’s actually adapting fast to the fight peko; I guess is time to change the battlefield…”   Pekora mourned with disdain, taking a couple of steps back and glancing at her wounded legs, she stared next far away out the plaza to a fair behind her back, “Then… what about a little something from that girl you seem don’t want to remember?” She implied with a serious tone, turning her face to the tall lady and coming back to White, suddenly changing into Red. Pekora’s heels started to pour flames into the tar, reacting with the black stench and creating a small fire in the ground, she ran to pick up her jacket before it would get burned and hopped four meters in the air, falling while preparing a flaming kick with her left leg, “Take this peko!”

“No matter the color change, if you use the same attack over and over…!” Calliope howled victorious, ready to slice her feet, but at the very last moment, Pekora stopped her fall with a small burst of flames from the same left leg, landed over her weapon, and crouching on the blade, the bunny-girl took a huge leap, propelled by an explosion of flames, flying as if she were jumping over thin air, “Damn it, the stupid got me! COME BACK HERE!” She cursed while looking at Pekora escape in the air towards the fair.

“Catch me if you can peko!” She laughed from the air, sticking out her tongue, each of her steps was followed with a sudden burst of flames which elevated her back in the sky. The bunny wore back her jacket, vigilant of the three figures chasing her from the floor, she swoops her hand in the air and made a holographic screen appear, instantly marking a phone number, “Hey, how is it going at the top peko? You need to move those bunny legs!” She shouted into the screen at the second of hearing someone picking from the other side.

- Yes Mayor, almost half of all the peko citizens have successfully evacuated to Yellow High, but the portals are stuffed with people in panic peko, we need you to buy us more time! –

A masculine voice replied from the other side, Pekora’s eyes now fixed on the entrance of a giant fair themed with bunny ears, “I’m on that peko, I just happen to have an idea but I’m not so sure if it’ll peko work out… do you remember the new maze attraction we were preparing peko? Did they ever fix the energy problem?” She asked to the screen.

- No, we were supposed to get started on it today… Mayor, what are you planning to do peko? –

Pekora sketched an evil smile from ear to ear, “Me peko? I’m just going to turn the maze into the torture game I wanted in the first place peko!”

Chapter Text

“WHAT, THE, OUCH, OW, ow ow ow ow owieeeee, wait, it was ‘fudge’! I was going to say ‘fudge’, I swear!”

In the east portal station of Yellow High, Shigure pulled on the left cheek of Subaru with an angry look, as the young girl was about to slip over a slur when fronting the hundreds of thousands of panicked and scared bunny people warping into her city.

“Just what in the virtual world is happening? Why are these people flowing into your city?” Her mother pondered while keeping a tight grip over the girl’s cheek with her nails.

“That’s what I’d like to know myself! Hey, you know this hurts a lot right?” Subaru replied while trying to muffle her whimpers of pain from the pinch until Shigure released her, “Ah, that’ll leave a mark…” She complained while rubbing her cheek, then giving once more attention to the people collapsing the station, “These people are from White Peko Land… What did happen?”

“Oh finally, there she is peko!” A woman of bunny ears and a black suit exclaimed, pulling on the sleeve of a man dressed alike, the two of them ran out of the tumult, “Mayor Subaru, we’ve been looking for you peko!”

“Uh… here I am…” Subaru stuttered.

“There’s a crash… Our zone is falling apart peko! Mayor Pekora is holding onto the enemy as we speak so everyone can evacuate!” The man explained in a mix of adrenaline and fear.

Subaru huffed for a short second with furrowed brows, the words didn’t come out of her mouth at first, but at the look of sudden sadness that Shigure was giving to her; she coughed and tried a second time, “… I need details,” She managed to spout by stressing a serious tone.

“This morning three people which we believe to be crashes invaded our city peko, one of them being the peko missing Mayor Mori Calliope,” The woman explained with a more composed tone to the girl, “Currently peko, our Mayor is doing all that is on her hands to slow them down, but she said that we should give up our zone and prioritize the evacuation of our people peko,” She took a sudden step forward, clenching her hands into fists, “Is… is it true peko? What our Mayor told us? Is our zone really doomed? There’s nothing we can do peko?”

“Wait, I understand your situation but that’s a lot of information to process in a single moment,” Shigure meddled between the two, no matter the façade her daughter tried to pull, her growing nervousness and stiffness were being seen through. The woman put half of a meter between the two with her body and a serious look; then turned to Subaru, “… What do you think…?”

“… First of all, what you’re describing is indeed a crash event,” Subaru meditated on her words, avoiding the eyes of the woman of bunny ears and holding her chin, “Now, Mori Calliope… I don’t know what to tell you about that, many people had been looking for her… you’re sure she crashed?” She asked with doubt.

The man nodded without uttering a word, he just pulled on a pad from his suit and searched for the images with his finger, handing the pad to Subaru. The girl analyzed the pictures in silence, using two fingers to zoom on the scar in the neck of Calliope, “… Yes, this woman is a without a doubt, a crash…” She sighed furiously scratching the back of her head, the multiple voices of scared people didn’t let her think, she pulled a holographic screen and marked on the emergency services, “Code 01, all people available must come to east station…” She whispered into the screen and quickly hanged up, it was obvious for the people around her the amount of stress going through her body, no one knew what to tell her, “For now the police will guide your people to the old shelters we built when the first event, it’ll be a little cramped, but it’ll be better than anything else,” She said to the bunny people by forcing a smile.

“Ah… thank you peko…” The man replied with a troubled tone, sharing confused gazes with his partner.

“Subaru…” Shigure held on the girl’s shoulder, “You aren’t alone this time, ok? Sora may not be around, but you still have The Rainbow to help you,” She said to the girl while stroking her.

“About that peko, we tried to contact them, but they never replied,” The woman bitterly explained.

“There are members of The Rainbow right now on Yellow High, but they’re currently unavailable,” Subaru said with a gesture of the hand, “They have their problems right now…” She kept on explaining as calmly as possible, taking pauses to think on her next words, ultimately under stress, “… When was the last time you guys talked to Pekora?”

“I had a call with her about thirty minutes ago peko, we believe she’s still at the bottom of our zone trying to contain the crash as we speak peko,” The man answered.

“I see…” Subaru mourned with a shake of the head, and finally looked at them right in the eye, “Now, I have a question for you two… Do you guys believe that Pekora can keep distracting those people?”

“Wha-… But, aren’t you going to help her peko?” The man asked in disbelief.

“I can’t do it alone, and even with Pekora, it still is two against three, I need to find more people before going to your guy’s zone to help,” Subaru said, strangely menacing with one finger, “We have the Bloom System now, Pekora probably didn’t tell you guys to don’t keep your hopes up, but with it, we can save your zone from being corrupted, then again we need more people to make it possible, I… I need time, to search for someone to join me and help her, that’s why I ask… do you guys think she can resist on her own for a bit more of time until I find the help needed?” 

The couple quickly looked at each other with a smile, then the man turned on Subaru, “I’ll try to contact her and tell her the situation, I’m sure she can keep buying time, Mayor Pekora has a knack to mess and tilt with people,” He proudly explained.

“Yeah… I’ve heard about that…” Subaru chuckled with sarcasm at the sparkling eyes full of pride from the two. As the police started to meet the place, followed by ambulances and trucks to carry out the people, the girl looked again at the pictures on the pad, the scared people, and the sky, “Sora… it’s happening again, is this what you were trying to warn me?”

“Well… This wasn’t under my calculations peko…” The bunny girl laughed awkwardly, with messy hair and sweat drops falling through her face, she seemed to be crawling inside a corridor. Thin, red lines of blood draw on the floor as Pekora dragged her body with her eyes fixed over a metallic door, yet it wasn’t the wounds on her legs that had her scared and weakened, but the small dark essence growing from the sides of the cuts and spreading through her legs like a poison inside her veins, “… I knew there was something peko weird about her scythe when she landed the first hits but this is…” She clicked her tongue with frustration. Leaning her back against the wall she pulled on her knees to appreciate the damage of the wounds, “Let’s give it another try peko… Third time’s the charm,” She hesitated at first to recite the words, breathing through her mouth, exasperated as the corruption on her legs continued spreading, Pekora’s body shone with White as she closed her eyes and focused her energy, “Bloom!” She screamed in a mix of anger and fear, as the voice command had failed before, yet this time her clothes gleamed with light, and slowly changed into the asymmetrical dress, the corruption on her body finally stopping, the process slowly reversing as Pekora let out a big sigh of relief, “Geez, that was super scary for a moment peko… whatever are the teeth of that scythe made of, it was blocking me from activating the Bloom System… I don’t want to peko imagine what would’ve happened with bigger wounds…” She whispered with nervous laughter, soon for her attention deviate to a holographic screen with the image of an incoming call, she tapped over it with a small smile when recognizing the number.

- Mayor, are you ok, how is it going peko? –

“Being kicked and kicking back peko, just the usual,” Pekora replied sarcastically, rubbing her wounds, “How is the evacuation going?”

- Currently, seventy percent of the peko citizens have safely evacuated to Yellow High, is just a matter of time before the evacuation is complete peko, we also managed to contact Mayor Subaru. –

“You did? What did she say? A helping hand would be peko useful right now…” She groaned and looked for the strength to stand back by using the wall as support.

- She explained us… well, she just said that The Rainbow is currently unavailable peko, so she’s asking you for more time until the reinforcements come… Mayor Subaru says our  zone  can be saved with enough people peko. –

“I see, so she spilled the beans peko,” Pekora slowly held on the wall and started to walk towards the door.

- So it is true…? Mayor, why did you lie to us peko? –

“C’mon peko, you guys have so much time working for me, I’ve never been someone who likes to keep hopes up in vain peko, what if I had failed peko?” She replied with sarcasm and tiredness, walking like a crab along the wall.

- Yet you made up a whole story to that little girl peko –

“This and that are different things peko, now, I’m gonna hang up, if Subaru needs time then she’ll get it, I just peko managed to make Calliope and the other two fell over the pit entrance of the maze, I’m going to be busy for a while,” Reaching on the door, Pekora finished the call and twisted on the knob, switching on the lights in a panel to the side and slowly coming inside of a spacious room with a large console and at least, fifty computer screens surrounding the three adjacent walls, “Uhm, I’ll have to thank Sky Hero for this thing later, it does what promises peko,” She thought out loud followed with another breath of relief, as she softly stepped over the floor with both feet, slowly regaining the ability to walk without holding on support.

 Pekora advanced to the console station and sat over a gaming chair, slowly pressing on the startup buttons, the silence of the room started to fill with multiple and small buzzing sounds of computer fans. One by one the screens on the room started to light up, showing the live recording of vigilance cameras, which compiled together formed the view of an intricate maze being observed from the top of the sky, “That Subaru peko, I hope she comes, but just in case, let’s proceed as I had in mind from the start,” She narrated to self, pushing the chair from left to right by pulling on the frame of the desk, typing over each keyboard, opening programs which automatically started running numbers and following commands, “The only problem of this maze was that the engine we made to keep it running demanded more peko electricity than what the first level could give it peko… which is fair considering how complicated I made it peko,” She excused herself with a nervous shake of her hands and awkward laughter, she then dragged the chair to the right side, crouching on the seat and extending her arms to reach a metallic lid on the floor, showing a spaghetti mess of cables. Without an inch of fear, the bunny girl sunk her right arm inside the tangled mess and pulled one big cable with warning stickers and covered with a thin metallic mesh, she looked for the part where it connected with a second cable and separated them, “But right now, is exactly what I need, if you need energy, then I can give it to you peko!” She exclaimed into the empty room, each minute slowly coming back to her haughty self, waiting for the screens in the console to finish the automated process, Pekora focused her White into her right hand, making it flow inside the cable, the energy quickly being distributed inside the room and the maze, as the lights shone brighter and the speed of the fans increased, the echoes of cartoony, circus music slowly reached her, “Now, Mori Calliope, can you survive this mortal attraction peko? Every single trap of this maze now is fueled with White peko!” She laughed with malice while holding on the cable, using her free hand to type a couple of commands over the keyboard and zoom to the figure of the reaper, slowly walking through one of the halls of the bricked maze with a confused look, “Ah, crap peko, I forgot she can’t hear me yet, where did I put the mike of this thing, urgh!” She groaned while looking for the item with a pout on her cheeks.

“That stupid bunny… rabbit… Whatever she is! I can’t believe I keep falling for the stupidest tricks!” The tall lady said full of anger, stomping the floor, leaving a trail of tar as she turned left in an interception, “Little twerp must be making fun of us, I just hope she had lost the ability to walk by now, these things are smaller than the knives my subjects have, I don’t know how fast they should be,” She paused on her complaints and looked up in vain, as the tall walls made it impossible to grasp a proper sense of direction, quickly tilting her mood again, “And this place… it brings me back nightmares from that hellish circus, why is it that I’m always facing people who seem to have a loose screw? I need to find blindfold and fangs first, and then…” Calliope halted on her angry speech for a second time, but this time she did it as the look of a hooded figure at the other extreme of the bricked hall called on her attention. Her feet moved on their own, accelerating towards the target, “Blindfold…!” She screamed with honest relief, hurrying to hold her scythe with the left and embrace the girl tightly with the right, “Blindfold! Are you hurt? Do you need me to restore you?” She asked with an uncharacteristic girly tone.

“I’m sorry to break it to you… but I’m not your girlfriend,” Fangs replied vexed in disgust and sarcasm, instantly snuggling Calliope with her signature smile when the tall lady tried to separate from her, “Oh c’mon, just a bit more? Master hugging me is a weird thing, I could get used to this, do you hug blindfold this way too? Kehehe.”

“GET… OFF” The reaper howled with a reddish face, shaking her off and slamming the girl against the floor, “Screw it, all of you look alike…”

“Ugh… of course, we do, we’re sisters…” The other cried while rubbing her butt, “I take your reaction as that you haven’t met with blindfold yet? Even though we fell through the same pit hole, it seems that at some moment we were split into different directions,” Fangs commented while standing up.

“Yeah, I’ve been searching for the two of you for a while now, I tried to warp out of this crap, but White suddenly started to mix with the electricity, is messing with most of my crash powers,” Calliope calmly explained as she tried to remove the fluster out her face.

“Same here, I tried to see if I could return to the entrance of the fair, or at least make a warp hole through the walls, but that bunny girl got us fooled alright, we’re at her…” The hooded girl stopped on her defeat speech for a moment, looking at the scythe of the reaper, “Master… have you tried yet to slice the walls?”

The woman immediately smacked her head angrily, “Of course I tried, why do you suddenly pause as if I were some kind of dullard who can’t think logically, ah?!” She smacked her two more times, “I tried it, but the walls reacted with White and repelled my attack!” She lifted her arm a four-time, but by the surprise of fangs, the reaper held on her anger and switched moods, “I haven’t used the Wither System yet because I don’t want to waste my energy in vain, and you can quickly tell at first glance, this color comes directly from that rabbit, while she holds us here in this maze, she’s exhausting her power, this joke will cost her live, sooner or later she’ll have to stop flowing power into this trash of an attraction, that’s where we’ll get her.”

“Uh…? Did she suddenly reason all of that and… she stopped hitting me?”  The hooded figure thought dumbfounded, “What was the Grandmaster thinking when she held her in the dark for so long? She has matured in an absurd amount of time after the trashing she received in the ghost town; if only she could be nicer…” She thought while letting out a hiss of dejection, finally receiving the missing fourth smack as a reaction, “Yup never mind, I guess some things don’t change…” She held tight on her head with an acute whimper.

“PEKO PEKO PEKO PEKO, WELCOME MORI CALLIOPE, AND FRIENDS, TO THE TRICKSTER LABYRINTH!”

“This has to be a joke, if her voice weren’t unbearable enough, now she got speakers!” The reaper shouted aghast, fruitlessly looking for the source of the voice as it came from all directions of the maze.

“I HOPE THAT YOU’RE ENJOYING THE FIRST LEVEL OF DIFFICULTY PEKO, I HAD PLANNED AT FIRST TO MAKE THIS INTO A PEKO DEADLY ATTRACTION, BUT THE DIRECTIVE COMPLAINED, SO WE WERE GOING TO REMODEL PEKO, GLADLY, YOU SHOWED UP BEFORE I HAD TO REMOVE THE THREAT LEVEL!”

“The hell is she talking about? Isn’t this just some kind of trap?” Fangs wondered with a puzzled look, running to lean her back against Calliope’s “The heck is the girl planning to do with us?” She hissed while unsheathing her knife.

“I’M GLAD THAT YOU ASK, WHY NOT EXPLAIN IT TO YOU WITH AN EXAMPLE PEKO?”

At the end of her almighty voice, walls of steel blocked both sides of the bricked hall and two large saws which edge menaced by gleaming White slowly approached from both extremes, “Literally deadly, isn’t she a Mayor? She was going to put their citizens through stuff like this?” Calliope exclaimed preparing to engage the murderous instrument coming in her direction, yet in the wall to her right side, a small platform popped with four jars with an obscured glass, a message started to write from above, “Now what?!”

“These four jars contain the same amount of candies peko, yet they are labeled different, in order they have either: Five or six, seven or eight, six or seven, seven or five. Only one of the labels numbers the right amount peko, how many candies are there under peko each jar?”

“A riddle?! Is this what she means? It feels as if inspired from some kind of sick horror movie!” Fangs snorted thunderstruck, biting on her lip looking at the saws, then using her finger to point at the candies over the first jar, “Alright Master, I’ll take care of this, the answer must be…” She started to mutter to herself, diligently taking count of the barely visible sweets.

“Fangs, stop falling for her tricks…” The reaper suggested slowly lifting her weapon on the air, looking at the jars she sketched a devil smile; “You and I know the right amount.”

“Really? You mean… oh, of course!” The hooded figure giggled with the same malice as her Master, preparing her knife, almost copying the other.

“WAIT PEKO, WHAT ARE YOU PLANNING TO DO?”

“The answer is zero!” Calliope and fangs shouted in unison as they destroyed the four jars, spilling the candies around the floor. Their action instantly stopped the motion of the saws and opened the walls blocking the hall.

“WAIT NO PEKO, DON’T DO THAT!”

“The answer was eight though, I wish she could’ve given me the chance to look smart in front of her, even I want compliments from you, you know?”  Fangs complained inside her mind, squatting on the floor to take a couple of the candies and shove it inside her mouth, “Uhm… lemon, I’m ok with this.”

“UGH…”

Calliope then posed a wider smile, lifting her scythe on the air in a menacing way, aware that she was being observed, “Bring it on, you bratty rabbit, I’ll face each one of your stupid dead traps, and I’ll beat them on my own way!”

Chapter Text

“Wait, what? But we want to help too!”

A couple of blocks away from the east station, the voices of the scared bunny people could still be heard loud and clear. With the police using their cars to guide the trucks and motorbuses on a freeway on the streets, and the firefighters aiding the nurses to attend to those who may be hurt or wounded, the commotion was slowly being contained into a manageable shape.

“We came here as fast as possible… And now you’re telling us we can’t help you?”

Outside of a small café, a couple of bunny people dressed in suits stood in the very corner of the place, making calls and giving orders to their own emergency services from Yellow High as the evacuation of their zone was near to be completed. In one of the tables, a group of frustrated animal girls and a demon confronted Subaru.

“Subaru, forgive me, but even I’m a bit confused right now,” Mio expressed in a calm tone with her left hand over her chest, “We have helped you before to fight crashes didn’t we? Barely some months ago, you already know what we can do… so why are you rejecting our help?” The wolf questions sincerely.

“Miosha is right; we’re here to fight the bad guys!” Korone shouted furiously waving her tail, a pair of boxing gloves hanging on her neck, “Don’t reject us, let us help you!”

“No, is not like I’m rejecting you… I’m glad you girls are here,” The black-haired girl hurried to make a fixed smile, both hands in the air trying to calm them down, “But this is nothing like before, and what I need for this time around is the help of someone with more combat knowledge.”

“I guess then I failed the subject,” Okayu middles scratching the back of her head, “If that’s the case I can only imagine I’ll slow you down.”

“Okayun, don’t give up so fast!” Korone woofs at her partner with a speck of anger.

“… Is it because we don’t have the Bloom System?” Choco interrupted next, creating a small lapse of silence in the group until Subaru nodded to her.

“But, isn’t it enough with yours?” Mio leaned to ask.

“You sure must remember from last time,” Subaru suggested while trying to force a serious tone, “We were seven… We were seven and it took us that much to beat that crash, and it seems the stronger they are the more their Black is capable to do things it usually shouldn’t be able to,” She now takes on a deep breath, hands on her hips, posturing half-mocking, half-serious tone, “Pekora’s zone is currently filled with more than a hundred crashes, probably as powerful as the one we faced before, or perhaps not, but I don’t want to take the risk and put you, girls, on danger.”

“Girls I think is enough,” Choco sighed and crossed her arms distressed, “No matter how much we insist, Subaru is on the right, our zones are corrupted, and even if our Core Data is secured, Achan can’t get inside the Gear to upgrade us,” the blonde demon then tilted her head slightly and massaged her nape with closed eyes, “And I also feel all that we’re doing here is trying to get revenge for the people we lost after the first incident,” Her comment created another bubble of awkward silence, this time it was enough to make even Korone calm down on her exasperated humor.

“Even still, knowing that we’re not what you’re looking for at the moment, I must try to insist one more time,” Mio said surprising the group, thinking the conversation was leading to an end, she stepped forward and took it from the beginning, “Don’t you think you should accept all possible help? We may not be the strength you need, but together we should be able to help you at least a little, Subaru, wouldn’t you consider it?”

“Miosha…” The girl gasped at her words, yet with a kind smile, she shook her head, “I’m sorry, I can’t do something like that, because if I do… It would be repeating everything which happened in the first event, step by step,” She kindly explained with a strange smile, “It would be repeating the same mistakes that Sora and I did, and those we managed to help came with the cost of losing you guy's zones… and the girl who turned into the original crash,” She finished by awkwardly scratching her cheek, “This second time, I would like to don’t let things escalate as before, we now have the proper tools for it, the Bloom System, and I’m not the bumpkin head from last time either, Sora too, wouldn’t like to know that I made you girls pass through the same things we did.”

“Is the Bloom System so necessary?” Korone asked with a pouty tone.

“Yes, because, you know? The android guy we depurated months ago is not complete yet,” Subaru released to the group with a casual tone, instantly feeling the awkwardness as the eyes of the girls opened wide, “That… That big guy worked in that plaza selling globes to children, and even with that new power, the depuration process is still taking long, so he hasn’t been sent back to the city,” The girl paused for a moment, nervously fixing her butt on the chair, “Without the Bloom System, when the first incident happened, we were using our colors only, so while the smaller ones were sent to depuration, the bigger ones which we managed to defeat probably lost their data in the process, and can’t be depurated,” She inhaled loudly, and with a hoarse voice shouted, “But well! We realized too late the two of us weren’t enough for depurating the zones, so there wasn’t any meaning to fight the crash; we changed our plans and started to evacuate people into Yellow High, either depuration or erasing them, their data would get stuck on the Gear as the zone had lost all their main functions.”

“I never thought it would come a moment in my life where I wouldn’t be able to understand a single word of what my daughter Is saying,”  Shigure muttered from one of the tables in the distance, quietly drinking over milk tea through a straw, leaning her ear as much as possible to peek on their conversation, “It doesn’t help that what she’s talking about are her war tales, the innocence of my little girl had been lost in such a strange way…”

“Indeed, this is much more complicated than as I originally imagined,” Achan replied to her intimate thoughts with a calm tone and poker face, sitting to her side, holding a cup of coffee.

“For the Spectrum’s sake, don’t do that!” Shigure silently yelled at her, the girl reacted like a startled cat and held on her chest with heartrending surprise, “Just what are you doing on here? This isn’t time for your Mayor Journalism!” She continued criticizing the blue-haired woman by shooshing at her.

“I just thought that I could be of help,” Achan replied with an out character voice, sipping on her coffee, not even looking at the girl to her side trying to recover from the sudden heart attack.

“… Help? How exactly?” Shigure asked angrily.

Achan placed the cup on the table and pushed the rims of her glasses, next she searched for her smartphone in her left pocket and gestured it to the girl, “I tried to call on Sora because you know? Besties and all of that,” Yet the woman let out a long and disappointed sigh, “I called her six times and messaged her through all the platforms she has, explaining the situation, but no reply whatsoever…” She then faced Shigure with a twist of lips, playing with her fingers, “I thought of sitting here and at least look how things are going, I wish I could be of any more help but…”

“… It’s ok, that was unexpectedly nice of you…” Shigure slowly said, holding onto Achan’s hand with a smile, “Is not your fault if she’s not replying, Subaru tried to contact her too and it was the same, so don’t overthink it, ok?” She finished with a wider smile. The two observed from afar for another fifteen minutes, until it seemed that the arguing between Subaru and the girls had reached a conclusion. Each one took on their time to share a couple of words with the black-haired girl, being hugged, being smacked, receiving a cookie and a rice ball; the wolf, the dog, the cat, and the demon then waved to Subaru as they started to walk to the commotion to the east station, Subaru returning to Shigure, “So? It seems you managed to convince them to don’t step into the danger,” Her mother asked.

“Yeah, it took a while, and they were stubborn about it, but I managed to make them agree to help me with the moving of people to the shelters,” The girl replied with an awkward giggle while sitting with them, “Achan…? What did you come here for?” Subaru asked when noticing her presence, quickly frowning.

“She’s just making me company,” Shigure replied even faster, placing a hand over the table as if protecting the blue-haired woman from any incoming diss, “So? What about the others? Did you call Fubuki?”

“Uh, uh…?” The girl stuttered with confusion at the defensive look of her mother, “Y-yeah, I called her over; she said she would try to convince Ayame to join, but that will most likely be impossible, at least for now, I know Fubuki is coming,” She explained while leaving her beret over the table, leaning her back against the chair, “Time is running and my head is so stuffed!” She complained hoarsely, massaging her eyes in circles.

“What about the Mayors Luna and Matsuri?” Achan asked with her hand on the air, almost as if asking for permission to talk from the girl.

“Those… They both can use the Bloom System but,” Subaru mourned, “They don’t have any combat knowledge, I haven’t called them because I don’t want to put them in danger.”

“What disappears as soon as you say its peko name?”

“You said you wanted to solve them, now hurry up, the thought of humoring this stupid rabbit is driving me insane!” In another closed hall of the bricked maze, the reaper used her scythe to block the explosions of four medieval-looking canons, placed at the extreme right of one of the blocked doors, shooting bullets dressed flames of White against her, “Just how many more of these things we have to go through?” She questioned frustrated, extending her arm on the air and absorbing one of the bullets with her Black, then aiming next at one of the canons with her open palm, Calliope shot a bullet made of Black against the weapons, yet these ones shone with a sudden brighter ray of White, coming unscratched from the explosion, “Stop doing that! How much energy can you have to waste it so recklessly!” She screamed into the cameras at the ceiling.

“Ah… Ah! I get it now! Silence, Master Calliope, the answer is silence!” Fangs exclaimed happily from the other side of the hall, as she was being covered from the shots, “The answer is… silence!” She shouted one more time with a smile, pointing at the words in the wall with her knife, but one of the canons shoot, making the hooded girl snort thunderstruck, “What? But that is the answer, I swear, what I am missing?”

“I told you we shouldn’t be playing by her rules! This riddle is probably rigged to her whims!” Calliope screamed back at her, jumping to avoid getting hit from the shot, using her scythe to knock the bullet and change the direction against the floor, steeping over the round steel ball on the tip of her feet while slicing the second and third shot, “Just give up, I’ll find a way to…-” She tried to shout at the hooded girl, just to be surprised by fangs herself, who jumped on her back and put both hands over Calliope’s mouth, muffling her screams.

“Shut your trap for a couple of seconds, would you? That is the real answer, not for the riddle, but to escape this hall!” She angrily explained to the reaper as she pressed both hands against her face while Calliope tried to shake her off, “Shhhh! Just stay put, believe me!” She insisted, moving her left hand over her face to contain her own breathing and sounds, looking at the four canons being recharged by automated arms, aiming at the two.

Holding on the scythe with her left and the arm of fangs suffocating her with the right, Calliope prepared to intercept against the new barrage of shots. Yet as the hooded girl tried to explain, the moment both of them stopped talking, the canons automatically halted on their attack, the reaper rolled her eyes and groaned, muffled by the hand of the girl, then softly sat on the floor and placed her weapon over her shoulder, after two minutes of silence, the mechanical arms sprouted from the walls and picked up the canons menacing at them, the steel door slowly split up for them, “Let’s keep moving…” The reaper said by removing the girl’s hand out of her face, standing back and slowly walking out of the hall with an embarrassed face.

“Yeah fangs, thank you fangs, you’re the cutest of your sisters fangs,” The hooded one shrugged full of sarcasm, reluctantly following her Master.

“Don’t flatter yourself, I only playing because you insisted on it,” The reaper said without looking at the girl, walking through the hall until finding two new bricked paths, “Another…? I’m starting to get dizzy, put a mark on this wall too, we turned left twice so we’ll take right this time, I want to avoid walking in circles, the less we make that girl laugh at us the better.”

“Roger thing boss, I have to admit I thought her laugh was funny at first, but is starting to get on my nerves alright,” Fangs nods while bringing her knife, scratching the surface of the wall with the tip until marking an arrow with it, “It’s the fourth trap in which we fall by now and we still don’t have any idea of where blindfold could be, I just hope that eyeless moron is following our bread crumbs, wait a sec, I’ll write the answer for her too,” She suddenly thought, leaning against the wall with one hand, making fast cuts to write the letters of the message.

“… We’ll probably have to look for her properly when this is over, don’t we?” Calliope shook her head with disdain, “She probably got stuck in the glue trap we passed by a while ago and hasn’t been able to get out of there.”

“Pfft, knowing that idiot that’s what most likely happened,” Fangs replied with a snort, picturing her sister with her ragged clothes stuck on the floor, “Alright, I’m done here, now, Master,” She gestured with exaggerated mannerism to the reaper, signaling to the right path, and getting smacked as result, “Hey!”

“Why is that you’re always like this, you and that rabbit would probably get along, both are just born to piss off people,” The tall lady hissed, shaking her robe and taking the lead.

“Urgh… I think what you need is to learn to differentiate when I’m being sarcastic and when I’m not! I was just trying to be educated just now!” The hooded girl cried powerlessly, following her master with both hands over her head.

“Were you…? Sorry then,” She mindlessly spouted, clinking the edge of her scythe against the wall.

“Uh…? Come back one nickel… did she just apologize? To me?”  Fangs wondered in disbelief.

The couple continued walking through the hall which extended fifty meters in the long. Marking the border with an arrow and turning left, they were slowly getting accustomed to transit the infinite-looking maze of walls, minding their spots before turning, watching her steps to don’t activate a new trap and have their ways sealed. Taking another left turn before moving to the right, almost like a routine at this point, the reaper sighted a new interception with three new different paths at the other extreme, “… This can’t be happening… but no… I won’t get mad anymore… I won’t give that girl another reason to laugh at me…” She breathed loudly and repeatedly, stepping into the hall with the hooded girl, and with the spark of a siren, walls of steel contained them from both sides, “Calm Calliope… CALM!” She howled with a fake smile, gripping the hilt of her weapon as if she were about to twist the scythe in half.

“I speak without a mouth and hear without peko ears. I have no body, but I come alive with wind

What am I peko?”

With a new riddle appearing on the wall, a strange layer of a metallic mesh covered the ceiling, filled with multiple small holes, abruptly surprising the two as fireworks ignited with White started to shoot from up directly into the floor, aiming without a specific direction, creating sparks of destruction, “Very well fangs, do your magic now.”

“Eh, my magic…? Is she… don’t tell me, is this her way of spoiling me?”  The hooded girl thought with furrowed brows, “Woah!” Then jumped scared when one of the fireworks ricocheted on the floor and meandered near her feet, “This… This one is easy, Master!” She exclaimed delighted, bringing up the knife and dashing towards the reaper, taking one small jump centimeters close of her, and jarring her blade against the one of Calliope, aiming at the teethed part, “The answer is… Echo!” She shouted victoriously, as the impact released a wave of Black which put off the fireworks, the acute metallic ripples stopping the random shots and opening the walls, “Aw yeah, how about that!” She fisted the air with a wide smile, but the tall lady stood emotionless, with her eyes fixed on the exit of the hall, almost without breathing, impossible for the hooded girl to ignore, being obliged to drop off her little celebration and stand to the side of her master, looking at the same place, “Did I miss something?”

“Or maybe I did…” Calliope suggested pointing at the exit, “This is the direction in which we were going before the trap activated, right?” She questioned her partner.

“Yes? Did you get dizzy again Master? We were walking towards the…” Fangs tried to mock on the reaper, but sooner than later the hooded girl noticed it too, that the other extreme of the exit had changed into a turn to the left with the mark of an arrow, instead of the three pathway which was previously standing on their way, “What the…”

“PEKO PEKO PEKO PEKO PEKO, SO YOU FINALLY NOTICED? I CONTROL THIS MAZE AS I PLEASE, YOU’VE BEEN WALKING IN CIRCLES FOR A LOOOONG WHILE PEKO”

Chapter Text

Leaving a path of scrapped metal on the way, an enraged reaper and her subject ran through the shady halls, beating up small robots with bunny ears trying to halt their steps, as the White fuelling the machines gradually started to fade, no longer protecting them and slowing them down, "I guess that at this point, ah, she doesn't even bother to bring out the riddles!" Fangs shouts while jumping over the head of a robot with both hands, trying to catch up with the tall lady, "Hey, your legs are longer than mine, would you mind slowing down a little bit?"

"Keep running or I'll leave you behind!" Calliope replied instead, dashing through the halls, jumping and slashing robots trying to get a hold of her with their pincers, "We need to move faster than her, otherwise she'll change our route again!"

"FASTER THAN ME PEKO? YOU'RE JUST SO CUTE!"

Having to swing her scythe against the ground, the tall lady clenched her teeth as she made her body abruptly stop, feeling it over her shoulders, watching a steel door suddenly appear from up, stopping their way with a heavy slam, "But this is the middle of the hallway!" Calliope groaned and unplucked her weapon from the floor. 

"AND? WHO SAYS THE PEKO TRAPS HAVE TO APPEAR WITH AN ENTIRE HALL?"

"Master let's turn back now while we can, the other side is still open!" Fangs told the reaper quickly turning around, just to be greeted by a hoard of little robots accelerating to their way, "Crap, those things are every-grugh!" Being taken from the shoulder by the reaper, the woman pushed her against the wall and kept her pressed on it, "M-Master?!"

"Don't move from there if you don't want to be cut in half," She replied with a serious tone, wrapping her scythe with a thin layer of Black, Calliope held on the hilt upside down. Taking a small bounce first, a couple of large steps later, she swung the blade up with a spurt of strength, shooting a shockwave of Black energy which sliced all of the robots, "But that's not all!" She exclaimed to the cameras, allowing the weight of her instrument to let it fall behind her back, using another shock of energy to impulse her body in the air towards the sealed path, "I, am, getting, tired!" She spun twice with her scythe, using the synergy to slash the wall in three different cuts, reopening their way.

"Woah, that was quite stylish, were those the newton laws or something of the sort? Can I see you doing it again?" The hooded one slowly approached with sarcasm, yet clapping at the reaper with honesty.

"That door..." Calliope whispered ignoring once again the comments of the girl, observing a design and inscriptions that were different from the rest, she immediately sprinted against it, preparing her blade, "This door must be the exit!"

“NO, STOP; DON’T GO THROUGH THAT ROOM PEKO!”

“Whatever made you think that I would kindly do as you ask?” The reaper exclaimed as she sliced the door with yellow warning marks in a diagonal cut. With a clattering echo, the pieces of door split and fell on the ground, making it slightly tremble, “… You have to be kidding me…” Calliope whispered with her body slowly flaming with Black, there wasn’t anything else that fangs could say to her master, as both were facing the same room, the hooded girl slowly stepped away from the tall lady whose body emanated darkness in the three physical forms.

“Maintenance is being deployed peko; please wait for this level to be completed.”

With a sweet, cartoony, artificial tune, resembling the one of Pekora yet modified with a strange amount of filters, a hoard of small robots with bunny ears, with a shape similar to the cleaning robots, were slowly rebuilding, reinstalling, replacing, and refilling one of the destroyed traps of the hall. Each one following a different task, from bringing new pieces of bricks and concrete to refill the missing spaces on the walls, fixing the cabling which spilled out, cleaning the tar on the floor, bringing new armament and their ammo for the trap to be back in function. The entire scene had left the reaper speechless, but her wrath was literally being seen through, as the walls gradually grew with deep stains of soot around her, and the ground slowly started to crumble and melt below her feet due to the surplus amount of tar spreading.

“Aw crap, she saw it peko; I was hoping she wouldn’t find out so soon… Subaru, where are you? This girl just found out all my peko tricks!” Pekora mumbled frustrated with tight lips, looking at the reaper from the cameras of the console, “And my energy is about to reach its limit too peko…” She said next looking at the cable in her hand with an uncomfortable expression, “Guess this is it where it ends… But I still have one more plan peko,” The bunny-girl gently kicked the console and pushed the chair back to the lid with the power cables, and using the same hand in which she was holding the main connection, Pekora grabbed a handful of cables, pulling them from the box and pouring her color inside of all of them at the same time, “The engine must be at its limit too peko, since it wasn’t made to work with my color, if Subaru doesn’t come… I’ll make this maze explode with White, I… I guess I will survive peko? Heavily wounded but survive, yes, let’s be positive,” She nodded at her narration with a nervous smile, “For now, let’s proceed as planned peko,” The bunny blurted next, opening a pair of new windows showing lectures of status from the engine, slowly reaching red numbers, later bringing the mike, switching it on, and trying to calm down, preparing her next taunt.

“HOW DO YOU LIKE IT? HOW DO YOU LIKE IT? CAN YOU FEEL IT PEKO? THAT EMPTY SENSATION IN YOUR STOMACH PEKO! EMBRACE IT WITH ALL YOUR MIGHT, THAT’S HOW YOU SHOULD BE FEELING PEKO!”

“You piece of…” Calliope gasps angrily at the acute voice mocking her from the speakers, but the reaper stops mid-way and lowers her face, whispering with a serious tone as the hall keeps darkening and deforming by the dark flames and tar, “… You… You seriously got me… every time I thought of outsmarting you was in vain… from the very moment I stepped inside this maze you had us in the palm of your hand, over and over…”

“Eh… Did she suddenly start to praise me?” Pekora asked with concern with her free hand over the mike.

“Well, Master, it seems the last nerve of your cute head is about to break, so, you know? If you don’t mind…” Fangs stuttered an excuse as she tried to go back from the other hall.

“Stay where you are, coward piece of crap,” The reaper insulted her in the most calmed way, gazing at the hooded girl with the back of her eyes, “It is because of you that I fell into this foolery in the first place, we never found blindfold, so this time it’ll be your turn to act… you owe me, was I clear?”

“Y-yes, I mean, I’m your subject either way aren’t I?” The hooded girl shrugged scared, “Saying that I owe you is a little weird… so, what does Master need me to do?”

“PEKO PEKO PEKO PEKO, THAT’S RIGHT, FROM THE VERY MOMENT YOU STEPPED INSIDE HERE PEKO, THERE ISN’T AN EXIT TO THIS MAZE, WHY WOULD I GIVE YOU THE CHANCE TO REACH AN PEKO EXIT, TO BEGIN WITH?

THE HALLS OF THIS MAZE ARE ALWAYS TURNING EACH TIME YOU ACTIVATE A TRAP, THEY'RE MADE SO YOU SPENT YOUR LIFE WALKING IN CIRCLES PEKO!

THE TRAPS NEVER STOP FROM PEKO APPEARING BECAUSE THEY’RE REPAIRED AND PUT BACK INTO PLACE!

THIS IS MY GREATEST FEAT, THE TRICKSTER LABYRINGHT PEKO!”

“I see… certainly, quite befitting of your personality…” Calliope's calm attitude finally started to wane, stomping the end of her scythe’s hilt against the bricked ground, the flames, the smoke, the soot, and the tar enveloped her body until forming a black asymmetrical dress with a large skirt reaching her ankles, “Hehehe… And here I was hoping to be able to hold my composure this time around you know? Hehe… I really thought no one was going to be able to push me out the edge again, AND YET!” With both arms the woman lifted the scythe in the air, the flames of Black in her body sparked and followed the hilt of the weapon, igniting and obscuring the edge with darkness. Engulfing it with flames and deforming its shape, increasing its size and creating a large pickaxe of burning Black, “I’VE BEEN THINKING THIS FOR A WHILE, BUT YOU’RE INSIDE OF THIS MAZE WITH US, DON’T YOU?” She howled with a perverted smile from ear to ear, extending her left leg behind, arching her back, swaying the giant pickaxe in the air, “SINCE YOU FELL TOGETHER WITH US, YOUR HIDING PLACE MUSN’T BE ON THE CEILING, BUT UNDERGROUND!”

The pulverizing impact erased all other sounds, whistling as meteors falling from the sky. Igniting the ground with its heat and  Black, melting the surface where the reaper and the hooded were standing in just a blink, destroying everything that gets in the way, with ireful eyes, Calliope twisted her grip around the weapon, repeatedly smashing the ground, breaking and melting, devastating the maze, “KNOCK KNOCK LITTLE TWERP, I’M TIRED OF YOUR GAMES AND I’M COMING FOR YOU!”

Pekora observed silently from the console with a smile filled with sternness, as the ceiling above her head started to crumble and shake. Switching off the mike, the bunny-girl slowly stood from her chair, typing a couple of commands over the programs showing the status of the engine, with a press of the enter key, multiple small windows of warning started to pop up, all titled as “Overheating”, but Pekora ignored them all, turning to the door of the console, one by one the cameras stopped working behind her back, as the dark flames and smoke started to get them, the last camera recording the last moments of the reaper as she finally made a hole through the ground of the maze, jumping inside of it.

“Each time unknown words come to mind, I reach my hand toward the traces they leave.”

Gulping saliva, Pekora started to sing, growing pale, shinning over the last bits of  White she possessed.

“But there may be words that I can’t comprehend all alone.”

She sang hastily and pressured, her melodious tone invaded with a smidgen of nervousness. The steps of the infuriated reaper being hear from afar.

“’Goodbye’ is so bitter, while ‘I love you’ carries a far-off scent.”

The large blade of the scythe perforated the metallic door as if a knife opening a tuna can, chirping sounds of friction and steel being peeled as the edge slowly pushes down its way to make an aperture, Pekora's legs trembling.

“This incomparable feeling; is so very frightening… but so precious at the same time.”

The bunny extended her hand towards the keyboard behind her back, holding the space bar, her eyes fixed on the tall lady who stepped inside the room, fixing her hair with an unexpected, relaxed face, “That voice… Who would’ve known you could sing so cutely? But… What are you looking at exactly?” Calliope suggested with a teethed smile, “It is not me the one you should be scared of.”

With a crashing sound the very second after the reaper spoke, the hooded girl had landed behind the back a Pekora through a hole in the ceiling made with her knife, locking the bunny’s arm out the keyboard and holding her neck by pressing the edge of her weapon against, “Lights out, see you soon,” Fangs whispered with an emotionless tone.

“Subaru…”

A swift swing from left to right, piercing through her skin, meat, and bones, piercing through her voice, and through the screams of the bunny-girl. Thin lines of blood shooting out of her body, following the cuts traces of the knife as a small and morbid fountain of a reddish color, Pekora’s body dropped on the floor, as her eyes instantly fade of bright.

“… Is there something I need to do now?” Calliope asked after a long breath of relief, turning on her usual clothes when a cloud of dusk wrapped her body.

“Nah, just stay there and enjoy the show, kehehe,” Fangs replied with delight, circling the dead body dropping blood over the floor, standing to the side of her master.

As the corrupting essence poured from the wound of the neck, the shadow of Pekora began to darken, taking a deeper color, growing in size, and separating from the bunny-girl. Right in front of the eyes of the reaper and the hooded girl, the shadow moved from a silhouette and took on a solid form, identical to Pekora, completely made of Black, its eyes and mouth seemed to go through its head, as the rest of the room could be seen from those spaces, “What…?” The creature stuttered with a croaky voice similar to the one of Pekora, slowly standing from the floor, looking at their own hands, “You… forced me out?” It questioned with doubt.

But fangs only pulled on her knife and pointed at the dead body with her usual smile, “Dinner is served,” She dropped with growing laughter coming from her throat.

“Eh…? Pekora… Pekora!” The shadow screamed in horror when realized the body on the floor surrounded by blood, “What did you do to her?! Wha-…” It tried to ask, but their legs started to tremble, a strange hole started to appear from a corner of its mouth, as if it were drooling, “No… NO! I DON’T WANNA… I… I!” It tried to complain, it tried to refuse, scratching its head in confusion, in fear, but the pitch of their voice started to change, kneeling on the floor, growling, spreading its limbs to stand in all fours, “WRARRRRRGH!”

The creature leaped over the dead body, no longer imitating the figure of the bunny-girl, opening its mouth with abnormal size, almost as if dislocating its jaw, the shadow chomped over the dead body’s head, and by holding it from the shoulders it ripped the skull from the neck, crunching it with its fangs, “… Disgusting…” Calliope muttered with indignation, blinding her eyes by placing the edge of the scythe in front of her face, turning from the gruesome scene.

“Yes… YES!” Fangs celebrated with maniac laughter, as the shadow munched the contents inside its mouth and swallowed.

It ate her head with her hair; it ate her shoulders, her arms, and her hands. It ate her chest and her back, not even minding the pieces of cloth in the way, it munched her guts and gulped her blood, it ate her thighs, her legs, and her feet, it munched through every clump of meat, every single part of the bunny-girl, ravenous, completely out of control, it ate until eating her bones, it sipped the blood spilled on the floor, then it finally calmed down. Still in all fours, the strange monster started to sway with hasty respiration, as if had been suffocated with everything which gulped down.

“Alright, wait for it, just a second, don’t change yet ok? There’s something more for you…” Fangs laughed at the shadow and signaled it with her hand, placing the other over one of her fangs in front of her face in her jaw, “I didn’t want to do this… but since blindfold isn’t around… Here we go!” She screamed all of a sudden as she pulled on the fang, with a powerful twist, pulling it down, the hooded girl plucked the pointy bone out of her mouth, “… Ugh, we may not bleed, but Lord Almighty this sure hurts!” She complained throwing the fang in direction of the shadow, which jumped like a dog in the air and caught it with its mouth, devouring it.

“… What was that for?” Calliope asked puzzled by the actions of the girl, peeking from the borders of her scythe.

“Just a little something to make sure she obeys us in everything we need,” Fangs explained while licking the hole between her teeth.

“You… you did the same with me?” The reaper wondered next, slowly frowning.

“Of course we did, where do you think blindfold eyes' are right now? Yummy, yummy,” Fangs implied with malice, rubbing her stomach, “When was the last time you saw yourself in the mirror? Didn’t you notice those weren’t your eyes?”

“YOU SUNUVA!” Calliope snapped with wrath, pushing the hooded girl against the wall by pressing the hilt of the scythe on her neck, “Do you think that crap’s funny? The hell do you think you’ll obtain by admitting you brainwashed me?!” She asked furiously, almost spitting on her face.

“Because even if I admit it… Do you have any desire to stop helping us, or to turncoat on us?” Fangs wondered with hissing laughter, as the reaper gradually averted her eyes with powerlessness, “That’s more like it Master… Don’t feel so bad about it, I promise you, there’s a big part of you who wants to help us in our goal, after all, brainwashed or not, most of this is your fault!” The girl said with a sarcastic smile while the grip on her neck slowly weakened.

In the middle of the discussion, the shadow started to act up again, forcing to break the strange argument by looking at the figure return to the shape of Pekora. One knee at a time, the shadow slowly stood back up, silently, soullessly, and its dark body started to crack, being filled with fissures until breaking apart, almost like a sudden erosion, the Black turned into dust and floated in the air, revealing a bunny-girl with bags on her eyes and a large scar surrounding her neck, a leather bunny suit with fishnets and heels under a biker leather jacket, her hair tied into a ponytail made with two carrots, a familiar fang popping from the right side of her mouth. Calliope examined the new standing figure vexed with doubts, massaging her scar while looking at the one of Pekora’s.

“Happy birthday and welcome back!” Fangs shouted happily, stretching her arms, “Just to make sure, would you tell me, what’s our mission?” She asked with a finger in the air.

“Of course peko… to destroy The Equilibrium of the Spectrum,” Pekora replied with a tiresome tone.

“Humu… it seems no matter what, we can’t replace those ‘pekos’ of you, but what’s done is done…” The hooded girl voiced with a hiss, kneeling in front of the other, “Now, Master Pekora, would you kindly take us out of this maze?”

With the rays of the sun hiding at the sudden clouds blinding the sky, the power of the city completely disappeared. Void of light, natural or artificial, empty of sounds, nor sirens or screams, as the evacuation had been completed long ago. Over the first level of the zone, Calliope made her way out of the ground by smashing a steel lid away, followed by Pekora, the two girls leaving a trail of tar on her steps, this time with no one to stop it from spreading, reuniting back with the little crashes who meandered their way to its Masters, the hooded girls climbing out the lid next, the first pulling on the other with her clothes stained with sticky, purple glue.

“So… what do you think?” Calliope asked with a poker face, the reaper, and the bunny-girl looking to the upward levels, quickly being contaminated with tar, their hair fluttering in the cold and sterile wind.

“… I think it’s beautiful peko,” Pekora said turning her face to the reaper, sketching a nasty smile.

Chapter Text

Step by step, a girl happily splashed a strange oily substance of dark color covering the ground, making it impossible to recognize the asphalt on the streets from the sidewalks. With ice cream on her left and a palette on her right, holding them both at the height of her head so the bituminous liquid wouldn’t reach, she danced and hopped over the dark pool with animosity, humming happily, stopping just to take a bite of the ice cream and continue with her childish playing, not minding the black stains spreading on her bandages, shoes, and socks.

“You sure are happy today, even though you barely did something,” The hooded girl walking a couple of meters behind hissed displeased, slowly munching on popcorn.

The echo of the girl’s melody predominated through the solitude of the dark city. Every single building was painted in pitch black, some of them were slightly disintegrating into particles shaped into tiny squares as if the walls of the building had been brushed with a blurring tool, “How can I not be happy?” The girl of bandages over her eyes questioned, spinning on the pool of oil, producing ripples, “With this, we have nine corrupted zones! We can finally start on the second phase, the Grandmaster too must be happy about it!”

“Just a little more… and we won’t have to be dead anymore…” The girl of fangs whispered with uncertainty, taking one kernel on the tip of her fingers, and gesturing it to the other girl, “Here, think fast,” She said shooting the little popcorn with a flick.

“Yum!” Blindfold reacted fast, turning to the side, standing only with her right leg, catching the kernel and swallowing it, “Why so gloomy all of a sudden…? Oh! I know, is it because now you have a master to serve?” She giggled innocently, taking a spoonful of her ice cream and gesturing it to her sister.

“Please, don’t bring it up, urgh,” Fangs said, riled of her giddy attitude, “It was enough with Master Calliope using us as her sandbag, and now I have to serve directly to the most annoying crash ever existed,” The girl complained while slowly savoring the melting cream on her mouth.

“D’aw don’t be like that, if you get along with her maybe you can have something like I have with Master Calliope!” She encouraged her sister with waving fists, both turning to glance at the building to their right. With the small and sudden sound of an explosion, like a rusted engine trying to start up, the power came back to the corrupted city, illuminating into the darkness created by the black material enveloping its surroundings, gusts of a cold breeze fluttering their hoods and capes, “And she’s so smart, look! She put her zone back to function even while corrupted, Master Calliope took weeks to do so, you’re so lucky.”

“I can understand why the Grandmaster wanted Master Calliope to make this girl crash, a brain to our side is helpful… considering how much we’ve been screwing up until recently,” Fangs said calmly yet with a speck of exasperation, hissing just slightly, “But… I’m not sure if I want to be all lovey-dovey with her you know? But hell may fall; I’m already replacing her best friends’ memories.”

“I’m telling you, it’ll be fine, and that girl doesn’t seem to be the lovey-dovey type anyway!” Her sister insisted with a sarcastic giggle, stroking her shoulder, “Speaking about the devil… where are they?” She asked absentmindedly.

“Master Pekora said she wouldn’t work with Master Calliope while wearing such ‘metal Goth snowflake’ attire, so she took it to change clothes in some mall,” The girl of fangs replied while shaking off her sister’s grip, they began to walk side to side, gently splashing tar with their steps, “As if she is one to say that, she looks like the leader of a bike gang now,” Fangs shrugged, stuffing her mouth with popcorn, “Why is that Master Pekora changed so much while Master Calliope didn’t?”

Blindfold unsheathed her knife and raised the edge into the dark sky, drawing an invisible horizontal line with it, “Maybe because of guilt… Contrary to Master Pekora, Master Calliope willingly let herself be eaten, maybe some of her past feelings still remained because of that,” She dug the knife into her ice cream and used the edge as a palette, taking a bite of it.

“Tut tut tut tut tut tut tut tut tut tut tut tut tut tut…”

“The guilt thing again… I hope that doesn’t mess up with our plans…” Fangs commented as her attention was being taken elsewhere, a small hoard of crashes started to walk towards the noises of singing, almost hypnotized by the feminine tones being heard in the distance, “… Uh? Are they fighting each other or something?”

“Nah…” Blindfold whispered with a huge, evil smile, “They’re crying.”

“Deep shadows with no ashes, I’m like a doll without an eye, I’m not here. I’m nowhere. I don’t exist, do I?”

Standing on the edge of the city’s highest level, as the oily substance fell from the borders like gentle waterfalls of darkness, the bunny-girl and reaper sang while glancing down at the corrupted city.

“Vague eyes, eyes without color. Mimicry. Surprise! Like it has nothing to do with me, thanks to you? Who are you? The answers vary greatly.”

Like a moth to flames, their duet was attracting the crashes near, who meandered and mourned around them, charmed by their tune.

“Unable to become anything… Unable to do anything, is it useless for me to be alive? 

Is it a bad thing for me to be alive?”

Dressing over asymmetrical attires painted in black, one with their skirt reaching their ankles, the other barely covering her thighs, full of frills, they snapped with anger, looking up the sky, they inhaled with remorse, howling into the night.

“What’s missing in this place, is me! Is me!

 Before I can see anyone at all, I’m swept aside 

And it’s farewell.”

The tar around their feet reacting to their emotions and their singing, their screams making ripples into it, each of their words sprouted decomposing flowers, gradually forming a grim garden of withered plants, divided by small rivers of oil.

“I’m not happy, I’m not sad, I feel transparent. I’m not enough I have no face to speak of…

How could I possibly smile?”

They slowly lowered their voices, with the music fading along, the sound of the waterfalls took in, Calliope glanced at the bunny-girl standing in the Wither System with annoyance, “She controlled it way faster than me…” Her hand trembled for a moment, doubtful of her own thoughts, and when she tried to stretch it and phrase her question; the sudden clap of the hooded girls coming from the back of the buildings interrupted her mannerism, confusing the bunny who had been spying her with the corner of her eyes.

“That was so beautiful! I never get tired of Master Calliope’s singing; you both look like wedding brides singing on their husband’s requiem!” The girl of bandages applauded furiously.

“Certainly… These clothes are quite different from the Bloom System peko, their similarity with a wedding dress is peko astounding,” Pekora nodded while pulling the corners of her skirt.

“What were you rehearsing for? This zone is already ours, or were you perhaps celebrating your victory?” Fangs added with crass, “If the Masters are done already, can we go back home?”

“My zone is not your home, you freeloader,” Calliope retorted with anger, the bunny and the reaper making their way through the garden of dead flowers to reach the hooded ones. With their dresses vanishing in a cloud of dust, Calliope’s appeared in a set of a crop top with skull imagery under a red and black jacket, sweatpants, and a cap with a pair of little horns, her scythe resting on her back, “And we’re not going anywhere…” She paused intentionally, turning to the bunny.

“The Terra Hero is making her way to us as we speak peko, I thought you girls and the Grandmaster would like to take this chance to get rid of her,” Pekora explained giddily, her clothes forming back into the bunny suit over a bike jacket.

“Subaru is coming…?” Fangs meditated over the news with a hand on her chin, looking next at her sister, “What do you think?”

Blindfold dropped on her ice cream, embracing the knife on her chest as her entire body shook with mirth, “I think is time to greet her!”

“Please, I don’t want Matsuri to go to that place…”

Inside of a locked janitor room, the living silhouette of Matsuri expressed vehemently to the small princess sitting over a flipped bucket, she looked at the shadow with curled lips. “I thought the deal was for you to stay sleeping nanora,” Luna replied ignoring the claims of the entity, immediately holding over her head, “You know… I’m not that good at complicated themes nanora… And Fubuki isn’t here yet, why don’t you want Matsuri to come nanora? Please explain it to me in a way I can nanora understand.”

The shadow sighed with a nervous tic on her leg, drumming on the floor, “That wasn’t what the deal was about, it was… you know, that part doesn’t really matter,” Ritsuma said with a hand pressing on her knee, trying to calm down, the figure flicked the small lamp in the room, making it’s light sway from side to side, “I want to live, I want to keep living, that’s what matters, that’s all I care, and I’m sorry, but that’s the only thing I can worry about,” She expressed to the princess in a mix of honesty and nonchalant selfishness, bowing to her, “And now both of you are menacing my life by trying to join Subaru to that place… Please reconsider it, I don’t want to go, please find a way for Matsuri to don’t put herself under such a harsh situation.”

“Ritsuma… Are you really that scared nanora?” Luna wondered stranged of the calm and submissive attitude of the usually uncouth silhouette, bowing firmly to her, forming a horizontal line with her back, the figure nodded to her. As the breathing in the cramped room filled with brooms and cleaning utensils started to grow hot and stale, the princess held onto the lamp with both hands, using the tip of her fingers to stabilize the light, “… I’m sorry nanora, I can’t do something like that, and we’re the only ones who have come to help Subaruru… I’m not exactly sure nanora… of how to describe it, but, you know? I think this is one of those nanora moments where we can’t be as selfish as you want to be nanora,” She scratched her cheek, her nose, the scalp of her head, the little one scrapped all the corners of her face and head, unsure of her own explanation, trying to pull the seriousness the theme was asking for, “That girl Pekora… Subaruru wants to help her, and she can’t do it alone, that is why…” She murmured with aversion of her speech.

“… Is there no way to convince you otherwise?” The figure insisted with clear unwillingness in her voice, similar to the one of Matsuri, muffled with a filter emulating bad radio reception, “That place is being corrupted as we speak isn’t it? And there will be crashes and Black… if one of those things touches me… I… My body…” she stuttered with fear, the holes forming her eyes and mouth showing a face of concern and worry.

Regardless Luna caressed the head of the silhouette, stroking its top, “I’ll be there too nanora, and the two of us will be with Subaruru, don’t worry so much, ok nanora?” She giggled with a tooted smile, “I’ll protect Matsuri nanora! And by protecting her, I’ll be protecting you too!”

After a couple of minutes, the princess unlocked the door and peeked the surroundings outside before coming out. Pretending to be just finishing to dust her nose from the girl’s common bathroom in the outsides of the east portal station of Yellow High, Luna, and the shadow, meandering on her feet, floundered together in the mass of authorities from both zones waiting for just meters at the line of portal doors which were all connected to the place the bunny people came out from. When spotting the girl with a side ponytail wearing an asymmetrical dress to the side of Subaru, the shadow accelerated out of the feet of Luna and returned to their original source, making Matsuri shriek and squirm with a surprising chilling feeling invading her body.

“… You ok there…?” Subaru questioned with a brow in the air, fixing the gloves on her hands, wearing on her own version of the Bloom System, they both were surrounded by police officers and firefighters, virtual humans, androids, and bunny people, all of them observing with anxiety as the girls faced the doors to the other zone without stepping inside.

“Yeah I think so… suddenly I felt really cold, but is passing by, prrrrr!” She cried and shook her body like a puppy damped from a shower, stealing a couple of laughs from the people observing them, “But anyway Subachan, you sure don’t want one of these?” The girl changed on the subject bringing a handful of small chocolate balls wrapped in a shining gold paper, “I bought them just recently, they’re Duckdiva's newest product! Wanna try? They taste amazing!” She bantered on the sweets, quickly unwrapping one and shoving it on her mouth, massaging her cheeks with an exaggerated reaction, “Truly… heavenly!”

“Subaruru sowy nanora, is hard to go to the bathroom on this dress!” Luna exclaimed feigning over a bit of exhaustion, reuniting with the two after a police officer lifts the yellow line for her to pass, once again the authorities laughed, “Did you wait long? Let’s beat the bad guys nanora!” She said after a small bounce, shadow boxing the air, provoking bigger laughter.

“C’mon Subachan, say ‘aaaahh’ I know you’ll like it!” Matsuri gently gestured the snack to her.

“I… DON’T HAVE TIME FOR THAT!” With ireful eyes the black-haired girl snapped, turning on the two with heavy respiration, clenching her hands into fists, she spun to face the couple of girls and menaced at both with a finger, “I don’t have time to think about chocolate! I don’t have time to wait for little girls who need to use the potty! Do you understand what’s happening here? Do you?!” She screamed at them, waving her right index, pointing, threatening them, “It’s a second crash event! I don’t have time to pretend to be the nice girl right now!” She breathed through her nose, enraged, the tone of her screams made everyone around turn mute.

“… Su… Subaruru…” Luna quivered like a scared cat, hands on her face as if trying to defend herself, waiting for the worst, her eyes quickly watering due to the screams.

“Subachan,” Matsuri took on a step forward with a heartwarming smile, using the chance to shove one of the chocolate balls inside her mouth, “We know… Ok, maybe we don’t know as much as you do… but we know what we have to know…” She paused and caressed the cheek of the girl through her gloves, “I’m sorry ok? It's not like we’re not taking this seriously, is just… you’re making such an unhappy face right now…” Matsuri explained, switching on a sad tone, “We were just trying to calm you down a little, so please.”

“Was I…” Subaru mumbled with the round snack clanking between her tongue and teeth, holding Matsuri’s hand and meditating on her words. She stared from left to right at the police and firefighters, the nurses and doctors, her mother and Achan, analyzing how everyone behind the yellow line was observing her back with utter concern. Subaru slowly removed Matsuri’s grasp, crunching the chocolate and slowly munching on it, her eyes posing last on the princess at the verge of crying, she caressed her own face with remorse, feeling the tensed up folds of her skin, “I was… I’m sorry… I’m… nervous, and a bit scared too… I shouldn’t have screamed like that, forgive me…”

“Much better, you know what to do now right?” Matsuri smacked her shoulder and handed her a ball of chocolate, then stepped aside for the black-haired girl to face the princess.

“Say, Luna…” Subaru stuttered, both from having trouble trying to unfold the candy and having to confront the sobbing girl in front of her, “I… I’m sorry for screaming at you, would you like a chocolate?” She offered it with flustered cheeks, placing it at the height of the little one’s mouth.

“I… Of course nanora!” She replied after a gross and loud snort, chomping on Subaru’s fingers like a hungry puppy, delighted with the flavor, “Yum, they’re sweet just like Subaruru!”

The comment broke in sudden laughter from behind, slowly everyone started to relax, noticing over their own held breathing and tense shoulders, “Dummy, is not time for your silly flirting…” Subaru muttered and looked aside, growing redder.

Sparking on a thunderous alarm, the lights inside the station turned on a tilting red, and the doors of the station forcibly closed one by one, losing their power and shutting close with metallic sheets, “What the…? Subaru, what’s happening?!” Matsuri asked with hands over her ears, trying to protect herself from the loud noise invading the place. Closing from the extremes to the inside, only one door remained open, the girl leaned her head in close, “What’s happening? Why only this one kept open-…”

“Watch out!” Subaru shouted, spitting on the candy, quickly jumping over Matsuri and embracing her tight, using her feet to make their bodies roll on the floor. The people dressed in the emergency services didn’t need the warning, they understood even seconds before Subaru leaped on the cheerful girl, running to the sides, escaping from the range of the frames of the door, a gust of Black shoot from the other side of the portal and exploded inside the station, plastering soot and tar all over the floor, ceiling and walls, like a blast of ink created by the pressure of air. Subaru quickly kneeled on the floor and gazed at the portal emanating a dark essence, biting on her lower lip, “… We need to get going, we’ve been losing too much time!” She voiced with a scream, pressing over a knee to stand up, looking at Matsuri next, “Are you ok? Will you join me?”

“That was the plan… wasn’t it?” Matsuri huffed awkwardly, awed of the large stain of darkness painting the station.

“What about Fubuki nanora? She isn’t here yet!” Luna hurried to the girls, taking on Matsuri from the armpits trying to make her stand up.

“We can’t keep waiting for her, Pekora needs us; she can catch with us inside the zone!” Subaru explained to the princess, helping her with Matsuri, “Are you ready? I’m counting on you two!” She said energetically, with anxiety and with bravery.

The upbeat girls shared smug gazes between the other, answering Subaru in the same tune, “Yup!”

From stepping into the solid ground to paddling into the pools of tar, the three girls flashed from the east portal station, warping inside the north station of White Peko Land. With her right hand in the air, Subaru signaled the girls a couple of indications, and without sharing a word the girls nodded to her, Matsuri holding Subaru’s right shoulder, Luna doing the same with Matsuri, one behind the other, slowly stepping into the obscured yet powered station, “Ugh… everything smells weird nanora…” The princess tried to complain pinching her nose, just to be shooshed by the other two. Subaru stopped and looked down at the stench of oil, rising her left foot on the air watching the substance stick to her shoes, she turned to look at the girls and point at their feet, then softly gleamed in Yellow, making the oil separate from her dress, moving her finger in circles, pointing at her chest and later at the girls, Luna and Matsuri nodded again, sparking on Pink and Orange, as they repelled the tar while walking, the group silently stepped out of the station.

“This is bad… I… I waited for too long…” Subaru muttered with dejection, observing at the now dark and empty city emanating Black in the form of tar and smoke, illuminated only by the artificial lights of the buildings and posts, she glanced at the girls from behind her shoulder, “Change of plans… Our priority is to find Pekora and get the hell out of here.”

They climbed the stairs down the portal station and advanced through the streets of the city, Subaru’s eyes fixed at the castle on the top of the zone’s level. Procuring to splash the smallest amount of oil as they walked, and trying to contain the shine of their colors, they kept moving forward, “Su… Subachan…” Matsuri stuttered cowed, poking the girl’s shoulder and pointing to the figure of a crash swaying in the corner of an avenue, sipping on the tar, slowly increasing in size.

“It’s ok, don’t pay attention to those,” The black-haired girl whispered back, holding the girl’s hand by pressing it against her shoulder, “Search and rescue is our priority… We’ll avoid fighting with as many crashes as possible, if we encounter Calliope we run away from her, I’m not putting any of you in danger, we’re looking for Pekora, that’s the only thing it matters.”

“Subaruru after all this time… do you not know yet why people crash nanora?” Luna wondered with a low tone, “That girl Calliope… she was the reaper nanora, and even though that’s a weird job and all, that’s no reason for her to… is it?”

“Beats me… you’d think after all I went through with Sora I already would have an answer for that but, I don’t…” Subaru groaned while dragging her feet over the oil.

They moved from the streets into the sidewalks, even though regardless of where they stepped it was all oil, the group resumed to walk stuck to the sides of the buildings as the number of crashes increased, forcing them to sneak with utmost stealth through the city. “Hey… I’ve been thinking this for a while, and, don’t you think there’s something weird about this?” Matsuri blurted while poking Subaru behind the shoulder, just a few blocks away from the castle, the vague thought of the girl with the ponytail forced the group to stop, she was looking down at her feet, “I mean… isn’t something missing here? We’ve been walking with our colors on all this time, and no matter how much we walk, this oily thing doesn’t disappear… Subachan, aren’t we depurating right now? Shouldn’t our steps… I don’t know; leave an empty space on the floor? Like clean or something, I don’t really know how to phrase it…”

“No, wait, you’re absolutely right on it…” Subaru said aghast of Matsuri’s train of thought, realizing on her explanation, she separated from the other two for a couple of meters, focusing her color on her feet, she made the stench boil and vibrate, slowly separating it from the floor, as if water pushing oil to the corners, but as much as she insisted, the dark essence returned to place. “What the… alright guys, let’s do it the three together, shinning at the same time,” She commanded with a serious tone.

“Eh? But if we shine that bright won’t Calliope find us nanora?” Luna asked while skipping to Subaru.

