Ch 3(?)

The sun intensified, beating down on the only poor people who were even at the park. Two teens sat on a bench not too far away from a vending machine in the middle of a trail. The blue haired boy seemed as if he were about to pass out, while the indigo haired woman sat beside him, rubbing his back.

"Are you feeling better, Darling?" She asked as she leaned in closer to have a better look at his face. She noticed that he had been sweating slightly.

"Y-Yeah, I'm feeling much better now. Thank you, Miku." He straightened his back out and sat up. Staring at the thick forest before him triggered memories and flashbacks to barrage his mind. He gripped onto his shirt and took a deep breath to help calm himself. "Sorry about ruining the beginning of our date already." He scratched his head and gave a weak smile. "I had just remembered some rather… unpleasant things about this area."

Miku, however, was confused. "But aren't you the one who said that we should go here? Why would you choose a place that you don't like?" Shido laughed to himself.

"No, no, you're misunderstanding me. It's not the place that bothers me, more like what happened here…" Once again, Miku did not seem to be keeping up with Shido's vague explanation.

"Okay then, so what happened here?" Shido didn't respond for several seconds, causing Miku to worry again. "I-I mean you don't have to talk to me about it, I'm just here to listen, is all." Shido couldn't help but feel slightly relieved with Miku around him. While she could be a hassle, she was definitely mature when she needed to be.

"This was the last spot on my date with another spirit. Her name was Tokisaki Kurumi." A long silence ensued between them as Shido had closed his eyes for a moment as he ran through the whole date again in his head.

"Who's that?" The question sounded silly to Shido, but he had remembered that Miku wasn't around during the time when Kurumi was more present.

"Remember when I confronted you in the concert hall before going to the DEM headquarters?" Miku put a finger to her cheek and looked up in the air as if trying to recall all the events.

"Yes. I do believe I remember you coming through the town with that gothic Lolita girl." Shido couldn't help but chuckle to himself at Miku's description of her.

"Yeah, that's her. I'm sure you've probably never really had any encounters with her prior to that event since she apparently is usually in hiding, but her codename in the Ratatoskr organization is Nightmare." Miku was slightly taken back by the dark sounding name.

"Nightmare?"

"Yeah. Apparently, before any of us had actually confronted her, she had killed over 10,000 civilians." The number drastically weighed on Shido's mind. 10,000 was not exactly a small number when it came to people's lives. However, Miku didn't seem too impressed.

"Well, the first spirit, if I do recall correctly, wiped out over a million lives because of their spacequake, correct?" Shido saw the point she was making, and even though he didn't want to correct her, he knew that he had to.

"Sorry, I guess I didn't explain that very well. She has killed over 10,000 people with her bare hands." A spell of silence was cast between them before Miku fully comprehended the gravity of what Shido had just told her.

"T-Ten thousand with her bare hands!?" She stood up from the bench and looked down at him in awe.

"Yeah… When I first dated her, she was unlike anything I had learned through Ratatoskr. She was the one who was constantly trying to hit on me and do things with me. Back then, I had no idea of who she really was or what she was actually capable of." The fight between Kurumi and Kotori played back in his mind. A growing nervousness found its way into Miku's stomach as she remembered her own fight with the mystery girl.

"She certainly was no normal spirit, was she? She had managed to fight Kaguya, Yuzuru, and Yoshino at the same time while protecting you and making an opening to get to myself…" Miku remembered the girl running up to her with Shido in her hands before sticking her tongue out at the diva. A vein may have popped inside Miku's head as she recalled being humiliated like that. "Sh-She wasn't that great…" She mumbled under her breath.

"What did you say?"

"Oh! Nothing, nothing… wait, but you said you went on a date with her, correct?" She brought her finger to her cheek again.

"Yeah, what about it?"

"Then how come I never see her at the house?" Shido was confused by her obvious question and only gave her a blank stare in return.

"Well, I mean she is a spirit and you went out with her correct? So how come I never see her at the apartments or over at your house?" Shido knew what she was getting at, but didn't really know how to go about telling her.

"Well, you see, I was never actually able to seal her…" Miku was surprised. Not in a bad way, just an unexpected way. "When I was about to seal her… she killed herself. Well, a clone to be exact, but to me it was still Kurumi," The songstress had never heard of a situation like that, so she didn't really know what would be a good way to respond. As she was about to open her mouth, Shido continued. "After that is when I met the real her. The original her, so to speak. She was much more different than the other Kurumi that I had gotten to know, and I was unable to even have her acknowledge what I wanted for her." Another flashback of everyone he loved being held down by her clones as he watched a spacequake form right before his eyes played.

