Authors note: I'll be posting this 18,000 word chapter in 2 parts for the sake of sanity, I'm not sure how many of you would want a super massive chapter to slug through, which means part 1 will be posted this weekend, and the second part the next one after that (it also gives me time to write future chapters! I'm working at what's a pretty slow pace for me, but I'd hope to have the final episode's chapter ready/finished for the weekend it's meant to be posted at least, at the rate I'm going.) But yes, Why did I end up writing so much? Well, from the times we saw Yayaka in the show, I thought it was pretty clear that she'd been there for a while, long enough to know how everything worked in that world at least, so here we see how that came to be...
I know Asclepius is still working on their Hole technology, but if they could program the thing next time so Toto, Yuyu and I weren't drenched in acid rain that began to melt our combat gear and make me feel like I was about to bleed a river, that would be great. Thankfully there was shelter nearby, an old run-down school building, which could be an ideal home for a vampire, with its pointed roofs and towers. Throwing open the gates as fast as we could manage (I struggled pretty bad, feeling weak from the constant burning sensation) but Toto and Yuyu had no problems pushing it open for me, which lead me to landing face-first on the cool stone ground. I crawled as quickly as I could out of range of the rain that tried to chase me through the doorway. The twins shut the door, following me after I was safely inside. Red lines ran down their pale skin, as if they'd walked into a large bloody spider's web. They were standing on their feet steadily, which I wasn't sure whether to be surprised about or not.
"You guys okay there?" I asked them, receiving a nod in unison as an answer. Their clothing was in a similar state to mine, frayed holes in more places than I'd like. What about our weapons?
One hand went to my head to activate my visor, only for it to make a harsh buzzing noise in my ear. I didn't quite want to risk testing my rockets, (who knew what lived here and what attention a loud noise and/or fiery explosion could attract?) although going by the fact my targetter was out of commission, even if I wanted to fire one, aiming would be down to dumb luck. Seeing what I was doing, the twins began to check their own equipment. Toto's headgear seemed largely unaffected, a message flashed on screen for him just fine, along with long scrolling strings of information, but that didn't do him any good anyway.
"Missiles jammed" Was all he said. Yuyu looked down at her giant metal arm, which vibrated slightly at her side. Her eyes narrowed the tiniest amount in concentration, but no matter what, all the arm did was shake at her side.
"Weapons offline" Yuyu added.
I'd wondered if I could take his headset from him and try using it, see if it could tell me about my rockets, but even if tried his headset on, there's no guarantee it would work for me. Asclepius custom made all of our gear, if they programmed everything to our strengths, then I probably wouldn't be able to register even a fraction of the information Toto could if I had that thing on my head.
If there's anything hostile in this world, we're screwed.
I was about to test my grappling wire when a loud noise rang all throughout the building, making my jump. A bell. There's a bell tower here. If we need to go there later, I shouldn't risk wasting any of this now.
The bell rang again, the noise flooding the corridors. Amongst the crashing sea of sound belonging to the bell as it chimed, echoing throughout the building, there was something else underlying…
Giggles.
Giggles and fast footsteps.
They were quiet, but they were there.
And coming closer.
I gestured to Toto and Yuyu to follow me, even though I had no idea where we were going. We couldn't go back outside again, not with the rain out there, but we should probably move, or at least try and find a place to hide. Those giggles could be completely innocent for all I know, but a flash through the windows, highlighting statues and casting shadows that looked like monsters from the stories Cocona told me, and a heavy rumble in the sky, as if one of those monsters was roaring as it hunted for us in the building, told me otherwise. Countless footfalls could be heard underneath the giggling now, coming from all directions. We were surrounded by noise.
The twins must have come to the same realisation I did, as we all stood back to back at the point, we realised there wasn't an easy way out of this. Toto stood still, but his eyes showed a hint of alertness. Yuyu had her only working arm raised, ready to punch, her mouth a tight line as her metal arm shook at her side, desperately trying to get it to respond, but coming up with nothing. I followed suit, raising my arms, ready to slash with my arm blades (thankfully in one piece) if I had to. Even if I could get my equipment to respond, I doubt my super speed would be any good here. The most I could do would be to leave Toto and Yuyu behind, but that wouldn't have been right. If we were going to face death, I'd rather have someone to face it with. I'd be a coward if I just abandoned them, the number of times they'd saved my life on all these adventures.
Shadows crept around the corners of the crossroads-corridor we were standing in. Being a school, I shouldn't have been too scared by the sight of a bunch of schoolgirls in sailor uniforms, heck, it's probably one of the most normal things I've ever encountered in Pure Illusion...
But you weren't here. Their legs didn't run smoothly as they made their way to us. They sort of... flickered. All in unison too, although amongst the tide of bodies some seemed to shift and teleport and change positions. I thought the twin's skin was pale and grey before, but it was nothing to the pale bone-shaded skin the girls had. Flawless too, no marks, no injuries... all as if they were made made from the same mould. Despite that though, their hair looked pretty normal... even if most of it consisted of various curtains of black. The uniforms they wore were stiff, almost as if they were made of stone, and when they did move, it's as if they were waterlogged, heavy, dripping... But their faces... Their heads were featureless, minus what looked like a child had just scribbled with a marker all over them. I'd guess that's where the giggles were coming from, going by the fact the sound moved with the horde of these girls... but that's the thing, when I say their faces were scribbled on. No holes. Just flat. No logical or physical way for them to make any sound at all. No hint of sight either, yet they knew exactly where to find us. The scribbles danced and shifted along their faces as they all walked.
The bell rang out an eleventh chime, and that was when everything went dark.
I was pretty surprised to find I could wake up at all.
I sat up to find myself looking at the other end of a bunkbed, my head brushing the ceiling of the bed I was on. The sheets around me felt... thin. Kinda floaty, and a little rough. Old... yet not a single stain, or rip, or tear.
I turned myself around and sat with my legs over the side of the bunk, only to pretty much get up the instant I did so.
"Toto!" His name came out of my mouth before I knew it. He was slumped over a chair, still in his damaged combat gear, eyes closed. All the blood was gone from him, thankfully, but that didn't mean he was fine. Thinking about the blood, I checked my own hands. They, were clean, as were my clothe-
What the hell am I wearing?!
Toto was still in his combat gear, but when I looked down at myself, I was wearing... some kinda night dress? The material of it was similar to the bedsheets, only slightly frilly too. Made me feel a bit like I was in the Victorian era, although I wanted nothing more than to rip these clothes to shreds and find get my old school uniform back, or at least my jacket so I could hide the frills...
