*note: This has not been beta-Read! Read at your own risks.

** Looking for additional Beta Reader: Even though my main beta-reader is Sweet Lolita Kisses, there may be times where she becomes unavailable. Like, maybe now. In regards of the possibility of the situation to be repeated, another Beta-Reader would be nice. Please note you will be acting as the main beta until she contacts me, though.

*** Beliefs held by the characters are not mine, just something I picked off of my imaginations to help strengthen the characters. Please note I'm not very happy with it either, but people need to have flaws and whatnot.

Thank you for the reviewers: Higashino Ruuya, vocal-maiden, Curious Sisters, XxRedCapxX, and CluelessLeaf. And everybody who fav-ed and alert-ed too! Tell me if you want your names here too, I'll see what I can do.

For the DISCLAIMER I have been forgetting to say for a very long period of time: VOCALOID and VOCALOID 2 belong to Yamaha. Voice Banks are copyrighted by their respective companies. References are from Mahou Sensei Negima, Ar Tonelico, Shounen Onmyoji, Rurouni Kenshin, and an ever growing list of shows. Let's not forget good old Wikipedia as well.

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Stopping 'the future' takes a lot from one person.

First, the person will have to face the causalities of the changed future, be it bad or good.

Second was the amount of effort to change even the most minor of things; which most people had considered as too much for the outcome.

Third was the fact that one has to sacrifice something to save the other. The works of fate cannot be meddled even by sacrificing one's life, as long as the person is "Human".

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"Repeat what you said before, Len!" Rin urged, shaking the ghost in front of her with as much force as possible. "Is it really possible to stop Mizki?"

If what she saw earlier was some kind of 'vision', stopping it will be almost impossible. Don't even talk about stopping it, it's just impossible to try without taking any major risks.

"I don't really know what you are so eager to stop…" Len pushed the blonde girl away before continuing with the explanation. "But it is possible. In one's soul we can manipulate the mind and actions of the person. If a ghost is doing this, it can also be called 'possessing'."

"Wait a second- it'd be too easy if a spirit can easily take over another creature." If that was the case, would people around her get possessed?

"Of course not…" Len looked into the depths of the withered garden. There stood a red-haired girl, with a butchering knife on both hands. Her deep red eyes were trying to burn a hole to the two outsiders of the soul's boundary- to the 'danger' threatening to take over the soul's core. "There is a defense mechanism to prevent instant takeovers from happening- something like an antibody to fight off unknown visitors. This antibody will try to eliminate any intruders, including us in the current state."

"Mizki…!" Rin was about to approach the girl when she found an arm before her- preventing her to step any further. She gave a sharp glare to the owner of the arm, Len, and tried to push her way through. But the powers of an ordinary girl would never match a man with a trained body, no matter how much she tried.

"Look carefully, Rin- This is not the girl; just a copy made by this place's defense system!" Len warned while keeping his right arm stretched in front of Rin, both acting as a limit and a shield. His left hand was placed on his sword's handle, ready to pull it out when the situation urged him to do so.

"Why are you here?" The red-haired girl asked, her knives glinting below the dim light from above the scenery. "Is it to make the core's situation even worse than it already is?" that was clearly not an act of hospitality, as Rin was already getting pissed off from the inside by how this replica was acting very differently from the original shy and soft-spoken Mizki.

"I don't think she'll listen to any arguments…" Rin muttered, her eyes returning the same amount of hostility as the copy Mizki was emitting,

"Glad we have the same thoughts." Len replied, gripping even tighter to the handle of his sword. "Listen, Rin. The real Mizki… the core of the soul should be deeper inside this place. I will fend off the copy, while you have to find the core. Once you find her, cleanse her of the evil intentions."

"But- how can I do that?" Rin whispered a complaint. "I don't even know what's happening here; I'm not some knowledgeable person like my mother or something!"

"Then, just talk her out of it! You're good at talking people off, right? Talk to her, tell her what she was going to do was wrong, make her regret even thinking about it!"

Rin gulped. She never thought she had to do it on her own friend. She wouldn't mind battering down some strangers with her words, but this is-

"Make up your mind quickly! Are you my master or not?"

