Someone was gently shoving her.

For a second, she felt a tiny glimmer of irrational hope. Then she realized she was still lying on a soft bed, instead of a pile of books. The disappointment only worsened the dull, painful haze of too much sleep, which came back with a passion, as she buried her face in the plushie's body.

"Wake up."

She knew who was talking, but her mind wasn't awake enough to comprehend what that meant, so she just made a muffled "Ughhhh" noise and held onto the plushie even tighter.

"Are you feeling okay?" A hand brushed against her forehead, no doubt testing her temperature. These fingers were cold, as cold as ice, and Clancy must've just come in from outside—

Her eyes snapped open immediately. She sat up, hastily tossing the huge stuffed rabbit aside, and grabbed the phone under her pillow. The numbers on the screen were as clear as day. Three in the afternoon, two hours before her alarm clock was supposed to go off.

"Woah, uh, shouldn't you still be in the hospital?" She rubbed her eyes quickly, before continuing, "No, are YOU feeling okay?! I know your head's fine now, but your hand," she reached for her sister, fingertips brushing against the bandages, "You could've just waited for me to come and get you, instead of..."

She mentally cursed that other her for the umptieth time. It all blended into a blur while they were in the heat of the moment, and only after sitting down and listening to the medical people talk about potential nerve damages did she feel, viscerally, just how gruesome that stabbing wound was. "Didn't stab her in any vital spots." Yeah. Right.

"It's literally a five minute walk." Clancy sighed, "And I can handle that. I suppose a surprise return won't hurt, unless you haven't been taking care of yourself."

As if making a point, she paused and glanced around the hotel room, slowly and meticulously. "Tell me, have you been sustaining yourself entirely on potato chips for the past week?"

Damn. She should have gotten rid of the wrappers before they virtually formed a second carpet. If only she hadn't been putting that off in favor of rolling around on the bed and trying to fall asleep just one more time, which was exactly as frustrating and pointless and tear-inducing as it sounded.

"I-It isn't as bad as it looked," she shook her head weakly, after letting out a yawn, "I've been...eating stuff that aren't potatoes, okay? Just not inside this room."

"Interesting. I stopped for a brief chat with the hotel staff, while I was making my way upstairs, and, according to them, you hadn't come out of this room for more than one time per day, which is presumably for the hospital visits." Darn, Clancy was slipping into her job persona now. There was really no escape. "So that claim is shaky, to say the least."

"Okay, fine, fine," She put a hand to her forehead, "My lifestyle hasn't been the most functional while you were gone. I think I've earned it, given everything that happened to us, but still, sorry. Won't happen again."

She kicked the nearest pile of wrappers away, before stepping off the bed and starting to pick them up. "Wanna go for a walk, after I clean up this place and put on my more iconic clothes? I hadn't even gotten a nice tour of the city, before my holiday plan went to hell in a handbasket—"

"Are you having nightmares?"

"No?" She turned back at the sudden question, "I mean, I wouldn't be staying in bed all day if I were, right?"

That last sentence slipped past her mind and out of her mouth, faster than she could regret it. Clancy stood up, put a hand on her shoulder, and gently but firmly pressed her back down onto the bed, until they were sitting side by side again.

"You see, I should have talked about this sooner—"

"Yeah, I get it, I'm probably going to be suspended from heroic activities forever, the moment I go back. Even though I have full control of my power now." She made a nonchalant wave, "No prob. I'll just have to face the voting sessions like a responsible person. It still sucks, but I'll manage!"

"No, it isn't that."

"Okay? I'm not planning on assaulting Elizabeth again with my newfound power either," she said. "Though, if someone else is doing it, I'll be perfectly happy to just stand there and watch. Maybe provide the weapons too."

Fury flashed through Clancy's eyes, if only for a brief moment. "We are going to talk about her later, I assure you. But not now—"

"I know, it's a lot, but I'm not traumatized or anything, okay? There's no need to worry yourself sick over, uh," She paused, "non-existent issues. I'm pretty sure the SMD's granting you a leave, once they see your injuries, so give yourself a break! Do something nice and relaxing, and stop—"

Sighing, Clancy pressed a finger against her lips and leaned closer. "Listen. Can you do that? Just listen? Please."