Where is Yuyu?
It was at that point I turned back to face the bunk behind me. I clambered up the ladder and was relieved to see Yuyu there... although, like me, she was also wearing some sort of frilly night dress. She, too, was awake, although...
"What happened to your arm?" I asked. Looking down at it, I think it just occurred to me, I'd never actually seen Yuyu's arm before. The cast was gone, and the giant metal fist wasn't encasing it either, it was... plain. Normal-looking.
"Unknown" Yuyu answered. She lifted her left arm... with great difficulty, her eye twitched and mouth pulled back slightly into a tiny grimace. I was only watching, and it was painful. "Weak" she added, a small hint of annoyance to her voice, although whether she was annoyed with the lack of her metal arm, or at herself I didn't know.
I got down and stepped away from the ladder so Yuyu could get down from her bunk. We both found Toto awake, looking at us.
"Hey" I said, greeting him. His eyes trailed to Yuyu's arm, or lack of cast on it. Yuyu turned her head away.
"Alive" He said.
"Yeah, for the moment we are" I replied, running a hand along my night dress. Ugh, are there any other clothes around here? I walked over to the chest of drawers Toto was sitting next to and opened them. Folded neatly inside were school uniforms, replicas of what the students we saw wearing last night. Screw it, it's better than nothing. At least it'll help us blend in. I grabbed one and put it on, Yuyu following suit. Toto stared at the uniforms in the drawer, hesitant for a while, before putting one on too, over the top of his combat gear. That's a point...
"Any idea what happened to our stuff?" I asked Toto, tying my bangs up over the top of my head with a ribbon. I don't know if he'd seen anything at all, but out of the three of us, he was most likely to have done, being in a chair facing the rest of the room, rather than lying down on a bed.
"No" he answered. Damn. I guess we were alive, and even then, our stuff was in pretty bad condition anyway, but still, I would have felt a lot better if I knew I'd have stuff I could fight properly with it I needed to. Arm blades are fine for single-enemy close combat, but the fact we were swarmed on our first night here suggested they'd be pretty much useless in this part of Pure Illusion. Heck, the rockets probably would be too now I think about it. Toto could take out groups in the right locations if he planned his shots just right, but the floors and walls here were pretty solid. I doubted destruction could save us. Sure, if we made a hole in a corridor it could be an easy escape for us, but there were a lot of... creatures here. We could probably take some out, or block their paths, but ultimately, we'd probably end up dead. Trapped in a building, with no way to escape, and beings that would probably just bring you back, or worse, kill you if you tried...
Sounds just like Asclepius.
It was at that moment that the door to our room opened, followed by an attempt as speech that sounded like the voices were a thousand insects, trying to coordinate their wings so the buzzing resembled language, but also like the sound was trying to come through static you'd hear on an old TV.
"qrE3Tinqs" the scribble-faced schoolgirls peering around the door buzzed. How the heck am I meant to act? Should I just go along with it? That'll make them less likely to kill us, right?
"Hey there" I said with a little wave. Yuyu and Toto both nodded at the arrivals, replying to the girls with "Greetings" of their own. The instant Toto moved his head, all the students turned to look at him. Their heads all turned to the side, dropping like an unsupported doll's head, rather than being controlled with muscles in the neck, and the voice they'd used to speak began to hum in their throats, growing louder with each second. Are they suspicious? Do they know he's a guy?
Thinking quickly, I grabbed Yuyu's good arm and dragged her behind me, as I shoved my way past the schoolgirls in the corridor and stepped out into the hallway with them. The door closed on Toto and the buzzing stopped. Just cut out. Mentally breathing a sigh of relief, I noticed all the schoolgirls walking down the corridor to another room, including the ones that had come to fetch us. Their movements were a lot more natural this time, but that didn't make the horde of girls any less threatening to me, especially going by how they acted yesterday. Was this a good thing? It wasn't perfect, but it felt a lot less dangerous than what we encountered yesterday. Blending in seemed to be the way to go here. I turned to Yuyu whose eyes were questioning, and I gestured with my head to follow the crowd. Like most orders I gave, she followed without objection, maybe catching on to my thinking.
I don't know how long the corridor was, it was really hard to get a sense of distance in here, but I know I hadn't been along here before (or not that I remembered being awake for at least, we were probably carried here when we were found), along one side were some large stained glass windows… I was pretty sure they were stained glass, admittedly kind of hard to tell what with the sky outside in a permanent state of rain, but it was segmented into mostly pale and cream shapes. White lilies if I wasn't mistaken. Even though everything in the building so far, apart from my hair, seemed to be dyed in every shade of grey from 'cloud' to 'shadow', the stained-glass window… I don't know, I guess the fact it was a nice decoration just added a bit more life to the building…
The school girls all seemed to be splitting up and going into different rooms. I didn't really think about it, but I turned into one myself, Yuyu silently following. Catching a quick glance at the sign above the door before I disappeared around the corner, I saw it was the 'Home Ec.' room. The room was pretty packed already, all but one of the tables were taken by girls, each sitting and doing embroidery (thankfully, mostly with different timing. There were a few girls who were stitching, pushing and pulling the needle and thread all at the same time, but I guess that was to be expected here), the whole place lit by a few stray candles. Instead of casting a warmer colour around the room, I felt like the lighting in here resembled that of a dirty street light in the city, it felt about as inviting.
Yuyu and I took a place at the remaining table and looked down at the wooden embroidery circles. Cloth was already trapped between them, ready to be worked on. I'd never really done sewing before, so I wasn't really sure what I should be doing. It took a lot longer than I'd like to admit to thread the needle that was sat on the table (and even longer to sort out Yuyu's her bad arm's shaking making it impossible for her to even attempt. She gave me a quick grateful glance before getting to work). I sat there for a while trying to copy what I'd seen of the other girl's sewing. Using the needle was fine, but the thread I'd tied to the end kept coming loose from the needle. Did I not tie it tight enough? Was it too tight? How the heck does this stuff work? I'd started growling and grumbling under my breath, which bought the attention of some of the schoolgirls on me. Their faces were shadowed by their hair, and I couldn't see any of the scribble markings on them, but I thought I saw a couple of flashes of red creep along their faces, I gulped nervous, and tried to keep quiet. Key word being 'tried', I'd managed to stab myself with the needle a number of times, which wasn't helping my increasingly bad mood. I thought I could hear the insect buzzing starting to echo in the room. Calm down. You're going to get caught at this rate.
