Time seemed to stop for Corrin as she continued to wander aimlessly through the city streets. She wanted to get as far away as possible from Kamui, yet she did not know where she could go from there. It felt like her mind was covered in a thick fog, unable to think one rational thought, or about anything at all. All that she could do was walk, since her feet were now too tired to keep on running.
Do us a favor and die!
Corrin wondered if she should take her own life to atone for her crimes in the past. The idea sounded tempting, she wouldn't deny that. Maybe then her Hoshidan brothers would feel that some sense of justice was delivered to them. And yet, she just continued to walk and let her mind repeat that cyclical event of thoughts. She would keep mentally repeating the encounters, the truthful words from her brothers, the realization that she needed to avenge them and then keep on heading nowhere.
By the time the full moon started to rise, she found herself at the entrance of Isle of the Ancients Park, one of the city's most frequented parks, due to its size and perfect replica of the ruins of the now extinct island of the same name, combined with the soothing and lush nature. Many would visit it by day to escape the oppressive concrete buildings and frenetic way of life from the city around the park, but at night, the park was usually eerily empty, at least, compared to the busy activities during the day.
It was only then that Corrin realized just how far away she was from the hotel. Nobody in their sane mind would come to this portion of the town from the hotel by walking. Just by taking public transportation alone she would take more or less twenty minutes to arrive there, not counting the other ten minutes from walking.
"Gods, for how long have I been running away?" she thought.
There were still a few hours before the park's gates closed for the night. With nowhere else to go in mind, Corrin entered the park in hopes to rest her sore feet for a moment. She eventually found a white stone bench beneath a tree, next to a small pond and decided to rest there. From the distance, she could see R.O.B standing next to some decayed columns at a small circle center. The existence of that creature always fascinated Corrin. She never saw a creature made entirely out of metal before, but she never got close to him to get to know him better and it wouldn't be tonight that she would attempt such a thing. Corrin would just let him be and continue to rest.
Letting out a sigh, she closed her eyes and tilted her head backwards, the cold touch of the border of the bench sending a tingle down her spine as it came into contact with her exposed neck. "Where can I go from now on?" it was all that she could think.
"Corrin, I finally found you."
That voice… could it be?
"Azura?" she gasped, opening her eyes.
Corrin opened her eyes and there she saw the light blue haired young woman standing right in front of her, long white dress and gentle smile almost a beacon of light in the midst of the pitch black darkness. Unlike the other visions, her face and semblance were clear, almost as if she was really there. A lump formed on Corrin's throat as Azura extended her arms to her. She looked so real, it was impossible for her to try to ignore her.
"I missed you," Azura said, voice as gentle as ever.
Corrin was hallucinating again and at that point she did not care anymore. Why fight against it when all her other attempts failed? She jumped straight to her friend's arms and let herself be taken by her sweet embrace.
"I missed you too, Azura," she said. "So, so much… But..."
"What is it?"
"I feel awful for trying to forget you."
"Did you now?"
"After the war ended, you simply vanished without saying goodbye," Corrin said, pausing for a brief moment as she realized that Azura was caressing her hair. "We defeated Garon and brought an end to the war, just like we dreamed! Why did you have to leave me like that?"
"I'm sorry. I did not know that this would bring you so much sorrow."
"And then I woke up in this world… And I realized that I wouldn't even be able to search for you, because I was stuck here..." she sniffed. "You were the only one who I could talk to whenever I would doubt my actions, whenever I felt guilty for being forced to take another life. When you disappeared after the war was over and I woke up here, it was like the ground below me disappeared. I wanted to forget everything and not think about it and that included you. I wanted to start anew."
"Yet you couldn't."
"I couldn't."
"Corrin, do you want to run away? To get rid of all the guilt?"
"Yes."
"Then come with me," Azura said as she broke their embrace and looked her in the eyes. "I know of someplace that will make you feel a lot better. We can be together for the rest of our lives."