Upon receiving a confused nod, she continued, "I want to talk about what happened back there. You see, while we were separated, I kept thinking that if we weren't going to make it, the last thing you heard would be me calling you an irresponsible idiot." A pause. "Which was true. To a degree. But I don't want that to be your last memory of me."

"Yeah. That was...harsh. I still saved that ghost lady in the end, so I guess it wasn't too bad?" She looked away. "I mean, if I just got back from work, and heard that you'd assaulted a cop and escaped from custody—not that you'd ever do that, I'd be pretty worried and angry too. Don't beat yourself up over it."

"I really should've stayed with you, the moment you stepped off the boat." Clancy seemed...hesitant, before she spoke the next sentence. "My duty and my job are important, but I'm beginning to think that I've been too invested in them, to the detriment of everything else. That I shouldn't have left you back home in the first place."

"No no no! I don't want you to give up your favorite job and come back from Leanbox, just so you could keep fixing my messes forever. It...won't be fair to you."

"And I understand. I have to let go eventually, in order for you to feel the consequences of your own actions and learn from them." Clancy's hand was on her shoulder again, gripping her just a little tighter. "That didn't mean I couldn't have done it better. More gently. Without making you feel like you are entirely on your own, and can't expect any help from me at all."

"I, uh," No, really, what kind of help was she supposed to give, when it came to this one specific problem? The surge of anger was quickly replaced by guilt, as she muttered the rest of the sentence, "Appreciate the sentiment."

"Then let this be a start." Clancy turned and glanced straight into her eyes. "Tell me what's troubling you, and stop trying to shrug it off. Or promise that we'll talk about it later, on a set date."

"Alright! Fine! I...how do I even put it?" Words and images and speeches and senses flooded her mind, as she clasped her fingers together. "So, yeah, as you can see, I'm not doing okay, it's just hard to explain..."

Her train of thought plunged right into a rapidly expanding void. Slowly, that cold emptiness that struck her every time she woke up started to thicken, until it crystallized into three painfully sharp words, words that seemed to cut into her tongue as she spoke them.

"She's gone."

"I can't get back into that plane of books again. I kept trying to fall asleep, but there was nothing when I did succeed, not even bad dreams." She shook her head. "Maybe the entire place was gone. If it wasn't, there was no way she'd still be herself and not a mindless shadow. Still, I just wanted to...see it with my own eyes, and scream at her for being an idiot, and..."

And thank her. And tell her I'll remember you forever, don't you worry. And say goodbye.

"Is she?" A pause. "Do you think she's an idiot for saving you? That she shouldn't have?"

"No! I just thought I could've done more. Made it so that I didn't need saving in the first place, stopped the whole thing before it got to the point of no return..."

Darn. There was no shame in tearing up, but it was really getting too much at this point. The fact that she was lying in Clancy's arms, letting her ruffling up her hair in an intensely familiar way...didn't help in the slightest.

"Ah, could haves. Should haves," Clancy said. "I'm no stranger to that. Anyone who had ever lost a teammate, even one that they didn't know that well, will always be asking that question."

The deep sadness in her voice struck a nerve. "You have?"

"Our job is not without its dangers." Clancy hugged her tighter. "I hadn't talked much about it because it's personal, and I'm still not too comfortable sharing it. Still, you really want to hear about my old partner and his antics, I'd love to—"

"No. Don't push yourself." She pulled away from Clancy's arms, if only slightly. "It's good, having so many nice things you can...remember about them. Even if the memories hurt."

The amount of bitterness that bled into her last statement was surprising, in an unpleasant way. But it didn't stop there.

"I wish I have more to remember about Brøø. Other than how genuinely nice she is, and the whole...magical inheritance of skills through monster civilization artifacts bullshit." She gritted her teeth.

