"I didn't hear you come home last night."
Zuki had spent a good portion of her 'getting ready time' trying to rake through the tangles in her long black hair. Whether it became so atrocious from the fight with the robot, the fight with Rockabilly, or their pseudo-flight home she couldn't be sure. Either way, she rolled out of bed dizzy and looking gaunt, and Yuto definitely noticed. That coupled with concern over the fact that his daughter somehow made it inside without him hearing or seeing her walk past his room had raised concerns that his daughter might actually be turning into some type of creature that could turn invisible at will, or phase through walls, or some other manner of superpowers.
When he hadn't seen her come midnight, he crept quietly down the hall and peered cautiously into her room, only to find her there and in bed, fast asleep. The only rational explanation seemed to be that he had momentarily dozed off at the moment she came back, or he had been particularly engrossed in his book and hadn't noticed her walking past. But coupled with her appearance and behavior this morning, he couldn't help his parental concern.
"I was practicing stealth," Zuki replied dismissively, yanking out the last of the knots in her hair (and leaving a healthy amount of hair stuck in her brush).
"Stealth?"
"Yeah. So if I encounter any monsters I can sneak up on them and get their picture. And then I'll sell it and be rich and I'll buy you anything you want. So don't worry that I'm practicing," she chided, turning on her heel and throwing her arms around her father in a brief hug. "Time to go."
Yuto returned the embrace with a gentle hug of his own, smiling faintly as his daughter walked to the door, "Have a good day!"
—
Zuki tried her best not to look inebriated on her walk to work, with mixed success. There were plenty of eyes on her as she walked, then again there often were, but today more so than usual. Every so often she had to put her arm out to brace against something as she drifted to one side or the other in her stupor.
Only part of the winding walk was symptomatic of her dizziness, the other culprit was her wandering eye as she kept her head tilted up, staring into the sky. No one in sight, besides the people presumably on the occasional airplane and flew past. The sky was partly cloudy and grey, all the more reason for a bright red dress to stand out. That is, unless she hid above the clouds, but that was a silly thought. Flying was one thing, but could she even breathe at that kind of altitude? Zuki doubted it.
Apparently it wasn't just Yuto's parental instincts that sensed something was wrong, as the moment she walked into work at the local convenience store (a solid fifteen minutes late from her sky gazing dawdle), her manager's eyes locked onto her immediately and he made a beeline for her.
"What on earth is wrong with you?"
"Nothing," Zuki said with an innocent shrug.
"Are you…feeling okay?" he asked, a bit less accusatory and a bit more concerned this time around.
"Mmm," Zuki nodded, slowly so as not to further dizzy herself.
Sato frowned, studying her face critically for a moment before he sighed and shook his head. "Just don't hurt yourself, okay? Or anyone else." Zuki gave another obedient, slow nod.
Just as she stepped out to begin her work for the day, the door opened and a girl with curly brunette hair and a worried expression stood in the doorway.
"Ah, I'm gonna go organize some things in the back," Zuki called over to Sato, who gave a noncommittal grunt as Zuki ushered Himena towards the door to the storage room.
"What happened?!" Himena asked in a shrill whisper, covering her mouth with her hands.
"It's nothing to worry about, I think," Zuki began slowly, sitting down and opening up a box to rearrange so she could at least pretend to be doing something.
"Nothing to worry about? Your texts definitely worried me!" Himena insisted, her eyes seeming particularly puppy-like as she took a seat next to Zuki and threw her arms around her.
Himena was a lot like a dog. Her demeanor was friendly and attentive, she got along well with everyone and everyone liked her. She was the only person who could be spotted hanging out with the popular kids, but also with Zuki. Or rather, she was more or less the only person who would be spotted hanging out with Zuki. Her curly pigtails even looked like floppy dog ears if you squinted a bit.
"I was looking for ghosts at the complex, and I thought I saw one. I took this," Zuki fished her phone from her pocket and showed her the image of what, in her defense, certainly looked like a ghost in the low light.
Himena sucked a sharp gasp past her worry bitten lips. "I can't believe you actually found one!" she whispered in awe, leaning so close to the phone that her nose nearly touched the screen.