I went to change the colour of the thread on the needle I was using, and somehow managed to 'ping' the needle out of my hands.
"Oh, for sugar's sake…" I cursed and was about to reach under the table to try and fetch it, when the buzzing became almost deafening. I sat up straight, quickly, and saw all of the school girls looking at me, red lines appearing all over their faces, forming the 'eyes' and 'mouths' they had the other day. Yuyu must have noticed my distress, as she took my scrappy embroidery away from me, swapping it for her own. Her work was all one colour (I'd picked out a dark blue. Something about the colour seemed vaguely familiar to me) but incredibly neat monotone replica of the outside of the school building. I couldn't remember too much of it from my short time outside, but the more I looked at Yuyu's embroidery, the more details I could recall, and all of it looked like it was to scale too. Nothing was out of place or out of proportion… There was something a little odd about it though, just a thin outline in the background of a clocktower. I didn't remember seeing it when I looked at the building at all, and even then, on the embroidery it was really hard to notice, just a thin shape compared to the solid blocks of the other parts of the school.
"This is really good!" I said out loud. I didn't think I'd find myself appreciating sewing, but having tried it myself and failing horrifically, I'd found a new respect for it. The smile on my face was probably bigger than it needed to be, but I just felt… really enthusiastic about it for some reason.
It was at that point I'd noticed the buzzing has stopped and all the other students had gone back to their work, not paying the slightest bit of attention to us. Yuyu had probably just saved us from being found out. I looked up from her work to look her in the face and thank her to see her looking back at me with a tiny smile twitch at the corner of her mouth. Maybe it was the lighting but her face seemed to have a bit more colour to it than it usually did, just a slight tinge of pink. She went back to her sewing work, and I'd noticed she was holding the wooden ring in her bad arm, and the needle in her good arm. I mean, that was what I thought I'd see, or how I would have thought she'd done the work so neatly, but the wooden ring was shaking in her other hand pretty badly. If it wasn't for that, she looked like she was a natural at it… It wasn't long before I noticed the twitch of the smile at her mouth, due to praise, became a grimace, along with a slightly narrowed eye as she was trying to focus getting the needle and thread to work with her. I was about to ask her a question when the background noise in the room suddenly grew loud again. I hurriedly went back to admiring Yuyu's piece, cutting the dark blue thread from the needle, and swapping it out for another colour (just plain black this time. I didn't want to risk ruining Yuyu's work too much). It got easier to thread the needle each time I wanted to change the colour, or remove my current one and add some more to it as I'd run out. I ended up adding bricks to the clocktower's outline Yuyu had done. I probably ruined it, but half of everything about this building looked old and crumbling anyway, surely no one would care if the clock tower looked like it was about to fall apart.
A bell chimed in the distance, and as one, the schoolgirls all stood up and moved to the door, presumably to their next class. I wondered for a second what would happen about our embroidery, but didn't wait around for long, not wanting to attract too much attention to us. I stood up, Yuyu following suit, before walking out the classroom with her, blindly walking with the students, not sure where we'd end up next.
It was a little hard to think sometimes, I thought I could feel Yuyu looking at me, but whenever I'd turn back to look at her, her eyes had flicked away, although her face still seemed to be slightly pinker than I remember it being… I wasn't sure what was up with her. Maybe without her metal arm she was in constant pain and was trying to tell me or something, but wasn't sure what to say exactly.
I kinda forgot about that as Yuyu and I came to a stop outside a room with the sign 'Music room', I saw a couple of free seats inside and lead Yuyu in there. Surely nothing could go wrong in the music room?
Thankfully, it was probably the easiest 'lesson' to sit through. There was a single piano in there, being played by a pair of girls. Basically all we had to do was sit back and relax. Easy enough. The song was nice too, sounded kinda nostalgic or something… Yuyu was just staring straight ahead the whole time. I had no idea if she thought anything about music at all, and there were no hints that was the case. How much do I know about the twins? Not a lot now I thought about it. Yuyu punches stuff, Toto shoots stuff… That was all I could say for certain. I've been working with them for so many years, and I hardly know a thing about them…
The music lesson was over quicker than I would have liked, the sound of the bell pretty jarring compared to the peaceful flowy melody that filled the room just seconds ago, but it was time to get going again. At this point I was getting pretty hungry, and wondered if there was any food around here. I'd kill for some cream bread right about now…
Yuyu and I wandered around aimlessly for a while, while I was trying to sniff out food. She didn't seem to mind too much. Either way, just as we were passing a library thankfully it wasn't too long before I caught the smell of tea, and I assumed there'd have to be a cafeteria or some sort of eating area in the building. I wasn't quite sure why there'd be one here, as the students here didn't have anything resembling a mouth visible half of the time, but I didn't care about that. There was food here, and as far as I was concerned, that was all that mattered.
We ended up in a place that looked like a fancy tea room from an English hotel, as if the place had just somehow been absorbed from a black and white photograph and was just a part of the school now. I didn't really think too much about it as I was almost drooling a river over the sight of warm brown tea in a cup, cakes, sweets, and best of all…
"They have cream bread!" It was hard to try and keep the happiness out of my voice, but screw it if I sounded too suspicious, look at the cream bread!
I sat down right away, picked up a piece and took a bite. Oh man, it was so good. Honestly probably some of the best I've ever tasted in my life. Yuyu slowly took a seat opposite me and stared down at her teacup while I began to stuff my face. It hadn't hit me until just then how hungry I must have been. I don't know how much time had passed between now and the last time I had something to eat. Maybe a day or two? From not feeling hungry at all, to suddenly feeling like my stomach was a pit, I ate all the cream bread that I could see. Well… almost all of it.
"Not hungry?" I asked Yuyu. Her eyes hadn't left the teacup in that whole time. Does she even need to eat or drink? Being an artificial human, I'd guess some things were taken into consideration, and others were left out entirely, but when you've been specifically crafted to travel in another world, needing to eat was probably one of the first things removed. I picked up the last piece of cream bread on the plate and held it out, offering it to Yuyu. She shook her head, dismissing my offer. As I bought my arm back towards me, catching sight of the colour of the tea and holding the bread I finally worked out what was familiar to me about the blue thread Yuyu had used in the embroidery lesson…
Cocona.
The thread wasn't too far off matching her hair, and the warmth of the tea… I pictured Cocona in my head, hands on her stomach and doubled over, unable to control her laughter when we were making up stories…
I missed her.