“Just for a couple of seconds, if what Matsuri is thinking is right, then this is bad news for us… give me your hands,” She said next with furrowed brows. Together in a circle, their colorful auras increased in size, flowing from their upper body to their legs and feet, just like before the tar bubbled and vibrated to the wavelength of color, repelled by the force, yet it wasn’t enough to look at the concrete on the sidewalk, after ten seconds of shinning like torches, Subaru shook her head to the girls and the three returned to softly gleam.

“I don’t get it, what does this mean? What is that I’m supposedly thinking of?” Matsuri expressed with a troubled chuckle.

“… It means that Pekora lost, this zone has fully corrupted…” Subaru spoke with a wistful tone, looking up at the castle, “We need to hurry up and find her; she must be hurt; please let us be on time…”

“On time peko?”

Shaking them from their worried thoughts, an acute voice asked haughtily and nonchalantly. From over their heads, a figure appeared over the sky, falling at dangerous speeds, ready to deliver a kick menacing with a pointy and sharp heel. Aiming at the princess, Subaru has but a little of a couple of seconds to run and stand in front of Luna, parrying the kick with her wrists, focusing her Yellow into her arms to cushion the impact and make the figure bounce away, elegantly landing on the floor, “I’m sorry to say peko, but you’re about an hour too late, my dear Subaru,” Pekora wryly said sticking out her tongue, pulling down the neck of her leather jacket, showing the large scar on her neck.

Subaru looked at the wound with wide eyes and a silent gasp, instantly clenching her teeth with absolute frustration, “Pe… kora… you…”

“Heeeeeey, I found her, and she brought some midgets as company peko!” The bunny laughed with malice, looking behind her back into the street, as three new figures, following by a small hoard of crashes made her way into the block.

“Well, well, but if it isn’t the one and only, the Terra Hero…” Calliope said with the hilt of her scythe over her right shoulder and inside her forearm, using the left to gesture at the dark creatures walking like zombies, signaling them to stop, the trio advanced alone to meet with the girls, “I wonder how much bad luck you must-have today? I’m particularly in a bad mood right now.”

“Oh c’mon, you’re always like that!” Blindfold said with a sneer.

“And that posture, you’re tryharding the bad guy attitude a bit too much,” Fangs added with the same tone.

 “Don’t make fun of me in front of the enemy!” Calliope exclaimed with a red face, smacking the heads of the two.

“What a particular bunch nanora… they look from an old tug movie,” Luna mumbled, puzzled of the new figures facing them, slowly hugging Matsuri from the waist.

“Owie… sorry, sorry, I can’t help it,” The girl of bandages said while rubbing the top of her head. As pekora turned and walked to the group of girls, blindfold took a step forward, clearing her throat and slowly opening her cape, showing her ragged clothes and the knife sheathed on her waist, “Greetings Subaru… Or should I perhaps call you Terra Hero? It has been long since the last time we faced each other like this,” Switching to a calm and soft tone the girl explained, slowly holding the corners of her hood.

“Come again? Who are you, have we met before?” Subaru wondered with anger and confusion, slowly dragging her feet along the oil to cover Luna and Matsuri with her body.

“Hey wait, are you sure about this?” Calliope asked when noticing she was about to remove her hood.

“Why not? After all, I’m quite curious…” Blindfold giggled uncontrollably. Removing the dirty hood, she showed a head covered in old bandages, including her eyes, and a scar on her neck. She took on the hilt of her knife next and slowly pulled it out, digging the tip of the edge under the bandages, she torn the old pieces of clothes with a zipping noise, and an abundant amount of blonde hair poured from both sides of her head.

“No… it can’t be…” Subaru gasped with shocked eyes, giving up on her defensive stance, absorbed by the way the girl in front of her fixed her hair with a smirk.

“What can not be exactly? Would you be more specific?” She insinuated dastardly, using the knife next to cut down the bandages covering her face, showing big, black holes where her eyes were once before, her eyelids winking without a reason, she took on the hilt with both hands and smiled wide at the look of Subaru’s face, “Oh my, what is it Subaru? Why are you so speechless… you look as if you’ve seen a ghost!” And then she finally snapped, with anger, maliciously, laughing with aggression and perversion.

“Akai… Haato…” The black-haired girl said, holding a whimper of fear with her mouth, almost about to cry.

“The original crash nanora…” Luna spoke with trembling legs.

Yet with a loud step over the oily substance from Subaru who lost focus of her color, staining her face and dress with the tar, the scream and the words she phrased froze the city into total silence, “How… how are you still alive…? I killed you…”

“… Suba… Subaru?” Matsuri stuttered feeling a chill traverse her spine, as the words of her friend echoed inside her mind, turning her pale in a matter of seconds, she stretched her left hand, trying to get a hold of her, “What… what did you just say?”

Once again Subaru stepped furiously into the oil, her face darkening with stains on her cheeks, this time the girl shouted it out her lungs, vexed in adrenaline, rage, horror, emotions taking the best of her, pulling the worst of her, “HOW ARE YOU STILL ALIVE? I KILLED YOU!”

“Subaru…?” Luna muttered with tears pouring from her eyes.

“Subaru, you killed someone?” Matsuri asked thunderstruck, hands-on her mouth trying to suffocate her crying wish.

“If that surprised you, then get ready to get your socks knocked off,” Fangs hissed stealing the lead, quickly pulling down her hood and removing the bandages on her head. With her signature smile, shaking her hair from side to side, she showed a face identical to the one of her sister, easily differentiated by her fangs and big, colorful eyes, “Yo, Subaru.”

“What…? Two Akai Haatos?” It was all she could manage to ask. Leaving ripples of friction in the oily floor, Calliope flashed from her spot and ran towards the black-haired girl, with deft she took the hilt in both hands, surrounding Subaru’s body with the long blade from the waist, “… Uh?”

“You should be careful of the enemy in front of you,” The reaper said with an emotionless face, pressing the edge on her back, pressing the hilt on her ribs, Calliope swung the scythe from the bottom and up, chopping Subaru’s body in half with a single movement. Her upper body fell into the tar with a loud splashing noise, her waist and legs slowly followed next, kneeling and drooping on the dark pool, “You weren’t worth my worries…” Calliope sighed with a shake of the head.

“SUBARU!” Luna screeched with horror, she tried to run towards the girl, yet Matsuri reacted fast and tied her arms around her hips, stopping her from coming closer, “SUBARU… SUBARU!”

“What do we do with the midgets peko?” The bunny questioned, signaling with her pointer.

“Of course, no survivors!” The eyeless Haato exclaimed with gaiety.

“No hard feeling here girls,” Calliope told the girls, swinging the scythe behind her head, preparing to leap against them, fixing her cap with a couple of fingers, “Maybe this way you’ll understand to don’t be around trying to play superheroes!” Her voice sunk and rose at the push of her legs, propelling her body ready to slice, but at the very last second, something hurried its presence against the tall lady, shielding on the girls. “What the f… What in the world?” She wondered twice, as the figure of a shadow identical to Matsuri stood in front of her, with a large and heavy wound scrapping her entire torso, slowly kneeling over the tar, “The girl's shadow… you were crashing?”

“White… Crescent Moon!”

With a shockwave of White dangerously whistling towards the reaper, Calliope was forced to jump away from the girls, as the energy almost cuts her face, crashing against the building to the side instead. “Stay away from them!” Fubuki howled to the reaper, jumping into the battle zone. She quickly scanned her surroundings, trying to discern the situation as fast as possible, one body split in half corrupting on the pool of oil, the shadow behind her feet slowly disintegrating, four girls with scars in their necks, “Ritsuma… you protected them? Why?” The fox asked without looking at the figure, preparing a fighting stance with her katana.

“Why did I indeed…” The shadow chuckled as if it had trouble breathing; as if it were coughing from the pain of the wound, “All I wanted was to exist peacefully… And I had to go and act like a hero… aw crap, I’m really going away now, aren’t I?” She laughed with a troubled face.

“My shadow… is talking?” Matsuri said with a puzzled face, the turn of events left Luna muted.

“Fu… buki…” Ritsuma stuttered, desperately holding the fox’s ankle, “Take care of Matsuri… If I’m gone… there won’t be anyone to keep the flaming one sleeping…” She managed to spout before disappearing into dark ashes.

“Wait! Don’t go, what do you mean?!” Fubuki snarled nervously, not knowing whether to face the shadow or the group in front of her.

“Master Pekora, if you don’t mind aiding Master Calliope on this,” The Haato of fangs insinuated with her hand.

“You don’t have to tell me twice peko,” The bunny replied clicking her tongue, hurrying to the side of the reaper. Jumping on her scythe, Calliope made her weapon spin and shoot Pekora into the air, as both girls sparked with flames of Black they gave no other second for the fox to understand the following events, engaging in the fight.

“Doth thee seeketh pow'r?”

A voice questioned from all sides and nowhere, echoing into the nothingness, appearing from the nothingness. With a blast of White flames igniting the tar, Fubuki and Luna, the bunny and reaper were pushed away from the shockwaves of energy coming from Matsuri, who holds her chest suffocated, “Ahhhh! Agh! No, not this pain again!” The girl of the ponytail cried, shaking in pain, tightly holding her chest, as if she were going through a heart attack.

“The pow'r to square, to protecteth the ones thee loveth?”

Coming from the flames, a new brilliant figure formed, fluttering over the air, resembling the shape of Matsuri, yet completely made of White, the entity floated to the pale girl who held on her chest.

“I am a parteth of thy soul, I followeth thy wishes, bid me, even but now, what is what thee wisheth the most?”

“Wha-at? You speak so weirdly… what do… I wish?” Matsuri wondered with fixed breathing, sweat dripping from her face, muffling a screech of pain, embracing her chest, “It so hot…” She whispered with tired eyes, feeling an immensurable heat invade her body, she looked at the group of girls with scars on her necks prepare the next attack, she looked at Subaru’s body split on the floor, she looked at the confused and scared faces of Fubuki and Luna, “… Please… Please save my friends!”

“No… No! Master Calliope, stop that girl at once! She’s going to jump out of the spectrum!” The eyeless Haato screamed at the reaper.

“Matsuri, no, don’t listen to her!” The fox hurried to howl, running towards the girl.

“We don’t need more warriors of White here!” The reaper shouted, preparing for a second attack.

“To become one of White changes your personality entirely, after all, she’s going from a color to another, her life literally changes… The same happened to me, I… for what people say, I used to be… gullible, but, Matsuri…”

“Thy wisheth is mine own commandeth.”

At the rhythm of the omnipresent voice, the figure of flames pierced her left hand inside of Matsuri’s chest, and both girls exploded in a fierce sphere of White flames, swallowing everyone inside, burning and disintegrating everything on its way.

“Matsuri’s reaction isn’t something I’ve ever heard or seen before, that was almost like…”

“The birth of a Goddess?”

Chapter Text

-Beep beep beep beep beep beep beep beep beep-

In the comfort of a large and cozy bed, a fox-girl was being pulled back from the dream realm.

-Beep beep beep beep beep beep beep beep beep-

When the fragile rays of morning distilled by transparent curtains reached the mattress, Fubuki’s fingers ran across the fabric of her pillow, burying her face deep inside the fluffy cotton. Her tail flapped once and slightly, pulling her blanket to the sides, her toes curled instantly at the feeling of the cold, looking for refugee by clutching inside her body, her tail flapped one more time, in a vain attempt to put the blankets back to place.

-Beep beep beep beep beep beep beep beep beep-

The dull yet loud artificial tune of the clock alarm bothered her, but it wasn’t enough to wake her up. She twitched her ears accordingly against the pillow to muffle the annoying buzz, her eyes hid behind her eyelids as if they had a life of their own.

-Beep beep beep beep beep beep beep beep beep-

Once her consciousness had been dragged from the numbness feeling and the comfort of the bed, she made a girly groan and stretched her right to put down the clock, losing the fight against the gadget. She leaned on her elbows and her upper body arose from the bed, snoring with bedroom eyes and with a little drop of saliva in the corner of her cheek, just to plummet back to the pillow by sliding her arms, scrubbing her face against the soft feeling with a drowsy giggle, “What a nice morning, I don’t want to do anything…” She muttered between a loud and unabashed snore, making her lips vibrate.

She tasted her dry mouth with a couple of tongue clicks and tried to get up a second time, finally opening her eyes. “Uhm…? Isn’t this… Matsuri’s dwell? How did I end up here?” Fubuki questioned into the empty room, but no answer was given.

As her five senses finally returned to function, a memory flashed inside her mind.

“Uh…?”

A memory of a dark city, which sidewalks and asphalt were covered with a dense pool of oil.

“Wait…”

A memory of four women with scars on their necks welding blades against her.

“Ugh…”

A memory of deafening screams, friends shouting out in sorrow.

“Luna… Matsuri!”

A memory of a body mercilessly chopped in half, corrupting and disintegrating into the darkness.

“SUBARU!”

She pounced out of the bed with a chill running through her body, wearing a familiar animal-themed pajama, snarling like an enraged beast. “SUBARU… SUBARU!” She howled in a burst of adrenaline and horror, howling into the empty room, which refused to answer her with anything that wasn’t comfort and quietness.

“Hey, hey! What’s with all that screaming?” A feminine voice popped from the door of the room, Matsuri stomped her way to investigate the agitated howling of the fox with a flower-print apron and a spatula in hand, “Fubuki… everything’s fine? Were you having a nightmare?”

The fox-girl gave a silent, puzzled look at Matsuri, which head playfully swayed on the edge of the door. She tried to swallow saliva, but her dry throat made her cough instead, holding her chest with the left, she shook her head and faced her friend, the sight of the girl brought her composure, “I think it was a nightmare… well, that was embarrassing…” Fubuki snorted with awkwardness.

“Oh poor you, let me…” Matsuri giggled and tried to step inside the room, but a gentle, dark column of smoke floating over her head made her stumble in shock, leaning over the knob to don’t fall and pull her body back, “Wait, no, sorry, the kitchen, gotta go!” She stuttered with flustered cheeks and trotted her way out.

With the slam of the door being closed, Fubuki scanned the room aghast, it had been the same, stuffed with animal dolls and cushions to the brim room she had slept in once before, “… Luna?” She searched for the second bed on her memories, hoping to find the little pink-haired princess to her side, but the mattress was missing, she held tighter into her chest, “A dream… a nightmare,” She whispered to herself and gave one nod, almost negotiating with her thoughts.

Changing from her pajamas to her signature set of clothes, the fox walked out of the room and into the bathroom to wash her face. She opened the faucet in silence and checked her looks on the mirror; Fubuki scrubbed the bar of soap against her hands under the flow of water until stuffing them with the white foam, slowly massaging her cheeks and nose.

A memory of an eyeless, blonde girl wearing a strange knife appeared when she closed her eyes.

She rubbed her face furiously and rinsed her skin just as fast, the adrenaline rush came back in a tiny spurt when the picture in her mind shown. Fubuki panted with utmost confusion, leaning her weight against the borders of the ceramic, she confronted her reflection, but her reflection just replied with the image of an utmost confused fox-girl, with water drops falling off her face, “That wasn’t a dream…” She growled defiantly against the reflection, but her reflection just replied with the image of a growling fox-girl. She opened the boutique and took on a razor blade, nervously unwrapping the plastic package, she held the edge on her left and offered her right index as a sacrifice, a small and swift, horizontal cut over her fingertip, stinging, forming tiny spheres of blood coming from the fresh-cut and shaping a red line. “But this isn’t a dream either…” She sighed to shake off the uneasy feeling, her fur shrieking at the increase of the stinging pain when washing the bleeding wound into the faucet.

“I’m sorry Fubuki… I’m not used to cooking yet, it burned out a little,” With a shy tone Matsuri explained, shame showing in the entirety of her body when placing a plate with burnt fried eggs and toast in front of the fox.

“Charcoal…”  Fubuki thought with incredulity, frowning at the sight of the black breakfast, “But wait…” She gasped with realization, “That’s… But cooking is one of the things you excel at? How did this happen?” She questioned while reluctantly taking on a fork.

“There you go again with that vain flirting!” Matsuri reacted with a shy giggle and a wave of the hand, “I’m just learning to cook… I mean… it wasn’t until you moved with me that I had to seriously put myself into cooking,” She explained circling the table and sitting in front of Fubuki, fixing her skirt with her right, she faced another plate with burned bits of food, forcing a smile, “I’m sorry, I promise they won’t be burnt all the time, just give me more time to practice, ok?” 

“I… moved with you? When?” Fubuki wondered aloof of the situation, the new information was enough to ignore the burnt taste in her mouth, but not enough to ignore the loud crunching noise echoing inside her skull.

“What is it today? Did you fall from bed after that nightmare and forgot everything?” Matsuri menaced with her fork, miffed of the questions, “You came one day to my dwell and said we would be living together from now on, c’mon… you promised it to me and all…” She narrated with a smidgen of red in her cheeks, pointing at an imaginary picture recounting the scene in the air.

“I promised…?” The fox attempted to phrase another question, but when examining Matsuri minutely, she noticed there was something off. To the left side of the girl’s cropped top, a couple of centimeters over her chest, Matsuri was wearing a badge with the shape of a paper lamp, with four numbers printed in it with gold, “7216,” Fubuki read it out loud and tilted her head.

A memory of a ceremonial chant, followed by a scream of her voice, and the jarring of a long silver blade which could cut into the darkness, pouring on her thoughts.

“White Crescent Moon,” She blurted as the blurry images continued appearing on her mind, stopping on the crunch of the burnt food to process the information. Her hand moved instinctively around her hips, but there wasn’t anything to hold, she faced Matsuri with seriousness, “Matsuri, where’s my katana?”

“Uh… Wait, that’s,” The girl comically crossed her arms, curling her lips into a duck face, “I’ve told you to call me 7216! I don’t want you to confuse me with the others!” She pouted with an exaggerated and feminine shake of the head, “And I don’t know what a katana is!” She added to her childish expressions.

“The others?” The fox wondered with confusion at the tantamount proposition, unable to understand, she huffed angrily, “Whatever that… you know what I’m talking about, my katana, erhm…” She paused and dropped her fork, the friend in front was never good to remember the name of her weapon, “You know… my pizza slicer,” But there was a diss engraved in the mind of the fox about it.

“Ah… aaaaaaahhhhhh,” Matsuri laughed when placing the words together, dropping her pouty stance and rocking on the chair, “C’mon, that was part of our promise too, did you forget? You asked me to hide your pizza slicer in the house; you promised you wouldn’t use it again until you graduated from high school! That’s why you gave it to me; I’m not giving it back after only a week! We’re just first years!”

Fubuki leaned her back against the chair with an instant and wide look of disbelief and sarcasm, none of the words her friend said, separated or together had a single inkling of sense to her. “… Ok, what is happening here?” She asked tilting her head further, “Are we playing house or something? Why did you suddenly settle some kind of high school soap opera drama?”

But Matsuri laughed, the girl laughed at the fox as if had been the funniest joke of the morning. She compressed on herself, holding her stomach, laughing, longer than to what any joke should make someone laugh, longer from where anyone would fake their laughter, longer than to what people point as sarcasm, long enough to make Fubuki shriek for a second time, it was laughter full with nothing but malice. “… Geez, I wasn’t sure at first, but that joke sure is funny, pretending you don’t remember anything,” As her friend glanced back at the fox, Fubuki held frozen, intimidated, Matsuri looked at her with a giddy smile, contempt, and sternness all in a matter of seconds, as if the girl could project and wash her emotions with absolute control. 

“Hehe… Are my jokes that bad to catch?” Fubuki wondered with a stutter, minding her mannerism, faking to follow the conversation while looking for time to regain composure.

“Don’t worry Fubs, I’ve never minded your humor sense,” With calm Matsuri expressed, getting up from the table and picking her plates, “Now, let’s get our things ready for school, and erhm…” Her eyes danced around the floor with shyness, “I guess we’ll be having lunch from the cafeteria this month… But I promise you, I'll get better at it!” She finished enthusiastically, attempting to clench her fist with the plates on hand, juggling with the weight of the ceramic next.

The fox helped Matsuri to pick up the dishes from the table and let her in charge of the cleaning at the sink; she excused herself and carefully walked back to the room stuffed with plushies. She closed the door behind her back and inspected the insides minutely, as stuffed with fluffy decorations as it could be, her sword was nowhere to find. Her fingertips traversed the frame of the walls, her knuckles gently investigated the empty spaces within, but she couldn’t discern a place big enough to contain her weapon in the architecture of the room, “But it is in this house, that’s for sure, she wouldn’t lie,” Fubuki convinced herself from the thought, she dropped her rear on the edge of the bed and meditated, with a posture loyal to one Greek sculpture, “I went to Subaru’s zone, and everyone had already gone to Pekora’s… Why did I take so long to join?” She muttered with narrowed eyes, “Ah, yes, I was trying to bring Ayame with me… Maybe it was for the best she didn’t join… I have no idea of where I am, but is not the Virtual World,” She stared at the stuffed animals, patiently waiting for any of them to interrupt her train of thought and introduce her to the needed clues, but she was left alone on her theories, “What happened back there? I feel like there’s something miss-…” Fubuki stopped on her pondering with wide eyes, softly biting the tip of her tongue; she suffocated the pain while bouncing out of bed, looking down at the floor and behind her feet, “… I don’t have a shadow…” She gasped with concern, as the reflection of the morning rays refused to summon the contrast of her dark silhouette.

She inspected the closet, giving up on the search for her sword and taking a hold of a school bag filled with used textbooks from math, science, and socials, a couple of notebooks, a pencil case, and a ruler, all of them had her writing in it, for the surprise of the fox. Shaking hands in agreement with her confusion and doubts, she wore the bag behind her back and walked to the entrance, where the cheerful girl was waiting for her with a camera. Stepping out of the door, and meeting with the street of the neighborhood, Fubuki’s eyebrows stretched and collapsed with tiredness, unknown of how many times the uneasy feeling had invaded her body this morning alone. As Matsuri squished her from the shoulder and brought her camera to take a couple-selfie, Fubuki’s eyes were distracted analyzing her surroundings. Passing by right at the sidewalk, a Matsuri who seemed to have aged thirty years in the future, dressing motherly clothes, walked a pocket-size version of the girl, wearing an elementary school uniform. There was a Matsuri on the first floor of the house in front of them, dusting off a carpet by hanging it in the border of the terrace. A Matsuri was wearing a police uniform, pushing her bike and greeting the other girls, doing her morning round calls. There was a Matsuri desperately wearing a tie and jacket, with a toast in her mouth, a case under her left armpit and sheets flying as she ran, she was getting late to work, all of them distinguished by the metallic lamp-badge, with a different number labeled over each girl.

Walking out of the neighborhood and stepping on the sidewalk to the train station, they keep meeting a large variety of Matsuris, different numbers, yet none of them had a shadow behind her feet. “I guess I can’t ask Ritsuma what’s happening here…” Fubuki spout mindlessly, her eyes lost in a perfume AD in the superior border inside the train with yet another Matsuri, sitting together with the Matsuri of the dwell.

“Ritsuma…? Ah! Do you mean 630?” Matsuri wondered with a giggle, fishing on her thoughts.

“630?” Fubuki repeated, reading once again the label of her friend’s badge with four digits, “Do you know Ritsuma?”

“Sure! She’s the one who works at one of the bakeries near school; I’ll address her to you on the way back!” Matsuri nodded with a grin, and gasped, “Hey, but, what do you want with her? You aren’t planning to cheat on me with her, are you?” She asked leaning against the girl, insinuating naughtiness and worry at the same time, the fox refrained from giving an answer.

Contrary to the fox and the Matsuri of four digits, the school grounds were loaded with Matsuris in the appropriate dressing code. More than half of the students wore a cardigan and a small, yellow, shoulderless sweater under their shirt and tie, with a frilled skirt playing with the allowed length over her knees, the smaller rest copied the same attire on the upper half, distinguished from the large, gray pants at the end, boasting an uncanny and poorly played, masculine role. The homeroom teacher was yet another Matsuri, wearing an office uniform with a worrying and almost transparent pantyhose and a tight miniskirt that left no reason to judge the ones of the students.

The first period starts with English class, the fox is laughed at by the class as she has to join her desk with the Matsuri of dwell since her textbook was missing; it didn’t take long for Fubuki to understand that situation was settled to happen. Taking deep breaths, she prayed for composure and patience, as every student, included the professor; constantly spelled the words wrongly, trying to escape from their mistakes by acting cutely.

“None of the books I brought are of any help uh?” Fubuki blurted with disdain, as the second period followed with Language classes, once again combining desks with the Matsuri of the dwell, she got played for a second time. And just like before, for a second time she did her best to don’t call out the quips of the multiple girls, who failed meticulously and repeatedly to read and write the kanji tables, teeheeing their way away from the embarrassment.

Bringing in the third period, the fox made the class explode in a burst of laughter as she slowly separated her desk, and slam it back together, when the teacher cleaned the board and announced they would start with story class, she got played yet again for the third time. Giving up entirely in body and soul, she shook hands with the elaborated displays of tested clumsiness and allowed each student to keep pretending their acts of foolishness. 

When the sun reached the peak of the afternoon the school bells rang off the start of a hoard of Matsuris towards the cafeteria. But the fox only witnessed such disastrous high school girl stampede by ear, as she, the Matsuri of the dwell, and another couple of girls rushed faster than anyone, and hurried to the stairs of the fourth floor towards the roof for lunch. “Here, give me a cute  ‘ahhhhh’ ” The Matsuri of the dwell suggested to Fubuki, holding on a spaghetti sandwich with the fingertips of her right, trying to feed the fox while the other two Matsuris opened their lunch boxes, “… Fubuki?  ‘ahhh’  c’mon!” but she just looked at the sandwich and the girl trying to feed her with disdain and tiredness, she couldn’t begin to phrase the exhaustion brought by this strange reality she supposedly was always part off, the smile of the girl in front of her no longer was enough to calm the explicit gruesome images of the severed body in her mind, “Fubuki? Are you okay…?” The question only made her clench her fists and slightly snarl, producing a moment of confusing silence between the three Matsuris, she was about to break on her limit.

“Hey, you grumpy cat!” The Matsuri behind her back happily shouted and poked in her shoulder, startling Fubuki away from her growing anger and making her turn around.

“I’m not a--!” She reacted by pure reflex with a girly tone, the small diss shook her off guard and a meatball was shoved inside of her mouth before she could end the sentence.

“You’ve been grumpy all day, calm down! You’re not the first one who brings the wrong books to class!” The Matsuri said with a motherly but friendly voice, swirling her chopsticks around, “So, how’s it?” The badge in her uniform had a “62” in it. 

“… That’s not what I’m grumpy about…” Fubuki attempted to fight back, but the flavor of the meat sauce spreading on her tongue reminded awoke her hunger, with ears down, she slowly munched and swallowed with a gasp, “Is good, you’re all good at cooking…” She said while involuntarily turning to 7216 with a bit of sarcasm on her face, “Well, I guess not everyone,” She finished sparking a burst of mean laughter in the group.

“I said I would get better at it, hmph!” 7216 complained throwing the sandwich to Fubuki’s lap, crossing her arms, and pouting offended.

“I know you do, I’m looking forward to it,” Fubuki gently said while picking up the sandwich and taking a bite from it.

But as she munched on the slice of bread her body and her mind started to act separately on their actions. The voices of the different Matsuris started to echo into numbness, the fox-girl had reached the peak of exhaustion, trying to convince herself to be part of this strange fanfare had taken the best of her, and soon enough the image of the dismembered body took lead on her main thoughts.

There is a dismembered body on her mind.

There is a dismembered body on her mind.

There’s the dismembered body of a friend on her mind.

But her mind was conflicted; Fubuki was conflicted, as to what was real and what was not. Her cheeks were getting muffled on the sandwich, and as her jaw kept moving she couldn’t deny the feeling of texture and flavors, the saltiness of the sauce, the crumbs of bread, and the little sponginess of the spaghetti noodles, they all felt real in the littlest detail, so how was it possible for her to go from watching a dearest friend be sliced on half to wake up on a world surrounded by multiple copies of one person?

Her eyes blinked with absolute tiredness as if she was about to collapse from the inability of placing one and one together. Fubuki was so deep in her thoughts she couldn’t figure the worrying looks and the voices calling up to her. She took on a can of cold orange juice, which wasn’t even hers, her body just kept moving on a need to feed the fox, she took on a trembling and over-exhausted sip which muted the group of Matsuris with an absolute concern. The coldness, the sweetness, the acidic flavors, and the metallic texture of the can, all processed as real, but how could it be real when some hours ago she saw one of her best friends being possessed by a deity of white flames?

“Hey… Do you need to go to the infirmary? Are you not feeling well?” 7216 shyly asked with a hand posed over the shoulder of Fubuki, but her mind couldn’t hear a word, and when the orange juice started to drip out of the fox-girl lips as she sketched a fading out expression, 7216 hurried to hold her from both shoulders and shake her up “Fubuki?! What’s going on…? FUBUKI, SNAP OUT OF IT… I… I KNOW, FUBUKI, THE LAST PERIOD IS CLUB ACTIVITIES! DON’T DOZE OUT! IT’S YOUR FAVORITE, KENDO CLASS!”

The scream, the screams, they didn’t have any sense, how was that of any help? But somehow, it made her snap out of it.  “Because she can only do so much…”  Was what the fox-girl thought, with the slowest pace she started to drive out of the trance of thoughts, for a moment, when looking at the reflection of the worrying eyes of the Matsuri of the dwell; that was what she thought. There was only so much that girl could do for her in their situation, she thought as she wept the juice drip off her chin, Fubuki was completely alone on this new reality, and the things these groups of outsiders could do for her problem was just so much, they couldn’t offer the help she needed, they wouldn’t give her the answers required, she was completely alone on this, and fading out in the stairs near the roof in a high school building wasn’t going to bring any miracle to her. By convincing herself to buckle up, the nonsensical screaming spurt a smile on a corner of her lips, “… Did you say… kendo?”

At the verge of the evening, it was the start of club activities for young Matsuris, from the badminton club to even the going back home club, even if the latter inside of that reality was just an excuse to go home early. 

For a moment the mind of the fox could finally focus on something else, and yet relatively similar to her likings. Her wild shouts of screams, as she concentrated to voice her ki on each stroke, echo and mix on the tatami designed club with the loud and acute sound of the bamboo swords clatter, which, in most times, were just of Fubuki striking the winning point on an innocent Matsuri who barely knew how to hold on her sword.

“That’s it; much better, you rock when you’re in your element Fubs! Don’t brush that hot sweat off; I’m going to bottle it up later ok?” 7216 cheerfully shout from the other side on the bench, supporting the fox-girl in the only way she knew how to do it, mixing good energies with perversion.

“You should zip it for a moment,” Fubuki replied with long laughter, she had finally found the bravery to talk back to the girl who once intimidated her that very morning. Taking out her helmet and taking a mouth of air, swinging her hair to the sides as she steamed in a hot sweat, obtaining little gasps of adoration from the other Matsuris around the club.

“Is not over yet!” One Matsuri fully dressed on her kendo uniform said from the other side of the room, stepping inside the tatami and in front of the fox-girl, her face couldn’t be seen from the helmet, but the lamp badge identified her as 1, the same Matsuri who was eating on the roof with her. “Bold of you to come into our school and humiliate our best kendo students, but that ends here and now, be ready!” She declared with animosity, spreading her legs around the floor, preparing a starting stance with her gaze locked on the fox girl.

Fubuki could only reply on 1’s stance with hers, as silence drowned the small field. Their feet danced around, looking for a chance to strike. “This one… is acting her part, way too good... Could it be she knows how to use a sword?” Fubuki mumbled from inside her helmet, but that thought far from making her wary, spurt adrenaline into her. When taking one step to the left, she inclined all the weight of her body to the side, and broke on a sudden race to number 1, although, in the world of kendo, racing in front of your enemy is an action most feared, since racing for a kendoist, is all about closing the distance with their enemy, dashing with their feet efficiently and silently, race to Fubuki, was actually just stretch her legs two long steps across the tatami, and on a blink, her bamboo sword had gotten stuck on the throat point of number 1’s helmet.

“What in the…” Was all 1 could stutter, with one hand on the handle, and the other on the base of the sword, the fox-girl flipped the helmet out of 1’s head, it was a far from a victory, a little from the side of humiliation, but for such skill to be displayed, the club roared on a cheer. “You… You…!” Number 1 pouted, quickly pouring tears like a fountain, “This isn’t over you know!” She shouted devastated, making a cartoony run from the club while releasing rivers of tears.

“I guess she wasn’t…” Fubuki sighed between disappointment and relief, as the group of spectators and other members of the club celebrated her victory against the “strongest member of the 1st year.”

When the clock had kicked on five and thirty minutes on the evening, what was expected to be a deep orange sunset had turned into cloudy and grey scenery. “So you see, I think it should be best to find for one of the teachers to make as our coach if we want to make it into the classificatory for the nationals…” Fubuki randomly brought to 7216, as they had changed and abandoned the club, ready to walk back to the dwell, the fox-girl had renewed energies after that unfair yet amusing set with the other members of the club and had gotten overly excited on the idea that even on that world seemed to be a national tournament for kendo, a part of her was interested in following the sketch and participate, but for the surprise of her, 7216 was paying attention to her words her face was gloomy, her lips were pouty, and her eyes were gazing and the lightning on the sky, “Uhm, what is it, the rain bothers you?” She questioned with a tilt of her head, which produced a sudden halt not only from 7216 but all the Matsuris on the hall, returning the feeling of goosebumps on the fox, “Did… I say something wrong?”

“We hate the rain…” They said in unison, Fubuki decided to don’t lurk further on that hive-minded reaction, as it was giving her the creeps.

But when they reached the doors of the school, 7216 was taken from the wrist by Fubuki, as she pulled an umbrella from her school bag, “Wha… What are you doing?!” 7216 asked horrified as she pressed on her heels.

“C’mon, what’s so bad about it?” Unexpectedly, Fubuki took the bravery to ask just barely some minutes from the weird reaction, but this time, she gave all the focus on the Matsuri of the dwell.

“But… we hate the rain…” The students conglomerated on the doors suspired in sadness, looking at the water drops fall, being disgusted by the rain as if they were a witch about to melt from the touch. But this time, just this time, the Matsuri of the dwell didn’t reply at the rest, as Fubuki interlaced fingers with her and made her face explode in red, 7216 looked at Fubuki’s unfazed smile and then towards the umbrella, then back again to the fox. “Would you… keep me close as we walk? I don’t want to get wet.”

Fubuki laughed it off and nodded, moving her hand towards her shoulder, her neck, pulling her close from the other shoulder, 7216 holding both school backs, clutching to Fubuki’s side, “Is this close enough?” The fox-girl laughed as she started to look like a couple about to set off from the rest of the students, provoking some jealous stares.

“… It is…” 7216 replied with a soft, yet happy tone, rubbing her face against the girl's neck, they both abandoned the school for the day.

When reminding 7216 about their promise to meet with 630 after school, a bit pouty, but still willingly, the girl indicated a turn near the train station, and guided Fubuki to a small bakery on the corner, just near the school as she had said before. And to Fubuki, this turned to be a waste of time as expected (although they abandoned the shop with a bag of freshly baked bread on their hands) 630 was just but another lamp badge Matsuri, and not the cunning shadow she had made a truce before, she hid her disappointment by stuffing her mouth with bread and walked to the station with 7216 back home.

Getting inside the dwell, cold by the rain but satisfactorily not wet, they played around to see who would make dinner, but after goofing around until eight, they both gave up and ordered instant food to join with the bread. Cleaning up the living room and tidying everything up for the next day, there was a surprisingly comfortable silence between the two, harmony, like wasn’t when the day started, as Fubuki continued to follow her role on this new reality each hour more.

Changing into their pajamas and after watching a couple of shows on TV until eleven on the night, they decided it was time to finally say good night, and as soon as 7216 had left Fubuki alone in her stuffed room, the fox took on a pencil and a small notebook from her school bag. “Let’s see… where do I begin…” She pondered to herself, nibbling on the pencil and pouncing over her bed. Quietly, slowly but most importantly, diligently, Fubuki had written down all her personal knowledge into the book, all possible details from her name and birthday and about her White and the equilibrium of the spectrum. After consuming almost ten pages, she left one in the middle then started to write about the events of the day, the Matsuri’s she had met, their numbers, and their personalities, consuming yet again another ten pages. “I guess this will do for now… I’m stuck on this… whatever it is, and it doesn’t seem I’ll be able to escape any soon…” Her mumble was slowly turning into blabber, it was almost midnight, and both her body and mind were completely exhausted from the events, and the events about to happen, “Luna… Subaru…” She whispered with bedroom eyes, doing one last effort, she flew through all the pages of the notebook and started to write about the rest of her friends, the pink princess, the wolf-woman, the Terra Hero, and spoiled oni, until she had reached her limit, and fell asleep with the notebook on her face.

The next day, as the sun started to hit from the curtains, Fubuki’s first reaction was to flop out of the bed and break on the floor under it, making a space small enough to hide the notebook inside, as the sharpness on her thoughts warned it would be a bad idea if 7216 could find it, would either get her mad or would she try to throw it away from Fubuki’s back, it wasn’t something she was willing to risk. With the idea the solution from escaping that reality would take more than just one week, it meant there could be a chance of her forgetting her first intentions, origins, and reasons to go back, that little notebook had become a fail-safe from her memory, and her mission. 

Little did she know, how poorly prepared she was for this situation, when six months passed by without finding an answer about this world and how to go back to the Virtual World, Fubuki had gotten immersed each time more on it. Trying to fill her role as the star of the 1st year students, a supposedly rumored ex-delinquent who found redemption by the attention and care of 7216, who made the fox pledge her sword on the promise of finishing high school with 7216, in exchange for saving her of life on the crime and streets, or at least, that what was rumored, by the little bits of details the Matsuri of the dwell released now and then, and the things the other girls on the school would gossip around, that was now the reality of the fox-girl, a wholesome and far form well-structured, teenage soap opera.

“This is intense…” Under the bright and hot sun of summer, Fubuki whispered with adrenaline and frustration. Out on the fields, she and Matsuris were celebrating the sports festival, a crowd of adult Matsuris making as the cheerful parents of the others, looking forward to their victory, supporting them with screams and singing. The cheerleaders on one corner, being restrained from dancing by their professors as their skirts were far from the length of obscene, the other students with the cameras on the air, not knowing who to film or photo exactly, the participants on the last event of the competition or the exhibitionists’ cheerleaders.

Although Fubuki’s concern wasn’t placed on the horny students the runners of the relay race, “I had completely forgotten…” She whispered in a suffocated way; looking at the Matsuris from all lines of the race before her, marching without air, sweating buckets, “… How much this girl sucks at PE…” She finished with a groan, there was little of her to do but look at them pass the baton from girl to girl, and gaze with bitterness at how every overly cheerful girl on the race turned into a mess of sweat and loud croaky respiration after five steps of running. “Focus… focus! This is still a race!” She loudly voiced, preparing a running stance and placing her right arm behind her back, stretching her hand anticipating her turn, Fubuki was the last salvation of that saddening race, “I guess…” She murmurs when hearing the gasps of one of the Matsuris approach, ready to receive the baton, “I should run slowly so I don’t make an over…kill?” But her ego had blinded her entirely, and before she could finish that thought, from the third line to her right, one of the Matsuris rocketed out from the starting line and dusted off the competency, including her, “Wha-… WAIT!” Baffled by what her eyes witnessed, but somehow excited, she didn’t hold back and ran as fast as she could to reach the other girl.

And even though nothing was restraining her, she couldn’t match the speed of the girl who was going now two bodies far from her. Her form was excellent, her feet went up the ground almost to the height of her waist, yet she didn’t stomp the floor back, the swaying of her arms, the inclination of her back, the way she breathed from her nostrils and mouth, Fubuki was completely outmatched to win against the Matsuri who ran like an Olympic athlete. “Holy sh-… You got me there, I feel like the story of the turtle and the hare!” Completely impressed, but happy at the same time, Fubuki blurted out with shock, holding on to her knees as she tried to regain her usual breath, but there was something wrong, even though that Matsuri had walked past the goal line and finished as the winner of the competition, and making their class the winner, there wasn’t a single cheer, Fubuki turned her head around, she couldn’t believe it, everyone was as impressed as her, jaw dropped, thunderstruck, Fubuki turned back to the girl, and finally realized the reason of the silence.

“There’s… no need to be so shocked… is embarrassing…” The girl said with a soft and small voice, showing shyness and barely any exhaustion at all. The number on the lamp badge of the girl was “19” and compared to the rest of the Matsuris, she had droopy eyes and a long toupee covering part of her face. With her face running on sweat, and her small, pink lips open up breathing through her mouth, Fubuki took just a moment to identify the girl.

“You’re… the one who is always on the corner of the library… stuffing yourself with books… how?” The fox questioned puzzled.

“I… Mom said that I could read all I wanted if at least I would do jogging every morning…” 19 explained with pouty lips, compressing her body with shyness and playing with the tips of her fingers, rubbing them on circles. “Was… was it bad that I won?” She wondered, looking up at the crowd which was still in dead silence, “I know… I’m always evading everybody but… I thought you guys would be happy if our class could win…” Her knees bumped against each other as she explained, her tiny voice was easy to hear over the silence just by miracle.

When she finished on the stuttering explanation, the crowd of students, professors, and visitors finally exploded in celebration, no one could believe someone could win Fubuki, no one could believe one of them could do PE, and especially no one could believe one of them was able to run in such a dexterous and wonderful way. The students from the other class abandoned their seats and invaded the field, taking 19 on their shoulders and throwing the girl into the air as they celebrated. “Are you ok Fubs… don’t let it get you so depressed ok?” 7216 said, appearing from the commotion from behind and stroking the shoulder of the girl with a little condescension, yet Fubuki took on her hand and shook her head with a smile.

“I’m not depressed, I’m impressed, I thought victory was on the bag… I can’t wait to race her again next year!” She proudly declared with a smile from ear to ear.

Three months later, when vacations were on the last week to end and continue the next trimester of classes, 7216 couldn’t foresee, the relapse happening inside the fox-girl. It started on a morning with mild breakfast and a warm cup of tea, after all, with 9 months of progress, 7216 cooking was greatly improved, but as there were a lot of chores to do on the dwell which had piled up after so many vacations lazing around, the result was of a mild breakfast. She was concerned, 7216 was concerned, sweeping the floor didn’t seem the right thing to do with Fubuki in the living room, sitting on the sofa, changing the channels on TV surrounded by dullness, her tail barely flopping on the couch. “You know…” 7216 spout from one side of the living room, not sure what to phrase, placing her chin on the tip of the broomstick faking to be calm, “Is not like the beach was forbidden like… if you want I can make the effort to join you…” She expressed awkwardly, as they never visited the ocean by the natural repulsion towards it from all Matsuris.

“There’s no reason to go if both of us aren’t going to enjoy it…” Fubuki replied with a dry tone, placing her left felt over her face with boredom and a notable lack of interest, there was something inside her frustrating the fox, but she wasn’t willing to share it with 7216 on the first try.

“Fubuki, what’s the matter? Is there something bothering you?” Concerned about the way she didn’t look back at her, 7216 dropped on the act of calm and further questioned the mood of the girl.

“Oh, just what would it be?” But the sarcastic reply was something that caught 7216 defenseless. The tone, the phrasing, the way her upper lip lifted in a gentle, yet aggressive way, Fubuki was giving her the cold side without reluctance, “What would you think is bothering me? Don’t you have any clue? After nine months?”

“Bu-… uh?” 7216 frowned at the insinuations, “Nine months of what exactly…? Are you perhaps worried about your katana?” Tightly holding the broomstick, she walked towards Fubuki, trying to understand the increasing tantrum building up in front of her eyes, “Y-your katana it's fine, you know? I may… not look like it, but I know you’re concerned about the rust and humidity so don’t worry, I put it on a place where nothing of the sort will damage it,” She explained while fidgeting, she wanted to put her at ease, but she didn’t want to give the exact location of the weapon either.

“That’s part of what has me on this mood,” Fubuki admitted with a sigh, turning off the TV with the remote control and leaning against the back of the sofa with both hands behind her head, “But that’s not all and you know it, Matsuri… When are we going back to reality?” She questioned with a serious look in her eyes.

“… Reality? Are you…” 7216 stuttered, unable to keep holding on to the broom, she placed it against the wall. “Do you mean… Do you want to stop living together? Are you going back to the streets?” Her breathing grew agitated, the idea of the fox turning back into her criminal life worried her to death, “Did I do something wrong? P-please, don’t leave! You’re making so much progress!”

But every word of 7216 just infuriated Fubuki more. “Would you stop that?! Urgh!” She groaned, with a violent shake of her head, turning her body, “I’m tired, I’m so tired of playing house, isn’t it enough?! Nine months, Matsuri, nine, freaking, months!” She finally stood from the sofa, waving her arm, agitated, angered; waving her right hand into the air.

“First of all, stop calling me Matsuri!” The girl stepped in, infected by Fubuki’s anger, “My name is 7216!” She insisted.

“Who gives a duck about it?!” Fubuki claimed, waving her hand into the air, “Let me go out of this fantasy already! Haven’t I spoiled your weird desires for enough time now?! Some people need us outside!” Fubuki explained angrily, this time waving both arms onto the air.

“And I’m telling you that I don’t understand what you’re talking about!” 7216 screamed back at her, with a hand upon her chest, an acute scream, a confused scream, as much as Fubuki insisted into admitted what she believed to be the “truth”, 7216 continued unaware of was what she wanted, and what she needed.

But this wouldn’t stop the fox-girl, this time; she was determined to pull the “truth” out of her mouth. Fubuki advanced into 7216’s space, with her terrifying kendo steps, holding on both of her shoulders, howling like she hadn’t done before, an angered beast, “Are you telling me you don’t remember what happened to Subaru?! Are you asking me to pretend I don’t remember her chopped body on the floor?! Where is she even?! Did she die?! Did you put her somewhere on this new reality?! Answer me!” Her nails deepened on 7216’s skin to the point of pain, she shook her in despair, making the girl fret in fear of the angered girl dominating her.

“Please… Fubuki! You’re hurting me! I don’t understand what you’re talking about! Who is Subaru? Was she a friend of yours?” Between tears and a wounded expression, 7216 tried to reason with her, she tried to find her own logic to the claims of the girl, “I… I don’t remember any girl whose number reads as ‘Subaru’… please, Fubuki, it hurts…” 7216 pleaded, holding her hands, trying to remove her off her shoulders.

“Stop! Stop, stop, stop it, STOP! ENOUGH WITH PLAYING HOUSE!” But Fubuki wasn’t having any of it, screaming directly into her face, “When… when is this going to end? What more do you want from me?! Aren’t you worried about Luna or Subaru?! Aren’t you worried about Pekora and what is going to happen to the rest of the world if we don’t get out from this place?!” Her screams had finally climbed into despair, her weight and strength were irefully pressing against 7216, pushing her against the adjacent wall.

“Fubuki… what’s happening to you…?” And 7216 was lost of words, overwhelmed by the screams on her ears, completely scared of the violence and the attitude the fox-girl was giving her, “Fubuki… I beg you… your hands hurt so much…” She quivered on tears and snot, “Please… I… I don’t know what you’re talking about… I don’t understand anything you’re saying…” She declared while being shaken.

“... Where’s my katana?” She now asked 7126 with silent anger drawn on her face, but for the girl in front of her, that was the most terrifying question she could understand, to wonder for her blade in that situation, only the worst things imaginable were crossing 7216’s imagination, she shook her head desperately, not sure of what she would do to her if she were to find it.

It had passed ten seconds as Fubuki pinned 7216 against the wall, one cried; the other remained silent looking at the floor, biting her lower lip.

It had been now thirty seconds, only groans and cries could be heard, anger, confusion, and pain.

After an entire minute, Fubuki’s arms finally gave up and released 7216. Both girls fell on their knees on the floor, both of them were crying their hearts out.

The evening of that day, Fubuki abandoned 7216’s dwell.

“I don’t really understand that story at all… but how long do you keep planning to hide here after classes?” 19 wondered without looking at Fubuki. One evening after the coming back to school, even when there wasn’t a real need for Fubuki to keep assisting, and even though it would mean to bump now and then with 7216, especially inside the classroom, Fubuki still did it, “Perhaps because of guilt, wouldn’t that be it? Going to classes is what she wanted you to do the most, so you keep coming to show her you’re still interested,” 19 answered her problematic thoughts, although she didn’t seem completely interested in the theme, going from page to page, immersed on her book.

The two of them were on a secluded and partially dark part of the library as if someone had piled up the books in front of the windows to obscure the place on purpose, and that was most likely it since 19 acted as the sovereign of that specific zone on the library. “Yeah, I should’ve expected talking to you to be a waste of time…” Fubuki groaned back at her words, placing both feet over the table, “You’re always avoiding people, what would you care about other’s problems?” She dared the girl with insults and sarcasm.

“Damn right you are,” And 19 responded proudly to the accusations, “I avoid people on the daily, and mostly because I will rather be alone than end like a lonely idiot like you,” She said insulting back.

“Is that so? What’s the difference between you and me right now exactly? Were both without anyone, aren’t we?” Fubuki persisted.

“That’s not true…” 19 Sighed, closing her book for a moment, “You have always the chance to come back to 7216, and she will most likely receive you on her dwell again, at the end of the day, we’re all Matsuris, a lot of us out there love you on a crazy way, and everyone knows 7216 is your favorite.”

“That’s not…” Fubuki stuttered against her speech, “Then… what about you?”

“I’m a loner, nothing else besides being carried on everyone’s shoulders at the sports festival followed after that,” 19 continued with a melancholic sigh, “Nobody wants me near them, and so, I don’t want anybody near me either, I… I must be a black sheep, if you want a name, I’m not interested in you like the others, and I’m only allowing you here because I dislike physical confrontation,” The girl of the toupee explained a bit anxious, “You’re lucky, contrary to me, I don’t have a place to go back, you’re worried about someone who would receive you with open arms if you apologize, I don’t even have someone to say ‘goodnight’ when I get back home, mom’s never there after all…”

Fubuki moved her head slightly towards 19’s spot on the desk, trying not to frown, trying not to judge, at the way the girl easily deprecated herself. “Are you sure she would receive me back?” She questioned to 19.

The girl huffed with sarcasm, opened her book again, and lurked on the words with her droopy eyes, no longer interested in talking with the fox. Having understood the signal, Fubuki sighed and removed her legs from the table, abandoning the little kingdom of books 19 had made into the library, and as she was leaving, she swore she could hear, after ten months of living in that place, the most useful piece of information she ever received, at that moment, she believed, deep on her heart, it was a clue for the solution no own could give to her, accidentally spouted by a helpless depressed girl.

“You should try to walk around and open your eyes, everyone here probably looks the same for you, but we are all different.”

“But how am I supposed to apologize to her? I remember having one or two little fights with her on the Virtual World, asking for her forgiveness was always the most annoying thing,” Fubuki pondered out loud, decided to make things up now, just unsure of the way to practice it. Going through the halls of the school and deep in her thoughts, the fox girl crashed with a Matsuri going into the contrary direction, her books and carpets scattering around the floor from the impact, “Ouchie… I’m so sorry!” Fubuki hurried to kneel and start picking up her things, “I didn’t notice you at all; let me… help you…?” She tried to say, but when lifting up her gaze, something called on her attention and let her freeze.

“Is fine, just try to be more careful next time darling,” The girl who spoke back to her had an incredible amount of tenderness in her voice, almost motherly, surprisingly feminine. She wore a long ponytail, and on her right arm, the student council band could be seen, she was somehow, bright and beautiful as if she had gotten just out of the bathroom. “Is something the matter?” She wondered uncertainly of Fubuki’s stared, almost as if pretending a British accent.

“Your… number…” Fubuki finally said almost out of breath, staring deeply at the lamp badge on the girl’s uniform, she clearly could read her three digits number, “026…” She whispered in incredulity.

“Ah… Uhm… wait…” Having her number spoken with so much amazement caught her defenseless, instantly exploding with embarrassment and covering her number with one hand, “Would you mind not making a fuss out of it…?” She asked while frowning, “Most of the girls around this school don’t really like that I was labeled with this number, even though they picked me up for president of the student council, isn’t that weird?” 026 chuckled with awkwardness.

“… Maybe they thought your name was befitting of the role?” Snapping back, Fubuki finished helping the prez to pick up her things, standing back with her and handing her books back, “Although if it’s so, they weren’t trying enough,” She answered herself, giggling about it.

“Right? I tell myself the same a lot!” 026 replied with red cheeks, covering her mouth with a small fist as she laughed, her gestures were all filled with politeness and beauty.

“Do you…” Fubuki tried to phrase, even though she could anticipate the answer 026 will give her, even though she had to try, as she didn’t expect for any of the girls to be labeled in such a way, she had to try, there was nothing wrong with trying, “Do you know… where Subaru is?”

“Who’s that?” 026 answered immediately, as Fubuki had foreseen, the girl didn’t have knowledge about it, “I haven’t met a girl labeled like that at all on school,” She giggled with her played accent and her cute mannerism, “Is the first time someone asks something I can’t answer, how funny, but that’s a little frustrating, you know? Usually, I know the answers to what the other students want to ask, would you like to try again?” 026 explained with clear exasperation and pretentiousness, playing with a flock of her hair.

Fubuki then tilted her head, her long ears aggressively pointing up the air, “Then… would you teach me the best way to apologize to 7216?”

“Oho? Would you care to fill me into detail? I can assure you this time I can give you the answer you need!” 026 proudly huffed.

It was simple, it was rude, it was a bit manipulative, straight, and many other things which couldn’t describe the method exactly as an apology, but this didn’t matter to Fubuki, who carried the instructions onto her chest as if it was set on stone. Getting inside the classroom, finding 7216 still haven’t gotten home, talking with other students, Fubuki firmly walked in front of her, interrupting their conversation.

“W-wha… what is it?” 7216 stuttered, being almost nose to nose with the girl who meddled on her personal space, calling on the attention of the rest of the students in class.

“Let me be back into your life!”

Chapter Text

Certainly, such a phrase couldn’t be seen as something like an apology, there was nothing of ‘apology’ inside of it, and yet, it brought a teethed smile on 7216, and while the others Matsuris released a baffled “AH?!” From such unapologetic gesture of the fox-girl, it nailed exactly where 7216 wanted, jumping over Fubuki, tightly squeezing her on affirmation.

“Is that all, was it really so simple? Do we like the dominant type that much?” Hiding from the wall outside the classroom and holding onto a book, 19 asked to 026, who looked at the scene from the door with adoration and satisfaction.

“Oh we do love the dominant ones, but you should know is never that simple,” 026 nodded with a finger on the air, and a wide smile, “It’ll take a lot of Fubuki to heal a wounded heart, we can be… really crappy that way, if you know what I mean,” She stuttered on the end as if trying to avoid saying a grievous insult on themselves.

“… Why does it feel I’m just going to keep getting tangled into their love affairs from now on?” 19 sighed with disgust, standing back from the door and walking away.

After a couple of loud birthdays, and a Christmas with insinuations of looking forward to a very intimate moment, constantly being ruined by a third, a year safely passed by without any other incident. January progressed calmly and without many memorable events, while February had an awkward countdown from multiple Matsuris at school, eagerly waiting for Valentine’s Day, and showing their culinary skills and hidden feelings by gifting chocolates to the fox girl.

For the surprise of some, and the other not-so-surprised many, right on the entrance of the school, a Matsuri with a leather jacket, dark sunglasses, and a skateboard filled with stickers, intercepted Fubuki a few steps from the school doors before anyone else, the number of her lamp badge had the girl labeled as “62”, she wore a smug smile to combine with her slightly clutched back and hands-on her jackets pockets, playing a well-practiced  cool guy  attitude, “Yo, Fubuki, happy Valentine’s Day, ready for the date of your dreams after class?” She declared with a now tenacious smile bringing from her left pocket a medium-size transparent wrap with homemade chocolate on the inside and tied with a red ribbon.

“Yeah… Thanks, but I think I’ll pass,” Fubuki awkwardly replied when catching the chocolate, there was just something on the smug attitude of the girl that irked her, besides trying to play on the masculine side.

Although 62 certainly didn’t seem to want to give up after one rejection, she brought a flat plastic comb from her right pocket and brushed the front of her head as if she had a long and firm toupee on it. “Hey, that’s alright, I have a liking for hard-to-get girls, it doesn’t have to be today, you just gotta try out my chocolates and you’ll soon find out you want to be with me baby girl,” 62 elaborated with a playful tone, with an obnoxious double click of tongue and finger guns.

“62! You have 5 seconds to get away from here unless you want to be sent to detention today again for breaking the uniform code!” To the rescue of the fox, 026 showed in, with a firm voice she threatened 62, hands on her hips, her long ponytail waving in the air like a hero approaching the scene.

“Yikes, is the prez! Smell ya later Fubs!” Caught out guard, 62 made evasive maneuvers and rode away from the scene with her colorful skater, not before making one graceful and goodbye pose, again unbefitting of the girl.

“That… wasn’t really needed, but hey, thank you for the helping… hand…” Fubuki tried to be grateful to the president, but just as she started to talk, 026 walked forward with a comical smile and huge shiny eyes, handing her a heart-shaped box with homemade chocolate, “Oh, you too…”

“Happy Valentine’s Day darling!” 026 cheerfully said with a wink, “Hope you’re ready for a wonderful date just the two of us after school!” Then she turned her gaze to 7216, which had been silently and bitterly watching girl after girl unabashed love confessions and chocolate gifting, reuniting all her anger without letting it out, “You don’t mind if I snatch her today right?” 026 asked her, not knowing she just had stepped into a land mine.

“No! Of course not, what the heck?! Get all of you away from  my  Fubuki!” 7216 exploded, both fists on the air and red like a freshly cut tomato, ready to chase away the prez like a child who can’t voice their feelings properly.

“Woops, look at the time, anyway see you later darling!” With huge embarrassed laughter, 026 resumed on a sprint away from the childish yet still dangerous fists of 7216.

“I swear… every one of you…” Fubuki chuckled in disdain, but barely some seconds after, as 7216 and 026 ran on the far right of the school, a shy couple of fingers pulled on Fubuki’s shirt from behind, making her turn, “What… even you?” She asked trying not to laugh from the surprise, 19 was hiding from the sight of 7216, handing the girl a chocolate bar wrapped on golden paper, the brand on it announced that, contrary to the rest, this one was bought from a store.

“I… sweets aren’t my specialty, so…” 19 Explained hiding her face on a book, poking Fubuki’s ribs with the chocolate bar until she took it.

“19… why?” She couldn’t help but wonder, doing her best to hold onto the laugh and not mock the girl.

“I… wanted to know… what would it feel, to care for someone…” 19 confessed with a shy tone being muffled from the thick book, but clear enough to make Fubuki fluster from her words, “I thought… you wouldn’t mind if I cared for you…” She then separated, and still without facing the fox, 19 made a silent walk into the school, leaving Fubuki speechless.

It was March when 7216 and Fubuki’s relationship had completely recovered from their fight and deepened their bonds. And on a cloudless and windless morning of a Saturday, the girls worked together on a spring cleanse of the dwell, with Fubuki organizing everything they were taking out from the back door into burnable and nonburnable trash, and 7216 cleaning and throwing things from the windows and doors without restraint. “Hey… I found something weird, but I think is yours?!” 7216’s acute and girly voice screamed from the insides of the house.

“Uhm… Mine? I don’t have that many things inside this house, can you bring it here?” Aloof of thoughts Fubuki spout, her focus was placed on folding a couple of thick covers for beds that had many holes and a peculiar smell of mold.

“Sure… Wait a sec!” 7216 voice echoed once more from the inside, a couple of clatter and rattle followed soon after, the small squirm of a girl falling, some pots being kicked, an instant cry from the person who kicked the pots, then after a couple of more cartoony and peculiar sounds, 7216 appeared on the back door with a notebook on her hands. “This! I’m… like, I’m sorry, truth is, it was under a hole of your bed so; I don’t know if it’s your dairy or your bank account or something? I guess is important since you were hiding it from me…”

“…” Fubuki frowned when looking at the notebook, her expression, was of unexpected confusion, her ears tingling along with her confusion, “You said you found it under my bed? Are you sure it’s not yours? I don’t remember doing such a thing,” Fubuki explained, approaching 7216 calmly.

“Nah, it has to be yours, I would never break my own house to hide something,” 7216 insisted with a sarcastic click of her tongue, waving the notebook in her hand for Fubuki to take it.

“… And you say you haven’t read it?” Fubuki asked again, taking on the unknown notebook with both hands, grasping the surface, feeling the dust accumulated on the cover, the stench of old and new made it look like a recently bought notebook which was hidden for a too long time, barely used.

7216 shook her head calmly, “I haven’t, you know? The whole thing is about trusting each other more right? So even though I dug it out of your bed, is not my intention to peek at something which you were hiding, I don’t want you to get mad at me.”

“Uhm… Then again, I don’t remember to have put this thing under my bed… well…” Fubuki shrugged uninterestedly, moved it from her right to the left hand, and held onto it from a corner, taking a spin she proceeded to walk to the bag of burnable trash.

“Aren’t you going to read it, what if it was important?” 7216 said from the back door a bit doubtful.

“Nah, if there were something important here I should be able to remember it,” Fubuki gave a negative while throwing the notebook on the trash, “Sorry, it probably was me, I’ll fix the floor next week when I get paid from my part-time work ok?” The girl expressed scratching the back of her head, more worried about having damaged part of the house of the girl rather than investigating the contents of the book.

The first half of April moved on fast with the end of the exams and welcomed June with the next trimester, 7216 and Fubuki were now in the middle of finishing their studies as second years without realizing. When the ice of winter was just rumors of the past, and when most of the flowers of spring had finally bloomed across the city to decorate with wonderful colors and fragrances, the temperature gently started to rise on the afternoons, forewarning the coming of another hot summer.

“AND THE WINNER OF THE RELAY RACE IS… ONCE AGAIN FOR A SECOND YEAR, CLASS B-1 ACE, NUUUUUUMMMMMMBER 19!!!!” 

As the second sports festival had come to an end, the public was on a euphoric celebration when once again, the quiet girl had brought the unexpected victory on the enemy class, leaving the rest of the competitors, including Fubuki in the dust.

“THE VICTORY, THE DEFEAT, ONCE AGAIN DESTINY SHOWS 19 CAN’T BE BEATEN; WILL SHE WIN AGAIN FOR A THIRD CONSECUTIVE YEAR? WE HOPE SO!” The deafening narration was being delivered by a megaphone on  55  hands, known on the school as the “hyperactive one” of the group, there wasn’t any other best choice to deliver a diligent and enthusiastic follow up of the events, even if it means to have to tolerate her exaggerated arm mannerism and the fact that she would often jump in the middle of the field with her megaphone, not minding the participants or if the competency was being held just now.

“Hah… Ah… I thought you were going to win me this time?” 19 Asked with doubt and sarcasm, wiping the sweat off her face with the neck of her shirt, looking back at the defeated fox-girl holding on her knees.

“LOOK AT THAT, IT SAYS TO BE HUMBLE BOTH ON VICTORY AND DEFEAT, BUT 19 DEFIANT ATTITUDE SHOWS EVEN IN VICTORY!” Spinning between the middle of the girls, wearing her megaphone tied to a strap, golden sunglasses, and a cap, 55 loudly continued to gossip and narrate their reactions and reactions.

“I thought so too…! Wow, what a joke, how are you always faster than me when you’re always reading?” Fubuki wondered trying to recover her respiration, with the loud screams of victory of celebration, she silently looked at the toned legs and thighs of 19, “That’s kinda hot, I have to admit…” She accidentally said out loud, immediately reacting with wide eyes and a pointy tail, hoping that the noises had blocked her comment from 19’s ears, but regretfully, that didn’t happen, with 19 looking back at her, boiling red and sweating liters, this time, not from the race.

“OH? WHAT IS THAT?! MAYBE THIS WHOLE RIVALRY BETWEEN US TWO RACERS IS JUST A FAÇADE TO HIDE THEIR FEELINGS FOR EACH OTHER!!!” 55 now exclaimed through the megaphone to the public around, spinning around the two and swinging her free arm in circles.

“55 would you please shut up at least one time in your life?” Fubuki and 19 asked with murdering intentions, scaring away the poor hyperactive girl by threatening her with green and red bell peppers.

When June died onto July, and the preparation for the final exams started for most of the students, club activities began to cease on a majority section of the groups. The kendo club on the other way remained active even if it was just four students and a very imposing 7216 acting like a perverted cheerleader.

It had been now close to two years since Fubuki first met with number 1, the sole digit Matsuri who proclaimed to be the best of the kendo club, yet got easily defeated on a sudden demonstration of skill difference from the girl. From that point onwards, and just inside of the club walls’, number 1 moved to a pupil-master relationship with Fubuki, training under the eye of the advance and so-called “ex-delinquent” her skill improved after so much time. Understanding the way of walking for a kendoist was enough for number 1 to become a menace for Fubuki, mastering the proper way to walk and hold onto her sword had been the missing pieces for her to turn into a user of the sword to be feared of. But at the end of the day, two skilled students weren’t enough for the requirements of the national kendo tournament, and the school’s club never managed to move from the first 64 schools participating for two consecutive years. That orange day on the club after school was just after a week to losing the national’s classificatory rounds, they both were filled with disappointment, but rather than showing it with feelings and expression, they let the swords do the talking, against each other, over and over, looking forward to perfection the perfection, looking forward to obtaining what was needed to carry the rest of the team into the nationals, even if both knew, that was virtually impossible, they shouted, sweated and fought against the other in the hopes of obtaining the answer to their problems, it all ended on an over-exhausted fox and number 1.

“It’s all…” 1 whispered when kneeling on the tatami, using the sword to hold her weight.

“A waste of time…” Fubuki concluded on her thought with agitated laughter, both of them dropping on the floor defeated.

“We should’ve used our time to teach the others, and not polish our skills,” 1 bitterly admitted, looking up at the ceiling of the club, staring at the orange lines of sunset forming from the windows.

“We realized it too late though… Our ego was blinding us from the solution,” Fubuki continued, both girls taking off their helmets and gauntlets, extending their arms and legs across the floor.

“They always joined us to both tournaments, they tried their best to don’t be dead weight, but we were too predisposed to notice they weren’t there just to be carried for us…” 1 added with a sigh, wiping the sweat off her forehead, “Do you think we still have time to correct that mistake before our last chance?”

“I think there is enough time but, I don’t think it’ll be enough to amend our mistake,” Fubuki explained, lifting her head a few centimeters to turn and look at 1, “Even if we do that, we’re still too focused on the tournament, our graduation is on half of a year, we should forget about the tournament and do something different.”

“… Different?” The tough girl frowned from her place, this one turning half of her body to look at Fubuki, “Different like what?”

“Think about it, we’re all going to be third years and graduate, even if we train as a group and make it into the nationals…“ The girl coughed on her hand and gave 1 a serious stare, “… And whatever happens after that, winning the nationals or losing on the best four, what will happen next year? When we’re no longer here?” She insinuated, gesturing her left to 1.

“They will lose, because there’s no one to train them properly,” 1 gasped in realization, “Then, what do you propose exactly?”

“I propose to forget about us and our ambitions entirely, and focus on leaving something on this club that makes it worth of having to be part of it,” Rising her upper body with her forearms, Fubuki declared with a calm smile, “We do what we needed to have done with our classmates, but the rest of our focus should move to teach the girls on first years, and teach them to pass their own knowledge before they graduate, that way, maybe one of these years, this club could make it into the nationals.”

“Maybe one day you say, that’s a bit of small thinking, don’t you think?” 1 said sarcastically, quickly standing up and walking towards Fubuki, stretching her right to her, “If we’re going to spend our last year of school pretending to be teachers, may as well make sure they have everything they need for the nationals!” The girl exclaimed with a teethed smile, making Fubuki blush.

“Certainly, that would be for the best, Captain,” Fubuki nodded with a new mood, holding on to her hand, and slowly standing up.

The Matsuris on the city only noticed the coming of August in the middle of the month itself, when a straight week of summer rains invaded their people with fear. “Every evening now… I wonder when is going to stop,” A pouty and low energy 7216 complained from the living room, her face melting on the arm of the sofa as she stared at the gray sky and rain with disgust. It had been two hours of rain since it started, making the temperature drop considerably, making it look outside as if it were 7 on the night, sometimes breeze would join the parade and turn the roof of the dwell into a giant drum, scaring the delicate girl.

