Chapter 53

A Revisit

Noire

Even though construction of the ball is under way, there is still something about the island that keeps bugging Noire. The hole that opened causing Uni and Maki to fall is already patched, and there can't have been any suspicions if the construction workers were the ones who covered it, none at all, but thing is they aren't the ones who covered it.

Right now, she's with Neptune, Blanc, Vert, and each of their respective Oracles including Kei overseeing the current progress of the building still unpainted without windows or doors that, in a few more of weeks, will fill up the majority of Gamindustri's residence. Of course, not every citizen is going to come to the ball, and a single building can't fit an entire nation, lest the entire world. That's why despite being a building, (depending on the number of people) it can open its walls for everyone to join.

The last time she and the three CPUs were here, they had the candidates and the otherworldly people with them to make sure the place was safe. But because they were busy preparing their own necessities for the ball, they couldn't come to check what the venue will look like sooner.

Before leaving, Uni told Noire that Maki is teaching her and the other candidates how to dance. She couldn't understand why they wanted him of all people, but she had no time to argue and let it slide. Also Uni gave her the Divinity Pendant, much to the older sister's confusion. There was no reason for her to have it but her little sister was insistent, so she gave in and wore it around her neck.

As Noire paces back and forth while thinking if Uni is going to be okay in Maki's care, she observes the pendant on top of her palm. It emits a silent glow, but for some reason, even though she has its one side facing the rays of the sun, it's reflecting light on the opposite side. As if it's protesting the sun and the nature of physics.

"Hey, Noire~" Neptune's voice brings her back to reality. "We're planning to check that place out again. Wanna come along?"

That 'place' she's talking about is the place where Uni and Maki fell into. Besides checking the progress of the venue, another reason they wanted to go here is the cave. Even with another radar scan of the island's underground, they aren't picking up anything dangerous. They can't even draw a map layout of the place, so they have to go themselves instead of a spelunking team because Uni warned her that there were copies of CFWs there, specifically Brave.

"You weren't planning on leaving me, were you?" Noire asks coolly.

"My, that doesn't sound like a bad idea~" Vert says, giggling.

"If you want to keep staring at that thing, you can stay here while we investigate." The tone Blanc uses may be as flat as ever but Noire can tell it was an insult.

"I'm coming along, you three. Geez . . . I didn't come here to sit around and do nothing." Though, she does sit around most of the time whenever she's stuck in her office the entire day.

"C'mon, girls! I've got our helmets and stuff. We can spelunk all day and maybe find some treasure along the way." It never ceases to amaze Noire how Neptune can put in effort into things that are unnecessary. They aren't there to find any treasure, but now that she's mentioning it, the possibility is still there.

"Who knows if there are any treasures in there," Noire says. "But if I find one, I'm keeping it."

Neptune scoffs. "Bet'cha can't find as much as I can."

Something snaps inside Noire. She swipes a pickaxe and a helmet from the pile of spelunker tools. "There's no way you'll get more treasure than me."

"Is that a challenge?"

"You scared?"

"Oh, you're going down, buster!"

That instant, once they arrive at the entrance to the cave, Noire points somewhere behind Neptune's back, in which the confused girl turns around and sees nothing but a withered tree. "What are you—hey!" A dirty move that should not work but actually works.

With a triumphant smirk, Noire dashes towards the entrance of the cave until Neptune is out of her sight. Only for a few seconds, that is, because the usually lazy girl behind her is using every ounce of her stamina to catch up. Playing around like this isn't something Noire would do normally, but she can't ignore the opportunity to pay Neptune back for all the annoyance she always gave her. Satisfying, to say the least, and also tiring. Is it worth the effort, though? Probably.

When they reach a larger open area of the cave, almost like a mini dome, and the air becoming moister, they make a quick stop to catch their breaths. Each huff they release is three breaths faster than the myriad-colored crystals that are sticking out the walls, floors, and ceiling of the cave and shimmering their lights a breadth brighter before dimming once again.

