In-Between Displacement
Standing off to the side, Ringo worried.
From their spot atop a grassy hill, Ringo and her group could still see the distant flames over the shopping district. While the forest was still engulfed in bright orange and red fire, firefighters raced to extinguish it. Sharp, jutting gushes of water blasted through the flames. The smoke dwindled, and although it still fogged the air, a lighter shade of gray coated the sky. People had scurried to evacuate, carrying their little ones and pets in case the flames burned their homes and businesses, but there was no need for them to fear what would eventually be quelled, so they simply flocked to the fire instead, Ringo having observed them as if they were drawn to the danger when they scampered through the side streets and alleyways for a look at the charred, blackened trees and whipping flames.
Ringo had also been treated for smoke inhalation by Satan. With a simple snap of his fingers, her lungs, along with Maguro's and Risukuma's, felt as good as new. It was like he had purified them from inside out. She supposed his healing magic was part of his heavenly powers. Considering he had reshaped his universe to his liking after the Creator demolished everything, curing, it was the least he could do for them when the real problem was sat motionless at their feet.
Those trifles were solved. She didn't need to think about them. The bigger picture was right in front of her even when her mind tried wandering and hoping to focus on something less important. Anything to ease her troubles would have been nice, but she knew with what she had witnessed today, nothing would have been the same.
She took in a shaky breath through her nostrils and exhaled it through her mouth. Dragging her thumbs across her knuckles, Ringo asked, "Is there anything we can do?"
Satan peered down at her, arms crossed over his chest. His half-lidded gaze seemed to go through her as he said, "It's unfortunate, but there is nothing I can do. The rules of my universe have been written and cannot be erased."
"But if you made that universe, who says you can't change the rules you implemented?" she demanded, her shoulders squaring. "That doesn't sound scientific or plausible in the slightest. If you're made something, too, then why can't you change it, too?" She crossed her arms over her chest, daring to glare at the demon. "In fact, have you ever tried changing the rules of your universe? If you haven't, then prove your hypothesis."
Her questioning went unanswered. Satan merely stared down at her, his lips parted slightly. His gaze shifted across the grass, and he fiddled with the long collar of his cloak. He could not meet Ringo's sharp gaze, and for a brief second, he felt foolish. Being unable to match the gaze of a mere child challenging him undermined and shamed him, bringing color to his cheeks under the hot sun.
"Ringo," Maguro piped up, a shaky quality to his voice, "she still hasn't moved."
Risukuma fiddled with his scarf. "She's in shock. I think reality has truly set in for her."
Ringo looked over at them, a slow swing of her head. She wished she could have found the right words to say, but logic overpowered emotion. Nothing could have healed what ailed the doppelganger, and as she knelt by her, all she could do was touch her shoulder.
The doppelganger was silent. She resembled a puppet held up by its strings, the puppeteer idling above her. She stared at the grass, a glaze crossing her eyes. The sharp, crackling flares in the distance failed to captivate her even when they danced around her vision. The world was burning, and the Creator was glaring down at her, and she almost could have pretended Carbuncle was on her shoulder.
Ringo swallowed, trailing her fingers down her back. "Arle, can you hear me?"
She didn't respond. Despondency replaced her vibrancy. All of her arrogance had been depleted, erased, as if she was a husk all along.
"Arle," Ringo pressed, sharpening her tone, "Arle, I need to know if you're still with us. If not, then we need to get help."
"Maybe we should get going. It might not be good to wait around here if things get worse for her," Maguro said, squatting on Arle's other side. Disdain poisoned his words. "Especially since Ecolo vanished after saying all that cryptic stuff. They should've stayed to help us out instead of abandoning us right at the climax."
Satan bristled at the mention of space-time traveler. His cape fluttered in the wind, the scent of smoke and fire calming him. He felt like he should have been more agitated. Ecolo had been nothing but a sore thorn in his side, pricking and jabbing, digging in deeper and deeper until it reached his spine. They had been the one to bring her to his domain, but he wondered if Ecolo truly understood how dangerous she was to place he called home. If the doppelganger had told them everything, then they should have realized the chaos they were escorting to an innocent realm like Suzuran. Dragging his clawed fingernails through his hair, the tips feeling snarled and singed, he sighed, the noise making Risukuma narrow his eyes at him.
