"Emmmm, do I have to stay in here?" Older Neptune asked, "Sure, I gotta' keep an eye on Crostie, but that Rei lady looks really upset when she walked out. Just wanna check on her, that's all."
"Go for it. In the meantime, I'll stop Blanny from tearing up your notebook and the fairy inside," C-Sha said, and added, "If it ever gets to that."
Which wasn't too unlikely. Despite their best efforts at being as patient and unthreatening as possible during the previous questioning session, Rei's fearful, stuttered answers were clearly not enough for Blanc, and, considering Croire's general attitude...
"Go on! I dare you!" A taunt came out of the open notebook on the desk, just as Older Neptune nodded and began to turn away. "Rip n' tear this shit apart! It's not like you can catch me once you let me outta' here, bitch!"
Blanc managed to keep up a poker face after hearing that, but the air in the room had just gone a little cooler.
"Welp," Older Neptune shrugged, "That's not gonna happen, 'cause Blanc here is a...nice intellectual type!" The last three words, even with her bright smile and the enthusiasm that seemed to be permanently baked into her voice, still felt a little forced. "Who loves books, and that includes my notebook! Soooo, take good care of it, pretty please?"
"...Of course."
The office door soon creaked shut. Blanc reached out for the notebook, and lifted it up to eye level.
"You."
"Yo? Whazzup?"
"I have questions. Answer them, and stop trying to piss me off," Blanc said, and, before Croire could retort, immediately followed up with a question. "First, what's a dimension lock. Neptune—your Neptune brought that up, but she doesn't get the gist of it either."
"A thing too complex for idiots to understand." Croire made a weird noise, after Blanc gave the notebook a forceful shake. "What? I answered your question! You didn't say I had to be specific."
"Well, be specific! Starting from NOW!"
"Alright, alright. Guess I'll have to come up with a 'Dumb Fuck's Guide to Dimensional Anomalies' on the fly."
"That's not a nice way to refer to any readers." C-Sha frowned, even though Blanc, to her relief, didn't slam the notebook against the nearest hard surface after hearing that. "And if I were you, I'd cut down on the name-calling. If you keep that up, I don't think I can hold back Blanny when the time comes."
"Man, not one for honesty, are ya'?" Croire snorted. "Fine. Intellectual's Guide to Dimensional Anomalies. Hope y'all are happy now. Anyways, it's not a lock in the traditional sense. More like changing the road signs so the dumb broads who are after you make a wrong turn at the crossroads, and end up driving a car through some other idiots' front door."
"What's that supposed to mean?"
"Dimensions have coordinates. Now, that locked dimension also has its coordinates," Croire continued, "But, using a Golden Summit as the anchor point, they managed to create a giant barrier around their world, with all the Gold Energy they gathered inside this First Goddess Fragment thingy. Which makes it impossible to keep track of coordinates, both inside and outside the dimension."
"I dunno what it's like inside, but I bet intra-dimensional teleportation is completely blocked. And if you are an outsider trying to get in?" Croire sighed. "Tough luck. The barrier will screw up your coordinates, replace 'em with random numbers, and land you in some other dimension. If you don't know the original coordinates, or, like the moron who owns this notebook, know nothin' about the finer points of dimensional travel, you won't even realize something's off!"
"Really? Where did they get so much Gold Energy..." Blanc paused, scowling, "No, why would they create something like that? What's the frickin' point?"
"Exactly! I have no idea!" Croire exclaimed. "I mean, that's a good thing. If I was still recording stuff in that dimension when the barrier went up, I'd have been trapped in there forever."
Her tone suddenly became sullen again. "But seriously, fuck that spy in a suit who stole a bunch of Gold Crystals and blew herself up. That was the last big thing that happened before the dimension lock was in place. If something had driven Planeptune over the edges, it had to be that."
"...Planeptune." Blanc's expression had darkened significantly, as she uttered that word. "Is their Goddess still that glitter bi—I mean, named Venus?"