"So then why was she with you attacking me if you aren't on good terms?" Shido thought about it.

"Honestly, I don't know, Miku. I had nothing when she found me. You had turned everyone I had known and loved against me and Tohka had been kidnapped…"

Miku felt her heart slightly break. "I didn't mean-" Shido raised her hand to cut her off.

"It's fine, Miku. Honestly. The past is the past, and without it I wouldn't be here on a date right now with you, would I?" Miku couldn't help but feel a little flustered at his flattery after such a depressing talk. "Now," he stood up from the bench, "how would you like to enjoy this date of ours, the way it's supposed to be enjoyed?" He extended his hand to her and gave a reassuring smile. While Shido had moved on from the conversation, the last part made her realize what she had actually put him though. She slowly reached out for his hand.

"Darling I-"

UUUUUUUUUUUuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu-

"A spacequake?" They questioned in unison as they looked off into the distance where the alarm was coming from.

After her conversation with Kotori, Tohka had decided to head back to her apartment. On her way out, however, she decided that she wanted to go into Shido's room instead. She sat in a fetal position on his bed with her arms and legs wrapped around one of his pillows and her face buried on the top of it. She took in deep breaths as his covers smelled like him. Just his presence had always managed to calm her down, but since he wasn't here right now she had to settle for his fragrance.

"Muuuuu… Shido..." She had not had much sleep ever since the incident with DEM, but as of right now she could feel herself losing consciousness. Her body had felt weaker than usual since she had not been eating too much either. But for some reason the thing that was bothering her the most right now was a certain Nightmare that she couldn't get rid of. 'What happened while I was gone? Did Kurumi really change that quickly?' Her breathing slowed down as her mind began falling into a half-conscious state. 'If she's changed, then maybe-"

UUUUUUUUUuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu-

Immediately, Tohka flew up from her position, the piercing wail ripping its way through the air. She had gotten up so fast that as she went to get off of the bed, she collapsed onto the floor from being so light headed. As she tried to stand up a large banging sound was heard just outside of her door until it finally reached the room and the door flew open.

"Tohka, are you okay!?" Kotori rushed into the room worryingly as she noticed the spirit on the floor. She slung her arm underneath Tohka's armpit and across her shoulder as she tried to use her tiny body as a human crutch for the much larger girl.

"I-I'm fine. Sorry, I was just sleeping and I got a little startled, I guess." Tohka gave a fake laugh but Kotori wasn't focusing on it enough to even notice.

"Good, well let's get outside so we can have Ratatoskr beam us up onto the ship. Kaguya and Yuzuru should already be on the ship as well as Yoshino who had been there all day." The two girls made their way down the stairs slowly so that Tohka wouldn't fall over again.

"What's going on, Kotori?" Kotori bit down on the lollipop she had in her mouth. Something she didn't do often since she liked to make them last.

"The current situation is that a spirit is going to appear somewhere in the city. We are still trying to figure out which spirit it is, but as of right now it does not look too bad based on the possible size of the spacequake alone." Kotori kicked open the front door (the wrong way) and proceeded to make her way into an open area. Before the two knew it, they were already in the ship's teleporting chamber. The travel wasn't easy on Tohka, as she was already not feeling too great.

"Damn it." Kotori pressed against her ear, probably against another communicator device like the one Shido had. "Reine? I need you at the teleportation pad right now. Tohka needs your medical assistance, quickly." Kotori gently rested Tohka against the wall outside of the machine. "I'm really sorry, Tohka, but I need to take command of the situation right now." Kotori began taking her black ribbons out from her pockets and tying her hair into her commander-mode style.

"It's alright, Kotori, I'll be fine. You go do what you need to and I'll meet you when I can." With a quick nod and a firm look into Tohka's eyes, Kotori ran down the hallway towards the bridge. Only a few moments later did Tohka hear loud clacking footsteps headed her way.

"Ah, there you are." A messy silver haired woman announced as she made her way over to where Tohka had been sitting. "You look perfectly fine. What seems to be the matter?" If it wasn't for the fact that Tohka knew Reine so well, she would have been very concerned with the amount of sleep deprivation clearly visible all over the Analytical Officer's face. But it was this eternally tired face that made it easy for anyone to talk to Reine.