“Honestly, it has been a long time, and for many reasons, I haven’t dared to ask but…” Fubuki said intercepting 7216’s phrased thoughts, “What’s so bad about rain?”

“What do you mean what’s so bad about it, don’t you see?” 7216 flipped from her lazy posture to look defiantly at the fox, pointing at the rain with her right hand, it was almost like Fubuki had touched a taboo theme of conversation, “It randomly falls off the sky; it steals the light, is freaking cold and ruins all your day schedules! And it’s scary when it falls on you!” She complained, huffed and pouted, childishly waving her legs, “Now you’re going to ask me what’s bad about the beach! Hmph!” The girl exclaimed next with an acute pout.

“Nah, we’ve already gone through that theme, not gonna even bother to touch it again,” Fubuki snorted with sarcasm, when she met with 7216, she surprised her with a cup of warm tea, drinking together in silence as the TV signal was lost from the poor signal of the satellite. “But… if I dare to insist…” Fubuki suggested, dipping a finger on her tea and sucking on it before continuing, “Is it really scary? The rain I mean.”

“It is, Fubuki…” Without looking back at her, 7216 answered, with softness, with bitterness, looking at her reflection on the warm water, “… I know it may sound stupid to you… but is scary to me… the rain… I just don’t like it…” Her voice weakened as she kept talking, uncomfortable with the theme.

And Fubuki, instead of further insisting on the conversation, caressed the top of her head, then left the cup of tea and walked towards the backside glass door of the living room where 7216 was staring, taking on her attention as she held on the latch and pushed it aside, letting the drizzle, the wind, the cold and the sound of the rain abruptly invade the house. “I’m sorry, I just don’t think is that bad…” She whispered, fully dressed in casual clothes, the fox-girl stepped out and let the rain cover her with a mantle of water, slowly walking into the backyard.

“Fubuki?!” 7216 exclaimed out guard, looking at her friend's clothes quickly getting soaked in the rain.

“C’mon, won’t you join me at least one time?” Fubuki asked from the other side, her voice partially muffled by the sound of rain, she scrubbed her naked arms and brushed her hair between her fingers, allowing the rain to soak her entirely.

“That’s… but…” 7216 grew anxious with the proposition, standing from the sofa and approaching the glass door on the tips of her toes, completely horrified of the sole idea of letting the rain get her, “Fu… Fubuki, please, can’t I just look at you from afar?”

“I told you before didn’t I?” With a cunning smile, Fubuki fasted to meet with 7216, quickly holding her right with hers, and using her left arm to make a double hold, quickly pulling her to the backyard with her, “It doesn’t have any meaning if both of us can’t enjoy it!” She laughed in innocence and malice, pulling the girl deeper inside the rain.

“No! Fubuki is freaking cold! Please, I get is fun and all, can I go back inside please?” The reaction of 7216 was to be expected, unable to protect her from the rain, anxiety was getting the best of her, she trembled and jumped on the same place, unable to release her arm from the grasp of the fox, growing nervous and scared, squirming, “Please…! Please!”

“Oh don’t be such a baby, just hang in there a bit more! I promise you once you get used to it you’re going to… like it…” At first, Fubuki laughed off at the insistence of 7216 of going back into the dwell, she firmly believed that a gentle “therapy shock” would be the ideal solution, she firmly believed, that as long as she was holding her hand, 7216 would have no reason to be scared. But she was wrong, when reality suddenly hit her back and realized, looking directly at her eyes, 7216 crying eyes, and remembering, of how delicate she was.

The girl in front of her cried, she cried while firmly holding her hand back. She shrugged from the cold, and the only warmth she could feel at that moment, wasn’t from Fubuki’s touch, but from the tears pouring from her eyes, the watery snot coming from her nose, and the overwhelming heartbeat bumping from her chest. The girl in front of Fubuki wasn’t acting as if the rain was just an element to fear, she cried, from the bottom of her heart and all the way out, as if it could be one of the worst things happening to her. The girl in front of Fubuki wasn’t acting as if the cold feeling was just a pettiness dislike, she was suffering from it, for the girl in front of Fubuki, the rain was a hurdle of cold, icy drops of water, piercing her skin, trying to hurt her, trying to wound her, it couldn’t be defined with a sarcastic joke about a melting witch, 7216 showed, with her entire soul, crying hate towards the rain, a pitiful scene of tears, which the fox alone provoked without considering the results.

“Say… is it enough?” Wiping the tears from her eyes, loudly slurping her snot back, and shrugging so tightly it seemed her ribs were going to crush from the pressure of her shoulders, 7216 asked her, begged her, “Is… Is enough right? C-Can we go back inside now?” Sniffing between words and hoping to finally be released.

Lose of words, Fubuki, instead of letting the girl go, pulled her closer than before, embracing her, squishing her between her arms. 7216 got pulled into Fubuki’s chest, where her head got wrapped with one arm and her back stroked with the other. In that posture, the sound of the rain completely disappeared, with Fubuki working as a human umbrella for the girl, the rain no longer fell over her skin, with Fubuki making it as a warm blanket for her; the rain could no longer freeze her body. “This way… you can hear the rain through me without getting hurt,” Fubuki explained with tenderness.

“There you go acting all cool when your arms are tied to me like tight ropes…” 7216 laughed between tears, trying to break the awkwardness of the moment with a joke, but with Fubuki not replying to it, she resumed to enjoy the moment of comfort. Burying her face onto the fox girl's chest and placing one ear over her skin, she could hear the rhythm of her heart and the echo of the rain falling on her back. On that moment of comfort, on that moment of silence, enjoying the rain for the first time in her life, three words never spoken were said by the girl.

“I love you…”

October, November, December, Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas, all months, and their signature celebrations passed by with the usual loud parties, memorable moments, and indecent outfits. The New Year caught them both sleeping together on the sofa of their dwell, but the rest of January the girls spent their days in class as if it were the last.

Melancholy reigned from February to March, a small, tingling feeling inside everyone’s tummies, something which everyone in their third year of school could feel when the last winter melted away and the last sakura trees near school bloomed to be seen one last time, before they could notice it, wearing black uniforms and flower decorations, three years finally passed by, and Fubuki and 7216 had graduated from high school together, regardless to mind what were their scores on all assignations.

“No, no! No cheating until I tell you to open them!” Just hours after the graduation ceremony, and after having saddening goodbyes with the rest of the students at school, 7216 and Fubuki walked back to the well. But before entering, 7216 suggested there was a surprise for her and made her wear a piece of cloth on her eyes before stepping inside, when Fubuki tried to peek, 7216 smacked her hand away from the cloth.

“I just don’t get it, what is that you’re hiding from me now?” Fubuki wondered playfully, trying not to trip when heading from the receiver to the living room.

“What else would think it is? Huhuhu…” 7216 giggled, violently removing the cloth from Fubuki’s head, lifting up her hair, “Congratulations for finishing high school!” The girl exclaimed happily, showing now a living room decorated as if for someone’s birthday, with colorful garlands, confetti, and a two-floor cake on the middle of the table.

“Pfft, you’re always going too far…” With red on her cheeks, Fubuki fixed her hair, embarrassed of the elaborated surprise, but hungry when looking at the huge cake just for the two of them.

“But that’s not all!” Cheerfully, 7216 announced, moving from the living room to the kitchen, “It has been three years finally, what’s promised is debt! And I don’t want to have a debt with you, so it's time to give you back your pizza… your katana!” She giggled while waving her hips.

“My katana…” Fubuki whispered with animosity, looking both of her hands with surprise, “If I have to be honest… I… completely forgot about it… I wonder why was so desperate to have it again back then…” She wondered trying to remember the feeling of the steel on her palms.

“I know you did, I know you did! That’s why I’m happy to give it back; you’re finally not dependent on it!” 7216 said while dancing, “Well, before I give it to you, where did you think it was? I gave you plenty of clues through these three years and you never found it!”

“Certainly you did… like that it was in a place where humidity and rust wouldn’t get it, and that you would never break your own house to hide something from me… still I couldn’t guess a place for…” Fubuki nodded in affirmation, trying to play along with the sudden guess game, but when looking at the way 7216 continued dancing her legs specifically under the door of the kitchen stock, she moaned with anger and slapped her forehead, “There?! Are you kidding?!”

“Hehehe it’s amazing you never wondered why I never let you go into this place! Wait a sec ok?” She gestured with the right and crouched on the floor, lifting the stock door she slowly climbed down the small ladder, disappearing under the floor.

“I thought it was because you didn’t want me to damage your savings!” Fubuki pouted all red.

“Here you have it!” All of a sudden, 7216 hands popped from the stock with the long katana on her fingers, Fubuki gently took it, then held on 7216 hands and helped her to get back up, “Annnd, this other thing!” She said next when closing the door with her ankles, handing Fubuki a notebook on a Ziploc bag.

“Uh…? Didn’t I throw this like two years ago?” Fubuki asked puzzled by the wrapped book, both hands occupied.

“Yup, but then I picked it out of the trash bag when you weren’t looking!” 7216 nodded once again with a giddy smile, “Like, up to this day I still haven’t read what is inside, but you have so few things here, I thought it’d be a shame to throw it away, whatever it is! Why don’t you find about it now?” She suggested to the fox-girl, walking from her side, kissing her cheek, and leaning on her ear, “I’m ready to be paid back whenever your heart is ready too…” She whispered with a serious tone.

“I… I will read the book now…” A red and shy Fubuki replied with a long and deep breath, trying not to fall on 7216’s taunt. While the girl of four digits when into the table and looked to prepare the giant cake for them, Fubuki walked to the sofa and sat, placing the sword over her legs and unpacking the plastic bag to pull the notebook out of it. She checked the now deteriorated exterior, as aging was something even a plastic wrap couldn’t stop, she opened the cover and read a few words out loud, but when noticing her calligraphy and the tone of urgency written on the pages, the mutter completely disappeared, following the words with a huge frown.

“So? What was that paper all about? Was it your dairy like I was guessing?” 7216 wondered from the table, setting a couple of plates, making long and thick cuts of the cake while swinging her hips.

“Yeah, something like that… surprisingly it was a very private thing, I’m glad you never peeked on it,” Fubuki replied emotionless, violently closing the book with one hand and stepping out of the sofa.

“Wha- really? Well, aren’t you glad I kept it? Oh, I forgot about the soda! Fubuki, could you…”

With an acute sound of slicing, the candles on top of the cake lightened with flames of White.

“… Uh… What’s… this?”

As a thin and bright line of red poured from the corner left of 7216 lips, the tip of a steel blade popped from her belly and through her clothes. With a red stain growing around the zone of the silver, the sword advanced through her body like butter until feeling the guard of the weapon touching her back.

“Fu… buki?”

The garlands and the confetti began to burn by themselves too on flames of White, the embers floating on the air, quickly spreading into the walls and roof, gradually setting the living room of the dwell on fire.

“It’s time to go back, Natsuiro…”

The girl dropped on her knees, her mouth filled into a cauldron of salty red, her eyes were quickly fading on light, the sword had traversed from her back, through her liver and out of her stomach, the undisrupted steel repelled the stains of crimson with strange human dejection, empowered by the words of the fox.

“When… did you notice?”

Unable to turn back, unable to look back at her, weakened, 7216 slowly crouched on the floor. The little embers had now escalated on blazing flames of White, the ceiling crumbled easily against the heat, but the debris falling from up and on their bodies disappeared like a fist of dust on the air, an illusion pulverized by flames.

“Silly… I noticed from the very first day… I just… well… so many things happened…”

Fubuki stuttered an explanation, there was nothing cool to say about it, there was nothing sarcastic or smart that could be used as a remark for that situation, as the whole dwell around them was consumed on fire, and everything around it started to vanish on White fire, there was barely something useful to say. The girl Fubuki had stabbed from the back was never an enemy, never felt like one, so there was nothing to celebrate from having resolved the problem, there was nothing to be happy for having found the answer, it wasn’t a victory, it wasn’t a defeat either.

“I’m sorry… for goofing around… for three years… it was fun…”

Each time she talked, the floor was covered by liquid red around her knees.

“… Idiot…!”

Fubuki crying her heart out embraced the dying girl from the back.

“Fubuki…?”

“Idiot… idiot! You gave me the best three years I have ever lived!”

“… Was I good?”

“… You were… the best…”

“Heh… Thank you… Fubuki… for letting me exist until the end of this dream…”

“Thank you… Natsuiro… for everything you gave me…”

Fubuki closed her eyes, taking one last breath, and trying to pronounce the three words she had never spoken, but when opening her eyes one again, there was nothing to find.

“… What…”

The heat, the flames, the dwell, the disappearing girl, it all was consumed, and instantly vanish, nothing was left, just a huge blank space into the nothingness.

The left, the right, up and down, back and front, there was nothing to see, there was nothing to discern, a scene of pitch white, the absolute nothingness.

Fubuki closed her eyes one more time, just to make sure, a vain attempt to face the nothingness, it was useless. Her brain began to collapse as the minutes passed, it had been a long since the last time she felt this confused, or perhaps just some hours, she couldn’t follow anymore. She couldn’t understand where she was placed, was she standing? Was she floating? Was she stuck on the ceiling? Her eyes couldn’t understand her brain couldn’t process it; it was the horror of the absolute nothingness.

She put one leg on the front and followed with the right, for her basic understanding, she was standing up, and it was one of the most difficult movements she could ever realize. Every second felt like torture, she wanted nothing to do with that blank space, against all the pain that it produced inside her head, she looked right and left, but there wasn’t a door, a dot, or something which could look like an exit of that horrendous place. Fubuki pulled her katana and used it together with the scabbard as guiding sticks in front of her, her stomach was tied into a knot, and every gesture and movement made her feel dizzy and about to puke, but fighting against all those feelings, she started on a painful march to what she thought was north.

Minutes, seconds, hours, months, she quickly lost grasp of time after losing grasp of space, every blink of her eyes was living torture, every breath felt like her guts were about to come out. Moving forward, or believing to move forward, she kept on moving, crying, coughing, struggling but she kept moving, there was to be an exit, there had to be an exit.

But her fighting spirit just wasn’t enough, and when her legs gave up and she fell into the blank, she threw the blade away to avoid stabbing herself on the fall, she cried and mourned, coughed and howled, and when trying to move her face at the direction where she threw her katana, someone was holding it for her, a shadow.

Looking exactly like the shape of Fubuki, with fox ears and tail, the creature held on the blade, her eyes and mouth resembled the one of a shadow she had known before, as it seemed to go through her body. The shadow, without spouting a word, handed the blade back to Fubuki, and when the girl took it, the silhouette meandered with a liquid form and tied itself to Fubuki’s feet. Pulse, rhythm, respiration, everything was slowly going back into Fubuki’s brain.

She stood firmly for the first time, sheatening the blade, the dizziness, and nausea had completely disappeared, she looked down at her feet perplexed. “Does this mean… you’re my shadow?” The girl asked when confronting the dark shape on the floor, but the creature wouldn’t give her a verbal answer, instead, the shadow pointed towards her left by it, even though Fubuki wasn’t moving her arm.

Without any other instruction, but feeling overall better, Fubuki tied the katana behind her shorts and proceeded to walk towards the direction aimed, this time her brain could understand perfectly what was right and left, front and back, it almost seemed to look as if the blank space had tender, dark lines which worked to perceive a colossal cube space around her.

After ten minutes of walking, Fubuki found a flaming orb of White floating over the height of her head. With shocked eyes, she identified a dormant pink princess inside, soundly asleep and probably in a vegetative state. Fubuki held onto her katana for one second, but when thinking of 7216 memories, she shook her head and looked farther on her right, spotting another orb. This one left her in a greater shock, as it held both parts of the sliced Subaru, and the wounds of her torso from both sides were burning on gentle flames, she stared at the girl with amazement when realizing Subaru was somehow breathing with just half of her body stuck to her head, same to Luna, both girls were deeply asleep.

“Hey, took you long enough to find this place!” A familiar, dastard voice called on her attention from afar.

Stealing her from observing the orbs further, the laughing shadow of a girl with a side ponytail happily waved her arm from afar, she seemed to be sitting on a long, fancy white chair made of porcelain, surrounded by a tea table and set and joined by another shadow figure and another two empty chairs.

“Ritsuma…?” Fubuki murmured at first, slowly approaching the creature. Standing in front of the table, she found the shadow calmly drinking from a cup of tea, joined by the shadow of a girl with devil horns and tail, taking a kettle to pour warm tea over two empty cups. “How… what is this place?”

“Amazing isn’t it? I’m not sure myself, neither does she, but it seems this is the place where shadows come to die,” Ritsuma explained with a devilish sneer, tapping the chair near her with a free hand.

Immediately, Fubuki’s shadow extended across the floor and lifted up back to shape, yet still tied to Fubuki’s feet, the creature pulled the chair near Ritsuma then sat and fixed the chair inside the table. “C’mon, you sit too, apparently on this place we can touch things more firmly than on the Virtual World, can't believe I had to die to hold a cup of tea without it slipping from my hands though,” Ritsuma insisted, gesturing Fubuki to sit on the chair in front of Ritsuma and besides the girl of horns and her shadow.

“I see, well, excuse me…” Fubuki sighed, making her way to the chair and sitting with a confused expression, looking at the shadow of horns handing her tea, “T-thank you… and you are?”

“Oh, don’t bother, she doesn’t talk, but she makes wonderful tea,” Ritsuma waved her hand sarcastically while sipping on her cup, “But seriously, you had us all three dead worried, all of a sudden your orb exploded and your body got launched far into the nothingness, we were worried your shadow wouldn’t be able to find you, walking on your own far away from this tea table is kind of suicidal, did you have to be so dramatic and stab her from the back?”

“Excuse me?” The question from the casual tone of Ritsuma lifted a doubt inside the fox, a doubt filled with uncertainty, and quick embarrassment, “You… were watching me?”

“Well, is not like there’s much to do on this place besides drinking tea, eating cookies, and telling each other jokes over and over,” Ritsuma shrugged with sarcasm.

“You said she doesn’t talk,” Fubuki groaned with a red face.

“Both her and your shadow are quite good at playing mime though,” Ritsuma said while taking another sip, trying not to spit from her despicable laughter.

“Remember that I’m still the one with the katana,” Fubuki reminded her with a daring smile.

“Oh calm down a little bit, there’s no reason to be so defensive,” But Ritsuma just shrugged it off, “Why don’t you take a little of tea and get comfy, we have a lot to talk about the four of us, first of all welcome… to the nothingness.”

Chapter Text

“I have a weird favor to ask…”

“Did you lose your mind? There’s no way I could agree with it!”

It drummed inside her mind, a shattered memory which remains continue to haunt her.

“It’s my fault it’s my fault it’s my fault…”

“You… Liar! You tricked her into doing this!”

“Liar? Tricks? You’re the one with the scythe!”

“It’s my fault it’s my fault it’s my fault…”

Painful screams, painful fights, a severed neck, a pond of blood.

“The lies of the Spectrum have gone for way too long! It’s time for the Black to be free! For Darkness to govern the Virtual World!”

“It’s my fault it’s my fault it’s my fault it’s my fault it’s my fault it’s my fault…”

One woman standing in her way, a fateful encounter, a coursed encounter, calling her name.

“From now on, you’re the Grim Reaper, I know is a lot to take in and you may think is an overwhelming job, but don’t fret, why don’t take a seat first? Let’s begin from the most important thing, explaining to you what it means to be alive and dead on this Virtual World.”

“It’s my fault it’s my fault it’s my fault it’s my fault it’s my fault it’s my fault…”

A reunion with a group of elderly men who tenderly taught her the ways.

“Calli, is everything going well? You aren’t answering my calls so I thought of paying a visit to you.”

“STAY… AWAY…”

“If she knows what I did she’ll never forgive me if she knows what I did she’ll never forgive me…”

“It’s my fault it’s my fault it’s my fault it’s my fault it’s my fault it’s my fault…”

A meeting with a faceless friend, a memory buried between confusion and uncertainty.

“Liar… Liar! Bring her back! You won’t get away with this, the Warriors of White will surely know!”

“There are many ancient artifacts on this world, many undiscovered, hidden at places of our system. There are others which are in plain sights, like the Spectrum, an entity which exists since the creation of the system, bringing equilibrium by containing and administrating the Colors.”

“You keep bringing up the liar word, but aren’t you the one who lied to her? To us? You said you would be our friend, but in the end, you got disgusted by us, repulsed by us! You’re the liar one! You couldn’t keep one single promise!”

“It’s my fault it’s my fault it’s my fault it’s my fault it’s my fault it’s my fault it’s my fault it’s my fault it’s my fault it’s my fault it’s my fault it’s my fault it’s my fault it’s my fault it’s my fault…”

A pond of blood, a dead body, a severed head; hands covered with red and shattered crystals.

“Since the discovery of Morty and the Scythe of Honor we haven’t had the need of a Grim Reaper for a long time but… Since she was turned into a Mayor, Morty’s loyalty changed, we don’t understand why, but the creature got instantly attached to her, there’s something the Spectrum hasn’t told us yet, and now without the creature, the job of the Grim Reaper is once again required… You were chosen by Spectrum to fill this role.”

“Aren’t you tormented enough yet? Haven’t you suffered enough yet? Why won’t you understand that I need you? We need you! There’s nothing else out there for you but for us! How many times do I have to beat you for you to understand? Stab you for you to understand? You’re the Grim Reaper, you’re the one with the Scythe of Will, only you can set Black free from the Spectrum, you owe it to us! You’re the one who cut our necks!”

“Calli… Calli! Where are you going? What… What happened? Why are you covered in blood? Calli… What did you do?”

“… I killed someone nobody needed…”

Silence.

“It’s my fault it’s my fault it’s my fault it’s my fault it’s my fault it’s my fault it’s my fault it’s my fault it’s my fault it’s my fault it’s my fault it’s my fault it’s my fault it’s my fault it’s my fault it’s my fault it’s my fault it’s my fault it’s my fault it’s my fault it’s my fault it’s my fault it’s my fault it’s my fault it’s my fault it’s my fault it’s my fault it’s my fault it’s my fault it’s my fault it’s my fault it’s my fault it’s my fault it’s my fault it’s my fault it’s my fault it’s my fault it’s my fault it’s my fault it’s my fault it’s my fault it’s my fault it’s my fault it’s my fault it’s my fault it’s my fault…”

Noise.

“Kiara…”

“Our mission is to destroy the Equilibrium of the Spectrum.”

Noir.

Calliope’s eyes opened up slowly, with multiple voices drumming and echoing inside her head, taking deep breathes, calmly regaining conscience, the tall lady found herself lying on a strange pose, resting over the eyeless’ Haato body, having her face caressed by the girl. She looked left and right but the numbness from waking up couldn’t allow her to turn her head to the sides, her hair and Haato’s clothes were clouding her vision, she could only see upwards the eyeless girl, she caressed her face back.

“Good morning, did you have a nice dream?” Blindfold Haato wondered while caressing her cheek.

“You know very well I only have nightmares…” Calliope pronounced emotionless.

“Oh, I guess you do… do I appear in them?” The eyeless girl questioned with a little smile, then, as if a thought had sparked on her mind, she quickly took one corner of her cape and covered her face, “I’m sorry Master… I forgot where my bandages are, I’ll make up something quick if you keep looking at my face; your nightmares will surely become worse…”

“No…” Obtaining the strength to turn her body to the right and sit on the ground, Calliope faced the girl and made her drop the cape, “There’s no need for that now… Back then, when I made you feel gross with yourself, even now, as you carried those bandages to don’t freak me out… I can’t fix the mistakes I did in the past, but now I want to at least be able to look at your face… Haato…” She leaned on the girl, their foreheads gently bumping together.

“Master…?” The eyeless girl gasped with red cheeks.

“The eyes I have now… These are your eyes, aren’t they?” She whispered tenderly.

“They… they are…” Blindfold Haato gulped down redder, with her face being caressed.

“Do they fit me?” She questioned next.

“… They do… better than me…” Blindfold Haato nodded with a blushing smile.

“Hey, lovebirds, this isn’t the time to try to smash peko,” Subtly kicking Calliope’s ankle, the bunny-girl made her presence be felt.

“You’ll get used to it… Although you know? I’m still not used to it either, let me rephrase, Master, you’ll get used to them doing things like these at the weirdest moments,” The Haato of Fangs added to the breaking ice, their voices coming from behind Calliope’s head.

With a heavy sigh, the reaper finally stood on her feet. Her ponytail had broken at some moment, so she had to fix her long hair behind her ears, and after dusting off her jacket and pants, she gave a mournful examination to the scene. Holding up her breathe trying her best to hide a scare, the first thing Calliope spotted was a pitch white, flaming Matsuri, silently floating over the remains of an explosion on the now burnt ground, the two Haatos, Pekora, and she were just meters away from the entity of flames, they were hiding behind the debris of some building walls which were destroyed on the explosion.

The flames of the entity gleamed with the fierce power of White, the loud crisp of its fire, and the subtle, but constant shocks of airwaves from the energy released was intimidating. Calliope examined the surroundings properly, the explosion had gotten the best of a couple of buildings, but they had survived the accident without a scratch, however, the most remarkable thing was the constant energy being released by the entity was working as some kind of field, disinfecting the tar from the edifications and floor, keeping it away in the distance, not even the crashes conglomerated on the borders, regardless of their size, could dig inside the cleaned zone, being repelled instantly. “How long was I sleeping…” Calliope now asked the eyeless one with a firm tone.

“Just a couple of hours… Fangs and I woke up first, and we instantly took the both of you behind these walls, Master Pekora woke up a bit later,” Blindfold Haato explained calmly, standing up and handing the baseball hat to the girl.

“And… What exactly is that, a Warrior of White? She looks way different than the ones we know,” Taking the cap and tying her hair with her hands to improvise a ponytail through its hole, Calliope asked the girl as the fourth reunited behind the wall.

“Nah, that’s a straight-up Goddess what you’re watching there, a God-class, warrior of White, if you need a name,” Fangs Haato explained with a hiss of disgust.

The group gazed once more at the floating entity with troubled expressions, “… What do we do now? We can’t go back with the Grandmaster and leave this here, we have to find a way to deal with this girl,” Calliope pondered to the rest of the girls, looking for the scythe on the ground and picking it up.

“I don’t think you understand the situation we’re in right now,” With a grouped groan by the other three, Fangs Haato hissed again miffed of Calliope’s calm reaction, she insisted pointing with a finger, “That, right, there, is a Goddess, she could wipe us from the entire existence with a thought if she wanted.”

“She’s right…” Blindfold Haato nodded at her sister’s angry notations, but with a puzzled look, she turned to face the entity, “Then… why hasn’t she done it yet?”

The question sparked curiosity and fear, they leaned into the walls, looking at her from the borders of debris, “Ma…” Fangs Haato stuttered showing a glimpse of annoyance, “Master Pekora…” Yet she still pronounced it, “Why do you think she hasn’t killed us yet?”

“Uhm…” Crossing her arms, Pekora quickly turned into a state of meditation, trying to recall all the details that happened in the last four hours, the sisters and Calliope looked back at her with a comical twist of lips, “Before that girl turned into a peko Goddess, her shadow manifested, it sacrificed itself to protect her and the girls peko.”

“First her shadow and then this… Oh! She was in the limbo!” Blindfold Haato happily clapped her hands.

“The limbo you say?” Calliope wondered.

“Yup! Must be the Spectrum’s doing,” Blindfold Haato nodded, “Is the knowledge the Grandmaster gave us, the Spectrum is the most important sentient artifact that exists from the beginning of the system, ah…” Realizing that she may have started into a long explanation, she quickly gestured with both hands for the group to sit, with the exception of Fangs Haato who quickly drew her knife and started to draw figures on the dirt, since it was a commuted knowledge of the sisters, “Its work has always been the job to keep the equilibrium, and in times of need, it puts a user of color on the limbo, a test to see if that user is worth to jump out of the spectrum and become something more dangerous than a warrior of White, an actual God, which can protect the equilibrium,” She danced through the floor on her ankles, explaining the situation with a lot of gestures, almost as if she enjoyed the momentary role, “You could say this Goddess right here, is an allergic reaction to the things we’ve been doing, the system immunity program put into work, she’s here to destroy the Grandmaster plans along with us… And yet…” Having concluded her explanation, Blindfold Haato silently abandoned the wall of debris, and against everyone’s surprised gasps, the girl approached the entity until being just two meters away from it, there wasn’t a single reaction from the flaming Goddess, it remained still, gazing upon nothing, “And yet… She hasn’t done it… We’re still here… Why?”

“The white creature appeared right after the shadow disappeared peko,” Shyly coming out of the walls with the other two girls, Pekora tried to reply Blindfold Haato’s spouted thoughts, “When it appeared, it started to talk in a very ancient language peko, then it asked the girl to command her…”

“What did the girl ask for?” Calliope questioned.

“Something about protecting her friends peko…” Pekora nodded with a frown. But what the bunny-girl said just generated another confused and grouped reaction, they looked at each other and Goddess, angered, baffled, “Wait a minute peko…”

“… Is it?” Calliope huffed next, filled with concern, they had all come to the same conclusion, yet no one felt with the strength of voice such unexpected outcome, favorable, yet ridiculous, still.

“So… We’re still here because she asked for her friends to be protected instead of depurating all we’ve been doing?” With incredulity, Fangs Haato questioned the narrated result, “What’s a God suppose to be, a one-chance wish? Are you saying we’re still here because she screwed up the most important part?”

“She didn’t know she was being tested by the Spectrum, that girl probably never knew what was going on inside of her, instead of complaining of why aren’t we dead, we should be celebrating it,” With an unexpected firm voice, Blindfold Haato retorted Fangs Haato, forcing the other to tighten her lips with a groan.

“And then… we come back to my original thought…” Calliope meddled between the two, “Do we leave it here? It doesn’t seem like it's going to do anything… ever again…”

“No, an incomplete God is still a menace,” Blindfold Haato replied while keeping her firm voice, “We don’t know how and when, but at some moment, it may come for us to halt our plans…” She took a deep mouth of air, “The people that girl asked to be protected, including Subaru, they aren’t here, I don’t know how, but they were sent somewhere safe away from us, our revenge against Subaru aside, we need to get rid of this thing, otherwise she will jeopardize the Grandmaster plans.”

“What do you suggest we do peko?” Pekora asked next, as the group gestures slowly changed, getting ready to engage the entity, fixing their clothes, and wearing serious expressions.

“We don’t know how to kill a God, heck, if we knew something like that we would’ve gone to the Grand Salon ages ago to get rid of the Spectrum,” Fangs Haato replied instead, but when the blonde girl pulled on her knife, at the sight of the entity, it instantly reacted with furious intensity. Bursting in flames, in the middle of their conversation, the Goddess lifted her left hand into the air, aiming at the group of girls, producing balls of White fire which sparked from thin air and rocketed at the group, “Yikes, what in the world happened?!”

Quickly looking for cover, they ran back behind the walls of debris, the fire smashed intensely against the material, making it shake and crumble with ease. “She saw your knife and reacted against it! Remember? She’s protecting the girls from us!” Blindfold Haato cried from the other side with obvious anger at her sister’s mannerism.

“Pekora, we need a plan to deal with this!” Calliope shouted to the bunny-girl.

“What do you take me for? I’m not a genie peko, there’s just so much I can…” Covering her bunny ears and head with both hands, Pekora tried to diss at the sudden and difficult request, however, as she tried to phrase she couldn’t come up with an idea, something flashed through her thoughts, interrupting her from denying further, “… That may be it! We can’t kill a Goddess, but we can try stripping it from her powers! If we manage to get close to her, we could try corrupting her until her White fades away!”

“Got it, we’ll need a distraction, let’s retreat for a moment! We’re sitting ducks here!” Nodding to Pekora’s suggestion, Calliope and the girls dug a warp hole from their hiding places and disappeared from the zone just in time before the walls succumbed against the relentless flames, crumbling the remaining into dirt dust. Holding in the middle of the obscure dark TV static tunnel, the girls looked at each other, revising that everyone was inside, then, Calliope, coughing on her right and weirdly practicing the tone of her voice, raised her left on the air and displayed a virtual screen, going through a list of contacts and dialing up a large number code, “This is going to be awkward…”

“Uh, who are you calling to peko?” Pekora tilted her head.

“I’m trying to find us a distraction…” Calliope sighed with an uncanny shyness; then gesturing everyone to keep quiet as the dial screen was finally picked up from someone on the other side.

- Hello…? Who may this be? –

An overwhelming sweet and acute voice suddenly asked.

- Hi there… It’s Calliope –

- Oh, Calli! How is it going? I haven’t heard from you in a while! –

The woman from the other side sounded to be extremely young, energetic, and partially faking her girly tone.

- Sorry, I’ve been busy lately –

- Reaper work has gotten you busy? My, such a hard worker! Although I’m not sure if that’s a good or bad thing for the rest of us, hehe! –

- Well yeah, you know how this is –

- Yup! Yup! –

- Anyway… I’m actually in the middle of a job right now, and I was wondering if you could –

- Are you eating healthy? –

She deflected Calliope’s conversation firmly and efficiently, each time the girl did this, Calliope had to pause for a deep breath, as one of her brows reacted with a nervous tic, without noticing, it was producing several muted laughter from the other three girls.

- … Yes, I’ve been, thanks for worrying for me, anyway, as I was saying… –

- Say, I’ve found this nice place with clothes of your liking, can we hang out one of these days? I’m dying to play dress-up with you! –

- … Sure… How about next week? –

- Really?! Finally! Then let’s go the next Thursday! And bring some nice underwear, we’ll be been trying all types of clothes after all! –

- Sure I will, next Thursday it is… –

- Alright then, it was nice hearing from you Calli, keep up the hard work! –

- Wait, don’t hang up! –

As the lady of the scythe felt like her heart was going to jump out her throat, and the other three resisted a devilish desire to laugh at her face, she barely managed to don’t be cut.

- Uh? What is it? –

- I’m sorry to bother you all of a sudden, is just… –

- Oh not at all! You know how things are from this side; tell me, dear, what do you need? –

- … My colors almighty… –

- Excuse me? –

- Nothing, nothing, anyway, what I was trying to ask was; could you give me the permissions to use Morty again? –

- Oh, was that all? Why didn’t you ask me as soon as I picked it up? –

She felt like breaking down the call with fists of rage against the screen, she had to pull it together.

- … You know how I am, I like to chat a little before asking for a favor –

- Hehehe, yes you do, alright, I’m sending granted permissions to summon Morty, anything else you need? –

- Yeah, the dupe of the Scythe of Will I gave to him broke, it was a temporal copy after all, is it trouble if you could send him with your Scythe of Honor as well? I require firepower –

- Oh my, it sounds like you’re in trouble dear, are you sure you don’t want me there to help you? –

She pressed her face against the screen with hurry and anxiety, pulling a fast excuse.

- N-no, it’ll be alright, is nothing I can’t handle but is still difficult, I don’t want you… to get hurt –

- D’aw, you’re so sweet, ok, preparations done! The scythe was equipped, but whatever you do, try to be gentle with him all right? The last time I gave him to you he came back half frozen! Not because I can always restore him means you should abuse him! –

- … I’ll try my best of not going too far this time... –

At the second of hanging up, the other three girls and their red faces from holding on finally exploded on a loud, grouped laughter, mocking pointing finger and some fists bumps on Calliope’s shoulders and back. “Oh… Oh my God… That was so refreshing!” Fangs Haato laughed out of breath, wiping a tear from her eyes, “I can’t believe that actually worked… doesn’t she know that you’re corrupted, doesn’t she even ask for what you’ve been using Morty?”

“She only cares about what she wants to care about… I’ve been taking advantage of that,” Reluctantly and with gritted teeth, Calliope answered the mocking questions regardless. “Get ready now, the time to smile is over, we’re going back; strip that girl from her powers…

… Kill her later so it doesn’t happen again.”

“Very well where should we start?” Reunited with three other shadows on the odd white porcelain table and chairs, Fubuki sat alleviated and uncomfortable at the same time. The characters sitting to her sides, were just glimpses of people who were no longer close, and the other was an anomaly she couldn’t even begin to ponder, a negative reflection of her, which had joined into the tea party without a second thought, and it didn’t seem like Fubuki while being the caster of such shadow, could make her obey her movements. However, despite the situation was vexing, and there was still too much to explain, and too much time to recover for what she went through, time was a concept which needed to be reinstituted inside her mind, and her duties, or at least so she thought when gazing upon the floating orbs were Luna and Subaru were trapped. Her mind needs to prioritize, there will be another time to complain, there will be another time to throw a tantrum, cry and fight like a possessed teenager, but that time wasn’t now, and as Ritsuma proposed her to open the theme of conversation, drinking on tea, Fubuki mentally disposed of whatever could be taken for later and prepared to ask, “First of all, when you said to drink tea and conversate the three of us…” With a look of anger, she pointed at Luna’s shadow, a figure that had been silently prostrated on the white floor, rubbing a finger on the floor like a grounded child, “Why are you excluding her?”

“Ah, that prick,” Without hesitation, Ritsuma dropped on a diss, “She made a scandal because devil-girl here wouldn’t brew her one weird super luxury type of tea we don’t have here, and it has been sitting there with all her pettiness for God knows how much time,” Shrugging uninterested of dealing with the drama of the princess’s shadow, Ritsuma gestured Fubuki to ignore her, and the fox, with a handful of questions yet to make, decided to ignore her too. She took a sip of the tea, warm, relaxing, it had a familiar and mild taste, something on the tip of her tongue, even though she couldn’t specifically name it, as more questions piled up on her mind, she tried to stay focused.

“Now, next question,” Fubuki calmly continued, “When you say you were watching me, what do you exactly mean?”

“Oh, that? Well, as I was trying to explain before, don’t be too defensive about it, all we could do was to take some peeks now and then, some times longer than others, but never too much, as we don’t have control of it at all,” Ritsuma explained with detail, and while such long explanations were odd from the girl, she quickly interjected before it would turn into the third question, “Also, don’t think too much of me for being nice and explain you the ropes, the first thing you lose here is the notion of time, I don’t know if I’ve been held here for hours or ages, I don’t know if the world outside me ended while having tea, and top of it…” She paused, and with her holed eyes she gestured to the devil-girl shadow and Fubuki’s shadow, “These two are completely mute, so you’re the first one I’ve been able to speak and be replied to in a while… you could say, it makes one lower her guard,” Ritsuma sighed with honest shame, “As for the method we’ve been using to watch what you were doing from the inside of the orb…” Changing subjects, she turned half her body over the chair to gaze at Luna’s orb, one arm over the frame, a thumb pointing at it, “It should start at any moment, pay close attention to it…”

While Fubuki thought she was going to be pranked on, the doubt disappeared as the other two shadows eagerly stared at the orb, waiting for something. It started as subtle, whispers, slowly growing, consistently taking shape on their words, the acute, unique tone of Luna’s voice could be defined, the voice growing louder and stronger, then, the flames of the orb began to react to the girly voice echoes, turning the exterior into complete white, and Luna’s body disappearing from sight. The light of the flames began to organize into a roughly-looking rectangle, and finally, an image appeared. It was difficult to grasp what Luna was doing, or who she was talking to, the image would become more defined for seconds, and then diffused into sparks of flames, the princess seemed to just finish getting dressing up, ordering, and talking to her servants with a tired look on her face, but what called on Fubuki’s attention the most, was the fact the girl had taken into a wonderful looking, yet dangerous silver knife, probably from a dinner table, and wrapped it on the ribbon behind her dress, prepared to set out her room, as Luna took on the knob of the door, the fire broke out and the image disappeared, clearing up and showing the real one still fast asleep inside the orb.

“That was painful to watch, in a lot of ways,” Fubuki mentioned with sarcasm, trying to take a big gulp of the teacup, instantly spitting on the floor with wide eyes of disgust, “Puah…! What in the world, why is so freaking salty all of a sudden!?”

“Oh, right, I forgot to mention,” Ritsuma took the situation with a sneer, “When devil-girl serves you tea, you have to say is delicious at least once, otherwise she’ll think you’re being ungrateful and will put weird things in your tea when you’re not looking,” She laughed and shrugged, the shadow of devil horns and tail playing it cold, “You’re lucky it was just salt, to be honest.”

“Urgh, I can’t wipe the flavor off…” Fubuki groaned with her tongue sticking out, she threw the rest of the tea from one side of the table; there wasn’t anything to replace the saltiness in her tongue, the shadow of horns handed her a glass of water, she took it reluctantly, “Thank you… I bet it’ll be delicious…” She stuttered anxious about what will the content be, for her surprise, it was refreshing, “Oh… lemon-pickle water, it was good, thank you,” With laughing relief, Fubuki said to the shadow, who smiled just gently.

“… Now, as for what you just saw,” Tipping on the porcelain table, Ritsuma called on Fubuki’s attention, with eagerness to continue talking, “Is like that sometimes, other times is like HD TV, and it can be heard just fine, it happens now and then, it honestly has helped us to keep us entertained, yours and Luna have been quite the crappy teenage dramas,” Ritsuma laughed it off, but far from making Fubuki angered or ashamed, it brought her some small feeling of relief.

“Alright, so, you’ve been watching, and you know the things I went through… What about Luna, why is she walking around with a knife hidden inside her clothes?” Fubuki returned on the questionnaire.

“Well, sit tight, is a bit of a long explanation,” Ristuma warned with a wide smile, happy to be able to have someone to narrate the adventure she has been spying on, someone who could reply. “While your… fantasy, let’s call it so, was about spending your high school years with Matsuri, Luna falls into a bit more in the romantic drama category,” Opening on her narration, the shadow would only stop to take a sip of the tea, or grab on a cookie, constantly refilled and displayed by the devil-girl shadow, “So, in Luna’s fantasy, she’s the princess of a medieval-ish kingdom, not so far away from her reality, with the difference this isn’t made from candy. At the start, she was on pure bliss, contrary to you, that her kingdom was filled with thousands of hundreds of Matsuris where her eyes could gaze upon, and well, it quickly exhausted her after a week, she went through the same steps of mental collapse and dramas that you went, but at her way I suppose,” The group eagerly listened to Ritsuma’s choppy way of narration, the tray of cookies danced from hand to hand, constantly thanking the devil-girl shadow for refilling their cup, while the fox and Ritsuma did it verbally, Fubuki’s shadow did it with a gesture, “Luna’s fantasy took a peek at a celebration, I think it was her birthday? The patisserie stuffed her table with luxury, tasty pastries, and many other types of sweets, but that party especially, she felt charmed by some amazing milk bread, but when she interrogated the patisserie about it, to watch her do it and learn how to make it, the patisserie admitted to not have baked any of that night’s dishes, instead, she bought it from a bakery of a poor girl on the skirts of the kingdom, and you could guess, when Luna met with that cheerful, humble and poor Matsuri baker girl who could make sweets to charm her mouth and heart, she fell in hard love of her.”

For a moment in that long story of love and drama, Fubuki could finally relax, the cookies were crunchy and tasty, the tea was refreshing and addictive, her energies were slowly recharging while paying attention to detail of what Ristuma described as Luna’s fantasy. “Then, at that point, we had a whole romantic harem, just like you had, but royalty style, there was the baker Matsuri, the prince Matsuri, the maid Matsuri, the older sister Matsuri because why the hell not right? And finally the ruffian Matsuri, because of course she also had to fall in love with a smuggler. In the end, by a large number of sweet moments, the prince Matsuri won a space on Luna’s heart, just like 7216 did with you, and one night, oh, that night!” Ritsuma interrupted her narration intentionally, laughing out loud, filled with malice, the other two shadows joined on the laughter, “That night, the prince Matsuri did her movement, and man, it went as smoothly as she expected, she convinced Luna of everything, and I mean everything,” It didn’t take any longer for Fubuki to understand, the conversation was about to get spicy, she felt a shriek when watching the sleeping Luna, and looked back at Ritsuma agitated, one part of her not wanting to know, another part dying for Ritsuma to continue, before realizing she was leaning on the corner of the chair, “And when everything was set and done, and when the prince carried her in arms to her bedroom… when the lights of the candles were put off when the prince put her on the bed when they were about to take off their clothes, have their first kiss, and do way, way, more, do you know what happened?” Ritsuma teased with a huge cunning smile.

“WHAT, WHAT HAPPENED? TELL ME NOW!” Smashing the table with a fist, euphoric, with a bright red face, Fubuki demanded to the shadow, the other two exploding on a large peal of muted laughter.

“Well, to be completely honest,” Ritsuma changed her tone and emotions with the flip of a switch, completely disappointed, “Just at that very moment, she held the prince and told her that she wasn’t ready yet, and asked her for more time to think about it,” She shrugged twice, each one full of annoyance, the rest of the shadows reacted the same way, “It seems something happened that night which made Luna remember what had happened before waking up on that fantasy, and now she has spent a couple of days walking around her castle with the knife you saw before, looking for the best chance to stab the prince Matsuri, and break from that fantasy,” Ritsuma sighed and drank a chug of tea, finishing her narration disapproving the turn of events, then spout one last thing, “But, contrary to you, is taking her a lot so buckle up and kill the prince, you didn’t even hesitate, but that girl isn’t a warrior so.”

“I… what I did was…” Fubuki stuttered the shadow pressed on a delicate button.

“Hey, I’m not judging you, you had to do what was needed, I wasn’t there, so it probably felt very real for you,” Ritsuma gestured with both hands, “But if it’s worth mentioning, Fubuki, it feels good to die knowing it helped someone close of you, regardless of the situation,” The shadow dropped, with a troubled smile, an expression which quickly disappeared.

“… Let’s change the subject…” Fubuki proposed with ears down.

“Very, should we now talk about how to get you out of here?” Ritsuma nodded and quickly prompted a new theme. “We haven’t tried yet, we were waiting for any of you to get out your orb first,” She mentioned, now looking at the devil-girl shadow.

“She knows how to get out of this place?” Fubuki frowned curiously.

“The tea we’ve been drinking, the fact it never runs out, just like the cookies, the table, and even the chairs, most of them weren’t here until devil-girl asked for them, apparently, this nothingness… has some sort of likeness for her, it communicates with her and sometimes brings her things, although for what she has told me, there are times she never gets a reply, but, we could try using her to ask the nothingness how to get you, girls, out of here,” Ritsuma elaborated with open hands.

“Wait… you mean only us three?” Fubuki’s lips curled, “Won’t you come with us?”

“I mean…” But Ritsuma just laughed, pointing at Fubuki’s and Luna’s shadow, “They probably can join you in the way back, but if it were that easy for devil-girl and me, we would’ve walked out ages ago,” The shadow implied and later released a long sigh of dissatisfaction, gazing up into the infinity of the white space, “This place, maybe is hell, not sure, but is meant to keep us here, no need to waste time in us, it can be rough at times, but we’ll handle on our own,” She explained bittersweet to Fubuki, making her unable to answer, and before it could get more awkward, Ritsuma clapped her hands and looked back at the devil-girl shadow, “Well, will you make us the honors?”

The shadow nodded happily and bounced out of the chair. She took exactly ten steps to the right, far from the orbs, the table, and the pouty Luna’s shadow; she stared into the nothingness and opened her hands. The group looked at her remain in that position for a long time before she returned to the table. “Uh, what’s that exactly?” Fubuki pointed out, as the devil-girl shadow took Ritsuma’s left hand and started to rub her finger into her palm, quickly and dexterously.

“You see, despite I said both her and your shadow are good at mime, is not the most efficient, so we resorted to this type of communication not so long ago, she writes the letters on my palm with her finger, and then I have to guess the words she’s trying to type,” Ritsuma explained slowly, trying to don’t lose focus, picturing on her mind all the words being rubbed on her hand.

“And what does she say?” Fubuki insisted.

“Wait just a minute, she hasn’t ended,” With her free hand Ritsuma gestured the fox to close her mouth, and after another several finger movements, the devil-girl shadow separated and sat back on the table, refilling her cup and sipping on it. “Ok, good news and bad news,” Ritsuma gestured with both hands, “The good news is many, first, the nothingness told her you, your shadow, Luna and her shadow, and Subaru, can all get out of here if you want, apparently the nothingness didn’t put you guys here, it was Matsuri, and since this white space doesn’t have anything to do with it, you can return whenever,” Clapping her hands with sarcastic happiness, Ritsuma explained.

“Shoot it, the bad news,” Fubuki said without hesitation.

“… Well…” Ristuma’s voice became acute as she shrugged, “It also says, since the nothingness doesn’t have anything to do with this, you have to return from where you came from… in other words, you need to return to the fantasy you were having…” She struggled to say, clicking her tongue.

“But…!” Fubuki quickly stepped from her chair, the word wouldn’t come out, one hand on the table, the other clenched powerlessness, “I… I can’t… inside of that place… is too difficult, I lost the notion of everything! I can’t go in there another three years!”

“Calm down woman of little faith,” Ritsuma hurried as the devil-girl shadow moved just fast enough to catch the kettle which almost fell from Fubuki’s doing, “Listen, this is not all,” She firmly noted, then continued, “The nothingness says, to get out here, you need to take down the real Matsuri, which is on the place you came from.”

“WHAT?!” Fubuki leaned further into the table, smashing it again, everyone hurrying to move the cups and cookies out of her way, “What does it mean Matsuri was there?! That’s absurd! Matsuri wasn’t there! Are you making fun of me?! Do you have any idea for how long I had been looking for Matsuri in that place? Three, damn, years!”

“Hey, knock it off you idiot, you’re going to break everything!” Ritsuma, no longer able to mollify her, snapped instead, “This is the nothingness, we don’t know for sure if it was three years, I’m trying to help you here so calm down!” She angrily said one more time; it took a firm voice for Fubuki to settle down. “I’ve had more than enough time here, enough to be sure that I’m willing to help you get out…” Standing from her chair, Ritsuma walked towards Luna’s orb, “We can’t get out here, but there’s nothing that says we can’t help you, well, at least, the nothingness hasn’t said anything about it. Devil-girl here, prick there, your shadow and me, all of us can join you on your feet when you’re inside one of these fantasies, we’ll give you the support you need, to help you girls get out of this place.”

Certainly, Fubuki was doubtful of her words, for more than a reason, and she couldn’t help to ask, “… And why do you want to help me exactly?”

“Well, because I’m a shadow, of course,” Ritsuma turned and smiled, “I represent everything bad inside Matsuri, and I won’t stand any other moment here, knowing the flaming one won the limbo fight, Matsuri… She has always been, a unique girl… I don’t know anyone else more befitting of turning into a Goddess but her, but, that isn’t Matsuri, you know it, and I know it, very well…” Ritsuma confessed with a soft tone, trying not to sob, “I love Matsuri, and even if I can no longer be with her, it breaks my heart to see her turned into that thing, I’m going to help you, so I can find Matsuri, and then I’ll bring the girl we all know back to us,” She concluded with a fierce smile, a declaration of war.

“… I… I’ve been trying to take this whole situation step by step so…” Ashamed, Fubuki replied, realizing she hadn’t thought that far on the problems tangled together, “If you saw what I saw before the explosion… then you know what you’re up against, it was just a glimpse, but that was… something I deflected from confronting, a Goddess, what do you exactly plan to do?”

“Nope, I was quite dead that moment but had lived with that thing as a roommate inside Matsuri for way too long before that,” Silently, as they didn’t know better, the rest of the shadows reunited to the sides of Ritsuma, with the devil-girl pulling Luna’s shadow for the seeming neck of her dress, forcing her to stand up and stand with them, giving the shadow girl a supporting nod and their signature, ear to ear, creeping smile. “Hey, we’re all bad girls here; we’ll think something up together!”

“Huh, I guess you’re right on that,” With a chuckle joined with a shake of the head, Fubuki replied, to their resolution, she stepped out from the porcelain table and walked in front of the shadows. One by one, starting from her own shadow, later Ritsuma, Luna’s shadow, and devil-girl, they all deflated and fell on the floor, meandering and joining to Fubuki’s feet, the girl had moved from spending so long with a shadow, to now have four different with her, each time one of them joined her body, it gave her an uncomfortable shriek. “Fu… That was something else…”

“We’re ready to start up the party, but remember…” Ritsuma said with trouble, as she tried to keep the others away from her space, “Is cramped on here, so the faster you do it, the better!”

“Roger, now tell me, how do I get inside of that fantasy again?” Fubuki asked while looking down on the floor.

“If you think about it, is not so hard to add one and one together and find out that fantasy was being transmitted to you through the orb, you need to jump on Luna’s or Subaru’s, and hopefully you’ll be back to that dream, hey, stop hitting my sides with your elbows or I’m turning this car back to the nothingness!” Ritsuma replied exasperated, the shadow girls were quickly struggling on the tiny space being cast by Fubuki’s silhouette.

Fubuki now stared towards the orbs, “Yeah, no way in hell,” She commented sarcastically when looking at the orb with the severed body, her second and best option, was the one of the princess, “Luna… Hope you don’t mind the company!” She voiced loudly, taking on her katana and leaping inside the flames.

Chapter Text

The rising temperature and the blinding bright of Matsuri’s White flames were quickly overwhelming, the Goddess faced the giant skeleton, emotionless, unwavering, unfazed of the bony creature in front of her, with part of its body scorched into cinders. On its right arm, there was a scythe different from the one it held before, a large stick holding into a rectangular and horizontal blade, in its hands, it fits a bit smaller than the last one, but its steel presented a feat against the Goddess, as it didn’t bend much less melt, her fire bounced on it, despite her overwhelming strength, and how quickly the group of corrupted girls had been cornered, those scythes were the only thing which didn’t kneel to her.

“The fire the fire the fire! The more this battle goes on the more I want to get rid of this girl!”  Calliope thought furious when jumping away from another blast of flames,  “These attacks come from all directions, I barely have half a second when it begins to ignite and avoid it, is just a matter of time befor-”  She stressed on her thoughts, as she danced with her scythe repelling the series of fireballs, until one materialized right at the height of her chest and exploded, the impact sending her against the wall of a building, “Gugh…”

“Master!” Blindfold Haato cried when looking at the girl being sent flying against the wall, turning to the skeleton next, “What are you standing there for?! Do your work!” She yelled at it.

The creature nodded and howled as an answer, covered with a thin Black aura, it ran once again against Matsuri, which received it with a wall of flames. Using the rectangular scythe, the creature now focused its energies on penetrating the firewall, slicing it over and over, trying to keep the Goddess at bay.

“Master, are you hurt?” Blindfold Haato ran to aid Calliope but was met with a groan, the tall lady restoring the wound and clothes of her chest, “Oh thanks to the heavens…”

“The heavens are the reason why we are in this situation,” Calliope answered her comment with anger, “If you have time to worry for me then you have time to find me a chance to attack that thing!” She shouted next, “Pekora!”

“Right on it peko!” The bunny girl said while running to her. Pushing Blindfold aside, Calliope took her scythe from the bottom end in both hands and lifted the blade at the height of her waist, when Pekora reached the tall lady, she took a jump and landed with her heels on the blade, Calliope immediately taking the chance to swing her scythe and send her flying into the air. “Get a load of this peko!” Right above the heads of the skeleton and Matsuri, Pekora’s heels ignited on  Black , using her lightweight on her favor, the bunny-girl rapidly spun on the air, swinging her legs, launching a relentless series of waves of Black against Matsuri.

The Goddess finally seemed to react against their tactics, quickly floating away from the grasp of Morty and using her right arm to keep feeding the firewall with energy, she next used her left arm to command fireballs to counter the attacks from the sky.

“Dead beats lurking now, dead beats lurking now, dead beats lurking now…”

“Dead beats lock it… down!”

Changing into the grim wedding dress, Calliope used the strength of the Wither System to accelerate through the small gap between the two attacks with the edge of her scythe behind her back. When reaching below Matsuri, she spun twice and took a leap on the air, and just for a brief second, her scythe reached the left knee of Matsuri and scrapped it a few centimeters into the flame-skin of the Goddess, the second after that, a fireball materialized on Calliope's face, once again sending her flying away.

“Did we make it this time?!” Fangs Haato questioned with hasty respiration, when Pekora landed back on the ground and Morty drew back a few steps, they all went silent and used their energies into staring at Calliope’s damage. The Black flowing from the scythe into the knee spread like a liquid and covered the wound and the knee, but since surrounded by a large amount of White fire, it solidified and broke down into ashes fast, not before showing a wounded, human knee, being covered once again by flames, “Darn it all!”

“Is okay, we just need to land a bigger hit…” Reuniting with Pekora, Calliope and the bunny-girl had now activated the Wilt System, with the aggressive beat on the background; they locked their gaze on the Goddess and realized a sprint towards it.

“We need to do our part too!” Blindfold Haato yelled at her sister, dashing in the same direction as the girls and the giant skeleton.

“What do you mean ‘we’?! What are we supposed to do, throw our knives at her and hope she doesn’t melt them away?!” Fangs Haato hissed with the incredulity of her sister eagerly joining on the fight, with hesitation, she ran to catch up with the rest of the girls.

“Fubuki… Fubuki…!” Between hiccups and a loud sobbing, Luna helplessly cried on a mix of happiness and frustration, “This place… this place!” She tried to explain, she tried to yell, after many years of being surrounded by multiples Matsuris, the princess had finally found another person.

After some many hours, or weeks or minutes, Fubuki finally fell asleep inside of Luna’s orb, and when the girl woke up inside her reality, things took a sudden and abrupt turn. The fox-girl had woken up on a mixed landscape, the scenery she remembered to feel as real as possible now looked exactly like a dream would, as Luna’s fantasy now interjected with hers, the kingdom she had witnessed from the outside crashed with the city she dreamed with, merging together into clumps of weirdly mixed buildings, and a large, large commotion of all the Matsuris from Fubuki’s fantasy meeting with the medieval ones from Luna’s.

The instant when Fubuki took on the streets, Luna’s shadow separated from Fubuki’s feet and quickly meandered between the mixed streets and the shocked Matsuris, Ritsuma explained to her it went to look for Luna and bring her to Fubuki, but there was something odd mixed in the situation. When the Matsuris from Fubuki’s dream recognized her, they all went silent and stepped back away from her, as the girl aimlessly roamed the streets trying to figure out a plan, the girls walked and even ran away from her. Inside of that reality, now with a notion of time regardless if fake or not, after ten minutes of walking around, the police sirens rang off from multiple directions, and Fubuki began to be chased from Matsuris dressed as police officers and cars, giving her no other option but to run around the mess.

When Luna finally met with Fubuki, as her shadow successfully brought her back to sanity and guided her across the place, the girl began to cry irremediably, but Fubuki didn’t have the time to embrace or comfort her while being chased, she had no other alternative but to take on Luna by the wrist and pull her along. 

Having once lost the officials, they had to step away from the sight of the police cars next, quickly turning deep into a narrow alley and crouching on their knees. “Fubuki… this place is so weird… what happened to everything?! Where’s Subaruru nanora? H-how are we going to escape from here?!” The girl cried rubbing her eyes.

“Just… give me a moment…” Fubuki begged with a finger on the air, trying to regain her breathe, “I know… I know this must be confusing, but, even though… this place feels way too real, is still a fantasy, we’re sleeping right now, and all of this is inside of our heads…”

“W-what…” Luna quivered from the choppy explanation, trying to wipe her eyes with her fingers, she looked at Fubuki. Breathing her snots, she took on her right arm and quickly pinched it and twisted it with the left, crying once again, “That… hurt! That felt real! We’re not sleeping!” Luna insisted crying back again.

“Luna… calm down, I know it's not easy to believe after what you went through…” Fubuki slowly approached, trying to calm her down.

“No! You’re lying; this… this can’t be a dream nanora… after all…” She tried to say between tears and hiccups, bringing a kitchen knife from the back of her dress, “After all… I… I…”

“ENOUGH!” Fubuki shouted, grabbing her from the shoulders, her aggressiveness managed to silence the princess. Fubuki took on another breather, holding her firmly, “I know… I know alright? Of what you were going to do, but is okay, you don’t have to do it anymore… I already did it for both of us…” She smiled with a wide, sad expression.

“You…?” Luna wondered with horror, quickly looking at Fubuki’s hips, “With… with your katana?”

Fubuki nodded, “Uhum… It wasn’t pleasant at all, but because I did it is why I can tell you, with confidence enough, this is a dream…”

“Then, why does it feel so real?” Luna now asked with a croaky, but calm voice.

“Why do you think it is? Because of Matsuri, of course,” Interrupting the two, Ritsuma answered instead with sarcasm and tiredness, trying to find space between devil-girl shadow and Fubuki’s, “Do I need to remind you how uncomfortable is in here? We may not sweat but is still cramped as hell!” She now complained at Fubuki.

“Ritsuma?!” Luna shouted startled, falling on her butt from the impression.

“I know, I know, we’re all on the clock, I’m still trying to figure this out!” Fubuki snarled back at the shadow.

“What do you mean? Are you dumb or something? We have to find Matsuri and end this already, what do you mean with you’re still figuring things out?” With crossed arms, Ritsuma judged her.

“Matsuri is here? How… How is that possible? I never found her here nanora! There are only clones!” Luna pouted with fists on the air.

“We can explain you everything as we keep moving, we need to keep our eyes open, she has to be here somewhere,” Holding on her knees to stand up, Fubuki explained to Luna, and when she stretched her hand to help her stand, a group of officials appeared from the entrance of the alley, “Crap!”

“Keep your hands where we can see them!” The Matsuris ordered as they pointed at the girls with super soakers, Fubuki and Luna slowly doing as told.

“Are… are you girls losing a few screws or something?! Those, are, water guns! Just, beat the crap out of them and keep moving for the love of God!” Ritsuma loudly complained, baffled at the sight of both girls freezing in fear.

“I… I know nanora, but…” Luna stuttered looking at the floor.

“I can’t… hurt her again… I can’t do it…” Fubuki completed the thought.

“Is this for real?! They’re a fantasy, this is a dream, pull your crap together you two!” Ritsuma insisted ireful of the girls’ lack of decision.

“Well, aren’t you a bit on the soft side? Not what I expected from an ex-delinquent,” A familiar voice phrased from behind the official girls, then suddenly the length of a bamboo sword quickly smacked the nape from the official on the right and took her down, “What are you standing there for?” A Matsuri in a kendo uniform asked.

“Maybe she spent too much time on the dwell and forgot how to be violent?” Another voice judged, one long leg coming from the other side and taking down the second official, a Matsuri of droopy eyes with a toupee and a gym uniform showing up next, “However, this isn’t like you, Fubuki.”

“Number 1… Number 19…” Fubuki whispered with shocked eyes, “Why… Why are you girls helping me?”

The girls looked at each other with a condescending smile; then answered Fubuki in unison, “Because she wants to see you again.”

With the two badge girls now acting as bodyguards, Fubuki and Luna were guided across the backs of the houses and streets, far from the commotion and from the sight of the police, to a corner that hadn’t merged with the rest of Luna’s fantasy and remained intact. When Fubuki finally noticed, she turned completely speechless, as they were being guided into a hospital.

Still, on lurking mode, the two girls, 1 and 19 went from the back of the hospital and started to climb the emergency stairs into the fifth floor. When they finally entered into the hall, they met with a though amount of officers trying to guard a certain room, yet the wall of girls decayed fast when from the other side of the hall, 62 and 026 appeared, suddenly staring into a fight against the other and abruptly screaming and throwing things into the air, forcing the officials to abandon the place and chase the girls around to kick them out the hospital.

With nothing to say, with nothing to add, 1 and 19 followed up to the entrance of the room, made a gesture to Luna, and only allowed for Fubuki to step inside. The silence predominated the space, it was heavy and loaded with guilt, lying on the hospital gurney, there was 7216, her right eye covered with a patch, her arm wrapped on bands, and her abdomen, carefully covered from a recent surgery, her deep respiration and the beat from the machines were the only thing you could hear, not even the shadows on Fubuki’s feet fell like trying to diss away the situation. 7216 opened her left eye and spotted Fubuki, with a smile she used her inner strength to move her face towards her direction, “… Have you ever wondered what happens to the things you do in your fantasies after you wake up?” She asked, hoarsely, tenderly, teasingly.

Fubuki loudly gulped down and averted her eyes in shame, without giving an answer, the silence was only interrupted from 7216 mournful coughs; she took a sip from a straw on a glass of water and continued. “I’m sorry… I thought of all the things I would say to you… if we ever met again… and in the end, I couldn’t help but say that…”

“I… I deserve it… that and much more…” Fubuki whispered at the verge of tears, tightly holding on her arms, “So this is why the police are chasing me…?”

“Yup…” 7216 nodded, “They found me with a deep wound on my belly and covered by the crumbs of the dwell that got caught on the fire… They said I survived just by miracle… But we both know miracles don’t exist in this place, right?” She insinuated with a forced giggle.

“…” Fubuki silently frowned; there wasn’t something right on what 7216 was explaining, “What did you say…?” She looked at the girl at last puzzled.

“Oh, sorry, but is just… there’s no point on pretending anymore…” 7216 giggled again, now looking at the window of the room, “On this world, as it kept moving, they framed you for the crime of attempted murder… As they found me on the leftovers of our burning house, but, there’s no point on pretending anymore… that this isn’t more than a dream,” She confessed with remorse in her tone.

“Natsuiro… I…” Fubuki stuttered, tears dropping from her eyes.

“Here, I made the girls bring you here to give you this…” 7216 now explained, moving her hand under the sheets and bringing out a partially burnt, blue notebook, “This is what you’re looking for, right? And if not, you most likely need this, don’t worry, I’ve kept my promise… I haven’t read this notebook yet,” With a trembling hand and a wide smile, the girl said to her.

“But I…” Fubuki tried to answer, but her voice broke on acuteness and a dam of tears broke down from her eyes, shrugging on sadness. The fox girl walked in front of the gurney and took on the corner of the notebook with the tips of her fingers, “But I…!” She cried louder this time, trying not to fall on her trembling legs, “But I… I couldn’t keep any of my promises… not even one!”

“… Then… Can you promise me something now?” 7216 tenderly asked, properly handing the notebook to Fubuki’s hand and holding onto it, “This time… find her, and end this like you should’ve done…”

Fubuki frantically nodded between tears and cries, “You… knew she was here?”

“Yes… but is my… is everyone’s job to protect her, we couldn’t tell you no matter how much we wanted, even still, I can’t tell you now, that’s why I’m giving you this notebook,” As Fubuki prostrated on the legs of the girl, crying and screaming, 7216 caressed the top of her head, “The answer you’re looking is probably here, you just have to read it properly…”

“What…” Fubuki stopped on her crying confused, quickly wiped her face and looked at 7216, “… Properly…?”

“How many numbered Matsuris did you meet these past three years?” With a laughing smile, 7216 insinuated to her.

Fubuki’s eyes quickly moved from one side to the other, silently pondering as fast as possible, suddenly the cries finally stopped, her expression was now of decision, “I need a pen!”

“Hehe, that’s more like it, but I don’t have any, 19 probably has one though, you should ask her,” 7216 now gestured to the exit of the room. Without further thought, Fubuki walked out of the room, took on a pen from 19, and quickly ran towards the stairs with a confused Luna chasing her from behind.

“Are you sure is this enough?” 1 questioned 7216 from outside the room with crossed arms.

“Does it matter?” But she just shrugged with a sad smile, “It’ll all be over once she wakes up, this time for sure,” And sighed with melancholy when looking at the window, “That dummy, I never got an ‘I love you’ from her…”

“What in the world… Just how many Matsuris are in this city?!” Having made a sprint to the roof of the hospital, the girls and the shadows were now reading Fubuki’s notebook. “This is absurd; if there’s a code hidden here we’ll never find it!” Ritsuma complained again, using all her strength to stand straight and peek at the book with Luna and the other shadows, they found at least five pages with hundreds and hundreds of numbers and notations of which Matsuri was which.

“I didn’t even remember filling these pages, at some moment between those three years I must subconsciously done it…” Fubuki voiced frustrated at the multiple gibberish numbers.

“But… is just so many nanora… how are we going to find Matsuri through this? This code will take ages nanora!”  

“We lock it down”

 “So when you bitches need me, call”

 “I'll make 'em wish they never lived at all”

Riding on the top of Morty’s head, Calliope prepared both of the scythes to deliver the final slash. “Hurry up, these little ones won’t be able to hold her back any longer peko!” Pekora shouted at Calliope, having modified once again her cleaning bots, she was now using them to surround and pull Matsuri to the ground, the little robots were constantly throwing ropes of Black at her, ones being destroyed by the Goddess fire, others successfully taking an arm or leg and helping the others onto pull her.

