Chapter 10
«Fallacious»
Yukihani skipped cheerily down the pavement. "Follow the yellow brick road, deyo. Follow the yellow brick road, deyo! Follow, follow, follow, follow, FOLLOW the yellow brick roa-aad. Follow, follow, foll—"
"SHUT IT, BAKA USHAGI BUTA, DESU!"
"And wait up for us. We're taking a break."
"HAI, HACHIDORI! DEYO!"
"Pl-please *huff* remind me *puff* why Cherriru *wheeze* can't come with us *groan* again?" Jun panted. "I-I mean, Hinaichigo's *choke* C-Field is a c-city and i-it's confusing; won't we n-ne-need her to *cough cough* find that annoying doll?"
Akaihana stared at him as though he were the font of human stupidity. "I told you already. It's because Cherriru works with clay."
Apparently, he hadn't been playing attention the first time she said that, because the immediate thing that jumped to his mind was Huh?
As if she had read his mind, Akaihana shot him a deadpan look. He hurried to cover his lapse in awareness.
"S-so?"
"Orokana. Hinaichigo's body is currently in Kirakishou's possession. So even if we do revive her, there will be nowhere for her to go. Cherriru is currently making another body for her."
"Oh."
Tsukigin rolled her eyes. "Yeah, "oh", sude."
Slightly recovered, Jun stopped gasping every five seconds. "But wouldn't it be helpful if Cherriru were here? She can sense Hinaichigo. And why are we staying in a big group? Shouldn't we split up?"
Akaihana dismissed him impatiently. "No need. Let's go."
Jun whimpered a very unmanly whimper before he slowly pushed himself off the pure white walls of Hinaichigo's city. That is, they would be pure white if Hinaichigo hadn't doodled all over them in multicolored crayon.
However, in the process of standing up with no back support, Jun's leg muscles failed him, and he fell on the paved, yellow brick, ground.
And in the process of lying on the ground doing nothing, Jun noticed something very strange. "The earth is... rumbling?"
And in the process of processing that information, Jun began screaming, "IT'S AN EARTHQUAKE! SUBCONSCIOUS-HINAICHIGO HAS SENT AN EARTHQUAKE TO DERAIL AND DEMOLISH AND DECIMATE US!"
"Di-ci-mete? Deyo? What's that?"
"Decimate. Verb. To terminate, obliterate, or annihilate. In other words, it means a) kill, b) destroy, and c) mass-murder."
"Thanks, Hachi-sensei!"
Kanaria sweatdropped very hard. Why did her Rosa Mystica sound so sadistic and robotic when saying that?
"MY NAME IS NOT EIGHT!"
"Hachidori. You know how Yukihani is. Orokana Jun. Shut up."
Jun grumbled some more before going quiet.
"We knew the earth was rumbling." Akaihana continued.
Souseiseki looked puzzled. "Excuse me?"
"Sorry, we," she gestured to the Rosa Mysticas, "knew.
"It's because in a C-Field, the primary job of the subconscious is to build. Therefore, wherever subconcious Hinaichigo is, she's building something. Whatever she's building right now is expanding the city from that focal point. Which means the whole expanding process is somewhat like her life-wave. She's in the middle of it."
"So... shouldn't we follow the ripples that are coming from the ground, desu?"
"Again, no need. Gankorika, tell them the solution."
All eyes turned towards Gankorika, who looked unbelievably nervous. "E-eto... well... First of all, Hi-Hinaichigo is very childish, r-ri-right? S-s-secondly, because Ki-Kira-Kirashou-sama is really just a s-sp-pirit, she went all o-over the pl-place in the N-F-Fie-Field territory. So, I-I've seen children pl-playing hide-and-se-seek. And whenever y-you scr-scream for them, th-they scream b-back. It's ea-easy to locate them like th-that."
Jun scratched his head. "So you mean I'm supposed to go like this: HINAICHIGO! ARE YOU DONE HIDING YET?"
The dolls present winced, but nodded.
And faintly, they could hear a reply. "YESSSS!"
"Okay..." Suigintou drawled, "So we just keeping yelling for her and she'll reply? Who here has extraordinary hearing?"
"That would be Cherriru. Oh-ho-ho-ho-ho-ho-ho."
"Nee-chan, why are you laughing, sude?"
"Oh-ho-ho-ho— No reason. I just felt like it."
"Wait. Cherriru?" Souseiseki asked. "As in the same Cherriru whom we have left behind? Then how are we supposed to locate Hinaichigo?"