"What's the matter?" he asked, tightening his grip on his scarf.
He offered a cursory glance and nothing more. His boots trod heavily on the grass, the sound making Ringo and Maguro watch him cross in front of the doppelganger. His shadow loomed over them, his wings tense and outstretched, and with his expression in a neutral mask, he stared down at her.
Replaced with a hollow shell like that of a lifeless insect was the doppelganger, but Satan remembered her bravery. How she stood tall and proud, roaring against the Creator for decades until only emptiness remained. While he fled and cowered, his power matchless compared to his former master, she defended everyone. Spell after spell, wound after wound, death after death until only she remained in that dismal void, her soul and body torn apart for hundreds of years.
Yes, he had known loss. He known love and holiness and even allowed himself to be denied entrance beyond the pearly gates of the Creator's domain.
But he reclaimed his former glory. He could reach out and touch his friends. He could laugh and sneer at them. With a flick of his wrist, he could have created an adventure for the sake of amusing everyone.
Not the doppelganger. Not while his rules were implemented, not while she writhed and struggled with her humanity.
It was as if he had been the one to stab her in the back the moment she bested the Creator. Digging the dagger deeper and freeing only half of herself without even realizing it. That sin of abandoning her, of forgetting her while his dear Arle played on his checkerboard, it broke her.
"There has to be something you can do!" Ringo snapped, shooting to her feet and whipping her finger in front of Satan's nose. "If you made your universe, then there must be a method to reverse what you've implemented."
"As I've told you, it's out of my hands," he replied, lip curling in annoyance. He leaned towards her, his shadow covering Ringo. "Do you think I haven't at least looked in to this matter? After she tried replacing Arly the first time and vanished back to whence she came, I looked in to what I could change for her sake."
"And there was nothing you could do despite your godly status?" Risukuma finished, Satan's nod solemn. He patted his face and cupped his elbow, furry brow wrinkling in distress. "If that's the case, then I'm not sure what can be done. While we haven't seen the hypothesis in action, if Satan has said he's tried, then how can we assist this matter?"
Maguro fiddled with his kendama, the worn hilt providing little comfort. "Well, we gotta do something, yeah? There's gotta be some-something-something-!"
His voice trilled and cracked. He jerked backwards, gasping and falling on to his bottom. Maguro's index finger shuddered, the only part of him he could control, and he pointed at the doppelganger, the muscles in his arm twitching as he swallowed down his fear.
Ringo cut herself off as a question threatened to bounce off her tongue. She followed his finger, her lips trembling as they parted. Her eyes disbelieved the reality in front of them, and she only accepted it when Risukuma squeezed her shoulder.
The doppelganger's skin had become translucent. As if she was a slab of glass, they started to see through her. Grass and dirt appeared below and behind her. She pulsed, her colors fading under the sunlight. Her armor seemed to take on a rusted hue, the cracks no longer appearing sharp as she fizzled. A worm crawled on its belly next to her knee, and Ringo blanched as it plunged through her, undaunted by the doppelganger's presence or perhaps, she realized, the worm did not know she was even there.
She was vanishing before their very eyes. Like a fine mist evaporating in the early morning, she was fluctuating with every blink. Ringo's throat dried as the doppelganger inspected her hands, her gaze shadowed by her bowed head. Ringo thrust her arms in the air, her mouth wrenching open in a scream echoing throughout Suzuran. Her ringlets uncurled and shot out like the lightning bolts that would fly off her fingers in Puyo battles, her horror almost comedic compared to the near death experience she suffered less a half hour earlier.
"Arle! Arle, what's going on?" she cried, paling.
"She-she's turning invisible! I guess immortal beings can just do that now?" Maguro yelped, crawling back like crab. He pushed himself to his feet and hugged his kendama, breathing heavily.
"No, no," Risukuma interjected, his beady eyes wide.
"No, no...what?" Ringo asked, gripping her chin.