Would I see her again at all?
I couldn't be sure. Asclepius' hole device managed to mess up pretty bad this time, and being out in the acid rain probably hadn't done it any good, along with the rest of our equipment. Would we ever be able to get back? Would we be stuck here forever?
What is Toto doing right now? We'd just sorta up and left him alone trying to save him from the school girls, in case they went crazy again or something… Is he okay? What if he's been captured?
I dropped my cream bread and ran off.
Where the hell was the room we stayed in? It really didn't help that most of these doors looked identical, there were no clues what lead where, beyond the odd sign outside a classroom door, most of which I didn't even bother reading as I ran past (The few rooms I could see into revealed more rooms that looked just like the ones Yuyu and I had spent time in earlier, the only different one was a large library). We didn't get chased or anything as we ran around, I'd guess the schoolgirls were too caught up in their own activities to notice anything too out of place at the moment…
Have I been here before? I ran past stained-glass windows with white lilies, and the order of rooms in this corridor looked similar, to one I remember passing a few minutes ago. Oh great, does this place loop on itself? I growled in frustration. Why is this so difficult? I swear the building didn't look that big from the outside. I leant against a wall, panting, trying to catch my breath back, having run non-stop for the past ten minutes.
"Yayaka"
I spun around to face the voice of the person who spoke, arms up, ready to fight if I had to, only to drop them upon seeing it was just Yuyu there.
"Oh, man… Yuyu, don't scare me like that…" my hands were on my knees and I'd bent over, panting. My heart was beating like crazy in my chest, like a panicked creature blindly thrashing, trying to escape a trap. I'm never gonna make it out of here alive. Despair was starting to creep in. If the schoolgirls don't get me, my own damn fear will. There's no way out. We're stuck here forever… It was a good couple of minutes before I'd recovered enough to stand up and face Yuyu properly.
"What's wrong?" she asked, her usual monotone sounding fifty thousand times more concerned than I would have expected would be possible for the twins. I couldn't help thinking of Cocona again after hearing how Yuyu sounded. It's the sort of thing Cocona would have asked me. She'd maybe put a hand to my face, gently turning my head from side to side to check I hadn't accidentally hurt myself. After that, she'd check me over, she was an assistant to the school nurse after all, she knew basic first aid and would want to make sure that I hadn't over-exerted myself running around like that, especially with my reputation for getting sick (in reality needing to be called out to Pure Illusion on a last minute bases, but playing sick a lot of the time was an easy way to get out of school)…
I closed my eyes tight and shook my head. Cocona isn't here. She is not coming here; she's not coming to my rescue. I have to help myself in this situation. I'm on my own… I'm stuck. Trapped. We have no weapons, and no contact with the outside world. Even if we could find the faulty Hole device that took us here, there was every chance it couldn't be fixed. We can't get out. This is my life now…
Cocona… I need you here. I need you to tell me stories of monsters and princesses. Tell me about all those boring science books you read, getting as technical as you want. Scold me about eating too much cream bread, and how it'll make me sicker than I already am. Hell, tell me about Papika, tell me about all the fun you're having without me, I don't care, I just want to hear your voice again… And see those warm chocolate colour eyes, hair as soft as the night sky… All this stupid stuff, running around in other worlds, working for a bunch of cultists, I can't…
I can't take this anymore…
At that point I felt fingers lightly touch my cheek "Cocona…" I let out a quiet whisper before opening my eyes, purple and shining with tears, meeting with a blank red stare. Yuyu… My heart skipped a beat for a second, shocked. I was hoping to see Cocona, I'd forgotten Yuyu was there with me. Her skin looked softer than I remember. Radiant. Her silver hair shone like liquid glass… For a second, I couldn't quite believe that it was Yuyu standing in front of me, she looked a lot prettier than I remembered…
Pretty?
I shook my head like a dog trying to get all the water off its fur. That was the first time I'd ever thought of Yuyu like that, and I wasn't sure that was something I should be thinking right now. Yuyu being around did knock me back to my senses though. I'm not alone here. I have the twins with me. We can survive.
We can do this.
I wiped my eyes with my sleeve, gently pushing Yuyu's hand away.
"I'm fine" I said, trying to muster up some of my usual harshness. "Just tired from running so much. Where's Toto?"
I felt kinda bad about lying to Yuyu. I had no idea if she knew that's what I was doing, I mean, I'd said Cocona's name after all, but she showed no signs of having noticed, and instead turned her head slightly so her eyes were facing one of the doors. I approached it and turned the handle, and indeed, there was Toto, sitting on the lower bunk, looking over his combat gear. Has he been looking at that the whole time?
He looked up at us as we entered, silent and staring. Yuyu approached him and held out her bad arm, the hand of which was curled into a fist, and dropped something into his hands. "Here" was all she said. I caught a tiny glint of silver, and a reel of thread. She must have stolen that from the embroidery class. Toto nodded at her, and got to work on mending his combat gear. He struggled with his sewing more than Yuyu did, a lot more, but his work was still neater than anything I could accomplish. It would probably be a few days before all of our stuff was fixed up, but at least we had a way to repair it. The sooner we had armour, the sooner we could make a proper attempt to get the rest of our stuff back, and get out of here.
There was hope.
We couldn't really do too much more today… or I certainly couldn't at least. I was completely drained from today's adventure, and my emotions getting out of hand weren't helping either. As Toto was working on the bottom bunk of the bed, I clambered up the ladder to the top one, and flopped down on the mattress. My limbs felt like they were weighed down with lead and I felt a little like I was sinking.
It wasn't long before, what felt like, much needed sleep claimed me…
I sat up fast upon waking, feeling panicked, almost smacking my head against the ceiling of the bunk above me. What's going on? How am I alive?
Are the others alive?
Turning to my left I saw Toto slumped in a chair near a chest of drawer, still wearing his tattered combat gear. His chest rose and fell. Good. He's breathing… But where's Yuyu? I got out of the bunkbed and clambered up the ladder to see her up there, eyes staring blankly at the ceiling.
Okay, both alive. But… What the hell is Yuyu wearing? It looked like some sort of long frilly nightshirt… Looking down at myself, I saw I was wearing an identical one. I then noticed Yuyu's flesh-and-blood arm… I was about to ask her about it when something about the situation struck me as really familiar.
Has this happened before? I swear this was the first time I'd ever been to this part of Pure Illusion, but something in the back of my mind was telling me that wasn't the case.