"No worries, deyo! Yukihani has an idea!"
Saying this, a poof of rose petals exploded in mid air, and she drew a dagger out of it. The bunny's doll cutter had a rather extraordinary design. Bizarre and unsual it was, but it matched Yukihani's character. It certainly fitted perfectly with her.
"What are you doing with a carrot, desu?"
Yukihani's eyes flashed with surprise for a moment before getting watery and teary. She started waving the dagger around in the air, and the Rosa Mysticas around her wobbled precariously as they ducked the edge of her weapon.
"It issh not a cawot, deyo!"
"Then what is it? Desu! It looks exactly like a carrot!"
"Yeah, kashira! Can we eat it?"
"It issh a cawot dagger! Not a cawot!"
They couldn't blame the green doll's eyesight. It was easily seen why Suiseiseki had thought the item a carrot. As it's name so grandly proclaimed, the knife was shaped, and colored, like a certain orange plant. If you didn't look close enough the blade looked like the everyday vegetable we eat. Up close, the dagger, looked like a sharp, orange, jagged, crystal stuck on a bunny head handle. Unlike the droopy-eared rabbit she had under her collar, this bunny's fuzzy long ears were perked up, forming a grip to hold onto when fighting. The figurehead also proudly sported a polka-dotted bow tie, creating a weird resemblance to Laplace. The knife actually looked quite hilarious because in all honestly, its appearance was a bunny that had a carrot as it's body.
"I see... desu. It is a dagger."
"Yay! Suiseiseki agrees with me, deyo!"
After imparting this nugget of information, she proceeded to crouch on the floor, balance her dagger by the point on the ground, and spin it. It made less than one revolution before it toppled to the ground with a clattering sound, pointing towards the middle of the city. Yukihani picked up her blade, vanished it into another poof of rose petals, began skipping in the direction that the knife had pointed towards, and started beating her wings while still skipping. She ended up doing a mix of flying and cantering in mid-air. Twirling around erratically a few times as she flew in the direction the dagger had indicated, she then started screaming.
"HINA-CHAN! ARE YOU DONE YET, DEYO?"
"HAIIIIII~"
Yukihani began flying straight forward.
"Everyone, follow her!" Akaihana ordered.
"Follow the angel bunny doll, deyo. Follow the angel bunny doll, deyo. Follow, follow, follow, follow, FOLLOW the angel bunny doll. Follow, fo—"
"Yukihani, keep talking to Hinaichigo, kashira! We need to find her!"
"Okay, deyo. ARE YOU SURE?"
"HAIIIIII NANO~"
Jun stared determinately at the wobbling, white blob above him. He would not embarass himself again!
As soon as he thought this, he crashed straight into a building. A dafu store, to be exact.
"SH*******T!"
"Orokana Jun, stop fumbling around and catch up. Ah, and watch the language please."
The huge white building wobbled, before crashing into the floor and ripping itself open, revealing the reddish-brown bean paste and strawberry inside. Curious, Tsukigin slowly walked up to sign that said the name of the store and poked it. Something creamy and dark smeared on her finger as her skin brushed against the sepia material.
The doll carefully slid her finger into her mouth, expecting something acrid to burst on her tongue.
Instead, it was sweet.
Chocolate? She thought.
"How can a huge mound of dafu be a dafu store, sude?"
"Hmmm..." Souseiseki murmured.
They looked around.
"What if the "store" in "Dafu Store", has the meaning of a reseve, a stock room, instead of a shop? Kashira?" Kanaria said, proud of her thought process.
"Hmmm..." Souseiseki murmured.
"Oi. Souseseiki, desu. Don't turn into a baka chibi ushagi number two, okay?"
"Where is that dead rabbit coney anyways?"
Akaihana gazed upwards. "She probably flew off to find Hinaichigo."
"How will we get to where she is then?"
"Calm down, Jun. We have the special set of skills required to get to her right here with us."
"Hmmm!"
"Souseiseki, desu? What are you doing?"
Suiseseiki looked around for Souseiseki, but she was nowhere to be found.
"Souseiseki? Desu?"
"Hmmm..."
Suiseiseki's eyes roamed the whole place before landing on the dafu "store". "Could it be... desu?"
She slowly lifted up the white outside of the dafu, trying not to spill the condiments inside.
And sure enough, there was Souseiseki, sprawled under the huge dafu, gasping for breath.
"Oh my gosh! Souseiseki, desu! I'm so sorry!"
Souseiseki just shook her head, indicating it was nothing to worry about, her chest heaving as she sucked in oxygen, a reflex action Rozen had ingrained into the dolls.