Risukuma bit his tongue. The answer seemed too cruel to be true. He wondered if that was how Ringo felt when she comprehended the truth about the doppelganger's status in her original world. He swallowed the lump in his throat, not wanting to keep them waiting, but the growing holes in the doppelganger's cape and armor silenced him.
"Ris! If you know something, then we need to know now!" Ringo shouted, balling her hands into fists.
"She's returning to her place," Satan replied when Risukuma squeezed his eyes shut.
Ringo's heart dropped into her stomach. The truth was mercilessly said. It cut her, and she sucked in a shuddery breath as if in actual pain. She caught eyes with Maguro, who seemed as shell-shocked as she was, neither of them finding the will to speak.
She dropped her gaze back to the doppelganger, who inspected her pale fingers. The doppelganger flexed them and observed how her fingernails carved through the flimsy skin of her palm. She tilted her head, but her expression left Ringo fearing for how she felt, and Ringo hurried in front of her, trying to grasp her shoulders.
She nearly fell through her. Her knees plunged into grass and into the space where the doppelganger lamented. Ringo gasped and batted the doppelganger's head, the action foolish to someone like Satan as her hand merely gouged through the space where her brain would have been had she been tangible.
"Arle! Arle, no, this isn't-" Ringo fumbled over her words and searched her expression. "No, don't-don't look like that. You can't give up like this."
Her words fell on ears which refused to listen. The doppelganger dared not meet her eyes which had quickly become misty. She was someone who did not belong in Suzuran, nor did she belong in her own world. She had been forlorn for much too long, abandoned by time and space and worlds alike. Not even someone with her massive magical prowess could survive a broken soul, one which refused to mend so long as her other half was smiling with her friends in their original world.
Frustration pooled in Ringo's belly and boiled her blood. Her skin prickled, the silence too much for her. She tried shaking the doppelganger's shoulders again, but even when she managed to grasp the cracked metal of her shoulder-pads, her fingers slipped and meshed into the soil. A growl rose in her throat, her heart thundering in her chest, feeling helpless as the doppelganger drifted to the point where she was an outline.
"Come on, this isn't like you. I might have only known you for a day, but if you're really Arle, then you wouldn't be giving up like this!" she shouted, her voice bordering on shrill.
The doppelganger's mouth twitched. Her lips parted, but no sound emerged.
"The real Arle wouldn't surrender no matter what. I know for a mathematical fact that she'd think your actions were implausible." Ringo sucked down a breath between the spaces of her gritted teeth. "Why are you doing this to yourself? Even if you can't go back to your own world, there are lots of places for you to go! You can live in Suzuran! We can show you Primp Town! And many more places! There are countless worlds out there, but you're fixating on only one. Isn't that shortsighted?"
Maguro reached down to touch her shoulder. "Uh, Ringo, maybe that's not the best way to-"
"And another thing!" she barked, forcing Maguro to duck back when she tossed her arms out. "With all of your magical power, you can go anywhere you want! You can do anything you want! But by focusing all your efforts on your old world, you'll never get better." She grabbed the doppelganger's hands and squeezed, even though neither felt anything. "You can't reclaim the past, but you still have your future. Isn't that good enough now that you aren't trapped in that void?"
The doppelganger raised her head, and all of Ringo's resolve drained. Her eyes were impossibly wide, her pupils like black holes sucking her in and drowning her. She couldn't look away, entirely mesmerized by the despair etched in her features. How her lips were drawn down, her body suddenly gaunt, wispy and thin. She was like a ghost one would see in a security camera when their eyes were ready to betray them, but Ringo understood exactly who was before her.
"Do you have any idea what it's like being replaced? Do you understand what it's like to lose everything?" she croaked out, Satan swallowing hard. "Do you know that five hundred years left to rot can twist you into something unimaginable?"
"I-I-I mean-" Ringo stuttered, but the doppelganger clutched her throat and heaved her close. Their foreheads slammed together, making her eardrums burst and ache, Maguro and Risukuma's voices miles away.
The doppelganger's lips stretched, her cheeks pushing upwards and crinkling her eyes. They twinkled with devilish delight, and she purred, "Then why don't I teach you?"