"Hell yeah! She's fuckin' rad, that one!" Croire paused. "Wait, how did you know that? There's no way you'd ever read about that locked dimension, even in Histoire's book." Another pause. "Ugh, actually, I should stop calling it 'that locked dimension'. It needs a cooler name. Hey, how 'bout 'G-Dimension'? G for Gold?"
"Whatever. Call it Crapdimension, for all you like." Blanc shook her head, and held the notebook up to her eye level. "I saw some...things after the fight. Tell me, that Golden Summit they used to lock the dimension, does it belong to someone named Elizabeth? Elizabeth A.?"
"Ah! Yes! Of course! That bitch's the other reason why the history of her Planeptune is full of exciting things, even without some evil ancient CPUs messing shit up!" Croire laughed. "Man, the multi-verse could really use more Oracles like her, instead of another boring Histoire in a different hat. Just sayin'."
"I doubt that." Blanc squeezed out her next sentence in a scarily slow pace. "I really, really doubt that. But first, what are these...'exciting' things?"
"Oh, y'know, like building a giant robot army? Be a force of conquest and bloody progress? Forcing their enemies into pullin' some real desperate, dirty moves in the face of certain defeat?" Croire took a deep breath. "Hell, because of 'em, your nation has to create a magical border that disintegrates everything that cross into, and dare to step out of 'Lowee proper'! Sustained by human sacrifices! Ha! Take that, family-friendly fun!"
Blanc dropped the Nep-Note. She was clenching her fists so tightly, for a second, it looked like she was going to punch a hole through the notebook and the desk below it. C-Sha immediately got out of her own chair, and placed both hands on her shoulder.
"Hey, if it makes ya' feel better, it isn't all Planeptune's fault. Your seniors in the G-Dimension did their part, too, in settin' up the stage for all hell to break loose! That giant shitstorm in Lowee sure makes the Shift Period longer," Croire said cheerfully, "Which caused more Gold Crystals to appear, and their unlucky owners were all hunted down by Venus and her Oracle."
"So that's where they got so much..."
"Bingo! After shattering the crystals, they just sucked out all the Gold Energy in the owners' bodies with their First Goddess Fragment thingy. You should've heard 'em scream! Speaking of these Fragments, your seniors also..." A satisfied sigh. "Man, I'd recorded so much fun stuff in these few years, I dunno where to start."
"Fun?" Blanc repeated the word, "You call that fun?! All these horrible, horrible things..."
"Pfft. Nope. I sure thought it was gonna turn out horribly, when the Zeca Island Basilicom began to whine and talk about forcing their CPU into retirement, followed by the Lastation Separatists..." Croire said. "It would be a real shame if they just replaced their Goddess with a more boring one, and let all the drama die down, and I almost stepped in to keep the fun goin'! But I didn't, because..."
"Because what?"
"Well, let's just say," Croire barely managed to hold back a giggle, "That Venus bitch really took 'For Planeptune' to the next level."
"What the hell does that even mean?" Blanc grabbed the notebook again. "What did she do?"
"Nah-uh. Sorry, but I'm not gonna spoil it for ya' yet." Croire snickered. "You of all people should know the evil of spoilers, right? The importance of suspense, and all that jazz?"
"What?! You can't be serious, you...you..." Blanc's indignant stutters finally erupted into a scream, as she stood up from her chair, notebook still in hand, "YOU LITTLE SHIT!"
C-Sha caught her in a bear hug and lifted her off the floor, before she could hurl the notebook right through the closed office window. It still flew out of her hands and hit the wall, however, which earned a yelp from Croire.
"Ouch! Take a chill pill, will ya'?"
"Let go of me!" Blanc yelled, still struggling in C-Sha's arms. "I've had enough of that smug little bug! Talking crap about me and cheering for these evil bitches! I swear, if you don't—"
"Did you not listen to people talk or what? I said, I'm not gonna spoil it, yet!" Croire retorted. "I may just change my mind, if you help me—"
"I'M NOT LETTING YOU OUT OF HER NOTEBOOK! EVER! STAY IN THERE AND EAT DUST, SUCKER!"