Corrin nodded and took Azura's hand, letting herself be guided by the woman that she once tried to forget through the darkness.
Meanwhile, R.O.B took notice of the commotion happening not far away from him. He saw the dragon princess sobbing and hugging a strange woman he had never seen before. She was probably a friend of hers, but what could be causing so much distress on Corrin was something that the robot did not understand.
He quietly watched the woman in the red dress take Corrin away and decided to head back to the hotel after that.
Kamui was a mess and Ike had no idea what he could say or do to lessen the prince's pain. He knew that something went very wrong once he received his call and couldn't hear one coherent sentence coming from Kamui at the other side, but seeing him in person, color drained from his face, on the verge of having a meltdown, he realized that it was worse than he imagined. All he could hear is him mumble "she's gone" over and over, which kind of gave him an idea of who could be the cause of his distress, but he still needed a rational explanation for that.
Ike gently guided him to one of the available couches, not minding the curious looks they got from the few people passing by that seemed to cross the lobby at a slower pace just to see if they could get a glimpse of what was going on with Kamui. He waited a couple of minutes, just enough for him to take a deep breath and calm his mind, before asking him what was going on.
"Corrin's gone..." Kamui finally said. "She's gone and I have no idea where she could have gone to."
"She ran away?!" he asked, perplexed. "How did this happen?"
"She asked me to go outside the hotel after she… had another vision," he explained. "I thought that some fresh air could help her clear her mind, but once we got outside, she pushed me and ran away!"
Ike couldn't believe what he was hearing. He had just talked to Corrin a few hours ago and she seemed fine. He could only wonder what happened in her vision to make her lose any rational thinking.
"Why would she do that? Doesn't she know that it's dangerous to be alone in her current situation?"
"Exactly!" Kamui exclaimed. "Ike, what do I do now? Something terrible is going to happen the more time we waste here."
"I would suggest filling out a missing report, but they don't usually look into these things until the person has been missing for a whole day, or so I've heard," he said. "I think our best bet is telling Master Hand about this. He might know what to do."
"At this point, I'm willing to try anything. Let's go!"
Ike lead Kamui to Master Hand's office, that curiously was located at the last floor of the hotel. Kamui never understood why their creator would have his working place so high up instead of on the ground floor, but that was probably one of his weird design choices. It was said between Smashers that for every two good ideas that Master Hand had, he had to have one baffling decision that would make people scratch their heads. The location of his office was one such decision.
As they arrived, both men could hear a screeching voice coming from the other side of the maroon, embellished mahogany door, a voice that clearly did not belong to Master Hand. Confused by what was going on, Ike knocked on the door, hoping that they weren't about to interrupt anything serious. The screeching from the other side stopped and after a few moments of eerie silence, they were answered by a very cranky Bayonetta.
"Now it is not a good time," she answered in a harsh tone. "If you could kindly return another-"
"No, we can't," Ike said. "We need to talk to Master Hand right now."
"Bro's not here."
As they took a better look through the half open the door, they saw Crazy Hand floating inside the spacious and old fashioned looking office. Kamui could also see someone else seated on one of the red velvet chairs near the central desk, but it was hard to figure it out who it was from his angle.
"Crazy, where is Master Hand?" Ike asked.
"I dunno, he's been gone for a while now."
"What do you mean, he's gone?!"
"Relaaaax, he'll probably be back next week."
"We don't have a week!" Kamui exclaimed. "Corrin's gone and if we don't find her soon, she's going to die! We need Master Hand right now!"
"Corrin's missing?" Bayonetta asked, her concern not going unnoticed by both men.
"Oh, no, this can't be good..." said the person from the other side, who Kamui assumed to be Richter.
Before Kamui could ask why Bayonetta was so concerned, as he did not expect the witch to have any sort of sympathy towards her, Bayonetta opened the door and brought both of them in. As he suspected, Richter was the other Smasher in that room and he seemed just as concerned over the news.
