Disclaimer: I own nothing.
Also the chapter where an apple is actually mentioned. Hence the title.
I have five more chapters left until the end!
The rumors about Mois's eternal slumber didn't spread nearly as quickly as Natsumi's reawakening. The Kingdom of Justice had always been shrouded in mystery, and so had their princess, so not many people paid much mind to the rumors about Mois, except for those who lived in her kingdom.
However, Kululu was an exception to those people. He constantly listened to the rumors about what was happening in Mois's kingdom.
And when he heard a supposed rumor about how Angol Mois had been cursed, he immediately checked his sources instead of panicking.
"Show me Mois," he quickly ordered his mirror. He saw her body in bed, sleeping peacefully.
That's not suspicious... Maybe she's just normal-sleeping... he hoped. He saw Natsumi walking over her and stroke the girls hair.
Tch. Guess she's awake, then. Kululu was annoyed at how fine Natsumi was. Then she started talking.
"I'm so sorry about what happened to you on my behalf. I know... I know that you'll never wake up now because of me. Cursed into an eternal slumber... That sounds awful... I'm so sorry..." Natsumi apologized.
Cursed? So... Mois is cursed to sleep forever, just like the rumors said? Magic didn't exist, though. Somehow, somebody had used science to inflict this fate on her.
But Kululu knew secretly that there were some curses he couldn't break. He couldn't make his body into that of a Keronian again. He had accepted his fate.
Mois would be the same way. She would be asleep forever, as good as dead. He'd never get to hear her talk or see her smile, not even through his mirror.
She was gone, and there was nothing he could do about it. He had made a mistake in releasing her because now Natsumi had taken away something he had loved.
This time, instead of his own life being threatened by the royals of her kingdom, it was someone he cared about who had been hurt because of Natsumi.
Kululu turned away from his mirror and cried. He could no longer bare the image of his sleeping beauty. The one thing he truly cared about was now gone and lost to him forever.
He cried to himself for a good long while, until he tried to bury his pain deeper.
There was only one person at fault for her pain, and it wasn't him. It had been Natsumi. She had even admitted it.
If there's one thing I'll do for you, it'll be revenge. I won't hold back any longer. Ku ku ku. I will destroy Natsumi, and I'll do it the same way she's destroyed me. By breaking her heart and then taking my revenge. His goal still existed, and Mois's fate hadn't changed that.
He needed to stop sending minions to do it himself. He needed to go forth and destroy Natsumi on his own. Confront her face-to-face.
I should have never focused on killing Aki so much and allowed her the chance to run. That was my biggest mistake. He wouldn't allow her the chance to run again. She wouldn't even want to run from him, after he was done with her.
First, though, he needed to build another ray gun. A ray gun of disguise. Quickly, he made a beam that would change his appearance to please her eyes, to make him look like the stranger that she had danced with.
The one she had fallen in love with.
He looked at himself in the mirror after he was done, marveling at his disguised tan skin and his blond hair. None of it was real, but it certainly looked like such.
"Ku, ku, ku... Now, I need the weapon for her unfortunate demise..." He would use poison again. That was what he decided.
He quickly messed with some chemicals and picked a harmless apple out of his fruit basket. This'll look like magic to anyone who looks at her, but nobody will be able to cure it, because nobody believes in science.
He coated the apple in a powerful poison, but only on one side of it, just in case she didn't trust him. The other half would be the half he would eat.
The poison was potent, not enough to kill her. But it would put her in an eternal coma just like the one she had inflicted on Mois... something so only her nightmares would greet her, nothing like reality.
Death would be too nice for his enemy, after all.
She'd find the same fate she had given Mois. Nothing else would fit her punishment.
After he had finished, he was ready.
"Ku, ku, ku. Time to go out."
Natsumi picked some flowers in the garden, hoping to give them to Mois. She wondered if her friend could feel anything that happened to her, or that her emotions of friendship would somehow be communicated back.
She wanted Mois to at least have good dreams, instead of nightmares.
"Hello, my princess." She heard kind words behind her. She turned around and saw the stranger she had danced with at the ball.
"It's you!" Natsumi pointed. She didn't think about why her stranger was there, but she hugged him, anyway. "I looked everywhere for you!"
"I'm sorry, I should have come. But I wanted to wait, to make sure that you really wanted me," the strange blond man told her as Natsumi hugged him.
"I do! I'm just so glad... that somebody came back to me." She hugged him tighter.
"My love, of course I'd come back to you. I'll always find you, no matter where you go," Kululu told her, a more sinister meaning behind his words. "I brought you a present... I was wondering if we could eat it together?" He took an apple out of a basket he was carrying.
Natsumi froze for a moment. The last present she had gotten had been poisoned, and she was still a tiny bit frightened.
"It's fine," Kululu told her. "I just thought eating something together might make us a bit... closer." He whispered those words seductively into her ear. He licked the non-poisonous side of the apple. "We'll eat it together, and our mouths will get closer and closer until the horrible distance between them will be closed."
Natsumi smiled and giggled, placing the apple into his mouth. He bit into it to keep it from falling.
"Sounds like a silly game. I'll do it, but only to keep my mind off of things." As if she was about to kiss him, she bit into her side of the apple.
She began to swallow, and Kululu let go of his side of the apple. Natsumi fell over.