"Okay, that's one potential favor down," Croire mumbled. "Still, even without me spoiling the best parts of the story, you can always find out on your own. Dimensional travel isn't exclusive to Planeptune CPUs, y'know? Take me with ya'—that idiot too, if you must, and I'll spill it out as we go."
Blanc stopped struggling when she heard that. "The hell? Didn't you just tell me about the whole dimension lock thing? How's that possible?"
"Duh. It's impossible for me, but the dimension lock had already been broken recently, hadn't it?" If C-Sha could see Croire's face, the fairy would probably be wriggling her eyebrows. "By the Tari Goddess's power? Which is now inside a certain boring-ass hag, who just walked out of this room ten minutes ago?"
Her glasses were gone.
Rei realized that while walking down the hallway, and immediately felt like an idiot for taking a whole day to notice that. Must be the lack of blurriness in her vision.
Her sight problem was probably fixed by her newly gained power, which was odd, considering how it didn't fix the more glaring deficiencies. Like her uncontrollable stutters while Blanc was questioning her. Even though she, theoretically, was on the same power level as her and had nothing to be afraid of, and Lowee's CPU was being as calm and nice as she could.
But still, not having her glasses felt a little empty and weird.
Maybe she should get a new pair anyways. Just the frames, without the lens. Which was even weirder, not to mention completely pointless...
No, wait, why was she obsessing over glasses now?! Didn't she have better things to think about, after everything that had happened in the past few days? Like...
Like how she should really go apologize to the two people she accidentally dumped into the wilderness, one of which, according to Blanc, was still lying in the hospital.
Even though she might get punched.
Oh, and Lynka. They'd put her in the Basilicom's medical quarter too. She should definitely check on her today, see if she had woken up.
But after recounting her...uncharacteristic burst of anger ("And heroism! Isn't that right, Blanny?") back inside the dimensional rift, she really didn't feel like facing more reminders about all the ways she could've died horribly, and all the things she could've done better, but didn't think of in the heat of the moment.
On second thought, glasses seemed like such a nice thing to think about. Glasses were her best friend, in the sense that it was the only constant in her life that wouldn't be annoyed by her antics. In fact, she should just keep thinking about glasses for the next few hours, while she searched for a place to sit down—
"Hello there, miss!" A shout suddenly came from behind her. "Wait for meeeeee~!"
Older Neptune seemed to be travelling at the speed of her words. The moment Rei turned back, she was in front of her, standing on her heels, swinging left and right with the same enthusiasm of her smaller counterpart.
"Um, hi." Rei made a small wave at her, before lowering her head. "D-Did they want me to go back?"
"Nah. They were still busy with Crostie. I just wanna look around, search for bugs, and," Older Neptune reached towards Rei, and pressed her index fingers against her cheeks, "Turn some frowns upside down!"
Freezing up at the unexpected gesture, it took Rei ten seconds to realize that, for politeness's sake, she should probably start smiling. It didn't come out right and she knew it, despite Older Neptune's pat of approval.
"There you go, miss." Older Neptune gave her a thumbs-up. "Yep, I know you are still scared and not very happy. But smiles help your face relax, if only for a teensy bit, and you look really pretty while smiling!"
That was...unexpected. Honestly, Rei was bracing herself for an innocent throwaway comment about how she didn't need more wrinkles on her face than what was already there, or something similar.
"Thanks. S-Sorry for messing up the warp back there, again."
"Um, that's supposed to be my line, isn't it?" Older Neptune tilted her head. "No, really, I'm super sorry for letting Crostie say all these mean things to ya'. Sure, I dumped snow onto her wings after that, but you were already out cold. She's just one salty, grumpy fairy, who wants to get back at you for—"
"...It's okay. I was pretty mean to her too."
"What? No way! That little 'the reason you suck' speech you gave to Crostie was awesome!" Older Neptune's eyes were practically sparkling now, "And yeah, there're a few hiccups with your power. But if I didn't have my Nep-Note, and bam! I just got teleport power cuz the writers said so, I'd do even worse."