"I didn't," Zuki sighed, pulling the phone back. "It was just a man. He was the one who had this," she swiped to the photo of the device in the snow.
"Oh, the man with the gun?" Himena asked, still enraptured by the photos.
"Except it isn't a gun. It has needles," Zuki attempted to explain, poking the picture where the needles protruded. "He ran away but then this robot came after me."
"A robot?!" Himena gasped.
"A spider robot."
"A spider robot?!"
"Yeah. And it had needles and tanks like on this. And it sucked out pink stuff and injected the brown stuff. And then I turned into a monster."
The expression on Himena's face twisted into something that partially resembled disbelief, but mostly like someone had just offered her a meat pie made of human flesh. Abject horror and an utmost concern for the mental wellbeing of the one offering it to her.
"Want to see?" Zuki didn't give much time for a response, she never did, before she rolled down one of her socks to reveal two small puncture wounds on her ankle. One looked relatively normal, while the other had dark veiny tendrils snaking out around it like it had been a bleeding pen that stabbed through her skin.
Himena swallowed her instinctive revulsion with practiced ease and gently touched below the wounds. "Do they still hurt?"
"No. Everything stopped hurting after I became a monster, now I just feel like I can't see straight."
"Then what happened?"
"The girl, Rockabilly, from when I was a kid!" Zuki exclaimed with abrupt excitement, "She came and saved me, just like before. Except this time the thing she was fighting was me. And she had a little blue dog who could talk, and wore clothes. And now I feel terrible. Isn't that great?"
Himena's brain had not quite made the same mental leap as Zuki's to that conclusion, so she simply nodded with a half smile on her face. "That's…good!"
"I looked for her this morning, she told me she'd explain everything but I didn't see her."
"We could always go looking for her later today!" Himena suggested with a bright smile. "I'd love to make it up to you for leaving you alone last night."
"You don't have any more homework?"
Himena beamed and shook her head, "Nope, and I won't go over it again until Sunday night."
"Then will you help me with mine after we look?"
—
People rarely entered the convenience store alone for fear of encountering Zuki without some emotional support. Though it was small, her presence seemed to be around every literal corner. As a couple rounded a corner into the next aisle over there she was again, standing at the opposite end of the row with an uncomfortably fake looking smile and her hands held stiffly by her side. Just as she had when they entered the last aisle. An unfortunate consequence of being the only two people in the store.
"Maybe we should split up," one whispered to the other, "She can't watch both of us at the same time."
"What if she can?" the other whimpered.
When they looked down the aisle once again, she was gone. Of course she was, her shift was up and it wasn't her job to keep an eye on customers anymore. Now it was time to keep an eye out for Rockabilly.
The sky had cleared a bit since the morning, but still no sign of any red clad girls taking a stroll through the sky. Did she walk some places on the ground? Surely that wasn't as fast as her leaps through the sky. If she could do that, Zuki thought, that would be the only way she went anywhere.
Himena sat in the window of a coffee shop across the street, computer open and clacking away at the keyboard. Zuki approached and knocked on the glass, startling Himena, and everyone else sitting beside the window. Himena shut her laptop quickly, stowing it in her bag and swinging around to the front door.
"Sorry! Time got away from me, I was ah, editing some papers."
"You said you were done with homework until Sunday," Zuki countered, tucking her hands into the pockets of her jacket as a cool breeze picked up. Despite the chill, Himena's face flushed.
"Oh it wasn't homework it was just editing things…for fun!"
"I saw you. Playing games," Zuki accused sternly, though a wide smile cracked across her face. "You're a bad liar."
With a dejected whimper, Himena hung her head. Such a puppy.
"You shouldn't hide it. There's nothing wrong with liking video games," Zuki chided, the pair heading off down the street to no place in particular.
"I know…I just don't think people would expect it of me."
"So?"
"So what if they found out?"
"So what if they did. Stay true to yourself and don't listen to anyone who says otherwise." The words had become a personal mantra for her since childhood, words spoken by none other than the subject of their search party. Much more impactful than the words of wisdom she had to share last night, 'you need to relax' and 'stay out of trouble', now she just sounded like a babysitter.