"D-Don't worry, nothing's wrong. I'm just not feeling too great. I haven't been sleeping or eating well lately so I guess the ride here only made it worse." As if understanding the situation completely already, Reine reached into one of her coat pockets and pulled out a small pill case. She unscrewed the little cap and tapped the back of the container until two pills gently fell into her hand.

"Here, take these." She extended her hand to where Tohka's was and dropped them. Tohka stared at the small tablets with unease, but she knew Reine knew more about this kind of thing than she did, not to mention that she knew she would never harm her. She quickly knocked back the two pills and swallowed as hard as she could since she didn't have anything to down it with.

After a few seconds Tohka's vision began to drastically change as she tried looking up at Reine. "Wh-What… were those…?" Her head now felt like it was spinning. Probably because it actually was without her even noticing.

"Ah, those? They were sleeping pills. I always carry them around but I never use them." Her monotone voice was practically a lullaby for the weary spirit.

"No… I have to… Shido… find… protect…" She collapsed onto the floor almost instantaneously. Reine felt bad for Tohka, but she knew that she was in no condition to try and do something as dangerous as fight while her body and mind were weakened. The fact that she admitted to being tired only helped Reine make her decision.

"Sorry, I'll have Shin make it up to you later." She walked over to the unconscious body and picked her up princess style before walking her down towards the infirmary.

"What's the status of the spacequake?" Kotori yelled to anyone on the bridge who was willing to answer her question as quickly as possible.

"Approximately 2 minutes before arrival." A woman said while vigorously typing on her computer screen.

Kotori dug into her pocket and grabbed a Chupa Chups before ravenously ripping off the wrapper and shoving the delectable item into her mouth. Whenever she was stressed she always looked forward to having her favorite lollipop calm her down. She rationally thought about the situation before her.

'Something isn't right here. This doesn't add up for some reason.' Her thoughts were interrupted by the door beside her sliding open with Reine making her way into the room. Kotori couldn't help but smile. While Reine was her subordinate, she felt like she was almost like a second mother to her. She always gave valuable advice and helped Kotori out whenever she could, on or off the clock.

"Glad you could make it." She shot Reine a moderately honest smile. A quick nod was given to Kotori. It was always hard to tell what or how Reine was feeling.

"I put Tohka down." Silence filled the air around Kotori as her heart began to race.

"Excuse me?"

"Ah, my bad. I put her to sleep. Poor choice of words." It wasn't like Reine to make such a simple mistake, but after all that's happened lately, Kotori couldn't help but let it go. "Tohka should be fine. She just needs some rest, is all. However, she is in no condition to be fighting, so she should just focus on resting for the next few days." Another quick nod of understanding was passed between the two.

"It's fine, don't worry about it. Are the other girls ready?" As if almost on cue, the sliding doors flew open again and out marched an ecstatic looking Kaguya leading the way, followed closely behind by Yuzuru and Yoshino.

"We're ready for battle, Commander!" Shouted Kaguya as she struck a childlike battle pose.

"Affirmation. We are ready to engage the enemy if needed." Yuzuru answered in her general manner. She turned to see Kaguya still in her obnoxious pose and sighed before a small grin spread its way across her face.

"We're ready," A cute little voice rang out from Yoshino.

"Yeah we'll show them what's what!" Her feisty puppet Yoshinon chimed in while putting his hands up and punching like a boxer.

Kotori smiled at everyone's energy. "I appreciate it. However, remember our first contact is the most important. We can't send you all in blindly firing away, or we would be no better than the AST." All three girls, and Yoshinon, hung their heads low as they realized what they had just said. They were willing to go out and fight without even realizing that this was a spirit who probably wanted to be saved, much like themselves. What had caused them to be so aggressive in the first place?

"Don't worry about it. The extra offense and defense is always needed in case things get out of control." Kotori looked around the room quickly as if she had just remembered something. "Hey, where's Shido?" She looked out into the sea of workers. Her voice a little more stiff this time. "Weren't you all supposed to pick him up?" The cabin was in a slight panic as they never liked it when Kotori got angry. It meant that their day probably wasn't going to be an enjoyable one.

A man stood up amongst the crowd, obviously trying to get the Commander's attention. "Ah, well you see… He's currently on a date with Miku right now and they're taking cover in a building. So we can't exactly beam him up until he comes out at the very least." A loud sigh was heard from Kotori.

"That idiot. He knows that he should try at least getting in contact with us when the alarm goes off. Well, at the very least, be ready to pick him up once he comes out so we don't waste any time trying to explain the situation to him."