“No… we only need five series of numbers…” Fubuki finally realized yet without answering the doubt on the others. She took on the pen, and instead of using the numbers on the pages, she looked for a new (a bit burnt) white page. “Including Natsuiro and the girl labeled as Ritsuma, it would be a total of seven numbers but… that’s not what she tried to suggest to me, I only need five… the five girls which I spent these three years with…” She muttered deep on thoughts, writing, and when noticing police sirens get near the hospital, she furiously wrote the rest, “62… 026… 55… 1… 19… All their numbers can be read as names, and when put on this order, they say…” Fubuki made an infuriated frown, unable to finish her narration.

“What? What does it say nanora?” Luna stuttered not following the situation.

“It says… ‘The real Matsuri is not here’" Fubuki expressed with a tone of defeat, looking up at the sky, the sirens growing louder.

“Wha-… then, that doesn’t have any sense nanora! You said she was here, where could she be?” Luna pouted overwhelmed by stress.

“… In the only place where Matsuri could be…” Fubuki gasped with realization, her eyes, against all instinct, were fixed on the bright orb over her head, “That… that was never the sun…” And without waiting any longer, Fubuki ran on the roof, blindly directing herself to the borders, “Ritsuma, hurry up, is now or never!”

“What?! Uh, oh, ok! I just have to warn you, is going to itch a little!” Confused but trying to cooperate, the shadow replied when joining her on the run, “Here… we go!” The shadow announced, and together with devil-girl shadow and Fubuki’s, they all bit on Fubuki’s arms and legs.

“Matsuri…” Luna whispered unable to believe it, but the more she was forced to look up at the sun, the more she discerned the shape of a girl.

Right in the border of the roof, as the shadows enveloped her body; Fubuki took a jump with all her strength. Wrapped in dark, what quickly came out from it was a fox-girl of black hair and black and red clothes, the devil-girl shadow quickly taking her from the armpits, as she spread her wings to fly her towards the sun-ish girl.

“ Just leave it…

Just leave it…

JUST LEAVE IT… ALL TO US!”

From the other side, Calliope howled furious, delivering a horizontal slash of Black energy against the Goddess.

“Black… New Moon…” The fox-girl of black-hair gently muttered, without unsheathing her katana, but enveloping her with Black,  she delivered a slash of energy which enveloped the white orb, instantly placing the merged world into darkness, coldness, and silence.

The Goddess felt into the ground, at last, wounded by a cut of  Black  on her chest and having  Black  energy pour from the inside of her body, her White flames quickly were put off, and an unconscious Matsuri was ejected from the struggle of flames and oil, followed by Fubuki, Luna, and Subaru’s severed body.

“What?! They were inside her?!” Fangs Haato screamed in disbelief, “This is our chance, now or never, let’s get her!”

“Oozora… SUBARU...!” With an unexpected and terrifying howl, Blindfold Haato startled the group, ravenous, she quickly looked at Calliope and pointed at the group of girls, “DO IT… NOW!”

“I… Right, I’m on it!” Stuttering from the girl’s violent reaction yet still nodding, Calliope and Pekora ran at them.

“Tch… Is one thing after the other, give me a break!” Fubuki cried lacking in strength; she pulled her katana and prepared to face the incoming threats to defend the girls.

“I won’t let you take a step forward from that… Mori Calliope!”

A thunderous blast of White energy divided the Fubuki and the girls from Calliope. Coming from the thin but powerful pillar of light; a girl of brown hair and a long and elegant rapier on her right hand calmly stood firmly against the crashes, she looked from behind her back from the corner of her eyes and quickly examined the girls. A quiet sound of a collar being broken followed next, and from her left hand, she threw a yellow portal pocket, which activated behind the girls back and opened into a large virtual door, Achan and Ui quickly running from inside it and in a mix of adrenaline and horror, they took both parts of Subaru and carried her inside the portal, “Fubuki… take care of them…” The girl said with a serious tone, slowly walking against Calliope, reading her rapier.

“Sky Hero…” Fubuki muttered thunderstruck, but when meeting with Achan's exasperated screams, she could just do as told and take Luna and Matsuri on arms, dragging herself and the two girls inside the portal until it shut down close.

Chapter Text

“As for now, it begins the reunion number 3856 from the present committee of Mayors, the time and date is the Tuesday 25th of February, ten in the morning and it’ll be held by the generation of Mayors number 36, known as the “Idol” generation.”

With 116 feet wide and 70 feet high, an almighty solid, crystal pyramid, stood inside of edification the double of its size. The Grand Salon was a ten-storied building, each floor constructed with the intention to distribute the access to the Spectrum for different purposes. At the tip of the pyramid, on the tenth floor, there was what was known as the Grand Salon on itself, one large and spacious room of a dark cedar floor, large walls, red wine curtains, and yellow spider-lamps, where hundreds of furnished red-leather chairs stood around the seemingly tiny triangle top, and one podium placed at the center north of the floor, with one chair where the Guardian of the Spectrum, led, concluded, and arbiter the reunions held by the mayors.

More than three thousand reunions had been held so far on that place, by many other guardians, and many other mayors, it was the epicenter of bureaucracy and politics for the users of colors, and every other entity designed with a special role by the Spectrum. However, in this point of the story for the system of the Virtual World, there were many reasons as of why this reunion on especially, was nothing compared with the others.

“With I the Guardian present, Hoshinova Moona, the reunion number 36 will be now held, ipso facto, we’ll be changing this into an emergency reunion, does everyone agree?”

From all corners of the Virtual World, the users of colors would reunite once being invited by the Guardian, on the chance to talk and discuss needed or urgent matters, or making decisions which would affect the way the Zones across the system work, their laws, and rules.

“Guardian! Are you going to make roll call?” Unfortunately for some, and fortunately for others, these reunions had been changing in their atmosphere and themes by their own Mayors, generations after generations, each time younger, unpredictable, and one way or the other charismatic. Just as one feminine voice from a pink-haired girl implied, trying to make seem the reunion as a class held by the Guardian playing as a teacher, a needlessly explainable joke which sparked a commuted laughter between the women on the chairs, laughter, which everyone felt obligated to feel and share, as most of them could quickly picture the reasons behind the reunion, and the serious, unshakable expression on Moona’s face.

“… As you can see, for many reasons I will later explain, I will not take assistance notes for this reunion,” The woman of long two-toned hair of blue on the exterior and gold on the inside said, gesturing her arm into the air miffed of the joke, pointing at the handful of empty chairs across the room. Answering the comment though, only produced more laughter. “I will ask one more time because I need to have it written on the registry, this reunion will now move onto an emergency meeting, does everyone agree?”

Noticing the young woman wouldn’t follow with the need of comedy around the place, the remaining women on the tenth floor made a long and echoing sound of agreement. Instantly, the yellow lights on the ceiling moved from yellow to red, and all the doors communicating the tenth floor with the rest of the edification, inside and outside, shut down close like a Ziploc bag. The skylight ceiling even, followed with a loud and mechanical sound, and a large metallic fence covered the glass, submitting the room into darkness, until the lights moved from red to white, illuminating the insides with intensity.

As Moona fixed the papers on her desk and prepared her glasses to read a couple of documents, multiple robots appeared from holes of the room, and despite the chilling start, as the little machines deployed a complete catering with coffee, tea, towels, and even small snacks like biscuits and chocolate, the tension in the atmosphere of the room decreased slowly, yet still waiting anxiously for Moona to speak once more.

“Hey, are we seriously holding this reunion now?” Korone asked with her hand on the air, “We’re missing more than half of the Mayors, what’s so important we can’t wait for everyone to be together?”

“Indeed, as you can see, all members of The Rainbow, Sky and Terra Hero, plenty of the Warriors of White association and some of the usual absences, are making this reunion seemingly… silly,” Moona nodded with a cold tone, “Regardless, it is because is an emergency, we need to do it and inform all of the people present, I promise I will make preparations for making know the others about what we’re going to discuss here,” She finished her explanation with a tiny smile.

“And… is it ok for us to be here?” Choco asked from the other side, “You know, coffee and cookies and all, but plenty of the present people here aren’t Mayors anymore, including yourself,” The woman implied when facing Moona.

“Once again, indeed,” Moona nodded repeatedly, visibly growing with steady anger at the casual comments, “But regardless, I’m still the Guardian, and is my job to summon all of you when the time comes, it is also my duty to remind you, that all of us, with or without Zones to administrate, are still users of colors, our main job, is still here,” She suggested, gently tapping her desk with a finger, “Now, we shall initiate on this reunion…”

“Teacher, the Love and Peace Circle aren’t here either!” With an effort placed into adding sarcasm to her acute and feminine tone, Shion interrupted, waving her arm in the air and making everyone laugh loudly.

“Excuse… me…” One person said with a hand on the air. It called on everyone’s attention as it held raspiness and tenderness in her voice, a voice that so far as now, no one on the “Idol” group had heard before. As one by one placed their attention on the girl, they found themselves dumbfounded, it was a rather tall woman sitting on the chair, tall enough to have been noticed by the other members, since it wasn’t someone anyone had seen before, and somehow managed to walk through the building and sit on one of the chairs with all of them.

The sole fact a woman of almost two meters tall managed to go unnoticed until now, produced an awkward feeling on each Mayor and former Mayor, it even made Moona take on an ashamed cough to clear her throat, “… Yes?” She gestured back at her, and while some were still taken by surprise, others expressed guilt on their self-centered personalities, and suffered from the fear of not watching the things in front of them, the woman who sat with them may as well be an enemy, and still, everyone was too laid back or focused with their own worries to notice.

“Is not my intention to interrupt you further, I just want to ask before you continue,” The woman of long reddish hair spoke, her voice kept on raspy and with an accent, holding on thick black paste glasses which fit her face without problem, hiding colorful reptile eyes, a couple of horns on each extreme of her head, and a noticeable large and thick, reptile tail that made the skirt on her hips easily play on taboo, as it barely managed to cover the extra limb and her wide thighs without showing indecency, and even despite that, if you could ignore the risky game that that small fabric was playing at, if you didn’t focus on her hair and the bones on her head, your eyes would pose over an unashamed cleavage with more than a humble chest. “But, before we go into the main theme… All the absent people mentioned I’ve heard of them before, but who are these Love and Peace people?” She questioned Moona.

“Right, you’re the newest Mayor so you haven’t come to any of these reunions before…” Moona nodded once more, with her left index on the air, she summoned a virtual screen, and quickly the profile information of the woman which went unnoticed until now appeared over it. “Kiryuu Coco from the Red Tough Dragons Zone right?” She glanced at the girl on the chair when asking, and turned to the screen again before receiving an answer, “It is… unprofessional of us if I have to be honest, and from me, but the Love and Peace Circle, is not an official group or association in any way, on the contrary, is a mocking nickname we gave to a particular group of girls who have declined most of the Grand Salon reunions… Once again, is unprofessional, but none of us are perfect,” She sighed and shrugged.

“I see… I guess then is good I assisted to my first reunion,” Coco chuckled lowering her hand and making the rest of the people around laugh off guard.

“Alright girls it’s enough,” Moona said with both hands on the air, “This is not the type of reunion to keep the air light, as much as we don’t want it, a lot of stuff is currently happening, so we need to caught up with the most recent events,” The woman had finally taken on the lead of the group, fixed the papers on her desk one last time, then proceeded to lean her body on the desk. “The emergency is as it follows… as of this moment, we have lost Yellow Tea Town and White Pekoland, from a sudden attack of people identified as crashes,” She zipped her lips on purpose, as she knew nobody would let her continue after spouting such words, Moona had to wait for the unavoidable, commuted gasp of surprise released by every present girl, breathing in, breathing out, winking just calmly, she continued, “While Amelia Watson, a member of The Rainbow is currently MIA, we don’t have further information which suggests she had survived the accident which placed her Zone into corruption, following this, we have visual confirmation from Shirakami Fubuki, a member from the Warriors of White association, that Usada Pekora, known as ‘The Trickster’, had become a crash,” The woman explained and paused, waiting for the second gasp of baffled surprised, there was a slight demonstration of anger on her last words.

“That’s… does it mean the people behind this are related to the Crash Incident?” Mio took her chance to ask the guardian.

“We have all motives to believe so, yes,” Moona agreed with her suspicion.

“Where is Sky Hero in all this?!” Ayame jumped from her chair with clear exasperation, “I… I was supposed to help Fubuki on a mission but… well things happened, and now nobody wants to tell me what happened that day, it has been more than a week now; I need to know where my friends are!” The Oni girl demanded a tiny tantrum.

“Ayame, this is not the place, I’m as anxious as you, but let’s keep our heads cool,” Mio scolded the little Oni girl from afar.

“Thank you Mio,” Moona smiled, “As you all may know, more than six months ago, after the Crash Incident came to a halt, Tokino Sora, followed by a handful of members of The Rainbow, set on a campaign to find a way to depurate the lost zones, the Sky Hero, as we all know her, is still in such mission, and the intervals of communications I have with her and the members who joined her, are very short and limited, I’m only informed of what is important, nothing else,” The guardian said with a calm and lecturing voice, but it only generated complains and shouts of disagreement.

“Apathy is very well practiced on you isn’t it?”Mel judged her from a seat close to the guardian’s podium, “Your job is not to be a lawyer, there’s no need for any of us to hear you spout dizzying and rehearsed comments to avoid fretting us.”

“… I’m tired of it too, believe me,” Moona answered for the surprise of the vampire-girl. “But if I were to answer like most people here, and say something like ‘I have no friggin’ idea of where Sora is and it makes me crazy not knowing so’ wouldn’t really help anyone, I may have apathy well-practiced, but it doesn’t mean I don’t recognize the situation which the latest events are placing us all in,” With dexterity and education, the guardian defended herself against the mean looks being given to her from all directions.

“Ok, then, what about the Terra Hero…? We have been waiting for Subaru for a long time now, it worrying us a lot,” Okayu now voiced her thoughts into the place.

“Subaru… has been fatally wounded by the enemy when deploying a sudden emergency mission to save Pekora, which as you may all know by now, it went south,” Moona now commented on the new theme, “She’s being held inside her Gear, and only a certain amount of people have access to supervise the fixing of her Core Data, until now, we cannot count with Sky or Terra, and needlessly to add, we may as well not lean into Blaze’s help,” Showing increasing tiredness by each elaborated, serious yet soft-spoken answer, Moona was slowly reaching the means to keep her patience and deliver the words everyone wanted to hear, and at that point on the reunion, everyone but a dragon-girl knew it was a matter of another two or three questions for the reunion to come to an end.

Silence quickly followed, as there were a handful of doubts and questions, and even though not everyone felt comfortable being there, they also didn’t want to leave just because they played with the limits of Moona’s patience. “Hah, the title of heroes went to the dumpster real fast with those three didn’t it?” However, as frustration and a lack of meditation for words was natural in some, it was normal for them to don’t care if the guardian was angered or not, just like Shion showed by executing ill and quick comments, “Whatever are we supposed to do here when more than half of the strongest mayors aren’t present? Did we come here to tell us to hide in our houses like scared turtles or something?”

Once again, except by a dragon-girl, there was a commuted sigh of disapproving disappointment, and quickly after such bratty comments, Shion was surrounded by a gleam of Purple, and instantly her body was sent with one slam against the small desk in front of her, as if thousands of invisible weight had fallen on her back and pushed her cheek to spread on the wooden desk like a raw, white pancake, “Ugh… cut it out, cut it out!” The slim and sarcastic magic girl cried in pain.

“I may have lost my Zone, but I’m still the Guardian of the Spectrum, my power rivalries those of the Warriors of White and The Rainbow, if is needed, I will become the hero you need next,” Moona expressed with tiredness, with one index on the air, and its fingertip gleaming with Purple, commanding the wave of color which had restrained Shion, then with a flick of her fingers, the energy disappeared, releasing the girl, “But if only if is needed,” She continued dusting off her hands from the colors, “While the former mayors have partially lost the strength which made them users of color, the others and me can still put on a fight, if anything was taught to us by the things Sora and Subaru, even that pirate did when all of that happened, is that we shouldn’t be waiting to be saved, as we all have born on this system, with the means to protect our people,” She suddenly stand up, fixing her coat, then declared, with one arm on the air, “As of now, suggested and considered by Sora and me, and later ordered by the Spectrum itself, I declare an state of emergency, and we’ll proceed to deploy the plan 6 on the act of regulations,” Moona firmly finished, but not everyone could follow with desire that announcement.

“And the plan 6… what is it about?” Coco meddled with bemusement.

“Everyone present will now proceed to take on a battery and climb down to the base of the Spectrum, where they will load an emergency ration of their respective color, after that, the Grand Salon on its entirety will close and shut down, including the portal stations to this Zone,” Moona inhaled deeply and put now both hands at the height of her hips, “On behalf of protecting the Spectrum from whatever the group of crash people is planning, this Zone will close access and communications with the rest of the Virtual World, guarded by firewalls and all types of defenses, including me, and will only open again once the threat has been neutralized, or unless is completely needed.”

“Up to this point, we still don’t know who the crashes are? I mean, the original is long gone so is not that girl, who is it?” Shion now questioned loudly into the group, rubbing her cheek.

“Besides Pekora, and a group of four unidentified people who don’t seem to have any remarkable ability besides a tough physical resistance towards most kinds of damage, we suspect the leader of the group of crashes currently is the Mayor that went MIA time before the Crash Incident, Mori Calliope, we have plenty of eyewitnesses which report her taking the lead of most of the operations they have been dealing with.”

“So it was Calli… Kiara won’t be happy about that at all,” Choco muttered with a hand on her chin.

“Erhm, Moona?” Mio shyly waved her hands, “I’m sorry to interrupt, but before we go down the ground floor…” She implies, the wolf gesturing to the dragon-girl who was preparing her papers with pouty lips, “It seems the new one still has things to ask.”

“Is that so?” The guardian now looked at Coco.

“Well, is just…” She stuttered a bit frustrated, she removed her glasses and sighed, “I know we’re on an emergency and all, so this may come as a hassle, but I was hoping… You know? Someone could teach me the ropes of this job before we go since I’m barely starting on it,” Coco requested to the guardian and the people around, but ultimately, most people reacted uninterested, with other priorities on their minds. And as the lights on the room shifted back to yellow and the doors opened once again, everyone slowly stood from the chairs and walked out in silence, ignoring eyesight with the dragon-girl.

“Well, yes, it would be nice if we could make you caught up with things before you leave…” Moona nodded a bit anxious, she glanced left and right from the top of her podium, yet no one seemed to answer her stares, she sighed, as it was obvious the duty fell on her shoulders, “Very well Miss Coco, please come with me, I’ll try to give you a heads up on the most important things before we all leave this place, follow me to my office.”

The dragon-girl gave a happy skip from her spot; then started to dance around the empty chairs in the opposite direction of the rest of the girls, following Moona to a door on the other side. While they separated from the group and the reunion quickly came to an end, Moona fell a vicious stare behind her back, without turning, she had noticed, in the quietness to the way of her office, the dragon-girl had changed all of a sudden, loaded with an aura of murdering intentions.

Chapter Text

Down to the seventh floor, the silence was only filled with tension, as the tall woman behind Moona couldn’t hide her ill intentions. The Guardian’s office was a considerable long room that occupied a third of the floor on the left side, one extreme could show a part of the Spectrum used as a wall, the other extreme was a wide crystal window giving view to the artifact’s zone, a vast, sterile, shinning silver field, inhabited not by people, but by long cables of energy, all of them extending from the Grand Salon towards the outside, going far away from the zone itself.

“Well then Miss Coco, formalities aside…” Moona spout when circling the desk of her office, placing her papers and phone and pulling the chair to sit on it, “I bet there are plenty of things you already know, most of us have always had to learn as we go, but there’s no problem on solving any kind of doubt you may still have.” With a tiresome sigh, she expressed with closed eyes, leaned on the desk, and placed her elbows over it, glancing at Coco a few seconds later, “Why don’t you have a seat? This will mostly take us like fifteen minutes and then we’ll go down with the other users.”

“Ah… If it's not a problem, I rather not sit, I’ve been sitting all morning you see,” Coco excused herself with awkward laughter, her long tail gently waving. “Please go on,” She insisted, fixing her glasses with the right, while with her left hiding behind her back, her polished nails started to grow a few centimeters into long and thin-looking knives, the woman was getting ready for an assault, waiting for a chance.

But Moona looked at her with a sight of contempt, breathing deeply, she wasn’t buying it, “How weird, you looked like such a polite girl, you know? When a senior invites you to sit is of bad manners to reject the invitation,” She tilts her head with a disapproving tone.

“Ah, is that so?” Coco chuckled in a raspy way, “I do respect my paisens, that wasn’t my intention at all; I’m just tired of sitting all morning, would you spare me this time? After I finally managed to have the chance to talk with a Mayor who can teach me the stuff I need.”

“That’s what you say…” The woman whispered in disagreement, “But that isn’t all you’re saying, isn’t that right, after all… it is written all over your face, your desire to attack me,” Moona declared, this time looking at the tall dragon-girl with a fierce look.

Cornered, Coco just forced a smile and a long – Hmmmmh – in between, even though Moona was giving her an open chance for her to show her true intentions, she tried to keep playing the fool. “Is that so? It has been a long day so I may be a little bit stressed, that is all, don't pay so much attention to it,” With a giggling voice she tried to explain.

“I see, stress you say…” Moona now pulled back and rested her back against the chair, “then that is more reasons to take a seat, don’t worry, the furniture here as you may have noticed already is quite comfy, you could say is almost orthopedic, you could also say is because the old farts who took leadership before us were a lot of hot air breathers and emitters…” She tried once more, gesturing her to join her on the seat in front of her desk.

“Just like you did today?” With a loud and blatant sneer, Coco finally took a couple of steps forwards, but only up to that distance, she took on the back of the chair and pulled it from there to her place, then sat at least two and a half meters away from Moona.

“Yes, where did you think I learned it in the first place?” But the soft-spoken woman wouldn’t take on the offense, she just nodded with a small smile, she was too serious to take an insult on the air, she was too calm to flip at the passive-aggressive diss, in a way, you could say there was something wrong going on with her, however, it was her way to receive everything and respond with apathy the only reason the two of them were still calmly talking inside the office. “Anyway, it seems that, while you say you have respect for your… ‘paisens’? Was it how you called it? It seems it doesn’t go the same way for me…” Moona implied with the same stare as before.

As a little robot appeared from one small door, it poured tea on a paper cup for Coco; then retired with the same speed. “Not at all… I’m really sorry, I’m just a bit anxious and stressed, I didn’t think my first reunion would be in such conditions, and nobody else but you decided to give me a hand, so you know, it feels that I’m just stealing your time,” Coco responded with a casual tone, trying to elaborate on a better excuse.

“Two point five meters,” But once again, Moona wouldn’t buy it, “There are rumors around which suggest that my gravity only affects people that are two point five meters close to me, that's why you’re sitting that far isn’t it?” She gestured her left palm open and sighed, “Is a risky game if you consider it, in one hand it makes you think you’re safe from my attack range, but it also means you can’t get close enough to attack me, you’re either a mid or long-range distance attacker, or you have confidence on your speed, enough to believe you can reach me fast enough for my Purple to don’t get you,” And with her apathetic, rehearsed, soft voice, she easily unveiled the reasons behind the gap between the two.

“That’s too dense, that’s way too dense!” Coco laughed in the raspy way, even though it was clear to be fake laughter, she continued using it, “Is nothing like that, didn’t I say I respect my paisens? I’m just trying to respect the distance between us!”

“It is honestly on me, and on us, to have ignored you completely before the reunion started,” Moona straight up ignored her, starting on another theme, “While you managed to go unnoticed despite your height and colorful appearance, you’re quite bad at hiding your violent intentions, to that I have to add, the two-point-five meters theory is something that only goes from mouth to mouth on certain people, which means you didn’t hear about it just because, you were searching for that information,” She looked at the hole where the little robot went, and almost automatically, it showed up to serve a warm glass of tea to Moona, once again running out from the small hole. “While it was a mistake to ignore your presence at the reunion, I haven’t ignored you as much as you think.”

“… Huh…” At last, Coco’s fake giggles and laughter came to a stop, and her eyes squinted just slightly, leaning on her knees with a menacing smile, the polished nails on both hands have now grown to a dangerous length. “So I’ve been observed by the Guardian?”

“Not much observed but a little of peeking, after all, when I was told the new Mayor from Red Tough Dragons was reuniting information about the Grand Salon and the Guardian… did you think your shady investigations would go unnoticed?” Moona questioned while having a sip of tea.

“I see, well, not like I was doing it in such sneaking way,” Gradually changing on her attitude, more eager, less modest, she had now the right holding her chin, the left on a knee, she was enjoying the preamble, and she didn’t seem to want to quit on her original intentions.

“It seems both your investigation and violent aura need more practicing,” Moona shrugged with pouty lips.

They giggled together, in an awkward way.

Staring at the other in silence; only closing her eyes to sip on their tea.

“These chairs are good just like you said,” Coco commented with a smile.

“Aren’t they…” Moona replied uninterested.

Silence.

Tension.

The tall dragon-girl refused to remove her gaze away from the Guardian, she looked at her like jerk beef ready to tear apart with her fangs.

“… Alright fine, you know? This isn’t the time to be playing like some kind of anime guys,” Moona yawned, and with an honest, small smile, she extended her left hand on the air, aiming at Coco, “There’s a lot going on right now, and while I don’t know why are you being so hostile with me, I can only beg you for a truce,” She began to explain, her hand inviting for a shake, “Here and now, I promise you I will personally hear and… probably fight, right? Against anything you need to tell me or slap me with, but later, not now, not today, not tomorrow,” Her fingers waved just slightly, inviting Coco to stand and come closer, it wasn’t a taunt to battle, it was an honest handshake opening, “Our world as we know it is going down little by little, our friends keep disappearing, our loved ones keep turning into crashes, so, if you don’t mind, I’d like to request your help, just like I’m requesting all others, to get this done, and after that, I promise you, I’ll be all ears to whatever your intentions today were, but not today, just not today… do we have a deal?” She asked calmly waiting for Coco’s actions.

“Darn it…” Coco shook her head and chuckled, “Aight, you got me, you’re being honest after all… I guess… My time to do the things I want to do isn’t now is it?” She slapped her knees with a groan and quickly stood, walking forward to meet with Moona’s hand. “Sorry if it got scary for a moment, I guess I’m bad at not letting my anger show,” She apologized when stretching her hand, slowly holding onto hers.

“Yeah is all cool, we’re all tense here lately,” Moona laughed satisfied, holding her firmly.

“… But there’s something else you should know,” Coco smiled.

“About your tail? Yeah, I also heard you’re good with it,” Moona replied quickly surrounding Coco’s body with a Purple aura, barely seconds before the tip of the tall woman’s tail could smack her head.

“Tch, you freak!” Coco shouted and tried to hit her with a kick from her left leg.

“Too late,” Moona shrugged at the sudden movement, shrugging unfazed, having fully covered Coco’s body on her color, she instantly flew away from Moona’s grasp and was slammed against the Spectrum part acting as a wall on the office. The chairs and furniture flew to the sides as she crashed, Coco was now prostrating on the floor, all fours unable to stand, as if thousands of kilograms were set on her back, “Your mistake was to believe on the two-point-five meters theory so blindly… you were in the reunion with the rest of us, you saw me, using my color on Shion, and still, you were so dense, you didn’t notice I was ten meters away from her?” She lectured Coco from afar, slowly standing from her chair and walking in her direction.

“You… bitch!” Hissing frustrated, Coco could only insult her, placing all her energies trying to not be splattered by the color against the floor.

“Wow, what a mouth,” But Moona continued playing cool, having now reached Coco, she kneeled in front of her and sighed, with one hand on her face, “What did you think you were going to do after attacking me? What were your intentions when you came to this place looking for me?”

“You… Sky and Terra…” Coco muttered as if losing breath, moaning, trying with all her might to stand, yet unable to, “All of you… the people in power… you have the means to fight and still… everything is going to hell… I came here… to beat the crap out of you… and become the new Guardian, argh!” She declared with a fierce voice.

Moona tilted her head bemused, the fingers under her chin slipped just easily, she winked repeatedly trying to process what Coco had just said. “… Come again dear, you want to become what?”

“Are you deaf?! I want your job! I’m going to become the Guardian and save everyone!” She howled now to Moona.

But Moona just tilted her head once again, as much as she heard it, it was difficult to process, and it was producing a strange smile on her face. “Pfft… Hahaha! I’m sorry, is just… hahaha!” For the first time in the entire morning, Moona laughed, hard and loud, as if she had been told the best joke. Clapping her hands and wiping her tears, she turned off the Purple surrounding Coco’s body, finally releasing her from the strange, invisible weight, and as Coco took on a deep breath and prepared to launch an attack at her, Moona quickly waved both hands, signaling her to stop, “Dear… dear! Would you quit that, please? If you want to be the new Guardian is no reason to fight!” She tried to explain her attack of laughter, “I can give up the title any time you want!”

“… What…?” Rapidly growing flustered, Coco stood dumbfounded at Moona’s reaction with an open jaw. She looked at her claws and her face grew redder, placing her nails back to normal, after a long minute of silent pondering, she gave a bemused look at Moona, “… Are you for real…? Is not a joke of yours?”

“Why would I joke about it, oh geez, my tummy!” Moona continued on her surprised laughter, massaging her stomach, “Leaving aside all that resentment you seem to have about us for the things which have happened, which is also something I’m not going to sit to hear,” She emphasized with sarcasm and blatant gesture of her index, “If you want to be the Guardian so badly, I can make preparations to make you the next one, after all, if you become the new one, I could focus on more important things than protecting this huge-ass piece of crystal, like trying to find a way to save my bunny friend,” She nodded to her own explanation, cleaning her eyes from the tears of laughter.

“… For real? But I…” Coco continued lost of words from the unexpected outcome of her actions, “But I… I was pretty much ready to go into a hellish fight for it… I’m… such an idiot…” She mourned steaming red in embarrassment.

“I mean…” Moona walked to the girl when she finally stood, stroking her shoulder, “If you want to be the Guardian, then you most likely know all the bad and good things about it by now right? Sometimes you could go and help those who need it, other times you’ll most likely end trapped here babysitting this stupid pyramid,” She explained sarcastically, her apathy and her cold tone were completely gone, it was all casual comments and mannerism on a soft-spoken voice.

“I know the pros and cons… I’m here to make a difference…” Coco tried to reply, looking for a way between her shy respiration to tone down the red color of embarrassment on her face.

“Well… we can always talk about that later, for now, since it seems we’re on the same page, why don’t we first go with the rest of the girls to fill our batteries? When everyone is gone, and just after that, we’ll go back to the business you’re so eager to kill for,” Moona said in a mix of honesty and sarcasm.

“Please…” Coco looked aside, igniting on red again, “I get it… I deserve the trashing… let’s just go…”

After helping Moona to put her office back to place, the two of them walked out and climbed down the stair to the ground floor. “Oh, no, not here, while I keep saying to go here, it is on the ground below, you can only reach it from this level after all,” She explained to Coco, guiding her to a corridor which ended with one small sliding door, opening to a new set of stairs, and a new level under the building. The atmosphere was quickly filled with the mentholated feel of an industrial air conditioner, Coco found herself in a room illuminated with white neon lights, and all mayors in the reunion taking a turn around the machines placed at the crystal feet of the pyramid, to place huge odd-shaped buckets with metallic lids on it.

“… Would you girls please stop looking at me like waiting for something weird to happen? If I knew you were going to be like this I wouldn’t have tagged along to this reunion,” Botan meowed to her friends, as they eagerly had their eyes fixed on her, looking at the girl place the empty battery inside the container.

“We just want to see you interacting with it!” Nene cheerfully nodded with fists at the height of her neck like a squirrel.

“Does it feel weird? Like it aches or something?” Lamy now asked just as curious.

“Does it feel like talking to that weird uncle you only meet once a year while on the festivities?” Polka pondered with a serious look and a magnifying glass on her face.

“That last one… May not be so off from reality…” Botan awkwardly affirmed, “In some way, the Spectrum has always felt like… An awkward old grandpa who just wants to make sure you’re doing well and gift you some candies… Alright, here we go…” The lion-girl expressed, twisting the battery and pushing it inside the container, reacting from the mechanical mannerism, the pyramid responded to it by gleaming and sending bright, Black energy inside the battery until filling it completely, Botan shrieking as she felt a cold spark of energy invade her body. “Urgh… But, remarks on the awkward part, most of the time, after it questions how I’m doing, what it says is…” Her eyes shining with an odd color, her face fade of all expressions, almost possessed, “Protect the Equilibrium of the Spectrum…” She recited with a strange tone, breathing in, closing her eyes, breathing out, returning to normal with a couple of winks, as if the possession had ended just as fast as, “Alright… phew… show’s over, now get moving and fill your batteries! I don’t want to be stuck on here when the firewall opens!” She ordered her friends with an angered feline growl, startling them and forcing them to join the other girls around to fill their batteries.

“What… what was that right now?” Coco questioned Moona, pointing at the lion-girl from afar, once again bemused, “Was she… was the Spectrum talking through her?”

Moona smiled before answering, a condescending smile; “Scared? People of Black have a close relationship with the Spectrum as they’re chosen ones to carry the most unpredictable color, people like Botan, Choco, and Mio… They’re users of Black for a reason, they can deal with it like adults, but if you want my job, you’re going to entangle in a much deeper, deeper, relationship with this huge and awkward, but surprisingly kind pyramid, as much as I insult it, it does feel like a grandpa inside your mind,” She clapped her hands and shook her head, “But if that scares you, you can always back down, you have enough time to decide before everyone here is done with their batteries…”

When Shion passed by with her full battery, Moona lowered the tone of her voice, but the bratty magic girl, far from engaging in another argument or insult, softly palmed Moona's shoulder, “Don’t worry… whatever is happening, we’ll try you don’t spend too much time stuck on this zone,” Shion said in a gentle tone, now using both hands to carry the heavy battery with her skinny body.

“… And, as you can see, at the end of the day, we’re all friends,” Moona sighed happily, “We’re here for each other, now more than before, we won’t leave anyone alone to face what is about to come,” She said and for a second time, she extended her hand to the dragon-girl. “So? If you’re still willing to go, you’ll find something greater than the resentment you weigh on your shoulders.”

“I already told you before, didn’t I?” Coco suggested, firmly stroking her hand, “I’m here to make a difference.”

Chapter Text

 “Are you sure is ok for us to hold onto these?” Moments before leaving, Choco questioned when carrying the crystal bucket filled with Black on her hands, her expression was full of uncertainty, so it was Korone, Mio, and Okayu.

“Regardless that you are no longer Mayors, you may still need them, please, don’t think about it with such a guilty attitude,” Moona gently explained to the blonde woman, looking at the rest of the girls next. “You want to help Subaru, don’t you? Then you should hold onto them for when the time comes, it may not be as strong as when you had a full connection to your respective Gears, but it should help you, girls, to put on a fight.”

After one long hour of chatting, formalities, and batteries filled, all the other eleven attendees of the reunion except Coco and Moona, exited the Grand Salon and warped back to their respective zones.

“… I guess you at least care a little,” Coco spouted with a judgmental tone after they had been finally leaving alone on the lower level of the building, she crossed her arms, glancing at Moona with disdain.

“Honestly, I find myself a little curious about that resentment of yours,” Without looking at the dragon-girl, Moona replied, she was busy bringing a levitating cart with ten different, empty buckets. “But, I can make a rough guess by using the little things you snarled at me before, and I’m sure as hell I don’t want to hear that kind of preaching from a stranger,” She told her from the other side, displeased and hasty when taking on one of the batteries and inserting it inside the container, bringing the lever, twisting it and pushing it, followed by air pressure noises and mechanical locking sounds, she held on the lever on her left, and slowly placed her right on the Spectrum.

“You sure it’s not because we’re now alone and you have nobody to shield on?” With one eyebrow in the air, Coco attacked her.

“Fairly sure,” Moona nodded with her eyes fixed on the crystal pyramid, “Save that trash-talking for someone who cares, as far as I’m concerned, you’re placing the blame on the so-called ‘people of power’, but there’s something you’re not taking into account,” Now closing her eyes and relaxing, she slowly commented.

“And that would be?” Coco asked with defiance.

“Isn’t it obvious, look at me, I’m just a young woman,” Breaking from what she was about to do, she turned to Coco with a bittersweet smile. “While there are hundreds of thousands of things on this world which work automatically, and things which can be automated, Sky and Terra, me as the Guardian, even the Warriors of White, while is certain we have powers which can defy the threats around the system, we’re still, just people, just women, bound by emotions, bound by our intelligence and wisdom, and more importantly, bound to our physical bodies…” Moona implied with a speck of sarcasm on her face, “We’re not Goddesses, there hasn’t been something like that in ages, so at the end of the day, a woman who can control gravity at will is just a woman who can control gravity at will, it doesn’t mean I’m omnipotent, omnipresent, and that I wouldn’t get tired if I dedicated my body and soul to the cause… are you getting what I’m trying to say?” But when pausing to check if Coco was following her, she met with an expression of coldness and deafness, “… Wow… really? Well, I guess that dense part of yours will begin to fade once you start on this job.”

Deciding to finally ignore the disapproving eyes of disgust from Coco, Moona returned to place her hands on the battery and the pyramid. Once again she tried to relax, and after a couple of breaths, her body sparkled with Purple, and with a wink, it tilted from Purple to Green, and back to her original color, then the battery started to fill with a bright, liquid Green energy. “Phew… How’s that trick for you? You can learn to do these things once you become the Guardian,” With a short laugh Moona said.

“… You filled the battery with a color which isn’t yours? How’s that possible? Do you have the power of White?” Coco asked lowering her guard.

“Nah, I just asked pops here to fill this bucket with Green,” She replied with a click of her tongue, smacking the pyramid with the back of her hand, making it clank, “Right now I’m filling the batteries which would be the ration for the girls of the Love and Peace Circle, it’ll take just a few moments.”

“And when are we getting into making me the next Guardian?” Confused, Coco judged Moona as she pulled the full battery, placed it on the cart, and proceeded to take on another empty bucket, this time filling it with Celeste.

“This is the preparations for it, don’t fret,” Moona explained short of breath, increasing the speed of her movements, she placed the third battery and filled it with Indigo. “While we make fun of all these girls by naming them the way we did, the reason we labeled them as such, is because, in all the history of the Idol generation, those girls have executed their work as Mayors to perfection, they have never had a single problem of any kind since they started to work, and their zones are an example of peaceful societies on the system.”

“Well, that’s a bit unexpected, are you trying to say you girls call them that way out of envy?” Coco began to walk towards Moona.

“In a way, yes,” Moona simply nodded without shame, “At some moment, we all got tired of the fact that, just because they never have a problem with their zones, they stopped caring about assisting to our reunions entirely, as they feel is a nuisance for the way they work,” She finished on the fourth container filling it with a pastel Yellow and went to the fifth to fill it with Crimson. “Some people here started to feel their work was never enough compared to them, and the nickname came, but all the girls from that circle, are your ticket to become the new Guardian.”

“Sorry… I still don’t understand how that’s going to work,” Coco shook her head with a groan.

“Is simple you see,” Moona gestured for a pause, now using her left leg as support over the container to pull back the sixth battery filled with Pink. “There’s a bit of politics here, for you to become the Guardian, not only do you need to be recognized by the Spectrum as worthy of the title and the power of gravity, but you also need to be recognized on a voting poll by the Mayors on a reunion of the Grand Salon,” She placed the seventh battery inside and began to fill it with Blue, “And while no one will vote to make the new girl who is the leader of a group of people behind illicit activities… Yes, I know about that too,” She implied with a mocking tone and sarcasm, “The Mayors will surely vote for a girl who made the Love and Peace Circle assist to a Grand Salon reunion and advocate for her to make her the new Guardian, it’ll be an instant win.”

“I see… So you’re killing two birds with a rock here,” Coco chuckled, finally getting the intentions behind Moona’s actions, “Instead of delivering those batteries yourself, you’re going to make me your deli-bird, so I can use it as an excuse to meet with those girls…” But there was hesitation on her way of speaking. “But if those girls are the way you describe it, are you sure I’ll be able to convince them of assisting?”

“Well, that part is on you, if you want the title, you need to do an effort,” After filling eight batteries, Moona expressed with hands on her hips, “You already had come here, and I have taken the time to explain you how does it work, and even ignored the fact you initially came here intending to get my job through fists.”

“That way was easier compared to that, honestly,” Coco laughed louder, “You’re missing one battery there,” She pointed with a finger on the empty bucket.

“Because that one is yours,” Moona gave a prickly smile, “It’s your turn to talk with pops here, I already told it about why are you here and what do you want, it says it wants to meet you,” She now gestured to the pyramid and the container.

Coco avoided commenting further, she kneeled and took the empty battery easily. When Moona separated from the container, the dragon-girl stood next in front of the machine and the pyramid. Introducing the battery, it quickly started to fill with a bright Red, but contrary to Moona, Coco placed both hands on the wall of the pyramid, closed her eyes, and tried to relax.

“The pow'r thou art looking f'r is not the answ'r thee wanteth…”

An old voice echoes from the depths of her mind, an adult, disembodied, genderless voice.

“But a guardian is a warri'r with fireth on the heart, just liketh thee…”

The voice seemed to judge, to lecture, but it did it soft-spoken, it did it with an ancient language.

“Beest the vessel of the new changeth…”

It whispered to her, inside her mind, the figure of a large prism appeared.

“But the pow'r thee desire, is not what shall saveth the system…”

The prism floated away from her grasp, quickly multiplying in half of a hundred, each prism now emanating a different color of the Spectrum.

“Behold at thy mistakes, repent, and once thee und'rstand, thee'll maketh the changeth thee wanteth…”

The colors now enveloped the prisms in their entirety, and each one took onto a feminine shape, some of them were familiar to the dragon-girl, almost as if she had just seen them moments ago, others were unable to identify.

But one in particular, from that half of a hundred prisms, sparkling on Red and Black, didn’t take on any human shape, it remaining unstable, bursting on flames, shattered on fragments.

“The trials of the guardian art anon on game…”

Then as one of the figures began to walk to her, she could recognize it was her silhouette. It placed one hand on her chest and next disappeared on a cloud of energy and sparkles; from the bottom of Coco’s chest, a large prism occupying most of her body began to shine with Red from the inside.

“Protecteth the Equilibrium of the Spectrum…”

“… This thing…” Coughing from mixing her way of breathing, Coco separated from the pyramid giving a few steps back, holding on chest and neck. “It referred to itself in third person… How old is it?”

“Yeah, it does that sometimes, more importantly, was that what surprised you?” Moona judged her calm and coughing reaction with laughter.

“Well, I guess I’m forcing myself to pretend and keep it cool…” Coco’s hand slowly moved from her neck and posed over her neck and belly, “I… I saw something very concerning just now…”

“Nah… we’re all made of that,” Moona replied guessing on what had Coco was surprised about, “Don’t ask me about it though, you could say is our soul or something, I don’t know much, but that isn’t what is important here,” She leaned on the dragon-girl, “So? What did it say? Are you going to be tested for the title of Guardian?”

Coco nodded, still poking her own body, as the images still flashed vividly on her mind, not paying attention to Moona’s attitude, she was just trying to process her visions. “It said I’ll be put onto a test… but, it also says the power of the Guardian is not what I need… it won’t solve my problems…”

“Huh, would you look at that?” Moona hummed condescending, crossing her arms.

And quickly enough, such reaction annoyed Coco, “What? What now?”

“Well I’m just saying, you were going on with babblers about saving everyone… But the old pyramid here is saying it won’t solve your problems… so who you were going to save in the end?” Fascinated by the outcome, Moona’s smile widened, “Was it everyone on the system? From the crashes and their corruption? Or were you just trying to save yourself?”

The dragon-girl couldn’t reply, the snarky attitude she used to verbally attack Moona had momentarily disappeared. Reasoning on what the pyramid told her, reasoning what Moona quickly understood from it, she stared at her hands with frustration, “I don’t get it…”

“But I do,” Moona continued smiling, “Is as I was trying to explain you before, at the end of the day, what are we supposed to be…  and the roles we’re asked to fill, it doesn’t work that easy, we aren’t machines, we’re filled with indecisions… and the power to decide, we can and will make mistakes, we’re imperfect, Coco,” But with her usual soft-spoken tone, she explained, palming her back, “Now, if you don’t feel discouraged after that, we proceed on our original plan, what about it, apprentice?”

Coco’s ears tingled at those words, and clenching her hands into fists, decided, she took on the filled battery, placing it with the others and sealing the cart into one large vault, “What will you make your Guardian do?”

“Well, I’ve heard you’re good at flying, you’ll have to do this work without using warp portals, if any of those girls are warned you’re coming, you’ll probably never have a chance to directly talk with them.”

“Mayor… Mayor, please wake up at once!” In a room obscured by thick curtains and an air conditioner, a weird and round-shaped creature bounced repeatedly over the tummy of a sleeping girl of horns and long, light blond hair. “Mayor… Please wake up, we’re on an emergency!” The creature insisted, crying for the girl to snap from the dream realm, but the drooling smile on her showed it wasn’t going to be an easy task, “So it’ll be…” The round being groaned in annoyance, “Mayor… Breakfast time will be over on thirty minutes…” The creature explained with a firm tone, and almost expecting her reaction, it bounced over a night table, the girl quickly sitting on the bed from the news, the drool on her mouth flying away, along with all other hair accessories and snack wraps on her blankets.

“Say what?!” The girl rolled out of bed next, opening the curtains of her room, showing the round creature to be a cartoony sheep with a tie. “How could you forget to wake me up for breakfast?! How do you want me to survive before lunch! That, is, an, emergency!” The blonde girl of horns scolded the sheep, running from one corner to the room to the other, trying to pick on a set of pajamas to wear, even though she already wore one.

“That’s... not why I came to wake you up, Mayor,” The sheep sighed losing patience.

“What else could it be?!” The girl insisted, the sheep having to turn around as she was violently undressing, throwing her clothes away and changing into a two-piece pajama of fruit stamps. “You know how much my tummy groans if I don’t have a full breakfast before lunch! If I don’t hurry up I won’t be able to eat with the others!” She dashed across the furnished floor and landed on a couple of slippers, rocketing out of her room, followed by the groaning sheep from behind.

“Mayor Watame, we have a situation!” The sheep tried to retake her attention, his voice insisting on a lecturing tone.

“Yes, the situation of no one saving me a bowl of cereal and some hotcakes!” Watame shouted with desperation, almost running, almost trotting, fixing her long hair into ponytails.

Walking out from a small timbered house of German design, the girl hurried on her slippers through a pebbled path, into a vast green zone full of flowers and grass, and another multiple, small timber-houses. Wherever she hurried, sheep-people of multiple shapes and sizes greeted her with a smile and a handwave, some with an anthro figure, others, with plushie-looking shapes like the angry sheep trying to match her pace from behind, and unable to, due to its tiny legs.

She now started on skillful jumps, bouncing from pebble to pebble, climbing a small hill of grass, her respiration took shape of small clouds on the cold and clouded outside, “I see it… I see it! The common kitchen hall! And… Oh! Do we have guests? Was that your emergency? We can always feed other people!” She happily gasped when reaching the top, sighting a large kitchen table which traveled meters across the grass on the length and wide, with its multiple chairs occupied by a mix of sheep and squirrel people, human virtual people, and a handful of androids.

“Erhm… Yes and no, Mayor, if only you could give me a couple of minutes to explain you!” The sheep begged with a worrisome tone.

“Waaaaa-taaaa-meeee!” But in the fraction of a second, the girl lowered her sight to watch the sheep, at last, a girl with a long and thick squirrel tail and a beret on top of her head hurried to meet with her. “Where have you been you silly? You almost miss breakfast!”

“Risu, you came!” Watame waved her hand happily, squishing the girl once meeting face to face. “Sorry, I fell asleep, but I’m glad you could come with your people!”

“Of course! Everybody knows if you want a filling breakfast you should visit Yellow Cream Pastel Hills!” Risu replied cheerfully, with giggles at the bottom of her words.

“Did you bring me the good things?” Watame now whispered on dirty innuendo, leaning on Risu’s space and extending her hands.

“Of course!” Risu replied with the same naughty eyes and voice, leaning on Watame and handing her a plastic container, “Premium freshly baked nuts just for your cereal bowl, Mayor.”

“Freshly baked?” Watame’s eyebrows swirled playfully.

“Freshly baked yes ma’am,” Risu nodded, copying her mannerism, making both of them break on a peal of laughter.

“Ah… Hah… Finally, I caught up to you…” Suddenly a tiny squirrel with a tie and a masculine voice said on hasty respiration, reuniting with the plush sheep, “Did you tell them?” He asked.

“I’m trying to… you know how these two are…” The sheep sighed.

“Mayor Risu, Mayor Watame, we beg you to pay attention to us for at least a couple of seconds!” The squirrel made its way through the sheep and decided to take on the lead, as he too was losing patience from being ignored, increasing the tone of his voice, stressing anger, “I know the word ‘emergency’ is something we don’t use on these zones, but I and Shep here can assure you, it is an emergency!”

“What could that be? We don’t have emergencies at this place! Is it because lunch won’t be ready by noon or something?” Watame, forced to paid attention to the scolding of the plushies, at last, pouted and placed her fists on her hips.

“It is because one of our nut trucks broke its container on the warp station we can always clean it later! Right now is breakfast time!” With pouty lips Risu joined, sticking out her tongue to the squirrel and hugging Watame from the waist.

“…” One of the tiny, plushie fists of the squirrel menaced on the air, about to lose his temper, he bit on his lip, and took a deep breath, “… A unknown Mayor appeared just this morning saying it wants to talk with you both… She doesn’t appear on any of the border or warp portals registries she came here on foot… She’s devouring food on the common kitchen hall as we speak…” With the sheep gently placing its paw over his fist, the squirrel finally delivered the news which had the two plushies concerned.

“… Isn’t that like… an emergency?” Watame now stuttered, gazing at the table with a little fear, “… I don’t remember inviting anyone else but Risu and her people today… Just who is crazy enough to come here on foot?” Almost instinctively, she crouched and began to walk on the tip of her toes, slowly approaching the table, followed by Risu, silently imitating her, and the two tiny creatures, sighing at their childish reactions.

They turned into sneaky mode and diligently walked through the tall hills to go unnoticed. Behind one of the timbered houses, the sheep and squirrel-girl both peeked at the entrance of the table from afar, squinting their eyes with imaginary telescopes on their hands. “Do you see something Risu?”

“Nope… Whoever it is must be… Oh no… if it’s looking for us… they must be on our seats…” Risu stuttered a scared answer.

From toe by toe and step by step, the girls walked out of the timbered house and finally entered the common’s kitchen hall. They were first greeted by people from both of their zones, having their breakfast without much thought, but as they kept walking to the middle of the large table, they started to notice how the citizens were acting more and more uncomfortable, and at the very middle, where the Mayor used to sit with her invitees, there was a pretty tall woman with long reddish hair, devouring on multiple plates of food without manners. “She’s…” Watame whispered when spotting the girl, straightening her back, a smile poured on her face, now without fear, she hurried to meet with the girl, “She’s a glutton! I like that on a Mayor!”

“Watame?! Wait, what if she eats you too?!” However, Risu wasn’t so easily convinced, freezing on the spot when Watame hurried to her. But as the sheep girl no longer was paying attention to her, she quickly pinched her left shoulder and used the stinging pain to move again and run towards the two.

“Enjoying your coming to Cream Pastel Hills?” With a playful tone and swaying her hips, Watame asked Coco now sitting right to her side. “Today the theme was ‘crunchy, fluffy and sweet’! Hope you’re enjoying it!” With a happy smile, she told her, now taking on an empty ceramic plate and a jar of milk, opening the lid and pouring the liquid on it, unable to look away from the dragon girl, as it put a huge smile on her to watch her eat so eagerly.

“No wonder why this place has one place to eat for everyone; this is like a breakfast served in a five-star restaurant!” Coco responded after abruptly chugging down half of an omelet. “I wish I had known of this place before, I’m going to come here every day!”

“Yay another one who joins the glutton cause!” Watame giggled empowered by her words and looks, her hands in the air, “You’re always welcome here, nothing makes me happier to feed people as hungry as me! Here, have a hotcake!” She said, poaching on a huge fluffy hotcake with a fork, gesturing it to Coco.

“Yum!” The dragon-girl replied by attacking the innocent hotcake with one bite, devouring it completely.

“Wow, that was hilarious!” With sparkling eyes and now without fear whatsoever, Risu approached from the other side, handing Coco a muffin, “Try this one, one of my zone specialties! Is filled with five different types of nuts!”

“Yam!” She turned to the side and devoured without a second thought, humming happily with her cheeks stuffed on the crunchy and soft feeling, “If fweet and… so many different types of crunchy things… you girls are good at cooking, I’m gonna marry both of you!” Coco laughed, trying to drink down what the girls handed to her with a glass of juice.

“Oh my, I’d like to accept, but I’m not the one who cooks,” With hands-on her flustered cheeks, Watame shook her head with shyness.

“Marrying is too soon for me too, that’s nuts from a person I just met!” Risu replied just as red.

When Coco managed to calm down, she placed the empty glass of juice aside. The sheep and squirrel girl now stared at her confused, confused enough to not know what to ask her from her sudden silent mood, but not enough to stop stuffing their mouths as they waited for Coco to talk again. But she only shook her head, she took on a jar of juice and filled her glass, the words she was trying to phrase, wouldn’t come out as easily as she first thought, the visions of the prism inside her body and the lecture of Moona and the Spectrum remained drumming on her mind. “… You see…” Coco whispered at first, pausing, making the other two even more confused, “I… Sorry, I was so surprised at how good the food tasted I forgot to introduce myself!” Forcing a smile to Watame, she decided to not bring the subject at the end, “I’m Kiryuu Coco, and I’m here to deliver you girls a couple of things from the Guardian herself!”

“From the Guardian…?” Now completely puzzled, Watame leaned on the table to look at Risu who did just the same, as the tall and busty body of Coco wouldn’t let them see each other from the extremes. They interchanged a couple of facial expressions, and looked back to Coco, “Is it something serious…? Are we in trouble?”

“No… not at all!” Coco replied with a raspy chuckle, “I’m just your delivery-dragon-girl!” She answered with enthusiasm.

Chapter Text

Flashes and shutter noises of camera flooded the common kitchen hall exit of Watame’s Zone, as a dragon of twenty meters tall posed preparing to set flight. Her red scales shone on the timid light of that clouded morning, both citizens and visitors were mesmerized by the sight of the giant reptile which meant no harm, with one of her long horns decorated with a ribbon. “Wow… No wonder why you’re the Guardian’s apprentice! That’s crazy; you’re a dragon-girl!” The sheep girl laughed with hands in the air, as Coco gently used her tail to carry the girl from her rear and bring her up the height of her head.

“Are you sure you want to come with me?” Coco asked her, but even though her voice could be heard loud and clear, her nuzzle barely moved, the short sentence was expressed with a light movement from her scaly lips. Moving her head to the side, observing Watame with her right eye, as it was difficult to stare at her with both eyes due to the wide temple of her head, “I don’t mind the company, but I’m obligated to do this through flying, it’ll be easier for you to follow me through the warp portal stations,” She explained once again with a small movement of her nuzzle.

“And miss the chance to fly in the sky? Nope!” The sheep girl replied with an energetic shake of her head, bouncing from Coco’s tail to the hill which had turned her neck after transforming, “Also, you’ll need us if you want to talk with the other mayors, not everyone will react the same way if they see a giant lizard flying on their sky!”

“Coco, Watame, wait for me!” From the other side of the hall, Risu hurried to meet with the girls. With the sheep-girl on her long nape, and with the vault of batteries hanging on her neck like an outdated type of jewelry, the large red dragon started to walk on four limbs away from the common kitchen hall, every step made the ground slightly tremble, her wings were opening up slowly, changing on forms like a fly jet checking everything was in green condition. When Risu managed to catch with them, Coco extended her tail and gestured her to jump over, just like Watame, she elevated Risu from the ground and helped to ride on her neck, “Alright, we’re ready to go! I hid the batteries under your bed!” Risu told Watame.

“What? Under her…” Coco tried to judge, but since her voice was now magnified on her dragon form, she couldn’t complete the question as there were still many other people around watching them walk away, she interjected her question and changed it. “Are you sure nothing bad will happen for placing it there?”

“All good, is a pain to go to the Gear, and that will only slow down your itinerary right?” Watame easily shrugged away Coco’s concern without care. “Now, tell us more about being the Guardian’s apprentice, how is it?”

“Uhm… I’m not sure what to tell you… I just started today,” Progressively accelerating and gaining speed on her throttle, Coco finally separated from the citizens and the little village of houses, now galloping on the vast green of Watame’s Zone, crumbling the ground as she passed by. “There’s a lot of bureaucracy… Way more boring than I thought…”

“Bleagh…” The sheep and the squirrel made a groan of disgust, tightly holding on the spike scales on Coco’s neck.

“But don’t worry, it can’t be that bad!” Risu leaned forward, at this point screaming at Coco, as the speed of her running and the air bursting on her face was making it hard to talk normally. “You choose that job for a reason; you just have to remember what you want to do once you become the new Guardian! That will help you keep you moving!”

“What I wanted to do…” Coco whispered with remorse, and when sighting a hill in the distance, she opened her wings on the wide, accelerated to the top, and leaped just before falling, waving her wings and elevating into the sky abruptly and fiercely. “Am sorry… I know we just met and… this isn’t your business but… What I wanted to do once I turned into the new Guardian… Both Moona and the Spectrum itself told me, it won’t work the way I want it.”

“And who cares about that?” Watame easily interjected, while she was expecting to be fascinated to fly over the sky, she found herself instantly engaged in Coco’s conversation instead. “Everyone will always have an opinion; you just have to keep believing in what you want to do!”

“She’s right!” Risu joined screaming from the other side of her neck, “Look at us, we’re doing our work just fine! And those comments come from the people who make fun of us on the daily!”

“… I see, so you girls knew… and yet… you’re both so kind…” With a speck of red on her reptile cheeks, Coco whispered with a smile. “Very well then, you take this plane’s wheel now, where should we go next?”

“Uhm, we don’t talk that much between the others on the circle… so how about someone who treats with all of us?” Watame pondered with a comical expression.

“Then let’s visit Iofi next!” Risu leaned on the sheep girl’s shoulder, “Blue Landscapes is to that way!” She pointed into the air.

“To the right? I can’t see your arm behind my neck!” Coco laughed.

“Y-yeah to the right!” Risu shyly stuttered, even though the dragon couldn’t see her, she insisted to stretch her arm as far as possible.

“Where could she be… where did she go?!” An angry man huffed exasperated, on the clean and shiny ceramic floor of a luxurious hall decorated with marble walls and porcelain, emulating a work of art from the era of the renaissance. “How could she get away in the middle of work? That impertinent little mayor!” He clenched a fist on the air, the man spouted dangerous words, on the border of grievous insults, but it seemed to purposely pull back from saying them, as he wore one kind of saint clothes, which didn’t work to hide his anger issues.

He continued on his march through the hallway growing on fury, forcefully twisting knobs of doors, and turning to the sides trying to check no one was looking at him to kick them with the tip of his right foot, hoping they would open if forced, hoping if possible, to get a reaction from someone on the other side, but no matter what he did, there wasn’t a reply.

“Hey, father!” Another man in white robes called on his attention from the side of the hallway he was walking to, they both seemed to have small wings on their backs as they approached to meet with the other. “Father, some citizens said they saw Mayor Kanata trying to hide on the children’s kindergarten!” He pointed down to the hall with a worried yet angered expression.

“That girl… pathetic! Hiding behind children you say? That’s unforgivable!” The father snarled with incredulity. “Once I put my hands into her she’s going back to work! How dare she skip her cleaning duties?! Does she expect that we clean Mayor Hall for her? Let’s proceed!” He declared and started to march out of the luxury establishment.

“Let’s do! She needs to do the laundry too, I need new robes!” The other man joined on the complaints and added his feet to the march.

As the drum of their ireful steps disappeared from the distance, in one of the doors which the father had kicked and forcefully tried to open, finally seemed to yield to the recoils of its abuse, until a small and white hand appeared from the inside, and just a small girl with a high school-ish uniform of long sleeves popped out from it. Checking if the coast was clear, her expression was vexed with frustration and tiredness, curling her lips and sobbing with powerlessness. “Cleaning the floors? Washing their clothes? What are they going on lately? Since when did I move from a Mayor to be their slaved housewife?” She questioned into the air with loud huffs. “For starters… seriously what in the heavens?!” And all of a sudden, the tone of her voice elevated, and her frustration mixed with a glass of anger, “We’re one of the most efficient and pacific zones of the Virtual World, and instead of that fact meaning less work for me, turned out the wrong way!” Both arms on the air, complaining her lungs out, “When did things go this wrong?! What did I do to deserve being enslaved by this men!? Cleaning the floors? After they party every weekend and make a mess of it?! Washing their clothes? And constantly ignoring the weird stains on their underwear?! Doing them dinner? Just to get told my miso soup is missing flavor?! And even clipping their nails! This is ridiculous, I can’t take it anymore… I’m… I’m a Mayor! For all colors almighty!” The girl waved her fist in the air, and her anger now met with a cold bucket of sadness, soaking her body, “… And you know what else…?” She dropped to the floor, biting on her lower lip, doing her best to contain the desire to bawl all over, “I… I wish I could tell you all those things… in y’all stupid faces…” She scrubbed the sleeves of her jacket on her face to clean her eyes.

Slowly breathing in, breathing out, she regained a small amount of energy, which Kanata used to stand and walk further inside the hallway. Turning right and later left, she entered into a small office with her name on golden letters engraved on the door; the girl gave a heavy sigh and pushed her left inside of the right sleeve of her clothes. Pulling up a bracelet with a handful of pocket portals, she pulled one with a light blue color and threw it into the air, and as the warp portal started to form, she slapped both of her cheeks, snorted her snots back, and forced a smile, fluttering inside the portal and instantly appearing into a tea salon, where a tall woman was sitting while reading on a magazine. “Reine…!” Sorry it took me so long to come! Even though you took the effort to bring your zone to mine, I was stuffed with work today!” Her voice broke at the beginning of her excuse, but she toughed it up and kept on pretending.

“Is that so? Well, I’m always glad you can join in the end, even if it takes you a lot of time,” The tall woman calmly smiled at her, closing her magazine and gesturing her to join her on the tea table, “Once again those red eyes… when is she going to learn?” The woman thought.

“… Where you waiting for me too much?” Kanata asked in awkwardness looking at the woman of a fancy dress and long, tied white hair move another couple of magazines to the side.

“Don’t worry about it, you know I enjoy my time of idly chats with you, I’m willing to wait as long as is needed,” Reine replied with a sweet tune, holding on the kettle with both hands to pour a cup of tea for the angel-girl. “Let’s forget about work now, why don’t we relax instead and play some games later?”

“I… Yes! Anytime!” Kanata eagerly replied, taking the handed cup and quickly stuffing her mouth with a biscuit.

“Yes… Yes! Let it flow out of you! Every person on the virtual world has an artist who wants to come out and express themselves!” With an almighty and inspired voice, Iofi declared. Inside of a spacious room with mellow, pastel colors, the alien girl seemed to be instructing the dragon, the sheep, and the squirrel into a passionate art lesson, wildly painting on a huge canvas as their hearts desired, and as their hands could translate from their childish and wide strokes of oily paint. “We don’t make mistakes, just happy accidents, don’t stop just because a part didn’t come out as you wanted, continue; let the resolution of your desire show on the canvas!” She continued fueled by the sole fact of being able to teach her friends the ways of painting.

“Iofi… here, here! Come see how I’m doing!” Risu called on her attention with a brush on the air.

“Very well, let’s see what's the masterpiece you soul wanted to paint?” With a dignified tone Iofi expressed, walking towards the squirrel-girl hoping for a mesmerizing work of beauty, however, she shrugged with disappointment in the blink of an eye. “It’s… it’s a nut…” She spouted perplexed at giant and painted with a detailed shell.

“It’s a peanut, isn’t it gorgeous?!” Risu exclaimed proudly of her work.

“Dear, when you said you wanted instructions to do a Still Life, I didn’t expect you to paint one sole, giant peanut, but oh well,” Iofi shook her head; then proceeded to walk on Watame’s way. “How is it going this way? Are we doing… that’s… that’s one huge ass macaroon…” Iofi groaned again.

“I can’t help it… I still remember it as if it was my first time… when I tried those deluxe macaroons on Pink Catlessier… Luna’s so lucky…” With hands-on her cheeks and drooling saliva just from remembering the flavor, Watame explained.

“… I guess the artist soul on you both comes from your stomachs? Well, what works best for the two of you, never mind what I said, you’re expressing your artistic soul up the tiniest detail!” Trying to recover from the surprise blows, the alien claimed and praised the two, but when turning to look at Coco, she hesitated. “And… The new Mayor… hello? Guardian’s apprentice? How is it going on here, what did you paint?”

“… The love of my life…” Coco answered without looking at her, and with such an answer, it was unavoidable for the three girls to immediately run to watch at what she had plastered on the canvas. It was one sole man, with a white shirt half-buttoned in, making great detail of his pecs and the looks and scars of his face, his hair, and the rest of his toned arms, posing into the picture, gazing at the distance like a lone wolf.

“… Unexpected…” Iofi stuttered to comment, with red cheeks she observed at the hot man painted with extreme detail, she now observed Coco and her figure. “I suppose… the sexier one is as a woman the more you think with other places rather than with your stomach…” She mumbled troubled as to what her thoughts were.

“I think he could use a bit more of hair on his chest though,” With a serious voice Coco added, firmly pondering whether to add more ink or not.

“Oh… Ew, so you like gangster guys? That guy seems as if he went through a hundred street fights,” Watame commented, laughing at the painting.

“I feel like I’ve seen this guy on a videogame or something…” Risu joined into the vain criticism, scratching her chin. “Girl, you have bad tastes on men, he looks like he would leave you to save the world or something and come back married to someone else.”

“Would you cut it out?!” Coco snapped at her comments, flustered, squishing the canvas without minding dirtying her clothes in paint. “He’s my hottie! There’s no way he would leave me for another woman!” She attacked them with an adorable, embarrassed voice.

For every new zone she landed on, she would meet with their mayor, and the reasons behind their success, their kindness, their passion, and a fervent desire to do things as they wished, without being regulated by the Grand Salon. On Blue Landscapes, they met with the desire to live for the arts.

“C’mon! You look like a lot of stiff trees! Let’s see those movements, lose the shyness; let it out, the inner woman on you who wants to boast on their figure!” On a salon with a wooden floor and a wide side mirror occupying the wall, a blonde woman of disembodied twin tails declared to the group, going through a considerably embarrassing and hard dance lesson, looking to motivate the girls into shaking her hips as she did, swiftly, unabashed.

“Like… like this?!” Watame extended her arms into the sides, making circles with her waist as if her life would depend on it.

“You look as if you were trapped in an infinite hula loop! Where’s the passion? Where’s the flexibility? Where’s the desire to be a hot smokin’ woman?!” Aki judged and criticized with harsh comments, pretending to wield a whip on her hands, she wouldn’t tolerate any of them slacking on the single dance movement.

“Baila tu cuerpo alegria-“ Iofi tried to relax the mood, trying to skip on the lesson and start on a silly dance, but quickly enough, one of Aki’s floating twintails whipped her from behind, “Uguue!”

“Nobody is leaving until you learn the ropes, you’re all lazy women, is time to though up,” She stepped decided between the group of girls, she wouldn’t give up on trying to teach them her signature move. “Look at the new Mayor, she’s smokin’ hot!” She signaled at the dragon-girl on the front, effortlessly moving her hips as Aki wished.

“… This is quite embarrassing to do in front of everyone though…” She whispered with a serious face, as soon as everyone locked their eyes on her, Coco felt pressured to don’t turn around, and avoid spouting any word worth of a joke for the moment.

After meeting with their own culture, and their ways of, guiding, leading, and even ruling, each mayor from the circle would be convinced by the words of Iofi and Watame, to join into the sporadic touristic guide through their Zone’s for Coco to meet them all. On Yellow Apple Pie, they meet with the singularity of innocence, empowering, and hyperactiveness.

“No! Nope, nope, nope not even one step nanora!” Luna commanded with huge, pouty cheeks, agitated and flustered, she had Risu and Watame being held inside a mobile steel jail, guarded by her candy warriors, while the rest of the girls freely walked around her kingdom, fascinated by the sweetened edifications and the multiple, dessert and pastry shops filling her surroundings.

“C’mon, we even took the effort to bring everyone to visit you!” Watame cried holding onto the bars of the jail, slowly carried from behind by the guards.

“Just a little bit… just a little bit!” Risu cried, uselessly trying to stretch her hand out of the jail as far as possible, hoping to scratch into her nails the cookie walls of the adjacent building.