The branching paths were the same from the last time they were here. Based on Uni's information, one of the four felons, CFW Brave, was around inside the cave and there were multiples of him. So far, they haven't caught any signs of him. Not even the first time they went here looking for her little sister and the otherworldly man. Maybe if monsters were roaming around the place like the typical dungeons around Gamindustri. 'If'because so far the encounter rate in this cave dungeon is closest to zero.

"No—haah—fair! Haah . . ." Neptune goes on all fours, wheezing in air as if her life depends on it. It's pretty much what she deserves for sitting around playing games all day without doing any work at all.

Ignoring Neptune's complaints, Noire says, "Kei had a team of archeologists and speleologists run multiple scans in the cave." She pulls out a device and switch on the power button. On its display, a simplified map with a few red dots appears along with four green ones close to each other. "The red ones are the monsters, and based on the map, we should have a couple of them in front of us." Except there's no one in front of them.

"Well, if they're not here, maybe they're below us or something?"

"A plausible reason." Vert's words resonate throughout their part of the cave as she and Blanc arrive. "I know the two of you like to play around but it is important for us to conserve our strength for anything dangerous."

"You two act like the twins sometimes, you know that?" Blanc walks pass all of them and inspects the ground around where the red dots are supposed to be. "If they're below us, then we have no reason to go after them. Uni said there were copies of Brave around here, didn't she? Maybe there's a source somewhere making them all spawn. We just have to find it and destroy it. Simple as that."

After some more bickering, they continue down the path where they found Uni, Maki, and the green-haired elf. But instead of heading towards the room where they found them, they take a different path.

"Think your sis and her boyfriend came from here?" Neptune nudges on Noire's arm, to her annoyance.

"They're not—they aren't—they're . . ." Her train of thoughts is cut off from imagining her sister dating the guy without her knowing, and she doesn't know if they are dating—she hasn't seen them dating, and she definitely hasn't asked them about it yet. The thought of it is plain horror to her and her eyes if she ever sees it. "They're not dating!" Despite saying those words, it's like she's trying to convince herself more than anyone else.

There are times when she spots the two talking in private, and there are times when she listens in because she's already within hearing range. It's not like she wants to eavesdrop or anything, but she is curious if her little sister has developed something. That's why she leaves them be.

But something's been bugging her and she can't tell what it is exactly.

She doesn't want to dictate her little sister's plans or actions. Unlike before. Unlike the time she was expecting too much of her. Maybe she's overthinking this or something? Noire and Uni's relationship keeps changing gradually, for better or for worse she can't tell.

"You're just worrying too much," Neptune says. "But that's totally normal, ya know? Like, a lot of men likes to go after my sis all the time, but in the end she turned every one of them down. And you know what? It's because she has her hands full with her big ol' sis, me. She's such a sweetie, don'tcha think?"

"More like you're piling all your work on her." A finger brushes on Noire's hand. When both she and Neptune lock eyes, their hands intertwine as if it's the most natural thing in the world. "What's with you all of a sudden? You're not usually like this. It's kind of creepy."

"Hey! Even I can have a serious conversation sometimes."

"What's so serious about discussing your sister's love life?"

"I disagree." Vert's figure comes into view, a smile on her face. "It's not always good to be serious all the time. If you let yourself be bothered by these little things too often, you'll faint at the worst time possible. It's important to find that sweet spot between work life and personal life." It doesn't sound convincing coming from her, but at the same time it also sounds convincing because it's from her. Even a workaholic like Noire can get curious—sometimes, just sometimes—of how Vert is able to balance her games and her work with ease.

"As much as I don't want to agree with her, you should take a break often." Blanc yawns, her each step makes her look like a drunkard.

"Tell me that when you don't look like you're about to fall over anytime," Noire says. "Did you stay up all night or something?"

"Deadlines are so close, and I have to oversee this on top of it," Blanc says with another yawn. "There were so many ideas flowing into me yesterday. I couldn't stop right there and sleep. If I was going be away from my computer for a while, might as well get everything done beforehand." Another yawn.

Out of four of them, Blanc is the closest to a walking zombie. That much is obvious. It's already too late to mention about it to her now, so they kept quiet.

