Author's Note: Hello there, loves! This story will begin at the end of the anime Shugo Chara Doki and combine the plots of Shugo Chara Party and the Shugo Chara manga, but it will continue much further into the lives of our favorite characters. Yep, high school is included. Romantic and platonic relationships will come naturally, so every variation you could think of will come into picture. Everything will be as in character as possible, so nothing will be written in bias. Please keep an open mind and just enjoy the show! In-depth notes will be included at the bottom, signified by a bolded number.

Ephemeral

Chapter 1: Infinity

ephemeral - əˈfem(ə)rəl

Adj. lasting a very short time; short-lived; transitory

Racing against time, figuratively speaking, is a fool's game. Time ticks forward, even when the second-hand of a clock stops. Every moment, every blink of an eye, falls through one's fingers like sand through a sift. Life, itself, is but a fleeting dream. But time- time is limitless, eternal even, and it is impossible to grasp as a concept.

Despite all this, they insisted on pursuing the truth behind it. They needed to know how to outrun time. Yet, little did they know, they were all signing up for a game they could not fully comprehend.

Amu found herself rushing up a dizzying flight of stairs, which seemed to flirt with the idea of infinity. Or, if she had to word things more "elegantly" —the term, itself, oozing with sarcasm— Amu was stuck in a godforsaken marathon up to who-knows-where. She should have made it a point to stop... or at least consider the consequences of wandering straight into the tower's sinister embrace.

Okay, okay, enough of those big words and fancy nuances. To hell with it;she was in for a whole lot of trouble.

Monochromatic glass shards studded each stair step, completing a mosaic tile finish at its finest. At this level in the tower, the walls had strings of distorted mirrors lined against it, twisting Amu's image every which way. Oddly enough, only her face was reflected upon each surface. The distortion of her face was lost upon her, however, as Amu's focus was drawn elsewhere. She didn't notice a thing— or was it that she didn't care to notice? Her mind was everywhere and nowhere at once, racing towards one point: the top.

Deafening silence remained her only companion, eerie and stupidly befitting for the situation she had been thrown in. Silence should have besought concern, but instead, it kindled curiosity. Curiosity! If people always decided on things by the seat of their pants, with little regard to their own wellbeing, they might as well have picked out the designs on their gravestones early.

"I can't go back now..." She murmured under her breath. Her entire body moved forward on its own.

Yes, curiosity was certainly a coy seductress, leaving snares in plain sight for the unsuspecting to fall straight into them. And currently, Amu played that role like an ace.

Her vision was hazy, steps uneven, and thoughts were misplaced every which way. She had been bumbling like a drunken sailor for God knows how long, lungs aflame and hair in a flurry. Yeah, she had just the right amount of poise and elegance to compete with some poor sap with two left feet. Honestly, she could have brought a lady of grace and finesse, like Nadeshiko's (1) mother or something, to shame just by the sight of her.

Exaggerated narration aside, she was a mess. And she was walking straight into a bigger mess; one of which she didn't realize might just bring her life down in shambles. She couldn't even hear a trace of her ragged breaths. Her clumsy footsteps clamored on in silence. It was as though the concept of sound had become void.

Clearly, noise was an unnecessary element to this reality, so it had been promptly snuffed out like a late-evening wax candle.

She raced on, impervious to the absence of sound itself.

Her shadows gave quite the lively performance. Their dance was teeming with such savage fervor, that, had she had time to closely examine them, she might have thought they had a life of their own. They seemed to be dripping in sinister intentions—what, with those pointed smiles and menacing twirls at each move she made, no one would be surprised. They, of course, knew infinitely more about this tower than she did, as they slipped through cracks, swept across her surroundings and hovered above her own distorted reflections.

"Hee hee hee!"

Through all this, she pushed forward, not taking notice in the least. Where had her mind wandered off to?

Near the top, the tower's brick walls, worn from withstanding the centuries passed, had replaced the distortion mirrors with ornate windows. They were the fancy Rococo kind her mother would boast shrilly about to her magazine editor at 'Housewives' Knowledge'; it was something that would drive the architecture nuts wild back at home. But as utterly delightful as that slight change of scenery was, sarcasm duly-noted, there wasn't anything outside to look at.

Nothing. Zilch. Nada.

The scenery had been blurred out, as though the windows were just for show.

Was she stuck in one of Tsukasa's funhouse-esque secret chambers?

If that was the case, the man certainly had a ridiculous way of having fun.

However, she doubted that any of this was the work of someone she knew. It was far too elaborate to be some kind of vapid prank, too malicious to have been done by anyone she was familiar with. Even her enemies had reformed one by one, after all. Who in the world set her up like this?