"Say, if she was just a regular kid who died, at least everyone would understand, but how am I going to tell it to anyone other than you? If I started rambling about how this ghost girl I could only see in my dreams died again, just to get me out of a collapsing memory plane, they'd be questioning my sanity more than they already did." She let out a deep sigh. "And heavens forbid, I'm lucky enough to be allowed to go back without facing any punishments."

"She only wanted you to remember her. You do, and I think that is enough."

"No it isn't! Of course I'll remember her forever, I just don't want to be the only person who remembers her, and in such an...inadequate way." she paused. "Elizabeth doesn't count."

Really, just when she thought there was a limit to how much a creepy fuck someone could be, new information came along, provided more context, and made everything worse in retrospect. Just imagining what her memories of Brøø might be like, filtered through the lens of that obsessive...crush, was enough to make her sick.

"It's not inadequate if you make it adequate."

"What?"

"You say you barely know her, other than her kindness, right?" Clancy said. "Then learn. About her friends and family, her accomplishments, and all these little things she left behind while she was still here. The more you find out about her, the more alive the picture of her life would be, and believe me—a person always leaves more things behind than we realize."

The hole on the Basilicom library's dome was no longer there, but the repair crews' bootprints were. Rubis casted a cleaning spell out of habit, as she walked across the carpeted hall and headed straight for the long table at the very back, concealed behind rows of bookshelves.

Blanc, sitting at one end of the table, was practically burying her face in a book. At the other end lay a glass box, and she didn't need to look to know what was inside. She had placed the two halves of Ryll's Sharecite shard in there herself, the moment she returned to the city proper.

She suddenly put the book down, frowning, after Rubis had already taken her seat. "Oh, hello. I didn't hear you coming. Sorry for that."

"There is no need to apologize." Rubis shook her head. "Old habits die hard. I should really learn to start making sounds while walking."

Her smile wasn't met with any signs of relief. Rather, her successor fell silent again, brows furrowed and lips minced, as if she was having trouble getting words out of her mouth. Seeing that, she decided to begin the conversation, as swiftly and straightforward as possible.

"You have asked me to come here, for a one-on-one meeting. Is there anything in particular you wish to discuss?"

"Yes." Blanc nodded. "I really wanted to do...a thing, but I'm not sure if I should. And I need your advice."

"Mine specifically?"

"Yes. C-Sha would totally agree with me. Same for my sisters." Blanc looked away. "No, they'd ask to come along. As much as I'm determined to not leave them behind again, I'd like to have my plan judged by someone else first. Not as a friend, but as an...experienced Goddess. A senior."

"I see. Go on."

"The world where that Sharecite shard comes from," Blanc pointed to the glass box, "Croire told me that it was locked behind a barrier of Gold Energy, and only the Tari Goddess's power could break through it. Which had already happened, if Rei and that tourist girl's testimonies are any indications."

That explained the magical aura she was sensing on that shard. Whatever it was that resurrected the three CPUs in their dimension, the Tari Goddess's power must've played a vital role. "Are you concerned that Rei will not be able to keep her power under control?"

"No! I..." Blanc blinked. "I want to ask her to master it, as quickly as possible. But it wouldn't be fair to her. You saw how scared she was after she woke up, and if just using that power is making her miserable, I don't want to force her into it for such a...selfish reason."

"Selfish?" Rubis raised an eyebrow.

"Yes. I wish to enter that locked dimension, on my own." Blanc said, before letting out a groan. "Yeah, I gotta' tell my friends too, and Neptune would probably be like, 'Hey! It's dangerous to go alone! Take me with you!' after she's done complaining about how dimensional travel should be a protagonist thing."

She put a hand to her forehead. "I haven't even asked the other three, and I'm already hearing their answers. But I'm still Lowee's Goddess, responsible for Lowee's people. I can't just leave my nation on a whim, and let it run itself. Even if C-Sha and my sisters agreed to stay behind, if something bad happened, I wouldn't be able to get back in time. And if something happened to me while I was in another dimension..."

Blanc facepalmed, hard. "Ugh. How did Nepgear even deal with this shit, all the time her sister just up and vanished? Did she ever wonder..." A sigh. "Never mind. That's one more question for later. Now that I have time to think about it, whatever horrible crap that happened in that world, they were still keeping to themselves and not threatening ours, right? But...but..."