"Where do you think she is?" Himena asked with a sweet smile, noticing Zuki had dropped off in thought. Classmates were concerned about whether or not Zuki had magic powers, but sometimes she was convinced it was Himena who was a mind reader. Maybe on her death bed she'd admit it to her.
Zuki shrugged dramatically, turning her head once again to the sky, Himena holding onto her arm lightly so she could maintain a somewhat straight path down the sidewalk. "Every time I've seen her she came out of nowhere. And then jumped into the sky."
Slowly Himena craned her neck to the sky as well, shielding her eyes with her free hand. "Why don't you keep your eyes on the sky, and I'll keep an eye out down here," she decided, looking down just in time to pull Zuki out of the path of an oncoming cyclist. "Let's take a look at the apartment complex again, maybe she went back there to catch the guy that attacked you!"
Zuki's smile grew somehow wider than before. "You're full of good ideas."
"Plus, then we can see if that thing is still there. I'd love to take it home and have a look at it," Himena murmured, her gaze sweeping across the sidewalk in search of anything unusual.
"So robots, guns, flying girls in red dresses, and what was the other thing you found?"
"A lonely man?"
"No, you said there was a…cat in a hat?"
"Oh, a dog in a tie. He was blue. I couldn't see his eyes," Zuki narrowed her own eyes at the thought, "suspicious."
Nodding thoughtfully, Himena gently guided her friend around a corner, Zuki's eyes still locked skyward.
"What kind of game were you playing earlier?" Zuki asked, breaking the brief, comfortable silence between them.
Himena's lips pressed into a thin line. "It's not anything special," she insisted quickly, "I was just…trying it out."
"What is it about?"
"…Zombies, but not like regular zombies. It's not a totally trashy game I swear, there's a good story and— wait."
"I told you you don't have to make excuses for liking something," Zuki reprimanded, "I think zombies are cool and if anyone tells you they aren't then—"
"No, wait," Himena stopped in her tracks, pulling Zuki to a stop as well and leaning in close. "Look."
Squishing Zuki's cheeks in her hand, she tugged her friend's chin down so that she faced forward once again. Her black eyes slowly panned left, and then right just as slowly. "A whuh?" Zuki asked, her face still smushed by Hinema's hand. There didn't seem to be anything of note before them, just a clothing store, a record shop, a car repair center, and a McDonalds.
"Follow me."
Whatever caught her attention was still not apparent to Zuki, but Himena had her serious face on, so she followed without question as her friend crossed the street quickly, headed towards the McDonalds. Himena darted away from the front door and off to the side, peering around the corner of the building to the back lot.
"What is it?" Zuki asked in a hush, pulling out her phone with the camera at the ready.
"I'm not sure I saw it right, but if I did, I think I might know how we can find your lady in red," Himena replied in a low tone.
"In the trash?" Zuki asked quietly, as all she could spot behind the fast food restaurant was a large dumpster. There wasn't any hint of incredulity in her voice, however, Zuki would willingly throw herself into the dumpster if it meant locating Rockabilly and getting to talk to her again.
"No, insi- ah!"
"Wha—?!" Zuki had nearly climbed onto Himena's back to get a good look over her head when Himena clapped her hand over Zuki's mouth. The back door to the building creaked open just a crack, and out scuffled a little blue dog, walking on his hind legs and carrying two wrapped hamburgers in his tiny arms. He looked both ways cautiously, thankfully not spying the two girls hidden around the corner, before he headed off down a secluded alleyway.
"That's him," Zuki whispered, sliding down off Himena's back. "That's Jazz."
"He grabbed two hamburgers, he's definitely too small to eat both of them by himself," Himena said with a decisive nod. "So he must be bringing the other one to your lady in red!"
"Then let's follow him," Zuki murmured, stepping out from their hiding place. "We just have to be careful not to spook him, she might be in hiding. If he knows he's being followed he might give us the run around."
Zuki lead the charge with a cautious Himena following close behind, the pair ducking behind boxes and trashcans whenever they felt they had strayed just a little too close. They needn't worry too much about losing track of him, as Himena pointed out he left the cutest little paw prints in the snow as he walked, making trailing him even easier. Eventually the alleyway opened up into a small courtyard surrounded by tall buildings, and suddenly the prints disappeared completely. At a loss, the pair pressed up against the wall.