"What happened? How did she disappear?" Bayonetta asked. "Were you there when it happened? How long has it been since you last saw her?"
Kamui was left without words, the feelings of desperation and confusion clouding his mind and making him only babble incoherent words as he continued to be overwhelmed by her questions. He needed Ike to step in and calm both of their nerves down by explaining the situation as best as he could. Bayonetta, Richter and even Crazy Hand listened to him surprisingly quiet, though Ike couldn't help but feel that in Crazy's case, he got distracted by something else. Once he was done with his telling, he could hear Kamui let go of his breath, as if he had been holding it that whole time. All he wanted to do was hold him tight and tell him that everything would be alright, but that was not the time or place for that.
Bayonetta's mouth twitched and she turned to Richter, who gave her a confirming nod. It appeared that they had an answer to where she could have gone to, but maybe that was Kamui's wishful thinking.
"Corrin, I know that this may sound weird, but have you seen her hanging out with a brown haired woman lately?" Richter asked. "A brown haired woman with red eyes? Likes to wear red?"
"Where did this question come from?" Kamui asked. "No, I haven't. What does this have to do with anything?"
"Are you sure?"
"I mean..." he paused, digging into his memories. "Well, I haven't seen her talking to someone with this description, but… Oh, right, I did bump into a woman like this while I was chasing Corrin. For some reason, she got irrationally angry and tried to hold me in place, demanding an apology despite HER being in the wrong."
"That bi-"
"Sounds like her alright," Richter said, interrupting Bayonetta. "Corrin, I think that the woman you bumped into is the same one that cursed Corrin into having those visions and run way."
"Curse?! But how-"
"Ack, this is so boring!" Crazy exclaimed, bringing everyone's attention back to him. "Can we go back to my problems?"
"Crazy, this might have everything to do with your problem," Bayonetta said. "Be quiet and listen."
"How so? We're talking about finding two very dangerous monsters that my bro will kill me if he discovers I let them loose and all you want to talk is about some Smasher who ran away because she's probably tired of fighting and wanted a new life in another city, probably with a new name and a new job and-"
"One of these monsters might be the one responsible for Corrin running away," she explained, her patience growing thinner. "If we discover where Corrin is, we might discover where they are."
"Oh, okay."
"Curse? Monsters?" Kamui asked. "Now I'm the one confused here. What does this have to do with her? Corrin was having some serious hallucinations and all you can say is that they were caused by a curse?"
"Corrin, I know that this might sound crazy to you, but Bayonetta and I believe that Corrin was cursed by a vampire called Laura."
By the look of disbelief that both Kamui and Ike had on their faces, Richter and Bayonetta knew they had a lot of explaining to do. They decided to start from the very beginning, when Crazy Hand contacted them and asked for their help on retrieving two creatures that he accidentally let loose instead of getting rid of them once his older brother decided that they were unfit for the spot of Assist Trophies. Those creatures were Carmilla and Laura, two powerful vampires from the Belmont's world, and they were supposed to work as a duo if they were to ever be summoned. However, Crazy Hand did not eliminate them and accidentally gave them free will, despite that being uncommon among the Assist Trophies.
Against Bayonetta's will and Richter's eagerness to do what was right, they were working as a team over the past month trying to capture Carmilla and Laura.
"Why didn't you ask for Simon's help, though?" Ike asked. "Why Bayonetta?"
"I ask that myself constantly," Bayonetta groaned.
"Simon's face scares me," Crazy Hand said. "I don't want to talk to him."
"But why-"
"So you have been chasing these two vampires," Kamui crossed his arms. "But why do you think that Corrin has anything to do with that?"
"Little prince, I have seen Laura and Corrin together, and by the looks of things, they seemed well acquainted with each other," Bayonetta explained. "Laura knows that Richter and I have been searching for her, so for her to risk getting caught, she most likely wants something from her."