"It isn't right!" Her fist suddenly slammed into the table. "It isn't fucking right, h-how I only knew the real evil bitch behind it, after she'd already driven her to die a second time!"

Blanc immediately put a hand to her mouth and glanced around the hall, just as Rubis got up from her chair. Luckily, no one was around to hear her outburst. She winced a little when Rubis grasped her hand, but didn't pull away.

"Sorry for yelling. I...I didn't mean to be rude."

"It's alright. Now, I don't know what's making you so furious," Rubis said, "But, if I were to make a wild guess, you must have seen or heard something during your fight with that CPU named Ryll. Something that makes you wonder if you should have done things differently. Perhaps you would like to share the story, just to give me more context?"

"Okay, maybe there's really nothing I could've done." Blanc bit into her lips. "I didn't kill her. She just wanted to die. But I couldn't convince her not to die, either, and that feels just as bad. Like I'd dealt the final blow myself. Someone like Neptune might have been able to pull a happy ending out of nowhere, with sheer willpower and hope, but...I'm not that someone."

To be fair, if Rubis was there, she'd have knocked that girl unconscious immediately after she reverted to human form, because as long as an opponent could still move and think, they weren't truly incapacitated. But her successor was not her, and was working within the limits of her own experience and knowledge, as best as she could.

So she kept that thought to herself, and decided to present a more comforting perspective.

"She did try to kill you during the fight, didn't she?" Rubis asked. "Even she wanted to die, she was clearly desperate enough to kill someone else if she couldn't achieve that goal, just so she could buy more time for Lynka in a misguided attempt at redeeming herself. I'd say your anger was entirely justified."

"Yeah, right." Blanc grumbled. "I'm not saying I'm not pissed at her at all! I just don't think she's evil, or deserves...whatever she believed she deserved. You see, after she blinded me, something weird happened, and I began to see her memories..."

"Venus?" Rubis held up a hand. "Planeptune's third CPU? I believe I'd met her before."

"Really? There's a version of her in our world too? Is she also this sparkly, horrible..." Blanc scowled. "Tyrant?"

"Well, if I were to be perfectly honest, her fashion sense could really use some work. Also, she seemed to lack respect towards all kind of authority figures, and liked being contrarian for the sake of it," Rubis said. "Which is why she was always arguing with Histoire, every time I visited Planeptune. But I wouldn't call her a tyrant, just a...very frustrated teenager."

"Frustrated about what?"

"You see, most of her ideas, despite how innovative they were, were turned down by Histoire and her own Basilicom. They didn't see the need to expand Planeptune's territories, maintain a standing army, and invest in so many risky, costly research projects."

Which was a good thing for Lowee at the time. The kingdom of Eden, established by the Neca Islanders of PC Continent, was enough of a threat already. The last thing she needed was the intensive reforms that gave Planeptune its reputation as the "Land of Purple Progress", happening several decades earlier than they should.

"None of her grand visions came to fruition during her reign, and I didn't think she had ever felt accepted and appreciated by enough people, up until the moment she faded away." Rubis paused. "A sad thing, really."

"No. Maybe that was for the best," Blanc muttered sullenly. "Because..."

"THAT BITCH! That lying, backstabbing bitch! She's just like that terrible excuse of a Goddess she actually served!"

Blanc slammed her palms into the table, again, causing it to creak dangerously. This time, however, her rage seemed to fizzle out faster than before, replaced by uncertainty and barely concealed fear, as she stared down at the table.

"But the worst part is...she's not the only one. She's not the only bastard who believed she was doing the right thing, for the right people."

Blanc, too caught up in telling her story, didn't notice the faint trembling of Rubis's shoulders. And she was glad about that.

To know her own potential to mold people to her liking, to sacrifice everything for what she believed to be right and just, was one thing. Hearing about the logical extremes she could have—no, had already taken her nation to, in another time and place, was something else entirely. One that sent chills up her spine and made her knees feel weak.

