A/N: Written for the WIXOSS Non-Flash Bingo, #099 – Anne.


Green LRIG

It was a tricky wish. And a depressing one.

Anne was still a stranger to the WIXOSS game. She'd become an Eternal Girl, yes, but her experience ended there. This is her first time as an LRIG, her first glimpse into the eternal cycle she's entered. And it's with a Selector who was once an LRIG like her, once an Eternal Girl, desperate to plunge right back into that cycle.

Or maybe she doesn't have to plunge back into it. Futase has no other choice; she's exhausted her creative abilities, her writing abilities. She can no longer support her previous Selector's wish through her own efforts so she must return to life as an Eternal Girl – or disappear. But for Anne it could be a different story. She was good at finding patterns, at stringing things together. She might be able to pull it off. She might be able to live her life in that new body and never touch a WIXOSS card again –

Or maybe it wouldn't work that way. Futase had told her about her previous Selector, the girl who'd sworn she'd achieve her wish by her own hands but had failed to. The girl who hadn't been able to resist the temptation.

But I know better, Anne thought to herself. I know better and I can avoid that trap.

But can she really?

And would Futase's wish allow that? Because it wasn't the previous Selector's wish that carried through. And Futase's wish – was it exactly to fulfil her Selector's previous wish? Or was it something else? Was it to finish this series? She was working so desperately on that and nothing else. Anne didn't recommend she work on something else though. If she did and it worked, Futase would have no reason to play the Selector battles. And Anne would be stuck. If nothing else, she couldn't afford to be stuck. She couldn't take the idea of being stuck.

In that, she understood Futase's desperation to enter the cycle, to win enough matches and go to that white room again, meet that woman again. Maybe it had ceased to be about Fumio's wish. Maybe it wasn't about writing the rest of the story but about learning it. Anne was unsure too many times. What would happen when Futase won enough battles? What would happen when it was Anne in the body of Futase Fumio, Anne left to carry that name, finish those stories. Anne who'd hit a dead end and then search desperately for a wish, who'd plunge right back into the Selector game, maybe even lose her name in the process.

At least she didn't have to fear her Selector losing, didn't have to fear starting over. Futase never lost. But in a way that was something to be even more fearful about. Or more gloomy.

Honestly, Futase's gloom didn't take all too long in rubbing off on to her. Maybe because no matter how many times Futase won, it didn't seem to be enough. Anne had no idea when to sense it. Futase said she would, at some point, so long as she accepted the wish.

Maybe that was the problem. Outwardly she was calm. Outwardly she fought for her Selector, for her wish. But she still had her fear, her insecurity. She was still green. A green LRIG with a Selector more experienced in both sides of the board. It was almost laughable. This wasn't the sort of thing she wanted a mentor in but it was either that or indecision, and did she really have a choice? Futase's wish was depressing. The cycle of Selectors and LRIGs was a depressing one. The cold truth that lay behind the idea of an Eternal Girl was a depressing one. Maybe failing didn't matter. Maybe the complexity of the wish didn't matter. Maybe the wish itself didn't matter: just that strip of hope, just that breath of freedom before the noose tightened around their necks.

Because both of them were already caught up in the reality of the WIXOSS game.