"In fact, all trainee warpers gotta' train, and," Older Neptune grinned, "I'm gonna do some shopping, once they give Crostie back to me. Want a free portal ride back to Planeptune? We can find a place to test out your powers, after we go get lunch together! It seems like a cooler version of Crostie's, and I can't wait to see what you can do!"
"That s-sounds really nice a-and not nerve-wrecking at all!" Rei replied. "But maybe not today? I need to go check on...someone. See if she's okay."
"Yipee! Of course!" Older Neptune nodded. "After freezing my butt off for an entire night, I think Imma put off the dimensional hopping for the next week. Just gonna find a nice, sunny spot on the beach to warm myself back up."
She took a piece of napkin paper and pen out of her parka pocket, and started scribbling. "Here, my numbers. Just gimme a call, and I'll be right there! Hopefully, I'm not gonna fall on top of you next time. You ain't a twin-tailed tsundere, and that's just not proper."
"T-Thanks." Her phone was still lying inside a sewer somewhere, but once she got a new one, she might just give her a call. Emphasis on "might".
"No prob! See ya' later, my fellow warper!"
Rei, after carefully folding the napkin paper into a square, tucked it into her pocket. She still didn't get what a "warper" was. Maybe it was a legitimate, albeit obscure starting class for adventurers, just like "Knight" or "Ranger", and Older Neptune had reached Master Level by virtue of getting a rare drop or something similar...
"Wait!" She suddenly remembered something, and called out to Older Neptune, who was just starting to walk away. "S-Sorry to trouble you, but I have one last question."
"Hmmm? What is it?"
"The Tari Goddess's power," Rei paused, "Has Croire ever told you about the things it can do? Other than...making people go crazy and distorting dimensions? Like, g-good things?"
"Ehhhh," Older Neptune made a face. "I dunno, honestly. Crostie's only interested in the bad things, and I kinda dozed off when she started rambling about the bad things. But rest assured, I'm gonna squeeze out every single drop of fun, wholesome facts from her, once I got my Nep-Note back!"
"Oh." Or maybe there just aren't any good things. Rei didn't say it out loud, but Older Neptune must've guessed it from her dejected expression.
"Hey, don't worry, miss. Power's power. Just like snow. It's not evil or good on its own, until it gets into your collars and bras, then it's like, the worst thing ever."
"...Um, what?"
A cough. "Huh. That sounded a lot better in my head. The point is, only you can decide what to do with your power. Scary-looking remnant of an ancient Goddess or not, you can always make it do nice things 'cause you are a nice person!" Older Neptune gave Rei a thumbs-up, "And you are, miss."
"O-Okay. Thanks. Again."
Rei was whispering too quietly for Older Neptune to hear, who had already taken off into the corridors, humming to herself.
She's right. Even though Rei thought she should have been able to do more back there, somehow, even though she screwed up massively right after succeeding on the first try, and still had no idea how her power worked...it was no longer driving her crazy.
Plus, she'd saved people, gained a new acquaintance, and was feeling a little better about herself now.
Not a lot. But that was enough, and all she could ask for.
The medical quarter was missing its door. Rei had never been to this part of Lowee's Basilicom before, so maybe it just never had a door in the first place. Still, it did allow her to see Lynka before the girl saw her.
Actually, Lynka didn't see her until she was standing right next to her. Sure, she was facing Rei's direction, but her gaze seemed to pass through all solid objects in front of her. Sitting on the edge of the bed, her back was already uncomfortably straight, and her posture only became more rigid when she slowly raised her head and looked into Rei's eyes.
"Greetings," she whispered. "Do the CPUs of Lowee require my presence?"
"N-No," Rei replied, and added, "I mean, probably, just not now. She's...occupied. But you have nothing to be afraid of! While she was questioning me, I-I asked her about...punishments, and she said she wouldn't be too harsh on us, given the circumstances, so community service it was, and, uh, I can help you with that. I've done a lot of it."
