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"MIKURU!" Her partner's name rips out of Anna's throat, not even using her cure name out of pure anguish. But her words are swallowed up by the wormhole Pochitan has created, going unheard by Mikuru and the rest. She falls, and falls, and falls; for a while she thinks that even she was not spared from "becoming zero" - whatever that is - and was permanently stuck between time.
Eventually, she sees the other end of the wormhole — her room. The same room she fell through time in one year ago. Or at least one year for Anna, she's unsure if time has moved forward in the present.
"Ow!" She lands on the wooden flooring, hard. Moments later, she hears her mum's hurried footsteps followed by the door slamming open.
"Anna!" Her vision is still adjusting to the brightness of her room when her mum rushes in, pulling her up by the arm. "I was so worried about you!"
Anna forces the words out of her mouth, "I- I just had to go somewhere for a bit." Miraculously, her lie is accepted, and Anna can already feel the guilt for lying setting in, especially when it's to her mum.
Her mum breaks the hug, Anna is forced to stare at a familiar pair of green eyes — one that also belonged to Mikuru.
Despite all the resemblances; her hair, her eyes, even her age and place of birth, her mum wasn't Mikuru. Anna knew that for sure. Mikuru would surely talk fondly about her 1999 experience, running around Makoto Mirai Town with her, Kurea and Luluka to solve mysteries, transform into precures and fight the phantom thieves. Mikuru would surely recognise her present day daughter as her teenage sleuthing partner.
'I guess there just so happens to be someone who looks like Mikuru also living in Makoto Mirai City.' Anna thought, remembering the conversation she had with Kurea and Luluka about doppelgangers and the uncanny possibility of them.
But if that was the case, then…
Anna's mum clapped her hands together. "The cake!" she exclaimed. "Let's go eat it before it gets warm, shall we?"
Anna shelved that thought to the side for the time being, she'll look into that later. Right now, she has a "year old" cake to enjoy.
Digging into her cake, the taste is immediately familiar, no doubt because Kurea was somehow able to make an identical one 27 years in the past.
And to this day, Anna still has no idea how she managed to accomplish such a feat.
Another pang - this time of longing - hits her heart. Where is Kurea? Or Luluka? Are they still detectives? Or are they living normal lives, finally free from everything that plagued them? Anna can't stop thinking of more and more questions that she needs answered.
"Anna sweetie, is everything alright?" Evidently, she's thinking enough that her mum can notice it. "You look deep in thought."
"Just… just thinking."
"About?"
"Things." She chooses to answer, "a bunch of things."
Her mum's expression is a confused frown, which quickly becomes a reassuring smile, "why don't you finish your slice and I'll let you have time for all that thinking."
Anna gives her the best smile she can muster.
Returning to her room takes longer than finishing her first slice. Mostly because her stomach was demanding for a second, a request she couldn't turn down.
Now alone, she first searched her room. If there was anything, or more specifically anyone, that would've followed her back to 2027, it would be Pochitan.
"Pochitan?" She quietly called into her room. No response. "Pochitan?" She tries again, just slightly louder.
"Anna?" There's a familiar high pitched voice, followed by her closet doors bursting open. Pochitan flies out, mimicking the manner she'd done so the first time they met.
"Pochitan!" She quietly exclaimed, pulling her fairy into a hug, "I thought I lost you too."
Pochitan nuzzles closer, humming in content. Anna chooses to move onto her next step. She lets Pochitan rest on her desk as she opens her phone, and subsequently her browser.
Swiftly, she keys in "Kobayashi Mikuru" into her search bar, hoping to find something. Search results turn up dud, just a bunch of similarly named people or characters. Anna repeats this with Kurea and Luluka's names, both end up with the same result. She doesn't bother trying with Jett-Senpai, he's a fairy. Desperate, she tries searching up Patisserie Chu Chu and the CUREtto Agency. The closest result she gets is a similarly named - though not the exact same name - patisserie in Makoto Mirai Town that closed down a few years prior.
Anna instead tries searching up other names from 1999, names unassociated with the agency. Ieri Shiruku, a hit, she's a famous international actress now. Kurusu Eriza, the same, Detective Ellie is a children's classic. Kaneda Rei, the current principal of Makoto Mirai Academy.
Why was she able to find records of them but not of her fellow Star Detectives? At this point, Anna was at her wit's end. Nothing is making sense. Three people can't just disappear from the face off the earth like that.
Or maybe there was.
"At the end of 1999, everything will become zero. And the holder of the stone of truth will create a new history." The second prophecy she heard, the one told after solving the Great King Prophecy, echoed loudly in Anna's head. And suddenly, a dreadful realisation dawns upon her.
'No… there's no way…' Yet it made sense. When the clock struck 00:00 on 1st January 2000, Usonoir was the one in possession of the giant Makoto Jewel. That gave him the full authority to write history as he pleased. Logically, he would choose to wipe the existence of his biggest opposition.
'There- there has to be something.' In denial, Anna grabs her coat and rushes out of her apartment, telling Mikuru her mum a rushed "I need to go pick up something from a friend!" before the door closes shut.
She runs aimlessly throughout Makoto Mirai T— City (she needs to get used to saying present day's version of the name now), hoping to bump into someone, anyone, who could help her.
In the end, her efforts are in vain. Anna does not spot a single familiar face in her cold sprint across town. She finds herself resting at a snow covered field, one that looks tauntingly familiar.
'This is where me and Mikuru first transformed…' she realised after a scan of the area. Was this the world's way of telling her something? Or mocking her for her loss?
"Anna…" Pochitan, who had been trailing her from above, nuzzled against her cheek, trying to cheer her up. Anna grabbed her tiny paw. "It's ok."
A rogue tear slips out of her eyes, threatening to cascade into something more. "Pochitan I can't…" she sniffs, "I want to go back." She continues, despite knowing the obvious answer.
"You'll get erased Anna, you can't."
"But I want to see them again! All of them! I don't want to live in a world they don't exist in!" She cries, curling up into a ball.
Anna stays in that position for a good while, even ignoring Mikuru's her mum's worried calls. She doesn't want to go back home and be reminded of who she lost. It's only when she gets a tap on her shoulder that she bothers looking up, expecting to see Mikuru's her mum's worried face.
Instead, she's met with dusty blonde hair tied into a bun and a pair of striking purple eyes.
"Hey, are you alright?" Luluka The lady asks. Anna shakes her head.
Luluka The lady moves to sit next to her. Anna expects to see a Kurea lookalike somewhere close by. When there's no one, she's forced to remind herself that in this timeline's versions of Luluka and Kurea, they likely never met.
Suddenly, a spoon is placed right at her mouth, a generous scoop of ice-cream sitting on top, courtesy of Luluka the lady.
"H-huh?" Anna manages to mumble.
"Take it." She replies. "Ice cream always helps to clear my mind." She then adds a very soft, "plus kids love ice cream, right?"
A small smile breaks out on Anna's face and she accepts the offering. Though a cold food isn't the best idea on an already cold day, it brings back memories of the ice cream parties they held together.
Luluka The lady stands up, offering Anna a hand. "You should go home, it's cold for a kid like you to be running around in the snow." She says.
"A-ah, I'm- I'm just waiting for someone." Anna lies. "She said she'd be here in a few minutes."
She's clearly suspicious of her response - as seen by her raised eyebrow - but eventually, she leaves Anna be. "Alright, but don't stay out too long."
Anna watches Luluka the lady walk away, a part of her heart regretting pushing her away.
No matter how much she acted like Luluka, the lady wasn't her; just like how Mikuru wasn't her mum. And Anna will remain as the only person in the world to remember them.