"Laura is a conniving predator," Richter continued. "She is a trickster who is well versed on manipulation and feigning innocence to get what she wants. Knowing her extreme devotion to Carmilla, she is probably acting on her mistress's wishes, but what could carmilla want with Corrin, that's something I don't know. However, I do think that the curse might have been cast on her to lower her defenses and leave her open to her influence."
"But when would she even be cursed?"
"The fortune-teller!"
Everyone turned their attention to Ike, who had an expression of someone who had everything figured it out. "The fortune-teller we visited that day," he said again. "Remember, Kamui? That woman who turned out to be impersonating the real fortune-teller and who kept giving Corrin ominous readings?"
"Y-yeah… I do..."
"All her visions started to happen after her visit, so maybe this wasn't a coincidence after all."
The memories of that fateful day started to resurface and Ike, Richter and Bayonetta continued to discuss the situation, tuning their voices out for a moment. As much as he didn't want to admit, Ike was right. It couldn't be a coincidence that Corrin started to go through that awful sequence of events after received that damned fortune telling. He recalled the tea that the woman, who he was most certain now to be Laura, coerced her to drink and his stomach turned as the realization that all the trickery happened right under his nose and that had he known what was going on, he could have helped her. He could have saved her.
Saved her, he thought bitterly. He was already thinking like she was dead, he had to not let his catastrophic mentality get the best of him! It was only when Crazy whined in his shrill voice that Kamui's thoughts were brought back to reality, as well as an urge to ask him to be quiet.
"Guyyyyys, you keep talking about all this stuff, but you still don't know where to find her," Crazy Hand sobbed. "My bro's gonna be back whenever and I'll get in trouble if he discovers that I let two dangerous creatures let loose!"
"First of all, this is your fault," Bayonetta accused. "Secondly, we are doing the best that we can."
"He is right about something, though," Kamui said, which brought their attention towards him. "If you're correct and Corrin's with Laura right now, we still don't know where she is."
There was an awkward silence between them, as nobody knew how to answer to Kamui's statement. Despite knowing what could have happened for Corrin to run away (despite strong evidence, they still didn't have concrete reason), they still didn't know where she could have gone to, what Laura could want from her and where both of them were.
As the minutes continued pass by, Kamui had to fight against that feeling of desperation more and more. He continued to cling onto the feeling of hope even as their little reunion was brought to an end once it was decided that nobody had any evidence of where they could have gone to. He could barely register Ike wrapping his arm around his shoulder and bringing him closer to him, in a vain attempt at comforting him.
Richter and Bayonetta followed them a few steps away, both also at loss at what to do or where to find Laura. Knowing that she might possibly had Corrin in her grasp had damaged their morale quite a lot, even if Bayonetta wanted to refuse admitting that to herself. Richter felt like he had failed to protect an innocent person.
In the end, all four Smashers left the office feeling defeated. It would take a miracle for them to find Corrin in time and defeat both Laura and Carmilla.
Peach let out a concerned sigh as she saw the ten missed calls on her phone. She had been trying to contact Corrin for a while now, ever since she had arrived at the hotel, but her friend wasn't picking up. As the sun started to set and she still had news from her, Peach's worries only grew the darker it got.
"It's that woman," she said, turning to Daisy. "The moment I saw her, I didn't trust her!"
"Peach, maybe Corrin is still hanging out with her and hasn't heard her phone ring," Daisy suggested. "You know how people from less technological advanced worlds are, they rarely check their phones."
"I don't know where you got this idea from, but she would have heard her phone ring at some point."
Daisy could only shrug and take another sip from her coffee. She truly wished that she could say something to her friend to calm her worries, but she had the feeling that there was nothing that she could say at that moment that would do such a thing. All Daisy knew was that she chose a terrible time to invite her out for some coffee.
Meanwhile, Peach only observed the hotel's cafeteria in a vain hope that she would spot Corrin passing by, while her coffee grew cold. It was very unlikely, but it was stronger than her.