Despite all their bickering, they're misunderstanding Noire's worries. Although, it's true that she may have been working too much again. She hasn't confirmed if Uni is already entering that phase, but it's a bad idea to assume things. And because she doesn't know yet, she can't openly talk about it with Neptune and the others. Then again, she could be overthinking it.

"Come on, girls! The faster we finish this, the faster we get to go home," Neptune says.

Everyone nods.

As they continue descending the cave, the smell of mud becomes more apparent and the ground sinks a bit with each step. They have to put some effort in walking. Unless they decide to transform, they have to make sure the mud doesn't eat more than their soles. Although they still have to deal with washing their shoes once they return home.

In the far end of the tunnel, a brighter light than the crystals catches their attention. Neptune being Neptune, she can't resist the urge to find out if what lies ahead is treasure or something. Normally, Noire will let her be, but they made a bet and there's no way she's losing to her. So, she sprints with everything she can muster to catch up.

"Oh no you don't, Neptune! You're not getting there first!" Noire makes a last spurt and ends up crashing into Neptune's back, causing both of them to crash on the ground. Shoes aren't the only things they have to worry about cleaning now.

After spitting out a mouthful of dirt, Neptune says, "What was that for?!"

"That's my line!" Noire wipes off some dirt on her cheek to no avail which only makes it worse, causing a smear to form across her face instead. "Why did you stop all of a sudden?"

"Some giant robots blocked my way! What else am I supposed to do?"

"That's not an excuse for—wait, giant robots?"

"Girls? As much as everyone knows you two have your comedy routine, now isn't the best time." Vert parries the sword of the robot Neptune was talking about. And those robots, when Noire takes a better look at them, have a striking resemblance to Brave. And there's three of them.

"You two—get your shit straight and help us out here already!" Blanc throws her hammer towards one of the Brave copies, but it gets deflected. "Tch."

Without saying a word, Neptune and Noire takes out their weapons and attack. When Noire is lock on a clash with one of the Braves, Neptune comes in and finishes him off. They're not at all powerful as the original, but they're not so weak that they can defeat them in a one-on-one.

"We can beat them faster if we gang up on them," Noire says.

"Then let's just—Noire, watch out!" Vert tries to block the sword but misses. The impact throws Noire to a wall.

Once she gets a hold of herself, Noire tries to shake off the dizziness that came from the impact as much as she can. "More of them?"

"No, it's the one you two took down. It . . . repaired itself. Curious . . ." In proof of her claim, when Vert slices the Brave's body in half, it takes a few second for its parts to merge again, as though the attack it received never happened in the first place. "What could possibly make it repair itself?"

"A mark . . ." Noire say, remembering her encounter with the Killachine and the time Maki told them about those marks. In a hurry, she looks all over the mechanical body to find—"There it is!" Three golden rings overlapping each other, forming a Venn diagram shape, with a claw scratch at the center, carved right on the upper arm. The worse part? All three of them have it. "Everyone, stay back. We can't beat them as long as those marks are active."

"Marks?" Vert says, her voice showing her irritation. "What do you propose we do, then?"

"We can't just let these things run loose," Blanc says. "They might go after the construction, and I'll be damned if we have to delay it any more than it had already." Not to mention losing the hearts of the people in Gamindustri. Despite the setback that happened from the first ball, everyone is still looking forward for the next one. If the venue is destroyed, they'll lose shares, and they can't let that happen.

Neptune, who's now Purple Heart, slices an arm off of an attacking Brave. Like the others, the arm is restored a few seconds later. "This is troublesome. They're similar to the dragon we fought back then."

"As far as I can remember," Green Heart says, throwing her spear. It pierces a Brave copy's chest. "Didn't we hear something strange before dear Rom went ahead and finished the dragon off."

"Hmph! Doubt we'll be lucky for it to happen again," White Heart scowls as she smashes a Brave copy's head. But the smashed pieces recombines itself the head is back in place. "Graahh! This is just cheating! They're no different from zombies at all. How the hell do we deal with these bastards?"