"That must be where she is hiding out," Himena reasoned, her breathing already noticeably more labored. "Maybe she picked him up?" Zuki nodded affirmatively, steeling herself for the encounter.
"Okay, I'll go first," she began, clenching her fists at her sides, "stay close."
Without any further preamble, Zuki swung around the corner, and immediately smacked straight into a girl on the other side, sending both of them crashing to the ground. Managing to avoid being toppled by Zuki, Himena took a good look at the girl they had quite literally just run into.
Her hair was thick and warm brown, curled at the ends with enough volume that Himena had half a mind to ask her what she used in her hair care routine. That is, if the girl even spoke Japanese. It seemed pretty clear that she wasn't from around here, with her big green eyes and and tall, curvy stature.
"It's you!" Zuki breathed, immediately crawling forward despite her dizziness and leaning in close to the girl, "Isn't it? Rockabilly?"
The girl blinked, and Himena answered instead, "This can't be her, Zuki. She's just a lost foreigner."
"It looks just like her!" Zuki insisted, still hovering mere inches from the girl's face.
Himena frowned, "How? I thought you said she had red eyes and black and red hair and wings?"
Zuki leaned back and took a look at the girl's shoes, which certainly did not have the wings she expected to see. "She's a superhero," she said simply, dismissing any uncertainty with a shake of her head, "this is just her under cover identity. Right?"
"I don't think she underst—"
"That would sure be something!" the girl replied with a little smile, standing and dusting herself off. Himena looked stunned as the girl spoke in perfect Japanese, not even the slightest hint of an accent to indicate where she might be from. Something about the way she spoke still seemed…off, however. There were no grammatical errors, no slurring of words, no strange accent, and yet something about it that seemed a little unusual, even if she couldn't put her finger on what it was.
"Are you not her?" Zuki asked, visibly crestfallen.
The girl extended her hand to help her up with a sympathetic smile. "I'm sorry, I don't know what you're talking about. My name's Rosalind."
"Did you see a dog run through here? Carrying hamburgers?" Zuki asked seriously.
"I don't think so!" Rosalind laughed, "I think I'd remember that."
"HEY!"
A voice echoed down the alley into the courtyard, and the trio of girls turned in unison to see a shadowed figure, backlit by the sun glancing off the snow on the ground behind him. He took a step forward, and Zuki immediately recognized him.
"That's the guy from last night!"
The figure halted his advance, faltering for a moment before pulling out the same type of gun device that he wielded the night before. "It's you, the girl who broke my last duringe" he hissed, his voice bold but his posture suggesting he remembered the sequence of events last night all too well. "We heard you were saved by the Pretty Cure last night. Do you know where she went?"
Zuki's face fell blank. "What the hell is that?"
Her unhelpful response slapped the man's face into an expression of supreme irritation. "Who was it who saved you last night?"
"My friend," Zuki replied with a small shrug. "Why?" Himena leaned protectively over her friend, while Rosalind simply stared blankly at the new arrival.
"She has something we need."
"Who is 'we'?" Himena asked with piqued interest.
"The Denizens of Coalesence. When Denizen G is asked to retrieve something, Denizen G will deliver." The man's posture straightened as he spoke, holding the duringe out and pointing it towards Zuki. "So where is she?"
"Do you all talk about yourselves in third person?" Rosalind asked with a quiet giggle from the back of the group. The question made Zuki snort loudly and Himena cover her face to hide her smile.
Denizen G approached rapidly with his finger on the trigger of the weapon, "Where is she?! You don't have your bag of tricks with you today so don't plan on my cowardice again!" he insisted, though it was clear Zuki still unnerved him as he kept his head turned away from her face and focused on the bare expanse of her neck.
In one swift movement he charged, taking advantage of Zuki's dizziness as the other two fled while her sluggish reaction time left her barely turned away by the time he reached her. His gloved hand twisted in her hair and pulled her head back.
"Wait! It was me!"
Himena dashed back towards her friend, holding her arms out protectively. "I'm the one you're looking for!"