"Yes, sir!" The cabin yelled in unison as the ship began to move to the location where Shido was.

Kotori turned to the three spirits to her side and opened her mouth to say something before she was interrupted again.

"Commander!" The same girl as before shouted.

"Hm?" Kotori turned back around. "What is it?"

"We have an unexpected error in the system!" The worker seemed frantically trying to find what was wrong.

"An error?" It was rare to hear of such a thing occurring on the Fraxinus since it was far beyond what anyone could even consider human technology. "What kind of error?"

"I-I don't know! You know how when a spacequake appears we are usually able to identify the spirit before they actually come into this world?"

"Yeah? What about it?" Kotori's response was a little harsher than she probably meant it to be.

"Ah! Sorry, of course you know that!" The worker tried to calm herself down. "Well, you see, we have a confirmation that we've witnessed this spacequake before."

"So then what's the problem?" Kotori asked more directly as she was not in the mood to be beating around the bush at such a crucial moment.

"Well, the systems are saying that they don't have an actual match for the spacequake." The spirits looked at Kotori in confusion and concern.

"What do you mean that the spacequake isn't registered to a spirit?" Kotori's eyes widened in a sudden realization as the computer screen showed the blast the size of a small tactical nuke going off in the city destroying everything not too far from them. The explosion ripped the ground apart and sent glass and metal flying through the air with ease. Thankfully, they were too high to actually be hit by the debris.

After things had calmed down on the screen, the camera zoomed in on the crash site as tons of AST also began swarming the location. Only something was wrong, and both sides knew it almost instantly upon seeing the site's center. There was no spirit.

Shido fell onto his bottom with Miku not too far from him as the shock from the quake rippled through the air and collided with the walls of the building. Thankfully, they were far enough from the actual explosion to not take any severe damage. Nothing but a few broken windows and possibly some exterior damage. He and Miku had escaped to the closest building; the park information center.

It was a fairly large building and had multiple floors, each meant to help the park, or its goers, in various ways. Upon entering, Shido had taken the first elevator down to the lowest floor as it were a hurricane he were protecting them from. He figured that the basement stood the best chance of withstanding the blast as opposed to one of the higher floors.

"Miku, are you okay? You're not hurt, are you?" He stood up from the floor and walked over to Miku with his hand extended in order to pick her up.

"I do believe I am fine, Darling. Should we try to get in contact with your sister?" She took his hand and hoisted herself up.

"Yeah, I suppose we should. Give me one second to contact her, okay?" He walked a few steps away and put his hand in his ear, only something felt off. There was no communication device. "Damn it." He cursed himself. In all the confusion this morning he ran out of the room before he was fully prepared for the day. "Wait a second!" He reached into his pocket and pulled out his phone. No matter what he never forgot his phone because it was always next to his wallet. He flipped open the phone and looked at the screen before his face fell. No service.

"What's the matter, Darling?" Miku walked over to look at his phone only to see the 'No Service' caption at the top. She couldn't help but let out a small giggle.

"Today really isn't my day is it…?" Shido shut his phone with a sigh before shoving it back into his pocket.

"It's almost like you bring it upon yourself." Miku added sarcastically.

"Hah hah. Well, the spacequake is over, so maybe we can make our way to the surface now and hopefully the Fraxinus will be able to find us. After all, I'm sure that they are worried that we aren't there as another spirit was appearing. He looked towards the stairs that they had used to come down into the basement with. "Come on, let's try and get to the Fraxinus as soon as possible." He grabbed Miku's hand and led her towards the stairs.

"Oh my~ you're being so forward today, Darling~" She teased, but Shido tried to ignore her as he made his way over.

As he was about to start climbing up the stairs, he felt his ears ringing. He turned to look back before noticing a small hole next to the rail he had just set his hand on. Suddenly, a shiver shot down his spine. His heart began racing and a cold sweat crept its way through his skin. He turned around to see Miku looking behind them with a mildly horrified expression on her face.

"Ara Ara~ Greetings, Shido-san. It sure has been a while, has it not?" A maniacal laugh echoed through the darkness of the basement before loud boots could be heard making their way to Shido's location. Shido almost thought his heart was going to burst from the anxiety. The dark figure's face appeared, half covered by the outside light and half covered by the darkness of the shadows she crept out from. Her crimson-red and black dress shined as the light reflected off of it.

There was no mistaking it.

"Tokisaki… Kurumi…"