"Asaka went where?"

Yuri crosses her arms, while Ren still doesn't seem to care about her question at all. He lays his head on the table and yawns. "It's getting late, Yuu-chan. Don't you want to go home?"

Yuri frowns, then shrugs. It really is getting late, but she promised to meet Asaka at Fukuhara and waited there for almost an hour, calling the other girl a few times. Asaka didn't call her back and so Yuri decided to search for her at the Foo Fighter HQ.

And, well, Yuri knows that it's unusual for Asaka to not be either training or with Ren at this time, but there is Ren, obviously not worried about Asaka at all, so maybe her friend really is okay. Yuri still wants to get a proper response though.

"Answer my questions. Now."

"My, my, you're so demanding, Yuu-chan." He flashes a big, childish smile and giggles, almost taking away the last bits of Yuri's patience, but then he sighs, to her surprise. Suddenly, he looks a lot more like his age, more serious and literally older, concern and tiredness covering his features. "I'd tell you, but I can't. You don't trust me and I understand that, but you should trust Asaka. If it's her, I know she'll be all right."


This fight feels so odd.

It's weird to fight for something she can't understand yet. Usually, she never fights without a certain goal, without a voice in her head that tells her what to do (get stronger, impress Ren, win this tournament), but this is different. She doesn't know what she'll gain if she wins, only knows that she can't lose, not here, not to this person.

There's something about this situation, about Kourin, that makes her stomach hurt and she tightens the grip on her deck. She wants to win.

It's funny in some way, really. She's not sure how she got here, not sure what here even is, not sure what being here means, but she knows she'll win this fight. Kourin laughs.

"You're quite interesting. I didn't expect someone like you to come here without a reason."

Without a reason?

'I have plentyof reasons', she wants to shout back, because hearing that she has no reason to be here makes her actions sound so meaningless and empty. She does have a reason to be here and she knows it, but there's, well, there's this truth to Kourin's words, too. A kind of truth that makes her head hurt by just thinking about it and, added to the pain in her stomach, she can feel how it gets harder and harder to stay focused. How long has she already been here?

Don't dwell on it, keep fighting!

Looking at Kourin gets harder and the fight is hard and her opponent stronger than expected. But she keeps going, bites her lips and fights back. Her chest feels tight and it's getting weird to breath, odd to stand and she wonders what she's doing here.

Fighting a stranger to get information about something that might not even exist.

Ridiculous.

But she keeps going.

Attacks, checks for triggers, ends her turn, guards against Kourin's attacks.

"You're not bad, but you're fate's already decided. Aichi doesn't want to be saved." Kourin says calmly, like one would tell a child that two plus two makes four. Like it's a basic truth.

"You're overestimating yourself. I won't lose."

With the fight going on, the tension slowly leaves her body. She shakes her head, trying to shake away her worries and doubts with that. She'll win, because the result is all that matters. That's what she learned after countless fights to be in the best Foo Fighter team. If she wants to get something, it doesn't matter how she fights or how hard she works as long as the results aren't good enough. There's no way she'll lose ever again. It's what she swore to herself.

"So now, it's time to answer my questions and stop those silly ga–"

– she flinches. Her head, stomach and chest hurt again, even worse than before and she can't move. Trying to breath, it takes all the energy in her body to keep standing. Her vision is getting blurrier and –

– she feels calm –

– and satisfied –

– and really strange –

Asaka wakes up in her room with way too many pillows under her head and a head resting on her knees. Misaki sits on one of the chairs next to her bed, but apparently fell asleep and now, her upper body's lying on Asaka's legs and her bed.

"Ah, your awake now, Asaka." She winces at that voice. Ren sits on the second chair next to her bed, but gets up to touch her forehead. "Oh, your head's still warm. Hope you're not getting ill."

"Ren-sama, I..." she sits up and tries to look more, um, presentable and, well, less weak. She has to be strong after all. "I mean, er, what happened?"

"Oh, nothing interesting. Tetsu didn't want to fight me, so it was pretty boring while you were asleep."

"Ehm, that's not-"

"Ah," Ren snaps his fingers, "you mean before that. Well, I guess Kourin wasn't too happy about you getting to the sanctuary, so she used that sleeping gas. She probably would have poisoned you if it wasn't for Aichi's will." He gestures with his hands a bit to emphasise the meaning of his words and almost hits Asaka by doing that, not that she minds.

"What's with her?" She points to Misaki, who's still taking a nap on her knees. It's starting to get slightly uncomfortable, since Asaka isn't used to being used as a pillow. Of cause, she wouldn't mind using other people as her pillows, but being used as pillow is not something people can do without asking. Especially people who don't even have the decency to stay awake.