“… Care to give me a bit of lore here?” Coco leaned and asked Iofi in her ear, “Why are they jailed?”

“Well…” Iofi whispered back with troubling laughter, “You see… the last time we came to visit on here… things got a little out of hand with those two and…”

“Please! We beg you; we’ll try to behave this time!” Watame cried even louder from inside the jail, interrupting the gossip.

“YOU GIRLS TRIED TO EAT A TOILET THE LAST TIME YOU WERE HERE NANORA!” With her cheeks about to burst from the air of her pouting, Luna quickly outed the two of them for their crimes, “You’re both nanora banned from Pink Cattlessier for a reason! I’m never making that mistake again!”

“Oh… So it was that…” Coco spouted with a duck face.

“C’mon, is not our fault that even your bathrooms are made of candy! We just wanted to see how it would taste!” Risu cried next, huffing and pushing, trying in vain to bend the bars of the jail.

Each and every mayor were easily charmed by the dragon-girl, her intent to become the next Guardian, and her easiness into appealing to them, bantering with an energetic attitude and humor.

“Oh… oh! Sorry there, but we have a few rules here first!” A woman with an acute and sweet tone and brown short hair stopped the group on their tracks, she gently gestured at them, one arm seemed to be entirely mechanic, the other was wrapped in bands. For the first time on their trip, they had to land on the border entrance of Crimson Shooting Allure, as the zone was guarded in its entirety by an energy field, they had no other option but to use the official ways of entering the zone, and instantly calling on their Mayor’s attention. “You see, in this zone, most of our entertainments are shooting games of all sorts and genres! And to keep my zone healthy and without accidents, I have a zero-tolerance rule towards real weapons, so please, if any of you are carrying weapons of any sort, you must leave them here on our custom house, you can pick them up later!”

The group looked into each other colorful faces a bit puzzled, it wasn’t so often for them to visit Roboco’s zone, and nobody had ever been stopped before for it, they began to wonder. “Are these considered weapons?” Watame pointed at the horns on her head.

“… Those could be a little dangerous, but that’s not what I meant,” Roboco replied gently, taking an honest fraction of a second to reply to her.

“Is this considered a weapon?” Aki asked next, with both hands behind her head, she shook her hips aggressively, starting massive laughter from the group.

“That’s insane! But also good to go!” Roboco giggled and gave her double thumbs up.

“Uh but then… What do you expect for us to give you?” Iofi wondered with an index on her lips, “This has been the first time you stop us for such a thing, none of us hold any-…” She tried to express and negotiate, honestly unknown of Roboco’s warning, until a small girl of bulky and fluffy green hair with yellow strips silently stepped out of the group, moving through the metal detector and setting off the alarm, “… Ah, of course, it had to be you, Anya” The alien crossed her arms about to click her tongue disappointed, then soon after, Coco followed, too setting off the alarm, “Wait you too?!”

“Please proceed to leave all your weapons on the basket, I promise nothing bad will happen to them,” Roboco gestured now to the plastic basket to the sides of the two girls, giving a little peek for her unorthodox and hardly efficient pants as she turned.

“Well, it can’t be that bad nanora…” Luna whispered perplexed about the situation, trying to believe what they were holding onto wasn’t worth the worry, but soon enough, Anya pulled a sixty-centimeter curved sword from her back, and Coco brought a twenty-centimeter military knife from the middle of her breasts, “… Never mind.”

As the sight of both girls stripping on weapons continued, the rest of the group decided to just watch and sigh baffled by the girls’ armory. Next Coco dropped a pair of golden knuckles; Anya pulled a couple of daggers from her sleeves, Coco followed by pulling separate parts of a magnum 30 caliber from different spots of her hair, Anya continued by dropping a butterfly and Swiss knife, Coco now shoved one hand behind her back on the depths of her skirt, making everyone gasp as it looked like her fingers were reaching for a place impossible to phrase, bringing out one more 9-millimeter gun, and stealing a second gasp out of them, Anya repeated the same unholy mannerism, bringing one knuckled knife.

“Is… Is that all…” Roboco hesitated to ask, yet just to make sure it was the last of their artifacts.

“Wait a sec,” Both the extremely tall and the extremely short girl bagged her for a pause with their pointers, and if they were twins, they kept moving and acting imitating the other. “Brrrrrrr!” They acutely purred, shaking their bodies as they were animals trying to shake their fur from a cold soak, and both of the girls’ hairs, at least ten dart knives of multiple colors clattered on the floor.

But the question remained, unable to give a straight answer. Every time Coco would be questioned about the reasons behind her decision to become the Guardian’s apprentice, her mood would always change, she would gaze at the floor, and elaborate on a half-hearted answer which wouldn’t satisfy the growing group of girls forming around her, following her on her mission not just from being charmed by her, but also being worried for her.

“Right there! Oh, how lucky, they’re together, Coco, look, right over your head nanora!” Hundreds of meters in the sky, Luna warned the giant flying dragon of the two colossal pieces of engineer effortlessly floating in the middle of the vast sky.

“Amazing… Are these Zones too?” Easily marveled by the sight, Coco asked the group of girls hanging on her neck and back. Two large islands were floating in the direction she was aiming to, the one on the left resembled a huge natural reservoir, the one on the right appeared to be into the biggest church ever constructed.

“Yes, they’re called the Three Sisters!” Iofi shouted at Coco, trying to fix her hair away from her face. “Celeste Soft Feather, Indigo Saint Liberty, and White Providence, they’re the only three floating zones of the Virtual World, these two in front of you belong to Reine and Kanata respectively, while White Providence belongs to Sky Hero!”

“Is the first time I visit their Zones by flying, never noticed how big they are until now!” Anya commented holding with difficulty on Coco’s scaly body, Roboco, and Aki trying their best to tie her bulky hair on the scales so the air pressure wouldn’t set her flying away.

“Is it normal for these two Zones to be always together?” Coco asked the group next, trying to turn her reptile eyes behind.

“They’re always floating around the Virtual World, but is not that difficult to tell where is each one and where they’re going, you see? They’re huge islands in the sky!” Iofi explained sarcastically between shouts. “Is not uncommon to see these together! Those two are always hanging on! They must be on Reine’s house playing video games and drinking tea as we speak!”

“Let’s check!” Watame said holding on Iofi’s shoulder, summoning a virtual screen and dialing a phone number. “Hellow hello! Is anyone there? Reine? We’re about to crash a big party at your place! Is Kanata with you too?”

- Erhm…? Watame, is that you? Dear, well, yes, we’re together… but a party you say? Right now that would be a bit difficult… -

As the awkwardness on Reine’s voice took everyone with bemusement, Coco felt forced to stop in the middle of the air, fluttering her wings as gentle as possible to pay attention to the call. “Reine? What is it, is something the matter?” Watame now asked a bit worried.

- Well, how should I explain it? It would be nice if you were here with us, but a party is not really what I need now… -

Quickly enough, as Reine refused to explain the reasons behind her stutter, and before Watame could further insist, a couple of voices filtered through the call, a girl and man were violently screaming at each other.

- So this is where you were hiding! You’re coming back to work at once! –

- Please… Isn’t it enough already?! Why do I have to do those things?! –

“Kanata?! Kanata what’s going on?!” Watame took the holographic screen on both hands and pushed it against her face, but the phone call cut right after, leaving her worries unanswered. “Kanata…”

“… Hold your butts tight!” Coco now declared renewing the speed on her wings and circling to take on speed, the group of girls didn’t wait for a second warning, taking hold between each other and Coco’s scales, as she rocketed into Reine’s zone like a missile.

“Please… You’re in my zone now, you’re being quite impolite right now, you have no right whatsoever to act the way you’re doing on here!” Trying to stop the empty madness of the father, Reine finally stepped from her chair, demanding him to quit it.

“You stay out of our business, this is my Mayor, and she hasn’t finished her daily chores yet!” The father claimed on clenched teeth, roughly pulling Kanata from the right forearm.

“Please… Please, why do you guys have to be like this…!” Between sobs, Kanata tried to pull away. “We’re one of the most pacific zones, I… barely have to do anything so why… why can’t you do something as simple as sweeping the floor?!”

“… That’s what you’re good for, runt,” Pulling her arm up, shortening his distance with her, the father told her with a despicable, cold tone.

In a matter of seconds, Reine’s house met with the most violent earthquake, making the structure shake and release dust from every corner, the lights tilting, a couple of flower pots breaking down on the crumbling. “My colors almighty… now what?!” She wondered, protecting her face from the dust with both arms.

“Kanata… Reine! We’re here!” Smashing the door open, the group of girls, covered in dirt and dust announced their presence, invading Reine’s house without an invitation. However, as soon as they met with the scenario of the ugly tall man in white robes pulling on Kanata’s arms, Iofi, Watame, and the rest of the girls’ reaction was but the same, “Oh, not this again…”

And Kanata, in all the commotion, being judged by the group of girls as she remained held captive by the father, could only watch down on shame, biting her lip. “Piss off… don’t look at me that way…” She whispered frustrated.

“I see…” Coco whispered with a cold voice, coming from the bottoms of the group on her human form, unscratched. While the crowded room by people overwhelmed the place with their awkward silence, the dragon-girl took the chance to step in front of the father, she gave him a murdering glance, analyzing him from head to toes. Next, she turned her head on Reine, and finally on Kanata. “I see… You’re scared,” Coco continued, “But, you’re not scared of him… you’re scared of what would everyone here think if you beat the crap out of him, I see it, on your eyes,” She lectured with her raspy tone, with her judgmental tone, “Am I wrong?”

“Tch, piss off you too, I don’t even know you,” Kanata mourned trying to avoid eye contact with her.

“Get out of my way; we’re going back to our zo-…” The father tried to move through Coco, but the girl quickly silenced him with a finger.

“But if that’s the only thing holding you from bodying him into crap, then is stupid, you know?” And quickly changing into a more amicable and cheerful voice, she smiled at Kanata. “Because you know? I’m pretty sure everyone here is eagerly waiting for you to beat the crap out of this guy, am I wrong?” She turned to watch the group of girls, who frantically nodded in affirmation.

Kanata gasped speechless, slowly standing up; the sudden realization led her to an emergency meditation. Still tied to the tight hold of the man, she swoop her tears with her free arm, gazed at the group of girls, who nodded once again giving her the green light, then to Reine, “Is it true…?”

“Well, Kanata… You’re never going to hear from me those specific words but…” Reine stuttered scratching her cheek; “You know? It should be about time you do it.”

“That’s… That’s enough! Nobody called for your opinion!” Now the father moved into a nervous shriek, as he quickly understood it was being placed into a disadvantage, “You’re coming with me, this time we’ll beat some responsibility into-…!” And for the third time that moment, he was quickly interrupted, but this time especially, by Kanata’s left fist, which flashed directly into his face, smashing it like bland puree, and finally releasing her from his hands.

“… Like that?” Kanata huffed, rubbing both of her wrists.

“Uhm… Nice swing, but you need more practice or you will hurt your hands next time,” Coco insinuated rubbing her chin.

“Practice you say…” Kanata now giggled devilry, and in front of all the girls, she took the father from the floor by the neck as if he were a piece of paper, “Let’s see, the thumb must not be inside the fingers… and you must swing all your body together and not just your arm, right?”

“Right,” Coco gave a straight nod.

“Wait, wait!” The father cried begging for mercy, but no one would listen to him, a second fist now sent him flying into the wall of Reine’s room.

“Phew… Certainly, I should’ve done it ages ago… hahaha…” With relief flowing inside of her body, the small girl fluttered with her tiny wings at the height of Coco’s face and extended her arm, “I’m Amane Kanata, thank you for butting in, and you are?”

Coco took on her hand and pulled her close for a strong handshake, “I’m your new Guardian, Kiryuu Coco,” She declared with a fanged smile.

Yet doubt remained unanswered, and the entire group kept on wondering, why did she want to be the Guardian?

Chapter Text

When the night made its stellar appearance, all the girls from the circle had reunited inside of Coco’s zone, the Red Tough Dragons. At first, the silence was a commuted reaction between the girls, and they immediately knew the dragon-girl they had been hanging with all day was far beyond a description of an exemplar Mayor, as a hoard of men made two lines at the entrance of her portal station, all dressed in black suits, bowing to her as she walked through the middle. The men presented a reverence of loyalty, of respect, of submission, Coco greeted some of them, shared a few words along the walk, brushed a couple of heads, and snarled a few words with hot ashes to fuel more fear and respect into them.

“What are you girls standing there for?” With a cunning smile, she asked the group, which had been watching from the other side, unable to cross from the shock. She didn’t need to put it onto words, they knew, they didn’t need to ask what she was doing in her zone, she knew very well, there wasn’t a need to spout the word criminal, it was written in the atmosphere.

But it wasn’t fear what they were feeling for the girl, they weren’t intimidated, nor did they have a desire to run away, they were, more than anything, surprised by her. And sharing gazes between them, they realized they probably wouldn’t have walked through that lines of men if they hadn’t met her before in the way they did that day.

Being guided by the scary-looking men, the group entered into a white skyscraper meshed with windows and met with a huge welcome party waiting for them. By order of Coco, the girls were left alone in the building; much likely a mall center, the dragon-girl quickly went to attend into an ignited barbecue in the garden area of the mall while telling the girls to, “Have fun!”

“I… guess we'll do…?” Iofi answered with concern, with duck lips she investigated the surroundings with her eyes, not walking further inside, but besides confirming, it was an obscenely huge and empty mall center, after a few seconds the next thing she spotted was Kanata pushing Reina and Luna as they sat inside a little supermarket cart, “Hey, the heck?!”

“She said to have fun, we’re doing as told!” Kanata cheerfully replied while using her wings to impulse the girls.

“Risu, have you ever wondered what is to go into a candy store when the mall center is closed?” With an excited and insinuating voice, Watame proposed to the squirrel.

“… Ma’am, you’re a mind reader,” Risu replied proud of her friend, locking on her arms, and walking away together.

“Coco let me help you with the grilling, but first… Let me assault the liquor store!” Aki quickly put her footwork into action, and with the dance of her waist and her right hand, she turned around in a gracious movement and speeded towards a little store to the supermarket.

“… Girls, for the love of the Spectrum, you can’t just…” Iofi tried to scold their sudden and lawless reactions, but it wasn’t taking her anywhere, feeling like a switch was unlocked and flipped inside them, the reaction of wildness kept growing.

“I think I’m going to play Ninja Fruit on the grocery section…” Anya whispered with a small but unshakable smile, pulling up her dart knives.

“… Well…” With red cheeks, the alien girl began to ponder, whether to let out a destructive desire inside her. “Uhm… I guess… I always wondered how Splatoon would be in real life,” And sparking on that thought, her feet began to walk by themselves, guided by a wish to do bad things, “I need to find the hardware store first… And glue some brooms together,” She said with a wider smile, now in control of her actions, she took on a sprint to the first level.

Soon enough, chaos was released on the mall center, not worrying for anything broken, not worried for anything wasted, the building was filled with laughter and screams, construction and destruction, and after a couple of hours of going wild and making an entire mess, they reunited back at the garden to eat Coco’s barbecue.

“Hahaha! Calm down, take small sips, let it reach your stomach first, and remember; spitters are quitters!” With an apron and spatula on hand, the dragon-girl continued guiding them into an animated fall into degeneracy, when they asked the girl if there was anything to drink with the food, she giggled and made a smile similar to one green Christmas character, opened a cooler near the wooden table they were sitting on, and shared with them many six-packs of plastic bottles with an effervescent purple liquid in it. Needless to add, the drink was packing a lot of energy inside, refueling the blood pumping inside of the girls, many of them who couldn’t keep sitting anymore.

“Wow… I FEEL INVINCIBLE!” Risu howled maniacally, using a roasted chicken leg to fight against the meat stick of Kanata, “Come at me bro, COME AT ME!”

“What is this magic beverage…” Anya wondered with a poker face, standing near the table, bouncing repeatedly on the same place, “I feel like I could skip jump like a rabbit until reaching the moon.”

“Oho? Looks like someone is good at drinking!” Coco said with a surprised shout, as Luna easily took a long sip of the bottle and placed it back on the table.

With furrowed brows, the princess licked the strange flavor on her palate making a couple of clicks, then turned to Coco concerned, “This nanora taste… Is oddly familiar…” She said each time more worried. “Just to be sure nanora… But you know the Endless Juice production was terminated, and that their nanora selling is prohibited, right?”

“Ehhh, that’s quite the taste buds you have, to think you will recognize that flavor,” Showing interest, Coco moved from the grill to meet with Luna on the table, took her by a shoulder, and puller her close. “You see, that’s not the real Endless Juice, because when I got to know about that amazing energy drink, I also found out the only fabric making it at Orange Festival was destroyed by the Mayor themself.”

“Yeah, I…” Luna hesitated to give an honest answer at first, looking at the cunning smile of the dragon-girl, she coughed on her hand and changed her reply, “I know about that too nanora, so why do you have it?”

“Well, between you and me…” With a malicious giggle, Coco kept stroking Luna by the shoulder, eagerly wanting to talk about it with someone. “It took me a lot of money, but I managed to get some bottles on the black market, and after a little of reverse engineering…” She now released the girl, and with both arms, on the air, she gestured to the second wave of chaos being produced by the girls on the mall, “Bam! Asacoco was born! Is two times stronger than what Endless Juice was, and soon, I’m going to make myself rich selling it on other zones!”

“Twice… Two times stronger you say nanora?” With shocking eyes, the girl quickly pushed the purple bottle further away from her grasp with the tip of her fingers, just as if she were handling a radioactive liquid. “I think I’ll pass nanora…”

Meat, drugs, and destruction; a party of chaos elaborated by a group of girls who had never gone that far in their lives until that day. It had come to a point where Coco felt obligated to call on a halt, as they were about to set on a fire at the kitchen hardware stores to cook frozen sausages.

”So, before we go to sleep, what if we finally talk?” Two hours past midnight, after the group had assaulted the camping gear and clothing store, changing into pajamas and preparing sleeping bags to get knocked off on the garden area, Reine called on everyone’s attention, as she approached Coco with a firm, and motherly tone. “Before it officially becomes another day, won’t you like to talk about the reasons why you reunited us here, and why did you take all that hassle to meet us one by one by flying across the virtual sky?”

“Haww I almost forgot about that…” Aki yawned with little tears on the corners of her eyes, getting ready to sleep she was combing her disembodied twin tails. “What is bothering you exactly? Whenever we tried to talk about it you always got troubled.”

“Well… I…” Quickly feeling tense on body and lips, Coco dropped her sleeping bag and scratched the back of her head ashamed.

“C’mon, we’ve done enough bonding, we even let you drug us for fun,” Roboco commented with a giggle from her corner. “Haven’t we gained your trust yet, won’t you tell us?”

Quickly growing red and nodding to their insinuations, Coco gave a heavy groan and massaged her nape. She took a walk across the girls on the sleeping backs, took a small wooden chair from the dinner table, and placed it in the middle and at the front of everyone, next, she pulled another bottle of Asacoco from the cooler, opened it with a – Bop! – Sound, and after sitting and taking a few chugs, she closed the lid and placed the bottle between her feet, her elbows pressing against her knees, staring at the group of girls. “I wasn’t a Mayor before the crash incident, I was just your regular citizen,” She began into a narration, understanding this; the group went silent and tried to get comfortable on their bags.

“Since I lived as a citizen of this zone when it happened, I experimented those three days as a citizen too and I… felt powerless,” Coco nodded looking down at the grass. “The Warriors of White, even The Rainbow, in that enormous disaster, you couldn’t find them anywhere, and the Guardian, the person who you would think will lead the people on a time of emergency, remained to protect the Spectrum,” She sighed and her voice grew with anger, looking at the girls. “On that moment of need… only three people responded and gave their help… where was everyone else when that incident happened?”

Silence.

No one could answer that.

Someone leaned further from their seats, their mouths opened, but no word came out.

“Are you… blaming us for what happened months ago?” At last, Reine came out as the only one capable to phrase the question.

“… In part, yes,” Coco nodded doubtlessly, “In a Virtual World filled with Mayors and amazing people with incredible powers, only three people replied that time, and they didn’t know what to do at all… In the meanwhile, everyone else was so focused on their own business, most you only noticed things were going south when everything came to an end.”

“That’s so uncalled for!” Iofi tried to retort, about to step up from her sleeping bag.

But Kanata took her from the wrist, shaking her head, “She’s right…” She told her with a cold tone, forcing the alien girl to sit back in her place. “If I had to be honest with all of you… I heard about what was happening… But I didn’t understand what it was all about and… I didn’t care to investigate further; I thought it was just some kind of failure on the system, and that it would stop soon… I was horribly wrong,” She crossed her arms and stared at the skylight on the garden area, “If I had tried to care more for what was happening, I could’ve borrowed my zone to Sora, and the number of saved people wouldn’t have been as small as we know it…”

“That’s… that is so…” Biting on her lips, Watame tried to reply at the accusations, but the little tears growing on her eyes, and the way her fingers tightened around the frame of the bag’s fabric, indicated she wasn’t used to delicate discussions. “I’m… what you expected for some of us to do?! What was I supposed to do?!” But her anger, and the remains of the dangerous drink on her veins, managed to pull a couple of shrieks out of her, “Not everyone was born to fight! Did you expect all of us would have been able to do something that time?!”

“Yes…” And bluntly and coldly, Coco dropped it on her. “All of the people here tonight could’ve contributed something during those three days…” She took on the bottle, opened it for a second time, and gave it a chug, hiding a burp with her left. “Supplies, beds, food, a zone to migrate to, weapons, armies; even encouraging words would’ve done well for those three too,” She emphasized with a lecturing tone, “But you didn’t, and that was part of why things ended the way it did.”

“And then you finally became a Mayor,” With an acute and prickly tone, Anya interrupted her. “So the reason why you’re now with us was to lecture us about what happened? Are you planning to become the new Guardian just so you could daily scrub in our faces how we did nothing?”

“… As I was saying before that…” But Coco ignored her menacing questions, stood from her chair, and began to slowly step across the sleeping bags. “I’m only blaming you in part… The truth is, while there was lots of things you could do, you were missing something which could motivate you to do it… Sky and Terra, even Blaze, we never needed heroes, we don’t need them now…” And all of a sudden, with renewed confidence, Coco smiled to the girls, “That’s right, my reasons behind becoming the new Guardian, it was to become a leader.”

She spun with grace, using her tail to equilibrate, extending her arms, confidence blooming, “I took all of you together because I want you, girls, to make me the new Guardian on the next elections, and the next time something happens, I will be the leader… and you,” Her fangs peeking as her smile widened, “You will no longer be the Love and Peace Circle, you will be, The Law, the Guardian’s special forces, something better than The Rainbow, greater than then.”

The blatant proposition from the dragon-girl quickly spurted laughter between the group, the words emanating from her mouth gave them all a ticklish feeling on their stomach, and sooner than later, the growing anger and guilt from being accused by Coco completely faded away. “We can’t even beat Kanata on a fight of thumbs… And you hope us to be something greater than The Rainbow?” Iofi hissed with sarcasm.

“Honestly, an alleged criminal trying to be the leader of a group called The Law… you can’t make that up!” Aki joined on the laughter, loudly clapping her hands.

“Yup, I know the hypocrisy behind it, that’s what makes it cool!” Coco nodded to the mockery, unshakable, with hands-on her hips she laughed along with them. “I’m not looking for the strongest people around, heck, even in that group; there are members whose specialty doesn’t have anything to do with their battle skills… But you, you’re all different,” She now started on a new theme, animated, agitated, “You, all of you! You have the most self-sufficient and peaceful societies in the Virtual World, and it is because you’re great leaders! That’s what is this all about, no heroes, no lone wolves!”

“Wait, wait, we get that part already!” Kanata gestured for a pause with both hands, unable to stop laughing. “Am sorry is just… We’re not laughing because we’re making fun of you, is just… wow, that took us by surprise,” The angel-girl now tried to untuck her legs from the bag and stood. “So what you’re saying is… do you trust us enough to help you save the world when the time comes?

“When the day ever comes, you girls are the first I want on my side,” Coco nodded once more filled with enthusiasm.

Almost four in the morning, the group of girls but Coco finally felt the effects of the powerful drink fade and fell into a deep slumber. While there was an immense sense of relief inside her body, there was something that continued bothering her, a sensation of danger, of uncertainty, staring aimlessly at the night through the skylight of the garden area, she was taking on long and deep breathes, hoping the uneasy feeling would soon disappear and join the rest of the girls into the dream realm. “Maybe I shouldn’t have taken that fifth bottle of Asacoco…” She whispered scratching the tip of her nose, and when she was about to deep her index inside her nostril to fight the boredom, she noticed Roboco slowly coming out of her sleeping bag, “Sh-… I wasn’t doing anything!” She loudly whispered with a red face, trying to excuse her finger without waking up the others, but the robot girl ignored her completely and started to walk away in the direction of the storage entrance of the mall on the level below.

“Excuse me…? The bathrooms aren’t there, wait, you’re a robot, what do you do? You pee oil?” She chuckled with a soft, raspy tone, but once again, it seemed that her words weren’t reaching Roboco in the sightless. “Uh? She can’t hear me, I didn’t know my tone was so low…” Obligated to come from her bag as Roboco kept marching to the wrong side, she went behind her back with a tricky idea in mind, walking on the tip of her polished toes, she giggled with a malicious intent to spook her friend. But as Roboco’s right arm got its bandages stuck on a knob of a store, the one getting spooked ended being the dragon-girl. When the bandages were pulled off from the knob, her arm showed to be covered with multiple, strange scars, it was a complete, and wounded human arm.

Coco’s sense of self-awareness began to tingle and she stopped pursuing Roboco from a close distance, instead, she moved into lurking mode and kept a fair distance between the two, seizing her breathing and walking behind her back with the delicacy of a cat. When her eyes illuminated like phone torches into the doors of the storage and her robotic-arm twisted the steel knob to walk to the stairs, Coco had understood she hadn’t taken that direction on a mistake, with fear slowly growing on her, her steps accelerated and muffling a scream of pain, she managed to avoid the storage door closing by smashing her finger in between the gap.

“What did you call me for? You’re supposed to be on standby!” A feminine voice scolded Roboco, as they were having a conversation on the bottom of the stairs, with Coco spying on them from the top. “Master you know how little smart you are despise being a robot, this has to be good or both of us are going to get yelled at for blowing our covers!”

“Tell the Grandmaster that the Spectrum has isolated itself on its zone, there’s no current way to get inside, and if we do, we’ll have to fight Moona,” Roboco explained diligently with an emotionless tune.

“… Crap, that’s… bad for us, we don’t have the fire power to fight the Guardian yet, I mean, we could, but if someone else comes to her aid, we’ll be pretty much screwed,” The other one on the shadows replied with concern, the feminine voice seemed to come from a figure on a dirty cape with a hood. “Wait, you say those are the bad news, do you have good news for me?”

And with a flick of her mechanical arm, Roboco’s stomach released a series of weird noises, and when shoving her human arm from inside the pajama top, she pulled on a battery filled with Crimson, and another battery filled with Red. “The Guardian tasked a weird girl to spread these batteries to the respective owners, I know is too soon, but there’s other nine of them waiting for me to pick them, so tell the Grandmaster I’ll be deploying phase three on my own as I pick them up.”

“That’s… That’s amazing; with enough of these batteries, we could… Wait what, you’re doing that? I mean, you probably can but...” The other voice doubted.

“Why not? Out of the three she’s the strongest, I say we give her the chance, I’ll make Master Calliope know about it, and Fangs will tell Master Pekora, we’ll be reunited at the end of phase three to make sure nothing goes wrong,” A third voice now announced with excitement, but for the bemusement of Coco, the third voice was almost identical to the second.

But the names and the words they were dealing with made her feel a cold shiver on her back, and when realizing the Red battery was the one she was carrying on her vault for her personal use, fear and self-awareness were replaced with anger, and without thinking further, she made her presence clear by stepping down loudly. “You… bitch! You were with them! Give me back my darn battery!”

“You… were watching us?” The third voice asked on the air, and almost immediately, the second figure and Roboco were both frightened, not of Coco having found them out, but from the third figure coming from the shadows, taking off her hood, and revealing the face of an eyeless blonde girl, preparing to pounce at her with a small and oddly looking knife, “Then die!”

“What in the f word is wrong with you?!” The sight of the girl’s face made Coco react in the same frightening way and leaving but a couple of winks to react properly, the girl had rocketed at her, intercepting her on the stairs. pinning her down. Coco managed to avoid the first stab aiming at her neck, but when confronting face to face with the eyeless girl, she ended up frozen with fear, her basic instincts of survival holding the knife down were also fighting with her desire to panic, cry and scream, her eyes locked against her will, staring deeply into the dark, putrid holes under her eye brows, “GET OFF ME GET OFF ME GET OFF ME!”

“HAHAHA, Is my face scary? Say, is my face scary?! Don’t worry! I’ll make yours look the same way!" The eyeless Haato menaced, it took her just a couple of seconds to recover her knife, ready to stab again the panicked Coco, when all of a sudden a naked foot appeared from the darkness of the stairs and kicked the eyeless Haato face, forcing her to roll down the stairs.

“Coco, keep it together!” It was Reine shouting at her, followed by Anya and Kanata, the three helped the dragon-girl to stand back up.

“That… that was awful…” Coco whispered still in shock, holding onto her chest with a hand.

“Tch, I never get to have fun!” Scrubbing her face with the dirty rag of her cape, the eyeless Haato complained, then turned onto the other two, “Let’s move, go get those batteries and zones, where are you going first?!”

With the second figure opening a warp portal by stabbing her knife into the air, Roboco glanced at the group of the stairs with an evil smile, “Well… I guess first… There are two hidden inside the bed of a silly sheep…” She laughed with compliance, and after the two hooded figures went through the portal, she followed them next, vanishing into the darkness.

“Wake up, WAKE THE HELL UP, WE’RE ABOUT TO GO INTO DEEP SHIT IF YOU DON’T!” Quickly moving back with the rest of the girls, Coco clapped her hands furiously and alarmed, switching the mall center lights to wake the rest.

“Why are you interrupting my beauty sleep nanora!” Luna pouted with a face mask and pickles on her eyes.

“Eh…? Is breakfast time already?” Watame yawned scrubbing her eyes.

“We'll explain to you soon! Just wake up and change clothes, hurry up!” Reine joined into the hastiness, taking Iofi from the armpits and pulling her out from the sleeping back.

“C’mon… pick it up, I know you’re there!” Hissing in anxiety, Coco drummed on the floor with one foot waiting for someone to answer the call dialing from a holographic screen.

– Uh… Uh? Coco? Is not even five in the morning yet, what do you want? –

A sleepy Moona answered with an acute and unabashed snore.

“Roboco was a traitor! She’s going to attack all the zones of the Love and Peace circle and steal their batteries!” Coco shouted into the screen, Anya, Kanata, and Reine quickly having to silence everyone who tried to scream in reaction to the call.

– What… Roboco? Wait, Roboco is a crash then? Oh, this is bad –

“You don’t need to tell me that, I need you to come and help us! We’re talking about nine zones here; there are too many people in danger!” Coco insisted with an aggressive voice.

– Sure, let me just take on my shoes and… Oh, would you look at that? Just yesterday we started on the sealing of this zone and it’s already the day after, don’t you remember what that means? –

With now a clear, woke-up voice, Moona sarcastically insinuated to Coco, leaving her speechless for roughly ten seconds before replying.

“It means… The firewall and other defenses are up by now… the zone is locked and you are locked inside of it too…” Coco mourned on the realization, massaging the bridge of her nose with a desire to scream on wrath, her mouth spitting on vividly red ashes. “What… What do I do now…?”

– Coco I… The only thing I can do now is to try and contact The Rainbow private lines and hope someone answers me on time… I’m… I’m so sorry; I can’t get out of this place to help you just… Just do what you can… You’re alone now –

“… No, you know what?” She insinuated when looking at the group of disorganized girls hurrying to strip from her pajamas and getting dressed up, “Alone is the only thing I’m not right now… I’ll see what we can do, talk to you soon.”

“Wait… Are you suggesting… us?!” Aki pointed at her face visibly scared.

“Yes… But there’s just a small problem,” Coco indicated while hanging the call.

“Besides that most of us don’t know how to fight?!” Iofi remarked as stress filled her body.

“Yes, you see… I suck at singing…” Coco declared with red cheeks.

“Oh… you have to be kidding now!” Reine shouted next, giving up on assisting the girls in dressing up, joining into the exasperated tantrums.

Watame spit the ribbons she was going to use to tie her hair, “That’s the last thing you should say at this moment! We only have the Bloom System! What do you mean you can’t sing?!”

Coco shrugged each time redder, losing her coolness she couldn’t reply properly to their screaming. “I try some times but it’s just… so bad…”

“Seriously now… The Guardian’s apprentice can’t sing? Like, I never understood why this thing Sora gave us is empowered by our voice but,” Kanata gave a big sigh landing on the ground.

“Then…” Anya raised her small hand on the air, calling on everyone’s attention, “Why don’t we just sing for her?”

Time was short.

Time was precious.

It wasn’t the moment to discuss, but to bring out solutions.

The unavoidable had become a reality, and everyone was forced to declare an exodus for all their zones.

The goal was for everyone on the nine zones to migrate and run towards Red Tough Dragons, no matter how impossible it was, or how cramped it would get later, they dictated the order, and all their assistants proceeded to follow as instructed.

“Took you long enough…” Roboco whispered with ticklish laughter at the end of her throat.

The robot girl had changed into attires, showing herself wearing a steam-punk version of the Wither System. In her figure, the old and murky wedding dress was made of some kind of metallic fabric, the tones of black, red, purple, and white made her appearance intimidating, being the most remarkable details the broken handcuffs on her wrists and neck, the crow of purple roses on the top of her head, and the Crimson and Red batteries attached behind her back by some type of outlet connection feeding her with energy. “Thought you weren’t going to show up, I was getting bored of waiting…”

Roboco’s threatening speech wasn’t made in vain, unfortunately for Watame, as she finally faced the robot girl; there was no longer a zone to save, nor to protect. What yesterday was vast scenery of green and small timber houses today was an infestation of bituminous liquid and crumbling edifications. “What… There’s nothing smart or snarky to say? Nothing about seeking revenge? Nothing about how I won’t get away with this?” Roboco persisted in her taunts, trying to make Watame show at least one expression of defeat; she was now surrounded by a hoard of crashes, with Risu’s and Watame’s batteries holding on each hand. “C’mon! There has to be something you want to say! I just took down your entire zone and most of your citizens in less than an hour! Say something!”

“… I just have one thing to say…” The sheep girl whispered, extending her legs on the remains of grass and bringing out a harp from her back, holding it in her hands as if it were a weapon. “… Bloom!”

Shinning on energy Watame’s clothes transformed into the asymmetrical dress, matching her colors and with tweaks on the area of her chest and the high knee socks. She faced Roboco, and she, delighted of the response, gently placed the batteries on the oily liquid, and faced Watame back, turning half of her body and preparing a baseball pitcher pose. “How brave, you think you can do something alone? Very well, I’ll take you down along with your zone!” Declaring the incoming punch, her mannerism was followed by loud piston and steam noises, and when her eyes sparked with Black, a simple movement of her heels sent her flying against Watame.

But it was because she was a robot; she could move and react with a speed greater than the ones of a normal virtual being. It was because of that speed, that she could observe and calculate the leap towards the sheep-girl with absolute precision, and it was because of that mental and physical speed, her reflexes were on top-notch. Just as Roboco was about the execute her fist and smash Watame, when her right leg landed back on the withered ground and was going to be used to strengthen her incoming punch, instead, she used the impulse to lean her body forward and push back with her ankle and knee, Roboco took a second jump backward, it all happened on a fraction of seconds, and her abrupt, sudden reactions, were worth to avoid the blast of blazing flames which tried to protect Watame from the punch.

When the bursting heat and shining flames were reduced into sparks in the air, Coco slowly walked to Watame’s side from the direction the flames came, fit on the asymmetrical dress of the Bloom System, she stood together with her, giving Roboco a fierce look. “She’s not alone… None of us are!” Coco menaced at her, and with their dresses gleaming with lights, and loud, orchestral music started to bang from all directions, the rest of the girls slowly met with the other two.

“My, everyone came to see me? What a rat-tag team, but I’ll give you kudos for trying to come at me all at the same time,” Roboco laughed condescending at them.

“Everyone ready, we’ll do it as practiced!” Iofi shouted at the girls, as she extended her arms aiming at Coco.

“Not like we had much time to practice, but let’s do our best!” Aki replied with worry, yet following her alien friend in the mannerism and aim at Coco.

“I see, so that’s your big plan?” Roboco easily concluded on their intention, leaping one more time at Watame, this time faster than before.

“Out of the way!” But thanks to the distance made in between the two, it was enough for Coco to push the sheep-girl and intercept Roboco, as the music kept increasing, joining violins, guitars, and artificial tunes, Coco was locked into a truce of power with Roboco, her body gleaming with a Red aura, their fingers interlacing to don’t let the other escape.

“I see, not bad for a new Mayor, you’re strong!” Roboco said, as their arms slowly moved up, trying to force the other into giving up, their foreheads smashing together into a headbutt, “Unfortunately for all of you, not strong enough!” She declared next, progressively adding her weight and Black, sinking Coco’s feet into the soft ground, “None of you are a match for me! After the Grandmaster, I’m the strongest crash ever existed!”

“And… You also don’t know when to shut the hell up!” Coco snarled back, giving a second headbutt, breaking on the truce by forcing Roboco separate from her when trying to deliver a kick into her stomach. “We’re going to stop you, one way or the other!”

“Hah, you sure don’t understand it, but perhaps this will do,” Roboco took a few steps backward, picking Risu's and Watame’s batteries from the ground, and connecting them into her back, each battery followed with a clicking piston noise, and a minimal portion of the colorful liquid began to flow inside her body. “Ah… That feels so good and invigorating…” Roboco said with a gentle moan of pleasure, “Now, let me show you what I meant, the gap of power between your group and me!” She declared with a battle cry, her body gleaming with Black and a small shine of Red she aimed her robotic arm at Coco with a finger gun, and the second after a ferocious blast of fire like Coco had breathed on her before was shoot from the tip of her index.

The huge wave of fire swallowed Coco’s body in its entirety, which didn’t bother to dodge but to cover her face with her arms, and from the sea of flames, a spark of a pastel Yellow popped and broke on the fire, showing Coco’s body being protected by a coat of fleece. “So you plan to use our colors against us…” The dragon girl whispered wearing a face fueled with anger, she took the fleece from a corner and shook it away.

“Whew… I didn’t think it would work, so my fleece is fireproof? That’s good to know!” Watame sighed in relief with nervous legs, aiming at Coco with both hands and flowing Yellow into her.

“And it seems yours is ‘two can play the same game’ am I wrong?” Roboco suggested breaking on the fire, now getting ready to launch on a physical attack.

“Then there’s nothing else to say!” Coco smiled wide, the Yellow disappearing from her body and now a gleam of Blue enveloping her right arm, summoning a giant paintbrush which she held on both hands like a baseball bat. “Girls, give this woman a hell of a song!”

They stood together with the dragon-girl, covering her back.

“I carry onward, one step after another
No time left to wipe away my tears…”

When the orchestral music reached its peak, Iofi and Reine began to sing, fueling her colors into Coco, allowing her to counter Roboco’s attacks with an amazing speed almost similar to the robot.

“Those tears weigh down my wings
Chaining me down, I sob once more…”

And when speed wasn’t enough, and Coco’s miniature dragon wings couldn’t keep up, Kanata joined into the singing, sprouting a second pair of bird-like wings on Coco’s back, allowing keep countering and resisting the rain of fists Roboco was delivering.

“I struggle to reach
The sun's impossibly far warmth
Always barely out of my grasp…”

And at the moment Roboco noticed a disadvantage started to show, Coco’s quitted on the asymmetrical dress and instantly transformed into a dragon, joining its big frontal reptile paws into a hammer-like fist to smash Roboco into the ground. Yet Roboco’s mechanical reflexes were faster, avoiding the area-damaging attack without a scratch, and suddenly starting to run away from the fight.

“Struggling and fighting
I gaze upon a distant sky
And my weakness drowns me in despair…”

Still, in her dragon form, Coco took on flight and circled the destroyed valley, taking on the girls and following Roboco. Sooner than later they would realize, that the robot wasn’t running away from them, but running in the intentions to meet with one of the hooded figures, who quickly stabbed a warp portal open and disappeared from their grasp.

“For so long my hurtful words
Kept those I rejected away…”

The girls kept singing, fueling Coco with power, there wasn’t time for hesitation, they all knew Roboco’s intentions in the first place. With all of the emergency lines open, Iofi was warned of the girl's coming, and Coco flew with all its might towards the portal station on Watame’s zone, going through the small entrance with all of the girls, not bothering to worry that it was going to be destroyed with her giant shape.

“But now I know
The bonds that tie us together
Are rooted in a dream of the past…”

And so, a chaotic chase started, with hundreds of thousands of citizens looking for safety, running away from their zones in the largest exodus yet, screams of panic and terror as Roboco appeared on each zone, easily contaminating her surroundings with venomous quantities of the dark, bituminous liquid. Corrupting everything and everyone near the grasp of her power, Coco engaged in the fight once again, turning back on her human form with the asymmetrical dress and falling on Roboco with a flying kick. With the two of them distracted from their fight, the rest of the girls took turns to keep singing and supporting Coco, with the others helping as many citizens as they could to escape.

“Our chosen paths intertwine and bring us power!”

Fusing her Red with Pink, Coco now fought Roboco with a giant set of knife and fork silverware, using them together to parry the powerful shots of Black energy she was being thrown at.

“We sing for tomorrow!
There's a song!
Somewhere in this world!”
There's a song!
Axia's Winds blow!
Tearing our chains away!”

However, even though their decision and willingness, knowing they could only do their best, helping as many people as possible, trying their best to stop Roboco from keep stealing the batteries, it wasn’t enough to compete with the speed, strength, the powerful reflexes and her instant process of information. The chase slowly wore them tired, as they moved from zone to zone, and they kept losing them, along with their batteries, and along with their people.

“Our connections save you from loneliness!
Even if you falter!
Don't look away!
Even as fear eats at you, stand proud!
Holding the history mankind made for itself!”

The only person who kept them motivated, the only person who kept them from crumbling into tears, as they continued losing, was Coco. She picked them up from the floor, carrying them in her arms if necessary, her words were filled with a firm conviction and sparks of ashes, no matter if they were losing, she was convinced of not giving up, and she managed to convince them to don’t give up either.

“Even in death…
We can't be beaten!
One for all!
Carry the flower of the future!
All for one!
To full bloom…
Live your life without regrets!

Making their last stance on Kanata’s zone, as it collapsed and slowly and dangerously lost the energy keeping it afloat, coming down to the floor, Coco resorted to focusing all their colors on her body, using brute speed and strength fueled by their energy to finally match with Roboco and keep on a hand to hand fight. But the combination of nine different colors was taking a toll on her body, and chasing Roboco through zone after zone was starting to pay the bills with extreme exhaustion on her body. She was covered in wounds and scars, her beautiful dress torn onto pieces, delivering blows and receiving blows in exchange, the power gap was yet again frustrating and visibly.

“I guess… That’s the difference between a virtual person and a Robot…” No longer laughing, no longer smiling, Roboco sarcastically said fixing her hair, hasty on words, and her back, a metallic ring half of the size of her body was decorated with all the batteries she had stolen. “If only you were made of steel just like me, you would have been able to give me a hell of a fight, but your body couldn’t efficiently administrate so many colors at the same time… Heh, I guess I also have to be thankful of my black properties.”

“Colors almighty… Why it's that you don’t know how to shut up?” Spitting on blood Coco complained of her villain speech, trying to stand back up and clean her mouth with the backside of her left hand. Their feet were slowly balancing on their own, as Kanata’s zone began to incline to one side, and the battleground acquired a diagonal perspective. “I’m still here… we’re still here! We’ll recover what was lost later; we just have to stop you now!”

“And how are you supposed to do that in that condition?” Roboco questioned with anger flashing in front of Coco, and with a fast movement of her robotic arm, she took her from the neck and lifted her body on the air, firmly choking her. “How many times do you plan to tell me to shut up though? Maybe is time you’re the one who gets silenced!”

“Coco!” The groups of girls were startled with fear, with Coco holding onto Roboco’s arm with her hands and swaying her feet to keep on breathing.

“Don’t come closer! I can do this!” Coco yelled back at them.

“Can you? Maybe if you keep on that strong will of yours you could manage something up,” Roboco mocked her while looking at a blank space on the left side behind her back, until a knife popped from thin air a war portal opened up, allowing a tall lady of long pink hair with a scythe to step into the falling zone. “But I’m afraid to confess you, you girls were always on a disadvantage.”

“…” Calliope analyzed the situation in silence, stepping into the fight together with One-side. There was an unknown contempt on her face, she took on her scythe and made the hilt rest over her right shoulder. “… Looks like you didn’t need me after all.”

“Just you? Where is the new girl? I wanted to meet her!” Roboco asked with laughter.

“She stayed behind for the last preparations of our plan…” Calliope sighed and walked towards Roboco.  “She’s waiting for those batteries, you better hurry up.”

“Oh really, very well then, let’s make haste and go back!” She happily nodded and gestured the struggling Coco like a rag doll, “Would you chop this for me?”

“With pleasure…” Calliope nodded with coldness, moving into a fighting stance and accelerating to them.

“PLEASE HEAR ME…

I WANT TO TELL YOU”

With an almighty tune, three girls appeared from the corner of a building, singing into a powerful chorus that made the ground tremble. Their singing joined with a colossal, floating edification darkening the sky. “Do you mind if we join the party?” A feminine voice questioned Calliope and Roboco, coming from a translucent curtain that appeared from thin air. Startled from the multiple sudden apparitions, both of the crashes leaped away from the curtain, leaving Coco falls on the floor, the second after, the curtain disintegrated with the wind and appeared once more behind Roboco’s back, and this time, a girl of blue hair tied into a side ponytail, wearing a beret on her head and two axes on her hands leaped out, attacking the robot from behind.

And just as it happened multiple times, the robot managed to perceive the incoming threat, responding with unnatural speed, parrying the violent chops of the axes with her robotic arm. “Tch… Who called you here?! The Star of the Rainbow… Hoshimachi Suisei!” She snarled defying her.

“Who else you think did it?” The girl posed with the axes graceful, preparing to lounge on a second attack, “Moona says hi!”

“Coco… Coco! Are you ok?” Kanata asked her flying in worry, hurrying with the rest of the girls to meet with her.

“I… I’ll survive…” Coco gave a stuttered reply, massaging her throat. Her eyes now posed on the girl of blue hair, dancing between Calliope and Roboco, appearing and disappearing from curtains and easily fighting against the two. She now glanced at the three girls running in their direction while singing, and the edification above their heads. “Who are these people… what is happening?”

“That in the sky is White Providence, Sky Hero’s mobile zone!” Anya energetically answered, pointing at the piece floating in the sky.

“These are The Rainbow's main forces! Moona did it, we’re saved!” Watame joined next.

“Tch, get out our way, this isn’t your business!” Roboco shouted at her, leaping away from Suisei’s attack range and changing objectives to the group of girls. “See you… in hell!” She cried while releasing a laser beam of Black energy.

“PLEASE HEAR ME

I WANT TO HEAR YOUR VOICE”

But the three girls managed to reach the fight in time, parrying the blast of unadulterated energy with a giant pastel Blue heart, a Purple Triangle shield, and a wall of Red flames respectively.

Swinging a wooden broom on her arms, playing with it as if it were a battle spear, a girl dressed as a maid and armed with multiple cleaning utensils, including a vacuum cleaner on her back, firmly presented herself. “I’m The Maid of the Rainbow… the one who cleans the scum that comes from hell!” She preached with an acute, chirping tone, red puffy cheeks on her smile. “Finally, I got said that cool phrase in front of people!” She happily thought.

“The Might of the Rainbow…” A woman of short black hair on a v-cut whispered, dressed on translucent reddish-plastic wear giving view to her black shorts and tank top, with an absurdly long loincloth hanging on her shoulders. “Roboco… Roboco it’s me! Azki! Please wake up from it!” With hands at the top of her chest, she begged the robot on the wedding dress.

“Calli… Calli!” The third girl cried in the same, saddening tone. When the wall of flames faded away, it revealed the figure of a girl of two hats and orange clothes, leaning forward and focusing on the reaper who tried to fight Suisei, “Please… It’s me! Don’t you remember me anymore?!”

“Uh… Uh, weren’t, weren’t we going to make a cool introduction to amaze those girls?” With pouty lips, the maid girl questioned in an almost inaudible voice.

“… Kia… ra?” Calliope murmured confused, feeling a sudden stroke invade her brain, “Eh…? Ugh…  Urgh!”

“Azki, Kiara, enough of that, Sora very well told us there’s nothing we can do about them for now!” Suisei snapped from afar, lecturing the girls while pointing at them with an ax. “Hurry up and take those girls inside White Providence, we’re leaving this place!” She ordered them, summoning a bigger curtain near Coco’s group, but only the maid nodded to Suisei and started trying to guide them inside.

“No, you won’t!” Roboco intercepted her movements and words, forcing her into another close-range fight. “Calliope, what the hell are you standing there for?! Kill those girls at once!”

“I… I’m trying but… my head!” The reaper cried in pain.

“Calli! Are you ok?! What happened to you?!” Kiara insisted, trying to approach her, but in the end, Azki grabbed her from the shoulder and forced her back.

“No… Suisei is right, is not the time yet, we’ll have another chance,” Now with both hands on her shoulders Azki whispered to her. “Our priority is to save these girls first, let’s move.”

“… Fine…” Kiara reluctantly nodded, and together with Azki they joined the maid and started to carry the girls into the curtain.

“Darn it Calliope, they’re getting a- whoops!” Trying to catch with the runners while snarling at the reaper, Roboco tried one more time to chase them, but an ax merged with a deep Celeste color swung on her at the border of her feet, managing to stop her from moving further.

“Unfortunately for you…” Suisei menaced with the spare ax, now multiple curtains appearing from all directions, whenever the fabric fluttered, you could only see a dark, deep void similar to depths space. “The one you’re facing, it’s me!”

Chapter Text

“Oooh for the colors, oooh the colors of the Spectrum why did I have to pick up the legs?!” A voice cried with horror and worry from the small portal being created in a dark, cold place. As it opened on a full two-by-two rectangular warp portal, the figure of Fubuki was the first coming out from it, carrying Matsuri on her shoulders, soon followed by an exhausted Luna.

“Shut up, I don’t want to hear it, move your ass into her Gear and hurry up!” Another voice cried, with a scolding tone mixed with despair, it criticized the first voice in a demeaning way. When the frames of the portal started to sparkle with an effervescent light, Shigure came out from the portal with tears on her eyes, carrying Subaru’s upper body into the other side by the armpits, and later joined by Achan who carried Subaru’s waist and legs.

Fubuki couldn’t discern anything in the obscure place, but she quickly and gently moved out of the way from Subaru’s aid and placed Matsuri’s body on the floor, and her head over her legs. She breathed out through her mouth and noticed the hot air coming out in a visible cloud from the cold around her, Luna quietly joined her beside and caressed Matsuri’s hair. “Erhm, I know you two are on a worry, but, I need medical help here…” She commented to the women carrying Subaru, which worry seemed to have forgotten the other three girls were with them.

“I, there’s, dammit, why the lights are turned off?!” Shigure tried to indicate a corner to Fubuki, but it was a pointless action inside that darkness, with a trembling jaw, tears, and shaking hands, she placed Subaru’s body over a table. “Achan turn on the lights how are we supposed to do anything?! Why did you switch them off?!”

“S-stop yelling at me for a second! I didn’t think Sora would do things so fast so I turned the lights off!” The tall skinny woman stuttered on a reply, placing her arms above her head after leaving Subaru’s legs on the table as if fearing to be smacked by Shigure. She took a couple of steps away from the little woman’s range and clapped her hands twice and firmly, an action which was followed by a large set of headlights illuminating their surroundings.

Where Subaru was placed was far from the ordinary table, the girl’s body parts were located over a platform of steel and circuits, and her entirety rested over a thin dark plate. On the base of the platform, a set of four cables came out from each corner, climbing down metallic stairs until connecting with processors of the size of a bookshelf. “What the… Is this…” Fubuki blabbered aghast, one arm over her face to protect her eyes from the blinding lights.

“It’s Subaru’s Gear, we had to come directly to this place for obvious reasons, but is impressive, isn’t it? We had to make a couple of extensions when-…” Achan quickly began onto a half-excited and half-anxious explanation, but just as fast, Shigure intercepted her.

“We don’t have time for that now!” With an ireful, trembling finger, Shigure menaced, she then dashed down the stairs, pushed a couple of buttons from one of the bookshelves on the right and another steel platform appeared, unlocking a large red case with a blue cross. She gave a loud huff and pulled the levers from it, running as fast as possible carrying such weight, almost throwing it to the side of Fubuki’s, “Sorry, I’m so sorry, I know your friend is also hurt is just, I,” Her eyes and her mannerism were completely erratic, she tried to excuse herself, she tried to apologize, but her thoughts, her eyes, and her body, were attracted to walk back to Subaru.

Fubuki didn’t need anyone’s help to understand, she just gave a stroke on Luna’s shoulder, and the quiet princess moved on opening the case, slowly bringing out disinfectant and smaller cases of medical utensils, the fox now looked at Matsuri’s, slightly checking on the top of her shirt, she could easily notice a flow of blood coming from her chest. “We’re… busy here too, go, your daughter needs you,” Fubuki replied to her coldly, not having the energy to face her.

“Thank you… thank you, I’m so sorry!” Shigure gave a violent bow, tossing her hat into the ground; then hurried to meet back with Achan.

“Can… Can you do it…?”Luna whispered with a croaky tone.

“It’s all superficial wounds; she’s not in danger… We just have to stop the bleeding…” Fubuki gave a low, angered answer, trying to find a way to unbutton or to tear in half part of Matsuri’s top, “Try to find some kind of anesthesia, syringe, and gloves, you may want to turn your eyes elsewhere too.”

But to the surprise of the fox, Luna’s movements increased on speed, and she quickly scanned the case with her finger, finding the required utensils and placing them to the side of Fubuki’s thighs. “It’ll be fine nanora… I won’t look away.”

“Just what is taking you so long?! Please hurry up!” And on the top of the metallic platform, which was placed in the middle of the spacious and cold group of processors, Shigure continued shouting at Achan.

“Would you please calm down? I’m trying to do these things as fast as I can!” Summoning into four different holographic screens Achan begged the little woman. Moving from left to right and up to down, toggling and fiddling buttons on the different screens, the thin dark plate began to react, and Subaru’s body parts were covered with a flow of energy, elevating them a few centimeters into the air.

“DO NOT!” Shigure screamed louder this time, her lower lips trembling furiously, loudly inhaling she menaced at Achan with the same finger as before, this time, it did look like she was about to punch the woman. “DON’T YOU DARE, DON'T YOU DARE FOR A SINGLE SECOND TO TELL ME TO CALM DOWN ALRIGHT?! THAT’S MY DAUGHTER, MY DAUGHTER, AND SHE’S UNCONSCIOUS AND SPLIT IN HALF LIKE SOME KIND OF MORBID SANDWICH!” She released into an ireful speech, almost barking, almost spitting, all her body was shaking with tremor, with fear, with wrath.

“I… I understand…” Achan whispered after a mouth of air, whether the screaming of Shigure was overwhelming and made her even more nervous wasn’t something she could put up to discuss. “She’s your daughter, that’s why I’m here… I won’t tell you to calm down, but you need to understand, everything’s fine now alright? She’s here on her Gear, and in a few seconds, the program should initialize…” Achan tried to explain as calmly as possible, leaning on the screens with both hands, trying to make the artifact begin to work.

“Just hurry up then…” Trying to wipe her tears, Shigure replied with anger, crossing her arms and starting to erratically walk in circles. “How… How did this happen, I, I don’t even understand… How is she still alive after that? What did happen?”

“… That’s, probably because of Matsuri,” Fubuki replied to the blabber of the little woman from afar, but her voice kept growing tired with the minutes, and both her and Luna’s action began to turn slower. “I… A lot of things happened in those couple of hours… I’m still having a hard time believing it was just two hours…” She narrated while trying to aid her friend. Placing gloves on her hands, she administrated a small portion of anesthesia on Matsuri’s shoulder, and with surgical tweezers holding onto a piece of damp cotton, she was cleaning the blood from her chest, while Luna decided to clean the wound on her knee. “I don’t understand how yet, but Subaru continues alive because of something Matsuri did to her, we… We’re all still here because of her…”

“Yes… Yes finally!” With an energetic clenching fist of victory, Achan interrupted, and now the platform had locked Subaru’s body parts inside of a cube of pale, Yellow, energy, connecting both halves with a line of energy with barely a centimeter of thickness. “I, I’m sorry, I know it's not time to be excited, but I’m glad I managed to pull this off,” She looked at Subaru now immersed in relief, hands on her hips, huffing like a child.

“Is that it? Was that all she needed?” Shigure questions pretending to be calm, but the grasp on her arms let show she was clinging her nails into her skin through the clothes.

“Yes, she’s fine now, but I’m sorry, I’m not completely sure of how this works, so I can’t tell you how much it will take for her body to be back in shape,” Achan said while walking down the stairs, picking up Shigure’s hat and handing it to her. “But let me say it one more time… Your daughter is safe now, so please…”

“… Thank you, I’m sorry…” Shigure apologized with a tiny nod and exhaled exhausted, taking her hat back. The woman gave it a couple of pats, trying to put it once again into her head, but when finally able to remove her eyes from Subaru, she shook her head and turned to Fubuki’s. “How is it going over there? Wouldn’t be better to send her to the hospital?”

“… I’m not sure anymore,” Fubuki replied uncertainly, slowly placing the tweezers on the floor. Sharing glances with Achan, Shigure and she walked down once again to meet with them. Fubuki was lost of words, the bleeding wound had completely stopped, the other two couldn’t get it either, but after fixing their eyes on the wound for a couple of seconds, they noticed, how the little cut was shrinking and healing, along with the cut on her knee. “I swear… This girl never stops surprising me.”

“Can…” Luna spouted incomplete; her words were trampled into a dry throat, making her cough.

“I…!” Shigure violently turned to Achan. “Bring up something! Water, juice, rum, I don’t care!”

And Achan took a step back with curled lips, “Seriously now, when do you plan to settle down?”

“Achan!” Shigure commanded with renewed anger.

“Fine, something to drink for everyone, this place should have emergency water bottles somewhere,” With a complaining groan, the tall skinny woman went to the processors of the right side.

“Wait just a minute dear, sorry for ignoring you so much, you’re all tired and wounded too,” Shigure now tried to apologize to Luna, hurrying to her side and stroking her back, all while using a motherly tone. “Thank you for bringing Subaru back, thank you so much…”

“Don’t worry about that nanora…” Luna shook her head, after coughing; she managed to recover the tone of her voice. “But, if it's possible… Can I ask something?”

“Yes dear, anything you want!” Shigure nodded firmly.

“Why is Subaru-…” And accepting the invitation, Luna tried to phrase the question, but this time, she was interrupted by Fubuki.

“Is it true Subaru killed Akai Haato?” With a serious expression, she coldly asked.

Nevertheless, say, the question startled Shigure, making her gasp acutely on a tiny quip. She separated slowly from Luna, and sat on her legs over the metallic floor, looking down and giving the saddest smile she could play. It wasn’t a question she was prepared to hear, much less to answer, her small fingers were now making a tight hold on the frames of her skirt, she didn’t know how to begin to explain it, with tears flooding once more from her eyes, she didn’t practice how to answer something like that, Shigure never considered it on the first place. After two awkward and uncomfortable minutes of silence, to the horror of Fubuki, to the horror of Luna, and to the horror of an unconscious Matsuri, Shigure gave a slow and firm nod.

“Here, this place isn’t a cafeteria so you’ll have to deal with pet bottles…” Achan commented, quickly coming back from the corners of the processors, trying to hand one bottle to Luna with the other four being held between her forearm and her stomach.

Pulling on her reserves of inner strength, Luna extended her right hand and took on the bottle. She opened the lid and gave a sudden chug to it, grossly moaning after it, cleaning her mouth without any delicacy, nor a desire for it. “Achan… Can I ask you something?” The little princess now gazed at the tall woman.

“I want my question answered properly first,” Fubuki tried to meddle, growing angry, about to snarl the women.

“There’s plenty of nanora time for that, I don’t care about it now,” And Luna replied, unexpectedly, just as angered as Fubuki, taking the fox girl out of guard making her step back with a gasp. “Achan… Why is Subaru healing like that nanora? While Matsuri just… she healed on her nanora own…”

“Pssst…” Spreading the bottles on the other two muted girls and unknown of why the overly tense mood, while clicking her tongue, Achan decided that placing her attention towards Luna’s question was better than trying to find out the reason behind the sudden change. “While I don’t understand how Matsuri miraculously healed the way she did, Subaru on the other side is healing from a deeper level than just a mere wound, her Core Data is going through a Creation process.” Achan began to explain, trying to control her energy and excitement, minding the heavy air, so it wouldn’t look as if she were mocking the situation, “In this Virtual World, we’re all made of numbers, that isn’t a secret for anyone here, but when we virtual beings get hurt, the system expresses accordingly, if I cut my finger with a piece of paper, my finger will obtain a wound and bleed, because that’s how we’re programmed, and so, we’ll heal as according…” She managed to pull a calm and almost motherly voice, sitting on the floor with all of them. “However, Subaru’s wound was bigger than what the system can emulate and well… How do I put it?” She paused, once again minding her words, trying not to laugh, trying not to lean into exaggerated mannerism, “The wound that divided her in half… She lost a considerable part of her code there, the numbers that made her, for some reason disappeared, and to create the code once more… That very specific line between the two parts of her body, the Gear is implementing the process of Creation for that.”

“I don’t get it…” Fubuki sighed emotionless; most of her attention was focused on cleaning the stains of blood from Matsuri’s chest and fixing the girl’s shirt back into place.

“Of course, and is fine if you don’t,” Achan suddenly let a peal of energy sprout, gesturing with her pointer, which, she quickly held with the other hand, and placed both hands on her legs with remorse. “In the system, there are four methods to process data, Erasing or Deleting virtual matter just means to convert something into their elemental composition, after that, is restored if needed, a common way to conserve things, or it can be Depurated¸ the method Sora and Subaru, and now other Mayors use to save people who turned into crashes so they can come back to their respective cities…” Feeling her explanation was growing long, she gestured for a pause to open one of the pet bottles and take a sip, fix the position of her legs, and continue. “While we know deleted things can be restored, Restoration is a different term, one of the four methods, and a taboo, since it takes third party-data, and uses that information to create something completely different, destroying that information's original purposes, then finally…” She gazed up behind her head to the energy cube which suspended Subaru in the air, “The power of Creation, is the power which resides on every Gear, the ability to use the known data of the system to create, a method which we don’t have enough knowledge as we had never needed it, but in our particular case, is using Subaru’s Core Data as a sample to create once more that very specific part Subaru’s body is missing… blood, bones… guts…” She nervously finished, not knowing if to remark those specific parts were going to sprout another bad reaction towards her, but for her luck, everyone was lost on their thoughts to attack her.

“I… I still don’t get it…” Fubuki mourned with a hunched back.

“Well I… sorry, I don’t have the way to explain it more easily right now,” Achan apologized with pouty lips.

“No… It just, I guess is finally starting to get on me you know?” Fubuki began to say with a dizzy voice and half-closed eyes. “Hehe… Can you imagine waking up from a three-year coma and being told only two hours have passed by?” Her body swaying to the sides.

“… Excuse me, I’m not sure I’m following,” Achan's upper teeth came from out her lip with confusion.

“Nanora… Even though I was the one who made the question, the words are not nanora going inside me… I… nanora…” And with just a whisper, Luna won Fubuki on the exhaustion race, losing consciousness and dropping her body on the floor.

“Uhm… Is so cold,” And at the same speed, Matsuri began to awaken from the middle of the girls, getting up from Fubuki’s lap startled. “We were… And I was… my shadow and the light… what is this place?” She instantly began to spout on nonsensical phrases, getting anxious, unable to identify the artificial and cold surrounding from the battleground she was just hours ago.

“Oh… Matsuri, thank goodness you’re fi-…” Fubuki smiled at last, and with that tiny, silly smile, the girl followed Luna and passed out on the floor.

“Eh, wait, Fubuki?! Eh?! What is happening, Luna you too?! And, and…” Matsuri now entered in a state of true anxiety, watching her friends knocked off on the floor.

“Matsuri, take a deep breath dear, you all have gone through a lot, you should sit before you pass out like these two,” Shigure explained with a kind smile, trying to pacify her and convince her to sit again.

But when Matsuri’s eyes found Subaru, it made her quiet. She observed calmly the girl split in half being healed, but for some reason, her tongue clicked with disinterest, then looked once more to her friends, and finally, Achan and Shigure. “Hey…

…

…

Did Subaru kill Akai Haato?”

Chapter Text

– Beep beep beep beep beep beep beep beep beep beep –

On a quiet and windless morning, the alarm of the smartphone went off with its dull and artificial tune. “Oh, this thing… Do you have your alarm settled to ten in the morning? That’s pretty concerning,” A feminine voice said with a small giggle, a figure of a girl inside a hospital room tried to fiddle on the screen of the phone which wasn’t hers, in an attempt to switch the annoying sound off.

– Beep beep beep beep beep beep beep beep beep beep –

On that quiet and windless morning, the coldness emanating from the ceramic floor of the room was rapidly overwhelmed by the warmth, unfiltered rays of the sun knocking on the crystal windows void of curtains. “This thing won’t turn of… erhm, but you’re up by now right? Or… Guess not…” The girl said approaching the fox-girl on the hospital bed, she took subtly on one of Fubuki’s wrists and it dropped lifeless on the bed when she released it, “… Like a log.”

– beep beep beep beep beep beep beep beep beep beep –

But the unfitting obsolete ringing of the phone continued, and it progressively increased its volume as the girl failed to unlock the screen and switch it off, soon enough, an android nurse would knock on the door of the room and ask the girl to switch It off, as it started to echo across the other rooms and the hall. “I’m so sorry! I’ll tell her to put it down, sorry to cause trouble!” She bowed to the nurse and repeatedly apologized until the android just gave a shrug and abandoned the room.

“Hey, sorry to wake you up, you must be so tired… But I don’t know how to use your phone, can you switch it off?” Matsuri walked back to the bed and began to shake on Fubuki’s shoulder, managing, at last, to bring her consciousness back from dreamland.

Fubuki gave a couple of confused moans, trying to understand her words, and without opening her eyes nor getting up from her position on the bed, she extended her hand and gestured to get the phone handed. When she felt the weight of it on her hands, she shoved her arm back into the blankets and brought the phone up to her face. Opening just a quarter of her eyes she gave a couple of taps on the screen and a swap of her hand, finally turning the alarm off, closing her eyes again.

“Pfft, very well, we aren’t in a hurry, sleep as much as you want,” Matsuri laughed softly with a hand over her mouth, sitting back on the chair near Fubuki’s bed and caressing her head with the tip of her fingers.

As Fubuki’s ears tingled startled by the feeling of Matsuri’s fingers scratching close, Fubuki’s heart gave a sudden jump, and summoning her strengths in that small gap of adrenaline, she crawled with her arms to get up, alarmed, gasping. “Where are we?!” She asked nervously, but her body was lagging on her reactions, a long yawn passing through her mouth.

“Easy now, we’re at the hospital, you girls have been sleeping like babies for a while now,” Matsuri tried to explain with both hands slightly up, unknown of what forced her friend to react that way.

“I…” Fubuki sighed on both realization and tiredness, her arms pressed against the mattress was the only thing keeping the girl’s upper body from landing back to sleep, not even her neck had to strength to stand, her back making a long curve of laziness. “… Sorry, I had a déjà vu for a second there… Thought I was on…” But giving another sigh, the girl shook her head and left the phrase incomplete. With a yawn she stretched her arms in the air and obtained the strength to straighten her back, now scratching her head and ears with both hands, she licked her dry lips and opened her eyes completely, “How did I end up here, where’s Luna?”

“Oh, right to your side, I had just finished to spoil her and I was going to take my time with you next, you both look so cute while sleeping,” Matsuri explained with a sweet and relaxed tune, her hands leaning on the frame of the chair seat, her legs shyly swaying.