Before her mind could even attemptto make any sense of what was going on, heavy, reverberating chimes shocked her out of her daze. Amu yelped like a frightened dog, nearly tripping over her own feet. Going from utter silence to New Year Bells in no time flat would do that to a girl's nerves. She shakily clung to the stair railings to steady herself, her hands ghostly pale from squeezing too hard.

No… There was no way—

Her gaze shot a few levels up, towards one of the upper floors. Where she had seen nothing but darkness before, Amu found herself staring up at an enormous clock face, consisting of opal glass and iron dials.

Oh boy, did she stand corrected.

"A clock tower? I've been in a clock tower all this time?!" Her exasperated cry bounced off the walls. There was no answer, of course, but Amu hadn't exactly expected one.

The clockwork gears looked as though they hadn't moved for centuries. What was intriguing, however, was that there was no rust or age to them, just layers upon layers of dust. The hands had stopped at 11:30, half an hour too early for any sort of clock to ring. How could the tower bells have rung if the clock itself had stopped running an eternity ago?

A deep, condescending laugh cut her thoughts off. With every obnoxious chuckle that seemed to echo from all directions, the entire tower quaked and dust crumbled from the walls. She whirled around, half-frightened out of her wits and half-curious as to who was the cause of all this. However, there was no one in plain sight. She didn't know if she felt relieved or... all the more afraid.

"Who are you!? Come out and face me!" She had expertly disguised her fear; her voice left no hint of what was trembling underneath.

Amu tensed up, fist balled and arms up in a ready position. But how could she possibly combat something that she couldn't see? She didn't want to waste her breath, since whatever was causing mischief and mayhem had no desire to make a dramatic entrance anytime soon.

She cautiously crept up higher, until she reached the impressive circular floor on the same level as the glass frame. There was a raised platform located center stage, adorned in golden star imprints. Hm. Had Tsukasa seen it, he may have called it a 'kiss from the galaxy' or something. Too precious to be stepped on.

So instead, Amu took to observing the art deco clock face, since there was nothing else of particular interest in sight. The opal glass gave off a milk-white sheen; it was seemingly unreal from even where she was standing. In its reflection, she could only see herself. Amu was now acutely aware that, somehow, she had been slipped in a pure white, laced dress. Its long tail hem trailed behind her, as she investigated the top platform warily.

Why didn't her brain work the way she wanted it to? Who was doing this to her? And what did she do to deserve this? There was definitely some kind of sick game going on here, and she wasn't about to let it go on any longer.

"That's quite the brave face you're putting on, little girl. It was about time you noticed something was up."

Gritting her teeth, Amu stiffened as she whipped her head back to take a good look at her culprit. Her eyes widened in silent dismay.

Nothing.

Her eyes bolted from one end of the tower to the other, before turning around to scope out any nooks and crannies she could have missed.

Still nothing.

"Relax, won't you? Don't be such a kid. How do you think you're going to fight without your Charas?"

"What do you mea—"

With her eyebrows furrowed and a cold sweat breaking down her forehead, it took her a moment to formulate her thoughts.

As soon as it hit her, her heart nearly stopped in its tracks. Her Charas!? All this time and she hadn't realized that Ran, Miki and Su had been missing! She didn't even have Dia's egg on her… How could that fact have gone right over her head?

"What did you do to them? Who are you!?"

Another grating laugh pierced the silence. Again, the ground vibrated from underneath her.

"It wouldn't be all that fun if I told you right away, my dear. Put a pretty smile on for me, won't you?"

The grimace Amu returned wasn't at all what the voice had wanted.

"How's about a scowl instead, you coward! Come out where I can see you!" she answered smarmily.

"I doubt you actually want to see me, heh heh! It's not like you pulled out any warm welcomes or some nice cheese samples, you know."

All of a sudden, Amu caught something in the corner of her eye—something that made her heart nearly leap out of her chest. The shadows… They were dancing off the walls, smirking, spiraling around where she was standing. She could almost hear them erupt in wicked snickering and profanities, their very presence flourishing from her displeasure. Even without making a sound, they seemed to smite her.

This was all just a game to them.

But the truly peculiar thing was: these shadows... They weren't her own.

In fact, they were matching silhouettes of her friends and family, menacing and ominous. And they were drowning in peals of abhorrent laughter.

They were laughing at her.

She doubled back in shock (or was it involuntary pain?), tripping onto the raised platform she had been careful to step around before. For one thing, she had not accounted her clumsiness to be her downfall. And for another, she hadn't expected the laughter to sting so deeply. But that was just her luck, wasn't it?