"Peach, I don't know what's going on with Corrin," Daisy said. "But I'm sure that she will be back soon enough."
"I don't know, Daisy… I just don't know..."
"Corrin was at Isle of the Ancients Park"
The sudden robotic voice coming from behind Peach made her jump on her seat and almost spill her coffee. She quickly turned around and saw R.O.B. standing a few inches away from her chair.
"R.O.B., when did you get here?" she asked.
"I have been standing here for exactly seven seconds."
"She did not ask for the exact answer, R.O.B.," Daisy said.
"Please, be more specific with your questions from now on."
"Whatever," she shook her head. "You said that you saw Corrin, right? At Isle of the Ancients Park?"
"Correct."
"Was she with someone else?"
"Not at first, but I saw an unidentified woman approach her while she rested on a bench."
"What did the woman look like?"
"She looked like a young adult, brown hair, red dress and pale skin."
"It's her!" Peach exclaimed, slapping the table and wincing from the sting it caused in her hand. "See, Daisy? I was right! That woman was up to no good."
"Wait a minute, you can't be sure of that. She could have been helping Corrin, or chatting with her, or..."
"Corrin was visibly crying and was guided out of the park by the unidentified woman," R.O.B. said. "It should be stated that the woman did not show appropriate behavior in response to her distress and displayed a malicious grin the entire time."
"You see?!"
"Oh, alright, that woman is bad news."
"R.O.B., do you know where the woman had taken Corrin?" Peach asked as she got up from the chair and kneed in front of him. "Please, it's important! She might be in danger right now."
"I do not know, I exited the park after she was out of my sight."
"Oh… I see..."
Peach knew it was too good to be truth. Of course R.O.B. wouldn't know of her location, or else, he would have alerted Master Hand that one of the Smashers was being held hostage. Or at least, peach thought that Corrin was being held hostage. If she were to be completely honest, she did not know at which extend Corrin went willingly or if she struggled along the way. Regardless, her hope of finding her friend went away just as quickly as it appeared.
She was about to thank R.O.B. for the information and tell him that he should inform Master Hand that there was a missing Smasher, when Daisy had an idea.
"Can't you track her whereabouts?" she asked.
"What?" Peach asked in return.
"I mean, don't you have a finder thingy installed in your system? You could see Corrin's location like this, no?"
"Daisy, I don't think that's how it wo-"
"I have a phone finder installed in my system with every smasher's phone connected to the database," R.O.B. answered. "I can track Corrin's phone, if it is working and in her possession at the moment."
Peach for a very brief moment tried to tell herself to not create high expectations, that if R.O.B. couldn't track her phone, she would be in for a huge disappointment. That reasoning did not last one second.
"R.O.B., track Corrin's phone, now!" she urged.
R.O.B.'s eye lenses went from a smoky gray to pitch black, with the word "SEARCHING" in vibrant green letters blinking. Peach bit her lower lip in anticipation, not minding the curious looks she got from passerby smashers who saw her on her knees, looking at the robot in the eyes.
Each second felt like an agonizing eternity and she had to control herself from asking if it was normal for him to take that long. She couldn't stop whispering "please, please, please", which almost made Daisy kneel beside her in order to calm her down. Before she could consider that, however, R.O.B's eyes suddenly showed the projection of a digital map of the outskirts of the city, of one particular place that both princesses couldn't recognize at first.
"Corrin is located at an unidentified building at the outskirts of the city's northeast exit," R.O.B. said. "She does not appear to be moving at the moment."
"R.O.B, thank you! Thank you so much," Peach said, bring the robot into an awkward, tight hug. "Don't close the finder just yet, we need to show this to Master Hand. Let's go to his office right now!"
I apologize for taking this long. Life has been pretty busy and I had a lot of other stuff to write, but I'm glad I could fin the time to finish this chapter! I'm also glad that I could have R.O.B. participate in this story, I always thought that he was interesting addition to the roster due to how quirky of a fighter he is.