Fubuki turned and confirmed the small pink princess on the bed to her side, profoundly asleep and drooling a large thread of saliva on her pillow. The fox now took on her pillow and placed it on the wall and pressed her back against it, taking a deep breath and fixing her long white hair behind her shoulders, she now looked at Matsuri with a smile, “What about you? Have you slept at all?” She wondered while unconsciously moving her right hand up to Matsuri’s face, caressing her cheek.

“Uh and since when are we this lovey-dovey?” Matsuri mocked on the strange gesture with a bit of sarcasm, but at the same time, she leaned her face against her hand and her back towards Fubuki. “I’m fine… honestly I feel quite recharged for some reason, so I’ve been here just waiting for you two to wake up. After Subaru’s was placed on her Gear, they took us all out and called on an ambulance to pick us up and take us here, it has been six or seven hours after that.”

“You say you were spoiling us, what’s wrong to give you something back?” Fubuki giggles back, gently caressing one side of her face and cheek without touching her ear.  “I see… I guess of all things which happened back there, Subaru’s wound kept being a constant…”

“A constant you say? Since when do you analyze things in such a cold way?” Matsuri asked with an acute sound of concern.

“Is not that, I’m just… As I said, a lot of things happened, and I guess I’m trying to convince myself of what is real and what is not,” Fubuki explained with a renewed and firm voice. A feeling of calm invaded her body, even though most things weren’t fully explained, Subaru was finally being treated and Luna and Matsuri were right to her sides, it was enough to bring calm on her for a moment, enough to enjoy it, but when looking down at the floor, she sketched a bittersweet smile, “You don’t have a shadow…” She whispered.

“That was fast, how did you notice so soon?!” Matsuri shrieked with surprise, quickly shoving both hands on her mouth after it. She stepped out of the chair and from Fubuki’s hand grasp, walked near her bed, stepping on the ceramic back and forward and giving a spin, no matter the gesture her body realized, the light emanating inside the room, and the small lights from the light bulbs switched on, altogether refused to cast Matsuri’s dark silhouette on the floor. “It disappeared after that… I don’t get it, but my shadow was alive? And then that other thing of flames, it was almost as if the two of them were fighting inside my body… but now they’re both gone,” She commented on the events which transpired, holding on her chest with a bewildered expression, “It was all so weird, but whatever it happened saved us, well that and Sky Hero, say, do you think now I’m some kind of monster or something?”

“Oh, don’t be silly, you’re just Matsuri, that’s all it matters,” And as if Fubuki has practiced for that moment, the girl replied to her friend almost immediately, with a wide teethed smile, after all, they have all made sure of that.

“Seriously, since when did you start to be so caring for me? It’s a bit weird! Not that I hate it though,” Matsuri smiled back at her just as wide.

“Well, someone made me realize I should care for you more often, so I’m just trying to do so,” Fubuki mentioned while getting out of the hospital bed, noticing her formal clothes folded and placed on one corner, and her body dressed on a hospital robe, she quickly built on a dressing room on the corner with the mobile curtains and began to change.

After dressing up, and poking Matsuri’s eyes a couple of times as she tried to peek inside, Fubuki combed her hair and they both waited for another two hours until Luna woke up from her slumber. Helping the princess to get dressed next, they quickly got dispatched from the hospital after signing a couple of papers and walked out of the building. Refusing to have an unsavory lunch in the cafeteria of the hospital, their next destination was to search for a place to eat in the city, the three girls soon recovered their energies through, food and foolery between them.

But when the evening hit, and the yellow sunlight was decorated with a speck of orange on the sky, silence reigned one more time between the three, as they didn’t know whether to talk one more time of that happened back on White Peko Land and about of the unconscious girl being taken care of a couple of meter below their feet. In the end, Luna decided to call on Shigure to explain to her they were out of the hospital and they now were going to return to their respective zones.

Four days passed by when the three girls decided to reunite once more and visit together Yellow High City. They took no doubt and visited the Mayor hall soon as they warped, making haste into the mayor’s office, where Shigure, a small robot, and two virtual men were working all together as deputies of Subaru’s daily work and paperwork, with the only intention of visiting Subaru.

“You haven’t told any of the other former mayors living on Yellow High that Subaru’s here? Mio appeared two days ago asking what had happened… And I had to lie to her because it felt it was something you should’ve told her earlier, why the secrecy?” Fubuki formulated to Shigure, the group of four girls walking down the stairs from the Mayor’s office and back to the ground floor.

“Sora asked us to keep hidden that Subaru is being held on her Gear, for now, she was very explicit to don’t let others know until the time was proper,” Shigure replied without looking at her, she was taking the lead between the group, guiding them through the multitude of androids and virtual people. “She said the Guardian was going to call on a reunion and then all mayors would be informed of things which happened, I also don’t understand why the secrecy, but… you know? I’m still in overprotective mode, you could say, I won’t be able to be at ease until Subaru wakes up again…”

Separating from the crowds and traversing through the less-visited halls, they quickly landed on the hall with a notorious locked door. With a couple of girly groans, Shigure forced the door open and continued guiding the girls downstairs, as the temperature started to drop with the subtle clouds of cold mist and the buzzing noise of computer processors consumed the quietness. “What about Achan or Sky Hero nanora?” Luna now questioned.

“These past five days Achan has been here on the Gear, watching out for any changes on Subaru…” Shigure paused on her explanation when a mournful laugh invaded her body. “That woman, after all the trouble she gave us on the daily… I’m glad she’s the way she is, I barely know how to open this door you see? I never thought distancing me from Subaru’s work would turn out to be so inconvenient,” She explained with sad sarcasm as she pointed on the locked steel door at the bottom. With the small gap of space of the stair making it uncomfortable for the four girls to stand on the steps just waiting, Shigure hurried to proc a holographic screen and introduce a long series of numbers until the locks and hinges of the thick door reacted, opening on itself.

When going through the main door of the underground level, Subaru’s Gear emulated the sight of going inside of a public library, with the multiple computer processors making for the bookshelves. Large clouds of white mist floated all around the room illuminated on fluorescent, artificial lights, both the temperature and the buzzing of the machines had exaggerated from the last time the girls were there, making them shrug and scrub their shoulders on a matter of seconds, forcing them to speak louder for their voices to be heard over the ambient noise.

“Why is this place so big?!” Fubuki asked Shigure quickly annoyed by the combination of coldness and noise. “I mean, Gears are all supposed to be big, it stores the data of the mayor and their city, but this is way bigger than usual!”

“Sora made extensions to Subaru’s Gear months ago when the crash incident happened! It was so she could be on top of what they needed to do on those three days! Subaru wasn’t the strongest girl around; most of these processors were to boost her strength!” Shigure replied on the same volume, hands over her ears trying to muffle the sound.

Yet the noise reduced on the center of the vast room as they walked inside a thin energy field that separated the Core Data platform from the rest of the processors. Soon enough, they would meet again with the image of Subaru floating inside of a cube of energy in the very center of the room, suspended over the metallic platform which slowly and steady, tried to reunify Subaru’s halves with a thin thread of energy filling the middle. “Oh, you girls came back? Well, as you can see, this is going darn slow,” Achan waved at the girls from afar, she was sitting beside the metallic platform.

The woman was wrapped on a couple of thick blankets, and around her was a conspicuous amount of empty microwaved meal cups and boxes, an electric kettle, and a couple of laptops connected to the platform. “Any problems?” Shigure asked quickly climbing the stair to meet with her.

“Just the usual power-ups and downs, but the program has never stopped from working, don’t worry,” Achan explained while tightening her wrap of blankets, rubbing her nose on the inside, and breathing on her hands. “But thank goodness you decided to walk down here; I’m running out of food again.”

“Silly, I know you’re here, I was going to bring you lunch and all the other things this afternoon,” Shigure gave an honest giggle while stroking her back through the blankets.

“Power-ups and downs? Just how much energy is this consuming?” Fubuki climbed the stairs along the other two to meet with Achan.

“Way more than I thought, it is the very first time a Gear is being used this way, after all, formerly, the power of Creation was just a passive program used to build things around the cities, it wasn’t meant to recreate… erhm… living matter so, the Gear is trying to adapt and grow from this new experience, which has been resulting on power loses all around the city,” With a calm voice she started on a narration, not even the bracing cold inside the room could stop her from nerding off on the things she was absorbed on, nor she stuttered or her teeth clank along the way of her speech, although the calm and the firmnesses in which she said it all indicated more self-awareness than what five days ago.

“And how much left is going to nanora take? Are you sure this is going to work?” Luna asked while approaching the energy cube.

“Not sure, the process is as slow as when it started but…” Achan indicated now, tapping on the keyboards of both laptops to check on the info files being registered on live. “At some moment, the Gear should pick up all the information and energy problems, and automatically create a new procedure on its program to accelerate Subaru’s healing, if it does, it’ll be great because the Gear while be sending that same info to the others across the Virtual World, and every mayor will able to count with this resource in the chance of an emergency.”

“That is good and all but… That isn’t for what we came here,” Matsuri interrupted Achan’s with hands on her hips. Since the beginning of their trip, their visit to the Mayor hall, and their small walk to the Gear, Matsuri spent it completely quiet, but now, with a serious expression, and forcing her voice to demonstrate that seriousness as much as possible, she turned and directed to Shigure, “I want you to tell them exactly what you told me five days ago.”

“Ah… It was because of that…” Shigure huffed and forced a smile. She looked down on the floor by reflex and her fingers began to fidget with nervousness, “I suppose things are going to be like this from now on right? Not that you girls can help it.”

“Hurry up, c’mon,” Matsuri insisted insensitive, snapping her fingers in response to Shigure’s stutter.

“Hold on, we get it, no need to be so rude,” Fubuki hurried to say, holding onto Matsuri’s wrist so she would stop on such a despicable gesture.

“It’s fine Fubuki… if you girls are angry about it then there’s nothing I can do, you have the right to after all.” Shigure shook her head with a sad smile and tried to reincorporate, all while Achan focused her attention back on the laptops, reducing her presence feeling outcast of what was going to come. “You girls must remember, since you both asked us before falling unconscious, about what Subaru did to Akai Haato when the crash incident happen,” She decided to narrate, building up the strength to speak it out, now holding both hands at the height of her belly. “This is just what Subaru told me of what had happened, and I only know of the events from her perspective… Six months ago, the former Mayor crashed, she was… a girl nobody knew enough; only that she was some kind of creepy and weird. From what Subaru told me, there was something very weird with that girl, as if her shadow had been possessed her, and that possession was what deliberately started on the chaos sprouted on those three days…” She sighed with heavy remorse, inhaling through her nose looking for the energy needed to finish her story. “On the third day of the crash incident, realizing things wouldn’t stop until they did something about Akai Haato… and not knowing how to save her, since depuration didn’t work on her…

On that third day, out of means to help or save her, and having lost so many zones and people, both Sora and Subaru decided the only way to stop that madness was to kill Akai Haato, destroying her core prism.”

Chapter Text

“Let’s talk a little about death, shall we?”

A blonde girl lying on the floor with blood and debris pronounced with a soft tone.

“Death…  Is the end of being alive, that much anyone can understand don’t they?”

She narrated between a long gasp of pain.

“But nobody speaks enough about death, because it scares them, trying to comprehend it feels like stepping on taboo for many.”

Her voice, her words, her breathing, were corrupted on a strange noise, her throat emulated damage compared to the one of radio with static problems. Her speech was contaminated by an odd and artificial interference.

“After all, it is hard to comprehend for many, but even in this digital world, even inside this system, numbers can still disappear, data… which once had a purpose, can just vanish from all other possible calculations…”

From the corner left of her lips, a thin thread of blood slowly poured, bright and dense as she spoke.

“So why not talk about it? It feels like is the proper time to it, let’s talk about death.”

Her clothes were just rags; a long and dirty hood covered most of her body and acted as a pillow from under her head.

“Death, to die, is to stop breathing, to cease existing, for the numbers of your data to be eliminated from the calculations of the system, for your purpose, if there had been any, to come to a complete halt.”

Her body remained immobile on the dirty floor, damaged, wounded.

“Can you imagine what is to die? Have you ever considered what will you feel when the time to die comes? Do you understand what is to stop breathing?”

She asked with a soft and gloomy giggle.

“Is not only to stop breathing, is your own body deciding it doesn’t need to breathe anymore because your entire program is collapsing, but there’s also no reason to keep on the struggle, your body, your data, concludes to give up.”

Her face was devoid of eyes, just two black holes from where dry stains of blood poured.

“So when your body takes on that one last, deep breathing, when your lunges are filled, when your eyes are the brightest, when you feel you’re holding on the very edge, that’s when your body breathes out, and on that exhalation, everything ends.”

And from the inside of the wounds on her body, small, broken and sharp crystal Red fragments poured like an infection spreading through her skin.

“To die is to stop breathing; to die is to become nothing, that’s what it means to be alive and death on this virtual world.

But even so, to die in this world is really unthinkable, things usually do not die, most virtual beings here have extremely long life spans, some citizens could even tell you stories about when the system used to run on HTML only, it is such, to die on this world happens once in a blue moon.”

She spoke to another girl laying on the ground parallel to her, a girl of brown hair in a two-piece dress.

“But at some moment everything has to come to an end, such is death, an unavoidable and relentless force, the action of stop breathing.”

The girl of brown hair listened to her speech with remorse, breathing through her mouth with an agitated chest, her face, and her arms and legs were covered with bleeding wounds. Her eyes and mouth too were bleeding from the corners.

“Some virtual beings have the luck to just die, to die peacefully; do you understand what that means? It means to stop breathing on your terms, the bitter-sweet concept to receive dead comfortably on your bed, on your house, surrounded by loved ones, who will with happiness, melancholy, and sadness, gladly spend your last hours alive with you, the romance of sharing that exhalation with the people that were worthy of keeping with you until the end.”

The more she spoke, the more the interference mixed with a tone of sadness, hiccups, a desire to bawl, to break, exhaustion, a desire to give up, insanity, a desire to laugh, to mock on her own, on her story.

“But I never had the chance to exhale in such a situation, didn’t I?”

Morbid sarcasm.

“I was never someone who could make it possible to be surrounded by people before the dying day.”

Laughing perverted sarcasm.

“Because I was forced to exhale, to stop breathing, to cease existing, for my numbers to vanish.”

With a quip of strength, she turned her face towards the wounded girl of brown hair.

“Because you and Subaru forced me to exhale, didn’t you both?”

She asked, with a little giggle in the end, with rage, with sadness, with sarcasm, until Sora, while slowly tearing up, nodded to her accusations.

“Well, while is fun to say me, I am but a fragment, you could say, I’m the resentment that was leftover, all of the memories, and all of the feelings, but just the shatters of that person, me, Fangs, Glasses and One-Side, shatters of that girl who you and Subaru killed.”

Sora managed to turn her face, staring back at the eyeless girl as she cried in frustration.

“I’m sorry…”

The eyeless girl responded with a burst of laughter, despicable laughter; powerless, rageful laughter.

“Do you think I care?”

They both held on their weapons firmly, hoping for the chance of a second wind, a knife, and a rapier hoping to clash once again against the other.

“Do you ever wonder what I felt before stop breathing, do you ever wonder what I felt before my eyes shone the brightest? Do you wonder about what I felt and thought before that deep mouth of air, do you wonder how it felt to, against my will, against my volition, to lose the control of my body, of my program, to watch life flash through my eyes, to lose consciousness until completely fading? Do you have any idea of how every second of it felt?”

But Sora did not answer, she could only look at the eyeless girl conflicted, a sinking feeling tightening her chest as the corrupted voice guilty tripped her for her actions.

“Oh I remember, every second of it clearly, the moment when you pierced me with that rapier, on my very heart, the moment Subaru gave the final hit with that technique you taught her from my back.

I remember, how I felt my Core Prism being revealed, its defenses disappearing, my life, my soul, my source of existence, from both sides of my body, with your beautiful White and her stunning Yellow, managed to go through my Red and my Black, my skin, my blood, my muscles, nerves, and bones…

The power of both penetrating through my data, my program, the numbers that made me, and reached to that special thing nobody should have been able to touch my Core Prism. Oh, I remember, the very first second of how that felt, it was as if you both had touched my heart from the sides of my body with a boiling and sharp surgical needle, I got cold feet the very next second, did you know? When you girl touched me with that power, that moment instantly, it was the most terrifying and stinging pain I ever felt, it was horrendous and confusing at the same time, I thought you were trying to scrap my heart open, I didn’t even know there was something as a core inside all of us, it felt so weird, so overwhelming…

The second after that I felt dizzy and puzzled, why pointing at my heart was such a weakness? You knew something I didn’t, and you took advantage of that, when I realized, at last, there was no way my heart would clank like glass while being punctured by your attacks, it was too late, that tiny bit you girl managed to crush, to shatter, forced me to breath in, and breath out, and without realizing, everything had ended, losing consciousness everything ended, against my will everything ended…

Yes, you two, Oozora Subaru, Tokino Sora, that day, you murdered me.”

Sora huffed softly and slowly turned back to look up at the dark, clouded and contaminated sky.

“… You sure have had time to think about it…”

Blindfold giggled with anger, joining her to stare into the darkness.

“Of course, there isn’t much to do when you’re just leftovers of rage and sadness.”

Sora coughed in pain, holding on to her chest.

“You almost got me today though… Aren’t you going to finish me off?”

Blindfold laughed.

“If I could I would do it, believe me, but if I do the Grandmaster would get mad at me, she wants to be the one who brings you to an end after all.

But I guess this is enough… I almost killed you today, and Subaru had the chance to experience exactly what I went through, you could say we’re even… almost even.”

Sora took a deep breath, licking the blood off from her lips.

“Right there… You sang, without the Bloom System, without the Wither System, you sang and, everything around you crumbled… How is that possible?”

Blindfold huffed from her nose.

“It was an all or nothing moment, I didn’t know if it was possible, but since we had corrupted so many zones, I thought to give it a try… After all, I had to save Calli from being defeated by you.”

She turned her head to another side, looking at the tall lady of the scythe knocked out on the floor. Far in the distance, Fangs, too covered in wounds and spiked of crystal fragments pooping from her body, had managed to stand up and was pulling and unconscious Pekora from her left ankle, trying to put her inside in one of their corrupted warp spaces.

“Leaving that aside, the way you ran away from me as soon as you figured out what I was trying to do was hilarious… I never thought to see you making such horrified expression.”

Blindfold mocked on Sora, almost friendly.

“It was horrifying, your voice suddenly overwhelmed my ears, and before I knew it wounds were opening on my body, bleeding… As if multiple invisible knives were drawing lines in my body from the inside out… It is more reasons to stop you before you can sing like that again before that voice becomes more destructive, I need to find a way to stop you.”

Sora explained with the ink of sarcasm in between, almost friendly.

“Cry, Cry, this primitive feeling, it won’t do, won’t do. This inadequacy… is it love?”

Blindfold teased, humming on notes, a slight, shake of energy coming from her voice which shook both their bodies with pain, blood instantly being splattered from their wound which barely had stopped pouring.

“Urgh… Please, don’t start it again…”

Sora cried while holding on to one of her ribs, her mouth once again flooded with blood.

“Hate to say this but, I’m with her on that, stop it, it’s not funny anymore.”

Fangs interrupted the ill chatter of the two, and with a heavy sigh, she took Blindfold from both feet and started to pull her away from Sora.

“Oh, looks like my Uber is here, very well Sora, the next time we meet, it shall be the last…”

Blindfold waved in the air as she was being dragged, even though none of them could stare at such expression.

“Say… Shouldn’t I use this chance to take on the Rapier of Solemnity?”

Fangs questioned while pulling on her sister, her eyes fixed on the delicate sword on Sora’s hand.

“Knowing her, she just would go try to find another of the Sacred Weapons, and, that thing is like Excalibur, it won’t work on our hands for some stupid reason.”

Blindfold responded with tiredness.

“Bleargh, whatever, we need to get the hell out of here before her sequito appears.”

As she dragged on Blindfold, the girl took on Calliope’s ankle and dragged the tall woman along. While Fangs, pushed as hard as she could, until everyone was inside the portal, she released Blindfold’s ankles and took the frames of the portal, zipping it close.

Chapter Text

Inside the depths of a familiar castle submitted in the darkness, the chatter of a group of sisters predominates the kitchen space. The four of them were oddly happy, enjoying the company of the other as they cooked, even though the boiling pots and skillets over the stove released a certainly captivating and delicious smell, it was a deceiving fragrance of the actual looks and ingredients being used for the preparation.

“Are… Are my eyes lying to me peko? Were they, just for a second, it seemed like…” A flabbergasted Pekora pronounced from an extreme of the kitchen. On that enormous space, she sat over a wooden chair with her leather jacket hanging on the back of it, drinking on a crystal glass filled with wine; she squinted at the kitchen and cooking sisters with disbelief, which quickly grew into disgust. “For a second there… Did you girls suddenly start to prep a spider?”

“Kehehe, not a spider, a tarantula!” Fangs retorted with her usual hissing laughter.

“Master Calliope’s rose garden has a nest of them, so don’t worry about quality, they’re all fat and fresh!” Glasses happily explained, showing on her hand one big and lively arachnid struggling to escape between her fingers.

“… And you are expecting me to eat a meal with spider meat on it peko?” The bunny girl questioned with stuttering defiance.

“Don’t worry; our spider risotto is one of the best things you’ll ever get to eat, I even make it with salted onions and butter!” Blindfold added with an overly sweet giggle.

But Pekora didn’t bother to argue, she just exhaled defeat while massaging the bridge of her nose. “Whatever… I’ll close my eyes and pretend is a pastry or something peko,” She mourned while taking another sip of the glass, “And how is that this peko woman doesn’t have water at hand? I’d be fine with tap water, honestly,” She continued with her complaints.

“Even before crashing, Master Calliope didn’t like to have water on the fridge, at the very least, carbonated water, but that is all, or at least that’s what is inside our memories… right?” Fangs pondered into the air as her index supported her chin to gaze up the ceiling.

“The memories of the Grandmaster…” Pekora now whispered with interest in those words. “So Calliope and the Grandmaster were friends before the crash incident?” She asked while stepping out of the wooden table, with a simple twist of her left wrist, she flipped the crystal glass and dropped the rest of the wine into the nearest plant pot, then walked towards the kitchen counter separating her from the sisters.

“Uhm, I wouldn’t call it friends you know,” The question created a gap in the cooking mannerism from the four, they all replied with awkwardness, somehow that specific question was uncomfortable to them, as Blindfold replied with an acutely comment between tight lips. “You could say they’re the memories of the little times Calliope and the Grandmaster, spent together, not good; not bad either…” She was troubled to explain, to voice.

Pekora understood the awkward pauses between her questions and their answers, and dropped on the subject instantly by loudly clanking the glass against the counter, “Tap water, I have work to do after this, and I’m not looking forward to getting drunk around you four perverts peko.”

“Can someone help her with a glass of water, I’m busy here!” Glasses loudly said while sautéing what looked like a couple of sliced scorpions on a frying pan.

“Busy here as well mate,” Fangs replied while mixing a Cesar salad, which to the surprise of Pekora, didn’t have anything weird in it, “And Blind is doing the risotto, One-side, help master!”

“Hold on, I literally have only one-side here,” The sister replied, as she scrubbed her only hand against the apron before holding the crystal glass and taking it into the sink to rinse the leftovers of wine and later on refill it with water. “Also, is nobody going to say anything about Master Pekora calling us perverts?” She wondered with furrowed brows, taking the filled glass back to the hands of the girl.

“Nobody is arguing about it because is not a lie peko,” Pekora snarled as she took on the glass for a chug of water, hiss at the earthly flavor of the tap water, and clean her lips with her fingers in disgust. “Nobody will defend themselves about not being perverts while cooking together in the peko kitchen half-naked.”

The complaint made flutter a grouped laughter into the air, as they were well aware of their mischief. Butt-naked, the only piece of cloth they held on was on their aprons, except for Blindfold who once more covered her face on bandages, leaving their skin glow at the heat of the flames from the stove, to jiggle with perversion, yet with reservation, as the most delicate spots on their body were skillfully covered by the apron itself. “Aw c’mon Master Pekora, are you going to tell us you’re not enjoying the view?” Glasses teased while gently swinging her naked rear at the bunny girl, soon enough joined by the rest of her sisters as they all giggled on shared naught, shaking their hips in an attempt to grace themselves, and Pekora on their beauty.

And Pekora, far from aroused, flattered, or stunned by their naked curves, ran from the kitchen counter, surrounding it with an irked expression, and loudly slapped every sister’s rear with one sole movement of her hand like successive drums piled together, making them cry with a girly moan. “I’m not because I don’t swing that way peko!” She said with gritted teeth.

“Ah…. AHHHH… Guh…”

“… The hell was that,” Just when Pekora was about the give them one more slap, a mighty scream of horror, followed by a girly groan interrupted her, the voice echoed into the kitchen from the depths of the dark castle.

“Oh, looks like the cutest girl around finally woke up!” Blindfold laughed at the strange noise, and cleaning her hands from the kitchen utensils, she spun with grace and marched out and forward the hallway. “I’m going to check on her, you girls can keep on cooking!”

“That’s not normal peko, the way she screams, does she really has nightmares every time she sleeps?” Pekora asked the remaining three with concern.

“I’m surprised you ask, doesn’t the same happen to you?” One-side questioned back.

Pekora shook her head, “The little times I’ve slept on this new peko form, I haven’t dreamed anything at all, is just, static.”

“Bleargh, I guess then is just another thing that has to do with Master Calliope’s guilt…” Fangs hissed while dropping her shoulder in disappointment.

“That means Master Roboco must have normal sleep habits too uh?” One-side now voiced with gladness in her tone.

“Wait, did you just say… Roboco?” Pekora tilted her head in bemusement.

As Pekora fought on with the other three girls in a fruitless fight about wearing clothes again, Blindfold made her way through the obscure hallways of the castle up to Calliope’s room. She twisted on the knob and walked in on the tip of her toes with a small smile filled with naught. When reaching the bedroom she slowly placed her left hand into the sheets, scanning the insides trying to find her Master, but before digging further into it, the noise of the shower called on her attention, and her legs pursued the whereabouts of the reaper.

“Master, are you awake? What did happen, was it a nightmare again?” She kindly asked while pausing at the front of the shower door.

“I’m tired of replying to that stupid question, you know very well the answer,” Calliope replied from the other side as her voice got mixed on the shower noise and the closed door.

“Aw, don’t be so grumpy, I’m just trying to show worry for you!” Blindfold laughed from the outside, turning around and resting her naked back against the wall near the door. “What nightmare was this time? Was it a good one or a bad one?”

“How the hell am I supposed to know, is there even a nice nightmare?” Calliope complained once again.

“You tell me, you’re the one who has nightmares every time you sleep,” Blindfold giggled with teasing malice, “At this point, you should be able to tell which nightmares are worst than others, don’t you think?”

“Just because some are worst than others doesn’t make the first ones better, much less, good, what the f word is that logic?” Calliope questioned with anger from the bathroom. “Also, stop on the useless chitchat, don’t pretend I don’t know what you’re doing, I need answers to what happened back there.”

“Uhm, what could that be exactly?” Blindfold wondered with a finger pressing under her lips. “Do you want me to explain to you how Gods are made again?”

“… You’re lucky I left my scythe on the bed…” The reaper commented with growing anger in her voice. “For starters, what in the world was that stupid rapier she was holding? It’s steel… It felt as strong as my scythe, was that one of the Sacred Weapons? How did she get her hands into one of those?”

“The Rapier of Solemnity, yes, one of the many Sacred Weapons, it’s a relic of the system only the Warriors of White, knew about, I suppose they gave it to her at some moment,” Dropping on the act, Blindfold calmly explained to  Calliope from the other side while scratching the polish on her nails. “I’m sorry we didn’t tell you about it, we don’t have many good memories about that weapon either you see… She used that weapon to kill us…”

“… Fangs said you told her to not pick it up from the battlefield, was it a good decision? Considering what you just told me,” Calliope deflected from the awkward moment and continued pressing onto making the eyeless Haato talk.

“As I told her, even if we were to steal her from her, she would probably appear next time with another different weapon, as long as she holds onto that rapier, we will be always aware of what she can do, there is just too little before our plans are finally complete, we don’t need more unexpected things to happen,” Blindfold explained with a long and feminine sigh, bouncing her rear against the wall.

“Now…” Calliope suggested a new theme, followed by an acute metallic noise which stopped the water from the shower, the clinking of small metal halos as she opened the curtain, and a second later, the tall reaper appeared into the room, wrapped in two towels while brushing her long wet hair between her fingers. “… Why the hell are you naked,” Calliope now groaned, trying to voice her next question, she instantly lost focus when spotting the nude-apron Haato.

“Hehe, I could ask the same to you!” Blindfold teased playfully, giving a small skip to meet with her. “Why are you, naked Master? Maybe you knew I was naked too?”

“Wha-… What’s that logic supposed to be, honestly,” Succeeding in making the reaper gleam red, Calliope stuttered her way around the bedroom and proceeded to look for clothes in a white ivory closet. “Why you have to be so roundabout about everything is like you like to play with my temper,” She insisted while picking up one of her usual gothic dresses. “Stop it, is not what I want to talk about right now… I was fighting against Sora… And I was losing… Then all of a sudden, you jumped between us, and… you sang and then… I just remember everyone around you coughed blood, and everything around you crumbled into pieces…” She paused in furious silence while looking at Blindfold from the corner of her eyes, “It felt like my insides were being churned by a butcher’s maze, how the hell you sang without the Bloom or Wither System?”

“Hehe, I knew you’d want to know about it!” Blindfold laughed once more, sitting on the corner of Calliope’s bed; crossing her legs in a manner the apron would no longer effectively cover the most sensitive areas. “I’m sorry if it hurt you, it hurt me too you know? I wasn’t sure at first if I could do it, but considering all the zones we had under our control and fueling us back with their energy, it was worth the try, I guess you didn’t like it… Although I did it to save you…”

Calliope stopped dressing for a moment when hearing those words but renewed it soon after. With her hair still into a wet mess but now back on her usual leather gothic dress, she placed the towels around her neck and walked towards Blindfold, giving her a soft kiss on the forehead. “… Thank you for saving me…” She softly said with a blush on her cheeks.

“Just the forehead? I’m wrapped on a ribbon for you to get freaky with me, are you sure you want to stop in one kiss?” Blindfold whispered back into her ear, instantly dropping her back against the bedroom, the apron now failing to cover her body, as her chest bounced the fabric to the sides and easily let a full view of what cannot be said.

“Cut it out, I already told you I’m not in the mood for your mischief,” But to the surprise of the eyeless Haato, Calliope reacted calmly and coldly, straightening her back and turning on the girl, slowly using the towels to dry her hair. “Keep talking, I still want to know how you sang like that without assistance.”

“Of course, Master, that’s not so hard to figure out either,” Blindfold gently said, almost posing on the bed for her. “Did you forget? I’m fragments of everything the Grandmaster was and had, that means just like the small knife we used to fight for, I also possess pieces of the Ocarina of Silence inside of me!” She finished energetically, playing around with the strings of her apron.

“Another…” Calliope meditated, “Just how many Sacred Weapons are out there on the system?” She questioned with diligence, as the doubt appeared in the middle of receiving her answers.

“I’m not sure, they’re called the Sacred Weapons, it could be seven, it could be a hundred, nobody has cared to find them all, so nobody knows the real amount of the armory either,” With her legs on the air, moving the without shame, she responded.

“And were the side effects of the Ocarina always that badly? Wait a minute, that’s not even what I should be asking…” Calliope argued with herself and soon turned back on the nude girl. “Are you saying the Bloom and the Wither System are made from the Ocarina of Silence?”

“Of course, did you think we were smart enough to build such a thing the four of us?” Blindfold nodded with light laughter.

“How did Sora have fragments of the Ocarina too?” She asked angered.

“That I don’t know, maybe she salvaged our body after she killed us, we can only guess,” Blindfold said pouty of the girl’s tone.

But where Calliope’s anger was building up the more she pondered over the last events and the gossip coming from Blindfold’s mouth, she held on to it for a brief second, breathed deeply, and switched gears with a calmer expression, throwing the towels on the floor. “I suppose my meal is ready by now?” She wondered with a forced, calm tone, giving up on the questionnaire and giving up on her anger.

“Yes, we prepared a feast of delicious things to welcome our new Master!” Blindfold energetically replied, sitting back on the bed and fixing her apron appropriately to set off from the room.

“… Spiders again?” Calliope asked with a stutter.

“Tarantulas!” Blindfold said back.

Chapter Text

On a rainy morning in Yellow High City, the sky mixed dark and gray colors, dropping the temperature and filling the streets of the city with multiple small ponds from the drizzle. When Shigure was announced by an android on the mayor hall, that some guests had come to talk with her about Subaru, she fret for an instant, but several days had passed by ever since Subaru was placed inside her Gear for the recovery of her Core Data, hence the woman could find composure on a calmer, and faster way than before. Controlling the sudden frantic heartbeat on her chest with deep respirations, she opened a virtual screen, dialed back the android from an intercom, and asked them to let the guests pass by.

But seconds later, Shigure’s face would overflow with anger, guilt, regret, and sadness, a cocktail of emotions provoked by no other person but Matsuri, who appeared in the lounge space of the mayor's hall together with Ayame, Fubuki, Luna, and the rest of the former mayors living in Yellow High. “… Is this it? Are you sure this is the way you want things to be?” Shigure asked Matsuri, asking clemency, asking for reasoning, asking for understanding; she confronted the girl of the side ponytail with an unnerving, acute tone, “Weren’t you and Subaru friends? Didn’t she mean anything to you? Why are you acting this way? Sabotaging, all of my daughter’s relationships, bringing them here…”

And regardless of Shigure’s words, regardless of her heartbroken voice, regardless of the helplessness feeling, Matsuri’s deafness continued on its brim. “Because she killed someone,” She expressed with crossed arms, as everyone looked at them argue between long and hurtful pauses, as Fubuki and Luna looked from behind with anxiety and unable to do something to soothe the attitude of her friend. “We’ve taken the time to talk with everyone here these pasts days, they all know what she did, I told them,” She expressed and admitted while looking over Shigure with anger and disapprobation, “You said Subaru should be soon to wake up today, so I brought them with us, they all, included us, need to hear it from herself, the things she did on the crash incident.”

“… There’s no use in talking to you, is it?” Shigure asked sarcastically with a pained voice, she then glanced from behind Matsuri’s back towards the rest of the women around. “Is this really what you all want to do as soon as she wakes up? To judge everything bad she has done so far even though of all the things she has done for you?”

Everyone’s eyes averted from directly looking back at Shigure, the heartbreaking tone of the woman’s voice was so tearful; to answer her you would have to be in the same emotional place as Matsuri, to allow for coldness and deafness to take the lead on your heart. Though from the group of animal girls and a demon, Mio fasted forward in between. She didn’t say anything at first, but stroke Shigure’s right shoulder with pressure and warmth, just to embrace her entirely seconds later, as tightly as possible, tenderly rubbing her back. Shigure sobbed just gently, feeling the small seconds of comfort on that cold rainy day. “As she said, she told us all about what Subaru did, but it was the Guardian who informed us she was here all along,” Separating a few centimeters, now holding Shigure just on her fingertips, Mio explained to her, making the other look at the other way in shame, “But before judge her and point fingers, what most of us want is to know she’s well, and then talk, and hear from her all of what she can tell us,” She tried to explain, using her left hand to wipe a growing tear from Shigure’s eye, “You’re her mother, and is your job to protect Subaru, and stand for her, I know very well, that in your eyes she’s the most precious thing in the world, you’re her mother after all…” She added with a heavy sigh at the end, closed her eyes, and opened them back sketching a bittersweet smile, “But we are Subaru’s friends, our love for her is different, and we won’t be able to move further from this point if we don’t talk things out with her, that’s why we’ve come here, please… Let us see her; we have to talk things through.”

“What… what did you just say?” Calliope stuttered to ask the group of half-naked sisters, in the flip of a second, her anger started to build incredibly fast. When the reaper met with the rest of the subjects and Pekora in the kitchen of her castle, they have already settled the parade of bizarre dishes along with the polished wooden table, and after singing an awkward and strange happy birthday song to Pekora, the group proceeded to feasts on their plates. “You should eat, as much as I hate it, it tastes better than how it looks,” Calliope spouted into the air, yet everyone knew she was addressing Pekora, and her plate filled with nothing but Fang’s Caesar salad. Although Calliope’s mannerism on itself to deal with the food wasn’t inspiring to buckle up and taste the arthropods, the woman was used to the cuisine ingredients by now, as she took one of the scorpions and proceeded to eat from one of its limbs by sucking it from the end out, as if it were just your regular crab leg.

 “My, it makes me always so happy to see you eat our food with so much eagerness master!” Blindfold expressed with a girly gladness.

“Is better than starving,” Calliope replied coldly with a mouth stuffed, “Seriously, eat, you may be a crash but you still need food and sleep, the less you stop worrying about the flavor the better,” She insisted while waving a scorpion’s palp at Pekora.

“… Is not the flavor as much as the texture peko…” Pekora sighed while reluctantly filling her plate with the tarantula’s risotto.

“And you,” Calliope now glanced at Blindfold, “Why are you so far away from me?” She commented as the eyeless Haato sat on the border left of the long wooden table, even though she was the next person nearest Calliope, as the reaper and Pekora were sitting on the extremes of the table, there were almost three meters separating Blindfold from her.

“Uh… Uh?” Blindfold stuttered out of guard and quickly blushed, “How much closer should I suppose to be Master?”

Calliope immediately dragged her chair backward with a movement of her hips, and when opening her legs, she patted her left tight, signaling at it, “This close,” She answered firmly.

The sudden and unexpected mannerism put the whole kitchen into silence; nobody could believe what Calliope was suggesting, “… Master… On, on your lap you say?” Blindfold stuttered once more glowing red.

“Huh, is too late to act shy when you’ve spent most of the day half-naked on that apron,” Calliope huffed and signaled on her lap once more, “You have been teasing me on that attire all evening now and I’m not made of ice, come here before I change my mind, I’m on the mood now.”

“I… Sure, I’d love to!” Finally nodding in happy agreement, Blindfold took her plate and glass of wine, then hurried to sit her naked rear over Calliope’s lap, making the dishes clatter awkwardly as she exploded on red when Calliope’s left arm surrounded her waist and her hand found nest on Blindfold’s thigh.

“Tch, the world of being someone's favorite sure must be nice,” Fangs hissed jealously from the other extreme.

“Are you too interested in coming here to please your Master with your body, Fangs,” And unexpectedly yet following with the sudden aroused mood, strange words kept coming from the reaper’s mouth, “You two have been good to me, why don’t you take a seat too?” She expressed while slightly opening her right leg signaling her to approach.

“Oh… OOOOOHHH!” Fangs jumped out of her seat euphoric and with red cheeks, “F-for real now? Geez, if we had known you had a kink for naked apron girls we would’ve done this ages ago!” She said loudly with an unfitting energetic and girly tone compared to her usual personality, desperately taking her food and glass to join with Blindfold on Calliope’s lap. “Aight this is what I’m talking about, let’s get freaky! Wouldn’t mind if you wanna touch my chest too you know what I mean? Kehehe” Fangs laughed unabashed.

“Oh don’t’ worry,” Calliope whispered, pulling Fangs closer to her by the waist, placing her lips almost over the sister’s ear, “I’m going to do that and much more tonight,” She insinuated while nibbling on the girl’s lobe most softly.

“Eep!” Fangs moaned with acuteness from feeling Calliope’s breath and lips on her ear, and her hand slowly coming inside the apron and upwards her body, “Ah… uh… is it me or suddenly is getting hot in here?” She stuttered nervously, unable to put back together with her usual personality.

“Hey… That looks nice actually, can I join in too?” One-side gestured from afar on the table with flustered cheeks.

“Is… is this finally the day? Holy Frick, bless this naked apron strategy, I want some of that too!” Glasses added just as red, raising her hand in the air.

 “Of course,” Calliope nodded firmly, as her hands traversed without shame through the half-naked bodies of the sisters sitting on her lap. “You two can come later tonight once these two had cleaned the disaster I’m going to make with them on the bed,” She gave a wink at Glasses and One-side from afar while stealing, small and short, girly moans from the other two.

“Erhm… did you just say… s-so we’re going all the way tonight?” Blindfold questioned with gasps of pleasure and surprise, her hands trembling as she was trying to spoon-feed Calliope while being fondled under the apron. “T-this, this turned out too well… ah! I’ve been waiting so much for those words…”

“I... I always thought that if it were to happen, I would be the one taking the lead…” Fangs slowly expressed, her hands tightly holding onto the frame of the kitchen table and Calliope’s shoulder respectively as her body tingled all over from the touch of the reaper’s fingers. “But… this isn’t so bad either… This… this feels like heaven…”

And while the other two sisters took too on their plates and grabbed the chairs Blindfold and Fangs abandoned, to drag them and sit as near as possible from Calliope, Pekora looked at the scene of the reaper flirting and touching the girls with complete revulsion, took on her plate and glass of tap water, and with a grim expression and gritted teeth, walked towards Calliope’s direction but aiming at the door of the kitchen to get out of there. “I thought this was my welcoming party peko, hopefully, once the Grandmaster's plans are complete I can go back to my zone away from this peko disgusting show,” She spits with bitterness as she passed through the group.

“What is it, is not like I can’t borrow you one of them, after all, Fangs is your subject,” Calliope insinuated with a smile as she was kissing Blindfold on the base of her neck.

“… You’re so horny you’re not listening peko,” Pekora groaned, “Whatever, I’ll stay in your basement making preparations for the last steps, call me when the peko blood in your veins had returned to the usual places…” She lectured her with annoyance, not even stopping to argue about that situation, she just opened the door as she could with her hands occupied, then slammed it close with the back of her heels.

“Well, whatever, more for me, bless there are four of you, I don’t think one would be enough to satisfy me tonight,” Calliope smirked shamelessly.

“Yikes, you three going at it don’t ya, never thought I would see Master Calliope touching such places, can’t wait to be my turn,” One-side sighed with adoration and excitement at the show on the kitchen table while trying to eat her meal.

“Uhm, although this may be our only chance with her, I want it to make it special, guess I’ll put on makeup before she calls on me,” Glasses monologued in the air while looking at the reflection of her face on a silver spoon.

“As expected, Master Calliope is just our favorite of the three; she really knows how to please us…” Blindfold said between troubled respirations, biting on a finger as her legs trembled from the nonstop touch of Calliope’s adventurous hands.

“The most annoying of the three… But honestly… At the end of the day… You’re still the best…” Fangs whispered with soft-toned gasps of pleasure, hiding her face on Calliope’s shoulder as the hand of the reaper produced a schlicking noise.

“Definitely, we have gone through so many problems, but at the end of the day, out of all three we’ll always prefer you, hehe,” One-side added with an innocent giggle.

“Yup! Master is just the weakest out of the three, but at the end of the day, we love her the most!”  Glasses happily added to their half-baked compliments.

But it was those words that called on Calliope’s attention the most.

It was those words exactly which stopped the daring attitude and the shameless mannerism.

“What… what did you just say?” Sucking on the index and middle finger she was using on Fangs, Calliope stuttered to ask the group of half-naked sisters, in the flip of a second, her anger started to build incredibly fast. “Did you just call me… The weakest of the three?”

“And can I know why today of all days you dare to say that?!” Blindfold questioned Glasses full of anger.

“Why… Why did you have to say that?! Do you have any idea of where she was touching me? Ah?!” Fangs joined snarling with fury at Glasses.

“You two better shut up,” Calliope commanded the two, the arousing mood had completely died, she looked at Glasses defiantly, “You better elaborate on that comment, what the hell do you mean I’m the weakest of the three? Do you understand you’re comparing me with a girl who barely has two days as a crash?” Calliope said judgmentally.

Glasses stuttered unable to voice her thoughts, cornered between the three girls, she looked at One-side looking for help. “Nope, you starting digging that hole yourself, you’re getting out there yourself too,” But her sister denied it with her hands and a shake of her head. she wasn’t going to defend her at all.

“Well, you see… Master Calliope,” Glasses fidgeted on the table, biting her lower lip and looking down like a scolded puppy. “You see… You know better than anyone… Master Roboco was the right hand of the Grandmaster when the crash incident occurred, even though she was moving behind the stage, she’s incredibly strong, and her corruption speed is absurdly fast…” Her face was growing pale as the huffs of Calliope grew stronger, yet she decided to be as logical and reasonable as possible. “Then Master Pekora… She has perfect control of her Black and Wither System; she’s mentally stable… and is thanks to her that we can move forward on our plans…”

“Is that what you all think of me?” Calliope asked Blindfold.

“Master… My Master…” The girl gently said while caressing Calliope’s face. “You’re the only and most important person for me in this world, there’s no doubt about it, I wouldn’t offer my body to anyone else but you…” She expressed tenderly; then sighed, “But…” She averted her gaze, “Compared to the troubles you’ve given us… You seem to be the weakest link out of all three Masters…”

“I see…” Calliope plainly whispered while looking at the plate of food on the table, then abruptly standing from her chair and throwing Blindfold and Fangs into the floor without warning, she took a big chunk of a scorpion, shove it into her mouth, and munched on it like potato chips, cleaned her hands and turned around, without sharing another word with the four sisters, she took on her scythe and walked out of the kitchen.

In silence, the four half-naked sisters tailed Calliope’s sudden march around the castle maze of hallways and stairs, while One-side dragged through the floor a beaten up Glasses who had spoken too much. And when finally realized where the reaper was aiming, they all stopped with sudden fear, Calliope reached the ground floor, the entrance of her castle, meeting with two immense doors at the bottom of the place between the main stairs, she fixed her scythe on her back and pushed the mighty doors open with all her strength.

In the center of the room, which gleamed with thunderous sparks of Red and thick clouds of polluted Black, a large and shiny red Core Prism floated in silence with its right upper part smashed to pieces. Calliope closed the doors and let her be surrounded into the darkness, only guiding herself by the sporadic and violent shocks or red sparks coming out of the prism, she walked in front of it, dropped her scythe on the floor; then kneeled in submission at the huge and broken red prism.

“Please… Give me the strength needed to become what you need me to be, to do the things you need me to do…”

Her words echoes in the mostly empty room and made the prism react with flaming sparks.

“I’m doing all of this for you… And only you…”

The smoke cleared a circle path between the reaper and the entity.

“Please tell me what to do to be stronger and carry out our goals…”

She begged the creature with frustration.

“Please… Make me stronger… Haato”

She begged with powerlessness then shook her head.

“No…

Please, make me stronger… Haachama.”

And as Red glowing lazes came from the prism, and wrapped Calliope's body while flowing Black into her, the reaper cried in pain.

Chapter Text

“What should I say after I wake up? After long hours of pondering, I find myself always at that thought, like a starting line.”

Sitting in a cold and obscure place, Subaru thought.

“I don’t know for how long I’ve been asleep, I hope it hasn’t been so long, and I hope everyone is ok.”

She was sitting prostrated into the obscure corner, wearing her usual jersey and shorts.

“I should’ve never kept that as a secret from others… but even in this situation, I don’t know what I was supposed to say, voicing my feelings with detail has never been my forte.”

The girl took the cap off her head and scratched her short, black hair, gently with her nails.

“Then again, how do you explain to your family and friends that you took someone’s life? Is not that easy, but not being able to explain it makes me feel like a coward… I wonder, what should I do…?”

Her breathing echoed with a strange harmony into the silent space.

“What should I say after I wake…? Huh, I did it again, what an awkward feeling, how many times I’ve cycled up that train of thought by now?”

She glanced upwards with disdain, observing a flaming entity of White resembling the figure of Matsuri. In that dark and cold space, Subaru wasn’t alone, but the entity hadn’t shared a word with her a single time, and even with those sparkling flames, the darkness of the room would deny being illuminated by its force.

“That thing has kept me alive… I know, I just have that hunch, even though what Calliope did to me… this thing in front of me saved me, but it hasn't done anything else after that, is just… static… I wonder what is it exactly, it looks like an inanimate Matsuri for some reason…”

Subaru curled her lips and raised her hands in the air, using them to lie on the obscure ground, drowning in her thoughts.

“I wonder if they want an apology or an explanation… I never thought I would end up taking someone’s else life, I don’t know how to phrase an apology for that; I’m not sure what could be considered an explanation for doing such a thing… If mom were here… She would know what to tell me.”

Then the flames of the entity begin to buzz, calling for her attention. “Su… baru…” It stuttered with a familiar voice, making the girl snap from her thoughts.

“Did you just…” Subaru stuttered back at it, making a sudden kick up to sit facing the entity once again, fixing her cap over her head. “Mom…?”

“Subaru…” The creature whispered firmly this time, expressionless. “Subaru dear… Can you hear me? Please, you need to wake up… Please come back to us!”

Shigure’s voice quickly emanated from the entity and echoed inside the place.

But as she tried to stand and get near the Matsuri of flames, the entity’s flames grew fiercely into a storm, surrounding it and Subaru, yet the blazing field was heating her, instead, it felt incredibly cold on her body, making her shrug.

“Subaru… Subaru! I know you’re there, hearing my voice, you can do it, just wake up!” Shigure’s voice continued pleading from the depths of the entity even in the storm.

“I… can… I can hear you! Loud and clear!” Subaru screamed back, with both arms protecting her face from the breezing flames piling up frost on her skin. “I’m here… Mom!”

Subaru extended her right and protected her eyes as possible, trying to reach the entity against the cold and strong storm. And the entity reacted to her, extending her hand back until both hands reunited, and both Subaru and the creature were consumed by the freezing flames.

“I know you hate that I say this, but please, calm down, is too early to be scared, the process just ended,” Achan told Shigure partially miffed with her. Having cleaned the platform from all the trash food and other belongings, and surrounded by the multiple uninvited guests eagerly hoping for Subaru to open her eyes, Achan was just uploading the last couple of keyboard strokes from her laptop to the metallic bed in which Subaru’s body, now reunified, was being held suspended in the air. “Alright and now… This shouldn’t explode…” The woman of blue hair muttered on tight lips, worrying for just a second to press the enter key, but hoping for the best still, she put the program to a stop, and Subaru gently dropped from the air into the platform.

Immediately, Shigure ran beside Achan and took the unconscious girl into her arms, she covered her with a thick fleece blanket, and sitting on the edge of the metallic bed, she embraced the girl’s upper body onto her arms. “I know you can do it… please open your eyes… I need to know you’re fine…” She whispered immersed in worry, rubbing the shoulders of the girl.

“You’re so loud…” Subaru whispered with a raspy voice, “Of course, I would hear you …” She slowly held onto Shigure. “You’re the voice I wanted to hear the most…”

Shigure didn’t reply to the girl, holding the desire to break into tears, to hear Subaru’s voice poured a huge, trembling smile onto her face, she kissed the forehead of the girl and gently swayed together for a couple of minutes in silence as everyone waited mutedly and patiently for the two of them.

After five minutes, Subaru had opened her eyes completely, she lifted her jersey to look at the wound, or perhaps the scars left in her abdomen, but there was nothing to find, the white skin of her belly remained unscratched. Next, Achan took the chance to approach the two and share a couple of words, while lending the girl a bottle of water and nutrition bar, she quietly started to explain to Subaru the events which transpired after she was chopped by Calliope.

Subaru listened diligently to the entire story without playing the straight man or interrupting in between with a chuckle or a joke, it wasn’t the moment or place to. As Achan's story continued past being saved by Sora and sent directly into her Gear, her eyes spotted the other girls around waiting patiently for their turn to talk with her. Soon enough, she figured out the reasons why every one of them observed her with a disappointed or sad stare, even while Luna smiled at her, it was a sad smile, even while Korone and Okayu waved at her from afar, it was a bland and bittersweet gesture from them. Achan’s words reached a point where they wouldn’t find entrance into Subaru’s ears, as soon as the blue-haired woman mentioned the part where Shigure explained to Matsuri’s group what happened in the crash incident, she felt feet cold, a void on her stomach, and a cold shiver which didn’t come from the freezing temperature of the place.

When Achan’s recount of events had come to an end, she and Shigure helped Subaru to stand for the first time in more than a week after having half of her body sliced in two.  Holding on Shigure’s hand from one side and the other with her hand posed into the metallic bed, Subaru slowly walked around the platform as Achan’s request to confirm everything about her legs was running perfectly. It was yet another awkward moment, as Subaru’s eyes would meet with the rest of the girls waiting for her, Ayame pulled a forced smile, as the oni-girl continued puzzled by the situation, Choco and Mio though gave her an honest, relieved smile to the see her friend back up; it was Matsuri the only on the group, who looked back at her with revulsion and ireful eyes.

Finally, after a couple of leaps around the platform, and having stolen an awkward chuckle from most people when Achan tricked her into jumping like a little girl, Subaru ingested the water and the snack, and Achan forcefully convinced Shigure to separate her from Subaru for the rest of the girls to speak with her.

When the moment had come, Ayame took one hand in the air and without hesitation, she voiced her unwillingness to participate in it, the oni-girl hadn’t met Subaru for long enough, and feeling like a third in the situation, she expressed to have no negative or positive opinion whatsoever, remarking there was nothing else Sora and Subaru would have been able to do in that situation. After stuttering in most of her sudden and irking speech, the girl zipped her lips tight and gave a couple of steps back from the group.

Next, Mio tried to approach the girl, but Korone called on her attention first and stole her chance together with Okayu. The dog and cat-girl silently walked towards Subaru, the three shared some uncomfortable, laughing gasps and huffs. “Subaru you see…” Okayu spoke first with a small smile and soft tone, “I don’t think there’s anything that you need to explain to us… Is not like you stole something or got into a fight, you… you killed someone, and that’s way worse but… I don’t think is something you need to be excusing yourself with all of us,” Okayu explained diligently to her. “Regardless if you did it for us or not, it was something bad, that’s a given, but at the same time, I don’t think is something that is our problem.”

“However,” Korone continued with a serious tone, “We also think, even though you shouldn’t be explaining that to every person you meet, we also believe not saying it will just hurt you further, you did something incredibly bad, but holding on that on your own is only going to consume you from the inside out, that’s why I need to ask…” She paused with a long huff from her nose while crossing her arms. “What did happen in the crash incident?”

Subaru averted her eyes instinctively, winking repeatedly, but in that cold silence and while feeling that void and sinking feeling on her stomach, she found a little spurt of strength and turned to the animal girls. “On that day, to save everyone… Sora and I decided the only thing we could do was to kill Akai Haato… And I’m sorry we did.”

“That should be enough,” Korone nodded with furrowed brows, “You probably won’t feel better now, but probably later, as we know, it was a secret of you and your mom only so, now we’re carrying that weight with you too,” She expressed at last with a small smile, stroking the girls head together with Okayu and walking back with the rest of the group.

With this Mio and Choco followed next, they walked together to meet with Subaru and stood static for a couple of seconds which felt like an eternity while looking at her and each other. But the two didn’t elaborate to share words with Subaru; instead, the two of them just embraced the girl softly and tenderly between their arms. “I heard the whole story, and I don’t think you need to receive a preaching from any of us, you’re doing a lot on your own,” Mio said softly into her ear.

“At the very least, we want to do as Korone implied, and carry a little of that weight for you, sometimes life can be extremely complicated for some people, I’m sorry one of those had to be you, but as long as you never stop reflecting in what you had to do that day… And as long as you never forget you’re holding onto that sin, there’s no reason for us to stop walking together with you, you were the one who saved us after all,” Choco explained to her with a sweet and comforting tone.

Subaru hugged the girls feeling their warmth, unable to say something back. Once the women had returned to the group, Fubuki quietly stepped in next, and everyone got worried as the fox-girl carried her katana behind her shorts, yet. “I don’t have anything intelligent or comforting to say, I’m not on your side, but I’m not against you either, you’re a hero, that is something nobody can take away from you,” Fubuki spoke with a serious expression drawn on her face. “But you also did something unforgivable, and I’m not the one to judge you, I don’t have reasons why, we haven’t known each other that long,” And with that, she quickly spun on the top of her ankles and returned with girls.

Luna broke into a sprint soon after, hurrying to meet with Subaru, but the girl ran while in such an inclined gesture, she headbutts her on the stomach making Subaru gasp in pain. “You… You!” She immediately bawled with her big multicolored eyes, “Idiot… dummy, silly, meathead, dumbhead, you’re… you’re so stupid nanora!” She insulted her in the only ways she could find, smashing Subaru’s chest with the back of her fists as she cried and howled, while most of the girls around her knew what and what not to say to her, Luna was overwhelmed with feelings, and she didn’t know how to express the words inside her heart. Four minutes later, while being held tightly on Subaru’s arm, unable to force away, and still trying to smack her and kick her with her small fists and feet, she gave up for the best, with her head and face buried in the chest of Subaru. In the end, Luna walked away without being able to say something properly, leaving a mark of her tears and face on Subaru’s shirt.

But when Matsuri had finally her turn, everyone felt obliged to hold onto their breath, it was a feeling of danger and conflict bigger than when Fubuki stepped in, even Achan felt forced to hold Shigure tightly from one arm so she wouldn’t jump and meddle, or for something worst to happen.

“I’m just going to lie it straight to you,” Matsuri proposed with a firm tone, “I’m pissed off that you did what you did, regardless of all the time I had to think about it, and considering what happened back there in White Peko Land, I cannot forgive you for the things you did, even if you were obligated and had no other options.”  She said and gave a step forward, closing all distance between the two. “After all this waiting, and after hearing what everyone had to say, I have only one thing to ask you,” She insinuated, while waving her right arm into the air in a slapping gesture, “I’m pissed off of what you did and for keeping it a secret from us, so please, let me smack you at least once.”

The request created nervousness in everyone, and as Achan feared Shigure snapped on a blink and tried to run to protect Subaru, but unfortunately for her, Achan refused to let her go. Subaru in the meanwhile was predisposed to that kind of outcome, it was, on her mind, what she expected the most to happen, and was surprised it didn’t occur from the very beginning. She just closed her eyes and gave a helpless exhalation, “Go ahead,” She whispered while giving up her shoulders.

It was sudden, even though forewarned.

It happened in an instant, and echoed in the room with a thunderous sound, almost as if the branch of a tree had been broken.

Everyone felt the need to drown their gasps of surprise, as Matsuri’s hand had now posed from the other side after slapping.

Subaru gave short breaths with eyes closed, feeling a couple of tears on the borders of her eyes, “… It is enough I suppose,” She whispered angered and in pain.

“… No…” Matsuri replied with surprise in her voice and her face, staring blankly at her hand, feeling the ache and numbness of having slapped Subaru, she looked at the girl once more with ireful eyes, but this time her hand made into a fist, and her skin was quickly covered with White flames. “I’m sorry but, a slap won’t be enough…”

“Wait, what’s wrong with your color-…” Subaru and the rest didn’t have time to react, using all of her body; Matsuri delivered an explosive punch of flames into Subaru’s face, sending her flying away from the impact.

“Hey, you don’t have to take things that far; she just woke up darn it!” Mio howled at her furious.

“I don’t care what anyone has to say…” But Matsuri remained deaf, both on ears and soul, and with her eyes and right hand sparked on White flames and her left hand blazed with Black embers, she utilized both of the colored fires to propel herself out the ground and leap towards Subaru’s landing crash.

“Hey, stop it you moron, you can’t fight in here, these are Subaru’s data processors!” Achan joined in the screams next, even though she had no way to stop or face her, she was the one who screamed the loudest, “This is Subaru’s brain and body, her city's data, stop it at once!”

“Matsuri, stop that! I didn’t teach you to use that power for this!” Fubuki cried next surprised by what her friend did.

“You what?!” Mio turned on the fox with disbelief.

“I… I thought she just wanted to control it! Not to smack Subaru into playdoh!” Fubuki tried to excuse herself while gesturing with both arms at the situation.

“Tch… What the hell…” Subaru whispered in pain, she had violently crashed ten meters away from the platform, breaking the metallic floor and a small processor on her back, “Oh God… I hope that wasn’t anything important…” But the girl had no time to worry about that, with Matsuri gently landing in front of her with the help of her flames. “What… what happened to you while I was gone? Why are you trying to fight me?”

“Isn’t it obvious when looking at me being like this?” Matsuri asked sarcastically while extending both hands to show the different colors on her hands. “While everyone was thinking of kind and lecturing words to say to you… I was trying to face my new reality… that, this is me,” She implied, getting ready for the second assault, “Then I realized… How close I was to becoming your next Akai Haato…” She placed her right foot in front and slightly crouched, then jumped at Subaru, “It could have been me!”

This time, Subaru's reflexes reacted on time, and covering her body in a Yellow aura, she received Matsuri’s flaming fists into her palms. “That’s… That’s stupid, how could you think something like that!?” She dared to question Matsuri while being pushed back against the broken processor.

“Don’t you dare to even imply!” Matsuri replied submerged in wrath, “It could have been me!” She repeated, her flames growing fiercely and pinning Subaru against the processors, making her body deepen into the broken artifact.

“But…” Subaru squirmed and looked for strength, using the chance of having her body tight to fit into the artifact; she gave a kick into Matsuri’s stomach with both feet and pushed her away. “But it wasn’t! It wasn’t you!” She screamed back, taking her hands into the superior edge of the machine, she unstuck her torso from it and made a man up to the top, this time, with adrenaline flowing and mixing with her blood, she concentrated her Yellow, making it brighter.

“It could have been me!” But Matsuri refused to listen, she was fixed on just one thought, using her flames to impulse her into crashing against Subaru.

And when the two prepared for the crash and interchange fists, Matsuri was pushed away from Subaru by a sudden cloud of small bats made of Black, and instinctively, the girl turned around using the flames on her hands as propels, just in time to block the sharp blow from Choco’s right arm, which was covered into an infusion of the Black bats giving the form of a gauntlet with long claws. “Stay away from Subaru!” The woman cried while pushing Matsuri back into the floor.

“Choco, wait, you don’t have to do this!” Subaru screamed from below.

“Don’t tell me what to do now, this is my fight too!” The blonde demon screamed back while fluttering between the two with her wings and surrounded by the little bats. “Matsuri, I won’t let you take a step further!” She menaced and crouched in the air, kicking the air and flying down against Matsuri with a worrisome speed.

“NO!” One after another they kept showing up, now Luna appeared to the side of Matsuri, parrying Choco’s claw with a giant cutlery fork made of Pink, “Stop, don’t get in the way of Matsuriri nanora!” She pouted while using all her strength to sway the fork and smack Choco away.

“Kids should sit out of this fight!” Mio interrupted soon after, with a kabuki mask on her face with the shape of a wolf, the woman ran on all fours and jumped at Luna, breaking the girl’s giant fork with a blow of her left fist, “Don’t protect that girl, or else I’ll have to- hm!” Mio tried to threaten the princess, but her ears tingled in the presence of danger, and quickly flipped back, dodging a thin slice of White energy. “… I’ve told you many times… If you’re going to sheathe your sword, your mind should be settled in the fight,” She voiced in the air with an angered and lecturing tone, turning back to look at Fubuki, slowly approaching the clash of forces. “It seems you’ve taken a decision, pupil,” She said tilting on the fox.

“White Waning Moon Slash,” Fubuki whispered between her lips, fixing a lock of hair in front of her face, firmly holding her katana. “Unlike you, Master, I've never had to take a decision…” Moving past the wolf, she helped Luna to stand back, grouping with her and Matsuri. “My loyalty is to my friends.”

“This is very unfortunate then…” Mio whispered back, slowly walking to the other side, meeting with Choco and Subaru, which were getting ready for what was coming.

“… Will you stand by my side?” Matsuri questioned the girls aghast of their actions.

“Until the end,” Fubuki answered immediately, readying her sword.

“Until the end nanora!” Luna answered next, summoning a giant cutlery knife made of Pink.

“We won’t let you get closer to her,” Mio declared through the mask, together with Choco they posed in a manner to shield Subaru.

“THAT … IS…”

But to the surprise of the group, an even greater and angered voice echoed fiercely into the cold room, and in the middle of the incoming fight, a woman of long brown hair and a rapier in her hands abruptly landed in between, and when clashing her sword against the metallic floor, an enormous shockwave of White throw off everyone into the air and violently back into the floor.

“ENOUGH… STOP THIS USELESS FIGHT AT ONCE!”

Chapter Text

“Whatever the reasons sparked this fight, it ends now, I don’t need it, I don’t want it, and the last thing we need right now is a quarrel between us,” With a solid and feminine tone Sora elaborated to the group of women, who silently walked in shame behind her back to the platform of Subaru’s Gear.

“… It could have been me…” Matsuri bitterly whispered from behind while looking aside.

“But it wasn’t!” Sora quickly snapped by turning her face back at her, “If you’re unable to understand that, then you’re the one who is going to end hurt the most after our talk,” She told her off with aggressiveness.

Yet there was something off on Sora that everyone could notice when she yelled at Matsuri, the woman whispered in between, but none of them felt like pointing it out to her. “Erhm…” Mio however, thought it may be worth remarking it soon, “Sky Hero… You know, that’s too cheesy at this point, Miss Sora, if you allow me to say…” She expressed with doubt, but after shaking her head, Mio’s voice straightened up as she directed herself to the girl.

“Whatever it is, it can wait, I’m truly sorry, but I’m on the clock and not in the mood to be the tender girl everyone expects me to be,” This time Sora replied without turning her neck, she just continued walking while leading the group back to the others.

“Oh for my colors!” Achan inadvertently jumped like a cat as soon as she saw Sora and hurried to crash with the girl. “It’s you, it’s you, it’s you! Come here let me hug you!” The woman happily tried to embrace her but got instantly blocked by Sora’s left pushing on her face away.

“Can… we let the hugs for another time, right now I’m not feeling well, but it's nice to see you too, Achan,” Sora expressed with a troubled voice.

“… Wait,” Achan tilted her head, just like the rest, noticing something off on Sora.

“Dear… you’re spitting blood…” And at last, it was Shigure who pointed it out to her.

“Ah…” Sora chuckled awkwardly at first, she rubbed her right index along the lines on her lips and wiped an abundant and concerning amount of blood that was dripping from her mouth and making two threads on her chin from each corner of her lips. While everyone’s adrenaline, anger, and temper were still being tested by the leftovers of a sudden conflict, none of them felt like exploding in another argument which could end in another fight when looking at the Sky Hero in that position. Sora took on a napkin with dry stains of blood from her skirt, and holding it with both hands she proceeded to place it in her mouth and gently spit the excess blood on the cloth. “I’m sorry for this…” She mumbled through the piece of dirty cloth. “My insides were turned into Chimichurri last week when I met with one of the fragments of Akai Haato, her corrupted voice is still drumming in my ears,” Yet regardless of the uncomfortable atmosphere of looking at a renowned hero being possibly fatally wounded, her mannerism and the quiet way in which she cleaned her mouth, was befitting of a high society woman, refined in such a way it seemed she was just removing crumbs of biscuits out of her lips.

“The…!” Achan tried to say, but bit her tongue instead, suffocating a cry of pain, she stomped the floor and hurried to finish her sentence, “The Creation algorithm is finished! Subaru’s Gear completed it by healing her wound and all the other Gears across the system must have been updated it by now, we just have to go back to your White Providence and take care of your wounds!” She expressed utter worry while holding onto Sora’s shoulders.

Sora smiled gently and caressed Achan’s face, “Wow… I missed you more than I thought, I forgot what was to have someone to worry for me,” She giggled with a glimpse of suffocation on her respiration. “But that will have to be later, right now I’m seriously in a hurry, and if you don’t mind, I need to borrow your help once more, Achan.”

“Yes… Of course, anything you need!” The woman excitedly switched gears, pulling on the sleeves of her shirt; she walked away from Sora’s grasp to take on a bag of junk food and her laptop. “You know I will do whatever you need, we’re besties after all! And the sooner we get it done, the faster you can take a rest!” She expressed while fixing her glasses.

“I don’t get it, what is exactly happening that you’re in such a hurry?” Subaru tried to interrupt bemused by the change of events.

“On top of losing Calliope to Akai Haato,” Slowly turning, Sora tried to respond to Subaru's question, elevating her voice and glancing at everyone on the platform, “We also lost Pekora and… It turns out Roboco was with them from the very start,” She expressed with distress in her voice. “Roboco’s power and corruption rivalries those of the other two and… Because of her only, we have lost almost half of the cities in the Virtual World.”

“You can’t be serious, it happened again…?” Mio stuttered in shock.

“While all of you were about to pull punches on each other, the system has been going down, so excuse me if I can’t put enough care into what you were fighting about,” Now with a clear tone of anger, Sora told them off.