"She didn't leave your side ever since you came back. Though I don't know why." Ren's eyes wander from Asaka to Misaki and back. He stands up. "I still got some things to do. It's still not time for dinner, but since your awake now, I leave the rest to you." He turned around to leave, but when he says the rest, he points at Misaki over his shoulder with his thumb. "Don't tell her about the way I'm involved in this."

"Leave it to me!" Asaka exclaims proudly, glad that Ren trusts her enough to give her such important information and believing she'll keep it.

When he's outside, Asaka shakes her knees until the head on them moves as Misaki stirs.

"It's time for her Highness to wake up."

Misaki's sleepy eyes stare at Asaka as she sits up and only then Asaka realizes something she should have remembered earlier. Even with lost memories, this is just too important to forget. For a few seconds, Asaka actually feels ashamed for forgetting. Then she says it. Says something she really needs to tell Misaki.

"Your hair looks awful."

"Same goes for you." Misaki sighs. She really loves doing that, doesn't she. "Guess that's what I get for worrying about you."

"I don't need you to worry about me."

"Well, it's not like I do it for fun."

"Then stop."

Misaki bites her lips, as if she seriously considers it for a moment, before she raises her voice again. "Only when you promise to stop doing stupid and reckless things."

"Hey, I'm not promising anything. It's not like you're my wife."

"It's not like any of this was your business to begin with."

Asaka shakes her head and leans a bit closer to Misaki, smiling. "You're a really bad liar you know."

She still smiles while she gets closer and closer to Misaki. The other girl raises an eyebrow in question, but when Asaka puts her hand on Misaki's shoulder and puts their lips onto each other, Misaki sighs. At first, she feels Misaki tense, but then the other girl seems to relax and holds the back of Asaka's head as she pushes their lips together more firmly. Asaka grabs Misaki's chin when she pulls away and brings them together again and when Misaki sighs once more, she laughs.

The way Misaki reacts, the way Asaka feels her lips form a smile against hers makes her wonder if they did that before. She really hopes they have.


It's a lie to say Asaka doesn't feel at least a little relieved the next days. Ren's constantly around her to care about all her needs as if to make sure she won't do anything dangerous again. She doesn't think too much about what to do, though she has absolutely no idea what to do from this point onwards.

She doesn't even know if she wants to do anything at all.

It's fun when Misaki visits her again. She sits on her bed, when the other girl enters the room, playing video games. She hasn't had time to play for long time and the moment she started the game, everything seemed confusing and she couldn't remember the story line or the strategy she used to beat enemies, but she's starting to get a hang on it again.

They talk about random things. She doesn't even deem it necessary to look at Misaki and instead keeps playing her video game. Misaki tells her about customers in the shop and things that happened to her at school today, but keeps it simple and short. It doesn't take much time until she's done and silence is back between them.

"Three minutes fifty-six."

"Huh."

"The amount of time you managed to talk. Approximately three minutes and fifty-six seconds." Asaka points at the clock. "I checked the time when you started, just because I was curious. But you disappointed me. I thought you'd last longer."

Misaki starts to protest, something about her not being here for Asaka's entertainment (she really is though), but she's interrupted by the ringtone of her mobile.

It's Yuri and she ends up inviting Asaka and Misaki over to her place this weekend. When they arrive there a fewdays later, they find the older girl in front of the door, waving with the keys of her car.

"I thought we could visit this card shop in my town. The one where Gai and I started playing Vanguard and met Koutei."

The drive is longer than expected, or at least it seems like that, because Misaki doesn't talk that much and as if to make up for that, Yuri talks even more, which leaves Asaka to answer her, although she just really needs some time to think.

Think about what she wants to do, what they should do, if they should do anything at all, and, well, Yuri is sort of distracting. She's glad when they reach their destination. Jumping out of her seat, probably a little too quickly, she gets out of the car with the intention to walk to the card shop in front of them, but then decides for something else.

She turns around and bows as she opens the door to the back seat of the car where Misaki's sitting.

"Milady."

Misaki rolls her eyes, but gets out through the door Asaka opened anyway. Naturally, Asaka politely closes the door after Misaki's outside and she sees Yuri giving her a thumbs up from the other side of the car. Misaki fortunately doesn't notice. Almost laughing, Asaka offers Misaki her arm. To her surprise, Misaki actually takes it and smiles back at her.

"Hey, I'm feeling a little left out over here," Yuri exclaims, waving with her arms as if to cause a scene. Asaka stretches her tongue out at Yuri and walks towards the shop in front of them, Misaki tagging along with her.

Walking directly next to each other, it's hard to observe the expression Misaki's making, but Asaka know that it's probably very amusing without having to see it. She wonders if Misaki would mind Ren being here and decides to remember asking Misaki later.

"It's good to see that you actually did something about your hair today." Misaki says, somehow in a teasing way, but also not really. Though there's no heat to the statement, Asaka's not sure if Misaki's trying to start a fight. (She hopes Misaki is.)