"Anyways, haven't you noticed something odd about this city?" Souseiseki noted when she finally caught her breath, as she adjusted her hat and started wiping chunks of rust-colored bean paste off her shirt.
Tsukigin glanced around, her eyebrows rising. "What?"
"It seems like... there's only five types of buildings here."
"What?"
Tsukikin walked up to the next store. "Hey! This place here actually has a door and windows. Let's go in! Oh-ho-ho-ho-ho!"
"We don't have the time," Akaihana said patiently. "We'll just look in through the display window."
Suigintou snorted. "Isn't Hinaichigo dying? Why are you wasting time to sight see?"
"W-well, Yu-Yukiha-hani-c-chan is looking f-f-for her..."
"You honestly trust that dead rabbit coney to do anything right?"
"Hinaichigo is playing a game," Hachidori said, tucking a few loose strands of her hair behind her ear. "That is right up Yukihani's alley. She has the best chance of finding your sister than any of us here."
"Yukihani will never let herself lose in any type of game. You should be grateful that we Rosa Mysticas are not in the Alice Game or else you would all be dead, most of you probably by her hand. Although it's not like we would ever fling ourselves into such a ridiculous thing like moths to a fire," Akaihana said.
Suigintou flinched at her words.
"Tch," Jun sounded. "I don't think that rabbit chicken could kill anybody."
Unseen by the Rozen Maidens and Jun, who were occupied by the inside of the building they were in front of, the Rosa Mysticas exchanged uncomfortable looks before they stepped up to observe with the others.
Inside was a row of five dolls, all sitting in different positions, and all in different states of completion. On a table that was situated in the middle of the room, a dismantled doll was scattered, and a pink mass of cloth sat close to the edge of work surface. Golden curls hung off the corner of the chair in from of the table, and two apple green glass eyes were nestled in the folds of the dress.
"That's Hinaichigo before she was completed," Akaihana said gently. "Except the material of the dress isn't cor—"
"We are wasting time, Akaihana-chan. Oh-ho-ho-ho!"
"Not neccesarily. Yukihani, remember? We might was well take the time she has given us and look around a little."
"To the next place, then, sude!" They all backed up a few steps.
Jun stared up at the sign that adorned the workshop they had just left, flabbergasted.
"'Father's shop...?' Is this really Father's workshop? Kashira?"
"Apparently so. At least in Hinaichigo's mind, anyways. Speaking of Hinaichigo... Gankorika, do you think Yukihani has found her yet?"
"Pro-pro-probably. Y-you kn-know how f-fast—"
A cry echoed through the whole of the city. "I FOUND HINAICHIGO, DEYOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!"
"And there's your answer, Hachidori, sude."
"W-we-well, we mi-might as well g-get to h-h-h-her now."
"..." Suigintou was speechless.
In the end, it was Kanaria who spoke up. "How are we supposed to get to her, kashira?"
Gankorika smiled and her turquoise eyes glowed with a ghostly light.
"Whoa, kashira! What's wrong with her eyes, she looks so cree—"
Suddenly, a huge hole popped into existence under the group's feet and they all began falling.
"WHAT'S HAPPENING DESUUUUU?"
"WE'RE GONNA DIE! WE'RE GONNA FUDGING DIEEEEEE!"
"Stop it, Orokana Jun."
"WHY ARE YOU ROSA MYSTICAS SO PLACID, KASHIRA? WE'RE FALLING DOWN A RABBIT HOLE!"
"No, no, no, sude," Tsukigin said, shaking her head calmly as the group kept falling. "If Laplace interfered, I would be annoyed. So would all the other of my sisters. We told him specifically to not mess with us when we were rescuing the Rozen Maidens. And if he doesn't want us all coming after him, sude, he won't."
"Look around you," Akaihana pointed out.
Suigintou looked down. Water was flowing around them, carrying all the dolls and the one human to wherever the tide was going. Bubbles floated in the waters beside them, the gentle force of rushing water creating a breeze and blowing locks of hair up, but the Rosa Mysticas paid them no notice.
"Why aren't we getting wet? And where are we going?" Souseiseki asked.
"This is Gankorika's method of traveling. And the water is more imagination than real. This river is one that is a branch off the Sea of Subconsciousness."
Kanaria looked around in amazement, allowing herself to sink to the sandy bottom to touch the silky sand. "How... How can she access such thing, kashira? This is just... breathtaking."