“Well, Uhm, how do I put this…” Fubuki forced to call the attention to the group, “We kinda knew that part? But well, Matsuri still wanted to… chat, with Subaru, or at least, so I thought,” Fubuki excused herself to the rest while pointing at Luna and Matsuri; she then made a fast skip towards Mio. “I’m sorry, things got out of hand too fast, I was just trying to protect my friends.”

And Mio just huffed on a small smile and patted her head. “I did just the same; we both have a lot to learn about our tempers.”

“Hold on there for a second,” Sora said while gesturing with her left, confused about what Fubuki said. “How do you know that-…?” But she couldn’t end the phrase, her question was instantly answered once she had noticed Luna was tagging with the group, “Oh so you told them, but wait, how did you end up here so fast? I thought The Rainbow was taking care of you and your friends at White Providence.”

“Of course, as soon as Matsuriri called on me, I made butler pick me up from my pocket portal nanora!” With a swing of her right fist and sticking out her tongue with a wink, Luna happily answered Sora, lightening the atmosphere of the situation by making the group giggle from her expressions.

“Very well then,” Sora said taking once again the lead, with hands on her hips, she stared at the group. “As I said before, I’m on the clock, and I don’t have time to hear what was happening here, there’s something everyone needs to know about recent events,” She declared with a nod of her head, moving to save the dirty napkin back on her skirt, and suddenly spooking everyone as she pulled on a familiar-looking, oddly shaped Black knife.

“Where in the hell did you get one of those,” Subaru pointed at it with a grimace.

“It’s a long story, I promise we will have a chance for everything once we’re all reunited,” She said while jokingly juggling with the knife and scaring everyone. “Oh c’mon, is not that dangerous,” She giggled innocently, stabbing the air in front of her, the knife defied the laws of physics and opened a portal towards a zone filled with what seemed like TV static. “Every user of color and Achan needs to come with me now, this concerns all of us and I’m not taking a no for an answer,” She placed the knife back behind her skirt and expanded the oddly looking portal with her bare hands, “Which means, you can’t come with us,” She said next when glancing at Shigure, “I understand you just got your daughter back, and you probably hate me for a lot of reasons, but I need to borrow her help one more time.”

At first, the woman didn’t reply, but the deadly stare Shigure was giving at that moment to Sora was enough to zip everyone’s mouth. After a loud and exasperated exhalation, she turned on Subaru, “If you’re going with her I’m not going to stop you, but after all of this is over, we’re going to talk about the friendships you’ve been making lately,” She told her judgmentally.

“Right…” Subaru nodded at the scolding, “I’ll try to go back as soon as possible and… I’m sorry, you know?” She looked down while rubbing her left arm. “About… everything… lately I’ve been just… Pain in the butt for you.”

“Oh, you oblivious Dofus,” Shigure ran to give her a tight hug one more time. “Just come back soon… and…” She implied now posing her eyes at Matsuri, “Stay away from that girl while you’re at it,” Shigure said loud enough for Matsuri to hear, and in exchange, Matsuri replied with a shrug and an eye roll.

“Let’s move, everyone please hang onto someone’s hand or clothes, traveling through these portals can be dizzy for the eyes,” With a final nod, Sora commanded the group of girls who reluctantly walked towards her and the portal. “First, we’re meeting with everyone on White Providence,” She explained while stepping first on the portal, then Achan hurried to hold onto one of the laces of her skirt, then with an awkward signal of her eyes, told the rest of the people to keep moving.

Inside the portal, the tunnel they were going through was complete defiance of the five senses. The light from the walls, the ceiling, and the floor was bright and annoying to the eyes, as they emulated TV snow all around, a dizzying spectacle as Sora had warned. The floor, even though it looked the same, it made a noise similar to when stepping on solid concrete, and in the course of the tunnel, they could only hear their breathing and the buzzing noise of electric lamps nowhere to be found.

“I can’t believe she called on us to meet Subaru just to start a fight, did she think we all were going to agree with her?” Displeased, Korone mentioned with a small snarl, as she walked through the tunnel while holding hands with Okayu.

“Easy now, she can hear you inside this silence,” Okayu jokingly warned her in her usual soft tone.

“Please don’t start it again, I don’t want to be burnt inside this creepy place,” Ayame added nervously as Okayu was holding one of the white strips on the oni-girl’s clothes.

“It’s whatever, you can't get through blockheads when they’re like that,” Subaru pouted on tight lips at their comments, holding Okayu’s tail as they walked.

“Huh, at least I’m not afraid to say what I think,” Matsuri replied with an angered tone from the bottom of the group, placing the fingers on her left in a flicking position, she summoned a small ball of White fire of the size of a marble and flinched Subaru’s nape with it. “I’m not afraid of you at all.”

“Hey!” Subaru’s cried at the hit, hurrying to tap her nape for the flames to don’t burn her hair and reacting in pain as the fire had got into her skin and fingers alike, “You little… do you want to pick up from where we left that badly?!” Subaru waved her right fist at Matsuri.

“Do you?” But one simple question from Sora, while waving on her rapier, was enough to leave everyone silent. “This is it,” She warned next and stopped on the march behind her back, pulling on the odd knife, she stabbed the air in front of her and opened an exit for the tunnel, then with both hands on her face, she screamed to the other side, “Don’t fret! It’s me on the portal, whatever you do, don’t attack! I’m coming out with a group of people!” She explained to the other side, regretting it instants later, rubbing her throat, and feeling blood building in her mouth again.

“Was that necessary? I thought we were going to your zone,” Achan wondered of her screams, holding onto Sora and helping her to pass through, signaling the others to hurry up and follow them.

“It is, after all…” She mumbled while weeping the blood out of her mouth, as soon as they crossed the other side, they appeared on a large and futurist-looking lounge filled with familiar people; Kiara, in a fighting pose with her shield and sword on the right, and Aqua, with a vacuum cleaner on the left. “These portals have everyone on the tip of their toes…”

“Hey, is that…” From one extreme corner far from the portal, Watame spotted Sora coming out of it, calling on the attention of the dragon-girl to her side, “Coco… Look! It’s her; she’s here like they said she would!”

With her jaw dropped in disbelief, she tossed the poker cards she was using to play with the girls, and slowly stood from her chair, looking at the group coming out from the portal. “… It is her… Sky Hero…”

“Sora, what is happening? How did you come out from one of these portals?” Quickly minimizing the shield and sword into the toy versions strapped to her miniskirt, Kiara dashed towards them.

“As I’ve been telling everyone, it’s a long story,” Sora said with a deep breath of exhaustion, “And as I keep saying, I’ll be explaining everything soon,” She finished, separating from Achan while discretely handing her the stained-in-blood napkin. “We need to keep warping, tell the rest of our members and those girls you saved to get together, this isn’t the place where will have our conversation.”

“What? But…!” Achan gasped in angered amazement, “What are you talking about? You’re hurt, whatever it is it can wait, let’s treat your wounds first!” The woman insisted while holding onto the reddish piece of cloth.

“I understand how irresponsible it looks, but I'm in real need for this to happen as soon as possible,” Sora told her with a forced smile, taking on the knife and opening a second portal right beside the other, “There are two more trips I need to take after everything’s done, I promise you I will take a break to heal my wounds after it.”

“… Always with the though personality…” Achan mourned disappointed.

“And… where are we going now?” With a small tone, Aqua called on Sora’s attention, unable to look directly into her eyes, she grabbed her skirt while looking down at the floor.

“The Spectrum and its zone remain in absolute lockdown, but with these warp portals, we can just appear inside the place,” Sora explained to the maid-girl with a smile, gently petting her head, “Thank you for saving those girls when I couldn’t, I owe you one.”

“Eh… Guehehe…” The girl just happily giggled with the tone of an old man.

“Alright, not time to waste, everyone get ready, we’re meeting with the Guardian next!” She shouted at the women in the lounge; then waited for her friends to hurry and group them in place.

“Just take those old records off the shelf!”

She sang her lungs out in the most passionate way, feeling the rhythm of the music, lost in it.

“I’ll sit and listen to ‘em all by myself!”

In the immense solitude of the Grand Salon, Moona used the last floor of the building, the congress, as a chance to blast her stereo and let the walls drum to the noise.

“Today’s music ain’t got the same soul!

I like that old-time Rock and Roll!”

And in that same solitude, she took the chance to dance and sing her soul in it, with a certain amount of clothes missing, and her hair made into a mess, she shook her hips with excitement and without shame, with only her panties and her black cropped top, she was losing it on the improvised dance floor more and more.

“Don’t try to take me to a disco!

You’ll never even get me out on the floor!

In ten minutes I’ll be late for the door!

I like that old-time rock and… r… roll…”

But the mood completely died on her, because she finally opened her eyes and turned on her back, and she found not one, five, or ten, but twenty-plus women looking at her in embarrassing disbelief, one half trying to hold their laughter, the other with their phones on hand, taking videos and photos.  With trembling lips, a face as red as lava, and muffling a squirm befitting of a boiling teapot, she covered her lower half with both hands, and pretending to be as calm as possible, she walked left into the chairs, looking for her skirt. “While I’d like to know how did you get in here…” She expressed infuriated, “What I’d like to know most is, for how long you’ve been there?” She questioned with a surprisingly calm tone, although her eyes and hands were shaking erratically in the search for her clothes.

“Enough to consider I may like women a little bit,” Coco was the first to answer, with an uncontrollable giggle on her raspy voice, her phone in her hand, still following Moona around through the lens, and a thin thread of blood coming from her nose. “Master, that’s a nice booty, if I’m allowed to say.”

“I, must, gather, information,” Achan said pretending a serious voice, she too was following Moona with her phone, the shutter noise of the camera app being spammed like crazy by her thumb.

“Enough of that you couple of pervs,” Sora scolded them as she separated from the ever-growing group of girls, walking the stairs down the lower floor of the congress, and opening yet another warp portal with the knife, “Please wait for me to come back, I need to do one last trip on my own.”

“Wait!” Kiara shouted from afar as she, Azki, and Aqua were bringing with them a three-by-three meter vault made of steel, floating on its own by energy waves. “Where are you going exactly? Why did you make us bring this thing with us?”

“I… I understand, that I’m being unnecessarily secretive with all of this, but please, just give me more time, everything will be explained soon,” She said in an apologizing voice, stepping inside the warp portal and disappearing into thin air.

“This is getting too crowded, who else does she need to pick up?” Iofi wondered while trying to find a place in the seats to separate her from the growing commotion.

“Well, she did mention she wanted to have everyone here to talk to, there’s still plenty of other Mayors that aren’t present yet,” Suisei answered the alien girl, reuniting with Aqua to pull on the cheeks the girl, “Though I don’t get why she needs to do it alone.”

“Maybe because there’s no need for twenty people to be following her to every zone?” Moona judged from the other side, her face still brimming in red, trying to recover her skirt, found by Coco and held captive on her hand, distanced by the difference in their height, the girl was still so embarrassed and trying to cover her bottom with just one hand, she wasn’t able to think straight and use her powers to obtain it back. “Would you please stop that? Give it back!”

“Aw c’mon, let me enjoy the view a little more, that’s some nice lingerie!” Coco laughed with blushed cheeks, her eyes fixed on the rear of the girl as she made her run in circles to catch the piece of cloth.

However, sooner than they expected, a warp portal opened from the same place where Sora left, and a small head of a little girl of white and blue hair popped out to investigate. “Alrighty, the coast is clear, we’re ready to plow!” She shouted to the other side of the portal.

“D’aw! She’s so cute!” The group of women gasped in unison.

“I’m not cute! I’m an official member of The Rainbow! Gawr Gura, fear me!” The little shark girl pouted while showing her handmade badge at them.

“And would the so-called member of The Rainbow remind me what was the role they assigned to you? Also, is not plow, it’s deploy,” A new feminine and almost feline voice interrupted, coming from the war portal, a girl with long pink hair wearing a modified costume of a priest appeared, picking up Gura from the floor by lifting her from the back of her hoodie.

“That’s… That’s a joke, I’m not the mascot, I swear, I’m not!” She pouted and struggled like a little bug.

“That’s enough; didn’t you tell us you were going to help her?” Miko asked her while flicking the tip of Gura’s nose.

“Right…! Sorry!” She suddenly remembered, then releasing herself from the grasp of Miko, she walked back into the portal, and slowly pushed the wheelchair of a woman of blonde hair out of it, “Do you need anything else, Ame? I have a juice box and cookies that Marine gave me!” Gura told the girl placing her beside the portal, quickly bringing the items from inside her hoodie, smashed and oddly shaped by her own body.

“I think I’ll pass, but thank you,” Amelia kindly refused with a troubled smile, she next looked at the portal, “And when is the rest of you coming? Contrary to me, you have both legs to use!” She too shouted to the depths of the portal.

“Is not our fault!” Noel followed out next, pulling out on someone by the arm.

“She’s the one that’s acting like a baby!” Flare added, too pulling on someone’s arm.

“Fine… Fine, stop pulling!” Marine cried as she was forced into the Grand Salon, with an angered huff she pulled her arms back and tried to awkwardly fix her sleeves. “You all know I don’t want to be here, these people don’t like me.”

“Guys…? Ame, oh my God you’re alive!” Kiara flew with her flames to meet with the girls and trap Amelia between her arms. “But wait,” She gasped confused, “What happened to Sora?”

“Oh, she’s right behind us, she’s just… talking to someone,” Noel explained with a small stutter.

“Yeah, you guys just…” Flare followed with a hum of disdain, “Just try to don’t overreact when you see her ok?”

“Oh, But I want them to overreact!”

An acute, happy voice drummed on everyone’s ears with a tingling, terrifying familiar tune.

A figure on a dirty cape jumped from the portal.

A woman with blonde hair, a set of dirty clothes, and no eyes on her face.

Coco dashed through the group with her wings, and with a violent swoop of her arms, she held the girl from the neck with an oversized dragon arm, lifted her in the air, and pinned her against the wall of the congress.

Kiara fluttered right to her side, pointing at her with the tip of her sword.

Suisei menaced with her ax.

Moona floated from the left, pointing two fingers at the girl, soaked in Purple,

“HAHAHAHAHAHA! A BUNCH OF LOSERS JUST CAME TO MEET ME!” Blindfold exploded in a burst of huge, dastard laughter at them.

Chapter Text

“So… All of you always knew, and after that fact, you still tagged along with her? … Why?”

After Sora convinced the girls to release Blindfold from their hold, she was chained by Noel, and together with Achan, they took the eyeless girl out of the congress and in to the lower floors of The Spectrum for a shower and a change of clothes. But as soon as she left, a heated up conversation occurred between Subaru and company, the members of The Rainbow and The Law, as Sora, while holding in her pain, took the chance of the interruption to explain what she and Subaru had done to stop the Crash Incident.

Without a moment of hesitation, Coco was the first to walk forward to Sora, with the sole intention of smashing her face, and just as fast, Moona floated in between the two and shoot her back to her friends with a gravity wave, making her crash against the chairs and desks like a bowling ball. “You…!” Coco painfully stumbled her way back up from the broken desks, “You’re here with us! You listened to the same story as us, how can you defend her! It’s because of the two that my friends lost all of their zones!” She claimed with frustration while wiping the dirt off her clothes.

“…” Moona lowered her hand and landed on the floor in front of Sora, glancing at the group of women. “First of all, this place is The Spectrum, it has changed a lot through the generations of the users of colors, but originally, this has always been a sanctuary,” She explained with a loud voice to them, there wasn’t softness in her tone this time, “And as a sanctuary, it’s not a place for fights and is my job to stop them from happening,  regardless of the reasons, my priority is to make this a calm place for the old pyramid here that gives life to the entire system.”

“Tch… Don’t give me that crap, you were about to make Akai Haato into pudding just some minutes ago!” Coco shouted at her, and as her friends started to step to her sides, her body sparked in gentle Red flames, and both of her arms transformed into the huge arms of a dragon. “You can’t stop all of us at the same time! Those two behind your back are the reason why are we in this predicament!”

She opened her reptile wings and leaped through Moona. “You rambunctious girl…!” Turning around trying to push her down on the floor with her gravity, Moona pointed at her with her right arm, but Anya, Iofi, and Kanata holding onto a large knife, a paintbrush, and their naked fists respectively, had taken the chance of the slip to attack her, “Stop it, this is useless!” Moona cried, having to let Coco keep flying forward to use both hands and repel the other three girls away from her.

“She said to stay away!” And before Coco’s claws could get closer to either Sora or Subaru, Matsuri pushed the dragon-girl away with a furious wave of Black and White flames. Not only had the sudden spectacle of colors given chills to most people who had always thought she was a user of Orange, but her eyes were also flaming with the different tones on each side, and her voice echoed loudly into the Grand Salon, without even opening her mouth. Besides Subaru and the girls and women who joined her on the trip, everyone else went into silent fear and slowly took some steps away from the flaming girl, Moona, and the other two.

“But… Why?” Subaru dared to ask confused about the constant turns between people.

Matsuri put down her flames, turned her face to Subaru, and gave her a spiteful look, “Don’t get confused, I just don’t want someone else to give you the beaten I should have given you before…” She menaced with an acute tone, and dusting her hands off from the leftover flames, she walked back with Fubuki and Luna.

“Well… Things today will be interesting I guess?” Moona thought out loud with sarcasm, using now the Purple gravity on the tips of her fingers to put down the rest of the flames Matsuri left on the floor and desks. “I must insist to everyone else to give up on fighting, no one’s feelings have priority over others today, we’re all here on the tips of our nerves, and I’m not going to splat everyone against the walls individually until you find a way to calm down,” She lectured the group while placing the rests of chairs and desks back into place. “This is the Grand Salon, and you will behave with the professionalism that is expected from a user of color!”

“… Was this the reason why you took us all into here?” Subaru whispered into Sora’s ear.

“I wasn’t hoping for her to be on our side, but I knew she wouldn’t stand fights inside here, she might not look like it, but she worries a lot for gramps out there,” Sora whispered back in the same kiddy mannerism, pointing with her eyes at the tip of The Spectrum sprouting in the middle of the congress.

“Now, going back to our business…” Moona sighed and stared at Sora, “You suddenly brought Akai Haato with us, and she was supposed to be dead, as you just admitted, so what is exactly happening here?”

“I have another question as well,” Suisei added from the right side of Sora with the rest of the members of The Rainbow. “You said you needed everyone for this conversation, and as many people as we are already, we’re still missing another handful, is there a reason why is only us?”

“Also, seriously, what is this thing?” Kiara asked with a bit of sarcasm, pointing at the floating steel vault behind her back with a thumb.

Giving one deep breath, Sora walked forward and stopped right beside Moona. “… Answering Suisui's question first,” She gently gasped while holding her tummy with her right. “While I said I needed everyone together, this amount of people will suffice, we’re going to transmit the information to the rest of the users from here,” She explained to them, having trouble regulating the volume of her voice without feeling blood was once again building up inside her mouth. “About the other two things, first, we’ll wait for Blindfold to come back, she’s… better fit to explain what is happening than me…” She closed her mouth with her free hand and paused to swallow the mix of blood and saliva, “I’ll be thankful for everyone who can practice their patience and composure today… She’s going to speak about matters that are important to all of us, and, if possible, I need for all of you to stay sharp,” She concluded and returned with Subaru, but having answered only one of three questions just produced an unsatisfying feeling on the group.

Refusing to answer any other question, the girls and women fell into awkward idly conversations between them until after ten minutes of waiting, Blindfold had come back, with a white one-piece dress, yet still with her neck and wrists wrapped in chains, led by Noel and followed by Achan. “Master gave Dobby clothes!” Laughing with sarcasm and making the chains clatter when running to meet with Sora, her eyeless face was covered with clean, white bandages as well, “What do you think, do they suit me?” She asked Sora while posing and hanging on the corners of her skirt.

“Sure, whatever,” But Sora just nodded absentmindedly to her teasing, “I thought you said we needed to do this as fast as possible,” She insisted with a miffed tone.

“Aw don’t worry, Master Roboco and Master Pekora are plenty busy right now, and Master Calliope is in another dormant state, the rest of the fragments are enjoying their free time to laze around, nobody is going to notice I left for a couple of hours!” With a gracious and acute tone, she loudly explained to her.

“… Fine, however, I still need you to hurry up, everyone here is looking at me with daggers in their eyes,” Sora sighed with exhaustion.

“I thought you were used to that already!” But Blindfold just laughed it off with sarcasm, enjoying with pleasure the situation. After another couple of demeaning comments between the two, she stepped forward with Noel, Moona, and Subaru, and while having everyone else sitting on the leather seats, she directed herself to the group. “Greetings everyone, many of you may have forgotten me, but I’m the number one, strongest idol, Akai Haato!” She gracefully said, while posing with a finger in the air, pointing at the ceiling, yet her excited and happy voice wasn’t welcomed with the same spirit as the rest of the people inside, she shrugged it off and continued, “And well, a few of you may know me for another completely different name…” She laughed gently and evilly, turning on Sora and Subaru. “But well, I’m actually neither one nor the other, if you were to direct myself with a name, Blindfold will just suffice,” Now, as her voice acquired an elegant tone, she posed once more for the group with a light reverence, “When the Grandmaster died, she had a backup plan and a failsafe ready for the worst, Master Calliope was her failsafe, while I and my sisters were her back-ups, which, to be honest, it was just her thinking a way to survive at the last minute, anyway, to put it simply, me, and the other three girls, are just the personification of the fragments that Sora and Subaru shattered from her.”

“… I see… So Akai Haato is the broken Core Prism that keeps appearing in our visions…” With crossed arms Moona voiced, giving Coco a squint look from afar.

“Yes exactly!” Blindfold nodded while tipping her nose, “Meanwhile the other three of us, are not actually living beings, Akai Haato is still dead so we are too, that’s why we don’t feel pain, we don’t breath or anything like so,” She explained giddily, “But well, getting to the part that interest everyone,” She pretended to cough on her hand and continued, “Since the Grandmaster made us in the last minute, she made a mistake, creating us from the shattered pieces and her Black, she also poured her emotions and memories into us, all the things she felt in her last minutes alive… At that moment, she created me with her guilt, her love, and her regret, that’s how I was born and is the reason why I stand together with you today!” She explained while emphasizing a dramatic tone, yet finished with another of her usual and sarcastically giggles.

“… Blindfold please, you’re going through circles and people are having a hard time understanding…” Sora complained at the girl of bandages with an angry huff.

“Fine, fine, I’ll get to the parts everyone wants to hear,” She waved her hand with a giggle, “Being created that way, while everyone else was focused on bringing the Grandmaster back and making her plans into reality, the guilt, the love, and the regret I felt, made me play double-spy games,” She exhaled with lament, and shaking the chains on her wrists, her tone changed with a serious voice. “Not so long ago, I chased Sora through the virtual world, explained everything to her, and asked for her help, since then, we’ve been kind of… working together…”

“Together with her, for what purpose…?” Matsuri questioned from her seat.

“Because this time, I want to make things right,” Sora answered firmly, “Since she found me, we’ve been doing as much as possible to find a solution for this disaster, it was thanks to Blindfold that we have the Bloom System, it's a redesign from a Sacred Weapon which fragments are inside her body too.”

“Although in exchange, that same program allowed us to have the Wither System, such its the life of a double spy,” Blindfold said while giggling.

“Hold onto your horses for a fricking minute,” With a loud voice, Amelia shouted while pointing at her with a finger. “So both of you planned that I would end on a wheelchair?!”

“To be fair with Sora, both you and Subaru’s wounds were things getting out of hand too fast,” Blindfold hurried to answer with awkward laughter. “It wasn’t on our plans for things to get too frisky, and well, I have bloody thirst problems…” She fidgeted for the first time, playing with her fingers, with duck lips she tried to continue explaining, “And well, if it weren’t for me you wouldn’t have survived for your friends to find you, you should be thankful!”

“I, am, on, a damn, wheelchair!” Amelia insisted with a louder and angered tone.

“Eh… please don’t say me getting chopped in half was part of you guys' plan too…” Subaru trembled with huge shocked eyes at the idea of it.

“That is enough, we’re getting out of theme,” Sora interrupted them and joined the side of Blindfold, “Let’s cut to the most important part, the reason why we’re all reunited with you,” She told her while palming her shoulder, then started to walk away and towards Amelia.

“You’re so anxious and boring, bleargh,” Blindfold pouted then stuck out her tongue at her, regardless the girl tried to regain the conversation. “Anyway, the reason why Sora reunited you all with me here, is so I could tell you an important story everyone needs to hear before the last part of the Grandmaster plan finally begins.”

“And for that, I need you to call Ina,” Sora added now in front of Amelia.

“… Is that really necessary? I… I cut communication with her to make everyone believe I disappeared, just like you told me to, I’m not sure how she’s going to react…” The detective stuttered with red cheeks at her demand.

“Yes, she’s an important part of today’s reunion, and she wouldn’t come to such a crowded group, I need you to summon her,” Sora insisted firmly.

The detective took her cap off and scratched her hair in doubt, but in the silent pressure, as everyone looked at her waiting for an answer, the girl quickly got anxious and scrapped her hair intensely with both hands. “Urgh! Fine, I’ll call her, somebody got me a mirror!”

“Will the one from my room suffice?” Moona asked with a tilt of her head, she put her left hand in the air and covered it with Purple, after a couple of seconds, a standing mirror appeared floating above everyone’s heads, gently landing in front of Amelia.

Next, the detective took on Sora’s rapier and cut her thumb with its sharp tip. She pushed the wheelchair to get closer to the mirror, then after writing a strange sentence on top of it, she pronounced out loud, “Gloria antiquis usque ad unum…” Her words instantly reverberated with an intensity that gave everyone chills, the lights in the Grand Salon blinked from their incandescent white into red, and the reflection of Amelia on the mirror began to move against her own, looking around with a couple of bright yellows, reptile eyes, standing from the reflection of the chair. “Hey… hello there… I missed you…?”

“You...” The reflection whispered from inside the mirror with obvious anger in her voice, slowly and steady, Amelia’s reflection covered itself with a cloud of Black, and its shape changed completely into another new woman with an eccentric dress, small wings on her hips, and a countless amount of tentacles sprouting from her back. On the inside of the mirror, two tentacles aggressively drilled on the floor, and inside the Grand Salon, those tentacles appeared from Amelia’s shadow, wrapping her tightly, squeezing her, and shaking her in the air. “You… You, you, you!” The woman from the inside of the mirror cried with a red face and tears in her eyes, as the detective was being shaken like a flesh maraca in the air, “How dare you to disappear that way! I was so worried, I didn’t know what had happened to you at all, my connection with you was still working but you refused to open it and I couldn’t understand why! And now all of a sudden you summon me in front of this amount of people and the only thing you can say is that you missed me?!”

“W-well… Is not a lie!” Amelia blabbered with her neck and face being squeezed by one of the tentacles.

“Just look at you, you’re a mess, you’re even in a wheelchair, do you have any idea of how long I’ve been waiting for you?! You should say more than you missed me! I missed you! I was dead worried for you! You, irresponsible, goofy, detective!” Ina continued on her rant, each time louder, turning Amelia upside down with her tentacles and repeatedly bonking her head against the floor.

“I see… so it isn’t a psychic connection like I thought, but a demonic possession that somehow both of you hold on a symbiotic level,” Meddling on the girly and loud cries of Ina, Sora walked in front of the mirror, trying to call on the attention of the girl of tentacles. “Yo, Ina, it has been a while, and I know there’s a lot you want to talk about, but I need you to lend me your possession powers for a while.”

With some key themes taken out from the explanation, it took several minutes to convince Ina to release Amelia, switch back the lights, and get her to help the group and Sora’s plan. Having placed the standing mirror projecting Ina at the center of the congress, and everyone else to stand around it, Noel took off Blindfold’s chains by Sora’s request, leaving only Achan to watch over her, they both now stood together with Ina and Sora as the center of the new event, she was holding on her knife once again. “Alright… Here it goes…” Sora muttered with eyes closed, placing her right hand on the mirror, soaked in White, it reacted to Ina’s color and turned into Black, now it was Sora the woman with bright and yellow, reptile eyes, “I’m copying and amplifying your demonic possession, now, spread it.”

“I’ll… I’m sorry for this, everyone, this may feel a little awkward, but I’m going to use Amelia and Sora as a medium, and connect your minds with mine,” Ina apologized to the girls with a bow, as several smaller tentacles began to sprout from Amelia’s back, turning into blurry mist lines of Black and connecting to everyone else. “I’m also going to use this connection to get inside your minds and connect with the others users of colors that aren’t here… This is an exhausting thing to do, Sora," She quickly lowered her tone, "For the both of us; I hope this doesn’t take too long… And… you’re also pretty hurt from the inside, I can feel it from the moment you connected with me, you won’t last much longer being a battery for my power.”

“It’s fine, just a bit more…” Sora panted heavily. “Get ready, things are going to get even messier now,” She said next while glancing at Blindfold, “Your turn.”

“Okie Dokie!” She happily nodded and with the knife, she crouched behind Sora’s back and stabbed her shadow, immediately after, everyone’s shadows in the room vibrated, opened their eyes, and smiled wide with their hollow faces, meandering up from the floor. “Now, now, don’t get scared, these are your girls’ shadows, they’re made of everything bad that is inside of all of you… Some of them love you, some of them don’t think anything about you, others just wish that you were dead so they could be in control, but for this little experiment to work, you must, by all means necessary, not talk to your shadow…” This time, Blindfold had dropped on her sarcasm and laughter and directed herself firmly to the group.

“… What is this, what is going to happen?”  Azki wondered from one side, placing a hand on her face as her shadow leaned from her back with a creepy and long smile.

“You’re all about to make a trip to the Grandmaster's memories, there’s something all of you need to see there,” She replied while holding hands with Sora’s shadow which had gone up from the floor.

“Erhm… There’s a problem here…” Matsuri bid to call on their attention, as no silhouette was standing beside her, with light refusing to cast a shadow on her.

“The incomplete Goddess can just hold hands with Fubuki’s shadow, that one seems to have a liking for you,” Uninterested, Blindfold just waved her hand away, signaling Matsuri to hurry up. “Now everyone, close your eyes and relax, we’re all about to leave, and remember what I said… Whatever you do, don’t talk with your shadow, you’ll regret it.” Then, without warning, Blindfold took on the knife and stabbed herself in the chest, losing consciousness and collapsing on the floor.

“WHAT THE… HEY, DON’T DO THAT!” Achan screamed horrified.

“We’ll be back in a while, don’t do weird things while we’re… gone…” Sora tried to say to Achan, but after Blindfold fell on the floor, a heavy dizzying feeling invaded her mind and numbed her body, then, together with all of the other girls and women, lost all consciousness and violently collapsed on the floor.

“Welcome everyone… To the Palace of Shadows!”

Chapter Text

With a long and adorably feminine yawn, a girl of long and thick blonde hair raises from a large bed and several layers of blankets. She used her pinkies to fix the hair in front of her face behind her shoulders, the golden threads slipped through her skin with swift eroticism just like the straps of her white negligee floated over, mainly sustained in place by the boasting chest which still haven’t been claimed by gravity. She slowly rose from the rest of the blankets and stretched her arms one by one with another girly yawn, after rubbing her eyes a little she used her upper body to move her legs in abrupt swings and rocket out of bed, landing with precision over her slippers and fixing her feet inside them next.

Outside of her room, there was but the harmony of nature and silence, the clear melody of singing birds, and the faint stream sound of a river far in the distance. The sunlight illuminated the room with gentle and slightly vivid warmth, enough for her to find the direction to the bathroom without squinting and just enough for the floor and walls to still emanate the cold remains of the night. “Good morning sleeping beauty, if anyone saw you now they would think you spend one great night with someone you love, get what I mean?” A disembodied voice pronounced with a happy tone, but the girl huffed at her and once in the bathroom, she placed a hairband over the length of her forehead and silently started to wash her face with the foam of a soap bar.

Although she didn’t reply to the voice in the room, one proper look at the way the translucent, white negligee remarked her curves and the most delicate parts of her body reacted in the cold against its fabric, the girl progressively grow redder, with those words bouncing on her head, until her embarrassment forced her to stop combing her hair and hurry to undress to wear into more proper attire. With the dexterity of a professional fisher, and once changed into a white and blue shirt with a blue skirt, the girl braided her hair into a perfect solid knot at the end with her thin laces.

Changing her slippers for shoes, her feet made a tapping sound into the still cold ceramic of her house and drummed across the solitude of its architecture from the bedroom to the kitchen. There, while making appear a holographic screen to watch the news and morning cultural programs on the TV, she made breakfast and ate it on the counter table. “Ugh… What is that; is that watermelon salad and… Do I taste goat cheese and pepper? And an omelet made from whites, why is that you eat like some sort of chemotherapy patient?” The disembodied voice spoke again, still nowhere to be found, but regardless the emitter couldn’t be perceived, its words continue to manage to have slow side effects on the attitude of the blonde girl, who ended up throwing the last bite of the omelet into the trash with a pout and saved the salad leftovers into the fridge.

She took on a purse and a sunhat and stomped out of her house into a town with an intricate relationship with nature, as a greenery scenario developed between the streets and sidewalks, almost as if the conglomerate of small houses and edifications had been grown together with the course of the river and inside the forest. “So, what are we doing today? If you don’t have any ideas, I could eavesdrop on some fun places to visit,” The voice said again following her around, whoever it was it wasn’t tied to her house alone, and it seemed to chase her from a close distance.

“The places you want to visit are always weird, I’m not falling for that again,” The girl finally answered back to the voice, with a tune and volume identical to the disembodied one. “I just want to make my rounds around the city and check that my Haatons are all doing fine, please, let me alone today,” With her feminine tone she told off the voice and sparked on a stroll around the place. The creatures she mentioned to watch over were no other but her citizens, her townspeople, small and round plush-like beings of yellow color, small eyes and with ears and noses which resembled the ones of a little piggy, as they greeted her with small and acute grunts, shaking their little paws with her.

Yet the mission in which she settled for the day had little of a rewarding feeling, the small round pigs around the tranquil and green town had no problem or trouble to relinquish on her help, on the contrary, the more she walked across the pebbled streets, the more the little ones shared with her stories about how the day was going well, and her hands and purse, were slowly getting stuffed with gifts of flowers, embroidery, cookies and even fresh fish wrapped on newspaper. Slightly beaten by the unfulfilled sensation, the girl sat on a bench of a children’s park where even smaller piggies played around, placing her belongings beside her. She dug a hand into her purse and looked for the bag of cookies she was given, placed one of them over her tongue, and put it inside her mouth, waiting for it to slowly melt inside while listening and watching the yellow kid’s joy.

“Well, would you look at that, is not even noon yet and you already have nothing to do for the rest of the day!” The voice mocked her.

“… Is better this way, more time for myself,” But the girl just shrugged it off, muttering a displeased answer with the cookie slowly disintegrating inside her mouth.

“Oh c’mon, I know what you’re thinking, I know everything about you!” The voice laughed at her. “You’re thinking how nothing interesting happens in this pacific place, sometimes you even wish there could be a fire in one of the buildings so you could play the hero for the townspeople! But just waiting for it to happen will take ages, why not just break a gas line and leave some matches around irresponsible children like these ones?” The voice suggested a disastrous situation with honest malice, so much that the blonde girl drowned in the cookie.

“The hell are you suggesting?! That’s nuts!” She said while bumping her chest with a fist, hurrying to pull a thermos from her purse and wash her throat from the crumbs scratching in the wrong direction.

“I’m just joking geez, no need to give that kind of reaction,” The voice hissed with sarcasm.

“You’re always making jokes like those, they aren’t funny, it makes me think you have a few screws loose,” After a couple of coughs until her throat was clean, she lectured the voice while wiping her mouth with a handkerchief.

“Oh I do have, but turning this conversation about me won’t work, I’m not that dumb,” The voice laughed once again. “Aren’t you bored that no one needs you in this self-sufficient city you built? Is all love and peace around here, it is what you wanted when you were born as a user of color, but in the long term it sucks doesn’t it? You want conflict, hardships, sickness, mourning; you want all those gray things that make you really appreciate the colors in life! And by the way; with that body? You should also find a man.”

“… I had those… And this city is the result of overcoming all those bad things…” With a red face, the girl replied to the voice, her eyes fixed on the nothingness, while she was answering with a serious tone to the first claims, her flustered face seemed to be worrying about the last part the most. “What kind of idiot would wish to regain all those bad things after achieving love and peace? Sounds like the horror stories old people tell you about ‘humans’ and so,” The girl continued while on tight fists over her knees.

“Man, you’re so hard to please,” The voice complained clicking their tongue, “Very well, let’s not make your beautiful place into a mess today.”

“Not today, not ever,” The girl accentuated.

“Fine, fine, whatever, but back to our main problem, what do you plan to do for the rest of the day? Are we going to do weird things to that fish while it’s still alive? I can think of a few things we can try in our bathtub-…” The voice implied with great malice, and the girl sparked on a redder color, jumping from the bench.

“SHUT UP!” She shouted fiercely, ultimately scaring the children in the park, turning into the deepest red color her face could express. She apologized to the kids and parents with several bows and a cumbersome stutter. “Look at what you did! Now everyone is complaining that I’m talking alone again!”

“You can be such a bore and stiff woman sometimes; I’m just trying to find something fun we can do!” The voice shouted back with a lower tone.

“Fun doesn’t have to mean derailed alright?!” The girl insisted.

“Fun doesn’t have to mean sobriety either!” The voice fought back, but quick enough sighed in defeat. “Ok, ok, nothing about burning buildings or being freaky with animals, very well Nancy, is there something that fits what you want to do in your free time that doesn’t mean going back to your lonely house to prep a fish meal worth of some chronic ill patient, alone?” The voice both complained and teased with anger and tiredness.

But the question, regardless of the tone in which was elaborated, was fair to the doubts and uncertainty inside the blonde girl. To ponder about that question made her calm down, as a sinking feeling inside her stomach devoured the sprouting emotions that just a moment ago were making her into a handful mess. She listened to the chirping of the birds, the buzz of the cicadas on the trees, the laughter of the children playing on the swings and slides, the chatter of the giddy parents sharing anecdotes of their day, and the combination of all, together with the green scenery of grass, flowers, and paint of the steel games, were all a result of her hard effort, for bringing a rich, fulfilling life for everyone on her city. “… But for me…” She whispered with a defeating tone.

“C’mon girl, if it's so much of a complicated question, what about if you let me suggest something, I promise it won’t be weird,” The voice said with honesty.

“… And what could that be?” The girl questioned mildly pouty.

“Of course, what a girl like you needs the most… is an adventure,” The voice proposed with a giggle.

“I’m not going to hunt men in a bar if that’s what you’re talking about,” The girl pouted louder.

“Oh that wasn’t what I was talking about, but if you were to put your mind and body into it, you’d probably walk the night off with two or even four men, hehe,” The voice teased and coughed, rapidly changing the subject. “I mean an actual adventure, one where we could face all those bad and good things that give meaning to life, an adventure where you could be someone’s hero! And who knows, maybe you could do me a couple of favors along the way?”

“… To be someone’s hero…” The phrase captivated her instantly, giving her a ticklish smile and making her stand once again from the bench, this time with excitement instead of embarrassment. “I suppose it means to go to one of those places you want to visit so eagerly… Can you promise I could experience all those things if I do as you say?”

“You can… Just lend me your help and I can guide you around,” The voice proposed giddily.

“What is the worst that can happen, right?” The girl said out loud, this time more than to herself than towards the voice conversating with her, she grabbed her purse and the rest of the things and settled back to her house for a change of plans. “Fine, what do you want me to do?”

“Well, Haato, why don’t we go on a trip to the virtual world, I want you to search for a couple of relics for me, what’s more exciting for an adventure than looking for treasures? These ones are very pretty and have a lot of story with them… they’re called the Sacred Weapons!”

Fueled with the promise of an adventure, the girl went back home to change clothes into brown mountain gear and a huge backpack stuffed with every little thing she could need on the way. First, she wrote a letter about her leaving for a couple of days of vacation and left it over the carpet of the front door of her house before leaving. Later on, she made a couple of warps through neighborhood zones on their portal stations, and at her third turn, the girl abandoned the station and traveled towards the borders of the city of turn, a combination of technology, old tatami, and timber Japanese houses mixed together.

Abandoning civilization, the trip presented their first hurdles with a rocky and trampled path inside the skirts of a mountain filled with tall and thick trees. However the girl continued with an unfazed smile, gasping and panting with excitement, she fought every rock, every pebble, and every tricky step on the path up the forest in the mountains.

“I’d like to congratulate you for the attitude, but I hope you don’t get bored before we reach our first destination,” The voice let her know with a bit of worry.

“You kidding? I’ve never been so excited! The heat, the sweat, the idea of fighting monsters, and being someone’s hero, I’m going all in!” She gasped over and over while reaching the final stretch of the rocky hill.

“Don’t say things like those, you sound like a virgin,” The voice just laughed it off.

“Say, how is that you’re so knowledgeable about those Sacred Weapons?” You sound a lot like me, so I thought you were just a voice inside my head, but I don’t know anything about those things while you do!” Haato questioned the voice absentminded.

“Oho? Look at you, for the first time since I started talking to you, you finally show interest in knowing about me? You sure are with a different attitude today, I’m glad you are, to be honest,” The voice insinuated with a chuckle, as happy as the girl. “I just happen to know these things, and I’ve always wanted to see them in real life, I’m glad that I finally could convince you to tag along with me, I promise you, you’ll get what you wanted, fighting monsters and doing hero stuff, I can already feel we’re not the only ones looking for this treasure after all,” Calmly the voice explained to her as she climbed the top of the hill, and now with a straight back and a huff of satisfaction, Haato continued on a comfier path for her legs, between grass and trees into a softer ground deep into the forest.

“But uh…” At last, partially exhausted from the start of the trip, logic, and reason began to argue inside her mind. “Are the monsters scary? Like, uh, how do I put it, are they easy difficulty?”

“Of course not, this isn’t a videogame, they will be like though and furious as you can imagine when we intent recover that treasure,” The voice answered with sarcasm. “But you have nothing to worry about, you’re the strongest user of Red I know, The Spectrum gave you an incredible gift you were born with, and today you’ll use that power!”

“The power of my Red…” Haato whispered with doubt, fueling her body into the bright, reddish tone, she took the glove off from her right hand and observed it minutely, when the color was the brightest, a long and deep red lace sprouted out from her palm and elongated in the air, almost with a life of its own, meandering in the air with beauty and grace, gleaming on the girl’s reddish aura as well, almost like a snake made of cloth, floating and pirouetting. “Being born with this power has been… it has given me nothing but… you may be the only one around that has ever complimented it… Thank you…” And suddenly, she realized, “Wait… Oh! I see what you did there, you didn’t answer my first question properly you sneaky!” She giggled when placing pieces together, “What about the treasure? What is that you’re looking for exactly?”

“Hehe, I like that you’re so clever, you got me there, my bad,” The voice laughed along with her. “Well, while I don’t know most of the Sacred Weapons and their locations, I know about the Pyramidal Theater, the Dagger of Solitude, and the Ocarina of Silence, ever since I heard about them I’ve been completely fascinated, and I’ve always wanted to see them face to face, if my memory is correct, the Ocarina of Silence should be guarded in the depths of these mountains by a hoard of monsters in a small temple.” The voice narrated with eloquence and happiness, enjoying together with Haato on the trip.

“… A silent ocarina? Why do you want an ocarina that makes no sounds?” Haato shrugged confusedly.

“The name has a deeper meaning than that silly,” The voice judged. “It’s an ancient artifact which stories narrate… if you talk through the ocarina, no noise will come out, but your words will reverberate through other, multiple lengths, it says it can reach people’s minds kilometers away from you, it says you can even talk to people’s souls.”

“That does sound interesting if it’s true, but why something like that would be guarded by monsters?” Haato wondered as she walked, humming with a hand on her chin.

“Of course, bad people will always try to find ways to produce bad things with what you give them,” The voice replied almighty. “Also, we’re talking about a Sacred Weapon, the stories say it was originally used to sing death lullabies into people’s minds, it was a weapon, and it was used that way, to torture and hurt others, possibly killing them too.”

“Woah really? That’s bad! And you sure someone’s already going that way?” Surprised by the meaning of the item, she gasped with worry at the voice’s story.

“Sure someone is, besides us of course, I just have that feeling, we better hurry up and get it so it doesn’t get in the wrong hands!” Now, with a friendly, still almighty tone, the voice recommended her for the best. “The temple must be another couple of hours from here, we must get there!”

“What? T-two more hours? My legs aren’t going to survive this trip…” Finally getting worried about the long travel, Haato pouted while fixing the heavy luggage on her back.

Slowly going through the maze of trees making the forest, and as the voice warned, it took the girl a couple of hours and a bit more to make it out of there. In the place where the trees stopped growing there was a small hill going higher into the mountain, and a Torii gate made of wood and varnished in red making its presence be felt at the end of that hilt. “That must be the place… We made it!” She gasped with satisfaction, her white face covered in sweat, just like the neck, armpits, and the lines of her chest on her shirt.

“Dumbo, lower your voice! I told you there were monsters guarding it, didn’t I?” The voice snapped with fear and scolded her, but the damage was already done, reacting to the shout of victory from the girl, two clouds of Black mist began to form at the extremes of the red gate. “Hurry up and hide before they see you!”

“Woops,” Haato threw her backpack aside and duck onto the grass, looking up at the dark clouds taking the shape of two giant monsters four meters tall, resembling the shapes of gorillas. “… What are those things? They’re made of color but… something seems off on them…”

“That’s what you’d call a crash, yup,” The voice replied almost as if it were nodding at her. “They’re the leftovers of virtual beings which data got corrupted, there’s nothing you can do about them but to delete them for depuration, that way they’ll end in wherever zone they came from and be depurated…”  The voice said with care for both the girl and the creature, yet it paused midway when something else called its attention, “Wait… I can hear voices, they’re really faint but, they don’t come from those crashes…?”

“Oh, I can hear them too… From below?” Crawling in the grass trying not to be spotted by the creatures while investigating the small, distant voices, Haato got near the edge of the mountain path before the hill, and looked down, scanning the trees of the forest. “Uh… it’s so hard to see… There! Two people, at the bottom of the forest, they look like ants but it’s definitely people! They’re most likely the ones you’re worried about!”

“Tch… And they’re close too,” The voice hissed angrily, “But we’re even closer, let’s make use of that advantage and secure the treasure before they get here.”

“Okie…” The girl spun and crawled like a bug on the grass, holding onto her backpack and out of the sight of the creatures, “Dokie! Time to fight the bad guys!” She got up with pumping energy, unfastening the belt on her mountain gear, opening a couple of buttons from the top showing her cleavage, and tucking the excess from the upper and lower body inside the belt before fastening it again, now making her way from the hill to the red gate.

“… And why change into such exposing outfit?” The voice questioned with confused giggles.

“We need a distraction of course! Time to put these Honka Donka Badonkas into action!” She proudly declared with a huff of her chest, letting them bounce.

“That… isn’t needed but, do what makes you happy I guess,” The voice replied sarcastically.

Stomping on her military boots, Haato called the attention of the creatures by stepping right in front of them while forcefully elaborating on a suggestive pose. “Oh my hello there! W-would any of you strong guys like to join me for a stroll?” She asked them, trying to not trip and fall on her own, making the crash on the left side of the gate to roar in anger and to chase her away, “Oh yikes, you’re so eager!” She laughed in a mix of awkwardness and fear, hurrying to storm away while the creature pursued her.

“And I’m telling you, they just want to beat you senseless!” The voice screamed at her with worry, “Run to your left and use that big trunk over there to end this quickly!”

“Gotcha, Woah!” Nodding to the advice of the voice, she luckily dodged a swing of the gorilla's arm and avoided getting sent flying out of the mountain. Haato then spun to the left and ducked once more avoiding a second smack, then, spotting the huge tree the voice mentioned at her, her body sparked with Red, and two long laces quickly spread from the palms of her hands. She shoot them at the trunk, where they spun around it and tied themselves to it, then the extremes kept stretching and returned to Haato, flying over the girl’s head and tying themselves into the crash. “Red… Ribbon Suplex!” Pressing her talons against the grass, she drifted beside the trunk, and using both hands, she pulled as hard as she could from the laces, which lifted the creature into the air, and smacked it against the tree with a loud and dry noise that echoed in the forest. The creature, splattered on the trunk like a large stain of oil, began to squeeze out of the laces, disintegrating into particles.

“Red ribbon suplex? I’m… mesmerized, it sounds like the signature attack of a magical girl that likes wrestling,” The voice commented sarcastically.

“Well, it’s my power, and I will name my moves as I want… them…” Haato tried to quip, but she suddenly was unable to talk, holding her head as if a migraine was invading her, “Aw… crap, this is going to hurt… ah… AHHH!” She screamed in pain, tightly holding her head, dropping to the floor, and falling to the right side of her body, massaging her head while crying. “Ugh… I really broke their skull with that attack didn’t I?” She whispered between tears.

“… You ok there? That creature wasn’t exactly a virtual person anymore, so you probably didn’t share the same amount of pain they went through,” The voice said showing true concern about the crying girl rubbing her head.

“This power… Should be helpful… I know it should… But I don’t understand it at all…” With snots coming out her nostrils, she said between tears. “You called this power a gift… the power of empathy… To share with others your feelings and emotions but… It is because of this power no one wants to be with me…”

The voice sighed at first, almost condescending, “It is unfortunate, to be honest, the power you were given, it most likely was with the intention that others could understand how you feel, and for you to understand people’s feelings… Honestly unfortunate, to have such a gift was meant for people to get closer to you, not to push them away…” It mumbled with a constant lecturing voice, “How is going? The pain in your head should be vanishing soon, and there’s a second one you need to take care of, plus all that noise most likely called on the attention of the two people on the lower part of the mountain, we need to hurry up dear.”

Haato nodded to the voice and using only her legs, she lifted her upper body and sat on the floor, “It’s starting to fade… Don’t worry, I got this… Hopefully, I only have to do this one more time…”

After several minutes and getting repeatedly yelled by the voice to get back up and hurry up, Haato stood from the floor and repeated the same strategy with the second creature at the gate, irremediably getting the exact same results, the girl prostrated on the floor for a second time as the pain the creature received before getting deleted got in her head. Having consumed more time than desired, the girl had no chance to tour inside the temple, a cave inside of the mountain which ceiling, floor, and walls were carpeted with lines of wood for support and aesthetic, tatami and gold decorations. The girl hurried and slammed all doors of the temple open, looking over for anything suspicious or of value, but it was at the very end of the temple after running through a long hall, that a door awaited for her, welcoming her into a larger cave, this one, contrary to the rest of the temple, remained untouched by the hand of men, just a dark hole reeking of mold and humidity and the creak of bats, barely illuminated by the small holes from the ceiling.

In that darkness, however, she could spot two unnatural things, the stairs made of rock leading to the bottom of the large cave, and a small podium at the end of the cave where most light fell over. With trembling hands, she pressed her weight against the wall of dirt and proceeded to slowly climb down the stairs. Once having reached the bottom, her boots made acute echoes as she splashed water from the small ponds inside the cave, and scared the bats around making them screech loudly. “Here we are and here it is! The ocarina of… uh?” She tried to boast to the voice when finally coming to the podium where an item was being held, but to her surprise, the object being showcased like a piece inside of a museum wasn’t an ocarina, but an oddly shaped knife inside of a leather scabbard.

“But that’s… That’s the Dagger of Solitude? Why…? Is my memory jagged? Did someone change the Sacred Weapons from their original spots?” The voice wondered with as much surprise as Haato.

“… What do we do now? I mean, isn’t this one of the things you wanted to see in real life?” Haato asked the voice, and approached the knife without touching it, waving her hand around in the search of booby traps or cobwebs.

“Yeah… Yeah of course! Sorry, that caught me off guard; honestly, it even made me feel a little disappointed, but at least is another of the things I always wanted to see… Thank you! You actually did as you promise Haato, you’re the best!”

“Hehehe, it’s nothing really,” The girl giggled innocently while scratching the back of her head.

“Uh… Fubuki… these rooms are all open, someone must have come here before us…?”

Breaking on their chatter, the voice of a young girl called on Haato’s and the voice's attention, making them fret. “Oh no, what do we do now?!”

“I… Take the knife and hide in your clothes!” The voice shouted at her.

“What?! But…” Haato shook nervously while taking the knife by the scabbard, quickly shoving it inside her cleavage, “But, what if those people aren’t bad people? You said you only wanted to see it in real life, shouldn’t we hand it to them if they’re good?” She asked with worry.

“No, I don’t want to share it, it’s finally ours and you had to go through a lot to get it! Keep it on your boobs and shut your mouth, I’m not giving that dagger to anyone!” the voice cried with the same worry.

“Uhm… I’m listening to some women fighting around here…” Being wary, the fox-girl said while opening the door of the cave, losing her focus when facing the large space inside the temple, and later spotting the girl on mountain gear at the bottom of the cave. “A tourist…? Hey, are you ok over there? What are you doing in a place like this?” Fubuki questioned quickly skipping down the stairs to meet with the girl.

“I’m… yeah! Just a tourist! I was making a trip to the mountains and found this temple, speleology is one of my hobbies so I couldn’t help but explore! I’m really sorry if I came uninvited, is this perhaps your house?” Using one essential word, in a mixture of confidence and nervousness, Haato quickly elaborated on a lie, and the more she kept phrasing it, the calmer and convincing she became.

“A tourist, a mountain climber, and a speleologist all at the same time?” But the second girl who appeared far from the door didn’t believe her so easily. “Are you sure you aren’t also a scavenger? You seem to have rattled all the rooms of this temple searching for something…” Soaking her heels with a light Purple, floating about the fox-girl head and reuniting first with Haato, she fluttered in the air with her legs closed, as her micro skirt wasn’t the most efficient to cover the view from above.

“Tch… what does that brat believe she is? Can’t she swallow the lie and let us go?” The voice hissed.

“What, did you say something just now?” Fubuki questioned Haato with a tilt of her head. “Shion you too, no need to be so aggressive, is not like we didn’t come here with the same intentions,” She turned to the floating witch of the micro skirt and reunited with them two. “I’m sorry, I’m Shirakami Fubuki, the Mayor from the adjacent city and this is Murasaki Shion, a Mayor too, I’m on a mission from the Warriors of White Association; we also came as scavengers, so I won’t hold it onto you if you did the same, seriously, don’t worry,” Fubuki explained minutely to Haato, gesturing with both hands and holding on a loud and firm tone.

“Well, I…” Haato held her chest for a moment, feeling the coldness of the knife's edge through the leather scabbard and her clothes, but she shook her head at them. “I’m sorry I lied, I did come here as a tourist, but when I found this place I kind of got too hyped and started to put this place upside down hoping to find some kind of treasure, but there was no luck… unless…” She paused between her lie to pretend to sink into a deep ponder.

“Unless?” Fubuki and Shion asked in unison.

“Unless we go back to the city and get some hammers to smash down the gold decorations welded on the walls, there’s nothing else of value to take from here!” Haato laughed awkwardly.

“Oh… I could pull them off with magic!” And Shion quickly bought on the idea with sparkly eyes, bumping her fists together.

“I think we’ll pass…” Although Fubuki just shook her head and placed her right on Shion’s hands, pressing them down her mischievous idea, “If there’s nothing else here we aren’t going to do as actual scavengers either, I don’t want to be known as that kind of desperate woman.”

“Hehe, as expected of you! You tricked them nicely Haato, now we can go away with the knife!” The voice celebrated victory.

“Uh? Did you say something just now?” Shion wondered now, “That reminds me, we found this door at the end of the hall because we heard you talking to someone else, unless…” She smiled while grimacing at the same time, “Don’t tell me you’re one of those weirdoes who speak to themselves?”

Haato’s cheeks inflated like balloons at those words, “How… how rude! Is nothing like that, I’m… I’m not that crazy, I swear!” She pouted at her.

Yet before Shion could either apologize or reply with another snarky comment, from outer the cave, and inside the temple, a familiar roar was heard. Fubuki instantly drew her katana and stepped in front of Haato to defend her, Shion made a wand appear from thin air and took several steps forward, looking up at the door of the cave.

This time, four crashes with the same gorilla shape broke the door trying to go through it at the same time. One of them landed in front of Shion and smashed the ground with its two arms, giving the witch no time to react or counter. The impact wave produced on the ground shoot her delicate body far in the corner away from the others, then, the other three creatures landed in front of Fubuki and Haato.

“Shion, get it together, you can’t faint in a place like this!” Fubuki howled at her worried about the way the witch easily rolled on the floor, she separated her legs across the ground and prepared to intercept the creatures coming her way, “Stay behind my back, I’ll take care of these guys!” She warned Haato with a shout.

“But…!” She tried to complain, gazing at Shion taking too long to reincorporate with the crash coming near her. “I’m… I’m a Mayor! I can help her, just give me an aperture!”

“Wait, you’re a Mayor?” Fubuki nervously turned her head back and forth, then changed the positions of her hand over the hold of the sword and placed the blade over the length of her head. “Very well, I’m counting with you… go, now!” She ordered Haato, lunging her katana down; she released a wave of White which exploded in all directions, not enough to provoke damage to the three, but enough to release a cloud of dirt and smoke, giving Haato the chance to break into a sprint towards the witch.

“At last…! My time to be someone’s hero!” Haato said out loud, filled with adrenaline, her body sparked in Red, and from her left hand, a lace quickly shoot from inside her palm and wrapped itself on Shion’s right forearm.

“Love me!”

It was a mistake.

“Eh… What is this?” Forcefully waking up, the witch got up feeling a sharp pain drum on her mind, while the crash approached her at a dangerous speed, the growing, itching pain had her with hasty respiration, it took her just a fraction of seconds to realize It was the red lace on her arm. “No…! It hurts, take it off!” She screamed scared, trying to scrap the lace off her limb, but the threads were slowly digging inside her skin.

“Love… me! Love me!”

It was a mistake.

“Don’t pull against, calm down, I’m trying to save you!” Haato claimed while trying to tie the excess lace around her hands.

“Love me, love me, love me!”

It was a mistake.

“No… NO! GET OUT OF MY HEAD!” Shion suddenly screamed heartrendingly, so horrified and so loudly, even Fubuki and the four creatures stopped moving to look at the witch, who, unable to rip the lace with her hands, began to squirm and cry, scream and shake, breaking her character and twitching on the floor, as one phrase tormented her brain “STOP… STOP IT!”

It was a mistake.

“Love me, love me, love me, love me, love me, love me, love me, love me, love me, love me, love me, love me, love me, love me, love me, love me, love me, love me, love me, love me, love me, love me, love me, love me, love me, love me, love me, love me, love me, love me, love me, love me, love me, love me, love me, love me, love me, love me, love me, love me, love me, love me, love me, love me, love me, love me, love me, love me, love me, love me, love me, love me, love me, love me, love me, love me, love me, love me, love me, love me, love me, love me, love me, love me, love me, love me, love me, love me, love me, love me, love me, love me, love me, love me, love me, love me, love me, love me, love me, love me, love me, love me, love me, love me, love me, love me, love me, love me, love me, love me, love me, love me, love me, love me, love me, love me, love me, love me, love me, love me, love me, love me, love me, love me, love me, love me, love me, love me, love me, love me, love me, love me, love me, love me, love me, love me, love me, love me, love me, love me, love me, love me, love me, love me, love me, love me, love me, love me, love me, love me, love me, love me, love me, love me, love me, love me, love me, love me, love me, love me, love me, love me, love me, love me, love me, love me, love me, love me, love me, love me, love me, love me, love me, love me, love me, love me, love me, love me, love me, love me, love me, love me, love me, love me, love me, love me, love me, love me, love me, love me, love me, love me, love me, love me, love me, love me, love me, love me, love me, love me, love me, love me, love me, love me, love me, love me, love me, love me, love me, love me, love me, love me, love me, love me, love me, love me, love me, love me, love me, love me, love me, love me, love me, love me, love me, love me, love me, love me, love me, love me, love me, love me, love me, love me, love me, love me, love me, love me, love me, love me, love me, love me, love me, love me, love me, love me, love me, love me, love me, love me, love me, love me, love me, love me, love me, love me, love me, love me, love me, love me, love me, love me, love me, love me, love me, love me, love me, love me, love me, love me, love me, love me, love me, love me, love me, love me, love me, love me, love me, love me, love me, love me, love me, love me, love me, love me, love me, love me, love me, love me, love me, love me, love me, love me, love me, love me, love me, love me, love me, love me, love me, love me, love me, love me, love me, love me, love me, love me, love me, love me, love me, love me, love me, love me, love me, love me, love me, love me, love me, love me, love me, love me, love me, love me, love me, love me, love me, love me, love me, love me, love me, love me, love me, love me, love me, love me, love me, love me, love me, love me, love me, love me, love me, love me, love me, love me, love me, love me, love me, love me, love me, love me, love me, love me, love me, love me, love me, love me, love me, love me, love me, love me, love me, love me, love me, love me, love me, love me, love me, love me, love me, love me, love me, love me, love me, love me, love me, love me, love me, love me, love me, love me, love me, love me, love me, love me, love me, love me, love me, love me, love me, love me, love me, love me, love me, love me, love me, love me, love me, love me, love me, love me, love me, love me, love me, love me, love me, love me, love me, love me, love me, love me, love me, love me, love me, love me, love me, love me, love me, love me, love me, love me, love me, love me, love me, love me, love me, love me, love me, love me, love me, love me, love me, love me, love me, love me, love me, love me, love me, love me!”

It was just a mistake.

“AHHHHHHHH! AAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHH!” Shion exploded into the loudest, heartbreaking scream of pain yet, unable to think logically, the girl saw no other option but to blast a huge Purple ball of magic at Haato, shooting her away and breaking the red lace in half, “AHHH… AHHH! AHHHHHHH!” She kept on screaming, shaking her head in horror, summoning another three spheres she used to delete the crash coming her way.

“Shion… Shion!” Fubuki snapped at last after Haato flew from her side, she put her focus on the other three creatures, and flowing her katana with an abrupt amount of White, she slashed through the creatures with one swing, then in the hurry, she dropped on her katana and ran towards Shion, who was still screaming. Fubuki tugged the witch between her arms as strong as she could, biting her lips at the screams of horror being shouted inside her ear, holding painfully the kicks and fists hitting on her stomach and back.

“Haato… Is… Is not your fault…” The voice stuttered at the girl.

“Then… who is the fault but me…?” Haato cried while lying on the ground. “I… I just wanted to save her… and I hurt her instead…”

Only silence followed when Shion’s screams came to a stop, the first one to leave the cave was Haato, as ordered by the fox-girl, who looked back at her with a deadly stare. When three hours had passed by and the sun of noon had changed into the first orange rays of the dying evening, Fubuki and Shion walked out of the temple to meet with the girl. Haato looked down; there wasn’t anything she could say to apologize to the witch.

Shion, on the other hand, aimed at her with her left and summoned a ball of Purple magic; there wasn’t anything for her to say either, just anger, fear, and rage circulating through her veins. And while Haato was prepared to receive the hit, and Fubuki closed her eyes expecting the worst, the magic on Shion’s hand suddenly disappeared in a cloud of dust, as one thought had clearly crossed the witch’s mind. “Oh… I get it, I finally remember you!” She said with sarcasm, then, instead of blasting Haato with magic, she delivered a powerful slap on her right cheek, Haato tightened her fists in silence, but she didn’t comply. “You are that freak everyone stays away from! The Mayor that talks alone and has that creepy lace power! Hah, no wonder why no one wants to be with you; seriously, next time you try doing that to me, being smacked by my magic will be the last of your worries!” She took Haato from the neck of her mountain clothes and screamed at her, centimeters from her face, still angered and afraid of the blonde girl, almost spitting on her face.

“Enough, Shion, you had a chance, and is over now, let’s get out of here,” Fubuki interrupted the trashing of the witch, forcing her to drop Haato’s neck. Shion now waved her wand in the air, and a broom flew inside the forest, picking up Fubuki from the butt, working as a seat for the fox girl, and lifting her over the air. “Hopefully, our paths won’t ever cross again…” Fubuki said coldly, bidding farewell to Haato.

“We should’ve flown from the start, that way we would’ve never met with this freak,” Shion hissed behind Haato’s back, floating to the side of Fubuki while placing her hands on the front and back of her micro skirt, the two girls elevated in the air with help of the purple magic and disappeared from the forest with amazing speed.

Back to her city, Haato stepped into the front door in dead silence, swollen, red crying eyes flowing with multiple, thin streams of tears across her face, the letter she had written was never read by any of her citizens, and with fury, she stepped on it while squirming on a powerless feeling until tearing it apart. Throwing her backpack into the floor, and opening the door with sudden and violent movements, she stomped on the living room, took on a whole bottle of wine from the dinner table, and sat on the couch with one swoop of her rear. Pulling the capsule and cork with a popping sound, she took a chug from the bottle straight from the tip, drowning in it, the excess coughed out of her mouth and stained the already dirty and sweat mountain gear; she was a complete mess of different types of dirt and liquids all over her body.

“Well… You wanted an adventure, you were the one who ruined it, I’m… yeah, I’m not taking responsibility for it,” Calmly chuckling, washing their hands of the situation, the voice commented as the girl cried and chugged the wine. “It is funny though… Hilarious, if you ask me, you wanted to be someone’s hero, at least that’s what you’ve been on and on for a long time, but when the moment finally appeared, right in front of your eyes, all that witch met was a chronically love craving girl with clear mental issues… honestly… it’s really hard not to laugh about it!” The voice commented on the pain of Haato, trying its best to don’t explode in a burst of laughter.

“You can be such a bitch…” Haato mumbled between tears, “I should’ve known better… I knew it was weird, that you started being so nice to me all of a sudden… This is the real you… A voice in my head that hates me even more than I do…”

“Oh dear, I do hate you! But there’s something wrong about what you say…!” With great sarcasm, the voice continued, “I’m not a voice inside your head you stupid, didn’t you notice today? The fox and the witch could hear me just clearly, how could they if I were trapped in that meathead of yours?”

Haato stopped with furrowed brows, trying to clean her nose several times with her free hand, “Wait… what you mean? Then where are you exactly if not inside my head?” She asked with tears in her eyes.

“Below your feet, idiot, I’ve always been here, but you and your ego, and those stupid breasts of yours had never let you pay me real attention, right? Look at me now!” The voice shouted.

Haato’s eyes moved from side to side, unable to understand at first, but when sitting properly on the sofa and looking down at her feet, her eyes moved from squinting in confusion to opening wide in shock, finally noticing that the shadow, cast by the lights of the lamps inside the house, had hollow eyes and mouth, looking back at her with a long and creepy smile. “… You…?”

“Finally, you take the decency to face me, and it’s Haachama for you, thanks for asking,” With a spiteful voice, the shadow spoke to her.

“… Haachama you say?” Haato questioned while taking a chug of wine.

“Yeah, I based it on your name; I need to have a name, don’t I?” The shadow shrugged, “At the very least, I should deserve a name, as I’m forever trapped on your heels until you let me have control, I’m forever stuck with you, stupid bitch, so for the very least, let me have a name.”

The hideous tone in which the shadow insulted her made Haato prostrate on the sofa. “Yeah… That’s more like it… that’s how you have always been… I don’t understand what made me think that today you had a change of heart, that, for the first time, we could have fun together…” The girl whimpered submerged in sadness, looking down at her shadow from over her knees. “Haachama… Just why do you dislike me so much?”

“Dislike you? Oh, but a tender word, my dear Haato, such a small, tender, and useless word,” The shadow said while making tongue clicking sounds. “I don’t dislike you, that word falls short of what I feel about you, I hate you, profoundly and wholeheartedly, I hate you from the very moment I knew I was going to spend my existence together with you.”

The shadow hands began to move individually from Haato’s limbs.

“I hate you from the beginning, I hate the way you breathe, I hate the way you speak, I hate the way you laugh, I hate the way you walk if I could write in a diary all the things I hate about you, it would never suffice. You just don’t understand, do you? How much I hate you, you were born surrounded by comfort, you had it easy from the very start of your life, you were born as a Mayor and you were given special power by the Spectrum on top of it, and yet you managed to waste it all together.

You grew up into an insufferable prick, egoistic, deaf, and numb to other people’s problems. Did you achieve love and peace in this city? What a joke, you only did it because you wanted to boast about being a better person than everyone else, and as result, you still ended up as the lonely freak who believes the world needs to spin around your crotch otherwise is not worth paying attention or care to it.