Her untactful reaction was just the thing needed to incite a brutal quake that rocked the tower mercilessly. It brought her to her knees.

One by one, the stairs lit up in an incandescent, otherworldly glow. The trail of lights spiraled upwards, leaving no brick, no crack, no shadow untouched. Orbs, almost like fireflies, began to float about, sifting in and out of the walls carelessly.

Before she knew it, the clockwork gears had begun to clank once more. The years of dust left swollen clouds in the air, causing the place to become musty and unbearable for a few moments. She could have coughed out a lung for all the wind being knocked out of her.

Rubbing her eyes clear, she squinted towards the roof, since it seemed as though the voice had been coming from up there.

"Is that all you've got? I want answers! Not an old clock tower reboot!" She had mustered a last ditch effort to look somewhat valiant in a time of utter confusion.

The clock's hands had a surging start, trembling from the very force that had brought them back to life. Florescent colors lit up the clock face, but Amu couldn't find it in herself to look away. She was bewitched, enamored, by the overflowing hues and gradients. Her right arm rose on its own, reaching out towards the sheen that cut through the musk. She couldn't even muster the strength to lower it.

"You won't find any answers quite yet. So why not just sit back and enjoy the show, my dear?"

Before she knew it, she was entirely submerged in light.

She found herself face down, kissing the floor.

The sound of the rain outside came down in muddled thuds. The wind howled in whispers. It was as though she was submerged underwater, as the background noise was indistinct, distorted almost. There was a distinct lack of warmth that clung to her like soliciting fingers.

Instinctively pulling her overflowing dress skirt up to get off the ground, she angrily grumbled about the inconvenience of it all. Whose bright idea was it to stuff her in a dress, anyway? The thought of someone doing that to her was giving her the goosebumps.

"Ugh!" She groaned, before pushing herself up and familiarizing herself with the setting she had been thrown in.

The cold grease smell and train tracks weren't exactly making it hard for her. Hanamura Central Station? It was a bit peculiar to be here at this time of night, when the last train had already left.

The muddy lights flickered weakly over the typical signs and maps, humming low as though they would die out any time soon. She rubbed the side of her arm, attempting to warm herself up in vain.

No crowds, no voices. It was a desolate area.

"One fit for a lowlife king, don't 'cha think?" It was that condescending voice again, omnipotent and exasperating.

"What the heck are you talking abou—"

She pivoted on her heels to check and —as it was plainly entailed—she caught sight of a familiar blonde head of hair. He seemed as though he had been staring wistfully at one of the train tunnels for quite a while now.

Alone.

"Tadase-kun? Tadase-kun!" She tried rushing to his side, reaching out to him worriedly. He never looked like that, outside of the times where she didn't tell him the trut- no, there was no time for that guilt train. He never looked like that, other than the times he couldn't hold the hurt in.

For a moment, she had actually clung onto the hope that he had heard her. His shoulders loosened on cue and he turned to extend a lukewarm smile, yet... His gaze never settled in her direction for even a moment. It was horribly disheartening to become this kind of- this kind of ghost. To see just exactly what was going on, but to be separated by a thin veil.

Was all this just some kind of illusion?

It seemed all too real to question the line between reality and fantasy.

He gave a down-turned gaze at the floor, with a somber aura of which she, herself, could almost feel. Yet, the longer the strides she took towards him were, the farther off he seemed to be.

"Let me help him!" The exclamation came out as an odd mix of pleading and demanding. Her stare whirled frantically in various directions. She was talking to nothing but thin air. How pitiful.

"Just let me go!"

She managed to shoot out one arm towards him, trembling vigorously as an unknown pressure was forcing her back. If she couldn't move by her own will, who was pulling the strings?

"He doesn't need you, dearie."

Her eyes widened as Tadase dashed her way, scarf in a bundle and umbrella raised. Kiseki followed in a speedy pursuit. Neither, however, met her gaze.

"Tada-"

They both raced passed her, into the lurid embrace of the rain. His footsteps kept her company for only a few moments more before vanishing altogether. Silence. Pure silence.

A ghost. She had somehow taken on the role of a ghost. Or perhaps she should say: the role had been forced onto her. And she absolutely hated it.

"You weren't ever needed in the first place."

Amu ignored the cruel suggestions; she couldn't let it get to her. She just had to swallow up the pricking feelings that were beginning to weigh on her self-confidence. This- all of this- was nothing she couldn't handle. It wasn't like her diehard attitude failed her before.

Determined to prove her worth, she plowed forward, headfirst like a bull seeing red.

"Nuh uh uh, missy. It's time to move on!"