That same something made me get down from the bed as fast as I could and almost rip the drawers open on the dresser next to Toto, to reveal school uniforms and black ribbons.
"Put these on!" I told the twins. It was a while before they responded, but eventually they both obeyed, and we all stood in matching outfits. I was tying my hair up when the door opened and scribbled-on faces spoke.
"qRE3Tinqs" came their garbled voices. The twins echoed their welcome, and I grabbed Toto by the wrist, dragging him with me as we left through the door with them, leaving Yuyu behind. I wasn't quite sure why all my actions were so urgent, but I guess it's a good thing they were, as who knows what could have happened otherwise. We passed the stained glass windows with the lilies and ended up in a room where all the girls were doing embroidery. Toto and I sat at the only two free spaces on the table and got to work with needle and thread.
I felt like I should have been cursing my equipment to oblivion, but I wasn't having any problems with it at all… Well, my sewing was far from skilled, but I was enjoying it, which is something I never thought I'd find myself thinking…
Although the whole time we were there, there was buzzing in the room. No insects were in the room at all, just the schoolgirls who were… mostly watching the two of us. They were still doing embroidery, no problems, despite their gazes being focused on us, but the noise just slowly kept growing until it filled the room. I ended up dragging Toto out with me when it was starting to get too loud for me to think in there. When we were outside the classroom he looked at me questioningly, still holding his things. I looked down at his work to see a replica of the school, including an almost-invisible bell tower. Suddenly the memories came back to me, full force.
"This has happened before" I told him. "Yuyu did this exact same thing yesterday." Hers was a lot neater though… I began to miss her a little, even though I'd seen her only an hour before.
Toto stared at me a while longer. If he was a normal person, he probably would have questioned me then, or gone on a rant saying how I was crazy and this was the first time this had ever happened… But he wasn't normal, and he nodded not long after I'd spoken, accepting my words without a doubt. I was used to the twins following my orders, but for some reason the fact Toto just went along with me was… I'm not quite sure, but it seemed like he trusted me. I didn't know that's a thing they were capable of doing, trusting another person, but the more I looked into Toto's eyes the more I wondered just how much more to them there is.
We went back to Yuyu without speaking another word, I couldn't help smiling upon seeing her, even though all she was doing was sitting down in the chair Toto had previously occupied, staring at a wall.
"Hey" I said. Her head turned to face us quickly, as if she was startled by our sudden appearance, although her face was as expressive as an egg.
She stood up, a lot slower than she would have if a real person had been surprised by us coming back so soon, but she looked down at Toto's sewing stuff and held out her good hand, ready to take it from him. He handed it over, and Yuyu sat down in the chair, grabbed Toto's combat gear (which he had left sprawled over the mirror) and began to sew. As she got to work, it was then that I noticed there were a few black stitches in it already, even though the only things in the room were the furniture and the drawer of school uniforms…
It wasn't too long before Yuyu's unusually-bare left arm began to shake badly, trying to hold Toto's stuff in place while fixing it up. The corner of her mouth twitched in a grimace. She's in pain.
"Why don't you put it down? Like, put it on dresser, use that as a table as you sew, that way you won't have to hold it up." I suggested. Yuyu looked away from the clothes and up at me, my heart skipping a beat as her eyes met mine, before she obeyed and got to work again. It seemed to be working a lot better for her, and a smile crept along my face. For some reason, watching her work made me feel happy.
What the heck is up with me?
I shook my head to clear it again and tried to get my thoughts together. Right, if Toto's stuff had stayed fixed up from the previous day, we can work with this. Each day that repeats we can just grab things from the Home Ec. Room to fix our stuff and…
We only know where Toto's things are.
"We need to search the school" I said, turning to him. He nodded and we left the room. I thought I could feel Yuyu's eyes on me as the door shut behind us.
"Let's have a walk around, see what we can find" I said to Toto. I don't know if I needed to say all my plans out loud, but I felt better talking to someone, even if half of the time I got a silent nod as a response.
Corridors stretched out in front of us. Not really knowing where we were going, we just picked random directions and went off that way. I didn't want to split up. We might have covered more ground that way, but this school creeped me out enough when I was with someone, I didn't even want to try walking around here on my own.
Whenever we passed students, most of them passed us without sparing a second glance… as long as we kept walking. If we stood still too long, all faces would end up facing Toto, and the constant noise of rain from outside would be drowned out with the unnatural buzzing.
This didn't happen at all when it was me and Yuyu walking around… That was when as I was walking, I caught sight of the stained-glass window with the white lilies (probably not the same one near the room we were staying in, but they all looked identical) and another thought struck me.
All-girls school? White lilies? How Yuyu's been acting towards me… and how I thought she was pretty…
I don't know how I didn't pick up on all the yuri vibes the school was giving off until now, and how it had influenced our behaviour until now. It would also explain why none of the students seemed too happy when Toto was around or stood still for too long. Being a guy he was incredibly out of place here. I guess at least it forced us to work faster though in looking around the school.
We didn't really find any hints of our gear, but as we went along, a couple of times Toto put his hand on my shoulder and said "stop. Previously explored," before he'd point us in another direction. I wasn't entirely sure how he knew, but he was probably mapping out the whole area in his head as he went along. If the day started over again though, would he remember it all? I couldn't be sure, but having that thought inspired me to try and be more observant of my surroundings. Eventually I began to notice more and more subtle differences around the school. If Toto had somehow picked up on what I was doing and had stopped turning me around because of that, he never told me. I doubt anything I'd remember would stay in my head either, but we'd never know unless we tried.
I got a rough idea of the layout of the whole school by the evening... or what I guessed to be evening. As we explored, eventually we saw less and less girls in the corridors at what I'd guess were one-hour intervals, until there weren't any at all. I wasn't really sure if I prefered that to be the case, honestly. At least when there was more than just me and Toto in the corridor we could see our enemy. When they were all gone, you could sometimes hear giggling along with the rain that constantly pattered the windows. Knowing they were still around, still there was enough to keep me on edge the entire time.
Although the fact it was basically empty outside our room now was still terrifying to me, I thought now would probably be the best time to search for the rest of our missing equipment. I wasn't sure if the repairs to Toto's combat gear meant anything, but I had a theory that it meant that things we'd bought with us were unaffected by the day that seemed to repeat itself, then if we got our stuff back it should be left alone and we could stash it in our room and fix it as days the days went by. If not, then we'd know where it was for the next day, and assuming the repairs stayed like they did for Toto's stuff, then great. Okay, it wouldn't be as perfect as I'd like it, there was no telling how long it would take to repair everything, but we had a plan. If we put that into action, we could get out of here.