Lynka nodded in silence. Her gaze went vacant again, while Rei was desperately searching for more conversation topics.
A comforting one. Like her sister's last—?
No, that'd be too depressing.
Maybe some unrelated, positive stuff, like Older Neptune—
Oh, who was she kidding. Lynka was already out before she teleported everyone away, and couldn't have seen her—
Something suddenly jingled in her mind.
"Um. I-If you don't mind, would you like to..." Rei's voice trailed off. No, not that. She had zero trust in her ability to teleport anything safely after that fiasco. But...
"Would you like to go for a walk?" Rei asked. "I want to show you something, and it's s-safer outside."
Honestly, she wasn't too sure about that last statement either. But if she could get these dark flames to appear again, at least she wouldn't trigger the fire alarms or accidentally burn down the entire medical quarter.
Rei was half expecting to be stopped by the Basilicom staff and subjected to some kind of harsh reprimands. However harmless and lacking in fighting spirit Lynka was, she was still technically a captive, and wouldn't just be allowed to walk out of the doors like that.
Apparently, none of them cared, of paid enough attention. So, here they were, standing on the outer lawns. Rei took great care in finding the patch of ground that was covered by the thickest layer of snow and looked the least flammable, before turning back to Lynka.
"O-Okay, here we go," Her palms were getting sweaty. "Just so you know, I-I may not get it to work on the first try. Actually, I may not get it to work at all. But if I do, please don't freak out? Or...salute? Or kneel down?"
Upon receiving a small, slightly confused nod, Rei took a deep breath, spread her right palm out, and focused.
Memories of that sudden rush of strength, of righteous anger—they might not be enough to power a transformation (which she couldn't repeat, once she woke up. Blanc said she must've run out of faith, or was too exhausted). But before long, tiny tendrils of dark energy were dancing at her fingertips.
Once she got used to the heat, this power...wasn't as scary as it looked. Almost fascinating, how the shifting mass of dark blue colors seemed to be distorting the air and light around it, even when it wasn't trying to break free of her control.
Rei stared at her palm a bit longer than she should; the second she made it go away, she heard Lynka's reverent whisper, coming from behind her. "Lady Cyan Heart."
"Um, yeah, t-that's her power, I think," Rei stuttered, before letting out a sigh. "I'm still not her, though."
"I know."
"A-And, truth to be told, this is the only trick I can do with it. I mean, I teleported us to safety, but that only worked out once. I'd have used my power to take us straight to this spot, if I wasn't worried that I'd been m-miles off and dump both of us into a lake or something..." Rei closed her eyes. "There's the whole HDD thing too, though I can't do it again, and didn't know how it was even possible."
"They said that other Rei's power must've changed me the first time around, made my body more...compatible." Rei shuddered. "Which s-sounds really freaky, to be honest. But I guess I'd just have to d-deal with it now."
Lynka didn't say anything in response. After a brief hesitation, Rei reached out to her, and caught hold of her wrist.
"So, um, do you want to go inside? It's kinda cold out here. O-Or maybe we can sit down and talk some more," Rei pointed towards the garden in the distance, "I see a bench over there."
"As you wish, Miss Rei."
Side by side, they walked in silence, a silence that seemed to last forever, punctuated only by the crunches of snow under their heels. So, when three word suddenly came out of Lynka's lips, Rei almost mistook it for a fragment of her imagination.
"I'm sorry."
"Eh?!" Rei turned to her a few seconds too late. "F-For what?"
"For all the troubles my actions have brought, and for letting her hurt you." There was a long silence, before Lynka spoke up again. "No, what you encountered back there, that's not the real Maria. That's just how I...remembered her, given life by Lady Cyan Heart's power."
"Are you saying..." Rei frowned. "I'm sorry if this sounds mean, but...are you saying that, even if you have all these horrible memories of her, the real her would have been better?"
"No." A flinch. "She'd have been worse."
Rei didn't press for an explanation. She wasn't keen on finding out what, exactly, could be worse than the brutal beatdown and attempted murder she had experienced first-hand, and she didn't want Lynka to dwell on the possibilities any longer.