She sat down on the nearest chair, as quickly and composed as she could manage.

"Ryll said...her people were better than that. Better than the wars and the shitty lies of the tyrants. They weren't. They were just as eager to do horrible things as Planeptune and Lowee's people, or at least not say 'no' to them."

Blanc took a deep breath. "I know, that Elizabeth bitch was manipulating them, but...she had plenty to work with, didn't she? If it was only her and Venus, if people knew—no, if they cared that they were being lied to, if no one would believe in a Goddess that killed innocents in the name of her nation and saw heretics as criminals...they wouldn't have gotten away with it!"

She wouldn't have gotten away with it either. Blanc wasn't saying it out loud, perhaps out of the last tiny shred of respect for her seniors, but Rubis was perfectly capable of filling in the blanks.

"No. The people couldn't love a CPU like that. No friggin' way. It had to be another dirty, dirty lie..." Blanc gritted her teeth, "But what if they did? What if, after I got to that dimension and beat the shit out of Venus and her Oracle, they'd continue loving and hating the same thing, and make more CPUs like her out of love?"

She lowered her voice, almost intentionally, as she spoke the next sentence, "They loved you, after all, and still do. They could totally love a war-mongering, murderous bitch, as long as her weapon wasn't pointed at them. As long as she was following the...will of the people and killing only their enemies, or those they didn't give a crap about!"

"And if the will of the people could be such a terrible thing..." Blanc paused. "Then maybe my people's will isn't any more reliable than theirs."

There was a renewed desperation in her eyes, as she turned to look at Rubis again. "How can you even know what's right or wrong, if your whole nation thinks differently? If you refuse to do what your citizens want, are you just being selfish and...tyrannical? But, following your people's hopes and dreams...can that make you into a villain too?"

"You know, if you had asked me this question, while I was still running the nation," Rubis sighed, after a long silence, "I'd have told you that, as long as your heart was in the right place, as long as you sincerely loved Lowee and wanted the best for your nation, you'd never become a tyrant. That all humans were foolish, selfish and shortsighted, which was why they were naturally susceptible to sin, and needed the guidance of a Goddess formed out of pure love and faith, just to stop them from ruining everything."

"If I was in my HDD Form, I'd have built an hour-long speech out of those ideas and bore you to sleep. But in the end, there would be a simple, easy answer that just made perfect sense and could never go wrong, and I wished I could give you that now." Rubis shook her head. "I've grown to know better, though. Humans can be foolish and terrible, but if they are not better than the worst things one can do out of love...then we, as the living embodiment of their flawed love, are not better than them either."

She hated it, how Blanc's shoulders just sagged at those words. "Then what's the point? What's the friggin' point of being a CPU, if the love and faith you depend on, and the people who give them to you...can be so horribly wrong?"

"I'm afraid that's a question you'll have to answer for yourself. A question every CPU will have to answer for themselves." Rubis said. "But if you want to hear my answer? The will of the people can change, for better or for worse. Not immediately, not always, but as long as they want a better future, everything they do will matter in the long run, even if they cannot live long enough to see it."

"Sometimes, peace and progress do emerge from the rubbles, despite the many imperfections that will never go away. Sometimes, the people's collective wisdom can triumph over ignorance, and the petty obsession with oneself and one's own." Rubis smiled. "That wisdom, combined with love and faith, can mean wonderful things for the world as a whole, and I believe it is a possibility worth fighting for."

"But what if that's not the case? If there is no good ending, no matter how hard I tried?"

"Indeed, good intentions begetting good results is a rare occurrence. That's no reason to give up and stop trying," Rubis looked into her eyes. "Because the alternative is becoming someone like me, someone who stood there and watched everything fall apart without lifting a finger, out of fear for more failures. I don't want to be that person anymore, and I don't think you will, either."

"I..." Blanc closed her eyes. "That's...really deep, and I still need some time to think about it. But thank you for the advice. After this, I'm gonna go ask my friends. Talk with Histoire. Read more books."

When she opened her eyes again, there was a newfound determination in her gaze. "But rest assured, I'll try. Try to make the best damn decision I can make."