Satan thrust his wings out, shouting, "Stand back, both of you!" He shoved his way in front of the boys, his claws poised to strike. Ebony magic formed between his palms, circling like a heavy mist, and he thrust out the beams, lightning bolts spearing off it at the doppelganger.
But when she should have been howling in pain, the doppelganger continued smiling. Ringo could not scream, either. Instead, they felt nothing but the wind blowing through them. It was a sensation that Ringo never should have felt in her life, but indeed she understood the situation far clearer than she wanted to.
Satan's magic blasted through them, uprooting slabs of earth and confirming Ringo's hypothesis. Along with the sudden discoloration of her body and how the wind blew through her, she knew. And she wished she could have screamed.
"Ringo! Satan, do something!" Maguro pleaded, the demon looking more aghast than ever before.
As one flash of light burned Ringo's eyes, in the next blink, there was only darkness. For a moment, she could not move her limbs. Weightless, she floated in an abyss. She moved her head slowly, managing to regain control of her stiff neck. She twisted her fingers and felt air shift between them. Tilting her chin, she observed the darkness melting into each other like oozing ink blots from feathery tips.
She called for them. The names of her friends left the tip of her tongue and went unheard. She shouted, but the darkness swallowed up her screams. Ringo flailed and kicked, begging for someone, anyone, to answer her. Veins bulged in her throat, and her jaw tensed as she screamed for help. She raked her fingers through her hair, panting as she pivoted in place, her legs like led, hearing her own voice reverberate endlessly.
"Hey, hey, hey! Is anyone out there? Hello? Arle? Maguro? Ris? Anybody?" she cried, tears pricking the corners of her eyes. She hunched into herself, forming a ball and tucking her knees to her chest. Shaking her head, she crooned and moaned under her breath, horror settling in her heart and making it beat faster to the point where she felt it would puncture through her chest.
She opened her eyes.
And the doppelganger was inches from her face, laughing.
"And you couldn't last a few seconds!" she howled, and she shoved Ringo away.
Everything broke. Gravity crashed on to her. Her body slammed down on a snow white pavement. Groaning, Ringo grabbed the back of her head and rolled to her side. Pain pulsed in her shoulders, but she focused on her surroundings, massaging her scalp as she took in the nothingness.
She felt like she was trapped in a canvas. There wasn't a strip of color anywhere. The seemingly endless platform, as she assumed it was, harmed her eyes. She couldn't stare at it for too long, so she tried focusing on anything else.
But there weren't any scents. She only smelled the faint traces of her apple shampoo from her morning shower. She strained her ears to hear anything, but only her breathing and heartbeat answered. She touched the ground and felt it was smooth without any hint of ridges or bumps, leaving her rattled as she dragged her head over her shoulder, locating the source of her quandary.
"Arle," she seethed, and with a grunt, she pushed herself to her feet. Wobbling, she steeled her posture and gaze at the smirking doppelganger. "What have you done? Where are we?"
"The void where I was trapped for five hundred years," she said, her footsteps echoing. She sighed and closed her eyes. "It's almost nostalgic. I've been away for a day, and yet, it feels like coming home."
"You said you wanted to get away from here! Why would you want to come back?" Ringo snapped, thrusting her finger at her nose.
Snatching Ringo's finger, the doppelganger lunged forward and twisted her arm back. Ringo cried out, writhing and trying to shove her off, but the doppelganger stood her ground. She chuckled a dark tune as Ringo fell to her knees, the pain in her arm exploding throughout the rest of her body, and it pleased the doppelganger to hear her cry after boasting so boldly about her mere minutes ago.
"To put you in my shoes," she said, and she rammed her heel between Ringo's shoulder blades. As Ringo plummeted, she clapped her hands together. "You preached what you didn't know. Asserting that I wasn't the real Arle, claiming that I should simply move on from everything I suffered."
"That's not what I-!" Ringo flinched and bit her tongue, the rage on the doppelganger's face chilling her to the bone.
She heaved out her wrath like she was blowing cigarette smoke. Circling in front of Ringo, she knelt and smirked, her lips carving a crescent moon on her face. "But you, oh, you have it all, don't you? And because you have everything, you believe you can assert yourself as being in the right." She smashed her fist into the ground, Ringo gasping, knowing such a blow would have broken through the earth had they been in her world. "Now, you'll learn," she hissed and chuckled, "exactly what I've been through."
