Chapter 18: Remorse over Dishwashing

Season: KiraKira Precure A La Mode

Character: Bibury

Summary: Dishwashing is really annoying, well, so is feeling remorseful

Bold: emphasise

Italics: thoughts

Bold+italics: flashback

Chapter 18

"Itterashai," was what she said to Ciel and Rio going on a morning walk, just like yesterday.

Since she had all the time in the world, Bibury decided to sluggishly eat her breakfast, lounge around a bit more and mop the floor before doing all the dishes. Because, you know, dishwashing is just the most bothersome chore there is.

She had expected them to bring home, at most, some ingredients for their upcoming sweets. But she didn't expect to see a mob of angry bakers suspecting Rio as a servant of Noir.

She was, of course, scared, since who knows what would the bakers would want with her if they found out she had played a part in ruining their business too.

So she slipped away while the bakers were pinning the blame on Rio. She ran to KiraPati because she knew the girls could help her.

"To think that Rio-kin would steal Kirakiraru now... impossible!" Ichika had shouted.

Ok, let's be honest, maybe it wasn't that she knew the girls could help her, it was just because the girls could surely help Rio.

Well, that wasn't much of a difference, was it? After all, if the identity of Rio was exposed, hers would easily be too.

Anyhow, she didn't want to stay in KiraPati and have Pekorin bugging her. So she dawdled in the streets for a long time in hopes that the bakers would have left by the time she went back.

"No one's here..." she mumbled to herself.

She saw that the dishes still hadn't been washed, so she heaved a sigh and restarted her chores.

It hasn't been so long, she thought, how has all my beliefs changed?

I've watched Noir-sama killed — accidentally almost killed — Giulio and not even had the slightest bit of emotion to that. I've watch Noir-sama create my loneliness to make me his loyal subordinate. And most recently, I've witnessed Elisio sucking up Grave and Diable for Noir-sama.

A shiver ran down her spine as she wondered if that would have happened to herself if she had stayed any longer.

"There can be no love in Noir's darkness."

Now both me and Giulio joined this side. Maybe if Grave had known what would happen to him, he would've too. That's just solid proof to the Cures' claim.

All these years, everything I knew, everything I thought, everything I worked for, was a lie.

Not that she didn't know more than a month ago when she first joined the girls, it's just that the fact was quite hard to take in and she just needed some assurance. So she pushed the action of accepting it until later.

Now the proofs had presented themselves before her, she believed it, though she found she didn't want to believe it.

And the Cures. Aah those annoyingly kind girls. Why were they being so kind to me anyway? They just make me want to throw a punch in their faces sometimes.

She subconsciously increased her strength in scrubbing the dishes.

Just after she was purified and switched sides, she had suspected not only once that maybe the girls had put some sort of hypnosis on her to make her betray Noir. But she eventually came to realise what they showed her was true friendship, though her sharp tongue didn't agree with her mind.

There! Dishwashing done! How come I feel so much better than when I started?

She shrugged it off, reckoning it as the effect of finally thinking over her experiences recently.

She just turned around — facing the doorway — and she saw Yukari and Akira burst open the doors with the latter shouting "Ciel-chan!"

Wearing her usual expressionless face, she replied, "She's not here right now, as you can see." After quickly assessing the tone of which Akira spoke, she quickly came to a conclusion and — still expressionlessly — asked, "What? Is there a Precure emergency?"

"No, not that," Yukari responded calmly, "It's just that we found out Rio-kun wasn't the one who stole Kirakiraru after all. It was a Nendo pretending to be him."

"Well, since Ciel's not here, I guess we'll look for her in KiraPati," Akira said and then smiled, "Oh yes, and thanks for telling us that this morning."

After they left, she felt her shoulders relaxed and she breathed a sigh of relief.

Why am I feeling relieved?

Why did meeting the Cures make me so odd?

End of Chapter 18