Gankorika smiled softly as she brushed her fingers across the surface of the slightly murky blue tinted water. Ripples ruffled past the dolls. "I can cross... any barrier," she said without stuttering, eyes soft. "Within reason, that is. My talent accesses the subconscious of people, so it has to be someone I've "touched", or met. Right now, I've attached the end of this river to Yukihani. So we're traveling towards her."
Gankorika smiled, relaxed. She kicked her legs and began swimming gracefully towards the head of the group.
"We are almost there," she said, as the river slowed. She peered into bubble after bubble before cupping one in her hands. "This is Yukihani's."
And with that, she popped it.
The bubble floated apart into iridescent fragments for a few seconds before it collected itself back into a bubble and started expanding. The growing globule enveloped the small party, and they began shooting upwards and out of a hole, as the shimmering scene displayed inside the bubble quickly became their reality.
"HERE YOU ARE, DEYO! I FOUND HINA-CHANNNNNN!"
"SAVE ME, NAAAANOOOO!"
Yukihani was waving at them, smiling a smile so brilliant that it almost blinded them... while positioning a writhing, shrieking Hinaichigo in deadly, tight, headlock.
"Hina-chan doesn't want to die yettt! NANO! WAAAAAAAHHHH!"
"What's wrong, Hina-chan, deyo? There's still four minutes left till you will die."
"It's going to kill me, nano! It is! It willlllll!" Hinaichigo's face was reddening as she wailed and clawed at the bunny doll's grip.
"What is "it" deyo?" Yukihani asked, looking around innocently.
""It" is yooooooouu!"
Now she looked affronted. "I'm not an ittttt, deyooooo."
"Shut up you two, sude! And let go of the poor little thing."
Yukihani pouted. "Fine." She released Hinaichigo's thrashing body and dusted her hands off on her dress before she smoothed down her hair.
Hinaichigo ran to clutch at Kanaria. "Kannagi, nano! Help me!"
Kanaria raised her eyebrows at Yukihani. "What did you do to her?"
Yukihani looked contemplative. "Well, I was looking for Hina-chan, and then I finally found where the yelling was coming from, deyo. But it was inside a dafu store and the dafu store had no door, so I looked around in Corinne's house and Jun-Jun's house. She wasn't there, so I went back to try to find a door on the dafu store, deyo. Then I heard sounds like "Omgh, awungh, omng, omng" from inside the dafu store, so I used my knife to cut apart the building. And guess what? Deyo? Inside was a bunch of redbean paste and strawberries and Hina-chan was in the middle!
"Yukihani pwounced on her and then started pulling on her wibbon! Yukihani thought she was stuck and dying inside the paste. But she wasn't, she was actually eating, and it made her hate me, deyo! Then she refused to come with me. And I realized that Gan-chan must be looking for me, deyo, and Hina-chan was running away, looking for Corinne, so I decided to capture Hina-chan for a while before you came, deyo."
All this was said with a sunny smile. She concluded the speech with a decisive, "DEYO!"
Everybody looked at Yukihani in silence.
"You could have treated her more nicely. She is a noble Rozen Maiden, after all. Besides, do you remember how long it took to sew Hinaichigo's dress? I'm not even calculating in how to it took to weave the cloth for her dress and to knit the lace. Do you remember how high class the material of the sewing string was, how fancy the lace was, how complicated the fabric was, how realistic the hair was, how delicate the glass eyes were, how uneasily obtained the pigments were, how drawn out the sculping of the face was, and how dangerous the creating of the ROSA MYSTICA WAS? DID YOU EVE—"
Suiseiseki just managed to cover Akaihana's mouth up with Sui Dream, otherwise she might have ranted their precious time away.
"Um-um-um... I-I-I think Che-Cher-Cherriru will be here s-ss-sooon," Gankorika said, stuttering again.
"Really, desu?"
The doll rose on her tiptoes to scan the sky. Her eyes narrowed as she spotted a distant shadow in the distance, perched on a stick. Suiseiseki's eyes squinted even further as she focused on the figure. "Is that a... witch, desu?"
Hinaichigo panicked. "WHAT? NANO? I HAVE NO WITCHES HERE! NONONONO! WITCHES ARE SCARY, NANO! MAKE HER GO AWAYYYYYYY!"
Suigintou smirked. "Unlikely. First of all, she seems to be flying closer. Secondly, I doubt she's a witch at all. Witch's are supposed to be green-skinned, I assume. She, however, seems to be pale skinned."
Yukihani pouted.
"You're all bakas, deyo! Can't you tell it's Cherri-cherriru?"