"Fortunately, they don't seem to grow any stronger," Black Heart says.

"Grow stronger, you say?" Vert parries another attack.

She nods. "Uni and I fought one like it. We couldn't do anything about it except run away."

"But running is not an option."

"And that's the problem." She purposely doesn't mention that Maki was with them. Her pride can't allow them to know that she needed his help to take them down, even though he didn't exactly fight.

The pendant . . .

Noire snaps out of her thoughts upon hearing a voice. A familiar voice. But she can't tell whose. "The pendant . . .?"

Use the Divinity Pendant . . .

The gem on the pendant begins to glow a warm light. Noire takes it off and holds it in her hand. The voice tells her to use it but she doesn't even know how it works. Is she supposed to throw it or swing it around like an idiot? There's no clear instruction for this thing.

Maki did say there was an incantation to use it, but when she did try to do it herself, she couldn't do it at all. Not to mention she couldn't understand what the incantation was in the first place.

Have everyone hold out the pendant . . . and trust me.

Trust them? How is she supposed to trust a voice talking in her head out of nowhere? If anything, it's suspicious, but the more she keeps seeing Neptune, Blanc, and Vert's attacks don't mean anything to the Brave copies, there might not be a choice. If she has to put her trust into something suspicious, might as well put it into something that might work.

"What are you holding there?" Purple Heart's question catches the attention of everyone.

"Is that the same pendant . . .?" White Heart says. "I couldn't see it clearly earlier, but why do you have it?"

"Does it matter?" Black Heart says. "All I know is that we need to use this to win against them. We need to focus our energy onto this thing . . . and, uh, give it our trust." As she expected, they're looking at her as though she lost her mind. But she can't deny that this pendant helped her deal with those marked monsters before.

"Surely you do not jest?" Green Heart holds out her hand to pendant. "I grow tired of fighting these things. If it can end this nonsense, then it's worth a shot."

Following Green Heart's lead, the other two hold out their hands to the pendant.

"Alright, what now?" White Heart asks.

"We need to say an incantation," Black Heart says as if it's the most obvious thing in the world.

"Which is . . .?"

"I . . . don't know."

"You don't know—the hell you mean you don't know?!"

"I'm telling you: I don't know! Maki's the only one who knows the incantation."

"You didn't bother asking the bastard?!"

"I did! It's just—I couldn't understand a word he said."

"Well, maybe you weren't listening hard enough!"

Noire might not have thought this through. If she doesn't know what to do with the pendant, she might as well have ignored the voice and joined the others in the pointless fight.

"You two—enough!" Purple Heart deflects a sword that was coming straight at them. "We're too vulnerable like this. Noire, please, we need you to remember the incantation."

"I'm telling you: I don't know. And it's not because I—"

Trust me . . .

Something inside Black Heart snaps. "Alright, fine. We'll trust you, whoever you are. Just help us out already."

Hmph, I'll let your arrogance slide just this once.

The nerve of this voice . . .!

"A voice . . .?"

"Who . . .?"

All of you . . . Trust me.

They all look each other, confirming that they're not the only ones crazy to hear a random voice out of nowhere.

"Not like this is the first time this happened to me," Purple Heart mumbles.

Green Heart is the first who closes her eyes, then White Heart, then Purple Heart, and then finally Black Heart. To say that losing sight of the enemies is a bad idea isn't far off, and Black Heart is already regretting to do this, but it's too late to back out now. When she opens her eyes again, the first thing she sees is Purple Heart right across her. Nothing different there, except—

"I call upon thy ubiquity of unseen streams . . ."

All three CPUs look at Black Heart as though they found a pimple on her face and they refuse to tell her about it. Wh-why are you all looking at me? She tries to say, but the words never left her mouth. I can't speak? Why can't I speak?

"Seep the poison that ingrains . . ."

Gibberish words. But for some reason she's hearing another set of words. Ones that she can understand. The sound of each gibberish words sound familiar, but that's silly. How can someone remember words they don't understand? But the voice . . . it sounds just like Black Heart's. There's no way anyone can have the same voice as hers, let alone sounding so closely alike.