"I'm glad Your Highness approves the way I look."

"Oh, don't worry, I don't." Definitely trying to start a fight.

"Adorable," Asaka comments, moving the arm Misaki holds to make her let go of it. Then she grabs her hand.

"What's so adorable?"

"You." She would have loved to see Misaki's reaction, hopefully some red colour spreading on her face, but the other girl simply turns her head away to look at the floor, making it impossible for Asaka to see the expression on her face. She does feel Misaki tightening her grip on Asaka's hand though.

Inside the building, Yuri excitedly shows them around in the small shop, pointing at things and people. When she looks at the both of them again, she frowns at their still intertwined fingers. Asaka almost lets go of Misaki's hand the moment she sees the look on Yuri's face, but then Yuri shakes her head, taking Misaki's other hand.

"I'm not sure why I wanted to take you to this place, but I'm glad we're here. Somehow, I happen to like spending time with the both of you."

She pulls them towards the small storing room of the store. Misaki protests they can't just enter this part of the shop as customers, but Yuri shrugs, saying that she knows the owner of the shop and that it's no fun without taking risks.

It's as if Asaka overheard them having this kind of conversation before, but she shoves her thoughts away as she shuts the door behind them. It's dark in here, but when Yuri turns the light on, Asaka gasps at the sight in front of them.

Three white pillars in the middle of various boxes. They look exactly like the ones in the Foo Fighter HQ.

"Is there something wrong, Asaka?" By now, they've already let go of each others hands and Yuri shoots her a confused look.

"What's, uhm, why are these pillars here?"

Yuri shrugs. "Two of Koutei's friends runs this shop. They're a history nerds, just like him, so that's probably the reason."

"So they've always been there?" Asaka asks, just to be really sure.

"Hmm, I think so... but I'm not sure. I haven't been here for a long time." Yuri rubs the back of her hand against her forehead and Asaka sees Misaki frown.

"They look like the entrance to the place where they're keeping Aichi."

"Kourin said Aichi doesn't want to be saved." She's not sure why she says this, but she can't stop herself. "Maybe he wants to be left alone."

If she's honest to herself, she really doesn't want to keep searching for Aichi. After all, everything she wanted is right here already. Yuri is there and so is Misaki and her memories still are fuzzy and weird, but she's oddly content with that.

Misaki inspects the pillars, while Asaka keeps standing where she is. She doesn't notice that Yuri looks at her until Misaki's done inspecting the pillars.

"Have you seen those pillars before?" Yuri suddenly asks. Aware of the two pairs of eyes focused on her, Asaka licks her lower lip, thinking.

"I... well, the last time, I used a portal that looked like this to get to Aichi's place." She regrets saying this and she hates herself for feeling this way. Misaki's eyes lighten up in the hope of having found another trace to find her lost friend, but all Asaka really wants is to get out of here.

"How did you do it?" Misaki asks.

"Uhm, I," she remembers how Ren touched the middle pillar, remembers that Ren doesn't want her to tell anybody else about him being involved in this and gets so torn. She wants to support and help her friends, she really does, but she also feels like she could lose her friends if she lets them search any longer. 'And that Aichi kid doesn't want to get saved anyway,' she keeps telling herself. Still –

"You just put your hand on the middle pillar and then a portal appears."

Misaki smiles, and puts her hand on the middle pillar, exactly like Ren did.

Nothing happens. Even after Misaki repeats the action several times, nothing happens and Asaka exhales in relief. Ren probably did something else,something Asaka didn't notice, but that's good. She wouldn't have to lie to Misaki when she'll say that this is everything she knows about opening the portal-

"It's not working." Misaki finally says.

"Stating the obvious, huh?"

"I'm not–"

"Oh, you are."

"Not now," Yuri interrupts them. "We should just try something else to find this boy you're searching for."

"But first of all, I'm really hungry~" Asaka purrs, using her best sing-song voice. As if to prove her point, Yuri's stomach growls.

"Me too."

Misaki looks from Asaka at Yuri and then back at Yuri. She raises and eyebrow and Asaka's hearts skips a beat. She wonders if Misaki knows what she's thinking. To her relief, Misaki just shrugs in the end and follows them as they leave the card shop.

While they did end up deciding to do something, decide to search for this boy later, Asaka's happy when they leave the shop. She sees a small but confident smile growing on Misaki's face, sees the carefree and happy look on Yuri's face and –

Asaka is glad to just be here, to be here with them. Walking in the middle of the two of them, it's impossible her to not feel strong. She knows that they can do everything when they're together.

A part of her wants to prove this point, to do something dangerous to test out their limits. But for the most part, she just wants to be with the two of them without having to worry about strange, supernatural affairs.

What's the point of saving Sendou Aichi anyway?