"Himena!" Zuki pleaded, twisting in Denizen G's grip as Himena covered her with her own body.
"No!" Rosalind cried, barreling towards the man and reaching into her bag to pull out something red that glinted in the light. Before she could reach him he had let go of Zuki's hair, the girl crumpling to the ground, and sunk the needles of the duringe into Himena's outstretched arm.
"Himena!" Zuki screamed, pulling at the man's lab coat desperately, "Get away from her!"
"Pretty Cure! March on!"
The cry echoed in the ears of all those in the courtyard, as did the resulting music that seemed to emanate from the burst of light where Rosalind used to be. In a flash Rosalind was no longer there, and instead Rockabilly had now taken her place mid-run, clenched fist pulled back for a sucker punch.
"Marching to the beat of a fiery heart, Cure Rockabilly!"
Denizen G let out a quiet "eep" as he noticed the fist flying towards him, and the fiery eyed girl behind it. Just as fast as Rockabilly could throw a punch, Denizen G disappeared out of thin air in a puff of white smoke, taking his duringe along with him and leaving Himena to collapse into Zuki's arms. With her target gone, Rockabilly's fist instead cracked into the building beyond the two girls, taking out a chunk as she made contact. Zuki's eyes widened as Rockabilly shook her hand, not a gesture of pain but of nonchalance, brushing off the dust and debris as she crouched down beside the pair.
"I'm so sorry, I didn't think he'd attack. If I had I never would have let you two stay here, I would have shown myself right away," Rockabilly apologized profusely, inspecting Himena's arm. Much like with Zuki's leg, she was left with two injection sites, one of which was blackened with dark snaking stains across her skin.
"She's going to turn into a monster," Zuki said flatly, although her brow knit together with concern.
The claim seemed to surprise Rockabilly, who looked at her confused. "What? Why would you say that?"
"Because that's what happened to me last night. That guy sent a robot after me and when it injected me I turned into a monster until you came to—" Himena let out a low gurgling noise that slowly evolved into a flat moan, grey smoke beginning to pour from her mouth.
"Oh shit," Rockabilly swore, scooping up Zuki in her arms and leaping with ease atop one of the surrounding fire escapes. "Stay here, Jazz don't let her come down." Zuki looked down, surprised to see the blue dog on the same fire escape with both his hamburgers.
"Got it, bebop!"
Without another word Rockabilly jumped back down to the ground before Zuki could protest, and she leaned over the rail to see what exactly had become of Himena. She emerged from the grey cloud that surrounded her as something unrecognizable. It was…vaguely humanoid, and tall. It had two legs and two arms and a head, but there were no features on its face but a black line down the center of its white head, and a singular eye in the middle. Black bands striped both its pale legs, and its long arms ended in large hands that nearly touched the ground. Strangest of all was its chest, which bore a toothed mouth in the center that seemed to be drooling something black and noxious, the smell reaching her even as high up as she was.
"So this is their new strategy, bebop."
Looking down Zuki saw Jazz peering between the bars of the fire escape, watching the scene intently. She opened her mouth to ask what he meant by strategy when the monster let out a garbled scream and lunged for Rockabilly who side stepped the attack and swung back with her elbow, knocking the creature to the ground. Zuki winced. Knowing her friend was in there somewhere, even if unharmed, made it all the more difficult to watch. Still she kept her dark eyes trained on the pair as they sparred.
Rockabilly was beautiful to watch, as she seemed to roll from any attack with ease as though she knew each step preemptively, like it was a choreographed dance. If that were the case, then the monster Himena had turned into needed more rehearsal time. Blow after blow from Rockabilly connected until it had slowed substantially, and with a look of resolve she threw her hand into the air.
"Menagerie Arsenal!"
Her heart tipped war hammer appeared in a flash of light and she tossed it easily from hand to hand despite its massive size. With a flourish she raised it above her head and jumped into the air, swinging it down with might as she fell.
"Pretty Cure! Shockwave Blast!"
Just as it had last night, a bright red light shown from the hammer upon impact, the force nearly knocking back little Jazz were he not holding onto the rails with his paws. Rockabilly paused to breathe deeply for a moment before she crouched down at what once again looked like Himena laying despondent on the ground.