"Still, thanks you for protecting me, even though you shouldn't." Lynka came to a stop in front of the bench, and began brushing the thin layer of snow off it with her sleeves. "You really are an extraordinarily brave and kind person, worthy of inheriting Lady Cyan Heart's power."
Rei's shoulders slumped at these words, as she sat down besides Lynka. Just because she had already heard similar praises from C-Sha and Blanc didn't make them feel any more...true.
"No, you saved me! I-I should be thanking you, really, I'd have been dead if you didn't..." What exactly did Lynka do back there? Maybe her "Link" ability also worked on living things. But that wasn't important. "Oh, and the whole 'worthy' thing. I-I still don't think I am."
"But you are."
"No, it's just...even though I can keep my power under control now, I don't feel like the CPU that used to own it." Rei crossed her fingers together on her laps. "A-And I think that's a good thing. I'm still me, and even when I did the HDD thing, the angry feelings were mostly mine. I was doing what felt right to me, not to some mighty ancient Goddess."
"Of course, I could've been a little less condescending, but even without the extra push, I'd have said the same things to Croire." Rei coughed, "She's a fairy who had...messed with me for fun before, and she still managed to get to me after I spoke my mind, but it was nice w-while it lasted!"
"I can be angry, I can be upset, without becoming a complete monster."
Rei felt a strange warmth in her chest, as she uttered those words, mostly to herself. She had the sudden desire to start laughing until she was in tears, even though she didn't, because it would look like she'd completely gone off her rockers.
"And I don't want to be p-presumptuous or anything, but...I think you can too." Rei turned to Lynka. "Be angry and sad at all the t-terrible things that happened to you, and your sister, and your people. No one's stopping you now, and maybe it would feel better, after you, um, get it all out."
"I'm..." Lynka blinked in slow motion. "I'm not feeling any of these things. I'm...confused."
"Confused about w—?"
"And at a loss of what to do." Lynka didn't seem to hear her question. "To be angry, to be sad about someone, they have to be a real person. I haven't been feeling like I'm a real person for a long, long time." A pause. "Just a face plastered onto a body, only good for smiling and waving and serving and nothing else."
"That's not t-true!"
"That's what Maria wanted me to be. And when she wanted something, she'd stop at nothing. So I did," Lynka said. "Until Flare..." She gazed down, towards the ground. "She wanted me to be me. To live for myself, to be happy for my own sake. But...how? How do you love someone whom you don't even think is real?"
"I..." Rei paused. "I'm sorry. I don't know either. But, um..."
"I have all the time in the world now, but what good are my efforts, if the task is futile from the start?" Lynka bit into her lips. "If I don't start feeling happy, if I never do, I'd have failed her again." A sigh. "Ah. I'm still trying to be happy for her, isn't it? Which is the opposite of what she wanted."
"And that's okay too," Rei said. "N-Not knowing what to do, not feeling happy and r-real right away. Honestly, I don't feel that way either."
Memories of Croire, and her panicked rambling in the snow, flashed across her mind. "I'm still saying 'sorry' a lot, and there's still a voice in my head, saying that nothing good will come out of my power and I'm just as worthless and stupid as ever, and maybe it will never go away, but..."
"That voice, i-it did get quieter at times. Not always." Rei smiled. "Still, it's already better than before, and I think if you keep on living, it will get better too. Not by a hundred percent, not right away, but eventually, some little things will come along, make you feel like smiling for yourself and...real, if only for a little while. And that'll be enough."
A long silence ensued. Fingers getting numb from the cold, Rei tucked her hands into her pocket, and, unexpectedly, felt the smooth plastic packaging inside.
"H-Hey, would you like a Blanc manjuu?" Rei took the snack out, and handed it to Lynka. "C-Sha gave it to me, I've never had one of these things before, b-but she really likes food, so it's probably good."
After a brief hesitation, Lynka took it from her, carefully tore open the package, and made a small bite.