I told the twins this and Yuyu looked confused while Toto nodded. She cocked her head to the side, questioningly, looking at Toto. All he did was nod. Yuyu turned back to me with a little nod of her own.
That night, the three of us left as a team, Yuyu tagging along with me and Toto. I noticed she stayed closer to my side than Toto's, which made me a tad nervous. I know it was just the influence the place was having on her, and the fact my face felt a bit flushed because of that, but still. I couldn't help wishing it was Cocona running alongside me rather than Yuyu at that moment.
Although Toto and I had explored quite a lot of the school, we didn't really know where to start searching. The only place that came to mind was the embroidery room I've been in twice now, but that was only because it was the only room, I could remember beyond the room we were currently using as a base.
We had a look around, warily, keeping an eye out for potential enemies. I nearly leapt out of my skin about five times, pretty much whenever I heard a stray giggle or I thought I saw something move in the darkness. I never really thought about the colour of all our combat gear before, but now I wished that it was any colour that wasn't black, it would be so much easier to find, or at least it would stand out... I guess that's the point though, if you don't want your prisoners escaping, you take their stuff.
We left that room and eventually stumbled upon another, which I vaguely remembered, the room where the girls were playing the piano. We spent quite a while in there too, but it was at this point I felt like we were being watched. I kept twisting around, trying to look back over my shoulders, only to find nothing there. One giggle sounded so close to my ear, that I spun around and threw a punch. Toto's hand caught my fist, which wasn't too far from his face. His expression didn't change, so I didn't know if he was annoyed or not, but I apologised regardless.
I don't know if the twins felt like we were being watched now, they acted like they usually do, so it was hard to tell. We ended up looking around a number of rooms before the first bell tolled.
"The bell..." Would this be like the day we arrived? Should we head back now? I had no idea what to do, and I turned to the twins. I don't know why I expected them to have an answer, they both just stared at me, probably wondering why I'd stopped. Crap, what the hell do we do?
For some reason, my first thought was to run, so that's what I did. The sound of the bell echoed down each corridor, the noise getting so loud it almost threatened to bowl us over. A horde of giggles soon accompanied it, and I had to stop running. The sheer noise made my ears ring, and I could feel the vibrations in my bones. My skull felt like it was going to explode.
"There." How the hell I managed to catch Yuyu's voice amongst the cacophony I'll never find out, I caught a glimpse of a shining metal sign above a door, with a white lily painted on it, before the sound of buzzing joined the overwhelming force of volume. I remembered seeing flickering legs and shifting-scribble faces before, once again, things went dark.
I quickly sat up, gasping for air, on a bed I don't remember falling asleep in. Thunder crashed outside the window and it took me a while to realise where I was. Pure Illusion.
Turning to my left I saw Toto slumped over in a chair wearing his combat gear, which looked in better condition than I would have thought considering how badly the acid rain seemed to eat away at it… Wait, were those stitches? I got up and walked over to him to get a closer look. Yeah… they were. How the heck did they get there?
Wait…
I scrambled over to the bunk bed I'd woken up in and looked at the top bunk to see Yuyu exactly where I expected, her left arm exposed.
This has happened before. Twice.
This is day three.
I woke the twins up, told them to put on their uniforms, and dragged Yuyu out with me (taking her by her good arm) when the schoolgirls came to fetch us for out lessons…
Our first stop was the embroidery room where we got a needle and thread, and took it to Toto in between the classroom change, and he got to work repairing his stuff.
Toto… corridors… walking… We were looking for something…
As we were walking along, I was a bit startled to find myself being jerked backwards after something grabbed my arm. I was about to yell at them when I saw it was just Yuyu. Man, she has a good grip. I didn't really understand why she'd grabbed me, until I walked next to her and caught sight of what she was looking at… a music room with two of the creepy schoolgirls sitting at a piano. This place… I've been here before… And so, has Yuyu. Does she remember?
She looked longingly into the room, before turning to me and saying a word I've never heard from her before:
"Please"
It was quiet, but I heard it clear as day. I wasn't quite sure why she was so eager to have a look, but I shrugged and allowed myself to be dragged into the room.
We sat down and listened to the music, my mind starting to drift off, lost in the gentle melody. Does Yuyu like music? Sometimes it hits me just how little I actually know about the twins I've been going on adventures with for the past few years. I think I've seen more of them in the past few days than anyone else had in their entire existence…
As the piano music played, something happened that I was pretty sure didn't happen the first time we came here. A couple of the girls had gotten up from their seats and approached. Instantly alert, I whipped my head around to see shadowed eyes looking at me. Heavy-looking arms slowly reached up to my head and, standing up, I lashed out at them, smacking one of them in the forearm.
Crapping hell! The cold wasn't quite a shock to me, but the fact my arm went clean through my target, and the fact it reformed after like nothing had happened was. It was like I'd just swiped my arm through ice cream that could reform.
I had no idea what I was thinking. Buzzing was starting to drown out my own thoughts, echoing throughout the room. The music that had been playing moments before sounded like… a distant dream, which was being drowned out by the nightmare that flooded my world. Tattered black curtains of hair started to drift near my own blonde hair, and the high-pitched giggles began to fill my ears, somehow mixing with the warning buzzing. Scribbles began to appear on the smooth faces in front of me, and I was expecting one twisted mouth to open in a star of tentacles and dripping fangs…
Honestly, I think the worst part of it was that Yuyu had stood up, bringing attention to just how many 'eyes' were on me. I was being stared at from all directions, the other students in the room had begun slowly rising from their seats, looking a bit like they were trying to rise from a tar pit.I'm not sure why they were so slow to act, maybe they could only move faster when they could hear the bell, but part of me just wished if they were gonna kill me that they'd hurry up and get it over with. Each second this dragged on was another second I was frozen in terror.
Yuyu put a hand on my head at that point and slowly pushed me down, back into my seat. WHAT ARE YOU DOING?! FIGHT THEM! THEY WERE TRYING TO KILL ME! I wanted to scream at her, but my mouth wouldn't work. Hell, remembering to breathe was enough trouble for me at the moment, speech was impossible. I was no longer certain that was out of fear though.
Yuyu's face had my full attention now. Her red eyes shone like rubies in sunlight, her hair like a fresh snowfall. She looked like a doll, carefully made by a master craftsman.