She was whisked away, the scenery and Tadase fading into nothingness.

Reaching an acceptable state of consciousness (anything was better than staying blacked out for good), Amu realized that she was inelegantly sprawled out on the front door of Tsukasa's observatory. After rubbing the back of her head, she shook an angry fist up towards the sky.

"Take me back, you horrible piece of-!"

Her exclaims were answered with silence.

After trying for the door or to clarify, trying and failing, Amu floated towards the window. Again, she had arrived at a coincidentally critical point in time. Ikuto and Tsukasa were arguing, quite vehemently she had to add. Or rather, it was Ikuto who seemed off put by what Tsukasa was saying. Tsukasa never raised his voice, after all, not even in this vision.

She knocked on the window, trying to get their attention, but nothing could turn their heads her way. A chill bit at the ends of her fingers. None of this made sense! Why was she being tossed into such intimate situations like these?

Ikuto's scowl had settled in, clenching his jaw in an almost territorial way. Tsukasa, unmoved, kept a steady gaze on his young companion. Whatever was going on in there was definitely giving off sparks of vitriol. Knocking once more for an attempt's sake, she nearly hopped up in elation as the two both turned their attention towards her. She waved, signaling for them to open up, overlooking the embarrassment of explaining herself afterwards.

However, their stares remained in her direction... And the conversation continued without any indication of pausing for her. Before long, Amu felt her heart plunge towards the pit of her stomach. They had been staring through her all along.

"Your attempts are futile, sweetheart."

The cold tips of her fingers boiled in violent heat. Surely, a dynamite wick lit for far too long would hit its limit. Amu snapped.

"How dare you! Why are you showing me these things if you won't let me change them?" She shouted in anguish, with fists so tight that her nails were gnawing into her palms. "Am I just some useless toy to you?"

An obnoxious chuckle filled the air. It was one that tangled her own stomach in knots.

"That's it, honey! That's exactly it!"

"What are you even saying? You can't possibly think I'd just let myself fall for a bag of lies from the likes of you!"

"Now, now. That's enough from you. Let's have a final change of scenery to celebrate your self-awareness, shall we?"

In a blink, she was gone.

She could see the entire city of Seiyo from where she was sitting.

Where was she sitting anyway…?

The pressure from up here was starting to make her feel a bit lightheaded-

Oh God.

She desperately clung onto her seat for her life.

It must have certainly have been hilarious for that all-knowing voice to just drop her wherever it pleased. Yes, she- she had been placed on one of the clock tower's hands.

Trying to balance herself on her feet, she stared out into the vast spans of velvet sky. The stars seemed so... indifferent. Nothing was out of the ordinary, as everything above and below her blinked, shimmered and bustled so casually through life.

It was maddening.

"Who do you think you are!? Just tell me already, since you're done dragging me 'sightseeing'!"

"After all this time… you still don't know who I am?" The voice paused, as though it was shaking its metaphorical head.

"Do you think I'd be asking if I didn't know?" She folded her arms against her chest, trying to give off a resilient attitude.

"I control your beginning, your end and every little pitiful thing in between. I am the thing people want most in the world and the very same horror that people try to run from."

Amu felt her whole body stiffen, as she could neither move nor resist being moved. She convulsed, jerking violently against her will.

I have to fight this!

Grimacing, she tried to ball up her fingers into fists; anything... anything to resist this. Her hands whipped open again, as if on another's command, and before she could blink, her arms were swung up towards the scarlet stretch of sky. Amu was bound in an eerie cross-like position, helpless and defeated.

As she stared up at the hues of dark violets and reds, Amu realized that something connected to her was glinting ominously in the low light.

Oh god.

She had been attached to puppet strings the entire time.

"Your tiny existence means nothing. You saw it for yourself, didn't you? Your friends are all out there, with secrets and problems you weren't supposed to ever know about. They all have issues that you could never truly help them with!"

With every second ticking away, she was being forcibly controlled. One step forward at a time. She was certainly flirting with death at this point. And there was absolutely nothing she could do to stop herself.

STOP! She wanted to shriek. FIGHT IT!

Unfortunately, her thoughts remained trapped inside her head. She couldn't make a sound.

And... it was too late.

"I am time."

Her last step met thin air and she rapidly plummeted off the clock tower.

"And you, my dear, are merely ephemeral."

Amu jolted up from her bed, in fervent tears.

[Afternotes]:

(1) Amu still calls Nagihiko by his girl name because this is before Yu and Yukari's wedding; she is still terribly clueless.

Date Updated: 12/31/15 (In pending- May delete and rewrite)

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