"Noire . . . What language are you using?" Purple Heart asks.

What other language does she know other than the one they always use? Why is she asking her that, anyway? Is there something she's missing out here? But then again, there has been this voice for a while now. And no matter how much Black Heart wants to speak, her voice isn't coming out. She lost her voice.

No, wait. That's not it. She hasn't lost her voice. Someone else is using it. And there's nothing she can do to stop it.

". . . within the veins of the blighted! Link Break!"

Just like the last time Black Heart saw it, the gem on the pendant shatters into dusts and spreads into the air, with their direction heading towards the three Brave copies. It swarms the copies and they all merge with the dusts. And with that, they're gone.

"What just . . ." Black Heart's voice is back. She can't be any gladder than to have it back. "I thought I lost it." With a blinding light covering her entire body, she goes back to her human form.

"Wow, Noire, you might be a better mage than MAGES.," Neptune says, also back in human form.

The pendant actually worked. Or better yet, she got it to work. Now they don't have to worry about those stupid marks. But still, despite being able to use it, she's not feeling as much satisfaction as she'd hoped for. Even though technically she made it work, she doesn't know if she'll be able to do it again.

"Let's hope those were the last of them," Noire says, wearing the pendant around her neck again.

"Hate to break it to you, but those weren't all of them."

"Who's there?! Show yourself!" Vert pulls her spear out and takes a stance.

"Is violence all you CPU bitches think about?" From the shadows, a lone man with a fur cape with a spiked mace on his hands walks into the light. Behind him, a girl with the same hair color as Noire comes out of hiding as well.

Blanc yells. "You're that Ragnor bitch!"

A vein pops on his head. "Who're ya callin' bitch, ya bitch?!"

"You are, bitch!"

"Ragnor, that's enough." The girl behind him speaks. This is the second time they've seen each other, and even though they've seen her with Maki before, her name is still a mystery (maybe except for Neptune; she barged into those two's conversation). The only time they met was when they stopped Sylvie and her friends from their outrageous scheme.

"Hey, it's Carmella! How've ya been?" Neptune takes the initiative. That . . . might be her name, but at the same time it doesn't sound like it's her name. Is it?

A fiery aura appears around the girl. "What am I, a vampire?! It's Priscilla, P-R-I-S-C-I-L-L-A and don't you forget it!" She kicks Ragnor by the shin, which causes the man to growl. "Quiet, you. You're being too loud."

"I woulda if ya don't fuckin' kick me!"

This is getting ridiculous. A few minutes ago, they were fighting against auto-repairing robots, and now they have to deal with a howl opera. As Noire face-palms, Vert asks, "Priscilla, wasn't it? What did you mean when you said those weren't all of them?"

Priscilla flicks a part of her hair. "Exactly what I mean. More will come unless you get rid of the source."

"The source?"

"See? I told you there's a source somewhere." Maybe it's because of scream-fest Blanc had with Ragnor that her fatigue is almost nonexistent at this point. On another note, they're both staring each other as though they're having an imaginary warfare.

"If you want to know where it is, follow me." She doesn't wait for an answer and starts heading further inside the cave. Ragnor follows suit, albeit muttering.

"What do you think?" Vert asks.

"We're already here," Noire says. "Might as well see through the end of this. And besides . . ."

"We can't let those Brave copies run loose." Everyone nods at Blanc's words.

They all follow Priscilla and Ragnor deeper inside the cave. There's no telling if those two are going to attack them or lure them into a trap, but that's a matter they'll have to deal once they get there.

Hey there. It's been a long time since my last upload, but I guess that's because I haven't had the time and mental capacity to do it. In any case, I'll just leave it here in case there are people who likes to know my upload schedule.

At this point, I'll be uploading whenever I feel like it and when I'm satisfied with the chapter. I can't make any promises at how frequent the updates will be, and I am thankful to those who follow along with my story despite the myriad of plot holes I create.

Once again, thank you and I hope you'll stay with me in the next chapters.