For the second time since we'd been here Yuyu saved me, this time it was just her presence. It turned out all the schoolgirls wanted to do was to fix my hairstyle. Apparently tying your bangs up to the top of your head wasn't a good look in this school, and I ended up with two braids either side of my head.
"Looks good" Yuyu said, the edge of her mouth twitched into a small smile.
I grinned like an idiot at the compliment.
Thankfully that was as eventful it got during the time Yuyu and I went around the classrooms. I got a chance to have a look in the library this time too, although I found nothing of interest in the books, I couldn't help but think how Cocona would love to come here, just to have a look at the collection of books, maybe add some new stories to her collection. I felt a pang of sadness at that thought. Yuyu had picked up one about classical music and playing the piano, reading slowly, as if wanting to absorb every word in the book.
By the time it was the end of 'school' I decided to have a little walk around with Yuyu. I said how the days were looped her. I didn't know it she remembered that or not, so I went over it with her… am I gonna have to do this every day we're here? And while I was explaining I also tried to jog my memory. Toto and I had walked quite a bit yesterday, mostly because staying still too long he raised suspicion everywhere we went, but there was a second reason behind it, and as I noticed one of the details in one of the stained-glass windows, I remembered what it was. We were trying to learn our way around…
At that point I recognised more and more places as we walked. I said all this out loud to Yuyu, who was tagging along behind me, listening to every word I said.
I know I ended up doing most of the talking when we went on adventures and stuff, I mean, I was the one giving orders half the time after all, but this felt different to me. No commands were being given this time, we were just… well, I, was just talking. Toto and Yuyu probably haven't really had that happen too much, or not beyond the few stray sentences at Asclepius… I had Cocona in that time to hang out with and share stories with… And what did the twins have?
Me.
They were allowed to go around outside on their own, although they normally stayed pretty close, and I always thought that's because that's what they were told to do, but seeing them lately… They're definitely not the mindless drones I thought they were. The signs were small, but they were there, and now I saw them, they were all I could see.
At some point during my rambling and walking Yuyu had taken my hand. I was kinda surprised by the action, the twins don't really… act out, for want of better words, or not often at least. It was probably just the influence of the place that made her do it, but I didn't pull away from her. If anything, I held her hand a little tighter than she did mine.
I was all they really had beyond Asclepius and Pure Illusion…
And all I had was Cocona…
That thought made me stop walking as another pang of sadness hit me.
"We should get back to Toto and find our stuff" I said to Yuyu. We'd probably been walking a lot longer than we needed to, I just got caught up in the moment. Even though thinking about Cocona bought my mood down, it reminded me that we didn't belong here and we needed to get back to the real world.
It was pretty easy to get back to our room, especially now I knew most of where I was going (my brain was still fuzzy on the map in places, but it was better than nothing), and we saw Toto, standing there, wearing his combat gear.
"Fixed" was all he said. His red gaze then wandered down to mine and Yuyu's joined hands. Suddenly embarrassed I jerked my arm away from hers.
"Cool. Now we need to get the rest of our stuff. Toto, do you remember anything about yesterday?" I asked.
"Exploring" was the only answer I got. Not as informative as I'd like, but heck, it was something. I'd guess more than Yuyu remembered of yesterday at least, considering she struggled the first time around I asked her.
We left the room a little later, I told Toto to put the school uniform back on, over his combat stuff. Now I thought about it, it was probably fortunate that he was the one who kept their armour, the students were most suspicious of him after all, if they decided to attack, he had some form of defense…
…however if that attracted attention to Yuyu and I being outsiders in this world too, then we'd be in trouble. I don't know if the students were a lot more hostile than they let on and they only put us back in our room at the end of the eleventh chime because that's what's meant to happen then, but I didn't want to find out. My imagination played enough tricks on me earlier. If teeth-ridden tentacled mouths were what they had in real life, rather than being a thing unique to my imagination, I'd rather not find out.
Running as a team of three, I found myself recalling more than I had earlier when it was just me and Yuyu. Toto stopped a couple of times to look around, I don't know if it was because being back in the school made him recognise some of the paths we were taking, or whether he was keeping an eye out for enemies. I didn't really think about doing that, despite the occasional giggle that reached my ears, I was pretty certain we were safe until we heard the bell.
Man, I wish there was a good way to keep track of time in here, even though there were lessons like at a school, there was no indication how long they lasted. An hour? Two? Five? How long was a day here? The only time the clock ever went was when it was near the 'end of the day'. We need to find a way to the clock tower too, it has to be important. There has to be something there…
"Here" Toto's voice was strangely clear when he said the word. Yuyu and I had stopped running and found him standing outside one of the rooms. There wasn't a sign outside to hint at anything, but the door had a mark on it, probably kanji. I didn't know what one it was, I didn't know if I'd recognise it if I saw it again, I was a bit too mesmerised by how… vividly red it was. Apart from the three of us and the odd light source, this was the brightest colour I've seen in this entire world.
And it was the colour of blood.
Something waved in front of my face, and I shook my head to clear it, finally able to tear my eyes away from the marking on the door. It took me a second to work out what it was: my stuff! My body armour had a fair few holes in it, almost resembling a large slice of moldy black swiss cheese than human clothing, and my weapons belt was frayed pretty badly in places, but I didn't care. This was a victory. I turned to the twins to see Toto had put his visor on over his eye and had just clipped his rocket pack on, and Yuyu was holding her armour in one hand, with her metal fist still in the room sitting against the wall, she stared at it.
I was about to ask her if she needed help getting it on, but my mouth opened and the corridor vibrated as the bell rang for the first time. The entrance to the tower must be close… No time to think about that now though.
"Run! We have our stuff, just run!" I yelled at the twins. Toto and I grabbed one end of Yuyu's robotic arm each and we all took off. I don't know if the schoolgirls were protecting the tower, but it wasn't long before they were chasing us through the school. Doors kept bursting open and girls with heavy clothes and flickering legs were there. A couple of twig-like arms thrust out from holes that'd been punched though the stained-glass windows, all in an attempt to grab and stop us. Once or twice we were grabbed, but we managed to get away and make it back to our room. I could still feel the presence of where fingers had managed to touch my skin, rather than being cold, it was like the warmth had just been completely sapped from the area.
I panted for breath once we were safely inside; the twins looked pretty worn out too… but we did it. I'd started laughing before I knew it, maybe I was relieved we'd made it out alive, maybe I'd finally lost my mind. I don't know. We had our stuff, and we were alive.