"What-what do you mean?" Ringo whispered, managing to sit up.
The doppelganger leaped to her feet and shrugged. "Well, you're smart. Use that enormous brain of yours, and figure it out."
Irritation flared within her, but she had to remain calm. She was in the doppelganger's territory. Struggling to stand, she slapped the doppelganger's hand away when it was offered. She paced, her brows knitting, and she wracked her mind for solutions, gripping her chin so tightly her jaw could have cracked.
Based on what the doppelganger had said, she was in her void. It was a realm in-between dimensions, an area where no life prospered. The doppelganger had been sentenced to it when her universe was destroyed after a war between her and the Creator. She had suffered five hundred years of loneliness, her malice and jealousy devouring the person she used to be after Satan failed to realize his mistake when he saved only part of her soul.
Ringo's eyes snapped open. A pit formed in her belly. Anxiety squeezed her innards, and she gulped back her whimpers. It took all of her willpower to not collapse right then and there to give the doppelganger the satisfaction of her terror.
"I'm glad you're intelligent," the doppelganger sneered. "Now, you'll learn to keep your insinuations to yourself. Suffer in silence like I did, but before that, you'll probably die of starvation. After all-" She clicked her tongue. "-you're just a normal girl who belittled a god."
Ringo dug her fingernails into her palms. Sweat beaded her brow despite the lack of heat. She shook her fists, and taking in a deep breath, she roared, "How can you be this cruel? You want me to suffer because I tried helping you? That's completely illogical!"
"Who needs logic when you're going to die here? Before you do, I'll relish watching you struggle to escape. I couldn't do it in my five hundred years of capture, but a lost girl like you should fare much better," she sneered, sarcasm and malice oozing in her tone.
As the doppelganger threw her head back to laugh, Ringo straightened her back and squared her shoulders. Lowering her voice, she snarled, "You're not Arle Nadja. You never were."
The doppelganger's muscles twitched. She let her expression grow, shock and hatred burning her cheeks a brilliant scarlet. But before she could speak, Ringo lunged and snatched her shoulders. She thrust off her armor and dug her fingernails into her skin, feeling as if she could plunge in so deeply to break her bones.
"The real Arle would never hurt her friends. You're a fraud wearing her clothing," she snarled, her lips curling, and shaking her, she roared, "Just because you were hurt doesn't mean you can hurt others! Arle wouldn't trap me here because she wanted me to understand what she endured! And on that prognosis, it makes you nothing but a doppelganger!"
"Don't think you can lecture me!" the doppelganger screeched, curling her fingers through Ringo's vest. She dragged her close, their foreheads clashing together, bruising a deep violet. "I don't want to hear-!"
"Of course you don't! It's because you're so stubborn that you refuse to listen to anyone who tries helping you! I opened my home to you! Maguro, Ris, and I tried being your friends! You taught us about new Puyo techniques! But when I tried helping you, you decided the best course of action was hurting me and taking me away from my friends!" she bellowed, digging her forehead into the shorter girl's brow. Forcing the doppelganger to step backwards, she dragged her in and hissed, "What gives you the right to hurt me like this? Because you're sad? Because you're vengeful? Taking it out on me isn't gonna fix anything."
The doppelganger grinded on her teeth. She clenched her fists and swung one arm back. Screeching, she punched with all her might, but Ringo jumped away, causing her to stumble. She pivoted on her heels, igniting flames on her hands, injustice burning in her soul, and she sneered that no one could save Ringo.
"Then I'll just have save us," Ringo proclaimed, "with the only way we know how."
The self-satisfied smirk on Ringo's face told the doppelganger everything she needed to know. Tilting her head, she almost chided her. With such a resolution, she felt like laughing with all the air in her lungs.
But she did chuckle. She had fought the same way against the one who dared usurp her. The doppelganger who called herself Arle Nadja raised her hands high above her head, asking, "Let's?"
"Puyo battle!" Ringo declared, and as her friends feared for her safety, she set out to save their lives.