No! I know this feeling! I'm losing consciousness! she realized. Her brain pounded, and her body was unable to move.
"You fell for it." Kululu had to remind himself not to laugh. It would give himself away. "I'd just like to tell you, I never loved you," he hissed. He walked away cackling when he was out of ear range.
The last sight Natsumi saw before her eyes closed was that of her false love walking away.
Fuyuki walked throughout the castle, looking for his sister to give her a final good-bye. He found her collapsed on the ground, an apple in her mouth.
"AUGH! NOT AGAIN!" He screamed. Immediately, he tried to figure out what was wrong. She couldn't be dead. He examined her body, but she didn't look the least bit alive. He took the apple out of her mouth, but she didn't awaken.
"Sh-she... She swallowed it..." he realized. He looked around, not knowing who had done this.
He couldn't find anyone, so he cried.
"No... No... This can't happen again..." he yelled. "Not again..." He held his sister, but she would not awaken.
He didn't feel anger this time. Only sorrow.
"M-Momoka... Momoka will be able to heal her!" He hoped there was a magic spell to heal someone from poison apples. Whatever there was, there would be something he could research in Momoka's kingdom.
"Y-yeah... I'll make some sort of magic coffin for her on one of the beachy islands... She'll be safe there. I won't let Sis stay dead..." Fuyuki wouldn't accept that his sister was dead. And even if she was, he'd keep her body safe.
No matter what.
That was his vow. Natsumi would be safe. He'd bring her back. His beloved sister wouldn't be left to this fate.
There was one thing Fuyuki hadn't thought about though in his plan.
How do I get back to Momoka's kingdom? he realized. He had left without Momoka, only with a little bit of magic power. Certainly none that helped him breathe underwater. He needed a solution that would permanently let him stay with Momoka and let him research ways to cure his sister.
"There's a sorcerer who lives in the east. He was the one who gave me a human body in exchange for my voice," Fuyuki remembered Momoka telling him.
He knew she was talking about the dictator who had killed his and Natsumi's family. He swallowed, frightened for a moment.
The dictator could give him a mermaid body, but at what price? He needed to do it, though. Not only for Momoka, but for his sister.
So he let the wind carry him to Kululu's castle so he could make the deal.
At first, Fuyuki knocked the door, but after an hour of nobody coming to open it, he just barged in. "H-hello?" he called.
Kululu sat in a large chair, staring at the fire and nothing else. He didn't even acknowledge Fuyuki's presence. He was still mourning the loss of Mois, so he hadn't wanted anyone to interrupt him.
"Um... You're the one who gave Momoka a human body, right?" Fuyuki asked, trying to start a conversation with the scary dictator. He tried to keep his hatred down about how he now ruled Natsumi's and his kingdom.
"Yeah. I was the one who did that," Kululu finally spoke. "Can you leave now? I want to be alone."
"No. I need you to make the same trade with me. I'll give up my voice, but I need to become a merman," Fuyuki told him. "Take my voice, just turn me into one... Preferably in water..."
Luckily, he had already made the coffin that would keep Natsumi safe and transferred it to a beachy island. All he needed to do was get back down to Momoka and explain the situation.
"I don't want to. I want to be alone," Kululu insisted again. He looked almost sad, staring into the flames.
Wait... The dictator that took our kingdom has feelings? Fuyuki realized. Kululu's eyes were puffy and red, as if he had been crying.
"D-did something bad happen?" Fuyuki finally asked after standing there quietly, waiting for his request to be granted. He was a bit intrigued.
"Be quiet!" Kululu snapped. He was silent for a moment. "Who am I kidding? What does it matter anymore? I'm done with it all. I've finished the task at hand... She's avenged, in a weird way, I suppose..." Kululu was talking to himself a bit, ignoring Fuyuki's presence.
Ah.. .So he lost someone, too... "I'm sorry about your loss." Fuyuki finally told him. "I know what you're going through... I recently lost my sister. Like... really recently."
Kululu turned to him. "Ah. You're Fuyuki Hinata," he realized. "How interesting that you'd drop into my lap right as I don't care anymore."
Fuyuki wondered what he was talking about. Probably about my kingdom. He probably wanted to kill me to ensure I wouldn't take it back.
Kululu then gave an odd laugh. "Ku, ku, ku. So you're experiencing sadness, too." Good, he thought to himself. What he had done to Natsumi had worked, then.
Fuyuki waited. "So can you make me into a merman?" he asked again.
Kululu was quiet for a moment. "If you promise to leave me alone. I don't even care to make some stupid bullshit contract right now. I just want to be alone. And you aren't going to leave unless I do that, right?"
Fuyuki nodded.
"I'll make the gun that can turn you into one. Shoot yourself on your own time." Kululu quickly assembled something he cared little about and tossed it to Fuyuki. "Now, leave... I have things to do."
Fuyuki felt kind of bad as he left, but he felt especially bad when Kululu uttered his last words that weren't meant for Fuyuki and just for himself.
"I miss you, Mois..." he whispered.
Fuyuki darted out of there with the gun just as it dawned on him. I did this... he realized.
Mois had people who cared about her, and he had just witnessed one of those people mourning her.
He felt terrible.
He left quicker than was needed, not wanting Kululu to discover that it was he at fault.
"Now... Now I can finally take care of you, Sis. When I'm back home, I'll research a way to heal you," he vowed.