That sentence which came from Len's mouth made Rin did an instant double take. "What did you say just now?"

"I said 'Master'!" Len almost yelled. "I'll even say it a hundred times if needed- just make up your mind and go!"

Rin gulped. She was being cornered by both him and her own ego. After all, she was the one who had agreed to the master-servant bond from the start, there was no way she was going to deny it right now. Trying not to look back, she immediately dashed to the deeper part to the withered garden.

All she could catch from the scenery behind her were merely voices and sounds. She could hear the replica Mizki, trying to stop her dash, and the hissing of Len's sword as it was pulled out of its sheath.

There is no turning back now. She had to see this through if she wanted to return to reality.

She felt tears running down her cheeks. Not because her own fate, not because of Mizki, but for the swordsman fighting behind her.

The only wish she had thought at the moment was of his safety.

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Blows after blows were exchanged. Len was forced into a defensive position from the replica's inhumane speed. Her knives were striking hard against his sword, each blow were heavy and as if intended to break his sword into two.

Len could easily take an opening in the frenzy of slashes and rush in, but he didn't want to take the risks to wound himself mortally. In the soul, even spirits have a given form, a mortal state of existence. If one was to die inside, it would mean absolute death on the outside as well. While the replica can be reproduced as many times as possible as long as the core exists. It does not work that way for him. His state inside this world is just the same as a normal human.

"My techniques are getting blunt…" Len commented out of self-pity. The replica was able to attack with all its abilities knowing that the core will heal it once it was damaged. Keeping a defensive stance until Rin had finished her task was the only thing he could do at the current situation. If he was to go for the offensive, the core would take damage trying to recover too much of the antibody- this was why most possessed people ended up with a daze afterwards. One way to beat the antibody was to break the core, however…

Killing the core is the same as ending that person's life.

But dis-infecting the core, which was the main part of this fuss, was a harder thing to do. Len was sure that he would never be able to do it, even he was to die and be born again infinity times.

But he was very convinced that Rin would be able to achieve that impossible thing- no, more exactly she was the only one able to do it.

Except, maybe, the person who had done such a miracle in front of him; Rui Kagene.

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Rin arrived in what seemed to be the center of the garden; an opening from the line of withered cherry trees and rugged stones. A lone figure was standing there- Mizki, walking around in circles with her head hung down.

"I have decided this myself, right…?" the red-haired girl told no one in particular. She looked at her hand sadly, hesitating even to do so. The way she stared was as if there was something on it- something gruesome and enough to make her wince. "I had decided it… so I have to do it…"

Though, she was not sure. She cannot be sure. Who could be sure to do something like that…?

"I need to do this… I have to…" she muttered again, this time holding herself from the verge of crying. "I just… couldn't take it anymore…"

"Do what, Mizki?" A voice startled Mizki out of her wild thoughts, its tone suggesting irritation coming from the speaker. With a soft gasp, Mizki turned around to see her friend, Rin Kagamine, tapping her right foot in the ground with a frown etched on the face.

"Rin…" Her eyes widened as she said that. What was Rin doing in this place? What was she talking about? She looked at her again, feeling somewhat afraid, to meet with the blue eyes that demanded answer from her. But, what kind of answer was she expecting?

"So, you were talking to yourself just now. Doing what, exactly? I couldn't hear clearly, the air here is as thick as caramel." Rin kept herself from being nervous. From her tone and movements, it was clear that this is the real Mizki. She had to be careful; Len said she should batter her down and make her regret, but it seemed to her that she was already regretting what she was about to do. And she didn't want to hurt her friend mentally, for heaven's sake.

Mizki gulped a bubble of air, cold sweat running down her face, "Were you listening, Rin…?" she asked, her voice shaking.

Rin heaved a sigh. Mizki seemed pretty fragile- too fragile to flatten down with a steamroller of words as she had planned earlier. And it seemed she would try to avoid the conversation again, the same thing that happened when she had tried to ask her about the knife outside this unknown dimension.