Hachidori sent her a questioning look. "Cherri-cherriru?"
At this moment, Hinaichigo looked up them at gawked, seemingly only noticing the strange, new, dolls now.
"Who are you guys, nano? Are you here to kill me?" she asked, her sweet voice quivering as she looked at the Rosa Mysticas with fear glinting in her eyes.
Tsukigin began babbling. "Well— We are the— No, umm— I don't know how to say this— SUDE!"
Tsukikin began laughing nervously. "Oh-ho-ho-ho-ho! I agree with my sister!"
Akaihana rolled her eyes and sighed. "Hinaichigo, we are the Ro—
Yukihani butted in all of a sudden. "HINA-CHAN! WE ARE NOT HERE TO KILL YOU AT ALL! YUKIHANI WANTS TO BE YOUR FRIEND!"
Hinaichigo gaped at her. "But you were strangling me just seconds ago, nano!"
Gankorika patted Yukihani's shoulder soothingly. "Yu-Yuki-Yukihani-ch-chan, I th-think you sh-should c-c-calm down."
Yukihani began wailing. "NEEEEEEEEVVVVVVVEEEEERRRRRRR , DEYOOOOOO!"
In all this commotion, nobody noticed Cherriru approaching rapidly.
"WE— NO! I, AM HERE TO REVIVE YOOOUUU!" she shrieked.
Cherriru jumped down from the air, one arm cradling a mass of clay, the other slamming the bottom of her staff onto the ground.
"What do you mean by—"
"MASTER CHIBI! YOU ARE GOING TO DIE IN TWO MINUTES IF I DO NOT REVIVE YOU!" she screamed as she grabbed hold of Hinaichigo's shoulders.
Hinaichigo froze, green eyes widening. She glanced down and let out a yelp. Hinaichigo was starting to become transparent.
"NOOOOOO! NANOOOOOOOOO! I DON'T WANT TO DIIIIEEEEEEEEEEE!"
Akaihana stepped up.
"Cherriru," she directed a glance towards said doll, "you still have Hinaichigo's spirit, correct?"
"Spirit?" Souseiseki tilted her head.
"Well, yes. Obviously, the Rozen Maidens need something in them to make them live too. So, Cherriru, spirit?"
"On it!"
Cherriru gently lay down the generic doll body onto the ground, before shining with a blinding light. Rings of pastel, spring green, and a more darkly shaded teal pulsed and then contracted around her.
She had turned back into the form of a Rosa Mystica.
The Rozen Maidens watched fascinated as one of the outermost rings, one that was colored a blushing pink, seemed to detach from the Rosa Mystica slightly. It became a tendril of smoke and floated lazily in the air before it wrapped itself around the crystal heart of the Rosa Mystica.
"Hinaichigo's spirit," Akaihana told them.
"Now Master chibi, please reach out to me." Cherriru calmly said to Hinaichigo.
Hinaichigo blinked and raised her arm hesitantly. Although she seemed childish and immature, and was, she didn't trust as easily as others thought she did. But she wanted to live, even though she did not want to fight anymore.
And now, the only way she could live and fufill her dreams was to reach out to that floating crystal above.
The moment her fingers managed to brush against one of the rings, the light flashed even brighter. Hinaichigo gasped, and backed away. The Rosa Mystica's rings were spinning, rotating around the crystal, like electrons to a nucleus. The rolling rings flipped over each other, the speed getting faster and faster, creating a rather miniature whirlwind. It was amazing how the loops never collided with each other. As they watched, the pink, smoky strand began to intertwine itself with the other rings.
Hinaichigo tried touching her Rosa Mystica, Cherriru, she corrected herself, again, this time withstanding the flash of brilliance. Then, the Rosa Mystica arched back before suddenly rushing forward and sinking into the already transparent Hinaichigo.
"What? Nano?" she managed to say as a disorienting feeling overcame her.
"You're just reconnecting with your consciousness. Nothing big," the echoing voice of Cherriru said to her, the sound rippling inside her body.
Jun stared in disbelief. ""Nothing big"? That sounds really arduous and painful!"
"It's not, Orokana Jun," Akaihana deadpanned.
"Hey! Chibi-ichigo, desu! What's happening?"
The subconscious Hinaichigo slowly rose to the air. Her image flashed, like static, before disappearing, leaving nothing but the Rosa Mystica in sight.
Darkness began to creep over Hinaichigo's vision, and the last thing she saw and felt was someone picking her up and starting to insert her into the new body.
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