"I'm so sorry I let him do that to you," she murmured apologetically, helping the girl to sit upright slowly and wrapping her in a tight hug. Himena blinked bleary eyed, her unfocused gaze moving from Rockabilly, to herself, and back.
"Wh-what happened?"
Jazz grabbed up his wrapped hamburgers once again and looked up at Zuki. "Let's go back down, bebop." The two began descending the steps quickly, the clang of Zuki's footsteps echoing in the courtyard. She peered over once more to see if the two were still talking when a puff of white smoke caught her eye. It appeared just behind Rockabilly, and from it stepped Denizen G, returned once more with his weapon held steadfast in his hand.
"Rockabilly!" Zuki shouted in a panic. Rockabilly looked up to where Zuki sprinted down the fire escape, a look of confusion on her face. Zuki had picked up Jazz unceremoniously as she began taking the steps multiple at a time, Denizen G raising his weapon. "Look out!"
Rockabilly turned only in time to see the glint of sunlight on metal as the device sank into her skin and she screamed. The empty tank on the device this time began to fill with not a pink, but a gold shimmering liquid, and red light burst from her eyes as Rockabilly cried out in pain, immediately losing her magical form in a flash. Zuki's blood ran cold as her mind raced to think of a solution, a distraction, anything. Only one came to mind.
Without warning, Zuki wound up and threw the little blue dog as hard as she could at the man with a mighty shout, the hamburgers immediately dropping from the dogs arms as he screamed through the air. Once again surprised and scared by Zuki, who by now he was convinced was certifiably mad, Denizen G pulled away from Rockabilly, now Rosalind, who fell limp to the ground. Just before Jazz made impact, teeth bared, the man whirled around and pulled back, disappearing in a puff of smoke once more with the tank of his duringe only half filled with the gold glittering substance.
Jazz hit the snow covered ground with a tiny fwap, and stood up just as dizzy and disoriented as everyone else had become by this point. Zuki jogged up to him, peeling the little dog off the ground and holding him up before her, "I'm sorry I threw you, I couldn't think," she explained, Jazz shaking his head insistently.
"Don't worry about me, we need to check on Rosalind, bebop!"
Zuki looked over her shoulder at the fallen warrior, whom Himena had rolled over onto her back. Her eyes were closed, and her breathing heavy, but she was breathing. That was a good start.
"Look," Zuki pointed to the injection sites on Rosalind's skin. Like both her and Himena, she had dual punctures, but neither of them had the same black stains as the others. Jazz walked up to her cautiously and placed a paw on her shoulder.
"Ros? Billie?" he called out gently, with no response. He waddled over to pick up his hamburgers once more, setting one on the girls' chest. "I got you a burger. You've gotta eat it before it gets cold, bebop." There was a wibble in his voice, and soon tiny teardrops dotted the snow.
"Don't worry little guy," Hinema cooed softly, crawling carefully on her knees to scoop up the little dog and hug him close. "We'll figure out something, I promise. Right Zuki?"
Zuki nodded solemnly. "Yeah. I won't let anything else happen to her, she'll get better, right? I don't think they injected her with that brown stuff, and they didn't take all her sparkly stuff. So that's good, right?" She looked for answers on the blue dog's face, but he only nodded weakly, rubbing his eyes and crawling out of Himena's arms.
"She'll be okay. She's a soldier, bebop," he said without much conviction, pulling fretfully on his tie. "We need to get her to someplace safe." Something seemed to catch his attention and he waddled through the snow next to Himena and picked it up. A shining gold coin, emblazoned with a bright pink heart and tiny wing engravings beside it.
"Hey, I've seen one of those before. That looks like the one Rockabilly found after she saved me last night," Zuki said, turning her head to the side. "What are those?"
Jazz turned, puffed up with new resolve. "I'll explain later, bebop. For now, get her someplace safe, I have someone I need to find." Reaching into Rosalind's bag, the little dog retrieved the same device she had produced in order to transform. Up close it looked like a red MP3 player, with a heart button in the center and two small wing buttons on either side. "Take her to your house, I'll come find you later." And with that, he gave one last nod to the befuddled duo, and took off.