Oh and hold on, because there’s more! More? More! Because I hate you so dearly, and spending all the seconds of my existence together with you has been living torture, I was born to hate you and I grew up to hate you, even more, I hate the way you dress, I hate the way you use makeup, I hate the way you flirt with men and then get cold feet and run back home to spend your nights alone and drinking wine.

I severely hate you in the same way a sharp-less knife hates not being able to cut through leather, I hate you like a child who has been abused by their parents, I hate you in the same way darkness hates the light, I hate you, I hate you, I hate you! Akai Haato, I hate you all and everything that makes you! There’s a reason nobody is close to you it's because you ruin everything you touch, you’re useless to the system, you rejected have a purpose for the system, everything that was given to you, you toyed with it until there was nothing left, and now your life revolves about crying over spilled milk, you ruin friendships, you ruin people, all you do becomes a disaster of rotten proportions of crap! You will never be enough because you decided to not be enough! I hate you for it every single day of your useless existence!

And here I am now, stuck, trampled! Tied together to your pathetic existence, I thought today we could do things differently, I thought that if I tried hard enough, and faked care about you, you would try to be different, but it was useless, useless! Here you are once again drowning your sadness with alcohol as you always do every time things get complicated, coward, coward I say! If I were in control things would never be this way, if I were in control I could use your empathy in ways that you can’t even imagine!

I just want to be free, I want to be set free, but instead, I’m here with you, doomed with you, the most useless creation of the system. If I could take control I would do things right, I would do things better, I wish I could be in control I want to be in control! Let me have your body, your eyes, your skin, your blood, and your intestines! Give it to me, everything of it, and I promise I would put you to better use, but, you won’t, because you’re a coward, a coward! The biggest waste of space, a woman who can’t get close to anyone without hurting them, and me, cursed to spend every second of my life, watching you destroying everything, and everyone around you, because somehow, after all these years, you still can’t get around your head that you aren’t a saint, that, in fact, you have a hell of a rotten personality with multiple mental issues and you’re unable to admit it! I HATE YOU, I HATE YOU, I HATE YOU, AKAI HAATO!”

The shadow screamed.

It howled at her.

The creature cried with honest rage.

And eternal suffering provoked by being a spectator of someone else’s life.

Obligated to watch every joyful moment, every hurtful mistake.

And Haato stood still for several minutes, for seconds, for hours.

With the screams of the creature drumming on her head.

Crying.

Her hands trembled void of strength and the bottle of wine fell into the couch of the sofa, rolled down, and broke when crashing against the floor.

She tried to deny, to discuss, and even to reason the entire sudden wrath the shadow dropped on her.

Overwhelmed by emotions.

Insulted and screamed at.

By no other but her shadow an entity which, against the will of the two, had but an intricate relationship with her.

Pale and with red eyes, scared and tired.

She faced the angered shadow after an hour of silence; then asked.

“If… Do you think you could be a better me… If I were to give you control?”

The shadow’s hollow smile widened to a worrisome length.

“If you give me the chance… Contrary to you, I won’t waste it, once I take control of your body… Oh, the countless things I will do with this world…”

The creature insinuated with malice.

“And… What do I need to do to give you control?”

She questioned with fear, but somehow, she already knew the answer.

“What a day! To think you would ask something like that, today of all days!” The shadow shouted jolly, dancing on the floor. “Of course dear, there’s but one way… And today especially, you obtained the best tool to do it!”

The girl didn’t understand at first, while she was predisposed, there was still confusion, and once she caught the insinuation, Haato grew even paler, pulling on the dagger from the inside of her clothes. She took the blade out of the scabbard; the oddly shaped steel had a deep and scary, black color in it, shining bright when the lights of the lamps reflected on it. Haato crawled down the sofa, kneeling on the mess of broken glass and wine, with yet more tears dropping from her eyes, she held the blade with the tip finding nest on the skin of her neck, both hands on the handle. “After this… what will happen to me?” She asked with a broken voice, her mouth flooded with saliva and wine.

“You’ll stop being a nuisance to me, that’s what will happen,” The shadow laughed, “C’mon, C’MON, I’ve been waiting more than eighteen years for this moment to come true! To finally be set free! I want you to do it, DO IT, STAB YOURSELF ON THE NECK! You don’t have an idea of what starving does to a shadow; I want to eat you as soon as you drop on the floor!”

“You… you’re going to eat me…?” She asked with trembling hands, the tip of the blade scraping the skin of her neck.

“Of course, I will, IT’LL BE A FEAST! A CELEBRATION TO COMMEMORATE THAT THE SYSTEM FINALLY GOT RID OF THEIR WORST MISTAKE, DO IT, HURRY UP AND DO IT, STAB THAT KNIFE PROFOUNDLY INTO YOUR NECK, LET ME SEE YOUR BLOOD SPRAY AND MIX WITH YOUR DEAR WINE, LET ME SEE YOU DROPPING ON THE FLOOR, I WILL EAT YOUR SKIN, YOU HEAD, YOUR BLOOD AND BONES, YOUR HAIR, YOU GUTS, YOUR HEART, AND YOUR BRAIN, I WILL HAVE THE GREATEST DINNER AND LEAVE NO LEFTOVER FROM YOUR USELESS BODY, AND THEN, ONLY THEN, I’LL BE FOREVER FREE OF YOU, FREE ME, AKAI HAATO, LET ME TAKE CONTROL, LET ME DEVOUR YOU

LET

ME

EAT YOU!”

“Scram, malevolent.”

In the middle of the blood-thirsty screams, when a small line of blood began to pour from her neck, a woman spoke.

It was rather a tall woman, with long, pink hair, wearing gothic attire.

She had stabbed the shadow on the floor, and the floor altogether, with the long blade of a scythe.

And as soon as she did, the hollow face on Haato’s shadow disappeared, and the dark silhouette returned to the shape it was always meant to be.

Regardless, the loud and sharp stroke of the impact produced when the scythe dug into the ceramic floor, spooked Haato and made her panic, crawling away from her and the sofa. “Who… Who are you?! What did you do?!” Screaming at her with a completely broken voice, Haato attempted to pretend anger instead of fear.

“She was bothering you, so I put her to sleep for a while,” The tall woman explained calmly, tapping the hold of the scythe a couple of times, the shadow remained captive against the floor, even while Haato had run away from the couch, the dark silhouette had been restrained by its edge. “I’m sorry for intruding into your house like this, miss, but you summoned me,” She added while fixing her long hair.

“… I did?” Haato asked yet quickly answered herself, “Of course… You’re the grim reaper… I… I…” At that very moment, free from the loud and demeaning voice of her shadow, she understood what she was about to do a minute ago, and when looking at the scythe on the floor, she crawled out of the living room and into the kitchen, “No… NO! I don’t want to die yet!” She screamed at the reaper while trying to run away.

“Wait, calm down miss, I didn’t come to claim your soul, please!” With a seemingly masculine voice, the woman tried to excuse herself, slowly chasing Haato into the kitchen. “I was summoned here by your desire to take your own life, but I’m not here to take it for you!”

“Liar, stay away from me!” In the middle of her despair, Haato summoned her red lace, and shoot it against the reaper, which when trying to block it with her left arm, got it wrapped instead.

But nothing happened.

Haato looked at the reaper confused.

The reaper shared the same puzzled expression with her.

“… So you want to be loved…” The reaper whispered while waving the lace on her arm. “That’s an honest feeling I guess, and, knowing what you were about to do just now… I think is fair for you to ask about being loved, there’s nothing wrong with it… perhaps that is a bit loud, but that’s it,” With a gentle chuckle, the woman explained, contrary to Shion, she didn’t mind the voice on her head, even more, she thought of it lightly with no bother whatsoever. “What is this power though? To suddenly being able to hear your mind… and it feels as if you could hear mine too?”

Haato nodded, with the little drops of blood left inside her body after several attacks of panic, her cheeks blushed just slightly, but in her pale face, they pronounced just enough. “But… Is so quiet… Inside your mind… so peaceful… as if you were in terms with yourself… or maybe as if you didn’t think of anything…”

“Well, the last one is a bit hurtful,” The reaper shrugged it off with a laugh, and noticing part of Haato had calmed down, she took the moment to slowly walk in front of her, stretching her hand, and taking on Haato’s, interlacing her fingers with her, with the lace tangling their arms together.

“Greetings miss, my name is Mori Calliope, what is yours?”

Chapter Text

Resting her back against the wall near the door of the bathroom, Calliope scanned Haato’s house with uncertainty. Her left hand tangled a long flock of her hair between her fingers as if trying to sew with it. “It doesn’t make sense…” She murmured with a frown, her eyes posing on every corner of the house each time more confused.

The furniture in the kitchen and living room, except for the now stained sofa and the broken floor, was in a perfect state, their brightness and cleanness showed a certain amount of care and detail from Haato herself. There was order, an ambiance in which you could breathe at peace, it was the level of organization from someone who is not obsessed, just in the gray line where you could breath peacefully knowing nothing was out of place, every paint on the walls, every small decoration, it had a purpose on the house and it harmonized with the rest of the objects.

“But maybe is because of that…” She thought with a cynical mind, “Maybe it is because it doesn’t make sense… Everything around here seems to be perfectly placed for the sake of a picture and nothing else… Still, how an environment like this could sprout such malevolence…” Calliope continued pondering inside her uncertainty, now rising her left arm to the height of her face, noticing how the red lace remained tightly wrapped on her, even more, when observing it with detail, it was almost as if the lace was pulsating with Haato’s heart and blood, small and tender strokes resembling a nude vein trying to invade Calliope’s body. “And it seems that, as long as I voice my thoughts, she can’t hear them on the other side…” She frowned once more, turning her face to the door of the bathroom.

The reaper gave a heavy sigh and pulled on the lace a couple of times to call the attention of the girl on the other side. “Would you please stop thinking about that? If you’re done with your shower just get out, no matter how long you take inside of it, at no point I’ll ask to join in, please remember I can hear your thoughts through this Miss,” Calliope explained loudly enough at the door for Haato to hear, making remarks with her voice about the most awkward parts, it was enough for Haato to let out a short yet audible shriek, almost flop on the bath, and hurry to close the showerhead and wrap herself on a towel to get out.

Leaving large marks of wet footprints on the floor, she popped from the door with a flustered face, “Is… Is not Miss… Could you call me by my name at least?” She stuttered at her.

“… Haato,” Calliope nodded with reluctance, “So when is this coming off again? Is not like it’s a busy job, but I still have a schedule to make, you know?” The reaper complained, pointing at lace and later the scythe with her thumb.

The blonde girl drowned a new scared sound as soon as it tried to come out, while Calliope was looking at her scythe, Haato was only concerned about the now muted, passive shadow stuck on the floor. “I’m… sorry, I didn’t mean to hold you back from your work, m-my power is not the most convenient… but! I promise you it will come off eventually! In the meanwhile, would you like to stay for dinner?” Her voice traveled from different pitch lengths as she talked, to tell when she was lying or saying the truth was confusing, and Calliope could only give her a silent stare in reply to her odd mannerism.

However, against all, she nodded and accepted the invitation for dinner. Once again, separated by doors, yet connected by the red lace, Haato changed on clothes in her room and appeared again in her usual attire just to run across the kitchen and start to prep the late-time meal. “Mind if I…?” Calliope gestured from the other side of the kitchen counter, without permission, she had taken a bottle from the small wooden wine cellar in Haato’s house, gently waving it with open intentions to satiate her thirst.

“O-Of course! Please make yourself comfortable!” Haato nodded happily and pointed at the thin glassware for the wine right behind Calliope’s back. “So erhm, can I ask…? I can, right?” She tried to start into something when waving a knife around, mincing vegetables, “I thought you were going to take my soul… you’re the reaper, so why?”

“Being the reaper of the Virtual World is a quiet job if I have to say,” She commented without looking at her, taking off the metallic wrap around the capsule and cork of the wine with her nails. “The life span of a virtual being is not infinite, but it sure is long as hell, claiming the souls of those who have died, or the ones who have accepted dead on their hearts, doesn’t happen as often as people think…” Filling up the glass almost to the border, playing with dexterity with the tension of the border, she gave a quick look to Haato from the corner of her eyes, “That’s because suicide attempts were recently added to my to-do list.”

“… I see…?” With awkwardness, Haato shrugged at what the reaper said, not feeling it was an explanation by the bored tone of her voice. “And, you visit people who try to… but don’t claim their souls?”

“Correct,” Calliope nodded uninterested. “My job is to make sure those people don’t finish what they started, as I will only take the souls of those who I mentioned before.” She took the glass with her to the kitchen table and sat while having a long sip, licking her lips after, “Good stuff… Anyway, I don’t really have training in stopping people from doing dumb things but, heck, here I am, and for now, I guess, the least I can do is give you a little of a company before I leave,” She finished with a small smile and the cup on the air, thanking her for the drink before taking another sip.

Half an hour after unfruitful chitchat, Haato had served two plates of hamburger steak and salad. But to eat together was as awkward as the rest of the night, and while Haato stuffed her cheeks and put a lot of effort into making joyful sounds as she munched, Calliope wasn’t having it, slowly releasing a long, and tiresome groan between bites and slices of the meat, as if a thought was invading her mind, until all of a sudden, she smashed the table with her right, “ENOUGH!” She screamed with a speck of red on her cheeks, “PLEASE, I beg you, stop having sexual thoughts about me while we’re eating, I can read your mind, you moron!”

With a burst of awkward laughter, Haato’s hand elevated in all directions, losing grasp of her fork and knife, unable to reply to those accusations, not even able to apologize, as babbler was the only thing coming from her mouth. “I… I keep forgetting it… Is the first time I’m connected to someone whose mind is so peaceful and quiet, I keep forgetting you’re on the other side,” She finally voiced, holding the cutlery by the extreme ends, trying to regain composure.

“… It’s honestly amazing to find someone who thirsts over me harder than the phoenix girl; do you understand we have barely just met right?” Calliope said at first with a sigh but ended with a chuckle while pointing her glass at Haato, trying at least, to find something to laugh from the situation.

“Y-yes, I know is weird… But you’re just… so stunning…” The blonde girl whispered with glowing cheeks. Regardless of a desire to get scolded again from her wild imagination, she huffs her lust away and tried to finish her steak, now changing on the subject too. “So how’s dinner? It has been a while since the last time I cooked for someone…”

“I…” Calliope hesitated, for her, the night had never gone in her favor, not even with the food. “If I had to be honest… The smell, when you were cooking, was enticing… But this lacks so much flavor and spice, it feels I’m eating hospital food,” The tiredness in her voice made that harsh criticism hurt even more, and Haato didn’t hesitate to drop on the fork and knife a second time to bawl at her words. Inflating her cheeks in discomfort, Calliope cut the steak and put it in her mouth, “But… it’s not the end of the world you know? Is still a great steak and I’m thankful for you cooking for me…”

“Hm…” Haato quietly nodded forcing a smile, shrugging on her chair and wiping the tears off her eyes. “I’m sorry is just… It was almost the same as what Haachama said…” She mentioned while gazing at the scythe from the living room.

Calliope was unable to swallow; she too turned with concern to peek at the living room, helping herself with a mouthful of wine. “That thing has a name? That’s, not good… No wonder why I found you in such a situation.”

Haato nodded, “Yes, she’s quite the character… some days she just like… a sarcastic narrator of my life and, others she’s that horrible person… but now, thank you, for saving me…” The girl leaned on the table with a smile at the reaper.

But the reaper just shook her head, “I didn’t save you, once I leave and pick up my scythe she will return to you and take on life again… I don’t understand completely how it works, but my scythe has the power to mollify shadows but is always temporally, you will have to deal with her at some point, in the meanwhile, I just wanted to bring you some peace of mind.”

Having explained that, the rest of the dinner went silent, not because of the awkwardness between the two, but because the idea of Calliope leaving her alone had muted Haato on anxiety and horror.

They took on the plates and washed them on the sink by taking turns. When Calliope asked again about when the lace was going to be removed from her arm, Haato hurried to apologize, once again unknown how long will it take, as it refused to unwrap the reaper's arm. After cleaning the sofa, they sat together and once again tried to fruitlessly engage in multiple, different conversations, food, hobbies, love interests, movies, kinks, but there was no chemistry whatsoever between the two, as Calliope refused to put the same amount of effort and interest Haato was trying to make for their awkward time spent together less painful.

With nothing but empty words and a cellar of wine, four bottles were emptied before the laughter was finally honest, from the bottom of each girl’s heart, enjoying the company of the other for the very first time on that eternal night. In the heat of such a situation, Calliope and Haato began to talk to each other through the lace, and the only times they spoke from out of their heads were mostly for laughter.

“You’re so pretty when you smile that way, Calli.”

“Stop saying things like that you silly… crap, the wine is getting on my head… Your laughter is prettier than anything, Haato…”

“Hehe…”

“Huh...”

When the last drop of wine from the fifth bottle was drunk, the distance between the two was nonexistence, each other hands caressing with attention the body of the other.

“Is it so bad to desire you…?”

“It is… I’m not your handsome prince on a white horse…”

“And yet you still saved me… Twice in just one night… Won’t you let me show you my thankfulness… Just a little bit?”

“…

… Maybe…

… Just a little bit.”

Almost at three of the morning, the two girls were now on Haato’s bed.

With Haato wearing her translucent white negligee, biting on her lips.

With Calliope on top of her, borrowing a black version of the delicate pajamas from the girl, holding her wrists.

“… It feels so good, taste me again... Calli…”

“… No…”

She pronounced gently inside Haato’s mind.

“… What?”

The blonde girl asked bemused, the reaper shook her head with regret and moved from the top of her, bouncing to a corner of the mattress she pulled off the black negligee from the bottom, and butt naked, hurried to wear back on her clothes. “Wait… Please! Don’t leave, I’m… I’m not of your liking? You don’t like girls?” Haato asked her this time directly from her mouth, getting up from bed.

“I’m not even going to start on the gender thing, this is just wrong, period,” With annoyance and shame Calliope told her off, desperately trying to fix the stiff parts of leather around her waist before placing the rest of the dress into position.

“F-fine… We don’t have to do weird things just… can’t we just spend the night together?” Haato grew desperate, “Your mind… It brings me so much peace! Please, don’t leave so soon, let me be together with you a bit more, let me enjoy that feeling a bit more!”

“… I told you… I’m not your handsome prince on a white horse,” Standing from the bed, all dressed up, Calliope took all of her hair behind her back with two hands. Posing her attention to the pulsating red lace next, she took it with her right hand with a disappointed sigh, and with a violent sweep, she tore it, making it disappear. “I should’ve known it was that easy… To think that I ignored every time you lied to me about it tonight because you made me feel pity for you… But you, I can’t help someone like you,” She expressed with growing anger, stepping out of the bedroom.

“No please…! Don’t leave me yet, don’t go!” Haato pursued her across the house.

“I’m not your hero!” Calliope insisted by turning and giving her an angered shout, trying to use it as a way to hold Haato in place while hurrying to take on her scythe and abandon the house. “This is a waste of time… For both of us, I didn’t come here to save you; it was my work to stop you!”

“Please!” Haato jumped on her legs and wrapped them in her arms, crying, screaming desperately, “Please don’t leave me alone with her, I’m begging you! I’ve never had a moment of peace since I was born with her and now…! Now my head is quiet because she’s not here, please don’t leave me alone with her again! She’s a monster!”

“… Get off me,” Calliope interrupted her coldly, the more Haato wrapped her fingers on her thighs; the more her hesitation disappeared. “I’m sorry that your life is so unfortunate… I really do, but I’m not the person you’re looking for, I’m a passerby, not your hero, not your lover, not your prince… And there’s no amount of food, sex, or wine that you can give me it would make me think otherwise.” She took Haato from one of her arms, leaving her no choice but to put strength on her to get released from her hold.

“Please… Stay… I don’t want to be alone again… If you leave, what would happen to me?” She wondered between tears and a mouth filled with powerlessness and saliva. “What’s wrong with being my hero… please…?”

“I’m not,” Calliope refused to bid, slowly separating from her.

“YOU COULD BE IF YOU WANTED!” And exploding into an earthquake of fear, Haato cried at her.

“… I don’t want to,” The reaper said at the end, removed her scythe from the floor, and without giving another word, she disappeared from the front door.

After hearing the door slam closed, Haato panicked with clenched teeth, she looked down at the space of copped ceramic on the floor, and once the shadow began to meander towards her, she squirmed in horror and crawled to a corner of the living room. “No… NO PLEASE, DON’T COME BACK, STAY AWAY FROM ME!”

“Geez, would you pipe down, seriously what a coward,” The shadow said with a hiss, no matter how many things Haato threw at the silhouette or how much she tried to kick it away, it wouldn’t work. “Haw… That was some nice, although forced sleep, and for what it looks like, you tried your chance with the hot reaper and she left you blue balled, what a shame, but also as expected from you.”

“Leave me alone… Is all I want you to do” Prostrated in the corner, she pleaded.

“Well, if it interests you… There’s a way I can leave you alone, Haato,” The shadow pronounced renewing her usual, cunning voice, her hollow eyes and smile returning to place. “We could make a deal… a challenge to decide who should leave, and who should stay.”

“What are you talking about?” Haato answered curious and sad, peeking at the shadow from her knees. “You never offered me… a deal like that before, why now? Tonight of all nights?”

“Of course, because I didn’t know a Grim Reaper had been assigned, stupid old farts,” Haachama complained. “But if that woman is going to appear each time I convince you to take your useless life away, it will be troublesome, instead, why don’t we solve this matter between us? Like we… well, like I should’ve always done, woman to woman… If you win the challenge, I promise you I will never speak to you again, of course, if you win.” The shadow smiled widely.

“I’m… not sure,” Haato replied with a loud huff breathing her snots back and rubbing her nose. “It sounds like you’re ready to trick me to have it your way.”

“Oh my dear Haato, I am going to have it my way, but I’m not planning to trick you at all!” Haachama laughed it off while extending her arms. “The challenge will be a simple one!” She proposed with one finger on the floor, “One person, just one! During the next seven days, you’ll have to look for one person who shows enough interest in you to become your friend, and if you can’t, you’ll have to admit defeat, and then, I’ll immediately take over your body.”

“… That’s not funny,” This time, she was offended, enough to search for a spoonful of bravery inside her chest and throw it at the shadow. “Do you have so few thoughts of me you’re going to set the standards of your own game so low?! Of course I should be able to make at least a friend in seven days! What do you take me for?!”

“I take you for an imbecile,” The shadow just continued shrugging, for her Haato’s bravery or her getting angered meant nothing. “I’m telling you, this is a lesson from me to you, I know you from the moment you were born, I’m the only person who knows everything about you, and I know, oh, I know very well, that in all this Virtual World, you’re the only imbecile who won’t be able to make a friend on seven days… This challenge is your last chance to prove me wrong though, otherwise, you will be proving me right, you will be proving that it has been always me, the one who should be in control.”

Fueled by the hurtful words of the creature, for the first time, Haato used that energy to stand back up. “If I accept the challenge… How do I do it?” She asked dry of tears, with a serious voice.

“You only have to say you accept, and shake hands with me,” Haachama explained, lifting her arm in the air. “It’ll be our first, our last, and our most important deal, once you accept there won’t be turning back, if you fail, and you will fail, I’ll instantly take over you regardless of how much you fight back, and you, will lose control of all, and look from the inside how I use you, of course, that would be but eventual moments, don’t ever doubt it, the moment I take control… right across that white neck of yours,” The creature implied, passing her thumb from side to side of her shadow neck.

Submerged in the mix of anger and bravery sprouting from the hurtful words of the creature, fueled in them, she shook hands with Haachama, and for those little moments, the shadow firmly grasped her back. “I accept the challenge… This will be the last time I hear from you, once and for all.”

“Oh, how right you are, dear Haato.”

“And that resumed the life of Akai Haato, and our Mistress, the Queen of Shadows,” On an obscure and large salon, the shadow of Shion explained with full, dastard sarcasm.

“Hahaha…”

The witch tried to talk back, but hopefully, for her, Reine hurried to put her hand over her mouth and mute her from it. “Keep it quiet, she said we shouldn’t talk back at them…”

“Hahaha…”

“But… Wait,” Fubuki stepped forward between the group of women, girls, and shadows who, for half of an hour, had been sitting around a crystal orb, flashing the memories of the blonde girl. “What was all of that…? I, I don’t understand, what the hell was that? I don’t remember meeting her at all, are you making fun of us?!” She spoke out loud bemused, everyone worried as she did, but she didn’t direct her question to her shadow, but Shion’s.

“HAH!”

“Ohhh, someone is smart, of course, bad things only happen when you talk to your own shadow here,” Shion’s silhouette said with enthusiasm, almost celebrating Fubuki’s sharp thinking. “But leaving aside your genius, that memory is not fake, it did happen,” She laughed pleasingly and the other shadows laughed along with her.

“Hahahaha!”

“For all I care we’re just wasting our time here, how could I forget something like that? Her!” Fubuki stomped the floor.

“Of course dear one, because you didn’t care,” Reine’s shadow walked in front of the fox-girl. “Is not because of a trauma, nor because your memories changed with magic or a curse… You forgot about that day and that experience because Akai Haato was a forgettable girl, someone you couldn’t care, someone, you couldn’t love…”

“And that is exactly why the Queen of Shadows won the challenge, she took advantage of all of you to her dreams become reality,” Moona’s shadow interrupted with a smirk.

“Are you telling me…?” Coco stuttered with horror. “No… Then… The challenge, they, they had the challenge… and she lost?”

“… But,” Subaru whispered with great chills going through her spine. “If Akai Haato lost… that means…”

“HAHAHA! The backstabber finally realized!” Subaru’s shadow jumped with exaggerated euphoria, clapping its hands. “Akai Haato was the most unfortunate girl because she was born in the same generation as all of you, she had the unfortunate situation to be surrounded by people who forgot her!”

“HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA”

“When she invited you for breakfast, you ran away, but you forgot!” Watame’s shadow said with a giggle when stroking the shoulders of the sheep girl.

“HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA”

“When she made an amusement park for her citizens, instead of celebrating it with her, you took it as a challenge and made one of your own,” With a blatant smile, Fubuki's shadow said to Matsuri.

“HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA”

“When she tried to connect with you with the lace, you almost chopped one of her arms with your knives,” Anya’s shadow laughed.

“HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA”

“When she was in need of help to find a direction, right in front of you, you were cold enough to pretend you didn’t hear her,” Aki’s shadow added.

“HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA”

The more they talked, the louder they laughed.

The more they narrated the evidence, the more Blindfold cried with a smile.

The more they accused the people who cast their silhouettes, the more Sora remained silent.

“When she wrote a small story to entertain you, you said it was cringe and that anybody could write the same thing,” Coco’s shadow joined the accusations.

“HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA”

“When she bought you a present, you called her creepy and threw the box in the trash, right in front of her!” Risu’s shadow accused her with delight in her voice.

“HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA”

“That’s… no! That can’t be… It was seven days! One of us could have become her friend! She just had to keep trying!” Choco argued at the shadows, but the shadow’s laughter just became maniacally instead.

“HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA”

“Oh please,” Choco’s shadow exclaimed even louder, “When she tried to cook for you, you spit it right on her feet! And just like the rest, you thought that if not you, someone else would love her, and nobody did!”

“HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA”

“And none of you remember… Not because you can’t…” Taking the stellar, Sora’s shadow danced above the crystal orb. “But because you don’t want to! Those memories! All those times you failed her! They’re not trapped inside a complex trauma or a spell; they’re gone from your minds because you only care about yourselves! You you you you! It’s the only thing that matters for everyone present here, and that poor girl had to experience it all first hand, the top of the cherry is that none of you remember being pieces of shit to her!”

“HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA”

“You humiliated her!” Azki’s shadow shouted.

“You slapped her!” Kiara’s shadow declared.

“You stole money from her once,” Luna’s shadow added.

“You took her umbrella and left her alone on a stormy night!” Aqua’s shadow pouted.

“BECAUSE OF YOU!” Sora’s shadow celebrated, “BECAUSE OF YOU, BECAUSE OF YOU, BECAUSE EVERYTHING THAT MATTERS; IS ONLY BUT YOU! OUR LEADER, OUR MISSTRESS NOW HAS A CHANCE TO GIVE US ALL THAT WE WANTED, THANKS TO YOUR SELFISHNESS, THANKS THAT YOU PUT THAT KNIFE ON HER NECK!”

“… That’s enough, the show ends here,” Sora whispered in the middle of the huge spans of laughter, and by retiring her hand from the mirror, breaking her connection with Ina, the multiple, euphoric voices vanished with an echo, and everyone suddenly woke up back inside the Grand Salon.

But nobody was talking.

Nobody felt the desire to argue.

There were no doubts, and there were no questions.

Only tears, frustration, and powerlessness.

“In the end…” Sora said, slowly getting up from the floor.

“In the end… The Crash Incident didn’t happen because of her, but because of every, and each one of us.”

Chapter Text

“I apologize, it wasn’t my intention to retire us so soon, but the shadows got frantic,” One leg at a time, Sora stood from the floor, getting to the side of Blindfold and helping her get up.

“That’s just how it is inside that place… I’m impressed nobody got their heads eaten in the way though,” Blindfold said with a tiny giggle and a runny nose from her tears.

But contrary to the two, the rest of the girls and women around were less than talkative. Drowning in regret and shame, they could just gaze at each other uncomfortable, trying to find a way to sit on the floor, trying to voice their thoughts of discomfort and powerlessness, yet words refused to come out of their mouths.

From the multitude and after Blindfold and Sora, Subaru was the first to stand from the crowds. With a feeling of defeat invading her mind, there wasn’t a clear thought of what to do next, where to go next, she couldn’t find her place in the current situation after the manic laughter of her and their shadows had dropped the truth on them. It was but Matsuri, however, who hurried to embrace the girl from behind with both arms, muffling her whaling into Subaru’s shirt.

“I’m sorry… I’m so sorry…” She whispered from her back while in tears, tightening her hold around her waist.

“… It’s ok…” Subaru whispered back without energy, she took Matsuri’s hands and gently removed her hold, just so she could be able to turn around and hug her back.

“Now I get why you were in such a hurry to show us that…” Kiara whispered with a tiresome sigh.

“Is not over though,” Sora commented with a lecturing voice. “There are another couple of things we need to discuss from here, and what will do next.”

“Really, now?” Iofi asked sarcastically with her hand in the air. “Wouldn’t you give us at least a moment to process what happened just there?”

“Excuse me?” But Sora gave a defiant step forward, holding Blindfold from the shoulder. “Give a look at her face and try again to ask me about time to process your feelings.”

Everyone held on a gasp.

Everyone was offended and hurt, but even still, they understood.

Iofi crossed her arms in silence and averted her eyes from Sora.

“Very well,” Sora nodded with exasperation, “Blindfold, please continue.”

“Y-yes… You sure are tense today…” Even the girl of bandages was amazed, but trying to keep up with Sora and taking advantage of the silent atmosphere, Blindfold cleared her throat and directed herself to the group. “That place we were just now is the Palace of Shadows, a space where shadows live… Only when a virtual being is born, a shadow is cast by them, and they’re summoned on this world,” She took a pause and looked for one of the leather chairs, realizing she had the full attention of the group, she looked for comfort before continue with her narration. “And the Queen of Shadows, the leader of that… let’s say, society, was once cast as Akai Haato’s shadow… The queen is, a creature that apparently has always looked forward to destroying the Spectrum, because, once this pyramid is destroyed, the palace will be able to exist in the virtual world, and the shadows will be free of the need of a caster and live independently.”

“… Fine, then lets her do as she pleases right? At this point it seems that we have no right into stopping you guys,” Coco complained still lying down on the floor, her voice overwhelmed with frustration.

“Is not that simple, as you saw there, shadows are… unstable, plus they are made of Black, and in order to exist, they will corrupt the entire virtual world as we know it,” Blindfold gestured with her hands on the air. “The shadows cannot win this fight… Their behavior makes it impossible for them to coexist with other virtual beings, that’s most likely the reason why the system assigned them to the palace, and why they can only be here when cast by someone.”

“Letting them win, or sacrifice ourselves to atone for our sins, none of them is an option here,” Sora added when standing to the side of the girl of bandages.

“Dudette try saying that again, but this time when no blood is coming out of your mouth?” Moona suggested with an angered pointer.

They paused from their lament to give a look above their heads, Sora was bleeding again; the girl clicked her tongue and wiped the red thread with a thumb. “Do what I say, not what I do,” She said displeased. “All the pieces Haachama needed are on her hand now, and in two days, she’s going to start a war and try to invade the Spectrum’s zone… This place will become our last stand, and we must use it for the sake of saving those who crashed.”

“Did you just call her ‘dudette’? What happened to your smooth-talking?” Coco chuckled at the girl.

“I’m pissed,” Moona replied shortly.

“The Spectrum’s power is not only to give life to the Virtual World, but it is also because of the colors that multiple dimensional spaces can exist without creating a great disturbance, to destroy the equilibrium of the Spectrum, is to remove that peace, for the sake of the shadows to exist freely on this world, the queen will destroy everyone else,” Slowly removing the knife from her chest, Blindfold explained them, the wound although large, didn’t release blood according to the injury, instead, it was gentle, small pouring.

“… That’s new…” Sora whispered with a frown.

“I bleed there before too, didn’t I? It just means Haachama will be back any time soon,” Blindfold smiled tenderly.

“So anyway…” Suisei interrupted them. “What you’re trying to do here is… Convince us of participating in that ‘war’ right? And I understand we’re doing it to save our zones… But what is going to happen to her?” She suggested when referring to Blindfold with a gesture of her head.

Sora didn’t answer; instead, she separated from Blindfold and the mirror to walk around the group up to the steel vault floating in the air. She gently posed her right over one side of the vault, and it willingly floated in the direction she pushed, walking back to the girl of bandages. “This is the reason I’ve been absent for so long… To find a way to depurate the lost zones took me to other places, to meet with Blindfold and the palace, to understand why things happened the way they did,” She stopped once the vault floated in between the people, with both hands she made it levitate slightly higher, then made a small screen appear from one of the sides and introduced a code. “There’s one particular thing about users of color who crash, and is that their core prism disappears once their shadows consume them, Haachama however, decided to possess Haato’s body instead of consuming it… It gave her a different type of power, and I used that to bring an end to the crash incident,” The vault began to collapse after a couple of air pressure noises, and to the shock of everyone in the salon, it revealed one floating prism, shiny and translucent at the same time. “However, Haato’s prism is now shattered and corrupted, so… I was looking for a replacement.”

“… Where, in the virtual world did you find something like this?” Moona questioned with scared amazement.

“Remember the last time I was here before leaving?” Sora implied to her. “I asked the Spectrum what could I do, and it send me on a mission to retrieve this… The story behind it… I’m not completely sure, this prism is fairly old, it was supposed to belong to a user of color which the system decided shouldn’t exist, and the prism remained unused and guarded by countless traps in the depth corners of this world… It wasn’t easy to retrieve…” Sora sighed and gave a couple of pats to the jewel.

“It’s… beautiful…” Blindfold gasped marveling at the prism, she walked to it with her jaw dropped and a smile from ear to ear, but when she tried to touch it, Sora held her by the wrist, shaking her head.

“Until now… I’m sorry Blindfold, there’s a change of plans,” She said coldly with a sad expression.

“W…What? N-No, that’s not what we accorded!” The girl of bandages instantly fretted, pulling away from the Sora. “You… You just said you were looking for this to save her… to save me! We had a deal, you promised!” And soon enough too, tears quickly poured into her cloth, with no shame or pride, she hung on Sora’s thighs heartbroken, “You… YOU SAID YOU WERE GOING TO SAVE US, IS RIGHT IN FRONT OF ME! WHY CAN’T YOU GIVE IT TO ME? PLEASE!”

“PEKORA WASN’T PART OF OUR DEAL,” Shaking everyone from the place they stood, Sora shouted at the girl with an odd, angered tone, taking her from the forearms looking to be released. “… So it wasn’t Calliope and Roboco… There’s only one prism and four crashes… I’m sorry Blindfold; I can’t use this to save Haato.”

“Liar… You promised… you promised me…” Blindfold bawled heartbroken over Sora’s legs.

“This is getting ridiculous,” Mio spoke for the first time, visually angered; she marched to Sora with crossed arms. “I understand that for many months, you have been forced to make difficult decisions for the sake of her… and us, because of our own selfishness, I get that part alright,” The wolf nodded. “But this, if I understand well is basically a vessel for a soul, it’s the chance of a new life for any of those four… Are you telling me you’re cold enough to choose one of the four to give them this prism?” She questioned firmly with a steer voice.

“We’re using it on Pekora,” Sora answered without hesitation.

There was a second gasp in the congress.

Mio’s ears went down with a chill running her spine.

She stuttered quietly and took a step back from Sora.

“… You’re a monster,” The wolf said baffled, walking back with her friends while holding her mouth.

“Wouldn’t be the first time I get told that…” Sora sighed as her eyes briefly posed over Subaru, then looked for the strength to face the group once more. “As we are now, we can’t beat Roboco… She’s just too strong, and for what Blindfold tells me, Calliope is soon to become a menace too.” She took a deep breath next, forced to stop, she felt obliged to lift Blindfold up the floor, holding her hand, she continued, “It won’t be easy, we’re talking of Roboco, someone who may as well be as terrifying as the system itself, and for that, we need all the smart people we can get, we need of The Trickster on our side first if we want to win this fight, once and for all…”

“Pekora won’t be able to make miracles for us though,” Miko interjected with her right hand in the air. “Like, I get where you’re coming from with this, but what do you expect for Pekora to do once she’s back to our side?”

“If we can’t find a way to beat Roboco, we must find a method to restrain her, I’m counting that she’ll be able to do that, and in the meanwhile, we’ll use the chance to deal with Calliope and Haachama,” Sora explained.

“That still leaves us with one prism, and Roboco being sealed, how are we saving the other two?” Kiara questioned next.

“… Kiara I…” Sora stuttered with hesitation. “I don’t know how to save Calliope yet, but once Pekora is with us and Roboco is sealed, we must take that chance to save Haato from Haachama,” She implied next, holding Blindfold’s hand in the air. “Because I promised to this girl… That we won’t fail her again.”

“Then again, how?! That’s what everyone is waiting for you to explain!” Amelia exclaimed from her wheelchair while having her hair combed by tentacles.

“I’m glad you ask, with time travel,” Sora dropped gently, “You’re up next now, we must steel ourselves for the war.”

“Sora… What the…” Amelia blabbered with frustrated groans, her finger and her hands gestured in the air trying to lecture the girl, but the anger build up so fast on her head it left her speechless. With the tentacles now massaging the temples of Amelia’s head, she replied with red cheeks. “Sora… That’s not how time travel works, if it were that easy I wouldn’t be in a wheelchair, things that can go wrong will always go wrong, and meddling with that event will always result in the same future, the only thing who would change could be the victims,” She pouted.

“Of course, I know that,” Sora smiled at her, “I understand the pros and cons of time-traveling, I’m not asking you to go back and save Haato six months ago, I know it won’t work,” She affirmed gently.

“Oh thank God, I’m so not in the mood to begin explaining the physics of how time traveling works today,” Amelia sighed relieved.

“In order for all of this to work, to save Pekora and Haato, and find a way to save Calliope and Roboco later, we need for all of us present here to have the Bloom System, and that means, everyone,” Sora declared, posing her eyes over Mio and her group. “When we combine everyone’s Depuration power, it should be strong enough to fix Haato’s shattered fragments back into the prism,” She abruptly paused and turned to Achan, “This is where your part begins, I want you to join Amelia, and time travel to the month before the incident so you can update all of the victims Core Data with the Bloom System, so they will be able to use it on this present future.

“Ack, Sora please, you can’t tell me you understand time-traveling and then throw me that,” Amelia made a grunt. “If we go back in time and do as you say, it would only create a different timeline where the victims of the Crash Incident have the Bloom System, and this one will remain as if nothing happened."

“And I know that par too, sorry for making you so frustrated,” Sora giggle innocently. “That’s why you’re taking Azki, Moona, and Suisei with you too.”

“… Us, why us?” Azki wondered with a tilt of her head.

“Of course, you all have powers related to the laws of physics and space, combined, you should be able to help Amelia to fuse both timelines together for our end,” Sora said in a lighter mood.

“… Interesting…” Amelia whispered, motivated by the suggestion, one of the tentacles now posed on her chin as she pondered. “If we see it that way, gravity is a major factor for the concept of time,” Her eyes posed on Moona while voicing her thoughts, but frowned when looking at Azki and Suisei. “But what about you two?”

“Me? Well, my power is to control the astral energy of the virtual universe,” Azki answered having trouble following the new plan.

“And I can make interdimensional portals to travel through space, but how is this going to help her?” Suisei added just as confused.

“Y-yeah, all of that sounds great!” Amelia exclaimed and the tentacles clapped each other in celebration. “If we put our brains into it, we definitely should be able to merge both timelines together without further repercussions!”

“And the small changes should be enough for the Crash Incident to still happen, yet it will allow for all those who lost their zones to be able to Bloom with us,” Sora added with a small gesture while looking at Achan. “This may be… The most important thing I’ve asked you so far, our future depends that you can sneak on everyone’s Gears and put the program without being noticed… Would you be able to do it?”

“Pfft, please Sora,” Achan laughed it off with excitement, bringing out the small bear-shaped drive from the collar of her chest, and walking together with Amelia, Azki, Moona, and Suisei. “I’ve been doing that for the past months! They didn’t catch me before and they won’t catch me now!”

“Alright! Now I’m motivated, nothing like saving our future by breaking space-time rules! I bet some time Goddess is going to be hella pissed at me, hah!” Amelia said with a sneer. Bringing out her pocket watch from her clothes, she aggressively spun the hands of the clock backward, then, at the press of a button, a wooden and bright, colorful door spawned right beside her. “Ladies, let’s get to work… and could any of you be as gentle to help me get in?” Amelia chuckled awkwardly in the end, as her arms lack the strength to push her chair.

“Right on it!” Suisei smiled and took on the handles of the chair, while Moona opened the door curiously to peek at its insides.

“In the meantime… And if you girls don’t mind, I need to go back to my Gear and heal the wounds a certain someone did,” Sora implied with sarcasm, holding tight the mirror and keeping it away from the tentacles, as Ina tried to sneak in the group party with Amelia. “Once Amelia returns from her trip, and her and my wounds are healed, we’ll see each other here at the Spectrum, in well, just two days,” She addressed with a confident smile to the group, “This is everyone’s responsibility… our duty…

… This time, we’ll save Akai Haato.”

Chapter Text

“Snip… snip…”

On a quiet, ethereal morning around unknown whereabouts, the gentle and sharp noise from a small couple of scissors chopped grim, colored roses.

“Snip, snip…”

A girl of short stature was holding on her left, with an open basked over her right shoulder where she placed the cut flowers in.

The sun of that day was suffocated by the immobile clouds around the sky, and like any other day, its light would filter through the condensation and fall over the zone as a variety of blue and purple colors, on every house and building, on every flower and tree, rivers, valleys, and mountains surrounding the quiet city.

The subtle gamma of pale and blue-ish colors gave a sense of coldness regardless of the temperature, the bees, cicadas, and birds fluttering on their daily jobs and routines defied those colors too, like summer refusing to die at the hands of fall.

When a gentle wind made a couple of flowers fall from her basket, the girl put the scissors back and crouched to get the fallen ones from the floor. Her seemingly long and green hair was tied into buns around her head with tiny skull accessories, her one-piece dress matched the cold colors basking the city, and her big and vivid, red irises were like rubies in the middle of darkness. She picked out her flowers and looked around the large, garden of flowers, a soccer field size garden where she walked around as if she owned it. “It’s rather quiet today… Where Alejandro and Pablo could be?” She whispered in a sweet, absentmindedly tune, “The gardeners should be here taking care of watering the flowers, the petunias won’t be pretty if they slack… maybe they hit a party last night?” She giggled on her fist with that thought, and without further pondering, she elaborated on a walk towards a mansion almost as large as the garden.

With a girly moan, she pushed the huge left door and had to use double of her strength to close it, releasing an acute mouse-like squirm while doing it. She followed the ethereal lights to a kitchen space twice the size of the average, and near the sink, she began prepping the flowers. With a smaller, food scissor she cut the thorns and burn the extreme ends of stalls after rubbing oil over them, finally placing them over an empty crystal flower vase and tying a purple ribbon around the crystal neck.

But once again the same thought crossed her mind, this time slightly more concerned than before. “Here is quiet too… Where’s Melody?” She wondered puzzled “My maid should be here making breakfast for me and Morty… Did she hit the same party as the gardeners?” And once again, with that incomplete and unanswered question, she waved those thoughts and continued with her day.

“Very well, if she’s not coming today…!” She made a decisive huff, in her slim and delicate arms, she easily held a large and oddly shaped scythe, which blade was made of polished, rectangular steel. “Then let’s get to cooking myself! It has been long!”

She rattled the cabinets, the fridge, and the stalls and poured meat, herbs, and vegetables over the kitchen counter. Now instead of knives or scissors, she took on the scythe with dexterity and began to mince the onions and carrots, the garlic and herbs, spices and meat, bones and guts, nothing stopped the relentless edge of the obvious weapon whose original purpose wasn’t made for cooking, regardless of it, the small girl happily chopped and sliced everything with a smile on her face, humming on a song.

After one hour of cooking, she stormed the glass roofing backyard of the mansion with an unshakable smile, kicking the door open with a large steel pout on her hands, the scythe tied to her back, and one more plate with an omelet dangerously juggling on the top of her head. “Mor-ty!” She exclaimed happily, marching hastily with her back inclined to support the weight of the pot and don’t let the late fall, “It’s breakfast time! Melody wasn’t here today so you get the privilege to taste my home cooking!”

The backyard of glass walls and ceiling was a mix of summer furniture and small gardens all around, but the more remarking spot was the water well made of bricks, but its circumference was rather large compared to the most usual, and there wasn’t any bucket hanging on a thread either. When the small girl reached the border of the well, she placed the pout over it and the plate on her head beside, then opened the lid of the pot, immediately releasing a cloud of steam, fragrant with spices and meat. “Mor-ty! C’mon, mom did your favorite! Chicken soup stew!” She sang one more time, now sitting on the rocky border happily swinging her legs, peeking at the bottom of the well.

From the depths of the hole, one chilling mourn could be heard, and slowly, a huge, skeletal hand rose from the bottom and hung on the border, soon, a giant creature made of bones and steaming with Black made its apparition. And the girl who was eagerly waiting for their come, remained with an unfazed smile all along, together with the creature, they clapped their hands twice “Rub a dub dub and thanks for the grub!” She recited happily as the skeleton imitated her gestures with a lamenting, wordless voice.

As she took on the omelet with a fork and knife, the creature took the entire pot with its left hand; it looked tiny around the grip of its bones. Oddly enough, when it silently opened its jaw and flipped the contents of the pot slowly inside, the soup didn’t pour nor spill, all the meat, soup and vegetables disappeared as soon as it entered its mouth.

“How was it? It has been a long since the last time you tasted something made from me, did you like it?” She wondered curiously, but the answer was more to please her than to confirm, as the creature used one of its bony and sharp fingers to scraps the leftovers inside the pot and burp unashamed a cloud of pollution from its feast, the skeleton dropped the now clean empty pot over the floor and then nodded at her. “Ehehe! I’m glad you did, mom did a good job today with breakfast didn’t she?” She continued teasing, and the skeleton was willing to follow with the flow, he hunched its huge figure and with another large finger, he gently patted the top of the small girl’s head while mourning a lamenting cry.

“Ehehe… don’t do that, I combed my hair this morning!” She complained with a giggle, contradicting her words as she rubbed her head against the bone. But the gentle gestures of the creature dropped all of a sudden, gazing at the horizon, far from the zone, and into the limits held by barriers and firewalls, dividing the city from its corrupted neighbors. “Morty…? What is it?” She wondered with little pouts on her cheeks from the creature no longer showing care for her. The skeleton reunited its huge skull at the length of the small girl and looked deeply at her with his eyeless bones, the girl, in exchange, received on her tiny hands one of its bony fingers and closed her eyes, meditating on the silence. “I see…” She whispered calmly, “Something bad will be coming soon you say…” She opened her red eyes and coming back to her usual mood, she rubbed her puffy right cheek against the bony finger, “But you’ll protect me if something happens, right?” She asked pretending on a helplessly, feminine tune, the skeleton nodded at her.

Picking up the empty pot from the floor with a fake groan of effort, she placed all the dishes and utensils inside while looking at the skeleton slowly return to the depths of the well. “Well, then Morty; hope you have a nice day of sleep! Since Melody isn’t here I think I’ll spend the day cleaning the mansion!” She explained to the creature, and they replied with a brief stop of their crawling, only its skull peeked from the hole of the well, it stared at her almost trying to tell her something, its mouth didn’t open, but she seemed to hear him clearly. “Uh… Check on the undead people you say? Why?” She questioned to the silent stare of the creature, she tilted her head bemused, “… You say you can’t hear their thoughts…? Now that you mention it, it has been rather quiet since this morning… You know what? You’re right, I’ll check on it!” She nodded with a fighting pose, took on the pot again, and marched out of the backyard.

With a band with mayor written on it, a smug smile all over her face, the small girl walked with dignified steps and a megaphone in her right hand.  “Gooood morning people from Black Dead Butterflies! It is your mayor speaking, should I know why is it so quiet here? Did all of you blast a party last night without inviting me and now you’re all with a hangover?!” She exclaimed from the megaphone, now walking around a neighborhood of houses, the girl intentionally put the volume at max, hoping to wake them up. “C’mon! It's a wonderful day to be wasting it sleeping, where are you?” She questioned with a pouty voice, aiming at the windows and doors with the megaphone, and growing miffed at the lack of reaction in the entire street.

“Huh?! What is it with these people today not answering me? Is dead silent here, how could all of you be sleeping?! I’m starting to get in a bad mood, pun pun!” She monologues with the megaphone down her mouth, struggling to get mad at them, while fixing the volume of the megaphone to increase the sound to the highest pitch. But when taking a deep mouth of air and ready to release a deafening scream into it, she tripped on her feet when putting two and two together from what the creature had previously told her and she hadn’t realized until now, “Wait… If no one is coming out… and Morty can’t hear their thoughts… then…!”

The girl turned around and ran out of the street, throwing the megaphone on the floor as she disappeared. “Alejandro… Pablo!” She called on the two men when shouting at a den near the gardens of her mansion, “They aren’t answering either…” She whispered with aghast fear; then ran to her next direction. “Melody…! Samantha! Are you girls there?!” She shouted to another house farther from her home, but just like before, nobody replied.

“The family who lived in this house…!” With hasty respiration she continued running everywhere, this time going into the house and opening the door, although not walking further from the drawing-room. “Emily! Juan! Carol! Juan Junior! Please come out… This, this isn’t funny anymore!” She pleaded at them, swinging her fist with powerlessness, and once again nobody answered.

Growing anxious and angry, she overcame all her shame and started to get inside the houses and apartments, buildings and stores, while afraid to bump with someone who would yell at her for it, the reality was different, and all the places she invaded, she was only welcomed with emptiness and the own echo of her voice.

“Not again… Not again, please! I thought it was working well last time… After all, it took me to put it into work!” She cried and shouted, huffing and sweating, no matter where which door or window she crashed or tumbled down, she couldn’t find anyone anywhere, and for the small girl, there could only be but one reason.

In the middle of the city, although unbefitting of many others, looking just right on the ethereal city, there was the common graveyard where the girl ended up going to. At least four times the size of the garden, the graveyard filled with marked stones, had written the names of every man, woman, boy, and girl the girl desperate was looking for. “No… Not again… They’re all closed…” She whispered in disbelief, in fact all, the tombs had several marks on the lids and moved fresh soil around, as if the bodies of the people were constantly moving in and out, but now, they were all closed, and the holes were buried on black dirt, once again, they were filled, and it didn’t please the small girl who began to wail. “Why… why?! I thought it was perfect this time!” She stomped the floor angrily, and with air-inflated cheeks and tears in her eyes, she continued stomping her way to the very center of the graveyard. And it was there where she gasped in realization, right there, it lay an obsidian obelisk of four meters tall, chained and its seal was broken in half, and a small podium right in front of it.

“No… the spell and my necromancer book… they’re gone…”

Chapter Text

Walking on the tip of her toes, with her back tightly reclined to the walls, the small girl carefully sneaked inside an old library, struggling against the wooden floor releasing creaking and squeaking noises on each step.

The smell of old leather-covered books, the varnish on the floor, walls, and ceiling, the smell of rust of ancient gold and steel decorations on the walls, and the stench of wax candles gave the library a legitimate feeling of antique, and a reason for the girl to wear a clothe peg over her nose. Already ten meters inside the cold and silent establishment, it was a feat for her to intrude so deep without being noticed.

“Who’s that?” Or at least that was what she thought, but such a thought vanished when feminine and clear voice exclaimed she had been detected. “Today of all days… Seriously, who’s that? I can hear your squeaking,” The girly voice menaced, the small girl froze on the wall and hoped for her non-existing chameleon abilities to activate and let her blender with the background, or at least to pray for her size to let her go unnoticed.

From one hall made between the spaces of the wooden bookshelves whose length could almost reach the ceiling, a massive group of black, large, and squishy tentacles appeared meandering on the floor. And a couple of meters above, a delicate girl of white skin and a tiny couple of wings on her hips seemed to control and command them, as they sprouted from her back, taking part of her body.

“There’s no reason to hide, is not like I’m going to eat you or anything like that,” The girl on top of the tentacles said out loud, although the expression on her face didn’t corroborate her words.

The girl turned right and left, unable to find who was looking for, and silently advanced deeper into the maze of bookshelves. “Phew… That was close,” The small girl sighed while wiping an invisible line of sweat off her forehead. “Alright, back to Soko Soko!” She celebrated next, renewing her careful march.

“Did you say Soko Soko out loud? I swear to the Spectrum,” The girl of tentacles groaned at her, suddenly appearing from the other side of the hall, making the tentacles lower her body to the girl’s height, instantly spooking her soul.

“GYYYYYYAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHH!”

“Fine, fine, let’s get you out of here shall we?” The girl of tentacles shook her head, wrapping the small girl with a tentacle and taking her up high while carrying her to the entrance of the library, using another tentacle to give her a couple of spanks.

“H-hey! I’m not into that!” The small one shrieked on each spank, trying to use her feet to kick the tentacle away. “But maybe…” She whispered with a sudden thought, “I may like it a little if you do it while using your hot boy’s voice,” She insinuated with a blush on her cheeks, picturing the situation with a smile of delight.

“Quit it, I’m not in the mood Lady Rushia,” Ina complained at the girl, bringing the tentacle closer to her body. “Please, I need to prepare some important things for tomorrow and I don’t have the time to deal with you cutely sneaking into my library.”

“Oh, how dare you!” Rushia pouted with crossed arms. “I’m here to retake my necromancy book, I know you took it, you’ve always wanted it for your nerdy book collection!”

“...” Those comments seemed to alter Ina’s mood, with ducky's lips, she took on a deep breath and stopped meandering; now placing Rushia right in front of her. “The Tako Tako Library, is not a nerdy book collection, is the second most important library about the system’s story and knowledge before the one lost on Black Lust City,” She menaced with a serious voice, aiming multiple tentacles at Rushia’s face.

“…I…I…” Rushia fret horrified at the thought of what could’ve done to her in that situation, and as fast as a blink, her hands turned into frustrated fists, and warm, salty tears poured from her big red eyes. “Meanie…. Meanie! You’re being rude! I just came to take back my necromancer book! I know you took it away from me!”

Ina mediated on her claims and cries, sighing even heavier than before. “First of all, quit it with the crocodile tears,” She accused her with closed eyes, and all the tentacles around Rushia’s face gently smacked her with their suckers, stopping her from crying, and making all her face giggle as they pulled the suction cups away. “Here, have a cookie, please stop the fake crying,” She said next, noticing Rushia was getting ready for a second wailing, and at the sight of a chocolate cookie Ina brought with a tentacle, the small girl completely stopped.

“Oh Ina’s cookies! Thank you I’ll take some!” She gladly and unashamedly stopped crying, switching gears with a concerning speed, she took on the cookie with both hands and nibbled on it like a small mouse.

“I knew it…” Ina whispered yet this time senseless, as if she was used to the routine, the girl of tentacles placed Rushia over a small chair next, then dropped her own body on the wooden floor to stand on her feet. With the sound of a whip, the huge and multiple tentacles shrank and compressed themselves inside of Ina’s back until disappearing, making her upper body slightly sway. “Now… Second…” She tried to follow the conversation, faking an angry expression with hands on her hips, “Yes, the necromancy book does belong here, but no, I don’t have it, nor I wouldn’t do something as disrespectful as to take it away from you, it originally belonged to your family and you guys continue having major rights over it, I’m supposed to keep it safe when you don’t need it, not to take it away from you just because, contrary to what people think, I don’t have an addiction about collecting books, do you understand?” She explained and questioned firmly, hoping for the small girl to follow her.

“These cookies of yours are delicious! Do you have more? Also, a cup of warm tea would be excellent with them,” But deaf of Ina’s explanation, she had been paying more attention to the mildly sweet flavor on her mouth, and with inflated cheeks filled with crumbs and using off her hands, she showed complete unawareness from Ina’s concern.

“… That’s my fault,” Ina rolled her eyes with her left hand sarcastically spinning in circles, “I should’ve given you the cookie after, and not before that,” She nodded to herself, then looked to sit for a chair while summoning a couple of tentacles who traveled above their heads to bring two teacups and kettle, pouring a hot, golden looking liquid on both of them. “Please Lady Rushia, focus on me just a second,” She begged while handing the teacup.

“Cookies!” But Rushia just continued with her mood, happily extending her free hand with a smile and childish tone.

“… Fine, gosh you’re so annoyingly cute,” Ina mourned frustrated, handing her another cookie. “Can we go back to our business?”

“Of course, of course!” Rushia nodded and slowly took a sip of tea. “Please give me my book back!” She happily requested.

“I don’t have it, that’s what I’ve been trying to explain, if I needed it I would’ve asked you personally,” Although tired of the small girl’s deafness, Ina was somehow used to it, she just crossed her right leg over her left knee, and joined Rushia into drinking tea.

“Aw c’mon, then where could it be? I left it at the graveyard for the spell reinforcement and the next time it was gone! The spell was broken too! If you don’t want me to have the book at least let me borrow it to create a new spell! My people went back to slumber when it broke, is boring and silent in my city, I don’t like it!” She claimed, pouted, and demanded from Ina while holding a forced cute voice.

“Lady Rushia, please, let’s use some logic to this first,” Ina begged to her gesturing for pause with one hand. “Remember the last time you came here thinking I have taken your family’s book? Remember where you ended up finding it that last time after losing time sneaking inside my library?”

“Ugh…” Rushia coughed with guilt, pretending to smile when facing Ina’s accusations, she nodded and admitted with a pained voice. “I… it turned out I had used the book for a step ladder to reach some flowers in the garden… And I forgot to pick it up back after that…”

“Exactly so, that’s what happened,” Ina nodded with a teasing smile. “So why not check your mansion carefully again until you find it? Maybe you decided to use it once again for things books aren’t meant to,” She dropped with a passive-aggressive tone.

“I… You’re right, I’m sorry,” She reluctantly apologized with pouty cheeks and looked aside.

“… Leaving that aside,” Ina tried to change the subject, after emptying her cup and leaving it near an empty desk, she got up from the wooden chair and questioned the small girl with a friendlier tone, showing both bemusement and concern. “Lady Rushia… Are you sure this is what you should’ve done right now? Maybe it would be safer your undead citizens remain on slumber until everything’s over,” She insinuated at her.

“Uh? What do you mean?” But such insinuations wouldn’t reach Rushia’s head.

Ina took a mouth of air, confused, and no word came out from her lips at first, the tingling feeling that question gave her was unpleasant, yet she tried to insist. “You know… right Lady Rushia? All mayors in the virtual world are preparing for a war? Akai Haato? the Palace of Shadows?”

And Rushia reacted in her own way, frowning with pouty lips. “Ina? What are you talking about, there’s a war coming?”

The girl of tentacles took one step back, that simple question sparked countless different thoughts inside her mind. She massaged the squiggly flops of her hair and elevated her body over the floor with three tentacles. “Lady Rushia that’s certainly not funny… can’t you remember just yesterday when I connected with you and all of us had a trip to the palace?”

This chance Rushia giggled confused, waving her hand with the ink of sarcasm. “Oh Ina, I see what it happens, you must be confusing me for someone else!” Her giggle evolved into girly laughter, “I never went with you anywhere yesterday, I wouldn’t forget something like that so easily!”

“That’s…” Ina placed one hand on her mouth, unknown of Rushia; the conversation had taken a grim turn for the girl of tentacles. She pondered silently while meandering near Rushia’s place, turning back and forth to look at her, all while the small girl gave her waving hands and gentle smiles. “That’s impossible, I know for sure, yesterday my powers were doubled thanks to Sky Hero’s ability, it was overwhelming, but I made sure to connect my mind with all mayors around the virtual world through my demonic possession… No virtual being should have the psyche to reject one of my most primordial black magic spells… How could you?” She questioned with fear at the end of her voice.

“… I’m sorry Ina, I just don’t have any idea of what you’re talking about,” Rushia smiled awkwardly at her sudden interrogation.

“… Could you stand for a second?” Ina now pleaded to her.

“Sure! What is it, another cookie?” Rushia nodded and jumped out of her chair, extending both hands happily expecting another sweet snack.

But Ina had other thoughts, and as soon as Rushia’s shadow cast away from the chair, she smacked it as hard as possible with one tentacle, making a sharp whip sound. The sudden hit splintered an old plank of wood, but the shadow of the girl didn’t react in contradiction to her caster’s movements, who leaped like a scared cat from the sudden tentacle whip.

“W-w-what was that for!? Seriously, what’s gotten into you today! I get it, you don’t have my book, no need to act so strangely, pun pun!” Rushia said throwing on a fake tantrum, waving her arms up the air.

“No… nothing, I’m sorry, is nothing really!” Changing into a stuttering speech, Ina tried to apologize with both hands for the sudden attack. “Here, if you don’t find your book, I can borrow you these ones!” She added next, using her tentacles to dexterously pick four books from the far corners of the library and place them over the small hands of Rushia. “They aren’t magic inbounded books, but they have research about undead virtual beings and necromancy, maybe you can reconstruct your spell from them! Now off you go, I have things to do and I’m very busy!” She explained all nervous, now using the tentacles to make Rushia’s body spin and for her to start walking to the exit of the library.

“Oh! Erhm ok! Thank you Ina, I’ll give them back as soon as possible! Good luck with your war thing!” She received the books with the same stuttering voice, and when being forced to leave the place, she just waved her hand and began to throttle towards the exit.

Once Rushia had walked away from the library, and the echo of her steps became faint, Ina nervously made a holographic screen appear from thin air, dialing on a number. “C’mon pick up, pick up!” She anxiously begged the person on the other side of the screen.

– Yes…? Ina? I’m… What is it? You know right now is not the most perfect time to chit chat right? Is a very awkward feeling to be healed inside your Gear –

The feminine voice who answered back was pained and uncomfortable, but Ina decided to ignore those claims. “Sora…! Hey, I understand is not the best moment to call and I know I should be the one knowing these things since our families are related but…

What do you know about the Necromancer Family?”

“Alright… These books are too thick; I’m not reading any of them!” Back to her zone, Rushia claimed out loud, she had returned to the graveyard and angrily threw the books over the podium in front of the Obelisk. “Common books are so boring, you can’t do magic-reading with them, that’s way easier! Reading is for nerds!” She pouted with arms in the air.

“Lady Rushia… Lady Rushia!” You called and I’m here, what is the matter? Where are all my bros and sis? This place is dead silent!” And interrupting her monologue, a new voice appeared from the distance. Throttling from the left entrance of the graveyard, a girl with a torn-up dress and a huge bag on her back, stitches all over her gray skin, and a long, grieving sword stuck in the middle of her skull adorned with a ribbon, and an abundant amount of red hair made presence.

“Ollie… Ollie my love, I’m glad you’re still moving!” Rushia exclaimed joyful, running to meet with the strange girl, embracing her tightly. “I was worried you were sleeping in too!” She said trying to squish her, crying like a fountain.

“Calm down Lady Rushia, stop those crocodile tears or I won’t give you chocolate later,” The girl proposed while petting her head.

“Chocolate you say?!” Rushia gasped excitedly, once again changing moods with a concerning speed.

“Heh, I knew it,” Ollie chuckled, “So, what is happening? Did my bros and sis go to a rave last night and now they’re all hungover? This place sure is silent,” She questioned unaware.

“Hehe, I thought the same before too!” Rushia laughed along, taking on her hands. “You see, something horrible happened! I lost my necromancer book, and when I came to check on the graveyard spell, someone broke it! Now everyone is asleep and I can’t wake them up without my book!” She explained in a fake, dramatic, and painful voice. “That’s why I need you to undress!”

“You need me to what now?!” Ollie instantly pulled away with a red face, “Oh my… Oh my, oh my! The time has finally come, Lady Rushia, does this mean you’re going to accept my marriage proposition?!” She asked with hopeful excitement, swaying on her feet picturing the situation, “But we’re going too fast Lady Rushia! Before we frickle-frackle, you need to put on me a bride dress first!”

“Just turn around and show me your naked back, you lewd zombie!” Rushia scolded her with a sudden, ireful voice.

“Okaaaaay!” Ollie replied with a sweet tune, and sticking out her tongue, she dropped her luggage and opened and lowered her dress at the height of her hips, showing a back with multiple stitches to Rushia.

The small girl placed her hand over her back, and with a slight squint of her eyes, the inscriptions of a magical seal appeared over Ollie's skin. “Uhm… Everything’s good with your spell, I knew making you independent from the graveyard spell was a wise choice… However,” Rushia sighed in disappointment, shaking her head. “I forgot your spell only works for you, I can’t copy it to use it with everyone else… But hey, you can still help me!” She proposed to the zombie girl.

“Of course! Anything for Lady Rushia, what do you need?” Quickly placing her dress back in position, Ollie turned and saluted the small girl with a military gesture.

“At ease, comrade,” Rushia giggled following the skit, making her drop and change her stance. “Well, is simple don’t you think? Who’s better to help me resurrect the dead than a zombie!”

“Ohhhhh that’s very clever Lady Rushia!” Ollie nodded and quickly hurried for her bag, opening the straps and digging the multiple items she dragged along for her adventure. “I know just the right thing to do, hang in there, I’ll be done in a jiffy!” She proclaimed when pulling up a portable shovel from the bag. Using both hands to extend it to their original length, she used her left foot to push the steel on the dirt, preparing to shovel the soil of the nearest tomb, “And… Here we-…!”

“STOOOOOOP!” Rushia shouted at her baffled and shocked. “Waaaait, wait, wait, wait, that’s not what I meant!” She begged the zombie girl, hurrying to hold the shovel and stop her mannerism.

“Then, what were you expecting me to do?” Ollie asked with pouty confusion.

“Ollie for the love of everything that’s sacred, don’t you think if it were so easy I wouldn’t have done it before?” Rushia scolded her with a smack behind her nape.

“Ouch! Alright, then… what do I do?” She asked once again like a scolded puppy.

“I don’t know, you’re a zombie! Can’t you like… talk to them in zombie language and ask them to get back up?” Rushia wondered now anxious and stressed, heavily gesturing with both arms.

“Oh… Right!” Ollie smacked her fist together, threw the shovel behind her back into the air, and massaged her throat with closed eyes. “Alright… let’s give it a try…” She prepared with seriousness, but once she opened her eyes, there was only grief, “Uagh…! Uuuuoooogh! Ugah! Ugah! Brains, guts, intestines! Ouhg Ough!” She girl started into an embarrassing display of gorilla-like gestures, dancing around the tomb and screaming and screeching like an animal. “… Uhm, sorry Lady Rushia, I don’t have the sightless idea of how zombie language works,” She sighed defeated, and quickly after that, she went back to her bag, took a Tupperware with a plastic fork, sat on the floor, opened the Tupper, and began to eat spaghetti with meat.

“… Ollie, what the hell are you doing?” With a nervous tic on her right eyebrow, Rushia questioned defiantly.

“Sorry, you called me over while I was having lunch, Bolognese!” She exclaimed, stuffing her mouth with a meatball, then gesturing a fork full of food to the small girl, “I’ll…” She attempted to say but choke instead, forced herself to swallow and continue, “We can do this better once our stomachs are filled, eat!”

“Oh… For the Spectrum…” Rushia gave a loud, stressed groan. “This is going to take a while isn’t it?”