"Well… yes, I was listening." Rin confessed, prying off any tone in her voice that could give Mizki the wrong impression. "I'm curious about what you said- about not being able to take something anymore."

Mizki shifted uneasily, then cut Rin off before she could continue her sentence with another one. "It's not about that!" she denied, her voice high of the panic she was feeling. "It's not what you might think it is!"

Rin nodded to the affirmation of her guess. Mizki did try to avoid the conversation. And to Rin's measures, the red-haired girl was horrible at hiding truths, if the troubled expression and increased movement was not any indication.

"Well, it's a random guess…" that was a lie, Rin knew of what she had said. "But is it about your little sister- Iroha?"

Mizki flinched hearing what Rin called as her random guess. She looked away from her, unable to face her without a good denial. But it was futile. Rin kept staring at her, as if she was going to follow her even she was to run away to the edge of horizon.

"Rin…" Mizki turned to face the blonde again, uncertainty filling her eyes. "Why do you want to know about it?" Rin perked up- it seems Mizki had finally gave in- the only thing she had to do is to keep this soft and peek into the problem she was having- the big problem that had caused the killing intent.

"Me?" Rin asked to confirm, even though it was all too clear that was no one except the two girls in the vicinity. "If anything, it's because you looked so troubled, Mizki. How can I ignore it…?"

"How can I ignore it if you are planning a murder against your own sister?" Rin emphasized. That went rougher than she had expected, and is somewhat shocking to just tell on someone's face, but her feelings told her to finish this quickly.

Mizki's eyes widened to the point her pupils were just small dots, but Rin didn't give her a chance to counter. "If you just want to cut fish and the knife went blunt, you could have just bought a sharpening stone- no, you can even take it out from one of the shop's drawers. Why bother buying a knife just for that purpose? Or did the codfish pot suddenly change its ingredients to human meat?"

Actually, Rin was wincing mentally on what she had just said- saying it took some of her sense of good and bad and crushed it into unidentified bits and pieces; what Mizki took of it must be much, much harder.

"You don't understand…" what Mizki said almost sounded like a whimper, accompanied with several sobs to give a pause between the words. "It's not… it's not that I hate her, but… I don't know… what will happen to the rest of us if I let this on…"

"Let what on?" Rin kept interrogating, forcing herself to temporarily ignoring the slightly overwhelming sense of guilt that assaulted her when she saw the heart-wrenching response. That sentence she had just said apparently broke her down a bit, but it seemed that the method managed to get her to confess.

"Iroha had lots and lots of problems in the school; she was very violent when she was in class. Even though she's a sweet girl once she's home… I don't know why she seems to hate the school, screaming to be returned home at time and throwing something at her classmate on the other. It never seems to stop."

Rin's heart feels like it had just been rinsed with acid. Mizki was left alone with a mentally incapable younger sister and a shop to take care of when her parents passed away, which was about three years ago, but she was a mature girl of her age and managed to do both perfectly- though sacrificing her school. She abruptly stopped going to school when she had to take care of the shop and babysit Iroha- but she did enlist Iroha to the elementary school nearby.

Three years ago, Iroha was uncontrollable. She would ask every day where her parents went, and when people answered that they were no more she'd bite at them. When she had learned to understand what the meaning of 'death' was, she got violent and threw things at people who got neat to her.

That was one thing Rin would be proud of her – Mizki was very patient, and she would endure anything that Iroha did to her. Once she ended up with a bandage along her right hand because of the bites and scratches, but she would never complain. Rin would declare with no hesitation that Mizki was an ideal older sister, but… why…?

"Why, Iroha?" Rin asked again, this time also feeling the sadness that emitted from Mizki's crying figure. "Why is all this happening?

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Footnotes!

I know the chapter's cut in a somewhat inappropriate place, but if I do it longer it would be disproportional against the rest of the chapter that never went more than 2500 words long. Next chapter will cover the last part of this case, and more of what most Rin-Len fangirls had been waiting for- a little fluff for the soul.

Time for a favorite quote as always:

"One cannot improve without people who help him to, but it's no use if the person helping just hides in secrecy."