The eleventh hour struck, and with it, everything went black.
My eyes opened. Bunk bed. I looked around. Toto in chair. Still wearing his stuff. I got up and looked at the top bunk of the bed. Yuyu awake. I got down and looked around the room.
A couple of piles of clothing were folded neatly on the dresser next to Toto, along with a trio of coiled belts, and a large over-sized metal arm that sat in the corner of the room.
A grin crept along my face. We did it. My theory was right: stuff originally from our world wasn't affected by the time loop. Apparently, neither was my mind any more, I remembered everything now.
I woke up Toto and Yuyu and told them to get ready for the day, in addition to catching them up on things that have happened previous days, as they were still partly affected by the time loop. The schoolgirls entered the room to fetch us before we could help yuyu with her robotic arm, so I ended up taking Toto to classes with me today. The insect buzzing that came form the girls didn't stop once the whole day. We went to the embroidery room and grabbed a needle and thread for Yuyu to fix our combat gear (Toto wore his under the school uniform).
Much like the time I spent before with Toto, we ended up wandering around the school rather than going in the classrooms and participating. I wanted to try and work out where the entrance to the clock tower was, but we couldn't find it no matter how much we wandered…
We went back, Yuyu had fixed up some of our stuff (she was a lot faster than Toto at sewing), in theory it shouldn't be long now…
And then they arrived…
I don't know how long we'd actually been in the school, maybe a couple of weeks now? We've tried many days over to find the way into the clock tower, but no matter what, I could never find the corridor with the red kanji on the doors again, no matter how hard we tried.
One 'evening' (well, classes were over for that day at least) I thought I'd wander around on my own. I knew nothing of mechanics, Toto and Yuyu's fixing of the hoverboat in the desert was anything to go by, they'd be fine fixing up the weapons and the faulty Hole device themselves. I was wearing my body armour under my school uniform as I explored on my own, something I wouldn't have been able to do without it. I'd grown kinda used to the semi-constant sound of rain, interspersed with giggling and didn't really think twice of it now. I still felt pretty jumpy in this place though, a newer thing that's been happening is hearing a heavy slam, and suddenly there's a handprint or a few on the wall. They looked a bit like they'd been burned into the wall permanently, the colour of ash… but if you walked past there, even 5 minutes later, they'd be gone completely…
For some reason something in me said to go to the locker room. I don't really know why, I'd been there twice before, and beyond small metal locked doors all I found was one pair of really old shoes, which I placed on top of some of the lockers.
Lightning illuminated the area as I got close, casting long, creeping shadows along the tiled ground. Two people were there, one lying on the floor, like the stupid pink-haired idiot she is, along with her yellow robot companion, and the other… I could only see her from behind, but my heart leapt seeing that blue hair. It'd been so long since I saw her last, I'd almost given up hope all together.
Cocona must have felt my presence though, she turned to look over her shoulder and I gasped when I saw her. I mean I could see her, but I still couldn't quite believe it. She was really here. Her eyes were completely shadowed, so I couldn't see that wonderful shade of brown I had now started to think was my imagination and could only be seen in the tea in this place, but I didn't care. Cocona's here!
I couldn't help but smile as I welcomed her.
"Greetings"
Papika and Cocona looked extremely confused to see me there. I wasn't really sure why at first, they seemed so shocked, but I guess the only other humans I've been in contact with the past two weeks or so have been the barely-expressive twins, and I was probably so used to that now, that everything else seemed really exaggerated to me now.
"Yayaka?" man, it was good to hear Cocona's voice again... "Why are you dressed like that?"
The question threw me off, and I suddenly became aware of how the uniform I'd been putting on and wearing every day without much of a second thought, was very different to what I'd normally wear if given the chance back in the real world. Face flushed, and feeling flustered and nervous all of a sudden, it was a while before I could work up a response, in which I snorted and turned my back on them before dissapearing into the darkness. Papika yelled out my name and I heard Cocona hurriedly tell her off. Not long after that, they both left.
As much as I wanted to talk to Cocona, I didn't follow them. Heck, I don't think I could have gotten a word out, even if I really wanted to, my heart was pounding like crazy and the only coherant thought that my mind could conjure was Cocona's here. Her presence alone seemed to send my mind into overdrive, and when she said my name... It just sounded so... good. If Papika wasn't there, I probably would have ran up to Cocona and hugged her as tightly as I could, and never let her go.
...Is this how Yuyu feels around me at the moment? It was pretty hard to know what the twins were thinking at the best of times, but I looked down at my hand and remembered when Yuyu had taken it. It felt... small. Hesitant. A slightly weak grip, maybe because she was shy...
I smacked my hand to my head, trying to clear it. What the hell am I doing? I need to tell the twins that they're here!
All those times I'd spent building up my mental map of the school with Toto really paid off. Before, I probably would have ran into some of the more hostile students who buzzed as I passed and tried to grab me, and I would have been constantly on the lookout, to the point of my head moved around so much I was dizzy by the time I made it back, and now, I could sneak around, virtually undetected and make it back to the room in what felt like seconds.
When I opened the door Toto was kneeling next to Yuyu, carefully looking over the joints on the metal arm, which was now in it's rightful place, attached to Yuyu. Her eyes went straight to mine, and I thought I saw a small spark of happiness in them upon seeing me. Toto must have sensed a change in Yuyu, looking at me as I entered the room.
"Any luck?" I asked them.
"Partial" Toto replied, and as if on cue the fingers on Yuyu's giant gauntlet twitched. "Repairs are problematic."
"I bet they are..." I wanted to ask about how everything else was coming along, my eyes caught sight of the rest of our equipment but before I could even think to form those words, the information that Cocona and Papika were here just sorta spilled from my mouth.
Toto's only reaction was a nod, before he went back to investigating Yuyu's arm, the fingers of which were now curled into a fist.
If those two were here, that means an amorphous was probably here too. Maybe it wasn't such a bad thing we ended up here on accident of all places, but still.
Those two are here. And they could get it first.
Authours note: This is end of part 1 of the main story of chapter 5. I'm not sure if I've mentioned it before, but I'll mention it now in case: although I'm using the anime of Flip Flappers as base for all the chapters I'm writing, you might notice a few... differences in places. Just a few though. It will still mostly follow the events of the show, but I have an idea or a few that might be different from what we've seen in the anime... although whether they make it into the story or not is another thing. But still. Part 2 next week!